Ztampfilicious

Heheheh… so pleased with myself, obviously! It arrived yesterday early evening and I spent all night migrating all data, installing the Leopard (it came with Tiger installed – plus the Leopard Install DVD). Well, as soon as my allergy’s gone, I’ll get cracking to create more new ztampfilicious stuff! I’ve checked that Photoshop runs much faster on it – as it should with 2.8GHz processor, 4GB SDRAM and 1TB of space :). I’m still in the process of familiarizing myself to use a desktop – a huge one at that too. For the past 8 years I have been working solely on laptops. So it’s quite a big change, no pun intended!

One thing that I immediately notice: using desktop is more ergonomic for your body. Even compared to using laptop on the same desk/chair which I’ve been doing most of the time anyway. I just have to remember to sit with my back straight up: not easy! But in the long run it will be a good thing :).

Oh and I haven’t really explored the Leopard – but I think I’m going to really like the Space and QuickView. Haven’t tried TimeMachine yet; I’m still reluctant to completely wipe out my LaTjie EHD for it. I think I’m going to explore a bit and after I’m sure that everything is really fine then I’ll run Time Machine with LaTjie as the dedicated EHD for it…

Updates on my allergy saga…

Carin: Thanks, I don’t think mine is Urticaria – but who knows… Xyzal didn’t do anything for me, though. None of the medication did :(. So we’ll see.

Lynn: Wow, internal itchy sounds nasty! It must be very frustrating. I’m glad it was over for you quickly. Thanks, I hope we will find out the allergen soon too…

Anyway, I felt a bit better since I stopped taking the medication. The swelling is practically gone now (only very slightly on my eyelids remain). The itch has gotten less too – although it started to get a bit worse again yesterday, perhaps because I was out and about a lot. Yesterday I got the blood test results: everything is perfectly normal and good! Well, I’m glad but also somewhat annoyed because it means I’ll have to undergo the process of finding the allergen which could take a lot of time, energy and resources. But I really want to find out because it could be anything – which means, this allergy could come back anytime without warning. I would like to be able to take preventive measures so I’m determined to find the cause. The doc referred me to another dermatologist – she said he is very good. I’ve secured an appointment for Monday, Nov. 19 – the earliest available slot! I guess he must be good. I would like to have Skin Prick Test to see if we can find the allergen. I need to find out before my trip to Vermont. I won’t do to have this allergy attack while I’m there! *knock on wood*

Well, wish me luck so I can get back to creating Ztampf! things again soon!

It’s been over a week since my last entry; my allergy (or whatever that is) really slows me down a lot. The medication doesn’t give me any relief from the itch and now the skin on my arms and parts of my legs and body are textured like orange peel or strawberry skin. I love textures, but not on my skin! To make matters worse, it looks like I’m allergic to the medication too! Aaargh!!! So for the past couple of days I got swollen eyelids and face – they’re still swollen now :(.

So I’ve decided to stop all medications. They are not addressing the cause as the doctors don’t know it themselves. The function of the treatment is to repress the itch and it is not working for me. They’re giving me new problems instead! On top of everything else, my skin now has become hyper sensitive. It’s a real challenge to find clothing that won’t irritate it. Any slightest roughness i.e. on the inner seams would make my condition worse. Perhaps I should shop for all things silk with impeccably soft inner seams and replace my entire wardrobe with them! Anyone willing to fund me for this? LOL

Anyhow, last Wednesday I had some blood test done; since my itch is all over the body it might be caused by something internal/systemic disease i.e. liver malfunction or anything that causes toxins to build up in the body. It is possible that it’s not allergic at all, which might explain why the medications didn’t work. The blood test result won’t be ready until this coming Thursday. They took 6 ampules of blood – they’d better be able to tell me something definite about my ailment.

