Milestone: A’isyah on the slide!

The 100th post is usually regarded as some sort of milestone. And though this post is the 100th post on my blog, I’m not really trying to commemorate it. Besides, this post makes 100 by virtue of my merging my other blog with this one, bringing in a few posts when I wasn’t actively blogging.

Rather, I want to celebrate a much more fun milestone! Although, I’m about three weeks late in celebrating it. Hehe.

A’isyah’s always been a bit wary of heights. She doesn’t mind climbing, that’s for sure. She’s always climbing on the back of the sofa for example. She’s even gone up slides before. It’s just coming down the slides that’s been a problem for her. For some reason, she’s always been afraid to take the plunge and just ended up going down the stairs again.

Although Nany said that A’isyah’s been ok with slides for a couple of months now, whenever I take her out, she was still reluctant to go down any slides.


That is, until we went out to Nando’s at Bangsar Village. They have a small play area, and there were two little girls playing there. So A’isyah decided to join them, and didn’t hesitate to take the slide down. Yay! Maybe all she needed was company. Whatever it was, the floodgates have been opened! Now she just loves to go on the slides.

This, I think, is a serious milestone. It really opens up playground explorations, which is good for confidence, strength, and curiosity (amongst other useful traits).

So here’s to milestones!

Pulling in visitors from around the world

Well, I guess I should send a shout-out to Sgt. Al Thompson. My post on that Iraq gold scam certainly has brought in a lot of visitors from around the globe. Sure testament to the reach of that particular scam email.

And it seems myth-busting in general draws in visits. No surprise there really, since there’s not much reason for random visitors to find my blog. This here is just a personal blog. So here’s a shout-out to Nichole Dishuk (RIP), and kids ball pits!

The only other posts that have received random visits are a tech advice piece on ntrights, a clarification on the difference between dateline and deadline, and my post(s) on colgate toothpaste.

I’m probably gonna continue getting visitors on those topics from around the world, and may even capture random visits on future posts. It’s a bit strange for a non-specialist blog tho, I think.

No matter tho, since I’ll just keep on doing my own thing. As Eek the Cat says, “It never hurts to help!” :-)

Pulling updates out of draft-limbo

Sometime back I had written that I was going to update my blog with some old posts. But then things went quiet. I didn’t update in a long while. And when I finally did update, I’d forgotten about my earlier promise. So I went back and checked the drafts, and decided to flesh out two that deserved a spot on this blog. And so, just to be completist, I’ve published those posts here and here.

Colgate haram Google search

Odd.

So I wrote earlier about my blog post on the halal status of Colgate toothpaste showing up (kinda) high in Google search results. At least, I thought so. I mean, that’s what I got when I did a Google search with the same search terms as my intrepid visitor.

When I related the story to someone else though, their results varied. Not sure whether that’s because of a localized version (I’m currently defaulted to www.google.com.my), or some other customization due to IP address location or something else. I’ve never really paused to ponder how Google throws its search results together. They’ve served me well enough over the years.

It’s just odd that a search for the same terms, at the same time, gives different results, with my blog post showing up in one, but not another. And just so no one thinks it was some vainglorious self-promoting ego-trip, I snapped a pic of my search results.



If the above looks suspicious, just keep in mind it’s a crop from a pdf print of the search results page.

Ah well. Someone else managed to find my blog post via Google, so it doesn’t matter how that happened. Just hope it helped someone.

An activist is born!

So much for staying private. :-) I’ve just started a “movement” blog to save A’isyah’s pre-school from being evicted. I’ll be pinging that blog to PPS, and that opens up a path to this blog, although convoluted.

I’m a newbie to the whole activist scene. I’m not even active on the current Gaza War issue, beyond announcing my views in my FB status and having discussions with some friends and colleagues. That’s the hot-button issue here right now, of course. Hotter even than the recent Kuala Terengganu by-elections where BN lost.

So here, I am, fumbling through an issue more personal to me.

