howwwzattt... a ballad of a troubled mind part. II...

Again, he can’t sleep. 5 years ago he got the same problem, for more than 6 months he suffered sleepless nights. It affected him so much, depressed and feeling lonely at times when everybody else enjoying their beautiful slumbers.

He turned himself to what he thinks he knows best. Intoxicate himself just for that one sleep that he needs.

He wondered if the same problem still inside him, lurking beneath the many layers of emotion and feeling that he kept away from the world.

Someone did mention to him to start writing again. Write just about anything she said, just to keep your sanity at bay. For she knows that he will writes when something is troubling him, when he is down. He was troubled then and he is now.

He is doing it now; he felt the depression mounting on him. He’s been living in lies. For 15 years he lied to the world, for 15 years he lied to those that dear to him. He resented himself for that and prays silently for them to understand him. He had failed them.

Certain thought did cross his mind. Someday on a very fine morning he would just lay everything down and leave everything behind with a haversack fill with his personal belonging and a few fresh clothes, just leave and roam the world and be his own Revolving Jones...

howwwzattt... my piece, my memory lane being educated as Anak Malaysia...

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 29 — Perkasa chief Datuk Ibrahim Ali has joined calls for strong action to be taken against Teo Nie Ching for entering a surau in her constituency last week, saying the Serdang MP must be charged for ‘desecrating’ the Surau Al-Huda. (more here)

This is what was reported in the MalaysianInsider today and I believe major daily publication carried on the same thing for these few days.

I remember when I was in form 1 or form 2 (85/86), our school hockey team had travelled down to Ipoh for a match with one of the team there. Those days it was an affair that everyone would look forward to since the trip could be disguised itself into everything from having cendol to smuggling contrabands into the school and the fact that our coach (cikgu Abdul Rahim Udin aka ARU) was the most feared individual in the school didn’t make a difference for us at all.

Come to think of it, the reason I left hockey for cricket was because of him.

The match was held at Ipoh Padang where as usual we won the match. While waiting for our bus to pick us up back to Taiping all of us took our rest and shower at the Masjid India across the Ipoh Padang besides the St. Michael Institution. Some went to pray and some just cool themselves under the tree shade outside the mosque.

Suddenly there was this heavy downpour and all of us scampered inside the mosque for shelter accept for this one Indian boy a star player himself, Shankar Ramu (ex-national player) who didn’t know what to do and where to seek his refuge from the heavy rain.

Our most feared coach, yes cikgu Rahim just went up to him and told him to come inside the mosque while handing him a sarung to cover his lower limb. Shankar did hesitate whether it is alright for him a non-Muslim to enter the mosque. I can’t remember what did our coach told him but after that Shankar was among us inside the mosque wearing his sarung of course. Of course who do know Shankar Ramu could verify this with him.

I like to think myself of having a liberal view on our very own politics and some did say I was having a liberal standing on Islam itself. I don’t know how they saw me with the latter one.

Today NST page 4, column 3, paragraph 7:

PAS VP Salahuddin Ayub said the National Fatwa Council which had met for the 90th time on Mac 1 this year, had decided that non-Muslims and non-Muslims tourist were allowed to enter mosque or surau. It was a decree.

Since the time I had remember, thousands and thousands of non-Muslims and non-Muslims tourist had gone inside the Masjid Negara for “lawatan” provided they cover their “aurat”. The Masjid Negara authority had even provides “jubah” at the main entrance for the purpose.

Remember earlier this year when our DPM went to this Sikh temple? He was praised and hailed with many good things no? Political? Of course it was no matter to those from BN, PKR or PAS.

But what did failed me was, when it is come to others apart those from the reigning federal administration, it was blown ridiculously out of proportions as if it was a big sin, bigger than the first Rukun Islam itself.

howwwzattt... a ballad of a troubled mind...

“If you want to be recognized, you stand. If you want to be respected, you speak but if you don’t want to make fools of yourselves, just remain seated...” (improvised it to suit the language)

This is what I’ve learnt, those wise words from someone that I didn’t know but will keep on sticking forever in my mind. Just like the 5F=9C+160, the unofficial temperature conversion formula that was taught to me during my schooldays.

Long ago there was this young man who was so helpless in determining what he is going to do and going to be when he all grown up as a man. His mind and his soul were so twisted in determining what is right and what is wrong.

He turned himself to be a delinquent, a truant just to justify his course of action to the world and never once he thought that someday he shall regret his misdeed to himself.

Once his discipline master said to him that in future if he still remains as he was then, he shall face failure heads on in life but he never took it seriously and yet deep inside him he knows, they were right. The world was right.

He took many wrong turns, been to where he shouldn’t be, roam carelessly and aimlessly. For him, life is just for that moment, so why must spoil it with something tedious such as good education, anyway everyone is going to die someday he thinks.

Yes, he was blessed with the chance to be schooled in one of the best school at that time and somehow he blew the opportunity big time just with one shortcoming in his being.

That little tiny faceless thing was called love.

As an adult now, that once a young rebellious young man took all those failures in a good stride and accepted it as lessons he learnt along the way to become the man he is now.

