.. music ..

 

music

01.30 AM, at Lembang ..

December 29, 2009.. 01.30 AM..

It was cold at Lembang. Everyone was sleeping, and me still awake and fully alert.

I went out, had my quiet time, and then took some pictures. Even in darkness, beautiful things still around.

watching tennis

around the corner

cracked

leaves one

leaves two

leaves three

ribbon

flower

family

i was there

Tired and stressed out, nothing I wanted more than hugging my bolster and fell asleep. It was a tiring day, too many things. I closed my eyes, relaxing my mind, and finally, I started to dream. Yes, I always dreaming, and always know if it was just a dream. Too many times in my dream I said to myself, “Oh well, It’s only a dream, don’t be overly excited”.

In the dreamworld, I was walking on a not so busy street. Some people were walking on the far side and I noticed some food vendors ahead. Then suddenly I felt the ground shaking, felt like a train passed by. But It wasn’t stop there.. It’s getting worse and worse. I couldn’t stand firmly. I hung on a tree nearby to help my balance. It was chaotic. I saw buildings starting to tear apart and the ground where I stand began to crack. “Run..”, my conscious mind commanded me, he afraid the ground will fall off like in the 2012 movie. I ran.. and I didn’t remember the rest of my dream.

Woke up in the morning, nothing unusual happened. I opened my laptop and started to work (yes, on my bed). Lunch time came, I went to office (after taking a bath of course), only to find out that Haiti was struck by an earthquake.

Staring at the news on TV, “I was there”, I said to myself.

..knock.. ..knock..

haha.

Funny, looking at me still trying to open this door. I’ve been told that it’s locked for me, but still.. haha. I believe there is a way to open this door, and could be extremely simple, but yeahh, maybe It’s not me to open it.

Other doors might be easier or could be widely open, but still.. haha, I’m still into this one.

/lost+found

There he was.. among stacks of CDs and unused papers. It was new year eve, when I re-organized every stuff in my drawer. I never thought he was there, all these 2 years.

His blue case waving at me, “still remember me?”, and when I opened it, “Olaaa”, he shouted. It’s my dear long lost Sony T20 pocket camera. “Hi Frank, Hi D80, it’s been awhile..”. Been awhile ? It’s been ages I supposed. “I thought you were dead”, D80 startled. Yes, T20 had an accident on the beach that hampered his focus capability. Unable to take picture, I bought D80 to satisfy my photo taking desires, send T20 to repair, but no success. Dying and unused, T20 lost when I moved to Karet.

“You are not K750, are you ?” T20 asked my K800. “Nope, I’m K80o. K750 passed away about a year ago. I heard about you, you guys went places together”, K800 introduced himself. “Yes, we were fellas”, T20 commemorated his past buddy.

“It seems you are Ok rite now. I took pictures by you and autocofus was working normally”, I jumped in the conversation. “Really ?” T20 doubted. “Yup. Let us have more test by tomorrow. And, if you are really functioning well, I wanna send you on a lifetime mission. Are you OK with that ?” I asked further. “Yes sure..” T20 nodded.

“Well, do you like playing with children ?”

 

 

Psalm 73

Thoughtful discussion at LG : Praying for our doubts. I have this, doubts, lots of them. Doubting God if He can really and will help me.

Silly.

Well, I thought it was silly.. but the true silly things are these :

In all that doubts, I often kept reminding myself “Things will be OK, everything will be fine”, I prayed “I believe.. I believe.. My life is in your hands.. I believe”, but at the very bottom of my heart, that doubts are still there and I even rarely speak them out to Him and let Him wipe out all my doubts. Rather saying “Where are you? Are you helping? I can’t feel you. Help Me, as you are my helper”, I prayed “Give thanks.. with a grateful heart.. Give thanks to the Holy One”. So fake.

Praising is good, believing is a must, but I used them to hide my doubts, as a mask that cover my true face. So fake.

