Returning to my first original blog

This is my first blog. Everything I did online started out from this initial blog. I tried lots of things and tested thousands of stuff. It is fun although most of my attempts are not successful. I get to know lots of interesting stuff which I never learn and experience before. Honestly I never study or research this much online for my blogs compare to my homework during my academic life. But my education from school did provide the foundation requires to research and study information and knowledge in order to explore the online world easily. I suppose you’ll never know the usefulness of things that you’ve learned until you needed them.

I stop posting in this blog for at least couple of years. I suppose I was getting bored and running out of ideas what to write or blog. I began to try out other things online and left this blog unattended for some time. I totally forgot about this blog until I felt the urge to blog again. Well, a place to voice out my opinion or thought is much more appropriate. Actually I never did stop blogging. I own and manage other blogs too but those are not the platform I choose to voice out the things that are running freely in my mind. This is the only blog that I choose to throw in all the rubbish created in my mind. Other blogs that I created have specific topic and purpose. I try not to mix them all up together.

Why I decided to write again in this blog? Well, I suppose I need a place which I can express myself freely. It feels great to do so. I felt like holding my breath when I don’t have a place to write what I think. Previously I set a lot of rules and style on how I should post in this blog. From now on I will just blog freely as I like. I suppose this blog will become a place for me to release my tension, pressure and ease my mind.

The view from back seat of the car

I’m always the person who drivers the car when it comes to traveling. That’s the faith of having my own car. Unless somebody else offering me a ride, driver’s seat is the only place for me. Occasionally when there is a need to car pool with family members or colleague, than there is a chance I get to experience the joy of sitting at the back of the car with my hands free.

I love travelling. I love to drive my car exploring places. The scenery along the road and the music of my choices is a wonderful way to spend my time driving. I don’t need any company on my road trip because it will spoil my original plan. Well, when you have somebody along with you in the car, conversation definitely occurs. It’s like you’re trap with another person in a small room and both of you have nothing else to do but talk. So the entertainment of choice becomes chit chat instead of enjoying the view and listening to the music. Plus the so call entertainment chit chat might become strange and uncomfortable if you’re company with a person which has a different channel of mind set.

When you’re at the back seat of the car, the view and responsibility are different. You can eat, drink, read a book, enjoy the scene along the road, play with your smart phone and working with your laptop. I suppose that is why some people prefer to hire a driver. But I think they are trying to make the time either for work or rest while they are on the road.

P/S: I still prefer to drive alone instead of having others to drive me around.

The End of 2010 and The Beginning of 2011

A lot of things have been going on in 2010 and lots of changes throughout the last 12 month. Still the only thing that is not changing is my coffee. I’m still having my favorite coffee every morning. Each year when it comes to the last day of the year, it’s review time. It’s a time to look back of what we did and what improvement we should do. At most we should prepare ourselves to do better next year. This year I promise myself to work hard on blogging. I manage to write at least 2 posts a day and I hope to write at least 3 blog posts per day in 2011. My online income has improved and stable at the moment, but still haven’t reach my minimum target amount. I hope that my online earning will increase drastically next year so that I can get on with my other plans. There are lots of things that I’m hoping to achieve next year, but I have to do it one at a time step by step.

This year I manage to bring at least 3 of my blogs in the first two pages of Google search results for some keywords. I suppose next year will be focus more on making use of the traffic to make money. Frankly speaking, I will need some income to invest on my blogs and make it better. If I really want to make blogging as my full time job, I need to make enough money to survive so that I can continue blogging. The main goal is not about making a lot of money, it’s about making enough money to do what I like. In my case, it’s simply just blogging.

A Good Taste of Coffee at The Beach Hospital

Lately I have been running The Beach Hospital in Ipoh frequently because of my parents. Although it's not a big deal as it's just some simple check up and regular observation, but still it really does takes up a lot of time. Sometimes we have to wait for one whole day or more then 8 hours. As there are basically nothing that I can do but wait, I often did my waiting at a small cafe located somewhere around The Beach Hospital.

