year in review 2007... part one

Short Note: Happy belated birthday to wen on 29th of Dec. Cheers!


Year 2007 has only few hours left before year 2008 is ushered in. Yet, I still find it hard to believe that it's already another year. Time really flies, doesn't it?

It's a norm for us to look back at the year, and see what our achievements are. Here is how my year 2007 was.


January 2007.
I completed my first month of my 12-month-contract with my new employment since I relocated back from the West.

February 2007.
My cousin had his holy matrimony held on 6 February 2007. That was when I got my first wedding assignment. Martin Scorsese's The Departed won the best film in the 79th Oscar. I got my Sony Ericsson W810i.

March 2007.
Pretty quiet March, unlike the usual March Madness. Dropped by a bridal fair held at the old court house. But the craziness only comes at the end of March.

April 2007.
This is a crazy month, since end of March. I have a lot of "back but away again" in this month. This month alone. I made 5 trips within a month. The five trips were to Miri, Bintulu, Sarikei, Bintulu, and Sibu. Half of the month I spent away from Kuching. Worse still, I spent most of the time working in a server room, talking to servers. -_-"

May 2007.
Mother's Day's in May. It was quite a quiet one. Not much happened, except for work, and work. Those traveling in the previous months are taking the toll now. I was rather tired, exhausted. I was struggling to recover from there, and I had 2 more trips to make, to Sibu and to Miri.

June 2007.
I turned 25 this month. A quarter century old. It was also a Happy Father's Day month. I was there to see Power Station (from Taiwan) rocked Kuching. I snapped the phenomenal ring surrounding the sun in the sky. Sheer Unique officially opens for business at DUBS Commercial Complex.

... to be continued.

I must post this before the year ends, just to show my kiasuness -- our national spirit, Malaysia Boreh! Part 2 will come tomorrow! Hahaha.. no photograph is included in this post. Not until I amend it later after tonight's photo shoot.

I hope to catch some firework.


HAPPY NEW YEAR 2008!

picture of the day

Shot this outside St. Joseph's Cathedral during midnight mass on Christmas Day. Shot this hand-held.

happy boxing day

It's Boxing Day today.

Angel said she has something for me. Annna too, leaving a message on her forward text message on the phone, but I have to collect it from zuzuPa.

I made arrangement with both Angel and zuzuPa to collect the gifts at RH Plaza last night.

I opened the present when the clock shows 12:00 am.

Taaa Daa... I got these..... (see below)


From Annna...


It's a cookie in the box!


It's cookies made by Annna. She includes recommended usage direction too.


The ingredients. Look, Annna's spreading love!!


Sweet.


From Angel...


I got this box. View from top.


The box looks quite big.


... And it's a cup!


Many thanks to Angel and Annna. Thanks to Pazuzu for delivering the cookies to me.

Happy holidays!

Merry Christmas!

© Allen 2007 (Recycled this design from the one I did for Sheer Unique)


Merry Christmas, everyone!

Have blessed Christmas & a Happy New Year!

Happy Holidays! =)

mr. free agent

Short Note: I'm still alive, people! Despite the red bomb galore, I am still intact in one piece. I still have another wedding dinner to attend to this Friday. Congrats to Kim and Enoch!


I have not been updating as frequent as I wish to for almost one month. I was tied down with busy schedule, with office and off-office work. And I've been trying to prepare myself for this -- my contract expiration.



Yes. My one-year contract expired on 17/12/2007. I am now a free agent.

Anyone interested in signing me? If you're familiar with football or even NBA term, I sound like Micheal Ballack before signing with Chelsea, or Shaq signing for Miami Heat, or even David Beckham signing for L.A. Galaxy. Now that England has appointed Fabio Capello as the new England manager, I had my hope severely dashed. Can't apply for that vacant hot seat anymore. =(

I wished it could be as easy as their case. I had been thinking a lot, and am still thinking, pondering about my next plan.

As for now, I'm just trying, trying hard to feel how it is like to really enjoy the holiday season, for once in many, many months.



In any case, if you would like to snatch me from the free agency pool, please do drop me a comment here!

Thanks!

another red bomb

Another red bomb tomorrow...

23/11/2007


Congratulations to Jennifer and her husband.

...

I feel horrible, as though the world is standing against me.

Argh! Am feeling fed up!

Sigh.

november bomb.

Short Note: Coco is sick =( Let us all pray for her recovery.




Red bomb galore. In the month of November, I have received two bombs already. It's wedding season now, bridal studios are packed with appointments, wedding registration counters have long queue.



And I have two weddings to attend to, and to cover.



First of the two would be this coming Sunday - 11/11/2007.



