Live.Life.Cool

Inspiration

2011-10-14T12:13:00.004+08:00

Again? Why this Steve Kwok always have different inspirations from time to time? Find me funny? Hehe, but well, that's when you're getting know me better and better, because that's me! :P

The topic that I am gonna discuss today is about: Thinking

First I'd like to share a quote that I spotted somewhere which driven me to this inspiration, hell yeah I am just so damn easy getting inspired! I'm just that simple, despite having the image of a tough person to deal with, no? :P

Here you go, this is the quote: "If you born poor, it is not your fault. But if you die poor, it is your fault!". And that's so true, don't you think so?

You see, this guy:

You might not know him. Do you find him familiar?

Yes?

No?

Yes?

No?

Yes?

No?

Yes?

No?

Yes?

No?

Yes?

No?

Whatever...

I am now gonna show you this one and I bet you would realise that they are the same person, if you haven't know that.

Yes, it's the Apple CEO Mr Steve Jobs who had passed away last week, who think differently all the times. It is not easy to achieve that because people might judge you as insaner but if you prove that your idea works, you're the man!

Now, let me repeat the quote "if you born poor, it is not your fault, but if you die poor, it is ENTIRELY your fault!", and I know you peeps gonna call me lamer for quoting Bill Gates words with Steve Jobs picture, well, undeniably both of them are the hero of technology, they drive us into a new generation and generate people like me who spend most of the time typing than speaking, sad thing though.

Anyway, to conclude the thought of the day, winners don't do different thing they do thing DIFFERENTLY. And most of the time winners don't get accepted by public initially, until their concepts being proven. In short, to be a winner, start thinking like an insaner now and get ready to be boycott by the public, and then shine!

Don't be surprise next time if you see me walking naked on the street like an insaner :P (I am just too stressed trying to destress myself here in blogger, this is just a joke and don't take it serious, I don't want to be unaceptable by the public)

Life is still hectic yet simple, work and work and work and work and work and work and work, 7 words of works in a row indicating 7 working days a week, again, yes.

September

2011-09-27T11:17:00.004+08:00

September has been indeed always a busy one. 2 years ago, during September I was busy studying the cookbook for the business assignment at the States. A year ago, September had been really tough period for me, that I had so much things to do that got me almost gone insane. While this year, again I am busy, just to cope myself into the new role of my job.

That's why over the past few years you can see me posting the same MTV on Facebook in September, that named "wake me up when September ends", but this year I don't even have time to think of all this, what to put on Facebook, what to post in Blogger, etc. Basically my 9 working hours a day 5 working days a week in the office is never suffice! But every game has its rules, so if you chosen to play the game, you take it or you quit, that's it.

I don't want to quit yet, at least not at any time soon. So what I can only do is just grumbling silently here in my lil castle, the only place that I can behave myself like a king, condemn anyone anything at anywhere on anytime. Though there might be stalkers around but I just won't care :)

Lastly, I screenshot my calendar of the month, the first peak month for me with this new role which is already killing me. More to come I believe. Life's tough :(

说你也爱我 - AK组合（沈建宏&陈奕）

2011-07-22T10:14:00.003+08:00

3 . 2 . 1

2011-07-07T16:24:00.004+08:00

The clock is ticking and it's now the final countdown for the business assignment in Manila. To be honest, I love this place better than last year. I am happy with the working environment here that I don't get pissed off in the office, at least not anymore :) I don't know why but I have a feeling that for my previous trip it wasn't like this.

And all these made my steps became so much heavier today. I learnt to move, but not move on! LOL! Guess what, a while ago, a colleague asked where am I going for dinner today and maybe we can dine together, I wanted to say "ahhh leave me alone, I don't like the feeling of leaving, don't make me cry", haha, well I don't cry easily but to be honest my heart just doesn't feel well when it comes to a farewell to friends that you don't know if you will see each other again in the future.

But I have to go home, thanks for all the great time here, I appreciate every moment spent with all these guys here. I sincerely wish everyone here is blessed everyday.

Hectic schedule is coming, the places that I will be at for the coming 3 weeks are: Manila -> Singapore -> Kuala Lumpur -> TaiPei -> HuaLien -> TaiChung -> TaiPei -> Kuala Lumpur -> Segamat -> Johor Bahru -> Kuala Lumpur

My life is all about travelling! It's time to put all these on hold and enjoy the moment staying back in Kuala Lumpur! And just because I have to be away that much, I realise that the best place in the world to go is home.

爱一个人

2011-06-12T14:05:00.005+08:00

《最強囍事》里面古天乐说过“爱一个人，就是要相信自己可以给她最大的幸福”。

如果那个她却犹豫，猜疑，斟酌，那么你就彻底的失败，因为你给不了自己爱的人信任，而少了这一分信任，根本没有资格谈论幸福。

两年半的努力只证实了一件事，就是自己在感情方面的失败。

我放弃了，讲了很多次，这一次如果再做不到，我就是失败加失败。

谢谢这一个人，没有了她，今天的我，大概还是以前那个沉醉于歌舞作乐的我。“给不了你的信任和幸福，我依然希望你早日从另一个人身上寻找到。但愿你幸福，快乐。”

残留下记忆，是模糊了一点，但依旧那么美丽动人。:)

Goodbye

2011-04-14T14:58:00.004+08:00

After 9 years with Windows XP, after 3.5 years with D630, today I am officially upgraded, despite of my reluctance and laziness in picking up new technology. Welcoming the new corporate laptop E5410 with Windows 7 operating system.

Setting up new lappie

Back in year 1995 I started exploring the technology, from Pentium 3.11 with Windows in DOS, to Windows 95, 98, Millenium Edition, XP, Vista (I skipped this one), to Windows 7 now. In the year 1998 I gone further into exploration of the cyberworld, had gone thru the life of a scriptkid, phisher, hacker, founder, and many more interesting cyber stuff, when I was young. Been active in IRC, ICQ, MSN, Friendster, Facebook, Blogger, and everything else about information technology. I am a machine guy and I can't survive without one.

However, today I am tired with all these. I just want to stay with Windows XP that I had been very much familiar with. I don't want to learn new stuff, I am more keen in making money or relaxing myself rather than sitting in front of the PC learning new things. It is a sign of aging, I know. It is just like when you realise partying in a club is too tiring, the smell of whiskey is too disgusting, and you started changing to sit in a lounge enjoying wine or cocktails, same theory applies.

Unfortunately my job doesn't allow me to be lagging behind with the technology. Playing a technical role is to explore the technology and present them to the client in a simple way. A lot of people thinking that it is an easy job having seen that I always work from home. Try it first and you'll know :)

I am still here counting down the days to fly onsite. Revisiting a place that you don't really like is a torture, I wonder what characteristic I'd pick up if they want me to stay over there for half a year or longer. Imagine that being there for 4 months last year already shaped my personality to be much more homely, I wonder what's the impact of this coming trip? I'm already having a feeling of loneliness dilemma prior to the departure. HELP! :(

Greed

2011-04-03T15:17:00.013+08:00

Everyone is naturally born with this speciel element, it's just the matter of the scale, how much is the greed in your heart?

When it comes to answering this question, a lot of people tend to hide the ugliness of their hearts by telling you that "no larrrrr i am just a simple person and i want a simple life". Let's be fair and square, given a choice, who want to live a simple life without any demand?

I must admit that the greed in my heart had extended to a very big scale in these 2 years, when I started seeing extra cash coming into the account, I started thinking how to use the saving to generate more and more cash. Life does not improve, in fact, it goes backward, it reverses, to a worse lifestyle whereby I always sit alone facing the small garden in the house and thinking how do I afford to get a house with a bigger garden, with bigger spaces in term of built up size, this and that, blah blah blah...

Apparently it's still far away from now. But because of this greed dream, I put myself into a very pity situation. I worked very very hard to make more cash, I sacrificed all my precious time to be with friends and family to travel for allowance, to work during weekends for compensations. Life is not easy, in fact it's getting tougher than when I do not demand for that much...

Today, one of the tenant in my house who is a full time property agent, asked me a very silly question. If somebody offers me a price that is RM200k higher than my purchasing price, will I let go the house that I had put in so much time, effort, and love into it? I doubt for a couple of seconds before nodded. I had a quick calculation in my mind, having paid the government real property gain tax plus the bank penalty on the outstanding home loan, plus the renovation fee, the balance of the profit itself, already enough to afford for the downpayment of phase 3 unit which is across the main road of my house! Oh my, that's a much better house, which is totally new with 3000 square feet, 8 free airconds, free fridge, water heater, kitchen cabinets, blah blah blah, given complimentary from the developer! That's just cool, you see? But then I have to start all over again, and have to move again, that's my major concern. Where do I stay during the sales legal process period? I'd have to lose all my tenants for half a year, you expect the tenants to wait for that? And then the house is too new to rent it, I mean it is too nice to be rented out, I don't want anyone to spoil the nice house. Then am I going to live alone? Argh, too many things to think thru, moreover, after doing some calculation, the selling price for those units are very expensive, a bit too much for a person at my age, especially if I don't rent the extra rooms out. Does it worth? I struggled... But still, I allowed him to bring in his business partner for a visit and they took some pictures. I guess it will be posted on iProperty website real soon.

I decided to really sit down to think of a way to overcome the greed, it's growing to a level that out of my control. I must learn to control it properly before it brings me negative impact. I could easily make a wrong decision having haunted by the emotional greed!

Many had told me to learn to appreciate what I am having. To certain extent I agree with them, I actually don't have to demand that much! But having looking at those successful people around me, they are making so much cash, I want something like that wuey! How? How? How?

Alright, my heart of greed is disturbing me again now. I am running away from Malaysia some time soon, that could be a sweet escape for me. At least during that period I know I can't do much. I can't plan a business, I can't sit down and discuss with friends to start running a business, I can't drive here and there to look for good properties that worth to invest, I can't do this, I can't do that, I can only sit in the apartment enjoying some wine or mojito (one of my favourite house pouring drink in Manila!)

I have a dream, a big dream, that can never turn true, I guess. But its cool sometime to have just dream about it, it costs nothing, generates emotional stress in mind though...

But I realised that I really don't have that much time to get things done. Having one house is already enough troubling. January had been a terrible month for me, I had been rushing here and there to get my house into a move-in condition, started from renovation to decoration. And if I were to do it again this year, it's killing me! Not gonna do that for at least 2 years from now! And it extended to another greed, that I realised that it is time to seek for a stable relationship, someone to be with me and share the thoughts instead having them posted in my blog all the times whereby I have the feeling that there isn't any reader. And it reminds me of her, a special person that came into my life, who is far away from me now, in terms of the physical distance, and mental distance as well. I know I should move on, yes I am still trying very hard and I am started opening up my heart to the public and see if somebody willing to sneak in, LOL!

Life, is still gonna be tough if I don't learn to pick up the contentment...

有话想说

2011-03-21T10:51:00.010+08:00

心里有话想说。。。
太多太多，根本不懂要从哪里开始。。。

童话总少不了骗话
神话总是惹人闲话
漫画期待跨越动画
规划必须依赖策划
计划避免不了变化
文化无奈忍让喧哗
笔划牵挂依偎对话

:(

Suicides Alarm

2011-02-28T16:09:00.007+08:00

If you are a friend of mine in Facebook account, you'd probably (or maybe not) aware that I had wrote a note about a suicide case in KL sometimes ago. I can see a lot of friends do not agree with my statements, they don't 'like' it, or they ignored my advise and continued promoting this faggot simply because two reasons, first is because that guy is good looking, and secondly they think he is such a hero to sacrifice for love. ROFL!

For any of the reasons above that you've promoted this love hero, you should feel guilty now, if you haven't felt so yet.

Why? Again if you are not aware yet, suicide rates (especially among teenagers that haven't had their brains fully developed) reaches alarming numbers right after the Alviss Kong case. The father of this guy felt guilty and had been running here and there to spread the corrective information about appreciating lives. He is just a taxi driver and I am kinda sure that he has a low educational attainments, but he knew that he should do something for the younger generations.

But a lot of you, that many had went to high schools and some to universities, who had shared anything about this guy without condemning the act, is now officially one of the murders of these victims!

I wanted to save these young people but fighting alone is never easy, that's why I urged everyone to stop promoting that love hero act. Back in the old days when I was one of the members of counseling club, I did attended some psychology courses, for that reason I actually mastered a lil bit of these psychological effects thingy towards the young people. I might be wrong, but I played safe. Yea I was safe but you all weren't! *sigh*

Young people, if you are thinking about committing suicide because of failure in relationship, look at me, I have failed several times in my life but I am still here standing still, smiling and laughing almost everyday of my life. There is a great saying goes like this, the one who failed you doesn't worth your tears, and the one who worth your tears doesn't fail you. We all understand that, it is tough and painful when you first failed in a relationship, but if you stand up and keep walking ahead, I am sure somedays later you'll shine again.

Always remind yourself that there are plenty of people out there that care about you. You don't have to catch their attentions with this stupid and painful act. Just tell them that you need a listener and I am sure a lot of them will sit down and offer their ears. Otherwise, blog it! I usually go with the latter one, and it works. I felt as if I had already told a lot of people the words in my heart despite there may not be even one reader, I don't know, but I will just assume everyone reads it. =)

I'm not here to write something about myself in this post, so let's cut the crap. The message I wanna broadcast here is that: Love your life!!

Inspired

2011-02-07T18:56:00.002+08:00

A ship in harbour is safe, but that's not what ships are built for

Housekeeping

2010-12-19T12:48:00.007+08:00

Today is the last day of weekend workforce in this year as we are going to freeze the development until next year. I guess no one want to break something during this period and spoil everyone's Christmas holiday, no?

Hence, life is moving on slower as normal beats (it was on remix beats for 3 months!) starting today, and guess what, I don't have any critical issue to work on today, so I decided to do a mailbox housekeeping after a hectic battle which I didn't even have time to tidy up my mailbox, a lot of trash mails in my inbox and consuming a lot of spaces, until the mail server have been warning me for a couple of times to archieve my mails. Well, sorry about that, but I am doing it right now, finally =p

I found a funny comic in my mailbox, shared by a friend some times ago, which I think is kind of fitted into my job situation. I am sharing it here, for the sake of fun, no offence to any other team =)

After this, I will be meeting family and relatives from all around the world! Ok, this round we are going to have it seperately in many different places around the world. But here in KL, we have relatives from Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, and Hong Kong! Can't wait any longer to meeting them!

