Dear all,

I'm closing down this blog,

I'll be writing ar arshadahmad.wordpress.com

Dr. AA

Friday the 13th !!

Yes it was friday, 13th of March 2009.

As a morning routine, at 6.45 am, one of us, either me or my wife would send the kids, Huda & Amin to the bus-stop, located just outside Perdana Terraces, the community where we live. We would then wait for the school bus to arrive and once they are settled in the bus, we would drive home for the next agenda. For me, it would be feeding the fish. I have this small pond that I built myself - not that beautiful due to my poor craftmanship - but definitely self-satisfying, and I think, the fishes like it too.

(W beetle covered by white powder from fire extinguisher)
That morning was different. While waiting for the school bus with the engine running, I smelled petrol. I switched off the ignition, examined the engine and noticed a loose connection between the fuel hose and the carburettor. Mind you, for a 1968 VW beetle, the engine is at the back, and not under the front hood that we normally find in other cars. I unhooked the connection, examined the hose and hooked it back to the carburettor and said to my self, I'll fix it when I got home. But then, I never got that chance as the engine caught fire about 100 m away.


I was "cool" and "in-control", thinking of ways to put off the fire. But when I saw some people panicking, I immediately follow suit. Believe it or not, panic is contagious. Anyway, all praises to Allah, it was a lucky day for me as we found a fire extinguisher at the guard house. The fire was put off. Examining the burnt engine compartment, I noticed that fuel was still leaking from the hose, and quickly realized that the fuel pump was still running. The fire must have short-circuited the wires. I then quickly disconnected the battery and the problem was solved. Like other VW Beetle, the battery was installed under the rear passenger seat.

Few hours later, I called the mechanic, and got the car towed away and fixed. LAter in the evening, as we were preparing to go to the airport for a family holiday in Sabah, the mechanic arrived, smiling while driving the everlasting Beetle. What an eventful day it was...

Lessons of the day:
1. Buy a couple of fire extinguisher, put one at home and one in each car. You'll never regret that investment.
2. There is something called auto-ignition temperature. When this temperature is reached, materials will ignite by itself (auto-ignite). Many industrial fire and explosions are auto ignited.
3. In any situation, don't panic. Think and act fast.

Letupan akibat habuk

Beberapa hari yang lalu saya bertanya kepada sekumpulan pelajar beberapa soalan:

1. Kenapa di kilang cat ICI di Nilai, amaran larangan merokok begitu ketat?
2. Senat Amerika Syarikat membentuk satu Select Committee bagi mengkaji aspek keselamatan........ ekoran dari letupan di sebuah kilang gula di Georgia.
3. Pada bulan Mac 2008, satu letupan berlaku di dalam terowong berhampiran kilang tepung di Lumut.

Apakah kesamaan situasi di atas? Tiada siapa yang dapat menjawab soalan itu kerana seperti kebanyakan rakyat Malaysia, mereka tidak faham tentang DUST EXPLOSION.

Sebenarnya, letupan akibat habuk amat besar kesannya. Habuk yang mempunyai kandungan tenaga dalam bentuk karbon, karbohidrat seperti tepung, gula atau serbuk lemak dan sebagainya boleh meletup apabila kandungan habuk terampai diudara berada pada tahap tertentu dan pada ketika itu terdapat sumber pencucuhan seperti statik, kilat, kerja pengimpalan dan lain-lain. Kesannya adalah letupan yang amat kuat.



Foto ini diambil dari lihat satu blog mengenai kejadian di Imperial Sugar, Georgia
http://anti-union.blogspot.com/2008/02/4-dead-4-more-missing-at-ga-sugar.html
Letupan habuk gula itu membunuh 10 orang dan mencederakan sebilangan lagi.

Di Amerika Syarikat, dalam tempoh 1980-2005 terdapat 280 letupan habuk yang membunuh 119 pekerja dan mencederakan 718 orang.

