Yes, after my first experience travelling to Chicago back in 2009, I was back there again but this time for only a week and most of the time I was located at the Q Center. This time travelling there was a little bit more pleasant but I had to take a horrendously long route. Kuala Lumpur to London and then to Chicago. 23 hours in total and 2 hours of transit at Heathrow Terminal 3.

Since I was mostly held up at the Q Center, I decided to walk around the area to capture a bit more of the scenery in the area whilst I was waiting for the shuttle bus to bring me to the Premium Shopping Outlets. Damn, stuff there are very cheap. Managed to get a new suitcase (after Air Asia broke my old one) from Samsonite as well as sunnies from Oakleys there.

If there are 4 people travelling from the airport to the training center, the taxi service will send you a limo. I kid you not!





The training center used to be a golf course and near the entrance lies the 18th hole which is a par 3.





At this distance, I don't think I can hit it straight to the green let alone cross the lake thanks to the damn lake and how I am afraid of hitting the ball into the water.







Tallest building in the whole area, that was where I was housed which was conveniently above the dining hall where there are 3 buffet lines available for all 3 meals!



Located next to the training center is a river, its called Fox River and I am not too sure if this is the same Fox River from Prison Break. Of course after a quick Google, Fox River Penitentiary was actually a fictitious place but it was located in Illinois.



The weather there was fantastic in July with temperatures hitting 28 degrees on a high and averaging around 23-25 degrees.

The flight back however from Chicago was less than entertaining. I had to travel for 28 hours, door-to-door, meaning from the Q Center till my apartment door. This included a nice 6 hour transit in India which I think they should revamp their system allow transit passengers to roam in the departure hall where all the lounges and shops are while we wait for our tickets to be processed.

If you have noticed my posts lately, I haven't been for any photography workshops for a while already and not because I have stopped learning but I am a little more selective in what I want to learn and also pursue a new area in photography as well. When I received an email via WPPM that Nigel Barker was having a workshop here in Malaysia, the very first thought that came to my mind was, "Who in the world is Nigel Barker".

Of course, thanks to Munz who was next to me at that time, she told me who he was!

Anyway, for those of you who still don't know who he is, Nigel is a judge on Tyra Bank's reality show called "America's Next Top Model" which he does on top of other stuff as well. But most importantly, he was a photographer. A good portrait and landscape photographer as well, stronger in the field of portraiture in my opinion.

And the next thing I noticed was that it was not his workshop but more like a 1-day seminar. He had a workshop in Langkawi but it was held during the weekday and it fell during the same time I was away in Chicago hence it didn't really suit me (ok, the price was the main deterring factor as I knew I couldn't afford if :P).

Held at the Ritz Carlton in KL, I left my apartment late as it was a Sunday morning and I knew that traffic would be clear. I was right, I reached there within 15 minutes. Making my way to the conference room, I bumped into familiar faces at the conference such as Johann Sopiee, Patrick Low, Jim Liaw, Ning Liaw, Matt Marzuki, Eric Ooi, Fiona Lim and many more. Of course I made new friends such as Chen WS and Darren Chang as well.

Due to my super efficient "just in time" manner in which I arrived at the location just 10 minutes before the start time and I was seated all the way behind together with Fiona. What was shared wasn't the usual technical mumbo jumbo which you might have heard from workshops. It was about Nigel's life, his experiences and what he does now that inspires us all to be better photographers and to also see that there are things to life that are a lot more worth it than just money alone.

Overall, this conference had one of the best food served! Ritz Carlton provided yummy and delicious food while lunch was at Shook! at Starhill. The amount of food there was amazing and I definitely overate especially on the soft shelled crabs and risotto.

My only feedback to the organizers is that I did wish that the project screen on which Nigel shared his photos and presentation were projected to the back and not just on the TV at the front. Also it would be good that the photos which Nigel shot during the conference could be projected up as well.

On a last note, I managed to help Fiona win one of the three lucky draw prizes by calling out her number. Talk about freaky.

Last night as I was trying to fight the after effects of jet lag (thanks to my 28-hour door to door journey from Chicago to KL), I saw that Steve Jobs has indeed released Lion and it was available in it's new form which was a downloadable update via the App Store. I am for one, am glad that the update came in the form of the App Store and it was easily downloadable. All I needed to do was fire up my Unifi connection and then download the package.