Besides that, I finally got my Starbucks Planner 2011, a very nice leather planner, for me to start taking down notes on the coming plan. Probably would be nice for me to plan my expenses as I have to really learn how to manage my finance taking into account that I have a big debt on house loan :(

Lastly, wishing a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you peeps, another great year ahead!

And the same to myself too, all the best in 2011 Mr Stevo!

Weekend Trip to Singapore

2010-12-13T09:48:00.012+08:00

After a very hectic battle stablishing the employee self-service workspace application, with many long hours weekdays, dedicated weekends workforce, adhoc communications in the late nights on the devilberry, I decided to give myself some spaces to enjoy a sweet escape. I am not running away from the responsibility but I just need to destress a bit.

As such, I made a road trip to Johore Bahru and Singapore to visit friends and take some pictures. Tripping and photo shooting have been the best way for me to destress myself after I quit partying and dancing.

My holiday started on Friday. Went to shoot some photos in KLIMS, followed by shopping at Ikea to survey on the furniture price. In the night, worked on an adhoc issue from home, credits to the devilberry.

I actually had been requested to come back to work during the weekend but I turned it down, I just need a break. Saturday morning I went back to office for a while to visit the team and also organised a short briefting to Joyce, the person delegating my jobs during my absence.

In the mid afternoon, I headed down to Johore Bahru, arriving in the evening. I stayed in Johore Bahru for 2 nights, in Grand Paragon Hotel. After settled the accomodation, Seow Lin came and picked me up for a dinner at somewhere I forgotten the name. Met up with her friends, a guy and a pregnanted lady, ahhh sorry I forgotten the names as well, haha!

Grand Paragon Hotel @ JB

After dinner, we went to meet up with Danny, Raymond, Kai Chen, Zhan, and some of their friends that as usual I couldn't remember the names, at De Bali Pub. Guess what, these crazy folks took me to Singapore in the midnight because Raymond is leaving JB to Segamat on the next day and he wanted to gamble so badly. In the end, he drove us to Singapore but his stupid Garmin GPS doesn't want him to gamble, find no way to the casino and ended up we passed by Geylang and had a drink there. Ehem, sounds fishy right? Few gentlemen went to Geylang in the midnight, what is the better thing to do there? Haha, anyway we had a lady with us, so that's the best way to prove that we did nothing there! Haha!

They were trying so hard to find the way to the casino

And we ended up arriving Geylang, Garmin is playing us a trick?

It was a nice experience heading into Singapore at 1am, stuck in custom for 30 minutes and missing in the freeway for an hours or so, and ended up had a Roti Plata and Nasi Lemak supper in Singapore before heading back to Malaysia. It was already 5am in the morning by the time they dropped me off at the hotel, damn, I was so exhausted! Phew!

Quickly bumped into the blanket after shower. Forgot to display the DND card at the door and got woken up by the room cleaners at 10am, damn! I ended up slept until 3pm in the afternoon. After woke up, been ringing a few friends but everyone were busy with their businesses. Luckily I still have an OL friend who does not need to work during the weekend, again the same person, Seow Lin, who were forced to be the tour guide to Singapore again, LOL!

Arrived Singapore in the evening and we went to Clarke Quay for dinner @ Hooters, yea I just miss the chicken wings so much! But again, just like the Manila branch, they do not serve Daytona flavour chicken wings as well, sigh. And their Hooters Sling taste like cough syrup! I wonder where can I get a real nice Singapore Sling?

Hooters @ Clarke Quay

Chicken wings dinner @ Hooters Clarke Quay, Singapore

After the dinner, we went to shoot some photos at Clarke Quay. Poor Seow Lin who is not a photo shooting fan that she has to accompany me, haha! But I really appreciate the time you forked out to tourguide me, thank you very much!

Clarke Quay

Then we headed to Resorts World Sentosa to try our luck. As usually I don't have luck in any "pian chai", that's a Chinese word, meaning to say the money that doesn't come with hardwork. Anyway it was expected thus I didn't exchange too many tokens.

Again I took my camera running here and there to shoot some nice pictures. It wasn't as nice as I wanted it to be though, I am still improving my photoshooting skill okay!? Heh!

Resorts World Sentosa

DREAMS on...

Christmas is in the air!

Universal Studios Singapore

It reminds me of last year's this period, whereby I was homesick at the States, shouting on facebook that how much I miss Malaysia and wanna come back so so so badly. Guess what, now I started to miss those days riding on a Subaru speeding here and there in the States, playing with snowballs, and chilling in the balcony enjoying Shiner, the Texan beer. And also, how crazy I was to ride all the way from Segamat to Singapore to visit a friend that I didn't get to meet up for very long. Those were the days.

And here we go, the song that inspired my homesickness last year.

X'mas Wish

2010-12-11T15:36:00.002+08:00

a key...

我记得我爱过

2010-12-09T10:45:00.003+08:00

你真的没有爱过？

My Life

2010-11-26T23:52:00.001+08:00

I think my blog is a bit messy, with a lot of stupid posts. This is definitely not my usual style, I used to have them in very structured way, no?

Well, I decided to do a lil bit of housekeeping work on the blog. Removed those stupid posts with only one picture and one word, yet mean nothing to the readers. Oh yea those pictures do mean something to me but people reading it may not understand it. So, I decided to move it to draft, just to keep it there as diary.

Life had been very tough, you know, I am a person that always strive for work & life balance, that never in my life I'd have thought of working continuously for the whole month until when I am bearing the house loan. It's going to take me 35 years to clear my debt, and I don't want it to be that long, so I am working hard to make more money and I wanna get it done in 15-20 years. Yes I know that's tough but I'll strive for that.

The forth quarter of every year seems to be the most miserable season for me. On top of working during weekends, look at this receipt below then you will know how many working hours for me per day! (ok it's not that bad lar, the receipt is showing the longest working day for me in 2010, hehe!)

It may not be the most expensive car park receipt I ever had, but it is one of the longest working day for me

Guess what, I got a Blackberry Torch 9800 from the project budget! Cool eh? Heh! It may look cool but may uglify my nights & weekends. Let's hope I don't have to standby too much with this cool gadget, just FB-ing with this cool gadget all time without needing to reply mails. Dream on, dream on, Steve Kwok, wake up now and be realistic!

I wish I still remember how fancy my Friday night used to be...

*Sigh* I am officially a slave of money now... :(

HR

2010-08-17T14:21:00.006+08:00

HR doesn't have to be Human Resource all the times. I am gonna talk about Human Relation today.

I have a very bad human relationship lately. I almost offended different people every week out of my expectation. I do not want all these to happen but somehow it happened, out of my control.

I appeared to be one of the soft spoken and polite person in my work. I handle my job in the most professional way that I could. And the only time when I offend people is usually in email when I am stressed. Face to face wise, I never want to be tough and I always try to be nice. In fact in real life I don't get mad easily but sometimes you would see me roar in emails because of overstressed. I am good in maintaining high EQ, at least I try to avoid roaring at people face to face, I understand that it is something that would be really embarassing to the one being confronted.

Today I happened to read an article about human relations. And it cited a wise saying, when you throw dirt, you lose ground, which sounds real interesting to me. I would like to share this with everyone that I am working with, living with, hanging out with. But as I said, I am having real bad human relation lately, and I don't want to make the situation worse if somebody misunderstands the intention of sharing the article, so I remained silent instead, and only share it here in my blog.

I am gonna quote my own "saying", something that I posted on FB a week ago: I don't mean to be tough but I just hope all of us can deal in a professional way.

You know what, I realised that the most challenging thing in my work nowadays is no longer with the program or flow or what ever, but the skill in dealing with different people that with different background, mindset, culture, etc.

Let's forget about it, I don't want to flame or blame anyone here. There is another saying, great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people, so I shall keep my mind great =)

The goal I set for current corporate financial year on top of achieving more in skillset or power or money, is to practise higher Emotional Intelligence Quotient and better Human Relations.

Looks like the Feng Shui of my seat changed after the business trip, guess I need to decorate my seat with some Feng Shui decorations...

Life's tough.

*sigh*

Weekend Trip to Boracay Island

2010-07-22T18:52:00.029+08:00

To a lots of Malaysians, basically how this Island, Boracay, got famous among us is thru the news about the wedding of a famous Malaysia songstress, Fish Leong Jing Ru.

The wedding of Tony Zhao & Fish Leong @ Boracay

Before I came to Philippines, I was told that this is a must-go tourist spot. Everyone looks like pretty excited talking about the white beach there. So, even though I know it is gonna be a boring trip to go alone, still I did it. Just for the sake of some memories in Philippines rather than all those stuck-at-home dull stories.

Boracay is an island of the Philippines located approximately 315 km (200 miles) south of Manila and 2 km off the northwest tip of the island of Panay in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines. In 1990, it was voted by the BMW Tropical Beach Handbook as one of the best beaches in the world and again in 1996 by British publication TV Quick as the world's number one tropical beach. The island comprises the barangays of Manoc-Manoc, Balabag, and Yapak (3 of the 17 barangays which make up the municipality of Malay), and is under the administrative control of the Philippine Tourism Authority in coordination with the Provincial Government of Aklan. Boracay is divided into three stations, Station 2 is roughly in the center of the white beach, with Stations 1 and 3 respectively roughly midway to the north and south endpoints.

These are some very useful tourist maps, click to enlarge.

Map 1: Identify where are the three stations, and different beaches

Map 2: Detailed map including all the points of interest, hotels & resorts, bar & restaurants, etc

Initially I was supposed to fly with Cebu Pacific, which I booked online for 1D1N stay package in Boracay. But last minute I thought that it might be too short for a trip, but I wasn't allowed to make any change on the flight itinerary due to the terms and conditions for a tour package. I ended up booked another flight ticket with Philippine Airlines to depart a day earlier, and flew with its partner airline, Air Philippines. Basically, it is about an hour flight to the nearest domestic airport of the island, Caticlan Airport, also known as Godofredo P. Ramos Airport. The runway in this airport is very very short and only propeller planes can land there.

It was a Friday morning flight, thus I applied a day leave, as it may not be nice to charge one full day on a domestic flyback travel, and thanks to the assignment manager and line manager who approved it just few days before. Arriving in the noon, the weather in Boracay was just nice, neither too hot nor too cloudy.

Ahhhh... Before I forget, this is the core public transportation in Boracay, tricycle. Rides are inexpensive, usually about 50-100 pesos, and can be found almost everywhere along the main road. It might not be comfortable but it is convenient. :)

Tricycle

There was a tour guide from the tourism association who served me since I stepped out of the airport, this guy helped me to carry my luggage and guided me to the station 2 to look for a hotel for my first night stay. He is super nice and helpful, credits to the tourism association! We walked for around 15 minutes to visit a few hotels and ended up I picked Seabird Hotel as it offered a big room with reasonable price, and also it is located only a minute away from the white beach!

Seabird hotel @ Station 2

After check-in, I took a real short nap, follow by a real quick shower, then headed to the shopping mall named D'Mall to have my lunch. I was too hungry so I simply grab a quick lunch at a stall that selling BBQ chicken.

D'Mall

After that, I headed to the White Beach to enjoy sunbathing and photoshooting. Stepping on the white beach that many friends of mine are craving for, I must say I am so lucky. That's why even I knew it is gonna be boring to come alone but still I came, I just want to feel lucky! Hahahaha! I know, I am lame! :p

It wasn't too crowded as it is off peak season, since July is a supposed to be a rainy season. Again, lucky me, that there was only about an hour of light rain on the Friday evening throughout the entire trip! No typhoon, no tsunami, lucky me again! Hahaha, I am a bit insane now, so just ignore me.

I actually planned to go to Puka Beach in the afternoon, and then Mt Luho, but I was kinda tired after watching football games for a couple of nites, so in the end, I decided to call it off and move them to the second day. In the end, I did not make it happen also on the second day, no reason, just lazy to travel here and there by myself, somebody please tag me along. *sigh*

White Beach sneak peek

White Beach

Willy's Rock

Along White Beach

Sand Castle

Steve Kwok in the castle

White Beach in the dusk

In the night, referring to the map, I was supposed to head to a restaurant recomemnded by Paolo, followed by some drinks in Hey Jude bar opposite the restaurant owned by his friend. Guess what, I walked for 20 minutes trying to find for the restaurant and bar without success, ended up a local resident told me that both the restaurant and bar were closed for renovation, PHEW! Where is the luck!?

And because I was too hungry so I simply picked a restaurant by the beach that serves local delights buffet dinner. It costed me about 500 pesos (RM35-40) for the meal. The dinner was not bad, especially the Adobo, freaking nice wuey!

After the dinner, I went bar hopping. I spared about 2 hours hopping among bars and found it was a really boring thing to do, when you're alone. So I decided to call it a day.

On the second day, I got myself transferred to the prebooked hotel at Station 1, the Crown Regency Hotel. Station 1 is where all the well known hotels located. But I still prefer the location of the previous hotel, lower class accomodation though.

Crown Regency Hotel @ Station 1

In the morning, I walked around the beach, light shopping at D'Mall, and netsurfing at cybercafe. After lunch, I got a tricycle ride and headed to Crown Regency Hotel. Guess what, I was again given a room with 2 beds, 1 single and 1 queen size, exactly the same size with the one I stayed a nite earlier, no wonder the package came with much more expensive price than usual, now only I realised.

After check-in, I decided to follow the itinerary, to visit Balinghai Beach. I took another tricycle ride to the beach. You need to pay in order to get into the beach but then the entrance fee is consumable at the restaurant. Balinghai Beach is freaking small, I guess the pictures below can tell.

Welcome to Balinghai Beach

Balinghai Beach

Fish

Coral

Balinghai Beach

Balinghai beach is located a bit far from the main road, so basically there is no way to get out other than walking for like half an hour to the main road. You can always talk to the receptionist to call for tricycle.

I went to a dinner at station 2, then headed back to the hotel. After shower, I quickly bumped in the blanket, was tired. I plan to wake up in the nite and go to a bar nearby to watch the Fifa World Cup game. In the end I woke up late and I felt uncomfortable to go out that late as the street was kinda dark. I ended up had a beer in the hotel room with some chips that I bought earlier in the convenience store.

