met up with shaoxiang in the late morning, originally supposed to meet him at 830am, but i overslept and met him only two hours later! this i attribute to the news leakage that canon is gonna launch the eos-1d mark ii in april, along with the 70-300 f/4.5-5.6 do is usm, and the 28-300 f/3.5-5.6 l is usm lenses. first stop for us was the nikon showroom at chang charn road, which wasn't exactly the best road to walk, but who cares... took some brochure for edward, looked at the cut-up lens displayed in the showroom with awe, then departed together for lunch at jurong east. went to f.i.p. with my bermudas and chacos, nearly froze to death that way. brrr! daryl was having some problems, saw him having quite a few hard crashes, seemed to have bashed his wrists. in the cccccchilling cold, shaoxiang and i tried to see what we could get of both sabrina and amanda, who came in after her mom left earlier with daryl.

left f.i.p. after almost becoming "cool dudes" (aka, frozen?) and had an early dinner first before we hopped onto the train ride. popped by into peninsula plaza since we were early, and met some familiar faces - simon, bluestrike, jed, travelshooter, xmen1977, fooxx, violett, kei and many many more people... but i can't possibly recall the entire namelist...

final thing? went to esplanade to catch lgf in action... the rain initially went away... but decided to come back to give a rousing um... surprise? thankfully for gazza who had an umbrella, he saved my day and shaoxiang's by sheltering us from the rain! clown didn't have such a fantastic time though, but i'm sure he's pretty glad he's getting a 50-500 big mama this saturday!



biggest lesson i learnt today? always let the lens and camera "adapt" back to ambient temperatures and humidity levels way before a shoot, otherwise i'll have a soft-focus lens out of nowhere!

met up with jed in the afternoon, had a good talk regarding his sports photography career. it does make a a lot of sense - to actually do something while we can and not live with regrets of "what if's" when we grow older; this was sobering somewhat. i've decided some time ago - if after three years with the ministry, if teaching's not suited for me (or the other way round), i'll move into sports photography - chances are, i'll be going overseas to do it full-time. it's a gamble, but how many times do we live life?

finally bought a pair of chaco z2 sandals from soh brothers for $145, then spent the rest of the day wearing it. first test - walked from beach road over to campers' corner, waiting for edward to meet me up. a call or two later, debbie, banz, and ceqin came over first, since edward had to move his motorbike from parkmall over to somewhere closer. we all had dinner together at magic wok, which was pretty filling (really!) for all the five of us. bill? $51.50 only, a-la-carte style. after dinner, bade the rest goodbye, and hopped on edward's tdm850 to marina square for another short outing.

met audrey who was from 96s14 just after both edward and i left cathay photo marina. and stepping less than 10 meters away... joseph soh! i bade edward tata at one raffles link, then when i popped a look into adidas citylink... there was jiemin! now, is the world small or not... he disappeared mysteriously, probably while i was looking at the salomon shoes, i don't know. on my way popping into mph citilink, i met su ting, who is jane's jc mate (or so i presume), whom i met during a dinner together. thought that was a lot? when i stepped out of mph... there was formula91 seated there at the coffee joint right outside mph! man... the city is small...

hopped on a westbound train and got to f.i.p in my bermudas and sandals. got formally introduced to alice whose children daryl and amanda i've shot many times but was never able to put a name to their faces; at least now i know of another three persons at the rink - then i also asked permission from rose to shoot a few photos of her daughter victoria, whom i took two shots the previous sunday. one hour at the rink, got to know five people. not bad!

went out to canon singapore waaaay in the mid-afternoon after dilly-dallying time away at home, one of the last things of which i was talking to jed over the phone. so in the end, i probably reached canon singapore like... almost 3pm. on my way to canon, i made an unplanned stop at world of sports harbourfront - for i heard dream theater's music being played! i went in and asked, so it seems that a pleasant lad working there was playing a cd that belonged to his friend! small world - i left after giving him my contact.

got to canon, had a short wait, and not long after i collected my eos-10d from terence, and while i was seated on the couch testing the autofocus function, aundry stepped into the same office! said hi to him, and he told me he was there to pick up his eos-1d that dropped while he was carrying his setup from the long lens! good thing was that the canon folks got it alive, though i have no idea of whatsoever what got damaged. since i was already running late for iceskating, i bade him goodbye and made my way to f.i.p.

