Dinner at A&W

After the installation, I quickly send my assistant back to the Office and I was just in time for the family outing to A&W for dinner. Don't ask why we went there.

In the early 70's, A&W was the only fast food place in Malaysia and it was the place to go to if you want burgers and other sugary stuff. But sadly, after the 90's it was never the same again. I can't put my finger to it but it felt so gloomy and depressing when you're in the restaurant. Being own by KUB did not help the downhill slide either. However, the same cannot be said for the PJ State outlet which holds a lot of History. It enjoying a resurgence where young kids who were there before, now brings their own kids there. Its a 24-hours outlet where anyone (and I mean anyone) can go there to have a nice meal, do their homework or even get bored to death by those evil MLM and Insurance salespeople who actually diguise themselves as your friends. (who become fiends after their story-telling presentation ends)

Since I was carrying Kristine, my order was simple. Get whatever my brother likes which can never go wrong. But when I saw my burger, the feeling was like biting into an apple and it tasted like oatmeal. (Yeah, What the fuck?!!)

And for the first time in more than a decade, I had a Rootbeer float, which I greatly detested. Just like my Dad said, the Rootbeer is already full of sugar and now they added a dollop of ice-cream too. Then again, I can never understood why people like to add ice-cream to their Guiness Malta as well. But seriously, after drinking it, someone in the family was a bit high from all that sugar.

No, it wasn't me.

WTF!!! This is an A&W burger? Its so bland compared to MacDonalds and Ramli Burgers.
But then again, A&W is famous for their Rootbeers and Coney Dogs


Kristine is becoming a very hands-on person


She was so engrossed in the food that she did not notice the fly trapped in her hair


Little sister helping her little brother washing hands


Like Father, Like Son.


The Princess and her date


Kristine's new BMW

System Installation III

So, today is the final day for the installation. It was quite exhausting and a bit eventful because:

1) Cabling problems
Out of the 88 telephone points we went through, we experienced three loose socket modules, three loose connections, six wrongly labeled points, two wrongly wired modules and one insufficient point.

2) Incoming Lines
The Time Telecom people came and put through all eleven incoming lines. Unfortunately, no one could tell me if all eleven lines are going into the system or not. Only when we were about to leave, did I find out which is the Fax line, and which is the main line. I have asked the fat person-in-charge (Fat PIC?) twice about the Fax and she said she does not know.

3) Wrongly labeled Floor Plans
Well, the version of the floor plan I got was very different from the one the cabling guy got and its not even the same with the one the IT Network guy got. Yeah, hence the wrongly labelled extension points and we wasted hours going through the whole floor

4) Miscounted telephone points
On the floor plan, there were 93 points. Unfortunately, they only ordered for 88 points. And it did not sink in until I reminded them that the floor below needs an extra 8 points which they did not take into account. All in all, plus the Operator's console, the system needs 102 points. If the customer needs to increase to that capacity, they would have to purchase more interface cards, phones and poor old me would have to do a bit of rewiring since the open-frame can only accomodate up to the existing capacity.

5) Faulty walkie-talkie
While we were going through the floor checking on all the points, the new walkie-talkies we were using picked up a lot of other signals and we could barely hear each other. So, my other colleagues who happened to drop by, decided to "play" with them, giving opposite instructions to whoever is listening. It was quite hilarious when the poor guy went up instead of down and exited the door when he is supposed to go in and so on.

6) Reprogramming of phones
The customer has a few different types of keyphones in use and because of one particular model's design, they cannot be swapped just like that or else some of the buttons would not work. So, by evening, we tried using the walkie-talkie to check on all phones again and reprogram where necessary.

The wires are all neatly tied once I installed the third cabinet taken from their old office yesterday


Overall shot of the system, with its cabling and batteries
Yes, you need batteries which is quite useful when there is no power


My assistant did this, so its a bit "loose" But all the incoming lines and 88 points are there.
This is called an "open-frame" system where wires from the system is on the left and wires to the telephone extensions are to the right. Each side is connected via the blue/whie "jumper cables". The reason is for easy maintenance such as when customer wishes to relocate a few extension, you just jumper to the new point instead of moving the cable.


There are 88 extensions and 10 incoming lines in there


How it looks when I closed it all up

Chased by a Honda Stream

Well, it happened this morning, as I was taking the usual short-cut to my Office. This guy in a Honda Stream was right behind me and for some reason, he was unable to overtake me even on clear roads. So, he has no choice but to tailgate me.

As I was doing my best to speed up, I did notice that I am faster while taking the corners. But on straights, he had me beat.

So, the moral of the story is, I'd better get my car's ECU board and the sensors fixed. Ha ha ha