The death of a good man.

It was sad today to hear that my brother in law has passed away.

Dan Thibodeau, may you rest in peace.

Sayonara.

Starhub: Is it time to buy?

I've been watching Starhub for sometime now.

The latest result was lukewarm but dividend yield is not bad for a matured stock at 5.5%.

http://www.starhub.com/about-us/newsroom/2017/february/starhub-reports-2016-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-results.html

The company is forecasting dividend of S$0.16 for FY17.

Gearing is at 27% and price is trading at the low end of 5-year range.

Australia's TPG is coming in as the 4th telco in Singapore and may apply some price pressure on the earnings but it won't be easy to get a large number of subscribers to switch.

http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/australian-telco-tpg-singapores-4th-telco

If TPG fails to take off immediately, Starhub's price may rebound to S$3.40 level.

With a potential trading profit of 15-17% plus 5.5% dividend, I think this is a good punt.

At this entry point, I doubt the downside is more than 5%.

Life is not about looking for more

One of the things that people always say to me when they found out that I'm retired is "... but you are still so young!"

I have always been ambivalent about how "ambitious" one should be, not withstanding one's talents and limitations. So choosing when to retire is really up to individuals. Some people wouldn't think of retiring even if they can afford to.

And there's no right or wrong I suppose.

I freely admit that I had not found my career to be particularly "happy" or "fulfilling". I'm not that kind of guy that found his passion in life and do that one thing for his entire life.

My life had been about putting one foot forward after another, marching. Sometimes uphill, sometimes downhill, sometimes rough, and sometimes smooth. Luckily I was born with a decent brain and had good work ethics (although I wasn't easy to get along with), so I did well earning a living.

When it came the time to retire, I looked at my finances carefully and knew that I could do it. It was also precipitated by my fight with my Japanese HQ at the time.

With not much hesitation, I threw in my towel. In fact, one of my customers immediately asked me to go work for him. But I wasn't going to battle the KJE highway another morning to get to Tuas.

After working for donkey years, the first thought was to figure out what kind of life I want to have, within the kind of financial resources that I have.

There were two overriding conditions:

1) No deadlines, no obligations, no commitments.
2) Slow down drastically the pace of my life.

The one thing that's apparent immediately when you slow down the pace of your life is you start to notice little details in your life and you get to pause for a minute and think about it. For example, how perfectly beautiful those half-boiled eggs that are sitting in front of you waiting for your to take the first sip.

A few years ago, I bought a little house in the old part of Seremban. I went to the area today and found this little coffeeshop.

They have pork brisket noodles Hainanese style. This kind of noodles are not commonly found.

It tasted really good.

Check out the peanuts they added to the noodles. It's a nice touch because of the crunchiness mixed with the texture of the briskets.

You can tell this coffeeshop is very old school judging but the containers that they use to hold chopsticks and spoons.

There's even a little section to hold tooth picks.

This is one of the reasons why I chose Seremban to live after I retire.

You can't find this kind of coffeeshop in KL/PJ anymore. And there weren't a crowd and you can really take you own sweet time to enjoy your breakfast.

See how beautiful these eggs are?

So my wife and I sat there with our breakfast, chit chatted and ate. It was such a wonderful morning and it lifted our spirit.

The teh peng I ordered was perfect. Light and fluffy with the right amount of sweetness.

They serve Chinese version of Nasi Lemak as well. I tapao some home for lunch and it was really good.

We are going to be regulars at this coffeeshop. I like the good food and the unhurried atmosphere.

琼南园茶餐店 Kheng Nam Yuen Coffee Shop
Jalan Seroja 21, Taman Seremban, 70450 Seremban, Negeri Sembilan

Diving on a Live-aboard

Diving on a Live-aboard (LOB) is when you go diving on a boat.

You do everything on the boat. Eat, sleep and dive.. all of that on the boat. A trip like that can be as short as 3 days up to 2-3 weeks.

The advantage of diving on an LOB is that you can access some of the most remote dive sites without having to touch the land. So a boat can travel long distance and bring you to these locations equipped with all the necessary facilities.

The most popular LOBs in ASEAN are mostly operating in Indonesia because Indonesia has some of the best dive sites in the world and people are willing to pay top dollars to go there. These trip can cost from US$300 to US$700 per night. Yes per night! That means a 10 day trip will set you back at least US$3-4k just for the boat and doesn't include airfare, accommodation in transit, marine park fees, etc.

I just came back from a trip to Similan Islands (Thailand) and we went all the way almost near the Burmese border.

The trip was so-so. Thailand has damaged most of its coral reefs with no idea or political will to conserve their marine resources. I will never go back there again.

 Luckily I managed to get an encounter with 4 giant Barracudas during one of the dives there. So the trip is not all lost.

