Where Was I These Few days?

You guys must be wondering where was I since my last posting right? Probably you were wondering whether I have decided to quit blogging? Or probably I had other better things to do?

Well for your information, I had just went thru' a minor operation recently and to be exact was Monday 17 September 2007. I'm now recovering slowly. The operation was just an hour but the recovering part might takes a couples of weeks or so.

Probably you were also wondering what kind of surgery? Ehmm... malu nak cakap. It's something that happen to men mostly over 40 and the probability of men getting it is about 50% ( I read it somewhere). It's something that not many people would discuss it openly. But don't get your imagination runs wild ok. But more importantly is that I'm recovering slowly but surely.

I will post later the details of my experience being operated. But for now let's keep cool dude. Just pray that I recover fast.

Visitors on Sunday Night

We seldom get visitors on Sunday Night. I guess people don't visit their friends or relatives on Sunday night especially the next day is a working holiday. On the same note, we seldom gets visitors on any other nights anyway.

Anyway, our old friend, Ezzah text me earlier and she intend to visit us on Sunday afternoon. But unfortunately, that Sunday afternoon, we were at my mom's place for a Kenduri menyambut Puasa and Tahlil too. So she decide to come after marghib which is fine with me.

If you are wondering who is Ezzah, she is the Ezzah Aziz Fawzy who is the TV3 ex-newscaster cum personality. I guess she is now the producer of Wanita Hari Ini and maybe a few more other productions. Anyway Ky was her schoolmate when they were in SIGS JB many many years ago. They were in the same hostel and school marching band together.

Anyway only Ezzah & her husband Rezal came.We were actually expecting to see all their kids too. You see their kids were almost the same age like ours except that we have 4 kids and they have 5. Their last one, Alia is now 6 years old. Rezal said itu anak accident - if you know what I mean! Hahaha.

It's good to chit chat after many years of not seeing each other. I told Rezal, to be specific, it has been 5 odd years. Because the last time I saw them was when Alia was still a baby and now she is in the kindergarten. I still remember the last time we visited them was during Hari Raya in Bangi.

I guess what triggered Ezzah to come was like this. One day when Ky was watching the Wanita Hari Ini, one of the two girls who hosted the programme were talking about cancer said something like this " Penyakit ini bukan disebabkan oleh tuhan tetapi disebabkan oleh cara hidup dan makanan kita". Well Ky being a cancer patient herself and who is now a bit more religious now, were stunned by that statement. She then immediately called Ezzah and commented on the statement given by the host. Ky told Ezzah that any sickness or any diseases is given by God. And that the host should not give out that such statement especially being a Muslim. Ezzah later told us that she had passed Ky's comment to the host of the show and that the host should be more careful in giving our any statements especially on Air.

Anyway many topics were touched. From the kids, our jobs, our well being, our old friends, etc. etc. Of course some of the things we talked were personal things that I should not reveal here hehehee.. Gossip celebrities lah tu!

By 10.30pm, they excuse themselves to leave. It was good to meet up old buddies and catch up with old time. Anyway we promised to visit them if we are somewhere in their area. Thanks Ezzah and Rezal for visiting us.

Salam Ramadan

My HP were jammed with messages from relatives and friends. Some came from those who have not kept in touch with me for a long time. How thoughtful were they sending me the messages. Of course I have replied to each and every one of them. One or two of them are those silent people who will only wished me during auspicious day only and they have not even called me a couple of years. Anyway, I always feel blessed to get whatever kind of friends who want to befriend me.

See while writing this blog, another 2 friends text me wishing me selamat menyambut ramadan. Thanks to them.

While I supposed time has changed. I remember we only wish and greeted each other when Hari Raya's coming or any Festivals or New Year. Of recent years, probably we are more exposed to the Fadilat Bulan Ramadan, we now started to greet and wish each other to observe the month of Ramadan.

In fact the Fadilat of doing good deeds during the month of Ramadan is much more compared to the normal month. People are more concern doing good deed this month. The surau and masjids are filled up with jemaah to full brim almost every night.

I once commented to my friend casually about our office surau will be packed during Puasa month. We have to queue up to get space for us to prayer. My first thought was that it's gave me difficulties. That was my perspective then. But my friend told me differently.

He said "Nasib baik surau penuh. At least more people are coming to pray. What if the surau is empty and no one come to pray?" Ah! it smacked me right in my face. He is right. What if no one come to fill up the surau even if it is Ramadan. So now I have different perspective on seeing more people coming to the surau. At least I will meet people whom I seldom see them in the surau too (bukan lah nak mengata hehehee but it's a fact). I guess at least they too want to have more pahala this month. Why not?

