WokNews

2012-01-01T23:58:00.000+08:00

The New Year smacked me in the face this morning. Enough to end my 3 year bloggin hiatus. I didn't want to fill Facebook with my anger this AM, so if you dare, read on.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>This just in. Mitt Frikken Romney, aka "The White Guy that might have a chance against Obama" is actually leading the polls in Iowa. He is absolutely no different in any way to Obama of course. He loves to remove our freedoms for security, be the boss of the world, and pay off big business at the expense of the tax payer. He wants to fight Iran, and keep places like Guantanamo open, and put people in jail for smoking marijuana. Of course, so does Obama, so a vote for Romney is really just an anti-black man in the White House Vote. Maybe you can wear your little pointy white hats and cloaks to the booths, Iowans. The guy "looks" presidential. If that means like a liar, connected political crony, a thief and figure head for the elite, then yeah, he fits the bill nicely.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>The next logical step to the Patriot Act, the latest NDAA was signed in by our ~~king~~ president "with reservations" yesterday under the cloak of NYE. Well, glad to see his conscience is clear now, this year's NDAA budget and language gives another near trillion for waging wars in places like Libya, Pakistan, Iran, etc. and giving some extremely sharp teeth to the powers that be, AKA our Senate/President and their pointy end of the sword to label and go after any of us "domestic terrorists" (political opponents) right here, in our own country, for whatever perceived threat we might be exhibiting.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>In case you really think there is some difference in political ideology, take a look at the voting of this when it was a bill in the senate, and the chilling highlights allowing the military to detain Americans under suspicion in very vague and broad reaching language. Will they start sending us to Guantanamo as well? http://www.votesmart.org/bill/votes/37472>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>At this point, I would insert one of the thousand Ron Paul references that completely stand up against what I see in my observations, above. I'll stow it for now. You make up your own mind. You will start hearing crap like this soon from the incumbent ---The recession is over! Gas prices are down! Let's just put our heads down and work hard, like we always do! The middle class is optimistic! JOBS EVERYWHERE!>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>I am placing the link to this great little video, as in my opinion, it still gets to the root of everything that is wrong with our country right now. Unfortunately, the message is unpopular, as ultimately, we are to blame. Sad but true, if you have seen it before, watch it again. http://www.isil.org/resources/introduction.swf

Ketchup

2008-12-23T04:44:00.003+08:00

I wish I could say that lots has happened lately, but it hasn't. We are closing in on our last semester here. Technically of course, as I still need two minor subjects to get my piece of paper. That is going to tack on an extra couple of MONTHS to our stay, unfortunately. Anyway, there isn't a whole lot else I can do about it.

We get nothing but "doom and gloom" news from back home lately, so maybe we are not missing much. Well, except for our families and friends, as usual. Economy be damned, we are ready to go home!

Karen just had her B-Day. She was a bit depressed this week about her "Age". I had to laugh, but perspective is everything I guess.

We were not able to go to Sagada this year for Xmas. Our school didn't post our schedule earlier than a week in advance, and our efforts to book in this tiny, popular mountain destination were dashed. We called all over, and everyone has snatched up the few rooms here.

We have a couple of 2nd and 3rd choices we are kicking around. And there are some pretty decent "defaults" that feature completely pristine beaches, all to ourselves, etc. Not a bad fall back position, right?

My mom got Karen a pretty nifty cell phone for her birthday/Xmas. (Inadvertently, but that is what she got). She is pretty stoked about it, and I hope this one lasts longer than its 6 predecessors. (Just kidding babe.... But seriously). We had a minor scare when it just "shut off" randomly, but since that episode, it has been OK.

Speaking of episodes, we have found television again. We have really enjoyed House this year, and just saw the season finale. Also, Sons of Anarchy was enjoyed (a gritty biker/sopranos type show), and I am catching up on Curb your Enthusiasm. We were referred to "Big Love" by our friends at Bliss Cafe, and it is so far not doing it for Karen, though I do enjoy the Utah references. I need to give it a couple of more episodes. I am officially not one of those "I don't watch TV" snobs anymore.

We saw a few good movies, so I will just run down the list off the top of my head, and give you my opinion:

The Fountain- Good
The Fall- Good
The day the Earth stood still- Bad
Righteous Kill- Bad
Eagle Eye- Bad
Burn After Reading - Good
Cashback- Good
Thank you for Smoking- Good
The Complete History of my sexual failures- Good

Well, I will leave it at that for now.

A eulogy for Grampa Budd

2008-08-17T22:37:00.002+08:00

My maternal grandfather passed away yesterday. I knew the man well, and had occasion to have many conversations man to man, enviable to anyone who has not had the chance to really get to understand the wisdom that comes from age, experience and perspective, as I know all too well in that I was only able to glimpse at briefly, with the early passing of my paternal grandfather a long 14 years ago.

Budd was a man who was not my biologic grandfather, but rather my grandmothers third husband, married to her out of pure love it would seem, and not out of responsibility or duress (with no disrespect implied or intentioned). During our several meetings, he enjoyed imparting many viewpoints perhaps unfamiliar to many, as he had a perspective of life that was both pragmatic, and interestingly mischievous, or perhaps a delicate balance of both. At any rate, he played a graceful balance of both well, and left a legacy that my mother's family had not known; a patriarch with a good heart, not afraid to express openly how he felt on a subject, and not afraid to show affection, and not afraid to show disdain appropriately, when called for. This quality was unfamiliar before him, as the predecessors where foreign, distant and unreachable at best. Out of context, this description could be construed as simple, but if you took the sum of the parts, it equaled to me, what it means to really be a man. To live your life unapologetically, for need or reason. I will recount one particular event that was a definitive, but certainly not defining story in the life of this man.

***I apologize for any inaccuracies***
He was over Germany in 1943 in a B-17 when they took heavy AA fire. According to his recollection (and mine as this story is detail for detail what I remember hearing it about 10 years ago), there was a lot of noise, smoke and wind when the 4 remaining crew who survived the initial damage bailed out about 15 miles on the wrong side of the war. When he landed, he badly twisted his ankle, and another crewman had fractured leg. The two others who did bail out were not found or recovered. These two men found each other on the ground in the twilight of dawn, and immediately got themselves to cover in a forested area. They drug each other out to the front, and were captured and taken as prisoners by the allies, thinking that it was strange to see a couple of blond haired German family named individuals coming from the wrong side of the battlefront. They spent 2 weeks in the camp until the mess was sorted out. Later, he served in Korea and later still, worked as a civilian for the military, the remainder of his whole employed life. I wanted to share the story, and a pic of the flying fortress that he fondly adored. I don't have the bomber group he was in, but there were a few notable missions and bomber groups, and his was among the notable ones that sustained big losses.

We will miss Budd greatly. I am sure, though I doubt if he believed in any of it, that he is sitting ontop of his riding lawn mower, with a nice glass of ice with “water” (vodka to you and me) and his akita. Oh, maybe grandma too. (Love you grandma(.

Thanks for reading. Find a WW2 vet if you are lucky enough, and thank them and their generation for doing a job, not looking for thanks, and generally having to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, without even batting an eye.

There are many more great stories about Budd, and we will share them with each other mostly with a big laugh and moist eyes.

The WHOLE nine yards

2008-07-23T15:00:00.006+08:00

Sorry about the gap. I seem to be falling behind in the blog.

Anyway, I have some stuff worthy of reporting to my loyal readership (up to 7 entire people, by now!)

I will first talk about the great mini weekend that my mom treated Karen and I. We had ourselves a much needed evening at the spa, and dinner out. I have talked about spa before in the Philippines, but it is really affordable and quite soul reclaiming. I went for the native foot massage, followed by an epic sauna. Karen got a bunch of other stuff, then we had a nice pasta dinner overlooking the city. What a great little place. THANKS MOM!

The preceding was followed by a week's hospital duty in Abatan, about a 4 hour van ride towards Sagada. This place is "on top of the world" in terms of the Philippines, and as compared to anywhere else. The wind and rain and fog rolls through here pretty violently, but it makes for some breathtaking scenery and of course, as green as it gets. We had the 12-8AM shift, and that was crappy, but somewhat tolerable. We had very "toxic" patients in the wards. My last day, I had a 11 year old kid with acute renal failure (glomerular nephritis). He was swollen like a balloon, with a BP of 180/110. Headaches, nausea, vomiting and of course, no peeing. Poor kid. I talked his mom into going to Baguio General, and did my best to help him out, but really, all I could do was administer IV meds and monitor his vital signs. I though he was going to have seizures, but lucked out. He was in an ambulance that morning and hopefully on his way to better (read:advanced) care. He needed a lot more than this district hospital could provide. He was my first patient that I thought might not make it during my shift.

On the much more positive side, I delivered a baby. We had a 17 year old girl and her family (and the father) in when we started our shift, and I was up for the delivery (my group rotates the procedures among us) . As a typical overenthusiastic rookie, I ran and put my scrubs on. She was a nulliparous, so This was to be a long night, in actuality. We walked her up and down the halls for about 2 hours, then brought her into the DR. Though she was fully dilated, she wasn't effaced, and her membranes had not ruptured. Myself, the midwife and the soon to be mother hunkered in for about 3 hours of regular contractions. then it seemed that she backed off a little. The midwife ruptured the membranes manually, but it seemed like there was not a lot, and it did little to accelerate the process. Then, the contractions came back with a vengeance. She poked the membranes again, and this time a good spurt of amniotic fluid came out. I foolishly thought this was what all the hubub was all about. I was wrong. Also, I thought that my role as "Actual delivery nurse" was merely to assist the midwife, I was REALLY wrong about this. The good midwife basically handed me the steering wheel, and talked me in like a corny pilot passed out/control tower movie ending from 1972. Then I was instructed to dilate the cervix. I will spare the details for the uninitiated. After 3 minutes of the longest 3 minutes of my life, the contractions where coming in like crazy, and though she was not a screamer, she was obviously in a lot of pain. The midwife went in with an episiotomy and then all hell broke loose. First, the REAL bag of water burst. And I am not talking about a little fluid here, I am talking about 12 ounces or more of a giant white explosion (this is the "mucus plug" that I was not really looking forward to). I performed a matrix like maneuver to avoid the discharge, and was mostly successful. Then, with a huge yell (hers, not mine), the head came out. I was then instructed to grab on and pull her out. We got over the shoulders after a short time, then I caught her. (real fast). I passed the clamps and scissors to the MW, and we got a cry as we held her upside down for a few seconds to drain. We passed the baby over to the just arrived Doc and the cord tie/assist nurse. Then, (far, far, from over) I delivered the placenta. At this point, I was in a surreal world of all kinds of fluids and an incredible amount of blood. Oh yeah, and this is normal. We got her uterus to fully contract finally to slow the flow of blood, and then sutured the episiotomy/ repair (this procedure would be birth control if we taught it to our children). After some time, we were finished, and the mother and baby went to their room to their family. I was in a euphoric daze for about an hour afterwards. (similar to my total hysterectomy case a month before, but more profound)

Shockingly to me, I am actually looking forward to my next delivery. I doubt if I will have another great "hands on" experience like I did again, as most facilities do not allow students to do what I did. The experience was amazing.

