The Learning Performance

Take a break. have a laugh to dispel the gloom. It worked for me.

Anne Chang (Mandarin)- Dirty
Anne Chin (Mandarin) - Keep quiet
Faye Chen (Mandarin) - Dusty
Carl Cheng (Hokkien) - Buttock
Monica Cheng (Hokkien) - Touching your buttocks
Lucy Leow (Hokkien) - You are dead
Jane Tan (Mandarin) - Fried eggs
Suzie Leow (Hokkien) - Lost till death
Henry Mah (Mandarin) - Hate your mum
Corrine Tai (Hokkien) - Poor fellow
Paul Chan (Mandarin) - Bankrupt
Nelson Tan (Mandarin) - Bird laying eggs
Leslie Tong (Mandarin) - Rubbish bin
Carmen Teng (Hokkien) - Leg hair long
Connie Mah (Mandarin) - Call your mother
Danny See (Hokkien) - Squeeze you to death
Rosie Teng (Hokkien) - Screws and nails
Pete Tsai (Hokkien) - Nose droppings

Macy Koh (Cantonese) - Never die before
Michael Tan (Cantonese) - sell chicken eggs

Annie Kok – Any penis

Steve Kok – Stiff penis

Harry Kok – Hairy penis

I made east corner of my house to be the formal dinner room. It was a great idea at the design stage. But as most of the stories of joe & public go, the execution part is the problem. We've ended out leaving the space empty as it is. However, our kids and visiting kids love the area. Partly because it opens out to the patio and garden beyond. They have unimpeded space to run and play.

The only problem, and may it is only in my mind, is that, it remains "empty" and dark most of time. No good for chi!. So, I decided, after much struggle and musing over, to setup a fish aquarium there.

It wasn't a spur of the moment decision. My office is in Bandar Puteri, (Puchong, Selangor, Malaysia). The Chinese hawker store I do my lunches and occasional breakfast each day has an aquarium shop couple of doors before it. when I walked past the aquarium shop, invariably would stop and look at the fish displays. The fishes seemed to beckon me each time, cried out and ask me to take them home! So, one day, I just gave in to the calls and temptation.

Actually, the deciding factor was the price. It goes to sure that as in business, you need:
- Strategic location
- Advertisement/placement of your products
- Customer service mindset (imagine the shop owner has been rude to me even once, would I have bought?)
- Pricing
- Ease of doing business. In this case, the shop offer credit card payment option.

The fishes I got are called "parrot" fish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_parrot_cichlid), or "feng shui" fish in Chinese (see above). Under the advice of the shop, I bought 38 fish (good omen in Chinese, again). After couple of days, the fish started dying, and by the end of first week, half of them was gone. Retrospectively, we reckoned is the water quality problem (the installer directly piped water in from the main water inlet). Imagine that, the water quality in Malaysia is so low to the extend that fishes can't even survive in it! After a thorough cleansing of the fish tank and all things in it, we used the filtered water. Now the fish live happily ever after.

Oh, the kids love it. We setup a roster to feed the fish and it (roster) is following diligently.

For some reason, I've not touched on this topic about leadership.

What make a good leadership, excellent leader, or a bad leader?

Famous leaders on biblical proportion (literally!) the like of Moses and Joshua, all have had divine interventions along the ways in their undertakings. In modern day speaking, God was their "Consultant". They are guided, and as long they follow the guidance (in this, from God The Consultant), they succeeded in even the most impossible tasks, including crossing the Red Sea.

The point is this. Good leaders are guided by a set of principles. Excellent leaders internalized those principles, they walk-the-talk. Bad leaders, on the other hand, are lacking of one or many traits of leaderships characteristics or competencies.

Good news is, leadership can be trained. Organisations wanting to build sustainable business need to have excellent leaders.

Seattle is a beautiful green city. I just love the look & feel of the pine trees, and smell of the crispy summer air. Bellevue, one of the two major centres (the other one is Seattle) has only about 150K population. It is spacious, with millions of trees spreading as near and as far eyes can see. 40KM out town, the local resident thinks that it is "far", and thus you can get pretty decent real estate price there. Building of houses are limited to clear the areas of land on needed basis. You need council's permits to cut down trees above certain age.

You got feeling of orderly around this place. Driving around, you would notice that all traffic rules are adhered to. Nobody just simply cut in & out of lane, driving on hard shoulder, etc. Speed limit seemed to be followed. We took a trip from Las Vegas to Grand Canyon. If you've been to LV, you would know that there is basically nothing outside of LV, only Nevada barren desert landscape left, right and in front of you. While passing through an interchange, the driver actually slowed down to 30M/H, as dictated by the speed limit, even though there wasn't a single car (or a living being) within 2 Km radius!

One hates to think what a Malaysian driver would have done. And then again, as compare to cities like Medan, Malaysia is considered not so bad after all.

Capitalism makes what America the superpower today. But, I'm sure there is a cosmic kind of design that drive the relationship between the advancement of civilization to driving habit/manner of road users, including motor vehicle drivers.

Interesting, indeed.

Spending last minutes of July 2007 at 30,000 feet above sea level. I flied into Las Vegas in the early morning of Monday. The mind blowing experience was none than seeing the Grand Canyon up close and personal. The introductory documentary en route said Grand Canyon is God's sculpture. I would say it is so true. Next time, if you happen to be in LV, Grand Canyon is a must-see. Just pick up a brochure at the hotels that you're staying, and the tour info is there. It costs USD180 (tax included) to do the trip, and it takes 12-13 hours. On the way there, you will see the Hoover dam as well. LV is a desert town. Few miles out of town, the land is barren and very brown, quite amazing.

There are so many hotels in LV. All the famous hotels the like of MGM Grand, Caesar Palace, Bellagio, Venetian, etc, are all along this Strip. All the hotels have casinos, and other theme based attractions, all out to get your money. The shows are plenty as well.

LV is reeked of money and man-made pleasure, devoid of any characters and soul. I couldn't wait to get of the town. My next stop (and at the time of writing) is San Fransisco. Now, SF, to me, is the most beautiful city the world. But that is another story.