A father's chronicles (At the breakfast table)

Reading is to me "more important" than speaking. Not that speaking is not important... that's how I am wired.

Gracia is a different "animal". When she first started to speak, I often find it amusing. It is like this little body can walk, can talk and now... she can joke and sing about it too.....

Yan: Gor Gor (brother) is going to get one marble for . Mei mei (sister) broke .... we will take all her 10 marbles to buy another one. So Mei Mei have no money left to use while Gor Gor have 20 dollars when we next travel. Is that OK, Gracia?

Gracia: (silent. look dispondent... and then suddenly....) Dollar, dollar where is my dollar? (she broke out in a tune)

A father's chronicles (He is doing it again)

Last year, I wrote on his first taste of success. I am glad to tell you.... he is getting his GOLD award (Maths) again this year

We have received a letter from Kumons yesterday that he has been invited to Kumon Singapore Advanced Student Honour Roll Ceremony 2007.

We spoke briefly on this over breakfast this morning. He is excited.

They will be clapping again for ME!

Well done! Another year of hard work. Much tougher now.... I am not doing it as fast as he is doing his work. Especially when he does his 2 digits multiplied by 2 digits or 3 digits.... together with division.

Well done, my boy. Well done.

I am sitting and wondering who you are

If you take a look to the right of this post, you will find a ClustrMap. It has red dots on the world map. I have just clicked on it to find out where are the readers of my blog...

There is this particular red dot that caught my eyes... it is in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean. Probably someone in Hawaii is reading my post... and perhaps, someone at Finland too.

To those out there so far away.... Hi! I hope you do enjoy my post.

It is a strange thing about blogging. Your readers can be very silent. They enjoy (or might not enjoy the read) and move away....

But right now... I am wondering who you are .... out there....

A christian father's chronicle (In the heart - Part 2)

Zoe encouraged me to share on my blog something I have spoken to her sometime back. It is another one of those conversation with Theophilus.

So, I was packing my bookshelf and stumbled upon an old X-ray flim. You know? Those black and white thing which doctors take to look into our beings? Ah... I thought it might be a good lesson material. I brought it to the dinning table where Theophilus was working on something....

---

Dad: Theophilus, see what I've got here?
Theophilus: (Huh?)
Dad: It's an X-ray of Daddy's chest. I took it when I went for my medical check-up sometime back.

(Dad is getting into his "bad habit of teaching" again.... sticks out his index finger...)

Dad: Now, this is the collar bone. Here are the ribs... that's the lungs, you have the stomach here... and here is the heart...
Theophilus: Where Jesus?
Dad: (Huh?)
Theophilus: I don't see Jesus in your heart! You told me he is there.
Dad: (Oops! Think faster....)
Dad: Hmmmm... good question. Let me see.... I think it has something to do with the X-ray machine. I believe they have a limitation or it is probably spoilt. But you are right.

(Dad takes the film away)

Dad: Theophilus?
Theophilus: Ya?
Dad: X-Ray machines are not that advance yet.

---

Perhaps, science is still trying to catch up? Anyway, it is not taking a snapshot of my spirit either, right?

Actually, all these little conversation reminds me of the purity of speech of a child. They are pure in heart. They take words as it is. A 'Yes' is a 'Yes'. A 'No' is a 'No'.... anything beyond comes from the evil one... of course, we learn about such thing as figurative speech, but well... that is some time later in life...

I still have much to learn from them.

A christian father's chronicle (The real thing)

Zoe just sent me some quotes from her "good & long time friend" - Royston. I read it. Fabulous. At risk of infringing on copyright, let me attribute all creation of this article to Royston and Kaitlyn. So no stealing here, OK?

But read this. I like reading this... it is like being "invisible" and hearing the bedside conversations of dad and child (I have many with Theophilus)....

---

Extracted from Royston's post

I have been putting Kaitlyn to bed lately, and we have the most interesting chats:

R: "Why are you afraid of the dark?"

K: "I don't like the dark"

R: "Which part of the dark are you afraid off?"

