My exciting holiday

I'm really looking forward to my overseas holiday starting next Friday. Yes, I will be spending a white Christmas and New year in a foreign country, China's north-east! I have never done that.

It's going to be cold, very cold, the last I checked the temperature, it was -20 degrees there! Imagining coming from a 30 degrees place, that's 50 degrees difference! Wow...I have never been to such a place before, hopefully, I can still stand the cold and enjoy myself there. Counting down now...Harbin, here I come...lolz...

One more month to a whole new year!

Time flies, it has been more than 5 years since I started writing this blog, judging for the no. of views and comments, I reckoned that this one isn't popular with people. Well, maybe what I wrote isn't interesting at all, lolz...well I don't want to care!

Today's is the 1st of Dec, so, precisely in one month's time, it will be brand new year 2012! Hey, I will be taking part in the 4-Dec's Standard Chartered Marathon, this will be my 4th race, I hope to better my timing this time round.

This is also a time for me to do my new year's target settings, which I always do every year at this time. I'm also looking forward to my end of year's overseas' trip, this time to North-East China, I heard it's going to be freezing cold there, I'm so happy, haha...

Hurray!!! Hurray!!!

Finally, we had completed the system upgrade! Although, there were some post-implementation issues here and there, but, they are mean to be the show stopper, yes, we are still trying to fix them. I can sleep better and relax now.

We had our ADnD last Wednesday, there were more than 4000 of us. I didn't get any prize for the lucky draw. The food was just ok. By the time the MC announced the 1st prize, I was already on the way out of the ballroom. Later I heard, after me, everyone had to queue to get out, lolz...I was faster, and I managed to catch the last train home!

I saw her, well, not exactly, her photo with her colleagues, worn a black laced dress, still looked the same, but then older now (yes, for someone closed to 30 yo).

Now, I'm working on something important, but, I'm not going to tell anyone yet, haha...

See light at the end of the tunnel

Finally, we are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. This weekend, the team is going to migrate and then cut-over to the new system, 36 hours of work, hopefully everything goes smoothly.

It has been two years since I started with doing the costing and budgeting for this upgrade. The primarily reason why I stayed on was because I hope to get some rewards out of this, perhaps, a good promotion? My last one was many, many years ago.

Autosys, ya, Autosys

Three more months, and it's end of the year. I have been working so hard lately, so many things to do, everyone in the my team are getting ready for the project's final UAT and testings, the PRD 'Go-live' has been planned for end Oct.

The Autosys system on the new systems had been giving me problem. Just yesterday, my system admin called to tell me that Peoplesoft jobs triggered on a Windows 2003 server can't run in Autosys, he mentioned an errror saying that the license key was not vaild.

Then, as I am quite familiar with the system because I had been 'playing' with it for the past months, managed to find out the problem, it had something to do with the key code that was generated by CA. The key code was tied to the host name and IP address, the system admin had removed the IP address on the server, so when the job ran, the Autosys license checking failed. Solved!

The last mile or KM...

Here I am, still working, this time on a disaster recovery exercise, it's already way past midnight. Most of the time, the work here requires me to guide and help my fellow junior system do system restoration. But, this time round, it's more critical, because if we don't do it well, we can't roll-out the system. This means all six months of effort wasted, and in the worst case, the project will be bleeding $$$ due to the delay (but this is the project manager's problem!?!?!). I just hope things will go smooth, and everyone can go home, sleep and hey, TGIF tomorrow! Haha...

Coming soon...

Ya, coming soon...what's coming?

In 2 days time, I will be running another race, although this is not the first time that I'm running such race, I still feel that I'm not ready yet. I had only trained for the last 1 month, and frankly speaking, I think I may not be ready for the run. I have not trained for that kind of distance for at least 9 months, shorter ones, yes, but it's just not good enough.

I just hope that I can finish the race and not worrying about the timing, just want to finish it, done. So, please cheer me on, will you? Thank you.

I'm sick

I can't remember the last time I was sick, perhaps, months and months ago.

Ya, I caught a cold, and since yesterday, been sniffing and sneezing, had took some cold/flu pills that came with Vitamin C, they did help to alleviate the symptom, but I think I need something better. I really hate to fall sick, I can't even go out like that, just to be a responsible citizen, and not spread the sickness to the public. Yeah!!!

Did I tell you about my trip to the Bird Park? It was an interesting trip, together with her, gee, can't remember when I last went there, many, many years ago? It was not crowded as it was during a weekday, mostly tourists, the weather was really hot and humid! Almost got dehydrated with the sweat dripping down from my body.

The wonderful thing about the park visit is watching the birds and the show time! We learned that we should treat birds well, because if not, they may go extinct one day, and that's it! The best that we can do is not disturb them or even touch them, let nature takes its course, watch them, listen to them chirping, appreciate their vibrant colored feathers if you like, but don't hurt them ya.

How come so many people?

