Rés of The Day

It's interesting how life presents you with small events that can change your whole day, or even life, in an opposite direction. When sometimes you feel like you're out of sync with life, that you feel like it has given you nothing but pain and misery, then one thing, one small thing that people might thing ridiculously trivial can make you, somehow view life in totally different way. It's hard to explain, and maybe it's simply unexplainable, but it sometimes makes you feel ashamed of yourself, for giving life so much unpleasant thought. While in fact, it could've been worse, and you actually are lucky enough to have had the chance to hold on to it, until this very moment.

Maybe it's not so much about the life itself, but more about how you live it, how you treasure every minute of it. Stop and think of all the precious times you have experienced this far, that will bring joy and warmth into your cold heart. Think of all the tough periods that you have gone through, and you will realize how strong you actually are, and how less you have given yourself credits for. It really isn't that bad, again, it could be worse. And yet, somehow you managed to drag yourself in and out of both the good and bad times. And if you think you can't do it any longer, just think of how far you've been through. It's only a few more moments, until you reach what you actually dream of.

Gosh.. I'm totally mumbling. Maybe it's time to go to bed. Good night, everyone..

Labels: Keluh Kesah

"There's a prayer intended to give strength to people faced with circumstances they don't want to accept. The power of the prayer comes from its insight into human nature, because so many of us rage against the hand that life has dealt us, because so many of us are cowardly and afraid to stand up for what is right, because so many of us give in to despair when faced with an impossible choice. The good news for who utter these words is that God will hear you and answer your prayer. The bad news is that sometimes the answer is no."

(Desperate Housewives, Sunday, April 30, 2006)

Labels: Kutipan

My face is a little oily this morning (or has it always been this way all the time? Hmm…). It’s just that when it gets too oily, the oil will somehow get clogged in the pores and it could grow into a pimple. And yes, I did have one today, a small one, but it was ripe enough so I could squeeze it this morning in the shower. Now, I’m basically pimple-free, but still a little oily. Oh well, maybe because it’s getting a little warmer, I get sweaty and.. oily. Who knows? I’m an oily man.

Anyway, today is Wednesday. Again, one of the most boring days of the week. Last night, when I checked my email, I got this email from my boss asking about some “mistake” on the database. I checked the database and well, it could be a mistake, but I simply didn’t touch it because the data was already there, and someone has marked it as ‘complete” somehow, so I thought it was really complete and correct.

I replied the email right away, and told my boss that I can make the appropriate change(s) as long as the previous mistake (made by Alex, actually) could be corrected first. I CC-ed that email to Alex as well. And guess what? I got a reply from Alex, confirming my research and.. another email from my boss about another mistake! And it was 10 o’clock already. I was just like, “OK, dude. Whatever. There’s still tomorrow.” And so, that’s what I’m gonna look at first thing I get to work. Fun, huh?

I also got a chance to talk with one of my girlfriends from Indonesia. Her name is Fanny. Apparently she was at work, and she had nothing to do but.. well.. talking to me.. hehe. I told her that I just got this Mac computer and surprisingly, she was so excited. She told me that his boss also has one of those. And since, I believe, that boss of hers is about the only person in Jakarta who’s using Mac (hyperbolic, buddies), he finds it a little difficult when dealing with file compatibility. Fanny told me, for example, a Visio drawing from Microsoft. She has to convert it to Power Point so her boss can view it on his Mac. Not very convenient but well, still bearable I guess.

And oh, it was American idol last night. The theme was “Love Songs.” And guess who was (or rather, were) the vocal coach for last night’s performance? It was Andrea Bocelli and David Foster! That was fantastic. I mean, I love Andrea Bocelli. And David Foster? He probably is one of the best producers in the entire music industry.

The show started with Katharine McPhee singing “I Have Nothing” of Whitney Houston. A little pitchy, and well.. I gotta admit that even though it was quite stunning performance, Kat doesn’t really get what it takes to be the next American Diva. I mean, she’s just not there yet. She’s still a little in the middle. It really depends on what kind of song that she chose to sing. And it makes her not a versatile singer.

The next performance, the one and only Mr. Elliott Yamin. And I was totally blown away by his performance. It was literally tear-jerker. I mean, come on.. Paul Abdul wept in tears, and Simon Cowell called it “.. like a master singer class, it was superb.” And boy, let me tell you, not only Elliott’s mom burst in tears, but Kat’s dad was also burst in tears. Paul Abdul was like “Elliott, you are the true American Idol!” Phew! I love Elliott, I really hope he will be the next American Idol.

Anyway, another performances were just so so. Miss Pickler with her boring “Unchained Melody’ (with LeAnn Rimes touch, as she said. LeAnn Rimes you’re a*s), Paris with her rendition of one of Barbra Streissand’s songs (which I have no idea what it’s called), Taylor Hicks with one of James Ingram’s love ballads, and finally, Chris Daughtry with Bryan Adam’s “Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman” (which I think is quite mediocre but surprisingly, the judges like it). The result show is tonight where Andrea Bocelli will perform live. And I think, it’s gonna be either Kelly Pickler or Paris Bennet who’s going to go home tonight..

Oh, by the way, I did catch my bus this time. Different driver I see. Right now I’m typing on the bus. It makes me a little queasy since the bus is moving left and right too much. SO I guess, I’ll just end it here for now. I’ll post this right when I get to the office. So, I’ll see ya in a bit?

--Afternoon Journal--

All right, another day has just finished. Super boring, no thrill at all (even Anthony couldn’t annoy me any less today). The strange thing is that everything is on time now, the bus, the train. It’s a good kind of strange I guess.. ☺

By the way, I forgot to mention earlier that our houseguest, Craig, didn’t feel really good. He’s got a little cold and over-tired I guess. I haven’t seen him again since he got here 2 days ago. He’s been staying in this room all the time. I’m just a little concerned if that is more than a cold or flu. But the last time I checked with Paul, he told me that Craig has been out of his room and seems like feeling a little better. So, we might go out for dinner somewhere right when I get home, with Craig.

Tonight is the result show for American Idol. A must see TV since it will have Andrea Bocelli singing live (probably with David Foster on the piano). What else? Hmm.. ah.. tomorrow is a meeting day, which means I need to start doing my report tonight. And hey, the database clean up is almost finished! I think that’s something to look forward to by the end of this week.

That’s all. Nothing else. Santa Clara station is coming, and oh.. by the way, the train is a little crowded today. Probably since I am sitting on the lower level. Anyway, I’ll see ya tomorrow then!

Labels: Jurnal

Here's how it looks like (or rather, I look like?) when I'm on the train. It's the upper level so I can see outside better and no need to share the seat with some stranger.








And another one. Rather narcissistic. Enjoy while it lasts!!

Labels: Foto

Tuesday morning. A low key, quiet, rather cold and slow one. It’s not raining, just a little cloudy here and there so, it’s good. I know, I didn’t write at all yesterday. I didn’t even take my laptop with me to work so, no writing on the train.

We have a houseguest now, Mr. Craig Wilson from England. He came yesterday evening. Paul went to the airport to pick him up and he told me that it only took him 30-45 minutes to deal with the custom. Lucky British guy, it took me 2 hours the first time I landed in the United States. Oh well, now that I have my green card it would take as long for me now as well.