I saw doubt as a bad thing and I, as a believer, should not have this kind. I even felt ashamed to declare my doubts to Him. When doubts came, as a Proverbs lover, I should looked wise.. strong! So fake.

Through Psalm 73, let me be more honest, more frank, in my prayer. Pouring out what I felt, I see, I experience, as they are. Speak out all doubts that I have and let Him deal with it and help me grow in faith.

it was 2009

Hehe.. 

Things happened in 2009. All the ups and downs, rights and lefts. Good things, bad things. Lots of lessons to learn. 

january  new era

2008 was a very heavy year. Four times hospitalized, unstable health condition, and unproductiveness in office. With my body slowly regaining its strength, I looked forward 2009 to be a much better year. Assigned to telco team (NEP) was a good start.

february  renaissance

A new 50mm 1.4D lens started my month and gave me a new world to explore. It’s sharpness and shallow DOF is perfect for still life. I felt renaissance in taking pictures. Every week I went places with my D80. I also slowly managed to rejoin the choir. Singing on stage didn’t  make me dizzy anymore.

march  alive

Went to lots of places around jakarta taking pictures, walking long distance at midnight, eat this and that, I felt so alive! I visited my mom and dad in medan and had a day trip to Brastagi, a lovely place. My new 50mm lens showed off its capabilities during the trip.

april  the fallen

I promised my God not to do that again until I got married, but I lost control, I fell, very deep. Struggling to stand up again, nothing I can do except to repent, ask forgiveness, and recommit myself to Him. I felt so worthless.

In the middle of my struggle, I managed to convince myself to rejoin the BBBS program. A ministry that I put down for almost 2 years, because I loved money more.

may –  campeone !!

Gool.. Messi’s goal for Barca crushed Manchester United. Barca won the Champions and secured La Liga title. Inter Milan also conquered seria A. I’m a big fan of them both!

june falling

No no, not that fall again, but falling in love. Yup, not just a crush.

july let me introduce you, canon powershot sx110

A new member in my camera family. As a not so expensive pocket camera, PowerShot SX11o really punch more than its price, dpreview proved that. I treasured this camera and used it to explain photography to my friends which later bought D5000, D90, G10, or LX3. 

august  bye bye microsoft windows

August 17 2009, the date when I used Windows for the last time. Windows Vista is just too fat and slow. I ran to my office, burn an OpenSolaris installation CD and run it on my TravelMate. The transition caused high casualties though, as lots of files (mostly photos) were lost and unrecoverable.

Unclear future.. as Sun bought by Oracle, what would happened to Sun employees (me) ? But I said to myself to relax and just do my part at office. My future is in His hands.

september  welcome darwin (MacOS)

Yes, OpenSolaris was very good on TravelMate. But.. GIMP isn’t Nikon CaptureNX. While having paradise in doing office and OS tweaking, editing photos was painful. Stressed out on GIMP at one night, I ended up buying a mac the next afternoon. Now I can do office, OS tweaking, and photo editing with little obstacles. 

I got transfered to Excelcom team, our main customer. I knew this means double effort and triple efficiency, and not to mention more responsibility. It was good though, the company entrusted me their main customer.

october questions

“Am I still with Sun next year ?” I asked, and I answered “I dunno.. just do your best. Don’t be bothered with that”. “Have I done the best I could so far ?”, I asked again. “In office not really, you could do more. In life, far from expected, you really need to work on your personal life”, I answered. “What can I do for these 3 months in 2009 ? ” Me questioning again, and I said, “Pray more, read God’s words more. You are a lil bit lazy on that lately. Ask Him for directions, surrender your life”.

november 103% utilization

End of year is coming, Excelcom ferociously expanding their system and core network. Projects coming, priorities set up, meeting after meeting filled my days. A very busy month. After one and half year not fully utilized, I was a bit screwed up facing all these projects. 

I will miss Staco as IES moved to UOB. The new facility is great, love it, but still.. I won’t forget my four-and-half years adventure in Staco. 

december 103% utilization part 2

New projects came while existing projects still undergo. To make things worst, they were connected and have cross dependencies and pre-requisites. So chaotic as I messed up a bit more, but I learned my lessons.

