This is a pretty place. Looking forward to come here often, although this place is kinda dead, but anything for a blue sky.

I think I’ll miss little girls running around in their fashion shows. A little.

Quit my freelance lifestyle for a stable income at a private university working as a digital media exec. Would have love the job if not because that I feel like I’m being used for all sorts of other reasons besides my own skills.

Also, somewhere along the job, while learning and observing from other friends, I had a realisation with my career choices. Things should be different for me. I should push the boundaries instead of sitting in my comfort zone. I’ve made up my mind and changes will come in, it’s just a matter of time. It definitely will no longer be in my comfort zone anymore but it’s for the good. That’s how we learn & grow right?

I’m actually still servicing some of my previous clients, but I struggle to find time to do my non-work work. Feels so spent out by the time I come home. Maybe I should leave office on time for once and go straight home.

Believe me, once you start work, sleep is gold.

Laptop fried. No reason given, couldn’t start it up or do anything. Luckily I finished my work the night before and burnt into DVDs.

Then, 2nd day on location. Was there at 1PM as I did the day before. Somehow there was a miscommunication between me and the person I was liasing, so I was stranded there till the shoot was over, which was 6.30PM. Laptop fried, phone died. Did nuts there.

Buka puasa with the people on set, and it wasn’t hygienic as expected. None of my friends were near enough to my location to have dinner together, so had to eat there..

Then one of the actresses was so late, I was only able to do my job at 8.45PM. That’s nearly 8 hours on set, doing NOTHING. Once I’m done with my shoot, it’s already 9PM.

Went home, thinking about the bad day, and fell asleep on the sofa.

Tuesday:

Redemption day. Tried to fix the hard disk, only to find out I was using the wrong hard disk. Casing were all the same.

Called Dell service to check on my laptop’s warranty and got a technician to come in the next day.

Called Dell sales to check on my monitor’s status because the sales person didn’t send any purchase confirmation to my email. I don’t even have the invoice number or quotation number for that. Received the invoice later in the day.

Sorted out my photos, relocation and backup.

Wednesday:

Dell technician came in, replaced the motherboard on the laptop and it started to run again. Data still intact. Phew.

Found out one of my close friend had a miscarriage. Arranged for lunch on Friday.

The girl was on MC, so I asked her out for dinner. Jammed like mad thanks to the rain, had dinner then sent her back. Still too nervous to ask her straight into her face about that night, I decided to call her. Seems that it’s common to be physical in the clubs. Felt a bit crumbled inside but heck, it’s already been a bad week, so just move on to the next item.

Thursday:

The new monitor is being delayed for 7 days. Emailed asking for an explanation and they said they didn’t have enough parts, so it’s being delayed. I’ll only be getting it by end of this week.

Met up with Mei at 1u, again jam thanks to the rain. The padini jacket I wanted to buy wasn’t available in that padini outlet. Left the place and went to have dinner near her house.

Friday:

Had lunch with the close friend and accompanied her to her gynae in Taman Mayang. Found out that she’s suffering from ectopic pregnancy after the same gynae misdiagnose her 2 weeks earlier. The gynae adviced her get a surgery as soon as possible because it might endanger her as well. Did a quick google then and found out how serious it was.

She went to get a second opinion later, while I had to go to work. Later she told me she’s getting into surgery in the evening.

Work was okay, but was still preoccupied with her condition. Had dinner with uni friends after that.

Saturday:

Visited my friend in the hospital and heard the stories about the gynaes and the different hospitals she had to visit during the day after I left. Damn incompetent those doctors. Finally she ended up in Tropicana Hospital. Unfortunately the fallopian tube ruptured but they managed to remove the save her life.

Went to Skytrex with William and friends. Fun!

Shot Cely’s hen’s night after that. Surprisingly I could last that long even after Skytrex.

Sunday: Rest day. Finished up a few photo sets for clients. Working on the desktop is so much faster. Why didn’t I thought of that in the beginning?

Monday:

Wedding reception rehearsal for this Friday. Recon job before the big day.

Still feeling depressed about the whole week, went to meet up with Mei after work. Went home and slept.

Photos needs to be rearranged to a new format/structure so I can easily find them and it wouldn’t clog up my system when the Lightroom catalog gets bigger. 30000 photos! So it would be in this format:

> Year (eg: 2009)
>> Month (eg: 01 January)
>>> Date-Event Name (eg: 090101 NYE)
>>> LR monthly catalog (eg: 01 January.lrcat)

Problem is, photos are distributed in 3 portable hdds and aren’t formatted in the yymmdd-eventname format. So I’m getting to that but it seems that I might have messed up the dates because windows couldn’t recognise the 30D’s RAW files. Ugh.