The next morning I woke up early to check out as I have a flight at 11.30am. Got up at 7am. Have been really long time since I woke up that early to have breakfast. Finished the breakfast at 8.30am and proceeded to check-out from the hotel. I requested for a airport transfer because I am lazy to get into tricycle, get down, go to counter for ticket, then onboard the boat, then get into another tricycle, phew, that's simply too tiring. Crown Regency provided me a good service on airport transfer that they sent me to Caticlan in boat even I was the only passenger in the boat.

Airport transfer by Crown Regency Hotel

In the flight

Back in Manila

Boracay is definitely a nice place for a weekend trip with friends and family. In this trip, I learnt a lesson, will never travel to a beach alone anymore. The boredom kills!

台风来袭

2010-07-14T10:29:00.003+08:00

这几天天气转凉，台风来袭，强风暴雨，导致许多地区停电，包括了公司提供的宿舍。半夜两点半热到汗乱飚。爬起来把空调调到最低最冷的摄氏，躺下去继续睡，怎么还是那么热？原来是停电！心里在想，糟糕了，怎么睡呢？明天还要主持训练班呢！结果，走去客厅打开窗，让家里通风一点。哇靠，怎么那么大风？是台风！是台风！原来这个就叫做台风！吹到了马尼拉来了！

早上听同事讲，才懂原来昨晚十点台风就开始来袭。我才明白昨晚十点半才离开办公室的我，回家的路程，雨伞差点被狂风吹走，原来是台风在作怪。。。

刚才经过7-11，看见它的大玻璃门爆了，一大堆玻璃碎布满在地。还有一间商店的招牌也被吹落下来。还有不懂哪里有十九个渔民失踪了。

可悲的国家，可怜的人民。

心，酸。

Trip Alone to Seoul

2010-06-30T12:08:00.044+08:00

Annyeong haseyo, Seoul! (meaning "Hello, Seoul!")

First and foremost, I am gonna answer the question that a lots of people were asking, what made me travelled alone?

The answer is simple, because it was a free trip! When I said free trip, it does not barely means free and easy trip, but also free in monetary wise. To be more precise, the flight ticket was sponsored by the company as per the monthly flyback eligibility, and I had covered the rest of the trip expenses by myself, but luckily those were not that expensive.

Trip alone sounds really bad to me, never in my life I'd had thought of doing so. Some said it could be really boring, some said it could be pricy, and some said it could be interesting. So, how did I feel? It was AWESOME! Probably because it was my first experience, so I was really well prepared beforehand. I did so much researches online, from understanding the Korean culture to the North and South war history, from the public transportation conveniency to the budget accomodations, from the tourist maps to the google maps, from the food and beverage to the souvenirs, from the tourism spots to the shopping spots. One thing I wished I could had done better is to learn Korean language but apparently I didn't have enough time.

Also, it was my first time scheduling an itinerary by myself. All the travel plans before were done assisted by travel mates or the hosts. But for this trip, I have got nobody nobody to seek for advise. The only friend of mine who had travelled to Seoul is an airstewardess and she only recommended me some of the food and stuff to buy. So I "googled" really hard to get everything ready, I don't want my first trip alone plan to be spoilt due to the lack of preparation. And I am very proud to tell you now that it was a superb planning that I had done! A few spots were removed during the trip due to the tiredness but still everything looks good. =)

These are the photos shot on the very first day in Seoul:

Flying with Philippine Airlines

Touched down @ Incheon International Airport Arrival Hall

Transferring to Seoul in limo

Amiga Motel the budget stay at USD45 per day

I rented a mobile phone and bought a subway card

Subway routes in Seoul is too complex

My very first real Korean meal

Top Cloud in Chongno Tower

Vodka Shot @ Top Cloud

Nightview from Top Cloud in Chongno Tower

Dongdaemun Shopping Mall

Dongdaemun

I declared the next day as a sightseeing day, or maybe palaces day. Here you go, the photos taken at various palaces:

Along the roadside towards Deoksugung Palace

Deoksugung Palace in the shot!

The entrance ticket

Deoksugung Palace

After visited Deoksugung Palace, I had a very strong determination to keep on visiting something else, despite of the pair of a little bit tired legs. I walked to the Gwanghwamun which is just 10 minutes walking distance away (I hope I am not mistaken, too much walking, too much subway trips, I don't remember exactly if I walked or took a subway train).

Gwanghwamun

Earlier, I saw some pictures online that Cheonggye Stream is a nice place in the night, with its lighting. I happened to pass by this place that is just next to Gwanghwamun and guess what, it wasn't that nice under the daylight.

Cheonggye Stream in the afternoon

Cheonggye Stream in the night

After that, I took a subway train to the next palace thats known as Gyeongbokgung Palace. Upon arrival at the subway station, I reviewed the itinerary that I planned earlier and noted that there is a small remarks beside stating to try out the rank #1 restaurant in Seoul on TripAdvisor.com website, named Tosokchon Restaurant, which serves best Samgyetang (ginseng chicken soup) in Seoul! Guess what, I actually spent about 45 minutes walking here and there to figure out where is this restaurant despite having given a Seoul map, also with a sign board at the subway pointing the correct direction. Argh, sorry I ain't good in direction, something that I must admit.

Tosokchon restaurant the rank #1 restaurant in Seoul on TripAdvisor.com website

Long queue!

The best Samgyetang in the town! Highly recommended!

After lunch, I have got myself fully recharged. I had mayself continued the Palaces Trip by visiting Gyeongbokgung Palace.

Gyeongbokgung Palace entrance ticket

Gyeongbokgung Palace

Korean lady @ Gyeongbokgung Palace

Gyeongbokgung Palace

After Gyeongbokgung Palace, my legs were already numb, too much walking for me! But I insisted to follow the planned itinerary, I don't want to miss out anything as I had removed quite a lot of places from the itinerary due to lacking of time. On the way to the subway station, I passed by a park, and there was a photo exhibition on the war of Korean Peninsula, insisting of the awareness of national security follows the incident happened on 26th March that a South Korean navy ship Cheonan sunk near the North Korean territory.

Outside Gyeongbokgung Palace

Random shot

National Security Awareness Exhibition

Cheonan navy ship that sunk in March 2010

Here you go, the pictures taken in the next palace, named Changdeokgung Palace.

Changdeokgung Palace entrance ticket

Changdeokgung Palace

It had been a really tiring day for me after visited so many tourist spots. To be more precise, it is after visited so many palaces! Haha!

In the night, I was supposed to go shopping in Myeongdong Night Market but I decided to first drop by Gwanghwamun to enjoy the Cheonggye Stream scene in the night, to snap some nice pictures. But guess what, I supposed I was a bit bad luck that nite. When I arrived Gwanghwamun, it started raining. Oh damn, I didn't bring umbrella! And also, where can I go in the rainy night? I was standing under a roof to plan the next destination. By then, I noticed a lot of Korean football fans in Korean national football team jersey were heading to the Gwanghwamun Square in umbrella, some in the raincoat. It reminded me of the Korean national football team was playing against Uruguay in Fifa World Cup 2010 at 10pm in the night! I was struggling, to go to do some shopping in fashion mall, or to wait for the rain to stop and join the crowd in Gwanghwamun Square? I ended up decided to stay and support Korea team with the crowd, having thought of that, I can visit fashion mall anytime whenever I am here in Seoul again, but for World Cup again, it's once in 4 years. You wouldn't want to believe that, I went into 7-11 to get myself a raincoat, and headed to Gwanghwamun Square for a crazy rainy football night, first time in my life!

The billboard

Korean football passion!

Korean football passion!

Korean football passion!

Poor Koreans heartbroken at the early of the game, when Suarez scored a goal in the 8th minute. First half, Uruguay was leading the game with 1 goal to nil. I called it a day during the half time of the game because I was really exhausted after so much walking on the long day.

I decided to do some shopping although it was supposed to be a sightseeing trip. It would be nice to relax a bit on shopping, phew, bear with me with this lame excuse, I just want to buy something meaningful from here as a memory of the trip.

In the morning, I headed to Namdaemun Market for a light shopping. The main motive was to find a money changer as I left about about 40000 Korean Won, which is approximately the value of 130 Malaysia Ringgit, which apparently is a bit risky to go out with so less cash. It was a Sunday, I was told by the hotel receptionist that it would be really tough to find a money changer on Sunday as majority of the business are closed. I was sweating, got no choice but to give it a try. Headed to Namdaemun and visited three currency exchange shops and guess what, all three were closed! Coincidentally there were 2 japanese ladies having the same problem that they asked me for direction after noticed the boss of the shop actually pointed me to another currency exchange shoip. We walked together towards the shop but it was closed down again. I was almost ready to give up and planned to spent everything on my credit card, luckily one of the japanese girl suggested to go to the information counter and guess what, right opposite of the information counter there is a currency exchange shop! Thanks to the japanese girls, now I realised that I was very rude that I didn't even ask for their names! But we did talked a bit such as where we from.

Namdaemun Market

Another Korean meal

After the lunch, I headed to Myeongdong Market to continue the shopping tour. Guess what, Myeongdong is much more happening than Namdaemun! A lot of youngsters hangout there. But this is a heaven for the female shoppers as it is full of cosmestics and clothes. Nothing fancy to a male shopper like me, other than seeing a lot of fair and good looking korean ladies.

Koreans' dream in Fifa World Cup 2010

All the wishes didn't come true in the game last night

Myeongdong Market

I thought this is Myeongdong Cathedral but apparently it is not

After that, I walked to Insadong that is about 10 minutes away, thanks to the tourism association guide who gave me the very accurate direction. They are in red colour shirt with a hat, which you can easily recognise them.

Insadong

Free Korean huggies @ Insadong

Insadong

After Insadong, I was really exhausted. But still, with the strong determination, I head to the last tourist spot on my itinerary, that is the Yeouido Hangang Park. I purposely leave it in the evening so that I will be able to catch the evening cruise which I will be able to enjoy the sunset and also night view, good timing, no? XD

Yeouido Hangang Park

Han River Cruise Tour

Han River Cruise Tour ticket

Having my KFC dinner while waiting for the cruise tour

Onboarding

Sunset view @ Han River Cruise Tour

Moonlight Rainbow Fountain along Banpo Bridge @ Han River Cruise Tour

It is gonna be nice to take a picture with your loved one in the middle of the heart

Han River Cruise Tour

After the cruise trip, it was about 9pm. My determination told me to spend the last night to its max, to go for a drink somewhere, or midnight shopping, but my body won't let me. The original itinerary pointed me to Myeongdong for Nanta Theatre, but I was really tired that I wanted to go no where but the hotel for a good rest. I headed back to the hotel and quickly got a quick shower before jumping into the blanket.

The next morning, I got my stuff packed, check-out from the hotel, and left my luggage to the receptionist, headed to COEX Mall for a hypermarket shopping experience in Seoul. I bought some seasoned dried seaweed and instant noodles from Hyundai Department Store.

COEX Mall

Koreans like Fahrenheit the Taiwan boy group?

After the meal, I headed back to the hotel to get my luggage and took another limo ride to the airport, got ready to take-off.

Transfering to Incheon International Airport

I reckon this as an awesome trip, despite on the lonely experience to travel alone. I am sure I'd like to visit Seoul again in the future, but I will make it during cherry blossom season, which usually falls in April.

Annyong kashipshio! (meaning "Good bye!") I am gonna miss you a lot, Seoul!

Street Child Feeding Charity Program

2010-06-23T16:21:00.015+08:00

Life is all about sharing and caring, an inspiration after came back from an event hosted by the company with a non-profit organization.

In our daily lives, we learnt to give and take, not barely monetery, but also mentally, and physically. Give whatever you can afford, be it a small amount of money, a small piece of your precious time, care, and love, or whatever that you willing to help those in need. It's all about love, sharing your love, and caring others, that warm the hearts around the world.

You know what, I had never done something more meaningful than this one, a street child feeding charity program organised by the company together with Real LIFE Foundation.

Who are they, Real LIFE Foundation?

Real LIFE Foundation is a christian non-profit, NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) that was incorporated in 2007 with the vision of seeing thousands of marginalized Filipino youth educated, gainfully employed and uplifting their communities.

Real LIFE Foundation is accredited in the Philippines by the PCNC (Philippine Council for NGO Certification), the DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development), and has BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) approved tax-exempt donee status.

If you feel like helping the street children, sincerely without those excuses that you're from other countries such as Malaysia, here you go, the link for you to make your little (or huge) contribution to the children in hunger of food, home, and love.After the tiring day warming the hearts and souls, the company treated us a nice lunch served with local delights, the Filippino food! I ain't a fan of Filipino food. To be more precise, I don't like their food at all, because it is all about deep fried & grill, too oily for me.

By the way, I must thank Michelle for inviting us to this meaningful event, had me spent the Saturday morning in much more meaningful way than laying on bed till late.

06.15

2010-06-15T17:15:00.003+08:00

今天比较情绪化，原因是工作上有很大的压力。

5点19分了，一早忙到现在，还好他们要从服务器里搬运一些资料出来，必须暂停一切运作，我才有借口让自己休息。

加上今天有个人急于上位就摆我上台，咳，政治阴谋。

讨厌政治，可惜职场上永远逃不过这种政治压力。要生存就要懂得保护自己，要懂得在必要的时候耍一耍政治手段，要懂得争取表现的机会，要懂得在对的人面前讲对的话做对的样。

太多太多，一年的时间根本不够学会这一切，有待磨练。

政治就像咖啡。懂得欣赏的人，越喝越入味，容易上瘾。不懂得欣赏的人，越喝越淡味。

喜不喜欢都好，只要不放冷箭不伤害别人，我会努力学习这一切。。。

我们的纪念日

2010-06-04T10:18:00.002+08:00

Weekend Trip to Intramuros

2010-05-25T23:18:00.011+08:00

You know what, when I first arrived Manila, I told my colleagues that I want to visit some nice historical buildings here, and asked for recommendations. Everyone told me that I should give this place a try.

So, ehem, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, today I am gonna be your tourguide to the oldest district of Manila, which named "Intramuros", featuring the Spaniards environment.

Intramuros was built by the Spaniards in the 16th century during the Spanish colonial peroid. In Latin, Intramuros means "inside the wall", implies that the fortress is surrounded by walls, to protect themselves from attacks.

Referring to the history of Phillipines, you would realise that Pinoy has a really close relationship to the Malays from Malaysia and Indonesia. But they are more towards multiculturalism, due to the intermarriage among the difference races especially the Spaniards, Japanese, and Americans that had once ruled this piece of land, and also, the Koreans and Chinese that migrated over here. And because of that, some of the Filipinas have really nice features inherited from different races.

