{key sarcasm} A really awesome thing happened today. {/sarcasm} Our maid, Sri, who has been really great for many months, said she was returning home to her new husband. No worries, we said, do you happen to have a friend who’d like to work? In fact she did. The friend came and has been working with us for about four days. She smiled, said good morning every day, and seemed overall quite content. We pay quite well, aren’t the leastRead more
Posts filed in: Rantings and Ramblings
Small world
I’m sitting in Starbucks yesterday working on my laptop, when this big dude walks over to me and says, “Excuse me, are you Brandon from JavaJive?”. It took me a second to realize that, ya, indeed I guess I am. I’m not used to people connecting those two words face to face apparently. My first instinct was to think,”Ah sh*t, what’d I do now?” (have had more than a few blurry evenings with the boys and more than a coupleRead more
Yahoo cutting 1000 jobs… Is Flickr in danger?
This NYT article regarding Yahoo cutting 1000 jobs is disturbing enough. However, if you delve deeper into the article, you’ll read, “the company has said it would de-emphasize or shut down a number of other services, including photos, podcasts and a largely unsuccessful social network.” Now, I’d like to think Flickr is deemed successful and profitable. If Yahoo (the parent to Flickr) is not performing well, assuming they see Flickr as a huge customer base with massive potential, will theyRead more
Photography is not always about the equipment (and Photofriday)
Occasionally we all need reminders that photography is not only about equipment. We spend thousands of dollars getting into the latest dSLR, drop a cool grand on the sharpest “L” series lenses, and go to great lengths to capture the most imaginative images possible. This morning, I received notice that I’ve “won” the photofriday challenge this week. Photofriday is a weekly competition with participants from across the globe. On Friday they release the theme word for the week, “mountain, cold,Read more
Being green under grey skies: environmentally reponsible in Jakarta?
As global warming and environmental concerns sweep across the world, it seems many people have started doing their part. Without realizing, it appears I’ve slowly become part of that crowd. Growing up in the States, my first two cars were 5.0 and 5.7 liter V8 sports cars – gloriously fast. Each got about 15 miles per gallon when I wasn’t getting into trouble. When I left the States in 2002, gas was around $1.50 / gallon – in 2001 itRead more
Too much to say = nothing to say
Ironically, I’ve started composing this long winded exotic description of our experiences at Angkor Wat. In doing so, I’ve completely avoided posting anything else. So, for now in order to get back to posting some writing, I’ll put that post aside. When I have the most to say, I end up saying nothing. It’s been a very tough time deciding whether to remain in Indonesia for yet another year or not. To be honest, this was the closest I’ve everRead more