IBM - Idiotic Bloody Machines

Good day everyone!

It is me, your long lost blogging friend. Still checking my blog every now and then? Well your patience and perseverance have paid off! Today, I return with a new post! And what compelled me to write a new post?... My new company laptop.

A couple of weeks ago, I was told that I would be getting a new laptop for work. Well it was about bloody time I say! My current laptop is a piece of shit. I've actually adopted a routine that revolves around this oldy moldy laptop. When I reach the office in the morning, I will press the power button to boot it up.

Then I go take a walk around the airport just to make sure that my operations are running smoothly.

Then I go get some breakfast.

Then I read the newspaper.

Then I go to the toilet to offload the remains of my digested breakfast.

Then I sweep the floor.

Then I clean the windows.

Then I ponder and work on my astrophysics mathematical equation that will unravel the mysteries of the universe.

Then I twiddle my thumbs for a bit.

AND THEN! Tada! The laptop will chime to say it is ready for me to log in with my username and password. Of course, by then I only have 10 mins left before I knock off from work so I will rush through my emails and finish up with whatever I can do.

So it comes as no surprise that I was pretty pleased that I would finally get a new machine so that I can chuck my current laptop into the pits of technology hell. Goodbye you stinking piece of poo.


Fast forward to 6 weeks later, a guy from UPS knocks at my office door and delivers a box with "Lenovo Thinkpad" splashed all over it. Good lord, a lenovo thinkpad? Thats exactly what the old computer was. Essentially, it was the same old IBM Thinkpad with a new name. I looked at the specs at the side of the box.

- Intel core i3 processor: Core i3?? Isn't intel rocking the core i7 chips now? What is this i3 shit?
- 2 GB memory: 2 GB?? Hey, my computer had 2 GB of RAM too.....8 years ago.
-Windows 7 professional: Goodness, they might as well install a virus that would cause the computer to self destruct once you turn it on.

An engineer was soon sent to my office to setup the new laptop. He installed all the software I required for my work and migrated my email data. Once it was done, he handed the black laptop to me and said it was ready for use. Immediately, I ran into trouble.

My email wouldn't work! All the important info and work that I needed to do were in there and it just refused to work! Instead, I was bludgeoned with error messages that I could not understand! Was it telling me that my email was setup wrongly? Was it telling me that there were corrupted files? Was it telling me that it could not detect the correct network settings? In the end, I concluded that all the gibberish that was flashing before my eyes loosely translated to "only morons will have lotus notes installed on windows 7 in a thinkpad". In fact, those 3 things on their own can be considered catastrophic. Why would you mix 3 poisons together to make an even bigger disaster??

I wanted to print out the error messages to show the technical help desk but of course, I did not have "administrative privileges" to install the printer so I had to get technical help for that too. Clicking on the "control panel" to make adjustments to the settings in the computer only made the hourglass icon spin for an eternity before anything happened. Even a snail crawling backwards from Spain to Germany would get there faster.

To cut a long story short, I spent the next 2 days over the phone with my company's IT department's helpdesk trying to get everything sorted out. Not really the technological advancement I was hoping for. In the end, I'm still stuck with rubbish that does not make my life or work easier at all. Phooey.

I sincerely hope that you guys are not facing the same crap as I am. Of course, if you're using a mac, you'll be reading this post and chuckling to yourself before moving on to do other stuff on your computer effectively and without any problems. For the rest who are using windows, your computer probably hung or flashed some error message before you even got to the end of this post.

Mountain views, wild boar for lunch and a waterfall

Howdy! Como Esta?

The Sunday that just passed was pretty interesting and eventful for me. It all began with an invitation from the company lawyer to go to his holiday home up in Montseny, a mountain just north of Barcelona city. Its wild boar season in Barcelona now you see, and there's this great restaurant in Montseny that is famous for hunting wild boar, aging the meat for 2 weeks and then cooking up a mean stew with it. Fresh mountain air and wild boar stew! How could I say no?

So along with my colleague Terence, we made the one hour drive to Montseny and up to the little mountain village. The booking at the restaurant was for 1:30pm and we reached there at about a quarter past one. Before heading to the restaurant, we took in the view from John’s holiday home in the mountain.

