Another Sleepless Night

I thought that I'd sleep like a baby since I didn't sleep a wink at all on Sunday night but I was wrong. My mind was active again. I think I got about 2 hours of sleep. I am still very, very excited about my upcoming new job. I just finished and sent my assignment over.

Another view of Phase 1.

Sleepless Night

I had a sleepless night last night and I am so, so sleepy today. This excited botak's mind was on overdrive last night. I was thinking of the candidates for my core team, finance, policies, benefits, salary structure, etc. I am really, really excited about this. Need to find the time to do my assignment today. Here's an artist impression of what I'm all excited about.

This is Phase 1.

My Interview

I met my friend Pam today.... the one who is going to be my new boss. It was an interview cum chit-chat session. We have not met in quite awhile. She looked pretty much the same. She was a hot hoochymama 15 years ago... really hot. Now... hmmm... not so hot lah.... but bolehlah. Hahaha...

Anyway we met in Bangsar Village 2's Coffee Bean. She wanted to know if I was serious in accepting her offer. She proceeded to tell me more of the project. It sounded very good. I am interested... very interested.

1. The 40% and the increment when phase 2 opens still stands.

2. Accommodation thrown in. My beloved mom gets to come visit for free. This is a benefit she insisted on. I guess she wanted to emphasise on this coz she just lost her mom last year.

3. She's buying a Murano and I can drive that Murano when she is not there as she is based in KL. Wow! Finally, a company car... sort of....

4. After this resort there will be two other resorts and if I do my job well here then I will head the project for the next two with profit sharing options. That sealed the deal actually.

5. I report to her and no one else and during the conversation we established that she and I both have the same goals. That's important.

6. I am fully in-charge. I am to treat it like my own business. I get to pick my all my managers. She only needs to interview the Financial Controller and choose the Financial Controller. Ok... I have no problems with that.

Finally... a chance to build something of my own... mould it the way I see it should be moulded into and not DICKtated by some idiots... and if things go well I might be there for at least 5 years as all the projects are in Langkawi. And if that's the case then... I may finally get to buy my dream car... duty free... hence affordable to a poor man like me.

I am so inspired now. Pam asked me if I wanted an appointment letter now. I laughed at her and said... What the fuck for? Even with the letter, you can still sack me on the spot and I can also NOT turn up for work right? She laughed and agreed... she said that most people would want to have something in writing to 'feel' more secure. I trust her I said... I'll need the letter much later. Not now.

And I already got my first assignment. Proposed manning for Phase 1 and Phase 2.

Damn... the last time I was so excited was when I lost my virginity! By the look of it... I think I should be at my new job by my next birthday.

The Appointment

My potential employer wants to see me. Looks like after over 10 years of complacency, I am taking that bold move after all. The appointment is set for 12:30 pm tomorrow.

Snakes...

I dreamt of snakes last night. I was fighting snakes off then it ended up in a frenzy and I had no choice but to start  killing them I think I had killed 3 when suddenly one lunges towards me... mouth wide open... fangs staring at me... and suddenly I woke. Fuck... it was scary shit... wonder what it signifies.

2012 and IDIOTS

I watched 2012 last night. I bought the tickets online early this week. This time round I decided to try Pavilion instead of my norm at Berjaya Times Square. I have not watched a movie in Pavilion in almost 2 years. Anyway, got there and the way to the cinema was not familiar. Only when I was queuing to pick my tickets up did things start to fall in place. There were a lot of people there. It was 9:30 pm and I was watching the 9:45 pm movie. 2012 was sold out right to the 1:00 am slot.

When I got in the cinema and sat down, I then remembered how comfortable the seats were compared to the others. They had more advertisements then most other places. Probably due to the profile of people who frequent Pavilion. The movie had not even started and I had already spotted an IDIOT. I'm quite good at spotting IDIOTS now. He was seated right in front of me. A foreigner. Probably Korean or Japanese, not sure. I was seated at row A... like I normally am as I always plan and I always buy online and days in advance. He had some friends at the front right corner of the hall. He went there for awhile and just as the movie was about to start he came back to his seat and get this... he was talking out loud to his friends at the front row. I was already annoyed at him but since the movie was only beginning I kept quiet.

