Never Ending Journey

On The Train, Dec 29, 2011

2011-12-30T07:23:00.000+08:00

Today is my last KTMB Komuter ride for the year. Tomorrow a longer ride on KTMB’s Intercity up north and that is going to be my first during daylight. Another excursion that I am looking forward to eagerly. He he he Talk about a train nut or a better term foamer.

I forced myself into a 1950 train home simply because I want to be home a bit earlier. As expected a decent ikan sardin now but I am seated.

I was bored big time with nothing seem to interest me so I made a fool of myself being a nuisance on somebody’s FB he he he. I sincerely do hope the person would tolerate my foolishness he he he. Anyways, I am getting closer to home and the train was instructed to stop before entering Kajang.

On The Train (Big Brother is Watching), Dec 28, 2011

2011-12-28T20:00:00.001+08:00

Now I routinely takes the six-car train to go home. Not only I am assured of getting a comfortable preferred seat I am also assured, insyaAllah, to get home without a drama fairly quickly. But a lot of commuters do not realise that the six-car train is equipped with CCTV to help the driver to monitor the comfort level of the commuters. A young couple or a group of young kids got to know about this in an embarrassing way yesterday. I was sitting and doing my usual thing when somewhere between Serdang and Kajang the driver came on air with this announcement,

‘Para penumpang sekalian sila ambil perhatian bahawa keretapi ini diawasi menggunakan CCTV ini supaya kami dapat berusaha memberi keselesaan kepada semua penumpang. Pengumuman ini terutama ditujukan kepada penumpang dicoach tengah, coach C, supaya berkelakuan baik. Kerana perbuatan kamu diperhatikan.’ (The driver repeated this in English, he tried very hard and I applauded him for trying, but it came out wrong.)

When I heard this I was not surprised but I almost laugh loudly LOL. And just now almost similar announcement was made but to say those sitting on the cabinet n the buffet car to get down :))). I would really going to make my day to be a train driver for a day he he he. I am all for this as sometimes some commuters just need to be told to behave. I guess they would be totally embarrassed being single out.

So the next time you are on the new train behave yourself.

On The Train, Nov 1, 2011

2011-11-02T13:24:00.001+08:00

Yeah! it is Nov already folks. Even people on this train seem to be acknowledging the fact by going home earlier.

It was raining today and I took the last of my umbrella in my office to walk to the station. While walking a man came from the opposite direction in the dark and when he was closed by he asked me the way to KL. I asked him where he wishes to go and told me LRT station. I said he was going the opposite direction and he should turn back. With that he just trotted away under the rain. I asked myself where in the world he came from in the first place. Jeng jeng jeng was I in a twilight zone? I continued to walk and arrived at the station without a problem :)

The 1950 train came 10 minutes late but I just ignored the fact as I knew even in a normal condition the train will be late anyway he he he. Capacity was a bit tight when I boarded but I got a seat. I sat in between a Singh and a young man later I discovered disembarked at Bangi as well. The moment I booted up the Singh kept on looking at what I was doing so I camouflaged what I was typing. As it was raining outside everyone was a bit sullen looking. Some seated embarked on a journey into a never never land hoping to find enchanting summer dream on beautiful island somewhere. I as usual locked and hooked to my laptop and at the same time trying to be observant of my surrounding. looking at people around me I wonder how many of them are foamers like me? I am currently finishing a book about train services in the US and cannot but amaze by some of the similarity. Top of the list is the train is never on time. One of the premise of the book that I agree totally is the need to have public-private ownership in order to have a very good train services. The infrastructure cost is high and only the government could sustain and further develop it.

The ridership of KTM Komuter is seriously increasing now. I cannot take fro granted that I will get a seat on my normal schedule anymore especially in the morning where now I have to ‘fight’ for one. Going home I can still have the option of waiting for the next one but going to work could be tricky.

On The Train, Oct 10, 2011

2011-10-11T21:04:00.000+08:00

It is October already!

The train is full of foreigners tonight. Seeing this a Malay speaking Chinese gentleman standing in front of me commented, ‘A lot of foreigners came to Malaysia to work. Malaysians are too lazy to work.’

True and not true. You judge yourself and I do not wish to start another debate on it. A guy next to me is reciting the Quran on his Samsung phone. A bangla standing in front of me keep on stealing a look at what I am doing and a row of heads looking at eternity probably complete with a dream or two. I can understand, you can get a good 20 minutes nap and rest if you can do it. Some people could not sleep on a moving train and a lot can, including myself he he he.

On The Train, ( A Red Hot Ikan Sardin Day), Sept 30, 2011

2011-09-30T21:07:00.002+08:00

If you are not a regular commuter or still not aware Friday evening is a Red Hot Ikan Sardine Day. To the newbies who intent to make Friday evening as their first attempt to ride the commuter you would not survive after the first five minutes and you would probably either;

Pengsan after five minutes
Your first five minutes on the commuter train would also be you last
You will be like me cursing KTMB endlessly
You will hate KTMB forever. Well I am ok with that LOL
You will hate train. Which I do not want you to

So, please avoid Friday evening and you will be doing me a favour as well he he he.

It is no different today I am in one. I purposely left the office late and boarded the 2034 train, the type of train that I prefer not to board, home and as usual I got a seat.

At KL Sentral the crowd is still decent but standing room only.

Alhamdulillah it is also decent at Mid Valley and we can enjoy a nice cool ride home.

A good crowd configuration today as well, not dominated by certain age group or race. Which is one of the important ingredients for a good atmosphere for a nice ride for everyone. I can hear nice chatters around the coach, also the usual indication of a Friday evening ride. Commuters looking forward for their weekend break. Have a nice weekend everyone

On The Train, I am a mess, Sept 20, 2011

2011-09-20T20:15:00.001+08:00

When we landed last Sunday I thought I was my normal self. After I waved goodbye to my colleagues on the bus going back to the office only I realised I was in a mess. What was obvious I was a mess physically due to lack of sleep and the long journey. I realised also I was a mess mentally. It did not come to me like a gust of wind. It just came slowly and you can say in a way subconsciously as well. Especially when I sat alone trying to charge my phone. The thought of the kids I left behind at Ulu Entaih brought home some realities of my own life. The questions kept on popping out :

Have I done the right thing with my own kids?

Have I given more than it should?

Have I set the right standards for them?

Are they what they are supposed to be mentally?

The right values?
Especially Mar, being the youngest I may have gone overboard

All these questions kept bugging me and prayed to Allah that I have done the right things.

To the kids at Ulu Entaih, although the program was a success, I was worried we have set wrong expectation for them. They may just want their easy life and I would have not blame them for that. Clean water, air and wonderful environment. Ninety percent of them may not even have been to the nearest town, Pakan, which is about almost 50 km away. I was assured after awhile by the words I remembered uttered to me by the teachers and their parents at the longhouse. They have the right to be given another opportunity and option. Just like my children we just give our best to prepare them and let them in due time to discover and decide for themselves. After all, I thought, that was how I grew up.

Still, I was a mess and turned my car towards a no entry zone instead of the obvious on Monday. I think I am ok now. I think :)

The usual crowds tonight and I am expecting a normal ride home as well. KTMB please give me a break today.

On The Train, Sept 15, 2011

2011-09-16T00:08:00.002+08:00

A three day weekend and a KTMB mess at Kuang are perfect ingredients for a Friday evening packed solid sardine can that is assumed to be KTMB commuter. Definitely the majority are additional and non regular going home or going to open houses. They should have known to just stay at home and let me go home peacefully LOL. I have got open houses waiting for me to grace tonight as well :).

The train pushing hard towards Seremban now and we’d just let some people escaped out at Serdang LOL and we have a bit of space to breath now he he he.

Some more rushed out at Kajang. I am almost there.

Dah la panas ada plak couple buat babak panas dalam train ni hishhhh sa,dul betul.

Have a nice weekend everyone!!!

On The Train, Sept 13, 2011

2011-09-15T20:55:00.000+08:00

Something interesting, funny and peculiar happened on the train home yesterday. I’d wanted to write about it straight away yesterday but than decided not to make my blog piece too long so here it is.

As I was typing yesterday I heard a strange sound coming form the front seat and I thought at first it was from somebody that was sick. The sound was like ‘Fuuuuhahhhhh!’ It was softer when the train was on the move and louder to all of us when the train stopped. For few minutes I just ignored it as I thought if it was not from somebody that was sick it must be from somebody that has screw missing from his head :). After a louder ’Fuuuuuhaaaah’ I looked up a bit and I saw a chinese man two rows ahead of me sleeping and instead of snoring obliviously making that loud strange sound. It was unbelievable and how’s that possible I said to my self. I am not kidding! Man! I thought I have seen everything on the train? Apparently there are more to explore and experience ha ha ha. The colors of Malaysians and Malaysia he he he.

Today I was late again but caught the train after only few minutes waiting. It is a younger group tonight which is good to see.

I am happy today to read Bro Shabery is taking the lead to cycle and encouraging people to take up cycling to work.

On The Train, Sept 12, 2011

2011-09-12T21:03:00.000+08:00

A gentleman came and sat next to me at the platform. He asked, ‘Train dah lepas ke?’ I knew he was asking about the Seremban train but just to make him realise the inappropriateness of his question I asked him back, ‘ train pergi mana?’ He replied, ‘Seremban’. I wanted to say that this is a commuter service if one train gone there will be of course another one on the way albeit of course for KTMB could be a big question mark as to how soon. But I just kept quietly. Maybe I have been dealing with a lot of Malaysian stupidities over the weekend that is why I am a bit sarcastic today :)

The train arrived at 2026 and it is one of those old train reconverted that the seats only in the middle of the coach and standing only room at both ends. I chose a window seat facing towards the direction of the train traveling. Some commuters I noticed would choose the opposite. It makes no different for just feel like traveling along with the train tonight instead of facing backwards. Over the weekend at my cousin’s Hari Raya One House George her husband remarked to me something like ‘Still getting on the train?’ Smiling I said yes despite all the misadventures on it. Truth be told and I sometimes failed to admit I just love to be on it no matter what. My daily ranting probably is my way of badgering KTMB to improve it services. Probably somebody may say I am wasting my literary words but then again we must believe LOL.

On The Train, Sept 9, 2011

2011-09-09T19:43:00.002+08:00

I am inside a Friday evening sardine can now. And this particular one is pretty stuffy even for an ikan sardin. The only good thing now this can is flying towards Bangi and at least I am comforted by the possibility of getting home in time to visit my cousin. Forget about cycling tonight and tomorrow as well. Another ‘stuffing your face’ weekend ahead of us. Some family members are coming over as well.

A good mix of commuters inside the train and some look like they are also going to visit their friends or families tonight. A good mix in all sense of the word. A good mix of races, age group and gender. Almost there now and we are making good time. See you all next week.

On The Train, Aug 26, 2011

2011-08-29T07:52:00.000+08:00

Just made it. I am not sure which train but when I boarded it was 1751. Yes, very early for my standard. Reasons - to beat the mad rush as well to be home early for the family.

The mad rush begins at KL Sentral. Ramadhan or not ugly Malaysians surface in front of me. I decided not to witness them anymore, closed my laptop and took a nap and woke up from my slumber at Kajang station.

On The Train, Aug 25, 2011

2011-08-26T16:34:00.002+08:00

Crowd on the train since this morning is getting thinner. Definite indication that some have gone balik kampong already. Soon this train will be a United Nation train where most of the commuters will be foreigners. Except for an obvious Malaysian like me he he he.

The train suddenly stopped at Seputeh like yesterday. No announcement yet and the doors are closed. Now exactly like yesterday is happening it moved forward a bit then backwards with the doors closing and opening. Ok the driver now just forced the train forward with the door’s alarm going off. Looks like it is ok now, I hope.

Thank goodness history did not repeat itself if not I would definitely be cursing KTMB yet again today. Nevertheless, with the train already late and with that short episode I was late home. Met my old friend Salem Cabre when I disembarked at Bangi. We chatted as we walked out and both or us being season commuters agreed KTMB is beyond repair and we will continue to get on one everyday to work LOL.

On The Train (The Third Place and was dumped yet again), Aug 24, 2011

2011-08-25T07:58:00.000+08:00

This morning I had a nice feeling moment when I heard a group of commuters were talking and laughing happily on the way to work. I would like to assume it was not because of the Eid is around the corner.

I wrote a short note about the characteristics of The Third Place today that I picked up through my reading and suddenly I asked myself is the Komuter train service my Third Place? Let us let loose an have fun with this :)

Characteristics of The Third Place:

Exist on neutral and socially equal ground for its clientele

Oh yes it is natural enough and definitely no one in their right frame of mind would want to to be saying they are above KTMB or anybody else in the coach. Equal as equal can be - equally late. equally squeezed, equally mishandled and equally annoyed of the service. Really once you are on this train all the trappings that you are somebody will be stripped off automatically.

Primary activity in the third place is conversation

Talk about conversation! There’s all kinds of conversations occurring at the same time. In fact you have a choice of listening in different languages. Beside Malay, Tamil, Mandarin or English you could have Indonesian, Bangla, Vietnamese, Urdu, Mynamar, Tagalog, Parsi and once in a while Arabic and German. The topics ranges from football to arts. They are also groups of people that converse to themselves in their dream, to their phone like he was the only person on the train, with their ITunes or audio players. Or you would have somebody like me who diligently creating a conversation using his laptop.

It is a place where human personality and individuality are displayed and appreciated

Oh my! I do not know about being appreciated but human personality definitely. Especially once you have the train packed to the seam. Animal instinct came out immediately when they just jump in thinking no body’s going to disembark first. If they got push they yell at all directions. The line when waiting for the train would be straight and decent but once the train arrive everyone seem to be asking WHAT Q??? I tell you a lot more human personality to share here. Opps maybe not not human.

They are taken for granted and most have a low profile.

The coach and train are way beyond taken for granted. With the kind of service they dish out they should be low profile but instead they strife for national attention especially regarding their breakdowns.

Third places normally open in the off hours, as well as at other times.

Ha ha ha ha off hours alright. When we need them they conveniently went off the schedule.

The character of a third place is determined most of all by its regular clientele and is marked by playful mood, which contrast with people’s more serious involvement in other spheres.

No way Jose. This is the domain of chaos own by KTMB.

Though a radically different kind of setting from home, the third place is remarkably similar to a good home in the psychological comfort and support that it extends.

Finally, to me yes it is home somewhat. How else would you think I survived for the past 8 years?

Joking a side. My conclusion the train is not the Third Place for just anybody but train nuts like me. Hey, I am on one and typing this now!

No, not again!!!!

As I was finishing this piece the train stopped at Seputeh. After about five minutes it started to go backwards and the door kept opening and closing. I ignored it at first but after another five minutes it started to reverse again. At this moment my commuting comrades around me started to recount our misadventure with KTMB Komuter train two successive Friday ago. They were conversing the kind of experience that I experienced as well. So in that way we were soul mates. They joke about the whole things and of course lamented about KTMB. I just kept quiet and listened to them as I was afraid if I say something I would be fasting for nothing. At this juncture the train really pushed back all the way back to MidValley station and the dreadful announcement came on the air that there was a mechanical problem with the doors that would not closed. We were asked to abandon the train and wait for the in coming six-car train. The station master, or at least that’s what he think he is, came on the air to ask us to moved to platform 1 for the six-car train. As if we need the exercise badly as soon we were at platform 1 he came on air again to say that platform 2 is back in service and ask us to moved back there again. I must tell you by then I lost few fasting points already by cursing them. So in the end the conclusion as always I was late yet again and thank you very much to KTMB.

On The Train, Aug 22, 2011

2011-08-24T09:26:00.000+08:00

I caught the Bangi short run train home and lucky to get a seat at KL station. Solid packed at KL Sentral.

I found out today I missed the registration date big time. I guess I have to do it after the Eid holiday. Someone told me I could be fined RM200 for late registration. What can I say it is my fault.

Huh! I just realised most of the human being on the train are men. The ladies must be at home already. Men just conscious about eating and wanting to eat whereas women more about preparing food or at least making sure there are food on the table for breaking fast. Kids, well, they just eat now days. Worse they could demand for certain kind of food.

On The Train, Aug 19, 2011

2011-08-21T16:33:00.000+08:00

Caught the 2242 train home. No I was not derailed by KTMB today but due to the function I attended. Our yearly office activity during Ramadan. Clad in full baju melayu with Bangla’s ketayap on my head I looked more like a cross of African and Indian. Who cares I wore and looked upon worse before. Nevertheless the train was a tin of ikan sardin at KL Sentral. I could hear kids voices coming from both end of the coach. Weekend commuters going home or maybe shoppers coming back from their Eidul Fitri shopping. The train moved out of KL Sentral slowly that worries me. After what had happened the last two Fridays I have a very good reason to worry.

Still solid pack at UKM. I guess most are going all the way to Soromban.

On The Train, Aug 18, 2011

2011-08-19T22:29:00.000+08:00

I thought I could go home early today. I rushed out of the office and KTMB spoilt it for me yet again he he he.

It is a different scene on the platform this year compare to during Ramadan last year. If I could go home comfortably at 1804 last year it is not so this year. A change in the demography of the commuters? People are working late? KTMB change the schedule? I am not sure what really. But for me it is not like last year that I arrived home on the dot for iftar. I am not complaining really. The last two weeks the train service has been erratic and unpredictable. More than its usual erratic self to the extend that I really could not plan my trip home. For now I just go with the KTMB flow. Now, the six-car train is packed due to the delay of the normal Komuter service.

On The Train, Aug 17, 2011

2011-08-18T13:45:00.000+08:00

When it rains it pours. I barely reached the station when the sky opened up once again and this time it was pouring. I was thankful I was not drenched if not I would be shivering instead of complaining (silently) about the Komuter’s air-condition which is not working now. It would be disaster if it were not Ramadan. Still I could sense a couple of restless commuters.

Combination of heavy rain and people from Selangor coming back from their shopping spree the train was ikan sardin can until Serdang. It is a good thing we want Malaysian to spend more locally he he he. I was ok as I got a seat at KL Sentral.

On The Train (Deep Thinking mode), Aug 16, 2011

2011-08-16T19:19:00.000+08:00

The train this morning was punctual and with the normal number of people inside. Yesterday was another outlier with extra bodies coming from no where to fill the train. I started to read for a couple of pages and when we got to Kajang my eye lids were pushing downward powerful that I closed my book for a short nap.

The sky looked like erupting when I walked out the office. I hasten my pace to avoid being caught under an evening downpour. I arrived at the station just to miss the 1820 train. I’ll be taking taking the six-car train home again I said to myself. To the wire again today. Tomorrow will be a holiday for Selangor and will be a dream for me going to work. Going home will be another story as always KL will be packed with Selangor folks shopping. I have to time my departure properly tomorrow.

On The Train (KTMB is a big mess still), Aug 15, 2011

2011-08-15T19:00:00.000+08:00

Now two Fridays in a row commuters for the KTMB Komuter were treated like shit by KTMB. I am not going to mince my words anymore and I know it is Ramadhan. Alas, this story need to be told and shared so as KTMB would know that what their Komuters carry daily are human beings. Due to the familiar ‘technical problem’ the train services was disrupted the Friday before last. The saving grace for me was then that the announcement caught me at the right time and place that I could rearranged my transport home. Last Friday I was not so lucky. The 1804 train came almost on time and I boarded happily anticipating I would be home earlier than the usual. Everything went well until we reached KL Sentral where the train was made to wait at the station. As I was busied with my laptop I did not realise it at first until I could sense restless commuters standing in front of me. We had been waiting for awhile and yet there was no announcement. Only later the driver came on the air to see we were waiting for the green light to proceed. By then I was really tired and I decided to close my laptop to have a quick nap. When I woke up I thought we had not moved an inch but when I looked outside we were waiting somewhere at Brickfields. It was pathetic and straight away I knew I was for a long night on the train. I decided to boot up my laptop and fired up my broadband to check if there was any updates. Now we were told there was a technical problem at Salak South. The commuters inside the train by now were tired, frustrated, hungry and very angry. Soon it was iftar and those with water and dates started to pass them around to share. It was a mess inside the train and I could not understand why KTMB did not inform us earlier and let us suffered. I continued communicating with my friends via Facebook and all of them were sorry of our predicament. We have no option but to wait inside the train. After a long suffering the train moved slowly and finally came to rest at MidValley station. I thought our agony would be over but what came next really hit the roof for most commuters. KTMB asked us to disembark there without giving any clue as to what to expect. Practically KTMB dumped and abandoned their customers at MidValley that night. I just walked out and entered MidValley Mall to search for my dinner.

Again the failures of KTMB are:

Failure to inform and communicate
A big time customer service failure
Failure to be human being
Strategy failure
Implementation failure

The added benefit to this episodes is that now I have reason to continue to blog daily.

Today, it is a technical problem at Kuang station!!!!!????? Luckily I am on the six-car limited train to Seremban already

Personality and Perception Game

2011-08-05T19:41:00.002+08:00

Always when we are not careful when we do not understand people enough and reading a wrong signal will put us in a difficult situation. It can be hurtful, stressful and down right angry. People can just read a lot from a situation and making it the truth about what they see. They are not wrong only sometimes they need to take a step back to think and maybe they will see a different perspective. As always, as we always say then sometimes the damage has been done. So how do we deal with it? I certainly do not have the right answer because I am also seeing perception. I guess asking the right question would help me.

The Third Place

2011-08-04T18:56:00.000+08:00

I remember those days growing up in Gali when my grandpa’s sundry/coffee shop was always being patronized by the same people every evening for them to relax and meet. When they met they either were talking about the current national events, the happenings in the kampung or just playing checkers (dam haji). The hardship of life and their problems were put away and they were genuinely happy. Late in the evening before maghrib they dispersed and walked or cycled home for the day. This was a standard routine for most of them. Most people will dismiss this as a culture of wasting time or worse pemalas. No doubt they are some truth to that to certain people but they were honest men just gathering at one place every evening to meet, relax and talk. Only recently social scientists concluded that this kind of activities and routine is a community culture building, networking and therapy.

Oldenburg (1999) in his book discusses this phenomena and taking American backdrop says,

‘In the absence of informal life, American are denied those means of relieving stress that serve other cultures so effectively. We seem not to realize that the means of relieving stress can just as easily be built into an urban environment as those features which produce stress. To our considerable misfortune, the pleasures of the city have been largely reduced to consumerism. ‘ p. 10

‘In the absence of an informal public life, living becomes more expensive.’ p. 11

Expensive because we almost have to pay for everything that used to be availabe to us free before. To be in a community today you may have to pay for steep club membership. Fees to go to the gym, spas and swimming pools to name a few. All these are required by us to help to manage our stress. Rules and regulations sometimes prohibited us to be at one gathering place just to meet.

The concept of the third place is not new then but because of new social behaviour and thinking induce by the new knowledge that we termed as management thinking we misguidedly destroyed the concept.

Oldenburg, Ray (1999). The great good place: cafes, coffee shops, bookstores, bars, hair salons and other hangouts at the heart of a community. Philadelphia: Da Capo Press.

On The Train (Walking and Serendipity), June 24, 2011

2011-07-20T20:34:00.000+08:00

I was walking to my new office this morning, it is a bit farther then the usual walk, and as usual I was reading at the same time. The competency that I had mastered after 8 years of doing it. I knew it already what walking can do to you. Apart from it being good physically it is also good for the mind to relax and sometimes reflect and ponder. Most of us take walking for granted now. Kids hardly walk now as there were sent or driven to school effectively from a door step to another door step. All through out their life they had it easy so the thought of walking for 10 minutes to our new building is definitely a big hoo hahh to them. But they are missing a lot. What they really not getting is the opportunity to reflect and discover new things as the mind is induce into thinking and processing all the knowledge that we have. The walk, the surrounding where we walk, the trees, people and whatever else we see and experience along the way are triggers. Triggering you to recreate or create new knowledge as you walk. If one even more relax even more could be gained.

On The Train (I am ashamed to be a Malaysian today), Mar 17, 2011

2011-03-17T23:35:00.000+08:00

Something happened on the train to work today.

