Elken Quacky Run 2009

Wow! what fun it was.

It was a fun run with a purpose. It was an event that supported the cervical and breast cancer campaign collecting donations for patients who cannot afford the treatment.

It was conceived by Assunta Hospital and Championed by Jaya One, a commercial, retail and leisure complex with a heart.

My excitement started when my wife Vijaya made a royal annoucement that she will be participating in the Quacky Run with our daughther.You see the word exercise is french to Vijaya.... so that annoucment was a shock and awe tactic that confused me.

Should I be excited because for the first time I will be joined by my family for a run or should I be concerned that Vijaya would require medical and mental attention during the run.

Anyway.. I am a risk taker so I decided to take them with me.

I was not too concerned about my daughter Vanshika. Because when I go for my jogs, 21 month old Vanshika actually runs with me for about 100 meters before she and her mom detours to the playground.

Ok... coming back to my excitement. I woke up 5.45 am and by 6.45 am we were on the road.

AT JAYA ONE

7.05 am I was parking my car at Jaya One for the Quacky Run .

To my delight and surprise, there were already 50 over fun runners walking around and chatting with others.

Thats when I met Johnson, I approached him becasue he had a great big smile and a friendly aura about him.

We started chatting and he shared with me that he is a businessman with 3 daughters and takes part in as many runs as possible.

He does this because of the healthy lifestyle and the fun he has with friends and family.

A few minutes later, two beautiful women came up to me and asked if I was The Orange Man. I said yes and we took a group photo.

PY and Swee Bee shared with me they take part in runs like the Quacky Run because it is fun, community and charity based, meeting friends, feeling healthy and doing something constructive on the weekend.

At sharp 8am, the race started and about 900 of us walked and jogged with friends and family.

It felt special having the opportunity to do something fun and healthy with my family

and on top of that meeting friends and making new ones.

Normally, I would be in the organizing of the event but now I have been phased out by my partner and younger brother Nithi stating that I am getting too old.

(thats him in the blue top).

Bullocks man... I can outrun you anytime.

Sorry. i digress.

THE QUACKY RUN

The 4.5km route was easy and flat. From Jaya One, it was a left turn at the Rothmans roundabout, straight pass the Cold Cold Storage (on your right hand side) , right turn at the major traffic lights, pass the famous and always crowded Chinese Restaurant by the roadside, right turn heading towards University Islam (on your right hand side) and then back to Jaya One.

During this time I met a few more people, one of them is the Chia family consisting of the grandmother,mother and little daughter. I chatted with them as I whizzed past them pushing my daughter in the prem.

At the halfway mark, I met Uncle Teo. I should have just let him be because he was panting to introduce himself to me. He was there with his son who was lagging behind.

As I ran further I was getting more thirsty.

Thank God it was a cloudy day... and boy was I happy to see a drink station.

Now I can understand what a drink station means to a long distance runner. And I am only doing a 4.5km distanc and a fun run at that.

If you think I am bad.. making a drama out of 4.5km run. Look at the photo below.

She was too shy to give her name. Probably embarassed too.

By the time I reached the final 50 meters I was getting buggered. I was happy to see the finishing line.

My legs were tired but finished strongly like a true olympian because I saw a cameraman (Lim) taking a photo of me pushing my daughter.

With my ego in tact and being the first father and daughter team to finish in a record time in a non competitive run where nobody cared I enjoyed the thrill of victory.

Oh yes.. my wife also finished the 4.5km with her friend Assunta (not the hospital) in an unknown record time.
I am proud of her for completing the distance in the middle order.

"BRO, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

Anyway.. something I observed is that when you are running with others, you will be surprise on how much easier it is to complete the distance.

If I had tried running the same distance on any other day alone my mind would said" Bro, what are you doing? Your days of being an athlete is over. Wake up and smell the roses maan"

But today, I ran the whole distance in good speed

"WHAT IS THIS UNCLE DOING?"

As I was walking around taking a rest, I was still hot and sweaty from the race. I walked past the dunking machine and enjoyed looking at the kids throwing balls and trying to dunk the guy on the machine. I was thinking I should dunk the kid. Then I had a WOW! moment.

What if I was the guy getting dunked. That sort got me excited and asked the guy if I could replace him. He was more than happy to be replaced.

As I was taking my shoes off and struggled to get onto the machine.. I could see the kids who were gathered around the machine looking a bit puzzled.

"What is this uncle doing?" I heard a little 7 year old asking his 12 year old brother.

