An intensely blue sunrise and an insanely outrageous invasion of privacy and rights at work.

My last post on that outrageous ‘house’ on top of a cliff with massive rock fill to create the retaining sea walls and even more massive earth fills to create the access driveway to the top of the hill more than infuriate the more mindful and thoughtful amongst us on the waste and abuse of the earth’s resources by those just because they can.

And I was incensed too when the ‘emergency’ meeting called to thrash out the issue about internet access revealed more than concerns about office security and staff productivity - it revealed the outrageous invasion of privacy by our IT department who have ‘dossiers’ on the records of staff’s website visits! Needless to say since I complained, and as the head of my department; my staffs were targeted - for logging on to music websites! Subsequent conversations with staff in other department revealed that our emails were also spied on as staff had been called up for disciplinary action for having office affairs after being caught digitally! OMG.

As you can imagine with a defensive and invasive bastard person the meeting did not achieve much but to get me incensed. I was seething. It was a good thing that there was no paddle in the meeting room yesterday afternoon that I could get my hand on. But I could just as easily squeeze his nuts into a fraction of its already puny size with my bare hand. This is outrageous and a sickening state of affair. If I push this issue further I might probably get myself in trouble as this IT person is ‘entrenched’ in our organization and apparently with the support of the top guy in the company or so he brags (and indirectly threatens). I might just take him on the brag and see who blinks first. What shit. And things could get ugly for me but I am not moving ground.

The colours of nature is pure and beautiful. The true colours of some people are perverse and ugly.

House or palace? Singaporeans living in pigeon holes can eat their hearts out …

This is probably the biggest castle house in Sarawak if not in Malaysia. With 5 levels and over 50,000 sq.ft of enclosed floor area spread over acres of land and perched right on top of a cliff; it is an understatement to call it an obscene unabashed display of ego, wealth and conspicuous consumption. Whatever. And it’s enough to give the Brunei royal family, in the neighboring sultanate, an inferiority complex. Perhaps we’re all just jealous. I am. *sigh*

This is NOT an exclusive country club - it’s too big to be one!

Some block heads from our IT department took it upon themselves to block our access to the internet in a rather condescending and heavy handed manner giving rise to a lot of unnecessary aggravations and tense environment amongst the users. They virtually blocked off access to everything! The more vocal voiced their dissatisfactions (yours truly included naturally) and it is a rather unexpected display of intense emotion from our normally docile and apparently meek back room staff.

It’s appropriate I suppose then that I saw this rather intense sunset while filling up the tank at the newly petrol station near my house. I hope they keep the heat turned on and up so that we can incinerate this block head in our IT department. Do you have such dick heads idiots in your IT department?

Blues only in the sky with no upgrading blues this time round - phew!

Here we go again! WordPress is now at version 2.5.1… And of course I HAVE to upgrade in view of the image uploads problems that I have been having. Check the details here and since it’s so easy to select, copy and paste; here is it as well:-

Version 2.5.1 of WordPress is now available. It includes a number of bug fixes, performance enhancements, and one very important security fix. We recommend everyone update immediately, particularly if your blog has open registration. The vulnerability is not public but it will be shortly.

In addition to the security fix, 2.5.1 contains many bug fixes. If you are interested only in the security fixes, you can download these corrected copies of wp-includes/pluggable.php, wp-admin/includes/media.php, and wp-admin/media.php. Replace your existing copies of these files with these new copies.

If you download the entire 2.5.1 release, you will be getting over 70 other fixes. 2.5.1 focuses on fixing the most annoying bugs and improving performance. Here are some highlights:

• Performance improvements for the Dashboard, Write Post, and Edit Comments pages.
• Better performance for those who have many categories
• Media Uploader fixes
• An upgrade to TinyMCE 3.0.7
• Widget Administration fixes
• Various usability improvements
• Layout fixes for IE

Go ahead and download and upgrade to WordPress 2.5.1 and experience the dashboard interface which is as cool, slick and beautiful as an evening Kuching sky - well almost.