Anyway, Craig, as Paul told me, used to be so skinny. But apparently he has gained some weight (and it’s quite pronounced from the look on his chubby cheeks and.. ahem.. portable treasures in his stomach.. ☺). But he seems like a very nice guy, the first thing you notice of course, his exotic British accent. He told me that some people can actually switch it on and off but he can’t do that. That shows that his accent is real, not fake. And yes, I think I do love British accent (or in his case, rather Australian sort of thing since he was living in Australia before he moved back to England).

New Castle, if I’m not mistaken. He told me that he had to fly from New Castle to London, and then 10-hour flight from London to San Francisco. That’s okay, I guess. It took me almost 24 hours flying from SFO to Jakarta. And no, I’m not crazy about it.. :P

So, he was not awake yet when I leaved the house. I think he must be quite exhausted, with the jet lag and everything. I have left him all the phone numbers that he can call anytime he needs anything. Besides, Paul is gonna be home by noon so, he has enough time for himself to figure out what he wants to do for the rest of the day. So, welcome to Bay Area, Craig!

As for me? Well, it’s Tuesday, what do you expect? One of the most boring days in a week. There is this training thing at work (which I don’t attend since I am not a developer or aspiring to be one). My (new) cube mate, Parin, is attending it. It’s going on for the whole week, I guess. The back door is locked from inside (you can’t get through from outside) so, every time I need to go to the rest room I get out of the back door, and get back in from the front door. Even worse, yesterday around 5.30 before I leaved, I went to bathroom for the last time and when I tried to get in from the front door it was locked! And I didn’t bring my key with me of course. I had to knock the door and guess who opened it for me? Danny (gasp!)

About today? Well, nothing special, really. I am still in the middle of cleaning up the database for products from BMC Software. I think I’ll finish moving all the data from the spreadsheet to the database this morning, so I can go ahead and check the cleanliness of the data, and then do the classification as well as prioritization. If you don’t know what I’m talking about don’t worry, you’re not missing anything.

I think I’ll be leaving work at around 5.15 this afternoon then. Hopefully everything will go on time, so I can be at home by 6 and cook some dinner. Not sure what to cook though but rest assured, it will be something yummy.

Alright then, it’s almost my station next so, I’ll see ya around in a bit? Have a nice day!

--From on The Light Rail--

Okay, a little update. Apparently this is not an ideal schedule for me for getting to work. The train gets to the station around 8.38 or 8.37 at the earliest. And the bus that I need to take arrives around then at the station, or even earlier. And the thing with the train and the bus here is, its schedule is not really reliable. They’re human operated so there will always be a minute or two tolerance time. It can be too late or too early. And that doesn’t work very well since it has to be exactly on time for me to be able to catch the bus as I step down the train.

Like right now, I missed the bus. I saw it crossing the train track. And right now, I’m on a light rail (since I thought that the light rail will depart soon but apparently not until 8.50) So, I guess I’d rather take the light rail to Middlefield station, and then either wait for the bus there or just walk to my office. Oh well, it’s gonna be another ugly walk if I do walk. Darn it. I think I really need to figure out another schedule that will work out fine without me having to run to catch the bus, or miss it and have to wait for half an hour at the bus stop.

The good part is, morning light rail is filled by mostly young, fresh, nice, educated, civilized people who are getting to work. So, no freak, no weirdo, no smelly people on board.

8.49 now, the light rail (hopefully) will be leaving in 1 minute. I don’t know but, this is no good way to start the day but what can I say? I should try to make the best of it then. And ouch, I forgot to charge my cell phone last night. And I forgot to bring the charger with me. What a day! We’ll see..

--From The Office--

Phew.. 10 (or 15?) minutes walk. It was okay, fresh morning air. Well, thanks for all your support and prayer for me.. *Yeah right!!*

--Afternoon Journal--

Thank God the day is finally over. It was one of the most boring days in a week, indeed. Nothing new at work, just the same usual stuff as every other day, and my boss kept bugging me with his jumping-here-and-there thoughts.

The only good thing today was, free lunch at the back conference room! So as I mentioned earlier, we have this training thing in which all attendants get free lunch. Apparently, Tamy and/or Carrie ordered lunch more than what is needed (in purpose I bet, thank you Tamy, thank you Carrie). There we were, having a little lunch party in the back conference room with Arundhati, Suma, Tony, Charles, and John Boyne. I guess there were only so many people knew about it. Or probably, since it was a little late for lunch (1 pm) everybody had had his or her lunch already. Anyway, it was quite good, some Chinese food with tofu, chicken, and a lot of vegetable (the egg plant was quite good!).

It’s sad that the only thing that made my day is a free lunch. Do I sound like a pig? Duh

Anyway, about my boss. He kept coming to my cube telling me what he thinks we (I?) need to do next. He’s got so many to say that I don’t even get where to begin first. What really is the priority? What should be done after which? And he keeps picturing the “whole picture” without really knowing that it takes time, it takes steps, sequences, and orders for everything to be done. He sounds like he wants to get everything done at one time. And he tends to simplify things. Anyway, that was quite frustrating. Plus, one thing that really annoyed me, when he came right when I was about to shut down my computer and got ready to leave. He asked me about products in the database that I have actually taken care of (they were included in so-called bugs that I have resolved but apparently he didn’t get the chance to read it). I had to stay another half an hour since I had missed my bus by then.

And when I was waiting for my bus, I remembered that it was exactly the same time I was waiting for the bus yesterday. And it was 20 minutes late so, I kinda anticipated it to be late again (and probably wouldn’t take me to the station right before the train come, so I’d wait another half an hour for the train). But thank God, it was not that bad today. And yes, if you have guessed, it was not yesterday’s driver. I remember yesterday’s driver is the type of worker that I would have fired in a heartbeat if I were his employee. Now I’m at the train station, waiting for the train to come, and apparently it is late this time.

Why do all my postings talk about how shitty public transportation in this area is? What am I doing still taking public transportation? You know what? I’m gonna target by the end of next month I’ll be driving to work. And for now, once again, sh*tmotherf*cking public transportation.

Ok.Apparently the train is not going to come. I've been waiting for half an hour. Ah screw it!

Labels: Jurnal

Saturday, woke up at 7, wanted to go back to sleep but i couldn't since I went to bed quite early, before 11 last night (and yes, ladies and gentlemen, that was early for me). I decided I'd just have a little snack or two, then fooling around checking on what's going on online.

Okay. Nope. Nobody was online (nobody that I know at least). I jumped into the kitchen, checking out what's left in the fridge. Hmm... some tofu, a bunch of Cokes, the last bar of Cadbury, and a couple of oranges. Pathetic. And I didn't feel like cooking or fixing up anything in the microwave for breakfast. So, it was oranges, 5 pieces of tofu, and a can of Coke. *BURP*

Now. Who's online. Oh! There was Ari! She was online! I hit her nick and shouted "Hi! Whatcha doin awake this early?" And she was like "Karaoke-ing." I was literally awe-ing! I mean, it was not even 8 yet and she was karaoke-ing already? I was like.. "You mean, karaoke as in singing or karaoke as in.. you know.. hehe" And she slapped me with that cutesy emoticon while typing out "Bitch!"

Apparently, there was this online karaoke thing where you can sing along and record your voice to the music and put it online so everyone can listen to it. Nifty.. a little narcissistic but oh well, everyone has that moment..

Anyway, my battery is running on reserved power, it might go sleep anytime. So, don't be alarmed if this posting hasn't finished yet..

