2009 has been a mixed bag for me. There were some good moments, and there were some painful ones too. I’ll flashback to some of the memorable moments:

1. Having my mug shot published in Malaysia Airlines’ in-flight magazine. Honestly when I posed for this picture (and the photoshoot went on for something like 45 minutes) I just forgot all about it, until my sister-in-law texted me about seeing my picture in the magazine. To know that this would be seen by thousands of travelers on board Malaysia Airlines’ flights gives me a thrill. That’s my 15 minutes of fame during 2009.
2. I finally decided to have my cataracts removed. It was a difficult decision for me because on the one hand, I was fearful of the surgery (don’t laugh) but on the other hand, I was becoming oh so sick of those thick glasses. To make things worse I had already noticed a deterioration in my near-sightedness; fortunately my optometrist persuaded me to have it done, rather than to spend more money on yet another thicker pair of glasses. Thanks to my American friends too, who rallied to my side and said I should get it over with. Seeing as that my insurance would cover the costs, I decided to have it done in June and July. I had my right eye done first, and was very pleased with the results. My left eye was next. However, although my vision improved tremendously, this eye decided to be extremely naughty and plagued me with redness for almost six weeks! Read the explicit details in these posts.
3. Piano Idol, year 2. Another event organized by Digital Music here, this was my second time as one of the judges. It’s wonderful to see new and upcoming talents showing their pianistic abilities on stage. I’m already looking forward to year 3.
4. September, my September. I love this particular month because my birthday’s in it. The highlight? A fantastic one-night stay at Penang’s E & O Hotel—just sheer bliss. On top of that I bought myself a Canon PowerShot SX120 IS camera—bloomin’ marvelous!
5. Hello, Dell! Nice to meet you! After contemplating about it for almost a year I finally succumbed and ordered a Studio 15 laptop from Dell. Equipped with a 320GB hard disk, 3GB of RAM, wifi capability, and pre-installed with Windows 7 Home Premium it’s a delight to use. Those of you who know me will laugh at my Internet=Oxygen analogy, but that’s me alright. Now with my Dell lappy I don’t have to be tied down at home; I can go anywhere where there are wireless hotspots and get myself instantly connected.
6. The E & O Hotel Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony. This has been my 5th year doing it, but it still gives me a thrill. The difference this year was that Miss Mazeta took over as the conductor, and the choir comprised only ladies—and you know what, they sang beautifully, so much so that yours truly was truly impressed. Read about it here.
7. One last Christmas present? Alright, my old cell phone decided to go south right around Christmas time, believe it or not…and I had already set my eyes on the Nokia E52, an absolute gem of a phone (it’s a candy bar, right you are, Miss Miller) With a whole host of features that would make this post doubly long, this is the cell phone for me. And need I mention that it has wifi capabilities and comes with Windows Live Messenger?
8. And finally…something precious came back

Happy New Year, everyone. Enjoy my version of Auld Lang Syne.

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  A quiet piano version, played by me.

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In all my years of servicing computers, it hasn’t happened before, but there’s always a first time. Let me explain.

One of my clients wanted to replace his aging and misbehaving D-Link router+modem so he called me up. Okies, no biggie there, I told him straightaway to substitute it with the Linksys WRT54G2 router (setting it up was a painful experience when I did it for myself, but after the ordeal and threatening the brainless gadget, it has behaved well ever since. Read more here) The client gave the go-ahead, so I went to my supplier and bought it.

On the eve of setting it up for my client, I was just twiddling my fingers and feeling very pleased with myself. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks—the Linksys WRT54G2 is only a router, it doesn’t have a modem in it. Ugh, panic started to grip me and I quickly contacted the supplier and asked him whether he had any combo routers and modems in stock…sorry, nope (Murphy’s Law strikes again) The only recourse was to get another DSL modem and that of course would mean that the client would have to cough up some extra cash. I called the client up, explained the situation to him, and apologized. He said he’d consult with his daughters and get back to me.

I waited for a few minutes, my client called up, and said that no, his daughters said it was going to be too costly. I offered my apologies to him again and said it was entirely my fault (and it was). He was very polite, and said he hoped I could get a refund for the Linksys router.

Well over here in good old Malaysia, it’s next to impossible to get your money back after you’ve paid for a product (especially when it’s not defective in any way) Fortunately my supplier said I could exchange it for something else—phew! Let’s see, my 80GB hard drive was beginning to fill up, so yeah, I’ll spring for a Western Digital 500GB hard drive…my supplier said that’d be fine.

