Trace: Is there no Malaysians at all in Columbia, MD?

Being the only one of my kind in a foreign land is an amazing experience. Well, yeah it felt kinda lonely at first but for socially awkward and privately private type of animal that I am, it’s almost perfect. It’s an 8, and if I can have my dragon clan here with me it would be a 9. As a lawyer told me, nothing in the world is a 10 because nothing is perfect.

But yeah, I get to go where I want, do as I want, when I want and as I want. Nobody gets in my face, and mostly people here are all smiles. The only person I really talk to right now are office mates especially this hilariously crazy New Yorker who cracks jokes all the time.

It has been about 3 weeks since I left the land of everything Boleh. I pretty much had covered everything necessary for me to make a living here except finding a mosque and Solat Jumaat… until yesterday. It was my second attempt at going for Solat Jumaat; the first one was last week but the road was blocked by some kind of accident which forced all the cars in the direction of the mosque to make a U-turn.

You see, for the big 3 Abrahamic religions, Christians convene on Sundays, Jews on Saturdays and Muslims we get Fridays (Fridays = Jumaat [hekleh Ajie perasan macam ada mat saleh baca blog dia kahkahkah]). I’m not sure about the other 2 but for a Muslim male we cannot PURPOSELY miss 3 Jumaats which kinda remind me of a joke back in secondary school.

Back then, some time before our big national exams (SPM), there were recruiters and speakers coming to highlight scholarships and career opportunities at their respective companies. One of them was from our national airline company, who told us that they had a special program to train pilots somewhere I can’t remember local or abroad. The location of this special school seems to be a bit isolated from civilization, and thus somebody from our crowd asked, “If the place is isolated, how do we go to Solat Jumaat?”… and the rep responded, “Don’t worry we’ll have shuttles every 3 weeks…”. It was hilarious, the arrangement was bordering on the 3 Jumaats rule, cukup cukup syarat tak jatuh kafir xD (well it was funny to me so who cares if you are laughing or not :p ).

Ok enough of that, so yesterday, I finally was successful in getting to the mosque, Dar al-Taqwa. I found it via Zabihah (travelling Muslims around the world, this web page is A MUST, there’s even an app for it on Android market and the other rotten fruit gadget thingy). I choose this mosque among others around because it is multi-cultural and the sermons delivered in English. Parking was a bit far from the actual mosque compound because apparently there was a COURT-ORDER disallowing patrons of the mosque from parking on the roadsides. There were policemen controlling the traffic too. So I had to park at a designated parking space further up, and there was a shuttle van going to and from the mosque.

And yep, multicultural it was. There were 3 safs (rows) of people of all sorts of colors probably from any given part of the world, and yeap I did crane my neck to see if there was anybody even resembling a Malaysian. There weren’t any. I was the only one. I have at least another 8 Jumaats to find out though.

So, I wondered… I CAN’T be the only Malaysian in Columbia, MD, can I? From Google search I can find traces of Malaysian-ness  in neighboring Washington, DC where there seems to be Malaysian restaurants, expats and migrates. But try Google “Malaysians in Columbia, MD” or “… in Baltimore” and the nearest point that Google will show you would still be in DC.

And that’s why I’m writing this explicitly stating “Malaysians” and “Columbia, MD” in the title so that any clueless Malaysians in Columbia would somehow find me and we can somehow be clueless together. If that clueless person happens to be a young single gullible available female rich male no matter single, double, available, non-available, dragonputera or of whatever racial ethnic demographic fantastic, she he would be lucky to have me to SHOW her him around wouldn’t she he? Vice versa.

Until then I consider myself the bearer of the Malaysian flag here in Columbia, Maryland. Find me, fellow brothers and sisters of Bolehland!! All sorts of crap may be happening at home, but here who cares if you are a son-of-the-soil or a son-of-a-bitch?

