APAD FTP 2011-01-27

When: Jan 27, 2003
Which: Olympus C2100UZ (with Picnik's Focal zoom effect)
Where: Dallas, TX
What: Keidy crimped my hair and it looked like I've got 5x more hair than usual

APAD FTP 2011-01-26

When: Jan 26, 2005
Which: Nokia 6630 (plus Lomo-ish filter in Picnik)
Where: front door of my Dallas home
What: front door of my Dallas home with a new coat of paint in a colour I picked

APAD FTP 2011-01-25

When: Jan 25, 2010
Which: Nokia N97 mini
Where: at a bus stop in Tampere
What: some graffiti... interesting to see Chinese ones in Finland. wonder what/who they meant by "pretty boy" (美男子)

APAD FTP 2011-01-24

When: Jan 24, 2006
Which: Nokia 6630
Where: in my Nissan Altima
What: checking out the pretty glow of the speedometer with my camera phone. I miss my car...

APAD FTP 2011-01-23

When: Jan 22, 2005
Which: Panasonic FZ20
Where: still in the kitchen after a Texas Massacre
What: Bruce had just chopped up the last of his victims and admiring his handiwork

APAD FTP 2011-01-22

When: Jan 22, 2005
Which: Panasonic Lumix FZ20
Where: kitchen in Dallas home
What: the red bell pepper looking at his (ex) friends, unaware of what was coming his way... *evil laugh*

APAD FTP 2011-01-21

When: Jan 22, 2005
Which: Panasonic DMC-FZ20
Where: home in Dallas
What: series of pics taken while Bruce was cooking. I don't really know how to cook, so it was safer to do something I'm better at. Ingredients for one of his favorite dishes to make: Oven roasted vegetables.

APAD FTP 2011-01-20

When: Jan 22, 2004
Which: Casio Exilim Z3
Where: I think it was somewhere near my piano teacher's house in Plano
What: sunset sky seen while heading to piano lesson

APAD FTP 2011-01-19

When: Jan 20, 2007
Which: Nokia N95
Where: foyer in Dallas home
What: my baby Steinway grand whom I miss so so much

APAD FTP 2011-01-18

When: Jan 17, 2004
Which: Casio EX-Z3
Where: some grocery store (probably Tom Thumb) in Dallas... or maybe Richardson
What: early V-day display with what used to be my favorite drink, Dr. Pepper. (I don't drink much soft drinks anymore, maybe once a week or fortnight... and Dr. Pepper is quite readily available in Finland for that occasional treat.)

APAD FTP 2011-01-17

When: Jan 17, 2010
Which: Canon IXUS 80IS
Where: yet another January day cooped up at home
What: something i was trying out with some pretty purple yarn I bought. I liked the pattern and kept at it for a couple of days, and then got busy (or bored?) and didn't touch it for maybe 2-3 months... when I tried to get back to it and continue, I realized I forgot the stitch "algorithm" i invented. Attempted to knit a few rows but messed it up. Fail. Perhaps I'll get inspired to try again this year?

TPO concert

Went to see a performance by TPO (Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra) on Friday with some members of TASO (Tampere Academic Symphony Orchestra). We were able to get student group discount ticket for 6€ each (usually I'd have to pay 21€ by myself!). This concert was themed "Dream Classics" and was conducted by Kimmo Tullila, who's also our conductor for TASO (he plays second violin in TPO). Works performed:

• Dvořák: Slavic Dance no 8
• Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto no 1 (Joona Pulkkinen on cello)
• Kodály: Dances of Galánta
• Honegger: Pacific 231
• Sibelius: Pohjola's Daughter
• Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture

Only had my N97 mini with me so couldn't take a better picture... this was taken during the Tchaikovsky piece towards the end. The percussionists are playing on 3 chimes... 3!! Amazing sound. A better camera wouldn't have been able to capture the sound anyway. I've heard so many recordings of 1812, but I think this is the first time I'm hearing it live. Incredible. Hope to have a chance to play it someday.

1812 overture. Crazy cool.

After the concert I had the idea to write a musical CV. Stay tuned.

