Another year begins

 

The rainy season eventually made mince meat of the 32 year old trusty roof and saw roof leakage at the master bedroom and upper staircase which in comparison is good because adjacent neighbours and neighbours already called their contractor many years ago to deal with this problem, common as our houses were built during the rapid development of SIME UEP area. My contractor did a good job for RM700 closing mini cracks along the N/S and E/W roof top whilst my main concern were only the two mentioned. However, recent 1/2 hr and 1 hr heavy pouring rains required the contractor to come back twice to patch up roof leakage where rain water converge along a collector beam. His warranty covers 6 months so 5 more months to monitor.

 

Late last December, wifey bought me this smartwatch which was timely as my the monitor of my manual heart/BP equipment of more than 10 years has aged badly making it difficult to read the results. With just one click and in less than 10 secs, my heart and BP readings are accurately recorded in the handphone app. This gadget was actually recomended by my regular doctors many years ago but then it was very expensive and my alternative was still in good use.

My hardtail bobber is still TKO, an invalid as family commitments are given first priority. In the meantime, I am discussing with friends online who own a similar motorcycle marque or its siblings how to resolve a technical issue common among us, that is, the right carburettor of the twin carburettor setup tends to be slightly on the rich side and has been diificult to tune even among season mechanics from various workshops. This popular PD26JS carburettor as mentioned on the internet has a good reputation yet this issue has never been mentioned even in reviews at motorcycle forums. I have observed after my carburettor was given a full service clean-up, the first thing, the mechanic did was to balance the butterfly flaps with a common size wire, a common technique. There is an internal lever connecting both carburettors so tuning the air-fuel mixture screw in the right carburettor correspondingly adjusts the left screw internally. Before all this, the mechanic said the diaphragms were in good condition, common culprit if tuning runs off. lastly both carbs are balcnce by a syncronized central screw. However, the right spark plugs gets sooty after a month whereas the left spark plug is clean. I am comtemplating buying main jet, slow jets and needle of a lower number which implies less fuel enters the carburettor only for the right carburettor but finding a mechanic willing to retune the carburettor is difficult as retuning takes up lots of time easily 1/2-1day because its a case of trial and error.

We stoped by at Sri Sendayan middle of January as daughter bought a house there for investment and we went to collect the keys and went to see the completely built house which still has been inspected by all but TNB. After that we shot off to Port Dickson because all except me wanted to try the famous Nasi Daging Asam Pedas which I gave it 5* because the sauce was really creamy and hot. Myself took this traditional noodles ala Muar style was I prefer as I am pro-noodles.

 

Finally, a new abstract art wallpaper for my handphone to start this new year which I feel is more refreshing and timeless than my previous all black abract design wallpaper.

Happy anniversary again!

Happy 33th Anniversary treat was given by the children at an up-market restaurant at KLCC green landscape. Sabrina even gave wifey and me a cheeky SpongeBob integrated handphone cover that looks so funny when you put both handphones side-by-side. There is no doubt the key reason Rasul insisted healthy, responsible and mature couples to settle down, other than the obvious, is to improve one’s short comings pin-pointed by people who love you the most. There is no doubt a married life is very challenging and requires a focus heart and mind but then there’s no fun life if life didn’t have challenges, it will quickly be boring.

Roof top leakage sealed

 

Before job

Almost after job completion

After 32 years of living in our home sweet home, roof leakage appeared but not much earlier than my immediate neigbours. We bought the house at a time when the housing boom was fast increasing and houses were constructed rapidly but depending on your unfortunate luck, quite poor in quality so such complains were common in the neighbourhood.

This contractor recommended by a neighbour who had his roof leakage sealed offered a flexible quotation base on my budget: He would repair roof cracks according to the seriousness of crack. as he was confident houses like my type would have many roof cracks by now. Still, I told him my affordability was RM700 (Earlier quotations elsewhere were also around that figure) and he agreed. After visiting the roof top, he found many cracks along the roof top ledge and the tile as well as spots on tile cracks. He then came down to inspect from inside where the actual leaks occured and would concentrate on those areas, only three but bad enough to require me to place big plastic containers at strategic points whenever it rains heavily with quarter of a saucer full of rain water after a heavy downpour. However the ceiling crack caused by a shrub's 3' roots that found it way on the roof ledge saw rain pouring down quite profusely during heavy thunderstorms and that was serious as it was close to the router's extension cable.

I showed the clips to my neighbour who recommended him and he said considering the number of visible cracks shown, RM700 was reasonable price but we are actually paying more for the risk factor contractor and workers have to face up there because material cost was nominal. Yesterday, it rained heavily and all leaks stopped. Alhamduillah. The contractor gave a 6 months warranty from the date he completed the day-job.

30 years old water tank float gives way

 

Every thing has an expiry date and for our water tank's float, it was 30 years old. The service charge to replace it was RM240 inclusive of transport (I assume RM60) and The brass/plastic float (RM20) labour (RM160). There were 2 workers so assuming each got paid RM50/job, the boss got RMRM60 so all in all reasonable at current Klang Valley prices. This is something I could not do so that was that.
 

V-19 Wireless Header replaces trusty earphones

 

 

After I had one too many expose wires from my iPhone earphone set, I felt it was time for a replacement but I did it with this RM16 Wireless Header from Lazada. The choice for this option was because I tend to get too engrossed using earphones and do not concentrate when someone calls so felt this was more practical. It took a few minutes to charge from a red warning light to turn to blue. This is my first time using such device and I found the silicone ear support very comfortable. After successfully connecting the Bluetooth feature from hand-phone to wireless header, I turned to a song at YouTube and was surprised, impressed, in fact, the the acoustics delivered was very good for a device this cheap on par with  my iPhone earphone set. The front switch changes to the next song in YouTube and the rear switch selects the song before the current one. A tap on the side power button switches off the set. I have yet to test the microphone still I feel it is money well spent.

