The AMK days...

During my time at the Instituition, I learned that I was the only privileged one to be from a neighborhood primary school out of the Singaporean bunch. I recount loads of fun I had when I attended a dyfunct primary school in AMK.

Growing up in AMK, I remember two types of violent activities. First one, I call academic violence (AV); that’s basically gang fights within school compounds. The second I call, extra curricular violence (ECV); that’s feuds with other delinquent juveniles on the streets.

AV is more controlled as your opponents are usually about your age and the skill-level of the fighter is proportional to the alphabet of his class grade. For example, a student from 5-A is probably not as good as fighter from 5-C and of course the normal stream students are trained mercenaries and thus you always know what you are getting yourself into before the fight. ECV can be more dangerous as participants can be of any age group, skill and psychotic levels, bar none.
Since I was trained in Tae Kwan Doe in primary school, I belonged to the distinctive category within the A-group, almost an underdog. However, I had an upcoming AV event with SB from the coveted B-group.

I prepared two referees, both my good friends for the event. The showdown was finalized at a void deck one afternoon. Being an astute fighter and I applied Sun Tze, “if we are able thus to attack an inferior force with a superior one, our opponents will be in dire straits”. Thus, I had a superior force to be unleashed upon my hand signals; my two referees were to turn into my fighting sidekicks; 1 becomes 3 and 3 becomes 1.

Racial harmony was well demonstrated that afternoon; we had representatives from the malay, Indian and Chinese communities among the 4 of us. Things turned out differently from anticipated, SB started whooping my rear-end in the duel. My fearless, faithful minions joined in the clash on my signal. To my horror, the situation did not alleviate. SB had no difficulty taking on three of us. He was not from the B-group for no apparent reasons.

What happened next was just a complete change of fate; a phenomenon where an AV transition to an ECV. A bunch of neighborhood AMK pai kias (thugs) caught the exhibition of martial skills prowess of SB from afar and decided to partake in the challenge. As Sun Tze told me, my side-kicks and I made a wise decision to “split and regroup if enemy is stronger”. SB, lacking knowledge of Sun Tze, though compensated by brawn, recieved a hefty serving of good spanking. Another uneventful day went by in the AMK new town.

I am sailing...

One of the reasons why I stay at my present apartment complex is because they have a beautiful artificial lake that lead into canals that go by the apartments. Apparently, the architect was trying to capture the ambience of Venice..yea right!! The lake has many interesting inhabitants like cranes, ibis, ducks and huge catfish! Besides drinking my Heneiken and observing how the ibis adeptly catches catfish out of water, I love going sailing.

That's a picture of my sailboat, an Oracle BMW replica constructed by Kyosho. It comes fully with sailors in orange suit though I realised the other day that one went missing. He was missing from his post manning the wheel and probably went overboard and the catfish must have gotten him. The boat still functions without him, so I am sure his crewmates are over the loss.

The specs as follows:

SPECS: Length: 24.1" (612mm)
Beam (Width): 5.1" (130mm)
Height: 44.5" (1130mm)
Approximate Weight: 2.65lb (1200g)
Sail Area: 338.8 sq in (21.85 sq dm)














This is the picture of the real boat during the cup race.






















This is probably the most important diagram in any sailing lessons. It gives guideliness on position of sails for efficient sailing according to wind directions. It is amazing to see the boat actually sail against the wind, utilizing the tear-drop shape of the sails and the hull, to propel itself in water, demonstrating Bernoulli's principle. There is a deadzone that is about 45 degrees on either side of the plane which the wind is blowing that sails do not work.

The principles are the same for the big boys though I will have no clues how to sail one of these guys..




That's my sailing lesson for now.

-Agent Black

I lost some IQ this weekend

I was just talking to Mat Love. My pathetic counter reads 20 and I hypothesized Visco boy and Mat visiting my site 5 times each in the last week out of pity and the rest of the 10 was probably from me updating it.

I am so glad to have spent my weekend in Orange County and not Puerto Rico. However, my clandestine operations in the OC will be coming to an end and I will be joining my fellow agents in the caribbean soon.

