MCWK on Blogspot.com: May 2012

Farewell to three : Chong SL, Loh CK, Lim KS

Three's a company, but now, three are leaving the company. To be more precise, tonight we came together to bid a fond farewell to 3 more of our colleagues (soon to be our ex-colleagues) : Chong Siew Leet, Lim Kian Soon and Loh Chee Kiang.

Farewell to thee (L-R) : Chong Siew Leet, Loh Chee Kiang and Lim Kian Soon

Siew Leet (known also as Jennifer to her friends) was a material planner, who, by virtue of her job scope, meant we often worked together on common issues. Of course, every time that happened, it involved production as well, so you can imagine the circumstances were at times nerve-wrecking and not an easy stroll through the park. Luckily, working together, we usually succeeded in ablating whatever challenges that popped up - or at least softening the impact to production. It's always good to have colleagues working together, aligned towards a common goal, rather than everyone going on the defensive (and sometimes offensive) pointing fingers at each other. It was nice working with her, and I hope that Siew Leet's successor would be as good as she was.

Siew Leet standing behind with Rachel and Ryan in the foreground

I first remembered KS coming on board a few years ago, together with Benny Lee (who left Vishay some two years ago) as he mentioned he came in from Omega Semiconductors, the place where I had my first job as a Process Engineer many, many years ago. KS came in filling the void left by Kelvin Tan, who left before I started blogging about farewells.... :)

KS was in Quality, and some would say, fortunately, quality for Sensors / IRDC. Fortunate because I was with Coupler / SSR, so there'd be no work interactions, which, when involving Quality, always gives rise to some tension. Well, I did have a chance to work with him on several occasions, as we went to a TS16949 Lead Auditor training together, as well as several Six Sigma coaching sessions. It's tough being Quality and still be a nice guy, but somehow KS managed to fine a balance.

KS and Tai Hwei Chuan

Finally, my good friend and lunch partner, Loh CK. Loh came into the company, bringing with him expert knowledge on End-Of-Line tooling and equipment, as well as Package design. Somehow or rather, we got together and became close friends. Loh hails from Penang, and so plans to return there to be closer and spend more time with his family. Will definitely miss my dear friend - lunch will never be the same anymore.

I believe that's Coca Cola in the glass, right...?

Our farewell dinner was at Taipan Restaurant in Taman Merdeka. This was good, as it was just 10 minutes drive away from Vishay (depending on the route taken, and how well your vehicle clears speed bumps). This place is non-halal, so just for non-Muslims only. We booked a large room / hall on the ground floor, that was large enough to fit 4 tables, with a small stage and karaoke sound system set up front.

Now, Vishay had a number of good singers around, like Rachel Ng and Lim Chun Nam for instance, who had no trouble occupying the stage. As the beer (and other beverages of higher alcohol content) was flowing, the mikes were rocking.

Guess who's had a little too much to drink?

It was an enjoyable evening, but soon, the Master of Ceremonies for the night, Yong Keng See, called for attention and brought our thoughts back to reality - the fact that we were gathered to bid our friends a fond farewell and to wish them luck on their new careers. The three of them were each presented with a small souvenir to remember us by.

Well, that's life for you - friends come, friends go, but remain friends forever!

Thanks to everyone for joining tonight's dinner - all's well that end's well too!

Making muffins for Teachers' Day

There was going to be a Teacher's Day celebration at Charmaine's school tomorrow, so we thought it'd be a good idea for her to sponsor some muffins.

These days, pre-mix formulations are available to simplify the process, so *ordinary* folks like myself don't need to have a degree in Chemistry to put all the ingredients together correctly. For today's kitchen project, we were going to use some Orange Poppy Seed Muffin Mix, which we got from the famous supplier of baking ingredients, Amiplus. There are currently 2 outlets in Melaka, one at Taman Merdeka Permai and one at Bukit Beruang. You can check out more details on their Facebook and Blogspot pages.

Once everything's in the mixing bowl, it's just a matter of stir, stir, stir, until everything evenly mixed together. Don't want to see any uneven lumps in there.

Of course, it's almost always going to get messy in the kitchen, so it helps to have plenty of kitchen towels ready. It was kind of an impromptu event today - originally, we were supposed to make the muffins. We didn't know Charmaine was going to be a "hands-on" person and not just wait for her Papa and Mummy to make the muffins for her. I think we'll get her an apron if she's really that interested to help out in the kitchen.

