after so long, it's finally here!



gee, how am i gonna pull off that powerbook thing then, now i've the juicy 7?

after some change of idea here and there, this is my ideal setup:

Apple Wireless Mouse
S$ 86.00

PowerBook G4 15.2" 1.67GHz (AP)
AirPort Extreme Card
1.67GHz PowerPC G4 w/ 128MB VRAM dual
100GB Ultra ATA drive @ 5400rpm
Backlit Keyboard/Mac OS
Combo Drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
512MB DDR333 SDRAM - 1 SO-DIMM
S$ 3,751.00

Cart Subtotal: S$ 3,837.00
Shipping Charge: S$ 0.00
Cart Subtotal: S$ 3,837.00
GST: S$ 191.85
Order Total: S$ 4,028.85

of course, i'll need to fork out an extra $300 to $400 for a 1gb memory module, to up the total memory to 1.5gb for the powerbook. that works out to about 369 dollars per month for 12 months, to get the notebook...

it's just so tempting to shell out money for a new powerbook 15.

even at educational pricing... my custom setup would cost 4507+ dollars! argh!... must say, this article at sportsshooter.com looks like a good read...

absolutely tiring day i had yesterday.

after watching that hilarious comedy called species ii, i slept from about 2 am to about 4:50am. then it was wakey-wakey, for a long long day. called up the folks who were going with me to cj... and then it was final packing, and then set off via cab.

after the trip, on the way out, i saw sivasothi with a pedal ubin group. since i was in the minibus, he wouldn't have seen nor heard me. it was a stopover at arthur's wedding reception. and then... it was a rush to work at the padang. of course, while on my way there, i was greeted by the familiar crunk crunk crunk sound of tracked vehicles moving down north bridge road! out came the long lens and got a couple of photos.

this year's parade will feature a lot - and i really mean a lot - of plane flypasts, and a humongus mobile column too!

dead beat tired today. time to clear up work!

two things i will bring along for sure next weekend -
i) writing paper - to jot down timings of what happens when at the rehearsal/parade
2) usb charger for my nokia 3310

species ii is pretty funny.

two ok-astronaut, and the "detective" chap run like chimpanzees. really! on top of that, the two of them run around in a dark basement with the sunglasses on... man, someone spare me!

shaky filming, goodness-spare-me panning moves... uh... no wonder it was supposed to be a grade b flick!

got shitloads of work to clear this weekend:

1. math ca2 paper, due monday.
2. term 2 gifts for the winning group.
3. math performance assessment (x a few!)
4. 15 x vocabulary worksheets (make it a 20)
5. indent photocopier paper for staff room
6. new class seating plan
7. printing names for class mascots
8. new optical mouse
9. lug along a full-sized keyboard
10. p5 camp photos.

going crazy soon...

went for the adobe cs2 event in the morning. first thing that didn't go right was that it was indeed a confusing trip just attempting to get myself to the pan pacific. reason? marina square was undergoing an overhaul (of sorts), and it didn't really resemble the old marina square that i had only an inkling about the layout. after a fair lot of boo-boo turns, i found out that i had already passed by the pan pacific already - and by the time i saw the signage that pointed to the correct direction, it was like, only the size of a piece of a4 paper. really!

met old polytechnic coursemate julie "yap yap" yap just after i returned to the second half of the event. oh, before i forget, i must add that i was wide awake for the opening segment, still quite awake for the photoshop cs2 segment, and nodding my head to oblivion for the golive cs2 segment. progression, huh?

went for a hefty lunch at burger king's at millenia walk, only to realize the following about my lunch - whopper with cheese rated at 850+ calories, seasons' ice lemon tea, 220+ calories. and fries? another 100+ calories. ooh la la! i'm eating my way to supersize me!

left the seminar, and while on my way to the train station, i bumped into xuan, who was on her way to meet dr. henry and faisal. had a short chat, and told her of my uh, inambition (is there such a word?) to stay in the education sector. i must add though, the mac os "tiger" seemed pretty interesting, though it's just an os. i'm contemplating which creative suite 2 to purchase, since it's almost a steal at 600 bucks for the premium edition! but to go mac, or stay with a windows version...? the decision seems harder to make now...



on my way over to the sports school for the national swimming meet, my head was dry out of ideas for the shoot. how to come up with shots that are different, if you can only shoot from above the water?... anyway, the shoot was survivable, though i must admit, going back home was a real hassle, because the area is only served by one single bus service.

borrowed a park tool cwp-5 and took off my old tracer cranks. may turn that old orange frame into something else altogether... but right now, the frame lies in two pieces, because i took it apart.

rode over to ayer rajah and clementi to deliver the photos... plenty of wind on the roads today, from every single direction except from the back... argh. resistance training?