    The cafe is just a small scale of stall which only sells some coffee and desserts. As you can see in the picture, that's just about everything the cafe have. There aren't many customers because mostly these people did not come for the coffee. Most customers, just like me are here because of other reason. We all have a common goal, just that we are taking a break from waiting. We try to relax and have a cup of coffee. I ordered a regular cup of coffee and a small slice of cheese cake to go along with it. Well, to my surprise the price is a lot lower then I expected. It's definitely a lot cheaper then having coffee from those famous franchise coffee shop. I was served with a cup of black coffee, couple pack of sugar, a small cup of creamer and of cause the small slice of cheese cake. My second surprise starts here. The coffee actually taste good. It's not local Malaysia brew coffee where you have the strong taste and kick. It taste more like foreign coffee similar with those that you get from Starbucks, Coffee Bean or MacDonald. After mixing the black coffee with sugar and creamer, it taste much better. I happened to enjoy the cup of coffee for about half an hour. Although I have a lot of time to enjoy the coffee, unfortunately coffee taste good only when it's hot. I have no choice but to finish the coffee while it still taste good.

    I suppose coffee taste better when you have time to enjoy it. Well, in my situation my intention was to kill time rather then spare my time particularly for the coffee. Perhaps one other ingredient that makes coffee taste better is the waiting.

P/S: Hospitals are well known about bad taste of food. I'm glad that I still manage to find some good coffee while waiting. I don't suppose I can convince you to take a trip specially to The Beach Hospital in Ipoh just to try out the coffee. But if you really need to stop by there, try out the coffee. It might helps to make you feel better.

A simple, easy, safe way to become wealthy holding a low pay job

Yes, you can be wealthy even holding a low paying job. Anything is possible. You just have to know the right method to do it. I saw the article title A Simple Way to Become Wealthy at Yahoo Finance and actually agreed with the method explained. According to the article we just have to treat saving and investing like a bill and setup an automatic allotment from out paycheck. I think it’s basically a simple trick to change your mind set to make it a must instead of “do it when have extra money”. Once you’re committed to make certain percentage of your paycheck for investment, you’ll do it no matter what. It might be difficult at the beginning but once you get use to it after a few months, it just feels like taking a lower pay. If you set your salary to transfer a percentage of funds for investing automatically right after you get pay, you might not even realize the difference. All you have to sacrifice is just a couple of party beers and drive a less expensive car that’s all. If you’re able to maintain and keep on the habit of investing for more than 10 years, you’ll be rewarded.

    As for investment, you may choose mutual funds or other automatic investment. Some people even treat purchasing insurance, property or transport as a way of investment. From one point of view, it is said purchasing the above items makes you trap in a rat race of being slave by the bank. That means you borrow lots of money from the bank and the bank owns you. For some people, they just think of it as owning stuff now rather than 10 years later. Well, it’s not own by them but able to use it right now. I did ask the question why and this is what I get in return. “I’m just paying more for the banks to take care of my investment. If I don’t make it as I must pay up or I’ll risk losing everything, then I might spend all the money I earn.” I suppose this is call taking up a pressure or a risk to make a person hold on to the responsibility effectively.

Old Wooden House in the middle of a City

When you walk down the streets of a city, any city… Did you ever encounter an old wooden house that situated right between the buildings? Something like the picture above? Perhaps that is what we call a historical property. Sounds cool? Maybe so for tourists or people that walks by. It’s more like a discovery of an ancient treasure in the modern area.

    Still a house is still a house. The only thing that matters is the people who used to stay in it, especially an old house. Don’t be surprise that some of the old house used to be a place where famous people are born. Each house has a story to tell. A story related to people, the surrounding or should I say a witness or evidence of things that happen before. We used to hear people mention “I used to play around that house when I was young…” and some might even say “I built that house 30 years ago…”

    If you’re staying in an old house like that, there comes a time that you need to fix it or even abandon it because of safety purposes. The decision normally depends on how life turns out. If you have kids and they have grown up having their own job, they might not be staying in the same old house. They might have their own new house. The question is do the old parents continue to stay in the old house or do they move to stay with their children in the new house. In most cases, the old folks will move to stay with their children and sell the old house. No doubt new house is nice to stay and more comfortable with air conditioner and other new living features. Still I think most old folks are more comfortable staying in the old house where they spend half of their life there. Perhaps this is what we call the sense of belonging.

