TimothyTiah.com

What my Filipino Helper’s Family got for Christmas

Posted on December 21, 2015 admin

Most of us know Christmas as a time of joy, presents and family reunions. While that is true for many, it dawned on me this year that the same does not apply to my Filipino helper (again I’ll refer to her here as Geraldine). Having to spend 2 years away from home and family at a time, she misses spending Christmas with her family every year.

So this year I decided to start something. I told her that I’ll give her a budget and she could use that money to buy whatever Christmas presents she wanted for her kids back in the Philippines.

At first she looked at me like I was crazy. How was she going to do that from here?

Then I explained that we could buy it online and have it delivered directly to her house in the Philippines. Once we got the logistics out of the way, I asked her then what her kids wanted for Christmas?

She thought about it for a while and with an exhale she admitted she didn’t know. I probed her a little more and she then suggested instead that I send the money to them and let them buy whatever they wanted. My heart sank at that suggestion. Here was Geraldine having worked so many years abroad to send money home, wanting to do what she had grown used to doing in the past 2 years. To send money back and let them buy whatever they wanted rather than to pick the presents.

I told her if that’s what she wanted I’ll send the money. I however explained to her the joy of being able to pick your own gift for your kids, the joy of letting them know that mommy picked it and perhaps one day when she goes home to the Philippines she will be able to see the very gifts she picked.

She was sold and decided to call her kids back home and ask them what they wanted.

As Christmas inched closer I sat with her in front of the computer as she browsed the thousands of things online to buy for her kids. She settled on a few.

A pair of badminton rackets for her 9 year old daughter.

A watch for her 7 year old son.

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And for her 4 year old daughter who loved Disney’s Frozen: A Frozen doll.

Everything went well until a few days later we were told that the Frozen doll was out of stock. So we sought alternatives but for some reason almost everything Frozen was out of stock.

After looking around a little more we finally found something else she thought her daughter would love. A Barbie doll that looked like this.

We made the order and was told that it would reach just in time for Christmas.

What has it been like so far?

We were in Phuket when the first presents arrived, the watch and the badminton rackets. I made a call home for Geraldine so she could talk to her very happy kids.

Geraldine’s son loved the watch. He loved it so much that he didn’t want to wear it to school. Only at home.

Her 9 year old daughter was so happy when she received her badminton rackets she skipped going to school and spent the entire day playing badminton with her cousin.

Geraldine’s 4 year old daughter though cried. She cried because everyone else had gotten their present but hers hadn’t come yet. At the time of writing, she hasn’t received her present yet but I’ve just been sent an email that said it’s in the mail.

She’ll receive it soon.

After Geraldine hung up on the call with her kids, I saw her lean gently on the wall as a smile lit up her face. I could tell what she was thinking. She was painting a picture in her head of her kids playing with their presents. Her daughter playing badminton outdoors and her son constantly checking what time it is. This was the first Christmas in years that she had the chance to buy gifts for her kids.

The smile on her face was worth the few hundred bucks I spent and more.

So I brought my wife to the Star Wars Premiere and…

Posted on December 17, 2015 admin

I managed to score a pair of invites to the Star wars: The Force Awakens last night. I was naturally excited because I’m a huge Star Wars fan since I was a kid. Well huge as in I liked Episode 4,5 and 6 but I didn’t really like 1,2 and 3. Ever since I finished Return of the Jedi as a kid I always wondered why they never had a sequel to that.

Finally.. some many many many years later my wish gets fulfilled in The Force Awakens.

My wife however has never watched a Star Wars movie before. NEVER. I know! It’s unbelievable! When I first knew about that a few years back I insisted she watch at least The Return of The Jedi but she said she’d rather spend that two hours of her life re-watching Enchanted. So here is my wife who has watched and loved silly movies like Borat or Dumb and Dumber but never ever watched any episodes of George Lucas’ greatest gift to mankind.

Getting these two tickets from Disney was the first best excuse I had to get my wife to watch a Star Wars movie. Here’s how it went.

