I feel sad when I read this bit of news that only confirmed my worst fears since 4 years ago. Indonesia is finally paying dearly for failing to address the energy problem. And it’s even more sad to think that everybody kind of saw it coming all along, and nobody in the government was able to correct the problem. I read somewhere also that companies have been complaining about this problem for TEN YEARS.

Fingers will probably be pointed soon, Indonesian mailing lists will eventually fire up with discussions on how this happened, whose fault is it and on and on. But what will be the solution? Even if a new power plant is built now, it’s much too late. Demand has outpaced supply.. foreign businesses will definitely pull out if electricity isn’t dependable. What a sad situation, especially since I hear that the national electrical company employees have been working overtime, even weekends to address the problems.

Well, what can I say.. my hax0r skillz aren’t as 1337 as it used to be. Either that or I’m not as patient as 4 years ago. WP 2.6 didn’t work out so well — for starters, I couldn’t upload any images period, since the javascript code for uploading wasn’t there! Then I tried updating my comment spam blocker.. it took out my blog admin access! Luckily I had my whole site backed up so here I am again with WP 2.2. Thanks to my webhosting service for a quick turnaround. They said not to trust Fantastico to upgrade WP. It’s always safer to upgrade manually.

A note on Edouard.. I was bracing for the big one here in Clear Lake, but thankfully it never got upgraded to hurricane status. Although it came in with a ‘right hook’ maneuver directly up Galveston, it quickly dissipated and I barely noticed the rain outside the apartment.

Had three things planned for the weekend in Houston, only one went as planned.

-I wanted to go to a fundraising event for Iraqi refugees in Houston; I’ve always wanted to meet the people who were affected by the war firsthand, and perhaps hear their take on the situation in their country (it is getting much better there by the way). So when I arrived at UH in jeans and polo shirt, I was surprised that the event looked formal. Tables were set up, receptionists were in place to greet people, everybody wore suits and traditional Middle Eastern garb, and all of them were Middle Eastern — no Indonesians. Read the rest of this entry »