Inkling

I recollect reading a psychology article that humans immaterial of gender go through a breaking point every 7 years. Would that be the reason? Or was it the intoxicant doing the trick? I am not pompous about this but I used to consume alcohol like water….. Maybe that was the reason…. When I look back what I went through…. I was like…. Tch … tch…. Is this why I slogged my ass so hard for…. To finally give up what I achieved, learnt and experienced over the years…. I feel a bit embarrassed now looking back….. It’s as if I was not ready for this world yet…. incapable….. Hope lost….  

Even worse embarrassing that I in point of fact approached work place with the situation…. OMG!!!!  And what did I want to do…. Wash toilets, spend my time doing hard labor…. And wanted to give up a decent standard of living that I have built over the years…..  

Looking back a few years….. I suffered without a job for almost a year…. With hardly having enough money for food…. unable to pay utilities… rent…. Credit cards…..Oomph….I used to live on 3 parathas a day….. 6 nicotine sticks….. Smoking half at one time and saving it for harder times to come …… And I was ready to give up an opportunity that meant so much to me than life itself at that point of time….  

Then there was this alternative and support given to me to take a break for close to three months which was an unusual dispensation and proof that humans still subsist in this world….Instantly took up this opportunity and made a get away to an island…… which was and still is the most beautiful place that I have ever been to…. It was awe-inspiring…. a million dollar view……

 This piece won’t fit into the puzzle. Life is and would always be at secrecy and constantly in search of answers. Recently, a distressed man for almost a year, I don’t know from where I got this sudden boost of energy which I thought I had lost….. But why it happened; when did it start ….. What is it that that provoked it….Results; don’t know, not sure, who cares.  

I always thought I was a very optimistic and highly driven mortal for any given state, even though, was never into sports or any form of exercise, but always found that extra drive and energy when it comes to work. Reasonably speaking I shouldn’t be going through any of the said phases. I have a rewarding job and always got what I sought, and I had a gift of getting things done…. Sometimes I do experience, did get things too easy and too fast…. Well, it was undeniably a great incentive….. To be where I am at present from where I started…… But is that in general an achievement in the first situate……  

There is always this thought that is persistently storming my mind….. Most of the time it was never about family or friends, despondently …… habitually it was forever work, work and work…… What do I do next…? What do I study next….. What approach do I take next…… how do I stand out of the crowd………Am I ready for the next phase… on….. On…… and on…….. It never stops……… Oh how it sucks……. To be constantly on the perimeter trying to figure out ways to outstand, achieve, and distinguish and why it is always has to be work……

After a long long rupture, this article brought back old reminiscences, and the notice bought me back to blog. It was quite a poignant article for me; FoxPro 2.6 for DOS my very first application programming language and a relatively admired one during my enlightening years during mid 90’s and was my much esteemed programming language.

I started my programming profession with this application. Though dbase was already a popular language during late 80’s and early 90’s, FoxPro took over programming bazaar fair & square. FoxPro DBMS became the most wanted application software for SME’s while oracle RDBMS were more for larger firms. The release of Visual Basic and PowerBuilder programming language brought a paradigm shift of using these languages as front end and third party applications as the back end, positioning FoxPro losing in attractiveness. Microsoft released Visual FoxPro 3.0 for windows and kept the FoxPro cycle going. But all has an ending.

Couple of years back Microsoft released FoxPro 9.0. Accordingly to the latest news release, Microsoft will not release anymore versions of FoxPro, but will be supported till 2015. Looking at where we are today its amazing how technology has evolved and has come a long way changing lives of many. But for a fact, 30 to 40% of Singapore clinics still use software developed in Visual FoxPro 5.0 even today. Some multibillion dollar oil companies like ONGC, IPCL of India and City oil, Ecuador, were some of the company who used Material procurement, vendor evaluation and inventory control systems built in Visual FoxPro.

