Milestones

The world wide web turns 20. AIDS turn 30. Life moves on... or stops. Depends on which part of the timeline you're standing. It's been 20 years since the launch of the 'internet'. I've watched it evolve, been part of it. I remember when we first came to Alor Setar (that was in the mid 90s) the Internet was a novelty. We went to sign up and I think there were three or four names before ours. I think we were among the earliest people to subscribe to the Internet, up north here. And those days, logging onto the www was quite a complicated matter. You had to install the Trumpet Winsock which provided the TCP/IP functionality to connect to the Net, to set up the dial up, ping to troubleshoot... In those days, Windows had no networking ability. You actually listen to your modem dial the 1511 number accompanied by the hissing sounds. LOL! That was the era before Google. You had to know exactly where you wanted to go. The web was just that... a great big web where you can go lost very easily. We had to remember all the URLs and type it down. Else the Internet was just like a maze of library rows, which made looking for info like looking for a needle in the haystack. It's all hazy in my mind now. These days, you don't have to do much. Everything is just a clicks or touches away on the keyboard or mouse. Most of us don't even understand how it actually works... We google everything! See why the Google guys are great? They made the www navigable.

Other Half even taught our computer vendor how to set up the connection as he didn't know how to do it. That guy went to set up many customers' connections after that as he was one of the few computer vendors who could do it. LOL! And this year, the Internet touches the 20 year mark. For my son's generation, they take it for granted. Just as my generation took the radio for granted. Can't say the same for the TV cos the idiot box entered many of our lives when we were about 7 or 8. I still can remember the first little TV that we had and the colour TV when I was 12. I remember cos it was either the TV or piano. We kids, opted for the TV! Dad couldn't afford both.

AIDS was such a feared disease, still is. 30 years down the road (since it's discovery in America) and there have been so many claims that we're near finding a cure. AIDS has been around a while, some say dating dating back to the late 1800s. AIDS kills.... and so do many other diseases too. But because it's also sexually transmitted, it makes it even more dangerous. Add that to a really long incubation period and our inability to curb promiscuity, whole populations can be infected. The danger is in sex. In diseases like Ebola, we do what it takes to curb it.

Monogamy will probably play a huge role in curbing AIDS, but then again we like to hail this era as an era of sexual liberties, etc, etc. So AIDS will continue to be dangerous.... and in Malaysia, sex education is not really taught in schools yet. Maybe we think that our religiosity is shield enough. But I think we're dead wrong. Just go into our schools today and you will find that morality is on the decline; a rather steep decline too, if I may add. Kids are getting sexually active younger. Some are having multiple partners by upper secondary. So unless they come up with a really quick cure for aids, monogamy is still probably the best way of curbing it. But passion and desire are hard to reign in.

So, in this august month, we are reminded of 2 milestones in historical timeline. One has transformed our lives like the Industrial Revolution did to people of that era, another reminds us our mortality and inability to control an epidemic, cos, well, it's hard to keep control where people are concerned.

Seedlings and Lemon

My lemon tree... okay I cheated. It already had flowers when we bought it. I hope the flowers will turn to fruits. I'm trying to plant some of my own food.... 8)

Salad leaves are sprouting... but I think I lost even more to the pesky snails!

See the plastic tweezer? That's what I use to squeeze those snails to become fertilizers. The snail population is quite under control now. And I find it most therapeutic, squeezing flat those snails. Heh! Heh! Heh! Their shells would probably be adding some calcium to the soil... 8)

Sawi seedling... the leaves are all white when they sprout. After a few hours in the sun, the chlorophyll kicks in. Kinda nice to see them sprouting... hopefully they grow big enough for us to eat.

Another 'version' of bean. This white jelly bean like bean is going to be a garden bean plant... hopefully. Friend brought it when she visited me. It's supposed to be the garden bean blue lake 274. I don't know what the 274 stands for. Anyway, I stuck a few into the soil the night before and by afternoon, they were already making their way up. Hopefully, I'll see more of em tomorrow.