So I got on top and sat on the machine and shouted out loud enticing people to try to dunk me. The catch was to donate any amount before you try to dunk me.

I could see parents quickly giving their children some money just to dunk me. Even Vijaya and Nithi also took turns to dunk me.

Nitih paid others to dunk me. And dunk they did.

In any way possibly, some who did not dunk me with the ball hitting the bull's eye actually went over to the bull's eyes and pushed the contraption until i got dunk.

So I got wet, cooled down and the kids had fun.

Any way we all had fun.

JAYA ONE FOR THE PJ PEOPLE

Then.. i dried up and walked around taking more photos and thats when I interviewed the Director Jaya One, Charles Wong.

Charles is the son of the CEO and owner of this commercial, retail and leisure complex Mr. Wong Chee Kooi.

I asked Charles, first time dad to a 1 month old daughter Anya, why is Jaya One doing the Quacky Run and this is what he had to say.

"From day one Jaya One had the vision to be part of the community, part of the neighbourhood. At the age of 14 I lost my godmother to cancer. Then my grandparents and my favourite aunty also succembed to cancer"

"Ever since at a young age, I would participate in charity events specifically related to cancer. Then when this opportunity came to my dad and I through Assunta Hospital, we just grabbed it because it means so much to us."

He shared with passion that he always want to be involved in campaigns that supports the prevention and the cure of cancer.

Jaya One wants to be part of the neighbourhood and the slogan is "Jaya One for the PJ people"

BE BOLD, BE BRAVE AND TAKE CHARGE

The other person I met while I was getting ready to head home was Mr. Choy Wah Wei, the CEO of Assunta Hospital.

He was there with his daughter Choi Chuu Khaa.

This is what he had to share with us on healthy lifestyle,cervical and breast cancer.

"People must exercise 3 times week as part of a healthy lifestyle."

"Did you know that 7 to 10% of Malaysian women find lumps on their breast when they do the breasts test?. They could be cancerous. International average is that 5% of the women's population has breast cancer and it is on the rise"

"All this can be controlled and reduced by early detection. For cervical it is pep smear and for breat cancer is the breast tests for lumps."

"These cancers can be completely cured by early detection".

"So my message is: BE BOLD, BE BRAVE AND TAKE CHARGE"

CAPOEIRA

The other surpirsing thing that happen after the race was the demonstration of the Brazilian Self defense art call Capoeira.

I have got some photos and videos on it. The sensational moment when this little kid came on board did his stuff.

CELEBERATING LIFE

But that excitment and experience and joy did not end at the Jaya One venue. The experience of having done this fun run on Sunday 25th October continued when i had brunch with my family. My wife and I were high spirited, felt light and felt energetic.

So energetic that as i got home I started to write this blog.

In summary, if you were in my joggers today...you will feel closer to your family, you would have celebrated life, meet friends and made new ones.

You would have had fun walking arounf PJ, smiling at strangers and making them smile. Enjoy Brazillian culture. Contribute to charity and do something healthy.

You would have had fun too.

hooHA!

THE ORANGE MAN

Proton Malaysian Open Photo shoot and Roundtable interview

29 Sep 2009
Mandarin Oriental

On Monday, 28th Sep, I get a surpirse. I was invited to be part of the round table interview with Davydenko, Verdasco, Gonzales and Soderling by Ghaz Ramli, the Media Director for the tournament at the Mandarin Oriental. Beautiful hotel. Manchester United stayed there when they were in KL recently.

Ghaz was a sports writer himself for Malay Mail. An avid Motosports fan, now runs Grid Gossip (a PR company). I must say he is doing a great job. Very nice guy because he let me in as media at a last minute request.

Special thanks to Stefan Pertz of LaunchPad (Marketing Firm), Syereen Sengari of ZoCards (A&P company) and Ghaz for making my dream come through.

I was there like flash gordon. I took the LRT to KLCC because the the interview was Mandorin Oriental.
The official hotel for tournament.

This is where a whole new world opened up to me.

The first person I saw was Jason Dasey of the Four Four Two show on Astro. I just went up to him and introduced myself. To my delight he was quite friendly and got on well. He introduced me to Jai his producer.

We had a good chat on BPL. Jason says he is fond of Arsenal and Liverpool. During our chat he agreed that Graham Souness was great as a captain and midfielder but not as a manager.

I said to him that I dont Like what Benitez is doing and he seem to agree. Long story short, I am on his Four Four Two show on Tuesday (6th Oct).