Lost: A Clueless Dragon in Baltimore, MD

After contemplating on whether I should just fork out USD100+ for a GPS unit or USD60 for a prepaid phone line with data plan, I finally decided to go with the bloody prepaid. And damn well I did, because Google Maps with Navigation is kicking Garmin, TomTom, Papago and whatever dedicated GPS out there in their hinds! The only drawback is that it gobbles up quite a lot of data, and I have a feeling that getting it to navigate to New York would most probably use up the 100MB data limit.

And with Google Navigation my confidence in driving around increased ten-folds, and so I decided to drive myself about 20 miles to the city of Baltimore. Baltimore is a seaport city, and it turns out that it is actually one of the largest cities in the US. Hence one couldn’t blame me if I find the place rather intimidating at first. Well, imagine yourself a clueless Indonesian just fresh out of the boat, and you had to navigate yourself in the city of Kuala Lumpur…

And thus I restricted my plan to just the Inner Harbor, arguably the most popular tourist spot around. Google Maps took me to a parking lot called Pier V, and there was plenty of space. And I soon would know why.

I got out at 1245, and I started walking around the harbor snapping pictures from my trusty Atrix. Seriously, the Motorola Atrix has got to be the best piece of technology I ever bought! It is practically the Swiss-Army knife of gadgets unlike a certain overpriced rotten fruit thingy which seems to work best on Angry Birds and little else. xD

It then started to rain lightly. I wouldn’t bother detailing what I did or where I went to, suffice to say that I walked as far as my legs could take me, saw whatever it was there is to see, snap pictures wherever I thought my wife would want me to, went to the Gallery (shopping place, what else?),looked around, had lunch, and walk some more. Awek awek US ni boleh tahan gak... yums lolxD.

It was almost 1500 hours when I decided I have seen enough and I dragged my tired feet back to the parking lot. I inserted the bloody ticket and voila… USD20!!! Holly effing crap, Batman! No wonder the bloody parking lot was half empty; nobody in their right mind would pay USD20 for 3-hours of parking! Turn out that USD20 is the flat rate for 24-hours of parking. Oh well, bloody hell.

I bought 2 slices of cheese pizzas for dinner, and then retreated back to my lair dungeon room. Tomorrow is Easter Sunday, and I have a feeling that Monday is a public holiday, but I’m not sure yet too proud to ask. I guess I’ll just get to the office on Monday and go home if there’s no one around. Right now I just want to finish this entry, lie down and enjoy the bloody TV until my wife and kids wake up on the opposite side of the world for our daily Skype routine.

But seriously, USD20 for parking?? God… I should give myself a kick in the butt.

Awkward: A Lost Dragon On American Soil

3 decades ago I was hatched  born in West Virginia, USA. I did not stay long. My parents were students back then, so I was still red and tender when they shipped me back to my grands in Malaysia. Ever since then I was raised a Malaysian. I lived a Malaysian life. I favor spicy food. I speak Manglish. I am as Malaysian as any Malaysian can be, even if the system never allowed me to forget that I was born an alien. People get curious on why my birth certificate was big and green, or why my national ID code is “-71-“.

Hence going to the US had been a lifelong dream. They say opportunities don’t knock twice, but in my case opportunities have a knack of knocking at my door and then ran away laughing when I opened them… until last month. It was a three-month assignment to the East-coast of the USA, and the site I was sent to was within driving distance to West Virginia. I jumped at the opportunity, and preparations were made in a rush due to the short notice.

Travelling took about 30 hours, and by the time I arrived at the airport, I had to drive myself to the hotel which was supposed to be about 30 minutes away. I took 2 hours. Driving left-hand side was not so bad though.

Weather is fine at this point of year. Summer is just around the corner, and flowers are blooming everywhere. There’s sun, and cool dry wind, temperature is just below 20 degrees Celcius. A mall is just within walking distance and I work around getting Halal-food. I spent most of these two days of the weekend holed up in my room, be online and chat with my wife just like old times (lol).

