Category: General

There’s nothing better than a good book to read just before going to sleep, and the problem with most novels are that the chapters usually take me about half an hour to finish, and I dont like to leave it in the middle of the story.
There’s a book I bought recently over at Borders in Singapore and although it looks like a typical photography book, its less that and more of adventure book. Sure there are some details on the technical bits, but I read it more like a storybook. It also helps that every chapter is just about 2-3 pages (so there are a lot of chapters!). Its a book by the late Galen Rowell, and here’s the link if you want to check it out in Amazon.com… Inner Game of Outdoor Photography

I’m very close to the end already and I’m already on the lookout for something similar. That’s if my new issue of Wired and Outside magazines are not out yet, becuase they usually take 1-2 weeks to finish.

Just arrived back in KL from Hanoi where I spent almost a week for holiday. Went to Halong Bay, and Sapa highlands, like most travellers to northern Vietnam. Had a few bowls of Pho along the way, some ok, some disgusting. On average Vietnam is cheap enough to make a Malaysian feel like the ringgit has some value after all. Although not as cheap as the cheapest place in China.
Brought along my GPS, 2 camera bodies, 3 lenses, a mobile phone (just in case, its almost always off), 2 backpacks, a wife, and a few hundred USD and that’s enough for an enjoyable holiday.

Didn’t spend too much money on souvenirs. Got myself a Viet Cong soft hat, more for the hiking in Sapa. Tempted to get American GI versions, but I’m sure they’ll try and charge me a small fortune for what looks like a fake.
Continue reading “Back from Hanoi”

Will be making my way over to Hanoi in Vietnam tomorrow for a week holiday. Right now I’m taking a break from packing. Going to be bringing a backpack full of photo gear, and a rollerbag with clothes for a week assuming no laundry services + a daypack for the 2 day trips to places outside Hanoi. Lets see what I manage to capture on film…

Just came back from 2 weeks of training. The first one was in Shenzhen China, where we lived on a seaside resort to the east of the city, looking at Hong Kong while being handicapped with a single entry visa to China, and not able to go for a weekend of civilization without missing out on the training. Shenzhen wasn’t that bad, but expensive. We had seafood almost everyday, and although the training centre was next to the sea, it seems that all the food comes from a pond somewhere. All the seafood over there were midgets compared to stuff you get elsewhere. Somehow the locals think its a delicacy. Strange.
The second week was a nice training in Singapore. More management rather than technical so less chance to fall asleep. And less things to talk about too. Singapore is just too similar to KL for me to notice anything interesting during that week.

Its coming to Labour day already (tomorrow) and I will have a big problem getting back to work on tuesday. But luckily for me, I have a holiday planned for the second week of May! So its a holiday month for me…

The formula 1 is coming to Kuala Lumpur in a matter of weeks. Tomorrow there’s supposed to be some pitstop event at the Petronas Twin Towers where the Sauber team will show off on the street. Will be there with a friend and will carry a bag packed with my camera and zoom lenses. Time should be between 2-5pm.
Right after that, I’m planning to explore the area around Malaysia’s Sepang airport. I’ve heard of the place around Sepang town, and there’s supposed to be a nice beach there. That should be around 6-7pm already by the time I finish.

Right after that I will have to pick up my wife from the airport at 9pm. Looks like I might have to pack my lunch and dinner and will be a long long day tomorow! Too bad I will be using only film so there will be no quick pictures to post here.

Woke up today to a heavy haze here in Kuala Lumpur. Every year about this time, there will always be some large forest fire somewhere in neighbouring Indonesia with smoke reaching all the way to Singapore and Malaysia. I dont know what the visibility is today but at least I can see about 1km away, but very barely.

Got introduced to this nice little old shophouse in Klang Malaysia today that sells wonton noodles. That’s egg noodles with dumplings made of pork.

Nothing too special about the whole package, but the noodles are rather nice, since they’re handmade. Just tough enough to have the right bite. IF you have a GPS its at N3 02.561 E101 26.955 and the name of the shop is called Chiew Kee.

Sting is in KL tomorrow (actually already today since its past midnight already) and we’re going to see him… Just accompanying my wife to see him actually… couldn’t care less if he’s in my home.
Otherwise, staying up tonight to compress a 600Mb file on my Powerbook G4 550GHz. Its going to take some time… The stuffit menu says 16mins but its been 16mins for some time and now the fan is kicking in saying that the processor is working doubly hard.

For those of you that knows me, you’d probably know about my old D70 that’s retired. I was out about KL today looking for a replacement… since I’m now stuck onto the Nikon F Mount, my choices are basically the D70 again, the D2H (unfortunately its still the same old price here in Malaysia), or the D100 (frankly, that’s not even in my list since the D70 costs less than half and does about the same thing or better) and the Fujifilm S3.
Today my decision is more geared towards another D70 but eventually I will need another camera that has a better weather protection than the D70, possibly the D2H when the price does eventually drop in this part of the world… even though its just 4 megapixels.
Continue reading “Shopping for Camera again…”

Arrggghh!!! Pissed off with my 200Gb Ext HDD based on the Prolific 3507 chipset. It was working fine till about a month ago when the Firewire connection would not work anymore. Today even the USB connection is dead! The disk spins once in a while but that goes on for ages and I still cant see the disk! Continue reading “Prolific 3507 Chipset Ext HDD”