Just go run to your local bookstore and buy it. If your local bookstore doesn't have it, just go order it at amazon.com. If you think the shipping is so expensive, then make sure when you go to any other bookstore, go and search it first. Don't worry, I don't recommend crappy books.

Anyway, that just shows how much I like this book, now you don't have to do any of those ;) If I am to write a sentence that summarizes what this book is mainly about, it will be: An inspirational life story of a man who beats all the odds - big time. I know that's pretty cliched, and I'm not doing the book any justice here, but it doesn't matter whether I write 1001 eloquent words to describe it or not, because you would have already made up your mind by the end of the first paragraph :) (not to buy, I know)

I do follow the cycling world a bit, I don't really know why, I don't do bike racing, but I do watch the famous tours on tv if they are being broadcast. I just love to watch the peloton scrambling, gruelling mountain climbing stages, and the strategy to position oneself for the final sprint in a stage. Plus, one of my best friends from high school was a cycling freak - he is still one.

So I know who is Lance Armstrong beforehand and I know that he owns the legendary Le Tour de France. So when I bought this book I thought there must be something that can be learned from this guy - he is no ordinary person. Well, my Le Tour de France is my studies at the moment, I can learn something from him. Another thing that caught my eyes was "cancer survivor." Just don't mention chemo to me, anybody who braves himself/herself through it will instantly be a hero/heroine in my eyes. It's like the worst nightmare you can imagine, I've seen it with my own eyes. Simply put, a couple of the most beloved people to my mom had fought that thing...

Lance is actually very, very smart. He is one of those sportsmen who is very knowledgable about the science of his sport and tune everything to millimeter precision - his up-to-decimal callory precision diet, his optimum aerodynamics racing position, his bike setup, his sleeping pattern, well he is paranoid about everything... But his battle against cancer is what defines him: every tour that he wins is a triumph for cancer survivors. Of course he has a foundation for cancer. By the way, the thing that he day-dreamed about when he was about to win the most gruelling mountain climbing stage in Le Tour de France 1999 was a scene from Good Will Hunting: "How do you like them apples?" And Good Will Hunting is my all-time favorite! What I've learned the most from Lance is: If you face overwhemling odds, just brave them fearless and suffer... It's okay to just give up if you don't mind being a loser without even trying.

From now on it will be how I reflect/relate to the book. I have a flair for 'computer', I don't know, I'm just kind of natural with programming, debugging, digital logic, fixing issues, etc. But I realize that in the end math is the language of science. If you want to do anything interesting there must be math involved. Programming language is like a sprint stage, while math is the mountain climbing stage, and the latter is what makes or breaks for a tour. Well, if you want to be a sprint champion, there are races just for that - but those races are not revered like the tour. And I have made up my mind that I don't want to do just computer - meaning the chip industry.

Note: This paragraph is just random rambling, please skip it if randomness bothers you.

Well, who needs a faster PC nowadays other than those game junkies? Just like who needs a faster car when the environment is coughing blood? - but I have to admit that I have a weakness for those extra bhp in the engine ;) Well, probably in the future your iphone can do cheap video talk thanks to some fast mobility processor and advance video encoding algorithm that doesn't require you a 3G connection (I'm just making this up). But you know what, you can have your video call or whatever, but it doesn't make you love your family more just because you can see them from far across the continent - yeah, it's nice to have it. Anyway, the world works such that the cornerstone of processor speed is driven by the PC market - demand, profit, basic econ. Of course faster processors have lots of benefits in other more beneficial fields such as bio-instrumentation, energy regulation, etc. Ok, this is going too random...

Back on track, if I am going to do interesting things such as robotic, image processing, speech recognition, etc. I need math. Just like the once sprinter-specialist Lance Armstrong needs to learn how to climb the hill if he wants to win the tour. It's very simple... I've found the odds, now I just need to suffer. Plus, I've learned to believe off late, my control theory (robotic-related) subject was my second best last semester. Now I need to dabble in signal processing and electromagnetics to make things more interesting... Anything is possible, with His will. I used to not able to distinguish between 'p' and'q', 'a' and 'b', etc but now I'm the most ardent book lover. But mom brave against the odds for me during that time, I was just a kid who luckily had dedicated parents who knew I wasn't stupid.

If you ask me what I really want to do in the future, I would say, if I'm given the opportunity I want to do something related to biomedic. I've mellowed down over the years, if you happen to read my random rambling above, I have little faith in technology-for-technology sake. Well, a best friend of mine who've walked with me through my 'indecision process', would now probably shout at me: "Why didn't you do biomed right from the start?!?!" (I hope you're not reading this, or just be quiet pretty please). The biomed thingy was heavy on chem and I'm allergic to that. I'm doing pure ECE but interested in the application of it in that field. There is a HUGE difference there. This is where, digital signal processing, control theory, electromagnetics, etc. get interesting. But in the end, nobody knows what the future hold, and in the end the economic situation, job availability, and other outside factors will play substantial roles in the final decision. - Allahu'alam. But that's the plan for now, Lance has help a lot, go for the mountain :)

By the way, I ran to and around Harbour Front today to fill my time waiting for maghrib, which was around 9 ish. Not quite many people were there (by summer standard), because this summer is peculiarly cold. But it was pretty good weather for running. The street magicians, juggler, performers weren't there yet, but I guess by July it will be lively.

Itik dekat Harbor Front. Dia kata, "Let the suffer-feast begin."