SuperGlue’s Random Thoughts

As much as she’s supposedly a celebatory chef and seemed a lovely person , I did not particularly enjoy doing the kitchen tour this morning for reasons even I myself unable to figure. Perhaps, it was becuase there were far too many people, including the videographers from the media; I don’t know. After going around all the areas in the kitchen to finish off in the Concept Development Kitchen, where the chefs demoed live cooking, in the middle, a thought came in my mind what’s the hell am I doing here…! I am much capable and can contribute to the organization much better than taking people around the kitchen. That’s said, I did enjoy though watching how the chef cooked fried rice in the wok. He cooked the shrimps, followed by peas; after which the egg York was put into the wok, before putting part of boiled rice. He particularly mentioned that the rice must be cold. A couple of minutes after the first part of rice was cooked in the egg York base; the 2nd part of the rice was put into the wok. In a few minutes later another part of egg York was put into the rice. Finally, the shrimps and peas were added to finish the fried rice.

An Indian chef then begun the cooking demonstration of the Tandoori oven, explaining how the chicken meat must be marinated & whatnot, in which point, I decided to leave after politely informing the people around.

Much awaited Anri theme on 10Cv5 is here!. Congratulations & Thank you, Jason! I may not have been posting blog posts as much as I would've loved to; but I've always been looking forward to seeing and experiencing any new product or service offering and enhancements that were coming to 10C, ever since I had joined the network. I know, sometimes, I've been unfairly impatient and even have been bugging Jason about new features, timelines & whatnot. I have to say though, my such behavior was entirely as a result of just the love I have for 10C. I'm hoping Jason understands that.

From the conversations we have had in the social network, I am aware of Jason's solo efforts, in spending sleepless nights over the past few months to brought this beautiful site and it is much valued. Unfortunately, I don't have the skills & competence to have been able to contribute to Jason's work though. That's said, I'd like to think, my occasional nagging has at least inspired Jason in his efforts. Thank you again!

Sometimes I feel I am not being assertive enough in the day job and as a result end up in taking too much on my plate. Perhaps this is causing a bit of stress on me. Right now, I’m not too sure what to do about this due to the fact that I am very constrained in being able to delegate. That’s said, sooner than later I must find a way to deal with the current situation.

Here we go first post from v5 Anri theme

Today I had the privilege to have been able to facilitate a tour for renewoned journalsit from Economist magazine, in the recently commissioned K3 facility. Though, the facility has been in operation for about 2.5 months and having facilitated at least one such tour during that time; it was only this morning, I finally managed to learn the optimal flow of the facility. Due to the sheer size of the property ¹ and the target was to finish the tour in not more than 2 hours, I had to search for the most appropriate route. This also had to cover both food production and non-food operational areas of interest to any outsider, in this case journalist.

A couple of hours before facilitating the tour, I took the opportunity to walk the intended route myself, exploring the stairs & lifts connecting different floors in the 3-story buidling until I was fully conveninced & satisfied myself of the flow. It had to ensure that the guests will be able to see & understand the entire end-to-end process on ground, that ensures some 60,000 individual pieces ² from tiny toothpicks to large meal trolleys with meal trays are loaded onto the aeroplane.

The route/flow we took started in the ware wash, proceeding to Hot Kitchen, Cold Kitchen, Pastry; followed by food assembly, flight build up and then to tray-setting. We also took a brief around the Bond, before finished the tour in the exclusive First Class kitchen, where guests had a demo from the Chef and had an opportunity to try out a few dishes.

During the tour, among other things, we covered intersting facts such as

• Total build area of the facility - 67,000 sq m ³
• Number of meals produced - 180K of that 35K for premium cabins
• Total number of employees - 3,500
• Total pieces of equipment washed & santitised everyday - 3.1 m
• Royal Dulton bone china offered in Premium cabins
• Number of industry standard dish wash machines -9
• Number of lifts - 18
• Bottles of wines loaded - 8000 daily
  to name a few.

1. Build area is equlant to 9 football fields

2. Six tons

3. Equivalent to 9 football fields

Notes from walk around on Sunday, February 24, 2019

Enter EKFC 3 from Mezzanine floor or level 1
From level 1, take the stairs in the LHS, without going through security
Walk all the way until you see Ground floor signage
Enter from the door onto Right
You are entering the clean side of the ware wash
Pass through the dish-wash machines - 09 Dishwash machines

Ware Wash Facts
Bulk washers : 03
Multi Track machines : 03
Glass washers : 02
Total pieces: 2.5 - 3 million a day of which 60% of F and J
Monorail : 1.8km Long
Monorail Stations : 03
Bin conveyor: 1Km in distance
Bin charging stations: 04
Liquid Drainers: 06
No pallets - All Equipment transported on EMS Trolleys

Goods Receiving Area
No of Bays: 11
Deliveries: 100 a day
Dollies: over 500

Next Stop - Bond Stores
Take the lift no 62 from Warewash in Ground Level to Bond Store in Level 1
Enter into Business Class Bar Packing Area - beside Duty Free Bond

