It’s not that I don’t like blogging anymore, or that I think I’m too cool.

Actually, I did have to give it some thought.  I used to spend a ton of time blogging, then micro-blogging came along and it seemed too easy to get caught up in consuming content and never creating content, or cheating by using the various ’share’, ‘retreet’, etc. options that have become the norm everywhere.  Every once and while though, I feel like I want to capture something that can’t be captured in 140 characters.  I think it’s important to sit back every once and while and capture the moment.  Blogging for me is the discipline of considering something seriously and documenting your conclusions, for yourself and for any one else who may have an interest.  And I know many other bloggers have written articles that I have greatly appreciated, on personal notes and professional.

During my hiatus, I have been populating a list of topics I would be keen to write about in the near future so please stay tuned.  In the meantime, here is a quick update:

Corporate Life

I’m still working in Australia for a Mining Technology and Consulting company.  It’s been an interesting and very challenging few years.  I’ve learned a lot on so many levels – many through unpleasant experiences, some through quite pleasant experiences.  The journey has been somewhat technical, but also largely commercial.

Business

I continue to participate as a co-founder and technical lead for racquetnetwork.com.  It’s also been an interesting and very challenging few years working through many of the same elements.  How to remain passionate and true to vision but also doing what you need to do to earn a $ and prove value.

Family

My wife and I are happily expecting a new addition to our family this August, and couldn’t be more excited.  We are increasingly settling into our new home in Brisbane and are very much looking forward to this next chapter in our lives.  Kelly has luckily arranged a 10-on, 21-off work schedule each month, and that is providing us with so many opportunities for quality time with each other.  We also had the blessing of friends and family for 3 weeks back home in Canada just this past Christmas.  It certainly had us thinking about our imminent return home.

Volunteer

I am hopefully still adding value for cosmoshealth.org - albeit remotely.  This has recently stretched my IT skills (in the true offline/physical/intranet sense) to the near brink, but I think I’ve managed to pull through for CHC and couldn’t be happier with some of the outcomes.

Travel

I’ve been travelling a lot.  24 cities and 10 countries in the past 2 years.  Luckily, for many of them Kelly and I were both able to make the trip which added to each experience tremendously.

Tech/Geek

Despite my interest in the art of commercials as of late, I am also becoming increasingly geeky.  I have less and less patience for people and find myself really struggling to get people to buy into the next generation of tech.  I am inspired by other geeks who also struggle with people, namely Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerbug.

In the corporate world, I am really excited about Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Enterprise Business Intelligence (BI), and for the first time in my life rallying behind Microsoft as they enter into a leadership position (IMO) in this space.  I am fully behind MS Sharepoint 2010, MS SQL Server 2008R2 and all of the bits and pieces built on top of, and complimenting this technology stack as a fully fledged business solutions development platform for the intranets.

For my hobbies, I am currently rallying behind the open-source WordPress and Buddypress platforms as a fully fledged business solutions development platform for the internets.  For all of the same reasons.

For my personal interests, not a lot has changed over the past few years despite in fact everything has changed.  I am still fanning it up for Google and Apple.  Namely Google for my web-needs and Apple for my hardware.  Newest game-changers for me respectively are Google Latitude (tracks my every move and provides me with insightful intelligence as such), and Apple iCloud for storage and management of all of my music, making me at long-last completely in the cloud.

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I posted my beater on Craig’s List for the super low price of $1500. Still, I was a little suspicious when I learned that she was willing to pay full price without even seeing the car. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions however so continued discussion with her.

The last note she sent me put everything into perspective:

“hello,
How are you doing.Hope everything is going fine on your side.As a matter
fact the deal is on and according to my secretary, i just knew When i
contacted my secretary to know what is going on , i got to know that there
was a misinterpretation while sending the cheque.According to the
instruction i gave him,he was suppose to have send you a cheque of $1500for
your money but in the process he made a mistake by sending along the shipper
fund with your money making the total to be $3400
He claimed that he thougth i said he should send you a cheque of $3400.But
i guess he didn’t get it straigth. But that should not disturb our own
transaction.the deal is on and we will get through it.what will happen is
that i hope you have got the the cheque now. so please deduct your own
amount which is $1500 and use $50 for
the packaging and also make the proforma invoice to the shipping company
will not have any problem with ford mustang lx while coming to my place . so
please forward the extra money directly to my shipper in cash immediately.
it can be sent via western union, we want to use the remain money to pay
the shipper and to also fix some other things personally.But since,its now
coming to you now,i guess i can be assured in you that you can handle it
with trust and have it sent to him.hope all is well.mail me back
immediately,to let me know that i can trust you to handle everything well.I
will be expecting your mail asap. so i will give you the email of the
shipping company below so that you can attend to there mail. the information
will be given to you by the shipping company. hope to read from you today
Thanks”

My response:

“Hello,

I have also reported you to Craig’s List’s recommended fraud investigation officials.”

I can’t believe that anyone actually falls for this stuff …

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Most recently, Jeremy treated Jared and I to the Stamps / Eskimos game this past Friday. We managed to not get rained on which was good, and better yet Calgary won 28-3.

Prior to that, Jared took me out for my first ever 18 holes of golf. I think I golfed a whopping 160! Thanks for the practice tips and patience Jared

Prior to that, Colin and I (and friends) hit up Calgary Beer Fest. It was a really cool and fun atmosphere and I plan on making it a yearly tradition for sure. I would also like to hit up WineFest in the fall as well.

Prior to that, Jeremy, Jared, and I took in the MMA Glory Fight that came to Calgary. We had a great time, and even though we didn’t get any blood on our clothes ,
it was well worth the cost of front row seats.

Prior to all of that, of course, was Albert’s BBQ Birthday Bash! Thanks Albs for a crazy good time and a chance to re-unite with a bunch of old high school friends. You sure now how to throw a party!

Plans for the rest of the summer include a Stampede Club Crawl with Kelly and some friends from OBS, a trip to Cali in July with Kelly to see my old buddy Gustavo Garza in Santa Monica (plan to head up the coast to San Fran as well), a trip to DC in August for Agile 2007 (thanks Online), and mostly just a whole lot of catching up on lost time with friends and family. O ya … possibly upgrading from our 1 bedroom shoebox apartment to a 2 bedroom shoebox apartment as well …

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Enjoy!

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