My Birthday '09

I treated the guys for dinner to celebrate my birthday. Finally had a chance to try out the cam. :)

Pre-Dinner
Took some pictures around the Explanade-Marina Square area. Here are my favorites.



Dinner At Glutton's Bay
The main event. Good thing we were early! If we came 10 minutes later, we would not have any place to sit! Oh, and good bye diet!!! :)) Hahahaha!!!



"Dessert" at McCafe
It's a bit late but we aint done yet. Went to McCafe in Marina Square - thankfully open 24hours as my birthday draws to a close...

Back in Manila March '09 - Day Three

March 27, 2009: Another slow start of the day for me... That's two in a row...

It was a bit worried because it started to rain. I tried to look for an umbrella, but of the four umbrellas I found in the house, only one was in working order. And I don't want to use it since my dad might need it later. So I just waited for it to drizzle down a bit, dashed for the bus/jeepney stop, and hoped really really really hard that it will not rain while I'm out there.

Hopping onto the bus, I reached the Makati area in less than 30 minutes. So anyway, first thing's first, I need a new umbrella. I decided to buy the Groscher Schatten automatic umbrella -- the one with activated with one push of a button, and is very small when folded, that it would fit inside a small bag. A bit pricey but it would serve my dad well much better than the other umbrellas. Oh yeah, I'm not buying this for myself; it's for my dad. :)

Since the frontdesk in my old company said that I can get my clearance form between 11AM and 12NN there, I decided to be there by 11:30 AM, which to me seems reasonable enough. I waited there for while.. then a while longer... then a whole lot more... Later, my old colleague came out and was surprised to see me there; she was surprised that I had resigned for almost two years and it is only now that I am finishing my clearance. We talked for a while and she shared news about what was happening to my old team there. Some good, some bad... As expected in a company, I guess. It's about 1:00 PM but still no clearance form. She decided that she will take care of it for me so that I wouldn't have to go to the next stop. With that, the rest of my afternoon was freed up. I really owe her bigtime. Maybe a couple or more Starbucks should do it. :) Yeah, she's one of those Starbucks junkies out there :))

With the rest of the afternoon free, I went back to Glorietta and tried to explore around. But first, I need lunch. So cross out another one of my to-eat hitlist: Jollibee's chicken joy. I actually ordered an extra Jolly Hotdog, but I was already full so I just stashed it away.

Intermission: my friend who was taking care of my clearance texted me and said that she just received my clearance form -- it was already 5PM. If I waited for it myself, I would have been sitting on my ass wasting away the whole afternoon. How slow! Glad she's taking care of it for me. I think I need to double my Starbucks treat for her for this one. :)

Didn't know that they closed off parts of Glorietta 1 and 2. I was looking for Booksale to get those back-issues of Yummy magazines at half the price. Too bad Booksale is not there anymore. :( I tried the other books and maganzine stores and stands, but I was only able to get the March issue. The April issue is expected by next week. Other than that, nada. Note to self, try booksale in SM Bicutan and SM MOA (if there is one there).

By 3:30, I met with a couple of my old friends back in the company -- Betsi and Joan. They're off by 3:00 PM so they were able to meet me much earlier -- which means the malls are not as tight when we met than if we met about 2 to 3 hours later. Since I'm the balikbayan, I treated them to Sbarro. We ordered a couple slices of mushroom pizza, one stuffed pizza, and a half-plate of carbonara. I was actually a bit full already since it's been barely an hour when I ate lunch. So less time eating, more time talking and listening. Apparently, so much has changed and happened since I last went there about a year ago. In case you haven't heard, I like stories alot. So I had a full stomach and full with stories I've heard.

Anyway, after we had our fill, we explored a bit around the Glorietta and Greenbelt areas. Since they still have to go to the office tomorrow by 7AM, we decided to part ways by 7-7:30PM. Since I'm commuting and it's a Friday night, I expected it to be long ride home so better go home early as well.

I hopped, this time, onto one of the well-known transit buses which actually stops directly in front of our subdivision. I forgot that they actually have E-Pass and have some *ahem* traffic privileges *wink* *wink* -- let me put it this way, they can go where no other transit buses are allowed before or since.

