Never Make Permanent Decisions On Temporary Feelings

The world celebrated Covid’s birthday a few days ago, it is a good time to remind ourselves that we are living in unprecedented times. Let that fact sink in a little bit. Life has been challenging BC (Before COVID) but the pandemic response has made life worse. We see challenges working from home, children attending classes at home, the lack of personal touch and socialization. Despite it all, we should celebrate that we have somehow made it this far.

When the going gets tough, let’s take some time to pause. Take time to think it over before we make big decision. Let the problem simmer a bit. Tell yourself you need time to think, we are living in ways unimaginable and people will understand if you want to take time to think through. The fact is, there is always hope, take it day by day, this too shall pass. What we are facing now is a temporary feelings and emotions triggered by the weird world we are living in. There is a silver lining and things will get better, you should focus on preparing for the better days.

In the office, challenges are forcing people to make ad-hoc decision such as quitting their jobs because they cannot handle the stress. Rather, I would advice the you reach out to your boss, or your colleague. Connect with people remotely, IM, call, message. Share your concerns, your troubles, your feelings. Some will step up to help, but even if no one does, you will immediately feel better. In normal times, we would be chatting in pantry, drop by people’s cube to ask how they are doing, share ideas on whiteboards and join each other for lunch discussion football. All that is gone, it leaves a social void that does have impact to people. These are all the temporary feelings that we should be the basis to make life changing decisions.

COVID is a unprecedented but a temporary situation. It does put stress into normal situations that would make us reflect how we are surviving. Cliche as it seems, we need to count our blessing especially if we still have a job. Look forward to your future goals, and not make hasty decision.

For posterity sake, today is the first day of the Conditional Movement Control Order for most states in Malaysia. This is what I called the second #lockdown.

972 new cases in Malaysia, where for the past few weeks it went past 1000 new cases on some days. We went into a tighter control MCO in March when cases were hitting 300ish a day. We are way past that.

I am in Malaysian Red Crescent Society, that’s no secret. I’ve been in the society since primary school if anyone is counting without any breaks in my service. I am proud of that.

What people sometimes don’t know is that I was also active in university. We had made good friends with the State committee that we get to attend a instructor crash course. I remember it was a whole week, camped out in University Malaya, sitting for ALL the courses needed to get the instructor certificate. All in one week.

That was almost 20 years ago.

This is a recap of the first day of power on, the cumulation of a year’s work and preparations that brings us to Ireland.

The night before (a Friday), the international team involved in the power on decided that we would have a nice dinner before starting power on the next day. In our previous trips, we fell in love with the tapas and sangria in Salamanca. In the afternoon of that day, we know that the silicon parts were being cleared from the airport cargo hold and would be in the lab any moment. Indeed the parts arrived in the lab, just as some of us were already on the way to the restaurant. While some of the team members turned around to start their work, the software and post-silicon validation team had our last dinner before the event. After dinner, the rest of the team went back to the hotel, while the few of us who need to coordinate our activities went back to the lab to understand the situation. There’s only 3 people in the lab, huddle in the corner working with one silicon part, checking out the reset sequence to boot up the part. We were then asked to go home, and they didn’t think we will start till Sunday.

We the leads, headed out early on Saturday to the lab to check on the status, seems they had started the bootloader phase and would need a day before they can be ready for us. Conveyed the message to the team and they wanted to spend the last day of “freedom” in Kilkenny. I have no plans, I have the car so we took a 2 hour drive down south.

Stenosing tenosynovitis – apparently I got it.

About one month ago, I woke up from bed with this stiff middle finger on the left. It curled up and would not straightened. I am sure I can force it to straighten but then I am sure I will be in pain and agony. Being a regular with joint and muscle pain, I decided to leave it alone and see if it goes away. A couple of days later, the finger can straighten again and I did not give it a second thought. After a few days, the ailment came back again, same finger would not straighten.. and just as fast as it came, it went away.

