Thursday, April 24, 2008

Some of us may have experienced the bad traffic inside Centre Point parking lot. Gosh. Imagine left high and dry in your way out in a car in a shopping complex parking, and you are not even reach the road yet! 


The Centre Point Management needs to do something. This problem has been going on for months, but even though most people knew about it, they still went there! The congestion inside the building is getting worse, more than ever in the weekend. Centre Point may be touted as the best shopping mall in Sabah, but when it comes to traffic congestion, they are as par as other congested roads in KK!

I parked at the fifth floor and have to endure the nuisance all the way to the payment counter, which is at the second floor. That, remind you, was inside the building. Outside, car going in to park at Centre Point was stretched till Hotel Le Meridian traffic light. This, out of many, contributes to the KK City congestion. So the Management is facing two problems here, the first is congestion inside and the other one is outside the building.

 It’s about time for them to use an automatic parking payment machine. These machines have been used in some shopping mall in KL. It will reduces the time spend to pay parking charge at the current payment counter, hence, make it easier to get out. Instead of wait in line in the car, we queue to pay inside the building. If we can settle the first problem, the second will gradually decrease. These machines, in my opinion, should be place at level 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 for easy access and monitoring.

 Furthermore, the manual parking system layout was poorly designed that it WILL eventually lead to congestion. Although 4 payment counters available just before the exit, it is still not enough to accommodate cars especially during peak time. Previously, they locate each payment booth at level 2, 3 and 4 but apparently they scrapped it.

 These changes will cost more, but it is so far a considerable alternative. Of course the best alternative is; don’t park at Centre Point la! If they can’t afford to have 5 machines, 3 are enough. Its time to use an automatic payment machine in Sabah, and Centre Point Management should lead. After all, smooth car flow means they can earn more. At the mean time, I won’t park at Centre Point, not on weekend.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

On 14th April, IEM G&S held its annual bowling competition at Sutera Harbour. This was the 3rd straight year I joined the competition since 2006. However things didn’t go our way this time. Our trio only managed to get a scrappy 365 and 375 pin in the first and second round respectively, a merely combined pin of 740. It is still way far behind the top four, which were around 900++ pins in two games. That’s what you get when you play once a year. So the contest became practice plus competition! Nice huh.

Our team 2nd round results. Sore finger and lack of concentration contributed to my ludicrous below par performance - 83 points. Frame 5 really did the damage on my point.  

This year we have like ten teams competing (or is it eleven?). As usual some teams played poorly, some did just fine and team ‘the bachelor’, as expected, finished strongly. But there was this team that was doing so good, that we (me and my friends) doubt they were engineer! Wearing a similar shirt and played some fancy moves, showed that they were more than just an average player. A friend of my cousin was a bit disgruntled about this. (My cousin and I were in the same team).

But I do agree on several of his (or I might say her) discontentment. Not that of covetousness, but hey, we’re competing with a different level here. While most of us were ecstatic just to see the bowling hit the pin. They were thumping the pin for spare and strike graciously. It’s like you and your rival were competing on a structural design project to be completed in one week. Your rival has been doing design work for years whilst you were doing supervision job. The outcome is obvious.

Well she has the right to vent her frustration. After all it’s a lopsided competition if you ask me and I totally agree with her. But then again it depends on how you perceive the competition. If you want to achieve glory, better include a very good player in your team. If you joined for the sake of joining, having fun and making new friends, then it doesn’t matter. As for me, I joined for the former and latter ( yeah right! :P )

[Note – this event regulates a team to enlist a minimum of two engineers in a lineup of three persons].

Congratulations to IEM G&S for making this event successful. Bowling is usually the curtain raiser for other G&S activities. Hopefully this event will attract more engineers to join next year. I’ll sure be back next year!

 

 

 

P/S – I am greatly sorry with kak Joe for the cancellation of your team (if you reading this) I was told at 7 that he couldn’t make it. 30 minutes before competition. Terrible sorry.

 

Saturday, April 5, 2008

As this article is written, Arsenal has just drawn 1-1 with Liverpool in a crucial match that decide the Gooners fate in the 2008 premier league. As I am concern, Arsenal now is totally out of the league title race. They needed a win to keep the pressure on Man U but failed to capitalize on several chances. 

Can you imagine they nearly lost this match! Only to be saved by Bendter equalizer in the second half. The title come-back-king sure fits Arsenal well! A disappointing result for a fan club like me. Having lead the table for quite some time before a series of draws, I’m totally frustrated with their performance.

I guess Martin Taylor reckless tackled towards Eduardo is the beginning-of-the-end of Arsenal title race. Having said that, since then, Arsenal was left with only 2 fit striker. Apparently Van Persie seldom played because of injury. For this past 3 seasons the Gooners were only able to compete for the 3rd position. A position I didn’t enjoy much considering the big club status.

One last title hope is the champions’ league. It too seemed out of the sight after a draw in the Emirates with u-know-who Liverpool. Do the young Arsenal guns still fancy a chance against the experience Liverpool side? wait and see

 

 

 

The Sutera Harbour-Angkatan Hebat Treasure Hunt 2008 has been postponed to a latter date, according to the Sutera Harbour official website, the new date is on 29th June. Huh, guess what? It’s on my birthday! Hopefully lady luck will smile upon my team on that day! :). 

According to the source again, the date has been revised several times. It should've been held this month on the 27th. Whatever the reasons the organizer faced, I hope it'll attract as many participants as it could. As I always mention, the more the merrier! 

It’s a long way to go before we reach June. In the meantime, keep on rolling.