K: "The clowns will come and get me"

----silence----

K: "Daddy can you lie here a bit longer?"

R desperate to get back to work...

R: "Whenever you are scared, you can pray "Dear Jesus""

K: "Dear Jesus" and she continued herself "make me brave and that your angels watch over me, Amen!"

R: "Amen! Good...close your eyes now..."

K: "Where is Jesus daddy? Is Jared gor gor with him in Heaven?"

R: "yes he is...and He is also in your heart right where you are now..."

K: "In my heart? So he must be quite bloody since I have blood in my heart..."

---dead silence---

---

It is so wonderful to be a father! Can learn so many things from them.

Her signature shot again...

Her laughter can be contagious...




And when the hearty laugher simmers down...



(If you are curious - Yes, all these shots were taken using my Dopod 838 Pro)

His signature shot again...

A christian father's chronicle (Thanksgiving)

After more than 2 years of praying, and countless time of putting our hopes in God.... yes, Theophilus (and Gracia in time to come) will be attending Pei Hwa Presbyterian Primary school!

There were 79 vacancies when we applied and 80 students registered. Usually this will result to balloting, but we were informed by the school today there will not be any balloting!

My son have been accepted to go to his long awaited and prayed for Primary school!!! I am so happy for him. A school that he finally looked forward to. A school that he always wished to be there. To listen to the endless number of bible stories. To be found within people who teach Godly principles. Yan and myself is delighted to receive this news.

We went out for a thanksgiving dinner. It rained, but that did not dampen our thanksgiving.

This is Theophilus' longest prayer request, the second closest one is his prayer for a sibling - which God answered with the arrival of Gracia.

Theophilus have been praying for entrance into the Primary school on bended knees and for 2 years. I am so happy for him. It will be a stepping stone for his faith.

I could recall on Sunday, his Sunday school class theme verse was: "Anything is possible for those who have faith in God." It was a comforting verse in midst of a rising storm within our hearts.

Thank God for this answered prayer.

To all Christian parents: May you be encouraged that there is a boy who prayed (and a family who prayed along) and did make it to the school of their choice. At the end of the journey - God determines how our lives work out. Only he holds the final key. Not the principal. Not your volunteering work (even if you have done 80 hours, the final nod comes from God). The battle is from above and deep within.

A father's chronicle (our weekends)

It is always fun and more fun... I like weekends! Here are some shots we taken using my new Dopod 838 Pro.



We went to the Science Center. Cannot resist in taking a shot or two infront of this monster!... err... the smaller one is also a "monster" ... but I love him.




Of course, we went to take a walk at McRitchie too.... I love to be with them. They are such a fun bunch of people to be with.... and Gracia is having fun here....



Mom's supervision is required still....



Our nation is preparing for celebration of National Day next month... you can see those helicopters flying in circles....




I like sunset.... it is always a nice view... even the sunset days of life....




To be honest: I still like my old N70 as compared to my Dopod in taking photos. I have passed the repaired N70 to Yan. She likes it too. Battery life is great and the photos looks great too. For Dopod 838 Pro, I find the battery life is not as fantastic, and taking motion shots is really a bit more painful. "Motion" shots as those with Theophilus or Gracia moving a bit while snapping the shot. It looks pretty off actually. I need to put on the "Motion" picture mode and take 5 shots and choose one. ... no doubt I have alot of space for storage... but sigh... I still prefer the shutter speed of N70. Nevertheless, from the shots above, you can see that the resolution is actually quite good (I didn't touch up on them). My Dopod is on 2.0 Mega pixel as compared to 1.3 Mega pixel for N70.... not much difference to me as a non-professional.

A christian father's chronicle (Praying for school registration)

Yes, we are in the final weeks before we know where Theophilus will be going for his Primary school next year. He has been praying to go to Pei Hwa Presbyterian Primary school for coming to 2 years now.

Primary school education in Singapore is kind of ridiculous. Parents do all sorts of things to "secure" a place of entrance to the school of choice. I have my part of it - meeting obnoxious school princial and getting the uncommitable liner: We do not guarantee the place for your son, but you have to fufill the 80 hours of voluntary work for the school - and don't miss the smirk look!

