On Guard

Early last year, there was a spate of break-in at Taman Setia, forcing the residence to band together and employ the local RELA troupe to act as security guard full time. As a result, the entrance were blockers and card were issued with stickers and those without them were given visitors pass to come in. Since then, the number of break-in has been cut down to a big fat nil, even though somebody did try to jack our car parked outside last months. Luckily, the alarm went off and the thieve we're sent scampering.

However a couple of weeks after that, my brother's house at Taman Cemerlang which was right next to ours, was broken into. He was away overseas and we did not actually stay there. As a result, a lot of things went missing, and we only realized that the property were entered a few days after. In the weekend following that, the neighbours reported suspicious activities going on around the area especially during weekends. Last week, we got a cousin of ours to stay there until we got a permanent solution.

We decided in the end to employ security guards for both houses, and the contract started tonight. We spent half an hour orientating the guards about what to do, as well as giving them a set of keys for the gate. We were hoping that they would be no more attempts from now on, as we still have some stuffs, mainly our old clothes and things from the UK still at the house. Even though they were not that expensive, but the thought of somebody entering your properties never rested easy on my mind.

Monday Morning Traffic!

Monday! Argh! At least the weather was dull, so one dis not feel too much of a Monday blues having to be tied indoors at work. But one thing I could do without on this fine Monday was getting stuck in traffic first thing in the morning. Unfortunately that was what happened this morning. I got stuck again at the Duta flyover into the new Istana Negara. This was starting to become my pet rant. I now wish that a public transport service was able to take me to work everyday.

Even though I got into work well in time, I must say, the amount of time I wasted in traffic was a hell of a lot. UMMC was not exactly people friendly as far as public transportation were concerned. Yes, much was made about the bus service from the Universiti LRT station, but one would still have to wait for the bus. If only there was a direct service into UMMC by tram, a lot of problem could have been solved. We could have cut down the number of cars into the carpark at the hospital for a start. Not only it would benefit the patients and staffs, visiting the place would also be much easier.

I thought, one of the main emphasis in face-lifting UMMC might not be just new buildings and more car park spaces, we should have been planning for the long term. These extra car park spaces might be good for the next five years or so, but eventually, a more long-term strategy were needed. Trust me, an LRT station right next door. Would this make too many people, specifically those who might be up to no good turning up at the hospital? That argument was rather lame. Especially at a hospital where security was only taken seriously very recently - only in the last months that the staffs were assigned smart cards to access the doors to the wards and the main entrance at off hours.

Well. Long term solution for the traffic situation was definitely needed. Getting in and out of the hospital was slowly becoming a drag, and not just for the reluctant patients.

LinkWithin

While browsing the Net earlier tonight, I came across a blog with a LinkWithin attachment tool at the bottom of it. Essentially it was a javascript which suggests some links for other pages within the website that was related to the current entry, which the reader might want have a look at. Very handy I thought as so far, I have a list of my last 10 posts, but when you have had more than 750 entries like I did in this blog - yes, I just checked, it was 778 actually just on this blog, not the other part of harisrahman.com - it would be useful to be able to create link for the reader to venture to more of my entries.

So, first of all, the service was free, but not much tweak could be done. The crawling engine was rather impressive as so far, and the link it suggested were very appropriate. I was able to look at a 2 and a half years worth of writing, and I spent almost a couple of hours just reading through my old diary. How much my boys have grown. The fact that the blog was full of photographs really helped.

So, if you wanted to try the script, just head over to this link, enter your email and website address, and you would then be given a javascript for you to embed in your blog. The link will appear as photos as seen above, and also at the bottom of this entry I hope. Good luck!

A Grand Day Out

The guest-of-honour had to do some work in the end ....

The initial plan when I went to London last week was to hook up with an old buddy of mine who still remained in the UK after finishing his medical studies. Currently he was in Pharmaceutical industry, awaiting to transfer to Frankfurt. Therefore, he decided to use the time before the transfer to spend some time back home in KL. He was due to return to London tomorrow evening. So, today, we decided to meet up at a friend's place in Subang Jaya. A fee other gang member came along, it was a nice time talking about the old days .....

All the ingredients were fried first

Before they go into the rice with chicken to be cooked together

We were treated with cooking from one of the old buddy, an Arabic rice affair, which I better not attempt to spell. It went down really well. The original plan was for pot luck, but unfortunately, since we had a late night last night, Anita and the boys were still asleep when I left. No chance of preparing anything really. I decided in the end not to take them along, and have my friend from London drive me there. But in the end, there were plenty of food to eat. The chef however, turned late ...... as usual. Instead of brunch, we ended up having a late lunch.

And now, it was ready. Walla!

And the dessertIt was great to see how we evolved since we came back from the UK. But sufficed to say that our career path may have varied since it intentionally set out. It was great fun talking about our exploits when we were students. We talked about our time in Malaysia Hall, what I did when I was in London last week as well what we had been up to since returning. A few of them I have yet to meet after 10 years, at the very least.

Show Was Done

Both Idlan and Irfan had finished their performances. As mentioned on my Flickr and twitter feed, the stage was amazing and the shows were actually much better than it was last year at least.

Irfan went on first first, to perform a disco dance. Very cute. Idlan later did the twist. Both were smack in the middle, and now I understood why they were rather apprehensive this morning. They were both point of references. A tall order that.

Irfan's dance involved him prancing across the floor and prancing he did. Idlan's was a more subdued choreography, and he mainly stayed with the same partner, an Australian girl. He did not want to let her go in the end. Gosh!

I got my videos as well, and my God did I have to jostle for space. There were so many parents with cameras everywhere. It was rather easy for me as the two boys were right in the middle. So, now I was just waiting for Idlan to finish his snacks before we head home. Time to sort out the photos next.