Life

The third year of the Tiger has arrived. At least, from my perspective. Looking back, Tiger Mark II was a lot different from Mark III. What a difference a dozen make. Times have indeed changed a lot. Many turns. Many unexpected dead-ends, detours and u-turns. Many surprising things. Surprised myself a lot too. Guess I also surprised a lot of other people.

Change, again is the only constant. Some people say that I'm quite lucky to be where I am. Well, it's a lot of blood, sweat and tears and a million mistakes along the way. Some say I'm blessed financially. Well, I'll say again that I'm blessed because of the people around me - friends and family. At this milestone, Mark III, I'll also say that I'll never be where I am today without the one person that makes up the world to me, my darling, the one my heart loves. The most amazing sight to wake up to and the most beautiful bliss to fall asleep too. More importantly, sharing the years of Mark III and beyond with her. Of course, the other important people are my family. I can't say much here because again, they are what makes me what I am, they are also all I am. Mom, Dad, Alan.

And now, on a lighter note, if anyone would like to drop a gift wrapped box at the house, I know I'll welcome one of these : Panasonic GF1 kit, a couple of extra RadioPoppers, a ThinkTank Roller or a Canon EF 85mm f/1.2 lens.

Coffee Beans. Fremantle Market, Fremantle, Western Australia. Kodak T-MAX 400. November 2002.

A diamond cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials - Chinese proverb

This Chinese New Year, we had the fireworks event right in our new old home after dinner. Boy, have the prices shot thru the roof?! I remember buying a pack containing a dozen "moon traveler" rockets (lil inexpensive gunpowder rockets on a stick with a small bang after reaching a height) for less than a ringgit. Today, it's like ten bucks for a dozen. Large rockets we like a couple of ringgit each.

Hmm, the escalating costs of "wars". Back in the good old days when one was a teenager, we used to have lots of firework wars with our neighbors in Ipoh and Penang. Rather belligerent bunch of people we were indeed. Hawks thru and thru. Any misfire by any neighboring kids that landed into my uncle's compound in Ipoh drew immediate retaliation. We were also a well funded super-power -- many uncles had supplies us with more ammo than the neighbors plus we had superior technology (string guided rockets and a bazooka launcher). We also had time to experiment that a moon traveler dropped three feet for every fifty it flew. I remember my brother and I spending countless afternoons performing "weapons research." My goodness how fun were those days. Maybe that's why we're all intact together, nary a missing finger or blinded eye. Research and proper safety. I remember having water, foam, and aluminum foil and styrofoam padded protection! Do not try these at home

The only shot that worked but while my 580EXs were recyling fast enough to keep up with my burst sequence, the 430EX II lagged, hence I lost my sidelight.

Bazooka Mark II in "ground mode" -- didn't want to be a bad influence on my nephew by hand holding it. Anyways, the extraction pipe and laser sights weren't fitted yet

During World War II, Allied bomber losses were high, so the powers that be demanded a fix. The engineers set out to eyeball every bomber they could, gathering great statistics for each bullet hole. After a long study they decided to add more armor plating to the areas that had the highest concentrations of holes. A bit after these improved planes were deployed, they received some startling news: more planes were going down than before. At this point I thought, "Did they make them too heavy?"

Then the light bulb went on for someone: they had measured every bullet hole in every plane at their disposal, but they'd failed to realize it was the ones that they did not have access to that mattered. It was the ones that did not return that needed to be scrutinized. They needed to improve the armor in the places that the returning planes had no bullet holes.

Sounds like it might generally relate to product marketing, and user studies: go investigate the customers that don't return for seconds, i.e. upgrade. After all, if I don't return to buy another product from you or upgrade say my first generation product to your newer product, you gotta find out why. Let's see how many organizations actually to do this!

2009 was my quietest blogging year with only 65 entries compared to 117 in 2008! I guess things got a bit crazy, especially with work after the big house move. I guess also a lot of things happened as well.

Well, here goes 2009 in review on DP...

January

February

March - Before the big house move...

April - No time to blog... moving house

Truck load #1

May - Settling in...