I really got frustrated today, knocked off from work at 6pm, I waited for the bus for 35mins, all in all, 7 buses passed, guess what, all jam packed with people. I only managed to get on board one, and immediately after this bus, there was another one with the same bus no. following behind it. What the heck!!!

The govt said that the bus and train transport companies only make about 1/2 of their revenue from the passenger load, i.e. ticketing, and mostly the rest from advertising and rentals of shops at the train stations.

I think what they don't understand is, if no one patronises these shops or no one sees or reads the advs, what make them think they can make 1/2 of the adv and rentals? It's about people, people and people; no people, no passenger, so no revenue, and no profit!

Monthly Task

First Sunday of the month. Almost the whole team came back to reboot the systems and network devices. It's still me this weekend. *Sigh*.

I didn't sleep abit last night, afraid that I may not wake up in time at 3am. It's always cooler in the morning, but it's even cooler in the data centre.

Lucky thing that the PM bought us McDonald's breakfast, I usually don't eat Mc's breakfast because it's too filling. Anyway, it was a good treat.

Perhaps in another hour or two, I can go home, sleepzzz...

No time already!!!

I have been trying to fix the Autosys issue on the new machine for the last 2 weeks. First, was the license keys issues, worked with the folks at CA to get the keys generated. There were issues, each time I got the keys from them, I applied them on the servers, but it just won't work properly.

The server and client keys actually tied to the hostnames, hostids and instance, it's so complicated! Next, the Peoplesoft adapter keys for the clients, the keys just won't work.

In the end, I told them to generate a temporary 't' key, it seems to work now, jobs can be triggered on the clients, but for PS jobs, *sigh*...yes, jobs were triggered, but they are not running, how I know that? Checked the PS scheduler logs, nothing there!

So, I'm back today, troubleshooting the issue, and I have to get it fixed by Monday!!! *Sigh*

Maintenance...maintenance

Here I am, back in office, again. Same thing every month, because the other guy who is supposed to rotate this weekend's work went on holiday.

I just don't quite understand why I have to do this every month, restart of the servers? Need to? Really? I think this is really a mis-use of man-power.

I hope for the next maintenance cycle, the other guy will be back, and not me again. He has a life, I have one too!

In office, working...

Came back to office around 0330hrs, yet again another schedule maintenance work which can be done from remote access, but was told to be back in office anyway.

The other SA who was supposed to come back, couldn't, because he stays "over the other side of the bridge", so not convenient for him to come over at this hour. I really don't know how this thing is going to work out, by hook or by crook, he's will have to come back next time. I can't be always the one, I have helped him enough, taught him heaps of things, hopefully he will appreciate, and reciprocates.

Maybe 2 more hours to go, after that I can go home, back to my bed. Good.

What you wear shows how refined you are

People in this city just don't think wearing appropriate is important. Yes, it's warm and humid here, but wearing well at the right occasion, location and situation is important, it shows how mannered and refined you are. Come on, this is not a 3rd world city! Wearing slippers, flipflops and shorts for all occasions are just too "casual" and out of place.

The thing about wearing is that it doesn't just give you an opportunity to show off your new fashion wear, but also to show respect for others around you. For example, if in a business meeting, you are late, and came walking in with flipflops sandals, well, this is just not right. And yes, there are people who does that.

Busy again

I'm currently working on the "big" project. Our team of system admins have been working very hard, together with the vendors to setup the servers since they were delivered last week. We had been given a tight deadline to finish up with the setup by yesterday, and hand it over to the middleware and application teams to install and configure their applications, today.

Well, we still had some teething issues this morning, more about the network connectivities and servers boot up problems, so the handover was delayed.

The Solaris servers were using ZFS for OS, this is quite new to us, we have to learn it. It's going to be some tough learning experience, esp. for the junior system admins, but it's going to be worth it, I know, because I had went through it before.

Helping people

Two days back, got a SMS from a friend I met in Internet, asking me to help her cousin with her PC problem. Apparently, there were two PCs' problems; first one, its Google's Chrome browser was displaying funny characters (not English, not Chinese); second one, Windows Vista can't boot up.

It took me till this afternoon to resolve the first PC's problem, somehow the language setting for the browsers were set to something else, and the 'East Asian Languages' check box was not checked in the 'Regional Settings and Languages'; do both, restart, it works! Actually, there was another issue, the sound from the PC sounded 'quacky', pretty funny when Taylor Swift's song, Tear drops on my guitar was played. What I did? Re-install the RealTek HD audio driver.

As for the second PC's problem, tried every ways, still can't solve, I advised them to get the OS installation CD that should have came with the PC and re-install the OS.

Today, my other friend's company was having a family day at USS, I didn't go. I didn't get paid for the helping to fix the PC problem, so this is what I did today...

It's Friday!

Just almost finished up with the data restoration test, been working since this morning. Encountered a couple of issues, e.g. servers' network configure problem like not able to setup the right speed and duplex mode...

It's kind of funny, really, seems like every time I did this, there's bound to have problems, even though I tried to follow through the steps in the procedures. This time round, there's a new system admin who is supposed to take over the role from the previous guy, and he's still new, trying to figure out how things works here.

