Homecoming

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I have not had the time nor the opportunity to update this site over the last 2 months and this will come as something really new - I am transferred back to Malaysia. After 1 year, 9 months and 2 days. That is about a year short than the "usual" 3 years but then there never was a rigid time where one is expected to be in one place. Three years is a nice period to get oneself used to. No, I did not screw up. I probably pissed off some people but that has been known to happen everywhere I go. Everywhere everyone goes for that matter.

Today is my last day here. Over the last one week it has been a blur of farewells at homes, restaurants and a disco. Only once at a disco. Even then it was a restaurant with a disco next to it. It was too good a chance to miss. I was running out of time :

"Oh, sorry, if you did not invite me over during the past 21 months, it's a bit too late now, my diary is full."

Heh heh heh...... I could be cruel at times.....

Sometimes I just feel like staying at home and take a rest. Tonight, a posse of them will come over at my house to cook and just chill out before sending me to the airpotrt,

"I'm not going to cook, you guys, I want to pack and be sentimentol (not a typo), so if you want to be at my house and cook and stay out of my way."

I am going to miss this place. I thought I would not say that but I will miss it. There are 2 things I will miss more than any other - my allowance and the ladies here!!!

Sofia has already booked me to pick her up from school the day I am home. Nazzim has made me promise that I will take him to Friday solat every week. It'll be good to be home. To be with the most important people in the world to me.

I'm gonna be home.

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Holy Express

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Two minutes forty-five seconds, that was how long the khutbah Jumaat lasted last week. The previous week was two minutes and fifty-three seconds.

We tried out a new masjid nearer to the office over the last month or so, just for a change. The khutbahs at the old masjid were short, but not that short. When we started at this new masjid, we thought it was kinda short. Really short.

Tapi khutbah dia cukup syarat2 dialah. Ada ayat suci al-Quran, ada semua adalah, he he he…. Amende semua tu gua pun lupa dah, tu masa belajar sekolah menengah kut. That was a long time ago, when T-Rex was roaming the plains.

I remember thinking that the khutbahs are a bit short when we first went there. I timed it last week and true enough, it was as I said, two minutes and forty five seconds….. pendek tu…. Yusz told me he timed it the previous week and it was only eight seconds longer.

Musa, one of the guys who reported for duty a few days before we went to the new masjid thought that they were telling us to shut our traps and listen while the khatib is delivering the khutbah, you know, the usual when they said something like “Janganlah kamu berkata-kata semasa khatib sedang membaca khutbah etc. etc. etc…….. maka sia-sia pahala Jumaat kamu.“

“Eh, dah abis dah? Eh, dah sembahyang dah ke? Aku ingat dia suruh kita diam masa khatib baca khutbah tadi. Dah sembahyang ke?”, he went.

“Wei dah start lah, orang nak rukuk dah tu…”

Someone told me dia orang sini Mazhab Hanbali. OK lah tu. Janji gi solat Jumaat kan?

Kalau back home, kalau imam tengah baca khutbah boleh jalan macam itik pulang petang lagi. Kalau sini, imam baca khutbah, get your ass into the masjid as soon as possible because you have about two minutes to do so!!!!

Been hard updating this blog. Can’t access it most of the time here.

Well, at least I found a new drug.

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Starry Starry Night Too

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I am into that song by Don McLean now. I rediscovered it recently and I usually listen to it just before I go to bed. I'd be lying in the dark or staring out the window, looking at the lights of the town.

I have always been slow in knowing the latest hits. Sofia, on the other hand, is usually very very up to date on thelatest songs or trends, especially for teenagers like her. Me, a song would have entered the charts, made it up to number one, stay there for a while, worked its way down, gets booted out of the charts and I'd probably "discover" it two years later. And in the process I'd managed to miss out on 90% on the other good songs.

I bought myself a docking station for my iPod recently and now, while I cook, eat, do the laundry or just putter around the house, the air would be filled with Malay, English, Hindi, Japanese or Russian songs. Seventy-four songs under "Favourites".

Went to another local wedding recently. As usual, my boss was not around and I had to give the usual speech for the office crowd that showed up. It goes like this - someone, there's always someone with a microphone, and he'd start to jabber things that I could not understand and soon they'd get to the name of the company and my name and all of us would have to stand up in front of the love birds and I'd have to say something to wish them happy long wealthy healthy life with many children etc etc etc. I think I am beginning to be good at this stuff. I'd just include our "bahagia ke anak cucu" stuff, some don't shout at each other unless the house is on fire stuff and more happiness is each other stuff etc. Etc etc. Etc etc etc etc.

