Late August in Indonesia means Ramadan. Ramadan means fasting from sunrise to sunset. At sunset, roughly 6 PM, everyone wants to be home with their family to break fast. This means they leave work at the same time I do. Thanks to the extra traffic, my five mile commute went from a twenty minute drive to a two hour drive. It's this time of year I finish two or three books per week.
August also means our daughter has returned to school. She is still at the age where this is an exciting proposition. Learning is fun for her. I really hope that never changes.
Our traveling is done now until we return to the US for a few weeks in October. We're taking advantage of the lull in travel to be more active. My wife and I have a bet. The loser is required to get up early with the kids both days on the weekends until the end of the year. The bet: who can run the most kilometers in 30 days. She has far more time available to run than do I, but I run at a 50% faster pace (8kph vs 12kph), so I think it is a fair bet. After five days, I'm in the lead by .25 km.
Finally, I need to get back to the golf instructor. I was hitting the ball very well, just slicing right. Yesterday, I went back to the range and couldn't hit the ball to save my life. I even broke the head off my driver! Now I need to replace a club I never really used. Hopefully, my instructor can determine what bad habit I've picked up.
I need to load some pictures. I'll do that tomorrow.
Showing posts with label golfing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label golfing. Show all posts
Monday, August 23, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Rain, Golfing, and Lifestyle Games
It looks like July 2010 will be my least productive blogging month since our arrival in Jakarta. I think that is because we're at the "been there, done that" phase. I've already documented our life, our lifestyle, and what it is like living in Jakarta. We're doing more of the same.
The rainy season in Jakarta, in theory, starts in November and ends in April. We had so little rain during the rainy season, I kept asking when it started. This year, meteorologists announced it officially ended in June, not April. It's rained nearly every day since they made that announcement. I think they may have it backwards.
Our company Olympics are underway again. Last year, I participated in the golfing and bowling events. I took first place in bowling, helping my team finish first. My scramble partner and I placed second in the golf scramble, helping my team finish first. Overall, my team finished in first place. This year, my new team is expecting the same production from me. Sunday, we had the golf event. My scramble partner was our CFO. I haven't played golf since our event last year, though I did take a lesson and have spent several days at the driving range. I hit the ball very well. Probably lowered my handicap by 10 strokes. My partner and I finished second (I have the trophy to prove it). The other scramble for our team finished in first, so, once again, my team won the golf event. Now I just have to bowl well next week and I will cement my legacy.
Our daughter, like myself, is addicted to sweets. We want to break her from that, but it's difficult when daddy is always eating a chocolate cookie or ice cream after dinner. She also prefers watching cartoons to doing something active. Sweets and inactivity are not good health partners. To help with the situation, we have invented a lifestyle game. Using a poster board, we made three columns: Fruits and Veggies, Mental Exercise, Exercise. Each day she eats fruits and veggies, does a learning activity (or attends school) or exercises (like riding her bike, or playing at the park), she earns a sticker in the appropriate category. Once she has five in each category, I take her out for ice cream. It's still early in this experiment, so we don't know yet if it is effective.
Did I mention my mother-in-law is visiting? Yep. One month. This marks the third visit in 17 months. The eighth family member visit in 17 months. Doing the math: 17 months away from Phoenix, subtract one month for Europe and two months for living in Singapore = 14 months. Eight visits for roughly one month each, means we've been on our own in Jakarta for a total of six months. So why do we still miss home?
The rainy season in Jakarta, in theory, starts in November and ends in April. We had so little rain during the rainy season, I kept asking when it started. This year, meteorologists announced it officially ended in June, not April. It's rained nearly every day since they made that announcement. I think they may have it backwards.
Our company Olympics are underway again. Last year, I participated in the golfing and bowling events. I took first place in bowling, helping my team finish first. My scramble partner and I placed second in the golf scramble, helping my team finish first. Overall, my team finished in first place. This year, my new team is expecting the same production from me. Sunday, we had the golf event. My scramble partner was our CFO. I haven't played golf since our event last year, though I did take a lesson and have spent several days at the driving range. I hit the ball very well. Probably lowered my handicap by 10 strokes. My partner and I finished second (I have the trophy to prove it). The other scramble for our team finished in first, so, once again, my team won the golf event. Now I just have to bowl well next week and I will cement my legacy.
