Wesley's Tool-Box

Thanks to an SBS show last year, I was invited to appear on the popular cable television program "You Quiz", and that episode aired yesterday. I liked the way it turned out, and it seems that a lot of people enjoyed it as well, especially the parts involving my wife.

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- Highlights (YouTube/tvN), #2, #3, #4
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- Highlights (YouTube/unofficial)
- Preview (YouTube/tvN)
- Highlights (tvN), #2, #3, #4
- Highlights (Naver), #2, #3

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[Source page at SBS website]

The weekly SBS TV program "What on Earth" (순간포착 세상에 이런일이) is one of the longest-running show on the network, going back to 1998. I made an appearance on episode #187 on Feburary 28, 2002 as the "computer man" that wore the "wearable computer" around the city. The show has recently been going back to the archives to highlight the notable old episodes and they wanted to show how I was doing these days. The newspaper article from 10 years ago made the cut, but not more recent stuff, probably due to time constraint. Still, it was a good opportunity to let people know I'm still out there, alive and well.

P.S. There are now a couple of news articles on my appearance online.

2020-10-16 Update: SBS Noriter and another news outlet have reported as well.

Daegu Metropolitan City is currently the most proactive regional government in the mainland Korea for promoting the adoption of electric vehicles. The city has its own sprawling charger network and the total number of EVs eligible for purchase subsidy per year is one of the largest in the nation. Also, it has been holding an EV Eco Rally since 2017 to show off the clean and efficient nature of the EVs to its citizens.

I wanted to know how efficient I was driving my car, so I attended the event last year despite being just four months into EV ownership at the time and needing a two and a half hour trip from Naju. I ended up ranking roughly in the middle. Feeling that I could do better, I honed my skills and re-entered the competition this year.

Since each car models have different characteristics, participating cars were grouped according to the model. A group needed at least four cars for efficiency ranking and four models qualified this year - Kona (Group A) and Niro (Group B) had 14 cars while Ioniq (Group C) and Bolt EV (Group D) had 9. Other models participated on a non-competitive basis, which brought the overall total to 56 cars.

To drive as efficiently as possible in the rally, convenience features like air conditioning and satellite navigation screen are turned off to save energy. This makes the ride quite uncomfortable as my family found out last year. But Celine still wanted to join her dad in the event for this year, so I assigned her the duty of a human navigator, helping me make my way around the busy Daegu downtown. I didn’t realize how significant this would affect the outcome at first.

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

While I saw many Ice Hockey matches when I lived in Canada, it was the first time my kids saw a match in person because it's not a popular sport in Korea. They were still enthusiastic about it because they read that it involved a lot of action. We were going to see the Team Olympic Athlete from Russia and Team Slovenia play. As it would end by 7PM, the timing would give us enough time to have a quick dinner and move onto see the Curling event at 8PM.


Russian players had been traditionally strong, so I expected a bit of a lopsided game. It was up to Slovenia to put up some good defense. Although our seats were at the top end of the stadium, they nevertheless offered a good overall view of the game. I brought a camera with zoom lens, but I never had to take it out.