1) When we arrived at the Premiere and saw many fans dressed as Storm Troopers, Jedis and the likes…

Me: See? I told you people would dress up for the premiere.

Wife: Dress up? Those guys are probably promoters.

Me: There are like 20 of them! And they don’t look like promoters.

Wife: But why would anyone dress like that?

Me: Because they’re fans!

2) Just before the movie starts…

Wife: You know I can’t really tell which one is Star Trek and which one is Star Wars.

3) During the movie….

Me: *feels wife’s head tip and rest on my shoulder* Oi … oi…

Wife: *no response*

Me: *thinks to self* Great. We’re watching the most hyped movie of the year and she’s asleep.

4) A loud explosion wakes her up giving her another rude awakening…

Wife: What? Still not over ah this movie?

Me: It’ll be over soon ok ? It’ll be over soon.

5) During the most intense action scenes my wife was engaging me in deep conversation

Wife: I don’t get it.. why is this franchise so popular?

Me: Well when it was created in 1970s, it was a really cool idea and the special effects were cutting edge for the time. So good that even when I watched it in the 90s as a kid, it still looked good and I couldn’t tell it was almost 2 decades old a movie.

Wife: Yes but when you watched it in the 90s the movies there probably had just as good or better special effects right?

Me: Umm yeah…

Wife: Then why did you love it so much?

Me: I don’t know. I’m trying to watch a movie here.

6) After the movie my wife asked me a series of questions about Star Wars.

Wife: Okay so there is the Light Side and the Dark side.

Me: Yes.

Wife: And the Jedis use Light Sabers to fight.

Me: Yes.

Wife: Shouldn’t the red light sabers that the Dark side uses then be called a Dark Saber?

Me: ….

Wife: *taps foot*

Me: I….

Wife: *still tapping foot*

Me: I think it’s just called a Light Saber because there’s a laser. So there’s like.. uhh.. light.

Wife: Couldn’t answer that one could you. You should’ve seen the stumped look on your face.

Wife: Ok so the Dark Side is always fighting the Light Side. Why ? What does the Dark Side want?

Me: Well they want to destroy the Light Side.

Wife: Why?

Me: I don’t know. So they can … rule the galaxy or something?

Wife: Wow that’s deep.

Me: Uhh yeah….

Wife: So why is the Dark Side evil?

Me: Because they’re just evil.

Wife: Nobody is born evil. People are evil not because they’re inherently evil but because of the things they do. These evil things they do are normally driven by a purpose or a reason or something they’re trying to achieves. So why is the Dark Side evil? What are they trying to achieve?

Me: Uh… so they can rule the galaxy?

Wife: Why can’t they rule the galaxy by being good? Since Darth Vader was so powerful he could have ruled the galaxy by being good right? Why be evil?

Me: I don’t know.

Wife: And it doesn’t make sense that if Darth Vader is evil, how are his kids good? Who taught his kids to be good?

Me: Can we talk about something else?

How this family friendly resort in Phuket won my heart with their service

Posted on December 13, 2015 admin

I stumbled upon the JW Marriott Phuket when I googled for best “kid friendly” resorts in South-East Asia. I went through the whole list of things that were great about the place and what activities they had for kids there.

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The one thing that stood out in all the reviews though was it’s service. Review after review talked about top notch service from the receptionist down to the housekeeping staff who greet you every time they see you walk past.

I thought that was interesting because service is something everyone generally has high expectations about. We expect to be treated well as customers of the hotel. The only way people go above and beyond to praise service is if they give you a WOW experience. That’s gotta be hard to do.

In any case I decided to try it out anyway. I booked it a week before and this week was the trip. The hotel is some 15 minutes away from the airport but some 45 minutes or so away from Phuket Town. It didn’t matter though. It was the kind of holiday where we didn’t intend to leave the resort. All day and night was to be spent eating great food, having good massages, laying by the beach and bringing the kids swimming.

We arrived that day to some bad luck. The hotel had a power outage. There was no electricity apart from the lights that were being powered by a generator. It was 12PM when we arrived and we were told that this would last till 3PM. We didn’t make a fuss but we asked if they had a fan of some sort because we had a two-year old and a nine-month old who both needed to take their afternoon naps. If it’s so hot I wasn’t sure if they could do it. They agreed.

