Happy Little Small Group Vermont Trip

Happy to be still alive after skydiving, the Susan & Two Dr. Genes small group (from the names of the 3 leaders Susan Marshner, Gene Kim M.D. and Gene Tan, PhD) decided to drive 8 hours to Vermont just to chill (told ya they're crazy) and watch autumn leaves. Beautiful foliage. Full credits to Jeff, brother and only fellow Malaysian for the fantastic video.

Skydiving

I guess I have always been a sucker for life-defying stunts. After inverted pulling off inverted rappelling and run-downs, sky-diving was next in line. Of all the people I thought I would be doing this with, I never expect to be sky diving with my cell group people. This group of pious yet adventurous Christians are gonna get me killed someday (snow-boarding trip up next.)

It was crazy. At 13 000 feet and 40 degrees Fahrenheit, jumping off the plane was the one of the most adrenaline-escalating experiences ever. Believe it or not, the free-fall (before you pull the parachute) actually lasted a full minute.

Greg, my instructor and only life-line

Jumping off the plane, into the shimmering horizon and freezing temperature.






Simply lost for words. Trying to close your mouth is a challenge.


The beautiful horizon


Safe landing


Just gotta do this again!

Well, one more thing off the list of things to do before I die. Next on the list - bungee jumping!

Florida Trip

It was totally unexpected. Barely a week after coming back from Niagara, I was called to my boss’ office to discuss on a department meeting. I was basically just tasked to take care of some presentation issues for the meeting.

“Well, Wayne,” Betty said, “you are more than welcome to join us for the meeting."
“Sure. Is it in the conference room?
Betty and Liz laughed.
“Boca Raton is in Florida, Wayne. Do you think you can take a few days off school and join us?”

Are you kidding me?

Boca Raton

Before I knew it, I was already flying to Florida. Checking into my room at the Boca Raton Hotel & Resort, I was shocked. I was expecting either a shared or single standard room. Instead, I had a junior executive suite all to myself. StarCite really knows how to hold high-class meetings. At the 18^th floor, the view from my room was breath-taking.

The living room.....


...the sleeping room....


...the view



Our meeting area

It was a Thursday when I arrived. The meeting ended on a Friday. That’s when the real adventure begins

South Beach, Miami

After the meeting, I was all on my own. I was unrealistically optimistic here because there were still a lot of uncertainties in my plans. I put together an almost ridiculous travel and accommodations plan for the next 2 days with almost no buffer time in between. All the stars in the heavens need to be aligned for me to pull my plan off. Thankfully, I think they were. A colleague happened to be heading down to Miami to return his rental car so I happily hitched a ride and reached Miami 2 hours ahead of schedule. Getting to South Beach required another hour-long bus ride. Alighting at my stop, I was stunned for 5 seconds as I examined the surroundings – it looked exactly like Tanjung Rhu, Singapore!

Familiar surroundings

The whole of the following day was spent exploring the beach island. The beach was picture perfect, although I really thought it was kinda overrated. I rented a bike to explore the entire island.

Perfect sky, sea and sand

Proof of me at Miami Beach

Once again, thanks to the stars (and God for aligning the stars), I just bumped into a friendly stranger who was kind enough to take me around the happening places around the Miami Beach Island.

Lincoln Road is famous for its high-end fashion and occasional celebrity appearances. Antwon, my new host was telling me all the places where you might be able to spot celebrities. There were also quite a handful of shops that had works of famous painters.

Lincoln Road

Paintings of Britto



Antwon outside an art gallery

And of course, we visited the only StarBucks that had an in-store music collection.

Yes, this is StarBucks with a music shop in it

Taking one last look at the beach, I returned my bike and left South Beach to proceed with the next part of my plan.

NASA

I picked up a car in Miami International Airport. Interesting enough, I had given one of the latest Chevy models, probably a 2005 or 2006 one. Driving the red hot Chevy with Planetshakers blasting in the stereo, I headed down to Cape Canaveral, home of the NASA visitor center. Since it was an overnight drive, I pulled over at one of the rest stops and spent the night in the car.

