Read The Manual...

Assalamualaikum and Good Day...

Enjoy the video THE MAKER below! Came across it somehow and IT WAS REALLY GOOD!

ZealousCreative did an awesome job for this short stop motion video! I had enjoyed every minute of the story.

I especially love the background music, The Winter which was composed by Paul Halley. It is a lovely piece and really went very well with the story telling.

All I want to say here is the bunny creature should have read the manual until the end. At least, he can spend more time with his creation…

ENJOY!

The wedding is nigh... Part 2!

Assalamualaikum and Good Day...

My dear reader... It is also said that when there is something good such as marriage, syaitan (the devil) will work hard to make sure it fail.

Ah, if you had not read the first part, you can do so HERE.

True enough, there were lots of challenges faced by at that time wife to be and I. We faced stuff that made me rethink and ponder whether we were meant to be married. Alhamdulillah, we hold fast to our main goal of getting married. I have to mention my mother was also one of the main contributors to the success of my union with my wife.

This was also the time when I really sat down and think about the company where I used to work at. As you all probably know, my previous job required me to be offshore most of the time. All this while, I usually went offshore without much fuss, always cancelling my family events and my other social stuffs at the last minute. I did not like it but work is work. I sacrificed a lot for the sake of the company.

This time around since I was getting married, I insisted to be back a month before my big day. Boy, it was actually a no no for my boss. He was not happy with that. Once I was back in the office, he called me into his room for some friendly chat. One of the main thing he highlighted was the company was lenient enough to allow me to come back early and I should be thankful. I was like, WHAT THE HECK? It is not like I am getting married like every day! Probably he thought that I should be coming back a day before my wedding day. Probably he is one of the lucky guys who did not have to lift a finger in doing everyday stuff or basically anything. He always has somebody doing things for him. Well… I am very sorry that I am not as lucky as you are boss… This really clicked to me that I should not be in this company for too long. In the future, I will have to sacrifice my family time just so that the company can succeed…  WHAT IN IT FOR ME THEN?

My boss called me into his room...

Then I was worried about my wife to be wedding dress which was not even ready. I am lucky to get a simple lady as my life companion but there are times I want her to be in her best. Our wedding is one of the times… I really have to thank all of my aunties and sisters who jumped after hearing the wedding dress was not ready. This one particular aunty, my mother and my sister even put as much details as possible onto her wedding dress. I am grateful beyond word for all the love involved in getting her dress perfected.

Nope, the wedding dress is not as simple as the drawing...

There were few more surprises as the date got closer. Unexpected expenses few days before the wedding day… This was one of the times where I really curse the tradition. I mean, logically if a tradition pulls you down and do not really benefit you, it should not be practice. It creates misery and makes your life hard… And especially if the tradition conflict with the religion. Which one is correct then? Which one will you be afraid of more? Here is the test for us to see what really reside in our heart and whether we uphold our belief. In the end, we gave in just so we can at least get some good start for the new family.

I am not sure what they will do with all that...

Sigh… That all happened before my big day… I was really tired at that time and thought that getting married was TOO DIFFICULT!

Alhamdulillah with my family support, we got on to the final chapter of my single life...

The wedding is nigh… Part 1!

Assalamualaikum and Good Day to you my fine reader…

It had been a while since my last post on my wedding and the end of the year is looming closer as we speak. Insyaallah I will finish this wedding story of mine before this year come to end.

Once the wedding cards were all done, the guest name list was next. This was also a pain in the neck. Please remember that the number of guests is linear to the cost of food and the door gifts. Also you will not believe how many people were supposed to be in the guest list… Just to keep the story short, it was slightly less than the number of people residing in the city where I live…

All packed up and ready to go...

It was also unfortunate that I had to be offshore during all this commotion. There were people who received my wedding invitation card twice, some who did not it at all and some were invited via word of mouth…

Alhamdulillah my parents were very practical about the number of friends they invited. I too had to short list the number of friends to be invited. This was so that ermmmm… our most senior family member could invite more friends. With all due respect we did not mind as long as we do not have to cross out most of our friends too. I mean, IT IS OUR WEDDING and our friends (my parents, my wife and I) should be given priority. Again, it did not work that way here in my country tradition…

Thus I have to apologize to my friends who did not receive any invitation. I sincerely wished that all of you could be at my happiest day of my life…

But reality did not allow us to be together…

Moving On... Stronger...

Assalamualaikum and Good Day…

My sister shared something wonderful today over the FaceBook. This lady here, Yasmin Mogahed had said something that made me stand up and continue walking…

“I know you feel worn and tired. I know you're tired of failing. Rest, but don't stop. You can do this. You got this. 
Not because you're strong, but because He's your strength.”

