I think I'm reaching my max mentally today.....

Came 6.30pm earlier, I was like totally zonked....

Though I was physically at my desk, mentally and emotionally I was emptied... We called it screen saver or hibernation mode in the dept....

I packed my bag, and left about 7pm.... I thought to myself, maybe a short stroll at Cold Storage may help to wake me up.... I think I need to eat, I need food, I need energy !!....

After a short stroll, I walked the usual route, out of Valley Point, towards my 'Budget Terminal' carpark, a short 10mins walk away....

While walking, my mind was thinking hard...What to eat?... Where to eat?.. Where to go after that?... Go home?.. Go shopping?... Go clubbing?... But nothing came through, I was in a state of 'blankness '....

But the time I reached the carpark, it was as though someone just flick a switch in me ...
"Why did I park my car ah?....."
"....???????"
"...SHit !!?!?.... where the F^%&* is my car?!!....."

For a couple of seconds, I was stunned !!!.... A little panicky .....

Then it all came back.....

My car was parked at my office basement since morning.... SHIT !!

I laughed at myself silly....

From there, I walked all the way back to Valley Point ..... like a 'tot' once more...wondering aloud how much will the parking fees will be....

My IU beeped $11 when I finally drove out....

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I wondered if this is the reason why I'm so shag since the weekend....

Mentally, I was looking forward to my Live On Board dive this weekend....

My first full swing dive this year....

It was meticulously planned and coordinated...

I was very excited about it....

But.... a recent global pandemic and a possible in-house contamination, I had to make the hard decision.... to call off the dive...

It was such a disappointment.... (maybe an understatement to say the least...)
It was a trip that took a couple of months to plan...

I could have push through and go ahead for the dive this weekend, but I cannot live with the guilt of infecting others IF I am infected...

The shitty fact was, I won't know until at least 4 days later or so... In fact, the symptoms may not even present itself in full glory now !!!.... It was agonizing...

If I waited for 4 days or so, it would be too late to inform the dive operator and risk having to pay a penalty for a last minute no-show... I was not ready to throw $450 away for a delay reaction...

So last Fri, I had to make the tough decision to pull myself and my dive buddy off the list, 7 days before the dive....
My buddy won't dive without me. If I go, she goes. If I don't, neither would she....
She too had made all the arrangements for the dive this weekend....

I suppose since last Fri, slowly but surely, the difficult decision I had made, kind of eats into me....

I wonder when can I find another window period for a dive anytime soon....

Tut tut....

Damn !!!....
I was locked out of my office for 15mins during lunch time !!!

The class I was covering ended late, everyone in office left for lunch....

I did not carry my access pass, mobile or wallet.... With my hands full of charts, files, notes and a stupid bottle Cif, I was left standing outside my glass door like a 'tut' for 15mins....

Very embarrassing siah !!....

Lucky for me, cleaning auntie came to my rescue when she turned up to clean our office... She has the pass too and she opened the door...

Fortunately, a very 'homely' Assam Fish Curry lunch at 495 made my day !!!

I concluded, rice calms me down...

Donuts Rodeo

This is COOL !!!....

Twin Donuts

Gosh !!!!
I missed all these action at Changi !!!

Mad Swine on the Run 2 !!!

S'pore confirms 34 new cases of H1N1, total tally now at 1,003
Posted: 04 July 2009 1749 hrs CNA

SINGAPORE: Singapore has confirmed 34 new cases of H11 flu, bringing the total to 1,003 so far.

According to Singapore's Health Ministry, investigations are ongoing for 69 cases.

Of the 62 cases investigated on Saturday, there were 39 local cases and 23 imported cases.

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A few days ago I estimated we may take 2 weeks to breach the 1000 mark, it took only 3 days !!
The report states that 69 case are ongoing.... I hope not to add on to that list.

Latest instruction from MoH, no need to do self quarantine after coming back from countries with H1N1. I was happy to hear that !!
Fact now is, the virus is spreading so fast locally, it does not make sense anymore to do the mandatory 7 days self-quarantine. Waste of time and economical sense.
So it is a case of self monitoring for symptoms. If symptoms develop, go see a PPC clinic, grab MC and chill out at home lor.... Clean & nice process !

