Eidul Adha 1430H

For the 1st time, our Eidul Adha this year was different. We use to treat Eidul Adha as a 2nd-rated holidays. That means, no open houses or makan-makan. The Raya mood is usually gone on the way back from the mosque. The only "grand" thing about Eidul Adha is the Qurban.
But in Dubai, we realized that we celebrate this Eid as much and as hype as the Eidul Fitr. Open houses... that included BBQ... And 2 days of tiring but satisfying trips around the Emirate.
On the Eid morning, for the first time we went to the Matrade building for Eidul Adha prayer and takbir... followed by a small buffet-styled breakfast.
Then the makan-makan session started. It was almost midnight when we got home.
The 2nd day was also the same. We had 3 (or 4) invitations, including one in Dubai Ladies Club which my wife attended (it's only for Muslimat). Once again, we arrived home late at night.
On Sunday evening we had a BBQ dinner in Arabian Ranches... Got home almost midnight as well.

To everybody who had invited us, thank you very much for your hospitality. May Allah bless you and your family with HIS sustenance.

Eid Mubarak to all Muslims... From Dubai, UAE.
Sent from Haza Hilmy's BlackBerry® device

Ain's New Look

Last week, he class teacher told us that she had some problem with her eyes... she couldn't see the white-board in front of the classroom clearly.
She referred her to school clinic and they told us that she had to see the optometrist for further examinations.
We took her to the nearby optometrist in Rolla St... and sure enough he told us, after a lengthy examination, she needs glasses...
Her prescription... 1.50 (Left), 1.25 + 0.50 cyl. (Right)... Go ask an eye doctor for the meaning of that.
He also advised her to take care of her eyes.... no reading in dimmed lights, eat healthy... give the eyes proper rests and etc....

Happy Birthday, Nor Azilah aka Sayang aka Ibu

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU...

WITH LOVE FROM ME AND THE KIDS...

YOU WILL ALWAYS BE OUR INSPIRATIONS...

Happy 5th Birthday, Ahmad Afiq Hilmy

I'm so happy....I'm floating!!!

A special pose from Apit...

HAPPY 5TH BIRTHDAY APIT....

AYAH, IBU, ALONG & AIN LOVE YOU...

EVERYBODY LOVES YOU...

BE HAPPY AND KEEP SMILING...

MAY YOU GROW UP TO BE A SOLIHIIN...

BBQ dinner for Dato' and Datin (30/10/2009) - A belated entry (...also)

One of our Malaysian friends in the UAE, was just being conferred the Datukship title. Now instead of calling him Doctor (he's one of the Dean in Sharjah University), I guess we should all address him as a Dato' now... and his wife a Datin.

Well, being a down-to-earth couple, I don't think they would mind if we skip the Dato' and Datin titles when we address them... at least in un-official situations.

So, in order to honor them, we held a BBQ dinner at their place in the Sharjah University campus.

I don't want to elaborate further... but when it comes to Malaysian in the UAE, occassions like this one will surely meant pot-luck... So, food was abundance... and everybody had a good time.

And...Congratulations to both Dato' Dr Rani and Datin Dr Nizam...

Click HERE to see the photos.

Destination: Kalba (24/10/2009) - A belated entry

I have been planning this for quite some time. Our first long distance trip... to Kalba, in the Emirate of Sharjah. Kalba is a small town on the east coast of the UAE (Gulf of Oman), just a few km from the UAE border with the Sultanate of Oman. It’s about 130 km from Dubai.

Early in the morning, my wife cooked Nasi Lemak among other things. We were planning to have a picnic there. So, after Dzuhur, at about almost 200pm, we left Dubai. We headed for Sharjah by the Emirates Rd.

Then at the National Paints round-about, we took the Maliha Rd which will take us directly to Kalba. On each side of the road, we were greeted by sandy deserts and sand dunes.... but because we didn’t want to arrive in Kalba after dark, we didn’t stop to take photos.

We continue our journey pass the town of Maliha.... into the mountainous road towards Wadi El-Helo. The road was carved into the rocky mountain that separate the Oman Gulf plateau from the rest of UAE.

