MyToy -> Gizmo, PLDT myDSL

I admit that I could not muster the courage to call my laptop (a Blue Radon W310) MyToy in public. As my wife commented, it’s too obscene. So, I’m giving him the nickname of ‘Gizmo’… yes, as in that furry Gremlin. I’ve been referring to it as Gizmo already, in lieu of, ahem, MyToy.

I’m late in  giving a user’s review of Gizmo. As always, I promise to do it soon….

Especially no that we’re powered by PLDT myDSL! They just installed it this afternoon. I’m still swept away by the speed (coming from a 37 kbps connection and now to a 200++ kbps this afternoon and 400++ kbps tonight!!!)

I’ll now have more reasons to update and play with my blog.

********

Here’s our Speedtest results: 

UP Fair 2007, Part 2 – The ‘Eerie’ Experience

OK, as promised, I’m going to tell the rest of our UP Fair 2007 experience.

After beeing spooked out by the power outage during the fair and the delay that the stage went ‘on-line’ again, Nina, me, and her friend decided to call it a night and go home. We didn’t know if we can still catch a jeep to the outside world, so all of us decided to walk from the fair grounds to Philcoa, where we plan to take a cab, get Matt from her lola, and head to the south.

There were very few souls who dared wander about, but the three of us didn’t mind the stillness of the night. We even stumbled upon strange, eerie things near the Carillion:

What’s that thing called in tagalog?…. I remeber watching how you make one on Batibot

A Sarimanok…. that’s distinctly….

Engineering! (a collaboration with Mech Engrs and Elec Engrs!

The rest of the walk to Philcoa was long and arduous… I couldn’t feel my legs anymore. But we made it safely – a rather uneventful walk at that.

So we took Matt, who was asleep then, and headed home. Since it was late, Nina’s friend stayed over for the night.

This was a early Saturday, and I have work a couple of hours ahead! (good thing I wasn’t late that day – I still hate Saturday duty).

OK, so a couple of days, I download the pictures from the point-and-shoot camera to prepare for these blog entries. Then, I started getting the creeps. I’ve already deleted the picture from the computer. I’m loading up the sane photos here, but it’s related to the shots of the Ferris Wheel.

One…

Two…

The third shot featured a guy staring directly into the camera shot. He was the only clear image. Everybody…E-V-E-R-Y-B-O-D-Y was looking elsewhere. The guy was holding a baby in fatigues and a blue cap… even the baby was looking at the direction of the ferris wheel. The guy had that strange look. Why would he look into my camera? When I showed Nina the pictures, she recalled that it wasn’t until later did we notice babies in the fair (since it reminded us of Matt). Then, we particularly remember that we took notice of the baby in fatigues and he was crying when we saw him. The baby was being carried by the mother…

It gave us the creeps… so we deleted it.

Of course, there may be a more sane and rational explanation. There could have been a father and son there… but still…

We offered a short prayer for the baby and the guy (whom we presume is the father).

Anyway, UP Fair 2007 was worth the effort. It’s now stamped on me and in this blog, so that I and other people won’t forget about it.

UP Fair 2007, Part 1 – The ‘Normal’ Experience

Nina and I knew that it’s UP Fair Week. It was always UP Fair Week during V-Day. But we never intended to go… Until that Friday morning when Nina got a call from her college friend, Sarah, who invited us to go with her.

How can we resist?! (Turns out both Nina and I were just waiting for the perfect ‘excuse’ to go to the 2007 UP Fair! hehehe)

And so my wife made arrangements with her mother to leave our son with her while we visited the fair. From work, I went to Speaker Perez to meet up with them. We had to sneak out the house in order for Matt not to notice that we’re about to leave him, but he couldn’t care less since he’s happy playing with his cousin, Kiana.

We arrived at Philcoa by 8:30pm to meet up with Sarah. We were able to enter the fair by around 9:00pm.

Um….I don’t know how to put this…. but it’s just my 2nd time to be inside the actual fair… (Oh wait, I have a completely valid excuse – I’m an engineering student! Cursed, evil overlords at Melchor Hall ususally schedule midterm exams during this week!)

After getting in with our P 85.00 tickets, we headed to a delectable UP cuisine – isaw! There were lotsa isaw vendors and we decided that we’ll try all, if not most.

