spent the day with my best friend

Had an awesome time with my best friend yesterday.
Spent the whole day eating. But at least we got to squeeze in an hour's worth of badminton, before heading to dinner, and then dessert!

I haven't seen her for a couple of months, and we've been putting our day out for a couple of weeks already. Good thing we finally settled on a day!

And now this week she's off to Coron. Can you believe it? She just came from New York, and then Korea, and now Coron! Jetsetter!

Isdaan

On our way home from Baguio last weekend, we dropped by Isdaan at Gerona Tarlac for a nice lunch.



We passed by this place on our way to Baguio so we made plans to drop by it on our way home, and we did! And we were not disappointed at all. That place is huge, has a great ambiance, and of course great food! They cater to true blue Filipino cuisine. I loved their grilled liempo!



I am no ERAP fan, believe me. But I just had to have a picture with him!



The nice thing about this place is that it's not just a restaurant, it's more than that. I guess the owners made it a point to make it more than just a restaurant, but also make it as a tourist spot in the area. I think this is the place where you get to smash dishes... but I couldn't find it (or maybe we just didn't go around the area more).

One more highlight! While you're eating, you can actually feed the fishes around! And they're a lot!



Nonetheless, awesome place. Ladies, we definitely need to go have a quick trip here. :) I'll drive. Haha

work rant

I got so pissed off at one of my teammates at work. I was trying to help him out (and I was multitasking at the same time because it just so happened that we have another project my BSA and I were talking about), and then for some reason, he tells me that I was being sarcastic blah blah blah. For some reason, that's annoying. Here you are trying to help, and you get a reply like that. I don't know, did I come across like that? Personally I didn't think so. But according to him I did. Pissed me off. I'd rather not help then if that's the case. Bahala na siya.

Maybe tomorrow my I'll feel less pissed off at him.

no exercise

I've been thinking about getting back in shape. Well I've been thinking about it for quite a while already and I still haven't got myself to start working out again. I always find an excuse not to go - work, busy, lazy etc. How do I kickstart this again???

watched new moon

Chase and I finally got to watch New Moon yesterday. It was as I expected - not too good, not too bad either. Unfortunately for us, there were two girls seating a sit to my right, who apparently #1 - read the book already so one of the girls kept on telling what happens next, #2 - were both fanatics I would say, kaya kinikilig all the way!! Kulang na lang tumili. Well, I guess I was expecting it, I did watch @ SM anyway.

finally - some excitement!

After weeks of waiting, and waiting... I finally got what I was waiting for, the new plates!! Woohoo it was a perfect birthday gift for me, right on time. I got it November 04, 2009 - so my dad gave me the go signal to use "IT" that same night! And went home using it the following day!

And... on top of that, yesterday, I had a big breakthrough with one of my stocks. I'm now up almost 20%. Been waiting for that sleeper to creep it's way up for two months. Patience is indeed a virtue. Quick stock trading doesn't seem to like me much. But this winner is definitely worth the wait.

too much work

The past three weeks have been one of the most hectic weeks I've had for quite a while. For some reason, everything just came together like the perfect storm, as they say it. I have two projects, both on the same timeline. Aside from being a developer for both, I'm also doing the Assembly Testing for one of them. This should've been ok, except that the requirements for project #1 keep changing, plus the scope of the modules that I was supposed to assembly test is just increasing!! Holy crap!

Deadlines are coming up and I have no idea how I will be able to finish everything.

I was also stupid to take 2 days off (it was already scheduled beforehand) to celebrate my birthday. I really didn't do anything last Nov 5 and 6, but I just didn't want to work night shift for those two days which is why I decided to push through with my leaves. :) Now I have to scramble next week to finish up the things I need to do.

But hopefully, in a few weeks time, things will be better. Things will be much less hectic.

just random thoughts

It's Thanksgiving weekend in Canada but since we're working in Manila, we follow only Manila holidays - which means we're working here graveyard shift, but there's really no work in Canada. :) So I'm taking this time to catch up on some work.

I've been back in the Philippines for over a month now, and I feel like I haven't really done anything since I got back. I usually just work from home, and only go to the office once a week - so I tend to be too lazy to do anything else. I've been planning to go back to the Gym, but unfortunately, I still haven't done that as well.

