My Grumblings

Okay folks…my blog has moved. I moved every post in this blog to the other blog site.

 My Grumblings

Adios from here.

Ah, after some thought, I have decided to move to another blog site where the grass would be greener on the other side with better services such as an archinve (where new readers could find my previous posts right down to my first blog post. When shall I move? I don’t know yet. Where shall I move to? I don’t know yet either. So I’ll let you readers know later on. It would NOT be an easy migration ’cause I’ll be moving the entire thing, one post at at time, to the other side and so far I have 22 posts. So I have to do it pretty quick as I update my blog quite frequently. I’ll keep this blog site up and will point to the new site but no updates. Oh well, keep you guys posted.

Here I am writing about myself via blog. Hmmm…several things came through my mind (somewhat rare occasion). Writing a blog is akin to a Dee Jay talking through the air waves. The DJ would say some stuff (usually lots of things) and sometimes, people would give feed back. Not often but they do through phone calls and what not. For blogs, you leave comments. So here I am rambling (and sometimes mumbling) about things and I get some response (this means from you William). So my next thing is what on earth do I write about? It’s like a DJ asking him/herself, what songs should I pay today. Sigh. The typical answer is "anything" eh. Problem is the writer/DJ would like to write/play something that everyone enjoys too. I mean, I find that I actually enjoy blogging (for now) and I would like to continue that. So I’ve thought about it and it seemed that people enjoy other people’s lives. In other words, my life. Mein Kemf (German). Not so much my philosophy (actually it’s part of my life) and my feelings etc. So I’ll try to go on that line (can’t promise though).

I am very afraid to talk about my work life. Simple reason because one of you (yes, you the reader) may know my boss (my emperor/overlord during the working hours of 9 to 5). And so I do not want to blog about my work and things going on in here (unless I am planning to quit). So I’m a bit reluctant to write stuff on my blog regarding work. Problem is, my hang ups are of work normally. If your boss aka bosun aka kingpin (yeah you know who I’m refering to) asks you a simple (it always sounds simple isn’t it?) question: "Can you tell me how to improve things around here?". I’m just wondering how many people actually did tell (and survived). My boss is kinda….sigh… "shudder", "shudder". This reminds me of the show "Lion King" where the scene of the hyena says "mufasa".

Anyway, too long a topic. May break into a few parts, don’t know…see how it goes. Oh well, time to do some actual work. Sigh. Time: 4:52pm, over and out.

I just came back from gaming. Gaming for us folks means a bunch of guys/girls that goes out to play some computer games. I played Command and Conquer: Generals Zero Hour. I find it very appealing and very challenging. You just never know what to expect. Anyway, I was thinking of not writing to day as today nothing much happened but I feel that I need to because I know, so happens that there are people out there reading my blog. I know because of the number of viewers kinda jumped about average 5 a day and so I do believe that some people out there are reading and so I would like to publish something. Hmmmm….

Why do people play computer games in the first place? I’m not going to give a deep and long explaination about it (even though I could but not going to). Here’s a short version.

Pros of playing computer game outside with friends and not just playing at home.

1. Male bonding (before, during and after the game session)
2. Challenging to play with others (team effort)
3. Cheaper than going to a bar to hang out.
4. Healthier than going to a bar to hang out.
5. The most you spend for a period of two hours (average time spent) is 6 bucks while the equivalent time spent in a bar/karaoke is definately more than that.
6. Next best thing if sports is not avaliable

Cons
1. Addictive (yes…can be very addictive)
2. If you are addicted then money spend would increase ten fold
3. The thrill of having more and more because games becomes bored and/or newer games becomes the ‘in’ thing.
4. If gets addicted, a blur between reality and game fantasy is form in your brain (usually this means you brain is warped)

Anyway, if any of you have any more pros and cons, let me know… if you have any questions regarding my philosophy of playing computer games, let me know…I’ll write for you. Okay now… time for me to go to bed. Good night folks.

Ha! This is probably my shortest blog yet. Nothing happened, did more computer network stuff (more frame relay senarios) and wished Florence Lim a happy birthday today. Watching CSI as I type. Not bad. Lastly, got a poem that I read from somewhere to commemorate the Valentine’s Day.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Most poetry rhyme,
This one doesn’t at all.

