Blind Faith

Justice maybe blind, but it can see in the dark and so does my fingers..
I just realized that I had just finished typing two postings in total darkness. Well, almost,all the lights in my room are off, the only light was from my laptop screen which I set really really dim to avoid expossing my poor eyes with exessive light...
Hmmmm, not only does my fingers has eyes, but they can see in the dark also. Maybe I should switch my eyes with the one on my fingers..he he he

Three Leaves of the Past

The first leaf..
Green leaf, gone, blown away by the wind..
I was green and so was she..we were still green..
Long time ago, the tree was high and the wind was strong
I tried to reach the twig where she stays but I failed every time
One last try, I finally reached the twig where she stays but alas
She was gone, no trace..
The first leaf..
Green leaf, gone, blown away by the wind..

The second leaf..
White leaf on a plant with red roses..
I was here watching her, and she was there on that branch
There, where the branch are full of thorns, can’t reach her
Though I am there, where she was near, with thorns that I fear
In the end, when the sun sets, where I can only regret
She withered in my heart..
The second leaf..
Beautiful white leaf on a plant full of thorns..

The third leaf…
Yellow leaf, the forbidden leaf, made me lost my faith
She was down, I picked her up, but it was dark
That night, it was raining hard; grasp her tightly in my hand
The rain drops felt like needle on my skin
I didn’t realize, my hand loosened and she slipped away
She slipped herself away from me
The third leaf..
Yellow leaf, the forbidden leaf, made me lost my faith

Three Leaves of the Past..of my past

Heart Drive Storage

These days hard drive or hard disk is getting more and more advance, sophisticated. There’s one that has some sort of motion sensor, detects shakes, movement so it can predict sudden shock. There is also SMART technology, the hard drive that has SMART technology is smarter than other hard drive, SMART stands for Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (to tell you the truth, I had to looked up on the internet for that :-).
Anyway, at this point you’re probably wondering about the typo you thought I made on the title “Heart Drive Storage”. Well, that was not a typo and I’m not going to talk about hard drive (though I already did a little bit). So, what the hell am I going to talk about? What does hard drive got anything to do with heart, what’s the relation?
There is a relation, but we’ll come to that later. Right now, business first.

Events (not sure that’s the right word) which I observed these past couple of weeks made me think (I know, too much celebrity gossips). How in this real world, love is not fair. It’s not fair at all. How do I come to that conclusion?
Ok, let say a love is a heart, to love one needs a heart. In a perfect and ideal world, an idea which probably only existed in my head, one person can only have one heart inside his chest. Let me repeat, in a person’s chest there is only one heart allowed, which is his own heart. When he loves someone, he would give his heart (or love) to that other person. Of course owing to the fact that a person can only have one heart, the other person cannot receive that heart unless she gives her own heart (remember heart=love) to the first person. Confused yet? Let me make it simple, these two persons are exchanging their hearts. He gives her his heart and in return she gives him her heart (my default orientation is he and she, so for others like he and he or she and she please bear with me) .Just as simple as that. Once they exchanged, there is no space left in his chest for another heart and there is no other heart left for him to give to another person. They are legally, emotionally bonded, tied or whatever you call it. How perfect that is (unless someone spotted a loophole in my theory :)
Bad news for you all (or might be good news), in our lovely real world. There is no single space/slot chest, there is no single heart. In a person’s chest, there are multiple spaces and a person may possess more than one heart (of different sizes). The outcome is that a person can receive more than one heart at the same time and of course, that person can also give multiple hearts to many people. Scary isn’t it?
That’s not all. It only gets worse because there is also fake heart. Beautifully crafted fake hearts which are usually owned by playboys, womanizer (sorry guys, don’t mean to take sides). They crafted fake hearts with attention, sweet words, gifts, roses, you know, the things that women loves. They even make fake hearts with misery, misfortune and other unfortunate things to get sympathy. These people, they probably don’t know where their real heart is (if they have), the hell, they probably can’t recognize it because their chest is full of fake hearts. Shame for the human race..
But no worries, somewhere out there, there are still higher breed of human. Person that only has one heart, one real heart and there is no other storage for multiple hearts. You don’t have to look for these people. All you have to do is just wait and keep loving whomever you’re with, because eventually, after a series (can be few or a lot) of bad episodes, he or she will finally found you..

