My Parallel Universe and the Event Horizon

Up till June 2012, my greatest wish to have the best and most powerful laptop was simply that - a wish. Then Apple unveiled the new Mac Book Pro with the 15" Retina Display, complete with SSD and I-Core 7 processor. It cost just under S$3000 which was a lot more than some of the other top level laptop PCs in the market. But there is something lovely and sexy at once with a Mac. I had given a much loved Mac Book Air which I acquired as a back-up to an Acer T-4810 laptop I used for work presentations back then, and more importantly, to expose myself to the OSX platform. I found the Mac easy to use, except that you can forget about trying to remember all the keystroke shortcuts which Mac veterans will always have an unfair advantage over. In fact, the moment, I approached using the Mac OSX freed from the keyboard shortcuts, all the psychological barriers quickly left. Surely, I did not work on the Mac as quickly as the vets might, but at least I was now able to embrace this whole new eco-system.

Ambitious to consolidate all my laptop needs into this brand new Mac Book Pro, I acquired Parallels 7 and could not wait to install it on the Mac and migrate all my Windows and Office files over. Then Parallels offered the upgrade to Parallels 8 to match the Windows 8 upgrade. I made the bold upgrade to both platforms. For a very brief moment, it seemed like the glorious confluence of all my expectations were met.

Then very quickly, through a series of mishaps and other oddities in performance, I realise what a horrid mistake it was to be an early adopter in this game.

1. Parallels was rather slow, sluggish and lags in performance.
2. Not all the Windows functions and settings worked correctly. The worst mistake was having everything I had configured erased because I tried the Windows "refresh" but on the Parallels Virtual Machine, it executed a PC-Reset. No joke. Spoke to Parallels about it and the engineer (probably from a call centre in Bangalore) sounded indifferent and resigned about the problem I described, "You see," he said, "some of the functions in Parallels will not work like it would on a normal PC." I wished the advertisement on the box and website said so.
3. These things which did not work included: windows and fields which do not function, sluggish and retarded keyboard and mouse cursor sensitivity, program windows which do not respond to clicks, poor integration of plug-ins and such, including download buttons which disappear on webpages.
4. Programs suddenly fail, probably due to faulty PC registry, and installing a registry fixer resulted in another set of other programs (iTunes, in this case), going bonkers with a pop-up warning for it to be re-installed, and when I tried, it all failed to install from the downloaded file due to another error. I have to hack Time Machine and the Intego Bootable Back-up file to extract the program and run from there... which resulted in
5. The default applications folder for Windows going awry and I had to use the Windows.pvm file (Parallels Virtual Machine) to boot up my Windows environment and work from there.
6. Now, I can't tell if I am working Windows 8 and my Office Suite etc from the back-up file in Doc/Parallels or if that back-up file is not working as the default location for all my Windows 8 programs.
Other problems all sorted popping up and now I totally regret:
(a) not upgrading my RAM and internal memory to 16GM RAM and getting a 500GB internal SSD;
(b) keeping the I-Core 5 desktop I had with Windows 7 in it, and working from there, instead of running everything on the Mac. I have given the desktop CPU away since, not wanting to hoard any superfluous hardware which someone might have a more pressing need for.
So now, on another sleepless night, I am forced to make a terrible decision to kill my Parrallels VM, and try to use Boot Camp Assistant to make it all work better for me and my Mac Book Pro.

Say a prayer, that I do know what I am doing next!

Of hypocrisy and truth

We may all be the product of our upbringing, over and above what we as humans are naturally imbued with. Perhaps our natural faculties are much more subtle in the way we perceive "rights" and "wrongs" - to put it simply. The natural understanding of what is right and wrong may have more to do with personal safety, ability to resist, and laughter. The cultural influences that civilisation exerts on our thinking today through beliefs, communal interaction and trade, had built layers over the innate and natural knowledge we possess. So, we can accept the idea of some sort of primitive wisdom and that of a developed wisdom, but essentially all wisdom of any sort is based on the passing on of knowledge from one generation to another.

In Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 21, verses 28-31, there is a very brief parable given by Jesus which is easily overlooked because it does not have the usual poetic form. Instead, this parable seems to be an idiomatic argument to press a point. Here is the quote from the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB):

'What is your opinion? A man had two sons. He went and said to the first, "My boy, go and work in the vineyard today."

He answered, "I will not go," but afterwards thought better of it and went.

The man then went and said the same thing to the second who answered, "Certainly, sir," but did not go.

Which of the two did the father's will?' They said, 'The first.' Jesus said to them, 'In truth I tell you, tax collectors and prostitutes are making their way into the kingdom of God before you. Obviously, what we do and how we affect our community with our actions is how we will be judged somewhat. But the kernel of this parable is about understanding what is expected and asked of us, and choosing how we will react to that expectation. Those who understand what the expectation is and deliver are those who act in truth. And those who know what the expectation is and decide not to act accordingly, are plain hypocrites: that is, to say something and other another thing. There are leaders of all sort in human history who are hypocrites: emperors, judges, priests, generals, fathers and so forth. This free will to act in truth or hypocrisy is so real that it pervades all human behaviour and activity. Being brought up a certain way reinforces in us this notion of truth and hypocrisy. As a child, my parents will recount at home whom acted this way or that and these would be our own familial lessons with neighbours and people in the news as characters in the parable. Of course, as one grows up, you realise that a great deal of what is expected of us by friends, neighbours and family is often let down by disappointment caused by a refusal on our part to act according to those expectations. Some of those expectations  are built upon the personal benefits and selfishness of others, and we have a right to refuse to cooperate. Other times, the expectations are intended to hurt another person's dignity or possessions, and again, we are responding to a deeper well of expectations on the morally appropriate behaviour when we refuse to act to hurt another. At the deepest level of our conscience or thinking, we will have to anchor ourselves on where this moral ground is.  The abandonment of modern society of these classical ideals and virtues as a result of a renewed belief in the "splendour of Enlightenment in the 20th Century" has brought about the rise of "relativism". The consequence is that many of today's young people believe more in their own personal moral compass than that of a commonly held ideal. Oddly, atheism is a leading cause of this belief in the moral self, partly an off-shoot of the Protestant concept of self-revelation and interpretation, partly the development of Humanism in the post 17th Century Enlightenment framework, and the development of modern industry, which made class distinction more painful to the masses as cities grew as a result of bludgeoning trade and infrastructure. Many people have little trouble saying one thing and doing another. Consistency is no longer a virtue. We are expected to be nimble-minded, liberally inclusive and flexible in how we relate. This is both true and good, as well as terrible and sad. The reason why it can get so confusing is because of the context. There are times and ways nimbleness, flexibility and inclusiveness are beneficial, and in other occasions, these give rise to hypocrisy and unfairness. There was a time when the right thing to do meant what would bring about good. But in the minefield of relativism, what is "good" and to whom, simply depends.

A Life A New

On Monday, 17 September 2012, at 1130 hrs, I was performing a routine maintenance on my Mac Book Pro's storage and decided to reduce the large storage used by Time Machine on both the laptop as well the 2TB LaCie Thunderbolt drive. Time Machine utilises a great deal of cached space on the main machine, and in my HDD, took up more than 700GB in various time slices.

Granted that I could afford to retain what already has been stored, my focus was to free up any unused space on the LaCie and do some automatic disk maintenance. I was perhaps too Windows PC-oriented... it does not work the same way on the Mac. In running a function in disk utility on the Mac, it immediately (and without warning) removed the partition within the LaCie and destroyed the HDD operating application, which immediately removed the device from my desktop. After consulting with Apple care personnel, the only recourse was to send the HDD back to the agent.

The problem with doing this was that all my content would be vulnerable to being hacked/copied by the agent themselves. We have all heard how content have always been copied by these technical personnel and eventually leaked out.

To be safe, all I could do was erase all my content on the disk by doing a reformat... and with that decision, my whole digital universe was erased. That meant all photographs and personal archives from 1997 to 2011, and 2012. All my Outlook PSTs from that time to last year was erased. This was made worse because during my Mac Book Pro maintenance that same morning, I had put the 2011 and 2010, and Starwood PSTs back onto the LaCie, and these were not backed-up anywhere.

