inbetween storms

zambales, facing china sea, the booming surf could throw you off your feet


fan and dashboard of a jeep taken on my way to work.

soundtrack

friday:

sometimes i feel that i live my life set to a song...last friday, the song is from the smiths - "bigmouth strikes again".


magallanes bus stop

distance between

received an e-mail from a friend who is now working in tanay. THANK GOD for e-mails!

----
our subdivision was covered in smog as i was walking home. it was not that thick, just enough to be noticeable. i wonder when will car manufacturers be able to make a practical, environment-friendly alternative to the combustion engine. will it be powered by hydrogen or electricity?


the road at the back of pldt, makati.

night...

due to the closure of some of the gates in our subdivision, i am forced to take the long way home everytime i go past the alloted time of 9pm. this could be cause for gripping especially when you're tired ( or if you need to go to the toilet, he,he ).

but most of the time i welcome this added walking distance as a sort of buffer. a time to shed the worries and pressures of work in exchange for my responsibilities as a son, brother, uncle and friend.

years ago, a man i have great respect for, taught us a definition for the phrase "work for a living" that i have tried to adapt to my work attitude. am not sure if i have succeeded. but, hey, i need to hope that the god of failures would eventually get tired of seeing me. right?

---
the fx taxi that i rode home last night was playing one of my favorite indigo girls' tune. and one of the phrases in the song got stuck on my mind the whole night...if i could reap the praise of strangers but end up on my own...all my life is for a song...but maybe i was wrong.

breakfast at...

sometime ago, the company required us to be at the alabang office at 7 AM for a team building seminar. for me, who hails all the way from novaliches, that would mean waking up at 3AM. luckily, i kind of overestimated the travel time and i end up arriving at alabang junction at 4:45 AM. to pass the time i waited for the local jollibee branch to open at 5 and had my breakfast there.

as i leisurely ate my breakfast and watch the lightening sky, a touch of nostalgia came over me as i recalled the number of times i had breakfast at the jollibee branch of maxilom avenue back when i was working in cebu. i don't know what's the case here in metro manila, but, in cebu, i was surprised that a lot of people patronize jollibee for breakfast. and it's not just office workers but whole families, with the parents wearing their office uniforms and their kids on their school duds. made me wonder if the notion of a family eating breakfast together AT HOME is still valid.


maxilom avenue, cebu seen from the pedestrian bridgeway.
on my first day in cebu, i walked the whole length of this avenue looking for a ride back to my hotel.

continuation...

found out that my friend tom finally got his act together and was able to continue his blogs, albeit on a different blogname. anyone interested may access his blog under 'friends' on the side of this blog.

one other friend just caught the blogging fever. welcome ron. i guess he started blogging as a kind of release valve to the pressures brought in by work ( and people, and articles in magazines and...the list i think is endless, he,he ). kidding aside, i'm glad there's another blogsite i could visit in case i got tired working.

oh, before i forget. enzo also built his own blogs. i'll link his blogsite later on.
and in case he visit this maybe he'll remember this pic:


church seen through a belfry window, bohol,2003

guilty

a friend came by my workstation this morning and accused me of not updating my blogs. what with all that has been happening this past several weeks, well, i stand guilty of the charge.

our office has moved to its very own building. its just a block or two away from common goal towers ( our original location ) but, without the gazebo and proximity to ayala town center, it seems a world apart.

the building we transfered to still has no elevators. that's ok since our department is in the second floor. but with all the construction and drilling noise going on, we can't really concentrate on our jobs.

what's new

been tweaking my blogs lately. notice anything new on my site? yep, i now have a list of 'friend' ( only one, he,he ) and some sites that i usualy visit in the sidebar of my blogs...wish i could do more, but when it comes to html, the only thing am good at is cut and paste.

late

i wonder when will the philippines have a public transport system that runs on a given time schedule? it seems i got the award for being late the whole week.

punch...

sometime ago we had a visit from an aunt who usually tease me about my carefree life:

aunt: hey, your parents are getting along on years, when will you introduce to
them the girl that you'll marry?

me : well i already asked the girl, but her family doesn't want us to get married.

aunt: why not? you have a good job, you're not a pauper. do you want my support in asking her family to agree to the marriage? i'll talk to them. who doesn't want you to get married? her parents? her brothers and sisters?

me : he,he...it's her husband. he,he.

aunt: !@#$%^&*()

nephew : het tita, be glad it's NOT her husband AND 20 year old SON/DAUGHTER

he,he sometimes you are given situations wherein you can't resist using those punchlines

afternoon

been looking at my collection of photographs and i realized that i have an affinity for taking pictures from the top of buildings. maybe its a drawback from childhood when i realized that the neighborhood looks (better, he,he) different when seen from the top of our guava tree.

chairs

loser?

several months ago, i turned down an opportunity to travel to sagada and to take photographs for an article about a certain tribal ritual. a week later after that, i again turned down an offer to accompany my friend to siargao, and take pictures for her story. wasted opprotunity, right?