first thing i did, was to explain to the nice girls at the cashier of f.i.p. that i would be skating later, so i was essentially asking them for permission to pay later, since i was shooting first and skating later - they agreed. see? so sweet of them, since they could have said, "no". so i got in, forked out the photos of gazel and gave it to her mom, and shazanna her own photo from skate singapore '03. and it wasn't long before wenxin came by, and i surprised her by handing her a photo from the said event. so seems that she's a gp teacher from a nearby junior college - what a pleasant surprise indeed, meeting a fellow distant colleague!

essentially, an eventful day. meeting tomorrow with jed in the afternoon...

met, of all people, daniel gan while i was transiting from the northeast line to the east-west line. had a short talk, since he was due for work in only minutes! reached f.i.p. before the cashier started "business", and i passed danielle's photo to her as she came in shortly. then felicia came in from the ice, so i handed her the album of photos i took during skate singapore last november. also, i finally learnt of yohanna's name, along with lin, who's a pretty nice malay girl, and was i thankful when she explained to me what's a waltz jump, axel jump, loop, half-flip and flip... scary terminologies for a newly exposed person like me!

practically lazed around at the place until the afternoon, when my relatively measly breakfast gave up on me - i popped for some chow at mc-d's, then i saw a couple of folks led by terry - so i headed up to the second level where the off-ice training was to be conducted. what followed was the pretty stomach-turning, eye-popping stretching exercises... but nothing popped my eyes until we watched jonn actually ending up in a backarch from standing up straight, without using the assistance of arms in going down at all. just when i thought that was it... she walked in closer, and while in that backarch position, she rocked front and back towards the legs and towards the head... UNREAL!

just had a short chat with felicia via msn, it seems that decent skating photos are hard to come by. and i thought my shots were URGH... well, i'll see what i can work out with the f.i.p. management and/or gilbert regarding the photo coverage for the iceskating nationals...

like what daphne said during the phone call during our conversation... it's the character that counts. seemingly small things like finding out more about a person, rather than what a person is, that is crucial to a start to any relationship. i think now i must take a commission for her services as an aunt agony...

last night i went over to aunt kim's place with my lowepro s&f bag, all packed with the necessary cd's, wiring, tools, etc for fixing up the last computer... when i reached there, i had a big laugh - the rest of the family thought that i was armed with my camera, when they found out what was inside...

finished up the assembly of the last computer - salvaged some antiquated hardware from there - an orchid righteous 3d ii 12 mb (3dfx voodoo2 card), diamond stealth3d 3000 4mb display card, and a turtle beach systems monte carlo sound card. i dont highly regard the dlink lan adapter cards that were picked up, by the way...

if i didn't misunderstand... siangling intended to say, his dad won the fight over cancer, but passed away from pneumonia. a pity - he never told me that.

still feeling achy all over from monday's iceskating session. ooh-la-la...

boy oh boy. talk about doms - delay onset muscle soreness. had it since the morning, and still having it just as bad as i woke up in the morning.

went out to desmond's place to pass him the photos he ordered from me, and boy, it was an eye-opener seeing his cervelo p3 in the flesh! had a quick bite at bedok blk 85, the standard bak chor mee...

fell like no one's business today.

went out in the morning to canon singapore to send in my eos-10d for servicing - but sad thing was, because there weren't other spare bodies to use, so i'm now stuck with no camera. or more precisely... all lenses, and no camera. urgh. at least the service at canon was pleasant.

i had my breakfast at mcd's harbourfront, then used the internet terminal to send an email to felicia and her mom grace, regarding her skating photos i've taken so far. also sent another to ashley's family for her iceskating photos as well. then i hurried over via nel/mrt, got to fuji ice to meet jonn for the big unknown - yours truly here, learning iceskating?!? is that a joke? uh. it's reality.

