Tales from My Head

Let's End It On This

2004-12-31T18:50:00.000+08:00

Happy (Gregorian calendar) New Year to everybody! Although I do not really celebrate this occassion as "the" new year (I celebrate the Passover and Rosh Hashanah), I'm still anticipating this event (January 1) each year. I hope and pray that the coming year would provide us with some more blessings and lessons to ponder with as we draw closer to the time of the coming of our Lord Jesus.

At this point I'd like to thank all those who have been part of this blog (by commenting, tagging, and simply reading). Below are names of the people whom I am really greatful with for sharing their thoughts at least once on my posts (thru the Haloscan comment boxes):

Kenneth, Aireene, Cali, Charry,
Mike, Kei, FirstQ, Sedricke,
Mechelle, Ava, Haiku, Lui,
Celia, Jepi, Joelle, Ariane,
Kengkeng, Tanggero, Tracy, Mart

Thanks for letting me know that I'm not blabbering to myself alone. Hehe. With this, I end 2004 and this blog called Tales from My Head. It doesn't mean, though, that I'll no longer be whining about "heady" stuff. My new blog goes right here.

Happy 2005! Pfft.

The B.O.M.B. 2004

2004-12-29T20:22:00.000+08:00

It's not uncommon for some artists in the music industry to release a "greatest hits" record very early in their respective careers. Some of them would just wait until their singles are enough to fit in one CD. I'm not doing this in their tradition, really. I just find it fun to release a B.O.M.B (Best Of My Blog) list for 2004 for reasons which would be obvious in my next post.

Um, drumroll please...

Reality Bites, Chews, and Swallows

Re: Burning Questions

The World in My Box

I Am So Not Homesick

Happiness is a State of Mind

MNL to NRT

Left to Right

The Fact or Fiction Discourse

Leaving FROM Home

The 22nd

Hard Drive Music

2004-12-27T18:30:00.000+08:00

Because of I-Tunes, I never had the urgency to buy my own CD player. I could play all of my CDs in here without having to insert them everytime. I prefer this software better than Windows Media Player because of its Play Count feature which tracks how many times I've played each of the songs in my library.

Below are some of the songs most often played from my library. And the lyrics which make me want to sing and pretend to relate to it. Haha.

---oOo---

1. I'm Gonna Be Alright (J.Lo featuring 50 Cent) - 23 times played
From: J-To-Tha-L-O!

I wanna be the reason you smile after you wipe your tears / The reason you have the courage to confront your fears

2. 'Til I Found You (Freestyle) - 21 times played
From: This Time

I used to think that I was fine / Oh, that I was doing okay / I didn't know that I was blind / I just went on along my way.

3. Faint (Linkin Park) - 18 times played
From: Meteora

I am a little bit insecure / a little unconfident / Cause you don't understand I do what I can but sometimes I don't make sense / I am what you never wanna say / but I've never had a doubt / It's like no matter what I do I can't convince you for once just to hear me out

4. The Color of Love (Boyz II Men) - 17 times played
From: Full Circle

Then an angel, out of the blue / Gave me the sense that I might make it through / And somehow I survived, with no rhyme or reason / And now I know I'll make it / Through the miracle of you

5. Could It Be Any Harder (The Calling) - 16 times played
From: Camino Palmero

You left me with goodbye and open arms / A cut so deep I don't deserve / Well, you were always invincible in my eyes / The only thing against us now is time

6. Wherever You Will Go (The Calling) - 15 times played
From: Camino Palmero

If a great wave shall fall / It would fall upon us all / Well I hope there's someone out there / Who can bring me back to you

7. Shackles [Praise You] (Mary Mary) - 15 times played
From: Thankful

Been through the fire and the rain / Bound in every kind of way / But God has broken every chain / So let me go right now

8. Cry Ophelia (Adam Cohen) - 14 times played
From: Songs from Dawson's Creek

Thank God for my bad memory / I've forgotten some of the stupid things that I've done / I've come to a little wisdom through a whole lot of failure / So I watch more carefully what rolls off my tongue

9. Like I Love You (Justin Timberlake) - 13 times played
From: Justified

You know / I used to dream about this when I was a little boy / I never thought it would end up this way / Drums... (Hey)

10. Nasaan (Nyoy Volante and Mannos) - 13 times played
From: Acoustic: Nyoy Volante and Mannos

Sabi mo'y ako hanggang muling magkita / Bakit ngayon nasa piling ng iba

11. Rainbow (South Border) - 13 times played
From: Episode III

Life's full of challenges / Not all the time we get what we want / But don't despair my dear / You'll take each trial / And you'll make it through the storm coz you're strong / My faith in you is clear

12. It's No Crime (Babyface) - 12 times played
From: Tender Lover

Why, it's no crime / If I'm guilty of love / Let me do my time / Why, it's no crime / Everybody needs love / And baby (so do I)

13. I'm Alright (Jars of Clay) - 12 times played
From: If I Left the Zoo

So cut below the surface and try hard not to notice / That I could be so foolish thinkin' I'm alright / I've got no one to hold me, I've got no one to carry / Everything inside of me that I won't let you see

14. There Goes the Neighborhood (Sheryl Crow) - 12 times played
From: The Very Best of Sheryl Crow

This is the movie of the screenplay / Of the book about a girl who meets a junkie / The messenger gets shot down / Just for carrying the message to a flunkie

15. Tea and Symphathy (Jars of Clay) - 11 times played
From: Much Afraid

So fare thee well / Words the bag of leaves that fill my head / I could taste the bitterness and call the waitress instead / She holds the answer, smiles and asks one teaspoon or two

---oOo---

I've been tracking the play count for about six months already and the highest of them is still not that high. Variety is the reason.

Wow, many of the songs above are way to cheesy. Haha. It's a good thing I bought this headset with a mic. Now I could sing and record my voice while singing.

Adapted, Animated, Publicized, Forgotten

2004-12-25T23:01:00.000+08:00

The Prince of Egypt is on Studio 23 tonight. I have been yearning to watch it since it was released (1999, I think) but to no avail. For one, I wasn't able to see it while it was still playing in theatres cause I wasn't all that interested by the hype that DreamWorks was generating back then. Some reviews have predicted it to be an Oscar contender for best picture but you know what happened.

At least, it won for best song (by the much hyped about duet). Okay, now I remember why I wasn't all that interested in watching back then. In some press releases for the movie, the producers plainly stated that this film is not supposed to be of the religious type. Well, they made a movie about Moses and the deliverance of God's people from polytheistic pagans. And then it's not supposed to be religious?

I thought the producers blew it all away by that statement. When Video City started dropping their rental price to 15 pesos, I was out looking for this film on VCD (and VHS). Couldn't find it. I did saw some copies for sale but I was restraining myself from buying VCDs since I know that eventually DVDs would obsolete this format.

It was shown at least twice on local TV but still I wasn't able to watch it (I'm not a big fan of television, if you have observed). Although I bought the soundtrack (in cassette, mind you) last year. This is one of the few reasons why I came to like classical music.

--oOo--

This film often comes up after some very lively discussion with my friends. When I asked them if they've seen the movie, here are the top three answers:

#1: Alin, yung cartoons?

#2: May movie bang ganun?

#3: Yoko nga nun.

Obviously, the film has been buried in obscurity.

--oOo--

What's the big deal about this movie anyway and why am I writing about this on a day when everyone else seems to be celebrating some kind of a "holiday"?

I am a Judaism "enthusiast". This is one of the earliest recorded histories of the Israelites.
The story of Moses and the Hebrew deliverance is actually a symbol of the bigger picture: Jesus and the deliverance of God's people in the last days.
The songs are great; the animation is fantastic; the movie is very entertaining.
After the events depicted in this movie, God gave specific instructions for His chosen people. This started in the Ten Commandments (The Law).
The Law also includes certain days to be celebrated and/or be kept holy.
The Law certainly did not mention anything about Santa Claus or December 25.
Neither does the Bible mention it.

Even the cult of Dan Brown knows this. And you don't?

Left to Right

2004-12-23T23:06:00.000+08:00

Below are pictures of some people I often come across with for the last few months. Don't be surprised if you find one or two familiar faces. It's a small world after all.

Central Perks. From left to right: Cris, Mechelle , Rochelle, Eve, Ding, Joel, Lui. Photo taken in front of the church along Quezon Avenue. On the way to two birthday celebrations.

SSER Team Rev 1 (a.k.a. CML: The Early Days). Left to right (back): Kirby, Ate Thea, Ver, Manuel, Joy, Lea; (front): Sir Edryl, Lyn, Sir Prospero. Photo taken during my first few weeks as a trainee in CML. Hellish.

The Defunct Test Engineering Team. Left to right (standing): Kuya Willy, Ver, Sir George, Kuya Arnold, Vener, Irene, Kuya Jao, Sir Jack, Ate Flor, Eric; (sitting): Lyn, Kirby, Ate Mherly (she's actually standing). Christmas hangout in Tagaytay (2003).

Tulay-bitin. Amor and Espie. On the way to the Sunday teaching stint for the barrio kids somewhere in Imus.

BK Group. We're not in Burger King anymore but in McDonald's. Left to right: Jesselle, Joel, Eve, Mechelle.

Almost my cousins. Left to right: Michael, Mae, Patrick, John, Mark. Four nephews and one niece.

MTV. Mark, Thelma, and Ver. Yesterday at Halfway Zoo in Tagaytay.

Mallrats. Mark, Thelma, and Naran. Reunited at SM Dasma.

House calls. My mother, Erica (my niece), my father, and Mae (another niece). And this is one corner of the house.

In my place. This is Ver, making faces inside his room. Wondering if dinner is ready downstairs. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

The 22nd

2004-12-21T23:24:00.000+08:00

To wake up tomorrow is to not be 21. Sorry, I didn’t mean to hype my birthday like this. And due to activity overload, I wasn’t able to plan what I will do tomorrow. I can’t say we anymore because it seems that the people who are originally supposed to accompany me has declined my itinerary. I suggested to go shopping in Megamall, then go to Intramuros, then watch the sunset at Manila Bay, then go home by 7.

Absurd? That’s my idea of fun. I want to go to the mall just because I have to buy gifts. For the past how many years, I’ve been spending my birthday at the mall and this has got to change. Not during this year, though. Maybe when I’m 64.

----

It has been my thing to write some introspective blah-ness the night before my birthday each year. Sort of a “looking back” thing and then question myself if I will be laughing about it the next year. Tonight should be no different.

----

I loved being 21. Being this young gives me quite an overwhelming feeling of freedom and independence. Needless to say, I was able to live some of things I was yearning to do back when I was still a student. Here are some of those things:

Eat without having to take much notice of how much I have actually spent on the food. Lunch at McDo several times in a week is not indulgence.
Organize and build up my own little library. The shelf always has enough room because after reading, some books are borrowed, some intentionally misplaced and forgotten.
Stop and blog. Haven’t I mentioned that this was the best thing since the internet itself?
Play badminton. I used to think of sports as belonging to another world outside my own. And then I grabbed a badminton racket.
Overwhelm myself with programming stuff. There are so many software tutorials I have yet to immerse myself into. Now, the problem is time.
Indulge in photography. Thanks to HP, I could just shoot things, places, and people like crazy.

And yeah, I was also able to get a real life again and have stopped living in the fantasy world I built around myself.

----

Now that we’ve passed through the lighter side of things, here are the benchmarks of the past year:

After many months of hiatus, I returned to the fellowship at Manila Center church. Basically, I left because I realized that some people have been thinking that I’ve been attending the church just to see a special person. Very well.

On frequent occasions, I struggle with work. And I also struggle with persons at the workplace. Sometimes, I felt that the company is trying to make me do the impossible. Although sometimes, impossibility is just a state of mind.

The trip to Colorado has changed the way I look at life at the very least. At first, I felt that it was just not appropriate to go to a foreign land. Suddenly, everyday became an adventure. The American lifestyle is just too ideal for me.

Somehow, it seems as if the 24-hour period of each day is not enough to do all the things I want to do. Life has become a race with time. I will only win by letting go of some things. Still, I am losing.

Whenever I ask my college friends how they are doing, they would always reply in the context of their respective jobs. Career is important, alright. But I hope we’d go beyond these conversations next time.

Most people would suspect that I am lying when I say that I am 21 years old. I look older, probably, about 26 or so. After telling them the year of my birth, the more they are convinced I’m lying. They don’t know how to count.

This is the end of me being the youngest. I have always been the youngest in the class. The youngest in the family, I also was. For more than a year, I was also the youngest test/product engineer in CML. But I guess I still am.

This is too much for a day’s post. Finally, we have a destination for tomorrow. It’s a zoo in Tagaytay City. My friends really want to play it cool.

We Win Some, We Lose Some More

2004-12-19T20:35:00.000+08:00

This is another long post in the making. Totally a jam-packed weekend coupled with my jam-packed nutshell tales. Where do I start?

---

Birthday

My birthday is coming up (FYI, it’s on Wednesday) and I have decided to spend it with my high school buddies mainly because they were the ones who responded first. There was no turning back when I heard that they’ve already taken their leave of absence for the day. Huh, and I wasn’t even allowed to take my day off.

They are insisting on Star City or Enchanted Kingdom. I prefer EK, of course but I still want to spend the day somewhere where I could “think about stuff”. Something like a walk in Baywalk and take pictures while waiting for the sunset. Or go to a museum. Or a foreign language film festival perhaps. I’ll go check out the web and see what’s up on Wednesday. If you’ve got suggestions, please tell me.

---

Wedding

The wedding of Kirby and his new wife (Winnie, I think, is her name) has been great to witness. And it was also nice to go to Pampanga. I really thrive on going places. But I went home early: right after the groom kissed the bride. I was waiting for the “I now pronounce you man and wife” part but we barely heard the priest throughout the ceremony.

Without any knowledge of how to get back to Cavite from San Fernando in Pampanga, I still orchestrated my “escape”. From the church, I just got on the first jeepney which came by. There were no signboards in the jeepneys. Then to SM Pampanga. Then to a place called the “intersection”, and then the bus to Pasay. What a relief to see EDSA.

---

Theft

This is the third in a string of character-building experiences I had. First, my computer crashed. It was already repaired and up and running. Second, my camera unexpectedly being borrowed for the holidays. It has just been returned earlier by Joel. And now, probably the biggest blow – my wallet is lost.

Okay, not lost but stolen. Every single evidence points to one man. I heard his voice early in the morning and I think it was coming from my room. What was he doing in my room early in the morning? I was still in bed in my other room downstairs. Apparently, his wife called through our phone and then my mom called him so he could attend to the phone. Right then, I knew something wasn’t right.

Rising from bed after ten minutes, I went upstairs and then my feeling that something was wrong has been reinforced by the sight of my drawer partly open. It was where I put my wallet every night. Right above is the telephone. I opened it and then it hit me. My wallet is gone. With it, all my cards and half of my bonus. Happy birthday to me.

Sound Advice

2004-12-17T18:41:00.000+08:00

Since it's early Sabbath evening, I decided to renew my "tradition" of listening to gospel songs the hour after sunset. Haven't done this in a while because of extended hours of travel. Today's quite a very appropriate time because as I'm typing this post, the Product Engineering christmas party is going on. There were three of these parties already which I had declined to attend. The CML party was snobbed by yours truly because of the retro theme (which I have already mentioned in a previous post). The Test Engineering and the ongoing Product Engineering party are both being held on a Sabbath evening.

I may be missing some fun times with them but I just don't deem it appropriate to party on a Friday night. Then I hear this song in my head:

Party people, it's Friday night / Gonna rock this joint until the morning light / Crowd is jumping, it feels alright / Forget Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. It's Friday night.

Oh yeah, there's something really fishy about Friday nights being the usual time to have fun for most people. Ok, I may not be going to any parties but I guess I will push through with attending Kirby's wedding tomorrow. I'm at the stage of recovering from my unwellness. The sore throat is gone. The cold is creeping up. And I get a lot of headaches from the right side of my brain.

--------------------

Back to the music. I was previously listening to this group called The Liberated Wailing Wall. I found them at the Jews for Jesus website, which by the way, I discovered while walking in Denver. You can download their songs for free right here. So far, I have only downloaded songs from their album This Is Jesuralem. Maybe we could use these songs in the AY program someday.

The thing is that I want to learn as much as I could regarding the plight of the Jews. These people were once chosen by God and are evidently going to turn back their hearts before the end of days. Finally, they will accept the Messiah's real identity.

Besides them, I also listen to some contemporary artists such as Jars of Clay. Maybe some people would attest that rock music and the gospel message could not jive with each other. They even call it the Devil's music. Now, that's a sad thought.

P.S. I wanted to share some lyrics from Jars of Clay's If I Left the Zoo CD. I'm flipping right now... Ok, I'll pick Unforgetful You since it was kind of popular back then. But only a few really read the lyrics. I can't believe it was even in the soundtrack of Drive Me Crazy.

I never minded calling You a King
If that meant that I could count on You
To give me everything
I never thought to ask You
I always thought You knew
It was never my intention to question You

You never minded calling me a child
Well, I guess that's how I acted all the while
But You live through every tantrum, You see through every lie
Though they seem to be more common
I just wanted You to know why oh why

Unforgetful You, unforgetful
Unforgetful You, so unforgetful

You never minded giving us the stars
Then showing us how blind and unaware of You we are
You painted me a picture and showed me how to see
Though I just won't behold it
Unless it pertains to me...

For Better or For What?

2004-12-15T21:29:00.000+08:00

This throat of mine is giving me a warning that I’m going to be sick soon. Maybe soon enough for the wedding on Saturday. Not my wedding but Kirby’s. This probably means that I wouldn’t be able to go to church. Weddings only happen once in our lives. Ok, that might not be true with some people but indeed, I still consider weddings as a very special event.

Although I have to be educated with the ceremony because it has been a long time since I’ve attended one. It just surprised me, like, I haven’t really witnessed any of my friends tying the knot yet. Cause there’s all these talk about us being in the supposed marrying age already. By the way, I used to ask my friends if it was okay to schedule my wedding on a Sabbath. Simply because it’s the only free time I may have.

Anyway, it’s also quite a relief to realize that most of my friends are single. But sooner or later, these people would find their version of the one. That includes me, of course. And I can’t believe I’m talking about this stuff right now.

By the way, what I have noticed with some people, girls specifically, is that they think too much about the wedding day and get all preoccupied with the preparation. As if married life is bundled up in a single day.

--------------

I sent email to my boss to tell him that I’d be utilizing my birthday leave on my birthday. I was not asking permission this time but well, he told me that I have to take a leave on the day after instead. He reasons that it’s ideal since my vacation would be continuous. And that I have to finish all my deliverables before vacation if I wanted to have one.

Ok, I agree with him on the deliverables part but I may still not go to work on my birthday. What’s a birthday leave if you can’t use it on your actual birthday? Not that celebration is big deal. I just wanted to get away for the day regardless if it’s almost vacation.

