Size does matter

Size L:

 

 

Size M:

 

 

Size S!

 

This is so cute!

An-jing Li-ar

Does my new uniform manage to manifest itself as an outfit for anjing liar (engineer! ) based at site?

 

It won’t stimulate your fantasy towards uniforms for sure!

 

The tailor made me the ladies’ cut wo!

Bonus in jeopardy 2008

I think my bosses sure suffer headache whenever they think of me…

 

People always advise: don’t fight with the boss. I guess I never learn….

 

Boss 1: You said you are very busy nowadays, but I heard you already went jogging at 6pm the other day.

Me: I wanna emphasize, I’m not free at all. I’ve done the calculation, instead of falling sick & suffering for migraine and go for MC so often, might as well I go off from work earlier for exercise.

Boss 1: I’m just kidding, don’t worry!

Me: It’s not funny, boss.

 

Me: Boss, do you understand what I’m trying to highlight in my email?

Boss 2: Yea, I know! You are trying to be sarcarstic!

Me: ……

Boss 2: Boss 1 and I think that you must be very free.

Me: Trust me, I’m not free at all. Instead of keeping silent about this issue, I choose to voice out.

Boss 2: Yea, I know! We are just kidding!

Me: It’s not funny, boss.

Men & women at work!

Instead of having a discussion in the office comfortably, my colleagues (I had to follow, reluctantly… ) drove all the way to the site with issue to be ironed out and did brainstorming in the middle of a road with live traffic and under scorching sun…..

 

Greeting from Sg Siput

“走在铁路旁
我背着吉他
芦花低头笑呀
青蛙抬头望
一句一句和呀
一声一声唱
蜗牛慢吞吞呀
漫步夕阳下
走在铁路旁
我弹着吉他
老牛对我望呀
和风来作伴
一步一步走呀
一声一声唱
炊烟多潇洒呀
陪我走回家
蜗牛慢吞吞呀
漫步夕阳下”

I’ll just have to borrow a guitar somewhere then I think I can really make another MTV for this song sung by 锦绣二重唱.

If I stay put and don’t do anything recklessly which will have a great impact on my countable wealth, I’ll have endless walk along the tracks for at least 3 years.

 

I’ve been expelled to this small little town which is notorious for Samy Vellu since May 6^th to work on a brand new project.

The following is to embrace the challenges thrown by both Sue and Casey:-

I’ve moved on to work on a RM12.4bil project which is claimed to be the largest infrastructure project in Malaysia so far. I think my boss’s putting certain level of expectation on me as he’s sending me to be the sole representative for my department.

So, friends, feel free to pay me a visit if you all do pass by, I heard the “烧肉” here is damn nice!

Blunder at work

I was showing my boss an organization chart.

 

He then cracked up, “This statement doesn’t sound right…”

 

Rupa-rupanya I abbreviated “xxx in association with yyy” to “xxx in ass. with yyy” due to space constraint.

Gonna miss all of you!

I would like to dedicate this blog to all those at PZKR.

 

April 2^nd marked the end of my secondment. I really feel heavy to leave the firm: leaving behind the laughter and joy, and the warmth as well! How often you get to have this kind of treatment: knowing that you are unhappy, 4 “ma lat lou” bring you for dinner and while trying to cheer you up, they offer all sorts of advices?

 

Hopefully you guys will on and off miss my "不好笑咯！”or "有po甘ge树？”or even "apa lu mau?"

 

I nicknamed almost everyone at my department! (except the bosses) 

This is my sifu, Ms. Lye Lama (to rhyme with Dalai Lama)… hehe

 

Espirit de corps!!! We all use the same brand of bottle! Same volume some more! It’s so obvious to tell which one is the black sheep, rite?

 

Some of them like to append messages to my "post-it-corner" 

 

With papa!  both of us share so many things in common!

 

Yum sheng session on new year eve!

 

At annual dinner: old cucumber standing; seated from left: oyster, tbhan, lim ah pek

 

With PCC and tbhan

 

You, you and you! I know you are reading my blog!  MUST keep in touch! Feel free to abduct me for lunch on Fridays!

Sigh heavily….