Wait, just one last question..
How many storage do you have in your Heart Drive?


p.s. If you have a heart time oops, I mean if you have a hard time understanding this, please change all the word ‘heart’ into ‘love’, maybe it will make more sense.

Size Does Matter

After trying it out for about a year on my other blog (Bikini Island), I finally decided to change the picture and the size of this blog's header. It's not really difficult, I was just too lazy to edit the HTML code and change the setting. Anyway, I picked the picture, upload it and now I have a new blog header and bigger size..:-)

3G Modem cum GPS Receiver part 2

This screenshot was taken from my laptop after I successfully installed free Indonesia map from Navigasi.net. Million of thanks for the GPS guru there.. :-D

btw,I'm not planning to post any tutorial or guide as there are already dozens of them on the internet.

3G Modem cum GPS Receiver

I bought a 3G modem couple of days ago. I felt the need to buy it since I couldn't risk breaking my cellphone, having it connected to my laptop all the time. My cellphone LCD screen flickers everytime I connect it to my laptop.
Did a little browsing and finally picked up a Sierra Wireless 881U 3G modem. Dunno much about this 3G technology, so my choice was based on the latest model available on the market in my local computer stores.

First impression was okay. It connects instantly, faster than my cellphone. However, the connection is the same, slow but acceptable (bearable :-) most of the time. Somehow, overtime I learn to appreciate that slow connection is better than no connection ..:-)

Yesterday, I accidentally read in a forum that my modem has a built-in GPS receiver. I went here and there to find more information about it. It turned out that I have to update to the latest firmware first from Sierra, because apparently my modem, which was an AT&T bundle, had the GPS feature locked by AT&T.
I went to Sierra homepage and downloaded the latest available firmware and start updating. I was very nervous because this was the first time I'm updating firmware of any of my device. I know that failure in firmware update could render my device useless. Waiting impatiently for about 15 minutes, starring at the screen. Fortunatelly, everything went well and my modem is updated with GPS feature..yippie..:-D

The second step was installing the GPS version of 3G Watcher. Again I had to download from Sierra. Upgrading driver from non-GPS to GPS was a breeze, in less than 5 minutes my laptop was already GPS equipped..:-P
Problem arised when I want to connect (or whatever terms used in GPS) to the GPS satellite. it took me countless of try outs and retry just to connect to the satellite. All ended up in failure. My first assumption was my GPS module was a dud. Well, I was not ready to give up yet and started googling for any information in connection failure. From many experiences that I read in GPS forum, the 881U had difficulty connecting to satellite inside a builing. I didn't know that because a friend of mine has a Garmin and it works pretty well inside and outside. I guess the real GPS device has a better signal reception.

Anyway, I started walking around my office,going outside, to the meeting room, looking for signals..:-). Finally, when I went to the backyard, an open space with clear skyview, my laptop picked up 5 satellites. The GPS automatically displayed my coordinate..yeaaahhh..clicked the Google map link and voila! it showed my exact location in aerial photo, where I was standing. I would have jump up and down if I was not holding my heavy 15 inch laptop..:-P

Whohooo..I have a fully working GPS receiver. It's like getting a free gift because I only meant to buy 3G modem..he he he..

Ehmm..one last task to do..I have to find good GPS application and Indonesia map so that I don't have to be connected to the Internet everytime I want to use the GPS...
That is not a really hard and expensive thing to do here in Indonesia, if you know what I mean :-P

Long relationship

There are some couples I know who I didn’t think would break up. They are the couples who have been together for a long time. How long is long in a relationship? Is it one year, two years, 5 or 10 years? I would say somewhere around 5 years is long enough. Long enough for the person involved in the relationship to know about the other person. To know about the goods and the bads. I’ve only been with my wife for little more than 2 years even though I’ve known her for 11 years. So I can consider our relationship is still young. Someone might argue that time measurement is relative; the quality of a relationship cannot be measured by the year it has been established. True, but I have to say that sometime things take time. Love, understanding, and acceptance take time.

I watched a movie last week, Weatherman. Story of a divorced man, struggling to pull himself together, to put his life on the right track and to get everything back in its place. He has 2 kids; one is already in high school. So he had been married for quite a long time. He has problem with his attitude, he’s forgetful and he can be such an ass sometimes, cursing and yelling. I guess that was one of the reasons why they got divorced. The movie touched me; it’s so human, natural, and fallible. It’s just sad watching him trying and failing all the time. In the end, even though he succeeds in his career he is still failed to bring his family together.

