The new family

And now.. we've got another family of four staying with us temporarily. The house is more crowded now, which I kindda like it. ^_^ Having Nico & Nini around us and laughter all over the place.

btw, I've got breakfast everyday since their mom is around. Haha.. ^_^

Legacy Systems

I've just had an argument with my IT Coordinator about legacy systems in our company. We've got several islands of automation created with FoxPro and Visual Basic 6.0.

The argument began when he wanted me to help another coleage to debug (or perhaps "clean" the mess of) the old program because of some silly problems.

Personally, I don't like FoxPro very much. Other than it is an old and dying language, I don't see a bright future out of it. And you want me to learn the dying dinasour language? I don't think so.

Some transactions were literally messed up and the IT department is required to get into the database and change some values (like from True to False) in some of it fields, and in often cases, deleting records.

I simply can't understand why such feature was not included into the system during development. We can't just simply debug when a problem occurs, can we? It won't solve the problem at all.

"I'm not gonna learn some dying language that gives me no future... Besides, we're implementing SAP, why would we need this (buggy) system? We're not gonna use it in 2-3 months."

"Don't get things wrong... even SAP system is up, the legacy system is still gonna run. And probably for the next 10 years..."

"Oh.. really? So u expect us (the IT department) to debug and clean the mess everytime problem occurs for the next 10 years? Should I quit my job then?"

Eventually, the IT manager came and rescued the day. He concluded that if we really want to keep the old system, we should probably consider putting it into a more sophisticated environment; redoing it in VB for example.

And there goes another day.. ^_^

Busy weekend

It's been a busy weekend. I had three meetings in a row today at church. But I've been enjoying this so much. Thinking a lot for church, cleaning the mess, making systems, and hopefully bringing order to the organisation.

The first meeting was a two-hours meeting for the August programme by the youth. I'm taking the lead on this. And we've got plenty of challenges to deal with. From the birocracy to technical problems. ^_^ But I believe that we all can grow in this.

Second was the bulletin meeting. I have just joined the bulletin team that was organised a couple of months ago; we're publishing bulletins across the comission unit at church. Lots of planning required in this. But God helps. ^_^

And in the evening, the youth fellowship meeting. Technically, it's the first meeting after the premier. We talked about general programmes, some systems that need to be created, and objectives.

Back at home before 9 pm and I'm calling it a day. ^_^
Another monday is coming tomorrow.. Argh... -_-'

Budi & Vinda

Happy wedding to a lovely couple, friends of many of us, Budi & Vinda. Long way to go eh? ^_^

Anyway.. We all went all the way to Pancur Batu (it's a town for those don't know of it), one and half hour from Binjai (it's variable against the traffic condition)

The Binjai group was kindda noisy of all.. ^_^ It wouldn't be us if not. Hehe..


Reach home before 19:30.. Still got time to relax.. ^_^

Soe Hok Gie

Not many that know the person Soe Hok Gie (蘇福義), an Indonesian-Chinese university student who gave a lot for his country even at his very young age. (I too just knew this myself)

I've never even actually heard of his name before; moreover that a Chinese in Indonesia really took part in making life better of his country. Too bad he died young (one day before his 27th birthday).

His story is mostly about his personal notes that he wrote since he was 14. The writings was very organised and nice written and reflect his honest conversation with himself. It's so transparent that he didn't think that people would read it at all. If he's still alive in this time, I'm quite sure he would blog and put out his mind to the world.


One of the famous notes he wrote was:
"Nasib terbaik adalah tidak dilahirkan
yang kedua dilahirkan tapi mati muda, dan
yang tersial adalah umur tua. Rasa-rasanya memang begitu.
Bahagialah mereka yang mati muda."
-- Soe Hok Gie: 22 Januari 1962

"The best fate is not being born
second is born but die young, and
the damned is long live. It feels like that.
Be glad for those who die young."
-- Soe Hok Gie: January 22, 1962

Some other articles:

• http://www.firdaus.or.id/2004/12/16/soe-hok-gie/
• http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soe_Hok_Gie

There has been a movie of his story released on 2005 that I haven't watched and plan to watch.
I bought the book online (in which also my first experience buying things online) and had it sent to my office.