When we arrived at the UKM station an African couple came on board. I presumed they were married judging from the way they handled themselves. They were quite a young couple. The husband sat next to me and his wife in front of me. Immediately when the wife sat down she saw somebody that came on board together with them dropped something. Being a good samaritan as she was, when the wife saw that she got up form her seat picked the thing, whatever been dropped, and walked to the end of the coach to return the thing back to the owner. What was shameful thing about some of us Malaysian is that not only we are not as civic minded as her. The moment she left her seat to return the thing those standing close by started to run trying to beat each other for her seat. I just stared at them and I could guess what’s coming next. True enough the African lady came back to claim her seat by saying to the lady who was occupying her seat now that she was sitting on hers. I do not know whether the lady was playing dumb of honestly did not realize the situation. The African lady kept on trying to explain to her. Seeing this and trying to avoid a situation her husband got up and vacated his seat for her. I was angry and very ashamed of the incidence. We Malaysians are really sorry lots. I dreaded the day when what happen in Japan now would happen here.

On The Train, Jan 28, 2011

2011-01-28T22:04:00.000+08:00

I walked down slowly to the station after I had finished what I wanted to do in the office at 2015. Today the short walk seemed to be taking forever. I guess a lot on my mind and a major changes are ahead of me in the office. Upon arrival at the station I thought my train was still at Sg Buloh so I stopped at the snack shop at the entrance to buy a bottle of mineral water and a small packet of nuts. That’s an irony I thought maybe I was going nuts LOL. I just could not be bothered with my ticket anymore and just walked through the barrier down to Platform 1. Luck had it that I had been listening to a wrong announcement before, my train was actually 3 minutes away as soon as I wanted to get comfortable at the waiting bench.

The train was empty when I boarded but was filled with the normal Friday evening commuters as soon as we got to KL Sentral. I welcomed the crowd actually for I could resurrected my old favorite activity observing all sorts of characters on the train. Through the corner of my right eye I could see a young boy looking at me wondering, I guess, what was I writing about? A lone young lady standing in front of me was staring down through the floor obviously taking her mind away from the train. Two young ladies beside her were busied 'texting' and talking to each other. I overheard a young man sitting next to me on my left calling one of his service providers in terminating a service. More crowds started to push in at Mid Valley Station. I ignored them. Two African ladies were talking in their language on my right. This has been a common fixture on the train these days. Whether in the morning or evening, well in fact, whenever I was on the train I would see at least two of them, the Africans. Good or bad the main Malaysian feature now.

I over heard the young lady that was staring through the floor asked the lady next to her whether she could get down at Serdang because she missed her station or something like that. I was not sure though as she said later something like wanting to go ahead to Seremban whereas maybe her ticket was only for Serdang. I wanted to butt in to offer help but decided to just observe especially when I heard she was given the right information she suppose to get. Amazingly while typing my mind wondered off LOL. I needed to be a bit more focused especially with a lot of thinking and writing waiting ahead of me. I do not want to be typing something and thinking about something else at the same time as I may end up writing what I am thinking that I am not suppose to be thinking he he he.

The train was still a can of ikan sardin when we arrived as Kajang Station. I smelled like ikan sardin myself LOL.

At UKM Station half of the train was empty. I immediately stretched my legs out lazily waiting for Bangi Station to show up.

The CNY week break is something I am really looking forward to now. Away with the family again will do good for me. This time we are going to places that we really have not been before. New experience for all of us.

Yeap, Bangi Station at 2131 and I am home.

On The Train ( The New Year KTMB style and what not), Jan 5, 2011

2011-01-06T22:12:00.000+08:00

It’s an increase of another digit to everything again. Work wise I am expecting a new exciting thing to happen in 2011. Morning routine remain the same as last year with just very minor adjustments here and there. KTMB at large remain the same with a bit of improvement with the introduction of the new six car train plying during peak hours on the Seremban Rawang line.

Today I was early going home as I had promised my family a dinner outside. My schedule further helped me to make sure I was out of the office at 1730. I took the 1800 shuttle train to Bangi. I tried to write something but dozed off after Mid Valley station only to wake up at Kajang when the train pulled into platform number 3. As if trying to be a constant spoiler in my life, KTMB dumbed all of us at Kajang station to wait for another train to Seremban. %%$$&O&^$ KTMB! Only recent we were stranded at Salak South station because of a malfunctioned train now this. As I was sitting waiting to walk out I sensed a gentleman was on the phone talking on my left oblivious of the announcement. As I walked out he sort of asked somebody as to what was going on. Since I was the only one in front of him I remarked that KTMB asked us to abandon the train as it was turning back to KL. He replied, ‘Can they do that?’ I said, “ Nothing surprise me anymore about KTMB and they can do anything they like.’. With that we started to talk as we walked across the bridge to platform 1 to wait for another Seremban bound train. He continued, ‘ I thought they have a new good guy as CEO?’. “Yes’, I said. ‘but what can a guy do if they still operating with old and almost obsolete train sets or infrastructure. As long as you have the majority of the workforce with the same old mentality, no point as well.’ As we reached Platform 1 he remarked, ‘I might as well go an have satay Kajang first before I take another train home.’ ‘Not a bad idea.’ I replied. With that he walked away to exit the station.

Being a Writer

2010-12-03T14:36:00.002+08:00

I was at a writing workshop with my daughter last weekend. It was something I always wanted to do with Kak CIk. Not only I got to know a bit better of the book and writing industry in Malaysia but it debunked certain belief that you cannot make money by being a writer in Malaysia. The industry and opportunity are still wide open for everyone. You just need to start to write and be a bit more prolific. Especially malay language materials. The current statistics say that on average Malaysian reads about 12 books a year. In a way support my hypothesis when I observed the visitors to the KL International Bookfair every year. It was really a nice thing to know. I hope Kak CIk is inspired to start to write now. I surely do. In terms of subject areas several options still open for me. The only thing I need to decide is whether I want to be a certain type of writer or just publish anything that I wanted to publish. It can be a difficult decision. I guess at the end on the day the answer would be - what are the things that I am passionate about.

KM World 2010, Day 1

2010-11-16T09:14:00.000+08:00

Learning From Failure, Nancy Dixon, KM World, Nov. 15, 2010

Finally met Nancy Dixon in person. Nancy is one of the first authors of knowledge management. Her book Common Knowledge was one of the first books on KM that I read. Also met and sat next to Jay Liebowitz the author of Knowledge Retention. Among others in the workshop was also Lesley Shneier of the World Bank and Neo Kim Hai of the SAF.

Failure is defined as any deviation from expected behaviour.
Literature says if we learn from the small failures we could avoid - head off catastrophic failure.
FAA of the US learnt from near misses. Pilots benefited through lesson via simulation - successful
Healthcare industry took the FAA lessons and try to talk about their ‘failures’
Nuclear industry also learned from any deviation in their systems

We should learned from failed policy and near misses in our projects and policy works as well as dealing with our stakeholders at large. People issue is that no one want to talk about failures

Collecting lessons learned but not learning from them is just a checklist
Need to break silos and get people to ‘talk’. Donna mentioned that her organization uses ‘fail often, fail fast’ strategy.

Surprisingly despite the development in KM and awareness most are still talking about the same old issues and problems - silos, not collaborating, not sharing, etc

Chris quoted ‘Failure is the mother of invention’

KM @ World Bank - ups and downs - new knowledge strategy - KM competency - core for everyone and specific for the KM group - Facebook linked - ‘iCollaborate’ -
New mantra ‘Open Data, Open Knowledge, Open Bank’ - you have to have a Champion and people passionate about the initiatives to be successful.

Nancy proposed 3-Step Process

Identify small failures and make them visible. Kim Hai - Commander to blog, mine the data and connecting the dot. Is it possible for us to include in our knowledge mapping, CoPs, exercise to explore and discover. Would someone willing for someone else to make visible their ‘failures’. You need, as Nancy suggested, connectors to connect knowledge (information) to the right people.
Identify ways to make sense of failures (common and frequent failures). Someone make sense every possible issues to a problem across systems and processes; and get a group to converse and discuss about it to identify gaps and new meaning to the issue. Could be a World Cafe topic. The role of analysis, connectors and facilitators is important to make this successful. Candidates to do this possibly are the Analysis and Repackaging group or CoPs. One possibility is to link and embed the practice into the work process of line departments. The discussion on where KM group should be located structurally cropped up and I believe our model is still applicable. No mater where KM policy and thought leadership need to be central.
Experimentation. Experiment the ‘failure’ findings into new environment or possibility. SAF Weak signal dashboard

The best examples of when the three steps being used, consciously or otherwise, successfully are the discovery of Post-It Notes and Viagra.

Organizational Network Analysis, Patti Anklam

I attended this workshop because I would like to learn on how we could benefit and do the SNA. It is as what we read about and our biggest obstacle is more in mastering the SN software. Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) would be useful for us in identifying the networks of potential retirees for knowledge retention. Listening to Patti we could think of also use ONA as part of measurement tools
Before presenting the result (patterns) of the ONA we must seek to understand the network and seek clarification.

On The Train (Start writing Ghaz), Nov. 2, 2010

2010-11-03T09:16:00.000+08:00

I have a lot of incentives to start writing my book or books today. A couple of important people around me urged me to do so. Out of the blue it was suggested also for me to co-write with someone. My dear wife has been urging me all this while. So today, seriously, I have given it a thought and apart from other writings that I have to do will start on the book with a structure and research. Do you think I’ll be any busy? Nah!!! I am pretty sure I’ll still keep to my current pace and schedule. Although it was said that too much multi tasking will spoil my brain cell development I’ll persist.

I caught the 2005 train home and it was the way I like it. Only a few people on board. cool with a lot of open spaces around me. I opened my research files, travelog and readings at the same time. Switching from one to another as my mood takes me. Writing now is almost second nature to me only the quality that I have to worry about.

KTMB yet again promised us with better services nationwide after the ‘soon to be’ completed double tracking project in the North. With that it was expected to cut short the journey from JB to Padang Besar and vice versa. Knowing their history I am highly skeptical though. For once I’d love to be proven very wrong here.

So when will be our next train excursion?

On The Train (Three Trains), Oct. 12, 2010

2010-10-13T20:15:00.002+08:00

Last Sunday I really felt ridiculous when I felt like I just came back from a white winter of New York. Only after a week up at Cameron Highland, where the weather not even any close to freezing point, my body already could not take it.

This morning I once again felt ridiculous, not because of the heat, believe it or not I had to take three different trains to work. You might think that is normal? Well, this was on the same Seremban - Rawang line. I boarded as usual at Bangi and since I was a bit tired I took a nap after my second page of the book I was reading. Just after UKM station I could sense the train stopping and was waiting for quite a while. My thought then it must be waiting for the intercity train to clear at Kajang station. When we finally reached Kajang immediately the driver came on the air to announce that the train is facing, yes you guess right, a technical problem. I must say that announcement came out perfect, short and sweet. After years of practice no doubt, something that I really learn up at Cameron Highland, you’ll achieve excellent result if not perfection. We were told to disembark and wait for another train.

The station master at the station then came on the air to announce to the others of the technical problem. He advised those going to KL Sentral to board the next to arrive intercity train from Singapore. Looking at the crowd around me, knowing how they will react, the fact that intercity train is at the top of KTMB priority list (they get the first right to any lines), as well as the fact that I maybe going to our PJ office I decided to take that train. As soon as the intercity train arrived I walked quickly to find the best door and the buffet car presented me with the best option. With my son following suit we sat with the rest there knowing we would not be that late. Sitting in the buffet car however brought about another excitement in me and I kinda missed being on the train and longed for another long excursion. Resurrecting the plan for KL-Bangkok-Chiang Mai was an immediate possibility.

At around 0730 we arrived at platform 2 of KL Sentral station and I walked up thinking that I was going to have breakfast before going to PJ. That was when I received the call that I was not needed in PJ. I abandoned the need to have breakfast and walked down to the platform to board my third train. It happened to be the new spanking ETS train that was being used to help ease the commuter train shortage problem. It was a neat short ride and I would definitely do the Ipoh route soon to experience the full pleasure of the express train.

Going home in the evening was another nice surprise. Expecting that I would be late, again the same ETS train arrived the moment I was at the right place on the platform. A slightly longer neater ride home for me and I love it. As if KTMB have been listening to my complaint :)))

A Place of Possibilities

2010-10-11T21:44:00.000+08:00

It is so easy to say there is no life after staying 4 days or a week in a place like Cameron Highland if you were born and breed in the city.

I was sitting in the resort’s restaurant alone having breakfast when I contemplated this while looking out of the window watching the day breaking in. You will miss a lot of things if you are not looking and just passing by. Age and the fact that I am a kampong boy at heart brought a feeling of sadness and loneliness to me suddenly. I do not mind at all if I were to retire at a place like this. Life is much slower compounded by the breezy weather outside.

I just got back from our early morning photo shoot at Bharat Tea Plantation. Being there got me in the mood to be a bit sentimental. When I sat there I realized that it was not just that but also what I needed and could possibly be I had nailed down my purpose and values in life. It is definitely a good place to think and write. I just could pick either one of the Bharat’s or Boh’s plantations and I would be contented. Who knows I might pick up drawing seriously again. Being a kampong boy I could relive my childhood days of vege farming as well. With the Bertam Valley route to Raub open now there are all possibilities. One hour to Ipoh via Simpang Pulai, two hours to Raub and four hours to KL

I have my bicycle with me as well. So far I have done the Brinchang, the golf course and Tanah Rata loop twice. In fact I looped the golf course three times in between. Sipping my coffee I thought going all the way up to the Equatorial Hotel at Kea Farm the next day. That would be a blast going up and exhilarating coming down at faster speed with my face hitting the cool air.

In the end, a week up at Cameron Highland prove to be meaningful for me, both professionally as well as personally as far as my life is concern.

The photos below.

CH 1, CH 2, CH 3, CH 4, CH 5, CH 6, CH 7, Flowers and Fruits

Ramadhan ini

2010-09-04T23:18:00.000+08:00

Hari sudah makin singkat tetapi aku masih memerlukannya
Tidak puas dan tidak cukup kerana kelalaian ku yang sudah-sudah
Dosa ku terhadap Mu amat banyak dan berat membuatkan aku merasa apa yang aku lakukan selama ini tidak mampu menebusnya.
Walau pun dengan dugaaan demi dugaan yang Kau beri
Aku bersyukor aku redha
Dan aku masih ingin bermohon kepada Mu
Akan kesejahteraan buat ku sekeluarga
Aku berharap berakhirnya Ramadhan merupakan permulaan yang lebih baik
Untuk melangkah kehadapan melawan arus
Mematahkan duri-duri serta halangan yang ada
Supaya kami menjadi
Lebih bersyukor
Lebih redha
Lebih tabah untuk menhadapi apa jua yang Kau berikan
Ramadhan ini aku nantikan
Ramadhan ini aku rintihkan pemergiannya
Ramadhan ini aku berharap
Mendapat keberkatan, keredhaan, kesempurnaan dan keampunan
Ramadhan ini akan terus berlalu
Ketibaan mu semula akan terus ku nanti

Salam eidil fitri untuk semua
Maaf zahir dan bathin

On The Train (Bukit Galing Camp), Aug 6, 2010

2010-08-10T14:20:00.000+08:00

Things got complicate and challenging for me this month. With various responsibilities demanding my resources - physical, time and money, I got stretched a little bit. The biggest concern however has to do with my own health. I had been a time bomb walking around waiting to explode.

The Bukit Galing Camp group page that I created few months back now getting a lot of air time and participation have increased many folds thanks to the old classics photos uploaded by my good buddy Zaha. Everyone is trying to reconnect to one another which is wonderful to me. Personally, slowly my old mental hardisk started to retrieve important and memorable events in my life between the period of 1968 -1976. The life as anak mat kampau in an enclosure that was named as Bukit Galing Camp. That was a long, long time ago but if you asked everyone they would say it was just like yesterday. That brings me to the main topic of my blog today - ‘organic social networks’ - if there is such a term. This kind of social network always associated itself to a place or location. The sense of belonging to a place is so strong that no matter what, one is immediately accepted to be part of the network if you once in your life been associated to the place. More so if you had been living in that place for quite a while. This kind of network would be stronger among the pioneers. Especially when they share certain experiences and growing up together. The stories that they tell years later would be the connectors to most of the meanings and contexts of the knowledge that they have. Over time though I am not very sure whether this kind of network is sustainable.

Masjid India and the Vicinity

2010-08-06T15:11:00.000+08:00

After years of ignoring the Masjid India area, well I do not have any good reason why I should be there, last week I was there passing through for five consecutive days. I was attending a five day course in the vicinity. Up until that day I did not know that there is a Maytower Hotel and Apartments in KL and let alone in Masjid India area.

Walking through the area was indeed a new discovery. Gone are the days of mischievous if not really nasty neighborhood where hoodlums making it their den for almost any form of illegal activities. I felt really safe walking there and the existence of Mydin and Jakel bringing out more family atmosphere. It was really a nice surprise for me. the area now is a worthy tourist site offering more credible and clean three star hotels like Maytower. Being close to the Masjid Jamek LRT station is definitely useful and helpful. Jalan Melaka had been one of the banking street in Kuala Lumpur but ever since the collapse of Bank Bumiputra the area never recovered from the set back. A curse as it may seems but that is the reality for me. Thinking about it I guess it is the nature of a city like KL where events, positive or negative, will change the make up, environment and one’s perception of a place. I live long enough to see the transformation.

Conversation with Gen Y

2010-07-29T19:20:00.002+08:00

Last Thursday I was invited to be in a panel discussion at one of our local university. The topic was ‘Peranan Perpustakaan Di Dalam Memertabatkan Ilmu.’ I was asked to speak and discuss from KM point of view in corporate environment. I basically was ever ready and did not need to prepare much. While driving and even more when I was already seated on the stage facing the audience it was confirmed that the majority of them was students, college students. I immediately had to change to plan B. The first panel speaker was Dato Zawiyah and she delivered her piece like she normally did. After ten minutes into it the first line of students in front of me on the left were already in never never land. A few more in the middle rows on the left of the hall were in their dreams as well. Students at the back in the last row as expected were the first group to go oblivious of the going on’s in the hall. I knew they were there not on their free will and some of them can be very well very tired. I had to take the advantage of their present and make it count. When Dato Zawiyah ended and the microphone was passed to me the first thing that I did was aligned my chair so that I was really facing them. I sat leaning forward a bit talking to them as if they were right in front of me and my eyes moved all over the hall as I was talking. After I thanked the organiser for inviting me I focused my full attention at the students. With my direct to the point and shooting at will framing them that I knew what they were and think I got their full attention. Most of them were awake as if being jolted to full attention. I knew I had their full attention to start the conversation. Firstly, I said to them that if any of them still in doubt about knowledge economy needed only to take out their handphone at look at it.

Relating my experience interviewing the straight A’s students coming through our system I said, ‘I must say I was disappointed.’ I alluded to the fact that when I talked to these graduates it was like talking to a machine. One line answer without much discussion and most a text book answers. I continued with my version of memertabatkan ilmu. I seem to get their full attention by way of a delivery. Maybe a shock treatment way. My objective was to urge them to be knowledgeable (berilmu) rather than just clever at their subject. They needed to be reminded that the whole world is revolving around them and they need ot learn to connect the dots. In of the ways, as their entire growing ups had been, social and community in nature. This is the irony to me. They live in a very connected and social world but do not act and think likewise when it comes to making what they have learned more meaningful and comprehensive. I shared with them a little bit what it means to be a knowledge worker as well as my organization as a knowledge-based organization. I was pretty sure when I talked about it about more then half did not have a clue to what I was talking about. Within ten minutes I just stopped talking and urged them to start to converse with us.

Questions started to come led by one planted by the organiser. I must say all the questions are good questions. Although we did not achieve the level of full conversation at least we managed to cover the important issues. One observation though, because of their immaturity and wanting to stake a claim at being the most could not care less macho jocks in campus, most of the Malay boys just sat without showing any commitment. It could be just my perception but then that was what I saw.

On The Train, July 23, 2010

2010-07-24T08:03:00.000+08:00

‘Tren ke Seremabn telah mengalami kelewatan. Tren ke Seremaban sekarang ini berada di stesyen Segambut. KTMB memohon maaf di atas kelewatan.’ Nothing new there. In fact it is expected on Friday evening and a culture for KTMB already.

Just now a colleague remarked that somebody telah meriwayatkan kepada beliau that whenever I got on the train I would straight away either open my laptop to do something or my book to read. Well, yes that is my nature and I have been doing it for 6 years already. I would blog, do some work or now reading using my laptop. Books I have still a lot to finish so that would be a never ending story for me. In fact I am thinking one of these days I would just board a train on one Saturday or Sunday morning and started to read or write until the last station, Tg Malim. Maybe in the future all the way to Ipoh on the new express train.

We were held up at KL Sentral and I was not bothered to find out why. I kept my head down concentrating of my reading and writing. The situation got worst with more commuters trying to squeeze in. Once in a while I over heard agitated voices asking people to move in and pleading reply saying that there was no more room for even a skeleton. I just smiled. It did not get any better at MidValley as well as Bandar Tasek Selatan. Lucky for me I was in the mood to read and write.

On The Train, July 16, 2010

2010-07-17T08:32:00.000+08:00

I was reading a live Facebook updates between my two office colleagues who were in their cars on the way home. They were discussing about the Friday evening traffic crawl and one of them was unlucky enough to be stuck in one nasty traffic jam. I jumped in the conversation by way of a question, ‘Train anyone?’. One of them replied. ‘ Train tak jem tapi dalam train jem En G’. She was of course right especially on Friday evening. The train would normally be like a can of sardine. That was one of the reason why I was still in the office then. You would have a comfortable ride home if you catch a train after 1900. I replied with a joke, ‘Bukan jem tapi tapai, durian and all the perfume made in B....... BTW I am immune to all that already.’ Which is true as well. After all this while I am immune to all the possibilities in the train. I am only, after trying very hard not to, but still amaze at the antics of KTMB.

Going home today I got a seat straight away when I boarded the 2035 train that was late as usual very late. At Mid Valley it was solid packed. Lucky for me around me was a smell of a very expensive perfume. I am immune to that as well but this one was very nice. A lot of chattering today, mostly students going home for the weekends. Maybe going home after some shopping to furnish their dorm/room with new mattress for the new semester :)). Two of them were standing in front of me holding a mattress each. A student sitting in front of me was like me writing something, my guess his assignment, on his note pad. Are the commuters getting intellectual? Maybe, transportation of choice for students? Are students established customer segment for KTMB? There are only a few commuters like me and I guess KTMB should know better. Or maybe this is too complex for them?

In The Class, July 10, 2010

2010-07-12T09:42:00.000+08:00

I arrived early for my first IGS class. I am going to be here from 0900 to 1800. Who ever designed this seminar series need to go back to adult learning methodology course. Unless the would be lecturer allow at least four breaks in between. How could you design a straight 4 hours class per segment.

I waited until 0905 when a gentleman showed up to try the locked door. He turned to me indicating ‘no show’. He mentioned that the class has been moved to another place. I could not but be amazed at the fallacy of human communication skill and customer relationship yet again. I am very sad and angry that this is still happening at UiTM. How in the world could they fathom that we will know where the class is? What is the use of the website and our emails? I know my role as a student I checked, double checked and called to make sure I got the latest information. Another two ladies showed up and they similarly told us that they probably moved the class to Section 17. One of them called their colleague that was already at Section 17 and he/she was also wondering whether or not he/she was at the right place. Interesting!? We waited for awhile deciding our next action. In the end we decided to convoy to Section 17 and ended inside Anggerik Lecture Hall 15 minutes late. I was lucky the three guys were with me if not I would surely missed the class.

On The Train (Now, today KTMB said the cable was stolen), July 9, 2010

2010-07-09T16:20:00.000+08:00

Ha ha ha he he he he this morning KTMB said it was due to a stolen cable. A punk or two decided to steal a cable, which one I am not sure, somewhere at Bank Negara station rendering one line dead. I almost choke with laughter when I heard that as the reason of us being delayed at KL Sentral this morning. Well, it could be true and damn to the thieves or vandals but, again, this is not something new! How in the world KTMB allow that happen! I finally reached my station at 0800 after one an a half hour on the train. I was not late for work but others were. and I am very sure they were cursing KTMB all the way to the office.