Click and Shoot

2004-12-13T21:18:00.000+08:00

For some reasons, my world came tumbling down yesterday. Maybe because of my fault. My foolishness. Fool. I’m just relieved I could admit it. That I have been vain, self-absorbed, and other synonyms. I wouldn’t go into details of this though. It’s just that I have come to another realization. Hopefully, this time, I am not overanalyzing things. And again, I’m relieved. (Now I can breathe again).

Zap. Change the mood. The play produced by AMiCUS yesterday was nevertheless very good. (Applauds) Another kudos for them. The play is entitled Estragel, basically about man’s everyday struggles told in witty style. I should’ve brought my non-Adventist friends. Needless to say, this was part of the reason why I felt like a fool.

Right after the play, I turned over my digital camera to Joel. Before parting, I asked him when he’d be returning it. December 26. WHAT?! That is about two weeks from now. Well, I’ve already agreed so I wasn’t able to take it back. And then I was at the Gil Puyat LRT station, thinking about what I just did.

I thought about the next two weeks without my camera. Let’s see – some more Christmas parties are going to take place, my birthday, Mae’s birthday, our trip to EK, and of course, Christmas. These events would all be taking place without my camera. I asked myself if I was just being pathetic or plain materialistic. Where is a shrink when you need one?

(Missing) Like the deserts miss the rain.

Killing the Floppy Disk

2004-12-11T18:06:00.000+08:00

Update on my computer: it's not busted anymore although I wouldn't be able to get it from the repair shop until tomorrow. So, I'm back at blogging here at Netopia. This is just the place best to be (for a price, I guess). It's got these neat Altec Lansing headphones which got me all hooked up with Yahoo! Launch some months ago. Plus, their computers have USB ports up front (I won't have to reach for the back of the CPU).

I need USB ports for my flash drive. For me, floppy drives are history. They're not handy, not efficient, and not durable. With the flash drive, I could easily get my files in and out of the office without the guards ever noticing it. Floppies and CDs are not allowed but they just have no idea what this odd-looking stick could do so they just let it pass. That is, if they ever get to notice it.

Wow, this post is starting to look like an ad for Netopia and Apacer USB Flash Drive. Show me the money...

---------------

We just conluded the Bible quiz for Area 3. I was almost a participant. The thing is, we ran out of questions so I had to help and contribute some of the questions and automatically disqualify myself from the activity. Some questions I contributed:

Which feast is celebrated by the Jews on the beginning of the seventh month of each year?
What is the name of the year when the Israelites would have to return to their own properties? This occurs every 49 years.
Which book in the Old Testament is this statement found: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
From which book do you find this riddle: "Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet."

I thought I was being merciful because I didn't ask for the answer to the riddle in the fourth question. I just asked for the book.

Geek, Interrupted

2004-12-09T18:39:00.000+08:00

My computer has bogged down again. I then realized just how important it is to me just by the panic I experienced when I found out that it would not power up. It's like the center of my work and leisure for the past seven months (?) already. And this is about the second time that it does not power up. The first time it happened, I was enraged for I thought that Kuya Vic messed up with it.

I have like, loads of kwentos that's why I can't help but drop by this internet cafe. By the way, this is also where I dropped my CPU for repair earlier, very immediately after finding out about the anomaly.

All day, I bummed around the house because we've got no work since the Christmas party is going on as I'm typing this post. They are now doing it in a Thursday night, which is great. The sad thing is that they are encouraging us to wear retro (60s to 80s) attire cause that's the theme. Forget it, I said to myself. Call me killjoy. Call me antisocial. Call me anything. I'm just not into it even if they say that it's not exactly required of us to do that.

After a long while I've finally been able to just stay home for an uninterrupted 24-hour period. I just thought that my parents and family are not getting enough of me. I'm out of the house everyday and I usually go home late, eat dinner, then retreat to my room. Bummer. It feels like Christmas since I'm spending some quality time with them.

Some of the things I did today:

1. Exercise - haven't done that in a while. I'm expecting to feel sore muscles by tomorrow.

2. Read - I've got new stuff in my library: Not Even a Hint (by Josh Harris) and You Are What You Think (by David Stoop). So far, so great. I also caught up with IKDG (also by Josh, yeah, I am still not finished with this) and Time Out of Mind: The Diaries of Michael Leonards (it's a blog actually from the 60s in hardbound book form).

3. Eat - we have some leftover ice cream and Regular Yum. I'm not so fond of Jollibee burgers but I still managed to eat one (laman tiyan).

4. Watched a movie - I saw The Skulls and it was so darn good. It was sitting in Video City for the longest time until it was mentioned in one of the conspiracy sites which I usually read. It's about a not so secret society (or a fraternity of sorts) in Yale called Skulls and Bones in real life.

5. Sleep - wasn't actually in my plan to take a nap but I got sleepy right after lunch. Zzzzzzz.

Ok, when would I be able to do this again, huh.

---------------------------------------------------

The dashes above this line. What does it mean to me. Should I actually put this part in another post? I'm not breaking tradition now. The rule is I could never publish two posts in a single day. This, however, qualifies as a second post altogether.

Well, ORN just had his last day at Cypress yesterday. His name is actually Rey. Some call him ORN bacuse it's his company initials (and they call me VAJ, sometimes). Eventually, Kuya Jao started calling him Porn. So, everytime we bump into each other, I'd sing.

Hey now, you're a porn star. Get your game on; get paid.

We're friends so it's okay. Although we do not hang arond much, he's probably the guy I trust the most in the workplace. He resigned because of reasons still unclear to me. He doesn't like his job anymore? He's getting married to Grace? He was bullied by the staff engineers? The couple is just so secretive. I mean, it took me about a month to realize that they were actually a couple. And now this.

Well, there goes another friend saying goodbye. I just hope that if he gets accepted in the US, he'd drag me as well. I'm sad but I'm laughin'.

More of These Kids

2004-12-07T21:49:00.000+08:00

As mentioned in my previous post, there'll be some more snapshots from the PWD event last Sunday. Before that, I'd like to take the time to apologize to those who may have been offended by my previous post, my churchmates, to be specific. Although, I do not and would not take back whatever I have written last Sunday. I'd just like to make it clear that it's not meant to be offensive. And this post will not be about wrong impressions. Nuff said.

Three deaf kids honing their sign language skill. I'm really eager to learn sign language as well. It's cool. I mean, people around me would not really understand what I'm saying save for people who knew the language. Hidden code of some sort.

Here again are the caregiver teams waving their group numbers for the arriving participants to see. I also did consider joining the caregivers but the name of their team just takes me aback. Sounds like you know what.

I'm not sure if he's an autistic guy but he sure is funny. Photo taken during the eating game and I guess he's most fit to play it.

Another shot from the eating game which is about the last leg of the event. Like the previous kid, this guy had his mouth full. Although he's not showing any particular emotion.

Can't wait to see the gift, huh.

Another happy gift recepient. Yehey! Children are brutally honest so I know that this girl is genuinely happy. And she's not camera shy.

As you may already know, we had lots of free taho inside the compound. These cotton candies are not free so, as expected, I wasn't able to grab one of these. Hey, they've got blue cotton now. Has these existed for sometime now? Pardon me if ever.

Apparently, the mother of this boy lost the stub to claim the little boy's gift. What a pity. He was almost in tears when the gift distributor told them he wouldn't get any. After much discussion, they finally gave the gift to the boy. Now, I can sleep well.

Pakyaw. Hakot. She's got it all.

Someone is really happy here. I just motioned to take a picture of the two of them and this girl went hysterical. One laughing opportunity for my totally tired day. Ha-ha.

So there. I love kids now. No kidding. It's therapeutic.

These Kids

2004-12-05T19:52:00.000+08:00

Yey, I'm a certified volunteer. (Like there is such a thing as a certified one). Today, I get to live my high school dream of being a journalist, or specifically, a photojournalist. Due to the amount of pictures I took, I am putting up this article in two parts. I've already mentioned about this event in a previous post: Persons with Disabilities Day organized by the Archdiocese of Manila. Read on.

If I'm not mistaken, taho is made from soya, which makes it quite healthy. But of course, there have been documentaries stating that it isn't. The girl is autistic and she seems to be quite contented with taho for now.

The day has just started but I was already pretty tired. Good thing I see these kind of smiles form the participants. The caregiver team are responsible for directly taking care of the children. I thought I wasn't ready for that. They've got the green scarfs and we've got, of all colors, pink. I decided not to wear mine and eventually, my scarf got misplaced. Disposed of.

San Carlos Seminary. The venue is in Guadalupe Viejo which is a few meters walk from the Guadalupe MRT station. It's as Catholic as it gets. Most of them are nice, a few are friendly, none of them are legalistic and judgmental (as compared to, well, Adventists). At least, none of the people I came across with in the event.

This lady relly wants to be in the spotlight. I was poniting the camera towards her during my breaktime. Then she smiled just like that. I would've conducted an interview but I decided to stick with taking shots. And feel as if I'm not part of the event but an agent of observation.

So, where do you want to go today? Actually, I was just looking for the best restroom around the seminary. Based on intelligence reports, it's located in the Lay Foundation Center. Left is where we go.

Here's one of the participants during the registration for the medical examination. I can't quite figure out the look on his face.

Specifically, I was assigned to the medical mission area. The boy on the wheelchair is being, I don't know, consoled(?) by his mother. The whole day, I was yearning to talk to these people -- deaf, blind, and those with cerebral palsies. I don't know why I was quite preoccupied with my thoughts.

This is Rose. I joined them for lunch and I had a fun time. She's autistic so I had to distract her from whatever she's preoccupied with whenever I want to talk to her. And whoa, she runs a lot. I'll miss her.

Made by one of the disabled children. I thought it was brilliant. These kids could actually be great in their art of choice, if given the correct training. Although they do not really want to be treated in any way different than those without physical disabilities. Most of them want to be seen by everyone to be just kids and not "special" kids.

Wow, lugaw. I mean, goto. Does it have a difference? These are for the participants only and not for the volunteers. Okay, I guess I'll just drop by at Chowking (or Jollibee?) to get my share.

My next post would be more of these.

Help Wanted

2004-12-03T19:52:00.000+08:00

Much have been said about the typhoons which have recently come and gone the past few days. I need not expand on the casualties and shameful causes of the disaster. Just moments ago, I was thinking of our clan back in Quezon. My long lost relatives are scattered in the vast province. I don't know them and they do not know me. But at least I know they exist.

I was soaking wet last night because of the haphazard tricycle ride that I got. Most tricycles were parked because of the weather so I had no choice but to share the backride with another passenger. And then all hell broke loose when the wind started blowing the pouring rain in our direction. Cold, wet, and helpless -- three words I could describe my situtation throughout the trip.

Anyway, this is a fine time to do some volunteer work. The thing is that I'm already engaged with covering the PWD (Persons with Disabilities) Day on Sunday. And this also conflicts with the volunteer pooling event in Intramuros. Great. I wish I could divide my body and attend to both. For the PWD, most of the volunteers will be taking care of the disabled children for a day.

However, the documentation team (which includes me) will not be assigned to any child cause we have to (you guessed it) document the event. I guess my camera is going to be put to the test again come Sunday. The thing which makes me uneasy is the shirt which we're required to wear on the event. Maybe because it's white. Who said that volunteers could not be vain?

Revenge of This Nerd

2004-12-01T20:56:00.000+08:00

It usually gets really cold here during December but tonight, it's hot. This village sits beside a hill and we get more breeze than we deserve at this time of year. That's one of the reasons why I sleep wearing socks on some nights. Another is that I find it fun to wear socks while sleeping. Don't get me wrong, though. After wearing socks all day, I throw them for laundry and get some fresh ones for the night.

I think I'm falling in love all over again with ColdFusion. Before I left last September, I was studying this markup language until I got interrupted. Riz, the resident programmer in our group, has left for Singapore late last week. Most of her projects have been endorsed to me that's why I'm having the time of my life at work again.

In the morning, I do all sorts of stuff I have to do at the test floor -- working for a living. In the afternoon, it's a different story. I do all the software stuff -- working for pleasure. Even if I sometimes get quite a few headaches looking at all those codes, I do find it enjoyable to think and type, copy and paste, and edit and check.

However, I still have to prove myself in this area since I haven't really delivered significant output because I'd have to go through all these tutorials before I dive in and declare myself as a code warrior. The problem is most of the stuff I'm working on requires urgent completion. But then again, everybody wants to rush everyone in here. It's the company's everlasting dilemma, so I need not worry.

Now, I gotta have to get back to work right in the comfort of my room and finish this blissful ColdFusion tutorial. I hope I wouldn't be up 'til modnight, though.

Rainy Days + Mondays

2004-11-29T21:31:00.000+08:00

Rainy days and Mondays don't always get me down, but they do sometimes. But not today, though. I hope you're not confused yet. This is the end of the long weekend and also the end of the supposed "No Work Mondays" declaration in CML. None of us are suposed to go to work on Mondays. For me, however, it turned out to be "Work On Mondays" instead, for I got in two out of five Mondays throughout this Month.

Didn't go to work today, at least. It looks like a perfect time to sleep or binge around at home but I still managed to get my sorry ass to the AY (Adventist Youth) council meeting. I thought everyone was going to be late so I was yearning to just walk out and leave after some minutes of waiting. Well, well, well, I don't really know if I'm prepared enough to lead the conceptualization of the weekly AY programs for the whole of next year. Ready or not, guidance from up above will always be there, I guess.

Hazel is leaving for Korea in the very near future. I sent text messages a few days ago and told her that I miss talking with her and that I miss her in general. Was supposed to ask her to talk and eat out but I was acting quite naive earlier and before I knew it, she already went home. There is really a very important matter which I need to "discuss" with her but maybe time has not yet come for me to blurt it out.

So on the trip home, I was uneasy. My emotional stability (and even sanity) was challenged just by thinking about these sort of things. I've got far worse experiences with this other girl in college but enough of that for now. Speaking of college, I passed through Adamson this afternoon, for old times' sake. AdU (Adamson University) is the school I got stuck with for five long years. Walking by the Falcon Walkway (or Hallway?), I was expecting some nostalgia to sweep me off but there was little.

I was also meaning to take some pictures of the walkway but it was kind of dark today so I'll just do a documentary of sorts sometime in the future for my beloved alma mater. I'm actually being sarcastic when I say "beloved alma mater".

Shorts

2004-11-27T22:41:00.000+08:00

Just last night, I was already in the jeepney waiting for take-off until I realized that I had no coins. The least I have is a hundred-peso bill so I decided to go back to SM Dasma (yup, there again) where I just came from. I could not pay this kind of amount to a jeepney driver unless I expect to get accusing stares from other passengers. Or worse, have my money returned (and feel guilty for not paying). So off I went back.

I have to make a purchase to have some coins for a change. First stop: National Book Store. The only book worth my money at this moment is "Not Even A Hint". It costs PhP 200 flat. If I buy this one, I'd get no coins at all. I considered buying a burger or a shirt or a CD. What the heck. After feeling a hint of weariness, I stopped and decided to just surf the internet at Netopia. For sure, I'll get some coins afterwards. Some months ago, they gave me PhP 100 worth of 25-centavo coins as a change.

Once online, I went to my second favorite bookstore: Amazon (Powerbooks being the first; Borders being the third). My intention was to look for some books about conspiracies but this Amazon Theatre thing caught my attention. The internet at my room is on dial-up (one I'm using right about now) so I could not possibly watch films without preparing to wait overnight for the download. Netopia, I think, is using PLDT MyDSL which is fairly fast (I just wrote a free ad for them. Sucks, huh.).

Amazon Theatre showcases five supposedly interesting and engaging short films. Every week they're launching one. The third and latest flick, Do Geese See God?, was the first one I watched. Some weeks ago, I downloaded a copy of the very first film, Portrait, but I was never really able to watch it until last night. Wow, I've finished watching three good movies in one sitting and in less than 30 minutes.

The best among the three, in my opinion, is Do Geese See God? partly because of its interactive feature. You'd gonna have to "stop and smell the roses" to be able to watch it properly. Try watching it to realize what I'm talking about. Portrait has a predictable storyline but very well-made. Don't be misled. Minnie Driver is not the main star of this film.

The thing with short films is that sometimes, I don't get the point that the scenes are trying to convey. Sometimes, however, the shorty does not really intend to deliver any message but the audience are able to make up their own personal interprertations. That was how it is with Agent Orange, a film directed by Tony Scott. Hey, I've just learned that he's the brother of Ridley Scott, another Hollywood director.

Hollywood blockbusters suck but these Hollywood shorties deserve a second look. I think I'd download them all. And Tooth Fairy, the fourth film, would be released on the 30th. Can't wait. The title sounds familiar. Blair Witch, I guess.

Now showing in Amazon Theatre.

Gifts for the Loony One

2004-11-25T21:35:00.000+08:00

Good grief! I thought Blogger was down again for the nth time. Finally, the Create New Post page has finished downloading. Have I ever mentioned that I would be ever grateful to Blogger? I haven't even sent any thank you note to them after all these months of tolerance. The only time they get to hear from me is when I have a problem with the server or when I'd report some bugs.

Just went home from SM Dasma. Julian and I are supposed to look for 'something hard and long' at the mall. It's for our traditional exchange gift (a.k.a. Monito-Monita) thing at the plant. Last week, it was something 'soft and round'. I gave Ms. Looney Toons a minidisk. Pretty much self-explanatory. Looney Tunes (or Toons?) is the code name of the lucky person I picked during the balloting. I've chosen Blogger as my code name, for obvious reasons.

Thought it was a safe one but Aireene was the one who picked my name so in an instant, she knew. So now, I know that she's the one who's giving me these weekly gifts. But she's still not into admitting it. Anyway, advanced thank you to her who would be obliged to give me a gift again tomorrow.

Now, I hope Ms. Looney Tunes has been lunatic enough to appreciate my gift for her last week. If I see it tomorrow unclaimed, I have no doubt that this loony girl is Cali. She left for Vermont (or is it San Jose?) in California a few weeks ago but still have managed to join our little kris kringle thingy. Anyway, she could use the company's free shipping services to send her gifts. But I heard she's coming back soon. I smell chocolates again.

Of Lakes, Bays, and Springs

2004-11-23T20:53:00.000+08:00

My camera is always with me wherever my feet takes me at any given day. Except when I go to work, where cameras are forbidden to be brought inside the plant. You'd have to leave them with the security guards. Not a chance.

Lake Caliraya. After the buffet thing where all of us attempted to eat using a banana leaf as a plate, I noticed this water container. It looks so lonely (or deserted, perhaps?). Wait, what do you call this thing anyway. I used to call it a galon but I guess that only applies to those round containers with a handle. Besides, I don't think it carries a gallon.

Manila Bay. From the floor itself, you'd know this is Baywalk. Aside from the floor, you may also notice a pair of shoes. My very first investment looks all worn out now. I use it at work, church, travel, basically all the time. I even used it for badminton twice, I think. A lot of skin was peeled off my feet after that. At least, my rubber shoes at home stays new.

