Friday Night Drama

It's Friday and the Broadway musical extravaganza starts tonight. There is a performance tonight, a Saturday matinee and the finale on Saturday night. It should be lots of fun as there are about 10 teachers and 60 students involved.  Friday and Saturday night are sold out and the matinee is 70% sold.  It should be a financial success so all the kids need to do now is pull it off from a performance standpoint.

Other than that, it has been a very long week and I am looking forward to the weekend where I can finish my current novel and perhaps start a new one.  I may just have to catch a cab into downtown KL to my favourite book store in the Petronas Towers.

TTYL,

Jim

Malaysian F1

Here are some photos I took at the Malaysian F1 in early April.

New Condo Rented

Shelley and I are rejoicing because our hunt for a 2 bedroom condo (with working aircons) in the same complex has come to a successful conclusion.  We have signed for a year in a lovely 2 bedroom unit on the 11th floor. The 11th floor is good because the bugs don't fly that high so you can keep windows open at night if you so desire.  The unit is quite modern, having been recently sold to a new investor who renovated the kitchen, put in new mattresses, leather couches, and a new flat panel television.  The only thing we are concerned about is, you guessed it, the main aircon.  The owner has replaced 2 of them and told us if there was a problem, she would do the main unit as well.  The good news is that this unit does not get as much direct sun as our last unit so our electricity costs (which are high here in Malaysia) should be much less. We move in June 15 and fly out June 19th back to Canada for 3 weeks.  The timing appears good.

Jordan seems to have arrived back from the dead after 2 days of drinking and debauchery after celebrating the end of 3rd year of university.  That is good reason to celebrate but unfortunately my son has yet to learn the meaning of moderation :-)

Jaime seems to be getting lots of shifts at Milestone's so that is keeping her busy these days after her European vacation was canceled by an Icelandic volcano.

It won't be long until:

I get to take Yammy for a ride :-)

TTYL,

Jim

Welcome Ottawa Catholic Schools' Teachers

Apparently Steve and Lisa are giving a workshop on blogs and might be using my blog as an example. I am at about 280 posts at this moment in time and space.  I started it the weekend Shelley and I were hired at the Queens TORF. I could tell you how wonderful the experience has been but you can read all about it in my blog.

We are always looking for teachers at Taylor's Canadian Pre University and if you are looking for a change (it's not much of a challenge as the living is easy and the students the best I have ever taught, comparable to Pius in the early 80's) I would suggest you either retire or take a year or 2 year leave of absence and send me an email if you are interested.  This kind of experience will rejuvenate you :-) and the travel opportunities are fantastic and will never be cheaper.

TTYL,

Jim Dale

Condo Hunt Continues

Shelley and I looked at another condo in the adjacent tower (same complex) and quite like it. It is a 2 bedroom but is quite large with 3 bathrooms. It has working aircons (2 horsepower rather than our measly 1.5's) and upgraded amenities such as a large LCD television.  We will put in an offer for it.  If you are planning on visiting us, not to worry, still lots of room at almost 2,000 square feet.  It also rents for $2,500 ringitts a months so we save $800 ringitts a month which effectively pays for 2 return airfares to anywhere in South East Asia every month. That's an extra 12 weekend trips per year :-)

This is a 'down' weekend for us and we are just lazing around.  Later on when it cools down I plan on walking to the mall in search of a book to read.  Hopefully, Shelley will come for the walk.  Next weekend is the Broadway musical and that goes Friday night, Saturday matinee and Saturday night so there will be lots of stress.  The artsy types seem to strive on the stress but I have observed they do not handle it well. Must be a love/hate kind of thing.

Jordan finished up his exams yesterday so here's hoping things went well.  He has a week off and then heads off to Australia with about 15 other TWU students so it should be a lot of fun. Shelley and I are planning to visit Australia in September. Air Asia has a special on and will fly us there for $289 ringgits one way. That is about $90 for an 8 hour flight. Hear that Air Canada? Somebody is turning 60 in September and we thought we would celebrate by traveling to Australia for a week.  Jaime loved it and highly recommends it.

