I am simply exhausted!

Twenty one days into the new year and I am already wishing that we are at the end of the year again.

Instead of having the full year to get through, like we are right now.

Don't get me wrong; I have reasons to rejoice. REasons I would not reveal for now. And they are real reasons for rejoicing for anybody.

Especially me!

But at this moment, I am too tired to be rejoicing to be honest. I feel like a zombie. I have been working non-stop since 10 December 2012, and it has been six straight weeks. It is not like it is a five-day week that we are talking here; it is practically seven-day week - straight, 12-14 hour day and inclusive of traveling up and down the East Coast Highway on a weekly basis.

No christmas holidays, no new year holidays and obviously no CNY either.

Come the weekend, I would be staring down two computers - as if one is not enough. Most of the time it would be lying down on the carpet in my living room; many a times it would be up in the office. Deadlines came and went; and the work is still not done. It keeps on piling on the table. The delivery seems to be like a blackhole - it will eat anything you deliver and wants more.

It probably want your souls too.

I am not really complaining though. For an employer like me, having jobs are God-sent gifts. Keeping everybody busy with work is heavenly as a boss. I don't have to worry about anybody busying themselves on FB and not on some productive work that would generate income.

1110 NASA Road 1 Houston TX. From the small window in my (then)
office, I can see the NASA HQ with the Saturn V rocket (of course they don't
have the shuttle in Houston). This office was only10 mins from home which is located
in front of the lake. Hence I did not mind then working for 12-16 hour day.

But somehow I thought I should keep on reminding myself that I do not wish to have 1999 all over again. Then working from an office in front of NASA HQ at NASA Road 1 in Houston, we worked 7-day week, 12-hour day for three straight months. In the beginning it was fun; but as we approached the deadlines, the pressure was on, and it was taking the toll on me.

There was so much the body can take, and mind you, that body was 13 years younger then.

I am certainly tired - no, make that exhausted, but I also do know that the work is not yet done [sigh]. There are more to come, so the pressure is still on. The job is certainly giving my brain a good workout, but it is the body that could not take it anymore. I certainly do not want to live through 1999 all over again, but at this stage of my life I certainly do not have too many choices. 

I certainly hope it would not end though, not for the staff anyway. They can keep on working; they are still young anyway. 

It is just the boss who needs the time off!

EPILOGUE

And I thought once upon a time I would like to be a boss with people working for me (instead of me working)! What went wrong with that vision? [sigh]


And I am so tired that it has taken the toll on this blog. I have not been updating it. Two entries in 3 months are what what I envisage when I took up blogging years ago.

How Time Flies

I was just killing time, browsing through the family albums, while Akmal was studying for his Chemistry exam when I chanced upon these pictures.

They were taken in 1999 when he was only 4 1/2 years and attending the pre-kindergarten class at League City Elementary School in Texas (south of Houston, near NASA). How times flies and how I could never retrieve the time when he was just practically a baby. He was such a sweet boy then, and of course he still is! ;-)

Horace Mann:

Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for they are gone forever.

Merely ten years ago and it surely feels like an eternity. I guess I can never enjoy him again as him in these pictures. I remember well his antics as a kid, and his extrovert and cheerful nature then.

Zig Ziegler:

Remember, you can earn more money, but when time is spent is gone forever.

I guess, time NOT spent together as father and son, or for that matter for any reason, would be lost forever too, if you know what I mean.

Caption: Akmal and Mrs Whitworth posing for a pic when I came avisiting. Taken in 1998.

Life in League City was reasonably fun, and I am sure for the kids, it was the best of time. Learning at a school in the United States was an experience one would never get at our more regimented school. But that's a different story.

Proverb:

Lost time is never found again

I am just reminding myself that soon, he will be on his own when he completes his secondary education, and hence I need to enjoy his presence at home while I still can.

Alexander Woollcott:

Many of us spend half our time wishing for things we could have if we didn't spend half our time wishing.

I dislike it when I feel that my character was being questioned, like in the above saying. These words ring true for me if I am honest to myself.

How to catch the Mat Rempits

Sometimes I do find Sunday night news fun.

I am talking about the many police operations, be it against the Mat Rempit or the drunk driving menace or any other public menace. You can see the Mat Rempits all scrambling trying to get away from the police, going against the traffic, swerving in between cars. I do wish I have a bulldozer and I would just mow them down. The police would try to kick down the Mat Rempits or throwing cone to them hoping that they would fall.

I am all for the police trying to rid this country of Mat Rempits. They are such a nuisance.

But I am appalled by the sheer foolishness (read: stupidity) of our police force acting as if that they don't know any better, that they can't use their head on how to catch the Mat Rempits.

Many a times they would get a way.

Or you can have a case where they got hurt and then the police would have to pay RM500K like in the new today. You can read it here.

A decade ago, when we made Houston our home, we saw many police chase. On the telly that is. We have not be unfortunate to see it live with our very own eyes. That's not the part of Houston or America that I would like to see or experience.

Thank you very much.

The American police use a very handy device that if you put it across the road would spike your wheel and cause your tyres to blow, in essence ending the chase. They can quickly roll it over the road to spike the car, and quickly roll it back when the police car passes the same stretch.

Otherwise you will have friendly fire! ;-)

Watch this demo.


This is an actual chase that was stopped due to this device called Spike Strip. It would cause a gradual drop in pressure rather than a complete blow out of the tyres.





You can also watch the full video here.



That was more than 10 years ago. I am reasonably sure they are still using it here.

Here are some videos of Mat rempits on a Saturday night. Just roll the strip over the road. No need to chase them, no need to kick at them, no need to throw the cone at them.

Aiyah, so easy one to catch them, right? One whole group on an empty road. I should be the supplier of this Stinger Spike Strip!

Place a few policemen at strategic locations with these devices, and at the right time roll it over.

Soon the race will come to a halt.

Is it so difficult for our police to come up with such a device? Or buy them?

We don't have a thinking policemen team here.

I am not sure what the top guns are doing in the cozy air-cond office in Bukit Aman.

Here is another video of the Rempits.



But accident do happen. Not just in the bedroom ok! ;-) Here is another sense of irony or those crooks caught by these spikes a sense of justice



EPILOGUE

Here is the info on Stinger Spike System by Federal Signal. It a tyre deflation system.

YOu can download the brochure here.

http://www.fedsig.com/industry_solutions/law_enforcement/stinger.php

Stinger spikes are hollow. This allows air to escape at a controlled rate without causing a blowout or sudden loss of control. The spikes are 2.1" in length and are made of 304-T7 stainless steel. The XL’s new 2.1" length spike acts in conjunction with our patented rock-and-tilt mechanism base. This Stinger technology effectively penetrates thicker tires to safely and quickly end pursuits involving many larger vehicles including large trucks, farm vehicles, and military-type vehicles.

I wonder if they have an agent already here in KL.