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Dr Douglas Jacoby is in town on 10 April 2008!

When I reached there, I saw Dr Douglas Jacoby. Have small talk with him, to welcome him and took the opportunity to take a picture with him. Since I forgot to bring my digital camera, I used my Treo 650 to snap this photo. And he is taller than me one head. 😀

with_douglas_jacoby

But you may ask, Who is he? It is too much for me to say here but you can check it out at http://www.douglasjacoby.com/about%20us.php. I have brought two of this books (Shinning like Stars and True & Reasonable) and they are well-written.

Last June 2007, he debated with Michael Shermer, president of the Skeptic Society. And you can watch the debat at youtube

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California Fitness – Part 2

It has been two months plus being a member of California Fitness (CF). So, how am I doing so far? Let’s start with the month of January. In the month of January, if I go every Monday, Wednesday, Friday (if you are wonder, my membership only allow me to go on these days), in total there are 14 days. I went for 12 days and missed 2 days. I can’t remember the reason of the first miss but for the second one, it was due to dizziness. I have calculated, my attendance is 86%. For February, in total there are 13 days. I went for 12 days and missed 1 day (due to some reasons. Hehe … ). So, my attendance is 92%. I think if I manage to keep up my future monthly attendance of at least 80% is good enough already.

My average workout duration per visit is 30 minutes (This means it cost me RM10 for a 30 minutes of workout at CF). This is because I usually go during my lunch hour. Why lunch hour? My thought is if I have some exercise, I will feel more fresh in the afternoon, so that I can be more productive at work and less rely on caffein like coffee which is not too healthy. And, indeed it does. What exercise I do there usually? Usually, I will start out with 10 minutes of jogging using the treadmill machine. Then, I will spend the rest of my time for body building and streching. After I make a few rounds of weight lifting, example at the biseps, I will some stretching. Reason behind is when I stretch, I can rest the muscle at the same time. This is to save time. Remember, I just have around 30 minutes only to cover everything. 😀

Currently, my weight is 56.5 kg and my goal is 60 kg. This means I need another 3.5 kg. And this 3.5 kg will be either comes from fat or muscle. Of course, I want muscle, right? That’s what I am working at, to build this 3.5 kg of muscle and it is not easy. And a month of body-building like this, my weight is still the same. This mean that I gotta work harder and perhaps I also need to take those protein which is meant for body-building, instead of Amway’s protein. I think the protein from Amway is not for muscle building type.

Who do I usually go with? Most of the time I go alone. The reason is because I go during my lunch hour. I don’t know if there is anyone is a member of CF from my own department. But even there is, I think he / she most like won’t be joining me going to CF during lunch time.

What about my lunch? At the beginning, I just ‘ta pau’ something like bread to eat later of the day after the workout since I have used up my lunch time. After a while, I realize that I don’t have much appetite after the workout. So, I have a new diet for my lunch. Recently, I begin to drink this healthy drink which consists of a packet of Amway’s Positrim, mix with 1.5 scope of Amway’s protein. This drink was introduced by my mother. I tried it and it tastes good. If I have workout on that day, in the morning, I just need to bring a packet of Positrim, together with 1.5 scope of protein into a shaker and bring that shaker of course.

After my workout, I will buy a bottle of cold mineral water and one light food, example, bread. Then, when I reach office, I will take this one small bread and make my drink. First, I open up the Positrim and pour it inside the shaker. Then, I pour that cold mineral water into the shaker and shake it a few times. Then, I can drink it already while eating that small bread. The reason why I still eat that small bread because my thought is nutrien or vitamins will be no effect without combining with some food.

In summary, I think I’m doing pretty okay so far for January and February. But, the challenge is to maintain it and to make this exercise as my habit and my health lifestyle.

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California Fitness – Part 1

I have been thinking about joining a fitness center around two months ago and after going to three major fitness center (True Fitness, Fitness First and California Fitness) to compare its package and monthly and trial, at the end I chose California Fitness (CF). On 12 December 2007, I signed up a year contract of bronze membership in CF. This membership’s joining fee is RM99 and each month’s fee is RM103. But, this type of membership only allows me to go to one branch (I choose Standard & Chartered KL branch) three days a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Another condition of this bronze membership is there won’t be a towel service for me. This means that I need to bring my own towel. I have no problem with this condition because I don’t think I will vision myself going to workout everyday. And for the towel, I can bring my own. Not a problem.

