Category: the otnaicus daily

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 280 – Spring Cleaning

For the blog, that is… Too many cobwebs…

Well, haven’t been very motivated to blog at all since I got back. A lot of things have happened that cannot be really penned here. Those who know me will already know the things that have or are happening in my life right now. Don’t worry, I’m doing okay. Just going through a valley right now.

Just a quick update here and there. Work has been alright. Current work status is slacking with spurts of work to do every now and then. Currently prepping for quite a major patch of the project that I’m working on. This patch, or rather upgrade, will introduce a whole lot of features. Hope I’ve gotten every aspect covered. And hope that the actual upgrade goes on fine without a hitch. It’s quite scary actually.

Been also helping out quite a fair bit over this week at Xtron. Asia Conference is rolling up very fast and very furious. Can’t believe it’s just another 5 days to the conference. Next week is going to be a very exciting time and I’m looking very much forward to it. Keep us in prayer and pray that everything goes on smoothly.

That’s all for now folks. Do keep me in prayer especially during this season of my life. Until the next time, cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 279 – Long Time No See

Tadaaa…. Yes, that’s me making an appearance after a looonnnggg absence.

I’m back in Singapore, but it seems like I’m busier back at home than when I’m travelling overseas. Anyway, the trip to Taipei this time was pretty easygoing. The testing that I did with my clients went reasonable smooth and as such, there was very little of those late nights staying up and catching bugs like a few months back. Thank God for that.

Beginning to get back into the thickness of all the busyness surrounding us as Asia Conference approaches. A lot of changes happening in the ministry as we are migrating from an SD system to a HD system. The more frustrating thing is that the equipments are coming in piece by piece and this has hindered us from switching at one shot to HD. Every weekend’s setup is pretty confusing for now. But I’m looking forward to the day when the system is fully operational.

I guess that’s all for this update. Killing some time before I knock off and go back home. Until the next time, cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 278 – Drool….

apple_mac_book 

Enough said…. Cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 277 – Life In Taipei

It has been one and a half weeks since I got to Taipei. It’s been a hectic time, with all the testing and bug fixing going on. But it has been much better than the last time we did the SIT and UAT here. Still, there are frustrations here and there, and that can be solved with some ranting. But all in all, work is proceeding quite smoothly and thank God for that.

Okay, enough about work……

Moving along, I noticed that this time round, I want to get out on weekends and go out of the hotel room. The last weekend, I went out to roam the streets a bit and did a bit of window shopping. And the best part, I did it all on public transport. Yeah, that means taking the subway. And this weekend, I intend to go up to the National Palace Museum to take in the sights. My parents went last year when they were around in Taipei and I’ve been wanting to go ever since. Now, this weekend, I’m getting my chance.

Oh yes! I discovered Cold Stone Creamery in Taipei!! And I’ve been there a few times. My favourite: Apple Pie A La Cold Stone. Not that I’ve tried all their creations, but that is what excites me most at the moment. Their ice-cream is fantastic to say the least. Hopefully, it comes to Singapore soon. But for sure I’ll be headed back there a few more times before heading back to Singapore.

I’m looking forward to getting back to Singapore. Miss the dear, miss church, miss ministry and miss my friends. Pray that the remaining time I have here in Taipei will be smooth going.

I’m going to stop here to retire. Until the next time, cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 276 – Diverted

I’m back in Taiwan. This time for 3 weeks. Going to conduct the Systems Integration Tests (SIT) and User Acceptance Tests (UAT) during this trip. Pray that everything will go smoothly.

My flight to Taipei yesterday was 8 hours long! That’s right, 8 hours. Why? Typhoon! We were about an hour out from Taipei when I noticed on the moving map display that we have made a U-turn. After a while, the captain came on the PA and said that we were diverting to Hong Kong as the Taipei airport was closed. My first diversion ever in my flying "career". In any case, we landed at Hong Kong International Airport, parked at a remote stand and wasn’t allowed to de-plane.

Thank God that I upgraded this sector of my flight to business class. The entertainment system was left on and I watched movies to kill time. But I noticed that economy class people didn’t have any headsets. Oops, must have been collected earlier prior to landing.

After two hours of waiting, captain said we were good to go and we departed Hong Kong at 2000hrs. Surprisingly smooth approach to Taipei and we landed at 2130hrs.

Then the next wait began. After clearing customs and immigration, I was met by a very very long queue of people waiting for taxis. Apparently, all the taxis have left as they didn’t expect any flights coming in yesterday. To make things worse, all the flights diverted were coming in at the same time and the queue just grew and grew. I ended up waiting for about 1.5 hours. And mind you, at this time, I haven’t even eaten dinner.

Finally got into the hotel at about midnight. After checking in, went to 7-11 to get cup noodles to eat first. And after talking to Debbie, crashed. Thank God today has been declared a typhoon holiday. Got chance to rest.

Eventful day indeed. Like I said, thank God I was in business class for that flight. If not, I think I would have been a very irate passenger. Some consolations. I was able to peek out of the door of the plane to take in the view of the tarmac. And the cockpit door was open so I peeked in and caught a glimpse of the cockpit. Quite a consolation for plane nut like me.

