First Singapore Web Standards Group meetup

One small step for some, one giant leap for Singapore.

Its a privilege to be at Singapore’s first Web Standards Group meetup (actually a smaller group met some years ago, but this one is like more official). This event is made possible by the dedicated people behind WebSG.

There were 3 presentations that evening with Lucian starting off explaining what and why we need web standards. Coleman continued to present on Accessibility, Hitler & Mother Theresa where he showed a video of how blind people use screen readers to surf websites. Then i had the privilege to be the 3rd presenter. As i knew Lucian will be talking about Web Standards, hence i thought i showed an example instead of a past project where i used LIM (my own acronym for List Item Menus). Its something simple, but i think it might be a suitable example to showcase the power of seperating content and presentation.

3 collegues of mine got dragged by me to this meetup as I hope that they too will come to the appreciation of creating standards based websites.

If you missed the meetup, you can still see those who went for the meetup here.

BlogTV

We were invited to be on BlogTV and the segment that we are on showed on TV tonight.

Filming

Why were we on? That was the question we were asked the most. If you noticed a comment on one of my previous post. Soon Ling of CNA contacted me, mainly because we were parents who blogged for their children. They wanted to do an episode on parents who blogged about their kids.

Filming

We did the recording sometime mid december 06 and it was done at Brewerkz. It was 100% unplanned, questions were thrown at us and without rehearsing, we just gave our unpolished thruthful views.

Actually after the recording, Pearl and I went to have coffee and we both chat about the recording. We somehow felt that we sort of got a bad scolding of sorts… due to the difficult and probing questions about our motives of blogging for our kids. I have to say that the programme is one of a kind and quite cool. Very raw, very real, very in your face…

Filming

About one or two weeks later, a CNA team came to our house to do a short snippet for the trailers. That was fun and the kids enjoyed it. So for the record, this is the first time thepans were on TV.

Watch segment @ BlogTV.

Hong Kong 2007

HK Finally

We finally came to Hong Kong. Pearl and I always talked about coming to Hong Kong to shop, eat, explore, watch Hong Kong people live their lives, etc. and we finally did. All thanks to my friends Leo and Fiona who was getting married. So in a way, we flew in for the wedding and stayed back alot more days to explore Hong Kong.

Leo and Fiona

Pearl knew Leo long time ago in her early secondary school days and if you knew Leo, he is an extremely nice and humble guy. So thru Leo i got to know Pearl, and the rest is history. So in a way Leo is like our matchmaker of sorts. lol…

The wedding was beautiful. There was a live jazz band, the food was good and the Cantonese speeches were hilarious even though we only knew very little Cantonese. The interesting thing is that they have no “Yum Seng”, so the table i’m on was the only Singaporean table, so we did not consider much when the wedding couple came to our table. YUMMMM SEEEENG! My cousins Greg and Dom was there too to add to the rowdiness.

May Leo and Fiona’s love for one another be like fresh dew in the morning always.

Cosmo Hotel

We stayed at Cosmo Hotel for four nights and it was nice. Its quite near Causeway Bay, hence Causeway Bay was our first stop of the 5 day 4 night shop-stravagansa.

Starbucks

We had Starbucks one of the morning and watched busy Hong Kong people rushing to work… urm maybe not, cuz we woke up like 10am almost everyday. lol… so more like just seeing busy Hong Kong people.

HK City Apartments

For those who are familiar with GOD, you will be familiar with the very cluttered high-rise apartments all over the city which became one of the patterns used in some of their products. Its amazing how something this messy can be interpreted to become a kind of design… design crafted by society.

Tsim Sha Tsui

Somehow my brother David and his wife decided to come to Hong Kong too, hence we met up and went for a good Dim Sum lunch at Tsim Sha Tsui’s Hung Seng Restaurant. Super ex, but quite nice.

Ice Cream

We then went up to check out the famous Ladies Market. Its like a mega pasar malam… all the same repeated lame stuff… but somehow, we sill managed to buy some stuff.

Ladies Market

Seeing my wife shop and enjoying herself really makes me happy. This trip i’ve mentally prepared myself its going to be a shopping trip, so i brought along a magazine to keep myself occupied while i wait to carry more acquired merchandise.

Furniture Toys

Pearl had to go to the loo, hence we went into to this small and tall building. The toilet was on the 6 and 7 floor, hence while i waited for her i found out that there are loads of cool toys in this building. We then spent the rest of the day in that 1 building. Pearl had girl stuff to see, i had toys to see. great!

I saw some designer furniture miniatures and i knew i had to get them for my architect friends back home. Bought a Le Corbusier sofa each for Adrian and Desmond. Adrian have a sofa in his place that is quite similar to this sofa. hence i think the miniature will be cool for him. I tried to get the Ball Chair for Desmond but they were all out of stock.

Mario Toys

There were loads of cool toys there and the thing that caught my eye was the range of Mario toys that were there.

Mario Toys

There were figurines, mushroom style piggy banks, but my fave would have to be the solar powered mushroom that wobbles which is irritatingly out of stock.

Dim Sum

7 years ago when we were in Hong Kong with my dad, he brought us to this simple Dim Sum place and its amazing that Pearl still remembers where it is. We went there and the food was fabulous. Its the Hou Tin Restaurant at Wan Chai.

Ave of Stars

We wanted to see the Hong Kong skyline, hence we went to the avenue of stars to take touristy pictures. And what are the chances… a real old retro junk boat and my perfectly timed digital camera. Priceless…

IFC

We then went into Harbour City which is a super mega mall which we literally got lost in. And when we finally got out, we manage to catch the sun setting with the IFC building sticking out like a… building.

Yung Kee

Its time for dinner and off we go to Yung Kee Roast Goose restaurant which was much recommended to Pearl by her relatives and friends. The food was good, but its also quite steep.

The waitress saw that i was trying to take a picture and quickly she offered to help us take a picture. She stretched out one hand to get the camera from me and with her other hand she quickly turned the menu around to let the restaurant name face the camera. Brilliant. We ordered abit too much and hence stuffed ourselves quite badly. At the end we had to pack the ribs back to the hotel to eat.

2007

During this trip, i manage to do a bit of shopping and mainly bought clothes for work. Other than that, i did alot of thinking while being a part-time security guard protecting the many shopping establishment my wife plans to swipe her plastics in. I looked at the busy Hong Kong people. Some were very fashionable and some you know by the looks of their face, they are just trying to make ends meet.

So wats for 2007? Where will my career head? What will i achieve at 35? How many kids will i have? How is the relationship i have with the people i know? How is my dad and mom? How can i spend more time with my siblings? How can i spend more time with my kids? What will my kids do next time? Will i be going to Nepal this year? What will become of the net? How can i tell the people i love that i love them? When will i fulfill my destiny in Christ?