Snow in Coventry 2007

Part 1: It's Snowing!
Imagine our surprise as we woke up this morning to find our lawn and the streets carpeted in pure, white snow. It had been a year since it last snowed and YEARS since snow had actually settled like today - reaching 15 centimetres thick according to the BBC.

As for me, my colleagues have given me early warning of the snow, and I woke up extra early to prepare. By "prepare" I mean taking appropriate measures to make sure the car is road worthy in the snow, have an early breakfast and if necessary, set off early to work so that I could reach in time.

Everything went according to plan, thanks especially to Puan Mama Sarah who helped tremendously in prepping the car. At the same time I was also busy - busy taking pictures that is! An opportunity such as this comes but once a year and I was sure to make the most of it:



Unfortunately, I was quite pressed for time and I couldn't really concentrate. I was also extremely concerned that the wet snow would damage my expensive lens and camera. In the end, my pictures are what I would call "cincai" (the nearest translation to English I could think of would be "random"). I soon set off to work.

Part 2: The Scare
Now, driving in snow is one whole matter in itself. It's scary to say the least. In heavy snowy weather such as today the roads could be extremely slippery, the visibility poor, the roads congested and the car temperamental.

Speaking of temperamental cars, I had the scare of my life today. As some of you know, I drive 1 hour on the motorway everyday to get to work. On the dual carriage way, just two junctions away to the hospital, my car suddenly acted strange - it was putting out high revs but paradoxically was loosing power. After around 5 such occasions the car suddenly completely lost power and stopped! Thank goodness for the laws of physics - momentum propelled the car forwards and allowed me to bank the car as far as I could to the left. Unfortunately for me, there was no hard shoulder (meaning = no safety zone to park the car in case of an emergency) and the car stopped right in the middle of the carriage way!

Despite putting hazard lights, lorries honked away angrily while cars zoomed past at around 100 KMH. The visibility was quite poor and I was scared that a lorry might not see the parked car and just ram through. I immediately called the police.

I was half-way through talking to the operators when I saw a 4 wheel drive vehicle stopping nearby with 2 police officers. I felt so relieved!! After brief introductions the police officers towed my car away.

Alhamdulillah, that in the midst of such adversity there was a hint of mercy: my car broke down not 5 minutes away from a service area complete with a fueling station, Macdonalds, Costa Coffee and a shop!


I heartily thanked the two police officers who helped me at a time of need, and began my wait with a warm cup of coffee and a mood-soothing breakfast of Egg Mcmuffin and hash browns *big smile*.


60 minutes later, rescue arrived in the form of a van with the initials RAC (the breakdown cover specialists). It took the mechanic only 1 minute to diagnose the problem and only 5 minutes to repair the car.

It turns out that the garage I asked to repair my car over the weekend, a repair that costed me GBP 300 pounds (!), FORGOT TO SCREW BACK THE CAP TO THE GEAR OIL TANK. The car stopped because the tank was completely empty and a quick top up of oil later , the car was again good to go. The garage is certainly going to hear from me this weekend .... *snarl*.

I arrived at work at around 10:30 am to a sympathetic and understanding team (thank you!)

Part 3: Meanwhile ....
... the kids at home are enjoying their day playing in the snow - making snowmen, snowballs and rolling around: Puan Mama Sarah's account of the day could be found on her blog.







Part 4: Conclusion
At the end of the day I am both horrified and excited with the events today. I have a lot to be grateful for - that my life has been spared, that my car broke down so close to a service area, that the police's help came so efficiently, and that the problem with the car was relatively minor. The experience today left me charged and fired up at work (like a squirrel on sugar and caffeine). At the same time, I am AWFULLY annoyed that the garage effed up my car.

Anyhow, the journey home went smoothly and was devoid of any excitement/horrors. The events today has made me forgot that the landscape around Coventry was beautifully transformed by the snow. Please take a look at sights around our house in the snow: (most taken in low light as when I reached home from work it was already dark)









Thank you for reading.

Happy Birthday Anne

Happy birthday to my long time, dear blogger friend - Anne. It's been great knowing you through reading your blog, a blog that is full of positive energy, humour and wit. My favourite thing about you has always been the fact that you're "easy target" to make fun of (in a good way, of course).

Hope you've had a great day today on your birthday, and I hope for many more happy days to come.

Love from your friends: Mynn, Puan Mama Sarah & Family.

(Could you tell them apart? Mother and daughter looks freakishly identical! Don't you think?)


Images freely stolen from Anne's blog. (Help yourselves, feel free!)

Our Unplanned Weekend

It has been a hectic weekend, and I finally have something to blog about. We've finally managed to get ourselves out of our winter hibernation.


