Living in a pressure cooker called Life

Listening to West Life

2010-03-09T12:12:00.002+08:00

I think it has been about 3 years since West Life last came up with an album and what do you know they've split up. This group is the only boy band I have ever liked. Somehow the Irish can really sing well eh? Oh well finally fixed up my blog template hope you like this one.

Oh well I got to go now will post more the next time round.

Women drivers are really scary..

2009-08-17T11:24:00.003+08:00

JUst wanted to share,

This morning was driving to work on the PIE @ about 0745hrs. As usual, I take the express lane on the extreme right to get to work quickly and smoothly with all the other good/confident drivers on this lane.

Suddenly, this silver corolla started to veer to the right into my lane! I was scared out of my wits and tapped the brakes on my Pappu and horned..finally that car steered back in..guess what it was a jack-ass of a woman who was busy trying to put in her cash-card into her ERP unit because up ahead was the ERP gantry at steven's road!

What the hell, clearly proves that Scientists are right. Women are bad drivers due to their lack of spatial ability and coordinate multiple tasks. I think they just should not allow women to be on the roads driving cars..leave it to us men! Look at the records the only ever time women won any motorsports championship was in the 80s with Audi in the world rally championship but that too was disqualified when the judges found out Audi's car had AWD configured.

Sweetu please don't yell at me after reading this post, but I think you'd agree with me after all the rantings i have made in our car when we drive.

Phew..Its been a while

2009-08-06T10:56:00.002+08:00

Whoa..its been like what maybe 4-5 mths or longer since my last post. I've been kept really busy with my final year in university. Nonetheless, many things have happened in the past couple of months here's an update in bulletin style:

1) Finished my 1st semester of my final year and managed to improve my GPA compared to my previous semester although i took lesser modules.

2) Final year project progressing well ahead of my peers in the same project supervisory group. I am now working on my report.

3) Mastered SQL server programming and really pushed the boundaries. Learnt from this that you can achieve any goal you set for yourself and everything you need to learn to achieve your goals is available out there in books. Now I know why in many religions books are highly revered.

4) Experienced The Secret and I am now putting this to work for me. Bill Gates applied it and he came up with Microsoft. Thoughts really do make up your world and they will manifest into reality if you keep on thinking about them and giving them energy.

5) Fitness level has dropped quite significantly due to lack of time to go to the gym, I spent my off days programming my SQL DBMS for nearly 8 - 10 hrs a day. (Ask my 'Boss', she'll tell you.)

6) Experienced firsthand life's ability to humble you at a time when you think you're invicible and all-knowing (big mistake on my part). Life throws you a curve to humble you.

7) Learn the power of keeping cool in times of stress, although sometimes I just forget this and lose my temper. I'm working on myself, still human after all.

8) Regained my financial stability, well almost but definitely there's an improvement.

9)Started my workout in the gym again,I realized that what running/fitness guru and philosopher Dr. George Sheehan said was true, when fitness goes can the mind be far behind? Mind and Fitness are connected. Need to start pumping iron again to get that beach body I promised my 'Boss' so that I can go to Sentosa with her and confidently take my shirt off at the beach.

Well, that's pretty much the updates that I have as of now. August is going to be a rather busy month but nothing is too difficult; you can learn anything. Once August is over I can safely say that half of my final semester is done with!

I Just Want To Be Me Again

2009-04-26T12:04:00.003+08:00

As you all know, recently I been posting a lot about modding my car & spending money on it. Despite constant pleas from my queen Sweetu and my friends Chandra and Vasan, I was heading into a downward spiral financially, physically in the past 3 months. I have never felt more unhappier and unsatisfied in life...and I don't know what was wrong with me until life gave me my answer in a few events that happened which gave me an overnight transformation kicked in my focus back and I felt like a race car driver who has just recovered from a tailspin and got the car back into the race. Now I can feel that I am myself again no more trying to put up a front and suffering from the disease "keeping up w/ the Joneses" which was never a problem with me until I joined this place called the Singapore Honda Club. Gayatri was always against me joining this club and so was my Uncle Surjeet who was the one who helped me find my Pappu..my beloved car. They both felt this club was going to destroy my focus and make me do things which was never me like participating in club meetings on Friday night which were nothing but mainly chance for others to brag and criticize each other's cars. I started to feel inferior and began to want to change things with my Pappu and buy stuff which I did not need. I began to spend hours at my workshop HV Racing in JB..and this led to my health/fitness suffering as I started to feel less energy and my muscles loss (imagine I was able to bench 80kg on a free weight machine and my stamina has now dropped to being able to bench only 50Kg). You need to look after yoru health carefuly when you become a bodybuilder. Every single equation counts. And the area which took the most beatign was my financial health. I was never broke in my life before even when I was owning my previous car. But suddenly my greed and need to 'keep up with idiots whom I only meet once a month and who do nothing but brag about their cars'. Suddenly one day, I started listening to my Anthony Robbins Personal Power 2 Program in my car while driving to work and Tony started to coach me back on the right path and I followed his recommendations and listened to the subliminal programs. Somehow my thinking started to change and one day it hit me in the middle of the night. I was thinking..what the fuck am I doing trying to impress idiots who don't give a damn about me..or idiots who are not achieving what I want to achieve in life. I don't mean to brag but Gayatri and those of you who are my closest friends ppl like Chandra and Vasan and Thana know that I am a very determined person who will never say die and fight to the end for my goals. And then I started to lose quite a bit of that focus and became distracted for a while until a few events in life showed me that most ppl in the Singapore Honda Club were mostly people who were trying to impress the others there and some of them were suffering financially just to put up a front and when I asked them do they travel or have plans to do their degree etc and turns out most them don't even have a degree or any stocks investments or have any goals in life to be rich! And then to put things worst they are really shallow people man most of them but I have made 2 good friends from there people like Han and Nathan. Otherwise a lot of the others were just putting a front of being nice but when push comes to shove or when I needed their help they were not there..at the end only my wife and my other family members can help me. I dug a rather large grave financially thanks to trying to keep up with the others and impress people who don't care. Then suddenly my other caoch Robin Sharma's words rang in my head.."Trying to impress people is a way to misery in life." I decided to put an end to this and return back to my simple life where I will still pursue my passion in cars but in my own way..and I want to be me..again..I want to appreciate my Pappu for what he is and drive him before finally laying this great warrior horse to rest in 2011. He is still a car I love and I dont think is worth it for me to compare him and degrade him in front of fake people who do not think on the level I do and who are just not heading in the same direction in life as me. They all seem to be happy to settle for ordinary life and spend their lives spending tens of thousands on modifying a normal car. But not me..i know I am destined for bigger things in life and living a great life is not about driving a heavily modified car..its about crafting a brilliant career, excellent peak health, financial freedom, a brilliant and wondeful family, a nice home which filled with warmth, love and happiness and more importantly loving the most important people in my life like I've never loved before...and daring to live my life on the skinny branch..travelling the world with my wife..and enjoying the company of my true friends who have stuck with me in my ups and downs..like Chandra, Vasan, and Thana. These are my 3 bestest friends in life who have always been straight and upfront with me..and who really cared for me genuinely. Thanks brothers.
By the way, I have started to recover my physical health went to the gym today and started to patch back the grave I dug financially over the past three months. I still got about halfway to go but I am doing this step by step until I achieve a balanced balance sheet financially for Arvind Gawade Inc. :)

I am tearing a bit as I write this post and I thank God for showing me how I was caught in a tailspin I nvr knew about until recently. I have sold off all the mods for my Pappu which I had bought which were only going to make his running costs higher as he goes through the final 2 years before its time for him to be laid to rest. I used the money to clear off my credit debts and restore my bank balances. And through this I discovered some idiots who were immature also from the Honda Forum who I thought was my friend this malay guy called Nizam who was always constantly in debt financially, living off his wife's salary despite havign a job and all because he spends a lot on his car which is the same as mine but I think my Pappu is a hell of a lot more good looking and draws more looks as Sweetu observes when we drive up to shopping malls etc. ;) Do you notice the similarity of what I was about to go through along with that from people in the Honda forum? Nizam for example?

Charles Tremendous JOnes was right..what you become five years from now is a result of the books you read and the people you hang out with. Scratch with the ducks or Fly with the eagles your choice..I choose to start flying with the eagles. :)

Getting my groove back

2009-04-09T06:47:00.002+08:00

The past month, I feel I was sidetracked a bit by issues which were not related to my goals for this year. Firstly, I was involved in a few minor vehicle accident partly due to my carelessness but I've got that ironed out already by concentrating more on the road and focusing on safety instead of taking shortcuts. Secondly, had a lot of expenditures mainly related to the accident which could have been avoided had I been a lot more careful.

Nonetheless, now I am getting my focus back it all started in my weight training, I started goign back to my usual body part training instead of an all out aimless circuit that I was trying out. Funny how when you become focused and discipline in one area that it spills into the other areas of your life.

Work wise, I couldn't ask for anything better I got the dream job I ever wanted in a brilliant company like HP-EDS. I am grateful to God for showing me this opportunity at a time when I needed it most. As for my degree, I got 6 more months to go before my final year project comes to an end and my degree program is completed. This is e most crucial area.

I will be saving up my money from now on till my final year project is submitted and the presentation is over in November. After which I will send my car for 1 week to my workshop HV Racing for a major engine overhaul and upgrading of the internals such as camshafts etc. I will place the order for my components sometime in September as it takes a while to be shipped to SG. I intend to earn the money for my car engine upgrades via investing in the stock market.

Most important day of 2009 for me

2009-03-11T17:58:00.002+08:00

Hi everyone,

Today 11th march 2009 marks the most important day of the year for me. Here's why: Its the day the most important and most beautiful woman in the universe came into this world and finally through the grace of God I got to become a part of her life forever. Its the birthday of my Gayatri. I wish to take this opportunity to shout out Happy Birthday Sweetheart! I am so so grateful to have the oportunity to spend the rest of my lifetime with you. I hope you enjoyed the little b'day cake we cut today on top of Jurong Hill with Pappu our car...hehe. I will give you the rest of your presents soon okie.

I just want to say that you truly make my life worth living, the past 2 months of 2009 have been excruciatingly challenging for the both of us financially and emotionally thanks to Jurong Hi-Tech and their unscrupulous business ethics. But that episode of our life is over now. The lesson learnt: Never join a manufacturing company that is Singapore based and run by a lady haha. You stood by me and made the challenging times a lot easier when I see your smile I have hope and I know things will get better and that gave me the strength to push through and finally conquer it. Well the tough times are not over yet, now I have to deal with a super hypocritical project supervisor for my finaly year project in uni as well as coping with the changes required now that I am a engineer working on rotating shift. As long as I have you by my side, I know nothing is impossible to achieve. Just keep smiling and that will be the rocket fuel I need to keep pushing on towards our goals.

Today you turn 23, but to me you will still always be my bubbly super drop dead georgeous girl who still has a childlike essence which I absolutely adore about you. And everytime you're angry and nag at me it makes me love you even more I just can't say how many numerous times when I gone against your advice and did something it really screwed up! And on the other hand when I listened to your advice somehow things turn out really well. Lesson learnt: Guys, listen to your wives and life partners! Women have a strong intuition!! We men tend to do things without thinking too much. So sweetu feel free to nag at me more but just remember I love you very very very much and each and every day I love you more n more. I mean it and I cannot wait for the day we get married and spend our lifetime together in Australia. :)

I just wish to dedicate this video song from a hindi movie specially for you because this song says it all for me. Tujh Mein Rab Dikta Hai..sweetu mein kya karoon..

