Events to close out the year...

 Park this space. Write up to follow.

1. Floods in Selangor

2. Family BBQ at Huda's Haven Resort

3. Letting go of the Harrier

It's all in the genes...

A few days ago, our second son messaged me for help in getting some of his boyhood photographs to be scanned and converted to digital format. He asked me to select a few photos from when he was a baby and into the time he was at kindergarten and primary school. For some throwback project, he said.

I am a photographer and for sure I have tons of pictures of my family using the various types of cameras that I owned. Of course, the photos of my children in their younger days are in the old school printed format. Buy the roll of film from a photo store (usually a Kodak or Fujifilm, ASA100 with 36 exposures), load the film into the camera (be careful to ensure the leading edge of the film roll is engaged to the sprocket of the frame advance lever), close the camera caseback and advance the film (either by the manual lever or, for motorised cameras, by pressing the shutter release), proceed to take photos while bearing in mind to check for exposure and composition because you wouldn't want to waste the film by taking poor shots, roll back the exposed film into its cartridge after you have used up all the exposures (manual or auto rewinding, depending on the camera), open the caseback and take out the roll, send the roll to a photo processing outlet to be developed, come back in a few days (or a few hours if you are willing to pay extra for express processing), get the full set of 3R sized prints either in matt or glossy paper, plus the negatives of the roll. You then get to see the results of your photo-taking skills. How many of your shots turn out to be under-exposed or over-exposed, or out of focus, or blurred, or skewed, or colourless, or bland, or just simply lousy. But the few prints that turn out sharp, colourful and well-composed give you that strong sense of satisfaction.

Gone are the days of such excitement in non-digital photography.

Anyway, as I was sifting through the old photo albums, I came across a photo of our youngest son taken in September 1997 when he was about 2 and-a-half years old. I realised that I have a recent digital photo of our 1st granddaughter in a strikingly similar post. So I searched for it in my mobile phone's memory and made a collage of both photographs side by side. The similarities are obvious. Definitely in the genes.

The uncle and his niece, 24 years on

Thirty-three and hopefully more...

17 November 1988 : We started life as husband and wife

17 November 2021 : Thirty-three years on, we are blessed with relatively good health and a happy family.

When we started life as a young family all those years ago, Allah swt blessed us with 3 boys. We are now further blessed with 3 lovely girls as our granddaughters. Looking forward to growing old together.

Just so happen that this restaurant has a suitable backdrop

A good time to try the Meat Cartel restaurant at Bandar Dato Onn, JB

Double dose of joy in being a grandfather

We made the trip to Selangor last weekend. The four-day itinerary was jam-packed with visits and stopovers. Truth be told, 4 days is never enough to cover all the things that we wished to do but we have to manage it somehow.

This trip is the one we had been waiting for for quite a while, having been prevented from inter-state travel for a number of months due to the pandemic situation. We visited the graves of three siblings on my better half's side, dropped by the houses of some nieces and also managed to squeeze in a visit to the new gallery of illustrator friend, Emila Yusof. The highlight of the trip was meeting our twin granddaughters only for the second time.

Afra Humaira and Afra Haura are now 10-months old. We look forward to more joyful occasions with them in the near future.

We are now blessed with 3 granddaughters. Praise to the Almighty for granting us these jewels.

Double trouble or twice the joy, it's a matter of choice

You can do it...

The wonderful thing about being semi-retired is the opportunity to spend the free time doing things at a leisurely pace. No time constraints, no pressure and for sure, no high expectations. Doing things just because you want to try and that it doesn't matter if it doesn't work out.

I consider myself a DIY enthusiast. Not really a skilled craftsman but an amateur handyman who can tackle the minor repairs that often need to be taken care of at home. Basic stuff such as plumbing works, install light fittings, replace faulty locksets and the like. The extent of what I am able to do is limited by the tools that I have, which, while not much, is more than sufficient to cover the routine maintenance work. Until recently, the only power tools that I own are a used corded drill and a jigsaw. The drill was given to me by my late brother many years ago. Also included were a few of the most common and necessary drill bits. I've used it many times for drilling into brickwork walls or timber posts. Works fine and there have been no problems so far.

But such a tool is not suitable for screw fixing work such as in the assembly of flat-packed furniture. Not really a necessity because a manual screwdriver does the job just fine but then, where's the fun? Any serious DIYer worth his salt should have a few power tools in his arsenal. The first tool that most skilled woodworkers or handymen suggest getting is the cordless drill driver. I had been longing to buy such a tool for quite some time. There are so many in the market and the cheap no-brand ones from China can be got for less than RM200. Many times I have been tempted to buy such an unbranded drill, the reason being that I'm only to use it occasionally, hence an inexpensive one would do just fine. However, after watching some Youtube videos by seasoned DIYers, I followed their advice and opted for the established makes. 

And so, two weeks ago I took the plunge and placed an order for a Black + Decker 18V cordless drill driver from a dealer on Shopee. I chose the most basic package available; single battery plus charger (don't see the need for spare batteries as I won't be doing continuous drill driving work), no drill bits (I already have some) and without dedicated casing (an old toolbox I have would do fine for now). I went for the B+D brand because the corded drill that I have is a B+D and that has been very reliable so far. Black + Decker is an American brand but like most other manufacturers nowadays, assemble their products in China.

Delivery from the dealer was quite fast. The package arrived within 5 days of ordering.

The first task I put the drill to use was in the repair work to an old folding banquet table that I bought in 2011. I use the table for my bonsai gardening hobby (pruning and re-potting). The original tabletop made out of fibreboard has rotted and I replaced it with 12mm thick plywood which was also bought online. The plywood board is sold pre-cut to the dimensions of 600mm wide by 1200mm long (or 2ft x 4ft in old-school terms) and this is exactly the size of the existing tabletop. No further cutting is required except that I rounded off the four corners for a neater look. For this, my jigsaw came in handy.

Other additional works that I did was to cover the plywood top with wallpaper (which was already on hand from a botched attempt to re-coat an old refrigerator) and to spray paint the table legs (also from cans already on hand). All in all, I like the look of the finished product. Not sure how long this plywood top will last but hey, I now have the tools and experience to make another one if so required. No satisfaction like do-it-yourself.

Have gun, will DIY

Old banquet table set to be given a new life

The blue table legs because that's the leftover paint
my son used to spray his bicycle