Thursday, August 31, 2006

Warrior of Light

Found from the blog of my friend : from Paulo Coelho, the author of The Alchemist:

"Every Warrior of the Light has felt afraid of going into battle

Every Warrior of the Light has, at some time in the past, lied or betrayed someone

Every Warrior of the Light has trodden a path that was not his

Every Warrior of the Light has suffered for the most trivial of reasons

Every Warrior of the Light has, at least once, believed he was not a Warrior of the Light

Every Warrior of the Light has failed in his spiritual duties

Every Warrior of the Light has said 'yes' when he wanted to say 'no'

Every Warrior of the Light has hurt someone he loved

That is why he is a Warrior of the Light, because he has been through all this and yet has never lost hope of being better than he is"

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Music, lots of them

A week ago I took the plunge and bought one of these....

Man it really nice to have most of your CD collection in one place. And it's soo good so I bought one more .... wait one more ? You see, Venny is pregnant now and she's nauseous all the time. That day she listened to music during our trip and it really help her. So I bought one (i know ... i know ... what about sharing ... :p )
by the look of it... Aiko enjoys it too... It's really a good buy, but now I have to refrain myself from all that accessories.... Hmmm that HK drive and play sure looks good :D



Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Out with the Old and In with The New

We just replaced these ....

With these ....
Why you asked ? Well let's just say, the new ones have no joint, so less likely to break.... :(((

Monday, August 21, 2006

- Two little friends -





They don't really understand each other ... (or do they)
Come from different race ...
Still look cute and played together ...

Even tried to cook together ...
Kids are fun ... kids are hillarious ...
It proves that the language of friendship spans further than our spoken language
I feel blessed just watching


Friday, August 11, 2006

Love is In The Air

Today is a landmark day,

For the first time, I will accompany Aiko in a school trip. So it means about full 4 hours together, outside, far away from the comfort of our home, only me and her together. HOLD THAT THOUGHT ... of course I have taken Aiko alone before. But our endeavor together usually close at home, using my car. Buying something for Venny at the supermarket, buying food, buying fishes ... hmmm alot of buying is involved.


Today it's different, we're visiting a juice factory in Sentul, so that means venturing together to the unknowns, going by bus (how will she behave), going so far away (how will she behave), going without her nanny (how will she behave)... In short I have to change her, feed her, accompany her, entertain her, protect her without supervision... Am I able to do this ?
.

So the D day cometh... Armed with a bag full of biscuits, milk, spare diapers and clothes, candy, water bottle, lunch, candies, jelly and others (I lose track) we went to the unknown in our small car (it's a KIA Visto). Well a day before Aiko threw up in the other car so even at the beginning of our adventure I already feel that butterfly in my stomach ... Well too late to turn back wasn't it ? Luckily (and happily) I could report that no major incident happened.

We arrived there at 8:45, and Aiko had to perform her class mandatory greeting time. So I went about in the lobby, and my jaw dropped.... ALL LADIES !!!! Ah there's one guy there hmmm old ... definitely grandpa ... well there's another over there ... hmmm too young ... maybe an uncle... well Im about the only daddy there. Aiyoh ... what to do, well it's hard to mingle with moms ... I had no clue on the topics ... So I cowered in the corner, trying to read a newspaper.

After half an hour our time had come... we boarded the bus. Amazingly the bus ride to the factory went on uneventful. Of course Aiko was still cute and cuddly (especially to boys). She kept bugging Jova in front and Matthew in the back (hmmm note to self, need to teach her to be classy so she'll attract the right kind of boys :D). But all in all it was fine ..... Jova's mom and Matthews's were chatting about their kids (both have two sons), one toddler was running amok in the aisle. Squealing laughing sound from the back ... hmm Michael cried ... well as I said, it was fine ... (fine = it was chaos but not unexpected)

We arrive in the factory at about 10.. and the heat was scorching. Luckily, Aiko was armed with a hat... We were gathered in a hall and lookie there, CLOWNS. Aiko was especially drawn to the sponge bob clowns. She kept tugging me to have a handshake with spongebob (not sure about the hygiene of that clownsuit though). But she wouldn't take no as an answer, so as you can see in the pictures, Aiko was very much involved with spongebob.