APAD FTP 2011-01-16

When: Jan 16, 2008
Which: Panasonic FZ20
Where: home in Tampere
What: then-using laptops and cellphones. quite different set from currently-using, although again looking to get new laptop and phone, but dependent on my job situation. Been wanting to write a post about my gadget plans but just so busy recently with the whole changing jobs/careers thing. Job hunt feels like a full-time job (plus I'm still working on my current job for another month or so)

top, L-R: Lenovo X61s, Averatec 1020, IBM Thinkpad T43
bottom, L-R: Nokia E62, Nokia E90, Nokia N95

APAD FTP 2011-01-15

When: Jan 16, 2009
Which: Panasonic DMC-FZ20
Where: at home, but drink was bought on a trip to Tallinn (Estonia)
What: Gin long drink, one of my favs, plus energy drink (is that supposed to be the Energizer bunny?). An awesome combination. Haven't managed to find it in Finland (maybe a good thing)

APAD FTP 2011-01-14

Perhaps January in general is just cold and still rather dark, so there's not much desire to go out and take pictures, and even if I was out, the pics probably turn out gloomy, like this one from 2004. I had a Casio Exilim Z3 which was really pocketable so I always had it with me, my second digital camera after the Olympus Ultra-Zoom which was a beast to carry around. This was probably a neighbourhood near mine in Dallas, not sure where I was going, but I was probably clicking while driving, wanting to capture the foggy day. Not much else to say, except hoping for better photos for the rest of this month. Bah.

APAD FTP 2011-01-13

January is a slow month for APAD. When I browse through my old photos, I find very little from January.... hmm, not sure why. It's the beginning of the year, full of new promises, shouldn't I be busy capturing images of every new encounter and experience? Ah well, if there's nothing from the past, I'll create one from the present. As with life experiences. If you haven't had the chance to do something before, and you want to try it, then do something to make it happen. Although I wasn't too adventurous with this one tonight... instead of going outdoors like I planned to, I just started playing with some LED lights and the Mariskooli I got from M&M for Christmas. Such a beautiful bowl. XS with kit lens, cropped and resized.

APAD FTP 2011-01-12

This one is also quite recent, from exactly one year ago. Just wanted to capture the snowy scenes around Tampere city center and my neighbourhood one day. At that time I always carried a Canon IXUS 80 (a.k.a. SD1100 ELPH) in my handbag, so it was responsible for this pic (and others I took that day). This was before I got my DSLR. Still, I'm quite happy with the results.

APAD FTP 2011-01-11

Didn't manage to find a good or interesting photo from past Jan-11's, so I've decided to take a new one for today. As I blogged about that wide-angle/macro lens set in yesterday's apad, I thought I'd use it again for today. However the lenses don't work well with my DSLR for some reason. Maybe need to play with them a bit more, in better lighting conditions. So instead of having a pic taken *with* the lenses, here's one *of* the lenses. Taken with my Canon EOS 1000D (a.k.a. Rebel XS) in Tampere on 11.1.11.

Musical aspirations

We had our first rehearsal of the Spring season last evening. It was a great feeling to be playing with the orchestra again. We started work on a Mahler piece, and while my part by itself is easier than the pieces we played last Fall, the piece on the whole looks trickier. There are lots of small but important details in playing together to get the right balance and sound. It's not just about playing the part well yourself but also listening to and coordinating with one another. One of the reasons I enjoy being in an ensemble so much more than being a soloist.

Another ensemble I'd like to join is the Tampere University Singers. I'm planning to go to the auditions next week. Wish me luck!

Finally, I need to decide if I want to incorporate music into my career, and if so, how I can go about doing it and if such opportunities are available here. Been thinking over things so much these past couple of weeks, my head is about to explode. Perhaps I should go listen to some music now to relax.

Then again, music has always been something for me to relax with, to escape into. If I make it my career, then what do I fall back on when I'm stressed with my job? Hmm, something else to consider.

APAD FTP 2011-01-10

Today's apad is dedicated to my dear friend Gloria after reading her comment on my inaugural apad post. You too can and should start apad posts! You don't have to have pictures from all over the world, there is beauty in everything around us. Capture them, share them.

Well, this isn't exactly beautiful, but rather a messy den in my old house in Dallas. I was playing with a wide/fisheye lens that Roger gave me for Christmas 2006 (pic taken Jan 10, 2007). As you can see it's not super high quality or anything, but a really good lens would probably be 10x more expensive. I like the effects with the lens set (comes with a good macro lens too), and honestly should take it out and use it more. I think the only trip I really used it on was in St. Petersburg. It's a bit heavy and bulky to lug around, in addition to my Pana FZ20 (this pic, St. Petersburg). Now I could try it with my Canon 1000D and see if I get better pics, but maybe not of my messy apartment this time. :P

APAD FTP 2011-01-09

Still in 2003 New York. Can someone help me identify what this is? All I know is that it's near NYU. I think it looks like an abstract rabbit, even shaped like the Chinese word for rabbit (laterally inverted perhaps). Same as the pic from yesterday, this one is by my Oly UZi.

