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House Renovation

At the end of 2007 and in search of a new home, we looked around from Taman Tun Dr. Ismail to the myriads of new and confusingly named Damansaras but somehow Lake Fields always had a spot in our hearts due to its contemporary design and finishing. At that time, the realtor had 2 units from us to choose from: a Feng Shui friendly one (which had the entrance to the powder room sealed and hence not facing the main door) and another one which didn’t. In the end, Feng Shui played no part in our decision and we chose the one that was nearer to the guard house and the water tower. We figured then that the clear unblocked path from the main door to the powder room would work out well in cases of emergencies that couldn’t wait. 

Flash forward to roughly 7 months ago, which is the amount of time required to “complete” a purchase of the property (which warrants another rant), we appointed a contractor to perform some renovation work on the house for us. Perhaps “some” is relative as the work turned out to be quite major indeed. In addition to sealing the powder room entrance (after reassuring ourselves that the odds of the sort of emergencies that would actually occur in which such a configuration would serve to be beneficial is quite infinitesimal), we decided to include a show piece in the house.

One idea that immediately struck us was that our new place has a double volume living area. This would look very nice if the house that we got was a corner unit like below:-

But unfortunately, we got a non-corner unit so it unexcitingly looked like this:-

Which wasn’t too bad but we wanted to explore what we could do with all the space. That was when the thought of building a loft came to us. The more we thought about it, the more we fell in love with the concept of having a loft overlooking the living room. To build the loft, our contractor first built the structure of the platform with wood (as a mold for the concrete) and reinforced the stucture with intenal steel wireframes.

Next, they poured the first layer of concrete onto the structure. The holes in the walkway are for the downlights below. The white pipes contained electrical wirings.

Once the initial layer is set, another layer is added on top to even up the surface.

The whole concrete structure was allowed to dry. (I resisted the temptation to run into the area to jump up and down).

And penultimately, they’ve added the railings recently which made it safe(r) for me to climb over there to perform my jump tests. I did and the new loft was strong enough to withstand my jumps.

The whole process of building the loft took place over the span of 4 months. The final step will be to add in the wood railing and the timber floor which will take up another 4 to 6 weeks.

Hopefully, we will be able to move into the new place before June this year (fingers crossed so very tight!)

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The Day Perakians Will Remember for a Long Time

The unfolding events of yesterday in Perak deserve to be captured in the annals of history so that our future generations will know how brave our people were in fighting for truth, honesty and liberty.

It all started when BN seized the state government after securing of pledges of loyalty from 3 Pakatan Rakyat assembly persons who had quit their respective political parties and became independents.

The 3 defectors had earlier signed undated letters of resignation which had been accepted by the Speaker of the Perak State Assembly, V. Sivakumar. The Speaker then informed the Elections Commission to run by-elections in those vacated constituencies. However, the Elections Commission declined by deeming undated letters as unacceptable. The Menteri Besar of Perak, Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin, then advised the Sultan of Perak to dissolve the state assembly to pave way for fresh elections. The Sultan declined and instead swore in Datuk Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir from BN as the new Menteri Besar without Nizar having actually resigning from the post. These contentious series of events had led to a constitutional (and some would say, institutional) crisis in Perak.

The Perak Assembly Speaker, V. Sivakumar then suspended Datuk Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir and 6 other BN member for failing to answer adequately to charges of contempt of the State Assembly when they were sworn in via unconstitutional means. Lawsuits from all sides followed.

But nothing prepared the nation for what happened yesterday.

The stage for yesterday’s showdown was set by Sivakumar who had earlier called for an emergency sitting of the State Assembly. The BN lawmakers filed a suit the night before the emergency sitting to seek an injunction to this emergency sitting.

The State Secretary, a civil servant, stepped beyond his jurisdiction by not following the instructions of the State Speaker. He instead sent orders to seal off the State Assembly building. The police also side stepped the law when they stopped lawmakers from entering the State Assembly building to conduct the emergency sitting.

Perak

A group of alleged “supporters” of UMNO also turned up for the party to block the lawmakers from going into the building.

Malaysia Politics

While allowing Sivakumar to enter the State Assembly, the 27 other lawmakers were barred entry into the building. Unperturbed, Sivakumar and the lawmakers, including Menteri Besar Nizar, walked to find a place where they can hold the emergency meeting.

Malaysia Politics

They found a spot near some residential houses around 100 meters away from the State Assembly building. In that spot stood an old rain tree. And under the tree, the State Assembly met and conducted their Emergency Sitting.

