Merry Christmas Folks

It's that time of the year again. To all my friends and and family I wish you nothing but joy and happiness.May the Lord continue to bless you with good health and shield you from harm.

To those of us who have lost a loved one, may their memories live on in us forever.

I miss you Stephen Lee

iBooks

A cool tutorial on converting your pdf books to the epub format. Unfortunately it has the same problems as Calibre ie formatting issues. Go ahead and give it a try anyway and see if it works for you

Location:Jalan Morib,Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia

UFC 124 Preview - ESPN MMA Georges St. Pierre's Mascot Self-Defense Training

One reason why thousands of MMA fans love GSP is because he is an all round nice guy. Having a sense of humour helps too. Hope you like Georges' advert for ESPN too. Funny.

3 Black Belts in the House

December 4, 2011 marks another milestone for Escobar BJJ with another seminar, this time with Prof. Alan "Finfou" Do Nascimento, Prof. Victor Costa and our very own Prof. Marcos Escobar. The seminar was split between a no-gi session and a gi session. There were some crazy moves in the seminar (see video below) but I particularly enjoyed the basic ones especially in the gi session eg controlling the opponent in setting up the submissions. For me it's the basics all the way.

All in all, it was well worth the time. Thanks Fight Zone Malaysia/Checkmat Malaysia/ EscobarBJJ in organizing this one

ps - if you check out this video, you will be able to see one of the craziest back takes ever (which was taught at the seminar) at 2:44, bugger me!

ICCA Cake Competition

Looks too good to be eaten

- Posted from my iPhone

CIMB Bank ... A Work In Progress

Being a Malaysian living in Malaysia, I've more or less gotten use to s*it service by our local banks. In this blog I would like to highlight CIMB Bank Berhad. I was trying to pay my housing loan and credit card and this usually happens.

I don't want to say much, so just watch the video and tell me what you think. Porra!

Great Fun With Kids BJJ

Today we had great fun with the kids at their 1st ever BJJ class. Marcos started the class by showing the kids the proper way of bowing to inculcate respect towards their fellow team mates. This was followed by some stretching exercises (not my best showing) and some floor exercises to get the kids comfortable with moving on the ground. As a final appetizer, the kids were briefly shown some positions from the closed-guard and side mount.

I am not sure about the kids (actually they enjoyed themselves) but I definitely had a great time today, being able to bond with the girls and hopefully being able to do something together and sharing the same hobby. It's only the first class but let's hope the kids stick to it. Fingers cross. Osu!!

'Customer' Dissatisfaction

A letter of Complaint has been forwarded to mommy management (again)

- Posted from my iPhone

Location:Jalan Morib,Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia

I Need Motivation : Robert Drysdale, I Give You the Job!

I'll admit this much, as far as motivation to train is concerned, 2010 is a bad year. The kids are growing up fast and I'll be reaching the big 40 soon and instinctively I've been pushing hard towards work ie. filling the coffers.But it is what it is. Sometimes we have to prioritize in life but that doesn't mean I've given up training completely. At the bare minimum I still train at least once a week. This week I've trained 3X. So it's not all that shabby.

The immediate plan (if I can achieve it) is to tweak my work 'system' so that i can free up more time to train. There's still several months till the end of the year, so let's see how it goes.

Here's Robert Drysdale giving me the motivation needed (he does not know it but he's doing a great job, hahaha).

Kuala Lumpur Court Complex

Check out this short video clip that I managed to capture yesterday afternoon. Due to it's design faults, the court complex has it's own set of problems and this is just one of them. This video is taken at the initial stage of the rain. Give it another 10 minutes and the water level would be higher

Here is a link of the extent of the problems faced in the court complex :

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/kl-court-room-leaks-again-within-a-week/

Beautiful, Just Beautiful

Last night's class was fun. The class was basically broken into 2 teams and we were given some challenges to compete against each other. Thankfully our team won. The losers gave us a performance which was quite interesting and mildlly entertaining.

Introducing the escobarbjj ballet company :-

Subsequently we had a mini competition as a form of preparation for the guys who are headed to Bangkok to compete at the end of October. As usual I was gassed...hahaha. Yes I know ,I am a sad individual but hey we live to fight another day

Patience Is A Virtue

They say patience is a virtue. Maybe so but it gets a bit tiring after exercising my patience. Check out the pic below, it's already 1030 am but the Senior Assistant Registrar is still missing and he's keeping us waiting.

Dude, court starts at 830am in case you didn't get the memo. Malaysian courts ah, I tell you.








