Japan Self Defense Force

Impressive show of force by Japan. Like Japan, our country is facing a greying population and consequently a shrinking pool of young man and women joining the Singapore Armed Forces as part of our nation defense and deterrence elements. On the flip side, the highly educated people of our country gave us the edge over "you know who" when it comes to leveraging on modern military technology. What took 5 man, warship or planes to achieve takes only a single digit today to attain mission success. Yet again, Knowledge rather than pure brawls and hardwares is power in the 21st century.

Breakfast shopping at Tiong Bahru Market

Another Sunday gone and another Sunday arrived. Missy was called to work at the 11th hour and I dropped the her early in today morning at the hospital. Headed off for my usual Sunday routine of jogging at Mount Faber and Telok Blangah Hill via Henderson Wave bridge. It was not a sunny morning and the sky was slightly overcast. Nevertheless, a cool morning to run, to vacuum my car in the park and to get some breakfast back for the family.

On the way back home, I decided to make a detour to Tiong Bahru to have breakfast. Tiong Bahru had alway held a special place in my heart for I spend a large percentage of my early childhood times staying with my very strict grandma and aunties who are all now in their 40s and 50s and my cousins. Grandma had passed away long long time ago. I remembered a big family of more than 10 staying under one roof in the old colonial style apartment. Seeing this apartment today felt so nostalgic and brings back all the good and unpleasent memories.



I still recall my reservation each time grandma wanted to bring me to the Tiong Bahru market to buy the morning groceries. Back then, there is no such thing as child labor labor law and I am always been fully utilize as grocey bag carrier by Grandma who is a powerful women with a cane :). hahaha. The Tiong Bahru market in the early 90s were wet, it smell and it got broken black cement floor. The though if my slipper slipping out of my leg and stepping on those black cement disguested the young boy heart in me. The smell throughout the market can only be described as transitional, from chicken, to pork, to fish, to veggies and all of a sudden...smell of the famous Tiong Bahru Pau. It was a mass messy single storey congregation of hawker food, poultry and grocery. Definately sanitary condition wasn't that good in my opinion.

The Tiong Bahru market under went a rebuilding effort and today the market and hawker center was nothing of the yester years. Its clean, bright, spacious and every market shopper all had a smile on their face. Grandma nearly got into a fight with an uncle in the market back than...you can imagine the kinda stress going through our ancestors back than. Highlight of Tiong Bahru market got to be the Hawker Center!



FOOD FOOD FOOD....I just can't get enough, I just can't get enough (sing to the tune). Today, I decided to buy home some nice breakfast fare back for the family...

First stop is the 178 Lor Mee store or Lor Mee 178 store depend on how you prefer to read it. I ta pao 2x $3.00 Lor Mee instead of the regular $2.50 ones. Been here once and knew that the extra 50 cents for "shark meat" does enhance the taste factor of the Lor mee. I will highly recommend getting the $3.00 one with "Shark Meat". Its a pretty long Q during peak hours and it took me 15 minutes before I could collect my orders.

Zhui Kuey or loosely translated as water pastry is one of my favourite breakfast fare. This store had been around since I was a little boy and the store is probably now run by the lady boss daughter who might be around my age. Beside Zhui Kuey, the store sells a assortment of Nonya Kuey as well, adding a certain color vibrancy to an otherwise white and brown affair of a Zhui Kuey store. Brought 6 Zhui Kuey at $1.50. A long Q starts to form after I left the store.

Long Ji Soya Bean and Bean Curd store, according to the lady boss...they been around for 36 years!!! Yup, remembered drinking lots of soya bean milk and eating lots of soya bean curd when I was a kid. No wonder the auntie look familiar. :) Brought 1 big pack of soya bean milk for $1.50. It was only 80 cents back than. The power of economy inflation....

Finally I stopped by this store selling Hong Kong style pastry ran by a Father and Son team. Hmm..nowadays I'm seeing my generation people running the hawker store. Its nice to have your own business thought especially when it involve food for every one need good food. Got to try their fried wanton, Char Siew Shu and Egg Tart! Brought S$3.50 worth of pastry before leaving Tiong Bahru market.