So to my readers, allow me to wish you Selamat Menyambut Ramadan & bersama-sama lah kita menghayati Fadilat Ramadan yang penuh Rahmat dan semoga Allah dapat menerima segala amal ibadah kita ini. Insyaallah....

Blogging time.

Somebody was asking me the other day ; where do I get the time to blog?

Well I told him that I only blog before office hour, during lunch time or after office hour. Most of the the time I arrive about 7.30am and I'm one of the earliest to arrive in the office although I stay the furthest. Sometimes I got in as early as 7.15 am. Thus I have got the time to write this blog.

During lunch time between 1.00 ~ 1.45 pm, I seldom go out for lunch. Thus these are the times that I blog too.

Our office hour is from 8.00 am till 5.30 pm. So if I were to stay back late after 5.30 pm, I do take sometimes to blog as well.

At home, if the kids and their mom is not on the computer, then I'll blog too if I'm not doing other errants.

That's time management. So that's it. If you too were wondering, where I got the time to blog : "hey, we got 24 hours per day right. Use them as you wish as long as you don't disturb other people." There was quote I read somewhere : Everybody has 24 hours a day. The difference that make a person successful or not, is the way he manages his time." So I managing it well hahahhaa....

Is Life Fair?

Aida emailed me which I think quite interesting to share with you. Probably you might have read this before somewhere. But if you haven't, do read thru' and ponder.

11 RULES FROM BILL GATES (for your children - & yourself!)

To anyone with kids of any age, or any kid for that matter, here's some advice. Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not & will not learn in school. He talks about how feel good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality & how this concept set them up for failure in the real world. Love him or hate him, he sure hit the nail on the head with this.

Rule 1
Life is not fair - get used to it.

Rule 2
The world won't care about your self esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3
You will not make $60,000 a year right out of high school You won't be a vice president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4
If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss.

Rule 5
Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping - they called it opportunity.

Rule 6
If you mess up, it's not your parents fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7
Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes & listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites your parent's generation created, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8
Your school may have done away with winners & losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades & they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This does not bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9
Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off & very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10
TV is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop & go to jobs.

Rule 11
Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

Now you might ponder ... is life fair for you??

How Full Is Your Bucket?

My ex-office colleague dropped by at my office to to bid goodbye as this is her last day at work. Marsitah or I fondly called her Mas had been in the company for about 6 1/2 years. She was just transferred to another division recently prior to her resignation. Of course the common reasons, as she mentioned for her leaving us is to seek greener pasture. Well I'm sure she has other personal reasons for leaving us.

I regard her as one of the best employee in the export division. She being a good friend, jovial gal, easy going, friendly and of course intelligent and sometimes witty. Not forgetting that she bakes great muffins.

She was packing her stuff in the office and found this book "How Full Is Your Bucket". Automatically she thought of me and gladly gave the book to me. She told since I had lent him another book earlier " The parable of the pipeline" which of similar concept, she thought I was the best person to be given this book. How thoughtful of her. I will cherish this Mas.

As for memory sake, I asked her to autograph it for me.


To my dearest pipeline friend
Warmest regards
Marsitah 10/9/2007

Well Mas, I wish you all the luck. Let's keep in touch ok. We'll miss your muffins though.

Soalan Bocor UPSR

I really hate this when I heard in the news a couple of days ago that there are "Soalan Bocor UPSR". I couldn't help but kesian my 3rd son, Adib a.k.a. Acik. What if he has to sit for this exam again. I told him to be prepared just in case if the Ministry request them to re-sit for the exam.

Because of some irresponsible individual who leak the exam questions, now many pupils will be in trouble. Imagine that your kids have put all his brains out preparing for the exams and now drained out ... suddenly he has to take it again. I'm talking about those innocent kids who don't even heard or saw the "leaked questions'.

I hope that some investigation is being done by the police and put the culprits behind bars. I know some years ago the same thing happened and the culprits were reprimanded by the police. Hope the same action will be taken upon these culprits.

As for Acik, Wednesday was his last exam day. Acik is now free as a bird. If not, both his mom and me would hammer him not to watch the TV lah, don't go out for games lah, sleep early lah.. and so on and so forth. Now he is free. He even got time to join in with other kids for a patriotic singing competition in school.

Anyway I hope he gets straight A's. Insyaallah!

Al Fatihah for Mazariwan

I received sms very early this morning around 6.40am. My first initial thought was this sms came from my logistic service provider updating me the cars they put onto the ship. Or probably my staff who can't turn up in the office because of MC. But when I checked the sender, it was from Azlee the McGyver. I was astonished when I read a message saying that one of our friend passed away.

I read the message twice just to confirm was it him or his father. But for sure that it was him. Millions of question came into my mind. Why, how or where? The why is more prominent question but still there's not much answer to it.

