Year 2024....After 17 years

Just a quick bump register for this blog on the 30th October 2024 after 17 years.

So much has changed. 

From being single, to married with Lisa, having 2 kids aged 13 (boy) and 10 (girl), Ethan and Elisa in this year.

Embarked on a journey in the sales position within the Oil & Gas industry, particularly in the electrical safety products till current.

Experienced the pain of losing beloved relative, from Uncle Thomas, Uncle Peter, Auntie Bernie (3rd Aunt) to Uncle Andy (1st Uncle) within these years.

After a good 17 years, I finally call it quits to work for any boss, but to start a partnership with an ex-colleague in the same field and product solutions.

Experienced true motorcycle touring, solo trip to Bangkok, group trip in Ladakh in India and numerous riding events in the region of Malaysia and Thailand.

Tragedy strikes in year 2024.

Got caught for drink driving twice (2014), subsequently took back all classes of driving and riding license and recently on 12th January 2024, which is now waiting for court attendance to answer the charges (2nd timer will be fined heavily, mandatory jail sentence and a minimum of 5 years disqualification).

Whatever the situation is at the moment, I continue to press on and live life to the fullest. 

It is what it is.

The art of letting go

It's been quite awhile since I last posted anything. Well, today I'd like to pen down some thoughts with regards to "letting go". It's something I've learnt the hard way throughout my life even until now, I'm still learning.

I remember the hardest time was when I was hauled in to court for an infringement of the law and was thus punished by throwing me into a delinquents' hostel. At that time, tears rolled quietly into the god damn stained pillow over at the hostel and I was constantly asking myself, why the hell did I land up here? I made a mistake by showing loyalty to the wrong group of people and it cost me dearly. I vowed never to return, and I never did.

I too, had a couple of relationships and the turning point was when I realised that every human being has their rights and choices, but I contested that violently in the beginning and it took away that very relationship with an ugly end, with my partner jumping ship to another man who respected her rights. I vowed never to contest against another's free wills and rights in future, and I never did.

My beloved cousin Jerome passed away in September 2005. All the while when he was still alive, both of us took for granted that we being alive and not dead is an entitlement, but than after his death, it obviously shows that it isn't. Life in itself is almost and always being taken for granted, without realising that death may strike anytime, anywhere and anyhow. From than, I vowed never to take life for granted, and till now , I never did.

And so, the art of "letting go" is never to live the past, whether to replay scenes over and over in your head, or physically playing it.

On a lighter note

Suddenly, I do realise that my previous postings has been kind of serious and thought of lightening it up for this one. Everybody's gotta have some kind of entertainment and I thought sharing this light hearted experience may help.

I have been receiving emails lately from various sites like sitepro.com and the likes because I did use a free website submission site a couple of weeks ago. One particular mail did caught my eye, it's the talking character that you can control and place them on your site (whether it be personal or for business) to generate more interests in the visitors that drops by your site.

I was hesitant in the beginning, but since there's a 15 day trial period, why not ? So I clicked order now and was brought to the page where I can choose the different characters for use on my site. This is the fun part, the characters you choose will follow your every movement from the mouse cursor, so being bored, I just fooled around till I drop (almost) dead laughing. Than came the text to speech section, you know... Being a Singaporean, the kind of text I initially typed in are the C*** B**, L** J***, KNNBCCB and all sorts of vulgarities, just to see and hear the character speaking out really "Ang Mo" version of the hokkien vulgarities.

After the fun was over, I guess that this animated speaking character can help me to guide my visitors from my site to where ever I need them to be. Examples are MGC Technologies and here . Have fun !

Heaven or Hell ?

For those that are religiously devoted or are staunch believer of life after death, I have to apologise for this post as what is going to be said here is purely based on my beliefs and opinion.

I've always believed that human being is the only creature hanging around on earth has consciousness, which sets the difference apart from the rest of the living creatures. Having consciousness has a problem, you no longer function naturally as how mother nature has wanted us to be. Instead, feelings and emotions such as love, hate, happiness and sadness came into play. What follows are desires which to name a few, lust, greed, gluttony and etc. I'll talk about this another day.

Coming back to the question of "heaven or hell?" , where would you rather be ? Or is there really heaven and hell ? To me, I believe that the moment we take our last breath on earth, that's the end of ourselves, what we have left behind are our earthly bodies and offsprings (if there is any) to carry on the human race.

The reason why I am writing this post is because of the people I know of had or are still preaching to me about the celestial being who is the all amighty, so ever merciful and compassionate and stuffs like that. In addition, how anyone that dares to leave this supreme being will be condemned in eternal hell and so on and so forth. I mean, it don't make ANY sense at all ! If god is so ever graceful and forgiving, why would he/she need to punish the creature that he "created" to eternal hell ? And by believing in him/her will open up the gates of heaven for you to enter after your death ? If god really were to do this, than I truly believe he is no different from you and me, for we will destroy or create things based on our emotion. Isn't that so ?

My beliefs are to live life to its fullest, helping each other, constantly reminding myself that this life is the one and only. This I believe, will set things right. Let me do a quote from the famous American physicist, Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist. Weinberg said "Religion is an insult to human dignity. Without it, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes Religion."

Ideas are bulletproof

Having watch the movie V for Vendetta again on DVD, somehow or other I realise that there are quite a number of countries do have the pseudo democratic governance as depicted in the show.

Recalling the scenes where all the news reported on TV was fabricated by the order of Adam Sutler makes me sick. In this present day, you'll be able to identify certain countries with controlled media, or I should say, the state media and no one else. If there should have any producers daring enough to voice out alternative views, that person is going to be "hammered". Either to lose his job, family members' be harassed and etc....

I love this statement the best when V said, " The people should not be afraid of the government, but instead, the government should be afraid of the people" . Too bad some countries don't enjoy such liberties. That's where ideas comes in, but just idea alone won't do much help, it has to be coupled with courage, urgency to act and passion, than only it will be bulletproof.

Am I cruel ?

Today is the dateline for an individual to pay up the outstanding amount for an equipment bought from me on the 17th July 2007. Agreement was all stated on the sales invoice where both of us signed on it and apparently, since I am writing this, means that numerous attempts to contact him today was met with equal non response.

As I am currently out of job, any amount of significant value matters a lot to me ($100 and above) and this bugger actually still owe me the sum more than that. I am totally disappointed with this person as I trusted him so much to pay up last month which was agreed upon signing the sales agreement, but right now, he left me helpless as to how am I going to recover back the money.

He left me with little choice but to lodge a report with the local authorities to at least get something done rather than to waste my time and energy searching high and low for him. I do not know what's going to happen to him but that's the least of my concern now. Am I cruel to report him ?

Golden rules

I've compiled a few advices I get while being an entrepreneur and I want to share it with you. Here are the ten of my favourites;

• Always under promise and over deliver
• NEVER hire somebody that you cannot fire
• Every drop of water makes the ocean
• It's the little thing that makes the difference
• 75% listen : 25% talk
• Speak in threes. Eg One people, One nation, One Singapore
• No risk. No gain.
• The brightest flame burns the quickest
• When you fail to plan, you plan to fail
• Plan like you are going to live forever, but live each day like you are going to die tomorrow