Wheel Clamp Zone extended

Be warned, whether you are staff, student or visitor, if you park outside the designated parking bays, you are liable to be clamped. I wish I could tell you the "exceptions", but they probably don't apply to you.
The penalty is RM20 to get the clamps off.

Devine Intervention

7:38 pm, just after light dinner of duck rice at SuperTanker food court at Lip Sin Garden.
Waiting for my 8:30 meeting. It's too long a ride to go home and come again.
Earlier in the afternoon, a colleague phoned me  : "Are you going? I thought our work already done, taken care of by the various DVCs? If you're not going, I'm also not going". I said my intention is to go ... for reasons best not revealed here.

But after dinner I took a walk around the two lakes on campus. Over the weekend, it gain notoriety in the local press. Everyone pointed their fingers at the USM retention pond for causing the floods along Sg. Dua. There was a huge downpour and the ponds overflowed.

A few chaps were quite happy because along with the flood water came the tilapia and jelawat fishes struggling in the shallow water along the road outside USM. They got their nets and got free fish for dinner. Ah, but some biologist told me once the fish in the lake is really not fit for consumption.

One apartment just outside of the campus also got flooded. Pictures in the press showed a car submerged up to its roof. Poor guy. Usually, the guards at the condo would alert the residents to remove their cars to higher ground after one hour of rain.

Residents there too blamed USM for not taking care of the problem. They said they complained before.

Some elected member of parliament or state assemblyman immediately jumped in and said USM should dig another hole. And the DID chief seemed to think its USM's problem too, saying that the university should deepen the ponds.

And what did USM say? The public relations guy said the only thing that would not get a good public lashing. "We will work with the relevant departments to solve the problem".

Looks like another bigger headache on top of the alga bloom.

Speaking of which, the green alga is all gone! The water in the two lakes are now earthen brown.

Wow, all it took was a few hours of heavy rain to get rid of the problem.

But don't be too happy. Just wait awhile. The alga bloom will come back. We still have not resolved the problem. Low water flow on most days. Rubbish and pollutants flowing in from outside. And wrong design - one pond has inlet but no outlet. And of course, one problem is that it is shallow and silting up.

But I think the biggest loser are the people who pumped in more than a hundred thousand to experiment with use of bio-enzymes to solve the problem. The experiment is all screwed up now. They will have to wait for the next alga bloom to come back and start the experiment all over again.

Or will they just claim victory.

Now I know one reason why the mouth of the river at Tanjung Bungah could miraculously become spotlessly clean.

Who are we?

 I was at the Red House having my usual vegetarian lunch. But now I have increased from 3 to 4 vegetables. So instead of the usual RM2 it's now about RM2.60 or so. Still damn cheap. with barley at 70 sens, it's still less than RM3.50 for lunch. That's a little over one US dollar. But there's a billion people who don't even have a dollar a day.

While I was in the room eating, a man in USM uniform and a lady came in to inspect the rattan table and chairs. The man was giving instructions to the lady (probably a contractor or sorts) to repair the chairs and tables. 20 chairs and 3 tables to be sent for repair. I said to myself, "well done, the message is getting through". Reuse, reduce, repair, refuse ... in whatever order you like.

Oh my the way, or BTW, if you like, the lady selling chap fun (economy rice) warned me not to go and eat there on Monday. I said, "monday is a holiday". Well, not just monday. "Don't come for the next three months". Huh, why? "They are renovating Red House, don't you know?". Oh. So, that repair of the tables and chairs must be related to the renovation.

After the quick lunch (I eat toooo fast), I came out and saw the above scene. My car is the tiny one on the right behind the big red car. B**$$????? It's an official USM car. So, I hung around, waiting. And a group of students also came to the other car. And we looked around. 

And then the earlier guy in uniform and the lady came around. The man said "sorry ah". I didn't smile. I just looked at him. If you can't read the words on the door of the car, it says that it belongs to the safety unit.

Now, if people in authority don't obey the rules, who should?

 Also today on campus. I had actually noticed this mouse trap in HBP yesterday and also saw the pestcontrol contractor's staff with a bunch of traps at the car park. So, they trap the rats (can you see them) and then exterminate them in the hot sun. I am not making judgment. In my old house, I used to trap the rats too. They have nest in the roof. And the crawl out at night to make a mess. Yes, I also put them in the sun to kill them. But then I felt it was really inhumane. Long slow death by baking in the sun. I did let some of them escape in the big drain but they will come back. So, I tried hot water but it just don't feel right.

So, who are we? We make a distinction between pests and other animals we don't harm.

I think the solution is to make sure that your environment is clean. Don't create opportunities for the rats to fester. Can we do that on campus?