Michael Jackson Memorial Set for Tuesday 7th July 2009

11000 tickets for Michael Jackson Memorial situated inside Staples Center in LA will be free. That is definitely not enough for MJ fans. I suppose Tuesday will not be a normal day. It’s going to be a special day for MJ’s fan around the world. Many of his fans might fly themselves to LA for one last MJ event. For those that are not MJ fan but staying and working in LA, Tuesday 7th July 2009 might just be the busiest day, especially for the LA police, fireman and the officials that will be on duty that day. There will be many people and traffic is going to be congested. I just hope that everything will be running smooth as plan.

As for the fans around the world, you might want to check out your local news channel if they have live coverage of MJ Memorial on Tuesday. Some of you might have to stay awake as it might be late at night at your time zone. Anyway, I think your boss might excuse you for attending the MJ memorial in front of the TV.

The question that I found a lot of people are debating is “Do we have to do so much and spend so much for MJ memorial?” Well, in my opinion MJ brings us a lot of joy and entertainment for so many years. No doubt that he earns a lot of money and become the king of pop, but sadly he did not get to enjoy the life of a simple normal person. I suppose compare to what MJ gives us, giving a respectful goodbye is undeniable. If MJ is just a normal person just like you and me, he too deserves a simple funeral ceremony. Not to mention he is a popular super pop star, fans will be attending his funeral at the same time but in different location around the world. “Goodbye and rest in peace” from all around the world will reach MJ on Tuesday 7th July 2009.

P/S: If I’m living in LA, I might just take leave from work or school on Tuesday 7th July 2009 and stay home. I suppose it is better to sit on my couch with all the food and drink that I can have and watch MJ Memorial. I’m thinking every TV channel, radios and even the internet will be all about MJ on that day. Think twice before you decided to walk out of the door as you might just get wash away by the crowds of people.

The thing about working or studying late at night

Working late at night, especially between 12am to 3am early in the morning might not be what we plan of but sometimes it just can’t be avoided. This post is meant for those that have to work late at night. Honestly I’m the type of guy that works better during this period of time. I don’t know why but my mind works great and I can focus well without feeling sleepy. Instead if I have to drag myself wake up early in the morning and start work at 8am, my action will be taking over my mind. Even couple of black coffee won’t be able to keep my eyes open. Anyhow, some of us are night crawlers rather than the morning birds.

Let’s go back to working late at night. When it’s time for Cinderella to return home, most of the activities stop too. You can walk on the streets that use to fill with transportation, enjoying the cool fresh air without anybody around sharing it. Best of all you have the whole world as everybody is asleep. That means no disturbance or distraction from others. Instead you might find some company other than human. Problem is not all are good company. The no good company that you’ll get is the one that almost everybody hates, cockroaches. Yes, that’s right. If you ever stay up late at night, you’ll definitely see them. So it’s better to get yourself loaded with bug spray if you plan to work over night.

There are few things that I enjoy working late. First is sky, especially when the sky is clear. Either the moon will be around or the stars will take the spots. The quiet dark night just seems to be a big gigantic cinema and I’m the only one in it. The sky that fills with stars is the screen and sometimes the moon took the stage by itself. Either way it’s a visual sensation to me. During that time, instead of man made noise, we have tiny little sound that we might not be aware off. The little sound made by crickets. Although we might have some other sound for example frog but let’s just focus on the enjoyable sound. If I’m lucky I might find myself some good company too. Good company that try to light up the surrounding. Yes, fire flies. Perhaps they have what we call soft and gentle light.