For now I just drink plenty of water, have a lot of fruits, restrain myself from having any coffee and chocolate (tough!), keeping cool (temperature wise, that is!) and try not to scratch so much…

In case anybody is wondering, the medications are Semprex and Hydroxyzine. I googled Semprex and found out that it is known to have side effects and might cause allergic reaction! I was flabbergasted! How come any of the doctors (or the dermatologist) didn’t warn me of this possibility while they very well knew that I develop this new allergy – that we don’t even know what caused it. It could be anything. At the very least, they should have told me… Oh well! That’s what Google is for, I guess – among many other things!

Anyway! Thanks for those sending me get well emails, much appreciated :). Lynn, I hope your allergy has gone. Yulia, how’s your allergy now – have they pinned point the exact allergen? 3/4 of 30 is a lot! Depending on my blood test on Thursday, I might get a skin prick test. Wish us both luck! Gayle, thanks for the link. I’ve checked my mattress and beddings – and found nothing like described as bedbugs… So at least we know that it’s not bedbugs.

Enough about this wretched topic. I wanted to share these with you – they are my designs produced by Inque Boutique. They basically purchased my designs straight up. If you’re into stamping and paper-crafting, do check the stamps out! They are available both online and off line across the US. I have to admit that I like their system: combining the best features of rubber stamps and clear stamps. You can click on the images to visit the Inque Boutique website.

And guess what! Did you notice any changes at Ztampfest Gallery recently? Check out the links on the right here on the blog… Under the Z!Girls Galleries… Yes! We have a new Z!Girl! She is Donna, whose gorgeous works most of you have seen during the Ztampf! 2nd Weekly Challenges. We’re all very excited to have her as part of the Z!Team.

Well, I haven’t been designing at all for the past weeks because of the allergy. I do have a few new things in progress – I hope to be able to finish them within the next few days. Thank you for your patience :).

Now please wish me well a.s.a.p. This has been going on for too long…

It’s been a week since the last entry! What’s up? Well, something weird is happening with my body. Somehow I have developed an allergy to something that has yet to be found. It all started at the beginning of this month… just a harmless little itchiness above my left wrist. But then I noticed a splatter of tiny reddish bumps there. Hmmm. Insect bites? I didn’t give it much thought until a few days later when I noticed similar itch and bumps on my right arm, above the wrist – almost symmetrical to the left one! Within a week, it got so much worse – all the way up my arms…

So I’ve been to a doctor twice and to a dermatologist once. So far none of the medication seems to really work. The new medication did ease off the bumps but new ones still appearing here and there… Spreading to my legs and parts of my body. Never mind how my skin looks now… I know one day it will smooth itself out. But maaan… it’s so itchy all over! Although I know that everything must come to an end which means this itchiness will come to an end one day, it is still a royal PITA indeed! What’s worse, it disturb my sleep too so I’m not getting enough sleep although I go to bed early (an achievement for me, the chronic night owl!).

The thing with allergy is that there are thousands of possible allergen. To pin point exactly what it is could take a lot of time, time and resources. So for cases like me – which considered to be not so bad, most doctors would just choose the take the short cut. That is, easing off the allergic reaction without really knowing the cause of it.

Now, allergy could happen suddenly. Things or food that you have been having all your life could out of the blue become allergen. Your body simply decided to react badly to them. I’m worried that this is the case with my allergy because I can’t recall having anything new/unusual around the time I first got the itchiness. Then the possibilities are wide open… it could be anything! Although… according to the dermatologist, judging from my itchiness it doesn’t seem to be from food. Food allergy usually give wider reaction, i.e. retching, dizziness, swelling and such. So I guess my condition is not so bad indeed.

But still… what could it be the cause? A mystery to solve! If I don’t know what it is, then I can’t do anything to prevent it from happening again! And trust me, it’s a royal PITA to have this itch all over your body!

Ohkay. Enough about that unpleasant subject. Let’s move on to something more useful and fun! Have you heard about TrailFire? I found out about it from Heidi of DigiscrapInfo.com. You can read about it here. It looks like a useful thing to implement so I gave it a try!

