Not Again, Accident in Bukit Tabur

Click to enlarge picture for reading



This is a news report from Guang Ming Daily dated January 19, 2009 on another accident in Bukit Tabur.

A college student aged 23 fell 100 ft down the cliff.

We would like to remind all trekkers, whether new or old, experience or inexperience, please do not take safety lightly, Be careful, very very careful in every steps you take.

We have contacted the professional rock climbers. He will bring in his rock climbing equipments and expertise to make certain accident prone spots safer for trekkers.

Work will be carried out after the Chinese New Year festive holidays.

In the mean time, be very very careful when you go there.

If you need more information, please refer to postings below

Bukit Tabur : Accidents
Bukit Tabur : Terrain & Challenges
Bukit Tabur : Challenges at the first rope
Bukit Tabur : Challenges at the second rope

After a personal encounter on Bukit Tabur accident in October 08.

Since we go there two to three times weekly and know the terrain rather well. The idea of community service to the trekking community was toying in my mind,

Guess now it is time to go into actions, with hope to reduce accidents and unnecessary mishaps.

This voluntary work will be done after the Chinese New Year too.

Again, whne you are having fun, please exercise caution and care.

Thinking Out Of The Box

The Basic Of Plumbing Repairs

The email response i received on my posting Free tips In Plumbing Repairs dated Jan 8, 08 has been overwhelming.

Someone asked, why is it that you do not use any plumbing tools ? like the pipe wrench.

" Oh, I don't have any of those."

" To be true, I don't know what is a pipe wrench. " So I googled and found these wrentches of different shapes & sizes.

Pipe Wrenches



Another mail came to caution me against letting professional plumbers and contractors read my blog.

" Why ? "

" If ever you let the professional plumber see your work, they will chase you with hammer, long enough to hammer you !! "

" Why ? "

" Because the work you did is so ugly !!!

" Oh !! , really ? I am sorry if it caused you eyesores"

" It's because I used different tools and skills as well as expertise trained not by the conventional plumbing school !!"

As I have received an earlier mail on pipe wrench and have learn a thing or two about plumbing repairs from the internet, so I thought, this second mailer couldn't be more knowledge than me about plumber & plumbing repairs.

I emailed him a picture of wrenches and told him normally professional plumbers don't use hammer, they use wrenches, even though wrenches can kill too.



I decided to further search the internet on the kitchen plumbing repair so as not to offend any of the visitors to the blog especially the professional plumbers.

I went on the first box in google on wrenches and found some information in howstuffworks

http:home.howstuffworks.com/plumbingbasic
by Fix it Club

It says plumbing follows the law of nature, gravity, water seeking its own level. Knowing this, you can understand the " mysteries" and make dozen of fixes to your home's plumbing system. You can safe yourself time, trouble & money.

The explaination is so straight forward and scientific.

Firstly it talks about the law of nature and water and gravity, of which i am familiar with some popular and beautiful waterfalls. The smells of splashing waterfalls created so much fresh air with negative ions good to refresh your tired body is just heavenly beyond description.

Not to mentioned how the strong gushed of water over your stressed shoulder massaging away the pain.


My favorite waterfall in Gunung Stong in Kelantan Malaysia
At the based camp, there is a natural swimming pool, when we were there, there were some local kids, sliding down the waterfall like the slides in Sunway Lagoon Waterpark


Gunung Ledang waterfall in Johor Malaysia


And many others around in different parts of Malaysia


The explaination says once you understand the mysteries, you can do a lot of wonders. and the result is, it saves you time and trouble and money.

All my efforts in repairing the kitchen sink is worth matching the above description.

Never mind the repaired sink pipe look like the natural jungle treks.

Perhaps, anytime, when there is no time for outdoors, bending down to look at the cemented jungle trek below the old faithful sink may relieve the impulsive urge for jungle trekking.

May the sight of it beats away any boredom of routine in dish washing & household chores.



Immediately I made myself a clever quote

" Thinking out of the box with creativity is after all an excellent way to explain yourself to others " by Tan agnes ( Kuala Lumpur Malaysia )

It may sound silly to cement kitchen sink, but the result has been impressive.
Since yesterday, the floor beneath the sink has been dry.


Appreciate your comment, Mr. Professional Plumber!

Free Tips on Plumbing Repairs

During spring cleaning, the tendency to see things get done quickly and more urgently is there when compare to any other time that you less bother about it.

So, this is the case of our kitchen sinks.

Suggestions earlier to get the plumber to fix the leaking sink was never taken up seriously.

There was a lot of jungle trekking activities throughout 2008. We were crazy, bugged by the trekking bees, so addicted to trekking that even though the wet floor was a sight to be taken notice of, we had intentionally overlooked and caused the poor faithful sink to suffers choking & suffocation.

To call a plumber at this festive season means you have to wait, not knowing the time they turn up and somehow you have to wait with uncertainty.

And so, I took up the challenge to be a kitchen sink plumbing repairman.

In summary, these are the things needed on kitchen sink plumbing repairs.

1) Cement

Earlier i had use cellophane tape to tape the leaking part, to my bemused husband.
Nevertheless it worked, it really worked,

but.....
....... for a while,
..........just a while.

so now I chose a stronger sticking agent.

Cement as the sticking agent


2) Containers of different sizes.
one to hold the cement, a small one to hold water, to be added to the cement

Add water to the cement

3) Used chopstick for stirring the cement.