We had the pleasure of Rosli and family's impromptu visit to Coventry on Saturday. They told us about their plans to come on Saturday morning itself! No matter, as it is always a pleasure for any of our friends to come over. I was slightly worried by the fact that my car was at that time undergoing repairs but thankfully, the car was miraculously fixed the same day despite the mechanic initially saying otherwise. That's one whole other story.


Whenever Rosli comes to visit, two things are a must: (1) Food (2) Photography. In terms of photography, our experimentation this weekend was outdoor photography with multiple flash units. The concept is more or less simple: we used two flash guns - the master unit on Rosli's Canon 30D and the slave unit overhead the model. Outside, the day was extremely sunny and Rosli was shooting against the sun. The picture above is one of the, shall we say, less extreme example. It was a brilliant session, one that I have learnt a lot from.


Another thing about Rosli and wife is that, they are EXTREMELY spontaneous. Probably even more so that yours truly. Anyway, without any prior plans at all - on Sunday we all suddenly came to the consensus of visiting Oxford, in the quest to find the legendary and mythical "Halal KFC". After almost an hour of circling the town centre on an empty stomach to find even an inch of parking space and failing miserably, we gave up the search and instead, settled for lunch/dinner at a halal restaurant called Chicken Cottage instead. Chicken Cottage has been a long time favourite ours - ever since our days in Cardiff.

No visit to Oxford is complete without meeting our Fotopages photography friend Alynn. I have always wanted to meet up Alynn & Rosli - both are extremely creative and enthusiastic photographers and I'm sure a meeting between the two could produce terrifying results (whoops, I meant "terrific" :p ... or did I?). Above is Alynn alluring a young one into the addiction of photography - tsk tsk. Again, we would like to heartily thank Alynn for her hospitality despite her busy schedule. Thank you so much, and please come to visit us in Coventry one day if you can!

All in all, it has been a terrifying (I meant "terrific" but "terrifying" is also appropriate what with the number of hyperactive little ones climbing, pushing, jumping, wrestling, crying and pooing) weekend. I'm already looking forward to the next!

Later! Oyasumi readers.

Cheeky

This was a picture I captured and edited only today - of my cheeky little Sarah. The picture was taken at sunset, and I had to beg and plead for Sarah to lie on our bed, the radiant setting sun shining on her through an open window. It was a bonus that Sarah, who didn't want to be there in the first place, wanted to cheekily stick out her tongue. The wonderful catchlights in her eyes are from bounced light from the flash.

The Cardiology Team

It has been such a long while since I've last updated the blog that it doesn't feel second nature anymore logging in to my account! Anyway, this time I just would like to share with you guys some pictures of my current cardiology team. By the end of this month, some of us will be staying and most of us are leaving. It just so happened that this week most of us in the team were present for work that I thought it'd be a good photo opportunity to remind me of the great team I've had the pleasure of working with these past couple of months in Cardiology.

Above is some of the team members but by far not all of us. Many are not in the picture due to (a) religious reasons - apparently some people do not believe in their pictures being taken (b) some of us were on annual leave (c) some were oncall.

This is one of my registrar - and also a great friend. I have absolutely learnt A LOT of cardiology and medicine from all the discussions we've had. He is extremely dedicated, helpful and supportive to all of us juniors and I wish him all the best in his future career in cardiology. I couldn't have wished for a better senior.



Above two are some of my best friends in cardiology. Together, we've ploughed through good times and especially the worst of times sorting out various difficult situations all that funnily seems not that terrible in retrospect.


In the background is our extremely organised ward clerk. Thanks to her the notes are all well organised and streamlined. This spot seems to be our favourite for various discussions - probably due to the strategic proximity to the x-ray viewing box.


Didn't I say this spot is our favourite for discussions? Above are our two registrars - our seniors if you will - engaging in heated discussion regarding patient management. Seriously, both our seniors are absolutely excellent & supportive. Darn intelligent too, both of them.



No medical team is complete without caring and hardworking nurses - and above are ours. Top picture shows our nurses in what is called "barrier nursing", measures we take to prevent cross infection between patients - a rampant problem in hospitals nowadays. The picture below is a nurse diligently preparing an intravenous medication.


This is our house officer - the youngest in our team. Despite fresh from medical school, our house officer is extremely efficient, hardworking, earnest and quite knowledgeable too.


Above is our (messy) doctor's station - the tiny desk we all share, complete with a computer terminal for checking blood results, x-ray films and write referrals.

Yes, it has been an educational, fun yet sometimes hairy past couple of months - it's difficult to think that 6 months in cardiology has come and gone so quickly. I've been blessed with an excellent team; from the consultants right down to the house officers - that most of the working days have been tolerable at worst.

Here's to our cardiology team!

Birthday Wish

Happy Birthday Mum!

Family Outing to the Canal

The weather has been very harsh lately in England, what with fog, strong wind, heavy rains and low temperatures so it has been quite a while since we last had a family outing. Despite it being brief, we were lucky to be blessed with a sunny day and clear skies on Saturday for which we squeezed an opportunity to bring the kids out for a walk (we did the walking, the kids did the towing). For lack of a better place to go we headed for the Coventry Canal again ...



