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What Do I DO After retirement ?
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HAM
RADIO OPERATOR MUST READ THIS
My
Current Project Arkaiv
What is
9M2AR ?
9M2AR
is not my name. My name is Abdul Rahman bin Abdul Raof. The word bin
means the son of. My father's name is Abdul Raof. 9M2AR is an amateur
radio call
sign.
The prefix 9M2 indicates that I am from West
Malaysia.
I am
now 62 years old. The picture was taken a few years ago. I look very much
older than the picture. I was a teacher from 1968 to 2003. My wife,
2 years younger, is on a wheel chair. But she is OK. My 3 kids are working
in Kuala Lumpur.
THE
CHANGE - The world
change. But must all things change ? Are there anything that are unchange
since from the beginning ?
There
are changes that nobody wants, try to stop it but it heeds human effort.
The global warming, the ozone layers, the melting of the iceberg and any
probable attack of nature that has never happen before are changes we
hate to see.
Human
form, it's biological process, shape, emotion are yet to be tested by the
scientist who play about with genes, chromosome and other chemistry to
create and change some human characteristic are yet to be seen. Till now
human emotions do not change.
The
dramatic and the quantum leap change is the technological advancement which
creat e tools for human to achieve what formerly known to be impossible; he
conquest of space sponsored by the advancement in spaceship technonology,
wafers and hitech. Technology shrinks the world. It makes the image in
dream come alive.
MY
HOBBY -
My first
travel outside the country was in 1965 after my Form 5. I went to
Bangkok then to watch the Asean Game. I went alone by
train. The ticket was very cheap at that time. Coming back from Bangkok
I went hiking throughout Peninsular Malaysia and returned home via
Thailand. Almost 20 years later I was awarded a scholarship to Indiana
University Bloom ington. My wife took no pay leave and brought my 3 kids
along. During the 1 1/2 years I covered almost the whole of USA.
Gasoline was cheap then. After the study my trip to USA was almost
every year. Those days the route to Los Angeles was via Narita and
Hawaii, not a direct flight like nowadays. So every time I flew to Los
Angeles I made a point to stop by at Hawaii.
In
USA there are 2 Disney, the Disneyland in Los Angeles and the
Disneyland in Orlando, Florida. Florida was more interesting because a
theme park call Epcot Center was opened. Before, a single ticket enable
us to between the theme parks. Today you have to pay for each and
everyone of them. And it is very costly. Florida is the land of
entertainment. To most of us the adults we have to visit c ape
Canavral
the launching ground of USA's shuttle. It was there I bought a NASA
jacket
which cost me US250. I had been eying for the jacket since 1983,
only bought it in 2002.
Sometimes
I went alone. Other time I followed tour groups. There were time
when I went with my neighbor and friends, renting a car and moved
around. My neighbor wanted to go to his son's house at Lubbock Texas.
He was studying architecture. On arriving LA we took a car and slept
near the airport and started the journey the next morning. On the way
to Las Vegas we stpped at Universal Studio. From LA to Vegas and
cruising to Hoover Dam, Grand Canyon and it took us 7 days to arrive
Lubbock. After a couple of nights we moved on to Alabama, stopped at
the Space Museum, and proceeded to Florida. After a week stay we
started the journey back to LA using Highway 40. The last time I went
to USA as with 9MRS and 9M2RB.
While
9M2RB had been to Russia and Europe, I only went to Europe in 2006. But
I had been to London, Scotland and Belgium before this. I stayed in
London for 3 months attending a course.
Asian
travel was only limited to Southeast Asian's countries. I have been to
Brunei, Medan, Jakarta, Jogjakarta, Ho Chin Minh City, Hong Kong and
Siem Reap. However I toured New Zealand and Australia and found these
places interesting.
