Let's Cook Together With Lim Yixin

After watching my blogger friend Lim Yixin’s pictures , I remember when I was a student abroad (in Europe) many years ago. Our student hostel provided a kitchen where we could cook our meals everyday . The students from Asia were the most widely used the kitchen . So, every time we finished college, then we rushed into the kitchen,. The simple dish most easily made was omelette. Its main ingredient was egg. Having beaten in a bowl, the egg was then fried until cooked as shown in the pictures made by Lim Yixin . Other foods cooked depent on their respective nations.There were many kind of foods such as fried rice, fried noodles, fried chicken, fried tofu, etc.The most horrendous was the fried salted fish. Wow…It smells begging for mercy ! It’s very stinging, so it could make people cough. Many foreign friends were often angry because of  the fried salted fishes’ smell.

Another delicious food was curry (from India), sukiyaki and teriyaki (from Japan), kebabs (from Turkey), chicken “opor” ( food with coconut milk from Indonesia), various noodles food (from China) and many others.

If you have any recipes from your country, please don,t hesitate to write them as comments , Really appreciate your add.

Enjoy !.

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How I Lost Millions and Lived to Tell About It

Yesterday my senior blogger friend Brian Gardner has sent me a story about his great experience in online business. I think his story is very useful to share for other bloggers. Therefore I have quoted it below.

Every season on America’s Funniest Videos you’ll see a clip of some poor fellow getting punk’d by his friends or family.
He’s the guy seen scratching some lottery ticket and thinks he just won a lot of money. You may see him start running around with his arms flailing, kissing anything in sight. While he thinks he hit the mother load, they were just playing a trick on him.

Back in 2009, that was me.
Not quite the same situation, and most definitely not being punk’d. This was real.
When a Deal Falls Through
I’m sure most of you don’t know this, but nearly two years ago I came THIS close to selling StudioPress, a company that I founded which develops premium WordPress themes.
Nearly everyday you can read on Mashable about startups that are bought by larger companies or investor groups. On that site, more than likely those deals which are announced fall within the millions of dollars – and some of them even into the billions.
I was less than two weeks away from having a story like that of my own – not to say that Mashable would have covered it, but StudioPress was a few hundred hours from changing hands. Two weeks from me and my family having a pay day that many dream about.
The saying goes, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, right?
So What Happened?
I won’t go into all of the (gory) details, but ultimately things didn’t work out. It was disappointing because I was really excited about the opportunity to stay onboard with them and continue to run StudioPress.
I had plans to make it grow, to strategize and to see how far I could take it with greater resources at my disposal.
I visited their office twice, and got to know some of the employees – whom I really liked and knew I’d work well with.
Everything during the due diligence round checked out – but the bottom line was the investors weren’t completely onboard. And I respected that, even though it was really difficult to hear.

Living to Tell About It
You might be asking why I am sharing this somewhat personal situation – and the answer is simple. I’m an entrepreneur, as many of you who are.
We share commonalities with things that are somewhat trivial (like web browsers), and also with things that affect us on a much higher level.
When things don’t go our way, we have the option to sulk and let it (negatively) affect how we do life. The other option, which is usually much more difficult, is to identify the silver lining in a could that feels pretty dark.
Even though the multi-million dollar deal fell through, I learned a lot – from the process itself, and also finding fortune in what I still had. An opportunity to take that business which I had built to places it had never been.

The Silver Lining in My Dark Cloud
Less than a year after the deal fell through, I made a business decision that I believe was the silver lining in the dark cloud. 9 months ago I proudly came together with 4 incredible people to form Copyblogger Media.
When one door closes (or in my case slams), at some point another will open.
Of course from time to time I think about what could have been – but looking back it might have been the best thing for me as an individual and StudioPress as a company.
Within the past 9 months, StudioPress sales have doubled. In March we launched Premise – a tool for building landing pages. Scribe SEO saw a great update in version 3.0.
I’ve become the Chief Product Office at Copyblogger Media.
The Genesis Framework is now being used on over 300,00 sites.
Somehow I think you get the picture, that I don’t regret what happened – even if it meant not having that big pay day. I learned a very important lesson, and I’m quite content.
When the deal fell through, another door opened…

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Fukushima cover on its way

Tepco plans to complete the construction of a cover over the stricken Fukushima Daiichi unit 1 by the end of September, according to a progress report submitted to the Japanese nuclear safety agency. Meanwhile, recent analysis suggests most of the fuel in the unit's storage pool is undamaged.

A cover is being installed over the unit 1 reactor building, damaged by a hydrogen explosion on 12 March, as a temporary measure to reduce the release of radioactive materials to the atmosphere as well as to prevent the ingress of rainwater. Preparatory work, such as levelling the ground, began in mid-May. Crawler cranes are to be used in the installation process to minimize the exposure dose of workers and shorten the work period.

According to a report on the construction plan submitted by Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) on 24 June, on-site construction work is now underway and is scheduled for completion by the end of September, although the plans include a contingency margin to the end of November.

The cover will be able to accommodate an accumulated snow load of 30 centimetres, wind speeds of up to 25 metres per second, and a horizontal seismic load of 0.2, according to Tepco. All the wall panels will have a flameproof coating, and the structure will have a filtered ventilation system capable of handling 10,000 cubic metres per hour through six lines, including two backup lines. The cover structure will also be fitted with internal monitoring cameras, radiation and hydrogen detectors, thermometers and a pipe for water injection.
Nuclide analysis of water from the used fuel pool at unit 1 suggests that most of the fuel in the pool is sound, Tepco reports. The analysis of 300 millilitres of water from the pool on 22 June showed higher activity levels than would be expected under normal conditions, but this is assumed to arise from contamination by radioactive materials from rubble, dust and incoming contaminated water.

