Alerted by a dream

I had just gone to bed and fallen asleep when I was jolted wide awake by a bad dream of an intruder having hidden behind my room door.

As I realized that it was just a dream I decided to check on our doors. And good that I did because I found out that I had forgotten to lock a door leading to my room.

Did my subconscious alert me or was it just a coincidence?

A lesson from Jack Ma

photo taken from the internet

Jack Ma is not a new name to many people nowadays. Most of us know him as the founder of internet marketing website Ali Baba and one of China's richest man today.

We may admire and envy his success now but I believe what we can pick up from his story of his success is how he also had his fair share of failures and rejections before - and the importance of being resilient and staying the course to your dream.

This is my toast to Jack Ma, whose story inspires and encourages me to continue pursuing my own dream.

Priveleged mammals

People are supposed to be intelligent beings with the ability to care, protect and even make the world a better place.

Sometimes however, by our behavior we simply show we are nothing but privileged mammals who know no better.

We know what is right and what is good but just the same we go for what is simply gratifying. We litter, we pollute and destroy our environment.

But when nature fights back and hit us, we call ourselves victims.

Yes we are victims. But our aggressor is not nature but our selves.

Promoting our local fruit wines

Among the gifts I received last Christmas was a bottle of Bignay fruit wine.

I am not a wine connoisseur so I will not deign speak about its quality. What I wonder though is if locally produced fruit wines can have a steady market to make their production viable and a worthy investment.

Some ideas I thought of while pondering how to create and sustain a market for local fruit wines are:

1. create "bubble wine" which is like the artificial caviars produced from molecular gastronomy techniques. This is merely a novelty which will eventually wear off but at least it would have stirred interest for the wine.

2. create liqueurs and syrups for cocktail drinks
3. make them into cooking wines and salad vinegars
4.promote local fruit wines as official "toasting" or ceremonial wines
5. look for and tout their health benefits
6. improve packaging and promote as tourist souvenir item