in for the long haul

ok maybe not that long, but i am not expecting rest or an off day from today till at least the 8th of may and possibly later. that's right, it's time for elections, and i have to say that this year's offerings are actually substantially more interesting than years gone by, with an opposition that is actually credible (well, two separate teams run by the workers party at any rate)

so forgive me if i go off the radar, but the next 12 days will be spent breathing, eating and sleeping elections. a necessary evil that will allow my to appreciate the tokyo vacation that follows much, much more.

a dream-like state of being

the past few days have passed by in a manner that can only be described as surreal.
serendipitous coincidences, interesting turns of events and the feeling that the world has fallen down around you. and yet, a crazy sort of anticipation emerges, one that makes you feel that everything happens for a reason. not fate, not destiny, but a higher cause.

it feels like that fallen world will be rebuilt into something bigger and better, and while the reconstruction might take a little time, the end product is definitely something worth waiting for.

i think this feeling is called hope.

and i know i like it.

funny fact

funny how some of the most polluted places on earth have beautiful sunsets. yeah i know it's cause of the pollutants but i still think it's funny.

so there!

space filler: the next generation

whatever happened to toys r us kids?

seems like the children of today are in a hurry to grow up.

night rider

i have to say that while i am very happy with the new addition to the gray fleet, that i do miss riding my venerable two-wheeler.

there are many pros about driving a car, not the least of which, is keeping dry when the heavens decide to open on this little island (which has been predictably unpredictable, and lately, quite frequently), but for sheer pleasure, i still think that nothing (on the road at least) can beat a motorbike.

there is nothing quite like the rush you get zipping through gridlocked traffic, having a full tank that gets you about 340 kilometers (for under $20) and of course, road trips.

but one of the ultimate perks, is the solitude and time for contemplation, and the feeling of a cool wind whipping around you as you streak down a deserted road at 3am in the morning.

bliss only begins to describe it.

sigh, i need to ride more often.

shit happens

it's bad enough having to get up at 5am to catch to indonesia, but it's worse, five hours and two shitty plane rides later, to get to the first stop of your overseas assignment and find out that your camera (the ONLY slr body you brought since you thought it was indestructible) has a busted shutter.

how the hell does this happen?
at this point, your heart does 15 backflips and lodges itself some place in your throat that restricts normal breathing, and you start having to force your heartbeat down from a zillion beats per minute to something more reasonable that would aid in lucid thinking.

breathe. think. act.

act, in this case, entails taking out the s80 point and shoot that i almost didn't bring, and whipping out the phone to call maye-e who was in thailand at the time for the number of the AP office in jakarta in the faint hopes that they would have a spare body that i could borrow for the rest of my trip in indonesia.

then something else starts irritating me, this time my feet, and i wonder why i can actually feel the gravel through the shoe soles. too busy to worry about that, i file that thought away for later consideration. to cut a long story short, i'd forgotten to buy a pair of shoes to go with my suit, and dug out an old but hardly used pair of black timberlands to use. for those of you who don't realize this, if you buy shoes and don't use them for an extended period of time, they get pissy with you and often go to pieces just to spite you.

which is exactly what my pair did to me.



note the absence of shoe soles. that's right, the whole rubber sole disintegrated and vanished leaving the innards of the shoes in the public domain. embarrassing, especially since the next day involved covering a courtesy call on the indonesian foreign minister and the vice-president with no time to get a new pair.

in the end, things worked themselves out, i borrowed a spare camera body from ap (ironically, none of the pictures i shot with the "real camera" were used) and the trusty s80 managed to save my hide by giving me this page one picture.



all the same, i'm going to save myself future grief and make sure i have a spare camera body and regularly used shoes in the future, which i guess, is the object lesson of this trip.

back!

it's been awhile. murphy decided to remind me why there is a law named after him, and decided to throw me curve balls all week, but now i am back, the internet is working again, and i'll have a bunch to write about. just as soon as i download my pictures.

stay tuned.