All gone. Including my CVs and other business files, databases and such.

Then while trying to recover these, I continued to be aggressive about my removal of shared or duplicated files. The iTunes update on my Mac resulted in the iTunes in my Windows on Parallels being inoperative and while removing the file, it completely affected the Mac iTunes as well. Which to rebuild in from my iPod and iPad, I had to download and purchase the iExplorer app. Fortunately, the app worked quite well and not exactly to its advertised standards but with some careful thinking beforehand, I copied all the media files into separate folders and then only copied these back to the iTunes on my Mac.

All that effort and cost aside - I had already moved past the point of absolute grief and unhappiness.... after all, these are the direct result of my own actions, regardless of whether these may have been from ignorance or simply misunderstanding some of the technical lingo and paradigm built into the Mac OS.

But having been forced to let go of so much critical information and wealth of reference material including samples of my writing etc. I can only move on as if leaving my world of the past and taking on the future ahead with each present moment I live hence with a vigour and vision anew, all afresh.

So, this is now Day 3 of my new life... either told as one Walking Dead in Zombie land, or just one life, plain and unadorned. I could change my name now and simply be whomever I want.

Looking forward to Day 4 of my new life...

Remembered Today, Always

I awake and look at the clock, and glance about a minute, whispering in my heart my morning prayer. It's 4.15 am and I play around my SkyApp on the iPad, with the model of the Solar System spinning back in time with the orbs and moons rotating backwards... Before long I look at the edge of the screen and it showed 2.15... 4 May. I realized too quickly this marked the precise anniversary of Jordan's accident five years ago. I think of him and pause to pray, and record this down in my blog today. In some ways, I am more inescapable from him because of his accident and death, rather than if fate was to allow him to live on and grow separate. As many other past charges have done so, and many gone on to become successes in their own right. I think of what he have done so well as a person which drew me to him in the first place, and caused me to offer him a chance to work under me, arranging for him to sign up for the IPRS course which in the end, all prospects were cut short. Sure, my own relationship with him was affected by his professional shortcomings. His peers might have been more compassionate than I in retrospect. But the end card was too clear for me to ignore after quite a few lapses were brought to his attention. It seemed for a time that he could not help himself, and somehow his own perspective was askew - or that mine was. I was shocked when MOH called me to say that he cancelled one of their high level Chinese delegation visits without consulting me because it would clash with an event at the same location. He simply could have managed that delegated task bug scheduling huge visit a couple of hours before and have the hospital Customer Relations team run the site visit while he continued with the pre-event preparations. So, when I questioned him if it was because he simply did not want to do it, or that he was coerced to cancel by the hospital, he seemed not to want to reply but said that it was just a decision he made. Unfortunately, it was not a call for him to make... And like a few other instances, bad choices. Still, he seemed impenetrable about the logic for these things. He drew a clear line about after work hours and refused to accept that duty and responsibility extended past 5:30 pm when the need arose. He wanted control over his life and time. Perhaps he was not ready, I thought and had to let him go, for I simply could not be spending time and effort making recovery action from the mistakes of the very junior team of executives I had under me, all three of him had no prior experience in communications work, or institutional processes. But will prove to be that the greatest charity we make turns out to be our Judases. As a result of Jordan's accident and death, one of the other executive, a sensitive young French I was asked to help with a job, offered to explain his own helplessness at work to another HOD citing Jordan's accident as "he took his own life" in a sort of Franglais, which added to his own insinuation that if it was himself, he would "kill himself" if he had to quit this job. Although these were very clumsy and poorly verified statements, the HOD was quick to bring these back to the COO who thought incorrectly I had driven these two executives to the edge. Utter nonsense as it was, I dido think that such a poorly contrived lie was worth defending, and knew it was no longer tenable to continue with a management team that is clumsy and inconsistent. I feel utterly vindicated today with all the consequence from those historical events. That HOD had proved to be as ineffective as ever in his work ethics and while still there, preserves himself because of his brand of "astute" and "unscrupulous" politics, which is reflected in the business he does. As for the COO, he was gone in six months after I left, and I not say more. That organization's dream of branding itself died as soon as new owners with new visions came aboard, and though they use all the same materials I developed in 2007/8, the execution of those ideals are as far from the target as Pluto is from the Sun. Inspite of these peripheral and consequential events, I do not forget how, and why my friendship and affection for Jordan took shape, and within the interactions we shared about work and his future then, I grew to card for him. But how things play out did inform me that our plans ate just easily disposed of, not by the stars or some higher power, but the choices people make and their mistakes as such. I had nothing to do with his riding home in the early morning with his friends and losing control of his beloved Harley, and "killing himself" (which was the expression the French was looking for but used incorrectly in his report). For my last conversation with him was throwing him a lifeline to comeback but only if he committed to change - he said he rather not. A couple of weeks later I had a few missed calls from him when I was away on leave... for my own mother had passed on just three months earlier. I think that was my particular regret, that we did not speak because I didi not return his calls. I cannot say what he might have said to me, but can only guess that he was probably wanting to let me know that he was going to work with an associated company. I would have had no objections and would only have wished him well. Now, all this may be an insignificant memory except to those whose lives and memory he affected, touched and moved. Why should I deny that I had a great love for him to have fulfilled his wish to achieve something for himself, had he lived. As I shared many times with him... at Starbucks Liat Towers or on the bench at Changi beach, I benefited greatly from my mentors investing in me, too. Because of all those good and great things we held in intimate confidence, and for that part of his life which also inspired me and echoed my own - love of the outdoors, climbing - I cherish his memory and will remember his life and the two years ours intertwined. He was laid in his coffin with the Marc Jacob blue silk tie I got him, which was one of his favorites. I miss him, but in his passing, he is with me without my clenching on to his life, always.

Joy at my finger tips

Joy is found in the simplest and easiest of things. A 68 cent cup of Nescafe Expresso, two  dollar plate of vegan breakfast that looks it came from a buffet line, a 90 cent newspaper with your favourite pullout section called Digital Life... It boils down to having expectations and needs and wants all met, without too much effort or cost, and having made the right decision, which was both modest and wise.

My aging Acer 4818T now four years old, was one of the best PC purchases I ever made. Top specifications then, with 4GB RAM and it was slimmer than a Mac Book, although made of thermoplastic. I migrated it to Windows 7 in early 2011 and the installation taught me a whole lot about the dovetailing of hardware with software beyond the mere specifications. The rest of the year meant never going back to Windows Vista, but every now and then, the processor (dual core) seemed to have problems even with the 32-bot Windows 7 Home Premium, and some applications would go awry and simply stall. Sometimes these recover just before I intervene a forced shut-down, and sometimes, it would stall for several hours and not be able to resolve. Worst of all is when it stalls and all applications freeze, including the 3G dongle: I call it "the death, le morte". When that happens, you have no choice but to force shut-down (power button hold) and let the CPU reboot. You know immediately that there is some deep incompatibility patches could not solve and that would be a chronic problem awaiting to aggravate.

In some respects, computers are like people, and the overall behaviour mimicks all the known characteristics of weaknesses in human behaviour. If you get a high specification processor, you will enjoy its yield only until larger and more sophisticated programs come around and beat it to pulp. Then you need to have it replaced. Now, with Windows 7, although it would work on the Intel Dual Core, the processing speed was simply too sluggish and my observations of the CPU core temperature via a Windows 7 widget showed that in running even my 2007 Office applications and some video files, both Cores would flare up to about 80-90%.

Therefore, I deduced that even my back-up AMD processor in the Acer Iconia W500a 32GB + 32GB SD card memory full SSD would not be viable for all the work and video I needed for work and play. The ultrabook craze is just flaring up and will need to go into full swing, as Intel and Samsung make more chips that will encourage its eventual replacement of the laptop and tablet fling. So, I decided to get a custom-build - high specification home business desktop (i.e. sans expensive GeForce Nividia graphics card, which years ago I installed in my last PC desktop and never used it because the X-Box360 followed...). So great dedicated machines built for sleek operation is what works best for me.

