Kevin & Brenda

On the 21st September 2009, the sound guy and the sound girl got married!

Congrats to our 2 dear dew crews. ;-D

It is privilege to be your friend and to serve in this wonderful ministry together!

Stuff SonyEricsson should have

After using the phone for a week now, there are some things that irk me about my new SonyEricsson W705 phone.

There are certains things that I liked a lot about my old Nokia phone that is not here.

1. can't group my contact above a certain number. Can't remember what was the limit. It is definitely less than 20.
2. can't assign a group tone neither can I assign a group picture. I had to do the assignment one contact at a time.
3. can't assign photo to a contact if the photos is NOT saved in picture folder. but can be done if i open the photo and assign it to a contact. weird.
4. can't make the sms font any smaller. i prefer to be able to read as much as possible on 1 page.
5. can't set the limit of sent and inbox message so that it will overwrite to old ones.
6. it does not show me the number of sms that is in my inbox, sent, draft. hv to make sure i delete before it takes up all the space in my phone.
7. i can't assign the different profile with different ringtone.
8. the calendar does not show me a preview of my appointment.
9. i can't set auto delete to old appointment made in the calendar.
10. can't customise the number of seconds before the phone goes on standby.
11. can't customise the number of seconds before the phone auto lock. i can't lock it by pressing any button. it has to autolock or i have to slide open and close to lock.
12. can't assign the short cut key directly to compose sms. (it's a 2 steps now)
13. generally the phone is slow in response. there is almost a 2 seconds delay to enter into contacts.
14. can't customise contact view.
15. can't customise the 2 buttons on the phone.
16. can't save photo to any other folder.

But it has the following features that my old Nokia phone does not have

1. contact image pop up when sms is received.
2. love how the sms can be viewed as a conversation.
3. multiple setting for alarm.
4. shortcut key to silent the phone.
5. animation wallpaper.
6. an indicator icon that show that i have replied or forwarded a sms.
7. it shows a count time when a call is answered so i don't have to put the phone to my ears and listen to irritating caller ringtones. (the screen looks the same when a call is answered on my old nokia, never know when the call is through)

A decade

It's been a decade now that I've been using mobile phone. It is amazing how much technology has advanced in 10 years.

Nokia 5110 (2000-2003)
Mum bought this for me. I was a student then and this was the best phone in the market! The phone and the sim card cost her RM699! I remember it was with me on the eve of the millenium. Snake game was fun. Screen & button failed me at the end of it's life. Surprisingly I never broke the antenna.

Nokia 3300 (2003-2006)

Although a couple of hundreds were paid to the telco for this Linkin Park contest, but this was a music phone... a rare breed then. But learned my leason never to try this again. Too risky. In the end, the buttons failed me. I had to apply so much pressure just to hang up!

Nokia 6280 (2006-2009)
This was a timely blessing. Can't find any fault with this phone other than the fact that every time I connect it to a PC, it seems to hang and I can't seem to edit contacts either. Was hoping it would stay with me longer but it was the last straw when someone called me for an interview and I can't hear what on earth he said to me.

One day...

One day, I want to go to a U2 concert. One with the massive monter set up! This is "The Claw". 50m high crablike monolith with rotating stage, moving bridges and 360° giant digital screen projecting montages and images...

This photo was shot by Dave.

Check out the rest of the photos of the concert.

Dew Crew Retreat 2009

Photo by Jon Khoo

30th Aug - 1st Sep 2009
Another great getaway with the best crew! :)

This year, we had minimum program. We just wanted to had a relaxing trip so went to Kampar and Ipoh. Had a short tour in Gua Tempurung and Lata Kinjang. And we ate and ate (shamelessly!)...in Ipoh. The Grand Kampar Hotel is pretty nice. But the shops around it isn't fully occupied so it is rather quiet which is really nice. Most of us don't fancy hearing cars everywhere. We also met up with Sharon who is based there working with Malaysian Care.

It was great fun simply because we had such a great group of people. The after effect of the trip is fun too - looking at all the photos we took and tagging them in facebook & writing narrations for the funny ones.

Mesra Usia Emas and Tawas

I felt the urge to blog about this because many seems to be unaware of the benefits as a citizen. When I first receive an email on this, I was very skeptical. But here are some sites with more information about Mesra Usia Emas and Tabung Warisan Anak Selangor. Unfortunately the official website is only in BM. The page is not translated.

Selangor Gov Site on Mesra Usia Emas
Selangor Gov Site on Tawas
TheStar Newspaper

A new challenge

I wanted to get my room painted. And I'm proud to say I did it...myself. Took me 2.5 days. It isn't perfect but neither am I. I consider it an achievement.