Long story short.. Jason invited me to be on the show with 2 other friends of mine. They are doing a piece on Liverpool fans.

Then I saw Paula Malai Ali. I went up to her and just said hello to Paula. My surprise she said hello back. Immediately I took a photo of her.

I also took videos on how an interview is done.

I also met Lisa Wong of Sportscentre Malaysia.

I spoke with her and took some photos of her interviewing the players.

I had first hand experience on what happens during a Press Conference of the players and interviews.

How the media prepares and ask questions to the players. How they interact with the players.

Well... I have taken a lot photos and videos of these.

I asked Fernando Gonzales " How has tennis made him a better person?" he looked at me for awhile. Probably surprised at the question and this is what he had to say.

It gave me better self discipline. I do not need others to push to train and practice.

I always wants to win. I always want to better myself. Gives inner strength to overcome problems in the court and off the court. I have been playing since 4 to 5 years old."

(see if you can read the above with a Chilean accent.. very similar to Spanish... OOOkhey)

He also commented that he find Malaysians friendly. Like the place. Tired because just flew in from Chile.

To me he comes across as very self relient guy. He is also friendly and fun guy.

Soderling comes across as very sweet guy.

Davydenko seems very serious about why he here. He wants play well and win.

To me Verdasco could have been friendlier. He hardly smiled.

This guys are about 2 my height. That makes them 11 foot but they are around 6 foot on average.

This was just the beginning... i have more to say, more photos and videos to share.

I will keep you posted on what transpired during the Malaysian Open including my chat with a few fans.

hooHA!

THE ORANGE MAN

The Walk for World Pink

The Walk for World Pink was held on 3rd October evening at the Kl Tower. The event organized by Estee Lauder Group of Companies for breast cancer attracted over 1200 walkers.

The event managed by Twenty First Century Sports was a lot of fun.

People turned up with such great spirit. And were very friendly.

600 hooHA members turned up for the charitable walk. That is 50% of the walkers. Well done.

I was there distributing tee shirts. My volunteers who are college students had lots of fun too.

The walkers wearing pink tee shirts was a sight to see.

The 6.30pm for a distance of under 4km was just nice I thought.

I could sense the fun and happy spirit of the walkers. I am sure Estee Lauder would have been happy with the turn out.

By the way...i have some great photos of you for you.

The lighting up of the KL Tower in Pink at 8pm was beautiful to watch.

There was a laser show too.

The other highlight was the base jumping performance.

There 4 base jumpers jumped off from the very top of Kl tower.

Man....It was very exciting to watch. It takes sheer guts to do what they do.

I have lots photos of the walk and a couple of videos of the base jumping.

Now dont expect Steven Spielberg's production quality.

Watch it anyway.. I will load the photos and videos in the gallery.

By the leave behind your comments in the Walk For World Pink forum in Fan's Corner segment. (insert link foru link here; the walk for world pink forum)

Hello there to Seren and her friend, Ann Wong, Rienna, Vincent, Nurul Ain and Chloe.

hooHA!

John Cheng was one of first people to finish the race.

He said he took part in this because his company, Ascent Solution, asked him to join in so he did.

Seren and her friend



said that this is the first time they joining an event of this nature. They wanted to support the campaign have fun at the same time.

Vincent from HP likes to take part in healthy events with a great cause.

There was an aussie girl who had finished earlier but I didnt to get to speak to her.

hooHA!

THE ORANGE MAN

F1 Singapore night party

hooHA! THE ORANGE MAN is going to F1 night party in Singapore to party, to meet people.. chat with them .. take photos with them..

take video of the people having the greatest time. I am going to find out when the party is on and invite some one to come with me...



Yes... on the 27th of September .. the F1 start at 8pm Sunday.


Transport and food is on me. I am not planning to have any accommodation as I am not planning to stay there after the party.


I am planning return to KL catching the earliest bus back. Why?


So that I can get my team to load up the photos and videos on hooHA.

By the way...I wont be driving.. neither will you. If you know what I mean.

The party person who will be joining me ....need to pay for your drinks unless I manage to get a sponsor for our trip.


So there.. anyone interested in joining me for a 24 hour party trip to Singapore for F1 Night party.

Private message me at www.hooha.asia (user name:THEORANGEMAN) and tell me why you should be my party friend to Singapore.


Once I have chosen you... I will message you back... say 3 days before our trip.

By the way.. you would need to be a hooHA member to message me.


