Don't judge a DIY kit by its packaging

Some times things are not what they seem. "What is so difficult about assembling a shoe cabinet," I thought as I and dear wife were looking at the mock-up model of a DIY shoe cabinet kit on display at the supermarket. For RM30.00 it was affordable and any way we needed to replace the current shoe cabinet that has broken down due to old age and long use.

According to the picture of the cabinet in the packaging it is just a one-compartment rectangular box with a double-leaf louvered door. The parts that make up the kit consist of 10 pieces of pre-fabricated rectangular fibre boards with some ironmongery accessories and screws for fixing. The manual that comes with the kit is just 1 sheet of paper with plenty of illustrations and instruction to assemble the cabinet in "5 easy steps." "A piece of cake," I mentioned to my spouse while laying down the parts, accessories and screws on the floor after taking them out of the box.

With the manual in hand I and dear wife then squatted on the tiny empty floor space amidst the clutter of the parked car and the potted plants of the super-small car porch of our compact house to assemble the parts with screw drivers, hammers and high expectation of completing the job in not more than 30 minutes. What I didn't expect was that the arrangements of the fixing holes in the components parts didn't match those shown in the instruction manual. Undeterred and with some common sense and plenty of determination we managed to assemble the parts into a semblance of a shoe cabinet by the time we got to step 5 of the manual.

With the job almost completed the last part was just fitting the two door panels. Then to our horror when we tried to fit the door panels we discovered that the holes at the bottom panel of the cabinet to mount the plastic door hinges were missing. Although not explicitly shown in the the illustrations the manual did show two hinges one at the top and the other at the bottom of the door panels. Thus by implication there should be holes to fit the plastic hinges for the door panels at the bottom panel of the cabinet.

Turning the cabinet upside down we found out that because we had fixed the bottom panel the wrong side up the holes for mounting the plastic hinges were at the bottom. As the manual didn't show clearly which are the correct sides to assemble the parts (the two sides look the same) we had erred in fixing the wrong side of the bottom panel.

By the time we realised the truth it was too late to rectify the error as we had to go to town to run some errands and also for lunch to take care of our hungry stomachs. After coming home from town we had to do some housework before we could resume work to rectify the cabinet. Including the short trip to the town, housework and the time taken to dismantle and reassemble all the parts from the time we took out the components from the package to the time we clean up and put away the tools, we had spent about 4 hours to build the modest one-compartment shoe cabinet.

Considering that I am not a hands-on DIY man being able to assemble the cabinet is an achievement already never mind about the 4 hours, of course with dear wife beside me always breathing down my neck for dragging her along with me into this little misadventure!

Used household items are not rubbish discards but recyclable assets

Recycling poster taken
from the P.A.S.S. website

Used items are not rubbish but valuable resources that can be recyled and put to good use for the benefit of society.

This morning after completing the week's groceries purchase at the Kajang wet market dear wife gave away some empty plastic containers and other used items that we no longer need to P.A.S.S., a charity recycling NGO. P.A.S.S. is the acronym for Pertubuhan Amal Seri Sinar, a NGO located in Hulu langat, Selangor.

In Kajang this NGO operates a collection centre in front of a bank around the wet market area. Whenever we have accumulated enough used household items eg plastic, magazines and newspapers we would drop them off at the collection centre. According to the NGO's brochure this organisation also operates collection centres at other districts other than Kajang eg Sri Gombak, Setapak, Taman Melawati, Setapak Jaya, Kampung Air Panas, Taman Sri Rampai, Taman Danau Kota, etc. If you have bulky items to give away like used furniture P.A.S.S. would even send their truck to your home to pick up the items FOC.

According to the NGO's brochure and its official website P.S.S.E's activities are mainly welfare and environmental preservation work eg financial aid to old folks, orphans and poor children, planting of trees to beautify the environment, food rations to single families, education and study aid to needy children, organising recycling campaigns, etc,etc.

Wesak Day in Kajang

The main shrine in what
used to be the hall of
the former Sun cinema

Today 28/5/10 is Wesak Day, traditionally the major Buddhist festival of the year to celebrate the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha on the one day, the first full moon day of May. In the morning after finishing the house work I and the missus visited the local Buddhist Vihara in Kajang to offer our annual prayers to Buddhism. The Kajang Buddhist Vihara is a branch of the Buddhist Missionary Society Malaysia headquartered in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur.

