Expiration Date

As we’re drawing down the curtains for 2007, my notebook is starting to act up. Well, it has been acting up since day one, really, but now it is really acting up in ways that are starting to worry me.

Recycled image with stupid green monkey from 2004 Universal Studios trip, 101^st Airborne patch, notebook PC with mouse, and 21^st Century 1000mg chewable orange-flavored vitamin-C

I’m used to the error messages during the shut down sequence. They never were any more than a minor annoyance but once recently the computer completely failed to shut down. I only realized it upon finding the notebook unusually warm with the battery completely drained when I took it out of the backpack. So now I always have to make sure that the notebook actually shuts down before packing up. It also regularly fails to recognize the built-in optical drive, and a few times ‘forgets’ the network adapters while I am online.

Granted, while the notebook is only about half as old as the computer at the Kuang Police Station, it has also seen some heavy usage, logging some serious hours as I am online most of the time I’m awake (as well as most of the time I’m not awake). Sure, it would be nice to buy a new notebook, but that will definitely burn a huge hole in my pocket. A new notebook means no more, well, a lot of stuff, chief among them my more-or-less monthly Amazon buys. Hmm… how can I get myself a free new notebook? I really don’t see how, so now I’m paying a considerable degree more attention to keeping the notebook running as smoothly as possible. Pray don’t you dare die on me!

__________
PS: If you represent an organization that gives out free notebook computers to strangers, I can definitely use one running on (at least) 1.6GHz Intel^® Core^TM 2 Duo Processor, 2MB DDR2 SDRAM, 120GB HDD, and discrete graphic card with dedicated 128MB GDDR2 memory.

:P

Six Years

“The computer has been running continuously for six years” said the police officer on duty.

I was at a local police station recently accompanying a cousin to lodge a police report for a break-in. We were waiting for the computer to register the report.

My first thought was “Wow, the computer has been running for six years!” That’s 52,560 hours!

My second thought was “They’ve been stuck using the same computer for six years!” Isn’t that a small miracle? Worse, apart from a spanking new mini photocopier at the back, the stained six-year-old PC with 14-inch monochrome CRT monitor was the most advanced piece of technology that I could see. Attached to it was a loud dot matrix printer.

I bet the printer was six years old and never turned off too. It was almost like a trip to a museum, at 2 in the morning.

Carrots and Sticks

Kenmore Square, January 2005

Everyone’s all quiet towards the end of the year. Lot’s of work, I suppose, or exams. Mon is redecorating again, I guess, locking his blog. I wonder what he’s got in store this time.

It’s almost the end of 2007 and I have not submitted any PhD applications, which means that I’m staring at a possibility of a pay cut next year. It’s one of the sticks the university inserted in my appointment letter two years ago – go for a PhD within two years or they may reduce my housing allowance back to first degree-level. Whatever.

Selamat Hari Raya Korban!

Outside the apartment on Bay State Road after a blizzard, January 2005

Trip to Nowhere

On Sunday, Ami asked if I would like to tag along him doing some property valuation. Well, between that and spending the day doing nothing but staring at my navel, I said yes, and off we went. Born and bred, and know working in the Klang Valley, I’ve always found smaller towns interesting in that there aren’t as many cars and people around. Wouldn’t it be cheap to buy a house in, say Banting or Bentong, far away from the city? Of course, it doesn’t make much sense unless I’m willing to find another job.

Our targets for the day were four properties in the Kuala Langat and Sepang districts, all set to be auctioned by the bank, hence the need for them to be valued. The first two were in Teluk Panglima Garang (Fierce General Bay?) – love the name of the place. Neither of us were familiar with the area, so we stopped by the local police station and asked for directions. Unlike most people I actually kinda like the police force despite all their failings, but my brother did all the asking – it was his job anyway – while I stayed in the car and played with the camera. It was blazing hot.

We couldn’t find the first property. The address listed a lot number but the place was a residential estate. We found the second property after asking directions from a young Indian man. That wrapped up Teluk Panglima Garang.

The third property really took us on an adventure of epic proportion; I only wish that it was an exaggeration. It was fourth floor condominium unit at “Taman Murni, Bukit Changgang, Banting”. We only saw one high rise building in the Banting area, a new condominium complex with a Tesco outlet on the ground floor – not it. A police officer at the Banting police station told us to drive towards the KLIA direction. A property sales agent at the previous condominium complex then told us to keep on driving for another five kilometers. More than five kilometers later, we were already in Dengkil and met a seemingly clueless shopkeeper who suggested we turn towards Kampung Selangor Dredging. Turned out he was indeed clueless. An elderly security guard at a deserted PLKN camp, however, was not so clueless, and gave us our first concrete direction towards Salak Tinggi. Along the way we stopped for more direction from a kid manning a car wash joint, before finally arriving at our destination, a housing complex quite literally in the middle of nowhere.

It took us two-and-a-half hours. And it was not exactly called Taman Murni. :P

You live here?

The last hunt took us to two police stations; first the Sepang district police headquarters and then the Dengkil police station, before finding the place right behind the station.

Calling it a day, we took a detour towards Putrajaya to pray, but was turned off by the volume of tourists. Instead, we ended up praying and having dinner at Shah Alam before heading home. After a scorching hot full day, it finally rained as we headed to Shah Alam with the setting sun.

Speeding Tickets

I got booked for speeding. Not one, not two, but three speeding tickets. That’s RM900 and potentially I-don’t-know-how many demerit points off my driving record. The worst thing, though, is that they weren’t my fault but my sister’s; my lead-footed sister. In all three occasions – once in Sabak Bernam and twice in Manjung – it was her racing for site meetings. No wonder she always managed to make it to her 10 o’clock meetings at Beruas on time after leaving the house at 7! The one ticket that arrived yesterday logged her going at 104kph on a 60kph-stretch. She didn’t think she would be caught speeding in the morning.

DOHH!

She better settle them all soon. I don’t want to imagine how many speeding tickets she’d get if she was driving that Camry she wanted instead of the puny Kancil.

I can feel the rush in Speed by sampok at deviantART. How fast can you go on a bike, though?

Two Weeks at Work

The first week – so-called “adjustment period” – was chaotic as usual with students joining and dropping classes to fit their schedules and filling up their workloads. It was especially chaotic for me sitting in for the department head. I never gave so many signatures in one week!

I have four new classes with four new sets of students, though there are some familiar faces among them. I’ve always thought that the first meeting of a class points to how the mood of the class will be for the whole semester. Two of the classes were “happy”, i.e. the students readily respond to questions and actively participate in discussions, while the other two were not so “happy”. I hope to be able to turn them around pretty soon.

Dark clouds... I was half-hoping to see a twister

Last Friday the whole kulliyyah plus families travelled up north to Lumut for a weekend of work and play. Most of us took the bus, but I thought that it would be a great opportunity to take the new car on a nice long drive up the coastal road with my brother.

He wanted a picture of him standing on a rock, he got a picture of him standing on a rock