At Sim Lim Square, I wandered about for about 90 minutes and passing a workshop via the back corridor, one technician said hello and I paused and spoke to him. It turned out that they had the best value offer anyway, and a later walkabout the 6th floor confirmed that. The slim case CPU featured a ASRock motherboard but with only one slot for an additional card, but includes an Intel HD graphics card (premounted) and the Intel i-Core 5 processor. I threw out the DVD writer as I never liked the whirling vibrations inside the tower anyway. And with Windows 7 Home Premium installed. I had planned to transfer my Office 2007 from the laptop to the desktop and all the other key application software as well. Under two hours later and after a couple of other successful low cost errands (iOS dock extender S$10, LED USB flexible stem lamp S$4 and such), I collected the CPU and left the building. Getting home from that corner of Bencoolen Street and Rochor Road is not that difficult, but lugging around a few cases (I bought a flatbed Epson scanner) with an empty stomach is another. So stopped by a Kopi Tiam for a cooling dessert to bump up the blood sugar and off I went. I found a cab, more easily than expected and in a jiffy was home. I though to do the set-up another day, but I knew that it would be a straight-forward and simple task. As I had some work deadline the same evening, I had my laptop opened in front of me while the new CPU desktop and LED screen backlighting it as I loaded up and tested the new toy.

While the process of setting things up can be tedious somewhat, if you know how things should run and these occur as they should (expectations met or surpassed), there is no sense of disappointment. The new Bluetooth keyboard from Targus was thought to be a great buy because it could work on iOS, Android and Windows, unlike many other portable and slim keyboards and best of all, ran on AAAx2 alkaline with 5 year life. Unfortunately, in practical terms, it turned out to be a nuisance if everything you logged on you have to search for the keyboard and log it in - not always with immediate success - and this was already a five step process, burning up precious start-up time. So I think that keyboard will get into the gift stash for the time being. But it will be great if I ever needed to run it with my iPhone, for sure!

Quickly, everything got set up but the matter of the keyboard remained a concern. So, off I went last evening to the Cash Converter store, thinking to try and check if I could get a simple wired keyboard there instead of buying a new one at S$11.90 or S$16.90, at Popular. Well, there were a good many, and I found a HP original keyboard in great shape. I brought it back, gave it a good anti-bacterial wipe after brushing it clean and removed the price sticker and such. The print on the keys looked a bit faded, so could estimate that these were as old as 6-8 years, but probably were very under utilised, as there was virtually no wear on the keys. I fit the USB into the hub and the worked well. Best of all, was that after so many years of using this type of keyboard, the spacing was so intuitive to me that I could revert back very quickly to blind typing. Even now as I type this blog entry in, I also found that my mind seems to be able to recall where some keys are, as if I had been using this keyboard all along.

Now, I look at the Epson V33 scanner (for receipts, photos and document conversion), the ATake USB 5W speakers, the HP WLAN antenna, the Acer LED 22" HD monitor, this HP keyboard, the Freecom Combo BluRay and DVD read-writer, Memorex optical mouse, my iPhone and iPod Classic, the ComLab i-Core 5 CPU and my trusty Acer Aspire 4818T (now a browser and such with some dedicated software on Windows 7), and my Aztech WLAN with M1 3G dongle, it all fits and falls into place - quite well. And that is happiness. But just paying S$2.50 for that HP keyboard, that was a joy, albeit silly, but still.

It is joy at my fingertips for every keystroke I make, and that can be quiet a lot.

Before deafness, hear great sound

We all grow deaf, sooner or later. My ringing in the ear (tinnitus) caused by a scuba diving accident has finally healed, but with the chronic rhinitis which came on Thursday, the ear drums are back at it again - strained, and singing a high pitch strain - like a cacophony of crickets in perpetual song in the forest. Or being in Tokyo during the summer cricket chirping season. Having realised what frail biomechanical beings we are, and prone to damage and failure, these growing ailments and deterioration of the senses as I age, lend me to think that if you want to use any of your senses, try to get the best out of them - of course, within reasonable means one has. So, after accummulating thousands of songs in my Windows Player jukebox, and for the newer ones, ripped them in lossless format, I found that with with the triple armature Westone UM3X (because I liked the audio tuning best for my taste - part jazz lounge, part acoustic rock), I would easily be transported into my world apart from this world.

The iPhone 34GB has a decent memory for all my songs in compressed AAC mode, which is more energy efficient for the device, but with those earphones, you can distinctly hear LESS. Any audiophile will tell you that the human ear is really quite incredible and idiot deaf geeks might say otherwise. So with the few albums in Apple Lossless on my iPhone, the memory is all used up - more or less. After searching for a suitable MP3 player that can store gazzillion songs (my friend Ian has 6000 in his 120GB iPod Classic), I am quite happy to finally settle for the new silver iPod Classic 160GB which actually only has an allocated memory of 148GB for storage. Now, I can comfortably move my lossless music and listen to them guilt-free.

Of course, Apple geeks are warning that using Lossless means wearing out the HDD faster and using more power, because of the file size. The alternative is lugging around a stack of CDs and using a CD player, right?
Last night I went to bed with my Westone UM3X in-ear and within a few minutes was in audio heaven asleep with Matt Maher's new album brainwashing my dreams.
The new iPod Classic may be cheesey to some because of the click-wheel... but that intuitive device works very well for quick navigation and I don't tire of it. That is very important. Ultimately, it is being able to immediately access my Jukebox with all these newer additions in lossless quality. You have to listen with great earphones, and when you do, your perception is changed forever. It's like a child who has tasted sweet and never wants bland any more.

Strange Weird Day

Does this have anything to do with it being the Third Day of the Chinese New Year? I awoke at my usual weekday time of 5.15 am and snoozed a while before leaping out of bed and changing up into my workout gear, watered the plants and shimmied out of the flat. When I arrived at the gym, I was greeted by shut grilles. It meant either the gym is permanently closed (as this was the case yesterday at the usual holiday opening time of 8 am, while today was supposed to be the usual weekday opening time at 6 am) or, that they have deferred the opening time to 10 am. Anyway, something was obviously amiss about this gym's branch and if I did want to, I could head down to the city gyms in town instead. But I decided it was best not to hurry downtown and back uptown as I would have a significant client and agency meeting at 10 am, and did not want to rush and get sweaty from the excitement of squeezing in commute, wash and change of clothes altogether. However, as I was very early, I thought to get the newspapers and a breakfast back around my home. Now back from the closed gym to my home convenience store, and it is not quite 6.30 am, the newsdailies have not arrived either. So I detour to the dreadful McDonald's store which begs patronage all through holidays by simply being the only dining outlet around remaining open, and open 24 hours as well. This time, I deliberately avoid the hotcakes and creamer - both of which have trans fat (hydrogenated palm oil ingredients), the syrup for the hotcakes and the whipped margarine being the particularly bad bits. And tea, instead of the ever-damning coffee. After the Big Breakfast, where I have swallowed the toasted muffin halfs with grape jelly down, I worry if these two might have fillers or binders made with trans fat, and then surrender myself to the dread which I cannot do anything about, because all of it was already quite settled down in my gut. I did not think then, but it would have been a good trick to have, if I could be bulimic and let it all out in the toilet. I should have fasted or settled for a real juice drink instead of the S$5.00 value meal. We do not generally make terrific decisions about our meals, even after being reasonably informed about its health-related dangers. The ubiquity and convenience is simply statistically overwhelming in the favour of our imbibing it. Convenience is the tempter's watch word, for sure.

Finally the newspapers arrive and I digest every interesting article I could find, but it is rather measly, perhaps because 2/5 of the World was on holiday break, or simply because the editorial team were. But the Digital Life supplement was included and I enjoyed the products and gadgets reviews in it always. I leave it for the McDonald's delivery riders after I was finished with the papers and sauntered home, pack and change and prepare for nice leisurely ride on the trains downtown. The timing was excellent and unrushed, and I felt prepared, comfortable and leisurely in my commute to the agency at Outram Road. When I do get there, after dodging some buses to get across the main road, I am allowed in and climb the stairs to the mezzanine level where I usually await being attended to.