Trial operations of a system to treat contaminated water at Fukushima are continuing despite an interruption for a caesium absorption unit to be exchanged. According to Tepco, 2489 tonnes of contaminated water had been treated as of 24 June.

(Source : World Nuclear News, edition of 27 June 2011)

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Repairing of Cooling System in Fukushima Reactor

Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) continually strive to create conditions within the reactor building at the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 2 safer for the staff of the reactor workers. The work was almost complete while waiting for decreasing of the humidity levels in the unit which is still very high.

An alternative circulation system for the fuel cooling ponds used in Unit 2 began operations on May 31 and attempted to get a normal temperature around 25 º C on June 10. This work is expected to reduce the humidity inside the building, but this has not happened yet.

Address the issue separately in the unit's reactor, Tepco has conducted operations of air filters for ventilation Unit 2, and filter out air radioactivity. Then the filtered air is flowed back into the reactor building. The company said that it will continue for three days, then they will check again the existing radiation levels . If the internal level has dropped significantly, Tepco will open the door of the building so workers can go to work again.

For the first time since the accident on March 15, 2011, workers can now enter the third floor of the Unit 4 of reactor building. While the company is considering plans to install a new cooling pond system in Unit 4 because of the serious damages occurred.

(Source: World Nuclear News)

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Recycling of Natural Water

Actually, the universe has done the Recycling of Natural Water, which is yawn of water on earth, including sea water. The sunlight is so hot, then it causes the water on earth to break down into water vapor which soared to the top. And because the temperature is too cold in the upper atmosphere, the water vapor condenses back into water which we call r a i n.

Global warming is happening today has caused changing seasons. Therefore, the process of Natural Water Recycling is halting. In many regions the drought is occurring because of very slightly rain .

Actually in our daily lives we can also do the Recycling of Natural Water. For example, we are watering every day, especially in the dry season. We can also restore the clean water back into the earth at every opportunity. Not only do we dispose of dirty water into the ground, but even drinking water such as Aqua, etc. If the entire population of the earth, amounting to 6,925,698,944 to do this activity every day, then we believe the earth and nature will be preserved.

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Your Dream’s Coming True In The Future

We have tried to set our goals as I described on the earlier post. These goals might be your dreams. Below I give you an example how an awesome dream could be realized by working hard and smart in a Project Management.
Brooklyn Bridge was built according to John Augustus Roebling's dream in 1883. At that time, Mr. Roebling had an idea to build an unusually long bridge connecting New York with Long Island. It was really a crazy dream. At that time the bridge experts around the world collected the opinion that the dream to build the bridge as long as it is highly unlikely and they asked Mr. Roebling to forget that dream.

Mr. Roebling persuade his son, Washington, to cooperate in making the concept of how the bridge could be built and thought about the possibility of resistance. Father and son then hired a project team to do the construction work and start realize their dream .

Poor can not be rejected, lucky not to be achieved, an accident during construction activities take place within a few months. The accident claimed the lives of Mr. Roebling. The child suffered nerve damage to the brain. Washington had to spend time in hospital in a very bad condition. He could not walk, talk and even move. While some bridge experts commented negatively against him.

Washington had to fight against the disease. Trying to get up and move, but none of his limbs is capable to move, except for one finger. With one finger he began trying to communicate with his wife through the symbol made by his finger movements. This body language signaled for the bridge construction. This non-verbal communication continued. All instructions and problems in development activities carried out by tapping a finger until the great bridge completely built. With patience during the construction period of 13 years his wife had faithfully translated her husband’s finger tapping code into meaningful information for engineers who were continuing the construction.

In this true story we learn about the importance of have a dream, then write down the dream of becoming a concept that can be operational , and perform with great firmness and tenacity no matter what happens, insults and even loss.

Good Luck !
(DS. Utomo)

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The Importance of Knock Out Goal

The Importance of Knock Out Goal

When I participated in the Training of Trainers (TOT) Program on Project Management at the Royal Institute of Public Administration (RIPA), London, UK, I
learned how to write project goals correctly and achieve results. In this lesson it had been discussed about the importance of creating a Knock Out Goal.

"If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes."-Andrew Carnegie Quotes

When you are creating your goals its important to set long term and short term goals. But its also important to write a knock out goal. A goal that encompasses all of your other goals. A goal that when you succeed at accomplishing it, you will feel complete. This goal should describe your character and passion. The achievement of your knock out goal would change everything!

Some examples of knock out goals:
Getting a masters or doctoral degree
Lose 75 pounds
Winning an Olympic Gold Medal
Opening and successfully running your own business
Creating a blog that has 100k subscribers (Personal goal of mine)
Financial freedom with enough money in the bank to retire

The list goes on and on, and every person has a unique knock out goal!
What goal could you achieve that would change everything?
What would your knock out goal be?

Your knockout goal is a goal that's worth pursing with passion. It's a goal that's worth spending at least a little time on each day.
The next step is writing your knock out goal down as you were taught in the previous lesson. Write your goal with detail and with passion. Once you have written your most important goal, carry it with you at all times. I suggest putting it in your wallet or purse. But where ever it is, make sure it's somewhere that you will see it often. By doing so you will constantly remind your subconscious and conscious minds, and it will keep them sharp.

Another reason why its integral that you carry your goal with always is because as soon as you write it down you will have doubts and fears. These doubts and fears are normal, but you must master them. It's OK at first have fears and doubts. Your knock out goal should stretch you and push you. But don't let your fears defeat you, let them be a testament for why you need to accomplish your goal.

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