6 easy tips to save water

2008-06-02T14:30:00.005+08:00

I spent most of my childhood growing up in drought years, or near drought years in Northern California. Even though the exact location that I did was serviced by a very deep, clean and ever plentiful well, we were constantly bombarded with news from the San Joaquin Valley area cities about the booming population, agricultural demands, dwindling Sierra Nevada snow pack, etc. As children, we would see our beloved river rise and fall, ( the south fork of the Cosumnes River ) but it was always accessible to us. The overall color of Northern California at that time was some green, with some beiges and tans being the majority. Something like this color. Anyways, this news always frightened me as a child. What if the river went down too far? I would have lost the best playground that any kid could ask for. I guess it was this that started me off doing things unconsciously to preserve water. I get asked a lot, "What are you doing?" when it comes to water use, and it always catches me off guard, until I realize that most people simply take for granted that since it has always been around, that it will always be around. I would like to illustrate the ways that you to can help reduce water usage. This will not likely translate into any significant reduction, but I cannot see it hurting, and when it becomes "second nature" to you, perhaps it will become second nature to your children, and so on. In no particular order:

#1. Brushing your teeth. Some people leave the sink running when they brush their teeth. I have never been able to figure this out. During the 2-3 minutes that you brush your teeth with the sink running, you are wasting at least a gallon of water. I have a cup that I exchange on a weekly basis, fill it, and use that for the whole procedure. Just a quick splash at the end is the only time I turn the faucet on again. Savings per week average: 14 gallons.

#2. Washing dishes. We never had a dishwasher growing up. So all dishes were done by hand. Though I believe that hand washed dishes are using less water, most new dishwashers use about 10 gallons of water, not including your "pre-rinse routine". Just like in the tooth brushing principle, I could never fathom how someone would have a double sink, and simply have the tap running on one side, while they scrub away at something on the otherside. I would venture to guess that 10 gallons of water is wasted this way every day. If you have a dishwasher, DO NOT PRERINSE. Here is why we do this. Because about 25 years ago, dishwashers were crappy. And out of habit, we still do. Plus, the "energy efficient" cycle that most people like to use, often poorly washes the dishes. Here is my source. If you do not have a dishwasher, or use it infrequently, here is my suggestion. Get the largest dirty bowl that you have to wash, and place it inside the sink. Fill it with hot soapy water, and then begin to place your least dirtiest dishes (usually cups and glasses) in and scrub them, (with the water off of course), place the scrubbed and soapy dishes into the other sink. Go progressively dirtier until you are finished. Then, go to the other side, and rinse everything. This will cut your water use by 90%. Notice someone who is doing the dishes and you will see that only a few seconds is spent actually rinsing, and the majority of the time is spent scrubbing. Savings per week: 70-100 gallons a week

#3 Shaving. Nearly exactly like the toothbrushing scenario, gents will run the tap while they are lathering up, shaving and looking at themselves in the mirror. A large heavy coffee mug or deep corning wear bowl will work just fine, and save gallons of water every time you shave. It's easy.
Savings per week: 10 gallons a week.

#4-Laundry- I am like a lot of people in my position. I hate "Laundry day" Too much time is spent waiting for cycles to finish, then waiting for dryers to finish. So, a solution is to do the loads, "as they come in" throughout the week. This has a problem though. You end up washing loads that are "not full" or at best, you have a "load size selector", but I doubt that they save any real significant amount of water, and therefore, waste water. To beat this, I always make sure that I have exactly a full load in the basin. But, I also separate and bleach my whites. So how can I do this, especially as a often single or with one other person type guy? I found my solution watching people hand wash. I notice they utilize a soaking period in the washing routine, and there it was. So I have a bucket, that I put about 1.5 gallons of water in. Then I put a TBSP of bleach in. Next, I put my whites in and let them soak for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, I put the washer to full, and fill with my usual colored clothing. Then, I dump out the water from the "bleached whites", and rinse them for 10-15 seconds. That about does it, then I toss them in with the regular load. I have never had any "residual bleach problem" and the whites are always brilliant when they come out. 20-50 gallons of water per week.

WARNING here is where I get "exotic" by some standards in water conservation

#5 Showering- First of all, if you take a bath in this day and age every time you bathe, you are outrageously wasting water. I can't see the harm in the occasional weekly "treat", but to do this day in and day out smacks of greed and insensitivity. Also, who the heck has the time to do this everyday, and what about the other people in the house that may need to use the bathroom? I digress. But we can do so much more with our daily shower than we believe.

1. Go into the shower.
2. Turn on the water and soak your head, then immediately turn off the shower
3. Shampoo
4. Turn on water and rinse, then immediately turn off the shower.
5. Soap up a loufa, or whatever you use if anything, and "soap up"
6. Rinse off and turn it off.

Not only can and do I complete a shower in less than 5 minutes, but I probably use 1/10 the water that most people do. I like a relaxing shower as much as the next guy, adn usually treat myself to one "normal" shower per week. My total "on time" for the water is usually about 1 minute or so, or about 3-5 gallons of water, saving: 24-45 gallons of water with each shower.

6- The Toilet.- Yes, I am going there. First off, I was an early adopter in the day, for putting a bottle of water inside the tank. Nowadays, the Johns are all low flow. Of course, if you have an older toilet, go ahead and stick a 2 liter jug of water inside it. You will reduce volume significantly. But as a child, I saw that this was not enough. This was never more apparent than going to the aforementioned river with my brother, and coming back home late in the afternoon. The first thing a kid does when he returns from the chh-chh-chilly snow pack fed river is pee. This routine went on, where one of us would get there first, then followed by the other one. Right there, is two complete flushes for a couple hundred MLs of urine. One day, I knocked on the door and said, "Hey, don't flush, I will". After all, 5-12 year old boys are not known for their modesty anyways. This tradition has followed my brother and I for years. I don't know if he adopted it, but I always request others if ever convenient, to let me "piggy back" on their flush. I can't see everybody doing this, but urine is the only product allowed for this maneuver! And it isn't really that gross. Urine is "sterile" after all. Savings: 20 gallons a week

It all adds up.

Make your own Italian herbed crusty bread in 25 easy steps

2008-06-01T19:38:00.010+08:00

This is a recipe to make a crusty on the outside, light and airy on the inside bread. You will rightly think "pizza crust taste" when you begin to smell it. That is because this is a pizza crust recipe. Maybe it's the beer lover in me, but I love the taste of yeasty bread. As a kid, I would eat the crust side first of the pizza. Anyways, one of the few things in a kitchen I have not had much experience in, is baking bread, or really any type of baking. Many people are turned off by the "rules" and complex "procedures" of bread making, so they avoid it.

A few weeks ago, Karen and I had talked about how bad we wanted pizza. (we are both on diets and have lost a lot of weight in the past few months, so obviously, nearly half of our conversations revolve around food). I decided then and there to finally overcome the last cuisine obstacle that truly sets apart the masters from the apprentices. I consider myself an excellent judge of good pizza, so there it was. A challenge. A quick run to the store, and I got the one part missing in my kitchen since forever. Yeast. And not just any yeast mind you, but a giant, one year supply of it for $3. I then got home, and began the work, and made insanely good pizza. I came to the conclusion that if I can make pizza crust, I can make really big pizza crust that is something like bread. This is a recipe for approximately a dozen large, yeasty, crusty, herbed rolls.

I first assembled the ingredients and various instruments. I get a nice big heavy pot, and put about 1.5 cups of water in it. Then I put the pot on the stove, and heat it until it is just slightly warm to the touch.

I put the pot on the counter, mix in one TBSP of sugar, and then pour in about 2 TBSP of yeast and mix it up for about 10 seconds with a whisk. Notice I am not measuring anything at this point, just eyeballing it.
After about 5 minutes, the yeast/water should be quite foamy and thick.

Next, I start dumping in the dry ingredients. First the flour, about 2 cups (I use 1 cup of whole wheat flour, and a cup of plain white), 2 TSP of "Italian seasoning", 1 tsp coarse black pepper, 1 tsp of onion powder (I like a real herby type bread, so you can just adjust for your taste and what you intend to use the bread for) , 1 tsp of salt and a TBSP of oil.

At this point, I just dive right in. Start mixing.

As you get it smooth, you should likely start adding flour in a little at a time. I like to do it this way because it is easier to adjust from a start of too wet, to hit the perfect mark, then to go from too dry to to perfect... I hope that made sense. ;) I got Karen to sprinkle it for me,because my hands at this point are insanely sticky.

As you progress, you should at some point be comfortable with your ball of dough. It should start picking up all the loose flour in the pot. Add you flour very slowly being careful not to go too dry.

At this point, you can take it out. If it is a little bit too wet, that is OK, because we are going to fix that momentarily. Sprinkle some flour onto your counter top. And plop your dough down. Now the kneading. This is where you need to get your wet/dry ratio just right. begin kneading and sprinkle with flour every so often. This should take about 5 minutes. Its a pretty good workout. At the end, you should have a nice, smooth"ish" dough ball.

Get it all smooth, and lightly coat it with some olive oil, then place inside a large bowl and put a towel over it. The yeast will begin to consume the starches in the flour and poop out C02. The C02 is what makes your dough rise to the occasion!

after about 20 minutes....

After about 40 minutes or so, take it out, and punch it once or twice! It should deflate like a balloon. Form it into a ball, and place it back inside for another 30 minutes.

OK, so you have your dough all ready. Get whatever you call an oven (I have a counter top convection) up, hot and ready.

Next, take a knife, and cut yourself off pieces of dough. I just cut around it, creating crescent shaped pieces. Be careful not to flatten your dough at this point. you want to keep it as fluffy as possible.

OK, so you have your pieces.

Next, grease your pan. I use a foil covered paper plate.

Put your pieces gently on the pan, and brush very lightly with olive oil.

Set everything aside for 5-10 minutes, hopefully they will rise a bit more.

I love garlic. So I take a few cloves............

And grate them onto the tops.

I then sprinkle yet more Italian seasoning.

At this point, you oven should be rippin' hot. Pop them in. In about ten minutes.....

After about 20 minutes (you might have to turn down the oven a bit).......

Another 5 minutes or so and here they are. I recommend you put on a wire rack for about 5 minutes so they cool properly. The steam will make the bottoms mushy is you don't. These are great with salad, soups, as sandwich rolls, with pasta, with eggs for brunch, etc...etc.

the pizza is the same, except you roll it out as thin as you can, drop it onto a foil covered paper plate (or toss if you want to have fun), make your edge, brush very lightly with olive oil, put a very thin layer of sauce, (recipe below) then cheese and bake for about 20 minutes on highest heat until cheese browns slightly. To emulate the "pizza stone effect" I just drop my near finished pizza onto a hot, dry skillet and cook for about 5 minutes, this will crisp up the bottom perfectly. Always let your pizza settle for about 5-10 minutes. I learn this rule every time I go for my second piece, because I rarely wait for the first one. It is MUCH better!! Always have a glass of red wine with this.

Sauce for Pizza
I make a simple sauce using a half a yellow onion, a small handful of celery tops and a few cloves of garlic, minced, sautéed with olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano and some capers. When the veggies are about to turn brown, I add a good scoop of tomato paste, and about 2 cups of water. I simmer this down until it is nice and thick. You could blend it at this point to get a nice consistency for your pizza, but you could also leave it "chunky". A few basil leaves are not unwelcome either.

Bon appetito!!

A "conspiracy theory" a few months ago.. now its a fact

2008-05-28T10:46:00.001+08:00

More pain for the people who would just love to see some real "change" not just great speeches.

read more | digg story

Even More Exciting updates!!

