My garden is turning into an aviary!!

The poor birdie from Easter day did not survive. It passed away the next day. The heat and hunger may have been a critical factor in it's demise.

However, another bird decided to setup nest right smack in the middle of my garden.

The household have been told to pretend that they do not notice the nest and not to walk within 5 feet of the nest.

Easter weekend 2010

"For God so love the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but shall have everlasting life" John 3:16

And on this Easter weekend, as Christiandom celebrates the resurrection of Christ, I spend some time in reflection. Reflection of some of the people that I have interacted with, came into contact with and lost some of them along the way.

It started with a blast from the past when one of the engineers who used to work with me during the HP days found me in one of those business groupings online. It must have been at least 20 years ago since he left us and we lost contact - and I am amazed that he still remembered me enough to be able to add me to his list. And I am always surprised myself that I can remember some of these people after so many years. I recognized and knew who was SL Lai the moment I saw his email.

And then in the evening of Good Friday, I get a call from my aunt who is based in Singapore. One of my cousins had passed away from meningitis. The poor bloke was only 48 years old. I attended his funeral today, Saturday, and managed to meet up with many of my other cousins with whom I come into contact with once every few years. Who is that young girl? Whose husband/wife is that? Whose children are these? What are you doing now? Funerals can be great socializing events. Just wish that we don't meet under such conditions so often.

And when I got home, mum showed me a little bird she found in the garden. Poor thing cannot fly and must have dropped out of a nest. My garden has many plants with bird nests hidden inside. i thought maybe this was it's nest and placed it back there. 30 mins later, it was gone!! We thought maybe some predator took it. There are also a lot of crows prowling around the area.

But a couple of hours later, I found this poor thing chirping in another part of the garden. We are now nesting it in a shoe box. Hope it is able to develop to the point where it can fly on it's own.

Really Shanghaied this time

A short trip to Shanghai to deliver yet another training to our engineers. Nothing much out of the ordinary. Got a chance to meet up with a whole bunch of people whom I have not seen for many years (mostly from USA). Like Chas and Steve Beer. Sad to hear that John Stanfield had just passed away.

Training was smooth and completed on time.

As usual - have meals with a few close colleagues. The restaurant we went to was next to Xintiandi (new heaven and earth). Food was okay. This is a tourist trap and prices can be exhorbitant!! The prices above are in renminbi.

Coming back to KL was a bummer for the day!!

First - the taxi had a puncture about 7km from the airport. The driver wanted to limp his taxi to the airport (very near only he says) until we could smell smoke from the tyre as it just burnt from running without air.I am pretty sure his rim is a goner. His spare was not maintained and could not be used. So he called his friend from the airport to come around to send me to the airport.

Then when we arrived in KLIA, I waited for 45 minutes and then confirmed with the luggage attendant that no more bags were coming out. Yup!! My bag had gone missing!! Damn it!! Went to the lost and found to make a report. A few calls on the walkie talkie and they tell me my bag was found - happily going round and round in an adjoining carousel.

Haiz!

Getting busier now

Wow! It's been 3 weeks since I made any posting!!

Was making preparations to deliver an engineer training in Shanghai for the week of 15th March. Then out of the blue, the Singapore training center was desperate for help for the week of 8th March to deliver 2 customer operational trainings. Apparently, the trainer from India was not able to make it due to passport and visa problems. C'mon, it's a Friday and you want me to deliver a training on Monday? Blimey!! Well, I relented and ended up in Singapore in the week where they had a furniture fair and an IT fair in the same week

What that did was to send hotel room rates soaring. But even at higher prices, all my favourite hotels were fully booked. So I had to make do with the one in Chinatown which normally charged us S$160, but was charging S$260 for the duration of my stay. Luckily this is all on company expense and not my own.

The long and short of it was that I delivered 3 days of chemstation training to 6 Singapore customers. 3 more who were supposed to turn up did not - 2 from Pakistan and one more local who had conjunctivitis.

And then there was 2 more days of LC maintenance and troubleshooting class. This time with 9 customers - 6 from India and 3 locals.

This trip, made the acquaintance of 2 new colleagues in the call center. Sad to say, I lost one in the region. He said that his love affair with the company ended that Friday afternoon. I hope he gets around to differentiating between work and personal relationship. Don't blame him though, I had gone through the same turmoil more than 15 years ago.

I went back home on Friday evening and then was Shanghaied on Sunday.

Sigh!

Regular visitors are BACK!!

For the past few years, bees have been making hives all over my garden.

This Chinese New Year, they are back with a hive in the front part of the garden - hanging their hive on a bougainvillea branch. And some of them make regular visits to the pail of water in front for a sip. The hot weather must be dehydrating them.

Interesting.