Then... just a few minutes later a group of people enter the cinema... and they appear to be friends of his too. Then he starts talking to them again, aloud and it seems like he is telling them where their seats are. Some were at the front while a few were on my row at the far right... about 5 seats away from me. Others were annoyed as well and there were some remarks made by others and they quickly hushed down.

Alas, it was not the end of it. This IDIOT actually had conversations with his friend who was seated 5 seats away from me. And he did this about 5 times throughout the entire movie. They were not long conversations but definitely annoying. I was like, WTF!!! Really... I swear I would have told them off and probably even ended up smacking the IDIOT if he had any retorts of any kind but I was not allowed to by my partner. She knew I was already boiling so she kept me at bay.

What is it with these IDIOTS? No bloody respect for people whatsoever... tiu!

2012 is just so-so... kinda 'dry'. I really liked the seats of the cinema. It was a bit warm for me but maybe it was my anger. I hate the car park... from the cinema to the car park.... absolutely horrible. Maybe I haven't figured out a proper system yet like I did in BTS. In BTS I knew where to park and it was convenient.  I'll give this place a few more tries...

And again... incidents like this make me absolutely love my DVD and Blu-Ray...

Cash Cow and Problem Child.

Thinking back... I have been blessed in my career. Thank you God. I have been fortunate enough to be able to work well with most people I have known in my career. I say most as there are always exceptions. And in my many years of work I have been leading for over 15 years. And in that 15 years there were a handful of people who are an absolute pain where the sun don't shine.

Today someone Skyped me... he was feeling demotivated... all over a terminology. J was really down. J works in Kuantan.

Yesterday, or was it the day before... someone else Skyped me confessing her boo-boo of not checking a document properly before sending it out to a group of people and that document had performance scores of that group. L works in Kuantan too... L felt bad as she had not checked the document properly. She didn't create the document, someone else did. The company had got someone to propose a system of grading its employees to determine their worth and growth capacity with the company in the coming years. A succession plan as it is generally called. This guy chooses the word 'Cash Cow' for a consistent and performing employee with great potential while the employee who had great potential but inconsistent was termed a 'Problem Child'. J was classified as a Problem Child... which he is. He can perform... just choosy with whom he performs for.

So, he told me how he felt about it and I eventually gave him my honest 2 sen... and by the end of it, he accepted what I had told him.... which was essentially the truth and that he was indeed a Problem Child so to speak as he was inconsistent. I reminded him that he has an obligation and responsibility to his team and he cannot just think of himself and he has to disengage his feelings as he always allows his emotions to get the better of him at work. And I also told him, personally... I'd rather someone call me a Child then a Cow... don't you think so? So what is you're a CASH Cow... you're still a COW. I may be a Problem CHILD but at least I am a CHILD and children make mistakes and are always learning. A cow? Moo...

So, like I said in the beginning... all over a terminology. J says he likes talking to me as I do not take sides as opposed to his peers over there. Well, yes... I don't take sides but I am very blunt in my counsel too. So, if you can't stomach the truth then don't ask.

Driver's License

I was watching TV last night when suddenly I remembered that my license would expire this month... when in this month I could not remember but I knew it was this month. Don't ask me how but it just popped into my head. IT happens with loads of other stuff as well. It just pops into my head out of nowhere. I rummage through my wallet and saw that it would expire on the 29th.

I looked up the options to renew online and there was an online option and my renewal slip would be sent to me within 5 days or I could have the data uploaded into my MyKad or I could pick the slip up from their e-services centers. There were 1, 2, 3 and 5 year renewal options. Obviously no photo required as this is done online. Check it out HERE.

Then I looked for a JPJ branch nearby and found one at Maju Junction. I quickly hopped into the car and drove there. When I got there it was quite early and just before 9:00 am. The place was almost empty. Took my number and waited to be called. My number got called in about 30 seconds despite there being no one. Good eh? Anyway... I sit down and say that I'd like to renew my license.

How many years? 1, 2, 3 or 5 years?

5 years please.

Do you have a photo with you?

