My joy was short-lived

It was good news for me when Telekom Malaysia called me informing me that my condominium flat was unifi-ready. In other words, I will be able to subscribe to unifi - a fast broadband service using optical fibre.

However, my joy was short-lived because when the technician came to install unifi, he found that the jumper for my block was not there yet. Needless to say, the man had to go back and I had to wait for the gadget to be fixed before he could do anything to bring unifi to my unit.

The package that I subscribe to is VIP5 which stands for Video, Internet and Phone with download speed at 5MB/sec. My present Streamyx speed is 2MB per second. There are two other packages, viz VIP10 and VIP20 with higher speed.

Looks like it will be quite some time before I will be able to enjoy the above high speed broadband Internet service.

My Ride on Maglev train

One of my memorable experience while in Shanghai, China was to have a chance to ride on the Maglev train. It is a type of train whose forward movement is caused by a magnetic field. Hence it can travel smoothly and fast. The blurred image of my camera caught the speed at 301 km/hr. In fact it fluactuates between 300 km/hr and 301 km/hr.

According to the tourist guide, the Chinese government bought the patent right of the German technology and had it run in Shanghai - an attraction to foreign touriests.

I really enjoyed my ride on the smooth and almost quiet ride on the Maglev.

This is where you buy your Maglev train ticket



Side view of Maglev train


Waiting to board the Maglev train


Speed of Maglev train: 301 km/hr

How to lose 5 kg in two days

Last Friday, I was admitted to hospital to enable Lower GI Endoscopy to be carried out and surgery to be done to my bleeding piles. On the day before the procedures, I was asked to take a laxative at 5.00p.m. to purge my large intestines of all the faeces. I had a hard time running to the loo five or six times before I did not have to urge to release things from my anus. At 5.00 a.m. on last Friday, I had to take another laxative to completely clear my intestines of the remnants of the faeces so that the endoscopy can be done.

Do you know what? When the nurse weighed me in the hospital, I lost five kilograms within two days! I wonder how heavy the colon's contents weigh.

Anyway, if it is a way to lose your weight this fast, do you dare to do it?

Look before you leap

I fell three days ago for tripping over a stone on the tarred road in the parking lot of my condominium thanks to being not mindful.

You see, I was turning my head to the left while continuing my walk and when I realised that my left foot had kicked something protruding from the ground, it was too late. I tried hard to balance myself but failed and I landed with my right elbow touching the rough and jagged surface causing it to bleed because of abrasion. I quickly ran to reach my unit and had it washed with Dettol solution and pressed with gauze to stop the bleeding after which acroflavine is applied to the wound. Bandaging was done after that. As I was a first-aider before, doing all these is not new to me.

It taught me a good lesson. You must 'look before you leap' that is watch your steps when you walk so that you won't trip over anything and be in my plight now with the wound still hurting.

Two civic-minded Malay girls

I was travelling by bus with my brother when I was touched by the act of two teenage Malay girls.

We were on our way to Balik Pulau to see our 86-year-old mother who stays with our sister there. The bus was packed and we had to stand. After a while, the two girls in front of us rose from their seats and offered them to us. By the way, my brother and I are senior citizens and they must have known that acted accordingly to show respect to us in this way.

Moral education works better in real life situation.

Thank you girls, whatever your names are.

Pearly sprout

I would like to share an interesting thing about nature in this post. When I was in Li Jiang, Yunnan, I marvelled at a water source called Pearl River Source (Zhen Chu Quan). It was so named because, when we clap our hands above the water surface, pearly droplets of water will sprout from the crystal-clear river bed. I have never seen a river such as this before. According to the Naxian tourist guide, the water is alkaline and the local people who drink this water will stay slim. What a way to be slim economically! This must be good news for ladies and lasses.

This river source is named 'Zhen Chu Quan'

Pearly drops of water will sprout from the river bed when hands are clapped

Invaded by False Alarm

I was surfing the net for some information when a program called My Security Shield appeared on my screen. It told me that my computer had viruses in drive C, windows and documents subdirectory. Then it asked me to click remove viruses. I fell to its trap and clicked it and it installed a program which became a nuisance to me because I could not delete the exe file. It kept reminding me that my computer had viruses. It even disabled my taskmaster so that I could not delete the program at all. The unlocker program which I downloaded could not do the job too. In the end, I had to do Windows Sistem Restore to get rid of this program. Later I did the scanning of my computer, it proved to be false alarm after all.

So readers, when you come across such a situation, do not panic as I do to avoid this vicious program. If I had shut down my computer and restarted everything would be back to normal.

