The past few months for Sautern had been spent quite uneventfully, and perhaps a little too dourly too. So what better cure is there than to have a get-together meal to outline future plans and to discuss current issues.
As always, the dinner will be somewhere off the beaten track, to dine and maybe wine where not many have done before. No prizes for guessing that McDonald's will be out of the question here. Instead, Tommy, being the experienced connoisseur that he is, recommended a German themed place somewhere in Tanjung Bungah. Well, as far as I am concerned, German eateries do not exactly come to mind when Tanjung Bungah is mentioned, so I guess I will have to wait and see.
Crunch time came in a flash and Tommy was already at my place, along with a carload of the rest of us, Jupes, Chong Yang and even Lee Xin. On a tangent, a very ironic and funny remark was made by Jupes the moment I got into the car. He was surprised by the sight of 'a rat the size of a cat' (his own words) scampering across my path as I was approaching. My level of shock was decidedly zero as this was quite common to me, after all I do live in Pulau Tikus, which literally means Rat Island. Anyway, back to the journey to the mysterious restaurant. It really was off the beaten track, or rather it was not situated along the main road.
On first sight, it has a European feel to it, German theme notwithstanding. The restaurant or to be specific, restaurant/bar was quite small, occupying just a single shoplot. Slightly less than half of the internal floorspace was taken up by the bar, and the walls were filled with German memorabilia. The place had a warm feel to it, literally as it was quite smoky, about the only negative for the atmosphere, pun unintended.
In terms of service, we were given our menus quite promptly and the waiters were quite helpful. Not long after, we were joined by Jupes' mum and sis. As for ordering the food, we were probably a little spoiled for choice, and I was at a lost. Of course, dishes with names like 'schadenfreude with broiled schwarzenegger bratwurst with sauerkraut' did not help, or at least that's what they looked like to me. I am a guy whose eyes glaze over from prolonged reading food names with more than 5 words in them. I guess, it's apt that I settled for the mixed grill in the end. As for the rest, I have already mentioned my inaptitude with German food names, so do not expect me to recall what they ordered. I did remember that Jupes ordered something with minced meat in it and his sis ordered something with sausages.
Ordering is one thing, but waiting for the actual food to be served is another though. In this respect, I already downed my Lite Coke before the food came, and I was drinking slowly. The food did come though, eventually. Overall, the food itself was enjoyable, though I feel that some of the meat was slightly overcooked, a sentiment shared by Chong Yang.
Dinner dealt with, we got straight down to business, namely a serious discussion on what the future lies. I have to admit that this has been a bit long in coming, since I guess most of us are not too keen to discuss about the possible end. Unfortunately, we cannot continue keeping our heads in the sand anymore, since Jupes, me and Chong Yang are going to face a major exam later this year and not all of us will remain here next year. We spent quite some time discussing this thorny issue, but in the end, we still have not decided on a really satisfactory solution.
Nevertheless, we proceeded straight to the next item on the agenda. During these past few months, we stumbled upon a new business idea. To the layman, it will probably look like nothing special, but there is a reason why entrepreneurs exist, and that is to enterprise. Since this nascent idea does not have a known precedent, there are many kinks to work out. It is like building up a new software programme from the ground up, and we have to do tons of debugging for it to even look workable on paper. Despite the progress made during this discussion, it will be quite some time yet before Sautern can debut another branch of business.
Serious stuff aside, we adjourned to Tommy's place where Jupes tried to get us hooked on Google Earth. And as we found out, trying to find our own place on planet earth is no mean feat, Sautern will surely attest to that.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Pathfinder
First post of the year. Has been a while, hasn't it?
The gang was busy throughout the end-of-year holidays last year, shuttling between home and Palma Housing, completing the extremely complex task of upgrading our clients database.
While most organizations would no doubt settle their programming issues with a quick call to any major software vendor, Palma Housing wanted something special.
Something so rare the last time one of its kind was seen was in the late 1980s, and never again.
The property listing database.
This, coupled with the newer Microsoft Access database (whose execution was as welcome as a colonoscopy without pain medication) made the upgrading process as profoundly painful as a knife dripping with dog poo in the arteries.
After a three month struggle, our titanic project was finally completed (inclusive of planning, coding, drinks, and a dead camel).
