lazarusnow > today1

	7.11.05 Today I begin my work at an Advertising Agency. Am freelancing as an Art Director where I get to doodle on pages of paper and interpret it to designers and illustrators who makes my drawign lke kiddy cartoons. Ahh, the luxury of going up in the chain of command. It's been a while since I worked at a Ad agency. Have never gotten used to working in an office, in the AC and having lots of conversation around me. Interesting enough, this is a good place to learn and grow also. Of course I get to practice the advertising jargon I ahve not used for these few months.
	31.08.03 - FakawiTribe.com v8 launched!! I have been working on FakawiTribe.com v8 for the past few weeks. It's been very enjoyable. The Chief honors me with the invitation to redesign the Village of Fakawis. I am proud to announce that it is up and running well. Check it out and drop us some nice mail!
	27.08.03 - Pushing Again!! A beautiful day out is not complete without a lung bursting right in the fresh air of a tropical jungle. Took a ride with the Fakawi Tribe this morning... and some of the afternoon. Beyond my comprehension why I did not pay close attention to the SMS I got from the chief. I thot it would be one of our regular ride of 2-3hours. Well, the SMS clearly stated 6-7 hours which I completely missed. Maybe I was just excited to be able to ride outside again! A light breakfast and 5 hours into the ride, both my thighs were cramping up. It also doesn't help that Patawi the Shaman of Bukit Kiara was leading the way. That man is a demigod of mountain biking in KL. Pretty embarassing but I have learned some vital lessons. The first would be, pay attention to details: 6 to 7 hours ride!
	23.08.03 - Blue skies!! Blue skies over the Klang Valley have prevailed despite the predictions of a new wave of haze with the wind direction change. I find myself looking up into the sky as often as I use too. What a beautiful sight. How easily we take things for granted! I am also coming to the end of my throat infection. Almost zero coughing and unstuffed nostrils made yesterday's futsal (indoor game) the most enjoyable over the past 2 weeks. Playing with a coughing fit spoils a game easily..., duh!?! As the weather holds, this would mean we would get to do some mountainbiking with the Fakawi Tribe Chief this week. Itching for a jungle trail right! We should be doing more reccés for a bike hash in October. That reminds me, I should go check on my parang. Ah, hope does not disappoint! Thank you, God!
	18.08.05 - HOPE! Hope is a great word, don't you think? Well, I am still hoping to get well from this throat infection. I am still hoping that the haze will end its reign over the skies. I am hoping to get some swimming done once I feel better. And because there is hope I can get up in the morning and face the unknown. But hope in itself is just a feeling. Yet, hope in God makes the whole difference. So, yup, my hope is in God, to get me out of this sickness and haze out of the skies! Amen!
	12.08.05 - SICK MAN! I hate being sick but I am. My throst feels like I swallowed a razor blade. On top of that, it feels like a slimy frog is lodged just under my throat. This makes me "hack" and cough like my lungs need to come out and run around on my head. Of course, the HAZE is no help either. From APIs 300 to 500 around the Klang Valley, it's like fog in Scotland but on the extreme side, it's SMOKE from forest fires in Sumatra. API stands for 'Air Pollutant Index'. Anything above 200 is very unhealthy. At 300, it's hazardous. (Link to TheSTAR news for updates) If you walked around the KL City today, you'd see lotsa masked people. Surgical masks, chemical masks & all sorts. Pharmacies are making a killling, and fish seems to be dying. One would say it feels like a horror flick. If you were here, it does feel like a Stephen King's novel. Let's called it "The Killer Smog".
	09.08.05 - Gol & Gincu 9.15pm : went to a premier showing of a local movie tonight. 'Gol&Gincu' which is Bahasa Melayu for 'Goals & Lipsticks', was the stage for our budding movie star friend, Ezra. Cameo role, he would call it, but we dubbed it his shot to stardom. Choereographing & coaching the girls for the futsal games in the movie, he also appeared as 'Referee #1'. As friends and fans, we cheered his 5 seconds of fame with much vigor. Click here for the movie's website! I, for one, am proud to say, "I, too, played futsal with Ezra!":) Here's a PHOTO of us with a rising star!
	The BC-Canadian boy! Jeremy towers over the other riders as we ride the back trails of F.R.I.M. It's bad enough he's white, he's also very tall. People stare in Malaysia. Ho-hum. But what they don't know is that he's a durian eating 'gwai lo'! June - Our Canadian friend, Jeremy, came to visit. We offered him durian and he liked it, more than the Thai version. Amazing! On one sitting, he shared a whole tupperware of durians with me. It was impressive for this 20-year old 'gwai-lo'. We also brought him for futsal, mountain biking & some rock climbing. Seeing him ride, I am thinking all British Columbian Canadians can mountain bike, even with one left leg. Jeremy's 6' 4". So we were the Hobbits for a week. For the whole week we pampered him the Malaysian way: food, fun and futsal! It was like having a grown up son of our very own! We miss you, Jeremy! Come home, soon!

09.08.05 - Six months later!
How time flies. Where does time go? Wherever it's gone, it's not coming back.

March 20th, Celebrated our 1st Wedding anniversary by going out on a mountain bike ride with the girls. Check out the pics HERE.

April - Bought the Apple Airport Express. So we 'wi-fied' the home. Nice. We can print and play music from anywhere in the apartment. Apple makes the coolest products!

May - Can't remember if we did anything interesting.