I think I've only accomplished (soon anyway) one thing... I'm gonna be buying something that I've wanted for quite some time. It's probably my first big purchase post QL. It's in the works. And I believe it's something I'd need to pursue some of my other plans.

Revitalize my blog

After reading Leda's blog entry, I just realized that I haven't even blogged for almost a month now! It's time to revitalize my blog.

another grouse grind

Did another round of grouse grind earlier. So far, for my 3.5 months stay here, I've done 6 total. 2 of them I didn't record in my grind timer.



My target before I go home is to have my time trimmed down to less than an hour. But based from how I did earlier? It's very very hard to improve 9 minutes! Doing grouse grind is like climbing stairs all the way up. Too hard. Too tiring.

Looking on the stats above, I can't believe I'm just in the middle of the thousands that go up. I'd like to think of it as - that only those that really want record their time, buy a grind timer. The rest don't use the grind timer.

My friend said that my time in doing grouse grind will roughly equate to my time when I do a 10km marathon - and it looks pretty accurate. I did my 10k last time at around the same time.

Tried out the new Canada Line

So my aunt and I joined the crowd and tried out the new Canada line which links downtown Vancouver to Richmond, and the Airport. It was the first day, so the trip from 1pm to 9pm was free. We went to King Edward / Cambie station, rode until Bridgeport, and back. We were supposed to go to Vancouver Airport, but apparently the line was so long that it'll take us around 2 hours to go back to the train, so we decided to just hop out at Bridgeport station, and hop back in going back to King Edward station.

It's really nice how they invest in something that will help everyone. Their 3 train lines pretty much go around Vancouver/Surrey/Richmond now. You can go from downtown Vancouver to Airport in just 30 minutes!

I wish Philippines would have better planning in terms of metro development and its public transit. That way, less traffic, less pollution, and more convenience for all.

Oregon Coast Vacation

This is a way long overdue post regarding my trip two weeks back to Oregon.

Oregon is a big state and we decided to stay put at Lincoln City, to be near the Oregon Coast area. From Vancouver, we drove all the way down to Multnomah Falls (out of the way to Lincoln City) to check out this really nice tourist spot in Oregon. It was well worth the detour.



It's a better view from the top, though I wasn't able to take pictures there. The nice thing about this area is that it's maintained, very clean and vibrant. Because I remember the falls in Camiugin, would've been better to have it developed to attract more tourists.

Anyway, after Multnomah Falls, we made our way to Lincoln City. We drove by Interstate 8 (I think) and what a beautiful area that is. It's a scenic drive amongst farmlands, and vineyards. Wasn't able to take any pictures but it was truly beautiful. We drove there for around 2 hours before we finally reached Lincoln City. Would you believe, we departed Vancouver around 6:30 am, and after couple of stops and detours along the way (and getting lost), we finally arrived at the beach house we rented at just about 8 pm that same day.

For Day 2, we decided to drive down to Florance, along the coastal highway 101 to enjoy the scenic view as well. Who gets bored driving with a view like this along the way?



We wanted to check out Florence down south because it was famous for its sand dunes. I didn't expect that area to have that much sand! According to the driver during our sandland adventure, the sands are actually river sand, not because sand. And it spans thousands of miles. In fact, it's a haven for atv, 4 wheel drivers because you pretty much have a vast land of pure sand dunes.



From Florence, we made our way back up, passing by Sea Lions Caves first. I wanted to go in, but my companions didn't want to (well, preferred not to anyway). Too bad. But luckily, I got to see some sea lions for free at Newport City, which was our next stop. We were supposed to go to Ripley's Believe it Or Not, but did not as we ended up getting parking ticket - cost us 40$! We parked on an unloading/loading zone. Who knew that??

Driving back up to Lincoln City, we drove by Heceta Lighthouse but did not get to go as well cause well, we had to do quite a hike and most of the people I were with were not as willing (oh well)... but good thing we got to drop by Yaquina Lighthouse. Finally!



This is probably one of the best places I've seen during that trip (and coldest by far). I was wearing only shorts thinking that weather will be in the early 20s that day.

Anyway, after a long day 2, we finally got back to Lincoln City, where we prepared for the next day's shopping day plans.

Day 3 was just purposely setup as shopping day. It's nice to shop around Oregon because it's tax free! Meaning, what you see is what you get. I didn't buy much, just some stuff my mom wanted me to get for her to give away as Christmas presents. So not much this day.