2008-03-17T18:59:00.002+08:00

We are officially done with 3rd year! We wrote our diagnostic exams, ended our OR and Skills labs, and wrote our final exams! Did pretty well as usual, though no academic scholarships this semester.

Also, my official duties as 3rd year coordinator of the SB CON are nearly over. I am happy with my contribution, but in all honesty, relieved. I wrote several letters on behalf of our student population. Likely nobody will give me any certificate for it, but I also participated in the decision making processes of our Student Body heavily. My list of accomplishments included:

1. Active participation and attendance of 90%+ of all scheduled meetings with SB. (out of approximately 30 or so scheduled meetings). Signatory on a corresponding number of duly witnessed and written resolutions.

2. Participation in protection and maintenance of student rights such as protection of student participation in extra curricular projects, creation of an RLE syllabus, tuition fee increase consultation and discourse with the administration and Supreme Student Council meetings regarding future student body participation.

3. Participation in projects such as Nursing Day (a lead coordinator, participant), Tanghal Galing II (team coordinator) Recognition Ceremony semester 1 (team coordinator), Recognition Ceremony semester 2 (Emcee, coordinator), CON website (originator, lead coordinator), T-Shirt (delivery coordinator), Orphanage Outreach (participant, volunteer coordinator), NCP Seminar (coordinator)

With all that wrapped up, Karen and I have been enjoying our vegetarianism (though I am still a student in this regard). A recent trip to Bliss Cafe got us invited to Jim and Shanti's house for a wine and cheese party. We had a great time there, met new and interesting people, and played a marathon game of Cranium, a game I had played with my brother et al once before. Karen was invited to show some of her art in Bliss Cafe. I have put the links on my link section, and they can be seen at her portfolio site here. I am real proud of her, and her work is just great. I talked her into creating the portfolio online just for the heck of it. This is just the stuff she has done in the past 2 weeks, mind you. Another work in progress, I guess you could say.

Our friend Al came back for a vacation from Iran, in between semesters and the Iranian new year. I think the time away was a bit hard on him in some way. He seems a bit "off". Anyways, we and the gents downstairs are thrilled to have him back. We have had a few sessions with them already. Amir seems to have met a good match recently, Sheen, a nice English major also studying at UB. We hope him the best, he was unlucky a few times, but he "got back on the horse" and seems to be enjoying himself.

Grace and Mao invited us to join them in Burgos again. We have to reluctantly decline. Too much to get done before our guests arrive only 7 days from now!

Some updates

2008-03-02T11:27:00.002+08:00

Well, another couple of weeks, and it will be another year down, and one to go! I can't wait to see my mother and grandmother who will be visiting when we are finished for our mini summer break at the end of this month.

We rearranged our living room, with the help of our landlord who allowed us to store some stuff in the attic area. We have more of a lounge zone, rather than a sprawling living room now, with our Persian carpet as a featured piece, and we closed off the second opening of our hallway to warm up the home, and add some interest to the room.

We spent a wonderful day last week with very "in need" children at an orphanage. We organized a group of the college of nursing officers, got some much needed supplies such as disposable diapers, antibiotics, and other items, and set out early in the morning. When we arrived, the children were REAL amped up and excited to get visitors. The orphanage is an aging facility, with an infant wing of 10 infants, and a toddler/child wing of about 30. These kids are either abandoned, or have been seized by the government due to poor living conditions. When they walked by you, they would touch you as they walked by. Many would just attach themselves to your legs. They really seemed to thrive on human touch. The tireless people running the facility were very thankful and appreciative of our help that day. We went food shopping, and bought a large amount of fresh vegetables and fruits, as the facility director requested that they are usually under stocked with such things. The condition is entirely ironic, because La Trinidad is the proverbial capital city of the "Salad Bowl" of the Philippines. We cooked up chicken/pork adobo and chop suey, and left behind 20-30 kilograms of vegetables and fruit. After, we played games, sang songs and held, rocked and changed babies.

Inevitably, one is faced with a plethora of inner thoughts when visiting such a place. Why is the government not providing more for these few numbers of neglected innocents? How could someone have such poor communal or familial ties to allow this to happen? And on and on. Apparently, government funds are dispersed to the orphanage through an agency, that further lines the pockets of several sub agencies until it reaches it's final destination, usually 1/10 of the original amount. If there was ever a good argument against government funding, here it is loud and clear. Ease the taxation of businesses, and allow an orphanage to be directly sponsored by unburdened corporate entities (such as my school, formula companies, etc). The orphanage told us that even though they are a government agency, the majority of their funding and ability to survive comes from private contributions. Considering the huge amount of bureaucratic tendencies of government agencies here and everywhere else, they likely consume most of their government allowance just keeping up with paperwork.

On a happier note

2008-02-17T08:16:00.002+08:00

Karen and I went to Bliss cafe for Valentines. They held a limited engagement vegetarian buffet, with two sets of music from a wonderful vocal quintet. It was a real nice and romantic evening. We are hoping Jim, the owner, will be able to open his other business idea, a "canteen" style food offering at the Buddhist temple about 100m from our school. The place is great, there is a Zen rock garden, lots of interesting books, real good music and free weekend art films. It is a fairly unknown establishment among locals so it is funny to go there and see all these Swiss and Germans and Americans packed into the place from time to time. Jim is an American Ex-Pat from Chicago. He and his wife have been all over SEA for the past 20+ years, or so. They have settled in Baguio, and now they run what must be the most pleasant restaurant in the city. All the food is prepared by his wife Shanti, and from scratch, on the spot. Even the rice. That makes for a long evening, which actually turns out to be perfect, as the number of local art exhibition, interesting books, posters and artifacts from Jim and Shanti's travels engages the mind in pleasant ways, and puts the prospect of food on temporary hold, at least until it is served. The menu has many offerings, but most notably to me are the set meals. They consist of entree, salad, dessert and beverage for about $5. They are either Indian, Korean, Mexican (yes, Mexican!) or what I don't exactly know called simply and wonderfully, "Heaven" and "Earth", but we love it. There is NO MEAT whatsoever in any of it, and Shanti has a knack for making some pretty accurate interpretations of meat products out of Soy, gluten and who knows for sure. Anyways, we are going tonight to eat and watch "The Elephant Man".

My charmed life

2008-02-17T07:59:00.007+08:00

I always seem to be at the center of disaster... Eathquake, flood, landslide, typhoon... Now fire... Part of my school burned down yesterday right before my eyes. Nobody was hurt thankfully. I have never seen a large building engulfed in flames before in person. Brought back some unpleasant memories. It was pretty unreal. Waiting for the locusts that should be arriving any minute now...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bfFpDiCb5XE&feature=related

After a long hiatus

2008-02-11T19:44:00.000+08:00

I saved up some stuff to type.

Anyways, grats to Skyler for having the "biggest beard" in the family. I am not exactly sure what entails the grand prize, but it should really be something. That thing is way, way large, and quite in charge.

Since November, I guess a few interesting things have gone on with us. The bad news, one of our good Iranian friends left, and decided to stay home, rather than return to school. Then one of our Kuwaiti friends. Sad. We really loved those guys and their company. But, we did manage to have a great time during our holidays. We took two of our friends to Sagada, went caving, and had a nice time. We went to Burgos, and really, really, really, quiet and deserted beach. We had the whole place to ourselves, with our friends Grace and Mao.

Our hospital dutues have been fairly exhaustive this semester. Learning a lot during them, thank goodness. Having some issues with the administration, and teachers. That will not go away in my or my grandchildren's lifetimes I guess. There is just a lot of "poop" here in certain areas that seems a little too ground in.

I really wanted an eee pc. I got this crazy idea to get one, then backed out. I will wait for the 9 inch screens and Wimax. Speaking of computers, I am living the Linux life now. Totally gave up Windows, and never looking back. I recommend "Puppy Linux" to anyone. It is 100 MB only, and runs off of your ram. Everything is easy enough to learn, and it won't overwrite your old OS should you need to go back. I put it on a friends ancient computer, and it runs like a scalded cat. Don't toss out that old computer yet!

Karen and I had the same American patient (she had the 7-3, me, the 3-11 shift).. It was great, because everybody including the Doctors were afraid of the guy, and we just charged in a saved the day for the guy. It felt great to be working for what will likely be a more typical patient for us, and he really tested our abilities. We did great, and so did he. (He was discharged the day after our last duty day after nearly two weeks, and I got to congratulate him on his way out ) It felt real good to see the product of our hard work "walk out the door" towards his health and future.

Another two months, and we are done for the year, and a break that we will be sharing with... MY MOM AND GRANDMOTHER!!!! We are so excited to have them. I can't wait to show them around.

How far down can we go?

2007-11-08T12:16:00.000+08:00

Well, is this rock bottom yet? A 12 year old girl gets suspended from school for hugging her friends... What is the matter with our country? Who is making this stuff up? Does anyone need any more ammo to scrap our current model of state run school system once and for all? Your tax dollars are giving trillions to your local state coffers to come up with this tripe. Instead of producing literate and capable individuals, our school system is creating little robots. Good little, hate filled, maladjusted sociopathic robots. This is where you get Virginia Tech and Columbine.

Sagada 2

2007-11-01T10:27:00.000+08:00

Just felt like sharing a recent experience with coffee, and my favorite place in the Philippines. The Philippines has many areas that grow coffee. I just happen to live near the epicenter. As a result, I get all kinds of pretty damn good coffee at laughable pricing. My most recent "find" is the coffee grown and picked from Sagada. Sagada is a twisty curvy half paved, half dirt road, meandering through rice terraces, and a 6.5 hour bus ride away. This sleepy but lovely little town has some amazing caves, waterfalls and many other natural wonders. What makes Sagada, "Sagada" (and keeps me coming back) to me though is the coffee, and my morning ritual.

So here was my daily routine while on my vacation there last week.

It's 5:30AM. Crack of dawn is about half way done, and the sun is just hinting at poking it's head over the green mountain peaks that are fighting a beautiful and silent war with the thick morning clouds that roll in. Everything is in high contrast, Mountain ridges, switch backs and trails easily seen. Pine trees jutting above rock formations covered in thick nearly malachite colored moss... Crystal clear and the only noise is the rooster, starting his morning ritual as well.

I put a pot of the "literally right from a natural spring" water on the stove, and when it starts to rumble, I keep about 2 cups of it in a bowl, then fill the percolator bin about half way with Sagada's characteristic ground coffee bean. A smallish light/medium roasted bean, ground coarsely. Then, back on the stove to bubble for a few minutes, then off. After a minute to allow the settling of the grains, my leather covered stainless thermal mug is filled to 3/4 full. In this coffee, you can absolutely taste the earth, the ground, the mountains, the trees, everything. Cream or sugar is completely forbidden. After a greedy sip, full of air so as not to scald, I place it down on the bathroom sink, and take a short and hot shower.

Out of the shower, that bowl of boiling hot water is ready to do it's part. My travel kit, a Gillette Rubie loaded with a fresh Derby, a QED grapefruit and peppermint shave stick. The shave is gloriously smooth, crisp high pitched notes of that blade leaving a glass smooth face looking back at me.

Mug in hand, 10 steps out onto the balcony at the corner, I sat on small stool placed so that I could see 270 degrees of peace, nature and profound tranquility. Just me, my coffee and the glory of mother earth.