Opsss, all these information makes me really sound like a tourguide huh? Nah, there are a lot more to master before I am qualified, haha! Let's cut the crap and enjoy some nice pictures of this historical district!

To be frank, I haven't finished visiting the district, there are still plenty of places to visit here, such as Fort Santiago, San Agustin Church, Casa Manila, etc. I am gonna visit all these before I mark this district as a visited area.

Flyback

2010-05-18T12:33:00.003+08:00

MALAYSIA! Aku tengah dalam perjalanan balik!

Heh, to those who cannot read Malay, it means that "Malaysia, I am on the way back!".

The clock is playing its trick again, ticking like a turtle! Erm, it could be because my heart is beating like a rocket, couldn't wait any longer to go back to meet my family and friends!

That's the consequence of putting the distance on sales in exchange of money. Loneliness is driving me nuts! It is contradicting, when I am in Malaysia, I always want to travel for projects, for business & technical exposures, personal interest in term of travelling around, and also making extra money! When I am onshore, I miss Malaysia so much. Ops, perhaps I should say that it is the people over there that counts!

I can't deny that there are plenty of nice & friendly people here, but after all we have different background & culture, there is somehow a gap between us, even we tried hard to mix around. And usually local people are not keen to travel around the country anymore, that's the difference with my USA trip last year, where there were colleagues from Argentina and Spain who were keen to travel in the States with me. The good thing is that I actually have a KL colleague coming with me, but the sad thing is that he is too homely, he doesn't like to travel around or go out for a drink.

Four months is gonna be tough without travel mate or outing mate. I was planning to visit some countries nearby, but then I think I have to travel alone, something which I really don't like to do. :(

Let's put the long & old grandmother story aside, I am gonna share more to you guys in real life soon!

The next exciting thing is that...

I have bought you guys the nice 7D Dried Mango! Hehe, okay, I know it is sold in Malaysia too, but that's the most famous thing here, what to do? Haha... Imagine that all these are heavy and I have to carry it for about 5km, just for you people's sake! Touch leh, nyek nyek!

Okies lar, lastly, in order to redeem your souvenir, give me a call tomorrow, 19th May, and meet me up for a drink in the nite, I will be in Mid Valley City I believe. I am very sorry but that's my only available slot during the flyback.

See yall soon!

Manila Bay

2010-05-13T23:07:00.003+08:00

You guys must be wondering someone like me, that can't even swim, would actually like to go to the seaside or a beach.

Basically, there are 2 reasons. First and foremost, as you guys know, I like to snap photos. Everywhere I had been to, there are photos, as a way to keep them in my memory. And secondly, I like to sit by the seashore, with light wind, and recall some bygone memories, be it happy or sad ones.

That's how I got hooked up with seaside.

Well, that's not the main attraction of this post. Here we go, the nice pictures taken at Harbour Square that is located along Manila Bay. A nice place with some bars and restaurants, and cafe too!

Chinese has a saying that, dawn is the best moment of the day, with such a nice scene, but it fades in only a couple of minutes, implies that good thing doesn't stay long

I somehow fall in love with this place, despite of the filthy water. The best thing to do here is to sit down in a cafe, order a cup of coffee, or beer, or cocktail (I picked this!), and enjoy the nice scenery of sunset.

Marilah Manila

2010-04-16T18:55:00.004+08:00

Finally, we are able to fork out time to pay the Manila product support team a visit. The initial plan for the business trip is four months, subject to change. We have a mission to accomplish here, that's to train the team members here to be able to support the product with minimum help from us, the onboarding team.

So, now we are here to rock this city, Jom Marilah MANILA!!!

加油！

2010-03-26T12:25:00.006+08:00

城市人讲的是速度和时机，我们乡下人讲的是耕耘和努力

要快高长大哦

Hot Air Balloon Fiesta 2010

2010-03-24T23:26:00.010+08:00

I remember last year I wanted to go to this event for photoshooting but I can't remember for what reason I didn't make it happen in the end.

This year, I posted it in Facebook that I will be going, guess what, Miyo asked me to bring her along! Heh, free model for photoshooting, woohoo!

We were supposed to arrive by the late afternoon but somehow due to the traffic jam, we ended up arrive in the evening. We saw the traffic police and DBKL staff started issuing summons to all the cars, but trust me, you'd want to just park like that because if you continue driving you are going farther and farther from the destination. I stopped my car by the roadside like everyone else did, kept on eyeing on the car so that I have some time to drive it away whenever necessary.

We didn't get into the exhibition field, but just shot some pictures far away from the bridge where I parked my car. To be honest, it wasn't as exciting as expected. The weather was as hot as the hot air balloons, and the hot air balloons looked stale. It seems to me those blogs about this event are a bit hanky-panky.

But well, since we came all the way from KL to Putrajaya, why not we take some pictures before leaving just like that? Guess what, this free model kept complaining tired when I told her to pose, phew! Haha, but still I appreciate given opportunity to shoot this nice series of photos on top of the nice scenery of hot air balloon.

Thank you to the model, Miyo Saito.

L.O.V.E

2010-03-07T12:19:00.001+08:00

Anniversary

2010-02-28T21:19:00.006+08:00

Happy 1 year anniversary to the so-lame gang!

28-02-2009

And happy 1 year anniversary to falling-into-you on 04-03-2009.

:(

2010-02-17T11:56:00.004+08:00

I'm supposed to be in the flight to Zurich now and to be based there for like 1-2 months together with the US teammates. Earlier I told the colleagues in Brussels to travel to Paris together, and also other places in Europh. We were pretty excited.

But for unknown reason the project called off. And of course, the trip called off then.

The next business travel gonna be Asia country I believe, I don't really know when it would be. I believe it is gonna take some time before we can really free ourselves out for a knowledge transfer session. I am tentatively billing five projects. This is the concept of knowledge center model where we just have to concentrate on our modules implemented in different projects. Argh, I just want to bill one onshore/nearshore/onsite project, that's it. Offshore project doesn't sound interesting to me anymore.

I marked today as a bad day in my calendar :(

Leap

2010-02-10T21:56:00.005+08:00

"If only a leap of mine could reach the sky... Girl I will then hold your hand and leap twice, so we could reach the love paradise." Steve Kwok

And I just want to tell you that, I miss you so much :(

Digital Harinezumi 2

2010-02-02T19:53:00.008+08:00

Have you ever heard of Lomography? If not, here you go the definition. Lomography is a type of art photography in which color is emphasized. Traditionally, cameras such as the Holga, Lomo, Colorsplash, and Supersampler are used to create strange and unusual photographs. Lomographic photos are primarily characterized by vignettes (blurry and faded edges), random subjects, and nonadherance to traditional photography rules.

Ok, so now you learnt about the traditional way of lomography. What about the digital lomography? Erm, maybe I should ask it in another way, what about the digital lomo camera? I'll show you right now the new generation of lomo camera!

So now you have seen my new baby Harinezumi that known as Digital Harinezumi 2! Here you go, some pictures taken with this camera. Not too lomo though, I believe many of the real lomographers did a lots of photoshop touch up, no?

Phew

2010-01-24T21:37:00.006+08:00

Life is full of challenges. Ups and downs, I am dealing with them well at least. I don't know why, but many people tend to be good to me recently, old friends tried to contact me again, etc. It might be a good thing, at least it proven that all the faith I put into my friends over the past years are being appreciated. You can call me care demanding or whatever, lol. At least you see me laughing almost everyday, layering on the top of emo though, credits to all my lovely friends!

Life is pretty hectic, entertaining different group of friends, and I realise that I don't actually like to social too much, and I don't really like having too many friends, just a few close ones will do. Anti social? That's me most of the time, haha! But be aware of that, don't try to stimulate my natural crapping instinct, you will regret crapping with me because I could be extremely crappy, believe me. Nananana... *whistle*

The week that starts tomorrow is another significant one. Why? Because I am actually on loan to different projects recently, while waiting for a full time commitment in new project. And there is a very important decision to be made by a new client who might employ me under the project. Let's see if the deal works. Yes, this is another important project to me to further beautify my resume.

It had been such a long time since I last checked my private blog trail, and I did it a couple of minutes ago. OMFG I found some weird tracks, and I decided to remove some friends from accessing my private blog because of that. My private blog is only intended to people that I invited, and it is your responsibility to protect my privacy and not sharing your password with anyone. Failure to comply with this simple rule may result in removal of access. I am sorry but that's my only choice. Interesting, but I guess I know who is the lame intruder. And I just want to tell you that, you're so mean! Get a life!

Counting down the days to celebrate Chinese New Year! I hope I will be stationed locally during CNY before flying again, fingers crossed.

If life is easy, why live?

2010-01-07T18:00:00.006+08:00

Today I saw a quote from a comment in the blog of a friend that stated "if life is easy, why live?" which certainly inspired me a lots. Yes, that's indeed a good one.

If life is easy, why live?

Have you ever question yourself this way whenever you lean on the pillow crying as if it is the end of the world? No, you have never did that, and that's why you were crying.

If you are thinking positively all the times, life could be as much beautiful as you heard from the fairy tales.

So next time if you are depressed, look into the sky and question yourself.

"If life is easy, why live?"

And you'll see my smile that shaped like a rainbow hidden in the cloud.

I'll be there for you.

Year-End Review 2009

2010-01-01T10:05:00.009+08:00

I usually have annual review on the first day of the year. And it is good practising this habit because few years later when you review them again, you will realise that you actually learnt a lots, and achieved a lots today compared to the old days.

To those who didn't follow all my blogs, here you go, the review for year 2007: Click here.

I don't know where is the review for year 2008, I did one but not sure which blog I saved them, I had deleted 2 blogs, I believe it is in one of them, just too bad that I don't have a copy of them.

But let the bygones be bygones, I am writing a new one now.

First and foremost, let's talk about family. Nothing special, it has been a year since my elder brother CK and sister Elise migrated out of the country. And I am taking over the responsibility to take care of the parent. I guess I had done my very best, I forked out as much time as possible to spare with them, like a Work-from-home week, fathers' day & mothers' day, etc. I'd love to spare their birthday with them but too bad I was in a business trip and couldn't make it. I had then compensated them with X'mas and New Year.

The next important element, my career advancement. All I would say is that, I am really happy serving the company so far, in terms of opportunities and also exposures, not to talk about the package offered. Some of my friends are telling me to hop into another firm to get a fair salary adjustment. If I were to hop to another company now, I would have to start all over again. It is the relationship, network, trust, freedom, and power that counts. I hope the package offered in year 2010 is good enough for me to persuade myself to stay.

Whatever decision I made, to stay or to hop, there is one person that I must thank, and his name is Jorge Arenas, who has been giving all the opportunities and power to me. Without his guidance and aid, I wouldn't have gone this far. (It may sounds to you that I think I had gone very far, but I can tell you that, the farther you had gone, you'd realise that you actually have a farther and father journey to go) Thanks for transfering me back to ABAP team, thanks for allocating me in all the big projects, thanks for making me the first person to travel for international on-site project, thanks for the promotion, thanks for the assists and supports remotely in Malaysia when I was on-site in the States, thanks for all the Starbucks treats, thanks for everything. You're not only a manager to me, but also a true friend to me. But if you don't mind, I have another request, to fly me to Philipines as expat to work with the team over there permanently. XD

Ok, the next thing, my performance in delivering the project alone on-site. Overall, I am satisfied with my performance and also my improvement. If you ask me, yes I was really stressed when I first arrived the States. The time difference, the language difference, the environment difference, the culture difference, and most importantly, the tasks difference. Performance module is pretty new to me, also the technology driving it that called JSON and Prototype. Imagine how would you feel when you are being assigned such an important role as the coordinator to be on-site. But then I had slowly picked up everything. I may not perform the best but I am satisfied, and looking forward for more exposures in this area.

Overall, I am satisfied with my career achievement in year 2009, and looking forward for another significant year.

Relationship wise, I had failed several candidates this year, you can call me arrogancy or whatever but I won't care. But I have to admit that I actually met someone that I have a really strong crush, someone that really stimulated my burning urge. It was the first time I really go for a girl I think, don't ask me what about me and my ex, I will not tell you the complete story here. I don't know if I had given people a bad impression or what, but thing doesn't seem like working out like the way everyone expected. No one would know what's actually going on. I still believe that I am the person that knowing the most facts but still not the complete picture. I guess we would just let the mist stays mistery. Let's put it this way, things that fated to be yours will eventually become yours, and things that not fated to be yours, putting a lots of efforts just wouldn't help.

The next thing is the network. I have expanded my network from Segamat friends to KL friends, and also international colleagues friendship! Haha! I believe I had done my best in entertaining all the new friends that I had met in the year. But I once got light depression and because of that I became speechless most of the times, and stayed emotional during all the outings. I am sorry to the friends but I believe I am fine now, don't you think so? But I can assure you that I will not be as naughty as I was. :p

Lifestyle wise, I had a year that getting closer to my theme, 'Live Life Cool' and 'this is what we called quality life'! The best part of my life came on the last quarter of the year where I worked and travelled in the States. Life is simply awesome to work on-site internationally. You make extra money while at the same time pumping knowledges into your brain on top of meeting new faces. But the sad thing is I got bad insomnia because of emotion, that was a really bad experience and its endangering my health, glad that it is over. =)

Financial wise, I spent too much this year. I have spent almost every bucks that I made! All started from the DSLR camera, then the flashlight, lenses, adaptors, and bag! After that, all the money was then invested into rebranding myself into a professional look. I changed almost everything in the wardrobe, from throwing all the caps, tees, and the shoes, to getting all the shirts, tees, pants and shoes! That's why mummy always say that if I marry a girl that behaves like me then I will end up having a poor life at my old age, which I agree.

Talking about health, I am putting on so much weights after the business trip, damn! But guess what, I have stopped smoking! Awesome! I spent so many years trying to quit but because of lacking in determination I couldn't make it. I must say year 2009 is the year of determination, that I actually had strong determination in almost everything! I must thank this person who stimulated my determination.

There are plenty of goals identified for year 2010, which I had listed them in another private blog, that I ain't going to share with you all, hehe...

But I can tell you that, the major goals of the year is to make the decision of migration and also to seek for a relationship commitment.

