On the PeiRoll..

Alex & Marcus Blog Launched

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 23:52:55 -0700

I've moved the boys blogs and postings to their very own domain name and space... as I wanted to keep them separate from my own blog. To see updates and photos, scoot on over to:

http://www.alexandmarcus.com

Currently it's still under construction as I'm learning how to use Wordpress... so you'll see some changes in the site. In the meantime, enjoy.
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Vistaprint.com - Example of excellent customer service

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:10:00 -0700

I was out of ideas for Christmas gifts, especially to my in-laws. Then, it hit me. Cheesy as it may sound, a personalised calendar with pictures of the boys would go down really well because (1) They would love it, and (2) I don't have to get anything expensive that they wouldn't use.

So when I purchased something from Amazon, an offer from Vistaprint.com fell out. It was something like �9.99 for 4 wall calendars which I thought was a great deal so I went ahead and painstakingly chose 12 cute photos of the boys and uploaded them, ordering calendars, mugs and keychains (ok ok I know how cheesy that can be but wait until you have your own kids whom you think are the cutest things in the world!).

The items arrived on 22 December. I was blown away by the quality of the calendars! Beautiful prints and we were so very impressed, but one of them was missing the final sheet for 'December', so I lost no time in getting in touch with customer service about it. I must admit that I wasn't hopeful of getting a satisfactory outcome (based on my experience with various customer service departments) let alone getting a replacement in time for Christmas Eve.

However, they were so incredibly helpful that they sent one out immediately (although warning me that it might not arrive until 27 Dec). Again, my expectations were blown out of the water because it arrived on Christmas Eve!

I don't normally have great things to say about retailers but Vistaprint.com seem to have a lot going for it:

Prices - Incredibly reasonable, if not one of the cheapest around (and I did shop around!)

Quality - As mentioned above, the calendar prints were amazing (make sure to use 'card stock' so that the sheets have some weight on it and doesn't curl). The printings on the keychains weren't that great though - a low resolution image was printed on a flexible rubber piece. I had expected high res image between clear plastic casing.

Website - Easy as pie to use, very very user friendly
Customer Service - What can I say? Professional, courteous, helpful and they fixed my problem on the spot. No excuses. They just fixed it.

Not only that, but they were careful to set realistic expectations (e.g. about delivery time) and made sure they smashed it. I complained on the 22/12 (Tuesday), they said it would arrive 28/12 (following Monday - 8 days later) but instead it arrived on Christmas Eve two days later!

THe only thing is that I've been receiving marketing emails every day, which isn't the greatest thing in the world. That's about the only thing annoying me, and I've said so in their feedback page so I hope they do something about it. I mean, they've made me a loyal customer already, I'm sure they wouldn't want to piss me off with daily spam emails. Anyway, based on my experience with their customer service, I believe that they will probably listen to their customers.

I think that every company which deals directly with customers and who have a customer service or after-sales service dept should look at this example and learn from it. If a customer is in pain and you fix it, completely, immediately, happily, then you will have bought yourself a loyal customer. And it probably won't cost you that much either.

Big big thank you to Vistaprint Customer Service agents: Devin Gardner and Shellian Simpson for making my Christmas (and my in-law's!) a wonderful one!

===============================

Anyway, here's the email transcript of my communication below:

Dear Pei:

Thanks for contacting Vistaprint, where it�s easy to make an impression for less.

We are expediting the replacement order at no additional cost to you for the Calendar that did not meet your expectations. The order number for this replacement is 39550-10051-2S9 and will arrive within 7 days.

Again, we apologize for any inconvenience or disappointment you may have experienced. Please feel free to contact us if you have any additional questions or concerns.

Thank you for choosing Vistaprint!
Sincerely,

Devin Gardner
Vistaprint Customer Service

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Date Sent: 12/22/2009 19:00

Hi Shellian

Thank you so much for the prompt reply. I guess I have no choice, will have to make my apologies to my in-laws for their late xmas gift. :( Please can you resend it out to me soon as possible, am hoping it will arrive sooner (my original order had an expected delivery date of 23 Dec but arrived one day earlier).

Many thanks
Pei

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: UKCustomerCare@vistaprint.com
Sent: Tue 22/12/2009 23:13
To: pei@peiroll.com
Subject: RE: VistaPrint Inquiry Response

Dear Pei:

Thanks for contacting Vistaprint, where it�s easy to make an impression for less.

We can have a replacement order done for the Calendars unfortunately if a Rush delivery is done that would be 3 Business days, so the Calendar will not arrive until December 28, 2009 if the order is done today.

Please respond to this email if you would like us to proceed with the replacement.

We do apologise for any inconvenience caused. Feel free to contact us if you have any additional questions or concerns.

Thank you for choosing Vistaprint!

Sincerely,

Shellian Simpson
Vistaprint Customer Service

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Date Sent: 12/22/2009 18:08

Order ID: 04180-68841

Hi there - calendars arrived sooner than scheduled, quality impeccable thank you very much! However, out of the four calendars, one is missing the last page, i.e. December is missing. The other three are fine. Please can you rush one out to me as soon as possible to arrive before Christmas as it is meant as a present for my in-laws. Many thanks Pei

Wow it's been awhile...

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 23:33:05 -0700

Since I blogged. I'll blame it on being tired while pregnant, then when the boys came, being incredibly busy and tired all the time. What a great Get out of Jail card :)

I love being a mum to little Alex and Marcus, they are both so incredibly fun and delightful. Of course the night shifts are pretty hectic and it's very exhausting being so sleep deprived. Especially since I am one of those people who previously cannot exist on less than 8 hours (unbroken) sleep a night.

Mum, Jenny and mum-in-law have been fantastically wonderful and helpful in so many ways, and I'd probably just keel over and pop it if it weren't for them. In any case, I still have some semblance of sanity left.

Anyway, here's what I'm thinking. I've spent a lot of time last year writing my MSCRM 4.0 book, and there isn't any way I am going to get it published now that I am out of the game ... perhaps for a year or so. As such, I will post the chapters here and share it to everyone so that they don't go to waste. At the moment it's lying in a network drive on my server collecting proverbial dust. Don't want my efforts to go in vain, so I shall be posting a lot of MSCRM 4.0 stuff soon.

Back to blog.

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 01:11:04 -0700

It's been awhile since I blogged - maybe because I didn't have very much to say, or that I was lazy.

I've started my short term contract at Touchstone - they have a much larger MSCRM team than Aspective, and although the aren't as polished in terms of their policies and procedures, their fundamentals appear strong.

I miss my team - the magic we had and the seamless way we communicated and got things done. It felt a bit like a 'hive' in terms of how they knew what I meant, and would sometimes even pre-empt me. I don't know if I will ever encounter such a magical team again, but feel incredibly priviledged to have been part of it.

I thought of starting a separate baby blog, to journal my feelings and the experience of being pregnant so the twins would have something interesting to read when they grow up, but then I thought that I'd just blog it here - there is no sense starting something else. I also wondered about actually writing a journal as opposed to typing one out on the blogosphere - but my handwriting has become more atrocious through lack of use, and my typing skills are far superior and quicker than I could ever write.

Which sometimes is both a good and a bad thing, especially since my fingers sometimes move a lot faster than my brain, and make the freudian slip before I am even aware of it.

It's week 18, and I am getting quite big. Most of it blubber I think. I haven't felt any kicking yet although Jeff has been trying to feel for them every chance he gets, and he places his ear against my belly in the hopes that one of them will say 'Hello!'

I am tired easily, and I feel like a whale sometimes. It is very easy to over-exert myself, and the other day when I went to the post office to post the very large and heavy tape drive that we sold on eBay, I almost passed out. Jeff had put it in a suitcase so that I could drag it along but even then I couldn't seem to do the approximately 50m from Sainsbury's car park to the post office.

My heartbeat is incredibly quick - about 120 at rest and about 140 or so when have walked up the stairs or something. I'll have to talk to Dr Tam about this tomorrow when I go for my first ante-natal appointment.

People ask about the gender - the last scan we had in Malaysia was a bit too early to tell. At our next scan - the 20 week anomaly one at Watford, apparently they will not tell us because of the high Asian population in the area who appear to be quite fond of accidentally 'losing' their baby whilst on holiday in Pakistan once they find out that they are having a girl. How sad. I think that a healthy baby is all that we can ask for. I don't mind what we have, although a girl and a boy would nicely balance the family out. And I'd like a bigger family - perhaps 4.

I'm currently on my way to a Project Board Meeting in Mornington Crescent, so have time to do a bit of writing on the train. Sometimes I feel like I don't have enough 'quiet time' such as this todo it. But that's my own fault - I really don't have to work but I got bored easily, and the money is nice. Especially since we will have quite a large expenditure when the twins arrive.

I'm looking forward to mum coming in May - mostly so we can spend some time together. It will have been 10 years since I left Malaysia, and while I do get to spend some time with them when I go back, this will be different as I will have her to myself.

Anyway, that's it for now.

It's been awhile

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:14:12 -0700

Lots have happened.

Stopped work.
Started ivf.
Been stressful.
Got 'stabbed' with hormone syringes.
Awful mood swings.
Not working driving me up the wall.
The awful awful waiting.
The positive result!
Tried to get book published.
Sybex was interested, but I didn't quite like the acquisition editor (blame it on the hormones).
Didn't think I could stick to a timetable any way.
Christmas and New Year holidays and stuff.

I felt that the whole process was a bit too personal to blog, on top of feeling depressed about not working meant that I didn't feel like sharing very much.

This will be it until I feel like sharing some more. But the positive result was pretty cool though :)

One more week to go

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:42:02 -0700

I've been super busy. Project just completing systems test cycle 2, which has been a monumental effort by both our and customer's team to get it here - man years' worth of work as Nick would say. It's looking good, although the BI part of the project has been having some challenges of its own.

Next Friday is my last week at work, and there will be no let up. Tomorrow I will be doing a 1-day trip to Manchester, returning on Monday to complete a high level discovery of their MS CRM roadmap.

This Saturday, I'm organising a scavenger/treasure hunt of sorts for some friends to celebrate my birthday, I will probably post pictures and news about it later.

Just wanted to do a quick update, as I will probably have more time for blogging after I've finished. That's about it for now.

Anyone else find this scary?

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 08:38:04 -0700

I've been following the US campaign quite closely, especially the Palin GOP pick. The machinations of American politics astounds me sometimes, as does this exchange from Couric's Palin Interview:

Couric: And when it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?

Palin: I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.

Couric: What, specifically?

Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.

Couric: Can you name a few?

Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn't a foreign country, where it's kind of suggested, "Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?" Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.

She can't even name any magazine or media she's read? That's such an obvious answer that she hasn't read any. She sounds like me when I was questioned about homework I hadn't done. It's mind boggling how juvenile that sounds.

Plan B

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:20:29 -0700

It's been awhile since I've blogged properly, with the exception of the odd piece of news, such as the Nike Human race.

I've actually got exactly 1 more month before my last day at Aspective, where I will have worked for more than 2 years. Jeremy was quite sad and disappointed when I handed my notice, and I was also trying my best to hold back the tears.

Why did I decide to leave if it was such a great place to work? Well, I left for personal reasons, which I am not quite ready to share with the blogosphere, but I have no fault with the people, the team, the company or even the work. Anyone who has been following my blog will know how very much I enjoy what I do, and the company that I keep.

I'm not leaving for another company, although I've had no shortage of job offers from headhunters and recruitment agencies. I had a very defined career path, which was actually quite exciting. To walk away from that was quite scary, although I tell myself that I can always go back. Jeremy would probably take me back if there was a place for me when I was ready.

What am I going to do then, when I leave? I'll start with taking some time off just to relax, read a few books, really visit London and do the touristy thing, do some writing and explore my life and my options.

Granted, it is not a great time to do this, what with the credit crunch and the state of the world economy, but I have to do this. And maybe it is a good thing.

Well, I've got that book you see, and I have not had much encouraging responses from publishers. Saying that, the editor at Wiley was really nice and supportive, although he apologised for not being able to take on my proposal due to the fact that it did not fit his budget and publishing portfolio.

I am not discouraged, as I have an idea of what to do with it. I will probably publish it on the web for awhile before I think about self-publishing it. We'll see.

I want to read a lot more as well, non work related. I have started getting into business books not because I had to (such as during my mba period), but because I am genuinely interested.

I've missed writing things as how I did it when I first started. I think I was more interesting then, and then work got in the way. I missed having a life outside of work. I truly did enjoy my work, and the strength of relationships and connections I made really enriched my life. But I made it the only thing in my life by banishing all the 'time bandits'. I was no longer fun outside of work. I lived for my projects.

This break will be good for me in more ways than one. But Jeff will have to shoulder the single income situation for awhile, until I can generate income myself through some means. Thankfully I don't think he has my restlessness, and therefore his chosen path, while currently stressful, does not cause him too much angst.

Lehman Brothers employees had a job last week, but walked into their office, only to walk straight out again in shock, without a job. I'm guessing that most do not have a Plan B. Those interviewed in the news were in shock, disbelief - some were even hysterical.

I think that the advice to initiate change in your life, as opposed to having change forced upon you - is the best advice I've heard in a long time.

Jeff and I have always been an advocate of this, although Jeff's probably more risk averse than I am in terms of life choices. In return, he tempers my impulsive enthusiasm and provides grounding for my pie in the sky ideas.

But this is good - not in the way that lots of people losing their job and money good, but good in the sense that it shakes up people's faith in the status quo. Life shouldn't be just about existing, it should be about living, experiencing, touching, tasting, feeling, loving, seeing, growing, expanding and just knowing that even if you lived a thousand lives, you will never taste everything there is to experience.

The change that I have initiated in my life is both a bit scary and new. But isn't that what life's about?

Nike Human Race.

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:43:41 -0700

So on 31 August, I did the Nikeplus Human Race at Wembley. It was really quite cool, as we started with a concert gig thing at about 7pm with Moby and Pendulim - with more music along the way. The atmosphere was great, very buzzy, and I got Jeff and Waz tickets to the gig. It rained though, but that just made it more fun.

However, I only finished 1:15:13, which was quite poor, but when I found out how the rest of the world did, I just realized that I was average for the 'chinese' population so I wasn't that upset! :)

Here are some photos of the day.

Here are the participants streaming into Wembley stadium prior to the start

Red runners getting pumped up during the concert in the stadium

Approaching finishing line at about 9pm!

Funniest/scariest thing I've ever seen

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:16:46 -0700

GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?

PALIN: They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.

My Cardiff trips...

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:11:52 -0700

Cardiff is actually a nice place, but the stress of the project has made me dread going there some times. Fortunately the last few times I went with Nick and Simon, which made it more bearable.

Nick liked going to Zero Degrees, which was an Italian restaurant and a micro brewery as well. He especially loved the different beers he got to try all the time, such as Elderflower beer, or Golden Ale and Black Lager along with a pot of mussels, which were gorgeous but incredibly rich and very very bad!

They brewed their own beer in these tanks.

It was quite nicely designed inside as well - bar & restaurant.

Nick's pretty cool - he's a real tech daddy and is very very good at what he does. We went to Houston together, and are now on this project at the same time, so we are going through some rough patches. He's been mad at me sometimes, which I guess I deserve. Some stuff were not entirely my fault, but I could have reacted in a more resourceful manner.

In any case - I think we have quite a lot of mutual respect, and I really like that. In fact, I think I have that magical relationship with all my team members with the exception of the newbies whom I have not had the pleasure of working with. Saying that, Nick D and Anton has proven to be wonderful additions - especially since I had a chance to chat with them on our team night out last month.

I'm hoping that I don't have to go to Cardiff that much longer though, the project is approaching systems test phase and I'll be gone before they go live. More about that later...

It's Funny even if you aren't a gamer..

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 08:42:12 -0700

From xkcd...

Speed of Trust is pretty quick

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 22:10:00 -0700

So during the conference, I attended the 'Speed of Trust' seminar by Stephen Covey jr. I think he must get a lot of people who confuse him with his dad. I've listened to a lot of Covey's 7 habits, as well as the 8th Habit and various other audio tapes, and I think that his son still has some way to go.

In any case, his book, 'Speed of Trust' is a very good one, which I promptly purchased and read prior to his speech. Whilst it isn't anything new, it had a really good angle about it which I hadn't thought of before - how trust can be broken down to several components, and defines how a person's interaction with another can be articulated.

For example, trust can be broken down into Character and Competency. Character is broken down into Intent and Integrity, while Competency is broken down into Capabilities and Results. That explains why I sometimes don't trust Jeremy (boss) very much in terms of delivering his promises. He is a wonderful guy, and a great manager, but he has so very much on his plate that he sometimes drops some balls, which can cause issues. I brought this up with him during the conference, and he listened and responded very well.

We (myself, Nick and Jeremy) then took a day out to work out a lot of things which we can improve from within the team putting together a list of actions in order to address it. It was a really really useful meeting, probably one of the most productive meetings I have ever had.

What's really really cool in my team, and I've probably mentioned this a few times - is that the level of trust is so high. We are absolutely committed to helping each other in any way we can, and there is none of the 'This is not my problem' business that you see elsewhere. It is really amazing, how the team adapts and works with each other.

How our team works is very much like a great music - everyone works in harmony and it sounds great. Each person brings their own style and flow, and everyone else takes on their beat and makes new music, very enjoyable to hear.

It's pure magic, and I want very desperately to ensure that we continue to make beautiful music. Our team is growing - we had 2 new guys join the last month - Anton and Nick D, and a new girl joined yesterday and another 2 more in a couple of weeks. I think we should be fine, as long as they fit the team.

It probably sounds very 'exclusionist' but I truly believe that what makes us outstanding is the strength of our team.

I'd have to say that if it wasn't for the trust in our team, we'd be a lot more dysfunctional - especially when under the stress of project pressure. It's amazing that we haven't imploded yet, with the number of projects all running with minimal contingency.

And so, Covey's book show me why and how the magic worked. And I'm just thinking - wouldn't it be cool if we can replicate it? And sow seeds of trust rather than distrust amongst warring parties?

The world would really be a much better place indeed...

I really like this.

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:01:35 -0700

I really really like this.

It resonates.

Our garden and harvest

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:33:00 -0700

Our garden is coming up nicely, this year we have decided not to do runner beans, which is something I regret because I do like harvesting them. It's like treasure hunting! The fine beans are coming along well, but not as fun to harvest.

"10 green finebeans, sitting on the fence...10 green fine beans..."

They really very tender and flavourful, especially when young.

Not quite sure what colour sweet peppers we have, but they look healthy.

As is our courgette plant

... with its flowers

'Your not-fake Jawbone are belong to Us'

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:39:00 -0700

Was checking out the latest bluetooth headset on ebay, when I came across this auction by a vendor from China which amused me no end.

"It is high-tech product. It is 100% genuine ALIPH JAWBONE headset. It has not fake or copy in the world. Please trust us."

WPC08

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 22:06:00 -0700

So I am sitting at the second keynote speech at WPC08 at the Toyota Centre in Houston. Once again, Alison Watson is kicking off the day, talking about how Microsoft is revolutionising the industry.

The big theme this year is 'Software + Services', i.e. the software on tap model that is the ASP model, or 'Application Service Provider' model such as that offered by Salesforce.com.

It reminds me of the Anthony Robbins seminars, very dynamic - lots of music and excitement, and interesting video on the large screens.

Yesterday there was the UK Regional party at the Warehouse LIVE, with a 50's costume theme. It was quite fun although I had stomach cramps which meant I didn't quite participate in the drinking and dancing, but I did enjoy tne atmosphere.

What's interesting is the amount of testosterone flowing around with the free alcohol. Remember, these are Microsoft Partners,essentially competitors in each other's company.

I've heard stories of preening and posturing between the different sales heads, especially since the industry is so small that everyone used to work with/for.under everyone else as partners/clients or other relationships. A lot are ex-Microsoft employees who have gone to competitors and there are some sneaky corporate espionage going on.

Also, juicy stories of past WPC/conference/alcohol induced scandals and dramas have been incredibly enlightening, talking about the 'Becky night', or the 'drunken Gareth fumbly night' and all sorts of really kinky stories about the partners and Microsoft employees.

I must say though, that I am not as excited about the new technology and opportunities here that I thought I would be. Maybe technology isn't where my destiny lies. I am listening to all the speeches, the buzzwords are here - unified communication/collaboration, rich user experience, business intelligence and process optimisation, technology adoption/deployment etc etc etc. They all sound so clever and deep, but I am not very interested any more.

Hmm. Maybe a sign.
.;
I must say that although I find that this conference to be a high concentration of really clever and talented people and it would have been intimidating if I was exposed to this earlier in my career, it doesn't impress me quite as much although I am still at awe with the clever brainy people around, .

Everyone here is 'super pleased' and 'super excited' and 'super energised'. Ugh, Simon Witts just said 'Super super super powerful' which generated a lot of mocking in the crowd :) Talk about Americanism!

I must say that I really like the Americans though, they are so much more friendlier than the English. Very open and honest, and I've had quite fun conversations with the taxi drivers.

The main convention and expo.

The main conferences/hands-on labs/speeches are at the George Brown Convention centre, a massively large structure that can hold about 10,000 people, who are on their respective learn/do business/sell/buy/hire/poach activities.

Partners have set up exhibition stands at the expo, which are alright I guess. I feel that I am not getting as much out of the experience as the company feels that I should have done. I feel like a fraud really. I think that will be the last time the company sends me out on something like this.

The guys seem to be having a great time though, a lot of drinking and merry making - Nick, Jeremy, Stuart, Malcolm and Dean. We have great camaraderie, and I really enjoy their company.

Official day #1 at WPC08

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 06:30:46 -0700

Oh talk about the speed of light! This piece was posted before the speech at the Microsoft World Partner Conference was over. What was very obvious was that there was a journalist at the keynote speech who was writing his story and elicited comments from the other partners there and posted the story before the speaker had completed his speech.

Unbelievable.

Alison Watson, Corporate VP of Worldwide Partner Group was a very energetic individual who lit up the stage. She made an 'interesting but ill-advised' music rap video of which I caught the tail end... hope the sound comes through ok:

It was quite interesting - we also saw quite a lot of videos, some of which showed proud partners talking about their relationship with Microsoft:

I just got back from a UK region party, with a 50's theme. I've got photos but will upload a bit later. I have an early day tomorrow as well, so am off to bed now.

Night night.

Houston, we have a landing!

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 05:02:02 -0700

Finally, after 10 exhausting hours on the plane, and 3 hours going through passport and security control (where Nick was held temporarily because his fingerprints did not match his photo from the last time he was here or something), we are officially in Houston for the Microsoft Partner Conference.

I think almost everyone here is for the conference.

No smoking, No dogs and definitely No Guns at George Bush's Airport!

We haven't slept properly for about 24 hours so am quite jet lagged. Nick and co are staying near downtown, while I am in the Museum district. It all seems very spaced out and you need to get to everywhere by car. This lady asked the barman where we were having dinner how far to a particular bar she was looking for, and he said, "It's too far to walk, but quite quick on the cab - maybe only about 4 minutes."

4 minutes? Too far to walk for a 4 minute cab ride? Unbelievable.

Anyway - we had some very nice fritto misto and I had a zebra pasta. Looked a lot more interesting than it tasted though. It was just a sort of pancake with a pocket where they filled with seafood and seafood sauce. Twas ok for my first meal in the US of A.

Off to Houston!

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 05:54:20 -0700

I am off to the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston, Texas! I can't believe it, I have been so busy that I haven't had time to look forward to it.

But am off in about 40 minutes. Going with Nick, Jeremy, Stuart, Dean and Malcolm. Woo!

Texas here I come!

Magee mee in Tesco Watford!

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:56:00 -0700

Check it out!!

I no longer need to cart them from home!

Random stuff

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:47:00 -0700

Jeff decided to get a new komputa and assemble the bits himself. Check out the monster heatsink!

That was triggered by my computer blowing out, so now I have new stuff, and Vista to boot! There are some nice things about it, but there are more things I dont really like. I half wished that I had never upgraded. It's got 8 GB of RAM (Yay!) but needs 64-bit Vista to support it (boo!) but now I can run multiple virtual pcs at once (yay!) but I can't run any of my old non 64-bit apps like Painshop Pro (boo!)

The jury is still out. It's got tonnes of stuff that annoy me, like it's messed up my profile and has a billion security stuff that just serves to hinder my productivity.

Anyway, here are some random pictures of Jeff being silly.

...like letting me clip his hair.

... or trying to be Mr Cletus, Mach 2.

Endofmonthophobia

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 11:08:28 -0700

... is a fear of the end of the month.

That's probably what I am getting... the last day of the month is billing day, when you have to reconcile your projejct forecasts/budgets with customer reports and timesheet, and invoice the customer for the time worked.

It is also the day when things are most likely to go wrong.

Our SSIS deployment have been giving us huge problems - not to mention, the extract data being not ready and the client UAT environment sitting on a virtual server (hiss!) on 2GB of RAM! c360 EmailtoCase is not working.

It's one of those days.

I have however, completed the 'Garden' Chapter in the book 'The monk who sold his Ferrari', recommended by my good friend Siva :) and am attempting to banish all negative thoughts and feelings.

Let's see how I get on. Ommmm.

Cardiff Hotel

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:43:00 -0700

Alison and I have been working our brains off for the project in Cardiff. I'm getting quite burned out. At least when we had a walk through with the steering committee, we stayed in the Park Plaza, which was WAY nicer than Barcelo Angel aka Fawlty Towers.

View of Cardiff from the customer's Board room.

This was the nicest room I have ever stayed in, in England.

I mean, check out the flat screen tv!

They even have a man and dog shrubbery in the middle of the hotel - how posh!

Jeff's Spy Games Birthday outing

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 11:41:11 -0700

So for Jeff's birthday, I booked us on an all-day Spy Games experience! It was quite a fun day out, although I had quite a severe hayfever reaction and my eyes just couldn't stop streaming. It was itchy as heck and puffed up as if I had been punched! We did quite a lot of things such as J-turns, pretending to be bodyguards, slalom driving, some unarmed combat and the like.

That's the 'Spy' van behind Jeff

The guys who ran the place were ex-marine dudes, and you could see how hard they were! I was quite impressed, especially with Paddy, who showed us the gagdet stuff and taught us how to draw our pistols and showed us how to protect a VIP! Funnily, we just watched Vantage Point yesterday, and we now understood what each bodyguard around the President or VIP was supposed to do!

"I'm Bond, Jeff Bond... showing a bored debonair look... "

Any way, as they say, a picture shows a thousand words, so here they are. Ooo I have also uploaded a video for the first time in my life to youtube, so you get to see my grainy video camera efforts on my Sony Ericsson phone! Apologies though - I don't yet know how to turn off the sound on my phone, and it was a very windy day!

J-turns on a wet tarmac, we had about 10 goes, of which I did 5 very well! Especially in the farty old Mazda.

Here we are, trying to protect Mr President when ambushed from the rear.

After learning how to draw our pistols, we had a quick draw competition.

... of which there was only one champion!

Jeff took his turn throwing axes at the evil agent chipboard ..

... but didn't get a 'kill'.

"Don't anyone mess with Rambo Jeff!"

We did quite a lot of other stuff, like shooting BB guns during recon missions, and practicing withdrawing techniques. It was really quite good fun, and a great day out to boot.

Office speak

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:25:40 -0700

I've been really busy, so haven't posted. But here's something amusing.

"Hated office speak". Embarrassingly, I use a lot of them, and they mean something to me!

18 hour workshift

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:24:05 -0700

Have detailed design doc for a highly complex MSCRM implementation due tomorrow. Alison and I have been tagging the document and pinging it back and forth.

We both work on it all day, and I carry on until stupid o'clock (like 3.20am. Like now.) and then she gets up at stupid o'clock (like 5 am) and carries on until we both get into work and then we get on with it. Last week I did it until 2am and then went to bed, whilst she got up at 3am and carried on.

We make a great team. Although my sleep addled brain may be making up things.

My top 5 Bestest Inventions Ever Invented... so far

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:13:00 -0700

1. Tape dispenser - so I never have to cut strips against the table corner.

2. Google Reader - so I can get my staple diet of the worlds most interesting blogs and news and other stuff that make me look like I Know Lots Of Things.

3. Internet - so I can chat with my parents and show off my new hair and get affectionate honest-parent-comments like, "It makes your face look like a moon". Where else can I get such honest comment? Sigh, a teleporter would be better, then I can just port myself home so mum can cut my hair for me.

4. Insoles - so my flat feet doesn't hurt when I run

5. Virtual PC - so I can install/test/configure/design/screen shot/ and ultimately screw up the whole thing, and all I have to do is to delete the .vmdk file and re-copy it over. NICE!

What kind of person are you?

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 13:58:00 -0700

The kind of person people would pay thousands of �� to meet?
Or thousands of �� to avoid?

What a great concept - inspirted by the Marginal Revolution blogpost from Tyler Cowen.

My answer would be - it depends. To be absolutely callous - I want to be avoided by people who does not add value to my life and vice versa.

These includes those who complain, whinge, exude negativity, has nothing constructive to add to life - no ideas, thoughts, inspirations or motivations to improve. Toxic, poisonous people. Of course when I meet them, I try to influence them and initiate some change for the better - to get them to see the other side of things, to not be so mired in their little pool of misery, but I sometimes fail. Fortunately, I don't know very many people in this category but one who comes to mind is a chap named Angus, whom I knew in my previous life at my first job in the UK.

Angus was a middle aged not-quite-achieved-middle-management employee who sat across from me, and who constantly railed against the system, the company, our manager, the customers, the goverment, the youth of today, and anything and everything he could lay his bigotted negative claws on. He was exhausting. Not only that, but I could see the effect he had on everyone around him - the aura of putrid negativity just wafted around and sapped the energy and enthusiasm for work and life from all those sitting in his vicinity, myself included. I have since resolved to stay away from the Angus's of the world.

Apart from that, I strive to be the kind of go-to person anyone needs for anything. Hopefully by then, people will be willing to pay thousands of �� for the privilege to meet me or get some 'wise advise'. Bwahaha.

'Lies we tell kids'

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 22:04:00 -0700

written by Paul Graham.

I just finished reading it - very insightful. I'd say though, that the reason why adults don't want their kids to swear (even though they themselves do), is that, in the Chinese culture that is, no parent wants other people to comment that their kids were badly brought up. As an offshoot of that then, is why parents want their children to be polite, well mannered and behaved. So other people can say, "My, what well mannered children you have. You must be very proud" to the beaming parents.

In England, the yob culture is getting too much. Stabbings, violence and street crime tops news stories night after night. Peter's wife Debbie, whom I know from the practice - witnessed the fatal stabbing in Oxford St on 12 May, and have been visibly shaken by it. I would too, if I was there. In fact, I *was* there, as I had just got my passport from the US Embassy and was strolling down the famous shopping high street.

I was reminded of Steven Covey's paradigm shift. When I firs heard that story - I felt such sympathy for the victim, and rage at the perpetrators. But when it emerged that the 'victim' was not a victim after all ... "was awaiting trial for the rape of a 16-year-old girl and that, in a separate case, he was due to go on trial for wounding with intent and violent disorder." I just had a shift in my perception of the whole affair. Whilst I still deplore the use of violence, but .. maybe, just maybe, he deserved it.

I don't know what the world is coming to. Any way - this is just a random piece of blog, inspired by Paul Graham's neat essay - who have now ended up on my Google Reader.

Angry people

Sat, 31 May 2008 22:58:00 -0700

I love Seth Godin. He's really interesting, full of ideas, and is always surprising me with some insightful 'Oh my God, how come I didn't realise that?!' or 'I never saw it that way before'. Which makes him one of my top reads on a daily basis.

His post on Angry People made me think about some stuff mum used to tell me about Buddhism and the Worlds we inhabit. I think there are a few Hellish Worlds like Anger, Hunger, Animality and Hell - a more complete explanations can be found on wiki.

I believe that it is true that if you are in the world of Anger, it affects everyone and everything around you. I think that for a short period of my life, I was constantly in Anger - especially during the 'Danny' period. My relationships with everyone was frayed and if it wasn't for my family staying by my side and not allowing me to burn my bridges, I really don't know where I'd be now. Things have changed though, and my life with Jeff is so easy going and so fun that anger really isn't in my vocabulary anymore. I cannot remember the last time I was angry or furious at anyone... well, I do feel my hackles rising when I read about yobs and wasteful members of society, but other than that - I've been pretty serene.

It really is a very nice state of being. It also gives me the power to help dissolve other people's anger which shakes them out of their unresourceful world.

It's really cool - it's like an Armour +5 to Tranquility, although I could do with a Gleave of Swatting and a Magical Staff. Sigh. For some reason I miss wow...

Long Hair Vs Short Hair

Fri, 30 May 2008 19:54:57 -0700

Long Hair
Pros
- Cheap, only have to have my hair cut once a year or less
- Hide my neck when I've got zits
- Makes me look girly... some times
- Can make into any styles like french twists etc
- Can be fashioned into blindfolds if I want to take a nap
- Makes my moon face skinnier

Cons
- I'm too lazy to put it into any styles
- The perm I had last Aug had grown out into a wild woman shaman look
- It strangled me at night
- Hairball gets caught up in my chain
- Stuffed plug holes
- Stuffed vacuum cleaners

Short Hair
Pros
- Easy to maintain, just wash, shake head and go
- No more being strangled by snakey weird afro hair
- Can wear earrings
- Makes me look younger (so says 90% of the polled masses)

Cons
- Need more hair cuts a year
- Shows off my moon face
- White hair more apparent

Scalpd!

Thu, 29 May 2008 22:51:16 -0700

I chopped off all my hair. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the pile of frizz on the floor of the hair dressers to show for it. This was the second time I ever had my hair cut in the UK, mainly because I found it expensive and had a bad experience in Wembley that one time.

Last August, I had my hair permed in a very fine frizz (like afro) for the very first time in my life. It will also probably be my last. Everyone loved it and raved about it, but I really disliked it, especially since it didn't feel like my hair; all coppery and wire-like. The perm had damaged it.

And I let it grow and grow, and then got really tired of it and lopped it off. I now look like Ashley Judd. Of course, I'm not that pretty. Plus my neck is quite a lot shorter. And my lazy eye doesn't lend itself to those sorts of angled shots.

I like it very much now. It's been quite a long time since I had hair this short, and it's quite liberating not to have to spend hours in the shower washing my hair and then drying it. Plus, it was getting to a stage that it was strangling me in the night! Ok, maybe its my wild and bizarre sleeping habit, but it was also knotting around my chain.

Anyhoo - I now have a short bob. And I am pretty pleased with it all!

When going up the career ladder is like levelling in WOW...

Wed, 28 May 2008 15:31:00 -0700

I am getting to think that it's awfully hard to advance the corporate rungs the higher you go.

So in my company, I think we have the following levels:

- Analyst
- Consultant
- Senior Consultant
- Lead Consultant
- Principal Consultant
- Executive Consultant
- Director Consultant

I joined at Principal Consultant level mmm oo, it will be two years this August. Understandably, Jeremy admitted that he hired me a little above my position. As such, I started at rock bottom of the Principal Consultant band, and have worked my little heiney off since the beginning to prove that I was worth it.

If you look at my performance and my work in isolation, I'd have to say (without a smidgen of modesty) that I am a fairly outstanding employee. I work dead hard, and I am pretty good at rallying my team to go that extra 5 miles for me and my project, I get along with my customers, and all my projects have been pretty successful.

That SHOULD earn me an 'E' or even an 'X'. We have 4 grades that get awarded on a quarterly basis and one overall one for the year - I (Crap - you need to look for another job), G (Good - you are doing what is expected of your grade), E (Excellent - you are fulfilling all your objectives and occasionally exceeding management expectations) and X (Super duper awesome dude/dudette who consistently outperform customer and management expectation and should unequivocally be promoted into the next level).

Again, just analysing my personal performance, I'd say I should have garnered at the very least an 'E'. What's most uggggggggggghhhh frustrating about the whole thing is that, the standards are so bloody high! I think I am doing a sterling job, but SO IS EVERYONE ELSE! What a bummer to work for such a highly competent company *grumble*. Honestly. How is one to progress if everyone else is just as good if not better than you are?? *grumble grumble*

In my previous jobs, it had been quite easy to advance.

A bit like Wow. You start as a level 1 mage, and fireballing about 10 or so level 1 or 2 wolves, earning you so many XP (experience points) in the abbey 'dinged' you into level 2. To then advance to level 3, you then had to earn about double the amount of XP. It's exponential. I think it took us about 4-5 hours to ding ourselves into level 10 or so. Not sure how long it would have taken me to ding into level 40 if I played non-stop without eating, drinking, poo/peeing...

So at work, the higher you go, if you are lucky and in a company like mine, the stakes get higher. People at this level are hugely capable, incredibly professional, exceedingly competent and way more awesome than at my humble level.

I grumble that I should be promoted to Executive Consultant, but realistically, if I look at whether I could do what the current EC's do - like Simin, Kevan, Marcus, Jeremy - I must reluctantly admit that I do not yet belong to this prestigious circle.

To get there, I probably have to complete the following quest(s):

1. Manage a > 200 day project across MS CRM and BI/Scheduling. Currently the two Scheduling/BI projects I have been involved in, I've only participated as the MS CRM lead, and not PM'ed it. Highly likely because they have been >600 days and multi-million pound in value

2. Go through fire with really mean customers, and salvage a project which is crashing and burning into the ground and pull it through on time and on budget

3. Face off with Mr Nasty Customer or deliver a 'You are being unreasonable and you should pay for the extra scope you have asked and oh by the way, it is going to cost you and extra �xxx,xxx' conversation without blubbering or crying or taking things incredibly personally.

I have to admit that being the kind of consultant that would deserve Executive Consultant position would require me to strengthen my character, broaden my PM skills and bring challenging projects and customers home, earning the company good profits and raising our profile in the industry.

Not an easy task. But damnit, I wish it was as easy as when I was just swatting low level wolves and Tunnel Vermins.

About the Japanese

Wed, 28 May 2008 13:40:11 -0700

I read Tyler Cowen's really interesting blog about 'Japanese Cooperation'. The only real Japanese friend I have is Hisayo, and I must admit that she does not conform to the stereotypical Japanese woman.

She's strong minded, very intelligent and outspoken, as well as being incredibly compassionate in nature. From some of our conversations, I don't think she really relates to some of the Japanese custom and culture, and some of my thoughts about the Japanese people have probably been answered by Tyler's post.