Labels: Jurnal

This is from on the bus on my way from the train station to work. The bus was a little late today (I thought I missed it). Not so many people on board so it was quite easy to take a little pose or so without anyone noticing.. *wink*




This one on the right is my fresh expression aftear reaching my lovely cube *duh*. Th office was still quite quiet (it was not even 9 am yet) so, again, strike another pose!!



Taddaa...!!! My lovely cube, again! Do you see the orange and banana on my desk? Those are my breakfast!

Labels: Foto

--Morning Journal--

Well.. well.. well.. I didn’t write much yesterday, did I? It was actually not really that bad a day, I mean, except for the public transportation part. It actually was quite a pleasant day with going out for lunch with my co-workers (on company’s credit card, mind you!), and went back home doing some cooking and dinner with Paul. And in the nighttime, the result show of American idol in which, that stupid lame untalented Ace Young got eliminated. And Katharine McPhee was not the bottom three! How sweeter could it be? ☺

Anyway, it’s Thursday now, a meeting day. And as usual, I haven’t done my report yet. Well at least I’m not sending it to my boss a minute before the meeting (like one of my co-workers did). Besides, I made quite a good progress last week, with almost 300 products being cleaned and audited. And I guess, today’s work load will be pretty easy, in a sense that it’s more certain on what to do and where to find the information that I need. And on top of that, what a rocking morning! Shining bright, warm enough to wear just my thin sweatshirt and one of my favorite small t-shirts. Yum! Heh..

Oh, by the way, it’s gonna be Sasha’s birthday this Saturday. Sasha is Febby and Usman’s daughter. They are my friends from “Karang Taruna San Jose” (a group of young and interesting Indonesians living in San Jose area). She’s only 1, and apparently she doesn’t really have any other 1 year old kids to hang out with so, their parents invited us to help her celebrating her birthday. Saturday evening, I really hope I can make it on time since I’m sure there will be a lot of good food and I always enjoy being around that crowd of people.

Another interesting thing coming in the immediate future is one of Paul’s friends, old friend, named Craig, coming to visit. He used to live in Australia, but then he moved to England (and he is originally from England). Paul has a lot of good thing to talk about him. I’m sure they’re quite fond of each other. I don’t know him very well, well.. maybe at all. So, we’ll see how he’s like and I hope I get to like him also.. ☺

Last night, while I was watching American idol, I had a chat with Cepi. Cepi is one of my best friends in Indonesia. We’ve been friends since I was 7 (elementary school). He is a very loyal, sweet, understanding, and reliable friend. I sometimes feel like I am closer to him than to my own family. Anyway, we were talking about American idol. He didn’t want me to tell him who went home last night. Well, since I know which contestant that he roots for, I at least could tell him that the result wouldn’t disappoint him. And he likes the theme song for the contestant who gets eliminated. It’s “Bad Day” of Daniel Powter. Powter is an ex Idol contestant. I just found it out yesterday. And yes, it was quite a good song.

Anyway, my station is coming, I’ll post this thing right when I get to work so, I’ll see ya in a bit?

--Afternoon Journal--

It was an easy, breezy and quite pleasant day. Work was quite bearable, the report was done on time (though my boss asked me another one later, but I managed to deliver it on time), and the meeting didn’t last much longer than I expected. It took an hour and 10 minutes, better than over an hour and a half last week (even worse I was doing it over the phone).

What was happening at the meeting? Ah, not much, just the usual weekly status kind of thing. There were two new members in my team, and they didn’t have that much to report since last week was only their first week. The most time still, taken by Paul Oppenheim and Sowmya. They keep “discussing” stuff that is purely technical which, I bet, no one else really understands (or cares to understand). Even I saw Arundhati was doing some sketches on her note, and David I saw yawning several time. They should take it outside the meeting. A meeting with that many attendants is supposed to discuss just some general stuff that needs to be run over the whole team. But they kept babbling.. babbling.. blah.. blah.. *yawn* Anyway, it could be worse so, what the heck..

Oh, you know, I actually put the link to this blog on my status with my Yahoo Messenger (and I put the sentence like “Click on here if you wanna get my latest updates”). And it’s proven to be working. I got several messages from some friends that are not even on my friends list anymore. That was nice, it kind of reminds them of me. And well, yes, I am quite.. ahem.. memorable.. heh

All right, the train is on time this time, and so is the bus! Remember my yesterday’s posting? Yes, the same motherf*cking driver today, but apparently, he managed to make it on time, instead of 20 minutes late like yesterday. That makes the whole afternoon quite pleasant, very enjoyable even, since it’s so warm, shiny, and my day was quite nice.

Let’s see, what’s for dinner tonight? I guess I’m gonna have some tofu that I bought from the Vietnamese vegetarian place. Or probably, have them with some rice. Or, if I’m still hungry, I still have some ready dinner (the diet box thing) that I bought from Safeway last week. So, dinner is not a problem this time. And oh.. I still have plenty of leftover of food that I cook yesterday. I had some for lunch today actually, so I think, I don’t wanna eat the same food at two meals in a row.. ☺

Alright then, time to wrap this up. It’s 5.21 pm and I will be home by 5.30. Super!

Labels: Jurnal

I was just thinking, it might be nice to write something other than a journal today. Let’s see.. hmm.. maybe I should write about American Idol. Why American Idol? Well, because I just watched it on TV last night, and it was supposed to be a good one.

Well, as you know, American Idol is a singing competition based on “popularity” and “likeability” since the winner is determined by votes from the audience (i.e. Americans who watch the show). As controversial as it might sound (what if the vote is simply for look, appearance and not voice or singing ability?), I think the past winners have been proven to be quite singing-capable. Besides, I believe those American publics are smart enough to differentiate between shallow idolatry and true admiration of talent and capability.

Anyway, it’s running on the 5th season now, has been rounded up to 8 finalists. Last night they were asked to sing classic songs, with the vocal coach Rod Stewart. It was quite a good one last night, as I mentioned earlier, in a sense that I believe that most of them picked the right song, sang it nicely and perform with a professional singer quality. The theme changes every week, previous week for example they had to sing songs from Queen (the band), the week before that they had to sing songs from the 21st century (news songs, supposedly), and so on.

The judges, Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul, and Simon Cowell make comments on each performer and audience (i.e. voter) are supposedly listening to what they have to say and make their vote based on their suggestion. Although sometimes the results are quite surprising, all in all, the judges have quite great influence on the vote turnout.

I like a few of this season’s finalists. To name some of them, I think I like either Katharine McPhee or Elliott Yamin to go through the final. They both definitely can sing, they have talent, they have personality, they are quite good looking and in my opinion, they are the least pretentious of all of them.

Last night, Katharine sang “Someone to Watch Over Me,” She put all her fragility, adorability, her powerful voice, and her amazing personality that makes her look so believable. It was her greatest performance, ever, on idol. On the other hand, Elliott sang some “weird song that I don’t even remember what the title was. It was an okay performance but, I’m not to keen on that.

Other contestants were quite good also last night. Chris Daughtry, surprisingly performed a sort of ballad, “What A Wonderful World” with an acoustic guitar. It was quite refreshing and for the first time I really liked him.

Anyway, it’s only a few more weeks left. I believe the grand finale will be somewhere in May. Well, whatever the result will be, I hope it is the best that will come up as the winner.

