123Passportphoto.com - the perfect passport photo composer!

Once upon a time, it was so expensive to get passport photos done in Switzerland. If I remember it correctly, I used to pay something like CHF80 for 4 photos. Absolutely unbelievable. I then stumbled across 123passportphoto.com ... since then I never looked back. It's the perfect online passport photo composer, and the best for value for money - No Doubt!

Regret and happiness

This my first post after many months if not a few years. Certain things in life have taken some major turns in the recent time - we purchased a small house, our youngest is now 9 year old, the eldest is 14 and the middle one 11, we adopted a tabby kitten and he's 3.5 year old (that's likes 20 in human term if I'm not mistaken), we sold our Toyota Verso having got the gearbox repaired and got ourselves a 4 year old VW Touran and wife got her license! We now live in a small "row house" or "terrace house", with two small sized adults, one petit teenager, and two pre-teen kids and a big tabby cat. It's pretty crowded which makes me regret ... why the hell did I pay so much for such a small place. There isn't even enough room for everyone - the girls have to share a room that bothers me so much ... :( sigh. I tend to either make no decision or stupid decisions in life. Looking back I wish I could have given more thoughts and not rush into making decisions on certain things. We now have an overpriced small house with appalling built quality and no saving.

On the positive note, the kids have been doing very well in their less complicated life.

My eldest girl is still very active in her sport - artistic gymnastic (no guys, it's the not the one with balls and ribbons, that's Rhythmic gymnastic!). Though she once trained to break into the "Kanton" junior team (equivalent to state team), she didn't make it, which we as parents were probably partially at fault depending on how one looks at it. She now trains at and representing her Club and in this context she's done very well. She was a few times times on the podium which includes once as the Kanton (Aargau) champion and most recently third place in team event at the Swiss National Championship (despite being sick during the tournament). On the academic side, she's on track to go to the "Kantonschule" (Translated Kanton School), which is like a college that would prepare her for university.

My youngest followed her big sister's footstep and is also in artistic gymnast. I must say she's done beyond our expectation, given the fact that she's for the past two years in the Swiss national junior group. At 9, it'd probably take another 7 years or so if she's ever to make it (by this I mean competing at the highest level internationally and finger cross at the Olympics - it costs nothing to dream). She trains 6 times a week Monday to Saturday, each day for about 4 hours. It's a tough, long journey which makes me wonder sometimes whether her study will eventually have to take a back seat (though she's up to this point does well in school).

The middle one is the one that surprised us the most, which makes me sometimes think, buying that small overpriced house had probably a silver lining to it. Since our place is close to a badminton club (the Badminton Club Gebenstorf), he rejoined it (he had tried it once earlier but had stopped due to distance from home). Since the first day of rejoining, he has not stopped improving and as off Jan 2020 he's joined his small sister in the Swiss national junior group. Somehow he has a very natural movement, handling of racquet and footwork on the court. In his first Swiss national championship, at 9 year old he got a bronze medal in Under 10 category, and in 2020 got another bronze in under 11. In 2019 he almost became the Kanton (Aargauer) Champion for Under 13 (when he was just 10!) ... Olympic (tough, but free to dream). In school he's so brilliant with Mathematics, picking the top score in almost every test as though his brain is gifted for anything mathematical and logic.

Finally, the letter

Where I work situation has not been great. The first and second retrenchments came and went, and the third one is now hitting me. Today 11 Nov 2019 I got the letter (the "blue" letter as they used to call it here). My position is no longer needed, I have to go. 

I joined the company after Chinese new year on 18 Feb 2002. I am told to look for a new job on 18 Nov 2019. You can do the math yourself, it's a long time. Not a surprise, yet a wee bit of sadness. 

I do not plan to share the news with family, at least not yet. 

I will need to digest the news. 

I'll make us famous

A friend has been trying to get me to learn a bit of Arabic from him and we started off with an over18 jokes from Whatsapp ... it turned out I sounded wasn't that bad with my pronunciation. I then thought we could potentially become famous YouTubers if we could put together something revolving around me learning Arabic and him teaching. It could be a project that will help me with my Arabic at the same time help others, and at some point we could even be making a bit of money (not sure how though .. but that's the next chapter ... my head already begins to brainstorm some ideas).

