Six Degrees

Bose lifestyle remote

Stay hungry, stay foolish

2011 is now behind us. Another year in the making. I hope that this will be a splendid year for those of us who have weathered the storm. Every one has their fare share of ups and downs in life, hence my wishes extend out to those in particular who have had a bashing in 2011.

I for one have had a disaster of a year in some sorts. Professionally speaking the career is really at a halt. Things are improving which is good and was saved really by chance.

My wish list for 2012, in no specific order.
- not to buy any more clothes, gadgets, computers, electronics.
- travel lesser and save more.
- spend more time at home, read, learn, enjoy the finer things.
- get into the best shape of my life and be geared up for greatness.
- focus at work and constantly strive for higher ground.

And lastly as always world piece and let people come back to their jobs and lives. Corporate America and Europe really need to get their act together this year. A wise man once said stay hungry and stay foolish - I reckon that the best way to live your life and fulfill your dreams.

Places to visit in San Francisco

I recently came back from a holiday in San Francisco. Specifically I was there for 10 days over the last weeks of October.

Palace of the legion of honor
San Francisco museum of modern art
Asian museum
Palace of fine arts
Chestnut street
Fillmore street
Napa valley
ReNorth beach x
Maykadeh Persian food 473 green street
cafe Bellini union square - italian - breakfast x
daily grill 347 Geary street off union square - breakfast
Leftys o douls - breakfast x
Lark creek steak - lunch, Westfield, level 3
Embacadero - one market
Harris steak house - van ness street, Harris restaurant x
Victorian home walk
Bike and roll - rent a bike 5 dolla discount from explorer tv x
Press club- wine tasting
Coit tower x
Lombard street x
Fisher mans wharf*** x
Golden gate bridge x
Sausilito


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Chateau des arras

Not a bad drop, but it needs to be served at the right temperature. There are better tasting bordeaux wines. However this was on promotion. I had the first bottle in summer - the bottle was unrefrigerated and I didn't like it at all.

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Tired

Been shuttling around a fair bit. Spent some time home this weekend in singapore. My parents are getting old, they are also feeling age catching up on them. I never thought the day would come when all this change would just be all to overwhelming.

I am glad that I come home often enough to visit them. Once a month from HK is not too bad an effort. I should however perhaps extend my stays here for a night more, rather than doing the quick drop in.

As for this weekend they had no idea I was coming. It was a great surprise to them. There's nothing like coming home and chilling out. All the worries go away and everything seems possible and achievable.

Lately I've been working very long hours. There's been significant changes at work. Which has caused an imbalance in my life. I've been sleeping less as well and ineffect getting more tired. Coming back home albeit just for the weekend has taken some of that tiredness out of my system. I am better now.......


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Getting back on track

Quarter one is coming to an end. Not much has been achieved, apart from plugging away at work and making sure that nothing falls between the cracks.

We often wait for a new year, birthday or some significant time before we force ourselves to make changes in our habits.

I resolve from today that I want a more fruitful existence. I need to grow, learn, and live a more meaningful life. The first step is to be the best that I can be.

Three things that's I will do this coming week are :

1. Begin the healing process. Start eating right, exercising and cutting down on all things that I know are bad for me.
2. Go to bed by 11p.m.
3. Raise awareness of what's happening around me.


Let's get started. It's been a while! Time to get back on track.

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Location:Macdonnell Rd,,Hong Kong

My gadget bag

I have always been known as a person who travels with a lot of technology. I am always relied on to bring music, computers, cameras and other important techie stuff whenever thief is a group trip or a short holiday. I love carrying my gadgets, they just complete the entire trip and I feel so secure about having access to the things that I use daily at home, while I am away on work or holiday trips.

Enclosed is a video of what I carry with me. Leave me your comments.

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Location:Macdonnell Rd,,Hong Kong

The simple life

Its been over 13 years since finishing my undergrad. The memories are still fresh in my mind as if It was just yesterday when we skipped classes and hung around at the iguana bar with the rest of the crew. Most of my friends have got married while a few of us including me are still waiting for the right person to come by. Believe me its not easy to find the right one, it gets harder year after year. Should one just swallow the bitter pill and take the plunge?

The summer of 1997, was filled with Quake  games in the uni dorm. The best times were often at late in the night, sittin with a cheap bottle of whiskey, ciggies and mad company. WinAMP and those creative speakers used to be jukebox, and the meager 8mb graphics card tried its best to keep up with the simply red video.

The internet had just become commercialy viable. A 56k dialup on my U.S robotics modem was a best in its class model.... nothing like the old dialup sound. a mp 3 file took about 5 mins. YES, that long but it never seemed long.

Those were the days my friend.

Obstacles getting in the way

We go about our days typically just getting things done, one item at a time. Replying to emails, responding to a call or just completing various reports. There are quite a few todo's which popup ever so frequently during the average work day. However we never spend time to plan these things through. Do you plan how your week is going to plan out? do you plan how you want to plan the day ahead? Do you want to take control of the day or be controlled?

Its an interesting situation to be  in. How much of the work day can you actually be in control of?

To a certain extent we are all masters of our own unverse. All it takes is a bit of planning to steer the ship to the right course, out of the choppy waters and away from the rocks, often with some guidance from the lighthouse and the experienced hands on deck.

I love to spend the Sunday afternoon having a lazy lunch at my favourite cafe in Admiralty. A leasurely breakie followed by clearing away a couple of mundane overdue items from work. This is the probably the most productive time during the week, where you often need to review a critical piece of work but with all the chaos surrounding you in the office, your just not able to get this done effectively.

Once I get some pending stuff out of the way, the next thing I focus on is to plan out how the week is likely pan out and have a game plan on what items i need to clear with absolute importance. These items are non-negotiable, and must be done within the specified time, in fact the earlier the better. Each week is also likely to have some form of theme - the theme would represent a big ticket item which is due that week and likely to be the focus of most of your time. If you have a big audit meeting, then the AUDIT might be the big ticket item, and you will want to make sure you have addressed all your critical todo's before that important meeting.

After you have the list of tasks which need to be completed durint the week, try and then break them down into daily activities. A lot of prep work will probably have to be done to help you satisfcatorily complete the big ticket item. Apart from this bigh THEME, there are likely to be other small thematic topics which would probably be covered or need to be executed during the week as well. It might be smart to isolate these topics and try and cover them over day or two.

.....to be continued....

Unboxing of Macbook Air 11 inch 128 gb 2 gb ram Core 2 Duo 1.4 ghz (Late October 2010 Model)

Alright i am a bit silly at times and this is one of those moments which I decided to splurge on the macbook air, when i really didnt need to. The thing with apple products are that they are addictive, i admit i am hooked and i try very hard to resist to temptation. I am a sucker for form factors which have astounding engineering. The macbook air (MBA) is no exception.

So just for the record I got the 11" inch 128 gb 2 gb ram Core 2 Duo 1.4 ghz (Late October 2010 Model). The verdict after 24 hours is that this is a beast of a machine even with such low configurations and I am truly delighted that I got this.

Do i regret not getting the 1.6 ghz cpu ugrade with the 4 gb ram instead? I think you can do without that if you have another primary machine at home, which I do. I will be releasing a video on the MBA capabilities in the coming weeks.

For now, enjoy my unboxing video!