Sole Opportunity

I needed the break and I’m taking it. I don’t care.

"When we were young we thought we could just meet anybody. But as we grew older, we realized that the opportunity comes only a few times. I guess if you turn it down, it will turn against you in the future.”

I no longer have the edge to anything including keeping this site up. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just a little tired of everything. Sometimes I wish I could just drop it all and fly away. What does it take to give my life an order? What is this dilemma? I’m just a 22-year-old boy who wonders what life has in store for him. Nope. I don’t have everything figured out.

Careful

Hey, what does the horror-scope have to say about cancer:

The Bottom Line
Money does NOT make the world go around, as will become apparent to you today.

In Detail
Love, love, love and love -- oh, and romance, too. Plenty of it. While 2006, like any other year, will keep you busy with the usual assortment of ups and downs, surprise and routine, you can also expect your favorite state of affairs to keep you the busiest: the affection, attention and respect of those you love. Of course, it's exactly what you deserve. You've been passing it out, and it's your turn to receive your fair share in return. It starts today. Happy New Year! Get up early and start passing out hugs.

Nonsense.

I played Futsal. 5-a-side. Dang wide openers! Gosh, I wish the field were significantly bigger. There was no space to run. 2005 ends. Come 2006. Careful of what you’re celebrating.

The Return

Returning to the mainland was and has always been the best part even for the most situational visitors and support engineers. An operator once told me that the best part of the job was to actually go off for two weeks. It’s been hectic on the day of crew change as I was trying to sort out some paperwork. It’s true. When you’re new to the job, nobody listens to you and your needs. It was just a simple paper that needed to be endorsed by a few personnel so that the transfer could be done. I had to go up and down, frantically looking for a way to resolve the issue in time because the transport to go out would arrive soon. I didn’t go overseas to study how to chase papers effectively. I didn’t sign up for this. (That may sound a bit arrogant but this is truly labor-inefficient in my point of view. Somebody has got to look at this issue sooner or later.)

The fixed-wing was in a bad shape so I had to take the other route. It’s a good thing I could stop by for some ‘keropok gote’, fortunately get on an earlier flight than the one booked, and arrive at a closer yet less crowded airport. Alhamdulillah.

Triple Thoughts

It would be a miracle to be able to describe my thoughts then. I was saved only by the stability and patience. To believe that everything would get better soon was already beyond what I imagined could achieve. I managed to learn a few things more during the process, but as usual, in a hard way. And I have to do this ten times over.

Gloomy

Jumping in for some unfamiliar jobs was quite difficult. Unlike a nod to the Certainty of the Almighty, after gazing at the horizon that appeared to be connecting the ocean and the sky, I was overall uncertain about going through the mission still. For a moment there, I was reminded of Chantal Kreviazuk’s Leaving On a Jetplane. The tranquil breeze relieved me of the fear but only for a while. Only God knows how I felt. Only Him.

It was daunting after dark. Though the splashing waves threw me off the hook, whizzing sounds of the machines made it gloomy again. One look at the level below and a chill of dangling sensation ran down the spine. I’m not afraid of darkness, water, or machine nor am I too afraid of heights. But certainly, I wasn’t having fun.

How is the weather?

Tn Hj Sulaiman,

How is the weather?

Even yesterday we had heavy rains in the western coast and I’m sure that is also the case in the eastern. Some people had to quickly cut short their wedding ceremonies if I had to guess. There was an accident in Nilai-Sepang KLIA PLUS junction, so it was a several kilometers of traffic jam for people traveling north heading towards KL and south leading to Nilai, Seremban, PD and the likes. A truck fell off the fly-over and crashed the advertisement board as well.

But in any case, work is work. Appreciate if you can update me on the status of rig demob job. Thanks.

(Then I had stop by the office to make some phone calls and arrange for the job. Great.)

Frantic

Today was full stream! We had four wedding ceremonies to go to while attending two relatives/guests at the same time, one of which had to wait until tomorrow to pick up his computer. The HD crashed so we were going to replace it later at night. Dad and I were stuck in a traffic jam on the way back from PD, but CB had to go back to SAS a week earlier for band practice thus the other party sent him first and we joined them there later. Hectic! That reminded us of the fact that not everything would go as planned.

