You got a puppy to give away?

Hmmm.....want a puppy as a family pet and at the same time act as my home guard dog and maybe my personal buddy when I go cycling off road as the little fella grows up. The idea of a dog going with me off road on a bike was taken from www.mtbr.com forums where many riders in the States bring their dogs for companionship and also to exercise their dogs when they go riding.

But first of all, I'm still feeling like shit...... My flu is not getting better and neither is my cough. It's one of my trademarks, when I get the cough, it takes a long time for me to recover.......

Early this morning while I was sleeping I heard a dog barking downstairs. Since I do not have a dog I was semi-consiously thinking and contemplating whether to wake up and have a look what was going on. But decided to go and sleep.................. Anyway, went to work as usual. Later, my other half called and told me that there was a little black puppy who was very cute and chubby under her car in the porch. She brought it to the backyard and gave it some milk and a little towel for it to sleep. That little fella even wanted to enter the house and check it out!

I had been thinking about getting a puppy for the past few weeks and discussed it with the kids but Amanda's not sure if she wants a puppy whereas Austin coudn't be bothered about having a pet. Anyway, I wanted one for the reasons mentioned earlier.

So, I told myself, that's nice. Me want a puppy and puppy comes to my home by itself....... So, I tell my other half, that I'm going back home during lunch time to check out the little fella.

Unfortunately, when I reach home, the maid says that the little fella has done the Houdini act and dissapeared leaving the bowl of milk unfinished! And, I did not even have a chance to see her/him!

Well, if he/she comes running in to my home again, I'm going to keep it unless the owner comes to claim it..........

So, if you have a spare pup that you want to give away, please give me a shout. I would love to get a puppy as a friend. I'm not too particular about pedigree as I'm not too knowledgeable about dogs but of course it would be nice to get something lovable, intelligent, good with kids and at the same time double up as a family guard dog.

It's still raining. Yucks......no cycling again tonight........

Cough cough & sniff sniff......

Well, must have got the flu bug as fell sick on Monday and started coughing, developed a fever and kept on blowing my nose....... ugh..........

The medication that the doc prescribed was quite strong. The cough syrup makes me feel very drowsy and lethargic. How I wish I could just drop everything and go home and get some rest.

When I went to see the doc, I was carrying my Targus notebook backpack with me as I did not want to leave the notebook in the car. As I walked in the receptionist asked me if I was a patient or a medical rep. Hello........ I look half dead as I walk in with my coughing and yet she asks me this question. [????] Anyway, I had a good laugh with the doc later when I told him what his receptionist asked me.

The doc checked my vitals, confirmed that my blood pressure is as good as ever (can't remember what the figures were). While chatting with him, I asked him about the latest developments on stopping smoking. He told me to forget about the patches as they are too expensive and doesn't really work as it still gives one the nicotine fix that we smokers require. He mentioned one new medical product that I can't recall (why must they give it funny and unpronouncable names) and said that it was in the process of being patented. Claims that it's bloody good and it does not give you your daily fix.......... Hmmmm.....point to ponder.......

Oh well, I must try to at least cut down on my smoking from a packet a day to say about 10 sticks per day.

As I type and fire away at the keyboard, I feel groggy and a little dizzy.......

The weather really sucks over here as it's raining...............................did not cycle on Tuesday evening and still can't cycle tonight with me still in this condition. Must make up for it on Saturday or Sunday by going for a long ride.

I finally hopped on to the BitTorrent bandwagon and it's fantastic. Making full use of my Streamyx or is it Screwmix broadband bandwidth. Thanks to Nick for showing me and encouraging me to go for it. There, you get credit where it's due.......ha..ha.....

And as a final thought, I'm contemplating getting a robust all weather digital still camera so that I can carry it with me wherever I go especially on my bike rides. That way, I can share more pics of my rides. Dav, you hear me???......I go into estacy and get lustful when you showed me the pics of your off-road rides in JB.

Well, that's all for now folks.

BTW - Lil, you have not updated your blog for some time. Go and update it! I know life in Singapore is hectic but you've got to chill out mate.................. As for Dav, I know you are just too lazy to update your blog................. excpet for the links to the albums of your off road rides.

Cheers mates and take care.

Best regards or 73's all round.