Parental love is really great. Parents go through great lengths. I have this battle within myself too. But at one point, I stood back and have to think what do I wish for his life, how do I want things to happen.... I must admit my faith does not always stand tall...

My N70 display gave up its ghost!

So, it gave a violent shake and took its last breadth.... it was by good fortune that I switched on the bluetooth connection with my laptop and perform a backup of the phone (plus transfer of pictures which I took for the past 2 weeks)....

Now, I can only receive calls using my N70, I can't read SMS, cannot write SMS, cannot really take photo (since I cannot see the image before aiming nor savour it after taking the snapshot).

Why must it die a premature death before my phone contract (yes, I sent it once for servicing before the warranty was due)?.... now that the warranty is void... I must look out for another phone... or a camera that I can use as a phone... or a multi-function communication device (PDA + camera + phone + ....)

The bad thing about having so many of these features on the phone is that it breaks all so easily. I was suprised to hear from my close friend Ling that all her friends gave up on Nokia N-series, complaining of all sorts of breakdowns. ...

So, I am using my old and faithful Nokia 6610 .... it is amazing - it is still working and outlasted so many other phones... the only thing that broke was the cover which I have replaced. Actually, it is Theophilus' phone now (he is kind enough to return it back to me as a temporary loan - without whinning and no complaints, no grumbles... just kind words)... but well... I will need it till I find another for myself.

To commemorate the death of my phone... here are some last shots that it took for me over the weekend....



The boy at Vivio City's playground...



Gracia under the cool shade...



It is always good to have a loving brother....



Gracia lost her patience while waiting for her ice-cream to come...

A christian father's chronicle (El Shaddai)

Must blog on this...

Today, Yan called me while I am in office to let me hear a piece of Theophilus playing on the piano. It is from the song El Shaddai (you can watch the live performance by Amy Grant here) ... he played it all by himself through hearing... Actually, this is the first piece of music on A-minor that he played by hearing. So, that is a good start. Yes, we were overwhelmed. Not because he could play the notes correctly... but more so he played a piece of song that is so timeless or in the words of Amy in the live performance:

I am glad to sing you a song about something that doesn't change.

It is a very meaningful piece of song. It is a song about someone who does not change. It is about the God Almighty. It is about a God who is faithful - yestarday, today and will remain so forever. It is also a song that brings out the unique opportunity that we have - an honour to praise him till we die.

El shaddai, el shaddai,
El-elyon na adonia,
Age to age youre still the same,
By the power of the name.
El shaddai, el shaddai,
Erkamka na adonai,
We will praise and lift you high,
El shaddai.

Through your love and through the ram,
You saved the son of Abraham;
Through the power of your hand,
Turned the sea into dry land.
To the outcast on her knees,
You were the God who really sees,
And by your might,
You set your children free.

El shaddai, el shaddai,
El-elyon na adonia,
Age to age youre still the same,
By the power of the name.
El shaddai, el shaddai,
Erkamka na adonai,
We will praise and lift you high,
El shaddai.

Through the years youve made it clear,
That the time of christ was near,
Though the people couldnt see
What Messiah ought to be.
Though your word contained the plan,
They just could not understand
Your most awesome work was done
Through the frailty of your son.

El shaddai, el shaddai,
El-elyon na adonai,
Age to age youre still the same,
By the power of the name.
El shaddai, el shaddai,
Erkamka na adonai,
I will praise yo till I die,
El shaddai.

El shaddai, el shaddai,
El-elyon na adonai,
Age to age youre still the same,
By the power of the name.
El shaddai, el shaddai,
Erkamka na adonai,
I will praise you till I die.
El shaddai.

I am very proud of Theophilus. Not just because he can do so well. I am still proud of him even if he cannot play this piece of wonderful music.... what I am most profoundly proud of him is his love for God Almighty, his choice of such a wonderful piece of song - a prayer that Yan and I always wanted in our lives.

