Rainy Rainy Day

It has been rainy almost non-stop the last two days. So, I have been camped in front of the computer playing with Photoshop. The above photos are some samples of what I was playing with....the actions from panoFX...

The internet has been down for the last two days too because of an earth quake off of Taiwan damaging underwater cables. For some reason, I am able to connect here at school, but cannot access any sites from the states from home. Maybe the school connection is via satelite. The Jakarta Post said that service will not be restored for at least another three to four weeks. Arggggh.

I am off to Papua on Sunday, so there will be no blog updates until I return the following Sunday....then Tika, Kayla and I will be headed to Bali.

The Day After

Last night, Dad and I were able to video chat for the first time from Pennsylvania to Indonesia. That was way cool. At least we now know it can be done.

After chatting, I did some browsing through some of my favorite sites and came across some free actions by panosFX.com where I got the plasma TV action to create the TV above. Cool, heh? There are some other cool actions too that I will be playing with the next few days.

Today was golf. I shot a 92 today. Not bad considering many putts were left just short....if only they had dropped....well, you know the story. The skies were so clear up in the mountains, we could see all the way to the city of Jakarta. Amazing views of Mount Salak...a great day all around.

Christmas Afternoon

At 11:30 this morning, we all packed into the car to head to the Four Seasons Hotel downtown for an incredible brunch with our friends the Sietsma's and Murnane's. It was one of the best I have ever seen, and of course, we all went back n' forth to the food tables for third and fourth helpings with a different theme for each round. A bread-cheese-fruit round, a beef wellington-turkey-potatoes round, an omlette-bacon-sushi round, a pasta-tacos-salad round, and a huge desert round. Needless to say, I left feeling like the New Year Blimp. Kayla fell asleep as soon as she hit the car seat, and Tika and I came home and crashed on the couch for a much needed nap. Aint vacation great?

I am hoping to connect with my family at home tonight...Mom and Dad, Pam and Mike, Kathleen and Steve....if you are reading this, how about connecting on-line at around 9:00 or so???

Christmas Morning

Believe it or not, we were able to sleep-in until 9:30 this morning. Kayla could wait no more, though, and the opening of presents commenced soon after waking up. It took only 20 minutes to rip through all the presents, and we even opened just one at a time. Kayla loved every one of her presents, but her favorite was the clothes Mei Mei sent and the shoes Mommy bought her. Figures.

Tika's favorite was the new cell phone I bought her, and in a very close second, the earings that Mom and Dad sent. You done good, Mom and Dad!!

Scott's favorite was the new golf club (opened earlier in the month). You know you are getting old when the presents for Dad become underwear and socks...I have reached that age. I am going to the camera store later this week to get a late Christmas present for myself...Tika insisted....seriously.

Christmas Eve-Eve Shopping

You would think living in a Muslim country, shopping the day before Christmas Eve would be no problem in terms of crowds....WRONG. Man, you wouldn't believe the zoo at the mall last night. I guess there are more Christians than one would think in Jakarta...at least those who celebrate Christmas.

I just needed to get one thing for Tika, so I thought a quick trip to the mall.....yea, right. I left at 5:30 in the afternoon, and didn't get home until after 9:00. This is a mall that is only 10 minutes from our house. First, it took over 30 minutes to get there...traffic nightmare. Then, the parking.....oh the parking....OVER ONE HOUR weaving through illegally parked cars in the four floors of the underground parking garage. Talk about a nightmare. Then the shopping. I don't think anyone was in their home last night...the entire city of Jakarta was stuffed into the Pondok Indah Mall...unreal.

Anyway, I haven't left the house ALL day today (Christmas Eve). After last night, I think I will just camp at home. We will walk across the street to Chris and Indah's house tonight for dinner...shouldn't be any traffic.

Let The Vacation Begin

Finally, we are on vacation. Jakarta and work start to get on your nerves after some time, and it is always nice to have this three week break to recharge the batteries and to get away from it all for awhile. I started my vacation with a round of golf with some good friends. We had the entire course to ourselves, and I was hitting the ball well....all makes for that perfect day.

Today, we joined four other families for a visit to the newly opened water park. Kayla had a blast, but didn't like it much when water got on her face. I need to train her better as I am hoping she will be my dive buddy when she gets older. The park was ok, but it would be a complete nightmare on the weekend...good thing we went on a week day.

I mailed a couple of packages yesterday before golf. They will not make it to the states by Christmas, so Mom, Kathleen and Pam, you will have a late Christmas present to open...that can be nice, right?

Putting Our Heads Together

The day started out butting heads. I arrived at school to find someone parked in my spot. We teachers value are small plot of real estate in the parking lot, and when someone trespasses onto our small plot of land, we get angry. The wrong parking spot caused a chain reaction...someone parked in spot 31, so 31 parked in my spot, so I parked in 34's spot, and 34 had to park somewhere.....and it went on and on. The damage that is done by one can cause lots of trespassing calls.

