Hp Pavilion - Greyscale Screen Nightmare

We had this weird problem for the second time with our laptop screen last night. All of a sudden, the system crashes and reboots (way to go Windows!). After the reboot, while loading the startup programs, the colored screen becomes black and white -- or grayscale if you prefer to call it that.

Fixed it eventually. I though I just might as well post it so that (1) I can refer to it incase ithis happens again for the nth time; and (2) I hope it can help others out there who might have the same problem.

BTW, we are using the HP Pavilion dv6000 Series running Windows Vista with all the latest patches, as of this writing. Won't list the other software that I have installed, coz that's just insane! Anyway, not sure if these same steps would apply to other laptops models or other OS. So please don't complain to me! I'm not an HP tech. If you've got the time and money, call the HP Support, not me. :)

We did some research and apparently, this is a common problem with HP Pavilion dv6000 series. And you can see the countless number of people in forums saying "HP sucks" as well as "You're screwed! Buy a new NON-HP laptop". Quite entertaining, actually.

Nevertheless, I know this is not a hardware issue like the ones discussed in the forums. In our case, before the startup programs are loaded, the screen is actually colored. In BIOS, the progress bar saying "Loading Windows" or "Resuming Windows", even the actual login page are all colored. It's only after login and during the loading of the startup programs when "the world becomes sad and the colors fade away." :)) So this tells me that this is a software problem. The laptop did crash after all, so who knows what software settings/registry keys/whatever were changed or corrupted on the fly. Tried to search for these to no avail.

Anyway, here's what I did on both previous instances that I got this problem:

1. Restart Windows
2. Press F8 to enter the boot selection menu.
3. Select the "Load last known working configuration".
4. Login as usual and confirm if the color is fixed. If not (which is the most likely scenario), restart again.
5. Press F8.
6. Select the "Repair" option on top.
7. Follow through until all the checks have been made. Reload once prompted to do so.
8. Login and confirm if the color is back to normal.

And there you go. I did these exactly the same twice and in both instances they were fixed. Not sure if there's anything with the order that makes it work or not work. I initially tried the "repair" option first, but that didn't work. I had to revert to the last known working configuration before doing the repair. Don't know what's going on in there, but, as long as it works, that's fine with me.

I just hope that this never happens again. But if it does happen again, I hope these same steps are all I need to fix it.

Unhealthy Overtimes

Having a schedule of four-days-on-four-days-off is quite a challenge. Six months into my work and I've fairly managed to get used to it.

Okay, in case you didn't get it, here's how that works: four four days -- or ratherm 2 days and 2 nights -- I go to work, say Monday to Thursday. That is day on Monday and Tuesday, night on Wednesday and Thursday. Then the next four days I'm off, so that's Friday to Monday. Cycle continues: on from Tuesday to Friday, off from Saturday to Tuesday, on from Wednesday to Saturday, and so on.

The caveat for this is that within the four days we're off, one of those days -- usually the second or third day-off -- we're on standby. That means we have to be on-call twenty-four hours during that day and be ready to go to the office in case the need arises, such as when a colleague supposed to work that day day can't come due to illness, emergency, whatever.

Well, one of the worst-case scenarios happened to me: for two straight weeks, I had three overtimes; one before the first workweek, one, between the two, and one after the second week... It may not be much but since two of those are nightshifts, it's not really a pretty thing to do. When you cover a nightshift, you've actually lost two "days" -- the day before the nightshift and the day after -- since you need to sleep after the shift.

Not that I blame my coworkers that I cover for. Things happen. It's just that it occured to me three times in a row. It's not fun...

...it's bloody difficult!!! Your body clock can't adjust that well if you do that often. Just when you are normalizing your body clock -- that is, adjusting so that you will be awake during the day and sleeping at night again -- the manager calls you and you have to go to work for a nightshift cover. Not good. Bad. Very bad indeed...

Guess my body couldn't take any more of that punishment... The next work shift, I couldn't make it on my first day. Oh well, tough luck for them! Working for 3 days instead of four is a welcome break. Good thing also because I'm on vacation leave for two weeks after that. :)

Finally some good news for my body with a struggling body-clock! :))

Tiring week

Just a short post. Feels like I'm in time-travelling. I think I'm loosing more days to sleep lately.

After the end of two night shifts, twenty-four hours later, I'm back to work for a day shift. Twenty-four hours after that, I'm back one two night shifts. Then two days after that -- that would be tomorrow night -- I'll be going back for two night shifts again.

It's more difficult than it sounds.

Well, that's something I have to deal with for now.

Work, Sleep, Repeat

Hate to admit it but this shifting schedule is starting to finally take its toll on me. Sleeping at weird times is one thing. Losing track of time is another.

