Posts in Life

Get a 4×4 adventure and help someone

Life

While there are off-road enthusiasts and aficionados who love nothing more than a challenging trail, I prefer to do some good in the process. Besides, you’ll going to end up with some vehicle damage anyways — kind of guaranteed except that they vary in terms of severity. Most of the time, their cosmetic, scratches, scuffs and the like but you might get some dings or dents in under body panels. It can always get worse like shredding your tires or breaking a suspension. Why do it if it’s not for the welfare of some poor, neglected and needy folks? These are our orang asli, the indigenous peoples of Malaysia. The original inhabitants of the land, they’ve been marginalized and mostly displaced and they need our help!

This August 28, 2010, Sanofi-Aventis, that big pharmaceutical firm is bringing doctors and pharmacists into the interior jungles of Pahang. It’s going to be quite a challenging track with foot deep mud, river crossings and 30 degree ascents and descents. Obviously they’ll be needing vehicles so if you have a 4×4, do drop me a note. If you have a virgin 4×4 that you’ve never put that lever/dial into 4×4 Low mode, give me a call. Stock 4x4s can manage this trail although it’s strongly recommended that you have either all-terrain (AT) or mud-terrain (MT) tires. The stock highway tires (HT) are not so suitable for the thick mud.

That said, like good photography, equipment only gets you so far. It’s the person behind the camera or the wheel that matters. On a similar trail like this, we had 9 vehicles from the Land Rover owner’s club of Malaysia that had two vehicle breakdowns and two parts where we needed to extract them. You wouldn’t think a short-wheel base Defender 90 would get stuck would you?

If August 28, 2010 is not a good date for you, you can always drop me a line and I’ll see what other upcoming trips we have that you can help out or participate in. There’s one early in December for sure. I typically go several times a year; usually to the interiors in Pahang around the Bentong-Raub area. The tracks are fairly narrow (single-lane) and range from easy to challenging. They are not extreme trails nor do they qualify for rain-forest challenge kind of difficulty. Any decent stock 4×4 with low-range gear, limited-slip differentials and all-terrain tires can make it.


p.s. Did I mention you get to sample some excellent wild boar curry noodles and durians too?

SEMOA Fund Raising Dinner

Life

A month back, I was helping with selling fund-raising dinner tickets for SEMOA which stands for Semenanjung Orang Asli (Indigenous Peoples of the Peninsular). They were raising funds to help empower the next generation of Orang Asli kids who lack not only a lot of basic things we city folks take for granted but most importantly, the access to education. They purchased a large plot of land in Raub and opened the Kebun SEMOA which I covered here.

I generally do pro-bono photography work for SEMOA so when, Pastor Timothy called me at the last minute to cover the event, it was definitely a yes.

The SEMOA Fund-raising dinner for the Orang Asli children was held at the Chinese Assembly hall in KL. It was co-organized by the Melia Hotel Kuala Lumpur. With over 70 tables, it was really wonderful to see so many people show up in support. There was a small souvenir booklet along with several performances, including Francissca Peter, Elvis “HT Long” Presley, AMPAC and CDFM Ballet. The food was excellent and so was the dessert.

It’s also interesting that they had Arno Thony, GM of Melia KL and David Jones, the President of the Malaysia-Europe Chambers of commerce in attendance and also giving speeches. Arno had this wife, daughter and son even performing a couple of musical performances! A bit sad to see no local company or MD/Director/GM participating in what is a Malaysian cause. Hong Leong and a few others had notable mentions in the booklet but sending some senior people would have lent more credence.

The guests also had a lot of fun as both Francissca and HT Long mingled with the crowd. At one point, almost everyone was on their feet dancing away. Here are some of the photos for the night… if you want to see the entire collection, you can head over to the OA Ministry Blog over here.



















Unifi, decent Broadband at last?

Life

As one of the first TM Streamyx customers way back in 2001, ten years is a long time to wait for decent broadband. Streamyx was good when it launched but like anything in Malaysia, it just stagnates. Anyways, my parent’s house is among the first few areas for Unifi, unlike where I stay now which is low on TM’s priority list just because the exchange we use is pretty run down.


The speed is great but the installation purely sucks. Don’t get me wrong, the guys did a decent job and were quite clean but I think the first thing Telekom Malaysia should have done is not to assume each household has a single PC. Secondly, the installers should not assume the cable drop is next to the phone table and next to the TV set. So here goes the installer bitching about my complicated setup… see below and trying to charge my mom RM12 per meter run of CAT5 cable. Good thing I have a box (a thousand feet) handy. CAT5 cable run in my parent’s home, measured from the switch is about 85 feet (26m) to the TV area, 75 feet (23m) to the guest room, 65 feet (20m) to Rooms 1 and 2.