Colorado Springs. Nope, this is not a waiting area for people who want to take a bath in a spring. It's the COS airport. I barely slept at the time I took this photo. Why this angle? I was actually trying not to catch attention so I just placed the camera on my lap and pressed the button right there. Yikes, my passport is showing.

Singin' My Heart Out

2004-11-21T19:28:00.000+08:00

Lunchtime yesterday, I was having a great time by myself at KFC in Rotonda. Mech joined me later because she intends to borrow my TDVC book. Still later, Joel, Eve, and Rachel arrived to join us. Later and later, Julius arrived with Hazel but they didn't join us because I think they're on a date. And later after meal, Janrey arrived. Enough of solitude.

Joel told me that I was supposed to be practicing the piece that we would sing next week when we'd visit the Bulacan church. Since Mech has been insistent on inviting us to join a volunteer orientation that afternoon, I opted to join her just to avoid singing. Not that I don't like the idea of singing with them or singing in general. I just thought that it's just not a good time to do it.

We did sang together in Caliraya and that was cool. Singing with them again in Bulacan would be overkill. If ever they found that I intend to "escape" this engagement, eventually they would tell me that I'm refusing to lend my talent for God's work. Grave remark but that's how complicated things could get with some people.

Now, singing can be my talent. I sing in my room all the time, thanks to my dependable I-Tunes. I just don't think that I could contibute to the ministry with my voice. I'll do all the carpentry stuff if they want but I won't sing. So with that, I "escaped" and joined Mech at the orientation for volunteers who would be joining this event for disabled children. It's being organized by the Archdiocese of Manila.

I never really had an experience of working with Catholics for such a cause as this so I am, again, looking forward to the event itself. I wished, too, that our own church would be holding events like these to give us an opportunity to really help people. And to teach some of us that it's not all about not eating chicken fried from "porky" oil, not wearing denim inside the church, or not listening to rock music. No, no. Worship is much more than these shallow matters.

Another Fact or Fiction Discourse

2004-11-19T22:29:00.000+08:00

Obviously, this is the continuation of my previous post about Brown’s Langdon novels. You see, The Da Vinci Code has been on the New York Times bestseller list for the longest time. Add to that is the fact that there are more than a dozen books written as a reaction to this particular novel. And, to note that I have mentioned about these phenomenal volumes for, let me count, one, two, three, four, five posts at least!

The truth is that I’m still quite confused about the fiasco that’s been brought about by this novel. The book and the story itself is not as conclusive as the other novel (Angels & Demons) but it does have its high points of interesting discussions. Again, there are lots of facts and conspiracy theories presented in this one. Below are a few of them.

“Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions.” (Teabing)

Leigh Teabing, in the quote above, is talking about the Bible. He’s saying that it’s a big cover-up – a hoax – the grandest one in history. Of course, we know better than these scholars. What aroused my curiosity is the number of similarities of today’s “Christian” practices with pagan ones, some of them I’ve already mentioned in the previous post:

Egyptian sun disks = halos of Catholic saints.
Isis nursing her miraculously conceived son Horus = Virgin Mary nursing Baby Jesus.
Other birthday celebrants for December 25: Osiris, Adonis, Dionysus.
The pre-Christian god Mithras was called the Son of Godand the Light of the World.
The newborn Krishna was presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh
Constantine ordered to change the sanctity of the Jewish Sabbath of Saturday to coincide with the pagan’s veneration day of the sun (that is, Sunday).

“We’ve only touched on Da Vinci today, but we’ll be seeing a lot more of him this semester.” (Langdon)

To coincide with Bob, I guess I’ll be talking about some other stuff about the Sacred Feminine, the Divine Proportion, the Priory of Sion, the Knights Templar, and other out of the box topics in my future posts. Pardon me for I’m really sleepy and I have to get up early tomorrow for the Sabbath services. And defy Constatine’s political crap.

The Fact or Fiction Discourse

2004-11-17T21:18:00.000+08:00

Since I've already finished reading my Dan Brown paperbacks, two of my girl friends (to emphasize: not girlfriends) wanted to borrow the two books. Before I hand it over to them, I'll go over some stuff thru it then I'll tell you what I think. First things first, Angels & Demons...

"Since the beginning of time, spirituality and religion have been called on to fill in the gaps that science did not understand." (Kohler)

The novel includes an inside look at CERN, a highly advanced Swiss research facility. This is where the WWW has originated, as a local network for information sharing. Now, CERN is a real life institution. Reading the first few chapters, I was led to believe that the events happened in real life as well. Until Brown's interview came along.

"Some of Italy's most enlightened men -- physicists, mathematicians, atronomers -- began meeting secretly to share their concerns about the church's inaccurate teachings." (Langdon)

Illuminati -- a secret society do exist. Really intriguing brotherhood. From what I've read with many sources, this society did seem to exist for real. In a way, they led their own version of the Reformation but I guess they did not succeed.

"My Dad wanted to bring science to a higher level, where science supported the existence of God." (Vetra)

So, the physicist-priest simulated that matter could indeed be created out of nothing -- thereby proving the concept of Creation. These dialogues between her and Langdon were very much entertainingly intelligent. If there's scientific backing behind Biblical claims, it's just too plain for most people.

Here's some striking facts from Langdon's class:
1. Christ was born in March. December 25 is an ancient pagan holiday of the Unconquered Sun (sol invictus).
2. Canonization is taken from from ancient "god-making" rite of Euhemerus.
3. The practice of "god-eating" (Holy Communion) was borrowed from the Aztecs.
4. The "face" of God in portraits is derived from the look of Zeus.

"The ancient war between science and religion is over. You have won. But you have not won fairly." (Ventresca)

Whoa, Carlo Ventresca's official statement from the Sistine Chapel. I was reading in awe the whole time. Forget about Jamiroquai's Virtual Insanity. Here's the real deal.

Tale Reservoir

2004-11-15T23:46:00.000+08:00

Time for another late-night post. Just arrived home from SM Fairview. Never realized how far it actually was until we computed our fare. Freshman year in college, I was only paying PhP 5.00 for the bus (those air continuous ones) from Megamall to Taft. Now, it costs PhP 23.00 from Quezon Avenue to Baclaran. It's either I'm getting old or the government is just not capable of being called a government. Or both.

I have so many "tales" stuck in my head right now, waiting to be told out in the open:

Tale # 1: They're watching!

My former manager, Sir Joseph, openly told me that he already knows about this blog. That means he knows I'm applying for a job at Canon Info Tech. And, he was virtually the subject of an infamous post I have written last September (A Dose of MicroManagement). Most probably, the new manager would also know all about this. He's got one comment, though: "Don't worry, I won't be taking it against you". Well, thanks, Sir Joseph (in case you're reading this again).

Tale # 2: TDVC Conclusion

Yesterday, I've finished reading The Da Vinci Code, after months of buying time to read. I'm still a bit confused with the ending. Was Langdon actually satisfied of what he found in Rosslyn and in Paris? What's with that epilogue anyway? I'd discuss more about that in another post. Right now, I'm looking forward to the movie adaptation (care of Ron Howard) and to Dan Brown's third Langdon novel.

Tale # 3: Paramnesia Showcase

We saw The Forgotten earlier this evening. The girls thought it was going to be scary so they wanted to watch Wicker Park instead. Sorry for them cause I got the money. We all ended up liking it. Although it reminds of The X-Files (a pair who would stop at nothing to find the truth amidst government conspirators). These were no government conspirators but aliens, I guess. Which, again, reminds me of The Mulder and Scully Show.

Tale # 4: Nokia Deadend

I was in a hurry to buy a new phone this afternoon so I had no choice but to pick a Nokia model (2100). The Smart store didn't have stocks of Sony phones. Anyway, the new phone is nice. Though, I found out that the messages are still not displayed in chronological order. I'd be stuck with a disorganized inbox for some time. The old phone and the new SIM will be awarded to my sister. After all, I accidentally destroyed one of her phones some years ago by dipping it in a mug unknowingly filled with some stench of a fluid.

Looking forward to the workweek at hand. And I'm not being sarcastic about that.

Biblical Brainstorm

2004-11-13T11:15:00.000+08:00

At this moment, I’m ready to crash into my bed, but not yet. We left from Baywalk in Roxas Blvd. about 8:30 PM that’s why I had to struggle to keep myself awake right after I got on the van on the way home. What a day this has been. I actually managed to arrive a little after 7 AM at church this morning. I used to wake up at 8 AM and arrive by 11. Something must’ve gone wrong with me.

What better place to rest. Manila Center Adventist Church. Resting in front of a busy street.

The reason why we’re quite early is because we were assigned to handle the morning worship service on the church in Duyan-duyan, somewhere in Quezon City. Didn’t have breakfast that’s why I was hungry all morning. Now, I’ve broken the habit of eating a lot on all my meals. Will resume tomorrow, though.

Refresher detour. Stairs leading up to the balcony where visitors and new people are given welcome.

I was really compelled by the message during the Sabbath School class. The pastor talked about the Inquisition, the Dark Ages, and then gave relevant information on current issues such as the inflating debt of the US and the controversial papal seat. These are stuff I concern myself with about a lot. It’s a pity I didn’t have more time to dig deeper into these. I really hope that I’d be able to allot some time.

Downward alley. Stairs leading down to the elementary school and master guide rooms.

Acting lazy and sleepy during the break, I just let moments pass by. Before we knew it, it was time for the afternoon AY program. Didn’t like the idea of doing Bible trivia because the congregation was always unresponsive. Well, not today. Finally, I was able to solicit some attention and got satisfying responses for the topic of my discussion. My trivia was about the Pentateuch. Ever heard of it?

Twin doors. Doors in the main entrance, strategically blocking the view from inside out.

That’s the reason why I’m yearning to do a follow-up discussion in another Sabbath. I think that the audience at Manila Center is finally learning how listen and respond. The most active person in the audience, however, was a visitor. Visitors here often become models of zealousness and involvement. Slowly but surely, though, I’m learning the art of combat against most people’s short attention span.

Ghost from London

2004-11-11T21:05:00.000+08:00

While brosing thru my site stats, I've found out that somebody searched for vaj.blogspot.com as the keyword then, as expected, that somebody had this blog as a search result. I'm not sure if he had intentionally meant to type the URL in the address bar and just mistakenly entered it in the Yahoo! search box. Anyway, I got curious so I tried it myself. I typed the URL in the search box and what I found out actually surprised me a bit.

Aside from my various posts in this blog, the search engine also returned results for pages entitled (read:london). You probably know by now what the next thing I did. Of course, I clicked on the link. I got quite intrigued when I saw that the URL of these pages begin with my blog's subdomain. Hmmm... I must've been missing something. For a moment, I thought that I was sharing this blog with somebody else. Partly true.

It turns out that this subdomain (a.k.a. blog URL) is used to be inhabited by another blog named (read:london). The blogger's name is Jilly and she was assigned to work in London for the time being. Kinda reminds me how I got started with my own blog. I was also "exiled" (that was how I put it back then) in a land far and away. Eventually, I called it home.

Now, I'm not sure if Jilly if Japanese or if Japan is the place she refers to as "home" in her August 2001 archive. She never mentioned it so far as I have read but she does put a signature at the end of her posts: ke kite ano. Again, I'm not sure if it's Japanese. She lives with three guys and it seems as if she's always waiting for the weekend to come, just like many others.

Her blog had been active from Aug. 2001 through Dec. 2002. I'm just starting to read it and I'm finding it quite interesting. I'm wondering if she ever found a boyfriend in London. She mentioned some guy came up to her. Afterwards, she accidentally lost the piece of paper containing his number.

Been also wondering how she came to abandon her blog and this subdomain. One year and eight months later, I claimed it for myself. Happy to know that I've got company, though.

Invasion of the E-mail Predators

2004-11-09T20:23:00.000+08:00

It has been quite a while since I felt like I loved my job. You may have noticed that I only have negative things to say about my job and the company I work for but that's not necessarily true. I do have a lot of fun in the plant often but those moments just seem to be outweighed by the bad times. And hey, I just remembered that it's payday. There must be some connection.

Speaking of payday, I'm just happy that my I could perform a withdrawal transaction on my ATM again. For the past few days, I've been bankrupt. Partly, it's because I was quite on a spending spree lately, going places, applying for jobs, and a host of other stuff which slowly drained my bank account. More than that, though, it's because a lot of people in and out of the plant owes me some bucks that I even lost track of the who and the how much already.

With that, I ended up owing money from Val and Aireene. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have been able to indulge in that Quarter Pounder last Sunday and two consecutive heavy meals for my lunch. Yep, I'm trying to eat a lot lately. There are times, though, that I feel dizzy after eating, just because I'm bordering on gluttony.

Back to my job. I've finally officially finished the darn TQFP O/S test program which I've been ranting about for weeks. Now, I'm actually selecting which project I'll be focusing on next. Along the way, I'm having the time of my life replying to e-mails of the bigshots in the office. If anybody asks me when the commit date for this or how this crap is doing so far, I'd immediately reply and tell them to stop bothering me.

That's the thing with some managers in this plant sometimes. Many of them act so much like politicians. All day, they prey upon our activities and wait for some e-mail they could reply to then call everyone's attention to something they think needs to call attention to. But, like I've previously said, I love my job at this moment in time again. Their politics wouldn't have to ruin my zeal.

Eastward Bound II

2004-11-07T22:01:00.000+08:00

My hopes did not end up in vain when those people from Eastwood called me up last week, telling me I should drop by sometime. So, I did. The problem is how I’d tell my boss about it. Or how not to. Just like the previous alibi, I said I was sick. And yeah, I was actually a bit sick but not to the point where I couldn’t go to work. The thing is that I’m supposed to attend to the critical crap that I’ve been working on. So, even if I told my boss I was sick, I was still made to go to work.

But I still made it to the Eastwood session. I was late by about 10 minutes, thanks to the taxi driver who toured me around White Plains going against the traffic all the time. And then he had the guts not to give me any change. I wasn’t even offering a tip. I was so glad to learn that the guy who would interrogate me is still on a meeting. Ten minutes, I waited in the really cold corner where I also took an exam the last time.

After a while, somebody made me transfer to a more comfortable area. Solitary confinement. I wondered if that was part of the screening process. Cameras may be in place to monitor how we react to situations where we had to wait. Finally, the guy arrived. The session went well, I guess, since I was occasionally smiling. He began the conversation in Tagalog but I found myself blabbering in English the whole time.

There were a bunch of personal and hypothetical questions. Many of them were related to my current job. I actually blurted out about the grave situation I was in at the plant. Whew, got the message across: please get me out of there without actually begging for it. There were two technical questions which I could still vividly remember, though:

Question 1: How do you code the function for getting the string length?

I was at a lost but I tried, nevertheless. Dunno if it was impressive cause I actually was able to code the function but not in strict C syntax.

Question 2: Supposed ‘1’ is assigned for “Hello”, ‘2’ for “world”, and ‘3’ for “!”, could you print the strings whenever an integer from 1 thru 3 is pressed? Do it without using conditional statements.

It was actually a breeze, until he mentioned that I wasn’t supposed to use if’s, cases, and so forth. I gave up. Well, I haven’t really used C outside of my programming class in college three years ago. Anyway, he told me nobody ever gets that one. Time to jump for joy.

Ge-ne-Sci

2004-11-05T23:07:00.000+08:00

The Blogger server seems to be down right now but it wouldn’t stop me from blogging.

Attacks of criticism and scrutiny never really cease concerning the Book. Of all the books of the Book, though, it seems that the book of Genesis has to be the most challenged throughout the ages. From creation week to the great deluge to the patriarchal existence and the Egyptian famine, these topics has gotten all the brows raised up when objective “science” comes into play.

Raining up
There were no occurrences of rain anytime before the flood. Streams were just flowing from the ground, irrigating the plants and the ground altogether. Theoretically, no clouds were also supposed to be present.

Eden, where art thou?
I’ve always wondered where the Garden of Eden actually was located. Or if it’s still being guarded by the cherubs. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers are still easily located in the Middle East but there’s no clue as to the location of the tree of the garden of good and evil.

Cain’s party
After murdering his brother Abel, Cain went to a place called Nob. There, he found a wife. I actually thought there were only the four of them to begin with: Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel. So, what about these people from Nob?

How old is old (when the world was young)?
The genealogy mentioned a man named Methuselah who had lived for 969 years, making him the record holder of being the oldest guy of all time. Makes me wonder if he still would be able to remember his teenage years or which part of his life would he tend to experience his midlife crisis.

Doom exemption
Noah, his family, and the pairs of animals that went on the ark with him were the only ones left alive after the flood. Well, not really. Those fishes and other sea creatures were exempted from the wrath that was incurred on mankind. So, that explains Lochness.

Baby Babylon
Everyone was speaking the same language when they were building the tower of Babel. Which language were they actually using before the great confusion took place? It was in this point when it was openly stated that there’s nothing impossible for men to plan and execute if, as one, they would speak a single language.

Mystery of Three
Abraham had been visited by three men to tell about his overdue son and the impending doomsday in Sodom and Gomorrah. The strange thing to note is that everytime Abraham speaks to these three men, someone would reply with a prelude of “The LORD said”.

The Dreamer’s Tribulation
Joseph is easily the crowd favorite in all of Genesis. He was envied by his brothers and favorably singled out by his father Israel (a.k.a. Jacob). Still, his name isn’t included in the twelve tribes of Israel. Nevertheless, two of his sons got it. Fair enough, I guess.

Before I end this post, I remembered another notable thing about Genesis: it’s authorship is actually attributed to Moses. He obviously wrote many generations after all the events have taken place. And his generation has four more times of a story to tell.

Whitewashed

2004-11-03T22:27:00.000+08:00

A friend of mine sent me a link to this last year. Although I'm not quite a fan of forwarded emails, I decided to click the link anyway. After viewing it, I also sent it to some people. Now that I'm having a writer's block, I figured out that it's not such a bad idea to blog about it. Just click on the picture below and then click "View Presentation".

And yeah, I admit to being cheesy sometimes.

All Saints' Place

2004-11-01T22:09:00.000+08:00

After much anticipation, my trip to Sto. Tomas, Batangas has finally pushed through. Basically, I was invited to come over for the whole weekend but I was only able to go there this morning. This is another first for me, I guess. First time to visit my relatives alone. I was supposed to tag along my two other cousins here in Dasma but I couldn’t reach them last night. The instructions for the trip given by Yani were pretty straightforward so I didn’t have any difficulties reaching their place.

Tropical Hut. The hut now has amenities found in most hotels. Yey!

Before I get to arrive at their location called San Pablo Nayon, I passed through consecutive places named after ordained Catholic “saints” – San Agustin, San Mateo, and Sto. Tomas proper. A lot of people were in the street when I arrived. I was scared and embarrassed. Hmm… the tradition of welcoming visitors warmly. Their place is so WOW. Not their house, but the hut/farm/poultry area some meters away from it is a haven of fresh air with matching the Makiling overview. Roosters were all over the place because my uncle takes on the cockpit once in a while.

