Target: 17th October

My work today takes me all over the place, and I really mean all over the place. Which makes it tough for me to commit to certain activities that I enjoy doing. In this case, its the Tuesday badminton with the guys. The last time I joined was urmm.. some weeks ago. I did manage to go and join them for 'nasi lemak yati' 2 weeks ago, just barely before I left for Tokyo the following morning. And for the next 3 weeks since then, here's were I have and will be:

Tue, 19 Sep: Managed to go for nasi lemak, next day Tokyo
Tue, 26 Sep: Singapore
Tue, 03 Oct: Paris
Tue, 10 Oct: Florida

Will post my crazy road tour itinerary in the next post... believe me its crazy. Will be back on the 15th, so hopefully, hopefully I do get to join again on the 17th of October.

p/s: I do have guests from Sony coming down that day, so have to set myself up for another disappointment..

Merdeka!

Over the past couple of years, I have been pretty quiet in discussing the political scenario in Malaysia. During this time, much has happened, personally and professionally. In my daily work, i also have to put on two hats.. personally and professionally. Dun have to say much about my professional opinion, lest the tag ' saya yang menurut perintah' needs further explanation.

However, my personal opinion looks at a broader perspective. In the last 10 years, I have had the opportunity to listen, watch, understand, observe and serve under both leaderships. Lets not get in whatever goes behind the scenes lah, as politicians will be politicians..but I am more concerned about leadership, nation building and as the first front in facing the outside world.

There was much hype and talk about the change that the new leadership would bring (two years ago) and how it will rid hte country of corruption and serve the people better.. My opinion? Never bought that line, and don't see it now, similar to when AI was mooting Keadilan and how it critised the govt on similar topics, I said Get Real.. You may rid the system of the current corrupt, but in time, it will be filled with a different group of corrupt, your group..and sadly, thats what I see today

There was much hype of building better relationships with other nations.. My opinion? This is the saddest of them all, Internationally, we are now seen as having a weak leader (I can vouch thru 1st had experience, again this is not on the political side, where god knows what they are doing), and how the country is now deemed as just one of the them, no longer the leader of the developing world, the voice of Islamic nations, etc.. Kudos to Rafidah for doing her level best, but still not enough

Business was supposed to better, My opinion? Nasib baik lah ada the oil prices going up, so there is an excuse, but rightfully, we are doing so so bad because of other factors.. Why is the govt so afraid to spend money on projects? Whats the point of having a balanced budget at the cost of furhter development? Again this is about understanding nation building, this not about at the end of the day, we are trying to balance or make a profit, this is not a company. After the world war, Japan spent bliions if not trillions on developing infrastructure, to create an environment to enable business and socio-economic development to take place, do they have a balance budget yet? On the contrary, every year the debt increases and may take a few more generations to clear. The US? tak payah ceritalah, no. 1 credit card holder in the world, but are they worried?

F-ups? Why so many lah? My opinion? When you don't know what you are doing and possibly are ill advised (believe me, in my work I do run into the folks at tingkat 4), its possibly a combination of both. Take the Pantai story, is a joke and a shame. In the later part of last year I ahve done a compreshensive study of the govt's procurement system - enough to know who calls the shots. This year I worked out a deal worth quite a number of zero's to attract a forign investor into Malaysia, again 1st hand experience into how the mechanism works.. to be honest, it was a bit to easy at the end, maybe something I dun know? hmmm..

Anyway, thiese are my opinions, as for myself, I have decided a while back to shy away from politics and live my life a simple person - maybe run for PIBG head or something..but who knows, my passion lies with leadership and where the country is headed, should I just sit and watch?

btw, a comment was posted that 'a football game is 90 mins, kalau baru main 10 min, takkan nak keluar..' My opinion? Kalau tak reti main, shud be out even if its only 5 mins, however, ur right, it is 90 mins, sometimes more, and we know all to well, how it isn't over the final whistle is blown (unless you're like 10-0 down first half, hehe)

Happy Birthday Malaysia!