After a few moments of waiting while the team complete their meeting inside an adjacent room, I meet the senior staff member who tell me he has been trying desperate to call me and had text-messaged me on my phone earlier. I had heard nothing because the phone was inside my bag, and as anyone using an iPhone might tell you, the ringer is really quite soft and completely inaudible if you have kept the phone inside a bag.

It appears that the client has cancelled the meeting and I was asked to call her at her home later on and work the details through over  the phone. Now, for the third time today I have to detour off my scheduled plan, and find myself in the bus for the journey back uptown and home. I get on the bus, get off the bus, get on the train and get out of the train. Then I realised something interesting, that as a result of all my travel in such a brief space of time, that the transit system counted it as one long journey, and some portions of the journey was charged "0" and another just "0.12" until I finally completed my journey by arriving at my final destination. But I was not bothered by then to check what the fare was, as I already knew that it would be much cheaper than if I was charged a new journey for each leg.

I get changed at home and put on casual and comfortable clothes - football UEFA shorts and a nice fresh cotton tee and after checking emails and updating my harddisk with data from the notebook, I head off down to the coffeeshop for brunch. Half the foodstores are closed and I meander a bit to decide what to eat. The Indian fish curry looked very good and I order that, accompanied with spinach and served with basmati-bryani rice, at S$5.00. This time, I was quite confident the meal did not include trans fat, although the ghee in the bryani had much oil, it is natural butter and not margarine. That would have freaked me into a quick heart attack.

I slurp up the hot tea with lemon and feel quite satisfied, and on my walk back home from the coffee shop, figure out in my mind what changes to the client draft I would make, and how I would take the opportunity to amend the structure of the chart as well. I have now done all that, and emailed the amended chart to the client and text messaged her. Now, I just await her call, at any time convenient for her, and wished her children to get well soon. It is already 1.15 pm. My  world awaits. I hope it will be a fulfilling day and no more detours.

My Contract Experience with Contact Signing

For all of us within the Asian footprint of Fox channels on cable, we get most of the US series a season or half after their telecast in the States. It used to be much worse with free-to-air. So, when media analysts talk about content and competition benefits, consumers have to add that cable brings a great deal more value to our set-tops because of the earlier and even immediate access to aired content. Although we watched it late (five months after telecast in the US), viewers here are now enjoying "Switched At Birth" on Star World (StarHub channel 501). The title is somewhat cheesey and you can imagine what family dramas are all eventually going to be about - growing up, adolenscent rebellion, spousal infidelity, pre-martial sex and probably unwanted pregancy. The script-writers are stuck with what Hollywood reporters say are "hot current issues". Actually, the one thing which this series seeming struck gold with was using and featuring a cast which included real deaf actors. Marlee Matlin won our hearts early and it was always great to watch her on TV after her Academy Award performance those decades ago. Yet, her sophistication and determination did not make her the poster girl for promoting informed contact between the hearing audience and the deaf. This was mainly because her use of signing was not part of the whole feature or plotline, but something supplemental to either the character or the story arc. In Switched at Birth, we have two prominent and very talented young actors - Katie Leclerc and Sean Berdy - that sign each other, and with their parents, and the background soundtrack is almost muted at these times, to lend effect to the hearing audience. Of course, in subtle reality, deaf people don't exactly "hear" but they constantly are aware of various changes in their environment, through vibrations of sort. Not much unlike how a hearing person might perceive the barometric change in the environment before the onset of rain in the tropics (where high humidity makes the effect more pronounced). What inspired me with this series was that whole dialogue were completed with signing, and it was captured by the camera in such a way, the viewers could also make out what the signed gestures and facial emphases were, which deliberately enhanced our exposure to this incredible language.
After meeting a few deaf friends via the Internet and through a social network community, I took to try ASL and bought a comprehensive phrase book. After some 20-odd pages, I could not converse but knew numbers and alphabets. That  expensive little book with colourful pictures of a man signing the vocabulary found itself a restful spot on my bookshelf for almost a decade.
But after watching three weeks of the series and some catch-up episodes I missed, I realise that what was signed on the show was "different" from how the "expensive little book" presented it. Then I followed up with Sean Berdy's YouTube.com channel and found his mesmerising video featuring Enrique Iglesias' "Hero" song. It was like magic; what he signed was clear, lucid, and simply made it so possible to understand and mimic. There was that angelic expression on his face communicating the wide spectrum of emotions from pain to deep love, and all the while his hands flitted about in harmonious gestures, as if it was meant to match the rhythm and the lyrics - the way the wind blows and you can't feel it watching it on screen, but the hem of a skirt or the folds of a silken curtain curls, and you "get it".
There seemed to be something more about "signing" than I thought and I did not have any deaf person to get in touch with to learn or practise, not that it would be a good idea, short of enrolling in a formal course. But intuitively, I knew that signing should be easy enough to pick up and establish a basic vocabulary. The question is, whether it was like some sport and one needed a particular aptitude for it?
At the local library just a week ago, I chanced on an Idiot's Guide edition to ASL. The foreword written by the authors - a mother/daughter team, spoke to me in concrete ways and made me confident. Their objective was to create an opportunity to increase contact between deaf and hearing people, not because it was important, but because signing was infact easy, so easy, children learn it even before they might a formal language like "English". That fact struck me.
I flipped through the book and the first chapters did not touch on signing the alphabets. That shocked and pleased me. Instead, what the authors did was brilliant: they explained how signing came to be, how deaf people learn it, that signing was in fact a language with a syntax of its own (closer to conversational Japanese than to English), and was adapted into a version called Contact Signing, to facilitate usage between the deaf and those who hear. Then, there is also signed English, which is labourous to use. There was ASL - American Sign Language, which most English-speaking deaf persons would learn and use among themselves, and incorporate some lip-reading and speaking to facilitate their integration with the hearing society. Then there is Contact Signing, which is what most hearing people would learn and use with the deaf. And finally, signed English, as spoken of before.
So Contact Signing was basically what I needed to learn and learn fast, so that I could enjoy it and build up confidence to use it, with minimal preparatory practice. (There is in fact no one I can do that with, for now.) Investigating this edition of the Idiot's Guide further completely surprised me! I found that I like the way the pictures and context were laid out and the invaluable bits to note - such as what was possibly not polite or useful practices when signing with a deaf person, or things simply "not to do". After just three days of gobbling up the pages and skipping the more sophicated signs which would need a DVD or check on YouTube.com to verify the flow of motion for the gestures, I felt I knew quite a bit. Then I added up what I saw on the music video and the show. To my surprise, when watching the series catch-up and the video, I picked up nuances in the way the actors signed, which I missed before, or could not have known just from the static pictures. The difference was the intensity of their signs, which added emotion and emphasis to what they were saying. Also, signing as I knew it well now, is not the same as conversational English. That idea alone, allowed me to make much fuller sense of what I was learning in "signing" because I did not allow the English syntax and grammar rules to interfere with what I needed to say or expected to "read"/"see" signed to me.
I am still at an infancy stage, and like all beginners in any language, will be more prepared to express myself in a limited way then to understand immediately what is expressed to me in sign.
But I will practice by watching all the available content on TV or the Internet or DVD as I can, to load my my familiarity with this new language. Just a few nights ago, I reviewed the Idiot's Guide before I slept, and exhausted from taking in more and more "signs", I fell asleep. I found myself suddenly awake at 3 am, with my hands signing automatically in the air. That was a real joy to me. So, I made a contract with myself to practice and master the basics of Contact Signing, and to be unafraid to try it with the next deaf person I encounter, who would be happy to accommodate my new found appreciation for signing my dialogue with me. So, I posted some notes of thanks to Sean Berdy on his Twitter and Facebook pages, because his appearance and craft as an actor, and being a deaf performer, simply helped me lose myself in this new frontier of learning and being.