By the way, if you missed any of the shows, don’t expect you can view the video clip from Idol website. Fremantle Media (the owner of the license) doesn’t let the video to be posted anywhere on the net. But who can prevent fans who want to show off their Idol? You bet, you can find it somewhere else. Try YouTube. It’s like a video website where members can upload their videos in macromedia format. Just type in any of the idol’s name that you want so his/her performance, and will give you plenty results to pick at.. ☺

Labels: Artikel

Originally created on Wed, 041906

**Notes: The public transportation in this area totally s*cks. It's so unreliable, sometimes it's on-time, sometimes it's too late, sometimes it's too early! And they don't seem to give a sh*t on what they're doing. I think that's the downside of paying these kind of people (drivers) salary instead of based on their performance and/or their ability to meet the target.**

SH*TMOTHERF*CKING PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

I’m too outraged to write anything.

Labels: Jurnal

Nice picture, eh? It's taken with Photo Booth with my new MacBook Pro. Very nice...

Labels: Foto

Tuesday morning (and geez.. do I begin my postings with “OMG” too often? This time I should say that again so, “OMG! It’s shining bright this morning!”) Quite a smooth morning, got on the train on time, had pretty much every morning rituals done and, feeling quite fresh and rested (though I didn’t go to bed until 1 last night).

The only catch was the fact that suddenly, there seems to be so many airplanes flying around so low that I could even feel the vibration it causes on my house. Not only airplanes, but also helicopters, and they are so noisy. Thank God it was not until this morning they started the whole noise, otherwise I could imagine how shitty it would be sleeping with that noise.

Anyway, what’s for work today? Ah, the same thing, I guess. Working with the database, probably calling up John Thorpe (my old boss) about some enhancement with the database. And maybe, dealing with some mistake on the fingerprint linking that was done by either Alex and/or Arundhati. The rest? Pretty much the same thing I guess.

Oh, I got an email from my boss yesterday, addressed to the whole team. He suggested we’re having lunch sometime this week to “celebrate” the code freeze with our next product release as well as “terrific progress” that we have made with the database. Besides, we also have two new additions to our team. Nice, I think, but have we really reached our target yet? I’m not sure but oh well.. it’s a lunch invitation so, nobody refuses (probably) free lunch. The place? Paul (Oppenheim) came up with the name “Dish Dash.” It sounds hilarious to me, like.. is it even a real restaurant’s name? I bet it’s some sort of Indian restaurant. We’ll see.

Another email from my boss, he questioned the calculation that I made and put on the summary of our clean-up task. He thought that the numbers don’t change that much. Well, they don’t really, but there are reasons for that. One of which is the fact that everyone is working on pretty big manufacturers for now so we don’t really have time to pick up on new manufacturers. I explained it to him in an email, and he thought I explained it “nicely” (whatever that means). And so, problem solved.

Ah, I hope I can catch the bus going from Mountain View to my office again. It’s pretty slim but I hope the bus driver is nice enough and wait for me.

All right then, my station is coming. I’ll see ya in a bit?

Labels: Jurnal

Originally created on Mon, 041706

--Morning Journal--

“… for the completion of another successful week.” This sentence from an episode of Desperate Housewives has been stuck in my mind since I woke up this morning. And I guess it could quite apply to me since I do have completed another successful week. In fact, I am now just about to enter another week, which hopefully will be completed successfully as well.

Bright and sunny morning, on time schedule, enough sleep, nice weekend, I think I can say that I am starting this week with a peace of mind. It was a tiring but satisfactory weekend. Not only we filled in some more room with furniture and unpack some more boxes, we also had the kitchen, the dining room, the front room, and the guest room a little more organized (I prefer to use the term “a little more look like a real house”).

We went to IKEA buying some stuff from extra bed for the guest room, coffee table for the front room, extra kitchen counter, some CD towers, desk organizer, and some rug and other small stuff. My favorite part was the bed and the rug. We bought this day bed made of brass. Kind of funky looking, and we planned on putting a lot of pillows and warm sheet on it so we can use it as a sitting point as well as extra bed. The rug, let me tell you, is made of a real sheepskin. A crazy, hairy, fury, sheep-shaped rug. That is totally awesome. Actually, we saw this real cow skin at IKEA, it was quite big. I think we’re gonna get that for the front room. It will be hilarious!

Anyway, the thing with IKEA is, it takes you forever to assembly all their furniture. It might be fun, some, but when you have like 10 pieces to assembly, it’s just too much. Especially when it comes to small stuff that takes a lot of details and so many small parts. I got this office organizer thing which looks just simple and easy, and small when it’s been assembled, but boy.. it was a real pain the ass to assemble. I almost gave up but finally I finished it anyway.

We still need to get some curtain and/or blinds for the windows. We went to this crappy Sears in Eastridge and of course, we didn’t find anything. I guess it’ll be just another project for the next weekend.

Anyway, busy week at work now. We’re supposedly having this deadline by the 21st. I hope we can make it. Alright, it’s Mountain View next so, I’ll see ya in a bit!

--Afternoon Journal--

Awesome! It’s shining bright! Even though it’s a bit cold and windy, it is quite enlightening to see this kind of weather on my home. Oh well, I don’t wanna talk about weather too much, do I? ☺

Anyway, Arundhati was working from home, again, today. She said “I’m not sure whether the fan has been fixed or not, so I’d rather stay and work from home.” Amazing, eh? And she didn’t get online, not until 5 pm when I was about to leave. So, go figure..

Now, what’s for dinner? Hmm… probably instant cup noodle for tonight. I’ve had so many tofu for lunch that I don’t think I can have any more for dinner. It’s not that I don’t like it; it’s just, too much. Oh, I just remember that I actually have some sort of microwave-type of dinner. Maybe I’ll have that instead. We’ll see.

And after dinner, I think I’m gonna do the project that I’ve been holding off since almost 3 weeks ago, uploading all my blog entries and make it available online. I’ve had it in my laptop for that long, it’s just that I didn’t have time to prepare the template for my blog, and I just had it finished yesterday. So, I hope everything will be published by midnight, and that means you’ll be able to read my blog by tomorrow! Isn’t it exciting? ☺

A little story from work, there is a new guy started today. I think Tamy introduced her to me but I didn’t quite catch his name. All I knew was that he was an Indian, and he works for technical something. Later in the afternoon, I saw someone added me to his messenger list, and his hotmail account says “Mohammad” on it. And I was like, “wow, that new guy is a Muslim? Cool!” I mean, well, I’m pretty sure that I am the only Muslim at work so I guess it’ll be nice to have another one that I could, maybe, share the experiences some. Maybe we can go to the Friday prayer together even. We’ll see.

Anyway, it’s so warm in here, and besides, my station is coming, so, I guess I’ll just see ya around in a bit?

Labels: Jurnal

Originally created on Thu, 041306

--Morning Journal--

It’s Thursday, a sunny one. No rain, not cold, but still, I’m taking my umbrella with me, just in case.

Ok. Weird thing happened this morning. When I was in the shower, I got a call on my cell phone (which I missed, of course). When I dialed the number back, somebody said it’s “Microsoft Tech Support,” and when I told her somebody called me from that number she said, “This is Microsoft Canada, 800 people work here so..” And I was just, “Oh, okay. Thanks!” Weird, huh? I’m just wondering who might call me from Microsoft Canada, and even, for what purpose? Gosh.. I hope it’s not something with software piracy because I have never done such a thing. I’ll try to research the phone number from work and maybe, call again to make sure that everything is fine.