I’ve always wanted to see how my kits are being used by my customers (you!) and from time to time I’m lucky enough to see them on public galleries such as DST or SBB. Some of you would give me links or even uploaded your layouts to Ztampfest Gallery. But what if we could build a list of layouts done using certain kits that everyone can add to and view! This will create a good inspiration source too!

For example, here I made a trail for Phrench Phoebe Layouts:
http://trailfire.com/fhung/trailview/48120

If you’re registered at TrailFire, you can add to the list! See how easy it is done. I like the nifty buttons – very clever! In the future, I might add more trails for each kit so if you need more inspirations for using certain kits, just visit the trail and you can see various layouts from various sites, not limited to Ztampfest or DST or SBB or wherever:).

I’ve also created this trail: Mac Tips’n Tricks – for Mac users like me. I hope they will find it useful!

To see all the Trails that I’ve created so far, you can visit: http://trailfire.com/fhung/. I’m still building them. I think that over time it could be a handy valuable cross-reference vault that is accessible from anywhere on the net :).

And speaking of Mac… Leopard is unleashed today! I’ve been waiting for it for so long! You know what my plan is? I’m going to get myself a top of the line iMac. 24″. 2.8 GHz. 4 GB RAM. 1 TB HD space. Yes, I need a really powerful machine for my kind of work. Large display will help too! I’ve been doubting over whether to get a desktop or not since the last time I was using desktop was in 1998, on a PC. After much reconsideration… I decided that yes, a desktop will work best for me. So as soon as the iMac is shipped with Leopard inside, I’ll place an order at Fortress. What is Fortress? It is an electronic shop chain in Hong Kong that offers 2-year interest free installment plans when you spend over HKD 2,000 (USD 255). Isn’t it just great? That’s my secret why it seems so easy for me to just decide: “I want the top of of the line iMac available out there!” :D.

Now… the Ztampfans Challenges. I’ve made a boo boo which you can read about in Ztampfans Group @ FaceBook. But more importantly, the voting is now begun! Go there and vote for your favorite layout! The lucky winner will get a $20 Gift Certificate to be used at http://ScrapSupply.com!

And I made a new layout today using my new halloween stuff:

Well, that’s it for now! TEO is just back with chocolates and DVDs for the weekend! He’s cooking dinner now – I’d better go to the kitchen and harass him a bit ;).

Have a wonderful weekend, Everyone! Wish me luck so the allergy will go away soon!

Lebaran for Moslem people is akin to Christmas Day combined with New Year’s Day for Christians. My country Indonesia has a large number of Moslem – one of the largest in the world, actually. Indonesian government recognizes 4 other major religions beside Islam: Catholic, Protestant, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

The Islam in Indonesia in general is a moderate one, therefore Indonesian people enjoy a relatively peaceful co-existence between religions. However, there were from time to time violent attacks and riots happened between the Moslems and Christians. These are mainly orchestrated by some radicals – unwelcomed by the majority of Indonesian population. There have been some increase and worries about the development of these radical groups. They want to turn Indonesia into an Islam State – by any means. Oh the horror!

I have many Moslem friends in Indonesia. They are wonderful, peace-loving people. They totally disapprove of those radicals and the violent means they employ. I hope Indonesian moderate Moslems will consolidate themselves and raise against the horrible radical movements so peace co-existence between religions can prevail…

Today is Lebaran Day. Idul Fitri. Devout Moslems would abstain themselves from eating and drinking from sunrise till sunset for 30 days prior to the Lebaran Day, the day the celebrate the power of their faith to control their worldly desires.

Wishing all my Moslem Friends a very peaceful and happy Idul Fitri!
May compassion and wisdom will bring lasting peace in this world…

Credits:
Background paper: Art Scene Paper Pack
Journaling label: Journalicious
Oval label and metal bar fastener: Soaring Kit
Flourish element: Balinesia ARTiStrokes
All by Lie Fhung of Ztampf.com
Fonts: TXT Sloppy Script, Prestige Elite Standard and Awkward

It’s been a very busy weeks with the girls here and I haven’t got much time to designing. Nevertheless… you can expect a couple of new stuff appearing at the shop by this weekend ;). More Calendar Kits will be ready by next weekend too!

