Bruised Ego

I was in Body Pump class a few nights ago. For those not in the know, Body Pump is a choereographed group excercise that uses weights. You will be using different sizes of weights for different Track which focuses on different muscle groups. The reps are done to a song which last an averages of about 5 minutes.

Track 1 - Warm up (5 kg per side)
Track 2 - Squats (10 kg per side)
Track 3 - Chest (6 kg per side)
Track 4 - Clean and Jerk (7.5 kg per side)
Track 5 - Triceps (5 kg per side)
Track 6 - Biceps (3.5 kg per side)
Track 7 - Lunges (3.5 kg per side or null)
Track 8 - Shoulders (2.5 kg per side)
Track 9 - Abs
Track 10 - Cool Down

I am still a novice at Body Pump hence the load i use is not that heavy, but with me that nite was a fren of mine (Margaret) and she has been using weight that is slightly heavier then mine when doing chest excercise at 8.5 kg each side. A macho kinda guy standing beside me using weights that was equal to that of mine kept giving her signals to reduce (I suppose thinking that she has forgotten to take of the load) and she was responding, with a "what??...owh I am ok".

Upon seeing her actually lifting those weights and doing chest pump excercise rather easily, u can almost see the despair in his eyes and the change in face expression to that of disbelief, whilst comparing to himself lifting weights that are less then that of Margaret's. You can really see him suffering a bruised ego that nite. I cannot forget that FACE!!!

For me, I am quite used to seeing some of the ladies here using weights of up to 15-20 kg per side for squats.

The weekend That was - 25th June 2006

These was quite a frantic week. Much of my life is generally centered around my Gym session and these week has been very productive. I tend to focus on RPM class and I do an average of a minimum of 1 RPM class per day suplementing with Body Pump on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. To test out my stamina, I did stretched it too 3 classes on Monday and Wednesday tho I was ticked off for doing too much by one of the trainer ;).

These week, having been told to try out one of the visiting trainer (Lisa Jones) class, I dropped by AXIS. Luckily I was there early as the queue started at 5:50 for a class scheduled at 6:30 pm. By the time the registration started which was 6:10, the queue was full up for the 32 bikes. Lisa's class is very challenging having gone above the normal 700 calories that I usually burn in RPM Challenge class and having my HRM recording 98% max heart rate and averaging 87% heart rate. That nite alone, i must have burn a total of 1400 calories. Quite surprising for an oldie like me....

The songs selection for RPM31 is quite nice and are as follows:-

RPM 31

Track List

01. I've Been Thinking About You - Londonbeat
02. Turn Me On (Lenny B Mix) - Kevin Lyttle
03. Finally (Classic Club Mix) - Love To Infinity feat. Charlotte Day
04. Speed Of Sound - Coldplay
05. Round And Round - Rhythm Twins
06. Underwater (Above & Beyond's 21st Century Mix) - Delerium
07. Fading Like A Flower (Extended Mix) - Dancing DJs v Roxette
08. Just Feel Better feat. Steven Tyler - Santana
09. Heart Like A Wheel - The Corrs

I don't know what is it about RPM and me, these past few days, I have been shuffling between Menara Axis and Curve repeatedly. To demonstrate my extremeties, even with a window of half an hour between RPM class which ended at 1:00pm, I was out of Axis and at Curve by 1:20 to attend to the next RPM class at 1:30. Sheeshh..was I tired and stressed.

I was feeling a bit tired and down, until just now having to bump into someone I have not seen for ages as I was going out of the car park to go to the bank after my Gym session. That really got my afternoon going again thus making my day and inspire me to post these two new article.

Techies, Sales and Business

Managing Technical people can be tiring. It is currently only challenged by managing Sales Guys. Making these two groups of people communicate with each other can be very laborious.

You have these group of Techies which are characterized by engineer lost in their world of TCP/IP, SIP and MPLS expounding the features of the bits and bytes of the TCP/IP world and how the packets will negotiate etc.

Then you match these with people who are "Hunter/Gatherer" in nature - otherwise known as Sales people, coming back and describing what the customers wants. Not being able to comprehend technological stuff, some of these people's best desciption is generally based on similies. You will get statement like "Can we have a broadband service like Streamyx?". You end up guessing whether are we to provide broadband that has features such as major downtime, unpredictable performance or does he just mean that customers just want always on connection?

I have seen Business managers and Product Development guys/gals have their hair pullout trying to decipher customers needs to match technologies and engineering services capabilities. I wonder how other MNC manages Product and Capability Development Lifecycle?

Reconciliation of Expectation

Had a small outing with a group of Bloggers who had come back for vacation from Hungary and Australia at laundry Bar @ Curve last week. We were also joined by other local bloggers who was there to watch football.

The conversation centered on the gaps between expectation of what we write on our blogs and our true personality. One bloggers has personality that borders bubbly (almost champagne like) and is not apparent from postings on her blog.