We left John’s apartment and strolled down the little lanes of the village towards the town square. It's a quaint little Spanish mountain town. It has it's own baker, butcher, wine cellar, little grocery store and 5 restaurants. It's all little cobbled lanes and there was a little area with a sunday market going on. Very rustic!
1:30pm. We went into the restaurant and took our seats. Good thing we had a reservation coz the restaurant was small and cosy but very crowded! There was also a long line of people queueing up. You can tell that this was the right place for wild boar coz there were wild boar heads all over the place!! Can you see them? They look pretty fierce and not very happy. I guess they keep the big ones as trophies. John and his wife proceeded to order the food. They ordered salad with cold cuts, snails (yummy!!!), wild mushrooms in garlic butter and charcoal roasted bread for starters. After that we had the wild boar stew. I was so stuffed after the lunch. And the lunch lasted 2 hours plus coz everyone ate slowly and talked a lot! The European way of eating and the asian way is very different. They really eat slowly, talk a lot and sip their wine. I think we should adopt that habit. I think we eat too fast. Ok maybe this advice is more for me.

After the really full and satisfying meal, and a lot of talking about lots of random stuff, we went for a walk around the area. There are little trails all over the mountain that you can have nice walks in. There are also random springs that you can drink from! Like natural springs trickling down the rock and you just drink from it! Better than evian I reckon coz there's no weird mineral taste in the water. After about 40 mins, we finished our walk and headed back to John’s apartment for tea and coffee. It was quite nice and refreshing to have a walk with fresh mountain air after so much food.

After getting back to John’s apartment, we all sat down and chatted a bit more while John’s wife made the tea and coffee. John and Terence were talking about politics in Spain, Singapore and Malaysia. I was feeling a bit sleepy and just spaced out for a bit. Politics wasn't really my thing. In fact, being up in a mountain, I started to daydream about swooshing around on my snowboard in white powder snow, feeling the cold wind rush by, the snow spray whenever I slice through the snow to change directions. Suddenly, there was a loud bang like an explosion from the kitchen!! I was jolted from my daydream (which ended with a volcano eruption thanks to the bang). We all rushed in and almost immediately there was water everywhere!! The water pipe in the heater unit had burst and there was water gushing everywhere! At the same time, the electricity went out and as the sun was already setting, the whole apartment was very dark. Everyone was shocked and John was frantic. The apartment was getting seriously flooded! While John’s wife was frantically calling for help on the phone, John, Terence and I were trying to contain the water by mopping the floor and throwing towels around and trying to catch the gushing water in pails and bailing them in the sink. My snowboarding thoughts were somehow replaced by one of me surfing the waves in summer now. Bizarre how my brain can still daydream in the midst of a crisis. Anyway, water was flooding the whole apartment! We were ankle deep in water! It was such a sudden and shocking event! We were probably at it for a good 20 mins before someone finally showed up and turned off the mains that was outside the building!

Gosh. It was a bit funny but I felt so sorry for John. He was also feeling bad and kept apologising to me and Terence and thanked us for the help. Some of the neighbors also showed up to help mop up the water. Finally, when the situation was under control, we left at around 730pm. I got home at around 840pm and finally took off my shoes and socks that were soaked. Despite the mad end to the day, I quite enjoyed my day trip. I'll just remember to wear rubber boots and a raincoat the next time John invites me up to his holiday home again. Phew.

Garfield buddy boy

Hola everyone!

So you thought I've forgotten about Garfield? NO! Till today, I am very pleased with myself for saving him from being a wandering stray in Saudi Arabia. He's now a well loved, albeit spoilt cat in Singapore. To see how he's doing, check out Celine's post about him in her blog! Garfield's Bath



Isn't he just the cutest?

Adios Amigos!

Hello everyone!

Today's post is dedicated to the guys whom I worked with in Jeddah. I've worked with many people in my life, but none are quite like this bunch. They came from all walks of life, all sorts of backgrounds. Whether they were victims of circumstance, or just plain adventurous, they all came to make a living.

No where else have I seen a collection of Arabs, Pakistanis, Indians, Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis, Filipinos, Yemeni etc etc working together harmoniously towards a common goal. Ok, harmonious would be really stretching it. More often then not, it was like a cacophonous riot than a melodious harmony. However, we were still a team.

Yes it was a tough and challenging experience for me in Jeddah, and sometimes these guys contributed to the hardships I faced. However, its also these same guys that helped me get through it. I sincerely believe that they were genuinely trying their best despite having daunting limitations due to the infrastructure, the imbecilic authorities or even their personal problems. The fact that they were also in a foreign land, trying to make sense of the madness is not lost on me.

At the end of the day, they came through. Every now and then, they would infuriate me. But they also made me laugh, helped me when I was in need of it and respected me as the manager of the team. I won't forget that. Thanks for the rock and roll amigos!

The "Eh!?!?" Team

The JEDSQ airport team and my successor

The last time I go through this boarding gate

Uno Big Mac Menu por favor

Hola!

Not bad eh? I can ask for a big mac meal in Spanish! I will not go hungry in Spain!! Or will I?

