...sue & daniel's wedding...

...the story of a pastor and a monk at a wedding...

was at a good frens wedding dinner yesterday in shangri-la hotel. food - absolutely delicious and service - extremely well. remembered what ron kauffman said, excellent product, excellent delivery and excellent mindset. this waiter in shangri-la who served our table has got an excellent mindset. dem cool guy.

suesan looks stunning in her white dress and also the maroon dress, while daniel looks superbly handsome in his suit. his bestman, alex was of no exception, with his gold tie.

the funniest thing that happened in that dinner was, suesan and daniel both are buddhist. the emcee, our fren also a buddhist was sitting on the table together with some christians. so, this guy from that table where my emcee fren was sitting ask our emcee fren if he is christian cos he was dressed like a pastor - turtleneck and black suit. my fren said, no..no. i am a buddhist. that guy apologised and felt abit paiseh. later, during the yam seng session, my good fren fred, who was sitting at our table put his hands up and cheers to sue and dan. and that christian guy who mistaken my fren as the pastor sort of like shouted out - oh my gawd, there is a monk yam seng with the new couple. ok, fred was tall, stunningly bald and with his shiny head and he wore a yellow shirt. from far when many people surrounds him and yam seng with the newly weds, fred does stands out among the crowd. he may pass as a monk. more reason for this christian guy to mistaken him as a monk.

so here we are, in a wedding dinner of sue and dan attended by a pastor and a monk who both happens to be our close fren. and of course they are not a pastor or a monk. (picture below)

congratulations to daniel and suesan. may you guys be blessed with good health, happiness, peace, lots of kids, prosperity and good people all around

...successful.challenging...

...i made a date with success one fine nite when success was abit down with failure. my encounter with success's failure analysis and my challenge took place in a small cafe just a few minutes from the bustling nite jam of one.u.

our supper analysis of challenge and failures in success, i think we might have hit some part of the jackpot and that for a small fraction of second i sense that success has found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

my session with success continued on a friday.nite. an encounter at a more expensive cafe in carry.four was quite cool as well. both of our dates this week ended till wee hour in the morning but surprisingly i was not sleepy the next day.

success and me, i think works great. failure is totally out of the story. and minus failure and challenges, things seems to be much easier. it is with the new couple failure and challenge that makes us realise what success means to us. embrace success and remember failure and challenge; witout them our life wont be meaningful.

...i am on pills...

...being able to go to pd and have sands between my toes was great experience. but being sent to pd to complete my requirements studies was disaster. so many parties involve in this project and so many people making decisions and giving suggestions. and these people just loves to suggest and suggest cos suggestions cost nothing. and their suggestions did not bring them to a higher level of respect but otherwise.

imagine a penolong.pengarah in btm.bhg.tek.maklumat in kementerian.defence giving me craps that database connection and database integration are the same thing and tht i dunno what is the similarity besides finding the common word of database in them both. but its good to have this lady.penolong.pengarah to oversee this project cos a blurr person makes us easier to control the users and not much hassle from her side to manipulate things and make it out of hand.

8 weeks project :: 1 week of requirements. 4 weeks of development. 2 weeks of training. 1 week of user acceptance. 1 fresh programmer. a 69 budget. client in pd. an hour plus of travelling. how am i gonna pull this off? no wonder i am taking pills!

...i feel so dumb...

...i was practically biting my nails during my go-see session. i was surrounded by 30+ ppl all malays. more than half are my modules leader. seated beside me was romzi from vitaldelta and a guy from mampu and of course jtm.tms.pm chaired the meeting. started at 11am with romzi's answering questions about the jtmnet thingy. alot of arguments in there and apparently nobody knows what is going on and dunno how things happened.

i was thinkin to myself, i hope i can answer their questions when i am being questioned later. and bad luck. i cant answer some of the questions that was posed to me and at that moment of time i feel so dumb and lose focus. why i dunno some of the answers one? well, it is becos i was not updated about the progress about everyone. and then i realised, we did not have a whole tms team meeting; including the training people and the pcs ppl. how did forget about getting them together and go for an progress update meeting.

all these while i thought if i have done enuff on my part to monitor the progress ofthe development and bugs and etc and other people do their part, then whole world happy. but little did i realise that i didnt know how others has fared. have their done their part as well? and all the questioned that was thrown at me clearly shows that the other part has not been done well. and i can only pathetically say i will check on it and get back to you. d'oh.

i feel so dumb thru-out the whole meeting and i am not going to allow myself to go through the same situation again. during my drive back from shah alam i was already planning what i can do inorder not to be dumb again in those go-see session...