US claims success in war on drugs

2007-10-04T08:19:00.000+08:00

I almost laughed out loud when I saw this headline http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7025308.stm

The government officials are patting themselves on the back for increasing the cost of cocaine. Economics 101… Its almost comical to think that the war on drugs is practically a government subsidized commodity, like corn or pork bellies. We are footing the bill of a war against our own people, leading to increased riches for violent drug dealers (low transportation costs for “less” product and increased price per unit), more of our citizens incarcerated or killed for victimless crimes, and more people will begin to turn to cheaply made and REAL dangerous drugs as alternatives. If I was a drug dealer, I would forget pot, (acreages of land, or intense electric bills) and just make a methlab in my spare bathroom. Simple economics…..

Interesting undergrad classes

2007-09-22T13:20:00.000+08:00

I read an interesting post from a friend's blog about what he considered to be his favorite and most interesting classes in his undergraduate degree....

I'll put mine here.

Anatomy and Physiology –the body is amazing, beautiful, and the most perfect thing in the universe..

Pharmacology–painful, time consuming, boring and absolutely essential..

Ethics– Why you “should”, or “should not”, because too often “we do” only because “we can”..

Pathophysiology– The body is amazing, beautiful, and the most perfect thing in the universe, except when it isn’t..

Organic Chemistry– The blue collar science, that explains enough information to be relevant to nearly every situation encountered.. (as compared to say, Physics, IMHO, YMMV!)

Blogs

2007-09-09T14:26:00.000+08:00

We met up with our friend Alvin at Camp John Hay's country club last night. We met his lovely family who are in town as part of their annual trips that they make here twice a year, once for his Lola's birthday, and again for X-Mas. Anyways, we caught up on new stuff, laughed about old times, and had some nice food and coffee in the establishment. Alvin is nice enough to read and comment on my blog regularly, giving me the inspiration and motivation to continue with it. He asked me for advice on how to start his own, and upon further reflection, I will post the response here, as a blog of my own. So without further ado, here is my response.

Do you really want to blog? - I ask this question because blogging takes more time (once set up, you can knock out a post in 5 minutes) and is a little less user friendly than some social bookmarking sites that may be more useful to the average user. I find I split my time here and at facebook. the nice thing about a blog is that everyone can go to my blog and read, whereas access to my facebook account requires your own setting up of an account. A big question that needs answering, if "no" go to question #4.
Where do I sign up for a blog? - www.blogger.com or www.wordpress.com . If I am not mistaken, wordpress may have the edge these days for ease of use and flexibility if you want it, but I imagine the differences are not profound. Just pick one, and go for the free blog account (back in my day, I hadn't heard of wordpress, so I went with blogger. Either will allow you to create an overall look and theme, profile, and format for posting.
Follow the directions, they are pretty straight forward. You will be up and running in about an hour with your layout and style complete, title and profile done, and maybe a pic or two and your first post.
Social Networking (or facebook). This has taken over a lot of what I see people who use blogs and emails use them for. You can upload photos, send out quick notes, and keep "up to date" with people in your network. It is a cleaner interface than it's predecessor "friendster", more secure, and easier to manage. You are confined within the parameters of facebook, so if you are more creative and require more freedom, a blog might be a better fit. But if you want to be up and running in about 30 minutes with friends, family and a messaging type interface, go for facebook. I will keep my blog for now, but it's relevance has been challenged recently with facebook. Facebook does require a log in, but once you break down your facebook-less friends, they will quickly come over to your way of thinking, and soon you will be spending your time there.
Another option for the type who hate typing, or want a much simpler communication tool is www.flickr.com . This is a photo sharing site where you just upload pics and share. Its an online photo album where the pictures speak a thousand words for you. A small caption, and off you go.

So, there is the sum of my knowlege of Blogging/Social Bookmarking, et al. I hope it helped.

Osama bin Laden Movie Review

2007-09-09T08:43:00.000+08:00

So, I signed up on facebook last week after almost a year of continuous bombardment from friends and relations. Glad I did. Nice little site, and a nice way to keep in touch. Anyways, I stumbled upon the movie review application, so I quickly reviewed a bunch of films in my typical sarcastic way, when looking through the news, noticed that our good buddy Osama has released his own cinematographic epic.

I figure that I'll give my take on his latest offering. Tentatively entitled, "Convert ye masses, lest ye be killed, and oh yeah, capitalism sucks" that hit the theaters world wide this week.With a team of the finest make-up crews, Osama appears youthful and swarthy, his 0.4m long usually "salt and peppered" beard dyed a deep, rich black. He sits calmly and confidently in this feature film, wearing a white shirt and yellow shawl, that costume designer Alijjiba Majinniiyad made from Osama's wardrobe further conveyed the upbeat message of mandatory religious conversion and rejoicing in the failure of the Western World possible. The set director, Hafaad Hunnaji, bravely chose a "brownish" background to complement the overall message and tone of the film. Almost in spite of these memorizing special effects, the words of Osama really hit a powerful note, mostly underlining the evils of capitalism. Problematic in the plot, is the fact that his entire fortune was derived from capitalism, implicating himself. Nevertheless, Osama recovers from this oversight expertly by simply not mentioning that aspect. A true mature actor's ability to overcome the obvious hurdle showed a near Academy Awards performance. Special mention must be made to the lighting crew, who chose a "minimalist" subject in the lens obscura, dismissing past "film noir" qualities of Osama's last offering, "the October 2004 tape". From the position of the viewer, the well diffused lighting came from a series of incandescent and florescent bulbs, (25 watt former, and the 17 watt super saver types of the latter type), bringing out the rich olive, tan beige, yellow, white and the previously mentioned "brownish" hues evident in this film.

The Soundtrack of this film, a disjointed "voice-over", seemed to be the weakest part of this already earmarked classic. Several moments of voice did not coincide with the movement of Osama's mouth, indicating further need for improvement. During the advanced screening "post interview", Osama simply made an off camera gesture of a finger dragged across his neck when asked if he planned on using the same sound crew for his next eagerly anticipated film. His current crew could not be reached for comment, their feet being held to furnace heated irons.

To summarize, Osama has once again proven that he is more entertaining than ever, at the top of his game and relevant to his cause, to beat both Big and Little Satan. His offer for the world, and especially American's to "convert to Islam" proves his realistic short term objectives, and the aforementioned diatribe against the evils of capitalism come at a timely moment in history, when everyone is looking for communism and despotism to answer the needs of the workers of the world. 4.5/5 stars.

Mean, Bad, Awful. And that's the good part.

2007-08-26T23:14:00.000+08:00

This is horrible. It is bad enough we are in this mess. What a world we live in!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20430153/

Food!

2007-08-26T20:47:00.000+08:00

Well, crack the champagne, I think I have finally solved a near 3 year quest that has caused me great pain and discomfort. Yep, I finally figured out how to make “Adobo”…. This seemingly simple dish requires a steady hand, and attention to detail that I have found out through a number of poor examples can easily put this dish on an “Expert only” basis….

So, I will demystify the experience for all here on how I did it.

First, and most obviously, the 1 kilogram of adobo cut chicken. Yes, there is a cut named after the national dish of the Philippines, (though this probably only exists in the Philippines, anyway)

You take this chicken, and first rinse it well. And then start to notice something. This poor wretch of a bird has not undergone hormone therapy and been pumped full of “broth” to increase it’s bulk. Translation? The meat is almost “dry” for better lack of terminology. What this means to you and I is that a good quality Philippine chicken is delightfully susceptible to marination, because all the little porous tissues are empty, rather than full of “filler”… See more info on this here. That is why all the marinating in the world does little good to birds from the US or Canada (my experience with both, not knowing what goes on with Euro-Poultry)... However, I digress.....

SO, you take this wonderful "dry sponge" of a chicken, cut into approximately 20 pieces or so for the average 2lb bird, "adobo cut" (essentially, the whole chicken is cut up, leaving the bones in) and after the wash, put in 1/2 cup of cane vinegar and 1/4 cup of soy sauce, then about a dozen calamansi (or key limes) and put in the "ref" (refrigerator) for at least and hour. Then you take your caldereta (big pot) and add about 2-3 TBSP of oil, and go back to your chicken, and look at how it has absorbed most of the marinade. That is a good thing. Dump the excess out, and then put it into the pot, and get things going, hot and loud. Add 4-5 medium sized potatoes (patatas), two onions (sibuyas) and about 6 cloves of garlic (bawang). Get all that frying up nicely, stirring every couple of minutes. Some "juice" from the vegetables, marinade and cooking process should be starting to come out. After 15 minutes or so, it is time for the serious part, and seemingly benign. Add about an ounce more of soy, and an ounce of vinegar, a TBSP of brown sugar, and a half TSP of coarse ground/cracked black pepper, bay leaf and cup and a half of water. Bring this to a rapid boil, then turn it down to simmer for 45 minutes. When you come back to it, it should be darker in color than when you left. This is good. The sugar, and onions and process made it dark, and the taste should be a little tart, a little sweet, and kinda gravy-ish from the breakdown of the potatoes. You can add a bit more of whatever to balance, and it should be balanced. Serve with rice (duh), and fresh cut bananas, (as learned by "Aunty Lisa") ...

The dish, as far as I know, is known to be rich, if not a bit oily. A good accompanying dish would be the other bane, and as yet unconquered, sinagang. A tamarind based soup that would cut away any excess "grease" from the adobo. Enjoy!

Herps and Cat5 twisters

2007-08-16T22:57:00.001+08:00

So, after a week of a shy, quiet, kinda grumpy looking turtle, he has gone through a metamorphosis, so to speak. He is finally eating, I bought him some turtle food, but he is eating the apples and other stuff, as long as it is "in the water". (a la Jesse's 6th grade report of the majestic sperm whale)

I was in the hardware store buying him a basking light, I came across some plastic paint roller containers. they are ramped on one end, and go to a depth of a 6" deep pool at the other end. I bought two, and put food in one, and keep the other clean. He went right in and started eating. He walks around in his "habitat" now like a king, "long neck" looking around at everything. I was real worried he wasn't gonna make it. It looks like he is fine now.

I talked with a pet store owner. They had about 30 of these for sale. They are endemic to this region, and are 50% aquatic. They have semi-webbed toes and like moderate to cooler climates. This one seems to be a potential sub-species of the one that YAVON, not Jesse, linked in the comment page from my last post. The elevation here is 1500 meters and a cool 75 degrees average temperature, whereas the one classified in the website is a lowland turtle, requiring tropical temperatures. Good for a pet owner, keeping anything above 75 degrees here is hard. It's getting cold, even for an adipose and "keratinized protein" covered person such as myself.

Oh yeah, there is another "super typhoon" headed towards the Philippines again. Looks like the bulk may go over top of us.

http://www.typhoon2000.ph/activeflash/stormloop
look about 2 inches to the left of the "Eye".. That's Baguio!

We have found a great way to save time and money here. We pay our friend's mother to do our food shopping for us. Here is our latest list of goods. total cost $20 a week, including her cut.