Following
a tour group is very convenience. Everything is taken care of. Going
alone needs plenty of planning and one needs to be very patient. You
have to look for motels and if possible the very cheap ones. What if
you don't find one ? Do you want to go to camp ground ? Do you want to
sleep in the car ? Or just check in any motel at whatever price ? We
have to have a suitable companions with identical brainwaves.
Somebody
I met told me his experience of being covered with snow until the next
morning when the authority cleared the snow away. His whole car was
covered with snow flakes. He thought he would die with his family
in.
Don't remember the year. It was
in 1980's at Epcot Center Florida.
In Belgium around 1987
Somewhere in Arizona around
1986
In New York 200 5/6 ?
In London 2006
With Dee in NewZealand
9M2AR,9M2RB and 2 friends
TRAVELLING ALONE
Traveling alone,
unplanned, no prior arrangement is not easy. In spite of difficulty I
was facing, I just took it easy. There were many instances when such
situations occurs. When my flight arrived Honolulu and no one from the
same flight was at the airport, I was still there. Slowly I walked
around trying to look for info rmation
. Certainly I found it. Pamphlets
and brochures on hotels, motels and hostels were plentiful. I finally
chose the cheapest, called the motel and took a bus as directed. In
2001 I arrived in New Wark for the first time. I was on the way to
Cornell. I knew I had to take a bus, a Greyhound, but where was the bus
stop ? I asked several persons the way to the bus stop. Different
people gave me different direction. I decide to go to the one at the
end of the building. Yes, I saw bus stop but without any bus or people
waiting.
I sat there alone,
took off my T-shirt, changed with a new one and sat there for half an
hour. There was still no bus and no people. Imagine you could be
panicked, couldn't you ? At last, about 1 hour waiting a bus arrived.
No people on the bus but the driver. I told him that I wanted to take a
Gre yhound to Cornell. Ithaca The driver dropped me at a Greyhound bus
station. I went to buy a ticket and waited for the bus. I was hurried
to one of the busses that had arrived. Immediately after boarding the
bus I felt so relief. I could rest on the bus for at least an
hour. I was so tired that I went asleep.
Then I heard
noises. People were going down the buss. I thought I had arrive my
destination. When I came down I saw I was in New York bus station not
Cornell Ithaca. I asked people where I could take the bus to
Ithaca. I had to rush to some other distant location. On arriving the
bus had gone. I had to wait for the next one about 3 hours later. What
did I do ? I looked for one good empty space and slept there on the
floor where people were passing by. At least I was not the only one who
did that. I slept well.
I had several such
experiences in various places. Facing a critical situation with ease
will help us. We just take thing easy and solve problems as they pass
by. But I know I am not the only one who can take things
easy. There are thousand of others like me.
TRAVELLNG WITH MY
WIFE
Whenever
I need to take my wife along I had to make some prior arrangement; got
to inform the carrier that we were bringing our own wheel chair, got to
make sure the roads and streets in the tour country could accommodate
it, and computer the number and sizes of bags to be brought along.
If you look at the
picture on the left you can see two bags, one held by my wife and the
other is the black bag. I would carry another one, the back
packer. When I pushed the wheel chair, the handle of the black bag will
be hooked to the right handle of the wheel chair. The whole
affair was easy.
Wheel chair traveling
is not a problem at all es pecially in the United States. Even in
Australia you can bring the wheel chair along . When I was in USA, my
wife was strong and healthy. She was the one who drove the car across
the United States while I would sleep. We slept at camp grounds and
rest areas. At one time we had to sleep at a petrol kiosk because it
was dark and we could not find a low price accommodation .
 At
Hong Kong wheel chair was not a problem too. In the Disneyland she took
almost every ride.
My next trip will be to
Ho Chin Min City. We have been here but this time we want to take our
sister in-law who looked after my wife when she was hospitali zed for a
month.
Both of us have retired.
We have some saving, enough for use to do a little travelling. If the
dividen is low then we will just stay at home. Part of the income, a
very small portion of it would go to mosque and other needy
people.
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