Category: Daily Whatevers

Expedition 16’s Energia rocket firing as the towers retract

In 32 hours, Expedition 16’s Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft will dock with the ISS. Right now they are orbiting Earth, chasing the ISS to align with it. Docking procedures should take about an hour or so.

I’m sure Dr SMS would have lots of photos taken by now.

If only I have RM80 million now.

I need to find a Sugar Granny.

Malaysia’s first Angkasawan, Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, has blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 9.22pm Malaysian time last night, and is now in orbit on the way to the International Space Station. He, alongside fellow Expedition 16 crew members, Peggy Whitson (Expedition Commander) and Yuri Malenchenko (Flight Engineer), are now inside a Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft.

They are due to dock at the ISS’s Zarya module at 10.52pm Malaysian time this Friday.

The current members of Expedition 15, have prepared the Zvedza module for Dr Sheikh Muszaphar to conduct experiments over nine days.

Expedition 16 blasts off from Baikonur Cosmodrome – NASA image

I envy the guy. I still remember watching our black and white television of the lunar landing back in 1969, and the subsequent Apollo 12 mission. I took an interest in spaceflights. I remember the final mission to the moon of the Apollo 17. I remember the fiery re-entry of the US Space Station “Skylab” where most of the remnants crashed onto Australian soil near Kalgoorlie and Esperance in Western Australia, 2 days after my 13th birthday in 1979. Then the first space shuttle flight by the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1981.

Now, Sheikh Muszaphar is up there. Some 300km away from Earth. Whatever his role may be up there, let us hope one day in the near future, a Malaysian Angkasawan will actually fly into space in a Malaysian-built vehicle.

Let us hope this is not a one-off thing.

Peggy Whitson (right) and Yuri Malenchenko during the climb to orbit in the Soyuz TMA-11 – NASA Image

This is a classic. I remember driving down the road towards Winslow to see Jonathan Goosey, my coursemate. It was towards the end of summer, sun was still shining bright. Playing on the radio was this song by The Cars called Drive.

It’s a nice and haunting song, made famous a year later when they performed it during the Live Aid concert with images of Ethiopian starving refugees playing in the background.

Then when I watched Transformers, this song was featured again in one of the scenes where Sam Witwicky was trying to get Mikaela Banes into his car (Bumblebee). There is a certain memory attached to this movie. I shall not divulge that information here.

Here it is, people, The Cars with Drive:

Who’s gonna tell you when
It’s too late
Who’s gonna tell you things
Aren’t so great
You can’t go on
Thinking nothing’s wrong
Who’s gonna drive you home tonight

Who’s gonna pick you up
When you fall
Who’s gonna hang it up
When you call
Who’s gonna pay attention
To your dreams
Who’s gonna plug their ears
When you scream

You can’t go on
Thinking nothing’s wrong
Who’s gonna drive you home tonight

Who’s gonna hold you down
When you shake
Who’s gonna come around
When you break

You can’t go on
Thinking nothing’s wrong
Who’s gonna drive you home tonight

No you can’t go on
Thinking nothing’s wrong
Who’s gonna drive you home tonight

Datuk Dr Sam Abraham, a well-known paediatrician and social activist passed away at the age of 78 last Tuesday after a short battle with leukaemia. He served in the government sector for 30 years before opening up his own clinic.

Dr Abraham was the man who looked after me from when I was two, through when I was in my early primary school age. The last time I went to see him was when I obtained a medical history on myself prior to being admitted to secondary school, as I had to enter residential school. I was so impressed with the report (apart from the fact it showed that I was a sickly child) that in that Internet-less age, I made it a personal crusade to learn more about my illnesses. Of course, during Biology class, I was more interested in the ‘reproduction‘ topic that made the lab assistant an object of (carnal) desire. Notwithstanding that, the report gave me an understanding and interest in the field of medicine.

Anyway, another regular commentator here, PAJ, was also one of the late Dr Abraham’s charges.

Small world.

