Sharing the Umbrella

The other day, I came back early from the out-of-office meeting which finished earlier than scheduled. Since, I haven't had lunch yet and had a sudden crave to eat a beef steak (of all things, I'm really a lamb guy) ... and after almost 3 days of non-solid food eating as I was down with a bad viral fever, I thought maybe a visit to Tony Romas will not be such a bad idea.

I haven't actually gone to these sort of outlets (on our own, on kids' birthdays yes) since almost one and a half year ago, coincidentally when the oil & gas industry went into the drain. It was about the same time I also started a strange new hobby of home cooking and trying brave new recipes from YouTube and what not, from Jamie Oliver's best egg omelette to Gordon Ramsay's grilled salmon, and even posted my masterpieces on IG.

Anyways, as soon as I planned to have that nice late lunch at TR, I remembered my wife. I called and asked her to get ready so that I could pick her up, from the back entrance of the house.

It was raining cats and dogs, albeit heavily. Instead of just waiting for her to come, I thought maybe I should fetch her with an umbrella. That's what I did. 

Imagine this, it was raining heavily, I came out from the car.  I saw she's already coming out from the house with a piece of cardboard on her head. A very much delight brimming on her face when she saw me coming with an umbrella. 

So there I was, with my wife holding her tightly by my side while sharing the umbrella on a really heavy rainy Wednesday afternoon ... 

Happy Anniversary dear.

Kekapal Terbang

I'm an avid enthusiast on aviation, or for that matter anything that flies. I'm still wondering whether the buraaq was actually a biological living creature that could fly or could it be a mechanical flying machine. What about the real engineering and design technical specifications of Prophet Sulaiman's flying throne? Anyway in this short note, I would like to share some of the airplanes and the airlines that I have been flying with (among others) ...

Late 1980s:

• Boeing 737-200 MAS:  Subang to Changi. The first time I’ve ever been in an aeroplane, just 20-year old, after getting a Government Scholarship to study Aeronautical Engineering in Glasgow University. I saw my dearest mother crying when sending me to the Departure Hall. I was feeling really excited for the adventures to come.

• Boeing 747-200 British Airways: Changi to London Heathrow. Sitting beside me throughout the 13 odd hours journey was a lovely girl on her way to Herriot Watt University to study Actuarial Science or what not.

• McDonnell Douglas DC-10 British Airways: London Heathrow to Glasgow Abbotsinch. Welcome to Scotland.

• Ilyushyin Il-76TD Aeroflot: London Heathrow to Subang via Moscow Domodedovo International Airport to & fro. Bloody hell, this civil variant of a multi-purpose 4-engined strategic airlifter really scared me, especially the stewards and stewardess were like shrewd Soviet era Red Army. This aircraft also has a lower glass cockpit. Anyway, this is the cheapest way back home during summer holidays, back then.

1990s:

• British Aerospace Jetstream 41: Glasgow Prestwick Airport, round and round, during my aerospace engineering Year 3 practical lab. Rasa nak muntah jek ... actually I did.

• Boeing 747-200 PIA: London Heathrow to Subang via Jinnah International Airport Karachi. That ‘via’ thing lasted for four months, during my epic  ‘چار مہینے’ sabbatical journey.

• Boeing 737-300 MAS: Subang (still Subang ...) to Changi. Many times company trip to the Red Dot City.

• Fokker50 MAS to some destinations within the peninsula.

• de Havilland Canada Dash 7  Berjaya Air, on and off trip to Kerteh before going to offshore.

• Eurocopter AS365N2 Dauphin, Sikorsky S76C and many more scary helicopters rides from MHS during my offshore days. 

Eurocopter Dauphin

Sikorsky S76C

2000s:

• Boeing 737-400 MAS: KLIA to Changi. Sometimes instead of MAS we used to also to commute to Singapore using SQ.

• Airbus 330-200 MAS: KLIA to KK. I had the pleasure of working as the project manager for six months in Sipitang Sabah, every two three week I travel back to KL. Not after transit for a day usually at the comfortable Sutera Habour Hotel. 

• Airbus 330-300 MAS: KLIA to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport Jakarta. Couple of times I went to Jakarta on business trip.

• Airbus 330-200 MAS: KLIA to Juanda International Airport Surabaya.

• Boeing 747-400 MAS: KLIA to Los Angeles International Airport (a.k.a. LAX or Tom Bradley). An epic journey to the US.

• Boeing 757-200 US Airways: LAX to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Visiting Honeywell HPS HQ previously in Phoenix.

• Boeing 737-400 Continental: Phoenix to Houston George Bush Airport. Onto Houston the oil town of the US. Until now, I sometimes cracked my lame 'dad jokes' to my kids saying that "I'm going to Houston", whenever my kids asked me where I'm going.

• Boeing 777-200 MAS: KLIA to Amsterdam Schipol. Back to Amsterdam after 20 odd years. Went on to Amersfoort, Zaanse Schans and Rotterdam.

