I was given the sad news of my colleague, XXXXX (it's not his initials), had commited suicide. Due to the sensitivity of the issue, I shall not name him. It seems a bit stupid to write an orbituary but not naming the deceased. Oh well. I have to write down my thoughts on this.

I thought he was quite quiet yesterday as he did not answer me when I asked him a question. Later I overheard him telling his manager that he's not feeling well and he want to go see a doctor which his manager agrees. So I thought he was sick, that's why he's so quiet.

Then today, we realise he's gone. We were really puzzled as there was no signs at all. He's still quite young, I can't begin imagine the grief his family is going through now. There's nothing much I can do other than say "take care"...

I've not been to Pitstop Cafe for some time. The last time is when Wenny come back for holiday, and I went with him, Samwin and Cloud.



And before that is even longer I think. Anyway, they gave me a membership card which entitles me to 10% discount for future visits. It's a nice looking mini card.



So today, I asked Thierry and Sharon to go. Well, it's as usual. I've wrote about so many visits to Pitstop that it starts getting boring to write it again. The main motive for this post is to post the pictures. :P

We played 1 new game, Hansa. It's quite nice. So far everytime we've been there, we've played different games, which is a good thing. Till next time then.

I lost my soccer boots sometime back. I went to buy a new pair immeidately. At the shop, there's 2 designs that I am looking at. Finally I chosed 1, paid for it and left. That night, I went drinking with Art Beng and friends.

Early next morning, I bring my brand new pair of boots to a soccer match. My friends took part in this league, where we were the cellar occuppant in the 3rd division. They had been playing for some time, but I had not been able to join them until now as I injured my ankle some time back and took a long rest. I left my brand new pair of boots on the bus when I alight. *#&%$.

Needless to say, I couldn't join them for that game and left looking for the boots which I never managed to find.

Few weeks later, I went to buy a new pair of boots, as I had just went boots shopping not too long ago, I went to the shop, look for that model, try for size, and paid for it and left. When I reach home, I realise the shoe box of the last pair of boots is still at home. Looking at the label, I realise I bought the wrong pair. *#$&%!

No choice. There is no match for that week, just a kick about among ourselves. I went. The boots doesn't feel comfortable. Idiot me for buying the wrong pair.

This week, it's a friendly game. We are playing against the top team in the 1st division. The referee is the one who arranges the game. Stupid referee. It's probably do it so that he don't have to run around too much, since most of the time, the ball gonna be in our half.

We were expected to be thrashed soundly by that team. We were hoping to keep the goals conceded to 1 digit. We managed to keep the scoreline to a respectable 2-0, due to some good defending and luck. But we made 8 substitutions. That's how bad our fitness are.

My team mates were optimistic about the game. He thought we wouldn't look too bad in the end after all. however, some of our players have to leave. In fact, some of them did not come at all. We were left with a bunch of tired out individuals and our star players are not around. I am not too optimistic.

Sure enought, the floodgates opened in the 2nd half. I did not keep track, but they just keep scoring. I was playing striker at first. I did not have much chance to touch the ball, partly due to them dominating the midfield and also partly due to my understanding with my team mates aren't too good. They do not know where I run, and I do not know where they'll pass. After sometime, they wanted to substitute me. I still feel fresh. At that time, Ronnie, the right midfield, asks for a substition. So I drop to right midfield, and the new guy replace me as striker.

I tried to concentrate more on attacking as my fitness would not allow me to do both. After awhile, I realise I am not seeing any actions at all. I thought I would be of more use if I concentrate on defence. So I drop to play deep. We still leak goals. Everyone is feeling low morale. We were leaking goals. We were tired. It's hot. Even though we were used to losing, used to getting thrashed, we were expect to be thrashed. It still doesn't feel good. Everyone is just hoping for the final whistle. I wish the referee will just blow full time. In fact I wanted to go up to him to ask him to do that. Luckily I didn't.

