Last Friday (11.11.11) we moved into our new home in Lagoon Villas, Kota Kemuning. It was a great experience, although one that you don’t want to have to go through too often.

Our new double-storey town house is 3 times larger than our old apartment so we have lots of space for our stuff and for Zack to grow up in. Pei Chyi has a nice kitchen to cook and bake, and I wired the house up for connectivity (how geeky!).

We are very thankful to God for blessing us with a wonderful place and to our family members and friends for all their support. And to IKEA for the many affordable, good quality furniture in our home

View more photos on Flickr, or my Facebook album.

In July I turned 30. It’s a big milestone to pass as I’m now in my 4th decade. These are some thoughts and personal reflections of where I am in life now.

I’m Happy to be Where I Am

In kindergarten I used to wish that I had my friend’s toys. In primary and secondary school I wished that I was as cool or smart as my friends. In uni I wished I had more freedom. I was also quite obsessed with obtaining washboard abs. And when I began my career I wished I had more money, more success, a bigger car.. the list goes on.

In March 2008 I married Pei Chyi and last year we had Zachary. Our home is a modest apartment (though we are moving to a larger but still modest place) and I drive a not-very-flashy Proton Persona.

My life now is definitely not what I had dreamed it to be 10 years ago, but it’s ok because I’m happy to be where I am. I realize that God has blessed me abundantly and I am contented with what I have.

Reflecting on my goals from 10 years past, I realize the money, success, respect and material things I had wanted were merely representations of the happiness that I truly wanted. Now that I am happy, my list of wants are not important at all.

This realization of happiness and contentedness has been a major theme for me in the past few years and it was front and center as I celebrated my 30th birthday.

On a Lighter Note…

The other thing that struck me while approaching my 30th birthday was the fact that I am aging. I’m feeling the years in the form of aches and soreness that I didn’t have before. Thankfully these are pretty minor right now, and weren’t a problem when I climbed Mt Kinabalu with Pei Chyi earlier this year.. phew!

Babysitting Zack is also becoming more of a challenge. He’s now learnt to walk and is starting to run. He can get up and running from a sitting position faster than I can! I’m glad that he’s here to help me keep my fitness up

Here’s Looking Forward To 40

The past few years starting a family have been great. I foresee the next 10 will be really exciting as Zack grows up and as we all settle into our new home. I can’t wait.

This Wednesday to Sunday (6-10 April), I am climbing Southeast Asia’s tallest mountain – Mt Kinabalu. My expedition partners are Pei Chyi (@peichyi), my brother Eric and sister Yvonne (@yviewangle). Follow us on our climb through Twitter, see if I pass out or make it to the top!

Live tweets from the climb

We’ll be tweeting from the mountain where we can. For the areas that we don’t have 3G or EDGE, we’ve signed up with gladlyCast to post our tweets by SMS. Yes, I know we’re obsessed.

Our Itinerary

We have a more relaxed schedule and are making the hike over 3 days and 2 nights. Our itinerary:

Day 1: Timpohon Gate to Laban Rata
Day 2: Laban Rata to Low’s Peak, back to Laban Rata
Day 3: Laban Rata back down to Timpohon

This is a map of the trail we are hiking.

Click for the full sized image

Update: We made it!

We made it to the summit!

P.S. This is a pretty good site for those who are curious about climbing Mt Kinabalu – ClimbMtKinabalu.com

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1. I've been FlipFaced!
2. I'm presenting at the 1st ever WordCamp Malaysia! [updated]
3. I made a podcast

The past 3 years have just flown by, and they’ve been the best years of my life. Happy Anniversary Pei Chyi, I love you.

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1. Peanut Butter Ritual

Yesterday I turned 29. It was a fun day and I wanted to record this day for posterity. The day started off with my awesome wife Pei Chyi making me breakfast in bed.

I honestly thought I was dreaming. She woke me and said, “I’ve got a surprise for you. But you can’t leave the bedroom.” And thus I enjoyed my 1st ever breakfast in bed.

This was followed up with an amazing lunch with chocolate fondue for dessert.

Mmm.. now you know why I’ve put on weight since getting married.

Pei Chyi took a day off for my birthday so we went out to run a few errands, and I got a back massage in Circle Art of Massage at The Curve. First time I tried them and I was pleased with the results. Don’t let the demure Chinese female masseuse fool you – she’s really strong. I also managed to write a blog post about Friendster Group CEO Ganesh Kumar Bangah.