So when I came into the office everyone were talking about him - being such an active guy who plays takraw and volleyball and at his age of mid-thirties, I still can't believe that he is gone to meet the creator. We were informed that he died in his sleep.


Allahyarham Mazariwan

- Al Fatihah my good friend

I had known him for many years now. When I was in Corporate Planning, I dealt a lot with him, who use to work in the R&D. He would once a while come to my office to get information for us or I would summon him for R&D reports. Sometimes he would just dropped by for a chit chat when I'm free.

The last time I remember dealing with him on the unpaid invoices to the service provider - who got to pay what! But we managed to sort it out. Later I met with him again in his office while I was on my way to a meeting.

Reminiscing back, actually I hard time remembering his name. When I first know him through the phone, I mispronounced his name. From Mazariwan to Marizawan. Or I sometimes I called him Maraziwan. Such a peculiar and hard name to pronounce. A tongue twister name. It took me quite a while to pronounce his name right.

Mazariwan that I know is a kind person and always respect me as an elder. He is somebody that you would want to have fond memory of, someone who you can easily to deal with, someone who would always put up a smile when you bum into him.

Probably that is why the creator takes him. As I have heard before "Allah will take the good guys first". (Not that we are the bad guys who are still alive?)

Al Fatihah Mazariwan. May Allah place you amongst the place of the faithful good soul. Amin.

OK! Who is next!

I don't know whether I am supposed to be depressed or what. Four of my colleague had submitted their resignation letters to HRD. Our Division head had earlier put in his resignation and his last day was last month.

Now these 4 people had submitted their resignation earlier and probably be out before the Hari Raya holidays - minus their annual leaves. It's kind of Tsunami as someone have put it especially 5 people resigning in the last 2 months.

So before the fasting month begins next week, we organised a simple but meaningful farewell for these brats.


Pak Hamdan aka the Boss gave a meaningful but sinister
speech ahahaha... So who else want to resign?...



Pizza Hut Pizza to go...

These guys never want to reveal where they are going. What the heck. ... they are going out anyway. But we'll miss the fun of being together as a team.


The people who seek greener pasture ..... is it?


Azlee a.k.a. the "road less travel"..


Marcus .. eh baru 2 tahun kerja dah resign.. pehal lak


Marsitah ... we'll miss your muffins Mas..



Firdaus .. our Iran CKD specialist.. abis lah Iran Project



So who is next to resign ha! Nellie & Badrul camne!

So guys we wish you luck and best of your future endeavour. But if you know a better position there, just let us know ok guys.

X2O3 Challenge Camp in Pantai Remis

Wow what a day I've been thru'! After many years of not going through any hard training camp - so last Saturday we had one in Warisan Sembilang Training Centre in Pantai Remis- somewhere after Pekan Kapar.

Yes we had been warned to exercise a bit and take lots of Double X supplement before we go. In fact this is a challenge for people who could move Double X - one of Nutrilite best supplement.

There's lots of fun and excitement plus lots of scary obstacles we had to go thru' out the whole day.

Ayu & Tahir got a ride with me as I was driving alone there. To me, they might as well get a ride from me instead of them driving alone too. We shoot off from my place about 7.45am and arrived at the Camp about an hour later.

The out of towners were already there and some of them came as early as 3 am by bus from Singapore and Penang. After registration, there were briefings and grouping of teams. Most of my team members are my downlines.

We started by warming up first and that's fine with me. Randy was out facilitator as he has gone through all the games / obstacles before.

The whole program were divided into 3 bands and each band consist of 4~5 obstacles/games. We were given 18 minutes for each games to complete and 20 points will be deducted for each participant not completing each obstacle.


Warming up session - while we still have energy.

We started off by briefing by the chief coordinator, Fathiah. We were divided into teams and we were group in Team C, which we later named it as "Team Cheetah" - the strong animal on the prowl. Later there was a warming up session headed by Zainal & Bridgette from Singapore.

The First Band - River Crossing, Vietnam Bridge & Blind fold

The first obstacle was cross the river. We were given safety jacket each - just in case we submerge in the water. Of course we have to put our strategy in place so that everybody can completed each mission within the 18 minutes.


River Crossing - it was a jiffy if you know how to do it.

The Vietnam Bridge crossing looks easy until you get onto rope. Got to balance yourself or else you'll be down in the river. Another strategy have to be put in place.


The balancing act on the Vietnam Bridge.
Silap hari bulan jambatan senget tau.

Another one was the Blind folded game. Each of us were blind folded with only the team leader giving the instruction. Thus you have to reach out to the person in front of you and not letting him go or else ....


