A head start

"Dare to be wise: when you begin you are already halfway there."
- Horace (65 - 8 BC), Rome

Job satisfaction

"Pleasure in the task puts perfection in the work"
- Aristotle (384-322 BC), Greece

Love and let live

"The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them."
- Thomas Merton (1915 - 1968), USA

Rekindling your inner fire

"In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then rekindled by an encounter with another human being."
- Albert Schweitzer (1875 - 1965), France

寂寞与孤独

又是一场下不停的雨。

微风阵阵，细雨绵绵，滴滴答答，敲着心房。

雨水落地，仿佛流入, 内心深处，某个角落。

激情过后，柔情淡去，浪漫飘离，童话结束。

繁华都市, 寂寞公路, 爱情电影，款款深情。

走走停停, 寻寻觅觅, 停下脚步, 收起情绪。

"不是寂寞才想你，而是想你才寂寞！孤独的感觉之所以伤痛，只因你已离开我的视线里。。。"

i am gonna get wiser...

with a gift like this...

Quote of the day (25th Dec 2006)

"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."
- Winston Churchill

Falling in love...

...with my first DSLR - the Canon EOS 400D!

Front view

Back view

Time to plan for another photo shooting outing ;-)

Singapore Flooding...

The day was 19 December 2006. It started raining at my work place from Monday noon onwards and since then the whole island did not see much sunshine til the following midnight...

Looking at the scenes reported by the journalist, it was unbelievable. Who would have thought that after so many years, Singapore still have the possibility of flood. Once again nature shows who is boss. Fortunately it was just material losses for the flood victim and no death reported.

According to the News, it was the third-largets rainfall in 75 years of Singapore recorded history on Tuesday.

One blogger created a video of still image. The video says it all:


News source: www.channelnewsasia.com

Damage caused by floods could run to millions: shopowners
By Valarie Tan, Channel NewsAsia

SINGAPORE : In Singapore, the sun finally came out on Wednesday morning after nearly two days of non-stop rain.

But it is too little too late for some shops located in low-lying areas.

They bore the brunt of Tuesday's massive floods, which had caused damage estimated to run to millions of dollars.

The Public Utilities Board (PUB) says flood and heavy rain alerts were sent out before the clouds turned grey.

The tide has passed, but there was nothing to cheer about.

Workers at some shops took stock of the damage, while others salvaged whatever they could.

About 100 holiday hampers were saved at one outlet.

Ryan Chioh, Owner, Goodwood Florist, said, "The priority, even from last night, has always been to save the customers' orders. After all we're a gift company. At the same time, (we will) call customers that are affected, as much as we can... This is the first time something like this has happened. The last two floods that we had, they were flash floods. They came and went very fast. So we were hoping for that to happen. But it never did."

And it looks like it will take a while, perhaps even up to months, for business to resume.

But the mood of its 30 workers has not been dampened.

They hope to put things back together and get business up and running again before Lunar New Year in 2007.

And water continues to flow from MacRitchie Reservoir but the rate has since slowed down as it had stopped raining.
PUB says about 1,500 kilogrammes of debris have been cleared from drains in Olive Road alone.

But could the damage have been minimised?

PUB sent out heavy rain alerts in early October to some 600 residents and shopowners in flood-prone areas like Geylang.

Other areas include Boat Quay, Chinatown, Jalan Besar, and Lorong Buangkok.

The notices advised people to, for example, put up sand bags and block the entry of water.

Other advice included placing items on a higher level.

But Goodwood Florist claims it did not get such notices.

Tuesday's heavy rain and floods also stalled trains travelling between Singapore and Malaysia.

At least five services were cancelled on Wednesday.

Trains affected include Ekspress Rakyat, travelling from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur; Ekspress Sinaran Pagi, from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore; and Mail Trains No. 58, 61 and 64.

Visitor numbers also dipped at Sentosa to only about 3,000 per day during the wet weather, down from the daily average of 10,000.