It was an interesting nite out, though compared to the young bloggers, I do need to catch up on that thing call sleep. How do these guys sustain these football month and go through the day without sleep. Have they not heard of that concept and is rest even in their vocabulary? I am now also trying to figure out whether there is an invention of eye props.

Wedding Reception cum Bloggers gathering

We were at JATT wedding reception. The setting is quaint if not too formal. Unfortunately, rather then focussing on the bride and groom who must have been sweating it out in the waiting room, we were busy having a conference among bloggers who attended that reception.

There seems to be a pattern even to the color and tint of the drinks. The further away you are from the main table, the lighter the color of your drink. Yusmar (Rainforrest Geek) came with his football entourage, Eugene Moore (Halcyon9) became the official photographer, Rosli (Virtual Stupidity) was the official food taster, Khairul Anuar and Billy (Official court jester)

Khairul Anuar and Billy were friends during our hosting of the Bulletin Board Services before Internet came. Furqan Hamid and Nadio (And I say) were there too. Nadio looks fine having recovered from her bout with leukemia.

The bride and groom (with his Nehru suit) was beaming with delight. Its a good nite out.

Learning to use our heart - Journey begins

What is it with geeks like us?

Do techies and geek lack emotions. Do we think too much with our brains than follow the heart? Do we fear expressing ourselves and reveal our emotion choosing to rationalize our feelings for something or even someone?

I have a friend whom I shall call Kerry at this moment. I know her to be a very technical person. I also know her as a person who does not show (or cannot show emotions). But recently, i found out that she has written a novel and is about to publish her novel. Ironically upon being confronted by me, i found that the reason she writes this novel was as an outlet to express herself and record her fantasies in spite of her otherwise solemn and sombre outlook. I am also pleasently surprised that for someone who looks like a porcelin poker face, she writes with passion. She has even confided to me that after putting her ideas on paper, she has recently found new zest in her love life and has rekindle her husbands' fire.

I find this a paradox as I myself find it difficult to express my true feeling and prefers to hide behind a facade of walls whilst projecting an image of rational and calm person. Though I sometimes get caught out by sometime intrusive but cheeky friends, I find this true with almost all geeks I know. Almost all but a few of my friends has spouses that complains their their partners in life is not impetuas enough and does not know how to live it up.

So how do we geeks learn to follow our hearts then our minds and learn to live it a little. How do we learn to show emotions and have fun rather then being and ole and boring "Ned Flanders"?

Aunt Agony to an Aunt Agony

I don't know what is it with me, but I seem to be an Agony Aunt to almost everyone. Hello people, I can't even solve my own sets of problem let alone even try to solve yours. Is it a look thing or is it the cute cuddly figure thing, but I seem to be attracting the wrong sort of people. I appreciate that I look like a father figure and all, but all this listening to challenges and sad stories can sometime bring you down.

You can't help but sometimes get involve with some of the sad stories that gets told to you and the danger is to cross the emotional boundaries. I didn't know that KL had such a collection of disheartened group of people.

Hmmm....where do I go to tell my story?

The Week Ahead

The week ahead is going to be reasonabily hectic. I have my monthly Doctor's appointment which I don't normally like to go since I have to do a blood sugar test as I hate needles. I have to send my car and my daughters car for servicing. I have also many meeting to attend and projects to resolve.....arrrgghhh.

On the positive note, I will be attending the reception of JATT (God willing) and some new frens SPA perhaps.

Looking back on the past week, it has been quite an enjoyable and productive week. Made some new frens who are also my new "RPM kaki". We seem to be bumping into each other almost everyday.

I have also found a new song to hum, ironically this one song that I have found really touching was discovered during RPM class. Usually Group Excercise songs tend to be upbeat and motivating in nature, but this song can really bring you to tears if you listen to the lyrics and i find the lyrics ironic when I am trying to cool down after a hectic 850-900 calories burnout. The song by CORRS called "Heart like a Wheel" perhaps brings back many memories.

Towards a challenging week, till then.......

Places I have been - only 10%

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

So this is what happens behind the scene

I saw that a blogging colleague/ visitor has some interest in photograph/jpg of the Celcom Adverstisement. So I thought I will just put up a few more on how some of the scenes were setuped in the background.

Its amazing what post production can do to an Ad. I suppose this time its all not in your hands but in these footballers legs and hidden strings. With all the actions, it should make an interesting World Cup if these footballers ever get to perform as they did in these Ads.

Body Pump 58 and RPM 31

Its been almost a week since the new release of Body Pump 58 and RPM 31. Since I was away in Penang and Kedah the past weekend, i got back and was eager (read addicted) to try out the new release. My calender routine was as follows:-

Monday - RPM (Ben Sim), RPM (Colin), Body Pump (Swee)
Tuesday - RPM Challenge (Wes), Body Pump (Swee)
Wednesday - RPM Challenge (Wes)
Thurday - Body Pump (Wes), RPM Challenge (Wes).

