we're ok

we're ok. nothing happened to us. although cherry was in makati during the bombing. robin was in school and i was in fti just finishing up lunch when someone sent us a text message saying there was a bombing in glorietta. i called up cherry and apparently they didn't know about it yet.

i went to pick up cherry in makati and bring her home. traffic was understandably bad but everyone was patient and there were a lot of regular and traffic police in every corner in makati. i saw an ambulance speeding away at the corner of ayala and makati avenue headed towards makati med i suppose.

so, long story short, we're ok. we're not happy about the situation but we're ok.

saturday rain

yesterday, we were suppose to go to the the baptism of max -- robin's cousin. the skies had other plans though. it rained hard in the morning and we got flooded in. the strange thing for me was that right after the rain it was all sunny and i could see blue clouds but it was already to late to go.

the trouble with this neighborhood is that when it rains hard for a few hours there will be flood. this problem had been there six years ago. its still there. it appears the the people in power doesn't even care. a pity really.

netless part 2

i'll be netless (without direct access to the internet for the nits) for the next few days.

we're moving house and i just applied for a new tel/dsl line.

let's see if bayantel can install it within the week — they did say "in 3 to 5 days".

i hope the next entry will be posted from the new old house.

baby ruth

my bro just mailed me that our dog — baby ruth — just died. she was around 9 years old which is really up there in dog years. the last time i saw her she looked really tired already.

she's half (or was it a fourth) japanese spitz and local dog; furry crazy; could jump/climb over a five-foot fence; barks loud; playful and malambing.

i'll try to find pictures and post them somewhere.

makes me sad.

it was nice but...

we went to one night of competition to the pyrotechnics olympics at the mall of asia last night. although it didn't start on time, the fireworks display from the united states and spain was absolutely fantastic! we were on the top floor of one of the parking areas. if you want to see more, then look over my flickr thingy.



the only major letdown last night was trying to get home. the queue to the parking exit of the south wing of the mall was too long. we were parked on the 5th level. it took around 30 minutes just to move 10 meters. we finally gave up and parked again. we waited for another 30 minutes to see if the cars will move — nothing moved. we we decided to just go back down and sit somewhere. all in all, it took about 2 and a half hours just to get out of the south parking facility. that's from 10:30 pm (after the last fireworks display) to around 1:10 am. that's a big "duh!" to the parking management of sm. really bad. it shouldn't have happened. if it was an emergency situation, heads would be rolling by now.

no. we're not going to the mall of asia anytime soon. and if anyone of you are planning to go there for the fireworks, park outside on the north end. it would be safer.

a good morning

i just had an early morning earthquake greeting. it felt like it was around intensity 3.5. and its robin's last exam day and start of a two week vacation. yey!

update: something's up in mindoro. they've had three earthquakes in the last two days. first thing that comes to mind is underground nuclear testing. ha!

stormy weekend: part 3

30 september 2006, saturday
its strange waking up in a dark room and all is quiet. i got used to waking up with robin's night light on and some music or news from our neighbor's radio. but this time its all quiet. and dark.

cherry and i decided to trim some plants in the garden. they're thick with extra leaves and small branches especially the santan bushes.

i heard over the radio that there's another storm coming. neneng's the name they gave. ugh. i hope that thing doesn't hit us directly.

its been more than two days without electricity. it heard over the news that meralco asked for help in clearing up fallen trees so they can bring up the eletricity much faster

hmmm... how come when they can't give you electricity they ask for help. but you miss paying for two days and they immediately send you a notice of disconnection.

1 october 2006, sunday
we finally got the electricity back on by 5 pm today. i'm too tired to catch up on news. i'll probably do it within the next few days. i have to check my mails first.

stormy weekend: part 2

29th september 2006, friday
there was still no electricity in our part of the city. robin and i decided to take a walk around the neighborhood and take some pictures.

there's one uprooted tree in front of centro escolar university (ceu) but most of the trees in the area just suffered broken branches.

most of the new lamp posts that mayor atienza had installed a few weeks earlier in mendiola were still standing except for one.

a large branch fell on top of the guard house of la consolacion

mendiola on the holy spirit side was relatively passable

but the sidewalk on the la consolacion side was not

branches that fell in a creek behind holy spirit

more photos in my flicker thingy.

we had to get some supplies from the supermarket so we went so sm manila. bad idea. the trip was, to coin cherry — a disaster.

the mall was running on generators so there was no aircon. most of the people were fanning themselves which means its been warm inside. we tried getting money from the atms but there were long lines on every one. ugh. and there's a three-day sale going on which meant tons of people. we decided to just get what we needed from the grocery and go. no window shopping on this trip.

the supermarket wasn't accepting credit card transactions because they couldn't connect to the card companies. that's because of the storm. there were abandoned cars of groceries within the the supermarket area.

its been more than a day of no electricity.

stormy weekend: part 1

i got caught with the sudden power outage — more than three days without electricity! ugh! since i couldn't blog online, i went analog and wrote things down...

27th september 2006, wednesday
a storm is coming. they gave it the name milenyo. its storm signal #1 over metro manila which means robin doesn't have classes tomorrow.