Fresh paint and working in bright sunlight

 

Grilles fitted over our windows - especially in low rise flats - are still unsightly. Interestingly, in Holland, lower floor apartments are not permitted to have these as the hinder escape in emergencies. And at higher floors, these are intended for suicide prevention. Singapore flats are fitted with these as a preventive measure to deter criminal break-ins. It's the same function item, but depending on the historical-social cultural landscape you are influenced by (in this case, British or Dutch), the rules, practice and preference for these metal grilles across your windows vary.

Fortunately, these ones over my rear room window - sort of an annexe room - can slide aside. But that is for the unusual need to have flat occupants put out the laundry in these long bamboo poles (colloquially known in Malay as "gala"). These hang outside the windows to catch the windy draft and sun light for the clothes to dry.

I just re-painted the annexe room and turned it into a cosy workspace which is beautifully sunlit and more airy, until these afternoon Westerlies (monsoon from Sumatra which blow in from the South-west, hence the name) thunder in.

Still, the ambient light is so good that I can work without turning on the room light or desktop lamp, which makes for better ecological concern. Being more airy as well, I hardly need to have the ventilation giro-fan switched on -- until the computer heats up, of course.

It is just a joy to finally paint the spot and get things all cleaned and arranged. But the need to clear out some collectibles and unwanted items continues. Some items are plainly too costly to dispose off or send to the recycling centre. The Nano-Cube (original item) with acquarium lights/pump/filters and CO2 tank cost more then S$1200 and that is simply too wasteful to dispose off. I will have to check around if anyone would like to have it and would be happy to pass these along. Then again, I never know when I might want to re-start my freshwater acquarium again. It was fun and wonderful to have, but involved a great deal of water and cleaning too, plus power, which did not make for great eco-sense as it was not a significant carbon sink but used up significant power and water, and included a CO2 tank to fuel the underplants in their photosynthesis in artificial lighting. Acquaria like these are in fact, carbon costly in principal, and operate in a reverse day (illuminated at night and dark in the day) mainly to be an in-door attraction when the owner is at home in the evening and retiring from the day.

Back From The Long Retreat

It has been a while indeed, and the time away was well used to refresh, renew and rejuvenate. It was how time was spent, not how money was spent travelling abroad as an escapade. Someone just told me that Singaporeans generally feel so couped up with life on the island that being on a bike and abroad represents all the freedom the spirit can enjoy, which provides a sense of escape and liberation. Unfortunately, that theory was intended to explain why we have had bike fatalities involving Singaporean riders abroad and locally. I am not so sure that theory holds water.
But I can share that the last five months of private time at home was extremely gratuitious and proved very helpful, spirit - mind - body wise.
The time in retreat is now over and I must needs be back at work and at life, gathering back together the loose pieces of opportunity and cares, which have been indulgently laid aside during my retreat.
The most important gift of the retreat is the release of certain burdensome cares, two in particular:
first is that of long time disappointment and despise for a relationship within the family that previously brought nothing but frustration; and,
second is that of the realisation of discrete trust being essential in all matter of work and friendship. Some friendships - founded at work and grew beyond the office - are still to be treated with the same cautionary wisdom - simply because the persons involved in these relationships grew at a different pace and with another paradigm of wisdom and values. So, not all friendships are to be treated the same, and not all friends offer the same wisdom and maturity of person.
What's new then? Nothing to most - perhaps - but we come to our own realisations as we ponder and reflect on events and circumstances that now make up our personal history, and with these come the lessons we can take with us.
So the bottom line is this no different from what the ancient philosopher proferred: Know Thyself. Sophists may sneer now at my "late blooming" so to speak, but what else can be more profound that experiencing the many dimensions of an ancient truth in a personal and real way. I have let go of the relationships that are futile; and must be boldly scrupulous about where opportunity and utility meets, to then take rein and find yield. To the dockside, where the yacht is prepared, and to the weather ahead, make plan and provision to leave the hugged coastline and venture to welcome havens...

Upgrading Windows 7 - Ultimate Success & Sacrifice

Wow. I wrote an email to the MS-Captain championing the upgrade programme to Windows 7 in Singapore and was surprised that they were able to check my record, contact me within 24 hours and had an engineer (Ramaesh) speak to me to arrange an online remote assist session the next working day. Firstly, that is "tops" and next, is that the engineer Ramaesh is the eptiome of patience and logic, and a sheer inspiration to work with. I can only imagine how tough a job like his was, dealing with a dozen thousand calls and a myriad list of weird (and maybe wonderful) problems that need to be solved daily. You must enjoy working with the maze of the OS and the manufacturer's specifications to successsfully troubleshoot and present a working, efficient, solultion.
Anyway, after a tireless session, the laptop seemed to jerk back into working fine, being able to shut down and log off a few times.
Sadly, after we got offline, and I let the Windows Updater download the latest updates, the laptop simply eased back into the redolent self and refused to shut down properly.
So, I forced shut-down after letting the CPU try and work itself through the processes for about one hour. Then starting it up again I decided that "enough is quite enough" and it was time for me to handle the situation I felt was best, and was prepared to try. Here is what I did:

>Control Panel >Recovery
Then indicated that I was wanted to reinstall Windows (7) and had the disk at hand.
Inserted the disk but found that it was not needed yet. FYI.
The system then successfully shut down and rebooted with a new light blue screen with command selection options on it.
First was, to reboot from CD or DVD, and >DVD, inserted the Windows 7 disc into the drive and waited.
It booted up and the 1 - 2 - 3 task bar begin filling out as the DVD whirred to life. Good!
Then I had a choice to select where to load the OS.
I selected "advanced" to view the options and could see the manufacturer partitions:
0 partition 10GB for OEM content - which I , and
1 partition 490 GB for program content - which I .
Then with these all cleared, I allowed the Windows loaded to download the new OS into <1 partition>, letting the original OEM 0 partition of 10 GB to be sacrificed. It was empty and that was more important. Within that cache, I knew I lost some cool stuff (PowerDVD) but also finally got rid of some very intrusive and troublesome application software (MyWinLocker).
The Windows 7 loaded perfectly and before long, after keying in the Product Key, the Windows 7 Home Screen popped up and I checked the Programs list and found everything clean.

So, the tip about upgrading your laptop with Windows 7 is this:
Wipe your OEM apps clean. Smarter folks can save some of these drivers and apps in a HDD and then reinstall these with an updater online. I just wanted to see what an average Joe with low IT EQ can do.
So far, what I did worked beautifully.

The added tips:
(a) ensure there is no Internet Security installed beforehand, and do not wire up/connect to the Internet until after you have successfully installed the new OS;
(b) do download ALL required/essential update content in sequence and DO NOT use your PC while this is being done. Just be patient. Do shut down or restart the laptop after each successful download.
(c) download any updated driver for your hardwire after Windows is well-updated and stable (no further essential updates). I avoided ALL optional updates until the last stage when I had loaded in other software I needed.
(d) now I loaded in Office 2007 and its updates. There was a small problem with the service pack 2 not being successfully installed, but I knew this was not an issue, as the system will notify me later on when I needed to do this.
(e) then I loaded back my Easy Transfer File (5GB) from my back-up notebook, so that basic preferences and favourites will be automatically transferred to this upgraded laptop. During the migration process you must not (absolutely NOT) use the PC until the process is complete. Accept and skip any errors, if you can.
(f) after restarting to put the migrated content into effect, I was now prepared to install my Windows Live Mail and its essentials. (Or do this before your Migration process. Either way, just one installation at a time is safer, but takes a longer time.)
(g) Now I opened up Ramaesh's last email to me which linked me to the updated Windows 7 ESET Smart Security 4 version for download online. (Thanks, Ramaesh. By going back to your software support site, you usually can view and download new drivers etc. but have your product key or password/ID at hand and ready). I did not even need my ESET disc as inputting the password and ID immediately recognised my valid account and the download went ahead smoothly. After my ESET was launched, I awaited some time before running the updater and it worked sweet!
(f) I restarted again, and now looked around to prioritise what other application software I needed and had to get the updated version online. My HP C5280 All-in-One printer had the biggest cache of files to download and I did this overnight. Then next was my SONY PMB software for both my videocam and two cameras (a850 and NEX-5), and wonderfully, SONY.jp had a notification screen that popped up after you have installed the software and launched it, to download the updated version from their website. This is being done as I blog this. Sweet again.