well i hope that the time i've spent experimenting on my own techniques and camera exposures will more than make up for it.

mirror, mirror...

it's been a while...i've been busy working on one of our 3d characters. gets so tired that when i get home and see my bed, sleep is the only thing i can think of.

last night my nephew shared his insight on current local events:

nephew: hey tito joey, do you know why a lot of catholic priests are getting tagged for sex scandals and fathering children?

me: ( tired ) hmmm...?

nephew: ...well it's because as a kid most of them have religion classes at school...

me: ( still tired ) uhhmmm....so?

nephew: they were taught to sing the rhyme " father abraham has seven children, seven children, has father abraham..."

me: ha,ha,ha

after several minutes laughing

nephew: you know tito joey, maybe you would be better off as a priest. all those women...

me: ( choking sounds )

log in

i've been having difficulties logging in to my blog account. there's a prompt that says 'session expired' whenever i log in. that's why i'am pleasantly surprised when i was able to log in this morning.

spent most of last night resizing photos for my blogs. and i had a chat with my niece and sister too. even fell asleep with the computer on.

took these pics from the 8th floor gazebo of our office building about 2 weeks ago. on a really clear day, you could see the cordillera mountain ranges ( mt. banahaw ) and mt. makiling in the distance. the blue colored hills you see in the background are the foothills of cordillera that makes up the antipolo and laguna high lands

child at play

took this picture of a kid playing in the sand at bohol. reminds me of those carefree days back when i was a kid.

kitchen window

sometimes i take shots of anything just to finish off the loaded film in my camera. and the resulting images often surprise me.

blue slippers

celebrating the morning sun after several weeks of overcast skies

cloud pillar

got distracted by this sight while shooting pictures of rockbato on top of the roof.

pakil, laguna

we don't have any telephone service at home again. hence, i was not able to update my blogs this weekend.

a friend of mine celebrated her birthday 2 sundays ago. prior commitments prevented me from attending her birthday bash. wish i was able to pass by and tease her when she will invite us again to her father's home town of pakil, laguna, he,he.

the first time we went to pakil in 1993 is something that i will cherish the rest of my life. it was the kind of outing where in i was totally at ease. a vacation where you don't think about the things you have to do once you're back in the city. i was young, free and single and with a stable job as an in-betweener at filcartoons. we went canoeing at laguna de bay and even took a dip on the muddy waters. and we did climb the trail going up the hills just outside the town.

now, i may be free and single but i'm not that young anymore. i doubt if i could climb that trail as easily as i did way back then. too bad that i lost the B&W negatives of the pictures i took during that time.

wordsmith

i am fond of reading. and i admire people who could weave words into a coherent image that would keep a reader thirsty for more. 
 
when gabriel garcia marquez retired from public life, he wrote the following:
 

If for an instant God were to forget that I am a rag
doll and gifted me with a piece of life,
possibly I wouldn't say all that I think,
but rather I would think of all that I say.
I would value things, not for their worth
but for what they mean.
I would sleep little, dream more,
understanding that for each minute
we close our eyes we lose sixty seconds of light.

I would listen when others talk,
and how I would enjoy a good chocolate ice cream!
If God were to give me a piece of life,
I would dress simply,
throw myself face first into the sun,
baring not only my body but also my soul.
My God, if I had a heart,
I would write my hate on ice,
and wait for the sun to show.
Over the stars I would paint with a Van Gogh
dream a Benedetti poem,
and a Serrat song would be
the serenade I'd offer to the moon.
With my tears I would water roses,
to feel the pain of their thorns,
and the red kiss of their petals...
 
My god, if I had a piece of life...
I wouldn't let a single day pass
without telling the people I love
that I love them.
I would convince each woman
and each man that they are my favorites,
and I would live in love with love.
I would show men how very wrong they are
to think that they cease to be in love
when they grow old,
not knowing that they grow old
when they cease to be in love!
To a child I shall give wings,
but I shall let him learn to fly on his own.
I would teach the old that death
does not come with old age,
but with forgetting.
 
So much have I learned from you, oh men...
 
I have learned that everyone wants to live
on the peak of the mountain,
without knowing that real happiness is in how it is scaled.
I have learned that when a newborn child squeezes
for the first time with his tiny fist his father's finger,
he has him trapped forever.
I have learned that a man
has the right to look down on another
only when he has to help the other get to his feet.
From you I have learned so many things,
but in truth they won't be of much use,
for when I keep them within this suitcase,
unhappily shall I be dying.

regrets

one of the disadvantages of shooting with an old style film camera, is that you can't encode date or notes on the pictures that you've taken. and sometimes the image jumps on you so quickly that you don't have time to write down the technical stuff ( f/stops, shutterspeed ) or even the name of the place where you took the picture.