Day 4 is the last of our 4 day vacation. We departed early morning and decided to drive by north thru coastal highway just to see the scenic coast line, and drive by small towns along the way. And good thing we used this route cause I was able to finally make it to Tillamook Cheese Factory. These guys didn't even want to come here in the first place! But we ended up spending an hour there. It's basically a cheese factory, and they've set it up in such a way that you can do a self tour and see part of the assembly line of cheese making.



That was our last stop, but we stumbled upon a Cosco branch where one of our friends needed to buy something. And guess what, while there, I ended up buying the netbook I've been looking for! Well, it's for my mom. Gift from me and my brother. I was suppose to get one during our shopping day, but no stock left at the place we went to.

There's too much detail for this vacation. But all in all, it was a blast and I truly enjoyed it.

Oregon here I come!

I'm going to Oregon Coast next weekend! Took a day off (friday) and since Monday's a holiday here, we'll be there for 4d/3n. It's a 7+ hour drive from Vancouver so we'll pretty much be spending half the day in the car. In fact, if we take another route, although it will take us around 8 hours of travel time (additional one hour), that route is a scenic drive, just beside the Oregon coast, which I heard was beautiful. But I think we'd be sticking to the shorter drive. I'm really looking forward to going to Multnomah Falls, heard that's a spectacular sight.

We were also looking at the map and routes see if we can drive to Forks Washington (Twilight setting) - but turns out, it's very much out of the way from our drive. So better luck next time!

I can't wait. This is my first major trip since I've been back here. Probably my first and last trip of this stay. I'm more focused on saving up this time around. :)

bad timing

Bakit ganun, kung kailan meron ako pupuntahan pagkatapos ng trabaho, tsaka naman biglang may kailangan gawin sa office? Biglang may urgent request. Pero sa ibang araw na pwede akong late, walang lakad, wala din namang urgent request.

Kaya kanina, tense na tense akong umuwi at nagmamadali. Tapos pagbaba ko sa bus, na miss ko pa yung next bus. So hintay na naman ng mga 10 minutes!

Wahh

10km - done!

I finally did my first 10km race last Saturday around Stanley Park! Now I feel like 5km is no longer a problem for me. My friend (who also ran the 10km) said I did pretty well, for a first 10km, and who just started running around 1.5 months ago.

I don't even know how i was able to finish the race with a time of ~ 1 hr 6 minutes (a bit slow, but still a good time for me) considering I ran with a sore left leg. Stupid thing I did was to attempt to run around Stanley Park 2 days before (thursday) and waking up on friday with a very sore left leg and aching right knee joint. Good thing when I woke up on race day saturday, my right knee join was feeling better, though my left was still sore. So I had no choice but to run the race with a sore left leg. I didn't really feel the ache much during the run, but after I finished the race, my legs hurt so much (especially the left)!

Now, 2 days after the race, I feel much better.
And I feel motivated to continue running. I am planning to join another 5km run this coming August. I'm more focused on improving my time - hopefully to get it under 30 minutes.

facebook!

I can't believe it, my friend finally convinced me to register in Facebook!

yoga and some more

I just signed up for Hatha Yoga Beginner's classes for a month. It's only 4 sessions, every Tuesday night after work. If I enjoy it, I'll sign up for the more advanced Yoga scheduled on August.

I'm also planning to sign up for the gym in the office for my last two months here. I'm still thinking about it though, I'd do it more for the weights (toning) as I already jog in the mornings and do the grind.

I'm actually proud of myself. When I started running, I ran three ovals (well, not olympic size) and I was already tired. Now, I can run 10+ rounds, and even run 6km straight without pausing. Not bad. I really think I've improved. My next stop is 10km marathon, and probably hoping to lose a couple pounds of my fats. :)

cherry picking

I'm going cherry picking this coming Sunday!!

1 hr 8 minutes

Second attempt at grouse grind this year took me 1hr and 8 mins, way better than my previous time of 1 hr and 30 mins. This time though, my friend motivated me to go go go, so she was behind me the whole way to make sure I won't keep on stopping. Hehehe

Narealize ko nga eh, ang dami kasing nag hihike dun, and well, disadvantage ako. Primarily for the reason na maliit ako. So shorter legs. Eh para kang umaakyat ng hagdanan dun eh. So yung 1 step ng matatankad na mga caucasian, eh 2 steps ko na. Kaya lagi nila akong na oovertake sa grouse grind.