The thing about this type of diving trips is that you are "trapped" on the boat day and night with 16-18 other people.

You maybe with going with your own group of friends. But if your group is not large enough to charter the whole boat, you will end up mixing with strangers.

In this type of dive trips, you find the most diverse people. I am not going to describe the diving part because that's not the subject this time.

The people of the boat this trip....

(1) Rich Chinese guy with Thai mistress. Even before we got to the boat, the couple was already proving themselves to be an ugly cliche.

Here's part of the conversation between him and her on the van going towards the boat.

Guy: "Did you know that I have a pair of solid gold glasses? Ya, it cost RM12,000!!!"

Mistress: Speechless. Probably thinking the guys is such a stupid ass.

Guy: "I also bought 2 apartments in Bangkok, about 5 million Thai Baht each. I'll give one to you.

Mistress: "Ooooo", started hugging him and rubbing his thigh. She was almost on the verge of giving him a blow job in the van if there weren't 10 other strangers around.

Then...
Mistress: "Such an expensive apartment; I can't afford to pay for the maintenance fee..."
[You greedy bitch, he just gave you an apartment and you are asking him for more money???]

At this point I wanna reach across and slap the guy for such an asshole and kick the mistress in the teeth for such a slime.

(2) Fat and ugly guy. Probably a pilot. Because he insisted on people called him Captain. Hey asshole, you are on a dive trip. Who gives a fuck what you do for a living?

FUG prove to be a total narcissist. Non stop talking about the most simple trivia trying to impress people of his encyclopedic knowledge about the most idiotic things.

For example, he declared proudly: "Did you know that Chinese eat everything with a backbone facing the sun?" It was as if people had never heard of that tired claim about Chinese. Hey asshole, can you please don't disgrace the 2 billion Chinese people in this world? You don't speak for all of us.

The Japanese guy sitting at the same table was probably thinking to himself that the fucking Japs were justified in killing all those Chinese in WWII because Chinese are stupid.

FUG is a friends of the rich Chinese guy and they both compete in bragging about anything they can think of.

(3) Rude Indian Chibai (RIC). I was having a nice breakfast conversation with the Dive Instructor (Thai) because she went to University in US just like I did.

All of the sudden, the Chibai butt in to share his opinion about Donald Trump. Hey asshole, you can't see that we are having a private conversation? Do I even fucking know you?

Just because we are on the same boat doesn't mean that we are all of a sudden, good friends, ok? Now fuck off to another table.

Not surprisingly RIC end up every evening at the same dining table with the Fat fuck and the Chinese asshole.

So now you have 3, yes THREE, assholes at the same table trying to "share" experiences but the real purpose is to brag about how rich or smart they were.

(4) Young Chinese Asshole. YCA thinks he is as handsome and cool as Andy Lau. He sings along with every single love songs (Thai and Mandarin). Watching him trying to hit the high note makes me want to kick him in the face.

And he bragged about how he scored drugs and almost overdosed. Well, one less asshole in this world is not a bad thing. So please go ahead and kill yourself.

(5) Chinese alcoholic - drinks from morning to night. The group leader FORCED everyone to chip in the buy 7 cases of beer. This fellow probably drank most of it.

(6) Chinese gangster wannabe
The assshole connected his mobile phone to the boat's stereo system through wifi and start playing his music all day long.

Hey asshole, not everyone likes to listen to your trance/ganagsta/techno music at 7 fucking am!!

You like your playlist so much, put on a pair of fucking earphones!!

(7) Thai lady, obviously from rich family, was sent to US boarding school from the age of 13. Lived in US for many years, came back to Bangkok. Probably forced by father to join the family business. Ran away to become dive instructor/guide.

(8) Malay dive instructor but I think he is mamak because he looked just like an Indian. Drinks alcohol and eats pork. Evidently he is not a Muslim when he is out of the country. I bet he goes back to Malaysia and pretend he is a good Muslim on Friday. What a fucking douche bag.

(9) Japanese dive instructor/guide. Speaks fluent Thai. Kinda makes you wonder what made her end up in Thailand. She will never be accepted back in Japan because she would be too "different" and she probably won't want to either.

The rest of the people were either my friends or people that I know so I'm not going to talk about them in my blog.

Happy CNY

Having been posting for a while... was kind of lazy during the CNY period.

My sister in law cooked for reunion dinner and it was good.

It was pretty uneventful. I'm not a big fan of festivals. To me it's just another day.

Retirement Village: Green Acres in Ipoh

Last week I took a trip to Ipoh to check out a retirement village that I've been meaning to look at.

I contacted the office and they gave me the directions to the place. It's not too hard to find, actually on the main road.

