My Blackie

On my way to work, recently, suddenly I was remembering my very first motor cycle. It was Honda Astrea Grand circa
My father bought that on the last semester of my high school. A motorcycle that I have been waiting so long.
With this one (blue striping as opposed to the red shown on picture), I learned anything that can be done with motorcycle.
I learned how to change oil, spark plug, etc.
One day, the sid plastic moulding (under the seat and covering fuel tank) was hit by pedicab driver. It was broken. I changed both sides wit a pair of brand new moulding, black without any sticker on it (hence the name Blackie).
One day, just right after I graduated from college it was stolen.
My mother still keep the certificate of ownership for Blackie. BTW the registration plate was AB 4889 RH.

Life is Funny

I would like to tell my story (in English since I need to keep practicing my writing).

Life has a funny way to make our desire come true. A more religious person would say God works in mysterious ways, however I am not religious person and I do not think I am qualified to write something about God’s works. Anyway retrn to my story. Continue reading Life is Funny

A Milestone

Boxing Day 2005. Five years ago, I brought my family return to Indonesia after spending 3,5 years in Sydney. When we departed  10th June 2002, there were only me and my lovely wife, Retno. We were young couple (we were married less than 9 months). We brought three luggage, about A$300, a credit card, uncertain future due to problems at my work, and tons of dream. I lost my father who passed away on 17th August 2003 but witnessed the birth of lovely Sati, our daughter on 17th July 2004.

We returned with some savings, the same three luggage, a beautiful baby girl, master degree for Retno, a PhD in waiting for me (I was graduated in-absentia in September 2007), works awaiting in Indonesia for us, and few stuff we brought home (mostly my books).

Now we are definitely better off than 5 years ago. We are eagerly awaiting the next years to come. Happy New, better Year 2011.

Farewell Pak Mantri

Last night I received a news that my former drawing, painting, and religion teacher at high school passed away. His name was Sumantri Hadiwiyoto, but he was known for his nicknamed Pak Mantri Bong Supit. Bong supit is Indonesian for circumcision expert. He was one of the funniest teacher at my high school, with vulgar and smart jokes . He taught drawing and painting, in which I did not excel at any stage (6 out of 10 grade is enough for me). One subject that he also taught was religion, which was contradictory to his vulgar jokes he often dished out. Continue reading Farewell Pak Mantri

Top 10 Favourite Non Fiction Books

I have just browsing through my EndNote’s library and then realised that I have the following top ten most favourite non fiction books. The list are (in alphabetical order thanks to EndNote CWYW):

  1. BERTALANFFY, L. V. 1971. General System Theory: Foundation, Development, Applications, London, Penguin Continue reading Top 10 Favourite Non Fiction Books

Confession

I admit that I am an upgrade junkie. Eversince I laid my hand on my first PC (bought by my dad using motorcycle funds) I have tried to upgrade and squeeze every bit of it. Windows is not really fun in term of upgrade since I felt it is only for catching up bugs. Another think is MS product tend to bloated and become slower each time the upgrade went public. The exception might be Windows 7. It feel snappier than XP let alone Vista.
Recently my attention have been directed toward Blackberry. With this device, each upgrade is make the device better (overall). Sure it has some quirk like the disabling of keypad lock on 8900 running 5.0.0.411 and 461. Every upgrade gave a squeeze of memory, better memory management, snappier performance, better battery life, and so on.
In line with my upgrade addiction, RIM has been releasing versions of OS 5 rapidly through many cellphone operators all over the world. And do not forget the leaked versions too.
Yes I am an upgrade junkie and RIM is the dealer.