My new camera

Losing things feel sucky. It really feels bad to lose a prized possession, because we all develop attachments to things we like. In some ways, I hate myself for losing my Nikon D80. But in some other ways, I can’t help but to tell myself that it wasn’t my own fault.

Earlier this week, on Monday, I lost my beloved Nikon D80 camera. You wouldn’t believe it if I told you, but I lost it in Kuala Lumpur International Airport, while using the men’s room.

I hung it on the door (inside the cubicle, mind you), turned away from the door for around 30 seconds or so, no more than a minute, and it’s gone. The whole camera and its bag.

Well, I hope the new owner will rot in hell and see some spectacular calamity befall himself (or herself). No point here being nice or diplomatic and hide my true feelings.

The really sucky thing about losing a camera in a airport is that it casts a dark cloud over your entire trip, and since you have a flight to catch, there isn’t too much you can do. I’m sure the person (or persons) responsible for this have been doing this for a very long time, and I’m not the first, nor last person to have this fate befall me. That’s why I hope for some spectacular calamity to befall this person (or persons). That’s probably the only way to stop them from ever striking again.

Anyways, today, I reluctantly bought a new camera. A Nikon D90. I didn’t want to buy a D300s because I didn’t need all the extra features, and I also like the D90 because of its familiarity. In some ways, it’s like getting a straight replacement for my camera.

I hope it’ll be a long, loving relationship, and this time, despite my own reservations about the safety of KLIA, I’m determined to still bring it on trips. The bad guys shouldn’t scare me from traveling with my camera again – if that happens, they win big time. I’ll be more careful, and even in the privacy of my own toilet cubicle, it seems that a camera can never leave my reach !

Going Places

Travel has been a pretty common fixture in my life for the past few years, until the combo of a collapsing economy and working for a company that didn’t quite have the funds to let me travel around made me slow down a little later last year.

Well, seems like things are picking up again where I am here. Just yesterday, I returned from a good trip to Bangkok. I think I did a decent job there since I’ve been asked to return again, and work on some tough accounts. I think you need to have some measure of confidence gained in you before people let you go to the tough customers.

Next week, I will be in Philippines, hoping to also make that same impression on the team there. I will also take the opportunity to meet some of my colleagues from my previous career stop. It should be a very interesting trip indeed. Only thing missing is not knowing where to get lechons …

And in early February, I am slated to feature in Tech.Ed 2010 in Sri Lanka. This is really exciting. I have only been to one Tech.Ed previously – in Kuala Lumpur, and it’s a massive industry event – basically a gathering of the entire IT world as one knows it. So, this is really interesting, and I look forward to my 2nd trip to Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Later on in March, I’ll be heading out to Seattle, USA once more. This time, I’ll be in Tech Ready 10, the Microsoft’s own internal version of Tech.Ed, and I look forward to renewing my acquaintances with some old friends, and to meet some of my colleagues whom I’ve worked with only virtually previously.

And finally, I will take a break in Hong Kong in April. By then, I”m pretty sure I’ll be needing one. What an eventful year this is turning out to be, well, at least from the outlook point of view.

I hope to be sharing some of my stories from these travels and trips, and post some photos too.

Now that I have finally seemed to work myself into the rhythm of working in my new role here, I think I’ll have a bit more time for photography and flickr. I’ve neglected those passions these past few months due to my new job, but now that I’ve gotten the hang of things, I really look forward to renewing my postings actively.

This year, good or bad, it seems like I’ll be going places !

2010 … with a real bang

Here’s the first post of 2010 – I hope it won’t be the last. If this week is any indication of how my year is going to be like, then this will herald long periods of silence on this blog between posts.

My work will take me traveling again very shortly. I have 3 days in Bangkok next week, another 5 days in Manila thereafter, and early in February, I will be a speaker at Tech.Ed in Colombo, Sri Lanka. It’s going to be massively exciting !

Today at work, the enormity of the task before me really hit home. This is going to be a very challenging period, and I’m relishing it.

In my previous jobs, I was more the doer, the person getting things done. I executed projects as a Project Manager, written codes as a developer, and presented demos and fancy chart pack as a presales consultant. But this time around … I’m going to take the bull by the horn. I will be running a business like its my own.

In some ways, this is scary – I mean – there are always going to be things that will keep me awake at night. But then again, what’s life if you don’t take on ever bigger challenges.

I think I’ve already got a blueprint in my mind on how I want to have my tasks and goals accomplished. In my own mind, the hard part is the execution, where every little detail will matter.

On a more personal note – I’m suddenly thinking about trying out the MAS Flight Simulator. For 60,000 Enrich Miles, you can get 1 hour of flying time in a Flight Simulator … I’m really tempted. After all, using the Enrich Miles to redeem flight is really silly … you get the flight for free, but not the taxes and the fuel surcharge, yadda yadda, etc etc … like I once got 2 return flights to Bangkok for free, only to be slapped by over RM700 of taxes and surcharges. Perhaps my flight sim redemption will be more worthy !