[A blurry scene at the ihawan]

[at last! f-o-o-o-d!]

After our first helping of isaw (P 2.00 for about an inch and a half of it), we went around to explore the various booths. We were all particularly drawn to abubot shops – those that sell trinkets, rings, necklaces, and other curiosities.

To sum up all our wanderings, here’s what we ended up buying / eating / seeing:

• isaw, longer isaw (we liked the smaller isaw), Yellow Cab pizza, shawarma, mango shake
• Nina’s ethnic journal, my ethnic ring, an igorot/ifugao musical instrument (a piece of flat bamboo, about 8 inches), Nina’s unicorn earings (which she will use in her scrapbooking!)

[The 2007 Rockestra stage is lit, with a gigantic lightsaber!]

• There was one time when i looked out the fair walls and saw the crowds in black and i told Nina “so this is how it feels like in the ancient days, when you’re inside a walled city and see the barbarian hordes ready to burst through the gates!…”
•  The lights went out in the ferris wheel and on the stage for about 15 minutes and we laughed at the people stuck at at the ride. They had to manually pull down each carriage for people to disembark. But we didn’t think it was funny when there was no music coming from the stage, even if we didn’t know it. The ambiance of the UP fair was shattered in those 15 minutes without the noise, er, music.

There was, however, something eerie that happened that night, as we decided to go home and walk all the way to Philcoa. And one other ‘thing’ that we wouldn’t discover… until we were able to download the pictures from the digital camera…

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Happy Chinese New Year!

Oh, if you want to experience something  unique this Chinese New Year season, there’s the 2007 Light Expo along Coastal Road/Roxas Blvd, fronting Uniwide Coastal Mall. Nina and I plan to visit it with Matt sometime this week. I’ll post an entry once we get to see it and have some lovely looking photos.

You won’t miss it at night…   

 ;-D

A Valentine’s Tradition

Nina and I have established a tradition during Vaentine’s. It started during our first V-Day in Project 6. We were married by that time and began living by our own little selves, away from our respective families. Well, ok, not that ‘away’. My side of the family stayed in Tandang Sora and hers stayed at Speaker Perez, near Welcome Rotonda. Our own little rented apartment was somewhere inbetween these two locales.

She had to stay home instead of going to work because she had a cold and a slight cough. I told her to rest up (besides, this also gave me time to shop for a gift). I remember giving her a card in the morning, which I left on the dinner table, along with a rose I bought the previous day and hid in the washing machine first, then in the crisper of the fridge while Nina slept in the night. Then, when I came back from work, I passed by Tokyo Tokyo and bought a Sushi Sampler and her favorite Beef Misono. We ate heartily that day, because the food at Tokyo Tokyo was always great.

The next Valentine’s Day, we opted were able to eat out and ate at…. Tokyo Tokyo. This time, at Shangri-La  Mall, Edsa. Nina is pregnant with Matt and we just strolled by through the Mall and enjoyed ourselves.

And the third Happy Hearts day, we spent here in our Parañaque sanctuary, eating Tokyo Tokyo from nearby SM Sucat. Matt was still too young to eat the food I bought home.

Now, I did just that – bought home Tokyo Tokyo. It’s a little bit different now since I bought for us three. Matt usually eats a lot of Tuna Misono, but that night, he stayed away from the food. We ended up ordering a Quarter Pounder and Chicken Nuggets for Matt, which he gladly ate after Nina and I finished our Tokyo Tokyo Dinner.

I would’ve hidden the 3 pink roses I bought at SM Sucat, but Nina was the one who opened the front door. Oh, and the washing machine had clothes in them too.

These are the roses I bought, with my post-facto dedication. Sorry, no photo of the food [we ate it na...  =)   ]

A simple tradition, but something that establishes the occasion and engraves it dearly in our minds and hearts.

