IHSAN KHAIRIR

February 16th was my 27th birthday so the family got together for a small celebration.

The chocolate mousse cake that was completely devoured within two minutes. Because the whole family was busy with preparations and other stuff, I went to town and bought the cake myself. Glad I picked this one because usually at the end of the birthday celebration we ended up with a big chunk of uneaten cake, but this time my cake was the first one to be gone from the food table. I have chosen wisely…

The birthday feast was a simple lineup: chocolate mousse cake, mashed potato with mushroom gravy, salad with hard-boiled eggs, tomato and sliced cheese, turmeric fried chicken, and sliced oranges (Happy Chinese New Year of the Tiger, btw!)

Cutting the cake. As always, Abu my brother refuses to smile in the picture. He does this deliberately sometimes. The frown doesn’t necessarily mean he’s upset, he just wants to make a face in the picture.

This is my excuse for being overweight =). Whenever I’m home, there’s such an abundance of wonderfully cooked meals that I find it hard to restrain myself from finishing up leftovers. My family feeds me well =)

Some of the presents. My sisters like to prepare and wrap each present themselves. Plus they always make (and not buy) the birthday card so it has a personal touch that you can never get from a card purchased from the store.

They spelled ‘successful’ wrong. My sister said it was deliberate. Yeah right =D

The symbolic t-shirt. The absent present (oxymoron!) was represented by the mock t-shirt my sister made. The actual t-shirt was left in our apartment in Seri Kembangan.

Mya gave me a personalized t-shirt with my family nickname on it spelt in Korean. Besan (or Abesan) is a portmanteau of the Kelantanese word ‘Abe’ (means big brother) and the last part of my name, ‘San’ (from ‘Ihsan’).

Milah and Shaz gave me a pair of Crocs. Each half of the pair was individually wrapped in two different presents, which meant that they each gave me half a pair =D. I guess in some ways, it meant that I have to use  both their gifts equally and am not able to prefer one over the other… maybe. I thought that was quite amusing =)

Another personalized birthday card made by my sisters, with a two-layer birthday cake and a pair of candles shaped like the number ’27′.

There are presents yet to be received, and those are the ones I am quite excited about!

I am so grateful to my beloved family for the wonderful celebration this year. I have to say this is one of the best that I’ve had in a long time =)

Thanks for all the presents and the well-wishes. I am ninety percent of the way to being thirty. The past three-cubed years have been a journey, and I’m glad I got to share those years with my family and friends, and you guys, my blogreaders.

Thank you for those who’ve been there for me, both in body and in spirit. Those that I haven’t seen for quite a while, do know that I really miss you and would love to have you around. I’ve had nothing but wonderful times with everyone and I hope we get to make more wonderful memories in the coming years.

Here’s to being three to three-oh.

Cheers!

Just listing what I’m currently having and will be having in the next few days…

Work Related To-Dos
Finish writing up the first draft of the paper for FEOFS 2010 conference (deadline tonight)
Prepare for pre-viva presentation (deadline Friday 12 January, 3pm postponed to March)
Search for local experts on genetic algorithm (deadline end of February)
Prepare a journal manuscript for a high-impact applied mathematics journal (deadline end of February)
Prepare a preliminary draft of Master’s thesis (deadline end of February)
Perform more analysis on fatigue data recently acquired (by end of February)
Prepare slides for the paper to be presented at the conference in Cambridge, UK (by this weekend)

Other To-Dos
Attend wedding of Baizurah and Solehuddin (Saturday 13 February)
Photography assignment with Fahmi and Syazwani (Sunday 14 February)
Pay electricity bill at TNB Subang Jaya (Thursday or next week)
Deliver Wacom Intuos3 to Mailal (Friday night 12 February)

Have-Dones
Air-conditioner repair, power steering and engine maintenance for the Waja (cost: RM1600)
Replace burnt out lightbulbs in the Waja (cost: RM40)
Integrate a population diversity analysis function into the GA clustering method (cost: a headache)
Prepare slides for GUP research progress report

Life’s hectic, but I guess it’s less mundane that way. Still, I need more spice in my life, in my opinion. Maybe a return to playing basketball? It’s been quite a while since I last went shooting hoops. I miss it terribly sometimes.

Singapore: The buildings and general skyline, courtesy of Mae, Bates and Shaw Tower.

I think it’s obvious that I like the National Library building best. Too bad I haven’t much time to myself for a photoshoot walkaround. I love capturing buildings in photos, especially at night. Long exposures. Gotta revisit that sometime.

