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And then it rained.

’nuff said.

Oh how bad was my day? Let me count the ways…

After reaching the office, realised didn’t bring laptop. That means can do zero work. Drove all the way back to Punggol, picked up the laptop and back to office.

On the way to office, dropped by the drive-in cheque deposit at Citibank. After driving out to my horror I deposited the wrong cheque.

Went to park at the only lot left and a stupid Honda CRV parked so badly that I had to exit from the passenger side.

Reached the office, realised I don’t have my staff pass. Moving around the office the whole day was a real pain.

Some work issues which I won’t elaborate here - more pain

Here’s the killer. Went to carpark at 7pm. Tried to start the car. The whole car shuddered. Won’t start. I am out of petrol. WTF? The trip odometer which I always reset upon refilling the car, read 460km. I usually get AT LEAST 490km on one tank. Hence when the light came on as I was driving to the office in the morning I ignored it. So how? There is SPC at Golden Shoe ya… walked there… nope no more SPC. OK next nearest should be Shell along Maxwell. Took a long walk there but NOPE no more Shell station.

Walked all the way to Chinatown and beyond. No petrol station. Was frustrated that the iPhone with its fancy GPS and Google Maps gave no help to locate a petrol station. If I had my Samsung i780 I could have fired up Garmin mobileXT and found a petrol station very easily.

Wanted to take a cab but nope, as we all know still impossible to get a cab around CBD area.

To cut a long story short, went all the way to Telok Blangah and FINALLY found a petrol station. I awkwardly bought a 5l tank of petrol. Had to provide NRIC for that. Then took a cab back to the carpark - the chatty driver told us an auto car on empty is very hard to start. Hmm.

Went up to the carpark and tried to protect the paintwork with newspapers. Poured the petrol in and it went EVERYWHERE. A spark and I would have gone up in flames. After lots of cleaning up with wet tissues, went in and on a prayer started the car and it did. WHEW.

Immediately drove to a petrol station, topped up full tank and had a car wash.

So this is my day… what a shitty day right?

But with darkness you appreciate light. I am just thankful for..

1. friends who are willing to help though I was too stubborn to accept help - Dave, Jeff thanks

2. most of all my dearest wifey who instead of throwing a tantrum, followed me everywhere on her high heels without complaints and even trying to cheer me up. She has blisters on her feet and I am just so thankful to have a partner who is there with me thick and thin. I love you wifey!

Annoyed with this issue with the iPhone apps.

1. Apps bought on the phone are not being transferred/backed up to iTunes - despite evoking Transfer Purchases from iTunes
2. Appstore show that an update is available on the iPhone but iTunes is saying there are no such update
3. To get an update I need to download the app through iTunes, DELETE the app from the iPhone then sync it

So basically apps can’t be easily updated, and if you buy apps from your phone, they may not show up on iTunes. So if you lose your iPhone you may just about lose all the apps you paid for. I counted 14 apps which I bought on the iPhone which are not showing in iTunes. Alternative of course is to ‘buy’/download the apps again through iTunes but really the whole thing is a mess.

KPE was fully opened last Saturday and I got a chance to try it on Sunday. Reality really sank in yesterday though as I took the TPE > KPE > ECP route leaving home at 8am which is the norm for me and wifey. Usually we will crawl along TPE till Pasir Ris then drive through ECP and suffer more start-stop traffic and reach the office at about 9am. That is 30km worth of ’shit traffic’ for one hour. Amazing way to start each morning I tell you!

So we left home at 8am or so on Monday with expectation that KPE will be chock full of vehicles but no - it was really quite empty and best of all, the entire trip took us only about 10 minutes or so for the tunnel itself, perhaps 20 minutes in all from Punggol to Shenton Way. Wow.

BUT.

Of course there is a “but”.

Firstly 70kmph is just so draggy. Yes I am sure safety is a good reason to prevent accidents in a long tunnel but still given the lack of use (for now) and an active traffic monitoring system perhaps that limit can be increased to 80kmph when there are lesser vehicles in there. 70kmph is still something I can tahan over start stop traffic but a little more would be better. And oh I am really wishing the RAV4 has cruise control… if I continue to stay in Punggol perhaps it’s time to get a new ride.. ahem.

The other observation is that the roads don’t seem to be well surfaced. It is quite a bumpy ride so it just makes me wonder if KPE was a rush job.

All in all mostly good and it is a real boon for NE residents over a 90 degrees course to the city via TPE/CTE or a big detour via TPE/ECP.

Related:

http://kpe.sg/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_further_tunnels_by_length#Road

Oh what a brilliant idea! Have a case that also includes a lens you can slide over to enable macro shots. I love this! Must get.. though I already have *ahem* 3 iPhone 3G cases…

http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/clarifi