I was "coerced" to cover for my sick colleague last Saturday evening. Whatever plans I had for that day was ruined. And learning much later that I can actually say no to the Ops Manager made it even worse for me. Anyway, see my last post for more on that.

So I got home on Sunday morning, dropped on the bed. I didn't wake up until it was 3:00 PM! I sooo wanted to do lots of things but losing more than half of the day... well, there's simply not enough time. I'm still trying to adjust.

Aw hell... I just feel robbed of my time. I didn't get enough R & R this week. I'm supposed to be enjoying my time, not trying to recover from my lack of sleep. It sucks.

Not to mention, the old clothespins keep sliding down the bamboo pole... I guess I better buy a new set... Yep, I was doing laundry today, because that's the only thing I can do with the time I have left.

Then tomorrow, I'll be back again in the office... In the evening... Again... For the next four nights... Including New Year's Eve... Oh well...

Project aftermath...

Finally, after months of anticipation, the project had come to pass... and we all survived!

This is perhaps the biggest project I am involved in my entire career. I wish I could say that everything was smooth sailing, but that would be a lie.

So our team were there on site at 10:30 AM last Saturday, but people were already behind schedule; we could not start unless the first team has finished their task. All preliminary tasks on our side have been done, so all that was left was to wait for the other team to finish their task. So we waited patiently... And waited... And waited some more.

Around 3:30PM, that's when we had our first issue. Easily resolved, no sweat.

About 30 minutes later, then came the seemingly never-ending parade of issues... We had a list pasted on a wall were all the problems / issues encountered are listed. For the next 2 minutes, 10 issues are listed and there were no signs of it letting up. Thankfully it did stop, but there were already too much on the list and we were stuck with these problems for the next hours.

Bottomline, we finally called it a day around 2:30 AM. Workarounds were in place, although there are a couple more unresolved issues. We had to come back the following day. (Or technically, later that day since it's past midnight.)

We returned to work around the 11 AM, refreshed but not as eager as we were the previous day. Thankfully, all of the outstanding issues have been resolved around 3:00PM. Finally! We went home very elated that the project is finished.

While sitting in front of the TV, I realized a couple of things; first, I'm watching "Sunday" shows which means it's already Sunday; and, second, we have to go back to work the following day (to provide support in case problems do occur during normal production hours). I feel shortchanged. If you look at it, we would be working for twelve days straight (the 10 normal working days in two weeks plus the two weekends). Aint exactly your ideal scenario!

So today we returned, still not very enthusiastic. Problems did occur but thankfully these were resolved easily. We would be staying put for the rest of the week to ensure that any and all incidents are dealt with.

Aside from that, I had to update all the documents that are affected by the changes. Aside from the two documents I created for this project, my boss assigned me to update five other documents affected. I know for a fact that nobody is assigned to update one other document, so I plan to do that as well.

All in all, just another fine week. :)

My "going-home" boo-boos and yeah-yeahs list

Having spent about a week in Manila was not a cakewalk, but the following boo-boos made it just a little bit worse, although the yeah-yeahs seem to make it all worthwhile. I hope the list helps you out there planning to go home :)

BOO-BOOs:

Left Driver's License. You only actually need a license when (1) you get caught by those traffic enforcers, and (2) when you get caught in an accident. With these in mind, I always had that nagging feeling whenever I'm driving around the Metro... Yep, not the best feeling at all... which only makes you even more prone to accidents... :(

Left ATM card. What's worse than your wallet with missing driver's license? Your wallet with no money whatsoever! I already transferred cash into my ATM account in Manila (since remitting from SG to Manila has better rates than converting through money changers in Manila). Of course, that is useless if your ATM card is not with you. Darn! Good thing, we had a simple workaround: transfer funds into another ATM that you have access to (such as the ATM of your parents!) This was a bit of a hassle, but it's better than not having any cash at all!


No traffic "intelligence report". Traffic was so heavy, we spent the entire morning crawling through the South Luzon Expressway. I guess if I had tuned in to one of those traffic watch programs, I would have taken the Skyway or any other alternate routes. Oh well... That's a half day wasted. This is perhaps the worst case of "waste"... You waste time, energy, gas (and consequently money) in the middle of a damned highway. The only good thing here is that we were stuck in traffic in our entire stay only once.

Unset alarms. You'd expect some days in which you would have to stay up real late and, as such, you are expected to wake up late as well... However, time is not on our side. Alarms should have been set so as not to waste two or three hours to sleep. It's only a small thing to overlook, but one that cost us several hours... Multiply that by several days and you'd almost have a full day lost to sleep... Not the healthiest choice, sure, but we could have grabbed some sleep after finishing whatever tasks we had for the week... Oh well....