Yes, I did encouraged him to use music to bring people closer to God - something which I did when I was young.

Application profiling (Comparing 4 tools in my bag)

I have not been writing technical blog for very long. On the other hand, James have been writing quite a few technical blogs recently, and some of them are really interesting.

For today, I will probably write on my recent toys which I have been playinig around - profiling tools. The application that I am profiling is a J2EE application, multi-tier, blah blah blah.

Before we proceed, let me state my intention for this tool: I want to identify the performance hotspots within my application and thereby giving me the starting point to do refactoring work, or recoding of modules entirely.

So, I hope this is a simple enough objective for me... or is it?

Needless to say, even though I have previous experience on some commercial tools, this time round I try to stay away from some of my familiar ones - JProbe, OptimizeIt and even the free one which I like - Netbeans Profiler.

The "problem" with Netbeans Profiler in my present context is that my application runs on BEA's JRockit JVM and on JDK 1.4.2. To be fair, NB profiler have a specially instrumented JVM for JDK 1.4, but hack... I am not using Netbeans here in my team. I am using Eclipse.

So, the "natural" choice was to go for TPTP. There is also another option that I have: Mission Control from BEA. The Mission Control 2.0 ships with the JRockit VM.

---

Here are some of my experiences on Eclipse TPTP:

The good

1. It snaps into the IDE which my team is using which is Eclipse
2. I think it will continue to mature
3. We can profile a JRockit VM

The bad

1. The installation process is not that straight forward (besides downloading all the relevant and dependent plug-ins), at one point foiled my Eclipse installation. It was wise of me to do a backup of my hard-disk and I recovered everything to the original state. I hate to furge around trying to figure out what's wrong with the installation, when my original intention is to profile my application which I think is the problem - I don't need another problem
2. There is a separate agent controller and guess what? yes, it does not work on some old JRockit JVM. I have to figure that out and after banging my heads for a few days, I stumbled upon the possibility that perhaps it is due to a VM bug... so I went ahead to download the latest JRockit JVM and viola! it works

The ugly

1. This whole idea of having a agent controller is ridiculous. There are so many tools that don't need it and I have additional setup to do
2. Ridiculously intrusive - it drags my application to its knees in some use cases

Conclusion: I still find it a reasonable tool to use if you are doing a JPetstore. Not suitable if you are working on a large application. I think the tool needs more time to mature. And I think it will improve over time. I am not throwing in the towel for this one.

---

Now about Mission Control 2.0

The good

1. Almost brainless in the installation. There is only the standard profiling agent to be configured at the VM's runtime options - no big deal.
2. Light enough - as compared to TPTP. It didn't drag my application to its knees

The bad

1. Even though I can discover two of my agents running on a single box, only one of them could be profiled properly. The background is that I am running both the web and application tier on the same box. I think the agent must have gotten themselves confused...

The ugly

1. Absolutely ridiculous in the filtering of classes to be profiled and viewed for analysis. I cannot imagine a tool coming from such a reputable company and requires me to enter the full package and classname to be profiled (imagine, I have to type in java.util.Vector... and there are so many other classes I want to profile - all entered manually!!!) The fact is that when I do a profiling of my application, I want to identify the hotspots of my codes - if I supply the full resolved package and classname, that will mean I already know where the problem is! I was defeated by such a ridiculous design.

Conclusion: Not very useful to me (might be to other folks).

Now, I tried something commercial tool which I know might not be fair to compare with the previous highlighted tools. But I was determined to find something that I can use in the development (i.e. free or at least provide a development license).... BTW, I did try YourKit Java Profiler - it is not easy in installation and didn't work well for my application, so bye bye.

---

The next tool that I want to bring into the scene is JXInsight.

The good

1. A more complicated installation process compared to Mission Control, but close to what I should expect even out of JProbe or OptimizeIt, overall still manageable.
2. It supports so many platform (both OS and application container) and VM... unlike Netbeans Profiler...
   

