Loss of a friend.

Just a short sad posting on the loss of a friend, and the poignant events that happened. I have just got back from his church funeral and the preceding three nights of wake.

Foo Tiang Koon, the husband of my wife's God Daughter, Cynthia Foo, lives a block away from us. Technically that would make him also my God Son. He was not a Catholic, but Cynthia has been trying very hard to convert him and has been asking me to convert him. Unfortunately he could not make up his mind, and the issue has been dragging for years.

In the course of time, Foo contracted cancer of the lymph node. It was thought that it has gone into remission after initial treatment. Unfortunately some time later, it surfaced again. He had high fever and was hospitalised repeatedly.

For the last few months, Foo was in the NUH, but his progress was not good. Last week was traumatic for Cynthia and the children Raymond and Grace. Cynthia consulted me on the question of baptising her husband. Since Foo had not given his consent, it was not possible.

Last Sunday morning, I met Cynthia in church and she was on her way to the NUH. She called me from the hospital to say that Foo had taken a turn for the worse and was admitted to the ICU. This was followed by her daughter who asked me for help in case her father should die. Raymond, the son, called later to say that his father was on his last breath and also asked me for help should the father dies. I was also traumatised by this chain of events and felt helpless.

Later in the morning, Cynthia called again, and this time told me that her husband would consent to his baptism. I immediately rushed to church to look for a priest. It being Sunday, all the priests would be busy handling four morning Masses. Fortunately I was able to get hold of Father Colin, who had just finished his 10:15 Mass. Together we rushed down to NUH. On the way, I mentioned to Fr. Colin that it being the Feast Day of John the Baptist, Foo could be baptised with the name of John Baptist. Father agreed.

At approximately 12.30 pm, we were in the ICU ward and commenced with the Baptismal Rites. As soon as Fr. Colin poured Holy Water on Foo's forehead and called out, 'John Baptist Foo, I baptise you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit' , all the alarms and lights started and Foo opened his eyes wide and started to shake. We were all taken aback by this.

This was to happen another four to five times, when Father confirmed the Baptism and anointed Foo. We were very astonished by all the alarm and flashing of lights.

We left the NUH after this. Later while I was having lunch with my family, my hand phone rang and Raymond informed me that his father had passed away. It was about 2.30 pm.

I then called Singapore Casket to make the funeral arrangements. Things fell in place as I managed to conduct the prayer sessions and arranged the church Funeral Mass. I arranged for Father O'Neill to celebrate the Funeral Mass on Wednesday 27 June, at 3 pm. When the hearse arrived in church, I was surprised to be told that Fr. O'Neill was nowhere to be found. While we all waited, a frantic search was made for the missing priest. Eventually Fr. O'Neill walked into the Vestry to robe. Although we started late, everything went according to plan for the cremation slated at 5.15 pm.

Now that everything is over, I am very glad that there were no hitches. The Holy Spirit worked on all of us and especially on myself. I am very grateful for all the help that the priests and my church friends rendered as they rallied round me. I give thanks to God and pray for solace and comfort for Cynthia, Raymond and Grace Foo.

Till then....

"This #@&* thing!!!!"

Ever since I got back from my holidays in Phuket, I have been kept busy with one thing after another.

I came back with over 300 pictures taken with my Nikon D200 and two HD video tapes of one hour each. It was difficult handling two cameras, but fortunately my daughters and son helped out with the occasional shots. I got to the point where I forgot what I shot with my DSLR and my video. Coupled with that, one day I ran out of tape for my video and out of battery with the Nikon. I missed some pretty good shots, despite the fact that I had spare batteries and tapes with me. My camera bag was big and quite heavy. So I did not carry that around with me. Defeated the purpose, really! (Sign of old age!)

Anyway, for the last couple of days, I sat in front of my PC and worked on the pictures with my Photoshop CS3. Deleting the bad ones, I ended up with 301 pictures. Editing with CS3, the pictures came up nicely and I am well pleased with them. My daughter later passed me 80 shots from her camera. This added on to the whole lot.

Putting them all together, I managed to compile a slide show of 327 pictures with background music. The whole show would have taken 30 minutes to view at 5 seconds per scene. Problem was the music to fit. I had to eventually use Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1 1st movement. At 22 minutes, I shaved some 7 - 8 minutes off, not counting the odd seconds. The final result was good, and I burned several copies for the family. I understand my grand daughter Emma has been happily watching it at home.

Having accomplished my slide show DVD, I next ventured on editing my video. That was when my problems started. (See my title on top for this posting.) Since upgrading my PC, I now have a problem capturing my video. I now have a HD video camera but my video capture card is still a composite one (old technology!). Since I could not capture my video, I found a way to import my video successfully. Well and good, but my Sony software, which was bundled free with the camera, gave me one heck of a problem. I could not cut and edit, and the instructions and tutorial was so complicated that I gave it up. Finally I had to resort to my Pioneer recorder to do the cuts and edit.

I had allotted all of Tuesday - 19 June, to work on my video. This week, all the Priests have gone on retreat, so there are no morning Mass in church. I was also scheduled to serve the altar but no Mass, no duty. So this week I had more time in the morning.

Working feverishly on the video after my breakfast and reading the papers, I found the Sony program getting more complicated. I had problems with the transition, so I left that out. I managed to put in the titles and the background music. I copied a CD of Thai songs and loaded them in. After what I thought was a plausible video package, I previewed it and was ready to go to the next phase. The file got lost! I tried to retrieve the file but found it in drips and drabs. It was already late afternoon when I threw my hands in the air!

After quiet contemplation, I decided to re-work the video again. After much interruption including taking my shower and the wife calling me for dinner, I finally put the whole thing together. When I finally rendered the video after finding all the necessary settings, I found that it would take four hours to complete the process. It was already past 9 pm. I was not going to wait four hours. So I decided to leave the PC on for the night. Albeit, when I checked at 1.45 am, the rendering had completed but I was too sleepy to work. So back to bed.

