Coming Back

I know ... I know ...

I have been MIA (Missing in Action) for almost 2 years now!

Last post was 8th April 2007

Time to come back?

AM Gunners-PIP charity match sneak peak

Uploaded couple new pictures to my online gallery. Still struggling with my ever slow Internet connection. Will let you guys know once I am done uploading. Click here to go directly to the album

Related posts:

• AM Gunners-PIP charity match

AM Gunners-PIP charity match

There was a charity football match between AM Gunners Junior and P.I.P (Projek Ikan Pusu) at the Hassanal Bolkiah National Stadium. The match start at 8:00 p.m. Rano asked me to cover the events since he is in KL right now. Oh how I wish we could switch places :)

The entrance fee was FREE. There were also donation boxes at the entrance of the stadium. The fund raised will be donated to the Pengiran Muda Mahkota Al-Muhtadee Billah Fund for Orphans and the Pusat Ehsan Al-Ameerah AlHajjah Maryam.

The public is also able to purchase AM Gunners jerseys at only $5 each and money from the sales will also be donated. Those who bought the jerseys are also entitled for lucky draw. They were given ticket number and winners were announced at the end of the match.

HRH Prince Abdul Mateen was leading AM Gunners Junior FC. Both team played well. AM Gunners scored the first goal during the first half of the match. PIP FC events it at the last 15 minutes of the game. Match ends with a draw of 1-1.


I was there with Gemilang photography association. They were there to cover the events also. "Aku" was kind enough to join me. We did enjoyed the match a lot especially when there were around 250 Royal Brunei Police new recruits cheering for AM Gunners. They rock the stadium from the beginning till the end.


HRH Prince Abdul Mateen throw his jersey to them in appreciation of their spirit intensifying songs and cheers. They brought that big drum with them. It was spectacular~ One of them was my own brother (second from right on the picture below). He just joined Royal Brunei Police 2 months ago and now undergoes intensive training for 8 months. The guy in the center is their "cikgu" or instructor at the academy who is my cousin... hehehe small Brunei..

* The lucky lad (right most) that gotten HRH Prince Abdul Mateen jersey when he throws it to them.

I will upload pictures to my online gallery soon. I just hope my Internet connection can coupe with the loads :)

Proboscis Monkey - Uploaded

I have uploaded around 40 plus photos of Proboscis Monkey at (http://www.bruneiforever.com/gallery/v/Animals/ProboscisMonkey/).

Related Posts

• Proboscis Monkey
• Proboscis Monkey outing - behind the scene

Proboscis Monkey outing - behind the scene

You have seen the pictures (Proboscis Monkey). This is what a photographer had to go through in order to get a good picture so that you guys could enjoy looking at it while sipping your morning/afternoon coffee.

The pictures were taken by Mr. Syaf of shutterspeech (http://shutterspeech.blogspot.com/). He has uploaded a good pictorial documentation of our outing. You can view it at his multiply account (http://sinadam.multiply.com) or you can click here (http://sinadam.multiply.com/photos/album/312) to go to the album directly.

Thank you Mr. Syaf aka sinadam for the permission and letting me re-post these pictures on my blog.

I left the boat with everyone was still on it. Mr. Syaf took this picture from the boat. That's how far I was from the boat.

Found meself a comfy spot. Hehehe

Well, I have to go through several obstacles....

Coming back...

Pictures below taken by airbiscuit (http://www.castamara.blogspot.com/). This is where I felt like something tickling my legs. I was afraid that it might be water snakes or sort. First thing you should do is NOT PANIC.

I tried to calm meself and slowly looked down. I found small baby fish playing around my legs. phewww~~ So, that is why I moved forward to dry land.

Asyiiiiikkk Deh

Went to the BSB weekend bazaar after our Proboscis Monkey outing. I was told that the expatriate workers from Indonesia always sing Dangdut music and dance passionately with the flow of music. My cousin, who has stall there, told me that there would be a larger crowd from the audience will dance later in the afternoon at around 4-5 pm before the bazaar close.

Check out my "The Dangdut Brothers..." that I posted couple of months ago :)

Proboscis Monkey outing

Went to Proboscis Monkey outing today. We planned this since last week. It was fun! I took like 5 gig worth of pictures. Well not all of the pictures are of the monkeys. We also went for Kampong Ayer short tour. We also managed to take pictures of Istana Nurul Iman from a different angle.

Proboscis monkey can only be found in Borneo Island. In Brunei, you dont have to hike miles and miles of jungle tracks to catch these fellas in action. You just need to hire up water taxi/boat trip up the Brunei river, roughly around 45 - 60 minutes while you sitting and enjoying the scenery while the water taxi driver bring you to the the spot.

Btw, I removed the outing section from this blogsite. If you would like to know and be updated about our outings, please go to the forum (http://bruneiforever.com/forum) and click the outing section. You might need to register an account.

I brought some other group before touring Kampong Ayer. From one end to another. Please click here to read more;

• Kampong Ayer Tour - Part One
• Bz bz bz
• Proboscis Monkey outing - behind the scene
  

Temburong Series 2

Its been a while I have not posted some nature shots...

