time at lake pandin

life takes its time at pandin. the people living around the area use horses and carabaos to transport coconuts and other produce from the mountains to the roadside where they are picked up to be sold at the local market.

the women cooked lunch and delivered it via this bamboo raft. these were the same women who cooked our lunch for us when we visited last year. this time, lunch was served and taken by the visitors on another raft. floating lunch. yum!

on one side of the lake there's a sheer wall overgrown with plants. ferns adorn the lower part of the wall near the water. the locals would sometimes pick snails there to be cooked with coconut milk.

lake pandin, san pablo city

i visited lake pandin last christmas. i wasn't able to take photos though so i borrowed some of the photos my girlfriend took when she and her friends visited last week.

pandin is one of the twin lakes, yambo being the other. in the picture is architect jojo mata, a restoration architect and a professor in up diliman, architect nonoy ozaeta, a professor in architectural history also from up diliman, and architect lex luague, a student assistant from up diliman.

the bamboo raft behind is being readied to take them around the lake. yes, its safe for 10 people.

seven lakes in one city

san pablo city, the city of seven lakes. i don't think any other city in the planet can say that.


i was born there and lived there for around 15 years. the city proper is on the lower left hand corner of the picture covered with clouds.

what i heard about the lakes is that around 600 years ago the area was simply flatlands. hills started to bulge out like pimples and eventually erupted. craters left behind by the eruptions got filled up with rain and ground water forming the lakes.

there are legends attributed to each lake and maybe i'll get to post some of them as soon as i dig them out.

the names of the lakes are sampaloc (the largest), palakpakin, bunot, kalibato, mohicap, yambo and pandin (the twin lakes).

funny text message

text message i sent to a friend at 1 in the morning:

what are you doing reading this message? it's late. go back to sleep.

old and new things to try

this year i want to travel. either for work or play or both. it doesn't matter. i want to visit someplace new. i want to get a regular paying job. maybe. but i want to have some creative time too. an 8 to 5 sort of kills that. i want to read a good book. several good books. and i want a chance to sleep for 16 hours straight once every month. or is that a bad thing? i want my own home. not a big one. that's harder to clean. i want to take more photographs. with a 5d. but its freaking expensive. i want a glass of wine. and some bread. in france. is that too far? i'd like to drink coffee in that place in the photo. watch people pass by. watch them watching me let time dance by. i want to walk on cobbled roads and think. i like walking. and cycling. i miss the wind when i bike. i miss my bike. kikay is her name. i should get her a new set of wheels when i get that job. or when i win the lotto. which ever comes first. maybe some tea after dinner? or would that make me sleep? i want to drive the new mclaren formula 1 car. maybe a few minutes before i wake up.

san pablo fiesta

we drove to san pablo city over the weekend to sample the fiesta there. we arrived early evening and i heard we just missed the buko pie parade. 1,700+ buko pies, around 700 meters in length. i heard it was a dry run for something bigger (and longer) next year. after the event they gave the buko pies to the people celebrating the fiesta.

we went out the next day to look around. we couldn't go near the street dancing because there we sooo many people but by night time...

here's robin enjoying the grilled hotdog.


he really likes the hotdog. take my word for it.


possessed by the hotdog spirit


i wasn't able to take good photos of the fiesta but here are some of them taken saturday night. tables were lined along the streets and stalls selling food and snacks and trinkets.


and this goes on for a good 200 meters on both sides of the road.


it was a fun visit.

the king finally kongs

we finally got to watch king kong (the latest version). good thing we went to the washroom before starting the 3 hour, 15-minute movie.

this is good one. i know i saw the second version with jessica lang but i couldn't remember much of it. this new version has plenty of effects and it makes for an entertaining movie. go see it.

i was thinking about the island where they found kong and i have a theory. it used to be the island of doctor moreau. abandoned and forgotten. another theory is: do you remember the two jurassic park movies? well, this was the site of the supposed prequel to the first jurassic park movie. the shooting just got stopped because the animals were getting wilder and unmanageable so the producers built a wall around the island, installed fog machines all around to hide it. it was decided they will come back to the island when they have enough firepower for it. so there. j/k.

small decisions

"i've decided i want a sister."

my son said that in between bites of bacon and pasta and sentences about battle b-daman.

i bat two eye balls. my wifey looking at me, to my son then back to me.

a minute of silence. i continue taking bites at my sandwich.

two minutes. take a drink of soda.

going on 3 minutes when i said, "wha...?"

(i'm in big trouble...)