Makiling teaser. The poultry collection with Mt. Makiling covered atop with clouds.

Before I knew it, I was actually speaking in a natural Batangueño accent. Yup, I was replacing “ba” with “ga” and their intonations were just contagious. It was quite funny because I was getting it all mixed up with the Ilocano expressions I’ve picked up at CML. To note that I’ve only been in Batangas for about seven hours. We then went to the cemetery then played tong-its for almost two hours. I didn’t join but I was spying on their cards. There’s this guy named Kenneth who passed by. They were all saying that he’s in that show called Starstruck. Yeah, like I care at all.

Thicker than water. My cousin Yani with our nephew Andrei. "Bibo" kids, past and present.

The cemetery did not look like a place of solemn remembrance of the dead, though. The place was all crowded and it’s as if the families were having their mini reunions and picnics right above the graveyard. People were gambling, gossipping, buying, selling, eating, and some were even partying in the corner.

Inside looking out. Suddenly, I am yearning to put up a house with windows having a wooden stick stand.

When I was asking for permission to go home, my uncle told me:

"Ba’t hindi ka na lang dito magpalipas ng gabi at bukas na lamang umalis?"

Suddenly I had this strange feeling that I’ve heard it a lot of times before. I just can’t remember where.

Weekend Warhead

2004-10-30T22:02:00.000+08:00

This is the second time my weekend plans had to be ruined by urgent job calls. Am I complaining? Maybe. Sir Ed called us at the lab before 5 PM Friday and I wasn’t there so he just told Sir George that I call him back. I didn’t. I just sent an email before I went home about the things which have been done on the test program. It’s still ain’t completed because it was total crap right from the start.

Are they still not waking up to the fact that I can’t wrestle with low-level electronics? See, I almost resigned months ago so they’ve decided to shift my work and make me focus on software. Where the crap are the software projects? Somebody save me from this hellhole. I’m getting almost desperate that I’d be accepting any offer sheet, regardless of the offer. Unreasonable, I know.

My weekend was planned as follows: go to church on Saturday morning; go home early to be able to meet with my high school friends in the evening; Sunday, I’m supposed to go with Anthony to Batangas, where I’d stay there until Monday afternoon. Plus, if ever the Batangas trip wouldn’t push through, I’d join the Area 3 Sportsfest.

My weekend will be as follows: go to church on Saturday morning. I forgot about high school so we went to the afternoon program at the Pasig church. Going to work on Sunday morning. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get to out hell by 12 NN. I’m still planning to go to Batangas, until Monday afternoon.

Sir Ed sent me the following text message Friday night. Prior to this, he sent me another one, telling me to report at the plant during the weekend.

Ver don’t forget 2
release d test
methodly memo 4
os test. RQB is
expecting d
program 2 b ready
by next wk or our
heads will roll

Bring it on.

(For the second time, a power failure has occurred before I was able to save and publish a post. MS Word auto recovery feature is doing a pretty good job.)

How to be Unlicensed (And Get Away With It)

2004-10-28T22:52:00.000+08:00

This article could also be titled as: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Ignoring the Engineering Board Exam or The Engineer Without a PRC Number Survival Guide or even Licensure Procrastination for Dummies.

Step 1. Be a kick-ass student. You know what I mean here. Get high grades. Earn the respect of your classmates, professors, and the dean (without using politics). Win some quiz bees inside and out. Maintain your scholarship (or at least pretend to be a scholar). This is going to be your biggest asset if you ever decide to defy the norm by ignoring the board exam.

Step 2. Join the planning. Even if you have doubts on whether to take the board exam immediately after graduation, it is highly recommended to join your classmates in planning for it. Hunt for a room in Morayta, inquire at the popular review centers, exchange notes with them. This would leave everyone with little idea that you’re actually gearing up for Step 3.

Step 3. Get a job. No, not just any job. The job should be within your field of interest. It must be a full-time occupation from a reputable employer/corporation. Lastly, it should be in conflict with the review schedule which you had earlier reserved for.

Step 4. Forget about it. Yup, forget about the board exam and accept the offer from your new boss. Get high with your exciting new job until it becomes your life. Be successful and enjoy it. Before you know it, some of your classmates have already passed the board exam and some have failed. Time to enroll for the new review semester.

Step 5. Delay indefinitely. You have tons of concerns with your life that you feel taking the board exam would be a waste of time and money. Not to mention that it would consume ALL your spare time in case you would sign up for the review class (granting that you’d take it seriously). So, whenever people ask you when you’re going to take the exam (which would be freakin’ often), tell ‘em you’re not sure. Since you’ve followed Step 1, they’d all be dying to witness how you’d fare.

Step 6. Reason well. Honestly, you’re no longer interested in electrical engineering. You’ve barely applied it in your job and you want to focus on software stuff, which I doubt would require an engineering license. Tell people to their faces that you’re not going to spend five more months of your life to get another card stuffed in your wallet.

Step 7. Take it. Just for the sake of taking it, take the exam if you already have amassed wealth, honor, and fame – all the time you’ve been unlicensed. Who knows, you might even make it to the Top 10 and then change your mind and consider becoming an engineer once again.

I’m keepin’ my fingers crossed.

Eastward Bound

2004-10-26T21:19:00.000+08:00

Sometime in the not-so-distant past, I went to Eastwood City in Libis to attend to some business matters. And whoa, the place is so nice. This “city” used to exist just in my imagination whenever I hear it being mentioned in RX or Magic. Way back when I didn’t have a real life.

The first day, I took the PHILCOA route. Arrived quite early so I overstayed at McDonald’s. Jason passed by and he was looking for Mark. What a small world. We were just chatting the night before but we never agreed to meet.

Anyway, my appointment at Eastwood was 3 PM so I got a cab from PHILCOA by 2 PM. Traffic was congested due to the construction of the overpass, according to the taxi driver. We were able to talk about a lot of stuff along the way because he re-routed to some sordid path. That’s the reason why the fare amounted to 125 pesos. And I had to pay 150 bucks.

Morning view. Am I looking into the future of my mornings?

I was very happy when I exited the place so I took a cab again even if I’m already aware of the much cheaper jeepney rides. This time around, the driver is again in a conversational mood. He was ranting about the people we were looking at on the coffee shops in Eastwood. He told me that they are so vain and that they constantly talk about senseless crap (or something like that).

Laughing all the way to Megamall, I listened to some more of his rantings. And then I had to pay 75 pesos. This is really turning out to be an expensive pursuit. The following day, I still chose to take taxis back and forth. Harhar.

Partial Reunion

2004-10-24T21:06:00.000+08:00

Feeling a little unwell since Saturday afternoon, I declined to join the AY Area 3 Sportsfest where I was supposed to play, of all things, Game of the Generals. Well, I just wanted to participate and support the activity. I could play tennis or badminton but I was not quite ready to compete. Anyway, I'm sick so I couldn't go to the venue at all. I don't have a fever but some kind of mild sinusitis, if such a condition exists.

Waking up at almost 10 AM this morning, I thought that I would finally be able to just doze off all day at the house. I haven't done that in along time. Most of my books are now half-read so I definitely have to catch up. But hey, my cousins arrived along with Tita Shirley. I haven't seen them in ages so I was so happy when they surprisingly arrived.

I don't usually mingle with my cousins save for a few which includes Anthony (we call him Kano because he looks like an American), probably because we grew up at the same time and both took up engineering. When I got accepted at Cypress, I wanted to call him so we could work at the same place but he was out of reach. Now I've learned that he is working at Purefoods which is relatively near my workplace. Great. I've got another friend to tag along with after work.

We are planning to go to their place in Batangas next weekend up until the three-day holiday is over. They all agreed to go there and drink but I told them that I don't drink. Not even on occassion. We never made final plans but I really would like to go to Sto. Tomas again. And roam around with my relatives for a change.

Waiting for The Week to Happen

2004-10-22T22:01:00.000+08:00

The week flew by so fast that I just realized it was already a week since we arrived for the retreat in Laguna. That was exactly seven days ago and I basically do not know where my entire week has gone to. Sigh. Maybe it’s because I was working on a single project at Cypress for a whole week (without delivering concrete results). Anyways, I’ll now try to recall the events of the last five days. That is, events after going home from work.

Monday. Amor and I agreed to meet at Robinson’s Imus by 8 PM. She wasn’t there by 8:15 so I left. Right after, she sent a text message telling me that she was actually waiting for me to send her a message when I arrived. Do all girls know how to make appointments?

Tuesday. Amor and I finally were able to meet and swapped back our phones. She was telling me how horrible my phone was all the while. At least, she has identified her stalker’s number. My phone rules.

Wednesday. Dropped by Kuya Junvie’s place to talk about housing and family stuff. Fed myself with a really heavy dinner at his place. I'm glad we never got rice shortage.

Thursday. Helped Patrick with his assignment regarding “chemical reactions in the environment”. All my science books from high school seem to have been burned during the Dark Ages as well. So, he got himself a crash course in researching on the web. Read: plagiarism.

Friday. Hey, that’s now! I went with Maybel at Walter Mart so I don’t have to hitch with John Lou all the way to Pala-Pala. It’s payday so I joined the long line at Robinson’s Dasma to get some bucks. Riz was also there (holding and hiding her resume, I think).

I love you Sabado!!!

WTF Am I Here For?

2004-10-21T21:53:00.000+08:00

The greatest tragedy is not death, but life without purpose.

I couldn't help but agree whenever somebody quotes the above statement. Allegedly, it was quoted from this book by Rick Warren but as I browsed the pages earlier this evening, I couldn't find it. So, maybe it's just a generalization or a gist for that matter of the book from people who have read it. This book should be one of my best reads this year. It was given to me as a gift last December by Hazel (have I thanked you already?) for my 21st birthday. The book is supposed to be read a chapter a day for 40 days. I did it as prescribed.

As the author has pointed out, the book is more than a book. It is a "40-day spiritual journey". It is also not a self-help book. But he claimed it is a tutorial of "how to do less in life by focusing on what matters most". I myself wouldn't classify it as self-help although it might appear as such. It's actually more of a philo-religious type of book which deals with the very universal topic of life's purpose and meaning.

If you've never asked yourself what on earth you're here for, I guess it's about time you do it. Knowing why you're alive and why you're you makes a whole lot of difference as compared being all clueless about it. Ignorance is bliss. It is until you realize at the brim of the end of your life that you should've and would've. Life is what you make of it. Most people think so that's why a lot actually end up making a mess out of it.

There exists a much more powerful force that all the time "makes or breaks" everything in your life. We, however, do have a choice to either fully surrender or pretend to take charge. Nothing falls in between. One really wise man put it well: If you don't gather, you scatter.

In case you're yearning for a good read or just plain curious, you might want to read the sample chapters of the book available on this link.

Reality Bites, Chews, and Swallows

2004-10-20T22:40:00.000+08:00

My mom finally confirmed to me last night during dinner that our house is going to be evicted in a month’s time. Whew! The thing is that they never paid the dues regularly that’s why we have to find a new place as soon as possible. To make matters worse, my father has already given initial payment for a low-cost land somewhere in Bacoor. He is already on the lookout for wood so we can build a not-so-decent shelter. He was actually insistent on pursuing this without even consulting me. I’d never live there anyway, even if it means I have to find myself a separate place.

Kuya Junvie, my eldest brother (who by the way is close to two decades older than me), has asked me to drop by his place earlier this evening. Of all my siblings, he’s the one most concerned and involved when it comes to family matters like these. He suggested that I just rent a place somewhere in SouthCrest, where he’s living right now. I like this idea better than rushing to own a house not secured with concrete.

I was quite glad he invited me so we could talk about the problem at hand and just keep updated with each other. It was only today that I’ve learned he already resigned from his job and is again in deep rubble. He said that he likes dong his own stuff anyway so it was okay for him. I was quite surprised, though, when showed me some of his stuff – computers, office chairs and tables, stereo component, and CD players – then told me that if I ever would know somebody who might be interested in buying them, I should refer them to him.

The Nissan pick-up he used to drive was already returned to his former employer. He now uses this old car given to him months ago by his friend from Canada. It is a pity knowing how serious the situation is right now for both of us. Although you can never really tell from his actions that he’s facing quite a crisis. I guess he’s been through many so he knows how to handle the situation, keeping in mind that this would come to pass.

I’m still a bit shocked with all this and somehow, I even felt too young to let myself be responsible for our family welfare. There should be something good in this anyway. I like the idea of leaving this place. Drug addicts plague this place here and there. But then again, where in Cavite could I find a drug-free area? SouthCrest is the place I’m planning to move to and it is indeed a better place. Nice clubhouse, bigger houses, cleaner streets, prettier girls. So now, I can’t wait for this house to be evicted.

Surviving Caliraya -- Day Three

2004-10-19T22:02:00.000+08:00

Some of us stayed wide awake until 4AM but I opted to sleep a little before 1AM. Have to get ready for the last day. I got out of the tent at about 6AM but very few were already awake. Going home is what I was looking forward to since the only scheduled activities left for today is the optional swim-in-the-lake affair and our version of the Amazing Race. I was hoping to go home early because I still have to return the phone to Amor and give away my guitar to Lyn once I return to Cavite.

What's the story, morning glory? Joel, clearing off the cobwebs from his eyes.

We joined the people from UPLB during breakfast where we were fed with an obscure puzzle as a sidedish. Michelle told us the story of a guy who ate pelican soup and committed suicide afterwards. She went on to ask us what caused him to do it. In return, we asked her tons of questions so we could get a clue and we ended up being clueless. From the start, I knew this was going to be no laughing matter. Next time, I'll make sure to think of something to tell.

Gone fishin'. Erwin was trying to get food other than the catered tilapia.

Too bad I wasn't able to bring my camera with me during the race game. We ran around the site like mad and then got on two separate boats to get to the small island across. Our group won so we had to imitate the You Got Served action with matching falling effect. On the boat, two people were demonstrating this paraller-perpendicular puzzle. They have two pieces of paper arranging them at different positions and asking us if they are parallel or perpendicular. I never got the catch and never bothered to try to because I thought it was tarnishing mathematical facts.

The breakfast of pelican obscurity. Lycel, Lyzar, and AdU guys gatecrashing in front of the UPLB tent.

I never really intended to get on the lake and bathe there but since a lot of us were there, I decided to tag along. By the time I got there, they were throwing away these underwater herbs and then all of a sudden, Dux was writhing in pain due to some kind of a cramp so he had to be taken back to land. He was carried back while we were singing an interment song.

This is goodbye. Inside the bus, ceremonially getting the baggages.

Again, we were late for the bus so the only seats left or us are the middle ones. It was so fun to sing on the bus. Our repertoire included Unwell, Rainbow, Perfect, When You Believe, and Jumbo Hotdog. 7PM when we arrived back at NPUM. All I could think of is rest and home. So now that I made it through without backing out earlier than scheduled, I think that this is the not going to be the last time I'm joining them. I'm going home with good memories, new friendships, and a spiritually replenished soul. Thanks, thanks, and more thanks.

Kudos to Abby and the rest of the AMiCUS officers.

Surviving Caliraya -- Day Two

2004-10-18T23:09:00.000+08:00

The harshness of what felt like freezing wind kept waking me up. My thoughts were dwelling on the comfort of my bed where reading, sleeping, and thinking became such a haven. I wondered how I was able to convince myself to be here. Minutes later, my mobile phone beeped. Hey, it’s 5 AM already? It was still dark but I determined to rise up before anybody in the site does.

Sunny side up. First thing I did in the morning is shoot the picture of the rising Sabbath sun. I have a new wallpaper. Yey!

The First Family (that’s us!) gathered together in one of the open shades where we did the morning devotional. The only person I know from the group is Julius. But then again, I don’t know him that much either. Tons of thoughts and insights were on my mind regarding the topic of whether to watch movies or not but I kept my mouth shut up while we discussed it.

Tropical igloos. Ours is the one in front with the orange and blue alternation. This is part of the "rainbow formation" of the tents.

After the enlightening and very relevant message during the divine service about the element of temptation, we ate our lunch (which is rice and tilapia). Right after that, me and my schoolmates from Adamson, with whom I was hanging around with the whole time, gathered in one of the shades to rehearse for our song. Yup, all five of us sang together. This was actually my first time to sing properly with an audience and I even got a crash course in singing bass beforehand.

Bonding the band. AdU students prepare for their "special" number. The alumnus was forced to sing as well. Haaaaaa.

Every activity was a blast today. Right after sunset, we’ve had more fun than usual. We went on from one tent to the next trying to eat up some snack while laughing all the way. A whole week’s worth of posts in this blog wouldn’t be enough to describe the fun we’ve had that night. One thing I’ll never forget is, of course, the activity called “trust walk” which was the last one for the night. Some of the officers were assigned to be our guides through a trail while we were blindfolded for the duration of the trek. Mindboggling.

Sunset spectators. It was almost the end of the sacred day but not yet. We have one more Gettysburg speech to go.

I almost fell asleep while sitting in grass, blindfolded and anxious of what would happen. That was more than 30 minutes of waiting for the angel and the devil. Kuya Wilson was at the right and Abby at the left, both convincing me to join them. There was no question as to which is which. After removing the blindfold, I was really doubtful that I reached heaven.

Surviving Caliraya -- Day One

2004-10-17T22:09:00.000+08:00

Arriving late at NPUM in Pasay last Friday, I thought that the bus was already waiting only for us so it could finally leave. Instead, we still had the time to chatter at the NPUM grounds. I even was able to hang out a bit and tag along with people from AdU and UP when they decided to have their late lunch right before 2PM. Haven't seen it coming but I was again caught up with being the new guy in the bunch. They were all introduced to me but I could only remember names of about half of them: Janrey (spell check please), Sweet, Star, Lyzar.

Seated by the window during the four-hour bus trip, I was at first eager to join every single conversation my ears came across with. After a while, I got quite tired of being friendly so I shut up and became my observant self. After all, my Tickle Ultimate Personality Test results showed that I am an observer. I have yet to scrutinize the results, though.

The woods at night. Lui and Joel going blindly in the woods, looking for the place to call "home" for the rest of the weekend.

It was quite scary at first but after I got the hang of it, I found myself enjoying walking in the dark with the flashlight and camera, lighting the way. After what felt like less than five mintues, we were there. Next thing of concern is the tent. Having no experience of tent pitching, I insisted in putting up the tent. Breezy lesson: unfold the tent, insert the two long sticks (intersecting with each other in the middle), then secure using the pegs. Presto, we've got a shelter.

Carpentry made easy. Again, it's the dynamic duo, pitching up a second tent.

Dinner was composed of mainly fast food picks from KFC and McDonald's. I guess we haven't had too many jokes that night because it was a Sabbath evening. Anyway, it was fun when we started sitting on the grass, forming a small circle. More new faces have been added to my "people to add at Friendster" list. This is one of those meals when I just ate for the sake of eating cause I wasn't hungry at all.

