Triscribe

Author: Y C

  • Mental health days

    Just took 2 mental health days, Wed & Thurs.  First day was strange, I didn’t know what to do.  Shocked my system.  Didn’t sleep all that well and then tried to nap but only fitfully during the day.  At least I got to play some hoops later in the day.  Not at all that peaceful.

    Second day, was a bit better but was suffering through some severe tooth pain from before.  Tooth pain causing big headaches and couldn’t think straight nor sleep. I finally located my dentist’s pills but it’s only a short term strategy. 

    Overall, just tired, but was getting in the mood of forgetting work.  But got back in and there was 235 mails waiting for me, all just in the past 2 days.  Doing 3-4 jobs is starting to wear on me so need to be careful of my health.  Weather change and typhoon coming.  It’s wet and cooler now…

    I need more mental days…at least more time to exercise.  Hoops was nice.  I think that’s what I need more of and less eats.  Oh well, hope next time I’ve got some time off, i’m less pathetic at relaxing on my day off.

  • cockroach and the toilet bowl

    Huge 2 incher fell into the toilet bowl a few days ago. I couldn’t flush him down, somehow the bugger was able to hang on the side of the bowl. So I just left him in there to give me an opening… then yesterday, he did just that. He wandered to the far side and exposed himself. I took a shower hose and hosed him into the water. He was struggling mightily to swim back to porcelain ground but I wouldn’t budge. The water turned brownish from his coloring…. Then slowly flushed the toilet continually hosing him down with the shower hose. He drowned. RIP.

  • HP and terrorists….

    What an amazing story with the board intrigue… what kind of water are those folks drinking out there? Crazy stuff.

    Meanwhile , back at the ranch, I’ve got my own battles with our internal IT services group. It’s been a lot of deja vu, staying up late at night, early morning, fire fighting, trying to make snap decisions to get systems and IT services back and running during business hours. Feels good to be back into the Ops again but has made Taiwan and me a famous guy in the company’s internal IT services group. I’ve been nicknamed the “terrorist” ’cause I’m lighting fires, dropping bombs and firing missiles at people…. all to get them to get off their asses and do their job the right way.

    Then after all is said and done, we go out and celebrate with the team. Laugh about it, joke about it and then reload for the next battle :).

    Just finished some employee staff reviews, set performance objectives and develop plans for 2006/2007. It’s nice to talk about personal and professional career growth. I was pleasantly surprised that one of my managers is very senior in experience and used to do my job but on a local level. The nice thing about it was that the team likes working together, likes working with me, we have good chemistry and have a good attitude to learn and serve our stakeholders. Today we’ll be doing some team building at Jinshan hotspring and spa action.

    It’ll be fun.

    And …..

    Giant worm must be saved!

  • Flurry of posts

    Good to see you guys back in action! 

    How about them Mets eh? 🙂

  • This is what I miss

    Traveling to upstate NY and similar scenic and historic routes: The Empire State, Route 20

    Pity I have to work when I’d rather travel :(.

  • 4 Airline hop skip and jump

    CI, SQ, PK, MH, includes a 6 hour layover in KLIA. The final destination is Islamabad. Amazing how many flight permutations there are to get there. Some go through Dubai and double back (!!! :-o). Some via Beijing. There’s a direct from Tokyo via TK. No one goes back via how they came. Amazing stuff. It makes me think that I can nail Amazing Race if given the chance. Wonder how one can sign up for it…. There’s a prize right?

    Hope you folks had a good picnic and with more comfortable weather. Summer there hasn’t been so bad but then, I’m back in A/C environs with a typical corporate desk job.

    Last trip back from Malaysia was good. I stayed at the KL Hilton for the conference instead of the Le Meridien. Good but I like Meridien better, more comfortable all around. We tried out their steak place called Prime which served all the traditional style cuts etc. They even had Australian Wagyu Beef which appears to be more common in some of the high end steak places in Asia. Friday night at a friend’s farewell to Taiwan party, we went to Robin’s Grill which also had it but at extremely pricey pricey prices :-o. I’ll have to go back and do the Wagyu beef at some point in time with some Joseph Phelps “Le Mistral”, a fabulous fabulous fabulous red. I think even better than the Duckhorn that I’ve had in the past.
    Good food… that’s what’s important. Now just missing the good friends in Asia to join me in this passion!

  • Fly away ..

    Catching up on some blogging now at the Dynasty Lounge in Jakarta international airport before heading back to TPE. Been on the road now for 8 days, KUL -> SIN -> CGK (Jakarta Airport code). Glad to have missed the Typhoon up north but the weather down here has not been normal either. Lots of rain in the early and late mornings. In Malaysia, flash floods due to heavy rains is a real danger on the road. Hills around the KL -> Ipoh -> Penang highway get washed away forcing the road crews to rebuild around the clock. Making it harder is the fact that the soil around Malayia is soft redish sand/clay like substance.

    It’s a lot of work traveling getting to know people and learning what’s going on. Met a few really nice and smart people. Impressed with the folks here in the Jakarta office. Wish I had them. Team and relationship building along with skills development are the driving forces now.

    What I haven’t figured out yet is that although it’s only 1.5 hours away from Singapore, Why is Jakarta an hour behind? I’ll have to take a look at the map again. I thought they’d be in the same window.