Kita mungkin berhati-hati dengan industri petrokimia yang mempunyai banyak hidrokarbon mudah terbakar, namun pada masa yang sama jangan lupa dengan bahaya habuk.


Dr. AA

Expedition to Mount Kinabalu

Some people say that business and leisure cannot be mixed together. Well I disagree. Some others say that student and supervisor cannot be too close. On this, I partially disagree. Sometimes, leisure activities strengthen working relationships especially among academicians and researchers. Some captions on our trip to Sabah are shown here as an example. The trip was held in September 2003. Researchers from Process Control and Process Intensification groups of UTM organised the climb of Mount Kinabalu following the International Conference on Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering, organised by university Malaysia Sabah, held in Kota Kinabalu.

We were also fortunate to have the opportunity to observe the National Independence Day parade that was held at the sea front of Kota Kinabalu, on 31st of August. For some technical reasons, the date shown in all pictures (came from TATA's-Tuan Amran) camera were wrong.

National day parade...



The group is set to begin the trail...

beautiful trail...

Exciting...


Exhausted...

half way through, .. at Gunting Legadan

finally we made it,... we also offered our dawn prayer at the peak of Kinabalu.

beautiful sight,.. after sunrise..
on the way down,... satisfied.

Fishing Excursion to Tioman/Pemanggil 2007

Fishing Excursion to Pemanggil and Tioman Island (April 23-26, 2007)

The journey began after maghrib prayer at Bandar Putra Kulai. Five of us travelled in a black Unser driven by Adnan. We were to meet Mat Husin in Mersing and scheduled to depart around 10 pm, the night of 23rd April 2007. Awal came earlier that morning from Kuala Lumpur. On the way, we stopped for dinner at "Sup Daud" in Kota Tinggi.

At 11 pm we boarded the rented boat. As I offered my hand to Black, the boatman's assistant, he smiled and said "it has been a long time since we last fish together.The last time was when we hit a school of Tenggiri in Tioman". Yeaah, I said. Probably we'll repeat it again.

We reached Pemanggil Island at about 3 in the morning. I was asleep all the way, but without delay, we started for the action. We had quite a number of ikan Tambak, Tanda and few other species that early morning. As usual at the early hours of the day, you'll never miss Wijay's azan, calling for the dawn prayer, and as usual, we offered our prayer in congregation at the front compartment of the boat.

After breakfast, we went to one of the Unjam nearby. The aim was to catch some small fish to be used as bait later at night plus whatever available. I was taught not to be so fussy at sea. Just take it easy and enjoy the trip, I was always reminded by my innerself. Yes we did take it easy... On the way to Unjam, we caught some Tongkol Putih (Tuna).

The unjam turned out to be generous that day. We caught lots of Ikan Tamban (small herring) plus some big ones such as Tenggiri (Spannish Mackerel) and Belitung (Dorado).

Lunch was served on the boat. It was a delicious Tenggiri Masak Kicap offered by Tholudin, the chef of the group. We are a group of "leisure anglers" who treat deep sea fishing as a holiday. It has always been enjoyable and we like to keep it that way.

On the morning of 26th april we were supposed to spend about 2 hours fishing at unjam near Tioman Island, targetting for small fish such as Kembung, Selar, Kerisi or Cencaru. Unfortunately, the weather was not on our side. The sight of storm was evident and we decided to leave early. We departed and reached Mersing at noon.

alhamdulillah, a good trip it was.

Some of the catch

Fishing at Tioman Island - April 2004

Memancing di Pulau Tioman (April 04)

“Arshad, kita bertolak malam lah, esok air pasang lambat.” kata Pak Sharif kepada saya. “OK lah bang, kami sampai pukul 9 malam.” jawab saya. Perjalanan kami dicepatkan kali ini. Selalunya kami bertolak pagi sabtu tetapi kali ini bertukar menjadi petang jumaat. “Mudah-mudahan ada barakah.” kata hati kecil saya.... Kumpulan kami kali ini terdiri dari saya (Arshad), Adnan, Amran, Aidee, Fazly dan Faiz.