I have some ONSIS stuff to do, so

TTYL,

Jim

Tuesday at 4:30 - Aircon Day

Today is the day we hope to finally get all 5 of our aircons working at full capacity.  It looks promising as there are 3 technicians who seem to know what they are doing. Alyssa, our real estate lady is also here to translate for us so we can explain the history of what has been tried and has not worked.  Cautiously optimistic.

School is going great and most of the programming teams are functioning okay.  Problem with one kid but I tuned him up today.

Jaime's European trip has been canceled but Jordan should be okay.  Who would have thought that a volcano would ground most air traffic to Europe.  She should get her Atlantic flight money back but looks like she will lose 50% of her connecting flight money in Europe.

I must upload my F1 pics soon.

TTYL,

Jim

New Rodent

I usually use a laptop with a touch pad but I found myself doing more and more reading online and I was clicking scrollbars too much.  I do not like the scrolling function on the touch pad and I was afraid I would wear out the left click button as well.  So off to Sunway Pyramid in search of a wireless mouse. Biggest choice was RF wireless or Blue tooth.  The RF requires a small dongle but has no setup and a range of 30 feet.  The bluetooth requires no dongle if your laptop has Blue tooth but requires setup.  easy choice for me as I have to use the mouse on at least 5 different computers every week.  No setup meant RF.  Here is what I bought.

It is a Microsoft Arc Mouse and it is really cool.  Folds up nicely for my computer bag, and has great feel and handling.  Highly recommended! It looks really cool as well and comes in lots of colours, even a swamp green for Gabe.

It is also of use for teachers as you can be at the back of the room and still click and use programs as long as you don't have to type, suck as web browsing and power point.

TTYL,

Jim

Saturday is Aircon Day :-(

I am sitting in the condo awaiting yet another air con company coming to look at our problem.  The lanlord keeps switching companies (probably looking for the cheapest) and they start from scratch.  Today, I will sit them down, and detail the hostory so they know what to look for.

Basically, there are 3 things that go wrong with air conditions. 1) thermostat, 2) compressor, 3) out of gas (freon in Malaysia :-().

The most common problem is the gas needs to be recharged, especially under heavy usage.  So, the air con repair guys, simply recharge the units and walk out the door and 2 days later we are back to square one.  I am not sure the landlord believes us. I am pretty sure we have slow leaks in the plumbing from the compressor to the air con unit inside.  We do get an odour (not sure if freon smells) during the 2 days it takes to leak out.

Hopefully by explaining the problem (as lomg as the rental agent is here to translate) we can live in comfort in this unit until we move out. We love the condo but are tired of the aircon problem and the landlord (who we have yet to meet face to face).

It is now 11 am and the repair crew is now 30 minutes late! Just the way I wanted to spend my Saturday.  However, I did get to update my blog so it was not wasted time.  Shelley has left for the rehearsal of the Broadway cabaret night at the school.  Excitement seems to be building for the event which happens on the weekend of April 30th. Lucky her :-)

I have left over pizza for lunch but after that I will be bored. Jordan is hopefully studying and Jaime is packing for Europe as she flies out this Monday.  Jordan flies out May 3rd for Autralia, just about the time Jaime is arriving back from Europe.  Must be nice to be able to travel the world in your twenties!

TTYL,

Jim

April Halfway Gone

The days are just flying by. 6 more weeks and we are into exams and graduation.  Shortly after that we are headed home for 3 weeks of summer vacation which is 2 weeks more than we received last summer!

There is an excellent video on TED about a lawyer or business person trying to bait a teacher about how much they make and how many days they work.  Anyways it ends with a great line by the teacher when he answers the question of 'What do you make?' with ... 'I make a difference, each and every day, what do you make?'.  It's a great video, check it out.

It is lots of fun in my class everyday as the students are into their projects big time.  They are starting to work through their lunch hour.  I do have one or two that are lost and tomorrow I will meet with them and get them engaged once again.

The cabaret night is fast approaching at the end of April and, as usual, the artsies are getting stressed out.  You gotta love them :-) Not too worry as it usually comes together for opening night and by closing night they will all be hugging and weeping because it is over!

