ekster's studio

24 (And More)

ekster — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 17:29:13 +0000

As I am writing this, it is early Saturday morning, about 1:13 am to be exact. Friday just zipped on by as if it never existed except for the early morning. And previous to that, Thursday was one of the longest days I’ve had in awhile. I arrived at work at 9:00 am on Thursday, and I left at about 9:30 am on a Friday - that’s a time period longer than 24 hours! It was well worth it though; the feeling of having accomplished so much has its rewards. And I’m damn proud of the design work that I’ve done, especially with such an awesome and creative team of people. I’ll be even happier when the contract gets signed off.

I arrived home finally at 11:00 am, looking completely groggy and disheveled and just went straight to bed. A thunderstorm passed through the neighborhood and it was for once a very welcome event that led me into a very deep state of sleep. And now here I am, updating this blog of mine of which I have not touched in ages.

I haven’t had a chance to do any photography for awhile since work has been keeping me quite busy, but last weekend I did get to spend some time with some good friends and managed to take some worthwhile photos that reminded me of why I love photography so much. I’ll share a few of those here:

And of course, you can see more photos at my Flickr stream as well as I try to keep that one updated quite frequently.

Cheers!

Team Nexus Racers

ekster — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 05:35:48 +0000

Although the week has been quite busy, it’s been real fun especially since the last two weekdays had great entertainment value. We found a reason to celebrate over exquisite Northern Indian cuisine at the Crown Plaza on Thursday evening as an annual dinner event. Note to self: the chicken tika masala was the best I’ve ever tried in a long while.

The following day was the moment of excitement as everyone was looking forward to two solid hours of fun at one of the better go-kart racing circuits in Malaysia. Our total of seventeen members checked in at the racing circuit and had the entire track all to ourselves for the duration of our stay there. And this is me in racecar number 18.

I haven’t really been on any go-kart tracks in awhile, but this one was awesome. The little racecars were gasoline powered and they went quite fast! If you weren’t careful, you could really spin off the track, run over the other racers, or even worse, entirely flip the kart upside down and dive headfirst into the side barriers. And yes, we somehow managed to do ALL of that. A husband rams his racecar into his wife’s racecar and caused a pileup, and a colleague lost control at a curve and spun upside down upon hitting the side barrier, suffering from some nasty cuts and bruises. But overall, everyone had a lot of fun and it was definitely one of those events to remember.

Despite the little mishaps that happened (it was Friday the 13th after all) it was something that we’d all try again for the near future. And before then, perhaps I should practice a few laps around the track to improve my time! Our online pharmacy is the perfect resource for people to get their drugs without any hassles or awkwardness. buy cialis We work hard to make sure you save money every time you shop with us. buy levitra buy soma At our online store, you pay less and get more. buy viagra

An Extraordinary Month

ekster — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 15:42:33 +0000

It has been awhile since my last entry as things have been so incredibly busy for the past month. In fact it’s quite amazing just how many things have happened. Taking a step back, it really is staggering and surreal to realize that more things have happened within a month than what has transpired in the past year. I’ll provide just a summary of everything that has been going on.

The photo above was taken upon my arrival at the mass transit center in Singapore’s Changi airport. Isn’t the design of the place simply amazing?

I am now the Senior Interactive Design Lead at my company. Our goal is to build up a team of amazing design talent as we have a lot of very exciting projects coming up. In short, we hope to create some of the most badass pieces of media technology.
I was one of the speakers at the Microsoft ReMix event in Singapore. Check out my bio entry on there too! My colleagues and I shared our experiences in creating a certain very high key project which the Malaysian public will see in a very prominent place in due time.
I was also one of the speakers just this past Monday at the Microsoft Expression Studio launch at their headquarters in the Petronas Twin Towers. I presented the same set of slides during the ReMix event, but elaborated a bit more about my design methodology.
Speaking of all this technology and design development stuff, I’ve been doing design research on Microsoft’s new Silverlight which is supposed to give Flash a run for its money. It’s still in the preliminary Alpha stages, but it holds promise. I will be developing a lot of stuff with it very soon.

And to my buddies back in the states, happy 4th of July!

