he was a very pleasant lad - in fact, one of the most cordial and candid ptis' that anyone could have known. to think that by twist of fate, i was searching through my mobile's sms inbox over a month ago to save his mobile number into my address book. only to find out this morning to learn that he passed away a few days ago in a motor accident on an expressway.

chee wee, you are a jolly good lad. though i have only met you twice, i still remember the feeling you gave me, the words of encouragement you gave me as i was intent to milk out the 400 bucks the army was ready to give to me. you gave me that extra bit more to go for it, instead of the 100 bucks. i actually wanted to give you a call, to make an appointment regards to cpf investment - but i was too busy of late to be able to give you a call.

i'm not affected because i lost a potential client, but because i lost a fellow sportsman; a fellow brother in arms.

you will be missed.

i was getting this mysterious vpclog.txt file in my documents folder swelling and swelling each day... until i did a google search upon it, i found out it was the vodafone vmclite software that's causing it. the silly file had swollen up to 3 gb in size on my drive! so this was what i found out online...

modify the key (is it a key?) HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Vodafone\VMCLite, then change "use_logging" from 1 to 0. problem solved!

time to get to the pool to do my own form of silent "meditation" - swimming with the fistgloves. just picked up another three trunks just on friday morning, in addition to the clear sealmask and kaiman goggles and total immersion dvds that i received about two weeks ago.

as i look back, running has become too chaotic and overtly time consuming for me to handle; swimming is more rewarding (for now at least...)

edit: the fistgloves do really work!

recently a well-recognized senior financial planner had a meeting with a lot of us agents. his topic was a timely, "so you can make money, but can you hang on to it?"

one of his points is the well known principle of buying assets, and not liabilities. initially i came across this from robert kiyosaki's rich dad, poor dad, however with time my realization is that it could be put even simpler.

the previous night after an appointment i had a new realization. for example, electronic companies make appliances and gadgets that to us are "assets" - while they are actually the product called "liabilities" that a manufacturer makes to let us falsely believe that they are "assets" to us. granted, yes, some of these things can improve our lives (i can't imagine working on excel on a 12" screen instead of my 22" wide one at home) - but a lot of things can be trimmed down. it just takes a discerning and clear mind to distinguish whether we really need or want that latest gadget. once an item is paid for - you get the effect of instantaneous depreciation. i especially learnt that lesson with photographic gear - most of the time (assuming a responsible seller) you get an item that works very well; and yet you save a bundle by not buying first hand. i've only two or three items that were first hand - and i would rather save that money for a previously-owned piece of gear. especially in the age of digital slrs - the latest is just the latest.... for only so short.

when was the last time you actually bought real assets that you can use in the future for your retirement? just because it's a long way off doesn't mean retirement isn't ever coming.

one of the things i want to work at is to have a clear mind - omnipresent and omniaware. that would help me with a lot with my family and people relations, as well as work.

you know, i look back fondly at my two bicycles that i spent over seven thousand on, but i remember that they cannot feed me when i'm old. but i enjoy the sport of cycling. only thing i need to do is to have a clear mind and draw a clear balance between spending my "now" money and "future" money.

life is simple, isn't it?