Farewell, Dr Abraham. Rest well in peace.

I found this classic by brothers Asanee and Wasan Chotikul (?????-?????? ???????) while looking for another music video of them called “Rak Tur Semer” (Love You Always).

This video reminds me of how it used to be played at every single stall at the local Nat in Kedah, especially in towns bordering Thailand from Padang Sanai to Khuan Mai Dam (Bukit Kayu Hitam in Malay) during the early 1990s.

Damn, I miss Thailand. Khid theung meuang Thai…yak ja rong hai!

This is called “Yin Dee Mai Mee Pan Ha” (??????????????? Happy No Problem). Enjoy:

I remember those days…at least until about 15-16 years ago.

I miss those kampung moments when it comes to Haris Raya.

Those were the days we would converge upon our late grandparents’ house in Kampung Jerangsang on the Benta-Jerantut road. We would all be there about two to three days before Hari Raya and would get our hands dirty with all the preparations. The women-folk would be in the kitchen, while the men would be outside doing the lemang and rendang and dodol. For two to three days we would toil the makeshift kitchen: cousins, uncles, aunts.

This year, I shall be spending Hari Raya alone. Hana and Fazira will be going back to Kedah to be with their mother; Farhan and Nisaa will be in Klang with their mother. I won’t be with my mother because of reasons I have written a few months back unless my “step-mother” Jazzy can spare me some bariyani gam from her last buka puasa the day before Hari Raya.

This Hari Raya is going to be boring. Everyone’s blog is going to be silent for about a week. So for a week I shall post in my own blog and make my own comments.

Damn…the prospect of spending one boring Hari Raya alone is scary…

Putu Mayam (or Stringhoppers, in English) is a close relative of the Iddiyappam, a native of the southern Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, as well as Sri Lanka. It is a dish of rice flour served with coconut and jaggery or date palm sugar.

My first encounter with the Putu Mayam was back in 1976 when I was living at the quarters which is now part of the Tun Razak Memorial on Jalan Perdana (formerly Venning Road). An Indian man would cycle and cry out, “Mayaaaaaaaammmmm!” followed by by four honks of his rubber air horn sounding “Pek! Pek! Pek! Pek!” Those were the days when there were lots of government quarters in the area where the Taman Orkid and Taman Rama-Rama are now. On top of that were the workers quarters at the residence of the late Tun Abdul Razak, our house, more quarters where the present Royal Malaysian Police Museum is when it was the Officers’ Mess.

Over the years would see the number of people living there get lesser and lesser. After Tun Hussein Onn stepped down in 1981, they started constructing the Taman Orkid and Taman Rama-Rama. The Venning Road Officers’ Mess was abandoned awaiting reconstruction as the police’s museum. Only my family remained there until July 1994, six months after my father’s retirement, before we all moved to USJ (well, I was still in Kedah/Thailand then). But that old Indian man, never failed to do his rounds, with that familiar cry and horn…all 18 years that we were there.

That old man is no more. There is no more Putu Mayam in that woven basket. No more police personnel from the Guards & Escort branch that were guarding my father’s house stopping that old man to buy Putu Mayam.

Then today, as my daughter Fazira and I walked to the Ramadhan Bazaar to buy food for the breaking of the fast, I heard a familiar cry with a somewhat cheery musical tone added to it crying, “Puttu Mayyam!” The Puttu with a rising and falling tone in the respective syllable, and a mid-tone and rising tone in the Mayyam part. That caught my ears as well as the ears of several more people that kids were mimicking him. I took a detour and went to this Indian chap standing next to his motorcycle.

“Berapa?” I asked him.

“Lima Dua Ringgit, boss, tapi boss punya saya kasi Anam!” with the typical head-shake-roll.

“Wokeh,” I replied, also with the head-shake-roll I learnt through my years working at the nation’s most favoured multinational company. “Kasi dua Ringgit juga kalu.”

I looked at the Putumayam on the clear plastic sheet and smiled to myself: “One up for tradition.”