Pictures above were taken during my trip to Ulu Temburong while I was inside a small long boat called "Temuai"

Visit my nature online gallery

Temburong Series 1

Picture above taken from my Temburong trip. A lot of interesting things we could take pictures of there. Nature lover's heaven~

Related posts:

• Temburong District
• Virgin trip to Belalong, Temburong

More nature picture at my online gallery here

Updating

Pictures taken during Gemilang outing

Sorry for the lack of updates. I have been smashing my head on my monitor. I thought buying a color calibrator would help me to calibrate my monitors at ease. Instead, it gives more complication to my already complicated work flow. The Lacie blue eye does not come with friendly end-user manual to start with.

All these while I have been processing my pictures with wrong color calibration. zadm came to my house and saw my so-called calibrated monitor as pinkish. Took me 2 days just to figure out how to fix that.

Hopefully, now things will be ok. Well not really. My 22 inches monitor is not as sharp as I was hoping. I can see noise on an ISO 100 image. Images that I shot using ISO 200 looks like I was using ISO 800. That is how much noise I can see on my monitor. I have to use my 8 years old CRT monitor to double check my color and noise (as you can see on my setup at the moment). I read somewhere that LCD is still not as good as CRT just yet.

I have to re-process my old images again. Sigh~

I am also learning to use Adobe Lightroom. It is different than Canon Digital Photo Professional. It redefined photography workflow. Different workflow that what I used to do. I am still trying to convince myself whether to use the Lightroom and learn new software and change my workflow OR stick with the old software and be left behind in technology :)

On another note this weekend is going to be hectic for me:

1. Maulud Nabi Muhammad S.A.W on saturday morning
2. Gemilang photo society meeting on saturday afternoon @ 2. I am not their member yet. Forgot to fill in their form and pay their life time membership fee. Hope I remember to bring them on Saturday. Oh ya, if you guys wanna come with me and register with them, let me know.
3. Proboscis monkey outing on Sunday. Please visit our forum for more info on this. Here is the direct link to the topic (http://www.bruneiforever.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=120). Go and register at the forum. We are very active and more things to come.
   

Temburong District

On the previous post, I mentioned that Temburong District is separated from the main land by another country. We have to use boat or going through another country just to go to there.

I like telling things with pictures. Its not only easier to understand but also it is a lot more easier to explain things with pictures.

As you can see that Temburong District (the one that shaped like a leg) is detached from the main land. I wanted to post some facts about Temburong District but I need to sort them out first.

Map is taken from google earth screen shots

Virgin trip to Belalong, Temburong

Went to Ulu Temburong today with Reza - Trip to belalong. Temburong district is one of Brunei's 4 districts. It is disconnected from the main land. The easiest way to go there is by boat. You also could drive your car there but you would have to go through our neighbour country Sarawak, Malaysia. Yes, you would need to go through a different country to go to the other side of the country.

We had to stop couple of times to stamp in/out our passports. I beleive we had to do it 8 times. 4 ins and 4 outs. So, in total 8 stamps on your precious passport pages just to get to Temburong. And you have to fill in number of forms.

I have a confession to make. This is my first time to go to the "Ulu" Temburong. Ulu is a malay word that roughly means the very remote end of the country, mostly covered by virgin jungle. I would love to spend the night there. It is very claming. The water is cool. Saw couple of tourists enjoying their time there. Even our boat operator had a dip. Couldn't resist the crystal clear water.

Sorry, not much picture for today. Click Reza's link above and watch the video. I am on it. Hehehe.. which one? Of course the one thats holding the big camera with huge lens.. hahahha

Pictures below are taken while we were waiting for our queue at the border.. thats the boring part of the journey. The rest are superb~

Oh ya, 2007 is Visit Malaysia year :)

Unleash the power

My old desktop died about one and a half month ago. I was processing my pictures on my old laptop. I could not stand the stress. It was just extremely slow. A mentor of mine came to the rescue. He loan me the money to buy a new desktop. He has been helping me since day one I knew him. I will never ever forget your kindness. Thank you~

To SA,

You lead with your wisdom. You are always there when we needed you. You are very generous and friendly to everyone. You bring laughter to everyone next to you. There is no such word as "NO" in your dictionary when people come to you asking for help. May Allah the all mighty repay all your kindness

Its been a great honor working for you~ I wish that our path will meet again in the future.


Now...

Behold...

Unleash the power...


The specifications of the PC is as below:

Dell Dimension(TM) 9200 Core(TM)2 Duo Processor Desktop
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo Processor E6600
2.4GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB
4GB (4X1GB) NECC Dual Channel DDR2 667MHz SDRAM Memory
256MB PCIe(TM) x16 NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) 7900GS w/TV-Out and Dual DVI
22" Entry Wide Screen Flat Panel LCD Monitor (Analog & DVI Only)
320GB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive with Native Command Queuing
Integrated Gigabit Ethernet
Dual Drives 16X Max DVD-ROM + 16X DVD+/-RW with Dual Layer Write Capabilities
Genuine Windows Vista(TM) Home Premium 32 bit (English)
Integrated 7.1 Audio
Dell(TM) WL6000 5.1 Surround Speakers w/subwoofer & Wireless Rear Channel (SG)


More of Jenny M. Ali wedding pics here
Online gallery here

I am going Temburong tomorrow with Reza. I hope I will be able to get a lot of pictures. I really wanted to go there and know more of our 4th district. It is the largest district and the less populated one. Temburong is still covered with 80-90% of rainforest if I remember it right.

Jenny and the Kats~~