Planned a not-so flexible agenda. Many items in our list were not done mainly due to "surprises". At one time, we had unexpected (but welcome) visitors which practically cleared out the rest of our day. Our timetable was so tight, there was very minimal room for adjustment. Surprises like this forced us to leave out some items undone.

Not-enough days! One week -- actually, 5 workdays plus the 4 weekends, inclusive of the in and out flights -- is simply not enough! It was just enough time to finish off some loose ends, but not enough to actually enjoy the stay. One week would have worked for a non-flexible and completely predictable time. Otherwise, it's just not enough... :(

Note to self: next time, plan a two-week vacation at the minimum.


YEAH-YEAHs:

Meet family, friends and colleagues. What's better than meeting the ones we've left behind after a long time? Although sadly, we didn't get to meet everyone due to time constraint. But I guess we were able to meet with the people that we really needed to meet with anyway, so that's fine. :)

Home. No matter what you say, home is home, and there's nothing like being home after a long time... Well, in our case, it's actually just a few months, but still... In our case at least, we had three homes: our actual house where we live (or used to live), Che's parents' house (with all her pamangkin's including the newest one, Keisha), and my Dad's house (where I grew up and is the "gathering point" of my clan). Spending time in all three is very refreshing.

Eat foods missed. Needless to say, food abroad is nothing like food in Manila. So which foods did we have? Well, there's Jollibee's chicken and breakfast meals, Tapa King's Tapa Queen (the sweet and spicy one, I think), Goldilock's puto and mamon, and, of course, the home-made dishes (too many to mention). Aside from these, we brought back to SG some of the things that you'll never find there: Purefood's Tender Juicy Hotdogs, Purefood's Salami, Purefoods Corned Beef (simply the best corned beef for me), Century Tuna (Hot and Spicy), laurel leaves (bay leaves) and banana blossoms (puso ng saging) for the paksiw, different types of tuyo and daing, Filipino curry powder (i.e., our local yellow curry powder, not to be confused with SG's fiery red curry powder), bunch of chichiryas like Kirei, Oishi and Tortillos, and, of course, my favorite sandwhich spreads -- Cheez Whiz and Lady's Choice Guava Jelly. Actually, my favorite since way, way back was the Peanut Butter with Guava Jelly Stripe. If I'm not mistaken, it's either Lady's Choice or Kraft. Well, it no longer exists today, sadly, so I'd settle with the Guava Jelly with any brand of peanut butter such Lily's.

Note: Wow! What a long entry for food! Hehehe...

Had our first-time massage. We never really had a massage together before. So we thought that it was a good time as any to do it. We went to the Relaksasi in Park Square I in Makati. We went for the Combination massage. Hu-wow! What a massage! Maybe next time, we'll try their so-called signature massage, the Balinese massage. Almost twice the cost of the combination massage... That better be worth it! :)

Note to self: Include massage in the itinerary of any homecoming vacation.

Dealt with our wedding photo package. Yep, at long last...after more than a year and a half, we finally met again with our official wedding photographer to finalize our photo album. Allan Boras, excited as ever to take pictures, was more than happy to accomodate us. :) He still definitely exhibits that passion of his for photography. Here's a guy that just loves taking pictures. :)

Triggered retro-gaming. Checking out our PC at home, I came across one of the best games I've every played: Baldur's Gate 2 - Shadows of Amn. It's one of those early 2000 RPGs (role-playing games) based on the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons game. To make the long story short, I installed the game in our laptop (thank God, the game is compatible with Windows Vista!) and started playing on my free time. :)

Helped one of my cousins. We learned that one of my cousins is already graduating from college. Her life would be made easier if she had her own PC to use. Those reports can be a real drag if you don't have your own PC. Well, we wouldn't be using our PC anyway, so we gave a PC to her. Hope she makes the best of her final year in college!

Well, that's all for now. :)

Trudging work with streaming radio

In case you didn't know, my job isn't exactly what I thought it was. The process (or lack thereof) definitely has room for improvement. A pseudo-team (one team leader and one team member) simply does not work for me. The organizational hierarchy is also bad, since any higher-ups can assign work to us without going through the team leader. Plus, the escalation of issues practically does not exist; most of the time, the issue goes directly to manager instead of us. (I guess, coming from a "real" technical support job, I can see clearly that the "escalation" procedure is -- well, let's just say it could use a major overhaul.... :) On top of it all, our projects are there and we get constant pings from the same manager who assigns multiple "very urgent" (but mostly trivial) tasks.