The bad

1. Ghee, the documentation is really not well organized. Folks from JINSPIRED should really sit up on this one - you have a good tool, the problem is that you have people who want to use your tool. Your objective is to make the road easier. In many aspects, you have done so, but not from the Installation guide and User manual. It is frustrating to read it, not well index, the PDF files (included in the installation) does not have clickable indexes or content page. It can be seen that these folks are engineers.
2. The manuals (which is really the help files too), do not really shows step by step on how to use the different views and perspective. Newbies to these tool can get discouraged if they cannot use all the information presented to them - it is thrown to them.

The ugly

1. The user manual writer should really put in BOLD that the user requires to not only start the VM with all the required options and configuration setup but actually runs a transaction through the application BEFORE you can see anything on the console. Most of the other tools usually get snap into the agent and display heap graphs and things like that. This one doesn't - it polls and reports that it cannot find anything within the network.... until you hit your first transaction through the system and viola! all the lights are blinking.

Conclusion: I am using the developer edition now in my development environment, it has a time limit of 45 mins for profiling. Good enough for most purposes, and the most important thing - it works on my application and did not drag it to its knees. It takes a while before you can interpret what you see on those views and as I said, the documents did help that much. Overall, I am quite happy with this tool and it will certainly not be lying on the floor of my toolbox when I do profiling.

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For those cool profiling tools maker out there, may I give some inputs to what a user wants:

1. Easy setup
2. Light (i.e. don't drag my application down anymore than it is now!!!) The reason why I am using your tool is to investigate the concerns of my application - not your tool
3. Please write the documentation well. People read them. If you want wide usage, it has to be easy to use and easy to understand the vast amount of data presented. Not everybody is a D.E (Distinguished Engineer) who can get productivity at the snap of the fingers. Tools should be written for people - people with a mission and task and it does not help to burden them further.
4. Yes, provide a developer's license is a great way. I am very willing to buy the commercial production license -and yes, I am the technical decision maker.
5. Support a wide range of OS, VM and application container. We don't just work on one project for the rest of our lives. We want to build on the knowledge of the tool, so, if the tool can also support another OS, and VM and container which my next project is working on... wow... I will embrace it almost like a religion (which translates to loyalty to the tool).
   

So, have fun profiling away.

Service starts from home

Over the weekends, I brought my family to Swensons restaurant. And well, I must admit that the restaurant was quiet enough for us... we really dislike crowded places...

When the waitress came along to take the order, however, it was terrible. Her body language was bad, and what was even worst was she was not knowledgeable about the products (and so is her manager). We were ordering a meal that we could add on another ice-cream. On the menu, it was stated explicitly that we could order any other side-menu at a certain cost. However, the waitress said, "You cannot. My manager says so." Period. Ghosh. So, I begged to differ and ask her to check with her manager what is printed on the menu. She came back without apologies actually - "My manager say you can."

The whole incident was in my mind for 2 days. I am just wondering... no wonder they says Singapore's customer service is terrible. We pride ourselves for efficiency. We pride ourselves being hardworking. We are clean (might even be artifically too clean? but that is debatable). It might be part of the fault of the company not to train their staff well (perhaps, they did not instill in them the pride of good service). And there is also no incentive to do so... most of the time (they get the same pay anyway). But what kept me thinking is what I read in the book I am reading by Nanz Chong - One business 99 lessons:

"There is a manager at a Japanese BBQ restaurant that I particularly like called Aburiya who is superb at customer service. It is his anticipation of the customer's needs that impresses me - he is so observant, even the slightest need does not go unnoticed.

One day, my one-year old started to stand up on the high chair, and Mr Manager was already walking towards us with serviettes in his hand... Another time, we dropped a fork, and when we looked up, there he was with a replacement fork. He must have had some kind of invisible sensor taped around his head!"

I NEVER have experienced this good service for many many years. I certainly didn't even when I at Goodwood Park Hotel eating buffet with my son on his birthday last month. In fact, I walked to replace the fork that dropped - well... at least to the embrassment of the manager... at least he was apologetic about it, so credit goes to him. Everybody was busy. Nobody noticed the need of a customer.