Stir slowly to prevent cement dust flying all over


4) Lots and lots and lots of old newspaper


5) Unlimited number of plastic bags.
I have used not less than 5 pairs of disposable gloves trying to stick the gluey yarky stuff, instead the disposable gloves isn't of much help, my fingers were all sticking together.

So improvise is the name.

It is advisable first to put on disposable glove as inner layer, then garden glove, then a layer of long plastic bag to protect the hands.


As shown in this picture


And there were three big garbage bags of plastic waiting to be thrown. Sorry for using so many plastic bags

Ya, a note of reminder on plastic bags, after trekking, do not leave any plastic bags in the jungle or mountains. It is unsightly and they takes hundreds of year to disintegrate.

6) Pails of different sizes
one for cleaning hand : first cleaning,
one for cleaning hands: second cleaning,
one for cleaning hands: third cleaning.


7) most importantly, a camera !!

And the result is a piece of job done by woman's hand



Alternatively, for plumbing repairs need, you can google up & search Plumber.com.

who knows ?

since I have the job experience, I may apply for a job in that field.

Free Tips : Never let any inexperience plumber attempt to repair your kitchen sinks.

Word of Advice & Caution: More so with expensive kitchen sinks.

Happiness Comes From The Heart , Nick Vujicic, Australia

The world is full of a number of things
I am sure we should be happy as kings
by Scottish Novelist & Poet Robert Louis Stevenson

The above poem was recited to the public audiences by a group of primary school students age 7-12 which I helped train during December 2008 school holiday.

During the training, I recited the poem to the children. for better understanding, I asked these young minds, what makes you happy ? I couldn't believe myself at their initial response.

.....few said " don't know !

.....some took a long time to come up with what they are happy about;

.....some answered hesitantly, and said they have nothing to be happy about !!!!

The answers from them strucked me, children at this age should be happy, children should be happy about everything!!

These innocent mind should not have the worldly worries & cares that their shoulder could not carry.

I showed them a picture of Nick Vujicic from Australia, who was born with No Arms and No Legs,

more information in http://lifewithoutlimbs.org




Nick's tour to Africa


It did help to generate lots of thoughts and drew them from their nutshells.

It was an ice breaker into their inner thoughts and an insight into their feelings.

Most Beautiful Smile

Looking at the smile on his face in this picture, I strongly believed that his life must have impacted many lives.

After seeing this picture, the children said, they are happy about a lot of things..........

I can write.



I can count
It's a two


By two, and another two


Let's wear our croc


And walk to town.

and alas one of them, who is always quiet and shy, bravely said " I am happy because I have parents who loves me."

Love in my heart

And that lovely sentence started the fun rolling.

For the next two weeks, Not only did the children played and laughed so hard ( that they got overboard sometimes.) and enjoyed what they did, I learned a simple truth,

Life can be simple if we made it to be.

and so, I modified the poem as my New Year wishes which I smsed out on the eve of 2009.

The world is full of a number of things,

family,
friendship,
health, as well as
well being...

Appreciate each of these, we should be happy as kings.

The message must have been circulated from one to the other, and on Jan 6, 2009, I received it back to my mobile.

What goes around comes around.

What a nice way to start 2009.

Happy le !

2009, What Will You Be

2009 Economic Outlook.

1. By Lawrence Yun : the US economy has entered recession
   
2. ........ ing year, 2009, will see virtually no gain
   

3. Malaysian Economic Outlook 2009 : hazy days ahead

4. The recession in advanced economies will set the tone for global economic outlook in 2009.
   Of importance is the extent of fiscal pump priming & monetary...
5. Economic Outlook forecasts sharp rise in unemployment as recession....

Everyone said 2009 and its months ahead is gloomy, economic performance will be worst than expected, there will be negative growth for business, and the spiral effect will be many things will come to a standstill.

The gloomy mountains & curvy road in the morning

Everyone said the road in the months of 2009 will be more curvy than all the months put together from past years.

The curvy road


Challenges ahead, not only will be as many as the mountains, they will be unmovable as well.


Unmovable mountains

yes, I think so, like what everybody is thinking & saying.....

My approach in being enthusiatic about life, or take one thing at a time can't change much of the situation, I really can't do much, because i am experiencing the hardship like everyone else.

Surely it is great challenges to be a good steward, to live positively, without fear, managing the resources that we are bless from the heaven and the earth

For now, the money has shrunk its value. Yes, it is indeed very challenging just to get the days go by.

We drove through a dark tunnel on our way to Penang, I felt the urge to take some photos while passing through it.

These pictures registered ( date/year/time ) 01 01 2009, 0034 to 0035, it took about a minute or two to get through the tunnel to see the light.

The end of a road tunnel


How will we go through 2009 ? will we see the end of 2009 ? Oh!! how is it going to be ?

Will it be as fast as the time taken for the car to pass through the tunnel ???

How I wish so,

2009 what will you be ?

2009, how will it be ?

2009 ! I will say to you :

you will be to me the tunnel,

2009 as tunnel in picture


no matter how, we will pass through............

Nearing the end in the road tunnel

and see the road ahead.

Broad pathway/road after the tunnel


2009, 2009,2009,2009,2009,2009, 2009.

2009, you will be to me the opportunity, for us to adapt to living life with right priorities, with right attitude & right perspective.

How we take 2009 will be how we say at the end of the year

Oh, it's a great year, Yes, we made it through.

Or, Oh yaks, it sulks....

There are no great people in this world, only great challenges which ordinary people rise to meet.

William Frederick Halsey, Jr.