Bloggers are funny people; or rather bloggers like me are funny people. Funny in that although we maybe be baring our soul in the public domain without an apparent care on what people may say or think, since it’s our own ‘private’ (huh?) domain but on the other hand we get sensitive if someone makes an adverse comment or worst if no one makes any comment! Whatever happened to our sense of self-worth? Also after a while, we have to remind ourselves to be mindful of ours and our family’s privacy as we become less and less anonymous as snippets of our daily lives (both in words and pictures) invariably gets revealed. It takes more energy to tell a lie and I do not have an inexhaustible supply (of energy); so I blog it as it is. Although Kuching is the capital city of Sarawak; it's still a small town and you and I know that unfortunately, there are some hurtful and hateful people out there.

I started this blog when a friend suggested that I post my kayaking photos I used to email out to friends (and get NO replies or feedback) on a blog as he was sick (or was it lazy) of having to forward my pics to his other friends who ‘loved’ my photos. So I signed up on blogger in June last year and started mucking around with it with some tentative posts and exploring the user interface. So in drips and drabs, I started to blog around July/August last year; feeling all the while like I was ranting to myself. Then sometime in late October I met this guy who was lurking (loitering) outside my house when I just got out of the water and I invited him and his friends in as they expressed so much interest (lawyers are good actors) in my lifestyle (didn't know I had one!), house and the jetty. Anyway when Robin went back to Singapore; we started to use our blogs (he also has a dormant blog like mine then) to keep in touch with each other. In his blog entry he described me as a 'strange but wonderful guy'. Hmmm. Somehow or the other we also visited other people’s blogs and before we knew it we started to have this wonderful circle of friends who visited each other regularly!

Curious as to how many visitors there are to my site, I installed a counter on the 1^st of December 2005 after my birthday (when I also changed my template) and now my blog is approaching 15,000 hits since then. It’s nothing in comparison to the well known bloggers (who may get that number in a single day!) but it’s a big figure to this uncle who derives no income whatsoever from this blog; nor am I seeking popularity or approval. It has now become a bad habit - a daily routine and though I tried not to think or make too much about it; there had been adjustments for me and my family to accomodate this obssession pastime. Never in my wildest reckoning would I had imagined that people would be interested in my kayaking, photos and reflections or find them vaguely entertaining. A number of you had become regulars and weird though it may sound, I feel your presence. And I value it and I hope you'll still be reading this when I turn 100!

Joe, now my regular kayaking buddy (who as a non-kayaker met me through my blog) and non-blogger likens my blog to “an easy listening” FM station! I guess he meant it in the nicest possible way and I feel honored that people, young or young-at-heart, would seek me out as an ‘easy listening’ respite in the 'blogosphere' by coming here. I'll keep this blog going for a little while longer as there are still a number of things I don't know and want to learn how to do it properly. If the young punks can do it, so can this uncle and probably perhaps better too! I'd always enjoyed photography but it's only now that I'd discovered writing and I'm learning how to make these sentences 'sing'. And to find my own style.

I have ranted enough, so although they have nothing to do with this post, here are two pics of some red ants infesting one of the mangrove tree and one of clouds; and no, I don’t think there are 15,000 of them there!

Thank you for choosing to spend your time here. I feel honoured and I appreciate your attention and thought on our journey through life. I send you my love.