Why am i back? (2022)

 So...

I have been meaning to write something, but obviously i haven't been able to. Last time i told you i was leaving on business trip to Switzerland right? Well things got out of hand after that. 

Here are some recaps:

• From Switzerland, landed in Singapore and watched Muse with my wife
• We had a kid in 2016
• I got bored, went for a new job late 2016
• Promoted to Manager (2017)
• Bought a house (2017)
• Went wild on business trip to Thailand. Two times in 3 weeks (2017)
• Went wild on another business trip to Malaysia, same year (2017)
• Went from having Agya (lowest car there is) to brand new Camry (the highest trim there is) (2018)
• Went wild on another business trip to Hong Kong (2018)
• Took my 2 years old kid to Hong Kong Disneyland. This kid is going places (2018)
• Went to Hong Kong again on business trip, almost died as i went there in the middle of the riots (2019)
• Another business trip to Singapore with my wife and kid (2019)
• Accepted a global job (2019)
• Business trip to Geneva (2019)
• Business trip to Geneva 1 month later (2020)
• Business trip to Geneva another 1 month later (2020)
• Long delay due to COVID situation worldwide
• Moved out with my family to Poland. For good (2021)
• Another Disneyland time, this time 3 days full board and food in Disneyland. My 5 years old kid has been to Disneyland twice in his life now (2021)

And soon i will be spending 2 weeks in my boyhood city, Firenze.

Looks like thats a good recap of the missing 8 years. And yea, been lots of things happened. I will be staying here in Europe for a long long time, possibly forever. Sad? quite contrary. I get to live here with my wife and kid, happily. Wouldnt exchange it for anything else in this life.

My wife has been magnificent as well. Not everyone would be saying yes when i said, look lets move to Europe. For good. Lets leave Indonesia, our house, our car, our families, our job, our friends, and everything here in Indonesia. 

I am so lucky that my wife supported me fully. And all she does now is just walking around everyday taking beautiful picture of Warsaw.

Thats life. That is, the life. 

The Groundwork

Tuesday, 8 September 2015

Its been a really weird couple of weeks really. And its about to get even weirder.

So, i was summoned up to my HR director's office. And in there, the 2 big boss of HR awaits me. I was then asked to shut the door behind me. You damn well knows shit is about to go down when the door are closed.

'Oh its gonna be a salary increase!'

'wait no, even better. Its a promotion!'

The hype was on. And i got excited but still managed to keep my composure.

'Iqbal, we are going to send you to the headquarters in Switzerland', my HR director calmy said.

OOOOHHH HEELLLLL YEAAAHHH finally i got promoted after all this hard works that i have done. It finally pay.....wait....what? 

Me? Headquarter? Switzerland?

I know someone who has worked here for more than 20 years and never even got a chance to go to Switzerland. And here i am, almost 5 years year of service, still dont know what the hell i am doing half the time, and i got the chance to go?

Gee even i got lost trying to find my way home, and now i have to go to some french speaking country where the only words i know are omelette du fromage from dexter lab cartoon?

Its gonna be a disaster.

But anyway, i was actually still recovering from the shock that it wasnt actually a promotion (note to self, expectation is a bitch), and i barely composed myself when the date was announced. 

Just for your info, today is 8 September, the 2nd day of the week. My things in switzerland runs from 23,24 and 25 september. which is 11 working days away.

• Invitation letter, nope.
• Visa photos, nope.
• Advance money, nope.
• Switzerland currency, nope.
• Hotel, nope.
• Plane, nope.
• Plan, nope

and obviously the fuckin visa is a nope as well.

To make matters even more complicated, 24 September is a public holiday and i am already planning (and booked everything) to go to Singapore on that 25th September. With the main course of muse concert on the 26th.

That's when my heads spin. Career progression, European trip, Singapore holiday, Muse concert, my wife, whatever the fuck am i gonna do?

So, i basically excused myself from the room and dials my wife to break the news down. Well originally i only intended to break the news down, but along the line i made up a plan and itinerary.