The Blind folded crawl. So we have to hold the next person's leg.
Susah sikit sebab tak nampak apa-apa pun.

After we completed the first band, we were thrilled. We still have some energy left. But gosh there are two more bands to go. We break for shower first since the we have completed the first band but the team ahead of us had not completed theirs.


Yeah! We can do it man!
Tapi masa buat tu mengelabah jugak!

The Second Band - Repelling, Abseiling, Flying Fox, Climbing & Commando Crawl and Spider Web.

I think the most challenging part is the climbing the Container and the Commando Crawl.As our team consist of women and men, in different sizes and weight, the challenge is who is going to push who to the top. To be on the safe side, I already warned the ladies that we have to push their butts up and got to pull them on top of the container so that it's easier for them. Well who cares whose butts you got to push when you want to completed the obstacle in time right!


The climbing up is not so bad.. but the
coming down.. aduih susah nyer!

The Commando Crawl. Yang ni senang sikit.

This Spider Web obstacle is a bit unique to me. We were given a number of holes to get thru'. Some big holes but most of them are small. Thus we have to strategies who to go thru' first and also which holes they should go thru'. Tapi ada lak yang nak memilih lubang mana nak pergi. Of course me being the most senior guy would shout: " Woi cepat lah. Jangan nak memilih lak." So cepat lah sikit cause I want them to decide fast.


Stratergising what to do and who to go first in
the Spider Web obstacle.

The Flying Fox was a jiffy but the challenge is to climb the three story tower. After the many obstacles we have done...aduih.. now our muscles are aching already.


The Flying Fox - best nyer!

The Abseiling and Repelling was ok with me. The instructor taught us the method of lowering ourself down. So no big deal for me .. cewah!

The Abseiling - it's a jiffy if you get used to it....cewah!

The Third Band - Telematches : Gunny sack run, Brick Walk, Seek Candy in Flour, Four Legged Run, Ball Throwing & Paperdoll

This is the fun part too. The telematches were more hilarious than the obstacle races. The funniest part was the Paperdoll. Faisal who were forced volunteer to be the macho man for the team, little that he know that he'll be the victim as the paperdoll.


The four-legged run. You have to tie your legs
to each other and one string than runs thru' your
T-shirts. What a fun?


The Paper Doll games - Faisal became Fathiah !!!!
Oops your boob falls!



Miss Universe drag pagents. So who you would
you choose?

The telematches were the last band. We were then grouped again for the last briefing of the day. After all the deliberations and fire fighters (Bomba) were ready to shoot water on us.

After a long hot day and now getting drained out of energy, a cool shower from the fire fighter was a relief.


The Bomba cooling us down after all the games.



We were all wet but it's nice to be cool after a long hot sessions.

The program was almost complete by 6.00pm. We were drenched wet and it's time for a proper shower and Asar prayers. The barbecue and camp fire starts at 7.00pm.

At the camp fire prizes were given to the winners for each band and the overall winners. Well our team didn't win any but I was glad that I join this camp. What more important is what we have learn from the things we did : the team work, leadership skill, overcoming your fears, and have fun along the way.

We left Pantai Remis about 9.00pm and reach home by 10.00pm. By then I was damn tired and my muscles are already aching. Ouch sakit lah badan!

It's UPSR Day for Acik!

Today is the Ujian Pernilaian Sekolah Rendah day! My 3rd son Adib a.ka. Acik is taking his UPSR starting today. After many moons of tuitions and consistent reminders by his Mak & me, now it's his turn to show how well can he perform in his UPSR.

You know lah, Adib is the most mischievous boy amongst my three sons. Being the youngest boy, he is the also the most playful and make fun of anything. He is closest to my darling youngest daugther, Mimi. Selalu gaduh-gaduh. Lepas tu main main and baik semula. Then you will hear them laughing like anything.

Amongst my boys, he is also the most active in sport. He was selected to be the Pengawas when he was in Standard 6. But being too active in sport has it's own disadvantages. At one time, immediately after coming back from the inter-district volleyball tournament he sat for an exam. Of course the worst had happen. Absent for many classes in the two weeks, he got last in class. The teacher punished him by re-assigned him from 6A to 6C. Both his Mak & I got furious and gave him lots and lots of bombardments.

Luckily after all the bombardment almost every other day, so in the next trial exam his result was better off and he got some A's and thus he was returned to his 6A. Lucky you Acik.

After all the words of encouragement from both of us, it's time for him to perform his part. His Uncle Ad had already promise to give him RM100 for every A he gets. His Anjang will give RM20 for every A. But his mom said, he will get the money if gets A's only and if he didn't the A's the money will be deducted.

Anyway .. Good luck my little Hero!