I haven't shared the whole idea with him although I did text him to say I had an idea to make us two famous :). 

I've had many such ideas on other topics but have never made any move with any. I think this is most viable and one that has a great potential for success. I feel that there are lot of people out there who have interest in the language and lately I am surprise to learn many Europeans have been learning it. As a matter of fact I met an Italian recently who'd self thought himself the language online, though at times he did get some tips and bits and pieces from a friend. Listening to him I was very impressed especially when he started to share with me his understanding of the language grammatical rules which I must say aren't that straightforward at all. 

To the Arabs they seem impressed that I can read Arabic but don't understand it, though on the contrary I've got to say I'm not impressed of myself at all. Partly is a result of a meaningless eagerness of the Malaysian Muslims to memorise the Book without learning the language. Having said that I had a great opportunity to learn the language during my secondary school, but I purposely took it for granted and consequently I failed the test and in short learned nothing. 

It's probably the right time now for me to revisit the language and get myself into the right mode and attitude towards re-learning it. We'll see ... Insyaallah

Let's clean them up for the future generation

The MACC, Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission has confiscated millions in cash!

Man, you've got to be so evil to be stealing this much and blimey keep the stash of cash at home ... well, i guess there's no other way to keep it below the radar. 52M Ringgit of cash! It's unbelievable, never in the history of the country or even the world probably. 

From the Star: 

Two senior officials from the Sabah Water Department have been arrested following discovery of over 52M Ringgit of cash kept hidden in their homes and offices among others. On top of that the MACC has also confirmed the two's accounts with over 60M Ringgit have been frozen as part of the operation (this does not include cash overseas). A number of luxury vehicle and numerous designer handbags, jewelleries and luxury watches were also confiscated.

Goodness me. If such officers have managed to amass such a ridiculous amount of money, just imagine what could be the case should such evil act is also happening at much higher levels (i'm very sure it is). In the ranks below, there's no question it's happening in all corners ... sadly to say, it's rooting so deep down that the whole society is rotting to say the least. A friend who used to work in a Bank once told me about a colleague who picked up a phone and called someone to get him pay for his new car tyres. Clearly that someone had probably received help from this colleague of his on some bank facilities. It's crazy! Another businessman friend recently shared with me how such act is pretty much a deep-rooted culture in the government agencies that he'd always receive direct(!!) asks for kick-backs or signals prior to his projects getting approved or payments released. 

Let's hope for the best for Malaysia. It's simply saddening that the country is turning more and more into a corrupt nation and society. 

...

I'm on a mission

There have been many times when I started this but it never gained momentum and after a while the whole thing king of died off. I'm gonna try again. 

My mission is to earn through my photos .. through online stock agencies and also Fine Art America. How does that sound? Tough ..

I submitted my first set of photos on Fotolia some years ago, probably five years at least. How much have I earned? Well, I've yet to really check, but I think something around 20 pounds. That's crap, I've got to say. But I've also got to say that had I continued to upload consistently, I would have been able to make a bit more than that. And clearly if I was very selective and paid close attention to what I uploaded, I would make quite a lot. But, it's bloody time consuming and every lot you uploaded dozens will get rejected, now that's depressing. I'm gonna make a return. This time around, I'd like to also put a bit more focus on Fine Art America. 

PAMS get together is coming up again!

It's the last minute again for me to get all the stuff ready for the upcoming PAMS event next week Saturday. With a couple of comm members falling sick, it's a "limited arms and legs and limitless tasks to accomplished" situation between the remaining three. The event which is usually organised early in conjunction with Eids has been postponed till now due to the summer holiday and unavailability of a comm member. So far there are ca 100 people + 20 or so kids which we expect to see joining. Many have ordered the takeaway rendang which is offered for the first time ever and ... the responses have been fantastic.

PAMS that stands for Persatuan Anak-anak Melayu Switzerland (Society of Malay Descendants Switzerland) was founded in the 80s by a Malay group from Malaysia. Later in the 90s fellow Malays from Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and even Sri Lanka (I never knew there were Malays there) started to also join. Each get together at the time brought some 40 or 50 guests. These days we sometimes reach up to 150/180 people coming from all background Malay and not. 