Anyway, OMG it’s only Thursday! It’s supposed to be a meeting day but my boss is going to be at Stanford for a Job Fair (no, he is not looking for another job, our company is opening a booth to find new employees instead). So, the meeting is moved to tomorrow, 4 pm! I will have to call in from home since I will be working from home in the afternoon after my Friday prayer at Stanford. I haven’t done the report though, which I will do first thing I get to the office.

Yesterday was a little bit sucky. The first half of the day I spent on doing auditing with the work that has been done by the China team. It was quite painful since I had to check one by one as if I am doing the research again for the first time. At noon, Arundhati came to me and asked if I wanna meet to talk about dividing the task, as Nimish, my boss, has asked about the estimate of how long the auditing process will take. Long story short, we decided that we need to change our style of auditing. Instead of doing it very detailed and go over the products one by one, we’d rather just do general auditing and make it fast. I’m not sure but, auditing 250 products a day is tough even though it’s only a general auditing.

The other half part of my work spent on working with bugs filed by Rohit and/or Alex. It was for Hyperion and Informatica. I thought it would be easy but it turned out to be complicated. With the company keeps changing name of their products, I had to really understand the whole organization of their products. I made a few progress on one bug, hopefully I can finish that bug by today.

Another interesting thing yesterday, dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant. Sounds exciting? Well, it’s weird, and I can’t say that I really enjoyed it. Anyway, I’ll tell later, my station is coming. So, see ya in a bit?

--Afternoon Journal--

Ok. So, it turns out that it is definitely not a good day to take an umbrella with you. Its super shiny and bright! It’s even warm! Gee.. I wonder if spring has actually started. It will be awesome, I’m gonna keep all these heavy jackets in the storage and take all my tight shirts out. Yeeha!

Today’s work was quite bearable, had to deal with Anthony several times, had to deal with Alex and David, but at least they were asking for my suggestions/opinions, not asking me to verify things. Even some bugs under my name that I’m working on, I believe they actually are the result of Alex’s mistake so, it shouldn’t take that long for me to close it or shift it to Alex.

By the way, yesterday’s dinner. Paul and I were driving around hoping that we can find some new place where we can eat decent food in considerably short time (since we had to go to Office Depot and the gym). We drove along San Carlos and saw nothing, until we saw something says “Ethiopian restaurant.” We have dared each other into going to try Ethiopian food some time and we though, what the heck, let’s try, let’s get it over with.

There we were, in an Ethiopian restaurant full of Ethiopians chatting and socializing in their languages. I looked up at the menu, it was rather disappointing. They have quite some vegetarian food but they don’t have anything else other than meat that I can’t eat. We decided to go with vegetarian. It was like a combination of several items.

It took forever for the food to come, 15 minutes or maybe more. They didn’t even serve water, we had to buy bottled water. And when the food came, I was like… “Hmm.. that looks weird.” I tasted some, it was weird. The vegetables were bitter, the creamy hummus-like beans are.. ahem.. gross. I couldn’t even take my mind off the image of.. sorry.. poop, since it really does look like it. And the “bread,” gosh.. it’s bitter, weird-tasted and.. I don’t know, even the presentation is kind of like.. not pleasant. Maybe it was just me since Paul actually ate the whole thing. I could only make myself to eat the potato-cabbage thing. Other than that, it made almost throw out when I put it in my mouth.

I think I’m not gonna have another Ethiopian food anymore. Well at least not in the immediate time. No thank you.

Oops.. my station is coming. Nice trip today, really. Everything’s on time and I will get home within 10 minutes. Hopefully I can make some pizza and chop a little vegetable for salad and, have a little relaxed and decent dinner while watching some TiVo.

So, I guess I’ll see ya tomorrow!

Labels: Jurnal

Originally created on Wed, 041206

What a smooth morning! By smooth I mean no rush, no running, just walking down with style, in the rain with a protection from my super big umbrella. That’s what I call an ideal morning. And hopefully, it will carry on through the whole day and make this day effortless and enjoyable.

Express train, as usual. By the way, express train is not a baby bullet; it makes more stop than baby bullet. Like this one, it will make stops at Santa Clara station, then Mountain View, then Menlo Park, then all stops all the way to San Francisco. On the other hand, baby bullet only make stops in Mountain View, Palo Alto, and a few others to San Francisco. Anyway, I hope this express train that I’m taking right now will make it on time to Mountain View station so I can catch my bus.

There was something funny happened yesterday. Remember I couldn’t get my VPN to work with my Mac while it does work with my PC? I sent an email to helpdesk two days ago asking if there has just been some changes in parameters with the VPN. I addressed my email to John Boyne, one of the IT guys. But since the IT manager is quitting, and in the process of transition it was held by this Chinese guy named Danny, my email came into his mailbox. Well, let me talk about this Danny guy. I have no idea what problem he has with me but, every time he passes me by, he either holds his head up, or stares at the floor, or throws his face away. And who does he think he is that I need to be sweet and nice and all chatty and greety when I pass him by?

So, I got a reply from Danny, forwarded to my boss, Nimish, and John Boyne. Basically the email says, “Why the heck would you use Mac machine? Does your work really have to be done on Mac? Hey, Nimish, did you order your team to work on Mac?” And I was like, what an asshole, stupid bitch! I simply asked if I did all the settings right. If you don’t know a thing about it then just say so, or better, just keep your mouth shut. It’s not like I’m asking you to set up my machine. The very least thing I would do is dealing with you.

Later that day, I got a reply from John Boyne. Basically, he told me that they have encountered several problems with people connecting from Mac. And he’s not very knowledgeable with Mac that he suggested me to talk with Paul (Oppenheim).

I had a chance talking with Paul over MSN. Long story short, I am now connected to my VPN. I‘ll tell you more the details later. My station is coming so, see ya in a bit!

Labels: Jurnal

Originally created on Tue, 041106

OMG! I don’t seem to learn from yesterday. I was almost late for the train again today. As I am typing this, I’m still panting and huffing collecting my breath after running for 3 minutes. This can’t be happening again and again, I gotta stop it.

Anyway, express train, rather shiny day but grey and cloudy sky, and chilly wind. Tuesday, folks! Definitely not one of my favorite day. It’s boring, lengthy, and ah.. don’t get me started.

I supposed my foot-injured boss will be at work today, as well as my back-ached coworker. It’s just, sometimes, like last night, I feel like I’m being taken advantage of, being the hard worker while they are being the smart-sneaky one.

Gosh, these two people in the back seat are speaking in Bahasa. I bet they’re visiting their children here in California. They were talking about.. ahem.. taking a poop.. hehe. Should I say hi? Ah, I don’t think so, I’m getting off the train soon anyway. So let them enjoy their train ride. Ok. This is too cute, the man told his wife to look outside the window, “There’s a rainbow!” And they wife started o sing “Oh rainbow, oh rainbow..” What a cute old couple.. ☺

Ok. Last night I was on the phone with a tech support from Netgear. I couldn’t seem to be able to do remote desktop connection with my router. He suggested me to open a port for remote desktop connection, which I did and guess what? It didn’t work. Finally I got an idea of opening the firewall for that thing, and it worked!

God, my station is coming. I’ll see ya soon!

Labels: Jurnal

Originally created on Mon, 041006

--Morning Journal--

Phew!. Almost late. Got on the train just a few seconds before the door closed. Thank God I made it. Too many trivial things that I had to do before leaving home. And suddenly it’s been 8.17, and I only had 5 minutes to try to catch the train. And when I had locked the door, I remember I had to put the mail for the recycle service bill in the mailbox so I had to unlock the door again, run to get the mail, lock the door again and run as fast as I could to the station. And as I said earlier, phew!

