Reflections on 2010

Posted In: Life . By Stephen Lee

Well 2010 has come and soon will be gone, so time to look back.

I have been married for 2 years now although there are ups and downs but I am happy that I have a nice wife and a cute (and she continues to amaze me everyday) daughter.

Being a father does entail some sacrifices, no longer will you have "your" time, but rather it will be the "family's" time or more accurately the "baby's" time. But the smile of Chloe when she see you wake up and when she is scared and runs to hugs you ( only when the mum in law not around) makes it all worth while. But as for having another one .... lets wait and see :)

Hdb finally decides to give me my house, and it is in the process of renovating, left the painting and the carpentry to be done and it should be ready to move in.

Work wise has been good, finally saw a project from the start to the OSAT phase, couldn't see it all the way to the end though, got rope into another project, as a Software Develop ment Manager, its sort of like a Project Lead kinda thing. Challenging though because the project had already been running for sometime before I came in and there are lots of stuff that I need to pick up and be very familiar with. I am aware of the Peter Principle and the Dilbert Principle, hope that this is not the end yet :)

On more personal note, I have been trying to pick up the Diatonic Harmonica, practicing while waiting for my wife to go off work. Always sort of regretted that I never did pick up a musical instr ument, haha now trying to catch up. Seems like a lot of people around my age are playing catch up in music, I know a few who are trying to pick up the piano, trumpet and the violin.

Hope to play like this guy below someday!

or even this guy!

Till the next time...

Introducing Chloe's amazing feats !

Posted In: chloe . By Stephen Lee

Every father (or should i say every parent) like to talk about their child's amazing feats as a matter of parental pride, so this is my little rant.
Anyway Chloe seems to have lots of things to do these days, she can just walk around the house touching things here and there the whole day. It's tiring just trying to keep up with her. Wonder how my mother in law does it.
These are the interesting things that she
If you say "yi" (chinese for one) sometimes she will hold out one finger for you.
Saying the various parts of the head and she will point them out.
She knows how to put things back, if you tell her to "put back", most of the time anyway.

If she sees you are going out, she will go take her shoe. She loves to go out kai kai. Haha my mum and mum in law calls her "Huay Kar". She will notice that you are dressed up and try to stick close to u.
She has quite a few picture books, once she took this book with pictures of insects and garden animals. She flipped to a picture of a snail and give me. I say "SNAIL", she flipped to a picture of a slug and I say "SLUG" then the flipped to the snail again and then the slug again..... (You get the picture)

She likes music, you know that there is a theme song during the begining of shows? She will pause and listen to the music. Advertisements are also her favourites, the latest cold storage advert is one that can stop her in her tracks. She also like Winx, she can just stop and watch the advert also. Also for MTVs? She can tell roughly when the music will end (if she heard it before) and do the "no more" sign.

She likes mimicking my mum in law, now she is doing housework. You put her on a table with a cloth, she will try to wipe the table, but quite messy lah. She will take this magic clean thing and walking around the house trying to sweep. Haha hope when she grows up she will still like housework.
There are signs that she is starting to make meaningful sounds haha words like "careful", "wo yao" (I want), "Yakult" have been known to been heard.

It's amazing how she can tell that the container contains food. I brought back yesterday some baby puffs, she has never seen the bottle before and i tried to pass it off as a shaker to her. Haha she keep pestering me to open it!

Yeap so thats all for now... till next time.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Mommy I am here Child Locator

Posted In: Gadgets . By Stephen Lee

Interesting Device, it comes in 2 versions

one u can attach it to your child and if he/she wanders off more than 25feet, it will alert you. Has a range of 150feet and you can press a button to hear an alarm to locate your child.
The bad thing about this is the alert, you can't turn it off, if you leave your kid at a playground and you wander off, it will keep alerting you that your child is out of range.

The other one is just a locator, it will not alert you if your child wanders off.

Hmm should i get one for Chloe?

Below are some sites that sells this but most do not send to Singapore, guess will have to use Vpost for such things.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geek-kids/1-3-years/e6d0/?cpg=149H&head
http://www.mom4life.com/catalog.php?item=1939
http://www.amazon.com/Mommy-Im-Here-cl-103br-Locator/dp/B0009PLRXK

Instant Photography - Polaroid and Instax

Posted In: photography . By Stephen Lee

Anyone has a instant film camera now? You know they type where you take a picture and it spits out s picture that takes a few minutes to mangically appear? Very tempting to try haha, although think people will say ? Huh why can print from digital camera what, how to share the photos also. Cannot upload leh.