Now this was a huge difference from my experience about two weeks back when my home PC decided to die on me after a good 6 years (yes, the motherboard failed on me) and I decided to rebuild a whole new PC. Together with that set up, I bought a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit and the whole process of installing everything again took a good long day. What I didn't mention was that the guy at Compu-Zone was trying to figure out why the DVD writer driver couldn't be detected. After troubleshooting almost every component in the PC, the fault laid with the power supply.

What I am trying to point out is that, even with my old Macbook Pro 2008 model, the whole installation was fast and easy. It took me around 20-30 minutes to download Lion, and another 20 minutes to install it over my existing Snow Leopard installation. At the end of the day, I was very impressed and more so impressed by the price tag. USD$29,90 for the entire Operating System. I just paid like RM400 for my copy of Windows 7 and yet Apple has done it again with it's low price.

By the time the installation was completed, I managed to fiddle around with the new OS and the two most impressive thing that I enjoyed was Launchpad and Mission Control. Definitely a good way or sorting out my Apps, previously I would always curse trying to find out apps which I installed but totally forgotten about. Unfortunately for me as well, I can't utilize multi gestures due to the fact that my Macbook Pro was made in the dinosaur ages hence that is one thing I have yet to experience.

Perhaps a new Macbook Air might do the trick but as much as I would love one of those, I really can't justify the need for one.

 

 

 

 

About 10 years ago, I graduated from college and I was completely blessed that I managed to get into a twinning program which brought me to the University of Sheffield for 3 wonderful years. During one of those 4 years which I spent trying to figure out electronics engineering, I took a summer vacation to visit BK in Melbourne and Sydney. It was during that trip that I actually discovered this store called Boost. After forking out a huge AUS$5 or maybe it costs more, I was wondering why in the world would someone pay so much for a cup of juice.

Fast forward it 8 years and here I am together with a bunch of food bloggers at a small 400 sq feet, just at the edge of Food Republic in Pavillion. Yes, I was at a small gathering together with the owners of Boost Juice Malaysia, Nick and Soraya. Now, you would be wondering how in the world did I end up there. It definitely does sound a little random especially for a guy who has been blogging about photography and more recently a little bit more about Volkswagen and cars.

I shall leave that answer till the end of this post.



So what has this got to do about the title of this post as well as what in the world do I do with fruits? I will come back to that in a bit.



So here we are, about 10 of us, squeezed into an already packed location called Pavillion at the Boost stall located at the lower ground section. There were plenty of food bloggers who knew each other from the food blogging community I guess, of course I recognized a couple of them such as Horng and Suanie. If I am not mistaken, I met them the last time I attended a ShutterAsia gathering.



At this time we were given the history of how Boost started up here especially with Nick and Soraya both being ex-Accenturians (a name I guess to coin Accenture alumni). At the same time, we were of course offered plenty of samples while we were having a chat.



Samples such as their wonderful muesli bars, gym junkie, mango magic, blueberry blast and the watermelon lychee crush, were served to us. There are two distinct differences between some of the juices available, one of them which had a heavier taste was those that has yoghurt blended in them (yoghurt imported from Australia!) and a very nice revitalizing drink would be the crushes.



Best of all, I really do enjoy drinking Boost juices whenever I have the change because I know that they have absolutely zero added sugar and I can have them as a meal replacement. I guess this is my healthy side trying to lose a bit of weight here and there. I am definitely contemplating seeing if I can go on a Boost diet and see how much weight I can lose.



So, what is "Get The Fruit Outta Here"?



It is their current competition after "Whats your name game" and it is very simple. Just buy a Boost juice from any of their stalls and you will receive a Boost Boarding pass. This Boarding pass will provide you with an instant win prize (you need to scratch a part off to redeem it) and it also puts you in the running to win more prizes such as flights to Australia, London and Paris!

You can check out more about the competition here as well as submit your boarding pass entries. Hope you all get a chance to win some amazing prizes :)

Remember to do it quick as the competition will end soon!

At the end of the session, I managed to capture a group photo of everyone who attended the session.



And no, we didn't eat yong tau foo for dinner.

p.s. See if you can catch anyone familiar in that photo :)