Anyway, the girls had a wonderful time during their 2 weeks visit here and they didn’t feel like to leaving. We spent most of the time yesterday shopping stuff for Phoebe’s exchange program to France in November. We took some family snapshots and had a very delicious pepper steak dinner that Timothy cooked for us. After dinner we spent a long time chatting and joking – it was great fun! They are such funny and wonderful girls!

And today they were supposed to fly back to Melbourne. We all got up very early; their flight was at 9 a.m. Alas, Phoebe started throwing up in the middle of the night… and it continues this morning so they get to extend their stay after all! Poor girl, she is now lying down on the sofa with her father keeps her company. If she didn’t get better by noon, we’ll take her to a doctor…

While checking up on her earlier this morning, I caught a magnificent view of the sunrise… I particularly love the way the sun rays fell on Hong Kong island and the way it looks peeking out from behind the clouds!

And here are the pictures we took last night – can’t wait to scrap them!

Oh, don’t forget to join the Week 3 Challenge! There are some really beautiful entries already!

DEADLINE to post your entries: Oct. 06, 2007 – midnight, New York Time Zone before Sun, Oct. 7.
To see what time is it now in New York, click here.

3 lucky scrappers will win the following:
• a Ztampf! $135 Gift Certificate
• a KOLO Cortina Mini Album shipped to your address – cute for keepsakes to carry around in your purse!
• a KOLO 10% Off Discount Coupon to be used at http://mykoloalbum.com – a gorgeous and flexible alternative for printing your digital layouts. Read more…

Happy Scrapping and Good Luck!

It’s been a busy time here with the girls visiting. They are now officially teenagers! Woohooo…! This is their 6th time visiting Hong Kong now – and they’re itching to do something different. One of the things that they still enjoy doing is of course: shopping! Another thing that we can do now that I have a proper studio is to make things together! They want to get a CIAK sketch book with black cover to customize with stamps etc. as I did mine. We’ll do it this weekend!

Today they went to Ocean Park with their cousins. I stayed home to get some work done – and I got a terrible headache too! Ugh! I’ve got the report from their father via SMS that they’re having fun with the scary rides! Yeehaaa…!

Now, I’d like to share more pictures from the CIAK event taken by the CIAK people themselves: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=5187&l=ddb75&id=611087724

There you can see other designers’ beautiful and interesting work ranging from action-figure designs to handbags to dolls, etc. Check it out! It’s quite inspiring!

It was Mid-Autumn Festival on the 25th. It’s been raining, cloudy and hazy for days… Fortunately, the sky cleared up by late afternoon as if by magic and the majestic moon climbed up the sky beautifully! We went down to the Plaza and the beach where people were celebrating the festival. Everyone had Glo-in-the-dark sticks – it was quite a pretty sight! Too bad I didn’t bring my tripod with me so the photos are not so great.

Moon Rising…

At the Beach…

At the Plaza…

Disneyland Fireworks…

Oooh… and there’s another thing I’d like to share here! T baked a traditional Irish brown bread for the first time! Well, this was the first time he ever bake anything! Look… itsn’t lovely? It tasted good too! Next he’ll have to learn how to make the perfect merengue for me ;). Cripsy on the outside and chewy-soft in the inside!

24 Sep. 2007 – TEO’s Bread

What is CIAK?

CIAK is a brand of handmade notebooks from Italy. They have nice leather cover with practical elastic closure. You can see their range of wonderful products at their website.

I was among the 19 artists/designers invited to participate in the CIAK Asia Tour Exhibition: ‘Create’ – Ideas Are Meant To Be Realized. Each artist/designer is given a CIAK notebook of their choice to use to sketch ideas. This notebook is then displayed in the exhibition along with a sample of the artist/designer’s finished work/products. The opening was on the 20th of September at LOG ON, Festival Walk in Kowloon and I attended it. It was fun and interesting to see how others used their CIAK notebooks.

