Alhamdulillaah no one was injured in the dramatic collapse of the roof of the Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin stadium in nearby Gong Badak here in Kuala Terengganu.  It is only about 10 minutes away from where we live here in KT, and in fact, it’s on the way from our place to downtown.  Therefore, I took the opportunity to snap some pics over a couple of days.  You can find more pics in the gallery, including several panoramas.  I’ve also taken some HDR pics, but they are not processed yet.  Patience is beautiful. 

Alḥamdulillāh, on Monday, the 19th of Rabīʿ ulʾawwa, 1430 (16th of March, 2009) at 5:38 PM Malaysia local time, Allāh blessed us with a 2.3 kg (~5 lb.) blessing we named ʿAbdurraḥmān (عبد الرحمن), which, in Arabic, means “slave of the Most Merciful”, which is one of the beautiful names of Allāh in Islām.  In fact, the Messenger of Allāh, ṣalallāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam (may Allāh peace & blessings be upon him) mentioned that the two most beloved names to Allāh are ʿAbdullāh & ʿAbdurraḥmān (slave of Allāh), which is why we chose that name for our first son.

Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Book 025, Number 5315:
Ibn Umar reported that Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: The names dearest to Allah are ‘Abdullah and ‘Abd al-Rahman. (link)

Both mother & son are doing fine, alḥamdulillāh, and we all came home earlier today.

Picture requests will not be honored. 

Alhamdulillaah, I’ve just managed to produce my first HDR (high dynamic range) image the results of which I’m pleased with.  Once again, I have CHDK to thank for enabling this feature easily.

Note:  I begin this post with a mildly detailed explanation of the human visual system, HDR & LDR images, and the process to create HDR & tone-mapped images.  The pictures themselves are near the bottom of this post.

First, a little background about HDR.  The way our bodies capture and process imagery is, to put it lightly, amazing.  Starting from when light first hits the cornea through to when we perceive the visual object (not to mention how our brain’s store such visual images, which is far from just keeping a “bunch of bits”), the Words of Allāh resound with truth regarding His Creation:

And it is He who spread the earth and placed therein firmly set mountains and rivers; and from all of the fruits He made therein two mates; He causes the night to cover the day. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought. (Alqurʾān 13:3)

Thus, in the way that they are created, our eyes can capture an amazing amount of detail and range in their own way.  The range of regular (so-called “LDR” – low dynamic range) images is quite limited in comparison.  And this is, actually, the vast majority of image-related technologies, be they cameras, display devices, or even image formats such as JPEG.

HDR images, however, are those which do or have the ability to capture image details, specifically color & brightness information, at a much higher level than normal technologies.  Since normal technologies, such as our digital cameras and screens, can not capture nor display HDR images, we have to take a different route to get the information.  One technique is exposure bracketing where one takes a picture of the same scene at different exposure levels, one after another.  The reason for doing this is that, while the normal dynamic range of a camera may be unable to capture the bright, medium, and dark details of an image all at once, it does have the ability to capture these details separately with different settings.

Alhamdulillaah, there is also software that exists that allows you to take these separate LDR images and combine them into one now-HDR image that contains the details from all the separate exposures.  Doing so is not trivial, and it may take one multiple attempts to get something that looks good.  More often than not, the result is eery, because of a technique called tone-mapping.  Tone-mapping is a technique whereby the colors and range of an HDR image are brought down into a simulation of what our eyes would perceive in the scene.  In reality, that’s all but impossible, but it yields some interesting, beautiful, and sometimes striking results.

The specific software I use is the unpronounceable Qtpfsgui (I just say it one letter at a time).  Qtpfsgui is a front end for pfstools, which is an outstanding image toolkit for these kinds of images.  It takes care of aligning, merging, and finally tone-mapping the images one step at a time.  I short-circuited the first two steps (because Qtpfsgui can be fussy sometimes)  by using the command-line tool align_image_stack to align the different exposures (since I moved a bit between exposures) as well as creating the HDR image from the three separate images.  Then, I used Qtpfsgui just for the tone-mapping stage.

The first row of pictures are the original images, taken at -4, 0, & +4 EV settings.  Looking closely, you’ll notice that each range brings out different details: the darkest shows details in the clouds, the middle shows details in the sea, and the brighest shows details in the sand.  These are the separate LDR images at different exposures that I talked-about above.

The second “row”, containing only a single picture, is the result of the several steps I mentioned above to produce an HDR image.  I make no claims into how “real” this image looks, but it does show the details that I was looking for – from the clouds to the sand – in one image.  I also think it looks cool. 

This is the first HDR image I’ve created that I’ve wanted to share, and so I took this opportunity to explain the process too.  If you have any questions, then by all means, please post a comment and then subscribe to the comments so you’ll know when I’ve replied.