Well...around the market there are many nice eateries worth exploring as well. I think the Ba Ku Teh here is good...its just opposite Tiong Bahru market's 7-Eleven. The Wanton mee here is nice too but I forgot where it is located. Oh...take note that there is no free parking on Sunday and Public holiday around the market. Be sure to tear the coupons and avoid parking at the multi-storey carpark because its jam packed with cars.

Home sweet home breakfast :)

Girls Generation- Genie + Gee Gee Dance

After must persuasion, I was finally given the Youtube search term for this excellent Girls Generation "2 in 1" dance video. They are performing at a football stadium and apparently its a pre-game performance before the match between South Korea and Japan. As usual, great dance moves they got but if you observe the individuals closely, sometime the girls do miss out certain steps and it looks a bit awkward. Well, if every one live like a scrutinizer... i think everything around us in life will never been pleasent. Look at things in life as a whole instead of under a microscope.

Yesterday was a wet day. It makes for a great day to snuggle in bed. Would like to give my thanks and appreciation to some of my friends at work for the week. I would like to acronym or nick name them.

BH - For braving the rain to buy 10 carton of drinks for our section despite my insistence he keep dry in the shade of the spec mess. He is our section accountant and make me realize its time we expand the "store" to include sales of tibits.

J, S and Ed - Their assistance with sorting our and setting up of the I-Level tool trolley in the bay. Without their keen inspection of the tools, I might miss out the little details and face with problems down the road.

Col "Robber" - For the blitz plans he devised for our platform tools management. Despite his intrusion of our section to raid and pillage, I am confident to see a leaner maintenance process in the future. In short, a damn convincing plan that I wanna see through it to the end.

GarV and Xiao Hei - Friday evening, two man in the tools store of the maintenance hanger busy setting up the hanger trolley system to be ready on Monday. I can see the look in their face. They are damn shagged out. Appreciate their sacrifice. Thanks Xiao Hei for giving the extra time. Unfortunately our section runs a tight ship and there is not always oppurtunity to get assistance to speed up efforts and make deliveries. But glad we delivered before the work week ends on Friday.

Encik Sniper - For coordinating with me on the tools setup on the frontline. Still got equipment transfer in progress though.

HJ - For telling me that its late and its time for me to pack up and head to school on Friday evening. I appreciate him for giving me the time and space all the time for my part time schooling. Apologize for getting him into a certain predicament due to Helmet issues.

"Old Man" - For getting the contractor down to get things sort out on some equipment fabrication issue. Finally, I can finalize the fabrication of our seal installation tools and sort our payment issues with the contractor.

Tang - For his guidance and making me realize my weakness in areas of work.

Lucas- Supply guy always accomodating to my query and request for assistance.

Missy and Deesh - For surprising me at the Spec mess and the end of my work on Friday. Didn't expect them to turn up at my base. I was really exhausted from the rain and the chaotic sorting out of tools. Brigten the end of my work day....

Flaws, we all got them

No one can confidently stand up and raise their hands to admit they are flawless in their work. Sometime its humbling to know that one is not all that mighty and shining despite good years of experience. I am inspired by Dr Lee story about "Cracked pots" and how not to totally penalize the flaws of others or yourself. We got to always look on the both sides of a character and traits. A very careful person often take too much time with things but you can be confident he/she can get things sort out right. A brave man may enter in harms way and get himself killed but he is an inspiration in battle when he charges in front of the rest.

Time and again, when in emotional stress and when the path of life direction gets rocky, I am blessed to have found Dr Lee's blog. It will never be updated with his latest philosophy and ideas of life but whatever that are left behind is more than we could ask for.

"Cracked Pots by the late Dr Lee Kum Tatt"

Girls Generation - 9 great dancer

This is the Gee Dance song. Great Rhythm and Dance move. Smooth Transistion. Amazing Dance Synchronization! Did you notice this amazing girls are wearing different colored pants and it made a well orchestrated dances of colors in the MV.


This song is Genie. Now I apologize the previous Gee Dance video was pretty much faceless with all the pixelation but it does show off their impressive dance move better than the Genie MV. Now we get a close up look of the 9 girl member of Girls Generation in the above MV. Trust me, everyone is gonna start judging who is the prettiest or who is sweet in the eye of the beholder from this MV. My vote goes to the girl with the shortest hair and chubby face in the group.

Been 1st as a team and lesson learn.

