Harlo to year 2011. Welcomed Day 1 of 2011 by waking up around 730 am this morning. Not working today. Played with the baby abit before proceeding to do the house chores. Technically, we slept through the countdown last nite. We had a nice dinner (cooked by me la ) before spending the nite further with baby Nathania. But of course, we were woken up by fireworks booming through the skies. Lovely view from the room. Nathania cried. Think she is pretty ‘disturbed’ by the loud sound. Now I wonder how she will react during CNY. It will be 10 times louder and merrier.

Well..Looking back at 2010, alot of things happened throughout the year. *btw, its 23 Jan 2011 now. Doing post edit* I got married on the 30th Jan 2010 to my beloved wife Yee Woon. Actually we registered our marriage back in 2009 on the 28th of Fed *Thanks for pointing out dear*. You may be asking why am I listing out the dates This method actually serve as a reminder to myself. So excuse in future if I can t remember the dates of the important days in my life. Marriage was never on my mind years ago until I met Yee Woon. Love at first sight? Hahaha. I still remember the very first time I saw her at the clinic when she reported in. Not so pretty due to the ‘aunty’ hairstyle. But as time progress, I realized she is indeed beautiful. Back those days, my dear wife uses make up *enhances the beauty* but nowadays she seldom make up *naturalist ma..:P* And she is slightly meatier back then. Now after delivery of Nathania, she lost a lot of weight. But makeup or no makeup, fat or thin, she is my beloved wife. Love ye dear!~

Next best news of the year! Promotion. Who does not love promotion? Be it in the gov or private setting, everyone welcome the good news of promotion. Been working with the gov since 2004. Started on U41 grade. The lowest ranking ‘officer’. PM Najib introduced automatic promotion in 2010. Was upgraded to U44. Now, it takes only 14 years only to reach U54. Back those days..You can slog till you drop, but no promotion guaranteed.  I know some very senior officers who have served for more than 10 years but still stucked in the U41 grade. But good news for them. Most of them are upgraded to U52 or U54 immediately after the new scheme was launched. Many ask why am I still in the gov, I get this question all the time. To be honest, back in the student days, I have always look up to my dad who was a KKM staff as well. I practically grew up around the Cancer department HKL. I welcome the Dettol smell everytime I stepped into the hospital compound. So when I was in my final year in Uni, I was determine to join HKL to do my pupillage. Thus my journey in the gov begun. Yes..the thought of leaving the gov service did crossed my mind a couple of time during the past few years. Something always held me back. Anyhow, am grateful for the cheap house loan. Without it, I will not be able to purchase my current property.

Speaking of property, we got the keys to our first home in April 2010. I have to say a big ‘Thank You’ to my cousin Anderson and his wife Joy. If they did not notify me of the project, I would have not pay the show room a visit. Never did give  thought to the idea of buying a property back then. Went back home and had a serious discussion with Yee Woon. We knew we couldnt afford a landed property. I wanted to have a home near to my parents place. But price of property was soaring and it has not slow down till now. We bought the condo for RM250k in 2008 and it has risen to around RM450k now. I wanted to cash out but..I know very well I cant afford landed property for the prices has gone even much more higher now. Anyhow, we moved into the new home on June 2010 *cant remember the date*. We did a simple reno to the place. Lighting and plaster ceiling. Just nice. Of course, if $$ is not a problem, the place would have been a lot nicer. I look forward to spending some good years at the condo. If God bless me with some good money, I ll invest in another property.

The biggest happening of the year was the birth of our precious daughter Nathania Ng En Qi on the 19th of July 2010. It was not a planned pregnancy, but God had His own plans. We got the big news about the pregnancy on the eve of Anderson and Joy’s wedding day. Hahaha. My wife couldnt sleep and she broke the news to me at 8 am on the 29th of Nov 2010. I was really happy..Euphoria!~ I have always wanted a baby. I love kids. Hahaha. Had some trouble breaking the news to my parents. I expected Dad to be pissed and Mom to be happy. But I got it wrong. Dad was really cool about it and Mom was kinda angry. But she got over it pretty quick and soon she was wondering what if it was a pair of twins? Hahahha. Ladies and Gentleman, that s my mom. Being traditional ,she was kinda pissed coz we have not gone through the traditional wedding yet. But hey..We are legally married The next 9 months of journey was preparing for the arrival of the baby. We made multiple visits to the MCH at KK Jinjang to make full use of the ultrasound machine and etc. We kept good track of the baby development. I remember I felt Nathania first kick when we came back from Pangkor Laut trip. It was just outside the entrance to Sierramas at the traffic light . The feeling was like ‘WOW! I felt the baby moving’. Now as off 22th of June 2011, baby Nathania is already 6 months old. I love her dearly. She has brought joy to our family. Mom, Dad and even my sister Ling Huey spend a lot of time with her daily as mom takes care of her during the day.  Am grateful to my parents for making the effort to wake up early daily and travel through the notorious potholes infested Jalan Segambut Dalam to reach my condo to pick up little Nathania back to the Kepong house. Even my brother Yang is making good progress with the baby. Funny thing, it sorta gel the family together. To God, thank you!~ The baby is indeed a gift of God. The name Nathania means ‘Gift of God’. Papa and Mama loves you dearly. May 2011 brings us even more joy and happiness.

