I had proudly shown my accomplishments to my dad and he almost immediately pointed out my mistake on the wiring!! My father is an experienced foreman for many many years and his input had made a huge update to my experiences!! All mistakes will be the formula for future success!!

The mistake is to use TWO button switches, one for each wires (red, black) for a single LED device, I can now simply use just ONE button switch on just the RED wire and don’t need for both wires! OMG What a big boo boo! Hahaha

At least I had accomplished something today after i bought the $64 LED lights and wired up my living room today!! Let’s see the comparison!!

This beautiful LED lights will makes perfect lights in my living room!

The normal AC lights

The new LED Lights looks dim but in fact it can lit up quite well!

The 12Volts Solar Panel! Cost me $42 for this!!

The connection of the solar panel is simple as ABC!!

This blog is to document and date any price tag in Singapore to identify future inflation and hikes. Each photograph MUST have a link to a bigger photograph of the price tag.

You can edit and submit your photographs to a free on line photo image hosting site. Alternatively, you can email your original photograph(s) to me to update in this blog.

This may eventually shock Singaporeans in the future when we see how much the inflation affects all Singaporeans.

SMRT’s Pricing board 29 July 2006 – This will definitely change very soon!

Westmall Engwah Cinemas Pricing Notice 29 July 2006

Bukit Batok Macdonald “premium” Meals Prices 29 July 2006

According to AsiaOne – Motoring news reports that National Environmental Agency confirm that Scantruck Engineering in Singapore had finally made their first petrol and natural gas Bi-Fuel conversion here!!

The cost of conversion requires you to purchase the gas kit that can be retrofitted in almost all petrol engine cars. i.e. regulator and mixer package (in the region of $2,498 parts and labour inclusive) to a top-of-the-line sequential injection with ECU combination. The choice is yours. The investment “can” be recovered in slightly over a year.

According to Singapore Power “The natural gas contracts are pegged to fuel oil prices. Hence the prices of natural gas will also change accordingly when there is a change in fuel oil prices.”

Does this make any sense at all to convert from one fossil fuel to another finite fossil fuel that is also depleting in our neighboring countries and rising in prices TOGETHER with OIL PRICES?

In fact this is not the first attempt to use Natural Gas to power a car!! I had found another Straits Times News article on the 8th May 2006 that a 200 year old German trading company C Melchers GmbH will retrofit cars at $2000 with a kit from Argentina to run on (CNG) Compress Natural Gas. (See Scanned picture below)

So is this another PR News?? there is only one refilling station which is located in Jurong Island. 3 more on the main island will be up and running by this year end as planned by NEA.

“So, existing car owners, wait no further. Let’s go green, go Bi-Fuel!” (Faint!)

From Channelnewsasia

Posted: 27 July 2006 1836 hrs

“VIENTIANE : ASEAN energy ministers have called for cooperation to boost renewable energy use amid soaring oil prices which cast a shadow over one of the world’s most dynamic regional economies.”

“The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) called for more investment and research to raise the region’s capacity in renewable energy such as bio-fuels and hydro-power as alternatives to oil.”

“Indonesia is ASEAN’s largest oil and natural gas producer, as well as the region’s top oil importer, while Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines are the most oil dependent ASEAN economies.“

Importing of food from other countries is extremely expensive because it relies heavily on Natural Gas Based Fertilisers and Oil Based Pesticides and Huge Amount of oil base machines for ploughing, seeding, harvesting, transporting (Sea, Land, and Air) and electricity to store the food for freshness and plastic (oil) to package it to be suitable for your local supermarket.

It’s logical to find ways to grow our own food for local consumption and it’s cheaper too. The only problem is lack of space for crops; therefore we must experiment with growing indoors in our high rise flats.

This is a new Urban Farm Project started on 15th May 2006 ends 20th May 2006.

Using Ikea’s plastic container that have a tiny hole at the centre of the container to drain the excess water.

The green bean started to grow within 24 hours on the wet cotton wool.

Unfortunately, I had missed the harvesting date by 1 day as the best date to harvest is when the leaves is about to sprout out. (I only discover this after I made the mistake)

However, this had proved that indoor urban farming is very possible solution for cheap sustainable lifestyle for all Singaporeans. All we need is a lot of trial and error NOW and play around with soil, fertilizer, seeds, water (timing and amount), sunlight direction and some time to play around with.