Oh well, enough of the rants... :)

Ever since my last job, I simply work better with music on. Back then, it was cellphone radios and earphones. Now, I can use that, but then again, I can only pick up SG radio stations. :( They're not THAT bad, but I comes down to cultural preferences, I guess.. Example, I just don't get a kick out of any Chinese, Malaysian, or Indian songs which get played as much as the English songs we know.

So, it's got to be internet radio! Unlike other companies here, it's a good thing that streaming (audio or video) is not blocked. Although there are days when it gets disconnected, mostly due to network issues. (They should really replace some of the devices here!) If streaming were blocked, I don't know how I would keep myself sane. Radio helps me relax back then. It's helping me relax now... or at least entertained enough to get through the day. :)

I listen to RX most of the time. :) That's were I get my daily dose of songs and news -- entertainment or otherwise. Keeps me updated on latest hits. (Che was really happy to know that Say It Again topped the top charts.)

Sadly, I don't get to work that early, so I can only hear the last hour of Chico and Delamar. I could go to work earlier, but then again, why the hell should I? :)

Okay, back to "work"! Hehehe :)

Phew! Surviving April...

Finally! After an extended hiatus from blogging, I'm back!! Well, sort of...

While many Filipino students had or were preparing for graduation day, Singaporean kids are preparing for the start of the school year. Hence, after a couple months of minimal activity, the campus network would be getting a real workout.

Much has happened this April at work, that -- I guess -- pushed me to the limit. :(

We had at least two big network downtimes at least two more which affected computer laboratories. On top of these, the big boss gave me a a lot of trivial things to check such as Yahoo! Messenger not having transparent proxy, or a particular person not being able to VPN into the network from home.

Then of course there's the big network server migration coming this June. I had to map each of the hundred plus servers to the corresponding switch ports -- manually! If the lack of documentation was not enough, I had no consistent information about the server hostnames and IP addresses (they change these too often), ARP tables of most switches are imcompleteso I had to rely on MAC addresses, which means I have to ask the server owners to provide that information since I don't have access to any of these servers.

Then there's me getting "lectured" for not updating in a timely manner all of the big boss's trivial follow-ups and what-not.

My colleague said that I should not take my job seriously. If I let everything in my work affect me, there's no way you I can survive another six months.

[Oh yeah, end of April marks my sixth month in this job! Yipee! Six more to go!]

Anyway, the thing is, my work already has affected me. In my last job, it was easier to "change hats". When I'm in the office, I work hard. When work's done for the day, I leave everything behind in the office. After I leave the office, I'm a husband, a friend, or whatever -- just not a stressed office worker. I leave the work and the stress behind. I don't even think of work when I'm with my friends, with Che, or with the rest of our family.

But now, I can't help but think of work. I had to bring home the laptop they provided me so I can work from home. I brought home the stress. I get full six hourse of sleep (longer than what I used to back in Philippines) but still restless when I wake up.

Point is, my colleague's right. This is exactly what I told Che a few years ago when she was stressed with her job. Don't soak everything that's thrown your way -- let it slide off your back. So what if you can't meet the SLA? So what if you can't meet the deadline? What'd they do? Fire me? They'd be doing me a favor! At least I wouldn't have to pay the bond AND I get my freedome back! :)

So many lessons learned. The support structure and processes suck and that's the reason people leave this job whenever they can. Work attitude here is very different from what I'm used to. No choice but to adapt. Bossses want their money's worth. Technically-challenged users shout because they are too stupid to do know anything else. Blame game is the common work attitude -- someone's gotta fall and take all the hits for whatever problems encountered. I'm still thinking of ways how I can curb this away from me when I'm the duty engineer as well as how I can use this to my advantage. Hehehe... Plans, motives, conspiracy... the plot thickens.. hahaha :)

Blogging has been therapeutic for me. I want to post more regardless of the heavy workload. And I want to post less work and more life outside work. Enough about work. It's a new month, and it's my month, I might add. A new beginning of sorts for me. :)

That's it for this post. New goal: post something other than work. Hehehehe :))

The April Fool!

How fitting is it, that today is April Fool's Day and I feel that I've just been made a fool of?

It's him! The pasa-loader once again! It's not enough that he's not here to take responsibility for a task he screwed up, now I have to pick up the pieces and I have to fix everything while being under a microscope...

The pasa-loader's task (another SSL certificate installation) was submitted about three weeks ago, and the servers needing that certificate need it by tomorrow for testing. So NATURALLY, the server admin only complained today, the day before the testing day. This server admin, complaining that task was submitted weeks before, escalated the issue to his boss. Now his boss is "making noise" (as what they call it) to our boss (i.e., boss of pasa-loader and me).