The good thing is, no rain this morning. Well, I should’ve been happier but, I just had my new umbrella and I expected to give it a try this morning. Oh well, maybe later, hopefully it’s gonna be raining hard this afternoon when I get home.

Okay. It’s another week now, another Monday, another busy working day. I don’t know but I feel like I’m more excited, more relaxed, less anxious, and less stressful with this Monday. Probably because I had a nice weekend, a sweet an comforting one, where everything seemed to be in place and, no distressing moments or arguments whatsoever. It just feels like it’s carried on through the whole week and hopefully, it will make my week more bearable.

A friend of mine in Indonesia, Edwin, had his birthday yesterday. I called him last night to wish him a happy birthday. He sounds like happy, fine, well, so, that’s that. I’m happy that everything’s going on well for him.

On completely another note, a\one of my uncles, my mom’s brother just passed away last Friday. It’s been quite a while since the last time I ever saw him. But when I tried to call home, no one answered.

Ah gosh, it’s an express train. Mountain view station is coming soon so, I better get ready to get off, see ya in a bit?

--Afternoon Journal--

What a day! Very very cold, I had to wear my jacket indoor all the time. Who the heck turn the air conditioner on? I mean, really, its so freezing cold.

And the work totally sucked. My boss left earlier (after lunch) because he had a “foot injury.” And I just found out that Arundhati took Friday off because she had “back ache.” Ah, those sneaky Indians. And the work was SO unbearably boring! The work that has been done by the China team was severely messed up. It really pisses me off to deal with people who don’t work seriously. It’s like doing the research all over again while I was only supposed to “audit” the research that they have done.

Not only that, I also had to deal with teaching Carrie with the database. I thought she already knew at least some basic stuff with computer (internet, browsers, explorer, copying, pasting). But it was like walking her down the road to getting to know your computer all over again. Very slow. She didn’t even know how to search with Google.. :( I really don’t think it’s a good idea to have her involved in the database cleaning process.

Thank God I didn’t have to deal with Anthony. But still, he hasn’t finished his work on SSA Global. It’s been 4 days now. Well, I’ll let Nimish deal with him on this matter.

Anyway, it turned out that today was not as exciting as I hoped it would be. I didn’t have lunch (and when I tried to find some instant cup noodle in the kitchen’s drawer, none! I wonder who was the pig that finished all the noodles). Thank God I brought some extra fruit, so be I was having lunch with.. apple, oranges, and banana. Hopefully I’ll get skinny afterward.. :D

The only good thing probably the fact that I got to the station on time an could catch this express train. I am SO hungry now. Let’s see.. maybe I’ll have clam chowder with extra clam and, kettle-cooked potato chips, with extra fat. And oh, diet coke. YUM!!

See ya tomorrow then!

Labels: Jurnal

Originally created on Thu, 040606

So, I read the instruction for installing Windows XP on this machine, it says that I have to have a bonafide installer CD which includes Service Pack 2. The thing is, I only have an old version of XP that doesn't have it. I usually just install the XP and download the SP 2 from Windows website. But apparently that is not allowed for Boot Camp installation (although some people on Apple Support forum did try to do that but with unconvincing result). So, what's the solution? Thank God it's not hard to find, I did a little research on the mentioned forum and there's this technique called "slipstreaming," combining the SP2 file into the same CD with the XP installer. I have to copy my XP CD into my hard drive first, then download the SP2 somewhere from Microsoft's website, then combine it together.

Sounds simple? The idea is, but the practice takes much more workaround that you might think. First, the (combined) CD has to be bootable (you can boot your computer from the CD ROM when it's inserted, exactly the same way the original CD works). And to do that, you have to have exact same copy (same image, same volume label) with the original CD. How to do that? First, you need to copy the ISO image of that CD and use that image to create the combined CD. There’s a program for that, called Isobuster. It's not a free program but you can have it on trial (or have it on demo with some limited capability, I’m not sure). Well, anyway, that works. I could combine the XP installer and SP2 and put it in the hard drive.

Now, burning it to the CD or DVD. I don't have any program that can create bootable CD. Well, I do have a sonic DVD creator but it is in a limited version. It doesn't let me do that. What now? I thought I had Roxio CD Creator but, since I was just moving, my stuff are still every where so, it's like finding a needle in a hay stack. Downloading it from the Internet? No link provided, you have to pay first before you get the link (what smart bastards!). Finally, I went with Nero Burner. I downloaded it, trying to install it several times but, it just ignored me (extracting the files into temporary folder, but then quiet). I tried over and over, trying to clear my temp and caches, restarted my computer several times, still no luck. Finally I got an idea, I just went look directly into the temp folder and there it was, the installer. I made it work, burned the CD, tried it and it works!

Next is doing the real work: installing XP using Boot Camp. It’s pretty straightforward, doing the partition (I chose FAT 30GB so I could access my XP volume from my Mac). The installation worked fine, the XP was installed and took me to the restart. Now it's time to install the drivers from Mac (oh by the way, I had to copy Mac drivers into a CD using Boot Camp so my XP could access all Mac peripherals later). Everything seemed to work, and I heard the XP shutting down sound when I rebooted. But then, when it restarted, it didn't get into XP, I had to press power button to restart manually and as XP usually behaves, it asks you to do the scan since you quite your previous session abnormally. I did it, and got into XP fine but, no sound! The sound didn't work! Gosh.. I was so frustrated cause I believe I had done everything exactly the way I was told.

I tried to reinstall the driver (called SigmaTel High Definition Audio WDM Driver) but it couldn't be find from the CD. I tried to find it online but SigmaTel doesn’t provide the driver as it is (only as part of hardware purchase). So, I thought I was out of luck, until I got the idea of trying to find it somewhere inside my XP. And here it was!! The driver is right there in the SigmaTel folder under Program Files! Sweet! I made it work! Well.. I did uninstall all the drivers before to check if something went wrong, but then it's a breeze to reinstall the drivers. Now everything works perfect. And let me tell you, its very breezy.. Very fast (even faster than XP running on Intel machine that is meant for XP).

Done? Not yet! I have a Mac track pad, no right click! Help! Did some research on the forum, and found what they called "applemou" or applemouse. Downloaded it, installed it, perfect! Ctrl + click gives you right click. Now, you have to restart the program every time you restart the computer, and it's kind of annoying. Workaround? Simple. Put the shortcut in the start up folder so it will start up automatically every time the XP starts. With a little fix, you can disable all the dialog box that appears on the applemouse start so, easy breezy perfect sweet! :P

Anyway, that left me with a question: what to install on XP and what to retain on Mac? Well, I think that's one question, one big question that every Mac user (and developer) is trying to cope with right now so, we'll see..

Labels: Artikel

Originally created on Thu, 040606

Well, I have planned for today to be a super one, getting out of the house on time hoping to catch the express train and make it to the work by 9. But then, apparently, that's not the case. The train doesn't run properly this morning. There is a trouble with the track between San Antonio and Sunnyvale that makes all train from San Francisco will have to stop at San Antonio and turn around. The train from san José will just go to Santa Clara, and there's a shuttle bus taking passenger to San Antonio. What if you want to go to Mountain View? Well, then like me, you're out of luck. Take a bus, or a the light rail (which I’m doing right now). It’s not that bad. Or is it? Well, the catch is, it takes as long as an hour so, go figure.