Tables are history, grass is in. Part of the small dinner circle with Lyzar and Star minding their own business.

More on history, this is the first time I am attending a retreat with people from the church. Also my first time to attend vesper. And, my first time to participate in foot-ashing as part of the communion service. I wasn't born yesterday. On this day, I was. The sad thing, though, is that the foot-washing service never became the sacred practice it ws supposed to be because we were smiling and laughing all the while. Objectionable but tolerated behavior.

In-house paparazzi. People all over the place were wondering why I kept on shotting pictures without them being asked to pose first. Why, oh why in the world would I do that?

Went to sleep at 11PM but no matter how sleepy I was, it still found sleeping to be quite a challenge. The wind going through the open blinds of the tent became dreadful. No blanket so I laid directly on the tent's surface. No pillow so I used my bag. No cover sheets, so I used the polo which I am going to wear the following morning. How long could I last?

By the Lake and Out of Reach

2004-10-14T21:12:00.000+08:00

Tomorrow, we're gonna kick off the AMiCUS retreat at Caliraya (or is it Kaliraya?). I'm joining to get a little more out life, some fresh air, get in touch with nature, and probably meet a few nice people. As mentioned in a previous post, I used to live in avoidance of these activities, so my friends know that this is history in the making.

I'm not all that excited or anything. The thing is, I feel a little chickened out because I haven't slept inside a tent with no bathroom around. Kept sending text messages to Joel and Lui about stuff which I should and should not bring. I'm also being bugged by some questions like, how shall I sleep, or what if somebody from the group steals my camera while I'm sleeping in the tent, and do I have to bring a pillow, or how would we take a bath, and how would I answer some of nature's urgent calls. Full of what if's and how what's.

It's my first time so pardon me. How I wished we could stay in a hotel or rent a room perhaps. But then again, where's my sense of adventure? Lui used to try to convince me to join these activities by saying that I should be ready for "perilous time ahead". Nah, I'm not going there to prepare myself for tough times but just to be able to live life more spontaneously. And to take some pictures, of course.

Meeting place is at SM Manila, tomorrow, 11 AM. So, this is Ver taking a leave of absence from work. And from blogging as well. See you around!

Whodunnit at Woodsboro

2004-10-13T19:53:00.000+08:00

Someone has taken their love of scary movies one step too far. Solving this mystery is going to be murder.

Don't answer the phone. Don't open the door. Don't try to hide. And whatever you do, don't Scream.

Make your last breath count.

It all started with an innocent phone call. Drew picked it up and before we know it, they were talking about scary movies. Right after watching Scream, I'd like to go back to the first scene and tell her to tell the caller that this movie is the best darn scary movie ever made. No, no, this must be the best movie ever made. Forrest Gump almost made it on top of my list but after some thought, I realized that this witty scary movie deserved much more applause.

And please, don't assume that I'm talking about the dumb Scary Movie spoof series. Most of the time, people remember this horrible series than the Scream trilogy. Just right after the first sequence (with Drew as the clueless victim), I knew I'm in for something. I like it when movies facilitate its viewers to think and not just feed them with everything. The movie did it with style while having so much fun along the way.

I guess the thing that makes it such a winner is because of those special elements and characters. Take for example this character Stu (played by Matthew Lillard) who keeps on bugging the rest of the cast about scary movie trivia. More specifically, he talks about "the rules" of scary movies and then afterwards, the script just break each of these rules. Cool.

Stu talks about movies in this movie which is not a surprise since this was written by Dawson's Creek creator Kevin Williamson. The show often starts off with a scene where Joey and Dawson watches and talks about a movie in his room. And then there was the reporter, Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), who was my first suspect as the killer. Sidney, of course, played by a somewhat younger Neve Campbell, is engaging as the heroine.

The sequel, Scream 2, was panned by critics. I personally think that it was also good but still a far cry from the first movie. Scream 3 is the only movie in the trilogy which I got to watch in the theatre (on a stormy day in Masagana). Not so good ending for a great trilogy, maybe because Kevin didn't wrote the script. There were rumors of a fourth movie but I guess enough is enough.

This would be the first DVD I would buy. That is, if I ever get to buy a DVD player.

Re: Burning Questions

2004-10-11T21:05:00.000+08:00

Saw some interesting questions on this post in Mike's blog. I felt challenged to answer some of them. Nevertheless, I will "try" to answer all of them. Here it goes...

When is an island an island? I mean, does it have to have some flora and fauna as a requirement? Or does it have to have a minimum of X square meters? Also, when is an island and islet? Or atoll? Or are they actually the same?

An island is a land mass of lesser area than a continent. Since we know all the continents, all other land masses would be islands. Flora and fauna is not a requirement. The dictionary definition of islet would be "a small island", without any other specs. Vague one. An atoll is an island surrounded by coral reefs.

Why do some men call their girlfriends shortie/shorty? I don't get it, really. Is it because most of the time they are taller than their shortie/shorty?

If you're referring to the shota term, my high school prof metioned that it was derived from "short time". Meaning, it's not to be used for long-term flings. If you're not referring to that term, well...

Why is it difficult to remember nice dreams? Why is it easy to remember nightmares?

Nightmares leave most people with an aftershock. People will tend to want to remember all the details (to be able to tell their their friends how they made it through). "Nice dreams" occur more often and generally produces a lesser impact (save for a particular category of "nice" dreams).

Whatever happened to Everthing But The Girl?

The girl wanted to spend more time with her kids. That's what a fan told me.

So rap is hip-hop, but is hip-hop rap? Which one is a music genre? Both? Then what's the diffrerence? I'm confused here.

Rap is a music genre which sprung out of the hip-hop culture. Hip-hop is an art form that includes deejaying (cuttin' & scartchin'), emceeing/rappin', breakdancing, and grafitti art (courtesy of Davey D).

Aren't you just sick of those acoustic songs? Wait. Don't get me wrong here. There are some that I do like. It's that minimalism and bareness that make them cool and all, but can we at least move on to something new? Something fresh? Jimmy Bondoc once said that there's not much of a distinction between folk and acoustic. Except that the latter is, well, so now. Agree. So, can we then ask, say, Florante or Ka Freddie Aguilar, to sing the acoustic version of Let Me Be The One to check if it will still sound cool and now? Close your eyes and imagine.

Personally, I like the acoustic songs of today (excluding the Paolo Santos kind of stuff).

Is there a limit as to how much you can actually blog on Blogger/Blogspot? I'm talking gigabytes here. And what could be the next big thing after blogging?

For the first question, I have no freakin' idea. I dare not answer the second one cause it might cost me a fortune (Translation: Whoa! Now this is something to think about. It would to take me some time to have a great idea, though).

Where is a taxi when you need one?

Pare, call R & E. Although I'm not sure if they're also in Davao.

Where is a restroom when you need one?

Wherever there are sticky figures of a boy and a girl. There's not too many in this country, that's why many people improvise.

Where is a partner when you need one?

That is also my question.

What do you call those itsy-bitsy bubblish white liquid that forms at the corner of the mouth (the area where the upper and the lower lips meet)? These look like soap suds gone a bit mucousy. Like they just masticated a bath soap or something. Is that a disorder of some sort? Is there a politically-correct term for that soapy formation? Does this only happen to people who talk too much? Or otherwise?

A bubble gum. Need I say more?

Which came first? Chicken or egg?

Animals were created on the 5th day. It could also be possible that eggs were created but moving animals, such as chicken, is the most logical answer.

Why is Rico Mambo so stupid?

Say what?

Let Ver.Happy = True;

2004-10-08T19:51:00.000+08:00

So then, banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body, for youth and vigor are meaningless.

- Ecclesiastes 11:10

For the past few weeks, I've been indulging myself a lot. Feels like I'm starting to become materialistic and I've been having less and less time for the "essentials". Just some months ago, I got myself stuck with the hard rule of sleeping for at least eight hours a day. For the past few days, the maximum hours of sleep that I have is five hours. I used to have time set aside for reading, thinking, ironing my clothes, and talking with my parents. Not anymore.

I do my ironing every morning that's why for the last four days, I been arriving late for work. My last shot for being in the list of employees with perfect attendance went kaput already. The bubble has burst. Dinner is consumed at the mall instead of the house. My life may seem to be a mess right now but believe it or not, I am having the time of my life.

Things are happening so fast and I have begun to like the excitement of a most unpredictable life. I used to aim to have a managable day each day. Kind of reminds me of the character played by Kevin Spacey in Pay It Forward. He never reached out to this woman because of the fear that his routine would be destroyed forever, a routine which he holds dearly each day. It does happen in reality.

I'm beginning to believe that I have acquired quite a jolly, happy persona overnight and that I've been drifting away from this "dark and cold" image which some people identify me with. Some people who think they know me and yet haven't got the slightest idea. True, I smile more often, laugh at the most unsuspecting instances, and just ignore day-to-day disappointments. Well, maybe this is a good thing. Maybe I am starting to be the happy man.

Whatever... I like it.

Pimp My Phone -- Part 2

2004-10-07T22:37:00.000+08:00

Part 1

Everybody was just frantic to get in the bandwagon and buy themselves the "coolest" (read: expensive) phone in the market. I think it was my classmate Ronald who first owned a mobile phone in college. It was this long Motorola phone which has the noisy ringtone. Kuya Vic himself got himself a phone from Extelcom, an analog one, which was quite bulky and still was in the league of those phones which looked like they could be used to grate the ice.

When Joel got his 5110, most of my classmates usually spend their time gathering around the red phone and asking him about the features. It was passed on from time to time so they could play Snake. Arcade suddenly became cool again. I myself joined them because I've heard that Globe Handyphone could send and receive email through the phone.

Today, I have already lost track of the latest Nokia phones. Vener used to consult me on which brand he'd get -- Nokia or Ericsson. Told him to support the "small players". That is, choose Ericsson. He bought the 6600. Took him two months to decide.

The picture above does not even begin to describe the grave condition of my phone right now. You can see that the keys have already faded. It's a good thing I know the keypad by heart. It goes off whenever the party being called is busy or unreachable. Really takes quite an effort to punch the pad when I'm sending text messages. Now, it's understandable why I make more calls and send less text messages.

Nuff said. It's time to say goodbye to this "gadget" which goes to bed with me for the past three years. If only I could find a phone which has the feature of instantly turning off the ring when someone calls without rejecting the call. That's the only requirement for my next phone.

Oops, I forgot that it has to be NOT a Nokia.

(Concluded)

Money for Nothing

2004-10-06T22:15:00.000+08:00

Today was the third time that I got asked to join this organization aptly called Legacy for Life. Yeesh. The name itself already takes me aback and reminds me that this is something I wouldn't want to be involved with. To those of you who haven't heard about this yet, it's one of those networking things where you invest money (a pretty large sum at that) and then recruit other members to be able to gain more money.

The bad reputation of this pyramiding businesses is not what bugs me. The fact that so many Pinoys are into these things is mainly due to the psychological disposition: most of us to want to acquire wealth -- and earn them big -- in one huge shot. Don't get me wrong by thinking that I'm prejudging these people. We all have our reasons why we do such.

Back to the story, Cali was the first to invite me when Sir Edryl started bringing it into the TE group. I never really intended to invest because, for one thing, I don't have the money for it. Anyway, I went about his seminar, just trying to satisfy my curiosity. It was after that that I realized I was never going to go for it.

The second one was Lennard who was consistently hinting about his newfound "career" last month. I asked him about it then he finally told me that it's this Legacy thing. Since I was supposed to be on a one-week Makati spree that time, I agreed to invest and be in his "downline". I was miraculously spared from making the wrong turn because the training I reserved for in Makati did not push through.

Earlier today, Ate Mherly was asking me when I could go to Megamall so I could attend (another) seminar. I haven't specifically signed up for it but she was insistent and I couldn't find a way to actually refuse the offer. I said, "I'll try to come on Saturday night but I'm not sure". I really have to train myself to say No sometimes.

The World in My Box

2004-10-05T23:33:00.000+08:00

The internet is so much a part of my everyday life that it has become one of the things which I couldn’t live without. Below is a list of “firsts” of my cyber adventures.

First web browsing experience: June 1, 1998. It was our Summer Enrichment and Orientation Program (SOEP) for the DOST guys and gals. Part of the program is a web browsing orientation.

First web site visited: www.abs-cbn.com. The instructor told us to visit GMA 7’s website. I opted to visit the more popular one.

First chatroom entered: Pinoy Chat on Alamak. Remember this one? It’s this horrible web-based chatroom where you have to send a message to be able to check if people have sent messages in the room. A far cry from today’s chat services.

First e-mail provider signed-up for: Hotmail. More people were also using Yahoo! back then but I was enticed by Hotmail’s template (or “skin”) options. Y! Mail used to have this really lame design (and it still does).

First newsgroup subscribed to: Twisted (E-Groups). Twisted is the newsgroup of Jessica Zafra and her readers, “fans”, and stalkers. E-Groups used to be an independent portal until it got bought by Yahoo! Now, it is known as Yahoo! Groups.

First website host: Geocities. My URL used to be www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Housing/1455 (It's been taken over by someone else). Everytime I would pass it to my friends, they would complain that it’s just too long to type or remember.

First article published on the web: “Stage Fright” on PinoyCentral Magasin. This online magazine does not exist anymore. I sent the article as a guest contributor for the Student’s Diary section. After it was published, I asked the editor if I would receive payment for my work. It was charity.

First online journal: University Blues. The journal was hosted by Diaryland. When I tried reading some of the articles a few weeks ago, I realized that most of them were rantings about school, my boardmates, and the world at large.

First Philippine Webby Awards nomination: September 2001 for AUEESS. This is the website I made for our college org, the EE Society on AdU. I'm no longer proud of this one (that's why there's no link).

First blog: August 30, 2004. The blog was born due to a lack of people to hang around and talk with during my stay in Colorado Springs. Continues to exist to satisfy my hunger for writing.

First time I got connected to the internet at home: October 5, 2004. Whoa. Dream come true for me. Just bought the external modem earlier this evening. I stayed awake as late as 1 AM last night just trying to configure my internal modem. But, to no avail. Now it’s working fine.

Finally, I could already shout out “Hello World!” from my own room.

Simulated Perfection

2004-10-04T19:57:00.000+08:00

It's almost 8 PM and I'm still at the LCT lab, doing something noble for the company. I guess the motto I've written a few days ago regarding staying back after working hours does not apply tonight. It's not that my project is already delayed or that I would not have good data to show tomorrow. It's just that Sir Edryl has been helping me in debugging this crappy code all the while. I think I owe him a good result by tomorrow.

So here I am, doing this thing call the "run-in" for this modified test program. This is how it works: We gather the best memory chips from the plant (called the correlation units) for a particular device. After the test program (code used to test the chips) is ready, we test these chips continuously for 100 times. There should not be any failures in any of the devices before the test program could be released and be deployed for manufacturing use.

Whoever formulated this requirement sure was not thinking in human terms. I've been doing these kind of activites for over a year now and I always had a hard time getting a 100% yield. There are a host of factors that could actually induce a failure: the cable, the chip itself, the tester, and the list goes on. The test program does not play that role very often that's why I think that it's quite unfair for me to be indulging in this.

We started the run at 5 PM earlier and I have repeatedly restarted the system due to some failures. Right now, I've decided that this is going to be my last try since I am already hungry and I still have a lot do. The previous run obtained a 99% yield so if the current one falls less than that, I would just be presenting the 99% data. Just going to finish this tomorrow, if they want.

Some minutes ago, I felt tempted to just edit the program and make it appear as if nothing failed the whole time. Yep, I can do that. But then again, my better self won the argument. Right now, I'm on the 68th cycle; 31 more to go.

To Hike or Not to Hike

2004-10-03T18:47:00.000+08:00

For the past year, a lot of hiking, trekking, and mountain climbing activities have been carried out by our AY group. I did not join a single one for reasons which I do not disclose to everybody. Those may also be the reasons why I've been having some rifts with some people in the group. They think I'm crazy or something. Nah, just kidding.

Yesterday, we had another scheduled hiking to Bulacan. I agreed to join this time. However, due to the unexpected turnout of events the past week at work, Sir Edryl asked me to come at the plant on the weekend (that's yesterday and today). I've immediately sent him an email telling him that I would not be available on Saturday. Also mentioned that I could work on Sunday. There's definitely no chance that I'm gonna work on a Sabbath day.

Darn. I really work for a hellish corporation. Just when I thought that I could finally join the hiking and succumb myself to nature and the wilds again, here they come, like a slasher in a tasteless teen flick.

It's not all that bad, though. Yesterday, after four long months, I was finally persuaded by Mech and Noeme to attend the afternoon program. Mech will celebrate her birthday on the 7th and Noeme did last week. They asked me to treat it as a sort of present for their birthday. Awww, how touching. There was nothing to lose so I attended, anyway.

And thank God, I did.

-----

Pre-hiking. Just before take-off, the hikers (and gatecrashers) posed at the church lobby.

Pimp My Phone -- Part 1

2004-10-02T18:30:00.000+08:00

In case you have seen an episode of Pimp My Ride on MTV, you get the idea. My first mobile phone was a Trium Astral given to me by Kuya Vic when he bought his first Nokia. After more than a year, it got lost from my bag at school. Although I don't think it was stolen, considering that Pinoy phone crooks thrive on Nokia. The only thing I regret because of the loss is the fact that I do not have a record of the numbers in the SIM and I have just preloaded it with airtime.

The phone in the picture above is a Trium Mars (a brand new one, I guess). After losing the Astral, Delfin offered me to buy his phone for a nifty PhP 1800. It was bargain considering that he has only used it for less than two months and I was in desperate need of a mobile phone at that moment. Needless to say, I bought it from him. This was more than two years ago.

Today, I feel that the looks on everybody's face when they see my phone constantly reminds me that I have to either replace it or buy a new "housing". Kuya Junvie often gave hints that I should "buy myself a phone". I guess he never considers mine as a "real" phone, but in the league of the disposable cameras.

Flashback to 2000, the mobile phone industry was just booming and every Pinoy wants a mobile for himself. They called it the "text revolution". It revolutionized the way many Pinoys typed text (lht cla gus2ng mgka cp). You know where I'm getting at here. Anyway, I never wanted a phone and I was counter-promoting it with the internet revolution. I told my friends that this text messaging brouhaha is just a fad. The future of communication lies on the WWW, which was also booming at that time.

(To Be Concluded)

Journal-ism 101

2004-09-30T19:27:00.000+08:00

Tracy told me that I have a real penchant for online journals. More than any other person, she was the one who had witnessed the rise and fall of the websites which I've launched. I don't remember most of them but most notable of these sites was my DiaryLand journal I was keeping about five years ago. There were something like 15 articles written in a span of six months. I didn't regularly update back then. The internet prices were still high and the only audience I have is mostly myself.

