S. M. B. F. A.

YES - its SMELL MY BIG FAT ASS (sorri for the vocab)
If someone pick up a friendly challenge with you in the coming KLIM 06, and tell you that you will SMBFA, be careful.........he/she have the confidence to outrun you. HAHAHA........

Take care and C U next Sunday ie 5 March 2006.

Cheers.......

Smell M. B. F. A.

Anyone knows what does that mean? It is a friendly challenge that we marathon runners always throw at each other whether it is during a training but will definitely happen on race day. The KLIM 2006 is just 10 days away and I believed this will goes around amongst runners, putting out friendly challenges with each other and more importantly encouraging each other to do better and able to achieve their personal records. Look out for the next update and I will tell you what does that mean or give me your comments if you know.

Cheers...............

Clubbing + Alcohol + Running

Can we mixed it and serve as a cocktail......... Ask my running buddy LIFEMOU and he will tell you. But I can tell you now, it is a potent cocktail. I was doing a 20km run with this fella and he make me smell his BIG FAT ASS towards the last 1km-2km of the run. No impact on him what so ever he had done on a Friday nite/Saturday morning. I think it made him even stronger. Keep that up brother if you think thats the way to enjoy life. LIFE IS GREAT !!!!. But make sure you turn up on Saturday morning for the 20km run.

Cheers......

Farn Parn

Farn Parn (Cantonese) aka Piracy aka Cetak Rompak. When we talked about piracy in Malaysia, it is always refered to Music CD, VCD and DVD piracy. Anyway tats what made MALAYSIA famous. The land of Farn Parn.

Lunch break for me today was a little bit longer than usual, why? Because I was patronizing a new DVD outlet that was opened very recently near my workplace. Have been wanting to buy some titles tat I have been waiting for (the clear version). Since the shop is near my workplace, I visited the outlet and spend sometime searching for those tat I wanted to buy.

The sales guy greeted me "Good Afternoon" when I step into the shop. Wahhahhh !! Fantastic man, I dont get this kind of greeting when I step into a govt office or a bank. This is wat I call customer service. "Oil Wan Meh Hei, lou sai - my ng chek, soong yat chek" the sales guy told me (In english "What movies you want, Boss - Buy five get one free"). After chosing the title, the sales guy tested it for me to ensure quality. He said Quality no good, we take back and dont recommend/sell to our customers. Hmmmmm.....This is wat I called customer focus and customer assurance.

No wonder this biz is big, overtime with this kind of service quality, the consumers will trust them. I hope our service industries learn a few tricks from them and definitely have a long way to catch up when it comes to good customer service....!!!

Morally or immorally, almost everyone in Malaysia purchase pirated CD/DVDs. So do I feel bad.....ask yourself first before asking me. After testing the quality of the DVDs, he step up and asked me whether I am satisfied with the movies quality. I nodded my head and the sales guy guided me to the counter and pay up.

There goes my weekend, it will be movies time from titles like "Wallace & Gromit" to "Proof" (dont know wat this movie is all about, but was attracted by the title theme which goes like this "The biggest risk in Life is not taking one") AHA-AHA !!!

Cheers & Have a good weekend.

Long Lost Friend

While browsing thru the blog of KC & The Sunshine Runners I stumbled upon an article that KC wrote about his Low Sang Get-Together dinner that he had with his badminton kakis. I saw this guy with his hairline reclining (and I am also one of those which are genetically impacted, and no fault of anyone) in one of the photo posted, and I told myself that he definitely looks very familiar to me. He resembles of a friend of my brother (whom they used to study together in St. Michael's Inst, Ipoh) which use to visit us quite often and without fail during the CNY when my brother was studying abroad. The last I actually met up with this guy was easily at least 10 years ago if not longer, when he visited us again during one of the CNY. After that I actually lost contact of his whereabouts.















