The Younger Me

That's the verdict of the doctor after he checked my BP two days ago when I went to see him about the 'slight' pain in my left eyes.

Actually my left eye has been acting on me the past 3 weeks. There is a phrase in Malay about this and without bothering to check the dictionary - English or medical, I would term it as 'rapid movement of the eye lid(s)'. Not quite the way the cat kenyit its mata above. That is one gatal cat if it were able to do that! In my case, it is more like 'bergerak mata;.

In fact it was immortalized by SM Salim in one of his song - the kenyit mata and mata bergerak, not the cat! It is called Geli Hatiku, a song by Johari Salleh while SM Salim penned the lyric himself.

Kalau kenyit simata kiri

Konon katanya abang kasih

Kalau kenyit simata kanan

Kononnya ingin nak berkenalan

Kalau kenyit kedua mata

Sudah kena belum biasa

Hendak pinang duit tak ada

Tinggal bujang sampai ke tua

Kalau terlanggar bahu kiri

Abang berkata I am sorry

Kalau terlanggar bahu kanan

Abang berkata tersalah jalan

Kalau terlanggar semua badan

Sememang-memang disengajakan

Kalau selalu diamalkan

Kenalah kasut memang lah padan

Kalau kalau tergigit lidah

Alamat nak konon nak bertengkar

Kalau-kalau bergerak mata

Alamat orang jauh nak jumpa

Kalau tidak bergerak semua

Itu alamat buruk padahnya

Kalau-kalau beliak mata

Itu saya tak tau

Tanya sama dia

Sorry I digress.

My GP was not around during the checkup, so instead I saw a temp.

He could not figure out if anything was wrong with my eyes, and probably thought it was just an infection that's causing the pain. I was more afraid if it was just a symptom for something bigger, so I asked him in the meantime to check my BP, just in case.

After wrapping my arm and measuring my BP, he then looked at me and asked, "How old are you again?"

After I told him my age, he said, "You have the BP of a person in the 30s."

"Oh, really? Why would you say that?" I responded. Actually what I meant to say was that he should know better as I do have look like a person in my 30s, despite my age. The only thing that was stopping me from saying that is that I knew he would not buy it and I did not want to provoke him into insulting me by saying that I look like someone in my 60s instead. ;-)

He explained that my systolic blood pressure is 128 while he was expecting a person my age would have a systolic BP of ~140. I have forgotten the actual numbers he mentioned, and he went on to explain about the range of age and the expected systolic BP.

Actually I have never heard of that, though it does not mean what I don't know does not exist. I had always thought the BP of a healthy person should always be 120/80, irrespective of age and this is what I would normally strive for.

Nonetheless I was quite pleased with his statement. At last I must have reversed my ageing process and would have liked to tell this young doctor the secret potion that I have been taking to enable someone near 50s to have the body of someone in the 30s - the exilir of life; the fountain of youth, if you must. But instead, I took out my wallet and out came a strip of my Norvasc 10 mg BP medicine that I would take daily. This is the reason I have the BP of a 30-year old, I guess.

That's how I managed to shave off more than 10 years of my age.

Try it; it may work on you. But do get consent from you doctor too, I mean, your wife! ;-)

EPILOGUE

SO I decided to surf and this is what I found.

The good doctor is right. It is called the "100 plus age" rule.

Blood pressures tend to rise naturally with age in both men and women so that a 130 systolic blood pressure of a 30-year old (roughly 100 plus the age) becomes 150 in a fifty year old and 160 in a 60 year old with male blood pressure readings exceeding female by around 10 mm Hg. The systolic pressure is the pressure peak with each beat of the heart (systole) and the diastolic pressure is the basal pressure that is in the blood vessels during relaxation of the heart (diastole).

But as I read further I found the following para disturbing.

High blood pressure, as defined by the drug industry and medical doctors, is not an instant death sentence. The goal of maintaining a blood pressure at or near 140/80 (now 115/75) is based on drug company hype, not science. These numbers are designed to sell drugs by converting healthy people into patients. If high blood pressure were dangerous, then lowering it with hypertension drugs would increase lifespan. Yet, clinical trials involving hypertension medication show no increased lifespan among users when compared to non-users.

The doctor told me in the public hospitals, they would not be treating me with Norvasc, so what I am doing is called preventive medicine. But I am of course paying for that preventive medicine and based on the above para, I am not sure if I am doing the right thing.

Hmmm...

To Sir with Love

Those schoolgirl days
Of telling tales, and biting nails, are gone

But in my mind,
I know they will still live on and on

But how do you thank someone
Who has taken you from crayons to perfume?

