Category: Daily Whatevers

But I would like to have Schrödinger’s cat. Or something similar.

Maybe a Schrödinger’s 250-gram-Medium-Well-Tenderloin-Steak. As in the case of the Schrödinger’s cat this would be an imaginary steak that I would put onto a plate for my dinner. If I feel full after doing that, then the steak would have been eaten. If I still feel hungry, then it would mean that the steak is still on the plate, untouched. Okay, let’s stop talking about quantum mechanics for a while. I actually feel hungry right now and I blame it on El Nino. It has caused the weather to be very hot that I have been drinking a lot and without the mood to eat anything. Now, at almost midnight, I feel very hungry.

Wifey tagged me early today after she was tagged by her friend, DNAS. The rules of this tag is as follows:

o Write five (5) interesting facts about the person who gave you this award.
o Jot down ten (10) interesting facts about yourself or your hobbies.
o Pick your ten (10 or less) most deserving recipients and describe them.
o Leave a comment on the recipients’ blog to tell them they’ve been tagged.
o Paste the award badge in your sidebar. (This I cannot do. I am NOT on Blogspot.)
o Have fun

This was what Wifey wrote about me:

The Diver – aka John F Seademon, aka The Demon, aka my beloved hubby. Fresh out of my divorce, I bumped into his blog, and it was the first time that I actually CRIED reading some guy’s blog. Cheh. He’s an excellent writer, funny and witty and ridiculously smart. I envy him. And he has a memory of an elephant.

Part One – The 5 Interesting Things About Wifey

1. She’s a superb cook. Cooking is a therapy for her. A disaster for me. I will always find it difficult to resist eating her cooking because of two reasons: a) they are always good, 2) she’d sulk if I didn’t touch her cooking.

2. She writes very well. I always tell her that she writes better than I do, but she would always insist that it is the other way round. Her writings are much more articulated than mine are. I may have lots of ideas to pen, but when it comes to actually writing them, Wifey beats me hands down.

3. She’s a “brand” person…besides being a “branding” person. She knows her brands. I only know Brand’s Essence of Chicken.

4. When I first dated her, she was known as an anti-outdoorsey. You will never catch her doing stuff outside. When we first planned to go to an island back in May 2008, she would whine about the fact that she hated the sea, and that the sea would spoil her hair. When I came back from my first dive of the trip, she was missing, and there was no way I could go back to the room.

Guess where she went?

Snorkeling.

10 months later she did her first scuba dive.

5. Whenever the alarm goes off in the morning, she put it on snooze, turn to face me, and hug me in her sleep. We’d always be late for work.

Part Two – 10 Interesting Facts About Me

How can anything be interesting about me?

1. I started this blog so that it could be a journal for my dive trips. I write more on other things than I actually do on diving.

2. I was trained to kill, but I can cry watching America’s Got Talent. Crap!

3. I write better when I am sitting on the porcelain throne. As crap gets dumped, more crap gets churned out inside my head.

4. Since I started working, I have worked in an airline, the air force, the security industry, the telecommunications sector, underwater, and as at present, the oil and gas industry.

5. I like to read anything that has to do with history, current affairs, space exploration…basically anything non-fiction that has to do with those mentioned topics.

6. I have been to the North Pole back in 1998.

7. I was the first person to organise and perform a BASE-jump in Malaysia.

8. I still cannot believe I am married to Wifey. She had the hots for my father when I got to know of her.

9. I have a nickname for each of my children given based on some weird thing or event.

10. I love to drive fast. Period.

Part 3 – And The Award Goes To:

1. Wifey – the rule did not say that I cannot tag the person who tagged me. But I love this woman very much. (Kena bodek…malam-malam nak pakai, bhai!)

2. Aiz – I met her the first time during Burger Night. She may be the ultimate drama queen (aren’t all Srikandis are?) but I love hr blog.

3. DNAS – Minah yang seemingly garang except when she’s baking cupcakes. It’s hard to believe that she is actually in the IT-sector.

4. Mat Gebu – this mysterious person, whom I . through deductive reasoning, think lives somewhere in Johor, and lives to cook. He seems to be a very good cook, a very creative person, and is the source of my midnight hunger pangs. I would love to meet this guy.

5. Mocha – a dive buddy of mine who is now on his final leg of his tour in the army.

So guys, please copy this image and put it on your side bar.

Do you know that porn websites are the biggest culprits in spreading viruses to your computer? Imagine watching Pamela Anderson blow Tommy Lee and suddenly your computer has the cyberspace version of an STD.

Seriously, I don’t know what to write about. I sometimes think that I have lost my ability to write freely since having to write things structurally…like project papers, or briefs, or management reports and so on. Ever since my return from Tioman last Wednesday, I have been asked by my boss to prepare a management report for the Board of Directors meeting due in over a week, I have to prepare an organisational chart, as well as basis for posts, and job descriptions for the senior managements and executives of a subsidiary; I have been given this 3-inch thick Invitation To Bid, to study the technical specifications of the vessels required by this bid, and HUNT for the vessels required; I have been asked to coordinate with other departments and subsidiaries, as well as sister companies for the upcoming Oil & Gas Asia 2009 exhibition come Wednesday. On top of that, I have to identify the courses I have to attend that are relevant to what I am doing; I have to negotiate with shipyards, shipbuilders, as well as ships’ brokers; and do my day to day job of managing the operations of the company and its assets.

