Joan Bowen Cafe

Today, I went to have lunch at Joan Bowen Cafe with ah-Lian and my family. The food is OK! They are at 9 Jalan Wangi, Singapore 349354. It is off-Macperson road just in case you wonder where it is. Give them a call if you don't know where is it - 6281-3629. Just part the cars at the road side, whenever you found a car park.

What so special about this restaurant?

From the details from their name card, they serve food, coffee, desserts, you can print your photos here and they sell handy crafts. Hmm... interesting mix.



I ordered a fish and chip. Jay Jay & Ah-Lian ordered a mushroom spaghetti, and Boon Ching ordered a Chili Crab spaghetti. Both my wife and me had Leffe Blonde, a belgium beer. They serve wine as well.

So, what so special about this restaurant?

Look, the portion of my fish and chip is big. And the Dori fish taste good. The Chili crab spaghetti is nice.



Later, I ordered a Oreo Cheesecake, and a latte.

So, what so special about this restaurant?

The Latte is served using NExpresso from Nestle. I have one of these and it really serve great coffee from the capsules. My wife had a tea but with Vanila sugar. I believe this is the first time I know what is a Vanila sugar. Very fragrant and tasty.



Got a chance to take some pictures for the kitchen. They have this open kitchen concept to let you see what's in there. The chef is teaching a kid to cook.

So, what so special about this restaurant?



Oh look. I think she is the owner's daughter. And she is the one who cook my Fish & Chips. And by the way, she did a great job. Few days ago, she fried her 1,000 fish & chips. It is a greatest achievement given that she suffers from a kind of illness (I cannot remember the medical names) that she cannot remember things. The questions is, if she cannot remember anything, how did she manage to cook? Her job is to fried the fish. It is a repetitive job. Do nothing but fried the fish, every day until parts of your body remembers.

Remember the kid that is cooking just now, he too suffers from Down Syndrome, but managed to serve good food for us. His job is to cook the noodles.

The kid that is serving the Latte does not know what is a Latte. But there is a special toy that they made that equate that to Latte. When we ordered the latte, that toy will be given to him, and he knows he needs to make a Latte by putting the Latte capsule into the Nexpresso
coffee machine, place a cup there and press the button. As simple as that.

This is not just another ordinary restaurant. It is a restaurant with a big heart. They have a real cook, but they have also all these Down Syndrome patients to present there to learn and do real work by learning repetitive work. It is a very new concept, and it touches every body's heart. To eat here, you need a big heart. Take a look at their blogs, and you will know what and how much things that they went thru to set up this.
http://joanbowen.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html
http://joanbowen.blogspot.com/.html

These super-teens cook with a big heart, and you eat with a big heart. Enjoy... All food best served with Laffe Blonde beer.



By the way, those handy craft is made by them too. Yes, the owner of restaurant teaches handy craft skills to those super-teens.

Jay Jay & LWPS Year End Concert 2009

It's that time of the year... I can still remember, my little Jay was crying when we sent him to the backstage last year... and he refuses to wear the bulky "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" costumes... and I remember he was having fun last year at the stage...

This year, the concert is held at Nan Yang Secondary School. And when we sent him off to the backstage, our Jay is smiling all the way, and no more crying... he has grown up...



Up in the stage, he is really performing for everyone to see, and of course, when he sees Lily doing the wrong thing (placing her little umbrella on wrong photos), he will complaint to Miss. Haz about it, even during the performance, but you can tell that he is having lots of fun.

After the show, he will stick around with his friends, chit chating, taking photos, etc etc... My little Jay is now 3 years old, and he is much much grown up now... and you time flies very fast...



you can watch the video of his performance here

compare to the last year one... it is here

NGB & SGIX

Today, was at the IDA's workshop for the Next Generation Broadband...
After hearing all the presentations, here are some of my thoughts...

1. Setting up SGIX @ 1-Net and Global Switch? So, to peer, you still need to buy a local loop to connect. So strange, Equinix is there, and all Telcos are there, why does the decision makers decides on these 2 locations? IDA shall change it to Equinix and pay for all the cross connect charges, etc and fund the project.

I think this will be another failed project. So funny, up until so many years, they finally realize that this is a problem in Singapore. How many years that HKIX (Hong Kong IX) has exist??

2. Yes. 100M or 1Gb to your home. The questions is where is the contents? Unlike Japan, Korea or Hong Kong, Singapore has no Content. So, even if you have 100M, your latencies and download speed for overseas website still going to be slow. Look at today, if you subscribe to 100M from Starhub, does it mean that your web surfing experience improved? nope.

I think IDA should fund the International bandwidth so to make it successful.

