Swiss Schengen Visa

From March 10-16 the whole family have a plan to visit Switzerland.  Like many others, Swiss was our dream destination for its beautiful scenic country.  The kids had just started their long summer holiday starting from March to May.  Good heaven for Bangkok with less traffic.  Probably the best time to visit Thailand.  We plan to go to Swiss for a one-week trip with Grandma and grandpa.  Both of them and my kids will also stay behind for another week with the visit to Austria and Germany.

The story began with visa application.  Since our port of entry and the longest length of stay will be in Swiss.  We all went to Swiss embassy.  We were treated poorly.  This make me realize that the embassy is not one of the place that had a real negative attitude toward the non-Swiss people.

I understood that going to Europe had been very strict for non-european, but we were very careful.  We learned a lot for the financial statement and asset that we presented to the embassy.  My mom had invested a lot in a non-bank financial institute (for example Tisco, or other trust fund).  This kind of passbook is not accepted at the first place.  My kids will also extend their trip with their grandma and grandpa, but the swiss issued only a 10 day multiple entry visa.  Finally they all have to cut the trip with two-day shorter than expected.

I really had a bad impression with Swiss embassy.  I was told that to apply for Schengen visa, we should apply from other countries like Germany, France, Austria, etc., but not the Swiss.

If by any chance you wish to go touring on your own, consider not applying visa from Swiss.

Omelet

Yes.  A simple Omelet that anyone can make.  Why it's so special?  It's special because my son made it for me.

His school start teaching kids to do some cooking this year.  Of course the Omelet menu is the simplest and easiest one to get over with.  It's a fundamental threshold of the future great cooking.

Pun Pun came back from school one day and told everyone that the night menu was Omelet.  It was a must for everyone to have it for dinner.  Of course all of us had to agreed and ate the first time ever made Omelet by Pun Pun.

Tell you what, hot Omelet with smoke-full fresh-from-the-oven rice with a little chili and fish sauce do make the day.  Pun Pun Omelet was delicious.  

The picture say it all.

Canon 5D Mark II

I spent lots of money over the weekend.  On my new set of camera and gears.  At first I was wishing to buy a second camera just to have my long lens ready for shooting along with my old camera for standard lens shooting.  I went to this fotofile.net shop and talk to the sales guys at the store about the features of the new camera.  I was eyeing for Canon 50D.  

I guys shown me both the 50D and 5D MK II.  Of course the MK II is a much more fancy in term of full-frame capture and the processing of colors.  The price is also twice as much.  I did the trading on my existing 70-200 f4L USM lens that I bought over 2 years ago but rarely use.  I got quite a good number as I bought it for 20,000 Baht and sold it for 15,000.  I also traded my EFS 17-85 standard lenses for 9,000 Baht (I bought it for 12,000 but heavily used it.)

Anyway, I bought back my Canon 5D Mk II, 100-400 f4L IS USM and a 24-105 f4L IS USM lenses.  Now my set is perfect.  I have two cameras as I wished for with lenses to cover from wide angle (10-20) up to 400 mm.  The only thing that I don't have is the art in taking photo.  My next move is to attend a photo class workshop.  Too bad for a weekend spending lots of money on this little hobby of mine.

KhonKaen

During Feb 6-8 2009, I have a chance to visit KhonKaen as one of my friend was to enter the monkhood for 7 days.  He selected a temple in Khonkaen to be his monastery.  Mac and I flew in on the evening as the event will occur early of the next morning.  We had plan to participate in his ordain then visit a golf course in that afternoon

After the ceremony, we drove to Ubolratana Dam Golf Course to learned that the course was closed for

 a competition.  We then decided to drive to the other side of the town to a newly opened course, namey "Dancoon".  Dan in Thai means the land, and Coon is a local plantation which is also the symbol of Khonkaen.  So Dancoon means the land of the Coon plant.

The course was neat with well groom fairway and excellent Green condi

tion.  The price was only 800 Baht.  We decided to use the golf cart as the weather is a bit hot and the rounding was the first of mine for this year.  I made four wonderful pars.  Not bad for a twice a year golfer like me.

The

 next day we have three hiurs before our flight back to bangkok.  We decided to give respect to the Khonkaen's town pole.  (The town pole is the sacred place when the ancester first establish the town, they drawn all spirits to stay at the town post to guard against all the devils and bad things.) 

We then drove off another 20 Km. to visit "Pratad Khamkaen" which is a pagoda in a temple that contain the remains of the lord Buddha.  The temple is also the first establishment community of KhonKaen 

town itself.  The name "Khamkaen" was the former name of "Khonkaen" as pronunciation has changed over time.

Crafting a KM Strategy Presentation

I was invited by IKEA-SEA and Bangkok University to give a presentation on KM.  My topic was about "Crafting a KM Strategy".  I got a chance to give my view on KM which I'm doing at work.  There were audiences from many places, mostly in academic area.

It was fun and enjoyable.  My view was really differ from other.  It's a story from the field.  I had a chance to meet Nial Sinclaire, he author of "Stalth KM" which is one of my favorite book on KM.

Now I'm invited to provide the same speech at Chiangmai University.  Let's see when.