Charity at the Bukit Baru Home for the Disabled

One fine Saturday afternoon, I joined my old friend and colleague Kanagarajah and his family, at the Handicapped and Mentally-retarded Children's Center Melaka. My kind friend offered the occupants of this center lunch, as a form of charity from himself and his family. My wife and kids could not make it, as I would have also brought them along.

The Center itself was located in the center of the Bukit Baru district, right next to the busy Jiki food court, across the road from the Bukit Baru Police Station. However, many drive past without knowing of their existence. Like many similar homes and care centers (as I have written about in my experience with the Puma 4x4 club earlier this year), the signs and banners are almost non-existent, so the majority of the populace might not know that there are really many of these homes sporadically located all around.

It is good to note that in spite of times like these, where the whole world has gone materialistic, there are those with good hearts like my friend Kanagarajah, who still do their part and spare a thought for those who are less fortunate. Though to ordinary folks like us, even RM1,000 is dearer than USD1,000 is to people like Bill Gates and Donald Trump, charity that comes from the heart is true and sincere.

Though the hall and kitchen were quite spacious, upstairs and in the rooms, it was quite packed. There are a total of around 52 occupants in this center at present, and comprise not only children, but some adults too. 

If you have the means, do spare some change or old clothes / toys from places like these, as majority of their funding comes from donations from kind and charitable folks.

Contact information for the Handicapped and Mentally-retarded Children's Center Melaka:

Contact: Mr Thomas (013-6913240)

E-mail : ppkktam@gmail.com

GPS Co-ordinates : 2.225674, 102.276760‎ or +2° 13' 32.43", +102° 16' 36.34"

Website : www.handicapjb.org.my (Headquarters in Johor Baru)

The Melaka center is just 1 of 6 centers under this organization. Map above (green arrow) indicates it's location.

More photos:

Trying out telecommuting (working via "remote control").

Telecommuting is a concept that seems more at home in the Western world, rather than over here in Malaysia. I tried to explore the implications and practicality of this concept as applied to my own poor self as a guinea pig, and this post sums up my personal observations.

Before proceeding further, especially if any one reading this is somehow related to HR (of my present company), don't make assumptions. This is practically a *simulated telecommuting experience*. As HR policies dictate, we're not able to carry forward our balance annual leave infinitely over to the following years (ironic, as I would have thought that giving it your 110% generally leaves little time to use up annual leave in the first place). I am challenged to devise a method to drop below the top management radar, from the list of employees with high balance annual leave, and at the same time keep the important stuff (objectives and targets, department goals and projects) moving onward. So happened that due to a minor accident by a careless Kancil driver which left me car-less for a few days recently, by taking annual leave to stay at home, and at the same time staying in constant contact with my fellow colleagues at the office, I try to see if I can get things moving on at a comparable pace while physically being away from the office, so to speak.

Some jobs, by nature, are highly confidential, and are also unsuitable (not allowed even) to work on outside the office. Perhaps if you work for the FBI or CIA this applies to you....

* Infrastructure

Most of my daily work is spent working on a computer, mainly communicating via e-mail (MS Outlook) and working on data and reports (heavy use of MS Excel and Word). Of course, what I do is basically oversee and ensure that our New / improvement product / package development projects are moving and meet the pre-defined schedule (otherwise, plan out a recovery plan and re-define the schedule). That's as much as I can safetly say without violating the P&C policy and getting myself into a nasty predicament.

1) Laptop - Must have

For this, I have the benefit of a company-issued laptop, to do homework (or, depending on how you look at it, a device to extend your enslavement to the company way past office-hours...!). My previous *weapon* was a Dell D630, but recently, I have been issued with a replacement Dell E6420 (whether or not this makes much of a difference will be the subject of a future blog post).

2) Broadband Internet Connection - Must have

Of course, our project files are all parked on the company's internal servers, so to access them (via secure VPN) at reasonable speeds, you will need a fast and stable Broadband connection. Still anything can go wrong, so the best practice is a create a temporary working folder on your Desktop and copy over the file that you will be working on. Not only does this save you from a broken connection (when you anyway have to save the file locally), but it will speed things up quite a bit, especially if your MS Word likes to "Auto-save" from time to time.

3) Printer - Optional

The "paperless office" is still far, far away. Ironically, though it takes longer to find a physical printed document, it is much easier to refer to a piece of paper by your side, rather than flipping back and forth between different windows / virtual desktops. I try hard to resist printing out something for temporary reference, only to send it off for recycling after I'm done. Working around this in MS Word, I can view side by side with another word document, or resize the windows accordingly so that both documents are in view. Of course, this requires a rather large screen or monitor. My company issued laptop has a 14.1" screen with a horizontal resolution of 1366 pixels, but a vertical resolution of only 768 pixels, so working side by side is still manageable.