Late Nights

ekster — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 16:01:56 +0000

It’s been a very hectic but fulfilling two weeks so far, and it is hard to believe how much things have happened, and how much I’ve managed to accomplish. As for this week, the days stretch into nights as I’m toiling away at my workstation trying to get multiple projects done. I am reminded of the good old days when I was back working for Ai Graphics in Portland doing those overnight media projects. Sure it’s quite a tiring process, but at the end of the day when looking back at it all, it feels good to have accomplished so much.

I reach my monorail stop at Raja Chulan at about 10pm, and it’s nice and quiet for a change. Now that I’m home and writing this, it’s pretty much midnight and time for a good night’s sleep before another hard day of work tomorrow. When I have more free time, I’ll write more about the new cool things I’ve picked up.

A New Beginning

ekster — Tue, 22 May 2007 13:23:08 +0000

It seems to be a pattern that I’ve experienced more than once, finding myself in new places or situations every few years. Sometimes the changes can be quite traumatic such as my initial relocation to Malaysia. But as far as changes overall go, in time the repertoire of life has a way of balancing things out. And every now and then, unexpected surprises come knocking at the door.

This week is my first week at my new job. And so far, things are extremely good. It is an international firm with a wonderful crew of people, and my main responsibilities cover the interactive design areas. Being right in the middle of Kuala Lumpur, life does feel a bit more hectic and fast paced, but I am enjoying the adrenaline rush right now. It feels like I am back in my prime and I am ready to tackle new challenges.

There is a nice little park located at the rooftop of the office building I’m in, and I had a nice walk around the perimeter today, surveying the other gigantic structures of glass, concrete and steel surrounding me. The air was still fresh from the heavy rain that cleansed the city a few hours ago and the mood was absolutely relaxing. It will definitely be my little abode in the city whenever I need to collect my thoughts together. Urban tranquility is only a service elevator away.

Behold, my dual 18″ LCD workstation with 2 gigabytes of RAM! And yes, I can view HD media through this quite comfortably and smoothly. And I can view two IDE windows simultaneously! Now I just need to add more clutter to my desk, but that will naturally develop in time.

And in other good news, I am finally feeling like I am getting back into shape! My abs are getting a good workout from all the stair climbing I’ve been doing, and it’ll only get better from here onwards.

Street Side Fashion

ekster — Thu, 17 May 2007 07:55:32 +0000

The more I venture out on foot into the urban pockets of Kuala Lumpur, the more and more I am falling in love with it. There is simply so much to describe, from the rustic pre-war buildings to the new skyrises made of glass and steel, there’s enough in between to satisfy just about any kind of traveler.

And while roaming the streets, I’ve found a few very cool locations for portrait and fashion photography. The first time around, the discovery happened while I was street shooting with Fatini, and on the second round, I explored the same area a bit more with Helen.

Those shots were from the same general location, but from just slightly different parts of the old building. And of course, it will be a location that I will keep going back to for future photography sessions.

An Interesting Morning

ekster — Sun, 13 May 2007 06:53:22 +0000

The weekend has been a wonderful one and I’ve spent most of my active hours with photography. My lovely friend Fatini and I decided to hit the inner streets of Kuala Lumpur armed with our eyeballs and cameras and went out for a street-side shootout. Saturday was spent roaming around the Central Market and Petaling Street areas in downtown Kuala Lumpur and managed to make new visual discoveries. And here’s my favorite street shot for that session that pretty much summarizes it all:

Sunday morning was very much different however. We decided to wake up before dawn and head towards the Sultan Abdul Samad building to catch some dawn light shots of the moorish buildings. Everything went according to plan until we reached the destination. My body’s clockwork was not tuned to the early hour and to put it simply, shit happens.

[Insert awkward silence here]

And on top of that, I discovered that I also forgot to bring my compact flash card for my camera. Looking at the letter ‘E’ blink on the camera lcd just made my heart sink further. So I simply walked around carrying gear and tried to enjoy the urban morning light while my friend took her time composing her shots.

Lessons learned:

~~Tune body clockwork.~~ Bring extra toilet paper in the car.
Get an extra compact flash card for emergencies.