Flaming Flower

Flaming Flower
Originally uploaded by Badz Manaois

I was trying to upload this photo to my Flickr account when I decided to play around with the filters that come with my GIMP installation. Under the Filters menu, I chose Render --> Nature --> Flame. I tweaked the default settings for this filter and came up with this surreal result. The rendering itself close to 10 minutes; this should be relatively faster on a more powerful computer. The photo somewhat retained its original vivid colors and the soft bokeh. I'm still trying to figure out how to do post processing of my shots; I'll try some infrared stuff later.

Aiza Seguerra @ Singapore Mosaic Music Festival 2009

The 5th annual Mosaic Music Festival in Singapore kicked off last week and will end tomorrow (22 March). This event features a hotchpotch of bands, artists and musicians of different musical genre from across the world. The Esplanade has played host to this modern day Woodstock (sans the booze and drugs) where the musicians play both indoors and outdoors.

I, together with my wife and kids, had the opportunity to watch Aiza Seguerra perform tonight at the festival outside of the Esplanade. The total performer that she is, she was able to captivate the predominantly Filipino crowd with her OPM-laden set. She was a real gem to watch, a dervish with her six-string. Despite the heavy rain before the show and the slight drizzle when it started, the crowd overflowed even to the stairs leading to the Esplanade itself. She closed her set (her first of the night, I wasn't able to watch the last set though) with a tribute to the King of Pinoy Rap, Francis M, who passed away recently. Her rendetion of FrancisM's Kaleidoscope World literally brought the house down.

Here are some of the pictures I had taken including one showing my kids during the meet-and-greet session with Aiza.

Stage with the Singapore Integrated Resort as the backdrop:

Aiza weaves her magic onstage:

Aiza with Amberdawn and Raidon:

Interesting Facts About Singapore

The island-nation of Singapore has been home for myself and my family for the past 8 years. Here are some interesting facts about this little red-dot of a country:

1.       Singapore consists only of one main island and 63 other tiny islands. Most of these islands are uninhabited.  One of the better known of these islands, the Pedra Branca island, was the centre of a territorial dispute between Singapore and Malaysia for almost 30 years. The International Court of Justice, which presided over this dispute, ruled in favour of Singapore when it handed down its decision on 23 May 2008. 

2.       Singapore is among the 20 smallest countries in the world, with a total land area of only 682.7 square kilometres. The USA is about 15,000 times bigger. 

3.       Apart from Monaco, Singapore is the most densely populated country in the world, with 6,430 people per square kilometre. Majority of the population live in public housing HDB towns and estates. 

4.       Singapore became the 117th member of the United Nations on 21 September 1965. 

5.       Symbolism of the National Flag: Red symbolises universal brotherhood and equality of man while white signifies purity and virtue. The crescent moon represents a young nation on the rise and the five stars signify the ideals of democracy, peace, progress, justice and equality. 

6.       The national flower of Singapore, Vanda Miss Joaquim, was first discovered in 1893 by Agnes Joaquim, an Armenian. The orchid is a natural hybrid between Vteres and Vhookeriana. 

7.       The Merlion, a half-fish, half-lion beast, is a fitting symbol of Singapore. The "Singa" or lion represents the animal that a Sumatran prince saw which resembled a lion, and the fish is a tribute to Singapore's history as "Temasek", the ancient sea town. 

8.       Singlish, a Singaporean patois mixing English with the odd phrase of Chinese, Malay and even Tamil, has two entries - lah and sinseh - in the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary. 

9.       Although English is the official working language and the most widely used language in Singapore, the national anthem 'Majulah Singapura' is actually sung in Malay. 

10.   The flying fox, the world's largest bat with a wingspan of up to 1.5 metres, can be found on Pulau Ubin, one of the islands off mainland Singapore. 

11.   Singapore is a stopover point for thousands of migratory birds travelling the East Asian Flyway. 

12.   Arguably the most popular fruit in Singapore is the Durian. It is the only type of fruit that has its own signage, the “no durian” sign, in public buses and the MRT. Rows and rows of Durian stalls line up Sims Avenue near the Geylang area and there are even tables and chairs set up beside the road to accommodate customers who partake on this “king of the fruits.”

13.   The world's first night zoo, The Night Safari, is located in Singapore. 

14.   Despite being largely urbanised, Singapore is the largest exporter of ornamental fish (25% of the world market). 

15.   The Bukit Timah Nature Reserve in Singapore contains more species of trees than the entire North American continent. 

16.   The highest natural point in Singapore is Bukit Timah Hill, which is only 164 metres high (Singapore has a very flat terrain). 

17.   Buildings in Singapore cannot be higher than 280 metres. There are presently three buildings of that height: OUB Centre, UOB Plaza and Republic Plaza. 

18.   The world's highest man-made waterfall, standing at 30 metres, is located at the Jurong BirdPark. 

19.   The largest fountain in the world is located in Singapore at Suntec City. Made of cast bronze, it cost an estimated US$6 million to build in 1997. 

20.   The buildings of Suntec City have been built in the shape of a palm of a hand symbolising good "feng shui". 

21.   In 2003, Singapore's Changi Airport won the award for "Best Airport Worldwide" for the 16th consecutive year from the UK/Europe edition of the Business Traveller magazine. 

22.   The Guinness book record for the longest human domino chain was set in Singapore on 30th September 2000Formed by 9,234 students, it measured 4.2km. 

23.   The world domino topple record (303,621 men) was set in Singapore on 18th August 2003 by a 24-year-old woman from China. 

24.   The Great Singapore Duck Race, an annual event that raises funds for charity, set a new world record in 2002 when more than 123,000 toy ducks took to the Singapore River. 