4) Phone - Must have

Communication is key to getting things done in a team. Unfortunately, getting the right message across in writing relies on both your ability to write down clearly what you are tring to say, and the ability of the receiver to correctly understand what you are writing. And of course, the message only has a chance to get across once someone actually opens up and reads your e-mail. For my case, having the ability to call up my staff is an invaluable tool and greatly helps. Through the phone, you can get real time feedback on whether your message got across correctly. I try to remember to ask for someone to explain back to me what he or she understands, to gauge their level of understanding. If the message comes back totally different, clearly we have to work on our communication skills!

5) Instant Messaging - Optional

Whether it's something as consumer-based as Yahoo! Messenger or specialized like Microsoft Office Communicator (OCS), instant messaging is another facility to enable real time communication. Of course, you need an internet connection for this. Nowadays, IM is not only restricted to typing - many support Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and even video conferencing (for which you'll need a really fast internet connection and a webcam). I use OCS frequently in my communications with my counterparts overseas, mostly for desktop sharing (where you can show someone your desktop so you are all looking at the same file). Formerly we used a similar web-based online conferencing service called WebEx, but there was a terrible lag, especially when viewing PDF files, for some strange reason, so I could be looking at page 10 now, but my counterpart in Germany would still be looking at page 8!

* Experience

So, with the infrastructure set up, what was my experience like?

On working with others, most of my team are quite seasoned and thus we work together like a well-oiled machine. Save for some new people, who have yet to work as efficiently as us "old timers", most of the time, a short concise instruction is all I need to give, and it would be worked on with the necessary degree of efficiency. Of course, this does not work unless you have strong team support and good communication, even then, miscommunication and lag might set in once in a while, even among old players. I would say this is plausible, given the current set up, and can be further improved.

On working alone, example, generating reports, analysing data and creating test plans for reliability qualifications, this is a good place to work, as I'm free from the frequent distractions that crop up while in the office. Of course, some might argue, at home there are even MORE distractions, but generally, those you can control, you can cut out and keep focused on the task at hand.

Working at home is an unnatural thing for some. Some people even believe, because you are at home, you should not be working! Children (especially mine), seem to operate under the thinking that because Daddy is at home, they can play the whole day with him! So, telecommuting only works when you are effectively isolated from others.

Any real savings on commuting costs?

Well, not having to drive to work does save fuel, but for this to work you have to reduce the overall distance travelled per week. Going on "half-day" does not save fuel, since you still have to go to work for half a day. The farther away you live from office (and the less fuel efficient your car and driving technique), the more you will "save" from telecommuting.

of course, there are somethings that I cannot do, because I have to be physically present at my office, such as set up a tester or physically verify some devices using bench equipment. As I'm very much working as an engineer more often than most, there is no real alternative than going to work. Perhaps some day, we can have an "avatar" like in the movie, where we can perform tasks remotely (tele-presence). Until that day comes, though, tele-commuting might be a viable option sometimes, but for some, it would be impractical. I am sure if the company sanctions it, the nature of the job and required infrastructure would be well taken care off beforehand.

Do any of you out there have a similar working experience via telecommuting that you can share?

My Honda Civic FD2 Bumper Repair

After the recent "close encounter" with a white Perodua Kancil, my Honda Civic FD2 was in need of minor repair to the front bumper.

As chronicled in my previous post, the damage was, fortunately, restricted to only the bumper. These days, the bumper of a car functions to cushion the force of an impact, absorbing the energy so that less of it spills over to the rest of the car. In fact, modern cars are designed on the principle of "crumple zones", to increase the safety of the occupants inside. This is a radical departure from the traditional school of thought a long time ago, when cars were built just the opposite - like a tank!

Anyway, my trusty bumper did it's job, deforming upon impact so that the actual metal body of the car was completely unaffected. The impact zone was dangerously close to the right headlamp, but thankfully it was spared. From the photo above, you can see how close the headlamp and foglight are, relative to the damage.