My birthday felt like a nice little holiday in the middle of a crazy busy period at work. Thanks Pei Chyi, I really enjoyed it and spending time with you and the boy.

Goo goo gaa gaa

Thank You Internet (and Real Life) Friends

I received Facebook wall posts and Tweets all day long from all of you. Like I said, I thought I got attacked by spammers when I woke up yesterday. I know that I don’t meet up with you often enough so I want to say thank you publicly on my blog.

I’m really lucky to know all of you and I appreciate our friendship. Thanks for being part of my special day yesterday. Cheers!

This year’s Father’s Day was extra special. It was the first time I celebrated Father’s Day as a son and as a new father. With only 3 months of experience I’m not the most experienced dad.

My experience to date has mainly been cradling baby to sleep at all hours of the day, pulling boogers out of baby Zack’s little nose (don’t ask), baby baths and poop disasters. It’s been quite a ride and can be pretty exhausting. For example, my Father’s Day was met with baby Zack waking up 3 times at night.

Despite the lack of beauty sleep, fatherhood has been wonderful. Every time I look at baby Zack peacefully sound asleep my heart just melts.

I’m looking forward to many more happy Father’s Days to come.

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Pei Chyi & Zachary

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A while ago, I saw a tweet by @Veronica talking about her new FlipFace avatar. I had a look and it was really sweet! I’ve been wanting a cartoon-style avatar for a long time and at USD10 a pop I didn’t even blink twice! Check out my very own avatar:

My FlipFace

The picture it was based on

What do you think? Tell me in the comments (but please be gentle )

In my personal opinion, I think the artist Len Peralta did a great job. I’m using it as my Twitter avatar, and I think it really stands out. Get your own FlipFace too! And be sure to follow @jawboneradio on Twitter!

P.S. If you’re looking for a different style of avatar, you can also check out Fast Icon caricatures which I had almost purchased.

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Meet Baby Muffin

More details on Pei Chyi’s blog

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It’s been roughly 6 weeks since I’ve started up Buzzmedia again. This is a post to update you on what I’ve been up to and try to explain what it is that I do (since lots of people don’t understand).

First, God has been good in providing me with a steady stream of projects so that I don’t starve to death. In fact, my income for July was almost equal my last drawn salary at AGENDA. Encouraging, but still a long way to go.

Second, I will not attempt to explain what is it exactly that I do for a living now, with examples from the past 6 weeks.

How I earn a living

Web strategy consulting. This involves me helping other companies understand and make use of the internet to promote their business. In this capacity, I sit in meetings, listen to the client and then put together a proposal with recommendations for them or their partners to execute. I try not to do the execution myself. This is one of the most interesting activities I’m involved in at the moment and helps me keep learning all the new stuff in online (or digital) marketing, but doesn’t pay as well as I’d like it too. When I make a name for myself hopefully I will be able to charge more for this service.

Training & seminars. Apparently I happen to know quite a bit about this online marketing business and in July, I’ve actually delivered 2 seminars on the topic. Specifically the topics I provide training on are introduction to online marketing, analytics and optimisation, and social media. See the embedded slideshow below to if you don’t understand the term ‘social media’. No, it wasn’t me who put together the presentation below (although I wish I had).

Grunt work (website development & email marketing). I call this grunt work because it’s the activity that is most commoditized among all my income streams. I actually find it fun to build websites and pretty emails, but it involves the most hair pulling. Some projects I’ve worked on recently is rockstar blogger Chris Guillebeau’s Art of Non-Conformity email newsletter and my friend’s Dubrovnik Restaurant website.

Blogging. As you may know I run quite a few blogs and most of them have advertisements on them. I do make some pocket money from them, but my main reason for blogging is to meet new and interesting people and certain blogger privileges, like attending the Maxis iPhone 3GS official launch recently

In summary…

Wow, you do so many things–how do I explain what is it my nephew/friend does for a living?

Let me start with what I don’t do. Dear aunties and uncles, I don’t work in IT. The internet is not IT. IT involves lots of gizmos and equipment like in the picture below.

Flicrk photo from camknows

The work I do is more refined. I’m a marketing consultant, advising companies large and small to help them understand, get started and continuously improve their marketing activities on the internet.

Aiyoh, complicated. Ok then, here’s the plain English answer:

David works in advertising, but on the internet. He designs a new generation of advertising techniques and teaches it to his clients.

Ok? Thanks, bye.