Now, since pasa-loader is on sick leave for two weeks now (some form of measles or something), guess who takes the heat? Come on, three guesses only, don't be shy. Take a guess... Yep, yours truly. Soooooo...................................

Here I come to save the day!
(mighty mouse and friends, are on their way... hehehe)

So that's what I've been doing since this morning until just about half an hour ago... I didn't even have time to eat breakfast. Oh well... I resolved it eventually but it was extremely stressful... It's cold in the office (aircon was set to 22 degrees C), but I didn't feel it at all. Actually, I felt sweat beading on my forehead and on my back. I had a monster headache while trying to figure out this damn thing.


Now that I've had some time to sit down and ponder on the events this morning, here are a few things that have been bugging me:

(1) Why is it that every time pasa-loader takes a vacation or sick leave, we get in trouble? It's like he always has a surprise for us whenever he's not around; unfinished and long overdue tasks, irate clients, admins and/or bosses, things like that...


(2) Since the afformentioned task is three-weeks old, why did no one (the pasa-loader or the server admin) test it then? Why wait until the DAY BEFORE the deadline to do the test? It's THEIR responsibility to test it. Now this friggin' service admin has the gall to complain?

Damn bastard!

Whoops sorry... Slipped out... I'm not angry... *chanting while jumping* I'm in a happy place... I'm in a happy place... I'm in a happy place... I'm in a happy place.......


(3) Is it coincidence that today is April Fools Day? I mean really... Why do I feel duped? It's as if this was a big setup? Like they planned this big friggin' problem and dump this on me on this very specific day?

Well whatever... It's fixed. It's done.

Blasted Notebook!

My office notebook/laptop is broken. The blasted thing can't get any power; I removed the battery then connected the power supply -- no good. I used the power supply of one of my colleagues here -- still no good. We know that it's not a problem on the two power supplies since we can use either on other laptops (same model and brand of course).

Good thing I at least managed to backup all of my work into a portable hard drive before the laptop lost all power. It was actually quite a race; I had to backup almost a gigabyte of data, while I'm seeing the bloody "empty battery" indicator flashing in the corner. I managed to save it before the battery was totally drained. Note: at full capacity, even if the battery/power indicator says it can survive for 4 hours, it can actually only just last about an hour... I guess that comes with the age; the laptop the company provided me is several years old.

We're pretty sure it's a power connector issue or something on the laptop. I checked with our service hotline who then contacted the laptop vendor since it's still under warranty. Then, the vendors called me up saying that since no replacement parts are available, they had to order it overseas and it will arrive in about 2 to 3 weeks!

If only I could wait that long. Oh well... I verified with them if they can just loan me another laptop, transfer my harddisk there, then use it until my laptop is fixed. I'll follow up with them tomorrow...

So in the meantime, I had more than enough time to fix my workplace; cleaned out the drawers, organized the shelves, even fastened loose notes into a single bundle. I also managed to find an old and unused 2007 organizer underneath the tons of debris. not much use in organizing since it's about a year too late, although now I at least have a decent-looking writing pad whenever I attend meetings. :) Hehe

Hopefully, I can get another laptop soon; I still have about a dozen tasks to do and no laptop to use. :(

Broken Redline! (Singapore's NS Line)

For some reason, the red line MRT here in Singapore was delayed. I was in Raffles Place Interchange intending to go to Orchard to meet Che. However, the station was jam-packed -- the crowd taking the redline are all stuck there waiting for the train to come. The passengers had to wait on the stairs as there is very little space left to squeeze into.

Later, there was an announcement informing that because of track errors going to Marina Bay, the trains will be delayed for one hour. The hell! Too bad, I really wanted to meet up with Che in Orchard. But, as we discussed when she called me shortly, I just went home (thankfully, the problem has minimal effect on the Green line.)

Just in case you are still in the office and you are on the red line, better make some changes in your travel plans! Good luck!

My Hell Days

My Hell Days: Day 1 - Drowned Makati

I had the worst luck mid August.

The floods came and drowned Makati city like there was no tomorrow, last August 15, Wednesday. After office, I went on my usual route to fetch Che from her office in Manila. The route usually goes from Pasong Tamo, then to Buendia, Yakal Street, Buendia again, then Roxas Blvd. As I was making my way to Yakal Street, the yellow police (i.e. Makati Police who wore yellow uniforms) stopped all vehicles from entering Yakal street, because the end of street was flooded waist high. So, I had to push forward on along Pasong Tamo and then turned to Kamagong Street. Traffic was terrible but that was the only other route that I know (besides going back to Buendia Avenue itself, although earlier, when I crossed, all the vehicles are stuck. I intended to go from Kamagong Street all the way to the end, crossing the Zobel-Roxas, then from there, to Osmeña Hi-Way.