As my car was stationary at the time of impact, as it should be, my airbags did not deploy. I would expect the designers of a car to factor this in, but I'm not sure if all cars are designed equal (to this day, there are still some cars on the Malaysian roads which don't have airbags, as this is not yet a legal requirement). A side note on this - the ruling that cars have to be fitted with dual air bags starting 1 Jan 2012 only applies to new cars, not to those already sold and on the road. See : http://star-motoring.com/News/2011/Airbag-ruling-only-for-2012-cars.aspx

In all honesty, there was no functional impact to my FD2, so at first glance, it looks to be more of a cosmetic issue. My concern was that the bumper was hanging free (the screw / clip was broken), so at high speeds, the force of the wind MIGHT push the bumper into the front wheel. So, there was a potential safety risk, thus, justified the need for repairs.

Who do you call when you need to fix up your ride? Well, between "3rd party" workshops and the official channel, I decided to go for the latter. A bit on this before continuing. Even the "Official" Honda Service Center does not do repairs in-house, but sub-contracts the task out to their panel. I chose to go through Honda instead of directly to an external workshop as by going through Honda, as now the liability is on them. So, any issues with the car, I can deal officially with Honda, who have reputation and credibility to uphold. Going directly to, say, Ah Beng's Car Workshop, it would be difficult to resolve any issues that might arise.

Another plus point is that by virtue of being on Honda's panel workshop, they would already have met some requirements, and would have lots of experience with cars such as mine. It would be difficult to work on a car you rarely see (good luck repairing your Ferrari), as even a trivial task such as removing a dashboard to install tweeters can result in damage. An inexperienced repairer might do more harm than good - "seperti tikus membaiki labu" goes the Malay proverb (loosely translated as "like a mouse trying to repair a pumpkin").

Well, when it comes to Honda, I looked up my trusted Honda service center branch in Jalan Bakri, Muar (not the closest to my home, they have been very good to my ride all this time). Again a note / disclaimer, I am not affiliated with them in any way, so here is just my honest tale and experience of dealing with them. Your own impressions might vary.

I explained my requirement (repair and respray the front bumper), and immediately I was asked to send in my car that afternoon. Since I would definitely have to leave my car there, I told them I would come the next day, otherwise I'd be stranded in Muar (which was close to an hour's drive from where I lived).

The next morning, I drove down to Muar and got the damage assessed by the Service Advisor. Good thing that the guy from the panel workshop was around too, so he did the assessment on the spot and quoted the price for repairs there and then. Unfortunately, according to him, the workshop was full (many accidents that week), so they could only start working on my car the following Monday. Well, it was nobody's fault, so I resigned myself to driving back home and only on the following Monday did I return to drop off my car for repairs. Due to the nature of metallic paint, I chose to respray the entire bumper (including the Modulo front skirting), to avoid any uneven appearance. Luckily they still have the correct paint, as today's FD2s are now offered with a different color.

So, at the start of the next week, repairs were estimated to be completed by Thursday morning. My wife was with me to ferry me back home after a short stop at Mister Coffee for a cup of, um, coffee (what else?).

For the rest of the week, without my trusty Civic (don't get me started on public transportation in this part of the world), I took the opportunity to "clear annual leave". It was during this time that I further explored the potential of "telecommuting" via simulation.

Well, my car was actually ready on Wednesday. According to the Service Advisor, it had been hot and sunny every day that week, so the "paint dried very fast". When I went over to take my car, it was thoroughly washed and polished (even my new Nexen 6000's were shining with a coat of Tire-shine). The bumper was back in place, secured with the bolts just like the original ones, not like the ones you get from off the hardware shelf, or cable ties. From the looks of things, relative to the age and other parts of the car, it is unlikely that any one would realize that my car had ever been hit and repaired.

Another satisfactory service associated with the Honda SC in Muar (GS Tay Auto), who also made a follow up call the following day to check if I had any outstanding complaints. If any of you are on the look out for a good place to service your Honda, I strongly recommend that you give this service center a try.

Einstein's quote on genius, and how it applies to my working life

Albert Einstein, one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, more often known for his General and Special theory of Relativity and the famous equation, E=MC^2 (sorry, doesn't seem to be a good way to write the "2" superscript for "squared").

However, he also said, "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." And that is the quote which I draw a parallel to my working life.

Thanks a lot to "Pro Blogger" Darren Rowse, from whom I learned this!

In today's working environment, many of us report to someone, and I'm sure a handful of us have staff or direct reports working under our organization. In an ideal world, most of us, as employees, seek to become the best in our own field, and receive the just recognition from our superiors. From the other side of the looking glass, those of us, as employers, would like very much for each and every member of the team to be a strong and dedicated contributor to the department's goals and objectives.

Alas, at times, reality can be far from ideal....

