Category: Personal

Irrelevant and self-serving snippets of my personal life.

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Specialized Roubaix with carbon rims and saddle

I love cycling in the early morn. There’s nothing like the calming sensation of a cool breeze on your face as you barrel through the gentle morning mist along a quiet dimly lit road. The peaking rays of the morning sun, while not fully formed, warms the heart with a sense of renewal and hope.

I’ve been cycling since my youth. It was the only form of transport that kids of my generation use to get around. In that sense, I’ve been cycling for decades now but only dabbled into “serious” cycling around a decade ago. In that time period, I’ve chewed up 2 bikes and is currently on my third (and most beloved) bike, a Specialized Roubaix.

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Reflections on 2020

It’s that time of the year, when things quiet down, for a reflection of the year that was 2020. It is truly a unique and memorable year in many ways one for the history books. Generations from now, books (and documentaries) will be produced to try and figure this year out. Academicians and storytellers will try to dissect this year to distill its lessons and meanings for the future of humanity.

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Working from Home

It’s been close to 4 months now since we started working from home. Right now, we are currently in a 3-team rotation.

I love working from home. There’s no tedious need to travel, thinking about how to appear not to dress up while dressing up and physically showing up for meetings that have no particular reason to exist. Yes, life now tends to be more straightforward. Sure, we lose the “personal” touch thing but I do feel (at least for now) that this is somewhat over-rated. Or perhaps this is the inner introvert me speaking.

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My day in London

I’m back in my hotel in Paddington, London now. Just finished with a work meeting and my schedule is now free. I like being alone in a foreign country. Allows me to truly explore small places where I can’t go if I were to bring family along.

I’ve spent the whole day planning around this meeting. It was set at 2pm which makes going out for sight seeing to be tedious at best. Also, it is almost winter now in London so the bitter cold air, dampness and overall general weariness hung on to the day like stubborn cobwebs in a dirty barn.  I’ve soiled my sneakers and jeans when I took a morning walk to Kensington High Street for shopping. I had packed super light for the trip and wanted to get a thick long-sleeve t-shirt to sleep in because I’ve brought an Airism wife-beater by mistake.

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OCBC Cycle KL 2019

I’ve finished the entire 42km of the OCBC Cycle KL event today.  And it wasn’t as gruellingly challenging as I feared it was going to be. 

The few of us who were participating made plans to meet at Menara Maxis at 5am, intending to do a roll-out at 5.15am to the site of the flag-off in Dataran Merdeka. While there was a list of names that were floating around in the WhatsApp chat group, in the end, only five of us (Vishal, Agnel, Charene and BX) rode off from our office at 5.45am. 

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Time for a new laptop

Recently, I had been bitten by the upgrade bug for a notebook. I was looking for something to replace the very reliable Surface Pro 4 2-in-1 that I had been using everyday since it was launched as the main daily driver at work. My must-haves were simple. The following are compulsory features that I am looking for:-

  • Light (I had really grown to like the ultra portability of the Surface Pro line of computers);
  • Large high resolution screen (not necessarily 4k but definitely not 16:9 as I had found the 3:2 form factor to be ideal for work and photography); and
  • Powerful enough to handle my daily work routine (which could range from creating Powerpoint presentations to analyzing complex Excel worksheets to occasionally editing photos on Lightroom).
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