Save the Al Hidayah Islamic Pre-School!

419 scam: Want a share of some millions “found” in Baghdad during the war?

Oh my. My blog is turning into some myth-busting site. Hehe.

I received an email this afternoon, forwarded to me by a colleague. Alarm bells went ringing as soon as I saw the header. An email from someone within the US Army? Can’t be.

And then I read the email. My mind was pretty much made up by then that this was some kind of scam.

Here’s the email that was forwarded. Take note of the From: field.

From: Sgt.Al Thompson [mailto:thompson@usarmy.com]
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2009 10:24 AM
To: undisclosed-recipients
Subject: Matter Of Interest.

Matter Of Interest.

My name is Sgt.Al Thompson, a member of the U.S. ARMY USARPAC Medical Team, which was deployed to Iraq in the beginning of the Iraq’s war. I will like to share some highly classified information about my personal experience and role which I played in the pursuit of my career serving under the U.S ARMY.

Though, I would like to hold back some certain information for security reasons for now until you have find the time to visit the BBC website stated below to enable you have insight as to what I'm intending to share with you, believing that it would be of your desired interest one-way or the other. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2988455.stm

Please get back to me after visiting the above website to enable us discuss more. I'm not comfortable sending this message to you without knowing fully well if you are indeed with me or you may decides to go public.

Please reply me via my personal email:sgt.althompsonus@gmail.com confirming you have visited the site and that you have understood my intentions.
Thanks,
Best Regards,
Sgt.Al Thompson

Let’s just try to ignore the bad grammar, shall we? ;-) It didn’t take much to unravel this scam that I wonder if anyone’s been taken in by it.

My “Internet sleuth” quick response below:

Dear All,

Beware! This is a variation on the (419) Nigerian email scams on the internet. The way it works is, the scammers offer a share in huge sums of money, but you need to pay them some advance fees first (for “processing”, etc.).

Please see:
Phishbucket article

Break The Chain forum post

This one capitalizes on a real event, which was reported by the BBC (hence the legitimate link in the email). The gist: A stash of money was found in some containers in Baghdad, but there are some questions as to where the money came from and even whether all the money found has been accounted for.

Don’t fall for this scam!

I don’t usually use the Importance: High flag in email, but I did with my response above. Just wanted to make sure no one had already tried contacting the scammers. They can be quite persuasive apparently.

On another note, these scammers aren’t very imaginative when it comes to the fake names, eh?

Dangers of birth control pills?

Another entry in the “Internet sleuth” series, from an email I researched this morning.

This time, I’ll include the quoted email that was forwarded to me:

Menstrual cycle - very important send to all your friends.

I am sure most of you have a daughter, a granddaughter, a niece, a friend or a friend's daughter... this might be worth checking out. PASS THIS ON EVEN IF YOU DON'T USE IT!!

Recently, this past week, my cousin Nicole Dishuk (age 31... a newly graduated student with a doctoral degree about to start her new career as a Doctor...) was flown into a nearby hospital, because she passed out. They found a blood clot in her neck, and immediately took her by helicopter to the ER to operate. By the time they removed the right half of her skull to relieve the pressure on her brain, the clot had spread to her brain causing severe damage. Since last Wednesday night, she was fighting for her life. They induced her into a coma to stop the blood flow and then operated 3 times.

Finally, they said there was nothing left that they could do. Multiple clots in the left side of her brain were found, the swelling wouldn't stop and she was on the life support. She died at 4:30 that day. She leaves behind her husband, a 2-year old, Brandon and a 4-year old, Justin.

The CAUSE of DEATH they found was a birth control she was taking that allows you to only have your period 3 times a year. Doctors said it interrupts life's menstrual cycle, and although it is FDA approved... it shouldn't be. So to the women in my address book, I ask you to boycott this product and deal with your periods once a month, so you can live the rest of the months that life has in store for you.

Please send this to every woman you know - you may save someone's life. Remember you have a cycle for a reason.