And the Story Continues…

This week has been as cumbersome to bear as the week that was. It wasn’t from any external pressures. It’s from within:

• A long meeting with intra-company departments concerning the definition of criteria to pick seats and the entertainment system that will go with our new ‘equipment’. What was to be a one- to two- hour meeting stretched on to become a F-O-U-R hour meeting. What did we accomplish? More questions that were there to begin with… and yet some saw it as a ‘productive’ meeting… geeez…
• An incident (yes, involving one of our equipment – a rather highly publicized event last Thursday) forced my manager to hurriedly fly off to Tacloban (you’ve guessed it by now, i hope) and be the on-site technical representative. Even if the ‘equipment’ was from the ‘other’ group. I’m left with no manager to sign-off the technical documents and a colleague who’s leaving for Malaysia to oversee the maintenance of our somewhat old ‘equipment’ that needs returning.
• And yes, my colleague had to leave for Malaysia… with rush engineering orders from an incidental/accidental damage to one of our ’equipment’ that has left a strange-looking dent. It still baffles me as to what caused it. But the OEM has deemed it worthy to, er, be operated again and is within established safety margins.

Oh, and yes, the rush review of tasks and taskcards still continue, with work piling up on the later part of the week and into the weekend.

Just when things seem to be getting worse by the day… a temporary respite… got to go to the UP fair last Friday, my manager’s on the way home and there has been no recall this Saturday, leaving me with much needed time with Nina and Matt.

A Looooong Week That Was + Another New Toy

The Loooooong Week… 

The past week was exhausting. It was inevitable, since we are now in the midst of having our maintenance program approved by a foreign Aviation Authority (read: the US). Hectic preparations were made weeks ago, but as of yesterday, it seemed like it was for nothing. There were still tons of work to do.

It’s bad enough that we have half-day Saturday work, but to be recalled to the office after your mindset is intent of having to enjoy the precious afternoon with your family edges me to the brink. But, what can I do? If I don’t report for work, I know there will be unwritten consequences. Yes, and couple that with the fact that I’m just a couple of minutes away from the office won’t help any excuse I can conjur. Besides, my manager was in a far worse condition. He was the one who called me up and asked me to report back. Everybody was being recalled, he said. Just after our AVP has met with the Denizens of the High and Mighty Authorities. I had to comply. Worse still was my colleague who was asked to go to work, when he was on vacation leave! Geeezzz…. I thought he’d be spared.

Oh, and did I tell you that I had to wait until around 9pm Friday night just because our Maintenance Provider couldn’t give us the dfocuments we needed earlier? Ho-hum.

There I was, explaining the situation to my wife, who knows I can do nothing… and then Matt comes up to me to hug my thighs and declare “Dada!”. We had to break the sad news to matt gently. When Nina told him I had to go to work, the kid cried. It tore my heart. It’s a good thing that Matt’s at an age where we could talk to him. So we told him that I’ll be back soon. He agreed, but still whimpering and sobbing.

I packed my laptop, just in case it would be more effidcient to have two displays in front of me, and hurriedly put on my clothes. When I got to the office, a briefing was taking place on what exactly were we to do. Everybody knew that we had to move this thing forward, or all our heads will be on the chopping board. In the end, I never got to use MyToy. It just sat in my bag the whole 5 hours I spent, looking at the hard copy of a task card and the monitor for checking what the hell is wrong with it.

We had a small feast of barbecue for dinner, but there was still uncertainty as to what will happen even after I left.

And the story will continue this week…

A New Toy

Although I refuse any Zoids model to be called a ‘toy’, I had to concede to the label. We got a very very late lunch at Robinson’s Place Malate today. Our main objective: to find a pillow replacement for Matt. We bought him a flat hotdog pillow at the same store. It was originally for Nina when she was pregnant with Matt. But when matt was a baby, he claimed it for his own.

The pillows were near the toys at the department store and Matt saw the Thomas trains, different sizes, on a rack. Nina and I knows that the kid has been obsessed with Thomas ever since my mom (who’s in ‘the land down under’) sent him a Thomas train set. I also wanted to make up for the lost time last week, so when we saw the small Thomas look-a-like train for an affordable price, we had to buy it for him. But I planned on using my card to pay for it (since it’s near sweldo, the previous sweldo has dwindled to a point where I have to ensure there is sufficient cash to run the house for a few more days). But I feared that they would require a bigger amount for me to use my card.

And thus we got…..

Buster Eagle! (I know it’s a weird name, but that’s what this Zoids is called)

And now, it’s the new banner for this blog!