The factory tour itself was poorly aranged, and Aiko started to get cranky. But afterwards it was games time, and Aiko always liked games. The ball race ... starring Aiko, Owen, Jesslyn, Michael, Matthew, Jova well I don't remember them all. But all is under 2 1/2 years, so predictably it was chaos. Anyway everyone had a blast, and we parents were having fun too. Another highlight of the day is balloons !!! Popping balloons to be exact, somebody need to shoot the guy who had the idea of balloons in a hot day. Popping balloons were so numerous that I thought I may get heart attack. But in time it becomes soooo numerous that I stopped being surprised.

Well the next test was lunch time. Hmmm what should I do, ok, open the bag, take out lunch box, close bag, open lunch box, look for spoon, open bag, get spoon, close bag, look for water bottle, open bag, get water bottle, close bag ... you get the picture lah. During lunch time Aiko's three teachers were sitting next to us, hmm maybe because they expect me to screw up ?, but I passed with flying colours ... well not really flying colours may be acceptably ... (or was that barely) ... as I clumsily tried to make Aiko eat rice with chicken nugget and sausage.

Time to go home, and the trip home was uneventful ... again ... But then Aiko fell asleep on my lap and as I watched her face and as I look around.... it was the same. Love is in the air ... although I was different with all of them (well I am a daddy, they are mommies !), still the feeling was the same. Most of the kids were asleep, almost all of the parents were watching them with a smile (except for one mommies accross the aisle, she fell asleep too)... at the back there were squealing sound as one mother tickled her son... and so on. Yup that was it, definitely love is in the air ...

Hmmm going somewhere alone with Aiko ... Lets do that soon

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Aiko and F11

About 8 months ago I bought a small Fuji F11 as my daily use camera. I was hooked because of it's high ISO performance (ISO 1600 with the same resolution as ISO 400 in competing cameras).

It had serve me well, but today I found something in it that made me feel that it was worth every penny I spent.



Yes it's not sharp and blurred, but you see these was taken by Aiko, our 2 year old daughter. She had always played around with my camera and now I can proudly say that she has improved .... Alot ...

Again it was taken without flash, only made possible by the ISO prowess of the F11. Again .... I'm glad I bought this camera...

Gathering of Friends

You can't argue that a gathering of friends can make you feel warm all over. And on last saturday, we did just that. Most of the ciaters in Indonesia convene together at our beloved Nindya's house.



The attendees were :

  1. Nindya, Helen, Hovan (host)
  2. Daru (our long lost friend in semarang, now had returned) & Raney
  3. Bessie and Syntha (do I spell this right ?)
  4. Hans and Gita ( special guest from Singapore )
  5. Suryo and Kurnia and Vina (new addition to Ciat, cute daughter)
  6. Andrian (alone, Venny wasn't well)
  7. Mico & Eva
  8. DRUMROLLLL Salom and Mira (amazing)

Here are several observations :
  1. Hovan had a "nelongso" aura just like his father :)
  2. Daru is as garing as ever
  3. Luckily Bessie came well shaven (girlfriend had it's positive sides :D )
  4. Vina amazingly has several similar trait with Aiko (note to self, need to get them together sometimes)
  5. Hans and Gita seems very healthy (a very crispy observation :D)
  6. All were sceptical about Salom showing up, but hey amazingly he did (we still think of you as Tuti lom)
  7. Nindya and fam was a fabulous host, we do suspect Nindya will return to his usual function when we went home
  8. Mico and Eva seems very happy (again Mico was well shaven, definitely a positive trait of having a spouse)
  9. The blog writer, still can't write an essay ... can only communicate in points...
It was fabulous though, the food was very good (definitely better than agar-agar belut) with porks overflowing. Definitely need to do this more often.




more pictures here