Colin Charles Agenda

Its nice to be able to celebrate your mother’s birthday with her. In May, my mother achieved the magical age of being fifty. We managed to organise a party for her, that included having a magician/comedian, who’s apparently been admitted to some Book of Records for being great at doing mind tricks.

I missed the actual birthday, as I was in Sydney for work (conference joy), but a party two days before, definitely made up for it. Don’t hesitate to check the set out.

I haven’t done a life update in a while (circa April 2008 - its now three months later). Why not start now.

a lot has happened in the last three months. i’ve been to:

• singapore
• santa clara/san francisco
• beijing, china
• seoul, korea
• santa cruz/san francisco
• kota kinabalu, sabah, malaysia
• sydney, australia, then for a couple of weeks back in melbourne, australia
• manila, philippines

out of that list, korea, sabah, and the philippines are new to me. huzzah :) i have plenty of interesting stories to tell from those countries, and learning new cultures, immersing myself in new food, its all just been an amazing ride.

in beijing, as usual, i ended up meeting a girl (and as usual, nothing happens in the end; long term staying in beijing should be useful)… propoganda seems to be the place to be at. we once boarded a cab, trying to get to the “sheraton great wall”. we arrived at the hilton. sheraton…hilton…shilton…

in korea, food is spicy. kimchi is not like you get overseas. also, i was at the beijing 2008 torch run. saw a bunch of chinese students beat up koreans (or vice versa). have some video that i should upload. fun first night in seoul :)

sabah has great food. sutera harbour resort is overrated. there’s no beach! ended up renting a car and driving to the hot springs. i drove a perodua viva. i normally have nothing to say about cars, but give this car a MISS. it sucks. it drags. it lacks power. its a failure.

melbourne was fun. LUV meeting. rented a camry (apparently they had to fudge my age, no camry’s for under-25’s). visited lots of folk. missed even more folk. such is life. maybe next time, all will be well :)

ate balut in the philippines. visited cafe havana. got propositioned. after about 4 times, quit the location. band was excellent. caught a fashion show with our partners. fun! (and i have video) managed to catch up with danielle (whom i’d not seen in what, 12 years?) from high school. she brought along her business partner and friend carol. very, very fun night out

in the personal front, i’ve attended a bucketload of events:

• threw an excellent 50th birthday party for my mom… there was even an entertainer. people had a gala time :)
• laura got married. i attended both her weddings, in melbourne and in kl. it was a gala event, and i wish them the best in the future! june church count: 2
• lots of boozing in the evenings, mainly with my partner in crime, ruben. we have countless amounts of bottles left around at thai club, scarlet (their college night was an epic failure), somo, passion/poppy, and probably elsewhere that i’ve forgotten
• caught up with SK. i wish he’d be here longer, its always fun hanging with him, considering i missed seeing him mid-last year
• hung out a bit with ditesh and aizat. i’d say a bit as opposed to a lot, because those jokers practically are partners in crime too :) conversation as always is interesting, and with them, i’ve met sh, za, and sean. sean seems to be amazingly smart, and has had an interesting change in careers (chemicals to css)
• hanging with jonathan is always fun. if its not boozing outside, its boozing some 15yo single malt matisse. did i forget to mention that he’s coming up with a magazine soon. rock. and he’s brought along his excellent editor-in-chief, SK/CK…
• saw imran and one buck short play at the juice birthday last friday. fun. pity i had a headache in general, and the throbbing music upstairs didn’t work out well for my head. the party was interesting - there was a theme apparently - stars and stripes. explained why all the girls looked like they just escaped from prison (turns out by a stroke of luck, i myself was wearing some stripe-like t-shirt from abercrombie & fitch)
• great to see camilla again. we first met her by chance again at somo, where i ended up meeting munira by chance again (we last saw each other on a street in melbourne a few years ago). camilla also introduced us to her very interesting “talent” friend (read:model). ended up seeing camilla yet again, at passion/poppy for the juice party
• saw julian in mph, midvalley. julian, my ex-housemate. and good, good friend. is married! congratulations. wedding is in a few months, and i’m still unsure if i’m free for that…

otherwise? i’ve furthered my interests in business/economics/finance. lots of extra reading. started investing in gold. trying out various things.. share market/unit trusts looking viable. the list goes on. i expect to be blogging more thoughts here, soon on this topic.

transport wise? the camry arrived. sexy, sexy, large vehicle. i’ve mostly taken over driving the vios s, but we’re three people, with three cars, and no one really wants to own either. heh.

there, that’s my three month social life update. i should really start aiming to blog daily. sometimes it works out, most times it doesn’t. such is life… so much to do, so little time.

