Saturday, December 23, 2006

7 days in Port Dickson

I left civilization for a week and headed to PD for
1. Shell Family Day celebration in Guoman
2. Industrial training assignment and stayed in corus

No internet, no friends, no family, no larnee. When i was staying in Corus for the week, i had buffet breakfast by myself everyday. Dinner buffet by myself. Some days were just too depressing so i resorted to room service food.

Here are the few meals i ate. As you can see im really bored in the hotel all alone and spent most of my time taking pics


Pic of the bed


The other half of my room



And the view outside my window


View of the beach

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Food i ate at the hotel

Er.. beef steak with scallops, william potatoes and asparagus with horlicks


Spaghetti Bolognaise, carrot juics and a tropical platter



Khoo Fatt fried rice with carrot juice


Finished eating the chicken rice. and the tropical platter again with coconut water.



What was i doing the whole week?
Well, this rail tail wagon vessels need to be re-qualified every 10 years to ensure that its safe to use and transport liquefied petroleum gas (yes cooking gas). The plant in pd is the main plant and redistributes the LPG to Johor and Ipoh through the railway track for filling in other states.

Pic of the vessels that need requalification


The process, free the gas from the vessel. Flush it out with water. Gas test and oxygen content test to ensure safe entry for cleaning. Magnetic partical ink test to ensure to crack propogations and hydrotesting (pumps the vessel to a certain pressure to ensure its safe to use, uses either nitrogen or water. this case water coz nitrogen too exp) and non destructive tests

Picture of Joseph gearing up


Picture of the the contract worker's first entrance emergency rescue procedure simulation before given approval to start work.



Pic of Ravi double checking Joseph's breathing apparatus



Pic of the maintenance shed where the vessel will be towed to for requalification


Pic of the baffle plate that reinforces the vessel. Can you see the rust? doesnt mean that the vessel has been gas freed and flushed with water and it still isnt dangerous. The rust scales might have trapped some LPG gas inside them or have reacted with LPG to form some pyrophoric compound.





Pic of the KTM routing control board



It my sound easy but there are alot of safety procedures to follow to ensure that people dont blow themselves up. I mean ALOT and they are VERY stringent.

What was my role?
I had to make sure they dont blow themself up. I had to make sure all the equipment were explosion proof(torch lights,2 way radios etc). Ensure that they dont simply smoke and use the handphone in the maintenance vicinity. Keep a daily log and report activities to my superior. Liaising with the KTM, contracted re-qualifiers with Shell. In short i was the ear, eyes, mouth and hands of Shell stranded in the middle of the railway track.


Fun while working?
yeah man.. i got to ride the engine around the refinery track when they were towing empty operational vessels for filling.

Pic of me in the engine


The gear changer of the engine. and the reverse lever underneath it.



Rare signage irresistable camwhoring moment




Besides that, at night the contractors took me out in aid to fend off boredom to me. So they bought me drinks, food and also a few games of pool which Ravi trashed my ass. Thanks Mr. Choo, director of Risen Engineering. Had a talk with him on how his started his business and how he manages it and the potention in engineering jobs. He took me to 2 bars which featured filipino live bands, the one in Corus and the other in Royal Adelphi in Seremban. Drinks i tried, magarita, singapore sling and santa's something. hahhaa. and beers of course. Didnt drink much coz the next day i had to work and i need to be on top of my game to make sure nothing stupid goes on.

Ravi promised to take me out fishing on his motor boat if i come back to PD the following week after christmas to oversee the rest of the project. But i told him, whether im coming back or not relies entirely on Mr. Zaid (Shell engineering manager for LPG sector)

So.. how much did Shell spend on me?
Well, internet charges, room service, dinner buffets, breakfast buffets, laundry services were paid for.



A spanking total of 1119.90 ringgit. feeling guilty? yeah, abit. Feeling fortunate? hell yeah!

What have i learnt?

Well, liaising with the contractors, and the KTM workers is not an easy thing. Most of them only have secondary highshool education and some primary school. being a young kiddo that goes there and supervises them is kinda uninvited for. Plus im just a trainee. So what i had to do was to bring myself down to their par, converse with them like i know them for ages..communicated humbly and friendly. The best ice breaker for these simple fold are, "sudah makan ker belum?" in a very friendly manner. In return they will offer you coffee, biscuits or a story. At first i was intimidated by their presence being the only chinese among the indians and malays. but later to my suprise they are all very friendly ppl who doesnt care less about who or where you come from, it didnt take me long to get used to the scenario.

AND engineering stuff of course. Regulations, saftey procedures, risk that accompanies petroleum industries, technical knowledge, mechanical knowledge on gate and ball valves.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

4 years of knowing, loving and being with you

Today will be our 4th Anniversary, yes..4 years..this day marks 1461 days of sharing my life with you. i wonder how the days went by so fast.



