A Vet Can Dive

I found this picture days ago while I was searching for another item in my book shelves…

We have lost contact for years…

The last place she settled down in Malaysia was Penang…She was my teacher, Elizabeth Gullivan.

I would not be surprised if someone asked me that, how could she be your teacher? Too young to be a teacher, especially teaching a student like me…or some others who were much older than her!

Be frank, she is only one year older than me… She was teaching in British Council Language Center in Johor Bahru which had been closed long time ago.

I would like to find her.

Actually this idea was inspired by the Taiwan variety show - Super Sunday! That show had a session - Super Mission, which was helping celebrities to find someone they missed, appreciated and would like to meet again.

Please help me to spread out the news now… Hope could find her in the soonest future!

p/s: She is also a scuba diver…

These are the Spectacled Langurs I found at the "backyard" of my customer’s office in Simpang Renggam, Johor! The so-called "backyard" was actually simply-a-bush, but soon, I think, would be developed and transformed to be Homosapiens’ habitat!

I was surprised to find them as they were not as common as the macaques which
were more common to be seen along the roadside as they easily adapted to life around human settlements. I would like to make a brief introduction about these little friends here, for didn’t notice them since I had visited this place so routinely.

SPECTACLED LANGUR

Class: Mammalia
Order: Primata
Family: Cercopithecidae
Sub-family: Colobinae
Genus species: Presbytis obscura

Spectacled langurs aka Dusky leaf-monkeys, and they live in Asia from northeastern India to Malaysia Peninsula. They grow to 27 inches tall and 24 pounds. Their bodies and heads are dark gray, and they have very interesting faces as you can see from the pictures. Obviously, their name comes from the white circles around their eyes, which make them look as if they are wearing spectacles. They also have white fur around their mouths that looks like a
mustache and big eyebrows. And don’t be deceived by its name, Spectacled langurs actually have very good eyesight and hearing.

Living high in the trees of the forest, spectacled langurs move using brachiation, swinging from tree to tree. They have opposable thumbs and big toes, making it easier to hold on to and grab tree branches. On the ground, they are quadrupedal, which means they walk on their hands and their feet. Spectacled langurs sometimes come down to the ground to sunbathe or feeding. They eat mostly leaves, and some flowers, fruits, and seeds in the wild. Their stomachs are similar to a cow’s to digest all the leaves that they eat.
They are diurnal, being active during the day, although they are not as active as other monkeys. They do most of their eating in the morning or late afternoon to give themselves rest time to digest their food.

These langurs are very territorial, and they use loud calls to keep other troops away. They are not aggressive and prefer not to fight. They live in large groups of up to 35 members. But I was not sure about the number of members in this group, as they were shy and hidding away from me, while I was getting
too near. Apparently, it was a mixture of males, females and youngsters, but they were led by one dominate, or lead male. Females are pregnant for 6 1/2 - 7 months, and usually give birth to one infant. Sometimes they do have twins. The fur of a newborn is yellow or orange-red, and will eventually turn gray like its parents. A female normally gives birth every two years or so. Spectacled langurs live to be 20 years old in the wild, and live to be 29 years of age in captivity, if they are being taken in good care.

Spectacled langurs are not endangered species.

For other references please visit the following websites.

Lewis Hall’s Zoo Galleries

Vladimir Dinets’ Homepage

Animal Diversity Web

Ladies! Be aware of your attire when you intend to visit Kelantan!

The state government has triggered a furore with plans for RM500.00 fines for women working in shops and restaurants who wear revealing clothes like mini-skirts and see-through blouses. Kelantan state has also backed down on a threat to fine non-Muslim women for wearing skimpy outfits, but warned it could crack down if they continued to dress "indecently" by Islamic standards.

In order to get your "PAS" to enter the state in the future without being fined, it is our pleasure to have Miss Jasmine here, to demostrate us the standard ways of dressing in Kelantan.

For the demonstration please click here to see the pictures.

Countdown to 2007

Only 27 days left for 2006! It is harsh to bring this issue out while lots of us are still asking ourselves, what has been done or achieved this year and has we got ourselves ready for 2007?