Haha.

Nonetheless, big improvement.
I'm still targetting less than an hour.

Shopping @ Seattle Premium Outlets

Joined some of my officemates yesterday to cross the border to the US and go shopping at Seattle premium outlets. There are tons of stores there that offer a lot of discounts. Plus, one of my friends has VIP coupons printed out which gave some stores additional discounts.

The only item I wanted to get were new runners. Since I've been starting to do some running, my nike free just doesn't feel right to running anymore. And since I hear rubber shoes were cheaper here, a went and well, ended up getting a nice Adidas running shoes. And because things there were cheaper (plus you can use coupons!), I ended up buying a lot more other stuff.

For instance, I went to Calvin Klein and ended up buying a couple of shirts for the rest of the family. CK is usually expensive but they were selling these polo shirts for 50% off, and then using my coupon, I had an additional 30% off on top of that sale item. I ended up paying just around 13$-15$ for a shirt (original price value might have been around 49$).

And then there's the Reebok Dry fit shirts who were already 40% off, and then I got an additional 20% off I think because of the coupons. Not bad.

I think I did pretty well and I was able to buy stuff for my family. Pretty nice. Though I did spend quite a bit of money there too. haha

5km Run

I joined and raced my first 5km race last June 12, 2009. My two friends went on to run the 10km, but for a beginner like me, I opted to go for the 5km first.



Since it was my first time, I think I did pretty well. Though not the fastest, but my biggest accomplishment was that I didn't stop! I jogged slow and steady, but continuous. My final time - ~35 minutes. Not bad.

More excercise

Last Saturday my friend convinced me to go jog in the morning from Telus Science World area, to Granville Island. Originally she had planned a Sunday morning 17km run! Geeze, of course I had to backout. 17km?? My legs will fall off if I'd run that. So to compromise, she mapped out a new route for us to take. This route is actually a very nice area to jog around. You're actually jogging beside a lake/creek/river or whatever that body of water is. It's very nice, plus a lot of other joggers and bikers are there as well.

So we originally planned to do around 3km jog to Granville Island, and back. So that's around 6km in total. But by the time we reached Granville, we decided to run more so we ended up near Kitsilano Beach area, which is also a very nice place. So all in all, we ran around 10km (ok, I did run-walk combo! hehe). But I was dead tired afterwards. My legs were killing me.

But it's good though.

In fact, this morning I did another 5km run from my place to Queen Elizabeth Park. Beautiful. I love how you can just do about your stuff here. Clean place, nice run paths, and very environmental feel to this city as you see sooo much green here.

My next task is friday night, my first 5km marathon. Well, my friends are going for the 10km. I will only do the 5km. :)

First Grouse Grind in 2009

Had my first Grouse Grind today!
Took me 1 hour and 30 minutes to get to the top.
At about the halfway mark (they post 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 marks along the way), I was already wondering how the hell did my officemate drag me into this horrible activity. My legs were killing me by then. My few weeks of exercise did not help at all. Anyway, the good thing about this hike, you lose around ~1k calories (more or less, depends on your heart rate I guess).

Anyway, I'm planning to do this every other week at the least, so I bought this timer card to track my times every time I do the grind. It's a good exercise, will keep me at least a bit stronger before I balloon again here.

yehey!

Yahoo! Made nice profit today sa stock market! :)
After a long time, I'm back!

I own a Ferrari!

I am the proud owner of a new Ferrari!!



A Lego Ferrari that is...



Back in Manila, I have been contemplating about buying this huge and expensive Lego Ferrari. It's 1:9 ratio and it's pretty big, and pretty expensive too. It costs around 10,000 pesos. I put it off initially thinking that I may want to wait some more weeks and see if I really like it, then I will buy it. Weeks later, I really still do want it but 10,000 pesos just seems so much.

And then as I arrived here in Canada, I was checking out the lego canada website and found that it's way cheaper to buy it here compared to the Philippines. Almost twice the price in Manila. Unfortunately, the one in the website was sold out!