Just like normal cinema, each enjoyable time last about 2~3 hours. No exceptional for the big gigantic cinema of mine. After 3am, the things around me might still be the same but the feeling might not be the same. That’s because we start feeling tired. When we feel tired, everything will turn out annoying and the only thing that we hope for is sleep. Besides the best of everything always come short, and I think that’s what makes it special.

The Black Hole within us

After long hours of work or having too much coffee, most of us might dream of having “The Black Hole” thing. The truth is we just need a break. A break from all these repeated same old fashion work load and the same old coffee taste. What will you do if you’re getting a piece of “Black Hole” as seen above? Perhaps put it on the floor and jump into it and see how deep it goes? Or perhaps change your job as a “Breaking an entry” profession? No matter what it is that you going to, this piece of “Black Hole” are going to change your life. Changes in life might be good or bad, depends on how you see it. At the end of the day you just need to feel happy about it and able to sleep well at night. The last thing that you ever wanted is getting caught or trap inside the changes or decision you made, unless you’re fine with it.

Do we need to worry about Swine flu?

Do we actually need to worry about Swine flu? Watching news about swine flu daily definitely is scary. Ever since the incident about swine flu takes place in Mexico, almost everybody is following closely to the flu news monitoring the spreading and action taken by the government. “Will swine flu ever get close to me? Will I get infected and die?” Perhaps these are the questions that most people will think of. The truth is before the swine flu gets to you, the news about swine flu might hit hard first. No doubt that swine flu is not to be taken lightly but sometimes it’s the fear towards the flu that is lethal. Take for example the mass slaughter of pigs in Egypt. Regardless if the pig has anything to do with the flu, this action might just destroy the living of many people. Not to mention that the amount of food that is destroyed, it’s just a waste. In some places people are worried more about starving to death then the swine flu. Or shall I say there are lot more deadly disease to worry about then swine flu. If we take a look around us and we can see that death cases cause by cancer, heart attack, AIDS including car accident has an incredibly large number. You don’t have to dig up the numbers and compare the statistics to understand it. You just have to recall the funeral that you’ve attended and you’ll feel the impact.

There are too many things that we need to worry about but that doesn’t mean we don’t have to take action about swine flu. The least that all of us must do is to get the facts right. Eventually knowledge about swine flu will help us through and so does the knowledge about other disease too. It’s not just about method of curing it. It’s about preventing, controlling and most importantly eliminate the fear within so we can continue our daily live without much disturbance.

Entertaining Evening Dinner with My Friend singing on stage

It’s very enjoyable when you are able to enjoy a good meal with friends while listening to the songs presented by your friends. The food might be a bit expensive than usual but given that it’s delicious and the dinning environment is great. I say it’s worth the price. Not to mention that we are able to enjoy the singing performance for about couple of hours too. That evening definitely is entertaining.

At the beginning, a friend of mine that likes to sing started out singing in restaurant just for fun. It was once in a while performance and it’s not about money but the satisfaction of able to sing in public. He also participates in song writing contest and received great results. Lately he gathered couple of his friends and form a band just for the fun to perform at various occasion. The band is called Mangroove and you may check out the website for details.

That night I was around the area where my friend has a live performance in a small restaurant. So I call out couple more friends to join me for dinner and check out their singing performance. I pick a table that is close to the stage and wait until my friends show up. As usual while waiting, I look around and observed the people around me. The table beside me sat 4 youngsters that seem wealthy. They look like college students, having lots of drinks that seem expensive without a sense of worrying about money. They laugh and talk as if they own the restaurant and nobody complain about it. Oh well, it doesn’t bother me at all. In fact it’s kind of interesting for me to watch them. At the other side at the corner of the restaurant, is table of 4 is celebrating birthday party. I’m pretty sure that it’s a birthday party for a girl. Boys normally won’t or don’t celebrate birthday party in a restaurant where all the unknown waiters and captain singing “Happy Birthday” to god knows who they sing to. Still this trick successfully make the birthday girl put on a smiling face for the entire evening.