The agency has taught me to communicate my thoughts in a succinct manner; something quite difficult for me as I tend to beat the bush around quite a bit. I was taught to always communicate my thoughts in 3 points. Let me try...

I did the following this weekend:

• Studied for GMAT
• Went to Huntington Beach
• Played soccer at USC

Note how each point starts with a verb or an actionable item. But let's screw all that and allow me to just say what I really wanna say.

That's my lap top bag that I recently purchased. I spent an hour during the weekend sewing the Ducati patch on my bag, changing it's identity from Gap to Ducati. Welcome Decepticon..In the process, I broke 2 needles and donated some blood to my rug.

So I headed down to Huntington beach as usual with Scorpian King (Scorp-K). Some background about S-K.

• 

Right, picture of S-K (he is taken ladies..sorry, tough life,deal with it).

Known him since JC times

• Met him in Orange County
• Hang out with him during the weekends

S-K is quite new to the continent but he has experienced so much over the past year that its not funny. I told him to start a blog too so he can detail all his eventful past. You should listen to him say "wah-ter", macham ang moh sial.

Huntington beach is a surfers' mecca and probably the top surfing location in North America. White fine sand, coasts that extends for miles, strong waves; it sure attracts a lot of people. Coincidentally I live 10 mins from the beach. Parking costs a bomb, for a good reason. I have exhausted all my quarters now.

Aerial view of HB (courtesy of U.S. Gov.) You can probably see my place there.

The people in HB are also very different from the people you see at Newport. Newport tends to attract good-looking, young, yuppie people doing fashion parade on the walks. HB is more for people who want to have fun in the water...and that's me.

I brought my $10 Boogie board I bought from Target for body boarding. The board almost broke into two this trip as the waves were potent. I probably might invest in a better board depending on how good I am getting on with this. It was just amazing as the waves were only about 4-ft but its enough to tear you apart. They just keep coming at you and its very difficult to swim seaward so you can ride the waves back.

There were times when I was wiped out totally and got pushed hard into the ground and twirled around on the sea bed like a ragdoll. I was gasping for air and water went up my nose, mouth, ears, eyes, and... Once, the board caught the waves and smacked my head so hard that I was disillusioned for a minute. It is also pertinent to note which life guard post you leave your stuff as the waves also push you diagonally. Not uncommon to end up 200 feet laterally away in just a span of 15 mins in the water. My body felt like I was beaten up by some thugs that night.

The rest of the weekend I took some practice GMAT exams; exciting aint it? I played some soccer with Mams (short form for Mama) at USC. There are a bunch of Singaporeans I play with on the weekends. Today a moron "rambard" (blasted) the ball straight into my face from 6 feet away that I swear my brain must have rotated a little inside my skull. My head was spinning for a minute and I heard voices in my head. I still feel it now. Between the board smacking into my head at HB and the ball smashing into my head at USC, there is no secret why I am not doing well on my GMAT practice exams.

I am so looking forward to work tomorrow...

-Agent black-

Extreme machines II

Above is the Komatsu end-dump. It's typical haul capacity is about 290 tons and in case you are wondering, those guys are not from Gulliver's travel. The tire itself is about 3.2M high. Check out those 80in rims. Imagine running a flat, you need a huge-ass jack and a platoon of men to change it. In actual fact, these tires cost 10s of thousands of dollars and you just regroove them when they wear out.

Once you are up in the throne, you are probably 20 feet above ground. Line-of-sight forbids vision of a good 100 feet ahead of you. It is not uncommon to hear about end dumps running over pick-up trucks.

Why did the end dump cross the road...to take a dump. Don't tell me you didn't see that coming.

These two pictures are of a machine that is really one of a kind. It is called a cross-pit-spreader and it removes overburden to expose minerals. It does it at a remarkable rate; 20 million cubic yards of overburden per year. There are two major functions of this mobile machine. The bucket wheel strips the soil and the 250m long conveyor boom deposits it elsewhere. The machine is constructed in Austria.

During one of my covert missions to Puerto Rico, my fear was challenged while flying on a 6-seater twin propeller plane. It was like a roller coaster ride due to the impending storms in the Caribbean. Of course, as an adept agent I acted cool.

I flew past Arecibo. I almost forgot it was in Puerto Rico.