...my go-see session...

...spent the whole day writing the feature specs for ilmi. then compile my report for technical meeting today which i can't attend cos i was asked to go for a 'go-see' session with tms bigshots in shah alam.

'go-see' :: customer request us to go and see all their ketua.pengarah and present progress on behalf of customer

which makes me think, do we have to always give in to the customer call for a go-see? haven't i give enough updates to their project coordinator there? haven't we send enough information for them? why must we be there for the go-see session? is this what they have always been doing to all their vendors? is it their policy?

i was also asked to go to jitra for the 'all ketua pengarah meeting and tms hands-on session' this coming march 3. d'oh i believe this is a request by the govt and they should bear the cost. please don't ask me to drive there. cos i am not going to drive all the way to jitra. they will discuss in more details in todays 'go-see'. wish me luck for missing technical meeting again and going for the go-see alone; facing 40+ ketua pengarah and penolong ketua pengarah...

...sands between my toes...

...i has always wanted to go the beachside to de-stress and unload all worries and malfunctions of the brains. i can think extremely well with sands between my toes, sea water slapping my foot and cool breeze blowing my long hair and lots of people to watch. i enjoy the breakaway work...

of course, i was at port dickson to do requirements with ilmi : institut latihan kefahaman islam angkatan tentera malaysia. yeap, islamic institute for army training. 2 days @ ilmi. 1 nite @ seri malaysia. and a short moment with sands between my toes.

day 1 ::

project kickoff. so many ppl. iitc got 6, nti got 3, ilmi got like 10 while btm with 2. nti sales manager presented. then to kevin then to nti pm and then me. personally, i didnt think nti ppl were in such professionalism or is tht what the outside world is like? obviously i was not taught like tht in a professional way. wht they did? nti did not bother responding to some comments by btm people. frankly, i think she was rather unprofessional. and frankly, btm people were very much of snooker cue up their ass. requesting for aircond. d'oh. not my problem anyway, but nti did not respond.

was introduced to ilmi people; especially captain sulaiman-ilmi pm for this project. others include captain nasir, snr sarjan ali, etc. after project kickoff which was so d'oh and unprofessionally done, was tea time. always makan. nowonder they all so fat. army ppl fat. wakakakz. after tea was my requirement studies session. and this i gotta tell.

everyone was in the room looking at me conducting the studies although i SPECIFICALLY mention that, only those relevant ones should be in the room. i so wanted to shout to them and say, those not involve please get your lazy ass of here (especially to nti ppl and btm who are just so pain in the backside - talking so loudly)

started with registration module, then finance and then to assessment and student affairs. and because ilmi was not made aware of what they are required to do, they ask us to print out all the screens for them to go thru. this time i was really wtf. our sa process prohibits us from doing so. nti again culprit. d'oh. at this time, all of the lazy ass were still in the room.

captain nasir was very committed. he gave me most of the details. so is the snr sarjan zamri. while having our requirements discussion in the front, lazy asses were having their nice laugh and chat at the back. not long, lazy asses left. was so happy. we continued our discussion till abt 120pm and noted the time to captain nasir and he was late for his prayers. and we all left for lunch.

we wanted to print the pmis user manual. called jerks and requested to send to us. jerks says ftp. ok. but no line to download. kevin was a great dude. suggested to go polipd to chat chat and then copy the manual back from them. thanks polipd. but back @ ilmi, our discussion continued until like 5+pm. all captains return to their ship. we were printing the user manual and screen shots to ilmi. printed until like 6+pm. went for kfc. kevin, karen and yong left at 730pm while justin, radde and me checked in seri malaysia for a nite.

at nite went rounding. and of course finally got my toes between the sands and i was a happy person. of course, we had meeting at nite in the bloody hot room until about 1230am.

day 2 ::

continued with requirements till about 1230pm. got many missed calls from nti pm. d'oh requirement studies lar, how to answer call. 1230ppm was halau-ed out from the room cos hey wanna close di. and then came back to iitc. reached iitc at about 400pm. raining heavily in hiway. nearly slept while driving. evening went to yam char with kevin and loon to de-stress again.

at nite, went and meet aaron at subang and had a great chat till midnite.