FYI: The name of this new birth control is Lybrel. If you go to Lybrel.com you will find a least 26 pages of information regarding this drug. The second birth control is Seasonique. If you go to Seasonique.com you will find at least 43 pages of information regarding this drug. The warning and side effects regarding both pills are horrible.

Please forward this to as many daughters AND sons, co-workers, friends and relatives. Several lives have already been changed.

God bless!

And the response I sent out, after my research:

Hi All!

Another one to investigate. This one I took on mainly because I personally know women who have trouble with their normal menstrual cycles and have opted to use medication to control certain aspects of it.

First check reveals that it appears to be a mixed bag. There’s info debunking the urban legend of Nicole Dishuk:
Snopes page on Dishuk

Interesting to note that the original “warning” didn’t include info on particular brands of birth control pills. That info was apparently added on in later cycles of the email forward.

But, yes, there is a real case of a woman named Nicole Dishuk, PhD in psychology, married and mother of two young boys, who died of a stroke. From here on out, however, it gets murky. There is no definitive proof that the cause of death was the birth control pills she was taking, even though there is a news report (here: ABCLocal site) saying her husband was told that the doctors identified the birth control pills as the only risk factor for Nicole to suffer a stroke (blood clot to the brain). Whether this was established as the cause of death is unknown, because the private medical records are not available. Note also that there is no indication she even took either of the two brands identified in the “warning” below.

And here one has to note that all medication comes with risks, and contraindications are noted precisely to highlight potential risks.

So this is where we get controversial. A good jumping off point for different points of view on this topic can be found here:
About.com site on Contraception

Some say we should go au naturel, and avoid all medicines entirely, because they interrupt with the “normal” body functions. See the “warning” that was just forwarded below. Or some comments posted under the About.com post above:
“Anything that interupts (sic) a life cycle has to be dangerous.”
“Nutrition feeds the cells which in turn communicate with our 600 trillion cells helping the body to heal itself. … Put synthetic drugs in a human body and take the consequences.”

Some take the opposing stand, noting that a lot of medicines do a lot of good to people who may not have the same “normal” experiences as the majority.
There’s the case of someone who “started getting (her) period at the age of 11, when (she) first started getting (her) period (her) cycle was 35 days long and (her) actual period was 8 days long.” This person went on birth control pills at 17 and no longer suffers such terrible PMS symptoms or cramps. And there are other cases such as hers.

Some say that anyone taking medication should be responsible over their own bodies and be informed about any risks they may face.

There are many opinions on the matter, but in the end, ladies, it’s your prerogative. Stay informed.

Conclusion: Not all birth control pills are suitable for all women; you have to be aware of any potential risk factors. However, it is unfair to depict them as dangerous and having no benefit whatsoever.

It’s easy enough to sympathize with the origins of this particular myth. But there’s a danger to perpetuating misinformation, in that it could scare women off potentially useful information regarding contraceptives. All in all, a thorny subject, but still, better to spread knowledge than ignorance!

A’isyah at school

It was A’isyah’s second day of pre-school today, and she was just as excited about school today as she was yesterday. This morning, however, she was prepped with her crocs, which prompted her to ask about her black shoes. She was just told that she can wear her black shoes another time. Hehe. Not sure how long that will keep up.



Since I haven’t mentioned it yet, the school is Al Hidayah in Damansara Heights, pictured above. Three of my sister’s kids went there, and the youngest just graduated from Al Hidayah to enter Standard 1 in SKBD, which is just nearby. They have a good number of teachers/caregivers, and a pretty diverse program, plus instruction in both Malay and English. Quite a few yuppy Malays out there with kids who aren’t so fluent in Malay apparently.



Two days straight, and A’isyah is still very enthusiastic about the whole experience. I think she’s glad that she has others her age group to interact with. For me, I just hope that she gains more confidence in interacting with others.