I gave up on my defensive duties and go up again. This time, I managed to deflect a clearance by their defenders towards goal. I was first to the loose ball, run forward a bit, cut back, look up, and sawa bunch of people in front of goal. Their goalkeeper is running towards me. I know that my cross is not accurate enough to find my team mates. And I can see the goal. I took a shot. I hit it high. I tried to do it such that we would clear the keeper and dip into goal. The ball did exactly what I wanted it to. It's a rare occurance. So the ball ended in goal, and the referee blows the whistle for full time.

There isn't any celebration. We just walk back to our resting area and changed out of our soccer attire. In fact some of my team mates thought there's no goal. But inside, I feel a sense of euphoria. It's like my whole presence in the game is just for that last second of play. Just for that goal. And to add to the good feelings, we conceded only 9 goals. It sound lowly, but we were happy to just concede 9 goals and to be able to score a goal against them.

Now I don't hate my boots so much anymore. I don't feel stupid for buying the wrong pair anymore. Maybe me and that pair is meant to be together. That's why I lose the first pair. Now I scored a goal in the first competitive game I played, against a good team no less.

Angie and Shirley are 2 girls I met while on my Taiwan trip recently. The 3 of us, Thierry and Sharon are supposed to go KTV on Sunday. Unfortunately, due to some error in communications, they thought it's Saturday. They are not able to make it on Sunday. Thierry and Sharon can't make it on Saturday. So only the 3 of us went.

They are so orderly. They took turns to enter 2 songs each so that no 1 person hogs the mic. And when 1 person is singing, the other will not take up the other mic. It's so different to what I am used to. With my other friends, we just 1 shot enter alotta songs. Sometimes, we'll adjust later by inserting. And when someone sings a song that we like, we just picks up the mic and sing along. I wonder if they are pissed with me for singing along to their songs. :P

Anyway, after dinner, we went for dinner and that's the end of the day. Too bad they are camera shy, and I have no pictures to post.

I was attending a seminar on Friday. Bumped into Darkelfin. He's also there for the seminar. He asked if I went to Taiwan recently. He saw me taking pictures of the Taiwan soldiers change of duty parade. Apparently, he's also there with his family. He told me I'm in his pictures but when I look thru mine, I can't find him. Too bad.

Anyone interested in going to Emil Chau, Fish Leong or SHE concert?

Emil's on Dec 2, 2006.
SHE's on Jan 27, 2007.
Fish's duno when. Trying to find out. Could be over liao...

I uploaded my holiday photos to webshots.com. It was quite a good site, except that they don't like you to link direct to their pictures, unlike flickr. But flickr resize ur pictures to 1024x768, only show u your latest 200 pics and only let you upload 20 mb per month. I've got 2 gb of photos to upload...

I've been attending 6 Sigma white belt course for the past 2 days. For those who do not know what it is, it's not martial arts. It's a methodology to manage process variations that cause defects and to systematically work towards managing variation to eliminate those defects. White belt means beginner.

One of the chapters today is about Team. Some of the points are quite common in management books. There are few points that I quite agree like. One of it is a quote from Glenn M. Parker, in his book Team Players and Teamwork:

We can absorb and process words spoken by other people much faster than they can verbalize the information. This leaves us lots of time to analyze, evaluate, and even anticipate their thoughts.

But this extra time can be a disadvantage since we tend to concentrate minimally on what is being said and often discount comments before they are completed.

How true. This reminds me of my previous boss. He's a nice guy. Just that sometimes when talking to him, he would not let you finish what you wanted to say and interprete it differently. So more effort have to be made to make him understand what I really mean.

Another good point is that they encourage conflicts in a team.

The aim is not to avoid conflict buy to capitalize on it's constructive aspects by dealing with conflicts in an effective manner.

If everybody in the team has the same idea everytime, why do we need a team? Voicing different views can help the team see things from a different angle and thus avoid blindspots.

One bad thing about this course is one of my classmates. He likes to ask questions that is remotely connected to what the instructor says, but nothing to do with the point he tries to bring across. I agrees that we should bring up points we do not understand or do not agree. But it seems like he only wants to challenge the instructor. This serves no purpose except to prolong the lesson.