Was there a point of no separation that once a couple reaches it, they will not separate no matter what. A point where it’s not about time, it’s about connection. Where they already know the deepest and darkest secrets of each other. Know what each other was thinking without being able to read their mind.
I know a couple who had been together for 9 years and I guess they already had their share of tears and laughter. A couple that I thought would never break up, but I was wrong. They broke up for the reason that I could not comprehend. For the reason that I thought was trivial to what they had, what they used to have.
Probably they had nothing, probably they were holding on a broken relationship for so long that they didn’t realize. Probably they don’t really know each other, just a void togetherness..

Hmmm…makes me hungry..thinking about this kind of stuff…

Did we miss our little life?

Did we miss our little life?
The siren in middle of the night
Peeking out the dirty dusty window

Did we miss our little life?
The slow lazy Sunday morning
Lingering on till the sun’s flying

Did we miss our little life?
The green rusty bench at the bus stops
Waiting for numbers to come..

Was it thirty, forty four, ah alas, it was red
Yes we missed it. Was it our life
Or another thirty minutes or so..

Missing our little life amidst of rain..

Finally..

Guys, If you can see this post, it means that I'm already connected to the mobile internet..
I'm using N6120C and Indosat 3.5G Unlimited. Yeah...I could just scream and jump all over the place..(literally..:-))
Finally after waiting for 3 days, 3 looong days, I can connect to the Internet wherever I am (as long as there is Indosat signal)
Bet my wife can't wait to borrow my laptop tonight..:-P

from September 5th to October 9th

I haven't been able to post here for over a month. I did wrote some stuffs but haven't had the time to upload them. This has been a busy month, there's always something more interesting to do than posting blog when I was sitting in front of my laptop. For example, I finally got PCSX2 to run on my ASUS and load FFX I smoothly (graphically speaking). It was not a miracle or coincidence. I spent a lot of times and countless of crashes and restarts to get the stable configuration. Well, it was worthed, an unforgettable moments seeing the intro screen where all the FFX characters are gathering in Zanarkand. That's just the first step, I have a large box full of my old PS2 games waiting to be revived :-). So, expect a long and longer time between each posting in my blog.. :-P

Lost in Mac

One of my friend had the chance to involuntarily migrate from PC to MAC (albeit reluctantly :-P). My office bought an iMac, the big one, the one where all components cramped inside a 22-inch LCD monitor. Since he’s the public relation, the head of IT division and the one responsible for all designing processes, the big Mac (not to be mistaken with Ronald’s big mac) fell on his desk. Now, his desk looks tidy and neat. No more cables and wires except for the tiny keyboard and mighty mouse with only one button. He was well prepared, even before he got the Mac, he already bought all the necessary applications. Word processor, antivirus, internet messenger :-P, he has it all.

I wanted to try it. So there I was, in front of the big Mac, mighty mouse on my right hand, and tiny keyboard on my left hand ready to explore uncharted realm of OSX Leopard. A sudden feeling of loneliness creeps within me. I tried the menus one by one, it was a whole different creature with strange symbols for shortcut. I tried hard to feel the famous user-friendliness of Mac but couldn’t feel it. I was confused with the missing right click button. The small pop up windows which has no close button and minimize button. The swirling line symbol on the keyboard which suppose to have the same function as Windows logo on PC. I felt like using computer for the first time.
I was saying to myself, my friend must be smart, he picked up immediately and looks like he’s already know everything about Leopard. Then he said something seriously funny, “I think I need to install bootloader so I can install XP on my iMac” . ha ha ha…it turned out that I’m not the only one who’s lost is iMac.. :-P. No offense to Mac user, but for people like me, Steve has to make Leopard not just user friendly but extremely user friendly…

Hablar español?

Estoy intentando traductor Google característica.Yo realmente nunca confiar en este tipo de traductor.Estoy pensando que podría ser interesante para poder escribir en español. Sé que las personas que hablan español se verá como este raro traducción.bueno, tal vez algún día puedo escribir en español sin la ayuda del traductor.