I think I handled this episode pretty well, but I’ve learned a few things from it:

1. If it’s your fault, apologize straightaway. Don’t make up any excuses because you’ll look even more like a fool. I apologized immediately to my client and I behaved like a professional. I made a snafu, so there. It happens.
2. Learn to laugh, or at least smile to yourself. No point overheating your own systems, if you know what I mean. I was grateful that my supplier at least offered to exchange the Linksys for a hard drive.
3. Learn from your mistakes. I didn’t think carefully enough this time. It won’t happen again…gotta think these things through very, very meticulously.

“A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.” James Joyce

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The sudden demise of actress Brittany Murphy at the age of 32 makes me sad and sit up at the same time. Heck, my life was just starting at 32. It only goes to show that our time on this planet is extremely limited and transitory—we never know when it will be our turn to go. Lest this post becomes morose, let me detour and say a few things:

1. The greatest thing you’ll ever learn, is to love and be loved in return. How true this is. If you love someone (whether they know it or not, hopefully they do) then tell them this instant. Don’t wait for a second longer—you might not get the chance. Saying I love you from the heart is like saying thank you or please. Your special someone won’t get sick of it. And neither will you.
2. If you want to do something (legal of course), then either do it now or plan for it. Me? I’m planning for a trip to a land far, far away…and because I’m not wallowing in cash, there are thousands of obstacles ahead of me. Nevertheless, I’m not giving up—someday my journey will begin and when it does, I’ll look back and say that it was all worthwhile.
3. Life throws up some treacherous curveballs. Uh huh, some of them look like humongous icebergs to me. What are the icebergs in your life? A debilitating disease, unemployment, a divorce, etc. These things happen—it’s just how we take stock of them when they come our way or cross our paths. I know I’m fighting a huge one now, and it’s bound to get worse before it gets better. Still, I remember a good friend telling me this—“Better to have a painful end to a problem than a pain without end.”
4. Money is hard to earn, but so very easy to spend. Perhaps people who are well-off hardly take note of or appreciate this fact. It’s just that sometimes, we need to treat ourselves. Not a wild shopping spree, mind you—a very calculated one, at least for me. Take my Dell laptop for instance. I’ve always been telling myself over the past years that having one was a luxury (albeit a very nice one) but a short while ago I decided to just go for it (after reading some reviews and research on the Internet) And guess what? I don’t feel guilty, in fact I feel good. We need treats every now and then.
5. Love unselfishly, and learn to forgive and forget. Here’s another one of my favorite sayings for 2009—“If you harbor bitterness and resentment, happiness will dock elsewhere.” Wake up each day with a grateful heart and end each day likewise. It’s simple to say “Thank you, God” and mean it. No need for elaborate prayers as far as our heavenly Father is concerned. Spread kindness and happiness around, and don’t expect it to come back to you right away. Because somehow or other, they’ll eventually find their way back to you.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my readers. God bless you all.

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It’s always the case isn’t it…after a hard and grueling day where anything that can go wrong actually does…I came back from work last Saturday night, anticipating doing some playing (uh, work) on my Dell laptop. Plugged it into the AC Mains, powered it on, and left to get myself changed. Hmmm, I didn’t hear the Windows 7 startup sound and went into the room to look. Oops, what’s this, nothing showing on the display. No problem, I thought, maybe just a hiccup. Powered it off, waited a bit and tried again. No luck, not even the Dell logo was displayed. Tried a few more times, nada. Yikes! Something was definitely wrong.

Fortunately my desktop was up and running. Went to the Dell Support website and searched for the toll-free numbers. Dialed it and ugh, I get this automated message—“Our support offices are closed at the moment, please call back from Mondays to Fridays, 9am to 9pm…” I would have hyper-ventilated if not for my trusty desktop (luckily I haven’t forsaken her) I’m glad my American friends told me to chill and breathe because hey, these things happen.

Come Monday I call Dell Support and spoke to one of their staff. I was asked to give a few details and after asking me to do a little troubleshooting the guy said it looked like my video or graphics had died. Wonder of wonders, he said a tech guy would call me the following day and arrange to fix my laptop on-site, WOW! I was dreading the idea of having to send it back for repairs. On Tuesday the Dell guy came. Mr. Lew was very friendly and professional. He put in a new motherboard for me and in less than an hour my Studio 15 was up and running—yay!