Haven’t watched too many movies this month:

• Wargames - This hacker classic, took me a long time to watch, it would seem. Definitely a must see
• Dan in Real Life - Lost opportunities? Imagine finding out that you’ve met the girl of your dreams… except its your brother’s girlfriend. A comedy with Steve Carell
• I could never be your woman - Older woman, younger man. Saw it on a plane, can’t really recommend it, even though there’s bits of comedy in it.

It would seem that all my TV series have ended… So season wise, I’ve seen House, Desperate Housewives, One Tree Hill, Scrubs.

Saw two people meet up, who were thrilled to talk about their travel/flight schedules. Turns out that they don’t travel too much, but chose to focus on “outdoing” one another, in terms of where they’ve been and where they’re going to. I smiled to myself, and chose to move on.

Singapore has a new Terminal 3 airport. I presume that for flights to the US, they’ve reserved A16-A20. Why the presumption? The additional security available there, as they do the scanning.

Everytime I go through security, I always have the pleasure of explaining to the scanners what network cable actually is. I have this really nice network cable, with some kind of holder, that retracts, that I got at one of the LCAs that I have in my backpack all the time. It always, seems to interest security officers (once in Melbourne, they asked me if I had rope to tie folk on the plane up - I candidly replied that I could provide death by network cable ;) )

Today was no different, but explaining it to the two Singaporean officers, was what annoyed me. They’d clearly not known what networking was. And then the male, proceeded to remove my two power supplies, as well as my APC battery, because they were unsure what was “metallic” and turning up on their scanners.

Slowly but surely, he proceeded to look at the “racks” inside my Targus RakGear. Unsatisfied with the network cable explanation, they took it out, and popped it back through the scanner. Miraculously, all was well.

Me: “You’re very clever to take things out, but not so smart in putting them back in, eh?”
Him: “Sorry Sir”

Needless to say, I’ll have to make a note to remove that from my backpack. I’ve had enough “issues” with it from “smart” folk.

This week’s been an interesting one. I’m glad its over.

• My relocation is complete
• I collected my items not on April 1 (when it was supposed to arrive), but on April 2. I had a fun time with customs. Needless to say, it has inspired me to start a Only in Malaysia category on my blog
• On April 1, I paid close attention to ensure my on-boarding process was making the most sense. There are still so many things that haven’t been sorted out, and with my impending travel next week, I’m slowly becoming impatient and its turning me into an angry person
• Public Bank, the credit card vendor of my choice, is annoying the living daylight’s out of me. I’m sure to blog about this saga, the moment its all over (either way)
• The MyOSS meetup was interesting, but what was more useful was the post-meetup dinner. Its time to focus on the more interesting things in life
• Q2/2008 has started. Or Q4 for my new corporate overlords. I have a bazillion things to do, and here’s hoping that I blog more. I have to remember that I work for the community, always. This is what’s going to make this quarter rock…
• Driving the Vios S is nice. Its smooth. Alas, I’m taking over the Iswara in general. Its also a nice car and will continue to serve me well :)
• I’m going to pay close attention to the Malaysian community and government needs, when it comes to the open source world. Finally
• It rains, pretty much everyday from about 3-5pm. Its getting rather annoying. Why? I have to switch the DSL modem off
• Singapore Airlines has made me an Elite Gold member. Its going to be easier to keep it, because I’ll be using SIA and Star Alliance a lot more now. In Melbourne, sometimes you were forced to use Qantas (ick) or Malaysian Airlines (not as ick as Qantas, but ick enough)
• Must do expense reports
• Off to a party tonight. Will make use of the camera. I have a huge shitload of backlog of photos to push online (since November 2007 even)

Enough of this crap rants. I’m glad that it doesn’t get syndicated elsewhere. Its just to remind me, when I look back on the past, I guess…

In the movie world, I caught:

• 2 Days in Paris - funny love story
• Juno - recommended. Storyline is good, actors are excellent.
• American Gangster - recommended, true story even. Can learn trade secrets of successful drug lords - make your “workers” that pack stuff up, work in the nude…
• Poseidon - on cable this one, big nice screen, pity the movie wasn’t much. Emmy Rossum kinda makes it worthwhile though. Young (born in 1986)!

I haven’t blogged in a while. Lets just say, moving/relocating can take a toll on you.