Roar

I put together an easy chart to indicate a few of the effects of Tiger Woods on golf. It’s simply phenomenal.


+Tiger finished the 2005 season with a record gain of $5,262,552, a jump from $5,365,472 last year to $10,628,024 this year.

By the way, I was snooping around some older e-mails and bumped into a job offer forwarded to a portal. This particular one caught my attention:

Position:
Imam of the Grand Mosque of Istanbul (time: Sultan Sulaiman al Qanuni (the Lawgiver, otherwise known as the Magnificent in Europe who ruled Ottoman Turkey between 1520AD-1566AD)
Requirements:
1. To have mastered the languages of Arabic, Latin, Turkish and Persian
2. To have mastered the Qur'an, the Bible and the Torah
3. To be a scholar in Shari'ah and Fiqh
4. To have mastered physics and mathematics up to teaching standard
5. To be a master of chivalry, archery, dueling and the arts of Jihad
6. To be of a handsome countenance
7. To have a strong melodious voice

I doubt that similar requirements (with modernization of some of the medieval skills) would apply in choosing the Imams in Mecca or here in Masjid Negara. It shows how sophisticated the Islamic civilization was in its golden years and how far we are in slacking up. I’m not even close to any of the requirements: I'm terrible at physics or maths, studied Arabic without much success and neither do I have a melodious voice nor of a handsome countenance.

Nostalgia

Life is full of surprises. A friend since kindergarten, Zabid, called and hitched a ride home after a work trip outside of KL. We were catching up for lost moments and a while later joined another group of ex-primary schoolmates at a restaurant in Bangi. I couldn’t recall a few names but those faces were very familiar.

'Magnificent'

Make it simple. A lesson learnt from CB is to make things simple but ‘magnificent’. OK. I take that as a challenge.

My sister just advised me of an indication to select a candidate. Find out if she wears socks. Cause that means she understands the protection. I wish I could just ask, “Do you wear socks?” but that would be awkward. If my eyes sneak around, that won’t do any good either. In fact, I could be in harm’s way. Well, what’s the strategy?

Prime Suspicion

Sometimes I wonder who is going to be the one? This happens ultimately once and I want to make it the right the first time. It’s not that I’m skeptical about what happens afterwards. It’s just that the effects would be almost irreversible. I’ve seen many of such cases where my mum and dad would point out every time we talk about building a family (no need to point specific ones.) Mum and dad have lived a happy life together so I would really listen to their advice especially when it comes to ‘selecting’ the family. Yes indeed. It’s not only about selecting her, but also the topic of incorporating the family. May Allah guide us.

The Colors

I yawn every time I go through these entries. But 10 years from now, these could be the most interesting journals I could get my hands on. “My precious…” I admire those who still read these mundane blogs of mine. There’s nothing interesting here really. Just some scribbles while struggling to put my life together…

Let’s talk about frequency. I notice recently that the colors I wear to work have varied. More of it had been motivated by mum’s efforts in giving me different frequencies. To the right are the colors of my pants. To the left are the colors of my shirts. Hm… wait. Did I hear pink?














Hail Ronaldinho a.k.a Ronaldo Gaucho, two times FIFA Player of the Year! (2004, 2005) The only players who have won more than twice are Ronaldo (1996, 1997, 2002) and Zinedine Zidane (1998, 2000, 2003).

Mundane

I’m not going to talk about my job today. That’s good news! It’s just like any other day. Except that it’s not. (I think Colin made a remark like this once.) Mum packed me a lunchbox again. No day is a good day without mum’s recipe. I was away, by definition, for almost 10 years. 10 years. I know well enough what it’s like to miss the moments. You just can’t explain that sort of emptiness. I’m just glad to be home. (Yeah, I think someone called me mama’s boy about a year or two ago. Whatever.)

