Gw sekeluarga baru aja pulang dari liburan 3 hari di Surabaya, kampung halaman ibu gw. Kalo nggak salah, dulu gw pertama kali terbang pas masih kelas 2 atau 3 SD. Kemarin, Pras terbang pertama kali pas dia umur 6 bulan 1 hari. Wheew. Beda banget yah.

Anyway, berikut ini adalah beberapa tips untuk membawa bayi naik pesawat terbang.

1. Bawa selimut/semacamnya. Suhu di pesawat saat sudah terbang 33,000 kaki itu dingin loh. AC pesawat, terutama pesawat yang berumur masih mudah, lumayan dingin. Ini kontras banget dengan saat di ruang tunggu yang tidak terlalu dingin atau saat pesawat – terutama pada budget airlines – masih di apron, menunggu penumpang masuk, yang kadang AC-nya dimatikan. Oleh karena itu, selimut gw rasa lebih baik ketimbang pakai baju tebal/jaket. Begitu terasa dingin, langsung selimuti si anak. Nilai plus lain, bisa dibuat tudung saat harus berjalan di apron di bawah terik matahari apabila harus berjalan kaki ke pesawat dan sebagai penutup pandangan orang saat akan memberikan ASI.
2. Siap-siap ASI atau susu botol untuk saat lepas landas dan akan mendarat. Si bayi akan senantiasa menelan, sehingga perasaan tidak enak (atau biasa disebut bindeng) di telinga tidak terlalu berpengaruh. Berikan si bayi minum saat pesawat mulai taxiing (bersiap ambil posisi di landas pacu) hingga pesawat telah stabil (biasanya di 33,000 kaki atau 10 km) dan moncong pesawat terasa tidak mendongak lagi. Kelebihan lain adalah si bayi dengan cara ini biasanya akan tertidur, sehingga lebih mudah diatur. Saat pesawat sudah terasa turun, berikan lagi minum untuk si bayi sampai pesawat touch-down di landasan. Timing seperti itu juga pas untuk menghindari pandangan liar orang lain saat akan memberikan ASI.
3. Bawalah mainan si kecil. Untuk jaga-jaga apabila dia rewel. Trik lain adalah dengan berjalan menggendong dia di gang. Tapi, trik ini hanya cocok untuk penerbangan jarak jauh. Untuk penerbangan jarak pendek, akan merepotkan karena kita akan terhalang dan menghalangi lalu lalang para pramugari yang bekeliling mengantarkan/menjajakan makanan dan semacamnya.
4. Jagalah kondisi kesehatan si kecil. Apabila dia flu/pilek, telinganya akan semakin sakit karena perubahan tekanan udara. Gw pernah kok terbang pas pilek. Masya Allah, sakitnya telinga itu bikin kapok. Apalagi kalau si kecil yang harus ngerasain?
5. Mintalah pelampung dan sabuk pengaman khusus untuk infant ke pramugari. Taruh pelampung di saku kursi depan Anda. Sabuk pengaman khusus infant digunakan dengan dihubungkan ke sabuk pengaman Anda sendiri. Jadi sangkutkan sabuk pengaman Anda pada lubang/simpul yang ada di tengah sabuk pengaman infant, lalu kunci sabuk pengaman Anda tersebut seperti biasa. Selanjutnya kunci juga sabuk pengaman infant seperti biasa juga. A little note though, tidak semua airline punya infant safety belt seperti ini. AirAsia kemarin tidak punya, tapi Mandala punya.

Hope this helps. Have a safe and fun trip!

Photo by santheo.

I like this picture very much. Luv u both, Dearests!

This is a neat trick I was told when I was heavily tasked with querying The Company’s main system for various data. Sometimes, I need two simultaneous sessions with the AS/400 console, but the system won’t allow it (actually, it’s a security parameter implemented by my QSECOFR). So here’s the work around so we can at least have two simultaneous sessions with the AS/400 console (green screen).

1. From any screen, press [Shift]-[Esc] keys on the keyboard simultaneously.
2. On the blue line that appears in bottom of the screen, type “1″.
3. You will be taken to a the system log-on screen, log-on as usual. You can either use your original credential or another one.
4. Voila! Your second session is in place.
5. To switch back to the first session, press [Shift]-[Esc] keys again.
6. And don’t forget the “1″.
7. You’re back!

Several days ago, I was stuck with this problem: how do I do a version of SQL’s SELECT DISTINCT clause with IBM AS/400’s (iSeries) WRKQRY command. In other words, how to summarize a field. You see, my user ID on the system is restricted to a menu – not even given the command-line, in fact – which is devoid of the ability to run the STRSQL command. After a moment of head-banging, hair-pulling and frantic google searching, here’s the solution.

Define a report break containing [the field you want to distinctly select]. Then in Select Output Type, choose Summary Only. You will only see one occurrance [sic] for each distinct break level. The one downside to this is that Query/400 will insert a blank line in between each row. If you want to print out the data without the blank lines, you can run the output of this query to a temporary file and then query the temporary file seperately.

Steve Canter on SystemiNetwork Forum

Thank you,  Steve, for that verbose – but useful – explanation. Now, if you let me supplement your explanation with these two screenshots, all will be better, I think.

So, let’s say I have this physical file a.k.a.  table.

As you can see, the file has two fields, Deposit Type Code (SCCODE) and Type Description (PSCDES). Now, let’s pretend I want to know all distinct values of the first field. With SQL, we’d use this query: SELECT DISTINCT SCCODE FROM TABLE. This is how you do it with WRKQRY.

