Nico Hulkenberg – AT&T Williams F1 Driver

NicoHulkenberg ATTWilliams Blog 001 Nico Hulkenberg   AT&T Williams F1 Driver

Just only last week did I have the privilege to be able to cover an event at my office. It was a huge event for me to cover mainly because as the title suggests, it was to cover a press conference as well as a meet and greet session with Nico Hulkenberg who is a formula 1 driver for the AT&T Williams team which Accenture has sponsored for the last 16 years.

NicoHulkenberg ATTWilliams Blog 002 Nico Hulkenberg   AT&T Williams F1 Driver

Nico and his account manager arrived earlier than expected so we brought him through a tour of our office on the 66th floor in Tower 2 at the Petronas Twin tower. Our country managing director was glad to make them a cup of coffee before the press conference and I was glad that they arrived early. That means I get to sneak in a couple of shots in earlier before having to fight with the press photographers later.

NicoHulkenberg ATTWilliams Blog 003 Nico Hulkenberg   AT&T Williams F1 Driver

The moment we headed down to the 65th floor, there was a flurry of people crowding around the main pantry area trying to get photos as well as a glimpse of Nico. Nico signed two boards before heading to the meeting room where the media was waiting for him.

NicoHulkenberg ATTWilliams Blog 004 Nico Hulkenberg   AT&T Williams F1 Driver

Straight into the meeting hall, the press conference began with a quick introduction of Nico. It was his first year as a F1 driver following the footsteps of Lewis Hamilton who also won the GP2 and then made his move to F1. To Nico, Shumacher was one of his boy hood heroes of Formula 1 and he must be quite excited since that his first time in F1 and he gets to also race against Michael.

NicoHulkenberg ATTWilliams Blog 005 Nico Hulkenberg   AT&T Williams F1 Driver

NicoHulkenberg ATTWilliams Blog 006 Nico Hulkenberg   AT&T Williams F1 Driver

NicoHulkenberg ATTWilliams Blog 007 Nico Hulkenberg   AT&T Williams F1 Driver

NicoHulkenberg ATTWilliams Blog 008 Nico Hulkenberg   AT&T Williams F1 Driver

NicoHulkenberg ATTWilliams Blog 009 Nico Hulkenberg   AT&T Williams F1 Driver

Overall it was a good experience for me but I was sweating like mad in the end and continuing work right after that was definitely not easy. Both Nico and Richard could articulate their answers really well and I really felt that for a 23 years old, he could answer the questions really well. Then again, the questions raised were more personal questions rather than formula 1 related questions.

Before I go, here is a quick photo of me and Nico taken by Kay Nny. Did I mention that Kay Nny was one of the lucky few who won free passes to the Paddock Club?

Nico 300x210 Nico Hulkenberg   AT&T Williams F1 Driver

Nico Hulkenberg and me

Go On, Be a Tiger

After having been so used with the tag line above for the past 4 years, it is quite sad that I read this morning in my email and in the news about Tiger‘s sponsorship being detracted. I have always been quite familiar with the huge advertisements of my firm featuring Tiger in major airports especially during my recent trips to Chicago and New York. It’s going to take a lot of getting used to it now.

 Go On, Be a Tiger

Headlines in the Star

We even had an event where there was a printed out shirt of “Go on, have a tiger” which means that the tag line was rather synonymous with us.

 Go On, Be a Tiger

Snapshot of CNN's website

Well, I can only wait and see what comes up next.

Caught on camera

I have been caught on camera while on duty during one of my company’s event a couple of weeks back. Not often that I get to be in front of the camera but this picture was shot by one of my senior managers in the firm.

dsc 34591 Caught on camera

This picture was taken at Equitorial hotel in KL in front of one of the conference rooms. Tripod behind was initially setup to take some shots of the event’s participants but that was changed because there was another professional photographer there who handled that portion.

Running things smoothly

It has been a hectic day today, firstly getting up at 7.00am which is an insane hour for me as I usually get up later (no I won’t tell you what time I normally wake up icon razz Running things smoothly ). Anyway it was all for a good cause, one that allowed me to shoot some of my project mates at Shell.

Today was the project team building event and by team I meant two groups of stressed out consultants running around with “markers” shooting each other in the face. Throughout 5 days at work, all the late nights and pent-up stressed is finally released when all of us arrived at the Mudtrekker Paintball centre in Kuang.

Of course before all of that, I had to ask myself, “Where in the world is Kuang???” and me and my extremely large male ego got me totally lost somewhere near the Sungai Buloh Hospital. I got to thank my car mates Joyce, Michelle and Ryan for putting up with my nonsense and rubbish excuses when I kept on insisting that I knew the way. Obviously I was horrifyingly wrong.

Back to the story, we finally made it to the paintball arena and after the usual safety talks and questions, I finally managed to get my gears and was raring to shoot someone. Having played paintball like a gazillion years ago, I completely forgot how fast those friggin balls went and I crouched behind a metal bin like a little girl running away from the monsters under her bed.

The first mission was to plant the flag where there were two flags in the middle of the place and each team had to run to the middle and plant their flags there. Of course at that time everyone was totally new and was rather afraid of getting injured so everyone just camped at their own base. The second game was exactly the same except that we had to switch sides as one side had the higher ground.

So being my male egotistic self, I tried leading the team only to send my good and faithful soldiers to the firing barrage of the opposite team. Yes, the other team won as they reached their flag, quickly planted it up and camped. The third mission was to attack the opposing team, the place was still at the same course but the defenders had the lower ground. Not easy but by the end of that match, I was totally covered in mud as I was lying flat on the ground.

The last game was the most interesting one as it was a last man standing shoot-out and the only way to “kill” an enemy was to give him a headshot. Frankly by that time, each of us only had like 50 pellets to utilize so most of them “died’ because they ran out of ammo.

The whole morning was great and fun as it has been a while since I enjoyed myself, shooting colleagues of mine but the best part was to be able to bond and forge stronger friendships and talking loads of crap to my colleagues. It sent a nice warm feeling through my heart.

Anyway I am utterly exhausted as I sit here in Starbucks in the new wing of Sunway Pyramid waiting for a potential client for a meeting. I think I shall eat Tony Roma’s tonight, drooling over the onion loaf already.

By the way, I finally stopped procrastinating and bought my Macbook Pro RAM. So now, my MBP runs smoothly on 4Gb on Corsair RAM.

picture 2 Running things smoothly

Oooh soooo smooootttthhhhh, I hope I remember to buy more RAM for Ryan later.

pixel Running things smoothly