Second invitation card comes with personal touch. The dark gray envelope suggests something special, and the content didn't disappoint.



There is a seal on the invitation card, with initials of R and M engraved on the seal.



I thought this seal as a touch of class, very nice.



24th November is the day for the second wedding invitation.

And in case you didn't know, the second wedding invitation card was 100% custom, hand made one. Nice, isn't it?

Congratulations to Eric & Hui Chin, and Robert & Michelle!

untitled

I guess after spending most of my time in Peninsular Malaysia since 2000 has taken its toll. I think I miss Peninsular Malaysia.

Time to sleep now.

picha of old

An old piece from archive in my hard disk. Not sure if I had posted this before.
It was taken with a very old Olympus 3.2 Megapixel camera.


2006: Batu Cave, Kuala Lumpur

airasia.. now can everyone fly?

AirAsia's corporate slogan's Now Everyone Can Fly.

Doubt casted on me when I stumbled upon this while surfing for cheaper air ticket in their official website.




If you can't spot the error, I'll just retype it here (without alteration).

Booking Period: 22 - 28 October 2007
Travel Period: 8 - 31 January 2007
Travel Notes: -advance booking required

Now, it doesn't make any logic when we make the booking after the travel period. It doesn't make any sense when the offer is for a past travel period. We're now in October 2007, and we're booking for travel period of January 2007? Advance booking required? How can we fly? Time machine?

Now, I'm sure it's just a typo mistake by the airline's staff. I hope they get it corrected soon. :) Since I have spotted this mistake, Mr.CEO - Mr. Tony Fernandes, can I get a bargain flight over to KL this year end? I plan to fly over to KL for 2008 countdown. :-D

Please feel free to contact me if you're generous to make the offer. Hehe.


*Updated*



And here's the link to the page. If you see the correct date being displayed, they must have already been informed on the error already.

As of now, 6:41am 23 October 2007, it's still displaying the wrong one.

Thanks SoonHui for suggestion, but I hadn't informed the press. =P Nor the Airasia board. Maybe you can do a follow up for me? =P

happy 'belated' raya

I'm late in delivering this festive greetings, been having tight schedule.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri to all Muslim friends.


My colleague (Yit Sing) & her husband (Rizal)


Their cute baby Hannah.

Quite a quiet Raya this time round, not much visiting. Only visited my colleague at her in-law's place. Must thank her and her husband's hospitality, and yummy food. (Sorry, no food picha taken.)

And last but not the least, congratulations to my friend, Hui, who got married on 14 October 2007!

oh proud oh angkasawan

With all the respect to Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor and Faiz Khaleed, I think they're making too much of hoo-hah on the First Malaysian into Space.

I never give that much of a thought actually. To me, this is not the first time my country tries to achieve something major. There's the tallest twin tower in the world which is of much pride I agree but there are numerous shoddy ones that never made it pass launching and wasted billions of ringgits if all of their expenses are to be added up.
-- SingChie, Tie (http://tsingchie.terapad.com/)

Frankly speaking, I only have one question to ask, "What are we (Malaysians) trying to achieve by spending millions of Ringgit to send a Malaysian to space?"
-- SingChie, Tie (http://tsingchie.terapad.com/)

I didn't watch the live telecast on the blast-off last night, but this morning, my dad said this to me. "That Sheikh Shukor ah, he didn't do much hor? Just sit there and do nothing one."

-_-"

It's not like a breakout feat done. It's not productive, it doesn't contribute to the nations growth and development. It's just a waste of money.

C'mmon, going to space nowadays is not so much of a technological or a scientific feat, unless, of course you are there to do real stuffs.
-- Soon Hui

Rather, it's just another game the riches play when they get too bored and have nothing better to do on earth.
-- Soon Hui

In my opinion, we have wasted millions of ringgit in wrong area over the past. If we had spent the money a bit wiser, we could have turned our nation's fortune better.
-- Soon Hui

© The Star 2007

However, someone thinks it's an inspiration to the future generation. It sure is an inspiration for us all -- we just need to get rich and pay for our space tourism trip!

Our government seems to be very generous paying for Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor's space tour expenses eh? How nice.

mr angkasawan of malaysia

Our proud Mr. Spaceman is probably attempting a roti-canai spin in space right now, or maybe even tarik-ing teh tarik in space.

I missed the telecast on the space launch, I didn't follow on the progress. So, how is he now?

Anyway, I just like to bring this post, from my friend Mr. Tie -- Blasting First Malaysian to Space. I just couldn't agree more on what he wrote. I thought it was a well-written piece.

Just something to share with all of you.

OMG

Highly recommended.