I think we Chinese are a bit like that as well, but perhaps we are better at more implicit focal points, having learnt a thing or two from the westerners or Gwailos. We still have a long way to go though, as I am finding out myself.

Living in the west has some advantages for me, primarily because I get to extract the good and the useful from all sides and put them together into my very own Bible.

Word 2007 keyboard shortcuts and 'The MSCRM Book'

Sun, 25 May 2008 13:46:31 -0700

I am a keyboard shortcut demon, and am as anti-mouse as you can get. It's faster, more efficient, and it impresses the hell out of my colleagues :)

I know that it has increased my efficiency and productivity by a massive amount, and I can find what I need, access and launch the application, and execute the desired functionality with a blink of an eye. (Being able to type approx 100 words a minute creates an illusion of being super fast as well). Watching people work on their computers truly frustrate me, and when appropriate (i.e. they are good friends/colleagues), I would take over their keyboard and 'drive' the demo/whatever needs doing.

I can get away without using the mouse if the application is windows based and works consistently, e.g. alt-tab to switch, alt-f4 to close, alt-f10 to simulate a right click. I just found this link on the Microsoft Support page that lists down some really handy keyboard shortcuts for Word 2007. I know most of the major ones, and the rest hasn't been too interesting to me - "List of keyboard shortcuts for Word 2002, Word 2003, and Word 2007".

One of the most useful things I normally do when writing a monster document is applying keyboard shortcuts to styles (I've converted dad into using Styles).

However, I prefer the old-fashion mouse over the laptop touchpad or even the nipple. I am not so coordinated when using these especially when I have to re-size, crop and otherwise manipulate images which require our good friend, the humble mouse.

Alison and I have been working on the High Level Design document which got delivered last Friday at 5.30pm on the dot. She'd messed up the styles (I know I know, I am truly quite anal about things like this) so I spent quite some time to re-format the document to make sure everything was assigned a 'style' from bullets, to headings, to normal text, table text and diagram captions (I have a table of contents and table of diagrams).

My current pet peeve with Word 2007 is trying to create cross reference links automatically in the format of 'Heading number: Heading text(Page x)'. I should be able to, but the Reference --> Cross Reference dialogue box isn't great:

As you can see, I need to click twice - once to select the number and then again the title, and then switch to the document to format it correctly. I am sure that there is a shortcut some where - maybe a macro or something. Now that is one skill which I know very little about, but I think that if I ever skill up on macro programming, my productivity and efficiency would just sky-rocket! I would be the Master of the Universe of quicktypingefficentcomputerydoodongle!

By the way, the headings on the screenshot probably gives away what I have been working on. At the moment, I am suffering from lack of motivation - I am very close to finishing my not-so-big book, but am just striving to get myself truly motivated. Perhaps it is because I am sleepy - I have been pretty sleep deprived last week and haven't quite recovered.

Actually, I should just pull my finger out and just get to it Right Now.

Most hilarious quote of the day

Sun, 25 May 2008 09:33:10 -0700

"Sunburns are clearly our body's way of telling us we need to hurry up and evolve some fucking armor plating or something." Ctrl+Alt+Del

Grey cells overload

Wed, 21 May 2008 01:46:25 -0700

1.30am and I've just about completed the design for a pretty complex sales process for this building society project in Cardiff I was talking about. That's one sales process out of, about a billion.

I spent the day at Alison's house to work through the design for all the teams. It was quite a challenging process. Whilst I believe she is a top notch Siebel functional consultant, I think where we clashed was in the arena of the brain hemisphere utility.

I am very much left-brained, while she was a non-focussed, go all over the place, big sky picture, hate details right-brained person. AAAAAAAAAAARGH! I felt hugely frustrated as I could not see the solution, although I had faith that she knew what she was talking about.

The analogy is something like - she's a really strong swimmer and pulling me (the non-swimmer) along in rough currents and wild ocean waves. I have faith that she will get me to shore safely, but am feeling like I am drowning and unable to keep my head and sputtering in the sea water in the meantime.

Sigh. We'll get there in the end I believe. We have a high level design deadline this Friday, so it will be all-nighters for the rest of the week.

I'm tired now, so will continue working tomorrow.

A day at the US Embassy

Sat, 17 May 2008 01:04:18 -0700

There's a Microsoft World Partner conference coming up in July, and my boss has picked me and Nick to go along to a week in Houston. :) Yayy! I am quite excited, it will be the third visit to America, but the last one I went to was about 10 years ago when Dad was in Seattle training with Boeing.

Unfortunately as a Malaysian citizen, I needed to apply for a visa - so I made an appointment to visit the consular officer at the US Embassy in London, and off I toddled off a couple of days ago. It was also a very interesting experience, as the consular website states there many times, the security measures. NO Electronic devices were allowed into the embassy, including laptops, mobile phones, key fobs, blackberries, ipods, mp3 players and the like. FOr the first time, I was voluntarily leaving my mobile at home, and it was quite unnerving.

What? To be without the ability to communicate? But I could use the public payphone if I got into trouble and had to contact Jeff, right? Would I remember his office number though? On my mobile, I have his office number and his personal and company mobiles on speed dial, rendering the need to remember numbers quite useless. Until now. It was quite unbelievable how such a small thing occupied my mind a lot.

I honestly could not think of the last time I was without my mobile. And it made me feel quite naked. I was also asked to take off my watch as I went into the embassy. So without mode of communication and no way of knowing the time, I felt very much in limbo as I waited for my turn.

There was quite a lot of security around Grovesnor Square, with the US embassy closing off one side of the square. There were lots of camera, police and armed guards around. I had to be finger printed, and went through two rounds of meeting with the officers. At 11.30am, I was given the number 1320, and was only seen to around 1pm. When I left about 2.30pm, they were calling for number 1450. I reckon they get through about 2000 visa applications a day.

Anyway, it was a lovely day, and a nice day out, but it was a really long wait at the Embassy which was quite stuffy and very very crowded. It was also the first time I tried Gatorade, which is the most foul thing on earth. it's horrible, very chemical tasting and I just couldn't bring myself to finish it. However, it was hot and that was the only non-fizzy drink I could find.

Ewww.

Anyway, my visa has been approved, and today my passport returned to me with my awful foto on a 10 year Visa. :)
In any case, that means that I am now allowed to go to the US of A. Speaking of which, I have been finding the Democratic race very fascinating. Obama brings with him a sense of hope and freshness, and I am hoping that he will win. Clinton and McCain just promises very much of the same, but I think in this sense, I will not agree with the 'devil you know'.

At the moment, I am listening to Barack Obama's audio version of his book 'Dreams of my Father', written in 1995. He is an amazing speaker, and a great writer with a wonderful way with words. He read a preface to it as an update, talking about the death of his mother and what she meant to him. It was very emotional and touched me.

To my pleasant surprise, he is also a very good actor. When he read the dialogues he had with his white grandfather who was from Kansas, or with his Kenyan father, or his black friends from university as he grew up, he'd do it in their voice. And he was a superb at it. I found it quite difficult to reconcile the story teller from the actors in the book, as he switched from the gravelly Kenyan style to a black ghetto tone, using words like 'N******', lots of f******* and tonnes of swear words as he articulated how his friend Ray would talk to him. Apparently he won a Grammy Award for his newer book 'The Audacity of Hope' in Feb 2008.

I am not surprised, he is genuinely a very very good actor, and he writes with deep sincerity and reads with a depth of emotion that I would only have expected from a Shakespearan actor. I now know how he can pull crowds, because his power is his deft use of words, the skill with which he wields them makes him an outstanding orator.

I can't wait to finish this and start on the 'Audacity of Hope'. Currently, I am just getting to know him at university, where he is trying to find his place in the world. Being born from a Kenyan father to a white mother, and brought up by white grandparents and then growing up in Indonesia when his mother re-married gave him a truly diverse background and an appreciation for more broad view of the world than most other average american.

I like him. I really do. And I truly hope he wins. Although the Economist believes that all the candidates aren't too good from an economic point of view (i.e. most favour protectionist stance, and is against NAFTA), I think that he represents change and hope. And that is really what the world needs now. Even if he turns out to be the devil that you didn't know.

A week in Lanzarote, my Jeff and me.

Mon, 12 May 2008 22:50:23 -0700

So we decided to take a week off and have a holiday in the all-inclusive Iberostar Costa Calero. It came out top in the reviews on Tripadvisor, and the rate including flights, transfer, coach, food and hotel was pretty reasonable.

Iberostar Costa Calero - not too bad

Jeff wanted a 'floppy' beach holiday, especially after the very hectic and busy weeks in April. The whole idea was that we would just flop on the beach or by the pool and do nothing. Well guess what, we found out that we weren't the 'beachy' type, and it wasn't long before we got quite bored.

I did work on my book though, and Jeff bought a PSP game that he was trying to complete. We also brought along loads of movies and tv series, and managed to watch the whole Season 3 of Prison Break (oo Schofield is such a cutie) as well as some movies including 'Cloverfield' and 'I Am Legend'. We did a lot of workout in the gyms almost every day, which made us feel that we were allowed to eat like a pig the rest of the day :)

Our hotel was in Costa Calero, very near a cute little marina with some restaurants and shops, and lots of sailing boats where I presume rich people parked their trophies.

The hotel itself is nice, very immaculately clean - the staff definitely works really hard to make sure that the place was spotless. The housekeeper for our floor made sure that our room was always very clean, and we were so pleased that we left a thank-you gift. However, the hotel is a bit soul-less, with a lot of german and british tourists, mostly retirees who really want to get skin cancer.

They all booked their sun loungers, and spent the whole day browning and sizzling under the sun, many of whom did not even venture into the water. Granted, the pool was a tad chilly, but after a few laps, they were fine. We did go swimming, and enjoyed one of the four pools they had. Not so for the other guests, who appeared to be more concerned about their tan and bellies than they did about exercising.

We ate at a couple of restaurants at the marina but they were nothing to shout about, the food was quite salty but I guess you pay for the environment.

We ate at this restaurant but it wasn't that great

I bet some of these boats are more expensive than our house!

Another marina picture.

We also did a lot of walking, especially into the nearest town in Puerto Del Carmen which was about 2 miles away. We underestimated the sun and didn't put any sun block on - so Jeff ended up with a sun burnt neck and my shoulders took the brunt of the sunlight. Sigh. What a way to start the holiday.

Our sun shiny walk to Puerto Del Carmen

The beaches near our hotel in Puerto Calero was quite rocky and lava-ry, and you could just jump into the clear waters very quickly.

The rocky lava-ry beach near our hotel.

Oh, we also did a day of scuba diving, which was quite pleasant although I keep forgetting how anxious I get before a dive. Diving really stresses the body quite a bit, with underwater pressure pressing on the body and lungs. Also, because I am so crap at charades and sign language, I always worry about getting into trouble and not being able to signal to Jeff or the divemaster my problem. The second dive of the day was a bit better as I acclimatised. We saw a cuttlefish, and stingray and the resident garoupa called 'Felix'.

The only excursions we took was a trip to Teguisa Market, which was a touristy trappy thing, and a bus ride around the Timanfaya National Park. I had expected a lot of trees and forests but it's actually a lava field. The Canary islands are made up of quite a few volcanos, and in 1780's something, a massive one blew, and spewed lava everywhere. Lanzarote is very very barren, with lots of lava fields around - acres of it.

We had dinner at Volcan Grill, where they cooked our meal over the natural heat of the volcano. The chicken was really nice and tender though, but everything else was far too salty.

It was a lovely trip, but we probably won't go back. There's a lot more in the world to see, and we've ticked off Lanzarote. The weather was gorgeous though, and it was a really nice change from our schedule, but it's very touristy. I saw a lot more British and Germans than I did the locals. There wasn't very much authenticity at the place, but some people like it. We met quite a lot of people who go there, 3-4 times a year. Not for us I don't think. Been there, done that. Next.

Funny Customer Wanted sign on a restaurant window

Lovely Lava landscape

The hot Jeff on the lava volcano

That's our dinner sizzling on a volcano fired furnace

And our flaming volcano dessert, which was toffee flambe

The only photo I took of our hotel was this one, bu Jeff turned out a bit black

Mixed bag at Angel Barcelo Cardiff

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:43:00 -0700

After the stint in Manchester, I was shuttling to and from Cardiff, running workshops with Alison and Kevan. I've never worked with them before because Alison's from the Siebel team and Kevan's a BI dude - they are top notch people though. It never ceases to amaze me how much joy I find working with highly professional and really cool people.

We stayed at The Barcelo Angel hotel, which is a far far cry from The Four Gables. At one time, it MUST have been grand, but it had fallen into much disrepair. The room I had on the first night was on the main road, and the non-double-glazed window meant that I could hear all the traffic including conversations of passers-by. I could even make out the arguments of couples after their stint at the pub, and at one point I wanted to shout out that I agreed with the girl that her boyfriend was a nasty bully, but I kept myself to myself. It was hard enough not being able to sleep.

I did have a lovely view of the castle from my room though, but the room was dire. Absolutely. The shower came off in my hand during my morning shower, and the 'coffee table' broke apart when I placed my files on it. The furniture was old, worn and dirty and the bed was incredibly uncomfortable. Not to mention the noise!

It was indeed the worst night I have ever had! I wrote in the feedback form my 'disgruntledness' and disappointment in the room and services, and if I could find another place to stay - I would. When I mentioned this to reception the following day, she asked me to request a 'quiet room'. Why should I? The reason why anyone wants to book a hotel is to rest. I cannot imagine anyone requesting a 'noisy room'. What a load of bs. In fact, I rather drive the 150 mile round trip to Jeff's parents in Cicencester back to Cardiff.

Saying that - for my next trip there, I could not find another hotel that was as cheap and as close, so had to re-book in the same place. I was thus pleasantly surprised to find that I had been upgraded to a posher, 'refurbished' room, complete with a plate of fruits as well as a loyalty card granting me 10% off food and beverage at the hotel. There was also an abject letter of apology from the general manager, Mr Platt.

Whilst this was a nice touch, it felt very much 'too little, too late'. Especially since it had garnered very mixed review and bad press on Tripadvisor. I don't think I will be going back if I can help it. And any way, we are at the end of our workshop sessions and we are into design mode at the moment. I don't think there are any more overnight sessions in Cardiff any more for the moment. Phew.

It must have been quite grand at one point

Lovely view of the castle from my window - in daylight.

And at night

Of different sorts of people and mentality

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:41:00 -0700

We have both been working non-stop, all hours. It is not conducive to having a baby. I spent the last couple of weeks Up North, training around 60+ customer service agents on how to log calls in MSCRM. It turned out to be a fascinating observation of human psychology.

The organisation is a very large, old institution, rooted deeply in the British Heritage, and if I told you who it was, you would recognise the name instantly. People who worked there have been in their jobs since forever. I am not kidding. The IT Manager in charge has been in the organisation for 30 years, moving around in different roles. The customer services team have been there for many decades, whose ages ranged from about 30+ to 60+. Job for life apparently.

These people were very very set in their ways, and although they have had MSCRM for the last 2 years, they have never used it properly. Most were against it, many feared the 'New fangled technology' and allowed the fear to spread malignant negativity everywhere they go.

Mind you, there were people who were very excited about the new system (well, not new per se, but it was new to them only because they have never used it). Others were convinced that this would cause them so much work and be such a bane on their existance that they wanted nothing to do with it.

There was this manager, Kate, who had already decided that this was an evil evil thing. She was beligerant and loud and ranted against it. And she was in the first of the 9 training sessions I had to run. Fortunately I had Shelley and Sue with me, the two managers driving the change in the organisation. They were present in all the training sessions, mostly to answer business process questions but also to do 'Crowd Control'.

There was a strict class level - the people were banded in Grades. I assumed that Grade C's were the managers and Grade E's were the 'underlings'. I think that some 'managers' progressed to Grade C only because they have been in the job for so long. It was definitely not based on aptitude and certainly not on attitude. What a shame. There are a few very promising people in there, but I think it wouldn't take long for their spirit and enthusiasm to get crushed.

What was telling, was that a lot of the folks there had a very narrow-minded outlook. This is from what I observed. They had their little patch of area which they were responsible for, and did not care about any one else. Very much a 'It's not my job' culture, or rather, 'That job's for the higher grades'.

Pushing change in such an organisation can be very frustrating, especially for the more outward looking managers in there. It was also a charity, which did not believe in kicking people out, so you have the deadwood and the negative elements hanging on for a dear life in the place, knowing full well that they would not be able to survive any where else.

It was really a fascinating insight into how people perceived their life and their worth. Some were a joy to train - especially Maxine and Kay who took on the new training with much gusto and enthusiasm, requesting more and more exercises so that they could nail them down and get it right in their heads. Some others refused to do any exercises, angrily dismissing me and directing their anger and barbed negativity against Sue and Shelley, whom the probably feel are to blame for their feeling out of their comfort zone.

I found it incredibly draining, my energy levels running on empty. Training users is already an exhausting task, but having to field negativity and answer questions on why the system worked this way, why it was so difficult, why did the system not do x, y and z just took its toll on me. Fortunately today is the last day of training, and I can look forward to other tasks.

The people whom I interact with normally, such as John, the IT manager and Graham in his team, are really nice, as are Sue, Shelley and Sandra. It's just that the training was a particular exercise of tolerance and endurance for me.

I am now involved in two pretty large projects. My own MS CRM project for which I am the project manager, and another much much bigger one - with integration with BI cubes and other clever bits. On that one, I am the CRM lead, mainly because the project is one of 470 days with a very large building society in Wales.

This actually means that I am going to have to go to Cardiff quite a bit, starting from next week. I am not quite looking forward to it, especially since those who have done the Discovery and initial project kick-off meetings have said that the hotel is a bit dingy, and the food dire. Alison, who have gone for the initial design workshops have crunched her car in the car park bays. All in all, not a great sign.

But it will be a good project for me in terms of expanding my experience and career. I had thought that I would be due for a promotion this year, especially looking at the kinds of things I have been working on and having responsibility for. However, I think that may still be quite a while a way, because there are loads of very very good people internally who are still in the Principal Consultant band (as am I). Whilst I may believe I am doing very well on my own path, I think there is still a way to go before I am as good as some of them.

I have, however, found one of the best kept secrets up north in Wetherby, where I had to spend some time to complete the training. I stayed in the Four Gables quite a few times now, and Anne and David Watts have done a superb job of creating a really beautiful B&B.

My first impression of The Four Gables from the outside when I first arrived was that it is such a beautiful property. The inside was even more impressive - beautifully restored, immaculately kept and wonderfully warm.

The decor, interior finishings, furniture and little touches shows just how much love and pride that Anne and David Watts had in the house. Due to my job, I have been to loads of B&B and hotels, but this one ranked up there amongst the most delightful surprises, and I am comparing it to 4 star hotels.

Anne makes home made jams, compote as well as special daily breakfast every morning such as cinammon french toasts, and fluffly cheese/mushroom omelettes to name a few. I normally only have cereal and fruit, as I did not want to have too heavy a breakfast and thus, unable to concentrate at work!

On my very first visit, I was given a lovely little double bed room with en-suite. However, that night for some reason I found my mattress a little lumpy and did not sleep well. When I told Anne of this, she apologised and gave me a jar of marmalade 'with a dash of gin', and hoped that I would return despite my rough night.

I did indeed return, to find that she had replaced the mattress with one of superb quality! Suffice to say that I had a really good night sleep after that, and have stayed there a few more times since then.

It is really a beautiful place, with an air of peace and calm, and I will definitely return. I only hope that other B&B or hotels can learn from the Four Gables, especially when it comes to commitment to quality and personal pride in delivering excellent customer service.

Four Gables from the outside

That's my cow on the new bed

The welcome sign

Positive experience at the A&E

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:21:56 -0700

I'd just got back from a marathon driving session to see a customer in Didsbury (375 miles round trip) last Friday night and felt a stomach ache which I thought was just constipation.

So the next day (Saturday), I went and waited in the Reading flat for Mr Sky man to come and install Skybox at the flat. The stomach pains got progressively worse until I could no longer stand or walk without being bent double. Jeff took me to the Accident & Emergency (A&E) ward of Berkshire Royal Hospital in Reading where we spent Saturday night.

I had expected a long wait as the last time I was at an A&E was with Suzi in Brighton where her endometriosis attack (eerily with the same symptoms as mine - making me suspect it was the same thing) caused her excruciating abdominal pains. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I was admitted reasonably quickly into the ward and they took urine and blood samples. Nurse Cirah took my details and was really nice. As usual, my deep skinny veins made it really hard for nurse Sally to extract blood so after two attempts, she called onto Dr Jenny to do it.

Dr Jenny is a lovely young lady doctor who was really sweet and caring. She tried once at the back of my hand and got no joy, and then decided to get a skinner needle and tada! Got the vein. However because it was a skinny needle, the blood was coming out and a very slow drip drip rate, so it stayed in there for a bit longer than normal.

Dr Jenny inspected my belly and ordered x-rays, which was done by a nice Philipino chap called James who took both a chest and an abdomen x-ray. In the end, Dr Jenny diagnoased me with gallbladder inflammation which may be caused by a gall stone, but not necessarily so.

I was given the choice of staying at the hospital for observation or going home. Although they are all very kind people, I wanted my own bed, so it wasn't long before I was discharged with some antibiotics.

It really was quite a positive experience, as I had read quite a lot of horror stories on the medical blogs out there, so I am quite relieved that it all went ok. I will work from home tomorrow as I don't think I am fit enough to drive quite yet - especially since I will be driving 4.5 hours to Whetherby on Tuesday night and staying over until Friday. Jeff will be in Madrid this coming week, and I will be up north, so I will hopefully be fine.

I've now got to do my month end billing so I better get to it.

Today has been quite a good day.

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 00:44:41 -0700

A couple of days ago, I went to see Nick, the resident tech-daddy who was working from home in Newbury. I was attempting to write up my entry for the Microsoft DesignIT competition and needed his assistance in some technical SharePointy details of my solution for the NSPCC IT Challenge.

Whilst there, I also got him to have a look at my 'draft book' for some feedback. Ok, it's only got about 75 pages, but the skeleton was there and I wanted to get his feedback. He came up with some brilliant ideas but it meant quite a lot of re-write. One key feedback was that I didn't have to include everything I planned to - such as stuff around customising and extending MSCRM with client side and server side scripting. I was to concentrate on what I was good at, on what I knew - and that was the business process side.

That was what I needed, it jolted me into activity because the format was getting there - it was feeling more right by the day. So today, I just went ahead and did quite a bit of writing.

I am really very pleased with myself - the two things that I did today was to complete my DesignIT entry and progress the book.

It may sound very trivial, but I've struggle with procrastination for quite awhile, and the day with Nick and a very insightful conversation with Mads today just unlocked stuff and things just flowed. It's a good feeling. Tony would have asked me to anchor myself, but I forgot.

I guess I will just have to remember my peak state and try and get back to it tomorrow. Today is my last 'sick day'. Actually that's not true - the surgeon had given me 10 days off but I doubt my client could wait that long for me to continue my workshops. Besides, I am feeling loads better - almost back to normal with the exception of slight pain in the abdomen area when I bend over, or sneeze or laugh too hard.

Oh yes - I am back 'Up North' tomorrow, a 3 and half hour drive up to Manchester. It really isn't that bad - Emma (the PM on the client side) is lovely, and she knows about my op, and is doing everything she can to prep her team for the design workshop. She will already have done tons of legwork for me - sitting down with the engineers and customer service staff to walk through their processes.

My job tomorrow is to clarify and understand what they need so that I can write up the Functional Specification Design (FSD) for re-estimation and sign-off. I couldn't have asked for a more understanding client.

Another really lovely thing that happened today was Stefan - he went up to this client's place for a Tech Arch Design meeting this Monday and he sent his draft document to me for review. It was such a massive improvement from the time I reviewed his work that I just had to call and tell him. His work and confidence had improved by leaps and bounds, and it has been such an enormous pleasure seeing him develop and grow the last two years. What made me feel quite good is that I feel that I can take credit for some of his progress.

Whilst he had huge potential any way, I guided and trained him to think more critically and analytically about things, and to be disciplined and learn how to communicate more effectively with clients, turning him into an excellent technical architect. I felt quite proud of his document, and while it could still be polished further - the content was first class. Much better than some I've seen out there.

So today was a really good day. In fact, I've been having quite a lot of good days recently, even though they have been slightly stressful and busy. I've had really nice clients who made sure that my engagements were always lively and interesting, and although they are in various locations Up North, I don't mind because I do enjoy driving. And I get to listen and learn from Jim Rohn, Stephen Covey and various other lecturers.

Anyway I better get to bed now. I've to be up in 5 hours.

Poked and prodded

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 13:59:37 -0700

I have two holes in my belly. One on/near the belly button and the other one a couple of inches down. I think the Lap & Dye procedure is where they pump CO2 via one hole and take a gander using a bendy camera via the other hole. I woke up burping something awful (I think it was the CO2).

Apparently they couldn't find the polyp but they did find that I had minor endometriosis. Apparently it might have caused our thus far unsuccessful attempts to have a family.

Hopefully we will have a letter from our consultant to tell us what the next step is. I won't fret or worry until we have that meeting, so that's it really.

It has been busy at work, as usual. I've got two clients 'up North' as it were, one in Didsbury and the other in Wetherby. so I have been racking up the mileage in the little brother (Ibifa). The national budget means that I can claim up to 40p per mile, so it hasn't been too bad, especially since I rack up approximately 395 miles per visit 'up North'.

I've got about 4 days of sick leave while I recover from yesterday's op, so I will utilise the time by writing my book. Hmm speaking of which, I better get back to it.

A BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free) Operation

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:20:17 -0700

Next Thursday I go for a hysteroscopy + laparoscopy & dye. They are going to remove a polyp from my innards and have a tour round my organs and stuff.

I want to ask if they can give me a lipo whilst they are poking around in there, but I don't think it will go down well.

On the plus side though, I get about 6 days off work - which is what I badly need. It's been too stressful the last week or so, sometimes I wonder if working like this is worth it. I do really enjoy my job though, but the stress can get a bit too much.

Year of the Mouse 2008

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:50:00 -0700

It's almost the end of our holiday, and I am feeling a bit sad as we had an absolutely fantastic time. I think this must be the most fun Chinese New Year break I have had, as it was very much about family this time round.

Right in the beginning though, we had a lot of errands to run - such as seeing our lawyers, the property agent, setting up a couple of bank accounts for the mortgage and etc, making new spectacles (and powered sunglasses) and tons of other chores which was hampered somewhat by the upcoming CNY holiday, as some key people were not available when we needed to see them. At the end though, we finished most of the more important stuff, so all ended well.

We had a mini break in Bangkok from 31/1 to 3/2, and saw the famous Royal Palace. It was magnificent, with beautiful pagodas and temples. The architecture was amazing - I was unable to fathom how such intricate details could exist, creating a glittering diamond effect when the sun fell on the coloured mirror pieces and gold leaf paint.

Entrance to the Royal Palace.

The Golden Pagodas

Here's an amazing demon statue

The protector of the gate

Jeff and the Gold pyramid

The Reunion Dinner
Reunion Dinner happens on Chinese New Year eve, which fell on a Wednesday. All the Lim's gathered together and had a big feast - where all the aunts brought their signature dishes to the house.

Mum and the 'Big People's table

The gamblers on New Year's eve

Cheating is rife - Big Aunty taking a peek at Sylvia's cards

Aunty Mildred and mum collaborating

Here's grandma talking to her brother from China
whom she hasn't spoken to in 35 years

"Hey look how pretty I am!"

"How come no one's playing with me?"

Never mind, a kiss and a cuddle from mum makes it all better.

Bunny ears make Vivien looks way cooler

Open House
We also had an open house celebration on Saturday, where all relatives, friends and neighbours were invited to some more wanton eating at our place. This is where I get to see everyone at the same time, making it a very efficient 'people visiting' method, as I do not have to go visit them individually. :)

All tucking into the buffet

Toon: Your 'sticky' antics do not impress me

Johleen was hungry enough to eat Jeff's mouse t-shirt

The Yee Sang
The Yee Sang is a Malaysian/Singaporean chinese thing - we believe it was invented by the restaurants to make money. In any case, it is a fun event, where the family gets together and mixes up 18 colourful ingredients with some raw fish (anything that denotes or sounds like 'good fortune' or money or longevity) and everyone uses chopsticks to mix them all together to ensure good luck for the year.

This year, we had it at uncle no. 1's house in Klang.

Putting the final touches on the 18 ingredient 'yee sang'

What a lovely big hill!

Whilst everyone was eating, little YY was getting a tad moody.

The Moody one being pacified by daddy.

So I gave her the camera to take pictures of 'Uncle Geff'.

The Growlie Uncle Geff

The Debonair Uncle Geff

The 'Wha?!' Uncle Geff

The normal Uncle Geff

The Joker Uncle Geff

The Sulky Uncle Geff

As noted in some of the pictures above, CNY is a time for getting together and gambling with play money or small amounts, like 10 cents a bet, that sort of thing. Brother and Vivien gave Jeff some mahjong lessons, and it wasn't long before he was playing like an old hand.

And those were the highlights of the Chinese New Year.

T-1

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 01:01:39 -0700

In 24 hours I shall be sitting in a plane on my way home for Chinese New Year. I just can't wait! The last few months has been very busy and I have been really looking forward to this trip.

Poor Jeff is so absolutely overworked that I bet he will just fall asleep and not wake up for the next week. He is so sleep deprived that his concentration is poor, and I worry about him driving to work. Any way, this trip will hopefully regenerate and recharge him.

It's now midnight and I should get to bed. Ooo I can't wait for tomorrow!

Somewhat belated Xmas pictures

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 09:26:00 -0700

Just took this off my camera phone...

This is what Jackie gave me for xmas - some cow socks with jingle bells! How did she know I was mad about cows?!?
They went very well with my cow slippers.

Poor Jeff was working on Christmas day. It was dark and cold, but at least he had company - me!

Some pretty reindeer lights in Canary Wharf

...and this is what I got Jeff for Christmas.

So this is what a zombie feels like...

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 09:24:13 -0700

Am absolutely shattered. The last two weeks has been absolutely manic to say the least. Yesterday, phase 2 of the FSD (Functional Specification Design) had to go out, incorporating MSCRM, scheduling and the mobile solutions to the gaming company I was talking about. It is so complex that I cannot even begin to fathom every single detail, and every time Ross and I have a discussion, another design decision had to be made.

There are about 3 separate systems that needs to be kept in check and make sure that every decision is carefully thought out so nothing 'breaks' the system. The team put together for the project is really top class though, there's Marcus - technical solutions architect, Ross - scheduling expert (he moved over to MSCRM team earlier this year), Gary - business analyst, Simin - Project Manager, the mobile team - Etienne, Jim and Thomas, and of course the MSCRM side, Kajal, Aman, Nick and myself.

It is so very brilliant to be in such an amazing team, we all bring out the best in each other. The whole is truly multiple times more than the sum of its parts. I keep reflecting how much I truly enjoy these people, their company and their intellect helps me grow in so many ways.

This is a challenging project, and I am somewhat glad that I am not the project manager on this one. There are so many variables and unknown that needs managing. We had a deadline of yesterday to send out phase 2 of the FSD, and the team stayed until about 10pm to complete it. Unfortunately the Leon is out of action at the moment, requiring a new exhaust and brakes, which means that I am carpooling with Jeff. So poor Jeff was stuck at my office, waiting for us to complete the document.

We only got home about 11pm, at which time he said he had some more work to do - so while I went to bed straight away, he only got in past midnight.

I sooo can't wait to go home for Chinese New Year though, we leave next Thursday. Jeff will have been working for 11 days straight when we leave, as he is also doing this weekend, poor thing. We will be both fairly drained, so this holiday will be really very welcome.

This morning, we got up at 6am. I have been having a pretty good couple of weeks with my new regime - 30 mins cardio/weight training in the morning before work and fruits and veg all day long. I got the inspiration from reading Steve Pavlina's blog in my quest to gain more energy. It has worked quite well, and the hunger pangs have lessened somewhat. I am more alert and work better. But I think it does take a toll, especially for days like yesterday when I was working 15 hours.

So I have been having bananas, cucumbers, tomatoes, grapes, sweet corn and nuts for lunch and snacks. For breakfast I started alternating V8 vegefruit juice drinks and slimfast. I don't have much time to do my own juicing now because of my morning workout. Today I have half a cucumber and two spotty bananas (yum) from home, and I shall look for some grapes from the local M&S.

Oh - here's a random picture. Jeff gets his jeans from costco because they are cheap, and he gets through them like nothing because he does DIY and errands/chores in them. A couple of weeks ago, he went and helped his dad lay down concrete for a pretty large greenhouse, and that took its toll on his jeans, which ripped apart quite easily.

Safe to say that those jeans are now in the bin...

Crisis 2007

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 09:26:00 -0700

This year, I did Crisis during the 'tail end', because those were the only days I was free. Crisis is only open from 23 -30 Dec, and the volunteers help to set up everything and also take it all down and return the property/building to the state as before (or better).

I did the 29 and 30, and as usual, I found it really quite fun. This time though, I had more of a chance to interact and chat with the other volunteers than the guests.

I met Aurika, an Indonesian born Chinese who lived and grew up in Australia, which explained why I found it hard to place her. I thought she was Japanese due to her name, but it is only because her parents used to live in Switzerland and liked the male name Aurel so they feminised it for her when she was born. Talk about being confused! She was here for a working holiday stint, and decided to do this for fun.

We were both tasked with manning the stock room, which held the clothes for the guests. Unfortunately due to the fact that there are 8 centres this time, and the manufacturers have not donated as many clothing items as previous years, the stock was running quite low. High demand items such as winter coats, shoes and jeans were limited, although underwear, t-shirts, hats, scarves, trouwsers were fine.

Steve took over from Aurika as she was called away. He works in Westminister, helping to pass through 'green bills' and wanted to over-haul the whole political system if he could. He seemed very passionate about his job and was quite fun to talk to.

Then there was Camilla, whose parents came from Mauritious and works as a freelance production assistant. She replaced me on my post at the stock room, but I managed to catch up with her later during a break. She gave me a lowdown on how tv production works, and it is often not as glamourous as we all think it is. It's hard work, often very long hours in unsociable conditions - such as the outdoors at ungodly times.

I also met Clio, who was a very chatty girl working in the recruitment industry, borne of Singaporean mother and English father. We had a good chat about Malaysia and Singapore and how things are different between the UK and 'home'. Clio and I were on toiilet cleaning duty - all toilets had to be cleaned hourly, which made me a bit embarrassed about the frequency with which I cleaned ours!

Next, I had 'gap duty'; since the building we were in was abandoned and marked for demolition at some point next year, we had to make sure that the guests did not go where they were not supposed to. Gaps had to be manned, and sometimes this meant looking after the entrance to the Samaritan's area, or the doctor's area to ensure crowd control was in place. It is also a good place to chat with people.

Justin was on gap duty with me, and I soon found out that he works in the city at one of the investment banks as an IT manager. We spent the next hour or so chatting about AGILE development methodologies, the outsourcing of labour to India/China and various geeky things. He is also an avid cyclist, and did the London-Paris cycling charity gig for Crisis this year. He was really easy to talk to and it made the time pass quite quickly.

The next day was 'Take Down' day, all guests had to be woken up earlier than usual and gently encouraged to leave the building by 10am so that we can begin dismantling and disassembling all furniture and fixtures. So until 10 am, I was helping to manage the breakfast queue and manning the gap to the makeshift library. I was itching to do some 'proper' work as the other volunteers were busy clearing tables and chairs and being generally more active than I was.

"Don't worry, you will get really busy at 10am, so enjoy it while you can." One of the guests was a veteran of the COC Christmas thing, and he knew that we would be working really hard after the guests leave. We had a nice chat about immigration and things, and he was all for the government ID card initiative although the recent fiasco's about the loss of private data and other such incidents were really bad for public confidence.

Come 10 am though, the dining area was almost cleared out with the exception of a few guests who were still sleeping and did not want to go. One was shell shocked at how quickly we were clearing the tables and chairs. Basically as soon as most have had their breakfast, we started clearing chairs as soon as a guest got up to leave. Once everyone left a table, we would pick it up, dismantle it and take it away. Within the span of 15 minutes, almost the whole area was cleared.

The Green Badges were those who had more responsibility, and our shift of about 170 volunteers during the 'Take Down' day had about 6 green badges. I had been watching them, and I believe that they are one of the most compassionate, gentle and caring human beings I have ever met. They were so incredibly kind to the vulnerable guests, and very sensitive to their high anxiety about leaving a warm environment back to reality.

Green Badge Hillary, whom I met the day before near the stock room, was really very good at it. She had to deal with irate guests (some of whom had mental and emotional challenges) who were demanding clothing items of which she had limited supply. I have always been very poor at conflict management, so seeing an expert in action was pretty cool. I think next year I may volunteer more time if I could.

Soon as all guests had left, we were split up to do various jobs. I was in the team who had the salubrious duty of sorting out the Sleeping area. About 250 donated camping beds (canvas beds held up by rods) had to be dismantled, pillows needed to be stripped from pillow cases and all carted down. You may think that it is an easy job but it was really quite hard. Especially since the smell was very strong and some items had been soiled.

We had to strip a whole room full of pillows and then carry them down to 3 floors be packed. I could only carry about 8-10 pillows in one trip so had to make quite a few trips. Then we had to carry the blankets and duvets down, after checking to make sure that they didn't have any 'sharps' - which is anything like syringes, scissors, knifes and anything dangerous, even though the night shifts had already done some of the work by sorting it out. I have to admit that the smell was really quite bad, and it didnt get better as time went by.

I reckon I must have made about 10 trips up and down the 3 storeys taking the pillows, pillow cases and duvet/blankets to the loading area before lunchtime rolled around. In the afternoon, we helped to take down everything else, and I counted another 4-5 more trips, hauling down fire extinguishers, rubbish for the tip, toilet and cleaning materials, boards which had been dismantled from makeshift kitchens, first aid doctor and dentist areas and various other little DIY rooms.

By the time the day was done, I was absolutely shattered. But as always, it was a brilliant experience. I am going to try my best to see if I can do more days next year.

So this was what took me down last Dec...

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 12:26:04 -0700

I went down with food poisoning symptoms immediately after Jeff's company Christmas do, and was really quite ill for a couple of days. It was only after I got back to work did I find out that a lot of my colleagues also had the same thing, the exact same symptoms -
.