Lack of courtesy

Last weekend I went down to Kuala Lumpur to attend my daughter's convocation. We spent a night in Corus Hotel near Wisma MCA where the convocation ceremony would be held. In fact, we just had to walk across the pedestrian flyover and went about 200 steps to reach the venue.

The receptionist manning the check-in counter was the worst I had ever met. He refused to see the reference number of the online booking I did two weeks before. Instead he asked for my IC. What is the use of doing online booking when you had to do the same thing exactly as you had not booked the hotel and went to check in personally. He did not say words like 'Welcome to Corus Hotel' or any utterance of welcoming the guest. He acted like a dumb keying in information. There were guests behind me and he did not even acknowledge their presence by say 'Please wait awhile. I will attend to you real soon.' Then he handed me two slips of paper to claim my room keys at 2.00pm because I registered earlier.

When I returned to the hotel after lunch, another receptionist who attended to me was another voiceless being. He did not say a thing after receiving the two slips I gave him but just keyed in something before he produced the two room keys to me. I expected him ti say 'Have a nice stay here.' But no. He just pushed the two keys to me and there was it. At least he must point to me where to take a lift up the sixth floor because I was not familiar with the geography of the hotel.

The last complaint I like to voice here about the hotel is the lack of courtesy. When I checked out, it was another receptionist who handled the job. It was a silent affair to the end. When I finally gave him the credit card and sighned the receipt and got the duplicate back, he did not say 'Thank you' - a basic manner expected of the front line personnel. I don't understand why this hotel could employ such people to man the front counters.

Another way to convert ami pro files to word

I had a lot of amipro files because in the past amipro was a very popular wordprocesser. As I went through my old files, I found that I had quite a lot of such files which I can't read with MS Word now.

I downloaded Wordport the trial version hoping to do the job of converting my amipro files to word files. Alas, the software writer had made it a point to purposely mispell words and alter figures. I had to read every word of the converted version to get rid of the nonsense.

Now, I have found a better way to convert my amipro files to Word. All you need is to download a file viewer such as Quick View Plus. Have the program read the file you want and you just highlight the whole document, right click, save and paste it in your Word.

Using the method, I managed to convert all my amipor files to Word although the trial version can only be used for 30 days but I have done my job. For those who still possess amipro files, you can try it. Best of luck to you.

Day 4 in Ward 306

This is the day I have been looking forward to. Why? Because I will be discharged from hospital. Initially I was supposed to go home at 6.00 p.m. However, the nurse had come to give me the intravenous injection of mesporin at 5.12 a.m., Dr H’ng had instructed the nurse to administer the drug at 4.00 p.m. so that I could go back earlier. I thanked the doctor for being so understanding because he had known that I was too eager to leave the ward.

The quiet ward was full of life at around 9.30 a.m. when three Indonesians came for medical examinations and one more Indonesian came to undergo operation of a growth under his spleen. I struck up conversation with all of them and got the above information.

I was reading my newspapers which I bought downstairs before assessing the Internet with my old faithful – my HP iPaq Pocket PC. to idle away the time before 4.00 p.m. The lunch was quite all right this after for I was given Tomato Rice. The curried chicken was delicious.

Finally the nurse came to give me the last dosage of mesoporin and immediately after that I headed to the Insurance department downstairs to do the necessary procedure before collecting my medicine. Then I said good-bye to Island Hospital and drove my car which was parked in the hospital compound for four days home. It was a happy moment for me.

Day 3 in Ward 306

The patient on my right looked very happy and when I asked him why he was so elated he conveyed the good news that the doctor had agreed to discharge on the day before noon. This man was actually a General Manager of a company selling mobile phone accessories. Hence he had to resume his duty on the following Monday after having two days’s rest at home.

The young man who had torn his leg’s tendon was waiting for his father to take him back too. He had to come to therapy sessions regularly after his discharge from hospital. I will always remember his sweet smile when he thanked me for helping him to open the washroom’s door.

Before I knew the two Indonesians opposite my bed were also discharged and they said good-bye to me at around 12.00 noon. By 1.00p.m. I was the lone lodger in the ward.

Hence I spent the whole afternoon assessing the Internet and preparing some Malay lessons with the laptop brought for my use by my daughter. I completed what I had to do so and shut down the laptop. When my wife came with my daughter in the evening, I asked her to take it back because I was all alone and the electronic gadget might not be safe when I went to the washroom.

At night, I was a bit scared and kept reading my mantra before going to sleep.