- Posted from my iPhone

Location:Jalan Terusan 8/26,Shah Alam,Malaysia

Another Day Another System

It's beginning to get tiresome here at the Kuala Lumpur Subordinate Courts where they have managed to change the way case mentions are called(again). If I am not mistaken this is the second change or tweak (if we are being charitable) to the system.

Damn, longer waiting lines!!


- Posted from my iPhone

Location:Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia

Cempedak Yoghurt

Nothing much is up these past few weeks. Been a bit busy and a bit under the weather. Anyway here's a picture of a snack I had. It's a combination of Cempedak and yoghurt. Well, almost everyone knows the benefits of yoghurt, so I won't go there. But what are the benefits of the cempedak fruit? I can't find any articles on it but it is one sweet tasty fruit and since it is quite fibrous, perhaps it supports bowel regularity.

And that is not a bad thing. Yeehaw!!

Nutritional value per 100 g(obtained from http://www.malaysiafruit.com/chempedak/chempedak.php)

Energy 117.0 Kcal
Water 66.7 g
Protein 2.5 g
Fat 0.4 g
Carbohydates 25.8 g
Fiber 3.4 g
Calcium 40.0 mg
Phosphorus 5.0 mg

Iron (Fe) 1.1 mg
Natrium 1.2 mg
Calium 246.0 mg
Carotene 80 ug
Vitamin B1 0.16 mg
Vitamin B2 0.15 mg
Niacin 0.5 mg
Vitamin C 17.7 mg

Here's a picture of the fruit if you haven't seen one before. Yum Yum.

Battlestar Sciatica

I busted my back again last week and it's my old friend Sciatica paying me a visit (again). Consequently, I've been been walking and sitting funny the whole week trying to ease the pain. Fortunately for me, I am not in excessive pain, its more like an annoyance really. Anyway, I tried these sets of stretching exercises last night and the relief is almost immediate. Have a look, there's some good shit in there

Mothers' Day 2010

Happy Mothers' Day all mothers. We would not have made it without you

More Tweaking Needed

Just had my follow-up check with the doctor today and the verdict's in : I've gotta take the cholesterol lowering pills. 4 months ago when the tests results first came in the blood cholesterol levels were already elevated and the doctor gave me 4 months to watch my diet and perhaps bring the levels down.

Well guess what, 4 months later with me watching my diet, the cholesterol levels went UP higher albeit not drastically. Now I've gotta REALLY watch my diet. Blood glucose levels ain't too great either (I heard the term pre-diabetic being used when the doctor was discussing the matter with the Missus. That put the fear of God in me instantly).

Oh well, I suppose when life gives you lemons it's time to to make lemonade. Look out for a leaner me in the months to come.

p/s : anyone who's reading this, go for a full medical checkup as soon as you can. Don't be like me, thinking everything's A OK, I'm still young bla bla bla. Detect it early and tackle it early. Peace out.

- Posted from my iPhone

A 7 Year Old's Point of View

I really shouldn't be doing this but as I flipped through Dawncie's notebook/diary she had this to say about me, I shall reproduce word for word what she wrote :

"..papi has high colestrol that isn't good and his colestrol has gone higher and it is not, good indeed I hope his colestrol goes down if not, he may have to take drugs. I hope he doesn't end up like Michel Jackson Greatest signer and king of pop ... mom is very woried and I hope that some thing will work I don't want him (papi) to take drugs bye bye".

- Posted from my iPhone

Location:Jalan Klang Lama,Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia

FightZone Rio In Da House

Just a short post. Today I had my 1st roll with BJJ Black Belt, Leke who hails all the way from Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. Leke fights with the CheckMat team and is an instructor at FightZone Rio.

Of course it goes without saying I gassed badly and used everything in my 'arsenal' and got owned pretty badly. Felt like the first day of BJJ class all over again. The fantastic thing about it is that I think Leke was only using 10% of his skills against our 100%. All said and done I can't wait for the next roll. It's when you get pummelled that you learn I suppose. (I think I might have learnt a new sweep). Nothing beats rolling with a black belt.

Of course, after class it was makan time. This is Malaysia after all.

That's Leke on the right

p.s. - Leke will be with us for a month, so if you are in Kuala Lumpur, swing by the academy for classes. It's an opportunity not to be missed

Click on this link for the academy's location via google maps:Persiaran Mahogani,Petaling Jaya,Malaysia

Posted from my iPhone

Nusajaya, Johor

Last week I managed to drop by Nusajaya in Johor which I believe is part of the Iskandar Corridor. There were several new developments and believe me when I tell you, some of the houses were fancy.

Here is the video of the innards of 1 one the bungalows I visited (plus some pics). For $1,500,000.00 you too can have this

- Posted from my iPhone