An evening at the beach

Last Thursday, I took the kids and two of their older cousins to the beach. My niece and I wanted to photograph the sunset but the clouds were so thick in the horizon that you could barely see the sun.

Since there was no interesting sunset to photgraph, I took pictures of the horizon and the sky which had some interesting cloud formation.


My niece took many more pictures of the kids playing on the beach than I did. The few that I took did not turn out as well as those taken by my niece. I mostly used my wide angle lens from a distance, so the pictures that had the kids in them did not have them as the main focus.

There's a resort right smack in the rain forest not far from here that we hope to go to once Doug arrives. My niece and I are already imagining the things that we would like to photograph - the waterfalls, the critters in the forest .... !

Frothing!

For the last couple of weeks or so, this is what I usually get every time I want to look at my blogs. I don't know if this only happens to Blogger hosted blogs using custom domain names, or if this problem is unique to my blog using my particular broadband modem, because when I click on friends' blogs using blogspot.com their blogs load without any problem.

The blogger dashboard loads without any difficulty though, except after posting a blog entry, I cannot view the blog - something about error timed out bla bla bla.



But the strange thing is, the cache copy works fine, and the latest post appears in the cache copy seconds after it has been published. I am only able to view my blogs hours later, and then it will do the same thing again.

This is beginning to bug me!

An Evening at Mariner Bay

Last Thursday evening, I took the kids and a good friend to a place by the beach. I wanted to photograph the sunset, but unfortunately the sunset wasn't as spectacular as it could be. You could barely see the sun setting because it was hidden behind some clouds. The colors weren't as bright as they could be either. The presence of the coconut trees in the foreground of my photographs made up for the disappointing sunset!


I did not bring my tripod with me that evening. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the pictures turned out. I am still learning how to photograph things in low light by setting the ISO and the shutter speed myself. In daylight, I usually rely on the auto settings, and be done with it.


When it got quite dark, I set the ISO at 800, turned on the self timer, pressed the shutter and held my breath! In order to minimize shake, of course! Like I said, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the pictures turned out.

After the photography session we had dinner at Taman Selera, a popular eating place down the road from Mariner Bay. I'd heard the food at the restaurant at Mariner Bay was quite pricey, and I didn't need to spend a lot of money to enjoy good food so off we went to Taman Selera.

When Doug arrives at the end of the month, we'll spend another evening at Mariner Bay. I don't think Doug will be willing to spend good money at the restaurant there either!

Street Photography

Since I arrived in Malaysia, I have not done any street photography. I love my dSLR, and it is not as bulky as some other models, but still it is not easy to carry around with you in your purse! Like it or not, I still carry my trusty Fujifilm Finepix point and shoot in my purse all the time.

Yesterday, I took my mother to the ethnic market in town, and it was only as an afterthought that I took out my point and shoot camera.

One thing I noticed, which I never did before because I had never photographed the local vendors, was that not every one liked to be photographed. I tried to minimize anybody's suspicions and distrust by pointing my camera generally and at no one in particular.


However, one lady was upset that I photographed some of the stuff that she was selling. I think what she was most upset about was that she could not charge me for photographing her things though she did say rather loudly to her daughter that if I continued to photograph her things, the daughter should start charging me 10 ringgit for every photo I took!

I think that the law, in Malaysia, regarding street photography in public places is no different than the law in the US. I think that as long as you are in a public place, there cannot be much restrictions on what you can photograph.

Anyway, if somebody is quite adamant about not being photographed, I will try to stay away from such a person! No point getting assaulted over a photograph!

Rainy Days

It used to be that June was the driest month in this part of Malaysia. But it looks like June is no longer the driest month of the year. Two years ago, I observed the many rainy days in June. Likewise last year. This year, in the month of June and in the early days of July, rain is almost a daily occurrence.

I don't mind the rain all that much except when it gets too humid! I love it when there's a nice wind blowing before and after it rains. It makes the day pleasantly cool.

But I would hope that the weather dries up when I am ready to leave the country! I want to be outdoors visiting places around Kuala Lumpur and rain can be a real spoiler for such activities!

So how's the weather in your part of the world?

I miss talk radio

I went for a month without listening to any conservative talk radio. I thought about some of my favorite talk radio personalities but I realized I didn't miss them all that much.

But after a month, I started checking out their podcasts and archives. Then I started listening to a couple of radio stations via internet live stream. I realized that a month was about as long as I could go without listening to any talk radio!

Yesterday and today I listened to KSFO and KTKZ, listening to Brian Sussman, Hugh Hewitt, John Gibson and Bill Bennett. I wished I could stay up late and listen to Rush Limbaugh too, but every night I feel too tired to stay up past midnight. Rush's show only begins at midnight Malaysian time.

I was surprised at how good the connection to the internet live stream was via Celcom Broadband! I don't know if the radio listening will rake up the limit allowed (fair usage policy) but we'll soon find out if there is going to be any curtailing of the internet connection speed, right?

For now, I am enjoying the ability to listen to some of my favorite talk show programs via internet live stream.