I seldom read Malaysian newspapers much less the local rubbish dailies but when you’re bored on board like I was on my delayed flight to Miri on Friday morning, I casually flipped through the “Eastern Times” and came across this sad story. Any wonder I tend to avoid the papers?

If someone locked me up in a cage for 5 years, I’ll rip that person’s head off the minute I get a chance and how I wished this monkey had ripped this bastard guy’s balls off before its gruesome death in the hands of its cruel owner whom I think should be charged in court for cruelty to animal. With our cruelty and callousness, I think we are the animals. Don’t you?

Of cruelty, karma and deserving what we sow.

FH2o leg up on Lake Toba - first but never having last thoughts about kayaking. Photo by Halim.

I’ll be in Miri for a day trip taking the first flight out from Kuching and taking the last flight out from Miri back to Kuching later on in the evening at around 2000 hours. Real fun stuff.

Kuching Kayaking?
Kitty on kayak @ rest stop, Lake Toba, 21st March 2008

And here’s wishing you fun and games over the weekend whether on water or on land.

Kim’s having her A-levels exams and being the dotting father that I am, I was willing to endure the over half an hour queue at ‘Big Apple Donuts & Coffee’ @ The Spring to surprise and pamper her with her favourite chocolate donuts to assuage her over this stressful exam period. *sigh*

Er, to be honest I have a fondness weakness for sugary and junky food as well…

Amazing photos & essential products from KayakAsia Paddlesports.

Well, if you happen to live in South East Asia, the best place to get all your kayaking gear and stuff would be via the internet from KayakAsia Paddlesports which is operated by Huey who lives in Singapore (and sometimes Shanghai). This is so convenient and saves you a lot of hassles and time and I trust and highly recommend dealing with Huey.

What is lacking in quantity (he stocks the essentials not the frills) is however quality as Huey is a passionate kayaker and he only stocks stuff that he trusts and personally uses. And as a aficionado of folders, all the top brands are available there - Feathecraft, Klepper & Nautiraid. They also carry the ultra portable Alpacka rafts.

And if you mentioned that you come to know of his online store from me - he wouldn’t give you any discount (his mark up is minimal) but he’ll certainly give you his charming undivided attention!

Go check out the kayaking stuffs and gear available from KayakAsia Paddlesports.

Huey on Lake Toba, 21st March 2008.
“Would you buy a kayak from a guy who smears on white make-up?”

Hallelujah! Finally I can upload my photos after mucking around without success with the chmod, htaccess file, swfuploads, turning off plug-ins, upgrading of PHP, Adobe flash upgrade, etc and all the various suggestions in WordPress forums … I was not alone in this with the common sentiment that this is “incredibly frustrating” …

In the end it turned out that if I put the full URL path name to the files for upload (in Settings >Miscellaneous) and leaving the “Organize my uploads into month- and year-based folders” option unchecked that did the trick … *sigh* And I finally get to go to bed at around 1.30 am.

Would I still install the latest updates/upgrades the next time round? You bet I would as the fear or inclination not to try new and challenging stuff(s) and a refusal to accept changes is certainly a sure way to become dull and OLD (and there are heaps aplenty of ‘old’ young people around!). Bring ‘em on! Yeah. But not so soon please OK!

KUCHING KAYAK - where the adventure begins …
Upgrade to WordPress 2.5 - where your woes with uploading photos begins … *sigh*

No doubt inspired by Folbot’s newly redesigned website, I also set about to work on Kuching Kayak’s website yesterday and I’m quite pleased with it. Please check it out and let me have your feedback. But I am no less pleased at all that I’m still unable to upload my photos to this blog after upgrading to WordPress 2.5 and I am so glad that I did NOT upgrade Kuching Kayak’s website and which is why I am still able to upload the above image. I have started reading the forums for help and it would seem that this is a major problem that has no clear solution yet - so if you are using WordPress 2.3; please do NOT upgrade to 2.5. I am seriously contemplating switching back to 2.3 even though I hate going backwards … *sigh*