The best strategy game award goes to the Total Annihilation. No, no, I’m not talking about the one with paladins and horses. That’s TA Kingdom. The one I meant has robots, vehicles, commanders, spy planes, bombers, cannons, all constantly at war in a never-ending fight called ‘the intergalactic battle’. It offers the best game-play a strategy game could ever have. I could think of a few reasons why it is extraordinary:

1) The game is so damn realistic. You need energy and metal to build things. Unlike minerals, ore, or gas in some other games, energy in this game can be retrieved from solar collectors, wind generators, tidal generators, trees, nuclear reactors, and so on. Sources of metals are wreckages (dead robots), metal makers (which consume unbelievable amount of energy) and metal extractors built on metal deposits.

2) Simple error made by other strategy games is that the gamer is not directly involved in the battle scenes. Who are you in the game? In Total Annihilation, you are a commander on the battlefield. You become a single unit carrying an energy tank at the back. This unit cannot be produced again, which means if you lose the commander, you could potentially lose the battle.

3) Not only you can build a variety of units, you get to pick your battlegrounds! Depending upon the map structure, you can battle on the ground, air, or water by either building a swarm of attack vehicles and robots, assault airplanes and bombers, or battle ships and submarines respectively.

4) Each unit has its specific AI programmed into it thus you could see a tank swerving left before attacking right and robots snooping in between trees to hide from the enemy. These are all built in you don’t have to tell the robots to move that way.

5) Again, it’s so damn realistic, huge explosions like a nuclear reactor blowing up could stagger the map up and down. You can assign units to do one task after another and it’ll follow your instructions until the list is completed. You can group together unlimited units and also regroup units of the same model as an attacking team.

6) Try it out yourself! Then you’ll discover more. =)

The only downside of this game is its proportionality. Some of the robots can be quite huge compared to a stationary unit i.e. the solar collector. A long-range cannon for instance is supposed to be twice the size of an artillery vehicle but both of those are almost quite the same in size. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me.

Superb battle play will keep you glued to the screen...

Back Online

I woke up today and felt like writing again.

Earlier today I finally received the invitation card for the day before yesterday’s event. Indeed it’s her wedding. May Allah grant her a happy family and a wonderful life.

We went to Alamanda during the later part of day as a way to piece together some holiday time. It was a good deal that the place was right nearby. As usual, holidays demand us to balance traveling and relaxing. Too much of the other would either render us exhausted or bored. A close one would do as long as it’s interesting. The mall was crowded so it was too late for us to go back for dinner. We ate at the RASA food court instead, the one situated at one end of the mall’s three wings.

Limited

After three consecutive ceremonial events of which I had the opportunity to talk to an ex-school mate from like 10 years ago on the first one, drop by a neighborhood where I used to play as a kid on the second one, and be teased by mom and dad’s friends about planning the big day on the third one, we paid another visit to the IT center. Apparently dad had to purchase some things for K.Long to be sent via her friend who’s traveling overseas shortly.

Then we had our dinner at Pasar Kg. Baru where the entire line-up of restaurants and places to eat were mostly on both sides of the avenue. The already narrow streets were made even narrower with cars parking by. We had numerous plates of Nasi Lemak before sipping delicious fresh orange, tea tarik, and iced Horlicks. It’s just exceptional. Enough said.

One more!

I just realized that even though I’ve read a couple of heavy-duty books, my vocabulary in writing is still limited. Whatchamacallit.

Tying the Knot

I’m back to office. And I should shut up. I have the tendency to say silly things when I try to be friendly, sociable and all.

I almost got myself into an accident again. The car upfront braked so abruptly, I had to follow suit. The safety distance provided enough braking time, but a small bump made the Wira swerved left on the slippery road. Helplessly trying to encounter the movement that could result in an accident, I swung back right to safety. I didn’t know how it happened exactly but Allah has certainly spared my life one more time.

I once knew of a good friend, but I’ve never met her. She’s getting married soon. Tonight. Here I am, contemplating the very fact that I just drove home and almost got myself killed in the process while a friend is actually moving on happily. Life seems to challenge you not only differently, but also persistently. (This is not a reasonable contemplation by the way. Boo-boo.)

Sg Wang

We finally could travel to the site today to do some troubleshooting. Many lessons learnt toward the end of the visit. Some of them were to prepare upfront even for the slightest possibility of consequence, never make assumptions, have contingency plans, allow for a reasonable uncertainty and etc. Engineering requires passion. It’s an art.

