21 October 2009

One of my family generations in Tanjung Balai Karimun Island, Indonesia

Karimun Island is an island where my beloved grandparents lived in.

It is a small island, located just off the east coast of Sumatra, guarding the southern entrance of the busy Straits of Malacca. It lies west of Batam and to the southwest of Singapore and is the furthest west of the Riau Islands.  This island is found in the Riau Islands province of Indonesia. It is also the name of a group of islands and regency (kabupaten) to which it belongs.




Map of Karimun Island in Riau Archipelago (Indonesia)

Coming on way soon, I'm planning to set up a family tree to indicate the origin(s) of our family members. It includes which countries my family members are born in. I guess this must be good for my future family generation(s) to see, know and explore our real origins. It would set a good example for my future family members to follow my footsteps in doing/updating the family tree. : )

06 October 2009

SMS ‘71222’ to book a taxi

Dear my deaf and hard-of-hearing friends,

I would like to share with you about my true story, how to book a taxi in Singapore.

Last month, I was working in my office to handle horticulture / environmental matters. Before departing for meetings/seminars outside, I had to get a taxi to travel. As I was born deaf, I had to rely on my collegue to make a call for a taxi booking. During that time, I was feeling abit frustrated as this could consume some of my precious working time. In addition, I did not want to be “spoon-fed” as I would wish to be fully independent.

So, I came up with an idea to sort out this problem. Surfing on the internet, I found the website, which could allow me to SMS 71222 to book a taxi. It is actually free of charge! I have tried out doing this SMS. This really worked for me!

Let’s say in your sms: Send “Book postal code pick-up point” to 71222.

For example: Book 109918 Keppel Club

In about 10 to 30 seconds, a message came in my handphone inbox. It said “Citycab Toyota Crown taxi 8734 with a booking fee of $3.50 will arrive in 5 to 7 mins. Pls proceed to your pickup point. Thank you for using Comfort & Citycab” I was delighted upon seeing this fast response in my hp.

In few minutes’ time, a specific taxi with correct plate number (8734) arrived at my workplace at a great convenience!!! This brought such a relief to me. = ) Thanks to ComfortDelgro for its wonderful SMS Booking service. Please refer to http://www.comfortdelgro.com.sg/files/press/attachment/216.pdf for more details. Let’s try one for yourself if you would like to book a taxi. Cheers!

Winning PUB Watermark Award '09!

The best day has arrived for me. Phew!

On last Tuesday, I rushed to attend PUB Watermark Award Ceremony at Marina Barrage after my work. Feeling deserved and honoured to receive the prestigious award from the government board, Public Utilities Board (PUB) for recognition of water conservation & efforts @ Keppel Club (K.C). It has brought great happiness and joy to K.C staff. The other winners are big organisations - CapitalLand, HDB and Hitachi.



Ronald holding PUB Watermark Award '09


From left to right in a row: Peter (Newsletter Conveyor), Vicki (Admin Executive), Sook Fun (Communications & Marketing Manager), Desmond (Deputy General Manager), John (Captain), Edwin (President), Tahir (Vice Captain), Gene (Communications Executive), Ronald (Horticulture Officer).


Keppel Club goes green! Come and join us in going greener! Yeah!


Go Green with Keppel Club stickers to outreach visitors / guests in going green.

Besides Singapore Environment Achievement Award this year, it is ME who prepared, planned and compiled the PUB Watermark Award submission once again! : ) My deputy general manager (DGM) said “Well done!”. I am very contented. Upon hearing from the high-level management committee of K.C, they praised me for doing well in my great job in spite of my hearing-impairment. I know that my DGM told them about this earlier. Anyway, I have to continue to work hard BUT remember to take it easy. Liao! My DGM is going to throw lunch retreat for us later on! = )

On last Wednesday, it made me happy again. Because Keppel Club was featured in the Straits Times Newspaper. Please refer to the article below.


27 September 2009

New Version of Heineken Ad!