For those joining us this Saturday, I look forward to seeing you there. Let's hope for a great weather ... so far it looks promising. 

 

Pre post Nuptial agreement

During the Malaysia Merdeka (independence) celebration here in Zurich, I told a friend how sometimes I miss business trips, having not had one for a long time, while when I'd traveled quite regularly in the past, I thought I had a bit too much of it. He shared how he travels quite a lot these days .. and candidly added he also has a deal with the wife 7 days a year he gets to go away on his own alone (so he said). Damn; what a fantastic deal! How come I never thought about such post nuptial agreement? Start to draft it?

The Big Brothers

For the past few days, a couple of black, dark windows Mercedes mini buses and a Mercedes limousine have been on and off parked in the compound where I work. Upon entering the lobby of the main office building, one will not miss an ex-arm army / secret service looking man standing next to the lift for the whole day for the past few days. It tells me only one thing - the big brothers are finally here.

Many have been talking our the clash of two cultures - European vs American or a large multinational vs a huge, gigantic conglomerate. The black Mercedeses and a bodyguard manning lifts gives you a glimpse of the differences in two cultures. It looks a bit of an overkill to most here. But, hey, that's how it is - better start embracing it. At least there is a super, tiny, slim chance you might be one of the futures guys travelling in those chauffeured driven limousines with a bodyguard.

To add a bit more to the story: I was driving to the office from home last night. On the way, a black Mercedes limousine drove fast into a roundabout completely ignoring the fact that it was MY WAY. Damn! I thought that was a bit selfish - and it looked so much like the black car from the office compound. Behind it, a black Mercedes minibus followed. Surprise surprise when I got to the office, the same mini bus arrived.

This is just the beginning of it. For many years it's been fun being the key guys in the HQ, despite all the good and bad. Things will certainly start to change ... hopefully for the better, and I can only see them changing very fast.

Lawak Jenaka

Pak Haji mengawinkan keempat empat anaknya, yaitu Anita, Minah, Mimin dan Mumun. Mereka semua akan berbulan madu ke Bali.
Sebelum mereka pergi, Pak Haji berpesan, "Nak,jgn lupa hantar kabar ya ke Abah tentang kualiti laki masing2. Pakai sms aja & supaya tak nampak sangat guna motto iklan aje yee !!


Hari pertama di bulan madu:
Si Anita kirim SMS ke pak Haji, sms-nya cukup singkat: "KFC"
& Pak haji langsung mencari iklan KFC di gerai KFC terdekat & terbacalah : "SEHINGGA MENJILAT JARI" Pak Haji pun tersenyum2.


Hari ke-2 bulan madu:
Giliran si Mimin yg kirim SMS & sms-nya jg cukup singkat : "STANDARD CHARTERED".
Pak Haji pun langsung mencari iklan Standard Chartered di surat kabar dan terbacalah tulisan : "BESAR, KUAT & PERAMAH".
Pak Haji pun langsung tersenyum lebar.


Hari ke-3:
Giliran si Mumun yg kirim SMS, isi-nya jg cukup pendek : "NESCAFE".
Pak Haji pun langsung mencari iklan NESCAFE di surat kabar dan terbaca motto Nescafe : "NIKMATNYA SAMPAI TITISAN TERAKHIR".
Pak Haji pun kembali tersenyum ceria.
Memasuki hari ke-4,5,6 & 7:
Pak Haji mulai risau kerana si Minah tak ada kabar berita. aduuuh, ada apa dgn si Minah ya.., jangan2 dia kecewa dgn lakinya ...??


... Akhir-nya pd hari ke-8 barulah masuk SMS dari Minah yg isinya jg cukup singkat: "AIR ASIA ".
Pak Haji sangat terkejut krn yang dia tahu AIR ASIA itu syarikat penerbangan terbesar di Asia Tenggara. Langsung Pak Haji cari surat kabar, terbaca-lah motto AIR ASIA :
"7 KALI SEMINGGU - 3 KALI SEHARI - 5 JAM NON STOP".
Pak Haji pun berkata dalam hatinya, =-? patutlah dia tak sempat sms, tiap hari jadual-nya "FuuuLLLL..."

