Don't let the flames die down
It's been a week now since I took in my refugees from Marikina after the great flood caused by typhoon Ondoy. My sister, my brother, my brother-in-law and their yaya has been living in our guest room since last Sunday, and they can stay there for another week if they want. I'm just happy that they're all safe.
Their house has been hit by the terrible flood. The water level from my sister's house was six inches short from reaching the ceiling while the first floor of my brother's rented house was damaged by the flood as well despite it being a foot and a half higher from street level. The ref was floating and so was the microwave. The sofa's finished and I don't have any proof that I graduated from Ateneo because my diploma was totaled, too. Yes, there were a lot of stuff damaged, but at least they're OK. Too bad I can't say the same for a lot of families whose homes have been totally destroyed. Some of them are living in schools transformed into makeshift evacuation areas while a good number of them have houses that are still flooded up to now.
The government's response was disappointing at best. It was actually the bayanihan spirit of the Filipino that became the silver lining in this very dark cloud. People from all walks of life stepped up, volunteered, donated, cleaned, prayed and did almost everything to help out those that were affected. If it was text power before, it's now social networks which became the adhesive that united everyone. One can see the breathing and living Facebook, Plurk, Twitter and everything else in between come to life to coordinate the relief efforts. Seeing this first hand made me be amazed at how powerful this can be.
A week after the tragedy, my family will be transferring back to Marikina because their place is almost fixed. But there are still a lot of families who still need help. Don't let the Bayanihan spirit die just yet. People are still counting on our generosity to bring them back to their feet.
Make it happen.
You can't spend the rest of your life waiting for something to happen. If you want it, be the one to do it. Be the agent of change and make yourself accountable. At the end of the day, if it didn't materialize the way you want it to be, you don't have anyone to blame but yourself.
Coming from a nine-day holiday break, going to work yesterday was a big shock to my system. At just 3:00 p.m., I was so sleepy that I had to go to the food stalls to get a recharge.
So how was your first day at work after the Holy Week break?
Please Make It Stop
Please make the meetings stop. That would be a great gift for anyone in the office.
After the big re-org, I can't help but notice how many meetings I've been attending everyday. It's actually getting to be too much that I end up doing nothing when the day ends.
What do you guys think about having a no-meeting day so that everyone can sit down and finish their work?
Bittersweet
Yesterday was the day when told members of my team that I'm transferring to handle another team. I tried very hard not to show it but the whole experience was a bit sad for me. I've been with them for more than a year and, before this new table of organization was announced, I had plans for them. Now that I'm tasked to head the online operations team, I turn over the reins to Domi. I'm sure he will treat them well.
As for my new job, Dennis and I finally had our team organization table approved after five long drafting sessions. The original assignments given to us were IPTV and TFC Now for him and ABS-CBN.com and News for me, and so this is where we based our individual TOs in the first draft. How are we supposed to find out that it's not like that at all? Anyway, now it's all finished with me heading the group and him leading the publishing team. With a battle cry to make things as efficient as possible, we now head into the fray.
From one hospital to the next
My brother was discharged last Friday after a nine-day bout with Dengue. His platelets went down as low as 9,000 that we had an impromptu Amazing Race event. We had to call relatives and friends in the middle of the night, asking them if they have O+ blood and if they're willing to be a donor to my brother.
He's OK now, resting in his room for a few more days until he feels ready to go back to work. We thought that was the end of our hospital saga for 2009. We couldn't have been more wrong.
Yesterday, it was my father-in-law's turn to be admitted in the hospital. This time it's for pneumonia. He went for a consultation with Charo's pulmonologist in the morning because of a week-long cough. Something didn't sound right as the doctor was listening to his lungs using his stethoscope. After a short trip to the radiology department and a few tests in the emergency room, the doctor told him that he has to be confined.
It was good that she was able to diagnose his condition early, nonetheless no one wants to be sick, more so admitted in a hospital.
We'll be going there in a while to help mother-in-law with the chores of being the bantay. As usual we'll be bringing snacks and drinks for his visitors.
Sigh.
What's up with 2009, with all these hospital sessions? Are these signs of things we should expect for the year? I hope not.
January Two
I'm spending the second day of the year in my brother's hospital room. He was rushed here last night because his fever won't go down. The doctor suspects that he has some sort of a virus infection, or worse it could be dengue. I'm just hoping for the first one. Spending the first few days of the New Year in a hospital is just not right.