It was only then, through the radio, that I learned that the most flooded area WAS the Kamagong-Zobel-Roxas area approaching Osmeña hiway. I can't turn back because the cars have already piled up. That one-way street already became a two-way street -- cars who reached the flooded area turned back the same way -- much to the chagrin of everyone, now stuck there.

The flooded Zobel-Roxas area is only a very short one -- not even a 100 meters. People there used this "opportunity" to make up some cash; one of them approached me with a proposal: while the engine is off, they will push the car until I reach the high ground, just before the stop light for some cash. Not wanting to go back and waste more gas, I went for it. While sitting idly and comfortably on my seat, a group of 6 guys pushed the car all the way through. I thought I saw from my rear-view mirror that one of them slipped and plunged head first to the flood. Eww! That's when I remembered about leprospyrosis.

Anyway, I was glad enough to give them a hundred pesos. It's better than going back the entire length of the Kamagong Street, which was now in a freakin' deadlock.

Ah well... Come to think of it, this is not really that bad compared to what happened the next day. Being pushed through the flood is not half bad anyway.

---

My Hell Days: Day 2 part 1- Bus Crash

I wasn't really feeling well this day, Augusut 16, Thursday. Too bad, I got involved in this...

After taking my wife to her office, I then went my usual route going home and rest. I was along Casino Street in Makati and intended to turn right to the outermost lane of the Osmeña hiway. The highway was clear and I wasn't really in that kind of a hurry so I was driving really slow. As rotten luck would have it, as I was entering Osmena highway from Casino Street, a speeding bus hit my the car, destroying the the left-fender, left headlight, left signal light, and front bumper. The bus was driving so fast that one of his passengers almost went through the righthand-side of the windshield.

Based from the sketch of the inspector later on, one would automatically assume that I was at fault, the bus having the right of way and such. My dad and sister thinks so. Maybe I was, I don't know. I never imagined that entering a street at a very slow speed would get me into this much trouble. Made me wonder... Does that mean that any speeding vehicle may never be at fault as long as he got the onto right position after the impact??? One of the police officers in that area (Makati Police Station 5 happens to be in Casino Street corner Osmena Highway) told me that it's not my fault and that the bus was was too fast considering that he is approaching an intersection -- whatever your name is, sir, thank you very much for taking my side! He's the only person who believed that it was not fault. Anyway, he advised me that I should be sticking to the inspector kissing his ass or something just like what the bus driver is doing; otherwise, I might get turned and put the blame on me.

Anyway, much later after going to the Makati Police Traffic Office (near Makati City Hall), thanks to the comprehensive insurance that I fully paid last month, we (myself with my dad and sister to the rescue!) went to Citimotors Makati to file a claim, and have the car assessed and fixed. I submitted the police report about a week later -- hah! The police report says I'm not at fault! It didn't say that it was the bus driver's fault, but at this point I don't care about him -- as long as I'm out of the woods and that I'm not at fault, that's fine with me.

Wasted a lot of time, without getting anything done. That's my biggest regret here.

---

My Hell Days: Day 2 part 2 - Jessie's Babies No More

That same bus crash day, I later found out that Jessie miscarriaged. See Che's blog http://moncheri28.blogspot.com for more on this...

You can see that she's very, very sad and depressed -- she won't let anyone touch or even look at her babies. Too bad.

Anyway, good thing is, after about a week or so, she's back to being Jessie the Jumpin' Dog! She's back to her old jumping antics and she also has her huge -- and I am HUUUUGE -- appetite.

---

My Hell Days: Day 3 - Tasks and floods

This day, August 17, Friday, I had a lot of tasks to do, which is not bad at all --- if only it didn't rain that hard again!

Mid-morning, after taking Che to the office, I went straight to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to have my passport renewed. Had a hard time finding a parking slot -- found one in Cuneta Astrodome, about a block away. As if the rain wasn't enough, I had to deal with this guy who pulled me just before I got to the entrance. He's one of those fixers out there who forcibly took me to one of the stalls outside of the DFA to give me my application form, take my picture, etc. I got interested with the fact that many people are there, so I went along with it. In one of the stalls, someone gave me an application form which is free (fine). Then the photographer on that stall said that they will take two pictures of me: one with a blue background, the other with a white background. When someone would that they already have pictures with white background, they would argue that in the new process, they needed two sets of pictures -- one with blue, the other white background. Then after that, they asked to pay up around php200. By this time, I had turned and ran to the DFA gate. no way I'm giving them money for something that I don't need!

I can't help but smirk at the, uhm, how do I say this? I can't help but smirk at this lucrative business, this con and it's happening at the outside walls of the DFA compound! Geez!

