Dutch Diplomat - wht a jerk

I have been spending my Raya Haji on the internet. The whole day! Won some bbp's for Michael's a/c at pokerpages and then continue surfing the net. Fun huh? :(

Anyways, I found this story about a Dutch vice consul and his wife who adopted Jade, a 4mths old baby girl 7 years ago from South Korea. Nothing wrong with that right? The wrong came when those sickos decided to 'return' her saying tht they could no longer care for her because of the girl's remoteness emotional. Can you believe that shit? The couple even had the nerve to say, "Jade did not adapt to Dutch culture or food". Who in the right mind would believe such tale? The girl was 4months old when she was adopted for god's sake! Show me any 4 months old that can decide what she/he will eat and I will believe your tale. You shithead! You had her for 7 fucking years and you never even applied for a Dutch nationality for her and you worked at the consulate! You just simply 'dropped" her off to the Social Welfare dept in HK like an unwanted old pair of jeans.

Sigh... i just have to find this out today, dont i? Please do read more here and you'll see why im so damn angry.

Eid ul Adha

Selamat Hari Raya Haji to all muslim. Halalkan segala makan minum and kalau ada terkasar bahasa, dimaafkan ye? Those in Malaysia, be thankful for wht you have and that you are in fact in Malaysia. For those overseas, I know its not easy being away from family especially during time like this but remember, we have each other. ;)

Our Xmas Light

After telling Cath that we'v got the Xmas lights on, she has been perli-ing me for not showing them yet. So Cath, here they are. ;)









It was a cold night and the rain was just starting. I actually thought I took some video of the somewhat-dancing-light but it has been a while since I used the video mode on the camera that i forgot I still have to push the button for the video to start rolling. Duh!

Anyways, as you can see from the pic, the stars didn quite go around the railing. We only bought a box with 10 stars and we thought they were enough since our balcony is small but obviously we were wrong. We are still going to get another box so we can 'balanced'out' the balcony coz we realise that our balcony looks kinda funny. ;P

Last night we went around the apartment to see who else and how many other apartments put up the light. Not many at all. There was this 3 units (1st, 2nd and 3rd) that put up the light whc makes them the most coordinated but suffice to say despite our small balcony, ours is the BRIGHTEST! yay!

Book Review - The Innocent Man

I love reading fiction. I have a few of my own favourite authors. Among them are Michael Crichton, John Grisham and James Peterson. I have read all of MC and JG's books and still trying to get some of JP's books.

Anyways, I finally finished reading John Grisham's latest titled the Innocent Man. Unlike his previous books, this one is a non-fiction. Its about 2 men (Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz tho Ron is the main character in this book) who were wrongly accused and convicted for murder and were given death sentences.

This happened in a small town called Ada in Oklahoma. Population, 16,000. Ron, who anybody in the right mind can see is not mentally stable and Dennis Fritz, was sent to the death row and spent 11 years there while fighting for an overturned. Twice he was told that he was to be put to death and has only 30days left. I just cannot even began to imagine how it felt like when one is innocent and about to be put to death for something that they didnt do. What more if you're mentally unstable. He was getting a bad deal and nobody from the cops, the so-called experts, prosecutors, judge or even his own lawyer did anything.

After 11 years in death row and with the help of DNA, he was finally exonerated and released and so did Dennis but neither had been ruled out as suspects. To add insult to injury, they receive no apologies. For that, they fought back and sued everybody. I mean, EVERYBODY. From the city of Ada, Pontotoc County, the prosecutors, the 'witnesses", the experts and etc. The case was settled out of court and the sum paid was undisclosed. Who actually had to pay for that? Of course the tax payers. As mentioned in the book, several million dollars were wasted because of their cases. Sigh ....

But when you lose 11 years of your life, no amount of money can buy back those time. For Ron, instead of getting medical help, he was sent to prison and because of that, his health (physical and mental) deteriorate. He passed on 5 years after his release on Dec 04, 2004 (the day of our wedding reception in Malaysia). He was 51 years old. The prosecutor? He is still the Disctrict Attorney though he is retiring after Jan 01.

"With every visit and every conversation, the story took a different twist. I could've written 5000 pages.
The journey also exposed me to the world of wrongful convictions, something that I, even as a former lawyer, had never spent much time thinking about. This is not a problem peculiar to Oklahoma, far from it. Wrongful convictions occur every month in every state in this country, and the reasons are all varied and all the same - bad police work, junk science, faulty eyewitness identifications, bad defence lawyers, lazy prosecutors, arrogant prosecutors" - John Grisham.


** John Grisham and Dennis Fritz are now being sued by Bill Peterson for 'emotional distress'. Errrr...?????

If you would like to get into more details, please visit Barbara's Journey Toward Justice . Please hold on to your jaw cause the more you read her blog, the more your jaw will drop.

Navy Open Day

Last Saturday Dec 01 was the Navy Open Day where civilians are allowed on board the ship. This time it was the USS Rushmore. It was huge though according to Michael who works on them all the time, its the smaller one.








We were supposed to start early as family members were allowed in earlier between 0900-0945. Unfortunately yours truly was late. You see, it was 'hair-day' for me so by the time I was all dolled-up, it was already 9am. We then went to pick Julita up and by the time we got to the parking arae, the queue was already very long. It was also very windy and so COLD! How long do we have to wait before we got to go onboard? Almost 2hrs. tsk tsk tsk. Even then there was 'traffic' inside the ship as tours were conducted in a group of 10 or something like that.

A few facts about the inside of the ship. Besides the regular things like laundry room, dining hall, 'hospital', they also have a post office! Can you believe that? We all thought that was pretty funny. They also have atm machine onboard. Pretty cool I must say.

The have a separate birthing for the men and the women and the women's birthing area has a curfew time whereby the men are not allowed in and none for the men. We were showed the birthing area for the marine (if im not mistaken) and my goodness, they were small. Michael tried to lie on the 'bed' and it barely even fit him.

We didnt finish the tour as all 3 of us were tired, hungry, cold and a bit dizzy. Yup, you can feel the ship swaying a little bit and it was not fun. So we decided to cut short the tour and left.