Debbie & Hoi Hian

It is an amazing thing to see 2 friends come together in marriage. I've been friends with Debbie & Hoi Hian ever since they joined us in Dew Crew. I got to know Debbie a lot better when she took up the role of Media Director in DUMC a couple of years ago. I guess Debbie started noticing Hoi Hian more when they started serving together in our Nepali Fellowship. :) We have all became close friends as we serve together in these 2 ministries.



It was a simple wedding holy matrimony and chinese dinner. All of us had a great time taking photos of ourselves and entertaining ourselves! Fui Ping, Steph and myself even managed to squeeze in some time for a free make over by Bobbi Brown. :)

A Live Mix

Long ago, I mentioned in a post about what I spend most of my time doing in church... I wish it was praying but it is not la. Hahaha.

Occasionally, I lead a team of volunteers to do live audio visual work. That includes sound, cameras, live multi camera mix and lyrics/powerpoint. Most of the time I do audio stuff - which is either stage i.e. ensuring the band/speakers on stage can hear themselves or FOH which controls what everyone else in the audience hears.

Sometimes I wonder why I'm so intrigued by this particular work. :-p I mean there are many areas which I can serve God every week as well, but maybe I fell in love with it since having the opportunity to learn something so unique (at least i think so) compared to what most of us do at our day jobs. I am one of those who are a bit more (okay, it' waaaayyy more) enthusiastic and excited about doing this then my paying job. :-p

Maybe it is the "live" thing. Getting it right at one go, on the spot and getting adrenaline rush because it's LIVE! Maybe it is simply because I love music. Maybe it is an opportunity to express whatever little creative juices I have.

Maybe it is just the bunch of ppl that I have worked with so long that I've grown overly attached with. Love them so much! We used to serve for 4 sessions of celebration back in DSP, the older building. Currently at Dream Centre, there are only 2 sessions but with many other events around the facility. I think sometimes we see each other more often than we see our family members. We have currently expanded our live work into lighting even more with the purchase of the new Robe moving heads and Avolites mixer. More cool stuff to learn!

Loud Concert 2009

Last Sunday, I had the opportunity to be part of team in supporting DUMC's annual youth event - Loud 2009. On top of the indie bands and other activities, we had a main concert with percussion group – Junkyard Invaders, Cheer team, dance team – Real Ink Crew and of course a live band as part of the evening concert. All very impressive work by the young people. Great job especially by the leaders who put this whole thing together - Leroy, Jon, Ben & Daryll.

Of course as usual, we cannot resist not having a picture the live crew. :) Love serving the Lord with you cool & fun people.

Who is Yasmin Ahmad?

I do not know Yasmin Ahmad personally but I do know she is a director who has done excellent work in film and tv ads. Not sure why she was often accused of producing controversial work but maybe most of the accusers were just "sesat" case. Her works were very moving and thought provoking. How often do we come across someone like her, who voices her mind even as we are surrounded by people who are in constant denial.

Malaysia lost one of her most precious gem yesterday. I heard the news from radio this morning. It was 2 days after she suffered a stroke.

As the news spread, there were many testimonies about her work and her life. Newspaper reprinted interview and tributes to this amazing, inspiring person. Many blogs also have featured a post on her. Here's one with a recent video by a friend. Just google her up for more.

Vaccines

My understanding of vaccines are jabs you take to prevent ourselves from diseases. I remember taking quite a few when I was younger – rubella, BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guerin) and chickenpox. I remember the first 2 pretty well because it was compulsory in school. Unless we have a letter from our parents that we will take it at our private clinic, we have to take the jab. Honestly, I had no idea what were the jabs for until I read them online. I’m sure I had lots of other vaccination that I can’t really remember but was probably adviced as necessary by our family doctor.

A recent visit to another doctor’s clinic (company panel clinic) opened my eyes to the many different vaccination available. At the clinic, there were numerous posters promoting the various vaccination.

Just last week, my company offered free flu vaccination to all our staff. It was optional but most people took it because it was free. I was skeptical so I opted not to.

Why? Well, there is no guarantee that one fully immune to flu. I wasn’t going abroad and putting myself at risk to the H1N1 anyway. So, it didn’t seem necessary to get the jab. Like any medicine, I feel that we don't need to take them unless we really really need to.

I remembered watching Oprah with Jenny McCarthy as her guest on the show. It was actually the first time I heard of vaccination issues. She believes that her son’s autism was the cause of vaccination and was raising awareness on this. She also mentioned a lot on how she is bringing up her son with special diet and even wrote a book on how her son is recovering from autism.

