Bittersweet weekend

Boy oh boy was it a sucky weekend I had last week. It has to be the one of the most sucky weekends I've had yet it ended on a bittersweet note. I was busy all of last week preparing my PC called King Kong for the Kuala Lumpur PC Fair at the KLCC on 10-12th April. Everything was complete and I was all ready to send the PC over to the PC Fair on Friday.I even had King Kong packed in the box and loaded into the boot of my MPV. Then a phone call came in with very sad news. My godfather who has been battling cancer for the past 6 months passed away. I immediately called my sponsor(Silverstone, Inter-Asia Tech) to cancel the delivery of King Kong on Friday.

I then rushed back to my hometown to see if I could help out in anyway for the funeral preparations. My hometown is about 1.5 hours drive away so I was preparing for a looooooooooooooooooooooooong weekend spent on the road. Anyway, got home at 1am that night and collapsed on my bed. Woke up very early on Saturday morning as my sponsor was very understanding and helpful. They decided to send someone over to my house at 9am to pick up King Kong so I wouldn't have to run around like a mad person. As it is, I was already very tired from all that running around and also sad with all those emotions running havoc. I'd just lost my father and now, just a few months later, my dear godfather too.

I went to the PC Fair on Saturday afternoon anyway coz I suddenly realised that King Kong was incomplete. I rushed over to the PC Fair after lunch and got there at about 3pm. I immediately got down to putting the finishing touch on King Kong at the Silverstone booth. A few people managed to catch me there while I was sorting out King Kong. I spent about 10 minutes there answering questions about how I built King Kong. To all my fans, I'm so sorry I couldn't spend more time there so the Silverstone fans can have a question and answer session with me. I was in a big hurry to finish up and then drive back to my hometown again. Got home at 1am that night and collapsed from exhaustion again.

Woke up early on Sunday morning so I could attend the PC Fair from 11am to 2pm. I got there at 10.40am and got stuck in the massive human traffic jam at the entrances. Lucky for me, my sponsor arranged for an Exhibitors pass which grants access to all areas and all entry and exit doors. So I proceeded to enter through a back door. Pheeeeeew, thank god I didn't have to go through that human traffic jam.I spent the next 4 hours chilling at the Silverstone booth. I have to say it was the most relaxing time I had that weekend. I really needed a rest from all that running around and those 4 hours was heaven sent. I can't think of a better way for a gadget freak like me to have a break than be surrounded by all those tech toys and PCs. I had to leave at 3pm though. Needed to go pick up my wife and kids and go back to my hometown again. That was the end of my time at the Kuala Lumpur PC Fair as it ends on Sunday night. This was the bittersweet moment. I was sad and exhausted, but I was happy to have helped Inter-Asia at the PC Fair.

I had wanted to help a Malaysian company make a big bang at the PC Fair for many years. I was getting so fed up of the KL PC Fair turning into sorta like a car boot sales kinda thing. It had degraded to such a level that there was nothing much to see or do there. The exhibitors only had 1 thing in mind and that was to sell as much hardware as possible during the PC Fair. I had stopped going to the PC Fair for the past 2 years in fact. I'd given up hope that there would be a company willing to put up a booth of international trade show standards. I have finally achieved that dream this year though. Inter-Asia Technology Sdn Bhd, managed to get a booth at last and it was gonna be something special. And it was really special. The booth they built was superb, best booth at any of the PC Fairs I've attended in many years. I am most honored to have been involved with Inter-Asia Tech at the PC Fair. I hope that King Kong and Silverstone have opened the Malaysian public's eyes. I hope they will now demand to see cutting edge technology presented at booths built to international standards instead of just going there to buy cheap stuff.

Anyway, back to the sucky weekend story. I left the PC Fair and got back to my hometown at about 6pm, Sunday. Spent an hour helping out and then left for home at 7pm as I had a dinner appointment at 8pm. Talk about hectic eh? Got home from dinner at about 1am and collapsed in bed again. Woke up early on Monday morning and drove down to my hometown to attend funeral mass at 10am. After everything was done, I got home at about 6pm, Monday. Fell asleep immediately without even taking a shower. I only woke up at 6am on Tuesday morning! Longest I've ever slept I think. That has got to be the most chaotic weekend I've experienced in my life! Total mileage covered during the weekend was about 1000km or 600 miles. And to cap off that crazy weekend, I caught a really bad flu. It's knocked me out so badly I'm only starting to have some energy to type on my PC now. Anyway, I'm still pretty tired from all that running around plus the massive flu I have now so I'll sort out the pics of the PC Fair later and post that up soon. Right now.......... I need more sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. Off I go to bed.