Yup... just past my my birthday few days back. Now I'm officially in the 30s bracket, can n0 longer claim I'm twenty-something anymore. :P
The best thing to have happened on my birthday is definitely being able to celebrate it with someone special. We had dinner at Kampachi in Pavillion KL. The food was good, and the company was better. I was a very happy boy. Hahaha.
A friend of mine in 30s told me 2 days back, "welcome to the 30s club, everything starts going downhill from now on." Hahaha, quite true I think. Gotta do some review on what I've done so far (nothing much actually), and make plans for the future.
On a separate note, I've finally received my contest prize which I won in May (well actually March, the prize ceremony was in May), after going through some unexpected events in between.
The story goes like this, by right we, the winners of the contest (by PRM), are supposed to collect our prizes from this company (PMXM). What we have to do is go to PMXM, show the letter, sign some forms, and they will claim the money from PRM and purchase the prize to be given to us.
What happened is that (I got to know from an ex-staff in PMXM) after we signed the forms, the people at PMXM did not utilize our money to buy the prizes, but instead use it to fund their business (which was not doing too well it seems). So when things turned sour, the directors/owners disappeared and was not contactable anymore, and the shop closed down.
So for a while I thought, damn, my prize is gone. And after about 2 weeks from the incident, the people from TMM, who was representing PRM, called me up. They offered to give me the prize in terms of cash value. Well, of course I'm more than happy to accept the offer. So many thanks to PRM and TMM. You guys are awesome :)
26 July 2008
17 July 2008
Back from my 3rd Dive!
Yup, last weekend I went for my 3rd dive trip to Tioman. We drove all the way to Mersing town, and then took a boat transfer to Tekek. I think the transfer was supposed to take like about an hour, but because the boat goes around the island and stopped at every jetty, it took us like 2 hour plus to reach Tekek. Along the way the boat kept playing "The Last Samurai" disc 2 again and again (auto repeat). It gives me a stupid deja vu-like feeling.
This place has got very good service. I was telling my friend, it seems like the dive centers that we go to each time keep improving in terms of services. First time in Perhentian, we have to do all the hardwork of carrying our equipments plus the air tank to the boat each time we go out for dive. Then when we're in Redang, we just have to carry our gear, as the air tank would be transported by the staffs onto the boat. This dive, it's even better... our equipments are all prep up for us and transferred to the boat. So we just have to board the boat, wear our equipments and dive.
Overall the trip was awesome. Visibility underwater was excellent and we managed to see alot of sea creatures like schools of baby barracuda, sea turtle, huge napoleon bumphead, big angelfish, cuttlefish, blue spotted ray, nudi branch (lots)... not to mention lots of sea urchins too.
This place has got very good service. I was telling my friend, it seems like the dive centers that we go to each time keep improving in terms of services. First time in Perhentian, we have to do all the hardwork of carrying our equipments plus the air tank to the boat each time we go out for dive. Then when we're in Redang, we just have to carry our gear, as the air tank would be transported by the staffs onto the boat. This dive, it's even better... our equipments are all prep up for us and transferred to the boat. So we just have to board the boat, wear our equipments and dive.
Overall the trip was awesome. Visibility underwater was excellent and we managed to see alot of sea creatures like schools of baby barracuda, sea turtle, huge napoleon bumphead, big angelfish, cuttlefish, blue spotted ray, nudi branch (lots)... not to mention lots of sea urchins too.
05 July 2008
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility...
But with great responsibility comes great loads of crap.
*Warning: Work related rant ahead*
It all pretty much started about a month or so back. I was suddenly pulled out from my job responsibilities to help out in a project which was running short of time. So I joined the project team to help out with the requirement studies and documentation.
Since I only come into the project half way, and I'm not really happy being thrown around (it's not the first time) doing things out of my job scope, I chose to be passive in this project, i.e. just do up whatever is necessary, no questions asked. On the other hand, I'm good friends with the project team lead, so I try to help the team however I can.
As the project moves on, it came to a point that we need to do a milestone update to the users. Only then we got a wake up call that the whole project is moving in a totally wrong direction. My boss, the project manager (PM), have no idea what's going on because he's never on the site although he carries the PM title. So in the meeting we really got hit left right and center. What's worse is that our PM still tries to beat around the bush to reason his way through. All of us just kept quiet.
On a separate timeline, my project team lead friend is resigning. There's another story to it. He came in for the R&D developer post initially, but was thrown to project implementation and subsequently project team lead. He had already highlighted to the management that he do not wish to be based in customer's place, but rather, in the office to do development work. But after being reassured that the situation is temporary, he was again and again sent to more sites. So after like 1 year, he's had enough of it.
So now, with a failing project, and project team lead leaving (in fact, yesterday was his last day)... with the project seriously need professional help and more involvement of the PM, guess what happened?