To pick up a pair of slack ordered about a week ago, Muzani and I detoured to Sungei Wang after the fetch at Subang. I needed one extra to accommodate the long weeks. Despite the exhaustion from the trip, I went on and strode along the narrow blocks of the plaza. Both Sg. Wang and Bukit Bintang complex bring a lot of memories, especially the ones from high school. I remember the moments when many of us lined up to get on the 112 or 123 Intrakota-bus in order to reach the Swiss Garden at Jln Pudu. From there, we had to walk in front of a bank, then behind an old cinema, which had been flattened to the ground already, along side the Bukit Bintang stretch towards Jln Sultan Ismail.

Sometimes, I wonder why majority of us wanted to hang out there. It wasn’t so much of the beauty of that place or the amazing products that they had. The place was crowded, some corners were quite disorganized, and none of the products was one of a kind. But come to think about it, the fact that we could get pretty much 95% of what we needed in that particular area prevented me to investigate further. That’s the whole reason. We could find comics, play video games, stop by places to eat, discover IT products, buy sports gears, and so on, in an all-encompassing-one-stop center. The next shop to stop was like a few seconds away. Some could be right next door.

Nonetheless, I am not able to describe each and every single moment in time spent in there. Unlike my dad who could scrutinize to the miniscule of detail the moment spent in Alam Shah, I only managed to savor a few good ones as well as some bad. The most important result however was to actually grow up in one of the most conducive environments available and develop a character that is still observable until today.

By the way, Power Rangers had decided to stop by Sungei Wang just now. Weird.

Purple, red and yellow Rangers in action

Long Wait

The trip this time wasn’t as bad. It was a good thing I have had several visits before. It’s the least I could do, to get a hang of it, before actually jumping in and resolve issues. The site supervisor was very warm in welcoming me though he had actually yelled at me once before. I was asking ‘unnecessary questions’ on the phone and his response was, “why are you asking me that stupid question, eh?” (Some of you might have figured out already the detail of my work but I still obscure majority of the terms for safety, integrity and controls purposes.) Nevertheless, he was very supportive and helpful throughout the duration of my stay.

By the way, there was a technical glitch with the transport so we had to delay our fix at the site. Tomorrow then.

Organize

Arranging for a last-minute trip, I received a lot of guidance from a senior employee. He wasn’t supposed to be my mentor but I approached him like one. A helpful fellow he is, that’s why.

There is a way to further induce urination?

Das Neighbor

Our neighbor, the closest one we’ve had in years finally moved out. The big bungalow they owned was too close to the main road. Not only the noise from the whizzing cars passing by dismays them, some leaking water line to the construction renders the area wet and dusty. Red. And being an SME owner himself, getting another piece of real te was at a snap of a finger.

Defunct

No matter how persevere I tried in presenting well in crowd, I would always mess it up. I’m indeed socially defunct. Perhaps I should stop trying for good. What does ‘bersahaja’ means by the way? Maybe I should try that. Or keep quiet.

The team building session ended today. I took off slightly earlier for not having a good term with the glitch. There was something in my eyes anyway and I couldn’t see very well. It started after the Futsal game last night when we were just done playing. I was sweating like I just took a shower and the spill overflowed into my vision if I had to guess. The pain afflicted every time my eyes shutter moved. Gosh. It hurt. Alek (Ikram) stayed back after the game to hang out with his high school colleagues thus Muzani and I headed straight back to the hotel.

To make up for the social deficiency, I went to Uda’s BBQ at his place. We started the fire and maintained the heat. Muzani and AbgLong came along too and Muzani helped out with the fire a lot. We didn’t stay long but at least we got to meet everybody first.

Team building

Despite being missing from the invitation list, I made it to the Sunway Resort Hotel and checked in anyway. I was and still am part of team so I deserved to join the team building. As soon as I walked in, they were already constructing human pyramids as part of the activities. I grabbed the theme shirt, put it on, and joined a group with the least number of members. Actually, I brought my little brothers and sisters along. They were already wandering around the area or in the complex nearby, or still hanging out in the hotel room upstairs. It’s school holiday so I though they might like to go around a bit.

Is durian so bad we have to restrict its freedom?