What a great way to start a Friday. Join hands with couple of our base guys to participate in a water competition as part of PC Anniversary celebration. I felt we are the underdogs and will never beat those hardcore guys of air defense artillery and the Ops guys from our base. After 3 rounds of games we emerged top among teams of 4! The score margin was quite significant by the way. I am always excited been in part of the winning team ever since playing in the soccer team back in the oversea detachment days. I am surprised that the usual quiet and reserved juniors from the Chinook and Apache platform shown so much vigor, determination and fighting spirits during today game to clinch us the title. I for once was especially struck with amazement at the performance of Jun Hui from CH-CNEF. He appear to be such "background" guy every morning we met for FOD walk but turn out to be an amazing swimmer and motivator of our team. I of course was pretty noisy throughout, shouting and cheering like a coach at the side line. I realize today I have missed out so much pleasant experience engaging in team activities.

Much could had been say about the usual routine work of base. Sometime, we just can't do the Rambo and fight the battle alone. Consiously keeping my emotion and temper in check, I got a good lesson learn today with a senior counterpart from the next department. Looks like the mistake of yesterday was a bit of a hot topic in the morning while I was happily winning the game with my team. Yup...sat down and listen to what this senior got to say and got to offer to help. I learnt that no want wanna give each other a bad time at work especially when each of us are working under the same department and under the same family. I was too defensive and critical about how the "upstairs" were thinking...its inevitable though for the track record in shows that small issue could easily be blown into big ones base on assumption. Well, in times like this one got to choose to believe whether people are here to help or people are here to scrutinize and harm. I believe in my people, I believe they are all trying to help one way or another.

Weakness. Everyone got it. Its time to learn how to delegate to my right and left hand man. It appears that there is always a reluctancy in me to do so rather choosing to 包山包海 things at work. I finally agree that its getting too taxing to handle. Its time to get things done as a team rather than running my own race all the time. Its nice to work alone sometime but the world don't go round just because of a one man effort or a one man show. Leverage, thats what really matter when getting work done.

The dreaded audit coming up next week and I still got outstandings to clear. Than again there are some major operation coming up next few weeks as well. I am starting to see the challenges ahead. In the meantime, its Friday and I'm heading out for the evening, to wind down this crazy week with a light supper with Missy.

Life is full of ups and downs

Oh yes. Life. Its full of ups and downs, two mutually co-existing forces of life without so we will not have such exciting times from birth to death. Sometimes the frequency of ups and downs can be too much to handle if it all falls within a day...

The morning started rather refreshing, I slept a good full 8 hours of sleep...something I never achieve on the weekdays. Checked out the e-mail in the morning and got the good news that my little project got awarded with $$$$ for the section. Great, the money will come in handy for the juniors who always got some bright ideas but no $$$$ to implement. Thats an up.

Midway through the morning. My work properties are raided by the "old man". Looks like I made a mistake with some equipment due dates and its way over due. It was so co-incidentally spotted during a spot check that I too was surprise I had made such mistakes. Its good thing actually to be discovered but it sure ruin my morning knowing that I screwed up because of some typo error in some database. Needless to say, when one goes around digging for problem...more problem surface out. Got a good handful of problem to cure now. That a down.

Come afternoon. Some little competition which I shall not elaborate too much. Simply said, it involve a vehicle and a wide ass cargo plus some cones in place as obstacles. The crowd cheered for our team was the fastest to clear the obstacles. I felt the depressing morning was salvage thanks to the encouraging spectators. An up for the day.

Next came the competition judgement. Looks like I nearly ran over "A" at the start of the round and "A" nearly got himself ran over at the end of the round. Despite speed, we got penalized in the safety aspect of it. Ok, I admit I nearly got "A" killed but there is nothing wrong with "A" picking up the vehicle choke while its still in motion? In the spirit of competition, I think its fine and to be damn honest, isn't that what we all do when the operational moods and tempo set in? To compress the steps (not skip) to get things done? Suddenly, its a down for the day.

The day ended at work and the day begin for school. Showered, change and headed off to the mess to get Chay Kway Teow for dinner. A cook with a pissed face and no Chay Kway Teow for the evening. What a down....