It isn't easy, but I'll try

If you wanted the sky,
I would write across the sky in letters,
That would soar a thousand feet high:
"To Sir, With Love"

The time has come
For closing books; and long last looks must end

And as I leave,
I know that I am leaving my best friend
A friend who taught me right from wrong,
And weak from strong -- that's a lot to learn
What -- what can I give you in return?

If you wanted the moon,
I would try to make a start . . . but I
Would rather you let me give my heart

To Sir, With Love

The Man with the Golden Voice

For some reasons I melted on hearing Sejuta Wajah and it was not even the full song.

The mere intro of the song was strong enough to have that effect on me.

May be I have not heard that song for quite sometimes now. May I have heard the other songs too often on the air. But I just love the intro to Sejuta Wajah.

Of course Kamelia is his signature song during his Sweet Charity years - it is always good to hear him singing this song live. In fact he is one singer that you would want to hear him live. To hear him hit the high notes without sweating would be a pleasure that you would not get from many other singers in this country. (For many other singers, it would be too painful to hear them live actually.)

To me, he is a singer first and a song writer second, though his songs are second to none, bar perhaps M Nasir. In fact, I would rate his Syair Timur album to be the best ever Malay album - melody, lyric, arrangement, studio-wise; everything.

Kamelia on the other hand is one song where you learned that maki is a proper mainstream malay word that can be sung along together with terjang. It's not a taboo word anymore.

I love the arrangement especially with the 5 piece violin/cello ensemble. Eddie Marzuki did a great job there. I have no complaint this time around with the arrangement or the band. The string section was top notch and could give a run for their money for an ensemble many times bigger. Of course the bamboo flute by the one half of Mohram was haunting and fit perfectly with the arrangement.

Just listening to the intro of Kamelia and Sejuta Wajah would give goose bumps - the keyboard and the guitar base of Kamelia was inspirational and haunting and the band last night did an awesome job last night.

However, for some reasons, I dislike Syair Laila Majnun, my favourite of all of his songs. I think it is a tad too loud for my ears. I could not enjoy either his voice or the music itself or both. To be honest, most of the rock songs performed that night, I found it difficult to digest and at times I wonder if it should be done in the small concert hall meant for classical music.

I wonder if anything got broken after a series of very loud rock songs sung by Ramli Sarip and of course the guitarist in Man Kidal is as great as always. The maintenance team of the DFP would be working overtime I guess in the aftermath of Ramli Sarip's concert! ;-)

I could not take the volume in the 'small' hall that is the DFP. May be in a much bigger hall or at a stadium, one could enjoy that loud rock songs.

Or may be I am getting too old?

Negativity aside, the surprise last night was to hear Andre Goh performing Mas Merah on stage. He is an underrated veteran singer and he should be recognized for what he had done with asli songs. You would not know that he was a singer from the 70s - in fact for both singers, you would think that time stood still last night. From my seat, he looks the same as I remember him in the 70s, and his voice - well, he carries the song very well last night.

Great songs, great singer, arrangement that stay close to the spirit of the original song and great musicians. You could not get it any better anywhere else.

In fact the crowd was feeding from his hand, and in fact he could just stand there and watch and listen them singing his song. That they did during the final part of Kamelia, much to my chagrin. I was there of course to listen to him and him alone, but even I could not help myself but to join with the rest and sing along.

Tiba-tiba langkah ku terhenti

sejuta tangan telah menahanku

ingin ku maki

mereka berkata

tak perlu kau berlari

mengejar mimpi yang tak pasti

hari ini ku bermimpi

maka biarkan dia datang

di hati mu

Aah, penangan Ramli Sarip. Honestly all other male singers pale in comparison. I remember Jamal trying to sing Ramli Sarip's song at Istana Budaya and failed - miserably, I must add.

He's the man with the golden voice.

EPILOGUE

Thank you Ismail Gareth and his team at Impress Creative. This time around, it is all about Ramli Sarip and I love it. That's the way a concert supposed to be enjoyed. This time around, no producer was on stage to even receive bouquet of flowers. The spotlight and adulation were only reserved for Ramli Sarip.

But I do wonder. I know he's Singaporean, not unlike M Nasir. Still, don't you think he deserves some kind of accolades from the government for his contributions to the Malay musics? I mean many second rate singers and actors (say Jamaluddin Hassan) are datuks (and so are second rate politicians and civil servant), but here you have someone who had done a lot to last you many life times.

Caption: The family and friends at the MPO last night. Mak and MCKam are fans of him and I remember buying both of them cassette of Ramli Sarip. I am not sure if MCKam would be true to her words in going for the second round tonight. Like I did with the BDB.