And this the buah stair.. as opposed to the buah setoi that I was writing about earlier. The fruit is slightly smaller than a tennis ball. Skin is smooth as opposed to the rougher skin of setoi. Daughter and I cut it into slices and tried it. It has a slight sourish taste to it, quite nice actually. Put cutting it left my hand rather sticky. It oozes out unseep sap like liquid, I think. Incidentally, I've begun to notice some roadside stalls selling both these fruits lately too.

On a day when I took my gal to the pool. She was most pleased to find her friend there when we arrived. It used to be just the mummy around was enough... these days, the company of her friends seem more 'fun'... the joys of discovering the pleasure of company of friends have started for her. Anyway, while they played with the water toys, yours truly stayed in the pool for 30 minutes and did 30 laps.

More Gardening Experiments

A simple drip irrigation method in our attempt to grow vegetables.

This is what we came up with, since we still want to preserve our 'grass-look'. I like green grassy lawn... those tak semak type. So to get started, we got ourselves one of those storage boxes; picked up a green one so that it blends into the surrounding. Then we used our garden stands, got ourselves a piece of concrete and turned it into a bench-like stand. The storage box sits on the makeshift (but sturdy) bench.

Then Other Half (who is ever handy around the house) got to drill the holes and fix up the system. It works all on gravity as I am using recycled water - from my periodic filter wash and also rain water. Our rough estimate shows that when full, the water in the container should last about a week.

But I've not let it run the whole course yet... which means that I do not know how slow the drip will become when the water in the container is reduced. At the moment, after about 4 days, the soil in the pots have been kept moist. In fact, with 2 drips into the bigger pot, I actually noticed some run-offs from it. Hence, I've moved one drip to another pot. I calculated roughly 6-8 drops per minute at the moment. Very little wastage of water takes place. But we've yet to see whether the vegetables thrive... right now I'm also battling the incessant presence of the snails. 8( I just read some where that 15% of snails actually survive being eaten by birds. They get transported to new locations via bird poops! How's that for distribution of snails? Snails fly too, cargo class. Wonders of nature!

We have another drip system in place using our pond water. The salad leaves I sowed seem to be growing but we'll have to wait and see whether they grow well.

Growing our own food... there many reasons for it. But one that makes it appealing to me is my vegetables are not laced with chemicals. I use very little of commercial fertilizers too as I bury most of my food peelings in these pots.

Am also looking into sub-irrigated planter as another option. 8)

Prawns and Teenagers....

What do you think they have in common???

I thought this was funny. Me and Daughter bought these prawns and kept them in a holding container... so that they don't end up in the big fishes' stomachs. We put them in the pond so that they won't die... better water conditions for them. But try as we did to keep them in, they did their best to get out...

Which brings me to teenagers... try as we do to keep them safe, sensible.. they'll want to get out... cos they think it's nice out there... And they'll do all sorts to get out there too...

Beyond the net is open pond space... where big fish prowl. A few of the prawns managed to get out... You'd think they'd be giddy with the sudden feel of freedom but just a few seconds in the wide open space, they begin to scramble into the nooks and corners. Small prawns in big fish world... not safe!!!! LOL! Then the funny thing is they started to cling to the netting of the container from the 'outside' pulak.... and didn't put up much resistance when I used my hand to catch them and put back into the holding container...

And during the night, my netting slipped half-way and many of the prawns were released into the pond... and guess what? I found more than 10 of them in various conditions on the floor the next morning. Scared and shocked by the enormity and danger that lurk, many of them jumped out... some to a certain death, while a few whom I managed to rescue found a second lease of life.... which brings me back to the recent spate of suicides the last couple of months that we've been reading in the news. Sometimes, our kids are not ready.... and they go into the world... some survive, some give up... some 'take the easy way' out...

Sometimes it might be wiser to just keep our kids around a slightly while longer and prep them for what's to come... it's still not a sure thing but it sure beats some of the options that they might take later just because they're ill equipped to handle the stress and harm that come their way.