I have a staff meeting coming up and I have to set up so,


TTYL,

Jim

Guess What I am Doing?

If you guessed WFAVE (waiting for another video encoding) you guess right. I am writing this one out to a WMVat 640 x 480 @ 30 FPS.  It's taking a while as the video is over 15 minutes long now.  I should have spit it out as an AVI and then simply used the variety of tools I have to crunch the AVI.  AVI is lossless is I remember correctly. I am pretty happy with what I could put together in a day and a half. I videotaped students from all over the globe. I may turn it into a FLV (flash file and put it up on my blog to share.

Oh well, give me time to update the blog.  The income tax returns are done back home thanks to Jaime.  She has a power of attorney for us and I do not know what we would do without her.  Jordan is hopefully bearing down and studying the next 2 weeks as he is into final assignments and exams, and then off to Australia.

I have booked an Aeroplan flight home for Jordan from July 2nd to July 19th.  I think he is looking forward to visiting his friends (and hopefully the family) back in Ottawa.  We fly out on the 9th of July so we won't see much of him, but I was at the mercy of Aeroplan.

I talked to my Mom yesterday morning and she is looking forward to seeing Jordan, Shelley, and me. Jaime is based out of Ottawa at the moment so Mom probably sees Jaime from time to time.  Jaime was quite upset her ideal apartment in downtown T.O. for $675 per month just happened to be in crack heaven and hooker city.  I seem to remember something like if it sounds too good to be true ...

TYYL,

Jim

Horse Power

Oh I long for horsepower! Here I sit and wait for my video to be encoded.  The principal (called director here) is off to Tanzania on Saturday to recruit Tanzanian students to Taylor's CPU.  We already have quite a few Tanzanians and they are delightful students.  Why the video?  Well a picture is worth a thousand words and video is priceless.  I was in the process of creating a promotional video for CPU so I just grabbed some of my clips which just happened to include 2 Tanzanian students and voila, the Artiste in me was off to the races, minus the required horses :-(. My desktop is at least 3 years old, running XP with a meg of ram.  In short, it sucks.  I keep having to move clips from my personal terabyte usb drive to the hard drive and back again.

However, it does give me time to brew a coffee and update my blog during the encoding process.  The first time through, the fool that I am, I chose DVD quality and this workstation can not play it back without stopping to buffer every 15 seconds, and that is from its hard drive.  I am now encoding to VCD quality.  I will also make an FLV to stick on the net.  You just got to love flash.

Time for another Java,

TTYL,

Jim

Condo Hunting

Shelley and I are looking for a new condo.  Our existing condo's air conditioning is always breaking down and our landlord is not quick to fix it. For some reason, she thinks we should be there to supervise the workers.  We have explained that we teach and can't just leave our classes and further more, it is her responsibility as the land lord to hire the workers and supervise them. Seems like a simple concept but she does not seem to care.

We think we will down side to a 2 bedroom and save ourselves some money in the process. We only use the 3rd bedroom when we have visitors and we could use the extra cash to travel more in the new year, or maybe even help Jaime with her rent.

We are looking at units in the same building as it is beautiful and we are used to it.  We did look at units closer to shopping but they have no character at all. Most f all, we just want air conditioning that works.

I have a sneaky suspicion that Malaysia still uses freon.  Let's check!

'What Is In Your Mobile Air-Conditioner?

CFC 12 is the chemical use in the mobile air-conditioner (MAC) as refrigerant. It is also known commercially as R12 or FREON gas. Generally, CFC 12 is released into the atmosphere before the service for MAC is carried out.

When CFC Will Be Phased Out?