My first week (Sun, 16 Dec 2007 – Sat, 22 Dec 2007)
I went on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The only two machine I use is the “jogging machine” and the machine to work on my tummy. One of the main reasons of finding a fitness center to join is for the health. I need to exercise. It is good to get some sweat out. I need to work on my heart as I have low blood pressure before. Also I thought about imitating the Japanese for I heard that they sleep little but they are productive. They come to office as early as five a.m. to exercise in the office. Of course, I won’t be that extreme but I thought maybe I can have some exercise during my lunch time since my office is very near to CF. Indeed, I did that during of the day last week, my first week.. I just jogged for twenty minutes. Then, I took a quick bath and then back to office. I felt very fresh that afternoon.
The following week (Sun, 23 Dec 2007 – Sat, 30 Dec 2007)
I only went once, which is on monday 24 December. This time, I tried out different machine. First I tried to weight-lifting one and I like it after awhile. Then, I tried the cycling machine. Not bad. This cycling machine works on my leg muscle. The rest of the day, I didn’t go because I don’t well physically, feel like sick.

This week (Sun, 31 Dec 2007 – Sat, 5 Jan 2008)
Now, I feel a little better physically. So, I hope I can go there three times this week. On 1 January 2008, I plan to go there with Kak King, Joyce and Lai Har. When I joined this CF, they gave me a list of ten people whom I can refer for seven days free trial to work out at CF. So, if let’s say they came, then I left another seven more people whom I can refer for seven days free trial.

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Freelance Job

Remarks: This blog includes some computer programming jargons, but just minor. The purpose of this blog is for me to share my journal and experience of this whole freelance thing, the good and bad of this experience and what I should learn from this experience.

On February 2007, I got myself into a freelance project. This one month period was indeed an intense and painful moment and felt frustrated many times and also much grumbling. And also comes with both bad (technical problems and people problems) and good (financial blessings and learning).

The problems, struggles, pain
One of the early problem is to install SQL Server 2000 database. First I need to download the evaluation version and then install it, but it doesn’t work. The difficult part is it didn’t give me an error message. After some time struggling with this, we found out that the culprit is my Kerio firewall. Thanks to James Gan who helped me out that Sunday. I own you! By the way, I began to hate Kerio. It didn’t prompt me anything like Zone Alarm and didn’t show any statistic like Zone Alarm also. Maybe I didn’t know how to use it. Anyway, I got rid of it and install back Zone Alarm.
Next hurdle will this this software. I need to use this software/tool to develop this software. And learning this tool is such a painful moment to me. There is just so much to learn in so little time. The documentation is so so MUCH to read! But, I appreciate a friend in this company who willing to teach me patiently. In fact, I think if not because of his help, to teach me this software and also help debug those programming problem, I will surely cannot finish this software on time 100%.
Last but not least, say no to illegal software which is stealing. And God does provide a way out (1 Corinthian 10: 13).

The Blessings
With so much of pain, struggling and frustration, I managed to see the good side of all this whole thing. Actually, I was being paid to learn. Without this project, I will never learn so much, this software and those programming skills and techniques. Now, I have more confidence to use this tool if given a project in the future though this first experience has created some phobia to me.

The pay for this project is high for me, and it is a blessing to me, though by this time I still have not receive the payment from them yet. I hope they will pay up within 1-2 weeks time from now.

What I should have learnt from this experience?
Find out more details of this project, as much and as thorough as possible. Example:
Am I rebuilding this project all over again?
Is there any existing working project file?
How big is the databases? How many table? (From here, I can know roughly how big or complex is the system.
Find out what software is needed to develop this software?
Is there any existing documentation as reference?