We always felt quite pleased that we rarely got touched during winter with the flu bug flying around, but this time, I was really hit quite badly. Nevertheless, I have recovered, but for some reason I now have a nagging cough that just doesn't seem to want to go away.

On another note - there was snow forecasted for yesterday but not much happened. It was cold, grey and windy, but the only thing I saw were a few flakes which melted as soon as they touched the ground. No snow no nothing. Booo. I think we were all waiting for something interesting to happen, as it has been very mild, a gloomy omen as to the state of our planet.

Ho ho ho and a happy new year!

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 09:25:14 -0700

It has been a pretty busy time so Christmas was a nice change - lovely and quiet where we went up to Birmingham to Uncle Bill's and grandad's. Jeff's parents and Jenny were there too. As Jeff had to work over Christmas and Boxing day (which fell on a Tuesday and Wednesday), we decided to have our own Christmas a few days earlier on Sunday.

It was really quite nice - Jeff's dad made roast chicken this time, with bacon sausages and Jenny made her traditional Parsnip Parcels for the veggies (herself and mum). Being the greedy pig, I had to have some chicken and also a Parsnip Parcel as I really liked it. It has mashed parsnips, chestnuts, mushrooms and onions wrapped in crispy filo pastry. Christmas dinner was really lovely, and I stuffed myself solid.

Jeff also had a no holds barred relationship with food over the holidays, munching on chocolates, mince pies and christmas pudding. I am not keen on them, so he normally has my share as well.

This means that we are both due for a serious detox and dieting in the new year! Jeff has told me that our dinner plan for the next month should be salad (switching between chicken, cod or salmon) and he is rationing himself to 5 biscuits a day! I told him that sort of defeated the purpose of the diet but he said he wanted a 'realistic' diet.

I think we were a lot better this year in terms of presents, and did not get anything that was wasteful or tacky. Jenny got us some bathroom rugs to go in our new flat, and mum got us two sets of nice cutlery. I got Jeff his yearly Terry Prachett book, some t-shirts and an IBM laptop back pack (as his current one is wearing thin; besides, it belongs to me).

It was really nice being looked after - I wasn't allowed in the kitchen much. However, it was back to work on Christmas day as I had to complete and reconcile the various bits of documentation for the project. With so many teams working on various parts, I was worried that things would get dropped out.

New Years eve was quiet - I had to work so we didn't do much. I made dinner and we watched Casino Royale, which we both hadn't seen before. Daniel Craig isn't *that* good, in my humble opinion. I still think that Pierce is a much better Bond.

What boring old sods we are!

Engaging the grey cells

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 00:10:37 -0700

It's been hyper busy, stressful but challenging. I think I like it because I can just about cope, and the brain cells are working at high gear. Have had to juggle multiple tasks, on top of the one major one (yes, the gambling one that doesn't sit quite well with me), I am managing the others on top of managing my team and resources and helping everyone else.

I have also volunteered to be a 'Home Manager'. This seems to be necessary in consultancies where people work on difference project across different streams of businesses, and there is no continuity to a person's welfare and self-development. A Home Manager exist to help a person deal with work life, and answer any questions they may have.

Next Monday, I get a new 'Home Boy' and Gurdip is his name. I am his home manager, so am already plotting little evil things for my minion to do for me! Muahaha! Very soon, I will get a small army of my very own 'home persons' with which to rule the world! :D

Any way, he is but a graduate, and has many things to learn. I shall teach him of the Ways of the Pei, and he will be a mini-me! What fun it shall be!

I think my brain cells has been frazzled from too much work, so you can ignore this post. Really.

Of books and real life - Giuliani and Clinton

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 12:53:29 -0700

I think I'm on a roll. Having had quite a few long distance client site engagements have given me opportunity to steam roll through quite a few audio tracks. Kiyosaki's wealth management books have given me something to discuss with Jeff, as I know he read those books when we were in Malaysia a few years ago and he doesn't follow some of the historical/current event stuff as I do. We both think he's a bit of a manipulative exploitive person, but some of his ideas are sound.

I'm in the middle of Giuliani's 'Leadership' book. He read the foreward but someone else is reading the abridged version of the book. Clinton's 'My Life' was read by Bill himself, and was a different read (or 'listen' in my case).

Both are politicians, and both are flawed. Clinton had the Lewinsky affair, while Rudy went through bitter and acrimonious divorce where his own children publically disowned him. Both wrote books, and while Clinton wrote about his time as a president, Rudy wrote about being a Leader.

I came away liking Clinton a whole lot more than I did before. The opposite is happening for Mr Giuliani.

Why? I am pondering. Clinton came across as human, and bared all his weaknesses with no excuses to the public. I believe him to be a very caring person, although he probably had his secrets as well. He lied to the senate and was impeached. But I don't think he ever made himself more 'perfect' than he was.

On the other hand, Rudy painted himself as a hero and leader after 9/11. He talked about how his experience and qualifications meant that he could lead the nation.

He talked about surrounding himself with talented and strong team, naming Bernard Kerick as New York City Police Commissioner (read about the scandals here) who in the end pleaded guilty to corruption charges. Was his judgement that poor, or did he know of the infractions and turned a blind eye to them?

I guess that if you are not perfect, don't say you are, and people will forgive and forget. Particularly if you are likable. But if you are hypocritical, people are less forgiving.

Apparently Rudy had done a lot for New York state, cleaning up crime (although the boys @ Freakanomics disagree that the crime slowdown was due to his policies), improving standards of living, leading the city through 9/11 etc. He is still a hard one to pin down. Does his personal life reflect the ethics of his public life?

Paradoxically, I would have argued 'No', if we were talking about Clinton - only because he doesn't come across as a hypocrite. I'd argue 'Yes' if we were talking about Rudy.

I know it is double standards, but that's my opinion so there.

Why my PC needs rebuilding

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 23:26:31 -0700

Because it's full of crap. Full of microsoft updates and installs and crap that I installed. Shareware crap, remote tool crap, all manner of crapity crap crap. I'm just waiting for some time to blat it completely and start all over again.

I haven't got anything running and the processor is jumping around like a man with ants gnawing on his toosh. I mistakenly gave my Titan VPC about 1500 MB of RAM, thus reducing available RAM to about 25k for OS and other processors, which resulted in mega slow-mo experience on the PC.

So I shut it down and reduced it to 1200 MB. Didn't help very much.

Yes, I need to blat it and start again. Or just get a lot more RAM. *grumble*

Titan is out

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 00:24:35 -0700

MSCRM Version 4 is out. Well, not quite out to the public yet, but partners get the first peek - and it does look good. However, it isn't brand new, but it does have quite a lot of bells and whistles that make it a much better product than version 3.0. It plugs the gaps that made 3.0 a bit of a pain at times to use.

I am trying to find some time to play with it, between managing the few mini projects I have, as well as being eyeball deep in this new project. That's my work life at the moment, quite busy, just like this time last year. In fact, it is even more busy - as we are 1 head down. Although we have Kajal and Ross joining the team, we lost Andy, Ula and Angela.

We are so busy it isn't funny. Resources are incredibly tight and the sales team just keeps signing up clients after clients. Success comes at a high price, especially if you are in the professional services sector. There are only so many bodies to go around, and so many hours in the day to work. We cannot squeeze more time and more work on limited number of consultants.

Even though the Company is planned to double in size within the next year (which is very ambitious, given that it works out to adding 2 additional people to the payroll every week), we are seriously struggling.

Any way, here are a couple of photos I took of some entries in a Pumpkin carving competition at Jeff's company. He did the one of the gunshot wound. I think these two are really good.

And this is Jeff with his bug-eye chocolates.

Tired

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 10:31:35 -0700

So I am now full time on this new project, although I am not the project manager. This is the one with the betting/gaming company. It is easy to detach myself from what they do, but it still niggles at me.

I am running a 3 day workshop to gather their MSCRM requirements, and after this, we will go into details about their integration requirements. It is indeed an ambitious project, so it will be interesting to see the results. The only problem is, not only am I booked full-time on this project, I still have to manage my other smaller projects as well - coordinating and disseminating information.

Other news - we will probably be moving to the Reading flat. This flat is about 660 sq ft and is about 1 mile from Jeff's office in Green Park. This means that he will be able to walk to work, whilst my office journey increases to about 50 minutes or so - it is still ok. This move will also give us a lot more free time, especially after we have furnished it and settled in.

It is tiiiiny compared to what we have at the moment, but it will probably be temporary whilst we wait and watch the market. The flat was bought for investment purposes and if we do sell our current house (and indications are good - the developer wrote us a letter yesterday confirming that they will be submitting planning to the council; the outcome looks good) then we would need a place to stay.

Mum and dad currently in Guangzhou, lucky things. I wish I was on holiday as well. Speaking of which, have finished listening to Yao to Mao lectures, it was very interesting. I have a few more china lectures to go through, but have instead jumped over to the 'God Delusion' with Richard Dawkins, whom I found to be incredibly witty and intelligent, but a little bit too literal. Will discuss at another time.

I am now just starting on Kiyosaki series; having completed Rich Dad Poor Dad yesterday, and Cashflow Quadrant today. It is a bit of an eye opener, as I have always had a hang-up about money, and now I sort of understand why.

Ooops the workshop is about to start.

Busy yet again

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 19:39:23 -0700

Once again we are busy crazy. I have about 5 projects on the go at the same time, although two of them are very active and requires a lot of my time, the other three are pootling along with some very top notch consultants on.

It is not easy - one of my projects was inherited from Ula but the data migration workstream was woefully under-estimated, and required a huge amount of write-of's. Even so, it is a big monster of a thing - we are migrating from Siebel to MSCRM, about 32 custom entities and about 73 scripts, all of which have high dependencies on other scripts.

Tomorrow I have a 4 hour drive up to Wetherby, for a full day of workshop, and then I drive back. It is going to be a 15 hour work day, but I do enjoy driving as long as there is no traffic jam and I can listen to my audio files.

I've just about finished Yao to Mao, 5000 years of Chinese History, so will probably start with Richard Dawkin's God Delusion. I must remember to charge up my Sony.

Gambling and morality

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 08:43:00 -0700

Yesterday we went to see a client on a pre-sales 'requirements gathering' mission in order to produce a statement of work and estimation of their solution. It's an ambitious project - we will be integrating MSCRM with mobile solution for scheduling field engineers. It would also integrate with Navision and all sorts of clever things.

I was there as the 'MSCRM expert', although I didn't feel very expert-y. Even though I've been doing the job for more than 1 year now, I haven't had the chance to delve into details and guts of the product, to say that I know it inside out is a blatant lie. Mostly I've project managed my team, who are really of sterling calibre. I am so proud to be part of this team.

Any way, this client provides betting/gaming terminals at betting shops and pubs/clubs and takes a cut of their earnings. I am violently against gambling, having seen the effects on how this addiction ruins families and lives.

This company is so filthy rich that they ooze money out of their pores. They told us that they were the 'crack cocaine' of the industry, as gambling addicts would beg, borrow or steal to fund their addiction. Captive market. I find that incredibly revolting. Even more so when I found out that one terminal could net �20,000 per day. PER DAY. That means that downtime costs money, especially when the slots get jammed or the note reader clunks out. Which is the reason for the solution - they wanted to reduce time to fix (TTF) to below 24 minutes on average, from when a call comes in to when the device is fixed.

The project itself is exciting, but not sure if I like being part of this thing. It feels really wrong.

The August holiday

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:30:00 -0700

It's been so busy that the holiday seemed so long ago, but I'll give a go at recounting what we did.

Right - so we went to Penang for a short break on Merdeka day (Independence Day), where we were liberated from the evil British Empire! Or so we keep needling Jeff about.

We were picked up at the airport by a chatty chinese taximan called Vincent. He dropped us off at our destination and gave us his card, telling us to call him if we required a tour guide or a ride. More about Vincent later.

We stayed in a big ole mansion built by a very rich man who stamped his mark and personality in the design and fabric of the place.

It was very grand, with elements of both east and west from the materials chosen, as well as the layout and configuration of the rooms. Apparently it had been built with 'perfect feng shui' in mind, enabling the strongest flow of 'qi' to flow from the very heart of the house. Its position and orientation was carefully chosen to ensure that good fortune would bless the household.

There are 38 rooms which housed his large family (he had 8 wives, although not all stayed in that house), and we stayed in the 'Hakka' room. Apparently his various wives, who were dotted all over south east asia and china where he built other stately homes, sold off his houses, furniture and other possessions when he died, leaving little trace of his grand empire.

Fortunately, the mansion in Penang was 'protected' by a clause in his will, which stated that nothing can be sold until his last remaining grandson has passed away. It was also stated that the household would only have a really small stipend to upkeep the place, which was not enough - forcing his family to rent out the rooms to squatters to survive. By the time the last grandson had died, everything was sold. The family fortune was lost and squandered through gambling and wasteful spending.

Fortunately, the mansion was bought and restored to its former glory by some local businessmen, without the help of any remaining descendents. It was a dusty old place, but its ancient charm was evident in every tile, every glass panel, every 'cut and paste' sculpture on its foundation.

No, it wasn't like any regular hotels we stayed at, but it was lovely.

The entrance was very imposing.

This is how it looked like from the front.

There were 7 courtyards, but this was the main one,
allowing sunlight to stream through the house and brighten it up.

These are the 'cut and paste' sculptures, painstakingly designed piece by piece.

The pieces were made from broken coloured bowls, which were 'cut' into size and 'pasted' in its appropriate place.

The lovely restored interior.

The stained glass windows were obviously borrowed from the western church designs.

We also went to a fruit farm, where we saw quite a few fruit trees (of course), especially new ones imported from overseas. One of the new tropical fruits that became popular within the last few years is the dragonfruit. Its juicy sweet flesh is red, so sometimes it looks like you've just sucked someone's jugular after chomping down on one.

The bloody dragonfruit tree.

And some bananas as well. Jeff was surprised that they only fruit once in their lifetime and are cut down after harvest.

We had mixed fruit juice. Mine was dragonfruit, mango and pineapple. Notice that it is just as red as newly slashed artery.

Here is a selection of tropical fruit that was harvested from the farm. What a nice selection!

After Cheong Fatt Tze, we moved onto Shangri-La's Golden Sands hotel in Batu Ferringi. It was just as one would expect from a resort - expensive, average, and without character. It was different. Cheong Fatt Tze was nice, warm, olde fashioned, full of character but dusty and ancient (Jeff's nose was allergic to our room). Besides, it started raining after we arrived at Golden Sands.

Jeff doing some mortgage calculation on the balcony while the rain pelted down.

Lunch was a western Hamburger for Jeff.

Walking through Georgetown was an experience for Jeff, because the arches were too low for him!

We also suffered the long cramped train ride up the famed Penang Hill. We were really crammed up like sardines, but it was nice and cooling up at the peak. Jeff took some lovely pictures of the sunset from up there.

Some lovely views of the sunset from Penang Hill

Temple of The Reclining Buddha

Of course, we couldn't leave without going to the Bhuddist temples Penang is famous for. The two that we visited included a Thai and a Burmese temple, housing the reclining Buddha and the Standing Buddha. What was interesting was that people would donate money in exchange for favours from the deity. Donation Boxes littered the area, so you could try and 'buy' some good fortune.

Kuan Yin, Goddess of Mercy

We did visit another statue in construction - Kuan Yin, or the Goddess of Mercy, which is currently being built with bronze. It is a spectacular creation, and will definitely be more awe-inspiring when it is completed. Kuan Yin will be sheltered by a structure supported by marble columns, and flanked by two guardians.

And check out the marble pillar which have been carved out from a solid piece of stone.

THere were also marble carvings of the 12 animals of the chinese horoscope. Took a picture of Jeff and his 'homeboy'.

The Snake Temple

There's a temple that houses poisonous snakes, which are kept docile by the incense smoke in the area. Everyone talked about it, and I have photos of me standing in front of some snakes when I was around 8, so was quite keen to see it. What a let down. There were only about 2-3 snakes, and a box of little mice as snake food. Let down.

Of course, nothing was better than being with family. We already had a trip home this new year, so another one in August was a treat. We really had a good time, especially Jeff who played with YY a lot. I think he enjoyed the exercise, giving her flying lessons and using her as bench press weights.

"Yumm, I really like this thing I am eating."

"And this is how the world looks if you were an upside down flying monkey."

Standing on top of Mount Jeff.

And skipping down the mall with family in tow.

Coming home.

We came back to a lot of runner beans. They were over-ripe and very stringy.

Here are the packed goodies we brought back with us. I think we were over-weight by about 6 kg! Thankfully Jeff's flirty eyes did the trick, and the check-in lady let us through! Ok maybe it was my flirty eyes that did the job.

The passing

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 08:43:15 -0700

My grandfather (Ah Kong) passed away a few weeks ago. I felt sad and conflicted. He was not a very nice person, and did not treat ah ma as well as he should have. He was not very nice to his children and their family. I was angry with him for a long time because I believed that he accelerated Ah Ma's Alzheimer's disease.

On the whole, he was ok with me though. Maybe because when I was young, I was his 'favourite'. It could be because I was the eldest grand daughter and we lived in Sabah so he did not see much of me except during holidays. I remember him taking me around Klang during lantern festival at night. Bright lanterns dotted the darkness, with excited children and adults chatting and enjoying the atmosphere.

Children walked around gingerly with their very flamable paper lanterns in multitude of shapes such as goldfish, large star, cartoon characters and all of that. They were a definite fire hazard, as they were made of coloured crepe paper stretched over thin rattan frames which housed a quivering flame on a skinny candle. It was very fun, although my goldfish did die a glorious death in a firebomb (ok, maybe it wasn't that dramatic). A lot of children lost their lanterns the same way, normally because the flame caught the flamable crepe paper.

I was really upset so Ah Kong bought me another one and we carried on with the parade. It was really quite fun. After that, it got more 'hi-tech' ... the newer lanterns were blow-up plastic shapes, with small bulb inside to light it up. Suffice to say that I did not like these new lanterns, despite their non-flammable property.

And every time we returned to Klang for holidays, he would take me out and buy me chicken satay because 'you can't get real Satay from Sabah'. They cost 10� per stick, so 20 sticks only cost RM2. 35p. For 20 yummy sticks of satay. That was my treat, and was what I could count on when going home to stay with my grandparents during school holidays. I'd get my satay and mooch around with Johleen, Faemus and Ah Ma. Johleen and family were living with my grandparents at that time, so school holidays were really very enjoyable.

I remember having the 'honorable' task of plucking Ah Kong's straggly stubble with a tweezer when I was little. After we transferred to Sabah, the Faemus took over the 'job' and became the new 'favourite'. It was ok though, I didn't mind because somebody had to do it!

Ah Kong was a very heavy smoker and drinker throughout his life, and probably accrued enough toxins to finish off a horse. But he lived until the ripe old age of 90, complaining and insulting everyone all along the way. I went to see him on my visits home out of duty, and did not spend much time with him when I was there - each visit lasting less than half an hour at times.

He kept changing his will, depending on which family member was the current 'favourite', cutting out those who fell out of favour for any reason. I think this was his way of buying love. He did not realise that although he had not been a good father, his children had, all of them, taken care of him in one way or another. All did their duty as filial children.

Duty. And filial piety. That was all he deserved. Ah ma, who loved everyone unconditionally, who was extremely compassionate and kind, got loved in return. Many many times over. I miss her very much. I am so sad she is not here to listen to my stories and how I have turned out.

It has been less than a year since Ah Ma's passing that Ah Kong went as well. I am hoping that it is because he missed her and is regretful towards the way he treated her. I don't know. I don't think I have very much more to say about him now.

Tis good to be home

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 19:46:01 -0700

I am actually back in Malaysia for a couple of weeks, as I had to use up some holidays due to change in 'holiday year' of our parent company. I'm not complaining, so here I am.

We decided to make this an 'investment holiday', and instead of spending loads of money - we'd find a way to re-finance, get a loan and get an investment flat here. Actually, we already have one in Berjaya Time Sq, so this one would be a new one. We have some issues with BTS, so need to sort it all out. Some of the other owners want to get lawyers involved and take the management to court but it's a very messy affair. I don't even know where to begin on this. Not to be deterred, we still want to expand our property portfolio.

So we arrived last Saturday, and for the next four days from Sunday onwards - we have been viewing flats and seeing people. Phew! It has been quite hectic. Poor old dad was chauffeuring us around, because:
1) KL changes every time I come back
2) As a result, our local maps are pretty poo
3) I have become too chicken to drive
4) We have no 'free' car to use. Lame excuse because I could easily rent a car. But I've lost my driving mojo!

It's been lovely though, because we got to play with YY again, who have grown up into a little dynamite! She's so full of energy, I am not sure how my brother and Vivian keeps up with her. I got her a couple of pajamas, and a little fairy dress for her to play-act. I thought she would get a kick out of it, and it went down a storm. She did not want to take it off!

I'm a pretty little princess!

As usual, we did a lot of eating. Met up with Toonie briefly on Monday, although I hadn't had time to pass over her supply of Scrumpy Jacks and After Eights. We had dinner at Secret Recipe, where although dinner wasn't great (especially my lasagne), Jeff was in chocolate cake heaven.

"Prepare for death, you chocolate thing!"

I also ate more durians this time round, as it was in season (although the good hybrids - D24s, were already sold out by the time I got here. It was lovely, although laden with calories! It's got loads of fats, carbs and fibre. Yum! I forgot how much I missed them.

Dad bargaining with 'Durian Chai' for a good discount on the spikey fruit.

We also went shopping in Ikano and Ikea, down near 1 Utama. We were looking at things to buy for the flat, such as sofa, cupboard and etc.

Saw a funny sign in the Ikano toilets - in order to appreciate it, you must understand that in Malaysia, we have two types of toilets: the sitting down ones and the squatting ones. Most old houses (such as my grandparents) have concrete toilets in which you squat over and do your business. They are fully functioning, flushing cisterns, but they differ from the 'modern' ones by the method in which you do the business.

Unfortunately, a lot of people are still not used to the modern toilets, and as such - are still treating them like a hole in the ground. I think that it results in a lot of embarrassment (especially if you fall over) and annoyance for the cleaning and maintenance crew. Hence, the gentle reminder in the toilet as to the correct way of using the 'modern loos'.

Better to learn the 'new technique' or else!

We haven't shopped in Ikea for awhile, but we found a 'Jeff' which came in assorted colours and only costs RM28!

Tomorrow I have to renew my IC (Identity Card) as my parents address have changed, so it's another trip to Shah Alam for me. And I need to get a couple more shirts and shorts as I barely brought enough clothes (so that my bag can be stuffed with new purchases on the flight back!),

On Friday, we leave for a short break to Penang. We will be staying in the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion which sounds really interesting, so am really looking forward to it.

I could not help myself, and so, logged on to office email to check that all went well. Jason's Axonom dataload (lingering Mex project go-live issue) appears to have gone well, with Bec from Marketing saying that she couldn't find anything wrong with the load. (YESS!!) I will have to get Jason a 'Thank you' present for his tenacity and persistence.

One of my projects had some issues, so had to address them. Ok, I didn't HAVE to, but I couldn't help myself. Any way, I better get to bed, it's almost 3am now.

Connecting HP Ipaq 6515 to the Orange network

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 13:37:51 -0700

Have had to 'reboot' and 'reformat' my hp ipaq a couple of times, so the last time I lost the gprs connectivity to Orange, my provider. Have just got off the phone with a lovely helpdesk lady - Jeanette, who helped me through to set it up.

1. Go to Start --> Settings --> Connection tab
2. Click Connections
3. Click Advanced tab
4. Click 'Select Networks'
5. Click 'New'. Fill in the following
6. Enter Name for connection: 'Orange Internet'
7. Select a modem: 'Cellular Line (GPRS)'
8. Click 'Next'
9. Access Point Name: 'orangeinternet'
10. Click 'Next'
11. Click 'finish' (ignore username password etc)
12. In the 'Settings' window (you should still be in the 'Modem') tab, click 'Proxy Settings' tab
13. Click checkbox on 'This network connects to the Internet'
14. Click 'OK' three times
15. Click 'x' to close Settings box
16. Start Internet explorer and get browsing!

Time bandit #4

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 08:31:00 -0700

4. Unsubscribed from Ecademy (though I've done this ages ago). Have not started on Facebook or any other social networking sites.

Time bandit #3

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 08:31:00 -0700

3. Stop watching television. Programs are now recorded and watched for half hour or 1 hour during dinner time.

Although we did do a 'Heroes' marathon session over last weekend and watched the whole series. It's great, but at least I've got it out of my system!

Time bandit #2

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 08:31:00 -0700

2. Stop reading MSNLive when I start up computer. Remove MSN from my start page

Time bandit #1

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 08:31:37 -0700

I am slowly eliminating time wasting activities in my life to make way for more important stuff. First Time Bandit I eliminated was of course...

1. Unsubscribing from World of Warcraft in June (though I had stopped playing in March).

I didn't even get to check out Burning Crusade expansion.

Am busy good, but it's a lame ass reason for procrastinating

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 23:04:03 -0700

Work is going ok, running three mini projects at a time is manageable, but the number of documents I have to write can add up to quite a lot. For example, I have to do weekly reports, forecast, customer status reports, cost (actual vs budget), discovery documents, project definition documents, amend project plans etc etc. Also have to do task plans for my team for the three different projects.

I do enjoy it, I must say. The variety of tasks I do are quite stimulating, as a project manager I seem to be able to have a finger in everything. But it seems to be creeping up on my personal time - I rather be working doing work things, than working on my book.

I really have no excuse. Am currently listening to Anthony Robbin's "Time of your life", and it makes sense about wanting to create exciting roles so that it attracts you to want to spend your time in that space. I think I let 'life' get in the way. For example, I could be working on the book now, but I felt the need to update my blog. So here's some rambling ramble.

Today I gave Stef a ride to pick up his new car. The old one is completely broken - the gasket blew and killed the engine. I was giving him a ride almost every day to and from work except last week when he got to use Keith's car whilst he was on holiday. I am racking up karma points, you see - so he will build me a titan vmware image for my book.

I got home at about 7.30pm after picking up some chicken from the supermarket for dinner (we had chicken salad). Then I had the mad idea to go for a run before I started dinner, so ran about 4 miles in the pouring rain. It was quite mild, so I wasn't cold. But I was starving. Any way, am feeling a bit tired so will have an early night.

Our runner bean plants have been doing very well, and we have been harvesting a crop almost every day for dinner. It's really very lovely - fresh and crunchy, and tastes very tender when steamed. But I am getting a bit tired of it, so have been giving them away at work. Next year, wherever we move to, I hope we get some space for vegetable garden. I may plant garden peas - which I am munching raw as snacks at work.

Don't they look pretty? Jeff decided to build a square frame rather than
a wigwam this year, so we can walk under it.

It's quite fun trying to find beans big enough to pluck. It's like treasure hunt!

This is how you prepare them - top and tail, and grate the sides off to take off the strings.

You can have them with pasta...

... and they even 'healthy-size' leftover pizza when steamed with carrots!

4 days later - AVG Anti-virus comes up with an antidote

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 09:39:09 -0700

After a datafile update this morning, AVG (that's what we use on our corporate laptop) found the renamed picture07-04.zip file I had renamed to picture07-04.bad, which I thought was quite clever. Wasn't quick enough to stop me from being infected though.

However, I doubt there is any defence against plain doofusness...

Update on Virus saga

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 18:12:56 -0700

Well, it has been interesting. Thank you for your input Yasutaka, I too found the following file - C:\WINDOWS\system32\sysrcvr246.dll, by searching within Windows\system32 for files modified on the day of the infection, as alluded to by MJD. Even if I did delete it, I would never ever be sure if my laptop was infection free.

So I got Mark to re-ghost my disk. Data files were backed-up, so it wasn't really an issue and only took half an hour for my laptop to be done. It did take me another hour to install some of my apps and copy bookmarks and stuff back so it was usable again. Actually, I think that the best defence against scummy virus is not only an up-to-date anti-virus software, but also the following:

1) Diligence - being mindful at what you click/launch/open/execute, even from an IM or email contact who you trust. It is SO easy to spoof identities that it isn't that funny anymore.
2) Really good back-up strategy. I've got my data files and documents backed up on different locations, which made rebuild so quick and easy.
3) Really good restore strategy as well. At home, I think we've imaged all the system partitions or primary disks of all laptops/computers, and have virtualised the server. This means that if any infection happen, we can just nuke the image disks and re-copy the backups.

Whilst I detest having been infected, it really was a useful lesson to be learnt. Annoying, but not as painful as say, the lesson learnt when your hard disk holding valuable university work crashes and you lose everything.

Everyone was coming up with stories about how they got infected by a virus and the drama that ensued and all sorts of fun stuff. It's like when you break a leg or have an accident - suddenly the whole world has 'been there done that'. :)

No joy.

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 08:56:45 -0700

It spammed my online contacts again this morning. Looks like I will have to hand it over to Mark to fix/rebuild for me. How annoying - but as said before, serves me right for doing such a stupid thing.

In any case, I really don't even know how to respond to the comments on the blog yesterday.

So far so good.

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 22:20:25 -0700

10.20pm. No more spamming since the re-install. Could it be I have fixed the virus issue without having to rebuild the laptop?

IM virus attack!

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 17:32:02 -0700

Oh man, I can�t believe I fell for the �click me� virus attack. I�ve not been suckered in YEARS. Any way � this is how it started � I got an IM from Mark from Windows Live Messenger asking me to view his 'Facebook' picture. Unfortunately I don't have a screenshot of that, but Jeff received the same thing:

This just looked so innocent.

The doofus that I am, I accepted the file, and as soon as it downloaded (which was very quick � much faster than my grey celled neurons could fire apparently), I clicked to Open which then opened a Winzip file with the following window.

Again, not thinking at all, I double clicked on photo07-04.pif (ARG HOW COME I DID NOT NOTICE THAT IT WAS A PIF FILE ?!?) which froze my pc, with the msn window blinking sporadically.

Immediately I realized what happened and called at Jeff to unplug the wireless router while I slammed the �OFF� button on the laptop; praying and hoping the word document I was working on had been saved prior to that.

By that time, the virus had spread itself to my contacts and Jeff received an IM apparently from me, with an attached zip file.

I then went on my desktop, kicked off an older version of msn and IM�ed all online and offline contacts telling them not to open any files that came from me. Fortunately most of them realised what it was and declined to accept the file, with exception of Seow Ping; whom I hope is able to recover. (Marts later confirmed that it only sent itself to online contacts. Phew!)

Once that was done, I fearfully turned on my laptop, hoping that the virus is benign and apart from reproducing itself to all my contacts, it has not touched my hard disk at all.

Checking for Virus files

The first thing I did was to do a quick search on my hard disk for *.pif � it found three instances of the virus file (you can only see one in the screenshot above because I�ve deleted the other two and kept this one to test my anti-virus against it). It stored itself as:

1. An MSDOS shortcut called �photo-07-04� within �C:\Documents and Settings\Pei\Local Settings\Temp�. <-- this file was probably produced when I doofusly double clicked the .pif file within the zipped file.

2. A zipped file called �picture07-04.zip� within �C:\Documents and Settings\Pei\My Documents\My Received Files�.

3. A zipped file called 'picture07-04.zip' located in �C:\Windows�.

If you want to double check, make sure to do a search for �picture07-04� and �photo07-04� in all local disks.

Offending file located in 'My Received Files' for Windows Live Messenger

Checking the registry

I believe that it also stored itself in the registry. To check this:
1. Go to Start --> Run. Type �Regedit� and press Enter.
2. On file menu, go to Edit --> Find
3. Type in photo07-04 and then click �Find�

I found an entry in the following folder - HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\MUICache, and promptly deleted it. It was only a few minutes later that I realised I wanted to blog about this so that other people can be aware that I regretted doing it before taking a screenshot. The entry in the registry referred to the following path: C:\Documents and Settings\Pei\Local Settings\Temp\photo07-04 (although I cannot be sure if it was the zip file or the pif file or the MSDOS shortcut it referred to).

Jeff thought that the MUICache registry entry may be a red herring as it probably listed down most recently launched file from the shell, so after a bit of digging, it looks like he may be right. In any case, I wasn't going to let it stay in there so I nuked that entry with a index finger jabby action on the Delete key.

I did another search within the registry for 'picture07-04' and found two string entries in
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Nico Mak Computing\WinZip\filemenu] called 'C:\WINDOWS\picture07-04.zip' - one pointing to 'C:\Documents and Settings\Pei\My Documents\My Received Files' and the other to 'C:\Windows'. Whilst this did not look too ominous as it probably referred to the most recently opened zip files, I deleted both entries any way.

I also ran a complete scan on all local drives using company anti-virus AVG � it came out clean, must to my disappointment as I had expected that file I left in the 'My Received Files' folder to be detected. Then again, Jeff did say that this was probably a fairly new virus as we could not find any reference to it on the web. Also, I don't think that AVG scans IM entries and files.

A clean bill of health.. according to AVG.

I then plugged our wireless router back on, and connected to Symantec Online and did an online check. Had to agree and consent to all legal stuff, enabled ActiveX and Javascript scripting, but once that was done, it toddled off and did its thing. 1.5 hours later, it was done although it did not check compressed files - see below.

This isn't really good enough, is it?

So apparently, other than the zip file that I've got in 'My Received Files' folder, it appeared that I was virus-free, according to both AVG and Symantec online. This could mean two things:

1. I really am virus-free
2. It's too new to be detected, and I am essentially screwed.

Little did I know...

Anyway, I decided to rename the extension of the file to picture07-04.bad.

Just in case.

At precisely 4.00pm, Messenger spammed all my online contacts again. But this time, no files were attached:

Jeff's clock had reset to 06.30 for some bizarre reason,
but this was received at 4pm.

Reinstalling MSN
I thought that barring a complete reformat and rebuild (which I REALLY don't want to do), the next logical step should be to reinstall the damn thing:

1. Go to Start --> Control Panel --> Add/Remove Programs, 2. Remove Windows Live Messenger. Does not require reboot.
3. Go online to download the latest one
4. Reinstall.

Once the reinstall completed, I modified laptop time to 17.59pm, and waited to see if it would spam again on the hour - as I was guessing that was its behaviour, based on what happened earlier.

I got Marts to monitor for me, but nothing went out, so I am cautiously hopeful. I really don't want to rebuild my laptop as it would be such a pain... but it WOULD serve me right.

Any way, that's how I spent my Sunday afternoon on one of the hottest summer days in the UK so far. At least this will teach me to be more careful and NOT TO DOUBLE-CLICK ANY PIF FILES.

** UPDATE **
For those who land on this page looking for solution to the virus please click here and read the comment.

Foiled again!

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 00:21:31 -0700

Damn.

Just got back from dinner with Lovedip and Hisayo. I told them about my 'brainwave' on scarcity and how I was going to make billions on this theory by writing a book, only to be told that Adam Smith thought this up about 250 years ago! Yes, I vaguely remember this during Economics lesson but my weird brain cells must have buried that knowledge some how and warped it into thinking that it was my own genius thinking it up.

So much for being original and clever.

Another moment of genius will come one day, and when that day comes.. I will be RICH!

Well, one can dream, no?

A rare brilliant moment

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 19:13:00 -0700

I wrote a long rambly blog yesterday about how I screwed up the billing for one of my customers. Then I thought - who's going to read this boring thing? No one, so I binned it.

I need to keep in mind that writing a blog isn't just for me, or I'd do it in a journal or offline. If it is to be read by others, then it shouldn't bore them to tears. Why inflict my boring ramble on someone else?

So any way, I was working from home today, and did a quick 4 mile run this morning. As I was running, I saw a tree which had dispersed many many of its seeds - you know, the one which flies through the air because it has two helicopter-like wings. Then my train of thought latched onto reproductive strategies - how living things such as animals or plants may have multiple offsprings to give them the best chances in life.

Quantity vs quantity - that old chestnut. Crabs, turtles, frogs, fishes are just some of those who generate loads of little sprogs. Primates, and other mammals seem to have less offsprings, and cherish and care for them more.

Which then led my meandering brain (yes, that often happens when I've got into the 'zone' while running) to what I thought was a most profound *koff* piece of brainwave - "The Belief of Scarcity is the root of Desire". Ok, maybe that's not the best sentence in the world, but let me explain.

If you had loads of children, you wouldn't care for the individual as much as if you had one or two. That's really a fact, no matter what people tell you.

If you were really rich and could have anything (car, jewellery, boats etc) you want with a wave of your hand, then material things do not mean as much. To someone who doesn't earn very much, coveting that Gucci bag and scrimping and saving in order to afford it would lead to a behaviour where he/she would cherish that possession for a long time. The rich would have wardrobes of expensive items that could be used to mop up dog poo for all they care.

If you lived in a country where your favourite treats are not easily available, you tend to hoard what you have. I make my 'Maggi Mee' last for aaages. Ok, since I've discovered the prawn noodle version on my last trip, that has replaced 'Maggi Mee'. This includes the other ingredients I have - such as sambal, 'choi pou', ginseng roots, special taucu sauce, 'or tou iu' and all manners of wonderful yum. I would not treat them with such miserly attitude if I was back home.

These items are scarce in the UK, which defines my behaviour towards it.

In the same way, when fuel crisis hit - suddenly it was the most important thing in the world. If we thought that cows would be wiped out, the price of beef would hit the roof as people rush to hoard and freeze cow meat. What a wonderful (and unethical) way to increase sales of an item.

In a weird way, I guess you can apply that to wanting to lose weight. If you think that you can have that chocolate, ice cream, that sweet thing anything you wanted at any time, then it might make you not want it as much. Maybe the best way to do this is to surround yourself (or force feed yourself) 1kg of ice cream at a go. How about face stuffing with tonnes of chocolate cake at a time.

I think that's how I've started losing interest in desserts. In my last job where I was away so much, I was eating out 4-5 times a week on client expense. This meant that I could have anything that �15 per meal could buy, which is actually quite a lot if you don't have wine or steak or anything fancy. Often, this meant I could have starters, mains and dessert as well.

Initially I thought that was quite cool, but it eventually lost its appeal, and I lost interest in fancy foods and desserts. Now we only go out once a week - but it's only so I can spend time with Jeff and have a proper conversation about life and where we want to be. I now go out, not for the food, but for the company.

In the same way, oddly enough, having been in the UK for 8 years makes me think that if I go back home to Malaysia now, I'd just balloon in weight because I'd be scoffing every thing in sight, and not quite sure how other Malaysian girls can stay so anorexically thin.