within the first two meters i stepped on ice... it was a THUD. no prizes for guessing what happened. being the psychomotor nincompoop that i have always been, i just couldn't get up. and far too embarrassed to call out for jonn to zip right by to start lesson 101. finally jonn came over when she saw me happily warming the ice (more likely, melting the ice), and taught me what i call the three mantras of iceskating for dummies:

1. bend at the knees
2. keep the body weight forward
3. don't slouch

and with so, we began on a "baby steps" walking-on-ice program to initiate me to the cold white. you can guess how many times i "thud-ded" the ice in the day. i probably made jackie chan blush for being less adventurous. my insurance company may just ask me nicely to terminate the policies. three schoolgirls from shuqun secondary saw me falling, and each time they giggled really aloud. probably because they haven't seen a pe teacher fall like domino on a rink. they should try skating instead of laughing though, i'm sure i'll enjoy laughing with them. anyway, this reminds me of a microcosm where when a person does things and repeatedly falls, there won't be a shortage of people laughing at them. and the obvious choices one has are: to give up, or to carry on trying. guess the ice did some philosophical wonders for my grey matter... and before the girls, i had the wonderful company of some young chaps - hubert (who's from tracku.org), along with his pals, kenny and weijun. hubert himself is a long distance runner, so it seems. pretty nice young chap, gave me good talking company on the ice.

took a break for a while, and talked to gazel's mom and another girl's mom about what i'm doing for my profession. then later on, things got out of hand. i was talking about physics and almost biomechanics in iceskating! and i carried on to talk to quite a few other skaters about it - they're all secondary schoolgirls, and physics has been known to be a major stumbling block for many. remember the phrase used in an old, old reebok advertisement? "for every force, there is an equal and opposite reaction". it's that logical. now i have a kinesthic understanding to iceskating with my bumped left hipbone, and slightly bashed right knee. but it was magical, to actually discover all the stuff i studied for back in secondary school, and actually discovering how i could manipulate the variables to move, glide, skate, or umm... crash.

but in the true fashion of the stubborn ol' me, i managed to learn how to glide a couple of meters by the end of the day. started out at point blank, six hours later on the ice, i'm able to glide. even i'm amazed.

now, whether i can replicate this performance the next time, is a big unknown...

met medium zul and his girlfriend just after i crossed the road leading to jurong east mrt. it's such small world.

went out to fuji ice in the morning, and met up with shaoxiang at fuji ice, and later on, desmondwong and mervin420 popped by. i talked to celia from f.i.p, and we got access to the place cleanly. had a fabulous time shooting... anyway, after the shoot, desmondwong, mervin420 and i stayed on to play around with slave flashes, and optical/wireless triggers across our combined nikon/canon systems. great time, good time chatting and catching up after such a long time - simply fantastic!


picture of me at work with my canon setup admidst the frigid cold air,
relative humidity ~60%, temperature <17 degrees celsius
photo courtesy of desmondwong

went back home with jonn after watching an indoor training session for her girls within the confines of jurong entertainment centre, believe it or not! the funniest part after we got to northpoint, was that we walked past this cai shen ye (aka chinese god of fortune) standing at the entrance of cold storage, and when jonn walked past... i realized that it was her long lost twin - she was dressed in spanking, flamin' red, exactly the same as this chap!

went out with zplus to singapore polytechnic in the morning to shoot canoepolo - and boy oh boy, am i chao-tar now or what... as expected, the newly acquired monopod sure helped to save my wrists, and it was waaay easier to carry the camera when i have to. tested my autofocus intermittently, but it still was a no-go. canon singapore, here i come!

anyway, i used manual focus to shoot everything - so it was more physically challenging for me to shoot on hours at a stretch - hardly had a break at all. thankfully i had dream theater's train of thought playing over two or three times on my portable cd player... phew - that really gave me a boost of attention during the matches. it was real funny when i told people that the headphones i was wearing, gives me an audible signal that my camera has attained focus... when they put on the headphones and heard the metallic jarring guitar sounds, they were laughing their head off!



tomorrow? the chinese new year special program put up by jonnansical and her students at fuji ice... i hope i can cope with my manual focus!...