Happy Birthday Sweetu!! I am gonna shower now then leave for work and then tomorow I will be going to get some fuel for Pappu in JB. :)

Bad Things Must Happen For Good Things To Come

2009-02-19T22:48:00.003+08:00

The past few weeks of the year 2009 have been one of my toughest and I think I speak for many Singaporeans as well. It made me realize the importance of savings, family and valuing your loved ones and friends over material things.

To start with I had an interesting experience of a company I work with going to the brink of bankruptcy, Jurong Hi-Tech once a company that used to make billions of dollars in profits yearly but under the wrong hands of a woman called Joyce Lin, the entire business became mismanaged and she was unable to steer it through the rough economic waters now. The end result of top management's greed and poor judgement, delayed salaries, job insecurities and low morale amongst all employees. Sweetu and I suffered from this as we were shifting our mindset from being able to spend our time in nice restaurants having our weekend lunches and outings at the movies to tightening our belts to make sure we could get through the month because there was the constant uncertainty if Jurong Hi-Tech would pay me my salary on time. This kept going on for 4 months consecutively until it was announced that the company would be under Judicial Management. Aah..as bad as it seems it gave me a 'live' experience to apply what I had learnt in my 2nd year of University in my Company Law and Corporate Governance module. It is through that module that I gained an understanding of judicial management as being part of the process of winding up a company.

The depression I was going through and the misery of not being able to pursue my passion of cars by doing up my car or giving it the best treatment it can possibly get made life seem rather bleak. Naturally being my soulmate and life partner Sweetu became upset too seeing my condition all I could do was just pray and tighten my belt hoping that God would shed some light on this situation and He did. I took a risk and instead of applying jobs the traditional way most people do, I made a short plug move (i feel its necessary to be a little bit short circuit in the head to be able to make it in life in an outstanding manner; after all if we all thought like normal people and others then life would be pretty mediocre and boring) and asked my aunt in HP to help blast out my resume to all her colleagues in the IT department. I also added another short plug move, I totally revamped my resume from 5 pages to a mere 2 page resume and created a sense of mystery around myself. And it worked! My prayers were answered I have landed a stable job in the company I had dreamt of working for ever since I decided to pursue a career in the IT industry (one of my other passions is computers) since joining the polytechnic in 2001. I landed a job at Hewlett Packard a dream come true in these difficult economic times.

I am not saying this to show off and I will be the first to admit that I almost did not have any hope in myself of turning the situation around but one day after getting a good shelling from my dearest CO (Gayatri-my commanding officer and princess)about my constant whining and complaining about my situation also not to forget my constant indulgence in self-pity. I decided to take a stand and told myself that if I am going to save my car, my financial stability I have got to do something fast. This means adopting the short plug philosophy I picked up from my bodybuilding training partner; my buddy Chandra and taking the path less traveled. I dared to ask my aunty for an opportunity and told her to blast my resume out. My prayers were answered by Him and I landed a good job at Hewlett Packard.

Thus I have come to conclude two things:
1) To make it in life and to live an above average life you must be willing to be weird or short plug/circuit in your thinking. Never say die and dare to do the things other's don't want to do! Of course with some uncommon sense in common sense.
2) God is always testing your level of commitment and before He gives you the reward He makes you go through some tests and challenges to teach you some lessons you must know in order to avoid from screwing up in the future.

and don't mind me adding this point which Charlie 'Tremendous' Jones mentioned in his book Life is Tremendous:
"A miserable wife is always a good thing because she'll remind you how you're screwing up and keep nagging at you get off your butt and stop licking your chops and indulging in self pity" Well Sweetu did not nag at me but I did get a good shelling and I love her very very much for that. She can be both a source of comfort as well as a set of jump starters to help jump start my engines when I am coasting.

Well next Friday 27 Feb 2009 will be my last day at the sinking Jurong Hi-Tech before I jump ship to safer waters. I wish to thank all my colleagues for their company and we have now become friends especially to my close friend Antoni. He has taught me a lot about networking and we have shared some good times together working till late doing cabling for the various internal restructuring that took place within the company before it started to fall flat on its face. I have made a close friend whom I will treasure and always stay in touch for life as long as I can till time draws us apart although I hope that never happens. But in life friends come and go but true friends will stay on with you for life. I would like to send my sincere wishes and prayers to all my remaining colleagues in the MIS team Joji, Prabbath, Usman and my buddy Antoni guys hang in there you'll get a job soon before Jurong Hi Tech caves in within the next 2 months. Don't give up hope as Barack Obama said..this economic crisis ain't as bad as The Great Depression unemployment rates are still fairly low and fortunately for us in the IT industry we're the catalyst driving most businesses in every industry thus there is always a demand for us.

Remember that guys you can find a job I will pray for you all especially for you Toni, I am always here for you buddy even though we're not going to be working together after next week please remember we're brothers not just mere colleagues and we will leave no man behind. You will get a job soon my friend I know you will with all those certs and your talents and personality you will find one soon.

In the meanwhile I thank God for throwing me a safety line, please God help the other Singaporeans out there as well as the foreigners like my friend Antoni who came to this country in hope of a better future for their families. I know George W Bush fucked up the economy before he left but don't punish the rest for one idiot's wrongdoings.

Slow Start to 2009. But Here's My Goals!

2009-01-15T09:13:00.003+08:00

Hi guys,

As well all know it, 2009 has gotten off to a really slow start for everyone. Pay cuts, 4-day work weeks etc. Everybody is having a tough time coping w/ the rough economic conditions and who's to blame? Well no one really its a cycle and well apart from America's over-liberalization of letting ppl who cannot afford to pay for their homes take loans, Lehman Brothers going bankrupt and accumulating debts of over $653 Billion; all these little events led to our economy eventually tumbling over on its feet.

Now it is up to US President-elect Barrack Obama to hopefully make a quick U-turn for the economy when he takes office on Monday 19 Jan 2009.

Politics, bad economy aside, time to put in some optimism and focus on my BHAGs( Big Hairy Audacious Goals, to quote author Jim Collins). Here are my goals for 2009:

1) Score an A+ for my Final Year Project in SIM University and an A- for my 2 Marketing modules this semester. Nov 2009 & June 2009 respectively

2) Pass the IELTS test the first time round with average score of 8 and above for all the areas. by Jul 2009

3) Enhance my performance in the Gym by increasing the intensity by 30% and put on 20 pounds of muscle this year. Dec 2009

4) Read 20 new books this year on business, fitness, self-improvement and IT. Dec 2009

5) Save up atleast 20% of my salary every month to prepare for my application of Australia PR in the year 2010

Well the above are my goals for this year and I am publicly posting it out here for all of you to see so that in case I don't achieve any of the above goals you can all post your comments here in mockery of me. :)

2009: Will it be a better year then 2008? Yes!

2009-01-08T15:22:00.003+08:00

Hi friends,

Sorry for not posting for the past 1 month or so, I was very busy doing lots of relaxation and also spending quality time w/ my family and friends.

So, finally year 2009 is here Happy New Year to all readers. Now before we look forward into this year I'd just like to rewind back to 2008 and review some of my achievements;please don't mind me I am not being boastful just reviewing it as a yardstick to measure how far I've come:

1) Successfully completed my 2nd year of university and now 2009 will be my final year as I completed my Honours degree w/ my final year project and a few modules left to clear. Improved my GPA by 20 % this year.

2) Sweetu has done extremely well in her degree as well and she's now going to graduate in the coming month or two. Then she has also been accepted in Monash university's Honours programme for Psychology. Woo hoo!

3) Improved my Health and Fitness tremendously compared to how I was in 2007. Feel more alert, relaxed and focused now. I also don't get affected by stress that easily these days.

4) Achieved my dream of being able to own my very own sports car, a pearl white 92 Honda Civic which has been given a basic tuning. I will not embark on much projects for this car because I will only be driving it till mid 2010 after which I am moving to Australia.

5) Strengthened my relationship w/ my Sweetu by reducing my bad temper, I am more calm these days and partially due to the more kisses I've been getting from her. ;)

6) Learn about the importance of living life to the fullest each day and the significance of Karma in our lives. Always strive to do good and play your highest game at work irregardless of whether you get credit or not. The stars will eventually shine brighter then the pebbles.

7) Attended my first In-Camp-Training and enjoyed it to the fullest stayed in for 2 weeks but it was good break from the civilian world and learn to appreciate being in Nature. Returned to work refreshed and energized!

All in all 2008, has been a fairly challenging year although I managed to achieve the above by no means was it easy. I did undergo some challenging times when I felt uncertain about myself and my abilities as well as some health challenges with an injured right arm which caused me to be unable to carry loads or workout for nearly 2 months.

I will work hard and play a better game this year in 2009 to make it better then 2008. I am looking at a daily improvement of 1%. :) Till then Happy New Year to all of you and welcome back to Singapore Thana!

Vande Mataram: Go India You Can Do It

2008-11-29T09:09:00.002+08:00

Most of you know about the recent horrific bombings in Mumbai where we lost the life of one of our fellow Singaporean. The terrorists have not revealed their motives for carrying out these senseless acts however, they will be punished severely for their harsh acts. For they forgot that they are messing with a country who has the 3rd largest Army in the world and one of best commandos. Even though I may be born a Singaporean, I still feel a form of patriotism for India because that is where my roots lie, my Grandparents came from there. Sweetu especially has been deeply affected by this event as she was born in Mumbai and lived there for 2 years of her life before coming to Singapore and eventually becoming a Singaporean.

I sincerely offer my prayers to the hostages who are still held behind the clutches of these senseless bastards and to those families who have lost their loved ones my prayers that their souls will rest in peace. We must have full faith in the Indian Commandos who are fighting for their own lives to save these innocent lives. Hats off to these men!

Before I conclude this post, I wish to thank God for blessing me with the opportunity to live in Singapore and to wake up each day to see another brand new day. Thank you God. Please give the people in Mumbai the strength and faith they need to plow through this tough time.

Vande Mataram! Bharat Mata Ki Jai! To all my non-hindi speaking friends, this means Long Live India my Mother land!

So what if the economy is in crisis?

2008-11-19T16:46:00.002+08:00

Hi guys,

Needless to say the world has been hit by what economists say is the worst Financial Crisis since the year 1929 (correct me if my figures are wrong). Day after day, when I flip the morning paper at breakfast I see news about how bad things are but very rarely do we see anything about how we can turn the situation around.

Well I think instead of focusing on how bad things are we should look at the brighter side of things, well for once the stocks which we've been aiming for are now available at dirt cheap prices, secondly oil prices have dipped, we learn to find ways to cut back on going out and eating out and learning to enjoy home cooked meals again which is simply the bestest thing in the world.