As bugs are normal around the house here in Malaysia, I have just gotten used to them for the most part.  Yes, the wall next to me is a veritable graveyard for mosquitoes, but most other insects don’t bother me much, alhamdulillaah.

This includes ants.  Ants are usually very benign, they mind their own business, and they even are basically the bottom chain of clean-up around the house.  That is, anything biological that we failed to remove, they take care of for us.

So, it was only with a casual non-alarm that we regarded the increased amount of ant activity in our bedroom.  They were more apt as of late at finding our food and swarming it, but that’s just ants.  Until I came into the bedroom one day in the afternoon and found the following.

Yes, the ants were invading!  Actually, I quickly discovered that they were actually moving, but in such huge numbers.  I, personally, in my life, have never seen this number of ants before.  I was shocked.  I quickly tried to blow them all out the window, but that really wasn’t so effective.  They just came back, albeit a bit more scattered.  And that did nothing for the enormous amount of antlife that were underneath our light plastic tarp-style tiling.  I do not think I am exaggerating when I say the total count of ants was in the tens of thousands.

You can identify that they’re relocating by the fact that they’ve brought with them their larvae, which, upon close inspection, look like ants, just completely white.

To view a few more pictures (not really revealing much more than the above two), visit this Gallery:

http://www.basilgohar.com/media/v/malaysia/kuala-terengganu/when-ants-attack/

To see it in live action, click the image below. (WARNING: It’s a huge number of ants.  If you are squeamish, I advise you not to download or watch the video.)

Alhamdulillaah, my wife & I are en route to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where we’ll be staying one night with her brother & his family before continuing on our way to home in Kuala Terengganu, in shaaʾ Allaah.  Right now we’re in the Kuwait International Airport, and, alhamdulillaah, they have free wifi throughout the airport.  This is even more wonderful given the fact that we have a 7 hour layover here.  Alhamdulillaah.

One thing that I’ve had a hard time getting used during our stay in Egypt and now as we transit through Kuwait is the sheer prevalence of smoking in the society.  Easily one third to one half of all men in Arab society, at least amongst Egyptians & Kuwaitees (according to the sample here in the airport) are chain smokers.  It is so bad that, despite a widespread policy if non-smoking in public places, this rule is completely ignored.  In fact, I would hazard to guess that some of them purposefully smoke right next to the no-smoking sign, as it cannot be a coincidence that we noticed a cluster of them surrounding the very visible sign at the Alexandria Nouzha airport.

Another interesting observation I’ve made during our “brief” stay in the Kuwait airport is that, apparently, I’m far more approachable than most people here, despite not speaking most of the international traveler’s native languages.  First, two Filipino ladies stopped to ask me where a particular flight’s gate was.  Before answering, I was “rescued” by one of the airport staff who quickly showed the ladies to the right (I hope!) gate.

After this, while my wife & I were sitting having some refreshments a few hours before our flight, I one of the Filipino McCafe workers who spoke English quite well approached me asking if I could translate some names from a series of cards printed entirely in Arabic.  I tried to sound out the letters at first, finding them surprisingly difficult and unrecognizable, until she quickly recognized the name and completed it for me.  This continued with approximately eight cards in total.  I realized, after she left, that I had just sounded out the names of the other Filipino staff members to her, which is why she recognized it, and she simply didn’t know how to read the Arabic letters.  For the record, the transliterations of the Latin Filipino names into Arabic letters was quite poor.

The third incident that added to my suspicions about my approachability was when an Arab lady stopped me to ask where she needed to go to get her visa.  I quickly pointed her in the direction she was already going (no more than 10 meters in front of her) and escorted her there, pointing out the sign to her.  She was quite grateful, and I was quite happy for having performed yet another good deed for day.

So, there you have it.  Conclusive, scientific evidence that I am above-average in approachability in the Kuwait airport.

Or..did it have something to do with my attire (dress slacks & shirt, sans tie), which happened to be suspiciously similar to that of other “in-the-know” information types amongst the staff of the airport?

Naaaaah.

Disclaimer: This was written while still at the Kuwait airport, but it was not saved to the blog until after we arrived in Kuala Terengganu.

While riding (on a scooter) to a nearby masjid with one of my brothers-in-law, I felt something flew straight into my eye despite the fact that I was wearing my glasses at the time.  I was unable to flush it out while on the bike, and I thought that, like most eye gunk, it would just migrate to the corner of my eye for easy extraction.

As it turned out, I was unable to get it to move, and after returning home, I could still feel it.  I looked in the mirror and was able to spot, rather clearly, a small black speck in my right eye right between my iris and the surrounding white area.  I flushed my eye out with water, and, alhamdulillaah, I was able to get it out.  Surprisingly, it stayed on my finger long enough for me to show it to my wife, brother-in-law, and finally, to take a few pictures.