First sahur

It takes a bit of time to adjust to first seeing a selection of heavy food for sahur and second to chew and swallow. Laid down nicely on the long tables are koeteow goreng, ayam berempah, nasi putih, masak kicap ikan, sayur lodeh, rojak (not exactly it, but I forget the right name), variety of cakes and slices of fruits. May be no huge variety for Malaysian standard, but hell that's as good as lunch or dinner.

I could see a few puzzled foreign faces, perhaps just landed at odd hours or having early flight out, looking at the food. Most resorted to slices of breads and/or cakes.

I have to say, the koeteow goreng looked pretty good, and that's what I headed for; and the ayam percik, reminding me of My Kitchen in Zurich.

Schnuppertraining im Kunstturnen 2014

The trial day for Kunsturnen for this year is finally announced. As a matter of fact it's been on the web site for quite some time now, though it is only now that you see it's posted in public, one at my bus stop this morning. Apparently it's a yearly thing that new potential gmynasts or Turnenrinen in German are sought for to join the local team / association.

Schnuppertraining or test training (or rather test session), is are open to girls of around the age of 5 to come and observe a resgular training session and if interested and and eventually selected could join the regular training and compete in numerous competition over the period of spring and start of summer.

In August 2013, I wrote a post about my daughter Lana joining the team with hectic training of 4 to 5 times a week for roughly 4 hours each. She's doing really well and is now recognised as one of the key gymnasts in her group. She joined very late at the age of 7, but fortunately able to pretty much skip two years to be where she is now.

Rigi Tour 2.0

10th of May 2014 marked another milestone in my venture into mountain biking. Together with 4 other colleagues/friends I conquered the top of the Rigi mountain for the second time, 8 months after the first attempt. Reaching the peak wasn't the biggest thing as I knew I would make it one way or another - as I had anyway done it once. But to reach at a much quicker speed, non stop in the last phase and with reserved strength and energy was what counted most. 

With Rigi, the last roughly one third of the journey is the most challenging where you have to climb for about 4-5 km of steepness that could easily make your eyes tell the brain to just give up. I knew as long as my legs didn't hit the wall and my heart rate remained at a good level, all that could fail me was my mental strength - it's all up in the head. I kept telling myself not to look ahead but down until I reached peak and I'm proud to say I did it well. With people along the way giving moral support, it was a great feeling and a huge sense of achievement. This Tour was the ultimate assessment of my fitness level after 12 months of life style change, the same 12 months after my very first mountain biking experience. 

I'm looking forward to Rigi 3.0 :) 

Cannondale Jekyll Carbon 1 (2012)

Talking about high end enduro mountain bike, this is the ultimate machine - Cannondale Jekyll Carbon 1. It's a 2012 model, but it's damn gorgeous. The frame is fully carbon making it really light at 12.3 kg, and to top it all, even the handlebar and the crank arm are also made of carbon - how about that?! The fork is with two mode of 150mm and 120mm making is perfect for any conditions. The rear shock is made specially for the bike and it also comes in special two modes for climb and descend. 

I never thought I would even be riding a top end bike such costing originally around 8000 CHF. I managed to borrow this second hand unit from a local shop for Rigi trip in the weekend - it's gonna be a great tour. 

Swiss-style 24-hour fresh vegetables and farm produce vending machine

I was taking a quick spin through the nearby village with my daughter when we stumbled across this vending machine selling fresh vegetables, fruits and eggs. It was the first time that I saw a vending machines used to sell farm produce. Looking at the prices, they are a wee bit above those found in the supermarkets downtown, but I guess not so bad if one needs any of these items urgently and it's Sunday (Sunday is a no-business day in Switzerland; with a small exceptions all shops are closed, including many restaurants!). 

A Swiss Style 24-hour vegetables, fruits and eggs vending machine

How to make your own passport photos?

I'm fine with taking the shots needed, especially when the new rule for Malaysian passport is white background - easily done, as my house walls are all white ;). What's difficult is to get the size right for printing - this is the real pain in the neck. It was the case that I usually had to try to print a number of copies before I got the exact prescribed size.

