Thinking too much

(I'm trying to explore a variety of ways of coming up with a blog post. This one was inspired from several blogs that I've read today and where I tried relating it to my experience.)

Today, I started my morning by sending a gift to a person whom I've been communicating for more than a year now (although I haven't met her personally). I found out that it was her birthday today through Facebook. Although I've been a member of the Amazon Associates program for quite sometime, it was actually my first time to buy an item (a gift) from the site. I guess the high shipping cost has always turned me off whenever I made attempts in the past. Looking for books that has an e-book version were not available either that makes it a heart breaker. But finally, buying that gift to this person, whom I'm extremely grateful to, is definitely worth the effort. At least I was able to start using those gift certificates earned from its affiliate program. Amazon should start considering having a Facebook gift purchasing application as there's much opportunity that can be captured and take advantage of the relationship linkage that goes with gift giving.

I'm happy in the past two days as my kids began enjoying the local library. It is a big deal when they start putting xBox game consoles inside these establishments that the children can use for free. The young ones can play a Fifa game while the older ones read books. I also found a whole barrage of activities happening the area that I would love to participate soon. Surprisingly, we all got dragged to the library since my daughter started making friends in school and they agreed to just meet in the library to catch up, borrow anime movie DVDs, among others.

My last week in Australia will be hectic as I need to prepare for my workshops and this include giving club members advance pre-work material. That includes last-minute self promotion too. Cramming can be frustrating when you want to integrate as much relevant information as you can as most of my club members are e-business entrepreneurs. There's a lot of pressure on the quality of the content. Take for instance the topic of web navigation, I'm now figuring out if I will have time to include data visualization as well. I guess trying to maintain an evangelist perspective requires you to really work hard to earn it.

Good thing I'm still spared in getting myself in the Second Life community as there are hardly virtual conferences of that sort happening in our part of the world. I noticed though that appreciation of technologies like Web 2.0 is still slow for organizations. So I guess Enterprise 2.0 won't be happening that soon. Perhaps what prevents it from being totally embraced is the idea of ownership and community belonging.

As I'll be riding the plane back home to Manila next weekend, one item that I still haven't decided upon is whether I will go and explore Singapore night life or just stay at the airport overnight. The thing is, my plane will land at 5:40 pm and my flight the next day is at 9:45 am. So I could either just sleep or catch up with people I met online hoping to see them. But disturbing people on a Saturday night is something that I'm not sure if it is ok to do. I hope to decide on this in the next few days.

Whenever in Singapore, one place I always look forward to visit is the electronics shop. They have so much stuff there although I don't really need anything right now and the least I want is to resort to buying gadgets just for the heck of it. Although in my past visits, I've been able to go around the market, have a good Indian food and Vongole dinner in different occasions.

Before leaving, I also have to announce the three winners of the Ratified Australia free text ads. Those who have the Ratified button in their blogs are entitled to be included in the raffle. I wish I could just write to all the blogs listed in Ratified and ask them to add the button but that would be too imposing (and I'm afraid of being rejected or be scolded for it). So I hope this raffle will subtly encourage more blogs to do so.

Another thing that I also need to wrap-up is a marketing plan for a company who plans to operate a casino site targeting those who live in China. With a growing economy, it is not surprising that you find a lot of people working there rather than owning a business these days.

I noticed several male Aussie bloggers joining the Movember campaign. This is where the guys have to grow and groom their moustache for the whole month as they campaign for funds that shall be donated to charities. I think such is a swell idea and will participate actively next year. So I encourage you to sponsor Darren Rowse and Nick Hodge for their Movember pitch.

By December, the election will be over and no one knows for sure whether Australia will have a new Prime Minister by that time. But with the campaign pitches, I'm partly biased in hoping that Howard will remain. I guess I just hate watching debates where opponents are so good in pointing their finger on faults instead of focusing on why their agenda is better - that would encourage voters to give new leaders a chance. The more they put down an existing leader, the more their good qualities, no matter how imperfect they are, also surfaces and gets remembered.

It is funny that I'm already looking forward to be back in Australia and to think I haven't left yet. I'm already thinking about buying David Austin roses for my planned garden, cookies baking, watch live football games and a symphony performance, doodling, and various arts and crafts. Reading up on past art work is something that I have to make time for to get some inspiration for arts and crafts through.

With the holiday season fast approaching, I will need to catch up as well with reading the catalogue junk mail and find out what can be bought in nearby stores that can be useful for the home and that the kids will love to (as there will be no family reunions for them this year). Although they made it clear that they want to have a great Asian Christmas meal to celebrate it so that will require some serious scouting for good Asian restaurants.

From December onwards, I'll try to network and attend meet ups to get to know more people personally. Although some might say that I'm being too optimistic as there's not much action happening in Adelaide.

I'm considering visiting the local zoo again especially once they have new animals there like the Panda that will be donated by the Chinese government. I hope they'll have elephants soon. I'm also thinking of planning a vacation in 2008. Perhaps Greece will be nice.