The Hell with Bankers

This is based on a TRUE STORY.

Faisah the fisherman was dozing on his hammock between 2 coconut trees next to the beach. It was Monday afternoon at about 3.30 pm. His wife Fatimah was cooking what he had caught in the morning, some ikan kuning and some shrimp. The kids were in school and it was a warm lazy afternoon after a morning's fishing.

Bob (banker) : " Good afternoon, Sir"
Faisah : "Uh ? Yeah Good afternoon"
Bob : "I'm from HongKong Chartered Bank and I have a great plan for you !"
Faisah (uncertain) : "Uh, OK, what you got ?"

Bob went on to explain the benefits of Faisah upgrading his old fishing boat and with a loan, could expand his fleet to 3 boats,hire more fishermen to catch more fish and make more money. With the money, he could get a bigger house near the city and buy the SUV to ferry the wife and kids.

Faisah : "And then what ?"
Bob : "After we'vre evaluated your business, with a turnover of S$ 3M you could apply for our SME or Small and
Medium Enterprise Package of S$ 200K and you put up some collateral (maybe your house or car) and then you
can grow your fishing business to cover outside to International Waters."
Faisah : "Wow, so I got to work even harder to bring in then S$20 M, buy 4 ships and hire another 50 fishermen and
expand to include sport fishing for tourists as well as deep sea fishing."
Bob : "That's Right ! You will Have The Good Life !"
Faisah : "Eh How, long you think I need to do all this before I Have the Good Life ?!"
Bob (sneaky smile) : "Well, if you are hardworking, my calculations say 20 years. 25 years tops."
Faisah : "What is The Good Life ah ?! "
Bob (full of BS) : Your business will be running, you just need to check on it every day. You need not work so hard
and best of all, you can have a nice house by the beach, fish when and where you want and take it easy !"
Faisah : Brudder, I already am doing it ! Take your $$ and shove it !
Bob : ..............

Moral : See picture above.
Bankers rent you an umbrella during a sunny day WITH INTEREST. When it rains, they take it away.

Live a Little

Its slightly over 2 years to the day since I had a brush with death, I blacked out during my karate class in June 2006.
After doing some light warmups and stretching, Mickey the instructor made us do laps around the badminton hall. After
the short runs, I felt very lightheaded and as we were filing up in rows, the whole world around me started to shake
and I felt a huge blackness engulfing me which was very comforting. I closed my eyes.

I heard small voices and still felt like sleeping but the voices were stronger and people were patting my face.
When I came to, 2 of my mates were holding me and preventing me from swallowing my tongue. I had fallen flat on
my face and chipped off my front left incisor,my nose was a bloody mess with the cartiledge broken and there was
a bump (baluku) on my forehead. I called John,my brother, who is a senior doctor at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. He rushed
over in 5 minutes and checked my vital signs. I felt more concious of my appearence than my physical condition
or whether I had a concussion. My kids saw me being carried up but when I came to I wanted to continue but
was dissuaded by my brother. He was great, there when I needed him.

I had my medical check with blood test just 2 months before and results seemed OK. I took an MRI a few days
later for any internal bleeding and had my teeth fixed. I am thankful to God that things seem OK now, but one thing
is for sure. Life is fragile, unpredictable and short.

Live a Little.
Laugh Some.
Do Things which you Enjoy (getting paid for it is even better !)
Spend time with the people you Love

Experimental Japanese Food - Sunday 22nd June

May,my wife is a good cook and this is one of her tryouts on Japanese food. For dinner, we had Salmon burgers,
Grill Beef striploin on asparagus sticks, spinach with seaweed, cold soba and soba sauce and to top it off, a
1998 Medoc Chateau Mareil from Passionz Wine Cellar.

The recipe is from famous cookbook author Harumi Kurihara (Best Cookbook of Year 2004).

Verdict : Picture speaks for itself

Anyone for dinner ? By invitation only.

The Day I met Dracula in Wettenberg

This is a hilarious story which is true as I experienced it first hand. Last March 2007, was the Worldwide Agent's meeting
for Weiss Technik distributors held every 2 years in Lindenstruth, Germany. As is commonly practised, all the agents will meet in Lindenstruth (near Frankfurt) at the Weiss headquarters factory to present their Sales Objectives,Assesment of Objectives as well as the principal will unveil the latest equipment, software and technologies.The duration is normally 6 days to 7 days with sightseeing and dinners thrown in to encourage bonding and friendship.

All 60 of us from all over the world, stayed at the neighbouring town of Wettenberg and commuted by bus to the factory.
Many of us renewed friendships and made new ones, and this time, I made friends from Romania,Hungary and Slovenia.Alex,
from Slovenia was the new agent for Weiss and I bumped into him while doing one early morning run in the neighbourhood and he was formely a Creative Director before starting to work for Amtest,a trading company.Alex is in the 2nd picture on the extreme left with long trenchcoat. We got along pretty well and had lots of drinks in the evenings.