49k on the roads today.

went for a morning run at macritchie this morning - boy, am i floored or what!

1 loop, northern route, in one full hour - way way way slower than my normal running speed. better get my arse running around soon - other else it's d-i-e when it's time for ahm...

got myself a free set of xt shifters.

josh had said a couple of weeks ago, his rear shifter seem spoilt. so today when i met him again, he was just having a new dual-control sti set installed on his bike - so i asked if i could have the old set. he gladly gave them to me.

i went back, took the shifter apart, and did some logical tracing of how it works. i found a suspect ratchet tooth... so i sprayed a little lube and voila! a 9 speed shifter for free!

well, josh did say i could have the shifters even if i manage to fix it... so yaay! bike number three by reviving the khs!

didn't know my primary classmate lena, was actually in lemon labs! well, what a surprise. only found out after i was leaving the office premises post-shoot with ella and p.y. - we had just gone back to the office after the location shoot at safra. hopefully the colour management will be handled properly - instead of the other publication. more importantly, i hope the ambient light shots are up to scratch...

was walking biopolis after leaving ayer rajah industrial estate, and i chanced upon a bookstore smack in the centre of it all! bought teaching children physical education by george graham. need to work on my pedagogy stuff, even before i finish the remain 2 1/2 years.

i was about to leave the buona vista area in the mid-afternoon, and i called up ria to find out siva's office number. she quizzically asked me if i was going to the talk by prof terry hughes from james cook university, and hey! i had a new reason to turn around! so off the the raffles museum of biodiversity research i went, and boy, what a trip it was worth! do note though; that no flash photography is permitted in the gallery, because it seems that flash from cameras/flash/strobes may deteriorate the preserved specimen.


some of the shelves full of taxodermic specimen, as
well as other critters you didn't know singapore had!


some of the crab specimen from around the world - note the size of the
japanese spider crab in the centre compared to the rest!


prof terry hughes during the talk that he gave


prof hughes having a q&a session with some of the talk attendees

and on the way back for the evening, i chanced upon herman and a friend of his called eng wen on the bus out of the university. i guess i might be paying a little more attention to shooting capoeira soon!

went out for a morning ride with fishy fang at about 5:30am, and we did a 50k ride altogether. did a little climbing along queensway and up faber, and was pleasantly surprised to see a big group of roadies also doing hill training at faber as well!

went out in the afternoon for the communicasia 2005 event at singapore expo. six halls, plenty of walking there! argh...

went to do chek jawa guiding today - but today, even i felt that i was subdued compared to regular trips. something wrong. probably exhaustion from yesterday's photo coverage.

received a pleasant surprise from diwen, who added me via friendster. lost touch with him for quite a while, but i'm still confused as to how to differentiate him from his twin brother, dilun!

actsmart just dropped by, and passed me the book that finally came in... YAAY!!!

went out in the morning with witness over to east coast park, to help trevor cover the charity swim event. surprisingly, big name folks such as eelyn, wensi and many other triathlon community friends as well as some mr25 members were all there. also spotted, was nadya, the former mtv vj. guest of honour was minister mah bow tan, and this time he did sound so much more awake than the last time i attended an event where he was also the guest of honour. old classmate adrian was on duty with his fellow colleagues too.


minister mah addressing the crowd post-event
it's quite funny to read eelyn's blog because she seemed pretty amused that i could recognize her after not having met for so long. of course lah! all you guys need to remember, is that mei ren zi (literally, beauty's mole) on her lower chin. in fact, i suggested to her not to remove it, because she looks good with it! actually, her bright running gear helped me to spot her... so kudos goes to adidas!

chek jawa guided trip tomorrow morning, hope i can wake up in time!...

the real business of photography by richard weisgrau seems to be a handy book to have soon, i guess. about 40 dollars at borders.



went out with my family for a lunchtime buffet session, then i made early tracks and went off to book-hunt at kinokuniya and borders. the magic lantern book was snapped up by today though. met radio69 and his lass just as i got off the escalator leading to kino. then it was watching madagascar with a couple of bwv people. the only thing that i remember from the movie was said by alex... but i can't remember what now! argh...

