Sambung cerita puasa , anak2 makin membesar — Imran , 7 tahun Oktober 18 ni buat kali pertama puasa dan cukup sebulan! Seronok agaknya bersama rakan2 sebaya walaupun liat nak bangun untuk sahur dan solat subuh. Ammar skipped few days of school because abahnya liat nak bangun 7am untuk hantar ke sekolah (Saudi working hours untuk Ramadhan pukul 10am – 4pm! ) Sabrina pun sibuk ke hulu hilir dengan 2 rakan sebaya main bersama dengan adiknya Alysha.

Aktiviti Ramadhan yang lain? Seperti biasa resipi.net hosting overloaded! Kami berpindah lagi buat ke sekian kalinya –trafik naik 4 kali ganda! Leceh sebenarnya kerja pindah hosting ni — ended up all other (at least 5!) websites have to be moved too..
Other than that I got back into old hobbies — electronics but this time its more serious — bought few books from Amazon dan other gadgets like multimeter, oscilloscopes, Arduino microcontroller and the mission– to learn building a robot! . Cisco CCIE project also still ongoing now I have 5 routers with NM-4A/S as frame relay switch + the NM16/A as the terminal server — maybe considering CCNP first to force myself get into it seriously.

Raya? Today is the first day!
Akhir kata Salam Hari Raya dari kami sekeluarga di Riyadh -Maaf Zahir dan Batin !
Some pictures here .

But recently upon reading a book that I newly bought, I came across an interesting part of her speech [about Islam] which was given just ~ two weeks after September 11,2001.

Quoted :

There was once a civilization that was the greatest in the world.

It was able to create a continental super-state that stretched from ocean to ocean, and from northern climes to tropics and deserts. Within its dominion lived hundreds of millions of people, of different creeds and ethnic origins.

One of its languages became the universal language of much of the world, the bridge between the peoples of a hundred lands. Its armies were made up of people of many nationalities, and its military protection allowed a degree of peace and prosperity that had never been known. The reach of this civilization’s commerce extended from Latin America to China, and everywhere in between.

And this civilization was driven more than anything, by invention. Its architects designed buildings that defied gravity. Its mathematicians created the algebra and algorithms that would enable the building of computers, and the creation of encryption. Its doctors examined the human body, and found new cures for disease. Its astronomers looked into the heavens, named the stars, and paved the way for space travel and exploration.

Its writers created thousands of stories. Stories of courage, romance and magic. Its poets wrote of love, when others before them were too steeped in fear to think of such things.

When other nations were afraid of ideas, this civilization thrived on them, and kept them alive. When censors threatened to wipe out knowledge from past civilizations, this civilization kept the knowledge alive, and passed it on to others.

While modern Western civilization shares many of these traits, the civilization I’m talking about was the Islamic world from the year 800 to 1600, which included the Ottoman Empire and the courts of Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo, and enlightened rulers like Suleiman the Magnificent.

Although we are often unaware of our indebtedness to this other civilization, its gifts are very much a part of our heritage. The technology industry would not exist without the contributions of Arab mathematicians. Sufi poet-philosophers like Rumi challenged our notions of self and truth. Leaders like Suleiman contributed to our notions of tolerance and civic leadership.

And perhaps we can learn a lesson from his example: It was leadership based on meritocracy, not inheritance. It was leadership that harnessed the full capabilities of a very diverse population–that included Christianity, Islamic, and Jewish traditions.

This kind of enlightened leadership — leadership that nurtured culture, sustainability, diversity and courage — led to 800 years of invention and prosperity.

In dark and serious times like this, we must affirm our commitment to building societies and institutions that aspire to this kind of greatness. More than ever, we must focus on the importance of leadership– bold acts of leadership and decidedly personal acts of leadership.

With that, I’d like to open up the conversation and see what we, collectively, believe about the role of leadership.

Darn! And I thought who this woman really is? While the West was busy condemning Islam in the midst of September 11, 2001 — she couragedly stand by her principle did otherwise. Too late to know her? I hope not!

I found a video on her talking about ethics , something that I think most of the top management up there less interested than getting “the results” . As she said “Values are the only one that lead you when no one’s watching and when you think that anyone will ever found out. Values matter!

Carly rocks — gotta find her book!

Some photos ..

Finding the GPS coordinate with my Nokia E90.

makan cendol everyday at the old BP bus station

Took some photos with the new Fuji Finepix S5700 — Ummi’s Canon EOS 400D was too complex for me!

The small jungle infront of our house on the left –lived some endangered species of beruk,biawak, kera,monyet and birds (see below) and babi hutan too!

At 12.30pm rushed home to take a bath ( I was all wet with smell of toilet all over!) , while the rest of the people from surau went for “kenduri tahlil” at one of our neighbour’s house. Came back to join the tahlil with Sabrina soon after that.

For the AGM, Dr. Laurence asked me if I can come up with some presentation about the previous activities of our commitee and also a short demonstration about our website . Hmm internet outside my home?!
[We went out twice that day in the evening to send Pah to her meeting at Kepong so when I rushed home around 7pm that day, the tent for our AGM was already set up at the badminton’s court.]

So this was my very last minute setup ready around 7.30pm that day!

Not enough time to mount the antenna, I hung it on the my IP camera’s casing holder. (yes! the camera wasn’t there. Did I tell you that our home was hit by lightning recently? Added to the list were—my astro decoder, a TV, 1 linksys switch, 2 NICS, 2 motherboards, my streamyx modem )

Just nice. The antenna was pointing directly to the badminton court where the AGM took place. I got full bar signal strength from there.

The AGM went quite well that night. It started bit late due to miscommunication between us the NS commitee and the surau. We waited until around 10pm before actually started the meeting so that people from surau who attended ceramah that night can join us. You can read about it here

It was indeed a big crowd for such AGM.

That was my Thinkpad (on the chair) showing slides (which was prepared late that day) from our previous activities.