The Day KRANTZ 91 proved their mettle

It all started with an email in our group. Just a simple note to all of us, we have not been sending a team to the annual old boys futsal tourney but we have regular players who have to join other teams in order to play. Hence the call was made. Target was 10 players to fill in the position. At first glance we had more than enough to set up a team. But only a few answered the call. But we were not despaired. We treat the 'training' as a getting to know each other back session, noting the after training drinks went longer than the actual time on the training pitch.

After a while, some loose formation of a team slowly began to emerge. Maybe the captain was thinking, aiseh, how to setup my team eh? Only 1 je from the school eleven, one from the second eleven, one from the basketball team, most of them are from the hockey team, two from rugby team and most of us haven't been exerting ourself for more than 5 mins in one go since we left school. That was evident from the current state of our physiques and fitness level.

But we march on , with much trepidation.

Before the game - you can feel the fear of being 'kitai-ed' emanating from every pores

Standing L-R : Deen, Moi, Taban, DocAFZ, Shybee, Yazi, Jools, Nik Kecik
Front : Meghe & Co, Adri & Keme

Bola itu bulat?

Atau yg ini lagi bulat - jangan marah ye pakcik

Captain Shybee

Marvelous Keeper

Yurasdeen

El-Hadji Meghe

Taban

Tibai jek kaki dia Doc, nnt ko bius la dia kasi hilang sakit

Keeping the fort




Support Team

Sorry Jools & Yazi, our picture in action not recorded as per the norm, once the cameraman starts to have his on action then the rest kena tinggal la. As for the record, we went 4 games undefeated in the league, then were drawn in the plate semis and went on to win the plate final. We had no individual stars, all of us are working as a team and managed to achieve what we thought were impossible as we only had 4 training sessions beforehand. I think we could do a whole lot better next time if we starts the boot camp early. Ni nak kena cari kasut futsal la plak.

Anyways, congrats to KRANTZ 91, may we continue to send a team each year.

The day I turn 34

Another year, another birthday... I think as I'm chalking up the numbers, birthdays celebration is like a thing of the past.

So far, once I turn 34 , I realised that:-

• I'm no longer a spring chicken
• took longer to warm up & longer to cool down
• injuries are easily acquired and took longer to heal
• increasing appetite but slowing down metabolism
• things that were easily done 3-4 years ago seems laborious now
• the songs that I could sing to was not in the 'contemporary' stations
  

but then again, there's no way one could stop from gaining another year to one's life other than being six feet under so I'm grateful and counting my blessings. Especially when your loved ones gave you this for your birthday...both decided to be funny ....

One from the mrs, one from the boy..which one did I got, thats for me to know for you to find out ... wink .. wink ...

The week that started with ....

• A BANG !

• Some installation in the southern art of the country sent BANG with some fireworks which puts the TOP managements panties in a knot
• everyone was like a headless chicken, spewing out instructions which borders close to be considered brainless
• Instruction were given for the investigation to be conducted as quickly & thorough as possible ( note that those two would never come hand in hand)
• so off to the south I went, working & cracking my head & I think I managed to figure out the cause of it
• Now writing an endless report on how this could be affected

• A SPLASH!

• Was out and about during the weekend to do all those impending DIY repairs around the house and part of it was replacing a faulty faucet in the bathroom
• got a new hose for it, hence did the necessary replacement etc and it was all fine and dandy
• until Monday when an SOS was issued that the replacement gave way.. so much for cheap products from China
• after returning form my trip down south, I repaired the whole thing , which wasn't easy & almost drenched me

• BLINKING!

• all those above happened during the first two days of the week and thinking by some cruel twist of fate is not enough, my car seems to be giving me problems
• The alarm would turn on by itself and couldn't be reset with the normal mean
• so off to Amiaq's I went to diagnose and troubleshoot the problem, which ended up at 2 am but with no possible solution found
• Now have to manually lock the car whilst waiting for the appointment to uses the official diagnostic software from MB, which leave me wondering how much its going to hit me ($$$$$$$$$)

These events all happened during the week leading to my birthday & didn't leave me in the mood to celebrate .....

Adriana Doing Some Housekeeping

Adriana trying to get her hands on some housekeeping ... her style ...

Aidilfitri 2008

Eid Mubarak to all. This year we celebrated raya at my mum's before proceeding back to kampung on the third day raya. Only my brother Angah and family is not around as it is his turn to go back to Kuala Pilah.

Us

My parents & sisters

All the siblings and DIL's minus Angah & Family

Aiman & Adi

Collect duit raya - boleh isi minyak kereta & tol

Trying to fix Adi's hairband

Adi sayang Syafiq

Aksi poyo form my sisters

My Mum

Ni muka duit raya tak cukup

Makcik Poyo - umur lapan tahun

Collage of us goofing around during the shots

What else did we do this raya? Ohhh.. makan la apa lagi, all those lontong, rendang, lodeh, ketupat pulut, lemang, cookies etc. I think I managed to cover all the weight lost and adding up some more. Efforts to return back to normal eating routine seems futile at the moment what more to go back to some kind of calories burning activities. Now must trim down the flabs ... hehe

Ikan haruan di dalam paya,
Ikan sardin di dalam tin,
Selamat Hari Raya,
Maaf Zahir Batin.

ps. siapa yang tak dapat duit raya lagi tu, sila datang rumah. Permintaan kiriman melalui pos tidak akan dilayan.