I’m giving two thumbs up for Dell—thanks again for the great support!

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I’ve hosted my blog with Wordpress since I started blogging more than one and a half years ago. Apart from a few minor niggles I’ve been very happy with Wordpress. They have made upgrades so much easier now ever since version 2.6; just go to your Admin panel, click on Upgrade Automatically, and voila, you’re done. Back up your databases before the upgrade but so far touch wood, I’ve never had any untoward incidents happen during my upgrades.

And so it was with this latest 2.9 upgrade, nicknamed “Carmen.” This page details all the improvements and fixes (and has the video above too) but two improvements alone made me want to upgrade as soon as I saw it:

• Global Undo and Trash feature What happens if you have itchy or nimble fingers and accidentally delete a post or comment you actually wanted? In previous versions of WP, you’d be stuck. Not in 2.9 which now boasts a recycle bin, where deleted posts and comments will be kept for 30 days, so if you change your mind you can bring them back.
• Batch plug-in update and compatibility checking In previous WP versions it was a chore for me to upgrade each plug-in individually (well yeah, it doesn’t take long, but still I had to do one plug-in upgrade after another) That’s done away with in 2.9—all your plug-ins which have new upgrades can be done altogether at once. Not only that, WP checks to make sure all of them are compatible with it, and issues a warning if some are not. One curious thing is that to get to this batch plug-in update feature, you’ll have to go to Tools > Upgrade in your WP admin panel. I’d have thought that putting the Upgrade tab in the Plug-Ins category would be more logical no? Just my personal opinion.

So go ahead and upgrade to this latest version of Wordpress. They’re making it better every time!

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Somehow or other I’ve been suffering from a lack of blogging juices lately…with the help of a little Diana Krall playing in the background hopefully I can get this post published. The crux of the matter is that this festive season has left me a bit depressed—not to the point where I have to resort to medication yet, thank God. After all I have many things to be thankful for (and I do thank the good Lord for my blessings, every day). However, it is hard to feel upbeat all the time when some treacherous curveballs have been thrown my way. Trying my best to duck out of harm’s way, not 100% successful though.

I’m going through a major crisis in my life—something that will probably get worse before it gets better. I don’t want to elaborate too much yet, but the constant source of support that I’ve gotten from friends and relatives has been very encouraging. Nonetheless, it hurts when I have time to ponder, which is why I’m trying to keep myself preoccupied with anything I can find—my teaching, blogging, reading, exercising. Idle minds do give fodder to the devil and his workshop…it’s a blessing that I can feel that there are people who are praying and genuinely concerned about my well-being.

I know it’s silly, but I wish the beaming technologies of Star Trek could be available now. Instead, I have to get onboard a 747 if I want to get out of here. And that costs money, damn.

Still, all it takes is a little warm encouragement from a friend, who says “Hang in there.” Or the smile of a student when I gently encourage her to play (that happened today!) And whaddaya know, a student gave me an early Christmas present—thanks, Jason and Sue! Little things do matter and mean a lot to me…and that’s what keeps me buoyant, instead of slumbering down and wallowing in a mess of self-pity. And let’s not forget music…that really helps to soothe my troubled soul.

Apologies if this post sounds downhearted—it’s the time when we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ—a miracle of miracles. I’ll just have to shoulder on and hopefully God willing, next year will see better days ahead for me…

Season’s Greetings to all my readers. Have a joyous Christmas and Happy New Year.

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We did Mizi’s last time. So this time me and the MO decided to head out to Breeks Cafe in Gurney Plaza. I dunno why it’s called that, because breeks is actually a Scottish term for trousers—perhaps the owner is Scottish or has a sense of humor.

We enquired and the waiter told us there was no set lunch available, although they had a signboard outside saying there was. Anyway, we ordered just main courses and drinks…MO had an iced mocha coffee and I had a maraschino coffee—it resembled something that we could have ordered at The Coffee Bean next door, but it was cheaper. This was where I played with my laptop a while ago.

It wasn’t long before our food arrived. MO had the Pacific Dory Fish with mushroom sauce.

And I had a Grilled Cajun Chicken with BBQ sauce. Portions were pretty reasonable.

The damage came to around $20 USD. Not too bad, but I think I’ll opt back for Mizi’s next time. We decided to work off some of the food by going to Gurney Plaza for a bit. The shopping malls here are all decked out with Christmas decorations and stuff, but with the hot sun beating down it’s set to be another festive scorcher—not a drop of snow to be found!

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