UFO extracted from my eye

The object is roughly spherical in shape (though it’s hard to tell from the picture), and if I had to guess, I would say it was an insect of some kind, or part of one, given it’s semi-shiny appearance and the few features I was able to make out.

There are too many amazing things about this.  For starters, just the sheer size of the thing and how much trouble it was causing me in my eye.  Also, the fact that it was so easily flushed-out.  And, alhamdulillaah, my eye, though red immediately after I extracted the speck, was fully healed as if nothing happened within hours (and possibly minutes).

Alhamdulillaah for the blessing of sight and for everything else that we take for granted.  How easily could it have been that this would have turned out worse?  Alhamdulillaah ʿala kulli shayʾ.

Alhamdulillaah, I was able to take some pictures on the beach near our home here in Kuala Terengganu (KT).

Beach Panorama

Kuala Terengganu "Island"

Alhamdulillaah, I’ve returned “home” to Kuala Terengganu (KT), which is my wife’s hometown, and I’ve taken it to be my home-away-from home.  It’s a beautiful place, especially because we actually live in a kampung, or village, not to far away from the main part of KT.  Additionally, compared to Kuala Lumpur (KL), the air here is so much cleaner, fresher, and easier to breathe, alhamdulillaah.

I haven’t gone anywhere notably picture-worthy yet, but I hope I will get a chance to soon, in shaaʾ Allaah.  The weather today (after a fierce storm last night) is outstanding, and made me want to shoot some photos with a crystal-clear blue sky background.  Maybe another time…;)

If you want to see some photos of KT, just view the Malaysia category and there are plenty in previous posts.

Alhamdulillaah, I’ve been able to take an enormous amount of pictures during my stay here in Malaysia until now.  And while the actual yield of shots with any value may be low, the sheer volume of photos means that I have plenty I would like to share.

The sheer amount of work to upload these and present them in anything close to an appealing way through WordPress has made me decide that I am going to seek an alternative method for disseminating the videos.  I am hoping I can leverage my Gallery installation, in shaaʾ Allaah, but it’s support for alternative media types has not impressed me to date.  And don’t even dare suggest that I use a Flash-based solution…

Read on for the feature presentation(s)!  As usual, make sure to get a copy of the free-and-open-source VLC player if you don’t have it or another media player that can play Ogg Theora videos.

Kuala Lumpur Downtown Time Lapse

VGA

720p HD

Balcony Sunset Time Lapse

VGA

720p HD

VGA

720p HD

VGA

VGA

720p HD

VGA

Quick links to all video downloads

• kuala-lumpur-downtown-time-lapse-vga
• kuala-lumpur-downtown-time-lapse-hd720
• time-lapse-balcony-sunset-vga-24fps
• time-lapse-balcony-sunset-720p-24fps
• balcony-sunset-time-lapse-vga
• balcony-sunset-time-lapse-2-hd720
• time-lapse-balcony-sunset-3-vga
• time-lapse-balcony-sunset-interrupted-vga-30fps
• time-lapse-balcony-sunset-interrupted-720p-30fps
• time-lapse-balcony-sunset-interrupted-epilogue-vga-30fps

Enjoy!

Alhamdulilllaah, there are some outstanding opportunities for views of the downtown Kuala Lumpur skyline from the roof of our apartment here.  Some of the shots are clearer than others due to the conditions at the time I took theme.  These are my first attempts, as well, so keep that in mind.  Click the link to see them!

Just yesterday I purchased a tripod specifically so I can take more steady shots.  It will also help me in taking more clear & even panoramas, because with a tripod I can have a more even axis of rotation – as opposed to the rotation happening due to me twisting my waist with the camera held in front of my face.  I think this will yield even better & more accurate panoramas, in shaaʾ Allaah.

Look to a future post where I explain how I created these images.  It’s amazingly more simple than it seems, alhamdulillaah.

Alhamdulillaah, I am back in Malaysia, which means I am also back with my wife.  Words cannot express how much joy the two of us are experiencing being together once again.  More than six months have passed since we’d been together the last time.  In case it is not obvious, the reason we are not yet able to live together permanently is due to the fact that the U. S. Citizenship & Immigration Services has not yet approved the petition for my wife’s immigration visa, and thus, I cannot legally bring her into the country.  Therefore, until such a time as the petition is approved (and the NVC approves the visa, and my wife passes the interview) in shaaʾ Allaah, we will face challenges to living together permanently.

