Techsailor Tuesday!is a monthly sharing session for the sailors to showcase their talents or interests to their colleagues. You can call it "15 minutes of fame" as each person only has 15 minutes to present. This is a fun and interactive session for us to chill out, wind down and have a chance to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation for their fellow sailors. Any subject goes, and in any manner or style. Whether by online media ( showing video clips, powerpoint presentation etc...) or physical items ( a book, musical instruments etc...).  At Techsailor, we love to share and inspire and we not only share within ourselves, we hope to share it with the rest of the world too!

Our very first Techsailor Tuesday happened to be on a Wednesday (1st July 2009)! So why do we call it "Techsailor Tuesday!" and not Wednesday? or Friday? We all know it's not easy to come up with a name, that everyone would agree on. It's no rocket science but it still takes some brain power ( and death of a few brain cells ) to come up with a "one-hit-fits-all-name". So here goes...

• First, the lesser the syllables, the easier it is to pronounce it. So that leaves us with Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday.  
• Second, we don't work on Sundays ( well, some of us still do... but that's not compulsory).  
• Third, we wanted a phase that rhymes. And it seems like days starting with the letter "T" fits best. So we are left with Tuesday and Thursday!  
• And lastly, why Tuesday and not Thursday? Well... it's all comes down to something I called "feeling". The word Tuesday just feels better with Techsailor than Thursday. No?!?! Oh well, no more debates. Techsailor Tuesday it is! *evil laughs*.

Let's get on with the show! The attendees for Techsailor Tuesday! (1st July 2009) are Wayne, Leon, An, Gennie, Rujie, Yee Ling and yours truly (Ling). Since i'm the creator of Techsailor Tuesday!, i had the honor of kicking start the show...

C.S.Ling ( view profile )

A 2D animation feature by Dreamworks Pictures. Spirit, the Stallion of the Cimarron. Following the adventure of a young stallion. I watched this film back in 2002 and it has remained as one of my top 5 favourite films of all times. Not many people may have watched or even heard of this film as it was released at a time when 3D animation was all the rage. Traditional 2D animation like this one isn't as much of a crowd puller.
However, this is a hidden gem of the animation world. From the start to then end of the film, it's a rollercoaster ride of emotions, adventures, freedom and love... not to mention every scene just looks so picturereque (resembles Yellowstone National Park, and is likely to be Cimarron County). This film is just amazing amazing... You can watch the full film at Youtube in HD quality here.

One of my Life List is to

1. Learn Drums and
2. Compose a song, and be the singer, piano, guitar, drummer etc of that song.
3. Get an Electone, STAGEA and learn to play Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

Just few months ago, i discovered this amazing musical instrument that i have never seen before. The Yamaha STAGEA electone. I started watching videos of electone players on YouTube and the player is actually playing a full orchestra with the STAGEA! Then i thought, since i love this instrument so much and a few of my other life list can be fullfilled by playing this instrument... why not? And so I got my very own Yamaha STAGEA Mini ELB-01! ( The ELB-01 mini version cost about SGD 2799. The Pro version, the STAGEA ELS-01C will cost SGD 10k+). My STAGEA mini just arrived on 4 July 2009! Still a beginner, no background in piano or reading scores at all... Let's see how long it will take for me to learn the Indiana Jones theme, haha.
In the meantime, here's Maru playing the Final Fantasy themes.

Gennie ( view profile )
As the going says... "Laughter is the best medicine". Gennie showed us two clips of crazy funny Japanese variety shows. There is just no end as to what crazy yet creative ideas the Japanese can come up with.

Wayne ( view profile )
Wayne shared with us a really cool Nike ad. Soccer vs ninjas. However, this ad was never released as it was banned. 

Being a musician himself ( plays the guitar and keyboard), he admires people who can improvise. Here's a clip of the American Pie + Star Wars parody by 'Weird Al' Yankovic. It's interesting how he takes a serious song and give it a twist and made it funny and yet fits right in with the music.
Next is "The Matrix Runs on Windows". The scenes looks pretty cool and almost like the movie... not to mention the characters resembles the real movies stars as well. It's pretty funny how to put in the "Windows-related" elements in the scences and how the actors troubleshoots the faults and errors of the "Window's" system.

An ( view profile )
Being the Chief Technical Officer of Techsailor, An loves to solve complicated problems and this video he shared, showed us another whole different perspective of problem-solving in Architecture. Turning the problems and constraints into master pieces of art.

Yee Ling( view profile )
It's Yee Ling last day with us as an intern at Techsailor. She shared with us Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. It's one of the most inspiring lecture for all of us here at Techsailor ( another being Steve Job's Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish ). Even though we only managed to watch part of the 1-hour video on Techsailor Tuesday, we just had to finish watching the whole video at our own time. He will always be remembered for his bravery, inspiration and changing people's live for the better.

"It's not about how you achieve your dreams, it's about how you live your life. To live your life the right way,  the karma will take care of itself, the dreams will come to you." - Randy Pausch

Leon ( view profile )
Last but not least, Leon shared with us his interest for Philately. He's been an avid collector since he was young and has even exhibited his collection to the public few years back. He brought part of his collection and his most prized posession, a letter dated back to the year 1666! It's pretty amazing to hold a document that is 343-years-old! Very interesting knowledge to learn about stamps and pre-paid envelopes. The question on everyone's mind was, how much did he spent on this hobby? Well, the most expensive item was about 4.5k, which is the 343-year-old letter. Even he himself wasn't sure about the exact figures he spent so i guess your guess is as good as mine :)

That's a wrap for the first Techsailor Tuesday!Stay tune for the next one with sharing from Rex, Fisher, Rujie and Ashley!