My day did get better though. Dad and I had a chat via my iMAC, and were able to put our heads together to solve my music problem for the slide show I am giving tomorrow for the closing assembly at school. I really wanted the song from the Christmas video I made a few years ago. Across the ocean to the other side of the world, in a matter of minutes (maybe seconds), Dad passed the song to me, and it is now part of my slide show. Is that amazing or what? Can you imagine doing that just 10 years ago?

In other news, JIS had it's December graduation tonight. There were three graduates. I was tasked to take photos, so I set up the nice studio lights. The Japanese mothers were over the top with happiness that I was there to get photos of the three kids and their families. It was a nice ceremony, and some very moving speeches were made by the kids giving praise to their teachers, friends and family. Ayaka spoke of her love of music and how JIS changed her life...it was really a moving speech. Once again, the kids at this school never cease to amaze me.....they are truly great kids.

Ribs and EPL

Saturday nights are reserved for the English Premier League Soccer games. I have been transformed into a fan. In the past, I was always frustrated when turning on the TV to watch sports...hoping to see some American sports, Soccer was usually the only choice. When I went to parties, all my good friends would sit around and talk about soccer. So, this year, I asked my friend, Jurrien (the soccer king of JIS) if I could join his EPL Fantasy Soccer league. My goal was to learn something about the game, learn about the players, and try to enjoy watching it on TV since it was nearly my only choice of sports. Well, my goal has been reached. I am hooked. Every Saturday morning, I sit at my computer for a couple of hours reading all the latest gossip about soccer...who is hot who is not, who is injured, who might be playing, what teams are playing eachother, etc....then, I start buying and selling my players. It is very addictive, and alot of fun.

On Saturday nights, we try to all get together to watch the games, make fun of eachother's trades, make some side bets, cheer when our guys score, and yell out bad words when a guy that we traded scores. Last night was the first night we were ALL able to meet. Chris served ribs and beer, and that was enough to attract all of us to his place to watch the games. Don't worry, I would still rather sit and watch American football, college ball, baseball and golf....but at least now, I have another sport that is dominant in this part of the world to watch.....if you can't beat them, join them.

Early Christmas Present

Dad gave me permission. I had a golf game up at Rancamaya, so just had to bring my new club with me. I let Kayla have the honors of opening my present. She was as shocked as I was to see a new hybrid club from Dad....wow, so THAT'S what was in the box...I had no idea.

Well, Rancamaya was awesome. It is up in the mountains set in the most beautiful location. The first hole looks straight at the volcano, Mount Salak. The t-box is set up on top of a cliff, and you smack the ball off a tee to the fairway down below about three to four hundred feet....it is really cool. The second shot leaves you about 150 yards or so to the green protected by a small lake on the right and bunkers to the left. I took out my new hybrid, and launched a beautiful shot right onto the green. I was hooked to that club the rest of the round. However, Dad is right, you must swing slowly and smoothly or the club misbehaves....which happened a couple of times, but overall, I loved the club. Thanks Dad.

Drastic Measures

Sometimes, as a leader of men, drastic measures must be taken. My fellow bloggers, whose very links rest on this page to the right, were not being good soldiers of a blognian nation, so were given verbal warnings. They have since updated their blogs, and are now in the good graces of their leader. Keep up the good work, Comrades.

Panoramic Photo

The night before UN Day, I had an idea of a great photograph. Why not get all the flag bearers to pose for a photo, and then make a huge panoramic photo, and hang it somewhere in school...what better way to represent an international school? So, I set up my camera on a tri-pod, arranged the 47 kids in a circle around me, and then used string to keep them all equi-distant from my tri-pod. I took 38 vertical RAW photos overlapping a kid in each photo, and then stitched them together in Photoshop for one continuous panoramic photo. When I was done, the file was 1.7 gigabytes in size, and when printed, it would be two feet high and TWENTY feet long. The next step was to find a printer able to print a photo of this size, and then mount it, and hang it. I called my good friend, Deniek, a Balinese photographer who lives in Jakarta. He told me that the EPSON software for his large format printer could only handle files up to a certain pixel dimension, and my photo was way over. SO, we were able to lower the resolution enough to get into the range of the software, and at the same time, keep the photograph at photo quality....the quality came out fantastic, and there is no way you could tell that it was printed at 200 dpi instead of the standard 300 dpi for most photos. The guys came to school yesterday, built a custom frame for the photo, and then the school carpenters hung the photo. It now is displayed proudly in the high school office.

Just A Cute Photo

I really don't have anything to report, but thought this was a really cute photo of Kayla, so there.

We are two days into the exam period. I am almost finished with the grading of my Pre-calc exams, and then have another stack of Senior Math exams to grade. It is not very exciting, and I was struggling to keep my eyes open at one point. The only thing exciting today was the arrival of the 20 foot panoramic photo I made. It is now hung in the high school office, and I think it is way cool. I will get a photo of it tomorrow, and post it on the blog.