I look forward to the weekend where I plan to drive all the way to New York, and the weekend where my wife, parents and eldest son will be coming over and we’ll be on a trip to West Virginia. I imagine that being me, I will not be going around much without company.

I’m alone, lonely, and the euphoria of travelling to this foreign land is dying down. Tomorrow I will start work. I have yet to look for a mosque around here for Friday sermons. I’m feeling a lot of things at the same time, but one thing is certain; I bloody miss my family. So damn much that if I let my mind wander around in the quiet of the night, if I can have it any other way I would be on the next plane home just to give them a bloody hug.

A dragon who is hard outside, soft and squishy inside? I might as well be a cockroach.

Car Trouble: The Mystery of the Draining Battery, SOLVED! (I hope)

A YOUNG working class with a growing family has no business spending hard earned money on an inflated-priced RM150k 7-seater which will deteriorate in value over time, hence my decision to buy a sub-RM50k, used Chevrolet Nabira 2.2  two years ago. The car was about 5 years old back then. One should always understand that maintenance cost is part and parcel of owning a used car. The fact is cars are mechanical ‘beings’, and mechanical parts break down on wear and tear over time. However for me, the more frustrating break downs are caused by electrical failures because unfortunately they are not so easily detected from visual inspection alone.

Over the course of 2 years owning the Nabira, it had broken down a number of times due to battery drain; the first time was thought to be normal since the battery came together with the car, second was thought to be due to battery fault so I claimed warranty for the battery, and yet after the third time I finally surrendered. Something was bloody wrong with the car.

At first, I went to a stupid wireman who simply looked around the engine compartment, touched the battery and then blamed the in-car DVD/media player I installed very recently before that. “The player short circuited your wiring”, he said. Wait what? He can tell just by looking? Must be X-ray vision. But since I’m not exactly car-savvy, I heeded his advice and went on to remove the player. The next morning the battery died again.

After asking around I went to a smarter, more reputable wireman who actually knows his stuff. His diagnosis: not short circuit nor leaking current but the car had weak battery charging due to a deteriorating alternator (bodoh punya first wireman, nasib baik free! X-ray vision konon poodah!). This caused the battery to drain faster than it could be recharged by the alternator. Finally a step in the right direction! Alternator was replaced and I was happy.

3 months after (which was just two days ago!) the battery went dead again and I finally called the car ‘Babira’ in frustration.

Back at my regular workshop the 3 months old alternator which was still under warranty was pulled out for testing. Results showed that it was working like it was supposed to so the fault was no longer on the alternator. On further inspection, it was discovered that on cold start, the battery meter used by the mechanic indicated ‘Green’ (meaning OK la) but dropped to ‘Red’ (obviously KO) when all accessories (air-cond, head lights, radio) were turned on. Once the engine warmed up, everything went down to ‘Red’. So who or what could be causing this weird current drop? Toyol? Penanggal? Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam? Edward Cullen (God forbid)?

The fault was found to be the most unbelievable for me (at least); a short circuit in ‘Positive (+Ve)’ battery terminal. Apparently, the thick cable connecting to the positive terminal had melted/damaged/whatever from the inside, causing short circuit and kick-back current, therefore electrical current from the battery was wasted on heating up the terminal instead of circulating thus weakening battery recharging. (I know many of you will probably read this once, twice, thrice and still don’t get it muahaha)

So remember, if your battery drained out faster than it should, most likely your alternator is indicating EOL (End-Of-Life). If the battery terminals heat up and burn your fingers, castrate (!!) and replace them immediately. The battery meter used by your mechanic should point to ‘Green’ at all times even with everything turned on full blast. Make sure of this or you will end up having a dead car again in no time.

I bloody love the Babira Nabira; SHE is like an insolent child. She may spit in my face but I still love her nevertheless. xD

Next: Where in hell did all the engine oil drained to?? I’ll be damned.