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Wow, it’s been almost 7 months since my last post. Quite a few things have happened since then. Here’s a minor update on that:

• The kids seem to have adjusted fine to Indonesia, except that sometimes they get sick from the pollution and food. Although recently, their immune system seems to have kicked in and so don’t get sick as often.
• I’m helping out a friend of mine with his IT projects. A couple of them are on the go with a few more on the horizon, so got some income right now. We’ll see what happens next year. I’m not really interested in finding a job in Indonesia because I wanted to do something on my own and due to this next reason:
• Traffic jams !!!. Everybody already knows how bad Jakarta’s traffic is, but you really have to experience it yourself to appreciate the madness of it all. Imagine traffic at 9 PM on a Sunday; and that’s just the mild case. Try going out anywhere between working hours until 9 PM on a work day, and you’re pretty much guaranteed a 2 hour trip to and 2 hour back from anywhere.
• I actually lost weight here :). Been working out and running the treadmill every other day for the last few months and dropped like 8 kg’s. The last 2 weeks have been no workout week because of the projects that I’m working on. But I’m trying to continue this pattern for the near future.

Will try posting more regularly from now on. Don’t know if anybody’s still reading, but oh well, just a place to pour my thoughts.

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Hello everyone, I’ve arrived safely in Jakarta last Thursday. Didn’t manage to get internet until a few days later. The journey from Toronto to Jakarta was quite interesting to say the least, here’s some of the highlights:

- Trying to check in 7 luggages was quite a pain. Air Canada only allows 23 kg per baggage, no matter that we were connecting on their Star Alliance Partner, Singapore Airlines which allows 32 kgs per baggage. Hence, a rush at the airport, stuffing 2 bags until the limit and paying an extra CAD $70 for it.
- Plane was delayed from Toronto – Newark by 1/2 hour or so, and yet we arrived ahead of schedule, go figure.
- Couldn’t get the seating arrangement we wanted because there were only 2 bassinets on the plane, and there was another family with baby. We ended up sitting in a row for 3 and founda another space somewhere at the back (not a full flight).
- Plane was delayed by 1 1/2 hours from Newark – Singapore. With 2 kids due for their sleep, that was quite tiring. So the 18.5 hours supposed total travel time was increased to about 20 hours in plane.
- Luckily the seats in SQ21′s Executive Economy class can recline quite far and has footrests that can come up horizontal to the seat. My 1 year old could be put to bed there, and was quite ok with it.
- The flight was quite nice, lots of snacks in the counter at the small lounge area at the back of the plane. Only 2 meals though, after take off and just before landing, in between there was lots of snacking and cup noodles :).
- Arrived in Singapore late, missed our original plane, had to run to catch our next connecting flight and nearly missed it (last passengers in, gates closing).
- Arrived in Jakarta, told that our luggages were delayed by 1 flight since they couldn’t make it to our flight.
- Found out that 1 of the 7 luggages was lost in limboland. Got it back delivered the next day.

I really expected much worse with 2 kids (the small one also had a cough and cold throughout the trip), but they were great in the plane, slept for the majority of the trip and weren’t too cranky considering the trip we undertook. My older one has adjusted quite well, with lots of toys and playing space in my in-laws place, while the little one was scared silly hearing dogs barking and roosters crowing. He still hasn’t adjusted yet, cries everytime he wakes up (normally he just sleeps and when he wakes up calls out to us) due to the different environment and they both sweat profusely due to the humidity.

Right now we’re trying to find a house and school for my older son, as well as internet connection for me. The speed and prices here are quite ridiculous, most of the cable/ADSL that are “high-speed” here are a max of 384 Kbps down and 64 Kb up for about $80 USD.

Still not sure what I’ll be doing here, but it does seem opportunities abound. Just have to find the right ones.