Lastly, happy new year to everyone of you, may you and your loved ones have another blessed year!

Buena suerte Mr Stevooooooooooo!

Two is better than one

2009-12-21T22:24:00.003+08:00

Finally found their official MV! My favourite song of the year, a song from Boys Like Girls.

Back in Malaysia

2009-12-19T22:22:00.001+08:00

After 3 months of exhausting yet exciting business trip, I am now back in Malaysia! Finally! Heh!

Nothing special except plenty of thoughts to share later but I am too excited and just want to announce that I am back in Malaysia! Hohoho! XD

Snowy Day

2009-12-04T23:39:00.001+08:00

Snow is not something that you will get to see it every year here in Houston as it is a hot and humid city. This is the 4th time snowing in Houston in the past 15 years! I must say I am really lucky that it is back in town this year! Everyone was talking about this 2 days ago, we were so excited waiting for the arrival of snow!

Today at 11++ in the morning, it finally snowed for few hours! The temperature dropped to 1°C today and this is the coldest day for me in my life, outdoor is just like a fridge! But still I went out of the office to take some pictures and also to experience snow falling on the body, cold though, heh!

In the night, which is a couple of hours ago, I walked around the apartment to take some pictures and experience the winter, feel the coldness and breath the humidity, heh!

Heh, you know what, I was really silly that I put a cup of water in the balcony just now and tomorrow I will see if it is frozen, hehe!

I had great fun with winter!

Thanksgiving Day

2009-11-27T08:53:00.015+08:00

It's thanksgiving day, a public holiday here in the States. Everyone has left the country. Miguel has left to Mexico to visit his family, Eduardo and Ezeqiuel have left to Argentina. Kham, Mike, and Meltse have left to Altanta. So I am the only NGA staff in Houston. Again, loneliness is back! Heh!

I decided to go dating with my new affair Miss Subaru Legacy. This is the first time we go dating in the downtown haha! You see, I love her so much! Haha!

My new affair

Nice ass babe

Subaru Legacy interior

She is a high maintenance affair, she eats a lot! Consuming a lots of fuel, phew! Although the company is going to pay for the fuel but I have to manage the expenses well too.

I went to downtown to see if there is any nice place to hangout. Apparently there isn't any. As usual, during weekend and public holiday the downtown is a dead city. It is almost the same in all the cities I had visited, except San Antonio (because it was Halloween Day) and New Orleans.

Guess what, I found a place thats full with people, thus I decided to park my car into a garage nearby, paid $7 for an hour, to inspect what was going on. It was a stupid decision, because there wasn't anything special but just the Thanksgiving day charity meal for homeless people. I was quite impressed seeing so many homeless people in the States. I started to appreciate what God had given me. I felt so lucky to had been borne in my family. We are not rich, but we have a lovely home. I always think exposure to all these would shape my personality into a better one, such as appreciation, confession, etc.

Happening!

Long queue!

Free clothes for the homeless people

Free meal for the homeless people

After that, I realised that I got nothing better to do, there is no point seeing them having meal there, isn't it? I went to walk around the city but again it was a dead city, nobody is there. I went to Starbucks to buy a coffee and spare some minutes sitting there relaxing myself but guess what, it was closed! Phew!

Ended up I decided to go to Chinatown again, to get myself some Chinese cuisine for dinner. I went to a Hong Kong food market to do grocery shopping. And then went back to prepare myself a nice homemade Chinese food dinner. Luncheon meat a.k.a Wu Can Rou, wow long time never have it! Dumpling a.k.a Shui Jiao & Shao Mai!

The Argentinians left a lots of alcohol for me, particularly the dark beer which I don't really like. But it is very impolite to reject things people giving you for free, so I will just keep them in the fridge and share them with Miguel when he is back, or Ezeqiuel who is pending Argentina branch decision whether to send him back again or not.

Full with dark beer contributed by the Argentinians

I am pretty sure the first breakfast for me in Malaysia gonna be Char Siew Pao + Siew Mai + Loh Mai Gai + Ji Chiong Fun! I don't care about the extra kilos but I just want to have those! Haha! And I miss Bak Kut Teh, Wan Tan Min, Siew Bao! Oh yea, also the Malaysia local food such as Satay Celup, Nasi Lemak, Karipop, Ais Kacang, Cendol, Roti Telur, Milo Kosong Ais Kaw Kaw! Haha! I miss the mamak niteout!

It's a torture when lovesickness comes together with homesickness. Phew, I miss my family, I miss my crush, I miss my friends!

I ended up took out one of them to accompany me for the nite

Remember I promised that I will let go the White Christmas to be home and celebrate it with my loved ones? I was not kidding.

I'll be home soon =)

New Orleans Trip

2009-11-24T11:07:00.012+08:00

It's 9:07pm here in Houston. I am stuck in the office now. Overstressed. So I decided to spare 10 minutes on posting something on my blog, heh...

Had been to a great trip with the Argentinians and Spaniard colleagues.

This is a place named NOLA... It's short for New Orleans, Louisiana.

I went for lunch alone to enjoy the wind and relax myself, also took some time to stay silent for some thoughts

And a coffee thought after the lunch

Life is tough. I appreciate being given the opportunities in everything, thanks God for all these. And those You're not going to give me, and if I had tried my best, I know it is not going to be mine somehow.

Business Trip to Houston

2009-09-25T11:34:00.001+08:00

I am lazy to type recently, so again I'll use the same phrase everytime when i am lazy.

"A picture tells a thousond words"

Truistic . Truist . Truism

2009-07-06T11:58:00.005+08:00

I am a truistic truist that practise truism

When the whole world are telling that you're doing the wrong thing, you should have a self meditation. You see, hijacking an aircraft and crashing it on the WTC to create a 911 tragedy is so wrong in our mindset, yet the terrorists insisted that they are right. They don't even bother to confess their sins. Most of you think that they are wrong, I bet. Does it mean the majority thinking is always right?

Recently, four of my close friends, 2 male friends and 2 female friends, told me to learn to protect myself, and to love with only 80% and keep another 20% for myself. I told them that love is giving all you can and expect least return, or even no return. Theorically yes but practically no, they said. Good faith is good but should be limited to a certain extent.

I always think I am a pro in dealing with relationship matters, with my 4 years peer counselling experience in my secondary school. I guess all these are now overthrown looking at my latest performance. I am so noob now! I wanted to, but I just don't know how to behave selfish. I think I am quite, erm... helpless & lost. How could that happen to me!?

I named it crush, and they named it true love. There is a reason for all these names which I will leave it for you people to figure out, heh...

Phew, ciaoz! I am gonna call 911 to ask for help now...

如果我变成回忆

2009-07-04T11:30:00.002+08:00

世纪之战

2009-06-15T11:27:00.011+08:00

不停的用华语更新部落格就代表着思绪思绪乱如麻，有太多的话想说，因为华文永远是最好抒发感情的用具。
When I keep updating my blog in Chinese, it indicates that I am caught in vexation, and there are a lot to tell, simply because to me Chinese is always the best language to express the feeling.

今日之言：打一场没有把握的战就好像蒙住眼睛瞎冲，误打误撞。
Quote of the day: Battling without confidence is just like speeding blindfolded, you risk your life.

豁了出去，整军待发。
Got ready for the battle.

一触即发。
The battle is on it's verge.

Private Party @ PNB Sime Darby Serviced Apartment (Bash-Cheryl Nite)

2009-06-07T13:19:00.017+08:00

It was a fantastic Friday with all day non-stop program, a fully utilized one.

Woke up in the early morning, as mentioned in my previous post, I had a coffee in the evening and couldn't sleep well. Started to extract all the pictures taken in Ying Ker Lou and Redbox and posted them up to Facebook so that they can have the sneak preview of the photos taken first, before I share the postprocessed one.

After that, had a bath and dressed up casually (as it is a Casual Friday) to attend the training in the office. In fact, the office was closed for the recup of Agong's Birthday public holiday which falls on Saturday. However together with 4 of the team members, I have to come back to the office to attend the last day of the training. A good thing is that, we had only attended the half day training but we are entitled for a full day replacement leave for that. xD

Finally, the full week SAP HR training is over. Now, we have adopted knowledges in SAP HR TEM (Training & Event Management), PM (Performance Management), and OM (Organisation Management). And also, the new version of SSW our HR Online portal, named EWS, which will be delivered to SecureX soon, and then followed by MSD, Mobistar, and Cadbury. Another milestone in gaining SAP HR knowledge, credits to the Belgium trainers, Mr Freek and Christophe. Christophe had left on Thursday. We have invited Freek to have lunch with us so that he gets to try one of the delicious Chinese food, Bak Kut Teh. It was a tousy shop, surprised Freek, and he wanted to take some photos as part of his memories of the business trip. Of course, we took a group photo too!

Freek was surpised with the tousy environment of the bakkutteh shop in Malaysia

After the lunch, I went to buy some party packs, chips, and drinks upon Debbie's request. Then quickly drove to PNB Sime Darby Serviced Apartment to meet up with Debbie, Ruru, and Wilson. They were supposed to arrive earlier but guess what, I managed to take a smoking break after check-in while waiting for them!

Steve in the serviced apartment

The serviced apartment

The chips with H1N1 virus brought by Mr. Potato the Mexican

Ruru the sweet girl

Playing cards & party masks

Upside down wuey!

Debbie & Wilson

While waiting for Ruru's friend to come and fetch her to airport to catch her flight, the naughty pair, Wilson & Debbie decided to swim in the pool. I was so tired and wanted to have a nap, so I refused to join them. But Debbie kept on nagging me to be her so-called BIKINI PHOTOGRAPHER! *sweat* Taking into account that Ruru is leaving after that, it would not be nice if I am sleeping at that moment, so I decided to join them, purely for photos shooting but not swimming.

What were we talking about?

Debbie shot this photo for us

Wilson, you're only the background, please play your role well, don't look at the camera! xD

My model of the day

Now the model has became the photographer

Debbie is drowning

Wilson

Monkeys

Ruru's friend arrived in short. I accompanied her to get her hand luggage from the room and gave her a hand to carry it to the lobby. Waved my right hand with her while saying goodbye, felt like telling her something before she left but I held back in the end. You wanna know what are the words that I wanted to tell? Heh, I ain't gonna share it here. =p

Immediately after that, I went back to the apartment unit to take my nap, no success still. Debbie & Wilson was ranging the bell, and I got scolded once I opened the door. Simply because I have forgotten that they don't have the access card to take the lift. Guess what, they took the staircase from level 9th to level 20th! Haha, poor thing. I am really sorry mates, it was indeed my bad!

Two of them were hungry, so we walked to KLCC for dinner. It was like 5 minutes walking distance from the apartments. We had our dinner at Santini Restaurant Suria KLCC. Debbie the generous girl offered a treat by claiming that I have treated her for the dinner a day before, and Wilson have treated her for the lunch, so the dinner will be on her treat. Thanks for the nice meal wuey! We had ordered a grigliata platter which served for 2 person and another australian rib eye steak to be shared. I only took the chicken & beef but not the lamb. In case you were not aware, I don't eat lamb, heh!

Debbie was telling that she wasn't happy due to some relationship matters. Both of us got affected by her really upset look, and shared the unhappy topics, so the party mood got ruined. So, I had a suggestion to make all of us laugh, and apparently the little trick worked! The trick is that, three of us together release our emotion on the beef steak, that we cut the beef steak with the table knife, with all our energy and shout the unhappy topics/names out! And we really did that! Hahaha! I bet the people beside were kind of shocked! Haha! Who cares, at least it made all of us laughed! My trick works you see! =p

Walking towards KLCC for dinner

Santini @ Suria KLCC

Grigliata platter (combination of lamb, beef, chicken, egg, sausage, potatoes, and vege)

Australian rib eye steak

Besides that, I had ordered Graveyard cocktail to be shared with the other two diners as they wanted some alcoholic drinks as prelude of the party on top of clearing the sadness.

Graveyard cocktail

After the dinner, we headed back to the apartment to meet the rest of the party people. Vincent was the only early bird. We played some R&B music and shared the Bacardi Apple bottle that I had brought along. After a short while, everyone arrived and the party kick-off then. Kam Wai enjoyed drinking the Bacardi Apple so much! While we were playing the cards game, he drank even he didn't lose! Haha! Undeniable, Bacardi Apple tastes nice, but after all it is still alcoholic beverage, so he was the early bird for the bed, hahah!

Now, I am kind of lazy to describe the party after blogging for such a long post! Hahaha... Kindly refer to the photos below for more information. As usual, we had awareded medals to three crazy party animals, figure out who they are from the photos below! xD

The liquor

The bartenders

The party people

Getting hotter!

I don't want to get drunk wuey!

The champion of the nite

Party like a group of rockstars! Haha!

Tired?

The ladies

Peter is always the outstanding one

Khawaii was caught luring boyboy xD

Vincent and Grace in hot dance, phewit!

Luin-Soi Grace with Peter

Apparently they are tired

K.O.ed

Dining Out @ Ying Ker Lou cum Karaoke Niteout @ Redbox

2009-06-06T23:03:00.009+08:00

It's few days countdown towards Debbie's birthday. Since Ruru couldn't attend her birthday party next weekend, so we decided to dine out together as Ruru was back in town. This girl is always busy and we can hardly meet up previously, so thanks to the birthday girl that we managed to meet up, hah!

In view of the unhealthy lifestyle of the SIA stewardess miss Ruru, I had decided to treat her a meal with her favourite Chinese cuisine, the Hakka cuisine restaurant at The Curve named Ying Ker Lou.

Thursday evening after knock-off, I ran to get myself a cup of Starbuck Caramel Frappuccino Blended Coffee so that I can stay awake till late. And then, headed to Damansara to fetch the two princesses (Debbie claimed that they are!). We went to make reservation at Redbox before dining. Poor thing, I was with my company laptop, and also DSLR camera, phew! So tiring to carry all these gadgets!

Ying Ker Lou @ The Curve

Dishware

Pu'er tea

Another friend of theirs, Sherry, came in short. We ordered Hakka fried pork, Tofu with ground pork, Braised basil chicken with three cups sauce, Bakchoi abalone, Pork & old yellow cucumber soup, and Pork pickle soup.

