Fatherhood, the First Year.

On the 10th of September, my son Amir Haris turned one year old.

It also means that I have completed a whole year of fatherhood.

Hari Jumaat

First and foremost, takziah to the family of Allahyarham Ust Asri Rabbani. He will surely be missed.

The air con in the office is functioning really well, thanks to some minor service done by the repair guy. We did som minor furniture rearrangment too, in anticipation of adding some new staff by the fourth quarter and the office is looking good too. What would make it better is some potted plants perhaps ?

Thursday 13th Aug 09

Finally, someone came to have a look at the aircon. The split unit at my corner is working fine, just pity the rest of the staff who had to sweat it out.

I told Scha to take the rest of the week of. Its better her to be fully rested and come back to work next week.

Wednesday the 12th

1106 hrs

Wong told me to get another contractor to fix my office aircon. He is booked solid until next week.

I wanted to visit the FHM09 exhibition today but decided to do so tommorow as it will be more in line with my travel plans. Need to "jimat" petrol, heheh :)

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1610 hrs

It's raining outside. Call me sentimental but when it rains, it reminds me of Madison during the fall.. Of all the seasons, fall will always remain my favourite.

I just got off the phone with Yong. Gosh, I will be in trouble tomorrow. Yong's staff can't complete the product by today and I can't deliver to Pulau Indah tomorrow. Apparently Yong's staff goes AWOL in him and yours truly becomes a victim. Yong agrees to write in to explain the delay and I will forward the letter to the client to explain why they can't get their things tomorrow.

Air Con down...

Nope, I am not involved in any airline or starting one to con anyone...

.. its just that the airconditioning is not working. To make matters worse, our regular service provider will only be able to fix it on wednesday (itu pun kalau dia free). Luckily the split unit at my place still functions so it is still bearable.

.. Scha, the admin clerk was hospitalized yesterday due to miscarriage. All of us at the office are truly sorry for your loss. She was discharged later in the evening and is on MC for three days. Have enough rest Scha, all is under control here.

.. gosh, Wong, if you can't confirm when you can come to fix our aircon, have to get someone else to do it...

"Perjuangan Siapa?"

Both organisers have been going on and on in the media about the impending demonstration. One for and one against. Both heading for the same destination.

In the end, one went ahead while another decided to heed the police's warning and instead sent a representative to hand over the memorandum.

I wasn't there, though I was caught in the crawl on Jalan SyedPutra en route to the MCOBA AGM. What I saw were only the newsfeed on Al Jazeera, Awani, Bernama and TV3. A few things came to mind.

1. Except for a handful of people, why are the protestors made up of Malays? What ever happened to the all the other political parties/NGOs who have been championing for the abolishment of the ISA ? Mana dia ? Mana orang-orang kuat parti "itu" ? The malays, really selfless and accomodating, ya ?

2. Has any of the organizers of the demonstration apologize to the petty traders who suffered losses for not being able to trade due to damages caused? Ok, one may argue that some of the goods were damaged due to the water sprayed by the FRU but it was you who started the demonstration in the first place.

Yes, I may tend to disagree on some aspect of the ISA and how it is being implemented but crippling the state capital in the name of abolishing the act is way too much. The government on the other hand should hasten the review and get these people who oppose the ISA so much to be in the working group.

Another By Election

From The Star Online today

Permatang Pasir assemblyman dies

GEORGE TOWN: Penang state assemblyman for Permatang Pasir Mohd Hamdan Abdul Rahman died at the National Heart Centre in Kuala Lumpur Friday morning. He died at 6.10am.

Mohd Hamdan, a two term state assemblyman and former Penang Pas commissioner, was 60.

He leaves behind a wife and six children.

A Penang government spokesman said Mohd Hamdan's body is expected to arrive in his constituency Friday afternoon and buried there.

In the general election in 2008, Mohd Hamdan beat Umno candidate Ahmad Sahar Shuib with a majority 5,433 majority to win the seat.

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Another by election is coming up, at another PR's stronghold.Will BN contest this time or chose not to like it did during last by election?