    Jakarta is a city of 11 million people, sprawling megapolis and quite beautiful, even though areas of it area quite poor. In between Manila/Makati City Philippines, and KL. Food delicious and the people here are just so warm, friendly and welcoming. Refreshing compared to Taiwan despite the Taiwanese reputation for being friendly people. My colleagues took me to Hotel Borobudur Jakarta which is famous for its oxtail delicacies and boy, it didn’t disappoint. I’d love to come back again soon.

    Not-so-looking forward to a busy travel schedule the next 6 weeks. I’ll be headed back to HK a couple of times, KL again, London, Singapore again. In between I’ll have to find time to move.

    Ouch.

    Happy trails folks and be well!

    PS-was in my drafts, not sure if it ever made it… from May time.

  • Saturday respite

    Quiet office day today… just came from AJS place, enjoyed typical brunch with him, lots of sausages, 3 fried egss, brown rice and loads of bacon with mango, guava, orance juice to wash it all down.  Caught up with him as he was busy flying around.

    Stopped by Taipei’s first McDonald’s on MinSheng E. Road for some ice tea and fried apple pie (yes, they are F-R-I-E-D here! :D) and now in my office for some quietness.  Peace and quiet listening to Ray Gelato

    Need to catch up on my 360 degree profile responses and just general peace and my coaching homework.  Been reading The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins (HBS Press) and The Extraordinary Leader: Turning Good managers into Great Leaders by John Zenger & Joseph Folkman (McGraw-Hill).  Part of my big responsibilities is the need to develop staff both for succession planning purposes and for nurturing talent.  This forms part of my POs. 

    Heard about the heat over there which sounds real lousy, sorry about that, but that’s par for the course here.  Keep cool!

     

    Thanks for the Gramercy Park posting FC.  One I never got to.  I really love Union Sq. Cafe though.

  • Back on the ROC!

    Lots of people, when they ask me “How’s it going… how are you?” My reply has been “I’m tired”  I am really, I just can’t fake it anymore.  6 weeks on the road since mid-May, I’ve travelled on Cathay, Singapore Air, China Airlines, to KL twice, Singapore twice, Jakarta, London, Hong Kong twice…. Loads of FF and hotel loyalty points, but I need a rest :o.

    B- was already here when I came back on the 5th.  She’d done a great job on the new apartment to make it very homey.  It’s nice to come home now.  New beginnings for the both of us in many ways, from the apt, being away, catching up, and also celebrating her b-day as well.  So it’s been good.  We did some apt shopping together, got a new convection oven, microwave oven as well as accessories for her new Canon A-530 digital camera.  Apparently she only had 16Mb so automatically upgraded her to 1G so she’s got like almost 700 pictures and she’s excited about it :).

    Brought back a lot of goodies from the States… I got my b-day gift in advance already and definitely some of the best gifts I’ve ever got :D.  She picked out this awesome watch and a crochet scarf :).  Is very handy already!

    Hope everyone is doing well.  Keeping cool here in the hot and humid Taipei summer. 

    http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=3546791/search=Citizen

  • The last leg!!!!

    Arrived at KL this afternoon… and almost predictably, my immigration  experience at KLIA was a facsimile of rush hour traffic … loads of people queued up and inching slowly forward.  A potpourri of Malaysian visitors from Republic of Yemen, India, US, Taiwan, Commonwealth countries, Japan etc.  Luckily I got there because soon after me, there was another couple of plane loads that pretty much filled up the snaking lines.  My time at the immigration officer takes up time now as they check out my passport and the stamps going along with it.  A well-travelled passport is a bit of a warning I guess because they’ll look through all the pages and if they see something, they’ll look at it some more.  Been getting that a lot in all my destinations – arrivals and departures.  I still think it’s cool though… but my 6 months passport validity is coming up soon and will need to go to AIT Taipei to get a new one in case they reject me from entering Taiwan (or elsewhere).  If I had more time, I’d do it in KL ’cause I know those folks better.

    So back in my favorite KL hotel, Le Meridien.  Unfortunately their new Prime steak house isn’t open yet (mid July) but can’t wait for my next trip. Even so, the past 5 weeks of non-stop travelling has gotten me fat.  I wonder what my upcoming health checkup next Friday is going to say about me :s

    I definitely need a lifestyle change I think but this travelling isn’t helping much. It’s really more mind over matter.  I should just step away from the computer!  At least having my Blackberry shut off hasn’t proved to be too devastating.  It’s off because I didn’t pack my charger cables and in Asia, getting BB accessories is really hard to do and my model, 7730 is old so it’s particularly troublesome.  Even asking the IT staff of the company is coming up zilch….

    I’m going to decompress here in my hotel room this weekend and try to catch up on my personal emails and get back to my current project of establishing a new project management community, SdB+PM Forum.  We started out as a Yahoo Group joined by the LinkedIn and common interest and experience in project management. A year ago, what started as a hobby with a dozen or so people has grown to over 300 people world-wide :)!  We’ve adopted the SMF platform for expansion which I think is a good fit which allows for greater growth as a portal via Mambo if necessary.  A little lean on the frills and development but solid and simple.

    Anyways, time to watch some World Cup matches!