Temburong

I went to Temburong this afternoon with two of my senior managers. For me a visit to this district is part of my job because as a manager of a department which have branches all over the country I have to visit my branch manager there at least once a month just to make sure everything is in order.

If we ask our family or our close friend whether they have visited the district or not, chances are that most of them admit that they have not done so. They can proudly say that they have visited the likes of Singapore, KL or far places such us the UK and the US but they never ever been to Temburong, even my other half have never been to Temburong and if it is not because of the nature of my job, I may be joining her and most of the Bruneians out there.

We were unlucky that Limbang was forced or should I say tricked into surrendering it to the British by the Rajah of Sarawak a few hundred years ago. If not, all four district will be connected by land, and Temburong is no longer be an isolated place for most of us Bruneians. I'm interested to know what will happen with Temburong in 20 years time. At this moment I see it as a quiet place, lacking the progress that the other three district had been receiving throughout the years.

During my time at ITB I did made this idea of linking Temburong with Brunei Muara district via a series of long bridges as a first option or an underground tunnel, such as the one linking England and France, as my presentation paper during one of my English class. Since that time we were graded on our english language and not on accuracy, I did not made a thorough research on it whether it is feasible or not. However with the current advancement in technologies and modern machinery nothing is impossible as long as we have the money and resources. I guess we have to use all the 4 billion dollars that had been allocated by the government to be use in the financial year 2007/2008 but then how about other projects? No wonder we can't afford it! Are there any sponsors out there?

My New Toy

It finally arrived! After days of anxiety and confusion, my brand new Dell Dimension 9200 arrived on Thursday morning, one day late from the estimate arrival time predicted by Dell Singapore. My gems was delivered directly to my house and although I have to fork out additional one measly dollar to pay for the import duty for the speaker which come separately, I was satisfied.

This was the first purchased that I made online, thanks to the assurance of my friends that Dell really do able to meet our expectations promptly and efficiently. By doing my own ordering process I had saved $100 as this is the price charged by one computer store in Brunei to allow them to purchase the order online on my behalf! Purely daylight robbery, a hundred bucks for just keying some numbers and letters at Dell website which only took around 5 minutes of their time! Moreover, the new PC are delivered to the store and the "customer" have to come and collect it themselves!

Dell only make me wait for exactly one week before I can lay my hands on my new PC, although it cost me a fortune but it was worthed. I bought my old PC five years ago and it is about time I change to this new beast, a beast that comes in with 2GB of memory, Intel core 2 Duo Processor, 320GB Hard Disk, 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600, Vista Premium, Bluetooth Keyboard and mouse, and the icing of the cake is the 22 inch wide LCD monitor.

Luxury Vs Necessity

Behold the new Mazda CX-7, a sporty looking car and an SUV at the same time with a price tag of around $50,000 big ones. It sure give Honda a run of their money with their own Honda CRV which cost around 40K. At the moment I have to say Honda have the edge as it is more "cheaper" and economical, well I'm biased here as my freind are about to drive one sometime this week.

Both car really able to turn ones head but the question is do we really need it? Buying this car will force the buyer to fork out around $600 to $700 every month. The wife and I also have our own set of wheels and we also pay around that range, and sometime we wonder why dont we just bought a cheaper car that make us pay half of what we usually pay or even lower so we can have more cash a.k.a purchasing power every month, Ka ching$$$$.

Well that's life, it is very difficult to establish what is luxury and what is necessity, as each of us got their own reason and as long as we think it thoroughly and take into consideration of the pros and cons, as my friend did, we should be alright. Mau jua kan begaya sekali sekala kali ah! As for my freind who is about to drive his brand new Red Honda CRV this week or the week after, one piece of advice: Kalau sudah ada keta baru ani pun kau inda begirlfriend baik tah kau mandi bunga 7 kali he he he.......

Brunei National Scout Association

I'm proud to say that I was once involved in the Scout Movement during my elementary school and in the secondaries. I've worked my way from just a small Cub Scout into being a Boy Scout and finally becoming Scount Venture. I sure had fond memories of my experience and doing shopping at Supasave Gadong always remind me of the good times as that place and the surrounding area use to be covered by jungle and swamps and where scouting activities such as "Jamboree" and annual camping event was held.

However, today's blog is not about my experience of being a Scout but the one thing I like to highlight here is how fortunate the present scouts are in term of buying camping gear! During lunch time today, me and the guys when to one of the shop at Kiulap which sell all sort of gears and equipments for outdoor activities. The shop have a complete collection of stuff that any outdoor buffs can think of. How I wish the shop exist during my time, so I can buy those "Rambo" knife which was quite rare at that time rather that equipping myself with my dad's 2 feet long Parang!.

I was fascinated by the various types of tents and sleeping bags available nowdays as to compare it during my time. Since tent was not easily available, we were force to built our own living quarters which was made of bamboo and we even manage to built it two storey high. It certainly look cool spending a night at this man made "house" but at the same time we were exposing ourselves to Dengue fever and Malaria ha ha ha!!!

However, when I looked back and recalled my whole experience, I guess that is what we suppose to be doing in the first place. Scouting teach me to be self reliant, and to make good of what ever we have at that time. I suppose, with the introduction of this new gadgets and stuff do help to simplify things, but at the same time it also reduce the amount of challange that need to be endure by a true scout.

Hiatus

It is almost three weeks since my last entry. And a lot of things happened while I'm away. First off is of course the trip to Singapore which was memorable partly due to the fact that for the first time ever I did not use the MRT while I was there. Asyraf was his usual self, refuse to sit in his stroller and opted for his Umi to carry him around. At least the stroller do come in handy as a make shift shopping trolley ha ha ha.

When we came back home, I found my internet service was not working hence I cannot update my blog. I could only get access to the internet last friday, however I was prety tide up for the whole week as I have to do some housekeeping particularly with my work that was only PARTLY done by my collegue who was acting on my behalf while I was on leave.

This week alone was also pretty tiring, but it was in a healthy way as my office annual badminton tournument kick off last Saturday and ended last Wednesday where my team won. Congratulation guys.........