Link to my ex-4x4 off road rigs in offroad.com

Thought that you folks might like to see my link in the website of www.offroad.com

They are:

www.off-road.com/vw/features/trooper/trooper.html

www.off-road.com/4x4web/features/nov96/nov96.html

There's some write up about my rigs with specifications etc...........

I totally forgot all about it.

I still do at times get email from folks all over the world who have seen my link in www.off-road.com and want to know more about my rigs like my custom snorkel on my Troopy which was actually for the Land Rover Discovery 300 Tdi or Disco as we call it.

Things like my TLC (Toyota Land Cruiser II not Tender Loving Care) diff gears which were 4.875 on the front and rear axles instead of the standard 4.300. You need to lower your gearing to compensate for bigger tyres in order to equalize the power curve or thereabout. The standard tyres on the TLC were 29". I put in monster 35" Silverstone MT 117 on them. These tyres are pure off road tyres. I later switched over to BF (not porno blue film) Goodrich Radial Mud Terrain T/A tri guard sidewall tyres. They were no match for the Silverstone MT117's for mud shedding.

Cheers mates and I'm off for a late lunch.

73's all round..................

4x4 off road pics

How do I put the text and pics together?

Hmmm...... sorry about that mates. Can't figure out how to get the pics and text together.

As promised, here are more pics of my Stumpy and yours truly.

She's running Maxxis Detonators 26 x 1.25 semi slick road tyres now. I have a close up of the tyre and you can see that it's tiny which is not what you normally see on a MTB. These skinny tyres look more at home on a roadie bike.

I normally run 26 x 2.1's Continental Explorer Supersonic. Yeah, these tyres are made in Germany! I've never used German made tyres on my vehicles. Mostly Malaysian, Japanese and at one time used American made BF Goodrich Mud Terrains on my old Toyota Land Cruiser II. My friends shake their heads and say, WTF.....German made tyres on a bicycle?????? These Conti tyres cost RM120 each and for that price you can buy Kancil tyres!

I'm also going to post some pics of a 4 wheel drive training program that we did for the DOE (Department of Environment), KK if I'm not mistaken about 5 years back before I more or less semi-retired from the 4x4 scene. We did it in Kimanis and camped overnight in the secondary jungle with my good buddies. We used Ah Yin's Toyota Land Cruiser BJ46 as the training vehicle. We basically taught those fellas from the DOE methods of self recovery using winch and basic off road driving techniques.

We had real fun and I cherish those sweet memories of all my off road experiences when I first picked up the 4x4 bug in 1993 until 2000.

Memories like the first outing to Long Pasia which was not accessible by road at that time. We had a convoy of 40 four wheel drive vehicles and the journey took us a few days and we even had to camp next to our vehicles in mud and rain beacuse the convoy was bogged down in knee deep mud! Cooking rice from the deck of a Toyota Land Cruiser HJ75 pick up for dinner................ in the darkness of the jungle..........

Memories of going away on a week end with my buddies and went camping in the interior of Keningau/Nabawan. The adventure of going off road and locking the hubs in anticipation of adventure and using our winches and testing our driving skills aided by differential lockers such as the ARB air locker, Detroit, Lock-Right and the factory Toyota electric lockers. Setting up base camp in the jungle next to a river and enjoying the serenity and solitude of the jungle sounds.........waking up in the morning in my tent to the sound of water from the river......and the birds chirping.................... It was so peaceful. I felt at ease.........

Memories of rain water getting into my tent in the middle of the night while camping somewhere which I can't recall the place because we set up tent at the bottom of a slope and all the rain water was pouring down in buckets. We arrived at base camp way behind schedule and late at night and were too tired to check out the surrounding and just set up camp to get some rest.

Memories of our convoy crossing a stream in the middle of the night where the water was about 3-4 feet deep and we had to rely on our snorkel air intake to keep our engine from sucking in water. Now, that was real adventure.

I drifted away being disillusioned with all the politicking within our 4x4 club (Kinabalu Four Wheel Drive Club or better known as KFWDC). I'm proud to say that I served the club for many years in the committee and have done my share. I would love to pick up the hobby again but it's real expensive to mantain a real off road 4 wheel drive with all the knocks and bashes the rig gets. Furthermore, you will spend a lot of time out in the jungle and being a father and a husband I've got to be fair to my family.

Maybe, when I'm in my late fourties ...................I would love to do it all over again..............

Next update on my ham radio hobby.............

Cheers mates.

More pics of me and Stumpy!