Thank you o my sister and thank you Yasmin Mogahed for the wonderful reminder…

The Working World For Most People...

Assalamualaikum and Good Day...

I am going to share this guy, Angel Boligan, drawing. His drawing is weird at first glance but when you look at it properly and ponder, has deep meaning within. Well, they do said that a picture said a thousand words...

You can dig more of his stuff HERE.

This Year Eid Fitr...

Assalamualaikum and Wishes of Peace to you.

A lot of changes were brought to this year Eid Fitr in our family. We have new family members. I got married in March and my sister in July. This will also be another year where most of the family members were not around during Ramadhan. My sister and brothers are studying in the universities far from where we live.

Family portrait incomplete... Another ripple in our life...

Thus we look forward to see everybody during Ramadhan and of course during Eid Fitr. It will be one of the few occasions where you will get to see all of us together.

What we had forgotten is all of us aged, we got older. With each passing years, we pick up new ideals, change our way of thinking, our priority etc.

It is very sad to see the only one who looks forward to see the family whole is only my mother. I knew she had been counting days to see one by one of her children home. One of her greatest wish for this Eid was to see all of her children plus my wife and my sister husband in the family photo.

We always take the whole family photo every Eid. We were supposed to do so this year. Alas, mother was left with just the wish.

I guess it is during time like this that we get to see who or what are the priorities in our life. Maybe Allah gave us tests and made us chose. Unfortunately, we did not get to make mother’s simplest wish to come true. Probably we forgot who we should please the most in the first place. In our excitement, we forgot to make one person that loves us the most, the happiest. We easily gave in to our own selfish desires and wants. So much so that we could not grant the simplest wish of a mother.

Just a reminder to whoever read this, truly we do not know how soon death will greet us. Truly we will all be tested in even the simplest way and without us knowing. When we said we love a person, we will be tested to exactly show just how much we love a person.  When we realized that, let us hope it is not too late to shower our love.

Do treasure the time you have with your family. You will be the luckiest person if you get the chance to do so again in the near future. But what if that pleasure is not given to you anymore? Truly we do not want to lengthen the list of things we regret in our life…

OILFIELD LIFE! My Story!

Assalamualaikum and good day.

You had probably read about the offshore life pros and cons in my previous entry. If not, you read it up HERE.

Anyway, I do have few things I want to add…

So, for those who want to work offshore do take these things into account…

1. YES you get a good wage depending which company you are working with. Smaller company tends to squeeze every penny out of you. Meaning you will be slaved with measly amount of pay…

2. YES you can up your lifestyle with a nice home car and holidays but if you are in the position mentioned in item 1, sorry, no nice home and car just yet. And when you are slaved by the company, you will hardly go for holiday. Some company will not even give you days for you to recover once you return from offshore. You are supposed to be as fit as a fiddle or they prefer you to be a robot… even then, a robot or machine will breakdown if used continuously…

3. YES the financial rewards are tempting meaning if you go offshore often, you will get more. Which is true since you do not have the time to spend the money anyway…

4. YES you do get a considerable time at home when you are home. Refer to item 2. Some big companies do offer off days for their employee where they will be left to rest until their next trip. Some, will have you work for them as long as you can still stand up…

5. YES you are in a cabin or prison cell for twelve hours a day and working the other twelve. I do not get this part actually. I had referred to the labour law and they mentioned that we are supposed to only work 8 HOURS PER DAY no matter where you are working! Yet nobody said anything about this and it seems that working offshore for 12 hours a day is a norm. By right, according to labour law, you should be working 8 hours PLUS 4 hours overtime everyday…

6. YES you have to share with people who snore and smell unless you are some high and mighty guy in your company. You will probably given a room on your own or at least, share it with just another person. If not, everybody is treated like rubbish most of the time.

7. YES you have to put up with substandard cramped conditions and food. The offshore officers loved all this health and safety stuffs. They make it such a big deal that we thought IT IS THE MOST important thing there. After all, all this safety and health stuffs suppose to protect you and keep you safe. I will say, in most cases, they DO NOT CARE about your safety, your place is not always clean and the food served could be better. There are people who said that prison is even better than offshore living quarters…

8. YES You do miss your loved ones and to make it worst, if you are not the high ranking important guys offshore, it will be very difficult for you to keep in touch with your loved ones. Somehow, with all the technology available, most of the offshore facilities in my country have like 1 phone for every 100 people on board. Internet connection is not existent in some places and at places that have it, the speed is really really slow. It took me one hour just to read emails from my yahoo mail and sent a document less than 1MB. I heard, offshore outside of my country have more phones and good internet access. At least you can still keep in touch with people onshore…

These are the points that really make me sit and think about working offshore in the long run…

OILFIELD LIFE

Assalamualaikum and good day.