News from Dubai starting to hit home

Big news today. Just found out from the local paper (NST) that Meydan have cancelled the construction contract for WCT and Arabtec to build the world’s largest horse racecourse. It’s all over the Gulf news. A sampling can be found here and here.

Interesting to note that the reason given was “because of non-adherence to the agreed time schedule for construction”, as mentioned in Meydan’s statement.

Hmm. No further comment from me.

Dropping off A’isyah at school

I just dropped off A’isyah at her pre-school, for her first day of school. She was so excited this morning, dressed up in her uniform and wearing her favourite black shoes, with her backpack on her shoulders. Decided to change her shoes though, after seeing the other kids wearing sneakers or crocs even. Maybe for the time being she can wear her crocs. It’d be easier to take off and put back on as she goes in and out of the school building.

First impressions were ok. A’isyah seemed alright, and was curiously watching all the other kids. She met one new girl who was there the day we registered A’isyah. And there was this new boy who was crying the whole time after his parents left, just as he was on the day we registered. Feeling better about A’isyah being able to cope now. At least she wasn’t bawling her eyes out. Hehe.

So this whole morning I’ll probably be wondering if she’s doing alright on her first day of school.

Halal status of Colgate toothpaste

I was browsing my Statcounter logs earlier and found an interesting search engine entry into my blog. One of my earliest posts was about a halal scandal involving Colgate toothpaste, and apparently it’s now a popular enough reference on the topic. I’ve actually seen a few Google searches on “Colgate” and “halal” leading into my blog before, but I never bothered to check it out much.

This latest search was for the phrase “is Colgate haram”, and interestingly, my blog post appears on page 3 of the Google results (as of this writing).

I figure it’s only appropriate I update that post with the latest info, which is to say that the issue has been settled (at least, for now). I can’t say about other locales, but the Colgate toothpaste sold in Malaysia is now certified halal. You can check out Colgate Malaysia’s statement, which specifically states that:

“The calcium in Colgate toothpaste is sourced from minerals.
The glycerin in Colgate toothpaste is sourced from plants.”

I hope this puts to rest the question of whether Colgate toothpaste is haram.

The other question that remains unresolved is whether the original “flyer” was indeed a misinformation marketing tactic, or was created for genuine reasons. I suppose it’s irrelevant, because in the end, Colgate sat up, took notice, and went ahead with the halal certification process to prove its credentials.

Merging PriceWatch

I had another blog, which I set up to track prices of stuff in Dubai. It was just for reference purposes, but I didn't use it that much. I'm not in Dubai right now, of course, but I think the idea behind PriceWatch might still be useful.

Anyway, I've merged that blog to here, and deleted that blog, since it won't be (just) Dubai prices I'll track.

Itching to game

It’s been ages since I played a game. Starting to feel the “itch”. I never got my fill of Dawn of War or even Supreme Commander (which I came to very late). Problem is, I’m running outdated hardware, so the latest games are out of reach anyway. Even some of the games on Jumboplay are not playable on my old laptop. I should probably just cancel that service.

The last game I gave any time to was TrackMania Nations, which didn’t quite scratch the same itch as (the original) Re-Volt. Incidently, Re-Volt was the game that finally prompted me to get a video card for my old Gateway PC. There’s really nothing else out there (racing game-wise) that I’ve encountered that captures the same sense of fun as Re-Volt. Still, TrackMania Nations is decent fun. Too bad I can’t play it on my current laptop.

Probably time to plug in the ol’ XBox, since I’m not getting a new laptop anytime soon. Or any new games either, for that matter.

Weekend in Dubai – Day 3

On our last day, we only had half a day. Our flight was in the early evening, so we took it pretty easy. Unlike Day 2, or even Day 1, we took part in the group outing. At least, A’isyah and I did, since there was a visit to Ski Dubai in the program. After breakfast in the room again, I sent Nany to our old place where she was meeting someone at the spa, and then A’isyah and I went to MoE. We were there early, since the group was late to breakfast and late to depart the hotel. While waiting, A’isyah and I walked around and took pictures at the x-mas display in the centre court.