So, ultimately, it means this:
1. OEM applications pre-installed in your laptop is very likely to have elements which can be disruptive to your Upgrade to Windows; you can back-up drivers and apps into a separate back-up drive if you know how to do this;
2. Be prepared to wipe and reformat the laptop HDD and work from scratch to rebuild your PC.
3. Do it progressively, and take your time, doing each task successfully before the next.

So, now, there are just a few more applications to work on, and so far, all my drivers are working via the Microsoft platform and not the manufacturer's pre-installed drivers. I think that says something about Windows 7, and of course, that terrific after-sales customer support service! I am happily back with MS as a fan.

Spectacular Lunar Eclipse Spoilt By Shrouds of Clouds

I woke up at 0030 hrs this morning, after hitting the sack early at 9 pm last night. The motivation was to awake at 0130 hrs on 16 June 2011 and set-up by NexStar reflector telescope and 200mm telezoom Sony a850 to capture what promised to be the longest full moon eclipse for the next 18 years. For a moment, the moon, which began losing its perfect disc of light rather early, was becoming quite well doused in the earth's shadow by 0230 hrs. Unfortunately, huddled in a deeply dark spot near my flat and with two sets of tripods with equipment mounted atop and pointing south-west into the sky above, I looked like a hapless ET hopeful, or a dorky nerd with a cosmological fantasy.
But it turned out to be a long and futile wait, as the skies remained ruddy pink and despite the strong wind, strove wilfully to shroud the sight of the blood red moon from me and my equipment. So, even with the best might and preparedness, one hapless observer could only note the local meteorological details, and virtually nothing of the orbital delight that was unfolding above the shrouds of cloud overhead.
I will have to await the news reports tomorrow to see what I missed, and the only consolation I got was getting online and looking at my Google homepage. The middle "O" was a large moon, waxing slightly, and below the brand was a sliding bar which moved from left to right, and as it did so, the moon was hid in shadow, turned ruddy red with the finest deep burgundy wine, and then unabashedly lost its dark and returned to its silvery light.
I found myself smiling,and actually silly but actualised, just being caught offguard and surprised by the people at Google for doing what they did.
For this grown up little boy, it was quite good, and almost the same thing, even if was not the real thing at all. It was about being surprised and observing an ancient phenomenon which is also rare.

Why Windows 7 Upgrade was all about laundering

My Vista Premium OS Acer 4810T laptop is less than two years old, running on the Pentium Dual Core chip, before the new i-3, i-5 and i-7 Intel multi-core chips were launched. Since then, the Vista had many problems, which I survived. One burnt out motherboard, and two damaged HDDs and one replaced LCD TFT. If you consider all these, you would think that Acer makes cheap and lousy laptop notebook personal computers. But the history and facts require some objective delving, and some of those failures were because my notebook was travelling alot, and I could have protected it better.
The after sales service by Acer was good enough for me to feel loyal and I did not hesitate to buy an extended warranty for the notebook for another five years.
Just then three weeks ago, after my Vista 4810T was quite stable, the only real bug was that the CD-DVD player would hang with any disc placed inside the tray and cause the dreaded Vista Blue Screen of death. Playing around with CDs to DVDs and other discs became a mini-scientific laboratory business. Do this, it sort of works, but do that, and it simply hangs; any other time, you get the Blue Screen of Death, and the notebook reboots.
So, after running the Windows 7 Advisor and all things looked great - just a Toshiba Bluetooth application and the Intel Pro wifi application did not have Windows 7 drivers, it warned. Checked other websites and found that users noted that these two would still work, except if you ran their respective diagnostics.
So I went down to Challenger and bought a Windows Upgrade Anytime key at around 10.35 pm. Back home at around 11.15 pm, I excitedly tried to launch it and found that the website said that this application was no longer available. It looked like a US site. I tried the Singapore Microsoft site and it showed that this was available, but click the links here and there and you realise that the SG site only featured a store catalogue of products but nothing you can buy online or download.
You then realise that Intellectual Property zones actually is far from globalisation... Like the Warner Home Video digital download you get free with Code 1 DVDs, when you try to download it, you find that your player codec (Code 3 or Singapore/South East Asia) prevents you from doing so. Left hand in US sells you a Code A Blu Ray disc with free digital version to download but Right hand does not recognise your right to do so, even if your disc is legitimate. I wonder if this may ever be a contributing factor to piracy? LESSON LEARNT: do not buy Blu Ray discs with Digital Copy included. Why waste the money or time.
Now, at 11.45 pm, and rather exasperated, I quickly decide to return to Challenger by taxi which cost me S$12. When to the Customer Service and spoke to Ivan Tham and indicated that I could happily buy the Windows Upgrade Home Premium version at S$235 but asked him to help me with getting a refund. Wisely, he could not guarantee me but said that after Microsoft verifies that the software key was not unlocked, then it may be possible. I think now that the S$139 paid for the Windows upgrade is a "write off" as was all the time and cab fare spent.
For the sake of the idea that Windows 7 is so well approved by so many people, it may be worth it. So I thought. Now, I finally got the disc and I needed and at 1.30 am the next day, I sat down on my desk, with my laptop all ready. Backed up and removed key content, and even used the Windows Easy Transfer so that my Acer W500 Iconia tablet PC would have everything I needed installed and set up. The tiny built-in memory was somewhat tricky but I was consummate about making it work and put some niffy effort and thinking into how I used the 32GB SD card slot to park all other non-program data in it.
Then I launched into the Windows 7 Upgrade on my laptop, which in theory, just meant that you could keep all your existing software and this would simply, well, upgrade the OS.
Yeah.
Hahaha.
They designed it that way for maybe two PCs in the whole world and every body else is a sucker. And those experts who got suckered, were too wounded to admit and must have conspired to simply gloat - "Oh yes, it was really easy, and mine worked perfectly" while they secretly squirreled off and bought a replacement PC with Windows 7 pre-installed. The others, simply and finally learnt their lesson and migrated to Mac.
Did I tell you that I dated a MacBookAir last year because my Acer 4810T Vista notebook was having serious hiccoughs? Well, after holding fast in belief and consorting to all sort of pragmatic solutions (like using an external disc player unit instead of every touching the built-in unit on the Acer 4810T), I decided that I could live with the whacky Vista Acer notebook. Buying the Acer W500 Iconia with the Windows 7 showed me that I did in fact like Windows 7, and the Acer tablet technology more. In fact, the Iconia W500 made me a bigger Acer fan and a better Windows (7) fan.
So, back to the fateful Monday three weeks ago, when I began installing the Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade on the Acer 4810T. For starters, it seemed fine and wow, really, cool.
I logged on to Facebook and bragged about it and quite simply, jinxed it all.
Firstly, the ESET firewall could not be re-started.
Then the real Windows 7 Balrog began the attack like a zillion arrows across the hallowed depths and darkness of Khazad-dum. The Windows Updater seemed to have heaps, and heaps to download and install, and after attempting to re-start, the machine began to hand. Logging off... but never. Shutting down... but never.
This went on for two days, and I skipped any winks, staying awake to download, repeat, shut-down, repeat, force re-start, repeat, wait, download, repeat, re-start. The experience could make Alan Ginsberg write 21 new poems and 4 new novellas on the evils of technology as drug and hell, and we are all the abused victims of rich and fat corporations that skimmed off our insatiable need for efficiency. Whatever happened to the human mind, memory, and fingers clicking away at key strokes hitting through a carbon ribbon and striking paper.
Came to a certain point, I knew my Acer 4810T was "Lost". Euphemistically and plainly. Some facts are wonderfully simple in truth and you cannot argue any other way.
So, ensuring that my Acer W500 Iconia was good enough for me to use for my work assignment the following week (that was, last week) to Hiroshima, Japan, I brough the notebook down to Acer and abbreviated the whole experience: Blue Screen of Death when loading disc in player, and yes, upgraded to Windows 7 and system constantly "hangs".
So, finally I was doing my laundry out in the open, and it is all hung out for the fact. Windows? Why just hang out the laundry outside on the clothes line to dry, right? Yes, Windows does not work and all it does it drive you outside to hang yourself, after your system hangs, hangs, and stays, hung!
Now, I look at th Windows logo on the screen at start-up and marvel.

