Me and my wife recently went back to Indonesia for our wedding celebration. We took Air Asia which connects Singapore to Jogjakarta. We deliberately choose to take flight to Jogjakarta because we wanted to visit my wife’s relatives in Purwokerto.

The plan was to fly to Jogjakarta, continued by taking train to Jombang. Have the wedding ceremony and visit relatives in Jombang and Surabaya. We then take train/bus back to Jogjakarta, check in to a hotel and left our luggage at there, take bus or train to visit Purwokerto, visit relatives, return to Jogjakarta. And finally fly back to Singapore.

Anyway, my hair was a bit untidy that time. I did planned to get haircut in Singapore, but due to some reason–mainly forgetful and laziness, it did not happen. It was important to get my hair tidy before we have the wedding ceremony.

While waiting for Sancaka–the train that will take us from Jogjakarta to Jombang, I decided to take a haircut. It was 2.30 PM and Sancaka will depart at 4 PM. I need to find barbershop nearest to the railway station.

The nearest barbershop from Tugu Railway Station is located in Malioboro Street, next to Ramayana Department Store. The barbershop was buried behind many street-vendors selling batiks and handicrafts which Malioboro street famous for. It was quiet inside. No one is queuing to get their haircut. There are many seats and mirrors with slight dust covering them. The wall was yellowish signifies that this place was a famous barbershop years ago.

The barber was an old folk called Pak Dar (Darminto?). I greeted him and asked him to tidy up my hair. He agreed and asked me to get seated, while taking out his equipments. One of the equipments was a manual hair clipper, which reminds me my childhood where every haircut was done using this traditional manual hair clipper.

To cut the story short, it was a nightmare. No offense to Pak Dar–he is a polite folk just like any normal Javanese folks do, but the haircut was a torture. It was a combination between hair-cut and hair-pluck. Not able to withstand the torture, I politely requested him to stop, stating that my hair is short and tidy enough. Another haircut in Jombang was already planned in my mind.

I paid him Rp. 9000 then proceed to accompany my wife who was already busy picking and bargaining all kinds of Batik clothes for herself and my sister-in-law.

When Sancaka reached Jombang Railway Station at 8.30 PM, my cousin (Mas Aan) was already there sitting at the bench next to the tracks. After greeting him, I requested him to send me to the nearest barbershop.

The nearest barber shop was located at the opposite of Geneng Gang 2, near Mas Aan’s mother house. The barber was slightly the same age as me. He was using electric hair-clipper, which was a great relief for me. I was very much satisfied with his meticulous and tidy work. I paid the fee of Rp. 5000 as it written on the mirror.

Later in the car Mas Aan ask whether I remember the boy I used to pick a fight whenever I visited his house 20 years ago. I said I forgot the boy, but I remember the fights. He then said that that boy is the barber that just cut my hair. Ha-ha… what a relief that the barber did not recognize me; it could have been another episode of Sweeney Todd 🙂

Haircut in Singapore …. SGD 7-10
Haircut in Jogjakarta …. IDR 9000
Haircut in Jombang … IDR 5000
Getting the best and cheapest haircut without having your throat slit …. Priceless

😀

Oxford United secured their place back in the Football League after a four-year absence with victory over York at rain-lashed Wembley.

Two goals in the space of five first-half minutes put the U’s in charge, Matt Green firing them in front from 18 yards with a neat half-volley.

James Constable doubled their lead with a fierce left-foot drive.

U’s keeper Ryan Clarke fumbled in Ben Purkiss’s cross to give York a lifeline only for Alfie Potter to wrap it up.
Given that Oxford finished third in the Blue Square Premier, eight points clear of York, after topping the league for so much of the season, it was perhaps fitting that they went up.

It was certainly a much better experience of the play-offs for U’s boss Chris Wilder, whose Halifax side lost to Hereford in the 2006 final.

Read the complete story

I followed the game Live Report on BBC and wanted to post earlier. But too bad no good clips found on YouTube. And now that I found it, I will put it here for me to view over and over 🙂 The DVD of the match is coming soon.

I needed to retrieve list of active users with email address from Active Directory. After scratching head, and googling for a while, the following page helped me immensely:

• How do I get “lastLogon” from ActiveDirectory
• Howto: (Almost) Everything In Active Directory via C#

Note: You need to include Active DS COM Library in your project references. Your project references should roughly similar to the picture below.

Here are teh codez:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.DirectoryServices;
using System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectory;
using System.IO;

namespace ActiveDirectoryQuery
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            DirectorySearcher ds = new DirectorySearcher();
            ds.SearchRoot = new DirectoryEntry("");
            ds.Filter = "objectCategory=user";
            ds.PropertiesToLoad.Add("name");
            ds.PropertiesToLoad.Add("email");
            ds.PropertyNamesOnly = true;
            ds.Sort = new SortOption("name", SortDirection.Ascending);
            SearchResultCollection results = ds.FindAll();

            //Write output
            StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(@"c:\ad.output.txt");        

            foreach (SearchResult sr in results)
            {
                DirectoryEntry entry = sr.GetDirectoryEntry();               
                if (entry.Properties["name"].Value != null && entry.Properties["mail"].Value != null && entry.Properties["accountExpires"].Value != null)
                {
                    //Must Add COM Active DS Library in the reference (ActiveDS.TLB)
                    ActiveDs.LargeInteger li = (ActiveDs.LargeInteger)entry.Properties["accountExpires"].Value;
                    Int64 liTicks = li.HighPart * 0x100000000 + li.LowPart;
                    Int64 curTicks = DateTime.Now.Ticks;

                    //List only those account with no expiration/expired in the future
                    if (liTicks == 0 || liTicks > curTicks)
                    {                      
                        writer.Write(entry.Properties["name"].Value + ";" + entry.Properties["mail"].Value);
                        writer.WriteLine();
                        writer.Flush();
                    }                    
                }               

            }            
            writer.Close();
        }
    }
}