But also becareful... that means P2P downloads will increase, visits to porn sites will increase. So, how does IDA going to fix the related social problems?

Let's wait and see...

Feng Shui: Missing Corner & Dark Corner

Directions within a house will be important. Each direction can have different meaning within your home. And making sure these direction is well taken care of, is a must.




Missing Corner

From my living room, the south west corner is a common lift / elevator. So, there is this piece of space missing from my home. By right, it should be a square or rectangle shape for the living room, but because of the space this lift takes, the missing corner is there. And this missing corner is sitting on the Relationship direction. To fix this, I try to find a love birds photos that is 3D depth look.

Dark Corner

It is easy to identify the dark corner of the house. From the entrance, look around in the living room. Identify those places where normal sun light will never get to. That will be your dark corner. To fix this, simply put more lights there. For me, a fish tank that has lights will help to do the trick. The dark corner is at the east side corner, the Family/Health of my home. you definitely wanted to fix that. Make this corner brighter!

Nothing much to fix, just these two. And it is easy fix. :)

Feng Shui - Home Office / Study Room & the Bed

Today, we talked about home office or study room.

Yesterday, I was discussing with my buddy about having a bed inside a home office or study room. Here are some of the collections of thoughts thru our conversations which I think is interesting to share...



1. I don't think one should place a bed in the home office or study room. the reason is very simple. When you work or study, in front of you, you see a bed. There is this seduction force will seduce you to lie down on the bed. So, it will de-focus you, and you will lose concentrations gradually. So, it is no good for career or education. Basically, it will make you lazy.

2. However, if you have no choice and wanted the home office or study room to serve as a guest room when friends or relatives come over. Then, I suggest you put a sofa bed instead.

3. Of course, the buddy argued, he may also sleep on the sofa bed. So, the correct thought is... yes, it is a sofa, and it is comfortable to sleep on it.. But you will sleep on a bed more longer than sleeping on a sofa. So, having a sofa bed is fine if you think it this way. Btw, the sofa of course is a reading corner. So, don't treat it like a bed. But if you use a bed instead, in front of you is a bed. Visualize it and connect it with lazy.

4. My buddy already married and he wanted to have a kid soon. So, my advise to him is to donate the bed away as soon as possible. The reason is very simple. His home office is on 3rd floor. His bed room is on second floor. Sometimes you dozed off and sleep on the bed inside the home office is OK. But if you do it too often, it becomes a habit. So, the lesser he will sleep on the bed in his bedroom with his wife. How can make baby like that? Hahaha... Think further, that means he will spend lesser time with his wife, so, the relationship may become very far... So, it is no good if you are married.

5. Of course, if one is not married, he/she can do whatever he/she wants lar. But when one is married, it is a different story. Especially if his/her job requires to travel a lot, plus do not have a fixed office, then he/she should really think about that bed in the bed room.

Here, I would really hope that my buddy can have a "Rabbit baby" by 2012. :)

As for me, I will make sure my home office or study room will have a sofa bed instead of bed. And the home office or study room will face East for good luck.

Remember, all my thoughts on Feng Shui are not superstitious, but it is purely based on natural thinking and common sense. I only believe in common sense. My buddy told me that during his younger days, he is sort of rejecting Feng Shui by coming up with scientific method to proof it wrong. So, I said to him, try the reverse way, use the scientific method and common sense to make some sense out of Feng Shui. Once you thought about it, and if it make sense, and it will make you feel better, then, that is what I call Feng Shui... Good Luck...

10 Good Habits to Become a Successful Person

Read this article some where on the Net, and I think it is very true... Look at the people around you, those who is successful, normally, they will have a few of these quality habits ...

成功人士的10个优良习惯



1、懂得做人

品德高尚是成功之本。会做人，别人喜欢你，愿意和你合作，才容易成事。习惯于能真诚地欣赏他人的优点，对人诚实、正直、公正、和善和宽容，对其他人的生活、工作表示深切的关心与兴趣。

台湾著名企业家张忠谋在黑金横行的社会大环境下依然从来不走后门、不走政商关系，更拒绝钻法律漏洞，赢得企业界和民众的极大尊重，官员也因此从来不敢故意刁难他的企业。

Comments: To survive in this corporate world, just be the real you, learn how to become a human. Learn how to treat people nicely, put yourself into other people shoes, try understanding from other people stand point, and live harmony with all your friends and colleagues. In return, people will start respecting you and treat you good.

