Not 2 minutes ago I received the best text message today. Heck, it even might be the best text message for the last couple of weeks. It conveyed a sense of joy. I can’t stop smiling now. The message was from Teik Sing and it read: Baby Ashley-Joan was born @ 3.54am, 2.89kg, 49cm. Congrats to Teik Sing and Michelle. Now the fun (as well as the barf and poo cleanup) begins. We’re both almost at a full circle, man.
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A Couple of Checks and He’s Seaworthy
No fear of taking a leap into the deep end of the swimming pool: check No fear of submerging his entire body and head underwater with eyes open: check Ability to stay afloat without using any flotation gear: check Moving on and in the water under his own power: check No problems breathing while all of the above are occurring: check It’s official. Irfan is now ready to explore the undersea realm. (Well, not really seaworthy yet… but he really can swim.)
Continue readingNot Usually Found On Roads
So the other night I saw something on the road – placed squarely flat on the asphalt – that I’ve not seen before on any roads. It was because we had to drive to Ain’s sister’s house at Taman Bukit Kinrara. We took the Middle Ring Road 2 westbound. The traffic suddenly slowed and moved as like treacle for a kilometre. Then I saw the thing I’ve not seen before on roads. The stretch of road coming downhill from Cheras bent to the right, squeezing between the Giant Supermarket at Connaught and the great big Chinese cemetery. There were people – drivers who had stopped – standing near it, and they too were standing on the road and not on the curb – not that there was a curb by the side of the road. The thing on the road wasn’t big nor small, but it was noticeable enough under […]
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On The Way To Work At Bangalore
From the hotel to Yelahanka Air Force Station, I took a cab. For three days I took the same cab. It was a four wheel drive vehicle. The driver’s name was Mallesh. I had his cellular phone number and when I heard it rang there was a Tamil song on the other end. It was he who sent me to the airport after everything was over. And I was happy with his service. Anyway it takes an hour (and sometimes almost two if traffic’s really jammed up) to reach Yelahanka from the hotel and vice versa. I took plenty of photos over the course of several days. Here is a small collection of them. Bear in mind that my travels never took me anywhere near the city of Bangalore (unless it was the trip to and from the airport) so it was mostly rural countryside photos and small towns along […]
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Arrival At India
Two Friday nights ago, I got a call saying I had to be in Bangalore by Tuesday for work reasons. I said there was no way for me to get the visa and ticket done for me to be there by that time, so Tuesday was postponed to Thursday. Visa was impossible to obtain on a weekend. The following Monday, the preparation to obtain the visa (a set of three photographs, etc.) was done. However, since we also had to take Irfan to the doctor’s that morning, there was no time to reach the Indian High Commission by noon to submit the visa application form. After that, with Ain’s help I booked the ticket to Bangalore (by way of Chennai). On Tuesday, I spent from morning to the afternoon waiting for my number to be called so I could submit my application form to the counter at the High Commission. […]
Continue readingAnother Celebration!
February 1st. A holiday in KL. More importantly, Hisham’s birthday!! Happy birthday, Yope! May this year be filled with happiness and blessings. You’re the best brother ever (my favorite brother, even!) and I love you and appreciate everything you do for us. You’ve always been a great brother, it’s great to see you become an awesome dad and a wonderful husband, and still remain a good son, brother, brother in law. Break out the cake! It’s time for my brother to spread his bronchitis by blowing out some candles. Seriously dude, have an awesome day. Love yas from Vin and me.
Continue readingIt’s That Double Celebration Time of the Year Again…
… where I wish my sister Sila a very happy birthday and my parents (and Irfan’s grandparents) a very happy anniversary, both from Irfan, Ain & me. May this year bring more joy and happiness into their lives. They’ve been the best family ever and I wouldn’t want my life with them in the past 34 years to be different in any way whatsoever.