Surprisingly, I was back in our subdivision before 8PM. Quite fast, actually. So I just decided to go to the nearest supermarket, Shopwise, to buy some stuff as well as scout some of the potential family lunchout the following day. For some reason, all of the restaurants in Shopwise closed down -- Gerry's Grill, Tsokonut, and one Japanese restaurant -- forgot the name. I guess the restaurants in Santana Grove across the street killed them.

Back in Manila March '09 - Day Two

March 26, 2009: My day started quite slow.

I was supposed to go to meet with a couple of friends -- GNet and Ronnie -- at around 11AM and get started with my clearance -- hopefully before and after the lunchout with the guys.

I woke up at 8AM -- I woke only because my dad woke me up, who made it a habit to eat breakfast every 8. I lagged around a bit and was finally able to drag myself to the car by 9-ish. That's when I felt the need to go to the toilet. So I went back and did my business... It was a long business... After that I finally made my way.

Not wanting to lose any more time -- traffic was bad in the SLEX (South Luzon Expressway) due to the construction of the Skyway extension to Alabang -- I decided to go "upstairs" to take the Skyway. At first, I was glad that after a long time, the construction of the Skyway can finally be completed. The last time it was touched, it was when Ramos was still the president -- so that's gotta be more than a decade if I'm not mistaken. Then again, I remembered that next year will be election year. Can't help to think that they finally decided to finish the Skyway and all the while putting up banners and signboards stating how the completion of the project is brought to us by the current administration... Yeah right. As if I'm not aware of how trapos -- traditional politicians; literally "dirty rugs" -- go about their business.

I arrived in Makati around 10AM-ish, so I practically had no time to process my clearance before I meet them. So I just waited around and explored the G3 area.

I first met with Gnet and went to Califronia Pizza Kitchen. I'm not really sure what to order, so I let her decide what to buy. Shortly, Ronnie arrived, who apparently had some problems finding the way from the G3 basement parking to the California Pizza Kitchen. I brought with me some of the things that they asked us to buy and bring here. I guess that's why they're treating for this lunch. Hehehe :) We've been talking things over for well over 3 hours and that's when we finally went our separate ways -- I guess they're going on a date, while I'm supposed to be doing the clearance thing.

I got to my old company's building -- let's call it Building 1 -- to pick up the clearance form. My other colleague who also resigned left my clearance form at the IT department. I got there but was told by the security personnel to wait for the IT guy to return. I waited for a long time. It took me well over an hour before I finally got the form. It's a bit frustrating to have to wait when all along the IT guy was inside!!! Don't know what's the problem of this security guy. The hell with these guys! By the time I left, I was just fuming for sitting there for a long time.

I then went straight to our company's Building 2, who needs to route the form to be signed by whatever departments are there in that friggin' building. It was 5:30 when I got there, so they advised me that it can only be processed tomorrow by 10:30 AM and then I can pick it up between 11AM and 12NN.

So that's it. Not accomplished much, really, but at least I got the ball rolling for my clearance.. It's long overdue and at least now I can finally tie up this frustrating loose end.

I was a bit tired, then I saw the buildup of traffic in EDSA. I decided to hang out for a while and maybe visit the Timezone -- our Mecca for our carebears collection. Of course by this time, the carebears are no longer the price in that UFO catcher thing, but visiting it was a bit refreshing nonetheless. I was also looking for the old Marvel vs. Capcom 2, but it was nowhere in sight. Oh well, too bad. I always liked that game, even if I got my ass handed to me whenever someone challenges me. :))

By 8PM, I decided to finally go home. I thought rushhour traffic was ebbing by this time. Still, I took the Skyway. As expected, the long part was for the payment of toll fees. It took a just well over 5 minutes I think -- still not that long; I remember a few years back when I was stuck there for more than half an hour. After that, I was back home in no time.

Glad to see my old brother there with the family. It's the first time I saw them again in almost a year. It was late, though, and was not yet the weekend, so they went home relatively earlier than what he would have wanted: 12 MN hehe :) Yeah, that's still early for him :))

And we're back again!

It's June and we just got back from Manila!

The nine-day vacation was longer than our last visit last February, although it is still not long enough. Our stay isn't exactly what I would call a "vacation"; we had to work on some issues that we've left behind, such as the clearance form from my last job, and cutting our unused phone line. :)

Nevertheless, on a more serious and personal note, I got more than what I bargained for... After learning a few things, our past experiences have been placed in a new light... Seeing my past in a new perspective was a bit of a rollercoaster for me. All of my current concerns seem trivial.