Benar, memang malam itu penuh dengan barakah. Kami berlabuh di sekitar Pulau Rimau dan lihatlah beberapa gambar hasil tangkapan pada malam itu.

Hari Kedua

Hari in Saturday the 13th, bukan Friday the 13th...
Kami meneruskan perjalanan ke Pulau Tioman, menerusi perairan yang amat saya sukai. Hati merasa girang kerana tangkapan malam tadi amat memberangsangkan. Kaci, tenggiri, pari, kacang dan lain-lain.




Kami berhenti di umjam pertama untuk menangkap ikan-ikan yang biasa di sana. Pengalaman di pagi itu amat menarik sekali kerana kami menemui sekawan ikan Telinga Gajah. Apakah umpan yang sesuai? mmm... Roti Gardenia. Selepas menangkap 15 ekor Telinga Gajah berserta ikan lain, kami berehat berdekatan pantai di rumah api Pulau Tioman, sambil menyediakan makan tengahari. mmm.... amat menyelerakan, ikan tenggiri masak lemak cili api.

Dalam perjalanan, kami juga berjumpa dengan sekawan dolphin yang bermain tidak jauh di belakang bot kami. Indah sungguh suasana itu, lupa segala masalah yang ada, buat seketika.

Petang hari kami pergi mencari ikan di batu karang. Seperti biasa, sasaran ialah ikan Kerapu, Tombak, kunyit dan sebagainya. Ini memang dirancang kerana menu makan malam kami antara lain ialah kerapu 3 rasa. Alhamdulillah, seperti biasa harapan kami direstui tuhan. Malam itu kami menikmati jamuan yang dihajatkan di Kg. Juara, Pulau Tioman.















Hari ke 3

Tengahari 15/4/07 kami tiba di jeti Mersing. Masing-masing tersenyum puas. Satu pengalaman yang cukup menarik. Walaupun kebanyakan kami adalah pemancing amatur, namun hasil yang diperolehi melebihi harga sewa bot. Kami bersyukur dan mengucapkan terima kasih kepada Pak Sharif dan Black.

The Tale From Krubong City

The Tale From Krubong City

--- a tribute to my late father, Haji Ahmad Md Sab.

Born in a beautiful countryside of Malacca that has now turned into industrial park, I have seen the many sides of technology and development. These have in one way or another motivated me to stay put in the academia, hoping to inspire children of today who would be leaders of the future to believe in the needs for a socially and economically balanced sustainable development.

As I recently drove across the Malacca river on the Ayer Keroh / Sungai Udang bypass, my mind was suddenly drifted into the reminiscence of the past. Although the drive took only few minutes, the memory spanned the life time. Gone were places where we used to trap limbat fish in lukah or lampam with fishing nets. I missed the golden coloured padi field when it was close to harvest, the singing of pipit, the beautiful sight of bangau comfortably standing on the back of buffalos and the brownish colour of puchong picking food on the ground. Nothing was more beautiful than the view of full rainbow with hills in the background, greenish padi field on the horizon with silhouettes of people bending down, working hard to earn a living.

Most of our parents had more than one job, a labourer or rubber taper in the morning and rice farmer in the afternoon. Like others, very early in the morning, my father cycled on the red soil-gravel road to the rubber estate. He came back at noon, cleaned up, had his lunch and offered his noon prayer before taking his regular afternoon siesta. Later in the evening, he would go to the padi field, working on the crop that would be our staple food for the year. Since we worked on other people’s land, the harvest had to be split with the land-owner. Sometimes we made enough, sometimes we didn’t.

At times, my father took me or one of my brothers to catch fish in the river or swamp using fishing net known as jala. Believe it or not, we had jala of various sizes, a smaller one for me, larger ones for my father and my elder brothers. He made them himself at night after teaching us reciting the Qur’an.

