April 2005 - Posts
Woke up this morning for church, and suddenly, a thought strike me. Its already end of April, 1/3 of the year has passed. Have I progressed with the Lord, or I'm still camping all these while.
It's not concidental, as I realised while attending service. Its a wake-up call. God is coming soon, and I really have to start to walk together with Him, or I'll definitely miss the first resurrection. I've been pretty much distracted with many things since the beginning of the year, with SgDotNet, with MVP award, with switching job. Near the end of last year, I already knew this year isn't going to be a good year, but yet, have I done anything to grow stronger in the Lord. Nope. These things that I busy myself with, isn't going to be there when I go back to Heaven. Nobody can guarantee that I will be re-awarded next year, once my mvp has expired. Nobody can guarantee that SgDotNet will exist two years down the road.
I'm not saying I will reduce my committment to SgDotNet, but I really have to do what I have to do. Pray that God will put me through the fire to burn away the wood, hay and stubble, and increase the heat to purify whatever gold and silver is left behind.
Sigh, getting old. Lack of sleep finally take its toll. Today, I have to call in sick, because I'm very tired, to the extend that my breathing is difficult.
Only today then I realise how hot and humid Singapore is. The last four days made me lost sight of reality, staying in Oriental, with the thermostat set at 18 degrees, being ferried from place to place, all in aircon. Today really felt the heat!!! Yesterday, while I was fighting off my sleepiness, I decided to go 7-elevens, which is across the street, to get M&Ms. I went down with my sweater, and I'm attracting lots of stares. I couldn't understand why, until today... Ha ha.
Oh well, time to get more sleep...
Sigh, MVP summit has ended today. Back to civilisation... Checked out of hotel at 9:30 am and went straight to work. For me, its not over yet, as I got to fight with the lack of sleep. No matter how much coffee I drank, didn't help. Gave up the fight, and immediate kiss my bed when I reached home.
Really learnt a lot during the whole summit. Need to work on my confidence level, and my event organising skills man, and fast.. I'm going to meet a bigger crowd, if I attend the Global MVP Summit! Really hope Microsoft will sponsor my flight, because I can't really afford the air ticket to USA.
In a weeks time, do check out the pictures that I took and give me comments, critics. Looking forward to meet these wonderful mvps again next year! (Cross fingers on being re-awarded).
Woke up today, looking forward to attend one of the session, but all I get was disappointment again... End up, we brought firedancer to visit her sister, who just gave birth to a baby girl.
Next we went to funan, where stw wanted to meet firedancer again. Well, we left them alone, and went of to kfc for a drink.
Dinner at the brew works was nice, but I ate too much for the last few days that I didn't have much appetite. Lots of entertainment as well, and I got trigger happy with my camera. Check them out later at the photo gallery some time next week.
We went back to the hotel, and most of us gathered at firedancer's room to watch eye for a guy 2... Wow, Howard really know how to "chase" girls man. I believe he stands a very high chance to win!
Today, though we can sleep till 8 as the session starts at 10, I woke up with a headache. Guess I'm getting old...
Breakfast was superb as usual, and I helped myself to the smoke salmon, and other good food too.
Was looking forward to the technical sessions... but turn out a bit disappointing. I don't understand what is so NDA about the whole meeting when all these information is already available to the public. Anyway, what to do, got to respect the NDA. End up, I was just msning with other mvps, and doing my own work and research.
Initially, I wanted to get a booth to promote sgdotnet too. Thank God I didn't man. The organisers came out with this idea (which to me is a bad idea) where a card is given out to all, and you have to gather chops from all the booth in order to redeem a price. End up, everyone is just interested in getting the chops, and nobody was really interested in the booth. Oh well. At least I got to see the indian usergroup, and got a t-shirt from them!! :) Thanks Naveen!
At night, we went to eat dim sum. Brought my girl friend along as well. I sneak her up the bus, so that she can travel with me... When we reach there, we learnt that icelava lost his handphone. Well, at least he got excuse to upgrade to his pda phone that he has been thinking about. Another sad thing is Weehyong didn't get to meet firedancer...
Went back to the hotel, and went on to organise a bowling outing with the rest of the mvp. End up playing xbox in icelava's room. Something Tristan and I realised, xbox was the catalyst that got us to know each other during the christmas party. In the summit, Tristan, icelava and I got to talk more to each other during this game. Howard, maybe you can consider arranging xbox games for the next summit??