Sharjah-Kalba Road

Highway through the rocks

Wadi Al-Helo town, in the middle of nowhere

Wadi Al-Helo tunnel (reminiscent of our own Menora tunnel)

We're almost there... Oman is to the right side...

We arrived in Kalba at about 430pm... the weather was wonderful with temperature in the mid-20s. We performed ‘Asar at a small mosque and, afterwards, went to find a picnic spot by the lagoon.

We found a spot a started our picnic... feasting on the nasi lemak and the karipap that my wife made. There were quite a lot of people jogging and walking along the lagoon... women in abayas, children. There were also a few Arab families having their picnic not too far from where we had ours.

Nasi lemak & karipap...a Malaysian picnic in Kalba

I found this fox wondering in the clearings across the lagoon from us...

Sunset in Kalba

When the muezzin from the near-by mosque sounded the azzan, it was time for us to start packing and cleaning up. We left the lagoon to find a mosque to perform Maghrib and ‘Isya (Jama’ and Qasr).

We took a different route back to Dubai.

We headed north towards Fujeirah (by entering Fujeirah, we’d completed our trips to all the 7 Emirates), then to northwest towards Masafi, Al-Dhaid and Sharjah. Traffic was quite heavy that night... but we arrived home safely.

Harun Al-Rashid mosque, Kalba

My Mr Dependable in front of the mosque

A Malaysian furniture store in Kalba???

More Kalba photos HERE

Of Upset Stomach and Traffic Jams

We were coming back from the factory yesterday... taking the Ismailiya Hiway from the 10th of Ramadhan.... We left the factory at about 430pm....

A few KMs from Cairo, we were stuck in a really bad traffic jam.... it took us almost one and a half hour to cover about 3KM.... Why? Basically nobody knew.... it just happened... Maybe road constructions... or maybe there were just too many vehicles yesterday going into Cairo...

The worse thing was that my stomach wasn't feeling so good... Might be because of that Mo'meen Seafood sandwich that I ate for lunch...

Didn't want to take the chances.... I asked my driver friend to stop at the next mosque or gas station... There were none to be found along the way, unfortunately...

2-3KMs from the hotel, we found a Mobil station and.... aaahhhhh.... what a relief.... but....this was something that you don't expect to find in Egypt's toilets......


NO HOSE OR TAP TO WASH!!!.... YIKES!!!


* Today I told them, no more Mo'meen please.... and we had Baladi bread and tuna chunks for lunch... which was not bad, not bad at all.....

Champions At Last.....

61 years is a long time to wait for anything. But as they say it, it's better late than never. Negeri Sembilan football team is not known to be a power house in Malaysian football. They only featured in quite a handful of finals and a few league championships to add to that. The coveted Malaysia cup have alluded them for 61 years. The closest they got was in the 2000 and 2006 seasons when they lost the finals to Perak (0-2) and Perlis (1-2), respectively. The wait ended last night.

Going into the final with good goal scored and against results, and unbeaten through the earlier rounds of the Cup, they were still considered as underdogs (or at least they considered themselves as underdogs).

But inspired to win the Cup as a coronation present to the Yang Di Pertuan Besar, Tuanku Muhriz (who was watching from the royal stand), the team nicknamed Rusa, or the Deers, played the game of their lives against the battling Red Warriors from Kelantan....winning, 3-1.

The goals were scored by Shahruain Abu Samah (18th mins), Hairudin Omar (46th mins) and MohdZaquan Adha Abd Razak (penalty, 59th mins). Kelantan's solitary goal was scored by Indra Putra Mahyuddin (93rd mins).

I was watching the game through the internet live streaming at CG residence in Al-Barsha... the streaming was not that good but at least we could hear the ever-green voice of Mr Hasbullah Awang who wEre doing the commentating.... Most of the friends at the residence were from Kelantan (including the CG) and I was the only Negeri Sembilan supporter there. Naturally, they were quite disappointed with the results.... I would feel the same had Negeri Sembilan lost the game.... but in the end, the better team walked out the winner.... no hard feelings I hope. It's just a football match.... there'll definitely be a winner and runners-up.

To all players, officials and supporters, I congratulate you... This is a big achievement for us... I hope we can do it again next year....