1. With all this crappy problems, why there can not be another company like Adobe to create a really simple and great OS to rival Windows and Office?
Answer (from Steve Jobs): Mac, dummy!

2. So why can't Mac work with Flash?
Answer (Jobless Steve): Darn, you can't trust them Adobe folks. Did you notice how your Adobe Reader 9.2.0 now does not launch or work after installing Windows 7? (Yeah, wow, that is so true!)

What is the lesson, three weeks later, and with an Acer 4810T Windows 7 upgraded personal computer that is whacky and wonky and really slower than when you ran Vista on it, and now can't even run some software, or install, or uninstall, or well, even run reliably?

LESSON: never get Upgrades. Buy exactly what you want, use it and then dump it. At this rate, the greatest waste of our time is really TIME and ENERGY to simply keep things running.

Finally I got the iPad (64GB 3G + Wi-Fi)

Finally, after fooling around with the idea, it landed right into my hands. It's really an oversized iPod Touch 64GB, but makes browsing easier. The problems with Safari (ignored by Apple) are the same - no Flash etc. but it would have been great to jailbreak it and run Windows Mobile 7 on it.

The Truth About My Spiritual Vocation, and of Purgatory

There is a popular myth among devout Catholics (mostly women volunteers doing church work) that if you are single, intelligent, devout to some extent, and interested in the church activities, you have a vocation as a priest or religious. These vocation hunters (vultures or some other predatory noun may be too unpleasant to use) think they are doing the Holy Spirit's good work as they rant about and gossip about one or another's sons or brothers, boyfriend or stranger they just met, and astutely believe they can smell when one has such a vocation or not. It is a mystery of contradictions that in the same breadth or a few conversations later, they could abrogate their earlier confession. Very Islamic theologically, and less Christian influence of sort.

The truth is that vocations being a very personal call from God to the individual is both pre-destined as well as the co-operative action of human free will. And even if one's soul received that grace of God's primitive voice harking into the depths of the human heart and mind, as if haunting the spirit of the person until one yields, there are just very few such pre-destined souls even in Scripture to speak of. Remember that the Psalmist is certain about the pre-destination of God's grace, but not of man's response.

The idea of finding's one voice (voce, Latin), and the real root of the word (vocare, to call, in Latin) harked to Jesus inference in the Gospels of labourers being called to the fields by the Lord of the harvest (Luke 10:2). I like to think that it is both voce and vocare, the call and the voice that seeks to respond.

One responds according to our humanity, whether this is strengthened by upbringing and fervour, or because one asks the question interiorly and then seeks out the answer. My own upbringing did not lack fervour, but it lacked emotional stability from familial strength. The relationships I witnessed from my earliest youth was that of estrangement in the family: an abusive father, a distressed mother, and brothers who for the most part abandoned any interest in their siblings. Certainly I found strength in personal independence, but there was always going to be a longing for dependence, the affirmation of friendship and acknowledgement of giftedness and ability.

Therefore, I was not to know then - but understand it much now with the clarity of hindsight - that these were instigated in my soul by God to draw me on a spiritual journey because of the errors and other failings that were to alay my path in the decades ahead. In that sense, I can appreciate the pre-destination of a higher power. I can imagine my life if I was brought up atheist, or Buddhist, for example, and of the sort of ideas which would have enveloped and shaped my approach to life and interaction with the world. I could not imagine the violence that would have precipitated, though.

I cannot say that my own disquietened soul benefitted in such a way that I was to be wholly peaceable and gentle; no, I think that my person was bred from some sort of violence at conception and throughout my own rearing, there was always abuse and physical violence. There was just a great deal of unresolved distress which permeated the environs; of course, that exists because of the denial by those involved in its creation in the first place, even to this day.

Therefore, the call I received was to a personal relationship with God in an intimate way, rather than those who's call was a gift of the grace of charity, where they could instinctively see Christ in the person of others as a reality, as Francis of Assisi, Ignatius of Loyola and Catherine Laboure, and all the saints did. I think anyone who receives this grace of charity is called to serve the Lord in a sacramental as well as missionary way, within the actual life of the Church. For me, it was like wearing the inside of the garment outside. I was called to love the Lord, in order that I would stay alive within the Church. I was called, to be saved.

Protestant Christians have completely misunderstood this particular difference in how the Lord called for labourers and the call for sinners to repentance and salvation. They defined incorrectly that the garment of salvation is the same garment of priesthood of the victim. The garments washed white by the blood of the Lamb is what we all professed Christians wear; the office of the apostles is not preached by any of the apostles as the good news per se. Instead, what was preached, was the message of salvation, not of priesthood, which is that of Christ, shared by these apostles by their appointment (laying of hands).

It is that presbyterian and espiscopalian office which I never had to aspire to, or feel it was to be worn by me as if destined by some divine order. It could have been a choice, but not one which instinctively I would be drawn to because of grace. Never for one moment in my life can I say that I see Christ in my neighbour with that sort of clarity the saints describe. Instead, I can say more easily when the face of that which is unspeakable makes its presence felt before me. (This is true for instance when a mentally unstable man appeared in front of the school chapel and as he cursed, I felt the need to hold fast to faith. I was 15 then. And as I flipped the Bible at the Chapel's entrance open, it fell on Jeremiah 31:33-34, and those words I read aloud where permanently imprinted on my mind.)

I find it inspiring to read of Mother Teresa of Calcutta who finds Jesus in those desolate and inconsolable, abandoned and in the nadir of life. To that end, the reflection of Catherine of Genoa's life as meditated on and preached by the Pope on 12 January 2011 makes particular sense to me: "We must never forget that the more we love God and remain constant in our prayers, the more we will truly manage to love those around us, because in each individual we will see the face of the Lord, Who loves without limit or distinction".   

This mystical awareness of purification of the soul on earth, as experienced by Catherine, expresses the very nature of my own relationship with the Divine Light. She did not see Purgatory "as a place of transit in the depths of the earth: it is not an exterior fire, but an interior fire". Speaking of her experience of Purgatory, Benedict XVI continued, "the soul is aware of God's immense love and perfect justice; as a consequence, it suffers for not having responded to that love perfectly, and it is precisely the love of God Himself which purifies the soul from the ravages of sin". 

I did not see Purgatory as a place where souls transit between death and heaven, or limbo as a place either, but a special state of awareness - not intellectual alone, but in spirit - where one senses the perfection of God's Love, and being aware of one's less than perfect state, experiences that Perfection erasing and polishing away the rusticles of imperfection, not just on the surface, but through the whole self.

Yet, in this life, those rusticles of sin grow back fast - especially in those imperfections of habit and associated with the deepest human needs and desires. It is as if the DNA of our spiritual selves have mutated as well. It will take much more than a dousing of love to heal such agonies.

Purgatory therefore was already something the spirit experiences when the soul is not affixed to God by consent and affection. I think the sick and dying experience that sort of purification, which sweetly is often accompanied by consolation at the final moments. In some cases, perhaps not, and one does not know the Divine Mind well enough to guess where such destinies lie.

So, I want the matter to rest. I never had a sense of my vocation being directed towards the professed life, or I would have proceeded out of my own will. Instead, the call I felt was that of God saving me from any despair a soul might feel if it was abandoned by its Lover. And as for the current trials in my own life, these are part of my own mystical joy too - knowing that only through the intensity of absence, and of spiritual trust, can I find the sweet assurance of Providence at work in my life.

I wanted my MBA, and got one!

