2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 4,400 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 7 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.

Notes from HighwayBlogger: there must be something wrong here coz I have not been working on this blog for more than a year now. But anyways, it’s supposed to be a good sign I suppose.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 12,000 times in 2010. That’s about 29 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 4 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 112 posts. There were 2 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 311kb.

The busiest day of the year was July 28th with 128 views. The most popular post that day was “how to run away from life”.

Notes from HighwayBlogger: I guess 12,000 is not bad for a blog I’ve not touched in such a long while!

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were digg.com and who-will-win-fifa-worldcup-2010.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for bill gates, running away from life, ads on cars, run away from life, and journey vs destination.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

“how to run away from life” July 2007
24 comments

2

Money is so hard to give away – Lessons from Bill Gates and Warren Buffet June 2007
11 comments

3

Blog advertising is like outdoor advertising on vehicles? March 2008
5 comments

4

Nicest Wedding Invitation Card ever November 2007
10 comments

5

Highway Quotes : The road to success February 2008
6 comments

A Tragic Accident on the Highway of Life

by Trevor H

He was stuck on the highway of life in traffic
Listening to the busted radio’s static
His car just a beat up, rusty, old heap
The door locks were broken, the horn wouldn’t beep

No air conditioning, a hundred and three degrees
Not a cloud in the sky, he prayed for a breeze
The windows were cracked, but only rolled down half way
But it was still better than walking to work every day

The traffic was caused by heavy construction
The signs up ahead told him to use extra caution
Bright orange cones guided him through the maze of a mess
The broken gas gauge said empty, that meant he had even less

So he turned the wheel sharp and he swerved past the cones
He put the pedal down and hurried around the construction zones
Cutting back onto the highway, he shifted into second gear
As he laughed at the line of cars in his broken rear view mirror

As he focused his eyes from the mirror back to the pavement
He was surprised to see a dark blue mass where there should be cement
A bridge had slowly eroded and was finally washed away
He slammed on the brakes, the old car began to sway

But those brakes were old and dull, he plunged into the sea
His car splintered on the jagged rocks, and the waves devoured he
His lungs slowly filled with water, stopping his young heart
He should have listened to the cones that warned him from the start…

 

Originally posted here.

And 8-year-old explains God

Someone sent this to me,  written by an 8-year-old named Danny Dutton, who lives in Chula Vista , CA . He wrote it for his third grade homework assignment, to ‘explain God’. Thought it was quite cute so I put it up to share with you, hope it made your day like it did mine

EXPLANATION OF GOD:
‘One of God’s main jobs is making people. He makes them to replace the ones that die, so there will be enough people to take care of things on earth. He doesn’t make grownups, just babies. I think because they are smaller and easier to make. That way he doesn’t have to take up his valuable time teaching them to talk and walk. He can just leave that to mothers and fathers.’  (more after the break)

Longing to continue blogging here

Haven’t been here myself for ages. I’ve been entertaining the thought of blowing the dust off this blog and working on it again.

Over the past few months, I’ve had many more stories to share for this blog. But alas, time does not allow me the pleasure of working on this blog and sharing a different perspective of life with you.

Hillary and I often talk fondly of Kero, laughing at her silliness, and wondering where she is now, our precious co-sojourner who’s been gone for almost a year now.

And I’m still surprised at the comments that come in for this post on running away from life, even as recent as last week.

Suspending Blogging on this site

Hey folks, it’s been terribly busy for me and I’m suspending my blogging here for a while due to my ultra busy schedule. Well, I oughta tell you what’s been keep me so super busy :

Licence 2 Play 22-24th May SUNTEC Convention Hall 603.

Quick spill: First ever physical Facebook gaming competition in the world, first ever World of Warcraft Arena 3v3 Tournament in Asia, Launch of Maplestory 2, breaking a record on the Singapore Book of Records for number of turnups for Maplestory, etc. Do I need to say more, especially to the gamers?

e27 unConference 16th May Matrix @ Biopolis

Quick spill: 31 startups from 10 countries (numbers updated) come together for the premier unConference of the region! Tickets selling out fast!

and I’m also helping to promote Video Games Live! on 19th June. THE gaming symphony event! Have you got your tickets yet?

All this in between my crazy travelling schedule over the next 2-3 months. Which is why I really have no time to blog here for a while.

I’m still blogging at CNET Asia though, do drop by often and I hope to resume my blogging on this site soon!

I’ve also taken on some new work and there should be an announcement soon regarding a new site I’m working on. Stay tuned for the announcement!

This blog might be suspended for as I exit the highway for a while to run my errands, but it’ll always be around because we’re all on a journey on the highway of life and you are my precious co-sojourners.

See you when I rejoin at the next exit!

Faith on the highway of life

I just got back from a couple of days in Mumbai. I guess this trip made me more reflective than ever following the recent 26/11 terror attacks.

Security was tight, reminded me just like Indonesia when I was there after the Bali bombings.

Even as myself and billions of Chinese all over the world celebrate the lunar new year, I just wanted to leave this thought on faith with you.

All of us operate with a certain amount of faith in our lives. The word ‘faith’ can be quite hard to describe sometimes. A good way to understand it would be when you are a passenger in a vehicle on the highway.

Look at it this way, how many times do you ask the driver to show you his license, or do a test drive for you, before you decide to hop on and enter the highway with him? Basically, you’ve placed a certain amount of faith in this driver, enough to entrust your life at least!

Many times, we enter into the highway of life with a certain amount of faith in whoever is in the driver’s seat. Faith in yourself, in your god, in the person who is leading you.

Perhaps this is how Obamania came about, someone that the masses decided to place their faith on when the times are dark; in hope that this driver would be able to drive them through the darkness towards their destination. And I hope he does, for the sake of the world.