The
company’s sending me for secondment to a consultant firm to pick up design skills
about drainage/hydrology. I was supposed to report myself to the consultant
firm on Oct 1st but the date has been deferred to a week later because I wanted
to join the how-to-draw-shit-in-3D training. 

Due
to some hidden agendas, I wish to further postpone the secondment for another
one month. So I tried to negotiate with my boss:-

Me:
Boss, I have a request…
Boss:
What is it?
Me:
Can I go learn a software about alignment?
Boss:
If you go then how about your secondment?
Me:
Can I defer it for another month?
Boss:
Then you wanna learn about drainage or alignment?
Me:
Err… Can I learn both?
Boss:
If you are everywhere, you are no where!
Me:
…

New office

So, I’ve been transferred back to design and technical department in HQ.

 

My "Atria View" cubicle

 

The vicinity: The advantage of sitting near to the door=I can cabut real fast and without having to alert anyone;

The disadvantage: Just imagine I’m dozing off, then my boss enters from the door…

 

Working in HQ is just hell and it’s something out of my comfort zone. I really need to learn liking it.

 

I’ve already lost touch about theories and designing for 1 solid year and now that I really have to catch up. I don’t quite like the working atmosphere here. People here are less friendly… Even overly friendly people like me also appear to be aloof here, because there is so much work! Once I reach the office, I’ll just bury myself in work. Working OT is of norm.

 

When I was based at site office, I had bosses and subcons to treat me to lunch. I miss longer lunch hours at SMART very much too. Not to mention, my site allowance has been revoked. This made my miserable paycheck became even more miserable.

 

Besides, I’m too LOUD to be placed here! (Haha! ) Hopefully I’ll pick up the feminineness by osmosis here in HQ…. 

Pride

Even though I’m just a K-le-fe for the project, I do feel a sense of pride (Please have patience in reading ) :-

Taken from http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/6/3/focus/17723392&sec=focus  

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Tunnelling their way to the big league

BY LEONG SHEN-LI

From scepticism to admiration – tunnel specialist Dr Martin Herrenknecht’s involvement in the SMART project has made him take his hat off to the beginners who have made it to the champions’ league. 

WHEN tunnel specialist Dr Martin Herrenknecht first heard about a Malaysian company wanting to create about 10km of tunnel that would serve two purposes – for road traffic and flood water diversion – he was highly sceptical. 

Not only had he not heard of the company undertaking the project, Stormwater Management and Road Tunnel (SMART), he likened the exercise to a beginner learning to drive with an F1 car. 

Dr Herrenknecht should know, after all, he is the managing director and chairman of Herrenknecht AG, the southern Germany-based company which he founded. He has supplied tunnel-boring machines for many of the world’s major tunnelling projects for the past 35 years and is certainly an authority on tunnelling.  

“The job was going to be handled by a Malaysian company which did not have a lot of experience in this field. We were not talking about the more renowned European or American companies. Of course, I was sceptical,” the 64-year-old mechanical engineer said.  

Dr Herrenknecht was taken aback when Malaysia Mining Corporation and Gamuda Bhd, the joint venture partners for the RM1.9bil project, wanted a tunnel boring machine that was 13m in diameter, which is certainly on the large side. 

“One usually starts with smaller machines. After gaining the experience, you move on to bigger machines. But for SMART, it was like a person learning to drive with an F1 car,” he said.  

He, however, knew that MMC-Gamuda was serious about going ahead with the job when they brought him to meet then Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.  

“They also understood the risks involved in the project but still pushed on. Many would have decided not to go ahead,” he said. 

All this took place in 2002 and recently, when met after the opening of the road tunnel portion of SMART on May 14, Dr Herrenknecht was all smiles and praises. “They have successfully completed a project that belongs to the champions’ league,” he added. 

The SMART project is indeed among the champions of civil engineering projects, not just because of its scale but also its concept. 

It involved digging a tunnel of about 10km between Kampung Berembang in Ampang and Sungai Besi to the south of Kuala Lumpur. The tunnel will allow access water from the upstream in the Klang River to be diverted directly to a huge lake in Sungai Besi, thus preventing flooding in the city centre near the Masjid Jamek area. 