Day 2 in Ward 306

Lack of sleep made me a bit drowsy. The 8.00 a.m. breakfast consisted of beehoon soup which tasted flat and a cup of warm Milo.

My daughter and wife came bringing me my newspapers - The Star and Kwang Wah Yit Poh. This time I had what I needed most - sweater to keep the cool air of the room away. I complained about being 'nearly frozen' the night before and asked my daughter to bring me something thick to wear.

When they were back, I spent the whole morning reading the newspapers. In between I talked to the room-mate on my right. From the conversation with him, I learnt that he had undergone an operation to sever part of his infected small intestine two days ago.

As for the young man on my left, he seemed to enjoy watching movies on his laptop. When he needed to enter the washroom, I helped to open the door for him because both of his hands were on the walker and it would be difficult to open the door as it would close automatically because of the spring mechanism above it. This is really not patient friendly. I did the same thing when he wanted to come out.

At around 9.00 a.m. Dr. H'ng came. I asked to be discharged but he disagreed because I had to complete the intravenous antibiotic (mesporin) for another three days. He told me I had infection because I had temperatures even on the second day.

After feeling bored reading my newspapers, I started to surf the Internet. I accessed my e-mail first. Then I went on to read Google and BBC news.

The nurse came every now and then to give me medicine and take my blood pressure as well as my body temperature during which time I had to be in bed.

Later I had the chance to talk to the patient opposite my bed. He had stools stained with blood and his blood kept decreasing. According to the doctor his stomach needed stitching or cut to decrease it. The family hesitated whether to allow the operation to be done or not. The quiet man on his left talked only in Indonesian and I had some difficulty in understanding. It seemed that his intestine was infected and needed no operation. He had medication and would be discharged soon.

Day 1 in Ward 306

I will now relate my experience staying in Ward 306 of a private hospital in Penang.

From Dr H'ng's clinic I was ushered to my ward after clearing the payment via my insurance card.
Before allowing me to enter the ward, the nurse at the counter had my height and weight taken and asked me questions such as 'Are you suffering from hypertension, diabetes, asthma?" and "What drugs are allergic to?" I answered in the negative.

When I finally reached my bed, I was the fifth inpatient of the ward. On my left was a young man whose legs were bandaged. A middle-aged man was on my right. He kept resting and pressing his left palm close to his tummy. Opposite my bed were two Indonesian patients. On the left was a talkative old man and on the right was a quiet man who preferred reading newspaper to chatting.

Soon, a nurse came to read my blood pressure with a machine and my body temperature using an ear-thermometer. I must be excited because my blood pressure went up to 150/86. It could also be my walking quite a distance before being in the ward.

Before I could have a chance to know my ward-mates, another 'Florence Nightingale' came and inserted a plastic tube through one of the veins at he back of my left hand. Then she injected an antiotic (which I later found out to be mesoporin) through this tube. It is kwown as an intravenous injection because the liquid medicine goes into our body through the vein instead of through our mouth. The same nurse also asked me to swallow a capsule which I later learnt to be transamin - a medicine to stop bleeding.

By then it was 3.00 p.m. and I felt a bit hungry because I only ate some bread in the morning. The nurse told me that dinner would be served by 5.30 p.m. and a cup of Milo would come at 4.00 p.m. I was in the least prepard for this stay and hence did not bring anything. I went down to the store selling newspaper to buy a bottle of mineral water to quench my thirst.

I informed my wife that I was admitted to hospital and asked her to bring my HP iPaq Pocket PC, a tumbler, toothbrush, toothpaste, razer-blade, towel and other things which she thought that could be of use to me while staying in the ward as the doctor had said that I had to stay for a few days.

When dinner came, I was very happy because I was very hungry then. Though the fish and vegetables tasted so horrible, I enjoyed eating them because they would make drive away my hunger. When it was visiting time, my wife brought my PDA and other things. My daughter who had a weeks' experience driving her new car ferried her here. She asked me whether I needed her laptop and I told her I didn't feel the need to use one as I had my pocket pc which was as good as a computer.

I spent the whole night before sleep accessing e-mails through my pocket pc and I read the latest results of the World Cup through my handheld computer too. In between I was distured by the nurse who came to give me medicine or read my blood pressure and body temperature.
When I was just dozing off a staff nurse came to administer the mesoporin antibiotic intravenously through the plastic tube attached to my left hand. After that I slept until a nurse woke me up at 4.00 a.m. to take my blood pressure and body temperature.

That's what transpired on the first day of my stay in Island Hospital.

