Waiting For Tomorrow

When I wake up tomorrow, the world I know when I go to bed tonight will no longer exist. Worried? Don't be. It'll be a much better place.

Why the dramatic talk? Well, mark your calender folks as tomorrow, the 29th of June, will be commemorated in the books of history. This is the day that will make Alexander Graham Bell dance in his grave. This is the day telecommunication, as we know it, will change forever. This is the day that the Apple iPhone will be launched.

The new all touch-screen device is so technically advanced that it has been touted in the industry as the "Jesus phone". Why "Jesus phone", you ask? Maybe its because when you first try it, the only thing that comes out of your mouth would be "Oh my God!".

People have been waiting for this device to be launched since it was announced sometime last year.

Think it is all just hype? Then here are the bare facts.

• People have been reporting iPhone sightings regularly on the Internet. Check out some of these articles here, here and here. It is so big a deal that apparently, alien and UFO sightings are no longer popular. Sorry, Mulder and Scully.
  
  
• If you've been touched by the hand of God and have been blessed with an iPhone before the rest of the world, please do not flaunt it in public just yet. A man was purportedly mugged in Japan for carrying what appeared to be an iPhone. What makes this mugging really sad is that the iPhone is not even launched yet and Japan does not have a GSM network, so it might never be sold (or work) there.
  
  
• As you read this, there is a man who has been queueing at Apple's New York store since Monday, 25th June. He is aiming to be the first person to get his greasy, grubby hands on a sweet, svelte iPhone and considering he is 5 days early, he'll definitely be. I'm so jealous.
  
  
• If you're unlike McSweaty (Mac pun and Grey's Anatomy reference intended) and don't wish to queue for your very own out-of-this-world device, then let your money do the queueing for you. You can now pay someone who will stand in line, day and night, rain or shine, to get an iPhone for you. How's that for enterprising College students?

Still not convinced? Alright, time for me to bring out the big guns.

Sadly, no iPhone in sight for the poor gadget-hankering addicts in other parts of the world like yours truly. For now, it's back to drooling all over my keyboard while watching tech videos of the device and grinding my teeth while I sleep in anticipation of its arrival on our shores in 2008.

*sigh*

Update (29 June 07 12:40 am) : McSweaty is more of a celebrity than I thought. Click here!

Getting Back To Business

Sometime in February, I mentioned about a situation I was facing and promised to share more when I could. The time has come.

As you probably know, my father was a businessman and a teacher. He ran a private school here which he started from scratch in 1957, about 12 years before I was born. He started by renting a classroom from a Government school and with what little he had, bought one table, one chair and one typewriter. He taught typwriting to students, one at a time in two hour blocks. This went on daily from Monday to Saturday. Slowly, one typewriter became two and two became four. A few years later, he successfully ran a few schools where the student population reached thousands. His speciality? Commercial subjects.

He enjoyed his work as a teacher. Many students that came his way could not qualify or afford to further their education at the University. He taught them, class by class, and encouraged them to sit for examinations through prestigious examination bodies based in London. Many students did very well and this allowed them to apply for good jobs commanding high salaries. A few of these students who called me after hearing of my father's passing expressed their gratitude to him and the school he ran. I always knew that my father was a teacher but it is only after he died that I learnt how much of an impact he had made in his students' lives.

When my father passed away, I was a mess. The school was in no better shape than I was. This was because over the last 10 years, he didn't do much to upkeep or improve the school. Increased competition did not help, of course. The root cause was the loss of my mother, whom he originally taught at the school, fell in love with after, married and became his "business partner". Her death took quite a toll on him and this reflected in the poor performance of the business. A part of him died when my mother died. So did the school.

Before he died, my father expressed his desire for the school to continue to operate past his time. This was a tough call for me when he died. Having lost my father, saddled with a mountain of hospital bills and loans, my regular work as an Engineer and a baby on the way, the last thing I needed on my plate was a business that was hanging on a thread. So, I went in and fixed what I could to the best of my limited abilities and experience and handed it off to a distant relative of my father's, a young and enthusiastic fellow. While it pained me to give up something that was so dear and invaluable to my father, I was left with very little choice. Some nights in the darkness of my room, I'd just lay in bed thinking how I've severely disappointed my father.