He had learnt the hard way but he never regret those lessons he learnt for he knows, he is brave enough to smile at the world for what he is now, calloused and hardened with failures, he embraced it with his own kind of love.

Only with failures he should learn to become a better man...


p.s: Dedicated to those paths that crosses...

howwwzattt... the dangerous of volcanic ash clouds (INFO)...

According to CNN, European countries shut their airspace one after the other Thursday as a cloud of volcanic ash wafted over from Iceland and posed a danger to flights.

Airspace over the United Kingdom was due to be closed for six hours from midday but air authorities later extended the closure until at least 7 a.m. BST (2 a.m. EST) Friday.



Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands also announced the closure of their airspace, authorities in each country said.

Here are some infos on why volcanic ash clouds are a serious hazard to aviation.

Volcanic ash clouds are a serious hazard to aviation, reducing visibility, damaging flight controls and ultimately causing jet engines to fail.

Encounters between aircraft and volcanic ash can happen because ash clouds are difficult to distinguish from ordinary clouds, both visually and on radar, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Ash clouds can also drift great distances from their source. The recent volcanic eruption in Iceland sent a huge plume of ash moving across the Atlantic, disrupting air traffic across Western Europe.

What happens when aircraft encounter ash clouds?

According to Airbus, flying through an ash cloud should be avoided by all means. The aircraft manufacturer says experience has shown costly damage can occur to aircraft surfaces, windshields and power plants, while ventilation, hydraulic, electronic and air data systems can also be contaminated.



Critically, it says the ingestion of volcanic ash by engines may cause serious deterioration of engine performance due to erosion of moving parts and partial or complete blocking of fuel nozzles.

Volcanic ash contains particles, whose melting point is below that of an engine's internal temperature. During flight these particles will immediately melt if they go through an engine. Going through the turbine, the melted materials rapidly cool down, stick on the turbine vanes, and disturb the flow of high-pressure combustion gases.

In the worst case this disorder of the flow may stall the engine, the manufacturer's operational guidance says.

Can these ash clouds be detected?

Each year millions of passengers fly over volcanically active regions such as Iceland and the North Pacific, which has more than 100 active volcanoes and four to five ash-producing eruptions each year, the USGS says.

As weather radar is not effective in detecting volcanic ash clouds, pilots rely on accurate forecasts of volcanic eruptions along their air routes.

There are nine Volcanic Ash Advisory Centers (VAAC) around the world designated by international organizations to provide expert advice to national meteorological agencies about the location and expected movement of volcanic ash clouds.

Have there been any fatal incidents?

No. But a number of aircraft have flown into ash clouds over the years, resulting in a few near-fatal incidents.

In April 1982, British Airways Flight 009 en route to Auckland from London flew into a cloud of dust and ash thrown up by the eruption of Mount Galunggung, on the Indonesian island of Java, resulting in the failure of all four of its engines.

Fortunately the pilots were able to glide the Boeing 747-200 far enough to exit the ash cloud, before three of the engines were restarted, allowing the crippled flight to divert to Jakarta and perform a safe landing.

At the time it was the longest glide in a non-purpose-built aircraft.

The event was also remembered for the announcement made by the airliner's remarkably calm captain, Eric Moody.

He told passengers: "Ladies and gentlemen this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them under control. I trust you are not in too much distress?"

In December 1989, KLM Flight 867 en route to Anchorage in Alaska from Amsterdam flew into a normal looking cloud, which turned out to be a volcanic ash cloud -- the result of an eruption of Mount Redoubt, a volcano in the Aleutian Range.

The pilots increased the power in an attempt to climb out of the cloud, but all four engines on the Boeing 747-400 failed shortly after and the standby electrical system failed.

Fortunately the crew eventually managed to restart the engines two at a time, enabling the airliner to land safely at Anchorage, despite extensive damage to the windshields, internal aircraft systems, avionics and electronics.

Source: MAS Engineering Portal

howwwzattt... another air disaster (LATEST)...

JAKARTA, April 13 (Bernama) - Eighty two people of 103 passengers and crew of a Boeing-737 Merpati Nusantara Airlines aircraft were injured when it skidded while landing at Manokwari Aiport, in West Papua on Tuesday morning.

Other passengers suffered light injuries but there was no loss of life in the incident.



Up to date the Malaysian ambassador here had not received any information as to Malaysian passengers being injured.Police have also not confirmed if foreign nationals were injured.

"One passenger was seriously injured. The passenger suffered wounds to his face and had breathing difficulty," said Manokwari police chief Bambang Ricky when contacted Tuesday.

Four passengers had serious bone injuries but they were in good shape.

The crash at 10.50am caused the aircraft to split in two and landed at the at a canal, some 700m from the end of the runway.The wet and slippery runway is believed to have caused the aircraft to be out of control upon landing.

"I was able to ask a passenger who said that initially the landing was good but later the aircraft could not stop, maybe due to the wet runway," Bambang Ricky said.

The plane was on its way from Makassar, South Sulawesi to Manokwari.

Sources: BERNAMA & MAS Engineering Portal