No I don't.

Then you can only renew 3 years. You need a photo for 5 years.

Ummmm... why?

For 3 years we give you a renewal slip, for 5 years we give you a new license.

Can I use my old photo from my old license?

No.

Can I choose 5 years and have you transfer the data directly to my MyKad?

No.

If I have a photo and choose 5 years can you then transfer the data to my MyKad?

Yes we can.

After I do that transfer of data to my MyKad can I just carry my MyKad and not my driver's license?

Yes you can.

So why do I need the photo then? And why can't it be transferred straight to my MyKad?

(Silence, he was lost for a second) Because this is the procedure.

Ok... where can I take an instant photo?

There is a shop out there (he points outside).
Do I have to take another number after I get my photo?
If I am here, you can come directly to my counter.

So here we are again in the Land Of Boleh with procedures that just don't make sense. If you allow online renewals without photos then why should it be any different when I do it over the counter? It's just amazing. It seems to me that people just don't ask questions and they simply don't care. I went out and got my instant photos at RM12.00 for 4 passport sized photos printed from a deskjet printer. Hey! Maybe... just maybe the photo is not required and they're getting a commission from the photo guy! Possible, no?

Anyway... go back in... the dude's disappeared. I wait about 30 seconds, still no sign so I take a number... again... despite there being no one around... wait another 30 seconds for my number to come up and then went to another counter and got my license renewed. Then I passed my MyKad to the counter girl for it to be updated with the data.

All this was done in 15 minutes.... from the time I parked till the time I got to my car again to leave... not bad. Would have been faster if they didn't have stupid procedures.

Busted!!

I had 10 minutes to spare before my 4 o'clock meeting so I thought I'd flip through the papers a bit. What caught my eye was "Mr. Universe for Sazali again" located at the left corner of the front page. I flipped the paper over to get to the Sports section. And there it was on the back page... a full page with the title "High Five" along with a big picture. Our local guy has been crowned Mr Universe 5 times in this bantamweight category (65 kgs). Not bad... so I take a closer look at picture. Do you see what I saw?

Ok... This is Sazali Samad. He's the dude who got crowned and done Malaysia proud. Now... look at the two dudes behind him. One on his left and one on his right... what are they gawking at? (click on the picture for a clearer look) Just look at their expressions! Busted!

DIY Plumbing

For the record, I'm a DIY kinda guy. It all started when I was a kid. My first big project was a racing bicycle.  I am the second of three siblings and as usual the eldest was mommy's boy and the youngest was daddy's boy... me... I was the devil's boy. Hahaha... anyway... my elder brother was lucky enough to get a racing bicycle from my parents. Can't understand this... my results always aced his but he always got the good stuff. So... the idiot crashed his bicycle. The brake handle fell into the wheel while moving and he and the bike went flying... so he claims. The bike was a total loss... to him... he junked it.

I took the bike apart piece by piece and salvaged whatever that was not damaged.... I gradually bought the parts back with my pay (I was already working part time). I bought a few cans of paint (aerosol) and lacquer, repainted the bike then put it back together again... piece by piece. How did I manage this? I spent a lot of time at the bicycle shop observing and learning and I borrowed a couple of things like the tightener for the spokes. This monkey see and this monkey can do. I did a bloody good job to the surprise of my parents. Alas, the bike was stolen a couple of months later.

My parents then bought our first home and only... Well, my late father actually and he only paid the down payment. The installments by me and I am still paying for it now... but that's another story.

Anyway, we were all excited about our new home a.k.a 870 ft² pigeon hole. My senior colleague then, Ong Chit Lai was the one who introduced me to DIY. We bought all our stuff and installed them ourselves. Now when I say DIY, I mean literally DIY. Example... the fluorescent lamps had to be assembled and wired. The casing came separate and had to be installed (put together), the choke had to be wired then attached to the casing, the starter then wired in, etc.  This was back in 1990 and everything we installed is still working.

