"Surprise" B'Day lunch party for Leonard

Yup.. this is the face of a surprised Birthday boy. He turns 62 this year and due to the PM Rally speech, he can't really retire yet and has to continue to work till he's 100 or something.





Happy Birthday dude!





p/s we found avery kool way to enjoy condo lifestyle without having to pay for it.. message Fred and Merv for details... bwhahahhaa

Congrats to John & his wife.

Date: 4 Aug 07

Learn to learn...

15 Steps to Cultivate Lifelong Learning

from lifehack.org by ScottHYoung

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.” - Marcel Proust“I don’t think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.” - Abraham Lincoln

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” - Mark Twain

Assuming the public school system hasn’t crushed your soul, learning
is a great activity. It expands your viewpoint. It gives you new
knowledge you can use to improve your life. Even if you discount the
worldly benefits, the act of learning can be a source of enjoyment.

But in a busy world, it can often be hard to fit in time to learn
anything that isn’t essential. The only things learned are those that
need to be. Everything beyond that is considered frivolous. Even those
who do appreciate the practice of lifelong learning, can find it
difficult to make the effort.

Here are some tips for installing the habit of lifelong learning:





1) Always have a book.

It doesn’t matter if it takes you a year or a week to read a book.
Always strive to have a book that you are reading through, and take it
with you so you can read it when you have time. Just by shaving off a
few minutes in-between activities in my day I can read about a book per
week. That’s at least fifty each year.



2) Keep a “To-Learn” List

We all have to-do lists. These are the tasks we need to accomplish.
Try to also have a “to-learn” list. On it you can write ideas for new
areas of study. Maybe you would like to take up a new language, learn a
skill or read the collective works of Shakespeare. Whatever motivates
you, write it down.



3) Get More Intellectual Friends

Start spending more time with people who think. Not just people who
are smart. But people who actually invest much of their time in
learning new skills. Their habits will rub off on you. Even better,
they will probably share some of their knowledge with you.



4) Guided Thinking

Albert Einstein once said, “Any man who reads too much and uses his
own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.” Simply
studying the wisdom of others isn’t enough, you have to think through
ideas yourself. Spend time journaling, meditating or contemplating over
ideas you have learned.



5) Put it Into Practice

Skill based learning is useless if it isn’t applied. Reading a book
on C++ isn’t the same thing as writing a program. Studying painting
isn’t the same as picking up a brush. If your knowledge can be applied,
put it into practice.



6) Teach Others

You learn what you teach. If you have an outlet of communicating
ideas to others, you are more likely to solidify that learning. Start a
blog, mentor someone or even discuss ideas with a friend.



7) Clean Your Input

Some forms of learning are easy to digest, but often lack substance.
I make a point of regularly cleaning out my feed reader for blogs I
subscribe to. Great blogs can be a powerful source of new ideas. But
every few months I realize I’m collecting posts from blogs that I am
simply skimming. Every few months, purify your input to save time and
focus on what counts.



8 ) Learn in Groups

Lifelong learning doesn’t mean condemning yourself to a stack of
dusty textbooks. Join organizations that teach skills. Workshops and
group learning events can make educating yourself a fun, social
experience.



9) Unlearn Assumptions

You can’t add water to a full cup. I always try to maintain a
distance away from any idea. Too many convictions simply mean too few
paths for new ideas. Actively seek out information that contradicts
your worldview.



10) Find Jobs that Encourage Learning

Pick a career that encourages continual learning. If you are in a
job that doesn’t have much intellectual freedom, consider switching to
one that does. Don’t spend forty hours of your week in a job that
doesn’t challenge you.



11) Start a Project

Set out to do something you don’t know how. Forced learning in this
way can be fun and challenging. If you don’t know anything about
computers, try building one. If you consider yourself a horrible
artist, try a painting.



12) Follow Your Intuition

Lifelong learning is like wandering through the wilderness. You
can’t be sure what to expect and there isn’t always an end goal in
mind. Letting your intuition guide you can make self-education more
enjoyable. Most of our lives have been broken down to completely
logical decisions, that making choices on a whim has been stamped out.



13) The Morning Fifteen

Use the first fifteen minutes of your morning as a period for
education. If you find yourself too groggy, you might want to wait a
short time. Just don’t put it off later in the day where urgent
activities will push it out of the way.