Bond Store Facts
No of Bar Carts preparation for a day
First Class : 200 a day
Business Class: 800 a day
DFS Carts: 1200 a day
Wine & Champagne containers: 1300 a day
8000 bottles of wines a day1,500 DP champagne bottles a day80 - 100 types of wines - Regional
F & J Kit Bags: 350 bags packed a day = 6000 kits a day
Sleep Suits : 200 a day
First Class Goodie Baskets: 1000 a day
Dry Stores containers: 1500 a day

Next Stop - Flight Prep / Production in Level 2
Take lift number 53 or 54
Passing the Tray setting stations ( 12 stations ) Take right to the Pastry
After the Pastry, Pass by cold kitchen
Across the corridor walk into the Hot Kitchen
Exit back to Tray Setting
Turn left from the 1st door to left ( Door signage- Hot Kitchen Assembly) towards First Class exclusive kitchen

Next Stop - Flight Prep - Equipment Packing on Level 2
190,000 glasses are packed a day70,000 pieces of cutlery packed a day25000 cutlery rolls are made a day

Just purchased full version of Fluid app for MacBook. I have used free version of the app sometime back on my MBA and quite liked it. Not that I have loads of websites that I frequently access or anything like that; but just the handful of services I regularly access ¹ I like to be able to access just one click. Not only it keeps me focus & away from tendency to check out other websites, It is straight forward and convenient. I’ve realized that lately, my span of attention for anything for a longer time has been a problem and lesser the distractions, let me focus and increase my attention levels for a given situation or task. Perhaps, technology capability provided in Fluid app to create dedicated apps-kind solution to access various websites - one at a time in a level of satisfaction might help me to focus more on interesting web contents and interaction.

1. 10C included

Just for a kick, I’m trying out good old MacJournal app - a well known native Mac app for journaling. I remember using the app back in the days, with my first apple computer, a decade ago, when my only apple device was desktop iMac. With acquiring iDevices over the years and declining of use of desktop computer, I switched to DayOne app on all of my devices. DayOne is a beautiful application and I quite like it. Though I have been using DayOne app for last 3-4 years and have access to the app from many iDevices, I hardly achieved consistency in making entires. It wasn’t because I did not have anything at all to write; but invariably keep forgetting to write anything. Whether that would take a turn because of MacJournal app, I don’t know; nevertheless no harm giving it another try. Some times, I also feel whether my frequent posting on 10C Social, which I’ve always enjoyed, kept me away from consistently maintaining the digital journal. I don’t know…

My recent readings on the internet on the topic of Journaling has helped me to understand more meaning to what journaling is about and how does that help in de-cluttering mind, dealing with fears , etc. I also learnt that journal entries do not necessarily have to be dated, unlike keeping a diary . Thinking about it, DayOne app mostly sounds like a diary application as all entires are dated. That has exactly the way, I’ve been using the app in that I used to write a brief entry of significant happenings on the day. This morning I came across an article written by Austin Kleon about how he used to keep a "Logbook". In that he has kept a record of list of events rather than a detailed writing. He cites Wikipedia entry for “Logbook” as

“A logbook was originally a book for recording readings from the log, and is used to determine the distance a ship traveled within a certain amount of time. The readings of the log have been recorded in equal times to give the distance traveled with respect to a given start position.

Logbook isn’t a new concept for me. I have had maintained Logbook(s) for many years, when I used to be a Boy Scout. The entires in the Logbook weren’t lists though. Instead they were more like journal entires. Some entires were dated; some were not. Unfortunately, since I relocation from Sri Lanka, it looks like I had miss-placed those handwritten Logbooks.

I think, the medium really doesn’t matter whether it’s going to be Journal, Diary or Log Book. I must learn to be more consistent in recording my stuff, if that makes sense!

I have three sisters - one elder to me and two younger. Two of them live in Sri Lanka & the other in Canada. They all married & have grown up kids. We grew up as a close-knit family when our parents were living. Even after I left SL to live in the overseas, mother made sure that we live in harmony and in close contact. Even though I did not make time to call them in particular, I did call them once in a while to ask them how were they doing and to give up dates of myself and family. Most of such calls were made on the same to, soon after I had called mother.
One thing that I've realized, since the mother passed away in last September, calls between the sisters & myself has almost disappeared. The elder sister did call me though in the first couple of weeks, soon after I got back after mom's funeral though. That was it!
Sometimes, I think, perhaps they can't afford to give me a call because they are too busy; or even because long distance calls are too costly that they can't afford to. I don't know… Such is life!

Earlier this morning we were invited for breakfast at a neighborhood friend’s house. The only guests present there was Mrs,his visiting brother and myself. One thing I noticed, the people in the breakfast table had various conversations, while eating their breakfast - nothing about their day jobs or anything like that; but various other topics such as food, entertainment & other matters of interest. While they were conversing, though I was trying hard to concentrate and join their conversation, my mind kept taking me back to stuff that is in my plate in the day job & whatnot. Though, I tried my best to join their conversation,any meaningful words to contribute to the topics they were talking about did not come. I know, this isn’t any good and acceptable social behavior.

Since the start of this year, I’ve been thinking about not to think about the day job stuff way too much, specially during weekends and instead focus my mind and energy towards much more interested things like reading or even put down my thoughts down, by way of journaling or even blogging; however it hasn’t been materialized just yet. One roadblock for this could possibly be due to me checking of day job emails too much during the weekends and that is something I must work on to discipline myself, to limit the frequency of the activity.