And also, I think I'm getting addicted to Subway's sandwiches, been having them for lunch lately. There are more of their stores than McDonalds in the world, this means now you can find a Subway store just about anywhere...

There you go...

There you go ---> http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20110314-268069.html

When something happens, the first to leave would be the foreigners, yes, not taking any chances. The Japanese are known for their loyalty and patriotism to the Country and the Emperor, they would not leave when the worst disaster struck the land where they are born.

Foreigners are just, afterall, guests to the land, they don't have that kind of affinity with the land. What makes you think they will sacrific their life for others? They are not even born there!

During a time when the people of Japan needs help, why aren't these foreigners lending a hand? My heart is with you all, the people of Japan, please endure and pull together, united as one nation.

To travel, I like

I like to travel, especially now, with flights tickets and accomodations being able to be booked online, they make it easier for people like me to make travelling arrangements. And, don't forget, prior to travelling, read up on the place, get to know its history too!

You know, the challenges of doing F&E travels are about reading and getting information about the places before the trips, and make sure that all arrangements, e.g. flights, accomodations, are done and actually worked out during the trips.

Booking the right flights can be problem. Sometimes, there are only one flight a day, worst, in the evening, and landing late at night, so what are you going to do when you arrive? You can check in to a place to stay, but, hey, you will only use it a couple of hours for sleep...hmm, not worth it? Blame the airlines.

Connecting flights, especially, can cause a problem, remember the last time where many in Europe had their travel plans disrupted when the weather there turned bad? Many flights were cancelled, and you can't travel from point A to point B, not even back home!

Very tired

I'm tired, very tired, my eyes are dry, and it pains. I feel cold sometimes, sitting in the air-con room or data centre, thinking, thinking, thinking...what am I doing here?

It has been quite a hectic and stressful weeks of work, everyone is rushing, rushing, rushing me. There seems to be many, many, many things to do, and it doesn't seems to end anywhere. Some are routine stuffs, some needs a bit more thinking to do.

What have I done to deserved it? Looking forward to the weekends...

Why so slow?

Still waiting for the Oracle people to come back to us on the discount for the servers purchases. It has been very long wait, and everyone is getting frustrated.

My boss actually sent an email to the product director to get him to escalate the order, but doesn't seems to have any effects. I called up the Oracle's sales, and was told that due the the Oracle-Sun merger, there has been some changes to the way they work, systems have been changed, so vendors and their staff got to learn them.

It has been more than two weeks, how long we have to wait huh??? Why so slow???

See to believe!

Sometimes you got to trust your instinct. Last Friday, I was intending to watch a free (tickets) movie with my friend, and I had this feeling that I will see someone familiar there.

Usually, I wouldn't buy food before going to a show, but that night, I decided to grab a Subway sandwich. I was queuing when I heard someone calling me, turned around and I saw you! I just couldn't believe it, I was actually thinking about meeting you there.

You told me that you are going to watch a free movie too, so I reckoned that we will be watching the same show. Then, when your friend came, I know, I was right, because you friend works in the same company as mine, and their company was treating its staff free movie show.

You really look different now, in dress and wear. If only I was younger and better looking, I wish you could watch a movie with me, I wish, perhaps in my dreams...

Hopeless...

Here I am, taking leave and staying home, but working from remote access.

I'm trying to get this product guy to send me an official price quotation so that I can put up the purchase for the new servers. Called him this morning, he said will look at it, but till now, still didn't get any reply from him yet. Called him again, but he didn't pick up phone, really hopeless now...

A proposal

I would like to share with you a phrase that I pick up while watching a show last night:

"I promise you that when you wake up every morning, you will always find me next to you. So, will you marry me?"

Nice phrase isn't it? Can use to propose to someone you like?

CNY coming

Yes, happy CNY or Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year, they all mean the same thing.

For the past week, it had been raining, for the record, 3 consecutive days of rain from last Saturday to Monday. At this time of my writing, I think it's still drizzling out there. I like this weather, with the sun hidden behind the clouds, it's cooler to stay outdoors, but not good if it rains heavily.

From past history, it had been said that if it rains before CNY, it will not rain on the actual day, which is come tomorrow. We shall see whether it's true...ho...ho...ho...huat ar!!!

How to get rich (for a woman)

Saw this article today -> http://www.divaasia.com/article/12223

Well, the rule of the game is marry a rich man, stay with him for awhile, and then divorce him, get him to pay you maintenace $$$!

So, a man will always be on the losing end in a divorce, even if his ex-wife is involved in extramarital affairs, aka. she cheats on you!

Not so lucky for the men. So the moral of this? Stays single, eat healthy...Lol...

Happy New Year!

Happy new year to ya'll!

Hope that all mankinds would be a little bit more friendly to each other, so that the world will be in peace and all conflicts will be resolved.

As we step into the new year 2011, everyone will have new dreams and wishes, may all happen and come true!

Everyone, please take care, have a fruitful and enjoyable new year!