Anyway, I actually hoped that I would get to work early so I can finish my report for today's meeting. I have started yesterday actually but couldn't finish it since I had to deal with Anthony with his research questions. So, if I make it by 10 to work, the report will have to wait until.. 11? Oh well.. what can I do?

So, here I am, on the light rail heading to Mountain View. It’s not even halfway yet, I will be writing a lot this time, on my one-week working MacBook Pro. One week with no trouble! Isn’t it amazing? I’m starting to believe that this is the one.

Speaking of MacBook Pro, I mentioned yesterday that I might try doing the Windows XP installation on this computer using Apple's new invention: Boot Camp. And guess what? I actually did last night! And it works smoothly, I mean, right now. Don’t ask me about the installation process, very painful, and took literally forever. Let me explain below.

Anyway, it's almost there, fair oak’s station (man.. there are 2 fair oakses from san José to mountain view). Well, at least I didn't need to change light rail at Bay Pointe station so, it is not that bad except that, it's been almost an hour now. So I think, I won't be getting to work, not until 10. Oh well..

OH WELL!!!

That’s about it for now; let me get ready to take off the light rail, and waiting for the bus. So.. bye for now!

Labels: Jurnal

Originally created on Wed, 040506

--Morning Journal--

**Notes: Please read the notes on the previous posting. Just to remind y'all again, I'm still holding on! :P**

OMG it's only Wednesday! A wet one (again)! Oh well.. it's supposed to be the hardest part of the week, the middle of the week where everyone seems to be meeting and everything. But oh well, at least I got an earlier start, leaving home at 8.15 this morning, hopefully will be at work before 9 and so I can leave work by 5. Yay!

Anyway, I’m not really crazy about what I’m gonna deal with at work today. The database that I’m working on right now is a REAL mess. My team has been doing this marathon work cleaning the database and for some stupid (technical, so-called bug) reason, most of our work would probably be useless. I just don't get it; most of us have been working literally 12 hours a day, all week! And this issue seems to get worse and worse and no other way seems to be safe except redoing all the work.

The good part is (or maybe the worst part), my dear boss still insists that the deadline is staying at April 10th (it's 5 days away by the way). And we still have like over 6000 products to clean up. Just for comparison, it took us one full week to clean 1000 products. So you go figure. Now why did I say it might be the good part? Well, probably he will see the reality and push the deadline back to.. I don't know.. June 10th? Heh..

Santa Clara station now, I’m taking an express train today. Well, such my luck.. :P

Now let's talk about life, my life to be specific. This is no better day than yesterday. I still feel weak, emotionally wrecked, not knowing what to do, not sure what to decide, and I don't seem to be capable of deciding anything right now. I just don't understand what I have done wrong that I deserve all these lies and deceits and games. I’m just so tired of all this. I’d rather stay away of it. I’d rather know what I should expect instead of expecting something higher just to deal with the reality that I have to be disappointed later. I have expressed it clearly, I don't want any more lies, I don't want anymore games, I just want to live my life straight, concentrating on my future, just a normal life the way every other human being around me is living. Is that too much to ask?

Anyway, I gotta get ready to get off, passed the Sunnyvale station now. See ya later then..

Help. I have done it again.
I have been here many times before..

--Afternoon Journal--

OMG, another Wednesday just ended! And it was not such a bad one. Had fun at the company's meeting (you know, pizza, salad, coke, jokes). And well, the workload was okay, not too demanding (especially since I had to deal with the database bugs that somehow, holding me off from working marathonly). All in all, the only annoying thing was that Anthony keeps bugging me with his "understanding of doing the research as opposed to your understanding as a researcher." what the heck

Oh, one interesting thing about the database, it turned out that Alex was pat of the culprit who made unacceptable changes on the database. He changed some stuff which he is not supposed to simply because he wanted to show that he "did his update with the database." all I can say is, poor Alex. Arundhati was so satisfied making him feel guilty.. :P

Anyway, arriving Santa Clara station now. Another express train, two expresses in one day! What a life! You know, sometimes, when you have one good luck, it seems like others just flowing, following unexpectedly. That gives you quite nice little surprises. But when you get one bad luck, the whole day seems like not right, everything seems like in a bad place. It might not be entirely true but at least that's how it feels.

Another interesting thing is, guess what? It’s bright and shiny right now! I was like so amazed at how shiny it is like it is a summer time in between of wet dark and windy days. It is very pleasant to be able to walk under the sunlight feeling like you're under a spotlight. It just feels.. right.

I’m not sure what I’m gonna have for dinner though, probably go out somewhere, or just grab some salad at Safeway, or maybe, another instant cup noodle. Cooking? Ah.. I don't think so, not today. So, we'll see.

By the way, day 6 of my MacBook Pro. No problem this far (hopefully there really is no problem with this one). I was afraid it's simply because I haven't really fully explored and abused the whole system and everything (install stuff, delete stuff, change major preference and everything), but at least I got the 10.4.6 update on Mac OS X and the firmware update. And they all work fine so, let's hope for the best.

Big news today is that Apple announced the "support" for those who want to install Windows on Mac Intel. That is very exciting actually. I think I wanna give it a try. It’s gonna be a very interesting project to do and you know, I’m REALLY into that.. ;)

Anyway, 3 minutes away from San José station. Time to close the lid so, I’ll see ya in a bit!

Labels: Jurnal

Originall intended for Tue, 040406

(this song also appears on the finale of "Six Feet Under")

Help, I have done it again
I have been here many times before
Hurt myself again today
And, the worst part is there's no-one else to blame

Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me
I am small
I'm needy
Warm me up
And breathe me

Ouch I have lost myself again
Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found,
Yeah I think that I might break
I've lost myself again and I feel unsafe

Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me
I am small
I'm needy
Warm me up
And breathe me

Labels: Lagu

Originally created on Tue, 040406

**Notes: Within the context, it was a rough day for me, especially with too much going on at work, commuting, new house, new environment, new schedule. It was quite frustrating, well, at least for me. But hey, don't worry, I'm still hanging on here, and feeling better than ever! :P**

Another day, wet Tuesday, as wet as my.. ahem.. heart. It’s been raining again all the time since last night. Not that I am observing or have no place to shelter from the rain, it's so heart tiring, to hear the sound of the rain pounding on the roof all the time, to feel the breeze of the wind sneaking in thru some cracks on the windows, to have my mind wandering here and there, nowhere really, and it just feels empty.

What have I done with my life? Have I made a wrong decision, unfortunately one that has put me where I am right now? I mean, really. Why does life seem so wrong all the time? It’s like I never have a quiet time, a time just to breathe and enjoy the life for whatever it is.

Why does it feel so hard? It’s like new problems coming up everyday. While the old ones have been just put aside for a while with no solution, the new ones keep coming and eating my sanity. I can literally lose my sanity dealing with these new dramas and chronicle of lies that I have to deal with every day. I really, really am tired of it.

Nice train by the way, the new shiny one that they usually use for the baby bullet. Very quiet, smooth, I could use some sleep on it.

As I’m looking thru the window, the scene keeps changing and new pictures coming up every second but, they're all the same pictures from yesterday, or the other day, or last week, or last month, or maybe last year. I feel like I’m trapped in this pseudo change, feeling like everything changes but really, it just keeps repeating a cycle all over again.