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It’s time to say goodbye to everyone in Toronto, Canada. Tomorrow, myself along with my wife and kids will be flying over to Indonesia where we’ll be starting our new life. I’m feeling a whole bunch of feelings right now, sad for leaving my parents, brothers and Church family here where we grew, scared about not knowing what to do in Indo, as well as excited about what opportunities lie ahead there. Indo is a big unknown for me right now, having to start a new life in a new country (albeit one I grew up in) and not knowing when I can see my family here again has really put tons of stress on me.

But now that the time has come to finally go and move on, I believe deep in my heart that God has sent me there for a purpose and that no matter how big the challenges ahead, He’ll still be there for me and give me strength to carry on. Leaving Canada, my comfort zone, might be very hard, but I’m sure I’ll manage to adapt to my new surroundings and build on the family and career there.

With that said, I’ll be leaving tomorrow with tears of sorrow; and until that joyful time when a reunion is possible, farewell Toronto and everybody we know here, and hello Jakarta

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It’s 2007 already, time flies as they say. We’re moving back to Indonesia on the 23rd of January, so still in the middle of packing up everything and selling/throwing out unused goods. It’s going to be a new chapter in our lives, and with it comes new challenges to overcome.

I still haven’t coped with the sad fact that I’ll be leaving my parents and brothers (again), as I’m not sure when I’ll see them again, and venturing into a new and unknown situation in Indo will be tough, especially since I’m not sure what I’ll be doing yet to get income. Those are the two main burdens I have right now leading to the departure from Toronto.

Even so, I’m excited to go and see what’s going to happen. Here’s hoping that 2007 will be a great year and blessed for everyone.

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Well, it’s been just over 9 months since I’ve done anything for a career. At the moment I’m just stuck as to what I plan on doing in the future. Some of the options I’m considering:

Investing

My top choice really, even though I don’t have much experience in it. There are a couple of investments that I’ve been looking at which seem pretty good as a source of income. One is investing in EPSI Canada, which does processing of Interac, cashback and Mastercard (basically swiped transactions). The investor gets to purchase the terminals, and they do all the maintenance, as well as guarantee a minimum number of transactions per month (24% ROI per year – which is written in contract). I’m currently looking at the contract agreement, trying to find a lawyer to view it and trying to call the references that they’ve provided. It seems a pretty good deal if I can get a steady income from this while in Indonesia, so I can concentrate on doing something else.

The other investment opportunity which has come up is a company in Indonesia where one of my friends works and has shares. He’s offered me to invest in a new spin-off of the company or the current parent company where his investment has grown 750% within the last 5 years.

The issue with these 2 of course is the capital, I’ll need quite a bit of money to invest on these, which means we won’t be able to buy a house in Indo for now. One solution I’m thinking of is getting a secured line of credit from a bank and use it for the investment. We’ll see how that goes since getting a secured line of credit doesn’t seem so easy after all.

Back to the workforce

My second option of course is the easiest, whether here in Canada or back in Indonesia. Back to doing development, systems analysis, programming, database etc. The problem with this is that I’m not sure I really enjoy it anymore and I’m 9 months behind on technology anyway. Going back to this means I have to find some specific niche that I truly enjoy such as Web Development or I”m just gonna find it dragging away again. Doing this in Indo also means mediocre pay and hardly worth the effort.

This was a subject that I had interest in awhile back: Project Management. Being involved in projects (specifically IT ones), dealing with people most of the time, new technologies, managing and yet not having to get down to the nitty-gritty stuff sounds like quite an enjoyable thing to do. Of course the stumbling block is that I don’t have the experience nor certification to get started in the field.

Work from home

Something I’m really serious on, especially if the investment in point 1 above can produce enough income. The 2 main culprits being online day/swing trading and playing poker professionally.

I’ve tried online day/swing trading with limited success (well, almost no success in financial terms ), and yet I keep thinking that if I persist in studying all the variables, charts, patterns et.all , I’ll be really good at this. During the times I traded with full concentration and no distractions, I managed to gain good profit. But since there was only a short period of time in a day I could do this (no more than 30 minutes, due to a toddler rampaging the house and a newborn asking for attention ), I tended to get sloppy and made transactions without fully analyzing it, hence lots of losing transactions. Tighter money management and better analysis would probably be necessary for me to be successful here.