church hallway, bohol

rockbato

last year a friend of mine asked me to take their band pictures and design the layout for their independently produced cd. they did use my photos but the design for the final print was different from the one i envisioned...

mayon volcano, albay

last night, my parents and sisters were watching a tagalog movie. the scenes for the film were almost entirely shot in bicol. in one of the dialogues the main character, upon seeing mt. mayon, said "not as grand as the grand canyon".

well i've never been to the grand canyon. i've seen pictures of it and i agree that it is indeed awe inspiring. but i believe that mt. mayon is 'grand' in it's own right. from it's gently sloping sides to its placidly smoking crater. i've seen it erupting at night as a kid, and it looks like it was weeping with lava. and then during the daytime you could see the thick gray smoke eminating from it that eventually nourishes the fertile land around it.

calm

with the daily commute to alabang that i have to face, this seems to be the only place where i could find some peace. he,he.

focus

recent events in the middle east ( the hostage taking of angelo dela cruz ) prompt me to remember my reaction last year when GMA showed her support for the US in the Iraq war.

for a nation who 'exports' labor to the middle east (and in irag , in particular), it is foolish to take the side of the US in a war that a lot of cool headed people has shown disapproval for. it undermines the goodwill that our workers have built in the region. and as the hostage taking proves, it made the filipino workers in the middle east a target of terrorist tactics.

arrrgh, i hate to think of what other blunder GMA is capable of...

hmmm, i'd better remind myself that this blog is for posting pictures and 'happy' thoughts...

far from home

next monday i'll be working again in the animation industry. unfortunately the office is located in alabang. that will be a 2-3 hrs commute from our home in quezon city. God willing, i'll be able to afford to rent an apartment. but for the first few weeks, i'll see if i could accustom myself to waking up early for the commute to alabang.


hotel corridor, diplomat hotel, cebu

at last...

after some strong arm tactics, the philippines finally got to proclaim a president. GMA took her oath of office in cebu. reminds me of the saying " there's a snake in every forest". he,he.


flower plantation, cebu

phone lines

there's something wrong with the phonelines at home hence the long period between blogs. that also means that it's been some time since i played ragnarok ( the online game ). i was the family driver again last weekend, which is ok since i don't want to spend the whole day in front of the computer. besides it was overcast the whole weekend so i was not able to go jogging. rats! i miss my afternoon run at UP.


view of UP Main Library from the sunken garden, late afternoon.

aftermath

one month after the election and still no end in the counting of votes for the presidency and vp post. and i think the government is now trying to recover from the expenses it incurred during the elections. just the other week i received an email from our accountant, asking me to file some papers at the internal revenue office stating that my salary does'nt exceed a certain amount so that my tax deduction would remain in the 10% mark. otherwise they have to tax me 15%. on top of that is the fact that the jeepney fare rate is now Php5.50 minimum.
perhaps the government could blame the rising global oil prices for the latter. but one can't help but think just how the government is spending our tax money considering that just before the elections a lot of billboards with the smilling face of 'you know who' has been foisted on the public. strange thing for someone who said that she won't run for the presidency.

now there's a new 'onli en da pilipins' saying:

...where a president can tell a barefaced lie, and still get reelected.


if she's a catholic, has she ever heard about 'confession'?

bacacay, albay

my niece visited my blogsite the other day and thanked me for not posting my blogs in tagalog - kasi hindi sya nakakaintindi ng tagalog, he,he.

hey lori, remember this place?

wasted effort

some of my friends say they cannot access my blog. hmm...that's why i'm trying out other file servers.

got a message from one of my friends from cebu this afternoon. made me wish i have the time and money to go there for a vacation. summer is over and i was not able to go swimming at a beach OR even a pool.


view of osmena circle from the the pedestrian overpass on maxilom ave.

3rd post

as if i don't have enough to do, tom and arnel encouraged me to have my own blog. years ago i've restrained myself from painting graffiti on our college walls. now, here i am posting digital graffiti. and it's not even as good as some graffiti that i've seen before. rats.

maybe i could offset that by putting some pictures on my blog, he,he.



this one was taken during my stint in cebu. it's a view from the taoist temple. hmmm, i wonder how my friends there are doing?

a backward glance

i was wondering if i should blog in tagalog or not. but my method of typing is hunt and peck and i don't want to struggle with the syllables of the filipino language, so i hope you will forgive me for opting to write in english. and if you find my grammar wrong, well blame it on me ( and my elementary english teacher for not making me listen, ha,ha )

several weeks ago, we had an art exhibit at PNB main office at roxas blvd. and on my way home we passed by the "blue factory" at nueve de pebrero st. where i spent three and a half years learning and working at a 3d animation company. well regardless of how the company turned out, there's no denying that it produced one heck of a good 3d production team.

first one

i once read that beginnings are often difficult. well am beginning a new habit today. posting blogs. but am thinking of posting pictures that i've taken rather than just writing my thoughts...so hope i could have time to upload my pics soon.