Things I Would Like to Do

I don't think I would be diving anytime soon due to many commitment that I need to attend to for the next few months (there goes my target to get my 100th dive this year).

So I need to figure out what to do with my spare time and also where to waste my money :). I've already wasted a big sum of money getting my 1st ever dSLR to keep me occcupied. Anybody wanna go for photo outing?

Basketball should also do it as I currently trying to get into the EXPRO team and a friend of mine asked me today if I would like to play for his team in a basketball league that's going to start sometimes in June.

Other than that I guess it'll be work for me. Although the deadline is the end of the year but I'm already behind schedule and need to pick things up fast.

Also some great shows are coming up in the next few months that I think I would like to go and they are:

1. Beauty and The Beast The Musical @ KL Convention Center
2. Air Supply Tour @ Genting
3. High School Musical On Ice @ Bukit Jalil - I think I'm going to take my nieces for this one

I really wish they would stage Phantom of The Opera here (even though I had watch it before back in school) though I don't think it would be happening anytime soon.

Traveling is also something that I would love to do but hey, I've been out of the water since my Sipadan trip so I guess the next time I travel it would be for a diving trip :) .....

Anybody has any idea on what else can I do?

We did it!

Back in 2006, I played basketball for EXPRO in the East Coast Regional Games for my OPU where we got trashed by Oil Business by 30 points. I was attending a course the very same year that prevented me from playing for the KKP games held in KL where we also lost to Oil Business.

But on Saturday we finally got out taste of victory! We managed to beat an almost full strength (the exact same team that beat us by 30 points back in 06) Oil Business team in the KSRP mini games held at TTFC.

The road to victory wasn't easy though. Our team was first to play that morning with everybody still sleepy having to wake up early on Saturday morning and won the 1st game against another team also from KL by a miracle 3 point shot at the buzzer to avoid going into overtime (no the shot was not by me, I can't shoot 3s heh).

A really shaky start during the 1st half of the 2nd game saw us behind by double digits at the start of the 2nd half. We bucked up and held the EXPRO team from Kerteh (which I used to play for) to 7 points in the 2nd half but luck was not on our side as we lost by 1 point. I hold myself responsible for the loss as I kept on missing free throws and with 4.5 seconds left on the clock, I managed to grab a missed free throw by the opposing team but threw the ball too far that my team mates got no chance to catch it and try to take a shot for a win.

Despite losing the game, we was seeded no 1 in our group as the Kerteh EXPRO team lost their last game and was out of the running for the semi final games. We were up against the PGB team and managed to come out with a 4 point win and everybody was clearly tired at that point. Anyway the win set us up for a final game with Oil Business and me and Hussen were really pumped up for the game.

Everybody was on top of their game during the final and we were never behind during the 1st half. I took myself out of the game for a breather for the 2nd half as my body's aching all over but went back in just 2 minutes after. Just can't keep myself out of a game against a team I've been waiting to play for 2 years. Things got really close and heated up I would say; elbows were flying, shouts were exchanged and few technical fouls were called. They managed to equalized the game 3 minutes before the whistle but we managed to hold on. Despite a late technical foul when we were leading by just 4 points (they got 3 free throws, made 2 of 3, and also the possession) we kept it cool, got a steal, scored a basket and held on for the win!

Can't remember the last time victory tasted this sweet. Anyway, got home around 6.45pm that day (somebody was suppose to come by and take some pictures but she couldn't make it, so blame her for having no pictures to show heh) and just lie on the couch all night my body aching all over......

Anyway now I'm really looking forward for this year's KKP games and if this is how we play, mind you that we were missing some core players due to various reasons, things are looking great. Now I need to rest.....my feet's still hurting....

My New Baby !!!!!

Sipadan Part 4

More for you viewing pleasure...

Morey Eel

Nudi

Nudi Couple

Even more Nudi

And the highlight of the trip, Flamboyant Cuttlefish

Sipadan Part 3

The journey continues again. Now the underwater part :)

Banded Pipe Fish

Frog Fish

Crocodile Fish

Err....

Ghost Pipe Fish

More coming soon..

Sipadan Part 2

OK, now the journey continues :)

Everybody's busy sorting out seats on the boat

Hey, got rainbow

Finally we got to Mabul. Can't wait to get wet!

Everybody's busy pretending to listen to the briefing while they're actually thinking "can we go dive now..."

Ikan busy handing out keys

Next would be underwater pictures, in the next post that is....

Sipadan Part 1

I know it's a week late but I've been really occupied with work since I took a whole week off during my Sipadan trip. So here goes my Sipadan Picture Trip Report :)

My trip started at 11pm March 17th. After some logistics arrangement I took the 1st bus out of KL Sentral to LCCT at around 3.15am.


This is part of the luggage that took us about 1.5 hrs to check in. Check in was a chaos as we had to 1st declare our extra luggage as sports equipment (to enjoy the RM30/15kg additional allowance) then check in the normal luggage, then bring the extra luggage to another check in counter to get in checked in, then to another counter to pay for it. 3 counters just to check in our extra luggage? I wonder why can't we just do everything at the check in counter.

I slept all the way in the plane and also all the way from Tawau airport to Semporna so no pictures there. Anyway, we reached Semporna near noon and checked in at Lee's Resthouse as our boat out to Mabul island is only the next morning.

Semporna town

Lee's Resthouse

Another look at the variety of diving gear waiting to be loaded in the van to the jetty

More pictures coming up soon in part 2 :)

I'm Back!