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.

narnia day

we watched narnia today. pretty good movie. it was entertaining which is what a movie is suppose to be. i'd go and recommend it to everyone with or without kids.

a window

a window in the house

my grade 2 assignments

i don't remember how i did my grade 2 assignments. i don't remember if my teachers gave me any. today, i'm helping my son do one of his assignments in subika at kultura (civic and culture) and i'm having a hard time. ugh. some of the tagalog words used in their text book are not even used in day to day conversations.

for example:

• kaminero (street sweeper)
• pinangangasiwaan (oversee, supervise)
• nakapagpapagamot (get cured)

i understand the argument that students should study the filipino/tagalog language and i agree with that point but do you think an 8-year old grade 2 student will "get" those words?

maybe its just me but i would suggest making the book easier to read and learn though the use of tagalog words that we normally use from day to day.

less tech stuff

i'll post less tech stuff here from now on. most of the tech stuff that i encounter will be in my own site blog.

i'm trying to reorganize things so management is somewhat easier. this is one of the things i normally do at a start of a new year but things usually get messier at the end of it.

and 2006 starts

it was a busy first week.

• smoothwall released a patch 21 december 2005 and i wanted to see first what comes up in the smoothwall forums for any quirks the patch would bring. so far none of my installations would break if i installed the patch so i tried it first on my smoothie. its still up and working so i'll patch my other installations within the week.
• the water pump of the house has been screeching like a banshee in heat since last year. and it was leaking too. the noise was worse when i came back from christmas "vacation". repairing the thing would take about a week so we bought a smaller pump and i volunteered to replace it to save on the cost of a plumber. replacing the pump took about five hours but went well with a couple of small problems that are easily solved. the noise went down to a muted hum and the house is quiet again. i do have a lot of aches and pains and some scratches from the excersie and the thought that remains is "now i know why i didn't aspire to be a plumber".
• there is simply too much ham after christmas. i think i ate a couple of slices that were sitting in the refrigerator too long and expired on me so the toilet was a friend of mine for a couple of days.
• its back to school for the kid which means i also wake up before the sun rises. its a little tough because i work late on the computer and the mornings are soo frigging cold that it takes a huge amount of energy just to get up and out from under a warm blanket.

i'm already looking forward to the narnia weekend.

happy new year

best wishes for the new year to everyone. i hope none of my friends got their fingers blown off from the firecrackers.

you guys wouldn't believe how strong those crackers are. to give you an idea, one of the bigger crackers shook the walls of the house. and to think you can get these things on the street!


anyway, have a good 2006 everyone!

soda prices up next year

i just heard from the neighborhood store that coke lite will increase in price by 4 pesos. ugh. they already increased by 3 or 4 pesos just recently.

sooo.... diet pepsi anyone?

or pepsi max? "don't worry. no sugar."

note: i couldn't find "pepsi max" in the pepsi web site and i couldn't find "coke lite" in the coke usa web site. they have have rebranded it here.

the king kong that wasn't

my girlfriend and i went out last night on a movie date. something we haven't done for quite some time. we wanted to watch king kong which i heard was three hours long. its christmas week so i knew traffic is crazier than usual with the last minute shopping and all. what the hey, its king kong. most of the schools are on vacation already so i was hoping that getting to megamall would be relatively easy.

nope.

it took me almost an hour and a half to get there and it was hard to find parking. after a restful and sumptuous japanese dinner we went to the row of movie houses. sm megamall had 12 movie houses in all and they usually show big movies in at least two or three of them. i didn't think they'd run out of seats even if its the christmas season.

and since it is the christmas season, the movie houses — all 12 of them — were closed. for this particular night only.

the movie staff were out having their christmas party.

life really throws a pretty good loop and this is one of its biggies.

we couldn't help but just laugh about it.

then we had coffee and a dessert — a chocolate cake named oblivion. yum!

p.s. pictured is pandesal ni gerry. thanks dude! and the dog's name is eugene (i think)

feeling unwell

i've been feeling unwell for the past few days. nose is running. can't sleep well and generally feel tired and sleepy right about now. i guess i should be because i started the day at 3:30 in the morning.

moving complete (i think)

i think that the dns changes have propagated already and the move is pretty much complete. i can tell because of the amount of spam i'm getting in my junk folder. ha! at least this time, junk mail gets filtered out and automagically trashed by the server so i don't have to.

it is now time to put new site designs on paper. i also have been reading up on the current xhtml/html/css standards. there are a handful of changes that i have to hurdle (did you know that the table tag has been deprecated?) and maybe its time to update or change my html editor.

ps. broas and coffee. mine. dip broas in coffee. put broas in mouth. yum!

moving to another host

its been long in coming but i eventually transferred my website (not this one) to another host. the old one felt like it was getting tired and outdated. technology really gets old real fast these days. i'm paying a little more but i think i can hack it (hoping and praying).

the funny thing is that the most difficult part of moving is backing up the data to my hard disk and uploading it to the new site. those chores took a good part of the afternoon. all i have to do now is to wait for the dns changes to propagate through the internet which should be between 2 to 3 days.

i should redesign the site as well to commemorate its new home. its getting old and tired also. i already have ideas bouncing about in my head. i wish i could finish the redesign before the year ends. i would have to rework the content as well to better reflect what we do.

at least my brain and fingers will not be idle within the next few weeks.