This year, in November, it would be twenty years since I married Lina. Twenty years. Twenty years. I'll take another two of those please.

An afterthought.... me below outside the house in Copenhagen that Hans Christian Andersen used to stay in. Uummmhhhh... I smell gingerbread biscuits...



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Offshore in the Cold

Some of the cosmonauts, heh heh, would like to remain anonymous, Zaki, Me, Amin and Azlan lah, heh heh heh.... You can see all three legs of the jack-up rig and the derrick in the background.

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One fine weekend recently saw me taking a flight to our supply base and the local airport for the trip offshore during this time of the year. This time of the year is not good to go offshore - because of the cold weather, we have to put on immersion suits. I hate immersion suits. You know, immersion suits, suits that prevent you from dying in the freezing water, because in water below or near the freezing point, humans have this bad habit of staying alive for only three or four minutes. I guess the suits adds another hour or so. Or maybe two.

Putting on the suit is a saga by itself. First the left leg goes in. Check for the head cover in the compartment on the suit's left leg. Then the right leg. Check for the gloves in the compartment on the suit's right leg. The suit's legs end in socks like thingys at the end of each leg. Then the hands go in and each suit's arms end in thick elastic bands which grips the wrists. Then the head goes in through the elastic band and this band was meant to grip the neck. Then you zip it up, and the zip goes from the left of your waist up to your right shoulder. Heavy, water proof, industrial zip that leaves you grunting and puffing. Then you squat down while holding the elastic at the neck open to expel air from within the suit. Then you put on the life vest, taking care not to put it inside out or upside down. Only then you put on your shoes, hoping that there is enough space to accomodate the additional socks like thingys that comes with the suit.

Then, when you have reached your destination, you have to take the darned thing off.

I need a new drug....

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The Cookerers

Some head scratching with regards to the saga facing Aziz and Syamsul.

Three, not one but three pots of curry!!!

Syamsul, Mior and Aziz doing what we do best - being confused together!!

What was to become the most mouth-watering dish this side of the Ussuri River, the beef, the cili bo, the potatoes, the everything lah!

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A few weeks ago, some company VIP’s were on their way to our location. As usual, detailed preparations were made to receive them. Accommodations, transport, meetings, things to do, some sight seeing, maybe some shopping and meals.

Meals. Anyone who has travelled long distance must agree that after the check-ins, the infernal plane ride, the inflight meals, the customs, the immigrations, the crowds, the delays, the transits, the queues and not to mention prayers said for checked-in luggage, finding familiar food in an unfamiliar place is a heart-warming experience.

With that in mind, some of us set out to provide some genuine 24-carat Malaysian food. We didn’t want to bother some of the spouses as they have been good at periodically feeding us bachelors (many holding that status in-country only). We tried to get the cook from the camp but it was too late in the day. Zairul was already going bonkers thinking about it, as he was tasked to make sure some sort of Malaysian food was available for our guests. That Friday, in our Bangla van on the way to lunch and solat Jumaat, after hearing Zairul ‘s laments, I had to say,

“Aziz, kita masak kari daging for them nak?”

And Aziz had to agree,

“Boleh jugak…”

Alamaaaakk.... Aziz had to agree with me pulak..... How I wish I had bitten my tongue then. We didn’t know what we had gotten ourselves into. Must be the lack of oxygen in the van, but all the same we set out who is to do what and where. My apartment was picked as place to do the cooking. Aziz and Mior were to buy the beef and whatever else is needed. Wan Shariff volunteered his valuable cache of santan. He didn’t show up but we got the santan from Syamsul, our IT guy on assignment from KL, who showed up and volunteered his neck, adding another hand in addition to Mior and Aziz and Azam. Someone offered a pint of blood, another, his right arm. We then voted to secure Azam’s wife as our consultant. Victory was in the air. We could smell it.

That night, we worked our way through 6 kgs beef, 4 kgs of potaoes. 2 kgs onions. 2 kgs of onions!!!??? One and a half bottles of cooking oil. One and a half bottles of cooking oil!!!??? I never thought we'd need that much onions and cooking oil!