Eid Mubarak

Image from here

Would like to wish all of Muslim friends and family Eid Mubarak and Maaf Zahir Batin. Have an enjoyable festivities and safe journey. From all of us, Sharizal, Rofidah, Aiman Hadi & Adriana Hani.

Low Light Photography

Kl Nightscape

TNB HQ Building

Fireworks

My lil sis trying to spell her name

My attempt of spelling my name -in reverse as we are facing the camera

Trying to spell Aiman's Name

The aftermath ... hehe.. sepahnya

In the end the grownups had more fun than the kid... reliving the childhood & feeling like a kid again... hehe

Farewell WMJ256

The car was handed over to the new owner last night. Most of the paperwork wrt the loan and JPJ has been sorted out, now waiting for the buyer's bank to settle with my finance and me. There were a lot of fond memories but as everything in the world, some changes are bound to happen.

The car has served us well and may it continue to serve the new owner as well.

Au revoir, WMJ256 and if any of you happen to see it say hi for me.

Networking & Fast Transition

The boy had his friends round for iftar yesterday. Actually, he went on to invite them during school and told us that they were coming for iftar on Friday. A quick call to the parents and a new date was set on Saturday. Kids theses days, suka-suka je ajak kawan2 round the house for makan2. At least he has shown some initiative to start networking and the boys did enjoyed themselves.

On another note, eversince I had put up the for sale ad for my car, I have been receiving calls of inquiries. Some of them are from used car traders, which offers a very low sum, some of them from private buyers looking for a good condition car. Yesterday, a gentlemen from Melaka came and viewed/tested the car and he found that the car was to his liking and straightaway put his deposit. Hopefully we can have a smooth and quick transition.

Economics 101 - from a 7 years old perspective

The Boy : " Dad, how much was the Transformers Toys that you bought for me a while back?"

Me : " Hmmm... about RM40 "

The Boy : " Oh, mahal jugak yea.."

Me : " Why asking?"

The Boy : " Nothing, just that I know how you could save some money "

Me : " How?"

The Boy : " You could buy me the Bidaman at Giant at RM 10, then you would saved from spending RM 40..."

hmm... only a 7 y.o cold come out with this statement. I would evenetually fork out RM50, and no savings to me at all...good try boy, better luck next time

Quick updates

1. Boys will be boys :-

The boy asked me for a direct translation to "ambik, ambik, pergi, muda" and after doing so only i realised what he's getting at. Cheeky

2. Taken delivery of the new car, now can seat 7 ... old car still not sold yet... refer to previous post ..

3. Had a kerandutz session with some of the gang.. apparently they are having two session at different location nd a day apart, hence will only join one je ...

4. Signed up for a potraiture class, getting some tips on outdoor potraiture plus some PP skill this Sunday, hope it gonna turn up well..

ps - went raya shopping just now, JTAR was jam-packed with people up to the point of suffocation

Tinkering about in CS2

Spend most of my time last weekend tinkering about in CS2. Quite an experience for me, but managed to pick up some tips on how to effectively use PP for color correction or removing unwanted objects in the background.

Before

After

Before

After

There's still a lot to go in learning how to use CS2/3. Need to pimp my pc as well to run the resource intensive program,

Flatulance is not flaterring

Ok, so you had a good iftar and you would like to voice out your compliments to whomever had prepared your meal, then, although unacceptable in any other circumstances that you may let out a burp to indicate that you're full. That might be flattering to the chef.

But it would annoying up to the point of being rude if you kept belting out one burp after another that could be timed accurately with a metronome. Maybe in your mind you were practicing to keep in tempo with the imaginary band you're playing with. But in close quarters, were there's almost hundreds of people there apart from yourself, at least please refrain from burping. Not even a little one. And not especially up to point of it might interfere with other people's concentration.

So next time you are feeling gassy, then I think might skip the terawih, in the sake of keeping others at ease.

Shutter Warming Part 2

With the long weekend, I have a chance to do some serious shutter warming for the new camera. First stop, Pantai Lagenda, Pekan with the boy.

Stamping on small crabs

Chariots of Fire

I love to fly my kite

Dad, I got one hermit crab - testing out the bokeh

Also tested out the zoom on the 55-250 mm lens

at 55 mm

at 250 mm

The second outing was with the 'Canonians' to Tasik Chini, Malaysia's second largest natural lake. It was that or the National Day Parade in Kuantan, so with a unanimous vote, we opted for Tasik Chini.

Someone referred to Tasik Chini as Malaysia's Loch Ness ( a mystical dragon legend), so having visited the latter it would be somewhat unpatriotic not to visit Chini if given a chance. We opted for a boat tour around the 12 lakes with a stop to Tanjung Puput Orang Asli village.

Test shot 1

Abe ni serious je - masuk Kosmo nih..

Fellow Canonian

Lake no berapa tah..

Loved the reflection on the water

OUr guide for the day

Ekor kucing not in season - air pasang

Secret Entrance

Testing 250mm zoom again, got good bokeh ...

The boat ride was about 1 hour at RM 60. For the full package including visit to Lubang Ular & Lubang Naga, it is about RM120, about 2 hours. Regretfully, we didnt get to see any lotus buds or Ekor Kucing due to the high water level, but the trip was enjoyable. Personally, I think Lake Chini has lost its lustre and could have been better maintained for the future generations.