With the batter all prepared, time to load the paper muffin cups into the tray. When empty, the cups will tend to rise a little, no matter as the weight of the batter will put them nicely in place.

Now comes the messy part. Loading the batter into the cups requires some dexterity (to ensure it drops nicely inside the cup) and also some timing (to move between "drips" so the drop does not land somewhere it shouldn't). Since the batter will rise after baking, you'll have to fill it up to just between half to two-thirds full so that you don't end up with an overflowing mushroom of a muffin (unless you're intentionally going for that kind of effect).

Once a tray is done, I helped to wipe off any accidental spills, since in the oven this will be quite messy as the batter would be in direct contact with metal tray.

And we're ready to load the oven. For consistency, we pre-heated the oven to around 180C. It's a dial knob, not a digital display, so I don't precisely what was the setting. Just a little below the 200C mark. Note also, that this is the SET temperature and not the ACTUAL temperature. Depends on your oven, so in the beginning you'll have to go through a couple of runs first before you can get a "feel" of the correct setting. It's important to realize this if you're say, answering an auditor during the End-Of-Line Molding process, for example.

Once loaded to the oven, I set the timer to ~25 minutes. Again, it's an old-school-styled knob, which ticks down to zero. Never done a calibration against a stopwatch, so again it's more of an art than a science. So, you might want to keep looking through the glass window from time to time to make sure your muffin doesn't end up looking like a lump of coal....

Yes, hot ovens are dangerous, so here's where I took over and put the tray into the pre-heated oven.

There they are, sitting patiently in the oven while they bake, while we sit patiently outside, waiting for the muffins to rise and brown. Once thing that puzzles me is why they choose the yellow, warm lighting for the oven. Is it because of the higher contrast (like streetlamps) or because it makes the food inside look more appetizing? For me, the color of the light makes it hard to figure out what the ACTUAL color of the muffin really is. So, you may think it's been inside long enough, but in actual fact it may still be a bit pale.

Fast forward around 10 minutes, and you can start to see the muffins rise. They seem to burst out from the inside, breaking through the top. I'm not sure if this is what we should see, or if some optimization of time and temperature is required. Argh, there goes my engineering mind again....

While the first tray is baking in the oven, we've already started work on the second tray. Our operation today was fairly small-scaled, so the third and final tray was barely half full.

My wife used a pair of scissors to trim off the excess paper muffin cup so that they appear to rise above the "brim". Just a matter of aesthetic preference, since you may want to leave them as they are.

And there you have it. Another successful kitchen project completed. Here's Christopher doing the final outgoing quality buy-off. Yes, from the look on his face, we've done a good job! :)

Phew, all that hard work is really tiring! So, after a quick shower and change, our junior master baker Charmaine did manage to make it to the bedroom, so even the hard antique chair would suffice. Zzzzz... dreaming of the next baking project, perhaps.... :)

Blood Donation Campaign with the Puma 4x4 Club

The Puma 4x4 club is more commonly known for their bold expeditions into the untamed wilderness and dense jungles, but in the concrete jungle, they have their presence too. Besides acts of charity on a couple of occasions in March and August last year, the Puma 4x4 club helps out during blood donation drives too.

Blood donation is a noble act, especially if you have the rare blood type O- coursing through your veins (making you by definition a universal donor). In contrast, those with blood type AB+ are universal recipients.

On this Sunday Morning, the blood donation was held at the Hotel 906, somewhere in Taman Melaka Raya. It was only on that morning did I realize that there were a real whole lot of "budget" hotels, which are simply shop lots converted to hotels, in this general area. Finding exactly which one was the Hotel 906 was not a easy as I thought. With some help from Jackson Goh over the phone, I soon found my way there.

It was drizzling slightly, so I hope that this would not deter aspiring donors from turning up. Luckily, turn out was good, and the beds and registration counters were package with members of the public. Also collaborating with this even was the Melaka CDERT (Civil Defense Emergency Response Team), of which many Puma members were also a part of.

The event was graced by the presence of Datuk Wira Gan Boon Leong. Other than the Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam, Datuk Wira Gan Boon Leong seems to be the next prominent figure present at any high-profile social function in Melaka.

I left after the official launching, due to some earlier commitments at lunch time. Nonetheless, the response from the crowd that I observed was encouraging, and I am happy to see that the public is still very much supportive of the blood donation drives, which is an essential and potentially life-saving part of community service. Another successful charity event, helped out by the members of the Puma 4x4 Club!