air voices

The speakers are on and a channel is tuned into, and because this is not a vacuum, molecules vibrate! The reader tries to make her verbal presentation sound enthusiastic, and interprets commas and full stops with a distinct two syllable rhythm. ‘Begitu,’ would sound a brief and flat ‘be’ a pronounced ‘gi,’ a short pause, and a sustained ‘tu’ as she exhales. And sometimes she injects in the expressions of ‘ah,’ ‘wah’ and the most irritating, ‘haaaa….,’ like, ‘you know, that’s it, like-that-la,’ = ‘haaaaaa…..’ Spastic!

eg. of a sentence: "...so, dengan begitu, mereka telah menyelesaikan masalah-masalahnya. Haaaa....begitulah cara-caranya...."

How could people actually endure such reading?! It is a beautiful language made ugly by young and trendy readers who try to do more than just comprehensible reading.

The lights that glitter above the roads made clean,
A march rehearsed, the tune begins;
If in all but darkness do colours agree,
Then there is much, unspoken within.

Jalur Gemilang

David's brand of patriotism fluttering in the office in every work cubicle. Semangat!

iBridge 2007

Camp

Venue: Cameron Highlands

Date: 13-16 Oct (Sat, Sun, Mon and Tue) - Mon is public holiday

Theme: “Help, I’m working soon!”

Cost: RM199 (excluding transportation)

Closing date: 30th September 2007

Registration Form here

For more details, please explore the links above. You can ask questions at ibridgecamp2007@gmail.com

dad and mei

On Saturday 18th August 2007.
MEFC building dedication day.

in good spirits

David, my boss has been generous lately. He felt like having doughnuts a few days ago and ordered for the whole office 2 boxes of them. Today, he has ice-cream on his mind and everyone would be having one soon. Tomorrow, it's KFC for lunch. The lunch tomorrow is his idea of a Merdeka celebration and he has given instructions to get each of us a miniature flag for our workstations. David must be inspired, somehow.

a drop of sadness

This dawns upon us and we know it is not un-happiness. It feels like sadness, if I'd learned the language well enough, and have correctly associated sadness to such feelings in the past. True, one does not feel happy when one is sad, but it amounts not to un-happiness. The absence of a feeling does not explain the feeling itself. Sadness with peace- a funeral feeling. Sadness with tears- also a funeral feeling. Sadness with laughter- a mad feeling. When disappointed, we feel sad. When betrayed, we feel sad. Humiliated, unappreciated, unloved, unresolved, hurt, unfulfilled, unnoticed, not understood, we feel sad. Sad is a big word made simple to explain what it cannot possibly can in just 3 letters. It is like holding a palm full of sand and asking a passer-by to see a beach in it. It is also like flying above the beach and asking the passenger next to you to look at the sand. Sad is multi-dimensional. But just a drop of it, I think I am just feeling nostalgic for now. How sad.

As-built plan

I was typing site minutes and the word ‘as-built’ plan caught my attention by surprise today. A common word, the contractor receives the building, structural, mechanical and electrical plans from the architect and respective engineers, builds the building according to the plans and at the end of the day, submits in an as-built plan to the consultants. These as-built plans are more for record purposes and they normally would contain many changes from the original construction drawings. The engineers’ copies are usually known as as-built operation manuals.

Changes to plans are inevitable, most of the time as people (clients) do change their mind as they can visualize better once construction takes place. Conditions on site also play a part as ground and existing structural/mechanical/electrical condition might be surprisingly different to what they present themselves to be. The architect or engineer might have a better proposal to certain areas once construction takes place to, and with the client’s approval, improvements can be made in the construction process. Changes and site problems do alter the original plans quite significantly at times, but they can be solved, and are fine (if the client does not get slapped with a large Variation of Order, or VO at the end of the day), but they have to be picked up to update the final drawing and manual.

An as-built plan is a testimony on record, and it serves well for additional or modifications to the existing in the future. As life builders, do we see an importance in having as-built records?

Introducing...

Friedbeef's Tech (http://www.friedbeef.com/)
by James Yeang.

