Artgerm - Stanley Lau

I stumbled across Stanley Lau's artistic works when I was surfing through DeviantArt and found his work eye catching with superb use of colors. Hard to believe that these are actually digital art, but he's one guy I've been keeping my eye on. Stanley just got his online store going at http://society6.com/Artgerm check him out.

Happy Chinese New Year!!!!

Gosh how time flies. It's already the middle of the month in January 2012 and it's Chinese New Year, the year of the Dragon!

Weather in Malaysia is melting hot everyday with some rain here and there from time to time. But overall it's freakishly hot!

Fireworks are blaring all over as it's now midnight here in Penang. Just had a home cooked Turkey dinner for the reunion dinner, which is weird cause it almost felt like Christmas once again. But dad's cooking is really truly special. Thanks to mum for cleaning up too!

To all my family & friends HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!!

Welcome 2012

Happy New Year Everyone!!

Did anyone actually achieve any of their 2011 resolutions? Well it's that time of year again, 2012 a new year with new resolutions? But who says we can't reuse some of last year's resolutions? Screw those people who say you can't do it. I'm sure you can achieve anything when you put your mind to it.

2011 was quite a year for me and one of the highlights is proposing to my lovely gal Charlene. Thank god she said yes, after the stunt I pulled off I thought I might have scared her off.

Well then let's reflect and enjoy the new year ahead of us. 

Welcome 2012.

GRA Round 4 & 5 2011

For those of you who don't know what Grass Racing Autosports or GRA is, well it's Malaysia's National Autocross Series. Event coordinators Ian Khong and Jian Nin have been running this series since 2004 where the first ever round was held in an empty car park lot just beside Suria KLCC twin towers, needless to say that the parking lot is not there anymore. But when a group of car and driving enthusiasts decided that the car scene needed something Ian quickly decided that it would be possible to have one, the rest is history.

Fast forward 6 years later and GRA is now the only sanctioned Autocross Series in Malaysia. But what really makes GRA special is that everyone who takes part is treated as being part of a community that takes care of each other. For the last few rounds my Subaru has been showing signs of wear & tear and she finally gave up on the 4th round just before the start of the event, to make things even worst I was in the championship so getting every point possible was extremely important. Now without a car I definitely wouldn't be able to take part.

Being in a community means that everyone knows one another and so I had to ask a favor form some of the other competitors to loan me their precious car to me. For Round 4, Victor who drives an Evo7 kindly provided me with a drive, it was my first time driving an Lancer Evolution in a competition. But I must say that Evo's are pretty damn fast when it come to outright power on the straights, so I managed to finish 2nd in Class and 6th Overall in the championship.

 

After hearing that Suby won't be ready for the next round I once again asked the community through facebook this time for assistance. So for round 5 was the last round for the 2011 season I managed to get 3 different cars to take part. The first car I drove was Christopher's MX5, once again I must say that it's my first time driving the car in a competitive drive and it was one lovely drive indeed!. A pure joy to drive the MX5 maybe because it goes sideways so easily but with full control.

 

The second car was from Dixon who is a new owner of a Subaru Impreza, I must say that I was kinda impressed with the power that the engine churned out at high revs, absolutely insane boost. It's almost as though the car wants to kill me!! LoL.

Finally I decided to jump into Victor's Evo7 once again to make up some time and to better my position. This time around Victor managed to fine tune his handling and I'm glad he made some changes, the car was absolutely a breeze to drive as compared to the previous round. I managed to finish 2nd in Class and 3rd Overall for the final round of the year.

That's how close the GRA community is. I'm glad that now only are we all competitors but we all can learn and share at the same time. I would like to say a BIG BIG THANK YOU to Christopher, Dixon and Victor for loaning me their cars to take part in GRA. Thanks a million Guys!!! Also a Thank You to the organizers Ian and Jian Nin for giving us all an opportunity to play around with our toys :)

  Hope to see you guys in 2012.

R.I.P Marco Simoncelli

2nd death in motorsports...a very sad month.

Rest well Marco Simoncelli

R.I.P Dan Wheldon

Congratulations to Sebastian Vettel....

...at age 24 his is now the youngest back to back Double World Champion in Formula 1.

Goodbye Steve...

Quote from Steve :

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” [2005]

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” [2005]

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.” [2005]

To me Steve was a great public speaker. Through his many many Apple Key Note speeches I picked up a little from him to learn to be a better public speaker myself. His legacy will not be forgotten but I will always remember him as a great speaker.

Rest well Steve Jobs.