Homepage has been set up

I'm logging here after quite some time! Since my last post here, I've set up my homepage , using my own domain name.

Domain Registered

Just a spur of the moment thought.... I decided to register my own domain. After, bit of a search, I decided to settle @ Go Daddy to register my domains. I registered both sumudu.net and sherperdlodge.com and also chose Go Daddy as my web hosting provider. It all happened within a just about couple of hours late night on the 21st January. Well... another first for me! I need to try and think of designing (or re -designing) my own website and up load to my own domain. I say, re-design as even now I have my own little homepage on the web, hosted, using my dot mac account. I, however, couldn't figure out how to publish the site contents I have in my iweb on to another domain other than dot mac and as always, I posted for help at my favorite EmiratesMac Apple User Group site and I have to say, within a blink, I had a response giving me tips on how to get on with it. Brilliant!!! Let's see how it goes tonight as I've already started FTP to my own domain and seems it takes a hell of lots time to up load. Oh well.. never mind !

Extra ordinary colleague

Before it slips out of my mind, I thought I must write some thing about an extra ordinary colleague of mine. He has been working in our company since its inception in 1985. In fact, it was quite recently during a business trip to Tunis that I found out he was a Flight Purser of one of the two very first flights of the airline on October the 21st, 1985. He has served on the flight from Dubai to Karachi on that day. Telling the story of that 1st flight, he said " The give-aways on that flight were 24 carrot gold plated key rings and when I walked in the aircraft cabin to distribute give-aways, none of the passengers wanted them and they were refusing...." They didn't want to accept these 24 carrot gold plated key rings as they were so afraid of their local airport customs that they would impound them on arrival.." He also shared with me about a dinner that him and another few first employees were invited by the Chief Executive of the company. In that dinner, the Chief Executive of the company, then has said about how the company's route network would look like in the future, talking about all sorts of destinations like Colombo, Manila, Singapore, Hongkong, London, Paris, North America.... Looking at where we are now, as one of the world's fastest growing airline, it is amazing, the vision of our Chief Executive during those early days, has now become a reality ! Most certainly, untiring efforts of all those who were part of those early days in setting up the vision and making things happen had contributed to the growth and success to the organization. In that, my colleague Ibrahim Issa has always been one of them. I have to say, it has been a privilege to being able to have him as a wonderful colleague and a friend! As I go along which would think a long one in writing and posting about my life and career, I hope to be able to write more stories from Ibrahim about the airline's early days.

Go Karting @ Dubai Autodrome

There's always a first time... It was the 1st time I did gokarting ever! Last evening, I went for gokarting with our senior management colleagues from EKFC. We also had Hermann and Stefan joining from my team. Meeting at Dubai Autodrome - Kartdrome @ 1700hrs, we had to first signed in and got changed to our racing gear - overalls, helmets, and hand gloves. We then had about 10 minutes briefing on basic rules and stuff from one of the Autodrome employees. After that we were allocated our Karts and I got No 37 - Sodikart with 4 Stroke Engine, 390cc/cm3, 13.5bhp, speed 90-100Kms per hour. We began with a qualifying session - 5 Flying laps, approximately 10 minutes. Guess what ? Towards the end of my fifth lap, my kart stopped in the middle of the racing track and after several attempts, the marshaller could not get it re-started and had to put a side on to the curb and I was asked to walk back to the pit. I was then given a new kart no 37 for the Heat Race. We had all together 14 participants. Although my kart turned 3 times on the racing track, been the 1st time, I was not bad. I drove fast as much as I could; however, I found it was hard to control the speed and car at bends/curves. I remembered seen a poster which outlined about rules on the track saying. not to apply both brakes and accelerator together. So I was kind of a bit confused, when ever I reached bends on the racing track in trying to control the speed. I guess, that was where I went wrong and in fact, it would have been the case, that my car turned a couple of times. Also, at one time my helmet wiper was fully faded with what I think humidity and it was making hard for me to see the race track in front of me clearly. In the end, however, I completed total of 9 laps, with the best completion time with 1:47:181 in the readings and was placed @ 12th - not that bad for a 1st timer, I think! We had Oki, Hermann's wife taking photos of the event and I'll post them here, when ever they are finally get to me!

