Don’t get fooled today

Do you realize that today is April fool’s Day? So be on guard, lest you be taken in by an April Fools’ joke. Haha, it would be wise to remember that not everyone has a sense of humor. I must confess that I have played harmless jokes on my friends, college and family on this day. After being serious for more than 300 plus days a year, it is nice to have a day off for jokes. You should be prepared to be fooled on April 1 and not take it to heart.

This morning, I played one joke on Veronica. She was taken in for a few minutes before she realized that it might be an April Fools’ joke. Others were not so fortunate.

The big one was played in front of 200 participants in the seminar we held at the Crown Plaza Riverside Hotel today. I went up to the stage and spoke with a serious tone. “Today is a very unfortunate day. One of you here thinks that you are a smart Alec. During the break, you went to the staff room and tried to be fresh with one of our female staff. You tried to get onto her and tried to kiss her... Even though she told you that she has absolutely no interest, you still persisted on. During the struggle, she took a sharp pencil and struck you and injured your palm. We know who you are. We have informed the police. After this announcement. I'd like to see you behind.” The whole room was in dead silence. Then I took out my hand from my pocket and it was bandaged in red ink. They all started to laugh.

We played a joke on Phoebe. First, I asked Shirlynn to text her and pretend to be Ben, a good looking Chinese guy from Australia whom Phoebe just met. We tricked her to believe that Ben was trying to date her. From the way she responsed, we could feel her heart pounding. She almost freaked out. Kekeke, she will be more careful next year.

We played a joke on Yang Po too. As she is still recovering from her illness, we only planned a mild joke. Hope she laughed at the joke and recovers sooner.

We played a joke on June Yuen. Shirlynn texted June and told her that the seminar was badly organized and that Jessie has broke down, cried and now cannot be found. We were all worried for her. We just managed to stop June as she was booking her air ticket to fly to Kuching to help.

The seminar ended at about 7 pm and we went for dinner behind the hotel. Along the way, we bumped into Kelvin and Michael from Hong Kong. We went back to the same place that Simon took us last night. The seafood is very good there. The only thing lacking is a good dessert. After the dinner, Fabian suggested we go to the Starbuck's nearby.

As we were waiting for the coffee, Douglas whispered in my ear that one of the speakers, Sam has requested that he does not want another speaker, Francis to be in the room when he speaks tomorrow. The reason is that, he does not want Francis to copy his speech. It is a serious matter and can be a potential time bomb if we do not address the issue immediately. I suggested to Douglas that we should call both Sam and Francis to sit together and iron out the differences. Douglas said he will meet them and handle it. We went back to our room. I was worried.

It was 11.50 pm when my phone rang. Alice, Sam’s lovely wife called. “Richard, Douglas and Sam met and Sam was very upset. He has gone to Francis’s room. I am afraid. He might punch him”. My heart dropped to my toe. Sam is a big rough American. Francis will be no match for him. “Where is Douglas?” I asked. The last thing I wanted is to have 2 professional men pounding on one another. “He is going after Sam” Alice replied. “What do you think is the best thing to do?” I asked, at a loss for words. “I don’t know. I thought I'd just let you know”, Alice replied. “Is there anything that Francis did today that upset Sam?” I asked, trying to think hard about my next move. I wanted to go stop the fight but I don’t know in which room Francis is staying. He is on the 17 floor. I am sure there will be a commotion and it will be easy to spot.

“What is the day today?” Alice added. “1 April?, ahhhhhhhhhhhhh .. Alice you fooled me”. I could hear roaring laugher in the background. Only then, I realized that the last joke of the day was played on me.

It is now 11.58pm. 2 minutes to midnite. I don’t have time to get back at them. Alice/Sam/Douglas, I will remember you next year.

PS: I am trying to upload photos of Phoebe, YangPo, Veronica, Ben, Douglas, Jessie and Shirlynn but for some reason I encountered an error. Maybe I will upload later.

Surabaya, Indonesia - Majaphit Hotel

I just finished talking to 300 people in hotel Majaphit,

Surabaya, Indonesia. The energy in the room was low in the beginning. I think it is because I just arrived from the airport. It is a 45 min drive and I took a nap. When I went up the stage, I was still half asleep. The energy picked up half way though. This is a fun group of nice people. Majaphit hotel is one of the best classic hotels here. I have lots of content to cover and with the translation, I have to speed up. Many could not copy the notes fast enough. This is the link to download my powerpoint www.globalinternetsummit.com . You should be able to click on it and get into the page that looks like the above. If not, you can just type the address to your browser.

I usually have to rush off to the airport as soon as the program has ended. This time the Surabuya team was able to catch me to take a group picture.

They have put in lots of work to build the market in Surabaya.

Last week, I did a launch on the Pre Enroller in Tokyo. It is a automatic marketing system that enables you to see the potential of the business before you decide to get involved. I will check the sales tomorrow and announce the result from the system. Watch out for it.

Running at the Kallang River

Arrghhh, pain all over my body. I am tempted not to get up and just lay on the bed for the pain to wear off. Kekekee, I went jogging yesterday with some of my staff at the Kallang River after office hours. I have not had time to exercise with all the travel and work schedule. I already felt a bit guilty. When Phoebe, our youngest staff asked if I wanted to join the jogging, my big mouth agreed. Out of all the staff, 5 of us will do the unusual. Others prefer drinking coffee and chatting online after office hours.

We changed at 6 pm. I was pleasantly surprised that Lily and Lena are also game for it. Lily is our account and she is very hard working but usually keeps to herself and does not join the staff in extra activities unless it is pure office work. Lena is the type that will go sing Karaoke and dancing .. jogging, ohh no way. We took a short walk from the office to the Kallang river. We begin by warming up and stretching. I told them that they don't have to run or jog fast, just walking briskly will do. Hahaha, I was actually preempting them for myself. The weather is real nice and there are already many office people there in their tee shirts and running shoes and of course iPods too. From the Kallang River to Esplanade Concert Hall is 2.4 Km. We will have a chance to run pass the ferris wheel, and SkyQuestCom office too.

Here we go. Taking an easy pace. Cyrus and Phoebe both look very fit and they lead the way. Along the way, there are also senior older men, just sitting on the bench, just talking and drinking tea. There are also a couple of people with their long rods, fishing away. I don't think they care much about catching any fishes more then spending their time relaxing and chatting with friends. I spotted a couple kissing away, sitting by the edge of the river. Hope they don't fall off. That would be fun to watch. I already began to sweat. Suddenly, I heard Lena and Lily talking behind. The sole of her running shoe came off. She has not used this shoe for so long that the glue became so dry. She torn off the other sole too and started running. She is very game, I thought she might just give up already. It ended well with healthy soya bean milk. It was almost 8 pm when we finished. I know some of them will take medical leave the next day .

I hope Phoebe will continue to organise the jogging regularly. Please do come and join us.