It rain that night but my friends still shows up. We talk and place our order. Couple more minutes later, my friend that suppose to sing arrived. We had a short conversation as he needs to prepare for his performance. When the food arrived, he began his little concert. To my surprise, the sound system in the restaurant is well equipped. It’s nothing like other restaurants that I’ve been before where only bass and shouts can be heard. In this restaurant, I’m able to listen clearly every single songs performed. That’s good for the audience but not completely good for the singer. Any songs that are badly performed will be noticeable clearly. That’s the thing my friend worried as some songs perform is requested by customers. He has to be ready and good enough to perform the requested song, or switch song if not familiar with the song. If not people might boo him from down below. Overall the singing performance is good. There are some songs that are not quite well performed but still acceptable.

It was about 2 hours singing performance. It’s very entertaining as some of the song brings back a lot of memories. We are able to enjoy English songs, Chinese songs, hokkian songs and kantonese songs thanks to our friend that speaks and sings so many languages. Even though

Holiday Gifts for this New Year Season

Christmas and New year, it’s the holiday and gifts seasons all around the world. Economic around the world is not doing so well but still celebration must go on. We don’t have to look at the results to celebrate. It’s not a necessary reason but we must celebrate the effort that we put in throughout the year. Dinner, gifts and party is the way to celebrate. As for the gifts we don’t have to get expensive stuff but simple, useful and affordable will do. Personalized holiday gifts can be considered simple and useful stuff for many people. Things like pen and pen drive are couple of things that needed always. These are couple of things that we normally use doing our daily job. In addition many people carry along pen and pen drives in their daily work. Perfect as gifts of encouraging. A gift from someone special that states “Thank You” or “Happy New Year” sure is heartwarming.
During this period of time, a useful gift is better than gifts that put on shelves. Even a gift of toilet paper is better than a photo frame. A useful gift is what most people hopping to get. Giving out gifts is good for encouraging and creating smiling faces. It doesn’t matter what gifts that is giving out. The important thing is that the gifts serve as an encouraging and support to continue work hard in the coming year.

A house is not a Home

“A house is not a home” I forgot where I got this but this words has been in my mind for a long time. Having a house to stay is not the same as having a home. A house is just a place for us to take shelter and a place to sleep. You can have a big house with lots of rooms or even a mention, but still it might not be a home. When you feel that there is no difference when staying in hotel compare to staying at your own house, then that might not be a home. What makes a house a home? In my opinion people are the ones that make a house a home. Specifically a home doesn’t have to be a house. It can be a workplace, labs, office or any place that you spend most of your time. When there is a place that you need to return as there are somebody waiting for you or there are some faces that you need to see, basically you can call that home. Some people make their work place as their home because they spend most of their time there. Some office or company even provides all the daily necessary like gym, shower, bed and kitchen. The house is just a place for them to sleep and to put their stuff. The only place that they are not alone is during working hour. It’s a bit sad but that’s what actually happens when people are too much into work. The time that you spend with your colleague is more than anybody else. Sometimes the feeling of home is much more in a corner of an office then in a house, especially in a big city. How many of you celebrate festival seasons at home? Christmas is close. Where will you celebrate Christmas this year, especially those of you that are working in big cities? I suppose a Christmas party at a club, a pub, restaurant or maybe in the office where you work. It doesn’t matter as long as you’re happy and feeling like a home.

You really need to start saving money

Lately we can see that economic around the globe is not stable. That can be seen clearly by just looking at the share market. So what can each of us do to help up? We can all start out by cutting down our expenses and stop those unnecessary expenses. A simple and easy step that a family can do is implement energy saving by reducing the use of electricity and water. When comes to shopping and buying those daily products, getting the cheapest deal is a must. Take for an example of eyeglasses. You can simply purchase it online directly from the manufacturer with a price as low as $8. You won’t get a price after it gone through several dealers and reaches an eyeglass shop near your house. That is why a lot of products sold online are cheaper than buying from the shop. Another simple step of money saving is to pay your bills online. Nowadays you can pay your electrical bill, water bill, credit cards or even doing some banking activities online. That can save a lot of time, work and trouble going to each and every payment counter. That too contributes in cutting down the expenses. It may not reflect in your monthly expenses but it does help a lot in reducing the expenses within the community.