HOBIN JANG HOBIN!!!

Football, that Malaysian malaise...

While the hype of the Malaysia Cup Final is still on, I found this interesting opinion from Idlan Zakaria in The Malaysian Insider

NOV 1 — When I wrote about the funnelling of petrodollars into European football, a commenter queried the level of knowledge I had on the state of the beautiful game in Malaysia. Knowledge, good sir, I have little of; the Malaysian football business – for in this day and age, it is a business — is fairly opaque and I am struggling to uncover any investigative journalism on the matter bar the works of one Rizal Hashim. Opinions on the local game, though, I have a few.

Amateur and professional pundits alike have taken the state of Malaysian football to pieces and tried to glue it back together again; but despite all efforts, as we see it today Malaysian football has proven to be Humpty Dumpty*. When I speak to older football fans, they tell me tales of Mokhtar Dahari running defences ragged; of Soh Chin Aun and Santokh Singh, our formidable back line; of R. Arumugam, the safest hands in all of Asia! I often imagine myself in their shoes some 30-40 years down the line, talking about Malaysian football to the youths of the future. What do I say? Who should I name as our midfield maestro, our wizard on the wings? Indeed, who should I really think of as the footballing heroes of my time when there are little heroic feats to boast about?

Listing what is wrong with Malaysian football is easy. Many others before me have done it, and others after me will do again. Most of us are aware of the history, which I admit is still a sketchy picture for me. (Is there a book on the history of Malaysian football, anywhere, which readers can recommend? Or at least a thesis or dissertation, maybe?) But here goes my attempt at painting this picture as I see it.

A formidable force in the 1950s and 1960s, we announced our arrival on the international scene in the 1970s and 1980s, qualifying for the Olympic Games twice. But unlike Korea and Japan, who built on their successes, we seem to have reached our plateau at this juncture.
The 1990’s began promisingly, with a new professional league in place and the introduction of international players seemed to pique fans’ interest. But just as attendances at games were about to scale the heights it enjoyed in earlier decades, the bribery scandal tore the Malaysian footballing world apart.

It was a scandal like no other, stabbing fans right in the heart. The implication of national heroes Matlan Marjan — once honoured with the national captain’s armband — and crowd favourites Abbas Saad in the scandal shook the faith fans had in the game. Sports was, after all, the last bastion of gamesmanship and honour. Once this was taken out of the equation — and for personal gain at that — nothing could really heal the wound.

In recent years attempts have been made to rejuvenate the local scene. The local league now features club sides as well as state teams, and recent success by club side MPPJ seemed like a breath of fresh air albeit only momentarily — the club went under only a few years after their success amidst rumours of financial irregularities.

The MyTeam program, in which usual channels of talent spotting were bypassed in identifying potential stars of the future, captured the public’s imagination, but despite this, the overall state of dismal international performance continues.

In my own personal list of “things that are wrong with Malaysian football” — of which I am sure every Malaysian fan has his or her own version — I cite the following: First, mismanagement at the league level. Whether it is of the financial resources or of existing talent, more needs to be done to stop us repeating mistakes from our past. Malaysia cannot perform well internationally if the system that feeds players into the national team is broken. And things cannot be fixed for as long as governmental politics is not divorced from the game.

Gone are the days when token Datuks are named as managers. The state of our football is so dire we do not need further levels of feudalism to muddy already opaque waters. The new batch of football clubs in the Malaysian leagues which are not state run seem to run on a business model not unlike other professional football clubs abroad — maybe this is a step in the right direction. Let’s hope there is professionalism involved in its management, and that corporate sponsorship of these teams translates to a more efficient business model rather than being the CEO’s pet project of the moment.

Second, I cite education as being the problem. In a country world where credibility is won by the number of A-grades one scores at SPM level, parents have been known to discourage talented footballers from pursuing a career in sports because it does not guarantee financial security.
And quite rightly so, because as a profession football is very precarious. All you need is one bad injury, and without academic qualifications to fall back on, the risks outweigh the potential benefits, especially taking into consideration that Malaysian footballers are not quite earning the same wages as their colleagues in other countries.

