Joe Friend: Family & Friends

Cause for great cheering by my daughters

Disney Channel Launches in Indonesia. At least some members in our house are very, very happy. Happily there is no "Boy meet world"! This is a good thing since we've seen every episode ad nauseum, thanks to my second oldest.

Future of Indonesia

Battle of the Greens The military and radical Muslims square off once again in Indonesia, in a confrontation with far-reaching consequences for the worldwide struggle against Islamic extremism.

Not a Ticking Time Bomb The fundamental threat to Indonesia’s future does not come from radical Islam but from the government’s inability to uphold law and order.

Celebrating the 4th in Indonesia

Cyber-fireworks explode on the Web. What looks like fireworks, sounds like fireworks and even comes complete with patriotic music, without the hassles of crowds, traffic jams and those annoying ants known to frequent Independence Day picnics? [MSNBC]

I think that the computer will have to provide our fireworks display today. It is hard to be away from the good ole USofA on this day.

Lovin' my President

This quote explains why I like President Bush so much, sorry rc3.org:

Bush said the ruling "points up the fact that we need common-sense judges who understand that our rights were derived from God. And those are the kind of judges I intend to put on the bench."

Pledge of Allegiance

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Under God, no more?

There are lots of strong feelings out there about the ninth circuit court's ruling about the "under God" phrase in the "Pledge of Allegiance". Here's one I respectfully disagree with from Phil Wolff. All of this reminds me of a book that I love. It is James Clavell's "The Children's Story." It is by no means a story for children only, or even primarily. I believe that "under God" is a valuable part of the pledge, but the reality (which this book makes so clear) is that almost all of us mumble through the words of the pledge and they have no meaning what so ever for us. Even if we tear up (post 911) when we say them, it is simply an emotional response and we are not really mentally assenting to what the words mean. Patriotism is more than simple emotional blubbering or bluster. It is a clinging to basic, fundamental beliefs. It is standing up for something, which is worth standing up for. But what are we standing for? Sadly, I don't think we could even begin to agree.

Boy Meets Girl

Josh was single when he wrote "Kiss Dating Goodbye" , the followup book tells the story of him meeting his wife-to-be and their courtship. Also good stuff.

Courting we will go, a courting we will go...

This article on Kuro5hin is great. Karen and I have read Josh's book, "Kiss Dating Goodbye" and so have our 15 & 16 year-old boys. We've encouraged them to utilize this approach to relationship. Dating as it is practiced in America is for the birds. A one way road to lots of pain, where we learn to treat each other as emotional/sexual play things. Let's treat each other with more respect and take relationships more seriously.

18th Anniversary

Sunday is Karen and my 18th anniversary. We're celebrating today by going to the Sheraton for the night. It's a beautiful hotel. Been there once before about 3+ years ago. It's a surprise, so don't tell Karen, okay?

Boarding school

Jared shared with us yesterday that he is thinking again about attending boarding school in Central Java this coming school year. He spent last week with lots of his friends that attend that school and they've provided a lot of encouragement. It's a good school, so no problem there. However, it is an 8 hour bus ride away from us and we would only see him on major school breaks. We would miss him very much and so would the other kids. It would really change the dynamics of our household. Bad enough that he'll be heading to college in a couple years. We've left the decision up to him.

Lazy day

We skipped church this morning! Too tired and other excuses. When we lived in Eastern Indonesia, on the island of Sulawesi, we had church at home. So, that's what we did this morning. It was so great. Our oldest son, Jared, has learned to play the guitar since we've left Sulawesi. What a difference that makes in our worship time. We also had a great time of sharing with each other. Didn't hurt that Abby (our 15 month old) was asleep.

Back home

We got home this morning at 7:30am. 12+ hours is a long time sitting in a train seat. Sleeping doesn't happen too easily. I'm glad to get to sleep in my bed tonight!

On the road again

I've been on the road in East Java, so weblogging has been difficult. I'll be on a 12 hour train ride tonight. Bummer, no Wi-Fi! ;-) So, don't expect anything for another 24 hours or so.