Finally the group arrived and we got our tickets. Half were going for ski lessons, while the other half were just going to the Snow Park. I bought A’isyah a pair of mitts, and then we got suited up. A’isyah was excited about the visit, since the memory of her previous (and first) visit a few months earlier was still fresh in the mind. She was looking forward to gathering up snow and throwing it around again. We spent a good hour inside, and then came back out to meet up with Nany and have lunch.

The rest of the group had to rush for a visit to old Dubai (the Creek and the old souks), while we took our time with a nice lunch at Chilis. After lunch we walked around for a bit, and then took off for the airport. I returned the rental car, and then we waited for the rest of the group to arrive. After getting our tickets, we went ahead and checked-in, and then processed through immigration and went straight to our departure gate.

When we boarded the plane, we had to re-sort ourselves, since we had gotten three seats in separate locations during check-in. Two seats in the same row, and another a few rows back. So we had to switch around with the rest of the group, and there was quite a bit of confusion as we switched seats around so couples/families could sit together. We finally got three seats together in the middle aisle, and settled in for the return flight. Once again, we all rested all the way through, not even bothering with any in-flight entertainment.

We touched down on time around 6am, and took the ERL (KLIA Express) to KL Sentral. Headed home, got ready for work, and was in the office by 10am. Back to the grind.

Overall, for such a short trip (back) to Dubai, it was alright, though it could have been better. At least, A’isyah had a fun vacation.

Weekend in Dubai – Day 2

Day 1 was mostly about the Annual Dinner. Day 2 was free reign. At least, for me. The rest of the group had a sight-seeing tour around new Dubai, and a desert safari in the afternoon.

So the morning of Day 2, after breakfast in the room (mini-croissants and cupcakes bought the previous day), I sent Nany and A’isyah to the Umm Suquem Spinneys while I headed out to the site office. I had some files on a thumbdrive to pass to someone, but when I got there, there was no one around. The security guards told me that people would only start coming in after 1pm, since there was a dinner the night previous. Odd, I thought.

I went back to pick up Nany and A’isyah, then we headed over to the Dubai Mall. On the way there I received a call from the office. They needed someone to direct the tour group to the site office and give them a tour before lunch. After checking the timing, I agreed to meet up with the group at Souk Madinat Jumeirah around noon. That gave us an hour plus at Dubai Mall.

And that turns out to be more than enough time. Dubai Mall is open, but it’s not quite ready. The first thing you notice when entering from the parking lot (besides all the construction workers around) is the paint smell. Lots of spaces are still under construction, so all the sounds and smells are still there. There are some shops already operating, but I can’t imagine there’s much foot traffic yet.



We only came over to check out the big tank at the centre, to compare with the one at Atlantis that we had seen the previous day. I’m not certain which aquarium is larger, or which one has more fish. It doesn’t really matter. Both aquariums have something to offer the visitor. The one at Atlantis has a unique setting, while the one at Dubai Mall has a larger viewing area. I never went “inside” either area, so I can’t comment on the paid areas, except to note that the aquarium at Dubai Mall is cheaper than the aquarium at Atlantis.


The only other thing worthy of comment at the Dubai Mall is their touch screen navigational aids. After experiencing (read: playing around with) the touch screen map at the Gardens Mall in KL, I can’t help but to compare to the better implemented aid. The touch screen map at the Dubai Mall isn’t good for much more than listing the stores at the mall. Finding your way around on it, and finding the location of the stores is pretty much a hopeless task. Since there’s going to be a lot of stores at the Dubai Mall once it’s fully operational, I hope they improve on that. The other quibble I have is that they don’t have a static map displayed, unlike at the Gardens. So if someone is playing around with the map (which I’ve seen people do at the Gardens), anyone else wanting to find a shop will just have to stand around waiting their turn.