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Two Views Of The Same Page
Because I’ve using Firefox on Ubuntu 6.06 LTS to surf the net, here are two different looks of this website’s index page. I have no preference on which is better looking, but apart from the fonts, there really isn’t much difference, thanks to Ubuntu not being able to display the Trebuchet MS font. The original screen resolution is 1200 x 800. The top is the WinXP Firefox with the Aluminum Kai 2 theme; and below is the Ubuntu Firefox on Ubuntu with the Ubuntu Tangerine theme. Click on the thumbnails to view the larger images. Last night however, the home desktop died a fiery death and I can’t reinstall any OS. Not WinXP, not Ubuntu. (Thankfully, God created work laptops.) Thanks to a suggestion from Kris Vanderwater the Atlantean, I’m now downloading Knoppix ISO file to see if I can run the Knoppix Linux-based OS off the CD. However, if […]
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Another Hari Raya, Another OS
Last Aidilfitri two months ago, I was trying to install Ubuntu into the Kelantan desktop belonging to Ain’s parents. Although the installation was a success I didn’t get very far with it since I couldn’t access the internet with it to download and install more software packages with it. (Translation: I just used it to play Mahjong,) It’s now Aidiladha and I’ve now not only installed Ubuntu into this laptop here in Sitiawan. I’m also accessing the internet via Tok Irfan’s ADSL modem via a PPPoE connection through my own Streamyx account, dowloading and installing software packages and typing out this entry on the weblog. Happy Aidiladha, everyone. I’m heading to Taiping for Irfan’s Aunt Eda’s merisik kenduri. I’ll be back next year (Ha!) to analyse and document how I got Ubuntu into this machine. It was hard looking for articles online how to create partitions for the installation and […]
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Quaked by Internet Problems
Now it seems that we’re unable to connect to servers in the United States and Europe. I can’t even access my work email. I couldn’t even access this weblog since this morning until about 1342 hours local time. And I hope before the connection flips out again, I’d get this entry written and saved. According to rumours from Jeff Ooi’s blog, last night’s Taiwanese disastrous earthquake caused Asia Pacific Cable Network 2 Segment 7 (APCN2 S7) to go tits up and caused internet connections between Malaysia, among other countries, to the United States to be congested. APCN2 is the longest international seabed fibre cable network, 19,000km in total length, in the Asia-Pacific, linking China, Japan, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Singapore, and onward to linking America, Europe and Australia. The network went into operation in October 2002 for the initial phase. The project was spearheaded by 26 telecommunications companies, namely Advantel, […]
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Best Office Space Ever
So after the exam today I headed down to 1 Utama with the new laptop. Using the mall’s WLAN I was on the internet browser connected to the office via Skype in seconds, replying emails, as well as checking up on the work forum. I also took the picture above using the lappy’s 1.3 megapixel webcam, just for the heck of it. By the way if you’re hard up for wireless internet, the benches right in front of the MPH bookstore (top floor) is information supersluice tube. Bathrooms and surau are close by. Who knows… you might even find yourself in a conversation with a friendly passer-by which ends with you yelling at the top of your voice, “Yeah! This is future of office work baby! Go back into your sunless cryp- er, I mean office and sulk!” Meanwhile not far away, a dogfight between an Incom Corporation T-65C-A2 and […]
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For Lack of A Better Game
So out of watching four episodes of Heroes in a single night , a game between Ain and Emma was born. The first to yell out “TIM KRING!” whenever his name came out onscreen wins. That’s eight times in three hours. Once during the short intro and the other when the Executive Producer name appears during the story after the intro… each episode. Not as easy as you might think. You get caught up in the teaser, someone’s bound to forget to yell immediately when the name appears. “TIM KRING!”
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What Transpired In Pakistan
Like DSA 2006 back in April, we were at another defence exhibition only this time in Karachi, Pakistan. My apprehension was soon laid to rest as the local organisers as well as the other foreign exhibitors who were great folks whose company I enjoyed. Whenever we got together, there usually was loud chuckling and sometimes there were incredible belly laughs, which I believe began for the first time when we tried to figure out what the acronym “CIP” actually was. Nope, ain’t tellin’. There were Barry and Martin from Australia, John from England, Bernard from the Czech Republic and sometimes we were joined by Jean-François from France, who was our neighbour in the exhibition booth next to us. All of us were ably and excellently cared for by our Pakistani attachés (so to speak) Shah, Shamir and Arsalan. I was chained to the booth most of the time because the […]
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Karachi is Sunny but Cool
Today Hikam and I took a drive around town with a tour guide / taxicab driver. The idea was that we’d tell him what we needed to buy on a souvenir hunt and he’ll know the best places to take us. Although we tried very hard, we couldn’t find a T-shirt that reads My Friend Went To Karachi and All He Got For Me Was This Lousy T-shirt. In fact very little T-shirts were sold at the souvenir stores. They mostly have leather and fur goods, onyx-carved trinkets, ornate metal-ware and beautiful cloth for traditional wear. Like Malaysia, there are lots of motorcycles on the streets but wearing helmets are voluntary. Other unlikely vehicles found on the streets of Karachi is this human-powered banana-carrying cart and the donkey cart. We missed an opportunity to take a photo of a cart carrying metal drums (stacked at least 10 feet tall) drawn […]
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So There We We Were At Jinnah International
Hikam and I arrived at about 2025 local time via the Pakistan International Airlines flight. It was enjoyable. I think I slept four out of the six hours airborne. The inflight movie was Pirates of the Carribeans – Dead Man’s Chest. Luckily the hotel transport people were waiting for our arrival. One less thing to worry about. It’s now almost 1000 local time in the morning, and we’ve had some breakfast. Access to Wireless LAN in only in the lobby on the ground floor and on the 6th and 7th floors. So, here I am in the lobby trying to get some information down the internet tubes.
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Next Week I Fly To…
…Karachi, Pakistan. The journey will be nested between the coming two Saturdays. Since the company is small I have to run around getting stuff done in preparation for the trip. Between this and the course assignment – that had me on edge for weeks until I finally submitted it one week late – I had no time updating this here weblog. Heck, I didn’t even have time to come up with some artwork which I promised myself I’d come up with for recreation time. A stand-out moment during the running around would be last Friday when the Airline employee looked at me (when she realised I was booking the tickets for myself) and asked with a tinge of disbelief, “You’re the one going?” Hopefully by two weeks we’ll have some photos of Karachi here. (And hopefully we’ll have internet connection at the hotel there.)
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