On The Train (KTMB said it was broken cable), July 7, 2010

2010-07-09T16:13:00.000+08:00

It was a broken cable between Salak Selatan and Serdang today. The announcer said ‘a cable snapped’ and I surely do not know because of what? Fallen trees? No I did not see any trees along the tracks around the area. Cable pole came a ground? No, I do not think so. So it just snapped then. Just like the civet (Musang Pandan) that decided to fall off through the ceiling in my office yesterday. Well that’s another interesting story. Luckily for me I was in the mood to read and write. As I sat down reading and writing I could feel the unpleasant feeling among most commuters around me. A gentleman next to me occupied himself, engrossed, reading a novel. A 45 minutes journey became almost two hours.

Innovation - Robert B. Tucker. Istana Hotel, June 28, 2010

2010-07-05T21:14:00.000+08:00

Over the weekend I visited iCity at Shah Alam with my family. My daughter asked me what is the ‘i’ in the iCity stand for? I started to play with the letter ‘i’ to get myself to decipher what word it represents. Of course it is ‘i’ for Innovation, Innovation city. Their intention is good but I am not sure the implementation is right. At first when I saw the light trees there I thought they were made out of LCD or LED lights. On closer look they were from different sizes of normal light bulbs. Well they were still creative but I am not sure I could say innovative as well.

Today I attended a ‘Guru Talk on Innovation’ and the Guru was Robert B. Tucker. Well, I reserved my comment of the guru thing.

According to the ‘Guru’

Lightning might strike but you need to work at being innovative and a certain framework and processes need to be in place for it to happen. You could guess that the Guru came with his trademarked framework. No, I have no complaint on that but if we were to be honest with ourselves it is quiet common and the bottomline is to do it. Lets walk the innovation talk.

According to materials provided the best practices for innovation

Making innovation a systematic process
Implementation idea management system
Collaboration with stakeholders
Creating metrics and measures
Involving everyone in the organization

In the business world there are three types of Innovation from the perspective of Products, Process, Strategy and they are;

Breakthrough
Substantial
Incremental

One thing I like most about being innovative is the statement ‘Innovation is about collaborating and collaborating is additive’.

Robert shared with us what he thinks as the required innovation skills.

Embracing opportunities
Be a good collaborator, leaders in Collaboration
Assault your assumptions - Become aware of your own assumptions, Ask five ‘why’ questions, Ask for a 3rd option, Look for solutions outside your industry, Invite yourself to think bigger
Passion for the stakeholders
Think ahead of the curve and the tools are Technological, Demographic, Social, Economics, Environmental, Regulatory

Take Home Values

Look for patterns of change
Audit your information diet
Do ‘ deep dives’ on emerging issues
Improve your networking skills
Host ‘all things considered’ meetings
Fortify your idea factory
Harvest for ideas
Identify what gets your creative juices flowing

‘All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist when they grow up.’ - Pablo Picasso

Let’s try to help KTMB to make our ride On The Train to be a bit better, June 24, 2010

2010-07-05T21:08:00.002+08:00

I was not even out of my office building yet when somebody mentioned to me about the bad news regarding the Komuter service. The person is a regular commuter like me and according to her, her friend said that one of the electrical wires broke into two somewhere between Segambut and KL station rendered one line ceased to be operable. She was walking to the station to confirm the news and for her to take alternative to go home. She was complaining that she has a monthly ticket and if KTMB continued to behave this way she going to be at the losing end. So I was not surprise when I saw the crowds moving and coming from the same direction. As I was thinking of what to do an announcement came on air about the mishap and delays. The announcer also mentioned that who ever wish to continue with the journey their ticket will be refunded and with that I straight away decided to take the STAR LRT to Petaling. I queued up at the counter and got my RM4 refund. This morning the line between KL and Segambut was still not ready and a lot of people were late for work.

Let’s try to dissect the problem and maybe, just maybe, we could offer KTMB a solution. First of all from the six years experience that I have taken the Komuter Train service all their problems that I had faced were not new problems. Meaning that they have had experience on almost everything happening within this year before. From learning perspective they should have learned from all these experiences and be better equip to anticipate and deal with the problems but this did not happen. Why?

They do not now how to learn?
The have issue with knowledge flow so much so the lessons learned were not shared?
Not enough opportunity to share because of structure, culture or process?

Truly, most adults take for granted that since they are adults they know how to learn. In actual fact they do not have a clue. KTMB need to find out if this is so within it’s organization. How to learn properly is important in terms of comprehension and retention. The capacity to learn is also as important as ability to learn. Most need to understand both of these first in order to know what proper learning is. If you are a baby boomer highly likely you would not have a clue about this unless you read and learn about it. Taking into consideration the population of the staff of KTMB especially the technical section that mostly deals with the current situation they are facing. Learning style, retention and the way learning is design and deliver are very important for them. I am beginning to wonder what sort of learning and training intervention they provide at their Batu Gajah Training Centre?

Or maybe with all the learnings they had from dealing with the day to day problems and issues just stuck with few people in the organization and the learnings were not being shared enough. This could happen due to several reasons for them. The technical knowledge were not captured properly and thus not many know the knowledge exist within the organization. Maybe it is due to the knowledge are not flowing far and deep enough in the organization. There is a bottle neck or stopper somewhere along the line of their knowledge flow value chain. The barrier could be a person, social network or process and the three may have a connection to the culture of the organization.

If all these are not the problem then it is just a case of not enough opportunities exist or being created for them to share ‘war stories’ easily in the organization.

On The Train, June 23, 2010

2010-06-24T17:50:00.000+08:00

For some reasons I was really not in the mood to do anything productive today. I tried to do some research on how we should proceed to the next level of our KM journey but I was losing energy very fast and drained my self towards the end of the day. I forced my self to stay back to a bit to see what else I could do and got just a little bit in return. Grudgingly I walked down to the station after I said my Maghrib thinking I would be on time for the 2005 train. As usual KTMB had totally a different comprehension to the concept of punctuality.

I guess I had too much on my mind.

Rediscovering The Forest

2010-06-22T08:51:00.001+08:00

Over the weekend we decided to jungle trek up to the Tanjung Taun Lighhouse and, apart from the exercise, we rediscovered our love for trail walking.

After the cycle up to the peak the day before we found out that there were at least to walking trail that the visitors used to climb and we got interested to explore. I initially had the audacious idea of riding the trail down but I was advised by one of the workers doing maintenance there it would we difficult. Luckily I was not stubborn as usual. From the beginning I already decided to use the trail that would take us up via the secluded beach and immediately as we entered the gate Sam, little Mar and I turned left into the trail. It was almost 1030. We started to walk along a low gradient path before climbing down to a spot where seems to be a dry watering place for small animals. From there we walked up and incline that was quite steep but still not difficult. Walking under a canopy of the green gave us a certain nice feeling. We continued walking up and down stepping over a log or two crossing our path. I was on the lead for the obvious reason, Mar in the middle and Sam a sweeper of sort for Mar. All of us into our own mode while walking. I was thinking of the next path as well as how I missed all the green and trekking. The think is if you have not been doing it for awhile certain kind of edginess creep in you. Sometimes worrying over nothing. Having Mar and Sam behind me making me more protective I guess. Once in a while I stopped to check on them. Now the gap between the three of us was about 5 metres in between each other. I did not mean to push time but we started a bit late and we were two hours before our check out time. Assessing our progress so far I was confident we would make it back with enough time.

Then, we came down to the best part of the trail. An unspoiled beach. Before we reach there along the path was an old perigi. I did not check what was it there before but judging from he look of the perigi I guess it must be some kind of historical landing and dwelling.

The beach was beautiful to us and with wind blowing cooling us a bit we sat down to rest. Mar straight away jumped onto the beach and it took me great effort to stop her from playing with the water. Since she was only in a sandal I did not want for her to wet them as it would be slippery and difficult for our next climb. On the clearing nearby Jabatan Perhilitan’s contract workers were building new beautiful facilities for visitors to the place. I could not help but worry for the place despite their good intention to make the place a more convenient place for people to take a break of camping some Malaysians that I called idiots would in no time spoil the place with their behaviour. I have seen too many beautiful nature turned into a rubbish dump to justify my worry.

I hate to interrupt Sam and Mar in their reverie and pleasure of sitting under the tree with the cool sea breeze blowing at them but we had to move. Grudgingly we continue our walk and now facing was the the ‘tonggek’ climb. I told Mar, just to appease her, that was going to be the last climb, little that we knew what a climb it was. No, she was not complaining of being tired but she was even louder because she needed to go :)).

Slowly we inched up until we reached the peak to rest a bit before we continued to walk along a level path towards the lighthouse. At our pace we reached the lighthouse slightly more than one hour. We we drenched in sweat.

We used the tarmac road going down and we were back at the gate in 20 mintues. the next time we are going to back track the trail down.

On The Train (Lentang, Raub, Kuala Lipis and Pulau Chekas), June 14, 2010

2010-06-18T08:18:00.000+08:00

It was another wedding weekend for me and I took two days off to rejuvenate and recuperate in preparation as well as aftermath of the wedding. We left the house early on Friday morning and I detoured to Hutan Lipur Lentang for a bit of R&R. The cool mountain and waterfall did wonders to my well being. Kak Cik, Mar and I were in the water as soon as we had our ‘breakfast’. The place was well kept and maintained by the authority to make our present there even better. I walked around and concluded that it is one of the potential for our next camping trip. I even found a potential track for offroad cycling.

We reached Gali Tengah around 1500 to rest a bit before I decided to go to KL (Kuala Lipis) for something. Actually my dear wife wanted to buy tights for her cycling. Well, it is always like that for us and small towns Malaysia. We always seems able to find what we need in small towns like Kuala Lipis, Kuala Pilah, Tapah, etc. In the case of Kuala Lipis I found my favourite sandal sold there as well. So at around 1730 we were in Kuala Lipis already. As I stepped out of the Ranger I realised I had a good evening light for a good photography. I took few shots of the old building along the main street of Kuala Lipis. As my wife walked along towards the shop I snapped at will and after getting her things we walked further on and I was presented with a classic. A classic vintage old bicycle that is at one bicycle shop. It was priced at RM300 and I was tempted to just grab it and take it home as souvenir. But then I remembered I already had two bikes at the back of the Ranger and adding another one will indeed posted a problem for us. At least now I know where to get one.

Once when we thought we had explored enough we walked back to our Ranger and when I was inside I realised there were a lot of people coming towards us from the bus stand. I said to my wife maybe there’s a Pasar Malam there and I decided to drive there to check. It was indeed our lucky day as it was indeed a Kuala Lipis Pasar Malam in progress. Without prompting I parked and walked towards the area to further explore. A very nice surprised indeed. In the end we were only back home at my mum’s at around 1930.

Saturday was a full wedding day for my cousin and we were busy doing our things since 1000. It was a hot tiring day and fun day for everyone.

On Sunday I decided to take everyone to cool off at Pulau Chekas waterfall which was not that far away from my kampung. I woke early and headed for the Raub Pasar Minggu to buy something for our picnic. Early as I was the Pasar Minggu was already bustling with buying and selling. I just grabbed whatever I thought we needed and headed back. Knowing we could be late if we dilly daly I gave an ultimatum to everyone that I was leaving at 0830 and anybody not ready by then will be left behind. It was really effective as I got everyone interested stirring up rushing to the bathrooms. With nothing much to pack at 0827 we left for Pulau Chekas and reached it 20 minutes later.

When we arrived we were greeted by the worst possible scenario. The place although almost empty was a rubbish dump taking the glow out of the beautiful rocks and the river. It was really pathetic and I was ashamed being a Pahang boy then. How could have they treated the place like that. Not only we have not many of such places now we are trying our best to spoil what we have. I really am sick the fault behaviour and attitude. It is beyond comprehension to me. As we walked in to find a good spot for us we saw a young kompang group camping in the middle of the compound. They were thumping their kompang in earnest when we walked by. The place is called Pulau Chekas because the river split into two directions before coming together again at downturn creating an island in the middle. The island, at it’s edges is where you can find some of the best picnic area. At one of spots that we decided to camp.

We had breakfast first and then leading the rest I jumped into the cold water. It was cold just a moment until our body blood system regulate the temperature to make it pleasant to swim. I was hoping I could stay the whole day in the water but I know I could not. In the end due to several unrelated events we left the place early satisfied.

On The Train, June 1, 2010

2010-06-03T10:41:00.000+08:00

Yeap, I am on the train yet again. What can I do? I like train so much no matter how pissed I was yesterday. The 1920 train home was packed like sardine can. Came on board at the same station was a KTMB guy in uniform. I thought at first he was checking tickets and getting a ride back to the office. About 5 minutes into our journey I saw several men were coming through sheepishly and smiling from the next coach. They were chased out by the KTMB guy from the Pink Coach. So they are serious about the Pink Coach. I just hope they are as serious about improving the basic parts of the service.

If it was me I would not budge from the coach. Well, I am not trying to be stubborn or what but it I were to be there in the first place I must have a valid reason. Secondly, I would give the conductor my piece of mind before anything else. For one I would be telling him that KTMB has their priority wrong. Despite applauding and supporting the move to assign a ladies only coach, in the current situation it is ill-advised on their part. The other thing they forget is that most of their customers are really suffering because of their poor services. Especially for loyal commuters like me that have been using the ‘disservice’ for 6 years and more. At this point whatever KTMB does to make us piss will piss us big time. We are as hot as the hot weather in Malaysia now. They should know better not to increase the temperature further. I know most of them are just doing their job but as I said our body temperature has reached the bearable maximum.

On The Train (Piss off with KTMB Day), May 31, 2010

2010-06-01T13:56:00.000+08:00

This morning I arrived at the station at the same time as the train. I thought the train was way too eager to start the week and was very early. When I saw the clock at the station and on my way to the ticket counter I found out that it was actually the 0616 train that was really really late. Luckily the next train, the one I normally take, was only late by three minutes.

As I was about to sit down at the station waiting for the train home in the evening an announcement came on to say a Seremban train was yet again had been taken off the schedule leaving me to wait for the next one that was then still at Kepong station. So whenever the announcer came on air to create an awareness of the pink coach I was annoyed. To hell with the pink coach if you could not get the basic right. Oh yes, I am pissed now. As if to rub it off and getting me even more mad the the train came and the driver brought the train to stop at a wrong place. Should I call him an idiot? Maybe that is not strong enough.

Today two of our international workshop participants arrived without their luggage. I really could not understand how that could happen. Application of taxonomy failure again? Maybe somebody just not careful enough? Whatever it is, it’s a nuisance to the stakeholders.

Not On The Train but @ Specialist Hospital, May 26, 2010

2010-05-26T19:34:00.000+08:00

As to beat the traffic jam we arrived early at DSH. It was 0631 to be exact. As instructed we walked towards the Emergency counter to register in. Formality done we waited for the next instruction. Around 0745 we were taken to the ward and I decided to have breakfast at the hospital’s cafe. Since DSH is fully ‘Wified’ all the three of us connected and communicated online easily. Then, I did not get the notion that I would be there for the whole day until late evening when I was at the cafe again having our evening coffee.

Now both of us are in the room waiting for Baqir to come back from the OT. And while waiting something very interesting happened and I want to add should not happen in hospital like DSH. Both my wife were in the room, I was standing making myself a coffee and my dear wife on the bed surfing the Net. A nurse came in and said to my wife ‘ nak ambil BP’ my wife straight pointed to the next bed and I said off the bat we were not the patients. After awhile the nurse went out and I remarked to my wife the nurse should not asked that stupid question and they should know who and where the patient is. True enough the nurse came back in and asked ‘ Patient pergi mana ye?’. I said straight away. ‘ You sepatutnya tak tanya soalan itu, you should know better. You kerja sini.’ Smiling sheepishly she said, ‘Saya tak tahu, saya baru masuk kerja.’ Sorry to say another wrong answer. No matter what, they should know who their patients are and where they are. The previous shift should do a serial knowledge transfer or a simple AAR by way of either written or verbal reports/briefing. Either way patient's records should be easily available to them.

On The Train (Wedding, Sungkai, Petai, Tg Malim), May 24, 2010

2010-05-26T15:46:00.000+08:00

Another wedding over the weekend and this time at Tapah. It can be just like any other wedding but for the players involved. Sungkai, Tapah and Bidor were where my wife and her family used to reside. They were a part of the mining community there. My wife and her siblings attended their primary and secondary both at Sungkai and Bidor. Naturally they have a lot of friends there and naturally Tapah also came into equation for them. One of her sisters decided to make Bidor her kampung now. As strange as anything can be the family’s, read ladies, tailor is also at Tapah. So we frequently travel there to visit and recently my wife started to reconnect with her old family friends in the areas. Our host for the wedding was one of my wife’s closest family friends that I would not wrong to reclassify it as almost as true family itself. It is a place and occasion ‘where everybody knows your name’. Knowing how this thing works and having such an experience myself I was just happy to oblige. I just let my wife had her moment reestablishing her old networks of friends. Surprise as any surprise can be the bride, the host’s daughter, happened to be working in the same organization as yours truly. Now I can potential stake a claim on my wife’s network.

Photos here

After visiting my sister-in-law for a while I took the old route 1 home and when we arrived at Sungkai my wife remarked about the new railway station hidden on our right. You should know by how that I have this thing with train and train stations, I decided to check it out. The new station was not that interesting but being introduced to the old Sungkai town was a nice surprise for me. I’d never realized its existence. Of course my wife rebuffed me saying’ I told you so many times already. You are the one who was not listening.’ He he he, yes dear.

Photos here

When we arrived at Bidor from Tapah earlier my wife was pushing me to stop to buy some petai. Since I decided to take route 1 we missed buying them at Bidor. I drove straight on to Slim River (Mar asked me what is Slim River and I told her Sungai Kurus) from Sungkai firstly to fill up the Ranger and secondly to check whether there was a Pasar Malam there to buy some petai. I filled up the Ranger but there wasn’t any petai only a van full of petai coming along beside us that I tempted to stop. I entered the highway at Slim River and Schumacher my way down south. When we passed Behrang I remembered that there would be a Pasar Malam at Tg Malim town that night. I told my wife and turned left to enter Tg Malim.

The pasar malam covered half of Tg Malim town and to our surprised after we tawaf the whole pasar malam there wasn’t a single sayur kampung on sale. Which means no petai as well laa. But we discovered one of the specialties of the pasar malam, the biggest cheese apam balik that I have seen. Yes, not only it was the biggest it contain cheese as well. I guess you can called it Afem Ballick now he he he.

Photos here.

On The Train (The Pink Coach), May 21, 2010

2010-05-24T18:40:00.000+08:00

Last week KTMB introduced The Pink Coach on the Seremban Rawang line. I knew its coming. No impact for me in the morning going to work but a big one going home as my favourite coach going home is the one in the middle. Well, I am not against the idea but they have not improve on even the smallest thing about their service and yet they are introducing this. Here’s my grievance list.

1. Punctuality is suck and the rate of train missing from the schedule is still the same.
2. The announcement still not timely and blatantly misleading. Obviously, both lines, under the pretext of trying to improve their service, would play on recorded announcement when arriving at various stations. Whenever these trains arrive at KL Sentral, to save cost or whatever, they play the same announcement like this. “ ..... kepada penumpang yang akan meneruskan perjalanan ke Pelabuhan Klang sila ke paltform 4, ke Seremban ke platform 5, .....‘ The problem is I am already on a Seremban line or Klang line. It may not be confusing to someone like me but to the new passengers and foreigners? In trying to help and save cost instead they annoy and confuse their customers.
3. In trying to educate and help the passengers, especially at KL Sentral, the guards sometimes are rude.
4. The touch n go and ticket gates are faulty most of the time. Especially to those that using weekly or monthly passes. It is a nuisance.
5. The ticket machine fared no better

KTMB can paint all the coaches pink if they want to but they are still not pretty. If you know what I mean

On The Train, May 7, 2010

2010-05-11T07:48:00.000+08:00

I have been sharing and talking about Knowledge Management (KM) for quite awhile now since 1997. From the very infancy until what it is now. A lot have changed and still evolving. I could see an encouraging trends of Malaysian organizations wanting to ‘implement’/‘do’ KM. Though encouraging, one or two of them have been misled to understand and believe the wrong thing about KM. There are still organizations equating KM to a department setting up a KM Unit, KM is Document Management or KM is Portal. KM is more than that.

Another thing that came full circle and to my amazement few months back while attending a function I came across a printed slide presentation. When I browsed through them I could help to feel the slides so familiar. Until after a couple of pages I realised they were from my old slides that I used to teach. I have moved along since then and so did the slides, I thought. The slides were only useful a few years then and now some of the information are already overtaken by new developments in the subject areas. If anybody was to use the slides they should be used in perspective. Not in entirety.

On The Train ( The Pink Train), April 28, 2010

2010-05-03T14:36:00.000+08:00

I was walking on the platform yesterday evening when I saw opposite on the other side that something was different. The first thing I saw was actually a police like barrier was tied around a bin against a pillar. At first I thought KTMB was trying to protect the bin from vandals but then I realised something else. All the pillars in question were actually painted pink. So I deduced that it was meant as an indication to ‘beware of a wet paint’. I was right but not sure why KTMB suddenly likes pink. Today my curiosity was answered firstly by a news report that KTMB has started to assigned a carriage in the middle of a Komuter train as a ladies only carriage and among other things decided to paint it pink. Secondly, when I walked along the platform today I saw across a big banner in between two pink pillars saying ‘ a waiting area for ladies only carriage’. The pink carriage. I was told by my colleague this morning when she boarded the specific carriage it was still full with men. :))). Obviously they were caught unaware of the new measure. For now the pink carriages are only available on Klang line. Well it is a good idea but let see how Malaysians react to that.

On The Train (Fortunate or Unfortunate), April 26, 2010

2010-04-27T09:22:00.000+08:00

By their behaviour I was certain the main thing they craved for was the love of parents. They may have everything else catered for them, even care takers or surrogate mum and dad, but they were completely missing the real thing in life. Seeing them I could not help thinking how lucky my children are and how they take life for granted. This sure begs the question of who actually are the fortunates and unfortunates. To me this depends on how you see the world and all of us see things using different lenses. Some of us see the world using a wide angle lens, the big picture and normally from a far. You tend to see things on the surface. Those that are using a close-up micro lens would be able to see a bit more detail and the tendency to be a bit more involved trying to understand further and help whenever we can. A lot of us also use our standard zoom lens and not sure how to react but just to pull in and out of view searching for something that you also not sure of. No matter what kind of lens you use you need to really explore an understand a bit more of your images. The first time I saw the kids when we arrived at the Rumah Kebajikan Ash Shakur I saw smiles and excitement on their faces. Probably because that day was the best day of their life to be able to go to The Lost World of Tambun that they probably never heard of before. Maybe just simply because they got to be away from the ‘home’ for a day to enjoy other parts of the world. Or maybe, just maybe, they were, because they were told they will be given a mum and dad for a day, looking for that unfulfilled needs to be loved. After few hours at Tambun I was certain it was the later and I was more certain when we were about to part ways at the end of the day when we sent them ‘home’. My ‘assigned’ daughter was a twelve year old Julia Azira Mohd Jamaluddin and son Mohd Hasbullah Mansor. Like the others both came from a different background.

On The Train, April 20, 2010

2010-04-22T16:49:00.001+08:00

It has been two weeks already that I am in a thinking mode. Today was no different and while deep in thought I realized that between all of us we have, collectively, about 40 years of KM experience. So, except for new tools and thinking why are still relying on external expertise with our KM initiatives? We are experienced enough to develop our own perspective of what’s working or not. More than that I would think if we were to sit down and think about it we could even develop our own tools and techniques based on what we know and experience. A think tank of sort is in order for us. Maybe the next area to explore for us would be complexity science, Complex Adaptive System. Putting everything that we do in a better perspective. We seriously need to find opportunity to allow organic growth of the practice.