New Home switches!

June

July

August

September - Realized I shoot more of others' families than my own...

October

November - A blacked-out month after life's greatest lesson about living - dying.

December - Miracles do happen... more over here.

Merry Christmas 2009 Everyone!

Here's my little video of us setting up our Christmas tree in our humble little home. For those a bit technical, it was shot on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II with a 24mm f/2.8 lens. The little bit of video at the end was with my makeshift glidetrack, EOS-5D Mark II and 50mm f/1.8 lens. The assembled video was Graded with MagicBullet Looks and Colorista.

Had a three-day working weekend -- taking the dog to the vet, proposals, videos, photos, weddings, house-painting, mowing the lawn and more! I also had the chance to put my RadioPoppers to work in various distances and ranges around the house. Sunday evening was spent working on write-ups and excel spreadsheets while it rained but once the rain stopped, we went ahead to put in a new addition to our home farm -- four-angle beans, cucumbers, peanuts, basil and more. The former two plants are creepers or vines so good thing we had a supply of freshly cut bamboo to construct our new trellis.

Behold!

Have tested round the corners of the house plus from the dining to the living room (approx 25 feet) and still have full e-TTL2. I'll try them this weekend at our Orang Asli Christmas charity event -- full outdoors! The bamboo trellis above was shot with three Canon 580EX II flash units, two RadioPopper PX receivers - first unit sitting 8 feet left of me, second unit right-side around the corner of the house, approx 12 feet away. I'll be adding more Poppers next March!

You know people write blogs to communicate their daily occurrences and other events. Many also share what they do, what they eat, what they like and more. I decided to do an average day in Brands. Heh, I did a second major in marketing! Anyway, brands are more than logos but for brevity, I'm using their logos (or icons) here. Do note that this is just averaging out the weekdays (no weekends) and this is definitely not listing down every single brand I use on a daily basis -- I mean, that will be way to long considering this list is already long. Just thought this was a good idea after seeing this. How about the rest of you?

The anatomy of a house move. Not many photos but I guess some will suffice. And here's a freebie I cooked up last Monday. I didn't have any photos since I was experimenting.

Bacardi Chicken
- Chicken breast, approximately 300gm.
- Bacardi rum obviously
- Herbs: oregano, marjoram, black pepper, garlic salt, paprika
- 3 tablespoons finely chopped garlic and one medium size onion, coarsely chopped.
- 2 tablespoons corn flour

Cut chicken into small pieces and marinade with 1/4 cup Bacardi, and herbs. Add 1 table spoon olive oil.
Heat pan on medium heat, add olive oil to coat, add garlic and onions. Saute lightly.
Toss in chicken only (no marinade). Brown chicken with high heat, let rum catch fire if possible.
Mix 1/2 cup Bacardi, 1/4 cup water, corn flour mixture. Pour into hot pan, stirring till sauce thickens.
Serve with rice or potatoes

New Home switches!

Thurs 5:30PM
Rushed back in heavy traffic to condo to get essential cleaning stuff.
Contractor workers came to touch up paint job, adjust wrong dimension kitchen stove top hole.
TNB connected electrical supply at 3pm so went to test all lights.
8:00PM
Cleaned up after the workers left.
9:00PM
Had quick dinner, went to in-laws place to borrow more samsonite bags for clothes
10PM
Packed a bit and then collapse into bed.

Good Fri 8:30AM
Go to house to meet contractor to fix leak in roof and finish touching up grills, etc Begin cleaning outside Massive whole house cleaning begins.
10:30am
Water filter guy arrives, can't reposition water mains right away so shift to 3pm.
Clean up grills, windows, doors, bathrooms.
Autogate installation begins.
Wipe down kitchen.
2:00PM
Fried rice for lunch
Moved several non-essential boxes from condo 3:00PM Water filter guy arrives, starts work.
5:00pm
ML goes to pick up friend from Melbourne to the house.
House cleaning continues.
5:30pm
Water filter done, flush water system.
Sort keys, wax timber flooring
8:00pm
Go for dinner with friend without showering 10:00pm Back at condo, shower and see photos for a bit.
11:00pm
Drop friend back to Bangsar
Begin packing like mad
I dismantle sofa set, two beds, wrap spare mattress, dining table in bubble wrap.
Move mattress to living room.