Overall, 2010 was a pretty good year with ups and downs. But the 4 above were the major happenings of the year. I look forward to 2011. It has not really begun well, Notebook rosak la and Car rosak la etc etc. But hey…I got some really good stuffs to start the year off. Wedding photography was good too. Been involved in several assignments with some of the big names in the wedding industry. Well..Time to sign off. I hope to write more. But as usual la..Writers block LOL. 73!~ Cheerio (HAM language)

What happens when a few photographers start talking about toys? Hehehehe. We ended up getting Danboard. Edwin, Jamie, Nick and David have been posting some toy pics on cincai la group. And out of no where, Nick posted a Danbo pic. It s hard NOT to Like this cute boxy figurine. There is a couple of version out there in the market. But the popular ones are the 7-11 and Amazon version. Thank God we managed to get the Amazon.co.jp version. The 7-11 version is not available in the market as it is only available in Japan only. The amazon.co.jp comes in two sizes. We call them BigDan and MiniDan. Both are pretty cute and adorable. Also comes with LED eyes. Yeah. They do lit up. For 2011, you guys will see a lot of Danboard or Danbo pictures. Its part of our Toy Story project. Here is a pic to end year 2010. A very Happy New Year to you all readers. May 2011 brings wealth , prosperity and health to all.

Danbo ‘Talks”

Hello and good morning!~ Been missing for sometime. Was pretty busy at work *wink* Most of my PCs have some form of problem. Mac Mini- Dead Fan (Repaired) and  Compaq Notebook- Dead MOBO ( Squeezing the last bit of warranty- Appointment with the technician this Wed). Mac Mini repair was pretty straight forward. Quotation, was hopeful that its not the logic board. The warranty just expired and the fan decided to die. Thank God the repair was not that expensive. Not so lucky with the notebook. God knows why the ‘Blue screen’ syndrome keeps popping up. I ran memtest to test out the RAM. They came back ok. Ran checkdisk to make sure the new hard disk was ok . Yeah..You read me right. A NEW hard disk. Funny thing was, the problem surfaced after I changed the HD. Tried reformating, problem persisted. Hopefully a new MOBO will solve it once and for all, else..I ll need to get a new notebook (which is something I dont want to do so after spending on a new iPad). Will talk more on the iPad in the next post.

Update Update, baby Nathania is around 4 months and 2 weeks old now. Active little baby she is. Loves to sing ( sebenarnya is screaming ler). Also loves to grab Daddy’s spec and Mommy’s hair. Started her on milk powder recently. Due to unseen circumstances, the natural milk production is kinda low (wife s gonna kill me for saying this), so we had to supplement with milk powder. In comparison with her cousin Adriel, Little Nathania is kinda small in size. But nevertheless, she s our little bundle of Joy. We are happy as long she is healthy. Think she is teething lately. She loves to chew on Grandpa’s shoulder. According to some, its too early for teething. I m not too sure. But she had the teething ‘low sai’ symptom too. Hopefully we will get to see her first tooth soon. Little Nathania inherited the infamous Ng/Wong family’s temper. She will show her displeasure by screaming/rubbing her ears/crying and etc. Not easy to manage. But I hope that she will grow up and learn to control the temper. We dont want her to be a spoilt little girl. I pray to God, please guide her and mold her. Picture above was taken sometime in November. She loves to rub her tiny feet. Just like me. Hehehehe. Think she looks like me when I was small. Will post some of the old pics for reference too. Cheerio!~

Woot!~ First of all, I would like to wish everyone a Happy Belated Deepavali!~ Yeah!~ Its the holiday season again. Yes. I love public holidays!~ A little update about me. I have been officially transfered to a local community clinic. It s nearer to my home and wife’s working place. Working hours start at 8 instead of 730 am.  I do not need to wake up at 6 am and leave the house by 6.45 am to avoid the daily traffic snarl. Now I leave for work around 730 am and reaches the clinic after a 10 mins journey, thanks to DUKE expressway It s kinda weird to be back in the clinic scene after 4 years of enforcement work. I still remember the dark days in KK Jinjang. Two pharmacists and two dispensers…And freaking 600 patients daily. Yes, I was traumatized by the previous stint in the clinic. I was sorta rescued by my ex boss (super nice boss k?) Mr Yeap. He paved way for me to the world of Law. To be honest, I rejected the op to work in the enforcement when I reported in for duty in 2006. But eventually I took a liking to it. Will try to return to the enforcement work one day I hope. But anyhow, I am back in the clinic. Thank God, it s was not as bad as I thought. Kinda cozy. Nice patients and fellow staffs. Funny thing, many thought I would not be able to perform in the clinic after being out of touch for so long. But ..Once a pharmacist, a pharmacist I will always be. I kept in touch with the updates and products. So it was kinda easy for me