On The Train (Di Antara Agensi Melancung dan Agensi Melancong), April 16, 2010

2010-04-17T00:23:00.000+08:00

Aku baru sahaja selesai menbaca Stones into Schools semalam dan ketika berkemas untuk ke pejabat pagi ini telah mengambil keputusan untuk mula membaca semula buku karya Bapak Hamka Tenggelamnya Kapal Van de Wijck. Buku ini telah lamu ku cari dan telah ku perolehi melalui belian di Internet. Buat pertama kalinya aku membaca buku ini semasa umur ku 18 tahun. Asyiknya aku membaca dan berkhayal sehingga mampu habis membaca dalam masa satu hari. Masih ku ingat ketika itu cuaca tidak menentu tetapi emosi ku jauh pergi berkelana mengikut jalan cerita yang diolah oleh Bapak Hamka. Indahnya kisah cinta sehingga aku teruja ingin terus mecari karya sedemikian rupa seterusnya. Malangnya aku telah kecewa.

Muka surat pertama buku ini telah ku meluai membaca sebaik aku duduk di tempat kegemaranku di atas keretapi pagi tadi. Aku pasti sehari dua ini aku akan tetap diasyikan dengan cerita lama tapi masih gagah berobek jiwa. Malangnya pembacaan ku telah diganggu oleh keinginan untuk lebih prihatin terhadap bahasa yang digunakan. Tidak semena-mena aku teringat akan teguran kesalahan menggunakan bahasa melayu Agensi Melancung dan Agensi Melancong. Paparan iklan sebegini kerap kita lihat tetapi masalahnya ia membawa dua makna yang berbeza. Dari segi bahasa kedua-duanya betul. Ia menjadi salah jika pernggunanya salah kerana Melancung bermakna Menipu dan Melancong bermaksud pergi berjalan bersiar ke tempat-tempat riadah. Jadi jika kita melihat paparan di papan iklan ditulis Agensi Melancung ia bermakna agensi itu adalah Agensi Menipu.

On The Train (Knowledge and Learning Spaces), April 13, 2010

2010-04-14T12:30:00.000+08:00

I gave my usual talk on work spaces this morning and I had a very receptive as well as perceptive audience. One thing for sure I need to do a bit more selling for the whole community for them to really understand and appreciate the importance of the concept and spaces we created for them. In Knowledge Sharing, Creation, Transfers and Learning spaces play a major role. I used the term ecology and described the history of Silicon Valley. Paradoxically all of my audience today did not know where and what Silicon Valley is when I asked. They are the internet generation. They were born to live and use the products that came or originated from the Silicon Valley so to them for all they care these products could just be from China, Taiwan, Japan or even Vietnam. They certainly could not be bothered by where or what Silicon Valley is. It just did not register in their young brains. I shared with them how Silicon Valley emerged to become a habitat and used that as an example to explain what I meant by ecology. Although, it is a complex phenomena they are certain aspects of the ecology we could introduce in our environment. Using all the models and concepts that I knew of knowledge management and learning I explained how we developed the idea of work spaces in our organization that are crucial for an improved performance.

Come to think of it now train coaches should be designed for knowledge sharing and learning as well :))). Some of us commuters are already reading, like the lady sitting next to me, on the train, one or two like me writing or blogging on the train and maybe it could be a good place for story telling and discussion as well. A lot of things happen on the train that can be used as opportunities for conversation starters.

3N2D Around Malaysia By Train - Final Leg

2010-04-13T19:35:00.002+08:00

JB – KL Sentral, Jan 31, 2010, Departure 1420. ETA KL Sentral 1915.
Travelers: My Wife, Kak Cik, Mar and Me

At about 1300 we started walking to the railway station, Upon reaching it we found out not many travelers waiting. We couldn’t be too early? The fact is not many people like to travel by train anymore. Especially with the kind of services KTMB providing or maybe not providing. Those waiting together with us mostly looks like they were students or family traveling in large group. The state of the waiting area also indicated to me that KTMB was either losing money fast or could not care less. Granted they maybe waiting for the new modern terminal to be ready but that should not be at the expense of us. The surau was pathetic and when I asked for the restroom we were told it was inside the platform. The gate was padlocked. Innocently I asked how could we go in to use it and was told when we were ready to board. His next response was the best, well at least he tried to be helpful. If we really needed to go there was one across the road. Ha ha ha ha that was customer relationship management 101 KTMB style. They did not have a clue as to what customer experience was, and still is?

Again, trying not to spoil our mood we just made do with what KTMB could offer. We said our prayers and waited for our train to come from Singapore.

At 1420 we checked onto the platform, rushed to the restroom before our train arrived at 1420 for us to board for our last leg home.

Our first class seats were indeed first class albeit a bit rundown. We did not mind. Our coach was the only first class coach that day. Apart from the nice seats we were surprised by the availability of power socket by the window. Kakcik straight away plugged her handphone to be charged. I did not have my laptop then if not for sure I’ll be using it. In the future internet access would be the norm. The first class coach came with one master attendant and a waiter/cleaner that served us bottled water and bread when we boarded. My only complaint was that KTMB expected all their first class travelers to have bionic ears. The attendant put on a movie and the screen was naturally at the front of the cabin but to my dismay there was no sound. Well at least not for us halfway down the coach ha ha ha. I saw a passenger across the aisle actually took our his mini DVD player and put on his own DVD to watch. For us we did not care. The movie was an old movie anyway.

We purposely did not take our lunch before we boarded because firstly, we were still not that hungry and secondly, we wanted to eat at the buffet car again. So, ten minutes into our journey I asked the attendant how far down was the buffet car. I almost yell loudly when he said there was none. But, luckily that was a quick but, he told me ahead at Majidee, or Tampoi, there would be a caterer coming on board to sell packed food and drinks. Mar was already crying, more like yelling, for food already by then. Despite constant reminders she pestered me relentlessly. Indeed the food ‘boarded’ eventually and I quickly followed the guys to firstly determine what kind of food he had for sale. I was told of quite a nice variety but I had to wait for at least 20 minutes for him to start his business of a storage area at one corner of a coach down from our first class coach. I relayed a message to my family of the variety and I placed an order immediately and waited.

The food were not too bad. We finished everything in record time.

I tried to sleep but was not successful. In the end I planned my photo sessions for the rest of the journey. Having got down at certain stations already on the way down to JB I chose Kluang as my main station to shoot. When we got there I straight away jumped out with my camera blazing shoot at will he he he. I was joined a Caucasian tourist shooting the happenings there. Seeing us one of the train conductors advised us to come closer towards the station to shoot. It was also in a way telling us it is ok we would not be left behind ha ha ha. My shooting partner remarked loudly. ‘ What was it with tourist?‘ Jokingly saying that both of us were nuisance to others boarding the train. I just laughed at his remark. Maybe it was through for him but for me I was really just menyebok. Or maybe he was also a Singaporean resident taking the train for a short holiday in Malaysia. In any case we did our best to capture the lively scene.

From then on I decided it was not worth going back to my seat. I stood and sat by to the door until when we were about to reach Seremban. Immediately after Seremban the atmosphere and our demeanor changed. As if the lights had been switched off for us. We just sat quietly with our own thoughts waiting for our last stop. At that point was still KL Sentral. Even Mar was quite. Only whenwe reached Labu and realising the time we decided to disembark at Kajang instead.

At 1955 we disembarked at Kajang station and the end of our 3D2N Around Malaysia By Train. Till the next one 5D4N Around Malaysia By Train - KL Sentral - Padang Besar, Padang Besar - Gemas - JB, JB - Tumpat, Tumpat - KL Sentral.

3D2N Around Malaysia By Train (Almost) - 2nd Leg

2010-04-09T08:36:00.002+08:00

Tumpat – JB, Jan 30, 2010, Departure 2030 ETA JB, Jan 31, 2010, 1045.
Travelers: My Wife, Kak Cik, Mar and Me

We were eager to be on board again. I told my family, once I was inside and the train moved, I was going to sleep straight away. Which I did. The day was hot and humid and with lack of sleep the night before even if I would want to stay awake I would not be able to. So I just followed what my body naturally told me to do. With the train movement rocking me I went into a deep sleep. I stirred once in a while but most of the time fast asleep. While sleeping I could feel that the train was actually traveling very fast. I felt like I was flying through the dark cold night. I woke up around suboh and called my wife to get up and we decided to take our bath. It was the first time experience taking bath in the small bathroom for my wife. I coached her on what exactly to do and she went first. Actually it was not that difficult after so many years doing it I could claim that I am an expert at it. Ha ha ha. Well my wife came back smiling and when I asked her how it was she said she did what I told her to do and she was fine. I followed suit and had a good morning bath. Since the Tumpat JB train did not provide a surau we said our prayers on our bunk.

Just after suboh we slowly rolled into Gemas Station and this time I went down on the platform with my camera. My camera clocked a time of 0708 on the first photo I took of the station. Still, in that early morning I could not help being so nostalgic. The train however did not stopped long at Gemas but enough for me to see the hand over of responsibility to a new engineer/driver. My guess was that the new driver would take the train all the way down to Singapore and later in the late evening would take the train back up to Gemas or maybe all the way back to Tumpat. Whatever it was soon everyone was awake and ready to have breakfast. Just like the day before we walked to the buffet car to have a breakfast of almost the same things we had on the train from KL to Tumpat. But instead of the morning scene of inner Kelantan that morning Buloh Kasap and Segamat were our views for breakfast. At 0814 we arrived at Labis a small station but very much alive with passengers embarking. I really was surprised with this

We sat in the buffet car for awhile trying to kill sometimes and for me for something interesting to capture. Eventually the usefulness of the buffet car as much as for us to use it to extract something special reached its maximum. We walked back to our coach and do nothing but just waited for JB to show up. The waiting was so unbearable especially for Mar. With the almost empty coach we joked and messed around with one another.

At 1050 we were standing in front of the JB station signboard to take our pictures. Another phase of the adventure completed and we had about 3 hours to kill in JB before we board another train back to KL. Since we had taken our bath and breakfast on the train the only next logical thing to do is explore what the vicinity could offer us. The JB train station was connected to the new mall opposite the road so we climbed over the pedestrian crossing and entered the mall. Of course it was already opened and we walked around. The usual outlets were there but all of us were not in a mood to window shop let alone do a serious shopping.

After awhile the mall lost its notoriety with us. Our feet suddenly were heavy and refused to comply with the instruction coming down from our brain. Yes, we were tired but it was not really because of that. Our brains were like saying after KB is this the best JB could do? We walked out and decided to explore beyond the mall. We walked down to the road and crossed the old main, famous main street of JB, road to the other side The other side were Sikh Temple, Puteri Pan Pac, a mall with Kamdar in it and resemblance of the old JB that I was familiar with. It was actually a futile effort as the ‘other side’ proved to be a disappointment for all of us as well. We lazily, with faces of almost disdain, walked back to the first mall to wait it out before we take our train home.

While walking back looking around to find something interesting to shoot an interesting realisation struck me. I saw around me the dichotomy of the old and new JB that forcefully staking their claim in the city. Clearly I could see a very old building sandwiched by new modern office blocks and hotels. Not only that within these old buildings or blocks lifestyle was preserved like it was then, lazy, what do I care and couldn't care less attitude. Observing and absorbing it made me somehow agree with their statements. It was by no means political but a statement of intent none the less. ‘Leave us alone we like our lives the way it is.’ I took some shots to immortalized this statement.

While walking on the other side of the road I saw what I was looking for all this while. Across the road on the ground floor of the first mall we entered was the Starbuck. We bought some coffee and tidbits and parked ourselves in there until almost an hour before our boarding time. We just crashed, I guess due to lack of proper sleep the night before.

3D2N Around Malaysia by Train (Almost)

2010-04-08T13:34:00.003+08:00

I have been planning this trip for quite sometimes. My intention was really to do the entire KTMB system KL – Tumpat, Tumpat – JB, JB – KL, KL _ Padang Besar and back to KL. When I planned this earlier I needed 4 days to do it and I was already at the KTMB counter to commit myself when I found out KTMB had changed its schedule. Dumbfounded and angry at KTMB I shelved the idea until recently when I found out that they changed their train schedule yet again. Mapping out my proposed journey I found out still I require four days to complete the whole system. I stalled and put it off for a while as it would be too early for me to take leave. The Chinese New Year holidays is one option that I could consider but I rather not compete with the rest of the holiday makers. Too stressful. I thought that’s it for now until I realized actually I could do KL Sentral – Tumpat, Tumpat – JB, JB – KL Sentral in 3N2D. Which means I do it over the weekend and back home on Sunday night. Luck had it that the following weekend was a 3day weekend for me due to the Hari Wilayah. I sent a message to my wife to say I would be doing the train trip and let me know who would like to follow me. The following day I dropped by at the KL Sentral and booked us for the adventure.

KL Sentral – Tumpat, Jan 29, 2010, Departure 2035 ETA Tumpat, Jan 30, 2010, 0946.
Travelers: My Wife, Kak Cik, Mar and Me

Initially two other relatives wanted to follow us but at the last minute canceled.

We arrived at the KL Sentral almost at the same time. Mar, Kak Cik and my wife from Bangi and I was from work. Despite their experience on the Komuter train battling the Thaipusam and 3 day weekend crowds everyone was very excited about our trip. Upon seeing me, Mar did a Baqir by saying, ‘Abah lapar.’ With that we went down to the Secret Recipe on the L1 to have dinner. Knowing what you could get from KTMB’s buffet car I ordered something heavy and advised everyone to do the same. When we were at the Secret Recipe I was frantically trying to locate a power source to charge my handphone as at that point in time I was already running low. I need my iPhone to be fully powered to last me until Tumpat as I was planning to do a live updates to my Facebook status.

Dinner was quick as we need to say our prayers before we went to wait for our train. An advise to travelers if you want to say your prayers without having to fight for a space go to the surau at L4.

Around 2010 we walked towards the waiting area and still I was searching for a power source that I could benefited while waiting. In the end I found one at the bottom of an accelerator next to a vending machine. We waited there until we were called to board. Mar being herself could not even stay still a minute and deep down both Sam and I were hoping she would be quite once on the train. Since I was a bit late with my booking our first leg had to be done sitting in an economy class. It was not bad as we did that before from Singapore and it was better for us as it was our first leg and we were still fresh. Luckily I managed to get sleeper for everyone for the second leg to JB from Tumpat. We were in Coach GX seats 7A-D and one advantage of our coach was that it was next to the buffet car. The coach was three quarter full when we boarded where at one end seated a group of young hikers, I thought, were heading for Dabong to hike Gunong Stong. Later I found out I was on the money on this one. At the other end closer to the buffet car a bit empty but for a group of young guys traveling together. I sat together with Mar and opposite us across the aisle my wife and Kak Cik. Directly behind Mar and me was a lovey dovey couple that later was a nuisance to our eye sights as well as our comfort level.

Once seated we could not wait for the train to start moving which it did slightly of schedule. I was delighted to see my planning and the eagerness to experience the long train journey once again materialized. Looking across at my wife I could sense her excitement and looking at Mar beside me was always new territory to experience. I, on the other hand started getting nostalgic about the whole things. I did not pay much attention to the early part of the journey as between KL Sentral and Bangi is my daily route to work. Instead I gathered my things, pulled out my book, I brought along Eleven Minutes Late: A Train Journey To The Soul of Britain by Matthew Engel, and coached Mar on the mechanics of using the chair. But one station that I was really going to get serious about – Seremban.

When we arrived at Seremban station I put strong words to Mar not to follow me. I got down and started to take a few shots of the station. When I was about to take one particular shot I saw the station’s clock through the view finder and that gave me a first indication that we would not be on schedule. The time 2215 really surprised me as I knew we could not have taken more than two hours to get to Seremban from KL Sentral if we were on schedule. That time on the clock also triggered my subconscious search engine to pick certain events and experiences in the 70’s. Almost exactly at the same time we would normally boarded our east coast train. Back then our trains were known and called by either east coast, south or north trains. South meaning the train was going to JB , North to Padang Besar and East Coast to Tumpat. The train did not stay long at Seremban, as soon as the last person boarded the whistle was blown. I jumped up onto the train before the train conductor, but continued to take few more shots from the slowly moving train.

I had brought along the KTMB route map with me and now using it Mar kept on asking where we were and what was the next station. Tampin would be next but it did not hold any significant as far as my memory bank was concern. It was Gemas that I was looking forward to. However in between reading and trying to stay abreast with Mar’s antics I got sleepy. At Tampin few more passengers boarded and among them were those without tickets. These passengers were normally a short distance passengers that would pay for the fare onboard and sit where ever they could find empty seats before the rightful owners boarded. They kept on walking the aisle if they could not find any and the younger ones would just prefer to stand by the doors. By that time I was really sleepy and despite the uncomfortable seat I entered my never ending story world. Mar was fast asleep already by then.

I must be really tired. I missed Gemas altogether in fact I missed a lot of stations. I only woke up when we arrived at Kuala Lipis at around 0530. I have never experience arriving at Kuala Lipis that early in the morning. The platform was empty and quiet. When I saw it from the train I decided not to get down and take photos. Instead, since Suboh was about to knock on our spiritual door, I asked around whether or not there was a place to pray. I was told one of the cabin at the back was used as a surau. I walked back to my seat and mentioned this to my wife. It was still too early to go though so we waited a bit. Mar by this time was still in a deep sleep, lucky for us she could go to sleep at all, and we planned it as such for Kak CIk and my wife to go first and I stayed behind to accompany Mar. Kak CIk and Sam came back a few minutes later to inform me that the prayers room was packed and I should be going there immediately to avoid further delay. Indeed when I got there men and women were already waiting out side of the small cabin and it got worse as we waited. At the first opportunity I rushed in. KTMB should provide another cabin for the ladies to pray.

When I was at my seat again I tried to read but I could not concentrate. The next station would be Merapoh and it was still along way to go, I dozzed off. I woke up when we were coming into Gua Musang station. I always had my camera hanging around my neck, instantaneously I jumped up and walked to the door to get down at the station to take some photos. I was so fast that i did not realised Mar was following closely behind me and I only realized she was there when I was already at the door. I strictly told her not to follow me down. It was still early in the morning and the light was low. I had to do some quick thinking and decided on a smaller aperture to make sure I capture enough. If I were to use the flash I knew it would not be enough to capture enough depth. Early in the morning my hands were not steady so I did my best. Realising in any minutes the chief conductor will blow his whistle I took a few quick shots. I jumped back up when the train started to move. Maybe we were to far at the front but I did not see any meks selling foodstuff at the platform. I really missed that scene.

As we left Gua Musang I decided to have breakfast at the buffet car. When we found a table we sat ourselves and started to think what food to have. That decision was not that hard for us as the waiter came to announce that they had only nasi goreng china or just plain nasi goreng. Even the eggs were ran out. I was lucky to get the last mi goreng. All of them not even fresh but for someone hungry we just ate. One good thing was the drinks were hot, original and fresh. The buffet car was not that full so we stayed back a bit longer to enjoy the scene outside. Since we were passing rural Kelantan we could see green of the jungle mostly. Now and then we would passed small kampongs and towns. At the back of my mind I had implanted a trigger to be aware of Bertam Ulu, the place that we used to live for couple of years, to take a look and take some photos. Alas, it happened so sudden and I was not ready. I was eating and talking when I look outside I saw a familiar rural stop and straight away my subconscious mind said it was Bertam Ulu. I almost yelled at everyone and tried to explain to them about the place. I thought the police station was still a bit far ahead as it was on top of the highest point of the place overlooking the bridge where the train would cross Kelantan river but I was wrong. It came so fast that I could only managed to grab my camera, pointed and shot what ever I can. The darn glass was a mess of droppings and lines of water tracks that the camera captured. I only managed to catch a glimpse of our old barrack. I was pissed with myself. As that was the second time in my life since we left Bertam that I failed to capture the image of the place from the train. Well, trying to be positive, I said we could always comeback again. We continued to sit there and enjoy the ride.

I could not stop talking about every place we passed. In a mix of geography lessons, social studies and religious opinion I was animated in front of my family. I was especially excited when I saw a small hut with a Astro disc on its roof. In places like that Astro is a must for them I guess and for sure the top channel for them would be Zee. Maybe it was the only channel for them he he he. Kelantanese love for Hindustani movies is phenomenal.

Overtime we saw people started to trickle into the buffet car signaling it’s the time for us to vacate the table and return to our seats. Back at our seats we just silently, but of course not Mar, decided to do our own things. I picked my book to continue reading but after few minutes I just could not concentrate. I knew I was too excited by the fact that we were about to pass through stations that I really knew and nostalgic about. Kuala Krai came under the early morning bright light. As we approached I could see the authoritative figure of the station master standing waiting for us on the platform. The station was his domain, territory and home that he had every right to feel that. Anything about the train stopping in his area was totally his responsibility. I could relate to that and respect him for his authoritativeness. Actually station masters are great source for stories of the area. For Kuala Krai it was Station Master Tajudeen. Since the station was fairly renovated I did not feel like going down instead I just sat to enjoy the view from my seat. After Kuala Krai the one prominent different would be the long bridge and crossing of Sg Kursial followed by a journey on flat land. Soon enough farms like paddy and tobacco fields started to materialize as our constant views.

When we arrived at Tanah Merah then I knew how really late we were, by at least two hours. With that information I did a mental calculation how much time we would have at KB. It’s all depends on how soon we could get a cab to take us to KB. Right after Tanah Merah as well I decided I had enough of sitting down and started to walk to the back to stand by the door. There were already three young guys/ teenagers on the right side of the door and another young man that was not part of the three guys standing on the left. With my camera I parked myself next to the guy on my left and stand facing where the train was moving. From the conversation that I overheard form the three younger guys two of them were brothers and they were going to disembark at the next station, Pasir Mas. From their vocabulary as well I deduced that they were either locals that have been brought up outside of Kelantan or really someone from out of town but visiting their parents who were stationed in Kelantan. Seeing my camera and in action one of them asked me whether I was on a assignment. I knew what he meant and not wanting to spoil it I just nodded my head. Who would have thought otherwise? With my discovery pants, t-shirt and cap backward on my head I would not blame him for thinking who I was.

Just outside Pasir Mas the train stopped to wait, not sure for what, and it was a long wait driving the three young guys impatiently mad. I myself was eager as if saying ‘hey! let’s get this over with. I wanted to see Pasir Mas station again so bad that I wished it was soon enough for me to get over it as well. The old station that I knew was a wooden station like Kuala Lipis and I was not expecting much development there. When at last the train moved all of us standing there almost gave aloud sigh of relieve. When we actually arrived I stepped down after the boys and started to snap a few. As I was still busy doing this the whistle was blown. Yes, we were late and the station master did not want to add to it further so I jumped up onto the train as it was started to move. As the train roll off slowly I was still standing at the door. With my left hand holding on to the handle bar and both my legs spread eagle hard against the two walls in order to steady my stand I shot the station and anything around it with my right hand. I did a continuous shot without stopping until we were out of the station. Leaving Pasir Mas meant we were not that far way already from the end of the Express Wau line. Coming up was Wakaf Baru where most people going to KB would get down. I was contemplating to do the same but then I won’t be staying true to my plan. I persisted and Wakaf Baru came and gone without much funfair. By then we were the only passengers in our cabin. The cleaners were already busy at work since Pasir Mas so after Wakaf Baru they were really at it. I could understand why, they wanted to leave the train for home sweet home as soon as it parked at Tumpat station.

We almost jumped out of the train when we arrived at Tumpat. Being late and our eagerness to be in and explore KB got us excited. With just a customary photography session we walked out of the station to be timely asked by a man whether we need a car or not. I replied KB and he said RM25 and I replied back let’s go then. It was a kereta sapu, why was I surprised I did not know as I should have known in Kelantan kereta sapu is quite command. The weather was a bit hot outside so the little comfort that the kereta sapu gave us was a blessing. As usual there was a bottle neck at the bridge going into KB. It looked abandon and I could not guess when the upgrading of the bridge area going to be completed. Maybe after the next election. Our destination was Pasar Khadijah as we intended to do a very serious shopping straight away. Indeed the first shop I entered at the Bazaar I bought a piece for Sam. The rest I left it to the girls to do the shopping and I gladly do the paying. We did not have much time left to spend in KB as our train to JB would be leaving at 2030 that evening so badly in need to take a bath we went to the restroom next to the Pasar Khadijah that had a shower facility to shower and immediately say our prayers at the nearby madrasah. When we got to the restroom we were told they had problem with water pressure and would not think it would be enough to take a bath. We decided to use the bathroom anyway to clean ourself the best we can. Once inside I saw the shower and turned the tap to have a nice surprise of flowing water coming out. Without much prompting I went in, undressed and had a very nice shower.