We had a quick lunch and then brought both Fighter and Penny to the rooms to sleep. Shortly after there was a knock on our door. We opened the door to the very same person who checked us in at the front desk. Her name was Piyawan. She explained to me how she was going to get a fan when she realised all the fans the hotel had required electricity. No battery operated ones. And since there was no electricity in the rooms, it wasn’t going to be any use.

Disappointed I just thanked her and closed the door. Fortunately we managed to put both kids to sleep and I myself fell asleep too on the couch in the increasingly hot hotel room. When I opened my eyes again the time was around 4.30PM. The power was not back yet.

Shorty and I decided to take a walk to get some air. We walked around the hotel and somehow managed to find ourselves back at the front desk. I went up and saw Piyawan who then greeted us.

She apologized and she said the new time was 7PM. I was getting frustrated but I reminded myself we were on holiday and I didn’t want to spoil anyone’s day by taking my frustration out on someone else who really wasn’t to blame for the power outage. I calmed myself down.

Shorty though was concerned. She had intended to cook dinner for Penny but wouldn’t be able to do it if the electricity only came back only at 7PM. Piyawan then offered to lend us use of their 2 bedroom villa that was located on another block thad had power.

She walked us over there to show us the villa. It was nice. 2 bedrooms with a living room, kitchen, we would all fit in here instead of having 2 separate hotel rooms. Space for Fighter to walk around too.

I asked if we could just move here for the duration of this stay. To our surprise Piyawan agreed to give it to us. The cost of us renting the villa for 3 nights would be more than the cost of us renting the 2 rooms we did, but Piyawan agreed to give it to us at no extra cost.

So we moved in. And had a wonderful next 3 days. In those next 3 days I witnessed the great service from everyone in the hotel.

When the Thai restaurant we went to was fully booked, the waitress didn’t just turn me away. She helped me book a table at another restaurant at the resort.

When Shorty wanted to bring back some buns from a buffet dinner, a waiter saw it and gave her a tissue box to help.

Whenever we walked past any hotel staff from house keeping to the gardener, they would all smile and greet us.

When we asked for 10 more complimentary bottled water for our villa, they brought us 15.

When we sat at the lounge for a while a waitress asked us if we wanted to order anything. We said no thanks we’re just here for a few minutes enjoying the view. She came back later with two glasses of iced water and two fresh towels to wipe our faces with.

When we wanted to go cycling and wanted to rent bicycles from the health center, we learned that they lend them and safety helmets at no cost. On top of that they provide you with a free bottled water and a banana if you like.

They even paid us a visit and wrote us a personal note to see if everything was okay.

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One of the greatest gestures was what Piyawan did for us on the day we checked out. Checkout time was 10AM but we requested for a late checkout. They could only do 12PM because there was someone else moving into our room later that day.

When we checked out, Piyawan learned that our flight was 5.20PM. That’s a long way to go and she somehow understood that our kids both needed to nap in the afternoon. So she offered to let us use an empty room they had for free. We didn’t even ask for it.

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That gesture allowed both Fighter and Penny to have a good nap that afternoon. It’s hard to explain the value of a much needed afternoon nap for babies or toddlers. Without a nap, they get cranky or difficult and are generally harder to take care of. So what Piyawan did not just gave our kids more comfort but it gave us a better day ahead as we traveled home.

The JW Marriott is a great resort. Not just for the rooms, not just for the activities, not just for how kid-friendly it is but because of its service.

I’ve stayed in many hotels in my 31 years of life. This one tops it all when it comes to service.

Thank you Piyawan and to the rest of the JW Marriott Phuket crew who gave me an experience I will remember. My wife and I agreed that we will go back again.

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Here’s a picture of the us and Khun Piyawan.

I realize I never posted pictures of the villa or anything like that but if you’re interested to see how the rooms look like you can check out their website.