In the case of Swenson? They scored way way below zero. And this is not the only branch that seems to provide such poor customer service.

All these are perhaps side issues. What is in my mind is where do we start to bring good customer service back to Singapore?

I seem to come to this answer - It starts from home.

The attitude of servanthood is not much looked up to. Some people don't realized that good service is really a pride, and I do agree with Nanz ... some time back, Giodano did have such high standard - it was a joy to walk into the shop. Even though I knew I won't get anything, getting into the shop really make my day! I wish I could buy the whole shelf to reward the staff.

Courtesy and service starts from home. Most parents don't particular take note of this aspect and well... "it might be best not to groom our children to serve others... but to be served". What a shame. To them the one sitting on end of the dinning table is the "master", those who bring along the food is the "slave". One is higher, the other ... lower to put it best.

For those who really serious about bringing good customer service - I think it starts from home.

Are you a Senior Java developer?

Yes, if you are looking for a job and a challenging project.... I have a place for you if you are in Singapore!

Before you do... (and I am more eager to hire), you need to understand and get your basics covered.

Check out my expectations here.

If you have what it takes. Drop me a mail at sun_paulho@hotmail.com.

A father's chronicle (Theophilus' birthday)

Here were some shots taken for this birthday... as usual, we celebrated for 4 days...




This year, his favourite toy - Zoids.



It is his last chance to celebrate his birthday in school.... I heard they don't allow such celebrations in Primary school....



He has grown so much!!!! It was a wonderful day for me.

Happy Birthday, boy!

A father's chronicle (Growing slower than my kids)

Every now and then, I get to take pulse of how I am growing against how the kids are growing.

It was just yesterday that we started to leave Gracia in the Babies corner while Yan and myself went to the chapel for service. It was a struggle for me. In fact, I must admit that say "Bye-Bye" to Theophilus everyday is still not that easy.

A father's chronicle (Grade 1)

Yes, finally after spoken to his piano teacher, Theophilus is on his way to prepare for his Grade 1 piano exams next Feb. His sight reading have improved these few weeks due to his self-motivated learning - he gets onto the piano and practice everyday on his own. No doubt, there are frustration to getting the timing right, and the dynamics... but it is easier than doing Maths.

I am so happy and look forward to his exams next year. His first music exams. Cool.

Forget about other kids being younger than him and taking Grade 1 too. I think he is doing fine and enjoying himself.

Now, when will he complete his Grade 4? I think that is the minimal to at least play a reasonable piece of music... never mind... I am just being impatient again.

Oh, his birthday is coming soon. We are cracking our heads on how to celebrate. Yesterday, we finally decided it might be best to scrap the birthday party (our guest do not tend to buy gifts which are either suitable for him or his liking). Instead, we will just have a mini-birthday celebration in his school with his classmates, and then go for a buffet together. The amount of money to spend in a private party might be better spent on getting him gifts which he likes. We will get him a bicycle (his present one broke down finally), and two "mystery" gift of his choice [subjected to our approval, of course].

Anyway, this will be his last year to celebrate his birthday in school with his classmates. When he goes to Primary 1 next year, the school will not allow such celebration.

Ah, taking about Primary 1... getting into the school of our choice is really a hard time in Singapore. Parents work hard - literally - to get their kids to the choice which they want. It is unbelievable. We sell our houses to move to another location. We do voluntary work - and with obnoxious principle giving non-committal statements like - "We, however, cannot guarantee your child a place in our school even though you have volunteered 80 hours of work to us..." It is almost reducing to begging to get your child in a school that you like.

To be honest, I don't really want Theophilus to be in some elite school. It is ridiculous as to how school "groom" them these days. Their products are visible, and at times - audible. Pride (not a quiet self-confidence) grows like weeds in their lives. They brag (was it not written he who puts on his armour should not boast as one who is taking it off?)

What I want him to have is a good education. An environment of good friends - honest, hardworking, and helpful friends. Being the cream of the crop is not one of item on my list. The sad fact is that there are many parents who hold this view too, and are also choosing the school which have fairly good environment (minus the academically good results too).