went out with shaoxiang to shoot at fuji ice in the morning - then we went off to singapore poly to shoot the canoe polo matches. damned! my 10d's autofocus system got busted, i'll be heading for canon singapore to make use of my canon professional services card and try to have a hot loan for the body. if they don't have the 10D in stock, i'll probably request for a eos-1d as a replacement for me to use for tomorrow's canoe polo games...

went out to fuji ice again today in the late morning - and met eitiene and his mom janice, as well as his young sister. for lunch, aunt teresa gave both jonn and me a treat - what a nice lady! interesting fact is that she did not pick up iceskating when she was young, but she didn't want to tell at what age she learnt it. charming lady.

before her second round of training for the day, i learnt a lot, a lot more about jonn. her schooling life in general, her character, i can't remember exactly all stuff that we talked about, but it's uncanny, considering the fact that we've only know each other for about a week, yet she can let me know so much about her. simply... incredible. guess this was the first ever time i've ever heard a female friend open up and sharing about her experiences. of particular highlight was how she would maintain a teacher-student relation with her charges - that i gotta try with my schoolboys in the future.

headed for home on the train with jonn, and bumped into gabriel from pess pgde at the jurong east station. all of us hopped off the train at yishun, and it was a bus ride for both jonn (who was too tired to walk home from northpoint) and for me - and i was so tired that i was drooling on the bus ride home...

just back back a few minutes after midnight from the ntu hall olympiad cheerleading competition. met up with shaoxiang, and linked up with desmond, mervyn, chengli and one more offstone photog at the ntu src. met afiend at the venue too. pretty lots of shots, i must say. scary decision whether to use ISO1600 or ISO800 on my camera, thankfully ISO1600 worked like a charm. slight loss of details for ok exposure - i'll take that anytime, than underexposure and ugly banding due to it when using ISO800...



it was a mad rush back home, but thankfully for the northeast line, i got back home by 1206am despite having left jurong point at almost 1110pm! selected photos are up online currently (for a limited time only) at http://sehsuan.clubsnap.org/cheer.

argh. dream theater's show in singapore is cancelled!

damned funny stuff received from the anza mailing list...

Due to increasing products liability litigation, Australian alcohol manufacturers have accepted the suggestion that the following warning labels be placed immediately on all varieties of alcohol containers:

WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may make you think you are whispering when you are not.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may cause you to tell your friends over and over again that you love them.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol is a major factor in dancing like a retard.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may cause you to think you can sing.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may create the illusion that you are tougher, smarter, faster and better looking than most people.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may lead you to think people are laughing WITH you.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may make you think you can logically converse with members of the opposite sex without spitting.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may lead you to believe that ex-lovers are really dying for you to telephone them at four in the morning.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may leave you wondering what the hell happened to your bra and panties.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol is the leading cause of inexplicable rug burns on the forehead, knees and lower back.
WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may cause pregnancy.
WARNING: the crumsumpten of alcahol may Mack you tink you can tipe real gode.

back to the same old topic, of doing things despite difficulty - or rather, the person at the centre of this entire topic. jonn was demonstrating a whole load of eye-opening (and -popping) kind of dunno what split, skating forward/backwards with the legs practically in a vertical split, supposed to be in a shape of a teardrop , plus a face-outta-circle "split" circling thing. gosh, don't ask me what to call it, i have absolutely no idea! see already, eyes pop out lor, what else to expect! got to meet her youngest student, gazel and ashley before that. took a couple of shots of sophie as well, i got a shock initially when i heard her mom talking to her in japanese! i wouldn't have known until i asked...


a very rare pair of harlick PINK custom skating shoes,
plus embroidered name on her blue sky pants


sweet young little thing, gazel
caught her when she was standing on ice.

and guess how i ended up the rest of the day? by shooting at the ntu interhall relays plus two matches of ivp floorball - intense action, and the monopod sure has proven its worth in saving my wrist! *beams* met fabian at jurong point when i was about to go back, hopefully i have the chance to pass him the photo i took of him during the nie biathlon...

haha, someone has just promised to teach me skating for free, no prizes for finding out who that it...

what can you learn from just meeting a person in two days? it actually took me less than 2 hours to figure out a fair lot, while i was at the rink on saturday.

