May 2011 is a month I’ll never forget. Plenty of good things happened but at the same time, bad things as well.

I went to the US to attend BlackBerry World, travelling Business Class on the super long haul A350-400. You can read my previous entry on this.

Came back to Malaysia for a few days, then flew off to Manchester for a money-can’t-buy trip. The main event was to watch the last home match for Manchester United for the season. It was against Blackpool and there were 6 goals in total. I also got to see the team lift the 19th BPL title.

The highlight, however, was two days before the match. We got to visit Carrington, Manchester United’s training ground. Carrington is not opened to public and no amount of money can get you in. Well, unless you have VERY powerful connections or if you are a global sponsor, like Epson (who sponsored my trip).

I got to meet ALL the players, got Nani and Park’s autograph and the best of all, Sir Alex Ferguson’s autograph as well. We took a picture with him too! We trained with ex Manchester United player, Quiton Fortune, as well but I didn’t do much, since I have back problems. I was just walking around the pitch and kept the paramedic (yes, there was a paramedic for us) company.

After the match, we then travelled to London and the bad news broke – my house was broken into. All I could think of was my mum’s safety. Chee Minh, Ken, Simon and all my friends offered to help and I’m glad that it was only monetary loss.

I then found out that a few of my friends broke up with their girlfriends/boyfriends. What did I say about May being a bad month?

Rushed the magazine after I came back from England and then flew off to Taipei for Computex. This time around, Simon, Lucas and Wern Shen tagged along. All of us had work to do at Computex but we managed to find time for leisure. I have to say, this is my best Computex ever and it’s mainly because of the company.

Imagine this – We sat at a park at night, next to a night market and watched how the Taiwanese throw their garbage into the garbage truck. We spent an hour there. It is just so fascinating! (no this is not sarcasm, it really was an eye opener!) There were some problems with my flight coming back but all was settled. Anyway, pictures will come soon (or not) depending on how lazy I am. I’ve uploaded some of them to my Facebook though so if you are my friend, head on to Facebook and check it out.

To sum up, May was an awesome month because I got to go to the US (not forgetting Disney World Florida as well, wanted to go there ever since I was a kid), I got to go back to England (by the way, I saw Prince Charles and Camilia in their Rolls Royce!), I got to watch my favourite team play and lift the historical 19th BPL title, I met Manchester United’s players and I had the best Computex ever. As for the bad stuff, let’s just leave it there.

I might be going to Taipei again at the end of the month for a launch. I’ve not discussed with the team yet but it’ll most probably be me going.

Got to go now and let’s hope that June 2011 will be a better month. Good night.

Well technically, I’ve been back for a couple of days now. Anyway, Orlando was really nice! One of the best junkets I’ve been to. I’ve been comparing BlackBerry World 2011 and Nokia World 2009 (check my archives) and BlackBerry World won by miles. I hope when and if Nokia decides to invite me again, they’ll be able to top what RIM did.

Anyway, I did a lot of shopping when I was in Orlando. Everything is cheaper at the Premium Outlets. I bought plenty of T-shirts, plenty of Coach bags, Lacoste shirts and two pairs of Levi’s Jeans. Got a few plushies as well for the colleagues. Here are some picture of my trip. Didn’t really take a lot of pictures as I was a little lazy. Relied on my Blackberry and iPhone for casual photos. Will also try my best to put this in chronological order.

My seat from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore. This is the new MAS plane with the new livery

My haul from the Orlando Premium Outlets

Eileen’s haul. 10 Coach bags…

All the paper bags from my shopping

The food court at Orlando Premium Outlets

I had this. All American A&W. Wanted the Coney Dog but when they asked if I wanted chilli, I said no. Which is why I got only the onions…

Went to Downtown Disney for dinner with the SEA media team

Woody from Toy Story! It’s made out of Lego!

Buzz Lightyear Plushie. Didn’t buy this

The first day of BlackBerry World. This is my new Crumpler bag given to me by the SEA RIM people. We are supposed to dress it up and at the end of the event, a winner will be chosen. As you can see, I don’t really deserve to win. haha

Mike Lazaridis, big boss of RIM, announced at his keynote that everyone gets a PlayBook. This is mine, starting up.

Party with Paul Oakenfold and Dragonnette at Universal Studios!

The BlackBerry World Party! It was really nice! They closed down a huge part of Universal Studio for us!

Me, Eric (the lion) and the penguins. All from Madagascar…besides me of course

The ranger ushering them back to…

…the Madagascar trailler!

Paul Oakenfold spinning!

Really nice BlackBerry inspired doormat. This picture is a little out of place. Not too sure when I took this. Hahaha

The Cinderella Castle at the Magic Kingdom, Disney World

Went to the Hall of Presidents at Liberty Square in Disney World. This was on the floor

The Cinderella Castle lit in purple, the iconic colour in all Disney movies

Cinderella carriage at the Disney parade

Dragon. Don’t know from which Disney cartoon…

Fireworks and the castle

My meal on the way back to Singapore. Can’t remember if this is the Gordon Ramsey created meal or not

Passport holder from BlackBerry Alliance. Very useful. It was a mistake on their side. This is only to be given to BlackBerry Alliance members but the people were handing it out to everyone. They realized the mistake, sent an email to everyone and retracted the email.

Not my seat but mine looks like this. Took this when we landed

All Business class seats on the Singapore Airlines A340-500 planes

That, my friend, is my US trip. I’ll be flying off the Manchester next week to watch Manchester United vs Blackpool, the last home match of this season. It’s a non-working trip, sponsored by working clients. I AM GOING TO WATCH THE DEVILS! WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Like I said, May is a very exciting month!