In February this year, I was called in to help with this very relative's employment renewal and upon probing into the status of the school, I found that it was in trouble. This was contrary to what he was constantly portraying to me. Finances were a mess, the workflow I put in place was not adhered to and the school was slowly sinking into the red. When I handed the school to him, I hoped he would look after it like his own (considering he initially tearfully begged me for a job there) and get things off the ground. Sadly, nothing was done and he ran it like an employee without a boss. My father's years of sweat and blood was sinking deeper and deeper. To make matters worse, my wife, who was helping me tidy up the accounts recently, found that he had been borrowing business funds for his personal use when he found money was tight for him! I had enough!

As of 1 June, I have reprised my role as Managing Director of the school, just the way my father wanted it to be. I am slowly putting things back to order and am in the midst of revamping the business. It is a very long and tiring process where I am constantly banging my head against the proverbial brick wall. But I hope that my father, wherever he may be, will guide my hand in bringing his business back from the brink to what it was reminiscent of in the old days.

This year, the school celebrates its 50th anniversary. I wish my father were here to celebrate it with me. I know I can never have this wish granted so I now ask to be blessed with the strength and determination to keep it going successfully for 50 years more.

My apologies for the lengthy post. Wish me luck.

First Daddy's Day

I celebrated my first Father's Day yesterday.

It was bitter-sweet for me. Firstly, I still find it hard to believe that the young and mostly irresponsible fella has not only aged but become a Father. Getting old is one thing but to be a Daddy to a 10 month old boy is overwhelming, to say the least. There are many days when I feel that I've failed him miserably as a Daddy when work and other projects take up so much of my time. But what makes me feel terrible is that my little boy is so eager to forgive my neglect. His toothless smile and his casual "hey" (not sure where he picked that up) whenever he sees me says it all. To see those two reactions mean the world to me.

Yesterday, I also remembered when I celebrated Father's Day as a son. Two Father's Days have gone by since I lost my own Dad. I remember the days leading up to Father's Day where he'd remind me not to spend money unnecessarily. Not that he was reminding me about Father's Day (he knew I wouldn't forget) but he really didn't like the idea of money not spent wisely. I remember the usual warning he'd deliver. He'd say sternly "Don't go out and spend money on another watch!" Considering the number of watches I've bought him over the years, I think it was justified.

Guess what I got as a Father's Day gift from my wife and little boy?? A watch! (see picture)

Wherever my Dad is now, I'll bet he was laughing!

Happy Father's Day to all Dads out there.

Day At The Spa

Since my wife was at work and I had a few hours to kill today before heading to the office myself, I decided to bring my special girl to the spa for a little tender loving care.

Thought I'd take some shots of her getting pampered to share with everyone.

Here she is when we arrived at the spa at 2 pm. Since there were two other hotties getting the full spa treatment, she had to wait a little.

Finally, its her turn. Her "therapist" brings her into the shower area for a gentle bath in preparation for her "skin" treatment.

Here she is, getting hosed down. She's having a great time!

She's getting the spa special - a special soap and clay bar treatment. The clay bar is used with soap to get rid of "skin" blemishes.

She then goes behind the scene (no cameras allowed) to get her manicure, pedicure, a massage and the works. Ok, cameras are allowed but I went shopping at a nearby toy store instead. ;)

When I got back, she was all dolled up, like an elegant lady in black, waiting patiently for me to take her for a night on the town to be admired. Isn't she gorgeous?

Its a pity I could only take her to work. Oh well, guys there oogle at her too and I think she likes the attention.

Have a good weekend, all!

Customer Service Kudos

Customer Service Officers are unsung heroes of many organisations, large and small.

Being a Supervisor for my company's Information Technology Helpdesk, I know how my staff are sometimes verbally abused for faults and problems that are just part and parcel of high-technology. If something malfunctions, callers would insist that it be fixed immediately, as though we were bored out of our minds and decided to take down the system just for fun.

People forget that it takes time to troubleshoot and fix problems. Has anyone who was ill gone to see a doctor and insisted on being cured immediately? I digress.

Last Saturday, as a result of losing her phone, my wife and I headed down to our mobile service provider to shop for a new phone. While she was browsing for a suitable replacement for her lost Treo 650, I was observing people, as I often do. No, not oogling - just observing.

While at the counter waiting for a representative to check on the availibility of a phone my wife had picked out (ok ok, I convinced her to buy!), a Customer Service Officer was busy greeting people, asking them how she could help and taking an appropriate queue number for them if she couldn't. Here's one conversation that irked me.

Customer Service Officer : Good afternoon sir, how may I help you today?