Of course, we still have our worries concerning our job in these troubled times but it is also a time when we must constantly upgrade ourselves to become invaluable to our company it is a time to re-evaluate our working attitude and methodology to find ways in which we can perform better on our jobs. To quote my mentor Robin Sharma, we need to be a Rock Star @ Work. We have to give our all and perform our best games without concern about our titles at work. The key here is we're all leaders from the janitor right up to the MD. We as human beings have the power to choose our thoughts which determine what happens on our outer world and in turn affects our circumstances we enter. And the best thing is we can control our thoughts especially the negative ones if we want to avoid them from manifesting into reality.

For me, here's how I am going to cope with the winter of our economy. This is just a season, it will pass and spring will come followed by summer. :) Its a cycle.

1) Cut back on unnecessary expenditures and save up more. Meaning I would have to spread out my plans for upgrading my ride progressively in order to avoid chewing my bank acount out unnecessarily.

2) Eat more vegetables and fruits while cutting back on fast foods to maintain my health so I won't fall ill so easily. Medical bills can be costly.

3) Workout more often in the gym to de-stress and keep myself in good shape so I will be able to reduce my bad temper (all the energy released onto the weights) and as a result improve my relationships.

4) Try not to drive around unnecessarily unless required and wash the car myself instead of paying a car wash guy $7 a week or $30 a month. If I wash myself, it will only be about $0.80 each time considering the number of times i have to fill up my 2 pails with water from the HDB carpark. It costs $0.20 each time and also its better to hand wash myself then to ask e car wash.

Hey guys, do try to post your tips on how u're dealing with the tough economy.

Finally, exams over time to burn some rubber

2008-11-15T10:59:00.005+08:00

Hi readers,

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, Vasan especially sorry for not replying to your Tag I've been really busy studying for exams that I don't even have time to go to the gym to pump iron. Well, glad to say that finally I finished 2 weeks of examinations and one of the toughest year I had in University. Its tough because I had to juggle a new job and a tough semester (I had 4 papers to take for my examinations and tons of assigments) which was disrupted by reservist. Thankfully, its all over and now I want to take a break to relax and rejuvenate myself until my final year starts next year.

Finally, now I have the tiem to truly enjoy the VTECH prowess of my Honda Civic. You can see the picture of my family's pride & joy below. A miracle happened, well yesterday my car fell sick after my exams were over. I thank God it held up until my exams ended otherwise it would have been catastrophic. Its a minor problem, Sweetu and I were about to head home after dinner @ Suntec City when the temperature started rising. I noticed it promptly and stopped the car to cool it off. Then I topped up the water supply only to realize it went down to nothing within 15 minutes. Could be aproblem with the coolign system but there were no leaks in the radiator or hoses. So I called my buddy from Singapore Honda Club, Kumar to tell him about the problem. I am so grateful to him as he postponed his plans of goign out to come to my aid. I managed to drive the car slowly to the Caltex petrol station at Beach Road. Where I stopped it and topped up water while waiting for buddy to arrive. Turns out there was indeed a leakage but it was from the water pump. I did not know this until Kumar checked the car and we realized that was the problem. Thankfully, the gaskets are not blown and it is a minor wear and tear issue.

Thus, he escorted me from behind and we drove to my car's workshop at Eunos where I gave my mechanic a call at aroudn 10:30pm to tell him about the problem. So fortunately, my ride will be ready by today afternoon and I can take it home from the doctor.

Here's a picture of my car:

Happy Deepavali To All Hindu Readers

2008-10-30T18:34:00.002+08:00

Hi everyone,

Just would like to wish all my Hindu friends and readers a very Happy Diwali! May God bless you and the coming year be as prosperous as ever.

I am still in the office just generating some reports from the proxy server and waiting for the peak hour traffic to subside before going home.

Got a tough 2 weeks coming up ahead: Exams! Its really tough when you're working and doing your degree part-time also but thankfully its all going to be over by next year end and I would graduate with my degree from UniSIM.

I won't be blogging much for the next 2 weeks as I got to focus on my revision. Deepavali preparations and celebrations really sucked out a lot of my time. Enjoyed it thoroughly but still I now got to rush for my exam revisions.

Seems like the predictions many business analyst had for 2008 had come true. It was indeed a very bad year for business with the recession especially hitting Singapore & not to leave out the Lehman brothers saga and the bankruptcy of AIG. Well, its a cycle I guess and this is just winter we got to hang on and just keep ourselves warm. :)

Believe in the Most Important Person in The World

2008-10-19T21:19:00.002+08:00

Hi guys,

Finally, I manage to find some time after a hectic 2 weeks of sleeping only past midnight on most days working on my assignments, catching up on schoolwork for my university for all the classes I missed while I was in reservist. It is really tough to manage especially with a busy schedule at work after my return.

My boss has plenty of free time on his hand recently and is now planning a few projects with us engineers to revamp the company's IT infrastructure. Well, I guess its about time in fact that this is done. Our company's infrastructure needs a major upgrade.

Well, that aside I must say the past 2 weeks have taught me how essential it is to eat well, rest well etc when we're working at full speed with afterburners on. If I was going to stay up late working on my assignments on weeknights after a long day of work, I better have a goal that keeps motivated and I better eat well and get to know my body better to enable me to push it to the limits of operation without breaking down.

My strategy:
1) Eat dinner before 8pm daily and cut down on carbohydrates and intake of sugary stuff like chocolates, sweets etc at night.

2) Drink plenty of water and make sure I consume my multi-vitamin caplet daily to boost my 'engines' since they're working at full RPM.

3) To avoid getting stressed unnecessarily and to operate at a pace whereby I tell myself to relax and think through my tasks carefully before working on them. I strategize how I will approach it to complete in the fastest time possible.

4)For every 2 nights in a row that I sleep past midnight (usually at 2am), knowing that I only get 4 hours of sleep I make sure that on the third night I will sleep before midnight to get my body fully rested in order to avoid falling sick.

5) Make sure I get a good dose of loving attention from my sweetu especially since I did not spend time with her for 2 weeks in a row I did go out with her. So I spent some time daily talkign and making sure she's okay and of course getting a few nice kisses over the phone eh..;)

6) Read my goals for my grades this Semester which I had written down on a card in my room and visualize myself achieving it every night befoer sleeping.

The results:
I still managed to go to the gym 2 times a week to get a well deserved workout. I finished all of my 3 assignments whose date dues are almost back to back..way ahead of their deadlines as compared to most of my peers who started earlier then me. And I had to read the textbook to familiarize myself with the chapters before workign on the assignments as I had missed lectures while in reservist!

I also learnt how to be able to capture the main essence of an entire 40 page study unit in 30 minutes or less and studied for a quiz of 7 chapters in 1 hour to score an "A" grade for it too.

I'm not trying to boast here but what I am trying to say is believing in yourself and your abilities to achieve your goals even when that is all that you can rely upon is the greatest power you'll ever need to ram through any obstacle adn achieve your goals. Even if the whole world was against odds with you, as long as you don't lose your belief in the most important person in the world: YOU then you have a strong chance of making it across the currents. :)

Sure I had a tough week, with my colleagues statign that I really look haggard and tired but I learnt more about time management and cutting down on my study time while getting good grades in these 2 weeks. Don't be afraid of pressure and stress when it happens, do what all top fighter pilots and race car drivers do, relax and stay focus and believe in yourself to be able to surmount this and you will.

Back in green again and loving it

2008-10-01T13:18:00.002+08:00

Hi guys,

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. 2 days after my previous post I went back to putting on my green camo's to serve the nation. Yes, I am currently undergoing reservist this is my 2nd High Key In-Camp-Training (ICT) since I ORD from the army in 2006. I went for make up training for missing the 1st High key training in March this year before continuing on a 2-week long training at the Basic Combat Tactics Centre.

Of course, the first few days were quite difficult as I had to re-adjust back to a regimental schedule and staying in a bunk away from my comfortable room/home office. Getting up early was not a problem for me as much as having to miss classes at UniSim was. We were gearing up to be operational as an NS Unit by next year hence training was tough and the hours were long. Sure, being a fully NS Unit (i.e. even our Commanding Officer was a NSMan) they were not as harsh on us as compared to when we were full time NSFs. We did get our Nights out almost on every night whereby there was no night training and the occasional stay out but having to book in by 0630hrs the following morning. Lucky for me my home is just a 5-minute drive away from camp so this was a welcomed privilege to me. Nonetheless, I am really enjoying the time spent in the jungles (if you can call them that) of Singapore practising combat skills and firing the wonderful SAR 21. Its relaxing retreat from the industrial buildings of Tuas and the crowds of Boon Lay interchange which I had to face daily as I commute to and from work. Nature really does soothes your soul.

Well, my training is goign to come to a end on Friday 3rd October 2008 when we conclude our overnight summary exercise. It will begin at 1200hrs tomorrow. I am really looking forward to this as its a rare opportunity to spend time in the remote kampong like areas of SIngapore.

In summary, I must say that in the first few days I did not like my reservist training as the day-long attending of lectures did not quite fit my cup of tea for fun training. Coupled with the regimentation this was a recipe for boredom. Sweetu knows the amount of times I complained to her the first few days about the training but now I am beginning to enjoy this and even miss it when I out pro this Saturday afternoon back into the civilian world before my next ICT in 2009. It is a refreshing break away from work and simply great fun! Guys, please learn to embrace your reservist training. Its not easy at first but after a while you start to love it and you'll even miss it.

For me, I am very much the kind of guy who loves being out in the jungle and outdoors cooking in the field and sleeping out in Nature. Of course, not without my insect repellent. :)

Renewed and Ready to Strike!

2008-09-15T14:23:00.004+08:00

Yes, its Monday I know but that doesn't mean that we should all be sulking all the time right?I do suffer from Monday blues too but this week is just different! I just feel like a new man, like someone who has just transcended and broken all the shackles that was holding him back. Feel the freedom, the strength and the focus that comes with shedding some of the excess baggage of the past and uncertainty.

I just feel so energized and renewed I just feel a new perspective rushing in after I had taken the week off from the gym due to the flu. I spent the nights after work reading a brilliant book by the super funny and brilliant poet Felix Dennis who is also the owner of Dennis Publishing the company that brought you magazines such as Maxim. A self-made millionaire and one of the richest men in Britain. He gave me a whole new perspective on having a 9-5 job vs starting your own business and having the guts to do so.

The part which stuck with me was when he discussed about most people getting trapped in the 'promise' that they are part of a team with the organization they are working with, as well as losing their courage to strike out on their own once they get too comfortable in their fat pay cheque jobs. These people fear being shamed if they fail in their business venture or they fear the critics. Dennis says we should "f**k the critics, to hell with them and just act boldly because people we are close will rarely if ever want us to succeed unless if they are your spouse (sometimes this doesn't happen too..but I'm lucky to have a life partner who supports me fully, love you sweetu). ". He also talked about never getting trapped in the promise that your company will look after you and you are part of a team because imagine if your manager/boss got $10 million windfall, he would as sure as hell leave the company and not give a damn about you. Where's the teammate in this??

If you want to get rich, the way to do it is to see your job only as a means to put food on your plate and to sustain you through the necessities and your simple pleasures or to save up for your business venture. You shouldn't want to think about giving your life to the company you're working for now, instead you should take every opportunity possible to learn and gain experience from there and then apply what you learn to strike out on your own. Dennis worked for a magazine publishing firm for a year to learn about the Industry before he struck on his own. This is the key to riches, you need to strike on your own and that's what I am going to do once I finish my degree at SIM University. Right now, I have a renewed perspective which detaches me from being an 'employee' to being an 'agent' who is here to learn about the company and the shortfalls of its operations so I can use this to my advantage when I start my own company in the future.