Why a part of humanity dies every time we say things like “Muslims are terrorists” or “Jews control the world”

Posted on December 10, 2015 admin

Never in the history of Donald Trump has he ever said anything that caused more uproar than his recent plans of banning muslims from entering the US.

That is a quite a feat considering we’re talking about Donald Trump here. A man known for speaking his mind and making unpopular and offensive statements like one on Mexicans recently.

I recently met a modern, intelligent and well educated man from the Middle East. Over lunch we talked about ISIS, terrorism and Islam.

The one thing that bothered him the most was double standards in the media. How the media labels any muslim who kills people a terrorist, but when it’s a non-muslim it’s a “gunman” or a “attacker”.

Why the double standards?

That is a valid question. It is an unfair label and the truth is that all labels are unfair. In fact labelling an entire group of people based on their race or religion is wrong.

There is much discussion in psychology these days about how our tendency to label or generalize things come from our human nature or survival instincts. From experience as human beings, we have been burnt by fire so we train ourselves to remember that fire is dangerous. From experience we believe that certain animals in the wild attack human beings so we label them all dangerous and a threat.

We then carry this behaviour to evaluating humans.

History has proven that labeling an entire group of people like this is dangerous. Look no further from World War 2. During World War 2, the Germans were responsible for killing 6 million Jews. When the guards at these concentration camps were interviewed though you might expect to see a person with an evil nature. How else could a human being do that to another human being?

But the truth is when you watch or read these interviews, these concentration camp guards sound like the most normal people. Some were victims of circumstances and others were driven to do what they did because of the propaganda they were fed. The deep belief planted in them that all Jews irrespective of age, gender or nationality were “inferior” and not considered human.

At that very same time something similar was happening in the East. In the Rape of Nanking, the Japanese killed and tortured hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians. The reason they could do that? Because they believed that the Chinese were “sub-human and no better than pigs.”

Similarly in today’s world we are faced with people labeling an entire group of people.

We have people who claim:

That Jews are trying to (or already) control the world.

That Muslims are terroristsThat the Rohingya are not Burmese even though they were born and live in Myanmar.

That Africans cause crime in countries they settle in.

Or even closer to home in Malaysia where it’s claimed one race is constantly trying to steal the rights of another.

These stereotypes are often touted by a few very vocal individuals but they do not represent the minority. I have many muslim friends who are peace-loving and not terrorists. And I know if I wanted to I can find more than a few Jews who can tell me their life mission is not to control the world.

Perhaps it is hard-wired in some part of our nature but we cannot allow this to happen. The day we spread any thought of this to another person in our community, we effectively judge an ENTIRE group of people for the sins that were committed by a few.

The day we judge an entire group of people, we take another step closer to allowing ourselves to treat them differently or worse still, in the case of the Nazi Holocaust, to exterminate them.

A part of humanity dies every time we make statements like that.

When I asked my Middle-Eastern friend what he thought about the Paris attacks he said something along the lines of “I don’t have anything to say but that the world is not safe anywhere now”.

I pointed out to him that while he was very obviously appalled by the suffering of Muslims in the Middle-East, he seemed indifferent about the people who lost their lives in Paris. It was only then that he realized that he was not just a receiver, but a giver of double standards or stereotypes.

As human beings, a violent crime against any other human being is a crime regardless of race or religion. It doesn’t matter if it’s French citizens being shot in a theater in Paris or a Palestinian family getting their home blown up by an Israeli bomb.

It is all wrong.

The smartphone I got paid to promote failed on me. This is the how the brand reacted.

Posted on December 8, 2015 admin

We were shopping in KLCC when Shorty realized that she forgot to bring her phone. Since I carry two phones, I decided to lend her my primary phone which happens to be the Huawei Mate S that was sponsored by Huawei.

When she returned it to me later that evening she told me it’s broken. Well not physically broken, but for some reason the screen just wouldn’t start up again. I could see the lights blinking so I knew it was still turned on and it still vibrated when I got messages but for some reason the screen was completely blank.