Cubicals

Feel like trying to post up my workplace again from a better camera angle..
It's my workplace with the SAP Frontend on my screen. ^_^

Brastagi Trip 2 with Cousins

Weekend is here and what makes it different this time is another trip to Brastagi with cousins. Too bad that Anton can't join us; it would have been really nice if he had joined us.

Anyway.. we stayed at Yen's place, had some BBQ from Sin2's mom (that was great btw ^_^) and relaxing at Mikie Theme Park (not much though, but enjoyed the view).


Tomorrow's another Monday to come with all the hectic days coming along with it.

Weekend...

Weekend is here.. but what makes it special is that this Saturday is a Vesak day, which means holiday (I work half day on Saturdays).. ^_^

The kids of Sunday School were having an event today: Family's Day. I suppose it's becoz of mother's day tomorrow; so Hui was busy for the day and I'm left alone.. However, I've got my dad's computer to fix. He simply wanted to run his Chinese program so I had to get it work.

Tomorrow's mother's day and the youth fellowship is presenting a song "Bunda" where I'm playing before the piano.. Geezz.. I've never been good in front of the congregation in music. I've been embarrassed in front of everyone whenever I play (that was several years back though) and hopefully it won't happen tomorrow. I think I can use another session of practice. ^_^

The youth fellowship was voting for the new member of the youth council; in which the president (it does sound so cool eh? coz it doesn't sound that in Bahasa Indonesia. I just can't find the right word for it. Do suggest me ^_^) of the youth council automatically becomes the member of the church council (cool eh? ^_^). I've got the top score of all.. :-p in which from the past experience that I know, the top score is the best candidate for the head of the youth council. But I know that I can't handle the job with my current work (u know.. SAP project, staying up late, and uncertainty of my schedule) to cope with the church service. So I decided to take the secretary (where they also made me the vice president [another cool terms in which I'm not sure I'm putting it right or not] of the youth council).

Rainbow

Just want to share this view.. took it with my camera on my way back home from office.. ^_^
I've been seeing rainbows more often lately..

My office space

Snack time is coming and I'll take this chance to take a picture of my partition. It's not too big (1.75 m2) but comfortable enough to work compared to the previous job in Jakarta that gave me so little space.

Today's snack is kindda special. Pasta.. Haha..

the birthday

Thanks for all of the wishes for all of you; the first of all lovely Hui, Hendy, lovely brother Ric, dad, mom, aq Awi, Rosa, me2 Lie Tjing, Susi, cousin Sien, San "sking", Yulina "kwek", Vinda, little cousin Mei, aq Joni & family, JHH, aq Ata & family (including the little ones ^_^), Erwin, Muen, Eric2, Melina, and many more...

They all do make my day much better.. ^_^

Going for a small dinner celebration with mom, dad, and aq Awi tonite.. Scheduling for a date tomorrow.. ^_^ Weekend is coming... :-D

The Manager is here

The hero is here.. (and lets hope it goes that way)
It is time to do something in this IT department; and the perfect guy for the job is here.. IT Manager. I've been expecting a lot from him; in which I think I can still count on it.

Nice person, low profile, but yet has the extensive knowledge and experience in his field.
And as of this month, the entire team of IT people is bonded for 2 years without being able to quit this company. Lets hope that it goes quick.. ^_^

Me?? I've got 2 sessions of PP Training (one of the SAP module) and less of my IT job. It continues for the next 2 days I think.. Busy days.. ^_^

Rainbow..

A rainbow view in the morning does transform my nightmare sleep into a much better feeling to begin my day. I've been thinking maybe it was God's way to enlighten me for the day. And it works.. I'm looking forward for a beautiful day..

Good morning everyone.. ^_^



Yeah.. not much compared to the grand pictures that got the awards, but this is what I have for today. ^_^

The man is back with MY job..

The artist has returned to office with sime adjustment.. One of them is basically my job of system administration and SAP Basis being reassigned to him, and I'm back to SAP functional with some ABAP programming. In which I don't mind of it since I haven't been too concentrated.. Plus.. I've got more things to learn.

Now I'm back to the programming line of my IT career.. I thought it was gonna be administration since I've got the training, etc. It turned out to be quite fun but somehow exhausting (you know.. keep the system up and running all the time thingy.. ^_^)

Anyway.. I'm in one of the funtionals now of Production Planning, not a big one, but good enough to start. ^_^

Hasan's leaving...