Here is something that was shared with me during my life as an engineer who work offshore… I had added and changed a few things but the message that we the offshore men want people to know remain the same.

For all the guys wanting to work offshore and abroad take stock before you sign on the dotted line :

YES you get a good wage
YES you can up your lifestyle with a nice home car and holidays
YES the financial rewards are tempting
YES you do get a considerable time at home when you are home
YES you are in a cabin or prison cell for twelve hours a day and working the other twelve 
YES you have to share with people who snore and smell
YES you have to put up with substandard cramped conditions and food 
YES You do miss your loved ones 

SO ??? BEFORE YOU EMBARK ON A TRIP AND SIGN YOUR LIFE AWAY THINK ON ????

NO you will not be there for all your kids’ birthdays 
NO you will not make it to every party, BBQ or whoever 40th, 60th, 80th birthday anniversary 
NO you will not always see your kids swim or ride a bike for the first time
NO you will not be there at holy trinity or school plays and see them being presented with a medal for sports day or a high achievement
NO you will not always be there and will feel helpless and far away in times of family crisis
NO you will not be there to bury a family member or close friend

SO BEFORE ANYONE JUDGES SOMEONE WHO HAS THE GUTS TO WORK AWAY AND TRY TO MAKE A BETTER LIFE FOR HIS FAMILY DON'T say he is lucky or he is minted !!!!! He has sacrificed more than half his life to make his family's life a GOOD one filled with happiness and hope.

I will elaborate more with my own experience working offshore in the next post…

Independence Day? Really?

Assalamualaikum and good day to you reader…

Yesterday marked the 56th National Day for my country. As always, this date, 31st August always bring some sort of controversy to the people in my country.

Photo courtesy of www.theborneopost.com

Also one of the latest update for this year is that my state had also somehow unearthed that it gained its freedom from the Brooke Dynasty on the 22nd July 1963. Ok… One of my questions will be, why on earth do we get to know this only today? I did ask around and most of the people (those who are close to me only) did not even know about this! Forget about asking the younger generation, I went straight to people of my parents and grandparents age regarding this issue and they DO NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS!

Here are some links to the 22nd July:
LINK1 LINK2 LINK3

Some people argue that someone had somehow added a new page into the history. As usual followed by the statement that the anti government people work is behind all this. Some people claimed that since history is written by those in power, they had purposely left this bit out. If this is true, I am not sure what the main reason for doing such thing is at the moment.

However, for sure the date 31st August is not the correct date to be celebrated by the whole country IF we are harping about promoting unity. Uniting people need to be with something that everybody in the country can relate to. Something that is similar with majority of the people in the country. Why not 16th September? The day when my present country came to be as it is now? The day when the Tanah Melayu, Sarawak, Sabah and Singapore were united into one country, Malaysia? It is the day of UNITY!

I am not sure what is wrong with the people nowadays… Not to disrespect anybody, but 31st August IS ONLY FOR SEMENANJUNG MALAYSIA! What does it got to do with Sabah and Sarawak? Some people did argue that without that, Malaysia would not even exist… Hmmmm… Well, do look into the possibility that Sabah and Sarawak would not even join Malaysia since we can stand on our own. Brunei declined the offer to do so. If Sarawak and Sabah did that, could we possibly be another country on our own? Countries maybe?

 If we talk about IF the possibilities are endless! But since event had passed, should not we focus on NOW? Why the 16th September was never highlighted in the first place? Why it is treated as if it is of no significant? No importance? To achieve unity, we should give and take. We cannot hold each other hands if our hands are full of other things that we think are much more important than the unity that we proudly claim to be our most important value.

Our history need to be studied and researched again just so that the REAL history can be properly shared with our future generation.

Business from home! Shaklee Miri!

Dear whoever read this,

I have now joined this MLM under SHAKLEE. It is a starting for me in the world of business as well as a jump start for me to work on my own.

Shaklee my dear reader had been around for quite some time now and the reason why we hardly hear its name is because this company is one of the company that believe in using the money used for marketing to be given to other people. Actually, Shaklee is one of the earliest companies to use the MLM concept to expand and reach out to others!