Singapore: Orchard Road Street Dancers

Saw these dancers while walking along Orchard Road. They were almost done with their performance, so I only managed to get just a few quick shots. I need a better and faster lens to capture moments like these.

Singapore: Merlion & Me

First time visiting the water spitting Merlion statue. It rained when we got there so we only managed to get a few shots, plus it was cloudy before and afterwards, so no sunlight present to give us beautiful colors…

Singapore: Testing lens converters and filters

My bosses and colleagues went shopping for lens filters and converters and I became one of their test subjects. As I don’t have enough munny for myself, I did not buy any photography equipment nor accessories.

Singapore: The International Conference on Applied Physics and Mathematics

‘Pontenged’ the first day of the Conference, and attended the second day. Presented my paper, which drew tons of questions from attendees (compared to other presentations which drew almost none). I guess my research raises more questions than it does answers.

Singapore: Walk around the Lion City

A lot of walking while carrying a lot of stuff, resulting in the demise of my old pair of shoes (see end of post).

Singapore: Closeup candids of myself

Mostly pics of me that my colleagues managed to capture candidly and without my knowing… I love these kinds of pictures… I need a good and fast tele lens if I ever want to do shots like these seriously.

Singapore: Goodbye shoes

The result of too much walking around in old cheap pairs. Goodbye Bata shoes. I left them in Singapore. A little something of myself to stay on the island.

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Sorry to all my Xanga friends for missing the meetup… I came to Singapore for work and so with it comes the obligations… next time I’ll try to make it down to the island for a vacation or a photoshoot trip… Thank you Mae for welcoming me upon arrival and seeing me off before departure. It was great to finally meet you.

Until we meet again, thank you Singapore. We’ll see each other again soon.

For eleven years I was the only boy in my family. My mom gave birth to five little sisters before my brother came. I remember as a young boy, back when I was about five or six, that I asked my mom if I could have a baby brother so I can play ball with him. For quite some time my childhood memories with my sisters consist mainly of playing house (I was either the father or a waiter) and skipping rope (at which I became good at, with no shame). Not much what most people call boyish stuff like playing soccer or fighting with the neighborhood kids. The most boyish stuff I think I usually did was climb trees and getting lost in the woods near my house, both of which I mostly did by myself.

I have to admit, most of my childhood were more of with the family. Childhood friends were not a big part in my life. The reason being we kept moving house because the family got bigger and bigger. I don’t blame anyone for this, in fact I am glad that we have such a big family. At home we never feel alone. Because of this I have little reason to fully socialize myself with the neighborhood kids, and therefore my childhood friends list are in fact almost NIL.

When I was twelve going on thirteen I got sent to a boarding school in Kuala Lumpur. It’s an all-boys school so I guess my ‘boyhood’ problem was practically solved. But it separated me from my baby brother who was a bit more than one year old then. I have little memory of spending time with him (Ayid we call him, my first baby brother) as I was mostly away in school. He’s eleven years younger than me. So he more or less grew up mostly in my absence, as I only got to see him once every month, sometimes even less than that, due to the strict rules of the school not letting students go home every weekend.

After I was done with high school it was little time before I whisked away to prep college and then to the U.S. for my tertiary education. With the distance and the time the less and less I could relate to Ayid. He’d grown, taller, darker and thinner (he was quite fair when he was a baby), his voice started to change, became more and more active in sports, et cetera. All in my absence. Once I came home from the U.S., I felt like my brother was a totally different person.

My memories with my father wasn’t much either, as either he was away for work or school, or I was away for school. I remember there was one year when I was in school that I didn’t see him at all for almost six months (my being at home for two days a month didn’t coincide with his being at home). This was back when cellphones were a luxury of the corporate / high society. I missed seeing him and listening to his voice. And with the little time spent with each other, the distance grew. There was little I could relate to my father. This was aggravated even more with me being in the U.S. for 4.5 years. I remember calling home and he picked up the phone, and our conversation was limited to how-are-you-doings before it changed to “wanna talk to your mother?”. The physical distance between us resulted in emotional distance. I didn’t know what to say to him on the phone. Whatever he knew about me he found out mostly from my blogs or from my mother.

After I returned from the U.S., something that I saw outside the house changed everything.

It was a ping pong table.