What makes it so special is that part of the tunnel is also used for road traffic, the first tunnel in the world to have a dual purpose. The idea was so unique that SMART was even featured on Discovery Channel’s Extreme Engineering programme last year. 

As it is expected that the tunnel will only be used for flood water diversion once or twice a year, the dual-use would allow the this piece of infrastructure to be optimised.  

While the project concept created a lot of interest worldwide, Dr Herrenknecht was more concerned about the soil conditions which his machines had to deal with. 

Kuala Lumpur is built on a huge karstic limestone formation and such conditions usually cause a lot of headaches for people doing tunnelling work. Limestone formations have extensive underground caverns, streams, vertical drops and pinnacles and these often cause interruptions and delays, or other more serious problems with the tunnel boring machines. 

The tunnel alignment also required the machines to negotiate fairly sharp bends, making the work more challenging. 

Furthermore, tunnelling was carried out beneath the water table. This required the machines to be handled in such a manner that it would not cause the water table to fall. If that happened, the soil above, and any building on it, would start to subside and collapse.  

“Because of such conditions, I have to say that it was one of the most challenging projects I have ever dealt with. The experience gained from SMART will certainly be useful for me when dealing with karstic conditions in the future,” he said. 

Coming from a person who has sold over 450 tunnel boring machines for major projects (and over 1,000 smaller ones for minor jobs), and whose machines are currently digging tunnels through the Alps in Switzerland and under the Yangtze River in Shanghai, such words do carry weight.

Dr Herrenknecht said it was “excellent technical knowledge, flexibility and good management” which brought MMC-Gamuda success. 

One particular trait which Dr Herrenknecht singled out was the ability for the project managers and machine operators to quickly overcome problems. 

“Most of the time, people having long-drawn discussions before moving in to solve the problem. With SMART, the priority was to quickly get on the ground to overcome the problem,” he said. 

He said what MMC-Gamuda had achieved for the SMART project was nothing short of amazing. 

“It was a very steep learning curve but they have certainly made it. They have gained the experience to handle any kind of tunnelling projects, both in Malaysia and worldwide,” he said. 

MMC-Gamuda initially contracted the operation of one of its two tunnel boring machines for the project to a German company while operating the other itself so that it could learn from the foreign expert.  

Ironically, MMC-Gamuda’s machine was digging an average of 12m per day, compared with 7m by the other machine. The best record achieved by MMC-Gamuda’s machine was 29m per day.  

In the end, there were some problems with the foreign contractor. MMC-Gamuda took over the second tunnelling machine and completed the job themselves. 

These achievements would come in very useful in the future where, Dr Herrenknecht said, more tunnels would be built. 

“Everywhere in the world, more and more tunnels are needed, especially when cities grow bigger. They will need public transport, more roads, better water supply and sewerage systems. You will need tunnels for all of them,” he said. 

In Malaysia, several projects involving tunnels have been announced. The most major to date is the RM3bil Pahang-Selangor Raw Water Transfer project involving the construction of a 45km tunnel through the Main Range.  

Raw water, sourced from Pahang, will be channelled through the tunnel to a water treatment plant in Hulu Langat, Selangor, where it will be treated and supplied to households in the Klang Valley. 

While the project sounds massive, Dr Herrenknecht said the soil condition for the tunnel might be easier to handle than that for SMART because of its consistent granite formation. 

Fresh from the SMART project and another project in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, where they constructed a portion of the tunnel for the city’s underground railway project, it is not surprising that Gamuda is interested. 

“Given the hugely difficult ground conditions which Gamuda overcame with success in the SMART project, I believe the water transfer tunnel will be fairly straightforward for them.”  

Despite playing a part in so many major tunnels in the world, Dr Herrenknecht said he remembers the uniqueness of each one of them.  

“When I see or go through these tunnels, I always remember the difficulties that they caused. I also remember the people whom I worked with for that particular project, and how we looked out for each other because ultimately, we all share that one goal of getting the tunnel completed.  

“Each tunnel has its own story,” he said. 

With the SMART project and many more projects to come, it may just surprise Dr Herrenknecht how many of his stories could come from Malaysia.  

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