I'll go on 21st September, arrives on 22nd September in Switzerland and session on 23,24 and 25. On 25 evening i will fly to Singapore and rendezvous with my wife on 26th afternoon, who will have flew by herself(and probably really pissed because i left her), and just in time for Muse concert.

That would be the ideal scheme.

Along the way, anything, and i really mean it, anything can go wrong. 

The invitation letter might not come out (due to short timing)

The visa might be rejected (again, due to short timing)

I wont get the plane i need according to my schedule

or I can simply got lost and board a wrong plane to Somalia

Which might happen, as you know me

But anywho, who knows what the future will bring. I'll just need to close my eyes, wang it down, and see whatever the hell is going to happen.

And you'll read more about this journey, right here, in this place. Most probably in daily kind of post, as to capture whhere my thoughts are on that moment.

Which left just another thing that i need to ask to the boss, 

'So...emm....no promotion sir?'

Guitar review: Cort Manson MBC 1

Okay,

So about 2 weeks ago i was browsing the net as usual on my usual pace and heard about the Manson guitar collaboration with Cort in creating an "easy on the pocket" Manson signature guitar for Matt Bellamy.

Now Manson, is like the Lamborghini of the guitar world. Its exotic, its crazy, its loud, its sexy, and it is damn expensive. To get Matt Bellamy signature guitar, you will need to spend about 4000 pounds and a year or so waiting for it to be made. But rest assure, its definitely worth it.

Now, this Cort Manson cost about 500 pounds on the Manson website. That is like a big friggin wow. Converted to indonesian money, only about 9 mio or so. What more surprising is, i seems to have heard the Cort guitar brands quite a lot and so i have. Its made in Indonesia. The factory located in Mojokerto.

My heart races fast. I quickly browse through the manson website, re directed to Cort website, and clicked on the distributor adress in Indonesia.

MG has it.

Well dopp tee doo, of course i have heard about it. I went to MG lots of times, albeit only to fall in love with the Fender Strat. They have tons of Cort for sale in MG. Whats more surprising is that it only retails for only 7 mio in Indonesia (instead of 9), presumably due to no import tax and delivery fee etc etc. And for some reason, all Cort brand is on special discount this month and its down to about 5.5 mio.

I tell you what, i was so tempted with it that i basically drove straight to MG blok M and had to see it for myself. And boy, isnt she a beauty.

This guitar is simply awesome.

It has a Matt Black doff finish (get it, Matte Black?) and equipped with tune o matic bridge and a push button kill switch which i rather like, because 2 of my Manson replica has a kill switch made from...well...switch.

The pickup i believe is locally made. It is "Manson designed", so i believe it is made locally here in Indonesia. The sound characteristic for the bridge, let me just say, very Musey. It gave a very huge sound and distortion and what im impressed is how loud it is and how much sustain is there. 

The neck pickup itself  obviously doesnt give you the strat kind of neck sound, but it does gives you a nice, clean and crisp sound that is nice for picking.

Honestly, i wasnt expecting much on it but damn this guitar is loud. It sustains very well, its light, it looks badass, and plays surprisingly well. I mean, for this kind of price, its a nice guitar. Compared to a strat, of course the strat feels much nicer, but then again strat retails for about 18 mio, twice or 3 times the price of this baby.

So, i didnt picked it up straight away, i waited about a week or so to see if i really wanted this guitar. 

Turns out that i just couldnt hold it in. Drove straight to the shop again last week, and paid for it straight away. And after a week or so, my impression about it still has't changed at all. Its light, its loud, and it is awesome!  

Looking at the label above, presumably this guitar was made in 7 December 2014. The B 001 might be the batch 1, and guitar no 723. Thats quite a lot for 1st batch of guitar, dont you reckon?

Anyway, its Matt B signature guitar. What more can i ask? :D

Rainy day

Hi!

Well, to be honest I wasn’t really in the mood of writing anything but since the weather is so dark and shltty outside, I decided what the hell, I’ll write something.