Project Superstar voting starts today. One of the contestant, F3, her English name is Maxilian. Funny. I thought it sounds like a guy's name. And I spotted some placards among the audience with the words "Maxi". Now, that sounds like a girl's name, reminds me of sanitory pad... Maxi - lian. Ah Lian uses Maxi. :P

I was on course this morning and it ends at 5pm. My friend called and tell me that he has free tickets for James Bond: Casino Royale. I need to go back to office to settle some stuff after the course but I thought there's enough time, so I agreed.

After I reach office and finish the stuff I wanted to do, I was early. So I thought I should go talk to my boss about some issues before I leave. She was on the phone and I waited. Before I realise, I was late. I quickly left and took a cab to the theatre. Cost me $9.70. Grr.

And I missed the opening 5 minutes. Grr Grr.

Anyway, I've heard complains about this James Bond does not look good enough, and I have to agree. But then, the movie as a whole is nice. The opening scenes consists of fight scenes that reminds you of Jackie Chan. There are enough twists to the story to make you feel it's not gonna end. Overall, it's not bad, if not for the wasted $9.70...

Watched Dead Or Alive on Sunday. It's entertaining. :P

The storyline is simple enough. Dead of Alive is a martial arts tournament. Invitations are sent to elite fighters around the world to get them to compete against each other. In a typical this kind of movie, the organiser is evil. One of the character will have a missing loved one who aws last seen taking part in the tournament. While snooping around, they discover the secret of the secret organiser and a fight ensues which will result in the tournament venue being destroyed. This story is something like that. But the skimpily clad girlsactors and actresses make up for it.



I do not know the story line of the original game. Do anyone know if the movie and the game has similar story?

Found this article via Wannabe.
A nice read I thought.


LINK

But I think the best managers don't want to manage: they want to lead. In fact most leaders probably don't think about it much, at least at first, because they're too busy leading: rushing headlong towards a goal and leading everyone around them in that direction, whether they're on the team or not. Leadership stems from having a clear vision, strong convictions, and enough drive and talent to get your ideas and goals across to a diverse group of people who can help you achieve them.

You about Darling here first if you have not done so.




I was thinking. If I see Darling outside and called her, and she ignore me, it will be a very embarassing thing. Like anyhow call people darling...

I went drinking with Art Beng and Andy last night, to this pub called Carribean in Club Street. There was another Carribean we went to that is at Boat Quay. This Carribean we went to last night a branch.

Anyway, I met a girl there. She's quite pretty. Nice big eyes. Long permed hair like Jolin Cai used to have. In fact, she reminds me of Jolin, though she's not as pretty, but close. She say her name is Darling.

I was joking with my friends yesterday that since so long no work, I might forget to bring my laptop to work today. I would not be able to work then.

And guess what? I really forgot to bring the laptop this morning! I only realise it when I reach my cubicle. So I travelled back home to get it. Grr.

Just came back to Singapore 2 day ago. Reached Singapore at 11:25am. Reached home after 1 am. I will go through the photos and then post some of them online at a later time.

5th Day.

This is the 5th day. We asre in Taichung now. Tomorrow we'll be going back to Taipei, and the following day, the rest will be going back home while Sharon, Thierry and me are continuing our tour of Taipei.

I won't be uploading the photos yet. I will just sumarize what happened during the past 5 days.

1st Day
I wake up at 5 am in the morning to take the 8:30pm flight. We transit at Hong Kong for 1 hour before going to Taipei. Unfortunately, the flight to Hong Kong took 25 minutes shorter than expected, and the flight to Taipei was delayed 25 minutes. We finally reach our hotel in Toayuan at almost 5pm. We then took a 45 minutes ride to Taipei to have Mala Steamboat with Samwin and his colleague.

2nd Day
We went Yehliu to look at the stone formations. Then we went to Chiufen for some shopping. After that is the Nantien Temple in Yilan. This is a Ma Zhu temple. There are 3 versions of the Ma Zhu statue in the temple. Basically, I think the main reason we went there is just for stopover. There are other more interesting things in Yilan.