What a WhooHa...

Spend the whole evening out earlier....

It was more like a week long celebration of our wedding anniversary. Last week's party started on Friday at Greenwood, earlier we were at Pasir Panjang Village, to continue our celebration...

Our dining experience at Whooha Cafe was a pleasant one. Cleo had Teriyaki Chicken while I had a Baby Back Ribs, a serving of escargot and all washed down with a bottle of Chilean cab-sag... We love the service there and most likely we will we go back there someday soon...

Before going home, we made a detour to the Henderson Wave bridge, via Mt Faber.
Opened by PM Lee in May last year, this was out first to the famous Southern Ridges' Henderson Wave Bridge.

I can see this bridge from one of my training rooms, and for the first time, we finally made our way up there, like past 10 pm in the evening... It was NICE & windy !!!

After spending close to an hour on the bridge, which was surprisingly quite crowded, we had coffee at Mc West Coast before heading home....

While siping coffee, we got attracted to some lizards in the wall outside, stucked all over the walls at Mc... They were feeding.

One smaller lizard was going after a moth, while another just stayed stuck on the wall, waiting for his/her prey to land within striking distance.

The smaller one had 2 catches, it was active and going after its target. After landed 2 catches, it moved away.
The other bigger one, stood very still....waiting

By the time we left, most of the other smaller ones had a catch or two, this big one just stood still.... still waiting for its catch to appear in front of its face..

This lizard scene reminded me of the poster I have in my office....

Some Make Things Happen...
Some Wait For Things to Happen...
Some Still Wondering What is happening....

Sexy girl playing prank on a guy

两边不到岸。。。

Be Response-able

While reading Anna Lim's blog, I chanced upon this local rendition of Steven Covey's best seller, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

What caught my eyes again from her blog was Habit No 1 : Be Pro-Active Kin Ka Kin Chew (fast leg fast hand) 积极主动


And I was also linked to his site, and I quote from Steven Covey's site the following excerpts:


Habit 1 : Be Proactive Your life doesn't just "happen."
Whether you know it or not, it is carefully designed by you.
The choices, after all, are yours.

You choose happiness. you choose sadness. you choose decisiveness. You choose ambivalence. You choose success. You choose failure. You choose courage. You choose fear.
Just remember that every moment, every situation, provides a new choice.
And in doing so, it gives you a perfect opportunity to do things differently to produce more positive results.


Habit 1: Be Proactive is about taking responsibility for your life.
You can't keep blaming everything on your parents or grandparents.
Proactive people recognize that they are "response-able."


They don't blame genetics, circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior.
They know they choose their behavior.

Reactive people, on the other hand, are often affected by their physical environment. They find external sources to blame for their behavior. If the weather is good, they feel good. If it isn't, it affects their attitude and performance, and they blame the weather. All of these external forces act as stimuli that we respond to.

Between the stimulus and the response is your greatest power--you have the freedom to choose your response. one of the most important things you choose is what you say.

Your language is a good indicator of how you see yourself.

A proactive person uses proactive language--I can, I will, I prefer, etc. A reactive person uses reactive language--I can't, I have to, if only. Reactive people believe they are not responsible for what they say and do--they have no choice.

Instead of reacting to or worrying about conditions over which they have little or no control, proactive people focus their time and energy on things they can control. The problems, challenges, and opportunities we face fall into two areas--Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence.

Proactive people focus their efforts on their Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about: health, children, problems at work.

Reactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern--things over which they have little or no control: the national debt, terrorism, the weather.

Gaining an awareness of the areas in which we expend our energies in is a giant step in becoming proactive.

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Looking back, Habit One is so-so true !!!....
I recalled sharing a somewhat similar topic in our dept meeting some months back. I learned about the 3 Circles. I learned it as Circle of Control, Circle of Influence and finally the outer greater ring, Circle of No Control...

