QRA International website
Thursday, September 21, 2017
Reunion of the Saints Sept 2012 - 5 years ago !
My, time does fly. This was some of the 'jam' session we had when about 60 of us 'old boys' from the class of 1978 met in 2012 at Joan Bowen Cafe at St Andrew's School to celebrate our 50th year of existence. In 1978, all of us were 16 (go figure) and that year was the GCE 'O' (General Certificate of Education) Levels which was mandantory for all students at Secondary 4 level.
Most of us went our separate ways to the then 7 junior colleges, polytechnics and ITEs and we never saw each other for practically 34 years until 2012.We realised that "time was running fast away" and now (2012) was the best time to meet up and reminisce old times.
Playing the School Hymn for our 'Boys'
This last year 2016 had been an eventful year and we lost 4 of our 'brothers' ; it was heartbreaking to hear of each of their passing, and I was familiar with at least 2 of them.
So this video of 'Hey Jude' with the boys singing in the background was our (mine and Paul Ezekiel) way of giving back some time to reflect and 'go back' to when life was about singing the Beatles songs, playing football in the hot afternoon sun, sweating buckets and stinking the classrooms as a result, playing truant, coming late, detention class and all manner of shenanigans 16 year olds get into.
Did I mention we also had to study for our 'O" levels ? LOL.
Sunday, September 17, 2017
Wolves have self belief and a strong attack this 2017 - 18 season
The boyhood team of mine, Wolverhampton Wanderers are finally living up to their founder club status of over 100 years ago. After a home defeat by then top club Cardiff City 2 weeks ago, Wolves sputtered to 2 draws, first a 0 - 0 away to Brentford and a 3 - 3 draw at home to Bristol City.
Yesterday, 16th Sept 2017, Wolves pulled off another great away win over Nottingham Forest at City Ground winning 2- 1 and all the fans left for home happy. I was following the live streaming coverage from the comfort of my home, but boy, was I transported back to a 16 year old fan once again. Diogo Jota scored two opportunistic goals which were world class. The goal by Nottingham Forest Carayol struck me as a 'kelong' or 'fix' where the goalkeeper just stood and stared as the ball flew into the net from 25 metres out. Caught like a deer in the middle of the road staring at the car's oncoming headlights. Goalkeeper John Ruddy needs to focus and wake up !!!
Diogo Jota is proving to be a wunderkid on loan from Athletico Madrid ; to Fosun the owners of the club we, the fans owe you a debt of gratitude that finally, with money, a brilliant visionary Head Coach in Nuno Esperito Santos, enlightened players, finally we long suffering fans of Wolves can get some pride that we can and will be back at the Premier League with the best of the best.
My mid term goal is to watch at least 3 Wolves games 'live' in England.
I will follow the Wolves this season, through all their ups and downs (there will be for sure).
This season, 2017-18 will be exceptional and eventful.
FART your way to organized thinking process
I can see clearly now the rain has gone
So here is the way to organizing, say, paperwork in terms of letters, or emails or information which is coming fast and furious through the smart phone and the internet. Lets keep it simple and just stick with paperwork and email through the snail mail and the mail server respectively.
Say you receive letters / email everyday, bills, notifications, customer enquiries, appointments or dates fixed,smses, whatsapp chats to buy or do things etc.
So use the FART Method, as best as you can :
a) F ile (and Review) - this is an invoice from your vendor, you scan through it, ensuring that the goods and services have been rendered to your satisfaction, and you note that you have some funds coming in before the end of the month. Hence, you make a note (mental or written) to make payment by end of the month.
You will need to make a discretionary call and decide to file, as well as review it when the invoice (or document) is due. This review and the adherence to the review is all important.
b) Act - this is an urgent and important email asking you to reply to your boss with a report detailing the last months sales figures which were below expectation and give analysis as to when the key or regular customers will purchase. Decide what steps to take and take them accordingly to boost up the sales through added sales / marketing visits and ramp up promotions.
c) Throw - there is numerous junk mail from flyers of new properties (for example) whereby you don't have the funds or interest to pursue and hence you dump it in the wastebasket electronically or literally.
While this is for paperwork and electronic mail, there are numerous data and information coming into your sensory network (5 senses) which if you had a computer like brain, could process, and decide again to FART everything and anything.
If I could have good enough sleep, well rested, have a regular exercise plan on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, with a clear vision for my life and say business to achieve some short (6 months) mid term goals (1 year) ; a lot of the day to day decision making will be much simpler provided I have the determination and endurance to see it happen.
I have set aside the beginning of each year with personal and professional goals since 2002. This goal setting has been very beneficial to me in assessing where I am on those fronts.
Try the goal setting and FART method and see the results.
Be persistent, patient and focussed.
What is it thinking ?
Friday, September 15, 2017
Probitics Health Supplements
Provie G ; distributor : Freshworks Pte Ltd.
Provie Range of all Natural Food Supplements
I have been taking food supplements for around 11 years, the upside of it is that I have been generally healthy (thank God and touch wood) so far. Many small niggling coughs, colds and the 'flu have not affected my health in general, and I am grateful and thankful for this.
"Health is Wealth" goes the saying, I would like to add on this word, "Good Health is Wealth" because you can have bad health and all the money in the world can't buy you quality of life if you are down with a life threatening illness.
This is not the first time I am revealing the wellness side of me, so I would like to share it with the blog readers, we tend to eat junk food once in a while, the food at the hawker centres is laden with everything from pork lard, to mono-sodium glutamate (MSG) to excessive sugar, salt and eggs.