...catch the light...

...got a very depressing news from a fren. he is quitting. at first i was very depress over tht email. but after much thinkin and chattin with him, i finally saw the light. he is just stressed and pressured by alot of decision making. i think he deserve the break from it. he said he has no motivation liao. motivation-less is due to the fact that we are not doing the things that we enjoy doing and not liking it. when we enjoy doing the things we like, inspiration comes. motivation builds. and we see the light. catch the light dude. its not far away. take another step...

...i dunno what i thinking...

...i think i dunno what i am thinking now...

... arghhh! and it hurts so much...

...valentine's day...

...valentine's day and i am still worrying over the ilmi project at this late hour. almost 9pm still stuck at office thinking and strategising. spent the evening having a long chat with kevin. and spent the night chatting with dear.

ilmi kickoff has been postponed to thu. from tues to wed to thu. so, i am off to port dickson this thu, goin to stay overnite there and return on fri. requirements studies is only for 2 days with 8 modules to settle. kickoff meeting also can postpone like that! imagine how we will get the documents signed. few things to note about ilmi ::
1. they do not have internet access there.
2. its located in port dickson
3. it belongs to mindef
4. high security place
5. they do not know what they want
6. we do not know what they want
7. ilmi = institut latihan dan kefahaman islam angkatan tentera malaysia

from the start, this project is all wrong. and nothing seems right. 8 weeks project until completion; inclusive of training and by apr 24, the system should go-live.
i wonder what is goin on in the negotiation stage. and i do not have a single programmer in this project. d'oh.

...HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY...

...iitc annual dinner 2006...

this gotta be the most happening annual dinner yet. though a small group but everything turned out to be great. and working with the aiyak production people has been marvellous.

matt, kevin and me were the emcees. we wanted to imitate the super trio show; thus we dressed alike and matt became eric tsang - he was wearing the red raincoat while me and kevin were in blue. wakakaz. loon, amy and justin were helping us running around.

just before the dinner started, we took a group photo. just in case everyone went home before the dinner. then the dinner started off with the committee dancing to the we will rock you song. then, mr teng's speech. the fun started with the orientation program. yeap, our tradition in iitc to run an orientation program. this tim we gathered about 11 people for the orientation program. in this session they were required to do some sketches of advertisement (perodua, petronas) where we see the 4 old ladies bragging about their son, the little lion dance by the perodua advert, then we saw some kochkoch hota hei dance move. but the farnee one was with soong teaching the girls how to catwalk; from the show america next top model. soong was showing us how to pose. the orientation was quite long; some were abit bored lar, but overall everyone had a good laugh. wakakaz.

after the orientation program, it was time for the showcase of the video recording we didjust before chinese new year. selected staff were asked a few questions like the prettiest, their utopian environment, weirdest moment, if they have 1 million. answers given were out of this world. we saw teh talking about nicole soh, kevin wanting to buy iitc shares and be all our bosses, xujia cannot tolerate tht with kevin, nicole soh wants all handsome guys in the office, teh with her rm300 ostrich shoes, etc. we gave out some freebies too for the interview session.

also, we ask everyone to say IITC-Unleashing-Possibilities, not everyone is able to pronounce it porperly. most creative one goes to kc where she stood infront of the guys urinal and said iitc-unleashing-possibilities. that got alot of cheers from everyone, including mr.teng. awesome!