After Dubai Mall, we headed out to Souk Madinat Jumeirah. This ranks (a distant) third amongst the malls we like to visit, after Mall of the Emirates, and Mercato. While waiting for the group to arrive, we went to Seattle’s Best Coffee for a light lunch of sandwiches, cake, and coffee. After that, we collected our car from the parking lot and waited just outside, right before the junction. The group arrived late, and I heard later that they just rushed through the souk to take photos. We were an hour later than the schedule leaving the souk. The bus driver knew the way to the Nad Al Sheba Racecourse, so I only had to show the entrance to our site office from the construction entrance.

Once at the site office, I gave the group a tour of the two office buildings, and gave them a briefing on the project. At the second office, they went off to the canteen for their lunch (nasi lemak, I was told later), while we left. I sent Nany back to the Spinneys where she was going to be picked up by friends for a gathering. Then I headed back to the site office to hand over the files and check in with some old friends. After a while, I went to the HQ for some official business and to check in with yet more friends. And then I went to pick up Nany and A’isyah back from the Spinneys.

We headed back to the hotel, where we cleaned up, and then, together with a colleague, we took off for Global Village. It was my first time driving there, and thankfully we didn’t have too much trouble finding the place. Global Village has changed since last we visited, and it didn’t seem as crowded, although we didn’t go to the amusement park area. Still, the parking lots didn’t seem as full. Maybe it was still early in the season.

We ate (overpriced) briyani, and then walked around, visiting some of the pavilions. Eventually we got tired, so we went back to the car, and waited there for my colleague to finish her shopping. Driving back to the hotel my colleague showed the route their bus driver had taken earlier. It was shorter than my earlier attempts, but we had to go over some rough patches since we cut across on a back lane.

We arrived back at the hotel around midnight, and went straight to sleep.

Dateline vs deadline

I was working on minutes earlier today, and was just reminded of a pet peeve of mine.

I’ve created templates for minutes before, and once, someone used my template but went and changed one of the column headings. Said person thought they were correcting my spelling. Then when I came back to the KL office, I was passed a set of minutes that had the same error. When preparing the very next minutes, I corrected the error, but was queried on it. So I explained the difference, and below I’m sharing that critical explanation.

Dateline is mainly used in the newspaper business.  You’d see it at the top of stories, together with a byline.  The dateline identifies the time and place for a story; the byline identifies the reporter.
Click here for definitions.

Deadline, on the other hand, is the point in time when something is due.  Quite a few people erroneously write “dateline” to connote when something is due, when they actually mean “deadline”.
Click here for definitions.

I suspect I will continue to encounter this. At least next time I have the explanation all ready to be shared.

Dangers of kids' ball pit play areas

Ok, another myth. Received one in the mail this morning. Actually, two copies of the same email. Of course, me being me, I decided to investigate a little.

I'm just going to copy over my whole email response.

Hi All!

Back on the job. This one’s a tough one to handle, so I’ll be as careful as possible.

First off, we should all note that any environment, if not properly managed, is potentially dangerous.

The warning circulated below is an old one, dating from the late 1990’s. However, it’s been given a new lease on life several times over the years, doubtless when someone just encounters the tale, or digs it up to share it with someone after some conversation on safety. It happens. In this case, the Word document was last saved by Colleen & Trevor Bellman, using Microsoft Word 10.0 (that’s old software), on 16 May 2008. This suggests that the alert originates in North America (I know, judgement call there), and is most likely more applicable to that area. Nevertheless, some things apply everywhere, so this still bears investigating.

So here’s the deal on the warning: It’s false. At least, the warnings about the deaths. No verifiable incidents as those described in the warning have ever happened. Follow through to Snopes for more info:
http://www.snopes.com/critters/snakes/ballpit.asp

Another source of info is at BreakTheChain.org, and this one matches the text in the “Alert.doc” forwarded below more closely:
http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/ballpit.html

And finally, for an unraveling of the syringe aspect of the story, back to Snopes:
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/parental/archer.asp

Synopsis: No evidence of any snake-related deaths or syringe-related deaths from children’s ball pits.