We talked about fish, and mainly about fish when I first met James at I-Bridge camp, 2005. Then we joined the mafia and UNO sessions during the last night of the camp. Apart from tropical fish keeping, the winking game of mafia and the evolving UNO rules to comprehend, one would presume that James is an ordinary camper seeking God's will in the camp. Haha! Well, I guess he is, but there's more to it. Check out his blog for cool tips.

'Friedbeef's Tech is dedicated to solving everyday problems with simple technology.'

the weekends

Two days of the week which orbits freely from earth’s gravitational pull (physically measured as work) and gyrates itself freely into galaxies reachable within a 48-hour span.

Saturday evening…

It’s like a picnic, but it’s not. And it rocks la…imagine having a picnic in Carrefour… who’d think of it right? The randomness...as random as homer.

It was already passed 8pm. We had worship practice earlier on and had dinner in church. A movie would take up too much time. So, the three of us ended up sitting in the middle of a passageway, at the narrowest width of the layout of McDonald’s where the public used as an alternative to get in and out of McDonald’s, licking our ice-creams and drinking hot tea. We later went into Carrefour to get some light groceries.

It was already passed 10pm. We had between us, soft, fresh potato buns, rusk biscuits, original plain crackers, and some weird snaked-skinned Indonesian fruit. The foodcourt had its chairs stacked up, and picnic areas were not inscribed into the masterplan of Carrefour; the table stood there, in the middle of the passageway, waiting for us.

Rocks la!

Sunday evening…

The plan was conceived the previous night, at the spur of the moment. It would be quite an adventure, having lunch in KL, driving back home in time for tea, catching a short nap on a bed which I’d last slept on half a year ago, having some fried amphibian with ginger and spring onion for dinner and back to the Klang Valley to retire for the day. The purpose however, was to see mum and dad. It was nice, being able to be home on a laidback Sunday evening again.

Back into earth’s atmosphere.

Monday.

Work.

!

smashed!

Pic of David's car today, happened in broad daylight in front of the office before 6pm.

coffee + creamer

Something has just smog my lungs and my nose confirms its coffee. Black coffee smells great in coffee shops served in hairline-cracked porcelain cups on wet saucers, but in a small enclosed air-conditioned space like this office, this universally well-loved aroma nauseates me. There’s something thicker, more muffled, creamy, impure and blunt concerning the smell…creamer! It has to be that fine, white, fatty substance which overtones the smell of pure coffee with a dreary dairy stink! Who just made a cup of that?!

more than meets the eye

Tuesdays are TGV’s Ladies’ Night, a RM2 discount for ladies on any movie. So, with a complimentary pass and my sister with me, it would be RM7 for the two of us. That was quite a bargain.

It would be Mei’s second time watching Transformers, and although I suggested we watch Simpsons instead, she consented that we watch Transformers, and insisted on it. So, we went to TGV Cheras Selatan, which is probably the nearest TGV to Bukit Jalil, after Mines…it would be my first experience too, watching in a cinema where a year ago saw it as a conception on pieces of paper on my desk and as a 1.14GB file occupying my D: drive.

TGV Cheras Selatan. So we were there by 7.30pm. And as soon as I produced my pass, they issued two tickets and returned my complimentary one, which expires in 4 hours 30 mins from that time. The smell of some funny inside job conspiracy was repugnantly delightful though…haha. I wasn’t expecting it, but thanks, Mike!

My expectation of the movie was high. How can one not be, after being exposed to all the hype and influx of rave reviews from those around? My sister’s housemate even said that her girl friend is helplessly in love with Bumblebee. Now that was quite insane, but it does speak something about this Transformers which I was about to watch.

Entertaining, engaging in its machine-human relationship, realistic, well packed with action, pegged with humour, not devoid of dumb lines, and leaves one to wonder, now where have all the wreckers gone?

Sam: Wait, how do you know about the glasses?
Optimus Prime: eBay.

My expectations were a little too high. But a great movie, nonetheless…at any cost, well worth two free tickets!