It’s extraordinary and an awe-inspiring ground where innovative things are accomplished on a day to day basis. It has evolved so much that “it was getting harder and harder to keep some of our younger engineers excited about developing in FoxPro,” according to one of the source in the article published by eWeek. The shift cycle is and will be continual and would be forever bringing in more and more undreamed of technologies and everlastingly change the ways of businesses and lives of many.

Date: 27^th October 2006

Me and my friend decide to travel somewhere for the weekend. Made a decision around 4 pm on Friday and short-listed either Bangkok or Hat Yai – Thailand.  My friend picked me up around 5:50pm and we headed to the budget terminal, Singapore. In the cab, we decide to play Scissor-Paper-Stone game to choose the place, if I were to win we would go to Hat Yai and if my friend were to win, Bangkok. Fortunately I won. We reached the airport around 6:20pm and headed to Tiger airways ticketing counter. We short listed Hat Yai for the reason that it was bombed a week ago and the tickets were very cheap. Though, if we would have planned the trip atleast two days in advance it would have been even 50% cheaper. The tickets cost us roughly 250 per person including tax. The flight was scheduled for 8:50. We had 2 hours to kill at the airport. 

Since I left from office to the airport and had no time to get back home to pick up some clothes, decided will buy a shirt and under garments at the airport. Once we checked in, we straight headed for the duty free shop. Again a debate on whether to buy seven stars or camel, and once again we had to play Scissor-Paper-Stone game to decide which one to go for, if I were to win, would go for camel non-filter and If he were to seven stars. And once again I won and we bought a carton of camel cigarettes which cost us around 19 S$. Once we loaded ourselves with enough nicotine sticks required for the two day trip. Straight headed to the Hang Ten shop in the terminal and bought a shirt for 18s$ and an underwear for 8s$. With garments taken care headed to the book store and bought a Haruki Murakami book Blind willow sleeping women recommended by my friend.  

Bought some beer from 711 and headed to the smoking section and started on the book. The book a fiction had around 24 short stories. Read around 3 stories and two were good. We were the last to board the flight after having gulped a couple of beers. The flight duration was 1.10 min. We were lucky to get the 13^th row. It’s an emergency exit row seat and this is the only row with some leg space available. Stretched ourselves and back to reading. Ordered spicy Korean noodle and couple of beer costs us around 10s$. It was a quick flight and managed to finish two more stories. The Fourth one was quite boring I felt. 

Landed around 10pm SGT. Picked up a form at the immigration office for visa on arrival paid 1000 Baht and headed to the immigration counter. My friend was already in the queue. When I joined him, he was conversing with a guy in front of him. Started enquiring about where we could stay somewhere cheap after finding out that he was a frequent traveler to the region. John, a Singaporean was a friendly guy was traveling with his friend Alex. He suggested that we stay in the same hotel that he did and was quite cheap and that he was a VIP card holder. We were so glad that we meet him. He gave us directions to reach the hotel. After we finished with the immigration we headed outside for a smoke and while we did, spoke to a cab driver who was willing to take us to the hotel for 250 Baht, roughly around s$10. Hotel old Sakura was the hotel we were headed to. We and the person who suggested the hotel reached almost at the same time. We met him at the reception, he introduced us as his friends and the room tariff was 550 Baht, s$22 a night. Cool!!  

John invited us to join him at a karaoke bar in the same hotel for drinks. We accepted the offer and agreed to meet him in 15 minutes at the bar. We quickly went to our respective rooms, had a quick shower and straight headed for the karaoke bar. We meet John and Alex; they were accompanied by some local friends of them. We were introduced to them and we had the honor of meeting one of highest police officials in Hat Yai. John and he were business buddies. John gave us the eye that with him around its pretty safe. 

 When we joined them, they had already started drinking. They got our drinks, it was XO. Though not a great fan of XO, continued drinking, and by 12 SGT we finished the bottle. Me and my friend being the highest consumer of the bottle, we decided to buy a bottle and offer them as well. We bought a JW-Black label- Price tag- s$40. Whiskey being my favorite drink, couldn’t stop helping myself  with a few more glasses. We hit the bed around 3am SGT.