Male Customer (irritated) : Its a long story! Can you help me? If you can, I'll tell you the whole story. If you can't, I'm not going to waste my time. Just give me a queue number and let me speak to someone who can actually help.

Customer Service Officer (crestfallen) : Here's a queue number, sir.

I fumed at the attitude the CSO had to deal with. Then came this lady....

Customer Service Officer : Good afternoon ma'am, how may I help you today?

Lady Customer (in one breath) : I have a Blackberry but my Blackberry doesn't work now. I have taken my Blackberry to the Blackberry service centre but the people at Blackberry said that they could repair my Blackberry. So, I have come to buy a new Blackberry.

Customer Service Officer (with a straight face) : Here's a queue number, ma'am.

Premster : *giggling*

I know for a fact that I could never do the job of a Customer Service Officer based on my lousy temper and my practically non-existent tolerance for nonsense.

So, to all the people who have to go to their Customer Service jobs daily and have to deal with such people, I take my hat off to you.

Lost Treo

My wife, who has been using my Treo 650 for about six months now, lost it last Friday. She had left it on her office desk and went to attend to some work and when she remembered it a few hours later, it was gone. Although it didn't really bother me that it was lost, what I found odd was that it was stolen while in a high-security Government building! How's that for irony?

Anyway, my wife was quite shaken by the thought of losing the device, one that she had grown to appreciate. She was close to tears when she called to tell me about it. I can't say I wasn't sad to hear that it was missing but these things happen. According to what I've heard, Singapore has one of the highest rate of handphones being lost or stolen. The best part is, the Inforcomm Development Authority Of Singapore (IDA) - our regulatory body for information communication and data technology - indirectly and unwittingly "supports" such theft by not assisting victims to disable stolen phones via the IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) number, citing high cost and network delays as a result of such traces. So, the perpetrator gets away scot-free.

In countries like Malaysia and in the UK, systems to disable phones via IMEI numbers are available to all mobile subscribers and this helps curb handphone theft as once an IMEI number has been red-flagged in the "lost" database, the phone is rendered useless to anyone who has it. Here's a story of how blocking IMEIs can help reduce handphone theft. I find it sad, not to mention disgraceful, that a technologically advanced country such as ours is unable to have such a system in place.

For now, I've lodged a police report and hope that they will check with the service providers against the IMEI number of my missing Treo 650. If they find the culprit, I will ensure that he / she will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

For all mobile phone users out there, please ensure you have your IMEI number recorded and kept. Your service provider might be able to help track down your phone in the event it is lost or stolen. And even if it is not recovered, you'll be able to sleep better knowing that whoever took your phone will never be able to use it at all.

Burning Bridges

Lately, I've been burning bridges. No, I've not given up my day job to become an arsonist.

In the recent years, I've come to realise that family is over-rated. I've come to realise that the people who I've grown up with and trusted with my life have their own agendas and they'll happily sacrifice me for them. I've come to realise that while I have gone out of my way to help my family throughout the years, they've treated me as an inconvenience they have to live with. As a relative put it to me a few days before my mother passed away, some twelve years ago at the waiting area of a hospital's emergency unit where my mother was taken to, "I am not sure what our relationship will be if your mother is no longer around". I think that said it all.

To be an integral member of the family, the laws are as follows. Please note that the term "elders" has no reference to people of wisdom or integrity - just older people in a family.

(1) You must not and cannot have an opinion of your own. If you chose to have an opinion, especially one that goes against an "elder", you stand alone. Only nephews and neices who are willing to sacrifice their spines and agree to whatever is dished out by the "elders" are valued.

(2) Be humble and realise that someone else's problem is always bigger than yours. If you say you're facing difficulty, someone else in the family is facing an even more difficult situation than you are - for sure. If you're having a headache, someone else has a migrane. If you have a migrane, someone else will have a brain tumor. The same goes for flu, cough, joint pain or any other ailment.

(3) Learn to drop as many names as possible. "I know xxxxx" where xxxxx is the name of a celebrity / politician / journalist / famous doctor /etc. Whoever knows the most people in these categories or is higher up in the social heirarchy carries the most weight. A variant of Rule (2) applies. Eg. "I know Tom Cruise." Response? "Really? I know Nicole Kidman." or "I know Tom Cruise's father." Tip : You don't really have to know them. Just say you do.

(4) Be prepared to take sides when the "elders" quarrel. If A and B quarrel and you take a neutral stand when approached by A, then you're deemed to be on B's side. The reverse is most certainly true. So pick a side or one will automatically be assigned for you against your will.