So I asked my aunt to go to some mall, and see what Lego stuff they're selling. We went to Lougheed Mall, but didn't find any at all. Good thing is, a Toys 'R' Us store was just a few km away and so off we went. That store had a lot of Lego! But most importantly, they had the Ferrari Lego. I never though twice. I just got it, paid for it, and now it's finally mine!!

Now the problem is, I could build it here, disassemble when I go back to Manila. But, the pieces are segregated to different numbered packs, so that building it would be easier. If I build it, and then disassemble later, we might have a hard time figuring out which pieces go where since it's now gonna be this one big pile of lego pieces to work on.

For now though, it's here. I don't think I can wait 4 months before I build this car. Low EQ? :)

Queen E. Photo shortlisted!

I don't usually check my flickr account, except if I want to post some pictures here in my blog. So when I logged in a couple of days ago, I just noticed that I had one message in my inbox. Turns out, I had en email from the managing editor of Schmap. She was telling me that one of the photos I took of Vancouver (specifically Queen Elizabeth Park) was shortlisted to be part of the final selection phase, which, if picked, will be part of their 5th edition Schmap Vancouver guide.

Unfortunately, that note was sent out last January, and they wanted me to reply for approval of my picture to be added to their list by January 13. I was 5 months late reading the message! But anyway, I still submitted the picture, as it is still possible that it can be part of a later edition.

But still, I can't help but be happy as I only used the regular digital cameras to take this picture:



But really, Queen Elizabeth park is very beautiful. I have to go back there some time soon. :)

first post since being back in Canada

This is my first post since I got here in Canada. Haven't really been doing much except go to work and then go home. I also don't have my closest friends here, as opposed to my stay here last year when I had this constant company I was always with. But I guess it's good as well, as I'm getting to know the other people more.

And so last Saturday, I joined some officemates to go watch "Angels and Demons". It was a nice movie. I liked it but I would've wanted to have read the book first, before watching it again. I read the book around 5 years ago? So I don't recall much already.

Then after the movie, I joined some of my friends to go shopping downtown. Ang tindi ng mga kasama ko ah, grabe mag shopping! We stayed in one department store called Winners for about 1.5 to 2 hours! I didn't even buy one single item! I wanted to buy an Olympic memorabilia (winter Olympics 2010 is going to be in Vancouver), but couldn't find one I wanted as most of them are still expensive. I'll try to checkout Gastown this weekend probably? or whenever I can go there (it's just one bus ride from my place). They got a lot more choices there although I know it's probably gonna be more expensive there.

May 09, 2009

Leaving for Canada May 09, 2009

no HK for now...

So our long awaited planned shopping trip to Hongkong won't be pushing through. Marcy backed out the last minute. Apparently, she has some plans in the near future that has to do something with the need to not spend money for now. Now, Chase and I were talking about it and we were planning on pushing through with the HK trip if Marcy backs out (which she did eventually...). However, just this afternoon, unfortunately, he lost some money - which he wants (and probably has) to pay back. Long story... the gist is that, his parents asked him to pick up something and the money got lost somewhere in between.

Oh well. Maybe I'm not meant to go to HK this time. Let me look for something else to do before I fly off.

dumating na ang visa

Dumating na ang much awaited (or dreaded?) Visa. Awaited kasi matagal nang hinintay para makapunta na ulit sa Canada, dreaded dahil magkakahiwalay na naman kami ni Chase ng ilang buwan. Mahirap, pero alam kong ito'y isang magandang opportunity para sa akin, kaya kailangan muna nang kaunting sakripisyo.

baguio with chase

Holy week's over and my original plan of spending time with Chase and his family in Baguio pushed through. Although I only stayed in Baguio for 1 and a half day, still I think it was worth it. I got to meet Chase's friends, we got to drive around, see some sights with his family. Spending time with Chase in Baguio was a very different experience compared to me going to Baguio with friends. I guess I get to see the place from a different perspective. I don't know if that makes sense, but I just feel happy thinking that Chase got his chance to finally show me around the place he calls home.

My comments on New Moon

I have only two comments for this book:

1. Could there be any weaker protagonist than Bella? That character is so weak to the point that I find it very disturbing. The author writes a lot of Bella's feeling in the book and I don't know if one would ever feel that... lost? All because of a teenage romance gone kaputs. I guess it wasn't just a case of infatuation for both of them.