it's the mindset inside people that determines if people will achieve anything high or not. dedication is crucial. recalling when i was younger, being stubbornly fixated to running indeed brought me a little glory. kit leong too, being "stubbornly" stuck to cycling, at least achieved maillot jaune last year for a brief period of time. it seems, that if we know what we want and stick to it through thick and thin, we'll be able to make it big in our own way.


jonnansical, coach at fuji ice skating school.
leaving for brisbane 17th feb

not knowing what lies in the future spooks me somewhat, but the way that jonn is eager to go headalong into it, really shows me that quality of fearlessness. another example to logically explain this - imagine starting at point blank at age 19 in iceskating, but already coaching freestyle level 3 5 by age 25. in the p.e. perspective, how do you expose your body and head to the intricacies of balance on ice? i find it very fascinating indeed. it's like prof teo learning inline skating at age 50+, or me learning cycle at 22+ - it's not impossible, but the psychomotor system can still do wonders, regardless of age.

i'll try to move around on ice before she leaves - heck, i've been thinking of that for over one year now! never, never say no to anything. especially when it's related to my core business.

did i mention meeting wai boon in hmv last night? guess not!

went out admidst some early afternoon rain, ended up sheltering one old lady from my block to the nearby bus-stop, and dropped off at the same stop that she got off, and bade her tata. then as i was walking towards bugis junction, i ended up sheltering another lady across the road. no choice la, i'm too good a citizen, got big 'brollie must share, right? otherwise very paiseh one...

walked over to the music store at capitol center, but neither they nor laserflair had center stage that jo wanted. so it was up the train i went, and destination, fuji ice palace. on the train ride, there was this young couple, probably just 30 each.... they were out with two of their children. the younger one, maybe 2 or 3 years of age, said he wanted to pee, so the mom whipped out a McD's plastic bag, pulled down the toddler's pants, and away he fired off while standing on a seat... in full view of the public on a MRT TRAIN! urgh...

anyway, in summary, my fingers got very much chilled at the rink, but i did have a good time practicing. but the iso1600 setting on the camera was too grainy! anyway, we (tabitha, danielle, janice, celine and of course coach jo) all headed to bukit gombak (not bukit gorblok) stadium for a workout - except me of course!

met freddie holmberg, the mr25 runner at the stadium too - but from what i gather, he's pretty uninformed about his choice of running shoes. i mean, he did put it in such a way that nike is good, new balance is bad. it's like the highly dubious logic of "four legs good, two legs better" in animal farm...

yesterday i woke up at 10+ am in the morning, dilly-dallyed on prepping my camera and psst! the new monopod - and off i headed to fuji ice, where i met up with - believe it or not... jonnansical! (what a mouthful of a name) shot her like a machine gunner using my now-much stabler monopod-ed positioning, and posted her photos online. wah, girls beware, see her already, surely paiseh one. someone got *bold*WOW*/bold* figure! got to know this charming young lady, tabitha, who i think is a student of jo as well. she's a fantastic, knowledgeable person - i mean, how many people can coach iceskating, plus explain the intricacies of blade designs to a mountain tortoise like me?

up to now... i'm still wondering how the heck people propel themselves forward from a stationary position on ice. heck, how do they even stay stationary standing there in the first place? *puzzled*

one more round today at the same place in the early morning... stay tuned!

stayed overnight in hall 10 on thursday night - since i was gonna try take photos from the interhall games the next day - namely volleyball and netball. watched who wants to steal a millionaire with suping in the hall lounge since my host, yongxi was still waaay over in tiong bahru for dinner. later in the evening, i also tried my hand at shooting soccer at the ntu pitch for the game between ntu soccer team and hkust soccer team - think the scoreline was 3-0 to ntu!

friday? woke up, crapped eaaarly in the morning, then went to shoot two rounds of volleyball and one match of netball. verdict? "broken wrist"

in the end? bought a manfrotto 680b compact monopod for 69 bucks from cathay photo, then rushed home, picked up the aa battery cases and cycled to singapore post to meet vivientan - she's one heck of a garang lady photographer - minolta setup etc... in a lowepro mini trekker aw!