Every last day of the month for the last three years, I've been writing in a notebook some of my most sordid thoughts about anything at all. It was like a monthly introspection of sorts. The style of my writing in that notebook is very much different in here since I'm the only one (hopefully) who would be able to read it. I still wrote in English but the grammar is really bad. I sometimes write in "codes" so that just in case somebody discovers the journal, they'd be misled. Hehe.

It was always a lot of fun to read the pages of the past. Once, I wrote that a miracle would make me pass my Elementary Electronics class. I did pass but I wasn't so sure if it was because of a miracle. But since it was a monthly journal, most of the details regarding the places, events, or facial expression were left unwritten. Most of them are thoughts, realizations, and ridiculous stuff.

But well, all good things must come to an end. Discovering Blogger is the best thing since I bought my PC. I guess my fellow bloggers would know why.

Dizzy Up the Guy

2004-09-29T19:06:00.000+08:00

5:00 AM - The alarm clock of my mobile phone woke me up. I still could not get up cause I felt that I need more sleep, as always. I need 15 minutes more.

5:15 AM - Time to get up but I decided to stay in bed for another 15 minutes. I slept at past 11 last night and that should be justification enough.

5:31 AM - Finally, I got up and took a bath, opened my I-Tunes, had breakfast, dressed up and headed for work.

7:30 AM - Arrived at CML. Maybel invited me to have breakfast at the canteen but I declined cause I'm not that hungry and I still have got a lot of personal matters to take care of before the clock hit 8 AM.

9 AM - Went to the lab. Kirby and Sir George were already there when I arrived.

10 AM - Finally was able to start the debugging proper. Had a lot of problems with the set-up (which obviously took me an hour to solve).

10:30 AM - Decided to buy some Cream-O from the canteen. I found Vener and Luther eating so I decided to eat cuchinta with them.

11:45 AM - Asked Eric what time they plan to eat lunch. After asking the others, he finally told me to come over at the lab so I could go with them to the canteen.

12:20 PM - Finished lunch. Friends from the PCB Design group were with us on the table. All of them were practically begging me to treat them for Drumstick or ice cream because I came from an offshore assignment. They didn't get either.

1:30 PM - Back at the lab to work on the new test flow.

2 PM - Code is working with a minor bug.

3:30 PM - Code was messed up while trying to solve the bug. Retrieved original code and started back to zero.

4:30 PM - Code is again working with a minor bug.

5 PM - I am dizzy of solving the problem.

5:15 PM - Emer asked my help with the oscilloscope. I got out of the lab to the test floor.

5:35 PM - Returned the hardware. Laughed along with the people in the hardware window. They were discussing something about whether women should "be on top" or not.

5:55 PM - Back at my cubicle.

6:20 PM - On the shuttle, thinking what to blog about. Still feeling dizzy.

7:10 PM - Surfing away.

8 PM onwards - Who knows?

It Ain't About Chips

2004-09-28T19:19:00.000+08:00

When I got my first job last year, a lot of my friends from college asked me what my job was all about. The conversations usually go something like this:

-----
Classmate: I've heard you got a job already?
Ver: Yeah, at Cypress.
Classmate: What do you do there?
Ver: I'm a test engineer.
Classmate: What's that?
Ver: I code the test programs for the SRAM products.
Classmate: Huh?

After a while...

Classmate: So, how much do they pay you there?
Ver: Not much. Just enough for me to have coffee every morning.
-----

My job title title could be quite alienating so I figured out that I should write something about "what I do".

So, what do I do, really? I myself can't figure out what I'm doing there. Hehe. But here's the thing: the plant manufactures the products (semicon chips) and before they ship it to the customer, we test it for functionality and other stuff you would never care about. Specifically, I am assigned to something called the "Low Cost Testers" or LCTs. Nice name, huh.

What I do is I modify the existing programs to be used in the LCT according to the need of each product. So, you see that I'm not really a programmer since the program is already there and I just have to do some minor changes for the products. And we're not using any of the popular programming languages (C, Pascal, etc). Instead, the system utilizes a language called JAM. Jam compensates for the not-so-amusing monicker of being a "Low Cost Test Engineer".

Work is from 8-6, Monday to Thursday and then 8-5 on Friday. I love Fridays. The plant is about an hour and a half ride from our house. That's why I had to get up at 5 every morning. I'm looking forward to the near future when I'll be waking up at 7 and just walk my way to the office (passing by some skyscrapers, that's a hint!). People usually stay back til about 8 or 9PM because of work overloading. Not me though. I still manage to get off at 6PM (to the dismay of the corporate slaves in the office). Motto: Finished or not finished, pass your papers.

For the Love of Smashing

2004-09-26T19:59:00.000+08:00

Just came from a two-hour badminton session with Thelms. Tiring but it was a blast. I think the last time I played was, like, three months ago and I wasn't so sure if I could still deliver the goods. Found myself actually playing better in this game than in any of the previous sessions. Maybe because I ate a lot before the game and I was quite determined to beat her up because she was acting hostile towards me all afternoon on the way to the Metro South clubhouse.

Late last year, I was dragged by my friends from Manila Center to go to Quezon Circle. I thought it was going to be a plain picnic in the park thing but I was surprised to find them all playing the game when I arrived. Even though I had no extra clothes and was even wearing leather shoes, I went in and joined them. It was so great and I told Joy that I haven't gotten myself into sports for about five years.

See, that's why I got hooked to playing badminton since then. I am usually the one who do the inviting to play. We used to do it a lot in Quezon Circle but I realized that the wind is just destroying the game. Now, I always insist to rent courts.

I was able to buy about five rackets since I had to get some of my friends into it as well. There were countless shuttlecocks which had come and gone. I was thankful to finally found a Yonex shuttlecock that would last (it's with me for about half a year now). And I also was forced to buy myself a pair of rubber shoes cause some of the courts does not allow anything but that. Costs of court rental are still not that friendly, though. But I'm hopeful that it will go down since more and more courts are being built all over the place.

So, why do I love badminton? Not so many people are into it and I like that (although many of my friends are into playing now). And I really dig the sound of the racket before and during its smash with the shuttle cock. The swoosh and wha-pack sounds always gets me going for more smashes.

Right now, I'm working on improving my footwork and some of the serving styles. I'm just so glad that I don't suck that much anymore.

Ver Was Here >> CO

2004-09-25T19:01:00.000+08:00

Due to insistent public demand, I have posted four of my pictures taken in Colorado. Just click on the picture to view full-screen (in Dolby Sound where available). Corny, hehe!

Asleep at work, awake all night. No, I am not sleepwalking in this picture. Maybe it’s the camera flash which made me close my eyes. Anyway, this was taken in the parking lot of the Atrium at North Pointe, right where Cypress Colorado Design Center is located. The background you see are the houses lining up Delmonico Drive. At my right side is the Atrium building (not visible here).

I want to be a gardener when I grow up. Photo taken one Friday evening on Garden of the Gods. Left path is where we entered the "garden”. Right path is where we came from after making the rounds. Reminds me of the part in The Blair Witch Project when they were just going to and fro, ending up in the same place over and over. This place is just awesome.

Hunting for Hollywood. We were looking for the cinema house called Tinseltown and we ended up somewhere in Cheyenne Blvd., In a place called Helen Hunt Falls. Haven’t seen Helen, though. The stairs prior on the way to the bridge also begins that trail for visitors of Cheyenne Mountain. Read Stranger at Tinseltown.

Wake up, we’re in Denver! Shot on the 16th Street Mall in Denver. This is the part of the street near the Capitol. The street could only be traveled by the free shuttle ride from both ends. I am holding the Hard Rock shopping bag containing two shirts and one shot glass. And again, I am not sleeping! It was really tiring, though. Read Hail, the New Age... .

Sponsors. Thanks to Breakwater and Harvard for my shirts, Bossini and Bench for my jeans, Seiko for my watch, Swatch for my shoes, Bench again for my socks, and Walker for my, um… never mind. Next time, I want them free, ok? Haha. Thanks also to Ate Thea for taking all these pictures (We’re quits cause I shot all her pictures). Thanks to Skip and the CY Sync Line for funding our trip. And to God, for carving out such a wonderful place.

Should IKDG?

2004-09-24T21:48:00.000+08:00

Being skeptic is one trait which I do not take away from myself as a reader. I believe we should always be on guard with the things which we feed ourselves with: books, music, shows, and stuff. It’s sort of a complement of being open-minded. Although skepticism as a word produces a negative connotation, in reality it provides a whole spectrum of benefits.

When I started reading Josh Harris’ I Kissed Dating Goodbye, my skepticism was on the maximum level, mainly because I do not know the author yet and it deals with a really touchy subject: dating. It took me months to finally decide to buy this one. I usually pick it up at National Book Store to do a quick read and then stack it back to buy something else.

Once, I was able to read the part where Josh narrates one of his radio interviews while promoting the book. It definitely has helped to made me decide that the book should definitely be part of my library. I will quote a portion and I hope Josh wouldn’t mind.

------
Taylor: So how old are you?
Josh: Twenty-three.
Taylor: Are you a virgin?
Josh: I am a virgin. Virginal with a capital V.
Taylor: Are you okay?
------
Taylor: So what’s going to happen when, let’s say you get married and you get to the honeymoon suite and she’s lousy in bed?
Josh: Well, I won’t have anything to compare it to.
------
Josh: I think part of the problem today is that we’ve reduced sex to some sort of sport. We need manuals and color-coded charts. Instead of being an expression of the intimacy and commitment of a husband and wife, it’s all about performing.
------

You’re the man, Josh.

The only reference I found in the Bible regarding dating is that one in Corinthians where Paul explicitly told the people who are single to remain as such and not to look for somebody to marry. It was painstaking to accept for me, personally. I thought that it was so natural for young people to go and look for that special person to love and be loved just the same.

This book practically helped me to clear some cobwebs in my mind. Although I still haven’t decided on whether begin the search again or to plainly wait for the one, Harris’ book provided no-nonsense perspectives on dealing with the subject. Insightful and enlightening, to note that I haven’t even reached halfway with it.

Freedom of Repression

2004-09-23T19:38:00.000+08:00

Some of the posts in this blog almost got pulled out because of glitches of fear which has crept into me yesterday and this morning. I told my boss yesterday that I want to move one of my scheduled vacation leaves (SVL) from Thursday to Friday. He replied that we should just "talk later". I later assumed that it was going to be some sort of serious talk about my employment status.

Cause yesterday, I think I've published something which the other boss would not be very happy to read. In case he stumbles into this site, I'd probably see a reprimand letter in my desk stating that I should "think about things" and make a public apology using this same medium. I was so wrong.

For one thing, I have confirmed (through my stats) that neither of them has taken a peek at this blog. Second, I don't think I have written anything that would put the company in a bad light or have broken anything on The Code. This I have concluded on my hour-long jeepney ride from Salitran to Manggahan. Travelling has its benefits.

Road Trippin'

2004-09-22T20:20:00.000+08:00

I arrived at the US Embassy earlier, at about 11am, just to find out that the window receiving Report Back letters are closed after 8am. I then checked the letter I was holding and it indeed explicitly states that I should present it between 7am to 8am. I’m such a weasel. I didn’t even bother to read these documents. Anyway, I’ll just come by again on Friday.

It was a thrill crossing these roads over, the ones in front of the embassy. There is a lane there where a Walk/Don’t Walk sign has been installed so I decided to play a little trick on Pinoy drivers. When the light went green, I pretended to be yearning to cross over. Some cars actually gave me the chance to cross with Don’t Walk enabled on the post. I just gave them a wave of gratitude, pointing them in the direction of the sign.

Once the light went red, I knew that many of the drivers would stubbornly break the traffic laws and just speed ahead. Not on Roxas Blvd. today, though. Right when the cars were fast approaching, I started walking on the lane, much to their amazement. Of course, everybody stopped and most of them realized only then that it was actually unlawful to cross the street when the red light was on. Some people just have to be educated.

A Dose of MicroManagement

2004-09-21T20:03:00.000+08:00

The first time Joseph saw me in my cube, I knew there was going to be trouble. He asked me if I was the one who brought the chocolates yesterday. Then he warned me that I'm going to get old because I did not remember to bring them something. I don't see the connection, though.

After about an hour, he asked me what I was doing and I told him that I was coding the test program for the TQFP O/S test. Then, he told mo to go to the PE lab and take a look at how things are going with the ASM qual. Lyn and I were laughing all the time at the lab, talking about our experience in the US. She has just arrived a few weeks ago from Minnesota. Both of us bought a camera as a sort of investment.

I think I was dancing at the lab when Joseph arrived there but he didn't seem to mind, as always. He dictated everything we have to do afterwards and then found out that the test program is not all that functional. He asked me if I could solve it in about an hour (here we go again, Mr. Impossible). I told him he should go back in the lab by 2pm.

It was almost noon by then so we decided to take our lunch. On the way, Lyn told me she was so discouraged with the way she was treated by Joseph and everything he said to her that morning. She wants to resign. Well, who doesn't?

I wasn't finished debugging by the time he arrived (oh no, not again) at 2pm. This time, he joined me and it was one hell of a time. I prefer to debug alone, especially if I am aware that the person with me would not be able to help anyway. But well, he's my manager and I couldn't just tell him "Get out of my face". No, I can't do that. I had no choice but to obey everyone of his whims. But hey, we were able to eliminate some of the bugs with that. Great team, I guess.

After about an hour, we're still not finished debugging and I was frantically fighting myself not to fall asleep in front of my boss. He has a lot of ideas that he wants to push me into but I ignored most of them. Still, minutes have passed. Silence. I was facing a blank wall. I can't do this anymore. In times like these, I usually open my browser and surf the web just to clear my head off. I obviously could not do that in front of him. So, I just pretended to be alert and kept on searching and typing, delting and copying.

Until he had another great idea. "Can you call Renz?", he said. This is not going to be such a disaster after all. Renz, the wizard, came and save the day.

Hey, CML

2004-09-20T19:46:00.000+08:00

Most of the people at work seems glad that I'm back. At least, most of the people who knows me. I haven't gone to the test floor yet cause I really have no business there but I will probably go there sometime. The environment seem to be quite better now. It's as if all my mistakes in the past have been forgotten and I'm going to be able to start with a new slate once again.

There are few people in the cubicles due to the enforcement of the "forced" vacation leave. I think that we have been given four vacation leaves this September. Since it's already the 20th, I'm going to have to take two days off this week and another two next week. Talk about a feast. I could finally be able to do stuff. And get a real life perhaps. The challenge is having people around during these days. I don't think any of the yuppies are free on weekdays.

--

I just received an email earlier which is a hidden comment on this blog. It says:

hi ver... seems like a sad ending... but we couldn't get anything at all... sana masay ka na ngaun (hope you'll get used to it now)..
--Posted by Anonymous

Hmmm... so much for my happy ending.

Hot In Here

2004-09-20T12:30:00.000+08:00

When I arrived at NAIA, I came to realize that it was actually hot so I had to take off my jacket. I guess I would not be wearing this for sometime. Right when I was waiting for my luggage to come up, I turned off the roaming feature of my mobile phone (which I wasn’t able to use abroad anyway). I was relieved that it’s still working. After a few minutes, I received the first text message from Yang asking if I’m already home and also asking when she could get her pasalubong (term used to refer to presents when a person arrives from another place).

The only people I brought things for are Ate Mina’s kids. A SpongeBob book for Mae and two PC games for the two boys. That should do it. I saw my dad first and he told me that Kuya Junvie’s kids are with them as well. I told him I’ve got nothing yet for all of them. He was quite surprised and insisted that I should at least buy chocolates at the Duty Free Shop. Okay, I granted his wish and there goes 30 bucks. When I came back, I told him how much it costs.

Ver: Ang mahal pala, 30 dollars. (This is qute expensive.)
Dad: Ha? 1500 pesos na yan? (Huh? That costs about 1500 pesos?)
Ver (in his thoughts): Yup, yup. No more money to buy something for you, Dad.

On the way home, they just let me talk and talk about things which have happened to me since we’ve got limited communication during my so-called exile. My voice sounded flustered and I felt quite tired. After about an hour, we arrived at the house and saw my rooms (there’s two of them) neat and clean.

Well, guess who’s back?

Leaving FROM Home

2004-09-19T22:30:00.000+08:00

Well, we know I'm going away
And how I wish, I wish it weren't so
so take this wine and drink with me
let's delay our misery...

- Eagle Eye Cherry, Save Tonight

Kiko suggested that I write a farewell to God's country (that is, Colorado). I'm already feeling a bit dizzy and it's past midnight but I just have to write something. And I have to wake up at about 3 AM later. I wouldn't consider tonight as sleep. Although I still wouldn't agree that this is indeed God's country (it must be Israel instead), I think it is quite appropriate to bid farewell.

I couldn't find the picture which I've taken on the road from Denver to Colo Springs so I just harbored one from the web. It captures the same spirit. Leaving this really nice place. The thing is that my bags could no longer contain all the things that I need to bring home. I never anticipated this so I guess I would not be able to bring some of the food which I was planning to bring home.

I regained my love for nature, trekking, and adventure because of my visit here. Don't get me wrong. We're not tourists even if everybody at CML believes that we are on "vacation" right now. We just live lives of tourists on some days. Most memorable is the afternoon we spent at Garden of the Gods. I will write about it sometime when I get home. For now, I think I really need to get some rest. I don't know how tomorrow's trip would go.

Rarely do I make a promise but I will be making one now. I have promised myself to return to this city in the near future. For me, "near future" ranges from 1 to 3 years. I'll be back, funded or not. Although I'd prefer the former, of course.

MNL to NRT

2004-09-16T11:10:00.001+08:00

I'll be leaving for Manila in less than 48 hours and I'm already looking forward to my flight. Needless to say, I'm not really looking forward to the destination. Haha. I would "cross the bridge when I get there". That is, I'll try to get myself to "look forward" to coming back in the Philippines maybe tomorrow or when I'm already sitting in the plane.

On my flight to COS (that's the three-letter airport code of Colorado Springs), I intended to take with me one of those magazines in the seat pocket but I was quite embarrassed to do so. I was waiting for the right moment when nobody would be looking but to no avail. There were other things on my plane seat which I thought would be "freebies", but then I realized that I could not take them home -- the blanket and the headphone (and a really cuddly pillow).

I was seated next to a Japanese man on my left and an American boy on my right in the plane to Tokyo. The Japanese guy never said a thing the whole time. I assumed he could not speak English at all. I was quite anxious cause I do not know what to expect during the take off. It was a smooth one and it's the only flight I enjoyed for that particular trip. Plenty of food. Nice music coming out of the seat.

At first, I wondered how we could actually eat without a table. We were seated in the middle section so the "table" is folded within the arm of the seat. I was already preparing to eat at my lap when I saw the American magically putting out his table. The Japanese woke up just in time for serving breakfast. He was obviuosly stunned when he saw that he has no table and the others each had one. I almost taught him how to pull it up from his seat but the flight assistant did her job.