14) Reap the Rewards

Learn information you can use. Understanding the basics of
programming allows me to handle projects that other people would
require outside help. Meeting a situation that makes use of your
educational efforts can be a source of pride.



15) Make it a Priority

Few external forces are going to persuade you to learn. The desire
has to come from within. Once you decide you want to make lifelong
learning a habit, it is up to you to make it a priority in your life.

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Random tots of nonsense... - No. 1

Striking Lottery

What would you do if you did? Let's put this imaginery lottery winning to $5M. Would you buy a house, donate money to the poor, buy a fancy car, save the money, invest the money, travel the world? With that much money, you could certainly do alot. Let me share with you my tot on 'how' I would 'spend' my $5M.

1. Buy a nice property.
You can't go wrong with buying a prime real estate. Especially in Singapore where land is scare and prime land even more valuable. Invest in property as the richer folks do.

2. Buy not a car, but 2 cars (the 2nd one is really really a KIV thing actually.. hahaha)
First car... one that suits the needs of the family. Currently, I have 7 heads to carry around during my travels.. so I need a MPV. I like the Odyssey.. so I will get the top of the line Ody with 6 airbags, In-Car Entertainment, 18" rims, and opt for VSA (Honda's implementation of ESP)

Second car...a car that is fun to drive and sporty but not too over the edge. There's alot of sport cars around and you could certainly spend alot of money on getting one.. but one brand stood the test of time, stood out to be a all-rounder (price/ride/performance). The Porsche 911 Turbo. It's a pratical sports car..I mean.. you can drive this to the wet market and not worry too much about clearing the crowd that has since gathered at your car since you left it. You can actually see who is driving behind you thru your rear-view mirror (not that it really matters cause most of the time you would be in-front anyway). More importantly.. you could actually sit more than 2 people in the car!

3. Set aside at least $1.56M for private bankers to grow your money.
You would think that you could actually put in this money in a bank and earn interests? Well, there is a dollor limit in terms of the interest rate you get for the amount of money you put in.. + you would actually earn more money by having those guys/gals in fancy suits and dresses do the hard work and make your money grow even further. All you need is at least USD$1M. (hence why the rather odd value in the SGD value)

4. Give Money away
Yes.. give it away. As easy as you got it, you also have to 'share it. Share it with your parents.. send them on holidays.. buy them gifts.. make them happy. It's about time they enjoyed life. Give money to the less fortunate. Better still, actually make an effort to help them with the money you are giving them.

5. Start a biz....
Rather than working for someone else, now you have the money... stop using the excuse that you need money to start a biz. Do something that you always wanted to do and the money will come to you. Do not work for the money but let the money work for you!

Finally, not something on spending of the money. With the 'extra' money, I would let my wife, Sharon, quit her job and become a full-time mother. We have triplets and we love them so so much. Without worrying about money, she can focus her energy to taking care of the kids.

That's about it. Tell me what would you do with your $5M dollars.

Rolex Servicing...

Brought in our watches for checks just before the warranty expires. 2 points on it... Good and Bad.

The Good.
- Fast service. They can adjust your Rolex if it's running off there and then.
- Nice environment. You can smell the "high-class" in the hardwood floors and the Herman Miller chairs they Customer Service personnel sits on...

The Bad
- Expected more work to be done. i.e. that they would take in the watch and actually do some maintence work.
- Customer Service was average... something I hoped to be better considering that it is a Rolex and not some cheap watch. Then again, many would argue that.. so what? What is a Rolex as compared to a Frank Muller or Harry Winston.
- Servicing of a Rolex after the warranty period would cost about SGD$200 and I would like to have saved that money if I can have it done within the warranty period. Something the Swatch Group allowed me to do when I sent in my Omega.

Anyway.. here's a pic of the folks at the service center doing their thing.

Goodyear F1 GS-D3 - V-TRED tyres/tires

Went in to JB to get these babies and paid about RM800 for them.
Package includes...

- 04 x tyres
- wheel balancing
- alignment
- nitrogen gas
- service charges




Good for wet weather and ok for dry.

Performancing.. the new way to BLOG!

Thanks to Leonard Chong, I got a convenient way to blog now through Performancing extension in Firefox. Coool stuff! Thanks!!!