Its founder, Dr. Forrest C Shaklee wanted to make the world a better place by giving health to us through his product Vitalized Mineral (which later shortened to VITAMIN). He also believes that the proper use of his product is through word of mouth. One person teaching another person to properly optimize the usage of his Vitamins! Thus the Multi Level Marketing (MLM)was born!

Do drop by at my new blog below (which is in Malay language and I am now doing the English part so that I can share the Shaklee goodies with more people) to know more about SHAKLEE:

Within the Happiness

Selamat Hari Raya! Eid Mubarak!

Assalamualaikum,

Sorry for the very late entry but it is still not too late to wish you all:

I took the poster my brother designed for my mother's association event. It is so lovely that I have to put it in my blog!

Something to share with my fellow Muslims in my country especially…

Here is an interesting video to watch and ponder. It had been around for quite a while but I decided to put it in my blog as a reminder mostly to myself. A wakeup call to most of the Muslims in my country.

The message raised in the video is very deep and meaningful. 

Insyaallah, I will be able to do just that… I still have a long way to go…

Thank you Terajuofficial!

Ramadhan... IS HERE!

Salam to you and happy doing ibadah in Ramadhan!

Take this opportunity to grab as many goodies (mostly spiritual) as possible! Write down some targets to be achieved in this short 29 or 30 days of Ramadhan. Fasting and tarawikh are just the icing of the whole thing. Beneath them, there are heaps of other benefits and rewards awaiting those who know. Do seek more knowledge on how to get the best out of Ramadhan.

One of the good sites to start on is here! They upload tips to guide you for the whole month.

Owh, and enjoy these videos as well. Grab them from the same site.

Alhamdulillah, I do hope my first videos on my blog will benefit those who watch them. Thank you very much to sikosong and officialQR for the great videos!

The Wedding Card... Nightmare!

This happened while I was busy creating my wedding card…

I wanted a simple and catchy invitation card. I had taken an interest on invitation cards produced by the western countries. They keep the cards simple and attractive. Not to forget, creative.

The country where I live on the other hand clings so hard to our tradition that creativity had not been given the chance to bloom. There are a few breaths taking cards no doubt about it but not as much as the western people.  Due to our rigidness, the invitation cards are more or less the same from one to another. Here are some examples of the typical wedding invitation cards:

Also because of our tradition, there is lots of stuff need to be included in a piece of card. We need to write heaps of ramblings just so the card looks impressively religious and traditional. Here in my place, we go to another extreme where lists of wakil or people who more or less will be involved in my wedding. By right, if you want to list down people who will be involved in my weddings (and when I said involved, those who really go all out to ensure the success of the event), it will be just too many. We went through few wedding invitation cards that my Grandfather had collected and they all look roughly the same...

But the fact is, the names we need to include are not really the people who will be tremendously helpful. And the best thing is, if their name is not mention, they will sulk and hate me for the rest of their life… To certain extreme, they will not even come to our wedding. By right, these people should not be invited even or if they are invited and choose not come for the mentioned reasons… Then, thank you for showing to me that you are not worthy enough to be related to. I despise people who easily break a relationship, especially family ties for such petty excuses. Should not we work harder to foster better relationship with each other no matter how different is your ways and thinking? Should not we show respect for any differences we have as long as we do not go against Islam?

 Yet I have to remind myself, to give and take, and focus on the fact that I am bringing everyone together in the family to strengthen the family ties through my wedding… after all, as I had mentioned, it is just a small things and I should be able to look over it and get it over with… Insyaallah. Just give me strength to face human idiocy and the stubbornness to accept others differences…

Anyway, I got what I wanted mostly. Like what the emperor of China had said in Mulan:

No matter how the wind howls, the mountain cannot bow to it.

So we went on with the pop up wedding invitation cards…

Alhamdulillah. Thank you very much...

Owh... Mulan: Emperor of China of China from here.
The typical Wedding Invitation from my country were taken after Google image kad kawin.

The Engagement... SURPRISE!

Hmmmm… I forgot to follow the chronological order of the events leading to my wedding. Before the cards were made and sent out, we got engage.

I know what some people will say now, that everything was way too fast. And no people, no accident had happened or anything like that. Both of us just decided to get married as soon as possible so that we can love each other the halal way or according to Islam. Thus we try to keep everything as close as possible to Islamic ways as we were getting married.

We had been friend for quite some time now. I had asked her for possibility of us being together for the rest of our live somewhere nearing the end of 2012. Her answer was given somewhere in November and our parents approval were given in December.