Now, I'm going to have to prepare and pack for the next trip. There is one word which could describe how its like to wrap up for this one.

HEARTBREAKING.

Bugs on Scripts

2004-09-15T12:19:00.000+08:00

I had been quite idle most of the afternoon in the office. In order to prevent myself from sleeping, I thought about things to do. Earlier, I released a memo regarding my first VB project which is also a part of the SSER. It's quite satisfying for a programmer to witness his project being finished and actually being used for something. Suddenly, I wondered how the folks at Washington feels about their Windows.

There's something with programming and codes which appeal so much to me. It's like you're "working but not really". The programmer's output is a bunch of letters and special characters which, when put together properly, would be able to control something tangible. Imagine that. Lines of code (instructions) actually control things. If people like Newton or Einstein were living right now, they'd probably be in the league of master hackers.

I visited W3Schools and noticed that they have a new tutorial for TCP/IP. After that, I hopped to JavaScript and then found myself in another "Hello World" situation (those times when I find pleasure learning a new programming language). And before I knew it, it was time for our telecon -- last activity before we head home.

There was a software bug reported by Daniele, though, based from the initial data we had gathered. Nice.

Happiness is a State of Mind

2004-09-14T11:32:00.000+08:00

Depression will take over me unless I take action the soonest possible time. Though I could enumerate several reasons for this, I'd rather not. As my virtual shrink would sometimes say: "Focus yourself on happy thoughts". Sounds cliche but it actually works. See, I'm smiling now without a definite reason.

That's it. Focus on positive things. Think about Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost or Lisa Kudrow in Romy and Michele's. Now I know what to do for the next five minutes. I'm going to search for the screensaver of Ally McBeal's baby! Yeah, much better.

After three minutes...

I was not able to find a screensaver that fast and I decided just to forget about Ooga-chaka (that's the name of the baby). I know what. I'll just call Aireene and annoy her to death. It's almost lunchtime in Cavite anyway. Bzzzzzz.

Hail, the New Age...

2004-09-13T12:20:00.000+08:00

We were roaming the 16th St. Mall on Denver when we passed by a woman giving some tracts to passers-by. Ate Thea tried to avoid her but the woman still managed to give us the piece of purple paper. I, of course, got one for myself. Then I pretended that I was not that curious at all by smiling while reading. She read the thing intently then threw the thing on the trash afterwards. I kept mine in the Hard Rock bag.

Here is what it says:

---

HAIL THE NEW AGE

The new age is coming, coming, almost there!

We don't mean music coming from a sheet of steel balanced on a balloon of water.

We don't mean being born again, and again and again and again.

We're not talking about harmonic convergence and the Mayan factor.

Nor are we referring to creative visualization, cosmic crystals or Tibetan bells.

New agers want answers for a better world...

...but they won't find them in channelers, sound therapy or solar messages.

The only new age that can truly answer the fundamental questions of life is an age that the author of life will bring.

It's the Kingdom of God which will come when Y'shua (Jesus) the Messiah and only True Master returns to earth.

He's been here once before to deal with the age-old problem of sin...

...and He's coming back soon to clean up this messy world and bring in a new age of peace and harmony.

That's good news if you know Y'shua. He's the King of all ages!

And you can be in His new age if you ask Him.

Y'shua said,

"Behold, I am making all things new."
- Revelation 21:5

Let Y'shua make you a new creation.

"Therefore if anyone is in Messiah, he is a new creation; old things have passed away -- behold, new things have come."
- II Corinthians 5:17

------

at the back flap:

------

Call, write or e-mail:
David Brickner
Jews for Jesus
8556 East Warren Ave.
Denver, CO 80231
(720) 327-7413

DenverBYG@aol.com

Check us out on the web:
www.jewsforjesus.org

Please don't litter!

------

Right now, I'm checking out their web site.

Stranger at Tinseltown

2004-09-12T11:34:00.000+08:00

We watched Resident Evil: Apocalypse earlier and it was such a violent movie. Oh yeah, what should I expect? It was like blood, fighting, and gore from beginning to end. There was a major shift in the mood right after the characters crashed beneath a waterfall. This was the point when "everything was okay". I thought that there was going to be a second part after this relatively calm mood has set in the movie. It turned out to be the end but watch out -- there's a sequel to the sequel. Although it seems like I'm the only one who doesn't know that there's going to be a third Resident Evil movie.

I was quite uneasy watching the whole time. I guess I deserved something worse by watching a movie on a Sabbath afternoon. Tsk tsk. Bad Ver.

This was my first time to watch a movie here in the US. We went to a place called "Tinseltown". Prior to that, we got lost at Cheyenne Blvd. and we could not muster a U-turn. We just went straight up the mountain until we have reached a beautiful place called "Helen Hunt Falls" which is actually a part of the Cheyenne Park. I love being lost here.

Back to the theatre, I thought that the screen was so in-your-face and that the sound effects was just too much. That was a DTS theatre and I also think that this is my first time to have entered such a theatre. And no, I'm not living inside a hole. :> I just haven't got the time to watch movies ever since my last year in college. Last time I went to a theatre without anybody inviting me, I watched a movie called "In the Bedroom". I used to watch all films nominated for Oscar best picture. I lost track but I'll find time in the coming weeks.

Right now, I'm taking a peek at Analyze This on TBS. I paid to watch Resident Evil and not a single dime on this. The best things in this life are definitely free. Although I don't think that I'll be able to watch this properly since I'm currently doing my laundry.

And in case you want to know, I'd give Resident Evil: Apocalype 1 out of 5 stars. Just in case.

Perplexed Thinking

2004-09-11T15:03:00.000+08:00

Have you ever experienced something like "shopping" for a particluar belief or religion amidst a whole stall of promising ones? With a lot of things to choose from nowadays, religion has become quite a commodity. It is even usally equated with philosophy.

Up to now, my mind is still being bugged by the argument made by somebody named Vittoria Vetra. According to her, religion is something that people do not really choose for themselves. And it is not really a measure of true wisdom of a person. Besides, still according to her, these religions just borrow particular elements from one another, nothing really being all truth. Most of the choices regarding religion is based on location and proximity.

In a way, she's correct. Most people believe in something just because majority of the persons around them believe in the same thing. I don't blame them. Who am I to judge these people? It has been like this way ever since, anyway. They are like a flock of sheep with no shepherd.

Besides, with all the distractions available, people seem to be caring about a lot of things. More things that they could even begin to handle. There's work, family, friends -- things which are really hard to balance sometimes. And then there are even more concerns outside of that curriculum. So who cares about making sense of things? Who cares about thinking long-term. Not just the "in the long run" kind of long-term but the "for ceaseless ages" kind of long-term.

No, I'm not asking for the "meaning of life" or begging for people to even stop and think about it for a minute. That would be cliche. How I dislike cliches.

Coral and jasper are not worthy of mention; the price of wisdom is beyond rubies.

A Virtual Tour of My Crib

2004-09-10T12:31:00.000+08:00

Hi everyone and I welcome you all to my Crib. Well... at least mine for three weeks.

Most people save the bed for last. Haha. But not me. This is where I spent much of my time contemplating as to how many hours of sleep I have lost for that particular night. I usually sleep with the lights on in the living room with these lampshades turned off. There is a window on the right side overlooking at the pool outside. The blinds are just closed the whole time cause I don't want to expose my private life in public, except if I'm blogging.

This is the couch in the living room, supposedly meant for the person watching TV. I rarely sit here cause there's a much larger one beside it. There are two HBO guides (for August and September) and two remote controls (for the TV and VCR). I never use the remote control for the VCR, for obvious reasons. You see, my pants are hanging on the couch. I prefer that than hanging it with a hanger (does that sound right?).

Yeah, I know the floor is dirty. And the towels are not arranged properly. But nevertheless, I don't care. I managed to brush the toilet last night. Not sure where the mysterious dirt came from. Not from me. I prefer to use that little shampoo given by the hotel than the Pantene I brought from home. First time I went here, I thought the shower was not working properly so I just headed for the tub.

This one's the mirror in front of my bed. Every morning, I take a look and see how well I've progressed with this one. Not so much, I guess. Below is the laundry thing. I'm gonna take care of that tomorrow.

My left bedside. This is different everyday. For today, It's a mixture of my belt, a hotel guide and the bestseller. Right below is the box for my new camera (the one I used for taking these). This phone is the one I always set to wake me up at 6am. "This is your wake-up call."

This is another corner in front of the bed. Where I iron my clothes (only when I have to). Messy one. I could no longer fold the damn "ironing horse" (or is it ironing board) anymore.

Food, food, food. I never run out of it here. The servings are just way over my limit. I brought some sardines with my luggage, which got me into a bit of trouble with the customs and airport security. I never get to eat them here, though, because I've got no rice. And then there's the dishwasher with bubbles flowing all over the floor whenever I use it.

Here's the right side of the bed (for the right side of the brain). There's the radio (where I get to listen to Peak 95.1). And then there are two Bibles - one I brought and one from the Gideons. I earlier learned that they actually put Bibles in every hotel room here and elsewhere. And then there's my piggy bank (you don't see it?). I don't really use the coins given as a change cause I'm not used to counting on this currency. How many dimes is a dollar?

This is the sink in the bathroom (obviously). I use the drinking glass sometimes while brushing my teeth. I use the plastic cup for something else.. as a substitute for the dipper. They don't have one here. I just leave this sink as it is all the time. It seems that I'm never going to run out of tissue. I don't know but it just never runs out.

In case you get lost in my room, you'd almost always find me in this corner. It's called an "office". If you have 20/20 vision, you'll probably notice my Yahoo! Messenger open. And yeah, it's not facing the chair but facing the living room. I have a Colorado Springs map which I rarely use and a clock which shows what time it is in the Philippines.

Well, that's about it. Thanks for coming into my crib. See you soon!

Feel-good PhD Quiz

2004-09-09T11:04:00.000+08:00

I'm currently taking the "What's Behind Your Emotions? (Why You Feel the Way You Do)" test on Tickle. I feel like writing it down for all to see.

1. You find pleasure in the little things in life.
- Strongly agree. I even like the sound of me while typing on this keyboard.

2. If you get into a disagreement, you're usually the one who backs down.
- Strongly agree. This is especially true when we're on the round table.

3. You're walking down the street by yourself at night when you hear a noise behind you. You feel:
- Anxious. Somehow, I could not pick any of the choices (anxious/fearful/terrified). In reality, I'm excited.

4. You're a confident decision maker.
- Agree. It takes time for me to decide some things that's why I'm confident about most of 'em.

5. You see a naked person down the street. You're:
- Startled. Well, it depends on the gender of the person, I guess.

6. Being the center of attention is:
- Delightful. Yea, I know what you're thinking...

7. You feel remorse for the mistakes you've made.
- Strongly agree. Why should I not?

8. The holiday season makes you feel:
- Miserable. Isn't it ironic? It's the time when I would be apart from most of my friends. Vacations in the province and stuff.

9. When you see authority figures, you feel:
- Apprehension. No comment.

10. You love the feeling of anticipating upcoming events.
- Strongly agree. I usually plan to go to the mall four weeks before.

11. It's safe to trust others.
- Agree. There are still a lot of people I could trust here.

12. You're easily offended.
- Agree. By one particular remark.

13. If you had the whole day to do whatever you wanted, by evening you'd feel:
- Calmed. This one does not even begin to describe it. There should be a "perfect" option which I should mark on.

14. You walk in on your co-workers making out in the copy room. You would:
- Feel peeved that they didn't save it for a less public place. Get a room...

15. You almost never feel:
- Ecstasy. When was the last time...

16. The couple sitting behind you in the movie theater keeps talking and you're missing some of the movie. You're:
- Furious. I'll send out a loud "sssshhhhhh".

17. Do you tend to dread meetings and parties?
- Absolutely. Except if I knew most of the people. Most cases, it's not.

18. You dislike people who think, act, and dress completely different than you.
- Strongly agree. Some people do this in style, though -- being "jologs".

19. Your friend may be making a huge mistake, but he's asked you for your unconditional support in a particular situation. You feel:
- Concern (What's going to happen if things go wrong?). But I won't force him, of course.

20. How often does your heart pound from fear?
- Occassionally. When I feel like I made a big mistake and everyone's going to know about it.

21. When you're out in nature, you feel:
- Peaceful. I miss trekking.

22. You can get pretty aggressive when you really want something.
- Strongly agree. I never stop thinking about it.

23. If you're prepared for a test, what do you feel when you first sit down to take it?
- Confident. Worst case you be a B.

24. The meter maid continues to write you a parking ticket, even though you're right there to move your car. How much contempt for her do you feel?
- Not much. She's just doing her job.

25. Your friend tells you when a job you're interested in opens up at her company. You're
- Hopeful. I hope Accenture gives me a ring when I come back.

26. Your friends throw you a surprise party. When they yell, "Surprise!" you feel:
- Esteem for the caring people in my life. When will you people throw one?

27. Your stockbroker has made you some money in the past, but this time, she loses you a bundle. You:
- Look forward to the next upturn in the market. Poor girl.

28. A woman is assaulted in your neighborhood on the way home from the store. When you hear about it, you are:
- Enraged. Drug addicts. They should all burn.

29. You've had your fair share of heartbreaks.
- Strongly agree. Much more than you think about.

30. The store is out of your favorite ice cream flavor. You're:
- Boggled as to how they could run out of such a good product. No one sells Keratin Oil Emulsion anymore. Maybe, I'm the only one buying it.

31. It's not easy for people to win your approval.
- Agree. Not easy.

32. You see someone eating alone at a table near you. Their solitude makes you feel:
- Dread (I hope I'll never have to eat alone). That's why I often eat out at McDo in Manggahan.

33. How often do you feel awestruck by the bigger things in life?
- Occassionally. Which "bigger" things are they referring to?

34. Are you often caught off-guard by people?
- Not really. I never let them.

35. If it were the anniversary of a loved one's death, you would feel:
- Melancholy. I never really lost any of my loved ones, though.

36. When people really push their political or religious beliefs on you, you're most likely to feel:
- Loathing. As if they've got something to push me into.

37. It doesn't take much to make you angry.
- Strongly agree. Especially when it's an LCT issue.

38. The violence in action movies:
- Is unsettling — I wonder how it impacts people's behavior in real life?. It does influence people.

39. Imagine your family is selling the home you grew up in. Though you haven't lived there for years, you're still nostalgic and would feel:
- Incredibly sad. They did sold the house. Too bad.

40. Your good friend is throwing another party. When you get the invitation, you:
- Approve of my friend's attempts to introduce people to each other. I'm waiting for this.

41. You've just returned home from the best first date you've ever had. You feel:
- Euphoric. I'd think about it for a month.

42. Buying a car from a salesperson makes you feel:
- Peeved. Why would I buy one from them?

43. If you found out you had a serious but not life-threatening, illness that required a lot of work to take care of, you would initially:
- Be raring to find out as much as I could about it. They falsely told me I had scoliosis. I had to scour Yahoo Health. False alarm.

44. You think the grocery cashier at the head of your line is a trainee. You feel:
- Calm. She must be young and beautiful.

45.

Spending the weekend with your family makes you feel:

- Tense. Cause this is rare.

46. You would feel happy to finally have the baby you've always wanted.
- Strongly agree. Who wouldn't?

47. Your friend cancels on you at the last minute without telling you why. You:
- Feel offended — my time is valuable, and I deserve a good explanation. DJ do this all the time. But, never again!

48. When you're starting a new project, you're:
- Eager to get started. Let get ready to rumble!

49. Things always have a good chance of working out.
- Agree. I've proven this many times.

50. I would really like to have more success with women and dating and would be interested to learn about the "secret psychology" of attraction and specific techniques that guys who are successful with women use.
- No thanks, I'm already successful with women and dating. Talk about an ad in the end of a "PhD developed" quiz. Well, I'm not really that successful, though.

------

Results: Ta-dah!

< >Ver, your emotions are triggered by your underlying belief in Honesty.

In other words, your commitment to leading an honest life, and your belief in the truth, directly affect how, and how often, you experience certain feelings.

For example, your test results indicate that you're most fulfilled when you can share all your thoughts and feelings — good or bad. That factor is directly related to your fundamental belief in honesty and the range of emotions it triggers.

------

For the rest of my test results, I'm gonna have to pay $5 for that. Too bad...

Labor Day Sale

2004-09-07T13:31:00.000+08:00

Agent Doggett looks frightening. Just look at his eyes. I'm scared as hell watching The X-Files alone in this room 30 minutes before midnight. Ok, so it's sounds absurd that I am actually frightened. In reality, I am not frightened. Cause if I am, I wouldn't have written about it. Cause if I did, it would ring in my head all night long and I would not be able to sleep. And if I did, I would not be able to wake up on time (like 6am) tomorrow.

It's finally confirmed that I would be extending my stay in CODC until something like September 17 or 18. That's great. I emailed my boss earlier back in the Philippines but he hasn't replied and then the time to go off and finally have a life came so we went out at past 6 pm. After we've roamed the streets of Colorado once again, I called Joseph. I couldn't use Cypress' 1-800 number cause I think that I've already deleted Lyn's mail regarding that. Hell, I used my own phone card to make a business-related call. I'd have to remind myself at this moment that my company actually pays all the phone cards that I buy here (for BOTH personal and business purposes).

First time I heard the voice, I still asked the other party if I could speak to "Sir Joseph". I knew he was the only who uses that number but his voice sounded different. He sounded younger, in an eery way. We spoke and he actually gave me the permission to extend here, even if there seemed to be aren't enough reasons. In my email, I made it appear that I actually wanted to go home as early as possible. It didn't work.

Indeed, I want to stay but in a way, I also wanted to go home. The reason is my hair. I had a habit of having my hair cut every two weeks. Now that's absurd. There could be a hundred barber shops here in Colorado but I still haven't found one which looks feasible. I usually step inside a barber shop, speak nothing and get a good hair cut. Here, I'd gonna have to research how much tip I should pay and how much it actually cost. And other questions that linger in my head like "Do American barbers like to talk with their customers while conducting their business?". I wouldn't want that.

Ate Thea wanted to be bring me at Ross (with a blooming motto: "Dress for Less") but just when we were about to enter, a boy went out the door and said "It's closed. It's labor day". Okay, that's much better. Cause I'm really not sure if I'd find good stuff inside there. You see, Ate Thea brought me at Ross because I told her that I lost my favorite shirt in the laundry room. She brought me there thinking that I'd like the ides of buying bargain clothing. If there's good stuff inside, fine. I'm just quite aware that whenever she drags me to a bargain sale of some kind, the clothes always suck. She means well, I know but I just had to wear clother I want to wear. And I don't waqnt her to feel disappointed in case I don't buy stuff from the places she drags me into.