Ya Allah, you blessed my professional carrier to the Nth value.

 

In January 2022, 5 years after I ended my government service, I received a mail package containing an A4 document entitled "TOKOH (Figureheads) PlanMalaysia" from the old department which had even rebranded it's name from the Federal Department of Town and County planning to PlanMalaysia.

In a department of 300+ officers and 700+ support staff nationwide, the current top management officially endorsed me as one of 9 people (not including previous and current Director-Generals) as a departmental figurehead, specifically, as the pioneer who introduced and promoted Open Source Software in the department (which incidentally is not even from my academic background but something I just happened to enjoy tinkering during my spare time). Of course, it is a great honor to receive this recognition as the previous top management often did not see eye to eye with me when I shared constructive opinions and criticisms so this document squashes all bad things said in front of as well as the back of me. (Though I rather prefer them remembering me as the Elvis Presley of the department).

This recognition took 42 years to hatch from the time I first started to work at the department in 1980. It shows that Allah's blessing concerning one's professional abilities may not outstanding surface during one's professional carrier but while one pensioned and stamps that recognition on the department wall for all to see from now onwards. For all the blunders I made during my professional carrier, truly, I am blessed. From a different angle, it was already written long before I was even born. Shukur Alhadmuillah.

The problem about good reliable handphones

 

Every new year comes with new, better and attractive handphones which makes one feels just like buying the latest. The problem is being practical, it is rational to wait at least for the current handphone to become faulty or hand-me-down it due to lack of storage space. The thing is that is not with me. The IPhone 6S+ I bought for wifey as a gift 6 years ago was used by her for 3 solid years then hand-me-down to daughter Sabrina as she needed a reliable handphone for her new job. Wifey too was also desirous of upgrading for the latest iPhone. Sabrina used that iPhone 6S+ for another 3 years but she decided to hand-me-down the iPhone as her job required a bigger storage space to store her WhatsApp business discussions. Coincidentally my humble Nokia 8110 4G had reached its maximum life-span so receiving the iPhone6S+ was a blessing. Still I got myself a silicone case because that iPhone has a smooth and slippery case. I used it for more than a year and it functions very well and there is still enough storage space for my needs so unless this handphone becomes faulty. I also prefer a smaller handphone because the iPhone 6S+ is difficult to take out from my slim jeans but I do not see it being faulty as it has proven itself to be a tough nut over the years. Ah well, maybe when the local 5G infrastructure has matured, it may be a good reason to upgrade the smartphone.

New Cat Shooter squirts a distance of 24 feet!

 

My previous shooter was faulty so I just bought a new water cannon-cum-cat shooter at Shoppe for under RM15 inclusive of transport cost. It advertises the water canon as a long range version but when I tested it, the water jet turned into a spray to a distance of 8-10 feet. I decided to inspect the nozzle then snapped the small tip which created the spray. The eye of the nozzle is now left totally clear. Even half loaded with water, it now squirts a jet of water comfortably to a distance of 24 feet. My previous water canon could only squirt a jet of water effectively to a distance of 10-12 feet. It became an effective cat shooter and was used to shoo away cats that, during the night, climb on top of the car, leave urine stains, scratch marks as well as dirty paw prints all over the car. The trick to ensure they never come again is to:

1. Walk barefooted in the compound so they are unaware we are close by.
2. A distance of 6' is very effective and increases accuracy of shot.
   
3. "Shoot" them while they are in the act loafing on top of the car.

From experience, they never come again so the water cannon serves its purpose well and as it only squirts water, it just hurts the cat's dignity.

UPDATE:

Being full of water, I let it rest against the wall only to see it slide and fall. The case cracked but I managed to seal it using PVC pipe glue and it works fine.

Home DIY projects during Pandemic season

 

Replacement of heater knob

Unclogging external drain

Replacement of regular for energy-saving bulb

Replacement of WC pump

Replacement of washroom pipe

Realignment of kitchen sink pipe

I have been busy with house chores fixing this here and there from wear and tear as the house enters its early 30s. Mikhail has been very helpful and is very good in the plumbing arena. To call the electrician or plumber is expensive where in one instance, we had to pay the plumber could could not solve the blockage problem where the most he did was poke the flexihose in the distributor pipe but that's about it. The realignment of the kitchen sink pipe cost RM20 and saved me RM2000 instead of breaking up the kitchen floor to repair the original kitchen piping system as quoted by 2 plumbers. The purchase of the external drain flexi-pipes and attachments cost RM160+ and heaven knows how much the plumber would charge to clear the external drain blockage. The replacement of the WC pump helped resolve the silent leak into the WC helping us to cut down on water bill.

Push-ups: The more, the merrier for my BP results

 

With the exceptional of taking anti-cholesterol pills since mid-2020 because home cooking with my mom-in-law around since early 2020 has been so delicious and irresistible and the Covid-19 Movement Control Order discourages (though does not restrict except for one short period) jogging which I have stopped but will continue when Selangor drops from being a red to green zone status, I have mainly been doing daily sit-ups but to a maximum of 30 as I do not want to exert the 2 hernia surgeries (left and right) I have. Recently, I added push-ups and have just managed to do 30 push-ups with ease and what I found out is that after I've add a bath and relaxed my body, doing a blood pressure check after that produces good results. I guess the push-ups flush out unwanted cholesterol out of my heart because achieving 120/80/60 or better is not a problem as before. Building stamina for push-ups takes time and is not an overnight possibility for me yet slowly but surely I managed for 10 to 20 and now 30 push-sups which to me is an achievement because it took me some time to overcome the 20 push-up mental barrier.