Chil's Point of View….

We just came back from Alaska.
We took the Norwegian Cruise Line Ship (Norwegian Pearl), which started off from Pier 66 in downtown Seattle, and had stops in – Juneau, Skagway, Glacier bay (not a stop where we got off the ship), Ketchikan, and a final stop in Victoria, BC (Canada)

Some quick notes on place, and things seen

• Juneau
  Medenhal Glacier
  Salmon Hatchery
  Red Dog Salo0n

 

• Skagway
  Yukon Express – 3 hour train ride; the gold rush
  Red Onion Brothel Museum

 

• Glacier Bay
  Caught footage of ice falling/melting

 

• Ketchikan
  Lumber jack show
  Totem Pole
  Creek street

 

• Victoria
  University of Victoria
  Don’t remember the name of rich neighborhood
  Downtown Victoria

You can see all the cruise photos in our photo album [ here ]

My Twitter account was sending out spam last week. Mikey was one of the people who called me to alert me of spam-links which were being sent. I immediately changed my password, but it seemed to have continue. So I then immediately post a comment (a tweet) alerting people that my account was sending posts, and that they should not click on any links that suggest get-rich-quick links. I also immediately engaged, sent mail to customer service, by following the procedure outlined– following a spam account.

What happened next?
Twitter suspended my account. I started back and forth trying to figure out what was up, and they suggested that I have been sending spam. I started going back and forth with them, even letting them know about how I even followed their procedure when I thought the account was compromised – but it seemed to have been mute, and their feedback was they will do an investigation. My account was down for many days, and I was persistent, and email customer service who told me to be patient. My account was later restored.

… but, it got me thinking.
Twitter has been getting some amazing press, and many companies are using the service for their marketing activities. These companies have got tons of followers, and these followers are keeping an eye on company announcements. Now, if one of these companies had a compromised account like I did, I can image how frustrated they would be, and how it would affect their image. Followers who would try to get to the company tweets would get a message with words saying the said account name is SUSPENDED due breaking some Twitter rules; I can only imagine the PR mess the companies would be in. I wonder if there is a faster way to restore an account, or if there is a special tag that Twitter is using for verified corporate accounts. If not, perhaps business that rely on sending messages need to provide/update their wording on the service so that customers (followers) can have some expectations; perhaps the companies can also have some alternative so that they can still get a Twitter-style messages out to their customers while their account is still in the suspension phase.

My 2 cents.

I took the interns on a team outing – Went on bumper cars to play Whirlyball.

What is WhirlyBall?

“WhirlyBall, dubbed “The worlds only totally mechanized team sport”, is best described as a combination of Basketball, Hockey and Jai-Alai played while riding an electrically powered machine, similar to a bumper car, called a WhirlyBug. Although the WhirlyBug resembles a bumper car, it is a far superior machine. Quicker, stronger and far more maneuverable, the WhirlyBug powers you and your team down court in a five on five game.” 

The closer WhirlyBall court is in Edmonds, WA (about 30 minutes from Redmond) – (see http://www.whirlyball.net)
Check out the WhirlyBall action pictures in the album [here]

Title really should have been – Tawanda is heading back to Beantown.
He has decided to put work on hold, and head on out to Harvard Business School. A few people put together his ‘almost’ suprise farewell party in Seattle on Saturday.
“Almost” a surprise because he had an idea that something was going to be happening.

Continuing with the busy social weekend (since previous night was Mitika’s bday celebration). 

The party was pretty cool, and well organized – I was also able to bust some Karaoke when Nelly and I sang Macarena (complete with some back-up dancers)

Seattle got so hot, Tawanda even took his shirt off . 

Bye-bye Tawanda! And good luck. 

Pictures we took at the event are located here.

Start of the fun weekend.
Mitika’s birthday celebration kicked off on last Friday night (Jul 24 ). I was able to catch on, and perfect my bhangra moves.

After learning some new moves, I had to demo them to Nelly .

The rest of the birthday picture are here.

.