All developed countries stopped producing and consuming CFCs in 1996. Malaysia have stopped producing CFCs Mobile Air-conditioning System in year 2000 and ultimately will phase out the import of CFCs starting January 2010 as mandatory date under the Montreal Protocol. '

Guessed right, although they refer to themselves as a developed country they pick and choose what they are developed in (shopping malls and mega structures).  You can not begin to imagine how many air conditioning units this country of 30 million people has and all of them destroying the atmosphere 14 years after North America stopped.  Don't count on them making the 2010 deadline as I have seen nothing in the press.You think we (North Amreicans) are the problem? You have not seen anything now that the Asian and South East Asian countries are coming online.  I have seen more Mercedes, BMW's, and Ferrari's here than I ever saw in N.A. You think the automobiles here are as clean as North America, guess again.

'Exacerbated by limited enforcement and the rapid urbanization rate in Malaysia, loopholes in addressing the air quality problem are related to the inadequacy of the present law to control vehicle emissions. The present regulation is confined to diesel-vehicle users, and car assemblers can get away with substandard engines. The Road Transport Department (RTD) is powerless to nab drivers of petrol-powered vehicles. The Motor Vehicles (Control of Smoke and Gas Emission) Rules 1977, which are enforced jointly by the RTD and the Department of Environment (DOE), are confined to diesel vehicles. This is a major setback considering there are 6.56 million petrol-driven vehicles on the road as against 626,622 diesel-powered vehicles.'

Believe it or not, they still sell 2 stroke motorcycles here in Malaysia.  They were banned in North America in the 70's!

TTYL,

Jim

Went for a Walk

It's been mostly programming and reading for the weekend. I was a little bored about 1:30 pm on Sunday and decided to go for a walk to Sunbang Parade in search of a book or magazine to read.  It looked like a beautiful sunny day outside.

After about a kilometre (it's about a 3 km walk) I discovered it was rather warm.  I had to order a large coke at McDonalds to rehydrate. While at the book store I bought my first motorcycle magazine in about 6 months as I start to gett excited about getting back home and taking my Yamaha 1000 cc litre class rocket out for a ride.

Upon arrival back home I immediately checked the internet for the temperature.  It was 36 degrees with 80 percent humidity which is quite warm. Apparently May, June, and July are the hottest months so I guess it is starting to warm up.  I do remember it was a bit warm when we arrived last July. After all, we are just a little bit North of the equator (3.5 degrees).

I immediately read the motorcycle mag cover to cover and I am now primed for home.

I texted Jordan to find out how his hockey game went and discovered that the lost their semi final game and are now done for the season.  That is probably a good thing as the end of the term is fast approaching with assignments due and exams about to happen.

Jaime is just finishing up her last booking for her 2 weel European trip before summer jobs occupy her. She appears to be quite excited about the trip and why not :-)

TTYL,

Jim

The Boys are Gone :-(

 
It's Saturday at 5:30 pm and the cab just drove off with the boys.  They begin the long trip back to Canada but the cool part is they are going the other direction so they will have circumnavigated the world in 30 days. That is something Shelley and I have yet to do, but plan on doing it on our way home in July 2011.

I went for a walk with Logan to Subang Parade this afternoon in search of a Malay birthday card.  We discovered that no such creature existed, although there are lots of English language cards.  I did pick up a French Red for our last dinner together (3 pm).  After dinner, the boys went for their last swim.

I also picked up a science fantasy book to occupy my time now that I don't have Logan and Colin to make fun of. They were lots of fun and the month simply flew by for us.

It will definitely be quieter here with just Shelley and I in the condo. That's a hint that we are again ready for visitors :-)

Strange Walk Home Last Night

I had to invigilate the Waterloo Euclid Math Test last night (that was kind of strange as it was Malaysia) so I did not finish up until 7 pm.  By that time I was a little hungry so I stopped off at MacDonalds for a quarter pounder with cheese.  Biggie size for the Coke and Fries :-). After I threw that back I walked home in the dark.

The strange part was here I was on the opposite side of the world and I was walking down quiet streets listening to the birds and insects chirping away. A cat looked at me lazily as I strolled by and ditto for a dog down the road. They ignored me and I said to myself, 'I guess I am just part of this landscape now'.  Never would have guessed this present situation for myself.

I had a text from Jordan this morning at 2 am asking my opinion on some work needing to be done on his truck.  He then texted again at 5 am to let me know the outcome.  I then got a call in class, about 1 pm as he was calling with the news he received 95% on his last assignment.  Now that call I did not mind!!!!!

