Malaysian roads

I recently went home to Malaysia (Petaling Jaya to be more precise) to escape from Singapore for the National Day holidays. So this posting is about the state of the roads in Petaling Jaya.

I managed to drive AKK's car around PJ for the 4 days that I was home. Good car I had in my hands, but the roads were horrendous.

I encountered pot holes - the pot hole that I knew about 20 years ago was still there. I don't know if the hole had been repaired or filled, but it was there when I drove past it this time.

Bad road repairs were also everywhere. These would be uneven repairs where the holes were patched over but the whole length of the road was not re-done. So I would be driving along the road and see some black patch and then drive along and see another black patch some 50 metres down the road. Sigh! Could the authorities just re-pave the whole road nicely so that it would be smooth to drive on?

Road humps were everywhere - on all the little roads. Some humps had markings of yellow stripes. Others had road signs that showed HUMP. Other humps were just lumps on the road. Near where we live, there was a hump across only half the road!! So all the motorists will drive on the other side of the road where there's no hump - duh!! how very intelligent right?

I told V to do a good deed - splash paint on all the unmarked humps. She asked me what defence she should give in the event that she was arrested for vandalising road humps. I told her: good citizen doing good deed to mark out bad parts of the road!!

It is very sad that there is Sepang for the Grand Prix races and the North-South Highway is of some standard but the other roads are just BAD, BAD, BAD!!

There are no pavements for people to walk along. Most people will have to walk on the grass verge and dodge the cars that come at them. There are no trees to provide shade either. Sigh! No wonder people are just driving to add to the traffic congestion around Malaysia.

I think that the municipal council or whichever department is responsible for the roads should be held accountable for the monies that they put aside presumable for road maintenance. There should be a public investigation into the funds gone missing.

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Olympic Fever

I guess I should say something about the Olympics in China since it started on 8 August 2008.

What can I say - I am not interested. When the opening ceremony started on 8 August 2008 at 8:08 pm, I wasn't paying attention. I was too busy at a birthday party for my mum. Some guests were glued to the television set. Other guests were too busy socialising and touching base with each other.

Since the Olympics started 8 days ago, I don't think I caught any action on the telly. The last time I really spent any time watching the Olympics on TV and saw something worth noting was when some Russian girl got a perfect score for gymastics. But I don't think that event was even broadcast live or anything like that - it was just the usual daily report.

No time and no interest these days - I would rather spend time with my dogs and cats.

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Office Mess

OK now that we have finished the renovations and the electricity is in, the air-conditioners are working, the lights have stopped flickering and the telephone system installed, we can all heave a sigh of relief and settle to work somewhat.

Anyway I am the only girl in the office and I get a room!! All this for my squatter's rights in this office too - I am amazed. In truth, the creative person J said: Carol makes so much noise that we need to confine her in a room to get some silence! ;-p

In reality, I am doing a lot of work in this place and the stuff that I handle is marked "private and confidential". Let's see - clients' contracts, accounting records, HR records, sacking letters, bank statements and all the stuff that they consider P&C they have decided to throw into my squatter's room.

Last week, we were still struggling away with incomplete renovations (of sorts!) when I went away on Thursday. When I came back on Tuesday, there was stuff in my room.

Yesterday, I sorted the position of that wonderful HP Laserjet 3390 (a gift from Hewlett Packard to me) so that it would work as the network machine that it is supposed to.

Today I decided to sort out some of the other mess in my room.

I want the telephones on the right of the table, but there is no telephone point there - so I had to get a 15m extension and run it from the other corner . Then there is VOIP telephone and it has to be in the same position. So to get all these in place, I now have some spaghetti junction behind my laptop.

First we have the power extension cable coming from the hole in the table. From there we run the power for my laptop, my VOIP phone power and cable, the HP power cable and my mobile phone charger. From the router to VOIP phone box, there is a LAN cable and from there an extension out to provide internet access to my laptop. What a mess, but it gets my office working somehow.

I want a light from in front of me to light my work area and will bring a light from home. The light stand will come out from the hole in the table for all the cables. It will look strange - I don't care because it will solve my light problems.

HH and I have agreed that a trip to Ikea is necessary to buy the cable organizer snake so that we don't have such a spaghetti junction mess to create stress and make the place took tidier.

I guess this will keep me going for a while more before I start clearing up again.

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Office Moving II

We finally finished the whole office move which started on 28 July. The saga ended today when the electricity was connected.

First, I must say that the different contractors drove me nuts with their lack of safety conciousnes - these are the guys who did the renovations. Let's start with the electricians - no safety boots. Then the partition guys - no safety boots. The air-con guys - no safety boots and no safety belts. You think about the safety issues - they never bothered.

So whenever I came to do site inspection in my Ferragamo shod feet, I would be asking them: WHERE ARE YOUR SAFETY BOOTS??? Then I would get the excuse about it being uncomfortable or not necessary or whatever bloody stupid excuse they would conjure up.

Then I will tell them in my horrible atrocious Chinese, Hokkien or whatever they understood that I don't care how "the bloody excuse you give", you will have to wear your safety boots.

Our main contractor told me that had terrorised the men for not wearing their safety boots. I told him that we don't have insurance to cover all their bloody accidents, and I would prefer to have a ZERO accident worksite.

Last week, when we moved - all the stuff was everywhere. On Saturday, we went back to the office and cleared the office area of all the boxes into the green screen room as a holding area so that we could set up the office with the desks and whatever furniture.

Yesterday we cleaned and mopped the floor, wiped the dust off all the furniture. Then we set up the desks and arrange whatever else that needed to be done.

The best part was that there was no electricity, no internet, no telephone, no air-conditioning, no lights - NOTHING!!! We were working with one long extension cord taken from the common power supply outside used for the renovation works. We managed to put in a large blower fan and work without lights. BUT - I HAD IT GOOD!! I had my reliable M1 broadband internet connection to keep me going. I wasn't going to share that connection with anybody - yeah selfish I know, but I don't care - it's for keeping me happy!!!

Today, to my great relief the electricity meter got connected, the aircons tested, the lights installed, the internet connected - and we are in business from tomorrow!!!

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