This year, I tweaked the code a little bit.

if(day==18 && month==7)
{
       // Nelson Mandela and I are celebrating some magic today
       bigGuy.age++;
       Mandela.age++;

       if (Mandela.age == 91)
       {
               // Nelson Mandela just turned 91!
               // I seem to be moving closer to his age
       }

       if (bigGuy.age <= 31)
       {
              // This year, reset to 21.
              bigGuy.age = 21;

              // Now, it is time to figure out all the things I can now do since I had reached this age.
       }
}

Just like last year – please, please… NO BIRTHDAY PRESENTS!!!!! 
I am playing it old school this year and will not allow anyone to throw a party like 12 months ago. I plan to do something I have not done for many-many years – Visit a Zoo!!!

THIS IS NOT A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUCEMENT

My birthday is coming up on Saturday, July 18th. But just like last year, I do not want any birthday presents :-).
No party + no presents; but I don’t mind if you wish me well on my day though.

What do I have planned?
Well, just like every year, I will be doing my physical. I have my appointment set for Friday (a day earlier) because my doctor only works on weekends during cold and flu season.

Q: Why do I go for my annual doctor check-up on/around July 18th?
A: It is much easier to remember. Since my insurance covers one physical per calendar year, I developed a stragtegy of doing the doctor visit around my birthday, so that I can always remember when I did my last one.
Perhaps when I start forgetting my birthday, I will in-turn forget my doctor day.

… I just wanted to put something up since I have not posted anything this month. (Someone asked when I will update my blog )

It’s wedding season :-)

Over the weekend, I went to South Carolina for George’s wedding.
I had the oportunity to roast him, after knowing him for the last 11 years – I met him the 1st evening I arrived in America (Asheville, NC).

Congratulations George and LaTonya!

Wedding pictures are located here.

A post appeared in the Zambian papers suggesting that the old passports are no longer valid. But let me try to translate what they are saying -

• If you live in Zambia, you need a new passport to exit
• If you live outside Zamia, you have until August 31st to enter the country.
   But you will need the new passport to exit
• If you live outside Zambia, past August 31st, you will not be allowed to enter the country.

Wait – you will not be allowed to enter? Wow.

Below is the post that appeared in the Zambian media -

State phases out old passports
By ZANGOSE CHAMBWA,
Wednesday, June 03, 2009GOVERNMENT has directed immigration officers at all exit border points not to allow Zambians to travel abroad today using the old passports.

Ministry of Home Affairs permanent secretary, Ndiyoyi Mutiti issued the directive during an interview in Lusaka yesterday.

She however said those coming into the country with the old passports should be allowed entry.

Ms Mutiti said it will be against the law for anyone to attempt to use an old passport when travelling abroad because it will no longer be valid.

She said the old passport was not computerised and it will be unfortunate for anybody to use it when leaving the country because it will not respond to the computer system.

Ms Mutiti said the Ministry of Home Affairs did its best to sensitise Zambians about the change of passports.

“No one will be excused to use the old passport when leaving the country because the information has been clear from the time the new passports were introduced last year,” she said.

And Ms Mutiti has urged all Zambians who had travelled abroad with the old passport not to panic because they will be allowed entry into the country.
She said Zambians living abroad are the only ones whose deadline has been extended up to August 31, 2009.

“Zambians living abroad are still having difficulties obtaining the new computersied passports, and the Ministry of Home affairs is doing everything possible to ensure that they obtain passports before the deadline of August 31, 2009,” Ms Mutiti said.

She said Government has no intentions of extending the deadline for the use of old passports because everything has been put in place.

Ms Mutiti said extending the deadline for the use of old passports will further derail the process of phasing out the old passports.

A 32 page passport is pegged at K300, 000 while that with 48 pages is costing K500, 000.
[Zambia Daily Mail]

Source: http://www.zamnet.zm/newsys/news/viewnews.cgi?category=30&id=1244024770

I must have some weird luck when dealing with my passport renewal process.
Last year, I was back-and-forth with the embassy trying to get my passport renewed (see the last passport troubles post).