For me, 2006 is tough but also an adventurous year!

TOUGH! It was because…from the beginning of this year, two major disease outbreaks, bird flu (poultry farming) as well as foot-and-mouth disease (cattle, pig farming) had attacked the industries and the course took months to get recovered. Abuse application of illegal growth promotant, increasing prices of commodity ingredients for feed etc., were the other factors to cause some disastrous influences to the industries.

In fact, it affected our commercialized production as well as business. We really had played hard and considered survival this year at least for temporary, but we had no idea about the next attack of viruses and other factors.

ADVENTUROUS! I have been qualified as a Scuba Diver in August! That was my dream and I had finally fulfilled it. That sport was remarkably addictive and adrenaline boosting!

Now, we may ask, "Have we planned for the next brand new year 2007?" after we have realized that year is ending… Time is always not enough. No matter it is 24 hours a day or 48 hours a day, it is always not enough if we didn’t plan it nicely and work out a day effectively.

Frankly speaking, I am the one who is always with this shortcoming. Therefore, that was actually to remind me better to achieve some improvements for annual planning!

Time and Tide Wait for No Man!

As an OMO company owner, I needed a machine to assist me.

Neither a droid nor cyborg… not even a dummy low intelligent robot, despite I really wished I could have owned an Asimo… A car was actually the machine I needed. The dummiest machine among all above I had just mentioned!

So first of all, what car should I get?

As for my job, my ideal car should be strong, powerful, big capacity for goods loading so I could do some deliveries, especially when customers needed it urgently! Thus, 4WD pick-up truck became my final decision.

Secondly, which brand should I choose?

My first candidate was actually Toyota Hilux! But she was too popular and highly demanded in the market, easily being pursuited or kidnapped by too many buyers! She had yet got too many gossips about her value of popularity! Let me tell you a few that I heard from the field.

Case 1:

Buyer A (BA), "Eh boss! hello hello…!"

The so-called boss, who had just got home, hadn’t had any chance to say a word, turned around and stiffened with terror as he peeked an object shining, metalic, firm with handle, trigger, emerged from the shouting stranger’s waist belt.

BA, "Oh yes," said impudently. "You better believe this. This is not a fake toy "GUN"… see," Then he hit the gun with his key chain confidently. "See, it is solid. Don’t say I never warned you before, ok? Let’s talk something business." He grinned at the boss. "I have a customer… who really likes your car… and… he wants it! Now, give me the key!"

The so-called boss, still too stunned to say anything, handed over the car key with trembling hand. Watching BA drove away the car with his eyes and mouth opened wide.

Case 2:

Buyer B (BB), "Hello friend!" He laid his hand on his so-called friend’s shoulder, squeezed a little to show his friendliness.

Friend (F), "Ooi! Who are you huh?"

BB, "Aiyah never mind lah! Know me or not… Not important right?" Shrugging his shoulders at the same time. "Tell you huh! I have to take your car because hor, I got a customer who said he likes this kinda car behly much ah!" His left leg was shaking like kena shocked like that. Oh oh… No, no, not the guy with the yellow boots!

F, "WHAT!?"

BB, "What ah? Gun lah!" He took out his gun and showing off in front of his friend.

The so-called friend felt his life was being threatened and had to hand over the car key.

Before BB drove away, he turned back and said, "You are lucky ah friend! Today, I came out alone to look for you ah… If the other gang had come ah… I tell you ah, you wouldn’t have stood here to see me off lah! They put everything in action one, you would have been flattened here ah!" Then he waved at his friend and drove away. "Bye bye!"

The friend stunned for a few minutes before making a report to the police station nearby.

Case 3:

All-in-action version!

Two cars blocked the well-known car from speeding further. While the driver, also the owner of the car, was forced to pull over, a few guys got off from the other two cars.

One of them with a pistol, rushed over and pointed it to the driver. Yelled at him, "Get off, down, quick quick quick!" The disorientated driver got down without any idea. Two of the robbers hopped into his car and drove away with the previous cars escorted!

