Life is but a dream ……

I was at my usual lepak place in Sunway in the morning, and having a mugful of my favourite teh tarik, only to be distracted by a coffee brand advert named ‘Abang Boleh’.

It has a tagline which really, really caught my attention.

It says: Kopi Abang Boleh, tak minum isteri marah.

I’m quite perplexed, why on earth a man gets scolded by his orang rumah because not drinking coffee. I know, if I go to Starbucks too often, I’ll be reprimanded by her.

Anyway, among others this Abang Boleh coffee could increase the Luteinizing hormone and read this, ‘dipercayai untuk menguatkan otot-otot …’

Mann, I’ll switch my drink anytime.

Took the morning flight to JB for some discussions with the owners of an FPSO project, after the Jumaat prayer God willing. FPSO is a very large oil tanker converted into an oil (or gas, or both) processing platform. One FPSO will easily cost about RM900 million. Hope to get just a fraction of that.

Ahh, JB. What a memorable city. Things happened here. Things perished here.

Honestly, I’m not at all into Anuar Zain, his music that is. Not for the last 25 years at least. Well, I was into his and Elina (she was staying sepelaung from my wife’s house in KK) ‘Suasana Di Hari Raya’ though.

You know, the song ‘Berlalulah sudah ramadan sebulan berpuasa’.

Somehow really, I can’t ignore this one particular song. Not only it was aired in almost all the radio channels, even my Ahwaz is singing the song, albeit his near-to-broken voice.

Kerana cintaku, tak berbatas waktu

Kerana cintaku, tak mengenal jenuh hatimu

Or was it ‘karena’ ….

Watch out for these youngsters.

Love is a many-splendored thing

Its the April rose that only grows in the early spring

Love is natures way of giving a reason to be living

The golden crown that makes a man a king

Lost on a high and windy hill In the morning mist two lovers kissed and the world stood still

When our fingers touch my silent heart has taught us how to sing

Yes, true loves a many-splendored thing

All together now. Sing.

Ooooo, ahhhh precious moments

when will I see you again

when will we share precious moments

will I have to wait forever …

On the way back from Sugar Land to Greenspoint, Texas.

My conclusion is that, there’s no such thing as two parallel universes. All things that happened are a continuum of strings of events. Anything and everything should be classified as past, present or future. Well, except the Almighty,  the Supreme Being.

During this one week travel, what I realised is that every time I heard the American girls and ladies talking to me or to each other, they all speaking like how Awateef speaks … the Nickelodeon accent.

I have one non-business day (a Sunday) in Los Angeles. What should I do? There’s too much to see in LA. In the end, I went to the Universal Studios in Hollywood.

To my surprise, I met a lot of Melayus at the Universal Studios. Really. At least a dozen of them. There’s this two gorgeous Malay ladies, quite fashionable, all dressed up in their Pradas and Guccis, but agak ‘koman’ as they speak Malay with a thick ‘Utara’ accent and did something quiet hazardous (to their health, at least). They smoke.

The Universal Studios in Hollywood, really changed my view on how a theme park should be. A movie buff myself, I celebrate all the attractions such as the tram tour, the Red Sea parting, the flood special effect, Jurassic Park 84-foot water drop, 30-foot King Kong, Jaws attack, 3-D Terminator and 4-D Shrek etc, Simpsons, Spongebob etc.

And I’m leaving on the jet plane again …

On reaching Taipei for transit, at 38,000 ft my thanks to stewardess Wani for showing the place to pray on board the 747-400P where I did the Subuh prayer. Nope Wani dear (though you are really cute), I cannot pray Subuh for you. Yeap, you could do the qada’ later.

The first word uttered from space was ‘Houston’. Meant for the Mission Control Center at the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) Houston.

Remember last time during our iceman Dr Sheikh’s mission to outer space? Beside the mission control room in Baikonor (baik kau Norizam …), there are 3 more similar control rooms in Houston. Here, you could see all space actions LIVE.

According to our JSC guide, the most important (and the most powerful as nobody can override him, including the US President) person during any mission is the Flight Director. In the word of an ex-Flight Director Gene Kranz (or was it Ron Howard) the Flight Director of Apollo 13, ‘failure is not an option’.

The American is proud of their space technology advancements. Initially, the US was taken aback by the Russian when they launched their many firsts (Sputnik, dog, Gagarin, woman …). The American put their act together and exert really hard to establish their space missions and able to put the first man on the moon, even with some failures (Apollo 1, Challenger, Columbia …) and lives lost (each live lost commemorated by an oak tree) but they never look back. Since then, the US has made a quantum leap to be the world super power.

Despite all these jaw dropping space things, at NASA what really amazed me was the sight of a young lady who works there.

Dreams, the American way. All the high aspirations by each citizen to have the opportunity and the freedom to work hard and to achieve their goals in life, regardless of class, gender, race or ethnicity. Can’t blame them, America is a great nation.

The few days I’m here, I do realised my dreams (hence, the motto: life is but a dream). Firstly my business dealings went quite well. More than expected. Secondly, syukur to Almighty, all the careful planning are working … as per planned.

The last few days, me too is absorbed with what is currently the whole nation engrossed with. Firstly the weather. Syukur, Houston is spared by the recent snow storm that swept the nation. Or else, I might be sketching poetry on ‘di kedinginan begini …’

Houston in winter is likened Scotland in summer. Dingin dan nyaman dan sunny.

Secondly, the Super Bowl XLII (read 42^nd). Being a UK grad, I hate anything American. When previously my US grad house-mate talked about NBA, NFL, Eastern Conference bla, bla … I don’t really give a damn. But here, now, the Super Bowl is HUGE mannn. I think it is next to Thanksgiving, well except the turkeys are spared. Luckily, during the flight to LA few days ago, I watched The Game Plan movie and have some idea, which is all about American Football, with The Rock as the famous Boston quarterback.

Then, the Super Tuesday. The Democrats, the Republican, Barack Hussein Obama, Hillary ‘I stand by my man’ Clinton. The US Presidential candidates, to my opinion are very outstanding (especially Obama). Only if our present leadership have half of his wit.

So bye-bye, miss American pie.

Drove my Chevy to the levee,

But the levee was dry.

Taking about Chevy, I was at Houston Downtown to visit the Auto Show at the huge Reliant Centre. There were a lot of exciting cars. One of them was the 2009 Chevrolet Camaro. You know, the one that transforms to Bumble Bee in the movie Transformers.