Signing off now. Want to get ready to go out and grab lunch and maybe shop around a bit for some stuff. Until the next time, cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 275 – Randomness

A random entry… Here goes…

  • Adobe CS4 is cool. It finally makes use of nVidia’s GPUs to accelerate graphics performance. For example, you can get some real-time rendering in After Effects CS4
  • Upgraded to Windows Live Messenger 2009 Beta. Yes, still in beta stage but I’m liking what I see. Just that Messenger Plus doesn’t work with it yet.
  • Taiwan trip drawing nearer. Not exactly looking forward to it but kinda have to go.
  • I realize that I’m not a person who likes to do documentation. I don’t mind editing for content and grammar, but don’t like creating it.
  • This is my first post using the latest version of Windows Live Writer. Yes, also still in beta.
  • For those of you who wants to get your hands on these new beta versions, surf round to http://download.live.com/messenger. You’ll download an installer that allows you to select the other Live apps that you want to install.
  • After a day of cool weather, it’s now hot and humid again in Singapore. Le sigh…
  • F1 is here in Singapore this weekend. Excited. But I’m going to be 4000+KM away. Hope I get to the hotel in time to catch the live broadcast of the race.
  • Saw somebody on the train with the Blackberry Bold today on the way to work. I must say, it looks as stunning as it does in ads. Couldn’t really catch a glimpse of the screen properly, but the device is stunning beautiful and beautifully stunning.
  • I’m currently sleepy.

See, told you this post was going to be completely random. Till next time, cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 274 – The Weekend

It has been some weekend indeed. One of the busier ones. Church, birthday celebration and a DIY cleaning job on my air-conditioning unit.

Let’s start with church. Pretty much standard service, with the exception of praise and worship being led by Dave Holmes and Andrew Naylor. Had an exciting time directing because I haven’t done production directing in a while. For those of you who don’t know, we have been having two directors for a while now. The TV ministry is in the transition phase between a 4:3 and 16:9 frame size. So half the production is in 4:3 (for recording, or production) and the other is 16:9 for projection purposes. In short, I miss when I have all 8 cameras in my command. That will soon come back when we finally get a full set of 16:9 cameras. So exciting, can’t wait…

Birthday celebration next. It was Debbie’s birthday on Sunday. Instead of going out to restaurants to eat, I decide to open my kitchen after months of it being closed. And I cooked a 3-course meal. And I put the oven in my house to use the first time. So what did I cook. Here’s the menu for the evening…

Special Dinner Menu
In Celebration of Debbie’s Birthday

to start…
green salad served with italian dressing

the main event…
meat loaf with a ketchup and balsamic vinegar sauce

the encore…
warm chocolate lava cake courtesy of starbucks

to wash it all down…
brown brothers orange muscat and flora 2006

So that was the menu. The meat loaf was my first attempt and I must say that it exceeded my expectations. I wasn’t quite sure that it would come out well because I forgot to get cheese (one of the ingredients), and I couldn’t find breadcumbs so I substituted that with wheat germ (thanks to a website). And it’s pretty hard to find fresh herbs in FairPrice, so I ended up using a dried version of thyme for the meat loaf. But thank God that it came out well. And we had fun that night. I hope Debbie enjoyed just as much as I did.

After sending Debbie home on Sunday evening, I decided to remove the front cover of my air-conditioning unit. You see, it has not been producing cold air even though I’ve set the thermostat at 21 degrees Celsius. And half the blower wasn’t blowing any air out. So I removed the front cover and lo and behold, I found the reason why I haven’t been getting cold air. There was a thick, and I mean thick, layer of dust on the condenser (where the air gets cooled, those fine fins that you can see). So I took the vacuum cleaner and gave it a good vacuum. And I also cleaned the blower to get the other half working again. Suffice to say that tonnes of dust was removed yesterday night and now the aircon is working fine and dandy again.

A very busy weekend for me indeed. And I enjoyed it totally, especially Sunday evening. I shall follow up with dinner pics when I get my camera back. So until the next time, cheers… :Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 273 – Woot!!

Haha… I have finally searched the web and found a way to load custom ringtones into my iPhone!!

Okay, back to update more later. Just excited that the method works!! Cheers… Þ

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 272 – Audience Of One

Here’s another one I first heard at KL Emerge. Can’t find the lyrics for this one yet so I’ll update this post when I get it. Enjoy…

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the otnaicus daily

Edition 271 – Depths Of Your Love

I heard this song first when I was in KL for Emerge. Sounded familiar when I heard it but apparently, it was a brand new song. And very good. Take a listen and the lyrics are below. Enjoy…

Depths Of Your Love
The Alternative

Before the earth,
before all days You knew me.
Formed in Your image,
Made in Your likeness You love me,
The light of Your word,
The truth of Your promise guides me,
The power of Your mercy,
The love of Your grace deep inside, of me,

It’s the depths of Your love,
Moving in the depths of me.

Chorus
I believe, In the power of Your name,
I believe, In the promise of faith,
I believe, In the love of a God,
Jesus my Saviour, I believe, I believe.

Bridge
Speak to this mountain,
To move into the ocean,
Your authority given to me,
No matter what happens,
Here I am standing,
On the hope of Your word,
Promised to me.