There is more wet weather to come over Singapore in the next few days.

Even though chances of prolonged rain are not high, the National Environment Agency is not totally ruling it out. - CNA/ms

飘洋过海去美国 - Across the pacific ocean

Had to travel to US for some training this week. Cos of the marathon, I got a flight out of Singapore on Monday evening. I went quite early to the boarding gate but almost missed my flight - the stupid SIA changed boarding gate. Fortunately a caucasian lady passenger noticed the change on the right corner of LED announcement board and informed those around. So we quickly went to search for the new boarding gate which was at the other side of Changi Airport Terminal 2. Fortunately we weren't too late.

On board the plane, I tried to watch Miami Vice but found it unwatchable and quitted after 20 minutes. Then I tried watching Pirates of The Carribean Part 2. Turn out to be a better choice than Miami Vice. Johnny Depp was despicably cool as Captain Jack Sparrow. The show was entertaining, unfortunately the ending was a cliffhanger, signifying a Part 3.

Had to transit at Hong Kong and went through a baggage security screening that applies to all the passengers. Started second leg of my route watching Superman 2 and thought it wasn't that fascinating. Watchable, but not very exciting. Managed to catch a few hours of sleep before I woke up for breakfast and watched another movie; this time a Hong Kong movie - Election 2. It was worst than Superman 2. Enough said.

The flight was early and touched down at 4.50 pm pacific time at San Francisco International Airport. I got my luggage and went to take the Sky Train to the Car Rental Center.

Blue Line to Car Rental Center.

Got bit of navigation problem initially when trying to get out of SFO but eventually found my way to 101 south. Traffic was heavy but I survived my first lonely drive to the hotel and check in around 7 pm. My colleagues weren't in the hotel so I decided to walk over to a fast food restaurant and grabbed a quick bite there.

Wendy's, opposite Wild Palms Hotel Sunnyvale

Spicy chicken burger. Taste bit like KFC.

When I got back to the hotel, my hand was freezing. I told myself that I should drive instead from now on....

Standard Chartered Marathon 2006

Woke up at 4 am and got ready for my marathon. Went over to KC house to pick him and Alex. Arrived at the Raffles City Shopping Center around 5.20 am and found that there is still about 200 lots left. But later in the day I found the parking fee was $6.81 when we left the car park at 12 plus. I think next year must alternative parking place ;-)

Alex, me and KC@Swisshotel Lobby

KC started his full marathon first while me and Alex met up with Clement at the fountain. My old classmate Dave also came along to meet us. We started together but eventually all of them moved ahead without me. Every runner was moving quite fast for the first 6 km but soon after people started to slow down. I just jogged at my own pace and managed to hit the 10 km mark using 1 hour 8 minutes.

Along the way, I saw a lady running with an attached rubber tyre behind her. I believe she was an activist trying to promote reuse and recyling. Admirable lady.

This year, there was quite alot of drink station so I tried to consume mixture of water and 100 plus at different station. I finally had my first stop at one of the drink station, 1 hour 50 minutes into the run. The rest of the time I either jogged or walked when I felt too strenuous.

At the final 2 km, I was clocking around 2 hr 20 minutes. Then somewhere along the road between Esplanade and Marina Square, one guy in front of me suddenly started limping and went down on all four. I hesitated a bit and finally stop to help him relieved his cramp. Another runner also stopped to help. Once we confirm he is okay, we proceeded with our run again.

I hit the 20KM marker at the Esplanade bridge with 2 minutes left to my targetted timing. I pushed forward as hard as I could and sprinted cross the finishing line at 2 hour 33 minutes.Though slightly longer than my goal, it is still an improvement over my Sheares Bridge Run timing.

My marathon timing

My first StandChart half-marathon medal

It was a good run to conclude 2006 and hopefully I can do better for my next marathon :-)

The day before...

Getting ready for my marathon. My goal is to complete the 21 km within two and half hours. I believe that is achievable provided I don't get any cramp. :-P