Preparing a Lecture

Back when I was with the University, there was rarely a week which I wasn't preparing for talks. Almost every other weekend would be spent attending conferences.

Those were the days when there were plenty of talks and conferences organises by the Pharmaceuticals. They were cutting down on the numbers now and conferences were few and far between.

I was invited to attend and participate in one in Johor Bharu this coming weekend. Unfortunately I could only come late and return early Sunday since I would be on call on Monday. So, back to preparing for the lecture. But luckily it was on a subject I was familiar with.

Trump Wins

This was going to be one for the history books. A candidate who is touted to be the most unfit by the mainstream media and the elite had won the presidency of the most powerful nation in the World by a huge margin. Something which was not even on the cards 24 hours before …..

The moment I saw the cringe n the faces of the CNN - Clinton News Network - anchors, I knew something was not going according to plans. I just couldn’t wait to listen to the No Agenda podcast tomorrow for the host to dissect how embarrassed the media would be as they had put all their eggs in Hillary’s basket.

Imagine the those who had been badmouthing Trump on TV - Fareed Zakaria came to mind - would go on now. Surely the right thing to do would be to bury himself in the ground ….

But life would go on. The US First Lady would look more dynamite than our own Rosmah. Economy would tank in the first few weeks but a la Brexit it would recover once all the scaremongering was over. Lessons to be learned here that the elites had shot themselves in the foot, as they are mighty and resourceful, it would not end with Hillary’s defeat. They would fund a way to get back at Trump as this was one hell of an embarrassment …. Barack’s Presidential Pardon for Hillary anyone?

On a personal note, I would always remember how I learned about the news. I was still doing my Wednesday afternoon clinic when Trump got his 270 votes. I would never forget it.

The Sixth Edition

I first started playing the Civilisation series during my first year in University. I remembered the network had the program installed and one just had to go out searching for a clean one to start playing. Failing that, I always had a copy of it in my bag but installing it could be a pain. It was fun times especially after my end of year exam while waiting to return home for the summer break.

Then came the second version - aptly called CIV 2 - which was even better. New instalments came every few years and about 5 years ago I remembered playing Civilisation IV on my Mac.

The creator if the series, Sid Meier had always been my favourite designer. It stemmed back from his 1988 release, Pirates! I remembered spending many weekends at home for break from MRSM enjoying it, sometime playing it through the night.

Then came Railroad Tycoon which I played while waiting for my SPM results and Colonization. Then came the spin-off Alpha Centauri which I played in between my calls as a Houseman in England. All were great franchises and I must say were my favourite games.

Civilisation VI was a big jump from the previous version. Very detailed and as result time-consuming. I have yet to complete a game. I spend a few hours last weekend after the instal exploring the game and it was huge! I wished that I have more spare time to play.Mayne in one of those spare weekend I could binge on it ….

Today's Menu

With her Mum staying over at our apartment while recovering from her angiogram, Anita had been busy planning her meals. For Sunday, her Dad and brother would be coming over to join us for lunch and Anita spent the morning planning what to cook.

By the time I was done with my rounds - I was on call that day as well - they had already eaten. It was crab curry and there were still plenty left for me. Oh the joy of preparation …. I could only admire the coordination.

The New Mix

It was time to update my blog. Giving it some face lift. Over the last couple of weeks I have been exploring other provider and looking around if it would be easy to port my blog.

Unfortunately it wasn't as straight forward as I thought.

My blog is now seven and a half years old with more than 1500 entries. It had been running on the Version 5 of Squarespace since day one. The current Squarespace version is version 7. I was given a special discount for a version 6 account after doing some beta testing for the company. And all version 6s were automatically upgraded to version 7. Version 5 however ran on a completely different architecture. Upgrading would take a lot of effort, not to mention having to reformat all my extensions and links. It was just an impossible task.

So, I explored format.com among others and felt that they had potential, and that was before I decided to have another look at my discounted account.

After fiddling with them for a while, I decided to run it as a parallel blog, concentrating on photography. And fotobyharis.com was conceived. To be honest I was rather surprised at what the new Squarespace features were capable of. The blog look mighty impressive compared to the basic tools of 2009. Editing was slightly complicated, but once mastered, it was much more logical than I thought.

For the time being, all the photoblog contents were the ones already uploaded to the main blog. But should there have any photography slant to them - which would be the majority - they get ported across to the photoblog, with higher resolution photos, as well as a more expansive layout.

The site still needed some tweaking, and I had been taking lessons from Lynda.com to sharpen up my skills. Hopefully with more practice, I could make the design look a lot better …..