A decade ago, I got my first job working as a process engineer in a locally-owned semiconductor manufacturer. Knowing next to nothing about real working life in a factory, I can, by definition call myself stupid at that point in time. Fortunately, I had a good mentor and tutor, in the form of a very capable engineer by the name of Ng Chew Huang (Angie), who set me on the right path towards being an engineer. Not so much as telling me what to do, but HOW to figure out what to do. Also at that time was the incumbent General Manager, Matthew Ong, who was also very supportive. He taught me that a good engineer uses his hands, not just his head. With their help, plus the support of my fellow colleagues, I found that I quickly became good at what I was doing.

Fast forward to the present, in a new company (same field though - manufacturing discrete semiconductors), up until recently, I have made good use of my experience and affinity for technical stuff to progress in my career as an engineer (now under Product Development).

After a long time on my "home turf", I jumped forward into the unknown realm of management. Management, as opposed to Engineering, is a completely different ball game. Therefore, I am, by definition, stupid, once again.

Unfortunately, unlike my good fortune years ago, this time there were no Angies or Matthews to launch me off the management flight deck. I was on my own, in deep water, and no one was around to throw me a lifeline. Well, up until recently, but I really wished that she has joined very much earlier....

After a lot of self-effort, I have progressed significantly since my first foray into the management field year ago. However, to this day, my capabilities as an engineer still surpass by far my skills as a manager.

Coming back to the quote from the sleepy-eyes, fuzzy-haired scientist, if my net worth was appraised solely on my performance as a manager, I would, for now, come across as mediocre in the eyes of my colleagues. Worse, I may also start to actually believe that I am nothing more than just an average performer. Well, I can't change the way other people think or act, but if I myself believe this fallacy, then all hope is surely lost.

It's interesting to see how many people easily forget years of excellent performance, but never fail to pick on mistakes and faults time and time again.

Of course, in life, you should always put your best foot forward and capitalize on your strengths. Always do your best! If you're Tiger Woods, and have to challenge someone else to a game of your choice, would you rather pick Golf or Swimming? (I assume here that Tiger Woods is at best, an average swimmer).

If you're finding it hard to make heads and tails of your current job, you might be doing the wrong job. You are not the right person for the job! If your employer is unable to make you a better performer in your current field, then he should probably have better luck hiring someone more suitable and assigning you to do something that you can do really well.

We are all good at something, but people look at us and only see what they are looking for, or hope to find. Sometimes, you look so hard to find the gold that you don't see the oil field right in front of you...!

Just because someone thinks you're stupid doesn't mean he is right, just as you thinking he is stupid for thinking that you are stupid does not make him more stupid that he already is. Think about that for awhile...! :)

In the meantime, take the effort to develop other areas that need reinforcement. As you should not put all your eggs in one basket, do spend some time polishing your other skills, as you'll never know when you need to count on them. As skills need to be used to really hone them, it helps if you have some opportunity in your routine life to use your abilities to keep time from becoming rusty.

Be the fastest swimming fish that you can, and get the recognition you deserve. But it's OK to crawl out of the water and climb up a tree from time to time, when no one is looking...! :)

From Blogspot to Blogger to... [what next?]

When I first created my blog here, I name it "MCWK on blogspot.com", clear under-utilization of creative thinking. To this day, the site remains with its created URL of marvinchong.blogspot.com (again, did not exercise right side of my large grey matter). Heh, heh - with such an unimaginative name like that, no wonder I don't get much visitors...! :)

Originally, I started blogging on Multiply.com, the very early social network that I like to think of as "the One who could have been Facebook today, instead of Facebook". (but more on my thoughts on this in another post). Anyway, a social network which none of your friends are on, no matter how good, will probably not appeal to you. Hope that Google Plus doesn't go the same way...!

Any friends out there who are also on Multiply? Hope we can connect there too. Haha, just in case, the threat to FB from hackers actually becomes a reality : http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social.media/08/09/anonymous.facebook/index.html

Just a quick recap on why I started blogging.

Primarily, I have always prided myself on keeping abreast with ongoing IT developments and trends. Having missed the IRC boat (didn't have a proper internet back then), I made up my mind, at least if I don't continue doing it, I should at least start up a blog to experience first hand, what it is all about. And strike off one more reason to be called a "dinosaur" off my profile...! :)

What to blog about? Well, at the beginning, and still holding true today, my interests have been:-

• Cars (especially, my then-new Honda Civic FD2)
• Photography (Nikon DSLR user, probably for life)
• GPS (opened up a whole new world, or rather, to places which I could never find my way to before)
• Events (Family / Company / Clubs, anything not private, too personal and not company confidential)
• Philosophy (I'm not a philosopher, but I come across wise words and teachings from time to time, that I'd like to share with my friends and anyone who cares to follow my blog).