Of course, there is also the question of “why don’t I just move to Malaysia to be with my wife for the duration of the immigration process?”.  And that is quite a legitimate one as well as one I have often asked myself.  And, if it weren’t for the fact that my employment ties me to the US, I would be here with my wife 24/7.  Alhamdulillaah, though, my employer has been accommodating enough to allow me to work for nearly the entire duration of my stay here remotely on a trial basis.

However, for now I am enormously content and overjoyed to simply be physically with my wife, so I need not dwell on extranous issues for the time being.  And, now for what you’ve all been waiting for — rest assured that I have in store some media in the form of stills, panoramas, time-lapse shots, and videos!

Putting aside for now the minor detail that it actually happened over six months ago, I just wanted to announce as far-and-wide as possible that Allaah has blessed me, Basil Mohamed Gohar, with marriage to Nor Sallsabil binti (daughter of) Abdul Razak.  Our marriage took place after `Ishaa’ (evening prayer) on May 3rd, 2007, in the beautiful city of Kuala Terengganu (KT for short), Malaysia.  Read on for the reason behind the delay in my announcement.

Some of you might find it to be rather odd that I am “announcing” my marriage over six months after that actual marriage took place (nikaah – marriage contact).  The biggest reason for this is that I am still unable to bring my wife into the country (legally) as the immigration has not yet been finalized.  I wanted to hold a waleemah (wedding celebration) after she’s arrived, and then make all my announcements.  However, as more-and-more time passes, the impracticality of this delay in announcing the marriage here in the US is only increasing, so I decided to go right ahead.

For those of you that may cry foul about this late announcement, I will point you here (assuming the link is still valid when you’re reading this):

http://forums.almaghrib.org/showthread.php?t=20763 

Yes, that may not be the most well publicized place for such an announcement, but it is (as of this writing) publicly accessible, so it at least offers an excuse for me. 

So, yes, I am married.  And I strongly recommend everyone else do the same as well, if you’re not already.  Now get started!

Oh, and if you’re interested in knowing the story of how we got married, as in, the steps leading up to our marriage, then know that I may consider posting that in a future entry, in shaa Allaah.  I tell everyone I meet anyway, so why not?

Alhamdulillaah, I’ve returned safely back from my outstanding and wonderful trip to Malaysia. In all truth, I did not really want to, and I miss my wife terribly. However, Allaah knows better what’s best for us, fa sabrun jameel.

I’ve counted a total of 494 new pictures in my online media gallery, and that does not include a large number of images used for panoramas, time-sequence shots (none proved especially fruitful), deleted pictures (blurry or otherwise unimpressive), and a myriad other categories of pictures, including some that are online already but I just have not yet uploaded. Here are some of the albums (mostly new) that contain the new photos.

NOTE: Most of these pictures were uploaded at a lower resolution to account for the generally slower and less reliable Internet access I had throughout Malaysia, therefore, I am likely going to re-upload nearly all the pictures in the coming weeks to ensure the full-resolution photos are also available online.

Pictures taken from the plane on the way to Malaysia (actually, on the way to Atlanta, which was the first leg of my travel)

http://www.basilgohar.com/media/v/malaysia/in-transit/?g2_page=7

Kuala Lumpur Bird Park (part of Kuala Lumpur Lake Gardens

http://www.basilgohar.com/media/v/malaysia/kuala-lumpur/bird-park/

Kuala Lumpur Butterfly Park (part of Kuala Lumpur Lake Gardens)

http://www.basilgohar.com/media/v/malaysia/kuala-lumpur/butterfly-park/

Kuala Lumpur Eye on Malaysia (a large Ferris wheel-like attraction similar to the London Eye)

http://www.basilgohar.com/media/v/malaysia/kuala-lumpur/eye-on-malaysia/

The start of pictures taken from our hotel room in Kuala Lumpur

http://www.basilgohar.com/media/v/malaysia/kuala-lumpur/KL+Buildings/petronas-towers/?g2_page=7

The Aryani resort in Kuala Terengganu, which we visited during one of our outings

http://www.basilgohar.com/media/v/malaysia/kuala-terengganu/aryani-resort/

Kuala Terengganu “Floating” Masjid

http://www.basilgohar.com/media/v/malaysia/kuala-terengganu/floating-masjid/

Kuala Terengganu Sutra Beach Resort, where my wife & I spent most of our days in KT.

http://www.basilgohar.com/media/v/malaysia/kuala-terengganu/sutra-beach-resort/

Notably missing are pictures of the Crystal Masjid in Kuala Terengganu. I will have these uploaded as soon as possible, in shaa Allaah.

Enjoy!

One of the beautiful sites in the city of Kuala Terengganu, the hometown of my wife, is the Floating Masjid, pictured below:

We prayed `asr here a few days back, and naturally, having my camera with me, I snapped a few pictures. Click on the image above to go to the gallery and see more pictures of the masjid.