2. I don't know if I still want to read the next book after this, but I will just have to - as I already bought book 3 and 4.

going to baguio...if...

If I can get a ticket this late.

I've been contemplating about going to Baguio for the past week to surprise Chase. He's always asked me to come to Baguio with him whenever he went there for a vacation and the last time I did was around 2 or 3 years ago? And so when he asked this last time, we even had a fight about it, with him telling me that it seemed that I really didn't want to go with him to Baguio because I always had some excuse not to come along.

So that made me think, and think real hard why I haven't really been joining him there, even though not every trip, but at least once or twice? I can't pinpoint exactly why I didn't join him all this time, but this time around, I really want to be there with him.

So later, after work, I will check out available tickets to Baguio. Hopefully I can still get one friday early morning (as I want to join my family with our annual bisita iglesia). Hopefully I'll be able to get a ticket. And hopefully he'll be happy to see me there. Haha


** update **
I was able to get tickets. I couldn't decide 4am or 5am. So I ended up buying 5 am bus.

schedule and gym

My attempt to start going to the gym last January failed after a month long "gym-ing". For some reason, tinamad na talaga ako after that, kahit naiinis na ako na feel ko ang bigat bigat ko na. Tapos narealize ko, night shift can make you eat a lot more - isipin mo na lang, I eat breakfast, lunch, dinner and then midnight snack - habang night shift. I have no idea what's happening with me.

Good thing though, there's a new gym being constructed in our office. So once it's all up and running, I'd most likely and hopefully sign up and be a gym rat altogether. I think it's going to be a nice setup because I usually get in early anyway at work, let's say around 11 and official work actually starts around 12 midnight or 1 am. This may actually work.

On the other hand, probably in a couple of weeks, I'd be trying working on an early morning shift. See if I prefer that one over this schedule I have right now.

book shopping

Marcy and I had an impromptu get together yesterday. She was on leave, and my work won't be starting 'till that night.

We went to Shangri La, grabbed something to eat at one of my favorite restaurants - Green Tomatoes, and then went shopping. Marcy ended up buying a couple of stuff while I ended up buying, three hard bound books! There's a Fully Booked store at Edsa Shangrila and I just couldn't resist not buying them.

What books did I buy? The 4 book Twilight series. Geeze. :)

Due to its on going popularity, I just couldn't resist not attempting to read it. Of course, I did buy the first book of the series out of curiosity when the film was released. I personally though the book obviously was better compared to the movie. So upon reading the New Moon snippet from Twilight, I was mainly intrigued at its story and so I went looking for New Moon. It has been sold out in most of the bookstores I've visited so surprisingly in this exact store, we found the three other books in the series all available both paperback and hardbound. I was just going to buy New Moon but according to Marcy, I'd probably buy the remaining two in the series so why wait when I finish book 2 and later find out how hard it is to find book 3 and 4. And so I did buy the remaining 3 of the series.

Answered prayers

This one, I really have to share.

I've been working on this module that requires an end to end testing with another team. The idea is, my module will generate a list of files, and then I have to transfer them to a specific location so that the other team's process can pick up the files and process them.

The problem is, although we were able to get the read/write access to the landing directory in Production, but don't have any account for the non-production environments. So this issue's been bugging us for quite a while. And 2-3 weeks from release, we still haven't done pre-production testing due to this limitation.

So I prayed and prayed, that somehow, hoping that the Lord can lead me to some idea that we can work out with. And truly a blessing, it suddenly occurred to me that I can request an account on those two non production environments (using another project as a reason why) but the limitation there is, I will not have a write access to the supposed directory. Obviously still a problem, but at least we can now connect to that box. And truly another blessing indeed, for some reason, they granted my account a write access to the directory we need to move our files!

Oh man, after weeks and weeks of stress over this, finally it's over. And just really proves more and more, that prayers are really powerful and that they truly are answered. :)

5 Reasons why I now prefer working in the office instead of working from home.

I have been working regularly in the office for a month now ever since my laptop crashed and surprisingly, I have realized that working in the office is way better.

Here are my 5 reasons:

1. Interact with your officemates, and eventually they won't be just mere acquaintances, but will become your friends.

2. Working in the office allows you to get a lot more things done (as per my opinion that is...)

3. When I am home, I relax and don't do anything for work (unlike when I had my laptop, I had to check this, and that, once in a while, etc)

4. And since I'm working night shifts, it really helps to be with other people as well.

5. Ever since we've moved to Araneta, Cubao office, travel time has been cut down by around 25%. Not bad. :) So now, my daily commute allows me to see the city again instead of just hanging around the house all day long.