What would I give to make you mine

Arriving at NASA was like a dream come true because I have always wanted to be here. Space had always been one of my key interests since young. Sitting through the tour, we went through the fascinating Apollo missions to the moon and the construction of the ISS (International Space Station). I ended my NASA trip by shaking hands with an actual astronaut.

Rocket garden


Beneath one of the shuttles


Replaying the Apollo mission launch


Awesome rocket boosters



Shaking hands with an astronaut

Niagara Falls

It was and early preview of autumn/winter. For the first time in 4 months, I had to don multiple layers of clothing again. With Jeff, Jamie, Scott (our only Caucasian-Korean friend) and his two ex-schoolmates, we headed up north to Niagara Falls.

The first thing we saw was the rainbow bridge, the bridge that connects USA and Canada.

Rainbow bridge got its name because you can frequently see a rainbow caused by the waterspray from the fountain.

Climbing on board the Maid of the Midst, the ship took us as close to the falls as we possibly could. I thought we looked a little silly in the bright blue ponchos. But then again, it probably the colour probably helps rescuers locate you in case you fall Thanks to the rain, none of us really dared to flourish our cameras so a lot of otherwise beautiful shots were missed. We could see the Canadian side of the falls on board.

sea of blue ponchos

The Bridal Veil behind me.

The rest of the gang.

Of course, we had time for other stuff, like visiting the aquarium and seeing some penguins.

Penguins.

Food was perhaps on of the best highlights. Staying a night at Buffalo, who would miss out Anchor Bar, where the original Buffalo wings came from?

Scott going strong at wing number

Scott was just out of control, downing almost 20 wings on his own. It was a short and wet trip, but it was generally good clean fun (except for the messy BBQ sauce).

The Niagara rapids

My Most Amusing Failure

Some of my most disastrous failures come from computer-related projects, of which design work contributes a significant portion of it. I don’t usually like requirement-based design, meaning someone comes to me and say, “I want this and that and I want you to use this and that” cause that would mean me working around a very restricted perimeter.

Yesterday I was tasked to come up with an “eye-catching” event poster with images of mikes and mouths (the requirements). Sent to me was an attachment with about 10 pictures of which I only found 3 functional.

Now usually if I am forced to use what people give me, I would need a fair amount of trial and error to get the right composite. After struggling for 2 hours, I did come up with something really loud, but not too palatable. I decided to pull the plug.

In the morning, just before I was about to hit the delete button on my failed product, I decided to play a prank and send an email to every involved in organizing the event with the following 3 attachments.

in original colours

with purple colour overlay

with blue colour overlay

I stepped away for meeting and when I came back, all sorts of responses were pouring in via email and MSN. This had got to be the first time responses from NOC people were so prompt. I couldn't stop laughing when I read all the responses - I believe I had just started a demonstration of how varied the opinions of the NCBV people are. Responses range from A-Z and everything in between.

For:
“Besides that (the morbid gums), the rest of the picture looks fantastic, the words, color and especially the mike used. Brilliant.” – Kai An
“Eye-catching….I like the blue one” – Adrian
“This should look good on a T-shirt” – Rex

Against:
“Yucks, who’s mouth is that” – Cat
“It will be controversial – not sure if it will fly. It’s a bit disgusting. This person’s mouth is riddled with imperfections. Is it yours?” – Estee
“I feel like puking” – Tim
“If you put this as publicity I am DISOWNING you as a friend.” - Alicia

Undecided
“OH MY GOODNESS! In my worst design nightmare I have never seen this coming! So freaking well done! … We might want to send it out together with our email to our sponsors to prove to them that we have some solid work done” – Pacey
“I think it would be good to have SPIN Logo there as well as "Website for more info".... “ – Deliang
"Eh dude, where got jaw blue colour one." - Iris.


Anyway, to quell the unrest, I had to come up with something fast, so this was how the final product looked like.

Sleek, safe, professional, boring. But it keeps friends from disowning me.

MLB (Major League Baseball)

It was another surprise call, this time from Hans.

"Wayne, you free tonight? I have extra tickets to the Phillies game."