I guess it's the scarcity principal at play. If whatever it is is freely available, then nobody wants it as much. 'Limited edition' and 'rare' marketing ploys work because of this principal.

Wow, how about that for a brainwave?

Project management is like making a dress..

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 18:06:00 -0700

On the work front, it has been busy, with lots of really long drives up to Manchester for both Mex and YTelco. Mex has gone live, but I had to deliver sysadmin and customisation training, and I repeated the same training for YTelco.

I've also just had my kick-off meeting FSG. I've spent a lot of time prepping for that meeting, and for the first time, I did a comprehensive slides to cover all aspects of the project, from the methodology I'd be using right up to the roles and responsibilities of both sides during each phase. One of the things that came up very frequently was that clients appeared to think that we (the supplier) would deliver the project/software implementation with little or no work from them.

That's quite wrong, as they need to make sure their house is in order, and clarify all their business processes and how they want it to work. It's like being a tailor. If you want a new wedding dress, you need to make sure:

1. You are in the best shape to look the best in your new dress
2. You come a few times for fitting
3. You let the tailor measure you and ask uncomfortable questions about which fabric would chaf your bits
4. You tell them exactly what you want and not change your mind too often.

What you want in the end is a dress that makes you look beautiful for your figure. I mean, if I had big boobs I would have gone for the low-cut Jennifer Lopez type style.

I laughed so hard I pee'd myself!

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 16:00:00 -0700

I read what Cherie Blair had to say on "Anti-Terror Moves" in Malaysia.

It would be "all too easy" to fight back in a way "which cheapens our right to call ourselves a civilised nation", said the barrister in Malaysia.

In Malaysia! Where we have the ISA (Internal Security Act)! Where we can detain anyone under (scraping quote marks with fingers) "National Security". Government agencies have been using that excuse to hold just about anyone indefinitely for no reason at all, no access to lawyers, or trial. Look at the case of Anwar (Our Deputy PM who was unceremoniously chucked and fabricated sodomy charges brought against him - such a farcical circus it deserved some mention). He was also punched and beaten up in prison under ISA too.

Civil Liberties? We don't know the meaning of it. By "we" I mean Malaysians. We can't congregate in a group without getting a license. We are not allowed to demonstrate in public (unless we want dire consequences). We cannot strike. We cant talk about the gubmint any way we like (except in hushed tones).

Gubmint is not trusted, all national newspapers are boring, and are mouthpieces of the main party. Waz, who came to our wedding in Malaysia made that comment, "Jeeze your newspapers are so boring, they talk about what the Prime Minister said, and what the other minister said, and where they are holding ceremonies etc".

We were having a lively debate the other night about ID Cards. Frank and Chris was having an issue about the "Big Brother" idealogy the gubmint seem to have. My argument is that although an ID card will not help in the case of the bombing, it would help in determining how many immigrants etc are in the country illegally, and you can check on someone's movement much easier.

Ok slightly not so connected - Frank's house got burgled, but they caught the guy because of DNA evidence. People who have commited crime before have their DNA on file. But if everyone is DNA'ed, then we could solve crimes more easily.

This topic is so controversial. The terror attacks have made people re-arrange their values. Safety & Security vs Loss of liberty?

Coming from someone who has lived in a country with limited personal freedom (though we are FAR better than some other Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia) - I have nothing to fear from Big Brother.

... although Cherie Blair saying what she said in Malaysia just gave me such a good giggle. It's just the irony of it. I wonder if PM Abdullah Badawi was listening?

Celebrating wedding anniversary at the Lake District

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 18:05:58 -0700

Wow it's been awhile since I wrote. So here's an update.

A couple of weeks ago, we had our anniversary. 'Which one?' people normally ask. Well, it depends. I arrived in the UK 8 years ago. We got married here 4 years ago. And then we did it again in Malaysia 3 years ago. I tried to group the dates around the first week of July so Jeff wouldn't have to think too hard about it. :)

I decided that we should go some where, so we both took a Friday off and toddled off to the Lake District. I thought that it'd be really nice to splash out, and so we did - to the horror of my in-laws (who found out how much we paid for 2 night stay!) It is extremely extravagant I must say, and as I am not prone to spending a lot or shopping, this was really a big big stretch.

At the risk of being judged a flagrant money spender, we paid *censored* (read: WAY TOO MUCH) for 2 nights at Holbeck Ghyll Counry House, which included breakfast and dinner at the Michelin starred restaurant. I had done a huge amount of research and it had pretty good reviews (except for the last few ones that only appeared after I'd booked it!

Dinner on the first night was amazing, and I have never eaten a gourmet meal before, where the portions were teeny tiny. However, my warm langoustine with lobster thingy thingy was gorgeous, as was my main meal of braised beef with something something. They excelled at making different flavours melt together in the most mouth watering ways. Sadly, the second night was not as good - my roast squab pigeon breast was ick, and so was my starter.

Tiny cuppa cream of artichoke soup. Were we supposed to drink with our pinkies up?

Tastiest starter ever - warm langoustine with lobster something something.

Jeff's 'Taste of Pear, Pate, Duck, and Exotic Something' Starter

This braised beef was superb!

It was really nice, and the lake views were superb. I wouldn't pay for that hotel again, but on hindsight it was a good weekend. And it was special. And the views were a gorgeous.

Jeff taking photo of me taking a photo.

Jeff pretending to be Lord of Holbeck Ghyll.

We drove about quite a bit, as Jeff wanted to check out 'Hard Knott Pass', one of the steepest, most narrow winding roads around. We got stuck behind some motorbikes, who were slipping a little under the wet road (did I mention that it rained a lot?) but we got to drive through some of the most remote areas. I had wanted to walk, but I think we weren't very prepared. I bought a couple of books on 'Walking in the Lake District' which talked about preparing with compass and all that! Next time, we will get our gear together and do it properly.

It was a short weekend, but it was very nice nonetheless.

I wimped out of the 10k

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 09:04:08 -0700

For two really lame reasons (on hindsight) but at that time, they sounded quite genuine... to my ears any way:
1. Two attempted 'terrorist' attacks at Haymarket and Glasgow
2. An email from the organizers warning us of the horrible downpour we would have on race day.

Instead, I decided to stay home, have a couple more hours cuddle time and then did a 13k run in a large route around my area. It was very enjoyable, although I should have gone for the race. Jaclyn and significant other Matt did it - and was raving about it today. Never mind, we are all in for the Cabbage Patch 10m run in October.

I'm feeling quite fit though, and its really really neat that I don't ache quite as much after such a long run. Previously, I would be so shattered that I'd be fairly useless the rest of the day and just flop around on the sofa. This time, I was a lot better, and managed to still play with Blue and do some book writing before bedtime.

Yesterday, Peter came down for our third personal training session. They've been quite hard going, and all my muscles ache after that (especially the day after), but its been great. I'm feeling more energetic now, and I can feel the muscles under my 'Buddha Belly'... previously it's just been a big love handle around my waist. My arms hurt at the moment, but he's training me to do push-ups, which I cannot do because I've just got really weak upper body. I am seeing a lot of improvements though, and working out with Jeff is so much more fun than doing this alone. Plus Peter is great at coming up with really creative exercises to do with the gym ball for both of us and our different abilities.

Things are going to get a bit more interesting at work. I've just been given a new project - FSG. This company is very much like Mex, into diverse business interests around fleet management. They are in Chippenham though - a bit far away from home, but I'll probably bunk at my in-laws in Cirencester during design workshops and client engagements there.

I am looking forward to it - especially because Jeremy has given me license to be a bit creative with how I am going to manage and organize this project, i.e. the workstreams and how to make sure they are as effective as possible, given that the client has a very capped budget. Under our new parent company, my appraisal as a project manager is based even more strongly on whether I bring home a project on budget and on time.

I am feeling very good at the moment, both physically and mentally. I think that getting started on the personal training front and continuing my running is doing wonders for my psyche. I think I am going to start taking up other classes as suggested by Siva, and meet people and ideas. I may start with rock climbing lessons and some first aid. That's at the top of my list at the moment.

American ambassador, the 'Venal little Crook'

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:02:00 -0700

... so says Ken Livingstone. Amazing that USA is among the worst offenders of not paying the congestion charge. Here's what Freakonomics have to say about this.

Dog-sitting and Tony Blair (the poodle)

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 18:55:00 -0700

Eek! It's British 10k this Sunday! It's crept up on me without me realising it. It will be the 3rd year I am doing this, having started in 2005. It's ok though, because I've been keeping up with the running the last few weeks. Last Saturday I did 12k around my area, which was really quite enjoyable, especially between the rainy showers when the sun decides to peek out a bit.

Yesterday we went and shopped a bit at the Harlequin centre. As usual, sometimes Jeff's a bit too tall for his own good:

And �8 mugs with 'titles' in John Lewis is just another definition for daylight robbery.

We are also dog-sitting Blue for a couple of weeks. Mark, Fede and Alice have gone to Sardinia for holiday and poor Blue is stuck with us. He's actually a lovely lovely dog, very very well behaved with a good temperament. The only thing is that I think he needs a lot of companionship, and for the first night, he was howling and whining in loneliness. He probably misses Fede and family a lot.

There's not much we can do though and we can only spend a few minutes in the morning with him before we scoot to work, and then a few hours in the evening. I started running with him as part of his 'walkies' and initially he kept up quite well for about 5k with small stops to mark his territory, but now he's getting a bit stroppier with me - stopping completely and refusing to budge unless I gave him a cuddle and a kiss. I think he's just trying to get his way with me.

He's also getting a bit stinky, I think we have to give him a shower/bath tomorrow, especially since it has been pouring outside and he's taking in mud and sweating and stuff. I mean, I can't even go for 1 day without shower, so I can just imagine wh

Just chillin...

'Let me out, I need to peeeeeeeeeee...'

'Please play with mee.. or feed mee.. or let me pee....
or I'll just puppy dog eye you to death...'

***

This morning I had to to be in the Docklands at 10.30am for a sales meeting at PEF (you know the mother-son company I blogged about earlier), so had the luxury to take him out for a quick run/walk before showering and getting ready. Jeff's off tomorrow, so he can take him out.

Arrived at starbucks and had my mocha whilst waiting for Dyfed. He finally arrived, looking quite annoyed with steam coming out of his ears. Apparently the client had cancelled (phew) without giving us much notice. He was a bit upset, so I tried to distract him by discussing about my first client who is about to go into Phase 2 - something positive for him to focus on. Poor guy - he moved from consultancy to pre-sales to sales, and wasn't finding it easy.

Any way - in the centre of Jubilee Place, Canary Wharf, Lastminute.com was running some sort of publicity stunt with a large white board entitled 'What should Tony Do with his Final Minute in Power?' There were loads of funny remarks.. here's a selection:

Only if you've seen Comic Relief 2007

My personal favourite

.. and lastly, my two penneth.

Snacking healthy

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 18:32:33 -0700

We have started getting more healthy. I blogged that we engaged a personal trainer to come to the house to get us exercising. It was great - although we really really hurt for the next two days (Jeff for than me, maybe because I've been 'gymming') so have only really done 1 session before we see Peter again tomorrow.

I've also started to snack more healthily at work - some of which are quite fun and interactive, such as the garden peas. I've decided to take snaps of my munchies for this week:

M&S does some amazing super sweet king strawberries

Jason 'infected' me with his Northern green garden pea munching habits...

Spotty and over-ripe banana (just the way I like 'em) and plum tomatoes

Incredibly sweet cherries (also from M&S) and nuts. mmm.

Oooo and check out the last picture - I've managed to tie a cherry twig into a knot in my mouth! It took me ages and loads of practice resutling in a cramped jaw but it was worth it! That's only because I've never done it, and Keith and Hattie did it on the first go.

Who says healthy food can't be fun?

Lessons learned from the Mex Go-Live

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 10:20:00 -0700

My Mex project went live two weeks ago, and I wrote a short report which I thought I'd share on the blog. Makes for good 'lessons learned' reading on project management. The project went well, despite a few hiccups which we ironed out as they came along.

Things that happened which are lessons for the future:
1. Internal red tape on client side meant that change notes had to be raised for any change required. This would need to be flagged up early in the project if the client culture demands this so that time isn't wasted. Also, some clients are very sticky about security (as they should be) but that makes our job difficult. Unless they have resource to sit with us and key in admin username/password when required, it just makes it too difficult to get our job done.

2. We need to find a a more structured way to teach/show the client how to perform their own UAT test - what to test, and how to test. Whilst it is easy for us to wash our hands off when they've signed off and things go wrong at go-live (which they did), it may have been a better idea for us to be a bit more involved in their test planning/preparation process.

3. We (or rather, I) need to keep on top of the licensing issue - who is getting what, and to make sure that all proper licenses are available for Stef before he goes on-site to deploy the implementation. In this case, Mex wanted to take advantage of their new parent's volume license but obtaining the SQL license was more red-taped than expected, which delayed the deployment.

4. When using SQL Server 2005, the database memory usage needs to be throttle. Otherwise, by default it will chew up as much memory as possible - which paradoxically reduces performance.

Elements that made the project a positive experience:
1. A PM on the client side who focussed purely on getting the project completed successfully and did not get drawn into the emotional side of things that invariably happened with users. It also helped that he was very 'creative' with his budget and managed to get sign off for the many change requests demanded by the users. He also managed and coordinated the internal server and dba teams who had 'personnel issues' due to their recent company takeover.

2. Absolute crystal clear expectations on both sides right at the beginning of the project - Roy laid down all issues (including any potentially ugly ones) up front during project kick-off. We discussed, negotiated and came to an agreement with regards to scope, budget and timescales. These were then defined very plainly in a PDD (Project Definition Document) which was then signed off.

3. Users who very clearly understood their responsibilities, and the risks and repercussions of their actions; especially with respect to moving away from the agreed project plan.

4. Mex had a dedicated testing team who owned the test plans, the schedule, the issue list management and also took their responsibility very seriously.

5. And of course, a sterling effort from my amazing team. I was also able to learn to improve my PM skills from Roy (especially with respect to people management!) which made this project pootle along quite smoothly.

What Next:
1. Whilst the project is still fresh - I am hoping that we are able to get some sort of commitment from them to be a referance client, or maybe collaborate for a case study (although this project is only an upgrade at this point).

2. Another business division is also interested in using MSCRM, so the sales team will need to take back ownership and try and get us another piece of work.

All in all - a fine project, with good prospects for Phase 2 and beyond as well as potential penetration into the other parts of the business divisions.

Of surprice birthdays and stuff

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 09:16:56 -0700

Last weekend was quite fun - I arranged Jeff's surprise belated 30th birthday party. It wasn't easy, but I managed to 'pakat' with his parents to get him out of the house for the few hours that Saturday so that his friends could arrive. They pretended to want to go looking for new cars and to test drive (Jeff's been wanting a new Golf and been doing some research any way).

It was Chris who suggested it, especially since I was in Manchester on his proper birthday. He has always managed to get one on me, but this time i surprised him well and good! I managed to wangle a 'work from home' day on Friday to get my shopping done but found out that he had the day off which foiled my plans!

But i did manage to do some cooking that Saturday morning which luckily did not cause too much of a surprise because I sometimes do bulk cooking to freeze for the week. The guys were supposed to come around 4pm but a lot were late, so had to text Jeff's dad to keep him out shopping and car test driving until 5pm.

Any way, we did surprise him and had a great time. Jeff's parents brought the bbq which we then proceeded to cook the burgers and things and Blue (Mark & Fede's dog) ran about the place amongst the guests. It really was a nice day. I did think that Jeff was a bit gutted that his parents didn't really want to buy a car as he got quite into the car-buying thingy!

Death by Balloon

On Tuesday we met up with Peter, our new personal trainer who will come to our place once a week and put us through our paces. My goal is to lose about 10kg in 3 months. My running isn't helping me lose weight because I 'compensate' by taking in too much sugars in my food (cordial and stuff) so I've got to be put on a proper dieting plan as well. I also want to lose this massive spare tyre around my waist.

I have this skinny picture of me on one of the islands off Sabah when I was around 16 years old which I should put up to remind me of what I would like to be, but it's currently at Jeff's parents. I need to dig it out and get it back. It really would be nice to be slim and skinny again.

Another busy week for me, as I am on the way to another discovery session in the Docklands. Makes a nice change from driving up to Manchester, as I have time to sit in the train and blog or just do some reading. Clients' offices are located right on the Thames - beautiful scenery just outside the window.

***

Continued later that evening...

This client, we'll call them PEF, is a property investment company for people looking to buy in France and East Europe run by a mother and son team. They appear to be very successful, employing around 30 people and opening two other business units. It's quite a strange dynamic - and I think that if we did get this project, it would be a very difficult one.

Mother wanted everything, fixed price, no negotiation. Son was waffly, vague and quite disinterested. She wanted all functionality in their old system + more. We can't really replicate exactly what's in their old system and MSCRM will have some limitations, but she wanted none of that. She thought that we had wasted our time (and her money) here.

Sigh. The discovery phase is to get high level requirements of their system, where we elicited their business processes and try to make them into the MSCRM application.

It's been a very exhausting day. But at least Mark and Dyfed was with me, and we learnted quite a bit from each other and from the client as well.

Hmm I am hungry. Not sure what to do about dinner but it'd better be interesting.

It's shit.

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 15:57:42 -0700

It's Shit.

It's Hideous.

It causes epilepsy.

It's a frickin waste of public money.

With �400k, we could have fed so many homeless, bought medicine for needy people in africa.

Someone should hang for this. Wolff Olins designed it. Should they be shot, or should Lord Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games?

It's been reviled, and reported by Daily Telegraph calling it the 'puerile logo', , Yahoo News, Money Times, CNN reporting it to be 'Monkey on a toilet' and 'Broken Swastika', Daily Mail said it sucks.

The fanhouse says that it's not the worst logo to be designed, I say it is. If you live in the UK, please CLICK HERE to sign the petition to scrap this humongously ugly monstrosity (try saying that 10 times). The online petition has 42878 signatures at time of writing of this blog.

Bar Shu and Spamalot

Sun, 03 Jun 2007 22:04:16 -0700

Mex project went live on Friday, with loads of issues popping out left right and centre. Most of it was due to lack of testing on their part, and the slow link between their sites made it worse. However, we nailed issues as they cropped up and by evening time, we resolved most of them. I anticipate more coming out this week, although I will be up in SkinnyMore (Derbyshire) for the next two days conducting a design session, so have delegated to Stef to resolve.

So yesterday we went out for Jeff's belated birthday celebrations. It has been awhile since we went into town, so it was a really lovely evening out - very warm and sunny as well.

First off - we went to Bar Shu which I found on Marginal Revolution, one of the blogs I regularly frequent. Read up some more reviews, and thought that it was an interesting place to visit.

We had Beef with bamboo shoots braised in taucu and chili, which was surprisingly good but a bit on the strong side. Another really nice dish was the steamed fish with ginger and spring onion - Jeff really liked it but I think I've had better at the 'Parkway' restaurant near my old house in USJ. We also had gong pau prawns which wasn't that good - it left a peculiar after-taste, and gave Jeff a bit of an upset tummy. I was spared because I only had two prawns. The 'vege' dish was stir fry kailan with chili and peppercorn. I think they are trying to stay within the Szhechuan theme with spicy everything.

Other than the interesting braised beef and fish dishes, we weren't too impressed. We certainly did not feel that the dinner was value for money, and at �82 for both of us, no wine - we probably won't be going again. It certainly does not hold a candle to our favourite haunt up in Harrow on the Hill - Golden Palace.

The average meal price is around �40 for both of us - and that includes a starter, 3-4 main course dishes and drinks. Not only that, but because we are regulars, the staff almost always finds us a table whether we reserve a place or not. I think we've brought all our friends and family there to enjoy the wonderful food. Ok, it's not anything like what I am used to at home, but it's pretty good nonetheless.

Anyway, after Bar Shu, we watched Spamalot. I think it's a very English thing. You must like Monty Python and enjoy the really surreal humour. Jeff likes it and was wondering which bits they would include from the movie - like the Knights of Ni!, the Black Knight, the one about the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. The audience also anticipated the gags, frequently laughing even before the actors had time to say their lines.

Patsy to the depressed King Arthur. "You know what they say ..."

Audience start to roar with laughter, causing King Arthur to hesitate before saying, "What DO they say?"

Patsy started to giggle and forgot his lines momentarily.

"Oh always look on the bright siiide of life." fee fee feefeefeefeefee fee.
And the audience all chime in the most chuckle-worthy and memorable song from Monty Python (although that was taken from the Life of Brian). While I couldn't quite get into the whole show, when that particular song came on, and watching the audience all participating with complete enjoyment, singing, whistling and clapping infected me right away.

I still enjoy Avenue Q much much better - absolutely hilarious, if you are into muppets and that sort of thing.

Well, I've got to wake up at Silly O'Clock tomorrow so should sleep early. Jackie is shadowing me on this Design Session, so she'll be mini-cabbing from her place in Putney to mine (will take about 45 minutes) and then I'm driving from here to get to Derbyshire by 9am. Groan.

Anyway, here's the scene from 'Life of Brian' and the funny song 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life'. Enjoy.

Lazy Bank holiday Sunday

Sun, 27 May 2007 17:19:11 -0700

It's been raining. Ick. But that didn't stop me from doing 6 miles this morning on my usual route. It was actually quite fun running in the rain, despite the fact that cars were sloshing all over me.

Jeff rode on the exercycle and then after that we went to have some dim sum at Oriental city where I bought some longans - 3kg for �4.99. Not too bad, but they weren't very sweet. Oh well.

The last two days we watched Pirates of the Carribean 1 and 2, and tonight we'll go and watch the 3rd part. Am really looking forward to it, although I must admit that I am a tad 'pirated' out.

Meeting at St Paul Cathedral

Sun, 27 May 2007 16:55:25 -0700

Blog written on Friday, only just got around to posting it today...

So today I am off to London, St Pauls to be exact. It's a mini-discovery pre-sales meeting with Stuart, so is a bit of a departure from my normal thing. The potential client is a pretty big financial institution, and we are meeting the Director of Global Debt, foreign exchange division! How posh is that! I bet he has a large penthouse with really fast cars and naked girls hanging off his arms. Not this morning I hope.

St Paul's Cathedral.

Mex project goes live next week, although there have been no 'red' issues raised, I am cautiously optimistic that it will all go well (touch wood). The other two mini projects I am managing - SkinnyMore and YTelco aren't too much - only about 20 days each, so fairly easy to manage. I have heard, however, that my first baptism-by-fire-brain-curdling-stressy first project is about to go into Phase II fairly soon, which obviously means that I will be managing that as well. I guess it's ok, as I have a strong relationship with Isolde, but we did go through some really patchy patches. The fact that they are still interested in working with us on this phase hopefully means that they didn't think I did too bad a job.

I've been listening to Jim Rohn's 2004 weekend event, somewhat like the Tony Robbins "Unleash the Power Within" seminars I went with Jeff and then my parents and Wassim. It's a bit different, in that he (Jim) brings in various speakers such as Dennis Waitley, Brian Tracy and variuos other really interesting people.

They all have their take on life, what it means to be happy and successful. What strikes me is that they have all had really painful challenges which they have turned around and made into a success story. I keep telling myself that I should listen to one section and then stop to reflect and make notes when I can, so I can absorb more. I think I've gone through about half the program thinking hmm, I should write that down, but I don't. And now I can barely remember what I heard. I think I'll start again, but take time out to reflect.

It seems to me that after listening, the main theme is to find your passion and to try and turn that into a venture that will also make you your fortune. And to find your passion, look into your childhood and find what made you happy then - singing, dancing, reading, writing, acting, whatever it may have been.

But.. what if you are like Jeffrey Dahmer, wanted to kill and mutilate little puppies? What if you enjoy burning down the shed?

I think that these 'self-development' programs may have only been geared towards 'normal' people of the non-dysfunctional kind. It also assumes that you are rational and sensible, and can think through consequences of actions. I guess it's a self-selective process, i.e. the people who are attracted to these sorts of programs are those who are more committed to improving themselves, their lives and relationships with those they love and care.

It's funny that those who probably needs it the most are those who are most resistant to it.

On another note - one year later, we still haven't sold the house. The pub next door is interested so the negotiations have begun, albeit far too slowly for me. No figures have been put on the table yet, so we are at the pre-pre-pre offer stage or something like that. Only letters have been exchanged.

---
From the pub's solicitors to our agent.

"Dear Sir,

Our client is interested in talking about your clients property. Are they interested?

Yours sincerely,
Solicitors of the pub next door."
---
From our agent to us.

"Dear you guys,

See attached letter from solicitors of the pub next door. Are you interested?

From your agent."
---
From us to our solicitor.

"Dear solicitor,

See attached letter from solicitors of the pub next door. Can you write a letter that says, yes we are interested.

From the client whom you did work for, but whose house sale have been aborted twice so you were able to make money off us anyway."
---

So we are now waiting for some response. It is really a bit too slow, but I guess if we can make some money off this, then I'll just bite my tongue. Besides, I am rubbish at negotiation. I remember taking a course at Cass - the lecturer was someone who had negotiated for governments and large corporations (I think they contract at really high rates). Every lesson he would talk about negotiation strategy, and we would have exercises where we'd pair up into a 'buyer' and 'seller' exercise.

We would each be given a buyer and seller's brief which was not shown to the other party. The objective is for each party to go away with the best deal they could possibly get, i.e. the buyer would get the lowest price, and the seller would get the highest. At the end of the lesson, the amount agreed on would be put on the board, and we would know who did the best.

I always did the worst some how, buying at the highest price and selling at the lowest. I think that I am just rubbish at it. That reminded me of the time when I wanted to buy this rucksack in Hong Kong. I really liked it, but the seller was quite tough on the price. I decided to pull Jeff into the picture, and told the shopkeeper that my 'banker' had the last say. This was quite a good tactic in that Jeff made me walk away if our price wasn't met, which got me a bit upset initially (as I really liked the rucksack), but the shopkeeper crumbled at the last second - giving it to us at what she sobbed as the 'cost price' and how we were so mean that she couldn't feed her children but since it was the first transaction of the day, she had to make a sale otherwise she would have bad luck all day. So with that in mind, I think I will let Jeff handle the negotiations.

I was at YTelco the day before yesterday. They are located in Manchester (I seem to have a lot of clients there) so as it was a one day engagement, it was a 3.5 hour travel up there and back. Which meant that it was a very very long day for me - 7.5 hrs travel (Stef was really sweet and called me to tell me that the M1 was shut down, so I took the M40 which took me on a jolly around Coventry) and 7.5 hrs of proper work. So it was a 15 hr day for me. I am still feeling quite shattered as I haven't quite recovered. Oh, and I decided to do a 4 mile run during lunch time yesterday - which tired me out further.

I do love running, it banishes stress like nothing else can do for me. I am contemplating getting up earlier to do my runs in the morning before work - not sure if that's feasible at the moment but I will start next week. It's lovely because summer time means that the sun is up at around 4am, so it's nice and bright, and cool - the perfect running weather.

Actually, when I say 'running' I really mean 'jogging', as I do about 11 minute mile. Oops, this my stop.

***
Continued later...

The meeting went really well, although I was quite dazzled with the numbers and data that I was presented with. I must admit that I felt a bit intimidated by the client, who is obviously a really really clever guy, talking about foreign exchange, spot rates, nominal currency, speculative options and hedge bets etc etc.

I had a hard time trying to keep up, my brain going into full gear frantically scrabbling in the dusty corners of some distant memory for any scrap of corporate finance lessons I took at Cass. Hopefully I didn't come away looking too bad, but he appeared to be a nice guy, and after the meeting, Stuart and myself sat down at Nero's to model the data for the demo next week. He was more concerned about what MSCRM would do for him, and not too worried about the data (phew!). That's a relief.

Anyway, it was a really nice afternoon, so since St Paul's only a hop skip and jump away from Canary Wharf, I called up Lovedip to see if she was up for lunch. I knew that her job was really stressful and hectic, and she was quite used to 11-13 hr days skipping meal times, so did not hold up any hope of meeting up. To my surprise, she agreed, and within the hour, I was at Canary Wharf station.

We took out some itsu sushi (I had the crab californian roll thingamy) - hopefully it wasn't radioactively poisoned, and we sat outside in the sunshine. I hadn't seen her since, oh.. last Feb when we celebrated Chinese New Year at our house and had some friends over.

We talked about work and life, and how things were going for both of us and it was a lovely lunch. The sun was shining and people were sitting around the small small patch of green grass, sunning themselves.

I am now on the Jubilee line, pootling on back. I don't think it's worth going back to the office, so will work from home. I have to finish the 'Mex runbook' which is a document outlining the installation and network structure of the project so that we can handover to support after go-live. I also have to confirm Stef's hotel for next week because he's a bit skint and unable to pay upfront for expenses (which is normally reimbursed at the end of the month). I also have to finish completing the Training pack for MS CRM 3.0 as I have to do customisation and system admin training in a couple of weeks. All fun and games.

So It's bank holiday weekend this coming Monday, but Jeff's working. It's fine because I can also work on my book which have been languishing the past few days as well.

Damp and miserable

Wed, 16 May 2007 23:19:36 -0700

It has been quite wet recently - about 2 weeks of non stop rain and drizzle. Not to mention being a tad chilly as well - we have had to turn the heating back on a timer.

Works been going ok - a bit slow on the project side though. My Mex project has completed all three UAT (User Acceptance Test) phase and been fixed - they are currently undergoing end-user training (by themselves) and once all has been signed off, deployment and go-live towards the end of this month... right smack on Jeff's birthday.

Poor boy - he will turn 30 and I will be too stressed out to celebrate. He has never had to go to school, uni or work during his birthday all his life - whether it was because bank holiday falls on the day or he takes a day off, and he has never been a believed in celebrating it earlier or later.

Which makes it a bit harder to celebrate with him this time. Anyway, I have bought tickets to Spamalot - a quintessential English comedy thing by Monty Python and dinner in a "super secret place" which I will reveal after the day.

The SkinnyMore project sort of lost steam - it started off quite promising, with lots of integration and stuff, but due to their 'tightassness' (for want of better word), they not only reduced the man days down from an 81 day project to an 18.5 day "consultancy bucket" for them to use as they wished. Basically, they would be managing the whole project by themselves, and only using us as and when they require. Oh well.

I do have 2 smaller projects to manage now though - one's a MSCRM hosted solution, and that's something new and exciting. I haven't had my handover from the sales team yet, so I don't know the details, but it sounds pretty good.

Last weekend we met up with Jonathan and Olga, along with their respective spouses and kiddies. Unlike our meet-up last June when the weather was brilliant - sunshiny and warm, this time round it was raining with high winds as well. We weren't particularly having fun, but the twins had a fantastic time, jumping on puddles and sploshing in the rain.

Here are some photos of the day:

And so, it pours.

Here comes the big puff of wind

Daniel loving every splash of the puddle!

Little Holly enjoying the wind as well

Some lessons learned.

Fri, 11 May 2007 12:58:00 -0700

With our busy 'rat-race' type schedules, it hasn't been easy trying to fit in some educational things into our timetable. Get up real early, get to work, work real late, get home, make dinner, catch an hour or so of tv whilst having it and off to bed to begin another day exactly like the one before.

The catch is - we really really enjoy our work. Jeff does weekends, but on his DOILs (Day Off In Lieu), he works from home. He enjoys it he says, because he doesn't have to log evidence and can troubleshoot problems purely for the love of it, using the powers of his inspiration inducing state of belonging to the yet-unwashed, dressing gowned, morning death breath brigade.

I love my job too - the range and variety of things I do is really interesting, from holding workshops, writing documents (I know I am a geek for loving this as well!), managing my team, organising the tasks on the projects, managing budgets and client expectations, all sorts. Both Jeff and myself can spend hours just doing our own work, not the best thing if you want to start a family, but we have had to discipline ourselves and make time for that too.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. Because of our hectic schedules, I haven't been able to enhance my own education. Other than the Economist magazine that I sometimes read (I read more articles online), there hasn't been much else to broaden my horizon. So I've started listening to audio files - from Teaching Company lectures such as history lessons including Famous Romans, High Middle Ages, and Alexander and the Hellenistic Age which I am just about to finish, to Psychology, sociology and self development (by Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn, Brian Clancy and the like).

I've also listened to 'The Diaries of Anne Frank' - read by Wynona Ryder, and just recently, 'My Life' - Bill Clinton's autobiography. I found it fascinating. It was read by the ex-president himself, and was very honest, brutally so, making no bones and no excuses for his behaviour and refreshingly candid about what he wanted to achieve as the president of the United States.

I really like him. I believe that he is a better man than George W Bush. And a better president as well. But that's only his side of the story, where the truth was probably heavily censored and edited to make an enjoyable read. Now that Hillary is running for President, there are many many less flattering versions of their lives - both personal and professional, that contradicts his biography.

In any case, I really enjoy listening to these audio files on my way to and from work and client offices. It's a chance for me to expand my knowledge on life, history, philosophy, psychology and all sorts of really interesting topics and ideas I would not otherwise have had a chance to explore.

What I find fascinating is that kingdoms and empires rise and fall, war, suffering and peace ebb and flow with the whims of kings and conquerers, races, cultures and traditions emerge, spread and and decay, and that there is only only thing that is constant in the history of time. Change.

Nobody lives to be immortal. Yes, there are those whose historical feats have caused seismic changes and affected many many lives, but these achievements crumble with time, people forget, and history gets mangled in the interpretation of events when told by the victor or the vanquished. The key thing to remember is that we are only passing through. In the history of the entire universe and this planet we call home, our lives is but a small paragraph in the whole story. We can make it beautiful, or we can make it ugly.

Al-qaeda will be history, superpowers will change hands, China may be the next big 'World Policeman', aliens may turn out to be our masters, humans may be replaced by intelligent robots... who knows?

What counts is how we live this life and the people we touch. I think that historians, academics, politicians and those who study human history and evolution of life on this earth from a 200m birds eye view, or those who step right back to look at 'The Big Picture' will probably feel a sense of futility - that nothing we do on this earth really matters in the long run. But I think that life is really made up of magic moments, poignant memories, snapshots of tears, laughter and beauty.

I am an devoted supporter of The Alzheimer's Society and I raise money for them on my runs, and I donate regularly. The 'Million Memories' helps raise money for them, and it made me stop to think. In my mind, I walked through my life taking snapshots of all the memories that have stayed with me, those that have touched my soul and expanded my experience.

Memories of my grandmother, of my childhood at the air force base, childhood memories growing up with my younger brother, memories of camping and hiking with my classmates, memories of coming home from Sabah to spend time with grandparents and Johleen, memories of teenhood under the watchful eyes of my parents, memories of the long friendship with my closest friends, and memories of my love with Jeff just to name a few.

When I looked at all the treasured memories I have gathered from infant to adulthood, I feel that I have an amazing life. Though that might not mean very much in the big history of time and space, it means so very much to me, to know that I have loved and been loved by so many in my life. To know that I have made a difference to a lot of people in many ways.

There's nothing like counting your blessings to make you feel like the richest person on the entire planet.

And that is indeed what I am.

Brilliant Weekend in Brussels

Wed, 09 May 2007 14:35:45 -0700

So I was in Brussels last weekend. Weather was glorious at about 20C (although wind was cool in the evening). We talked a lot, or rather - Suzi talked a lot . I did most of the listening.

We happened to be there during some sort of festival, where stands featuring strange things were on display. Not having french language, we were at a disadvantage, but we enjoyed it nonetheless. There were some great miniature model displays which made a statement - one of the paralysis caused by bureaucrats and politicians (and King Kong) or so we think. Another of the two faced-ness of the sex industry. We couldn't decode the rest but it was all quite fun.

We also ate a lot, and walked around a lot. Didn't do much shopping as I didn't think the merchandise were particularly cheap.

We spent Sunday morning enjoying a glorious free classical music concert, from the comforts of the outdoor cafe nearby ... where Lipton Tea and hot chocolat cost a whopping �7! Actually, it was a good deal, especially since it was front row seats for the amazing day. I caught a bit of sunshine as well.. it was really quite an excellent day out.

Here are some pictures of the trip.

Before the crowds gathered at the concert in Grand Place.

And then the hordes arrived.

"... and Yami said, 'You know I know you know!'"

"What do you think of this gorgeous tuna dish?"

It got me salivating!

A trip to Brussels is not complete without strawberries and cream on waffles?

A pot of mussels to finish up the day.

The famous Mannekinpis statue/fountain.

"Yoo hoo! You forgot your underwear!"

Model of people protesting at fuel guzzling toy 4x4

.. and how some Ken toy can be easily run over by a scale model ferrari

Palace Justice being taken over by terrorists, bureacrats and King Kong!

King Kong is King of the World!

.. and a pink piggy looks on

There was also a "Which Sex Act is Risque" game at the Doctors of the World stand.

And an artist completes another pretty picture with a knife and some paint...

One day at Starbucks

Fri, 04 May 2007 12:56:00 -0700

I wrote this while sitting down at Starbucks Shepherd's Bush on Thursday, about 45 minutes early for the training I am supposed to deliver on client site today. I know this is one of the things Waz has boycotted, based on his principals about not buying, using, eating anything from Israel or Jewish in nature. I think that's alright.

But I am a lot more base than that, and I enjoy my coffee (though I have cut down quite a bit) and sitting in the 'decadent' coffee shop with my notebook on my lap, enjoying jazz or whatever I've got on my Sony really kicks off my creative writing juice.

It's actually where I work best, and if I can find a Starbucks near me, with a nice butt-hugging sofa next to an electrical point where I can plug in my notebook, I'd stay there for hours.

On another note - I am going to Brussels this weekend to see Suzi. She's an old friend with whom I have lived with for a few months in Brighton some ten years back. We've both gone through a lot in our personal lives, but have kept in touch. She had since married a dutch (I call him Bastard) who is a nasty character. Having come from a dysfunctional family, she thought that marriage was her escape route. She was quite wrong.

Not only was he emotionally abusive, but he kept her as a slave - taking all her money, keeping her at home to look after her two beautiful kids and basically, cook and clean for him with nothing in return. During my last trip there about two years ago, I saw how he treated her and the kids, and promptly encouraged her to seek legal help. She was beaten, emotionally and spiritually, and the desolate depression had stole her soul. I could not bear to see that, so I gave her the needed 'push' to get herself some professional help.

Almost two years later, she has divorced and is now separate from the Bastard. Whilst the courts awarded her custody of the children, she did not get any alimony from the Bastard ex-husband, who works for ******, raking in more than �5000 every month. Aside from approximately �125 per child he pays per month, he gives her nothing.