The owner was still considered lucky, as he had never been asked to strip naked, in order to be delayed by the robbers, from making report to the police at the immediate hour.   

Case 4:

A David Copperfield’s fantasy version!

One of my comrades came back from a late night entertainment with his customers at 4am. Oh yeah, you could also comment it as a damn early entertainment. Too lazy to drive his brand new Hilux, which was just bought for 5 months, to park it at the garage, he left the car at the roadside in front of his house instead.

Assumed it would have been safe for next few hours, yet to go before another working day.

The next morning, he found his car disappeared mysteriously without a trace!   

So many people had posed me the almost identical repeated question, "Why didn’t you buy Toyota Hilux instead of Nissan Frontier?" I would just told them the gossips of Hilux’s popularity. And surprisingly, some of them agreed. As they had heard about the urban legend too.

Those days when Toyota latest Hilux had not been launched, Nissan Frontier was awarded as the "Best Pick-Up of The Year 2004" in the off-road/pick-up category, Germany.

Frontier and I have been getting along in the farming area; rushing through rural places with dusty, muddy, humpy road for about a year now. Though she is not the best nowadays, still performing well.

The only problem with her is she has got a smoky temperament. Don’t press on her too hard, especially in the morning when you try to wake her up, she will burst bad odour, grey smoke out from her butt!

November 11, Saturday, 8pm.

At Harris Bookstore, Jusco Tebrau City, Johor Bahru.

A mini international experience sharing regarding scuba diving and underwater photography taken place in Johor Bahru! Somehow, this was really a rare occasion and something hardly happened in my hometown.

Mr. Chan Wing Keung, a photographer, professional diver and first aid instructor from Hong Kong but running his dive center in Vietnam. It was our honour to have him in Johor Bahru, to share his experiences with us.

According to himself, he got a collection of more than 10 thousands pictures taken from his scuba diving experiences, but too bad he could only show us a few from his selection in this personal exhibition due to limited carriage from traveling.

For the duration of 1 hour, Mr Chan could only share so less about his diving but more to photographic experiences. One of the reasons was, whom he confronted that night mostly were non-divers, and he had got to talk something which was more generally fascinating to them. So, the colorful scenery and creatures of the underwater had become the focuses for the public. Of course, we were encouraged to pose questions regarding scuba diving as well as underwater photography.

Mr. Chan had also given high compliment to our dive spots, like Tioman, Sipadan etc. Felt proud of it man! So lucky us and we should treasure it. Before ending up, he urged to protect our oceans and marine life by stop polluting, stop killing, which is always easy to say but hard to implement.

Hey divers! if you are professional and responsible, please support the campaign! Save the ocean, save the endangered marine life! Tell your friends around you, how precious the earth is, everything growing with her is in balance!

When the buying stops, the killing stops too!

Frankvet’s Multiply - How High Is Your Sex Drive?

This blog was posted at my Blogger’s website (A Vet Can Dive). Feel Free to browse through it. Thanks! Happy blogging!

Soon, posting blogs here would be getting luxurious and kinda hard for me!  Why? Because holidays were over! "No time" and "Not free" would become the common excuses for us when everything had been back to routine rail track.

I had been writing and posting blogs for the holidays, last week, and still hope that I could do it as often as possible in the future. My wife and I had purchased a Digital camera, hopefully we could take more pictures to add in the blog.   

My wife was so loving for the last whole week! Perhaps, holidays really helped her to relax. We went for shopping at Tebrau City Jusco one afternoon, and she suggested to go to have a look, or perhaps, selected a digital camera.

Since she had brought out that idea, I thought we should get a model
which had the function to go deeper underwater, ie. featured with water proof marine pack.

Surprisingly she agreed!

Initially, we selected Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T10. Then, we took our time to go through a few shops, in order to make compare with the other brands. Finally, we decided to go back to the beginning and chose
T10.

Of course, I have to emphasize here, SONY doesn’t pay me to promote their digital camera, though I really hope that they would have given me one for promotion. HAHAHAHA!

Why would my wife and I choose this model? That wouldn’t be more important than my wife had accepted the fact that I would be going for scuba diving once in a while or seasonal in the future.