1. Do the usual file selections process. Yadda yadda yadda.
2. Select the field you want to distinctly select/summarize. In this case, it’s SCCODE.
3. Define a report break containing [the field you want to distinctly select]. A report break is basically the list of fields you put on your “SELECT DISTINCT xxx, yyy” line. So, if you want to distinctively select two fields, you put two level of breaks here. The iSeries accepts up to six break levels for up to nine fields.
4. Select Output Type, choose Summary Only.
5. See the results. The result should be similar with the faithful SELECT DISTINCT clause, albeit with one blank rows after each item. This can be worked around with saving the result to a database file and running another query and sorting the result field.

A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.

- Lao Tzu

It has been a week since The Missus went back to her work. Prior to that, she had insinuated about leaving her job and becoming a full time mother on several occasions. As I was having doubt about the financial stability of my family, I responded with a reluctant no. According to my calculations, we need an additional IDR 1 million from what I’m earning now to let her job go while maintaining our lifestyle and still save some on the side.

IDR 1 million is my comfort zone, but  at what expense? For the first three days of her work, The Missus shed tears whenever we leave Pras at his grandparents’ before going to work. Four out of her six-days workweek, she didn’t leave her office on time, trapped by her work. I know she’s unhappy, and whenever she’s unhappy, I would be too. Also, I always knew that the best place a mom should be is right beside her child, especially during the early years. Something that The Missus has pointed out for several times in several ways.

So, I’m coming out of my comfort zone. I finally said yes to The Missus’ request to resign from her job. We must be a little bit frugal from now on, as a consequence, but that’s now a fully consented consequence. I hope this will turn out to be the best for our family. Amin ya robbal alamiin.

As for the IDR 1 million? Let’s just say that from now on, I’ll be more hard at work. I’m also trying to advance my career laterally, if you know what I mean. :)

Bismillah. May this be a start of an expansion into a new comfort zone.

Photo by Fransisco Antunes

Just bought a new air conditioner for my room as the old one leaks like an octogenarian on a wet day. As the new unit was being installed, a simple chit chat with the A/C guy gave a lot of insights into the cooling world. Worth your while if you’re getting a new one. This beats having your info from some random marketing guy at the store – which almost always lure you with some kind of customer trap. These are the words of the A/C guy, not mine, so don’t slap your libel and slander lawsuit  on me, ‘kay?

• Chinese-branded A/Cs are more adept at the cooling department, but not so in their quality control department. Obvious. Oh. They are also a bit more power-hungry.
• LG’s are considered one of the more inept at cooling. This is something I also learned by experience.
• Polytron can also be considered as a “chinese brand”.
• Panasonic’s inverter A/Cs are one of the best in term of power consumption.
• Sharp’s are also deemed not hot at cooling.

At the end of last month, I finally had a chance to travel with my old colleagues from internal audit. They’re conducting an audit of the quality of service of The Company’s communication network providers in Bandung regional area. They invited my group, the IT internal control group, to tag along to review the process because it involves placing a monitoring utility between our CPE and the LAN at each site.

The work itself is not at all glorious. We installed and configured switches and routers where needed at ten plus sites all over the region and turned on several utilities to load-test the network. We also placed SNMP traps to be remotely monitored back at the head office with PRTG.

Technical things aside. I really loved the work. It feels like what I should’ve been doing instead of dealing with the tedious task of administering documents and data requests for those pesky external auditors, something that was never put on the job description but was born on my group despite my advices and considerations against it. Moreover, they’re my old colleagues, with whom I freely exchanged banters and friendly insults. You can see some of the pictures we took here.

Bottom line is, I loved the travel and I love auditing! Please let me do what I was supposed to do!

Working in the field of IT in Indonesia? How do you compare your salary to ZDNet Asia’s study? They conducted an online survey and polled a total of 2,577 respondents from various sectors including government, healthcare, IT, services, telecommunications, legal and finance. A quick run of the average monthly salary is below, but you can read the whole article here. All values are in IDR.

ZDNet Asia via Kukuh TW’s Facebook Wall Post

Prabaswara Arshad Nugraha was safely born on May 18th, 2009 through c-section. He was 50 cm tall and had a weight of 2.9 kgs.

There’s always more to see here. And not to forget, there’s also some here from the time of Pras’ delivery.

Selasa kemarin (22/07) gw wawancara untuk dapetin beasiswa S2 luar negeri lagi dari The Office. I don’t think it went particulary well. Ada beberapa pertanyaan yang rasanya akan lebih berguna buat gw kalo gw jawab begini.

• Apa olahraga Anda? Gw gagal melihat arah pertanyaan ini yang sebenarnya menilai apakah gw sociable, team player bukan dan apakah gw melakukan sesuatu untuk mengasah otak kanan gw. Harusnya ini gw  tetep jawab dengan jawaban jujur soal hubungan gw yang tidak harmonis dengan olahraga, tapi gw perlu perjelas bahwa gw bukan antisosial atau geek/nerd/sebangsanya. Sampai sebelum nikah, gw rajin tiap Sabtu ikut CCF – yang berarti bergaul dengan orang segala usia, dari Ibu-ibu sampai anak SMP – dan gw masih lumayan networked sama temen-temen Bemonet – komunitas Bulletin Board System – gw dulu dari jaman SMP. Dang.
• Apa yang telah Anda persiapkan untuk ikut wawancara ini? Lagi, ternyata yang ini mengorek soal kemampuan gw untuk menggali informasi. Seharusnya ini gw jawab detil sedetil-detilnya. Beberapa temen bilang kartu mati gw keluar pas gw menjawab tidak untuk pertanyaan, “Apakah sudah browsing untuk pilih kuliah?” Gw terlalu jujur dan lupa bilang alasan kenapa gw gak melakukan itu: uncertaincy - in regard to this whole selection process – sucks.

Mudah-mudahan daftar ini nggak makin panjang. Hiks. Doain gw yah, guys.