Anyway, just to remind everyone, there are several things that needs to be pointed out:

   - fill up the application form before you go to DFA; it's free and can be downloaded
   - bring three passport-sized pictures with WHITE background
   - read the requirements in the application form; bring whatever is stated there (photocopy of some pages of the old passport is always required for renewals)
   - you only need to pay either php500 (6-day processing) or php750 (2-day processing); no more, no less

Unless the requirements have been changed, you should only bring the above and end up paying only 500 or 750. That's it. If you already have all of the above handy, it should not take more than 1 hour. I finished the above in about 30 minutes :)


After DFA, I had to go to Makati Police Traffic to get the Police Report. Since it was Friday, getting there was a pain. When I got there, I found out that the inspector could not get on the PC because they had no electricity (huh?). He said I should come back later that day around 1:30 PM. Argh, now that's a waste of gas!

Then, I got a call from Che, saying that I should have Jessie x-rayed to make sure that if there are still puppies (possibly dead ones) inside her or not. So I went straight home, took Jessie to the only veterinary clinic I know along Sucat Road, Carlos Veterinary Clinic, and had her examined.. Too bad there were no more puppies left.

Anyway, after the examination, that's when it really, really, REALLY rained hard. How hard? Well, Sucat Road in the Fourth Estate area was totally submerged... The good thing is that Manila Memorial Park opened up their backgate which opened up on the other side of the flooded area. So there I went my way home, but -- since parts of Metro Manila were submerged -- I saw that the road leading up to our house was also, uhm, drowning. Hehe. I had to drop by my dad's house and leave Jessie there.

After that I decided to cancel all my other tasks and just fetch Che from the office. It was past 2:00 PM anyway and with the traffic, I won't get around much. At first I thought of going back for the Police Report but, knowing that it's a Friday, I decided to stay away from Makati. I later learned that all government personnel were told to go home because of the floods, so I guess that would include the police personnel doing deskjobs, so it's a good move not to go there.

By the time I got to Che's office, it was past 3:00 PM -- by this time, it was announced that everyone could go home. But not Che. No no no no... Hehehe. Just kidding. She was asked to stay and she had a long talk with her boss. I can't say what they talked about and I'm not taking it against her -- it's business-related talk so I know that it had to be done and that it had to be done soon. They talked for hours.

By 4PM, I then remembered that I still haven't eaten anything yet for that day. I just dropped by to the nearest 7-11 and Mercury Drug (both along Padre Faura street in Manila) and ate Nova and dried mangoes, forgot the brand -- hey, it's been a while since I've eaten dried mangoes, okay? So, anyway. Yup, that's all I ate. No rice for that day so far! :-)

I can't use my phone's radio because it's low bat (hehe you know, WAN BARS LEP NA LANG AKO EH, hehehe). So I had no form of entertainment except eating Nova and the dried mangoes. Ugh! Well, I did try to walk back and forth between Mercury Drug and 7-11, but that could "entertain" me for only so long. Not sure what I did that, though. I think I must have dozed off in the car.

Anyway, Che was finally done by around 6PM. It took us another couple of hours before finally getting home. Well, I can't remember much what happened that day. I guess everything's a blur when you're wasted. hehe.

---

Hmmmm... Come to think of it, these days really weren't that bad --- except the bus crash day, of course. Things could have gotten worse in many ways, but it didn't. Many events could have gotten worse and I've learned a lot.

So there.

The ever-optimistic me trying to rationalize the events and looking at the brighter side of things. Looking not at how bad it was but at how it did not get worse. Looking at what I've learned and experienced rather than what I've lost. Perception is reality. I choose this way of looking at things. Hmm... the world ain't that bad at all!

Last Song Syndrome...

Geez... Someone started singing this in the office and it was stuck in my head the whole day! Gardamit!

Okay everybody, sing with me....

Makulay / ang buhay /

Makulay/ ang buhay/

Sa sinabawang / gulay!



Entertaining and annoying at the same time!

MAN-SEC Milestone - 73 cases on Queue!

Today, June 26, 2007 APT, the MAN-SECURITY team reached (for the second time) the highest number of cases taken.

For the second time this month, MAN-SECURITY engineers took a total of 73 cases in a single freaking' shift! I can't remember when exactly we first reached the 73-point mark.

And guess what, one hour after the case-taking, there were still about 5 either burning or toasted cases on queue. Garrr..

And that's not all, Shubs pinged one of and DEMANDED that we take one of the cases IMMEDIATELY! The nerve! For someone who is not physically present in the office, she sure makes her negative presence felt by everyone.