I remember Allayarham Hamdan as the person who defeated Dato' Ahmad Saad, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim's Deputy at the UMNO Permatang Pauh.

VIVA SELANGOR!

Hail Selangor, the Super League Champion!!!

A Little Rambling Here and There

A lot of things seemed to have taken place these last two weeks or so:

1. MU -the By Election, not the football club (though more of that later in this post). So, as expected BN lost again to PAS. But what was not expected was the slim margin by which PAS retained the seat. In one of the online news portal, PAS was very confident of garnering a majority of at least 2,000 votes and with voters turnout of more than 85%, it was a possible. However, it never happened and PAS (and PR too) start to throw this accusation of money being handed out by the BN etc.

Oh, come on lah...

2. MU, the football team. No, I am not a supporter of MU and I don't really give a rat's ass on the EPL. Yeah, I have some affinity for Liverpool when I was younger but I am more into the local league.. true blue Selangor Fan.

It's always great to have your team in town, but please, you are Malaysian first and MU fan second.

I need not elaborate, the Malaysian coach K. Rajagobal has said it all about how the stadium was silent when Amri Yayhah (yeay, Selangor player!) scored the equalizer.

3. The Fall from 14th floor. Please la stop politicizing this issue and let the police do their job.

Logistics Update

Excerpts from Starbiz, The Star Jul 7, '09

"Trans-Asia Shipping Corp Bhd (TASCO) plans to buy a property for RM41.8mil from JVC Manufacturing Malaysia Sdn Bhd in Shah Alam for use as a logistics centre"

Is this the JVC plant near the famous JVC roundabout in Shah Alam ? Another factory closing shop?

On the other hand, that piece of property is perfect for TASCO's logistics hub.

My own logistics hub ? Hmmm... visit this blog again in 5 years and we'll see :)

My First REAL Home Made Pizza

I finally made my own pizza from scratch.

I am just crazy over pizza. My whole family can attest to it.

The ready made pizza base and using ready-made pasta sauce just won't cut it for me, so I decided to surf the net and search for recipe for making pizza dough and pizza sauce.

Just to cut it short, I tried both recipe and it worked out beautifully!

Here's for more home made pizza to come!

Wind Orchestra SBP

Limiting the A's

Sometime last week, someone wrote to the NST and said that there shouldn't be a limit to the subjects that a student can take for the SPM as this "would hinder the students capabilities esp for those who are academically gifted"

Huh ?

If you really want to develop these kids and challenge their mind, it is certainly not by taking irrelevant subjects and scoring A's. Rather than someone who is good in science taking some meaningless subject, why not introduce something like, say Advance Physics or "Additional" Additional Mathematics.

Wouldn't the A's they score in this subject righfully put them in a better position when it comes to scholarship pursuit ?

Golf

I certainly do not qualify as a weekend golfer, as I don't really golf on weekends.

I normally take a day off and play a round of golf whenever Lone is back from Singapore.

Hmmm, considering my game with Lone and Don yesterday at KGPA, I think it will be good for me to talk to Irwan and ask him to help with my swing. I can certainly do better.

Wouldn't want Haris to beat up my a** when he starts picking up golf kan ?

1 Malaysia

The concept of 1 Malaysia should be understood in a bigger context. Its about all Malaysians working towards one goal and uniting under one common bond; of that being a Malayian.

If you want to talk about political equality, why don't we talk about economic equality too? If you want to talk about power sharing, why don't we talk about economic sharing too?

The Dawn Of A New Era ?

At 10.11am today, the 6th Prime Minister of Malaysia, YAB Dato' Seri Mohd Najib Tun Abd Razak officially took the oath of office before SBP YDP Agong, Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin at the Istana Negara.

Congratulations to YAB Dato' Seri. You have made it to the pinnacle of your political career. But YAB Dato' Seri, on your shoulders now are the hopes of 27 million Malaysian (oppositions included, no puns intended). You took office at a very challenging time for the whole country.