Current LR catalog also needs to be dissected into different months. I used to separate the catalogs to work and personal. I think it’s better for me to combine them together, and group by month. Plus, work is play.

Next to move them to the NAS. Not really a problem, but time consuming.

Then duplicate to desktop for editing. I’ll be using the desktop exclusively for editing because it’s faster. Hopefully I’m able to upgrade it by this month when the new monitor comes in. Phenom X4!

WebWork

Install backup software. Install backup software. Install backup software. Install backup software. Install backup software.

Back up to NAS.

The XPS would most likely be exclusively be used for web projects, simply because I like using that keyboard for typing. Occasionally I’ll use the laptop for photowork if I’m location. Have to figure out a workflow for that. Sigh.

Life

Got this all wrong. Don’t pass go, don’t collect $200. Time to buy properties and set a foothold into it.

Money sucked completely. This month’s spending is off the roof. New lens, new monitor, and possibly upgrades for the desktop. Anyone interested in buying the lenses?

Rejected a job so I could meet up with friends tomorrow. Not that the job doesn’t pay good, but I miss my friends. That pays better.

I’d like to go on a holiday BADLY. Anywhere would do. Even if it’s just Genting. Don’t need too many people. One on one would do.

Friday, I spent the entire day in Subang running errands, getting ffk-ed, being interviewed and getting a contractual photography job, getting paid from a previous job and had luncheons and dinner-eons with client and friends.

*update: I was interviewed by David Teo‘s wife. I just realised how significant that person was after a round of Googling.*

Saturday was pretty much work only, with the exception that the work at night was much more fun than the one in the day. Been trying to improve Project Manhattan but hitting a snag or two on each step. It’s gradually growing, but at a very slow pace. I’ve already missed the deadline for releasing the site, but what can I do.. I’m just a one man show.

I think I’ve bitten more than I can chew.

One of my portable harddisk crashed bringing along 2-3 months worth of RAW photos, mostly untouched and NOT backup-ed. Sigh. Going to give it another try tomorrow hopefully it works. Maybe it’s time to try the fridge technique again.

At night, was Foon Yee’s hen night in KL. Very nice girl, who’s getting married soon. Shooting my 2nd hen night was quite exciting *not because I was already expecting strippers* but this time was a parade around Changkat Bukit Bintang. The previous one has a stripper in it. For this one, it was selling kisses and the bride to be came home with a sore puckered lips.

Not forgetting to mention, someone was there. But…

Sunday, the new job’s first day. I was recruited into a production house as a photographer for stills and portraits for their drama and film productions. Was okay, got to play with a Kino lighting system. Something new to use and isn’t cheap as well. Even the production house rented it for their own purposes. Lots of things to learn from film that I can apply into my photography skill sets. Pay isn’t too bad either, and at least it’s consistent – for now.

Tomorrow is another day of photoshooting on location.

Things to complain about.. Desktop PC is crappy and buggy, and it needs an upgrade – though it’s perfectly capable to handle all my workload.. 24″ monitor is coming in either today or tomorrow! It’s for the desktop anyways, so again, need to upgrade the damn thing before I can actually use it. I’m hoping to upgrade with less than RM1000, but it seems that Phenom X4 would be using a DDR3 RAM system, meaning I need to upgrade on RAM as well.. *Sigh* CPU + RAM + Mobo = RM900-1000, which excludes the two 1TB harddisks I’d like to buy for photos (RAID 1).

Got to play with Chung Lern‘s CPL filter, and I must say, a CPL filter is a must for any wide angle lenses! Now I shoot through glass and water *and clothes? *. Though I did noticed that portraits didn’t look as natural as I’d like it to be. Will try again tomorrow during the photoshoot.

Need to spend on a UV filter for the new lens, else might scratch or drop it.. Also hoping to get the ThinkTank Skin belt system from Singapore before the wedding shoot in two weeks time.. HK, please please do get it for me.

GOSH so much cash going out this month!

AND workload is going UP UP UP.

Who want’s to be my PA? I can’t pay much though.

“You look very student-ish la. How old are you? 20-21?”

Later this year (now lah in other words):

“You’re much younger than I thought you are. Could easily pass you for 25-26..”

Gosh. I think this freelancing work (or maybe working environment?) is making me look older. -_-”

Now, without looking through my facebook or my photos, guess how old I am. Those who knows my age, I’ll give you a cookie if you get it wrong.

If only I remembered how old I was.