The most comprehensive property management database software, tailor made to only one client, Palma Housing. We present: Palma* Pathfinder.
Still, the realities of life has caught up. Upper Six is a bus-load of sexually traumatized children.
Lots of homework, projects and people to handle.
Life goes on and on. Like diluted sewage in a flowing river feeding agricultural industries.
*The prefix is exchangeable ;)
The gang was busy throughout the end-of-year holidays last year, shuttling between home and Palma Housing, completing the extremely complex task of upgrading our clients database.
While most organizations would no doubt settle their programming issues with a quick call to any major software vendor, Palma Housing wanted something special.
Something so rare the last time one of its kind was seen was in the late 1980s, and never again.
The property listing database.
This, coupled with the newer Microsoft Access database (whose execution was as welcome as a colonoscopy without pain medication) made the upgrading process as profoundly painful as a knife dripping with dog poo in the arteries.
After a three month struggle, our titanic project was finally completed (inclusive of planning, coding, drinks, and a dead camel).
The most comprehensive property management database software, tailor made to only one client, Palma Housing. We present: Palma* Pathfinder.
Still, the realities of life has caught up. Upper Six is a bus-load of sexually traumatized children.
Lots of homework, projects and people to handle.
Life goes on and on. Like diluted sewage in a flowing river feeding agricultural industries.
*The prefix is exchangeable ;)
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Sacrifices for the job, starvation and cold
Along came a competition for young entrepreneurs, the HSBC Young Entrepeuneur Awards. Since we are young entrepeuneurs it should be right up our alley. And so the wheels are set in motion, in a quest that will hopefully only end next March somewhere in Hong Kong.
Since Sautern has 5 current members, but with Song Han, being the good and very hardworking top scorer that he is, choosing to study during the holidays, it will send 2 teams of 2. Of course this is just to facilitate the rules, as we are one team in anything but name. Perhaps in this case, divide and conquer is the way to go.
There is one minor con to being two teams though. Obviously, we will need to come up with two different ideas. Correction, two good, sensible AND original ideas. Believe me you, it is not as simple as sitting down in Starbucks for two hours and fart out a random business plan.
Thankfully though, Jupes is an environment freak. It was no time at all before the green haze inspired him to an environmentally friendly idea, complete with graphs, charts and numerous figures quoted from NGOs. Basically, things that will make the average Joe glaze his eyes and go into a mind numbing stupor.
As for my team, Tommy did come out with a plan. But after about two weeks of discussion, we were still stuck at the discussion stage. So we did the best thing for this type of writer's block, invade Starbucks for a few hours and generate a very good business plan. Even though we are kind of breaking out of the typical mould for Malaysian youth, we still try to adopt our Malaysian values whenever we can, in this case the Starbucks jaunt was scheduled for yesterday, which is the last day of submittion for the contest.
Being the typical workaholic, Tommy was already SMS-ing me at about 7.30 even though I was still very much in dreamland. After sending a few SMSes of my own in a hazy state, we established 10am as the time of meeting. Location was as planned, the WiFi hazen of Starbucks. Having bought the obligatory cuppa, we sat down to brainstorm. To recap, Tommy actually sent me an idea to flesh out a couple of days earlier, and we were going to send that in. Jupes had other opinions though, and he managed to convince us that it was too simple. A short check on the database of past entries also confirmed that it is also lacking in the originality department.
Unfortunately, that means that we will have to do a complete rewrite. So much for good Malaysian values, as we now only have a few hours to complete the job. With our backs to the wall, we fell back on Tommy's original idea. A few short minutes spent on finetuning it later, Jupes and me were ready to slug it out with the sands of time. This does not mean that the other idea will be abandoned. Due to its simplicity, we might implement it in the future.
When we go about brainstorming, it is usually in a very charged-up atmosphere, since we are very passionate about our ideas. However, we were feeling decidedly frigid after an hour or so in. The reason? We were seated under an air-cond vent, an uncovered one at that. It seemed bad form to move though, so we just stuck it in. How long could it take to write a fewer than 1000word essay right? I mean, Jupes and me regularly crank out blogs that long. Well, we were wrong on all counts. Temporary writer's block seemed to appear every now and then, and that's already with Jupes doing most of the typing.