God, why does it feel so painful to hear the sound of the train cars' joints clanging with each other? Why does it feel so empty to hear the sound of the rail rubbing the steel wheels of the train? And why does it feel so lonely while there is plenty people around me? Am I really losing my sanity?

I don't know what to do, I really don't. I feel like just giving up and getting out of all these. But I don't know how, and I’m afraid I don't even have the capability to do so. I feel like am descending into something, something lower and deep but I don't know what. I feel like I’ve been down too far to even have the courage to get up some. Not only I’m losing my sanity, I feel like losing my health, my everything..

Help, I have done it again.

Labels: Jurnal

Originally created on Monday, 040306

--Morning Journal--

Okay, this is a week after my last posting (with another MacBook Pro, my third one, mind you). Life was generally good in the past week. Constantly busy at work (chasing so-called deadline), busy at home arranging stuff (unpacking, moving furniture, cleaning up, repairing utilities.. phew!). And another week has passed by, it's another Monday! Leaving for work a little earlier today, 8.30, so I could catch the 8.40 train. I had to get this monthly pass thing cause it's supposedly cheaper, and more convenient instead of dealing with the ticket vending machine every time I need to board the train. All in all, been pretty good day this far.

Let’s see.. ah.. It’s been almost 3 weeks I never cook anymore. Almost? Or has it been over 3 weeks? Hmm.. You might wonder how I managed to survive. Well.. just finishing up whatever it is available in the fridge! And going out for dinner, of course. And oh, using up all the instant noodle stock at work (I honestly am not pretty sure they really belong to the company, they might belong to someone who just put it in the kitchen's drawer. Oh well.. they’re only cheap anyway). And so, yeah.. Plus having some snack (potato chips, chocolate, all the fatty stuff), and fruit. That’s about all.

Bad weather day today. Been raining constantly since yesterday. Dark grey clouds, very cold, thank God it's not that windy this morning. But it was totally windy yesterday, and even last night. I could hear the tree's branches slapping at my windows. I wonder if this is typical spring here. Oh, it reminds me of something, the news mentioned that March, this year's March, had the most rainy days in history. 25 days (or 26?) are rainy, only the rest are not. Which I think is very true. It was very wet, cold, and windy. There was even this hailing storm a couple day early in March. Isn’t it amazing?

Sunnyvale station now.. *yawn* you know what? I actually am worried about closing the lid of this laptop. I’m afraid that once I put it to sleep it would not wake up again, just like the case with my previous one that I replaced with this. I mean, it makes me very cautious every time I am using it, like.. okay, I wouldn't install anything non-Apple for now, I wouldn't do that much multimedia activities for now, I would not put the computer to sleep but rather shutting it down and turn it back on every time I need to use it. Oh well, maybe it's about time to give it a try. I mean, wouldn't it better to know the issue earlier instead of denying it and have to deal with it later? And with all the guarantee thing, I’m afraid it's not a smart thing to do.

So.. we'll see. I’ll close the lid and put it to sleep. I’ll keep you posted later. In the meantime, it's Mountain View coming so, see ya in a bit!

--Afternoon Journal--

Okay. Another Monday has (almost) passed by. That was not too bad. Keep on working until suddenly it's been 5.15 already, time to go home! Yup, I’m on the train right now, an express one (not baby bullet). It’s quite pleasant to have everyone and everything on time, the bus, and the train. Hopefully I’ll get home by 6.

Now, what's for dinner? Hmm.. let's see. Ice cream bar? Chocolate-covered macadamia? Cup noodle? Alright, I heard that yikes-ing behind there. Well.. I’m not that hungry anyway, maybe.. some fruit and cookies as well? What about my tummy? Oh well.. It’s about time I guess, to start doing some workouts again. I’m not sure I still wanna join the 24 Hour, it's quite far from the house, and I’m not sure taking a bus would be a good idea. I was thinking of joining this gym down by San Jose state. It looks like cool, with plenty of sweaty cuties.. heh. Oh well, I need to check it out, maybe Friday after the prayer.

Now, let's talk about the weather. It’s literally pouring rain all day. I was like, what is going on? I was talking with some co-workers at work; they were out of state last week. They said that even Oregon and New York is much dryer than California! How embarrassing! Maybe, I said maybe, it's about time for me to get some 2 days getaway somewhere dry. Hmm.. Hawaii anyone?

Talking about Hawaii, my neighbors, Bob and Vic just came back from there this weekend. It was a birthday trip for Bob, from Vic *aww.. so sweet* Well, they're quite sweet neighbors, very reliable and, well.. clean and meticulous and, fun.. If you know what I mean, hehe..

Ah.. San José Diridon next. It’s an express train, so it's quite fast, we skipped Sunnyvale and Lawrence so, might as well take only 15 minutes from Mountain View to San José. Ah! That’s Target! I was there yesterday! Well, after a few failed trials finding the shortest way there. But we made it okay. Got a (bedroom) carpet and a hallway one. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Anyway, time for me to get ready to board off the train. And then walk home, and then upload all today's blog. So, see ya in a bit!

Labels: Jurnal

Originally created on: Tue, 3/28/06

What a hectic day, second day of commuting from San Jose to my office in Mountain View. Not that I mind the commuting, it's not that bad, it's just that I really am not used to be leaving for work this late, 10 am. It's like I don't know what I should do before going to work, there's too much time. Breakfast? Finishing some work? Doing some house chores? Cleaning up? (That I never really did in the past at my old place). I used to just wake up, doing some morning rituals (bathroom businesses), checking some emails and messages online, preparing my breakfast and lunch, and then showering and leaving for work. That would get me to work by 8.30.

But the good thing is, the train station is only 5 minutes away from my home now. It's quite convenient, especially when I take the train on my way home and I don't have to wait another half an hour for the bus.

By the way, yeah, since this is my first posting, supposedly, I bet you have no idea what I'm talking about. Well, if you haven’t figured it out, I used to live somewhere else, Mountain View to be specific. I just moved here to San Jose two days ago. I work in Mountain View, 20 minutes bus trip from my old apartment. Now I have to take the train, Caltrain, to go to work. It takes an hour total, I guess. Not bad, especially since I’d be able to do my stuff on the train (i.e. sleeping, reading, working on my computer, watching some DVDs, etc.).

Hoahem... *yawn* now I’m sleepy, and it's only Lawrence station, there's still gonna be Sunnyvale, and then Mountain View station.

Oh, by the way, this computer that I’m typing on right now, the brand new Apple MacBook Pro, is a real pain the a**. This is my second one after the first one failed and had been replaced with this one. But this one is not perfect either. It failed also, and I just reinstalled everything this morning. So we'll see how it goes. Oh well.. Maybe I’ll write the whole story about this. In the meantime, let's pray this one doesn't misbehave.

"Sunnyvale station is next," that's the conductor announced from the speaker. Mountain View is only 3 minutes away! Fun! Yay!

Nice day today, not too windy, but shiny. And warm enough, though I still need my jacket. Hopefully it will be like this the whole day. Oh by the way, yesterday was total disaster. We had the power outage at my office, the whole building, wait, no, the whole complex! I wonder what was going on. The good thing is, I got to go home earlier yesterday, since nothing I could do at work... but again, this is the whole another story. I’ll try to post it later.

Alright then. I think it’s enough for now. My station is coming. Thanks for reading and have a nice day!

Labels: Jurnal