Shopping list

Product Quantity

Tokwa	¼ kilo
Cooked sausage (red)	¼ kilo
chicken (adobo cut)	1 kilo
Pork chops	½ kilo
Milk	1 x 250 ml tetra box
Eggs (red)	2 piece
Eggs (white)	6 piece
Bangus (in vinegar)	3 pieces
Yakult	2 pack of 6
Gardenia whole wheat bread	½ loaf size
Century tuna in brine (or oil)	4 cans
Red/green tomatoes mixed	1 kilo
Large peppers (red/green)	1 kilo
Cilantro	1/8 kilo
Parsley	1/8 kilo
Onion (red)	½ kilo
Onion (yellow)	½ kilo
Garlic	¼ kilo
Seasonal fruit #1	e.g (apples or oranges)
Seasonal fruit #2	e.g. (longsones or chico or mango)
Seasonal fruit #3	bananas
Potatoes	1 kilo
Celery	1 bunch
Baguio Beans	¼ kilo
Eggplant	6 pieces
Coconut cream or powder	2 cans (or 2 packages)
Calamansi	½ kilo
Tang or Hi-C grape (dry)	Large size (500g)?
Peanut butter (dark color, from wet market) in plastic container	1 jar (large)
Cucumbers	1 kilo
Rice (jasmine long grain)	1 kilo
Vegetable oil	500ml
Benguet blend coffee	¼ kilo fine grind
Coffee mate	1 box
Black pepper	One packet
Curry spices	One packet
Cumin seed	One packet

A new addition to our home

2007-08-10T20:42:00.001+08:00

Well, we were out the door for our exams this morning after a 3 day tropical storm, and we find this little guy in the driveway in a cold dirty puddle. So, we took him in and cleaned him up and now we have a 2lb liability on our hands. I have several urgent emails with pictures out to a) identify and b) get rid of him safely. A pet like this is a lifelong commitment, and if he is wild, I would like to return him to what is is supposed to be doing. here is my email going out....

example:
Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 04:14:45 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joaquin
Subject: Hello
To: mconnor@tortoise.org

I live in the Philippines as a student. I have come across a 2 lb turtle this morning after a large 3 day tropical storm and took him in. He was sitting in a busy cold wet driveway (air temperature was about 50-60 degrees overnight in a dirty pool of water.) He will stick his head out on occasion, and has moved around in the shower stall to seek shelter under the curtain. I put down newspaper, and some tomatoes and banana. I think he took a few nibbles of the banana. I need to know what kind of habitat I should prepare for him. If I had to guess, I would say he was not from here. Baguio City is a highly urbanized city with an elevation of about 3,000 feet, but of course, I don't really know for sure. He has a single yellow stripe on his/her head. I have looked at you gallery, but nothing seems to be an "aha!" type.

Any help would be appreciated. I have sent a few pics. He/she looks to have had some run ins with local dogs judging by his broken shell near his left rear leg, but maybe not recently, as he has no injury that I can see on his/her legs or whatnot.

Thanks so much,

Joaquin, Karen, and "Henry/Henrietta"

We need to quickly find out if he is terrestrial, aquatic or terrestrial/aquatic. We are praying for terrestrial, and local. If so, he will be on his way after a belly full of worms and bananas.

Ron Paul- Americas Last Hope

2007-08-09T14:35:00.001+08:00

A short Youtube video I like of Dr. Paul.

Let them sing it for you - your text sung by rock stars!

2007-08-09T11:05:00.001+08:00

A neat little text-to-speech applet that converts any text into a sound file pieced together using clips from pop and rock songs. There's a pretty eclectic mix of source material in there, try to work out what song each word comes from. Click onto the "read more" to check it out.

read more

Saw the movie

2007-08-01T21:48:00.000+08:00

Well, we saw Harry Potter 4, 5 or 6.... Can't remember how many of these they are churning out, but from what I hear, the books are better than the movies. I can believe it. Not that it was terrible, just ho-hum. Maybe not my style. The actors are starting to get long in the tooth, IMO.

The CON activities and our full load at school are clipping away as usual. I am trying to come up with an online solution for the office. I might just go for a googlegroup page and call it good. Webpage design is way over my pay scale for now. I have some incredibly bland looking offerings from about 4 hours of hard work... It's good to know when to quit and admit you don't know what the heck you are doing, right?

Along, the way, I did find several "new to me" things that are working out WONDERFULLY. The first, is the google toolbar. The second, is the google desktop. Both can be found by.... googling them, of course. Really, It is amazing what this company is doing. It is hard to realize just how much that I do depends directly on google. By now, many know that google is trying to press the government to open up portions of wireless networks for general public consumption and free market, rather than the telecommunication "cartels". Good luck google, once you give it to them, they have a hard time giving it back. Still, a noble effort. I wish I could thank them personally in their private jets with cigars and single malt whiskey. (their treat, of course)

We might be going somewhere for a "team building" experience with my co-conspirators in the college of nursing student government. I am surprised at how well the group is conducting themselves. A nicer bunch of young people would be hard to find. All fairly dedicated and working well together, for the common good.

Our first tall order at the college student government was to pull off the annual juggernaut A.K.A., "Nursing Day"... It went off without a hitch. My "food voucher" scheme was a hit, and we managed to feed 3,000 nursing students whatever they wanted to a degree, for half the cost of last year's "Burger Fiasco". The much anticipated "Nursing Pageant Night" also went off well(without any input from yours truly of course), with the usual "controversy" of whomever's favorite candidates not doing as well as some other persons' favorite. I think the upcoming competition for Mr. and Miss UB will be a lock, considering the depth of our college's contestants.

Well, another round of skills labs under our belts just passed. We focused on two major groups of nursing care, namely OBGYN stuff like delivery room procedures, delivery, newborn care, and the REAL fun stuff of catheterizing, suctioning and oxygenation. We will be going to the hospitals next week for surgical rotations. We have our "1st grading" periodic exams starting tomorrow to close out the week.

Anyways, back to the grind...

yowch!

2007-07-15T09:17:00.000+08:00

So, I am not sure if I just got made it all worse, but the position with the college of nursing is going to be quite a job. Anyway, it would seem there are a number of dedicated people there, so I think we can get productive things done, and actually feel good about it. It is quite refreshing to see a group of enthusiastic people, putting aside their pride, working together.

Anyways, I have a bunch of things to do now, and we are through with the preliminary exams. Karen is talking me into seeing Harry Potter sometime soon. I will go along. I am becoming a real fuddy-duddy. I hope it is not too late to turn back! Really, there are no interesting movies being played in the Philippines. Just huge blockbuster extravaganzas like Spiderman (ugh!) and the Fantastic Four (UGH!!).... We saw the Transformers, and actually I liked it, (a wonderful flashback from my youth in the 80s) but in all honesty, I just don't need to be blown out of my seat every 7.2 seconds anymore. Can I just have a quiet thought provoking drama? Please? Luckily for us, going to the movies is super cheap, so at least when we are disappointed, the "hit" is minimal.

My friends downstairs are having some kind of immigration problems. Al has been in Manila for almost a week, visiting his embassy. I think this problem is actually about their own embassy's requirements, not the Philippine's.

We have joined the school gym. I am not making any more embarrassing promises, just hoping to get back into that good old habit of working out everyday and eating right. SO hard to break bad habits, they feel/taste so good!

I spoke with my brother for a while last night. My "little" brother turned 30 years old. We were laughing about how close our ages are, how old we are now, etc. He and Yavon are having some challenges real estate wise these days, and we are really pulling for them to get some good luck, though they are real troopers about it. We always laugh real hard when we talk. Everyone needs more of that.

I am still pullin' for Ron Paul. I really believe that Dr. "No" is the only chance for America. We are on the verge of all kinds of problems, not just Health Care, Foreign wars, etc. But a slow systemic meltdown if we don't change everything soon. We have given away all of our freedoms, the greatest asset we have as Americans, and we do so willingly for some reason. The problem is that both sides of the political spectrum are really on the same team. And it is us (the people) versus them (the government) They don't realize that they are working on our behalf. It is real disgusting what we have squandered away to be "safe"... "The Patriot Act", "The War on Drugs", The CIA, FBI, EPA, UN, FED, BATF, BLM, IRS, DEA, DTRA, FEMA, FTC, FDA, DHS, IRS (ok I mentioned IRS twice, but come on!)..... I could keep going, but think, have these institutions really helped, or are they just there to create power and wealth for themselves and to get in between you and your rights? The 2008 ticket is going to have Guiliani, the only American to go through 9/11 apparently, and Hilary, perhaps the most obscenely political person to ever take up the "profession".

To the 3-5 people reading my blog may I present the following links.

http://mises.org/ (the goods)
http://www.isil.org/resources/introduction.swf (a very simple, but great 4 minute video)
http://www.lewrockwell.com (a great source of libertarian essays)
http://www.isil.org/resources/libertydocs/pizzacracy.html (a great article)
http://www.ruwart.com/Healing/ (a great free eBook)
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/ABC_Stephanopoulos_interviews_Paul_Gravel_on_0709.html (two great men, Mike Gravel who got us out of Vietnam, and Ron Paul being interviewed by GS ... watch the end of each interview, GS belittles everything that these men have worked to achieve, and undermines the value of our political process. These are the only two candidates who want us out of Iraq TODAY, and don't want us in any more wars period. Well, at least GS gave them airtime)

Anyways, gotta get back to the work. And yes, I noticed that I used the term "great" to describe all of the websites....

I am so excited!

2007-07-13T16:35:00.000+08:00

Well, you heard it here first....

I will not be seeking the re-election for Foreign student president. I need to focus on two major factors, first, Karen, who has stood by my commitments to the college and everything else. She has missed a lot of her own free time due to my commitments and I need to balance that out.

Also, my own sense of satisfaction. The group that I was running was apathetic at best Here is an experiment for you, go ahead and just try to make people interested in something.... Are you back yet? It doesn't work. Most of my accomplishments went completely unannounced, back deals keeping our room foreign student only, having to convince the school administration not to shut us down on a nearly weekly basis, apologize for inexcusable behaviors on the part of some foreign students, pleading for budgetary funding, intervention on behalf of students with their problems with teachers, faculty, each other, etc.. I am worn out. To top it off, the very students that I have defended are now the most vocal dissenters, and quite frankly, my patience is gone. I slept soundly last night after I made my decision. I will quickly thank the outgoing members, and hopefully endorse an appropriate sucke--I mean "candidate" for the position this year going forward. It is a big relief.

I figured out that I am not really like most of the other foreign students anyways. Most of them are locked into their ethnic groups and/or are really just looking for an "extended family" of sorts. I have to remember that they are still young. Here I am, trying to get them to think that they should try to understand the Filipino culture as I do (or think I do anyway). I feel that they must go through a process to understand it themselves. I always wondered why if you come to a foreign country would you not even want to participate and integrate yourself into the new culture. I know why now. Its not that they don't want to, its that they can't.

I regret misleading our new adviser with my "vision" because I actually don't think that my vision is a reflection in any way of the average foreign student here. Most of our population of 200 is either Korean or Fil-Am. I think that they have nice close ties with one another, and they are generally satisfied with the arrangement. They likely enjoyed the role of FOSA for the semi-private office space that we provided and that is about it. The Fil-Ams play another low profile role. As Americans, they more or less integrate with the local population of Filipinos. It is the nature of Americans to do this, as we generally require it of incoming immigrants. So, they generally don't wish their differences to be showcased. The rest of the population of students have various needs and wants, but desire to gather in their ethnic groups rather than a 'international one", most obviously the Africans and Iranians.

Yet let's remember that the majority are in their late teens or early twenties, have full course loads at school, and busy social lives. Result? There were a handful of us who actually felt obligated to act. This was obvious as during several general meetings held, that myself and our secretary where the only two participants.