last night i went to eaddie's place to pick up the photos from the wedding last weekend, as well as my 512mb compactflash. it's time to shoot like siao today at the ntu interhall softball, using the changed configuration in my camera... hopefully i get more keeper shots...

didn't go out for dinner with stephanie, since she was a friend in need and gave support to a girl friend of hers. so sweet of her!

met stanley at my block, and learnt how he managed to loan the unidentified shimano tubular carbon wheels. pretty nifty cannondale he has, too!

fab & sis popped back from bintan, they're going to bali tomorrow.

tomorrow's the dinner date with stephanie. hope the makan is good!

a repost from yesterday's ntu interhall hockey held at the nie hockey turf...

one of dad's luohan's just became one dead luohan. out with the trash!

but reflecting on this... it's just a representation of life, one moment you're alive, the next, you could be dead. or a million other things could just happen to you.

met up with cannoncal and harlequin yesterday at peninsula plaza, harlequin's selling off his gitzo 1564 monopod and manfrotto 486rc2 ballhead for about total $170 - nice price, but do i really need it? after yakking with cannoncal, it does seem indeed that i need to learn from other higher standards - and not those from fellow clubsnap. not that clubsnap is no good, but my standard will never go high if i don't look elsewhere. makes enough sense.

unbelieveably, i am about to go to zzz right now. just read through some lens documentation from canon europa and through some other sites, all the while clearing the pack of ruffles... yum yum. ruffles are a great way to force yourself to drink because they're so damned salty.

1030am is the time when i'll meet dr teo-koh back in pess.

time to zzz...

p.s. eaddie we can meet up again for some other shoot before you fly off, but please swear you're not gonna fall for the "buy buy buy" syndrome and get another 70-200 IS...

came back from richard_sg's place not too long ago, after meeting him up for my dinner, and went to his place to give him a lil photography tips. as i was leaving, i met basil from mr25 at the bottom of the block - recognized him from the club's red shorts he was wearing. small world eh!

fabian and sis finally got married today. i was really surprised to see my pess senior sharon there, who knows joanne in my school - they're from the same cell group! eaddie was really a hardworking photog - but it's damned tiring, i assure you. fortunately, i could click in alright with most of the fabian and sis' "brothers and sisters" and so, it was pretty fun, overall. just too realized that meijin is siangling's classmate - argh! the world is so small! and i haven't even got started with karen and eaddie too...



met kai li as i was on my way from citylink to starbucks' raffles city. still looking as stunning as ever.

recalling how i used to think in the past, it is indeed better for me to stay single. what am i expecting from my other half? more importantly, can i fulfil what my other half expects of me?

paid anne a visit after dropping by a secondary school around her place.

saw some students smoking in uniform at toa payoh central. what is happening, so much that these youngsters are doing it brazenly?

one more to top off the phoney bank list...



why would a swiss bank display a chinese html 404 error message?

why would this "swisscreditbank.com" be titled, "bank of swiss credit" for its title?

why would the site ask you to "please try again", when you have not even tried to login?

why would the registrant of the url be this company in shanghai?

Registrant:
shanghai lijian trade company
shanghai chang li road no.1916
shanghai, shanghai 200051
CN

Domain name: SWISSCREDITBANK.COM

Administrative Contact:
jian, li swisscreditbank@yahoo.com.cn
shanghai chang li road no.1916
shanghai, shanghai 200051
CN
021-58511946 Fax: 021-58511948

Technical Contact:
Li, YuFa tian@51.net
No. 229, HaiTai Plaza
Suite 717
Beisihuanzhong Road,
Beijing, Beijing 100083
CN
+86.1082883826 Fax: +86.1082883812

Registration Service Provider:
51.net, Inc, tian@51.net
This company may be contacted for domain login/passwords,
DNS/Nameserver changes, and general domain support questions.

went out for the legendary kembangan black pepper chicken for dinner with jane, then went over to teck heng's place to return him his compactflash card. wai boon was there too, and from looking at his photos, i found two massive dust specks on the nikon dslr sensor. too bad the blower is "bo lat" ("no strength", literally) to remove the second speck.

just minutes into 2004, just received a sms from betty for the new year to lift my moods even higher. thanks babe!

happy 2004!