Today, if we search online, there are numerous information/debate/findings about this. There is no widely accepted/proven case of major negative side effects of vaccination. I haven’t done a thorough research about this but my current stand is not take vaccination unnecessarily. To be rational about it, our parents and their parents lived many years probably without any vaccination and are healthy and well. I’ve read somewhere that our body develops immunity against the disease that we get. That’s why we don’t get stuff like chickenpox twice in our lives. By preventing the disease, we sometimes prevent our body from generating such immunity.

Creativity, Passion & Making a difference

As I watched Chopped on Asia Food Channel, it reminded me about how creative food can allow a person to be. This show is about 4 contestant (who are normally executive chefs) challenging each other to prepare a 3 course meal within a given time with secret ingredients that will only be revealed right before they start cooking. Instant creativity required!

Cooking/baking is really a fun and creative thing. It is improvisation that makes a dish unique and memorable. So much can actually be done in cooking as the slightest additional amount of a single ingredient or the adding a teaspoons of ingredient or the smallest differ in method of mixing can greatly change the taste and the final look. I would love to spend more time in this and work my right brain.

Jamie Oliver is probably one of the most famous chef around today. It is really a joy to watch him cook for the people around him (ya, i know he gets paid to cook for all his shows) He always look like he is having soOooo much fun! It's amazing to do so many shows on cooking and write so many recipes. Seems to be a never ending of ideas and possibilities.

Passion take people to great extend. He left school to join catering college at 16. Most Asian parents would probably faint at the thought of it. But just look at what he has achieved today! Because of his campaign to ban unhealthy food in schools, he got the government to spend more on quality food. I thought the idea of training the fifteen disadvantage young people was great because it was definitely life changing for them. What a difference he has made in those young lives.

That's real passion doing what you love...oh and making a living out of it!

GSC at Tropicana Mall

I somehow had the idea that the new GSC cinema at Tropicana Mall would be less popular but possibly more confortable. I was right that it was still possible to get tickets for Transformers but the hall was terrible. Hall 5 was a smaller hall but never would I thought they would make the seats so near to the screen. At 5th row of the 10 rows in the hall, it was straining. Yup, this is nothing like the one in 1Utama. So, forget the movie if is it in this smaller hall. Not worth it unless you got the row against the wall.

The movie is great in many ways but my experience was spoilt by mutiple vertical lines for a long period of time!

Another irritating note was the censorship. It was so bad a short part of a scene actually repeated. Someone needs to go for editing class 101. Wonder who filem negara hires to do this.

Michael Jackson

His music continues to live on.
1958-2009

Vision for life

It is 2 years now that I am specs and contacts free. I'm so thankful for the surgery. It made climbing Mt K easier since my eyes get dry very easily with contacts. I didn't have to worry about them falling out during water rafting - a girl's contacts did came off when her raft overturned. :-p

Went for my annual check today. I thought my vision was not as sharp as it was last year. From the test, there is a very slight power on eye and very slight astigmatism as well. It could go back down since our eyes power can change slightly if our eyes are tired. So glad the conclusion is just tired and dry eyes. Must rest my eyes more.

Really don't want to go back to specs or contacts anytime soon. Neither do I want to go through the procedure again if possible. (As long as I got my eyes checked annual, Optimax will correct any shortsightedness for free).

I found out that up to today, Optimax is still the only Lasik centre in Malaysia with ISO certification. I guess it is important with more and more different outlets offering this service. Hey, it's our eyes! What if the centre is run by people who are not exactly qualified or equipment that are not well maintained?

Bobbi Brown Workshop

I have been following Yvonne's blog in the recent few months. She recently organised a contest for a free workshop at Bobbi Brown. I thought it would be very helpful for me since I don't know much about skin care and make up. I have a great interest in how BB is branded to make people look clean, fresh and modern (basically to still look yourself but better...get it?). Glad that I won a space for it. :)

Syaz, Tammy, Hanna and myself met Yvonne at Pavilion, Bobbi Brown stand alone store earlier today. There, we were all given a booklet to note down steps and the products used. They prepared for each one of us a whole set of brushes. I had the privilege to learn from Simone, the Retail Manager at that outlet. It was a real good learning experience for me since I'm quite clueless plus I get to try hands on (on half my own face) one step at a time - Simone will apply and I'll attempt to replicate.

There were a lot of emphasis on pre-makeup/skincare - getting it right allows the make up to last longer. Other than the basic 101 make up methods and choosing the best colour tones for ourselves (I didn't take down that much note since I was the demo :-p, but do check out more details on Yvonne's post), I got a few extra tips from Simone that is interestingly new to me.