It's so cool to watch. Coming on to cinema this winter (November 2007).

Beowulf.

I had no suspicion after watching the trailer for the first time. I only realized that the whole movie isn't real when I watched it for second or third time. The whole movie is CGI.

Watch more from Apple Trailers.

weekend feature

It's another weekend -- first one in October.

Geez, talking about how time flies.

Anyway, just a quickie I got tied up with other stuff. Here are some photos of Jojo taken late last month.


*sniffing around* What's that black object?


Looking up.


Jojo.

Will update more when I'm free later, and IF I'm free. -_-

just in case...

.. that I couldn't do a proper update, it's already a year since I moved across South China Sea and back to Borneo. Can't believe it has already been a year!




more picha of Coco, cute?

picture of the day

Short Note: I'm short of contacts at the moment as my phone was dipped into water after I lost my balance, slipped and landed on my left butt, my phone was in my pocket that time, soaked. So, my w810i is currently not available. Maybe a PDA phone up next?



Picture of Coco, taken couple weeks ago. :-)

happy belated mid-autumn festival

This post is a little bit late.

My computer clock shows 1:34 AM, 27 September 2007 now, and Mid-Autumn (中秋节) was on 25 September 2007.

I was in Carpenter Street on Sunday and Monday, to see if I could get any photography inspirations.

Here are some of the shots I had, which I think was one of the few nicest items you'll see there.


Beautifully decorated lanterns.


Even more beautifully decorated lanterns. I like this shot.


Lanterns.


Temple.

Time to sleep now. Goodnight.



End Note: I'm still working hard on the wedding photographs. Almost done. :)

dedication

I just got back from Miri last night. Tired. Didn't sleep well in the hotel.
In fact, woke up twice in the middle of the night, couldn't remember the time though.

About 2 weeks back, my house welcomed two new addition to the family.

No.

I didn't have babies, or juniors.

It was related to this link/post from Annna's.

So yeah, I have to thank her for that. :) And, this post is dedicated to Annna as a token of appreciation.


Coco looking bored, and sleepy.


Jojo's feeling more or less the same as her elder sister.

Also, I owe Annna these pichas for a long long time already. Thanks to her again, I was able to be there to cover this event. In return, I promised her more pichas.


Rynn Lin.


Too bad, blur ah.


Angle not too good, pretty challenging to take good shots.


Snapping the pichas.

Thank you. Arigatou.

travel note

I'll be off to Miri later, boarding 1630 flight. Pray hard that there is no technical difficulties causing the flight reschedule.

There are so many interesting things to write about lately, but none other than this one. (only applicable to sports fans, particularly soccer fans.)

I'll be back on Friday night.


I'm leaving you guys with photo of the day!


This photo was taken back in late June -- Carpenter Street, Kuching.

Ben, this is not leng lui photo anymore ya. :-P

b.u.s.y. week+end

Weekend's over!
So many things happened, and I couldn't get time to update it here.

I was at Adverlet's bloggers' gathering at Starbucks Kuching, KIA on Saturday. And on today (Sunday), I had to cover a wedding. I just got back not too long ago. I had been awake since 5am this morning. I am in need of quality sleeping.

I'm sorry for the delay on the photos for Saturday's, but I promise to get it ready for you guys tomorrow.

I need to sleep now.

Goodnight!

9-11: in the memory of..

.. the victims of the tragedy that shook the whole wide world 6 years ago.

There will not be any other post today. (if there is any)


Image from Wikipedia.


Image from More Images.

The last images of NYC's World Trade Center.

Pikom PC Fair @ KL Convention Center 2007

Early last month, I was in KL for a short holiday trip myself. Coincidentally, Pikom PC Fair KL was also held around that time.

After being back in Kuching since October 2006, I seriously miss the KL edition after seeing what they have in Kuching. We should have at least have better facilities to organize such event back here. Seriously, we turn a parking lot into an exhibition hall?

Since I arrived late night on Friday (actual time of arrival was just moments before the clock hit 12), I had no choice but to drop by on the following day. (My flight was retimed by our white-red airlines)

On Saturday, I set off to KLCC station after 10pm, and I got there way too early. The convention halls are not opened until 11am. Even so, they have already got crowds at that hour.


Going through the tunnel to KL Convention Center from Suria KLCC.


At the end of the tunnel, you'll have to go through the carpark area, which leads to the Convention hall.


This way to PC Fair.


A ride from PC Fair to Hotel? Anyone?




The crowds waiting for the time to make their entry.


The jagungs at the background.


Convention Center.


Twin Tower's H.

That's what you get to see before you enter the actual exhibition. More to come later. We shall see what they have in the halls for us, next.