my blog, revisited

Wow, apparently my old blog is still exist!!!
I promised in my last post (March 2013!!! It' has been that long???) that I would come back active writing post, but turned out raising two kids really sucked all my times from blogging.

What changed from my last post??
1. I decided to deactivate my band, 8 because it is clear that my idea of music and a band is way too hard for indonesians musician to work on
2. My wife and I will start our own cookie business and I'm really excited and proud with my wife!!!
3. We decided to raise our kids in ________ (blank because it is still a secret and a surprise)
4. I'm gonna work on my Christmas album this year
5. I'm back teaching music

Cool, I may gonna post more....really miss blogging :)

Coming back to my hut

It has been almost 4 years I didn't see my blog...
Thinking to reactivate this blog again, let's see if this post still reaches places it intended to be

I don't know what I'm gonna write yet, but I feel that I'm gonna pour most of my testimony about living with Jesus. Well then, be back in a while :)

local joke, "Jika Banci Jadi Pramugari"

I don't know if any of my fellow indonesians ever read or heard about this, but I found this so freaking hilarious that I couldn't stop thinking to put it here. It's all in indonesian and it's about a joke if a sissy became a stewardess. I don't know how to translate it since it uses a stereotype dialect of local sissies.
Get ready to get tickle,

Jika Banci Jadi Pramugari

".....Ehemmm ehemm..yuhuuuu! !!...atensiong pliss.....Ledis en jentelmen, bekudis tempel semen, sesuai peraturan penerbangan, yang eike mawar kasi liat care pake itu sabuk yang ada di pinggang yey
, baju buat mengapung-apung dan masker oksigen di kala napas sesek. Biar yey nantinya bisa selamet, coba sini diliat dulu cara pasang itu sabuk yang melilit di pinggang yey, cara ngunci biar ga gampang lepas, ngencengin dan ngelepasinnya....
Baju apung ada di bawah kursi yang yey dudukin, jangan dipake kecuali nanti mas kapiten ngajak berenang bareng. Eit jangan lupa, itu barang jangan yey pindah-pindahin ya, apalagi dibawa pulang buat pajangan salon...Yang ketauan sama eike, bakalan ditabok kanan kiri atas bawah depan belakangdeh ih...Cara make'nya itu baju dikalungin di leher yey, ati ati kekencengan tar ga bisa napas, makanya kudu ati ati deh yah. Bbiar bisa ngapung, yey tarik itu pencetan warna merah delima atau yey tiup itu pipanya. Kalo nanti keluar lewat jendela darurat, itu baju apung dikembangin pas di luar aja deh, nanti mampet di jendela karena gak muat...aih...sampe kriting tangan eike narikin pencetannya keras amirr...gimenong siiih niiih...
Eh asala yey semua pada tau ya, ini pesawat ada dua pintu darurat di depan, ada dua di belakang dan ada dua lagi jendela darurat di tengah-tengah...jadi keluarnya jangan pada rebutan ya...
Kalo nanti tiba-tiba napas sesek dan bukan karena sabuk yang di pinggang kekencengan, bukan pula karena salah masang pelampung...masker oksigen bakalan nongol dari atas kepala yey, tarik aje dah terus napas kayak biasa. Kalo ada anak kecil, yey yey yang ude tuwir mesti nolongin anaknya dulu, baru yey pake sendiri.
Kartu gambar biar selamet ada di kantong kursi di depan yey duduk, silahkan dibaca dan dihayati dengan seksama yaaaah. Dan akhir kate ekyeee ucapkan Endang Sukamti Cintya Lamusu termia kasi God blesss yuuu...Yuuk...Mareeeiiiyyy"

I just couldn't stop laughing...oh well, next, the disclaimer:
I found this from one of the mailing lists that I subscribed...thanks for sharing fellas!!!

Jakarta earthquke and I live there

We had another earthquake in Jakarta yesterday. It was the second massive earthquake that hit Jakarta and by far the strongest ever, at magnitude 6 something. The epicentral of the quake is somewhere southwest of Tasikmalaya in West Java, at magnitude 7.5, well if you want to know the exact point, you'll find it at news sites.

Anyways, when the earthquake struck my house was shacking mildly but pretty noticeable (due to quake proof design), the water in our garden fish pond shook violently and threw a fish out of the pond. The most memorable scene during the quake was how the water of my swimming pool shakes. The water in my pool is lower than the edge of the pool and during the quake, the water shook badly until some of the water spilled out. Even sometime after the quake, the water was still shaking.

