Meet up with KH and Peter 9pm till 2am

Met up with Peter and KH on 8-May-09 Friday night at 9pm near KH's place at Yishun. Have not met KH for more than 10 years and Peter about close to 1 year. Have a very good chat with them and before we knew, it is already 2am in the morning ! Was having a good chat and catching up with each other.

KH has been doing serious trading on his own for 6 years. Peter slight less than a year.

Got some good advice from them on what's the best configuration to use when buying next desktop PC for trading with 3 to 4 monitor setup. They definitely know how to optimize and get a PC that run at maximum speed.

My desktop most likely configuration will be as follow :-
Intel i7 Quad processor
6 to 8Gb of DDR3 1333Mhz RAM
Window Vista Home Premium 64
A 10K speed small drive to install the OS and major software.
A 7,200 speed second drive (500GB or 1TB or whichever the sweet spot is) for other non critical sw and data.
Either 1 or 2 graphics card to support 3 or 4 monitors.
They recommend to get 22" display which is the current price/spec sweet spot (still deciding whether to re-use my current 15" and 17" old monitors).

Both have been very generous in sharing their trading/investment experiences.

KH also share quite a fair bit of his personal view on some of the US conspiracy theory relating to 911 event and the current banking crisis. Quite intrigue and interesting points of view.

Maybe a good idea to catch up with them once in 2 or 3 months to share experiences and strategies.

Ran 9.67km (6.49km Track24 plus 3.18km RunHome)

Went to run with 5 other run-hobbyists today at Track-24 (6.5km). Time taken was 37:44 minutes and average speed was 10.3kmph. Hlaf way through the run, stop to take a short video of my friends running. After the Track-24 run, had a drink and chat session with the fellow runners. Learnt 2 new cool down exercise from ZiJing.

After that continue to run home for another 3.18km.

After the run, the heart rate dropped back to 120bpm within 3:30 minutes. It dropped to 128bpm within 2 minutes which is not too bad considering that I was doing brisk walking after the run. Heard that a very healthy runner should be able to recover the heart rate back to 120bpm within 2 minutes after the run.

Six people met up today to do the Track-24 run...GuanHong, Jasmine, ZiJing, CS, CK and HC Gan.
Two of them (CS and CK) are new participants, welcome !!

Look how energized and motivated they were before the run.

ZiJing and GuanHong were ahead of the pack. All completed the track-24. Thanks to HT for providing the cool tangerine drink after run. He did not join us today as he is still recovering from his flu.

ZiJing showed the team two exercises for cooling down after the run.

1st one is to criss-cross the legs (with knees straigthen), bend the body forward and try to touch the floor with your finger tips. Hold for 20 seconds. Then repeat with the other leg. This suppose to help out the knee area.

2nd exercise is to put one leg (the heel area) on a higher ground (e..g on a chair, table, or etc). Bend your body forward and try to touch your toes with your fingers. old for 20 seconds. Then repeat on the other leg. This suppose to help the hamstring area.

CK is from Penang visiting and he participated in marathon events before. He will be joining the Standard Chartered marathon event on 30-June-09.
HC is very tempted to join the KL event too (still deciding).

Jasmine did half marathon before and the Penang bridge run.



Everyone enjoyed the run today eventhough it has been a very hot day today. The group stay around and have a good chat while cooling down with the nice drink HT provided. The picture after the run is a bit blury but the group are still as energized after the run.

==> click here if want to see today's run data and chart on speed, distance, etc <==

Reminder :
next week Tuesday run is at East Coast Park starting from carpark E2 and not at our normal UPR. 3 or 4 cars will be arranged to pick up from the usual real gate open air carpark area. Last car planning to leave at 5:10pm. Three routes available... 5km, 10km and 15km or any distance between 5km to 15km is do-able.

Swam 800m today

Went to SCC and swam 16 laps (50m each). A total of 800m in about 28 minutes.

Went to run with 13 friends at UPR

I ran from UPR carpark to the main gate entrance, u-turn back, took the small route to the pump area and back to the carpark. Total distance covered is about 5.67km.

Completed the 5.67km in 31 min and 42 sec, an average speed of 10.7kmph. Was running together with BokHui, but he was way ahead of me...much faster.

After that I ran+walk another 1Km at the bridge. Had a nice cool drink and short chat with the friends.

A total of 14 people turned up today for the run at UPR. That's still a pretty good response.

Some of them asked how come there was no update on the Hot-Runners website for the whole of last week. Wow... looks like some of the people do look forward to see some updates on the website on a regular basis. By the way, we do have a web tracker in place to track the number of web viewers. E.g. for last week, the number of viewers was 71 and the number of page viewed was 119.

Those who turned up today were Will, Venkat, GuanHong, George, TL Yen, Randy, Janto, Reis (the only flower among the thorns), JY Cho, Steby, CM Lai, BokHui, CS Chan (not in photo) and HC Gan (not in photo).

Thanks to CS for sponsoring the 100-Plus drink today.

Margaret forgot to bring her running gears today so not able to join us eventhough she wanted to run today. HT met up with the team but did not run as he is recovering from his flu (not A flu H1N1).

The group discussed today and ageed to do a run next week Tuesday 12-May-09 at the East Coast Park in preparation for the upcoming PA Passion run and Sundown run on 24th and 30th May. The plan is to park at carpark E2 near the lagoon/hawker centre (start and finished point). The running routes available will be per the PA Passion run routes for 5km, 10km and 15km. Will leave office carpark at 5:10pm, those who need to get their managers approval please do so. HT Ng and HC Gan will provide transport from office carpark to East Coast carpark E2. We will arrange a 3rd car to ensure there is enough seats. After the run, we can have dinner/drink over there at the hawker cenre near the carpark.

Will re-vamp this website later this month to include running tips, training plans for marathon event (10km, 21km & 42km), sharing of experience, etc, etc.

Started reading "A sense of urgency" by John Kotter

Plan to read a new book "A sense of urgency" by John Kotter. Sounds like a book which teaches you on how to turn around a company... by instilling a greater sense of purpose and urgency. Just starting reading Page 1 so do not know what to expect yet.

Also realized that we have at least more than 20 books that we have at home but still have not read yet. They were accumulated over the years either bought by me, given to me or by some seminar speakers or company events.

This new book and the "Jungle" which I have just finished, both belong to my wife.

Finished reading the book "Jungle' by Yossi Ghinsberg

Just finished reading the book "Jungle" by Yossi Ghinsberg. A harrowing true story of survival, about his adventure into the wild jungle & got loss for about 20 days alone but survived.

Quote :
"When work is a labor of true love laced with a sense of calling, we cease to work and become purposeful." by Yossi Ghinsberg

Did a 7km run today

Did a 7km run today alone around Seletar Hills Estate area. Did two rounds around my prefered route with an additional 300m around the garden for each round of the circuit.

Did not run this week Thu and Sat. So today's run is to stay in shape and to continue to stay fit.