Other things to bear in mind:
I also need to allow buffer of ‘there are things that they didn’t let me know. Another word expect some suprises from them. If I expect suprises will happen, I wouldn’t get too reactive towards them. Because of this, I should also increase my pay to cater these surprises.’
Another thing to learn is assertiveness. This is a good situation to apply assertiveness, the express myself out without being too angry about it.
Not to quick to make decision. I shouldn’t make the decision on the spot. I should take longer time to think and consider it. Otherwise, my decision can be based on pressures and give in at the end. And know that once i agreed, that’s it. Die die, I gotta finish it up

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Makan

Makan means eat. This Malaysia word is one of the most common words used by Malaysian. Anyway, let’s go to my makan journey of a day. I like nasi lemak in the morning for my breakfast. In my previous job (GuocoLand), I like the one opposite HSBS building. The rice is hot. The ikan bilis and sambal are delicious. Biasa one, just RM1 only. Awesome nasi lemak indeed!

During lunch, I will usually go for a normal mix rice. I will usually choose 3 items among these few items: potato, egg, fish, tofu, vegetables. For potato, I like KFC’s whipped potato and potato wedges (but not with cheese in it!).

In the evening, I look forward for the dinner from my father’s cook. Even though his cook is mediocre but I love it. I know he concerns about hygine and health in his cook. Our family diet become more and more healthy. In the past, we have pork and now we hardly have it.

If I didn’t go back home for dinner and in around Jalan Bukit Bintang area, I will surely go for this vegetable store in Jalan Alor for dinner. This food stall is unique because they sell plain vegetables. You can just order vegetables alone to makan. But, don’t go on Thursday. It is their rest day. It is located besides this “Makanan Salai” shop (picture below).

I don’t usually eat a lot at night for supper. Maybe, just a drink of Milo or something light like biscuit or cookies.

What else I like to makan?
I like nuts. Recently, I began to like this nut, Macadamia. But, it is expensive. In fact, my mom said that it is the most expensive nuts. I also like other nuts like Picacu, but I mean Pistachio. Also gound nut especially Fisherman’s brand (not easy to find this brand). Pagoda and Cap Tangan also good. My mom is also a nut lovers.

For Malay food, I like some Malay food like Nasi Goreng Kampung and Nasi Paprik. Delicious! I used to eat Nasi Goreng Kampung for my lunch when I worked in Asli Mechanical last time. For “Tai Chow”, I like Singaporean MeeHoon. But, no easy to eat a good once. Not many places know how to make this. Even if they have, it is not easy to cook a tasty one. I also like Fish Head Noddle. And for these food I order, I will tell them, “No meat, please”.

For dessert, I like “Tong Sui”, especially “Bak Go Foo Chuk Yee Mai”, red bean, “Lin Chi Loong Gan”. And I also eat chocolate occassionally like bueno. I also like cookies especially Kjeldsens butter cookies and Famous Amos cookies.

Encouragement
When I have a healthy, tasty and economical meal, I feel encouraged and satisfied. Okay. if want to treat me (perasan), you don’t need to buy me expensive food like sushi or something similiar. Put away all the perfect atmosphere to makan (though quiet and comfortable atmosphere is good for fellowship). All I want is a food which meet these 3 criteria (healthy, tasty and economical meal), will surely encourages me. Since I don’t like to eat meat, the food I like is less expensive. So, it doesn’t take you a lot to encourage me (another perasan). By the way, donut (comic above) is not my favorite, but Garfield comic is.

What I don’t usually makan?
I guess they are those I see them as unhealthy food. Below are some list I can think of now:

  • Cola drink, example Coke and Pepsi.
  • Fast food, example KFC and McD.
  • Meat, especially pork, beef, chicken, duck. (excluding fish). (Find out more why we should eat less meat)
  • Instant noddle, example Cintan (I used to love it in the past).
  • Junk food like potato chips, sweet, sour-sour thing.

nasilemakEven though, I have excluded the above food in my daily diet, I still cling on to something unhealthy. Example coffee, nasi lemak and etc. For me, these unhealthy food able to enhance my mood, which I don’t know how to explain to you how it works. Maybe, I will improved from these in the future or I will still stick into them. Afterall, I think I have been keeping quite a lot of good healthy lifestyle diet and shouldn’t be too hard to myself.