Its been a week since i moved to Penang for work. The first week was probably a only week i could enjoy myself since its the typical 'orientation week' for new employee like me.
Anyway, i'm staying with my colleague from work. He and a couple of friends started to rear discus fishes as a hobby. Two years on, from only 40 fishes, they have over a thousand fishes now. They converted the garden area of their corner house into a mini discus breeding facility; housing 120 aquariums.
The discus are very well kept. Every evening, four of us will spend an hour to wash the aquariums, scrubbing the dirt, and change the water for fresh one. My friend said this was necessary as it would allow the discus to grow faster and stay healthier. Thus, improving the strain quality and overall well-being.
For two years, they have tested may methods of improving the quality of the strains, having discussions with other discus enthuasist, carefully selecting the discus for breeding, and also provide daily nurture. As things grew bigger, they started a company for exporting these unique and beautiful aqua-pets. Marvel Discus Co. will serve as the channel to market the discus. We (including me) started a blog at MarvelDiscus.blogspot.com so people can view the attractiveness of the wide array of discus we have. For any inquiries or purchase orders, kindly visit their website at www.MarvelDiscus.com
Stay tune for updates of this new 'joint-venture' of my friends and I. Well, at least i got something to do here at Penang other than work! Cheers.
Its been a long time for me wanting to say this ' I'm working' instead of 'Oh, i'm still studying' when my friends or relatives ask me what i do.
But, today the paradigm has shifted and here i come to the rat-race most people have to go thru. Well, my first job is at MS Elevator Sdn Bhd in Prai Industrial Area, Penang. Its been a good day at office, meeting back some familiar faces and new ones too. In fact, i'm staying at one of my colleague's house at Simpang Empat, roughly 20km from office. Nice place and peaceful community.
The sound of my designation as Mechanical Design Engineer seems kinda 'glamour' and 'solid' in regards with the manufacturing industry. The job scope revolves about preparing the Manufacturing Order List to drafting technical drawings to trouble-shooting project related issues. At the moment, things are pretty slow but i expect it to pick up after the first week.
Till then, stay tune to updates of my 2 years sting in Penang. Have already started to miss home back at kuala lumpur. Cheers...!!
Looking 3 years back, I participated in numerous competitions; mostly treasure hunt ala amazing race style. To the eager and die-hard fans of these races, perhaps i could share a few pointers on improving your chances of winning (recommended but not guaranteed!)
Lets start from the beggining. My passion for these races started when i participated in Spirit Of KL race organized by The Star and DiGi. There were 2 rounds. In the prelim, around 170 teams of four members had to run all around Berjaya Time Square while searching for clues and performing tasks at checkpoint before moving to the next.
Teams were given 2 hours to complete all the tasks located all 5 floors of the mall. Now if you think its easy, next time you visit there, first try to run one end to the other; and do that for say one hour! Then you'll know what we went thru. Having said so, running fast doesn't guarantee you victory but smart strategy will definately improve your chances.
My team (Dude Team) consist of Alex, Kun Siong, Wei Chyi and me. Let me share my first strategy - Use the mall's directory as you 'bible'. Haha, not many teams know this key strategy maybe they are over-confident or didn't bother. This piece of leaflet helped us so much that at one point durng the race, we just stood at one corner and solve the clues. Anyway, out of the 170 odd teams, we qualified to the final round with another 19 teams.
The finals was held the following week and it was totally exactly like amazing race. The First 5 teams to finish the race will proceed to the Grand Finals. Teams were flag off at 6.20am at Dataran Merdeka, KL. This time teams have to cover more ground like MORE ground! Probably half of KL area. Thankfully we get to use public transport to move about. Our first assignment was transporting bags of ice to 2 restaurants. Imagine the cold ice water dripping onto our back at 6.30am! Then, we moved on the next location.
We travelled all over kl covering from Balai Bomba at Jalan hang Tuah to Petaling Street, Central Market, Pudu Jail, Sungai Wang Mall, Lot 10, Maju Junction and Berjaya Time Square. At about 1.10pm, we reached the final checkpoint at The Star office near KL Sentral. As we ran towards the office, we were taken a back a bit because there were not many people there. Seems too quiet. Weird cause we thought we did everything in record time; thanks to Wei Chyi as he knew like all the alleys in KL.
Moving to the door of the office, only 3 official were there 'chilling'. We came in feeling a little sad (thought we weren't Top 5 teams) and clocked in. The Race Marshall then said,"Guys....You're the FIRST team to arrive..Congrats!". BOOM... that's when we went crazy, laughing and jumping as though we have won. The marshall than said they didn't expect us to be so fast because the latest time to check-in was at 4.00pm.
