But it was a cool Friday night, so nevermind…

I went out with an old friend, Rully from Suaka and his girlfriend Kat (we actually started – my first and his second – thrash metal band together back in 1991). So we went to this concert at the beach, and just before the top bands playing, we chilled at this restaurant at Kuta Beach.

We ordered some food and cold beer, and the owner of the restaurant are so proud with the fish they’re selling (well that’s fun, i guess), like this one below. Look at the size, enormous!

When we’re waiting for our orders, the owner showed us some other stuffs, like shark skull…

and other fish body part (i am not sure what/which. It looks like a tail).

And when the enormous fish become my Fish and Chips served in a huge plate, it looks like below (and it tastes soooo good!)

Then we went to the concert, and watch the band Shaggy Dogg and Superman Is Dead.

That was a cool Friday night. Cool food, weird fishes, the beach, old friends and freezing cold beers. Awesome!

It was my first year in Bali, back in 2002, when I still had that sucky corporate job.

I was staying in our rent room with my girlfriend enjoying lazy weekend. We thought it was just another weekend in Kuta-Bali. Laid back, warm and accompany by Bintang beer (local cheap but super awesome beer). The weekends that supposedly awesome after a week spent with morons.

It was just about 1 hour before 12 o’clock that we heard a super huge blast that shakes the ground. The world went dark soon after. Mind you we live about 4 blocks away from Legian St. I went out of the room and saw a huge fire blasts from the north. I thought, "isn’t it come from Legian?"

We were curious on what happened and ride our bike following hundred of others who all went to the same way, to the heart of Legian Street. The closer we got there, the more we saw panic situation. Then we were starting to see some people walking the opposite way with blood in their bodies walking and crying. Our curiosity slowly changed into fears and when I heard this voice, I suddenly turn the bike and went to the opposite way.

Ada bom bli! Ada bom!

Means there was a bom, brother! (bli is local accent just like calling people ‘brother’).

I was panic and didn’t know where to go, I was so freaking scared. Then we decided to go to our friends’ housing where dozen of our other friends live. We felt it’s safer to go there. Our friends were all there and we know nothing about what happened on details. What we saw was the fire were just getting bigger. Then we tuned in to local radio hearing the most scary news we’ve ever heard. It was a live coverage of the Bali Bombing, that killed hundreds of people that night. What I remember on the rest of the night was hearing endless Ambulance sirene broke the silence of the night and live radio report counting how much bodies was found at the ground zero. Scary. Terrorized.

The next morning we went to the scene and hell it was totally wrecked. The most scary thing was we smell burnt bodies, well, I won’t get into details here.

Weeks after, we didn’t know what to do. We were thinking of going back home to Bandung because we simply so scared. However, finally we all decided to extent our stay in Bali, but this attack has surely changed Bali forever.

6 years had passed, still there are no safe place on earth anymore from those perpetrators, whom yet been executed. They’re still alive and manage to liven their idiotic ‘sacred war’. If God is really full of angry, I will stop praising Him. Even morons understand, that those are personal causes, and others die because of it. How on earth these murderers live and breathe on this earth while other people suffer because of their beliefs?

It’s a disease that i’m afraid is living here at the country I live. The longer it lives, the harder it can be cured. Or is it cureless? Don’t blame us if me and whomever felt not into this ‘war’ are afraid.

No doubt today is the busiest day for me. I spent almost half day out of home office and have meetings with clients. However, i met with Tipi Jabrik, former Pro Surfer now CEO of Indonesia Surfing Championship, who told me this story.

A ship wrecked and abandoned in the middle of the hardcore reef surf in Bali, Padang-Padang. The ship is full of frozen giant tunas while the boys still find the space to charge in between the swell and a dumped ship.

Picture and short reports from Surfing Magazine embeded below.

This gallery is brought to you by surfingthemag.com

… that you can find this kind of surf in Bali?

Weird. I’ve been celebrating my birthdays for 35 times. Never been a fan of fancy birthdays, in fact i’ve never agree that a birthday is a special day until i met my wife. At least, i still believe that celebrating birthdays is beyond than just a reason to celebrate life. Today, i got 2 happy birthday text messages, 2 emails and some automated greetings from social networking sites.

Back in my music days, in this date, i will get like 300 text messages, and even greater when i was leading a company with hundreds of employees. But since i work at home starting last month, and i’ve decided to explore my inner geek, so i practically stop doing communal communalities thing and somehow ‘losing’ my  old friends.

I admit, this is not the most fancy birthday for me but strangely enough, i think this will be my most memorable birthday because this is the first time i actually celebrate my birthday.

Here’s some cool moments of today, and how our 9 month daughter Brooklyn steal the headline for most of the time :

1. My wife was the first to say Happy Birthday, while Brooklyn thrown up at exact 12.00 PM 10th of April.
2. She put a magic candle on the birthday cake (she didn’t notice). These candles are not the best product idea in the world, but i just can’t put ‘em off. That way i can have more than 1 wish .
3. We don’t go to dinner because usually our little Brooklyn messes up, so instead, we ate rendang and Padang food for breakfast (which kinda hardcore) and super delicious Balinese seafood at Jimbaran beach for lunch.
4. It’s our daughter first experience of sand beach and sea water (we finally took her there). She had a very good fun and we took some very memorable pictures & videos.
5. I tell a story about my birthday in the internet, i put a new category in this blog named ‘Myself’ and I practically take a day off.

So, i celebrate my birthday with my loved ones. I’m so happy.

Below some pictures. Cheers.

The conference began today in Nusa Dua, Bali. That’s about 5 miles away from where me and my family live. I just hope that this conference can be successful, the world leaders at least solve something and bring Bali back in the world’s top tourist destination.

Haven’t in Bali before? I think you should come someday, somehow. Food, people, places. Perfect place for holiday (and to live too).