I have been a GNC member for the last 9 years, and have bought bulk purchase for 1 years' supply from them amounting to $1, 268. The supplements range from General Nutrition tablets, Ginko Biloba, Glucosamine Chondriotin MSM Sulphate, Vitamin E, Glutathione and now Proviva L.
I am now switching to add a mix of Provie range because its a) made in Singapore (highest safety standards compliance of non-toxicity by the Health Promotion Board), all natural food grade ingredients and the use of Pre and Probiotics (micro-organisms for gut health) which is so critical for our body's everyday digestion and well being. b) price point competitive with all natural ingredients with no chemicals
Interactive Microorganisms Labs, helmed by Dr Chia BT is the company involved in the creation the phytosymbiotic supplements and the manufacturing is done in an
Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) factory which has passed Singapore's highest safety standards.
The product range is as follows :
Illness Prevention, Disease management and control
1. Provie G - For people with high blood sugar levels
- Liver Protector (fatty liver, cirhossis etc.)
- the supplement is mainly extracts of bittergourd, and trace amounts of several other all natural ingredients. There are 'good bacteria' inside the supplements for fermentation to process thus the name 'phytosymbiotics'.
2. Proviva L - For people with high cholesterol (like me)
3. Proviva U - For people with Gout
Lifestyle Enhancement
1. Living Logic - for mental alertness, memory function
2. Living Genesis - anti-oxidant, general well being
At this time of posting, I have been taking Provie U to control the amount of Uric Acid in the body, and Provie L for Cholesterol Reduction for about 3 years now.
The effects of both on my well being are quite amazing , my wrist pain has subsided and while the Provie L does not show great results (I have naturally existing high Total Cholesterol Levels) my Triglyceride levels are normal. The benefits of these supplements is that they are 'all natural', and tested and made in Singapore under the most stringent of safety codes.
For sales enquiries, please contact the dsitributor, Freshworks Pte Ltd.
Thursday, September 14, 2017
My Polar Watch - simply Awesome
Not the best of times, but my first 10K in a long while.
I recently bought the Polar M430 as a little present to myself for going through a challenging 2 years of business. My opinion after about 1 and a half months of using it, is that this device is simply "awesome". I am a very late product adopter of the GPS watches having using more than 20 Timex chronograph watches over the last 17 years.
In 2007, I won a Garmin watch with heart rate monitor in a treadmill race. It was a cool toy except for monitoring the heart rate, I had to strap it around my chest like a bra. The Polar M430 on the other hand has 6 thermal sensing devices to sense the heart rate on my wrist without the use of a chest strap. So technology has enabled the ease of use for this finicky consumer after 10 years. Ha !
In addition the M430 has 24/7 tracking of everything from my movements, siiting, standing, running etc. and has many superb tracking features. The features of this awesome toy are heart rate monitor, GPS tracking of your workout on the road, track or off-road trails for one.
Once you activate and stop the training mode (there are about 6 most popular ones), it tracks your maximum and average heart rate, your cadence (number of footstrikes per minute),your kcal burned, the % of fat used during the training (heh I love this one), and finally the distance covered. It will also tell you at the end of each day how much (in %) of the daily target steps (10,000) you have achieved.
You can also track your sleeping time, whether your sleep was interrupted and most ideal number of hours of sleep required, (mine is 8).
The shop which sold it to me help setup the Polar Flow software, which I am to update my workouts every few days and voila ! there is so much to show there. Your entire workout summary like what I had mentioned above, in addition, there are maps (GPS remember) which show me exactly how far and where I had run. I am also an avid recorder of my workouts so my Workout Summary is also recorded for posterity.
Finally, this cool video enables me to "relive my run" and thanks to Google Maps (or whatever they use to video this), it shows me again exactly where I ran, my start location (at the exercise station beside carpark B1), my fastest pace of 6:04 min / km just after the yellow lighthouse, where I turned around at Ski 360 and returned back and finished the last km at 7:48 min /km. Video of location, speed, elevation, kcals burned and total workout summary all in the video.
How cool is that ???
Leaky Defence ; No Luck led to this 3 - 3 draw with Bristol City ;
Wolves played Bristol City this morning Wednesday 13th Sept, and watching the highlights, I could say I am disappointed that their defence is still weak, letting in 3 goals to Bristol City and not having a penalty in the second half and taking another half dozen chances could have swung the game their way.
Process is always about planend strategy, execution, productivity. Add luck and the supreme will to win or confidence and you will end up the winner. As humans, we have moods and emotions which will always come into play.
Coach Santos can tighten up the backline. 3 goals is 3 goals too many after having kept so many clean sheets for almost 10 games (except for Cardiff who scored 2 against Wolves).
This is their best start in 19 years so Wolves, wake up your idea !!!
Monday, September 11, 2017
Climate Change effects is Real... and Deadly to us all
The devastation and chaos caused by the 2 hurricanes Harvey and Irma which literally destroyed properties, homes, hotels, beaches, people's lives and not to mention the upheaval of the flora and fauna of the Everglades, the cities of Houston, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Tampa, Naples and many other small suburbs causing hundreds of bilions of dollars in damage.
Climate change is real, global warming is real and everyone must do their part to heal mother Earth. It is so painful to watch the hammering the poor Caribbean islands have taken and the island of Barbudos is wrecked.
Every country must do its part to reduce its carbon footprint NOW. We may well leave the world in a much worse shape for our children and our grandchildren. than when we set foot on it.
That would be a monumental disaster for humankind.
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