Well, overall it has been a good year, but lots of things I need to work on. Welcoming 2010.. may I can be more frank and less freaky. It won’t be a perfect year, but I hope I can be in the right path.

I live, but not alive

I live, but not alive.

Feels like a zombie..

May Christmas be merry

 

My humble Christmas card for you all. Merry Christmas everyone..

eight my most favorite movies of the year 2009

“I have come back to life ..”, “beam me up, Scottie ..”, “One man, alone, abandoned by the country he loves..”, “Well, what do you expect ? The Comedian is dead..”, “It’s just like America, but in south!”, “Bye-bye blackbird..”

Well, if you are a movie freak, you surely know from which movies the above quotes came from . How many movies that you watched during 2009 ? Hmm, 10 ? 20 ? 40 ? Mine is around 25 I guess.. Few are very good, some are just so-so, n the others are just not my type. Yup, It’s all about preference actually. Fantastic for one, could be awful for the rest.

So, what are your favorite movies of the year 2009 ?? Here are mine :

1. Watchmen. (Sun, Apr 26). I found myself sunk and lost into this movie. This one is really really my favorite. I gave it the score 9.8 from scale 0 to 10. The cinematography, dialogs, the whole feeling in it, the complexity of each character personality, the sounds and songs they used, and the twisted ending, Fantastic! It has that kind of deep, sad, sensitive, and tragic story.

2. Inglourious Basterds. (Sun, Oct 25) Talking about Inglorious Basterds will be weightless without talking about Hans Landa, Christopher Waltz really poured out all his best on this character. I really enjoyed every dialogue that Landa had. Deep but light (!), very smart, and sometimes funny, not so many movies has this quality of dialogue. 9.5 is what I gave for this one.

3. UP. (Sun, Aug 2) My friend smiled and then laugh out loud not long after she rub her eyes for a touchy scene. Then I saw her pretty face back to smiling again but quickly turned into a sad one, because that what this movie is all about. Lots of emotion roller-coaster from “Hahaha” to “Ohhhh..*hik*”. Combined with funny and fresh dialogs, and wonderful animation, a 9.2 from me is fair enough. It’s a great tale about how an ordinary life chasing its dream.

4. Public Enemies. (Thu, Jul 23) A free-spirited and lifely outlaw against a calm and determined officer.. With thompson machine gun rattling in a mafia-style car chasing, this movie brought back that old gangster life over main cities of America. I like how the two main characters with their own way tried to overcome each other. 8.2 !

5. Christmas Carols. (Sun Dec 13). Humbug.. I like it the way Scrooge says that, with his sinistic expression. Good animation with simple story yet had deep meaning, 8.0 is what I cherished for Christmas Carols. It has that unique 3D world, with renaissance-like architecture and dwarf-styled human, so artistic. This movie reminded me of something though, that life is keep on going with or without me realizing it. I don’t want one day when I look back, I had missed lots of wonderful things in life, just like Scrooge. 

6. Startrek. (Sun, Jun 14) It’s still a classic ! Even though this Startrek has more action and high pace conflict, It still bear the classic style of startrek. Tranporter tense, warp speed jumps, and of course, the classic crew conversation in the bridge. I love startrek, and this is  a good one. I gave it a 6.7. 

7. Avatar. (Mon, Dec 21). Beautiful 3D animation, a fantasy !! Epic battle and full of flying objects. Haha. I love things that fly especially warplanes, and this movie allowed me to see a hi-tech armed chopper dogfighting a colorful dragon. Avatar won my 6.7.

8. Knowing. (Thu, Apr 16) 2010021440000.. Does it mean that on Feb 14 2010 I will get a 400mm lens for Rp 00 (free) ?? Well, predicting the future by prophesied numbers, I like the idea. Love the scenes too, especially the disasters, but I don’t like the ending. 6.0 is my last offer.

inglorious basterds