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Kozen Reloaded


It feels like Koz is back writing some more articles these days. Indeed, I got a little motivation back for doing so. I don’t know why, but it just happened that I felt I had to express myself again.

Let me take a second here and apologize for switching to English rather than my mother tongue German. I believe my non-German speaking audience is growing every day! 🙂 For everyone who still prefers to read my useless 2 cents in German please find a German flag and link below the article title.

To be honest, I am actually extremely busy these days. A lot happened in the three months that passed this year already. I was traveling a lot which is quite unusual for me: New Year’s Eve party in BL City, BlackBerry Developer Conference in Bali, Mobile World Congress in Barcelona incl. one week Spain holiday, one week Koh Samui / Thailand holiday including severe floods – kind of an adventure holiday.

Business wise, I get asked a lot: “How is it going?” Well, I can say that these are currently very exciting days, weeks, months. Being in the mobile application business for more than six years (way before a word like “app” had been invented) has proven to be a slight advantage over our competitors. Of course, we weren’t the first ones and there is new competition popping up every day. Copy cats here — spammers there — serious competitors around the corner — let’s just say it is challenging, yet rewarding. A lot changed, a lot more is about to change, but one thing is still exactly the same it was six years ago: Even after tens of thousands of reviews and comments we received for our products it still feels good when people just love what we do. Despite all the other stuff that comes with it, that’s what it is about for me.

Well, seems the “writing-flash” hit me today. Still, I won’t promise to update kozen’s blog more regularly. The day has just 24 hours polyphasic sleep didn’t work for me so I have to make the best out of the 16 hours I have of each day. A lot more travels, parties, weddings, may be new boating adventures are coming up and I will see what else I can share. Right here, publicly on my server with my very own privacy controls. You won’t get this on Facebook 🙂

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Koh Samui Floods and What Happened After


Deutsche Version: Google Translate

Even Germany’s ARD Tagesschau was reporting about massive floods on Koh Samui เกาะสมุย, Thailand.

It so happened that my family was on holiday right at that time and I was scheduled for flying over there on Wednesday 29th, 2011. From TV news and phone calls with my relatives I learned that the airport was closed due to massive floods. The airport is owned and operated by Bangkok Airways which I booked a plane ticket with as well. That airline is actually quite alright, once their planes have taken off. Their off-plane customer support / service is just horrible. Concerned as I was, I tried to contact them on all of the four phone numbers on the HK airport. Nobody picked up. So I called their representation at the Bangkok airport. Nobody picked up. Then I called the headquarter in Bangkok. Again, nobody picked up. I just wanted to know whether my plane actually leaves or not. So I went to the airport and luckily I took off about 1.5 hours delayed.

When I arrived in Bangkok, I noticed that there are not many people at the airport. Yeah well, didn’t expect that, but in fact, there was nobody there except us 20 from Hong Kong (the Airbus A319 was quite empty). So the first person at the airport I told that I want to go to “Bo Phut” beach and I want a Meter-Taxi and don’t wanna pay more than 200 Baht บาท (€4,64) laughed at me and said: “No taxi! Water to here! No taxi!” (pointing at her waist) “Can give you big van for 500 Baht!” Yeah, right! (I thought and said and walked away) Then I got to the next counter for taxis. Again, no real meter taxis there and what do I here? Same same, but different: “No taxi! Water to here! No taxi!” (pointing at her waist) “Can give you big van for 600 Baht!” Wow! 100 Baht more, that one must be good. After 15 minutes of negotiating, trying not to get wet because it was still pouring cats, dogs and little elephants; I agreed.

There was only one driver crazy enough to drive me over to that “Bo Phut” beach and one of the shallower parts looked like this:

He switched off the fan and A/C to make sure no splashed water gets sucked into the car. Yet, it was a funny ride. He was joking sort of: “You know, every year we have Songkran – water festival – can have lots of fun now!” At least they didn’t loose their sense of humor in the land of smiles. Apparently, it was the day after the worst day of floods and news all over the world showed massive land slides, military personnel evacuating citizens and tourists with dinghies. Well, not at our place. We couldn’t get out much the first two days I was there, but despite that there was no problem at all. And later on I even had a bird sitting right next to me, waking me up while I was roasting in the sun.

P.S.: I turned out quite pink, not nice roasty brown.

If you want to travel to Koh Samui you may check out the Koh Samui Travel Offers at Agoda.

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