Open Water Certification - Perhentian 23-25 May 2009A

After three years of setting the dream, me & jools have finally manage to prepare ourselves mentally & physically for our open water PADI sccuba certification. With the help of Man, a newly certified instructor himself, we went for discover scuba at Cheras pool (refer to prev post) and have set a date with Abg. Mie at Fauna Reef Dive in Perhentian.

We set foot on the island on Sat 23 May 2009 around 2 pm and was told that we couldn't do the skilss due to a storm aprroacing. Hence everything starts on Sunday morning, with open water skills dive 1 & dive two planned. The first one was to test our skills against the required skills and at first it was odd to do thhose thing in the sea due to the waves and current. In the afternoon we were taken to join another group of divers to D'Lagoon where these videos are taken.

Controlled descend to 9m - using rope

Finning - notice that our body is still slanted and not streamlined and were corrected on subsequent dives

Bouyancy & Getting comfortable in the water

The nest thing to do is to get more dive time for me to improve my bouyancy & confidence to get to fishlike. Where to next? Tioman or Redang or the ultimate - Mabul? ...

Mother's Day 2009

The last week have been quite a hectic week for me especially on the personal front. The boy have been transferred to his new school somewhere nearer to home and we are monitoring his progress. So far, he's progressing OK and the transition of morning to the evening session may have not yet hit him full force. He's on revision as the new school have scheduled exams this coming week, so hopefully he can cope with the change of environment.

I've started to increase my physical activities to at least as per what it was, at least three physical activities in a week. Haven't been doing much due to the dodgy right knee . Managed to see the GP and prescribed anti inflammatory+pain killer+calcium supplement. If thing didn't work out then may need to see a specialist. I have been keeping high impact activity to the minimum though and adding up the low impact ones. Hopefully it can curb the ballooning weight issue and came down to my usual range.

Mother's Day weekend are spent like this : 

Dinner with Laili & Wan including the whole brood at Delicious at MVM after crossing out the usual suspect of eateries in the quest for something new and it wasn't disappointed with it. Nice ambiance and food selection along with beverages that hits the spot. Not forgetting the usual BA donuts as appetizer ..

Breakfast in bed with me preparing pancakes for the whole family..initially we thought to have brunch at The Loaf but the boy wanted pancakes as according to him , it was tradition to have breakfast in bed with pancakes on Mothers Day. The Loaf have to be done sometime dear OK..maybe only the two of us...

Went to my mum's for lunch as we have missed out on dinner last night due to the planned dinner out. Had rendang itik (first time trying it as a spicy dish instead of the usual peking duck style). Not bad, the gamey flavour was not that apparent due to the way it was cooked. The only thing about it was my brothers had so much the night before that they only left some tiny portion for me... ;-) hehe ...

Also the mrs gave me a book for me to read. According to her it was quite good coz I saw her reading it, on loan from her friends. The review? Watch this space.

I think it's still not too late to wish all the mums out there Happy Mothers Day. I salute you guys as I think i don't have it in me to do a fraction of what mothers would do and can do ... 

Illegal driving..

When are you at fault at anything you do behind the steering wheel even though you have complied by all the rules, buckled up front and rear, driving below the speed limit, stayed in your lane, stopped when the light is AMBER, no illegal u-turns, not being involved or god-forbid started an accident? In fact, by the time you started driving you are already commtting an offence?

The answer is, when your driving lisence has EXPIRED !!!!!!

Just realised today that my driver's license has expired since the beginning of the month. Have been renewing it two years once, so I might be forgiven by overlooking the fact the its expired on 1 May. So all this while, all the driving I did would be deemed illegal and I would be at fault from the law point of view in case of any automobile accident in invovled with irregardless whether it is my fault or not. Come to think of it, I have done KL-PD without even realising that I'm an illegal driver . All sorted out now..

Thermally irritated

"Thermally irritated".Borrowing a phrase from a friend..which sums up nicely the weather now.

Last weekend was spent in Pekan, which was a nice and relaxing weekend. Consumed loads of food especially satar and mertabak mengkasar. Was told by an uncle that I looked "berisi" ... so don't know whether its a compilment on my new physique or a subtle way to say that I've gained some kgs...

The boy was having a bit of temperature on the way back from Pekan and true enough when I sent him to school on Monday, he vomitted twice before even reaching the school gate. My initial thinking was that he was faking it to cut school, but then again common sense prevail and I took him back home and got a two days rest. After abang was better, adik showed similar symptoms and the cycle starts again up to the point that the mrs had to take a day off to look after adik.

We are in the midst of changing the boy to a nearer school in BK rather than BJ. This is due to the fact that SKBJ is going ahead with their initial plan of creating a two schooling session in June 09. The last time they tried this was a week before school reopened earlier this year, but the plan didn't go through due to protests from parents at the eleventh hour announcement. We thought that if they going to implement it, it is going to be next year but then they are still gpiong ahead with their plans. So we have to do what we have to do.

The long weekend was spent with family functions and wedding with the customary makan-makan. I think I consumed more than a weeks calorie intake int he past three days, and with no aerobic exercise for the past week, it will all be accumulated in the waist. The biy entered his first sparring karate championship, returning with hadiah saguhati. At least he managed to score some points up to tie match. His opponent went on the be the runners up on his age group.


Hectic days are coming ahead, with work related trip for the next two weeks and a personal fulfillment trip of underwater breathing later on this month. At the end of the month, the school holidays starts with loads of weddings and not forgetting a break for the family on the boys birthday in June. Oh ya...Mothers day coming this next weekend ... traditional breakfast in bed with pancakes or something new this time round?