Friends who know me understand how i love everything about commercial airlines. collecting all the stuffs that could be collected from an airline. i mainly grabbed its in-flight magazine when i flew with a certain air carrier.

i remember like it was yesterday -- when i was about 5 or 6 years old, every afternoon, my father used to take me and my sister to nearby Kemayoran airport to see departing and arriving planes in its viewing galley above the terminal building.

seeing a Garuda Indonesian Airways DC-9 with its old red and white livery, i asked my father when i could be inside a plane to fly some cities i could never imagine. a 5-year old boy then was not like a 5-year old boy today. and, financially speaking, i now realize it, sitting inside an airplane to fly somewhere was a total luxury for my family at that time.

father saw my yearning eyes -- knowing that i really wanted to fly -- and told me, " close your eyes and make belief that you are inside an airplane to fly somewhere."

everytime i visited Kemayoran airport and saw a garuda plane taking off, i closed my eyes and visualizing myself sitting aboard that plane, taking me off to cities beyond where i lived that day. up until now, when i hear a roar of an aircraft engine and look up to the sky of a passing airplane above, i closed my eyes and seeing myself among its passengers remembering what my father tought me about visualization.

some say that the path of life will take you to the destination you wouldn't know and understand, but somehow somewhere somewhen, your destiny lies in the palms of your hands and the only one who can control it is yourself.

is the boy i was be proud of the man i am?

i think, he was.