Then one day, it jammed! The finger curled up and would not straighten after a few days. I gave it one week just in case. That one week dragged to 2 weeks and the finger still would not straighten.

A few things came to my mind. Is it gout? Since I have a very high uric acid content? Did I sprain some join when I was sleeping? Is this finger going to straighten again? I told my parents about this finger (since they are in the medical line) and my father straight away say that it is a “trigger finger”. I refused to hear him out because my finger is not “triggering”, it won’t straighten. Too many questions that needs answer.

(more…)

Maybe it was just a coincidence. On the same week that I saw the digi sambal belacan Malaysia day ad, my mum dropped by with a tub of her sambal belacan. I ate a lot of sambal belacan when I was young, it goes well especially with fried fish. I have very little of it now mainly because I don’t know how to make it and Winnie does not either. I don’t think it is the “thing” with her family to have sambal belacan and cut chili in every meal. She thinks condiments are a Penang thing. True also, I don’t see condiments served unless asked in Kuching restaurant and weddings.

I realised after watching the Digi and polishing off half a tub of sambal belacan in one sitting.. that I really miss sambal belacan.

What does a man have to do to get feed his addiction.. one way is to keep bugging my mum for sambal belacan once I am out. What I did was to go shopping. Apparently, there are only two ingredients in my mum’s sambal. Chili and belacan. Sounds easy enough. I even contemplated on getting mortar and pastel, but I think the trusty blender will do.

First, I come to learn is that I have to roast the belacan. Well, I could put it out in the sun and wait for it to dry, but apparently dry roasting on a pan will work too. However, the house smells of fermented shrimp after that, so be warned. PS: you don’t want to come to my house for one week, I think the smell will stay that long.

Looks like a lot of belacan but I am not going to use it all. After that, wash and de-seed a lot of chilies.

Lagi pedas lagi bagus, masuk pedas.. keluar pun pedas…

After that it is about blending them all together to make a paste. Even my mum cannot tell me what is the proportion as the chilies vary in heat depending on the crop. So it is about tasting. I find this the hardest part because I am direct tasting ground fresh chillies. Yikes. I would like to think I got it right. The colour seems the same as my mum’s. Taste also almost the same, as far as I can tell.

We shall see how. Fried fish for dinner one of these days.

You remember Ted? Ted d’ Bear? He is the teddy bear that I bought for the wife when I was in US for a week on business trip. He has been sitting on the bookshelf since then cause he was too irresistible for the bed. Well, we have a new use for him.

Testing diapers!

Wife bought some reusable cloth diapers. Those nice expensive ones that acts as good as disposable diapers but re-usable. Wife got these diapers as a “tester package”, a set of 4 diapers that we can try then decide on what brands to get. I vote for the cow prints, but wife will be the final decision maker.

We bought from Baby Pit Stop. She is based in Penang and does COD. Which is a good thing cause you can go to her place and talk to her, get some tips on how to use these things.

From Happy Heinys. With those “prings”, any daddy would be happy, not to mention the heinys..

This is rumparooz.

The famous gro baby.

Bumgenuis

No review on the performance, comfort and quality of the products till we get a suitable and reliable tester.

Dusty old bear.

After successfully recreated grandma’s roti babi for the folks in Kuching and also getting the seal of approval from my mum, we want to learn how to make the dipping for the roti babi. It is called the white man’s vinegar, in hokkien.. ang mo chor. The commercial equivalent is the Worcestershire sauce by lea and perins.

We start the dish with a variety of spices and herbs… the quantities which are “up to taste”.

Then the ingredients are pounded the old fashioned way.

Grandma said it is not advisable to use iron or steel pot. She uses an old rice cooker pot which is made up of aluminum. The reason is that later, vinegar will be added which will react with the metal in the pot. Glass or aluminum pots do not react to the vinegar.

Pounded ingredients are then boiled to release the flavour. This is where sugar, salt and mustard is added in the mix.

A whole bottle of rice vinegar is added, boiled for a little longer.

And everything is strained with a coarse strainer.