Azam’s wife asked us,

“Halia ada?” “Serai ada?” “Halba ada?” “Daun kari ada?”

“Tak ada.” “Tak ada.” “Tak ada.” “Tak ada.”

“Tak apa, saya ada….”

Talk about a knight in shining armour. Well, maybe a Joan of Arc this particular instance.

Laut dalam nak dijangkau dengan perahu bocor…. Ciiiiissss. Apa punya kari lah yang nak dimasak kalau tak ada halia, serai, halba and of course, daun kari? Well, coffee has been brewed from the soot from a wok’s bottom….. At least in P. Ramlee's movies it had been done.

We started out with a big pot to fit all 6 kgs of the beef, oil, curry, potatoes, santan and everything in between. Then we found out that the pot was too big for the convection stove that I have. We split the concoction into three and went on happily playing the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. At one point Mior had a senduk in each hand stirring all three pots. Cinderella’s step-mother would have been proud.

We ended up crawling into our beds at 1.30 am. Later we heard that our visitors and our bosses ate nothing else but our beef curry. Siap ada yang tapau lagi. Siap ada yang simpan dalam freezer and makan the next weekend lagi. Sejuk rasanya hati ni.... Tak sia-sia ibu mengandung.

Good thing I did not bite my tongue. I wonder if Maxim of Paris is hiring…

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Can or Cannot

My new dig from behind my desk. The discussion table, my vital green tea mug (never say coffee or the good doctor will punish me), my biscuit tin (over the months everything from kuih raya to local biscuits have been in there) and my monitor can be seen. The blinds behind the table is hiding a very busy main road across a parking lot.

From behind the discussion table. Photos of the family behind me. Years ago Sofia asked me if I have her picture at the office. Yes I do, my dear, of your Mama, Along and you. They are now putting a dark tint plastic layer on the glass to the left of the photo, behind the blinds, that is why it is in a mess, it is still unfinished. The desk should be more to the left, pretty much against the blinds. I need a coat hanger - my jacket, which is partly visible as a dark triangle on the right of the photo, is hanging on a pool cue.

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Because of the wall of fire @ firewall at the office, I have not been able to update my blog but lo and behold, today can one.....

Many things have happened since I last wrote. I moved into my new office from my temporary new office at the new building. I got a "corner lot", with glass on two sides but that comes with a setback - the morning sun is too bright (even though it's cold outside) that I have to resort to covering one side of the glass walls with black cardboard paper. That is my to do list. A room about 4 times the size of the previous one, a big desk and cabinets to put all my stuff on and in and a big table with 4 chairs. Plus the 2 chairs in front of my desk and my own chair, that makes 7 sit-downs and I could hold meetings/discussions/pow wows here all the time. Done that. Things could be good at times. Gawd..... this here new office building is mucho mucho mucho better than the old one......

The weather has been playing the bloody fool with us. Only snowed twice so far but so thin. Like none at all. It's kinda of chilly in the morning and it gets to about cool by noon and late afternoon. But then just like an ice cream, when you think that you have it licked, it drips all over you. Bring warm clothing whenever you go out. The last thing you need is to be caught outside with no warm clothing. It freeze severy part of your body, especially that. Of course it's the fingers or nose or ears, what did you think I was implying?

Spoke with Lina daily and Nazzim is home for the Chinese New Year. the house is nearly full again. Nearly. From my daily pow wows with Da Boss, I'd probably get a trip home come 20 February. Do I dare to ask for 10 days worth of leave (which translates to a 2-week period at home)? It depends if he is here or otherwise. Ah well, nicer things have happened and it could happen too you know?

Many happenings here, a few maybe worth writing about. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. That will be about Sofia and that school in Seremban, yes, that all girls school in Seremban and the night me and my posse cooked beef curry for a bunch of VIP's who came here when we simply had to have some Malaysian food for them. That might be good.

Like I said, hope I can access this here place and update this here place once in a wee while. Later world.....

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Hotdog Poser

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Believe it or not, I cooked fried rice before going to work this morning. Before pergi kerja tu, biasa nak minum air pun tak sempat. Complete with vegetables, ikan bilis, eggs and a frankfurter, not any ordinary piece of hotdog but the tasty, spicy one. Yummy. For three people lagi!!! Ni malam tadi punya ceritalah ni. Pak Lah datang from the training centre, ate at my house but we overestimated the amount of rice that we three would lantak and we got left over with a mountain of rice.