Can't understand? it's okay, me neither..:-). I was just trying one feature of iGoogle which translates the sentence you typed. I don't know whether it gives correct translation or not, but at least it's faster than looking for the individual words in dictionary.

To mouse or to touch pad

Finally I have a desktop PC. I’ve been using laptop for almost 2 years but deep in my bone I’m still a desktop guy. There’s something sexy and appealing about that big noisy box which is sitting on my desk. First day I got the desktop, I quickly opened the casing and installed two PCI-e cards. One is e-Sata internal to external connector and the other is my 3-year-old good for nothing pixelview tv tuner. TV tuner that I regretted buying it, well I’m still regretting it now. The e-Sata didn’t work, it did not recognize both my external hard drive 2.5 inch and 3.5 inch. I don’t know why because my laptop e-Sata slot recognized my external drives. Then I moved to my tv tuner. Installed the driver (after digging through piles of books, papers, wire, cables) only to find out that it doesn’t work, the way it didn’t work 3 years ago. Installed dscaler hoping that it would work,. Well, it worked, half working. Only the pictures showed up without any sounds.
Apart from these two misfortunes, my desktop is working properly although it’s not as fast as my laptop. Did I tell you I have a new laptop? I’ll tell you about it later..

Chasing Kangaroo

For these past 2 weeks I’ve been busy preparing documents and filling out forms. September 5th is the deadline for ADS Scholarship application admission. I’m trying my luck, who knows at this time next year I’d be in Australia chasing Kangaroo :-)
I’m not really good in bragging about myself (maybe there wasn’t anything to brag about :-P) and this was how I felt when I filled out the application form. I schemed through 19 pages of endless questions and fields. I was intimidated by how these questions gave a lot of chances for people who has big achievements, accomplishments, whatever.
Starting from the first page, GPA. Good Lord, I’m not really proud of my GPA. I reluctantly typed my GPA knowing that I’m only 0.07 from failing the requirement. Pfh, so much for studying in university for 5 years, I could not even pull my GPA above 3.00. I know I would type excitedly, gladly and willingly if my GPA were 4.00.:-). Well anyway, past is past, I moved on and thinks that my GPA is not giving me any contribution to my working life whatsoever. Or would I get higher salary if my GPA were 4.00? ($_$ hmm..)
I have finished filling out the form and I’m sending it out first thing tomorrow morning. I would not dare to even think that I would be short-listed for an interview. So, I’ll just sit tight and enjoy the waiting game.

Heaven or Hell

I wonder, what will happen to us instantly after we are dead. Are we just gonna wake up from our physical body and run around naked? Because logically we do not have the privilege of keeping our clothes, since it belongs to the physical world. Just as we left our body and in what form do we take after we are dead. If we take the last form right before we die then I feel sorry for them who died old, cause they're stuck with all the wrinkles.
I got so many questions about life after death which has nothing to do with religion. Are they (heaven) going to provide us a guide book, which way to go or what to do. Like Life after Death for Dummies or ABCs of After life. cause they ain’t giving us enough guidance when we are alive. Another thing, can we fly after we die? Cause I've been spending all my life walking, surely I don’t fancy living for eternity on foot. Phew, so many complaints, and I don’t even know where I'll end up...heaven or hell

Sleepy TOEFL

Having a recent TOEFL score is one of the requirement for applying ADS scholarship. I don’t have any recent score, I don’t have any score at all. Yup, I never take TOEFL test before, any kinds of TOEFL.
So, two weeks ago, I dragged my lazy feet, brought my brain along (don’t wanna forget that) and take the ITP TOEFL test in Sadhar.
Saturday morning, 8 am and I was so sleepy. There I was, back to my university, in a language lab, sitting in one of those tiny half-a-meter cubicle. I was physically prepared, I got my pencil, eraser, sharpener, sniper rifle, you name it I got it. But I was nervous, can’t remember when was the last time I took a test. Strangers with tense faces all around me. There was a big wall clock in front of the class and I feel that it was running faster than it should. Everybody seems busy doing their businesses and I was hungry and sleepy and nervous, oh God.
I opened my pencil case, started sharpening my already-sharp pencil while waiting for the question sheet. The test started, listening, structure and reading. I crunched questions by questions, riddled by the questions or answers or probably both, especially the grammar. God I hate grammar. Everything went swiftly and I was finished 15 minutes before the time ended Put the answer and question sheet inside the folder, didn’t even bother to check my answers and peacefully took a short nap :-D. Dreaming, what a strange way to start a day in the end of the week..