Having gone through the rebelliousness of one teen, I can see the similarity between the prawns and my teen!

Patience and my hydrangea...

I've had a hydrangea plant for ages; older than my gal in term of years. And it never flowered all these years.... till now! A couple of years ago, Mom decided to replant it for me and suddenly I had 1 plant split into 2 pots. I had almost wanted to be rid of them cos they never did flower in the years that I've had them.

This plant is the remnant of the days when I was plant crazy. My whole compound had all sorts of pots... all kinds of plants; annuals and perennials. I even bought myself an encyclopedia of plants. It remains today the biggest and heaviest book in my house.

I learned up as much as I could about plants, even tried planting those 'temperate' plants. Was crazy enough to get my sis who was in the UK then to send back some bulbs. Some did grow... poorly, some thrived but mostly just didn't make it.

Saturdays would be spent pot and plant hunting at the nurseries. I learned to identify flowers by name, often painstakingly flipping through my encyclopedia; Google was not a rave back then. LOL! And I was mad about roses. I bought books on roses too. Would go to Penang and check out the bookstores for plant books! Bought so many of plants too but most didn't survive beyond the first year... Today, only one rose plant is left at my pagar.

But recently, my 'gardening bug' is back, albeit a smaller scale. I spent the weekend with Other Half and Daughter repotting and redoing our little pond filtration system. We've decided to do away with the conventional sponge filter. I've gotten tired of washing our homemade filter every fortnightly. I am going for plants hoping that I only need to trim them once a couple of months... and who knows, if it works, maybe I'll even try hydroponic... my fish can supply all the nutrients for the plants. 8)

We actually have a natural one going for years in this little pot of 'pegaga-like' plant and bamboo and they're good at removing the nitrates in the water. And we're doing another one to replace the conventional filter that we had in place.

So in phases we live our lives, in cycles they revisit us sometimes... back to gardening for the time being.... 8) And oh yes! I'm glad I didn't throw the hydrangea plant away... I am recently reminded that a little (or maybe a lot) patience means hope is kept alive. Where there is hope, there are still possibilities....

Saturday...of computers and hills

Spent a very big part of the weekend going through my collection of digital photos... we started using the digital camera back in 2001. Started using it in earnest soon after. 2001 was also the year my girl was born... so her photos are all digitally archived.

A couple of months back I had wanted to embark on compiling a DVD of memories. Finally got started on Friday night. There was no stopping once I start on something. And I worked on it through the wee hours of Saturday and carried on almost the whole day. I spent hours on the computer and my shoulders are aching. Age is catching up... used to be able to sit for a long time and not feel it much.

Apple's iLife makes things quite easy. But still it's a very time consuming project. However, working on this was actually quite fun cos it brought back so many fond memories. I have a long way more to go. This project will probably take up a couple more weeks if not months. But it shall be our legacy to our kids.... a legacy of memories together for them.

Took a break and went hiking in the evening. This time Other Half and I took the Lil One as the bro had BK class. Had friends for company this time too. We used to go in a group when this was a regular thing. Trying to get this group thingy going again.

I love this shot.. with the blue sky and barren trees. In a couple of months, when the rains hit this part of the country again, green leaves will sprout and the whole place will feel really alive again! Unlike now which is so dry and dusty, the place will be damp and a little muddy. We used to be sticklers to our hiking schedule... rain or shine, we'd be there. So sometimes we'd go back drenched and soak to the skin. Those crazy days!! There was once it poured cats and dogs while we were on the way down the hill! It was an experience for my boy then, having been brought up quite sheltered and all that!

Lil One took to the hike quite well. Unlike the last time when we actually had to carry her, she was able to move on her own. Ascent and descent were at quite good speed. I only had to reach out my hand for her to hold.... not so much as to help her keep her balance but more for assurance. In time to come, she'll be independent... much as I will miss that. Bro went through that... now it's her turn.

