Another week of losses - weekending 31st July

There must be something about what we eat, the air we breath, the water we drink - that is causing higher incidences of cancers in the urban population. There must be something about the way we work, the expectations from the employers and the nature of work itself that causes many to be stressed to the max.

Early in the week, an arguably talented and brilliant film director (by Malaysian standards), Yasmin Ahmad passed away due to a stroke. She had undergone emergency surgery on her brain but still succumbed to the condition. She was only 51. Many of her works transcended racial boundaries which Malaysian seems overly obsessed with.

Then another friend Noeline C passed away after battling with cancer for 2 years. She was only 49. For Noeline's family and relatives, this was the second death in as many months due to cancer. The first was her cousin Siew Lin.

For both Yasmin and Noeline, may you rest in peace.

At work, the IT department finally instituted a no access policy for access to games (notably games on facebook). So for many lunch time FB games enthusiast, there is nothing to occupy them except .... lunch. What else?? Somebody should tell those powers that be that a little access to games especially during lunch hours or after office hours can be stress relieving!.

And today, my sister in London tells be that she just had a biopsy done on some growths on her neck, shoulder and arm. Hoping for the best that they are just benign growths. Her physician advises her to keep herself covered from the sun at all times, even in winter. She will need to put sun block on the exposed areas.

Bummer!

An old friend takes a new direction

A couple of weeks ago, Lai Ping SMSed me with an interesting message - We sincerely invite you to a food tasting session at our to be open cafe on Sunday 26 Jul 09. Place RuChi Kitchen,
97, Jalan SS15/5A,
Subang Jaya.
Time 12noon to 2pm RSVP :) c u there.

A few questions popped into mind - who is we?? Is Lai Ping a co-owner or just the dish washer? What kind of food is served? Does the invitation include my family, etc.etc. So I replied back via SMS - yes - confirmed - 3 from my family including myself would be coming.

On the day, Elaine C also joined me in my car as she was also invited. We tried to avoid arriving on time (don't want to look like we were a bunch of hungry ghosts!!). Even then, everyone else managed to arrive fashionably late (like around 1pm). "Food tasting" was a buffet styled lunch.

Initially we were not too sure what kind of food RuCHi would be served. I went online and found that there was already a Ruchi Kitchen serving Indian food. But that was not the site that Lai Ping and Minz Leong had. To help us pass the time, Lai Ping served us a concoction of Taiwanese bubble tea. Essentially it was flavored drink with gooey pea sized colored balls in them. We tried Peach, Sour Plum, Grape and something else I couldn't figure out.

Lai Ping has definitely been in HP/Agilent too long. Admittedly, I had attended very few food tasting sessions, but this was the first one where
a) we had to indicate which were the top 5 dishes we had "tasted". To do this, we just dropped a red star into the cup next to the name of the dish.
b) provide feedback on an A4 size paper. Elaine C dutifully filled up her feedback form and I declared that it would be representative of the feedback from our table :).

The day was also a good opportunity for some ex-staff get together. Many I had not met up with for quite a while. Khun Nong (the late Soo Aun's wife) also came along with her kids. Poon brought them there.

RuChi will start operations on Tuesday 28th July. They will open from 7am onwards, serving nasi lemak and English Breakfast.

Good Luck Minz Leong and Lai Ping. As Minz says - it would be a long journey. But every journey needs to start with a step.

The week before 20th July

1) Flew to Singapore with a last minute arrangement. Joined the class as an observer (since I am not registered for the class). Class was more like a discussion forum. Very useful to air out issues and problems faced. A lot of sharing of information. And of course there is always the food. This time, the dinner was with the Singapore Support team. I guess I was invited since both trainers and I are from the same team.

2) On the local political front, a political secretary was found dead after "interrogation" by the anti corruption commission. Most people believe he was murdered. I learnt a new word - fenestration. One definition is to throw someone out of a window!!

3) Overseas - 2 bombs went off in Jakarta, targeting the Ritz Carlton and JW Marriot. A colleague was in Jakarta at the same time. After checking to make sure he was okay, just left it at that. So - to the extremists who got nothing better to do than to blow themselves up, why don't you organize a blow yourself up party somewhere remote - like an uninhabited island and go make everyone happy.

4) And on Friday, as part of the management committee, I was asked to attend a meeting with the property management team for the office which we are leasing. Someone tried to sabotage the office by leaving a smouldering cigarette wrapped by toilet paper and created a potential fire hazard in the gents the previous week. The property management team managed to view the security footage and concluded that it was not people from our office. So the "meeting" turned into a beer party from 6pm to 9pm. We met at Carerra at Uptown 5.

Again - burppppp!

Most unexpected turn

Friday - found out that 2 team members in Singapore. Really need to discuss with them on a new release of a tool that seems to get the Japanese all riled up. A difference of 1.6 vs 1.7!! "Hey think you could be down here in Singapore?" one asked.

Let me check with the boss first - travel restrictions are on now for cost savings reasons. Didn't expect any approvals to come through as this was already Friday afternoon.

Saturday - checked my gmail- what do you know - approval way from the top given for me to be in Singapore till Wednesday.

Sunday - flying off to Singapore on the 3.40pm flight.

Holy Speed, Focus and Accountability!!!

Mr and Mrs Kong - the updates

Finally!!! The official photos have been released for public consumption. The whole lot took up 4.3GBytes. I managed to compress the whole lot down to 250MB. I'll just post up the photos here that have Agilent people in them, so they can see themselves in all their finery of that day. As Godfather, close friend and colleague, I get to be in many of the group photos. Like the saying goes - a picture paints a thousand words.