it's six months today

exactly 6 months ago from today, at about 10am on september 5, 2008, my best friend, my wife, my lover, and the mother of my children, went home to be with the Lord. fiona, i love you and miss you terribly. and i can't wait to see you again when we are reunited in God's presence.

we went sailing!

our God is good and full of blessings! just yesterday, i had a chance to fulfil a dream ... be on a real life sailboat .. you know ... one of those with real sails, where you move because you're carried along on the wind, not one of those big comfortable yachts where you're sipping iced tea or champagne while a diesel engine putters you along. no, a real sail boat, where you have to raise the sails, pull the lines, keep things in trim just to keep moving, and you stop moving or get pushed sideways by the current if you're not.

thanks to max and vanessa, and van's kind cousin ai li at the royal selangor yacht club in port klang, we had a chance to join the club members in a couple of friendly races. we were put on board the unity, a 41-footer cabin cruiser skippered by a kind aussie gentleman by the name of ken. it wasn't an america's cup racing yacht by any means, but it had big sails and lines and winches and it was a sailboat!


after a few lessons on how to work the lines and winches, we went out with the diesel engine to the harbor where there was space for the races. Soon enough, the engine got switched off, the sails went up, and we were sailing!

thanks to glenn, a professional skipper (who sails/transports boats around the world for boat owners), and max (who has some 30 years of competitive sailing experience), we were soon going fast, cutting through the harbor waters, tilting over at 30 degree angles as the wind caught hold of our sails. it was the real thing, real sailing, and it was absolutely thrilling.

after much heaving on ropes and winding of winches, and executing manouvers like tacking and gybing, we were rewarded with some amazing news .... we won! even though it was just the "floaters" (casual) class, it was satisfying nonetheless. some celebration drinks ensued as we arrived back at the yacht club, along with a general agreement that we would all be back on the water again before long.

if you've never tried sailing, here's my recommendation: do it! it's great fun, and there are often lots of boat skippers who are looking for willing crew members to accompany them on casual afternoons on the water or in fun races like the one we were on.

Lord, thanks for a wonderful experience, it was a dream come true!

don't drink and drive

so i don't like to do those emails where you're asked to forward them to as many people as possible because that amounts to chain-lettering and spam, and i didn't forward this one ... but this is a good story that makes one think.

i was walking around in a target store, when i saw a cashier hand this little boy some money back. the boy couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 years old. the cashier said, 'i'm sorry, but you don't have enough money to buy this doll.' then the little boy turned to the old woman next to him: ''granny, are you sure i don't have enough money?'' the old lady replied: ''you know that you don't have enough money to buy this doll, my dear.'' then she asked him to stay there for just 5 minutes while she went to look around. she left quickly. the little boy was still holding the doll in his hand. finally, i walked toward him and i asked him who he wished to give this doll to. 'it's the doll that my sister loved most and wanted so much for christmas. she was sure that santa claus would bring it to her.' i replied to him that maybe santa claus would bring it to her after all, and not to worry. but he replied to me sadly. 'no, santa claus can't bring it to her where she is now. i have to give the doll to my mommy so that she can give it to my sister when she goes there.' his eyes were so sad while saying this. 'my sister has gone to be with God. daddy says that mommy is going to see God very soon too, so i thought that she could take the doll with her to give it to my sister.'' my heart nearly stopped. the little boy looked up at me and said: 'i told daddy to tell mommy not to go yet. i need her to wait until i come back from the mall.' then he showed me a very nice photo of him where he was laughing. he then told me 'i want mommy to take my picture with her so she won't forget me.' 'i love my mommy and i wish she doesn't have to leave me, but daddy says that she has to go to be with my little sister.' then he looked again at the doll with sad eyes, very quietly. i quickly reached for my wallet and said to the boy. 'suppose we check again, just in case you do have enough money for the doll?'' 'ok' he said, 'i hope i do have enough.' i added some of my money to his without him seeing and we started to count it. there was enough for the doll and even some spare money. the little boy said: 'thank you God for giving me enough money!' then he looked at me and added, 'i asked last night before i went to sleep for God to make sure i had enough money to buy this doll, so that mommy could give it to my sister. he heard me!'' 'i also wanted to have enough money to buy a white rose for my mommy, but i didn't dare to ask God for too much. but he gave me enough to buy the doll and a white rose.'' 'my mommy loves white roses.' a few minutes later, the old lady returned and i left with my basket. i finished my shopping in a totally different state from when i started. i couldn't get the little boy out of my mind. then i remembered a local news paper article two days ago, which mentioned a drunk man in a truck, who hit a car occupied by a young woman and a little girl. the little girl died right away, and the mother was left in a critical state. the family had to decide whether to pull the plug on the life-sustaining machine, because the young woman would not be able to recover from the coma. was this the family of the little boy? two days after this encounter with the little boy, i read in the news paper that the young woman had passed away. i couldn't stop myself as i bought a bunch of white roses and i went to the funeral home where the body of the young woman was exposed for people to see and make last wishes before her burial. she was there, in her coffin, holding a beautiful white rose in her hand with the photo of the little boy and the doll placed over her chest. i left the place, teary-eyed, feeling that my life had been changed for ever... the love that the little boy had for his mother and his sister is still, to this day, hard to imagine. and in a fraction of a second, a drunk driver had taken all this away from him.

so 2 things come to mind:
1) if you ever think that one more drink for the road should be fine, it's not!
2) keep your ears, eyes, and heart open for how God might want to use you to bless someone today.

have a great day!

keeping your data safe

with all the data we are generating these days (e.g. all those digital pictures of kids and family), it is too easy to inadvertently lose valuable information. ever lost a dvd before? or had a hard disk go bad on you? it happens more often than you might think! and it's quite a heart attack to think that you might have lost a year's worth of your newborn baby's pictures. not to mention, of course, of the real physical headache you will have when the furious wife bashes you over the head with her teflon-coated saucepan! :-)

the good news is that there are ways to protect your data. my solution was to pick up a network-attached storage (nas) device with 2 slots for hard disks. the nas was loaded with 2 x 500gb hard disks and configured so that the disks will always "mirror" one another. as a network device, this means that all the computers on your wired or wifi network at home will be able to access and share the information. as a "mirrored" setup, that means that if ever one hard disk goes bad, the other one will still have all your data safe and sound. you should, of course, still make a copy of this to dvd if possible. there is no such thing as too many backups of the kids' photos. :-)

single parents are awesome

so i'd just like to say that single parents (the ones who actually try to do their best, of course!) are simply awesome people. in this day and age where such people have to hold down a job, manage the logistics of a household and to make a place a home, and still be able to put their kids first and look after all their physical and emotional needs, the challenges are staggering. to those who are able to do so successfully without messing up their kids or losing their minds, i salute you!

(if not for my own parents and all the help they're giving to me at this time with the household and the kids, I'd be dead of a heart attack by now. thanks, mum & loh tau!)