When I bought my own home which was second hand, I did all the painting myself.... alone... all 1364 ft² of it... with the exception of the doors as I replaced all the doors with solid doors and the new doors required sanding, an undercoat and all and I was just too lazy for that. I hired someone to do the doors. I also bought additional cabinets for the kitchen from IKEA and installed them myself. These were for the oven and microwave oven. My ex actually thought I couldn't do it. It's not easy though but it's not rocket science either. It is very much different from assembling the book shelves and what not from IKEA. Those are no brainers. For things like the kitchen cabinet it required some basic skills. The counter top came in standard lengths so you had to custom cut it.

So, fast forward to today. The washroom did not have a bidet and I decided to install one. I went out to buy what I needed or at least what I thought I needed for RM17.00. I got back home and then realised that I did not have the tools I needed. Alamak... I didn't want to go out again so I went to my car to see if I had the tools. No luck. I then went to the convenience store downstairs. He didn't have the tools either. He only had a pair of large pliers. Desperate and lazy, I bought it for RM9.90. Went up and tried... it was ok but I couldn't tighten it properly and it was still dripping slightly. Then I realised I was short of  a nipple. No, not MY nipple. A nipple. Shit! Shit! Shit! I had no choice but to go out and buy the nipple.

I didn't want to drive all the way to Wangsa Maju to where I got the stuff earlier so I tried driving around the vicinity. It's a Sunday and that makes it more difficult. I start off around Chow Kit to Jalan Ipoh to Sentul and finally found a hardware store on Jalan Genting-Kelang. Bought the nipple and an adjustable spanner to do the job properly. 50 sen for the nipple and RM9.90 for the spanner.

Got home, took everything apart again, applied the thread seal tape properly and generously and then assembled everything properly. These days we have the screw-on versions as opposed to those days when we had to use sealants.

From left... T-elbow, nipples in black, the tap and the bidet's flexible hose. The thread seal tape is white. I'm sure most people have seen it before but just don't know what the heck it's called. Colourful eh?

Mobile Blogging

I took this picture of this dude while queueing for my free parking at Pavilion tonight. I had just collected my lens and the bill entitled me to 2 hours of free parking. So, why this dude?

Well, his style... Is it cool to expose your underpants like this? Do chicks dig this? Look at it closely! You can even see the sweat of his butt cleavage. Urgh!

Oh, by the way... this is direct from my mobile phone...

A Fruitful Friday

Yesterday, my Outlook suddenly failed on me. It just refused to start and I kept getting the following message. It was working fine till 2:00 pm then I did a shut down and took it for my meeting and when I restarted it just happened.

I tried everything. Repair didn't work. Add or remove features didn't work. System restore didn't work. I ran out of time last night as I had a date with Megan Fox. So, this morning I tried again. Still no progress. Finally I had no choice but to uninstall everything. Then reinstalled from the CD. Thankfully, it worked.... just troublesome as I had to reinstall Service Pack 1 and then Service Pack 2. Then install the other updates as well.

The boss came today and after the meeting he wanted to check the property. So, I took him wherever he wanted to check. Wow! We aced the check today... no negative comments at all. He was happy... while I was proud of my team's effort. By the time I touch one year here, they're going to be the de facto standard.

Jennifer's Body

Ayu wanted to watch Jennifer's Body so I booked tickets for Alamanda as she wanted to go there as well. Not that I didn't want to watch Megan Fox but I could have waited for the DVD. After work I picked her up and off we went for dinner and the movie. Dinner was at Sushi King... yes, again... I just love my California and Soft Shell Temaki and Agedashi Tofu.

The movie was... urm... as I said... I could have waited for the DVD. So, to make up for that... here's the hot Megan Fox shooting a scene from Jennifer's Body.

Say what you like... she's hot and those tattoos make her even hotter...

9 Months

Today, I was looking back at the progress I've made at work.

Well... the team did extremely well although no one from senior management uttered even a word of encouragement to them. In July we recorded the highest revenue turnover EVER (just above RM1.8 mil) on this property along with the highest PROFIT (57.2%). Last month we were just under July by RM16k but we made another record... the highest F&B Revenue EVER.

I did say I would turn this place around didn't I? Well... here you go... the numbers speak for themselves though no one from the board acknowledged these achievements. Nevertheless, I'm going to give recognition to the team tomorrow in our meeting and of course, I'm going to record this in my resume.