As Dennis, said in a poetic manner, "Genius favours Boldness.". If you are going to grab a thistle bush, if you do it timidly the thorns will prick you but if you grab it boldly the thorns will crumble and fall leaving you without even a scratch.

2 years from now I will probably be in Australia, working in a better paying job but likely in the automotive industry where I will gather experience so that I can combine my IT knowledge to bridge the passion I have for cars and create wealth out of it. I don't know how yet, but I dare to write in this blog that within 10 years from now I will be earning $1 million a year.

I want to be rich, and I want to be able to give myself and Gayu the ability to walk into a high end boutique like Prada, Louis Vuitton and buy anythign we want without a hitch. As for me, I will indulge in my passion for fast cars and boats. Probably, I'll spend my days working on classic Italian cars and Racing Lambos and Ferraris or simply cruising down the Aussie coast. Yes, I am not ashame to admit I desire such material goods but I also balance it with spirituality. There are people out there who say that you can't be spiritual if you're materialistic. I say this is rubbish, I don't buy into that! You only live one life, respect God and enjoy His creations. If you deny yourself, the pleasure of buying first class goods you're only stating to life and the Higher Power you're not worthy of such things. These creations to me are the expression of our creativity, intelligence and genius as Human Beings. These traits all come directly through the Infinite Intelligence that created the oceans, the skies, the stars etc. You get the idea right?

The basic idea:Enjoy the best you can in life, but never ever trample on others or cause pain to another human being in order to get your goal. Always always respect every single creation of our Creator. There is always Karma, don't forget. What we do which is wrong will one day come back and hit us back unless we do more good to repent for it.

Lessons from Great Thinkers

2008-09-07T11:23:00.002+08:00

For those of you who know me very well, I love reading especially on Philosophy and History. I was recently reading about the great Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. I came across a few key excerpts from his book, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Reading upon some of his reflections and lessons he had learnt from his life it made me think into how sometimes to succeed and truly appreciate life we really only need common sense and simplicity. These two element alone are enough to give us peace of mind, happiness, health, wealth etc. If you make things complicated when they can be done in a simpler way you not only add unnecessary stress to yourself but you also are bound to face many obstacles which could have been easily avoided. Its kind of like taking a hammer and smashing your toe with it despite knowing it will hurt.

There's something about spending time with these great thinkers through their words and thoughts, when you read a great book you start to view the world from a totally different perspective you see it from the view of the author and this broadens your horizons. Its like playing tennis with someone who's better then you in the game. In the beginning you find yourself shocked by the skills of the party but as the game progresses you start to find yourself making serves that you never made before, moving faster and using backhand techniques etc.. which you never did before. Instantaneously, your game is elevated. This is the magical effect of walkign with the giants in the game of life, those people who constantly resolve to play the game of life at a world class level. It's not easy, nothing in life worth achieving is every easy. You need to get in the ring and fight even if you don't achieve what you want its better to be a fighter in the ring covered in blood and sweat knowing you've fought your best rather then be a coward sitting in the crowds and cheering and wondering in awe at the spirit of a champion. This is something my grandfather Arjun used to say to me. Words comign from a man who has undergone much difficulty himself from being a orphan at the age of 5 left to fend for himself in the treacherous tiger filled jungles of India. He survived by drinking milk from the cows he tended to for people in exchange for some food. It is these harsh lessons which have enabled him to have the iron will and discipline which gave him the very strength he needed to succeed.He rose in life to becoming a well-respected man who started a family in Singapore and hence giving me the chance to be wear I am today. While my grandfather is no longer with us in person today, I believe his spirit and his blood still runs through me which explains my stubborn determination and pride. As I write these words, I feel a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes as I still miss my grandfather very very much.

I would like to conclude this post by leaving you with some quotations which have really helped me through some of the challenging times in life as well as inspired me to play life at the highest level soemthing which I am working at daily, its tough I make mistakes sometimes but I'm a human being after all. This is how we learn. Perhaps, these quotations will be soemthing that may help you reflect and inspire you to be focused and live simply with common sense in a world filled with chaos and uncommon sense.

"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing." - Abraham Lincoln

"It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something." - Franklin D'Roosevelt

"Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next." - Henry Ward Beecher

"If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it." - Marcus Aurelius

"And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last." - Marcus Aurelius

AND THIS IS MY MOST FAVORITE ONE

"My mother said to me, "If you become a soldier, you'll be a general; if you become a monk, you'll end up as the Pope." Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso." - Pablo Picasso

Live with passion and play world class always,
Arvind

HellWeek @ Work

2008-08-30T08:03:00.002+08:00

Hey guys,

Sorry for not being posting regularly this week but it has been Hell Week @ work this last week of August. But here's the big but, I enjoyed every minute and learned the most during this period about dealing with crisis.

Here's what happened:
Tuesday morning- The Facilities guys came to report to me at 9am that the server room aircon had just tripped when they accidentally crossed some wires. I went into the server room and it was like a sauna. All our key servers were out due to the overheating and they needed to cool down. We went into crisis management mode and started to turn on all air conditioners at full blast and opening the covers of our key servers to expedite the cooling process. Users getting frustrated, an angry boss yelling at us for no apparent reason probably due to his frustration as well with the error made by the Facility people. I never got the opportunity catch my breath and sit down to drink water was busy either explaining the situation to users or trying to get each server up and running. We lost our DHCP server its RAID card which manages all the RAID Hard Disk Drives has burnt due to the heat. Fortunately, our boss roped in to help us set a another server to serve out IP addresses to the users. Finally, at 4pm we managed to stabilize the key servers while one of the file servers permission settings had gone haywire.

Wednesday morning - Wireless management controller went down. Every notebook users in the office who use wireless cannot log in, and some of these users simply refuse to be switched to a wired connection even if its only temporary ( explains why sometimes us engineers find it hard to understand some humans). I had to run cabling ad-hoc to some of these users and get them accessing the network asap so they can get off my back and let us continue to work on resolvign the wireless issue. The file server permission settings was finally starting to work we managed to reset all the security settings back to how it was before. Then the rest of the day was spent struggling to deal with the wireless issue and get it running smoothly.

Thursday morning - smooth sailing managed to get the wireless running up with our boss at the helm. We tried to work on salvaging the HP server that burnt out.

Friday - One of our subsidiaries Internet went down suddenly. They are using Singtel BizLink plan and I had to rush down. Finally, learnt something new about Checkpoint firewalls and the excellent customer service provided by Singtel. Turns out that there was a problem with the Singtel Line in the building. They got someone to check it and I reset the router and everything was up normally.

Phew..from this tough week I've learnt one key thing about crisis management. We need to learn to manage ourselves first and stay calm. Its only when we're calm and in peak mental condition that we can deal with the crisis effectively. Imagine if a pilot of a jumbo jet experiences engine failure in one of his four engines, if he panics he will not even know what to do or can't fly the plane on the remaining 3 guys. The plane will even catch fire in mid-air. However, all pilots are trained to stay relaxed and calm and follow a set of procedures to try to troubleshoot the problem step by step and then they can fly on 3 engines to get the aircraft safely on ground at the nearest airport.

Another additional thing I learnt about crisis management is managing the responses of the victims involved. This can add to the stress of the situation as people get impatient and start chasing you and questioning your competency etc. Still you got to remain calm and I think this is one of the reasons why surgeons always choose to knock you out with anaesthesia before surgery. Haha..tense situation so the only way to the surgeon can relax himself and focus is to knock u out before u start rushing him and questioning his competency which I am sure you don;'t want to do. An angry surgeon can do anything to you when you're lying there with your bonnet or boot open dependingn on wat surgery you're in for..ok..i'm just kidding this may not be true. As for me, I still have some room to improve in managing the responss of the people involved in the crisis. So far I'm doing ok i still smile even though I feel like yelling my top off and telling them to bug off and let me do my work to get it ok. However, there is an occasion or two when I will just tell off the smart ass who gives me a sarcastic remark abt my competency.

Anyone who has any tips for crisis management please share with me here..thanks guys!

Learn to say the T word often

2008-08-21T16:55:00.008+08:00

Thursday, is finally here and once its midnight tonight we can finally celebrate Friday. Brilliant, I am looking forward to the weekend to work on my assignments for my uni and basically to spend some time with my queen.

This whole week has been extremely busy as well with more internal shifting of departments and offices throughout the building. Our company's building is about the size of West Mall shopping centre..well almost. So you can imagine how much work I had to do with my teammate Antoni in order to lay cables/reconfigure the switches and phone lines etc., deal with users who simply enjoy asking stupid questions and who are simply irritated with the move that they take it out on us..I mean cmon we're engineers not movers and we don't plan for you guys to move. Worst still are users who talk to us like we're 2nd class they don't call us by name and expect us to do their things urgently for them as though as they are the only one who has problems. Worst still when we resolve their issues for them we don't even get a word of thanks for getting our hands dirty to dismantle their PCs etc.

This is really sad, I mean we don't expect you to say thanks to us but if you did it would make us feel better like our work has some meaning. We're not asking for anything in return just the T word thats all..Thank you. I observe that a majority of Singaporeans lack the basic courtesy and etiquettes. In short, most Singaporeans lack social skills and tact. Let me give you a recent example, Gayu and I were going to watch the Eddie Murphy starrer Meet Dave the previous weekend. Before the movie, she went to the ladies and when she came out she had this angry look on her face. I asked her what happened; turns out there was this Chinese lady who was displaying outright racism in public. The cubicle that Gayu occupied was also previously occupied by an Indian lady and this Chinese woman refused to enter the cubicle muttering some racial obscenities when Gayu walked out. The best part is the cubicle was perfectly clean. It was only after another Chinese woman (lets call her Woman X) used the same cubicle before the racist then only did the crazy woman enter after woman X left.

This clearly shows that racism is definitely still very much existent in this country and I mean if she wants to be a racist go ahead but you should atleast have some tactfulness so as not to show it so outrightly in public. If this woman was a guy and she did this to me I would have punched her face so hard that she'll think for a moment she was hit by a freight train. The Singapore government is going about bragging about how multi-racial this country and that's true to a certain extend but I think that Singapore has still a long way to go to be truly multi-racial.

While I agree it is not realistic to totally eliminate racism, I think that there should be some form of education that the government should do to educate derelicts like that woman. If our future generations are going to be thinking in a crappy way like the woman, then I am afraid Singapore is in for deep trouble. It will slowly start to fall back behind the rest of the world and become similar to Malaysia where racial equality is almost non-existent.

A rejuvenating weekend..Recharged!

2008-08-17T22:07:00.003+08:00

The week that has just passed has been one of the most challenging and busiest weeks I've had with barely enough time to rest and recharge my mind. I practically felt like each morning as I got up I was in a zombie like state. Rushing to take a shower, brush my teeth, shave etc. and then getting ready for work and dashing out the home to the office. There was a moment in the week when I did not even know what day it was and there was just this constant thumping in the back of my head.