Most of the families had some buffalos. The herds were sent to the river in the morning for grazing in the swampy areas stretching about five miles along the river. At about two or three in the afternoon, we converged at some meeting place near the river discussing about whatever interesting. By four the buffalos were normally somewhere nearby our meeting point. If everything were as they supposed to be, we would start swimming, or playing whatever game appealed us that day. Otherwise, we had to search for the buffalos. On some bad days, we had to walk more than five miles searching at all possible grazing spots for the buffalos. On really bad days, we reached home after sunset.

We used to play soccer by the river with buffalos grazing nearby, some distance away from the padi field. I remember how difficult it was to be a goalkeeper since not only must he dive for the ball to avoid defeat but also diving into the water to catch the ball, less it would be carried away by the flowing stream. We used to race the goalkeeper to prove who among us were the better swimmers. What wonderful days they were. It has always been nostalgically fresh in my memory.

We caught and sold fish and grasshoppers. Sometimes we worked in rubber processing factories during school holiday. We were in fact very entrepreneurial in mind, driven by the fact that we were poor and in need of some spending money.

We were also very handy in building whatever needed. We made our own kites and spinning tops. We cut bamboo into goal-posts. We even built small hut by the river and atop putat tree to provide shelter from rain and sun.

As I once told my children, the most adrenaline generating activities of all was the breaking of hornets’ nest. It was the naughty or perhaps crazy side of us. We used to hit the nest by throwing sticks or shooting peebles directly at it with a selfmade sling. We would then stretched our muscle and ran the fastest we could. We were in fact running for our life for all of us knew how painful the sting of hornets would be. We ran on the embankment along the river with flocks of hornets chasing behind. Only about one mile away did the hornets normally gave up the chase. We would then huddled together, celebrating the success, praising each other for the escape. The joys glittered in our eyes and everybody went home with satisfaction, with something to brag about.

Occasionally, we would hear the cry of pain from the unlucky boy trailing behind. For those who have not experienced the sting of a hornet, you just have to believe, it was really painful. We would then looked for papaya leaves and spread the juice from the stem right on the painful spot, normally somewhere near the forehead to temporarily reduce the pain. The poor boy then marched home in fear of his scolding father for doing such a silly thing that we enjoyed.

It was all history...

The lack of efficient drainage had caused annual flood and draught, which had challenged the patience of us, villagers. After few years, we all gave up. Several years later, the padi field was converted to water catchment lake, surrounded by barbed wires.

The rubber estate is now the home of Stadium Hang Jebat where the football clubs are playing for the national league. It is also crowded with factories and housing estates conveniently named as Krubong Industrial Park, Taman Krubong Indah, Taman Krubong Jaya, Taman Sri Krubong and the likes. I had never imagined that the place I grew up now has a traffic light!!!

Never did I regret for having to grow up as a poor Kampung Boy. I am forever grateful for the chance given by God to rise from the bottom of social stratum to the middle class I belong today. All credits goes to my parents for being steadfast in providing us with opportunity for education although the environment was discouraging and the milieu looked impossible. We were in fact very lucky though we had very little money, all ten of us went to secondary school. That was not a normal practice, at least from where we came from.

Out of ten, nine made it to institution of higher learnings. Four of us studied overseas. The eldest had sacrificed her opportunity for tertiary education even though she had good grades in MCE. She went to work instead of university.

My late father had always inspired me to strive for success. A man of few words, he had taught me many things. He had made me believed the saying that I often repeat to others “ either you say you can or you can’t, you are right.” A man of determination, he had indeed worked very hard to create the path for success for me and my siblings.

May Allah showers His mercy upon him. Ameen. I have always admired and loved my father, but, similar to him, I am also a man of few words when it comes to expressing feelings.

Dr. AA

written in 2007, more than 2 years after the death of my father.