Well, I've always thought of my blog as my own personal journal and life story, so it might appeal more to my friends and colleagues rather than the general Internet populace. Still, my recent in-depth involvement with photography and car clubs such as the 8GCC (Eight Gen Civic Club) have allowed me to discover some interesting things from time to time, that I would also like to share with my small readership.

As most of my time is taken up by work and for family matters, I can't deny that the frequency of my postings have been on the decline as of late, as I mentioned in my post on my great blog backlog. Ah, well....

Anyway, as I'm still blogging (latest one to date at the time of this writing being, of course, this post you're reading right now), the news that Google will retire the Blogger brand and rename it to Google Blogs of course caught my attention.

Link to online sources confirming this is on the Mashable site : http://mashable.com/2011/07/05/google-blogger-picasa-rebranding/

Google launched it's own social network not long ago, Google Plus / Google+, so I guess this exercise is to rebrand all it's services to somehow include the "Google" keyword in the the name.

Well, when this happens, I'm not sure if they will leave intact the "blogspot", which happens to be the middle name of my marvinchong.blogspot.com website URL, or if they will initiate a change to something else. It would be a real pain if they did that, not only to me, but to other "blogspot" users as well. Besides having now to think up of a new name for my blog, I'll have to take care about any links from external sources to my posts. If that really happens, at least I still have Multiply as the "contingency plan"....

Let's see how it goes in the weeks to come - I'm sure the giant Google will be rolling out the changes to Blogger and other acquired services soon!

My Honda Civic's minor collision

It's a bright sunny morning. You get into your car and drive off to work as usual. At the first T-junction, you patiently wait for two oncoming cars to pass from the right before you're can proceed to turn left. Just as you are about to take your foot off the brake pedal, the sound of grinding metal instinctively brings you to a halt once again. Your eyes train in the direction of the sickening sound, to find the front right hand side of your car in contact with the side of a white Perodua Kancil....

Unfortunately, a couple of weeks ago, "you" above was none other than me - barely 30 seconds out from my front gate!

Sigh. And I just got my new tires. Looks like my car too is affected by my recent "series of unfortunate events" aura....

Though I was well behind the intersecting road, and clearly on the correct side of the road, the driver of the other car did not keep to his side of the road when turning off the main road, thus resulting in the accident. The other car was definitely well into my side of the road, since there was room on the left for the van behind it to pass. It was a two lane road, one lane per direction! As I was stationary at that time, there was nothing really that I could have done in terms of taking evasive action....

I drove off to the side of the road, where it was safe, and alighted from my car to assess the situation, I noted the other driver was an elderly gentleman (in my opinion, he looked no younger than 70). My front bumper was knocked out and protruded slightly from the usual position. Fortunately (for the other guy), the main body of the car, tire / rim, headlight and fog light were all undamaged. Saved by the bumper indeed!

As I turned to the other driver, he was very apologetic and start giving lots of excuses (not working anymore, cannot afford to pay for my damages, etc.). It is entertaining to note that a majority of people seem to care about money first, and forget about other things that matter.

Trying not to establish a co-relation between the age of the driver and his competency, I gave him a short lecture about the correct way of turning off the main road (without "eating" into the other lane), and reminded him that he was "fortunate" to have knocked a civilized driver like myself. There would be dire consequences had he knocked a road bully or a lorry / trailer, or what if he had hit a motorcyclist or a bicycle instead?

As he appeared genuinely apologetic, and seemed to register my message, inline with the upcoming Ramadan month just around the corner, I let him off with a verbal warning and a handshake. I noted that my bumper had grazed the length of his car, and damaged the door AND the body, so I reckon that it would require more extensive repairs than mine.

A slight push of the hand and my bumper was back in position, just slightly out of place as the screws / clips that held that portion in place were broken. If it weren't for the damaged paintwork, you'd be hard-pressed to realize that there had been an accident in the first place.

The entire episode took less than 5 minute to resolve, which was good, as I had a meeting to attend than morning.

The 2 lessons to be learned here are :

1. You can do everything correctly, but due to the actions of others, accidents can still happen. As you cannot assume every other person on the road is as competent as you are, always be cautious of every other driver by default. Drive defensively!

2. You cannot control the actions of others. You only have control over your own actions and responses. Always be aware of the situation and what you do, otherwise you will be no better than others who act irrationally. And remember, irresponsible actions of others may affect us in an unfortunate way, so again - drive defensively!

My car has since been repaired; tell you more about it in a future post!