25.   Russell Lee, a pseudonym for a team of ghost-writers, is the hottest-selling local author in Singapore. His 11 volumes of True Singapore Ghost Stories have sold more than 600,000 copies to date. 

26.   The fastest selling book of all time in Singapore is Hello Chok Tong, Goodbye Kuan Yew: The Untold Story. Written and drawn by political cartoonist George Nonis, it sold 40,000 copies in two months. 

27.   The highest grossing locally made movie of all time is Money No Enough, raking in S$6.02 million in 1998. 

28.   The first Singaporean film to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival was director Eric Khoo's 12 Storeys in 1997. 

29.   British pop violinist Vanessa Mae Nicholson was born in Singapore and moved to England when she was four. 

30.   In Singapore, it is very common to find people queuing. People have queued up for their favourite food (donuts, for example), collection item (the McDonald’s Hello Kitty craze), items on sale, you name it.

31.   More Singaporeans are born in the month of October than any other month of the year. 

32.   The first population census taken in 1824 revealed that the total population was 10,683The 2000 census showed that the population of Singapore is 4.2 million. 

33.   Nearly 9 out of 10 Singaporeans live in public housing flats.

34.   The most common Chinese surnames in Singapore are Tan, Lim and Lee. 

35.   8 in 10 people in Singapore own cell phones. In fact, telecom companies issue new numbers at the rate of 30,000 to 40,000 per month. 

36.   Swimmer Ang Peng Siong was ranked world number one in the 50m Freestyle in 1982. 

37.   The Singapore Sling was first served in 1915 at the Long Bar of the Raffles Hotel. The ingredients are gin, Cointreau, cherry brandy, Dom Benedictine, pineapple juice, Grenadine, Angoustura bitters and limes.

38.   Singapore has more than 3,000 kilometres of roads. Stretched end to end, they can cover the distance from Singapore to Hong Kong. 

39.   Singapore's best showing in the Olympic Games ever was a silver medal won by weightlifter Tan Howe Liang in Rome in 1960. This has since been equalled by the silver medal feat of the Singapore women’s table tennis team in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Composed of Wang Yue Gu, Feng Tian Wei and Li Jia Wei, the team lost to the Chinese team in the finals. 

40.   The highest grossing movie of all time in Singapore is Titanic, raking in S$6.65 million in 1997.

41.   The record for the biggest ever game of pass-the-parcel was set in Singapore on 28 February 1998It involved 3,918 students removing 2,200 wrappers from a 1.5 x 1.5 x 0.5 m parcel. 

42.   The record for the most number of people participating in line dancing was set in Singapore in May 2002 with 11,967 dancers. 

Pursuits in times of indolence

I've been sick for the past few days. I was given medical leave for two days but I guess going back to the office last Friday wasn't such a good idea after all. Then again, my work backlog would have piled sky-high had I not dragged myself back to work that day.

Being idle these past days rekindled my interest in some of the things I used to do a lot in the past (especially when I was away from my family years back). I downloaded the full Visual Studio 2008 Express DVD and started a few small projects, both for work and for fun. I just finished an animated screensaver of my kids photos using Visual C#; nothing fancy but the sort of thing to re-sharpen the "programming" saw, rusty from months of inactivity. I also started on a proof-of-concept for my project in the coming fiscal year which is all about harmonizing our secure and restrictive computing environment in the fab across the Asia-Pacific region; this POC will be a front-end for a CMDB-cum-Baseline Configuration solution. Configuration drifts, especially for those handling the standard operating environment of an enterprise, is a real pain, I tell you. Anyway, I am not a developer so this C# application will just be a rudimentary solution and I will have to hand this over to a "real" developer when the project kicks off. I also finished our login script which is specially crafted for the Vista OS as we are in the midst of deploying this OS, updated my backup-restore script for our users in this migration to include some error-checking routines, plus some Powershell exercises.

Since the TV is glued to either the Cartoon Network or TFC (I'm telling you, this world will soon be ruled by kids and mothers-in-law), I found time to do some sketching. I used to have a sketch pad which I lost when I got assigned in Bangalore a few years back. It had in it a number of doodles, squiggles, cartoons, portraits and what-nots which I've done during periods of boredom inactivity. I just might start on this hobby again; I just need to get sick more often, I guess.

Oh, and yeah, I found time to start a new blog. ;-)

Ad initium

Time's exactly at 5:30 PM when I started writing this initial entry of this blog. I have a lot of ideas in mind at the moment as to what I'll be posting here in the coming days but it was kind of taking me a tough time to get the ball rolling, so to speak. Anyhow, what's best to kick off this one of the millions of blogs on the net trying to etch out a niche but to give a brief description of me, what I do, what I like, and so on.

I am married to a great woman, a father of two wonderful kids, aged 6 and 10, living in the tiny red dot that is Singapore. I work as an IT engineer for a German manufacturing company (yeah, I love my job) doing a bit of travelling across the Asia-Pacific region (and the occasional trips to EU). I love to dabble on new and emerging technologies, specifically in the Microsoft front, to get some sort of a headstart in learning these technologies and be able to utilize these in my day-to-day work. In fact, I will be posting quite a great deal on such topics.

Want more? I love music. I play the guitar and the keyboards. I compose songs (fact is, I wrote one for the wife). I love playing basketball (though I've cut down on this activity lately because of my bum knee and back); you'd catch me shooting hoops at the community center near my place on weekends. I love to cook. And eat! I could go on and on with this, you know.

Let's cut to the chase, there's so much in life to enjoy, to share, and to write about and I cannot wait to start chronicling my adventures!