last night's brief track session was intended to be a 15 x 300m session with 2 minutes for the running and rest. i lasted 5 before i took four minutes off, and did one more for number six. no point overtraining too soon, not forgetting that i don't even have a basic mileage now. err on the side of undertraining, instead of overtraining. that's what a traumatic experience from a pair of injured knees taught me back in 2000.

wishful thinking?

i'm intending to save enough money to buy a 1d mark ii, or whatever will be released after that, bring the current lenses etc, and fly over to somewhere in america with my bike, and start life anew as a photographer, specifically, a sports photographer. more likely, i'll start as a photographer's assistant.

that will be quite a lot of money involved here; and working in a new foreign land is something that seems scary somewhat. main concern, other than family members left here, would be my national service liability - reservist duties. backup plan? straits times, same stuff - photographer. will have to lug along my bike over there as well - another dream is to become a pro cycling team's wrench (slang for bike mechanic).

the main thing on my mind now - i'm waiting for that book to come in soon, so i can wolf it all down and internalize it. but things such as tricks of the trade, how to establish oneself etc, may not be inside.

there's only some things that i can do, since time runs chronologically, and we can't backtrack and hit "delete". will clear up those stuff that i shouldn't have wrote.

came across several excellent photography books at kinokuniya and borders tonight, namely magic lantern guides: canon eos-1d mark ii & eos-1ds mark ii, extreme digital photography, and of course i'm still waiting for my order of digital sports photography to come in.

will do up all i can, to learn as much stuff as i can, and then move overseas to start as a freelancer or assistant for shooting sports, before striking it out on my own. i'm a visual and kinesthetic learner, from what i observed of myself.

i had picked up the ef17-35/2.8 from kenneth76 this evening, what a relief to have a wide angle zoom lens!

and along the way, some very handy canon eos based information websites - a page about canon equipment age, canon europe cps and eos flash information. will sign up for sportsshooter.com membership once pay comes in.

the cab driver who drove me from home to base camp last night, offered an interesting viewpoint on night cycling safety, in terms of drunken drivers at night. and mr ho whom i met the previous night, gave me the shocking revelation that some drivers deliberately want to run cyclist off roads when there isn't any other person around.

tonight was ser luck's 37th birthday - what a surprise! met the fellow triathlon based community - not a fantastic big turnout, but familiar faces all over.

all the best to the swimmers - completion is the secondary - lining up to the startline, is half the battle won. kudos!

plenty lots of interesting fauna at changi!

flatfish (including one about 20 cm long), a side-gilled slug, plenty of sea pens, couple of peacock anemones, tons of button shells, quite a few hungry moon snails, a couple of pipefish... it was quite "the other missing half" of chek jawa, i guess!

as i was walking back home after dropping by 7-11; i noticed some queer fast slithering by what i initially thought was a displaced earthworm - until it hit me that earthworms don't squiggle around in a s-bend shape! out came the camera, and bam!


blind snake spotted about 2215 hrs, serangoon central.
specimen approx. 13 cm long.

a blind snake! i just emailed ria and sivasothi the larger photo of this little reptile for further id, since i know them as snake-people... by the way, here's some interesting reads following up about blind snakes - blind snake biomechanics (what? people actually do biomechanics for snakes?!!?) and other interesting aspects of ant biology.

in the wfc 2005 clash between singapore and usa; singapore lost out 3-1 despite having scored the opening goal. as a photographer, a human and a singaporean, it was the most "jittery" shoot i have ever shot so far. and many thanks to daniel (deb's bro) who gave me a ride out from kallang to bishan, otherwise it's "happy walking" for me...


martha quek scoring the opener after a backpass from ong hui hui
lau fook kong from the straits times has a very similar shot as well.

eaddie couldn't have said it any more precisely, this was really funny! some bloke(s) with plenty of time wrote the definition of singlish on wikipedia...

funnier still (and highly accurately too), someone else (maybe it's the same chap[s]) described those singlish sexual slangs, complete with proper english explanations!

well, i have to believe it. i actually ended up having my irc tires cut from the ride yesterday. what to do? went over to hup leong, got myself a quart of stan's notubes and hope for the best - then off it was to ghc to get another replacement tire. inadvertently, expenditure was over 80 dollars for the day alone! ow!

popped by the bike boutique with julia after we bade noor farewell at hup leong earlier. she was drooling over the cute cute cute inbred geared!