I’ve set my sights on this zoids whe I first saw it around 4 years ago on the Japanese website of the Zoids toy line. And, I got it with around a 40% discount!

It’s a good ‘power up’ to keep me going for another hectic week.

This says it all…

Found this from Nina’s recommended website:

If you’re itching to unleash that pent up creative streak within, check out this link to an article by the artist who made the card.

(I’m perpetually astonished at how my wife really mines the web for these gems…)

Erratum: My wife corrected me and says that she got this link from the blog of a fellow scrapbooker.

TipidPC.com, its Lounge Forums, and is there a God?

In the course of researching things about MyToy (Blue Radon W310), I stumbled upon a Filipino community of traders, mostly, and other tech geeks. I was glad to find a home-grown community that shares its know-how with anybody who asks nicely – TipidPC.com. This is where I got to connect with a few Blue-blooded laptop owners (people who own Blue brand Notebook PCs). I simply signed on, posted about MyToy and got feedback in no time. Now I’m more confident about MyToy since the other owners don’t seem to have any problems with their respective Gizmos.

And it was perfectly OK to post stupid questions like “can you upgrade a laptop videocard?” (the answer is no, unless your lappie sports the Nvidia’s MXM technology which, I suspect the Blue Cerium and Cobalt have). I had a bad experience using Yahoo! Answers. People don’t actually answer the questions you pose, or at least they do in a, um, not-so-intelligently kind of way, to put it mildly (suggest you look for a relevant forum if you’re looking for answers to your questions). Nina also found her community through the internet, by first participating in a forum, and then finding her Yahoo! Groups of scrapbookers!

Aside from techie stuff, TipidPC aso has a Lounge where anyone can post non-computer-related stuff. I’ve just discovered a fellow TipidPCer who’s a UP PSME Student unit member who’s one batch older than me. And I’ve learned that there are people from UP that use the site as well. it made me feel old, though. Most of their student numbers started with 0X-XXXXX! But there are a few 9X-XXXXXers around.

Another thread I frequent is the “God exists” thread. I never thought there were a lot of atheists in the Philippines! Please don’t get confused. The thread was started by believers who want to express their belief in God. And then, atheists started to enter the thread and started to question the existence of God…. you probably know where it gets to, right?

heated debates, skewed arguments, doubtful proofs, personalan…. the works! I posted something like this:

“Um, makikisali lang po… I found this thread to be quite my kind since I too am a believer.

I know how passionate either believers or unbelievers are about the reality of God, but to expound on the proof through these words will not be sufficient.

We are called to LIVE our faith or reason and ultimately, it is in our lives that we prove whether or not there is proof of a God.

Ako? Ang dami ko ng beses na napatunayan sa aking buhay na mayrong Diyos. One who loves me and ultimately cares for me enough to find me my life’s mission and goal. He led me to my wife, and now, we have a miracle who is our son.

Science can explain how life is created, but ultimately, deep down inside, there is that feeling of awe when you see the first signs of life stirring in the womb. Reason may offer an explanation as to how me and my wife got along, but it can never express the wonder of the love that went between us and how it seems that the whole universe conspires to provide everything we need.

(Di ba’t mas masaya ang buhay pag kilala niyo ang Diyos?)

…. which goes back to my point at the start…. Live it. Experience it. It’s not enough to just talk about it….

pero andito ako at nagpopost…. hehehe….”

I also posted a sort of challenge that all believers pray for unbelievers so that they may know God. If you’re a believer, please pray for those who have yet to experience God’s love.

Thanks!

Six Threads of Abundant Living

Some words to ponder.

“The six threads of abundant living, which when woven together produce a tapestry of contentment that wrap us in inner peace, well being, happiness and a sense of security.

The first of these is GRATITUDE. When we do a mental and spiritual inventory of all that we have, we realise that we are very rich indeed.

Gratitude gives way to SIMPLICITY, the desire to pare down, clear out and realise the essentials of what we need to live truly well.

Simplicity brings with it ORDER, both internally and externally.

A sense of order in our life brings us HARMONY.

Harmony provides us with the INNER PEACE we need to appreciate the BEAUTY that surrounds us every day, and beauty opens up to joy.”

This is from my wife’s blog.She got it from a fellow scrapbooker