On a lighter note, it's good to see old friends and relatives again. I never felt more homesick than I was a week ago and seeing everyone sure helped me a lot.

Although not fully rested, I'm now psyched to get back here with a fresh new outlook to face my challenges... at least for the next couple of weeks... :)

Our Marie Digby Weekend!

UPDATE: Check out Che's post on her blog.

In case you haven't been checking out Che's blog, Che is one of the biggest Marie Digby fans out there. Ever since she found out about her sometime last year in YouTube, she's always checking out her youtube for her latest music videos.

For the pictures, just check out Che's blog for any updates... That's her niche, so she gets first picks on the pictures to post. :) I guess I'll just stick with the story-telling of what went down. :)

Friday, May 9, Acoustic Session. We were outside the Zouk Velvet Underground waiting to get inside to watch Marie Digby's acoustic session. We were there around 7:30 PM, but the queue has already reached the street. Still, after a few minutes, the queue even got longer; it extended down to the tunnel to the basement parking of the hotel next door.

Around 8:00, people were let in. The place was too crowded. The front row was already full. We managed to squeeze in somewhere in the middle. To our dismay, the big taller guys are hogging the front rows. I had my doubts about us getting a decent picture or video of Marie later.

It's 8:30. She finally came out. She really is as white as in the youtube videos. She would really stood out in the middle of any crowd.

Just as I feared: we can barely get a good shot of Marie. In almost every picture, you'll see this guy's head, and this guy's Jamaican hair, and this guy's big camphone popping out from nowhere. Still, we managed to get good shots, but we had to do a lot of cropping and stuff. :)

Anyway, she was a great performer. She's good with botht he guitar and the piano/organ. She sang five songs from her new album which of course included "Say It Again" and her version of "Umbrella". I was a bit surprised though that she only sang five songs. Well, she was on a tight schedule and this was not a concert, so I guess that explains it. The session lasted around half an hour -- about half an hour shorter than the time we spent on queue. I'm not complaining, though. It was worth the smile on Che's face. I knew she was happy so I'm okay with it.

Sure, my flat feet were aching again, but it was a great show anyway. :)

Here's the video we got from our camera:



Saturday, May 10, Autograph Session. We were at GAP in the Wisma Atria along Orchard Road. The session was at 4:00 PM so we arrived 30 minutes earlier. Still, the queue was already too long and I ended up on the outside; we were like number 30 in the queue or something. I stood in the queue while I let Che and the rest of the "Batswan" inside the store to "maximize" the aircon. :)

We had everything ready: the poster, the CD label, the section of the label where we want her to sign, and a gift. [Che wanted to make sure that Marie would get something out of her visit here.]

When she finally came out and after singing two songs, the autograph signing was under way. Che promptly went to my place and we waited patiently on the queue. The rest of the "Batswan" were on the front row ready to take all the pictures they can when it's Che's turn for the autograph signing.

It took around 20 to 30 minutes before it was finally Che's turn. I guess due to the time and the still long queue, the staff there were a bit irritated: they kept saying no pictures, no notebooks, no scratch papers or the like; only autographs on posters and/or CD labels are allowed.

Despite what the staff around were saying, my gutsy wife introduced herself to Marie [they already exchanged messages in MySpace] and then gave her the gift. Then, the thing that Che was only dreaming of happened:

Marie Digby stood up from her sofa, leaned over, and gave Che a hug!

And the crowd went wild!!! Not only that, I managed to get a picture of the two of them! :)Obviously, the staff can't do anything about that. The crowd cheered as they knew that at that moment, my wife was the luckiest Marie Digby fan! :)

Needless to say, my wife was all-smiles. She has that "smile that had to be surgically removed"; she was very, very, very happy. And so was I.

Anyway, just check Che's blog to know her thoughts about her close encounter. :)

To Sentosa we will go...

My sister reminded us that there's one place we haven't been to yet... Well, actually, we haven't been to the many go-to places in Singapore yet, but that's not the point. :) Anyway, read my previous post about this here.

After six months, we finally needed to take a very good breather and so we went to Sentosa! I guess carefully laid-out plans don't always push through. We've always been planning to go there only to end up too lazy to push through. Drawing, drawing, drawing... This trip was simply made out of the blue; someone suggested it, everyone agreed to it, so awaaaaaaaaay we go!


