Bloggers.sg 2005: What a blast

After weeks of work, sweat and blood, the first Bloggers Conference in Singapore is done. It didn't help that I was sick on Thursday and Friday, and desperately trying to get well in time for the full day affair on Saturday.

I started the morning at 7.30am, joining Preetam, and Wendy for the morning session at Woodlands Regional Library. Our superduper photographer Terz, and his temporary assistant and general monkeyboy Alvin, was also there (Al was a cousin of James' from Malaysia, and a blog groupie whom we all love). We had a lot of fun teaching parents and educators about blogging, and I believe we even converted at least one new blogger.

Then it was off the DXO for the afternoon sessions. We got caught out by the crazy NDP road closures, and had to park at Raffles City, then hike all the way via the City Link Mall to the Esplanade. Xiaxue gave me a beating for walking so fast, because she was in heels.

Tym bought us lunch, the sweet person, and I gulped down the wrap as I rushed into the place with a queue already forming outside. The other editors and volunteers had their work cut out for them, and everyone was hustling.

The afternoon whizzed past like a blur. I think I was holding up by sheer adrenaline alone. But it was such a blast. Aside from the sessions, we had:

-a great IRC backchannel running (next year, bring your laptops to join in this fun part, ok?)
-a remote-control helicopter fly-past, and remote-control tank wars upstairs
-bellydancing
-three hours of free flow of house pour for the post-event party (the bloggers drank so much during the post-event party that DXO ran out of whiskey)
-much mingling of old friends and making of new friends
-Kenny Sia up to no good with Sarong Party Girl
-and to top it off, we had a great fireworks display courtesy of the NDP rehearsal, which we viewed from the open area of DXO, as the night skies lit up to complete a great day.

Blogger geroithe took a damn funny and candid pic of Miyagi and me acting cute between shots for the press cameras.

Thanks to all who were so kind as to take pictures with me, I am sorry I did not have time to chat with all of you, because I really wanted to. To the volunteers, you guys rule. We will have an outing with the editors soon, and I will buy all of you the first round of drinks. Thanks to the sponsors MSN, Lexmark and SHINE. Thanks also to all who came, without you, the Con would not have happened.

The highlight of my day that started at 7.30am at Woodlands and ended at 1am at Que Pasa, had to be seeing my family show up. I was sitting onstage during the tech session, and saw a minor commotion behind the place caused by the arrival of my wife, my helper, Faith and Isaac.

(Thanks to Stephanie for escorting my poor bewildered wife to the baby room and for the photos you took, one of which I am using here.)

They headed for the baby room upstairs, and my two little ones caused more commotion when they went to the glass panel to look down at us on the first floor. I could see Isaac's lips saying "Papa" and I smiled.

You can be part of the most exciting bloggers' event in Singapore but it isn't complete if you are not sharing the moment with your family.


My Flickr set of the event and you can also see all the public photos in Flickr tagged as bloggerssg (I also tagged mine bloggerssg05).


Here is a roundup of the blogs that have covered the event so far (I will add the latest ones on top, and move the older ones to the extended body):

Preetam: Blog event at NLB and Singapore Bloggers Conference

MercerMachine: The Big 'Yawn'

Idle Days: Post Bloggers.SG 2005

fayeth: bloggers.sg 2005

hyperger: Non-Complaint #31- Bloggers.SG - a Total KnockOut!!

Sassyjan: Bloggers.sg 2005

LMD: Weekend in brief

Shion: Blog Con ? What ??

Anthony: Perpetuating a Stereotype

Luvphoia: Bloggers.SG 2005 @ DXO

Tym: My very first blogger con

non sequitur: Top Ten Things You Don't Really Wanna Hear At The Bloggers.sg Party

Yuhui: Bloggers.SG

Sheena: Bloggers.SG Photos Galore!

Agagooga: The Rebonded speaks

Adri: Okay, I Changed My Mind

michigan-experience: Bloggers.SG 2005

Hejin: BlogCon - I'm just another one of those minions blogging about it

Text: Bloggers' Conference & The Buzzing Node

Barffie: Post-Blog Con Post

Cheah Chuwen: SG Bloggers 2005

King Meng: I was there: Bloggers.SG 2005

Postmaster-General: A pod of Dolphins

Finicky Feline: Blog Con

Nick Pan: nickpan @ bloggers.sg 2005

@Wannabe Lawyer: Bloggers.sg

Yew Jin: Bloggers.SG 2005

Purplestone: sg bloggers conference 2005

sadomasochisticme: blog-con at DXO + trance at ONYX

NNA: Bloggercon 2005

bleah8: bloggers' convention and the boring after 'party'

Jeff Yen: Bloggers.sg BlogCon: ST Reporters Got Tired And Yawned

SPG: Blog Conference

Vincent Liu: SG Bloggers Convention 2005

Daryl Sng: Bloggers.SG - roundup

Mr Miyagi: Nabeh Sunday Times, you wait!

Cowboy Caleb: The Sunday Times on Bloggers.SG 2005

Shaun Chng: Bloggers.SG photo update

CoW g0eS Mo0 m0o: Bloggers.SG 2005

heartwish: Bloggers.SG Con

utterly-indiscreet: Celebrity Bloggers Conference

doubleyellow: Top Ten Reasons you did not attend the Bloggers.SG meet


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