I wasn’t sure if it was a hardware problem or an Android problem though I suspect it was the latter because Shorty told me she had the same problem with her previous Android phone. For all of us smartphone users, we know that when problems like this happen the best solution is to just reset the phone. I tried it but it didn’t work.

So finally I decided I had to send it to the Huawei service center but this led me to a ethical predicament.

I am promoting the phone to my followers as an ambassador of sorts for Huawei. I’ve mentioned before that you guys are like friends to me. If you’ve been telling a friend to buy a phone and then it suddenly fails on you, you’re not going to hide it right? You’re going to have tell your friend the truth.

The problem though was that I’m not sure if the marketing team behind Huawei would take it well. I’ve been working with brands in Asia for the past 8 years and brand managers tend to shy away from these things. They’d say “No… don’t say anything bad about my brand/product!” even though it’s impossible to expect that one or two of their products might be a lemon.

Still.. it was an ethical decision and I decided that I had to do it no matter what,

I called Emma from Huawei who hails from China but lives in Malaysia now and manages the marketing initiatives here. I told her about the problems and she was really apologetic and surprised. She assured me that this doesn’t normally happen.

Then I broke the news to her…

I told her that I had to disclose to my followers that the phone that I’ve been promoting has failed on me. I was prepared that a heated argument would ensue. That she’d say no I can’t write that and I’d argue against that.

To my surprise though she agreed with me and said she understood that it was important to be transparent. She then asked me how she could meet up with me to change the phone for me to which I said no.

Why no?

Well part of the selling point of the Huawei Mate S is that it comes with this card that gives you:

2 years warranty
If there is a problem in the first year they’ll just exchange it for you 1 for 1. No questions asked.
Free door to door pick-up and delivery if you have problems with it.
One year free replacement of your LCD screen if you cracked it.
And priority service at the Huawei Authorized Service Center meaning I don’t have the line up.

I told Emma that I wanted to test their after sales service. I didn’t want any special treatment. I wanted to experience it properly like how any of my followers might experience it if they ever had to bring their phones in.

So test it I did.

Now I recently had another China phone (I shan’t mention which brand) that failed twice on me and that after sales experience was pretty bad for me. There was a long queue and I think I had to leave my phone there for a week or so. I wanted to do a comparison.

I decided to go to the Huawei service center instead of having them pick it up from me because my house is really close to it anyway. Shorty and Fighter came along with me.

There wasn’t a queue so I didn’t find the need to use my card to cut through the line. I waited some 5 minutes or so before I was served. Then once I dropped off my phone I was told two things:

If there was a problem with the hardware they would replace it for me with a brand new one
If it was a small problem they can probably just fix it there and then.

My preferred option was 2) of course. As much as I’d like a new phone I wouldn’t want to have to go through the trouble of reinstalling all my apps.

The best part though was that they said that I will have a phone back within 2 hours. 2 hours! Wow.

So I left it and had someone pick it up for me in 2 hours. The phone was working again and on top of that they added a screen protector for me. At no charge.

I wasn’t sure what the problem was in the end but I suspect it was small because they didn’t have to replace my whole phone.

In fact I realized then that when I tried to reset the phone initially I was pressing the wrong buttons to do that. To reset an Android phone, you normally need to hold down the power button and the volume up button. I was holding the volume down button instead which was what you pressed to snap a screenshot.

So when I got my phone back I saw many many screenshots of the home page. Silly me. I think I would’ve been able to fix the problem just by resetting it right.

Regardless of that though, I don’t regret this experience. It gave me a chance to test the after sales service of Huawei but more importantly it reminded me how Huawei as a brand is so wonderful to work with. They understand social media and they understand how to work with online influencers like myself.

Thank you Emma and Danny. You guys have been wonderful to work with and I’d love to work with you more.

Photographs of Hong Kong Disneyland

Posted on December 3, 2015 admin

When Huawei first engaged me for the Mate S, they first gave me the Mate 7, an older model from last year. I liked a lot about the phone but the one thing I didn’t like was the camera. It wasn’t very good.