Tis always nice to sit on the swing, what more on a hill in a natural surrounding. I always look forward to get to the top of the hill cos I know there always places for me to sit, either the swings or the bench.

What goes up must come down... our descent down the hill, carrying with us some of the containers which we've emptied on the plants in the surrounding area. Some of the shrubs are 'burning' up. I'd fill it up again at the foot of the hill and the 2 kids would carry them to the start of the trail.

We're hoping this would be a weekly activity again... and that more of those who dropped off would come back. It's not just the workout but also the company... and memories.

Random Shots on Panorama

Just testing out photomerge.. I think it's just wonderful how technology can assist us in making things easy...

ACS Sitiawan Panorama

[click on the pic to get a bigger view]


Sitiawan Convent

[click on the pic to get a bigger view]

Plants, KFC Containers & Jelly Crystals

I like plants and used to be really crazy about them. Would scout the nurseries around town to look for any plant that was unusual. Even got myself a huge thick 'suitcase' like encyclopedia to learn about the plants. There was once I even managed to convince my sis to bring back some bulbs and seeds from the UK....of course most of them didn't grow but some did.Anyway, these days I don't have much time to spare for gardening. So I have scaled my interest down quite a bit. I go for indoor plants now...those I can put on my work table and not forget to 'jaga' cos I see them often. I have been keeping these for almost a year at work. What I did was used the KFC chicken rice plastic containers for takeaways and some jelly crystals, also known as hydrogels which have this super ability absorb and retain extremely large amounts of a liquid relative to its own mass. They are also supposed to depolymerized through natural decomposition processes between 2 - 5 years. Supposed not to harm the environment, so I was informed.
To cut the cover into fancy shapes I used the Olfa Compass Cutter to cut circles and their standard art knife to cut all the other shapes...my friends used to wonder how I could cut such round shapes....free hand. Ha! Ha! I like Olfa products cos they are of quite good quality. I use a lot of them for my other craft work....those days when time was something that I had in generous quantities. Sigh!
Anyway, this is an aerial view of one of the plants above. Originally it was just a few leaves but over the last few months, with some TLC, it has really grown beautifully. The jelly crystals meant I didn't have to worry about water, even during long breaks. Can easily last 5-7 weeks without watering. As for nutrients, I put in a little of those fertilizers into the water every now and then...lo and behold...

Notice the design on the cover...those are cut with the compass cutter and standard art knife cutter. You can also use the normal pen knife but it takes more effort because the blade is a little wobbly and makes cutting a little difficult. I like using the KFC container cos it actually looks nice and is easy to cut...something to do with the texture of the plastic.

Fish Tank...aquascaping, anyone??

My 7-year-old gal just posted in her blog about her aquarium. Come next month it would a year old....and in the last (almost) one year, I have learnt quite a bit about this hobby. I have always been into rearing fish...when my brothers and I were kids, we had aquariums and fish tanks at home. We even dreamt of converting our little compound outside the house into a mini pond, to which my mom vehemently protested. Never 'jadi' of course. So, I thought I'd introduce it to my kids, since we enjoyed it so much.

When I got the tank last year, my frame of mind was still in the old mindset. Aquarium=fish + some deco. That's about it. Maklumlah...I have been living in a small 'city'....so not much exposure.

Did some surfing to look for ideas...and was pleasantly brought to stuff like aquascaping (this is an entry for 2007 AGA Aquascaping Contest which I like).... aquariums can be really beautiful with the real stuff, not the plastics. Was so enamoured with the idea that both daughter and mother would scout all the pet shops for plants.

The aquarium has gone through a few cycles...at one time, all the plants almost became extinct. Didn't know that water plants can be quite sensitive...they can actually melt. And when there is not enough CO2, they also die. Learnt that they have all these gadgets for serious buffs, stuffs like CO2 dispenser and all kinds of liquids that you can put inside to enhance your plants as well as your fish.

It's nice to just look at the fish and plants. Helps one to relax. And the best part is, me and my gal have something fun to do together! And that beats everything!!!