I customized mine by adding a handle that I made using a thick gross-grained ribbon. I then stamped and heat-embossed the cover with Ztampf! ClearStamps images. I rubbed stamping ink in several different colors directly on the leather to create a nuance of colors and I really like the way it turned out. Inside, I drew some sketches to show how the ideas for some of Ztampf! products were formed and developed. Print out of some Ztampf! products are displayed alongside my CIAK notebook.

There are artists/designers from Japan, US, Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong. I got to talk to 2 of them, both are from Hong Kong. One is Carrie Chau, a famous illustrator and the other is May King, a fashion/bag designer. There are quite a lot of action-figure designers too!

I will post some more pictures later!

It is a sunny day today, albeit hazy. The weather has started to cool down a bit which is such a pleasant and much welcomed change after the super sticky hot summer days… Autumn is on its way and it is my favorite season in Hong Kong because the weather is just cool, not too humid and not as many rainy days.

I went to the city yesterday! Had to shop for birthday presents: for my dear man, TEO and for my dear friend, YK. So we met up later for dinner at a Tuk Tuk Thai on Graham Street in Central. They serve inexpensive scrumptious Thai food and is one of our favorite restaurants. We had a good laugh and lively conversation over dinner with two of TEO’s colleagues. It was an enjoyable evening!

Here are the 2 layouts I did yesterday – click on the images to see larger versions with detailed info:

Oh and I have just uploaded another version of the Ztampf! CraftyCalendar 2008 Kit: Global English Version with the Weeks start on Monday for UK and Australia. I myself much prefer this version too. I like having my weekends to be cloistered together.

And guess what! Ztampf! 2nd Birthday is coming up next weekend! A celebration is in order and you can be sure that something exciting and fun are brewing ;). So stay tuned!

Monday is here again! How was your weekend? Mine was pretty fun! We had dinner over at our best friends’ place with some other friends. We haven’t met any of them for a while so it was extra fun. Not to mention how delicious the meal was. You see, it was called the “Garlic Feast”. Mei Ning and Josh have just been back from their summer trip to Pender Island in Canada and they brought back various types of fresh, organically grown garlic from local farms there! Mei Ning is a terrific cook, she cooks mean dish – especially chinese food. But she also cooks delicious western food or anything in between. Too bad I forgot to bring my camera with me that evening… so no photos to share with you on how great the food was! Well, you’ll just have to take my word for it: the “Garlic Feast” was a huge success! We came home very well fed and feeling content with the world :). Oh and she gave us smoked salmon and ‘candied salmon’ as well as a whole piece of garlic to take home. Yummm! And she gave me a pair of pewter earrings in traditional native motif of an eagle head! Thanks, Mei Ning!

Any of you are Mac users? Do you back up your files often? Well, I have a weird experience in backing up this weekend. My new LaCie EHD came with LaCie SilverKeeper backup software. I’ve used this software a few years back and was pretty pleased with it. It’s free to download from their website and made for Macs. So I made a complete backup of my entire laptop’s content to LaTjie – the whole Macintosh HD. When I’m done, I deleted the Applications folder in LaTjie since I won’t really need it and it took up plenty of space. And then I worked with EmB (my laptop, do you remember?) as usual and performed a Sync Backup between EmB and LaTjie. Naturally, EmB is the Source/Data and LaTjie is the Destination/Backup. The expected result, logically speaking, would be: LaTjie should then have the same content as the updated EmB.

But what happened was: the files that I have deleted from EmB which were still on LaTjie from previous backup session were then copied back to EmB after the SilverKeeper Sync Backup! This is ridiculous! But what’s even more ridiculous… although I’m still not 100% sure what really happened here is that I’ve lost all the entry in my Address Book! Now, this is just too weird. I didn’t do anything that warrant such result. So the suspicion fell on the SilverKeeper Sync Backup which after all has done a ridiculous thing by copying back deleted item to the Source from the Destination – which it shouldn’t do. I was bewildered! It’s so distressing if backing up your files messed up your files instead! So far looks like it’s the only thing that was affected. I hope it will stay this way.