The "new face" (this "new face" is none other than my EX-vice pres) of FOSA looks keen to create foreign student IDs, hold parties with other foreign students from other schools, and create a distinct status for themselves. I am not interested in that at all. And though I see that there will be a very small group controlling a proportionately larger one, making decisions for them that they do not understand or endorse, I will not intervene to help. They need to learn lessons about themselves and their relationships with others.

I will be able to focus my efforts into my course of study and my life with Karen as a result of this. Another step in the right direction for me.

2007-07-08T11:58:00.001+08:00

Well........

We have been super busy with school lately. 6 days a week, 10:30AM-5:30 pm.... Sundays are little breaks that we stop and catch our breath.

I was cajoled into becoming the College of Nursing's 3rd year Representative, to help my friend Ray run as Governor. After a bunch of weird red tape, we had to water down our party and since he was only eligible for vice-gov, we took on an indy running gov for our top spot. With very little time to campaign properly, we were generally defeated in the top two spots, Ray could not overcome the sweeping popularity of his competition, a guy who's father is a popular professor at the school and clinical head who spoke up during the campaigning debate, much to our dismay. As well, he was allowed to run with "larger than allowed" campaign posters. In spite of all if this, my man lost by only 13 votes, and the clincher votes were the 4th year votes that we had nearly no contact with. Most of the 4th year students are out of the college 75% of the time and just voted on name recognition, or a candidates' openly "gay-ness", yes, there was a "Gay party" that took a large percent of the vote. Their platform? They want to have a "Gay "Miss Nursing Pageant". I am friendly with everyone at the school, gay and otherwise. I generally think that running on being "gay" is simply not valid, but my views on homosexuality are probably more "refined" than the average conservatively raised yet newly expressive Filipino student. I just don't see them as different in terms of ability or accomplishment, whereas they are something of a force in todays Filipino culture because of their "newness" and popularity in mass media, etc. If I were gay, I would hate to run as a "Gay guy". That doesn't seem to be enough to formulate ideas or programs or communicate effectively between the administration and student population. As predicted by many, I swept the 3rd year rep position, and will now have something of an "opposition" role, keeping checks and balances between Super popular kids of teachers / openly gay candidates and every other student in the school who just wants to graduate from college and get their degree in nursing. I get to complain on behalf of my classmates, write nasty letters and make recommendations. In short, heaven. Philippine politics is amazingly more confusing than American politics..

Anyways, Ill try to get things done as I have done in the Foreign Student President position that is coming up. We had a nice presentation from the guidance office for the foreigners followed by a "quick meeting" that quickly turned ugly as my VP from last year degraded all of the hard work we all accomplished to further his own hopeful presidential aspirations. He was met by a lot of opposition and though I really admire his enthusiasm as always, his ideas seem too far reaching for an organization in its infancy. We have accomplished a lot of good, and I was upset to lose momentum, arguing about a discontented 5%. In the end, our team triumphed and we are set to promote interesting programs and tap into the underutilized 95% of our school facilities. Cultural exhibits, fun fairs, English and Tagalog lessons, peer/academic counseling.. that's what we started, and that's what we are going to build upon. I really look forward to working with our new adviser from the Office of Student Affairs. He is a really nice guy, quick thinking and can solve problems and create programs for us.

School work has been kinda weird. The pace is slow, but awkward. We are having our preliminary exams next week, I have about 1001 things to get done before I can crack a book open, and I guess I'll get to that.

2007-05-22T13:05:00.000+08:00

I am on vacation now, we had a long trip getting here, but it's been worth it! We are having lots of fun!! This is mostly just a practice post for Grandma to learn how to blog!!

Urine, blood, stool, BP, IVF computations

2007-04-20T18:27:00.000+08:00

We were formed into groups at the beginning of the semester. Our groups "core" consists of myself, Karen and our ever trusty pals Grace and Raymund. This semester, we have made a couple more pretty good friends as well, including Sara, Miles, and Julienne.

They quickly increased their friend status with me by inviting me to a wedding of a friend of theirs during an extended lunch break...... We got to class with a huge food hangover. Pretty cool.

It has been a bit grueling so far, as usual. Karen has luckily completed her Nutrition from MAMC last year (and is enjoying a bit of nah, nah, nah nah-nah at my expense), so her summer semester experience is enviable form my perspective. I have classes Mon, Tue, Wed, from 7:30AM until 6:30pm.... one, two hour break in the middle...

Our first shift of duty fell on a Wednesday evening, so we were up for 27 hours before we went home that morning. That was rugged....

We have duty this week at "Baguio General Hospital", a tertiary medical facility here in Baguio that covers the majority of all medical cases in the region. I am in a group with Grace and Sarah, Karen is in a group with Julienne. We are doing the graveyard shift 11-7 in the Obstetrical ward. It has been my best experience as far as schooling here is concerned. What we are learning each day is equal to an entire semester worth of lecture, I would guess. The women are pretty amazing, and I of course have a new respect for what nearly every woman goes through. If I was a woman and it was up to me, the human race might become extinct in one generation..Haha.. Anyways, we are learning the techniques of IV therapy and calculations, charting, and of course, therapeutic communication and the ins and out of a medical facility. Our CI (clinical instructor) is a young guy, about my age *wink* and though he keeps 'Filipino time", he knows his stuff and has been very good in showing us the "hows and whys" of our trade. I have developed a "working relationship" with the charge nurse as well, and when I started last night, she was quick to take me around and show me some things that I had questioned her about.... She is pretty good at what she does, being the only nurse at times in the entire ward, often having 45+ clients at one time. Amazing amounts of stamina there.

Anyways, I am looking forward to the rest of our practical experience here. So far, so good.

2007-04-05T08:21:00.000+08:00

So we just got back from our 6 day vacation to Boracay. As usual, many people don't read this blog that I write in to find out this information, making this blog ever more useless, however, I digress.

We started off going to Manila, and went to Karen's uncle Mike's, where we got the usual 1st class treatment before heading over to road 3 to see Lola and the gang there. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits, the kids were finishing up school for the year. A few San Migs, (actually starting to not mind them now) and back to Mike's to sleep.

The next morning, we were off to the domestic airport, stopping in to McDonald's for "a quick bite". (the food is still the same, salty, greasy a dee-licious) The line at the airport seemed longer and the airport terminal seemed more busy than usual. We then realized that it is "holy week" in the Philippines. In the Philippines, "Holy week" means (for most) more days off work, more eating and more drinking, and often lots of traveling around. We were about to do just that.

The flight by Asian Spirit (the joke goes that you get on the plane as "people" and "land" in "spirit form') was on a 4 prop 30 seater, the ride was smooth and nice about 55 minutes..... We touched down in "Caticlan", the nearest commercial airstrip to Boracay.

Our porter for the Orchid resort we were booked in was there to take us and our belongings through the slight maze like series of procedures to get on the island, and it was nice to just have him point to the various windows and say, "100 pesos", etc. , etc. , instead of walking around in the noon hour sun sweating and trying to figure it all out while dragging your bags everywhere. We got onto the bangka (a type of modified longtail boat with a large pair of outriggers, seen in Hawaii too) and were taken to our delightful room. The place is a great value for Boracay, and the staff were very friendly. I even worked a deal for any referrals from my "flock" of students. We immediately had a few beers and lunch on the beach.

That night, we went to see Karen's Uncle Leonard, who's family practically owns half of Boracay. We had dinner with him and some beers. We learned that his daughter and law Amanda had just given birth and that Boracay is really developing. We saw evidence of that in the 4, yes, 4 Andok's Lechon on the shrot ride to his resort. (more about that gem later) and "D'Mall", what was once the city market, has now "blossomed" into a pretty nice outdoor mall with upscale vendors and restaurants. There are construction projects everywhere, even Tito Leonard's place was radically improvised, with a new pool and cabanas, as well as his former adjacent vacant lot now resided with another large hotel.

Anyway, we hit Jonah's for the best shakes in town, and took in the booming nightlife a bit before retiring.

Next morning, we were up and after breakfast decided to catch some rays (I got a few too many, Karen apparently did not get enough), get coconut oil massages and chill the heck out. We had dinner at an Indian restaurant and an apple pie crepe in the mall, walked around then back to our room.

The next day, Tito Leonard found a vacant room in his resort, so we moved to his place. The requisite shake at Jonah's, then, we went snorkeling. We got our own boat and guide and set out. Our first stop was nice, but the weather at that moment was unfortunately not cooperating and the wind created waves that made the snorkeling a bit rough. (I am a fair weather water sport kind of guy). We did see some beautiful coral and fish though). Then, we went around the other side to "Puka Beach" were the world gets its puka shells for the necklaces.

Then, we went to the other snorkeling area and had a good session there, as the weather had calmed down and you could just relax and enjoy yourself. I was smart and wore a t-shirt while snorkeling, Karen was not and suffered a rare (for her) sunburn. We were both pretty wiped out from the activity and sun all day, so we retired to our room early and polished off the left overs from our Indian food and called it a day.

The next day was interesting. Leonard had just opened his cock fighting arena and we were invited to attend the opening event.

Cock fighting is hugely popular in the Philippines, and though some may find it cruel, the connoisseurs will tell you that Filipino versions of it are more humane as the roosters are all equipped with very lethal and large blades that generally end the fight in under a minute, as opposed to other regions that employ small puncture wounds, keeping the match going for several minutes. At any rate, the venue was brand new, seating about 500 spectators and an air conditioned VIP box where we sat. By the time we got there, the festivities were under way. Money was literally flying around as match after match took place. I wasn't feeling the urge to bet, and after a couple hours and a few scotches and beers, we set out to have dinner on the beach..We went to one of the hundred or so "Eat all you can" seafood buffets for a whopping 300 pesos each. (6USD).. The mozerella and pineapple baked oysters were my favorite selection of the evening.

We were offered a dune buggy for our use, and decided to go exploring around the Island. We ended up getting flagged down by a guide to the "bat caves". We were off, and after a 10 minute hike, we weaved our way down a very large, completely black, stinky and noisy (shrieks from said bats) cave. When we got to the bottom, we were able to see tens of thousands of bats.. The cave is adjacent to the ocean, and as I put my feet in the water, the guide said, "Sir, you aren't afraid of coral snakes are you?" The smile kind of died on my face as he shone the flashlight about 2 meters away from me, and low and behold, a 3 foot long black and turquoise banded coral snake was making his way in the opposite direction. Karen pretty well freaked (as you can see by the "smile" in her picture). He claimed that these are not the poisonous types, but we didn't really want to find out either way. Further research on my part has revealed no species of the "non venomous" types that we apparently encountered. Under another rock was a rather large coral snake, and at that point, it was time to go. now.

So we did. It was CSI night, and after the sun and fun, I just picked up BBQ chicken (from Andok's), coleslaw and rice and we retired early.

We got the buggy again after our Jonah's fix and struck out again, this time equipped with our own mask and snorkels, hell bent on finding a decent spot. We pretty well struck out, and ended up on puka beach again. It was still ok, and though it wasn't the best snorkeling, we still had a fun and had a nice small lunch of garlic and honey prawns on rice that we split, because we had purchased two 1 kilo lobsters for dinner that night. We rode around and saw some of the interesting and undeveloped parts of the island before getting back and watching the sunset , got coconut oil massages and some great pictures of what Boracay looks like as the sun goes down.

