YowCH & Grace

The Isis aircon was really down. YowCH sent the car for assessment at Tomika (Alexandra Village, Bukit Merah) on 5 Feb and Mr Lee, the boss, checked that all the gas recently topped up is gone! Given that the cabin temperature is hot, it would be the evaporator (coils) leaking, which needs 5 hours to repair. Quoted $480 before GST.

Today, YowCH sent the car in at 9:00am and got it back at 12:30pm (3.5hours only).

The coils were replaced, here is the leaking coils taken out.

Tomika also changed to a new cabin filter, and topped-up the aircon gas and compressor oil. All for $430 before GST. Aircon is now as good as before. Tomika is quite known to be reasonable and honest, and they are official suppliers of OEM Denso parts.

While at Alexandra village, YowCH bought some replacement engine filters ($9.50 each) and aircon filters ($13.00 each).

Tags: General by yowch
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We got Esther a second hand iPhone4 for $200. She is now responsible for her own phone and control of communications.

We also got a nice purple silicone cover, just as she likes.

YowCH checked the Isis as the aircon is not getting cold and found a hose that was just floating about! After checking with a friend’s Wish, he got it connected back again. Will see if the aircon improves.

Here are some family photos, the children at the “O”:

YowCH with Samuel:

Tags: Esther, Family, General by yowch
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Another terrapin died, this is the one from the very first two that we bought.

There were signs of unhealthiness from quite a few weeks back, with the shell curving, and the terrapin basking all day long and not getting into the water and eating.

Now we are back to two terrapins.

Today, marks the start that we attend Saturday service in Church, as Esther joins the youths in the Teenacity service on Saturday afternoons.

The car air-con was suddenly not cooling, so we topped up the gas yesterday, while we replaced the HID bulbs as one was found blown in the morning.

Tags: Church, Family, General by yowch
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After picking Joseph from school on 5 Nov 2013, while turning into Scotts Road from Cairnhill Road, a taxi squeezed into the left lane. Below are the car-cam captures showing the taxi cutting so much into the left turning lane that YowCH had no where to go to avoid a collision.


Another good reason to get a car-cam.

The damage on the taxi was on the hub cover and the advertisement artwork, and our bumper had some scratches, paint cracks and got a little shaky.

Both parties agreed not to report to insurance, and driver agreed to pay (partial) for repairs on the bumper as YowCH called and informed him that the video shows very clearly that the taxi had cut too much to the left.

However, we are looking at forgiving and forgetting, as the actual damage was not too bad. YowCH cleaned up and touched-up the bumper, and there is no big damage to the car.

Tags: General by yowch
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After struggling for 3 weeks with the eye-infection, the terrapin finally died.

The problem is that they won’t eat when they can’t see, and they will then die of hunger. Terrapins only eat when there is light. The eye-infection, causing swelling, shuts off the eye, effectively making it blind.

Joseph has upgraded to booster seat without the back-rest. He is large enough now, able to buckle himself into the seat and the booster is smaller and easier to store in the car.

Tags: General, Joseph by yowch
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One of the terrapins suffers from eye infection causing the eyelids to swell. You can see the ‘white’ covering the eye while a healthy terrapin has nicely opened eyes.

We bought some anti-bacteria medicine and added to the water, and we separated the infected terrapin into a small tank.

Tags: General by yowch
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The Isis has reached 100,000km today, at about 4.5 years (we got the car on 9 April 2009).

Tags: General by yowch
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The maintenance cost is rising, we added a larger filter ($12) on 25 Sept to keep the tank cleaner in order to change water less frequently. You can see it in the left side of the photo.

Today, we visited the new site at Jurong West again to look for some old structures, and here are our trail biking photos:



That’s a big ‘frog’ looking at a real one.

On the roadside drain top (and this drain is really a huge canal), YowCH managed to clock 35km/h on the mountain bike. The children reached 32km/h.

Tags: David, Esther, General, YowCH, YowCH's work by yowch
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Well, “low maintenance” is certainly not what keeping terrapins is. To decorate the tank, we bought some plastic plants.


But certainly looks pretty now. We may need another $8.00 filter to be clean the tank better.

Tags: General by yowch
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Another terrapin died on Friday 6 Sept 2013, so reduced from 2 to 1.

The one that lives is one of the original 2 that we got, the most hardy of the lot.

So we went and bought another 3 more, smaller and lighter green in colour.

While we were at the shop, we also bought a small submerged water filter for $8.00 to help keep the tank clean.

Here’s the new layout, filter with 1 old terrapin and 3 new ones.

Tags: General by yowch
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