Visit to Thai Satellite Center - THEOS

Radio Telescopes in the Distance

      Several months ago I had the opportunity to visit a Satellite Center located in Thailand's Eastern Seaboard town of Chonburi. Roughly about 2 hours drive South East of Bangkok, the THEOS Center houses a number of radio telescopes focussed up in the sky at 2 satellites hovering above the Earth's atmosphere. The Thai scientists stationed there had received training in France and were part of a technology transfer from France to the kingdom of Thailand.

     

      The satellite model is rather uninspiring, all decked out in yellow reflective panels and weighing about 3 tons, its primary purpose is to detect changes in weather patterns all over Thailand, so as to assist the rural farming populations about extreme weather conditions like storms approaching and hot spots in the countryside. They offer the services not only to the Thai Government, but also for commercial purposes.

    

      I wonder why the neighboring countries, with all this technology readily available, and with 12 years of past experience, are still unable to prevent the out of control fires - which can be easily located, caused by slash and burn methods employed by farmers and resulting in the haze which has engulfed both Singapore and Malaysia recently ?

   

The Funny Thing after gaining an Education

                                                                          Andrew's Sec 1 Class

  The funny thing about Education is that modern day society is so enamoured or in love with the concept of studying or gaining as much paper as a means to 'move up' or achieve higher social status in life that alot of times, when I look at the education landscape in Singapore and in many Asian countries, I wonder whether all those years of studying amount to anything. Don't get me wrong, education or schooling is essential for a young person, but many times, the most successful people in life, as far as seizing opportunites or doing well and living a balanced life do not have degrees or postdoctorate qualifications. This leads me to question :

a) We put in 12 years of schooling, junior, secondary, high school or preuniversity or college and
b) another 4 to 6 years of undergraduate study
c) perhaps another 2 to 3 years of post graduate study

    For the most part, we study for exams, we learn things like pythagoras theorems. flood plains, ancient Chinese history, algebraic and quadratic equations, convalent bonds and De Brogli's theory and packet light pulses. We spill all these out for the exams, semester after semester, year after year. We put in days, weeks and months of 'burning the midnight oil' to study for the year end exam.

    At the end, we get the coveted paper - the A Level cert, the Degree in Science. And apply for a job.
You get the Job. Now comes the funny part.

    How much of these things which you study do you apply to your working life ?

a) addition, subtraction,division, multiplacition perhaps
b) Yes, No, and English stuff to write emails to colleagues and present some reports to the management
c) Understanding balance sheets (if you are an accountant or accounts assistant)
d) Reading and understanding some electrical circuit diagrams (if you are in the technical line)

    Everything else is new, we learn about banking, engineering processes, cashbook,MYOB etc. etc. ON THE JOB

     So what was the 12 - 16 years we put in so much effort,time, sweat, countless Red Bull drinks and nights inthe University Library  to gain the "A"s or "B"s for ???

     Do you tell your customer, who is facing a delivery time problem from your principal or supplier  "Oh don't worry, I know how to solve this problem, I got 2nd class honours in Engineering".  He will probably laugh at your face.

     Whats most important is the "school of life", people need to start work early and learn how to

a) interact meaningfully with your coworkers and colleagues for the benefit of your employer

b) meeting objectives and goals set out by company management and presenting them in a manner
    which will obtain maximum results for both the company and the person

c) hone in on interpersonal and life skills like good public relations, marketing, selling, adverserial
    and strategic planning

    Maybe the answer to achieving success in the businessworld is to start working EARLY. Then and only then will the person understand how deals are clinched, objectives met and goals are set and achieved.

     It has been noted that the most afraid to lose or kiasu people are those who have studied for the longest time, its like they have this mentality, "oh, I put in 12 years of my time and my parents 'money on computer science studies , I need to look for a job in the computer industry, at least I have a job". It may be a lousy paying job in a sunset industry but he doesn't see it.

     The risk takers are those who have nothing to lose, so they will try almost anything.  

     There is a famous quotation that bears repeating, "I have learnt whatever I need to learn in kindergarten, how to stick together and share our food, how to avoid the bullys, to clean my plate after my meal and never ever forget to say "thank you".

Now is the Time

My trusty Kayano 16s 

My 'office' gear

Its exactly 6 weeks till the Standard Chartered Marathon, and I have been training intermittently for the last 2 - 3 months. This post is a timely reminder to me to get going and be serious about the runup for the 5th full marathon I am attempting. The target I will set for myself is 4 hours 45 minutes which broken down to 2 half marathons (of 21 k each) is 2 hours 22 minutes. As the famous ultramarathoner Dean Karnazes put it into perspective during his 100 miler (consecutive) :

"you run the firs half with your legs, the second half with your mind". 

My ultramarathon running friends, Jane Peng and Thaddeus Lawrence have another similar quote :

"your run first with your legs, then you run with your mind, finally you run with your heart"

I will be aiming to hit  around 60 km to 70 km per week in training so, I plan to be running almost daily, with the odd rest day, and I plan to hit the road even when I am overseas travelling in Europe (in late November) and Thailand (mid November). So its no rest for the wicked I guess. 

Time is of the essence, I hope that by using the running techniques like Pose running, and landing on the midsection,  I can improve my running speed, and distance.

4 hours 45 minutes - the goal for 42.195 km on 5th December 2010.          