Arecibo is an astronomical observatory, which is one of the world's most powerful radar-radio telescopes, and the largest single-unit radio telescope in the world. This instrument, inaugurated in 1963, employs a 1,000-foot (300 meter) spherical reflector consisting of perforated aluminum panels that focus incoming radio waves on movable antenna structures positions about 500 feet (168 meter) above the reflector surface. The antenna can be moved in any direction, making it possible to track a celestial object in different regions of the sky. It collects radio astronomy, terrestrial aeronomy, and planetary radar data for scientists around the world. The telescope was featured in the movies GoldenEye (1995) and Contact (1997).

The National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center developed the observatory and it is operated by Cornell University under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. Conceived in 1958 by William E. Gordon, a Cornell professor of electrical engineering, the radio observatory has been operated, since its completion in 1963. The Arecibo Observatory owned by Cornell University, is powerful enough to receive signals transmitted by a comparable telescope located 1,000 light-years away.

Above are pictures of some of my work; contraption I built when I did time at the instituition under captivity before I managed to escape.

It is a time machine and the only one in the world. The flux capacitor resides in that Aluminum box you see. The PID feedback control system still requiree work as the phase difference between the Quantum wave generated by the flux capacitor and the Cosmic Neutrino background (CNB) caused inaccuracy of +/- 100 years. Mat love used it once but I was not sure if it was successful as he refused to talk about his traumatic experience and I did not bulge him further.

I still have ex-fellow inmates who are less fortunate than me. 100+ boy is one of them who was captured by babaric hoardes and currenly held captive in the Non-newtonion fluid mechanics lab. They abuse him with viscoelastic material up his cavities till he can perfect his machine that manufactures bread.

Extreme Machines

In my life as a covert agent, I deal with numerous extreme machines. I will proceed in describing some of them today.

This one above is called a stacker-reclaimer. It stacks dirt (a.k.a lignite coal) on the ground to serve as inventory and reclaims it later when fuel is required. You can see a pile of coal about 40 feet high that the bucket-wheel at the end of the reclaimer feeds from. It sits on a rail-track and runs on electricity. If I remember correctly, it typically reclaims at 2,000 tons / hour. That's 1100 Mamos per hour or 1.25 million chickens an hour.

Agent-O (Presently on duty)

Agent O (Retired from service)

Mr. T

Of course, to measure this, you need trusty instruments. As an agent, I am a strong supporter of overpriced Swiss watches that are no more accurate than $10 Casios. Preservation of dignity comes with a price; you have to wear the useless expensive watches on your wrist and keep you kick-ass timex and casio in your pocket and use them secretly when needed. On top is Agent-O, and on below is Mr. T. , my trusty minions.

Omega Day-Date (Bond 007)

• Reads time, am-pm indicator, day, date, month, chronograph and its mechanical and fully automatic!!! Look at the parts below and you know how.
• MOVEMENT Caliber: Omega 1151Self-winding chronograph movement with rhodium-plated finishPower reserve: 44 hours
  CRYSTALScratch-resistant sapphire crystal with anti-reflective treatment inside
  case & dialStainless steel case.Grey dial.
  WATER RESISTANCEDown to: 30 meters100 feet
  FunctionsDay-DateChronographSmall seconds24 hoursTachymeter

How did they fit so many tinies into that darn thing?

• Tissot T-Touch (Tomb Raider )
• Digital compass (Embarrassingly, I've used it numerous times, especially when driving, MatLove will know this. We were almost stranded in the jungles of dogtown, MA when I forgot to bring Mr. T a long)
  Reference:
  T33.7.588.61Size: GENTCase Material: TITANIUMWater Resistance: 30 METERSGlass: TACTILE SAPPHIREDial: ANTHRACITEHour indicators: INDEXBracelet: TITANIUM GREYMovement Caliber: E40.305 QUARTZ (TACTILE)Function(s): MULTIFUNCTIONBattery Life: 24 months.
  

BTW, my Enzo does facilitate me to get around a little.

Agent black's first words

It's 6:11pm here and wanted to post my first blog message. I know it's a little slow on my behalf to get this started but hey, finally I am embracing the technology....