Refreshed after the cold shower and prayers we walked out of the madrasah with only enough time to take our cab back to Tumpat. We left a bit early as I did not know the nature of the traffic to Tumpat especially going through the never-seem-to-finish Sultan Mahmud bridge. Again when I was asked at the bus stand we were ushered towards a kereta sapu. Only this time a bit newer than the last one we took. We were lucky the traffic jam at the bridge was not so bad and cruised nicely towards Tumpat. I chatted the teksi sapu driver and was glad to find out that he used to work at Nilai. Well I was not surprised by it. It is common for Kelantanese to work in other state came back went they find life can be really hard in Klang Valley. He started to narrate about life there and the reason he decided to bring the family home. Life can be really hard away form home. He also lamented about the fact that his son actually failed four times in his application to join our police force. Promise after promise went unfulfilled. In the end his son moved to Klang Valley and applied from there and got accepted. Funny world according to him. To me it was just a basic economics. In places like Kelantan joining the army or the police force is one last and best option for the youth of Kelantan to earn a fairly safe job. Whereas in the city like KL it was the opposite. Not many youth would want to join the police force even if it meant that they going to stay jobless. So more opportunities to those applying.

We reached Tumpat railway station at 1831 and spent our time there taking pictures and enjoying the place as much as we can. Our train to JB would depart at 2030. While waiting for our train I was speculating whether or not it would be the same train with coaches that will be going to KL. Later I found out that the KL train actually already left the station at 1800. Our train was parked beside the station’s workshop. Just before maghrib to my astonishment came a cleaning crew with their water jet spraying the coaches. They were actually washing two or the newly chained coaches and it was almost dark. Sarcastically I remarked to my family they might as well start the job at 2000 when it was really dark. The surau was basic and the door to the lady’s surau failed to work so everyone has to use the man’s surau entrance creating a bit of nuisance to the ladies.

PHOTOS HERE

On The Train, April 1, 2010

2010-04-05T13:55:00.001+08:00

This is no April Fool but a real sense of sadness dawned on me because of how people around us react to certain thing inappropriately. I am not talking about what had happened at work here. No matter what their motives are you cannot cloud your judgment with negativity. Well, one could argue it is easier said than done but then again if we do not try what are we? Life is full of surprises and not all of them are roses. Thus we need to learn how to deal with all of these and not creating additional unnecessary pressure for anyone. KTMB has gone back to being it’s incompetent self. Two days in a row the Bangi train just went missing in the thin air. Now I am in a solid packed train going home. I got my seat yeah, but looking at discomfort faces can get you feel sorry and very angry at the same time pretty quickly. I am also sad to think there is someone out there who is or might not be happy now. Am I being philosophical or reflective now? Maybe I am but that’s what I am.

Another month gone and I am not sure I have achieved anything?

Small Town Pahang, Stesen Keretapi, Holiday and Me, Dec 12-15, 2009 - Day 3

2010-04-05T13:50:00.001+08:00

It was drizzling when I woke up on the second morning. Still, knowing that the rain would be intermittent I decided to go for a ride. I rolled off out of the resort at almost the same time as yesterday. I turned left also just like yesterday but I have no intention of cycling to TC. Instead I wanted to explore the inner life of Kg Balok. As soon I got to the junction pointing to the most promising route I entered and started cycling inwards. The rain got a little bit heavy for awhile and stopped as I cycled further in. Judging from the position of the kampung road I deduced that it was parallel with the main road going further up east. My mental calculation of the distance and direction was indicating to me that I would ended at Balok town itself and I was right. The route was not that difficult and I cycled at a medium pace. As much as I was trying to avoid the rain I was also trying very hard to explore and enjoy the kampung. It was not really a kampung like it once was. Instead of the old stilt kampung houses now many of the houses are modern exclusive bungalows or houses built, obviously, and owned by outsiders. I used to remember as well that part of Balok was actually a low wetland which now being reclaimed for the obvious reason. Once I reached Balok town I decided to turn back and use the Balok beach road going back.

It started to rain again when I was admiring Balok beach I cycled back to the Balok beach recreation centre office to take shelter there. When I explored the place I realised that it was a place where Azmi had his camping retreat recently and instantaneously gave me an idea. So I looked around to gather as much information as possible about the place. It was suitable for our Putra Terrace outing. Once the rain stopped I got on my bike and cycled back to the resort.

Once in the room no one is committed of anything to do. My lovely wife was still in the midst of her record breaking feat, Mar was her usual energetic self, and kakak and kakcik asleep. So I decided to take a nap before we check out.

The night before I decided to stay another night in Kuantan and of course we had to find another place to stay. Since I did not want to go far I decided to check the availability of rooms at the resorts exactly next to Duta Village. We were lucky there was actually a family room for us available at Swiss-Garden. So after we checked out of Duta Village we just lingered around Balok before we checked in again at Swiss-Garden. We have stayed there before so we knew what to expect.

Once in the room once again nobody wants to go anywhere so we just stayed in either sleeping or reading. Later Kakcik and Mar decided to hit the pool. When I woke up from my nap I decided to join them. As planned, for dinner, we went to visit my cousin. Frankly, thinking about it our third day in Kuantan was because I just did not wish to go home yet. Back from my cousin’s place we just hit the sacks. We checked out the next day thinking it would be just it would be a straight forward thing.

When I drove the car to the lobby to pick up everyone and our luggage I daughter exclaimed to me as I got down, ‘ Abah tayar pancit!’. Well, another thing to dela with. I put on my glove and changed the tayar he he he. Then stopped at the first tyre shop the we came to and had the puncture fixed. Because of that we decided to go to Tg Lumpur to have our lunch at the same palce we had out evening tea the day before.

Two and a half hours later we were safely home. He he he while they were sleeping I floored the accelerator.

Small Town Pahang, Stesen Keretapi, Holiday and Me, Dec 12-15, 2009 - Day 2

2010-03-31T13:16:00.000+08:00

Cycling Alone, Dec 13, 2009

My wife could not cycle so I decided to go on alone. I woke up with a little drizzle but I went down all the same to start to prepare myself. My intended route that morning was Federal Route 2 (Jalan Beserah) going south from Duta Village to Teluk Chempedak (TC to the locals) via Jalan Tengku Muhammad and Alor Akar. There was a little bit of darkness when I rolled out of the Duta Village. As usual I was not bothered with the distance and enough to have at least two major climbs before I’ll get to Teluk Chempedak. I pedaled hard and fast as I was trying to avoid the morning traffic and sun during my climb. The best part of cycling in the east coast or early in the morning in a small town or kampung is that you got to see how life comes alive in the morning. It never failed to provoke the nice feeling in me, at times sense of deja vu. So I was cycling accompanied by that nice feeling through the village, passing Batu Hitam, Sekolah Menangah Kebangsaan Beserah and Pusat Sumber Pendidikan Negeri Pahang on my right until I arrived at my first long climb just after the small Beserah town. I knew I could do it but if you asked any cyclist not a single one of them would say they would like to do climbing alone. I am certainly not one of them as I prefer to maintain my own pace as well as not pressured by the speed of others. My only fear of doing it alone is being too hard on myself and forgetting my limits. On this one I sat a comfortable cadence and not pushing too hard up. The gradient was not steep but long. I was basically already climbing the range making up the whole Bukit Pelindung. When I reached the peak I was still full of energy and came down fast to the main traffic light junction. At the junction I turned left to start to climb towards Alor Akar. Cycling up and along Jalan Tengku Muhammad and Alor Akar area was really nostalgic for me. Especially when I passed the old Alor Akar Field Force Camp where we used to live for a short while before the whole camp moved to the then new Bukit Galing Camp. I was cycling while at the same time tracing back the sweet memories associated with the area. The orphanage opposite the Camp reminded me of my old primary school mates who lived there. I could not even remember any of their names. If I am not mistaken one of them was Adnan, a footballer. At the end of both the Camp and Orphanage started what still known as the school zone or areas, as along the road there were and are at least 4 schools beginning with Sekolah Teknik Alor Akar, followed by Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Alor Akar, both Sekolah Rendah and Menengah Kebangsaan Tengku Afzan, MRSM and Assunta Convent Girl School. My old puppy love went to Assunta.

One other most significant thing was of course the entrance of the climb to Bukit Pelindung. Where the trees and bush started are now filled with rows of exclusive homes. I could not remember how many times I climbed to the top of Bukit Pelindung but one occasion that I can remember clearly was our Scouts trekking exercise to the top. With our uniform drenched from our sweat we scrambled slowly next to the gate of the Telekom tower signified as the peak. I still remember I used to have a black an white photo of that and I do not know where it is now. I continued to cycle dictated by how fast my brain was tracing my memory bank for old stories and images to be superimposed by the new images I was experiencing.

Of course TC has changed. I even made a mistake of entering it wrongly through the McDonald’s drive in. To maintain certain order the authority had transformed the front of the main beach area into a boardwalk environment. So it was a no entry zone for all types of vehicles. Visitors to the beach have to park on the left side and walk to the beach from there. On a bicycle it posed no problem to me as I just swung my bicycle around and jumped onto the curb to cycle between two stalls to be on the beach front. Once on the beach front I cycled slowly to the end until I saw a boardwalk, wide enough for me to cycle on without being a nuisance to others, going over to the other side of TC, really on the other side of Bukit Pelindung. It was a discovery for me as in my many years in Kuantan I have never been to the other side of TC as it was then well known as lovers den. When I got to the other side I found out that the beach was beautiful. Not a lagoon but it was as nice as one. There was a big group of students camping in the beach. It was almost 0800 when I was there and the sun is beginning to take a peep of the world in the horizon. I stayed for awhile enjoying the atmosphere.

Grudgingly I got onto my bike and started cycling back on the boardwalk back to the main beach area. I had to, as I wanted to beat the heat to cycle back to Balok. Nevertheless, I stopped next to the downhill wooden ramp built for the recent Kuantan Enduro Downhill Race. I had to tip my hat off to those participated as looking at the ramp either your have to really know your stuff or your are missing a nut or two from your head to be doing the downhill. One wrong move you’ll smash onto the rocks below.

I cycled to the nearest stall to buy a drink as when I was on the boardwalk I realised I left my water behind. Trying to relax a bit I took a few shots of the place and while pushing my bike I thought I should capture myself for the record. I was lucky when I was there a saw a guy walking with his wife carrying a camera bag holding a Nikon. I requested him to take my photo with the Trek. I found out he was a MTB rider of sort as well and came from Shah Alam. After the ‘photo session’ I thanked the guy and cycled back, and the journey to Balok was no fun. The sun was already up by then and I had to do two major climbs immediately before I could cruise home. Just after the Pusat Sumber Pendidikan Pahang I crossed the road to cycled through Batu Hitam beach area instead of climbing through on the main road. It was around 0904 by then and I could not delay anymore or I would be trapped under the hot sun. Pushing hard ten minutes later I was already at the resort. I saw my water bottle sitting pretty on the back fender of the Ranger.

On my way to TC I saw a stall at Beserah selling variety of kueh and other foods so as soon I I had packed the bike inside the Ranger I drove out towards Kuantan again to buy some breakfast. When I was back at the room on Mar was interested in eating. Well, nowadays she always interested in eating. She is the girl version of Baqir growing up.

Mar and I were back in the pool again after we had breakfast and just like yesterday the pool was packed with holiday makers. Even the second pool was quite packed and kids jumping in. They’d never learn apparently that jumping could be dangerous, if not for them, for others in the pool. We just find our own space. I did a couple of strokes before I decided to just stand at the edge of the pool to watch on Mar. While standing there I got a muscle cramp on my right leg and I was mad with myself. Painful and I just could not move but to stand there until my muscles relaxed for me to be able to move slowly out of the water. The cycling before must have taken loads of salts from my system. I let Mar enjoyed the pool a little bit longer until I called for us to leave.

Lunch, dinner and the rest of the day were nothing to shout about. In fact we spent most of our times exploring the new mall.

Small Town Pahang, Stesen Keretapi, Holiday and Me, Dec 12-15, 2009

2010-03-29T18:17:00.002+08:00

It was the weekend when we supposed to be at Yan, Kedah for Mamat’s wedding. But the injury to the bride in an accident changed the whole thing. The wedding was postponed to 2010. With so many vacation days left I applied for an extra two days over the weekend and decided to use part of my vacation points at Duta Village Kuantan. We have been to Kuantan so many times already and it was even frequent when Kakak started to enroll at UiTM KT. The plan in Kuantan was just to hit the pool and be beach bump. Just to make sure I would have a good time I brought along both the Trek and the Bianchi.

Along and Baqir decided to miss this one as they preferred to play futsal everyday and night. Everyone else was dreading the journey to Kuantan and I could understand why. So I announced to them that I would be taking the back road and would depart early in the morning. With that rough plan we set out on the early morning of Dec 12, 2009.

Departure

As usual I was up at 0600. As soon as I’d said my Suboh prayers I yelled everyone up to get ready. I already loaded both the Trek and Bianchi the night before so I just needed to make sure everything else was in place. I did not want to miss anything now and spoilt my already potentially boring holiday. I directed the Ranger towards Semenyih with ease in the early Saturday morning. With no intention to stop for breakfast I steered left outside of Semenyih towards Broga. As we approached Broga I mentioned to my wife about the now walkers and climbers most visited Broga Hill. Sam was amazed to see so many cars already parked by the roadside so early in the morning. I told her they were there early to watch the first daybreak. Of course I talked about our Broga mountain bike trail as well. Soon we passed Ulu Lenggeng and cruised nicely to Kuala Klawang via Lenggeng Forest Reserve and Bukit Tangga. I spoke about the route that we were taking was a popular route for road bikers on Saturday. Indeed we met two groups of roadies along the way to Kuala Klawang. I suggested to Sam that we should do it on our mountain bikes one day. Of course my wife thought I got one or two screws loose up inside my head.

Jelebu, Simpang Pertang, Serting Ulu

Bukit Tangga Waterfall was at the end of the descend and I thought of stopping but when I asked aloud I received no answer and to my dismay I knew why. The girls were soundly asleep at the back. That prompted me to press hard on the pedal and zigzagged through Kuala Klawang town and the rest of Jelebu to turn towards Kuala Pilah at Simpang Pertang around 0900. My planned route was to turn left at Kg Serting to pass Serting Ulu and come out at the Ayer Hitam junction to turn left upwards towards Temerloh. I did not share all these with the rest as I wanted to amuse them with the things that they were not familiar about. So after Simpang Pertang knowing the tarmac would be decent and straight I floored the accelerator. Once I turned into Serting it was a new experience for me as well as I have never taken the route before. Now we were basically passing through ‘tanah rancangan’ most of the time which means the road would be small, straight and undulating according to the contour of the hills. Apart from overtaking lorries laden with either rubber or palm it was a smooth fast drive.

Ayer Hitam, Kemayan and Triang

From the digital map that I studied for this trip I would be coming out at Ayer Hitam to take Route 10 to Temerloh. Also at Ayer Hitam would be the first small train station in Pahang from Gemas. I planned to be there and all the train stations along the route. My nostalgic fool juice was working overtime by then. Apart from capturing and experiencing all the small towns that we would be passing through in Pahang I would also like to relive my childhood experience taking and being on the train home. But now experiencing it from the other side in broad daylight. I planned to stop at every station along the way to absorb the atmosphere as well as taking a lot of photographs.

When we arrived at Ayer Hitam I was anxious looking for a sign of a railway station but as I entered route 10 thinking the station would be somewhere further ahead. I did not see any and I knew I missed it totally. Since we were moving further out of Ayer Hitam already and in quiet a heavy traffic I decided not to turn back but to continue towards Kemayan where I knew would be another station. To my dismay when I looked back inside the Ranger the girls were still soundly sleeping. So when we cruised into Kemayan town I pull over at the first gas station that I saw and walked out to the restroom to ease myself. I also knew based on experience whenever I stop and the Ranger not moving the girls would be awake. I was right again as I walked back to the Ranger I saw the three of them were awake and Mar asked me where we were. I said there should look around and find out for themselves. The gas station was next to the Ubuddiah Mosque which architecturally was from an old design. With my camera I walked over and took few shots. While I was shooting off the main road I realized that the actual town was actually a bit further in across the road. I walked back to the Ranger and turned it around to enter the town. As I was driving in my dear wife remarked on the sign stating Kemayan Railway Station on our left. I stopped the Ranger nearby, got out and walked over to the railway station with my camera. My family knew the drill already.

I have never realized that the Kemayan station was also a crossing station. In my days on the train plying the route, even at the early hour in the morning, I did not see those tracks. That day I did and there were three tracks for freight train to wait and other trains to cross each other. I spent some times admiring and looking around at the station. So nostalgic and so wonderful. How do I describe how I felt? It was like if you were at a place that you connected most and absorbing the atmosphere. That’s was how I felt.
After I was satisfied I walked back to the Ranger. Thinking about it now I should have stayed longer.

Using the zoom lens I stood at the edge of the town and started to capture what I like. Through my view finder my eyes darted all over trying to find a good shot and while doing that I somehow could feel how living in a small town like Kemayan would be like. One street town was my life while we were living at Rantau Panjang, Bertam Ulu, Telemong and Tras. I guess with that experiences gave me certain authority to make that assessment. I could see one of the pulses of the town would be the railway station. The other would be one major sundry shop and one mamak eating place. Kemayan is more an agricultural town and you could see the terrain and the ecology of the town was a blend of the open space, green uniform formation of trees and certain gait of being laid back. I would be contented living in places like Kemayan. I stood with my camera ready to shoot long enough but I was not able to find my ‘great’ shot of the town.

I cruised through the town and entered the main road towards Triang. Triang was always a town that I associated with my friend Awie and I have never been to the town before. The strong pull to be there was not so much of it being historical or of any prominent but just because I have seen it in the darkness of early morning on every trip back home from the train. Each time Awie disembarked at the Triang railway station another layer was embedded to my permanent interest to be there and know more about the town. I knew Triang was not that far away from Kemayan so I drove cautiously. Within half an hour the sign indicated that we were approaching Triang already. I turned left at a junction and I saw the roofs of Triang town straight away. The first stop before the town for me was the traffic light. I waited patiently and as the light turned green I instinctively turned right into, what I guess as, Triang town. I was right. The buildings were as old as the buildings in the old Raub town. Nothing exciting to see immediately but it was enough to spark my interest even more. However, a business of gastronomy in nature had to be the first order of our day in Triang. We had not had our proper breakfast yet so my first objective was to find a place to eat. I saw a sign of gerai makan at the Pasar Triang but on closer look most of the proprietors were Chinese. I swung the truck around and proceeded further out and immediately saw a kedai mamak. It was a sure and safe bet so we went there. Where ever you go mamak is still the same mamak so we ordered our favourite. For me two chapattis ha ha ha. We sat there enjoying our food and couldn’t careless what time we should be leaving. While eating I had decided to backtrack and explore the town properly and one of the things that I must do was to be at Triang train station.

Since we were in need of a couple of RMs I drove in to find ‘My Friend’. As we drove in before I saw the yellow tiger sign somewhere near the wet market so I headed there. After I withdrew some money I walked along the corridor where I met a young man to ask the direction to the train station and was told not that far from where we stood. With the information I headed back to the Ranger and drove towards the direction. My wife remarked ‘ dah jumpa dah?’ referring to my search for the railway station. Smiling at myself I said yes.

I have written about Triang Railway station before and its significance with my life. Being there in broad daylight gave me a better perspective of the place from seeing it from the train in the darkness of very early morning. I was amazed at the size of the station and how well kept it was. In the end it made sense as the station is one of the main stations and major stops along the east coast line. I picked my shots carefully and walked around to make sure I had enough. When I stood looking around the place I just could not pinpoint my exact feeling for the place. One thing for sure I fulfilled my wish to be there during the day and not on a train. I was glad that the station remained as it was from the days I used to pass by on my way home or back to school during my school days. I dreaded to think what would going to happen to it in the future. Knowing KTMB I would not be surprised if they demolish the structure to build a new one. For once I wish KTMB would not progress. Satisfied with myself I walked back to my family waiting in the Ranger. Then a slow drive out of Triang.

After Triang was the town of Bera by then the rest of the journey was just another journey for me as I had passed by recently on the way to my wife’s nephew’s engagement. My intention was to just fly by and to get onto the Kuantan highway as soon as possible. But then my wife reminded me of another station that I thought I had captured before. When I saw the sign Mengkarak Station at a junction on my left I swung the Ranger left straight away and pushed in as fast as I could anticipating just a small place. I was surprised to be greeted by quite a big town and residential area. As we approached the small town I could see and imagine the kind of people living there. Most of them were planters and palm oil estate workers. Just inside the town we crossed the railway track and only then I realised the station was really a small one where it used to be a small wooden station that now was a container cabin makeshift transformed to be a station. I could guess the station was hardly used and probably mostly be used for crossing as well as freight train to stop. Nevertheless it was a good learning experience for me. Now I understand about the place even more. In the old days the station must be an important hub and gathering place for the people as well as a mean to transport their farm products out. Still I went through the same routine that I did for the past two stations.

Temerloh and Kuantan

The route taking us to Temerloh town was a coastal road along the bank of Pahang river. Along the way we could see several entrepreneurial locals selling fish like patin, keli and talapia. It was obvious to us that these fish came from their own caged fish farm along the Pahang river. A normal sight to me maybe but if you a first time I recommend you to drive slowly to enjoy the scenery a little bit. For me that day unless I see and of the roadside stalls selling cendol I would not stop.

Once we entered Temerloh our main objective became to reach Kuantan as soon as possible. I floored the accelerator and entered the East Coast highway. At around 1330 I entered the Kuantan tol plaza and cruised into Kuantan. I took the usual route to Beserah and at 1410 arrived at the usual medan selara as you entered Beserah for lunch. As if everyone was waiting for the main event lunch was just another activity to accomplish for the day. The truth was we have been doing similar thing for at least three times in our lives already and the whole thing was just another motion for us. Being in Kuantan that day was just a destination to doing nothing. For me especially the journey itself was the main event. Reaching Kuantan and staying at the same place we have stayed couple of times before was one event in the whole sequence. I got three days in Kuantan and the first two at Duta Village and the third a bonus for any possibility. As in any longer trip we had our bikes with us and we intended to cycle in Kuantan.

We checked in as soon as we arrived at Duta Village and the order of the day for me and Mar was to hit the pool. As it was in the middle of a long school holidays the place was fully booked and being the usual late with my planning me I only managed to secure a studio room. It was not too bad. The pool was also almost at capacity where we were only saved by the strict attire ruling for the second pool. The only thing was I forgot to bring my goggle and I was limited in what I could do. Nevertheless both Mar and I enjoyed our swim in the pool. We tried the beach later but we did not like it so we retreated to the pool.

Except for my dear wife, who was on a personal record breaking attempt to finish three novels in two days, the rest of the party was fast asleep when we got back to the room. I announced that I was going to a take a short nap and then go out for dinner or whatever. After asking the rest I realised eating options slowly were limited for us in Kuantan. The variety of food and taste actually were the two main limiting factors. As the easiest was for me to go to Tg Lumpur we ended just having a simple seafood dinner there.

Some of the photos are here

On The Train, Mar 18, 2010

2010-03-18T22:28:00.000+08:00

No I have not stop blogging. In fact I am writing four pieces of travelogue at the moment. Getting to finish one of them is really a challenge to me now. Ideas simply stopped flowing and making my writing to be straight forward and monotonous. Today while writing I sense a happy mood on the train. Everybody seems to be happy with something which was a change from yesterday when everyone of us could not help to feel like a crushed ikan sadin. Indeed it is a school holidays but most of the commuters were not of school going age group. One of my friends said by next year the train service would improve. I said, ‘ahmm lets see.’