Playing professional poker is more an indulgence than anything else. I do enjoy watching those people play on TV, and it seems like fun trying to get in the other person’s head, figuring out what they’re thinking and what they’re gonna do. I haven’t played with real money yet, just play money in Sit & Go’s and online games, enjoying winning quite a bit with (probably) inferior competition. I dunno what it’ll be like playing with professional players, but I sure would like to give it a shot if I get the chance :).

Well, all these options are just confusing the heck out of me. They all have their plus and minuses, and yet none that has a significant edge over the others. So right now, I’m just trying to figure out if I can spring enough money for the investment options, as that seems the best route, after that then maybe I can make a decision on what’s best to do.

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*Life Update*

Well, it’s been almost 2 months since I last posted. Still in Canada at the moment, waiting to sell our condo unit. The original plan was to move sometime early September (ie. NOW ), but after having the unit on the market for 4 months with exactly 1 lowball offer, there has been no indication of when this thing will sell.

So right now, we’re just waiting before moving back to Indonesia. I’m getting quite frustrated since that means I can’t start doing anything yet, while income from EI is quite limited. Been doing almost nothing for 6 months and I’m feeling really really bored and anxious to get moving :). I just hope I don’t have to go through another winter here. The only good thing is that I still get to see my parents and brothers for awhile more, I’m gonna miss them once I go back.

*/Life Update*

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As some of you might know, I’m currently receiving parental benefits after the birth of our second child. The money is ok, but it’s less than half what I was making during work, and it’s not really enough to cover all our expenses for a monthly basis.

I’m allowed to make about CAD $100 per week without getting it deducted from my benefits, so I’m wondering if anybody out there needs a work from home part-time/freelance IT person? I can do ASP / .NET web application development, regular Windows applications, web maintainance, database development, setting up hosting etc etc. Basically, just ask me if you need anything related to IT and I probably can help you out.

Time availability would be 2 – 3 hours per day to work on what I’m hired to do, so if you need me, please give me a shout at darrick [at] darrickrochili.com.

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Man, am I p***ed off at Fedex (Federal Express) right now. Trying to ship my goods overseas, I decided to go with Fedex because the customer rep told me they could do door to door shipment within a week, no problem for quite a reasonable price.

Well, here’s what happened, see if you wouldn’t get enraged by such crappy and idiotic customer service:

- Called in Tuesday to confirm that I wanted to use their service.
- I specifically asked the rep if it’s ok to have the goods not at home, but at public storage, and the driver can ask front desk to call me to come over. She said ok, driver can do that and wait for me since I live so close.
- I asked if there’s a specific time we could arrange for pickup. She replied saying driver needs 2.5 hour window, so I need to be ready within that window of time.
- Agreed to pickup between 4.00 and 6.30 pm next day (Wednesday).
- Wednesday about 5.23 pm, get called from the public storage person, saying truck is entering gate. I rush to my car, get there at 5.30 (passing a Fedex truck at the nearest intersection to storage).
- The public storage person tells me, driver doesn’t want to wait, it’s a waste of time, can’t wait for customer even 1 minute.
- I curse Fedex and call them from my cell, got put on hold for 20 minutes. So I decide to leave a message and drive home.
- Get home, call again, talked to another customer rep. Blames the other rep, saying she shouldn’t have agreed to that. Says that I need to arrange for someone to always be there within 2.5 hours. (Geez… so customer has to suit Fedex and wait 2.5 hours, while they won’t even wait 1 minute for customer to arrive… sounds fair… great job whoever made this decision *sarcastic*). The rep doesn’t even bother to apologize for their mistake (the other rep agreed to this yesterday). I just hang up… too angry.
- My wife who’s a bit calmer decides to call and try arrange something. Finally agree to leave locker open with documentation so that driver just has to be let in and can pick up goods without anybody being there.
- Rep said I need to label boxes with destination address, number of boxes and fill in 1 airway bill for pickup.
- Thursday morning, I call to Fedex to confirm a few fields in the airway bill, and was told my rep that I also needed the Export Form (B13) and Proforma Invoice. (argh.. why couldn’t the rep last night tell me so I could do it earlier)
- Call in again to confirm something within the B13; this time another rep says… no I don’t need a B13 for personal items. (Can’t you guys get along on procedure?)