There are a few things which persuade men to pursue their desire, and few things in this world can be as persuasive as new, sexy technology that works, at a price you can afford, and giving you a functional edge to perform what you want done with utmost simplicity.
I am talking about the MBA.
Not the NBA or NFA.
Just the Mac Book Air.
See what I mean?
I got one now and am using it to get this blog entry done. And I really don't care any more who reads this. The whole point is purely solipsistic. I have one. That is all I care.
It was like when I bought the iPhone in 2007 and virtually nobody had one. Every meeting room and conference meeting were hijacked because my iPhone was on the table, looking like a new born princeling.
Now, the phone-menon (get it?) is quite ubiquitous. Even the zanniest folks in town use it on trains, buses, and toilet queues! The Mac Book Air however is just quite something else.
It has the best of the iPad and everything which Apple learnt from creating both these iconic items. Then they created this new generation 11 and 13 inch Mac Book Air.
I have been a PC user ALL MY LIFE, until yesterday. I watched my brother Christopher work on his Sinclair, then his Apple, and the Mactintosh. I worked on the IBM made CPT Word Processor with its 8 inch diskettes,, and got on to the Epson Brother electronic WP typewriter, before buying my own series of desktops and everything which was DOS-PC OS based. Ever since.
I feigned the Mac would be purely inaccessible and difficult to master. Every Mac user I knew loved their experience so much they did not become evangelists as much as they wanted to be part of an exclusive cult. And for the longest time, we PC users were the boring office cubicle executive types while the Mac users were all in giddy open concept offices and dressed in smart casual.
At SITEX, I met Daniel, one of the sales persons at the epi Centre run booths. He was a PC user himself, and then graduated or evolved to Mac. In three minutes he taught me how to use the Mac Book Air. Now, I have absolutely no fear in using it and love it instead. There are just all these little clicks and tabs, and pull-down menus to discover and laugh at. The Mac, you see, is like all Windows based apps, and just made easier.
So, finally I have my MBA. I did not pay S$40,000 or S$15,000 for it. Just S$1488 plus a handful of accessories that subtracted S$600 from my bank account. But this tiny entry level 11 inch, 64GB machine is better than an iPAD any time, and works very well as a personal satellite laptop to my very cool and powerful Acer Aspire ONE.
Now, I feel like I have just gone inside the grid in TRON. Wham, wow!

The Town & The Social Network

The Town and The Social Network both did not disappoint. I watched both movies yesterday by accident. The reviews for both movies have been accurate and reflected the artistry of the makers, so for once, I have decided not to write my own review in my Urban Archaeologist blog. 
Instead, I decided to write my reflections about these movies, their themes and messages. (I must be really stressed out from preparing my next trips that I desperately need the distraction of doing this.)
It helped that creatively I liked the cast of The Town, and that bias made it easier for me to enjoy the story and plot development. I never knew before that Charlestown in Boston had notoriety of being the place where families literally handed down their criminal activities. It must be like farming! But I think most migrant peoples forming ethnic clusters will do that for survival and Asian triads and the Scilian mafia are not exceptions. So, what struck me about the film - apart from its wonderful Bonnie and Clyde/Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid exploits - were the acute pathological understanding the crime busters (Jon Hamm not quite as a mad man) have about these people. What do people do after a successful heist? Well, they might go out splurge and celebrate. It is such a basic human response. Yet, criminals have a knack of behaving in particular ways to escape detection, and you wonder if their emotional and social intelligence is heightened by their own pathology for crime.
Afterall, how many of us are comfortable breaking rules or the law. That does not mean that we may not be found contravening some rule or law, even in our everyday life and much of that depends on the repercussion or consequence. I suppose that after being comfortable with a yard, we might go for the mile? If that were true, we would all be murders and rapists over time. So it seems that there is a mental safety catch somewhere. I adored Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker and his character James in The Town reminds me of some people I know whose ability to exceed the imaginary boundary of ordinary is astounding. There is a built-in intensity whenever passions arise, and things are literally thrown out of whack. I cannot tell if it is a case of instinct (fight or flight) or pure adrenalin (and other substances) ruling (or ruining) the brain. But in the climatic shoot-out at the end of the film, the inevitable happens. "He who lives by the (gun), dies by the (gun)," to paraphrase the dictum. One can suspend belief in some parts of the film because by then you are so absorbed into the charm of the characters. I think that was what Ben Affleck succeeded so well in doing. He created these characters that you feel "live just around the block" and are too plainly familiar and not so roughnecked that you would avoid them. They could just be your neighbour. There is nothing horrifying about that, because their actions are committed in disguise, so you don't feel threatened directly. And for that reason, it became believable for a robber to fall in love with his former hostage, and vice versa. 


On that note, I need to turn my thoughts to The Social Network, because there is a certain veil as well as open window which one has when connected online. You can be both voyeur as well as exhibitionist, and by equal measure seduce others to believe in what you want them to.


Again, the reviews for this well-hyped film have been fair and well-disposed, thanks to a Sorkin script and fine cast. What struck me most was that which we knew for the most part. Even genius in youth may be great in creative work - in this case programming - but may be socially inept and awkward. You almost feel that to any level of genius has to include a necessary flaw. Needless to say, Jessie Eisenberg is much prettier (hence more tolerable to watch and listen) than the real Mark Zuckerberg. I could not put this on Facebook! Zuckerberg in real life is still very boyish and has a tendency to speak nasally, and with his nose up. I want to say it is a Jewish-thing, but I don't mean it derogatorily, so that's an unfair stereotype. But for all his smugness (hence the theme of being an asshole in the film, as it starts and ends with that remark), he is just a consummate lover of his art, which is much less about programming than about intuitively understanding how people communicate on a digital network. He is a true digital artist. Programming is just the alphabet.


As his friend Saverin says in the film, "Mark doesn't care about money. He needs to be protected." And whether it is true or not, it is Sean Parker that seems to devastatingly mercenary. You just have to read the "Info" on his Facebook account to understand what could be so right and so wrong in the same thing. It reminds me of the social etiquette among diplomatic circles where smiles and handshakes conceal everything, where they can put something on the agenda that spells goodwill but where the objective is exploitation and self-interest at the same time. There should be a name for this.


If you want to think the Justin Timberlake character is fake, well, go on and read all about what Parker says about himself, not the least that he calls himself a "anti-imperialist avenger". I wonder what he thinks about the Facebook empire and its adherents? I guess they all just feed his ego and income while he thinks we are all nothing but a city of suckers (ie. "zucker-berg").


There is not much difference between the cloak-and-dagger world of the Roman forum or the Greek agora. Today, we bleed differently maybe.


People are driven by their goals and usually blind-sided by these as well, unless we have the good fortune of having excellent conscience and strategists on our side, capable of achieving what one has set out to do. Why preach Six Sigma, KPIs and benchmarking if we all did not care about results. There is the situation which is recounted in many tales, where the persecutor holds the young child hostage and asks for information, which the child beguilingly reveals, leading to the capture of the prey. You get a sense of this when Sean Parker moves into Mark Zuckerberg's inner circle and deposes a relatively inept Saverin in the money-making expansionist scheme. Plainly because Parker has an intuitive mastery over the digital network of hearts and minds, spanning the very corporate entities he despises and the little artful infant companies he courts. 


It reminds me of a Polish intern in a former company of mine who was so utterly enamoured of the seductive words of  "respect and dignity" that he became an informant about the behaviour the corporate executive body. Arbitrarily, he would seek out information among the junior executives and be a snitch of sorts. Yet, a genius of sorts in doing this work (his family was in fact from a farm under the Soviet regime), he was completely without self-awareness in his own activities and the consequences being born out.


Similarly, among the juvenile executive ranks, there is as much ideal as there is passion and talent. Which minced together without supervision and guidance can be a potent and even virulent force, which is looks seductively impressive but is actually very volatile. The same executives who gripe about management around the water fountain (the new euphemism for Facebook) are giving irresponsible behaviour a new definition. The proof, when discriminating video or comments and material are posted online to embarrass or hurt others. Now that sort of behaviour has become so captivating that the liberal news mongers of today editorially indulge in the same tactic to get "sticky" with their audiences. Because we are led to believe that there is "prospective value" in the invisible and often deceptive milieu of communication with the masses.