1. Always apply eye cream 1st. If you apply other creams around your face and then apply eye cream, the left overs on your fingers will go on your eye and this can cause oil seeds around the eye.


2. If you have combination of oily and dry skin, always apply moisturiser on your dry skin area first.


3. Only apply foundation and powder around the area on your face that you want to cover. Not your whole face. (this is interesting, I always thought we should apply our whole face in case it looks like patches everywhere. BB concept is that the foundation/powder are suppose to blend in like our actual skin...Ohhhh)


4. If you have very dry lips, try applying lip balm before going to bed.

I didn't left empty handed. *sigh* I told myself I won't be buying anything! I bought the latest Sheer Colour Cheek Tint (because it is uniquely convenient) and Long Wear Cream Shadow (because it lasts long - there justified). Both so tiny and both cost so much :-p They also came with a tiny-ier free gift.

A big thank you to Yvonne for organising this for all of us. Really appreciate it. The counter photo was shot by Yvonne and here's a group photo from Syaz. I will get a camera...one day.

The Life You’ve Always Wanted

This is one of my reading assignment that I drag on for a little too long. Below is my personal summary of this book by John Ortberg.

SPIRITUAL
Our spiritual life is not measured by the regularity of our journal entries. God can use it to lead us into life but with that but our spiritual life is measured by our growing love for God and people. Spiritual discipline is any activity that can help me gain power to live life as Jesus taught and modelled it. Ortberg gave the example of a lady who sees “quiet time” as spiritual devotion but does not count time spend caring for her children as a spiritual act.

One of the basic laws of life is rhythm – night/day, winter/summer, wake/sleep, time of consolation/time of desolation. Both season are inevitable and can bring unique growth. Holiday = holy day.

Knowledge does not equal to spiritual transformation. A person whose knowledge of the bible can be 10 times greater than an average unchurched person but is that person 10 times more loving, patient and more joyful? When we read the bible, the goal is not for us to get through the Scripture but to get the Scripture through us. Sometimes that means sticking to one psalm or even one word long enough to learn what we need to learn.

HURRY
We should ruthlessly eliminate hurry from my life. Life is cluttered when we are weighed down by things that we have failed to say no to. Perhaps Abraham Lincoln achieved the depth of thought he did because he grew up with so little to read. William Herndon, his biographer claimed that Lincoln read less and thought more than any man in his sphere in America. Today, we have largely traded wisdom for information, depth for breath. We want to "microwave" maturity.

PRAYER
Prayer is learned behaviour. Nobody is born an expert at it. No one ever masters prayer. “Lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.” -C.S. Lewis. Our minds may wander during prayer but it may be the very thing our heart most needs to speak to God about. Some things may not seem spiritual but no point praying about things that are noble but not really in our hearts. Nothing kills prayers faster than pretending to be noble.

SERVANTHOOD
One of the hardest things in the world is to stop being the prodigal son without turning into the elder brother. It is easier to hear about serving than to actually serve: Ortberg gave the example of a person who gave excuse not to do something by going for a rally to teach and inspire to that very thing.

Stupid Malaysians

Reading that many object to making English a must pass subject for SPM is really sad. Read it here.

I do not understand what the general Malaysian (who are responding) are thinking. Are we so stupid? English is the very single most important subject to secure a job! Why isn't it necessary to pass it?

And the more terrible fact is, the current English syllabus is already way too simple. An easy way to compare is the 1119 marks and the normal SPM marks based on the same paper. For someone who scored an A1, their 1119 marks can vary from A1 to C5 (possibly even lower). But that's not the main issue here.

Let Malaysian continue to fail the simple English. Goodbye Malaysia. Very soon, the population will no longer understand what English is.

Sharing from an average guy

Yesterday, I had an opportunity to hear from Pastor Chris Hodges from Church of the Highlands. He was in town for the 13th MCCC.

He shared how God has used him, someone who is average of the below average (he was kind of exaggerating the whole below average kind of person he is) He never scored a "B" as a student because he usually scored lower. He also shared his first experience preaching and how he was corrected and learned. It was difficult but God used him to start what is today the fastest growing church in US.

Jesus' disciples didn't have the most glorifying jobs and they are probably young and inexperience as well. Yet, they were give the opportunity to learn by following Him.

Pastor Chris mentioned how he multiply himself but training others and guiding them in the things that he do. He always have someone with him to watch and learn. Eventually, he will allow them to try. He believes that when a leader demonstrates, his followers can learn best. People see, people do.

God can use anyone. Just allow Him to and be teachable. :)