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Dear Mr. Gates:
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Date: Fri, 28 November 2008 9:51 WesternIndonesiaTime Subject: Your Increasing Auto Nation Stake
My previous letter of ‘Third "Dream Comes True", Go-Kart' was written in Jakarta on Friday morning of 21 November 2008, or it was still Thursday night 20 November 2008 in the U.S. Although I finished writing it on that Friday morning, but I postponed its upload to the Internet because I needed to upload it at the same time with a next page, so I only saved it in my USB. The next day I found the news of Friday 21 November 2008, about "Investment managers for Microsoft founder Bill Gates are showing continued interest in AutoNation even as Detroit's Big Three battle for help from Congress." Followed by another news on Wednesday 26 November 2008: "A trust set up by Microsoft co-founder and Chairman Bill Gates has increased its stake in car dealer AutoNation Inc. to about 5 percent, according to a regulatory filing. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust purchased 255,150 shares of AutoNation on Friday at an average price of $6.55 per share, according to a filing Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission". I should admit that it made me feel like your increasing your share at AutoNation was inspired by my letter of ‘Third "Dream Comes True", Go-Kart', as if you were making an online observation while I was writing draft of the letter. And you did it despite the fact that "AutoNation reported a $1.41 billion third-quarter loss in the beginning of November, bruised by a 21 percent sales decline as customers shied away from showrooms or had difficulty obtaining car loans". It was like you relying on me for that stake, despite the world economic crisis, to help the American economy in believe that my letter was really from God’s inspiration. May God Bless us with this kind of good will.
Date: Fri, 28 November 2008 10:36 WesternIndonesiaTime Subject: Bill and Melinda Gates Go Back to School
That was the title I found yesterday on 27 November 2008, in an article by Claudia Wallis, Spencer Fellow in education journalism, at cnn.com. It was about you and your wife's new focus on community colleges, which are relatively affordable and widespread, and already educate high proportions of minority students. Among which is to reward completion of a degree or certificate rather than mere enrollment. Hilary Pennington, a co-founder of the Jobs for the Future research group who now heads the Gates post-secondary effort, has an intriguing battery of ideas she hopes to test over the next few years. Pennington cites a pilot program in New Orleans that gave low-income students a $250 reward for registering for a minimum number of courses at a community college, another $250 when they got their midcourse grades, and $500 for finishing the semester. Students in the program earned significantly more college credits and were more apt to stay enrolled than non-participants even after the scholarship ended. Also about Business-college partnerships that would create programs tailored to local employers. The article also mentioned about "One of the reasons to think that the Gates 2.0 plan will be more successful than version 1.0 is that the plan involves a commitment to measure results and follow the evidence rather than plow forward with a preconceived notion like 'small schools are better'......."
For me it becomes like some kind of warning that if you happened to agree to help me with the "test" by purchasing my paintings, it should be treated as a serious matter to finance my activities in capturing God’s signs, in showing sufficient gratitude to God’s kind of conversation through the signs, for the good of human being. As another kind of your Gates 2.0 plan, involves a commitment to measure results and follow the evidence rather than plow forward with a preconceived notion. In that article, your wife’s name also written with her middle name, French. In one of the paragraphs, it quotes your wife’s words: "Our goal, with your help, is to double the number of low-income students who earn post-secondary degrees or credentials that let them earn a living wage," declared Melinda French Gates at the Seattle gathering. As if related with my previous letter of "Interested In The Collaboration of Paris-Rahma", whereas Paris is the capital city of France.
Date: Fri, 28 November 2008 11:04 WesternIndonesiaTime Subject: The Degree of Seriousness Toward the Test
It will have to be not a questionable matter regarding the degree of my seriousness of receiving the "test". Since it is based on my previous experiences which placed me in some relations to certain historical moments in this world. Around the eighties, a friend of mine Ferry asked me to make the design of greeting cards for the Christmas and New Year. He happen to be a close relative to former Indonesian president Habibie who before becoming a minister, than VP, and later on President in Indonesia, spent many years in Germany working at MBB, the aircraft manufacturing. I made several designs of the greeting cards my friend Ferry ordered, among which about a gate based on the photo in a calendar, of Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. At that moment I had no idea what kind of gate it was, I just took it from a calendar of antique buildings. The card design I made was like treating the Brandenburg Gate as "a gate for the new brighter year". Then it was followed by the tumbling of Berlin Wall in 1989, at the same year of my working at American Express and Prince Charles visiting Indonesia with Lady Diana. And later on it was also followed by the Eastern European countries turned more democratic, including the falling of Soviet Union. It could be that I should share burden with you in receiving God’s rather unusual duties, for the sake of human being. I will go through the test not in a lavish expenditures kind of attitude, instead in more functional way of doing things. Of course also with the hope that the 15 Paintings you purchase from me for the test will have higher values in the future, therefore the amount allocated for charity through the paintings will also be higher.
Date: Sat, 29 November 2008 12:50 WesternIndonesiaTime Subject: Air New Zealand Crash After "Bill and Melinda Gates Go Back to School"
The article of "Bill and Melinda Gates Go Back to School" at cnn.com was first read by me on Thursday 27 November 2008, and I immediately saved it and uploaded it in my homepage like you can see at http://www.geocities.com/firmansyaha64/bgt_fot/bgt_27nov2008. In Yahoo server it was recorded as 26 November 2008 according to Yahoo U.S. time, though in Jakarta it had been 27 November 2008 in the morning. A few hours later at home in the evening, I found the news about airplane crash in France, the Airbus 320 of Air New Zealand. As if it was related with what I was doing in the morning, reading the "Bill and Melinda Gates Go Back to School" in which your wife's name was mentioned with her first name included, Melinda French Gates. For me it becomes like a message about how serious is the "test" that I should go through, to explore the rest of my life especially related with capturing God's signs for the good of human being. Also like to remind me of the danger of my presence in this world that could sometimes triggered disasters, as if related with the Chaos Theory of Butterfly Effect, "the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas", a phrase also appeared in the Steven Spielberg's movie Jurassic Park.
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Thank's, A.M. Firmansyah Tel. +62812 183 1538
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