Thank You Steve
October 5, 2011 - The day that all Apple fans, friends and family shall not forget. We lost our hero!
I was awaken by my ringing iPhone, very very early in the morning (7am Malaysian time!). My partner-in-crime, Imri Nasution was the other line, "Go on the internet now! Steve is dead!" I quickly snap open my iPad2 and as my default homepage was www.apple.com, there it was the news on Apple's landing page!
I thought I was dreaming and switched on the TV and watched Bloomberg News and true enough, it was all over the news. Is this real? Is he really gone? The same exact feeling I had was when the news of Michael Jackson's death. I was still groggy since I only had my 2 hrs of sleep. I gulped and when on to sleep, trying to wake up from this sad news.
2 hours later I was awake again and indeed, I was not dreaming.
My idol, my mentor, my inspiration and the man I owe my career to, has pass away!
Flashback.
When my company started in 2000, we were all still running on a PC that I personally built from scratch (yes, that was my thrill-ride!). Most of our edit jobs went through the Adobe Premiere v7.0 on a Pinnacle card. Then that very one day, the PC decided to give reformat itself when we were about to complete a project (finally found out that a virus did it!). Some of our precious projects were gone just like that. We were so frustrated and had to recut the entire project from the start. I almost gave up hope on doing what I love to do.
My partners decided to look for another system to purchase, for really crucial and SERIOUS work and to cut the chase, they bought our very first Apple Power Macintosh G4 Dual-800Mhz (aka QuickSilver), without my knowledge. I was away at that time and they were already fiddling and editing on Final Cut Pro v2. By the time I got back, I was delighted to see the new "beast" and straight away get my hands dirty. (Note: Prior to this, we had loan an iMac Blondie and wanted to cut a DV feature, but I "hated it" since it cannot play the video in realtime! The drives wasn't capable enough back then, so it became a joke that I use to hate Macs!)
Days became months. I started to learn new things on the Mac. I went on to find out about WHO and WHAT makes a Macintosh, a MACINTOSH - from the makers to every bit of information I can find about it. Coincidentally, my teacher and mentor, Mdm Normah Nordin, kept some old MacWorld magazines and I started digging into the World of Apple....
(View the full collections here: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjw4Xdsm)
(View the full collections here: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjw4Xdsm)
As my company grows, more Apple products came into our life - Macbooks, Macbook Pros, Mac Minis etc.. we became a believer in Apple. Back then, if I were to tell anyone I bought an Apple computer to do my editing job, they all go, "Where did you get the money to buy those expensive computers? You can make a real cheap and good editing system with a PC!". We just ignore them and continued with our intuition and do our best, with the Apple products. In 2003, I've decided to go one step further (or closer to meeting Steve Jobs) - I enrolled as an Apple Trainer for the Professional Applications (Pro Apps) and along the way up the ladder of success, I also got to see one of the largest poster of "To The Crazy Ones" at one of the Apple HQ and was inspired by it.
I made lots of new friends from the Apple community and staff, learn to share knowledge and eventually, my life and career started to embrace everything Apple! My self-confidence boosted eversince I became a trainer and have trained numerous budding editors along the way. Seminars after seminars and workshops keep rolling in to the company. This was the turning point of me and the company!
Now, I could buy myself more "big boys toys" or gadgets to play with; something that I couldn't afford, just 2 years back. Then, I met my wife and everything is history. If it wouldn't be for Apple, I may not be even writing this story for me to share.
All these flashes of memories came rushing in, when the news of Steve Job's death was confirmed. Then, it sunk in. I could not do anything right yesterday; just staring the news headlines on TV and the internet. I went through our dusty rack and found an old Macintosh SE. I wore my black Apple's polo-T (wish I had a turtleneck) and went outside to take a photo of myself, holding the Macintosh SE in my arms.
This was the closest thing I could do, since my chance of meeting the creator of my tools, has pass on. All I wanted to, was just to shake his hands and say, "Thank you, Steve!", but I remember an Apple staff once told me that "you will only get to meet your creator, when the time comes".
And I think his time has come instead, to meet his creator.
To Steve, A BIG THANK YOU to what you have done for us and I sure do hope you're all well up there. I will stay hungry and stay foolish, to move on with my life and career.
One last thing....
Here's my tribute video of "To The Crazy Ones" that I've included you, in connecting the final dot.
Here's an updated poster of it, with you in it:
** Note: For a limited time, here is my gift to the Apple community! You can download the high-resolution version (about 80MB) and print it out as HUGE as you want it to be and be proud of the hero of our era:
From 2012, October 5 will now be an "Apple Day" holiday for me, to remember my hero!
Note: The set of pictures below was taken circa 2002-2003 at our old office near Bukit Indah, sharing the space with Centrestage Performing Arts, courtesy of Mdm Normah Nordin.