My thoughts, the new Pump is very fatiguing, by the time you reach Track 8, your shoulder aches likes nobody's business. RPM31 on the other hand has a more consistent buildup and flatter, though its challenging now in Track 3 and 5.

The tracklist of songs for BP58 are as follows:-

BODYPUMP 58

1. I'll Be Your Light - Kristine W
2. Drop Dead Gorgeous - Republica
3. Love Shack - The B-52's
4. Riding On The Wings (Motiv8 Airplay Extended Mix) - Motiv8
5. Let's Get Down - Supafly vs Fishbowl
6. Stand By Me (Original Mix) - Mr. Timothy feat. Inaya Day
7. Breathe - One More Angel
8. Round And Round - BodyRockers
9. Intuition - Jewel
10. You Raise Me Up - Josh Gorban

Give it a try. ;))

Enigma of Belief , Culture and Religion

I was sitting down to relook at the movie "Sepet" and it is quite interesting how Yasmin has depicted the cultures and family values to quite a Tee in the movie itself.

This suddenly has made me revisit some of my thoughts and observation on the incidences/event which causes uproar recently on the depiction of a caricature of Prophet Mohamed (PBUH) as oppose to the "so called attack on the Critistian faith" in the Novel and movie DaVinci Code. It is quite interesting on how each society and belief system tackles the two incidences and how the mass media rallies behind each of the incidences.

Closer to home, the recent announcement about "Misyar" or what I term as A different Terms and Condition to a Contract marriage has been brought up (for what ever reasons) and has cause controversy in certain quarters. Ultimately I think it only benefits the agendas of a few while everyone else gets rile up on the semantic and definition of the word instead of the trying to solve the culture that cud be there within the society.

So, are our reactions and values driven by the concoction of our belief systems and can we culturally change this?

I was an Engineer Once - On Basic Design

When I first started working in a Design Department in designing Jetties, Ports and Harbours, my first project was to design a steel girder bridge linking a concrete pontoon. My mentor then was this brilliant Civil Engineer by the name of Ho Khye Gim.

I remember then that I was this hot shot Civil Engineer with proficiency of Structural Analysis and Computers and I was able to analyze and simulate any structural problem in computer matrix (the then computer programme was called Genesys).

All this was thrown out of the window, the moment I submitted my drawing and calculation to my mentor. Before I got back to my office and sat myself down, the phone extension rang, and my mentor had called me back to "discuss" the design problem. I went to this room and he chuckle to me saying that the steel bridge is under design and I shud relook at my calculation. I was flabbergasted as to how did he determine that in the space of 3-4 minutes (from the moment I gave him the drawings to me going back to my cubicle).

He sat me down and explained his hypothesis and simple beam design theory and showed me that if the tensile force calculated had been as such and dividing it by the permissible tensile strength of steel, one will get the cross member area (which happen to be bigger then what I had calculated).

From then on, I learnt the meaning of humbleness, logic and what practical experience meant and never to assume that computers is a solve all technology.

.

Marvelling the X-Men

Got back from Penang tired, having to stand in for my sis in law to drive her car back from Penang. Didn't go to office instead spent my early morning watching X-Men 3 in KLCC. Not being a real fan of the Comic series, I found myself a bit slow trying to follow the plot. I know I do have "A-D-D", but there was a time in the movie where there seems a little lack of continuity for little ole me.

Surprisingly I find the movie touching in some instances, but as usual, I was more entharalled at Kelsey Grammer's (Frasier) role and "surprising" death of some of the cast members. Some scenes I find it endearingly cute and funny. Good morning outing for RM8.
.

JATT's Wedding

Took a drive up to Alor Setar and right upto Jitra (a few miles north of Alor Setar). An ole friend Shaizar(Jatt) got hitched with a northern girl by the name of Ckin. These are some of my photo record of the event at the bride's house.

It was a hot day, but nevertherless, this small and quaint wedding reception was quite a memorable one.

The food was delicious, or was it because I was hungry ;).

The bride and groom in their splendour

Thank God for 3G, this post is updated via my trusty N70

Penang is Such a Hot Place

I am now in Penang, taking one of my unusual time off (or what people call a holiday). The hotel Copthorne doesn't have a really good Internet Access (or the Business Center charges 6 bucks for half an hour) thus I drove round the corner to Island Plaza to Starbuck to have a cup of coffee for the same price and an hour worth of Internet Access. Check out the Fitness First here, it quite cool though.

Today I may drop in at Jatt's wedding in Alor Setar. Being in Penang is like going to Buckingham Palace to see the "Changing of the guards", except in Penang, it the "Changing of the Road System - Two way here, one way there".