While going down the beach, we spotted what appears to be an out-of-place Siberian Husky in the middle of the tropics...




Us with the rest of the gang!




This one was taken on one end of the beach....

Shot on another part of the beach are the bridge and the viewing platforms on the inlet, which is dubbed the Southernmost Point of Continental Asia.




The two of us on the bridge to the Southernmost Point of Continental Asia.




On the platform that links the "two towers" i.e. the viewing platforms.




The rock says:

"The inlet that you are standing on now is 135 KM north of the Equator and is described as the Southernmost Point of Continental Asia.

This inlet is linked to Asia via a suspension bridge which is linked to mainland Singapore by a 710 meter long causeway bridge. Singapore is further linked to Peninsular Malaysia and Asia by the Singapore-Johore Causeway."



Note: It's a bit tedious writing the "Southernmost Point of Continental Asia." This is like the fourth time it was written within this one post...


The two of us on the iconic rocks that spell "Sentosa".



See also Che's post on this one here.

An engineer's struggle with lupus...

The person here, Leslie, is actually one of my former colleagues in my previous job in the Philippines. I think it was about a month after I left for Singapore when I learned that she left that company as well. Before that, though, she was already out on sick leave for a few months. Sadly, it was lupus. :(

She's one of two people who got lupus from that same company. Don't know about you but there's something definitely wrong in this company... Could be the environment, could be the other people, could be the actual work itself. Whatever the case, no one's happy with illnesses that are (most likely) triggered by work stress...

Good luck to you....

http://lupus.ph/stories/pubview.php?id=145

FLASHBACK - Pinas pictures

Because I have a nasty habit of forgetting stuff, I'll post these pictures now! :)

Us with the newest member of the Aguilar clan: Keisha!

With Kiara and the family

With SPI guys

Dinner with Mike, Amy, and Mitch (maraming absent!)

Me with "Timberlake" guys

See you guys again! :)

Nostalgic about Manila

Just combing through net (and the links from my wife's blog) when I came across this blog about the way Manila used to be in the 80s and 70s.

Nice posts! Makes me miss the good ol' days in Manila! :) Can't wait to get back home hopefully this February... (Still a long way to go, but, well, not much choice in the matter...)

First November first away from home

Well, there's a lot of firsts here for us this November. And this one tops the list.

This is our first All Saint's Day away from the Philippines. It's a bit strange not being able to visit my Mom. Sure, we visited here shortly before we left last month, but I still get that "longing" feeling. I guess my body "remembers" that I should be walking the stretch of Sucat Road from Goodwill II to Manila Memorial Park. My body "remembers" pushing and being pushed during the long procession to the cemeteries. My body remembers how painful my feet feels after that and how I love sitting down and chatting with our entire clan there -- by "clan" I mean, my Dad and the families of my two siblings. :) I remember how calm it feels when I'm there sitting at my mother's grave...

Strangely enough, I also remember and actually miss the thriving businesses that we normally see these days. Of course, the flower stalls are there (taking advantage of the season, tripling their normal prices) and of course the different food stalls. (Takaw talaga ng Pinoy!) Hehehe... Years ago, you only find the small food businesses. Nowadays, food business giants are taking advantage of that as well. Picture it: a Pizza Hut, Shakey's and Yellow Cab stalls standing side-by-side with makeshift sari-sari stores and hotdog/barbeque stands. Oh yeah... :))

Oh well, no choice but to deal with it. This is one of the consequences I know that we will be facing when we go abroad. Not that it bothers me alot. Just missing a little taste of home.

Things I left behind for SG...

After four and a half long, long, loooong years in Sykes supporting the problems of other people, I have finally resigned.

Big step for me; definitely big changes up ahead... Not the easiest decision for me to make, but one that I know I have to make. My life's not just for me anymore.. All of my future decisions will take into account my wife and family.

So now, let's see.. What exactly did I leave behind....

My family of course... After 26 years, this is the first time that I'll be leaving them for a very long time. You can tell the tension when I broke the news to them. My siblings, being a little bit old-fashioned as they were -- they are 11 and 9 years older than me -- thought that it's a big mistake to suddenly resign and look for opportunities somewhere else. To them (or at least the less open-minded sibling of mine) said that I would have wasted all of my four and a half years here if I go somewhere else -- note that they are both currently employed in their first jobs -- she's there for almost 15 years, the other one almost 12 years.