Now, here’s where it gets slightly tricky. All the sources above do concede that ball pits are not the cleanest of areas, with some questionable items occasionally found in them, of the kind mentioned in the “alert”. However, most businesses spot clean the play areas daily, with a more thorough cleaning at least once a week. At least, that should be the policy. So, the smart thing to do would be to check with the management of any place that has these kinds of play areas on their cleaning policy. If you want to be extra careful, ask to see the cleaning log to know when was the last time they cleaned the pit and the individual balls.

I say this to protect the franchise owners, because they also suffer from the spread of these rumours. So, if you are a franchise owner, or know one, maybe you should ensure that the cleaning policy suggested above is implemented, enforced, and transparently reviewable.

In the end though, what this “alert” is really trying to get everyone to do is to be more vigilant about the safety of our children.

Conclusion: Dismiss the reports of deaths; be alert for cleanliness.

Your Internet sleuth,

Already I’ve gotten a response saying, “why take the risk?” Which is a valid response. But it misses the point. The point is, any environment, if not properly managed, is potentially dangerous.

And, yes, I sign off these kinds of emails as the “Internet sleuth”, since I rely on the Internet as my source. That opens up a whole 'nother discussion on reliability of sources, which I'm not going to go into here.

Weekend in Dubai – Day 1

A continuation of my weekend in Dubai updates. Previous post was just the day of departure.

Arrived in Dubai at 3am on Friday. I slept throughout the flight. Didn’t even watch any movies. Luckily, so did A’isyah.

I rented a car since I didn’t want to be tied down to the “official” program. Most of the group hadn’t been to Dubai before, so they had arranged a full program for sight-seeing. Since I’ve already lived in Dubai for almost two years, I wanted to do my own thing.

I was supposed to bunk with some officemates at their apartment, which was a place I had stayed at before. But on the plane, I was informed that the company had re-assigned my living arrangements, so I was to go to the main hotel (Arabian Park Hotel). Of course, I had no idea where this hotel was.

Thankfully, the rental car was delivered to right where the chartered bus was waiting. So when I picked up the car, the rest of the group was boarding the bus. I followed behind the bus to the hotel, which is really out in the middle of nowhere.

Rested for a bit after checking in, and then went down for breakfast around 8am. There was only one other couple from our group down at the restaurant at the time, and they were well into their breakfast already. Now, we had been informed that breakfast was included, but all of a sudden, one of the waiters comes over to their table and asks for a credit card or something for the payment. Vincent’s wife sure was surprised! And since we were sitting one table away, so was I when I overheard this. Turns out that the booking was only for the rooms, and no breakfast included. We told the staff to check the booking again, since we had been informed it was included. They did, and came back with the same info.


I was already halfway through my breakfast, so there was no backing out. So at the end, I said to Vincent that we’ll cover it first and sort it out with Joanne, the admin staff who was supposed to be in charge. So when we were done with breakfast, I asked for the bills for both our tables and charged it to my credit card. It was AED 70.00 a head! Eeks! And not even the best of breakfasts!

Vincent (or his wife, dunno who) managed to get a hold of Joanna in her room after this, and then Joanne calls our room saying that she just found out that morning that when the Dubai office made the bookings, somehow breakfast did not get included. So she said that we were on our own for the first day, and that she would try to sort it out afterwards. Of course, I gave her a piece of my mind about misinformation, and said that I would claim back the charge. She told me to give it a try.

Found out later that the rest of the group encountered the same problem later that morning, but they found out before going in. This put some people off breakfast. (Of course! Who wants to pay AED 70 for breakfast?) But Teik Lee or Chor Wah or someone made some kind of arrangement and most of them ate with the hotel charging the breakfasts to the room. Too late for us though.

After breakfast, Nany, A’isyah, Vincent and his wife, and myself went off to drive around. I decided to go to the Atlantis on the Palm Jumeirah, since that had opened already. So we went there, took a look around and took some pics.