I have 1.2 Terabyte of combined storage

My first computer had a 20 GB Quantum Fireball hard drive. It was big, 10 years ago when everybody was still using 10 GB, when an installed Windows is only 1GB and most games only takes up place around 700 MB-1 GB.
After six years, I bought a new computer and the hard drive is a whooping 200GB plus another 40GB that I used as external drive, 1000% increase from my first computer.

Now, three years later, my laptop hard drive and all of my external drives, the combined storage is 1.2 TB. Wow, that is 1200 GB.
Mmm..why do I need so much storage space. Let me tell you, now a recent game will take from 4-10 GB of your hard drive. Fresh installed Vista is maybe around 5 GB and all the software, music, videos, movies (which may take up 4 GB per movie) can eat storage really fast. Can you imagine? If I used my old 20GB hard drive, it will be full the second I installed Crysis and Office software.

I’m wondering, maybe in a not so far future, gigabyte will be extinct, less and less people talk about it. Just like kilobyte and megabyte. I no longer see flash memory in megabytes let alone kilobyte. Now everybody seems to have USB flash drive with the minimum size of 1GB..
Ah…I remember the days of 720KB and 1.44MB floppy disk…

I had a fried egg, tofu and tempe for lunch today

I often resort to internet when I have question or problem with my computer. My favorite search engine is Google. Recently I notice that every time I search for something I ended up in someone’s blog (some techie guys). And it was very helpful. How they give information, support, help and any assistance for free (except if they gain money from the ads on their blogs).

It has become a trend nowadays (I think) that people share their knowledge in blogs. It’s kind of like publishing a guide book on anything that you know (or you think you know) and without all the fuzz in finding publisher, designing the book cover (you can design your blog though, but you don’t have to)and this and that. In blog, just type and publish. You can always edit your ‘book’ later on if there some mistakes.and you'll get immediate responses from your readers (praise, curse, anything you name it) It’s really a convenient way of expressing yourself.

I, myself have been blogging (with a very few posts ^_^) for few years and I have to admit that my blog is not really informative, well, not informative at all. It’s not gonna help anyone with their computer problem, let alone love problem.. ^_^. My blog is about me and my world. It’s as simple as that.
So, now back to my blog, anyone interested in what I had for lunch today? :-P

wardhana@ymail.com

Every time I want to sign up for new email address I always tries 'wardhana', my last name. However, since I'm probably the hundredth million member, my name was always taken. As I was browsing Yahoo main page this morning, I noticed that there's a new Yahoo mail with 'ymail.com' domain. So I quickly sign up and fortunately my name is not yet taken.. :-). It's not that I need another email address since already have 3 yahoo mail account..he he.  

Log 030708 1.25A

After a whole month living without decent Internet connection I'm finally back to virtual world. I started working yesterday but it was not until today that I really started my work. Yesterday was the re-acquaintance with my work, I mean my daily activities :-)
If you notice there's a great deal of differences in my posting count before and after I went to US. I used to sit in front of computer for 8-10 hours when I was still in Indonesia two years ago. Then I went to US where I was not always in front of computer. Gathering motivation to actually post something that I have written is even harder that writing a post. 
So, now I'm back, I'll be working in front of computer for 8 hours a day (at least). Hopefully I'll be able to post something every now and then. That'll give me something to read about my life when I'm already 90 years old and already forgetting everything :-)

Adiós Mi Guitarra

A little bit more than a month ago I had to make many hard decisions. Coming back home was both exciting and overwhelming. Flying for more than 24 hours, across the ocean was hardly possible (or impossible) if I want to bring all my belongings.
Therefore, starting from 3 months before I go home, I start to give away or throw things. I had to throw my shoes, shirt, t-shirt, pants, sell my Yamaha keyboard and lots of things. But there is one thing that I really had a hard time to let go. It was my guitar. Considering what I had to go through when I bought that. It took 3 hours of a bus ride to go to the music store and another 3 hours plus getting lost somewhere in Phoenix to go home.
So I had to wait till the last second to let it go. I sold it, though I actually want to give it away but I need the money to buy another guitar back home.