By 5 am, I got out of bed to check. It was then I discovered the program would burn the video to VCD and not DVD. Rubbish! I got out of the program and managed to use another program to burn to DVD. Then I discovered that the video had to be transposed! (Whatever that means! I thought only magicians transpose.) So I left the program to do the job while I went on with my other morning rituals. Halfway through reading my papers, I checked and found that the DVD disc was sitting on the open tray. I loaded the disc in my DVD machine and lo and behold, my video appeared on tv as I had packaged it, with titles and background music and all the editing. What a pleasant ending to a marathon of frustrations. I quickly made copies for the family.

Besides the above, I also had another problem. When I was in Phuket, I had a mild case of constipation. Normally, my bowel moves twice a day starting as early as five in the morning with the second one after breakfast. With all that eating, I had full house inside me, despite the irregular movements.

So I decided to take a laxative for relief. Something I do not take normally. Since I need not go to church, I took the pills on Monday night, according to the instructions.

At four on Tuesday morning, I was awakened by stomach cramps. Lying in bed, I felt the cramps moving slowly down my abdomen. I had thoughts of women having labour pains. I was about to give birth to my lump of sh*t. When the cramp reached my backside, it gave me a jolt and sent me running to the toilet. The time has come! What a relief! I was so glad that I wanted to put one lump on a tissue paper, photograph it and put it in my blog. Maybe another time. To you my readers out there who are reading this, do you think I am going senile or suffering from my second childhood? Let me know. With all these writing, I wonder whether anybody is still reading my blog.

When I was a small boy, I used to sometimes have worms. Squatting over the toilet one day, I had this tingling sensation on my backside. Looking down, I discovered a long tape worm emerging from my backside. Efforts to dispel it failed as it hung sentimentally to my backside. In desperation, I grabbed it and pulled. It hung on. I then realised that while I was pulling it, my backside was trying to suck it in. So relaxing my backside, I made a grab for it and pulled. It flopped on the toilet bowl like a long white spaghetti smothered with minced beef and brown sauce. It was the length of a track shoe lace. Incredible how it got in there in the first place.

I went for my brisk walk on the track today for six laps. I weighed in at 65.4 kg. It has been this for the last two weeks. Despite all the eating at Phuket, I have not gained weight.

To whoever who bothers to read my blog, see the pictures above of the house in Phuket.

Till then....

Sawasdee Kap!

Had a wonderful time at Phuket. Flew off on 7th June and back on the 10th.

Before dawn on Thursday 7th June, the whole family met up at Terminal 2 Changi Airport to board SilkAir Flt. MI752 for Phuket. Everyone were excited, and after two breakfast at the airport, we were the last to board the aircraft with barely 3 minutes to spare. Much to the chagrin of the airport staff. The flight was smooth as we tucked in to a third breakfast of bland omelet or noodles.

On arrival at Phuket airport, we were picked up by a new and comfortable mini bus, which brought us to L'Orchidee Villa, after a 45 minutes drive.

When we got into the villa, we were all awed and pleasantly surprised at the opulence of the truly five star resort. Centrally air-conditioned, the double storey bungalow featured a square living area upstairs and four bedrooms downstairs. With the staircase in the middle, one corner was the home theatre, one corner the seating area, one corner the dining area and the fourth corner the dry kitchen, with all upmarket features. By the side was a small but beautifully built swimming pool, with two jacuzzis. There was a large patio with deck chairs and a panoramic view of Patong Beach.

Downstairs all bedrooms had bathrooms attached. I slept in the suite sharing the balcony with the next door bedroom occupied by my daughter. My bathroom was a room in itself featuring a jacuzzi with shower and toilet stalls.

We hired two vehicles, an MPV and a jeep, which my son-in-law had a whale of a time driving. Bright yellow, it had manual shift and roared like a tank. Following behind the MPV, he was sabotaged many times when forced to stop on a sharp slope.

With food always in our mind, eating around Phuket was always an adventure. We bought plenty of stuff to cook for our breakfast. The shopping cart was full to the brim when we checked out. Like feeding a regiment! Lunch was usually at food court. We savoured Thai food from Tom Yam soup to pork balls and glass noodles. I must say the Thais eat plenty of vegetables and salads with hot chillies and spices thrown in. My son-in-law enjoyed his Tom Yam everyday.

For dinner, we went to restaurants and enjoyed Thai cuisines. The Villa management feted us to a catered buffet dinner for 14 people! It was very nice of them and we had so much food on the second night.

With two vehicles, we drove around the various beaches and visited the southern part of the island. I had a 4 km walk with my son along Kaka Beach. The little children swam and played in the sand to their hearts content. Some of us had Thai massage. While the children and their parents went for buggy rides, I took Emma and my daughter for an elephant ride through the forest. Emma was apprehensive at first, but when I carried her and climbed on top of the elephant, she held on to me and after a short distance, she relaxed to enjoy the ride.

I had both my Nikon and Sony HD video cameras with me and took a total of 305 pictures and two rolls of HD tapes. Working on my pictures at home with my Photoshop CS3, I was very pleased with the result. I have yet to edit my video.

Sunday 10th June was Emma's second birthday. We had a cake and durian and celebrated the occasion. Shortly after that, sadly we had to pack up to leave for home. At Phuket airport, we ate again before boarding the flight home. We arrived Changi at 2025 hrs. and dispersed for our various home with cherished memories of our Phuket holiday.

Credit no doubt, to my son, who organised the Phuket holiday, and to all of them who paid for the airfares. We all had a lovely time. After so many years, it is very nice indeed to have a holiday.

Till then....