Anyway. So I have to look for alternatives to smartly backing up my files properly. And I found this site: http://maczealots.com/articles/backup/. Looks very promising and helpful. The entry is recent – which is important for stuff like this. I’m now trying to choose between SuperDuper! and Synk Backup. I’ll download their trial versions and decide from there, I guess. Synk seems to be more powerful with a lot of customization/control features. The best part is that Synk “offers a technology called ZeroScan, which eliminates the need for Synk to scan your entire hard drive for changes before running your backup. ZeroScan works by running in the background while you are using your Mac. Each time you make a change to a file, ZeroScan makes note of it. When your backup is run, Synk is able to read the information gathered by ZeroScan to make a backup of only the files referenced. The benefit is a faster backup experience compared to other applications, but it only works on the local machine.” And then there is this CrashPlan – it’s a unique off-site backup system that I have yet to study further in order to fully understand how it works (in practical terms, of course!). Well, I’ll definitely keep you all updated with what I found on these :).

Next. Facebook. Yup, somehow I’ve gotten into the Facebook world. I was skeptical at first. I already have a Friendster and a Multiply – I’m not very good at keeping them updated. But Facebook is different in many clever ways. I love how they make it easy, fun and quick to connect with others and to update things. Everything is delivered in neat little parcels that flow nicely bewteen each other. It’s so easy to get absorb into it. So be warned ;). Warnings aside… I would like to invite you all to join me at Facebook: find Lie Fhung and add me if you would. I have also set up a Ztampfans Group there. I think it would provide a fun alternative to keep in touch and to exchange news, discuss things, suggestions, ideas, etc. between us all. I plan to host some fun stuff there too! So have a look – there are already a lot of digiscrappers there. You’ll find some familiar faces there for sure :).

Yeah! Finally managed the re-organizing of my files! My filing system is not perfect – but I think it’s pretty efficient. Anyhow, I’m happy to get back to designing some new stuff again :). It’s funny how I’d get the violent itch to create if I haven’t been making anything even for just a couple of days. It’s not about work, it’s about creating. So it’s no wonder that my motto is “I create therefore I am“. Hmmm… I should find out how to say this in Latin ;).

So I have tidied up my work space a bit. Have set up my new LaTjie EHD – placed it neatly beside the old Maxsparkz on the IKEA’s Racken trolley beside my desk. Here… I’ve made a couple of layouts on them (click to get the credits detail):

Of course, I used my new PS CS3 to create them :). I haven’t really explored the new features but so far so good. I really like the new Bridge though, the improvements and new features are so obvious and so useful! Except that for a while it kept on crashing whenever I quit the application. Turned out there were some updates that I had to install – you’d think such a clever program like that would automatically notify you on such matters huh. But anyway it’s closing down properly now.

So… what have I been designing? Well, I finished my contribution for SBB September’s Elements Team Kit. As you might have known, I’m a member of SBB Elements Team. The E-Team collaborate to create a big kit unified by a certain theme and color swatch that each of us is taking turn to create. I really like the Sept. one – watch out for the kit to be available at SBB in September!

And then I made a new kit that I’m quite pleased with. However… this kit won’t be available for sometimes because it’s created exclusively for a very special project that I’m not allowed to disclose yet! This project involves many other designers too… but that’s all I can say about it for now ;).

Now it’s 2:41 a.m. here… I should go to bed, don’t you think?

So! Where have I been the past couple of days?