But thankfully, Friday finally came and I promised myself this weekend I would totally disengage myself from thoughts about work and just focus on relaxing and working on my assignments from my university. There's something magical about being around the woman you love more then anything else in the world, you just feel so complete and whole with the Force above. I felt my stresses and tensions melt away with the hugs and kisses from Sweetu. We took a stroll along City Hall and went to Stamford House this is my first time visiting this building I never even took notice that a beautiful colonial building like this existed in Singapore. Sweetu was busy purchasing some cosmetics for herself from this exclusive store from Paris which is located in Stamford House. I took the liberty of totally immersing myself in the beauty and history of the building thinking about how life was here when the building was first built and reflecting on the culture of Singapore back in the times of Raffles. Amazing. You can check out the pictures I took below later.

Anyways, Saturday came around and I knew I needed to work out all my stresses so I went to the gym and had a solid 2 hour workout to totally sweat out. Suddenly, I feel so fresh and strong and relaxed after my workout. The rest of the day was just spend watching a movie and me & my queen strategizing our plans to start our new business called "Starting a Family". Its really fun and inspiring to plan our future together and when we both remind ourselves weekly about our goals it helps us both stay focus.

Well, enough of telling you what I did this weekend but let me just reflect on something I read in my coach Robin Sharma's book The Greatness Guide. It was a lesson about mistakes that we make in life. I was reading this at around midnight on Sunday morning (12:00am 17/08/2008)..Robin was mentioning that mistakes are part of our evolution as human beings but actually they are not bad things we should be constantly thinknig about and beating ourselves up for. Mistakes are essentially growth lessons or should I say booster rockets which come wrapped up as a villain but is actually there to help us grow and become better persons. So in essence there are no mistakes in life. I felt as if a burden lifted from my heart because it goes to show that as long as we learn from stubbing our toes in life..(don't want to use the m word) we have grown and the stubbing has served its purpose so we must let it go n forget it. No more beating ourselves up etc.

I looked back on my life and realized the truth in Robin's observation. I have made many mistakes in my life some which I could have avoided and I realized the lessons I've drawn from them have made me a better human being and stronger in character. I feel I can connect to other human beings better and I can apply the lessons I have learnt to help other people avoid such mistakes (there I had to use the m word). So from today onwards, I've made a rule never to beat myself up each time I hit a road bump in my life..I'll just pull back and learn to look out and slow down so as to avoid hitting another similar one. There are no such things as mistakes stop beating yourself up about things you have done in the past which you're not proud of learn from it however little the lesson just as long as you know it is wrong or not the right way of doing things you've learnt a lot. So move on forget about that and just keep sailing the world is a beautiful place, everything that happens has its place in your life and the same force that created the oceans, the sky, the stars, the moon etc..is the same force that lies within you right now and the force can't be wrong in endowing you with such great power and putting you on this planet.

There's only one reason for that, you owe it to yourself and the Force to strive for greatness and use your talents to help make the world of your loved ones and the rest of the world a better place for the generations to come. Create something that will outlast, outlive you long after you're gone from this world. I will do just that and it will take me 1% improvements in how I conduct my life daily starting from today. I will just work on that 1% improvement and be better by 1% only each day.

Cheers and live with passion!

Here are the pictures I took with my phone of Stamford House, please try to take in the architecture and its artistic beauty I hope you can feel it through my photos:

OT and more OT...

2008-08-13T15:56:00.002+08:00

Its mid-week finally, two more days before the work week ends but today I am going to be doing overtime in the office. I have to lay network cables and configure some switches for a internal shifting of offices within our company building. Jurong Hi-Tech building is quite big hence they have ample space to shift around offices.

So today my dear friend/colleague Antoni and I would be spending some time in the office till about 9pm to lay cables for the new office as well as test the connections to the servers. Its not exactly a backbreaking job but it still is quite time consuming although I like to do hands on work. Besides, I get paid overtime and could do with the extra $$$.

Anyways, the week has been going along quite ok but I am feeling the pressure now w/ my final semester of my 2nd year of degree just starting. I guess I will be facing a very hectic schedule for next 2 - 3 months till mid November when my exams end. How do I stay focus in all this turbulence? I think I need to keep in mind one word:Discipline. As long as I maintain self-discipline I should be able to reach my goals for this year and handle the pressure well. Also, like I've mentioned before in my previous post my Sweetu is my source of strength and anytime I feel like I cannot break through an obstacle I will just talk to her about it and after a good hug I feel recharged enough to break through the obstacle and I really smash it to smither reins.

Also another strategy which I will be implementing to help me cope with the stresses ahead is working out constantly like I always do. Somehow pumping iron and goign for runs helps me relax and suddenly the problems I have don't seem to be as big as I thought they were before the workout. In fact, I can immediately write off some of these problems as I realized they were just needless worries. Like Mark Twain the great American author said, "I had a lot of problems, some of which actually happened" Basically, we tend to worry a lot about silly things and these worrying thoughts tend to suck out our precious mental energy and get this..nerve energy too! Yes, thoughts are things and our nerves do generate impulses to send this through our brain. Thats why you always feel so tired, and enervated when you keep worrying unnecessarily but when you're on vacation you are simply energetic and fresh (provided you don't bring your worries with you when you leave Singapore).So the solution I think would be to either deal with what worries you or if you can't deal with it just let it be and learn to find ways to live with it and shift your focus to other more positive aspects of your life.

Alrights, I got to go now and start laying cables and testing networks. Hang in there till tomorrow after that its Friday!

Pumping Iron, Helped Me Get Back To Reality

2008-08-10T10:40:00.003+08:00

Hi everyone,

If you noticed my previous post I was talking about buying an Off-Peak-Car for myself considering the cost savings it offers. In fact this morning I was suppose to go to the car mart to take a look at my options however after doing some deep thinking while working out in the gym yesterday morning I realized that having a car at this moment in time is not going to be a practical and smart option for me. Here are the reasons why:

1) A car is a major liability unless it helps you make spare cash or you have some extra money lying around that you can spend. As for me, I don't have any extra money lying around and I was reading Rich Dad Poor Dad last night and when I saw Robert's explanation about liabilities it make me cringe at the facts.

2) I am going to be getting married and the business of starting a family and settling down is the most expensive business anyone can get into. I have been putting aside savings for this together with sweetu however, if i were to get the car my contributions to the savings for our future would be lesser and this would not be fair to my dearest queen. Why should she suffer at the expense of my passion.

3) I have not built up my asset column yet, according to the balance sheet I had drawn up for my financial aspects my asset column is still far from ideal and I need to start investing in my index funds for my US Market account. This way I can plan from my retirement starting from now. Besides, this I have a couple of other assets which intend to add to my repertoire including starting a part-time business.

4) I do not want to be like the majority of people here who own a car and yet are suffering financially each month just to pay the car. They may look all well-off on the outside but if you happen to visit one of the forums on the internet I saw hardwarezone.com.sg where people were talking about the pain and suicidal suffering of owning a car in SG if you don't earn atleast $3.5K a month. I'd rather be able to have plenty of money in my bank account and live like a typical New York executive at least until I hit a comfortable pay scale to buy a car whereby I can thoroughly enjoy the ownership without cutting back on my lifestyle. RIght now, if i don't buy the car I can still enjoy my simple pleasures in life and still take my 3 vacations a year overseas.

Well, in summary I want to be able to thoroughly enjoy owning a car and really pursue my passion free from worries of financial problems, an unhappy family life, looking well off on the outside but staring at a near empty bank account. Not a pleasant way to live. So I guess the car will have to wait until my assets column looks good enough to give me the go ahead to buy one. Who knows, maybe I can buy the car I truly want instead of having to settle for something that I don't quite fancy. The car I really want has to be European made, preferably Italian. So that means either a Alfa Romeo, a Fiat, a Ferrari or a Lamborghini.

Vasan for your information if you want to know how much it costs I can only give you the rough figures here for a Mazda 3 SP 1.6 Off Peak Car

Cost of Car w/ COE: $48,800
Downpayment (10%):$4880
Loan amount:$43,920
Loan period: 10 years
Monthly:$366
Annual Insurance: $2000 (at least)

*Note that the above figures are loan without any interest added in yet for ease of calculation. You must take note of a 3% interest on your loan. I have also not added in fuel costs, parking fees etc.

When you consider all the above I think its not really worth it to buy a car with our pay scale until you atleast reach a monthly of $4K. Because you need to save for your future also man.

If you want something badly enough, go for it!

2008-08-07T11:24:00.006+08:00

Recently, I have been contemplating about getting a OPC(off-peak-car) for myself and sweetu and our family. This is because it is a more flexible option and won't break our bank account so much. The only thing which will cost a lot is the car's insurance.

I've done some deep thinking and I have decided to get an off-peak-car hopefully before Deepavali. I will be settling down in my career in Jurong Hi-Tech Industries as it seems like a very nice place to work in and I am fairly comfortable here too. Besides an off-peak-car won't break my account at all. This Friday I am going to go view a beautiful black subaru impreza which looks very very sporty and like a WRX. I am going to see it with my sweetu to get her opinion on the car and to convince her that I can manage financially with the car. I have been stressing her quite a lot recently about this matter with my stubborn nature of going after what I want with an intensity that borders upon insanity. I am just very very very passionate about cars to the point that even if I have to scringe on travel, eating at nice restaurants, etc..I'd do it because I love cars to that extend. This sort of passion may be a bit too much to take for my gayu as she is sort of more practical but I am confident I can maintain this car fairly well.

Here is a picture of the car I will be viewing:

Its really a beautiful car isn't it? Automatic transmission too! I am already getting excited thinking of the wonderful things that I can do to the car. Its a dream to own a car like this nevermind if its an OPC car.

Anyways, I wish to clear things up with my friend Vasan who is a brother to me that in no way am I implying that I think the efforts put in by participants of NDP is worthless, I think that the light and dancing part of the parade is just utterly pointless but I love the marching of the uniformed contingents and the fly past of the airplanes and helicopters. That to me is the true spirit of NDP maybe because I am still a soldier in my blood and quite cold hearted about people prancing around in colorful shiny butterfly wings etc. Nonetheless, Vasan my dear brother please don't take it to offend I am not being personal this is just a blog thats it. :) You're still one of my bestest friends in the world.

Singapore is turning 43 in 5 days..

2008-08-04T08:55:00.003+08:00

National Day, is just 5 days away and our beloved country is turning 43. Got me thinking, why do so many people always make a big hype about National Day and getting the tickets to see the parade. Its almost as if its like a once in a lifetime event and they bother to jostle through the huge crowd on the way in the tons of security checks which are very unnecessary and only uncover bags of chips, KFC etc other outside food that kiasu singaporeans tend to bring to the stadium. Then comes the parade segment, you have to wait 1 hour for the goverment officials to arrive before you see any thing getting started. Before that you get entertained by silly extras and dumb Mediacorp celebrities who have utterly no future in the entertainment industry.

But wait, what you read above is just the tip of the iceberg, once the parade and festivities are over then you'll get back to reality. You suddenly realized you're stuck in a major stampede in City Hall. You practically have to wait in line and jostle through other sticky sweaty people in the night heat to get to the train station or bus stop to get home. For those of you willing to waste your precious dollars, will try to take the cab but even then you have no luck you got to compete with hundreds if not thousands of other 'kanchiong' kings and queens to get a cab. Eventually, a journey that normally takes 30 mins (for me) by train to get from city hall to my home station boon lay will end up being a 60 min affair or maybe longer considering the immense crowds in the stations.