Articulate

How do you articulately describe a glitch of communication between you and your senior employee to your supervisor, and vice versa? It’s rather difficult, isn’t it? In fact, this is the main difference between the real world and college. For those who have been in the workforce for a while, let me ask you a question. Didn’t you wish to go back to college in the early days?

The department’s away day was compulsory for everybody. We bowled for the evening, releasing all the pressure as much as we could. During the second round, I had miraculously produced spairs and strikes, one after another, consecutively for the first 7 throws. The longest streak of strikes was like 5. It was unbelievable. Towards the end of that round, everybody crowded at the back, getting excited, teasing me for being too good. One guy mentioned, “Wrong profession, man.” With that amount of attention, I slacked off a bit and didn’t produce anything for the last 3 throws. Nevertheless, 187 was the highest score, though the most valuable player went to Nordin from Drafting. Apparently, he’s more consistent with higher score on the first round. This explains the saying, “If you think you’re good, there’s always someone better. If you think you’re not too good, there’s always someone worse,” (which also explains the bell-curve of normal distribution.)

Public Transport

Riding on the public transport is something I haven’t done in a while. It felt a bit lively as soon as reached the office. Unlike driving alone through the traffic jam, I was surrounded by people thus the mood to talk came easily afterwards. Perhaps I should consider doing it every once in a while. It could help me boost social awareness.

Touch Screen

Others talk about politics, society, positive thinking, patriotism, global issues, and so on. And I’m just talking about myself here. It’s all about me. LOL. No wonder I could hear the grass grow every time I reviewed the entries. But that’s the whole point of blogging, isn’t it? I don’t know for sure. I just put whatever the heck I want.

It’s rather unbelievable. Sometimes we should think differently just to indulge an extra slice of happiness in life. Muzani’s story of a friend reminded of a powerful positive-attitude we could ever have in the moment of misfortune. His cell phone without the front keypad was faceless therefore any dialing should require a small pointer-pen pushing the keys as if using a Palm PDA. His remark was, “my cell phone now has touch screen technology ma…” =)

Little Jack

Again, I came in and fortunately for just half a day of session. Morning traffic was the worst so far - I departed at 7am and reached Carlton Ritz by 8.45! Perhaps I should stop talking about work. It’s just a job. Or is it not?

We watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory at night. I wonder if a bite of a chocolate would truly inspire love? Who knows? It was a good lesson learned to love your family no matter what. Life couldn’t be any sweeter, said one of the Oompa-Loompas. I have begun calculating on how to go about obtaining an MBA or a Master in Business and Information Technology. Do we know any good school, anybody? Wouldn’t it be nice if I could get another scholarship on this? Would a company be interested? You’d get a guy who would like to know just a tiny bit of everything. He can’t handle a master of one. A jack of little trades he seems.

If I had a chocolate factory of my own...

Giants

I came in again for half of the session. Since Sunday’s not usually the kind of day that I would go out, especially for a serious session, my mood abated to almost nil. Nevertheless, I joined the family in visiting PakCik Umar in Ampang before roaming around Taman Connaught’s Giants, a place that was seemingly bad in design. (You can visit and verify it yourself.) A late dinner at Sharifah summed it up nicely as the wind blew through our hair over an open dining space.

Carlton Ritz

There was a time when your time was not dedicated to any specific activity at all, except for the regular routines as to physical and spiritual maintenance like baths, meals, prayers, and so on. Now, time is also dedicated for things beyond our likings. What gives?

More Things

I tried and got more things done today. For the first time ever, I engaged a vendor to come in and brief me on a device. That helped a lot in planning for a project. I also talked to ABB rep for more troubleshooting. Believe it or not, 1 more employee has left the job today. Ever since I joined 5 months ago, 4 people have either quitting the group (joining other company), left for good, or joined up other organizations outside the affiliate. You might want to read more about what causes attritions. Why do people leave?

Support Group

Again, as usual, Thursday is not too good a day for me to endure. Let me ask you this, if you don’t sit down and look at a project frequently, how could it go the way you want it to? I think of all the people in the building, engineers and managers should’ve known that fact better than anybody. Other than that, support from senior engineers, fluctuates, if I had to put it in words. Sometimes I could get a whole lot and some times I couldn’t get anything at all.