Original ADSL setup

Since I wasn’t around when the completed the installation, they managed to hoodwink my parents into believing that all the PCs are already connected. As my parents didn’t know how to run any network testing, all they did was try to load some websites. They even forgot to testing printing. My mom tested printing from her PC (in the guest room) though so she thought everything worked. Yes, it works but half the house is still on Streamyx!! See below diagram.

Initial Unifi Fiber Setup

I dropped at 4:30pm and first thing I did was to do a cable trace. Not liking what I found, I turned off the ADSL connection and immediately two PCs lost internet connectivity. It’s obvious why. These are the things I immediately configured or changed:

  1. Change the Router’s Administrator password (defaulted to blank!)
  2. Turned off the Wireless on TM’s DIR-615. (If you intend to use it, rename the Wireless Network Name/SSID)
    * The default SSID uses the customer’s name, i.e.: subscribername@unifi.
  3. Disable Remote Access to the router
  4. Enable Firewall, including blocking scan, DOS attacks, service filters, the whole enchilada….
  5. Adjusted the DHCP port range so it didn’t conflict with my other devices that were statically assigned

Here’s how the network finally looks like:

How it looks like in the end

It looks like I’ve to be around and end up doing a fair bit of work if (when TM decides to upgrade the Sungei Way exchange) I subscribe to Unifi and their installers come to my home. It’s way more complicated that my parents!

By the way, I didn’t play around much with the phone service or the IPTV service. It’s not that attractive to me at the moment but hopefully it’ll change in the future. I’m hoping for pure SIP services from TM in terms of the voice side…

Cross-roads

Life

Another few years and life hits another cross-road. Options, paths and most of all decisions. Do wish I have a GPS for this journey of life. If I do, then how would I know how to rely on my master navigator, the Lord of my life, my God, my savior?

Mark Three

Life

The third year of the Tiger has arrived. At least, from my perspective. Looking back, Tiger Mark II was a lot different from Mark III. What a difference a dozen make. Times have indeed changed a lot. Many turns. Many unexpected dead-ends, detours and u-turns. Many surprising things. Surprised myself a lot too. Guess I also surprised a lot of other people.

Change, again is the only constant. Some people say that I’m quite lucky to be where I am. Well, it’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears and a million mistakes along the way. Some say I’m blessed financially. Well, I’ll say again that I’m blessed because of the people around me – friends and family. At this milestone, Mark III, I’ll also say that I’ll never be where I am today without the one person that makes up the world to me, my darling, the one my heart loves. The most amazing sight to wake up to and the most beautiful bliss to fall asleep too. More importantly, sharing the years of Mark III and beyond with her. Of course, the other important people are my family. I can’t say much here because again, they are what makes me what I am, they are also all I am. Mom, Dad, Alan.

And now, on a lighter note, if anyone would like to drop a gift wrapped box at the house, I know I’ll welcome one of these 🙂 : Panasonic GF1 kit, a couple of extra RadioPoppers, a ThinkTank Roller or a Canon EF 85mm f/1.2 lens.


Coffee Beans. Fremantle Market, Fremantle, Western Australia. Kodak T-MAX 400. November 2002.

A diamond cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials – Chinese proverb

Fire in the hole!

Life

This Chinese New Year, we had the fireworks event right in our new old home after dinner. Boy, have the prices shot thru the roof?! I remember buying a pack containing a dozen “moon traveler” rockets (lil inexpensive gunpowder rockets on a stick with a small bang after reaching a height) for less than a ringgit. Today, it’s like ten bucks for a dozen. Large rockets we like a couple of ringgit each.

Hmm, the escalating costs of “wars”. Back in the good old days when one was a teenager, we used to have lots of firework wars with our neighbors in Ipoh and Penang. Rather belligerent bunch of people we were indeed. Hawks thru and thru. Any misfire by any neighboring kids that landed into my uncle’s compound in Ipoh drew immediate retaliation. We were also a well funded super-power — many uncles had supplies us with more ammo than the neighbors plus we had superior technology (string guided rockets and a bazooka launcher). We also had time to experiment that a moon traveler dropped three feet for every fifty it flew. I remember my brother and I spending countless afternoons performing “weapons research.” My goodness how fun were those days. Maybe that’s why we’re all intact together, nary a missing finger or blinded eye. Research and proper safety. I remember having water, foam, and aluminum foil and styrofoam padded protection! Do not try these at home 🙂


The only shot that worked but while my 580EXs were recyling fast enough to keep up with my burst sequence, the 430EX II lagged, hence I lost my sidelight.


Bazooka Mark II in “ground mode” — didn’t want to be a bad influence on my nephew by hand holding it. Anyways, the extraction pipe and laser sights weren’t fitted yet 🙂