Bastard bastard bastard.

So I am going to see her after all this time, to bring her her Asam Laksa Maggi Mee, Milo, malaysian foodie things (I'm giving her my 'stock' because I can always go home to buy some more. She has only been back about twice within the last 5 years, and the last one was to go to her father's funeral). I also got her loads of toys and clothes for the kids.

We'll walk around Brussels, talk a lot, shop a lot, and generally have a blast. She's not had a holiday since... I dont know. The kids will be with bastard ex-husband this week, so she will have time to be free and just have a worry-free weekend. Anyway that's it for now.

Will have been at work 13 hours today..

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:01:34 -0700

.. just waiting for Stef to tell me if the screenshots I got him are ok then I head off to home. Have been up to my eyeballs today, very tired, but very very productive.

Its been a good (but exhausting) day. Just the way I like it. But not too often or I might just burn out.

London Marathon

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 07:55:28 -0700

We watched the London Marathon yesterday on tv - it looked like great fun, although running in 23�C probably wasn't the most comfortable temperature. Good fun for spectators though I think! That's not as bad as when I did the 10k last year, it was closer to 31�C!

Anyway, the half marathon last month was about the furthest and longest I've done, so thinking about a full marathon at the moment is a bit premature. I have yet to do a proper run since, because for some reason I have a dull ache in the arch of my right foot every time I take a step and my left knee 'doesn't feel quite right' when walking down stairs.

Perhaps it's just excuses not to get back into training because I've been overcome by the lazy bug, but not training makes me feel 'not that good', and I am going to get back into shape this week. What I had done yesterday was... immediately after watching the marathon on tv, I went and booked myself a place on this year's British 10k this July and the BUPA Great South Run (10 miles) this October.

Nothing like setting some goals to get a person moving!

It's Monday already!! .. and it's promising to be quite a long day today. I have the SkinnyMore Discovery document to polish (I am still not happy with it - it's not as clear, concise or as professional as I think it should be), and Mex has just completed UAT cycle 1, so I have about 60 issues and change requests to address. Actually, I will be mentoring the new guy Mark. It's his second week, and I've already roped him into doing some chargeable work!

I could use a caffeine iv drip though.. zzz...

Healthy eating at SkinnyMore...

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 13:30:38 -0700

Spent the weekend with Jeff at his office preparing for my Discovery here. HEre are some pictures of green park.

So anyway I was at sunny ole SkinnyMore Derby for the last two days. The Discovery session has been very interesting and exhausting as well. The people are interesting - this company has been in business for decades, and employees have worked here for 15-20 years. I find that quite normal for companies up North.

Maybe it is because jobs are hard to come by, but what a contrast to IT companies in the South. Most of the employees are plus sized ladies, who seem to really enjoy working here. The work environment is very warm and friendly, as I believe that women normally tend to create a softer atmosphere than men.

Also, I think that if you aspired to lose some weight, where better to do so than a company whose main line of business is to help people do this? Consider the fact that I am an XL in Malaysia, and 'normal' down south in London - being up here in SkinnyMore really made me feel anorexic by comparison.

I wonder if this makes the ladies feel more insecure? To be reminded of skinny-ness and weight-loss issues every day? Perhaps it is. I saw many of them eating teeny tiny portions at lunch time, maybe a salad leaf and a carrot slice and wonder if it is making them miserable inside or not.

Speaking of which, lunch menu items had 'points' attached to them to assist anyone on a diet. Salad was 'free' and my lamb casserole was like a billion points :D

Chicken topped pizza - healthy cheese topping reduces the points??
I am not sure I understand here..

Chicken and Spinach curry - 2.5 points on 'Red' diet and free on 'Green' diet. Whatever that is.

...and weighing scales in the Ladies to help you decide if you have eaten too much.

I don't know.. I think being on a diet all the time would make me miserable. I just need to be really careful with my cholesterol but if I cut out too much, I will just be a grumpy old moo. Which I am any way. I think I love food too much, but it is easier to not over-indulge in the UK due to absence of char kway teow, kun lou meen, hokkien meen, har meen, dim sum, bakut teh, laksa meen, chee cheong fun, meen seen, roti canai...

My God all I am doing is making myself more HUNGRY!

Blogging about work

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 08:53:36 -0700

Microsoft and other large companies have encouraged their employees to blog about work openly, and I am wondering whether mine will as well. Remember I mentioned that we were acquired by a large telco? I've always had the opinion that corporate blogging should be allowed, because this gives management insight into what their employees really think and allows them to act proactively.

Saying that, I supposed you need to be careful that those blogs do not end up slandering the company. A lot of companies have outlined Corporate Blogging policies and guidelines such as BBC, Yahoo (in pdf format) and IBM.

To be honest, I've scoured GoogleLand for any sight of of my Company bloggers, and have found none. Zip. Zero. Nada. Which means that until we get go-ahead, I better keep it anonymous unless I want to find myself out of a job.

It's fine for the moment, we haven't been 'swallowed up' completely, and the only change to my own company's name is a small tagline sort of like "Oldco, a Newco Company". Oh and we got our new email addresses (although our current emails and IT infrastructure stays) and Intranet access.

It's the first time the telco has bought a services company and isn't sure how to integrate us IT-wise. We need a huge amount of flexibility and freedom on our own PCs - installing MSDN media and running Servers and VPCs to do our work. They cannot lock our desktops down or we would just not be able to do our jobs.

We had an 'All Hands' day on Thursday - an all-day company meeting where we met our new Big Boss. Our new HR dept also showed us a new video of Corporate culture, which although produced well, elicited either 'omygodnotanothermarketingcrap' to fuzzy 'whataniceplacetowork' sentiments.

I went up to the Big Boss to ask if he believed in the video, and we spent some time talking. He was very earnest and sincere in wanting to make sure the acquisition did not destroy any value. So many mergers and acquisitions just caused chaos, resulting in people walking out the door. As our company is purely human capital, that would be disasterous - meaning that all they bought was an empty building.

They realize that, and so said that they would not be fully integrating us by painting all of us into the corporate colour. Their marketing director joined us and I found them very easy to talk to.

Any way - I will make sure not to rock the boat and just do my work. Speaking of which, I get to see a new client on Monday. I am running a Discovery workshop with a client who isn't really *that* new... as we have installed a prototype and they are happy enough with it for us to run a project now.

It'll be interesting - the client's business involves making people skinnier - I'll call them SkinnyMore. Apparently lunch will be provided, but each item will have 'Points' against them! I'll let you know more after I've returned.

Spring is here (cross fingers)

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 07:58:50 -0700

The weather has been amazing the last few days - sunny and warm. It was up to 25C yesterday. Lovely. Well, despite the fact that we've lost our buyer, I am not as upset as I thought I'd be. Perhaps it's because we'll get to spend more time in our garden and patio. It also seems that the pub next to us may have expansion plans, and if so - we may be able to capitalise on that. Any way - will update on that soon.

I decided to go to IKEA yesterday morning, before the crowds rush in. They do have some brilliant storage ideas. But I think that essentially they are quite cheap and plastiky. Plus the designs are AWFUL. Nevertheless, I bought a non-stick wok for �3.99 (mum will be pleased that I've finally junked the crappy one I've been using) although I am not sure how long it'll last - especially since it's so cheap.

Deserted at 9.30am on a Saturday morning.

Awful summer designs.

Sigh. Why can't IKEA be cheap in price, nice and not so cheap in quality?

We lost our buyer.

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 17:07:38 -0700

Which means we lost the Wokingham house.

Goshdarnit.

For want of stronger swear words.

Rubbishing the Malaysian car

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 20:02:37 -0700

...got Mr Clarksona sound beating from the Malaysian government. He thought that the Kelisa was an "unimaginative junk, with no soul, no flair and no passion" - and proceeded to blow it up. ABSOLUTE CLASS!

Apparently "Perodua had not received a single complaint from UK owners," according to Minister Abdul Raman Suliman. But maybe it is because it hasn't sold at all? Ok, maybe approximate 2422.03 units were sold in the UK if you believe THIS report. It doesn't give a time frame though, per year? Per month? Since it was launched in 2001? Ah found it over here.

Apparently the Kelisa has been bought by more than 2400 poor sods in the UK between 2001 and 2007, averaging 346 cars a year. That is piss poor.

Anyway you have to see this. It's just top class.

Having lived in the UK for the past 8 years, I have never seen a Kelisa. Or a new saga or wira (manufactured by Proton, our 'largest' car manufacturer in Malaysia). Most of the protons I see have a K-L registration (i.e. 1992/93). Any Malaysian who has ever own a Proton or Perodua car will tell you honestly, they are rubbish. Absolute crap. I just don't have Jeremy's large repertoire of descriptive adjectives to describe it. Just as atrocious as the Perodua website.

A mere 'dink' would crumple a Kanchil. A small tap would crush a Kenari. A nudge would crumble a Nippa. They sell well in Malaysia because of the government's high entry barrier for imported cars. So that our industry would 'succeed'. So that we would have 'more jobs'. So that we can hit our Wawasan 2020 (Vision 2020) of becoming a Developed nation.

This is just blatant protectionism. The only thing we have got out of this is a bunch of lazy politicians whose hypocritical stance just beggers belief. They'd spout rubbish about quality of Malaysian made goods but would shamelessly drive around in imported Mercedes and buy Italian furniture and foreign goods.

Quality of manufacturing is so poor that stuff like cars barely make the European safety standard. Here you go - one star on safety for the Kelisa. And the really sad thing is that it just shows how little regard the government has for the lives of the local Malaysians. What's worst is that it affects the poor because this segment of the population just cannot afford the steep price of a safer imported car.

It is ever more obvious during festive season - "Over the 15 days to Nov. 10, when Malaysia celebrated the Muslim festival of Hari Raya Aidilfitri and the Hindu holiday of Deepavali, 233 people died in 13,462 accidents" according to a Bloomberg report. Also, "Road accidents in Malaysia claimed 5,623 lives last year and have killed more than 5,200 people each year since at least 2001".

One big factor is that (ok I am making a sweeping statement here) Malaysians are also really really bad drivers who are generally rude and discourteous. This culture contributes to the high accident rate as much as poorly manufactured vehicles they race around in.

I used to be an ugly driver. You have to be to 'survive' on the Malaysian roads - otherwise you get honked, cussed or worse - beaten up in a road rage accident. Having lived here for so long though, I have found driving in the UK to be an incredibly pleasant experience. Anger, stress and frustration on the roads are almost non-existent. And now I am far too chicken to drive back home, and leave that to my lovely accomodating parents to ferry us around when we are there. Or we stick to taxis. I can't face driving in Malaysia again.

It's just that I realize how dangerous it can be to how blas� some drivers are (you know who you are!)... it really is like gambling with your own life. Accident rates can be easily reduced by drivers driving more carefully, more mindfully, more courteously, and in safer cars. I am glad that my family have got rid of all the cheap tinny Protons (well except for my brother's wira) and moved onto Toyota, which has much better safety features.

Anyway, I shall now get off my high horse. This Jeremy Clarkson thing brought up by some clueless politicians in Malaysia got me bristling.

I just discovered..

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 00:15:26 -0700

...that I took too long to complete my Discovery document! Well, I took two days when I was only supposed to take one. But in my defence, it's the first one I've done and I had to do a whole lot of research and asking questions and reading and stuff.

The client is a Trading company and is currently replacing their creaky web platform with a newer shinier one which is actually a like-for-like replacement featurewise, but with a totally revamped database structure and powerful clustered SQL databases to handle the thousands of trading transactions a day. It is scheduled to be delivered for User Acceptance Testing (UAT) at the end of April.

We are supposed to integrate MS CRM to this new platform. The risks are there - the database schema of this new platform is not yet finalised, so there will be issues in terms of data migration and integration.

It has been very very valuable, and I enjoyed the process. I look forward to future Discovery sessions, although the initial uncertainty always makes me quite worried. My book idea is still going a bit slow, but I have a big chunk of time coming up (Easter) where I am hoping to get some serious work done. Looking forward to getting neck deep in the stuff.

I spoke too soon!

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 19:34:00 -0700

I thought that my Mex project was going too well for words, and now it has been delayed 1 month due to the fact that they could not prepare their servers and environment for MS CRM deployment. But their PM Phil knows that we have bent over backwards to accomodate them, so we gained a few brownie points despite the delay.

Anyway I have been given two 'Discovery' sessions to do. In fact, I'm currently on the Metropolitan train home having just done one with Stuart (account manager) on tow. It was very very exhausting and draining, but it was great - very educational. It's the first one I have ever done and wrote down all the questions and points that need answering for my 'Discovery' document.

I have tomorrow to write up the document so will do this from home. I hope that the weather holds out (it was a very lovely and sunny 19C today) so I can enjoy writing it in my sunny kitchen with the birds chirping.

I think even though the house sale isn't really going any where, it means we get to enjoy the patio longer - the patio that we had poured so much love and labour to create. I might sit in the garden with my sunnies and get a proper tan even!

Spring's here and I am going to enjoy it!

An unexpected guest

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 10:52:00 -0700

We had an unexpected guest last night - it was an interesting experience. I had just got back from a night out in Twickenham with the team for Andy's leaving do. He's one of the more experienced PM in the team, and together with Angela (who left earlier this month to start a family) managed a large number of the more complex MS CRM projects. He's a lovely person, and always happy to help (although he had his grumpy days) and is leaving because the weekly commute from Somerset was slowly grinding him down.

It was a fun night out - I also got to chat with Mary, who used to work at our company so I am handling her clients. Anyway, it was about 12.30am when I got home.

However, as I pulled into the driveway, I was a bit surprised to see what I thought was rubbish near the front of the hedge. Slowly I edged the car forward as I didn't want to run over any broken glass or nails in case someone malicious had tossed them there, and then I saw a pair of feet! The 'rubbish' was a man who had curled up like a tight ball on the cold ground!

I got out of the car but didn't disturb him - I was a bit scared and worried as he was either:
a. A drunk from the pub next door (this happened before but is quite rare)
b. A homeless man (or woman - I could not see) who wanted some shelter from the cold

We weren't quite sure what to do but I felt really sad about it and took out two blankets from the car boot (which we were using to cushion furniture and stuff we were shifting to Cirencester) and just laid it on top of him. I did not disturb him.

We called the local council who advised us to call the police. I stresed to the police that we did not want to kick him out or anything but was worried in case he might be in need of medical assistance. We didn't ring the ambulance because we knew they would be very stretched due to it being a Friday night and apparently England had taken a beating at football which was a good excuse for drunken fights and stabbings.

The police said they would come when they can, and we stayed up as long as we could to wait. At about 2.30am we just decided to go to bed and hope mr guest would be ok (it went down to 7C - I would not like to be lying on the cold bricked driveway).

The next morning I went out to check and found that our guest had left a note on the crumpled blankets. It had three words on it that spoke of so much human emotion and meaning that I just did not know what to say.

Thank You. (Sorry)

All I can say is that I really hope that our guest finds his way home. Wherever that may be.

The day after...

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 19:32:59 -0700

I only have minimal muscle aches, what a pleasant surprise! Well, apart from my knees and right ankle which was the result of the fall yesterday, I feel ferpectly fine.

Must be all that training I've done. *chuffed*

And thus, I completed the race!

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 16:10:34 -0700

I am in soooo much pain. ow ow ow. But I finished it! I was actually on target to hit my time of 2hrs 40min except that at Mile 6 I decided to take a swan dive onto the lucozade-drenched road. So 'graceful' was I, that I would have put a splattered egg to shame. After that, my time went downhill (I completed at 3:01), but I am very pleased that I kept going right up until the finishing line and did not stop to take a break or to walk.

My trophies! .. and it is a lot more painful than it looks!

That might not have been the best thing to do but I was damned if I was going to let a little 'spillage' spoil my hard work. In fact, three days ago on my last training run, I injured myself. I've been training near the office by the river but that day was particularly cold and I had forgotten my gloves.

So I decided to take an extended break and go to the local Gym, which had just been taken over by Virgin Active where I was impressed with all the new gear they had installed, and decided to try out the spaceship looking threadmill. I selected a pretty arduous program that had a lot of steep incline workout which resulted in me overdoing things and I only knew something had gone wrong when I felt a sharp pain under my left shoulder blade. It felt like a pixie was sitting there and stabbing my left lung every time I breathed or twisted a little.

I called Dr Paul McCrossin straightaway. He runs Back to Health at North Finchley and have known both myself and Jeff for about four years now, and we've always gone to him since he fixed my 'crippled' back in 2003.

Back to Health was actually closed yesterday but Paul agreed to see me even though it was such short notice. It was so excruciating that I found it really hard to drive; every time I put the car into second gear I felt like a hot knife was slicing my lung. It was agonizing. After much prodding, twisting and poking, I was diagnosed with 'subluxated diaphram' which resulted from my strenuous workout the day before.

I do trust Paul because I almost never have to tell him what's wrong - he always knows exactly what to do to fix the me right up. But that evening (after the session) I felt my doubt creeping up because I left his practice I felt my whole back spasming up. It was so sensitive that Jeff's cold hands felt like electric shock and I almost passed out from the pain. I went to bed that night at 9.30 but could not sleep well because I couldn't turn without feeling the shooting pain.

Morning came and I found that I felt a lot better better. I think my body was only trying to rebalance itself after the adjustment the night before (as Paul always tells me).

He had also booked me in to see Ruth Staff, who does sports massage at his practice. I took another drive to North Finchley and was pleasantly surprised to find that Mr Pixie was no longer stabbing my insides whenever I stuck the car in Second Gear.

After a painful (but deeply relieving) session with Ruth, I was almost back to normal by nightfall - 36 hours since doing my back in. How's that for result?! Amazing. Paul did his magic and fixed me, and Ruth completed the job by easing the painful muscles and preparing me for the run today.

By the time I got to the starting line this morning I was almost back to normal, and would have made my target time had I not decided to give the ground a bodyslam and award myself some beautiful rainbow coloured bruises. Actually, it was Paul who encouraged me to go further than my normal 10k races and do the half marathon.

If I cannot trust the man who understands body mechanics as well as he does (Paul is also a strong marathon runner and will be doing this years' London Marathon) - who else can I trust in this area?

Anyway, here are some photos of my historic day.

Here's our sponsor. I drank so much that I sweated Lucozade.
Oh and I peed 6 times before I started the race.

This was where I started.

Damn the men for their portable peeing equipment!

This inspired run is much harder than it looks!

We passed some nice Reading landmarks -
here is a nice church in Reading.

I also passed a doggie...

... and Scoobie... and a piggie having a drink...

... and a rhino...

... but got beaten by two old men, can you believe it?!?

... to the end of the line at Majeski Stadium.

You can find more pictures about my previous runs (which were only 10k) here and here

Red Nose Day, St Patrick's Day and Mother's Day

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 09:42:06 -0700

... all in a row. The Red Nose day apparently raised over �40m. I think that it was very well-intentioned and shows how generous people can be - but I also sincerely hope that it is spent well. My department was busy and I didn't go out, so the only thing that reminded me of Red Nose Day was Stefan and his 'blinged-up' red nose.

Don't I look cool?

Saturday was a busy day - clearing up the house (we had two viewings), taking stuff to the recycling centre and skip. Speaking of which, the new fangle-dangle Tesco Recycling Centre at Watford, though impressive made me think: I believe that they waste more energy with the screens and auto-separator thingamabobs than is saved by recycling. There's a recepticle that you put your 'thing' into (can, bottle, plastic etc), which is then detected and is displayed on the screen "Metal detected. Please put in the next item". And then it gets whisked away and washed I think, because I can then hear water swishing around.

I think it's more of a PR stunt than anything. But that's just my two cents.

Real energey saver or waster?

We went to see Wassim and Magda that evening. He's getting quite deep in the political studies his insightful blog has been attracting a lot of attention. I do scoot over once in awhile to read what he's got up there but to be honest, it's way over my head. I understand the middle-east situation only superficially, and I guess it would take a lot of focus and study to understand all the nuances and complex interplay of human politics and historical context of how the situation had unfolded to its present state.

Jeff and Waz had a couple of games of chess - it was a draw at 1-1. I think they are both strong players, but Jeff was grumbling how he should have won the second game. Stage set for a rematch some time soon methinks.

It was really nice seeing them again.

Deep in concentration.

Reading Half Marathon = T - 9d

Fri, 16 Mar 2007 09:52:36 -0700

9 days to go before the Reading Half Marathon. My progress is pretty good, although could be better. This week, I did two lunchtime runs about 5.3 miles in about an hour. Ok pretty poo, but my legs are adjusting well, and it only aches for the day. This Sunday, I am hoping to make the full 13m distance, and would be very pleased with myself if I do it under 3hours without stopping to walk.

The weather has been quite nice recently, sunny although a bit chilly in the shade. Didn't matter when running though because it just made it better. I think it would be very hard to run in the heat - I am quite sure I couldn't do this in Malaysia. Also, the route I take near my work is by the River Thames, not the part in London that everyone recognizes, but the part that meanders west. It's lovely.

Spring by the riverside

Of course the punishing training I've been doing has taken its toll on my poor feet, both of which have blisters - blister on a blister in fact! It's ok though, but I think that it's time I changed my running shoes. In actual fact, I am really quite pleased with my training, and I will want to keep this up after the half marathon. Speaking of which I think I got my chip and number in the post yesterday. Yay!

Want to see something disgusting?

Blister on a blister!

The lucky dolls we brought back from Malaysia has gone down quite well at the office. Unfortunately I think I learnt one of the lessons about gift-giving. I bought enough for my team mates and my project team (about 24). Other colleagues whom I chat with and know pretty well have felt left out, and that came to head the other day when Ben then came over and told me that Milhem (his team leader) had hijacked his 'Good Luck' doll and hung him on the ceiling so that the good luck vibes will be bestowed on the whole department!

I still had some dolls left so brought a prosperity one to work today to give to Milhem (who had cheekily asked for it the other day any way). He was really quite pleased with it, although I think that Mr Good Luck will not be taken down quite yet.

The hanging good luck doll!

Ninja nunchuck and his babemobile

Ula's good luck doll looking after her teddy and stationaries

Definition

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 19:22:00 -0700

Define distance
Define happiness
Define love
Define missing
Define trust
Define words

........all these things are undefinable until you meet the right one, then you know....
Metadataservice

(Reproduced from The Freaky MSCRM Blog)

How geeky are we?

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 23:54:28 -0700

Caught ourselves discussing our favourite fonts. How geeky is that?

Anyway spent some time going through a lot of forums and blogs on MS CRM Dynamics to collate all the nuggets and gems into one page which I will publish here as soon as I've categorized them properly. It's more for myself, that's just so I don't have to trawl through them all again when I need some piece of information.

Time for bed.

Removing 'Save and Close' and 'Save and New' buttons on the Phone activity

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 18:10:47 -0700

To remove the two buttons on the Phone activity, place the following javascript in the OnLoad event of the form.

if(document.getElementById('_MBcrmFormSaveAndClose')!=null)
{
document.getElementById('_MBcrmFormSaveAndClose').outerHTML =""
}

if(document.getElementById('_MBcrmFormSubmitCrmForm59truetruefalse')!=null)
{
document.getElementById('_MBcrmFormSubmitCrmForm59truetruefalse').outerHTML
=""
}

Project going well

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 18:32:44 -0700

My current project, I am going to call the 'Mex' Project is doing very well. What a big contrast from my previous one! Speaking of which, they refused to pay the last four invoices because they weren't happy with the project.

WHAT!!

I could not believe it. The project was plagued with some post-golive issues mainly because:
1. Client installed a newer version of the client which worked with Vista and Office 2007 when it was only releasd 1 week before go-live, and that we had not had time to test
2. Client decided to change security model the weekend before go-live
3. Client did not do UAT (User Acceptance Testing) thoroughly enough

I had originally deemed project a success but apparently not from the client's point of view. Although we did everything we could, the product has some limitations that only surfaced when it was used in real life. For example, tracking emails with MSCRM required the subject line to be modified and a string (such as CRM:00001) to be appended to the real subject line.

Anyway, we had a post project review with the client where we talked about all the pains. One of the major things that went wrong was the absence of a 'Discovery' session where we would have highlighted all project risks, assumptions and constraints as well as identified scope. This was not done, which resulted in changing requirements and difficulty in building a system that fit what they wanted. And they didn't quite know what they wanted as well.

All support issues have now been resolved, but I am still puzzled as to why they are refusing to pay the invoice. I have a feeling that they are looking for more discount but this commercial issue is out of my hand and Roy (the division director and the PM on my current project) will handle this.

The Mex project is doing well, I believe that it was because Roy had come on board. I learnt a lot from him, especially on controlling project risks and communication. Honesty is definitely the best policy, I believe. Whilst there may be a lot of table thumping and shouting initially (say, if you tell them that their project is delayed because your consultant had come down with illness and there are no 'reserve' consultants to be called on), they will calm down and things will move on.

We are not over-running at all, which means that I do not need to do any intensive late nights (apart from getting the design document out last week). Which is a relief. Just have some chilled out down time.

On another note - this made me chuckle. These are some error messages found on computers in Japan, which are way funnier than 'Your computer has performed an illegal operation'

1. The Web site you seek cannot be located, but countless more exist.
2. Chaos reigns within. Reflect, repent, and reboot. Order shall return.
3. Program aborting: Close all that you have worked on. You ask far too much.
4. Windows NT crashed. I am the Blue Screen of Death. No one hears your screams.
5. Yesterday it worked. Today it is not working. Windows is like that.
6. Your file was so big. It might be very useful. But now it is gone.
7. Stay the patient course. Of little worth is your ire. The network is down.
8. A crash reduces your expensive computer to a simple stone.
9. Three things are certain: Death, taxes and lost data. Guess which has occurred?
10. You step in the stream, but the water has moved on. This page is not here.
11. Out of memory. We wish to hold the whole sky, But we never will.
12. Having been erased, The document you're seeking must now be retyped.
13. Serious error. All shortcuts have disappeared.
14. Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

Sun's out

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 09:34:15 -0700

.. and it promises to be a beautiful day. It was a bit cold in the morning but the forecast is for a mild 14C day with sunshine. I might just go out for a walk during lunchtime. I've been holed up in the office every day because of work so far.

Am currently eyeball deep in the 'Build' phase of my project. Things get quieter but busier as we get down and dirty, configuring and coding in the system.

As a project manager I have breadth of knowledge, not depth, and I wish I was both although I know that's difficult. My strengths are people skills, and I connect easily both with the client and with my team members whom I can normally 'bribe' or coerce into doing my bidding willingly. Muhaha.

As an aside, we picked up some Watson lucky new year dolls when we got back and I distributed them to my colleagues and project team. Jeff also got them for his colleagues - they went down really well. There were seven - Lucky doll of Success, Protection, Good Luck, Longevity, Prosperity, Love and Glamour.

Aman got the 'Love' one because he's always moaning about his (lack of) love life. I gave Stef a 'Prosperity' one because he's always skint. Gordana had a 'Protection' one because she broke her shoulder trying to get off a ski life chair. Jeremy (boss) got both the Love one and the Success one because he needs a girlfriend (i.e. he's a bit desperate in the lurve department!) and a needs a little bit of help managing our team! Most got the 'Success' ninja nunchuck ones only because it looked really cool. It was quite funny.

I think I've bought enough favours to slide me through to the top without sleeping with anyone Wellll.. I didn't give any to the top management though. I have a feeling they won't fall for this trick. Damn.

Stef's praying for money to fall on his head

Blah

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 09:50:51 -0700

Been feeling a bit listless lately, not quite sure why. Maybe because it had been 'gogogo' for awhile, loads of activities, work, packing for holiday, packing and planning for move etc, and now complete halt.

We lose the Wokingham house tomorrow if we cannot exchange contracts, and that is dependent on our buyers exchanging contracts with us. Not sure if I have mentioned this before, but the way it works in the UK is like a chain. Almost everybody (unless you have loads of dosh or have just come in from a rented accomodation) need to sell their house before they can buy.

On the day of 'exchange' the buyer buys your house and pays the 10% deposit so you can do the same for the house you are buying, and that house owner can do the same for the house that he is buying and so on, up the chain.

This all gets wonky if the first buyer messes it up, which looks like what is happening here. There's not much we can do, so will have to wait and see.

It's two weeks till half marathon day on the 25th March, and I haven't been training as much as I should. Did do a 10m run yesterday though, took me 2 hrs 30 min, 10 min better than before but without short runs during the week it was still pretty painful. I really didn't feel like running yesterday as it was miserable out there. Wet and cold.

Jeff suggested just doing laps instead of the lovely route I found through some really nice foresty area so that if the rain got worst or if I got really tired I could just stop. I decided against it halfway because I really enjoy the nice scenery and also because I know if I just did laps I could easily wimp out and stop before I did my miles.

I was glad I did the run though, as I started enjoying it about 3 miles into the run. The rain didn't bother me, and with really good music in my ears (such as B52's Loveshack and Meatloaf's 'Bat out of Hell') the miles just flew by. I felt really great though, and as always, my brain unclicks and ideas sort of flow.

The daffodils are out.

Then I spent the day just lounging in front of the tv whilst Jeff did some work. A really lazy weekend it was, although I wish it was more productive. I had some work to do but just didn't feel like it, and felt guilty for not doing it.

Am feeling a bit blah. Need to get out of this but at the moment its. just. blah.

Hiding 'Convert to Opportunity' button on Lead form

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 18:20:00 -0700

Found on the MS Dynamics CRM website, answer provided by Alistaird @ 2b.net

To achieve what you want to do is fairly straight forward, all you need to do is add some code to the onLoad event of the lead form and enable the event. You can hide the the button in the initial load the tag name for the button and the menu item from memory are _MBConvertLead and _MIConvertLead.

The code example below will hide the button and the menu item after the record has been saved.

/********************************************************************/
/* HIDE Convert Lead Button
/********************************************************************/
var mi_elem = document.getElementById("_MIConvertLead");
var mb_elem = document.getElementById("_MBConvertLead");

if (mi_elem)
{
mi_elem.parentElement.parentElement.style.display = 'none';
}

if (mb_elem)
{
mb_elem.parentElement.parentElement.style.visibility= 'hidden';
}

/********************************************************************/
/* END HIDE Convert Lead Button
/********************************************************************/

Now you need to do a check on each off the fields using the onChannge event
for each field that you want to check

Something like the code below

/********************************************************************/
/* SHOW CONVERT BUTTON AND MENU
/********************************************************************/
if (crmForm.all.new_AttributeName1.DataValue != null &&
crmForm.all.new_AttributeName2.DataValue != null)
{
if (mi_elem)
{
mi_elem.parentElement.parentElement.style.display = 'block';
}

if (mb_elem)
{
mb_elem.parentElement.parentElement.style.display = 'visible';
}
}
/********************************************************************/
/* END CONVERT BUTTON AND MENU
/********************************************************************/

You will have to rename the new_AttributeName1 and new_AttributeName2 to the appropriate fields

First week back

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 10:46:25 -0700

.. and I've been runned off my feet. Sometimes I think that taking a holiday in the middle of a project isn't the best thing to do. It's because it takes me so long to 'get back into it' that gets me really frustrated.

I was meant to finish writing up the Functional Design documentation as well as the Data Migration documentation in two days (starting from before I went off), but took three days instead.

This new project is an upgrade - the client have been with us since MS CRM 1.2 and is only now upgrading because Microsoft have pulled support from that product as of end of January. Also, that version did not have the marketing module, a gap that was plugged by an add-on software called Axonom Powertrak.

As I was not involved in the original project, I do not really know the details, but their current set up is extremely flakey, abysmal performance and incredibly frustrating for the users. No wonder they have very little faith in the software and even less in the upgrade.

Saying that, this means their standards and expectations are pretty low, which makes my job a little easier despite the pretty long list of issues they currently have with the existing system.

Anyway, it has been busy - very very long hours to hit the documentation delivery deadline which was supposed to be 'close of play' yesterday. In fact, I only delivered it around 9.30pm when I finished the second document. There was no time to do an internal review so I just chucked it out as is and pray that there are no glaring mistakes.

Other than that - there really isn't very much to report other than MY HOUSE STILL ISN'T SOLD! 9 months of absolutely nothing much happening. House is back on the market with quite a few viewings by our agent whilst we were away and another offer from a couple.

I think we have agreed that if they can offer the asking price and quickly complete the sale, they are the ones who will get it.

I don't know. It's such a chore, this house selling business. I really can't wait to be done with the whole thing and move to the new house, which I hope haven't been jeapordised too much by the shenanigans.

What's perked me up this morning though, is the fact that it is now getting brighter. On the way to work this morning at 7.15 am, the sun was already up the sky was lovely and bright. This really cheered me up as I hadn't realized how the dark winter months was getting to me.

The sun in Malaysia wasn't quite the same I think as it was hot and humid and it doesn't quite have the same feeling as the hotness of summer here. I think it's because it's a lot more colourful with spring and summer flowers blooming, people taking time out to enjoy life in the park. You don't really see Malaysians going out into the sun on purpose... that would be madness! The only people who do that are white foringers

Ok the gwailo I married isn't quite like most foringers as he stays out of the sun, doesn't drink much and doesn't like football as much. I think I've Malaysianised him although it did take years! .

Valentine's and an Oinky New Year

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 19:51:58 -0700

So we left for Malaysia the day after the freak snow storm, praying that they wouldn't close Heathrow. I would have been mighty upset if that happened.

It was very hot and humid when we landed, and it took some getting used to, especially with the big contrast in temperature. We were drenched in sweat even before we got out the arrival hall. Any way, I got told off by Jeff for always leaving my errands to the last minute so we scheduled all the stuff I needed to do in the week running up to CNY.

Got an exchange for the faulty Jabra JX10 I bought Jeff for X'mas, but did not get much joy from the lovely Dunhill laptop bag my parents got me for my birthday last year. It is a really nice leather bag, but the strap broke, and I was very annoyed because it was VERY expensive. Let's put it this way, it cost about a third of the laptop that it was carrying.

We went to 1 Utama where my parents got it from and was told we had to go to the main supplier where we would be charged for fixing the item. This was plainly not acceptable, and I rang Dunhill in the UK to get the story right. I was assured that any repairs would be under warranty if I took it into Jermyn St which I will do when I return. The returns policy in Malaysia is shocking, and my suspicion is that the Dunhill branch down here just wants to make a quick buck.

As dad and mum had just moved into the new house, we were roped into helping set up the print server (so all connected PCs could print, including my brother living next door) and I helped dad fix his blog and phpbb forum. Guess it is a fair exchange for room and board!

As usual, Johleen tagged along our shopping tripas she was back from her uni for Chinese New Year. It was actually Valentine's day that day, and we ended up at Mondo Picolo in Sungei Wang Plaza where the three of us had an (ahem) not that romantic dinner. We didn't mind because it's always fun having her around. The food, especially the lasagna that I kept nicking from Jeff and Johleen was gorgeous though.

Johleen the third wheel.

Of course, the next day Jeff also wanted to have dim sum at our usual haunt in Imperial Palace down in Subang Jaya. They've gone hi-tech since our last visit there. On each table, they now have a little device with three buttons that you press for the service you want: Call, Water and Bill. We forgot its existence and got ignored when we tried to attract someone's attention by waving our arms! When dad remembered and beeped the button, a young man in uniform came running to our table. Now that's service!

Eeeny Meeeny Miny Moe!

I also had to see Professor KL Goh, the head of department at University of Malaya Specialist Centre to check on my hypercholesterol. He scheduled another ultra sound for me (the last one I did in 2003 showed that I had fatty liver). This time the ultra sound scan was reported as normal, which puzzled him. Although we were a bit relieved, the reason for my incredibly high cholesterol is still a mystery as all my blood tests and poison tests came back negative. He mentioned putting me on pills but I am determined to try and lower it with even more strict diet and exercise. But maybe after CNY (koff).

Dad and Jeff waiting with me at UMSC

.. and this is where I was to go to have my innards filmed.

New Year Eve and the Reunion Dinner

We have just had our New Year Eve reunion dinner. It was dad's time to host it this year and so we had loads of people coming around. There were a lot of chores to do - one of which was to stuff the 'Ang Pows' or little red packets with money to be given to the cousins who weren't married yet. This duty was assigned to Jeff, as he's always interested in counting money.

One ringgit... two ringgit.. ok um, that's enough.

It was a blast - the food was amazing (as usual), everyone had a great time and it was fantastic seeing all my cousins again. It's especially interesting to see how they've grown.

Because I've lived in the UK for several years now, I only ever see them around once a year, so my standard opening sentence is normally, "Wah you are so big already. What Standard (primary school level) are you now?!" only to be greeted with a lot of laughter and giggling as I am told that they are now either in college or working, and they get grilled (good naturedly) about their love life (or lack of) and get offered dubious advice as to how to snare a good catch.

Here's my brother trying to 'con' the cousins with
some friendly New Year gambling.

YY was having a ball as well, because having loads of visitors meant that she didn't have to go to bed that early. And she's now fast friends with Jeff, the giver of flying lessons. She's amazingly expressive though, and is very affectionate and mischievious. I've got a few avis which I will upload as soon as I figure out how to reduce the size appropriate for streaming.

"Smile for the camera or I shall chomp on your ear!"

"Go on - just smile like this."

"How dare you order me about! I'll just headlock and give you a noogie."

"I'm sooo tired of smiling at the camera."

Any way - Have a very happy Piggy chinese New year everyone!

More Snow pics

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 18:40:00 -0700

Just to contrast the mad weather, here are a couple of photos I took during my most recent training run during last weekend. Not sure if I mentioned it, but my colleagues had 'peer pressured' me into doing a half marathon in Reading, which I have been training for. I've not yet hit my target distance, but have increased my stamina a whole lot!

This particular run was the furthest I've ever done - 10 miles or 1.6 km in a very slow time of 2 hrs 40 min. I think my main aim is to finish the race, and not worry too much about the time. I find that I really do enjoy running, especially since I found some very scenic new routes in my area. Too bad we are about to move (if we ever get around to it, since we believe that our buyers are not very serious ... not after having the process drag on for the last 8 months ago).

Anyway here are some pics of my last training run down the A41 and over the M1.

Where is the end?!?

And here's the view over the M1.

Four days later, the freak snowstorm happened, burying us in 6 inches of snow. It was really very beautiful though.

Project go-live

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 16:28:35 -0700

New Year in Dubai seems like such a long time ago now. Since our return, my project has gone live on 15th January; not without huge amount of stress though, and not without a huge amount of work and dedication from my team. I am really very proud to belong in a company where everyone is so professional and competent.