When I gave my honest feedback to Huawei, to my surprise they took it really well. Their response

“Yep we know.. that’s why we want you to try the old Mate 7 first before we give you the new one so you’ll feel the difference. The new Mate S comes with an awesome camera”.

I did some research about the Mate S’s camera and I found this article I found insightful. Pulling a quote from there.

Huawei’s recent P8 appeared in a number of camera quality comparisons with the top shooters of 2015, and rightly so, as it created competitive results, so I was understandably curious to see what improvements could be made. The Mate S is equipped with a 13MP f/2.0 4-color RGBW sensor, which is meant to improve its ability to capture light in tough situations, along with a dual-tone LED flash. OIS is also included on the rear camera, along with a Sapphire coated glass lens to make sure that scratches don’t accumulate, which I believe more manufacturers should be copying. A pro-mode is available to take full advantage of this hardware, allowing you to change values on the fly for your ISO, shutter speed, metering and more. LG have paved the way with this of course, but the advantage of being able to control the shutter speed to gain far better pictures at night, or just to encourage some nifty effects cannot be over-stressed.

So I was itching to try the Mate S camera and I thought where else better than to wait for my trip to Hong Kong Disneyland. With lots of colors and nice places to take pictures at. I particularly wanted to try out the Pro-mode.

So anyway here are my results.

The first picture of the Maze at Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel.

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The hotel lobby. Love how grand it is with the high ceilings and that really tall Christmas tree.

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Picture of us at the entrance of Disneyland.

Well shots with lots of light is really easy. The real test comes in a low light environment. So first I tried it on a scene with the sun setting in the background.

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The Small World ride. I took it looked great and I loved how it captured all the colorful lights of the building.

Then I decided to take it to another level. Main Street USA at night.

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It was a busy street so any picture I took had blurry people moving around. So I decided to play around with the pro-camera feature and adjust some of the settings gradually.

I like how the pro-mode settings automatically adjusts itself unless you manually tinker with it.

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And then I went on to take a few more of the hotel lobby when we were back in the hotel.

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This one of Fighter standing in the lift lobby. I’m not a pro photographer but I think the Huawei Mate S lets me take pictures than I could have better taken on my own. Even in the busiest scenes. IMG_20151124_180724 Of course there is the selfie camera that I love so much but I’ve already talked about that extensively. Just to remind you why I love it so much. Here’s a picture of me and Penny with the selfie camera.

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Of course I saved the best for last. Of all the pictures I took this trip, the one that I was most proud of was one that I took while walking back from dinner in Hong Kong that week. I took a picture of our hotel and a few other buildings at night. This is how it turned out.

Beautiful! I could make a postcard out of this… and I took it with a phone camera with amateur skills.

Dear Penny: Your first 9 months

Posted on November 29, 2015 admin

Dear Penny,

I realize that it was this time last year that I last wrote a letter to you. You were then still in your mommy’s stomach and we didn’t know what to call you yet. So we referred to you as “Bump”.

Well Hello PENELOPE ROSE TIAH! Yep that is your name. Although we sometimes refer to you now as Mochi. Why I will explain later on.

You were born in March 2015. The first six months was hard. Medically you were born healthy but within the first couple of months we found out that you had hernia. One of your ovaries had dropped into a gap and you had to undergo surgery to correct it.

You may not have known what was going on then but it was painful for your mom and I. We are big believers in energy though so as much as we were worried and scared, we made sure to be very tough and positive whenever you were around. We wanted to make sure that you knew, that we thought that everything was going to be okay. We didn’t manage to follow through with that commitment though.

On the day of your surgery, we changed you into a surgery gown that was way too big for you and put you on a hospital bed that could’ve fit a proper sized adult. Seeing how small you were in that big bed was a reminder to us about how you were forced to carry the burden of an adult at such a young age.

We followed you as far as we could go into the operating theater and then the nurses stopped us. They said it was time for them to wheel you in on your own. You cried of course because the room was cold and your mom and I watched as the nurses wheeled you away. Yes it was that moment that we lost our commitment to be tough and strong. Your mom turned to me and buried her face in my chest. Both of us cried as mommy said “She’s so small. Why does she have to go through this?”.