Thank you for all the times we had together. Thanks for all the times you made my heart race. I am grateful for you being there for me during my ups and downs. Thank you for holding my hand and being with me while i step into the real world with you. Thank you for always talking sense into me when im a wreck. I enjoyed doing all the crazy things with you. I enjoyed doing anything and everything with you. Thank you for living my life with me. Thank you for painting the colors in my black and white masterpiece. Thank you for showing me what life is all about and what really matters to an individual.

You are the wisest person i know about life. Thank you for being my mentor in many wonderful things you have interested me in. Thank you for showing me what it means to live and to be alive. Thank you for always putting persepective in whatever i do or whenver i am lost.

I am what I am today because of you, growing all these years with your company and knowledge and your influences. Behind every man's success there is a woman, and clearly you played that role in my life and i thank you for that.

Thank you for staying strong this year for being apart for almost a year now without seeing each other. Thank you for having faith in our relationship. Thank your for making this long distance relationship to work. Thank you for the times you reassured me when i was on the verge of giving up.

Thank you for being with me for 4 years. Will be looking forward to celebrating our anniversary in Melbourne.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Shell Annual Dinner@KL Hilton follow by Poppies

Its about time I blog again.. been busy busy busy. Yeah, so the theme for the annual dinner was PIRATES!!!

Well, only permenant staff was invited to go, but some of my colleagues wife didnt want to go and there were a few empty spaces and voila..free makan!

It was soo cool to see so many people actually were sporting enough to adhere to the theme. I wish I could too but i just found out about it the day before about and empty slow. Oh well.

This is what the stage looks like. Its kinda amazing they actually built half a ship just for the event.


Picture of the "switch dancers" performing some tribal dance


This is what the table setup looks like. We had free flow of beer and the chinese food was great. First time i actually liked hotel food. Everything was so fresh. Hilton should get me a cut for commenting on their good food since the dim sum post. The waitress at my table was so damn efficient, you get everything you want and straight away and she never fails to return a smile. Ok clearly KL Hilton should have this kinda service, all the others should follow suit.



Me and Josephine. I like your dress la..its nice laa stop saying u look to mature or old in it..ishh.


A game of being tied and trying to tie a scarf around your team mate using anything but your hands. Thats Zairi in purple paired with Azrin. Look kinda scandalous from other angles..im sure everyone thought that it was Zairi's baby. hehe


Josephine, Raj and me. Raj won best costume for the night. He had too many beers and was fumbling all over the stage during the parading of his costume..it was hillarious..hahhhaa..effects of free flow of beer and when you put an indian next to alcohol.. you get a drunk person, duh






Where the hell was poppies at?

After the dinner, sl and i decided to head down to poppies to have some time off and chill. For those of you reading this and know you ffk...i dont blame you guys because i told you in kinda...ok very short notice. Anyways hope to see you all sometime again. Ok ok pictures.

Here's a great looking picture of sl and soo chee. hahahaha. Ahem*




Finally a decent picture with sern liang. Its been fun spending time with you. Glad distance didnt change anything. Its going to be sad leaving you behind again..i guess ill just have to stick with JC. hahahhaa. Thanks for still being a great bro.





From rags to riches story.

Anyway, the story was like this. Knowing that paying cover charge and buying drinks wasn't really cheap..so we decided to to buy a bottle and keep (me and sl) for next time. The bottle costs 280. Bot of us had just about enough money for it.. then the girl said that she forgot to charge the mixers which was 11 bucks..so that brings us t a spanking total of 291..which we were 7 dollars short (sl had 1 and i had 3 dollars). We shyly took back our 280 and asked the girl where the nearest atm was.."down the road turn left". So we walked from poppies to hong leong bank 2 blocks away AND..all their ATMs were temporarily out of other.. all 10 of them. GREAT.
On the way to the bank, we saw police fighting with a few guys next to their patrol car and km told me that there would be roadblocks. So we were now skeptical about going to poppies.

So with out minds all set to go home, we decided to at least have a drink at a mamak before heading back in dissapointment. Decided to tell soo chee and her friends that we had no money.
Before leaving we met up with her and her friends. So after telling her our sympathetic story. She brought is in for free through the backdoor after being labelled VIP on our hands. OMG...from depressed to happy.. mix emotions. We even got a table..not exactly a table la..but we were happy, coz you know poppies is packed and we were sharing with her friends.

Somehow at the end of the day, things will end up fine, always?

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Trip to the PD Shell LPG filling plant

Last week, Zairi took me to PD to tour the filling plant.

This is a pic of me and Hanif. The new employee in Shell LPG. Very humble and open. Had a few interesting discussion with him, mainly about islam and christianity. hahhaa. Me wearing helmet, construction boots and a shell jacket.. i already feel like an engineer.hahaha






Did you know that the fire lighted at the tip of the chimney is to burn the waste of the petroleum? some engineering dude told me that.

Another thing. Did you know that every century like years with 2000,2100,2200; is a leap year regardless whether it has or havent finished its 4 year cycle? Thanks to Mr.Chuah..things you learn in shell.


More picture of the plant