My dad loves to play ping pong (or table tennis, for some), and so does Ayid. In fact they had been playing together for some time before I came back. I myself had been learning to play the game with my friends in the U.S., not knowing that my dad and Ayid were playing the same game at home. I guess in some ways, we’re still the same inside even with the time and distance apart. By the time I got home, I was already good enough at ping pong to play the game with my dad and Ayid.

And so it has become our fortnightly activity. Whenever we were together at home, it’ll be ping pong in the morning and ping pong in the evening. Sometimes even at night. We enjoy taunting and challenging each other as we play the game, and I could feel us bonding together with each game played. I can see how much my father enjoys playing with us and with the many games we’ve played over these two years so far, I think they made up for most of our lost time.

Alhamdulillah. Thank God. Thank God for ping pong.

p/s: I LOVE MY FAMILY!!!

Spider with liquid oozing out its mouth, originally uploaded by ihsankhairir.

This is another shot of the same spider, taken a few moments after the picture in the previous post. It seems like some kind of yellowish liquid is oozing out of the spider’s mouth. My instinct say it’s venom, but it can also be digestive juices that spiders use to liquefy their prey.

Either way, it seemed to have vomited the liquid out. In fear or in defense? I’m not sure. Or maybe the photographer looked so unappealing even a spider would throw up after looking at him.

Anyone knows what this spider is doing? Spider experts? Peter Parker? Hmmm?

Spider on white paper, originally uploaded by ihsankhairir.

Four pairs of eyes. Four pairs of legs.

Do spiders see and/or move four times better than humans?

Red Weaver Ant Profile, originally uploaded by ihsankhairir.

I’ve always wanted to take a good macro shot of the red weaver ant (Oecophylla smaragdina) but they tend to go around in swarms and attack anyone that comes close. Lack of a good macro lens also deterred me from getting closeup shots of these hotheaded Formicidae… but ever since I tried reverse lens macro and getting such extreme closeup shots  I’m having lots of fun with these fierce arboreal ants…

I’m going to look for more of these ants around…

For more information on red weaver ants:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weaver_ant

Dead fly, originally uploaded by ihsankhairir.

This was one of my first attempts at macro photography using the reverse lens technique. For people who love taking closeup shots but don’t have enough lettuce in the fridge for a dedicated macro lens, this is one of the cheapest ways to achieve to a certain degree the kinds of shots a camera with a macro lens can capture.

This is a photo of a dead fly. COD is pesticide spray. Place is a white tile floor of a kitchen.

For this shot I used a handheld reversed 18-55mm kit lens on a Nikon D60 camera. Aperture was set at maximum (F3.5 manually using the index finger on the aperture lever). Flash was built-in popup flash so there’s a bit of shadow on the bottom of the pic that I cropped out. As for the focal length I’m not sure since the lens was reversed, but on the lens itself I set at somewhere between 40-50mm. Not sure that translates to how much with the lens reversed.

Since I was just holding the reversed lens with my hand, the shot was difficult to take. I am now looking to see if I can get a Nikon F-mount 52mm reverse ring. Once I get my hands on that piece of accessory (plus maybe an external flash) you can expect the return of the bug shots from me. For now, this will do.

Sunset clouds, originally uploaded by ihsankhairir.

People see silver linings in clouds. I do too.

But during sunsets, I see gold.

Sunset clouds are breathtakingly beautiful. Subhanallah.

And yet another photo post from me…

Spiderman stunt double practicing. This shot was taken as a part of a photo outing with fellow forum members.

The new hot-air-filled zeppelin. Hindenburg-proof.

This was the last balloon to take off morning of the 21st.

Looking up one corner of the Taj Mahal style Justice Department building.

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EDIT: I came back to Putrajaya a day later to shoot photos of the hot air balloon fiesta. Photos follow.

Some of the many colorful balloons taking off that day. You can see evidence of wear and tear on some of these balloons. The middle one obviously has had a recent patching done.

A view of the balloon’s inside as the air is being heated up.

The balloons actually touch and kiss each other before the takeoff, due to the limited space. If this were to happen mid-flight it’d be dangerous I  imagine.

It took quite some manpower to have the balloon from a horizontal position to an upright position.

The balloons taking off to the morning sky, one by one.

A balloon that just passed over my head, giving me an interesting view from below.

Overall, quite an interesting weekend of photoshooting… both solo and in a group. There’s still much for me to learn… for those of you who share my interest in photography or have some degree of experience in this field or any related field please feel free to dispense any comments and/or criticism. Thank you =)