All pictures were taken by Akmal. Good job. I like what you did.

Sometimes I do wonder what Ebiet G Ade thinks of Ramli Sarip's Kamelia arrangement. But I do remember Dolly Parton's response to Whitney Houston's rendition of her (Dolly Parton's) song and making it into the smash hit I will Always Love You.

She welcomes her to take any of her other songs and make it into another big hit. Dolly Parton is one pragmatic lady, despite her wealth and assets!

And the pun was intentional. ;-)

The Brothers Two - A Mother's Day Special

The families decided to have some makan-makan in conjunction with Hari Ibu. As my house is central to everybody else's, by default it would have to be done here.

And the kids decided to put up a show during the makan. It was a spontaneous decision and hence they did not have much time to prepare - find the notes and chords and practice them. Unlike the last two Mother's Days which were guitar-and-violin performances, this time around it was the piano-and-violin duet for the two brothers.

With only two hours of practice, it was not perfect, but they did an awesome job within that span of time. Three songs were performed - P Ramlee's Seri Bunian and Ibu and M Nasir's Srikandi Cintaku.

Enjoy the last song here. Akmal obviously has had more practice than Arif and hence he was flawless here compared to his older bro.

Selamat Hari Ibu.

The Durian Smell of LPG

PROLOGUE

I just would like to highlight a letter written to the The Sun by Physics Teacher about SPM syllabus. While I do not wish to get involved if the topic mentioned by the writer is considered as part of the syllabus or not, I wish to highlight some misconception raised by the topic mentioned.

Let's read his/her email published by the The Sun newspaper today 6 May 2010:

Keep to the syllabus

I WOULD like to draw the attention of the Examination Syndicate to the SPM Physics papers.

Question No 12 (Paper 1, 2009) is definitely out of the present syllabus. The question is: Butane gas leakage happens in a laboratory preparation room. A teacher in the adjacent laboratory smells the odour even though no wind is blowing. The phenomenon happens because of: A condensation, B diffusion, C evaporation, D expansion.

The expected answer I suppose is B diffusion. Before I discuss the answer, I would first like to point out that this question IS NOT in the SPM Physics syllabus.

Incidentally, Question 11 (Paper 1, 2008) on Brownian Motion is also not in the syllabus.

Both diffusion and Brownian Motion were in the syllabus before 2006 under the section of properties of matter (Chapter 3, Form 4 ). But this section had been taken out from the syllabus.

Should topics not mentioned in the current syllabus be tested? The Physics panel may argue that these topics are in the Form 1 syllabus, or that diffusion is in Chemistry syllabus! Then what is the syllabus for?

Perhaps the panel does not know the syllabus well. They might have just chosen the questions from the Question Bank without reviewing the syllabus. The Question Bank may still have some questions from the previous syllabus.

Did the syndicate take the trouble to throw out those questions which are no longer in the syllabus?

Now back to Q12 2009.

Is the supposed answer diffusion the correct one? In his book: Physics (Fifth edition, Prentice Hall), pg 410, Giancoli shows that air currents (convection) are more important than diffusion in transmitting odours. Giancoli shows that it takes about two minutes for ammonia (NH 3) to be detected 10cm away from a bottle containing ammonia after it is opened. The diffusion rate of butane (C4H10 ) is even slower.

Diffusion, which is rather slow, alone would not have enabled the teacher to smell the odour.

Cutnell and Johnson also use the same reasoning in Physics (Fourth Edition, Wiley).

So now when Mrs Smith is preparing a cup of coffee, you smell the aroma right away in the question hall. Is this due to convection or diffusion alone?

EPILOGUE

Let's get one thing straight. Butane (LPG) has no odour. You can't smell it, if it is released to the atmosphere irrespective of the volume or if it would reach your nose by convection or by diffusion.

Just like you would not be able to smell the air you breath, unless of course you are breathing in a restaurant, or in a toilet! ;-)

But that's not the smell of oxygen.

Technically though, the question is not wrong.

Caption: LPG Terminal. I have always been fascinated by the shape of the LPG ''tank'. Why would they build it spherically and not cylindrically?

So the question above is a misrepresentation of the physical property of Butane. Anyone reading the question, even if he did not know about transport phenomena, would believe that he could smell Butane should he be in contact with the hydrocarbon.

Actually you can't.

During processing, once butane - LPG if you must - is produced, a chemical called Mercaptan (sulphur compound) is added to the hydrocarbon. Mercaptan, as with most sulphur compound, has a peculiar smell; some says like rotten egg. For us in the refining industry, I like to pass by the Mercaptans tank, as it reminds me of the durian smell, so it was enjoyable for us to breeze through the area.