Then, we went back to Federal Hotel to prepare for our presentation. Yup, the top 5 teams have to give a 10 minute presentation on 'What makes KL Tick?". First place is RM 10000 while the other 4 will get goodies. After two hours we checked-in, the second the arrived. and the the rest. Now for my second strategy- plan early even before registering for the race! Why? Well, I purposely picked Wei Chyi as my team member simply because he knows KL inside out. My gamble paid off as we finished the race way ahead of time. So, you have to carefully pick your team mates who can contribute to improving the team's performance.
The final stage was the presentation. Helped by one of our team's researcher, Tack Wee; we gave our best on what makes KL tick. At the end, the judges deliberated and decided that another team - Team Labamba take home the Grand Price of RM10000. We could only be satisfied with Nokia mobilephone each and Digi goodies. Looking back, i discovered a very useful tip- It helps to have a female team member during presentation! haha
It was a great experience for me and that very race spurred my passion of competitions and races similar to this. Next time, i will post about my journey of the next two leagues at Melaka and Penang. Here is a write-up about my persistance these races. And, ending with a video clip of the race final stage.
This coming August 29th, 2008; female rock star, Avril Lavigne will be performing at Stadium Merdeka, Kuala Lumpur as part of The Best Damn Tour-World Tour. With hits like Complicated, My Happy Ending, Losing Grip, Girlfriend and more; she is bound to 'knock-out' her fans in KL!
It will be her only concert in South-East Asia according the the organisers. This means that rock music fans better rush to get your ticket before it too late. Concert tickets can be purchased from galaxy.com.my or axcess.com.my.
The seating plan in the stadium is as shown below. So buy fast before you end up with Green Seats! Oh ya, Maxis/Hotlink customers can enjoy cheaper tickets at 5% discount from 3rd August 2008 onwards. For more news about Avril's world tour and updates, check it out Avril Lavigne Official Website.
Most people take 3 years but some up to 5 years. For me, it was in the middle - 4 solid long years before i obtain my first valuable piece of certificate (which i'll make money from it in the future!).
Come August 4th- 10th, 2008; University of Malaya(UM), Kuala Lumpur will be having their annual convocation ceremony for their graduates like me. To be specific, I'll be getting my Degree in Engineering (Manufacturing) on the evening of 08.08.08. That's right, on the day the Beijing 2008 Olympic Gamesin China will be lauched! Now, that's a sweet coincidence.
Browsing thru the Games website made me reminisced of the days i played badminton, football and snooker during the 4 years. Wonder if i would made to the big stage given the right coaching and training. Perhaps if there is an Olympic Treasure Hunt category!
Enough of the Games, back to UM convo or feskum 2008. Details of the event are available at feskum08.blogspot.com and there will be lots of stalls and activities there. See ya there!
This is actually a very very very tired but entertaining job to do. It was last Sunday (6th July 2008) at One Utama Shopping Mall where Tack Wee and I (Team 111) participated in a Amazing Race-like competition called The Ultimate Race. Our friend, Liat Kwang and his bro join as another team too.
To cut it short, we had to race against another 116 teams of two to perform all the tasks within the quickest time. And, up till now, i have not raced in such a long and physically challenging competition. We had to run up and down and to and fro the entire New Wing of 1U looking for clues and performing the tasks there. And then, getting the next clue and repeat this for 18 checkpoints.
To list a few task we had to perform are: 1. Counting the number of shops, kiosks and booths in the First Floor, 2. Rock climbing 3. Push ups (50x) and Sit-ups (50x) 4. Collect tags from 3 ATM 5. Counting the number of passenger and goods elevators in the Second floor, 6. Kick 3 balls in to a futsal goal
After 1 hour 48 minutes of running like headless chickens and with our 'so called vast experience of 1U', Tack Wee and I managed to finish 5th place. Good enough for consolation prize of RM1000 or rather RM500/hour pay rate. Darn those winners as the walked away with RM10,000 as first place!
Looking back, we were pretty proud to give the youngster a run of their money as we only just managed to register for this competition within the age limit of 24 years. Well, all in a day's work.
Recently, my friends and I had organized a Six Sigma Workshop in University of Malaya. It was held for two days (14 and 15th of June, 2008). It was fun and rushing as we (4 of us) had to plan, get approval and setting up the place in a span of two weeks; just after our final exams of our 4year course.
Anyway, there were 40 participants -mostly from Manufacturing Engineering, UM. The speaker(who was my ex-lecturer), Associate Prof. Dr. Nicolo Belavendram gave us a run through about what Six Sigma was all about, its introduction to quality management, tools and techniques for analyzing, implementation and control.
The main thing about Six Sigma is applying its well-structured system or in short- D.M.A.I.C. It stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Implement and Control. By following this methodology, it seems to result in substantial financial savings and quality improvement. No wonder, most of the BIG companies implement this system!
Much of the things taught was interesting and keep me thinking of how to utilize this system in oganizing projects in the future...hmmm... we'll see about it. Okay, enough said. Any of you reading this and is interested to know more about Six Sigma, Quality Management related tools or Industrial Engineering can visit my lecturer's website at www.ict-m.com.
