America's Newest Celebrity Couple

AGM, Tahlil & Thanksgiving

Diharap wakil keluarga dapat memanjangkan program ini kepada sanak saudara PERWI. Semua adalah dijemput hadir.

Kepada yang belum mendaftar sebagai ahli, kaunter pendaftaran akan disediakan pada hari tersebut.Bayaran pendaftaran adalah sebanyak rm30 setahun setiap seorang. Bayaran keahlian seumur hidup adalah sebanyak rm300

Kepada mana-mana ahli PERWI yang mempunyai anak yang bakal menduduki peperiksaan UPSR, PMR dan SPM 2007, boleh kemukakan nama anak kepada Abg Ghaz untuk penyampaian Cenderahati peperiksaan.

Jupo di Bachok!..
Salamz,
Amir.

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SELEPAS PRK IJOK - Insirasi Pembangkang

PRK IJOK - Apa Anda tidak dengar dari RTM

Humor - Nikah diantara Siam & Melayu

Will Kelantanese be Richer.

The Malaysian government is going to build a 300km crude oil pipeline costing some USD7Billion ( RM24Billion ) from Kedah to Kelantan.

The proposed pipeline will string across three states linking Yan in Kedah to Bachok in Kelantan with an expected investment of some USD7Billion over a period of 8 years, involving the construction of two oil refineries.

The pipe enables ships to bypass the Straits of Malacca. These ships will use import facilities on the West Coast of the Peninsular for oil from the Middle East and Africa to be piped to an export terminal in the East Coast, where the oil will be loaded onto ships bound for East Asia.

Thus it may be seen as an attempt not only to trigger economic growth and development in the region in the near future but the trickle down effect will be there long after our own oil dry up, provided the cost of double handling and taking into account of the time involved to bypass Singapore is cheaper than going via Singapore.

Tourism Malaysia Promotion 2007

NJUSTICE IN OUR MIDST

Teasing - The Party's Anthem

If this is the case, then it is certainly not the party that fought for independence, may be a reshaped one to fight for other things after independence, it is said that none of the former PMs are members of this party (except the one just retired)!

Bersatu Kita Bersatu
Dengan Setia Berganding Bahu
Tipu Terus Menipu
Kita Tipu Melayu
Bersama Kita Bersama
Mendukung Hasrat Semua
Berjasa Pada Kroni
Anak Isteri Dan 'Bini'
Lambang Kita Yang Gagah
Dipandang Keji Dan Haprak
Bersatu Bersetia Khianat
Cogan Katanya
UMNO Terus Lara
Rompak Rakyat Malaysia

Looking for a Roof over our heads

School Signboard at main junction

The scenario

I had decided to leave Kota Bharu and for the kids to commence their school in Machang district as it commences in January. It was already late December. All the kakis (literally means feet – it denotes agents) I had planted was unable to get a place for me with the criteria I had set up – a walking distance from school. Probably their major concerned was my budget for the house. They did take me to two locations but both were not good enough. One they had wrong identified as an unoccupied house. The other was more suitable to be turned into a shop with the main road right in front of the house.

Signboard at junction school to My house's Garden

The strategy

Now the onus is on me to devise a strategy good enough to find a roof over my family’s heads soonest possible. It my head was the schools for my kids. Mental picture I got so far was a school known as S.K. Hamzah 2, which is located in Padang Selising and it is surrounded by many housing scheme. I told my cousin to show me the place and their surau or local prayer place. In order it will to be called Madrasah or School, it was a place to learn the basic 3R – reading, writing and arithmetic. Now no more, since after Independence all those schooling stuff are handled by government school and Primary Education is free and compulsory by law. Later I rushed to the surau to do the noon prayer.

The Local Surau where I look for a house

The day at the Surau

The houses there was good in the context that living around the area means that the school is within a walking distance and the kids do not have to cross any major roads. I was mingling after prayers telling the participants of my intention and as a bonus I was invited to a locally prominent man's lunch. He was the head of the local Post Office, who recently pensioned, lunch before leaving for Haj. I had lunch and could see that the crowd were of a respectable middle class.