Leaving for Surabaya right now

My boys and I are headed to Surabaya, East Java. I have to speak at a meeting and they want to see some new friends from camp. Should be fun. We're flying there and taking the train back (12 hours, through the night). Get back Saturday morning.

How many islands does Indonesia have? The answer

Or, if you're on Jeopardy..."What is the number of islands in Indonesia?"

That question has many answers, as most interesting questions do. According to the CIA factbook the answer is 17,000 (6,000 or so being inhabited). The Indonesian Embassy in Prague says, "The new figure for the total number of islands is 17,508 according to the Indonesian Naval Hydro-Oceanographic office. This figure is increased from the official figure so far known, that is 13,667." The INHO numbers are repeated around the web on many sites, so it is probably the authoritative number. But it ultimately depends on how you define an island.

How many islands does Indonesia have?

When kids (I'm assuming) ask Google this question I'm the first web site. So, I think I better answer it for them. Not now, but soon. This is the third or fourth time I've gotten a hit from the query.

Kids are back home

The kids got back from camp last night in Kaliurang, east Java. All four (from 9 - 16 years-old) had a great time. That is really amazing. Each made tons of new friends. They all went on a camp out one night and watched as Mt. Merapi erupted. They even survived the 7 hour train ride there and back!

Phones been dead

It's hard to update the website when you can't access the internet. Our phone was dead for about 24 hrs. It's fixed now.

International sports, weird!

Our kids are away at camp, at least the four oldest ones. So, we got to do something very rare last night. The baby was asleep and we were being couch potatoes. I'm new to watching soccer, despite living in a soccer crazy country and being from a part of the US where soccer is big (Seattle). I'm enjoying the World Cup. But last night China vs. Brazil was no where to be found. We started to watch a movie on VCD (think bad quality video on a CD), but the movie was stupid. We turned back on our TV. We get satellite TV via Indovision. We gravitated to the sports channels and watched "ESPN Big Fights : Mike Tyson's Greatest Hits" on ESPN International. It was interesting, but it ended before his rape conviction, strange.

After the boxing show there was an ESPN Intl. favorite, Premier Snooker League! Wow, watching pool on TV is almost as exciting as bowling. On Star Sports, there was "World Darts 2002 Championship." REALLY, DARTS! We ended up watching Australian Rules Football on another channel. I guess this is sort of like rugby. I tried to figure out the rules. I'm still clueless. In addition to these fantastic sports we can also watch lots of racing (cars and motorcycles), soccer (of course), golf, tennis, other forms of rugby, some hockey, some NBA, a little baseball and almost no American Football (which is fine with me, since it would inevitably be Pro, not college.)

This brings up the question of why in the world we were watching TV at all? Well, it was just nice to sit in a quite house and hold hands and vegetate. :-)

Sick & Busy

Sorry, I've been sick and busy, so posts have been nonexistent for several days. Hopefully I'll get back on it tomorrow. Oops, it's already almost 1am. So tomorrow is now!

Watching Mariners Live in Indonesia

Got to love this! With ESPN International on our satellite tv system, we can watch two baseball games per week, live! With the Mariners (my home team) so hot (9 wins in a row) ESPN loves 'em. This is our second game to watch. I'm in heaven. This is so much better than soccer, rugby, racing, soccer, billiards (!), soccer. ESPN Int. is very weird, from my parochial US point of view.

Weblogs & vacation

Of course, this is a horrible time to try and start writing regularly. We are leaving on Sunday morning for Bali for one week. I'm sure Karen, my wife, will love me trying to update my weblog on our vacation. Well, it's not completely a vacation. I'll be attending some meetings while we're there. So, maybe....

Wish I had a weblog back in 1997

I wish that weblogging existed in 1997, when we first moved to Indonesia. I've never been good a keeping a diary, but I think I could have done a much better job describing our new life to our friends via a weblog. We sent out a semi-regular email newsletter, but it was pretty erratic. The problem is, that you don't want to overload people with a bunch of emails, so you save things up to write one longer email. Then you procrastinate because you don't want to write the long email. With a weblog you can post little bits each day and it is up to everyone to determine how often they want to visit your site. So, now that we are back in Indonesia, I think that is what I will do.