We went back to our room,

cleaned up, and went back to our Cabana to eat these two magnificent bugs with rice and a couple of glasses of white wine. It was the best lobster I have had.

The next day, we got ready to leave, had one last shake and then got a shuttle to the port and ferried across to the airport. the flight was delayed and it was real busy, but we finally got our flight on a 4 engined jet and in 35 minutes we touched down in manila, where her uncle Mike was waiting for us to take us to the bus terminal. We "walked on" to a bus (the terminal was packed) rather than opting for the purchase in advance "sucker" route and in 6 short hours, we made it home.

Good stuff!

2007-03-24T12:34:00.000+08:00

So, we wrapped up our semester last week. I don't know if it is getting harder or easier, but this semester went by PDQ....

We are planning a short trip to Boracay next week for a few days to R&R before we start our summer semester. Really looking forward to coconut oil massages and laying around, listening to the waves lap up on the shore. Hope the weather holds out for us there, unlike last time!! :)

I am starting a 'USMC" style work out program. Having some trouble sleeping/restlessness and figure it is lack of good old exercise. (Constant studying and computer vegetative states will do that to you).. We get our share mind you, there are more hills and stairways here than anywhere I have seen. And our food is fresh, homemade and relatively healthy. The program is from a rather boring looking book that emphasizes calisthenic type workouts that you can do w/o any equipment. Push ups, sit ups, and lots of "road work", as we like to call it in the corp!! I rather like that because I hate the idea of collecting more "stuff" than we have already. Anyways, I will be going through a 13 week 'boot camp" process. Actually, the way it is explained is simply routine overload of strength and stamina to better complete objectives. There is a bit of a "legend" of it being some kind of grueling accomplishment, but most are probably confusing it with some specialized Navy S.E.A.L. training, etc. Anyways, this new recruit is gonna get fit! "Ooh-Rah!!"

Shave blog

2007-02-24T23:19:00.000+08:00

Ok, here is my official shave blog. I am providing this as a public service announcement. I have some specific brands and techniques mentioned here, but these things work for me, and as they say often on shaving websites, YMMV (your mileage may vary)

There are two types of shaves, electric (dry) shaves, and wet shaves. Electric shaves can never give you as close a shave as a wet shave, and irritate the majority of users. There has been a grassroots movement of sorts towards wet shaving recently. I made that move a few months ago and will never look back. Not that I ever dry or electric shaved, but that I just wet shaved poorly, as do many of us.

So there are two basic things you can improve when “wet shaving”.

a) technique

b) equipment

I have been wet shaving for around 17 years. That is a heck of a lot of ingrown hair, razor burn and torture. I missed the best shaves available in the world by about 50 years or so. Around that time, to the detriment of men everywhere, they created the “cartridge razor” as we know it today.

Before then, they had a product called, the double edged blade. They still have them today, but 50+ years ago that was the norm. Swap out a blade, get a shave, toss it out, put in another blade, etc. Today, the cartridge reigns king with fancy multi blades and lube strips, vibrating heads, and what not. It really doesn’t do a better job though. Especially if you use an older cartridge system, because Gillette et al use planned obsolescence on their own older products (like the mach3) by changing the angle on the head, and the blade angles in the cartridge…. They do this to make their new products seem superior and then charge more. (The going rate per fusion cartridge is 2-3 dollars a pop nowadays, disposables are going for a few bucks for 5 or six or maybe 10-12 if they are real cheap)

OK, so you want to improve your technique before spending any money… For sure, if you can’t get the hang of it, better to stop right there and not spend any money. I will break down your shave into steps. These are well known among the DE (double edge) shave crowd.

Ideally, (especially 1^st timers) do this at night before bed. Ill tell you why later.

Get a tube of topical hydrocortisone ointment 1% in a tube. You may need this starting out.

The pre-shave (prep stage)

Usually, and ideally, this will be a hot shower. Warm water will go into your follicles on your face, softening up your hair. This is critical, because a human hair can be as coarse as a copper wire. Some recommend when you condition your hair on your head, you should also do your face, but make sure you are not sensitive to it. I am a little and don’t do this. If a shower is not available, use hot wet wash cloths. Just put one on your face and lean back against a wall for a minute.

Next, apply your shave cream. Massage it in as best as you can (I assume you are using canned goo.)

Now, take a new razor (any will do) and holding onto it somewhat softly, shave WTG (with the grain) using absolutely no pressure (even if it feels like the razor is skipping over your beard). Get only two strokes before you wash the blade (I have a small cup of water to wash to save water) also, do not ever touch the razor to your face without shave cream in between. Ever. Shave only WTG on this first pass which for me is N-S on the cheeks, chin and neck. Then, apply another complete coat of shave cream. Then, take a similar approach going XTG (across the grain). For me, this is sideways, or E-W, W-E on cheeks and chin and some of the stash, then diagonal on the neck area. Again, NO PRESSURE. Your razor may still be skipping, this is ok. Finally, coat again with cream and go for the ATG (against the grain pass), again using no pressure… All these passes are called “reduction passes” because you are not trying to rush the shave, and not trying to get the most out of your strokes. OK… after your shave, rinse well with warm water and pat your face dry on a clean towel. Does your face feel tight and dry? Or is it ok? If tight, use a balm. One of the best and cheapest balms out there is Nivea Extra Sensitive (all white bottle w/ white cap). If not, use whatever you like. If you are burning, use your hydrocortisone at this point. Liberally. Don’t be afraid to really put it on thick. You will heal pretty quick with this stuff…

If you suffer a lot, here is what you need to think about when you shave again. 1) The angle. Ideally, you should be as flat to your face as possible with the blade angle. In other words, you should clip the hairs off instead of scraping them off. 2) You used too much pressure 3) You used too much pressure.. Get the point? It took me 10 conscientious shaves before I could say that I understood the correct pressure and angle….. The reason I recommend the night shave is that you may suffer some razor burns akin to your first shave with your momma’s leg razor in the shower at 14 years of age. The hydrocortisone and even some Neosprin will clear you up for the next day in all but the worst cases.

Once you figure out the beauty of the multiple pass reduction shave, and have your pre shave routine down pat, you may begin to notice that ingrowns are clearing up, and neck rash is starting to fade.

Now to get fancy. Equipment upgrades. In equipment, there are 4 major paths to cross.

1) Soaps/Creams

2) Brushes

3) Razors

4) Blades

These are two distinctly different products that end up attempting to do the same exact thing. All of these products, when used effectively will help to make your shaves more effective and more pleasurable. They can cost very little, or they can cost a lot. Many people begin to collect different items and end up with museums of shaving. This is not necessary though, unless you are that into it.

First the creams. Can give you a nice “cushioned and rich” shave. Characteristics of good shave soap or shave cream are richness of lather, moisturizing, lubrication for close shaving, and smelling good. What will strike you when comparing these to the “goo in a can” products is the great smell and great moisturizing effect of them. Creams essentially fall into classic types (English traditional scents like lavender, rose, citrus, etc) to exotic smells like white tea, vetvier, sandalwood, cucumber, cologne smells, etc. Classic brands of English creams are …Trumpers, Taylor’s or Trueffit and Hill( called the 3T’s), Salter, and a Art of Shaving …. There are also Italian shave creams like Proraso available at Target and some drug stores, Palmolive makes a cream (used to), Tom’s of Maine, Kiss my Face, and there are some others…. Many of these types are hit and miss with many. The English creams appear to be the standard to which all others are judged, but “to each his own”.

There are gentlemen who have gone to great lengths to make different kinds of creams available to shavers wanting to try out particular scents and styles. I ordered a sample pack from this guy, and everything was in order. He gives 6 X “5-10 shave each” samples of the best and most sought after creams for about 20 USD + shipping. You can then pick your favorite scent and product without making an ill informed decision. Shave creams are typically $8-12 for a tube and $20-30 for a tub. This stuff will last a long time, though probably less cost effective than soaps.

The Soaps are a bit more involved. There are two basic types of soaps…Classic triple milled hard soaps(and traditionally scented, similarly to creams), and glycerin based, which are newer and are often found with traditional and everything in between for scents, and often with aloe vera, vitamin E and shea butter….. Either way, the shave is thought to be “closer”, typically, with soaps, as opposed to creams. Soaps may also be more difficult to lather initially for the newly initiated. There are many different soap manufacturers. Besides the English cream companies, there are a lot of smaller “Soap houses”. A favorite of mine is Momma Bear Soaps. These are among the cheapest, and have every scent under the sun. A “puck” of soap will run you about 7-13 bucks and should last you 6 months. The scents again run from a classic rose or lavender to flavors like “Turkish coffee” or “Bay rum and Tangerine”.

It should be noted that many can have allergies to ingredients in soaps and creams. Try to “test” this fact out before plunging in on an investment. Essential oil based products (natural) will “typically” (YMMV) be less harsh than fragrance oil (synthetic) products, though they also typically cost more. Don’t let that scare you from trying though. Most don’t have any reaction.

A brush is necessary to create the lather, and to apply to your face. Very inexpensive and decent boar hair brushes can be had from drugstores or Target et al for $10…. For boar, it is almost a lifetime investment, so you need not fret over the cost. You will be making it up on the rest of your products. Later on, you may want to upgrade your brush to a badger, better lather performance, softer, more “luxurious” etc… That boar should do OK for a long time though.

Razors may seem like a huge part of the equation, but are not really. You could find an old style Gillette on ebay for 5-100 bucks, or a parker, feather, or Merkur, generally regarded as the “go to” razor for new purchases for razors. Made in Germany and of very good quality, they have different models and some models feature adjustable blade exposures and what not. They run anywhere from 20-120 dollars. The 25 dollar model or the HD will be the starter’s first choice. Merkur makes adjustable fancy models that should come when you want to splurge and reach out for greater performance. There are many good vendors. Among the best regarded are here, here, and here....

Next are blades. The issue and tricky part here falls under a very complex judgment call on the part of the user. What works for me, will unlikely work for you, unfortunately. Of the dozen or so Double edged (DE from here on) blade makers still around today, each has its own degree of sharpness and smoothness and depending on the person, may work out fine. Some people cannot tolerate an aggressively angled blade, it could take off more skin than hair.. Some cannot tolerate a “duller” blade, they might be scraping instead of shaving. Either way, there are standards that seem to include all skin types. The 5 best known and well regarded DE blades are as follows, in order of relative sharpness or aggressiveness.

1) Feather (Japanese made, fairly expensive, really, really sharp)

2) Gillette Swedish Made (Really really expensive, real sharp)

3) Derby Extra (real cheap, pretty darn Sharp)

4) Israeli made Personnas (sharp, somewhat inexpensive)

5) Merkur (neither particularly cheap, nor particularly sharp)

There are some very kind gentlemen that have gone to the trouble of making large purchases of these blades, and then repackaging and selling them in sample packs of 5 blades of each kind. Typically, you should work your way from dullest to sharpest, until you find your Nirvana, then stock up on your favorite blade. To make a point, I list the Swede’s as “expensive”, but that is only in comparison. If you bulk buy, you can get a Swede for about .50 USD each, and that is about ¼ or less the cost of a fusion cartridge.

Either way the blade sampler pack can be found here. I personally recommend this guy. He set me up quite well and does this for the love of shaving it would seem, as the cost is reasonable. Don’t make the mistake of buying cheap blades that you have not tried yet, nor “good ones” that you haven’t tried yet. The result could very well be the same.