(5) A backstabs B. B comes to C for sympathy. B later forgives A under the now infamous "I forgive everyone" / "I am holier than thou" policy. When A backstabs C and C goes to B for sympathy, B will get "A would never do that". Forgivness and amnesia - the perfect combination.

(6) If something bad happens to A, A will say he / she is cursed or given the evil eye. If something bad happens to B and you ask A if B is the victim of a curse, A will say that there is no such thing as being cursed.

(7) Law (6) does not apply if A and B are closely related, eg. parent (A) and child (B) or husband (A) and wife (B). In this case, if B is doing well, A will say it is because of hard work, intelligence, etc. If B fails in life, A will declare it the work of the evil eye.

(8) When confronted head on with unfavourable glaring facts, the normal and expected response is "I'm very sick", "I'm dying" or "I'll kill myself". You couldn't squeeze more drama out of a Steven Speilberg, George Lucas, Quentin Tarantino, John Woo and Jerry Bruckheimer joint-collaboration movie.

(9) "Don't tell anyone I told you" or "Just between you and me" are common phrases used to indicate that something is told to you in confidence. It'll make you feel special like you're the only one that can be trusted with this information. Little do you know that you're the last to hear about it.

(10) If you're ill and / or hospitalised, the heroic and selfless thing to do is not to tell anyone except immediate family. This will eventually result in a "Just between you and me" call a day later. See Law (9) for more information.

(11) You have to acknowledge that dreams are the way our dearly departed communicate and convey messages to the family. The family has a number of official conduits but oddly, the message received through different conduits from the same departed differ vastly on the same issue. I guess all that Heaven-Earth travelling can take a toll on a departed's opinion.

(12) If you are not officially ("officially" being the operative word) invited to a family event / celebration, that is if you've been informed about it personally but no invitation card has been given to you or the red carpet has not been rolled out for you, kick up the biggest fuss in the history of mankind to make your point and then threaten never to be part of any family celebration even if the red carpet was rolled out for you in future. No family event or celebration is complete without a huge blow up.

All these years, I tried my best to deal with these family laws. But alas, I've come to realise that I am unable to meet their extremely high standards. And while it pains me to have to distance myself from them, I am left with no choice - for the sake of my peace of mind and sanity. Life is hard enough without having to adhere to the 12 laws.

So, bridges have sadly been burnt. Better I burn them now while I am safely on the other side instead of the bridge being burnt while I'm on it.

No Turning Back

Its been almost a month since I've come by to deposit my thoughts and considering I have a little time and sanity today, I thought I'd dust off the ol' keyboard and offload some of the things that have been bugging me.

I always thought I made good decisions in life. Be it something as trivial as buying the next amazing tech gadget or something as life altering as a career move. Lately, I've come to doubt myself in making these decisions.

For example, when I was 24 and just graduated with a Diploma in Electronics and Computer Engineering, I had a choice of one of two paths. The first was one that I dreamed of walking down and being on for the rest of my life - being a radio presenter / deejay. I had the voice (back then, of course), the knowledge and love for music and the lack of fear of the hundreds of buttons, slide controls and flashing lights in a studio. The other, a less glamorous life of being a Computer Engineer.

I grit my teeth and chose the latter for a couple of reasons, mainly because of my father's advice to his playful only son. He said "If you're as good a deejay as you say you are, you can always return to it at any time. But if you leave Engineering now after just graduating, you will find it difficult to get back into it." With all the technical advancements happening around us so quickly, his words were spot on.

Although I don't regret my decision even though I wish I were more excited about my work, lately I've been asking myself "What if I had chosen to join the radio station?" Fame? Riches? Get booted off the air for saying something inappropriate? I don't know and never will. Why? Even if I chose to leave Engineering for good and head back into the deejaying arena, no one in their right frame of mind will employ a pudgy and balding 37 year old jock who's voice is starting to sound a little raspy.

My point is, we often come to a crossroad in life and any of the paths we chose to take is most frequently not paved with U-turn signs. So, when we embark down that road and find that it is not really suited for us, there's no turning back.

Why the topic? I have been re-evaluating my choices in life and wonder if I've made mistakes along the way. Sadly, a lot of these have ended up with "yes" answers and there's no turning back now. I'll share more of these in upcoming posts.

As I always say when I reappear after vanishing for awhile, The Premster is back. But the outlook is gloomy.