Hakka fried pork

Tofu with ground pork

Braised basil chicken with three cups sauce

After the dinner, while enjoying the Pu'er tea, we were busy playing around with the DSLR camera, shoot pictures from different angles, different effects, etc. I was complaining how tiring to learn capturing nice pictures and then postprocessing them, and ended up Ruru got influenced and gave up her wish to get one, haha, sorry I didn't mean it.

The ladies: Sherry, Debbie, and Ruru

Ruru & Steve

Sherry & Debbie, the Gemini girls

Ruru was snapping photos with my DSLR camera

Ruru reviewing the snapped photos

The ladies

Ladies in blue

After the dinner, Sherry had went back as she needed to attend a test on the next day. So, three of us headed to Redbox for karaoke. As usual, Debbie sang almost 70% of the songs, while Ruru didn't sing much that nite. Wondering why, she can actually sing very well. Probably she scared that Redbox will be crowded with all her fans if her voice somehow transmitted out of the room? heh!

Ruru in the shot

The K queens

Ruru & Debbie

Guess what? They managed to snap a self-taken picture with a heavy DSLR! Salute!

Ruru had brought along the polaroid camera. Haha looks like she enjoyed shooting photos with it, worths my effort finding this cute camera for her few months back.

Fujifilm instax mini 7s

Debbie & Ruru in the polaroid photo

Steve & Ruru in the polaroid photo

Just love this picture

Polaroid series

We left Redbox at about 12am. Guess what, it was another insomnia nite for me, credits to Starbuck. Guess I am qualified to be their ambassador, to prove & certify their caffein quality.

Wedding Ceremony of Jorge & Fiza

2009-05-31T14:20:00.019+08:00

If you have read my previous post, you should have known that my manager, Jorge, is getting married with Fiza! Congratulations to Jorge and Fiza! It reminds me of how I met Fiza in Shell office while having tea break with Jorge, haha. Time flies, now they are getting married wuey! Cool! Ops, probably I should call him Muhammad now, hah... Guess I don't need to write anymore blessings here as I have written them all my wishes in my previous post, email, face-to-face, and greeting card.

It was a wedding lunch held at Fiza's house at Bangi. Looking at the hot weather, I decided to go in a tee shirt, together with my Nikon camera. I had a deal with the colleagues to meet up there between 1.00pm to 1.30pm. Together with Tik Loon and Ernest, we arrived there at 1.30pm, and we were still the early birds among the colleagues! None of them have arrived! LMAO, typical Malaysians style, always late for everything with the best excuse in KL, some said in JB and Singapore, "traffic jam mar". =p

The entrance

Each of us was given a door gift upon arrival. It is a small gift box with a mystery gift inside. Haha! Just kidding, it's a small bottle of honey inside. Just in time for the hot weather here in KL.

Door gifts

Door gifts distributing counter

Once I stepped in to the house, I was busy shooting pictures together with Ernest. Guess what, there were so many DSLR cameramen there! Some were amateur while few were really professional with all the high-tech and expensive equipments. Salute!

Little cupcakes

Host seats for the new wed pair and the family

Buffet dishes

Guest seats

The bridegroom has reached in short after we arrived. According to Malay culture, the bride has to come in with the bridegroom together, so Fiza has to go out to meet Jorge up. And then together, the walked to the entrance hand in hand. And with another ceremony before they came into the house, which I don't really know what ceremony was that. After that, they had been seated in front of the door to watch a "kung-fu" show.

Arrival of the bridegroom

The excited bride

On the way towards the happiness

Ceremony at the entrance

Kung-Fu show

After the ceremony, it was the dining time for the bridegroom and the bride. Everyone got seated for the buffet lunch together.

Dining

Playing around with bokeh effect using only the kit lens

Buffet dishes

Representatives from NorthgateArinso Phillipines

Representatives from Shell Malaysia

Representatives from NorthgateArinso Malaysia

Door gift

After lunch, we went into the house to take some photos with the new wed pair. Guess what, you can see all the flashguns flashing nonstop. I took a picture and felt like being a super star at the media conference, wahahahahaha!

Corsages

Suei Che was taking photos for our colleagues

The bridegroom and the bride

Muhammad Jorge Arenas in the shot

Anxious!

2009-05-26T16:09:00.001+08:00

I felt a chill running thru my veins.

Chronic anxiety and panic attacks are running marathon in my body, always slow and steady yet sometimes gasping. Is it a sign of depression? I hope not.

I decided to destress myself by playing some music, the best suit one I have for myself is the song named "Hallelujah". Religionary worship songs are the best to calm down my vexation, though it is not the correct genre one. Instrumental music will be the alternative.

I am expecting a lot in myself, new project, training, fighting for my increment and promotion, equipping with in-depth knowledge, playing my role well, etc. I am suffocating, I am drowning!

I want a balance in my life. I need a break, yet it is a crucial period of the team now that we have new project kickoff today, web conference later today as prelude of the new modules training, tele conference tomorrow as project kickoff meeting, and new modules training next whole week.

There are so many projects coming in, the team has delivered so many quality works. Does the team deserve a good increment and great bonus? The salary payout gonna tell everything once the payroll runs this Friday, I expect another late notification letter.

Thought of the night

2009-05-26T04:16:00.004+08:00

In deep thought

If men were born without ability to adopt memorizing skill, it would be good.

If men were born with a ROM and RAM like a computer and we can remove the RAM leaving only ROM the temporary memory which gone once the computer is turned off, it is even better.

If men were born with a complete computer integrated circuits in the mind and we can configure our mood, delete unwanted cached/saved files, encrypt private files, upgrade the chipset from time to time to adopt new skillsets so we don't have go to school or accumulate working experiences day by day, it is cool. I'll remove BLUE colour from my screen then.

But after all men are only mere mortals, we are not granted the power to control things that would happen around us. Men are living their lives without knowing how they gonna be tomorrow.

And that's where all the expectations come into life... Life is sexier when there are dreams to pursue, it helps raising our morales and motivating us to work hard for our dreams.

Having said that, always bear in mind that, least expectation would be the best cure of your disappointment, learn and practise this.

Day after day, I have slowly developed this skill on my lil circuit board, as I realised that I shouldn't be overburdening myself. If one day my dream comes true, it is not barely harvest of my effort but also blessing of the lord, Jesus Christ, my constant mental support. Question here, will you put your hands together for me then? You are gonna ignore me again I bet. =)

词穷

2009-05-12T22:57:00.004+08:00

讲不出的心事
笑不出的脸颊
想不出的话题
认不出的面孔
飞不出的掌心
走不出的阴影
跳不出的圈子
喊不出的声音
叫不出的无奈
跨不出的脚步
看不出的感慨
做不出的举动
写不出的语法
画不出的彩虹
摆不出的自信
装不出的幸福
亨不出的曲子
唱不出的感觉

“就是开不了口让她知道。。。”
只有这一句，一定唱到比杰伦好听。身感同受，多了那一份真实感！

唉。。。

悲歌唱不完，哀奏旱还寒。。。

我，继续词穷。。。

全世界都停电 (爱就宅一起插曲)

2009-05-07T23:49:00.000+08:00

In love with this song but couldn't find it in Neway

How safe is our city?

2009-05-06T23:41:00.013+08:00

This morning, I heard that Meng Keong, a colleague of mine, had been assaulted and robbed by four Malay guys while he was on his way to LRT station from office last nite about 10pm++. The LRT station is located only like 5 minutes walking distance from the office and yet this can happen. Guess what, it was happened just along Jalan Sultan Ismail! Poor guy, he lost the company Blackberry phone, which in this case he might has to bear half of its price, it is still pending company decision. His watch and wallet with all the cards and cash were robbed as well. Luckily, the company laptop was secured. Apparently, the robbers only want cash and small items but not the bulky one so that they can run away in a quick manner.

A month ago, I have read an article online about a Youtube video clip of a robbery happened in Taman Maluri, Cheras. I tried to search for the keyword "Maluri Robbery" and found the clip. Well, as a Malaysian, it is nothing special to me. As I have heard a lots here and there, read a lots from the newspaper, I bet you too, if unfortunately you happen to be a Malaysian? Anyway this is the first time I see it with my eyes (from the video clip), and this is just so unbelievable! Malaysia boleh! You see the robbers memang boleh, aren't they?

Do you like Black Eyed Peas's song "Where is the love"? We have a local version here in Malaysia, "Where is the law". Have you ever thought of questioning the government of your safety? The criminal rate here is alarming for so long and why it just never been treaten seriously?

One of the major threat, the labours issues that never seems to end. Why issuing so many visas when you see a lots of them are creating trouble here? From time to time, there are a lots of news about criminals committed by them. If you are aware, Indonesians firing with the police on the road is not so strange here in KL. Come on, this is not counter strike, you cannot restart if you get head shot. I ain't too sure if there is similar case in Singapore or not, but obviously they will first consider Malaysia when it comes to committing crime, even though robbing Singapore Dollars is far more tempting than Ringgit. Probably they see the better chance to run away? They are putting us in a really vulnerable situation! And that's one of the points that causing the harmony in deep shit!

Almost everytime if I happen to take LRT to the office, I can see a group of Malay teenagers in school uniforms, sleeping at the staircase, rest chair, etc. Can the right associations counsel and educate these young generation to go back to school? Education is the best way to heal their mindset and shape their personalities, so that they don't become mat rempit or robbers in the future.

It is sad to see our homeland in such situation. Criminal rates is rising, and yet politics war is breaking out in parallel, together with discrimination, it is making the people running away from the country. Yes, every year there are a lot of friends that graduated in oversea declared that will not come back to Malaysia anymore. My brother and sister are the best examples, they came back and sick of the lifestyle here, so they went back to the places they once stayed for their studies. And now, even the local graduates are seeking way to run away from the country! You see Singapore is collecting the expertise that are running out of Malaysia, most of the labours they are issuing visas are highly educated Malaysians and Indonesians. Their government is smart, and doing the best to the citizens. Our wealthy government, what say you? What project that is done for the sake of the citizens? Ops, forget about the semi-value projects please, we are talking about the full-value projects now! The highway to the government offices at the pork-free zone Putrajaya? Whatever! If you are talking about the population in Putrajaya, is Segamat a smaller city than Putrajaya? Nope! We are bigger but yet you cancelled the highway project here! Hate talking about government and politics, it ruins my mood! How I wish many years ago Johore was somehow accidentally divided to be part of Singapore, haha!

Sorry, guess I've gone too far away from the topic, we were talking about the safety isn't it? Hah! Well, my advise is, go back home earlier after knock off. Get some companions if you were to walk in the darkness. No one can help you with awareness but you yourself.

May God bless you, Malaysians!

Dining Out @ Bangkok Jazz (College Mates Gathering)

2009-04-30T22:11:00.001+08:00

It had been so long since I last met my college mates. We only get to see each other everytime when there is someone celebrating late birthday. We have 3 April babies here, Carolyn Teoh, Su Yee, and Albert Ng. Though it was a belated birthday gathering, better late than never, isn't it? Heh...

Again, Albert suggested to dinner at Sunway area. We have been dining at Sunway area too many times, thus I screamed them a big NO-NO! No more Sunway please! Haha, ended up they agreed to let me decide the venue. It is a dinner on working day, of course KL city is the best choice as all of us that working in the city can go over straight away from the office. There will not be jam as not too many people are driving into the city in the evening, so it's fair to everyone. Ended up I decided to dinner at Bangkok Jazz at Chulan Square, which located opposite Pavilion.

Bangkok Jazz todinefor fine thai cuisine

The menu

Su Yee's company is nearest one. But yet I was the first person to arrive. And waited for like 15 minutes before Carolyn arrived, followed by Su Yee. Three of us ordered our drinks and appetizers, and then as usual, talked nonsense while waiting for the rest. James came a little bit later. The BEST LATE COMER AWARD goes to Albert Ng Chee Yong, 24 years old, attached male that coming all the way from Klang! Congratulations! LMAO, holy crap. This fella arrived at 8:30pm for a dinner that supposed to start at 7:30pm! And everyone were starving to wait for him! He was lucky to be one of the birthday boy, so we couldn't punish him, just too bad!

Illusion cocktail

Fruit punch

Tut-Tut cocktail

Appetizer: Mieng Kam

Mieng Kam, this is how you roll it up

Appetizer: Ruam Khong Wang to dine for

Immediately we placed our order when the awarded late-coming couple arrived. Thai food is nothing more than spicy, and sometimes sweet or sour, or both. We ordered tomyam kung as soup of the dinner, together with fish, seafood, chicken, and green curry.

Pla gao priew warn (deep-fried whole garoupa with sweet and sour source)

Talay phad cha (sizzling mixed seafood in hot plate)

Phad kra prao gai (stir-fried chicken with hot basil leaves)

Gaeng keaw warn (green curry)

Tomyam Seafood Bowl

Tomyam Kung

After dinner, we chit-chat for almost two hours, before we called it a day. It made me recalled a lots of notorious days spared in the college. Hahaha! Well, but thanks to this group of friends, they had been really nice to share me the notes and tips in my college life. Still remember our deal? I'll cover most of the programming works, while Su Yee will trade her notes with me, and also cover the documentation works, while Albert Ng will be entertainer, wore some "funny suits" (you know I know xD), talked nonsense (lan-gep) to make us laugh, etc. Haha, that was basically how I trained my programming skill, and also, how my lame-ness was shaped, credits to all the SIFUs.

Those were the days...

However, fate did not allow me to stay longer with them as I've took an extra subject every semester, so I managed to be in my final year 8 months earlier, and did not join them too often due to the massive assignments, FYP (final year project), and also the modelling events. Again, I took extra subject to complete my final year in 8 months instead of a year, yet I had joined ICM fashion show as model and UTAR Sg Long first fashion nite as modelling coordinators' trainer. I spared a lot of time in the events and that's why I couldn't spare too much time on their outings.

But still, they didn't leave me out whenever there is any gathering, party, or other outings. I really appreciate having my college life spared with you guys, the sweet and bitter memories that we had shared will be always on my mind. Thanks mates!

Steve Kwok in illusion

James Ong & Albert Ng

Albert Ng's girlfriend & Carolyn Teoh

Albert Ng's girlfriend, Carolyn Teoh, and Su Yee

Weekend Trip to Perhentian Island, Redang Island, and Lang Tengah Island

2009-04-29T11:32:00.001+08:00

Exhausted is the best word to describe me after trip. Hate coming back to work after a trip, it is so irritating to see the mailbox got flooded, and the newly assigned tasks! But that's life, without work you won't have the money to travel. Over the past two years I have practised travelling as my highly prioritized hobby that replaced everything else.