But for me taking pictures with a less capable camera can be fun ! Just point and shoot, most of these cameras has focusing from about 1m to infinity so just point and shoot, no need to wait for the camera to focus, small screen? no more problem, u get a decent size photo, no need to rush to Harvey Norman or a photo shop to get a print (Yeah i know people out there will say what if need multiple copies, haha take more lah). Need to annotate? Just write on the border! Thats why i think the alternative photography guys have fun, as LOMOGRAPHY will say "Shoot from the hip"

Been seeing a lot of people selling these second hand on clubsnap.org, range from 80 to about 250. Cheap enough for people to try, the only problem is the film, polaroid stopped making the film for some time but now they seemed to have relaunched the film under the impossible project, they are abit expensive, think saw it about 40$ at http://www.peek-ture.com/. I think its 10 exposures so that makes it 4$ an exposure. The interesting thing is that they have a B&W film too! Interested to try but abit ex.

Fuji has a camera called the instax, they have a 210 which takes big pictures and a mini version that takes sort of like credit card size pictures. Quite popular now, film also not that ex think 17$ to 20$ for the 210. That makes it almost half the price of the polaroid.

Next is shall i get one? Probably not... I have enough cameras as it is haha i lost count, maybe i should do a post on that sometimes. And frankly I have not been shooting much since Chloe came, mostly shots of her using my DSLR, but now doing shots of her in TriX and HP5, hoping to print them out in the SAFRA darkroom sometime. Haha yeah I still like doing things the old way, its more magical

Fuji X100 - The way forward for Rangefinders

By Stephen Lee

OK I am probably old with the news but FUJI is going to launch a new camera - the FUJI X100, its going to be a APS-C size sensor with a 23mm F2 lens (about 355 equivalent). Yes for all you 90% of the world's population, a camera with no ZOOM !. It looks like a direct competitor the Leica X1, Hopefully the price tag its going to be more reasonable then the Leica.

The cool thing is that it has some sort of a hybrid viewfinder that is optical yet at the same time digital information like shutter and all sorts of nice stuff that you get from modern cameras are superimpose in the viewfinder. This probably is the way forward in terms of viewfinder design for rangefinders.

The rumored release date is Mar 2011 and the rumored price is USD1000.

On a personal note, I will probably want to try out this camera, I know it dosen't have zoom (that probably makes 90% of the worlds population scratch their head, got camera no zoom one meh ? and so ex some more). Anyway i usually shoot with a 50mm equiv on my DSLR and a 35mm or 50mm on my rangefinder.

But for now no money for a new camera cause with my new house reno and all my wife will probably kill me if i start lusting over such things. Arghh need some TOTO or 4D luck...

Links:

Love Story Meets Love Story - Jon Schmidt

Posted In: video . By Stephen Lee

Great arrangement of Love Story by Taylor Swift, got it from a post in Facebook.
Anyway this is also a test of Posterous http://www.posterous.com/ a interesting blogging platform or tool i would say, that lets you post from your email and then twit it, buzz it or even post it back to your blogspot, wordpress account. Go check it out!

Yet another picture post - Chloe gonna be one !

Posted In: chloe . By Stephen Lee

How time flies, soon Chloe is going to be one. It's been a interesting year since Chloe came, how fast she has grown from 50cm to now 70 plus cm, from 3kg plus to 10kg.

From lying down most of the time to learning to walk.

From mostly crying to now saying papapapa mamamama mummummumum and of course still crying.

From being quite passive to being quite proactive, if you carry her she will point where she wants you to go.

From lying down and waving her hands to trying to dance, haha her favourite music is I'm your little butterfly! She will just dance to the music, bending her little knees and shaking.

Preparing to eat durian

Mmm nice nice durian!

Why is my aunt ignoring me.

10 months liao

Posted In: chloe . By Stephen Lee

Chloe is 10 months liao ! Soon she will be one !

She can now stand up without holding anything without realizing I think, usually she seems to be engrossed in holding and playing with something. But aiya the camera was never around when she do that.

Recently on Monday we went down to Changi Airport T3, there was this YOG kind of booth for kids, there was this inflatable castle kind of thing there with a small slide, wifey and I was thinking if she would know how to play anot. So we put her inside, soon she was bouncing around inside. Think she enjoyed the bouncing feeling hehe.

Then we try to slide her down the slide, we weere still wondering if she will enjoyed it. Turns out that she enjoyed it lor, when we put her on top she can't wait to shake and move down the slide.

It was quite tiring carrying her putting her at the top, then slide down and doing it all over again. After a few rounds we decided it was enough, she started crying, and her hand keep stretching towards the slide.

I felt like 80 years old yesterday

Posted In: chloe , Life . By Stephen Lee

Singapore celebrated her 45th birthday yesterday, but I felt like I was 80, here's why..

Chloe waked up as usual (early in the morning), so being the only other living being that was awake I attended to the princess. Carried her around, then don;t know why my back starts hurting. By the time I was out with my wife and her friends I was really feeling uncomfortable, by the afternoon. I was walking like an old man, back slight arched.

Walking was abit difficult, sometimes a sharp pain would run up my back if I walk abit too fast or tense up abit, by the time I went back to my in laws, I was sitting down most of the time and not moving around too much.

Chloe didn't get carried by her dad too much yesterday.

