Chapter 30: Frontline - End

Another chapter of my life ended on the 24th Nov 2006. A short stint in or at the frontline*. I cannot say that it was a bad experience but neither is it a good one. There are also plenty of experiences in between the good and the bad.

Let start with the bad ones. I realize that argument is a argument is a argument. There is no good think about an argument. It leave me drain an unmotivated to work. Why is it an argument? It is because, the parties involve do not see eye to eye. My explanation does not answer the others question, neither did is reply address my concern. This is also the workplace where someone sitting close to me has to send an email to tell me what is going on. I hate this kind of environment. I also don't like it when you share ones opinion, the answer you get is "From the way I look at it........" (It stay that way. I still see it my way) . Lastly, for a company that claims to be a technological company, ie dealing with IT, you have to explain to the managers what are servers. Servers are servers and are valid in both the physical and software context. Weblogic Application Server is a software server. A cuboid metal box with wires sticking out of it, running HPUX, with 2 RISC CPU and a few hard disk is a hardware server. (There is now a new definition that is becoming more and more valid and that is a VM. A WM serving information from within another computer is also known as a server. The server within a server.)

The good things are always the hardest to part. It just happen to be the most intangible part of the whole experience. You gain friends and you share ideas. Lotiki - www.lotteryintelligence.com, bears the fruit of a small discussion starting from how to strike it rich. We talk about statistics and probability. Slowly we mind the official website for information. Stripping 20 years of 4D results and putting it into our own database. Surprisingly, we found that there are still numbers yet to be open on the 4D lottery. Sharing of experiences, some bring in view point of another part of the globe. How you think is influence by how where brought up.

Along the way in the middle of all these good and bad:
- I restarted my class 2B license lessons. (For those non local reading, in my country you need to have a license to ride a motorcycle. That license to ride is known as the class 2b license. It only allow you to ride motorcycle between the 0-200 cc range.)
- I learn a little about data center operations.
- Server relocation is a simple, but tough job. The dependencies are plenty and most are hidden within the complex, deceiving configuration files.
- I think someone deserved to be spank. If you say the thing is easy to do, then you do not need me to do a sizing of the work for you.
-IBM notebook are really good. I was issued a notebook with a warranty sticker shown to expire in 2000, it has a WIN98 compatible sticker. It is still running and its performance is rather decent if I do not open to many things at the same time. The thing is that it still works after what 7-8 years at least. The 12.1 inch form factor also make a the lightest laptop I ever had. Correction, it is a desktop replacement. The battery is dead. No plug in, No playing.
-My boss is really overloaded. Handling so many project at the same time and still don't display much signs of being burn. I am actually quite impress. But then signs being burn are creeping in.
-There are Naruto fans here too!
-The mince meat noodle at the coffeeshop near to the NTUC is great!
-I am getting better at playing pool. I won the last game against my colleague in the last game, 2-1.
-A colleague keep saying that I'm just too nice.
-Taking taxi some times can be a hassle. Some taxi drivers are full of complaints and while some has great philosophy of how life should be. But in summary, all of them disagree with the government on how they should handle the taxi company.
- I don't like to work late. I want my life, even if it is plain and boring.
- Things get done not because of an email, but because of a nice "please" and "Coffee on me".
- I get to work on my birthday. Which I normally try to take the day off.
- There are quite a number of female staff with very nice curves in the frontline.
- Drinking milk give you power. The term is milk power.
- There are backline in the frontline.


Well now I am in search of new ideas, a future, healthier and better life. I wish whoever is coming in good luck.








* not referencing the war. Frontline is a local Company doing IT.