In Ericsson Office Gurgaun

Looking down from the 6th floor in side Ericsson office:

This is where we have our lunch - it cost 40 rupee per lunch. Cheap relatively for a good meal of local Indian cuisine - naan, rice, dal and other vegetarian dishes.



And here shows a picture of my colleagues, who will be receiving trainings from me for these 2 weeks.

Arrived in India

Arrived in India at around 10.30pm and reached hotel at around 11pm. Tired. The hotel is quite not bad. But it cost USD185 per night even on corporate discount rate. Hotel in India is extremely short in supply hence the high price.

Slept at 2a.m after showering and unpacking my luggage. Was waken up at 6.30a.m by some strange noise coming from inside the wall - it sounded like someone had switched on the TV with no signal at full volume - I suspect it's caused by the next door switched on the shower tap. Unbelievable, as it was so loud that I couldn't sleep at all. The noise lasted 15 minutes. The fact that the room was facing the high way didn't help at all - there was this constant traffic horn (Indian drivers have this habit of horning while driving, they horn all the time, it's part of the driving culture).

I requested a shift to some other inner-facing room.

Me and my bad luck - the taxi that supposed to come at 9a.m didn't appear until 10.15, and that's only after me making numerous phone calls.

Me took a grumpy picture of myself inside the taxi.

Going back home

IPX video in Youtube

Someone from my company (Ericsson IPX) posted this IPX video in youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IELGcc7xoPU&mode=related&search=

My bike

This is my good old bike. It will be with me for another 2 more years before i'll scrap it. Pic Taken during my monthly servicing.

The dawn of an new era for phone

2 days ago I just got myself a Sony Ericsson K800i.

It is a great phone - 3.2 Megapixel camera, integrated blogger (yes, I now can snap a picture and blog to here from my phone!), full HTML browser, and user-intuitive interface, music player, 3G -almost everything you could expect from a phone, so naturally I was quite happy with it, until Apple unveils this:








I tell you, this will be THE PHONE for 2007, and probably 2008, 2009 and even 2010. This is the Ipod to the music industry as it is for the phone and telecom industry. WOW.


Just check it out yourself at Apple website:


http://www.apple.com/iphone/


It blew me away. Apple once again has set the standard and re-define the term 'nothing is impossible'. Look at the sheer finishing of the casing. Not to mention the ultra thin (116mm to be exact) physical. Look at the screen resolution. Look at the user interface. It is the user interface that I am totally impressed of - after all, it's all about user satisfaction, something Apple has never failed to deliver. And I didn't even mention its functionality. WOW. Totally got blown away. A true masterpiece.


I really wonder what Nokia, Motorola, Samsung and Sony Ericsson (the top 4 mobile phone makers in the world) will react to this. Apple is just so amazing. And we are talking about someone entering a new market segments. Now that is what I call a grand entry.


So here we come, just like Ipod has totally changed the landscape of the music industry, I would bet my money that Iphone will create enough ripples in the phone and telecom industry, ripples so big that will shake some of the biggest ships currently in the ocean.


We will see. ;)

This is one amazing video I've gotten from my friend via email....really cool.


p/s: Argh, looks like Blogger doesn't support uploading video natively. I'll need to find alternative. Stay tuned!

A not so Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all!

I've just come back from a short trip back home. This festive season is marred by the worst flood ever happened to Southern Peninsular Malaysia in 75 years. Segamat is perhaps the worst hit town. I have a friend whose house and car invaded by water (hope everything is fine now for him and his family!) My hometown Muar is largely unhit in its town area, but its outskirt areas are pretty badly hit too. Think of flood arising to 3-4 meters deep, and people trapped on their roof-top without access to potable water and food. The government as usual has been extremely inept in handling the catastrophe, leaving many helpless and having to rely on private volunteer organization for subsistence.

During the 4 days I was back home, there's not a drop of water coming from the tap - the water supply had been cut without advance notice. According to the authorities, this is due to the flood, for some reason they can't operate the pump which in turn causes the water supply to be cut - well, there's always excuses coming from our dear government. And the water supply cut is an extended one - it's rumoured that it will be a total of 8 days cut! Having no excess to water, my family had to resort to collecting rain water for general usage. I've gone 3 days without showering etc. And everybody else is doing the same. There's no-where in sight for the authority to distribute water to ease its people's woes.

Water, something we've taken for granted - it makes me reflect a lot when I arrive home in Singapore and turn on the water and taken my first shower after 4 days!

p/s: My throat is healing to 90% now, there's still some white spots in the wounds, but tomorrow I'll revisit the hospital for a follow-up checks. Tomorrow will return to office, and now that was a good break and I shall start afresh with my work!

What a rain!

It has been raining continously (yes, I mean continuously) for the last 3 days (72 hours) - simply unbelievable. The big canal in front of my flat is almost overflowing with water.

An update to my condition - today is the first day when I woke up actually feeling better. Every other morning I had waken up either from pain or discomfort - so it's definitely a good sign! Since yesterday night I had stopped taking painkillers, as I no longer feel so much pain that I can't bear - I am a non-medicine person, if I can avoid it, I will.