forfeit session - for those who did not come with themed clothing. hahaha. they were supposed to do the super trio show style game where the guys have to walk along the path and open up their legs until they can do the 'split' and then blow the candles at the end while the limborock song was on. imagine seeing your training manager and your sales director with bosses daughter doing it.

since quite a number of them dressed up very nicely, we ask those exceptionally nice ones to go on stage and do a catwalk. my pm got the most claps as he was the stakeholder of the most projects. hahaha, that was how he was chosen by the bosses daughter.

lots of lucky draw were given away; from oven to hampers to excel isotonic, to can drinks to rice cooker. most of them got gifts and of couse some didnt get anything, like us the emcees.

the nite was over at 11pm. then only the few of us sat down and had our dinner. really tiring. really exhausted. but a nite to remember. all of us clique well as emcees, we enjoyed ourselves, mr.teng had a great time (low budget yet can do such a wonderful dinner) and a memorable nite indeed.

...jerks.jerks.jerks...

...finally. i am done with the manual. all photocopied, binded and should be ready to go.

jerks who doesnt know how to plan cause suffering in me. jerks who doesnt know how arrange training time cause my plan to be rescheduled. jerks wasting my precious time working on my compulsory leave day. jerks jerks jerks. wish all these jerks bad luck. dem f* jerks. maybe to all these ppl, like mj says throw banana skin at them, this cny got abundance of orange skin, just throw at them...

...JERKS. JERKS.JERKS...

...headache at the immigration office...

...arrived at the jabatan imigresen malaysia at about 6.55am and already the line was like more than 100 ppl infront of me. and i thought i was gonna be early. waited in line and many uncles and aunties were shouting here and there, voicing their dissatisfaction over the services provided by this govt dept. almost 9am i finally got my queue number :: 1140. current no was 1062.

so i looked for a seat and sat down; waiting and waiting and waiting. at about 11am there were alot of reporters who came and took pictures. ntv7, rtm were among the first few who came. they were recording the whole scene in the room, and that was when the service became faster and the queue number jumped so much faster than normal. the guy who scolded me the other day at the enquiry counter were smiling all the way. this is what they call good service.

more and more cameraman came in the small immigration office and camera were snapping all the way. no wonder lar, the deputy.home.affairs.minister datuk tan chai ho was there. he was seen shaking hands with some old aunties and cuddling a small boy and looking over the counter to see someone submitting their documents to make passport. and everyone crowd around him. haih, so famous mer? anyway, then after he left into the office,the queue number became slower and slower.

my turn finally came at about 11.45am. submitted my documents and waited again to pay. finally my turn at 12.20pm. paid up the rm300 to a very rude officer at the counter and left. received this receipt (rm300 gosh)

to sum up the whole ordeal::
a. rude officers all over the dept
b. only 1 officer who were smiling; and that was the guy in counter 3 who attended my application.

requirements to make new passport/renew your old ones::
a. make copies of your ic (front and back of your ic on the same page in an A4 paper. front of your ic on the top and back of your ic on the bottom)
b. make copies of your birth certificate. bring along the original just in case.
c. 2 copies of the passport photo; like blue in color background
d. complete your forms properly. (idiot, the form cost rm1)
e. if renew passport, bring along your old one.

tiring morning. spot me in ntv7 tonite! wakakaz...

...cny in kuantan...

day 0::
was awaken at 6am and began journey to kuantan. i was driving my good ol'iswara. started journey at 6.30am. arrived kuantan at 9.30am. somewhere between kepong toll and the toll before genting was driving at the fastest speed of 50km/hour cos dad ask to wait up for brother. do'h. arrived kuantan, started to sleep. sleep and sleep until lunch. not really anticipating lunch cos the dishes served are the same every year since 1974! (before that i do not know lar). dinner also same dishes. imagine how creative my family are when it comes to cny reunion dinner. sat at the corner of the table and ate only half a bowl of rice. after reunion dinner, everyone sat in my grandma's living room which can only accomodate like less than 8 people. others just sat somewhere doing nothing.i took a seat nearer to the door so that i can feel the cool breeze at nite. tv was only tv1, 2, 3, ntv7 and 8tv. thats all. a decade ago was only tv1,2, 3. everyone was sleepy and i was dead bored. went to uncles's house. slept at 1am. luckily 8tv was still visible. its not so happening these days as my cool cousins did not come from singapore. if he was here, the situation would be different.

