Monthly Archives: October 2007

I have received email-chains from friends on recounts on people who have been carjacked, how it happened, & where. Admittedly I have only skimmed these emails, picking out keywords on the locations & the MO used.

I am writing this post with interest now because over the weekend, a colleague fell victim to such a crime. For me it was close enough to home.

Coming out of a highway & just after paying the toll, my colleague & her husband’s car was hit by a car from behind. Pulling over & alighting to check the damage, the culprits from the car behind snatched the keys from the husband’s hand & very quickly got into the driver’s seat. Immediately aware of what was going on, husband ran to the front passenger side where my colleague was still seated with the belt on. Husband managed to get colleague out of the car before the culprits drove away, but not before superficially injuring colleagues arm in tugging / pulling her out of the car with the seatbelt in the way.

Recalling the incident, colleague said that their car has an engine immobiliser installed, so their car did not actually get very far (though I am unsure what “far” means). She also recounted that the initial gang of 2 suddenly became 4- she couldn’t recall where & when the extra 2 appeared from. I guess it was also when they made the police report that they found out that there were 2 other such cases that day.

The first time I heard the term “carjacking” would easily have been 20 years ago during my uni days; where these cases seemed more prevalent in the US, at least then.

I am not bashing the country. I am, however, interested in how the US public has “evolved” to address such a crime since it started there so many years ago: What measures to take, any new technologies available, tell-tale signs to look out for, & what “simple” precautions the public should take. Carjacking in Malaysia at least to me, seems like quite a new crime, so most of the public are still not aware of it & many fall prey to it.

I can’t help picturing the what-if’s- if it had happened to me, with Caitlin still in the backseat. Shudder shudder

Readers whose countries have already taken measures to address this crime, what are the precautions the public are encouraged to adopt, technically & non-technically?

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Thanks for the socks, you guys!

I stumbled onto this: 10 Lessons to Teach Your Kids About Money, which advocates that kids should be taught the value of money, along with a few suggestions to practise the habit of budgeting.

As a reader commented, these seem to be more applicable to older kids; and, at least to me- school going kids with canteens in their schools.

It didn’t stop me from applying it to myself & Caitlin though. I am already teaching her the concept of scarcity, using water as the “commodity”. This started when she was watching Thomas & Friends, where one of the engines (Okay we don’t watch it enough to know the characters yet!) was all grimey but there was no water left to clean it. I extrapolated this & applied it closer to home, citing example-implications of no-water on familiar things to her: Caitlin without clean clothes, Daddee can’t shower, no water to drink, etc. Since then, the first few times she was taking too long washing her hands at the sink, I told her to hurry & not to waste water. She would heed it & volunteer the Thomas example.

These days when I have to do a quick grocery run with Caitlin, she is the one handing over the cash at the checkout & (clumsily with her small hands) receiving the change. While I am pretty certain she doesn’t yet know the concept of big-notes = groceries + smaller denominations, I think she gets that things are not free, that something has to be exchanged for these (or any) goods.

I was chatting about this with a fellow daddy, the same chopsticks entrepreneur friend. While he is younger than I, his little girl is a year older than Caitlin, & is himself the eldest of 3 (along with all the traits of being an older child). Since he is already doing well in his ventures, I would be keen to see how he intends to further “train” this little girl in terms of money & budgeting.

I am aware, however, that there seems to be a blur line- that Caitlin could start getting confused between being wise & being generous & being selfish. We are constantly telling her not to be selfish & to share- her toys, her snacks, her treats. But these are things that are already purchased, whereas one should be taught to be wise at point of purchase- to be wise with money itself… sounds like I am confusing myself!

At the core, she does seem to be a generous character. Hopefully she is not going to be generous with her budget just to herself like her Daddee has been!

PS: I forgot to mention this. During a drinks session with an ex-boss, he mentioned something that made a whole heck of sense. We live in a society so obsessed with academic achievements that we seem to have forgotten the whole reason for this survival tool / skill (after all, good academic achievement supposedly leads to a good job & thus a high pay).

He said he doesn’t teach / urge his kids to get a good education or good grades. Instead, he urges his kids to look for ways to make more money.