Browsing tag archive life log

The salkwater-soaked Blackberry and Blackberry City’s repair service

So my Blackberry had been hospitalized in Blackberry City Denpasar since beginning of January. And since I am a man of one phone, I had no backup phone and I was reduced to my old phone when it was hospitalized.

The day the berry got admitted, the staff said that “The repairman’s not in, so we can’t process this immediately. He will come in on Monday“. I said okay and they took my berry. Naturally, I called on Monday to ask if there was any news of it.

“The repairman extended his holiday and he’s not here yet.”

“When will he be HERE?”

“We will call you as soon as he’s here and check your berry, sir.”

“… okay.”

By that time I sensed something weird, do they have only ONE repairman and he could extend his holiday as delicious as his belly button?
And then three days go by, I called again.

“The repairman is still checking your phone, we still can’t tell if it’s still repairable or not.”

“Okay, when will you be able to tell if it can be repaired or not?”

“We’re not sure, we’ll call you as soon as we have a clue.”

And of course, a week went by and they never called back. How come it took THAT long just to check if the phone can be repaired or not? Hardware gurus, help me out here. I started to get impatient when they still haven’t called in a week, so I called them again. This time they told me to call back in 3 days, said nothing about any progress.

After 3 days, I called back again and the response I got was pretty standard, “We will let you know when we have news on it, it’s in process right now“. But when I asked what process, repairing or just checking if it can be saved, no answer. I started regretting why on earth did I go here to repair the berry. Yes there are other service centers but this was the biggest one around. Apparently biggest doesn’t mean best.

When I bought the Hero to replace to berry, I cut them some slack. I wanted to know how long would it take for them to call me back. One full month after the admission day, still no phone call, I even checked the receipt if they got my number right, which they did. Day by day went by, still no effing phone call. Now it was more than a month already without a single fucking phone call.

So this was my limit, and I was ready to go there to drop the bomb on them. I wanted to know why it took almost 2 months just to diagnose if my phone was repairable or not.. and they still haven’t figured it out. Either the repairman was dumb or he hadn’t even touched my phone, I suspected the both. I went there, and before I could say anything I was told that my phone was beyond repair.

Bummer.

“And why did it take almost 2 months just to come up with this?”, I asked.

No answer. My blackberry spent almost 2 months in their hands, and the only thing they could diagnose was that it’s beyond repair. Just that, no other information. The customer service girl looked so dumb I couldnt even begin to utter any words to protest, afraid that she wouldn’t understand anything I said. So I took my berry and just left.

Perhaps it’s better off if I fix it in Jakarta tomorrow. No, definitely.

Trip to Bedugul and Jimbaran

I wrote a kickass opening paragraph but I decided to replace it with this few brief awkward words because the previous words were a bit.. provocative. Anyway, I went on a trip a few days ago.

Kebun Raya Eka Karya - Bedugul

The destination was Bedugul and.. wait for it.. Jimbaran. It’s like half-a-Bali away, dood, but since I am a very good friend I drove my buddies where they wanted to go. The participants were Gunsou san, Kupit and miss Kupit’s girlfriend.

Kupit and miss Kupit's girlfriend

Yep, you guessed that one right. Me and Gunsou san were a third and fourth wheel.

Kebun Raya Eka Karya Bedugul (I bet some of you didn’t know this official name) was awesome as usual, I needed the fresh oxygen after a full month of breathing my room’s not-so-fresh air. I’ve always liked that particular spot in Kebun Raya, you know that hill overseeing the Beratan lake. Nothing new tho, move along now.

Padang Padang Beach

Awesome terrain, eh?

Next stop was Padang Padang Beach, Uluwatu. For those who have been to Bali but never been there, I urge you to visit this site next time. Awesome shallow clear water on white sand and fine looking hanging cliffs, this place is far better than Kuta beach. The fact that not many people visit this place contributes to the serene atmosphere.

Sold? Good.

Cafe Matahari Jimbaran

Last stop was dinner at Cafe Matahari, Jimbaran. Yes yes I know, common sight in Bali, people dining by the beach and so on. But believe it or not, that was only my second time dining in a beachfront restaurant. First time was a couple of years ago when I almost barfed at my friend’s face when he talked to me while eating some sea creature.

The food was okay, the drinks were awesome but the service was a bit disappointing tho. A waiter actually raised his voice tone at one point when we asked why our prawn was not served yet. What a douche. But we wasn’t going to let that douche ruin our night so we decided to be merry instead. Perhaps those cocktails I ordered help too..

Cafe Matahari’s verdict: 7 out of 10.

It’s a bit pricey for food that taste quite usual, not that I was expecting unusual food, mind you. The place was great, on account of the dinner table being set on the beach. And the traditional Balinese dance performance was just another performance to me, but I bet it’d be mindblasting if you’ve never seen it before.

Whoa, when did this blog post turn into a restaurant review? I sidetracked, dammit. Anyhoo, the trip was awesome. Next time let’s bring more people and an inflatable bed. Huzzah, anima over and out.

With and without Blackberry

In October 2009, I bought a Blackberry and I was very happy with it. It gave me the freedom of being mobile and the opportunity to stay online and attend to clients in timely manner. When it comes to connectivity, push email and IM services, Blackberry is the best one you can opt right now.

