I hope those of you who has a blog can write a little post to divert your readers to those posts that I am about to write..... Let's see if we can create a snowball effect. Those who know me would probably know that on my big India trip in 2002, I volunteered for a Development NGO called Dakshinayan. I stayed in a village called Cheo among the tribal communities in Jarkhand and taught the kids some English with 5 other volunteers. It was a lifetime experience for me, I look at everything very differently since I was there. The organisation has been doing great work there, they aim to educate a generation of youngsters to take care of their tribes when they grow up. I have always been hoping to be able to help them somehow. A big contribution to their income has been the "fee" paid by the volunteers like me, though I know the number of volunteers has never been steady and recently they are struggling a bit. For the last month, I have been placing adwords on google on behalf of them. If you type "Volunteer India" on google you might be able to see my ads (if my daily budget has not ran out). I manage to direct 1-2 people to their website daily but it has not been translating into enquiries. The organisor has told me not to waste the money. Though I am not going to give up, I think building awareness takes time, apart from increasing my daily budget on google adwords, I am going to start an awareness campaign for them on this blog.
Once I found time, I will write a few posts about the organisation and the volunteering experience. I hope those of you who has a blog can write a little post to divert your readers to those posts that I am about to write. Please also invite your regular readers who also blogs to write a little divergence post. Let's see if we can create a snowball effect.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Building Awareness for Dakshinayan
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Leaving My Old Job to Meet John Wood
and if even I did return with books to set up 9 libraries the next season, would this lead me to quit my job in the hope to make change to the world?I started on my new job this week, finally after 4 years back in Hong Kong, I now work in Central. Kind of childish to be pleased with take, I know most people at my age should have grown cynical about Central, but I found no better opportunity to expand my horizon after the groomy days of Kwun Tong. For example today, I went for a book talk at lunchtime with Martina, and the speaker was the inspiring John Wood of "Leaving Microsoft to Change the World". You may recall from my previous post how much I respect this guy.
We had literally the two best seats of the day, sitting right at the front of the stage, we met the social entrepreneur in real life. The talk very much recounted tales from his books. But this guy was not just inspirational but incredibly funny. (Martina was later recognised by a helper as the woman who laughed seamlessly during the talk.) John started off by congradulation himself by stealing the title of the book "Leaving Microsoft to Change The World" from Bill Gate. And he is happy to trade that with millions of dollars for donation.
Then he recounted his begining of this post-Microsoft life. "How many of you have been trekking in Nepal?" We stood our hands up proudly. Though if a Nepalese headmaster said "Perhaps one day sir, you will return with some books." I wondered if I would responded the way John did, and even if I did return with books to set up 9 libraries the next season, would this lead me to quit my job in the hope to make change to the world? That is what makes him so incredible. Room to Read now opens more library then the post-IPO Starbuck is opening coffee chains around the world at the same age.
there will be many people in this world to tell you not to take the risk, but they are not necessary the people that is worth listening to
Then he recounted some of his favourite stories in his books and finally left us with a picture that was taken last week, it was the once bookless libary that he first visted in Nepal, it is now a brightly decorated modern reading room, with books, magazines, maps and globes. One that is impossible for me to imagine the himalayan paddy rice fields were just beyond those windows.
Finally at the Q&A session he repeated those words in his books "If you have a passion, just get out and follow it.....there will be many people in this world to tell you not to take the risk, but they are not necessary the people that is worth listening to."
So once again, go and read this book, if you don't want to buy one, borrow one of the two copies that we now own.
P.S. If you want to get involved with Room to Read, read here.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
The Library Thing
I discovered a newsite for book lovers called The Library Thing, how to describe it, remove the shopping function of Amazon but keep the review platform, then integrate it with Flickr's tag function and allow people to join "Groups". Thus I have spent sometime trying to add the books I have read in the last 5-6 years to "My Library" and have a tag cloud for books that I have read:
Once I have done that, the site were able to recommend new books for me to read, tell me other users who shares similar reading interest, thus I can browse their library. The thing that I enjoyed the most was being able to see the front cover of the books lined up on the screen, especially on some of the topics that I enjoyed the most, like:
Mountaineering & Adventure
History
After looking at them again, I had the impulse to buy another mountain literature, just put in an order on The Villain: the Life of Don Whillans by Jim Perrin. It shared the 2006 Boardman Tasker Award.
Week 1 of Recovery
It has been more than a week since I was discharged from hospital, thankfully the new job don't start till next week, so I got plenty of break before having to fight my way through crowded bus to Central with a plaster hanging at my chest. Life as a single hand cripple has not been as bad as I have imagined, I can do most things with one hand as I have learned. Taking a shower was probably the worst, I have to held my injured arm up for as long as 10 mins, while the right arm was doing all the yoga movement, to get to every part of the body (just imagine cleaning your right arm pit with you right hand!).