We need to understand that God gave us all a choice.

We also need to wisdom to decide what is controllable, what can be influenced and leave the uncontrollable to God...
Ask for grace to accept what is uncontrollable.

Life is full of Choices...
A choice to decide what we like to do, behave or react to situation when it is presented before our daily lives....every moment of it.

A choice to react OR a choice to respond correctly....

The live we are now in, is the result of the decisions we have chosen.
Resulted in what we have, or have not done.

We have happy, its because of the decision we made earlier...
We are sad, it is also a decision (indecision) we made earlier...

So its a matter of choice. A choice of letting things happen 'at will' (by not 'responding right').... OR MAKE things happen, by making the RIGHT decisions....

A right mental attitude, fed with the right position choice of words is ever so important !!!

Therefore, I become what I think about.
The me I see, the me I will be...

Rubbish in, mental corruption begins, thus, rubbish out, in action and reactions...

I can ponder over this truth for hours.... but I'll leave it here.... will ponder over it and over again.....

Mad Swine on the Run !!!

H1N1 cases rise to 701 in Singapore
Posted: 30 June 2009 1951 hrs, CNA

SINGAPORE: Singapore has confirmed 72 new H1N1 flu cases, bringing the tally to 701 so far.

There is no need to run, no need to hide, fear not for IT is already here and spreading like wild fire...

I estimate in 2 weeks or less, we will breach the 1000 mark....
We may even break Thailand's head count too.... Thailand now 774 cases with no cases today.
( Can you believe Indonesia has only EIGHT cases and Malaysia has NIL so far ???... Data from MoH H1N1 Website 1st July 2009)

There is so much we can do... though not as lethal as it was first believed to be, but this is certainly more contagious than SARS...
It has mutated, evolved, its form and topical symptoms has appeared to be less obvious than before, therefore the person standing beside you, the toilet door handle, the lift buttons, etc could all be contaminated....

So How?....

Let's see what MoH is gonna say this time.....

All have to quarantine at home, at CDC or Aloha ??.... Or just wait and see lor....

We have tipped the containment phase, moving into mitigation phase... What happens when patients tipped the load at all GPs, Polyclinincs, hospitals and so on... I'm sure the ever so ready gahment will have loads of backup plan from A-Z.....

Then again... like the saying goes....
'If it is to be, it is up to me (to take care of myself), not PaP hor...'

Time to load up and fight with Vit C !!!

OR....

Just get the virus.... chill out for 7-14 days and develop the natural anti-body...

I Got Handed OVer First....

I know I have not been blogging for close to 2 weeks now....

Sometime, its kind of lame to keep putting up entries on complaints and all the negative shit here.... Especially things that happens in office.... A very sensitive issue..

Neither do I want to capture my frustrations on how H1N1 is managed in my work place and how it had inadvertently affected both my travel plans in July and Aug...

So I won't go down that line now.....

In the recent weeks, I've grown to love my Facebook all over again...
Maybe it is the interactiveness, and the kay-pohness to 'look into' the lives of the people that are my 'friends'....

At times, they will drop me a line or 2. Or like what I did, I took a dig at someone for his atrocious expression of English in his 'shoutbox'....

Normally, I would not be so mean, but this chap always thinks that his england is so right and so correct, most times out of pride, refused to be corrected.

Honestly, its non of my business if you like to be made a fool all the time, but I was just bored that day....

Did I said bored...?

Yes, my major projects for Q2 has been delivered. Feedbacks were good, trainees love it, my bosses like it... period.

Now I'm back to my routine programming... and looking forward to cover duties for my colleagues when needed...

Back to recent events.... Transformer 2, the big movie event that I was waiting for...

Saw it on the opening nite last week on the 24th. Almost could not get into the Plaza Sing, carpark was so damn full !....
Sat 2 on the 2nd row from screen... Everything was super big and in your face !! Can even see the pore marks on Sam !!!

Was a free event organised by the company, due to communication problems, we (our dept) almost sat on the front row !.... Anyways, that was their (HR) first movie event, hope they can get their act together the next time... Allow free seating, first come first serve....