Also... if any of you are already going to be there.. let me know.. you can leave message behind in the hooHA's bulletin.


We can meet up there.


Before you decide to private message me (username : THEORANGEMAN), let me share with you what I intend to do.


I intend to meet as many people as possible at the key party point for F1 Night Party. I will be at the Clark Quay. Happening place.



I don’t intend to watch the F1 itself... only soaking in the raw energy of the mean machines roaring past the city of Singapore.


What I intend to watch is F1 sports fans having a great time.


I will take photo of you and I partying with others.. hopefully we will meet people from other parts of the world too.


I will also video the madness of the people having a crazy time at the party(s).


I will then load the photos and videos up hooHA's gallery for all to view..so that they know what they missed out on.


I will not plan the trip.. I will just get the bus tickets (I promise you first class bus service) for us..we land in Singapore..then


We will make our way to the party place. We will mingle and let our hair down. Probably you since I don’t have any.


I will take photos of you.. party.. then when the time comes catch the bus back.. early next morning I suspect.


If this is not your cup of beverage.. thats fine.. I am going anyway.


By the way check out www.clarkequay.com.sg to get an idea of the F1 night party fun.



THE ORANGE MAN

hooHA! Way too long!

hooHA! Way too long! The orange man has been away for way too long. Where did he go you ask? I have been away.. working my bud off to make hooha.asia happen. Recruiting members. sharing the hooha story.. blah..blah.. and suppose finding myself too. Like do i have the kahunas too be the orange man and for how long? Well. here i am at 12.50 am on tuesday (15 Sep 2009) writing on my blog after a lengthy absence. I am tired of being Anand everyday. Every now and then i want to live life as the orange man. Dont get me wrong.. Anand is a great guy. he knows what he wants in life. he is driven by success but his values are too corporate and sometimes goody two shoes sometimes. Everytime Anand dons on his Hooha! orange shirt ... the orange man rears his mischievious self up but gets pressed down by Anand. He has been comsumed by Anand's values of achievements and goals and objective and target etc.. boring... As The orange man I want to live my dreams through sports.. i want to be part of the fun part of sports. THE ORANGE MAN

The little child in The Orange Man

I had a freaking good time on the F3000 race boat. Or is it speed boat. I dont know but who cares. It was a raw and mean machine.

From the time I woke up yesterday to go and meet some mates who were going to show me exactly what a F3000 race boat can do, I was excited.

Just imagine this. While most of  you are on the way to the dreaded work place facing the monday blues, I was parking my car at the shores of a huge, huge lake of Puchong Perdana (believe me it is bloody big). I was actually smiling to myself thinking about you guys.

I was thinking how jealous you are going to be reading about my experience.  I feel for you guys man. I do. Imagine the traffic jam, your boss in your face, exhaust fumes, the toll etc. And here I am with my orange sleeves Nike dry fit top, my jeans and my brownish red leather boots getting into a adrenalin sapping F3000.

I felt like the Marlboro man. The orange Marlboro man.

By that time I got there, a couple of F3000 boats were already in the water whizzing thru the lake at about 130 to 140km per hour.

I stood there anxiously hoping to gett a chance to drive this machine.

hooHA!

THE ORANGE MAN

THE ORANGE MAN: I am born at last.

I am The Orange Man. I was conceived on 22 May 2008 and I was born exactly 1 year later on 22 May 2008. It is also Hooha.Asia's first year anniversary. Although the website for the Asian Sports fan was soft launched on 22 April 2009, but the official company registration date was 22 May 2008.
 

Who is The Orange Man? I dont know since I was only born yesterday at about 4.00pm in Malaysia. I am still developing my personality. But I know one thing. I am the inner voice, the sports spirit of Anand. Anand is the guy who is responsible for the conception of Hooha.Asia. His brother Nithi and him are the ones who have taken the hooha idea to reality.

The Orange Man is the personality that does and says what he pleases while Anand is the controlled and measured guy.

The Orange Man is the free spirit that Anand always wanted to be but cant because he is too caught up with what is right and wrong.

The Orange Man is the character that gets excited about getting up at 5am in the morning, gets on a speed boat and enjoys the exihiliration and adrenalin of speed,risk and danger while Anand rather just sleep that extra 1 hour.

I, The Orange Man, may or may not agree with what Anand has to say. But I bet you this, I will push his limits in what he can do for the Asian Sports Fan.

hooHA!

THE ORANGE MAN