I spent a long time looking for a tool to accomplishes this easily. I struck my luck about 2 months when I had to renew my son's passport.

I stumbled upon http://www.idphoto4you.com, and it is one extremely useful utility web site. It is so simple to use; even allows you to do some basic editing online to get the right exposure, background colour etc. For those living in expensive places such as Switzerland, every little tool like this helps a lot. I saved 80 CHF (around 80 USD) with the help from idphoto4you.com. You can too - check it out!

No that's not the photo!

The tail may be hard, but I love it / Giant Talon LTD

This is my mountain bike.

You want a superb hard tail? Look for this bike - it's a Giant Talon LTD. A model from 2012 that you could probably still find at some shops in Europe (unfortunately available only in this region).

I got it for CHF 1,400 though I told my wife it was only 800 quid. It's been sometimes now and since I have used it to the max and thoroughly enjoy the routine, I'm sure she will recognise that it's a money well spent. To be honest, there is no way, absolutely no way that one can get any cheaper price for the spec.

I don't think I can lay down a good comparison to other hard tails or even soft tails as I have not used that many and certainly not owned any before. But, one thing for certain is that I have not a single complaint about this bike. It rides well and smooth and handles all surfaces superbly - gravel, single train, soft mud, hard tarmac, you name it. The best is the comfort and ease it offers when climbing. I can only say that it's the bike for me and I will keep riding it as long as I can.

Thank you my hard tail - you've changed my life.

The tablet finder .. what a cool tool

I never really thought of checking out the solution to locate missing smart phones and tablets until yesterday when I'd totally forgot where I misplaced my Samsung Note. The initial worry was that it'd been nicked when left unattended on my desk. A colleague suggested we tried to locate it using the Samsung "find my device" tool available on Internet and it really brought a huge relief - a big blue marker popped up on Google map telling us the device was sitting in my house. It took me a long time to finally recalled how the Note got tucked safely in one of my many bags in the master bedroom - it's one of those (many!) days that I left some items somewhere and simply forgot about it later.

For those using Samsung device, better make sure than you register your device if you haven't done so. Get that user name and password ASAP so that in case you misplace your device, you could turn to this super tool. The URL: http://findmymobile.samsung.com / A similar tool exists for Apple devices. 

Mountain biking - 21 km of climb, descend, speed, control

Since after Ramadhan I had not been doing mountain biking with the regular guys - finally I had the chance today! Not wanting to miss, at 5PM sharp I hurriedly left the office, quickly picked up Lyris (that's my 2.5 year old daughter) from the nursery and shooting off fast on my heavy local brand "California" city bike to get home ASAP to change.

Precisely at 6 PM all the three of us started heading up-hill, initially on normal road then slowly turning into gravel tracks and some single trails. I should have taken some photos of the trails. A couple of them were pretty good. One in particular was covered in layers of chopped woods and branches - we were not sure of the reason, but I guessed it was a special path to train horses. It wasn't easy not to fall and it all depended heavily on how one controls the bike, not much on speed. Going down some of the semi single trails were also fascinating - and again control, balancing and braking played an important  role. With the speed going downhill, one small mistake could mean a crash and you don't want that to happen. I usually had the tendency to press the front brake too heavily when panic (and already had one crash precisely because of this); luckily all was good today.

Start to end was about 21 km - a short but certainly for enough given the limited day light.

I feel like taking a break tomorrow; or .. perhaps a quick spin alone. We'll see ...

And though that looks like me, it isn't .. 

Setting up a paid domain and hosting

I have decided to set up some paid domains and hosted web sites instead to explore the possibility of generating some Google Adsense or equivalent income. It is an old intention that never got realised properly due to serious procrastination.

I stumbled upon this site (http://www.2createawebsite.com/) that explains things very well I would say much better than many others that are simply just shit piled up nicely that is pull traffic. From the content and the way it's written there are elements of sincere intention to share her knowledge and experience. With her guide I have managed to register a couple of domains and one is now properly hosted - where it is, will have to wait; let me work on various bits and pieces before it is ready for a showcase ;)

I would suggest that anyone interested to learn more about monetizing from web sites and blogs to spend some time reading this site. It's well written with simple words and good flow.