It all began one sunny afternoon on my second last day in Jeddah. After two years in Saudi Arabia, I managed to accumulate about eight thousand Saudi riyals in cash. With the money tucked neatly into an inconspicuous unlabeled envelope, I asked one of my colleagues to bring me to a money changer in town.

So after bargaining for a good rate and handing over the Riyals in exchange for Euros, I received three crisp 500€ notes, one pristine 100€ note and three 20€ notes. Brilliant!

Fast forward to a week ago. After being in Barcelona for about 2 weeks, my 100€ note and 20€ notes have been used. I was left with the three 500€ notes that I kept in the special compartment in my wallet, always kept safely and close to me as pick pocketing is rampant in Spain. I was hungry. It was lunch time. So what did I do? I popped over to the MacDonalds near my house and keen to order a big mac meal like a local, I said chirpily, " Uno big mac menu por favor? ". That just means one big mac meal please. The girl behind the counter replied with a barrage of Spanish that made no sense to me at all! I was dumbfounded. "UH...."

She then proceeded to point at the options for the meal. Did I want special waffle fries? Or just the normal french fries? Did I want a softdrink, wine or beer? ( Yes you can choose wine or beer for the drink in your meal for the same price!!! Is that fantastic or what?? ) So I nodded like a retard and my patata fritas (french fries) and coca cola ( coca cola ) were keyed in to go along with my big mac. And the damage? 6.15€. Sure thing! So I whipped out my wallet from my super secure storage compartment of my bag and handed over the first of my 500€ notes.

The girl behind the counter froze. She looked like I was trying to rob her. Funny thing was, I wasn't. I was trying to give her money. Not ask for money. Maybe they pay in a different way here in Spain. "No no no no (enter rapid spanish gibberish mambo jambo here)" I didn't have a clue what she was saying. But I had an inkling that it had something to do with my 500€ note. Maybe she didn't have change? At that moment, the manager came out and spoke to me in broken English. She informed me that they were not allowed to take such big notes as 1. they did not have change and 2. they had no way to verify if it was a genuine note.

I was hungry. I had 1500€ in my wallet. But no one would sell me something to eat. Bemused, I left MacDonalds and went home to eat a muesli bar and some fruit.

Going to work the next day, I recounted my experience to my colleagues and they laughed. Apparently, the 500€ is so rare that people rarely see it in day to day transactions. Furthermore, no places would accept this note unless they were selling big ticket items. Such places would usually have some kind of device to check the authenticity of the note. On hind sight, if it were in Singapore, what I did would be like going to MacDonalds for a big mac meal and handing the cashier a 1000 dollar note. Probably wouldn't work back home too huh? Eventually, I went to a bank in the airport and broke the 500€ note into 100s and 50s. I had my big mac meal after that.

Hola! Como ¿Estas?

Hello everyone!

Yes! I have landed in Barcelona! Ok, I actually landed three weeks ago but its been a crazy three weeks for me. I would've preferred to give you all an update sooner but I've been so busy with work and settling in that I could only really sit down and bang out a blog entry now.

So! Is Barcelona an improvement over Jeddah? CLARO. ( "Claro" means "of course" in Spanish ) Life here is good. The city is beautiful. The people are nice. The scenery is good. The air is fresh. The colors are vibrant. The weather is fantastic. There is a whole section in the supermarket devoted to hams/sausages/bacon. There are women walking around instead of ninjas. I can have a beer with my iberian ham during dinner. Driving is no longer a gamble with the grim reaper. You catch my drift? Life here, is life.

However, not everything is smooth sailing and cheery though. As with life, there will always be issues. I MUST learn how to speak Spanish! Everyone here speaks Spanish ( ahem, you are in Spain Einsten...). I'm facing difficulties with even the most mundane tasks! For example, ordering a big mac meal at MacDonalds or shopping at the supermarket! I'll have to get this sorted soon though coz I cannot imagine trying to explore the place without a basic command of the language.

Also, my apartment isn't really what I expected. Let's just say that this isn't a place I'd willingly rent for myself. I would give you a tour of the place as I did when I first got to Jeddah but then there are 2 rooms that are filled with boxes right now so I will wait for that to be cleared before I take some photos and introduce the apartment to you. However, I am looking to move so maybe you won't get to see this place after all. It all depends on how long it'll take for my resident's permit to be approved. Can't rent a new place without one. Shit. Hmmm, I have to go find out how to say shit in Spanish. My iPhone's Spanish dictionary doesn't list it. Hmph.

