Swordie Bloggie

MUGs… there are so many around… all kind of shapes and sizes… in the office, I have one, all of us in the office has one mug each… our office bought them using our petty-cash… and mine, white mug, is the biggest with yellow flower printed on it… I think it was sunflower… and weird, although it already like 3 years old I never took a photo of it… I must take a photo of my mug… I will put it at the bottom of this post once I have it… 😛

There are many customized coffee mugs for sale on the net… and I have been eying for the Canon lens replica mugs… yes, the mugs are the size of the real cannon lens… there are two of them… the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens mug and the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM lens mug. The second one is more like a thermos coz it is taller.

Both of them are not only good for drinking but as display or collectible… and there is also a Nikon replica, but I’m not interested with that coz I’m a Canonian 😀

Canon or Sony?… You must be thinking I’m having problem deciding what camera to choose right?… But NO, I’m not talking about camera… I’m comparing dlp projector for small conference room…. about 25′ x 30′.

The projector must be able to be mounted up-side-down from the ceiling… its going to be permanent on the ceiling so that there is no issue about borrowing and configuring it every time there is an event in the conference room. Anyways, I have not decided yet… 😛

Last Sunday, 13 February, four of us… Disney, Malcolm, Stevenson and Me went to Tuaran & Kota Belud. We have been planning for this trip since last month and we supposed to go on 6 February but unfortunately everyone has plan on that day. We also having difficulty choosing a suitable date for this trip coz of the wet season… we need to have clear sky to take the Mount Kinabalu photo… yea, that was our mission, to take the Mount Kinabalu photos.

The rainy season for almost 3 months already made it uncertain for us to go… unless we all have waterproof cameras then we don’t have to worry about the heavy rain… but still, the mountain will not be visible or clear when it rain and when clouds surround the mountain. But luck was with us on last Sunday… although it was raining the whole day on Saturday, I was surprised to see the sky so clear on Saturday night… I can see thousands of stars on the sky… no clouds… wow… 😀

I woke up around 4.15am and immediately went to prepare for breakfast… all I have to do was make a cup of tea and put the hams and sausages into to microwave oven… I have fried the hams and sausages the night before… I packed the rest of the sausages to bring along for the trip. Disney picked me up around 5.15am and met the rest at KK. We stopped at Mc Donald, Jalan Sulaman to pack breakfast coz the others have not take their heavy breakfast… I bought a cup of tea which I did not drink… but I drank it on our way home around 1.30pm.

The trip was wonderful… the sky was a bit cloudy but it was actually very hot and I received sunburned on my neck. And it was for me to test my new Canon 7D which I just received on Friday after waiting for it for almost a week 😀 That camera is damm good… my old Canon 400D and 40D looks like dinosaur… 😆 All together we stop like five times at five different places to capture the mountain… the sunrise and the clouds surrounding the mountain is very challenging.

Along the trip, we stop at one hanging bridge and saw a family bathing and washing their cloths at the river… we took the opportunity to capture their life. It was great… I feel like going back there next time and do different way to capture their life… Then we stop at Kota Belud Tamu… this is my first time here… and it also a wow… then we had our lunch at the Kota Belud Pasar Tani… the food is damm bloody tasty… and I even got a shocked when we paid for the food… for four of us, the food is just RM16… that RM4 each… In KK it will cost us more than RM25… :O

Then on the way back, we saw funny stuffs too… like excavator bathing itself… I was frozen when I saw it… can’t even lift the camera and snap the moment… then saw an almost accident… a Viva suddenly did an acrobatic in front of us by doing 90 degree and luckily manage to recover while overtaking on a bend… on a bridge… 😛 Then lastly we saw a lion dance show at Mengatal Town…

It’s so horrible to receive the news… the bad news. Yea, I went for the Canon sensor cleaning session at 1Borneo during lunch time today.

The registration counter is next to the Canon booth which is a bit dark… in my opinion the location is not very suitable since there is not enough light although it is right next to the stage. I registered my 40D and it seems that I’m number 7 or something like that.

I asked the guy who is doing the registration how long will it take? He said about 30 minutes… oh, ok, that is not too long. Later I found out he is Mr. Steven from Canon KL, the one who is doing the cleaning.

While waiting for my camera, I went to meet Flenagen at his 999 Portraits Project booth. He also submitted his camera for cleaning. I ‘volunteered’ myself for the 999 Portraits Project… so I did keep my promise to do it 😆 I asked my colleague to participate, but ‘malu malu kucing’ also…

Then I went to check the Canon booth. Nothing special… they selling the EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM for RM4,750.00. I asked if that is a special price… the man from Canon KK said not very special… so I said, I buy it next time… actually I can’t afford it 😆 Then found out the booth is run by Investline… the shop I bought my 40D early this year…

I was about to leave to McDonald when Mr. Steven called me. Cool… finish already. Then he slaps me with the BAD NEWS!!! He said my sensor is dirty… haiyooo… not one year yet dirty already… Then he shows me here and there with his special magnifying tools… he even draw a diagram so that I can see where the dirt is. I don’t see any dirt… maybe I don’t want to see it… I asked if it can be clean, he said can but has to do it in KL… haiya… KL again… How long? How much?… 2 to 4 weeks… if can clean about RM200 – RM300, if cannot still need to pay RM85… Haiyoo… if like this I have to take camera’s insurance… something like the Colorado auto insurance.

But since the dirt doesn’t appear on the photos I took with the camera, he said it is up to me if I want to send it or not. He said I can send it anytime for cleaning or servicing. Since it is almost New Year, maybe I’ll do it next year.

I think it is time for me to learn how to properly take care my gears…

If you own Canon DSLR camera, today is your only chance to have a free cleaning service for your Canon camera… Canon is providing a free cleaning service at 1Borneo today. I got this info from Flanagen blog.

I plan to go there at lunch time today… because my 40D got some dot at the view finder… I’m sure it is not on the sensor because the dot doesn’t appear in the picture but only visible in the view finder… unless my eyes can’t see the dot on the photos, which I hope not.

And my 17-85mm lens also has some dust inside it… I have no idea how the heck it entered there. Maybe the way I’m storing my gears… I’m a lazy bump bah… just dump my gear inside the bag… never take care properly one… same goes with my golf gears…

I hope the dusts can be removed without any trouble… in a short period… because I don’t want to wait there the whole day and I need to finish my scrapbook… yea, I’m learning scrapbooking… you know the new kid of photo album. We don’t use plain photo album anymore… today people are making ‘magazine’ photo album. There are many ways and tools to do scrapbook if you are interested.

But I think if the turnout for the Canon DSLR Cleaning session is good, probably I have to queue up to service my DSLR…

And don’t forget to participate in the 999 Portrait Project just next to the Canon booth. They are trying to snap 999 portraits in a week… and turn it into scrapbook I guess…

Tomorrow, I’m going to borrow a Canon 400D DSLR 😀

Gonna use it to take rains 😀

Can’t wait to play with it 😀