As we enter the Lunar New Year celebrations, I wanted to leave this thought with you – if you have faith to step into that car, entrusting your life to the driver, without checking his/her license, maybe today you have faith to do other things that you didn’t dare to do in your life? Or faith to believe in someone to be in your driver’s seat?

Have a Blessed Lunar New Year!

Experiencing the arctic right here in Singapore

Last Friday night, I was given a chance to experience what it’s like to be in the arctic right here in Singapore :

Guess where’s this? (And it’s free for public)

Fleishman-Hillard’s Bloggers Event

Last night, I finally went to a bloggers’ event after 2 months of travelling and not being around. It was good to meet fellow co-sojourners on the internet highway a.k.a. bloggers again and also made some new friends :

Alice (with the camera) and Pris

Bernard Leong with Yuhui behind him and new STOMP star blogger Vanessa on the far right.

Claudia posing with the Lenovo S10 which I brought

I haven’t been blogging here for a while

So sorry guys, everything just moved up 1 gear since mid Sept I’ve been on the road and been home only less than 20% of the time and did at least 100 hours in the air. Add to that I have to maintain my tech blogs here and here – you can find some updates there.

In fact I’ve had TONNES of things I wanted to blog here. But priority always goes to the tech blogs and I guess I want to take more time when I do write a post here. I’ve been wanting to write about my recent journeys and insights I’ve received while on the road. While I hope to talk about them more in details, here’s like a quick summary :

Indianapolis – Managed to catch up with some old friends and co-sojourners here. Never knew when I was gonna see them again and was soooo glad when I did. Also went to an NBA game and caught Larry Bird and Shaq (visiting with the Phoenix Suns). I sat next to the Mayor of the 12th largest city in America and briefly there, for a few hours in time, we were co-sojourners Managed to talk to his wife from Thailand as well.

North Carolina – Did a 10-hours drive from Indianapolis with some treasured co-sojourners and it felt like the end of the world with the big open highways and ….. no petrol. Yes, towards the end of the journey near Charlotte North Carolina, almost every petrol kiosk we went to was outta petrol. How harrowing. The thing I took away from that that experience was – we can drive the nicest cars (we were in a Lexus) but without petrol, it’s just a useless piece of metal on wheels. I blogged about this before actually. I made some wonderful friends in North Carolina which I suspect will be lifelong co-sojourners.

Seoul - Spent a short time in Seoul, and now I’m back in Seoul again to present at a conference. Will talk more about this later, hopefully!

Osaka – Always loved Japan, bought my Nintendo Wii, and had a great time with some clients there. Learnt lots and made some new friends. Definitely going back!

Moscow - Was definitely an eye-opener for me, especially to see one of the seven wonders of the world :

St. Basil’s Cathedral, Red Square, Moscow

Also made an important friend whom I suspect will be a co-sojourner for a long time to come too.

Samara – Although this city is only like 1,000 miles from Beijing. I was surprised to know that I was probably the only Chinese in this city. This is so unlike Moscow where mainland Chinese were all over the streets. Interestingly, Samara has one of the largest car factories in Russia for a brand called ‘Lada’. Talk about highways..

Dubai – I’ve never seen so much sand in my life! My time in Dubai was short but I touched based with a co-sojourner there who will only become closer to me in the journey ahead, especially after that meeting.

Hanoi – I was thrown into a meeting with some really important people there. I’m not sure why yet but for a brief moment in time at least, I was co-sojourners with some of the most powerful people in Vietnam.

Ho Chi Minh – Similiar experience as Hanoi. I’ve been to Ho Chi Minh City before and blogged about it too.

Kuala Lumpur – I attended a regional business conference and they had this flag ceremony where I was invited to hold the Singaporean flag. Was an awesome feeling, a little hard to describe especially when surrounded by 30 other flags. National pride is definitely one of those feelings there!

At the same time the experience was very sobering as the conference was held in the midst of the economic downturn. Many great learnings and insights and of course rubbing shoulders with some of the very best businessmen (co-sojourners) around asia.

Chicago – I rushed back from KL and only spent like 4 hours in Singapore before rushing off to Chicago then to Indianapolis again (yes twice in a month). It’s especially meaningful to be in the jazzy city of Chicago DURING the US Elections itself since Chicago is Obama’s hometown. Some co-sojourners I met on the flight from Singapore to Chicago – we had a great time on the 20 hour flight.

Tokyo – was really interesting because I wasn’t supposed to be there. Only for transit from Chicago back to Singapore. Through some strange twist of events, I ended up staying in Tokyo for 1 night and made some precious friends. One of them whom I met was on the same flight with me not only from Tokyo to Singapore, but from Chicago to Tokyo, and also Dubai to Singapore like 2 weeks back! How freaky! Talk about co-sojourners on the highway of life!

Brunei – Although I knew I had a big invitation to speak at their inaugural National Technology Forum, I didn’t realise how big it was until I was swamped with media interviews from the time I landed. The conference was great and I blogged a little about the experience here.

So there, a quick summary and snapshot of my travelling so far. I actually reviewed quite a couple of gadgets for these travellings – Lenovo Thinkpad X200, Kohjinsha SX and SC Series, Canon Powershot A1000 IS, Canon S5 IS,  Canon EOS 1000D, and Gigabyte Netbook (currently reviewing). I also bought the iPod Touch from the states. I have TONNES of photos more which hopefully I can share with you.

After Seoul, I’ll be back in Singapore for a while to help organise the Singapore Arcade Showdown at Anime Festival Asia 08 before travelling again for India, Vietnam, and Cambodia.

Thanks again for being my co-sojourner. Each and every valuable reader here.

Signing off from Seoul.