28th september 2006, thurdays
the storm was expected to pass north of manila but this morning's news said it changed tracks and will hit the metro around lunch time. storm signal #3 is raised over metro manila.

the electricity goes out at around 11 am. this sucks.

winds are getting strong now. the eye of milenyo arrived around 1pm. well, at least it felt like the eye of the storm. winds were really strong that it started to tear away one part of the neighbor's roof. small billboards on the fence of a nearby school was torn off and sections of the gym's roof began peeling off.

the house is holding pretty well eventhough its around 40 years old already. there are some leaks but nothing serious.

we have a eucalyptus tree that's about a year old and around 4 - 5 meters high. it was riding out the storm. the topmost tip of the tree would touch the ground with every strong gust of wind.

by 3 pm the winds have died down and i went out to the yard to assess the damage.

the eucalyptus tree didn't break but the guava tree was lying down on its side. good thing it was still small enough (4 meters) that i was able to prop it back up with a thick stick.

there wasn't any other noticable damage to the house. everything was still intact.

time to clean up.

pluto is no a planet anymore

"pluto is dead." read here.

as of today, there are only 8 planets in our system. pluto is now considered to be a dwarf planet.

changes. sometimes these sort of changes make one look at things from a slightly different perspective. but if you really think about it, nothing's changed but the people's definition of a thing. the "object" is still there, circling its merry way around the sun, not really caring if we call it a planet or not. we're just picky about these things, i guess.

one of these days our definition of time will change from 60 seconds for a single minute to a decimal system where one minute will take a hundred seconds. time himself will not really care. but we will. we're picky.

there are more changes coming and all one can do is have an open mind.

bloggle

ok. i just got news that there's a new blogger that's coming out. unfortunately, its just limited to a few lucky ones. still, its good to know that work is on going to improve the system a bit (or maybe a lot). its not wordpress or movable type but its really easy to use and new-user friendly.

cable off

we had the cable taken out today.

we broke the news to robin last night and was sad that he won't be able to watch his favorite cartoons.

i feel sad for the guy but i also think that he's spending waaay too much time in front of the teevee. this also gives me an opportunity to try to make his time off the television more productive.

having no cable is fine with me. strangely, i'm having fun. i actually welcome it. there would be extra money for the house which can be put to better use. besides, i don't get to watch the telly that often anyway.

let's see what happens within the next few weeks.

summer's over

well, its official. summer's over.

the first tropical storm named "caloy" just arrived and i heard over the radio that we are the only country in the world at this moment which has a tropical depression.

ugh. only in the philippines.

the upside is temperatures are certainly on their way down. which is great! i look forward to getting a more comfortable sleep.

this also marks the time when i need to get some school stuff for robin.

he's growing up. give it a few years and i'll have a little bundle of ranging hormones. that would be interesting.

its drizzling already.

magnitude 5.5

there was an earthquake around 7pm. i was in sm manila with cherry and robin having dinner. it was a "slow wave" quake and it was short so no worries. i later found out that the epicenter was in mindoro. wow. cherry was just there last weekend. i hope no one got hurt.

a landslide, a coup plot and an earthquake. in a span of a few weeks.

ugh.

quiet national emergency day

it is! no noisy vehicles outside. no pesky jeeps. but its sooo freaking hot! uuuuaaagghh. what i would do for a halo-halo right about now.

and chowking is about a five-minute lazy walk from here. hmmm. two scoops of ice cream with a handful of finely crushed ice, topped with leche flan, ube, sliced bananas, sweet beans... i think they said they have 15 sweet toppings in all.

yum!

sige mamaya...

fiesta season

did i ever mention that the first five months of the year is what i call the "fiesta season"? lots of things happening. well, officially, may is the fiesta month but it sort of spreads its wings ang infect the rest of the surrounding months.

there are lots of school fairs with lots of rides, booths selling lots of different and colorful stuff and, of course, music. lots of music. from the given "piped in" music while the fairs and fiestas are going on to the almost nightly concerts at each school. and let's not forget the ati-atihan bands with their thundering drums. stay too long and too near them and your ears will be ringing soon enough.

and if that's not enough there's the coup attempts. how can this be included in the fiesta season? well, the children usually doesn't have classes which means they can play or watch tv or play with the computer all day, the offices (except sm malls) are either closed or closing early which means people can go to malling early or the movies or go home to sleep early. either way its an incidental "unwanted" vacation time. ha! and you thought coups are all bad. ;-)

valentine 2006

it feels like a holiday today except that people still go to work (but i don't think they will do any), students go to school (study? today? nah.). the only one's oblivious to valentine's day are children below six years old who are too busy playing. happy thought.

so have a great valentine's day! if you can't be good then at least be careful.

black nazarene

today, 09 january, is the feast day of the black nazarene. long to short story, thousands of devotees flock to quiapo most of them on barefoot to join the procession where the life-size statue of Christ on a wheel-less carriage is pulled through the streets of quiapo. there is usually a huge number of people who join the procession in the hopes of touching the statue or at least have their towels rubbed agaist the statue. it has been reported that some people get cured of their disease or illness if they get to touch the statue or anything that has touched the statue.

no i didn't join the procession. i had work and it was traffic along the way. even if i didn't have work, i still wouldn't go. if you're not a black nazarene devotee, the huge mass of people would scare you. i mean the streets are filled to the brim by people.

i did get to join one procession, involuntarily, many years ago. i was on my way home and i have to go through quiapo to get there. and here i am oblivious to the world, not noticing the growing number of people around me. i just thought that they, like me, were waiting for a ride home.

then there were some people shouting and before i knew it i was pressed tight against a wall by this mass of people in a semi-organized stampede/procession dragging the wheel-less carriage of the black nazarene. i couldn't hear anything but the shouts and prayers of the participants. i couldn't see anything except the maroon shirts the devotees were wearing. and it was hard to breath.

and as quickly as it came, it was gone. barefooted devotees who got what they wanted started walking for home wherever that may be. i started walking for home too.