Adiós mi guitarra, yo sé que usted más divertido que cuando estás conmigo..

No microwave? No problem..

Yesterday I bought some Bright Moon (or Sweet Martabak :-P). Actually for the last two days I always bought it. It's one of my favorite food and everybody in the house also liked it. Usually we (or I?) can finish it within minutes..:-)

Last night I couldn't sleep, so I pack up my backpack and move from my room to the dining room. I was planning to study German. It was around 11.30 PM when I suddenly felt the urge to munch something. You know how I get hungry easily when I'm thinking (maybe I get hungry easily all the time :-). I was sitting at the dinner table and there was a small plate of something I couldn't really see because of a food cover on it. So I opened it, to my surprise it was the Martabak. Without thinking even once I grabbed one large piece and took one big bite. It was cold, not as good as when it was still hot. I was saying to myself, too bad there's no microwave. I could turn warm up this cold lump of sweet martabak.

On the edge of my desperation I remembered my laptop exhaust. It always blows out hot air when I play game. So, I put a couple martabak in front of the exhaust, play MOHA Airborne for a few minutes and voilà, hot martabak is ready to be served.

You can try this at home. But this won’t work if you have one of those cool and quiet laptop (sorry Mac users :-P)

No microwave? No problemo… :-)

Windows cannot find any network

Windows cannot find any network

Is the sentence that I've been reading for this couple of days. For the last two years I had been living in areas where Windows always find networks, either secured or unsecured.

Now that I'm back to Indonesia, my home country where Wireless Internet connection is less common (which I think 'less common' is an understatement :-), my laptop cannot seem to pick up any wireless signal.. Gone is the night of endless browsing, typing anything that crosses my mind in the Google search box.

When, In my lovely country, can I find doors to internet everywhere so I can just jump out and travel all around the world..someday..

when there's no more hunger and poverty,

when everyone receives equal opportunity,

when no crime goes unpunished

and no good deed goes unrewarded..

when pigs fly in the sky...

someday..someday..

30 years..

Mmm..thirty years is 946,080,000 seconds or 15,768,000 minutes or 262,800 minutes or 0.2998010645 Century..:-)

I know I haven't been able to post anything this year except that short welcome 2008 post.
So, I turned 30 today. I was thinking, maybe I should post something special or momentous
in my blog today.

Well, here I am, sitting in front of my laptop and I don't know what I should write..
I can recap all my achievements in these past 30 year, but I don't have a lot of achievements yet, except that I managed to stay alive for 30 years. I haven't killed anyone yet (intentionally or unintentionally). I finished my school, from kindergarten to University (failed once in fourth grade :-)

Or maybe my love life? mmmm..I didn't have much of a love life, let alone an interesting one. Well, except the one I'm having with my wife now..it's interesting, ask her if you don't believe me.. :-). I only had a few crush, and I guess there was nobody got a crush on me.. :-). I have one relation gone bad but I now thankful that it failed..

Mmm, working life? not bad, I stayed unemployed for 5 months after I graduated and then worked for 3.5 years. then unemployed again for 1 month and work again until now...

So, thirty years seems like a very long time, it is actually. I even have to said it few times today, I'm thirty now, I'm thirty.. :-).
Now that I'm getting old, what's my goal in life?
I don't know, I'm always be one kid that doesn't know what he wants to be when he grew up. I just face life as they come..

If you have to hard pressed me to get an answer, I have to say my goal in life is just to make people special for me happy and of course to be happy.

So..happy birthday to me :-)

Tadaaa...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year..
He he..my first post this year. Finally after 21 days I have enough will to go to my blog, log in and let my lazy fingers move and type a posting. Well, actually, it was longer than that. Considering my last post was October 12th..that's a long time ago.

Many things happened since that day. I worked and still working. I had a one month winter break. I went to East Coast, traveled here and there. I was sick for half of the trip. I got even sicker after the trip. I had a little taste of American health treatment plus the medicine..:-). Mmmm, I have to remind myself to find a copy of Michael Moore's Sicko.

So, friends, here I am. Back on track, alive and kickin'.
Enough for a first post. I have to hit the shower before it gets colder. Which reminds me of my first winter in Arizona, December 2006. I'll talk about that later..

Bye...