"Valentine’s Day falls on February 14, and is the
traditional day on which lovers in certain cultures let each other know
about their love, commonly by sending Valentine’s cards, which are
often anonymous. The history of Valentine’s day can be traced back to
an obscure Catholic Church feast day, said to be in honor of Saint
Valentine, are discussed below. The day’s associations with romantic
love arrived after the High Middle Ages, during which the concept of
romantic love was formulated."

That’s the defination I got from googling. I have to say that the day of honoring St. Valentine is long gone and replaced by honoring ourselves.  I have heard that some girls actually badger their partners to purchase expensive gifts or flowers in order to compare with other girls’ gifts to see who got the better gift. Poor guys (both monetary and otherwise).

I have to say that I am fortunate not to get stuck in that situation and I have an understanding girl. The best of all, for us at least, Valentine’s Day is not celebrated on the 14th of Feb but on another day. Esther and I celebrate Valentine’s Day on a different day. Great for us. ^_^

So what happened today? Nothing. I configured frame relay, inter-VLAN routing and such just to keep practice. Esther did her stuff. I went home and ate with my family while she has her own dinner. That’s about it. Last year? I can’t even remember. The year before that? I was in the office trying to configure a server while she was having dinner outside. What about the first Valentine’s Day? I was at home reading fiction (fantasy) while she was having dinner outside. Hmm….I’m going to think about what happened last Valentine’s Day. Oh well, it will come back to me. So for those of you out there having a blast…do let me know what you’ve done. Share with me so that I may know what other people are doing on Valentine’s Day. So that’s why today’s blog is kinda boring cause there’s nothing to write.

For those of you had a good time, then I want to say "good for you" sincerely and may Valentine’s Day be a day of rememberence and a taste of what true love is all about. ^_^

Today is not a bad day. All I did was to practice my stuff that I know in theory. It’s called Proof of Concept. All of us gone through the trials where we know that there are times when theories are different from practical. Most theories are workable and most practical lessons work around theories. So then which is important? Theory or practicality?

Theories are based on consistant hypothesis and hypothesis derived from workable ideas. So theories are based on an idea that is thought carefully and practicality is something that is definately workable. By looking at the two, there is no way to say which is better. In working world, practicailty seems to be the dominant one since the whole commercial world looks at tangible stuff. Practicality counts. How you make it to work is important. Most bosses don’t care why it works in details but I just want to know that it works. Theory, however, is specifically important in the field of academics, the foundation of thinking.

If you ask me, theory without practical is at best 50% and practical without theory is at best 50%. If you can make it work, and manage to solve the problem then it’s good. Very good. In fact you may even get a raise for it but how can you guarentee that it is not going to come back and haunt you again? Or how sure are you that your method is the best? This is where theories excel. A theory that exists should have several premise and each premise holds the conditions that allows the theories to work. Thus making sure that each condition works then the theory would hold water. So in practical, if you make every condition work properly, then I do not see why a theory would not work. In work, problems needed to be addressed with skill and knowledge. Skill is the practical and knowledge is the theory. Both needs to coexists in order to be good. You then would know why and how to make it better and better.

So looking at what I am doing, I’m just a trainer. This means that I belong to the academics field and so I have little practical. Free time in office is where I will use my theories and put it into action. So that’s what I’m doing this week. Anyway, enough talk. Time for me to go to bed now. It’s 11:58 and tomorrow’s 14th of Feb. You know what this means….Alwyn’s (my dear cousin) birthday. Till then.

And so it ends. After fifteen days of celebration and the customary exchange of mandarin oranges and giving of ang pows comes to an end. A relieve of some (those who are giving ang pows) and would also mean that the consumption of the remaining mandarin oranges would be much higher because there is no more reason to give it away. Typically a Chinese family would have about a hundred medium size oranges. Since a box of oranges comes in a minimum quatity of 56 per box, a family would have about a hundred due to the exchanges and two boxes would be the norm. Cookies would be thrown out, especially the ones that are not too good in taste or not the family’s favourite. Peanuts, pistachios and hazelnuts would be eaten as snack or thrown out altogether if it has gone soft and the classic colour of red would soon be replaced by the colours of the contemporary style.