I'm back and feeling tired and sleepy. I only got home around 2.30am this morning and still having the so called "Post Diving Syndrome". Mocha has been asking for pictures (sorry for you camera bro) and I'll try to upload them tonight should I finish unpacking and cleaning my diving gears. I'm sure they're smelling quite nice now at home as some are not so dry when I packed them and it was raining when we touched down at LCCT yesterday.

Anyway, overall it was a good trip. Sipadan was not as I expected due to unfavorable weather condition and bad timing. But I did have fun at the other dive sites namely Si Amil, Kapalai and around Mabul island. It was a long 1 week journey and now I think I'm hooked. I'm already looking at the calendar to see if I can slot in another trip this year (yes honey, I'm thinking about going back there but this time I'll take you along heh :) ) should I be able to come up with the money needed that is.

Pictures coming soon.....stay tuned

The Day is Tomorrow...

I've been keeping my diving equipment dry ever since I came back from the Kaleebso LOB trip last December. Yup, not a single dive since then, not even in the pool, although a miscommunication made me miss one of the pool session that I was planning to attend. So tomorrow I'll officially start my 2008 diving season diving in Sipadan until Sunday. It's my first time to Sipadan and I'm hoping for the best there. After all those stories and pictures, it's my time to personally experience it.

I don't know how many dives would I be doing there, but I'll try to slot in as much as possible. I do by all means plan to break the 100 dives barrier this year (so far I have no luck breaking 100 in golf so maybe I'll try it in diving) and I'm planning to do the bulk of the dives earlier in the year this year.

I'll definitely be posting lots of pictures for this trip that I'll be taking 2 cameras with me for trip (thanks to gafiL for lending me her camera) so that I can capture every single step of the journey. So stay tuned for reports soon.... :)

I've been Tagged by Ardy & Bakawali

The Linking Tag Rules

1. List out five favourite links - the links can be of business sites, affiliate links or whatever that suits the blogger.

2. Tag five more people to share their links, so hopefully, at the end of the tag, we would be able to share good links with each other.

3. The links MUST be clean. No X-rated sites.

4. List out only FIVE links.

5. You MUST tell the FIVE people you chose.

6. Provide the link back to the person who tagged you.

7. Obviously, it should be an active link.

Well then, my five links would be:

1. ESPN.com - My official sports website except during summer
2. Gizmodo - The gadget/tech site I love most. Thanks to Ass-rif for introducing it to me way back then
3. Google News - I just love the way they put news from many different sources in 1 site. And not to mention that they update it frequently too
4. MalaysianUnderWater.com (MUW) - Without them, my diving gear would just be gathering dust
5. Wikipedia - I'm always hungry for information, history and facts, this site provide them all

Now let see, who should I tag?

1. Judd
2. Ass-rif
3. Nurhi
4. Maya
5. Don't have a no 5. All the people I know had been tagged :)

Keep On Winning and Climbing Rockets!

Yup, the streak officially reached 16 games today. A new record for the Houston Rockets and they've been winning 4 straight without Yao. Anyway tomorrow they're playing Dallas (without Dirk that is who's serving a 1 game suspension) and the Hornets is coming by the weekend.

The Rockets had already beaten the Hornets before but not the Mavs but I hope the streak would continue. Anyway, the way they're playing right now, I have no regrets even if the streak ended. I know what the Rockets can do now and they'll just be stronger next season. Go Rockets!

Catchy Phrase, Crappy Service

After breakfast, I decided to deposit some money into the bank with the Yellow Tiger Logo for car installment payments etc. Yes I can do inter-bank transfer but why wait 3 days for the transfer to complete when the bank is just on the way back from breakfast. As soon as I reached the bank, I noticed a long line (mind you it's only about 9am+ and the bank had just opened) and found out that only 1 out of 3 cash deposit machine is working. After around 15 minutes of waiting, it was my turn and I noticed the greeting message on the machine. It reads:

"Stop the queue! Use XXXbank Cash Deposit Machine"

Frankly speaking, this is not the 1st time I encountered the same -Cash Deposit Machine out of service- problem. For a bank located at KLCC where thousands of people work, I do think that they should have keep their machines in working order all the time. So far, there's rarely an occasion where all the cash deposit machines are working at the same time. What's the point of having multiple machines when like 70% if the time, only 1 machine works.

I guess maybe so many people are using the machines that it get full quickly. But hey, if you know that's the case, why on earth do you have only 3 machines? I know the other bank nearby have like 5+1 machines and most of the time all are in working order.

I think if they're going to keep it this way, they would be better of with a greeting message like this one:

"Stay in the queue! Use the XXXbank cash deposit machine and don't bother coming to the counter as we'll charge you 50 cent"

Anybody else having the same experience?

Roses for Prof Dr Rosnani Hashim

Prof Dr Rosnani Hashim is my great mentor, the person who encourage me to be strong and stronger since day 1. She`s leaving us now, but all her kindness, support and love will be remembered until forever.

Pharmacy Dept, FSKB, UKM KL (old pic, sorry)

Lunch at KL Tower

MSc in Clinical Pharmacy 2006/2007

NajiBEST with Prof PT Thomas
(Longhorns 2005 vs. Longhorns 1993)

NajiBEST and GafiL - Pharmacy Nite 2008

When Visiting Alien meets Resident Americans

gafiL insisted to buy, made me really missed my old days in Texas...

busy