Redang Island, 2 years back I was suppose to be there. But due to some circumstances, I got replaced. You know how bad the feeling could be when you're in a travelling mood and suddenly you're told that your seat has been taken. But thanks God, everything has became bygone and because of that, I learnt to put my faith into the right person.

Thanks to my lovely ex-colleagues that never leave me out wherever they are travelling to. Last year they invited me to Langkawi Island but I had been there few months earlier than them so I didn't join them. And earlier this year they invited me for this Redang Island trip. Without doubt I nodded my head as I wanted to go there badly since many years ago.

It was a 3D2N trip to Redang Island, Perhentian Island, and Lang Tengah Island. Thanks to Catherine the organiser and Yng Sheng the coordinator. I was notified with all the information like a month ago, but I was so so so lazy to check it out until the very last few days right before the trip, then I was sweating -_- when I spotted that the itinerary was full with snorkeling. Hey why lar I want more free and easy time for photoshooting! Well, that was the best excuse I could think of, heh, the fact is that, I can't swim and I am fear of brine as a result of not being allowed to learn swimming since young as another rule of the family.

I only slept for 3 hours after work before I headed to Lai Seng's house to meet the rest of them up to head to the airport in cabs. Earlier they decided to go to Kota Bahru by bus, and I had been shouting NO WAY, it gonna take us many hours to reach there, seriously, I don't want to torture my ass lar wuey! Thanks to AirAsia's low fares domestic flight, we got the fare that is even lower than bus fare according to Catherine the organiser!

In the flight

Arrived at Kota Bahru Airport

PRotographer wannabe

It was like less than an hour to arrive Kota Bahru airport. The drivers were welcoming us there, and then sent us to Kuala Besut jetty in two vans. Another hour gone on road trip to the jetty. Followed by another hour of boat trip to Perhentian Island. So it was like 4 hours spent in travelling by the cab, flight, van, and boat.

Busy shooting photos

Dirty brine that near to the jetty!

There we go!

Nice sea view

Boat splash

Finally, we arrived Perhentian Island! We quickly check-in at the chalet, and got our clothes changed, ready for the snorkeling tour! We were then been introduced to the tour guides, AhLong the Malay guy who can speak Mandarin, Army the friendly one, Wendy the naughty one, and Boatman the cool one. Perhentian Island has really poor air circulation, it's making you stuffy the whole day.

We are reaching Perhentian Island!

Nice corals

Coral in the see tru brine

See to believe the lucidity of the brine

Nice view

Right after lunch that provided with our package, we were leaded by a tour guide and a boatman to several snorkeling spots, to visit the sharks, baby sharks, corals, turtles, nemo, etc. If I am not mistaken, there were six spots in total, I can't remember the exact amount heh... In case you don't know, I couldn't swim. So I was quite reluctant to jump into the water in the first place, but after all it is a snorkeling trip, I would have to be the cameraman if I don't join all of them. Ended up due to the peer pressure, I took a deep breath and jumped into the water from the boat. Well, shame on me, I hold the lifesaver at the first snorkeling spot! LMAO! Hey come on, this is the first time I really "swimming", and yet it is in the middle of the sea, so deep wuey! Nervous you know! Hahah! I know I am lame, stop laughing wuey! At the second snorkeling spot, well the tour guide saw that I was a bit panic but with passion to try it out, so he had been very kind to guide me by holding my hand, again, shame shame shame on Steve Kwok!!! But guess what, from the third snorkeling spot onwards, I managed to do it well by myself! *Proud* Hahaha! I did it better than few of the rest who couldn't swim! Neither lifesaver nor tour guide's aid required anymore! I still haven't get the photos taken during snorkeling as they are still in Jesslyn's camera, wonder when will she send them to me.

We headed back to the chalet in the evening. Spared some time to play beach volleyball before shower. Got my hands full with bruises during the game, painful yet joyful game! After shower, I walked alone on the beach to take some photos of the nice view, while waiting for the buffet dinner to be ready. It sounds so sad to walk alone on the beach? Haha, kind of true. It's not only that you can see in the movie, but in fact in real life, it's true that you will think a lots when walking alone on the beach, and recall a lots of memories, be it sweet or bitter.

Beach view in dusk

In the night, we went to a bar nearby for drinks. We have nothing better to do there other than playing card games. Most of them did not talk much, hmm, I don't know how to describe it but well, they are not too talkative, probably because not everyone knew each other there, few of them are my ex-colleagues' friends. Luckily, I have joined their outings from time to time, so I know most of their friends as well. So, in order to make the night a lil bit more happening, I had really spoke so much. You know, there must be someone to lead the conversations, the games, and when there isn't anyone willing to do that, you'd have to do it if you don't want it to be too dull. We spared like 2 hours there before we called it a day.

Arwana @ Perhentian Island

Food Court @ Beach

Cafe @ Beach

Bar @ Beach

On the second day, some of us woke up early and went for a beach soccer before breakfast. And guess what, I got my toe injured in the game! And we were supposed to snorkel at the baby shark's spot! In case you're not aware, sharks are sensitive to the smell of blood. Once they detect blood in the water, they will appear instantly and devour the party in a really ruthless way, you should have heard of how painful it could be, no? But I was kinda lucky, according to the tour guides, baby sharks don't bite, so I am safe to snorkel at the spot! Phew! Immediately after the breakfast, we headed to Redang Island.

Water flower by boat splash

Heading to Redang

Getting ready to snap some shots

The people

Getting myself a wound is the trick how I attracted the sharks during snorkeling! Never try this unless you're experienced like me! Wahahaha!

Redang Island

Redang Lagoon Chalet

The food court

The people on the beach

Nice view

Beach view in Nikon shot by Steve

Beach view in Canon shot by Yng Sheng

Do I look pro? xD

Summer More More Tea souvenir shop

In the afternoon, we were transferred to Lang Tengah Island for our lunch and then another round of snorkeling at Marine Park. It is nothing more than snorkeling you see. If I didn't join them a day before, wondering what should I do during the entire trip, lol!

Arrived at Lang Tengah Island

Carols spell my name! -> C Y

Fishes @ Marine Park

Mei Ying & Yng Sheng @ Marine Park

In the night, Army brought us to a cafe nearby for drinks. It was a boring nite, cos there were too many strangers sitting with us, the boss of the cafe, Army, Boatman, and Wendy. And all of them were busy entertaining the girls! WTH! Haha! Apparently the guys were left aside, poor thing!

On the last day of the trip, we woke up early in the morning to pack our luggages and had our breakfast settled at 7:30am, as we were scheduled to leave the island at 8am, so that Khai Ying manages to catch her flight as this girl booked the early flight to Singapore.

Just love this shot

The beach boy wanna be

Group picture before saying goodbye to the islands

Arrived at the jetty in an hour and quickly ran to get some coconut drinks as we were so thirsty, you know, the weather has been really really hot! Spotted the coconut shake there that I only found in Thailand! It can never been found in all the states I've been to, Johore, Negeri Sembilan, Malacca, KL, Selangor, Perak, Penang, Pahang, but it's sold here in Kelantan! And with the dirt cheap price, RM1.50! So, immediately I got myself a coconut shake and another coconut drink.

Arrived at Kuala Besut jetty

In love with coconut shake!

Right after that, we were transferred to Catherine's home (yea Kota Bahru is her hometown) in van. We stayed there for like an hour, visiting her house and her family, and also tried out the nice keropok named Keropok Sira Mas Madu produced only in Kelantan. After that, we went out for beef noodles soup lunch in the town. According to Catherine, it is the best in the town that she ever tasted, a must try beef noodles soup. Yea it was indeed a nice one, but still, no compete to the one in Segamat. Hey no kidding, I am serious, you guys should try the Beef Noodles Soup stall in the obsoleted bus stop in Segamat. Believe me, it is the best in Malaysia! Even the famous one in Tangkak is no compete to this one. Simply because Segamat's location is too far away from highway, compared to Tangkak, that's why the Tangkak one is so damn famous, Singaporeans love to drop by to have their lunch on their way to/from KL. And that's why, their soup is not so thick, less beef, and more pricey. Try the one in Segamat before you judge! Free advertisement for them, I don't charge. xD

Beef Noodles Soup lunch @ Kota Bahru

Nice beef noodles soup but it's still no compete to the one in Segamat!

Pirated DVD sales girls!?

After the lunch, we have a city tour in Kota Bahru, and also visited the Duty Free Thai Market. The weather was killing us, really beh-tahan-lar wuey! Spoilt the tour mood you know. I don't even feel like shopping in that damn hot Thai Market! Guess what, we spotted a Chinese temple with something looks like an onion beside. Ops, the onion-alike thingy is a muslim mosque! And WTH why are them combined into one? Haha, the trick is that, this is a Chinese Muslim Mosque! There are hell a lots of Chinese in Kelantan are Muslims. Yes, Malay and Chinese are really close to each other in Kelantan, not like our racism KL. Ops, I don't mean all the Malays here. My bad, to avoid offending the inculpable Malays in KL, I will rephrase my words. At least Malays in Kelantan treat Chinese as friend, and they will never show a KERIS to the Chinese. They respect each other, salute! Yes, it is 21st century and people here are highly educated and civilised, so those blinkered one please reform yourself in order to be accepted by the public! This is no more Samurai generation, "Samurai-X" anime is fabled and do not apply the characters in real life please, the country needs great minds but not great fists! Enough of flaming, I didn't mean it, but yes, it is really irritating when you thought of it all of a sudden. Aiks, forget it! Doing so doesn't help anyway.

The street @ Kota Bahru Town

Kota Bahru Town

The two PUTERI LILINs!

Little Duty Free Thai Market @ Kelantan

Passing through the custom after visited the duty free zone

Chinese Muslim Mosque in Kelantan

In the evening, we went to dinner at a ulu place, not sure about its name but the restaurant name is "Cheang Mai Restaurant". There was another one named "Bangkok Restaurant" nearby, but they said "Bangkok is in a chaos now so we better dine in Cheang Mai". LMAO, nonsense! Some of them have departed to KL and Singapore. There were eight of us left in the town, and we ordered 8 dishes! Hahaha! Simply because those are the local delights, and they are dirt dirt dirt cheap! Yes, as usual they are cheap if you compare its price with city like KL.

Thai food dinner @ Cheang Mai Restaurant

After the dinner, we headed to the airport to catch our flight that departing at 10pm. Goodbye to the islands, and also Kelantan the peaceful city.

Heat kills

2009-04-27T10:21:00.002+08:00

I am kind of emo recently, for no reason, a small matter could either make my day or bring me down, probably because of the freaking hot weather here in KL?

It was so hot few days before my trip to Redang Island. And it was terribly hot during the trip. Anyway thanks to the sun, I love my tanned skin. Wondering how long will it last? However, I hate the weird tan shades left by the sunglasses! It makes my face looks so weird! And btw I'll only update the blog with the pictures taken in Redang Island next weekend, not in mood to upload pictures yet. And I am still waiting for the snorkeling pictures in Jesslyn's camera.

It has been so many days without rain, started to miss the smell of downpour, started to miss those days that walking on the street and got spattered with raindrops, that was happened almost everyday some time ago, and yea, I did complain that it happened too frequent, heh!

I decided to go for a portable air conditioner unit next month so that I don't have to sweat in the nite. Setting up a split air conditioner unit in my room is way cheaper but too troublesome as I might move out anytime, I mean it's not my own house anyway. I saw a quite tempting one in Sogo the other day when shopping with my colleagues during lunch break to get a wedding gift for another colleague. It is cool, love it. But pricy, RM1.6k. And I have read from Lowyat forum that it is not so powerful. Seriously need to do some research to see if it's worth its price. Need it desperately, dying of the heat in my room!

Added this item into my wanted list, sigh I have so many items in list. It's killing my saving! Wondering when will I become a wise spender? Everytime when I have extra money I'll seek for something to buy, somewhere to travel, aiks! And this month even worse, I have overspent so much, yet I am so into the Tai Pei trip! Luckily everyone wanted it to be next year, ok cool then. =)

Opssss... Out of topic! Well, the only thing I want to express in this post is that, I REALLY HATE THE HEAT! How I wish I can fly to a winter country now so that I can get rid of this terribly hot weather!

Fingers crossed, praying hard for a downpour...

"God our heavenly Father, through your Son you promised to those seeking first your kingdom and your righteousness all things necessary for bodily welfare: send us, we pray, in this time of need, rain to water the earth, especially here in KL, that we may receive its produce to strengthen and sustain us and always praise you for your bounty. O Lord, please guide and bless your people, that we may enjoy the nature and give you thanks with grateful hearts, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

I miss you again

2009-04-24T15:03:00.008+08:00

Time flies, it's another 24th of April. Though he has left us for 2 years, though slowly everyone forgot about this special date. But to me, it's carved on my heart, never ever will be forgotten, never! His greatness will never be left out in my memory, never! It's a scar on my heart, that he left to heaven. It's a wound that outbreaks on today of every year. Yes, my heart is bleeding again...

My blog's background music will be changed to the song that we sang during his funeral. It is a Christian song in Hokkien dialect. Like it or not, I'll leave it there for 5 days, just like 2 years ago, that we sang him the same song for 5 continuous days.

Today, my heart can never smile like the way my face does... No matter how hard I tried...

I miss you again, Yeh-Yeh! My beloved Grandfather...

Yeh-Yeh @ Segamat, Year 2005

Yeh-Yeh @ Perth, Year 2003

Contradiction

2009-04-13T14:33:00.010+08:00

Life is always full with contradictions. It depends on how you judge things, sometimes there is no excellent solution for a matter, but just the best fit one. I hate coming to this point, but that's life, up and down, left or right?

The story began with a silly mistake in the work, I found that we have some hardcorded links in the main page of the application. Everytime when we migrating the codes to another server (such as testing server, staging server, production server), instead of moving the files straight, we have to make amendment on few of the files manually in each server, which is absolutely unwise you see.

The 3.5 years of experience in IT software technical field told me that the best code in the world doesn't come with hardcoded values, not even once. From the past experience in the profession, yes I have to agree, both theorically and practically. But when it comes to making decision, I am not the one yet, the only thing I can do is just propose the solution which I believe can help in improving the quality of work.

