Thirty-five

Had a surprisingly great morning when my wife woke me with a birthday greeting and this yummy strawberry cheese cake.

During our commute to the office we started talking about life and how we should be grateful for all the many blessings we received and a token of my new age I attached an inspiring message my wife gave me. Have a read of it below.

Guide To A Better Life

Points on how to improve your life…

1. Don’t compare your life to others’; You have no idea what their journey is all about.
2. Don’t have negative thoughts of things you cannot control; Instead invest your energy       in the positive present moment.
3. Don’t overdo; keep your limits.
4. Dream more while you are awake.
5. Envy is a waste of time; You already have all you need.
6. Forget issues of the past. Don’t remind your partner of his/her mistakes of the past           that will ruin your present happiness.
7. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don’t hate others.
8. Make peace with your past so it won’t spoil the present.
9. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the       curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will         last a lifetime.
10. Smile and laugh more.
11. You don’t have to win every argument; Agree to disagree.

Ride & grind

Cheryl changes a new strut brace in the 11th episode at Auto System in Pulo Gadung, Jakarta. The old strut brace in the picture below were damaged due to the low ride of the Jazz and the brutal streets of Jakarta.

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Indo drifting

I’ve been to many drift events in Australia and this is my first time witnessing Indonesian drifting. I tell this much, the drift drivers here is by none the most ballsy drivers I’ve ever seen. This S15 was driven by Amandio, an 18yo rally champion and now holds 1st place title in drifting, showing his angles real close to our cameras.

The 204

I was in a middle of a film shoot while this view caught my eye, so I had to take it. The one and only Panasonic P2 HVX204 HD, my primary camera in every film shoot during the production of a TV series I’m producing for Discovery Turbo. So far its been good to me but I still have 1 issue that keeps bothering me each film shoot – Why the F#@% make a full 1080 HD camera with an SD LCD screen panel? Panasonic, you screwed me over with this one!!!

Jogja #2: Borobudur Temple

Exploring the seven wonders of the world. First up, Borobudur. An extraordinary site to visit, we had our mind set to go here while we where volunteering for church in Jogja. It was something we wanted to do, exploring all the majestic 7 wonders. Borobudur’s rich history takes this monumental establishment way back and the mystical religious insight was astounding. We figured out there are Buddhas in each side of the temple and each side the Buddhas make out different hand gestures.

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Another fact that tore us apart, thieves often comes here at night stealing the blocks and sell it for a handsome price to artifact collectors. Some thieves replace fake blocks from the original, so if you see in the pictures here it may or may not be the authentic ones.

The second best part of the trip was finding these awesome hats, after a hardcore bargaining with the vendor we end-up buying it at 10 bucks each. Now thats a steal.

Kemang Village

I volunteered to take photos for the church’s archive. Believe it or not the kids and their parents had migrated from mainland China to Indonesia and live on the out-skirt of Jakarta capital.

These unfortunate families where forced out from their country due to poverty and now they settle here working hard for a mire chump change. Most parents still struggle to find work leading to the influence of teenage girls into selling themselves for sex in small huts on the side of the main road.

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Our church GKI Pondok Indah dedicated a group from the community to build a church and a foundation of Christianity in Kemang Village, teaching the children, giving them inspiration and hope for a better life.

Making Tires

Showing up at Indonesia’s proud tire brand GT Radials. Interesting knowledge on making a tire, it didn’t occur  to me that there are so many different types of rubber and other materials on making a simple tire etc; without steal wires the tire wouldn’t hold its shape and the way it was woven and linked together gives it durability.

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We all had to wear some sort of head gear because rubber debris often lightly floats in the air and land on our head and its hard to wash off.

Drift car Dyno run +300HP

Tuning on the Dyno for Indonesia’s annual drift race, on the 1st – 3rd of September 2010 at PRJ Kemayoran, Jakarta. Driving this weekend is Indonesia’s young and ambitious drift champion, Amandio age 18 yo.

Big ass wheels

Balancing and installing a 24″ wheel for this episode.

Situated opposite to Blok-M Mall, Permaisuri is famous for thier wheels from 17″ wheels to the bling’n 26″ mammoth wheels. Balancing a 24″ wheel for this episode.

Cheryl struggling to fit a 30 profile tires on the machine.

The space were cluttered with so many wheels in the workshop.

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Heres a variety of 20″ and onwards Permaisuri has in their workshop.

Spark up the nite

During the holidays we bought some fireworks from the streets and light it up on the eve of Eid Mubārak.

Trying out the slow shutter speed with the Nikon D90 and quickly illustrate a word or a symbol between a 4 second open shutter. Quite difficult at first cuz I had to write a word in reverse.