… Free your mind…
           --@RieF's blog--

integrity-tolerance-progress  

Friends, this blog will be discontinued as of now. My wife and I have just setup our new blog at the-prasetyos.net.

So as usual, please stop by, and check out our new place. And thanks for reading my blog for all this time.

Cheers,

Why is it such a big deal? Because not only Jakarta is the capital city of Indonesia, it is also a BIG melting pot of millions of Indonesian people who come from different places in the country, with various cultural backgrounds. I am not originally from Jakarta, but lived and made a living for about 2 years in the city. The capital faces so much problems that seemed eternal and impossible to solve. Floods, traffic/transportation, unemployment, pollution. The root of all that, in my opinion is population problem. Jakarta is way, way overpopulated. According to www.population-of.com, the population of Jakarta by the end of 2006 was 8,540,121. They should declare the city “closed” like they did in the 70s, but even if the government did that I don’t think it would be effective, as it’s getting easier and cheaper to get to the capital. Besides job opportunities are more in the capital. (more…)

I was talking to my “Indonesian-married to a Canadian-Now living in Canada” friend, Henri earlier this morning. After a few minutes of friendly name-calling, he was telling me about Russell Peters, a Canadian comedian. He said that this guy was really funny, because he always told racial jokes when he’s on stage. At first, I felt like I was in no mood for any jokes based on racism, but then again I thought… what could be better than laughing your head off, in the middle of the Caspian Sea.

So he then gave me a couple of clips that I should check out on YouTube.com, and so I did. And man… this guy really is funny. And I mean really funny. Coming from someone else, it would easily offend others, but not from this guy. He is just plain funny. Russel is originally from East India, and anytime you’re in a need of a good laugh, you should check out his performances. Just go to YouTube, and search for his name, and choose the clips. Here are some of my favorite clips, and you should start with these:

- The Indian Accent –> very funny!
- Italy –> this one is a blast
- Beating your kids
- Chinese Sellers

Sometimes a good laugh is what it takes to keep you sane ’til the end of the day.

So, last night we reached the target depth for the 26″ hole section. This means there’ll be at least 2 days before we start drilling the next section. I am currently working in a field operated by Petronas Carigali in the Caspian Sea. I am a MWD/LWD Engineer. My job is to provide measurements and logs, to the directional driller (so that he can steer the well) and the geologist (so that he can perform further formation evaluation and make decisions regarding the well).

On this job, I am with a fellow engineer, Omar Kubatayev from Ashgabat. We had a long QnA talk after supper. Of course I did most of the asking, and he did the answering. (more…)

The Flight to Ashgabat
We flew with Lufthansa, and our itinerary was Jakarta - Singapore - Frankfurt - Baku - Ashgabat, which (including transit time) summed up to 36 hours of travel. Tiring? Absolutely!! :D

We arrived at 1 a.m and was taken straight to Nissa Hotel, which is one of the nicer hotels in Ashgabat. If you should come to Ashgabat there are two other hotels I recommend you to stay in: President Hotel and Grand Turkmen Hotel.

First Day Impressions

- Weather
We came in the spring season. The temperature was around 0-10 degrees Celcius, cloudy and windy. For me it was lovely, but for my wife, it was horrible :P The weather is warming up though, and they say it gets up to 40 degrees in the summer. (more…)

“Human beings, no matter where we go, what decisions we make, we will always feel angry, sad, happy, bored. Those are humanly feelings that are forever attached to us, regardless of the decisions we make” - Arida Permata

Tommorow will be my last day in this company. After working for 17 months, I have decided to rejoin my previous employer. I am planning to relocate Ashgabat, Turkmenistan along with my wife. I guess it’s the adventure that drove us to take this opportunity. At first I had doubts of whether it would be best for us; being far from our families and friends, living in a country with totally different language and culture. But what my wife said that night, somehow was the antidote of all the doubts I had that night. (more…)

Have you heard of “Tarif Listrik Multiguna”? This translates to “Multipurpose Electricity Tariff”. I don’t really understand the meaning of “multipurpose” in this term, but here’s how it works. For many years, PLN (Indonesian sole power company) has applied the monthly “subscription fee” scheme. Depending on the service you apply for, you will be charged a monthly subscription fee. But starting from February 2006 (pardon my ignorance), the rule has been changed. Every house applying eversince will be charged with a monthly minimum payment. This scheme used to be applied only to the industrial sector (companies, factories, etc), but not household consumers. (more…)