OK, I don’t blog about my personal life on this blog at all, and I don’t think I have ever blogged anything that’s not technical or my career related on this blog. Well, this is going to be the first non-technical post on this blog.
If you follow my blog for System Center and OpsMgr related content, you must have also heard the name Bob Cornelissen(Blog, Twitter) before. Bob is a fellow System Center Cloud and Datacenter (SCCDM) MVP from the Netherland. Bob is also one of the authors for the Mastering System Center 2012 Operations Manager book.
Bob is a person that I really respect not only because of his technical expertise and contribution to the community, but also what he is doing out side of his professional career. Being a MVP myself, I know what is sharing knowledge’s and helping communities is all about. It is in our DNA and just a part of what we do. But it is rare to see someone extend his/her kind heart to outside of the technical community, in Bob’s case, to another species - dogs!
Bob and his wife runs a charity dog sanctuary in Thailand. This charity sanctuary is called Leks House of Tails (http://lekshouseoftails.azurewebsites.net/). Bob once told me they have started taking homeless dogs from the streets of Thailand, and started looking after them. When Bob told me if they didn’t take those dogs in, they would have ended up been killed and sold in the market, I know it is true because of my Asian background and I know dog meat is very popular in Asian countries! I grew up in China and only moved to Australia after graduating from high school. I still remember when I was a little boy (around 6-7, or even younger), I once saw few men captured a homeless dog on the street, tied the dog on a tree, and use a big wooden bat beaten the dog to death in the broad daylight! I witness the whole thing as my grandfather stood next to me with 10-20 pedestrians on the street. It’s not something you can easily forget, the image, the sound the dog made, still staying in my head. When I got older, i learnt it is a way to tenderise the meat - by beating the dog to death! So, without Bob and his wife’s help, I don’t even want to think about the destiny of these lovely dogs.
As a previous dog owner, My wife and I once had 2 dogs at the same time. I know how much money and effort is needed in order to take care of our dogs. Imaging what is like for Bob and his wife, looking after 50-60 dogs?? It’s definitely not easy - dogs need food, a roof over their heads, blankets, place to sleep, medicine, carers, etc.
I know Bob wouldn’t publicly asking for help from the community, so I will do it for him:
Those dogs really need our support. We would be greatly appreciate if you could help Leks House of Tails financially: http://lekshouseoftails.azurewebsites.net/?page_id=222
Other than donation, I think there are also other ways that you could help Bob and his dog sanctuary, i.e. placing System Center related adverts on Bob’s blog, etc.
Lastly, our good Friend and fellow CDM MVP Cameron Fuller has also blogged about Leks House of Tails few month ago, you can read Cameron’s article here: http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/cfuller/archive/2015/04/16/what-is-new-and-coming-soon-to-the-microsoft-monitoring-world-and-helping-a-good-cause-opinsights-scom-opsmgr-sysctr/
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