The Landlady

I drove to my uncle’s place in Pangkal Meleret which will soon be four Kilometers from my new house if the landlady agrees to take me in. From there I called phone number placed on the gate. A lady picked up, I told her of my intention to rent the house. She told me she can get to the house in 20 minutes for she lived in Batu Tiga Puluh. I told her I was born in Pangkal Chuit about a mile from where she stays. She knew my late father and was a class mate of my second sister. That was it and the agreement for me to move in becomes a formality.

The contract .

The contract was simple we will pay a monthy rent with a month rental as deposit and a sum for water and electricity deposit. No agreement signed. We agree that I will be given the key and can start occupying before the beginning of the month.

The main protagonist.

The guys that help me to some extent coming over to witness my discussion with the landlady have been my ex-army cousin who also add some income to his pension by tapping rubber and making cement-sand blocks and my ex-policeman uncle. My kids help me to ferry portable items but needed for survival with my car. My more religious uncle asked us to do a “hajat” prayer – seeking God’s blessing in future and thanks giving prayers before we moved in. We did that asking about a dozen of people from my kampong’s local mosque and a dozen or so neighbors here. He was not very please for some of us had spent a few nights at the new place. Though we were moving from a bigger house to a much smaller dwelling and from a bigger town to a smaller town, I had never seen such a jovial mood within the family. The place we had left must have been a bloody hell hole for them.

On the first day of school I took all my kids to he new

school. The Headmistress was very polite . She told me that she will take from there all the issues regarding transfers and she did even call my untie who has a son married to her daughter that we are at their school enrolling my kids.

Row of my house 2.5 rooms

The relocation.

As said the relocation was funny. We took what was portable and needed for survival like pots, pans and stove. Our neighbor found it weird to see the lorry bringing in our stuffs came in only after the school reopened.

The neighbors.

The neighbors I found out after moving in are mostly teachers in school within Machang towns. Quite a few teachers teaching at the local S.R. Hamzah2 and this place is nicknamed as teacher’s quarters. My wife is also happy here we found that the neighbors are friendly enough and good enough as not too nosey.

Discussion after a Cleaning Gotong Royong

Aedes Fogging at my house

COMPARATIVE ABUNDANCE

Courtesy St Bull with a note from him :
PLEASE SHARE THIS WITH YOUR CHILDREN

Making my way to Machang.

It was the eve of EID 2004, I had decided to move away from Kota Bharu. I left the house at close to breaking fast. I had to rush for I knew from experience that in Kok Lanas, Ketereh and Labok, there gonna be a jam. People flock there to buy things for breaking fast and some would break fast there at the road side stalls.

As I rushed out glimpses of Socrates words entered my mind. Socrates used to say, “Marry by all means, if you get a good wife you will be a happy man and if you get a lousy one, you will be a philosopher” or something like, make me smiled. The last part of the sentence was not applicable to me. That word “wife” should be changed and replaced with “someone else” and the whole sentence rephrased to make it applicable to me.

As I drove out a Toyota Prado drove into the porch. I knew who were in that four wheel drive but I just could not stop, I wanted to break fast in my kampong in Machang. Inside my head were figures, My thoughts were, I had to make a shed for turning rubber into sheets, that have to be 20 feet by 30 feet say at RM5.00 per foot square, that’s some RM3k.I will have to buy 3 sheets making machines, 2 plains and 1 that would imprint stripes. I did not have a clue how much it will cost, some RM1k each for those solid iron gadgets, that will be another RM3k. Facilities for making the sheets, aluminum boxes allow another RM0.5k and the water supply infra, another RM0.5k. That in all come to RM7k. Hmmmm.

I reached my uncle’s house, quiet as I am, my mind obsessed with figuring out how to cash will be involved. There are other cost like jungle clearing, how much will that be for an acre? Collection bowl and related accessories – have to be bought too.

Subsequently, I talk to my cousin who is a rubber taper. I spent my nights at his houses with all three of my boys. The kids likes him and his family, especially his Mum, recently passed away. Wow! God Gracious, they do not do that any more, I do not have to fork out the RM7k, not a dime. The do not process rubber into sheets no more. It is now collected from the bowl and left to dry, then sold – just like that. The only thing needed to process the latex is a specially designed knife to strip out the bark of the rubber tree.

The Only thing needed.

Cousins were very welcoming and were positive about potential income. Tapers, they said were easy to get. The price of rubber was on the up, then. Some extravagant estimates put it up at RM100.00 for every acre, that would make it RM50.00 each for the land lord and the rubber taper for each acre, taping day.