MALAYSIA-POLITICS/STATE

3 motions were passed: Nizar retained the confidence of the Assembly as the rightful Menteri Besar of Perak, the suspension of Zamry and 6 others was upheld and power was given to Nizar to once again to seek the grace of the Sultan to dissolve the assembly paving the way for fresh elections.

Under that grand old rain tree, the will and the voice of the people reigned supreme.

History was truly made.

Pictures (c) Reuters and AFP/Vincent Thian

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Digital Tilt-Shift Photography

London Bridge Model, originally uploaded by CeeKay’s Pix.

I first read and saw a fake (or digital) tilt-shift photography in Wired Magazine. It is a technique that manipulates life-size locations or objects so that they look like miniature models.

I have a rough theoretical idea on how to do it but had never tried it as I was too lazy to find suitable shots that I can use to clearly demonstrate this technique.

So it was in one quiet Friday evening when I was diligently seated in front of my PC (while waiting for the 5GB Victoria Secret Fashion Show to be split and copied to my thumb drive) that I decided to give this a try.

I must say that I am quite pleased with the results.

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Outliers

Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers
Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers

 

 

Outliers: The Story of Success

Malcolm Gladwell

“No one who can rise before dawn three hundred and sixty days a year fails to make his family rich.”- Chinese Proverb

Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers is thin in terms of pages but not short on great and entertaining bits.  It explores the phenomenon of human outliers, i.e. individuals or groups that stand out significantly from the accepted norm. Ironically, at the end of the book, Gladwell hopes to have persuaded you that there are no such things as human outliers.

His premise is simple: great success comes to those who are born at the right time, brought up in the right environment and are hardworking. Having a high IQ or an innate talent helps but one just have to be smart or talented enough to be successful.

He weaves interesting tales about Canadian hockey players, Silicon Valley technoprenuers, The Beatles, Asian math whizzes, Korean Airlines, among others, to make his point quite convincingly. And he tells a pretty personal story at the end of the book on the journey of a hardworking Jamaican girl who was born at the right time and brought up in the right environment who eventually became his mother.

Maybe I was reading Outliers through a pair of slanty Chinese eyes because I find some of his conclusions as nothing more than common sense, or at least, common sense that I grew up with. It seems painlessly simple but every Asian that I know, knows that no success can come without hard work (and a little bit of luck) and the right roots.

Exerpts:-

The 10,000 hour rule

Harlan, Kentucky

Rice Paddies and Math Tests

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Perak Government Falls?

The political drama that is the state of Perak took an abrupt turn for the absurd when the BN claimed that it had enough assemblymen to form the state government, ousting the current Pakatan Rakyat alliance.

What started as a “victory” for the Pakatan Rakyat when Anwar Ibrahim appeared in a press conference together with an UMNO turncoat two weaks ago turned horribly wrong for the fledgling DAP-PAS-PKR alliance goverment. Not only did 2 missing-for-a-week PKR assemblymen defected to the other side, a disgruntled DAP assemblywoman did the same. And most dramatic of all, the Anwar hugging UMNO turncoat, turned again, this time back to UMNO. This gave the BN-led opposition enough seats to technically form the state government as it now has a simple, slim majority in the Perak state assembly.

This farcical turn of events unfolded at 4pm today when the turncoats turned up in Putrajaya for a press conference by Najib announcing that BN has enough seats to form the state goverment. At around the same time, the Menteri Besar of Perak, Nizar was with the Sultan of Perak, seeking his grace’s permission to dissolve the state assembly thus paving the way for a fresh state election.

At the end, the Sultan decided to sleep over it without making any decisions.

PKR needed people to field during the last general election. Not having enough candidates, they picked anyone who breathed. Meanwhile, DAP, who had been in the opposition for so long, cannot even work together to govern without opposing each other. Making things worse is that UMNO has the money to buy off anyone they liked. Would you take the RM 50 million if you were offered to jump?

If it wasn’t so tragic, it would be really funny.

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Historical Penang

 

Cheah Si Sek Tek Tong, originally uploaded by CeeKay’s Pix.

Georgetown is probably one of the most historically interesting city in Malaysia. Though I was born there, I had never truly visited the historical heart of the city, until lately.

On July 8, 2008 Penang and Melaka were given World Heritage Site status by UNESCO because of their “remarkable examples of historic colonial towns on the Straits of Malacca that demonstrate a succession of historical and cultural influences arising from their former function as trading ports linking East and West”.

When I was in Penang last week, I saw for myself why this island truly deserved this international recognition. I’ve tried to capture and reproduce the mood and atmosphere of the place through these pictures but nothing can really substitute the particular buzz of the place as much as being there in person.

Do check out the rest of the picture set at my Flickr page.