Anyway after a night's sleep, all seems to be better now, back not hurting, can feel abit sore when i move around too much, I can stand up straight, walking seems ok, and I went to work. But I am taking things easy for now, maybe by not carrying any load or even (gasp) Chloe for today.

Now I understand what old people who has back problems are going through. For those who have kids, no make that for those who have a back take care of your back ah!

Babies and Mahatma Ghandi's

Posted In: chloe , Life . By Stephen Lee

Watch this interesting video from TED, if you don't know what TED is. You owe yourself to go to the site. There are many interesting talks by great speakers you will sure find something that inspires you. The talks are not that long, but the speakers are great.

One video that i watched recently is by Ben Dunlap talks about a passionate life, he talks about Sandor Teszler, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor who taught him about passionate living and lifelong learning..

Towards the end of the video he gave a quote from Mahatma Ghandi,

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”

It made me think about Chloe or babies in general, their zest for life is amazing, Chloe can crawl and stand by pulling up on a table or chair or bedframe (the list continues...), always occupying her time moving around or interacting with the objects around her until she is tired or wants to be feed.

When you give her something new she takes the time to hold it examine it closely, trying to figure out all about it, sometimes knocking it around to see what happens.

Aren't babies amazing, looking at them somehow makes me feel that I should do more with my life, living life to the fullest and learning everyday.

Flying car gets approval from FAA

By Stephen Lee

This is not a joke ! Apparently the Terrafugia Transition car or plane above got approved by the FAA, for 194k, you can get one of these. Wonder when singapore will see one of these on the roads. Or will it be bog down by the CAAS and the LTA deciding who really has the say in approving this thing.

Seems like this might not be too far off.

Old film - First roll from XA2

Posted In: photography , Taiwan . By Stephen Lee

I've got an Olympus XA2 sometime ago, went to taiwan last year march shot 2 rolls (one roll is still in the camera not finished yet). Only recently then I developed the first roll, in HC-110, think I've overdeveloped the film abit. Quite interesting to develop the roll of film since I had no idea what was in that roll, these shots are from the "pre-chloe" era.

Anyway here are the more interesting shots, (aka the better ones, since most of the shots were of me testing the camera)

Self Portrait

Tree in punggol park

Wedding car

Friends

Oyster farm boats

Taiwan - one of the monastery. Lots of Buddhas on the way up.

First Father's Day

Posted In: chloe , Life . By Stephen Lee

My wife took me out to a movie to celebrate father's day last friday, its been long since we watched a movie together. Well the movie should be called the Kung Fu kid since there wasn't much karate in it. Overall an ok show, haha enjoyed my wife's company more than the show.

Now Chloe and grab the edge of whatever she could find, table, bed headboards and try to stand liao. She just crawled around for i think a month or so and now she wants to stand, haha think she can't wait to walk around unassisted.

When we first got the walker for her she was actually quite afraid of being left inside. But she actually likes to zoom around the room now, we got to put "barriers" so that she don't knock into the telephone, fans and the tv console.

Once I went to my mum in laws house after work, and when she saw me she just walk over smiling.

She still has a bad habit of chewing anything she can put to her mouth though, wonder when it will stop, still has no teeth coming out yet. Haha most of the time we were trying to catch her in the act and substitute for something safer for her to chew on.

8 months liao !

Posted In: chloe . By Stephen Lee

Chloe is 8 mths 10 days ago, but me abit busy and lazy lah so neber blog. My wife and I always try to take a pic of her every month on the dot at 1735H the time she was born, but most of the time she is asleep like the picture above.

Cutting it square for the pictures cause thinking of buying square frames and putting them up in my new house when it's ready. Thinking of having a photowall, with all different sizes of frames and all the pictures of my family up there. Haha show off some of my photographs also. I don't go out much to take pictures exclusively nowadays so Chloe has to suffer as my model to satisfy my photography itch.

Chloe can crawl and sit !

By Stephen Lee

Chloe achieved a major milestone hehe she now can crawl, not very fast and easily distracted by things around her and she can also sit upright by herself!

Ah but she now very nian (sticky) to my mum in law, yesterday my mum in law just walk away for a while and she look like she is going to cry.

Somehow felt abit sad cause she not nian to me and my wife, cause we are both working and my mum in law is the main care giver. So she likes her grandma more.

Angry that her daddy is taking pictures of her while she is asleep.

Haha the only time i have all my time with her is during the weekends when she wake up, she wakes up quite early about 7-8am, where I would drag myself up and attend to her, so that my wife can sleep in abit more.

Sleeping with piglet

It's amazing how fast she grow though can't imagine just 8 months ago she was small and tiny and all she do is sleep. Now she is so active, she now takes half hour naps perhaps 2-3 times a day and the rest of the time she is just moving, crawling, grabbing stuff (she likes paper a lot, much more than the toys we get for her). Haha sometimes I wonder where she gets all that energy from

Yeah ! I am crawling !