I know, I should be in bed.  But this is one of those nights where I went to bed early, woke up again after a couple of hours and the sleep I got functioned more as a nap.  So I’m wide awake but hoping that I won’t be up all night.

I sold off my Panasonic GF1 today.  As much as I thought it was a terrific camera, I wasn’t using it.  In 3 months, I’d taken less than 500 shots with it (I take 500-1,000 per month with my DSLR).  The problem is that it’s not truly pocket-sized.  So any time I was going to take it with me, I needed some sort of backpack or shoulder bag and at that point I’d usually say, “the hell with it, might as well take the DSLR instead.”  Now I’m wondering if I should go out and buy something truly pocket-sized, like the Canon S90 – a few of my friends own this and are very happy with it – or just try to make do with my iPhone camera, crappy as that may be.   Any thoughts on this?

Today, I found out something about a longtime friend that I never knew.  He and his wife both have full time jobs and yet, together, they are also operating a very successful online business – successful to the point where they rent office space and have employed staff.   Some people have told me, both online and off, that I should be looking to start my own business and of course the idea is nice but I have my doubts.  I’ve started or co-started 3 businesses in the past and been involved in a couple of larger-scale start-ups and, well, I certainly don’t own any beachfront property in Phuket or Boracay.   The photo studio’s doing okay and I make some pocket money from the blog but neither are going to give me the sort of income that I need, let alone that I want.  The idea of having an online business – that dream of being able to work from anywhere – is attractive.  And with Hong Kong rents being what they are, starting a business where one doesn’t need to pay rent here (or at least having a well-trafficked location like Lan Kwai Fong is not needed) is definitely a plus.

I’ve taken an occasional look through alibaba.com and that seems to be the spot where a lot of things converge.  But if it was so easy, everyone would be doing it, wouldn’t they?  I know it’s not a case of just building a web site and waiting for the world to beat a path to my virtual door.  My imagination conjures up long lists of potential pitfalls.  Can anyone point me to some online references that discuss how one gets started, what traps exist and how to avoid them, etc.?   (Yes, I know there are some exhibitions coming up at the HKCEC in April and I will be there.)

Is there any restaurant in Hong Kong that does Romanian tenderloin steak?  What about chicken fried steak – with lumpy mashed potatoes and white gravy?  Pierogis?  Blueberry blintzes?  California burritos?  Any restaurant in HK doing Filipino food on any level better than Cinta J?  Just curious.

Also in need of some good Lightroom presets for the Nikon D700.  Can’t seem to find any so far that work as well for me as the ones I had for the D300.  And lemme tell ya – while physically the D300 and D700 are very similar and while the menus are almost identical, the different sensor inside means the D700 is a very different beast indeed.  Mostly in good ways.  But definitely more of a learning curve than I expected – not in the pure usage but in terms of wringing the best results out of it.

Oh well, let me see if I can sleep now.

Oh btw, new triple-CD set from Joanna Newsom sounds quite good on first listen.  And 50% of the way through the Red Riding trilogy, starts slow but does the job.

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