Courtesy of KCLeong

So I quickily send a message to KC to get more infor of this guy whom he knew him as Alan. I describe his full name and information about him to KC and check whether it matches. True enuf, KC response came back via en email and believe it or not that guy by name of Alan is actually the long lost friend of my family and my brother. Wah lau erh, wat a fortunate way to track down your long lost friend. If not for KC posting that article, I will probably not able to trace where Alan is today. Shall I thank you KC, ............ YES, I shud. THANK YOU for posting that article.

This is real cool, the power of web-blogging and the Internet.

WEB BLOGGING - Where Information Flows.

Cheers..............

Wat a CLASSIC

If runners can do that, most of us will be able to do PR everytime we race and your partner must be a fast runner. Just tie yourself to your partner who will be running the race together with you. MUAHAHAHAHA ...........

And guess who does the culprit works for. He brings his kampung-ness to modern day living!!!

Whoosh !!! Wat a week before it ends

After finishing our financial quarter just before CNY starts, the preparation to meet our goals for Q3 and Q4 started. And this week is madness again, working for almost 16-17 hours for the past 3 days from Monday onwards to prepare information for my boss for the quarterly managers meeting, and this time in Taipei. Because of my second portfolio in managing busines and sales operations for the country, I have to churn out data on past achievements pertaining to sales, business operations processes, employee productivity, spend and expenses, YoY and QoQ growth, blah blah blah. This is mind boggling. After getting all the facts and figures right, I have to present it to the country management team especially to my boss who will be representing Malaysia in the meeting. We have to reveiw all these information over and over again to ensure that everything are politically correct when my boss present it to the VP of the region during the meeting. I was in a pressure cooker for the past 3 days doing nothing but churning our information. Well, finally its over yesterday and my boss is happy with the output and with the information he flew off to Taipei late evening yesterday. And thats corporate life !!!!, and hitting the road, strikes over strikes, heavy breathing at times, over 10km to 20km (if not more for others) help me take away all the stress and come back stronger the next day.

Cheers.................

Happy Valentines Day

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY

Tak Boleh Tahan MAN !!

Running a marathon needs lots of training and endurance, and we can overcome it and perform to our own expectation. What about doing a Marathon LOW SANG lunches and dinners, Wah really tak boleh tahan MAN !!. You cannot train to eat more (unless you really stuff yourself) and endure the intake of lots of food. Have been doing that with our partners and customers eversince coming back from the CNY. The gunshot to start these marathon eating outings was on 6 Feb 2006 ie Monday and all the way till Friday non-stop on lunches and dinners. Summore not running enuf to burnt off those carbo and fat intake, how lah like that!!!! Must cut down oledi, otherwise very teruk man !! So have to eat a little bit here, eat a little bit there...... Anyway Chap Goh Mei is this weekend and all these celebrations will be history. Things will get back to normal and no more Marathon eating outings until the next new lunar year.

Happy LOW SANG to all who are in a similar situation !!

Cheers..................

Tian Gong Festival

Today is the eighth day of the Chinese Lunar New Year but this will be a day where the Hokkiens will be busy starting their preparations for the Tian Gong Festival.

The Ninth Day – Tian Gong Festival is an important day to Fujiang (Hokkien) people; it is even more important than the Chinese New Year.

It is said that during the Qing dynasty, Fujiang people hid themselves in sugar cane forest until the eighth day of the New Year to escape from Qing armies. Those who did not die thought that they were saved by the gods. As the ninth day is the birthday of The Heavenly God (Tian Gong), they decided to worship Tian Gong on that day. Among the sacrificial offerings, there was sugar cane. On one hand , cane is their saviour and on the other hand , it symbolizes success.

So with this belief continuing, the Hokkiens had celebrated this happy occasion on a yearly basis starting the prayer offerings to The Heavenly God (Tian Gong) on the nite of the 8th day of the CNY. Firecrackers will be lighted to celebrate the occasion because the Hokkiens consider this day to be their first day of CNY.