Then we headed to Mall of the Emirates. I left the rest of them there while I went to the mosque nearby (close to the Jumeirah resort), then met up for lunch. After lunch, we headed back to the hotel to rest.

When the rest of the group had come back from their outing for that day, Vincent, Khairina, and myself went to the Jumeirah Beach Resort to check out the venue for the dinner. We wanted to recce the stage and see what we had to work with for our performance.

Coming back to the hotel we got lost. As a matter of fact, it took me several tries before finding a decent route to the hotel. Hehe. I kept taking a long way around. One route had me crossing Garhoud bridge and then re-crossing the Creek at the Business Bay Crossing. Another had me crossing Business Bay, making a u-turn at Festival City, and crossing back.

Terrible, I know. Apparently, the best route is on Oud Metha Road, passing Al Wasl Hospital, and turning at the Emarat gas station, which takes you on a back-road to the hotel.

So, we ended up arriving back at the hotel just before 6pm, and the bus was supposed to leave at 6pm. Not a problem for me, but it would be for the other two. Got ready in half an hour, then went back down. Luckily for the other two, the bus was late and it was still there, or they would have had to squeeze into the car with me.


I must say, the venue was done up nicely, with banners outside. The bagful of door gifts was pretty nice too.

We went back to a buffet dinner, after last year’s (almost unanimously voted) disastrous sit-down ala carte dinner. The food, what little of it I sampled, was alright. Nothing really to shout about, but at least decent.

For entertainment, besides our “Idol” performances (five in total), we had a Malaysian Idol in the house. Jaclyn Victor performed in between our own performances, in what was meant to be the highlight of the evening I’ll bet. I didn’t get to see most of her show, since my group was getting ready for our performance.

And speaking of our performance, we were a little “off”. I mixed up the placement for one of the lines in our haka, and there were a few coordination issues. The worse was the face makeup. Our stage makeup went missing, so we had to get last minute replacements, consisting of liquid foundation and eyeliner pencils. It didn’t really have as big of an impact, and together with the lighting problems, it wasn’t as good as our taped video performance we handed in as part of the audition stage. In the end, we were one of two teams that won consolation prizes. I’m not surprised about the winning team though, after having watched their audition video.

Of course, the lucky draw was something most looked forward to, but this year they only had 30 draws, unlike previous years where everyone won something (if only the smallest gift). The other change was that there were no trips in the prize list this time around.

The official program ended shortly after 11pm, and we headed straight back to the hotel afterwards.

Weekend in Dubai – Day 0

That title sounds a lot more glamorous than it really is. Our company sponsored the KL branch to fly out to Dubai for the Annual Dinner. And this year’s Annual Dinner was also the occasion for the 15th Year Anniversary of the company, so it was to be a grand to-do.

I’m splitting up my entries for the weekend, just to keep each entry short.

Day 0 was the day we left. We flew off on Thursday. By 6pm, practically everyone had left the office, since we had to be at the airport before 9pm. There were still a couple of stragglers, printing off and arranging some drawings on linen to lug over to Dubai for signing.

By 10pm we were checked in, but our seats were scattered throughout, splitting up families. It was a mess we had to sort out on the plane.

We boarded before midnight, and off we went.

The rest of the updates coming up.

Back in KL and the office is empty

Well, we’re back in KL after a weekend in Dubai. We were celebrating the company’s Annual Dinner, and 15th Anniversary. More on that later.

Touched down just after six this morning, and everyone headed home. Some of us didn’t opt to take leave today; we already had to take leave on Friday just to attend the dinner (can you believe the gall of that?) and some of us have run out of leave days. That includes me. Hehe.

So here I am at the office. And it’s mostly empty. No admin staff even. Courier came by at 9.50 this morning, and there was no one to answer the door. So they left the notice hanging on the front door. When I came in about 10 mins later, I found it hanging there.

Slow day in the office then. :-)