I've Been Trying...

... to get into the mood to log my thoughts from the recent trip onto the blog, but so far, it's been a losing battle. Most of the time I'd rather be watching Seasons 1 and 2 of The West Wing on DVD. And Band of Brothers.

Went back to the JC today to drop off the contact sheets and order forms for the class photos. Must say though, I wasn't too pleased with the quality of the contact sheets. For some reason, the prints come out darker than they're supposed to be. And I certainly didn't expect the pictures to be so pixelated just because I reduced the resolution for reasons of space constraints. Well, actually, the thought did cross my mind but I discounted it.

Oh well.

Cooling Down

Haven't really settled back into life back in Singapore after yet another excellent trip to Canada (like Dan, I first have to worry about DVD bills). I have several errant thoughts running through my head at the moment and will attempt to gather and sort them before I turn them into some sort of coherent entry for the blog.

In the meantime, since my return, I've managed to:

1. Screw up my body clock by going to Batam to meet with ex-colleagues who had been sequestered (mostly against their will) in a resort for a staff seminar. I had battled successfully against jet lag throughout the trip and for the first two nights of my return, but staying up -- because we were talking -- until 0330 hours (Indonesian time) to watch soccer (instead of napping first and then waking up at the start of the game) wrecked everything I had going. Still, it was nice to meet up with some of them after six months. Nothing's changed, as was to be expected -- I guess that's why teaching bored me so after five years. Laid some ghosts to rest too. Closure.

1a. Speaking of ex-colleagues. Saw the dead cat that someone had stapled to his head. That, loyal readers, apparently is the Yunnam secret. Yeesh.

2. Still not find anyone who can take two months' off work and travel to Oregon with me next spring for my photo project. But have come to the realisation that 80% of the people in my mobile address book are teachers/ people in the same Ministry. I need to get out more.

3. Sit through a successful meeting, while jet-lagged, with the people who are making a movie in Singapore. Will be documenting the filmmaking process and doing some stills for them. Should be an eye-opener.

4. Finish touching up the first-round of photos from the trip. Giving myself a break before I proceed with a second round of edits.

5. Watch the first 8 episodes of The West Wing on DVD in one sitting. Needless to say, I'm all West Wing'd out for the next week or so. Or not. It'll depend on whether I get to sleep at a godly hour tonight.

6. Miss the switch over to Ars Magica for the weekly game, so either everyone died horrible deaths while I was away, or people got bored.

Final Day

Seems like it was only yesterday I was packing to leave for the Pacific Northwest. This morning, I'm in a fairly respectable room in Hongkong packing for my flight back to Singapore.

Where did all that time go?

Dang.

Updates from the Pacific Northwest

Still safe.

Still alive. About 1200 photos (pretty ones, Chris, gasp!) of the region so far and counting.

Not a bad trip, but I wish I had more time to spend along the Oregon Coast. Took about 300 photos in about 3 hours while still in Newport, Oregon, before the batteries died on me and I couldn't continue. I would have stayed an additional night there if we weren't travelling with other people (Dan and Sprite, to be specific). And I wouldn't have the car either so moving about in Newport would have been a problem; but not too much -- the beaches are beautiful. Unfair thing about it is that Oregon gets the best beaches I've seen so far (much better than Waikiki) but the bloody weather prevents people from enjoying them.

Consolation is, the missus has decided that we could take two months off for us to 'see' all 379 miles of the coast. I'm thinking autumn or spring (should get more dramatic skies and weather during this time). Not summer. Too many people and airfares won't be cheap.

Anyway, have bought about 16 DVDs so far. Will be getting more from Borders tomorrow (where DVDs are, on average, USD14.99 and every three DVDs gets me one more for free -- can't get these kinds of deals in Singapore).

Everyone else is watching 'Before Sunrise' downstairs now. And no matter how liberated I'd like to think I am, I still can't stomach too many chick flicks. So I'm upstairs with a couple of fat cats and on the internet.

We leave in about five days. Not looking forward to returning to Singapore after all these days. (Days. Pfft! Used to be months -- now I'm trapped by days).

Sigh.

Updated at 22:12 pm PST, 12 June 2004:
Oh yeah, will probably be about 5 kg heavier by the time I get back. Had completely forgotten about the serving sizes here and all the good food we can get here.

I mean, this is the land of huge prawns, not that crappy shrimp restaurants have the gall to call Tiger Prawns in Singapore.

And the steaks? Heavenly.

Yeah. Definitely. Fatter.

***

Well, it's official. My hair's gone from blue to green and now all the colour's gone, so all that's left are the bleached parts.

So I'm kinda beng-like now.

Will go to a better colourist when we return. I'm thinking Midnight Blue.

Laws

Does anyone know if Mediacorp is in violation of any intellectual property laws? It's been a year (or more) that they've stopped showing the whole closing credits to all the movies they screen and now they cut the opening theme to 'Friends' off after Courtney Cox?

What the f-?