Old and New PCs...

Recently I wanted to give my "new" desktop a memory upgrade, but was shocked to learn that the prices of RAM has gone up by 2-3 times! I decided to visit Sim Lim Square, the place many IT enthusiasts go to for their PC needs. Again, I was shocked by how much it has changed after ten years of not being there. Almost 80-90% of the shops there are now run by Indian nationals; I could only find 2-3 that are managed by Singaporean Chinese and even these carry limited range and supply of electronic goods.

The funny, or should I said weird, thing is the top level is mainly occupied by Karaoke bars and dance studios which are run by—you guessed it—Indians. Arrrgh...!!! What on earth has happened to the familiar haunt that I once frequented? And to rub salt into the wound, RAM prices there are just as high, if not more. In the end I decided to just stick with the current 8GB I had with my 5-year-old PC.

And as if it isn't bad enough, my wife's ASUS all-in-one (AIO) desktop died a few days ago. After opening up and checking for possible fixes, I suspected that the motherboard had died (probably from an electrical surge during a recent thunderstorm). Having explored available options, I decided to get her a new AIO replacement, plus getting a USB adapter for her M.2 SSD to extract and transfer her files to the new host, which is slated to arrive in 1-2 days. All in all, it set me back by a few hundred bucks.

Ps: Today, I just put my old PC of 18 years to rest. It has been sitting in my mum's house for the past 5 years, collecting dust. For some reasons, I hesitated to dispose it as it carried memories of my transition from the working days to authoring desk (it was assembled by me in 2008, part by part, literally). But as they say, "When it's time to go, it's time to go..."

 

Long Time No See!

I left my company in January of 2016, that's over a decade ago. Things change alot during this period of my absence, as I soon learned from an ex-colleague—no, my apprentice to be precise. We had wanted to meet and catch up since I completed my memoir, Without a Schematic, which contains a small anecdote of him in the chapter "The Quiet Years." But due to work commitments he could not afford the time—until today. 

I received his message in the morning. He was meeting a customer near my area and thought it would be good to drop by for lunch. I readily agreed and brought along a copy of the book for him. In return, he treated me to a Japanese meal of Wagyu beef and pork katsu, a generous gesture. He still calls me "Shifu" (master teacher), a respectable term that stuck with him since the first day we met. Today, he holds a position that is higher than what I was when I left, and I couldn't be more proud of him.

Besides updating me on the people I knew in my previous department, he also let me in on the new contract—Singapore will be acquiring the fourth generation long-range radar to replace the current one. Talks are in progress and it won't be long before the deal is sealed. Though his future seems bright, he didn't sound excited at all when he related the details to me, and I understood why. I sensed the frustrations he faces at work over the increased buracratic craps that has already festered even when I made my exit.

He's into his late forties and I suspect that once a person hit the second half of his life, success is no longer something he pursues. Significance takes over. This was what happened to me when I crossed the halfway line over a decade ago. But like I say in my memoir:

The path you choose matters less than how you walk it.

This and many other lessons I learned in life are all in the book as I recounted my journey from a boy of nine with a self-made throwing star (shuriken) to an independent publishing author with a steady pen. If you want to make out what life has to offer, it's rewards, surprises, and challenges, get a copy of my memoir.