Unlike the NBA game, I didn't really jump immediately at it since I am not a big fan of baseball. Furthermore, there's lots of work to be done.

"I'm desperate to get people cause I don't want to see the tickets go to waste."

I agreed.

The Phillies is Philadelphia's baseball team. They have been pretty inconsistent in performance this season. But still, it's rare to watch a free game on homeground. Hans still had one extra ticket by the time he picked me up. So, I cordially invited Rex, my dear housemate along.

Citizens Bank Park, one of the nicest stadiums in Philadelphia, is home of the Phillies


Inside the stadium


The diamond


The crowd

We had a good start, leading the first 3 innings. The weather was beautiful that day too, a comfortable 20-23 celsius, perfect for an outdoors game. I began to feel glad came. Towards the middle of the game, the Phillies and the Cincinnati Reds were both not scoring for 3-4 innings. The stadium however, looked really beautiful as the sky got darker.

A shot of the stadium as the sky was getting darker


American flags flying in the graduated sky

The hi-res LED screen.

Of course, like any American sports game, breaks were always filled with interesting stuff being displayed on the LED screen. The highlight was one one guy proposed to his girlfriend, with everything on camera broadcasted in front of 39 000+ people. She didn't really have a choice. Smart move. Too bad you don't get this kind of opportunities in Singapore or Malaysia.

He asked, "will you?"...

...she said, "yes"...

... in front of 39 500 people

It was a close game. We were 3 down in the last inning. Some Phillies fans were already walking out of the stadium. Surprises do happen though. The first batter hit a home run - 2 points more to go. The second batter was struck out. By the time we reached the last batter, we already had 2 more men in the first and second base respectively. Another home run and we win the game.

But we didn't. He was struck out. It was the second time I watched our home team lost on home ground. but it was a good game though. I was glad I went. And thank God for friends who always seem to have extra tickets. :-)

Evidence of our attendance at the game

The Phoenix That Never Was

We had lunch, we took photos, we hugged and we said our goodbyes. Today would be the last time the IT department people see each other.

As a strategic move, my company merged with our last remaining competitor. We got to keep our business unit while the other company got to keep their IT unit. Since there was no longer a need to continue development of our new product, there's no reason to keep those who were working on it.

Mergers and acquisitions - I have heard about it and studied about it. But to be in one is a different story. After months of working hard together on a project and suddenly knowing it will never live to see the day, it's tough to pretend everything's still the same especially after you had to bid your colleagues, your boss, boss' boss and boss' boss' boss farewell due to down-sizing

To the fallen heroes of the Phoenix Project, it has been both a pleasure and an honour working together.

A week Central America

The weather was hot, food was spicy and mosquitos were a plenty. Guatemala felt a lot like Malaysia the moment I stepped in. Being one of the few countries that connects the continents of North and South America, Guatemala had a sad history of civil wars and violence as recent as the 1980's. As a result, the country is relatively late in developing its economy compared to the rest of the world. There was I, with 40 other people wondering how big a difference we could make in a week.

Chisec was a good 8 hours away from Guatemala city where the airport is. Our main purpose this time round was to provide medical care, teaching for both local students and teachers and of course and a revival event at the end of the trip.

Visiting the Local Churches
Since our first official day was a Sunday, we spent some time visiting the local churches. Of all the services we chose to crash, we just had to do it during a wedding service. We felt kind of bad that we stole a bit of the limelight away from the newly-weds since there was quite a bit of fanfare involved during our introduction.

The wedded couple

The humidity and our inability to understand Kek’chi (the local tongue) was a winning formula for sleeping during the sermon. Almost the entire team was nodding off. I was fortunate enough that I had this cute little sitting beside me. Unlike the rest of the children, this girl was the only one that dared to look at me in the eye – and smiled. My heart melted.

“Como se llama?” I struggled to recall my Spanish.
“Nancy,” she replied in a cute voice.

Nancy couldn’t have been any more than 7 years old. It’s amazing to watch her entertain herself throughout the 2 hour sermon. While watching her playing with ropes, papers and balloons from the wedding and smiling innocently to herself, my mind was already thinking of how an adoption process for a Guatemalan child would be like.