As I write this it is just one day over 39 weeks.... 9 months... that's the same time required to develop a fetus. And we have conceived a 'baby'. Now... to nurture it to maturity.

And I guarantee you at least one more record... or dare I two more? How about highest revenue and highest profit in year?

Retail Therapy

During my trip to Penang I realised that I really did miss my old ride... especially the ICE (In-Car Entertainment) setup. Here's a portion of a flyer I made when I was selling the car.

The car I'm driving now has the stock system in place and the car is 7 years old now so you can imagine what kind of crappy stock system it was. When you travel interstate and listen to the radio then you have a problem  as the frequency changes and you would need to retune to get the right frequency. The stock system had its limitations when it comes to preset stations and the same applies for auxiliary inputs which it did not have. So it was either a CD or mess around with the tuner while driving which is not a good idea when driving alone. In my old set up, you can see there were 6 presets and 7 pages of it which means I could preset a total of 42 stations. I did the same presets of stations but each page was for a different state. Convenient. And in the old set up I had an auxiliary input which I could hook up to my phone or an iPod. It was also my handsfree then... I spoke into the phone while the callers voice was from the car's system. Cool...

So, the thought of upgrading was already playing in mind while in Penang.

This morning someone really spoilt my morning while at work so I decided to do some retail therapy and also 'skive' for a couple of hours.

You guessed it... I took my car for an ICE upgrade. The goal was to change the head unit as the current one was faulty (volume dial cranky) and did not have an auxiliary input and could not play MP3s and also to upgrade at least the front speakers and my budget was not more than RM1k. I decided to use just one brand for this set up and Sony was what I chose. I did it with RM845 which included RM30 for the workmanship.

Head unit: CDX-GT290S. It had the front auxiliary and was MP3 and WMA capable. The guy did his best to upsell the other options which was AAC capable and also USB capable. It was tempting but I stood my ground. Auxiliary is all I needed. I have a phone with 8GB of memory so that's all I need.

Front speakers: XS-GTX1620. I wanted components for the front and this was the only option available.

Rear speakers:  XS-GTX1625B.  I'm on a budget so coaxials it is.

Again the guy did his job and tried to sell me an amp and a sub. At least he tried but I know what I am doing and this is all I am willing to spend on this car. Everything is done now BUT I am really not happy with the installation. As I was skiving and running out of time, I just let it be for now and I guess I will have to take it elsewhere for a better job and also some insulation work.

At least now the music sounds decent and the radio definitely sound so much better and more crisp. Still a long way from my previous set up but so was the investment. Hahaha... you get what you pay for just like the workmanship... RM30... so I got shit.

Oh... and this is my dinner. Tuna Aglio e Olio. I just love pasta... yummy, yummy...

Firmware Update II

I updated my phone again today and brought it to version 31.0.101. This is the 4th update for this phone. After updating I didn't regain any memory at all. This new version of NSU (Nokia Software Updater) updates the phone while maintaining all its previous settings. I like my phone to be 'like new' after the upgrade which is not possible now with this version of NSU. The previous version will wipe out everything on your phone bringing it back to factory settings. So I decided to do a hard reset which would do the same thing. I backed up my contacts and  calendar. I didn't want to back up anything else although the software is capable of backing up everything. It's important to do this although you may have synchronised with Outlook as Outlook does not synchronise all fields. Then I keyed in *#7370# and voila.

Reinstalled my contacts and calendar and my essential programs like Garmin Mobile XT, Phone Torch, Adobe Reader, World Mate, Solitaire, etc. After all the installations I had only used 18MB of space as opposed to 42MB previously. So, my objective was met. Me being me I went into my phone book and started scrolling through everything. Shit... I had like over 720 contacts. As I scrolled through I realised there were many whom I don't even remember who the F they were. Must have been those one or two time thingys I acquired during my work. I went through one-by-one and if I had no recollection whatsoever of the person then it would be DELETE. Now I have 653 contacts left.

And now the phone is zippy again. Fast.... love it still. The camera still sucks though. :(