Saturday, April 11
1:00AM:
Continue packing stuff,put clothes into bag, dismantle Ikea Effektiv/Aneboda/etc
2:30AM:
Collapse into bed
7:00AM:
Duck quacking (alarm clock), wrap mattress in plastic wrap, finish packing essential boxes.
8:00AM:
Bread breakfast & coffee while packing kitchen stuff.
8:30AM:
Mover arrives along with AK & JV (bro-in-law) Park truck in lobby with two SUVs and a one-tonne lorry Mover begins to move things down to lobby including single bed, fridge, washer
10:00AM:
Mover loads up lorry, truck and two SUVs.
10:30AM:
Me and AK depart in two vehicles to house.
Lorry and ML & bro-in-law depart condo 10 minutes later and meet dad at house.
11:00am:
Movers begin to unload. Labeled boxes go to specific rooms.
Big furniture gets dumped into dining/living Auto-gate guy arrives to touch up paint job on gate.
11:20am:
Mover goes for drinks, four vehicles head back to Condo.
11:45AM:
AK brings 7-11 big gulp. Need sugar badly. Continue packing and moving boxes down to lobby
12:00pm:
Mover arrives at Condo again. Begin moving closets, queen bed and effektiv storage down to lobby. More kitchen stuff moved down along with 300kg of books.
12:45PM:
Movers load up lorry for the second trip. CRV is full of hanging clothes (too lazy to iron again), boxes go into truck bed, glassware into AK's X-trail. Pillows and bedding go into JV's car
1:30PM:
Arrive back at house. Dad leaves for home. Unload begins
2:00PM:
Unload finishes, movers depart after being paid. Clean-up and a bit of stuff moved to correct place. AK and us go for lunch.
3:00PM:
Most important thing: assemble the bed and change sheets Sweep and mop the dusty house. Put back closet, chest drawers, etc.
4:00PM:
Inspector #1 arrives: Mom & Dad.
Sit for the first time all day and rest. Just plain water for drinks. Unwrap dining table and chairs in the process since they need to sit somewhere.
Restart fridge, move things from icebox to fridge.
5:00PM:
Take a quick cold shower (no water heater yet). Go back to Condo to get more stuff like hangers, electrical stuff and appliances. Mops, detergent, pails and toiletries. Make 4 trips down to car. Rain pours with unabated fury.
7:00PM
Arrive back home, unload.
7:45PM
AK arrives with SC & JT (Inspector #2) 8:00PM Hokkien mee dinner with ikan bakar, and more lard laden food.
10:00PM
Finish dinner, go home.
Continue unpacking, clean up cups, and unwrap essentials 10:30pm KW arrives with ladder (inspector #3) 11:00pm collapse into bed again

Easter Sunday
7:00AM:
Wake up, boil water for shower
Continue to unpack kitchen.
8:40AM: No coffee, no breakfast, go to church
10:40AM:
Coffee at last!
Go to ACE to pick up new locks, new mop, some light bulbs, etc.
11:40AM:
Go to in-laws place for lunch. Get bamboo poles for laundry line 1:00PM Rush back due to heavy rain.
Do Laundry, mop house again, unpack clothes and put into closet 3:00PM Put in external light bulbs, set-up master bed room, Clean-up kitchen, put in food stuff and arrange back glassware 5:00PM Back to Condo to get more things, collect laundry from condo clothesline, microwave, water filter, mirror and laptop, shoes, etc.
6:00PM
Back to house, unpack
7:00PM
Go to Mom's place for dinner, get puppy home 9:00PM Arrive home, prepare place for puppy. Put up bedsheets for curtains!
Unpack more stuff.
11:30PM
Fall unconscious into bed!

Last minute packing!

Next morning, everything looks much cleaner!

Finally arriving at destination!

But this is just the beginning -- the unpacking has to start!