One morning while checking the hotel guest list, I glanced at Alex's name and it was DRACULARIS or DRACULA for short.
I felt it inapporpriate to ask him about his history then,but managed to later in the week. Anyway, on Wednesday,after
a long day in the seminars and after dinner after much Lynnie and beer, we were all smashed drunk to say the least and
laughing, cursing and swearing at each other - you know how tipsy guys are. My friend Ian Firth from Australia,(he's on the left in the 1st picture) decided that to clear up our systems, we take a brisk walk at 12 midnight, up to the Schloss (castle) Wettenberg in the very cold evening with temperatures of 3 - 4 deg C.

So off we went, 3 blokes up to a castle,1 Singaporean,1 Australian and 1 Slovenian. In the middle of the night. It was
cold and we all had our extra thick jumpers on. I had my trenchcoat, as did Alex and Ian had only a pullover so he was shivering. We cut through the cabbage patch which was very dark and slippery. Alex was leading and with the wind
blowing at his trenchcoat, he looked kind of menacing....... No words were said as we were quite intent on our task.

I HAD to ask, at midnight, THE QUESTION : "Say Alex, what is your surname, I saw it just now ! "
He stopped, trenchcoat flying, " My Name is Dracula is, Alex Dracula !!!!"

There and then, Ian and me froze in our tracks, I poked Ian in the ribs and he was white as a ghost. Together , we walked and ran up to the safe sanctuary, the castle, at midnight.We had a drink at the Mexican bar near the top after our climb and laughed ourselves silly and traded our backgrounds. It was quite a story.

Trail Run - Lornie Trail x 2, MacRitchie Reservoir Park

Yesterday I ran 2 loops of Trail Run at MacRitchie Reservoir Park off Lornie Road.First loop is the Lornie Trail Men's route starting at the MaxRitchie Fitness Park (Chinup Bar, Situp etc.) and takes me right into the trail which can be quite straining as
it covers a total of 4.2 km in the jungle and the footpath is very uneven with rocks,stones,tree roots,fallen branches,
crevices in the path plus there will be pools and mud if it had rained earlier in the day.

Distance - 8km, 1st Loop 4.2 km trail run to Golf Club perimeter to outer Lornie Road and return via main Lornie Road
2nd Loop 3.8 km all in the trail (see Picture at the Top)

Date : Saturday 21st June 2008

Time - 48 minutes or roughly 6 minutes/km ; Start 5.00 pm Finish : 5.48 pm

Shoes - New Balance 1223

Pros - Tree canopy cover makes it a nice cool run, the monkeys and monitor lizards add to the interesting bits.

Cons - The uneven ground,the stones and rocks,tree roots means you always have to pay attention to the
path ahead. It can get quite crowded with people certain times of day.

Verdict - Interesting variation to Road Running which is pretty even and smooth. Not Recommended for people
with Knee or Joint Problems and its very challenging especially running downslopes and avoiding the
crevices on the ground.

Gem of a Club - Malacca Club

My colleague, N.Kannan brought me to the Malacca Club today and its a gem of a club. I've never seen anything quite like it. It reminds me of something out of the Caribbean. Wind from the Straits of Malacca all day, waves crashing on the sandy beach
just 50 feet away, a Salt Water Pool, Infinity Pool and a Thatched Cabana dining area serving local dishes. Sports facilities are
badminton,tennis,squash and football. Lazing by the poolside or Cabana with the waves crashing nearby, ah the Life.

Located in Klebang (Kampong Hailam) slightly north of Malacca town, its laid back charm is well worth another visit.
Membership is transferrable for RM 2,500 (S$ 1,100). Good one Kannan !

Benchmarking your Running Speed

So I've been running up to 1 hour a day, faithfully for 3 to 4 times a week. How do I know my speed ? My simple
formula to estimate my running speed is this below ; Anyway, its common for runners to measure speed in
terms of minutes / km (inverse of distance / time) and then calculate the distance run in an hour by

60 divide by (x) ; x is your time in minutes per km to get your speed in ________ km / hour.

1. Jump on any treadmill, start and after walking some time, get into running, after which you are reaching your
optimum speed ; for me it is about 5 minutes to 5 minutes 20 secs per km.In hourly terms its 11- 12 km per hour
on the treadmill. This is optimal conditions, cool, soft rubbery surface to minimise any impact on your joints.

2. For Road Running, reduce your actual speed by 10 to 15%, so in real terms, my speed is about 5 minutes
30 seconds per km or (60 divide by 5.5) about 10.9 km / hour if I use the 10% reduction formula
or if 15% reduction, then its 345 seconds or 5.75 minutes then its 60 divide by 5.75 or 10.43 km/hr.

3. Go run 10 km on a track (25 laps) to confirm that my time is probably less than 1 hour ; its about
50 to 55 minutes depending on my 10 km runs (time of day,weather etc.). So now I have an
estimate of my speed. Of course there are many other factors like time of day, route,
heat,humidity, wind etc. etc.

4. Compare this speed with the elite runners (mainly African and some American) and these guys can average
(no kidding) 3 minutes to 3 minutes 30 secs or thereabouts for a FULL 42 km (!). That speed is about
17 to 20 km per hour or roughly 2 hours 10 minutes to 2 hours 30 minutes for a full marathon.

Imagine,they do 2.4 km (standard physical fitness run) in probably 6 MINUTES.