I am a bit worried with the muscles on my left arm, they now cramped quite often due to lack of movement. Not much I can do until the plaster is off, of become smaller in my next checkup. By the I am fully recovered, I will give Outrigging a try, may rebulid my arm muscle quickly.
I was completely hooked to a Japanese comic called "Death Note" (死亡筆記). The second film based on the comic has just been released, but as always, the comic is much better. In case you didn't know the story is about a note book dropped by a Reapper to Earth, any person's name written on it will die within 40secs. The guy who picked it up started to use it to punish criminals in order to create a utopia. A top detective who is only known as "L" secretly investigate the series of crime. Both characters were highly intelligent and began a dog fight of mind games to fish each other out. I am down to the last volume today, can't wait.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Disaster Struck Again
Just got back from a 3 days spell in the hospital with some steel plate and screws added to my body. It has happened again, I had another mountain bike accident but a more serious one this time. I won't even gonna put down any narratives to make it sound adventurous. It just went out of control, I fell and landed on my arm first. I broke one of the two bones in the forearm. The two ends of the fracture was completely separated and it needed an operation to patch them together with plates and screw.
It was plain stupid for me to mess up my body like this and caused so much trouble for my girlfriend and parents to spend their time taking care of me. Lucky for me they were there when I needed them, the 3 days passed very quickly. Every visiting time I can count on them being there to cheer me up, I was never too down.
Now I have 2-3 months of recovery period in which I won't be able to exercise, I have some time to think about what I really want. Doing all these adventurous sport is fun, but not for the price of losing a limp or two, I am not a thrill seeker, I just like overcoming my own limit. Clearly two major accidents in 5 months means that I should stay away from mountain biking, but if I do that, adventure racing is also out of the window. Something I am not willing to let go.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Making Waves on Paradise Island
the toughest part of that race was the first half hour when I began to wonder how I would even last for the next hour as the sun was beating down on usTwo brave friends of mine, Nancy and Amanda, has just attended an international outrigger race in Saipan. If you don't know what is an Outrigger, it is a traditional canoe used by Micronesia people, you paddle it in similar technique to Dragonboat, except you switch the side that you are paddling every 18 strokes. It has a supporting buoy (the outrigger), thus more stable than a dragon boat and therefore capable ocean crossing and riding bigger waves (Nancy please fill me in).
It was the 8th Micronesia Cup in Saipan, Nancy and Amanda represented the South China Sea Outrigger's mixed team competitng with giant paddling team from different island communities, including teams Saipan, Guam, Japan, Palau and Hong Kong (the mighty HK Island Paddler Club was also there). They did three races in two days, 500m, 1500m sprint and grueling 12miles distance challenge! They did brilliantly well but I will let Nancy to do the talking.
From Nancy's email,
"We didn't win any trophies that day but on Sunday, we did an 18km (8mi) distance race which took us 2 hours 5 minutes 30 seconds to complete which was a fantastic time, considering the best Men's team did it in 1hour 45 mins....
"For me, the toughest part of that race was the first half hour when I began to wonder how I would even last for the next hour as the sun was beating down on us and I was tired already. But as we started to round the island at the halfway point and I knocked back a Powerbar Gel pack, I got mentally psyched that we were halfway through. Plus, the water was amazingly clear and blue in Saipan which makes it tougher to keep your focus in the boat...
"I'm in Seat 3, who does the calls for switching sides on which you paddle. This means you have to be able to paddle and count to 14 at the same time (tougher than you might think!), while being careful not to call a switch when big waves might knock the ama (stabiliser) up and potentially huli (capsize) the canoe...."
In the end they came third in the Mixed Team catogroies, it was her first international race and it was such a tremendous achievement. I am inspired, maybe in the next dragon boat season I will paddle again and give the best of my effort, maybe even train with these stars for a long distance race. Afterall I always have an appetite to take on something BIG. If anyone of you are equally inspired, their club is always looking for more new blood.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Planning a Japan Adventure
Finally I've got my future settled this week, I am moving on to a new job in mid November and will finished with my current company after this month. That gave Martina and I about a week to go on holiday before rushing back to do the Trailwalker. We've chosen to go to Japan this time, I've not been to Japan despite my adventures all over the world. I have been a third world countries travel specialist for all these years and Japan just doesn't quite fit into my profile. But with only a week to spare, it was a rush to some of my projects in store. 
Though it has been an amazing discovery to find out what adventure can be done in Japan. I have learn that there is a strip of mountain called the Japan Alps in the mid north of country in the Nagano Perfecturewhere there are some beautiful alpine scenery. There is a 6 days traverse across the alpine ridges and finsihed in a moutian resort town called Kamikochi. The beauty is you don't have to carry too much as you can stayed in moutain huts at above 2000m high, with food and bedding served to you.
Though unfortunately as I though I have found the highlight of the year, the local hostel, Nishiitoya Mountain Lodge, told me it was a too late the time of the year to get some reasonable hike, snow is due by November. May be something for the next Freeyasoul Adventure.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Novels by Indian Writers
.... sometime you have maintain a fine balance between hope and despair". Such a terrible way to live that you can't give yourself too much hope nor despair to overcome the endless misfortunates in life.