The exact GPS coordinate is 4.679432, 101.080175

Phase one is still under construction and should be ready by July this year.

Comes with fully equipped kitchen.

The bathroom is pretty nice with a bench for sitting and grab bar.

You get a nice backyard as well.

The bedroom has got a lot of closet space.

I didn't take pictures of the living room. They come with 2 units of aircon for the one-bedroom unit.

In the hallway, a big closet hides your washing machine and laundry section. It's a nice touch because you can hide it when you're not using it.

They plan to have total of 4 phases. But not a lot of units. I guess they are not sure how well received this concept is going to be.

The deal is that you lease the unit and not buy it. Therefore you don't own it.

And IT'S ALL CASH. No bank loans. So if you're a poor bastard, you need not ask. And Ketuanan Melayu can fuck off because there's no Bumi discount.

They are quite clever. Because they own the properties and lease them out (not selling), they are not subjected to your NEP bullshit and Melayu quota.

So the WHOLE place can be 100% non-Bumi. How sweet is that??

The entry price is RM300,000 for a one bedroom unit. (700+ sf).

You can live there until you die and then they will return the RM300,000 minus some "deductions" to your estate.

Of course, they have the club house, F&B, blah blah blah... similar to condo facilities but geared towards the needs of senior citizens.

The unit also has emergency buttons so that if you fall down and break you hip, they will come and rescue you.

After visiting this place, we drove towards Ipoh town, and along the way within 8 minutes drive there's a Tesco. To Ipoh town is 20 mins drive.

Nearby the development there are lots of shops and restaurants, so not to worry.

Anyway, it's a nice set-up but but not really for me because Ipoh is so fucking boring...

Before we went back to KL, I needed to give the finger to somebody...

Fuck YOU!!

My new camera: Olympus E-PL7

Just a couple of days ago, I found out that my underwater housing for Olympus XZ-1 has gone kaput.

There was a rubber part to adjust the focus ring that had gone brittle and broken off and there's no way to repair it. Had to chuck the whole thing out. But it's ok, I've had it for more than 5 years. In the context of UW photography, that's a long time.

I've decided to stick with Olympus but didn't want to go the OMD range because the UW housing for these cameras are quite expensive.

The closest "smaller" camera that matches the features of OMD under the PEN series is E-PL7. There's a newer E-PL8 but not much better so E-PL7 has better value for money.

It's a beauty, isn't it? I decided on the silver one because it has a classic feel to it.

When it was launched in 2014, the price was about RM2,400, I bought it now at RM1,780 at Lazada. Since Olympus has it's 80th Anniversary promo, I got additional one year warranty plus one extra battery worth RM259.

[Never chase the latest technology and pay premium prices. This camera was launched 2+ years ago and still has the technology that's pretty much above my photography skills.]

That's one hell of a value for this little pocket power house.

The reviews are here and here.

I also needed to get the UW housing and paid RM2,210 for it. Here. [Nowadays if you know what you want, you can pretty much buy anything online.

This housing can fit in the 12-42mm pancake lens, as well as the 12mm, 17mm, 25mm, and 45mm.

You can fit in bigger lenses such as the obligatory Olympus 60mm macro lens or the Panasonic 8mm fish eye by changing the exiting macro port to the Zen series of macro/dome ports . But I have decided to go with the kit lens but use a wet lens on the outside.

Anyway, to continue.

The housing does not come with zoom gear the 14-42mm lens. So you have to get one from 3rd party.

Buy it here.

For the diopter, I planned to buy either the Aquako or Subsee

The Aquako III gives you 2.2x magnification.

The Subsee +10 diopter will give you up to 3.5x magnification DEPENDING on the focal length of your lens. At 42mm, the magnification is only 1.3x.

There's one more that I can get but I'm not going to because it is bloody expensive.

The Nautical Super Macro Converter!!

To fit into the 67mm groove of the housing I've gotten the double flip adapter. Some local dive shop (I won't mention the name) wants to charge me like RM2,000 for some shit Malaysian made flip adapter. I'd rather buy from Europe at half the price.

You can buy it here. This online store has got a lot of selections and prices are reasonable. When you buy from here, you don't have to pay for their VAT which can be quite a big sum. Postage is about Euro 40-50 depending on the size of your package.

I need to change my housing tray and handles so I've decided to go with Nauticam because it's lighter than Ultralight and seemed to be very well made. The new housing comes with two tripod holes so I need to change the tray anyway. My old housing has got only one tripod hole.

I will use back my existing arms and float arms.

Although I may add one or two more float arms by Aquako. They are kind of cool and you and put some funky toys inside the float arms. Something to talk about on the dive boat.

Eventually, i will looks something like this but not exactly.

Anyway, I've got a trip coming up next month. Quite excited to try out my new gear.