My 2008 Highlights in Purchases
So it's the last day of the year. In a few hours we'll say goodbye to 2008 and welcome 2009 with open arms but with our fingers crossed. 2008 wasn't exactly as fun and exciting as I hoped it would be. It was just OK.
I listed down a few highlights of the year in terms of what we bought.
1. Graham. Of course. He's the highlight of the whole year for me - that after a few years to toying around with the idea, we finally got a dog despite Charo's mom's apprehensions. Follow his development in pictures here, here and here.
2. The Nike Zoom Victory Shoe. I bought it about two or three months ago and it represents me slowly going into running. Actually it started this year when I bought a pair of Nike Air Structure Triax 10 on sale at Sports Warehouse. Then it got a little more serious when I bought a Nike+ iPod system and hooked it up to my iPod Nano. After eight months, I bought a lighter running shoe - and that's the Nike Zoom Victory.
3. The Nokia E63. After more than two years, Charo has had enough of my dilapidated Nokia N70 and loaned me some money to buy the Nokia E63 and replace my old one. It's a watered down version of their E71, but at P14,200 with wifi capability and a full qwerty keypad, I'm perfectly happy with it.
4 and 5. The Popcorn Hour and the Samsung HT-Z210 home theater system. These two totally revolutionized the way we enjoy our TV. We download the shows we want to watch on torrent (or we let Popcorn Hour do that for us) and then we watch it on out LCD TV with the audio hooked up to the home theater system via optical cable. Pure TV bliss. We're now spoiled on watching our TV shows on full HD that we hardly watch cable anymore.
The Zoobic Adventure
We were supposed to go to Enchanted Kingdom after our long storycon, but we had to change our plans on the last minute because of the weather. The team was thinking of just going to the mall or maybe just having lunch at a nice resto but I figured there was still a lot that we can do for the day. The CR-V's all ready and everyone's all packed. Naturally, there's one logical thing to do - ROADTRIP!
They had no idea where to go, so being the drive-happy person that I am, I told them we're going to Subic. Now as to what we're going to do there, we'd figure that out on the way.
Part of the highlight of the trip was actually trying out the new SCTEX. It was such a pleasure driving on that immaculate stretch of highway. Too bad it had a 100 kph speed limit or I would've given our ride a nasty cleaning exercise of its carbon build-up.
After some thinking, we decided we're going to Zoobic.
So how was the adventure? It was so fun. We all had a blast! We managed to catch the last trip for the day and we made sure we've milked it for all it's worth, taking lots of pictures whenever we can.
December Two
So the first day of December has come to pass and I'm writing this blog at 12:10 a.m. of December 2. How time flies indeed. Pretty soon the year will be over and everything will be reset come January. But I don't want to think about that for now.
I go back to work again tomorrow after a three-day weekend, thanks to Andres Bonifacio. It's a break I welcomed with open arms and would gladly consider experimenting if I had the power.
I gave Charo her Christmas gift very early so that we can enjoy it. It's a Popcorn Hour A-110 Network Media Tank, and it has revolutionized our way of enjoying our downloaded media. Instead of just watching on our Macs, we can now watch our favorite movies and foreign TV shows in its full HD glory on our big-screen TV with this device! It's like an Apple TV but way better. It's hooked to the net and has a built-in torrent application so it can download your media straight to its hard drive. It's really nice!
As for my gift from her, she have me a new 32GB iPod Touch, and so now I have three iPods all in all. There's Zagu, my 60GB 5th Generation iPod Video; Blue, my second generation iPod Nano; and now there's Touchie. I'm actually thinking of letting go one of these but I'm not sure which one. I use Zagu in the car while Blue is my companion when I run. With Touchie, its cool apps and its built-in Nike Plus, I was thinking of letting go of Blue. But when I tried running with it, it was just too bulky for me. Bahala na.
The First Day of October
It's the first day of October and there's no work in celebration of the feast of Ramadan. I was hoping on doing short run to start the day but God does not approve. I'm thinking He wants me to rather stay in bed and so he brought this new typhoon to the Philippine area of responsibility to stop my plans. Come to think of it, I think His idea is excellent.