Anyway, it was closed so I guess this was another good thing brought about because of labor day. We instead went to Target where I found a really cool shirt. I bought one and there was about six colors of that shirt (I wanna buy all colors, except for the yellow one). Before I leave, I'll probably buy another one of those. Yada yada. I'm gonna wear this tomorrow, without washing it first. Doesn't make any difference to me. And I'm gonna have to find a barber shop around, also tomorrow. Wish me well.

Remembering Capeside

2004-09-06T12:13:00.000+08:00

Earlier this afternoon, I was trying to get a fix of music which would facilitate my thinking (or my idleness). I remembered that I had been planning to download the songs from the Dawson's Creek soundtrack before but I couldn't get them at I-Mesh. I'm using Limewire now to download songs and in minutes, all 14 songs are already in my hard drive. Piece of cake.

I used to own a cassette copy of the soundtrack but when Lexter borrowed it, I told him that he could keep it. That time, I think I was at the stage of getting rid of my cassettes and replacing them with CDs and I also thought that owning a Dawson's Creek soundtrack is a bit embarrassing. I should've know better. By the way, this album is the first one released by the producers of the hit TV show (that's according to the ads). I know that they released another one (called Volume 2) but I never bothered to buy one afterwards.

So then, as I was listening to the songs all over again (I never heard these songs in about three years), nostalgia was actually sweeping me. I remembered my college days, my freshman year in particular when the only thing I cared about was primetime american TV. I was a couch potato and I spent more time in front of the TV than anything else, I guess. Ok, not really. Rather, I spent most of my time contemplating on the TV shows that are on for that particular night.

One of my guilty pleasures was Dawson's Creek. I don't know why I was not able to talk about the show with my friends, even if I knew that they were watching too. My better self took the backseat, I guess. Anyway, I liked the show because, for one, I had quite of an affection with Katie Holmes that time (and still a little bit of that affection remains). Joey Potter played a great part on my lovelife, as sordid as it sounds. I was practically looking for someone like her.

I had less shallow reasons for watching, of course. It was promoted as "the most realistic teen show" and it was (I am referring only to the first season). People were actually watching TV and talking about movies on a TV show. Rarely do I find that. Cause in most cases, people live their lives for us on TV (rock on, Ms. Kilcher). DC is different cause it was never afraid to be real. And besides, it was "created" by Kevin Williamson who, by the way, penned the screenplay for Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Scream was actually great. Don't you dare mistake it with Scary Movie (now this one sucks big time).

I was satistied (and even proud) to have watched every episode of the first season. The second season was a different story. Our TV bogged down and it had to be shipped for repair. And so, we didn't have TV for, like, 2 months. I still was able to catch the re-run of the second season, though. I continued to watch it until I had a real life of my own. I realized afterwards that I should just have stayed watching "reality" than experiencing it. Reality sucks.

"But this is reality, Dawson. This is not a movie.", I still could hear Katie. Yeah, right. And Joey, you're not in a movie, just in a TV show. You wait until movies scripts are offered to you, okay? And make sure you avoid catchy titles like "Teaching Mrs. Tingle".

Now, I see a lot of shows I used to watch but they never get much of my interest anymore. I usually surf from station to station til I find something "substantial". I do miss Felicity, though. I think the only shows that survived from my freshman days are Charmed and 7th Heaven. Too bad I never get the habit of watching these ones. Now, I wonder if The Practice is still running. This could hardly be possible since I'm the only one who watches that show.

Solomon's Search

2004-09-05T06:13:00.000+08:00

I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

- Ecclesiastes 1:12-14

If there was one book in the Bible that I have read and raved about over and over, it would be Ecclesiastes. The book, written by Solomon, is something of a philosophical search for the meaning of life. I loved the wordings he used and the really reflective style that shows the wisdom he has. In this book, he describes the observations he has with the world around him at that time and usually ends up concluding that "everything is meaningless". See, I used to conlude those same things, but not anymore.

Just for those who are living in the real world, here is a brief background of Solomon: He reign as King of Israel right after King David became too weak to rule as king. He's not the one who's supposed to be the heir to the throne since he's not the firstborn but, neverthelss, he did succeed David (who, in case you didn't know, is considered to be Israel's greatest king). He's the second son, if I'm not mistaken of David and Bathseba. Now, Batsheba is the one whom David has committed adultery with and I guess he paid a really high price for it. Their firstborn died.

Back to Solomon, he's considered by the Jews as the wisest person who had ever lived. I'm not exactly sure of their idea of wisdom back then but based from his writings, he is indeed very wise. When he started to reign, according to I Kings, he didn't ask God for power and wealth and such things but instead, he asked for wisdom. God replied to him (I don't know by what means but I'm certain He did) and told him that his request would be granted and that he will also be given things that he didn't ask for.

Ecclesiastes also contains the really famous verses recited at funerals (or interment, rather): "A Time for Everything" (chapter 3). I don't know exactly why this is the one used during funerals. Maybe it's a way of consoling the loved ones of the dead person by reminding them that somehow, everyone will have "a time to die" and that it never happened just because... In my opinion, though, I didn't think that Solomon intended this chapter to be recited at funerals (again, it's interment).

I assumed that he didn't write the whole book in a single sitting and in a way, he has been quite depressed while writing it, at least on some parts. He wrote that he had everything -- a thousand wives, wealth, wisdom, a great kingdom -- what else could he ask for? And yet, when he realized he had it all, he realized another thing: What is this all for? When he dies, he will be just like any other person in the grave, conscious of nothing. He also had some conclusions that while we are alive, it makes sense to enjoy things we've worked for and to make as many friends as we can.

But these, too, according to him, is meaningless. We just had to do it because it's the best option. But we shouldn't think that it mattered at all.

I recommend that you read the whole book (of Ecclesiastes), it would not take you more than an hour. If you have a Bible sitting in the shelf for years, covered with dust and all, get it and read it. It's not meant to be stuck there. It's a book, after all. Don't think that what you would be able to find in the book are all sermons. I hardly found sermons in it. What then would you find? A lot about history, philosophy (Confucius would be in the dust), hidden codes (yeah, it's better than your bestseller), revelations of the future (forget about Nostradamus), and more.

I Am So Not Homesick

2004-09-04T12:35:00.000+08:00

It's my second (and probably last) Sabbath here in Colorado. Everything is still going quite well with the SSER project, the reason why I am here. To tell you the truth, I feel very lonely this evening, unlike other evenings which I spend here in the hotel room, today's teribbly different. I guess it's because everything is just going in the direction they're supposed to go -- the end.

The end is the beginning is the end. I think there is a Pumpkins song with that name. I never liked the idea of saying goodbye. I never wanted to leave the Philippines in the first place. Saying goodbye always jeopardizes me. One week has already passed and next week, in Wednesday, I'm gonna have to leave. Unless, some major problem with the project would delay me. But as I've told you earlier, the project is going well and I think that my present itinerary would push through.

(Sigh). I wish I could stay here for like, three more months or so. What is it with saying goodbye that always gives me the creeps? I mean, I'm just leaving this place, this hotel room, this project. It's not like I'm leaving my girlfriend or family or whoever. I'm leaving something inanimate yet very alive. I'm leaving Colorado. (Another sigh for that)

Daniele (this time, I got his name right) is leaving tomorrow morning but I don't think I could go with him to the airport cause he's leaving pretty early (prrrrrety earrrrly - he always emphasizes the R). I never thought we would be able to hit off but we really had a nice time working together with Ate Thea for this project. He looked "decent" and geeky the first time he joined us but earlier we had a lot of laughs during dinner.

We ate at Antonio's earlier. It's an Italian restaurant and he has reservations of eating Italian food outside of Italy. I hate the food. Ewww. I almost choked but I restrained myself, of course. I ordered something called "Pasta Pastrama" with red sauce, or something like that. What they served us were salad and garlic bread. The salad was okay at first but the more you ate it, the more it challenges your gut.

I never managed to consume the whole dish cause the dressing really sucks. Plus I saw those round vegatables which I was made to eat in another restaurant. Never again will I order salad here in the US. By the way, I ordered the damn pasta just because it was the only thing that I could pronounce from the menu. I mean, I don't know if I pronounced "Pastrama" right but at least it's safer than those other Italian dishes. I couldn't remember a single thing.

When the salad was served, the waiter told us that "dinner will be ready in two minutes". So that's what why the pasta became a vegetable salad (with no traces of pasta at all). It was just an appetizer to the main dish. I should've known. Then I thought that the pasta should be damn good. The waiter then arrived with a big bowl (as big as the one we used for laundry, no kidding). There it was -- three plates with pasta. And it was so large. I think I could eat it for two days (that's three square meals x 2). And no, I'm not exaggerating.

Ate Thea and I never got to finish that but Daniele. He really eats, I tell you. I just do not know why he's as thin as he is. Since we never were able to finish, we were gald that there are available boxes in case the guests wanted to take out the food. Those "boxes" lookes like they were specially made to be dog food containers. I've got no dogs at the hotel but I do need a free lunch tomorrow.

After I've said all that, I still feel sad and lonely. I really have to extend. There is a better option, though -- I have to enjoy my remaining days of stay and stop thinking about the Philippines and our house -- my room, my stinking bed, and my computer back in Cavite. I was not able to cover my PC before I left so I just hope that it's not destroyed by the dust when I come back (I did not say next week, I dare not). I have to go to Pikes Peak or Garden of the Gods. I must. And buy a camera. And buy a phone card. My father is driving me crazy with his calls. He's always calling when I'm at the office so all he speaks to is the answering machine.

Dad: I'll be coming home but I hope it's not too soon...

Leaving the Fence

2004-09-03T13:44:00.000+08:00

Deuteronomy 5
³² So be careful to do what the LORD your God has commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left. ³³ Walk in all the way that the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you will possess.

---

I know someone who is deeply religious and yet nobody would have thought he is of that kind. In fact, he would be the last person to whom you would label as a "goody-two-shoes" pal. So maybe, he's not really righteous and upright since if he is, we should know by his deeds, right? This is the part where I used to get quite confused. I mean, this person, deep inside, I know that he's really nice. He just couldn't show it. Would never want to show it.

A lot of people thinks of him as a menace of society. Especially those people who never really bother to take a closer look. He goes around and someone instantly whispers in his mind: "How could he be sooo evil?". I guess nobody really understands. There are certain behaviors and responses that a person has that needs quite a bit of an explanation.

Being raised in a Christian family, he knows the way society looks at Christian living. Most people just keep quiet when somebody "declares" he or she is a Christian.

"Something must be wrong with him."
"Another hypocrite for the statistic."
"Keep distance."
"What is up with all these Christianity stuff?"

Because of these unspoken thoughts, he promptly opted to just "keep it quiet" and just pretend he's not one even if he says that he is. It's much more easier to live, according to him, if he just do not "show off" his goodness. It would be bad for him and it would just lead to conflicts with others who never have the capability to understand.

But still, I think he shouldn't be doing that. I think it's much better if he just keep it real. Give it a shot and just stop caring about what others would say. This is all about it anyway. Is he afraid to be different? Maybe. But he does appear to be all the more different from everyone, the way he seems to isolate himself because of his attitudes. If he can't do it, I guess he should stay on the other side. We can't, like, stand in the fence because we would always fall on one side.

Make a stand and live for it.

Just a piece of advice, my friend. Don't let this world hinder you from giving out the best of yourself. I'm just glad I'm one of the few people who understand you. Let them all be clueless.

Bradford's "Manager's Buffet" and the Tokyo-Narita Airport

2004-09-02T13:00:00.000+08:00

Needless to say, I'm in pretty much of a good mood today. Why? A lot of things.

First, the SSER is working again. I mean the test program is finally making the devices pass again and I was even able to persuade them to let the latest revision run overnight. Not everything was passing when we left and I really do not know how it would turn out tomorrow. Let's just wait and see...

Second, I had a really nice dinner (and lunch as well!). Every Wednesday, there's a thing in this hotel called the "Manager's Buffet" or something. What a shame. I don't even remember the name of this weekly hotel thingy. Basically, the hotel administrators (and owners, I think) serve dinner every Wednesday afternoon (like, 5-7pm). Ate Thea was actually raving about this one the first night I came in. When I heard about it, I was like, "What's the big deal about it? Ok, so it's another night when I would not be be able to choose what I want to eat". It turned out that she was right.

The dinner was damn delicious. I guess it was because of the rice. I missed eating rice. Last time I ate rice was in the plane to the Narita airport (hey, I haven't written anything about my flight, right?). I just got a small serving of the food because, as you may already know, I'm quite shy with people I do not know (and much more with people I do know).

Third, I had quite a nice time chatting on the net.

I feel like talking about today's event earlier but when I mentioned the Narita airport, I suddently feel like I have to write about my trip. Ok, see you in another blog, probably tomorrow.

Don't pass the buck on me.

2004-09-01T10:39:00.000+08:00

Had a bad day. I knew this was coming. After what I did last night, somebody must deal with me, be it ever so severly (if the last phrase seems familiar to you, please email me -- vaj@cypress.com!). I wouldn't elaborate on what I did last night though (at least not here). Although I doubt it if I would tell a soul, I mean tell the freaking whole story. Forget it.

We had a telecon with Skip at around 6:30pm (yeah, so this is about your high-profile project again? big deal). It was bad and I feel like shaking, really. Right before lunch, Iwas again having the time of my life because I was able to finish the debug. I thought, like, it's going to be all over soon and the rest of this "vacation" (as Skip would say) is going to be all charity. I would no longer be working on teh test program anymore but instead be "helping" Ate Thea do her job and give some improvements to the test system as well.

Right after lunch, I confirmed with Danielli that the program is ready for scoping. Then it happened. I think it was my fault why the decapped unit got shorted bondwires. It affected the whole system the we had to change the site controller. Afterwards, the system were so intemittent that my test program rarely passed. Neither does the original test program (although I still insist they correlate with each other). Is this all too technical for you. Oh well, I would go down to the details all the more.

Basically, I feel like the system is not working and I'm being blamed for it. This is the #2 item on the Top 10 things I hate about being a test engineer. I guess I'll be publishing this when I finally get out of TE (or out of Cypress, even). I provide the software. System does not work as intended. Software becomes the prime suspect and I had to go to great lengths just to prove and isolate the test program from suspicion. Not to mention I had to do work I didn't have to do.

So, am I complaining? Not at all. I mean, I was having a great time here in Colorado, thanks to this project. I never would have a 24-hour internet connection with matching laptop (albeit a bit slow). And with matching some bucks. Crap, I still am not able to spend my traveller's check. Nobody wants to accept. The moneychanger, the mall, the grocery store -- no one would accept it because of the amount.

I think I'm in trouble right now because I've already signed the freaking checks. They had to be signed just before acceptance of the, um, whoever would accept it in this small town. Anyway, I guess I'll get my money, one way or another.

The Da Vinci Hoax

2004-08-31T21:28:00.000+08:00

A few months ago, I decided to go back to reading since getting a free copy of PDL (but I'm not quite sure). After I've finished some of the good books at home and the borrowed ones, I decided to scour off Amazon. There it was, on the bestseller list -- the bestseller. Of course, I also saw some other titles like "The South Beach Diet" and all sorts of stuff which made me wonder if readers were really intelligent.

I'm writing a review on this book and I'm not even finished with it yet. I have, however, finished with the prequel, which so far still surpasses this one in many respects. It's called Angels & Demons. And no, it's not exactly about angels and demons. Although I may consider the fact that there are people there who could be considered as an angel and a demon on the same body. And hey, demons are former angels, anyway.

Before I venture into Angels and Demons, I'd like to remind myself, and you as well that this is a review of The Da Vinci Code. I clicked the Amazon link and got quite curious. And the more curious I got when I've seen the website for the book. It posted questions like "Why is she (Mona Lisa) smiling?". I'm one of those who really wants to dig a lot about these conspiracies and secret societies and I figured that this would be a good read.

Indeed it was, so far. But I kept on comparing it with A&D and it really pales. I do not know why they had decided to make a movie on this when A&D would be much better as a movie. Back to the book, it was qute appaling to read all those high profile names being mentioned as part pf the secret society. It was even quite appaling for someone as the subject to be involved in such a fiasco. I'd never tell who the subject of the matter is in this review but here's a clue: He's probably the most important person to have walked on planet earth.

Because of the challenge that it had put to my Christian values, I definitely placed the novel as fiction with bits of documentary about a theory which could never ever be true. That is about it -- the book which is fiction claiming to be factual. Nevertheless, a good read and very informative.

The Quest for Blogger

2004-08-31T21:27:00.000+08:00

I have been planning to chronicle my day-to-day adventures here in Colorado but I wasn't able to make a good start due to the really bad jet lag that had hit me. Today is already my 5th night in this hotel room and I would only stay here for 13 nights. At first, I was quite resentful of all these travel stuff sinec I'm not really accustomed to breaking my routine and worse, going away from home -- far, far away.

So far, so good, though. It seems that I never have enough time to have a good time right here that's why I always have to stay up late. Quite similar to my state in Cavite. In Cavite, I never have enough time for myself due to work, work, and more work. With this, I realized the great advantage of a home near the workplace.

The hotel is about a four-minute walk from the workplace (the building which does have a name). The Design Center is located at the second floor of the building, which is occupied by several private institutions. From the looks of it, I think that nobody knows another person from another group. That's the way I see, which is quite a lonely atmosphere. Even within Cypress, only two people cared to get to know me. Well, I cared to know only one of them, so I guess I'm not being fair.

I don't really feel like the temperature here is a matter of life and death, as the numbers would suggest. Yesterday, I think it was 5-22 C, as per Yahoo Weather. In the Philippines, I think the lowest is 24 C for that particular day. (Now, how many people have I told that already?)

It's 11:29pm and I'm really sleepy. So, this is like, my new home on the web. Great! Even if the domain (blog-city) seems to be quite off-putting due to the dash character. Wish they would just delete it. But then again, it may already be reserved.

Monday madness

2004-08-30T20:51:00.000+08:00

Day has come and I finally was able to wake up in the normal waking hour -- 6am to be precise. In the Philippines, I wake up at about 5:10 every morning when there's work. When there's not, it's really hard to drag myself from bed. That's why I often come late for church. Shame on me.

Danielli has finally arrived and I'm having mixed feelings right now. By the way, Danielli is the one who's supposed to be heading the project that I'm doing here at Colorado. I say "supposed" because he's not really directly involved in everything. We don't report to anybody but he gives us certain directions on what to do. We all have a boss named Skip (reminds you of someone, or something else, right?). But all I hear him say is "I want data".

I'm having mixed feelings because I am not quite sure if the software which I've modified is finally working. I had no way to check it out back there at CML (that's Cypress in Cavite). Even if I had the means, I wouldn't have the time because Joseph (my real boss) wouldn't like me to work on it since he's contending that I will be working full time with this one in the States anyway. Hellboy.

I have to take a bath now so I would be able to take my free breakfast down at the lobby of this hotel. I would never go out there without having a bath and not made up. Shallow.

Test

2004-08-30T13:49:00.000+08:00

My first blog... BLOG!