Other than that, work has been driving me bonkers. Within a week of my arrival, I had to deal with French air traffic controller strikes and even a Spanish General Strike! Hours and hours of stress and planning. But, by the grace of God, I managed to get through it all. There's still a heap of challenges in store for me but I know that I'll get through it. I always do.

Right, I'll wrap up for now but I will update soon on my adventures in Barcelona! Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Next Chapter

Hola!

YES! The day that I have been looking forward to since 1 year, 11 months and 24 days ago is finally around the corner. In fact, its so close I can almost smell it. Smells like, wet grass after an afternoon shower. Smells like the morning dew with a glazing of sunrise. Smells like the ocean spray as the waves crash against the rocks. Smells like eggs benedict and a giant glass of mango juice from Panette's. Smells like pesticide.....oh no wait, that's not right. That's just how my house smells now coz the fumigator fella just walked past the porch while blasting the whole place with pest killing white smoke. Now where was I?

Ah right, the bliss of finally being able to leave this place for good. Is it really that bad you ask? No, of course not. This place would be brilliant if you love sand in your underwear, bad smelling people and ultimate frustration. I'd highly recommend it if you enjoy living life to the absolute minimum. No booze, no women, no vice and no entertainment. Every abstaining celibate's wet dream. Here, you can experience total zen and attain a state of nirvana. Of course you don't want to go out and tell anyone that you've attained nirvana or even mention the word "nirvana" coz you'd be stoned to death or beheaded just for mentioning a different religion.

Looking back, I'm pretty amazed at myself for being able to last that long here. Hope is a powerful thing. People used to tell me rubbish like, "oh don't worry, this posting will only be 1 year plus." So after a year, I began wondering when I'd be released. What I wasn't told was that it was gonna be 1 year plus 12 months. Its like running a marathon. You just keep at it till you see the finish line. You might be suffering, in pain and out of breath but you just keep running. Sooner or later, you'll get there.

I did learn a lot from my time here. Not just about the job but also about life. I have a renewed understanding and appreciation for all the blessings I have in my life. Funny how so many people I know are complaining about how crap and shitty their situations are, when they barely even skim the surface of what true misery is. They really need to open their eyes and see beyond their shallow shell of a comfort zone. But I shan't rant about that here. This post is a happy one. This post marks the end of one chapter in my life, and the beginning of another.

Time to move on. This has definitely been a once in a lifetime experience. And once is enough. Ciao~

May the force, find you a new job

Have you guys ever seen an aircraft marshaler? You know, the fella standing in front of an aircraft on the tarmac, in his day-glo vest and holding two tiny light sabers? He'll be waving the light sabers around to direct the aircraft in to the parking bay. Well, maybe some of you might not have seen such a person before coz in most places, the airports are modern and they have cool high-tech guiding systems to guide the pilots in to park their aircraft. However, the current airport I'm working in was built around the time when man first discovered fire so its pretty much a stoner. Thus my little JEDi aircraft marshaler buddy still has to do his thing in order for the pilots to park here.

Today was no exception. Once the aircraft landed, the JEDi master - let's call him Muthu SkiveWanker, positioned himself with his light sabers. He was all set to guide the aircraft in with the force. The force of pre determined, orchestrated movements of his arms that will tell the pilots when to turn, go straight and finally stop. What a responsibility! And for that few moments, everything depended on him.

So with his flapping arms and swooping gestures illuminated by his 2 red light sabers, it was like watching a weed monkey waving around 2 glowing fire bananas. But today, Muthu SkiveWanker might've been doing his dance a little too enthusiastically. I watched, half in horror and half bemused as one of his light sabers slipped and flew out of his hands! The JEDi master lunged for his fallen light stick but instead of picking it up, his hand grabbed at air as his left foot kicked the light stick further away! But SkiveWanker would not be fazed by this little setback. With a tight roll on the ground, he picked up the light saber and was quick to get back on his feet.

But alas, the recovered light saber seemed to have lost its power! It was no longer illuminated, but not to worry coz the force was strong in this one. As any JEDi master would, Muthu started banging the dead light saber against the palm of his other hand. You know how you always bang the end of a torchlight with weak batteries to try to knock some life into it? He was doing exactly that. Now bearing in mind that his other hand was still holding the second illuminated light stick, I could only imagine what the cockpit crew were seeing from their point of view and what signals and instructions were they receiving? The crazy waves and zig zagging of light from SkiveWanker's actions might've told them to push to full throttle and perform a wheelie, before ending off with a 360 degree doughnut drift into the parking spot. That would've been spectacular, but I'm glad they didn't do it.

So back to Muthu SkiveWanker. He did manage to bring the light saber back to life and quickly returned to his original position to guide the waiting aircraft in. No worries. Just another day in the life of a JEDi.