Location : Lake Chabot
Distance : 11.2 miles (18km)
Duration : 2-2.5 hrs
Difficulty : Moderate strenuous, mildly technical
Elevation 600′ gain/loss
Ride Type : Loop on fire roads
Parking : $3.50 (we parked outside the parks so it’s free!)
Maps : download here
Comments : long ride but little bit flat than the 2nd attempt. Nice view of the lakes.
Trail : Harkins Fire Trail to Whittmore Gulch
Location : Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve
Distance : 6.8 miles
Difficulty : strenuous, somewhat technical
Duration : 3.5-4 hours
Elevation : 1,400′ gain/loss ; begin/end 400′ ; highest point 1,800′
Ride type : Loop on fire road and singletrack
Map : available on site (recommended)
Date : 4 November 2006, Time 1300-1640
Comments : helmet required ! start in really steep then top onto near Skyline Blv. Stop for amazing view of Half Moon Bay, then lovely technical down through muddy forest. No water availabe on the path, so bring lots !
Overall : 7 from 10 point (definitely really good one)
I received email today notify that a postcard arrived in home Weymouth. I read it and suddenly I felt so alive. The card from Agustinus Wibowo or I called him Gus Weng -one of my backpacker’s friends. Gus is sort of respect name to the brother muslem who has knowledge more about Islam- usually common in East Java or pesantren neighborhood. I knew he is NOT muslem but his knowledge maybe far more than me who been born with it.
Mbak Ambar,
Many thanks for your support so far. I was in Tajikistan now and found that birocracy so complicated. I am not enjoy staying in Tajikistan because lacked of strategy. I even haven’t got time to wandering around the city. Little bit disappointed specially because I spent lots money for visa. It might be not my best luck. By the way, how’s America?
Agustinus Wibowo
ps : Happy Eid Mubarak. Forgive my mistakes in the past.
Gus Weng been travel extensively in area that most of muslem conflicts, such as Afganisthan, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan or even another South Asian countries (Mongolia, Tibet, Nepal, India). I knew him virtually, we never met in real world. Our “friendship” started when I sent personal massage about his photo of Angkor Wat during a sunset on one of the photography website. It’s a beautiful picture ! It just so enchanting piece !
Location: Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, CA
Distance : 6.5 miles
Difficulty : moderate, mildly technical
Duration : 2.5 hours
Elevation : 600in gain/loss
Ride type : first couple miles were paved road and uphill, then white sandy ground turn to nice loose ground on the forest by the river
Entrance fee : $5 + $1 for biking map
Date : 28 October 2006, afternoon
Comments : pipeline road is quite popular for walkers and horse riders, water available on the observation deck. Good for testing brakes and gears.
I have been mountain biking for three years when Mark lend me his twenty years old bike. Since we were in California a couple weeks ago soon we realised that we were in the mountain biking’s heaven. This area is great for exploring the parks and natural wonder on the saddle; this made us getting itchy to put feet on the paddle again. So here we are in the Northern California trying new bikes from cyclepath shop. I have got bike Contessa 40 from bike-maker Scott which is lot better than my old one.
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I am writing this because as an Indonesian I’m concern about one of natural wonder lied in the Papua island next to New Guinea. It is NOT because I want to go but in fact because I CAN NOT go there.
When Reinhold Messner crowned Cartens Pyramid or Puncak Jaya became one known as Seven Summit, climbers all around the world were in racing to conquer it. The consequences is the price to climb hiked as much as $18,000 ! It’s getting an conflict of interest when the only access (say legally) is from Jakarta. Why? Because Cartensz is within the area of the copper mine held by Freeport. And the company notoriously using military to protect their teritory. To hand a permit to climb the beautiful wall in highest peak Austronesian you’ve got the permit from BAIS (inteligent body in Indonesia like FBI), army, minister of tourism, ministry of foreign affair etc etc. Yes ..it’s a long process. (more…)
It’s been tremendeous time effort to put article+photos about Ujung Kulon National Park. I have been contacted by SNAP magazine to write my boat-trekking I have done four month ago. The Magazine is one of the Gramedia’s arm -the biggest publisher in Indonesia. A friend of mine recommended me to their team (thank you Ariesnawaty !). (more…)
Ini adalah interview kedua saya melalui telpon dengan stasiun radio. Pertama kali adalah dengan BBC Five Live tentang gempa bumi di Jogjakarta. Waktu itu sang produser kontak saya dengan nomor hp dan memberikan gambaran pertanyaan yang akan diajukan. Saya muncul di berita pukul 8 malam dibagian Indepth News atau sesi setelah headlines.