It is kind of a belated post. The Man Booker Prize of 2006 was announced a couple of weeks ago. The Man Booker Prize is an annual award given to comtemporary English fiction. I am rarely disappointed when I select my reading materials from the list of past winners or even the shortlisted novels. It was a delighted to know that this year's Booker goes to another India novelist, Kiran Desai and her book "The Inhertitance of Loss". I have gone out to buy it the next day when I heard about the news. Why do I have so much faith Indian writers? The two previous Bookers I read by Indian novelist were among some of the best novels I have read, they were "Midnight's Children" by Salman Rushdie and "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy. Together with "A Fine Balance" by Rohinton Misty were novels that have profoundly touched me.
There are certain common elements that runs through those three novels, characters from marginal communities, living in turbulent times, caste systems, despairs and unfulfilled dream, weaved through a poetic style of writing and sometimes offers me a glimpse of philosophy of indian way of life. The line that I remember most well from "A Fine Balance" is ".... sometime you have maintain a fine balance between hope and despair". Such a terrible way to live that you can't give yourself too much hope nor despair to overcome the endless misfortunates in life.
Well going back to "Inheritance of Loss", I have just started reading it, so in due course I can give you a full report about it. But at the moment, I will just share with you the opening lines of New York Times review, "ALTHOUGH it focuses on the fate of a few powerless individuals, Kiran Desai's extraordinary new novel manages to explore, with intimacy and insight, just about every contemporary international issue: globalization, multiculturalism, economic inequality, fundamentalism and terrorist violence. Despite being set in the mid-1980's, it seems the best kind of post-9/11 novel." If like the review said, the novel touches on the global issues of today yet, connect them with the everyday characters with the skills of all the other Bookers winner, I am sure it will be a lovely ride to read on.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Random Rotating Banner Hack
It is working!
Press "F5" on your keyboard and a different banner should appear.
After two days of trying (yep very sad, but do I care!), I have finally modified my blogger template to do random roation on the banner graphics. If you don't get what I mean, press "F5" on your keyboard and a different banner should appear, if it happen to be the same banner then press again till you see a new one. It is a standard plug-in for Wordpress but we didn't have it in Blogger.... until now. Well I think this could be the first in the world of Blogger Beta, if not it is definitely my first hack anyway. Thanks Ramani from Hackosphere who gave me a few tips. Read on to see the scripts I have used.
I am not sure if it will works for all blogger templates, so I will just show you what I have done and you may have to modified it for your template. First of all I assume you have created a few graphical banners and have uploaded them onto a graphic hosting website.
For the 'Rounder' template I have used there is a piece of script in the CCS Style Section that read like this:
#header {
background:#476 url("http://www.blogblog.com/rounders4/bg_hdr_bot.jpg") no-repeat left bottom;
margin:0 0 0;
padding:0 0 8px;
color:#fff;
}
Basically my script works by overwriting the 'background' definition at the <body> part of the template. I wrote the following right after the <body> tag:
<script type="text/javascript">
var banner= new Array()
banner[0]="http://static.flickr.com/84/269053449_acad87a793_o.jpg"
banner[1]="http://static.flickr.com/95/269053438_4ef5a3983e_o.jpg"
banner[2]="http://static.flickr.com/96/269053404_44a3b0eda8_o.jpg"
banner[3]="http://static.flickr.com/108/269053262_608edbdda4_o.jpg"
banner[4]="http://static.flickr.com/98/269053232_6f7c6f994a_o.jpg"
var random=Math.round(4*Math.random());
document.write("<style>");
document.write("#header {");
document.write(' background:url("' + banner[random] + '") no-repeat left TOP;');
document.write(" }");
document.write("</style>");
</script>
My scripts above used Java Script to define an array of 5 url locations of the banners' graphic. Then the next line generate a random discret number between 0-4. The next part will generate some html codes to overwrite the "background" definition of the the "Header" style by selection a random banner everytime.
You will need to change the following:
1) The URL Locations of your graphics.
2) If you have 5 banners, you type "4" in the random number generating equation Math.round(4*Math.random()); If you have 3 banners type "2" and so forth.
Good luck, let me know if it works.
Blog Banner Experiment
I spent the weekend developing some banners for my blogs with Photoshop and Illustrator. I wanted to fused a Freeyasoul logo with the picture but doesn't seen to always work. I've also tried my best to modify the blog's template, hoping to make the banner to rotate randomly, but it didn't work. If anyone comes across this knows a blogger hack to that, please let me know. I've left message on Hackosphere and Beautiful Beta, hoping to generate some discussions on that. Anyway, let me know what you think of my banners and how I can improve on them:
Siguniang Shan
Nepal 1
Nepal 2
Lombak 1
Lombak 2