It’s been a rainy season again. Probably a little late considering it’s the end of November already, but still it’s now a time where you simply can’t go anywhere without umbrella. And trust me, I have 2 big umbrella with me at all time. One is the one that has the looks of a rifle (yes, that is actually my umbrella) and the other one is the one that I called a “F*ing tent” that I got from the office family day. Its so big and so sturdy and strong that the first time I saw it, and I quote myself on this, I just simply said “Well f* me, that’s a tent. Not an umbrella”

And then comes my weakness against cold climate. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been to snow and were on the receiving end of a bloody cold aussie winter for 3.5 years, but I simply can’t stay in a cold climate CREATED by air con.

In Indonesia, we call it ndeso.

But I can’t stay in hot weather either, I need to cool down.

In Indonesia, we call this asu.

Bad jokes aside, in times like this as the weather worsen after 12:00, I always rely on my trusty suit jacket to keep me warm. Sure enough, I’ve been wearing this for god knows when, yet everyone still give me the weird look because suit jacket isnt exactly a common thing to wear in Indonesia, while I can never fathom why. To me, suit jacket are good, because:

1. Comfy
2. Warm
3. Comes in many colour and style
4. Saves you and your office shirt because late in the day because your shirt would be all messed up, wrinkled, etc.
5. You can simply put it over your head and body in the rain and walks like a boss without caring for the rain.

So the point are, if you are a man, it’s never a bad idea to invest in a suit.

Back to work, young man.

Untitled

Good afternoon,

Writing you here from the comfort of my desk to bring you up to date with whatever went on with my life.

So, 1^st thing first, yes I have been married.

Probably I should have wrote something about it a while back. Pretty sure I kept a draft of it somewhere, about my thought and state of mind before the big day, but somehow I forgot where I put the damn draft file.

Yes, it is the problem in 2014. You have so many storage spaces, and you forget where you might have put it. It could be somewhere on my laptop, it could be on my work PC, could be somewhere on my skydrive, phone, or even whatever online drive I have going on.

Well here I am instead, Im gonna tell you about how I feel about it, after some times from the big D-Day of marriage. I just thought that a pure, unemotional write up away from all the lovey dovey would be somewhat objective and nice to read.

But what do I know, I write crap most of the times anyway.

Well, I have to say marriage is like a landmark. It is part of your life. It is definitely one of those chapter that has that special mark on a book called “Your Life”. It is quite a special thing, but, like all special thing, it’s not something that you have to brag about.

What I mean is that anyone, everyone will have to go the same process or marriage thing that I just did. Being marriage doesn’t exactly shows that you are special. Being married very early on your life doesn’t make it special as well, nor does getting married late in your life. People have their own way, and as far as I believe, everyone will experience the same thing too. It’s not like you are married and all of a sudden you become a member of such elite group or something.

Don’t believe me? Well let’s look at it this way. Almost all of you have graduated right? Either from SMA or University. How did you feel when you graduated? Happy? Special? So happy that you feel like the world is yours?

Well of course you would be happy, but when you think about it, it is just one of the many landmark that you will experience in your life. It’s not a big deal when you think about it. Someone, somewhere, will have already experienced it too.

So yeah, I do feel a bit weird with all those people who are boasting on their married status. Being married doesn’t mean that you can mock someone who isn’t married yet. Eventually people will go through the same stage anyway.

Okay……….

Enough of the opening rant. Now life has been wonderful to me. Never in my life I would have dreamed that I would have all the time in the world to be with someone that I always love, every day. Never in my life I would have dreamed that I would have my own car, that it would be my family car and that it is part of our practical living.

Never as well I would have thought that I would be thinking about the furniture that I would stuff on our house. Never would I think that getting a house that would provide you with decent living would be all damn hard (BSD rocks btw, love the place). And all those yada yada things that people would call cliché.

I am still the old of me. I still play games, I still spent my time listening and making bad jokes, and just simply still being an ass on all things. But hey, everybody will move forward when the time comes. And that everybody will be together and with whom they deserve, when the time comes.

When that day comes, it makes all the perseverance worth it.