… I have plenty.

Don’t worry, I won’t go mushy talking about memories. This is a picture of the USB flash drives I have in my bag, hence the memories. Get it?

Ever since I joined the media industry, I’ve never paid for a USB flash drive. The picture you see above are just the ones in my bag. I have plenty more in the office and I’ve given away even more.

My first USB flash drive was an 8MB one, given to me by a friend. It was back in college and I was the very first in class to have a USB flash drive. It was huge and it’s enclosed in a translucent case. That 8MB lasted me for quite some time.

Then I bought my very first thumbdrive; a 128MB one. I can’t remember what brand it was but it’s green in colour and it is also enclosed in a translucent case. It lasted a few months and survived various torture tests I put it through. It went into the washing machine with my jeans. It worked like a charm after I laid it out under the Sun for a few hours. I’ve even sat on it and it broke into half! I used some super glue to glue it back, it worked but not for long. I didn’t have a thumbdrive when I went to the UK and I didn’t have one at my first job.

I joined the media industry and they were giving out USB flash drives like mad! 1GB was the norm back then, although I got a few 256Mb ones. 1GB then turned into 2GB drives and subsequently, 4GB. I still get 1GB ones though. 8GB is starting to trickle in and I have a few of them with me. The largest I’ve gotten was a 16GB drive from HP when they were launching their Elite notebooks. I gave it to my ex-designer.

Most of these drives are generic but some do give out branded drives. From the top of my mind, Adobe gave out Thumbdrives and SanDisks whereas Intel and NEC gave out PenDrives. Panasonic in particular, gives SDHC card away. It used to be 4GB ones but recently, they’re giving out smaller 1GB and 2GB ones. I think they are getting rid of the older SDHC cards.

I wonder if there is a software that can combine all these drives into one large drive when it’s plugged into a PC. Anyone?

P.S. Sorry for not updating but this is a small run down on what happened, from the top of my mind-

- US visa approved. US Embassy is REALLY EFFICIENT. Was in and out of the embassy in 30 minutes.

- Dined with Manchester United legends, Bryan “Captain Marvel” Robson and Andy Cole (he prefers to be be called Andrew Cole now) at the Manchester United Unicef Charity dinner, courtesy of Epson Malaysia.

- Aircond in the office went bonkers. It was a hot week. It’s fixed now.

- Attended Eileen’s best friend’s wedding. Christian wedding for a change.

I guess that’s it!

This is the first time I am writing an entry using the iPad. I’ve used the iPad to write articles before so typing on this thing is still alright.

Anyway, remember the Fujian trip I was talking about? Well, it’s canceled. Apparently the sponsor had a budget limitation. I was actually looking forward to go but another time maybe.

Even though one trip is canceled, another one came up and it’s to a place I ALWAYS wanted to go. I just got an invitation to attend the inaugural BlackBerry World! It’ll be held in Orlando, Florida and I’ve always wanted to go to the states.

When I was younger, I wanted to go to Disneyland and the only Disneyland I knew back then was the one in Florida. A quick check on the BlackBerry World website shows that one of the recommended hotel is the Hilton Walt Disney World. I’m not too sure where is Research In Motion (RIM), the parent company for BlackBerry, putting us up but I really hope it’ll be the Hilton Walt Disney World.

The trip will be early May, just nice for me since I’ll be done with the May issue (I hope). Now I just need to get my visa settled, which is, from what I read, one of the hardest visas to get. I’ll be talking to Wern Shen about the visa thingy tomorrow since he just came back from Las Vegas a couple of months back.

Florida, here I come!

I was having dinner with a bunch of media friends just now and Wern Shen asked me why I don’t blog anymore. He’s been blogging regularly and that sort of makes him a ‘pro’ now. HAHAHA. So here you go Mr. Chan!

My last entry was last year and we’re well into the first quarter of 2011, well, the last month of the first quarter. I’ve been pretty busy of late, which explains the lack of updates. (I interchange ‘busy’ and ‘lazy’ as I like)

Anyway, I’ve been doing quite a bit of travelling in 2011. I went to Bali for BlackBerry Devcon Asia 2011 in January, then to Singapore for AMD’s Fusion Tech day at the end of the January.

I stayed in Malaysia the whole of February mainly because it’s a short month and it’s Chinese New Year. (Ok, the main reason is I didn’t get any invites to cover overseas event, despite the fact that there are plenty)

I just came back from Samsung Forum Asia 2011 held at Singapore a few days ago. In April, I’ll be going to Fujian, China, although that’s not confirmed yet. I hope I’ll be able to go to Computex this year, which is in May (31st May actually). I missed Computex last year because there weren’t any sponsors.

In a few months time (October), I’ll be heading off to Hong Kong with the girlfriend and her parents. That’ll be a personal trip but it coincides with China’s National Day holidays. I have the air tickets and accommodation settled and hoping that it won’t be as crowded as what they say. Hey, one can hope, right?

Despite my busy travelling schedule, I am no where near Wern Shen’s travelogue. In February alone, he’s been to Singapore, Barcelona (for MWC) and Shanghai. Not to mention Las Vegas for CES in January. I really wanted to go to CES and MWC but…oh well.

There are a few big events I really want to go. Both CES and MWC are on that list. The other events are CeBIT, Computex and BlackBerry World. I don’t think I’ll get the chance to go to CeBIT, which is held annually in Hanover, Germany because CHIP Germany is there. I’ve been to Computex, sort of went to BlackBerry World (it was Devcon, Asia, close enough me thinks). Next year, maybe.

Anyway, work is piling up and I gotta sleep. Thanks for reading. You know who you are.