post #410
Currently I'm tired, my eyes are begging to be shut; but I just gotta write. I really do. While this momentum lasted. It's been almost a month since my last entry, I was swamped with lots of things. Well..let's get start, shall we?
The Outing.
The outing was great. Tiring, exhausting, yet entertaining, thrilling, and exciting. There's this incident with the taxi that I rode in the morning on my way to the rendezvous site, the office. Got the first taxi quite easily, though it didn't look very convincing...then near Pramuka it seemed that the engine was having some kind of problem. It was coughing....and the driver switched something on and off...but eventually the engine gave up. The driver face was panic and he seemed worried.
There were two thoughts crossed my mind almost simultaneously. My naive, trusting, sympathetic side thought it must be sucked for the driver. He'd lose some money because of this engine problem. He looked a bit panic and upset about the engine, how it gave up on him.
My house-md-doctrin-everyone's-guilty-until-proven-otherwise side thought...darn...lucky I was riding in the morning and I got another taxi quite easily as well. I wondered how would it be if I took the taxi in the middle of the nite....what if the engine problem was fake? The driver seemed ok, but we all knew too well about the saying look could be deceiving. I'd probably be a victim *knock wood...
Well, lesson learned here that we have to be careful and aware at any time...I'd like to think positive, yet I still have to prepare for the negative ones.
Anyhow, I got to the rendezvous point on time and went there by bus...arrived at lunch time, opening, some ice breaking and free time. I spent some of the free time by playing soccer . My shirt was soaked wet due to the humid air. Then went to the villa. My roomie was AG again...hehehehe..The bungalow/villa was great. We had couch, little kitchen, and our own pool. Not like that we're gonna use the kitchen anyway, but still nice.
After taking a bath and relaxing for a while, ma and AG went to the the main dining area to enjoy dinner and the rest of the first day event. As usual, some updates and QnA session with the SEs. Then NJP performance, other updates and then the prime event....Take Me Out...it was hilarious!!
We still needed to practice our project performance so we did. The CMD watched as we rehearsed till 1.30 AM...Yupp...we were that dedicated...to win :D One thing I really hate there was the humidity....It was VERY HUMID. Darnnn...It was night and I was sweating like a pig. I didn't know if beach air was like that...but it was really annoying! (yup with exclamation mark. It was THAT annoying) Went back to my villa after the rehearsal and sleep right away.
The next day we have games. We had trekking in the morning. It was standard..waking through the forest (I think) until we arrived at the beach. There were games there. It's fun...then we went back to the main dining area in the afternoon. We were told to be back at 3 PM because the games would be started at another beach. I went back to my villa...took a bath (againnnnn) then went to take a nap, because the rehearsal took few hours of my precious sleeping time. I overslept and woke up at 3 sth PM and it was raining. I was thinking to skip the game and back to sleep. But there was this shuttle car so I decided to come to the beach. Long story short, arrived there, waited for the rain to stop/get better. The games was we had to build a raft, assign one person to grab as many flags which were put on floaters as possible. It was the only game we played due to the unfriendly weather.
Went back to the villa, took a bath (yes...againnn...you're welcome to count how many times I bathe in a day while I was there) then went back to the dining place. The main event for the second day was project performance, rampak bedug and olympic result announcement (though I already kned the result). The project performances were great....fresh....and very fun to watch. Our project performance kicked ass as well, though we had to make some improvisation due to Fuad's missing costume. It ended well...and came the announcement.
I got MAP voucher for being best player and top scorer in Futsal.
Our futsal team also won vouchers and medals as the champion.
Our olympic team also won vouchers since we were the leading team that won three our of four categories (Futsal, Squash, Bowling). We only lost in Wii
To my surprise, my team in the outing games also won the 1st prize...wowww...yippiiieee
It felt good.....very good (esp getting those voucher...hehehehehe)
Went back to my villa and......
yup....I took a bath, again. Went to sleep afterward.
The morning after, we had our breakfast. Then some free time. I ended up sleeping....while the others went to beach to enjoy snorkeling, water skiing, etc. Ermmmm.... Sleeping and Sweating would make a good tagline for this outing :D
Anyway, we all gathered again at lunch time to hear the announcement for the project performance. As predicted, we won 1st place. Closing speech from CMD, then went back to Jakarta. Arrived at around 6.30 PM. Went back home....ate.....slept....
The week after that was a busy week. One month before go live and I also needed to focus on release 2 development. There was this incident when I drove my mom for her routine medical checkup. On our way back home, I was driving while talking....then out of nowhere there's motorcycle crash in front of the car. I didn't really see what happened but I thought the motorcycle s brushed against each other....the effect was both of them fell down, one of them was somersaulting in the air...It was just like in the movies....luckily I still had a good reflexes. I hit the brake to avoid crashing into their motorcycles....Phewwww.....that was close
Nothing else was quite eventful in that week...as far as I could remember. The next week was busier that I thought. Went to Bogor (finally) to resolve some issues on site. It's quite overwhelming...but we managed to get the issues resolved. Little did I know that that nite I was gonna experience some thing for the first time.
The nite went like ordinary nite. We were tired and wanted to go home. We used project car to go back to AOP HO. On the toll road...there was this Suzuki Carry that stopped on the right lane. The CRV in front of our car tried to brake. Our driver followed....But I saw that the CRV was too close. I thought to myself...Oh Boy, we're gonna hit that car....to my surprise, we didn't. The driver managed to brake inches to avoid hitting the CRV.
I was about to sighed in relief when....*#$&**^%$#$^%&%$^@#%$^!@$%
We were hit from behind, and was the passenger of the third row. I was pushed forward by the impact. My knee hit the 2nd row seat. I looked behind and there it was. Another car. We were in silence for a while. Then driver came out. We did too. I looked at the car that hit us. It was Innova and it didn't look pretty at all. The engine hood was bent. The front grill was severely damaged. The front lamps were broken. And I think the radiator was broken as well because I could see there's water leaking.... I was wow-ed....surprised....it was my first traffic accident. Then the driver and the man (it's middle aged man) who hit us had a conversation....not so long after that a man came out of nowhere and suggested that we move the cars to the left lane because it's dangerous to be on the right lane. We might be hit again by other cars.
We moved the cars to the left lane and it turned out to be that the suddenly appeared man was an illegal tow truck driver. He came with his partner and they intimidated us to come with them...bla bla bla....they're really hot-headed....one of them (the younger one) even took the car keys. But it seemed that the older one saw that there were quite many of us (4 guys), so he focused more on the middle aged man who unfortunately drove alone. I think the middle aged man saw what was coming. He wanted us to stay till his insurance tow truck came...but these illegal tow truck drivers forced us to leave (I assumed because they thought they had an easy prey). The project car driver went in the car and drove away. In a way I felt sorry for that man. He's surely extorted by those guys...geezz...
Lesson learned....be careful when driving a vehicle, esp when you drive alone. If something like that happened, I would settle with the other driver as quickly as I can, they drove away to the nearest crowded area, let say toll gate....
I guess the crash was the highlight of this week. Spent the day by relaxing yesterday...then watching Robin Hood today. Cate Blanchett was exquisite. There's something about her that appealed. Don't know what it is....
Well...I really need to hit the bed now....my eyes are flickering like a lamp needs to be replaced...
So....till next time
