Wesley's Tool-Box

During this year's Seollal (Korean Lunar New Year) holidays my family traveled around the country. We visited Daegu on Sunday, February 3, as I read that its National Museum had some interesting activities for the kids in celebration of the year of the Golden Pig.

One such activity was actually colouring wooden decorations in the shape of a pig. While my daughters were busy painting them, a camera crew from KBS (Korean Broadcasting System, a national public broadcaster) entered the room and started recording the area. Then they asked me if they could film us taking part in the activity and subsequently do a brief interview. I told them that it was fine.

The whole thing seemed to be for a regional news segment, so I checked to see if it aired that night. Sure enough, that was the case and my family appeared on the News 9, as you can see above. You can click on the captured frame or [here] to see the entire segment - relevant part starts around 1:30.

As the one responsible for the foreign relations and overseas training at the KPX Training Academy (formerly KPX Education Center), I had been cooperating with the Korea Green Growth Trust Fund (KGGTF), a part of World Bank Group, in running their Korea Green Growth Knowledge Exchange (KGGKE) since early 2017. The program provided by KPX within KGGKE introduces the how the electric power market and the system (power grid) is operated, how the short and long term planning is done, and what efforts have been taking place in regards to the renewable energy. Most of the participants have reacted positively to the our program.

In extending this cooperation, I was invited to the Korea Green Innovation Days (KGID) 2018 event held between May 17 and 18 in Seoul, hosted by the World Bank Group and KGGTF. There, I was given the opportunity to introduce the overseas training programs offered by the KPX Training Academy to the participants of the event at one of the working sessions. Several countries have shown interest in starting discussions for new programs.

Recognizing all these efforts, my company and I were awarded the KGGTF Partner Award (received by the head of the Training Academy, Mr. Bae) and the KGGTF Green Connector Award, respectively, at the end of the event. I thank everyone at my company that helped putting together and running the programs successfully. Several Korean newspapers have reported of this occasion.

- Electric Times
- E2News
- Today Energy
- Business Korea

I had the pleasure of hosting the training of the Mongolian delegates at my workplace on the topics related to the power market earlier this month (December 14 to 18, 2015). It seems everyone was satisfied and I'm optimistic that KPX and Mongolia NDC will continue this program next year. The news of this activity is now making the rounds on the Korean media like so:

[Korea Economic Daily] [E2 News] [Electronic Times]

As with the photo above, the publicized photo of the completion ceremony shows me standing on the far right and the director of the Education Center on the far left. The seven delegates stand in the middle.

Meanwhile, another news concerning KPX appeared last week. It was about the annual promotion.

[Yonhap News] [Korea Economic Daily] [Electronic Times]

What was notable this time around is that it lists me as being promoted from Manager (과장) to Deputy General Manager (차장). This is the first 'real' promotion I got. The Mongolia NDC training probably helped me earn this, along with other stuff I've done for the company up to now. More work awaits me next year.

On May 30, 2015, my family went to see an NC vs. KIA baseball game at Gwangju KIA Champions Field with some other families I knew of. Half of the outfield stand was covered in grass, so it was like having picnic with a baseball game in view. There was even a sandbox for the kids to play in next to it. I felt that the whole set up was great.

During the bottom of the 2nd inning, which was about 40 minutes into the game that started on 5 PM, Lee Hong-Gu, a batter for KIA, hit a two-run home run to the center of the field. We saw that the ball was heading right towards the sandbox next to us. One of the guys in our group hurried towards it, and successfully fished out the home run ball out of the protective net.

That was the first time I've been able to see someone catch one in the action up close. Also, we got to hold the ball and take some pictures ourselves for fun, as well. It was the next best thing to catching the ball in person. This home run let KIA pull ahead of NC with a score of 1:3. But later in the game NC managed a grand slam that resulted in an upset. NC eventually won the game 11:6. That was all well and good because I'm an NC fan.


After the game, I wondered if we were caught on the broadcast and carefully pored over the highlights. This video in particular contained the scene with the home run in question: [Media Daum Sports]

Because we weren't directly in the line of sight and the camera didn't dwell on the scene after confirming the home run, I wasn't initially sure if we were caught in the camera at all. Then I did a frame-by-frame analysis. Eventually I found my family sitting at the far left end of the scene. I've put some arrows to make it more obvious, but you can also compare this to the first picture in this post as a reference. All in all, it was an experience to remember.

Swing Live Fest from Kore on Vimeo.

I have to wonder if anyone remembers this now...
Because I wrote up about this experience the day after it happened.

Brings back so many memories. I nearly forgot I met all those musicians back then.