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.