Snakes in the Grass

Received a, somewhat, panicked call from the wife, whilst at work today...."Darling, can you come home, there's a snake in the garden!" Ah, the joys of living in Malaysia, certainly beats having to deal with a mouse in the house... and we're not talking an oversized worm here, this was the full monte, a 3 1/2 foot black cobra!

So, I dashed home, contemplating on the way, what exactly I was going to do when I got there - visions of tackling the snake, Steve Irwin style, sprang to mind, but were quickly replaced with visions of ending up in the local hospital (not advisable in a small town like Kluang).

As it turned out, I was beaten home by our friendly neighbourhood fire department (locally known as Bomba), whom the wife had apparently called, straight after calling me.... appears she had the same vision of me ending up in hospital, as I did!

Anyway, although my 'man ego' was somewhat bruised (but secretly relieved) by this lack of faith, I din't let it show and sat back to watch the experts deal with the beast.

Hah, I needn't have worried about my ego. After the 5 burly guys had 'ummed', 'ahhed' and, all but, drew straws to see who was going to tackle the thing, they promptly lost it into one of out garden drainage pipes. So, after 20 minutes of poking around with sticks and anything else they could find (including using our hosepipe to try and, literally, flush it out, they had a hurried discussion and promptly deciced to leave with the sage advice ' keep an eye out and if it comes back, try and corner it and give us another call'. Thanks guys.

Anyway, fingers crossed, as yet we've not had a repeat visit....from the snake, or the fire dept!

C'mon, dive in

Phew, been seriously busy this month, with commissioning the new reactors at work, so haven't had much spare time to post..... and have not had much to write about (unless you're the type to get excited about valves, pipes and reactors!). Anyway, thought I'd take the easy way out and post some of my underwater photos, instead of having to think of something interesting to write!.

Haven't been diving for more than 9 months now (yes, that does coincide with the birth of my daughter) and can't wait to get back in the water, which will hopefully be in a month's time, or so.

All the photos were taken in and around Malaysia and if you want more info on the either the photos, or diving in Malaysia, feel free to leave me a comment.

Juvenile Yellow Boxfish - my favourite photo and also my favourite fish. These guys just don't look like they should be in the water, especially when you see them swimming, but it's always a pleasure to come across them on a dive (only the juveniles are yellow, when the reach adulthood they actually change to a, not so cute, brown colour).




What a wreck! - if you've read some of my earlier posts, you'll know that Malaysia is notorious for it's careless driving, but this takes the biscuit (to see what I mean click here). Actually, this is an attempt at creating an artificial reef, on on of the small islands surrounding Tioman Island, in Malaysia, but is always good fun to visit on a dive.

Finding Nemo - yep, the obligatory, nemo, or clown anenome, photo. Actually these are really hard to shoot as they are always on the move and seem to have some fishy sixth sense about the exact moment you press the shutter. For every 1 respectable nemo shot, I must trash 20+ shots of anenome and no fish, or his blurred backside as he dives for cover.

Green Turtle with Remora - this was taken on Redang Island, where we dived with a true diving 'god' - aka AB, who runs a dive shop at the Redang Kalong resort. This guy is a Master Instructor, who has been diving Redang for 20 yrs and knows everything you need to know (and a lot, you didn't even know you needed to know) about diving and, especially, underwater photography.

Anyway, hope you like my photos - I don't claim to be a professional (or even a respectable amateur) in any way, shape, or form - so please no critique, but if you want to see more of the above then click here.

Haiku for Dummies....

In Japan, they have, apparently, replaced the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft error messages with Haiku poetry messages.

Haiku poetry has strict construction rules -- each poem has only 17 syllables....5 syllables in the first, 7in the second, 5 in the third. They are used to communicate a timeless message, often achieving wistful, yearning and powerful insight through extreme brevity.

Here are 16 actual error messages from Japan:

The Web site you seek
Cannot be located,
but Countless more exist.

Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.

Program aborting:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.

Windows XP crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.

Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.

Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.

Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.

A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.

Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.

You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.

Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.

Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.

Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.


Certainly beats: "Your computer has performed an illegal operation"