In this case, my major concern was how much extra effort required to change the code in each server manually. Yes, you don't feel the pain when you are not the one who are going to do that. I wasn't the one who will need to do this but I proposed my solution still, apparently I was too busybody, agree? If yes, then you're SO WRONG! You see, my point was to reduce the effort of the team when doing codes migration. Also, manual works can cause more problems in my very humble opinion.

The proposed solution is that, storing all the links in a configuration file and the main file will always refer to this configuration file. From the view of files migration process, it makes our lives easier, the config file should be the same all the times, while the main file can be changed over and over and being migrated across all the servers without manual effort required (to change the URL link in the main file). The solution sounds cool isn't it? xD

On the other hand, the application will need to load two files, the main one and the configuration file. Performance wise, it is not a good idea. So, the contradicting point here is, if you want performance, let go the best practise, or vice versa. Having said that, I do not agree with this point. I mean, yes there are two files to be loaded in this case. But believe me, the config file will only consume small capacity, usually 1-2KB.

If I were given a chance to decide, I will go for best practise. I will ensure my application is a quality one, easy customisation yet requires minimum human effort, compare to just a little bit more bandwidth to run two files instead of one.

But still, the decision was to go for performance. Disappointed? Nah, not really. As long as I have done my part to propose the solution, I respect the decision. Well, theory is only applied during exam. In a commercial world, no one really give you a damn on quality codes. As long as it works with better performance, that's the best solution. I felt like I am just a fool that following the so-called best practise. *Sigh* Now I learnt.

If you are someone who are experienced in IT software technical field, which one will you go for? Share me your thought if you don't mind. But again, I expect no comment for this post, just like the rest of my posts.

Cadbury HROL Team Building Dinner

2009-04-03T17:17:00.015+08:00

It has been a while since I last dressed up formally after working nite shift as there won't be any client gatecrashing the office in the nite. I have got used to go to office in tee shirt, short pants, slipper, with spectacles and messy hairstyle. Last nite, it was another team building dinner at Lemon Garden Cafe @ Shangri-la Hotel as we have two guests, Marius from Belgium, and Scott from America. To show my respect to the guests, I have dressed up in fomal last nite. It was also the prelude to dress in formal next week onwards as I will switch back to the normal shift. Felt so uneasy to look so formal in the late nite with the exhausted body.

Cadbury HR Online Keychain

Shangri-la Hotel

Cut the crap of formal dressing stories, met up with Ernest at about 6:30pm and headed to KL after that. The dinner supposed to start at 7pm but we only arrived at about 7:20pm, and felt so sorry as everyone was there waiting for two of us. We had an introduction session before the dinner. I have ordered a Blue Sapphire Cocktail before we started hunting for food.

Lemon Garden Cafe @ KL Shangri-la Hotel

Plain water in bokeh effect

Blue Sapphire Cocktail

The ambience

Chinese cuisine

Italian cuisine

Japanese cuisine

Desserts

Chocolate fountains

The food was so-so only, doesn't worth the extra kilos gained at all. And I did not have good appetite on that nite. So I only had 3 rounds, Chinese cuisine as appetizer, Italian cuisine as main course, and ice-cream as dessert. Oh yea, I had the chocolate dipped strawberries and marshmallows as well.

First round, Chinese cuisine as appetizer

Second round, Italian cuisine as main course

Third round, ice-cream as dessert

Those who were there for the buffet dinner are Marius, Scott, Jorge, Sok Heng, Meng Keong, Nicholas, Adilah, Hsia Liang, Wei Xhen, Kit Mun, Yan Yan, Teddy, Kai Lee, Ernest, and Steve.

Ernest, my new Nikon DSLR mate who just got a D60!

The guests, Marius from Belgium, and Scott from America

Dining mates

Cadbury HR Online team

The dinner ended at about 10pm, and those of us who are working nite shift headed to the office to kickoff another working day. It has been a really tiring nite for us, with a full stomach and insufficient sleeping hours. However, it was a worthwhile dining tryout I'd say.

Weekend

2009-03-31T02:32:00.028+08:00

If you think I am lazy to update my blog, you're very wrong, scroll down and you'll see I have transferred the posts from my old blog to here, with some major modification, most of the posts in my old blog were text based, and I've make my effort into conversion from text to images! xD

Well, last Saturday I was suppose to meet up Albert Wai who should have came to KL from JB. But Friday evening he SMS me to call off the trip to KL. So, as usual, after the nite shift work, I slept from 9:30am to 5:30pm, and woke up to get ready for the dinner with LKW gang. Wondering why everytime when they have outing plan for me and if I have another plan already, the other plan will automatically called off, probably it was fated for me to join them more frequent, yes they are nice to mix with.

Left home at 7:30pm and arrived Soho KL at about 8:00pm. Vincent, Wilson, and Grace were waiting for the rest at Starbucks opposite the restaurant, Ole-Ole Bali. The first thing I spotted when I arrived was that Grace was busy capturing pictures with her new Lumix semi pro digital camera. This girl looked so excited with her new so-called baby Lumix. We shifted to Ole-Ole Bali restaurant after that when there were finally seats for us. We have ordered a lot of food, which we couldn't finished them. Those who were there are Steve, Wilson, Vincent, Peter, Grace, Munyee, Cheryl, Debbie, KT, Siong, and Kam Wai.

Ole-Ole Bali

Dining mates

Click on the picture to enlarge it as this is the only photo you can see Grace's teeth xD

Dining mates again

Steve Kwok & Wilson Law

The view

At about 10pm++, party hours, so we decided to go for second round. Wilson suggested to go to Bamboo Club at TTDI Plaza. Headed to this club but then it was not so happening, so Grace suggested to go to Phuture Club. To be frank, I did not want a heavy party for that nite as I was kinda tired, but I chose to follow the majority. There we go! Another round of sardin-packing, as usual it was so damn crowded!

Velvet

Party people

Steve Kwok in pose no. 1

Steve Kwok in pose no. 2

Wilson, Ivan, Steve, Peter

Wilson & Grace, so sweet!

We have stayed there from 11pm to 3am, and then went for supper at a mamak nearby. So, we talked nonsense for 1 hour plus. All of them agreed that I should head to JB straight after supper. So, again I followed the majority. Went back to home for a shower and packing, and then headed down to Senai for an adhoc trip at 5:30am, to meet up with my family members.

My initial plan was to join the family gathering, better late than never. And then pay respect to my grandparent. After that, meet up my friends and buddies for some drinks in the afternoon, and go into Singapore after dinner, to meet up another gang of buddies, sightseeing, and also photo shooting. Then go to shopping in Singapore on the second day. Meet up with Debbie and her friend, before heading back to KL. But guess what? I couldn't make it, because I have left out my passport!!!!!! WTH!?! Just too bad. By the time I realised that I did not bring along my passport, I was already at Pagoh highway, somewhere in Johore, nearby Muar. So I played the song "Apologise" by Timbaland, and sang it in my own way, "It's too late to make a U-turn, it too late... I said it's too late to make a U-turn, it's too late...". Felt like falling down from the top of the hill, God damn it!

Reached Sofitel Palm Resort, Senai at 8:15am. It is located nearby Senai Airport. Right before I reached, I gave my dad a call to double confirm the path to take, and he was so worried about me as he always don't want me to drive alone for long hours. Sorry dad, I didn't mean to make you worry, my bad! The family members were having buffet breakfast by the time I reached. Most of them were surprised to see me there as earlier I have told them I cannot make it for the family gathering.

I sat down for the breakfast with the family, and then went to my parent's room for a nap. After 15 minutes, my mummy came in and told me that everyone is moving out and gonna check out then head to Nirvana Memorial Park to pay respect to my grandparent. So I was like WTH? It is only 9.15am, I was told we will only leave at 10:00am to 10:30am, I want to SLEEP lar mum! To avoid being nagged, I woke up and changed my clothes, and then went to the lobby to see what can I help.

The buffet breakfast @ Sofitel Palm Resort

The dessert @ Sofitel Palm Resort

The corridor @ Sofitel Palm Resort

The room @ Sofitel Palm Resort

Met Uncle Roger Kwok and auntie Catherine at the lobby, they were glad to announce that our next family trip will be in China during Christmas 2009! The best thing is Uncle Roger Kwok gonna sponsor the young generation some allowance for the trip, haha! Thanks for the offer Uncle Roger, love you so much!

As predicted, everyone was ready at 10:30am. I have then became one of the drivers to fetch the family. Arrived Nirvana Memorial Park at about 11am. It was again mixture of Buddhist and Christian styles of obeisance. Simply because there are family members from both religions, and we respect each other. We sang the song that played during Nai-Nai's funeral, "Amazing Grace", and also the song played during Ye-Ye's funeral, "Hold My Hand". As usual, guided by the Feng-Shui master, we followed the Chinese rules, burnt the papar made household supplies, and also lighted firecrackers.

Grandparent's grave

Getting ready to pay respect to grandparent

In Buddhist style

In Christian style (Video clip)

Stayed there until 1:00pm, and then headed to the town of Senai for our lunch. Again, it was the same restaurant again! Wondering how much commission this restaurant offering to the Feng-Shui master that guided us there. To be frank I don't really like the Feng-Shui master, but he is Uncle Roger's favourite Feng-Shui sifu, what to do? Two years ago, it was a rainy day when we were paying respect to the grandparent, he told us that it was a good sign, "Fong Shan Sui Qi" in Mandarin, means something like great wealth to the descendant. But I don't see big increment in both investment and salary. xD

Family lunch

After the lunch, the family gathering dismissed and everyone went back. And I have then headed to JB town to meet up with my buddies, Danny Pang, Nick Chai, Raymond Teh, and David Yew. They were having lunch at Angsana by the time I reached. After lunch, Raymond Teh went back to Segamat while David Yew went back to KL. So, together with the two new Nikon DSLR members, Danny Pang and Nick Chai, we headed to Danga Bay for photoshooting. As we were talking about the bokeh photography, we were so excited that decided to go and try out some lenses at Angsana Plaza. Played around with all the accessories as the promoter was kind enough to allow us to do so. Plug in the external flash, it doesn't look fit into the D60 body, sort of alien look, the flash is too big for D60. Finally, got my Nikon DSLR camera a new wife, the Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D lens, which was recommended by Danny Pang before I came to JB. Just love its bokeh technology!

Headed to Danga Bay to try shooting photo with bokeh effect

Went to a shop in Angsana Plaza to check out the better bokeh lenses

Trying out the Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D lens

Bought this Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D lens that highly recommended by Danny before I came to JB

Trying out the new lens in car

In love with bokeh effect!

Reached Danny Pang's house at Johore Jaya at 7:00pm, was freaking tired and quickly went to bed! Took 1 hour nap before I wake up to prepare for the dinner. Went out at about 9pm plus to fetch Stella Yap from Taman Daya for a tea at Austin Heights. It has been like 1.5 year since I last met her, in KL. Guess what, she was in a very funny myopy-less spectacles that nite, hah!

It has been like 1.5 year since I last met this girl

Danny's bokeh shot failed! Haha, because the background objects are too close to the focused object

Steve Kwok in Stella's funny spectacles

After that, we sent her back to Taman Daya and headed down to Taman Pelangi for second round with Mandy Low. Never know she has moved to Taman Perling from Taman Pelangi. Last met her in KL few months back. This girl gonna seek for new job in KL soon, so probably we will meet in KL again later then.

Now you see the effect of bokeh lens? It was my shot ok! xD

Nice bokeh shot by Danny Pang

At about 1:00am, we decided to call it a day. I was so damn tired, if you are awared, I have only slept for 1 hour from Saturday evening 6pm to Monday early morning 1am! Rushed back to Danny Pang house and quickly jumped into the blanket!

Second day, woke up at about 11am, went to lunch with Danny Pang and Albert Wai before I go back to KL. Albert Wai told me that his wife's aunty, which is my hairstylist, Lisa, has just passed away few days back. OMG! Life is short, so make sure you do whatever you wanted to do as soon as possible.

After the lunch, headed back to KL from JB. Goodbye JB! It was raining heavily while I was on my way back. It was a really tiring trip. Reached home at 5pm something, quickly went for another nap before preparing to work at 11pm.

That's basically how my weekend gone.

Neway Karaoke Niteout

2009-03-16T14:44:00.011+08:00

This is the third weekend that I have been mixing with the same gang of friends, the LKW mates! Haha, thanks to Terry Tow and the gang who FFK! Coincidentally, my k-addiction (k stands for karaoke) was outbreaking, so that's what made me decided to join the k-bash at the very last minute!

The food

The early birds

Steve Kwok the late comer, and Debbie

Didn't realise that I posed so gay! *sweat*

Picking my favourite songs while Siong was rapping

It's finally my turn to sing!

Siong, Steve, and Peter

LKW mates

LKW mates again

Steve & Wilson, the Segamat boys

Wilson in a very silly pose!

Video capturing!

Had great fun again with the gang, but I did not sing much, thanks to Debbie the queue jumper! LoLz! Had a drink at Center Point after that. By the time I reached home, it's already early morning. It was indeed a good practise to train myself for the night shift in the coming weeks! xD

Lastly, a video clip of Debbie singing... She was so high that nite!

Inspiration

2009-03-09T16:20:00.005+08:00

You know what, when I was young, when I was in college, I always feel like going for dance classes. But due to the massive assignments, and also, no one from my class is interested. IT students are more to, erm, geek. They usually have less passion towards outings, fashion, or parties, etc. Even when it comes to work, I mean technical team doesn't have to face the clients all the times, so they don't really invest much time and money on their attire or look. Yes, that's all about IT people, ops I meant most of the IT people.

I always regret about putting too much effort in study few years back. I took extra subject every semester simply because I wanted to graduate 8 months earlier than my batch. I wanted to start working life earlier, to me, I have advantage to the people that come in later. I wanted to secure a better career path.

Today, when I look backward, I could see that I have missed out a lot of fun at young age. Most of my time spent are with my computer, which I believe I can still have their company now, or even at my older age. But interests like dancing is impossible to go ahead anymore, because, I am old. *Sigh*

In fact, I was inspired by a MTV by Show Luo. Ok, now let's watch it! Observe the dance move, I just love it. And for all the guys out there, watch the lyric, and get inspired. Throw away your jerseys, get hot! Hahahaha! I am sometimes insane, ignore my last sentence k!

p/s: I do not mean to flame anyone for their clothing style or whatever, just a simple inspiration when I watch this MTV. No offend, no hard feeling to the geeks out there k!