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I heard about Indonesian Everest’s Woman Team far before they released to the national paper (Wed 19 July). As an Indonesian myself I was sceptic about what these expedition intents to, launching the program when we’ve been battered by natural disasters and political unstability was not so wise in the point of view. Tsunamis, eartquakes, volcano eruption, terorist bombs just about adding misery into our believe that we can continue live in a ‘normal’ way.
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Two weeks ago I made two picture books as gift to friend of mine. Both I am using different software dan company to deal with it. First, I created a book in iPhoto then send it electronically via the Apple server. The problem I had was the account details. The system did not recognised my new UK address and turned out with an ‘unexpected error’. Dazzling with these I updating the .mac account stright from server. Another problem turned out that my billing address was different with the delivery address (all right silly sod..!). Again the system failed recognised the change and I endup setting my friend’s house as a default address.
Weird that when I ordered it did not let me go through. It just stopped. Really strange indeed. I waited for another 3 days to see any email or massages dropped onto my .mac email. None. I contacted apple customer service which gave an email address. I sent email and email was returened. Again I sent email but now using their general enquiry of the .mac account. I haven’t got answer yet.
Puzzled with these I took a change to order it again in a risk that I might double order and apple ripped my money off. The file of the book only about 17.1 MB which is quite small regarding the bandwith. It took about under 10 minutes to tranfer and went the 1-click paying system well. Done that….finished? Nupppss…
I decided to go to the Apple Forum to see what people say about printing services of apple. Lots people had a similar problems specially dealt with the server and iPhoto. But for my comfort some reader gave another printing company that provide good printing services. One of them is MyPublisher. I found it great because they provide plug in to iPhoto to order the book direct to their server. Anyway I will try their service next time as they gave discount for the first order just in case I want to publish my own blog book.
Another book I created using BookSmart from Blurb. This company introduced by tWIT (or Mac Break not sure..) Podcasting program. Based in California Blurb gave more freedom to create wonderful picture book. It won’t take very long to actually setting up as your pictures ready after I did some editing on it before -this could take longer though. The problem was about sending file to the server. It was 88.7MB for 24high quality pages took …unbelievable 2 hours !!!
The other problem was their service only covers USA and Canada, also receive billing/delivery address in both country. But their team was great and really helpful. They put me through (oh..with a funny US address) with little less money than the UK apple. I was not happy with the .mac services in UK as Apple should provide better services for their applications market (uh.. I remember how Steve Jobs did it front thousands people at WWDC 2005).
As I wrote this, I am waiting two books on the hand of my friends. Most will need at least three days to see the result. Pfuhhh….. I am not relieved yet.
Just got call from a friend in Birmningham informed me about a massive earthquake in the city of Jogjakarta. It was hitting at 0554 local time (2253 GMT Friday), around 25km (15 miles) south of the city of Yogyakarta. I worried about my family who living in Bantul area where most the damaged occured. They are living in Banguntapan, near Kotagede in the border of Jogja-Bantul. I straight to go online news from local media (Liputan6 -this with video streaming, Detik, Kompas) to get of glimpse what happen. It looked terribly bad.
Frantic with news I called them through Skype to landline phone. I believed that would be no electricity nor mobilephone service on those affected area. The line went OK then I got my little sister. She said that everybody OK. My mum dan other sister went to Magetan (110km from Jogja) on that time, so there were only her and my dad at home.
She said the earhquake was tremendousely big, shaked the house badly. She was in her breakfast and did safe run with my dad. Bless them ! No damaged on their house, it just the roof tile cave in and broken plates. Several earhquakes followed after the 6.2 magnitute one.
On the time I wrote this, BBC News reported in a few details. If you want to see more technical information about this earthquake you can visit United State Geological SurveyUSGS -a government body in USA which monitor the geological movement covers whole the world.
My condolence to people who died in this natural disaster.
Updated 1514(GMT) or 2114 (West Indonesia Time) :
