I just met him today. I woke up this morning and just had to meet the second MVP from Durban. I went through to the kitchen and made myself some breakfast. I had to make a run for it because the local user group “meeting” that I was meant to attend starts in five minutes and it is a 25 minute drive to the place.

I darted into the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face. I then started dreaming about the second MVP that I was going to meet today: he is smart, good-looking and is quite young. I then saw his face staring blankly at mine... but that face looks oddly familiar. My head “clicks” onto where I have seen that face before -- that's right, it is mine.

If you did not fancy the creative writing I just wrote out, then here is the message to all of you folks: I am an MVP for the ASP.NET product group. I actually did not see myself getting even one nomination. Then came the dreaded email that arrived in my inbox about two months back. At first, I thought that I should turn down the nomination but I pondered on it for a moment or two that someone has taken his or her time to nominate me. So I thought that I would obediently fill in the required information -- thinking that I am flattered by the nominee yet I had a gut feeling that I would not make it.

Off I went to pretend that I was “happy” to Teemu. Much later, he revealed to me that he was the nominee. Look -- he found almost every excuss he could find to talk to me. I thought that I would never really have a chat with him because he was out of my “league”. But it proved pointless to resist talking to him. He is a great guy -- there is no denying of that! I think he was more nervous than me throughout the day waiting for the results being revealed (BTW Ben, well done on the delay :-) -- you had the suspence going there... for Teemu).

From there onwards, I began bits and pieces from the Durban leads for www.sadeveloper.net. Those bits and pieces slowly but surely revealed that I had a chance for the title. That is another story on its own... but I am glad that the nomination 'just' happened! Why, you may ask? Because it has put me in contact with Ernst and Stuart Gunter. To be quite frank, I was a bit shy to join the local guys because it is completely different.

But the title that I have been awarded is the cream on the top of story. And I am eternally grateful to Teemu because without him, so much good would not have happened in the follow-up weeks from the nomination.