It was a great show, great entertainment, great robot wars and hot babes... I cannot understand why ST, 8Days and that 938 DJ all slammed that show.... Probably all of them have not childhood.... Or its just a marketing ploy.... More slams, more attention, more people will watch?... I don't know what's in the movie critics' mind...

So last nite, yes , on Sunday nite, I took Cleo for Transformer 2 at GV Jurong Point. Great seats this time, 2nd from the back. Though I don't get to have Mikeala's boobs staring into my face all the time like the first, we had a great time !!!....

I'm not bored, no over-dose for 2 runs in a week !!! Its just that great an entertainment !!!

Eh !?!?!... Why am I bloggin now?....

12 years ago today.... I was at my best, so was Cleo in her finest wedding gown.....

We are taking a day's leave to chill out .... its our 12th Wedding Anniversary today !
(2 days shy of Hong Kong's Hand-over, same year in 1997... I got handed over first...)

Things you need to know about Chinese and Indian movies

Things You Need to Know About Chinese Swordsman Movies

1. Being the hero's parents will always be unlucky and will usually be killed by enemies when the hero is young, and the hero will become an orphan.

2. When a man is wounded and dying, he always manage to catch his breath and speak a few sentences to reveal the killer before dropping his head and declared dead.

3. Skilled people are able to fly over roof tops, up trees and across distances without any sweat. But when travelling to towns and villages, they still have to walk or ride horses.

4. The heroes need not have to work for money, but will always havegold and silvers with them to pay for their dishes.

5. The heroes and villains will meet each other very often no matter how big the country is and no matter where they are.

6. Healing internal wounds in the body is as easy as sitting downcross-legged, palms on the knees and smoke coming out from the head.

7. They can keep a lot of stuff in their sleeves and waistband and never drop them (carrying especially lots of those gold and silver ingots)



Things You Would Never Know Without Indian Movies

1. A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beatingbut will wince when a woman tries to cleanse his wounds.

2. The hero cannot fall in love with the heroine (vice versa) unless they first perform a dance number in the rain.

3. Once applied, make-up is permanent, in rain or in any other situation.

4. Two lovers can be dancing in the field and out of nowhere, 100people will appear from god-knows-where and join them in the dance.

5. In the final scene, the hero will discover that the bad guy who he is up against is actually his brother and the maid who looked after him is his mother and the chief inspector is his father and the Judge is his uncle and so forth.

6. Key English words used in the movie (usually said out loud between sentences) are No Problem!, My God!, Get Out!, Shut-up!,Impossible!, Please forgive me!

7. They drop down on the ground and roll and roll while singing andcome out with different clothing.

8. They can run around the coconut trees, singing, batting eyes-lid, and throwing glances at each other and change clothes all at the same time without being out of breath.

Contributed by my CDO this morning....

Day 1 of Ext. Class

Had a great day at the external course today !!

We talked about 'initiatives & enterprise'....

First murmur before the class started was...."Why send us for this course?... We no initiative and not enterprising enough is it?...."

Instead of an academic lesson, the trainer was able to lead the 15 of us to think, explore the finer points of being proactive in our work environment and personal lives.... We had games, brain teasers, discussions, presentations, etc.

As both ET and I are trainers, we felt the trainer did a good job !! At least we as trainer did not fall asleep... The subject was well covered and executed.

Though some the pointers shared are 'given' as its already part of my life now, to be able to see it in a structured and formalise manner is good.

I'm looking forward to Fri, the 2nd part already !!!..

A Good Week Ahead !

For the 1st time, I'll be send for a 2 day course this week, on Wed and Fri....

ET & I will be attending this course together. Though I find the subject not totally relevant to my line of work now, moving out for courses is a good break from the enclosed office environment.

This weekend, I've actually planned for a Dayang dive with Nancy, but she could not get a Sunday School replacement. So its no go till July....

With that, I can look forward to the IT fair this weekend, starting Thurs..... GREAT !!!


It's JD's 1 year with us today !!!