After the quake and aftershocks over, I quickly inspect my studio and found new cracks are appearing on the wall, thankfully the soundproof materials are holding. I'm not sure wether it's only outer layer crack or the wall that crack. We will have inspection to the studio soon.

It was a thrilling experience, especially because Jakarta is rarely hit by strong earthquake and we all wonder of how the people could take, should the quake changed to disaster, because naturally, as most indonesians are, the jakartans are living neglective culture and the prove of this was, several hours after the quake, the governor ordered a thorough inspection to all tall buildings and bridges. Why they didn't do that from the first place?

Jakarta lies on area that is relatively stable but once a quake hit, it usually a strong one. I'm just thankful that my family decided to build a quake proof house.

Would you buy Toyota Prius tagged US$ 58000?

Yesterday I went to a Toyota authorized dealer to ask about Toyota Prius. I'm so interested to get Prius (to replace my 5 year-old car) because its fuel consumption is so low and I'd like to participate in reducing carbon emission. This year Prius is officially entered indonesian market and will have authorized tech support.

I was keeping my hope that the price won't be higher than US$ 27000, but when I received the latest price list, my hope was shattered. Due to little knowledge of the advantage of hybrid cars and corrupted bureaucracy in Indonesia, the price of Prius in indonesia is a staggering US$ 58500!!!
Of course I knew that the car would have been a complete built up but it's from Thailand for goodness sake! It's still just too ridiculously expensive!

By seeing from this case, I don't think the big cities in indonesia will have their carbon emission , from motor vehicles, will reduce in the future. With no effort to urge people for using low emission vehicles, by lowering the price and giving insentive for electric and/or hybrid vehicles, it's only going to get worse and worse and worse.

Even the sermon at the curch can be naive sometime...

Today is the closing of Bulan Budaya or the right translation would be Culture Month, at the church where I am attending. For one month several cultures from Indonesia were introduced and highlighted as theme on each Sunday. I have no comments about it although there were some minor concerns but on today's sermon there was something that disturbs me badly.

During the preach (the theme was about the unity in differences, the country's motto), the pastor suddenly burst with a question, "Who is proud as Indonesia citizen? And those who's not can raise your hand. I see no one is raising hand, so I ca safely assume that we all are proud."
At that point, I felt challenged and almost spontaneously raising my hand. But it was a sermon, why would I do that? It wouldn't make things better and worse, we could have been locked in a useless talk. Nevertheless, it managed to sickens me.
I felt so much intimidated by today's sermon and it didn't give me peace at all. I went home in annoyance and there's a slight regret of not stating my position. Possibly no one will understand it but at least I can tell the truth.
The truth? Yea!!!
That I'm not proud as Indonesian citizen because I believe indonesia is an entity out of naive thoughts, I'm proud of being the world citizen-proud as indonesian citizen is too narrow minded for me, I'll release my indonesian citizenship when I have the chance, I don't believe that indonesia is my place for my end day because my homeland is earth so it won't matter where I die and I never feel like home with institution called indonesia, trust me on that.

Indonesia is almost synonymous with absurdity

When I read Kompas daily today, I notice a large ad (again by the treachery Telkomsel) about submitting your vote (by sending text) to make an indonesian racer, Rio Haryanto, to become the first indonesian Formula 1 racer. Oh well, to me this is so absurd!
Though I didn't doubt Haryanto's talent and skills but if we're talking about Formula 1, he'll need more than that. I'm a Formula 1 fan for a long long time and I realized that this type is racing, although pleasing to international audience, is so much european. Participation from non-european countries are limited to supplying a racetrack, a team and sponsors, but never really a racer itself.

Formula 1 from my eyes is a place for those nations who has the "speed" in their vein. It started in europe so it's normal that F1 can also be said as the byproduct of european cultures. From all champions of F1, most of them are european. I'm not trying to be racist, but if we want to be honest, some things are made this way and like it or not, Formula 1 is one of those things.

Take a look to F1 recent history, we saw Alex Yoong (Malaysia) and Narain Karthikeyan (India). Both were proudly hailed as the first F1 racer of their countries that did not have the "speed" culture as the european and afterwards they got kicked out only after a few seasons due to on and off tracks reasons. These countries like Indonesia doesn't have what needed to produce an F1 driver, the tradition.