I swear, I always thought that the operator would be having a durian party in my rookie years as an engineer there. Later on I found it was the chemical compound Mercaptan. May be in bulk it would smell like durian.

To my nose, its smell is more pleasing than that of expensive perfumes - Poison, Christian Dior's, any brands.

So Mercaptan would help us detect leak should we forgot to turn off the stove after we finished cooking. Or in the old days, if you had a flame out due to the wind. You would know the your LPG is leaking out and you better switch the stove off quickly.

Should we be worried that we don't really understand the physical phenomenon and are teaching wrong facts to our students. NO wonder a recent studies by Monash University found that only 15% of our students who got an A for Physics really understood the concept and deserve the As they are getting.

Two Accords and a Thief

Two brand new Honda Accord were stolen on the same night, on the same street, from two houses fronting each other.

Within 30 ft away from each other.

You would never have thought that these two cars, bought just a couple of months apart, would be lost on the same night, minutes apart, I presume. Mind you, cars were packed to the beam in the porch of both houses, and the thieves - I presume there are at least two - managed to maneuver both cars out with only minor scratches on the cars left behind.

And without waking up occupants of both houses. They only realized that they were left poorer at 7 am, when they were ready to leave for work.

How the thieves opened up the remote controlled gate is anyone's guess.

Both houses are only 2 doors apart from mine. Luckily I think I have nothing of interest to the thieves, but we are taking precautions nonetheless. My 15-year old Ford was parked on the street, and would be an easier target and yet they were not interested in it, I guess. I wonder why. ;-) Half of my heart was saying please take it and spare me of my agony whenever it breaks down, but I am sure Arif and Akmal would not want that to happen.

But I do wonder, even with the proliferation of security agents manning the entrance of our housing area and everywhere else, these sort of things seems to be on the rise. Why am I paying lots of money monthly to have 24-hour security, when thefts are done blatantly?

Nothing is safe anywhere anymore.

Barely 18 and already flying solo

At 18, I failed four - you read me right, four! - driving tests.

My only consolation (read: excuse) is that the driving tests were not held in a coffee shop of Kuala Lumpur for a kopi o license. They were all held in Perth Australia and for some reasons I would prefer not to remember, I have not been up to their standards.

May be I was trying too hard to be independent and like most American kids - which I was not, I would love to be behind the wheel soon.

So, during my free hours and in between classes at the Leederville Technical College, I decided to take my driving lessons. I don't recall how many lessons that I took, but I guess enough to get going. But for the life of me, I can't reason out even today why I failed and failed miserably at getting a driver's license in Perth.

May be it was the lack of confidence. I must admit I was sorely lacking of it then.

But what about him then? Barely 18, he had flown solo over Melaka and, Straits of Melaka and Johor. Confident enough to even snap his own picture during the flight.

When I saw this picture which was taken he first started flying solo, my heart skipped a beat and why not. You would too if he's your son. The empty seat next to him means he was all alone in flying the aircraft. Any decision would be his and his alone. Obviously I would not be making any remark if he were a Boeing 747 pilot with more than 10,000 hours, but we are taking about someone with about 10 hours or so (at the point this picture was taken).

Ten hours and they would ask him to fly solo. I would not allow him to drive my car with just 10 hours of lessons. Things are so different in the aviation industry.

But I like his confidence - he needs it if he were to make it as pilot.

You can probably see the apartments in the background of the picture above.

And still climbing...typically they would climb up to 3000 ft, nothing more than that I guess. The single engine plane is an unpressurized plane and you can't fly too high I guess for the lack of oxygen.

In this one, you can see the demarcation of the sea and the peninsular. He is above the straits of Malacca - that would be good guesstimate.

He was not at his best when these were taken - a bit too thin at this point in late last year. He was not eating too well I presume. Food is his main problem for this pseudo Italian fella that he is. I would think the Italian government would not mind giving him honorary citizenship for his love of pizza.

They better serve pizza for every flight from next year onwards. ;-)

Anyway, the pictures were taken in November '09 and since then he had earned his first wing - a private plane license. He can fly you anywhere provided he does not charge for his service. We are yet to do that I guess for I now need to recoup first all the fees I have paid in him taking all these flying lessons.

I can't afford to spend more money as my pocket is now empty.

Now in many ways, thanks God that Akmal does not have any interest in aviation. I would need to be a cat in order to earn enough to be able to send both of them to flying academy.

You didn't get me? Let me explain. Only with nine lives would I be able to earn enough to be able to pay for their fees!