What I've shared with you is just maybe a summary of it but i think its enuf for me atleast to never bother with going to NDP parades unless the ticket just drops into my lap by chance.I'd rather be sitting down at home with a good dinner after a nice evening shower and then watchign the parade on TV from the comfort of my home. Alternatively, if I am going to be outside, I'd rather be with my sweetu sitting in starbucks at Suntec or Sentosa having a brilliant cup of Arabica coffee with her and just having great conversations. This is something we always like to do almost every weekend. Its simple, and it connects us giving us timeout from our stressful week to really spend quality time. Love it.

Till then please..remember what I wrote here before you ever think of spending sleepless nights queuing for NDP tickets and then spending an evening getting stuck in city hall with mindless security checks which serve no utter purpose at all.cheers all!

The Dark Knight - Brilliant Masterpiece

2008-07-30T09:13:00.005+08:00

Watched the much anticipated movie for 2008, The Dark Knight over the weekend. I am sorry to be so delayed in blogging about this now but I've just been thinking about Christian Bale's brilliant potrayal of my favorite superhero of all time Batman.Excellent actor,you can really feel the vengeance and anger in Batman through him.And Christopher Nolan, a top notch director which can easily rival Wolfgang Petersen. I love the scenery in which the movie was shot right from the skyscrapers in Hong Kong to the streets of Chicago. The late Heath Ledger however was the real stunner in the show. His potrayal of joker was different from that played by Jack Nicholson. Heath gave the joker a more darker sinister feel and his voice was also very very different in the movie.

For those of you who have not seen it please do go catch it this weekend even if you don't have the time. This is one movie in 2008 which you don't want to miss! I can't wait for more Batman films from Nolan.He just rebranded Batman and gave the character a facelift which blends the classy, lifestyle of Bruce Wayne with the pain and struggle he goes through being his alter ego Batman and trying to live a normal life. Excellent movie please go watch it. Sweetu who was totally against watching the movie at first started to become a Batman fan the moment she watched this movie..especially the Lamborghini chase part. ;) Sweetu I love you loads n loads I am so happy you tried watching a action movie instead of your usual chick flicks..(for those of you who don't know I am risking getting 'slaughtered' verbally by her with this statement, but nvm for some good fun eh..)

Building a Water Cooled PC

2008-07-28T19:22:00.005+08:00

hey all, 7 months of the year 2008 is almost coming to past and with the last 5 mths left to go (3 mths of hard work) before 2 mths of lull period from November to commemorate the start of the holiday season.

I simply can't wait! Anyways, today at work I handled a rather interesting case. This colleague of mine who is based in our subsidiary office he experienced auto shutdown in his PC frequently when he turned it on after 5 - 10 mins it would jsut shut down totally. I suspected this could be a hardware problem. My first suspicion was his network card malfunctioning and causing his motherboard to trip because he said it happened when he surf the net. But somehow after giving it much thought I had to rule that out because even if it were to malfunction at worst he can't even surf the net. Then my prime suspicion came to his system cooling system. And boy was I right, checked his BIOS and discovered his CPU temperature to be 85 degrees celcius! That is horribly high and a dangerous temperature thankfully, Intel has a safety feature built into all its CPU to shut down the machine when temperatures are too high. The optimal temperature for a CPU is no higher then 40 - 45 degrees max 50. Turns out that his CPU thermal paste has all dried up and so I took the CPU chip out cleaned off the old paste and applied new layer of paste. Put everything back together and the temperature dropped to 35 degrees again nice temperature.

Nonetheless, this got me curious about cooling systems in PCs hence I was snooping aroudn youtube for videos of CPU exploding and came across this video on how to build a water cooled PC. I think its very interesting to learn but a bit unpractical but nonetheless check it out to stretch your horizons a little bit:

On Life, Destiny and Forging Steel

2008-07-24T09:04:00.006+08:00

Its almost the weekend 1 more day in fact today is Thursday. I'm feeling quite relaxed today although a little bit stoned. Maybe because I have a sore right eye, this probably the side effect of working with users who lack hygiene in cleaning their desks of dust as well as the computers themselves being covered with dust. I get this problem a lot. Nonetheless, other then that the week has been going on great feeling stronger there's this sense of calmness within me that everything in life happens for a good reason and its there to help us get to our own unique form of greatness.

Many of our fellow travellers on the journey of life, the men and women who have achieved greatness people like Nelson Mandela, Steve Jobs, Anthony Robbins, Robin Sharma etc. These guys have all had to face a period of darkness or winter before they attained the strength and horsepower they needed to get to greatness. I think a way to look at it is that God is testing you by putting you through these obstacles its either to help you to thoroughly learn something from a mistake you made so that you don't do it again or he is doing it to test your resolve for achieving what you want. Either ways, God is trying to forge you into strong steel so that you can drive deep into the icy grounds of life and stand your ground for what you believe in irregardless of what the world thinks of you.

I have learnt very harshly many times in life (i think if you just don't get the lesson you need to know God sends you back to take that 'class' in life again until you understand and move on then suddenly the problem stops appearing) to run my own race and not be influenced or bothered by what people think of me or what I am doing. I still have a long way to go in this area but I'm working on it day by day. I am open to learning new things from other people who have achieved results that I want however I think we need to be careful to evaluate if these results will be appropriate for our overall life mission. Which brings me back to having a mission statement in life.

What is your mission statement in life? I'd like to hear some of it from those of you who read my blog often. Do leave it in your comments.

Till then remember to relax and have a great weekend this week hang in there Friday is always a great day to be in the office because after lunchtime not much generally gets done. ;)

Oh btw, before I end this post I would like to say Happy Birthday to me and sweetu's aunty Shakun who has been caring for me since I was a little kid and is more a mother to me then my own mother. Also Happy Birthday to our dear friend Vasan who is probably gorging himself in tons of bryani now in India. Cheer's buddy! Don't forget we need to plan a trip to Ubin for our off road biking soon.

Extremely Fun Weekend

2008-07-20T10:57:00.004+08:00

This weekend was simply amazing. Sweetu and I spend the weekend cruising around the island in a car we had rented from our friend's company. Got a special discount price which I cannot reveal as it is exclusive to me..for a 2007 Corolla Altis. Great car, handles fairly well and easy to drive too. However, the ride quality could be better as you tend to be able to feel e bumps on the roads as compared to my first car my Toyota Corona CD which was a 1991 Toyota Camry essentialy, it drove much better and was more comfortable then the Altis.

Well, enough of the car reviews, Sweetu and I had fun travelling around to Sentosa having coffee on the Imbiah lookout area which overlooks the harbour and forests. It was relaxing way to spend the evening. Before that, we had lunch at Raffles Marina which I must say is an absolutely cool place to go to. Its so serene and quiet overlooking the open sea with M'sia on the other side and the beautiful Tuas second link bridge.

We ended the day with dinner at Holland Village. Its simply amazing to spend the weekend with the most important person in your life, time just flies and it feels so magical. I feel so happy and my love for sweetu just deepens with each and every moment of every day. Here are some pics of our wonderful weekend together:

On Mcdelivery and My Bad Eating Habits

2008-07-16T10:12:00.002+08:00

Its mid-week now which means 2 more days to the weekend! The past few days have been quite smooth and relaxed and I managed to clock a better timing on my 4.4km run. This time I did it in 20 minutes. I find that I am quicker and smoother when running on hard ground then on a treadmill @ the gym. I feel that my workouts help me keep my sanity and avoid burnout in this fast paced super stressful world of ours.

Ok let me get to the highlight of the week:Mcdonalds. Yes, this week I have been having an unusually high craving of crap foods from the golden arches. Monday, I called Mcdelivery after my run for dinner. I ordered the bundle meal(equivalent of the buddy meal in KFC) where they give u one Filet-O-Fish, one Mcspicy Burger, 2 Medium Fries etc. And lo' and behold, they sent us the wrong order. My brother (anil the birdman) and I were starving and they sent us a box of nuggets, 2 corn in cups, 2 apple pie...and I was hopping mad! I wanted to eat while watching my favorite comedy show on star world My Wife and Kids. Its already 8:45pm. Finally at 9pm, after getting a good shelling from me they sent us e correct order. Thankfully, mcdonalds were quite nice they let us keep the order they setn wrongly earlier. So we had big mcdonalds feast. The end result? An unpleasant sleep, extreme thirst probably from all that preservatives and MSG in the foods and also a sore throat.

Nonetheless, I managed to fulfill my cravings for Mc and its made me quite sick to the point that I'll probably not eat it for another month or two I guess..unless of course sweetu wants it then I gotta haf it. Oh well, sadly I bought mc breakfast this morning sausage mcmuffin w/ egg I will try to control and eat properly as I can already feel my throat getting sore from all the preservatives.

1 more week to getting my salary but I m not looking forward to it so much because I gotta pay off a few bills which were slightly behind since I wasn't working for 1 mth. I think this mth's salary will be used to get me back on track financially and clear off my credit card bills etc.

Ok I gotta go now, one jackass from HR department in her bid of trying to 'save the earth' and use rough paper to print from a HP laserjet printer..has juz caused a massive paper jam and we need to call HP down to clear it because the paper is not A4 size and the printer needs to be dismantled.

Acquiring a New Hobby Soon

2008-07-11T11:23:00.004+08:00

Hey all, I'm sure those of you who are close to me (Sweetu before you get angry it goes without me having to saying it despite me saying it here..that you are a part of me and you are my life that makes u closer then closest) I am a car fanatic. I love cars and I can spend hours reading about them working on them etc.

Well, sadly I had to scrap my first car which was a 91 Black Toyota Corona CD. It was wonderful car and took me & sweetu to many places faithfully surviving those Saturday shopping centre marathons with the queen all around the island. And of course helping me get to work on time when I always had a bad habit of hitting the snooze button. Haiz...enough of getting too emotional I am now planning to get my new car sometime mid next year if everything works out.

In the meanwhile, I am going to be taking up a new hobby of building model cars. I think its the closest I'll ever get to building a real lamborghini. Also it will be a good way to teach me patience as well as pride in my work. I just can't wait to buy my first model kit at the end of this month. Sweetu will decide the car I'll built although I am keeping my fingers cross and hoping that she does not choose the mini cooper and volkwagen beetle (two cars which she has a major weakness for besides our own car last time). I'll be posting on my progress as I build the cars.

Its almost lunchtime now and I'm in the office on a Friday and blogging! Let's face it, friday afternoon is approaching and not everyone is going to get much done today. Everybody's anticipating the weekend ahead. As for me I am anticipating the work week ahead so I can know that I am one week closer to pay day! Work has been ok so far, kinda boring a bit at times as my job scope here is lesser then my previous job but it pays well so I'm fine with it. :)

And yes, there are your fair share of pricks in this new place some of whom have started showing their colors to me from the first time I saw them to help them deal with the IT issues they were having. I mean cmon, i'm there to help you..I'm the PC Doctor if you want me to rescue the patient and make it right for you..do two things. 1. Give me the respect I deserve, don't treat me like dirt. 2. Give me my freaking space to work stop breathing on my neck!

