Argh and yay!

Argh!! I just spent RM 150 on taxi fares for 3 1-way trips to and from office!

Sigh...coming back from the company team-building event, I actually left my car keys in Bukit Tinggi. I only realised I left it there when the bus stopped at the main gate of Ericsson. Obviously by that time is WAY to late to ask the bus to turn around! To keep the story short, I managed to contact the event organiser and she got the hotel to send my car key to their KL office. To get back home from Cyberjaya, I took a cab. RM 50 gone.

2 days later (didn't go to office the previous day since I got night work at that time), feeling rather happy with my spare car key, I took a cab to work. Another RM 50 gone, but it should be the last! Besides, at least I'm not the sucker driving in the bloody jam on LDP! =)

Come lunch time, I wanted to eat out so I went looking for my car. I even offered to be the driver for 2 of my colleagues. Found the car, unlocked it then sat on the driver's seat. My colleagues were also already seated and buckled up. Then I noticed my steering lock. I looked at my spare key. No steering lock key included in the key chain. Then I remembered. Both steering lock keys are attached with the key I left at Bukit Tinggi. Crap...Suffice to say that my colleagues were laughing like mad at this stage. I'll probably never hear the end of it. I was laughing too, and banging my head against the steerig wheel. Heh! So, I went to lunch on my colleagues car, and spent another RM 50 to go back home later that day. Sigh...

On the bright side, I've got a project in Phillipines! The project should last 1 or 2 weeks. Yay!! I'm now in demand in the South East Asia region! I'll be framing the ticket since that's the first ticket overseas for me that involves work. =D

I'm scheduled to start my work there on 17th October 2005. After spending 1 or 2 weeks there, I'll fly back to Malaysia for Aidilfitri. Then on the second day of Aidilfitri I'll be flying off to Dublin, Ireland for training. Scheduling is a bit tight but it should be fun! I'm gonna miss all the open houses though. Ah well...

Team-Building!

I just got back from my company's team-building event and I have to say that it's actually rather good. It was fun interacting with my colleagues in a non-office manner and I have to admit that it did a good job in diverting my attention towards something more positive. Life still sucks but I feel it's a bit more manageable now. The sad fact is that now I have more names to remember. Heh! I'll manage, I guess.

On a totally unrelated news, James Blunt's album "Back to Bedlam" is actually quite nice. The current hit song from him is "You're Beautiful" but the rest are just as good I think. His style is rather relaxing and his voice can really express the emotion of the song very well. Check out "High" and "Tears and Rain". Cheers!

Things I realized after joining the gym

1. Stretching/warm-up is EXTREMELY important. Skip this part and don't expect your body to function the next day.
2. If you haven't exercised much previously (guilty as charged!), don't be a superhero and push yourself too much. Do this and don't expect your body to function the next day.
3. While jogging, concentrate on your running and not the chick's butt in front of you. Staring too much on butts will just tire yourself faster! Hahahaha!
4. Chicks who wear makeups to gym are not going there for exercise. Well...maybe exercising their eyes! =P
5. Chicks who go to gym with tight clothes play a very vital role in a gym. They motivate guys to go to gyms more often! =P
6. Guys who over-exercise their chests muscles are freaky. They got bigger ones than chicks!! Whoa...
7. The most popular sitting area is the one facing the classes section. The class will have a glass wall. When it's aerobics class, you'll get a huge crowd of guys 'resting' there. Heh!
8. Finally, you know you've got a good workout when your biggest accomplishment after it is shampooing your hair during shower. If you can do it easilly, you're not exercising enough! =)

Video Gateways

Woohoo!! I've got a new responsibility! I'm now in the process of being trained up to be a Video Gateway expert! To date, I'm responsible for Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN), Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN) and now Video Gateway (ViG). I'm also responsible for other stuff such as Netscreen firewalls but these are not considered a major part my responsibility since they're 3rd party products.

Maybe it's just me being such a geek and all but I find working with all these technology to be really fun! The 3 areas I'm responsible for are all core network solutions. They are the area in the network where traffic HAS to flow to provide service to the customers. Essentially, no core network = no service!

