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VMware Canary Challenge accepted! Help needed

09.24.2014 by William Lam // Leave a Comment

canary-challenge-vmware
I just found out about the Canary Challenge after seeing a tweet from a from a fellow VMware colleague Ray Blanchard. The Canary Challenge takes place this Saturday in Palo Alto and it to raise money for the Canary Center at Stanford to help fund early cancer detection research. I think this is another awesome cause and so I have decided to sign up for the 75mile ride (depending on how I feel, may consider the 100mile option).

Some might say I am crazy to sign up for another event, especially after just recently completing the Waves to Wine century ride for the National MS Society. I figured I could carry my training over to this event and I could also help support a local cause in my own Silicon Valley backyard. I also found out that the VMware team for this event (one of the reasons I am joining) is currently the #1 corporate fundraiser, in addition our very own VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger is among the top funderaiser which is just awesome to hear! Each attendee must raise a minimum of $400 and I literally have less than 4 days left to reach that goal, but I am also hoping I can raise a bit more. This is where I need your help, once again. If you would like to support me, the VMware team and most importantly, the Canary Center at Stanford, please consider donating!

If you wish to donate towards my ride, please click here for more details. Please share this with your co-workers, friends and family! For VMware employees who donate, do not forget to get it matched by the VMware Foundation!

My good VMware buddies Todd Valentine from Office of CTO and Uday Medietty from our Core API team will also be riding. Feel free to also support them as well!

Thank you for your considerations!

Categories // Charity, Cycling Tags // canary challenge, cycling, road bike

A gift for my Waves to Wine 2014 Supporters!

09.22.2014 by William Lam // Leave a Comment

This weekend I took part in the Waves to Wine 2014 ride for the National MS Society. I took the century option (104 miles) starting from Cow Palace in San Francisco and finished at Ronert Park in Sonoma County. Not only was this an amazing experience and a personal goal of mine to complete a century ride, but I was also able to ride for an awesome cause.

I ended up riding 109.1 miles in total due to slight detour that I took (luckily it was only a couple of miles). In addition to a couple of rest stops, I also had take an unexpected stop as my GoPro was vibrating so much, it broke off its connector while I was riding. Luckily, I was able to re-connect the GoPro directly to the bike mount instead of the intermediate adapter (whew). The ride took a total of 7hrs and 41minutes to complete, I think I probably could have finished it in 7.5hrs flat if it was not for the detour!

Lastly, I would like to say thank you to all my fellow VMware colleagues and Virtualization community members (listed below) for your support and donations. With your help, I was able to fund-raise a grand total of $6,206 for the National MS Society! As a small token of my appreciation, I have put together a short video highlighting my 7hr ride into a couple of minutes (make sure to watch the entire video :)) and I hope you enjoy it!

BikeMS: Waves To Wine 2014 from lamw on Vimeo.

Thank you very much to the following folks who donated:

Aaron Blasius
Balaji Parimi
Ben Lin
Bill Call
Chas Setchell
Chris Wolf
Coho Data
DataGravity
Dexter Arver
Dmitriy Sandler
Doug Baer
Duncan Epping
Ed Swindelles
El-Zein Family
Erik Bussink
Evan Bills
Frank Buechsel
Gary Blake
Greg Mulholland
Henry Robinson
Howard Marks
Irfan Ahmad
Jackie Rees
Jeff Hu
Jehad Affoneh
Jeremy Rickard
Joerg Lew
John W
Judy Snow
Kaushik Banerjee
Kris Inglis
Linda Jones
Mark Chuang
Matt Dreyer
Max Daneri
Michael Emery
Michael White
Mike Nisk
Minh Dao
Nambisan family
Noel Nguyen
Paul Meehan
Phillip Jordan
Platform9 Systems
Raj Yavatkar
Ravi Soundararajan
Robert Bosch
Ron Totah
Ronald Chenoweth
Skyera Inc.
Steve Kaplan
Susan Gudenkauf and Family
The Delgado Family
The Murray Family
Tina Walsworth
vmkdaily

Categories // Charity, Cycling Tags // cycling, road bike, wavestowine

Support my challenge - Bike MS: Waves to Wine Ride 2014

08.18.2014 by William Lam // 1 Comment

CAN 2014 Bike - Event Details Banner
When I am not playing with the latest VMware products or exploring new technologies, one of my passions outside of work is cycling (road bike). Yesterday, I decided to take the plunge and signed up for the annual Bike MS: Waves to Wine Ride 2014 which takes place the weekend of September 20-21, 2014. The ride is to help bring both awareness as well as help raise funds towards curing MS (multiple sclerosis). I personally do not know of anyone with MS or have it myself, but I think it is a worthy cause to ride for and here is some more details regarding the disease from the website:

Multiple sclerosis is an unpredictable, often disabling, disease of the central nervous system that interrupts the flow of information within the brain, and between the brain and body. Millions of people are affected by MS and the challenges of living with its unpredictable symptoms, which range from numbness and tingling to blindness and paralysis. The progress, severity and specific symptoms of MS in any one person cannot yet be predicted, but advances in research and treatment are moving us closer to a world free of MS.

I have decided to challenge myself by taking on the century route (104 miles) which starts from San Francisco and goes all the way up to Sonoma County. This will be an interesting ride as it will be my first "official" century (accidentally did one about month ago from Sunnyvale to San Francisco) and will be my first time riding with large number of cyclists. I think it will be fun and quite challenging and I am really looking forward to it.

To participate in the event, I will need to personally raise a minimum of $350 USD (16 days left), which I have already donated a small amount myself. I am reaching out to greater Virtualization community to ask for your help and support. If you would like to support me and the National MS Society, please consider making a small donation here. I have also created a group called Team VMware, as one did not exists and others would like to join. I have also set a new optimistic fundraising goal of $5,000 after being blown away from all the support from my fellow VMware colleagues and the Virtualization community. I will definitely be leveraging our VMware Foundation benefits to match whatever amount I have been able to raise. I hope you will share this with your colleagues, friends and family and assist me with this worthy cause! For VMware employees who donate, you will be able to get the VMware Foundation to match your contributions. You simply just need to "Request a Match" on our Intranet and provide proof of contributions and they will handle the rest!

I also plan on renting a GoPro to capture my ride and the spectacular views as a token of my appreciation.

Click here to Donate!

Thanks for your considerations!

Categories // Charity, Cycling Tags // cycling

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William is Distinguished Platform Engineering Architect in the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Division at Broadcom. His primary focus is helping customers and partners build, run and operate a modern Private Cloud using the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) platform.

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