Yan Yat aka Everybody’s Birthday

Today is the seventh day of the Chinese New Year and is also know as Yan Yat or Everybody’s Birthday. Traditionally, it is today that everyone will do the LOU SANG with raw fish and eaten together with porridge. But with everything being commercialize, LOU SANG is available even before the CNY starts and goes all the way until the 15th day of CNY.

Choy Sun Thow

God of Prosperity (Cai Shen Yeh)

Well today is the 1st day of the Chinese Lunar Year ie Year of the Dog. I make my sales target for Quarter 2 and I am enjoying myself. Let me take this opportunity here to wish everyone "Gong Xi Fa Cai" and happy holidays.

Cheers..........................

Numbers, Numbers and more Numbers

This Friday will be my company Q2FY2006 quarter end. As usual this will be madness especially when we need our partners to get the order in and at the same time people are leaving the city, on their way back to the hometown to celebrate CNY. So before starting the new year mood and start ushering and welcoming the Year of the Doggie, I have to make sure I make my numbers for the Quarter. No two ways, brother. Otherwise cannot KOH LEAN. US$250k to go and I have until Friday to do it. Man, I need all the luck otherwise chia-lat, no mood for the new year. Choy Sun, where are you !!!!

NOTE: LIFEMOU, are you contributing to our Quarter end closing.

Cheers........

Kong Hei Fatt Choy

Choy Sun Thow (The Prosperity God had arrived !!!!)

To all Chinese friends, Happi Dog Year and Gong Xi Fa Cai. For those travelling, drive safely and slowly and abide by the rules. For once, this is not a marathon race where the fastest wins.

To all Muslim friends, Selamat Awal Muharam 1427 H. (The Islamic New Year - start of the Muslim calander) and that is on 31 Jan 2006.

I will be heading north to my home town to Ipoh (Ipoh mali, talah sombong punya !!!) and on the 3rd day of CNY will be heading south to Melaka and back to my wife and in-laws place.

Cheers.......

Sun Tzu Art of War

Over the weekend after the GE-Pacesetters race, I picked up this book from my cabinet and read it again. It was time to refresh for the new year. The last time I read it was about 6 months ago. This is a strategist book that can basically apply not only in the business world but can be translated to handle events and people that you dealt with in your day-day activities. For now, I would like to share the things that I learnt from reading the book especially pertaining to running a race.















The ART OF WAR is the most referred to military warfare in history. It was written 2500 years ago some time between 300 and 500 BC by a Chinese military strategist cum scholar Sun Zi, now commonly known as Sun Tzu. His was a barbaric classroom when contrasted with the antiseptic lecture halls of today's WarStudies departments. Some people have erroneously judges the book by its cover so much so that they have deprived themselves of its learning opportunities. What they have failed to realise is that in Sun Tzu's era, China was splintered into many states that were often at war with one another.

Hence, Sun Tzu's ART OF WAR need not be a negative book. It could be POSITIVE as well. To use it positively, a person needs to have an open mind and be clever enuf to substitute some of the seemingly negative words used in the original context. An example is the word "ENEMY". Should you come across this word, dont think of an "enemy" as someone to watch out lest he /she brings you harm. Instead, substitute the word with "the person or the event you are dealing with." In this way, he could be your boss, your colleagues, employees, customers, spouse, children, a marathon race, etc.

To wit, this quotation from Sun Tzu:

If you know yourself and your enemy, in a hundred battles, you will never fear the result......

maybe rewritten as (if you are running a marathon):

If you know yourself and had train well, in a hundred races, you will never fear the result......

I Survived

(L-R) Christine, Ben and myself
Photo taken by KC Penguin-1


I survived the 20km GE Life-Pacesetters run today, finishing in just under 2 hrs. Although the timing is nothing to shout about but I knew there is an improvement. Still feels good after the run although towards the last 2km, both my legs were feeling tired. Struggle a bit towards the uphill before entering the Lake Gardens. Just needed to put more mileage and strengthen my legs. Next target KLIM 2006 - going for the 21km only.