I wonder whether the system in place during the pre-professional football era, where players were given salary-paying jobs in banks or the semi-government sector, allows more stability, and perhaps would encourage more talented players to opt for playing football as a feasible post-high school career.

Or perhaps FAM could adopt the Malaysian Hockey Federation system that allowed their players to play while supporting their academic pursuits, which has seen graduates of Nor Saiful Zaini and Brian Jayhan Siva to name but two.

Third, lack of professionalism and the absence of proper attitude. Signing professional contracts is the start of the journey, not the destination. The David Beckhams and Ryan Giggs of the world put in hour after hour of training day in day out, even after winning international caps. Despite winning almost every major trophy to date, the players at Barcelona still turns up for training on time — and coach Pep Guardiola would have a lot to say if they didn’t. With our players more interested in making the pages of Mangga, should we really be surprised that we are where we are?

But on darker days, I dwell on the alternative explanation. Maybe, just maybe, there is no point in trying to resurrect Malaysian football because perhaps, just perhaps, it is not meant to be for us. Maybe we were just lucky with Mokthar and Chin Aun, and we need to stop hoping that the Akmal Rizals and Titus Palanis are here to recreate our past glory.

Was it even glory in the first place, considering that we merely qualified for the Olympic Games? If there was any glory to “recreate”, surely it would be to do with reaching that pinnacle of footballing heights, the World Cup!

Maybe we’ve maxed out all the credit we have, and it’s time to cut our losses. Maybe it’s not the lack of drive or infrastructure or money, but merely the fact that we’re not cut out for this. Maybe we’ve fallen too far behind to catch up; the game that we used to know has evolved into an industry while we were busy banishing our top players who accepted bribes to throw games.

Perhaps we are the Asian equivalent of Hungary — once great, but never again. Maybe we need to take football as it is, enjoy it as it is and not ask for more. Instead, we should funnel our funds into that 1 Malaysia Formula 1 team, so 1 Malaysia that, I hear, it even has its own KPIs!

*Colchester-related factoid: Humpty Dumpty was a canon used during the siege of Colchester in 1648. The church from where it fell from is now the Colchester Arts Centre. Or so I am told...

Tangkap!!!

Sedih betul bila dengar berita penangkapan Dr MAZA dua-tiga hari lepas.
Bukannya sedih sebab dia kena tangkap, tapi sedih dengan apa yang berlaku selepas tu. Penjelasan oleh pihak yang menangkap, pendedahan yang beliau tiada tauliah atau kelulusan yang membolehkan beliau berceramah dll.
Nampak sangat macam ada sesuatu di belakang semua ini. Hmm, tak tau nak cakap apa.
Tapi kalau betul beliau tipu sijil ijazah tu, takkan la dua universiti ternama di Malaysia boleh luluskan beliau untuk sambung belajar atau ambil beliau sebagai pensyarah... Dan macamana dengan Tuanku Raja Perlis yang lantik beliau sebagai mufti dulu?
Banyak persoalan timbul dari episod ni.
Sebagai orang dah pernah jumpa beliau dan dengar ceramah beliau (siap ada gambar dengan beliau lagi) maka penulis boleh kata yang beliau ialah seorang 'alim muda yang tinggi ilmu dan baik peribadinya. Tak lokek untuk menyebarkan ilmu pada sesiapa sahaja. Orang yang macam beliau ni la yang sepatutnya dihormati... Bukan ditangkap macam terroris...
Apalah nak jadi dengan negaraku ini???


Sent from Haza Hilmy's BlackBerry® device

Malaysia Cup Final 2009

Congratulations to the Negri Sembilan football team for making it through to the Malaysia Cup final on November 7th, 2009. I hope that the 61-year wait will end that night and the coveted Malaysia Cup trophy will make Negri Sembilan its home for the next one year.... at least until the 2010 Champions are crowned.

Let this also be a present for our beloved Yang Di Pertuan Besar, Tuanku Muhriz... in occasion of his coronation as the 11th Yang Di Pertuan Besar of Negri Sembilan.

To Coach Wan Jamak and the boys... and all Negri fans out there....

HOBIN JANG HOBIN!!!