Go-live wasn't as mad as I thought it would be because we staggered it, and began deployment on the Tuesday before - giving us about 5 days to iron out the process. It is normally done over a weekend but this project would not have required any down time, so I thought that starting earlier would give us time to get it right.

Any way - it went very smoothly, although we have some teething issues at the moment. Nothing major, so I deem the project a success. Yesterday I had a project team lunch in a Korean restaurant opposite the office where we all just recapped and highlighted all the things that needed improvements in the next project. It was fun.

Now I have another project, although I will not be the PM for it - but the Lead Consultant. I had told Jeremy that I wanted some time to get to learn the product and get to grips with things a bit more - so now I have been given an upgrade project from MS CRM 1.2 to MS CRM 3.0. 1.2 was an awful awful product, with flaky permission and platform issues coming out of every crack. Upgrading it isn't as straightforward as I would like, but it will be a fun challenge, as we have quite a lot of custom coding that will require re-writing as well.

The weather has been absolutely manic. Temperatures were in double digits (aboug 11-14C) in the beginning of January - which is virtually unheard of. Apparently it will be the warmest January on record, even if an Arctic spike has just hit us this week.

Week before last saw blustery gales and stormy weather which took a lot of fatal casualties. We didn't escape either - our fence panels were blown out and some where broken along with our neighbours. However, they decided to just buy new panels to replace whilst Jeff decided he would repair them.

Hello neighbour!

Jeff fixes and repairs the panels, taking bits from the neighbour's cast offs.

We ended up with a lot of wood from the broken fence panels (ours and our neighbours) that we decided to have an impromptu bonfire which was quite fun! My coat now smells of smoky fire though. Two days later, the temperature plummetted down, and we woke up to snow. Unfortunately it was gone by mid-morning so I only got a picture of our car in the morning.

Poor frozen car!

Part 2: New Year celebration in Dubai

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 18:02:00 -0700

Fooh - quite a lot has happened. Well let's start from where I left off last - I really had a very good Christmas, and was looking forward to New Year very much because we were off to Dubai for a week.

Fede had gotten us an amazing discount on flights and hotel. We stayed at Sofitel - which was a pretty good place, although I think that Mark and Fede would have preferred the Jumeirah Beach Strip as they really love the beach and the sun.

Boring ole Jeff and me would rather do activities and sightsee - so not being by the beach didn't bother us too much. We were expecting a lovely warm temperature of around 26*C but boy were we wrong! It was about 18 most days, with the sun hiding from us behind loads of clouds. Saying that, it is certainly a LOT better than in the UK where the awful weather meant the cancellation of New Years Eve celebration in a lot of places.

We certainly got a really good deal on the hotel, paying approximately 850 dirhams (~�120) per night for the executive bedroom when the base price was 2125 dirhams (~�295)! Shopping was definitely at its best though - and it surprised me that the prices were very comparable to Malaysia. Sofitel was situated at the Deira City Centre so meals were easy - we just popped into the food hall about 30 paces from our room! Shopping hours were also pretty long, from 10am to midnight on some nights and 10pm on others.

Jeff tried to call Mark & Fede when we got separated in the massive mall.

I had bought Jeff two pairs of shoes for Christmas, but they both did not fit well. It's not easy to get shoes for him because of his size - most shops do not stock 12.5! Anyway - we found him some ECCO shoes that not only fit well, but looked really nice. One of our first meals was at a place called the Meat Co. in the Madinat Souq which was just absolutely delicous! I am not a meat/steak/beef fan but my dish was so gorgeous I am slobbering now, just thinking of it.

Make a visit to the Meat Co. in Dubai, Madinat Souq - it's amazing!

We took a 'Desert Safari' trip with Arabian Adventure - where we went in a large land cruiser madly flying around in the dessert, skidding down the side of sand dunes. It was quite a breath-taking (and scary) experience; which was quite exciting and manic at the same time.

Syed the Manic Man was our driver - Thank God for seatbelts!

I even got to try sandskiing! However I just sat on the snow -er, sandboard and skidded down on my bottom.

Notice the shadow profiling the line of land cruisers on the top of a dune where we had stopped to do some sand skiing.

I found the sand dunes fascinating, ever changing with a life of its own. The sand was incredibly fine as dust and shaped and hid our steps as we walked over the moving landscape. It was mesmerizing.

Jeff's new shoes left foot prints that were as temporary as his diet resolutions.

After a day of "wadi bashing" the land cruisers arrived at a mock Beduin camp where we had camel rides and chilled out in the tents. We later moved on to the area around the fire where they had laid out carpets and pillows and cooked a magnificent barbeque feast for us to enjoy before the night's belly dancing entertainment.

We pretended to be the Beduins of Yore.

Apart from the Desert Safari, we also visited the Marina, where a large fire broke out in a high rise tower under construction a week after we left. When we were there, the scale of the construction was just amazing; apparently about 30 000 or 24% of the world's cranes are there - building 'The Palm' and various luxurious hotels, buildings and infrastructures to provide the necessary economic support for the little country when the oil revenue dries up.

Jeff - the 'Not-so-Real Estate' Mogul

We visited quite a few souqs, or markets - but the most impressive was the Gold Souq. It was eye-poppingly amazing - rows upon rows of gold and jewellery with minimal security. I guess it's because crime is not tolerated here - with severe punishments for the criminals. SOme of the designs were quite exquisite, but to be completely honest - although they were magnificent, they were also bordering on obscene. Or maybe I am just jealous!

Welcome to Fede's Gold Bangle shop.

Fede tried on a Princess Pearl Necklace

There was this one place which was a magical Alladin's cave - which we happened by chance. We were on a Big Bus Tour and had got off at the Wafi City shopping centre to await change to another bus line due to arrive in twenty minutes when we decided to pop in to have a look. Fede and I passed an amazing shop that was dark and gothic looking, with a man dressed in top hat and long coat 'guarding' the door.

"What do you think this is?" Fede whispered to me

"I don't know - maybe it's a funeral house?"

"Ahem" The man in the long coat cleared his throat. "It's a shop."

Ooo.. we bolted inside and was absolutely amazed by the treasures that were there. I had never seen a shop like this, full of beautiful artifacts, antiques, chandeliars, sparkling items and secret doors every where. Rooms were elaborately decorated - giving sense that we were in another world, anotherh time. The ladies were in gorgeous long dresses of olden times, you know - where the skirt poofs up during the French Revolution era. It's my most favourite place in the world.

I saw Fede pick up an exquisite face mirror and I decided on the spot to get it for her as a lovely reminder of our trip together. As a result I did not have time to explore the rest of the amazing place because I was trying to hide my purchase from her, keeping in mind the fact that we had a bus to catch. She loved it though - so that was so absolutely worth it.

If I ever go back to Dubai, I will definitely make a visit to the shop again - it's called Memoires but their website is currently under construction.

On new year's eve, we decided to have a lovely dinner at Sofitel, who were having a caribbean/japanese themed do (ok sounds like a strange combo but it sort of worked) which was absolutely amazing. Good friends, good food, good times.

Mark tried to see how silly he could be.

Jeff did not like to be out-done in the How-Silly-Can-I-Make-Myself competition

We were quite sorry to leave on the last day, but yes - it was time to go. Mark and Fede missed little Alice very much, and I had my project to look after (I had a week to go before we went live). The country had a lot to offer - especially shopping and the nightlife. We went to a couple of nightclubs and bars, which were packed full of ex-patriates. There were a few odd Emiratis who also indulged and drank as well.

It's a really nice place to visit, but I don't know if we would like to live there. Internet/broadband connectivity isn't great (apparently the monopoly of the telecommunication company there attempts to gag VOIP; which renderred my Skype all but useless). How am I to play WOW then? Anyway, it was still a lovely holiday, and a very nice break away from the wet weather I heard we had in London.

Here's a link to more pictures showing the impressive extreme makeover in Dubai. And here are some gorgeous sunsets.

Catch up - Part 1: Christmas

Sun, 07 Jan 2007 16:34:06 -0700

It's been quite a hectic month or so. I've been swallowed up by work, which thankfully helpedpower me through a pretty rough time. As I haven't blogged for awhile, this will be a pretty long one. A lot has happened. I've written the 'catch up' blog in two parts, mainly because I haven't had time to complete the whole thing. Part 1 - up to Christmas.

Saying goodbye.
The last trip home was such a bittersweet journey. I knew that The Call would come, and I had been preparing myself for some time now. Ah ma's condition could only deteriorate, and Alzheimer's is one of those cruel diseases which hurt those around more than the patient.

It was really hard to see the woman who was so strong, and so beautiful become a frail and helpless person. I saw her for the last time, looking so very very small in a beautiful hand made silk dress and hand stitched shoes. She looked so quiet at last, and I could not help feeling relief for her among my own grief.

I had to drop every thing and take the earliest flight home. However before I did that, I wrote an email with instructions and handed off all the bits of work that needed doing and could not worry about it too much. My amazing team picked up every thing and rocked right on - sending me odd emails to let me know how well it was going and that I had nothing to worry about. Boss Jeremy and Robin took care of the important billing duties (it was month end) and delegated my other project to Ula. In short - my company was incredibly supportive.

I arrived on Monday evening and went to my grandparents house - which holds so much memory for me. It was already second day since her passing, and the reception (?) was under way. Chairs and tables were set out outside, under a large tent, to allow friends and families to pay their respect and contribute a smal token towards the funeral cost. They were given a small sweet as a 'thank you', and to 'sweeten' the bitter sadness of grief and loss.

Our family was all dressed in white, the mourning colour, and we had prayers that night, ad I saw so many people from Ah Ma's life come to say goodbye to her too. I was really very touched.

The next day - more people came. And we had more prayers in the morning whilst it poured down with rain. That did not stop people from coming from every where, walking through the drenching downpour. we prayed that the rain would stop by 11 am, when we left for Fairy Land Park - a place that was to be Ah Ma's resting place. It stopped briefly, enough for us to walk the funeral van from the house as was the custom.

At the final destination, I found it really hard to let her go, as they lowered her down into the ground and laid the slabs of concrete over the coffin. At that point, the heavens opened up again, and cousin Tze Eng said, "See? Ah Ma is missing us already. She is crying for us now."

Johleen managed to get a flight back from KK, and stayed with me for the few days I was home. It was like old times again - when we used to live in Sabah and come home for Chinese New Year. She used to live with my grandparents, and of course we would 'bunk' there during the annual festival so we would both decorate the house and make Ah Ma sigh in exasperation at our antics.

It was very sad going home this time.

YY knew something sad had happened but wasn't sure what.

UAT Phase.
When I returned home, it was time for Jeff to leave for Florida. I found the prospect of being home alone after this very hard, so I buried myself in work. My project was entering UAT (User Acceptance Testing) phase - where after building and designing and testing our system ourselves, it was time for the client to do it in order to ensure that we had built in every thing they asked for.

It was very stressful and difficult - but I had Simon, Kajal, Keith (new guy) and Jackie on this phase, and they are amazing. I could not ask for more dedicated and incredibly professional team members. We nailed and fixed all the issues brought up, change requests which were quick and easy to fix were completed on the spot and within three weeks (and many many late nights) I had in my hands - their UAT sign-off.

That means that they have signed, in black and white, their satisfaction on what would be delivered. I think that they could have tested a bit more but it was nevertheless a happy outcome. That meant that I could have a relatively stress-free Christmas.

By that time, Jeff had come home - having fattened himself on the American diet of Huge and Massive Portions of Food, and some how acquiring a slipped disc in the process. We have also had news that the Claytons (our house buyer) had finally moved their butts and got their solicitors to send us the contract. This means that we will be moving out by Jan 19 - where to, I am not yet sure as the contract our new place will not have been exchanged yet because we have not yet completed the paperwork.

This christmas saw an abnormal amount of fog, grinding Heathrow to a halt and we were a bit worried that it would still linger on in the new year when we fly to Dubai for a short holiday. It was indeed very strange - a thick fog lasted for about 4 days; I have never seen it before in my 7 years of living in London.

We had a team X'mas lunch in Staines.
This was the view from the window.

Crisis Open Christmas.
The last Christmas weekend was extremely hectic - we drove up to see Jeff's Gran in Doncaster that Saturday morning where I brought her some home made Malaysian curry (ok, I used mum's pre-packed ones, but I still had to add the other stuff!). We spent a lovely day with her, sharing news and the to-ings and fro-ings of our lives.

Next stop - Birmingham, where we spent time with Jeff's parents, Uncle Bill and Grandad. It was quite relaxing, and very very kind of them to bring Xmas one day earlier. We had our Christmas dinner on the Sunday afternoon (i.e. on the eve instead of Xmasday itself) because I had committed to do Crisis again this year - this time on Christmas day itself and Boxing day.

This meant that every body had to have the roast beef, roast parsnip and potatoes (of course, as in every year I also had a large Parsnip Parcel, the vegetarian option along with my beef!) at 4pm, and we had a nice evening after that for the food to settle and it was presents time.

This year, I was quite pleased that we did not get many 'stocking fillers', i.e. presents that we did not need and that were bought for the sake of buying. I was really happy with the wok I got, although it wasn't very deep, it was large enough to do my weekly fried rice batches.

I was assigned to the East Centre at Crisis this time round, as I had done Deptford all the other times before. It was very different. Where Deptford was a year-round centre run by the local church, and therefore had guests who were regulars (and who knew the rules and were therefore not prone to trouble-making), the large East Centre was an operational exercise which although did not have the efficiency of a military undertaking - it was nonetheless very impressive.

We fed some 450 guests, with the Green Badges heading the shifts ably assisted by the Red Dots. Us regular volunteers were very enthusiastic and keen, which made up for anything else we lacked. I was first introduced to this by Dom - a Cass alumni and someone I had also met through Ecademy, and had only met him once years ago - only to find him managing the dining area where I started on my first task. I was made Queue Manager on Landing to Dining Area along with Erkin.

It was really very fun - chatting with guests while making sure that they kept to a single file and did not cause any issues. Many were hungry and tired, because although there were sleeping areas assigned to them, I think many were not able to sleep due to coughing and noise from the other guests who were perhaps very ill from sleeping rough.

I was a little anxious about three individuals whom I thought were a tad scary - two were in 'gothic' mode, one tall lad in all black garb with small chrome rings in bits of his long black trench coat, and another who was a camp bald Julian Cleary lookalike with so much pierced ornaments on his face that there was barely any exposed flesh left. The third was behaving abit 'gothic', sans costume. All were loud, slapping each other on the head and behaving generally quite rude and rowdy.

Thankfully they did not cause too much of a ruckus and passed me by the landing without an incident. I also met a soft spoken gentleman on the line who reminded me of Denzel Washington. He had a quiet manner about him that made me wonder what brought him to this place. I called him Flava, as that was the brand on his tattered jumper. He wished me a Merry Christmas and commented on it being a lovely Christmas day. He looked like the kind of quiet person who would not hesitate to jump to your defence if he saw that you were being bullied and persecuted.

I felt a little sad, going through the scenarios that might have brought him to this sad situation. I hope that he will find his way.

I was on 'toilet duty' that afternoon, where I sat in front of the ladies and made sure that it was clean and the guests did not take too long (there is a strict policy of zero tolerance to any drug usage on site). I was not alone - Yan Ping, another Malaysian, and Darm was on duty for the gents because there was a higher ratio of men to women. It was quite fun, we chatted to each other and the guests as well.

I noticed that Mr Goth had got himself some new clean clothes, and he went into the Gents to change into them. He looked really nice and decent, very different from the loud-mouth Goth I met on the stairways that morning.

"You look really nice," I said.

"I guess so. The belt is too loose though - I need a couple more holes." He was tying his shoelace and his trousers was hanging off him. "And they don't have any size 13 shoes - I guess I will have to make do with the size 12."

He was about 6'6 and looked about 9 stones - definitely underweight. Anyway, I couldn't stand it any more and my curiosity got the better of me. "Do you like being a Goth?'

He was amused. "It's fun. 'Fun' being the operative word."

I think not being English lets me get away with a lot of things, like asking obvious questions. The next time I saw him, he was with his friends and had his gothic trench coat on, and he seemed to have slipped right back into Goth mode, being all loud and crude. He did get quiet when I passed him though.

Next morning I was on canteen duty as the official Table Clearer and Tray Recycler. We were told to expect up to 450 guests for breakfast, and we had limited trays so my job was to go around clearing tables and collecting trays and washing and cleaning them before putting back into circulation.

I had a great time, I think that this was the funnest duty I've had. A lot of the guests had woken up, some did not sleep well, and some was just hungry and grumpy. I just went, "Morning morning morning! How are you? Did you sleep well? Did you have a good christmas dinner last night?" and just jabbered on. Most of them was a little amused at the strange person being so chipper in the morning.

"Hello sir, I am the official Tray Recycler for the day - may I have your tray please? You can use this plate for your bread."

"Morning ma'am. Are you done with your breakfast? Did you enjoy it? I am the official Table Clearer of the day."

I just had a blast - poking myself into their groggy consciousness with insane remarks and dippy comments. I think I cheered a lot of them a lot, which in turn made me feel really happy as well. There were a few people who weren't obviously homeless though, wearing clothes more expensive than mine, and a few tourists (from East Europe I think) who took the chance for a free breakfast. There was also a pregnant woman who used it to gain favours, "Look mate - I'm a pregnant woman can't you see? I want two eggs!"

Most were very grateful for the food and for our efforts, although there were a few complainers but I think they have been through such a hard time that they have forgotten how to be civil, and maybe didn't care any more.

I saw Goth again, and decided to do something nice for him. I asked for his belt and went around the whole place to look for something that would make a few more holes (the hole puncher didn't work). I found another volunteer who jabbed it with the belt thingy and returned it to a very bemused Goth. I think he was pleased but didn't show it in front of his friends. I did get a name out of him though. 'Spike'. I have a feeling that Spike isn't used to kindness.

After breakfast, I joined the 'koolie' brigade and carted food delivery from the delivery van to the kitchen. I generally made myself useful and then in the afternoon, I found myself on 'Bodyguard' duty.

There were a few ladies who did reflexology and massages for free for the guests, and they had set themselves up in the room but needed someone else in the room 'just in case'. It was very easy duty, not much to do except to help them out if needed.

The women were incredibly kind, and couldn't help feeling moved by what I saw. Fran was the odd reflexologist - a woman with gray hair tied in a bun atop her head and trousers tucked into her socks. On my shift, she first saw Flava, or Delroy as I found out later. He apologised for his holey socks but she just batted it away and spent half an hour easing the pain and tiredness from his feet.

Jo was on the other side of the makeshift curtain with a young thin boy, maybe in his early twenties from Russia or somewhere there. Jo was very very kind and kneaded his muscles and layed her healing hands on him. He was obviously not used to someone laying their hands on his body in such a compassionate way and did not want to leave. He was actually crying, I think. She finally had to tell him that another guest was waiting, and then only did he pick himself out of the massage table and get dressed. He could not thank her enough, in quiet broken English. When he left, Jo said, "He must be very very sad and depressed, I could feel it in his body. Poor boy."

When I was sent out to bring up some bottles of water, I saw that he had gone around the corner and laid face down with his head in his arms sobbing quietly. That sight just broke my heart.

The next guest Fran had limped his way into the room. He was very shamed and apologetic as he sat down - saying that his left foot was injured and that he couldn't do anything with the smell as there was no clean socks in the clothing department. When he took off his shoes, the smell hit me like a wall but Fran did not flinch. She gently took his feet and put cornflour and began gently to rub away the pain and tiredness.

I cannot find the words to describe these two women, whose kindness and compassion knew no bounds. They treated the guests with dignity and gentleness. The guests, who have often been beaten on the streets, who were treated less than human beings - found a small place to just let their cares melt away under their expert hands. I was very very moved. I think next year, I will help with duties that put me more in touch with them - maybe help out at the hair dressers.

Late that afternoon, I had a late lunch with Stefan - who was in a shelter and who was homeless for 7 years. He got himself out though, and we talked about a lot of things. He was an army brat, and lived in loads of places - Singapore, Mexico, Germany, Canada. He had a hard childhood was beaten and abused by his father a lot when he was young. He ran away at 9, got caught and returned to an even more violent beating. He tried again at 13 and have been alone ever since - moving from place to place and living a really hard life. "Yes, I was in a bad place." he said often.

After a while, I plucked up the courage to ask him The Question.

"So, how did you become homeless?"

"I got deported from Canada. They just plopped me down here with no money and nothing."

"Why did they deport you?"

"Because I shot a man." My jaw dropped, and I couldn't tell if he was serious.

"How come they didn't put you in jail?"

"They did. I was in jail for 4 years. And then they deported me."

"Why did you shoot a man?"

"Cos he tried to shoot me."

"Why did he try to shoot you?"

"I was just in a very bad place at that time. If I could turn back time, I would have let him shoot me. It was self-defense but I shouldn't have done it."

"Did you kill him?"

"Yes." At that point, his voice shook as bad memories were brought back by a very tactless me. I was saved by Mr Tanzania who was sitting at the table - clearly enjoying the fish lunch and yoghurt dessert he had been served. "This is amazing food - absolutely beautiful." He kissed his fingers and closed his eyes.

That was my que - I started talking about food and steered Stefan away from what were sad memories for him. I really don't know if he was making it up, but something tells me that it was true. I have come to realize that a lot of the guests make stuff up in order to wind us but I think Stefan had gone through a really tough time. He said he regretted a lot of things in life, but he has made his way out of the 'Bad Place'. And that was a nice ending to my stint at Crisis this time.

I really enjoyed it. In my job, it is rare that I get a chance to affect a change and be kind to people on a human level. Here at Crisis, I saw so many people who needed kindness and got it, I saw so many volunteers who gave up their time and their selves to be of service to another person. It was so fulfilling on so many levels. I felt more human than I have in a long time.

Every one should do Crisis. Forget about the ethos or politics of it. Just be kind. It costs so little and in return, gives so very much.

Sad

Sun, 26 Nov 2006 19:00:23 -0700

At 1.24 am this morning Johleen called to say that Ah Ma has passed away. Am now sitting at departure gate waiting for my flight, and missing her so much. I am feeling really sad today.

Eaten by a big fish

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 09:18:00 -0700

Blogging two days in a row - wow, I must be on a roll! Am once again sitting in a carpark in Ealing waiting for 9am.

Newsflash: we just got acquired by a large telco. During a company meeting the other day, our management team dropped the bombshell. Most of us were speculating on the nature of the sudden and unscheduled company meeting, suspecting that we were the ones doing the acquisition (based on what has happened in the past); but we were wrong.

It came as quite a shock to most of us, but the management team made an effort to reassure everyone, saying that one of the conditions of the acquisition was no loss of jobs - which were re-emphasised by the management team of the buyers who were there at the company meeting. I guess they are to be our new bosses.

Apparently a lot of our business units such as mobile workforce management and larger CRM fit neatly into their family of products, but I am a tad doubtful about MS CRM, due to its positioning.

They are adamant that everything we did was essential to them, although they hadn't quite worked out the details of all the business units yet. It is indeed an interesting change although I haven't quite decided whether it is positive or negative.

To be fair, I guess that it is whatever you make it. The opportunity for career advancement in such a large organisation is very exciting - but what made my company unique will definitely be diluted in a massive way as we get absorbed into this large entity.

What makes me utterly passionate about my job and my company are the people - this elite group of professionals are not only incredibly good at what they do, but they are also highly motivated, responsible and work very well in a team. Everybody pitches in and there is a strong culture of being part of a whole. It's something I've never quite experienced before.

The telco is one of the largest companies in the world, but I have heard mixed experiences of working there. I guess only time will tell - and again, because its such a large company, different business units work differently, so we may fare well under this division that acquired us. The director who spoke to us seemed quite likable, as was his team. You never know though.

In any case - we get a small 'Hello' bonus and extra (1 day) holidays. The bonus will very nicely help pay for our trip to Dubai with Mark, Fede and Alice over the New Year.

Speaking of which - we (Jeff and myself) are so boring that we hardly go anywhere to celebrate during the new year. If it wasn't for our friends dragging us out - we would have stayed home and mooched in front of the tv like we did during the Millenium New Year. Talk about an exciting life :) I am actually quite glad that Jeff and myself are alike that way - it wold not be fun if one of us is more extroverted than the other in the way of partying.

Anyway - am so looking forward to this trip. I've only been to Dubai once with Dad when he was flying the Maldives/India/Dubai sector. I do remember it being scorching hot although the dry heat made it a bit more bearable than the humid weather in Malaysia.

Jeff is off to Florida for a two week training in Dec, and then we are off to Dubai in the new year, and then home for Chinese New Year in Feb. Talk about a jet setting lifestyle.

It's about 9 am now and I think people have started getting in to work so I better go on in. We were at Oriental City the other day and for some reason Jeff found the name of this restaurant so funny he had to take a photo to send it to his friends.

One night at the office...

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 21:53:03 -0700

Wow, it has been awhile since I blogged. My project is keeping me busy, and although the go-live has been delayed until mid-January, we are still keeping on schedule and the only phase that has extended is the UAT (User Acceptance Testing). We still have to deliver the test system on schedule, and that means working loads.

The c360 add-on is causing us untold amount of pain, either by not working as they should or just really patchy documentation. As the project requirements have grown in complexity and scope, we have not adequately estimated enough days to cover the work. Through inexperience, I have only estimated 'build' time, and had not factored in extra testing, documentation, project management time in to each extra bit that has been asked for.

This resulted in huge amounts of (unpaid) overtime and stress. However, I have the immense good fortune of having incredible team mates - who have either stayed overtime to help me complete the work I required, or just went the extra few miles for me.

It is currently 8.47 pm and my team of testers have stayed behind to help out. Yesterday a couple of them stayed until 10.30pm. I am feeling quite tired but at the same time very priviledged to be acquainted with such high calibre professionals.

Saying that, I need to stop working so late every day - work is now taking over my life and I really have to find a way to get a better balance. Anyway this is just a quick one - so adios for now.

Delayed blog from last Thursday

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 21:03:49 -0700

I wrote this in the car park but hadn't had time to upload it to the server until now. It has been incredibly busy - what did I say about 'slowing down'? No such luck! More updates later.

* * * * *

It's 8.15 on a mild (19c) wet autumn morning, and I am sitting in my cozy car. I am normally quite early because I try to avoid the morning rush if I can - I prefer waiting comfortably because I am too early rather than sit for ages in a traffic jam and kill my left knee with 'changeaclutchitis'.

Anyway I am here today to do a final Project Design review. It has been quite a hard painful journey, as we helped the client crystalize their requirements (which of course meant more expense and delay to the project). However, I believe we are getting there, but I have to prepare myself for a tough day.

All key people from each division will be there whilst I walk through my understanding of their design requirements, from basic functionality and workflow, business and sales processes, to data migration and web integration, as well as reporting.

These pieces were originally designed and signed off separately due to time constraints and client's availability, which wasn't ideal because different people were involved in different processes. This meant that conflicting decisions were made, which in turn caused some issues. Today is meant to pull all these different strands together and paint a coherent picture of what the client actually needs.

Tomorrow is final sign off and so we can get our butts moving. Not that we haven't started - Ross has worked very hard on the data migration bit. They are migrating their data from Goldmine - which is a pretty poor database to start with as the system started from flat databases and haven't updated their system with the latest technology well. I have Jaysen working on my reports. He's a new graduate - very keen and bright, but also quite independent and forthright. He's pointed out mistakes in my documentation, which was a bit embarrassing. But then again, I am learning too. I am looking forward to the end of the project which will (hopefully) come on 4th Dec when client goes live.

Oh yes, I had my quarterly review yesterday even though I am still under probation. Apparently I did quite well, and can expect a good bonus (we get quarterly bonus based on company performance) so I am quite pleased. I do not feel that I can celebrate yet though, not until go-live and we've ironed out everything.

All is quiet on the home front - house sale still dragging on. I must whoop some asses... specifically the solicitor and agent's, and see what's happening. It looks like we may not move this side of Christmas, especially as Jeff is off to Florida for 2 week training begining of Dec leaving me to fend for myself. I might spend the weekends at his parents in Cirencester just so that it isn't too lonely in the big ole house - which used to house 5-6 people before. As it is, it already feels too big for just the two of us.

Got my medical results back too, cholesterol gone up again 7.5 :( However, doctor was puzzled because the computer system said I had 0% chance of heart disease within the next 10 years, and that's because it was calculating on my cholesterol ratio which is really good (I have high HDL). I think the ratio is HDL (good cholesterol) divided by LDL (bad cholesterol).

My understanding is that HDL can be increased by regular consistent exercises like running/swimming etc. LDL can be reduced by eating less fatty foods and generally controlling your diet. As my diet is quite healthy and balanced (although we still eat meat) the only way I can tackle this is by exercising regularly. So am back on 'horse' diet of oat bran and bananas for breakfast. It's actually quite tasty and filling - which is fortunate because it looks like I will have to stay on that for the rest of my life. That's because I have 'fatty liver', according to an ultrasound I took some years back - which means my liver produces more cholesterol than I need apparently. Actually I have to go back for a re-check on my next trip home in Feb for Chinese New Year.

What else has been happening. Yes, we have decided to celebrate this new year with Mark and Federica and little Alice away from the cold wet winter, although we haven't pinpointed the destination yet. Fede works at Air France and could potentially get us some really good deals on flights and hotel, so we shall see. Looking forward to it, although I am betting that flights around christmas and new year time will be quite hard to book.

Sun's coming out. And it's almost time to go in so I better scoot.

Slowing down

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 18:23:14 -0700

It has been very busy, but slowing down slightly. And that's because of the amazing support and help I am being given here. It really is nice feeling that I am not alone when things get tough.

Anyway, having one client for a mid-sized project (i.e. 4 months long) means that I don't get out and about as much as I used to. However, this Monday I went to do a pre-sales discovery session with Jeremy and Stuart near London Bridge (see previous blog). Took some really iconic images of Morning in London. Note the stream of people marching to work.

After the session, we had lunch at a pub near HMS Belfast, which I believe used to be a warship of some kind. Its now a museum on the River Thames. What a lovely day it was.

One day on the way to London Bridge...

Mon, 16 Oct 2006 08:20:00 -0700

It's 7.30 am and I am sitting on a Jubilee line train to London Bridge where I am meeting Jeremy and Stuart. We are doing a Discovery session with a city client, so it will be educational as I have not done one before.

It has been a roller coaster week or two, and I have barely had time to come up for air. My project has been quite stressful, not less because the client has decided to add a whole lot more functionalities into the requirement, and still expect us to deliver on time.

Unfortunately, both objectives are mutually exclusive, mainly because the additional requirements have caused a delay in the project, which in turn meant that I lost Pavan - whom I have resourced to do the Data Integration piece. The thing about successful consultancies is that the consultants get booked up months in advance, and it gets really difficult to reschedule.

Anyway, I had to go back to see the client last week with Stuart, who is the account manager on my project, to tell him that the additional requirements will cost him 4 week delay and additional x days in consultancy (i.e. more ��).

He was not happy, and after our meeting had called back to say that he would only tolerate a 2 week delay, and can we reduce the x days to y days. I was pressured to add more resources to my project in order to deliver on time but that was not my call.

I felt quite exposed and nervous and notified Jeremy. What happened next blew my mind away. He mobilised all the key managers, such as Roy, who is our 'sub' (substitute) manager whilst Jeremy is neck deep in two other projects (he should actually be managing the team, not managing more projects but these two are incredibly complex and again - our resource has been tight), Dean, the programme manager and Robin, our CTO. We had a meeting the following morning where we discussed the situation and a solution for it.

Robin and Jeremy then decided to call the client (coo) in order to give him a heads up with regards to the project timeline and costs, as it was something out of my remit. I had to go see them any way because of other requirements that has been added to the project, but I did not feel as exposed anymore.

I have never been in a company where the people cared for my wellbeing so much before, and it was just amazing. All the key managers wanted to make sure that I was given 'air cover' due to my inexperience with both the product and how my company worked.

It was just.. amazing. I now understood how come the employees are so loyal, most have been there 4 years+. My team is quite new because of the exploding MS CRM business and the need for new recruits, but for an IT company to have long standing staff is quite unique.

Any way, my workload has been quite heavy, as I learn the product and do the project managing work which are both quite new to me. Again hopefully I get my bearings soon so that I can manage things much easier.

* * * * *

Last Saturday Jeff decided to take me out for a belated Birthday celebration. He normally tries to surprise me by doing something different. I remember one time a few years ago, he organised dinner with my mba friends and classmates in Kam Fung, but he told me that it was only the both of us. We knew the lady owner well, and she always had a smile and a nice hello for us. However, I noticed that she was standing beside me whilst we read the menu when normally she would leave us alone to ponder. I then realized that she was hiding my group of friends who had sneaked round the back of the restaurant to my surprise.

Any way, this evening Jeff said we had to go into town early. I did not particularly look forward to that because of the tube journey and preferred to maybe have dinner some where closer where we could get to by car. Oh well, it would be a nice evening out, and we toddled off to Kam Fung in Holborn to have dinner. He kept glancing at his mobile - which he uses as his watch. I felt a tad suspicious and although he said he wouldn't use the same surprise twice, I knew he had something up his sleeve.

After we arrived, and I noticed that my friends weren't there, I sort of guessed that we were going for a show. And I was right! After a most sumptuous dinner, We took a short walk from Holborn to Leicester Sq see Avenue Q, the new broadway musical in town with puppet characters vaguely resembling those from Sesame Street. It was absolutely hilarious! There was 'Bert and Ernie' couple addressing the homosexual issue, and songs such as 'Internet is for Porn' and 'Everybody's a little bit Racist'.

Just great stuff. I hadn't laughed so hard since South Park the Movie. It was made funnier because they were puppets, and the actors were brilliant - some of them voicing more than one character at a time. Fantastic.

Any way, almost at my station so better pack up now.

One morning in Ealing...

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 08:28:00 -0700

It's 8am and I am sitting in the car park of the client's office in Ealing. I've made it a habit to get to client meetings really early for two reasons: 1) Jeff starts work at 8am, so I might as well get up at the same time to get ready and 2) Going early means I miss the morning traffic rush, which makes it an easy drive.

Get here early and relax. Normally I am sitting at reception, getting some work done but the guard tries to chat me up, so today I decided to just sit in the car until 9am. Ross will be in with me today as we are doing a data integration workshop - to decide how to integrate their website forms with the MS CRM database.

It has been quite a painful experience, I must admit. I've been really thrown in the deep end of the project, and have had a steep learning curve. Not only product side, but on the project management side as well.

The next project will be much better though, as I will have learnt all my mistakes the hard way. Right now, I am learning about the add-on products for MS CRM called c360. Client has bought the productivity pack, and I still haven't quite figured out how the Email-to-case module works within their case management processes.

Microsoft CRM is actually quite neat, as it really does try to manage the client relationship from pre-sales (i.e. prospect/lead stage) right through to after-sales support, capturing all communication so that any one who requires information about the client interaction can see it all in one place. Very neat.

However it doesn't pretend to be a complete service desk (after-sales support) management, as it doesn't quite support complex SLA contract management. But it does well in the other arena.

Magic is much better in other ways though, such as programming through client side business rules, not requiring any programming knowledge at all. MS CRM requires javascript knowledge - in order to do things within the forms, such as turning fields on and off, executing onload, onchange and onsave events. If you want to fetch data from a different entity (table) using a foreign key, you need server side scripting. More programming.

I am sure that makes it far more powerful than many other products out there, but it certainly limits what I can do without transplanting brain cells from some clever geek from Microsoft.

Oh yes, it has been almost 3 months since we accepted an offer for our house, but with no movement, I was forced to deliver some strong words to our solicitor and agent, and threatened to put the house back on the market if we didn't exchange contracts by mid-Oct. That got some butts moving fairly quickly I can tell you. Hopefully our new house purchase will complete without hassle and that we can move in before Christmas.

Mmm what else. My parents were here the other day, for a very short visit - only 1 week. We went to Madrid for 4 days - organized from Lastminute.com. I researched the hotels to stay in, looked through TripAdvisor.com for the top hotels in Madrid and matched it to available hotels from Lastminute.com. The top one, Hotel de las Letras H&R came out top, so I booked it.

It certainly deserves the great reviews, and we were incredibly impressed with it. The male staff were amazingly gorgeous, reminding me of Ricky Martin and Antonio Banderas and all the hunky men you see on tv. And that's the case with almost everyone we saw!

Walking around Madrid, especially Puerto del Sol, was delightful, with eye candy at every corner. The spanish seemed very animated, their face reflecting warmth and passion.

Oops Ross is here - I better go meet him at reception now.

Pleasant Surprise

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 14:19:41 -0700

I hadn't realize that actual people read my blog - thought it was only web crawlers and auto blog-spammers as I really don't think it's very interesting.

The first time I found that out was when I started getting birthday texts over the weekend. Thanks a lot you guys, it still made me very happy My birthday isn't until this Friday but was celebrating it 1 week early (which is weird in the UK apparently) because I had booked to do the NIKE 10k on this Sunday and didn't want to be too tired from the celebrations.

As it is, I will not be doing the run mainly because I haven't had any time to pick up my t-shirt and pin. What a waste. I also haven't been training consistently because of the immense mountain of work I've had to do. Quite a lot have happened but just haven't had time to write it up.

Parents been here, went to Madrid, house sale almost stopped in its track, dogsitted Blue, went to Comedy store, tried and failed at match-making, had a disorganized 'sort of' bday thing ... and just loads of work. Haven't had time to come up for air, except for now when I have a few minutes whilst waiting for my design document to print. Speaking of which, I better go and check the printer.

Snowed under

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 02:35:13 -0700

It's 2.30 am and I am still working. I believe I have been putting in approximately 70 hours at work last week. :(

Hopefully it won't be long before I catch up. Have a night out this Saturday to celebrate my bday but I haven't had time to look forward to it yet. Sigh. The price of ambition can be a tad painful.

Absolutely manic

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 23:30:48 -0700

Have just been completely snowed under with work. Absolutely completely utterly. Work has been very heavy (challenging but good, in a character-building sort of way), and I am learning heaps. Mum and dad were up here last week and we had a great time in Madrid. I have just had no time to update the blog, as my current priority is to get up to speed with MS CRM on this project first.

Also, no more WOW until I've caught up with work.