Video Gateway is an interesting solution in which they provide a way for customers to access video content such as video streaming and video calls without going through an IP network. In general, when you talk about streaming via the Internet, you receive your streamed content using the TCP/IP protocol stack. For mobile users, this requires you to be attached to a GPRS network to enable you to receive IP content. With the ViG solution, the IP content is translated into a diferent protocol, which will then be used to carry the content to your phone. Instead of using your IP to determine the destination, it uses your phone number. This means that even without GPRS, you can still receive video content. Cool, ain't it? =P

Should any of you be interested, please drop me a message and I'll put you in contact with the sales team, who can probably explain all this to you better, with nice presentation slides and all! Heh!

Traffic strangeness...

This past one week, there seems to be this very odd traffic jam on the way back from Cyberjaya. Most times, it takes me 40 to 50 minutes to drive back from work. This past week though, the time has increased and takes me 60 to 75 minutes! Heh, I have to say that my vocabulary during the drive back is definitely NOT meant for civilized ears! =)

Apparently, the reason for this abnormal traffic behaviour is due to an albino King Cobra which found its way into a Hindu temple and has managed to wrapped itself around a statue of one of the deities. This is seen as a good omen to believers and from reports I've heard, for the first 3 days of this occurence a total of 30,000 people went to visit the temple. Which of course, explains the weird traffic jams along the stretch where none exists perviously. Just my luck to take this road, I guess...

Merdeka!!

Yay!! Independence day!! Ok ok, so I'm a little late in posting this but I guess I was celebrating to much on the eve itself!

For those who are completely clueless, every year Malaysia celebrates its Independence Day on 31st August. This year me and a bunch of my friends celebrated Independence Day in Bar Karma in Hartamas. It was quite fun! It's been a while since we all met up, with us working and stuff. Getting together is insanely difficult lately. Still, it was fun to catch up with the same bunch of suckers who skipped class with me in college. Man! Looking at how we behave in college, it's hard to believe we're now actually respectable professionals!

Let's see, Anand's a consultant (emphasis on the word 'con'!!), Mus is an engineer (whether he's a systems engineer or a network engineer depends on what time you call him), Shah's in management (we all bow down to him but the bastard still hasn't treated us to lunch. Bitch! =P), Jeremy's also another engineer (doing a lot of support work for some pretty nifty security products!) and Niradj is the resident Oracle expert (still no lunch from this guy too!). It's amazing when you consider that each of this suckers I mention are the same jokers who played Dungeon Siege (Niradj the champion with 24 hours of playing continuously...or was it 30?), Counter Strike (Jeremy's deadly with the assault rifles!), C&C Renegade (Shah whooped our arses and it was him vs 3 of us), Ghost Recon (Mus kept killing the bloody hostage!) and Alien vs Predator (I was deadly as the alien! =P). All this cybercafe sessions were obviously done during time when we're supposed to be in class. Heh heh!

I guess books can never be judged by its cover. =)

Fitness First

I've always known that my fitness level is bad. ICT industry doesn't really require a very high level of fitness. Coupled with a sedentary lifestyle that revolves around computer games and diet that consists of a significant portion of junk food, my fitness level isn't amazing. Still, I figured as long as I'm not suffering from any illness, it should be fine.

Then I had my first shock. During a medical checkup, the doctor said I had high blood pressure. Man, was I shocked!! While it turned out to be caused by lack of sleep (was working day and night those 2 weeks), I figured a healthy body should be able to handle such things without reporting high-blood pressure.

My second shock happened when another doctor told me my pulse rate is a bit high during rest. While she said it's not dangerous, it shows that my fitness level is WAY below average and this shouldn't be happening to someone in my age group.

The last straw came when I'm shopping for new pants and my waist measurement is beginning to match my dad's! Heh, sorry dad! I love you but some parts of you, I don't think I want to emulate! =P

When I heard Fitness First was having a Merdeka promotion in which they waived the joining fee (and saving me RM 500), I woke up while it's still daylight on a holiday (*gasp*) and signed up for a Fitness First passport package. 6 months from now, I'll be so fit and buff, Baywatch will be falling over themselves to hire me while my work rate will be better than Davids when I play futsal! Heh heh!