In the end, though, perhaps realizing that we have already made up our mind, they were all supportive, even giving us a despedida lunchout last Saturday.

I'll also be leaving tons of material things here, since we are only limited to 20KG luggage and 7KG handcarry. Our house, thankfuly, is going to be manned by one of our most trusted friends here. For security reasons, I will not post his/her/its name here. :-)

Also, Grae, our '91 Toyota Corolla was sold off. It's old enough to be a 3rd year high school student (15 years) and experience tons of crashes, scratches, bumps, and other stuff at my hands. Hehehe... My practice car as it were, I learned to drive in Pasay -- perhaps one of the best, uhmm, "training grounds" -- using this car and that is where I got most of my driving experience. You may want to practice driving in Pasay.. Hey, if you can get through a two-lan two-way side street with cars parked on one side, you can drive anywhere! :-)

Anyway, Grae is already showing signs of his age -- frequent monthly problems, excessive "kalampag", etc -- so it is best that we sold him off. The new owner should be able to take care of it much better than I did.

Of course, I'll be leaving behind my second home, my job. Unlike most of my other batchmates there, I really like my job. Sure, there are several times when I said I no longer want to work there, but that is only a stage/phase... Stress is high, so it really does get to you after a while... After getting the stress of my system, everything's back to normal. I learn more with dealing with people (which is one of the few things that I least miss, but otherwise thankful for) as well as more techie stuff. Also, got more practice on time management -- going back n forth between managing your cases and reviewing the cases of others. Ah yeah... Those times were great.. Rendering OTYs, getting nothing but shit from customers, client and/or client representatives not making life easy for you.. Things like that.

Sure, there are a lot of politics involved (although I must say it is significantly reduced now than way back then, around 2 years ago), but that's office life.. Actually, that's life.. As long as there is a group of people, some form of politics will be involved. I really don't miss this part much, but I did learn a lot about people because of it. How people act, react, and manipulate the people around them. The backstabbing. The hypocrisies. Everything and anything you can think of. It's the ugly part of any business and something that everyone must deal with.

The good, the bad, and the ugly.. The office politics there in the "Timberlake" account is a real eye-opener. I saw first hand what my Dad said about the office: know how to deal with your peers (same level as you are), with your subordinates (under you) , and your bosses (above you). Dealing with each one is important as well as keeping the balance among them...

In spite of the politics there, though, I believe what I'll miss most are the people of the SEC team. The team has seen the best and the worst. Getting the most number of cases (and in turn, generates the most revenue for the account/company), each engineer is doing the task of three, perhaps more. And yet, we see each of them -- although complaining whichis understandable -- doing everything they can to do their work, being the best in what we do.
And yet at the end of the day, the team manages to have fun. It's a great team, one that I hope the management would recognize. I really do hope everything is done to make the lives of these selfless engineers a lot easier.

That's all for now... :-)

Of baptism and reunions...

11AM, I'm at Malate Church for the the baptism of our newest godchild, Quianne, Jane and Moore's first daughter. I though I wasn't going to make it because I left the house around 10:30 AM. Good thing it's Sunday and not many cars along the roads -- at least along the roads I took to get to Malate church.

Once, I get a hold of some pictures, I'll post them here ASAP.

Many old faces from SPI I haven't seen for quite some time, so it was also like a reunion of sorts. Too bad Che's not here. I'm sure she would have enjoyed it.

Anyway, the reception at Kamayans along Padre Faura is great! Nothing beats a good buffet to celebrate Quianne's baptism! Hehehe :-)

However, I couldn't stay for long as we needed to go to Nagcarlan, Laguna for the reunion with our Tita Vinia.

It's been almost 10 years since she and her family visited the Philippines. Her two children have grown a lot. Michael, 16, is now a senior high school student and stands 5'9"! (Geez, easily one of the tallest of my cousins.) Nicole, 15, is a sweet, beautiful young lady. She said they'll be back here in the Philippines for her 18th birthday.

It's really nice being with them. They remind me of the early high school days. Life was simpler, not much of a care in the world, and whatever cliches you can think of. Of course I didn't have my own income by then to buy my own stuff. I'm proud of these guys because actually had a productive summer vacation earning several hundred dollars doing stuff in their neighborhood -- mostly mowing the lawns for a few bucks... I wish I could have done that back then..

O well... Back to the here and now... :-) Keep on moving! hehehe...