2、善于决策

一个成功的企业领导者的价值在于“做正确的事情”，同时帮助各阶层的主管“把事情做正确”。面对不断变化的市场，企业经营方案总是不止一个，决策就是要对各种方案进行分析、比较，然后选择一个最佳方案。四川长虹总裁倪润峰1996年率先拿起价格武器将彩电大幅降价，从而确立国产彩电的主导地位，正是看准市场、果断决策的典型。

Comments: A leader is a leader because he or she knows how to make decisions. A good decision that covers all the area, but not only for his own benefits. A good leader will always take charge and make decisions.

3、相信自己

一个成功人士都有很强的信心，有时会有咄咄逼人之势。他们既会在自己内心里相信自己，也会在公众面前表现出这种自信心。成功学的研究成果表明：成功的欲望是创造和拥有财富的源泉。

英特尔总裁葛洛夫认为“只有偏执狂才能生存”，坚持与自信成就了英特尔今天的伟业。

Comments: You must have a strong believe in yourself. You must understand your own capability, and be confident about it. Once you lost that confident, it is also the time that you should step down from the leadership.

4、明确目标

一个比较完美成功者习惯于为他们的企业建立目标，并使全体员工为之奋斗，为之奉献。什么是领导?世界级企管大师班尼士下了个定义：“创造一个令下属追求的前景和目标，将它转化为大家的行为，并完成或达到所追求的前景和目标。

Comments: Setting a clear target is very important. With a target set, you can have a target to work towards. For example, I want to buy a bigger home. I want to bring my family to Japan. All these are personal targets. In office, you can set target too. I want to be a CEO by the age of 45. Some thing like that.

5、充满热忱

热忱有时候比领导者的才能重要，若二者兼具，则天下无敌。

产生持久的热忱方法之一是定出一个目标，努力工作达到这个目标，而在达到这个目标之后，再定出另一个目标，再去努力达到。这样做可以提供兴奋和挑战，如此就可以帮助一个人维持热忱而不坠。

Comments: Be very passion about your target, your believing. You must create that huge fire in the belly. Only those who has huge passion will succeed.

6、顽强精神

如果说有一种素质几乎为所有的成功企业领导者所拥有的话，那就是顽强精神。所谓顽强，并不是达到愚蠢地步的顽固，它是一种下决心要取得结果的精神。

Comments: Of course, there will be obstacles here and there. Having a target, passion will not enough. You must be persistent. If fails 1 time or 2 times, try it again smartly, be persistent.

7、重视人才

企业最好的资产是人，企业领导者的美德在于挑选好的合作伙伴。选一个适合的人，比选一个优秀的人来得重要。除了专业所必备的素质之外，他们找人要看3种东西：一是必须精力充沛。有精神、有气派，这样的人可以走长途，可以感染人，适应变动。二是要正直。考虑个人利益的同时，能够考虑到公司的利益。三是要有智慧和胆识，有进行思考的能力和魄力。

Comments: Look around. Use your heart to see people. Every one has its own ability. If they cannot see it, you must be the one that is able to open up their eyes so they can see it themselves. Once you know they are capable, delegate everything to them. Let them have a chance to excel. Never stop talented people to excel.

8、充分授权

著名的领导者知道，授权的真正手段是能够给人以责任、赋予极力，并保证有一个良好的报告反馈系统。

美国前总统里根是一个出名的放任主义者，他只关注最重要的事情，将其它事情交给手下得力的人去负责，自己因此可以经常去打球、度假，但并不妨碍成为美国历史上最伟大的总统之一。

Comments: When you hire, you want to hire people who can have the capability to take over your job. So, never afraid of hiring people that is better than you. Once you hire, delegate the job to him. So that you can free yourself to do other things and excel yourself.

9、激励团队

一个企业领导人必须是一个能激发起员工动力的人。

组织起一个优秀的团队，是一件非常艰难和重要的事情。激发起他们的热情，挖掘出每一位团队成员的聪明与潜力，并将他们协调起来，是成功的领导者必须具备的一种能力。

Comments: motivate the team is very important. You have to have a team that works together towards the target. Therefore, you must learn how to motivate team. Slowly, one step at a time.

10、终生学习

在商业竞争日趋激烈的今天，企业领导者面临着更新观念、提高技能的挑战，因此需要终生地学习。衡量企业成功的尺度是创新能力，而创新来源于不断的学习，不学习不读书就没有新思想，也就不会有新策略和正确的决策。孔子说：“朝闻道，夕死可矣。”正是终生学习的最佳写照。

Comments: Knowledge is never ending. You must learn every day. You must look around, and learn new things. Do not confine yourself into a very confined space. Step out the box, and think, and learn all the fantastic things around you.

Good luck to all the people who wants to be successful. Before getting there, this checklist is pretty good and if you found that you have done 10 out of the above 10, it is very likely that you will be a very good person and leader.

来源：中国企业家