On Tuesday early afternoon, I went out to pick up my new LaCie 500GB EHD. I made a special trip to the city just for this. And boy, I was so mad when the sales guy told me that the goods wasn’t there yet. I mean, they should have rang to let me know; they got my number! What a waste of my time! And I was so looking forward to it because I couldn’t do much work without the much needed extra space. I did tell them that when I placed the order last week. Hmmph! I couldn’t help but to let out a frustration groan which resulted in people turning their heads towards me with a surprise look… Oh welllll… So anyway, the sales guy promised to deliver it to me as soon as they got it. Which at that point they still didn’t know exactly when. Great. So I went back home straight away, fuming all the way on the ferry and on the bus. I rang them later on and they told me that they managed to get a hold of one LaCie 500GB EHD and will deliver it to me the following day – in the afternoon. Pheeew! I must say that I felt relieved that I didn’t have to wait for days!

So… Wednesday. I spent the morning and early afternoon in my studio upstairs working on a non-digital project (more on this later). The new Playdock from TEO accompanied me as I heartily sang along to Sinéad O’Connor, Fiona Apple, Tori Amos and Nina Simone. At around 3:15 pm I quit the studio and rang the sales guy to make sure that the delivery was happening. He assured me that their driver was on his way to my address. It should take about 1 hours to get here. So I waited. And waited. And waited… Almost 2 hours have passed with no updates from them. So I rang the store again. Finally they told me that the driver was boarding the ferry right then so he should reach me a little before 6. And so he did. I was so relieved and excited to finally got my EHD!

I unpacked it straight away and set it up beside my old Maxtor (AKA Maxsparkz). It took me a while to get it all to work because the cables that came with the LaCie were all very short because it was designed to be used with a Mac Mini stacked on top of the EHD while I’m using it with my MacBook Pro. Fortunately, the cables from the Maxtor are long enough. After some considerations, I decided to use USB with the Maxtor and FireWire with the LaCie – since FireWire is faster and the LaCie has twice as much space than the Maxtor. Organizing the crisscrossing cables underneath my desk was quite sweat-inducing but I was very pleased when it’s finally done. I hate clutters (not that I lack any! LOL!).

Now the *real* organizing agony begun! I have so many files in both my EmB and Maxsparkz EHD. I’ve been using Maxsparkz as extended HD for EmB for quite a while now. A lot of the files in the Maxsparkz got no backups. Scary thought, huh! So I was anxious to back things up a.s.a.p. As things in life are changing and developing, the way I organize my files should be adjusted and kept compatible if I am to have an organized space – which I really want and need.

LaTjie & Maxsparkz – side by side on the Racken trolley besides my desk (in case you’re wondering, the trolley is actually for bathroom use but I found it to be perfect as a desk-companion!

The innards under the desk – I try to keep them off the ground. Don’t you wish everything is wireless!

My (messy) work space @ a glance. The EHDs are hidden, you could glimpse them a bit on the lower left there. The desk extension on the right is actually a shelf. You can see my CraftyCalendar sits there! Of course, trolley + desk + shelf are all from IKEA! Oh and it’s my scanner there perched on top of an IKEA chest of drawers. Can you spot more IKEA stuff in this picture?

But then it’s dinner time! TEO has cooked us some deep fried fish served with some ‘sambel’ (hot chili sauce), bread and salad. Yummy! But I was anxious to get back to my desk to continue with re-organizing my filing system. So after dinner I started copying things from Maxsparkz to LaTjie (Latjie is laci in the old, dutch-influenced Indonesian spelling system). It took quite a long time because there are just sooo… many files! I washed the dishes while waiting.

Guess what! I ended up staying all night long re-organizing and backing up files between EmB, Maxsparkz and LaTjie. When this was done, I installed my Adobe CS3. There were some problems during the installation so I had to reinstall which took hours and hours… But! I’m so happy that at least my virtual desktop and space are now tidy :). I’m so ready to get back to work… I will need to customise my work space and preferences at Photoshop, Bridge etc. From what I’ve glimpsed so far, it all looks promising! For one thing, Photoshop does start up and close down much faster than previous version. Can’t wait to *really* try them all out! But it’s lunch time soon…

So here are some snapshots I took yesterday on my birthday…

Timothy cooked this for us: bagel + smoked salmon + poached egg. Accompanied by the usual chocolaty coffee he prepared every morning for me. Scrumptious!

