May Thoughts

Strange weather of late: much rain last week, plus the hail of Friday (hail, thunderstorm, wind, sun, clouds… a little bit of everything).

FC’s performance yesterday: great job! 😉 In fact, everybody did a great job. The “show” gave some food for thought too.

Saw “Da Vinci Code” the movie. It wasn’t as bad as the professional critics make it seem like. I never thought the book was that great, so it’s not like the movie had a fantastic source to work from. But, it was a good popcorn movie. I’d recommend seeing it. Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou brought some more humanity to their characters than the book did (author Dan Brown’s strength is not character development, so far as I could tell), although I thought the bittersweet end was more bittersweet than the book; plus, I do wonder if Tom Hanks’ Prof. Robert Langdon could have been different as a young male character. Oh, and Sir Ian McKellen – good fun he was! Alfred Molina and Paul Bettany – well, they played characters you had to hate in the book, and the feeling was still the same for the movie. But, Molina gave some kindness to his character. Bettany – well, geez, you’re an albino hitman. You can’t really expand much more than that.

The series finale of the WB show “Charmed” – was a lovely ending for all the trials and tribulations that the three Charmed Sisters have been through. I still don’t quite buy the endings for Phoebe and Paige, but nice that Piper finally has her happy ending.

The tv networks have announced their schedules for next year (to get the advertisers’ attention). The new CW has decided not to renew “Everwood” but renew “Seventh Heaven” (even though WB promoted “Seventh Heaven”‘s last episode as a series finale? Morons!)

Fly away ..

Catching up on some blogging now at the Dynasty Lounge in Jakarta international airport before heading back to TPE.  Been on the road now for 8 days, KUL -> SIN -> CGK (Jakarta Airport code).  Glad to have missed the Typhoon up north but the weather down here has not been normal either.  Lots of rain in the early and late mornings.  In Malaysia, flash floods due to heavy rains is a real danger on the road.  Hills around the KL -> Ipoh -> Penang highway get washed away forcing the road crews to rebuild around the clock.  Making it harder is the fact that the soil around Malayia is soft redish sand/clay like substance.

It’s a lot of work traveling getting to know people and learning what’s going on.  Met a few really nice and smart people.  Impressed with the folks here in the Jakarta office.  Wish I had them.  Team and relationship building along with skills development are the driving forces now. 

What I haven’t figured out yet is that although it’s only 1.5 hours away from Singapore, Why is Jakarta an hour behind?  I’ll have to take a look at the map again.  I thought they’d be in the same window.

Jakarta is a city of 11 million people, sprawling megapolis and quite beautiful, even though areas of it area quite poor.  In between Manila/Makati City Philippines, and KL.  Food delicious and the people here are just so warm, friendly and welcoming.  Refreshing compared to Taiwan despite the Taiwanese reputation for being friendly people.  My colleagues took me to Hotel Borobudur Jakarta which is famous for its oxtail delicacies and boy, it didn’t disappoint.  I’d love to come back again soon.

Not-so-looking forward to a busy travel schedule the next 6 weeks.  I’ll be headed back to HK a couple of times, KL again, London, Singapore again.  In between I’ll have to find time to move.

Ouch.

Happy trails folks and be well!