"Ni nasi goreng besok sedap ni.......", adalah wise guy cakap.

So kenalah goreng nasi. I guess when I went to bed last night, I must have been like that donut man - "have to masak nasi goreng pagi besok, have to masak nasi goreng besok, have to...."

The next morning, got up, took out all the things from the fridge, the cabinets. Sliced the onions, the frankfurter and the kobis. Warm up the magic wok, in the meantime had a cuppa of old town white coffee (I am not supposed to drink coffee but once a day against seven or eight times a day previously should be OK ain't it?), heat up the oil, the perencah and etc. etc. etc. and of course after my Yul Bryner, a wokful of fried rice ala dudae simboyo. Spoon licking good. Done with the cooking, while waiting for the rice to cool down a bit, rushed into the shower (masa tu dah berus gigi, OK?) and showered. I got dressed, warmly lah, sojuk now OK? I scooped the nasi goreng up into three tupperwares. One for me, one for Pak lah and one for Aziz. Gave one to Pak Lah ("I biasa tak breakfastlah...") - jangan ngada2, (Oh, tapi pukul 9 or 10 I makanlah) and carried the remaining two to the office.

After the morning operations meeting, before the risk management meeting, makan punya makan, I noticed that I only got two pieces of the spicy, yummy frankfurter, maybe the size of a 20 sen coin. Ini tak adil, aku tipu.....

I called Pak Lah, "Pak Lah, nasi you banyak tak daging dia?"

"Banyak, I pun heran kenapa banyak sangat...."

Makan jambu, tak guna betul. Ceduk punya ceduk pagi tadi, punyalah nak cepat, ada tupperware dapat banyak daging, ada dapat tak ada daging.......

Ciiissss.....

I need some more daging spicy sedap.....

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Just Another Day

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It has started to snow today, the first snow this year. The weather is so unpredictable. It would be cold for a few days and then it would heat up again.

It was a typical weekend day for me. I went out for dinner last night, then for a few drinks with some of the guys and I arrived home just after 1 am. The book I am reading now kept me awake until about 2.30 am before I decided that I’d better sleep lest I’d waste away the daylight hours today. I woke up at 8 am for solat subuh, the sun does not come up until 8.22 am, went back to sleep and woke up again at 11 am famished. I cooked some rice and Lina’s ikan bilis goreng berlada never tasted so good.

While eating, I got a call about an accident offshore and we have to evacuate someone from the rig. There goes our statistics this year. I just needed to know that the injury was not life threatening – and it wasn’t, ten stitches and some bumps and bruises. Made sure all who needs to know does know about it and went about setting up the investigation team. They’ll go today – a holiday here (Memorial Day) and too bad it will screw up someone’s weekend. I knew that when I saw the drilling manager’s name on the call ID, it wasn’t going to be good news. Not at noon. If it is a few hours before noon, it could be an invitation to lunch. Had it been a few hours before dark, it could be an invitation to dinner but not during lunch time and dinner time. Which means, I have to eat my own cooking!!

Spoke with Lina as usual whenever I am in the office. What else, about the childrenlah. And oh, my niece Aina delivered her first child, a daughter on Hari Asyura. That is my sixth grand niece/nephew. She’ll be sharing her birthday with Sofia, who was born on that day too. Nazzim was born on Awal Muharram. I have to find out what day I was born according to the Muslim calendar. Lupa weh….

I think I’ll go home now and conjure up some ayam masak lemak cili api……

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Of Home

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Life can be kind sometimes. I'm on my way home after a near miss. A near miss because I only got the OK from da boss at about 4.45 pm. That is late considering I have to get my bag from the house and the flight is at 7 pm. He's away on leave and he simply prefers that I be there when he is away. Auwww, that is supposed to give me a warm feeling huh? No, it simply means that my leave is very very very limited mah, I usually lose one, he's the boss, ha ha. After a series of unfortunate events which happened when both of us were away, we made sure that at least one of us is here at any one time. I was ready to call Lina and tell her that I won't becoming home this time and gonna miss Kamil's wedding and Andek's family gathering. And I have been looking forward to both. And the children have already informed me of their wish list for this trip home. Would they be disappointed or what?

But not after trying out a new small backpack hotel in Bangkok where their idea of an American breakfast is a plate filled with bacon and sausages plus tiny pieces bread and eggs. Scratch that hotel. Stick to Suvarnabhumi Novotel lah.

