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Showing posts from April, 2010

The sulphur of Kawah Ijen

Many Javaneses depend on sulphur from Kawah Ijen for survival. Although there's coffee plantation at the foot hill, they choose to collect sulphur at the crater. The wage is not high and the job is quite seasonal. Perhaps it is one of the most dangerous jobs on earth. They don't wear any personal protective equipment. They have to carry the heavy load of sulphur stones from the crater mouth and up the hill and down to the foot hill. Each sulpur stone weighed at least 10kg. From the peak, it's about 200 metres descending towards the sulphur source. As I descended quite slow, so SY and the rest descended further. Mind you, the sulphur smell is extremely strong there. Below photos were taken with compact camera at the sulphur mine.

The road to Kawah Ijen

Probably we took three hours to get to this turquoise sulphur lake of Kawah Ijen. As it had less tourist, so it felt more personal and near to the nature. One could see the sulphur steam billowing from the crater. Smell of sulphur, you bet it.

When too wired is too excessive

It's weird to know that the country which has the highest broadband penetration is also having domestic cultural problem. People has become so obsessed with online game that they have forfeited their normal way of life. (Read this article .) It has been said , for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him (2 Pet 2:19). By the way, are you addicted to Farmville until you have forgotten there's actually a real farm out there?

What's in your backpack?

You have a backpack. Now imagine that you need to stuff all your belongings into the backpack. Your career, family, hobbies, mortgages, photos of the past, cars, apartment, two-storey linked house etc. Now you have all stuffed in. And image you are starting to carry the backpack. Strapping in onto your shoulder. Feel the weight and the burden? Ryan's philosophy of life is being free of any attachments. He works as a corporate downsizer (you get pay by firing people on behalf of their bosses who are too coward to do so) and therefore, have to travel extensively throughout the year. In the end, he manages to earn 10 millions miles mark. But soon he realizes life with relationship is worthwhile. He has to start afresh after being let down in a relationship. Even though technology has enable to us to convey the message via internet or sms, it is still better to do it face-to-face. Nowadays, you can dump your girlfriend or even quit your job by just an sms. This is the other side of t

The right job

Finding the right job takes time, some experimentation and patience. Consider the right job if you have the following signals: You like the people there a lot. You do not need to fake yourself. It has opportunity to grow as a person and a professional and having the feeling of learning that you didn't even know you needed to learn. It has option of giving you credential that you can take and has future. You are making the decision ( ownership ) of the job, not by fulfilling someone's wishes like parents whom wished their children to be a doctor and so on. And finally you love the work content , having fun and meaningful moment. From Winning

Up the balloons

This was at the 2nd Putrajaya International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta 2010. There supposed to have more than ten balloons as advertised. But the day we went there, only 5. Been cheated. However, on the first day of the event, it did actually have the full participants. Here are some photos as snapped by fren's fren. And here is what we got after the first day event launching.

Lateral thinking

The random word tool for creativity: Get a focus theme for brainstorming. Choose a random word (can be from dictionary, random pointing in the newspaper etc). Then use this random word to generate ideas about the subject. Example, your focus is to have a new idea for an internet business. A random word is "scream". What would scream has anything to do with internet business? You can sell bottled scream, or post paid-video of scream etc. Ideas are not limited. It could be illogical but at the end you can make a sense out of it. From Think!: Before it's too late.