Yeah, you'd probably seen it coming... suddenly the PM asked me to be the team lead. I tried to refuse, but he give me reasons like "you have more business sense among the team mates", "don't worry I'll work with you hand in hand"... etc. I also don't know how to say no (although I really should have).
Now I'm thinking, most likely I'll be made a scapegoat if the project fails. Even if it doesn't, I'll become like my friend, being roped in to do things out of scope. WTF!
Time to hunt for a new job.
*Warning: Work related rant ahead*
It all pretty much started about a month or so back. I was suddenly pulled out from my job responsibilities to help out in a project which was running short of time. So I joined the project team to help out with the requirement studies and documentation.
Since I only come into the project half way, and I'm not really happy being thrown around (it's not the first time) doing things out of my job scope, I chose to be passive in this project, i.e. just do up whatever is necessary, no questions asked. On the other hand, I'm good friends with the project team lead, so I try to help the team however I can.
As the project moves on, it came to a point that we need to do a milestone update to the users. Only then we got a wake up call that the whole project is moving in a totally wrong direction. My boss, the project manager (PM), have no idea what's going on because he's never on the site although he carries the PM title. So in the meeting we really got hit left right and center. What's worse is that our PM still tries to beat around the bush to reason his way through. All of us just kept quiet.
On a separate timeline, my project team lead friend is resigning. There's another story to it. He came in for the R&D developer post initially, but was thrown to project implementation and subsequently project team lead. He had already highlighted to the management that he do not wish to be based in customer's place, but rather, in the office to do development work. But after being reassured that the situation is temporary, he was again and again sent to more sites. So after like 1 year, he's had enough of it.
So now, with a failing project, and project team lead leaving (in fact, yesterday was his last day)... with the project seriously need professional help and more involvement of the PM, guess what happened?
Yeah, you'd probably seen it coming... suddenly the PM asked me to be the team lead. I tried to refuse, but he give me reasons like "you have more business sense among the team mates", "don't worry I'll work with you hand in hand"... etc. I also don't know how to say no (although I really should have).
Now I'm thinking, most likely I'll be made a scapegoat if the project fails. Even if it doesn't, I'll become like my friend, being roped in to do things out of scope. WTF!
Time to hunt for a new job.
Sigh
Why is it that everytime I found someone that I'm fond of, there's always complications...
1st time, maybe bad luck...
2nd time, coincidence maybe?
3rd time, probably it's just me...
4th time? What the...
I'm beginning to think that I'm jinxed or something.
1st time, maybe bad luck...
2nd time, coincidence maybe?
3rd time, probably it's just me...
4th time? What the...
I'm beginning to think that I'm jinxed or something.
01 July 2008
2nd Dive Trip
It's already been a week since I came back from my 2nd dive trip to Redang/Bidong (21-23 June). It had been overall a fun trip for me, with many new things like new friends, new technique discoveries, new dive site, new creature sightings... etc.
For the 3 days, I did 6 dives, 2 on first day, 3 on 2nd day, and 1 morning dive on the third day before checking out. Water was quite chilly and the currents are quite strong at some of the sites. On 2 of the dives, the visibility was pretty bad and nothing much could be seen. I had to stick close to my dive buddy so I don't lose sight of him. All of the divers are very much more senior than me... between the 9 of them, 2 are Dive Masters (DM), 1 Dive Master in Training (DMT), and the rest 6 of them are all Advanced Divers. I am the only Open Water Diver with less than 10 dives. I still need to work on my breathing and buoyancy, but am getting better at it.
Overall, I think I had 2 achievements, 1st of all is I've reduced 1 weight from 5 to 4, and 2nd, on some of the dives, I managed to keep up with the rest and surface with them on the same time. Other than that, my sifu mentioned that I'm kicking better in the water, probably due to the new AA Splitfin (on the previous trip I was using some old-tech fins).
Pictures can be found in Facebook ;)
For the 3 days, I did 6 dives, 2 on first day, 3 on 2nd day, and 1 morning dive on the third day before checking out. Water was quite chilly and the currents are quite strong at some of the sites. On 2 of the dives, the visibility was pretty bad and nothing much could be seen. I had to stick close to my dive buddy so I don't lose sight of him. All of the divers are very much more senior than me... between the 9 of them, 2 are Dive Masters (DM), 1 Dive Master in Training (DMT), and the rest 6 of them are all Advanced Divers. I am the only Open Water Diver with less than 10 dives. I still need to work on my breathing and buoyancy, but am getting better at it.
Overall, I think I had 2 achievements, 1st of all is I've reduced 1 weight from 5 to 4, and 2nd, on some of the dives, I managed to keep up with the rest and surface with them on the same time. Other than that, my sifu mentioned that I'm kicking better in the water, probably due to the new AA Splitfin (on the previous trip I was using some old-tech fins).
Pictures can be found in Facebook ;)
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