Warded for urinary bladder infection

I am back blogging again after being admitted to hospital for 4 days. Last Friday, when I urinated I noticed some reddish particles coming out with the urine. On rubbing them with tissue, these particles proved to be blood. Hence I rushed to my family doctor in a private hospital. I told the doctor what had happened. His initial diagnosis was urinary tract infection. I was asked to have my urine tested for the presence of bacteria and have my ultrasound scanning of my internal organs especially kidneys and urinary bladder. So I went to the toilet to urinate and the urine turned red this time. However, the ultrasound scanning showed no mass in the kidney or urinary bladder.

The doctor gave one antibiotic and ural to cleanse my bladder and sent me home. Later, I found that more blood appeared in blood as I peed. I had no choice but to go back to the hospital for further action. Straight away, he put me in the ward and had an intravenous antibiotic called mesporin administered there and then besides giving me an anti-bleeding capsule termed transamin to swallow. The combination of drugs worked as the bleeding stopped by 8.00pm. I asked to be discharged the next day but the doctor disagreed because I had to complete the course of mesporin. That explained why I had to be in hospital for 4 days.

The urine result showed the presence of E-coli bacteria in my bladder. According to the doctor, the E-coli could have come from my intestine. E-coli is normally present in uncooked beef. I have never eaten any beef and I did not know how E-coli had gone into my body. Anyway, the bacteria can cause sores on the wall of urinary bladder causing bleeding and the blood will come out together with the urine.

I shall tell readers my experience in the hospital in my later posts.

Transferring files

I just acquired a low-end handset Nokia 2700 classic. As I had some mp3 songs in my HP Ipaq PPC, I used the bluetooth to do the transferring job and it works perfectly.

Now I just need to take out the SD Flash card from my PPC and had my audio files transferred from desktop to it. Then I will use it to transfer them to my Nokia handset via bluetooth because I still have not bought the USB cable meant for this handset.

It will quite some time I have to do this before I get the relevant cable to do file transfer from my desktop to my new mobile phone.

My first experience in riding a new motorcycle

When I was still studying in a teachers' college in Penang, I bought a Honda Cub C70 bearing number plate PN3533.

I still remember how I fell off the bike on my first day of riding out to town. As I was coming out from my village, there was a steep slope and I applied the brakes when I reached the junction. Suddenly, the machine fell sideways and I was thrown to one side with my spectacles and crash-helmet leaving my head.

When I was still in dizziness, one kind soul fetched me my glasses while another retrieved my helmet. It was after much practise riding the motorcycle that I was able to control it to go anywhere without trouble.

Do not tamper with things unknown

I was playing with my Nokia 1208 when I got into trouble. Being interested in viewing messages in Tamil, I began to set the phone's language to Tamil. I was in for trouble because I could not read Tamil and I did not write down the steps to get to the language change.

I tried in vain to set the language back to English. Now, I had an idea how to go about reverting the language to English. I have to borrow a similar Nokia set and do parallel things until I come to the language change menu.

This taught me a lesson not to tamper with things unknown or else I will in the predicament as I am in now.

Thumbs up to the Internet

My pocket pc keeps telling me that I have low memory. Ironically I have a 1G SD with still half the capacity to contain files. Later I figure out that it must be the device that is running out of memory. The culprit must be the Internet temporary files. However, I have no idea what should be done to delete these files.

As the Internet has helped me solve many of my problems related to computer, I quicky typed 'how to delete tempory in windows mobile' in the search box. I was given a few files to read and I simply chose one and followed the instructions. Now, my ppc does not complain of low memory anymore. Should it do that again, I will know what to do, thanks to the Internet.

Thumbs up to the Internet.

The smell and me

I do not whether you have the same experience as mine when it comes to recalling events when certain smell invades your nostrils.

Usually, the smell of food used in connection with certain function such as weddings, xin nian (Chinese New Year) will invariably land me in fantasy land where I visualise myself participating in the events when I was still a young boy. I can't explain this happens.

Besides smell, music that I hear especially old songs often brings me retrospectively to days in the past. I really like to immerse myself in the events mentally for a moment. It is said that our brain can register millions of things that we see, hear, touch, taste or smell. That may explain the experience I will be undergo whenever certain smell or music make their presence felt.

Another Internet Scam

I just received an e-mail from 'Public Bank' telling me that my e-banking has been blocked and I have to go to a site indicated to key in my ac number, user id and password. I knew it was an Internet scam.

However, I clicked the site to see what it looked like. My good browser or my genuine windows 7 Internet securities tells me that it is a fake site and refused to take me there. Anyway, should readers come across such an email, do not respond to it or your money will be syphoned by the syndicate.