29 June 2004

Around 8.45pm to 9pm

I was approaching Bukit Gombak MRT when I received an SMS from my mum, hear frantic pleads and incomprehensible English text messages made me call her immediately. (The SMS sounded like end of the world) I called her and she explained to me that she was trapped in Clementi Interchange, as there was total darkness, she was checking with me if her block is black out too. (She stayed at Bukit Batok West Ave 5 block 383 22^nd Floor and me block 386 3^rd Floor). I asked her to hold while I was walking down the MRT station and to my surprise the whole street was in complete darkness.

The darkness overwhelms me with only few cars with high beams crawling slowly without streetlights or traffic lights. The 2 kopi-tiams (eating house) along the road proved to be resilient to this crisis as I can see lighted candles everywhere giving the sense of awesome feeling.

I was taken back to reality with my mother shouting on the other line asking how was the situation since if here was the same than either she stay out with her friend’s house (not affected by black out) or she come back and risk climbing up to her home 22^nd floors up!!

She wisely decided to go to her friend’s house to stay overnight while I continued my journey back home with the surreal background. My mind race with a thousand questions from my dad’s well being and to possibility of terrorism on our soil since after September 11, nothing is impossible. Sweat start to build up as I quicken my pace to my 4-room flat, I heard quiet whispers by a small group of aunties and uncles and loud shouting in one of the flats. Moonlight is what’s left to navigate the gloomy dark corridors of the estate and I almost bump into a person but managed to avoid him or her (Cannot identify).

I reached my floor and hastily fumble in by feeling the keys and entered even more darkness. OMG, I cannot even see my own hands in my room! I heard my dad sitting in the living room and ask him where he kept the candle. I cleverly used my hand phone back-lit LCD screen to light my way around the house. I trip on some chairs in the kitchen and found some candles but no lighter nearby (My dad and I don’t smoke). I remembered the Chinese altar have a lighter (My dad previously kept a spare lighter on the altar for lighting the Joss sticks) and reach out in the altar to find the lighter and managed to light that big candle.

Then my body started to sweat profusely as I realized everything including the Air Conditional, Fans, TV, Computer, Refrigerator and Electric Kettle did not work. The heat started to overcome me and I rushed to open up all the windows of all rooms (I used to be AIRCON Addicts with windows always shut), the loud talking from neighbors started to stream in like bad dream.

I found some batteries and switched on my old long forgotten portable radio with the volume control knob gone, I had to use my finger to painfully turn the inner control to adjust the volume. I moved from channel to channel until I reach the FM 93.3 Chinese station, the news of the black out is almost out after every one or two songs.

“Black out in many areas of Singapore that include Jurong, Chua Chu Kang, Bukit Batok, Clementi, ….blah blah…” I didn’t bother to remember how many estates are affected, as my mind is blank with heat. My dad was sitting beside me trying to reassure me that everything is ok; the electricity will be back soon.

I had even tried to dial the Singapore Power (SPServices) to report the black out but unable to get through. I SMS almost everyone I know about the situation and got some feedback that not all of them are affected by the black out and are sleeping soundly in their air-conditioned room.

There are some speculations on the radio but after several-repeated broadcast I simply switched it off. I opened my main front door and found the darkness outside very intimidating and that alone prevented me from venturing outside. I managed to bath with the candle-lights flickering on my basin and got rid of the overpowering smell of sweat.

Finally after few tensed hours sweating in the living room, the lights came back and we found out that it’s almost mid-night. The very next day, not everyone was talking about it and most had gone on with their lives and this event was totally forgotten after few weeks.

The media blamed ConocoPhillips for this 2004 Great Singapore Black Out, but with almost 80% of our electricity from foreign natural gas and the rest on oil and bitumen how can we be assured that no such events can happen again in the future?

Feel Free to write your OWN Experiences on this unique event!

Link 1: 22nd July 2006 NYC Blackout!
Link 2: 23rd July 2006 NYC Power outage may last through weekend
Link 3: 23rd July 2006 St. Louis Struggles without power
Link 4: 24th July 2006 Calls for consequences in NYC blackout
Link 5: 27th July 2006 London hit by power blackout!

In the ever frequent hikes of all prices, we should find all ways to conserve cost. One major cost in everyone’s home is electricity cost and I am intending to conserve as much as possible.

We are staying in a technological trap that utilizes electricity everywhere we go. Take a minute to look around you and NOW simply imagine a black out.

This “hack” is not new, many people who wanted to light up altar in remote locations had done this before.

The photo above is the source of the electricity, a 12Volts DC battery

The LED lights managed to light up my toilet, bright enough to read a book.

Using Solar Cells to charge those batteries, we can be assured to have a cheaper bills in future! You can also use inverters (DC to AC) to charge your handphones, MP3 Players and laptops or simply to power your electric fans!