Staying at the Hospital or staying at the hotel

Does anybody ever think of the difference between staying in the hospital and staying in the hotel? If you just look at the picture below, I’m sure you can’t tell the difference. The only difference that I see is there are doctors and nurses to take care of your health. Other than that you’re just getting a bed to spend the night. Just imagine if you’re just going for a normal medical checkup and stays for a night. You’ll be lying there watching TV that hangs on the ceiling. When it’s lunch or dinner time, healthy food that difficult to swallow will send to you. One thing that hospital does is helping you with your toilet matters. Try to compare it with your stay in a normal hotel, and then you’ll understand what I’m trying to say.

Took a break from Blogging

I took a break from blogging for about a month to settle things that happened suddenly in my life. A family member had a heart attack during his normal exercise in the morning and left just like that. It was a sudden shock but these things happen in life. What’s come next is to take care of the stuff that he left behind so that all of us can get back to our own life. The most difficult part will be the psychology impact or damages due to the sudden death. That will require more time to heal. Still life goes on and that’s the only thing that we can do.

The value of money

How do we determine the value of money? Well, you might check the current exchange and define the value of money from each country. That’s just how much each currency worth in different country. What I really want to discuss is the value of money to each person. Take for an example if you work in a fast food restaurant and you get paid for 7~10 dollars an hour, a thousand dollars is considered a lot of money to you. That is because you measured it by how many hours that you can earn it. If you’re a Hollywood stars or a popular singer, a thousand dollars is nothing to you as you can earn it in just a couple of hours. In other words, the value of money decreases as you earning power increases. The value of money is different for different people. The money that you spend easily in one night might just be enough to keep one family warm, shelter and feed for one month. Don’t waste, make full use of everything.

Girls are evil!?

Check out this picture I found. Agree or disagree? I’ll let you all debate on that. I do know that if you check history, legends or other ancient old story, female always accuse to be the root of all evil. Funny thing is that male chooses to be with them.

Increase of oil price solves traffic jam issue?

Did you notice or feel that traffic has been smooth right after the announcement of the new oil price? Well, I do feel that less cars on the road and haven’t been experience much traffic jam. Seems like people started to car pool or take public transportation to work to help reduce expenses. This might be the only good news after the increase of oil price. When fuel becomes expensive, people will think twice before starting their engine. When fuels are cheap, everybody that owns a car can just take it for a spin even if just getting a pack of cigarette or a bottle of water. When things become expensive and hard to come by, people will treasure it and use it cautiously. When things are not valuable and easy to come by, people will start wasting it. This goes the same as clean water, food, clean air, electricity, paper and many more.

Some Thought About Writing

I've been writing blogs for quite some time now. I can say that it's really a fun and interesting experience. Particular in the writing section. The only time that I ever write something is back in university. Back then writing an essay for my English 101 lesson is hard work. An essay will took me about 2 weeks to really squeeze it out from my brain. Now you can imagine how things are when I started to write again. Lucky for me there aren't any rules on how you can write your article. Even so, it took me about 5 days to actually write something out. It's not that I can't write it out, just that I need to check and recheck several times so that I feels it's alright to release it on my blog. I think that's what we call confidence. That's what I went through in the initial stage of my blogging. Now I'm able to write at most 3 articles per day without catching my breath. Things get easy after a lot of practices.
In the beginning, moving a solid rock is extremely difficult. After getting the rock to start rolling, the next steps is to try controlling it. That means I need to fine tune the way I write, the content quality and the topic that I should be focusing. Pretty much getting the rock rolling the way I want and the direction I want. The question right now is where is the right direction and which is the right method. My final destination is simple. That is to earn sufficient money online so that I can have a better life. That is the goal but the process of working towards it is the most enjoyable part. There is nothing better then doing what you enjoy and reaching your goals.