I seriously wish I could clone myself.

Ever since coming back from my BOSIET-course, my boss has made plans for me: to not only be the Operations Manager as what I now am, but also THE Corporate HSE Manager (BOSIET stands for Basic Offshore Safety Induction and Emergency Training). And all this because when applying for my BOSIET course, I insisted on going for the OPITO and OLF-approved one (OPITO is the Offshore Petroleum Industry Training Organization based in the UK while OLF is Oljearbeidernes Fellessammenslutning, or the Norwegian Oil Industry Association), simply because I want whatever I do to be recognised globally, and not just by the national oil company. Soon, I’ll be doing courses like NEBOSH, Major Emergencies Assessment for Offshore Installation Managers, HSE Auditor and, last but not least, Accidents Investigations. No, I am not positioning myself as a Rig Manager-to-be, but just so that it would add value to the company, and our blue-eyed-blond-haired drilling partners would not have any holes to squirm through just so that they can dismiss their brown-skinned partners as inferior beings. Most importantly, the qualifications would enable me to do my job better whenever I am required to “visit” any of our rigs or vessels.

I will still find time to do what I love most – being underwater; and apart from the occasional visits to the rigs and vessels, I will still not be required to stay back late in the office.

I may have more than tons to do now compared to what it was like half a year ago; but receiving my bonus after only a month and a half of being with the company, and my recent 25 33 percent pay hike, probably means the company, or at least my boss, recognises me for my abilities and capabilities.

And best of all, I still get to spend time with my family daily…and go diving during my free time.

Upon my return to the office after a week’s absence, I was summoned into my CEO’s office. With him inside was a subsidiary’s Business Development Manager.

“Dato’ wants you to be the HSE Manager for two subsidiaries over and above your current pose in the holding company. Are you okay with this?” my boss asked me.

“As long as I’m paid for each of the posts I’ll be taking up, and sent to attend the relevant courses,” I replied.

“Whatever it takes,” he replied.

It’s been a hectic week for me at the office as usual – the endless meetings and mad rushes. Not only do I have to look into the operational aspects of the vessels, drilling rigs, and office matters – I also have to plan the move of our office into our spanking new 18-storey corporate tower end of this year.

On Friday I was asked to represent my boss to the yard for a sailway ceremony of a topside (there were two, one sailed away in March 2009). I slept at 2am the previous night watching the repeat of American Idol that I missed due to a meeting with a ships’ broker over dinner. I woke up at 4am, showered, kissed Wifey on the forehead before leaving for the office where the driver was already waiting for me. I only arrived back home at 6pm, then went for a movie date with Wifey. That day ended at 5am on Saturday (yesterday). Then last night we hosted dinner for the usual suspects, especially for Aiz, who is now two months into her first trimester of her first pregnancy.

This morning I spent the whole morning lying in bed, hugging Wifey. In half an hour, I’ll be leaving her for 4 days to do my offshore survival course down south. Although it won’t be as long as when she went to Bandung while I went to Sipadan, but nevertheless, it is always difficult for me to go through a single night without her. I’m going to miss sniffing the back of her neck every time I wake up in the morning, hugging her from the back. We didn’t do much today…just that, and went out for a lunch date, and now we’re back in bed again…and I haven’t even packed.

I know it was easy for me to go off for a long duration when I was much younger, but I guess age and the fact that the love we have for each other seem to grow more each day, makes separation a painful process. But I guess it has to do more with age – where I am now, I just want to spend the rest of this life as much as possible, in the presence of my loved ones.

Imagine being in a relationship…and you plan to marry this person. Soon after you guys have made plans to get married, the other person’s character changes…suddenly all the things about you that were so attractive to the other person, becomes irritating to the other person; and the other person makes callous remarks towards you. Suddenly, the other person no longer has time for you.

Then you discover the other person has been cheating on you.

What would you do? Would you try to win the other person’s heart again? Would you change just to see if the other person would like you again? Would you even consider marrying that person after what’s been done to you?

I’ve been in that situation before, until I saw a sarcastic writing somewhere that said:

“To err is human, to continue to dwell in it makes you an outright idiot!”

I’d like to know what you think.

I was reading updates on my Facebook when I saw someone’s request to be added as a friend was approved by an old friend, Eizlan Yusof. Last I bumped into him was at a show by Anita Sarawak at the Shangri-La back in 2000, and had lost contact with him since.

So I decided to request to be added as a friend on Facebook, and attached a message asking if he still remembers who I am. The reply came a few hours later:

Eizlan Yusof
Today at 01:55
apa pulak tak ingatnya…apa kabar abg? akhirnya jumpa kat sini lak ya… masih terjun?

Another old friend found, thanks to Facebook.

My 8-year old stepson, Ali, wanted to send a message to his mother one night while Wifey and I were out having dinner. Apparently, he had run out of his prepaid balance and kept getting the same error message saying he had insufficient balance.

Telco: You have insufficient airtime balance. Please reload your prepaid account. For credit advance info, just type Advance Help & send to 99999.

Ali: Than I kick your butt

Telco: You have insufficient airtime balance. Please reload your prepaid account. For credit advance info, just type Advance Help & send to 99999.

Ali: Quiet!!!

Telco: You have insufficient airtime balance. Please reload your prepaid account. For credit advance info, just type Advance Help & send to 99999.

Ali: You die.