The other major problem lies now is the bellies of many. Trouble of the belly started at the beginning of every season of celebration. Fat accumulated through various ways and the method to dispose of the accumulated fat is a never ending battle for some, hard for most and easy for the elite. As for me, I’m still snacking while I’m typing this blog. So it is easy for me but I choose not to do it. It’s so nice to munch on a cookie while doing work. Speaking of which…

Working environment is now at the first gear and moving on to second. I’ve now been placed with a responsibility to train a new fellow colleague and so I am given the task to show him the ropes. I requested actually. I’ve been on the path before and now I’m beating the path for him to follow when no one else would beat the path for the new colleague. It seemed that since everyone has gone through the road and it hard and unkind, new recruits would need to suffer the same. So now, I choose to be different. I requested to have all new recruits to be placed under my wings. I’m not good enough as I can barely hold out on my own but I’m willing to give as much as I can and hopefully these new recruits won’t drown in the pool of hardships and despair.  Aye, and so be it, I got a padawan now and though I am not as good a Jedi Master as I should be, I’ll give it a go and try to cover the green horn as much as I can. Hopefully, both of us won’t strangle each other in the process due to our limited understanding of things. Over and out.

Oh Canada, our home and native land,….

All of a sudden I think back about Canada. I missed my friends there…missed them dearly. I hope those friends in Canada (those who are reading this blog of mine) could understand my cryptic words or my life here (cultural differences and all that). Anyway, remembering what it’s like in month of February by looking back at some of my pictures and only thing that I remember well enough is (or felt most of the time) the chill of the weather. The white stuff that falls from the sky (not dandruff) that covers every inch of the city (Winnipeg) as much as possible. February’s average temperature if I’m not mistaken is minus 25 degrees Celsius.

Shopping during winter is a drag for me, yeah, you got to drag me out in the cold, waiting for the bus to come while I freeze my toes off. My roommates and I tries to buy enough food to last a month or at least three weeks so that we won’t have to go shopping every week. Brrr. Those were the days.

I missed my Saturday evenings when I was in Canada. Every Saturday was a day that all of us were looking forward to go to. Meeting new friends every weekend and eating every weekend is something that I would miss together with the sharing, touching of people’s lives, etc. Broomball. curling, ice hockey, snow football, these are just some of the activities that I’ll only keep in my memories but hopefully to do it again. Friends in Malaysia would be wondering what in the world am I saying here…almost cryptic. Sev-run (I think that’s the spelling of it), canuding, oh how I missed some of these stuff.

This blog goes out to my friends in the land of beavers, elks and moose. IVCF, ISM and Pioneer camp, God bless you all.

P/s: I’ll be back…don’t know when…but I’ll be back. Blue lakes and rocky shores, I will return once more….

Okay folks, time to turn on the heat for me. Sigh. My colleague (aka my homeboy/partner-in-crime/etc) is leaving me to my doom. He’s going for a better pie out there. Oh well. I do wish him good luck. I guess I’ll just have to eat breakfast and lunch alone from now on. The thing about this guy is his humour and I appreciate his humour and vice versa. We were always trying to find things to make fun off. Oh well…and another thing too, this would be bad in future for me because I got no one else to rely on, no one else to CMB (cover-my-butt).

In future, I’ll be doing things with another person? How I feel about this? I ain’t sure. Leave me a message if you want something more personal. Why? Because….

Being a technical trainer I have to CMB just like everyone else. I actually gathered my own group to help each other out. Initially there were three, then one guy quitted. This leaves two, now, I’m all alone to face the wrath of the management and what-nots. Our group often chipped in efforts to CMB for each other. Each of us recognized our strengths and weakness and so we deal with every problem that comes our way and try to uplift our morale whenever we get a bashing/trouble from anywhere. So now, I guess I have to do this "rambo" style. Problem is, I don’t have a big gun like "rambo" does.

My department now would left with two, myself and my senior. I had already make an agreement with him saying that I’ll do most of the not-so-tough courses and he’ll deal with the much tougher courses. Hey, don’t look at it as I’m cheating or anything like that because most of the courses that are running are the not-so-tough courses. So I’ll be doing the bulk of the business. Oh well, since I’m here in the working environment, I might as well do something useful.

A funny thing happened today too, my GM gave me an ang pow. How much? Enough for me to spend in MacDonalds. Why? I don’t know. I have several guesses but nothing concrete. Anyway, time to go home. Will post something tomorrow.