Wait. Just because she is sitting alone doesn’t mean she’s an orphan.

“La familia donde es (where is your family)?” I asked.

She pointed to the back row at her mother. So she did have a family. Thoughts of adopting simply evaporated. What was I thinking? The service ended pretty abruptly and the team made a dash towards the exit. I only managed to take one photo of Nancy before I left.

Nancy. Isn't she adorable?

Medical
There were at least 8 villages within a radius of 80 km that were too rural for medical support from the government. Mornings were spent traveling to rural villages on pickup trucks to provide medical services to these villages. With medical supplies and at least 8 people per pickup truck, some of us had one foot in and one foot out of the truck, while the driver was happily cruising away at 80-90 km/h.

Cramming at the back of a truck.....

...and speeding up a hill.

It’s amazing the variety of healthcare we managed to pack into such a small area From dental to ultrasound scanning to physician care to drug dispensing, we did pretty much everything usually within a small church or 2 classrooms.

Jeremy and Bon treating a kid



The dentist's assistant. He turned at me and asked, "you want to do the next injection?"
"Just kidding," he said, laughing at my bewildered expression.

Tools of mass destruction. No wonder children feared the dentist.

Chris and I in our scrubs.

Revival

The revival event was supposed to be at the end of the trip where youths from all over Chisec were invited. Songs, dances and skits were all done in Spanish. It was a kick-dust performance, literally cause the stage was filled with dirt, all our cables and trousers were filled with dirt stains. It was probably the first time the locals ever saw musicians acting so crazy on stage. The last time I was jumping around on stage was in Singapore Expo; doing that in some remote village surrounded by mountains just sounded unreal

Setting up the equipment.

A quick shot before the event started

Chris and Joe. Excellent drummer and guitarist.

Recreation: Garden of Eden?

This was perhaps our first time we got to see the tropical beauty of Guatemala. We visited this recreational garden in the middle of nowhere, filled with birds of paradise, clear pools, hills and rapids. It was a great way to end the trip.

The entire gang.

At the peak of the climb.

Forgotten paradise.

Afterthought
Perhaps the one thing the really struck me the most about this trip was the diversity of culture and language. The missionaries and a huge part of the team were Koreans, Spanish is the official language of Guatemala, the locals speak Kek'chi and we spoke of course English. We usually have corporate prayers in all 4 languages. Perhaps we were not so different after all.

Found lying on the table. A English, a Korean and a Spanish bible.

6 Months Later...

Its 1:07 am and I am fighting to keep my eyes open. Feel I better write something before I fly off for Guatemala tomorrow (or before I get stoned by some of you). It didn't really occur to me that it's already six months already until I saw my seniors off and received my juniors from the airport. Time flies. Before I know it, I'll be out of here.

Bye bye seniors....
Perhaps it first struck me that I've past the halfway point during the graduation ceremony of the seniors. Could tell that most of them were actually reluctant to leave. But still, all good things must come to an end. Bye bye guys! You guys have been fantastic seniors and it's time to pay it forward. See you all in 5 months.

Seniors' last performance....


...take a bow...


...and go nuts!

The ceremony started solemnly (and somewhat boringly), but I guess everybody goes a little bit crazy once all our bosses and supervisors left.

Estee, the name tag holder


Eric: "Wayne, help me!!!"
Me: "I can't reach you. I'm sorry!"


Go Victorians! The VJC alumni:
Michelle, Shamir, me, Lawrence & Alicia


The girls


The guys


The girls and the guys

Of course the bunch I will miss the most will the the BV cell group here, of which I am a part-time member. You guys rock!

The senders and the sendee - me and my prayer partners.

Poconos Trip

Barely a week later, we headed back to Poconos, where we skied during winter. Interesting enough, it was here where Batch 6 and Batch 7 got to know each other for the first time and it was also here where we would have our last event together - whitewater rafting.

Unfortunately I didn't capture any of our whitewater adventures on camera, just some of our candid moments.

Heading towards the river


Nacho Libre. It's amazing what lack of breakfast can do to your brains.


Carmates


Batchmates