My uncle and cousin took me to see an old friend of my father. His foster parents was my uncle and his wife’s foster parent were my grand ma and grand pa. He knew the exact location of my father’s land.

A rubber taper at work

Those estimates were much too high. Looking back, it was over rated, for the three reasons below were overlook

1. The Origin of the rubber trees – my dad’s trees were that of the original seedlings, not the new breed designed to produce latex.

2. The rubber trees are old – they are as old as I am .

3. The trees are not as close together as recommended by RISDA (Rubber Authority), they are far apart for historical reasons that these areas were wild boar and rhino infested areas during those planting days and these animals, just bulldozed down those younger trees, then.

My tress are not the small mutants that is designed to produce latex they are just colossal .

My dad's rubber tress

Next, going about looking for a house for the family and a reasonable school in Machang.

MY HOME COMING

It was Hari Raya Aidil Fitri (The Eid) 2004, I had problems livng in Kota Bharu. The major one no income, soon all my saving will be gone. I told my biras ( that is an in law when you marry sisters). I am going back to Machang to make some feasibility study whether I can stay there. Inside my head was Hevea brasiliensis, thanks to the effort of my dad. But I have never said that to him yet…… it was Hevea brasiliensis, the rubber tree,

Before I proceed further let me remind you of the history of rubber. Thanks to the original writer. What causes me to blink was that how much do I have to pump in?

The Story of Malaysian Natural Rubber.

How the rubber industry began

Of all the wonderful tales brought back by Christopher Columbus in 1496 after his second voyage to the New World, none was stranger than the tale of a ball, which bounced. The people of Haiti made these playballs from the gum of a tree.

Although they did not realise it, Columbus and his crew were the first Europeans to see this unique substance – rubber. It did not get its name until much later – in 1770, an eminent English chemist, Joseph Priestley, noted the ability of this substance to ‘rub out’ pencil marks, and ever since it has been called rubber in the English language. This is curious, because ‘rubbing out’ has never been an important use of rubber.

In spite of the interest it aroused very little use was made of the new discovery. This was mainly because no one knew how to prevent the rubber becoming sticky in summer and brittle in winter.

In the early nineteenth century, all this changed. In 1820, Thomas Hancock, an Englishman invented a machine, which would soften, mix and shape rubber. It was then possible to dissolve rubber and start making useful products. By coating cloth with the rubber solution it could be made waterproof; the first ‘Mackintosh’ was made in 1823. Soon after there was another important discovery, this time by an American. In 1839, Charles Goodyear found by accident that raw rubber could be improved by heating it with sulphur. The new material produced, called vulcanized rubber, was no longer affected by changes in temperature.

As other inventors found uses for rubber the demand grew. Some of the first products to be made from rubber were hose, conveyor belts, flooring and footwear – these still use rubber today. In the middle of the nineteenth century rubber came from South America, where the hot wet climate suited the wild rubber tree, but it was very difficult to collect it from the dense jungle. It soon became obvious that more rubber would have to be grown elsewhere to meet the demand.

In 1876, Sir Henry Wickham, at the request of the India Office, collected and shipped from Brazil 70,000 seeds from the wild rubber tree. These were rushed to Kew Gardens in London and planted in specially prepared hot-houses. The small number, which survived, were taken in 1877 to Ceylon and later to Malaysia and other countries of South-east Asia.The rubber tree quickly flourished in Malaysia; large areas of jungle were cut down and planted with rubber trees.

The rubber tree quickly flourished in Malaysia; large areas of jungle were cut down and planted with rubber trees. Henry Nicholas Ridley, who was appointed Director of the Singapore botanic gardens in 1888, was one of the pioneers of those times and did perhaps more than anybody to encourage planting of this new crop.

By the end of the nineteenth century there were 2500 hectares of rubber in Asia. Shortly afterwards Henry Ford started making his famous motorcar and the demand for rubber – to make tyres – rocketed. The trees in the South American jungle could not possibly produce enough rubber and so the new plantations of Asia found that the world wanted all the rubber they could produce, and more. By 1910 there were ½ million hectares of rubber planted and the countries of Asia had now become the main suppliers of rubber.