I made the most of my Blackberry, I traveled a lot and stayed online most of the time on work IM. Personal IMs, not so much. Anyway, the point is, I could be reached anytime. Not nomad like before where I move from cafe to cafe, but I can actually do stuffs like eating out with friends and play billiard every now and then while still can response to incoming work.

That’s where I went wrong.

Me and the Blackberry

Me and the Blackberry

You see, working nomad is one thing, but working mobile is a totally different thing. I wasted too many times being on the road and doing stuffs without actually getting things done. I always end up responding to a work inquiry instantly but ending up posting a task on my todo list so I remember to finish them before end of the day.

Most of you might (or might not) have heard that I bathed my Blackberry in Sanur Beach’s salt water after the NYE celebration. The Blackberry is in repair now, so I have been using the old SonyEricsson w910i for 3 weeks already now.

Now that I’m not on Blackberry, I have to stay at home to work because I don’t want to work nomad anymore. While it is true that I miss being able to connect at will, I also find this as a blessing in disguise. Now that I’m chained to my desk I get more things done. Take these for example.

So I guess now it is safe to say that I can survive without Blackberry, probably won’t be getting another Blackberry for replacement later.

Oh and working from home is awesome, or this is just me getting older.

What did you do on 31st/1st?

I went to Klapa Dreamland with friends and the girlfriend.

me @ Klapa, Dreamland

The fireworks rocked, that had to be the biggest fireworks works I’ve ever seen. New Year celebration on Klapa was a blast, the place was awesome and there was no traffic jam on the way there. Getting a parking spot sucked there, and it took quite a while to order drinks but hey what do you expect from a full club at NYE?

Me and girlfriend @ Klapa

We partied until rain poured around 3am and we went to grab supper. The guys then dropped me and the girlfriend early morning at Sanur beach and then I went to Nusa Lembongan for a full day. Blast blast!

Beach!

The next day I went back to town and went on a trip to Amuk Bay with Gunsou and the guys. We played watersports at Odyssey, that place was awesome. For you non-swimmers, watersports on Oddyssey are really safe. I myself can’t swim but I survived the whole thing :D

@ Amuk Bay

@ Amuk Bay

I even went snorkeling! Ha!
Included in the pack were banana boat ride, snorkeling, canoe ride, donut ride, boogie ride etc and lunch buffet. I tried everything but the donut ride because I heard it hurts the ass.

So uh, what did you do?

2009 flashbacks

What other ways could be better to remember what I did on 2009 other than checking my blog archive? Can’t think of any right now, so I’m reading my own blog posts of 2009 while giggling because I was a silly guy.

I started 2009 by moving into an office/workspace in Renon, Denpasar. The first website we designed there was our very own website, divdsgn.com. This was when me and the boys rebranded ourselves as the divdsgn team.

We went on taking new projects thanks to our dear clients’ word of mouth advertising, it’s good to know people were starting to recognize us as web developers. Also, we started working with an Australian based real estate website developer on some really interesting websites.

Work on Trippert has also been wondrous this year, I’ve learned so many things during working on some projects with the guys over there at BD lab.

Whoa that was heavy, on to the love life then.

Me and the girlfriend have been together for over a year now, and 2009 was an awesome year for us. Due to the nature of our relationship – the LDR – we traveled quite a lot this year. Every couple of months I visit her to Jakarta, and every alternate couple of months she visits me here in Bali. Granted, one time we got bored with the 2 towns and decided to just meet in the middle. That was the time we went to Yogyakarta during the Easter holiday.

Next we’re planning to go to more places, including Gili and of course the near-future-destination: Singapore. Yay!

But that’s still a few months ahead. Now I’m just going to be excited because she’s coming over for the new year and we’re escaping to an island.

While we’re on the personal life part, I’ll share a bit about the part when I moved out from a goddamned garage to a real house.

At the same time I also applied for (so called) broadband internet on Global Extreme, so I finally settled at home again. I’m a home worker now, I rarely go out anymore unless it’s to see clients. In fact I’m writing this post now on the couch-potato pose :D

In the beginning of this year I was using the trusty SonyEricsson w900i and I thought I was never going to get rid of it. But then halfway through the year I was tempted to use a Windows Mobile device: HTC Diamond. That phone rocked, specially with the Garmin GPS navigation installed in there. It helped me and the girlfriend when we were lost driving around in Bandung.

But then a couple of months later the need to stay online rose. I started to need push email and gtalk badly, so finally I got a BlackBerry. Oh, right, thanks to the berry I now have a 365 project: a photo a day – http://anima365.tumblr.com/

Hmm.. what else did I do this year.. oh right, I spent one night at the airport!

The very idea of spending the night on the airport was stupid, specially because it’s in Soekarno Hatta, but I met some interesting friends and I learned a lot about traveling. I guess I really really have to travel soon, I’m missing out a lot!

And last night I had a little get together with the high school guys, BBQ night.

Which ended up with some of us boys went to Kuta beach to have a couple of beers and just chat.. and broke some fences, srsly.

Yeah I guess that’s about it, my 2009 so far. I’m guessing there will be more highlights happening on the year end itself because Nana is coming to town, but that deserves another blog post :)

Merry Christmas and have a rocking New Year party, guys!