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?