This is my blog entry after a long time of no entries. I'm still pretty pissed that I've exceeded my disk quota for this free account, but then I figured, to hell with it. I'll probably upgrade after I clear up my credit card bill. But until then, let their servers get fed up with me trying to upload new entries.
I'm blogging on a late Sunday morning. I just brought Graham to his new vet for a medicated bath to get rid of his fleas and ticks. They checked his medical history and discovered that he was due for deworming so they gave him a tablet to swallow. So far I'm happy with their service. It's better from his previous vet, who always forgets who I am despite several visits. At least in this one, they know who Graham's dad is.
He's sleeping now at the foot of the TV stand, tired from all the excitement inside the clinic. They like him there. They said that he has a lot of potential to win dog shows. Well, I don't know about that. I'm just happy that he's OK.
I gave him some treats when we got back because he's been a good dog. He loves the Purina Beggin' Strips so I gave him two.
For today I'm hoping to do several things: 1. Go to the mall and drop off Charo's Macbook power adapter to have it repaired or replaced. 2. Watch The Incredible Hulk, Get Smart, The Happening or Wanted. 3. Do a 3-kilometer run at least.
Reminds me of college when finals and the deadlines all pile up in the last week of semester. Well, it's been eleven years since college but today feels kinda like that.
What's good is that they've finally taken notice (well, at least she did) of what we're doing and how important we are now in the overall picture. What's bad is it means more work to us.
Normally, I'd be groaning by now, but I guess I've matured a bit. It's weird but I want to plunge into this challenge head first.
Street Thoughts
Some stuff on my mind while out driving in the streets of Manila:
1. Every now and then I see a shoe in the middle of the street. Now why is that? Are those from pedestrians running for their dear lives, or are those from those pesky, uneducated scooteristas, who consider Metro's thoroughfare as their personal slalom course to and from work?
2. I should start taking pictures or videos of jaywalkers. You should really see how silly they run. What's equally funny are the looks on their faces, especially the may edad . Now that is good YouTube/Flickr content, baby!
Chores Day
My in-laws are out of the country. That leaves paying the bills and doing the other necessary stuff to us. And so I call this day Chores Day.
My tasks for today, should I choose to accept it (as if I have a choice, anyway), is to first bring Graham to the vet for his shot and check-up, second is to pay for the utility bills (water, telephone and my in-laws' postpaid mobile lines), and lastly, to drop by Wilcon in Libis to buy the items the electrician listed down yesterday so he can fix the grounded refrigerator outlet.
Maybe I should download the theme for Mission impossible and load it in my iPod for more drama.
Gas prices increased by P0.50/li again
The price of gasoline increased yet again by P0.50 per liter, and slowly it's getting to be masakit sa bulsa. If I'm not mistaken, this would make the price of my the Super Unleaded around P47.57 per liter in my area. Ouch! That's more than the price of the Velocity fuel a few months back! It's getting crazier and crazier every week and it seems P50 per liter just around the bend.
If there's a silver lining to this dark cloud, I'm hoping praying for the tipping point - the moment when people realize that we should look for alternatives to fossil fuels, and redesign the city to make it more walkable and bike-friendly. Maybe companies would put bike parking areas, shower rooms, lockers as well as give incentives to their employees who bike, walk, use public transportation, carpool, run and everything else in between. Maybe.
Well, until then, I guess we're just stuck with whatever prices that gas companies dictates. So maybe you should think twice about that long drive you've got planned this summer.
Proud to be an Earth Hour participant
I am proud to say that we supported the Earth Hour in our house. When the clock struck the hour of eight in the evening, we turned off the air conditioner and lights in our room and joined Graham and my in-laws in the lanay to spend an hour with just flashlights, candles and a rechargeable radio.
I think we're just one of the handful of people who participated along Marymount street in La Vista village. To be honest, I was very disappointed. Being a village of educated people, I was expecting more from them. Instead, our neighbors left and right still had their aircons and TVs running while we were enjoying each other's company in the dark. Oh well.
On the bright side I am particularly proud of my in-laws. I was thinking that they would insist on having their lights on because "the neighbors' lights are turned on anyway", but when we explained the whole reason for this, they graciously turned off their lights and joined us.
I just hope that in the future, we won't need events such as this to be conscious of our environment. It should come in naturally.
To those who joined the Earth Hour, cheers to all of you.
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Well, I get those sometimes. And the random thought is...