Before I end this post, I'd just like to take a moment to congratulate our best friend Vasan for he has successfully attained his CCNA certification as of yesterday. Kudos to you buddy! Now I am just hoping he'll train me when its my turn to take the exams next year!

Brilliant Saturday

2008-07-05T11:27:00.002+08:00

Woke up nice and early today..I had a wonderful evening with Gayu yesterday. We went to eat seafood at East Coast Park and then took a long stroll along the coast taking in the cool nightime sea breeze and we started talking. Everytime in her presence, I feel as if I am with a Goddess or Angel sent from above to guide me, protect me and my duty is to serve her and keep her happy at all times. Sure, there are times when I have caused her pain and sadness but I am only human and I'll always do my best to keep her happy all through eternity.

Anyways, we had a long talk about everything from our week at work, to my crazy plans of buying a 2-seater sports car so that I'd never have to give others lifts right up to her challenges of dealing with children with autism. There's this kid called Hong Bo who is one of her best students. I hate to admit I used to stigmatize kids with special needs because of their behavior I mean they sometimes in their tantrum fit they tend to hit her and say mean things which they are not concious about because they can't control their minds. So like every other man, I don't like people touching my woman even if its a kid. Yes, I am madly possesive of her.

Back to Hong Bo, when she told me about how he interpreted people who were laughing at him when he asked them to play games with him as liking him. In reality, the kids all think he was crazy since he talked to himself and he kept thinknig that by running away from him they were actually playing with him. My heart just sank when I heard this but after thinking I realized its a good thing Hong Bo does not know how to see the negative in other people he only sees the good. Hong Bo is truly a taare zameen par (a star from heavens sent to earth) just like every other kid out there with special needs. This story has changed my perspective on children with special needs and has made me want to help them in any way I can and nvr stigmatize.

Btw, before I end this post, for the record there are people out there celebrities to be exact who have special needs but are wildly successful. Two examples, Jamie Oliver the Naked Chef and Sir Richard Branson, boss of Virgin Group of companies and a multi-billionaire who owns several private islands worldwide. :)

Great Day @ Work

2008-06-30T21:30:00.002+08:00

Its been a week of work @ my new job and so far its interesting;a whole new experience working for a big listed company. People here are more accepting of the need for work/life balance hence the clock in/out system as well as the allowance for overtime only upon approval by the bosses.

Maybe this may not seem new to some of you out there but it sure is a new thing for me. Today, I learnt how to repair network cabling problems thanks to my boss. He taught me how to check the cable for faults and I managed to repair a loose network point. Next project, planning out the wiring for the meeting rooms in order to ensure all the wires are neat and working well. Fundamental job but the difference is this will be hands on and I will be taught how to lay the trunking etc myself.

Nonetheless, I am enjoying my job still need to learn to improve my mandarin a bit so I can 'click' better with my Chinese colleagues. Well, on the other side of the ledger my weekend was amazing. I tried out the Singtel Grand Prix Formula One simulator and finished in a respectable 2 min 55 secs. Not the fastest timing there but still considerign that I got a round of applause from the crowds for the smooth driving that night before they closed the simulator. Its extremely realistic you really feel the car's weight and reaction to the various elements. And the Singapore track reminds me a lot of the Monaco circuit only with a lot more sharp turns.

Here's some pictures courtesy of Sweetu of me taking my first steps to my F1 dreams:

M'sia here I come

2008-06-12T23:16:00.002+08:00

Hi all,

I will not be blogging probably for a week after today as I'll be heading off to M'sia e day after tomorrow for a friend's engagement as well as to take a short holiday touring a few states. I'll be back by next Friday night.

Anyways, today has been a great day I woke up slightly later and started to work through the changes the client has requested for when I met him yesterday evening at his restaurant. Apparently, he has some last minute changes to the design as requested by his head chef (yes, even the chef is involved in the decision making process). Nonetheless, after reading tons of business books and from my experience of building a successful web business only to sell it off when i started working (foolish mistake on my part) I discovered that customer service is very important. So I will willingly accomodate the changes the client has requested and I asked for extra time in return. THankfully, he's quite understanding.

Oh well, I m gonna knock off to bed soon as I am quite tired from staring at the computer the whole day. I got a long day of packing, buying tidbits and visiting the library to borrow a travel guidebook. I also will be donating some of my books to the national library tomorrow to make way for newer books to add to my collection.

Cheers & nitez,
Arvind

House of Seafood @ 180 Launched & A special recipe

2008-06-09T23:22:00.004+08:00

Hi everyone,

Got some great news, managed to finish the seafood website ahead of schedule. I was planning for a 13th June release date however I completed production tonight @ 2300hrs.

The website address is www.houseofseafood.com.sg please go check it out and let me know your thoughts.

Note that if you fill out the contact us form it goes directly to my client's email as he is managing the queries. So be careful with your usage. ;)

It has been a fun and refreshing exposure to web development after my break from it since last August. I thoroughly enjoyed working on this project and look forward to another freelance web project due to start in late June.

Nonetheless, I wanted to write about a special recipe for a quick high protein meal I have come up with for all athletes/fitness enthusiasts out there. This is my post-workout meal before dinner. I call it Masala omelette sandwich.

You need:
2 - 3 x eggs
2 x teaspoons of meat masala powder (you can substitute w/ chilli powder or any of your favorite spice)
1x tablespoon of butter
2 slices of wholewheat bread(toasted)
Lettuce (choose the type you prefer; I like butterhead lettuce).

Preparation:
1) Break the two eggs into a bowl and separate the yolks from the whites as you do so. Get rid of the yolks.
2) Heat a saucepan & add the tablespoon of butter (do not use cooking oil as it is not as pure as butter and besides the egg whites taste better with butter).
3)Pour in the egg white mixture once the pan is fairly heated & the butter has melted.
4)When the egg white starts to become opaque add in the masala powder and stir the egg mixture to spread the seasoning.
5)Cook the eggs to your liking (some people like runny eggs but that is not recommended for a sandwich though).
6)Prepare your sandwich by adding your lettuce to your lightly toasted slices of bread and place your omelette in it. Add a teaspoon of butter on omelette before putting the other slice of bread on it.
7)Pour yourself a glass of soya bean milk and enjoy this delicious nutritious muscle building sandwich!

Here's a picture of the omelette I made this afternoon as a post-workout meal after my long run especially since I have aching calf and quads from my dumbell workout at home on saturday. The frying pan I used was rather small hence the egg turned out smaller I am too lazy to use a bigger pan as its takes more time to wash it!

The egg is not burned its just covered with the masala hence the reddish orange tinge with some chilli sauce on top. ;)

Cheers and Enjoy,
Arvind

Design for House of Seafood @ 180

2008-06-05T21:54:00.005+08:00

Great news, I've completed 'cutting' the design for the homepage from Photoshop into HTML using Dreamweaver. The client has already approved the designs on the first take! What great luck!

Finally, the homepage is already put together. I am using a table-less site layout using only CSS to control the elements of my page. This is to ensure that I stay in line with the latest standards for web 2.0 and to avoid getting poor rankings with the engines. Tomorrow I'll be building up the content pages and their respective templates.

I foresee completing the entire website by next Tuesday hopefully. Then I'll cash in on my final payment and launch the site before heading off to my retreat in M'sia next week. :)

Here's the designs I created for the client:

Homepage Design

Chef's Recommendation Page Design

Do let me know your thoughts on the designs guys! I look forward and welcome your feedback.

Back in Business Again & Strategically Refuelling

2008-06-03T21:14:00.003+08:00

Hi guys,

I've been really busy with a new web project on hand. Its a website for a seafood restaurant belonging to a personal friend of ours. He has recently opened a seafood restaurant called House of Seafood @ 180 which has been wildy successful and he is now looking to expand with more outlets.

I was approached to help him build his brand for the web as he was afraid to fall behind on technology considering that most companies are now taking to having a presence on the big W. Finally, clicked on my Adobe Photoshop CS 3 in my start menu after so many months. I think it may have collected some 'digital' dust. Nonetheless, managed to get some inspiration for the website and I've design its look. Pending client approval.

I'll put it up here so you guys can take a look and let me know your thoughts on it.

Well, thats it for the money/business department of Arvind Gawade Inc. Now for the personal dept. Feel quite exhausted from constant training without rest so I decided to take the day off from running as per my general's (Gen. Gayatri) orders. Also now that the designs for my friend's site are done I intend to switch to autopilot mode for a while to heal till he gets back to me. This is something my mentor Robin Sharma calls Strategic Refuelling.

You see, peak performers in spaceship Earth, if you observe them they all work in seasons. There is a period in time in which they play full out and give their best and then before they reach the point of burnout they retreat backwards to refuel themselves, mentally, physically, spiritually before taking off for flight again. They engage in Re-Creation. Kind of like the climbers you see in the Discovery Channel documentary Everest. Each time they reach a level in the mountain they will retreat back to base camp to rest and recuperate before making the climb up to the next level before finally pushing to the summit.

I am going to get up a little bit late tomorrow to take a mini-vacation if you will so I can be fresh and ready to continue my flight through completion of the web project.

Btw, I am now in the process of setting up an internet store do check here as I will be writing about my progress soon.

Till then, khudah hafiz (hindi/urdu) for good luck and good bye. I wish you all a great week ahead and remember to refuel yourself each day after a hard day's work. Even if it means you need to grab that tub of ice cream and pop in that DVD do it! But please be sure to workout either in the gym or go for a brisk walk/run at least 3 times a week for 30 - 45 mins.

Bad customer service experience

2008-06-01T12:02:00.004+08:00

Orchard Road was horribly packed yesterday, with a lot of Singaporeans rushing for the great singapore sale which kicked off last Friday 23 May 2008. I was there to check out for any good deals at Takashimaya n Wisma Atria. However, the long queue at the changing rooms and pack of kiasu singaporeans rushing to grab as much of the good stuff as they could totally put me off. I ended up walking to Toastbox to grab a hot drink and a toast in order to wait for the heavy rain outside to stop.

The service crew at Toastbox were horrible, here's what happened:
I ordered an ice milo with two slices of traditional kaya toast. Got my ice milo and went to look for a table to seat n wait for my toast. There were a lot hungry shoppers there already eating away. Found a table tucked in the corner but it was dirty with these couple who were ideal role models for ugly singaporeans. They left a packet of Old Chang Kee snacks which were half eaten on the table along with a bottle of water and nvr bothered to clear it off. I mean if you want to eat something that does not belong to the restaurant you're eating at, pls have the decency to clear the mess. But no they left it there. I wanted to get the service crew to help clear it up before i sat down to eat called their attention thrice but they nvr responded. This was starting to leave a abd impression on me.

Finally I walked up to the staff to get them to clean it but my tray slipped n my ice milo spilled onto the floor. I apologized to the service staff for the inconvenience and asked if I could get a new ice milo. They said ok and just walked off without even looking at me to talk. The table was still not cleaned up even when my toast had arrived and i finished it. Neither did my replacement ice milo. I asked their staff for my milo and one of the rude bitches who was making the toast rudely shouted that the milo had already been given and I was so pist I told her off, that my table was not even clean when I came in and where the hell would I drink my milo when there isn't a milo glass on my table at all!

