Close and casual

Last week I received an sms from the government's Covid-19 health portal, saying that I have been classified as a casual contact with a person or persons who are infected with the disease. The message further told me to remain calm and perform home monitoring assessment using the MySejahtera app installed on my phone. My better half received a similar message.

I duly checked the app and saw that my C-19 risk status has now turned yellow - Casual Contact No Symptoms. The system has identified me as such, based on my check-in history to the various places that I've been to. The app also provides me with directives and advice on what to do next. This includes answering three questions relating to my current health status, every day for the next few days or so. Presumably, until the app is satisfied that I'm full okay and can be re-classified.

It is now two years that the MySejahtera app has been in use. Despite various updates in that time, I do still feel that the app has so much room for improvement. This latest information about me being a casual contact is an example. Why can't the developers include the source or location where the close contact happened? When my wife and I received the notification, we spent the whole afternoon wondering where we could have gotten the contact or perhaps we had been slack in practising the required SOPs. If this information had been provided, we could at least know where the contact occurred and be more cautious when we visit the same place in future.

But I guess user convenience and satisfaction is not on top of the list of the app developers.

Current status. Have tried setting up the MySJ Trace but had trouble loading the page

Booster dose

The first month of the new year has zoomed past so quickly that I realise we are on the brink of another new year tomorrow. The Chinese Lunar New Year will happen on 1st February 2022. It will be the year of the Tiger, of which I am one.

So what has happened in the month of January 2022? Nothing much really. I had my third so-called booster vaccine earlier this month. The booster dose was the Astra Zeneca type compared to the two Pfizer shots I had earlier. It was also done at a different vaccination centre but the process was not less efficient.

Some minor side effects were felt in the evening after the shot. The next day my left arm and shoulder felt a bit sore so the whole day was spent resting at home.

I do hope that no further vaccination would be necessary. Getting tired of being pricked.

Booster dose done at Persada International Convention Centre

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