Housie woes

Wed, 06 Sep 2006 21:54:46 -0700

We found a house that we both really liked, having viewed it a couple of times. Not only that, but we had seen a few houses on that road and that one came out miles ahead. Anyway, we put in an opening offer, which was rejected as expected. We will put in another one and negotiate it - and hopefully get a good price.

However, our house sale might be struggling. 2 and half months later the communication between the solicitors had sort of ground to a halt due to some issues about a cheque for the land search. I hope that a resolution is found soon and that goes ahead or we will have to put it on the market again and start back at Square 1.

I was in Ealing today to do a design session with a client. Here's an advert at a local college that made me chuckle.

You will only understand if...

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 08:56:10 -0700

You are a Malaysian. This came from Ah Meow this morning, and had me splitting my sides. It's an essay that a young imaginative, mischievious, manga watching, chinese educated student wrote. Absolutely hilarious. Class!

Mmm can't really understand the tecaher's correction though - is T a shortform for 'past tense here'?

By dose ith a bit thdiffly

Mon, 04 Sep 2006 23:48:47 -0700

Alboth biddight and I ab still working. I have a bountain of work to do. I will dot odly be badaging two projects but have to biraculously magic some days to do it in the deadlide. Baybe I should look at cloding byself. Pei Mach I and Pei Mach II. Cobpady recruiting like crazy - have projects cobing out of our ears.

Actually, Project Badaging is really quite hard. I tink I bight prefer being a lackey ad being told what to do.

But it's really challeging, and I ab edjoyingit - although the workload is really quite frightedig as I have to be quickly up to speed with all the bodules ad dot odly that but I have to bake a presedtatiod (to the law firb) ad preted dat I dow wad I am doig.

Plus dis blog dose ad bug sidus isn't helpig.

Foiled again.

Mon, 04 Sep 2006 08:37:00 -0700

Yesterday (Sunday) I attempted to do some work so I have a lighter week ahead. Last Thur/Fri, Dyfed and myself did this design session with the clients which I am then supposed to be doing the write up for. Dyfed did some on the fly customisation in the system so that they could see how it would look like.

The beauty of MS CRM is that you can do all the customisations and then export it to an .xml file which contains all workflows, custom/modified forms, modified fields, settings etc etc. It does not contain any data, e.g. users, business units etc. However, I had problems firstly with the virtual pc disk (an MS Demo virtual PC the pre-sales uses for presentations and demo) - I thought I had completed the import (the progress bar on the web page had finished) but the message "Import complete - OK" was still greyed out. So I closed the window and clicked to the Organisation (Account) link.

Error.

Tried a different vpc image (which I had built) - which was even more of a disaster, perhaps because I hadn't set it up right. Switched back to the MS Demo vpc and let it import completely this time. That took about 15 minutes. It was a bit slow because the virtual disk had MS Exchange, IIS, SQL Server, Visual Studio and god knows what else bunged into it. Anyway, managed to import but couldn't see the changes. . At that point, I gave up in despair, so played a bit of WOW.

Actually, it was quite an eventful weekend. We went to more house viewings on Saturday before having dinner with some friends who lives in the area, both to catch up and to learn more about life out in the country. It was quite lovely, because we both met Anne and Dave when we were still running the business, so have had some things in common with them. It was a lovely evening, although we were quite disappointed not to have found a house yet. However, there is one possibility, and we are goin to see that one tonight.

Also, Waz moved out. We went out for dinner on Friday night, and had a really good discussion about lots of things - life, the nature of people, philosophical question about good and evil, and all sorts of intellectual things. It's really very nice to have people around who can help broaden your outlook on life. I will miss him. I think if it wasn't for him, Jeff and I would never go out and try new things. He introduced me to Humous and Avocados... although I could never get into his peas/beans/mince/rice/yoghurt thing he used to do.

Hope our next lodgers at our new place will introduce new things to our lives too. Have just got back from the gym and getting ready for the day. Am feeling a bit bunged up - Dyfed gave me a bit of a cold and sniffles, so am hoping it goes away soon.

Legal Eagles

Sun, 03 Sep 2006 01:17:22 -0700

I spent the last two days on client site in leafy Crawley down in Surrey. It�s a nice quiet place� despite the Creepy Crawley name (quite a departure from the other nice homey Surrey names like Redhill or Farnham or Guildford).

ANYway, the client is a large legal firm and I�ve learnt so much that I can feel my brain oozing out my ears. We have been in design sessions with some really cool people. They are incredibly intelligent and switched on, also very diligent and sharp. As you can expect, that was also very very exhausting as well. However, I really enjoyed it as it was stimulating.

One of them was a senior partner � a slightly camp, highly intelligent (to the point of annoying, but in a nice way) individual had a really dry sense of humour that sometimes had me in stiches.

�Hey, we forgot to add a field on the Individual record.�
�Which one?�
�Dead! We need to know if the individual is dead or not! So, a checkbox, - DEAD, Yes/No�

Also, the obvious fields caused debates (and giggles) such as �Marital Status� (Married, Single, Divorced, Civil Partnership, Partnership, Swingers.. ) and �Gender� (Male, Female, Shemale�) livened up the proceedings.

They kept talking about work that is done by �Fiona� � �When the Client Engagement is filled in by Fiona..� �Yes, we need Fiona to take charge of this business process.� �No, it definitely must be completed by Fiona.�

Took me awhile to realize that they were talking about �Fee earner�.

They were also very strict about what kind of information they would collect, as they did not want to contravene the Data Protection Act. It�s really good � they make sure that they do things properly, checking for conflicts and money laundering issues before they take on a client.

I guess they have to � seeing as they are all lawyers! It was very fun though, but I now have a lot of work to do.

The only thing is that we haven�t finished everything on the agenda but that will mean they have to book (and pay) for more design workshop days. It�s also actually very cool that time to do write -up has been booked in (and paid by the client). Days of working over weekends and evenings are over.

Well, not this particular weekend, although the client has paid two days for me to do the write-up (which I was supposed to be doing on Mon/Tues), I hope to get a lot done over the weekend so I can shadow another consultant next week. As I will be project managing this other project (the one I went to the Kick-Off meeting to), I will not have many opportunities to shadow or learn from my colleagues, so I need to �steal� as much time for this as possible.

Have asked Jeremy if I can work weekends and accrue DOILs (Days Off In Loo) so I can have a longer holiday back home or something. He was a bit resistant to the idea because he didn�t want anybody to work over weekends (besides he didn�t want to) but will bring this up with upper management.

Too early

Thu, 31 Aug 2006 07:19:03 -0700

Have a design session today at clients' office in Crawley (near GAtwick airport) which is why I am up at stupid o'clock waiting at Harrow Wealdstone station.

Well ok its only 7am but still feels to early for me.

Zzzzzz....

Proper Project Planning activities..

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 22:22:48 -0700

Went to the Kick-Off meeting this morning in Ealing. It was pretty good - always nice when you find a project where the board level has strong commitment to push the project to completion. With this kind of high-level buy in, the project has a much higher chance of succeeding.

Of course, this must be coupled with tight team communication downwards as well. Anyway - came back and I had to write-up the minutes of the meeting and then do a timeline and resource project plan. Now, I've always had to work under a Project Manager who manages the resources. I just get assigned tasks which have to be done by whenever and I just get to it.

This time, I've got to do the resourcing myself... and it's hard! Mainly because they want to go-live in too soon a deadline. They are participating in a high profile exhibition in Brussels soon and need a funky CRM system to follow leads up and close sales.

Sooo anyway, it's good that I've got a good and understanding boss. Jeremy has taken time to speak to me and Gordana (another newbie) about how we can use him as a support/sounding board. It's nice to know that you have a supportive boss.

Yes, it is really nice.

Kick-Off Project Meeting Prep

Tue, 29 Aug 2006 18:25:03 -0700

Today was my first 'proper' day at work. We have an internal web application which is used to track the resources within the team, as to who is where at which cust site doing what. Unfortunately as it was internally developed and grew organically on a web based platform, that meant that a lot of 'nice-to-have' features I am used to isn't there.

For example, Outlook integration. In my previous (job)life, appointments and bookings were stored on MyOffice, a neat (but not incredibly elegant) shared workgroup application which was available offline as well as on the web, which allowed for automatic sync-ing of my MS Outlook calender appointments and client contact details. Which means that it auto syncs with my Ipaq. Which means I know where I am going tomorrow and what's coming up.

Now I sort of have to enter it manually. BUT I will find a more elegant solution, if I have time. It looks like I am going to be resourced out for these two projects for the foreseeable future, so I will have to find time to do this project.

Tomorrow I go for my first customer kick-off meeting. I spent the day poring over client documentation including proposal, sales presentation and all sorts of docs to familiarise myself with the account. Then I was told to knock up a Kick-off project agenda, which I then proceeded to do, chucking all sorts of 'PM' (or 'Project Management' to you lay people out there) speak and jargon, such as 'Risks and Issues', 'Action Log', 'Project Deliverables', 'Objectives' etc etc you get the picture.

Now.. if only I can make sure that I am made of more stubstance than fluff (excludes lint in bellybutton and cheese in ears)! Unfortunately there is a distinct lack of books out there for MS Dynamics CRM 3.0, which makes me think of a possible passive income in writing my own book about it... which of course will have to wait until I am more crm-savvy.

Only one out there of any note at the moment is the Microsoft Pressy one - Working with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0, which was published before the software was officially released. Which means that some of the tools and utilities such as the Data Migration Framework, Microsoft CRM 3.0 Mobile and integration with Microsoft Dynamics GP (formerly Great Plains) isn't discussed in this edition - which hopefully will be rectified in the next edition.

Also it isn't useful for newbies like myself, as it jumps straight into the product without much of an overview. I will stick to the official BOL (Books Online) on this one for the moment I guess.

Brain Food

Absolute joy

Mon, 28 Aug 2006 17:50:54 -0700

There aren't many things in the world that makes me smile with pure enjoyment, so when I found this, I just had to share it although I know it has been linked through countless times. Enjoy.

Kidnapped!

Sat, 26 Aug 2006 12:25:48 -0700

Waz has taken my Economist hostage!

Reflections

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 18:12:00 -0700

I was given a brand new HP Compaq NC6220 and a new 6230i on my first day. Actually, I was meant to start on a Monday but they had some issues at the office (power went down or some such) and was told to come in the following day.

As usual, I had to make a trip to the 'System' guys (I used to be one of them and boy, do I miss the power rush of BOFHing and lording over the users!) and putting on my meek 'user' face I requested them to spell my login name right. Anyway, it gave me a chance to wheedle my way into their good books so I can ask for favours in the future.

This week I was on MS CRM training with Interquad, a Microsoft training partner in London. It was appalling. I wrote a critical post on Wednesday but pulled it after some thought. I had some responses to previous posts (I've got spam guard on that doesn't allow responses to my blogs after certain amount of days so was sifting through that) which got me thinking.

/rant on

Apparently, JohnDoe thought that I was very critical and negative about my experiences in the UK. Nothing but bitching about the people and about life in general here. Ok I do not have high regard for 'people' (read welfare leech and suckers, and yes - that includes single mums who make it a career to screw around and have children who, through her disgusting example, will believe that it is also their right to demand that the state support them without having to work for it) who parasite on the government, and by proxy - the regular tax payers, which includes me. Honestly - tell me how you cannot read this and be angry about it. In contrast - I have respect and admiration for those who have not been born into lucky circumstances and have worked their way out of it to succeed in life.

/rant off

ANYway, sifting through my previous posts after that particular response, I must admit that I am generally quite critical, and I grumble a lot - which is my right after all. I do, however, sometimes try to balance that by 'putting the shoe on the other foot'.

However, the topic in question is the quality of the training I have been forced to endure this week. I've been to many Microsoft courses before, and have had my share of good and bad trainers. This, though - took the cake, lock, stock and stinking barrel.

Whilst I believe the trainer is probably a very nice lady, she was shockingly crap at being a trainer. I've been struggling to find something positive to say about the experience but I just could not.

Her style was along the 'bumbly mumbly' kind, and she read from the manual - frequently producing errors during demonstrations which she could not even fix. Initially we started off asking a few questions but most were met with "Hmm, yes... good question.." accompanied with some nodding. AND NO ANSWERS FORTHCOMING! How ridiculous is that?? Well that taught us - and we never asked any more questions as she obviously did not have the answers.

She gave no real-world examples, and did not add any value that we could not have derived from reading the manual ourselves and doing the exercises and labs at home.

Bottom line was - none of us got much out of it.

Now that led me to evaluate why I felt so strongly about the training. I believe that an exceptional trainer/teacher must impart knowledge, and understanding in a deep and meaningful way, so as to arouse curiosity and ignite a love of learning for that particular subject. A great teacher is one who reaches inside a person's psyche and unlocks a door to answers.

There has been many teachers who have touched my life through childhood - whose lessons have stayed with me until today. Ama is one, she taught me about compassion, honesty, generosity of spirit, and a love for life. Mum and Dad brought me up to understand that trust and respect are priceless virtues that have to be earned, and once lost, rarely can they ever be found again. (Of course, to believe otherwise would have met with a stern response!)

At school, Mr Chok sparked my interest in physics and science while Mr Lim taught me the joy of maths and the endless applications it had in real life. At Cass Business School, Chris Brady taught me about systems and how everybody, everything, and every being is connected in some way and how an action has ripple effects down the line, influencing elements that you couldn't even imagine.

Toonie, my closest friend, taught me that some friendships are based on unconditional love and respect, and would really stand the test of some of life's toughest challenges (we have gone through some 'stff').

Siva continually teaches me about the value of being human, and of not only cultivating a sense of mindful sensitivity towards the effect my actions have on my surroundings, but also of how I can make other people's life better in so many ways. And Jeff has taught me so much about myself, about how two people can become real partners in life and love when they work at it.

My life is indeed blessed with so many people who have turned up and taught me lessons that had to be learnt at the various stages of my growing up. In turn, I too believe that I am a good teacher.

Whether it is coaching some one through dilemmas and life crisis, or how to troubleshoot a database issue. I love it when I am able to turn on a switch, and see a light come on in their eyes when they realize what it is I am trying to show them.

I believe that a life should be lived as well as you can, be passionate about something you love, be it a sport, a person, a cause, a career - because a life that is mediocre is not a life. It is an existence. I felt a bit sorry for the trainer actually, because she is clearly in the wrong job, and I hope she finds her way.

Unfortunately I had to give her very poor reviews during the evaluation, but I hope that I've written about it in a constructive manner to give her some food for thought. Oh yes, I guess I will start putting more pictures up - my ipaq isn't great at taking instant candid shots as it takes AGES to load the app and then the delay when taking a photo just takes too long. Now that I have the 6230i from work, photos will be much more frequent on the blog.

Not to mention, the NC6220 has bluetooth built in, unlike my baby IBM X31 - which makes photo transfer much easier.

New job, no new house yet.

Tue, 22 Aug 2006 14:28:19 -0700

Two weeks on, lots have happened. Well, lots of activity anyway. We did some marathon house viewing, loads and loads of houses. Unfortunately, we haven't found any that we both liked yet... except for this one. We took Jeff's parents around to view a few with us last Saturday and this particular one (which was really WAY too expensive) but in a really good location with nice rooms etc and everyone thought it was a nice house (though pricey).

Besides, I was getting some not-very-subtle hints about it being a great place to bring up grandchildren. . We put an offer in the very next day only to find that it already had two offers, kicking off a bit of a bidding war. We put in the highest amount we could afford yesterday before the lunch deadline and found that we had lost to someone putting in a much higher bid.

ANYWAY - so the house hunting goes on. It's getting hard though - all the nice ones have been put on the market early summer (as we did) and been snatched up straightaway, and those that are left behind are either over priced or have something wrong with them (like a railway line running at the back ofit, or too near the motorway).

We'll view some more this weekend and see how it goes.

Work so far has been pretty good. My impression is that these guys are extremely competent professionals with high standards, which is very good for me because that means I have to up my game and ensure I produce high quality work as well. Oh yes - two veterans from the company was leaving, but oh - what a contrast to my own last day. Although they were going to the competition, they were leaving on very good terms. The company recognized that they needed other challenges and have gone as far as they could here, and it was just a really good feeling.

That makes me think that I made the right choice moving here. I am wondering if I might have over-sold myself during the interview though, because my boss has 'plans' for me. In the form of me project managing my own project... which is apparently 'mid sized'.. around '45 man day'.. eek!

That's WAY bigger than what I have ever done, but on the other hand, I am quite excited about it as well. I am on training the rest of this week so it's still quite an easy week at the moment. I think it will start to ramp up next Monday.

Anyway, my quest to get my teeth into MS CRM 3.0, or Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 as they have now rebranded it. That started with me and Stefan (he sits next to me - another newbie, only been at the company 2 weeks before me) trying to build an image on Virtual PC 2004. Now, I am very used to VMWare which handles virtual images and memory very well - plus I love the fact that you can tab between virtual machines really easily.

As a Microsoft Gold Partner though, we get the full MSDN stuff including MS products for testing and development for free - which means that we should use MS as far as possible. So I've had to learn how to get used to VPC now, and it is clunky I must say. Boot up and shut down takes aaages, as do installs and etc even though my work laptop has been upgraded to 2GB RAM (that was the other thing - I asked for more RAM and I got it! No more arguing about trivial stuff like that).

Well after a lot of kerfuffling - we both started the install at the same time, but then I had errors installing Win2k3 SP1, but he managed to do it and then I copied the image. Then we both tried to put on SQL 2000 but then he was foiled with some random error but I managed to do it so I gave him a copy of my image. Then we both tried to put on Exchange but this time, it was we both got foiled but I managed to recover as I realized it was a DNS issue and so fixed that one - and after it all, we both managed to have a working MS CRM virtual PC.

I guess the problem is that I could not get hold of the Implementation Guide for CRM, and if I did, things would have gone much smoother. As it is though - it was a learning experience, and sometimes we need to go through it to understand things better.

Stefan will be doing a lot of installing and will be the infrastructure expert soon. Man, he's as young as Johleen and I find myself telling him off for being impatient sometimes. He's quite good natured though and is learning very quickly.

Anyway back to work.

My last day

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 00:37:29 -0700

Was pretty uneventful to say the least. I went into the office this morning only to find no one there. That isn't unusual really - given that all consultants are normally on client sites and almost everyone (including admin/finance person - Donna) works from home. Normally the sales guys would be there but Nigel was on holiday and Claire had a doctor's appt.

So there was only me initially. Later on, Donna came in to collect all my documents and company equipment, and we had a 'sort of' exit interview where I was completely frank about how I felt.

Anyway - after about an hour, she scooted and there was no one else. So I did some support calls, helped out Sam (who is on client site with grumpy customer) and then I went home. No leaving drinks, no nothing. Was a bit of an anti-climax.

At 5.30pm sharp - my access to company email/calender was all cut off. I felt a smidgen of some sort of a feeling - rejection, perhaps? However, that lasted only a micro second because I then thought of my new company and that filled me with some excitement.

There's something about being wanted that makes people feel valuable, and that's how my new place makes me feel. Not only did they make me an offer the very next day that I had my face to face interview, but they increased the package as well as offered to pay for my training fee so that I may start early.

I guess I don't mind change when it is me who initiate it - which means that I should make more changes of my own volition. At the moment, I am jobless- but only for a few days. And it feels great to be free.

Big issue - the 'perfect' home?

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 15:48:30 -0700

Well, the house hunt is not going too well at the moment. We are going to see another bunch this week, but from the sales particulars - nothing has jumped right out to wow us as yet. I am a bit disappointed, but if we have to move into rented accomodation, then so be it.

Anyway - it's my second last day on the job and it won't be long now. I am quite excited about the new one next week - so I will be getting Jeff to give me a dye job (I have LOADs of silverly 'wisdom' hair that may -ahem- speak of my incredibly superior intellectkoffkoff, or just bad genes) before getting a nice hair cut.

At the moment I look a bit like a lion that has come out spluttering from a muddy pond - that's about as fashionable my shaggy head looks. Also, for the first time (in 7 years) I foray'ed into the retail world of shopping.

You won't believe it, but I really hate shopping. Absolutely hate it. Mainly because I hardly find something I like, and the price (in Sterling � pounds scares my armpit hairs stiff). However, we are having a nice summer sale at the moment, so I got myself a couple of jeans at �12.99 a pair - which is nice, and a few other bits and bobs. Oh and a work shirt.

So there ya go. Two new experiences for me in one week. A new hair do and shopping. And next week I start a new job. Talk about a summer of experiences

Marathon house viewing session

Sat, 05 Aug 2006 10:17:44 -0700

Yesterday we went to see a total of 8 houses in the M4 corridor area starting from about 2.30pm until about 8 pm. Boy were we exhausted at the end. They ranged from the amazing to the confounding - absolutely unbelievably you-don't-know-what-was-going-through-their-head discombobulation.

Anyway - this one was fantastic - the farmer had built this house with hand crafted doors and excellent finish. I fell in love with it (although it was a bit in the middle of nowhere). Unfortunately, it used to have a massive garden, which he had chopped up to build 4 houses for his 4 daughters and their family. So this house (although so beautiful) has no garden, only a patio area at the back with the only green lawn (dead space) at the side of the house. I was really sad because I really love this one. The whole house was finished to an impeccable standard, but I did't want to look out the upstairs window into 4 lovely gardens and have none of my own. I really fell in love with this one and had my heart broken.

Even the wardrobe doors were handcrafted - that was how beautiful it all was.

We moved on to other properties though - including one that was really nice, but unfortunately too hazardous for the giant Jeff. I can see him braining himself on the low ceilings and leaving blood splatters every where. So this was a no. Hazardous home - definitely only suitable for short people.

Most of the rest were quite unremarkable, except for this one, just because it completely confused us. When I first looked at the brochure, I wondered why it didn't have a photo of the front of the property. When we arrived, all was clear. It was situated next to a petrol station and was in unbelievable state of disrepair.

The porch in front of the door was hastily built and the door was stuck. However, with some mighty jiggling, the estate agent managed to get us through the door. However, I noticed the 'patched' hole in the ceiling as soon as we got in.

When we got up stairs, we could see the 'patched' floor..

The whole house was falling apart though, with half done DIY projects leaving concrete floors bare, nails sticking out of the walls and wallpaper peeling. The main master bedroom on the brochure looked magnificent though...

We were quite sure that the owner had spent a massive amount of money renovating and taking out the loft to build in the timber frames. However, they were not only badly installed, but they were splitting and leaking rain from the outside. We could see holes into the outdoors from the cracks.

Also, the bathroom at first glance looked lovely...

With super expensive tiles and bath (probably imported) being installed in a horribly botched manner as to render the whole thing just absolutely mind-bogglingly weird. The tiles were not even finished to the timber area - notice the gap between the tiles and the wood:

The toilet was not even finished - with the pipes exposed to all and sundry...

And the view from the back window - a caravan and the petrol station...

We just could not fathom what happened. There was a new-ish BMW that was in the front, which obviously had not been driven for awhile as its tyres were bubbling and it was all greeny mossy. The idea and design had obviously been quite grandiose in its conception, but the execution was just madness.

There are a few theories what happened:

1. The owners had ideas about what to do with the place, having seen Grand Design from Channel 4 or having visited some fairyland castle, but secured Builders from Hell (BFH) to put it in. As the project progressed, they ran out of money when they got conned by said BFH and now have to sell their home.

2. The owners tried to do all the work themselves and just absolutely screwed the whole thing up and ran out of money.

Anyway - we didn't find anything that 'wow'ed us. So the search continues...

I just noticed..

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 12:13:34 -0700

that I like to use the word "anyway" a lot.

Four

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 09:32:40 -0700

Four more working days to go - and then I AM FREEEEEE!! ... to um, do whatever I like (which will probably be house hunting) before I start me new job. Yes.. only four more days...

Anyway - I am on support at the office for these four days, dealing with issues that come in from customers and clearing them out as much as I can. Whilst I still a tad miffed at the way I've been treated over the resignation issue, I will not take it out on the customers as I've built a rapport with them.

On another note - I am trying out the Inner Balance Wheatgrass thing. I've heard a lot about it, so thought that it doesn't hurt to try it out. 2 teaspoon in 2 litre bottle of water, and to drink 4 litres a day. At the moment I am only on 1 2-litre bottle. It isn't very pleasant especially when I get to the gritty bottom.

I haven't really seen much effect yet especially since I only started it yesterday. I am on a new bottle today, and I am trying to keep it up. Also I am back to my 'juicing' for breakfast. I used to think that the preparation and the making of my breakfast juice would take too long for it to be practical during weekdays but you know what they say (or at least what Siva said to me) - excuses only hurt yourself in the end.

Anyway, I prepare the ingredients the night before, i.e. chop the apples/celery/ginger/green pepper/carrots the night before and put them in a container in the fridge, then all I have to do in the mornings is quickly whizz them through my juicer, wrap the pulp into newspapers, dump it in the brown (recycling) bin, gulp down my breakfast and wash the juicer.

Takes no more than 7 minutes for the whole thing in the mornings. Clever eh? I feel so proud of myself.

I have always had excuses why I can't be more healthy but I think it's time to kick those lame excuses away. Saying that, I haven't done any running since the last 10k (although I hear Hanna, my secret cyber-lesbo penpal from Canada is doing the marathon "WOO YOU GO GIRL!").

However, my new office is near a gym, and I plan to get to work an hour or so earlier so I can do a run and have a shower before work. Unlike Jeff, who prefers to exercise in the evening, I find that a morning workout is a lot more invigorating, and helps me to focus a lot more.

Anyway back to work.

A most honest and refreshing thing to see - a company owning up to its mistakes.

Wed, 02 Aug 2006 09:59:28 -0700

I caught this today - and it really makes such a change from the spinning, lying, rumour mongering and utter crap that is spewed out by most corporations when things go 'Pete Tong' (that's Cockney rhyming slang for "Wrong").

The Dreamhost webhosting has been having loads of issues over the last few weeks and instead of blaming someone else, they were completely frank about what happened and where the faults were and how they were going to improve.

Class act. I hope other companies follow suit.

The Israeli Lebanon conflict

Mon, 31 Jul 2006 14:43:58 -0700

You know, I don't even know how to begin to feel about that. The loss of human lives and the magnitude of the suffering and sorrow are so incredibly deep and painful that I cannot even begin to understand.

The Israeli attack on the UN peackeeping force and on the village of Qana has lost supporters of its cause. I do not know very much about the history of the Israelites and the Jews but they seemed to have been persecuted throughout history. However, their way of retaliating, by targetting and killing civilians seem to outline a much more sinister side to the story.

Their response to the kidnapping of their solder seems incredibly disproportionate, and I commend Jack Straw's willingness to stand up for Lebanon.

The injustice of the whole situation is so incredibly blatant that I am at a loss for words. The goverment of the US and the UK now openly shows how one-sided they are, in their support for Israel. Perhaps, it might be that Blair is not calling for an 'immediate ceasefire' so that he can influence Bush but I really doubt he can do very much.

I would stand for my principles and condemn what the US is doing outright, because it is so wrong. So very very wrong that it is tainting the souls of humanity - each and every one who are keeping silent while this goes on.

Innocent people are being 'punished' for what? I really don't know what to do. I guess if you believe in a God or a higher power, all you can do is pray.

Better get our butt mooooving!

Sat, 29 Jul 2006 16:40:00 -0700

Now that the house is sold, we have to find some place to stay! I think we have been taking things too easily and haven't felt the urgency but I think we are getting there now... or we might end up homeless.

Jeff told me yesterday that he had suggested to Chris (his workmate) that when we get our place, we might rent out a room to him, as he is now renting and has to move within two months. Hmmm. I don't know how I feel about that. Of course rental income is always good, and having someone else living with us makes life so interesting. Having Will, Frank and Wassim live with us in the past has been such a growing experience.

I learnt a lot about sky diving (thanks Will!), avocado farming in Oz, Crystal reports and 'girlfriend scandals' (thanks Frank!) and huge amount about life, politics and international scene from Waz. At the moment, the Israeli-Lebanese conflict is a major issue as Waz is keenly interested (for obvious reasons). I too am learning a lot, and have taken to reading up on the web about the historical events that led up to this. I still don't understand the whole thing but I'm starting to be more aware of things. Waz feels very passionate about it though, and it is infectious.

So it will be fun having another lodger. However, I happen to know that Chris blows a lot of his money on weird movies and old dvds and stuff, and watches tv all the time (I am guessing shows which do not fall into 'star quality' productions such as the CSI/Star Trek/Law and order/House/Lost/Prison Break category). I don't know if it will drive me mad or not.

But at least I can lay down some Law before he starts such as:
1. Not making a mess - any used plates/cups/cutlery should be rinsed and placed in dishwasher and not left to pile up in the sink
2. Own room to be neat and tidy as far as possible - if there is an attached bathroom, that to be kept clean as well.
3. Weekend chores - help wash toilets and vacuum/tidy main areas
4. Not mess up the fridge/freezer and communal equipment/areas
5. Just generally do not make a mess which I have to tidy/pick up.

Basic consideration towards others, I guess and I don't think that's too much to ask though. I think I have trained Waz quite well. Well he didn't need very much 'training' as he is a very considerate and thoughtful person. I will miss him when he moves out next month though. I think he has been the longest lodger we have had (barring Frank) and he has indeed enriched our lives in so many ways. He's got the get up and go attitude that re-inspires me when I hit the doldrums, and a very proactive outlook on life. I guess change is inevitable and we got to move on.

Anyway I am about to get a bit sniffly so (cough) change of topic. We have a couple of viewings lined up this Sunday and next Saturday so we'll see where we end up.

This time last year...

Fri, 28 Jul 2006 10:12:25 -0700

I was a lot more interesting. I commented about general life and my blog wasn't based around what was happening in my life. I should make a shift towards commenting on current affairs again.

I think I've got more boring.

7 more (working) days to go..

Fri, 28 Jul 2006 09:39:30 -0700

Well I am literally counting the days until I terminate my employment here. Things have been alright I guess, especially since the 'upper management' have both gone away on a romantic holiday some where and I have been left alone to do my one-on-one training with this client the whole week.

So this client, we'll call him 'Matt', is quite new to his company and has been put in charge of the helpdesk system. They support the NHS so is quite an important helpdesk, with a 24x7 operation. He is intending to do his own upgrade from Magic 8 to SDE 9 next week with the help and assistance of David (from our company).

The thing is, he doesn't know much about databases. And he isn't able to grasp a lot of the concepts. I know he has been struggling during the whole training even with the basics and foundations of relational databases. Last week in Coventry I trained a very young lad, only a year out of university but quick as anything and sharp as well. He not only understood everything but also corrected me at times when the heat made my brain mush. It was really a delight training somebody like him.

I guess my job at the moment is like being a teacher - ensuring that I impart knowledge and understanding to those in my care. Matt is a lovely sweet guy, but he struggles. And he doesn't do himself any favours by writing notes nor referring to documentation and charges on ahead just randomly clicking items on the screen hoping that something will happen.

I hope that I haven't come across to him as a cross teacher as I tried to instil in him some discipline in how he approaches problems and issues, asking him (repeatedly) to re-check the steps in the manual and always stop himself before charging ahead.

Sample of conversation this week:

Me: Ok - our first exercise is to add a new field onto the Status form. We've gone through the basics so you should know how to do that. What's the first thing you need to do?

*mouse goes click click click*

Me: No - stop for one minute - what's the first thing to think about?

Matt: Er first we have to reset the services and clear out the connection to the database

Me: No, that is when we need to restore the database but what do we do if we need to add a new field?

*mouse goes click click click*

Me: No just stop the mouse clicking for a minute please and think before you click.

*Mouse clicking stops and sounds of cogs and wheels in motion can be heard*

Matt: Ummm *scratching chin and squinting*

Me: If you need to, check the documentation and read through the steps.

That was how our conversation went the whole week. He reminds me of a small kid who just charges ahead without thought as to where he is going or what he is doing. I think that he has made some progress though - when I ask him a question on how to do something now, his hand reaches for the mouse and then he stops to think.

He still doesn't get the answer right but he will re-check the documentation for the steps now, and has been able to restore his live database onto the development server completely (ok that required 5-6 exercises but he got there.

I think I really like teaching, as I believe I have the skill to do so. It really feels great when you finally get a student to understand what you are trying to impart. I will however, make it easier for him next week by helping him with his test scripts and processes on the upgrade process so all he has to do is to check and read through the steps. That will give him an infinitely better chance of upgrading his system successfully than if I rely on him to 'remember'.

I've got one week of support next week, which is in the office. I don't know if I am looking forward to that because boss Richard will be around to go through handover migration from Andy, so most of the company will be in. I have a feeling I am in for some difficult times but I guess my character needs building!

Glorious summer

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 19:53:31 -0700

It has been a glorious summer indeed - endless sunny (and hot) days and everybody feeling happy. This week I am training a client in our offices in High Wycombe. He wants to do his own upgrade and wanted an admin training as well as upgrade training. The problem is that he is quite new (i.e. just got hired by his company) and got thrown in the deep end as they had planned this upgrade quite some time ago.

He doesn't know anything about databases, and I feel, quite brave to want to do this. I believe that although he's not that knowledgeable, but the fact that he is willing to take the bull by the horns makes me admire him a bit.

Anyway I have another 2 weeks before I leave the company. My new one wants me to start work early and so have offered to pay for the training fees I am incurring with this one - hooray! I am quite pleased! This means that I won't be out of pocket. I am actually quite excited about the new job as it entails more responsibilities and a step back into the Microsoft arena.

I was hoping for some free time between finishing up this job and starting the next one (have about 5 days) and I really wanted to get away with Jeff because he has been working very hard. However, I think we might end up doing some house hunting, so we'll see. Anyway it's time for me to do dinner now.

Recipe for "Staying Cool in the Very Hot Summer Heatwave of the UK"

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 13:14:14 -0700

Ok that's wimp speak for someone who hails from the tropics and where 33C during the day is the norm. But that's what everybody is talking about here - heatwave in the UK causing rails to buckle resulting in long delays and melting roads as well.

Honestly, when it's hot, the country melts and comes to a standstill as infrastructure finds it hard to cope in the heat. When it's cold, the country freezes as snowfall stops everything from moving. I don't think they have this issue in Scandinavia or other such countries that prepares well.

Anyway, I am not finding it too difficult at the moment, as I have my own ways of keeping cool. I have requested for a fan in my room at the local Travel Inn in Coventry (that's where I am today)

We started the training quite early in the morning and get to go back early too, which is quite nice. Very relaxing and unstressed. I spent the evenings sitting in the restaurant which is air conditioned to do some work and some reading, so it has been quite a pleasant stay so far. Here at the client site - they have an area in the middle where the employees can sit in the sun (or shade) to have their lunch. It really is a nice area, and much more pleasant than a lot of office blocks.

Having lunch in the sun.

Anyway yes - here I share with the world my Method of Staying Cool in the Very Hot Summer Heatwave of the UK.

Recipe for "Staying Cool"
Ingredients:
1 fan
1 shower
1 soap

Steps:
1. Strip and get into shower
2. Turn on shower, ensuring that the temperature of water is at about 30C or a nice cool temperature
3. Use the soap to vigorously wash off dust/dirt/sweat
4. Step out of shower
5. Pretend you're a dog and shake off excess water droplets
6. Turn on fan
7. Stand in front of fan in your wet birthday suit
8. Slowly rotate body clockwise and anti-clockwise, giving the fan a chance to evaporate the water and thus lower your body temperature through convection.
9. Sit down (in the shade) and don't exert yourself. Whether you put on your clothes after this is completely up to you. As for me, I don't bother if nobody's looking.

I remember going to Mark and Federica's beautiful wedding in Genoa, it was so hot and boiling that Mark (the groom) had a pack of ice under his coat and Fede was melting in her stunning white dress.

Anyway, during the church ceremony - everybody, groom, bride and guests were sweating profusely except for Jeff and myself. Frank, Peter and Wassim had gone to the beach to lobster themselves red that morning, and was burning and sweating despite having had a shower. We, on the other hand, had a quiet relaxing time in the hotel, having had our shower and cooled ourselves (while still wet and damp) in front of the fan.

I think that we probably enjoyed the church ceremony more than anyone else mainly because we had kept ourselves cool and comfortable. We had a friend who had drenched his shirt in sweat, and as everybody was complaining about the heat, we could only feel relief.

Even so - I thought it was a most wonderful and beautiful wedding, especially since Barbara who did a very short and sweet English translation of the Italian pastor and made everybody laugh. I remember he did a very big passage in rambling Italian, to which she translated in only a few words.

In the evening after the dinner in a hotel, everybody (well almost) jumped into the swimming pool because it was so hot. I must say something about the hotel - it was situated in an amazing location on top of a hill where we had a gorgeous view overlooking the bay and the sea. Absolutely fatastic.

Anyway - I hope you enjoy the recipe, and stay cool folks. It's a gorgeous summer and we should make the most of it!

BBQ in the summer

Sun, 16 Jul 2006 15:44:33 -0700

We had another barbeque yesterday, with loads of people from different circles. We had Mark, Fede, Alice and Blue (the dog) along with Waz from our regular gang. Then Jeff had Colin, Chris, Rodney (and daughter Kerry) from work. I had Hisayo, Lovedip and Alison with husband Mentor along, and then we had the Dowd family - Kevin, Charlotte and the three little ones - Esther, Johnny and Willow. Oh, and Hitesh (from old company iDesk) turned up too.

It was a really really nice day, and we had a lot of food and drinks. I was a bit worried there wasn't enough but it was fine. I forgot to take photos though, especially when Blue fell into the pond, it was hysterical. The kids all got along and Charlotte was driven insane with worry about little accident-prone Willow (she's 2).

All in all it was a lovely day, and perhaps the last bbq we will have in this house with our friends. Jeff is holding one for the family - cousins, aunts, uncles etc next month, but this is the last one we will have with friends because we've just sold our house. Well, we've had an offer which we've accepted. Now it's the legalese and paperwork and surveyor thingamy to be done.

Sigh. I don't know when or where our next one will be, but we've had some absolutely fantastic ones so far. I really will miss our patio.

Resigning isn't an easy thing

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 10:14:14 -0700

.. especially when I was trying to get out of paying the training I've been to the last 12 months (it was in the contract). Mucked up my calculations by a few days and got whacked with the bill. Anyway that'll teach me.

It hasn't been a pleasant affair, this resigny thing. I've never actually resigned a company to go to another - it's always been a good reason, moving to the UK or doing an MBA. So this company isn't a happy bunny.