At last, they gave me my milo like 1/2 hour after I came in and mumbled something rude in Mandarin to one another about me. Well I don't care, I'm the customer and the customer is always right. Indirectly I am paying their salary through my purchases. Terrible, for sure I will never return to Toastbox again. I urge all of you to instead patronize Ya Kun Kaya Toast where I've gotten great service many times I visited to try their fabulous kaya toast.

This incident is clearly evident as to why Singapore never does well in terms of customer service even though we're a world class fine country but we're world class losers at building human relationships in business. With the IR resort coming up, I am terrified thinking at how it might just end up being a ghost town if the people that ran it were like the staff at Toastbox. Singapore has a lot to learn before it hypes itself as being a world leader in this and that..etc.I think its world leader in poor customer service. Even the stiff upper lipped brits can do better then this.

Feelin extra loving today

2008-05-29T20:59:00.010+08:00

I'm having a rather active digestive system today probably from eating all that salad & my steamboat lunch at Coca.Finally, feel a bit more relieved to pen down my thoughts for today.

I'm really missing my Sweetu badly but thankfully she's coming back the end of next week.Was just listening to her favorite song by Chris Brown, its called With You. Chris Brown is amazing that is one of the most beautifully written songs I've ever heard coming from a hip hop and R n B rapper.

As I look through her pictures in my laptop while listening to the song, I am thanking God truthfully for blessing me with someone as special as her. As the song goes, "If I got you, I don't need money, I don't need cars, girl you're my all." That's so true. We all need to learn to treasure our spouses and significant others more. I don't really believe in the fairy tale bull that some people tend to expound on "Somewhere someone is made for you". Man if you really buy into that, I think you can be searching your whole life for the so called 'the one' and you will just end up running in circles probably ending up old dead, and rotting a lonely life to the grave.

To me, I think you need to learn to trust in Him and whether the person is right for you or not really depends on the both of you. If you love and treat the person like she/he means the world to you then you will realize she is the one. However, if you can't have the slightest of respect for the other human being who wants to share his/her life with you then the relationship will never work out. Its entirely up to us. Of course, there are instances whereby no matter what happens things just can't work out in this instance I can only refer back to the truth that everything that happens in our lives has a reason and its part of a bigger game plan designed by our Creator to help us to get to our best life. We just need to understand the reason it happened.

Personally, I almost missed out and would have not gotten my queen today had I been blinded by the paradigms of other people.Thankfully, I had a few close friends who truly opened my eyes and I realized I better go get her and make her mine before someone else does. Kinda like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge eh? Well I have taken my Dulhan and now its only a matter of time before our wedding. And today, 5 years on I love her more n more each day. Sure, we've had our share of fights, disappointments(mostly caused by me), sadness etc. but these times have also made us stronger and strengthen our relationship even more.It made us closer & increased our intimacy. Guys, you need to love your woman like there's no tomorrow because there really isn't.Today is all you've got. Anything can happen to you. You gotta always tell her how much you love her and how much she means to you. More importantly, action speaks louder then words.

I love you loads n loads sweetu. I would like to put up some pics of us here for all of you to enjoy and see.

Simple day of reflective learning

2008-05-29T00:04:00.005+08:00

Today, would probably be one of the simplest days of my life. I did very little multi-tasking & complicating my activities. Instead I just did the few things today which really mattered.
1.Sending a few nice loving notes of love to my big boss aka my sweetu to tell her how much I love her and miss her badly.
2.Providing some resources to aide a fellow coursemate/close friend in UniSIM who is totally lost with his Final Year Project.
3.Running 5km this morning to relax my mind and body followed by having a healthy breakfast n lunch filled with salad and some boiled eggs (yolks thrown away).

Visited my grandmother this evening to sample some of her great cooking as well as to spend time with her. Had some great conversations with her and my aunt over dinner.Came to the topic about being grateful in life. My aunt was telling about what an instructor in a course she attended had said to them one day. Here's the story:
They had all came to class one morning and the instructor simply asked,"How's everybody doing today? Are you all okay and got here safely?". Then everyone started complaining about traffic, the humidity, the rude people who just barge into the train without letting you exit. The instructor stopped them halfway and just said, "You guys ought to be grateful that you're still alive! The fact that you managed to get to class unscathed and alive is the very fact that you should be thankful to God about. There is someone, somewhere in the world who might be facing danger now or fighting with his life. Even worst his life may have just ended. Think about the people in war torn countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine etc."

That got me thinking deeply about how most of us never seem to thank God or our Creator if you will for what we have been given in life. We always tend to think the grass is greener on the other side. Nothing wrong with desiring for more and wanting to get better but we still need to show some appreciation for what we have. I personally said a silent prayer this evening before writing this blog to thank the Man above for the blessings He has bestowed upon me no matter how large or small. Like my health, the fact that I m born in Singapore, being blessed with a wonderful woman to spend the rest of my life with, my family etc.

Sure, at this moment I might not be where I want to be financially at least but I am where I am happy spiritually, socially and physically. I could not ask for any more to be honest in these areas. My only aim now is to be shown the path that will help me attain the financial wealth which I desire. Now I know that God is not going to drop a 4D ticket that is winning 1st price for me nor am I going to gamble to be rich. I just hope for the one idea, product that will help me develop a substantial income working part-time from home.

I hope that in 3 years time I will be able to post pictures of Sweetu and myself in our new home with a nice Alfa Romeo sports car. All paid for by my part-time business. My rules are simple NO MLM! NO SCAMS! NO UNETHICAL/MORALLY WRONG PRACTICES!

Alrights, cheers guys I am now going to head off to bed.

Finally, I have found an ideal career path

2008-05-27T21:47:00.000+08:00

Today was a rather exciting day, got up nice and early this morning to go visit the company @ which I am offered a new job. It is a company listed in the Singapore Exchange & they are doing really well with a really huge building almost the half the size of Jurong Point.

The job offer was good along with the benefits and I can foresee myself making a long career here. This is a company w/ the $$$ to pay me what I want as well as to give me the chance to grow and succeed. I owe it to my Gayu for supporting through this challenging times n encouraging me to keep submitting my resumes. Also my buddy, Chandra he really helped me out too being an experienced engineer w/ a great career he was able to advise me & gayu on the best methods that will help me secure a good job faster. Thanks bro!

Just got back home and bought myself a tub of 100% whey protein n my supply of multivitamins (gotta have those when you workout really hard). I am taking GNC's 100% whey protein and am getting good results from it.

Gonna do some light reading now before zonking off to dreamland as I have a long day ahead tomorrow of doing research to update myself on the latest happening in IT in order to prepare for my job.

Everything that happens in your day is part of a plan

2008-05-25T11:36:00.000+08:00

I was just reflecting on what I had read in one my favorite books in my library at home, everything in life happens because of a reason it is part of a bigger gameplan for our lives designed to lead us to our greatest self. This is from the book The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma. How true it really is? I was just reflecting on my rather jealous trait I have towards people who are more successful then I am be it friends or family.

All of a sudden I had the inclination to go open up my copy of Unlimited Power by Anthony Robbins and I'm not kidding but I just somehow flipped right to the page where he was talking about the emotion of Jealousy. Tony stated that we are not our behaviors, i.e. I am not a jealous person its just the state I am in and I can change it by focusing on something else.

This stunning event prompted me to write this post immediately after it happened. I am really shocked by this. I think this must have happened for a reason I am meant to learn this at this stage of my life.

Nonetheless, today has been quite a relaxing Sunday morning. Woke up nice and late at 9am and made my own breakfast of 1 x egg white omelette and two slices of toast (nutrition is important for someone who trains as hard as I do). I will be spending the day resting and maybe taking an evening walk later at NTU amongst its greenery and woods. Very therapeutic. I've also submitted my resume for some part-time job openings.

I have already secured a job at a locally listed company called Jurong Hi-tech industries as an IT Engineer. I will be starting that job in late June however I intend to work part-time till I leave for my trip to M'sia in 13th June evening.

So I am keeping my fingers crossed and hoping to get a good part-time job willing to take me in for 3 weeks. :)

Sore Legs Help!!

2008-05-24T15:45:00.000+08:00

Had a rather bad headache this morning probably from the swelling in my throat due to drinking Brands Essence of Chicken without taking enough water(they should put that down in their instructions). Anyways, my calf muscles are terribly sore and my knees hurt badly.

I think I should wear shoes the next time I do jump rope workouts at home. I thought of sweating it out a bit as I was too stressed preparing for my exams yesterday which went fairly well except tat I could not balance my accounts and cash flow did not work out right too. Nonetheless, I can still pretty much pass the entire paper.

Went to the gym this morning despite the headache to help relax and tire myself out totally so I can spend the saturday afternoon in a nice siesta in bed also to numb the depression I am feeling because I miss my queen so badly.She's now in India visiting her maternal grandpa who is not doing to well in hospital. God Bless Him.

Well, I am off to zonk off to la la land for an hour or two. Ciaoz.

Finally, my sabbatical can truly start

2008-05-23T09:42:00.000+08:00

I have just left my recent job at this small startup IT firm which outsourced me to a crap company in Tuas dealing with Milk Powders. I think its called Anbros or something. I found it very ridiculous to work with the bosses at the milk factory because they were really mad people on the whole.

Those jackasses asked me to do stupid things like buying handphones for them and their guests, going over to their homes to resolve IT issues as well as to setup new PCs for them etc. I mean these were just a partial list of it. Its not even in my job scope to do these stuff! However, being a believer of going the extra mile for career success I just did some of these ridiculous menial tasks for them. I was once even asked to take their guest for shopping to buy phones and video games! Tell me have you ever heard of an IT engineer being asked to do such shit? Going to the airport to deliver your CEO's laptop is fine but doing things for his guest and furthermore having to fork out extra $$$ because of the guests expenditure is worst!

Nonetheless, I'm glad I'm out of there because I feel that I am not able to progress much in fact I m doing more menial tasks then getting time on my own to actually further explore the network etc. I mean sure my skills in Network Administration have increased like 200% with some of the troubleshooting I had to do and server issues I faced etc. However, I just found myself not having a life at all in this job instead I am more like a slave to these two idiots. They even call me on weekends Sat and Sun with problem they have with their home comptuers. I mean what the fuck, I am not a machine!

Finally, I had the last straw when one of them insulted me racially and also insulted my family. His reason were unfounded it was all because I could not answer a question as to why his brother's(the two bosses were brothers) home did not experience much wi-fi issues as compared to his. The answer would have been his brother's home was using a better technology then his home because this jackass's wife would not allow us to drill in a wifi access point into the ceiling of his home.And I think he is schizophrenic also because he thought i was tryign to break up his family by not answering his question. Mad right?

Anyways, I told him flat on his face on Monday morning that he is a difficult person to work with and is a real pain in the ass (yes, I said that to a CEO). I also told him to fuck off with his insults because it only shows how lowly a person he is.

With that he apologized to me and I told him I want to leave the company even though his brother wanted me to stay. Fuck you Gopal Chand Anand!You are a lowly bastard who will suffer the fate of Karma for all your wrongdoings very soon!Anbros will never last for sure!

HAHAHA

2008-01-13T10:36:00.000+08:00

Today has been a rather relaxing morning. Had a good night's sleep yesterday, badly needed one from the tiring week I've had this week at work. Monday started badly this week with one Jackass from Secom making a big mistake in their work.