Right, gotta get out of this lounge and catch the flight to KUL. I love KUL, don't you?

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When I Come Back....

The view from my bedroom window where I'd be sentimentol, yes, sentimentol, every night before going to bed, smoke that last cigarette and wonder what the he_l am I doing here. The snow is late this year. Only the peaks have a smattering of white here and there, much unlike the photo above.

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….I’ll go away again.

The weather is getting colder by the day here. In the morning it is usually six or seven degrees Celcius below zero and it would probably go up to two or three degrees Celsius in the daytime before plunging back to being negative at night.

Over the weekend I had to stay outdoors the whole day while some folks tried to figure out the generator for the new office. You can’t feel your nose, your ears, your fingers, your toes and your n_ts start to freeze. Later that night I made a beeline for the shop to buy gloves and a cap. I can’t find the ones I had last year. Put on two sweaters, what the heck for the next day. But I always forget my long johns. Used to be that siapa yang pakai long johns tak rugged. Let me tell you, when it is cold, just put on the long johns, to he_l with being rugged. Ain’t that rugged if you get frostbite in some strategic spots. Hopefully this year it won’t be minus seventeen degrees and folks at our supply base (minus twenty degrees) will not be without water for two weeks. Imagine, no water for two weeks. Try minus twenty-five degrees offshore.

How was your Hari Raya Haji? Mine was swell. I went back to sleep after the usual solat and one of guys whose family is here was kind enough to provide me with lunch. We had a six-day holiday, read my lips, enam hari cuti. Hari Raya Haji cuti tiga hari, satu hari tu cuti Neutrality Day, campur weekend, six days of bliss. Well, bliss yang boleh sini lah…. Jangan marah, Hari Raya Haji tempat ni cuti tiga hari, macam dia aja yang Islam, orang lain tak. I slept like I have never slept before. The day after Hari Raya Haji, I woke up at 2 pm. Hey, it was my birthday, OK, and some of the guys were kind enough to celebrate it with me. And the nicest thing was, I got a message at 1.45 pm to come over at a friend’s house for lunch. Watched tons of DVD’s and probably watched Notting Hill three times over the holidays, hahahahahaha. Ain’t life dandy?

My birthday, I’m….. never mind, another year older. From Lina, Nazzim and Sofia, I got my birthday wishes from them. But, uh, a cake at the office the following week from the department – they were literally terrified that they have forgotten my birthday. Wei, tolonglah sikit….. wa tak marah la….. I had a hard time convincing them that it is perfectly alright NOT to remember or NOT to celebrate my birthday. The convincing argument was, “Well, we didn’t celebrate some of your birthdays, didn’t we?" That made sense. Well, over the years, it has been not celebrating at all, almost not celebrating at all, someone might remember it, then that someone might remember it, then Lina would remember it and Nazzim and Sofia would freak out over it, Lina and Nazzim would remember it and Nazzim and Sofia would freak over it and Lina, Nazzim and Sofia would all remember it and Nazzim and Sofia would freak out over it. Nice. But sometimes people do forget. Like Lina’s last birthday. I wished her and both Nazzim and Sofia wished her only after I reminded them and Lina texted me,

“you told the children about my birthday ke?”

“did i? they wished you?”

“yes you did. yeah they did.”

Ah well…..I sure hope that we settle this moving office thing soon, otherwise, I am not going home this Friday. Poor Nazzim and Sofia, the long school holidays and I am not home. Well, nearly, we managed to sneak that trip to Bandung last month, didn’t we? I felt like Santa Claus – “….ambiklah apa nak….” Well, up to a point. I simply had to tell Sofia that she could not buy all the Roxy, Billabong or Quicksilver merchandise that she sees over there. We arrived with one piece of luggage and left with four. And a much thinner wallet. Spending time home always ruin my mood on the way back to work.

I tried the new kuali/wok/kazan that I bought recently and its size allows me to cook fried trice just like the Chinese cooks in the movies. There was a lot of movements and noise and bits of pieces of fried rice flying around (but no fire involved as it was a hot plate stove) and I must say that with the right equipment I do cook a wicked wok of fried rice… ceh, puji diri sendiri nampak? Just don’t scrimp on the cilli, ikan bilis and eggs.

Wei, I’m talking about cooking……..I need a new drug.

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