In years past we used to go down to the main temple in Brickfields for the annual Wesak Day prayers. However for the past three years due to traffic congestion, parking problem and the huge crowds we had stopped going to the KL temple for the annual Wesak day prayers. Instead we opted to pray at the local temple located in the heart of Kajang town area and also much nearer to the taman where we live.

The Kajang branch occupies an old building lot that used to be the defunct Sun Cinema of the 80s. Thus in the main hall the floor slopes towards the stage at the back of the building. The former stage is now used as the main shrine with the white Buddha statue in the centre. Even some of the old cinema seating were retained for members' use.

Compared to its parent in KL, the celebration here is on a much smaller and simpler scale. There are no joss sticks and candles to lit and pollute the air, only simple offering of flowers. The loud music, vagrants, traders, and big crowds of devotees that you see in the main temple in KL are no where to be seen. With small crowds of visitors who are Kajang residents the atmosphere here is rather subdued and quite pleasant and conducive to devotional activities.

Two Sinhalese monks came to conduct a short session of prayers and tied yellow threads on the wrists of the devotees. After the offering of donations and prayers we sat down on the table in the adjourning community hall for a serving of vegetarian lunch. In true community style we washed our plates and cutleries after consuming the food.

New is not necessary the better

The old generation MS DOS
operating system

Today the management replaced my old faithful desktop pc with a Dell. The new sleek and shiny pc running on Windows XP Service Pack 3 is supposed to be better and faster than the previous one running on Windows XP Service Pack 2.

Ever heard of the golden oldies? I always think that new is not necessary better than old. This is not to say that every thing new is bad and all old things are good. It all depends on the circumstances.

The mother of all horrors hit me the moment I tried to run my old faithful DOS-based reinforced concrete beam design program with the Dell. I was able to run only 50% of the program before it crashed repeatedly. I had no problem running this piece of software before on Windows Service Pack 1 and 2. Apparently this piece of software is no longer compatible with Windows Service Pack 3 operating system.

Even the the expert from the IT department didn't know how to fix the problem despite adjusting the pc, beam program and cpu settings many times. Shaking his head all he could say was that there was an incompatibility problem between the DOS-based engineering design software and the newer Windows Service Pack 3 operating system powering the Dell.

Nowadays modern Windows based engineering design programs are sophisticated 3D finite-element softwares that can combine CAD drawing with engineering design. However, for simple and one-off beam analysis and design using such tools is an overkill and an extravagant use of computing resource. Unlike the younger generation of engineers who have never experienced any operating system other than Windows this oldie who was weaned on the DOS operating system of a by-gone era has never gotten to like these modern state-of-art sophisticated 3-D design softwares.

In comparison to the modern CAD-based engineering analysis and design software, this old DOS-based program that I have been using for more than 20 years has none of the bells and whistles of its modern counterpart. Its graphics are rather bland, simplistic and unappealing, typical of the old generation of code-based software written for the MS DOS operating system. However it is very fast and easy to operate and perfectly does the job it was designed to do. It does not even require a mouse to operate other than tapping on the keyboard, In fact I have used this piece of software, which you can even run on a floppy to design structural beam elements for many high rise buildings. Over the years because of its speed and user friendliness I have gotten very fond of this old software and simply can't do without it.

Next week I'm sure going to pester the management to reinstate the previous pc with the old operating system on my desk. Other engineers can have the new Dell if they wish. If the program can't run on Windows Service Pack 3, I am quite certain that it will also conflict with Windows Vista and the latest Windows 7 operating system.

Water storage tank problem

Water marks on the ceiling

Yesterday I noticed some faint water marks on the ceiling panel below the roof top water storage tank and the cement floor was damp. Suspecting leakage either in the water tank or the cold water plumbing system I climbed up into the tiny ceiling crawl space to inspect the poly tank and the plumbing. At first I thought the leak was due to the old cold water plumbing, but after careful inspection found nothing.

Expecting to see a puddle of water all I could see were faint traces of wet marks on the plywood decking and also on the ceiling panel. Couldn't detect any cracks visible in the tank wall Could not tell for sure whether the wall or the bottom of the tank was leaking.

Then today mysteriously the leak stopped. There was no leak detected in the afternoon and evening. The repair man who climbed up into the ceiling said the sediments collected at the base of the tank had probably plugged the leak. He advised to monitor the situation for a few more days. If the leak continues to call him on Wed.

I hope that should the tank leak again the defect can be repaired by patching with some kind of membrane or adhesive. Replacing the current tank with a new one is going to be a messy job as it involves cutting the timber rafters, battens and opening the roofing tiles to gain access into the ceiling space under the roof covering.