I am sitting in my office typing this as I wait for Shelley to finish off her duties with the cabaret.  She is the producer.  She has Colin and Logan on the honey do program as well.  When they are done, we are taking a taxi to Sunway Pyramid for dinner at Tarbush to celebrate their practice teaching assignment here at Taylor's.  Hopefully it was a learning experience for both of them. For myself, it was great to have a little testosterone in the apartment.  Got to watch some sports and have a few brews with the boys.

They should be done in about 10 minutes so time to sign off.

TTYL,

Jim

AAC Triumphs as Coach K Adds Another Ring

There may be no joy in UNC but just down the road the Dukies are celebrating and probably dissing UNC as Coach K adds another tournament win for the AAC. I wonder how Larry feels about all this as he is an ACC fan but refers to Coach K as Rat Face.  Would he have cheered for Butler? Who knows.  The student teachers here are calling it but the best game ever but they obviously were not born when Rollie's Villanova team upset Patrick Ewing and his favored George Town Hoyas. Coach Thompson of the Hoyas is probably still wondering what they had to do to win it!

Things are pretty busy here at Taylor's with the English Literacy test coming up on Friday.  Today, the Waterloo math test is written. I have to invigilate both of them.

We are just waiting to see if Logan can stay on to tutor students in math/Science over the next 6 weeks.  Hopefully, it can be made to happen and will be really beneficial for the scholars at risk (less than 80 average).

I do have my F1 pics and will be uploading them soon. The F1 event was probably the noisiest event I have ever attended in my life. The Saturday night party was an unforgettable event that Colin and Logan attended, and featured a bevy of models on the catwalk and unlimited food and beverages (alcoholic :-).  The young lads stayed overnight in KL and came back the next afternoon and immediately had a long nap.  They must have had a good time.

That's about it for now,

TTYL,

Jim

Slept in til 8 am

It's pretty bad when 8 am is sleeping in, but when your alarm goes off every day at 5:45 am, that is another 2 hours sleep.

I appears that Jaime is leaning towards OISE at U of T. I took my 3 part Computer Science Specialist there in the 80's and quite enjoyed it.  Mind you, all those profs could be dead and buried by now.  OISE is also where the change guru Michael Fullan hangs out.

Jaime sent Jordan's snowboard stuff out to him via Air Canada freight and I think he is heading out for a day of snowboarding this weekend.  He has been out in snowboard heaven for 3 years and this is the first time he has been out snowboarding.  About time!

Shelley and I are planning on checking out apartments for rent in Subang Avenue.  We are looking for a place where we can easily walk (more like a stroll) to all the usual amenities.  Subang Avenue fills the bill and has a fitness centre and Coffee bar on the premises, with shopping and grocery stores within a 3 minute walk. I will keep you updates.  They also have 3 bedroom units so all you potential visitors have a place to stay.  Rumour has it they have a special feed into the Tarheels T.V. channel :-) Of course due to their lack of performance this past year that link may be as tenuous as Roy's contract.

Feedback on pics anyone?

TTYL,

Jim

Funny April Fools Joke

Yesterday was April Fools in Malaysia and Michel played a good one on Shelley.  He put a note on her desk telling her to call the president's office (university) returning a call from Loof Lirpra. Of course, given the many types of Malaysian names it was plausible sounding.  She tried to find Loof Lirpra for a day and a half, to no avail. She asked everyone in the office and the staffroom.

I must admit she handled it well but she is now planning revenge on Michel.

Tonight we went shoe shopping for the boys as they had to look chic for tomorrow night's party with Schumakker's Mercedes Benz F1 team.  They are planning to stay over in downtown KL and come back sometime Sunday.

The week went by quickly and we get to sleep in on Saturday.

According to a Chinese couple I met in the elevator I look more like an artist than a teacher.  Shelley found that quite amusing for some reason. Not sure why?

TTYL,

Jim

Redang Laguna Resort Pics

Pictures as promised.