Well, this time, my parents were able to get my renewal issued. But guess what – FedEx lost the damn document.

It is pretty weird.
My parents sent the document early in April. They had not told me because they wanted to suprise me, since I had given up with the speed the things would be issued. So they sent this special package. For a couple of weeks, they were suprised that I had not mentioned anything about the passport – until my mum asked.

I tracked it online, and the package reached Seattle. But it still shows that it is at the sort facility in Seattle. FedEx finally called me, and suggested that they have been looking and they have not found it. I already filled a police report, and I am just trying to figure out what the hell happened.

My parents are obviously pissed-off, since their suprise turned into a nightmare.

The passport has been missing for three weeks now. It looks like I have to start with the renewal process – but this time to list it as lost .

I just have bad luck with this renewal process.

OLE OLE OLE OLE, WE ARE THE CHAMPS WE ARE THE CHAMPS.

OLE OLE OLE OLE, WE ARE THE CHAMPS WE ARE THE CHAMPS!

Just like last year, Man-U have not disappointed. Again, we showed Liverpool and Arsenal how football should be played.
Perhaps next week, we can show all European Soccer clubs that we can become Champions League title holders – make history.

OLE OLE OLE OLE, WE ARE THE CHAMPS WE ARE THE CHAMPS!

The last few weeks have been pretty close, but tough luck to Liverpool – so close, yet so far

OLE OLE OLE OLE, WE ARE THE CHAMPS WE ARE THE CHAMPS!

April 25 – Saturday morning -

Nelly and I attended the 2009 Jesuit MBA Service Day, where we did some garden work at Ranier Beach High School. This is part of the Seattle School District, and one of the schools that does not have enough people to take care of all the grounds work. There was a good turnout from the Seattle University MBA Students (<- this should really be Seattle University Business School Students, since Nelly is in the Master of Finance Program). I was on the mulch truck fill-up duty. Nelly was in another group which was putting the mulch onto the ground.
It was a fun day.

 Seattle U MBA Service Day pictures are here

April 25 – Saturday afternoon-

Since we were already in yard clean-up mode, Nelly and I decided this was the best time to start the spring yard maintenance at our house. This invloved making multiple trips to buy top soil, mulch, and a bunch of other yard related stuff. We were pretty exhausted and sore by the end of the day. Hopefully all the work we did will finally take care of the grass which was dormant during the winter. The crows, moles, snails, and other pests, all had a go at our poor lawn. But we believe we have finally claimed it back.

April 26 – Sunday afternoon

Ola, Grace, Sheila, Chilumba, and Nelly decided to finally attend the Skagit Valley Tullip Festival. It was a really nice warm day, and apparently everyone decided to go this weekend. We were stuck in traffic – it took us over 3 hours to drive to a place which would have taken close to an hour.

Ola posed several times with the Tullips. I should tag the photos as ‘Tough guy vs Tullips’, since i did not expect Master TA to accepts position with pink flowers.

Tullip Festival Pictures are here

It was a fun full weekend.
Spring is definately here

Congratulation Julie and Bryan!

Guess which people were in town: pictures captured this moment

We stopped by to hang out with John – his last night in Seattle. He is moving to the bay area.
We took some silly pictures – alternating between a normal regular picture, and one where you open your mouth while shaking your head furiously. These make great photos, as people look like they were totally hammered. But since everyone was buying John drinks, maybe he was totally hammered.

Bye-bye John

The rest of the funny pictures are here

Debarkation rocked! (In contrast to day 1 where embarkation sucked!!)

Destination: Long Beach California.
On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is rated high, I give Carnival Cruise lines a one for embarkation, but a ten for the debarkation.

Debarkation was a breeze, and pretty straight-forward. We already had our bags picked up last night, and when our group number was called, we just walked out and we knew exactly where to pick up our bags. Passport control and customs were also easy, and organized. There were no long times to suffer in like how the embarkation process had gone.John Heald, a senior Cruise Director at Carnival, host a blog all about cruising. It might be a good resource for that wanna-go-on-a-cruise person. Check it out at – JohnHealdsBlog.com