We planned to get married a bit later in 2013 but decided to be engaged in late January. Anyway the wedding date changed and push earlier than what we had planned due to my sister’s wedding and my cousin’s wedding. We did not want to wait for too long as I had told you earlier…

Thus the engagement that we did was the simplest form that we could manage which was attended by only the closest relatives.  It is necessary to do engagement in Islam and it is utmost important in Malay culture as well. The engagement is some sort of formal booking that both of us will be getting married. It is also the time where both families can see one another. Then we can also pinpoint who will be handling the next step which will be planning for the wedding and stuff.

Anyway, on our engagement day, I surprise my wife who was at that time wife to be, with a ring. Does not really sound interesting but the fact was I told her that I would not give her anything on that day. Just go to her house and wave hi… Or something like that…

Secretly, I had actually bought two rings, one ring for her wedding and the other for her engagement. I thought hard on how to bring the ring to her without her knowing what it is until the very last minute.

Then I came across the butterflies in the bottle idea over the internet. Then I thought the best way is to hide the ring in the branch with the butterfly holding it. Then when it is the right time, pull the butterfly with the ring and surprise her!

So I went out looking for the right branch. Luckily there were lots of fallen branches at that time.

Then I was going to follow the butterflies in the bottle idea directly. Unfortunately, with the branch that size, it did not really look that good.

So my mother then suggested a mini garden with lots of butterflies. Hey, that could work!

I googled for butterflies template, and choose the easiest to color using paint. No fancy illustrator programs used here. As our theme was going to be purple black and white, the butterflies were some sort of teaser to the actual event.

Did all the color matching, find the best design, and printed the butterflies on both side of A4 paper. I decided to use black and few shades of purple for the common butterflies and one white and few shades of purple butterfly as the ring holder. Cut them out and folded the wings. Used very thin wire and colored it black using permanent marker as their feelers.

My mother did the garden. Bought a decent basket for the sponges, tied them up with these thin wires to hold them down and used hot glue to stick the grass bits to the sponge.

Then we stick the flowers to the sponge… My mother did the whole flower arrangement. I only need to stuck the branch bit somewhere on the sponge and make sure it was hold securely to the sponge.

The top most of the branch, I made a hole just big enough to swallow the whole ring in it. That will be the ring hiding place. With double sided tape, I stick the butterfly and the ring together.

And the rest is as shown in the photo below…











It worked splendidly with my at that time fiancée. She was really surprise that she got a ring on her engagement! She thought it would be only the butterflies and the garden…

The Wedding Card... Part TWO!

For the second part of this post, we are putting the card together…

The butterflies are for my wife to be. For the cover, it is just a simple drawing of us on the crescent.  there is a short poem about us and the name of the two of us was later added.

I did some sort of an emblem of the two of us, but later scrap off the idea and replaced it with us on the crescent except the boy is sitting down together with the girl.

The back of the card was also written with an ayat from surah Ar Rum verse 21, as a reminder about the marriage in Islam:

And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves mates that you may find tranquillity in them; and He placed between you affection and mercy. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought.

On the card, it is written in Malay language.

I framed the back of the card with Tengwar, the middle earth elf writings (JRR Tolkien). Since purple was one of the main color, I used the opportunity for another tribute to my favorite, the Lanterns from the DC Universe.

If you noticed, the symbol for the violet lanterns shone brightly on top of the hand of the girl in the cover and the back cover of the card.

For this card, Star Sapphires or the Violet Lanterns took the main stage and their love power really suits the whole theme. Carol Ferris one of the popular violet lantern, below is reciting the first three parts of the Star Sapphires oath:

Thus I wrote their oath in Tengwar, which took quite some time since the Tengwar letters are spelt out according to how you pronounce them. Here is the oath, for your easy reading:

For hearts long lost and full of fright,
For those alone in blackest night,
Accept our ring and join our fight,
Love conquers all - with violet light!

And here is the oath in Tengwar:










My good brothers who are good with the Adobe illustrator digitalized my design of the cards. Once the softcopy was completed, it was easier for me to make any changes and play around with the layout with the wordings.

Once the whole design had been completed, we sent it to the printing shop. Once the cards had been printed out, we put the cards together. The main card is made of half A4 card. The pop up is made of quarter of A4 card. The printing shop had cut them to the exact sizes. All we had to do was to fold them… Owh and because the cards were custom made, we just had to buy the envelope for them. It was a pity that I could not find the purple envelope…




Put the double sided tape on the pop up to stick them on the main card. I did not use glue for it will be messier and waiting for it to dry will take longer.

And yes, we had to do this for 400 cards! It was lovely to see them all standing though…





Here is the completed card!

And here is where I obtained Carrol Fenris picture and The Violet Lantern Sigil. Thank you very much!