Whoops I didn't think that the picture would turn out so obscene when I took it.

Close up shot of the moss and stones by the canal.

A sunny winter day.

PS
man, I'm having such a blogger's block. I feel I couldn't write properly anymore. Argh!

Comodo Firewall

My preferred firewall before this was ZoneAlarm. Although free, I don't really feel ZoneAlarm is perfect. For one, it consssstantly crashes and it bothers me to think that my PC would be unprotected when the program crashes. Another thing I hate is that it's difficult to set up file sharing even in my local wireless network.



Enter Comodo. It's also free, but it recognises thousands of known "safe" programs therefore requiring minimal input from the user. Also, Comodo is designed to stop malware that uses your connection in the background and Comodo is easier for file sharing.



I'm trying it at the moment and if the features are as advertised - this will probably be my new favourite Firewall.



Link: Comodo Firewall

101 Free Windows Game

Almost too good to be true, here's a link to 101 free games - a feature on the game website 1up.com.

Enjoy!

My Future Favourite Media Player

I'm sure I've blogged about the much anticipated media player Songbird before, but it has been awhile since I've heard anything about it. Well, take a look at how this brilliantly featured media player has matured:



Also noteworthy is a new media player called Jajuk. My favouritest ever media player so far is Amarok (unfortunately, only for Linux at the moment) - but Jajuk comes very close. It features an extensive amount of features - Wikipedia support, super smart playlists, various ambiance options, tags, keyboard shortcuts; the list goes on and on. Seriously, give it a go and see for yourself.


Links:
Songbird
Jajuk
(both are free, of course).

Joyful Presents

I am way behind with updating my posts, I know. The pictures above were taken a few days after Safiya (quiteeeee a few days after Safiya's) and Puan Mama Sarah's birthday while we were visiting Kak Sawiyah in Wales. The above pictures were of Puan Mama Sarah & Safiya receiving their presents, just look at the lit up faces :) Thank you for a wonderful evening Kak Sawiyah!

Freehand Perfect Circle

A story about drawing the perfect circle:

Giotto draws a perfect circle for the Pope, told by Vasari:

Pope Benedict sent one of his courtiers into Tuscany to see what sort of a man he was and what his works were like, for the Pope was planning to have some paintings made in S Peter's. This courtier, on his way to see Giotto and to find out what other masters of painting and mosaic there were in Florence, spoke with many masters in Sienna, and then, having received some drawings from them, he came to Florence. And one morning going into the workshop of Giotto, who was at his labours, he showed him the mind of the Pope, and at last asked him to give him a little drawing to send to his Holiness. Giotto, who was a man of courteous manners, immediately took a sheet of paper, and with a pen dipped in red, fixing his arm firmly against his side to make a compass of it, with a turn of his hand he made a circle so perfect that it was a marvel to see it Having done it, he turned smiling to the courtier and said, "Here is the drawing." But he, thinking he was being laughed at, asked, "Am I to have no other drawing than this?" "This is enough and too much," replied Giotto, "send it with the others and see if it will be understood." The messenger, seeing that he could get nothing else, departed ill pleased, not doubting that he had been made a fool of. However, sending the other drawings to the Pope with the names of those who had made them, he sent also Giotto's, relating how he had made the circle without moving his arm and without compasses, which when the Pope and many of his courtiers understood, they saw that Giotto must surpass greatly all the other painters of his time.

From: http://rodcorp.typepad.com/rodcorp/2003/10/giottos_circle_.html

Weekend Project: Still Life

Rosli and our adventures in Wales has got me interested in indoor studio mode and I have been experimenting today. The white background is actually a labcoat (I used to use labcoats for clinical attachments, not lab work). The scene was lighted by daylight from a large window as well as my flash on a remote cable, fired from the opposite side of the window. Grrr, in the end I'm not happy with how they turned out - despite using high-ish apertures (7.1) I still could not get the whole composition pin-sharp and using ISO 400 meant quite high noise. That's why I'm posting the pictures here instead of my Fotopages , haha.

ps
my car is currently being serviced and even though we have been indoors-bound for the past two weeks AND the day has been quite sunny, we couldn't go out!! Original plan was to meet up with Auntie and Uncle De in Essex.

Sunday is reportedly sunny this weekend, hopefully the car will be tip-top by then :)

Jungle Book

Mowgli Sarah hates her picture taken, and would go to great lengths to avoid the camera. I was chasing this fast-(still) (occasionally)-nappy-wearing critter all around the living room before I could get a picture, and even then she tried hiding underneath the table.

Those who know Sarah (Uncle & Auntie De, Rosli & Mama Danial) knows what she's up to when she undresses like this...