With the spread of motoring to every country in the world, even today’s enormous acreage of rubber (about 6 million hectares in all) cannot supply enough. There is not enough natural rubber to go around. Scientists have developed man-made rubbers from petroleum. These are often mixed with natural rubber. For some products, however, only natural rubber can be used.

More rubber from better trees

Peninsular Malaysia – comprising 12 of the 14 states in the Malaysian federation – is among the world’s most important rubber growing areas. Rubber is also grown in Sabah (formerly North Borneo) and Sarawak, which, known together as East Malaysia make up Malaysia.

Altogether Malaysia produces almost 20% of the world’s natural rubber. A good deal of Malaysia’s rubber (over half) comes from thousands of privately owned plots of land called smallholdings, which are usually about 2 hectares. The rest is grown on big estates owned by various companies; each can cover over a thousand hectares. Altogether, Malaysia has 1.7 million hectares of rubber.

In recent years most of the older trees have been replaced by newer varieties which yield up to ten times as much rubber, thanks to scientific cross-breeding and careful cultivation.

If you were a rubber tapper you would have to get up very early in the morning, as the rubber latex flows more easily before the heat of the day begins. Latex is a milk-like fluid contained in tiny cells situated beneath the outer bark of the rubber tree. The latex is obtained from the tree by tapping that is cutting away a thin shaving of the bark about 2 mm thick. This cut, which is made with a special tapping knife, pierces the cells and the latex oozes slowly out to a collecting cup placed below. The tapper needs great skill with his knife as the tree is easily damaged if the bark is cut too deeply.

In two or three hours the flow of latex ceases. By the time the tapper has cut his last tree for the day the latex collecting cup of the first is ready to be emptied into a larger container. When all the cups have been emptied the full containers are taken to the factory, where the latex is turned into raw rubber.

Rubber trees are not tapped until about five years after planting; by then they can produce enough rubber to make tapping worthwhile.

If you were working on your own smallholding you would probably take your latex to a group processing centre to process the latex into sheets or sell it to Mardec, a government agency which processes rubber into technically specified form. The big estates have their own machines. After processing it is sent to one of Malaysia’s ports to be shipped overseas. Malaysian rubber goes to every country in the world and is recognised to be the best.

Rubber in industry and the home

Rubber is elastic, flexible, airtight, watertight, long lasting and insulating, to mention just a few of its properties. There are thousands of products, which take advantage of these useful properties. Some will be familiar to you, others less so because many rubber products do their work unseen.

Most of the world’s rubber is used in tyres, ever since John Boyd Dunlop invented the pneumatic tyre in 1888. A tyre is not just a hunk of rubber, it is skillfully designed to do its job and it is made, not only of rubber, but also of other materials; fibres, steel and various chemicals. Some tyres use man-made rubber but for the toughest kinds of tyre only natural rubber will do. Aircraft tyres are a good example; these have to take tremendous punishment during landings and take-offs. They get very hot, hotter than boiling water, and natural rubber is always used to stand up to these conditions. The same is true for giant lorry tyres. The tyres on your family car have an easier life and they will have a lot of man- made rubber in them but they will also use some natural rubber in those parts of the tyre where it is needed.

As well as tyres, modern cars and lorries use a lot of rubber in other ways. Engines are mounted on rubber to cut down vibration. Some lorries and cars have rubber springs instead of steel ones. Then there are radiator hoses, windscreen wiper blades, car mats, seals and all sorts of small components such as bushes and gaskets hidden away under the bonnet or in the suspension.

Many motorway bridges are mounted on large blocks of natural rubber to allow the bridge to expand and contract when the temperature goes up or down. Some buildings are now built on similar rubber blocks to help stop vibration, particularly if they are near railways. In this and many other ways rubber helps to make life quieter and more comfortable.

Throughout the industry, rubber does all kinds of different jobs. Hose to carry liquids; conveyor belts to carry coal, gravel, ores; seals for machinery and so on. The list is endless.

In everyday life you make more use of rubber than you perhaps realise. Did you know that the adhesive on transparent sticky tape is made of rubber? More obvious, many sports balls are made of rubber and the carpets and rugs in your home may have a foam rubber backing underneath. Your shoes may have rubber soles, and, if you travel on London’s underground, you may like to know that the escalator handrail is made of rubber and the trains have rubber springs.