Been trying to put some progress on the uni project, codenamed Manhattan. So far so good, in terms of features. UI wise.. That might be delayed quite a while.. Still quite confused with Drupal Views and been trying to get Drupal User Profiles to work the way I want it to. Still new to Drupal btw but am getting the hang of it.

Tip: don’t start off with the vanilla Drupal. Instead try Acquia Drupal with pre-installed modules.

Back to work. And there’s tonnes of photos to go. Sigh.

The problem: Longevity. If I’m not here, who’s going to be responsible for my clients? Who’s going to pay the bills, collect the money? Family knows nuts about what I do, so they can’t help, and friends? It’s a matter of trust I suppose. I don’t give my full trust when it comes to money, so what can I do then?

I have a friend who started this thing with me, but she dropped off after that when I took full control. She’s still the secondary contact to the accounts in the event of an emergency. One thing is, we met online, but never actually met face to face before. Talking about putting your full trust into someone you never actually met.

In terms of contribution, I’ve contributed 99% of all the work and clients, but she did thought me how to do this and that in the early beginning.

So, back to the question, what can I do then?

I caught up with my lecturer and FYP supervisor yesterday for a brief chat on things, etc. One of the few lecturers that I’m close and got to know better. I think it has been more than 8 months since I last met him.

*speaking of which, it’s also the amount of time I’ve been jobless. lol*

Getting to the point, last year, while FYP was still in high gear, he asked me whether I’m interested in leading on of his projects for the uni, which was a online web portal, to promote games development in the uni. I said I’ll consider but most likely after FYP.

8 months passed, he got in touch with me and offered me the same project again, this time with added incentives. Everything will be provided by the uni (hardware, software) and all i need to do was to find a team to develop this portal, but on a larger scale. Mainly to support MDeC’s IPCC and to promote game development in Malaysia.

Update: I know some don’t really believe in the gov, but I believe some gov divisions are actually okay.

However, it will be on me and funding is pretty minimal – knowing my uni being so kiasu and kedekut sometimes. I’ll be leading the team of my choosing. Best of all, I’ll retain sole ownership of the project.

If things work out, the project may get a Pre-Seeding slot by MDeC, which is RM50k  funding for the project. And if that works out better, I’ll get a Seeding slot by MDec which is RM250k. AND if that works out, MDeC will forward the project to venture capitals. That’s 3 BIG IFs.

Time line is short however, as he wants to launch it with the commencements of the ICCG ’09 in November.

I can’t really get into details about the project but it’s surely a first in the country, as my supervisor says, I’ll be the pioneer in the country. I need to give him an answer by this Monday.

So here come’s the crossroad.

I’m sitting for my SAP ABAP exam (which currently I don’t have the confidence to pass at the moment.. T_T) and once I get certified (another IF) I’ll be holding a cert which I’m not putting to good use if I were to take up this project. I would definitely love to get a high paying and good prospect job under SAP, but will miss out doing something big like this.

I could pick up as part time, but 3 months is quite a tight deadline to get the first prototype up. And it also means that I’ll need to let go photography as a part time if it takes off. I can’t however let go of my other part time job because I’m bound by a one year contract.

Or I could stay jobless and work on this full time for a working prototype, get it user tested, etc. I might be able to do a few photography jobs in between as well.

—

I spoke to my dad about it, and he told me to pick it up, though he didn’t say why I should pick it up, I could only assume it’s because I’m still young and I should give everything a try before settling for a *boring* desk job.

I’ve yet to decide, though I’m siding on an option already. I’d like to hear my readers’ (what’s left of it – after the long hiatus) honest comments. Would love to hear from experience and sorts.

Parents don’t know about that yet though.

What is ShutterPulse?

I’ve been doing some promo in my latest photos, hint: text. If you still don’t know what is ShutterPulse, it’s our photography company.

Our = Me, Nigel & David.

We’re gonna try to go full fledged into this business, though we’re on a tight budget at the moment and short on experience. Hopefully more jobs will come in, giving us a boost.

Been working on the website itself a lot for the past few days, adding new features to the site like portfolio, contact page, etc. Some thing that I haven’t got the chance to explore in WordPress till now, the Pages feature. Now it looks more like a CMS than a blog, though I still think the main page needs a bit more stuff. Maybe some rotational banners or stuff.

Maybe I’m doing too much to the site already.

The site is 90% functional, a few kinks here and there needs to be sorted out, but it’s there for your viewing pleasure. Check it out!

ShutterPulse Photography & Videography

Proudly built on WordPress.

*points to self* WP fanboi.