Swiss Connection

Markus and Kaethy Kaegi

With Oki & Hermann

All swiss

Stephanie & Monica @ the party

Zürich - background lake Zurich

Oki & Hermann

We were invited to Switzerland in January this year by our friend Hermann, to attend his wife Oki's swiss party. Monica, Stephanie and I traveled to Zürich, on Emirates EK087 on January 5th, 2007. Although we were holding 'SRC Firm' tickets, as they were actually not confirmed tickets, we were checked-in at only 45 minutes to the departure. The flight to Zürich was really an uneventful one which hasn't got much to write about! Well.. except of course, that Stephanie enjoyed her 'Chili Chicken' hot en tree during the meal service. We arrived in Zürich about 20 minutes behind the schedule and managed to clear immigration, baggage claim and customs very quite smoothly, without any hassle at all! Hermann was at the airport to receive us and drove us to Markus and Kaethy Kaegi's home at Winterthur. We met Oki there, who had no idea of that we were invited for her party - well, it was a surprise plan by Hermann. So she was really surprised to see us there! We were put up in Stephanie's - Markus & Kathy's daughter's room on the top floor of the some 100+ years old beautiful swiss home. Stephanie - Markus & Kaethy's daughter at the time was away from home traveling in India, so the whole room was for our selves for 3 nights!

We had Oki's swiss party on January the 6th at a hut on swiss mountains. Before we went to the hut around 7.30PM, all the guests were met at Markus & Kathy's home for a few glasses of good wine. Then we drove in convoy to the mountain and then we had 10 minutes walk to the hut on the top of the mountain. The hut was decorated so beautifully with swiss flags and tables were layed up with nice red table linen, napkins and cutlery. We had about some twenty guests present at the party. Wines were served followed by typical swiss supper - soup, ham and potatoes cooked by Hermann personally! Well.. I have to say, it was delicious! There was good swiss instrumental music and good dancing all night till about 2am the next day!

On the next day, Hermann drove us for a tour in the Zürich city. We drove through beautiful swiss country side and in the city, we took a walk around old swiss town, surrounded with nice old buildings. When we returned home, we had a couple of glasses of nice wine from Markus's cellar, followed up with a nice meal. As it was our last night in Zürich, after the dinner we had to pack our luggage in preparation of our travel next day back to Dubai.

My First ever Blog....

Here I'm finally ! I've been thinking of starting my own blog on the net for quite some time. But, never managed to get along with it. However, that doesn't mean to say that I haven't got any thing on the net that tells about me. Check out my homepage on the net. I try and use my homepage on the net mainly to put our family photos and to keep our family and friends informed of what we've been up to. I must try and use this blog to put down my thoughts, happenings and about the things that I fancy. Just to give an idea, why I choose iPassions as my blog title; Passion is the emotion of feeling very strongly about a subject- I'm an individual, who's passionate about every thing I do! Particularly, I'm very passionate about what I do to earn a living and at the moment, its my job in the airline catering. A couple of my other interests are gadgets - yeah, I'm a gadget freak! I also like my favorite Apple iMac, I love to travel and also I'm very much into reading on Management & leadership.
Today, January 19th has always been a memorable date in my life - it was January 19th, twenty three years back, that I first started my career in the airline industry! I joined then Airlanka, the national career of Sri Lanka on January 19th, 1984 as an 'Inflight Services Agent' at Inflight Services Department - Cabin Services Section. As we go along, I'm hoping to use my this blog site to write more about my life in the airline catering, probably with the ultimate goal of writing a book one day, some day.

I guess, my this blog post is quite incomplete if I don't say something about my family. Well.. We are a '3' living in the United Arab Emirates. My wife Monica also comes from beautiful Sri Lanka and she has also been working in the airline industry and as you would probably guess, I met her @ Airlanka about 18 years ago. Our one n only daughter Stephanie was born here in the UAE in 1997 and she just reached 9 years of age on December 23rd, 2006 and growing!