Lake walk attempt 1

Finally feeling more or less recovered after two whole weeks of coughing, sniffing, snorting, having sore throat, itchy throat, dry throat (when i can't breath through my nose), running nose, stuffy nose, headaches... and of course mostly cooped up either at home or at work, I decided I needed some fresh air and spent the afternoon out with a couple of friends.

First up was a movie. (Well, so much for the fresh air, but we'll get more of that later.) "Megamind" in 3D. Very enjoyable, lots of good laughs and nice visuals, even if a tad predictable. Roxanne Ritchie is so cute, I like her sassy hairstyle, but don't know if I dare cut it so short for myself. Maybe come summer I'll try... maybe.

After that we planned to take a walk on Näsijärvi, to the cafe in the middle of the lake. We did end up doing quite a bit of walking, but not on the lake. We were trying to find a good point to enter the lake :P There's almost too much accumulated snow, and the well-trodden path seems to be a bit more East than we anticipated. The last time I went, 2 years ago, was with some other friends and they drove and knew where to go. By the time we had a better idea of where to get on the lake, it was already getting dark (around 3:30pm). Oh well, we'll try again next weekend with a friend who has a car. In the meantime here are some pics from the 2009 lake walk.

Since we couldn't get to the lake cafe, we went to Vohvelikahvila (Waffle cafe) instead and had some nice hot chocolate and waffles. Followed by some shopping before heading home.

Not a super action-packed day, but it was fun to get out for a while. Looking forward to our second attempt next week.

APAD FTP 2011-01-08

Can't sleep, too much on my mind. It's 5am... well, good time as any to do an apad post. This one is from all the way back in 2003, when Ruby, Keidy and I went to New York City together. However this photo was taken on a side trip to Philadelphia. I *think* it was at the Reading Terminal Market but I'm not 100% sure. I liked the bright and cheery warmness inside there where we were grabbing something to eat, in contrast to the cold, drab and dreary weather outside. This was taken with my very first digital camera, the Olympus C-2100UZ.

TASO from fall to spring

As I listened to the recording of my orchestra's performance from last fall, I realized I haven't blogged about the last couple of performances. It seems that I'm always playing catch up with my blog. Either my life is happening much faster than I can write about, which can be a good thing, or that I'm just lazy, which is more probable. (And I have a bad habit of starting a post, leave it in draft, and coming back days later to finish it. But I prefer to keep the original "start" date as the post date. Thus if you see "old" posts suddenly appearing, it's not because you missed them previously :P)

The last time I've heard myself playing was probably the RGS band recording from almost 20 years ago. It's a strange feeling. On the one hand, I'm rather critical and can pick out so many nuances and little mistakes that I'll like myself and the orchestra to improve on; on the other hand, I get a sense of immense pride and satisfaction for the work we have produced, even if it's far from perfect.

Yeah, about the last two concerts in November. They were our main performances for the season. We performed these pieces:
- Mendelssohn: The Hebrides Overture, Op. 26
- Strauss: Horn concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 11
- Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade, Op. 35

First in Jämsä then in Tampere. I think I did better in the first concert, even with a slight headache throughout. The recording however was from the second.

"epic facepalm" (seen on stall wall in school in Jämsä)

I know the above pic has nothing to do with the performance, but I thought it's amusing.

The day before the Tampere concert, we had a rehearsal, and it went very well (for me). Perhaps too well. You'd think that would have helped me with my confidence, but I still got really nervous and clammy-palmed during the actual performance. The audience was a lot bigger than that in Jämsä, plus there were people I know in the audience!! (Huge thank you to those who came :)) So for the first half I was very jittery and made a couple of minor mistakes. Thankfully I recovered somewhat during intermission and was able to do better for Scheherazade in the second half.

After the concert, my friends and I went for a round of drinks in Praha. Well, I had to send them off for the first round and join them later, because I still had to move the timpani and percussion instruments from the stage to storage. Maybe I should consider the question posed by my co-worker the other day: "Why don't you play the flute?" :) Nah, I love being a percussionist. Big, heavy instruments are part of the charm, even if it's a bit more work sometimes (and the orchestra members do help me out a lot). Besides we get to play a variety of instruments, including some smaller ones. Oh that reminds me of this funny video about orchestral percussionists:



Here are some pics I've taken of the orchestra during rehearsals. Probably not too interesting as it's more fun to hear an orchestra. However I can't share the recordings publicly. I guess you'll just have to make it to one of our concerts sometime :)

Can't wait for next monday when we start rehearsals again for spring. New pieces! Speaking of which I'm going to take a look at them now and prepare a bit!