@ The KL Bird Park, Jan 16, 2010

2010-02-23T19:38:00.000+08:00

Luckily I got about 20 minutes of power nap while waiting for Kak Cik at her school if not I would be too tired to take Mar to the KL Bird Park I had cycled to UKM that morning and had pushed myself a bit. Fresh after the nap I asked Mar to get ready and by 1400 we were on the highway speeding towards the bird park. I was mindful that if we were to arrive too early it would be too hot to walk around. So I timed and planned it as such we could have a quick lunch first before we entered the park. At the same time getting our body to get use to the heat.

We walked into the park at around 1445 and be greeted by the birds. Instinctively Mar asked what time was the show. I was not sure whether there would be one so we check our map and schedule. True enough there was one schedule at the amphitheater at 1530. The amphitheater was at Zone ? which was at the other end. I proposed to Mar a path that would take us there on time. As we turned onto the path a small crowd excitedly was gathering around a beautiful bird. A male peacock was in full glory trying to protect his territory. All of us with camera were clicking away trying to capture the best part of the bird. After awhile, from my view finder, I realized the bird was not actually trying to protect his territory being in the park too long and having a lot of visitors giving him enough attention was actually showing off big time. What can I say, peacock will be peacock he he he. After awhile we had enough of the peacock and started to walk further in the direction of the amphitheatre.

After a short walk we came to a place where two attendants were sitting around waiting and inviting visitors to their photos with the birds perched on manmade branches within the area. The invitation was of course tagged with you departing with some of your beloved RMs. All of the birds were exotic birds like kite, parrots, and macaw. They were sitting confident and pretty like cabaret dancers waiting for someone to come over to ask for a dance. I thought I wanted to take their digital equivalent but then I decided not to. Primarily because it was not natural. Secondly, I really thought all the birds there were vainly snobs and too proud of themselves. We moved on to our left to the birds of prey area. Obviously being what they are they were caged within a cage. Our KL Bird Parks has good collections of the close family of kites, hawks, eagles and owls. To our naked eyes they were really were beautiful and exciting birds but to my digital camera the small grid wire mesh was a complete deterrent for good photography. We moved on to be presented with the parrots and its kind sanctuary. Once were inside it was worth all the RMs I paid to enter. Some of them were left free outside their cages within their own enclosure. So we could get really close to them and being too familiar with human they were not afraid to come to you or even to pose majestically for you.

I could not stay too long at one place as being hyperactive Mar would like to move along quickly. She kept asking me to hurry up to proceed for her bird show and I kept telling her do not worry we had enough time. Well I am used to that. To occupy her time and to keep her mind away from the bird show I cajoled her into becoming my fulltime model. She obliged of course. We walked on and both enjoyed the surrounding as much the birds. If the birds, at least most of them in the confinement of the park, were free to roam we were even free with our demeanors. A father and daughter quality times together. As we walked closer down to amphitheater we saw there was already a bit of visitors sitting waiting and seeing that Mar got impatient. She ran and ignored my yelling to wait for me.

Once seated she was still like a worm under a hot sun. She just could not keep still a moment. Eventually the show started and the first comment that came out of Mar’s mouth was. ‘Ala! ni dah tengok dah’. She was obviously referring to the same routine that we saw a week before at the Zoo Negara. I quieten her saying there should be something different after the first one. Not much. She enjoyed the show nevertheless after that.

After the show we started to continue to walk at the point where we left off. The inner sanctuary was very interesting and luck had it while we were there the keeper came out to feed the birds, especially the herons and flamingos with fish. We stayed there watching the antics of the birds. We were closed enough to them that we could touch them. In fact some of them came even closer. But then Mar got a little bit scared to touch them. One thing that we were told during the bird show was that most of the herons and white flamingos that we saw flying around freely outside at the open area were squatters that came from places like the Zoo Negara for free meals. Not only that we could also see a lot of macaques were loitering around.

While walking and photographing in the inner sanctuary something unexpected came into my view finder. I thought I was seeing a reflection but when I took off my eyes of the view finder and look over true enough that it was a solitary black swan swimming in the pond.

The rest of the walk was just making our round around the park to make sure we covered every corner of the place. Nothing was out of the ordinary except that we found out there were a lot of peacocks in the park. They were like everywhere. I guess they were very productive and easy to breed. But then seeing too many of them at every interval was really an anti climax. Towards the end of our visit they became just another birds.

You can experience our digital journey here.

Seminar KM: Reality or Myth, Feb 10, 2010, UMP Kuantan, Pahang

2010-02-11T13:28:00.001+08:00

The opening went short and sweet as it should be. We know Malaysians tend to overdoing things to be too ceremonial.

Morning Session

Dato Pak Ray kicked off the morning session. Being the ‘old’ usual Pak Ray he flew away with his ever funny and impromptu punchlines. He touches on the basic framework and issues on KM. Of the 8 key focus of knowledge management practice. measuring knowledge is the most difficult and challenging Then following his Cik Cek Rosnah Ngah from UMT shared her perspective of her early research on the subject. Both papers gave a good perspective of KM to those new to the subject. both agreed that it is not a myth but something very real that the library community need to look at very seriously. To me the participants need to understand properly what KM is and what it means to them and their profession. If we are very serious about it more frequent get together and knowledge sharing need to take place. Especially on the realignment of the new development in the subject area. Opportunity for KMC @ SK to develop a program in this direction.

Evening Session

Prof Madya Dr Wan Maseri started the evening session with her perspective and experience on Knowledge Management System. Conceptually she covered most what it should be with her latest project with MKM as a case study. Listening to her and looking at the templates she used brought a sense of deja vu to me. They were all seems very familiar to me. My presentations and works in the early days came in full cycle. It was a nice feeling. I ended the day program by sharing our KBO journey and experience. At the end of it everybody were a bit quiet. I am not sure whether they understood what I said or confused. I’d like it to be positive and it was the former.

Overall to me the one day seminar was a success and something that we should od more often now.

@ the Zoo Negara, Jan 10, 2010

2010-01-18T22:03:00.001+08:00

I was uploading our pictures at the Zoo yesterday when Mar came over and said, ‘ Abah, tulis la cerita kita pergi zoo tadi baru best.’ So here it is.

I woke up early as usual but chose to lie down after I’ve said my prayers. It was of course a mistake as at 0730 my phone buzzed and it was Rudi’s phone, passing it to Aizam, to ask whether I was coming down for our weekly cycling or not? Because it was late already for them to wait for me I said no. Zam tried to persuade me but I said no still as I really did not want them to wait for me. That said I thought I could go back to dreamland. A few minutes later there was a knock on our door and I knew it would be Mar. When I let her in I asked her would she want to go to the zoo. She replied ‘suka hati Abah la.’ So I asked her back. ’do you want to go to the zoo or not?’ Since I was awake already and that could be the only opportunity that we have I decided to go. I really love to go as well. Zoo is our thing.

We arrived at the entrance of the Zoo just after 0900 and we were that early our Ranger was one of the first five to be parked there. When we entered it was a wonderful early morning at the zoo. The first order of the day was to get a cap for Mar. I did not want her to be more tan than she already was he he he. We bought one at the gift shop on the left as we entered the zoo. The second order of the day was to have our breakfast. I wanted to ask whether the eating place was already open for business so we walked to the Information Kiosk. We were told apart from the one in front of us the others should be opened already and the person indicated the direction. He also suggested for us to by the map which was RM3. I just paid as I knew I was contributing to the upkeep of the zoo.

I ordered ‘egg burger’ and black Nescafe for myself and when I asked Mar she said nothing. Wow! Mar said no to food! But I forced her to eat something and she asked for orange juice and a bag of popcorn. We sat ourselves nearby to eat our breakfast. As we sat eating we saw visitors started to trickle in at the entrance. Mar started to scrutinize the map and all she asked and talked about were the butterflies and elephants. I said they were all there and we will visit every inch of the zoo. But we needed to strategise. Normally when we were at the soon we would immediately turn left to see the giraffe and the elephant first and circumvent the zoo that direction but today since Mar wanted to watch the animal show at 1100 I suggested to her we go right first as it was nearer to the aquarium. Since it was still almost three hours to go we walked slowly to enjoy everything. With my longest lens on the Nikon I shot everything from a distance. It works very well as I could catch Mar being herself. Well, I succeeded once or twice as she had the knack to suddenly turn around when I was about to press the shutter release and modeled for me. Instead of just a peace sign her repertoires included outstretch hands now.

If you turn to your right as you entered the zoo the first thing that you’ll come to would be, as Mar said Baqir’s friends’ the monkey’s cages. Well there were a couple of birds but mainly monkeys. We continued to walk ahead and I indicated to Mar where the show was going to be. She insisted to check it out despite after I said a few times the place was empty. When she was satisfied we walked to look at the hippos. When we walked on the bridge on our right was the African hippos and on the left the pigmy hippo. Both buried themselves in the water. Nothing much to see but we waited anyway. In the end the African hippos stirred in the water and emerged slowly. I told Mar that hippos were basically nocturnal animals so it was normal for them be sleeping and happy to be just in the water. The pygmy hippos decided to do just that the whole day we were there. Submerged in the water like immobilized submarine.

We walked pass the hippo and entered the so called Bee Museum. Well, there were nice display of anything to do with bees but also almost half of the area was occupied by bottled honey for sale. You guess right that a specific bee farm was sponsoring most if not all of the ‘museum’. Actually the zoo needs such company coming in to do that to ensure the Zoo Negara is still in place for people like Mar and I to keep coming back to. We tasted few rounds of honey and walked around the display. Mar was asking a lot of questions and seemed interested to know more. I was eager to explain but then she said ‘I want to see the butterfly and the elephants.’ I said later as both were in the middle and at the end of our route around the zoo. If we were to go there we would not have time to come back to see the animal show at 1100.

The Indian Seladangs were just lazying in the morning sun, the sunbears were still deciding to come out or not and the otters were really crying for their late breakfast. To kill more time we stopped at the gifts shop nearby to window shop and be caressed by the cool air blowing from the aircon. You should know better that there is no such thing as just browsing if it is about souvenir t-shirts for me. We bought one each )).. After awhile we walked out of the shop and backtracked towards the show area next to the aquarium. The pigmy hippo was still in the water not moving where as her African cousins were out in the pen now. I waited for a while for a good shot.

The show was still 20 minutes away and to pass the times I suggested to Mar to visit the aquarium. No matter what we still enjoyed the fish. Mar kept her face closed to the glass most of the time while I was trying very hard to play around with the camera settings to try to capture good scene. I failed miserably I am yet to master the D80 fully. As I was fiddling with my camera and trying to capture Mar a gentleman on my right was watching me. Once I look up he said hi and said,’ I knew you looks familiar.’ It was, Fadzil Abd Aziz, my old colleague from my MDC days. He was there with his two boys. Fazlyn was at work he told me and we talked and asked a bit about each other. He is now working in Ipoh while Fazlyn is toying of moving over to Cyberview. I somehow in our conversation mentioned about my cycling activities and he exclaimed that he was into mountain biking as well. So we promised to get in touch if we were planning for a ride around each other areas.

We did not finish the aquarium properly and rushed out to the amphitheater for the animal show. Mar really ran towards the place and my yelling did not matter at all. I had to search for her when I got there. In the end she spotted and called me to the second row from the stage. We sat there waiting for awhile until eventually the first show began. It was the bird show that we have seen so many times before. I sat there waiting for a great shot but none came or maybe I was not that observant. Still Mar enjoyed the whole same old bird routine. Next came out the seal, I could not remember his name, and the show got better with interesting routine. The last one was the sea lion, again I forgot his name, show. This big guy cooperated in the beginning with all the routines until towards the end he decided he has had enough and left his trainer standing mumbling about him being sick. Well that’s how it is with animals, nothing guaranteed. With that the show ended prematurely and I was disappointed and Mar disgusted.

As we agreed when we entered in the morning we would walk the zoo, off we went walking towards the Savannah. Little of the Savananh interest Mar except for an ice cream vendor nearby. She bought two big scoops while I settled for a Cornetto. What can I say we were fed Cornetto every week when I was in school and the habit stuck. She sat herself next to the Camel’s pen and took her time to finish her ice cream. I gulped mine.

Since we were just about few meters from the orang utans I suggested we walked up a bit before we walked back down. She kept asking about the butterfly and I told her it was just down below and we will pass through. Only then she got up to follow me to see both the orang utans and chimpanzees. The orang utans already tired being a model zoo citizen when we got there. The chief, I presumed as he was big, slumbered on a slab just of the ground with his eyes dreary looking into space. The rest of the support crew either perched on the platform built for show or just on their back counting non existence stars. The amount of food on the ground indicated to us no extra amount of food would move them now. The chimpanzees behaved no better. One oldtimer actually sat on a decline like a nelayan sitting under his hut on a beachfront looking out waiting for nothing. I do not mean to be rude here but that was the impression that I got. If indeed the chimpanzee had a sarong on his demeanor would not be very far from the reality. Mar just stood there at the edge waiting for something to happen while the others were just relaxing and talking to each other. Now, I did not know who was looking at whom? Maybe the orang utans were so pissed they rather watched the people there behaved. Mar asked me whether she could feed the both the orang utans and chimpanzees but I told her both were not hungry and it would be just a waste of food and money. We stayed a bit longer there just to rest and then walked back down towards the butterfly area.

The young male Caucasian of European origin, I guess German, stopped us at the entrance of the butterfly park to request to see our handtag. Upon seeing ours he advised us that we have to pay an extra RM5 and RM3 respectively to enter the place. I jokingly asked Mar whether she wanted to go in. Immediately once inside was a display of anything to do with butterfly and insects. But Mar was not really interested in that. So we did the display as fast as we could and entered the butterfly compounds. It was already a bit hot and most of the butterflies were not really that active. Still a lot were flying searching for nectars. The compound was not that big so I allowed Mar to explore by herself and I concentrated on taking photographs of the butterflies. I would think we were there just around 5 minutes when Mar already complained loudly that we should be going already. Being a very hyperactive girl I would expect something like that to happen but not that fast. She was the one who wanted to be there in the first place. I was still intense photographing the butterflies. What irked me I could not get the kinds of shot that I was craving for. Still it was a precious moment to be there with her to enjoy the place. Come to think of it, it was not the zoo or butterflies. It was being together just the two of us. Mar being the last has about many years age difference with her brothers and sisters. She did not get the experience of going through thick and thin with me growing up. Her brothers and sisters may think I am playing favorite with her but it is actually not. They had gained a lot through the experience whereas Mar I had to create that for her.

We continued to circumvent the zoo against the natural flow of the visitors beginning with the tigers and lions. When we were about to pass their dens Mar showed the first sign of being tired. She officially requested for us to rest at the bench overlooking the lion den. I was a bit tired too thus we sat there admiring the ‘Lion King’ perched on his platform posting proudly for the crowds.

We were sitting for about five minutes and we realized that none of us would want to move any longer. Both of us were thirsty and tired already but I reminded Mar of her elephants. We dragged ourselves up and walked slowly. By now anything small was interesting as long as it would give us inspiration to move along. A stork that decided to join us on the path, the crowds that were feeding the hungry deer and even fish in the murky pond. As we threaded along I still tried to capture the surrounding. Suddenly, Mar saw the elephants and the sight reenergized her to almost run towards the animal. I picked up my pace to catch-up with her but she was there first. When I got to her I put up a proposal to her for us to go to the nearby kiosk first to cool off as well as to rejuvenate. She agreed and we emptied a bottle of 100 plus each as soon as I paid for it. Aware that any more sudden surge of cold drink would be too much for our tonsils I walked towards the elephants. By then Mar was already pestering me to feed the elephants with the sugarcane on sale. So I gave her RM10 to buy only one first, a foot long sugar cane was RM3, to see if she could reach the elephant. The bull elephant was the only one active so she jostled her way among the crowd. I just watched her from a far. When she put out the cane for the bull I thought it would not reach him. I guess both wanted it to really happen. Both tried their best to reach further and they succeed. With that experience naturally Mar asked for more and I gave her RM6 to buy another two. This time I was really ready with my camera and I caught them both on camera. The giraffe was next but to the dismay of the giraffe Mar paid just passing interest. I thought we were ready to go home.

Wrong!!!! ‘Abah, l want to see the buaya.’ She said and off we went to the mammal zone not just to see the buaya but the snakes, local as well as the Galapagos turtles. Only then it was really the end of our day at the zoo. So we thought.

)) somehow sub-consciously both of us tried our best to stay longer and mouthed a couple of reasons to that effect. Like we parked ourselves at the carp pond at the entrance/exit area as well as going into the gift shop that we had been before just to make sure we did not miss anything. In the end both of us had to admit it is the end and we walked out of the zoo to go home.

Click HERE for our the photos.

Malaysian Holidays, Langkawi, June 10, 2009, Wednesday, Day 3.

2010-01-13T08:37:00.002+08:00

I woke up as usual and after I said my Suboh I sat down to think what the best thing to do that morning was. Obviously we had to check out from Awana Porto Malai and check in into the other resort. The problem was in between that we were limited by time and distance as to what we can effectively do. To go to somewhere far meant we had to rush back to check out and waited for about two to three hours before we could check in into that other resort. My options were firstly to ask for a late checkout say around 2pm so that I could do a bit more things and we could check in immediately after we check out. Or just go out now and risk it and hoping that we cold check in into the other resort earlier. So I called the reception to ask for a late check out and it was denied conclusively as they were expecting a capacity that day. With that it was option two for us. I woke everyone up to get ready to go out. Having had the breakfast at the hotel yesterday we decided we had enough and went out straight away to have a Langkawi breakfast at the stall on the way out to Cenang. On the way out I called the resort to enquire if the bungalow was ready for us to check in and if not what time we could do it. I was told by the keeper around 1300. So it was not too bad which meant I had just few hours to kill before we could check in.

Nothing special about the breakfast, only that in the whole of Pantai Cenang at least the price of nasi lemak bungkus was standardized to RM1.00 with standard codes written on the bungkusan to indicate what kind of nasi lemak it is. SB would mean Sambal Bilis, SU for sambal udang, SS for sambal sotong and so on. I ordered omelet just to see what I would be served with. What came was our normal telur dadar goreng like we normally have at home.

We left as soon as we had finished our breakfast and drove towards Padang Mat Sirat. My intention was to visit and check out all the art and batik outlets within the vicinity. If I could not find that many I also wanted to explore the area to see what else were there we could enjoy. Despite driving the beat-up Wira I was within the Mat Sirat area within minutes. I drove towards Pisang Art Village first but it was still not opened when we arrived there. Taking a cue from that I drove ahead passing the already harvested paddy fields. It was nice scenery of Langkawi farming area so I stopped the car to take few photographs. To kill time I drove further around the area until in the end I decided to explore the area near Pantai Kok fishing village. As I was passing through I could see one batik shop was opening and made a mental note to stop there on the way out. As we had plan to go to the cable car the next day I stopped halfway to turn back to shoot some of the fishermen’s boats harbored there. I have always a soft spot for that kind of scenery.

As I intended we stopped at the just opened Batik Shop. When we were at the entrance they were just about to get ready and advised us to come in a few minutes. So I told them if that was the case we would not be coming at all as we had limited time. With that answer they relented and allowed us to come in to browse. The reason for me to be there was for just one thing, the batik paintings. The others were left to explore the shop on their own. In the end I settled for a medium piece batik painting. Satisfied, we proceeded back to Pisang Art Village.

Pisang Art Village was worth the wait. We explored the arts and enjoyed ourselves there. Unfortunately for me and fortunately for my wife there wasn’t any art that I like enough to buy. But Mar, I was paying of course, bought small pieces of batik chanting, according to her, as presents for her teachers and Fatah. We were at the place long enough until there wasn’t anymore interesting things to see or observe. I drove towards Cenang and decided to have our lunch along the way.

The bungalow was huge there were 5 rooms and each room was designed and equipped like a hotel business suite. Baqir and Kak Cik took one room each on the ground floor, Kakak and Mar the second room on the upper floor and of course Sam and I the master bedroom leaving one room at the ground floor unoccupied. The living and kitchen were huge as well so much so the three days we were there we did not know what to do with the entire space. We relaxed a bit to enjoy the place and then went out again. This time we drove towards Cultural and Craft Centre at Teluk Yu. The reason was that Sam saw a banner that there was something going on there. We were there in no time and indeed they have a sale fair or something there and we explored the placed. All the local crafts were there on sale as well as a number of demonstrations to local games, cooking as well as crafts. Truthfully, we have been there before and we have seen most of them but in the hope to be surprised we went with the flow. Most of us got excited with the bargain, Mar with the games and arts demonstrations and me the batik painting. In the end I came out of the place with three pieces of canting batik painting. I was lucky as they were at bargain prices. My advice to everyone is that if you want to buy batik painting at a cheaper price checkout this place first.

At around 1730 we left the place with no specific direction in mind. I just drove on towards Padang Mat Sirat hoping to stumble into something interesting to stop and see. Unfortunately it was ‘been there and done that’ for all of us and with that my instinct maneuvered me to the direction of Kuah Town where there would be a Pasar Malam that evening. Since there was still a bit of daylight when we arrived we window shopped a bit. We bought few things, chocolates and stuff just not to be too time consuming the last two days shopping in Langkawi. There wasn’t much to buy anyway. Once the sun started to set and with the early night started to creep in I parked the car closer to the Pasar Malam area and we walked there. Judging from what we could see Kuah Town Pasar Malam was the main Pasar Malam in the island.

We walked the length of the Pasar Malam identifying the food of our choice along the way when we turned back we started to stop at each places to buy them. It was like any other Pasar Malam albeit slightly different kind of food. With everyone’s favourite purchased we decided to head back to the resort. Once back we unpacked our food and had a feast down at the big dining table. The resort was at Cenang Beach and we had planned the day before to check out the night life on Cenang road as we saw it was quiet a ‘happening’ place at night. After we have taken our bath we were out with the intention to walk the length of Cenang Road. Being a tourist there was easy and the attraction was not bad. However I was a bit sad. I was sad to see the beach front properties were turned into something like the Ferringhi Beach in Penang and became too commercialize with the only consideration was to get everyone visiting their places to have the ‘baddest’ party or drinking session. I knew 100% of the beach fronts properties were used to be owned by the Malays of Langkawi. Luckily it was not a total lost though and I sincerely hope the land owners would preserve certain novelty about the beach area. Change they must but please do not forget our values.

Halfway through Mar started to complain that she was tired and asked me to carry her. I knew she was and sleepy too but I refuse to carry her and forced her to walk. Hey, I was not being cruel to my daughter. I just wanted her to see a bit more and then walk back to the resort. In the end all of us had had a long day and ready to rest. After we bought a couple of bottled water we walked back. Baqir was not happy though as he could not find any bootleg DVD on the Island.

With the huge space for everyone we retracted quietly into our own wonderland.

Our photos for day there are here.

On the Train (Selamat Jalan) , Jan 7, 2009

2010-01-08T07:43:00.000+08:00

On Monday, Jan 4, 2009 after coming back from Hajj with flu and cough my Uncle Abdullah Omar passed away after few days at Putrajaya Hospital. It was really unexpected and sudden for us in the family. Allahyarham was my arwah Abah’s cousin and we have met couple of times at Faisal’s house at BSP.

Yesterday, my very good friend Tam sent me a message that his beloved Kak Teh was in a very critical condition at Seremabn Hospital after a experiencing a stroke there days before. She had been in come since then and at around 1340 the same day I received another message from Tam bearing the sad news of the passing of Kak Teh. Kak Teh was dear to all of us that stayed at Tam’s place at Kuala Klawang for at least a week, I stayed almost a month, to help to organize her grand wedding. The wedding was one of the best that I had ever involved in. You could see all the kompung folks came together to help out with kayu basah, clearing the place, cooking and arranging for all sorts of cultural and religious events. If I were at any wedding and remember this best wedding definitely would remind and connect me to Kak Teh.

I would be the first person to admit that I am never good at accepting and dealing with death. For both deaths I was just numbed hearing and thinking about them. I just do not know how to react. When I called Tam words, let alone proper words, hardly came out from my mouth. I was not there to send both Pak Cik Omar and Kak The ‘off’. Even if I were I would not know how to deal with it. But deep down inside I know I did a proper one for both of them. My own way. May Allah Bless both of you and place you together with the soul that is loved by Allah.