day 1::
woke up to a beautiful morning of cny. its just good weather. went to the kitchen and aunt ask to eat breakfast. nasi minyak with some chicken and mutton curries plus acar. you see, my unlce has this open house during the 1st day of cny where he invites all his frens and relatives over for breakfast and lunch. and yes, the dishes served has been the same every year since gawd knows when. first to arrive was my aunt rita. she is the most "in" aunt with 2 daughters and a rich husband. (i have not changed into my new year clothes yet, as if i have any). they were talking quite loudly. they usually are the first to arrive cos they do not want to clash time with other aunties and aunt rita’s husband is not so fond of her wife’s brother in-laws. yes it was boring. went back to the room and watch movie on the notebook. aunt rita came to the room and said hi. then when there is no more movies on the notebook to watch, started to work.
yea, some jerks didn know how to plan and arranged for me to the the pathetic training cos the jerk doesnt know how to conduct it. i was starting on writing the device manual; all the time cursing that idiot jerk. browsing thru oracle, toad, ms word, i was like f* this stupid manual. was working on it till about 2pm and fell asleep again.
woke up at about 3 cos feeling hungry. yes, same food for lunch. during the whole working morning, heard alot of aunties and uncles come and go and giving ang pows. and saying hi to them and saw me working. (if i don work on it now, i dunno when i can finish it. dem the jerks). after eating the same thing for lunch, took a shower changed into new clothes. wakakaz, a snail shirt i bought way back in june 2005 but did not wear it. i think can be considered as new clothes kua. anyway, changed then went to aunt rita's big mansion. i always look forward to go to her house cos, there are things like astro, airconds, different types of food served and very comfi sitting area and she grows grapes in her garden. after that, went to another uncles house. also always looking forward for this visit cos this uncle is the most generous of all uncles, and he has a whole big ice-cream cooler in his house (a gift from his vendors. nope he doesnt sells ice-cream). so he will serve us alot of ice-cream and we can choose whatever flavour we want, from magnum to cornetto to anything that you usually find in a ice-cream seller's little fridge. and of course alot of keropoks to eat. at nite was dead boring again. nothing to do. dad slept at 9pm and i watch tv together with the mosquitoes until about 1am again; falling asleep in between.

day 2::
woke up at about 8am. ate breakfast. yes same breakfast as of gawd knows how many years. some sort of noodles. took shower. went to grandma's house. ate lunch. same lunch from day 1. after lunch, i went outside to sit on the swing in my grandma's garden; then i saw crv's, mercedes, bmw's all big cars arriving and parked just outside my grandma's house. yea, that marks the arrival of all my aunts. the house was very noisy. aunts chatting and chatting. though they are like filthy rich, but they are all very down to earth aunts. enjoyed listening to them chat. met some cousins that i have forgotten their faces. gosh, these people grow so fast. and they left at about 6pm. at nite we were supposed to go to their big mansion but dunno why, parents say not going at about 8.30pm. haih, spoil plan to go out with sufong and miew pulak. cheh. slept at 1am again.

day 3::
was really looking forward to going home. had lunch. then packed and all ready to go back to kl. cant wait. arrived home at about 5pm. switch on tv. and it was so satisfying. just sat there and do nothing. watch tv whole nite. didn’t want to continue with the manual cos the jerk is killing my holidays.

day 4::
supposedly go matt's house. but do'h car problem. fix the whole morning. brakes not good. dad fixing it whole morning. and i slept whole day. worked on the dem manual again. dead boring. still cursing that jerk.

summary::
boring cny. no gambling. yea, i do not like to gamble unless my cool cousin is in from singapore. it has been 2 years since he came back to kuantan for cny. i think the whole situation would be different if he was around. everthing has been the same as usual. nothing has changed. anyway, happy cny to everyone. hope everyone else had an enjoyable and fulfilling cny. ang pows? not much, yea same as every year. gxfc!!!...