The good news is that you recovered from the surgery with no complications and was able to go home and focus on growing like any other baby.

I gotta admit you weren’t an easy baby to take care of though. In the first 6 months you would often get into this unstoppable crying fit. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong with you each time. Once when we were in Sydney, you cried for two hours straight in the hotel room while mommy rocked you, fed you, changed your diaper and did everything she could think of to stop.

Your constant crying drove many people up the wall and mommy bore the brunt of it because she spent the most time with you. As frustrated as she was, she never shied away from being there with you. She kept to a commitment of always being the one to put you to sleep and was the one to carry you and feed you every night when you woke up.

I’m telling you this because I think it’s important to know that at a young early age, even when you were really hard to manage, mommy stepped up and made sure she was there for you. She was there for you in your good times when you smiled and laughed and she was there for you in your bad times when you wouldn’t stop crying.

They say teenage girls sometimes don’t get along with their moms. If that turns out to be true one day, I’d like you to read this. To remember how mommy took care of you when you weighed less than 10KG.

As I write this now mommy is just putting up to sleep. You are now 9 months old and you’re a lot easier to take care of now. You have also grown to be one really beautiful baby. While your brother used to get all the attention when we brought the both of you out, you’re now beginning to steal the limelight a little. I think Koko feels it because he then tries to do more to get attention back to him.

We can see a bit more of your personality coming out now. You’re very independent. We can often leave you on your own and you’ll be happy doing your own thing. You are very determined. When you want something you crawl through barricades just to get to it.

Oh and there’s one more thing about you. You are very very close to mommy now. Every time she comes within close proximity of you, you charge for her like life depended on it.

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night to see you wide awake. You sleep between Mommy and me on our bed but whenever you’re up you rarely come over to my side. You’re always over at mommy’s side, climbing over her or just sticking to her. Yes sticking. You are so sticky to mommy that we now sometimes refer to you as mochi. Because you’re round and sticky.

I can’t begin to describe how you’ve enriched my life in the past 9 months. I pray to God every night to thank him for you and Fighter. For the joy and for the happiness the both of you bring us.

Love,

Daddy

How trick-eye museums can be so fun

Posted on November 25, 2015 admin

Here’s something fun I never knew existed before: Trick-Eye Museums. It’s basically props along with a backdrop where you can pose and take a picture. When that picture is taken at a certain angle it looks.. well.. like the pictures you’re about to see below.

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Here’s Fighter and me running away from a bear. Fighter’s expression is real here. He was really crying at this point. I think he didn’t like me crowding his personal space.

There’s this room that makes one look taller than the other on each corner.

Like how Shorty looks bigger than me here.

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And how I look bigger than Shorty… well I always look bigger than Shorty but well I look much much bigger than her here.

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I tested it out with Fighter but well that didn’t quite work. Fighter’s so small he looks smaller even at the “bigger” end of the room.

Here’s Fighter floating away in a barrel.

Me getting eaten by a shark.

Me learning ballet.

Fighter riding a rooster.

Penny and me climbing a ladder to get away from a big shark that somehow manages to climb up this tunnel without water.

Fighter appearing in the middle of the table. What you don’t see is me underneath him trying to push him up above that hole.

Shorty with Penny strapped on, balancing herself on a log. She’s so good at dealing with the pressure eh.

Fighter and Penny on a row boat together.

Shorty with nice big angel wings.

Fighter competing in the Grand Prix.

Fighter on a boat again. I think he’s trying to part the seas.

Trick-eye museums are so much fun.

How it feels to be on Bloomberg

Posted on November 22, 2015 admin

I was interviewed by Bloomberg this week to talk about Netccentric. It was a surreal experience for me because I’ve always somehow engaged with Bloomberg for many years now.

The first time I heard about Bloomberg was when I did my internship at JP Morgan. There was this computer with two black screens there that a lot of my colleagues then used. I would later learn the magic that lay behind this Bloomberg terminal. Whereas in the past if you wanted to find anything about any listed company you would have to manually go through their announcements and annual reports, the Bloomberg terminal as they call it allowed you to search everything instantly. Digitally.