What I have learned with this experience is that deep profound feeling towards something will immediately create certain connection and context to some of the deepest knowledge within you.

On The Train, Dec 24, 2009

2010-01-04T16:52:00.001+08:00

I have been away most weekends in December and tomorrow will be the longest until year end. My days on the train have been somewhat different as well. Much more thinking and photo editing. I was just not in the mood to write anything and nothing could push me to do so. I just felt I was brain tired, lucky not brain dead, and rather spend my times creating different kinds of dopamines.

A lot of new things that I have learned though. The reality of KM and the state of my understanding change with it. Nevertheless I am on more firm ground now. My new understanding provokes me to want to go out to talk to people again. As if reading my brain invitations came in after one another. I’ll try my best to honor them. That means 2010 will see the old Ghaz preaching new improved thinking with more vigor and passion.

Tomorrow means it has been a year since I broke my clavicle cycling at FRIM. I won’t be going back there tomorrow but to drive home.

On The Train (Neuroscience), Dec10, 2009

2010-01-04T16:51:00.001+08:00

The advance in neuroscience enables us to understand about out brain better. The last three days I was introduced to some of the most amazing discoveries and realizations. The things that I have read about Intuition, Decision Making and Naturalistic ways of doing things both came together ‘fixed’ by the understanding of the basic components and working of our BRAIN. To develop and nurture our brain we have to exercise it by getting it to experience either a lot of different things at different intensity or doing while learning from mistakes on everything that we do. This way we’ll develop and create a lot of dopamines

On The Train (Oh Keretapi Ku Laju), Dec 3, 2009

2009-12-04T07:59:00.000+08:00

Kekalutan dan kekusutan minda terpampang di hadapanku. Manusia masih tidak mahu menggunakan akal yang dikurnia kepada mereka. Mereka beanggapan segala kemudahan yang disediakan adalah haq mutlak mereka untuk menggunakannya sewenang-wenangnya. Kehairananku makin ketara apabila mendapati kekalutan dna kekusutan minda itu terserlah di kalangan mereka yang diketgorikan sebagai berpelajaran tinggi. Adakah ia disebabkan salah didikan, pembelajaran atau keadaan yang membentuk mereka menjadi begini? Aku bimbang akan anak bangsa ku dan kebimbangan aku ini berfakta.

Keretapi yang ku naiki terus meluncur
Menuja arah yang sudah tentu
Malangnya isi perutnya berkocak
Dikocakan oleh manusia
Yang tidak tentu haluan
Yang tidak tenu tujuan
Yang berpelajaran tetapi bodoh
Yang berfikir tapi kalut

Lajunya keretapi membelah malam
Isinya terus gelap
Gelap kepercayaan
Gelap pemikiran
Gelap minda
Gelap masa hadapan

Disetiap perhentian keretapi ku membuang dan menelan
Manusia ganas tidak berperi kemanusiaan
Aku terus keraguan
Risau akan zuriatku yang akan berperang
Ajaran, nasihat dan kelakuanku sebagai sandaran
Mampukah mereka?

Keretapiku begoyang-goyang
Beralun-alun tapi bukan ombak
Isi perutnya yang berkocak akan terus berkocak
Jika perjalananya diurus oleh akal yang ketandusan

Jiwaku terus tidak tenteram
Tidak ....
Tidak ...
Tidak diubati oelh satu ketentuan

Laju pelahan keretapi terus berlalu
Akhirnya kumpulan besi waja yang tidak bernyawa
Meninggalkan terus manusia

On The Train With a Group of Annoying Idiots, Dec 2, 2009

2009-12-04T07:57:00.000+08:00

Terlalu angkuh diri ini agaknya sehingga mampu menasihati seseorang sementara aku sendiri tidak terdaya unutk melakukannya. Aku kalah dan terus tidak terdaya untuk melakukannya selagi aku tidak bersungguh-sungguh. Kesungguhan yang aku perlukan harus datang dari dalam yang ditonggakkan oleh jati diri dan semangat yang tidak akan luntur. Percaya ku terhadap kemampuanku tidak perlu disangkal lagi kerana aku pernah melakukannya. Kepayahan kini sebenarnya dibelengu oleh ketidakupaya ku untuk memulakannya.

What am I talking about? Not like before currently I find it is very hard for me to focus to start on my research writing. I just know once I start I would not have any problem writing.

Keinginan yang memuncak dihasilkan oleh dorongan persekitaran menolak aku kearah melakukannya. Keluarga dan sahabat terutamanya. Aku tidak boleh lagi mempertikaikan kehendak mereka.

I was trying to think and write when a very loud conversation materialized in front of me. As I was engrossed in writing I did not realize a group of college students came on board at Mid Valley Station and parked themselves in front of me. Their conversation was too loud for me and I just let it go for a few minutes thinking they will tone it down. I was wrong the decibel level increased exponentially to the extend I could not tolerate it anymore. I was annoyed big time at their behaviour. Being college students they were idiots with no sense of consideration to the rest inside the train. The boys were trying to outdo each other to see who’s more macho and the girls were blabbering as if they were the only group inside the train. Annoyed that I was, I was surprised that I could restraint myself from yelling at them. Really, I was really at my most patient.

On The Train (e-Books), Nov 30, 2009

2009-12-01T18:58:00.000+08:00

All these while I had been ignoring, in fact it was a denial, the existence of e-books. I kept on giving my excuses not to read from it as trying to stay true to the original. All that changed now. I downloaded The Lost Symbol onto my iPhone last two weeks and started reading it on the train last week. I finished it this morning. My verdict - IT WORKS! Although I may be sentimental fool that would still buy books at certain occasion e-book would be a convenient version. It is not a substitute but a very good option. While reading Lost Symbol I still was engrossed in my reading and got the same satisfaction of reading a paper based book. I used to complaint quietly that I could not read in the dark or limited light source but with my iPhone it does not matter anymore. The only drawback was my reading wound only last as long as my battery could last. Having said all these I am very sure I would not be reading any books out of my Laptop or PC. What make it works is the handheld devices like iPhone. BTW The Lost Symbol was really a disappointment to me. Not only it dragged with so much detail about Freemasons but also I could anticipate the storyline easily.

On The Train, Nov 13, 2009

2009-11-17T13:01:00.000+08:00

From PJ I took a taxi back to KL Sentral and from there I boarded a train to Sg Buloh and I thought I would be getting down at KL Station. I was a smashed tuna and my face was flat on the glass at the wrong part of the door. The door to disembark at KL Station from KL Sentral was on the right side I was on the left. Not wanting to bother myself I just carried on to Bank Negara where I disembarked amidst a chaotic Friday evening crowds. I walked over to the other side and waited for my train. The new system by KTMB seems to be working as the platform was almost empty. At least two short run trains passed in 15 minutes interval. Patiently I waited for my Seremban train that came on time few minutes later. When I was at KL Sentral before it was the usual scene of chaos but when I arrived there afterwards it was a 9pm scene of calm and orderly

Aku ratib mengikut nada
DIiringi bunga-bunga yang mengasyikan
Suara-suara masih berupaya
Gembira
Mengharap hujung minggu yang menlenyap kelesuan

Ratib ku masih segar
Kasut selipar berjenis bewarna
Berbagai bangsa berbagai bahasa
1 Malaysia?
Mungkin kesempurnaan sementara
Yang asyik tapi bertanda tanya

Semalam aku mengharap
Hari ini terjawab
Kekal ku harap
Tiada siapa walaupun KTMB boleh menjawab
Soalan cepumas tetapi jawapan tak berhemah

Ratib ku makin rancak
Mengikut rentak
Tetapi hatiku lesu
Selesu selesuan.
Malas ku memberontak
Mata meledak
Perut ku berkocak

Ratib ku
Melalaikan rindu
Mengumpan kuyu
Ya Allah aku di atas keretapi kenapa aku merapu

Melekat di KL Sentral, Nov 12, 2009

2009-11-13T16:24:00.000+08:00

Aku tiba lebih awal di KL Sentral dari pejabat ku di PJ. Tetapi awal tidak bermakna aku mampu menaiki keretapi ku dan balik ke rumah lebih awal dari biasa. Aku bagaikan rusa masuk kampong terpingga-pingga memikirkan apa harus ku lakukan. Melalui kaca-kaca yang menjadi diding di sekeliling aku lihat hari makin gelap bukan di sebabkan kegelapan malam tetapi langit yang berat mahu mencurahkan air yang ditakung. Keputusan untuk aku sudah dibuat kerena sia-sia sahaja jika aku turun menunggu keretapi yang pasti akan menjadi tin ikan sardin. Aku terus belegar mencari tempat yang sesuai untuk melepak. Pilihan pertama aku adalah SwissGarden yang menjual scone kegemaran ku dan juga mempunyai pancaran wifi yang agak kuat dan stabil. Malangnya apabila tiba di kaunter scone tidak kelihatan di rak-rak jualan. Aku dapati juga sistem jaringan internet di KL Sentral seperti di pagi hari yang tidak berfungsi kecuali jaringan wifi MRCB. Aku terus naik ke tingkat dua dengan tujuan ke Dunkin Donat tetapi setelah aku melepasi tangga mengubah haluan ku ke Medan Selera di tingkat 3. Satu keputusan yang kurang tepat kerana di situ tidak terdapat sumber elektrik yang boleh digunakan. Aku terus turun semula ke tingkat 2 dan mengambil keputusan untuk berlabuh di KFC.

Dengan secawan kopi berserta gentang goreng aku terus mengeluarkan komputer riba ku. Di meja kiri dan kanan juga terdapat dua manusia seperti aku yang sudah ketagih, tekun melayari alam maya. Oleh kerena cuaca di luar agak muram ramai yang mengunjungi tempat makanan segera seperti KFC untuk menunggu. Aku perhatikan riak-riak manusia di sekeliling ku dan memutuskan bahawa KFC bukan lagi Restoran tetapi tempat kekasih bercumbu, kawan bertemu dan berbual, ruang mesyuarat dan ruang melayari internet. Ketagihan ku akhirnya diselamatkan oleh kedatangan waktu maghrib.

KTMB terus menguji kesabaran ku yang makin menipis setiap hari. Kononnya keretapi rosak. Kami tidak lagi ikan sardin tetapi menjadi tuna hancur untuk dimakan dengan roti. Mungkin dosa kami semasa kecil tidak memberi peluang untuk orang lain menaiki upeh pinang yang ditarik laju. Ataupun menyorok upeh supaya tidak ada orang lain yang boleh menggunakannya. Apa jua dosa kami KTMB tidak wajar terus menghukum. Tren terhenti di stesen Seputeh dan kemudain pemandu tren merayau melalui pembesar suara ’Sayang tolong tutup pindu nombor dua di gerabak nombor dua sayang’. Terus muka-muka lesu dan menyampah di dalam gerabak gelak ketawa riang. Seketika tiada bunyi pindu ditutup dan sekali lagi pemandu tren bersuara dengan nada agak keras tapi bersahaja ’Kalau pindu tak tutup kita tak boleh jalan la’. Kemudain baru pindu tersebut berjaya ditutup dan sekali lagi dengan nada keras dan bersahaja ’ Haa macam tu laaaa’ Terus kedengaran .gelak riang yang lebih kuat di dalam gerabak. Setidak-tidaknya pemandu tersebut telah berjaya mengubah fisiologi ku. Mungkin lebih ramai pemandu tren komuter berperangai sedemikian rupa untuk menceriakan keadaan yang sudah lama muram.

On The Train (Non Verbal Knowledge Sharing), Nov 9, 2009

2009-11-13T16:19:00.000+08:00

While sitting in the office watching the rain out of my windows I realized something that has been my second nature. I started to do a quick research on the subject and discovered that there is actually quite a body of research on the subject. It is as much as part of conversation as well as knowledge sharing. The first being on of the methods or process and the later the discipline itself. The non-verbal knowledge sharing that I have in mind is even more complex as it does not include the use of any tool or technology. It is more of a gesture and one’s conducts as a person. Through out my existence due to the environment that I grew up I became very good at this. The only problem for me is that not many people realized or understood my intentions despite most of them are good ones. For example I would expect my children to learn and receive the knowledge that I am imparting by merely looking at what I am doing or not doing. Making it more difficult most of my behaviors are not obvious and I do not care to explain carefully as, again, I expected or assumed them to understand me. Well after being close to me for 20 years they should be. Although I have my point it is still difficult for them. The worst I have my ego in the equation. Looking at academically it is still a form of knowledge sharing methodology albeit a complex one. In my case I could slowly see the result and it took us almost 20 years. Sometimes it is just an intrinsic understanding of my intention that wins the day. The easiest way out though is just to take everything at face value without giving certain actions or behaviors much thought. Serve me right for getting people angry at me because they could not decipher my non-verbal knowledge transfer. Still, I believe it is a necessary part of life especially in educating my children.

In any organization I believe this non verbal knowledge sharing and transfer also a reality that needed to be understood and leveraged. Asian culture dictates for us to do less talking and more about doing and following.

Di Perut Gerabak Keretapi, Nov 5, 2009

2009-11-06T08:17:00.001+08:00

Lamunan ku tidak begitu menjadi pada hari ini. Sebaik sahaja aku tiba di tempat menunggu kegemaranku aku terus membuka komputer rba ku untuk cuba berkarya. Seperti selalu aku mula mengelamun untuk cetusan ide tetapi malangnya hari ni, walaupun dengan galakan keadaan di sekeliling yang agak sunyi, aku gagal. Selalunya lamunan yang baik terus membuahkan hasil. Tidak hari ini. Mungkin di sebabkan pemikiranku yang masih berkecamuk oleh permasalahan kerja yang harus ku tangani. Malahan minggu ku yang meletihkan dijangka sambung menyambung membawa ke hujung minggu dan ke hujung tahun.

Sekali sekala pandangan ku lontarkan ke kanan cuba melihat keretapi yang tidak sampai-sampai. Perumpamaan seperti menanti buah yang tidak gugur cukup wajar diubah kepada seperti menanti kepala keretapi yang tak muncul-muncul tiba. Lambat atau cepat sudah tidak ku perdulikan. Aku tetap dengan hal sendiri. Munculnya setengah jam kemudian tidak mebawa perubahan kepada kebanyakan pemumpang. Muka-muka lesu terus memenuhi ruang yang ada sehingga ke stesen KL Sentral. Muka-muka lesu ini juga terus malap di sepanjang perjalanan ku. Malahan kepala si gadis di sebelah ku longlai hampir mencecah di bahu. Bangla di depan ku terlopong seolah mendongak menanti lalat dan angau. Ingin ku tolak takut terus tersungkur ke bawah. Hendak ku biarkan aku sungguh tidak selesa.dan segan di perhati ramai. Sungguh, ampun, benar sedikit pun tidak ku sukai.

Ooiii! Bond bangun la! Ko cerita apa ni? Sejak bila ko jadi Mat Jiwang-jiwang ni? Nak muntah aku baca tau?

Terpulanglah nak kata apapun kata la tetapi itulah cerita sebenarnya yang berlaku pada diri ku hari ini.

Eh! korang jangan lupa malam ni malam Jumaat. Baca yasin, ngaji dan sembahyang tahajud. Anak-anak pun ramai nak periksa ni tolong doakan.

On The Train, Nov 4, 2009

2009-11-06T08:14:00.000+08:00

The school of the bridge collapse incident in Kampar was reported to make a statement saying based on the forms signed by the parents that they were not responsible. Naturally the parents think otherwise and, if not the whole Malaysia at list the majority, think so to. The story from the parent side could be very obvious but what about the school and the organizer? Are they the right party to shoulder the blame or to be blamed? I had learnt recently that our brain is designed to be positive but somehow habitually we are always negative. A lot will argue though how one can be positive in facing such tragedy? Tough no doubt. One thing we have to recognize is that we are dealing with what any schools suppose to achieve. Education – educating all of us to behave the right way and be responsible. Greed most of the time override every thing. The thing that I am very sure of is that we are still looking at things using the old lenses. Our visions are blurred to the extent that we do not know what’s in front of us really.

On The Train, Nov 2, 2009

2009-11-04T18:58:00.001+08:00

Two more months to go and it would be 2010. As much cliché as it can be it has been a high speed chase for me that left me wondering aloud today where had the year gone and what have I done? Nevertheless it is going to be another two months of high speed finish for me.

It is raining almost daily now dampening the spirit a little bit. My colleague mentioned to me that KTMB was going to start a short run at the interval of 15 minutes between Sg Buloh and Kajang as well as KL Sentral and Shah Alam. Just yesterday I shared my thoughts with my wife suggesting to nobody in particular that KTMB should start a short run between Serdang and KL Sentral as I could see a lot of potential there. With the new information from my colleague I obviously had to ask the question using what? There aren’t any additional carriages being brought in. How do we expect KTMB to service this new proposed run? All of us know that isn’t enough carriages is the reason of the bad service in the first place.

The plan for KL Sentral – Padang Besar – KL Sentral -JB – Tumpat – KL Sentral in four days is still on and doable. Anybody interested to join me?

On The Train, Oct 29, 2009

2009-11-02T13:38:00.000+08:00

KTMB was at its nuisance best yet again today. I was trying my best to be early today and was confident of catching the 2000 train only to be disappointed by the same announcement that is a permanent fixture for any KTMB stations. Although I was already occupied my laptop today I could not stop myself from exclaiming loud enough for everyone on the platform to hear me. Hearing me my office colleague sitting two benches away laughed with me aloud. We were told our train was at Kuang Station which translated to mean at least 45 minutes extra waiting time. I spent my entire waiting time editing my recent cycling photos. Obviously I was not in the mood to be a poet and if I had it would be one hell of a nasty poem.

Di Perut Gerabak Keretapi, Oct. 27, 2009

2009-10-28T07:52:00.001+08:00

Aku mungkin dilihat seperti mengelamun atau termenung jauh memikirkan sesuatu semalam. Hakikatnya aku duduk teruja di hapadan ahli-ahli panel bukan bangsa Melayu yang fasih bertutur di dalam Bahasa Melayu. Hari ini aku teruja sekali lagi dengan bacaan bait-bait puisi yang indah lagi mengasyikkan. Secara kebetulan tetamu undangan kami, Prof Siti Zainon Ismail, membawa bersamanya naskah-naskah tulisannya untuk dipamer dan dibeli jika berminat. Di antara naskah-naskah tersebut adalah sebuah antologi puisi yang mempunyai judul kecil Dari Stesen Ke Stesen. Dengan pinjaman RM oleh sahabat yang hadir bersama senaskah antalogi itu menjadi milikku. Ku belek-belek isi kandungan naskah itu dan teruja terus ingin berkarya. Jika kusut, mengelikan, membosankan dan memualkan bahasa ini anggaplah ianya cubaan seorang yang ketandusan ilmu bahasa.

Perjalanan Dekat Tapi Jauh

Saban hari aku meredah hutan yang bernyawa atau tidak
Dengan harapan keikhlasan menjadi lumrah
Berbagai telah ku alami dan rasai
Namun aku tetap kebal dengan kerenahnya
Sudah enam tahun rupanya

Hutan bernyawa kadang kala sumber hiburan ku
Sumber gurauan ku
Sumber ilham ku
Sumber kedengkelan ku

Hutan besi pula ku sedihi
Tidak mahu memahami
Tidak mahu mengerti
Tidak mahu belajar dari kesilapan lampau maupun terkini
Tetapi aku tetap setia sentiasa menanti
Kerana perjalanan ku yang dekat masih jauh

Diikutkan hati marah ku sudah berkodi
Sudah berguni
Malah baru sebentar tadi pengendali mengingati yang sudah berkali-kali
Di sebabkan masalah teknikal yang menjadi misteri
Aku sudah lali
Sudah 30 minit!!!
Mungkin menjadi 1 jam!!!!
Akurku dan tafakurku masih diuji
Kerana perjalanan ku yang dekat masih jauh

Ragam-ragam itu
Ragam-ragam ini
Tidak ada akhirnya
Ku penuhi dengan melalaikan keraguan yang membuak
Dengan buku-buku yang mengasyikan
Dengan teman setiaku yang diriba
Yang membawa aku jauh meneroka
Kerana minatku, sukaku
Aku akur
Perjalanan ku yang dekat tetap masih jauh

Engagement, Bera and Temerloh, Oct 10, 2009

2009-10-24T00:29:00.000+08:00

The sequence of importance is as in the title but how it evolved was the reverse and I find all of them interesting and fun. The whole experience brought out the best in me and gave me a better perspective of how I see the world.

The objectives of the day were to get to Bera, Triang safely, get Nan engaged successfully and return home intact. We left home at around 0830 with most already attired for the occasion. Since my dear wife picked blue, and it was very much still syawal, I put on my blue baju melayu. Apart from my wife was Baqir who decided the night before rather than staying at home unable to go to any open houses to tag along. Good as well for me as I really needed a photographer as I can’t be talking and taking pictures at the same time. Well, I can but then I will annoy a lot of people and I did not wish to make it any harder for Nan. On the way out Sam called Ecah to find out where they were and was informed somewhere in Pandan Indah which meant we were about 20 minutes behind them. In order to save time I decided not to stop for breakfast and we agreed to meet at the Petronas just before Bentong’s tol plaza. As it was my normal route going back to Raub, confidently I floored the pedal and maneuvered the Ranger through the highway. At about 1 kilometer reaching the Petronas rest area Nizam called to ask our where about. He was 15 minutes behind us and we told him of our meeting point.

Along and Ecah were already at the Petronas rest area waiting. I checked on Nizam’s progress and since he was still about 15 minutes behind I decided to have a quick breakfast there.

We left the area together when Nizam arrived. Driving his new Myvi and with his injury Nizam decided to drive slowly and carefully where as Along with his family inside the car decided to be cautious. I was not impatient but they were too slow for me so I sped on the highway and was very early and the first to arrive in Temerloh. As I was driving into Temerloh town Nor called to ask our where about. Since we were early we decided to just take our time and meet in Bera. I duly concurred and knew what I wanted to do straight away. Explore the new Temerloh. As I was driving in I was really surprised by the development around me so much so I lost my sense of direction until we reached the round about just before the Sg Pahang Bridge. I turned left and left again at the next junction to drive into the old Temerloh town. Even that I was a bit confused by the new building and developed areas. I was helped by the need to engage my striped good friend – Kawanku. When I saw the building I stopped to withdraw some money and stood for awhile to make sense of the surrounding. Only then I saw the old police station as well as the old Temerloh town ahead of it. And I was immediately in a very familiar territory to take charge. I drove into the old town area and identified few familiar buildings including the Mosque and the bus station. I was not looking for anything in particular but if I were to chance upon a cheap decent bicycle I’ll buy one as I saw one quite a big bicycle shop on the way in. My wife is into old fashion kitchen ware now and the old town shops would be an ideal place to find such items. We did not find anything worth stopping for so I drove out of the town towards the route to Bera and Triang. Since we were still very early I drove slowly and took my time photographing things that I felt like. One of them was a nice surprise – as I approached a corner I saw a sign with a very familiar logo stating Mengkarak Station. Through out my many years going home on the train to Kelantan and Temerloh Mengkarak was one of those small, quiet and dark station that we stopped at the very early in the morning. I do not know about others but I always wondering the life around it during the day. That day I knew what it was like. It was not what I thought it was like. It was, even then, more vibrant and full; of life.

Almost the whole journey to Bera was along side the mighty Pahang River. The road was quite good to maneuver through comfortably. At 1140 we arrived at the traffic light in Bera town. I drove a bit further and turned left into a row of shops. It was then that Sam mentioned that Nizam was behind us. Without prompting we search for interesting place to stop and we chose one promising hardware store. We took interest of what’s inside the store as it was full with necessity required by Felda settlers as much as river fishermen. In the end Sam bought a nice periok. With not that many option we crossed the road to the other side of the town and then decided to drive ahead to Felda Mayam which was the second furthest Felda in the area. It was a good 20 minutes drive. Nizam planned to stop at the coffee shop at the junction to Felda Mayam. Luck had it the Eddy taking the others coming form his house from the other direction arrived at the junction at the same time. SO we drove straight in towards the mosque to prepare ourselves before we proceeded to Ila’s house. It was already 1234. I did not really know the plan but was told by Nan the host was expecting as at 1230. Nizam suggested after Zohor but since we agreed to be there at 1230 I made a decision to go then. After putting my samping and songkok on we drove towards the house.