June - We moved to a new apartment about 500 meters across we were. Bigger place and more rooms to stor our riding, climbing and soccer gear! We both celebrated our birthdays respectively in June and July. Del bought me a FISHEYE LOMO! Love it!

July 1st - Del & I took a scuba trip in Perhentian Island. Ahh, nothing like a relaxing away trip. Blue clear skies and white sandy beaches. It was our first time to Watercolours. Their leisure diving facilities and services are very impressive. Plus we had our friend, Ezra, a regular diver there to be our PR.

My Cybershot casing drowned. I clipped the O-Ring when closing it (yes, dumb as dumb can be, eh?!). Good thing was that I broought down without the camera inside to test the water-proofness. So, phew, the camera was safely on dry land. So now underwater photos this time around. Bummer!

July 29th - the Fakawi Chief and I took a trip down some trail less travelled near Genting Sempah. Armed with our parangs, mine was a kukri (a Gurkha parang inherited from my father), we slashed our way thru some dead ends. Brought out some 4 leech bite with me. Itched for 2 weeks.

July 30th - Went for a 'Men's Camp' last month. Listening to all the talk and the forum, I have it good with Adele, and I tell her, too. The journey with her has been incredible. It's like God designed us for each other. I know there are a lot of skeptics out there who would vehemently object to such a statement, but to those who HOPE & BELIEVE, don't give up on God. He doesn't give up on you.

To quote from the movie, The Count of Monte Cristo, " I don't believe in God", said Edmond (Dantes), to which the old priest replied, "ah, but He (God) believes in you".

17.02.05 - Working my butt off!
Wow. It's been a crazy 2 months! Of course who can forget the earth's most tragic natural disaster of the modern era. The Tsunami hit when we (me & the wifey) were at our relatives. While Malaysians enjoy regular TV, we were stuck on Singapore TV watching the horror as the news readers announced the 9.0 ricther earthquake and the tsunami that followed.

If you've not heard of it, you either were dead or sleeping in your own delusional world. Aceh, Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma and as far as Africa. The death count: 295,000 people dead as of February 14.

A lot of this 'making it big' dream have been put on hold as we discover the greater need of the people hit by the tsunamis. 3 weeks ago we thot we were to go to Sri Lanka or Aceh to help in some relief work, but logistics have closed doors to us. Yet, we hear there are other places and organisations who would welcome our helping hands.

As for now, we are working out butt off. Am in contract with an agency for now. The wife's training for a triathlon.

:: Business Philosophy #101:
Careful that dreams do not override reality.

Happy 2005! Happy Chinese New Year!!

06.12.04 - Dreaming!
You know how you'd like to sit and dream up a business, and lo! and behold! It turns out to bring you enough moolah that you don't have to *slog* for money ever again? Well, that's what I did over the weekend. A couple of months ago I told a friend of mine one of my other thousands of business. He was quite enthusiastic about it and believed it could work. Well, of course, after the other thousands of ideas, I was a bit more skeptical. Last Saturday, he asked me about it again. Gave me some of his own ideas for business. At the end of it, I was determined to see my idea come alive... whatever the results would be. I have to at the very least try it out and see. After all, it is worth a shot. Ahh... we'll see what happens in the coming months.

:: Business Philosophy #101:
Everything great begins with a dream

02.12.04 - FreezeZone
Well,I made it alive to the office. Have felt the effects of the sleep depravation... yet. I think they turn the AC up so to trick the body to work overtime. Another good day. Hard work but finished the job. My big mouth has led me to be dragged along to join in the presentation to the client. I get to run the Powerpoint presentation... woo hoo....

I hope this means I get to go home early tomorrow then!!

::Design Philosophy #2:
Always look at the bright side!

02.12.04 - 3.40am: Sleepless
Cannot sleep. Just cannot sleep. Tired. Maybe I am excited that I have finally gotten Lazarusnow.com v4.0 up. Maybe, yesterday was a good day that I am still buzzing from it. Or maybe there's a lot of follow thru to do after yesterday's good day. In any case, I am up. All this blood rushing thru' my brain... can't sleep. My beautiful wife is soundly asleep. What am I doing up!?!

Been messing about the webpage again. Rewriting, looking thru the link, trying to upload the favicon. Doesn't seem to work. Gotta call a friend tomorrow... later today to get his opinion. Alas, more things to learn... and the day hasn't really begun!

01.12.04 - Welcome!
Welcome to my ramblings. Of course you would probably find more ramblings in other pages on this site but hey, welcome anyway! The ramblings may breed disgust, boredom and ho-hums. But it's my ramblings!Well, it's the 1st of December and it's been a lot of work getting this site up and looking closer to something I like. Keyword here is 'closer'. Took me about 2 months to figure out the how, what and why of designing this Lazarusnow v4. Well, it's still a work in progress... like everything else in life.

An Intro
It's taken years to find my feet in this designing business. There are times when self-doubt dominates my mind and the creative juices comes in spurts and blurbs. It happened yesterday. There are frustrating times. Like most struggling artist, one can never NOT go through those 'down' times. It's a matter of holding on to the believe that the talents in my hands are like seeds given by God. If they are not struggling, then it's dead. Today was an 'up' day. Clients liked the work I did. Smiles all around. That's a good thing! Came home early. Wife cooked. Exchange kisses with her and ermm.. then umm.. and ahem... and I am a happy designer.

::Design Philosophy #1:
Live to learn. Learn to live.