And this is my birthday present from him… Cool iPod dock eh! I’m going to use this in my studio upstairs. I really have to get back working there again one of these days…

And this is the Indonesian dish Timothy cooked for my birthday dinner. Although he used mostly ready-sauce from the Ind0Shop, it was still very good! I do miss Indonesian food sometimes! The Ayam Goreng Kuning turned out to be quite authentic tasting too!

On the left is the Sambel Ulek Terasi (Chili sauce with shrimp paste and garlic), that little bottle is Kecap Manis (sweet soya sauce). Then it’s the Ayam Goreng Kuning (Yellow Deep Fried Chicken) and Tahu Goreng (Deep Fried Tofu). He also cooked a pseudo-chinese veggie dish wasn’t pictured here.

And finally… The birthday girl with her birthday cake… I just had a shower; it was so humid. My hair still a bit wet, but who cares :).

And here is my birthday cake! A chocolate lemon meringue pie. I love meringue cake but it’s so hard to find – especially those with mainly meringue in them! This one wasn’t bad. Quite yummy indeed. And those are my birthday candles. LOL!

It’s my birthday today! We got up very very late – we went to bed much later last night than usual. We stayed in watching a DVD – and the big storm raging outside. The movie was Director Cut’s “Blade Runner” by Ridley Scott with Harrison Ford, Sean Young and Daryl Hannah – I saw it when I was 14 y.o. and it’s interesting to see it again. We discovered some plot weaknesses none of us aware of the first time we saw it (he in his hometown in Drogheda, Ireland; I in my hometown in Jakarta – none of us knew of each other then, of course!). It was fun to see how then (in 1982) the year 2019 seemed like a long time away. But here we are in 2007 and the world hasn’t changed all that much – not as much as the sci-fi writers imagined anyway. The special effects in the movie were pretty cool though!

But it was the storm that was truly impressive! We saw huge lightning striking across the sky several times. The whole night sky lighted in an eerie way. It cleared up after a few hours, leaving the sky sparkling clean. As we’re in the 80’s nostalgia mood, we went on watching 80’s music video clips on YouTube. It was very amusing and we were brought from Boy George (remember Karma Chameleon?) in the 80’s to Sinéad O’Connor in the 90’s, back to Thin Lizzy in the 60’s.

It was several hours after midnight then but my husband insisted that he’d only give me my birthday present in the morning after we wake up, before breakfast! Oh well!

And so we woke up very very late. Okay, I’ll tell you how late. 11:30 a.m. *That* late! Disgraceful! But it’s Sunday and it’s my birthday! So who cares, right? :). In case you’re wondering, I’m turning 38 today! I don’t feel like I’m 38 though… I wonder perhaps most people don’t really see themselves as ‘old’ as their actual age. Do they?

Anyway! It was a sunny day! Yoohooo…!!! And I got an iPod Docking Speaker from my husband! It’s a PlayDock i500 from Creative. Very cool and stylish. I’ll use it in my studio upstairs with my old iPod (it’s a used 3rd generation iPod from my brother. It’s great having a brother who must have the latest version of stuff – I got all the older versions. Can’t complain though ;)). Then we had a nice breakfast that my husband prepared for us.

Now it’s after dinner. It was a lovely one. My husband cooked us an Indonesian meal in honor of my birthday. True that he used mostly ready-made sauces and stuff, but still… it’s delicious!!! We had “ayam goreng kuning” (yellow fried chicken) with deep fried tofu and ‘pseudo chinese-style’ veggie dish. We loved it. But the amount of washing up to do in the kitchen afterwards was just …ugh! Well, lucky for me since it’s my birthday, I didn’t have to do it. My husband did it. But he said he won’t cook any Indonesian meal ever again if he had to do the washing up himself! LOL!

Well… it’s very humid and sticky here. We’re going to have shower soon. I took some pics of today’s stuff, will upload them later.

Meanwhile, here’s a layout I did yesterday afternoon – click for larger version and detailed info as usual :):