Australian Open 2006 - Melbourne

Watching this year Australian Open - Ladies, is like watching a sports fashion parade by all the tennis stars. Besides displaying their tennis skills almost all the ladies star are parading with new attires by their sponsors.




















From wearing a sports bra and cover with a low cut dress by ADIDAS




















to a pastel blue color nite dress and tank-top with a low waistline shorts by NIKE.




















This is making ladies tennis extremely exciting not just from the spectatators perspectives, but also for TV commercials and attires sponsors. This will definite attract more viewers to the game.




















My alltime favorite is the comeback kid ie MARTINA HINGGIS.

The Long and Winding Road

The title has lots of meaning to me at least for this coming Sunday where I will be going for my 2nd long distance race (eventhough is 20km - for others is SAP SAP SUI - the triple S effect) eversince my comeback to running after 15 years. My sense is the run will take me at least between 2 to 2-1/2 hours to complete. It will definitely be a long and winding road for me, that leads me to your door, and will never dissappear. Wish me luck this Sunday.

The other event that reflected well on the title is my quest to seek donations and sponsorships for my Mt Kinabalu Climb For Charity 4-7 may 2006. All proceeds will goes to MAKNA (although the Ellie guy had spoilt the market for me, in Cantonese "Cho Why See Cheong"). I will still continue to go for it no matter what people says about MAKNA. And also on the way up to the mountain summit - its another long and winding road - the wild and windy night. Eventhough this is the 5th time I am going there, its a new challenge for me. Wish me luck again for the very first charity campaign that I put together with my climbing/running buddy ie LIFEMOU

The title will also reminds me of the The Long and Winding Road a pop ballad written by Paul McCartney that originally appeared on the Beatles' album Let It Be. It became The Beatles' last Number 1 song in the United States on June 13, 1970.

The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear
I’ve seen that road before
It always leads me her
Lead me to you door

The wild and windy night
That the rain washed away
Has left a pool of tears
Crying for the day
Why leave me standing here
Let me know the way

Many times I’ve been alone
And many times I’ve cried
Any way you’ll never know
The many ways I’ve tried

But still they lead me back
To the long winding road
You left me standing here
A long long time ago
Don’t leave me waiting here
Lead me to your door

But still they lead me back
To the long winding road
You left me standing here
A long long time ago
Don’t leave me waiting here
Lead me to your door
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Mt Kinabalu Charity Climb 4-7 May 2006

The tentative final list for the team to support this charity campaign is 25 climbers. We may have some additions but if possible I would like to keep it at 25. Hopefully there are no dropouts along the way.

Now the challenging part; raising the funds and donations for MAKNA. This is definitely harder than reaching the summit. I will try hard to secure the funds and so is my running and campaign buddy LIFEMOU.

We already have RM400 to start of with. An individual friend of ours had pledged to support us in the campaign. Wish us luck....................$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Charity Climb

Money, Money, Money - must be funny, its a rich man's world

My quest to get out and seek sponsorship for my Mt Kinabalu Charity Climb 4-7 May 2006 had begun. Had spoken to a few corporates, and waiting for an answer. It sounded easy but when you start to approach individuals and corporations, and tell them about your quest.......thats where the challenge starts. Now I know it is not a simple task to raise a charity campaign. Take lots of hard work, patience and you must know the people who can help you. For this campaign, at least it was started early. MAKNA (Majlis Kanser Nasional) at least have accepted our offer to be the recipient of all donation proceeds. I have spread the tasks to a few felllow climbers who are willing to help out in the campaign. Hopefully we can secure some charitable corporate sponsors. LIFEMOU, how is your progress at your end.

WHERE ARE ALL THE KIND PEOPLE !!!!!!

Cheers.......