*** Note: *** Everytime I call in to Fedex (about 4 – 5 times up till now), they ask me what’s in the shipment. I keep telling them it’s personal items, clothing, books, photo albums etc. Each time, they say OK, no problem. You’ll see how this becomes a problem later on.

- So Thursday comes along, no problems it seems, shipment gets picked up by Fedex driver, noting that I might be missing some documentation, but that can be sent later on.
- Thursday afternoon, got a message from Fedex, saying there’s problems with shipment. I need to itemize every single item in the 5 boxes, including materials, country of origin etc. (Oh my God… hundreds pieces of clothing, books and photo albums, and I need to do this – yes, customs requirements, but would be nice to know earlier before boxes were packed….), and that Fedex cannot arrange customs brokerage in Indonesia, ie. I have to find my own.
- I call the rep, saying why the hell didn’t you tell me this beforehand? After calling Fedex so many times, confirming that it’s personal goods, nobody said anything then, so why now when everything’s on the go? What kinda bullshit customer service operation are these guys running? So unprofessional and unfriendly customer service.
- I ask for a discount because of the inconvenience caused, rep says can only give additional $100 max. Ok, so I have to sacrifice 2 working days (approx. 15 hours x my average hourly rate if working $30 = $450), get told lies and more lies about how easy this would be, get angry at Fedex’s idiotic customer service promises, and you only give me another $100 discount????

That’s the story so far. I’ll have to try to get a customs broker in Indonesia just because I have to use Fedex at the moment (well, my goods are at their place, and I’m not gonna go through the hassle of them returning my goods to public storage), but holy crap…. can you believe these large corporations trying to trick customers into buying their service, only to be told later on that there are lots of catches behind their good price and promise?

Update:
Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, they just made me even madder *sigh*. We decided to forget shipping with Fedex because of all the trouble they’ve caused us and request our goods back. Here’s how it went:
- Call in Fedex to ask goods to be shipped back to house address (different than public storage… not gonna wait there for 2.5 hours for delivery truck to arrive. Enough of that the last few days.
- Agent says someone will call back.
- Rep calls, asking if we want goods to be returned to sender? I say yes. She says, will this be charged to the account. *Me rather stunned*.

I’m completely baffled. Are we living in looney world or something? They make all the mistakes, misinforming me and deceiving me saying no problem will occur, that they’ll handle everything etc, after putting me through hell just to get my goods picked up, making non-coordinated errors everywhere, and I GET CHARGED TO GET MY GOODS BACK????????? WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE FEDEX?

Words just escape me at the moment, I’m too enraged by this sheer lunacy of how Fedex. They have no coordination between representatives, mis-inform customers on procedure, documentation and ease of shipment, have no respect for customer time, expect customer to meet their deadlines, and expect the customer to pay for their mistakes. I must be having a nightmare or something. Quick, somebody wake me up before it gets even worse.

Stupid Fedex, crappy service, bad customer service attitude, I just hope one day all small customers like me band together and boycott you guys, to teach you a lesson in customer centric service and satisfaction.

AAaaaaaaAAAGggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !!#%#@!$&@#%&*@$#%*@$*$%$*%
Sooooooo mad right now.

Tags: Fedex, Federal Express, Bad Customer Service

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Well, after months (even years) thinking about buying a notebook, I finally got one. It’s an ASUS A8Jm. Gonna pick it up this afternoon.

I’ll post the details this evening after I get it

Tags: ASUS, Notebook, A8Jm

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