Anyway, we did manage to complete the essay. Now all that's left is to send in both entries. Amid constant hunger pangs, we sent in Tommy and my effort in first, amid constant hunger pangs. Aside from the really long list of particulars to fill in, it went without a cinch. Jupes entry though, was an entirely different matter. The WiFi seemed to freeze the moment we clicked 'send', and then there was a wait. A long wait. Basically you have three ravenous teenagers staring at a blank webpage on a laptop waiting for it to load. Time just outshone room temperature in the freezing department.
A few frantic clicks on 'refresh' managed to coax the confirmation page to load, along with a collective sigh of relief from us. By then, we have just about hung on for the short escalator ride down to the basement cafetaria. Despite not having our intended foodstalls open, we were just too hungry to care. Equation of the day - food>(starvation + cold)
Since Sautern has 5 current members, but with Song Han, being the good and very hardworking top scorer that he is, choosing to study during the holidays, it will send 2 teams of 2. Of course this is just to facilitate the rules, as we are one team in anything but name. Perhaps in this case, divide and conquer is the way to go.
There is one minor con to being two teams though. Obviously, we will need to come up with two different ideas. Correction, two good, sensible AND original ideas. Believe me you, it is not as simple as sitting down in Starbucks for two hours and fart out a random business plan.
Thankfully though, Jupes is an environment freak. It was no time at all before the green haze inspired him to an environmentally friendly idea, complete with graphs, charts and numerous figures quoted from NGOs. Basically, things that will make the average Joe glaze his eyes and go into a mind numbing stupor.
As for my team, Tommy did come out with a plan. But after about two weeks of discussion, we were still stuck at the discussion stage. So we did the best thing for this type of writer's block, invade Starbucks for a few hours and generate a very good business plan. Even though we are kind of breaking out of the typical mould for Malaysian youth, we still try to adopt our Malaysian values whenever we can, in this case the Starbucks jaunt was scheduled for yesterday, which is the last day of submittion for the contest.
Being the typical workaholic, Tommy was already SMS-ing me at about 7.30 even though I was still very much in dreamland. After sending a few SMSes of my own in a hazy state, we established 10am as the time of meeting. Location was as planned, the WiFi hazen of Starbucks. Having bought the obligatory cuppa, we sat down to brainstorm. To recap, Tommy actually sent me an idea to flesh out a couple of days earlier, and we were going to send that in. Jupes had other opinions though, and he managed to convince us that it was too simple. A short check on the database of past entries also confirmed that it is also lacking in the originality department.
Unfortunately, that means that we will have to do a complete rewrite. So much for good Malaysian values, as we now only have a few hours to complete the job. With our backs to the wall, we fell back on Tommy's original idea. A few short minutes spent on finetuning it later, Jupes and me were ready to slug it out with the sands of time. This does not mean that the other idea will be abandoned. Due to its simplicity, we might implement it in the future.
When we go about brainstorming, it is usually in a very charged-up atmosphere, since we are very passionate about our ideas. However, we were feeling decidedly frigid after an hour or so in. The reason? We were seated under an air-cond vent, an uncovered one at that. It seemed bad form to move though, so we just stuck it in. How long could it take to write a fewer than 1000word essay right? I mean, Jupes and me regularly crank out blogs that long. Well, we were wrong on all counts. Temporary writer's block seemed to appear every now and then, and that's already with Jupes doing most of the typing.
Anyway, we did manage to complete the essay. Now all that's left is to send in both entries. Amid constant hunger pangs, we sent in Tommy and my effort in first, amid constant hunger pangs. Aside from the really long list of particulars to fill in, it went without a cinch. Jupes entry though, was an entirely different matter. The WiFi seemed to freeze the moment we clicked 'send', and then there was a wait. A long wait. Basically you have three ravenous teenagers staring at a blank webpage on a laptop waiting for it to load. Time just outshone room temperature in the freezing department.
A few frantic clicks on 'refresh' managed to coax the confirmation page to load, along with a collective sigh of relief from us. By then, we have just about hung on for the short escalator ride down to the basement cafetaria. Despite not having our intended foodstalls open, we were just too hungry to care. Equation of the day - food>(starvation + cold)
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