120 mm Mortar Fire Mission on Armoured Personnel Carrier Video

   A video (US Armoured Artillery) showing how the 120 mm mortar is fired off in the vehicle. The commander is at the top of the APC (near the copolla) and the person loading the mortar is called the Loader or No. 3 Man. Normally the Fire Mission Officer would call "Fire Mission Mortar No. ###" and only 1 detachment would be called to action. In those days, that was normally done by my buddy Chong Wai Kiong.The entire Battery consisting of 6 vehicles would first secure the deployment area and the lead vehicle would then be required to fire off the first round of mortar - within a maximum time, normally less than 2 minutes. So the ranging 'piece' is  first required to find the target by shooting 3 times and once the bombs reach within 100m of the intended range, then the rest of the Battery would follow suit and a full fire mission would take place. The range of the mortar is normally about 3 - 6 km depending on the elevation of the mortar (trajectory) and also what incendiary flares (circular and flammable)  are attached to the mortar to ensure it flies as far as it should.

   Normally, the ranging mortar fires to get the range of the bomb,ie. to ascertain that the bomb reaches the target within the intended distance. That woud normally take about 3 rounds maximum, following which the entire battery (platoon of mortar soldiers) would be called to 'fire for effect', that is for the entire 6 to 10 mortars to hit the target at the same 'line'.

   A tough vocation but fun.

Army Days 1980 - 1983

My Army Detachment No. 4 in the Battery

Left to Right : Goh Gek Piau (Loader),Loh Swee Chuah (Driver),

Me(Commander),Tan Beng Chong (No.4 Man),Yeo Ah Seng (Layer) 

                                                             120 mm Self Propelled Mortar

    This is some history of my past days when I was doing my National Service. In thoses days, young teenage youth of 18 years of age are enlisted for 2 and 1/2 years and sent for Basic Military Training in Terror Camp (name is there for a reason) after which we are sent either to army units or further training to be a commissioned or non-commisisoned officer (NCO).Most of the enlistees at that time, were a mix bag of school dropouts, poorly educated, secondary school, or pre university college students like myself and my friends. It was a tremendous eye-opener for me to share the same sleeping quarters as men who mianly spoke Hokkien or had a very basic command of English.

     I was selected to be undergo the Commissioned Officer training  but I  ultimately chose to be a Non-Commissioned Officer, and underwent training as a section leader at Pasir Laba Camp in Jurong,  I underwent further very rigorous training at the Artillary Command Center at Kangaw Camp (12 weeks). The going was very tough, as we were trained by hardened regular sergeants and other corporals who were themselves trained by Army rangers. To say the training was tough was an understatement, we had an entire week of field exercise whereby we had only 2 hours sleep per night for 5 nights. We had some trainees who suffered injuries and dropped out before the end of the 12 week training course. Only about 2/3rd completed the tough course. On our commissioning parade, we proudly put on our '2nd stripe'or corporal (and later sargeant ) as all of us earned it through (literally) blood, much sweat and (some) tears.

     I was posted to the 46 SAR Armoured Regiment and served in the 120mm self-propelled mortar battery of 6 APCs (Armoured Personnel Carrier) in the ranging mortar unit (selected as the best and fastest team).My team of soldiers were all 'Hokkien Ping' or Hokkien speakingsoldiers. Although we had some teething problems first, with them adjusting to my hard style (I was a very tough trainer, my men can attest to that), we ultimately bonded well as a unit and were awared the 'Best Detachment' (out of 6) and even put up a show of our coordination for the entire armoured company to see.

     Those days of rigorous training taught me to be mentally tough and take whatever difficulties physically or mentally that come along the way as challenges and try to surmount them in the best way I can. National Service is a fine way for our youth to grow into responsible men.

Now thats what I call music - R & B classic

Singapore's Ultramarathoners in Sahara 250 K Desert Race Oct 4 - 9th 2010

From Left : Jane Peng, Trish Tan and Vanessa Tan

    Today 9th October marks the final torturous day of 6 days of hard running in the sand, in the Sahara desert no less, for 3 of Singapore's ultramarathon ladies. They are Jane Peng, Trish Tan and  Vanessa Tan. All of them completed the race with Vanessa Tan taking 10th position for the ladies category. Trish and Jane Peng both completed in what can be described as a 'take no prisoners' race where one has to train for at least 6 - 9 months with exposure to sand and high heat and sunlight. How do I know ? I am 

proud to say that I am Jane's 'running khaki' or running buddy since the early part of 2010.

  

                                                                       "V" for victory

      From those early days of running 10 to 15 K per run at Macritchie to East Coast Park to completing in a 50K combined run in May 15th this year. Jane has improved her distance to an ultramarathon of 84 K the following week (!),  Since then, she has set her sights on 'racing the planet' and decided to sign up and run 250 K in 6 days which included a murderous 94 Km on Stage 5 ; (it took many competitors upwards of 24 hours to complete this segment !). All this with  a 9Kg backpack and running on sand, with temperatures hitting 40 to 45 deg C in daytime, occasional sandstorms (I hope not) and metres high sand dunes. There are a total of 4 such extreme 6 day marathons, they are :

- Sahara Desert Run
- Atacama Desert Run
- Gobi Desert Run
- Antartica Run

        Well done Jane, Trish and Vanessa !