The last place in the tour is the Amei Aboriginal Cultural Village in Hualien. We see the Amei tribe people perform a dance for us. The dance is really not professional at all. The dancers are of all kinds of build. They do not dance to timing and each dancers have their own variation of the dance and they are not homogeneous at all.

The tour guide told us about a prawn fishing farm in the area near our hotel, so the 3 of us went there with him. It cost us NT200 for 1 hour. Thierry got 1 prawn, I got 4 and the tour guide got 7. Sharon just watch by the side. By the way, the tour guide's name is Desmond. He paid for everything, including the noodles and vegetables we ordered to go with the prawns we caught.

3rd Day
We went to Taroko gorge in the morning. The view is really magnificent. The rock croppings there are really nice.

We went back to the Amei cultural village. We were introduced to the wonders of Taiwan treasure, Lingzhi and Deer foetus. They were supposed to have high medicinal values. Lingzhi can supposedly improves our body functions to fight against diseases and deer foetus can cure asthma totally. A lot of us end up buying Lingzhi after that.

After lunch, we took a tour of the marble factory. This and the Lingzhi Deer fortus talk is not in the iternary. We were brought to a room to be given a presentation of the different precious stones that the factory produces and it's basically a sales pitch. I bought a Taiwan Jade pendant. Then we made a very long journey to Chihpen. Our hotel comes with a hot spring. I thought the hot spring is refreshing, but Thierry and Sharon complained that it's basically a swimming pool.

Then Desmond gave 10 of us a supper treat. Drunk a lot of beer.

4th Day
We went to Mei Nong Hakka village in the morning, followed by Fo Guan
Shan. FGS is the temple with the largest floor area. We had lunch at a restaurant at the foot of FGS. This is the 1st day in the tour that we encounter rain.

After FGS, is another item that's not in the itenary. Some pearl distributing center. Taiwanese cultured pearl is supposed to be edible and can cure a lot of diseases also. Most of us did not buy that. Too many miracle cures to buy i guess.

The last stop before dinner is the Spring and Autumn Pavilion. Desmond told us that there's a shop opposite this place that sells Taiwanese local products at a reasonable price. I think that's the main reason we go to this place. It's boring. In fact the majority of the time we spent there is in the shop.

After dinner, it's the Sin Jiao Jiang night market. As there's a rain before that, most of the stalls are not opened. It's really boring. We left the place without buying anything at all.

After that, Wenny came and bring me around the Kaoshiung area. Sharon and Thierry stayed behind in the hotel. We had a river cruise then went to a newly opened disco. We went there at 11:40pm. They have free entry until 12mn. There were no other customer when we went there. Only 1 other group came during the time we were there. I wonder why it's so quiet in the KS night scene this night.

5th Day
Sin Ying Railway cultural park is nothing great. We took the rail to a animal farm. That place is interesting enough, with some nice animals for us to feed. I don't think they have any walk in customers. They probably set up the place for tour agencies to bring people there.

Then we went to the Sun Moon Lake. We went to 3 stops there. The 1st is the restaurant we had our lunch in. The 2nd is the peacock garden. As it was drizzling, the peacocks are in their cages. And the peacocks are without their tail feathers, so we did not get to see the peacocks in their full glories.

Wen Wu temple is next. It's a nice temple. Sun Moon Lake was affected badly by the 921 Taiwan earthquake. Only the hotel opposite the temple is unaffected. Some parts of the temple are unaffected. They say that it's due to the statues of a magical animal they placed in their premises. There are a few steps to take to get the animals. I went thru the 1st step in the temple. We are supposed to go to another temple tomorrow to complete the 2nd step.

Then it's another long ride to Taichung. We had our dinner there and checked in the hotel. Then it's to the Yichung night market. it's supposed to be quite big, but there isn't much things to buy...

We then took a taxi to the big shopping center beside our hotel. Nothing much to buy there as well, but we bought some bubble tea in Chun Shui shop. It's supposedly the place that invented the pearl in the bubble tea.