Went for duck rice along Sembawang road. Recieve an SMS from "old man" that boss is pretty upset about what happen in the morning. Gosh...upset? There are more things to be upset about than what happen to me. Why the hell tell me the boss is upset? Come on, human make mistake and I don't think my mistake had killed anyone or birds in the process? I hope people don't get overly judgemental on another just because of one mistake which is just an isolated mistake. Yup...I guess my track record is suddenly tainted. To be frank I am bloody pissed off with that SMS! Just wanna make me feel bad about it as though I don't feel bad enough? Come on, I too also wanna keep things in order and get my job done well. So I suppose its wise not to play the psychological game and try pushing me into a corner of guilt. Push the button hard enough, it will break and it will not function the next time. There are already many disfunctional "buttons" in the empire, please don't create another one. The SMS was the down of the day.

Sometime I find myself very defensive especially when others find fault in me. Often I tell myself to step back, cool down and listen. I like to apologize to Encik "F" for getting so worked up and emotional each time he pointed out the problems in the work I am incharge off. He is definately patience and understanding of this flared up young adult and spend that extra time to soothe those flames. You got my respect sir and I thank you for keeping a check my work stuff. Thanks for understanding that I got only two hands, 1 head and 1 brain but lots of things to handle on hand. Boy....my temper, its an area I got to work on.

Thank God Its Friday.

Why do ice float on water?

Quote of the day from India's LTC Rajyavardhan Rathore, silver medalist of Trap Shooting in the 2004 Athens Olympic...

"Its the not your condition that decides your future, its your decision that decides your future."

Now back to the topic of the day. Everyone observe that ice cube floats on water but wonder why? Well most of us do know that water, unlike other liquid, expands instead of shrink when it solidifies. This is contradictory according to conventional science we studied in the past. As we all ex-secondary school-ers learn, the molecules of gas is further apart than in liquid and liquid are slightly apart than in solid. This means a 1kg of gas will have a larger volume than 1 kg of liquid which will have slightly more volume than 1 kg of solid. Ok, this maybe getting a bit confusing but take this general rules as starter -- Volume: Gas>Liquid>Solid.

I came across this interesting facts about liquid and solid while revising for the coming Monday test, almost all materials are more dense in solid state than in liquid state. That means when molten aluminium, copper or steel solidifies in a casting, it actually shrinks! Which means if you were to pour 1 litres of molten steel into a cylindrical casting, after solidification, it might end up occupying 0.9 litres. The same old law applied, "mass cannot be created or destroyed" thus in this case 1 litre (volume) of molten steel will have the same mass as 0.9 litres of solid steel and the only difference will be the density. If we were able to drop this solid steel into molten steel, it will be observed that the solid steel will sink.

However water undergoes an interesting process, instead of shrinking when it freezes (solidify), it actually expands! And due to this expansion or increase in volume, ice (solid water) had less density than water (liquid), thus ice floats. Ta da!!!! For those interested in the figures, water volume expands 8.3% when it freezes. That explains why your coca-cola and pepsi cans become bloated when you freeze it in the chiller. That also explains why soft drink maker will never fill up the entire can or else the absents minded who wanted a quick chill of their soft drink might end up with a big freezer mess from exploding cans (over expansion).

Now here is a little IQ question involving water. You got 2 glasses of water and a pail. You are instructed to pour both glasses of water into the pail. Question is, how will you be able to know which part of the water in the pail belong to which glass? This is a question poised to me by a 14 years old school kid...it kept me thinking for hours....

Down and out with Stomach Flu

Been feeling really really fatigue and weakness all over the body since Wednesday. It turn out to be stomach flu or properly known as Gastroenteritis robbing all the energy from my limbs. Turn out to be a struggle keeping the energy level up on Thursday to revise for the Analog electronic test. Thank god the paper was easier than expected. Call in sick today for my body is totally crying for rest in bed and the tummy felt really weird. Visited my regular GP Dr Soh of Joy Clinic for diagnosis and medication. Lomotil, Charcoal pills and tons of vitamin C to tide me over the weekend, hopefully making a full recovery by Monday just in time for the Aero-material quiz in the evening. Crossing out fried food, spicy food, tough meaty food and dairy product from my list of meals. Sigh, its gonna be a challenge doing the revision over the week end in such condition. I need a nap again....so tired :x