MER shares - sold!

Finally some good news on the financial side. We were finally able to sold off our MER shares with a nice profit at hand. Took a while to get it up to the price that we wanted it but after almost holding on it for over a year or so, and after getting a couple of stock dividends, finally we sold the shares at 106 a piece.

It's a nice profit considering the MER share was down to 60 at one point (or even lower perhaps? As I have not been monitoring the stock market ever since "recession" came into place).

Thanks to Pangilinan, Ang, Lopez and whoever's fighting over buying Meralco. This catfight was indeed advantageous to investors (well, at that point in time anyway). The stock will eventually correct after this whole issue calms down.

stress na naman

May boo boo ako na ginawa sa work.
I had wednesday and thursday to get some files sent over and tested with another team. But all along, I was waiting for my other teammate to finish up some script and come back from Toronto so that we can transfer the files together. So we ended up sending the files just last friday, and now, we're a bit delayed as the release is next week and we need QA sign off from their side. The problem is, I just realized on Friday that I could've done it myself altogether even as early as Wednesday. And now it's a mad scramble to work with the other team to get the testing done ASAP.
Arghh

Work is stressing me out.
Hopefully after this release (hopefully it'll be a success as well) that I may be able to get some days off to relax and not think about work even when I'm home (is this a symptom that I'm beginning to be a workaholic - when you're home and you're thinking about work problems?)

tayong dalawa update

I just watched "Tayong Dalawa" earlier, and I have this strange feeling that the story will end up something like that of Pearl Harbor, where Ben Affleck's character was thought to have died during the war and so the best friend and the girlfriend ended up together, not knowing that Ben was actually still alive.

I think that's probably what's going to happen with Dave, JR and Audrey. Argh.... I hope I'm not. I prefer Dave and Audrey rather than Audrey and JR.

This is the only remaining teleserye I watch. I sure hope it doesn't disappoint me.

what's worst?

What's worst about being in a long distance relationship?
Being in a relationship where you're both in the same place, but don't see each other. And this is exactly the situation that Chase and I are in right now. I don't blame him. I blame myself 101%.

Ever since coming back home, I've been delegated to work night shifts primarily because I have to attend meetings, talk with my teammates back in Canada. We are working on a new project and it's a ground up work which is probably why there's just a lot more work that has to be done. And since it's night shift, I just can't get myself to wake up around 5:30 pm, get dressed and go meet Chase somewhere. I'm just so lazy that I'd rather sleep, or just relax at home.

So now, our usual schedule is meeting up every Sunday instead of Saturday (because Saturday is my catch up sleep time). It's good and all... but of course, it's always better to see each other more. I'm back so how come I don't see him as often right?

And so, once this big project finishes up (release will be the weekend after this coming weekend), I might try to adjust my work time to an early shift instead. The problem with this shift is that I have no idea how I'll get to work as early as 6 am (btw, I have to go to the office everyday from now on since my laptop crashed a couple of weeks back). We'll see how it goes. I think it's a matter of adjustment from now on, but we'll see. I think I need a car (hahahahaha!).

Anyway, whatever happens, I've decided that I really need to do something about this situation. I can't just rely on Chase to work on this relationship all the time. I just can't way the next time I have to go away and we'll not see each other again for a couple of months.

reverting to old blog template

I attempted to redo my blog with new blog skins I found over the Internet. I was able to pick out two, but when I published the new design, I just realized that I don't want all the complicated designs and would rather have a simple design to use, thus I ended up with the old blog templates. But I still think I have to personalize it in some way. I'm just too lazy to think and design. I've always considered myself art illiterate. No taste at all when it comes to designs. I still believe that being artistic is still truly a talent (which unfortunately I don't have). Let's see if I can attempt to overcome my lack-of-art-skills and see if I can tweak this a bit to my liking.

Malas

My office laptop crashed.
Grabe malas.

puppy love

My young sister had her heart broken this valentine's day.
We all go through that, don't we?

home office desk

It's been a while since my last post. Have been very busy at work. Working nights is really different from working day shifts. With a release coming up, things have been a bit chaotic. The good thing is that I can work from home, while I'm here in the Philippines. Here's how my desk looks like:


And look, Obi-Wan's bobble head is watching over me.