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Day 1, a early day. Woke up at 6am to do quiet time. See the CBD area wake up. The breakfast was good! I like the smoke salmon, and I get to try different cheese, though I don't know what they are known as. Funny things happen to icelava. You can read about one of them here. The other is too personal to share.
After a good breakfast, we left for Suntec at 7:50, thinking everyone is going to be late. Its kind of stupid the chartered bus stopped at Millenium Walk! We have to walk to to Suntec from there.
Finally we reached. To mine surprise, the room is packed!!! We were treated to some cultural entertainment, and the Sean spoke. One of the new stuff they going to implement MVP alumni. :).
Sadly, the rest of the day was BORING!!! Aggrevated by the fact that there was NO wireless!!! Its only ready on Day 2. Sigh... I was sitting through the sessions doing my work, coding using Paladin Framework. Good thing that comes out of this is, I almost completed 40% of my project, which was a 5 man-day job.
Finally, met up with Naveen too. We talked about how we can collaborate with each other's usergroups. Watch up for updates!
Oh man... Dinner at the zoo was good. After the dinner is over, there were entertainment. The first event was a tribal dance, and the guys just rushed in front and the whole room is lighted with flash!!! The MC commented, "Besides tribal dance, you guys get to see lots of butts too!!! (Paraphased) Ha ha.
Second show is the fire eater show... Man... the Singaporean MVP really make it a super hilarious event with their candid jokes and stuff! Laugh until my stomach hurts man.
Third is the belly dance, and... sigh... don't want to comment any more.
Then we went for the night safari. The environment is surprisingly cooling man.. like some kind of aircon is operating. The place is of course, dark. I managed to capture some pictures, but not much. Interesting experience. Wished I could go for the trails. Maybe next time go with my girlfriend. :)
Then we make our way back to the hotel. I went to soak in the bath tub, and wow, it did wonders to my aching body. Slept late though... Hopefully have enough energy to last through the rest of the summit, and more interesting and deep stuff pls...
Finally got time to blog...
Day 0 of MVP summit is just free and easy, allowing everyone to settle down. Triplez and I checked in to the hotel slightly earlier, at 1:30pm. Its kind of funny, as the Oriental only has the name list arranged in the arrival sequence of flights. I have to tell them, "we are Singaporean, and kind of difficult to take a flight here..." End up, they took our names on a piece of paper.
When we checked into the room, we were surprised with the grandness! I actually plan to go home on wednesday night, but decided to go home on thursday morning instead! Its simply perfect for couples on honeymoon. The washroom is separated from the room with a glass! ;p
After checking in, we just spent our time in the arcade at Marine Square, playing Ghost Squad and other games. Have hilarious time joking at our own mistakes like triplez can't speak english?
Came back to the hotel, and found out that we have unlimited wireless internet access! You know how much Oriental charges? $10 per hour, and it is made available for us free, compliements of Microsoft! Thanks man! :)
Went to the welcome reception as well. Man, I was overcomed by the number of "strangers" there. I'm not used to these kind of events, and I'm really lost. We met with the Malaysian MVPs and Sri Lanka MVPs. Finally got to meet firedancer, and Manoj too. Friendly people, I must say.
Then we head of for our sgdotnet event. Kind of disappointed with the turn out though, because only stw can make it... I do appreciate that weehyong and xtreme did make an effort to come, but couldn't make it though. Thanks guys! Sri Lanka MVPs join us as well. Stw really did a good job to liven up the dinner. Firedancer did demo Paladin as well, and did a good job. :)
Finally called it a night at 12am, a long day ahead for the 1 day.... Looking forward to it!
Ha ha... something funny happened today.
We were trying to find firedancer today, at 5:30pm, so we went to the recept to ask if she has checked in. The recept said yes, and gave us her room number.
Happily, we went up to our room, and triplez called the room. He said.
"Hi, may I speak to serena?"
You know what the guest (a korean) reply?
"Can you speak english?"
Yippe!!! MVP Asian Summit is finally here! Tomorrow, I have to wake up early at 6 am, and attend two very good service, and I'm off to check into the hotel!!!
Looking forward to meet those wonderful MVPs, which I only know a handful so far... Not forgetting those indepth technical sessions! (Just in case my boss reads this ;p)
Oh ya, my boss was sooooo wonderful. Even though I'm on probation now, he gave me off to attend the summit. :)
Check it out
Steve Ballmer's keynote speech in Microsoft Management Summit Remarks. You might just see linux additions??!! (cross fingers)
Ever wondered how to do authentication against Active Directory in Form Authentication? Here's an
article to teach you how.
Just blogging
this so that I can find it again easily.
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