This is definitely one of the more gruelling days we had.

Demonoid crash

Earlier today, you cannot go and login to the demonoid website, although you can actually ping that hostname.

Just now, when you go to demonoid, you'll get:
____________________________________________

We had a system problem which will force us to restore everything from backup.The disks are pretty much empty right now and until we are able to upload the backup and set up everything up, we have to close down.

We'll be back as soon as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience.
____________________________________________

Too bad... :(

Note that you can still upload and download stuff (I just finished leeching the Sensational Spider-Man volume 1). Although obviously you cannot download any other torrents from the site nor is it likely that you upload/download ratio could improve...

I'll continue monitoring this....

AVG AntiSpyware

This software was recommended in several forums so I just had to try it out. So far so good. Found and removed around 30+ spywares on my PC in the first 2 minutes of scanning. I guess my PC's pretty messed up. I hope that will change soon.

Check out the AVG AntiSpyware here.

Why Employees Leave

This is a very old article that has been circulating through the internet for years, but the message is timeless and universal:

WHY EMPLOYEES LEAVE ORGANISATIONS ?
- Azim Premji, CEO- Wipro

Every company faces the problem of people leaving the company for better pay or profile.

Early this year, Mark, a senior software designer, got an offer from a prestigious international firm to work in its India operations developing specialized software. He was thrilled by the offer.

He had heard a lot about the CEO. The salary was great. The company had all the right systems in place employee-friendly human resources (HR) policies, a spanking new office,and the very best technology,even a canteen that served superb food.

Twice Mark was sent abroad for training. "My learning curve is the sharpest it's ever been," he said soon after he joined.

Last week, less than eight months after he joined, Mark walked out of the job.

Why did this talented employee leave ?

Arun quit for the same reason that drives many good people away.

The answer lies in one of the largest studies undertaken by the Gallup Organization. The study surveyed over a million employees and 80,000 managers and was published in a book called "First Break All The Rules". It came up with this surprising finding:

If you're losing good people, look to their manager .... manager is the reason people stay and thrive in an organization. And he 's the reason why people leave. When people leave they take knowledge,experience and contacts with them, straight to the competition.

"People leave managers not companies ," write the authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman.

Mostly manager drives people away?

HR experts say that of all the abuses, employees find humiliation the most intolerable. The first time, an employee may not leave,but a thought has been planted. The second time, that thought gets strengthened. The third time, he looks for another job.

When people cannot retort openly in anger, they do so by passive aggression. By digging their heels in and slowing down. By doing only what they are told to do and no more. By omitting to give the boss crucial information. Dev says: "If you work for a jerk, you basically want to get him into trouble. You don 't have your heart and soul in the job."

Different managers can stress out employees in different ways - by being too controlling, too suspicious,too pushy, too critical, but they forget that workers are not fixed assets, they are free agents. When this goes on too long, an employee will quit - often over a trivial issue.

Unknown processes in WinXP Task Manager

My computer slows down to a halt shortly after I connect to the Internet. This is too irritating for me. Tinkering about, I found these processes running:

• 4.exe
• bltb.exe
• dooai.exe
• nvsvc32.exe
• nzgxtxtl.exe
• ogqpoxm.exe
• rkiggyl.exe
• trvy.exe
• vedstt.exe

Too bad I can't research on this now. My PC is just too damn slow. I'll work on this tomorrow in the office; the laptop is connected to a T1 line so it should be a lot faster than this one.

Windows XP

Ibarra's Garden's choco fountain from somewhere

Ibarra's Garden is a decent enough place with great ambiance and provides very delicious food -- no question about that. We had our food tasting before and, with a few exceptions, the food was excellent.

Their packages are very, very competitive which is the main reason we chose it in the first place.

The bad, somewhat frustrating part, about them is when it comes to CHANGES in the packages. You don't actually want all of the things included in the package.

Here's an example: they are offering the chocolate fountain for the event at the cost of php5,000. We -- since we are trying to minimize our expenses as much as we can for the wedding -- asked if they could lower the price. Surprisingly, they did - they now offered it at php2,000. We were so happy at the bargain we made!

Here's the downside: when we visited again, the head was not there so the "second-in-command" / assistant / whatever you want to call her attended to us. During our conversation, she revealed that they were actually offering two chocolate fountains -- the belgian chocolate fountain at php5,000 and the local chocolate fountain at php2,000! Damn! So much for the bargain!

Personally, it is okay if it was the local chocolate fountain -- it's just disappointing because I didn't know that it was not the Belgian chocolate we were availing, since that is what they have been advertising since their last wedding expo back in the Megatrade Hall earlier this year (I think it was back in June).

Oh well, lesson learned...