Life and Dots of Daniel

Alor Star at day

A short update for this week. My visit to Beris Dam in Kedah was a very fruitful one, even the durian (the king of fruits) has to give way to some of the knowledge I have acquired. We spent two days inspecting every aspects of the dam and another two days on a hands-on session on soil instrumentation. The dam, located in the jungle, is more than one-hour drive from Alor Star. Even the fittest of all has to raise his white flag after a full day under the horrid sun.

Soil instrumentation is the way forward to monitor our dams. Upon commencement of the dam in 2004, engineers had put several types of instrumentation into the dam body to monitor seepage of water, pore water pressure, vertical and horizontal displacement, and settlement so that we engineers know how the dam behave in the long run. Our hands-on session was more to understanding the function of each instruments and the interpretation of data. A good hunt!

This time around, I stayed at Holiday Villa for five nights. It's the longest of the loneliest days I have to endure. Thankfully, the hotel room was comfortable, so comfortable that I forgot to blog. Nonetheless, I never forget to update my facebook status.

In my previous post, I showed a night shot of Menara Alor Star. This time around, what you are going to see is the Menara Alor Star at dawn. I tried but could not get a shot of the paddy field because the hotel window has a fixed latch to prevent guests from jumping down killing themselves.

It is noticeable that Alor Star has few tall buildings. In Alor Star, you will only be seeing old shop houses and few cars on the road.

Recently the Meteorological Department has warned about the arrival of the northeast monsoon. Several areas in Kelantan and Terengganu were flooded. The heavy rain has also triggered slopes to fail in the west coasts. There is no way we can prevent flood except to mitigate the work of mother nature. Flood mitigation involves managing the effects of flooding, rather than trying to prevent it altogether. In the very same manner, there is no way to prevent a slope from failing, what can be done is to monitor them from time to time.

Very interesting enough, I managed to escape from being trapped in Kelantan due to the flood. Had it not that our visit to Kelantan was a week earlier instead of this week I am sure I will be spending more nights in Kelantan.