Our team lead decided that while we're here in the Philippines, we should see each other more often so we have an official "office day" once a week where we all go in the office so that we get to see each other. haha

tayong dalawa

I am currently wathching "Tayong Dalawa" and they just finished the scene when JR and Audrey bumps to each other in the airport and they end up just staring at each other, some sort of love at first sight thing.

I mean, does that really happen? When you stop in your tracks cause you see this one person and you guys just stare at each other? Is that reality?

But, just to say, this show has chops. Story seems nice. At least we have another one of those drama soap operas instead of the fantasy shows.

gym day

Kahit pagod na pagod ako at antok na antok from last night's work (one of the most sleepy work days since I started night shift!), napilit ko pa din sarili ko na pumunta sa gym! Good thing, kasi medyo ginanahan katawan ko. Sana ay tuloy tuloy na ito, at hindi ako tamarin. Aminado naman akong tamad ako. Hahaha

Anyway, this time around, nag up na reps. 15 reps na, tapos medyo dumagdag yung # of sets. For sure sakit na naman katawan ko tomorrow.

gym!

I finally did it, went and signed up just for a month's worth in the gym.
See if I can get myself disciplined to go to the gym regularly.

I had my first session earlier and it's just for conditioning. Did a total of 30 minutes walking, and a couple of weights. Trainer said we'd be doing some conditioning activities for the next 2-3 sessions, especially since I haven't had official exercise for quite a while.

Will be going back Thursday (sana hindi tamarin!)

Anyone agree?

Guys, Are You About to Be Dumped?

I agree on #4, 8, 9 and 10.

stuck again

I did something stupid again.
I told myself I won't be playing in the stock market for a while.
And lo and behold, I just couldn't resist, I bought this one stock, and now I'm stuck once again.

Medical Checkup, etc

Last Monday I had my medical checkup as required by the Canadian embassy for my work visa. The company is planning to send us back to Vancouver asap, especially since we have the first release coming this March. I decided to go to the Nationwide Health just located at the back of Makati medical to have my checkup.

Each check up costs 4000. Good thing for me, that's reimbursable. But if you look at how many people come in there to get their medicals for the embassy, and each is paying 4000 pesos? This medical facility is bulging with money.

Just goes to show that there are a lot of Filipinos who are indeed attempting to migrate, or work abroad. The way I'm seeing things is that, a husband works as an OFW and then eventually is able to bring his family there altogether. Or at least someone wants to work or live there looking for greener pastures.

I saw these two families (wife plus 3 kids), and another (husband + 2 kids). Not to be a bit judgmental, but they don't look the type who can easily afford just to go to Canada for vacation. They're the typical Filipino family of this generation. One family member works abroad to earn for his family, and then eventually gets to take them together in the country where he/she now how has a stable environment.

It is interesting how many people want to get out of this country. I have to admit, at first I really wanted to. Especially after seeing what's it like to work and live there, it's really a beautiful place to settle down. But when I came back from my 5 month stint there, I realized that there really is no place like home. Maybe if my family were there, I would be there too. But while they are here, I'd probably stay put here as well.

New Year, New Pedestal too

Chase and I went to Galleria yesterday to go to Blims to check out some pedestals for my room. I've been wanting to get rid of an old table I have here but can't since I still have no place to put the stuff that are in the drawers there. And now that I have this pedestal, I can finally fix up my stuff.

Here's the nice looking pedestal:



It matches the new table I also bought a few weeks back. It feels nice to have nice tables and cabinets as part of the mini office I'm setting up here. I think I need a new chair as well. Hahaha

New Year, New Do

It's a new year once again.
And this year, I wanted it to start differently. So yesterday, December 31, 2008, last day of the year, I got a haircut.

And this is no ordinary and regular trim. I got it cut short... really short. Almost boy-cut type. And I'm loving it. Bye bye maintenance (although as if I take care of my hair in the first place). That's why this cut is good for me. And the nice thing about it, I've had pretty good feedback so far. This is the first time I have this kind of a haircut so it might shock people.



So...
Start the new year right and feeling good. And hopefully the year will be as good, or even better than last year.