APAD FTP 2011-01-07

I'm starting this thing on my blog called APAD FTP. Nothing to do with either the China iPad clone called aPad / iPed / iRobot or whatever; nor anything geeky such as a certain network protocol. It's just: A Photo A Day, From The Past. I've taken thousands of photos since getting my first digital camera in 2002, and most of them are just sitting on my HDD. This will be a good way for me to dig through my digital memories and share with my readers (yes, all 5 of you!). So today being the 7th of January, I'll search through my past photos for an image taken also on Jan 7th. I have about 24k pics to choose from, but if I really can't find anything interesting enough for that specific day then maybe I'll pick something from the day before or after. If that still fails, I'll take a new picture and it'll not be from the past but from the present. But hey, the acronym will still work!

(If you know how to take a picture from the future, please let me know.)

Anyways, long introduction aside, here's today's selection, taken 2006-01-07 - sunset in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - with my Panasonic Lumix FZ20 (my main camera for the longest time, so I'm guessing most pics will be by it) --

Travels 2010 (re)collection 1

I haven't been doing a good job jotting down my trip memories. Nor sharing the visual experiences from my travels. Let me try to rectify at least one of the problems for now. Over the weekend, while coughing my lungs out, I managed to sift through hundreds (or maybe over a thousand) photos from the first half of last year (is it 2011 already?). And came up with this online album for, hopefully, your enjoyment.





I'm definitely a better photographer than videographer, but perhaps I should start taking more videos if I want to improve. A bit ironical since I've worked on video for a major part of my career in Nokia, and always have a video-capable device on me to capture motion pictures. Although to be specific, I worked on the video player engine, not the video recorder. Anyways, here are the precious few videos that I actually took on those corresponding trips in the album above. They aren't terribly interesting, but at least provides an animated view of a fraction of my travel adventures.











Here are the youtube links if the above embedded content isn't showing up for you:

• Chocolate Museum in Cologne
• Glockenspiel along Böttcherstrasse in Bremen
• Roller coasters and rides in Heide Park

Will try to sort out and upload the second half asap!!

My little grip with Les Mis 25th

I personally prefer the 25th anniversary version to the 10th, although I wonder how much of it is influenced by the better quality visuals and sounds from the Blu-ray disc. It really makes a discernible difference even on my humble 32" LG.

So what problem do I have with it? Nick Jonas. Yes, he's a great singer. Pop singer. But putting him in Les Mis is like throwing a little puppy in a den full of lions. All the lions - young, old, male, female - have grand and powerful roars, and even their grunts or whimpers have more power and intensity than the little yapping barks coming out of Jonas. Cute puppies have their places, and can even have solo concerts on their own which I can appreciate and enjoy. Just don't try to force them in lion roles that they can't fill, and only look silly doing so. Anyone in the ensemble could have out-roared him easily, even if their roars aren't as pretty melodically.

Jonas couldn't move his head much whenever he sings, because even a little shift resulting in a larger distance between his lips and the mic rendered his voice inaudible (again, lack of power). You don't see that problem with any of the other cast members. Thus you get a Marius who couldn't look at whoever he was singing to, e.g. Cosette or Eponine. He sang the whole thing with the same voice (not much variation in tone, volume or emotion) and the same look (seemed to be saying: "Oh lord please let me get through this alive"). Sometimes I can't bear to see/hear him and just want to fast forward through his parts.

When I first watched snippets of the 25th on Youtube, I was a little concerned. But I thought, maybe it's just the bad youtube quality. He'll probably sound better on Blu-ray. However, the better Blu-ray quality only served to emphasize and highlight the difference between him and the rest of the cast. Some people commended his performance in "Empty chairs and empty tables". I liked it too, only because it was a solo and there was nobody else singing with him for compare/contrast. But with most musical numbers, there's a lot of layering and combination of different parts, and the play on the balance and dynamics is what makes musicals so interesting. Nick Jonas, imho, can't provide the balance and dynamics needed for a role in such a musical.

That said, there are so many things to love about Les Mis 25th. Most of all (for me) are Alfie Boe as Jean Valjean, and Ramin Karimloo as Enjolras. Oooh, their voices, their looks... I'm still waiting for the day that a guy with that kind of voice will come and sweep me off my feet.

Edinburgh!

What better way to start off a new year than to do something to lift my spirits and have something to look forward to? Planning a trip of course! Cheap Ryanair ticket to Edinburgh purchased for a 5-day trip in February. I think my last day in Nokia should be around the start of that month. If I don't have a job lined up, it'll be nice to take a break and get away for a few days. If I do have a new job, hopefully I can start end-Feb after celebrating in Scotland. If for whatever reason I can't make the trip, it won't be a big loss (less than 40 eur).

Going to do my Edinburgh/Scotland research now. This is the fun part, well, almost as fun as the trip itself!