Please look for a way to gain across political belief the support needed to ensure the country survive through this trying times.

The Next Step

Yesterday was the beginning of the UMNO General Assembly, the first since the disastrous performance of the 12th GE. I am basically apolitical but it this GA is something to my interest as the outcome of the various party post will determine the direction of the government, at least until the next GE.

Its that time of the year again

First and foremost, congratulations to the 6000 odd plus students who managed to get straight As in their SPM examination. Every year, we see an increasing number of students obtaining straight As.

Lets hope there are enough scholarship to go around, else we will be reading about the same grouses in the paper ... again

Let's All Work Together

No matter how much stimulus package is made available, it will not amount to anything if the execution is flawed and the benefit does not flow to the every day man on the street.

Not a criticism per se, just a friendly reminder to improve

I had quite a full day yesterday, running all over Shah Alam for banking (personal and company) and some initial market intelligence gathering (when times are like this, we just have to resort to creative ways to push our products, right?). Lunch was definitely something I was looking forward to, and I decided to try the Sate Ria outlet at the Risda building, a block away from Concorde Shah Alam.

I am sure some of you may recall SateRia from the early eighties. My memories of it is that of my parents taking me there after shopping at Jalan TAR and they served this two-stick gigantic satay which taste quite good too. It was suppose to be an effort to commercialize satay (these are the pre-Samuri days, but another great satay place at the time was at Sg Wang Plaza - Satay Anika) but unfortunately, the venture fizzled out and SateRia is no more.

The Sate Ria in Shah Alam is apparently the first outlet for the new Sate Ria franchaise. The last I check I did on the Malaysian Franchaise Association forum indicates that they are awating approval from the Registrar of Frainchaise (didnt know we have such body) and I assume the Shah Alam outlet is their Master Franchaiser's outlet. The logo is still the same and it is with that that I made my way enthusiastically to the outlet. Would they still have the gigantic two-stick satay.

Turns out that they don't. Before I elaborate further, let me run you through this simple timeline.

1300 hrs Enter Sate Ria
13o5 hrs A menu was handed to me and my order taken
1308 hrs A glass of "air suam" was served (a std fare)
1315 hrs My Ice Lemon tea was delivered
1335 hrs My plate of condiments (Nasi Himpit+bawang+timun) delivered. No explaination on
why my satay has not arrived
1352 hrs Manager apologized for the delay
1353 hrs My plate of satay (all ten sticks of it) delivered

It took them 50 minutes to have 10 sticks of satay delivered. Lets analyze the crowd. When I entered, there are two tables occupied. One table was occupied by two gentlemen who were wating for their food (since thay have their air bandung on the table) and the other table, a big group of ten people who were probably celebrating something. When I entered, the server was taking order from them. At that time too, the staff in the premises were as follows: 1 server, 1 cook, 1 kicthen helper and 1 cleaner. I do believe the lunch time rush starts at 12.30pm onwards right?

Besides their main menu of satay, they also serve items such as Laksa and various gravied noodle (I guess in line with their franchaise theme, cooking on site is kept to minimal). It shouldn't take long to serve e.g. laksa right ? I am sure you already have the gravy being heated all the time and all you need to do is to put together the rest of the ingredients in the bowl ? The large group of ten orderd both the satay and some noodles. I am sure even if all ten orders various types of noodle, it can all be delivered, latest by 1320 hrs ? It was not to be as even when my satay was served, bowls of noodles are still being delivered to the group. One reason given for the delay in my satay is the group of ten orders a big number of satay (by now, even the customer who came in after me were a bit annoyed). Assuming each of them ordered 10 sticks, thats only 100 sticks and being a SATAY restaurant, I am sure it can be easily fulfilled. By 1340 hrs, additional staff appeared but why would you have additional staff at the tail-end of your rush hour?

The satay is GOOD and that is something they should be proud of. Pure chicken meat, not "additives" etc (read:lemak and kulit).

I guess, I would really like to see them improve on the service. I would definitely come back for the satay but they really, really need to do something operationally.