The house was at the edge of a small hill forming a cluster of 20 houses around it. At the top of the hill was a beautiful gated muslim cemetery. Being at the top of the hill, with hardly any big trees and clean it was more like a garden. The instruction given to us was to enter the cemetery on a good tarmac road and to come around to park along the small road in the cemetery compound. I chose to park close to the gate so that it would be easy to get out later. AS I was parking the Ranger Then I heard someone yelling ‘senget nak tertonggeng tu’ and look at my side mirror to see a white Toyota wish was sort of hanging on its belly on the edge and frantically somebody was running over to pull it down. What a drama, initially I intended to reverse and park there but trying to let other use the spot I moved forward. It was Asri and everyone commented after that he was not driving a Ford Ranger like Pak Cu.

The little drama did not help to ease my anxiety. Nevertheless we could not let the host waiting and quickly gathered everyone. Leading the group we walked towards the house which was already full with the kampong folks waiting, I guess since 1200. I said my salam and shake everyone’s hand before I took my seat normally reserved for the head of the delegation in any majlis bertunang. As I shook every hand moving along the line I tried to absorb the environment deciphering whatever the situation I could. I felt some eyes were checking me out but I was not worried which was a good indication for me. After making myself comfortable before the small talk I looked at the faces in front on me. The man on my left was definitely the father of the bride and I thought immediately on his left would be the person that I would be talking to. If he were the person I could see him being thoughtful and knowledgeable. His strength and the respect for him were obvious making my anxiety grew and I could be in trouble. A young gentleman started to fiddle with the PA system and once working started to address the room firstly to welcome us and eventually introduced a man sitting almost directly in front of me as the Tok Ketua and the would be spoke person for the host. I was a bit relief. As the young gentleman finished with the initial introduction he passed the microphone to the Tok Ketua. The first few words that came out of the Tok Ketua’s mouth made me smiling inside. He was even more nervous than I was. I relaxed a bit and started to listen to his welcoming address. To my surprise once he was done with the introduction he straight away addressed the issue at hand to get the ball rolling. He was in a hurry to finish this unpleasant, to him, business I said to my self and became more relax. I knew straight away whatever words that will come out of me would be acceptable and the jokes that I was going to tell would be working. Another microphone was passed to me. With the mike on I seriously thought I would start my introduction with a pantun. Then not wanting to create even more tension on the part of the Tok Ketua I instead introduced myself with a jest of jokes followed by an invented story of my own before officially putting forward our hajat of the day. The Tok Ketua without missing a beat said something like correcting me that the majlis was a merisek first and bertunang second. I was caught by a surprise but the To Ketua excused me saying it was ok and rushed the whole thing with direct questions about the money matters, dates and all. I was not sure whether he was trying to corner me with a knock out punch or just plainly ignoring my question. I had just actually asked about bunga di taman yang ingin disunting bernama ….. followed by the expectation of the host in terms of hantaran and whatever else. He answered as those should be our action to recommend. I smiled at my nephew who was sitting on my immediate right. I was thinking hard what to do next as everyone was expecting for me to say something. I decided to be as direct following the Tok Ketua leads. I said as was informed to me after a discussion with the family the hantaran would be such and such amount hoping that it would open up a discussion. Instead the Tok Ketua took it as a fact repeating the figure and accepting the akad meminang. He continued to ask about the period of engagement. I replied with a joke about my nephew being dah gatal nak kahwin and offered a suggestion to let us put it as a year. I joked in the event the economy got better quickly we can do it even earlier. The actual date will be discussed and decided between both families. I asked apart from the hantaran what else would be expected of us and the duit hantaran when are we suppose to deliver and in what sum. The answer to my question was as much a surprise as well as assuring. No, the hantaran was all it and it should be delivered in full three months before the actual date of the nikah.

Again, the Tok Ketua was clearly trying to finish the ceremony off. I jumped in as soon as I saw an opportunity in the event putus tunang what would be our course of action. The replied was something that I like very much, ‘Kita megharapkan yang baik jadi sekiranya berlaku perkara yang disebut kita bawa la berbincing dengan baik dan mengambil jalan putus yang terbaik. Kita sesama keluarga berbincanglah.’ With that only I think matters at hand could be closed. As if trying to have a final say the Tok Ketua continued to close the majlis by calling the man sitting next to the bride’s father to recite a doa. The imam started by commenting that he was glad that despite talking about money and adat we had adopted a virtue or proper conduct in meminang. Compromise, acceptance and trust in each other would certainly a good started for better family relationship.

After the doa the Tok Ketua proceeded to announce the majlis menyarongkan cincin which I could not show to the father of the bride first. I just follow the lead again and let the ceremony to continue as announced by the Tok Ketua. I relaxed a bit knowing everything is in order. I started talking to the father of the bride to learn more about life in tanah rancangan like Felda Mayam. Honestly I got more interested about to place and would not mind to stay overnight there to experience more. It was obvious the live you have in town despite the claim of contentment it was just physical most of them. Life in places like the Felda has it own soul and tranquility. The Tok Ketua and the rest of other guests eventually politely left. I shook and thanked most of them.

While the ladies were still busy taking photos En Sharif the father of the bride invited me to eat outside. As expected the spread was local food that included ikan patin masak tempoyak. Even though I cannot take the ikan patin the other lauk were something that I was not going to miss. You can bring my doctor sitting next to me then I’ll still eat the food. They were that good and tasty. If it would make it less worrying I limited myself to just two plates of rice ha ha ha. Looking around it was only us that were just eating indicating that the rest of the guests had eating earlier. Had we waited till after zohor it would have been disastrous. We continued to eat comfortably not wanting to disappoint the host. The father of the bride sitting next to me was quite chatty and he shared a bit of his life history. The hardship of their early life in the Felda was so obvious. I know the younger generation would not have a clue as to what En Sharif was talking about. There is a definite vast difference between hearing about it with being there and experiencing it yourself. Sadly, though for people like En Sharif most of their children would grow up just to leave the Felda to work and live somewhere else. It was not anybody’s fault as naturally their children being a bit more educated would be working in cities like KL. Only a lucky few that have their children taking over the plantation. The program brought about a new generation of settlers but at the same time killing the program itself. I was told most of the plantations were given back to Felda to care.

Once most of us had eaten I thought we were ready to leave. Then we were invited back into the house for tea. We were served cool milk and a bit of kueh. We stayed a bit longer and eventually I asked everyone to not take any more time than necessary to leave the house. Once again I thanked everyone and left for home via Eddy’s place.

Eddy took us through the plantation back route via Chenor to his house in Kg Awah. The route was narrow bur big enough for lorry to pass through. If you were driving a 4X4 like we you would have loved the route and anybody slow in front of you, you would think it was a nuisance  Once at Eddy’s place we said our prayers and rest a bit. Around 1730 I decided to hit the road home. As I was driving from Kg Awah to the Temerloh town we chanced upon a Pasar Malam along the way and we stopped. A sense of adventure and serendipity were so strong for me not to stop.

When we were back on the road it was a matter of how fast we can get home to me. At approximately we were safely home around 2300.

For the pictures please click below:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=148399&id=732507245&l=759beaf23e
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=148407&id=732507245&l=344376a305

On The Train (KTMB Of My God KTMB), Oct 22, 2009

2009-10-22T23:10:00.000+08:00

The idiots at KTMB were making our life miserable yet again today. It may sound that I am being too harsh or hard on them but nobody in KTMB, despite the well documented problems that they were facing, really care about their customers. They rather let all of us standing there waiting for trains that we were not sure of coming at all. Oh yes I am piss with them now. How could I not be when I had to wait for extra hours unnecessarily?

On The Train (Bahasa Melayu), Oct 20, 2009

2009-10-22T18:54:00.002+08:00

One of my colleagues in the office made this conviction in his blog.

‘Pengendali blog ini beriltizam untuk bersama-sama memartabatkan semula bahasa Melayu sebagai bahasa Kebangsaan, seperti yang termaktub dalam Perlembagaan Malaysia’

http://mybabah.blogspot.com/

Satu usaha yang murini yang patut dicontohi. Mungkin di hari-hari yang akan datang say juga akan memartabatkan bahasa Melayu di dalam penulisan saya. Jika kita halusi bahasa Melayu itu amat indah bila dituturi terutama sekali di dalam majlis-majlis istiadat. Malahan did lam majlis pertunanan dan perkahwinan bahas Melayu jika digunakan dengan rangkap-rangkap patun yang indah membuatnya lagi mengasyikkan. Sahabat saya ini beriltizam ke arah pengunaan bahasa Melayu yang betul. Sebenarnya senagai seornag Melayu, seperti saya, kita telah beranggapan penggunaan bahasa Melayu kita samada di dalam penulisan maupun pertuturan telah mantap tampa silap sebenarnya hanya satu dongengan. Malah tulisan saya yang seperenggan ini jika ia diteliti mempunyai kesalahan-kesalahan. Sama-samalah kita mempelajari dan membaiki bahasa Melayu kita.

Kenapa saya akan terus juga menulis menggunakan bahasa Inggeris? Kerana pembaca saya> Saya akan cuba selang selikan pemulisan saya.

On The Train (Decency and an Idiot), Oct 19, 2009

2009-10-20T17:51:00.001+08:00

Last week in a packed train on the way home I witnessed something that gave hope to Malaysia if not 1Malaysia :)). There was this lady sitting by the door and at Bandar Tasek Selatan came on board, more like being pushed on board by the crowd, an old lady. Despite the squeeze and difficulty the lady surrendered her seat to the Mak Cik. As the Mak CIk was sitting there was a young lady carrying a helmet and holding it in such a way it was above the Mak Cik. Realising that the Mak CIk offered the young lady to hold it for her. The young lady smiling accepted the offer. That was not all, the whole sequence from the lady offering her seat all were done with smiling faces. To make it even better there were these two Chinese ladies, Ah So, standing around her and started to remarked on what she had done and they started to ask about each other. It was not a small talk. Honest friendly conversation. Looking from four feet away I was smiling at the whole incidence. There was hope for Malaysia I said to myself.

It was different story just now. While waiting for the train at KL Sentral I heard a commotion behind me. A lady was scolding somebody. I turned back and saw the lady auxiliary police on duty at the station was cautioning and Indian man who was smoking. For one this idiot knew it already that the place was a non-smoking zone and being stubborn went was asked to put the cigarette out. As if to irk the police woman even more he started to ridicule the lady. Couldn’t contain herself she started to get louder and the Indian man just teased her more. Seriously I was annoyed at the idiot and almost walked to him to give him a knock on his head. Lucky for him or me, which ever you look at it, he somewhat relented albeit still smarting from the incidence. An idiot will always be an idiot.

On The Train, Oct 9, 2009

2009-10-12T08:23:00.000+08:00

The Friday mess continued itself on the train home. In situation like this I pitied the newbies that were caught by surprise especially those first timers. Just like today a Chinese lady sitting in the bowel of the coach while full with anxiety determining her disembarking station only to realize for a while she was actually at KL Sentral already. She was stuck in the middle of the rush in. So the advise to those using either Klang or Seremban lines of Friday evening to board as sit as close as possible to the exit and if you were not to get ready to disembark once the train is approaching your station.

Eid Mubarak 2009

2009-10-12T08:22:00.000+08:00

During Ramadhan about 5 of our school friends passed away due to known illness. Just after Eid I received news of death of my relatives and other friends. Last night was my neighbor who had been sick for years. Of course all these are reminders for me that life is that fragile and more should be done in preparation for the inevitable. Most of my friends’ death was after years of suffering and getting the new of their passing during Ramadhan was a blessing in a way. This set my mood during the Eid celebration. It was not that I was unhappy but I was conscious of the fact that anything can happen to anybody. Even that I failed just because I assumed and delaying things.

On a brighter note we had our first family Hari Raya gathering on the first night at Mak Anjang’s place. It was a start that we want to keep doing in the years to come. We promised ourselves that we would keep the family together and trace our heritage so that we would have a family history. It is already fairly easy on my father’s side but a bit tricky on my mum’s side. The following day we stopped at Mamak Abas’s place to beraya and asked him to share what he knows. Unfortunately not much, still useful information from him. Hearing his stories got almost everyone including our children excited about our history and everyone was bullish contributing whatever the can.

On The Train, Sept, 28, 2009

2009-09-29T17:10:00.000+08:00

A representative from TRANSIT wrote today in the Malay Mail commended the staff of KTMB of the job well done during the recent Hari Raya exodus home. Mentioned was the sacrifice the staff of KTMB had made in order for their passengers to have a smooth ride home. No taking this away from them I also appreciate this gesture and it should be the norm. However the writer wrote on the last paragraph passengers, especially commuters using the Komuter service kike me should not complaint too much as we do not know the kind of problems KTMB are facing. The writer mentioned about the fact the government did not allocate enough funds and the fact that the government also does not make any announcement to that effect to mitigate our negative perceptions. The writer mentioned that KTMB requires about 60 cars to have a ten minutes interval Komuter service.

Well, I know all these. In fact most suffering commuters know this. THE QUESTION IS WHAT IS KTMB DOING ABOUT IT? Don’t tell us they accepted these facts just like that without thinking of other alternatives and solutions.

Suddenly just before Kajang a hnadphone went off and a very loud foreign voice answered it and in rapid African language he spoke loudly. It was of course annoying for even from the place I was sitting let alone somebody close to him.

On The Train, Sept 13, 2009

2009-09-18T12:02:00.001+08:00

It was Monday morning again and the last week of Ramadhan. It was not the fact it was just it was the last week and the normal occurrence on certain things during the last week of Ramadhan but more of my realization of the commuters on my morning ride every Monday. Just like this morning the number of commuter has always been more than the usual and I do not know why. Whenever the train arrives at Bangi station I would be lucky to get a seat and looking at the commuters around me I’ll see different faces that I normally see everyday. I could only speculate really and here are my hypotheses.

1. They went back home to Seremban or any place along the route for weekend and come back to work to KL on early Monday morning from their kampong. I used to have friends who did this every weekend, or
2. Some of the normal commuters just wake up very early on every Monday and take earlier train to work, or
3. Most of them just work on Monday ) and that would be need., or
4. It is the combination of number 1 & 2

Looking at my hypotheses now I would say the strongest would be number 1. If you think otherwise please drop me a line or two.

This morning I observed another thing when we were at KL Sentral. Came on board a group of 4 Filipinos. How do I know firstly it was so obvious from their dressing and demeanor and secondly they started to speak in Tagalog loudly. I observed for a few days already and by the look of it they were not going somewhere near KL. I could be wrong and as they do not look like they were maids I was wondering where they were heading for.

I was dozing off after Serdang this morning and just before Bandar Tasek Selatan with my head still looking downward I opened my eyes and as I saw beautiful colors in front of me. Four ladies in a row in colorful baju kurong were standing right in front of me. What a beautiful sight like colors of Malaysia.

On The Train, Sept 11, 2009

2009-09-14T13:48:00.001+08:00

Another Friday evening and the same thing as any other and I was lucky to get a seat at KL Sentral. The composition was really mixed today. There were Arabs tourists onboard talking loudly; presumably because nobody else would understand them; holiday makers going home for the weekends, young gen y going home from colleges and shopping malls; one or two making an early way for home for the EId celebration; and the usual like me going home for the day The average age around me was 27 and could be younger. This morning of the way to work a young lady started to talk to her friend over the phone. Well that was normal enough the problem was she animatedly, complete with giggles, talking as if she was alone in the whole coach. Sometimes I am amazed at how oblivious or rather forgetful some people are. In fact now a guy was talking to his friend loudly in a packed train.

The guy on my left was swaying up and down sleeping soundly so was an old Chinese lady on my right.

On The Train, Sept 9, 2009

2009-09-14T13:46:00.000+08:00

The train was on time today and with fewer commuters on board when I boarded. At KL Sentral it was the same old story.

I was looking out of the window and admiring the scenery outside when we on the way to Kajang from Serdang when I noticed the changes to the landscape. Obviously after six years the place changed, in fact most places along the track did. People on the train also changed except for the regular few. The sad part and to my dismay KTMB did not, well they changed for the worse. It is no point in exaggerating my agony further by continuing to talk or write about them so today I wanted just to accept the fact that it is unbecoming of them if they change. Mentally at least that would minimize my stress level.

On The Train, Sept 8, 2009

2009-09-09T07:45:00.000+08:00

My 1800 train was latte by 10 minutes. I got a seat at KL Station and I was packed at KL Sentral.

My mind was searching what to write and my eyes kept on darting inside and outside of the train hoping for inspiration. Suddenly, just before Salak Selatan I was surprised by somebody’s phone that sat off with a ring tone of ‘everybody was kung fu fightingggggggg’. That brought me back to 70’s when I was in school. I remember once somebody actually sang that song and when he came to that part immediately after he sang ‘fighting' he gave a flying kick to the toilet door. Lucky for him it was the door not me. If not he would have been flying in the toilet himself. It had been more than 20 years now and I was really surprised by the ring tone. Further more it came from a handphone owned by a gen x. I just wonder whether he knows the significant of that song to people my age or even the baby boomers. It is also interesting to note as if the current artists do no know how to write a new original.

Come to think of it just like fashion songs also being recycled. I wonder if it is the same with management concepts? Maybe the concepts are just the same but being repackaged differently camouflage by different names.

On The Train, Sept 7, 2009

2009-09-08T07:45:00.000+08:00

The train service during the Ramadhan was heretic to say the least. So far I was delayed three times already and all of them due to cancellation. When KTMB uses Cancellation it means the train brokedown somewhere and being pulled out of the service. Just this morning when I was at the Bangi station there was already a Seremban train on the track being repaired. There were two engineers/drivers trying to restart the engine that refused to do so. Maybe it was over used and in need for a rest he he he. Whatever it is this is going to be the norm for at least the next three years for me. These days going to work in the early morning I’ll join the rest catching up on lost ZZZZZZZZZ. Going home is like playing Russian roulette with KTMB and if I am lucky on the day the train would be surely sardine can pack at KL Sentral. I was joking one day with another commuter while commenting the late arrival of our train said, ‘Surely it’s going to be a hot packed sardine can after this.’ He remarked, ‘No, I do not think so it’s more like a blended fish or meat,’ We laughed about it. Well, you need your sense of humour to keep your sanity in balance if you were a regular KTMB commuters.

On The Train, Aug 28, 2009

2009-09-01T13:00:00.000+08:00

It is Friday and a three day weekend coning in the month of Ramadhan what will you get in KTMB’s commuter service in the evening?

A long chain of sardine can that they called a Komuter train service.

At Bandar Tasek Selatan Station those on the platform started to push in and someone, a lady, inside the train yelled, ‘ Tak tahu sempit ke jangan tolak geramnya akuuuuu.’ I was tempted to sing ‘ Geran jangan enkau geram, Geram, geram, Geram bermacam ragam’. Loudly just to enlighten the atmosphere. He he he the song is an old song by the Black Dog Bone

This year's Merdeka celebration would only be a small celebration due to the fasting month. If not on 31st Aug I would be somewhere with my camera taking photos of the parade or something. So my Merdeka celebration this year would be doing my chores at home and maybe going down to Melaka in the evening

On The Train, Aug 26, 2009

2009-09-01T12:59:00.000+08:00

Should we spend time and effort to change a culture if we thing it is the main barrier to progress? Or should we just strategize around it? Or to ignore it and plough through with our efforts? There is no answer to the questions really. As I learned recently we need to continue to converse about this and to get more people to discuss about it. Also with enough people coming from various angle better understanding of the problems would at least prevail. Receiving mix signals from the management is a real issue anywhere. The need for the management to walk the talk is a must to ensure certain change behaviour to really have the opportunity to happen.

On The Train, Aug 24, 2009

2009-08-25T07:52:00.002+08:00

Third day of Ramadhan and first day of Ramadhan at work I am going to be late for iftar already. Now at 1838 I am still waiting for my train. It was announced just now that my 1820 train had been cancelled. Yeap! KTMB can do just that. At this rate I would be home at around 1950.

I am on the train now but as you could guess almost rip at the seam. At the moment I am trying my best to be positive with the whole thing. Frankly, my fuse is at the thinnest string now. Anymore ‘technical problem’ from KTMB would deem my puasa meaningless for the day. I just hope I do not have to come to that. On a brighter note despite the obvious I have learned to really control myself as it could have been worse.

Indeed I landed on the platform at Bangi station at 2001.

Looking at the whole scenario I think conceptually KTMB did the right thing, giving their current train shortage, with the schedule. The only problem their execution could have been faster and better. They really have to see this as not a technical problem but and adaptive one. What they are doing now is whenever there is congestion in either line they will take a train out of the other line to cover. They do this by closely monitoring the volumes. As I said they could do this better and decision making is the key element.

On The Train, Aug 21, 2009

2009-08-24T17:53:00.000+08:00

I just knew that today is going to be worse than yesterday for two reasons.

1. Friday evening
2. Tomorrow would be the start of Ramadhan. Extra bodies would be going home for the weekends as well as people going home a bit early to start going to surau for their sunat ramadhan.

Nevertheless I tried my luck as I hoped to be home earlier than the usual. No dice and once again I got out of the platform and parked myself at the Swiss Oven.

Around 2000 I dragged myself out onto the platform for the Sentul bound train so that I could catch my train at KL Station. My timing today was brilliant as I did not have to wait long. I was alos lucky to get a seat as we rolled into KL Sentral. Just like the trains before it was transformed immediately into a hot sardine can.

It was really chaotic when we stopped at MidValley and Bandar Tasek Selatan. To make thing worse one of the door refused to open.

On The Train. Aug. 17, 2009

2009-08-18T07:50:00.001+08:00

It was still drizzling when I walked down slowly to the station anticipating a nice ride home. Naturally after the heavy downpour the station was wet from one end to the other. Sitting down in the bench was a lucky event after somebody had actually sat to dry certain spot. I thought the train was coming in a short while so I paced myself to the end of the platform. As I turned back at the end came the dreadful announcement that the Seremban line was delayed by 30 minutes. Not wanting to drain myself further of my already depleted energy I sat myself down and relax. The hope of a nice ride home diminished as I see more people come waiting and even more when the train actually rolled into the station with almost total capacity.

I was lucky several commuters near where I was standing got down at KL Station and I got a seat. But then my mood had already been spoilt by KTMB. The best way was to converse with myself through my writing.

On The Train, Aug. 13, 2009

2009-08-18T07:48:00.000+08:00

The week so far has been unpredictable for me. Both physically and mentally I am drained. I do not know why physically my mentally I was disappointed with the development of our project as well as worried of the situation of the H1N1 pandemic now. More and more commuters putting on their masks on the train now. Yet I am still adamant that I am not zorro. But I know I am just being stubborn about it. Eventually I will put on one once the situation is out of control.

On The Train (High Bandwidth Network), Aug. 5, 2009

2009-08-06T15:50:00.000+08:00

I was at the MSC Innovation Centre this morning having a discussion on MYREN. MYREN stands for the National (Malaysia) Research Education Network. Technically it is a high bandwidth network infrastructure that was meant to provide opportunities for the research communities to collaborate virtually. Their popular services being an infrastructure for high definition video conferencing (VC) or just a normal VC, video streaming, e-learning and high power computing facilities. These are the obvious usage of the network and if you study and understand the network better actually it could be the best investment that you ever made for knowledge sharing and acquisition especially among the academic community. One thing that I like and people at MYREN doing right is to encourage a community-based business model among their users. Simply because that what it should be. Their entire research community should realize this and tap all the potential of the network to the fullest. As I was listening to the briefing I was also thinking and one thing that I realized immediately was not the bandwidth or the power of the network but the power of connectivity it provided across all expert groups for face-to-face conversation. Unfortunately, culturally, the research and academic communities failed to see this and instead pegged themselves to the belief that knowledge is power. They refused to recognize the big picture. Whatever their issues or problems they have with each other they have to see the positive side of the coin. For us we have a pretty good idea of how we are going to utilize the network.