I think it's fair to dream but thinking about this stuff? Goodness my fellow countrymen, we are going to have our own F1 drivers, but not now. This nation is not ready yet and may never ready in our lifetime. So please don't waste your money to satisfy this absurd dream, at least after Indonesia or whatever will be left in the future have gained the "tradition" and "speed" is in the vein.

Nevertheless, I wish Rio Haryanto good luck and God speed!

Indonesia?

Today is the 64th anniversary of Indonesia independence day and just like many anniversaries before, I don't want to celebrate or taking any participation whatsoever in the celebration activities. That because since I was aware of myself, I never felt like home in the country called Indonesia. In the later part of my life (and currently) I realized that the facts may have been distorted to legitimize the existence of Indonesia.

The founding fathers of the archipelago independence were undoubtedly smart people. They've succeeded in most of their diplomacy missions, they were able to unite their common goal to oust the Dutch that occupied their homelands (note that I say, homelands). It was something that average people will find it hard to accomplish.
But sadly and unfortunately, they were naive. Some thought the occupied territories is automatically becoming one nation as they suffered the same fate. While some thought after independence they could go home to their respective homelands and live as sovereign nations.
Same thing with the blood shed. Some of them are willing to shed their blood for their homelands and some for the unity of the boundaries left by the occupiers.

History tells us that the first, got the upper hand and now we know something called Indonesia. It was, is and always a fatal mistake because you can not assume that since other people suffered the same thing as you, they'll want to have a union or cooperation after the common goal is achieved.
So with this only one thing is enough for me to believe that Indonesia is one fatal mistake.

ps: I also found it absurd that after 64 years of independence, indonesians are still crying "merdeka" (it loosely means, independence) out loud. Merdeka of what???

There are no straight answers, but it makes life interesting

For the last couple of weeks, my Lord has showed me some interesting stuff. Those that were linked directly or indirectly to some things that I dreamed and asked the Lord for. He gave me the chance to see with my own eyes:

1. The phenomenal (though I have no respect to) indonesian singer called mbah Surip. His reign to stardom was unbelievably swift and it only took weeks for him to became a class A artist (demand wise). I met that guy at the Jakarta airport, escorted by his assistant. I didn't know why I had the chance to see him until days later when he died of exhaustion and cardiac arrest. I pray that my career as musician would go to a stardom realm and then there was this one guy. For days I pondered about it but I'm sure that it wasn't a warning but a case for me to learn and prepare should my big-time days come to me.

2. Two Lamborghini at Shell gas station. It was an awesome sight and God knows that it is one of the things at the top of my wish list. Why did He gave me the chance to see them up-close? I know God wanted me to work for my dreams and He snapped me from my secure feeling.

For sometime I didn't know how to react but I decided to focus on the encouragement from the Lord and it made me stronger in facing all the challenges to fulfill my dreams.

Whatever happened in ten days

As some of you may or may not know, last time I went to Surabaya as a expecting-father and now I'm back in Jakarta as a proud father of a baby girl we named Lúthien Tinúviel Kapriandi. Yes yes...of you who didn't know, we owe the great J. R. R. Tolkien for the name. (if you're still asking after this, it's outrages!)
There are so much to tell about her arrival to this world but I felt so hard to tell since it's so beyond words. I could only tell it is amazing. It also deepen my understanding of life and our (my wife & I) relationship with Jesus.

So after we returned home from the hospital, I had another weird experience. It was the fourth day after we got back and I was looking the sky from the terrace. The day was cloudless, so clear without pollution (unlike Jakarta), then suddenly I saw a white form similar to a passenger jet fuselage, approximately 38-40 thousand feet in altitude, but when I tried to recognize the plane I couldn't see any wings or tail fin and the way it moves was so different than an airplane, it just move smoothly like having no air resistance at all. I tried to focus on that thing, thinking I probably wrong but the more I focus, the more I convinced of its shape. Unfortunately I didn't got a chance to take my camera and take pics or record it since it moved fast, although clearly visible.
I asked my wife wether there are any air traffic on the sky of the area and told me only private jets flew that route. OK so maybe I saw a private jet but I'm still unsure since I remember exactly how it moves. So I here I am, still don't know if I had a close encounter of a first kind or another case of misidentify.

Another exciting thing in my ten days earlier is, I had a chance to feel flying the Boeing 737-800 NG-the latest generation of 737-on my way back to Jakarta. It was awesome and I'm so thankful to Jesus for the chance.