Batu Clinic is a pretty interesting place. No longer in the small shop lot, it had moved to a larger premise just further down the road. We have a decent parking complex. The entrance to the clinic looks kinda a bit dodge-y due to a snooker parlor and a karaoke “ahem ahem” outlet next to it. So many bad elements but yet the clinic is where we heal the patients. As long we dont get involve, we are pretty ok. Another plus to the area is..we have 4 different kind of banks in front of the clinic. This is a boon to me as I have better access to banks now.

Active Photokaki forum users would know who is Vodka. I have been following Vodka’s work for sometime. An active contributor in the Portrait section, his pictures rake in high count of comments and views from forum users. Funny thing though, I have never met Vodka in person despite us poking each other on Facebook. He said he has seen me in SIC Sepang before, and I do recall seeing a guy in resemblance to Vodka. So best thing about Blackberry, we have BBM. With the recent dip in Blackberry phone prices and as well super crazy price from Digi, more people are on Blackberry. Added Vodka into my BBM list. One day, he asked me if I am interested to join his workshop. I said why not? Title of the workshop was Beauty Workshop. I ll be honest, I m a guy who has zero knowledge on Studio lights and I am equipped with really minimal photoshop skill. A chance to learn from one of the best in commercial photog, I said yes.

Workshop was set to yesterday (Sunday) from 2 pm onwards. Location was at Vodka’s place in Kuchai Lama. Sorry, but I really have to CURSE malaysia road signs. I headed to Kuchai from Jalan Istana. The bloody signboard was so damn small that I failed to notice it. The turning into Kuchai is right after the turning into MEX highway. So crap..I missed it. Fine. I did a U Turn at Desa Petaling. Again, poor placement of signboards confused me further. I missed the turning into Kuchai again. Had to do another U turn at Chan Sow Lin. Wasted my petrol and time. Anyway I got to the studio safely. Odd enough, I was early too. Kong aka DKBU had not arrived yet. Met Kenny Yee the MUA ( he is a PRO k?) who I followed on Facebook too. Of course Face to face to Vodka for the first time. Nice fella. He reminds me of Bosco Wong. Why? He has a diamond ear ring on the left lobe of his ear too. Met lovely Evyan for the first time too. I left them to be as Kenny was busy preparing Evyan for the shoot. I was already impressed with the workshop. Not many will provide a commercial MUA for workshop. And Evyan is a well established model too.

Kong arrived and we were instructed to power up our notebooks. Photoshop CS3 and above is required and of course Lightroom 3. Vodka explained that there will be 3 types of makeup for the session, Nude (plain makeup), Glamor and the last one I cant recall. But the makeup was awesome!~ I got to ask Vodka again later. 3 different lighting setup will be used in the session. 3 lights for the first session (White Background), 1 light for the 2nd session (White background) and 1 light again for the last session (Black background). White balance card is a must in the session. This is to correct the white balance later in post processing. Another essential tool is the light meter. This is to get the correct exposure. We started off with F16 1/125 and ISO 100. Took some shots and off the post processing session. Vodka said we were to gentle with model. LOL. I can t really direct. Kong was having fun doing direction. Kenny was at the side waiting to sort out the baby hairs and rouge hairs.

The first thing involved was to import the pictures into Lightroom. Vodka stressed on the use of Lightroom Catalogues which made the whole process easier and less messier. He guided us on his steps on beauty post processing. It was a little bit too fast for me as I was having problem in dealing with a 21MP Raw file. Hahah. My notebook was struggling to cope with the massive file. But eventually I managed to follow. I had to take some notes down. The post processing steps were pretty easy to follow. Practice make perfect according to Vodka. I noticed that the most important step in the whole post processing part is actually the cleaning session. To ensure a good output later, the base for further processing must be good. Clean up involves cloning out the moles, zits, wrinkles and etc. The one done by Vodka has a really good texture to it while mine was a little bit unnatural. Hahahah. Practice Practice! says Vodka. I guess it s real. I am going to put in at least one hour of Photoshop session a day from now on. Some other steps were taught and I ll leave it to curios people to join the workshop in order to know more. But I can say that the final output really pop. Details were really good.

I think the workshop is worth attending. Especially newbies. But I do wish to  learn more info about the lights set up. So Vodka, I ll be back for more workshops. Here is a picture to share with all. Pardon my limited post processing skills. I ensure you guys will see better stuffs from me in future. As usual, I m a fan of BW pictures. Hahaha. So I converted the pic into Black and White. Will post the color version once I am happy with the images. Cheers!~

Inspired by Potatoe. But hard to achieve the correct composition. Will try again