This coming July, we will have to hold our seats. We have prayed that he enters into the school of our choice... and if he does.... well... only God knows what plans he has for him. He is afterall - Theophilus :)

If I am a Java class

I will probably look like this:

public class Paul extends Sinner implement Male, Husband, Son, 
 Father, Citizen, Christian, Serializable, Runnable {
 Logger logger = Logger.getInstance();
 Vector officeTasks = new Vector();
 static Paul me = null;

 public static synchronized Paul getPaul() {
    if (me == null) {
      me = new Paul();
    }
    return me;
 }

 public void run() {
      payBills();
      beAHusband();
      beAFather();
      doCitizenDuties();
 }

 private void doWork() {
      OfficeTask task = (OfficeTask) officeTasks.firstElement();
      if (task != null && task.challenging()) {
         if (task.getAssigner().equals(BOSS)) {
           task.do(me);
         }
      } else if (task != null && task.impossible()) {
         beSuperman();
      }
 }

 protected void addOfficeTask(OfficeTask task) {
    officeTasks.add(task);
 }

 private void beAFather() {
      playWithKids();
      readToKids();
      watchTVwithKids();
 }

 private void beASon() {
     honorParents();
 }

 private void beAHusband() {
     loveWife();
     talkToWife();
 }

 private void doCitizenDuties() {
     do_In_Camp_Training();
     if (office_calls) {
         logger.log(logger.WARN, "Citizen module in progress,                      official work cannot be done concurrently.");
    } else if (office_demands_work) {
         if (work.canDelegate()) {
                new thread() {
                   public void run() {
                            deleteToTeam(work);
                   }
                }.start();
         } else {
              logger.log(logger.FATAL, "Work suffering from productivity. 
                         Handphones not responding well and \ 
                         emails to be ignored to clear buffer.");
         }
   }
 }

 private void beSuperman()  {
      throw new MethodNotSupported();
 }
}

I need to highlight the importance that I am only Runnable on a single CPU. So, I am not really doing real multi-tasking. I am just time-slicing.

And most importantly: I was not created to implement Cloneable interface. So, I cannot be at two places at any single instance of time. I am ... Serializable though.

A christian father's chronicle (Standing beside Joseph)

Michael Card (Joseph's Song)

Chorus 1

How could it be this baby in my arms

Sleeping now, so peacefully

The Son of God, the angel said

How could it be

Lord I know He's not my own

Not of my flesh, not of my bone

Still Father let this baby be

The son of my love

Chorus 2

Father show me where I fit into this plan of yours

How can a man be father to the Son of God

Lord for all my life I've been a simple carpenter

How can I raise a king, How can I raise a king

He looks so small, His face and hands so fair

And when He cries the sun just seems to disappear

But when He laughs it shines again

How could it be

Chorus 2

Chorus 1

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One of the thing that I miss while I am away from home is to watch my kids sleep. They sleep with a certain peace that brings calmness to me. At times, I do wonder where did they obtain this bravery from? The world is a scary place to live in. ... I am reminded of Jesus' words...

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
(John 14:27)

Not a gift as from the world. An alien peace. A foreign peace. Not known among the common. Hearts not troubled. Fear evaporated. Calmness in the midst of a raging storm.

That's what I see when I sit besides my children while they sleep deep in the night. Just like how my Master slept his way through in the perfect storm.

Back to Joseph's song again... as I stand beside him, I ask the same question too: How can I raise a priest? For my kids are a royal priesthood ...

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
(1 Peter 2:9)

Any christian parent who does not understand the amount of trust and responsibility on who we are really raising... will really need more time to consider the task on hand! I am raising a child belonging to God. Raised for royalty. Bred in a simple home.

There is a line of wisdom in the quote in the movie Gladiator by General Maximus:

Brothers, what we do in life echoes into eternity.

Lord, how can I raise them as you intended them to be? Show me daily, and perhaps one day, my eyes may see this beautiful plan of yours....