• Boeing 737-400 Luftansa: Schipol to Frankfurt

• Boeing 757-200 United: LAX to Houston. Another trip the US. Visited NASA Johnson Space Centre in Houston and Universal Studio in LA.

• Boeing 777-200 MAS: KLIA to Narita. Cool Tokyo and its Disneyland Theme Park as well. Onto Yokohama.
• Airbus A330-300 MAS: KLIA to Indra Gandhi International Airport. Visited Taj Mahal.
• Few more trips to Japan and India ...

2010s:

• Boeing 777-200 MAS: KLIA to Istanbul Ataturk. What a beautiful city.
• Boeing 737-400 Turkish: Istanbul to Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.

• Boeing 777-200 MAS: KLIA to HK International Airport. Cuti-cuti HK with family.
• ATR72 Firefly: Subang to Changi

• Airbus A320-200 AirAsia: LCCT to KK

• Boeing 777-200 MAS: KLIA to CDG Paris. Ahh, Mona Lisa at the Louvre.
• Airbus 340-300 Gulf Air: KLIA to Muharraq Bahrain International Airport.

• Airbus A330-200 Gulf Air: Bahrain to Dubai. Welcome to Dubai Mall and the really tall Burj Khalifa.

• Airbus 340-300 Emirates: KLIA to Dubai

• Airbus A380-800 Emirates: Dubai to CDG Paris. How about Euro Disneyland for a change?

• A few more trips to Istanbul via Boeing 777-200 MAS with wife and company trips.
• Airbus A380-800 Emirates again ... I had an Italian Job in Milano (Milan), onto Venezia Santa Lucia (Venice) and the scenic Lago di Como (Lake Como)
• Airbus A380-800 MAS to Paris with wife and daughter. Onto UK via channel tunnel Eurostar, and back to Glasgow after 25 years, via Lake District and Stoke-on-Trent.

• Airbus A330-300 AirAsiaX from KLIA to Sydney for a job interview, would you believe it? I even had a chance to play cricket with the local Aussie team. Anyway the flight sucks.

• Airbus A330-300 MAS from KLIA to Sydney. This was so much better.
• Boeing 737-300 AirAsia from KLIA to Jakarta, few times on business and leisure.

• ATR72 Malindo from Subang Skypark to Kuala Terengganu, many times as I'm currently doing the KT MRO project.

• Boeing 787 Dreamliner JAL from KLIA to Narita, and another Dreamliner to Nagoya.

• Boeing 737-800 Malindo to Lahore, the Fort, Badshahi Mosque, Anarkali Bazaar, Sheesh Mahal (the real thing, not the restaurant) etc.

• Admal Cessna 172 round and round Kuala Lumpur.

• North Americas Tour of 2019 - I was doing an intercontinental round trip marathon flights of 41,263 km from KUL-DOH-ORD-YYC-IAH-DOH-KUL for some meetings with the oil & gas people in Canada and the US as well as attending the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston. Taking Qatar's Boeing 777 (300 & 200) and United's Boeing 737-800. The distance travelled was more than Earth's circumference around the equator which is 40,075 km, just like what al Biruni has calculated in his Codex Masudicus written in 1037.

Qatar 777-300

United 737-800

• Tokyo (and Fuji-san) with Wife and Kids cruising the Boeing 777-300 Cathay Pacific from KLIA to Narita via Hong Kong.

1. 2022 AirAsia: KLIA-Changi-KLIA Airbus A320neo
2. 2022 AirAsia: KLIA-KKIA-KLIA Airbus 330-300
3. 2022 Turkish: KLIA-Istanbul-KLIA Boeing 777-300
4. 2022 Saudia: KLIA-Madinah, Jeddah-KLIA Boeing 787-9
5. 2023 Saudia: KLIA-Jeddah-Rome, Frankfurt-Jeddah-KLIA Boeing 787-9
6. 2024 Saudia: KLIA-Jeddah-KLIA Boeing 787-9

My Dream Airplanes:

• Antonov An-225 Mriya (Dream). Saw this the first time during the Farnborough Air Show in the UK.

• Airbus A400M (TUDM already purchased 4 units)

• Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor VTOL, STOL (you name it)

the walking dead

We are very familiar with zombies, even though we have not actually met one. From the movies and tv shows we knew that these zombies appear to be alive but they are physically dead.

The word zombi was originally taken from a French Haitian folklore of which dead bodies were reanimated through various methods, most commonly magic. Nowadays however, the so called fictional phenomenon of zombies were normally as a result from some type of infection or from radiation, mental diseases, viruses, scientific accidents, and others.

The body of a zombi appears to be in a continuous state of decay. They seem to have no purpose of life except for insatiable  hunger to eat and craving for human flesh especially the brain. There seems to be no cure for these conditions, and the only way to eliminate them is to destroy them altogether.

However, in reality the real zombies or the walking dead among us are the ones who does not remember his Creator.

It is narrated that the Prophet said, “The similitude of someone who remembers his Lord and someone who does not is like that of the living and the dead.” 

Those who don't remember his Lord are indeed the real zombies in this world.

Allah knows best.