Berdua-duaan

For such a simple phrase, the title of this post has deep connotations, because it is often used in a negative sense. Consider the following statement : "Minggu lepas, saya ada ternampak En. Oldstock makan berdua-duaan dengan seorang wanita di sebuah restoran di AEON Jusco Setiawangsa."

Without the benefit of additional information, a seemingly simple statement can lead to serious complications. What more if the statement can actually be true? This is the case where the `implied' has more effect than the `explicit'. (My legally-trained blogger friends Versedanggerik and Snakebite can probably confirm this). If we are to take away the words `berdua-duaan' from the sentence, it would still carry a suspicious tone but the impact is somewhat lesser.

Anyway, what has that got to do with what I want to post about today? Well, nothing really. It is just my twisted way of telling you that this blog is two-years old today.

Thank you to all readers, followers and commenters who have made it such an interesting two years. Hope to have the drive and energy to continue writing for more years to come.

(Pic of two birds is a painting by Hsi-Mei Yates and borrowed from artistsnsuch.com)

All that's left are the memories

I am a bit unsure on how to start this post. Perhaps I should first apologise for the brief absence from blogosphere. It has taken me a while to get things organized with the shift to a new working environment. Something happened today that has caused me to think about things and put my thoughts in a blog post. But I'll get back to that shortly...

Early this year in January, I posted a story about Two Birthdays. The second birthday in that story is about a close friend of mine named Badique whom I re-connected via Facebook, after losing touch for more than 24 years. We had talked for nearly two hours, mostly re-living the stories of our past when we were studying in the UK... the wild and adventurous years. The visit to my friend's house that day was on the eve of his 48th birthday.

I ended that story with a wish for my friend to recover from his illness and the hope that I would be able to meet up with him again for his next birthday.

That hope is now no longer a possibility... my friend succumbed to his illness and passed away at around 11.15pm last night. This morning, I headed out to Shah Alam to attend the burial. The large number of friends and well-wishers who turned up to pay their last respects is clear evidence that Badique was well-liked as a person. Those who came range from old school-mates, university friends and ex-colleagues.

Throughout the early part of today, my mind is mostly in recall mode... remembering the times we went through together. I revisited Badique's FB profile just now and lifted a photograph from one of his albums to be included in this post.

Four young men in London circa 1980. Badique is the guy on the right with yours truly on the left.

Farewell my friend. I have fond memories of you. May The Almighty place you among the soliheen. Amin.

A change would do you good

In the past month or so, my blogging activity has been somewhat reduced compared to previous months. The amount of time I spend online nowadays is more to check/answer emails relating to stuff about work. Both blog-posting and blog-hopping are temporarily taking a back seat.

There is a particular reason for this.

Since the beginning of February, I have transferred to work at our head office in Kuala Lumpur. I am no longer based in Johor Bahru. With the said transfer comes added responsibilities and workload. While I previously oversee things at a regional level (Johor), I now have to handle projects at other locations in the country. That is why you see me sneaking in posts about Penang and Perak.

My preferred time to log on to blogger.com is usually late evenings. I like to read the stories posted by other blogger-friends and then dropping a comment or two. It is a nice way to relax the mind after a hard day's work and before turning in to bed. However, the place that I'm now renting in KL does not have Streamyx broadband and so I am deprived of my nightly dose of online reading and writing. I am thinking of getting one of those wireless broadband service from the mobile telcos but feedback from friends who have subscribed to the various packages are somewhat mixed.

Until then, please excuse my sporadic posts and visits. It was actually quite tough for me to decide on the move... but a voice within me said that the change would do me good. More about it, soon...

A town called Aubergine

I have always been interested in place-names, especially the strange ones. I always wonder about the history behind the names of such places. The state of Perak has its fair share of places with odd-sounding names. Places such as Parit (drain), Dinding (wall) and Lumut (moss). Even the state itself is named after `silver’ although it is more famous in producing a different mineral (tin).

Along the Taiping to Lumut road (Federal Route 60), there is a small town called Terong. Now... terong or spelled in modern Malay as terung, is the vegetable we know as aubergine or eggplant or brinjal. I am not actually sure if my translation is entirely accurate because the place is also spelled as `Trong’, without the `e’.

So what’s interesting about this town called Terong? Well… nothing much really. In fact, Terong can hardly be called a town. It is just a row of old timber shops lining either side of the road at a T-junction. But what caught my eye was the town’s post office that makes use of an old wooden building which was most likely an old government staff quarters. Very quaint and classic.

By the way, the aubergine is one of my favourite vegetables. Tastes lovely when cooked together in fish or mince-meat curry, or in gulai dalca…

The 8th photo tag

I've actually been mulling about posting my 4th makan-makan story in a row. The day after I had that beriani peha kambing, friends took me for lunch at Din Ikan Bakar in Kepala Batas... and for those of you who've been to the place, you'd know that it is something worth writing about.

But rather than upset blog readers with unending posts about food, I've decided to do this tag by blogger Wan Lili of Suddenly, Heta! So here goes...

The tag calls for me to browse through my photo files, select the 8th folder and pick the 8th photo in that folder to post in a blog entry together with the story behind it. Then tag eight other persons. Whoever thought of this meme must have made many assumptions... that the tagged person has photo files in at least eight folders and that each folder has at least eight pics.

Well... I actually cheated a bit in doing this task. I have plenty of photo folders for sure, but the 8th folder in the My Pictures directory was originally the download folder for my Canon digicam shots. The 8th sub-folder contained photos taken of my project site, and selecting the 8th pic would not have revealed anything interesting at all. I deleted an empty folder above the Canon download folder, causing another folder to move up to eighth place. This folder is also something related to work but contains only six files... so what to do? I decided to select the last one.

From L to R : Dr. Marwan, Oldstock, Ir. Noor Suzinee

The above is a photo taken in May last year during an engineering seminar held in Kuala Lumpur. The seminar was presented by a close associate of ours, Dr. Marwan Jabakhanji from Dubai. Yours truly chaired one of the sessions.

Dr. Marwan is a specialist in structural engineering. He is a very kind and soft-spoken person who is not selfish in sharing his knowledge and experience with other engineers. I remember him well because he was gracious enough to invite me share iftar (the breaking of fast) with his family during one Ramadhan evening when I was in Dubai a few years ago. I'm sure lucky to have met his acquaintance.