I Am A Bapak

15.6.07

That holiday called Honeymoon

Date: Sometime in November 1993.

Apa dia?: The newly-weds having breakfast at Merlin Inn, Fraser's Hill.

I took a three-week leave for my wedding way back in November 1993. A tad too long one might say, right? It's not that we went away pi Hawaii ka or Europe for our honeymoon. No, we didn't go anywhere that require us to use our passport. No sir.

It's just that I was entitled to that many days anyway. Afterall, I was getting married! Even after that three weeks off from workI still have lots of leave left. One of the benefits of working in big company like NSTP was punyalah banyak cuti sampai you don't have the time to take it.

In the end you simply accummulate the days which works out fine too especially when you retire or decided to resign. Extra duit, beb!

Anyway, just where exactly did we go during the first few weeks after we became woman and husband? Well, I took a week off before the wedding day (to psyche myself! he he) which effectively left us with only two weeks for our bulan madu.

In that short span of time (that two weeks), we managed to spend a few nights at both our moms' places, then off we went to visit Yan's uncle (Mak Kampar's elder brother) in Kelantan.

The uncle, which we called Ayah, was quite ill during our wedding and could not made it for the kenduri. It was indeed a wise move on our part to visit Ayah at that point of time as it was the only time and opportunity that I could meet up with him. We never crossed paths again and he passed away two years later after a long sickness. Incidentally, that was my first and still the only trip to Kelantan.

Oh Yes! We also found ourselves at Abang Lan's (Yan's brother) place somewhere in Pantai Cahaya Bulan area. Abang Lan and family also could not make it for the wedding.

After Kelantan, we went back to Perak with the intention to go and visit as many sedara-mara as possible. But once we reached Temoh, Mak told us that Shook (my colleague who's occupying a cubicle in front of me and very much married to my cousin Iza) had been trying to get in touch. I returned his call and found out that I was needed at the office like ASAP for the dreaded yearly performance appraisal session.

What to do... so we packed our bags and rushed back to KL. While in KL apart from attending the appraisal session, we managed to visit my eldest brother Chor's place in Shah Alam which turned out to be a real blessing as he presented us with gift certificate of a two night stay at Merlin Inn in Fraser's Hill. Alhamdulillah. Before that we melawat Shook's place in USJ 6 and rumah my uncle Ayah Chik in Gombak.

So we spent three days in Fraser's Hill which turned out to be a wonderful excursion untuk orang baru kahwin like us. In 1993, the cuaca is still sejuk unlime today. Bagus tu! After that we went back to Perak and masa nih Yan dah mula mabuk naik kereta. Aik apa sudah jadi da?

Anyway, the remaining holiday was spent to melawat as many uncles, aunties and cousins as possible. We managed to singgah ke rumah my uncle Ayah Anjang di Penang, rumah Kak Enon (cousin Yan) in Taiping, more cousins like Kak Encik and Kak La in Ipoh. We also visited rumah my eldest sister in-law Yong in Simpang Pulai. Of course, we spent a night at my grandmother's place in Pengkalan. Then gi lunch at Kak's place (masa tu duduk kat Bandar Baru Kampar). We also visited Yan's uncle Pak Uteh in Malim Nawar and his sons' houses (nasib baik dekat-dekat aje). And only then we angkut semua baju-baju Yan and all the hadiahs balik KL.

Sampai KL on Friday, we visited rumah Nyah (Yan's bro) di Cheras on Saturday and rumah Ayah Chu, my youngest uncle, in Shah Alam on Sunday. Before we went over to Shah Alam, we singgah kat Klinik Rosli at SS19 sebab Yan rasa macam demam. Apa daaa...

Interestingly, dah namanya "orang baru" maka we were either treated to a lunch or dinner at almost all our stops. Sedap2 belaka. Kat rumah Ayah Chu, Mak Su siap masak nasi minyak lagi sebab she could not make it for the wedding as well sebab masa tu she was menunggu hari aje to deliver Ammar.

All things said and done, I'm glad we visited as many relatives during that two weeks as it enabled us to get acquainted with each other's sedara mara, which until today feature prominently in our lives. For that we thank you.

Finally it was Monday and I went back to work. And I told my friends that morning that my wife's expecting! Already?

Sapaler gamaknya orang muda ni?

Dear my relatives and friends,

I found this pix while spring cleaning my locker at home. So guys, lunch on me if you could teka correctly who the hell is this person. I'll give you the answer on Saturday the 16th.
(Clue: sedara kita jugak...)

Sincerely,
Bapak

14.6.07

World's Strongest Dad

Dear all fathers,
Read the piece below and be inspired.
Sincerely,
Bapak

By: Rick Reilly of fatherville.com

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.

But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day.

Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.

This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.

"He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old.

"Put him in an institution."

But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room.

When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate."No way," Dick says he was told. "There's nothing going on in his brain.""Tell him a joke," Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed.

Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate.

First words? "Go Bruins!" And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, "Dad, I want to do that."
Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described "porker" who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried.

"Then it was me who was handicapped," Dick says. "I was sore for two weeks."

That day changed Rick's life. "Dad," he typed, "when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!"

And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could.

He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon."No way," Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor.

For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, "Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?"How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon?

Still, Dick tried. Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?

"Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own?" "No way," he says. Dick does it purely for "the awesome feeling" he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992 -- only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.

"No question about it," Rick types. "My dad is the Father of the Century."

And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. "If you hadn't been in such great shape," one doctor told him, "you probably would've died 15 years ago.

"So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life. Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together.

They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.

"The thing I'd most like," Rick types, "is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once."

11.6.07

Ambik Makan

Kami selalu refer majlis bertandang as pegi ambik makan. How crude, right? Anyway, rumah Hasri di sekitar Kampar jugak. Tak jadi hal. Sehari selepas majlis kat rumah perempuan kamipun pergi ambik makan. Gambar tak banyak sangat ... nantilah kalau Nurul atau Fudhail boleh e-mail, we feature more of it.

Me and my Asma

Yeay! dapat makan kat meja pengantin. The last time we makan at a meja pengantin was at our own wedding almost 14 years ago.

Arissa, Nurul, Aisyah, Awin, Asma and Alia.

Majlis Resepsi Ana & Hasri

Majlis reception Ana dan Hasri berlangsung meriah pada tanggal June 2 2007. Majlis berjalan lancar. Semua kaum keluarga sama-sama menyumbang tenaga bagi memastikan semuanya baik-baik belaka. Dan alhamdulillah, semuanya baik-baik belaka. Tetamu lebih 1,000 orang - by our standard ramai tuuu.Penat tetapi berbaloi.