However, I still can't talk that well - slur too much as I can't open my mouth too much. And it's still painful when I talk.

Wish me a quick recovery!

The Making of a T-Shirt

Few months ago I was tasked to design a T-shirt for my Recreational Group in my company. The T-shirt was for an entry into a T-shirt design competition held among all the Recreational Groups.


I remember I was rather busy during that period and before I knew it, the deadline for the competition was only 2 days away! So I had to think of something no matter what. Being the perfectionist person I am, there's no way I can design something shabby and non-presentable. My philosophy is - if I do something, I'll make sure I give my best and deliver the best result.


I wanted something creative. After brainstorming for a few hours (by sketching on my sketch books), I came out with a design, and a plan on how to execute it.


First I need to go and buy materials and tools. 2 hours later I came back. And started my implementation.



The above is an accumulation of 4 full hours of work. Sketching of design, and punching of holes using the hole-puncher that I've just bought. Thanks Lifang for her brilliant idea of using hole puncher! I had to combine 4 A4 pieces of paper and also to slice each of the paper to accomodate the hole puncher. If you ever used a hole-puncher before you might understand why this is necessary. The hole-puching part was more tedious than I thought - but well, who asked me to be such a perfectionist?

Now comes the colouring part using the poster colour I have bought earlier. Painting was more swift, all done within 1.5 hours. The tricky part is to take care of not smearing the T-shirt underneath - this requires some control of the amount of water used. Luckily I wasn't too bad with my painting skills!

And the end-result. Though it basically consumed my whole Sunday away, it was well worth it for the amount of satisfaction and pleasure I've derived from it. ;)

Had hoped to win the competition, but as it turned out, our group didn't win anything though. But still I am rather proud of the design. ;) And yeah, my Recreational Group's name is 'Galactico'.

An experience of tonsillectomy

Been homebound recuperating from my tonsillectomy. It was the first time I ever undergone any type of surgery, and this even required me to go through General Anesthesia (GA - complete unconsciousness). I've had probelms of tonsillitis ever since I was a kid, and I've now gathered enough courage to get them removed so that I can carry on with my life and eat the Kentucky Fried Chicken with less worry that I'll get sore throat the next day. It' s not that I won't get tonsillitis after the tonsillectomy, mind you - it's just that the chances of me getting it will be much lesser. Also my enlarged tonsils are getting so big that sometimes I can feel that I am having difficulty breathing - I really don't want to die from suffocating while I am sleeping or something like that.

The day-surgery was scheduled on 11th of December. I admitted to the hospital at 11a.m and was told that the surgery was to be carried out at 1pm. Being a first-timer (I sincerely hope this will be the last time!) I natually was quite anxious and felt uneasy about it. Mum was there accompanying me though.

At around 1pm, I was brought into the surgery room only to be told that the doctor was not there yet! So I had to wait till 1:50pm before this young lady doctor came. After which I was put to sleep (it was fast! I dropped into unconsciousness within seconds!).

I was waken up by the nurse calling my names - it was already 3:20pm - this was longer than I expected as I was told that tonsillectomy normally takes 30 minutes to complete - maybe my tonsils were extra-large! ;) I felt dizzy from the GA, and quite an unbearable discomfort around my throat - the anesthetist told me it was normal. By the way the anethetist was quite nice, he gave me quite a lot of assurance and counselling before he put me to sleep - realizing that it was my first time (and hopefully the last time!) and my natural anxiety.

I did not quite feel the pain straight after the surgery - maybe because of the GA. So after 2 hours, I went home. Here's a historic picture where I was sitting on my hospital bed for the first time (and hopefully the last time!)

I went home after 2 hours.

So for the past 4 days - I have been resting at home, doing my best to recover. My only diet at the moment are poridge or soup as I still can't take solid food. Surprisingly the first 2 days it wasn't that painful - it was only on the 3rd and 4th day that I started feeling the pain. I can't really speak coherently as it was quite painful. And my ovula was the size 5 times its usual size! It was swollen that big that I constantly feel that there's something in my throat whenever I swallow or speaks - imagine my discomfort.

Today is my 5th day - and I am getting much better. The ovula swell has subsided quite a bit and the sore part where the tonsils were removed were getting better, with the skin being reconstructed (at least I think they are!).

But well, this was quite an experience - an experience that I would vow to never repeat again! So stay healthy!

Perfect way to start a day!

Fried egg + juicy tomato in between spreads of buttered breads.....breakfast can't get any better than this... ;) Thanks to my beloved wife!

Sis is here since last night - and we are off to attend our cousin's wedding tonight.

p/s: picture taken by mobile - hmmm, a bit off in its hue shade!

A tour of our humble abode

This is way overdue...had long wanted to do this but just didn't have the time to do it...oh ok, it's just plain laziness. *I have to admit*

We have moved into our new house for about 4 months now. Some of our friends have come visited us, but still many have not! And nope, we will not have a formal house warming session - rather we prefer to hold small, more manageable sessions with small groups of friends, we find it more personal and it's a great way of get-together among friends!

Under popular request, I shall post some of our house's photos here:

kitchen cabinet with illuminated spotlights

dining area

living room towards kitchen

tv console

Ok. End of tour... ;)