Hello,

The old version of Heineken ad has been born to a new small version one! Funny! Haha. This is one of my favourite ad! Go and see below:-

Old version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1ZZreXEqSY
New version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk5JNs7KO30&NR=1

Enjoy watching these ads! ; )

17 September 2009

World Water Monitoring Day


Transition of Weather & Arboriculture

Transition of Weather

In this morning, I prayed that the weather conditions would be bright and fine within Keppel Club golf course. This could enable me to have meetings with two ISA Certified Arborists at different time intervals to carry out the health and safety conditions of 7 tall Albizia trees. Few hours later, the sky turned out to be dark with heavy grey clouds. But walking by faith, I believed in God that it would not rain so soon. Gradually, the darkness has “transformed” into bright and fine day! It happened as what I had thought. Praise the Lord! Always give thanks to Him! Amen!

Conducting the arboriculture inspection with two arborists, the findings are such good and knowledgeable to me. I have learnt a lot from them. In my heart, I am really very passionate to take up a recognized International Society of Arboriculture course so that I can become a certified arborist. This can be done at NParks CUGE. Will seek, ask and hear from God first for this plan. Because His plan is better than my plan, this will help guide me to walk in the right path. This would please God! Amen!


Arboriculture

For Ronald’s own reference / notes about Arboriculture:

Albizzas are dangerous trees as they are generally very soft wood. At this big size, they are self-disintegrating = they will snap and cause failure anytime. ON the other hand, Albizzias are always good because they are vigorous. But it’s the structural stability that is always the concern.

The health of the trees can be indicated by

1) live crown ratio
2) leaf size
3) leaf colour
4) leaf density
5) canopy dieback

The arborists generally never recommend Albizzias to be grown near target areas. Targets are defined as people, structures (buildings), places with traffic movement, etc.

If you see the Albizzias’ main trunks which have hollow holes (almost or more than 50%), it is mostly predictable to fall down anytime. It is dangerous.
Normally, the certified arborists will encompass both health and structure of the trees when they conduct our Visual Tree Assessment Report.

If the health condition of trees is good, the tree is structurally unsound, the arborists will normally recommend for removal in the interest of the people’s safety here. [Vice-versa]: - If the health condition of tree is poor but the tree structure is ok, the arborists can boost their health by giving them treatment like element injection, soil restoration works, etc.

The pruning of Albizzias should be recommended to be carried out each half-year (every 6 months).

Question: How will the workers access up the tree at a very tall height?

Answer: They use safety harness & ropes to access high up on the tree. They should wear in full PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) such as safety helmets, boots, goggles, gloves, etc for safety reasons.

27 August 2009

Attending Environmental Seminars today

Today was my hectic day.

At Keppel Club, I helped out and attended the IGOLF Forum in the morning and afternoon. The forum was such an enriching and interesting one. The topics were covered on turf diseases, biodiversity conservation, water & energy conservation. They were presented by the turf professionals, managers & doctors as well as IGOLF representatives from Switzerland & Thailand. After the presentations, I made a first move to introduce myself to them and to know them better during the coffee break. Managed to exchange our name cards each other so that we could interact, share and learn in the turf & environmental fields via email. For promoting environmental and green causes @ Keppel Club, I have been working closely with IGOLF, National Parks Board, Nature Society (Singapore) and Public Utilities Board.

Keppel Club & IGOLF working together to make the forum a great success.
Turf professionals, managers & doctors attending the IGOLF seminar at Keppel Club.
Leaving the IGOLF forum halfway, I rushed to Botany Centre at Singapore Botanic Garden by a taxi at 2.30pm. From there, I also went for other seminar, organised by Singapore Environment Council. It was about Energy Efficiency, presented by environmental professionals from Denmark. Have learnt about the good Denmark government system, which supports the renewable energy such as solar, heat and wind energy. Compared to Denmark, Singapore really does not practice much on renewable energy. Necessary actions and efforts are really needed to be done in Singapore. Do you know that Danish government have implemented green taxes for people who use carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and pollutant gases? It made my eyes widely open... And if you invest in buying the energy-saving devices for commerical buildings & homes, it will reduce the running costs. This leads to saving a lot of money- more GDP is generated. These savings, in turn, can be spent for good domestic uses & benefits.

Beyond horticulture and landscape management, I am extremely happy to explore new things that are related to the environment. It sounds very interesting! Yay!