Our daughter, like myself, is addicted to sweets. We want to break her from that, but it's difficult when daddy is always eating a chocolate cookie or ice cream after dinner. She also prefers watching cartoons to doing something active. Sweets and inactivity are not good health partners. To help with the situation, we have invented a lifestyle game. Using a poster board, we made three columns: Fruits and Veggies, Mental Exercise, Exercise. Each day she eats fruits and veggies, does a learning activity (or attends school) or exercises (like riding her bike, or playing at the park), she earns a sticker in the appropriate category. Once she has five in each category, I take her out for ice cream. It's still early in this experiment, so we don't know yet if it is effective.
Did I mention my mother-in-law is visiting? Yep. One month. This marks the third visit in 17 months. The eighth family member visit in 17 months. Doing the math: 17 months away from Phoenix, subtract one month for Europe and two months for living in Singapore = 14 months. Eight visits for roughly one month each, means we've been on our own in Jakarta for a total of six months. So why do we still miss home?
Saturday, December 26, 2009
The natives are restive
It's been a nervous week for anyone with a quick anxiety trigger. In Papua, where we have our mine site, Indonesian police killed Kelly Kwalik, the purported leader of the Papuan Freedom Organization. Many believe he was the mastermind behind the recent killings and other mayhem around our mine site earlier in the year. After his death, many Papuans began to strike and/or demonstrate. We received security alerts advising us to avoid Timika, the small town containing the airport we fly into when visiting our site, due to potentially unsafe activity.
Then came the reports of increased security at Christian churches throughout Indonesia. For those of us who are new to the area, this was a bit surprising. I view Indonesia as a well blended melting pot of religious tolerance. Indonesia celebrates holidays from four religions and companies and employees alike have, by all accounts, displayed nothing but respect for religious differences. So, when I first read about enhanced security, I was concerned that something new must be raising alarms. Nope. This is fairly common practice and has occurred since at least 2001, from what I've read.
Like any normal person, when confronted with this information I decided to work on my golf game. The last two weekends I've spent Saturday mornings at a local driving range. My first outing was horrible. Today's actually went pretty well. I felt good when I finished hitting a round of 100 balls (hopefully I won't hit that many on the course).
Driving ranges in Jakarta are a little different than those in the US. The one I chose to visit, like many in the US, is not attached to a golf course and has two storeys. I was surprised to find that they also had caddies to take my clubs from the car to my reserved tee. More surprising was how they collect the balls. I'm accustomed to seeing a small, motorized vehicle that resembles a lawn-mower driving around the range collecting the balls. Here, several men wearing construction helmets and dressed in what look like large, heavily padded rain coats that hang to mid-calf wander around kicking the balls into several piles. Then a different man comes along with a large ball scoop and collects the balls for delivery to the tees. Instead of one person driving a machine, they have roughly 15 people running around in padded suits. When labor is cheaper than innovation, innovation doesn't occur.
Then came the reports of increased security at Christian churches throughout Indonesia. For those of us who are new to the area, this was a bit surprising. I view Indonesia as a well blended melting pot of religious tolerance. Indonesia celebrates holidays from four religions and companies and employees alike have, by all accounts, displayed nothing but respect for religious differences. So, when I first read about enhanced security, I was concerned that something new must be raising alarms. Nope. This is fairly common practice and has occurred since at least 2001, from what I've read.
Like any normal person, when confronted with this information I decided to work on my golf game. The last two weekends I've spent Saturday mornings at a local driving range. My first outing was horrible. Today's actually went pretty well. I felt good when I finished hitting a round of 100 balls (hopefully I won't hit that many on the course).
Driving ranges in Jakarta are a little different than those in the US. The one I chose to visit, like many in the US, is not attached to a golf course and has two storeys. I was surprised to find that they also had caddies to take my clubs from the car to my reserved tee. More surprising was how they collect the balls. I'm accustomed to seeing a small, motorized vehicle that resembles a lawn-mower driving around the range collecting the balls. Here, several men wearing construction helmets and dressed in what look like large, heavily padded rain coats that hang to mid-calf wander around kicking the balls into several piles. Then a different man comes along with a large ball scoop and collects the balls for delivery to the tees. Instead of one person driving a machine, they have roughly 15 people running around in padded suits. When labor is cheaper than innovation, innovation doesn't occur.
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