Then there was the channel on TV that my parents had turned on every morning since Bloomberg TV was available in Malaysia. My parents were active in the stock market and Bloomberg TV kept them up to date. It’s funny how our parents’ habits stick to us because Bloomberg is the channel I have on when I have my breakfast every morning now too.

So you can imagine how surreal it was when Bloomberg invited me for an interview. I was going to be one of those quick interview sessions they had in the middle of their programs when they talked to business people who have listed companies or fund managers or analyst.

Anyone who has some exposure or involvement in the equity or bond markets. I’ve done lots of interviews on TV before and a lot of public speaking but no matter how many times I do it, I’m always still a little nervous before it goes on.

Being on Bloomberg was a first for me, so it went up a little bit more when it came to the nervous-meter. I stood there as Han, the show’s host finished reporting his side of the news. I was briefed that it was going to be a short session and I had to answer the questions in a brief amount of time. Talk about pressure. Finally the lights came on and we were LIVE on air. My sister, my wife and Fighter was watching from home.

I later heard that Fighter at home watched me on TV and immediately asked the TV me to carry him. He then also tried to feed me a grape through the TV.

Well overall I think the interview went alright. Something I gotta keep in mind though is when being on TV or radio I should speak a little slower. A lot of people tell me that I speak really fast in real life or when giving speeches but on TV and radio it becomes even more apparent.

I did feel the pressure to speed whatever I had to say up though and plus there was the fear that I might say something wrong and have it forever captured LIVE. But ah anyway, sometimes less is more and I think I gotta learn to speak slower in real life.

How it feels to be on Bloomberg? Well… the host and the crew did a great job making me feel warm. Really like a guest on the show… so overall, it felt really great!

Anyway here’s the interview guys tell me what you think.

Thank you for having me Bloomberg: Han, El Sen and Sam.

How Fighter’s 1 minute of happiness taught me a lesson

Posted on November 18, 2015 admin

Yesterday we were walking about Pavilion when we came across a small train track they set up in the middle of the mall. Fighter was really excited when he saw the train and kept saying “Sit ! Sit! Sit!”.

Shorty suggested that I take him for a ride. A ride that would cost RM5 per head.

I didn’t think it was worth it at first because in the next week we’ll be going to Hong Kong Disneyland and we’ll be sitting on many of these rides for free. I resisted at first but Shorty pushed me on and said “It’s okay, let this be a trial run”.

I reluctantly agreed and carried a very excited Fighter to the entrance of the ride. The attendant then quoted me RM10. It was RM5 PER HEAD and Fighter and me count as one each. I pulled out my wallet and handed over the RM10 thinking this is probably going to be the fastest RM10 I’ve spent in a while.

Fighter was oblivious to the whole thing of course. He hasn’t come to terms with the concept of money or buying, having once almost “shoplifting” something from a store. All there was in Fighter’s eyes was excitement. Pure excitement that he was about to have another ride.

Fighter sat inside the train and as the train started moving he shrieked in excitement. He then grabbed the mini steering wheel in front to pretend to be driving it. The next minute or I saw nothing but bliss in his eyes. I knew that this ride… had totally made his day.

As I was seeing all this on the train I thought about how my wife made the right decision by pushing me to bring him on the ride. Life isn’t always about getting the best deal. Sometimes it’s about letting loose, spending money if you know it will make someone happy. RM10 is not a huge amount of money to an adult, but it bought a sail boat load of happiness for Fighter.

After slightly over a minute my RM10 was up. The train stopped at the station and Fighter panicked. Wanting to make the train go further he started spinning the mini steering wheel frantically but that clearly didn’t work. He cried when I carried him out of the train but even mommy felt that it was enough.

As I walked away from the train that day I reflected on the lesson my wife had taught me. To sometimes stop and smell the roses. To live in the moment.

If anything, that RM10 bought me this priceless video of Fighter being happy on the train.

This happy 9 seconds… was well worth every single cent and more.

Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space

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