• sold the car. managed to cop a parking fine (first ever), under 30 minutes before selling the car. you can’t even pay for a fine, till after 2 days of its issuance. talk about fucking silly.
• met up with various folk for various dinners: easter, at the cousins, the day after with the dhanas, the day after, with stewart
• i packed a total of 34 boxes (varying sizes, mostly smallish ones), with a total weight of about 440kg. books, computers, clothes, books, and more books. i’m truly amazed, and can assure myself that the books will never actually leave malaysia no matter where i relocate to next
• its been raining/cool for the last few days. naturally, this must happen, only after i’ve packed the jackets in luggage and the removalist has taken them
• cancelling services have been interesting. anz will offer to waive fees on my credit card, 3 kept on insisting i pass it on to a family member of friend (and they speak so slowly, its not funny). auspost’s moving services are naturally, sensible. i do hope to not receive much (if not at all) mail to my po box in ~6 months time
• i’ve put in a request to wind down arena techniques. domain will stay, just the acn will go (and i should drop the pty ltd). once that is sorted, the virtual office associated with it will disappear just as well. i might give the consulting/running a business thing a miss for a while, unless some great opportunity arises
• spent good friday, and the saturday following, with edmund & laura. doing what i love doing. taking photos! on friday, they were in full suit, so it was most interesting taking snaps all around melbourne. in a way, that was kind of my goodbye
• sad, that i’ve not had time to meet the old flickr crew, figure i’ll do this the next time i’m around (late may/early june) [this also applies to the mtub, mobile monday, modm, first friday, luv, osia, and all other groups i tend to frequent]
• on facebook, i’ve left the australia network and joined the malaysia one. its silly you can’t be a part of two country networks. have they not heard of a globalised world? people with dual citizenships? et al…
• i notice that i don’t need to eat breakfast, lunch, and can have dinner at dinner time (5-7pm), even though i wake up pretty much automatically nowadays at about 6.15am or thereabouts. this can’t be healthy, and its not like i’m on a caffeine high. noticing that coffee intake has dropped
• took at 5km walk the other day down chapel st, towards prahran and windsor. it was refreshing to soak in the sights, in the morning. wish i had a camera on me!

well, my plane leaves in about 18 hours, and all i can say is that its going to be an interesting new chapter in life. time to get cracking!

Technorati Tags: ramblings, relocating, moving, life

Thats a tag/wrist-bracelet I wear, while its fading, is still going strong on my right wrist. And it cannot be more true.

Consider this, one week’s notice, that I’m relocating to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for the near future. This relocation has been in the works for the last couple of weeks, but I’ve been too busy to write about it, and you also don’t want to write about something that isn’t confirmed. For me, confirmation, was actually getting the plane ticket sorted out, which I did today. Easter (or the period around it) has always been a time for new beginnings for me (and I say this, not being a religious person, at all).

The last few months, have been filled with change. First up, I left the sticks. Then, the company got acquired. And now, I’m leaving Melbourne, which has been home to me, for the past seven years or so.

Those following my Twitter feed, probably got various hints. Mustering 140 characters sometimes, is easier than writing lengthy blog entries.

Anyways, once the move is complete, I get to focus on growing and building the developer community further, and have travel stops that can make an air steward jealous.

I’m excited about the future, quite naturally!

In the meantime, there are some books I have for sale ($10? $20? Pay whatever seems sensible, and it’d be nice if you collected it). Those that know me well, know that there is a large collection of scotch (that I will not be bringing back to Kuala Lumpur), that I should probably also dispose of. Thoughts of having a mad raving party during Easter has crossed my mind, but I’d rather rid myself of the bottles of Green Label, Chivas Regal and Glenfiddich. I’ll be waiting for your email (byteATaeon.com.my) if you’re after a book…

P/S: If I haven’t written you personally, or called you, its not because I don’t love you, its really because I have been busy. And this isn’t goodbye, I’m sure to be back, and will be moseying in and out of Melbourne often enough.

Election day today. Pity I won’t be voting. My postal ballot papers never came. Will have to file a complaint, soon. Or maybe they already voted for me - rumours have it that postal ballot papers just go to the ruling coalition. In that case, I apologise - I would hate to give the extra vote to them.

Caught Meet the Spartans. It was pretty awful. Good thing it was short. Probably the most useful part was the singing towards the end at the credits - pity the cinema itself decided to put us out of our misery and stop the show abruptly.

Feeling a bit jaded. Was in Magnation for a while yesterday, and read about a 22-year old CEO, creating a Linux startup. More importantly, its pretty successful at the moment. Got me thinking, that even the bloke that came up with the blogging platform that this blog uses, is a pretty young bloke. I’m going to be 24 soon, and am wondering why my time hasn’t come, I guess. Where are my bajillions?