I don't know how to say this, but it seems apparent that I'm going to miss another friend who's leaving the office after 2 weeks of work, Hasan. It is indeed a short time, but I still feel bad of this.

A great person he is, that you can see the good personality at the first glance; professional in his field of networking, and the mind to share knowledge to others.

Today is his last day of work.. :-( but we'll keep in touch.. ^_^
Goodluck dude..

Dysentry and Basis

I've got a dysentry.. and it has been going on for the past 3 weeks. Sure hell of 3 weeks of life eh? So I ended up being so exhausted and weak because of this..

Another dillema is with work; with my current condition (where I'm adviced to have lots of rest) the SAP Basis is coming and going back tomorrow morning. So I don't know if I should stay back for tonight or not (I haven't been doing so for the past 3 days and missed quite a lot of things).

I'll think of that later.. I'll see how long I can stay..

Installing...

Busy and hectic days are coming.. the ISS guy from KL is here installing SAP on our machine. I think I need to read more of the manuals. Everything is literally there, but too detail (which is good I suppose) and time consuming to read all of them. But eventually, having someone to know detail is better.

Installing SAP is not so easy as it looks.. Problems with this and that comes from the operating system side (in this case, AIX) that we have to configure this and that..

We have no expertise in AIX for sure.. (those 5 days training were obviously nothing compared to a real time issues we're dealing with, but it helps for sure)

I don't think I can make it to stay back at office tonight.. Got an appointment with doctor at 6; don't know what's happening to my stomach.. I had blood in my feces this morning and it shocked the hell out of me.. Time to NOT playing with this anymore.

Monday...

Bloody OT for yesterday really knocked me down for the day. I was terribly exhausted. Had some discussion yesterday morning regarding some church programme we're trying to do.. and head to office at noon.

Did the cabling when I reached office and straight for some testing. It turned out to be pretty nice though. But some messy problems occurred, some cables are misplaced, etc.

I could see some inconsistencies about the work management during this time. We've managed to get some work done worth half to an hour and those guys decided to move the partition 30 centimeters towards the wall. And that means redoing everything.

Finally I managed to get off the office before 8 pm and had dinner outside; reached home at 10 and get some rest.

Monday morning.. a hectic day.. woke up hesitately but I really had to coz I've got to drive to work today and surely caught up with traffic jam (mondays.. :-|).

SAP Basis is coming today from KL and I'm supposed to assist him during installation and learn as much as I can. Welcome to another week.. ^_^

Wasted Time

Here I am.. doing nothing in the office. I can't seem to agree that the IT management is good enough. Well I've seen and worked with professionals who actually plan their actions carefully and execute them in the way they planned. But this one is no near that.

The planning itself is not optimised to the needs. Here is the situation.. There are 14 partitions (cubicals) that are moving from level 2 to level 4. We (the IT guys) are supposed to setup the computers and network environment only; and I agree to that.

But can't somebody simply thinks that we can't do anything without the partitions being dissambled from level 2 and reassambled on level 4? We're just wasting time here.. waiting for the partitions to be set. I was told (informally) that we're setting up the network for one partition as time goes while we wait for the other partitions are being reassembled.

And here is what I think: why not let the partitions be assembled first (that means we, IT guys don't get the overtime for Saturday) and then the cabling for network? Isn't that more optimised? But shit hell.. I'm not in charge.. And I can't actually blame anyone.. We don't have IT manager here; only coordinator.

However, the IT coordinator is quite cool I can say; good person with the smile all over his face even though (I think) he's got problem.

But I'm still shit out of luck today for this inevitable useless overtime... :-| *sigh...

a lil' accident

And.. shit just happened again this morning.. I drove my gf to work and missed the turn, so I reversed the car and not noticing a bloody electricity pillar.. So that's the shit.. I think I need to to fix the light and a small part of the bumper is broken.. :-(

And here I am.. at work.. with less mood for what has just happened. I'm shit out of luck in this..

I'm having an overtime some more *sigh.. The entire department is shifting to another floor, so we've got to setup the cablings and the hard part (as they said) is to make sure they all work.

Anyway.. hope everyone else is having a much better day.. ^_^