A Tragic Accident on the Highway of Life

by Trevor H

He was stuck on the highway of life in traffic
Listening to the busted radio’s static
His car just a beat up, rusty, old heap
The door locks were broken, the horn wouldn’t beep

No air conditioning, a hundred and three degrees
Not a cloud in the sky, he prayed for a breeze
The windows were cracked, but only rolled down half way
But it was still better than walking to work every day

The traffic was caused by heavy construction
The signs up ahead told him to use extra caution
Bright orange cones guided him through the maze of a mess
The broken gas gauge said empty, that meant he had even less

So he turned the wheel sharp and he swerved past the cones
He put the pedal down and hurried around the construction zones
Cutting back onto the highway, he shifted into second gear
As he laughed at the line of cars in his broken rear view mirror

As he focused his eyes from the mirror back to the pavement
He was surprised to see a dark blue mass where there should be cement
A bridge had slowly eroded and was finally washed away
He slammed on the brakes, the old car began to sway

But those brakes were old and dull, he plunged into the sea
His car splintered on the jagged rocks, and the waves devoured he
His lungs slowly filled with water, stopping his young heart
He should have listened to the cones that warned him from the start…

 

Originally posted here.

And 8-year-old explains God

Someone sent this to me,  written by an 8-year-old named Danny Dutton, who lives in Chula Vista , CA . He wrote it for his third grade homework assignment, to ‘explain God’. Thought it was quite cute so I put it up to share with you, hope it made your day like it did mine 🙂

EXPLANATION OF GOD:
‘One of God’s main jobs is making people. He makes them to replace the ones that die, so there will be enough people to take care of things on earth. He doesn’t make grownups, just babies. I think because they are smaller and easier to make. That way he doesn’t have to take up his valuable time teaching them to talk and walk. He can just leave that to mothers and fathers.’  (more after the break)

Still on the journey

and learnt loads… longing to share them with you as you set about your journey. But guess it’d take some time as I hardly have time for myself these days. In the meantime, just a quick and short encouragement to remember life is a journey, learn to enjoy the journey even as you set about towards your destination 🙂

She’s gone…

What do you do when you lose a precious co-sojourner?

You haven’t heard from me here for the past one month or so cause I was on national service – military reservist training – for two weeks, while really messed up my work schedule.

The worse thing was, Kero disappeared on the second day of my reservist training :

For weeks, countless hours were spent looking for her. There must have been at least a dozen prank calls, and calls of dog sightings that ended up as other dogs. Three trips to SPCA didn’t yield any results. I even missed my panel slot at BlogOut! (sorry guys)

You can imagine how little work I got done in March. But the more important thing is, she’s gone; and I’ve all but given up hope.

Loss of a loved one is really hard..

Burmese boat people left to die by Thai authorities

A co-sojourner emailed this news story to me, feeling really angry about it. It’s a really sad story.

It’s so obvious that the Thai government have floated these people out to the big sea to whither and die. And newly elected fresh-faced Thai Prime Minister Abhisit refered the investigation of this case back to the very people who conducted these inhumane acts. Tells you pretty much what he stands for.

Interestingly, Abhisit was

Faith on the highway of life

I just got back from a couple of days in Mumbai. I guess this trip made me more reflective than ever following the recent 26/11 terror attacks.

Security was tight, reminded me just like Indonesia when I was there after the Bali bombings.

Even as myself and billions of Chinese all over the world celebrate the lunar new year, I just wanted to leave this thought on faith with you.

All of us operate with a certain amount of faith in our lives. The word ‘faith’ can be quite hard to describe sometimes. A good way to understand it would be when you are a passenger in a vehicle on the highway.

Look at it this way, how many times do you ask the driver to show you his license, or do a test drive for you, before you decide to hop on and enter the highway with him? Basically, you’ve placed a certain amount of faith in this driver, enough to entrust your life at least!

Many times, we enter into the highway of life with a certain amount of faith in whoever is in the driver’s seat. Faith in yourself, in your god, in the person who is leading you.

Perhaps this is how Obamania came about, someone that the masses decided to place their faith on when the times are dark; in hope that this driver would be able to drive them through the darkness towards their destination. And I hope he does, for the sake of the world.

As we enter the Lunar New Year celebrations, I wanted to leave this thought with you – if you have faith to step into that car, entrusting your life to the driver, without checking his/her license, maybe today you have faith to do other things that you didn’t dare to do in your life? Or faith to believe in someone to be in your driver’s seat?

Have a Blessed Lunar New Year!

A certain type of drivers

There are some drivers I met – and they are mostly of a certain type but I don’t really want to mention names – that can’t tell very well between left and right.

You give directions like “Turn left ahead” and that person will signal right! And vice versa of course.

Yeah, let’s not get started on the details :p I don’t feel like having an accident on the highway today.

But I was just thinking about it recently, how that relates to life – since this blog is about highways relating to life.

And I think this one is obvious enough :

Mobile Blogging

Test mobile blogging from Nokia N96

UPDATE 1 : Since this blog isn’t updated as often as my other blogs and now that I’ve discovered the wonderful service of Ping.fm, I’ll update it from time to time with micro-posts or short posts from mobile (mostly Nokia N96). So don’t be surprised to see blog posts without tags, categories and titles! Hey at least the blog is being updated more regularly!

UPDATE 2: I discovered that micro-blogging here is not good for some of my more ‘ardent’ and RSS readers. Finally managed to figure out how to put the micro-blogging stuff onto a side widget on wordpress.com. So there you have it, I’ll be mobile blogging onto a side widget called “on the steering wheel” from now on.

“I prefer to be a passenger”

A fellow co-sojourner told me he turned down the company’s offer for a company car including transport allowance. It kinda baffled me so I had to ask the big “WHY”?

“Oh, I used to drive but I prefer to let others drive me or take public transport so that I don’t have to drive others around.”

That really got me thinking about one’s attitude towards life.

Why would one prefer to

In memory of a brave woman

‘If I don’t make it out…’

Lo Hwei Yen’s husband talks about her last moments

By Teh Joo Lin & Kimberly Spykerman
		‘Only in her very last sentence did she say, ‘Please tell them (the authorities) to hurry up’,’ said Mr Puhaindran, who wants people to know his wife was a brave Singaporean. — ST PHOTO: WANG HUI FEN
View more photos

EVEN as she was being held by terrorists in her Mumbai hotel a week ago, Ms Lo Hwei Yen’s voice remained steady as she spoke with her husband on her mobile phone.

‘I was reacting to her trying to remain calm as well,’ her husband, Mr Michael Puhaindran, recalled yesterday.

VIDEO Husband and wife spoke for last time (1:50) Husband’s grief The husband of slain hostage Lo Hwei Yen opened up to the media for the first time. (Part 1) Michael Puhaindran spoke vividly about his wife’s ordeal during the Mumbai terror attacks (Part 2) … more Right click and save as for the full interview (42 min, 10mb)

‘Only in her very last sentence did she say: ‘Please tell them (the authorities) to hurry up’.

‘That’s when I really couldn’t take it and I told her I loved her so very much, and she said the same thing.

‘And those were her last words.’

Some time later, the 28-year- old Ms Lo was killed by her captors. She was one of several people who lost their lives in The Oberoi Trident Hotel, one of several Mumbai landmarks attacked by terrorists whose rampage left over 180 dead.

Yesterday, during his wife’s wake, Mr Puhaindran spoke to reporters for the first time about her last hours.

While the 37-year-old was composed at the start of the 40-minute interview attended by some 20 journalists and cameramen, by the time it ended, he had broken down several times.

He said he last saw his wife on Wednesday last week when