Anyway I shan't dwell on the negatives - working here has been good in terms of keeping my consultancy skills up to date (dealing with clients etc) as well as my SQL skills. I've had the priviledge of travelling to the most gorgeous parts of the UK, especially during summer and the whole countryside lights up with the most magnificent colours. I was able to see some absolutely stunning sunrises and sunsets on my drives to and from client sites.

My company's small but I've made some really strong friendships which I hope will last longer than my stint here. I have 8 weeks notice to work off and then I am off to my new job - as a senior CRM consultant with a Microsoft Gold Partner, which will allow me to update the rest of my MS skills such as server side and backoffice new fangle dangle technology. I get to play with new gadgets and shit!

Anyway I got to get back to work now (boo).

Today I resigned my job.

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 09:29:44 -0700

Just sent off my formal notice 15 minutes ago. Expecting a call from Richard soon.

So.. Ken Lay has popped his clogs.

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 09:29:08 -0700

Which has CNN headlines going : "Enron Fraudster Lay Dies" which also sent Wikipedia reeling as 'authors' updated the site with the rumours and suspicions that surrounded the incident.

I really don't know what to feel for the guy - either he's incredibly incompetent or incredibly greedy/evil. Both alternatives are equally bad, but what justice is there for those who worked for him, who are now bankrupt, with no pension and no money to their name? All I can say is what goes around comes around. Or is it the other way around?

Anyway it's my last day in Wales. The week started really hot and muggy about 30C (imagine sleeping with no fan in my B&B) and it's turned wet, but much cooler. I found that I sleep better and deeper when its cooler. When it's hot, I don't sleep as deep and do not feel as rested. How funny is that.

The people I've met are lovely though - it's just that I get some odd looks when I go into Bridgend or the Post Office. Perhaps they aren't used to seeing a non-white in their midst. there's this tall guy who does the breakfast in the morning and he has a soft drawling accent. He is also quite slow moving and unhurried, which is a nice change from the bustling environment of London.

I guess although I really hate the extended travel away from home, nothing beats the joy of my last day when I so look forward to going home and sleeping in my own bed in my own house. However, my career is about to take a twist. More about this next Monday...

Running in the sweltering heat

Wed, 05 Jul 2006 13:44:13 -0700

was what I did last Sunday. Am now in Bridgend (Wales) where it was super hot and muggy the last few days but has progressed to cloudy and cool today.

Anyway it was a very very hot day to run on Sunday. The British 10k organizers decided not to have a speed pen, where you are put in sections depending on when you think you are going to finish the race. That meant that the quick ones would go in front and the slower ones behind so as not to block the runners.

This year they decided to do away with that, but instead have everyone squeeze through a bottle neck so the slow ones can stay on the right while the quick ones zoom ahead on the left lane. Great idea. In theory.

We were told to line up by 8.45am at Pall Mall where we were shepherded (in the sun) to the starting point in Hyde Park (near Hard Rock Cafe). The race started at 9.30 am but it took aages for people to get through the bottleneck, and it was only 10.20am before I really got started. We had been standing in the 30C sun for about an hour and a half!

This was the queue to the starting point.

Some strange indian men in Scottish costumes played the
bagpipe for the crowd before changing into running kit to
join the race.

Whilst queuing, I got to see all the strange and wonderful people who were there for both personal and touching reasons. So many ran for charity, raising money and awareness of diseases, tragedies, and causes that would otherwise not have touched on the human consciousness. Everybody seem to have a story.

It was quite fun early in the morning when I got on the train - everybody I saw with a number on their chest would grin and wave at me, as if we were brothers and sisters about to embark on an exciting adventure. There was a buzz of camarederie in the crowd and people were smiling and giggling excitedly.

I was trying really hard not to drink too much because I knew what I was like, and didn't want to do a Paula Radcliffe during the marathon. Despite that - I went to the loo 4 times before the start - at Baker St station, in the portaloo, at Green Park station and finally Park Lane hotel. I was soo worried of getting caught out.

Some of the shirts were really funny

And some runners had a great sense of humour

And finally, a sobering political message

I did complete the run at 1:20 - absolutely abysmal. But I didn't train and it was really hot (that's my excuse). For every single person who was running/walking - there are thousands more who didn't even bother to either make an effort to improve their health or do something good for humanity. I wore my Alzheimer's shirt although I hadn't raised any money for them this year.

But every alzheimer-shirted runner I passed, we would salute with our water bottle as we mouthed encouragement and congratulated each other on doing the run - and that was such an amazing feeling.

And here is the one picture that summed up the spirit of the whole day.

And he finished quicker than I did too.

Countdown - 10 hours to 10k race!

Sat, 01 Jul 2006 23:06:37 -0700

I didn't do any fund raising this year - something I am a bit disappointed with myself for. However, I have started contributing regularly by direct debit to a number of charities every month. Ok ok I know it's a cop-out - I really should make a conscious effort to do more charitable work, either by fund raising or volunteering.

Direct debit donations are a bit too 'easy' as Siva would say, as it doesn't involve any conscious moral thinking/effort into it. Anyhoo - tomorrow's about having a good run and a good time. I haven't trained enough to achieve my goal of doing the 10k under an hour, but at least I hope to complete it without doing a Jade Goody! (You have to respect her intentions though - she did do 21 miles before calling it quits, I doubt I would have done that!)

Well, I should get a good nights sleep before tomorrow. I've to be up at about 6.30 to get to Picadilly Circus for 8am. Race starts at about 9am but there's going to be about 30,000 people running, so the crowd will be massive. Time for bed - wish me luck for tomorrow!

10k comin up and I'm not even ready!

Fri, 30 Jun 2006 11:48:49 -0700

I can't believe it - I've signed up for the British 10k and I haven't done as much training as I should.

Ugg. I will be sooo thrashed. Did umm about 5m today, APPALLING time - about 1hr 10 min, and that's not even 10k yet. I think I will be happy if I can finish the race this time, I've neglected doing any consistent training, apart from getting ill the other day, and 'subluxating' my foot a week later, and a trial run today..

Back to work now (grumble)

What a nice office to be in!

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 23:56:15 -0700

This is the view from the client's office in the Docklands today. A boat sailed by and docked just beside us.

Lovely Sunday in London

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 23:25:13 -0700

Last Sunday we spent a gorgeous day in East London and went to see Jonathan and Sara, who are the new proud parents of little Holly Grace. She is a lovely little thing, so cute and perfect. Olga and Phil were there with the twins - Daniel and Max too. It was awhile since I saw them, and they had grown quite big! Had only just had time to download and sort the photos out and write about this.

We saw two inflatable bonking dog structures in the Jubilee Line
entrance of Canary Wharf on the way there.

This is the stunning view from Jonathan's flat.

It'soff to lunch we go. Mum takes Daniel by the hand...

... while Dad lets Max take the lead

... stopping by the little fountain on the way to the restaurant.

Once we got there...

'Hello? I need a waiter!'

'Hello sir, Chief Maitre'd here, what is your wish?'

'Hmm how about some bread to go with the cheese I left on this phone...'

'Hola! Chef! Get the little one some bread please!'

Jeff and Phil takes lessons on how to get great service from little Danny.

... and Max attracts the Maitre'd by attempting to eat a sweet packet.

While Jonathan and Holly watches in amusement as well.

Finally the food came.
Jeff was very impressed with the electric Parmesan grater.

New mum Sara gets some pepper on her seafood pasta.

'Can I have some of whatever that is please?'

The lunch was fantastic, and so was the company. It has been ages since we met up and the conversation was around parenthood and kids, and I managed to get some snippets of nuggets about having kids in between Olga and Phil running around the twins (and picking up stuff they threw) and Jon and Sara looking after Holly.

It was an absolutely stunning day - a perfect summers day in beautiful Surrey Quays. The boats were lovely and the weather was great, and we had a great time with good friends. Sometimes I forget how lucky my life is.

Jeff pretends he owns one of them expensive yachts.

.. and gets bored of me taking photos -
this is the new (unfinished) Wembley stadium.
Ok we can go home now dear.

Error Restoring Master database from different SQL Server

Mon, 26 Jun 2006 11:48:36 -0700

...may happen if SQL Server installs are on different directory on the two servers. Am currently doing an Upgrade on client site. One of the first things to do is to make sure the upgrade works properly on the development server first - and signed off when all the testing done. Of course, the dev server environment should be identical (or as close to) as the live production one.

Sometimes this is not so - and today is one of them. Magic is quite different in terms of how permissions work within the program. Most applications do not require separate SQL users to be created for each client requiring access to the database, especially if it is a web application. Most will access the database using one SQL user, with permissions manipulated within the program itself.

Instead, in Magic, each user created within the application itself will map to a separate SQL user. This means that trying to emulate environments is difficult, as SQL permissions are stored in the master database. However, most people just install SQL onto their C: drive, which makes it easy for me to restore both the magic and master database on my test/dev server (using the -c -m single user mode switch to accomplish this).

However, this client's live SQL server is installed on the E: drive, which means that master, model, msdb, temp and pub databases are stored there as well. When attempting to restore onto the dev server, it decided to up and die on me because it was unable to find the E: drive (there isn't one) to load up the master database, and in the process, it had deleted the original master.mdf and mastlog.ldf files from the C: drive.

Panic station!

I couldn't even start the MSSQLSERVER service in order to restore the old master back. After a few calls to the BMC helpdesk guys whom are normally very helpful (but in this instance were flummoxed by this), I decided to boot up my clean vmware and copy off the whole folder under C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\Data. Luckily this image had a clean SQL install because I normally use this for my training, and once I copied it back to the dev server folder, the service started without a glitch. Phew.

I was worried that the settings for where the SQL service finds the database files is within the application or registry (in which case I would have been absolutely toast), but it's clever enough to automatically load the database it finds in its default directory. That's saved the day for me.

Anyway am just waiting for the Dev server to install Win2k3 Service Pack 1 to take it up to the minimum requirement for SDE9 before I can continue.

2 Little Paypal Phishes came a swimming by..

Sun, 25 Jun 2006 09:23:00 -0700

Damn, they are getting better. At least they've fixed the awful english and bad spelling/grammar that always gave it away as disguised 'official' email designed to steal your money. The funny thing is - they must have found a way to track eBay sales and purchases.

I got the first one after I successfully won the Silverstone F1 Auction for Jeff and his dad, and I got the second one after I sold the F1 Toyota VIP bag and goodies (which I got for free from the event).

Paypal Phish #1
From: PayPal [mailto:service@paypal.com]
Sent: Fri 23/06/2006 11:34
Subject: Please restore your account access

As part of our security measures, we regularly screen activity in the PayPal system. We recently contacted you after noticing an issue on your account.We requested information from you for the following reason:

We have reason to believe that your account was accessed by a third party. Because protecting the security of your account is our primary concern, we have limited access to sensitive PayPal account features. We understand that this may be an inconvenience but please understand that this temporary limitation is for your protection.

Case ID Number: PP-102-084-644

This is a reminder to log in to PayPal as soon as possible. In accordance with PayPal's User Agreement, your account access will remain limited until the issue has been resolved. Unfortunately, if access to your account remains limited for an extended period of time, it may result in further limitations or eventual account closure. We encourage you to log in to your PayPal account as soon as possible to help avoid this.

To securely confirm your PayPal information please click on the link bellow:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run

We thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please understand that this is a security measure intended to help protect you and your account. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Sincerely,
PayPal Account Review Department

PayPal Email ID PP638

Paypal Phish #2
From: PayPal [mailto:service@intl.paypal.com]
Sent: Mon 26/06/2006 03:26
Subject: Notification of Security Measures

Dear PayPal Member,

During our regularly schedule account maintenance and verification we have detected a slight error in your billing information on file with PayPal. This might be due to either following reasons:

- A recent change in your personal information (i.e. change of address)
- Submitting invalid information during the initial sign up process.
- An inability to accurately verify your selected option of payment due an internal error within our processors.

Therefore your account has been temporarily suspended. We need you to confirm your identity in order to regain full privileges of your account.

If this is not completed by June 28, 2006, we reserve the right to terminate all privileges of your account indefinitly, as it may have been used for fraudulent purposes. We thank you for your cooperation in this manner. To confirm your identity please follow the link below:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run

Thank you for your patience in this matter.
PayPal - Customer Service

Please do not reply to this e-mail as this is only a notification. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered.

World of warcraft victims..

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 14:33:30 -0700

Was googling on the web to see if there are any info/references to installing and playing WOW on the IBM x31 and this posting on Craigslist made me snort with laughter:

World of Warcraft Characters -- Wed Jun 21 -- (Toronto)
email: anon-174005964@craigslist.org

contact me for further info/screenshots etc. first account level 60 gnome mage zul'jin server pvp epic mount pvp set level 60 orc shaman medivh server (some epics) second account level 60 night elf hunter zul'jin server (some epics) level 60 undead warrior zul'jin server (mostly epic equiped)epic mount third account level 60 Undead rogue zul'jin server FULLY epic equiped. full bloodfang 8/8, 7/8 nightslayer, 3/5 death dealers, claw of the black drake, perditions blade, maladaths, fang of the faceless, Anubisath Warhammer, Dragonbreath Hand Cannon, Bindings of the Windseeker, Vis'kag the Bloodletter, gloves of enforcement, taught dragonhide belt) many many more too many to list. please buy these off me before i fail college.

Blogging on the Jubilee line

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 19:13:29 -0700

Am back in the Docklands again, and will be until the end of next week. It's been incredibly stressful at work, especially since I have a very packed 3 weeks ahead with barely any time to breathe in between - my timetable:

Next week - Docklands, Magic8-SDE9 upgrade
2nd Week - Wales, Magic8 Admin Training
3rd week - Coventry, SDE9 Admin Training

and I haven't even finished training myself on sde9, let alone complete the admin training manual. Sigh. Jeff has been very busy as well at work, he had to go in on Saturday night from 9pm to help troubleshoot until about 5am Sunday morning. I went in with him of course, as I anticipated keeping him company and playing WOW on my newly upgraded laptop.

Actually I am still on my IBM X31, it's my baby and I love it. It's a cute little thing, light and nimble, and the only one mini-gripe I have at the moment is the limited screen resolution at 1024x768, which makes it difficult when using vmware and screenshots for my manuals, but everything else more than makes up for it.

Jeff bought me more RAM and a larger hard disk, so now my baby is flying at 2GB of ram (I can also run 3 Win2003 vmware sessions no problem) and an amazing 160GB of hard disk. My current one (80GB) will be turned into my spare external USB disk for backup. I did have a hard time ghosting stuff across because the USB enclosure (or caddy as I called it) decided to have a strop, but after much hours of kerfuffle and a-fliddlin, it's all hunky dory.

I had a ghost image of my laptop when it was clean and with minimal apps installed for me to function, and I put that on. Any rubbish I want to install will now be put onto a vmware to keep it all neat and tidy. However, back to the story. I had just upgraded the hard disk and was going to install WOW on it (not sure if it will work because I think it needs a 3d graphics card and I don't think my x31 has it) but whilst re-ghosting my new laptop, the old 80GB decided to produce some bad sectors and suddenly died on me.

So whilst Jeff was busy helping a spanish corporation fix their EV issue in the dead of Saturday night and Sunday morning, I was attempting to revive my 80GB disk with all my crucial data... only managing to do it just before we went home at the crack of dawn. So my plans of having a night of slaying, questing and hero-ing had to be dumped as I struggled with the disobedient hard disk.

All is well now though I still haven't installed the game yet. Something about a nice clean operating system reminds me of a freshly mowed garden, I don't want to clutter it with rubbish yet because it's lightning fast now and I love it.

Anyway, today and tomorrow is End User training on the Purchase Module. It's easy going, but as I had some time between sessions, I was roped into doing some bug fixing and stuff. There seem to be a weird thing in the Inventory Items module where you can edit some items and not others... have narrowed it down to a faulty Warranty date field. If the date is filled in, you cannot edit the item. so my fix is to put in another date, update that with the Warranty date information and nullify the original warranty date.

Walla. All fixed. If only all my problems (in life and the universe) is so easy. I like databases because all problems can be tracked down and fixed with a select/update/delete statement. People are not so easy to deal with.

I've been talking to Lovedip the other day - she works with Lehmans in the Docklands and I hope to have lunch with her next week, if she has time for me. She does 12-14 hour days and some weekends, and rarely has time for social activities. My other friend Hisayo is the same (will be seeing her for lunch too). Long long hours within the corporate environment.

It seems that almost everybody who works in the banking industry (and there are a lot of major banks in the Docklands - Canary Wharf area) share the same fate. I've had to go in by tube, and I get caught up in a sea of black suited, well coiffed, professionally scrubbed up business people who are busy getting to work. It's very business-like and no-nonsense. The same people commuting in the tube are isolated in their little bubble, rarely interacting with the other humans unless they know them from work.

On the way home just now, I saw a poor lady in distress, obviously lost but not knowing who to turn to because everybody was rushing by her and not giving her a moments thought. I asked if she was ok, and she told me she was looking for the Jubilee line which was just around the corner. She was very relieved and pleased that someone stopped to help her.

I can understand why London is voted one of the rudest city in the world, because it's getting there. Could be a 'city' thing though, apparently New York is just as bad.

Correction!

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 12:22:00 -0700

That was a total of 8 hours and 25 minutes I had to drive yesterday due to traffic and bad maths (3 hr 45 min x 2 = 7 hours??)

Dog tired..

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 23:28:12 -0700

Been in Northampton the last 3 days training, the M1 absolutely choked in the mornings and evenings - one of the largest car parks in the world due to the non-moving traffic. This was when my new friend TomTom came in handy - bypassed a lot of it via backroads which were in parts very beautiful, but slowmoving in others - especially going through towns like Dunstable and Hocksville. It was still approximately a 2 hr drive each way - making it a daily 4 hour journey.

Not looking to tomorrow - I've got to go back to HML in Burnely to do a scoping exercise. 3 hr 45 min one way there for a 3 hr meeting, and then back again. That makes it a total of 7 hour drive. sigh. I should get to bed .. need to be up in about 5 hrs..

What a Brilliant weekend!

Mon, 12 Jun 2006 23:21:14 -0700

Stunning weather and gorgeous sunshine. The wind was cool so we didn't get (too) burned. The atmosphere was electric, buzzing with expectation. Of course, I wasn't that interested in the cars but the VIP entrance to the Paddock Club hospitality area was just dandy.

Last weekend I learnt the meaning of some new words - pit stops, grid, pole positions, burn rubber smell mingled with armpit sweat and beery breath smell...

I got to rub shoulders with other VIPs who were dressed so sharp that I felt like Pretty Woman when Julia Roberts got dressed to go to a horse race (you know, the one where she wore that brown polka dot dress). BMCSoftware (they own Magic) sponsors the Toyota Panasonic team, so our VIP pass was to their hospitality tent where I got some goodies such as a red backpack, hat and stuff. Will flog em on ebay for charity when I get around to it.

Green carpets and lovely tents at the Paddock Club

We got to go on a Pit Lane Tour where we saw them getting the cars ready for the race - here's the Red Michael Shoemaker's MacLearn car, he came number 3.

Here is his brother's car - Ralf Shoemaker, driving for Panasonic Toyota team.

Ralf being interviewed after his qualifying race. I tried to
accost him for an autograph which I was planning to sell on ebay but he
shot in and out in 5 minutes.. talk about hit and run!

And here is the winning car - Alonso's Renault won the race on Sunday
(that's not him in the driver seat by the way).

Jeff pretended that he was an F1 driver.

Here the guys are getting the car ready for the qualifying race on Saturday.

Grid positions determined during the qualifying race, the cars are put in
position on Sunday at the starting line.

It was an awesome weekend. Actually I was only there on Saturday but Jeff and his dad went again on Sunday. I had the race on our new tv where I tried to see if I could catch sight of them. I think its more fun to watch on tv, although the atmosphere was missing. However, I do get to sit with my feet up in the shade sipping a cold Ipoh White Coffee that rivals the best mochafrappucinolatte.

Federica dropped by with the most adorable Alice late Sunday afternoon and hung out with us for a few hours. Poor Alice is doomed to grow up as an alki if the trend continues...

"Let's have some of that mum - none of that milk thing please.."

"Mmmm smells a lot like daddy after a football game on tv..."

"What th..? Hey bring it back here!"

"Hello NSPCC? I want to report a child abuse.. my mum is depriving
me of my daily alcohol ration!"

Sigh.. it was a lovely weekend indeed.

Everyone seems to be more excited about my F1 day than me?

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 14:49:35 -0700

But I'm gettin there!

The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous, and I don't normally use that word unless I mean it. Beautiful blue sky, lovely sunny sun, happiness floating around. I can't wait for tomorrow, except I have nothing to wear..

Will take two batteries and empty out my CF cards so I can take mucho foto. Also shave me legs, tan my bikini line, pluck my armpit hairs and wear skimpy bikini to rival the F1 model girly girls. Need to make sure Jeff's eyes don't wander you see...

Running so hard it made you puke..

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 22:18:41 -0700

Have you ever done that? I did that today. Normally when I work from home, I try to run as often as I can (am doing the British 10k in July).

Wassim was up and waiting for his mum downstairs when I got ready to go out. She's here for a two week holiday from Syria and he was taking her to town so she could do some shopping with Magda. She was still getting ready when I left for my run. I was happily listening to Krypton and I reached about a mile when I suddenly wondered if I took my house keys out with me.

After frantically searching through my pockets and bum bag, I felt true horror when I realized that I didn't have them and that I would be locked out for the whole day if I didn't catch Waz before he and his mum got on a bus!

I ran like I never ran before, full speed as if I was being chased by a t-rex. Got home, banged on the door only to realize that he and his mum had left and then ran again towards the bus stop which was about 500m away. I ran out of steam at the top of the hill but when I saw the bus in the distance I started running again.

Thank god for morning jams, is all I can say because it hardly moved as I puffed and crawled towards them. Just got there in a nick of time as the bus pulled up behind me. Relief was washed down with nausea and light headedness. I almost passed out as I walked back home (quite wobbly). Never done that before and hopefully never have to again.

Spent the morning with my head in the toilet and trying to recover. Can't believe I am so unfit. I better work on my speed more than my stamina from now on.

Surprise F1 VIP tickets

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 19:43:48 -0700

Oh my, what a surprise! Boss Richard called to say that he had 2 VIP F1 Grand Prix tickets at Silverstone this Saturday (unfortunately 1 was for a client) and would I go along and chaperone?

See, the F1 means not very much to me, but Jeff and his dad are completely loonie about it. So initially I thought, well if Jeff isn't going, then there's no point me going and being all bored out of my brains. But when Jeff heard the news his eyes went boioing .

So I've been bidding for an additional pair of Grandstand F1 tickets on eBay so both he and his dad can come and I won (�461 for two)! Phew, auction is such a rush. Apparently my VIP ticket is pretty cool - check out my itinerarary:

0800 Access to the Formula One Paddock Club - Coffee and Croissants
0815 Formula One Paddock Club Pit Lane Walk
0930 Formula One Third Practice Session (Seats in Section A of the Grandstand)
1055 Porsche Michelin Supercup Qualifying Session
1145 Formula One Paddock Club Pit Lane Walk
1230 Formula One Qualifying Session
1330 Luncheon Served in the Panasonic Toyota Racing Hospitality Suite
1430 GP2 Race (36 laps)
1615 Historic Sport Challenge Qualifying Session
1700 Formula One Paddock Club Closes

Coo .. will I get to meet Schumaker or the other cutie, umm Buttons dude or something. Actually, no F1 driver can match our very own Malaysian driver Alex Yoong **swoooon** He did well in 2001/2002 but apparently didn't cut the mustard. Sigh. He is still waaaay more good looking than Shoemaker though.

Working from home today..

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 10:01:55 -0700

I was in the Docklands last week - the client office was right on the Thames and we could see the Millenium Dome from the window.

View from the client office

View from the bridge crossing the Thames

Quite a lot happened last week - namely it was Jeff's birthday. My moo turned 29, one more year to the big 30 and then he will be on the same age bracket as myself! That means that we can tick the same boxes when filling out form - in the age 30-35 range . I was working in the Docklands actually, so was home late and we just went to Chiquito's in Park Royal.

We came back and watched South Park on our new big screen plasma tv.

Vegetating in front of the tube god.

Then last Friday we had a company day where we all did this thing called Airkix Bodyflight - it's a sky divingy thingamy in a wind tunnel in Milton Keynes. I wasn't very graceful and apparently I had a 'in built' turn which meant that because one arm (or leg) is naturally lower than the other, I just spinned non stop.

Company got the dvd and photos but hasn't been copied yet. I might have to burn mine so nobody can use this embarrassment blackmail me in the future when I am standing for the office of Prime Minister of the Universe.

After the bodyflight event, we all went over to Richard's to have a beautiful Barbeque. He had got this massive big thing which even has a rotisseri thing for two whole chickens!!

Andy was our chef of the day

It was a beautiful day though, a lovely ending to a lovely week.

X-Men: The Last Stand

Sun, 28 May 2006 17:06:28 -0700

We went to watch it yesterday, mindful of the panning it got from CNN for example, but I had an absolutely fantasticly good time.

Apparently it had 'no heart' and been cgi-ed to death, but I loved it, the fighting scene at the end was brilliant, and also *** SPOILER ALERT*** killing off Cyclops in the beginning was a good move, as I was rooting for Logan and Jean. The end was a tad tragic, but incredibly dramatic and magnificent, as one would expect from a comic book fight between super powers.

Hugh Jackman as Wolverine was as heart-throbbingly cute as ever, although with Cyclops out of the picture there really hasn't been many opportunities for the writers to write in the clever one-liners that made his character so likeable.

Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen were brilliant as usual, although Halle Berry should have fought for better lines in this movie, even if her lines weren't as lame as in the previous movie ("You know what lightning does when it strikes a toad? The same thing it does to everything else.")

I'm not the only one who thought that line was painfully lame - see here and here and here and here and here.

Although in X3, she had another lame one - "If you're with us then be with us." Sigh. I'll forgive her only because the movie was pretty cool overall.

Yes, there many be too many mutants in this movie compared to the last ones, but my apetite for comic book characters and their super powers hasn't really been satiated. I would have prefered the movie to be longer so I can see what other mutant powers get exhibited.

For example, I hadn't realized that Thunderclap was a transvestite, and would have liked to see Gambit on screen. Everyone knew about the post-credit scenes (I did too, after reading the cnn review) so the small bunch of us stayed. It's heartening to see that there might be another sequel after this.

I really really enjoyed it, and I hope there is another one. Even if Storm did star again. *cringe*

Our house goes on the market today.

Sun, 21 May 2006 00:47:45 -0700

Today I am feeling a bit sad. Our house is now for sale - the house we have spent so much time and effort in making it a home where we've lived here for 5 years. It's time to move though, with Jeff working in Reading it has not been very practical or easy for him to do the commute daily. Besides, with my sort of work, location isn't that important.

The whole house has been stripped out and re-done, everything from flooring (we've either replaced or re-polished), skirting, coving, walls, light fittings and everything. All bathrooms have been completely re-done. It's like a brand new house in fact, and the only thing we hadn't touched was the structure. It's a shame that it's taken us so long to get it to such a beautiful state and now we have to move. :(

I know that our next place will probably be a fixer-upper as well, and it will be another 5 years before I have my own home but I guess that was the risk of marrying a DIY mad man!

Yesterday the estate agent came around to take photos for the brochure, and that made me realize that I had some of the house when we first got it, so decided to do a 'before' and 'after' shot. It's so different!

Front of house (2001)

Front of house (2006)

The spring time and greenery makes a photo looks much nicer and warmer. The 'before' shot was taken in winter, but it still looked quite miserable. We've stripped and repainted all the window sill and paint work (well, Jeff's dad did most of it) and trimmed the hedges.

Backyard (2001)

Backyard (2006)

The most dramatic improvement is in the backyard, I think. We did so much work there - took down all the mangled trees, built a patio and pond and garden walls. We did have some small fruit trees - apples, pairs and plums, but they weren't very sweet and attracted loads of wasps which stung our friend's son when they were here for a BBQ one year. SO they had to go.

House from back (2001)

House from back (2006)

Don't know if you can see, but there was a 2 foot drop from the kitchen doorway, and the only steps we had were breeze blocks to step from! It was very dangerous, so we decided to put the patio in and some proper steps.

House from back garden (2001)

House from back garden (2006)

We have an adjoining garden, quite secluded on the other side of the house. There used to be a patio for barbeques but we took it out because the paving was very uneven. Notice the small structure on the side which Jeff has fixed up, putting in a proper door and painted it white. It used to be a sauna which was never used. I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time, but ..

Backyard fence (2001)

Backyard fence (2006)

We took down the crappy old fence and put in a nice shining brand new one. Notice that there is a new door on the side of the garage - it used to be bricked up but Jeff took it out and put in a new door. Makes getting in easy.

Adjoining back garden (2001)

Adjoining back garden (2006)

Knocked down old garden wall and built our own. Had to dig through the driveway tarmac to lay the foundations. That wall ain't moving anywhere baby.

Double garage (2001)

Double garage (2006)

There was a gnarly tree which was also taken down, and replaced with the pond and patio. I love the new blue garage doors - amazing how a lick of paint can give new lease of life to things.

Garden View from upstairs (2001)

Garden View from upstairs (2006)

Took out the old bbq on the adjoining garden, took down the mangly trees, walled it up nicely and reseeded the whole lawn. Beautiful.

Garden View from kitchen (2001)

Garden View from kitchen (2006)

Kitchen had a new paint job (we kept it yellow because it was lovely and sunny and bright) making everything look much happier and warm. I have to admit that I fell in love with the kitchen first - it's so incredibly bright with loads of windows and doors and windows on the roofs (called sunlights I think).

Hallway (2001)

Hallway (2006)

The old hallway looked quite awful - the colour scheme didn't go and the staircase bannister looked horrible. We took down old crappy bannister and replaced it with a nice natural wood one, re-did wallpaper with warm welcoming colours and recarpeted the stairs. I think there's something to be said about getting a warm welcoming feeling when you step into the door.

Living room (2001)

Living room (2006)

Old fireplace (on the bottom left of photo) was a big monster - and had been badly installed. It had been plonked right on top of the natural wood flooring without any thought whatsoever. So we took it out and put in a slate centrepiece instead. Of course, upgrading from our old tv to a 42 inch plasma that hung from the chimney breast made it look so much classier :) Jeff took this opportunity to get a new tv, but it gave the room a lot more space. Here, we re-polished the floor which brought up the beautiful shine that had been laying hidden.

We had a bit of a nostalgic evening yesterday, remembering all the things we did to the house and the things that happened in the last five years. We've had so many friends stay with us as lodgers - Ozzie Frank who basically ate everything in sight (we never wasted any food with him around), Skydiving nut Will from South Africa who dragged me to my first tandem skydive and who have since graduated to base jumping, and Waz, the Syrian despot to be, who is currently still here. Oh and we also have Jenny at the moment too.

The patio is my personal pride and joy (even though I only had a teeny weeny bit of hand in it) because it contains all the memories and warm feelings of what the house means to me. It started off as an image in Jeff's mind, and although he kept describing it to me, I could not see it until it was finished. And it was breath-taking, I am not ashamed to say I am immensely proud of it.

Jeff and Frank had to first take down the tree that was beside the garage.

The hole the tree left.

Then we had to take out concrete posts that were buried in there.

I think Jeff got tired of my 'supervising' and this was meant to be for me. Urk!

A big problem was removing the earth, as we were trying to level the whole area.

In doing so, we had to rebuild the fence next door because it was falling apart.

Jeff even bought his own cement mixer!

Which we used to lay down at least 12 inches of concrete for the foundation.

Poor Jeff worked till quite late most days.

Jeff also decided to put a door into the side of the garage
which had been previously bricked up (for what reason, we are
still not sure).

The patio is slowly taking shape, brick by brick.

...and for awhile, it looked like a bomb site.

Here are the steps from the garage side door to the patio.

Lookin good!

Here's Jeff putting in the planters (for planting flowers)

Skydiver Will helping us level the ground.

... and weird Wassim lends a hand in laying down concrete strips

Strip 4 almost down.

Concrete foundations down.

We exercised child labour - that's Alistair from next door aspiring to be a Builder/Bricker like Jeff.

Jeff and dad laying down the natural stone paving slabs..

.. and finishing off a beautiful patio.

I do my part by filling in the cracks between the slabs.

Here's the view from the garage side door into the back of the house.

The unfinished pond.

The pond now - with happy kois and comets.

And here's the completed work today.

Our beautiful patio and garden.

I am really quite sad to leave the house - with loads of really warm memories for me. Guess we'll have to make new ones in the next place.

Bonus day!

Thu, 18 May 2006 17:13:57 -0700

We were meant to finish tomorrow but through the sheer fantasticability and amazingness of both myself and Sam, we are going to finish tonight and get home. I think I am not a fan of Wales - well not what I have seen any way - all grey and rainy.

Then again I haven't given it a chance because we have only been to the office and hotel. I still have to troubleshoot some business rules but after that (hopefully) I can be on my merry way.

hi ho hi ho..

Am in 'sunny' wales at the moment...

Wed, 17 May 2006 17:00:09 -0700

... NOT...

It's been pouring since I got here. Have been very busy, getting house ready for sale and working. Was in Reigate Surrey the last two weeks, and this week ... am in Brigend. It's been cold and miserable, but I'm here with Sam, who has 5 years Magic experience.

It's really nice working with someone - it makes the work less lonely, and also I get to learn lots from her and vice versa. Anyway its back to work for me.

The tale of the laundered �20 note.

Sun, 07 May 2006 23:15:14 -0700

Once upon a time, there was this �20 note called Bill. Bill had quite an exciting life indeed, as he was used to buy expensive things like glass of champagne at a trendy London restaurant, or being pushed up the g-string of a sexy pole dancer (that's stripper to you and me), or sometimes (and he doesn't like this very much) he is used help crack pots sniff drugs.

I mean, you wouldn't like it either, if you were rolled up and had your butt stuffed in some junkie's snotty nostril so he can snort brain rotting chemical.

So anyway, Bill quite liked his life, frequently moving abode from one wallet to another, occassionally living in a naked pocket, right up close next to a swaying bootie or a floppy jacket pocket. Yes, his life was interesting.

One day, he ended up in the hands of this young Syrian named Waz, who was lodging with some friends at that time. Rent day was due, and Bill, along with a few fellow �20 notes were handed over.

"Here you go," Waz said slapping the stack of bills into Jeff's hands, who promptly stuck it in his pocket with a grunt.

What happened next was beyond Bill's wildest imagination. Here he was, crammed along with the other sweaty notes and squished in the back pocket of a pair of worn DIY jeans. He was not very pleased as he was squeezed next to a particularly smelly �20 note called Squid.

"What do you think you are going to be spent on, mate?" Squid grunted in his ear.

Bill squirmed, trying to get away from the cloud of odor surrounding Squid but trying not to make it too obvious. "I am not sure, but whatever it is, I would be glad for more spacious surroundings," he said haughtily.

Suddenly, Bill could feel his edges get damp, and then soggy, and then completely soaked as water rose around them.

"HELP! I THINK WE ARE IN THE WASHING MACHINE!"

Screams of agony could be heard throughout the bum pocket as the notes flapped and flailed in vain. Soon the spin cycle tore them from the 'security' of the pocket and flung them about hither tither.

Bill could barely keep his 'queen' bit from the ferocious scraping of flinging zips and vicious bra hooks. He swung about left and right, in harmony with the cycle and the rhythm of the machine - helpless against the strong forces tearing him apart.

Midway through the spin cycle, where the centrifugal force of the spinning drum pushed everything against the side, he felt himself being split right in the middle.

"NOOOOOOooooOooooo..." he screamed... his tinny voice lost in the sloshing and splishing of the grinding machine.

Later that afternoon..

"My oh my look what I found," said Jeff's mum as she helped to empty the washing machine. "I am rich! Look what I found, daddy!" she held out a soggy �20 bill to Jeff's dad. "Who could be so careless as to leave money in the washing machine?"

As she pulled out more clothes, more �20 bills fell out. "Jeff! Look at all the cash I found in your washing machine."

Jeff toddled over and had a look. "Pei must have chucked my jeans in the wash without checking the pockets. Hmm hang on - I am missing one �20 note." He re-counted the wet dosh. "Yep," he nodded. "One of them is missing."

How bizarre. What could have happened to it?

Later that evening, when poor Pei came home, she was the butt of endless jokes and recriminations about her penchant for tossing laundry into the wash without checking the pockets. By that time, two other washing loads were done, and the mystery of the missing �20 note was solved.

Apparently poor Bill had been torn in two, and during one of the drainings, one half had got wadded down the drain hole, and the other half ended up up one of the jean legs - which got thrown into the dryer. Another load of washing was put in and he got unwedged and went through another excruciating wash.

Both halves of Bill was recovered but he was very much worse for wear. The queen half of him was looking mighty shredded and worn, much more haggard than before. But he does smell gosh-darn cleaner than any other �20 in town.

Now, he'd probably have to be sticky-taped together and taken back to his birth place - the Bank of England, and be exchanged for a brand new crisp �20 bill. That would probably be the end of the line for him (that would be the incinerator - just like Joanna's cousin in leprechaun make-up who got beaten to death with a stuffed heron in Green Wing).

"I have had an interesting life," he thought briefly before being inserted into an envelop for his final journey to his resting place. "No other �20 bill has gone through drugs, sex, rock and roll, and finally - a hotpoint washing machine and dryer, and been torn in two. I think I've done well."

... not realizing that there are many careless Pei's in the world who always forgets to check pockets and therefore subject the oft-cocain-tainted notes to a wet and watery death. But at least Bill still thinks his life was a rich and exciting one, and that's all that matters.

The Laundered �20 Bill

Mistake or what?

Wed, 03 May 2006 10:37:03 -0700

Was in Tesco on the way home yesterday with orders to re-stock our Crunchy Nut collection as it has depleted. The price for 750g box was �1.75 and a 500g box was �1.88. What's going on? Are they making so much money that they can't be bothered to price things right?

Deliberate mistake or not?

Lost vs Prison Break... ARGH!

Tue, 02 May 2006 23:37:01 -0700

How can one choose??? Lost is back on - second season (ok I know the rest of the world is far ahead of us but the UK is still in the dark ages.

Two episodes of Lost, second overlapping with the episode of Prison break where Lincoln is about to get zapped on death row (we missed it yesterday)... but since it's not repeating anymore we got to see it.

Anyway advert's over - back to it!