Keep in mind, that for your first attempts at DE shaving, I would go with a drugstore pack of personnas to get your fundamental technique down, or else when you try the premium blades, the degree of effectiveness may be lost in your “learning curve”

I don’t mention aftershave, but as I mentioned, a tube of hydrocortisone, some Neosporin and an alcohol based or balm like Nivea Extra Sensitive (white cap) is all you need to start.

To sum it up.

1) Practice until you find your “Zen”.

2) Get a cheap brush, then get some soap or cream

3) Get a razor, then get some blades

4) Enjoy doing something that you will do almost every day for the rest of your life

Shaving all over again

2007-02-09T20:58:00.000+08:00

I have been enthralled with learning new ways to shave. This has always been a struggle for me, sensitive skin, coarse hair, etc. I have been wet shaving my whole career, but apparently, doing it the wrong way. I ran across a couple of great blogs like this

Now I shave w/o irritation, and am really enjoying the morning ritual. there is a whole science to it.Also, they recommend old school DE blades and Gillette speedster type razors. one thing for sure, its a heck of a lot cheaper than the outrageous cartridge style mutiblade hyped products out there. There is a whole conspiracy theory out there about how companies purposely change the cutting head angle on last years model to make it "Worthless" then offer the new and more expensive models. So, I am doing it the way my Grandfather did, (and my uncle and Dad, though I think they are cartridge guys now), but maybe even going further with my boar brush (might upgrade to badger), DE blades and lime scented shaving soaps.

my xmas/new years blog

2007-01-06T09:57:00.000+08:00

Hi everyone! (haha, there are probably two people reading this thing!)

Xmas break is over and we are back in school. I thought i would give some details about our vacation. Karen's mom and the Manila clan was here in Baguio, we had a good time going to the "sights" of Baguio like Mine's View Park, Burnham park, SM, and all that.

Once I got my duty at school done, we joined Karen's family in Manila, by this time, her dad had arrived. For Karen's birthday, I got her an Ipod nano, in pink. We went to one of our favorite African/Middle Eastern restaurants in Manila, sat on pillows and ate. I found a funny picture of me in there so I put it in for chuckles. Xmas dinner was at the condo that Maria and Paul had rented for the week. lots of preperations were made and an astounding number of presents were laid out. Everyone arrived and we ate and drank and opened all the presents. I got a bunch of clothing (is there a hint in that?) and Karen got me an awesome Invicta watch. I got her a pair of earrings and a super thick bathrobe.

I got my cell phone pick-pocketed the day before x-mas in a grocery store. I truly don't like it in Manila. Not saying that something like that is commonplace, but we don't gt that in Baguio. (or at least on a much smaller scale)

Next, Karen and I went back home, followed by Paul and Maria. We then began the twisty scenic 7 hour bus ride to Sagada. We saw some real beautiful sights that the pictures do not do justice. The rice terraces are spectacular, whole mountains carved out in shelves for growing rice. We got to Segada that evening and found a clean quiet little mountain village. We walked into "town" and ate dinner at the Yogurt House. All the food was fabulous. Fresh produce, herbs and yogurt really made this place memorable.

The next day, we went out for an early breakfast, got a walking guide and set out on a four hour treck. We first crossed the city cemetary, which opened to a place called 'echo valley" (for obvious reasons) Across from where we were standing were the famous "Hanging Coffins" where people through ropes over rock formations and hang their coffins over the side of cliffs. We then set out across rice paddies to visit the waterfall area where we had a much needed cool off. We swam and relaxed there for a while before heading out to The cave with an underground river and cut our own bamboo walking sticks.We got back to our room, and after a quick nap, set out for dinner at the much anticipated "Log Cabin" where we were to be enthralled with the European cuisine, set menu (we needed reservations) and atmosphere. Well, the atmosphere was great, but the service was reminiscent of a cafeteria, dropping the food down in front of us within seconds of arriving, and the food, well lets say it left you "wanting". Flavor. We all had a good chuckle about that, went over to the Yogurt House and while they all had coffee and dessert, I had dinner again. (fabulous).

The next morning, the ladies got in room massages while the gents guy talked, we then had a quick bite for breakfast and set out to go back home to Baguio. That night we ate at the quickly becoming our favorite place "Le Petit Cafe" (other names are also available). Karens Mom and Dad left the next day after setting us up with some nice racks and shelving stuff, (we are in need of shelf space here).

The next day (New Years Eve), we went to San Fernando with our Persian friends and cooked/ate/swam and chilled out in our own little "resort" with a nice big pool area, BBQ and beach huts. We had a great time, got a little tipsy and really ate a lot of good food, mostly prepared by our favorite chef, Saeed. Al's new car seemed to fail him (by his standard) as he was not able to go the usual "ludicrous speed" ( that he is most comfortable driving. In all, we had a great time, and plan on making that a monthly endeavor. The whole cost for each person is somewhere around 20 bucks....

Anyways, that was about it, we missed our friends Ray, Grace and Kristina this trip (they went home for the holidays), but plan on getting back on the same page with them as quickly as possible.

Sleep deprived

2006-12-19T12:05:00.000+08:00

I have been sleeping 8+ hours a night lately. A departure from the past few months. I have noticed that I have been tired a lot. Our neighbors (not the Persians) have interesting habits and lifestyles. It is one extended family in three of the six units in the compound. Anyway, I assume they are fairly well off because none of them work (or leave the house). They are always working on stuff and tinkering around before 7AM, and are wide awake at 3-6AM, doing their "daily" routine of arguing and house maintenance at that most un-holy of hours. The landlord, we have found, is a heavy drinker, and his sons are chips off of the old block. Tuesday 3AM full blast Karaoke music is not uncommon. To celebrate the new year properly, they have built home made "cannons" out of PVC pipes, barbecue lighters, and denatured alcohol. These would almost be interesting to me if not for a) the hours of operation and b) the proximity to adjacent concrete walled buildings (my apartment). More on sleep deprivation. It can be the cause of a great many problems, it would seem.

So how am I getting all of this sleep of late? earplugs. I recommend them for other people suffering from insomnia as of late (Jesse!) as disturbing noise, even slight may be your reason for not getting enough sleep.

I have tried to say something, but there is a communication and cultural barrier between us that seems impermeable. Tenants have virtually no rights in the Philippines as compared to back home, it's a sort of, "if you don't like it, leave" type of policy here. Ironically though, squatters in this country have the right to be "relocated" by their "landlords"to another suitable location, if say an undeveloped piece of property that the squatters are on is to be developed. The onus is on the "landlord" to find them another place to "squat".

Our holiday schedule worked out by Karen's mother and myself looks like this.... pre-xmas in Puerto Galera, x-mas in Manila with her family, post x-mas in Sagada. Then back to Baguio for new years!!

Another Typhoon

2006-12-10T21:47:00.000+08:00

Philippine typhoon season is no quitter. We have yet another. It's almost a non- issue at this point. We are facing our first grading (midterms) this week, and we are hoping the Philippines can get past this with less tragic loss of life than the last one (or ten)...

We had an impromptu lunch party with our wonderful Persian friends today. We had some intermittent power outages and I decided to barbecue some of the food that was at risk for spoilage. It's always interesting to see how impressed my friends are with things like "American style Hamburgers" (recipe to follow) and Christmas trees. (We just put ours up last week.) I wish that they could be in America one day to experience it first hand like we do. Al, my dear friend has once again invited me to his home and country. I would love to, but our class schedule seems to work against spontaneity. One day, I will. I have been treated to many interesting slide shows of various areas of this beautiful country that they love so much, yet practically weep for. One of them, Nima, has moved to his own apartment down the street. I hope that he continues to come around, he is a good friend, too.

Trying to find more purpose these days. I have integrated a very effective (for me) organization system that uses 3x5 index cards both blank and pre-printed... I fully endorse this system for people who a) want to get organized b) don't want to spend a lot of money on an untried system and c) need portability

The specific system I use is based loosely on the "Getting Things Done" aka GTD program put to book by a David Allen. I have made a "folder" of index cards that can be fit in my back pocket, known as the "Hipster PDA"... It's low tech, but highly productive. I found it on a Digg link to a Japanese guy who credited this system with all of his success, etc. . more info can be found at "43 folders". I am trying out about a dozen different templates. They have hundreds and they are free and fairly customizable. Do check them out, even if you don't think you are "busy". you will enjoy it, I am sure. It's good for anyone who would like some help in bringing out new ideas, and keeping on top of all the things that you want to accomplish. I am a typhoon of productivity these days.

Joaquin's "American" hamburger Recipe

1 KG Ground Beef (not "lean", please)
1 medium red onion, diced
1 medium green(bell) pepper, diced
5 cloves of garlic, crushed and minced
2 TBSP of Lea and Perrin's Worcestershire Sauce
1TSP salt
1 TSP pepper
1 TSP ground cumin
2 eggs
1/2 cup of bread crumbs

mix together all ingredients thoroughly by hand 24 hours before serving. Cover and refrigerate. Then, roll into equal sized balls, try for 8. These are "American" therefore, don't try to get too many out of this batch. You wanna blow away your guests, not leave them wanting "another". After pressing (by hand again) into patties, let sit for about 10 minutes before grilling. Serve on toasted fresh buns or large French rolls and garnish with Dijon mustard, wasabi mayo and a fresh cut tomato slice. Don't over cook them. (conversely, don't under cook them either)

After some soul searching and an abrupt reminder

2006-11-30T11:29:00.000+08:00

I have decided to begin to post here again. May I humbly apologize for the lack of content here. I really should try harder.

Well, we have a "super" typhoon heading our way http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061129/sc_afp/weatherphilippines
I had a trip to Pangasinan planned, a nice seaside town in a cheapo resort, but we are not too eager to be "trapped in Pangasinan" if the proverbial feces hits the oscillating airflow apparatus.

not sure if I should start being alarmed at this point. I got some bad news, my mom is NOT buying the house that she just decided to buy as Southwest is once again threatening to drop their Albuquerque center. I hope that they don't just threaten to do this and do it already so my beloved nearly 60 year old mother can move to Phoenix where she can hopefully almost buy a house there until they threaten to drop Phoenix, then it will be on to San Antonio and finally by 2017, they will close their final res center and people will simply inject themselves with the reservation serum and automatically book flights from them via DNA strand and satellite feed. /end sarcastic, bitter rant

Talked to Rinah and my Dad and some friends from Victoria, they are anywhere from 8" to 2 feet of snow, depending on whom you ask. I think that those who must "enjoy" the snow due to obligation probably have a lower opinion of it than those who can watch it's wonderful splendor from the inside of a cozy warm locale. Rumor has it that the City of Victoria has sold their snow plows, and people are getting stranded and freaking out. I was there during the blizzard of '96, and I can't imagine that they have not maintained a snow clearing procedure, in spite of the past low snow falls. I miss snowboarding, but living/working in Utah kind of cured me of the snow bug that was rarely satiated in Northern California and Victoria.

Our wonderful friends are our best cure against the insanity of what is Philippine Education. I could bore you to tears the problems faced by students here, but suffice to say that for some reason, it seems to be OK to just change the schedule on an hourly basis some 8-10k students on a whim. Oops, gotta stop ranting. Anyways, my good friend Raymund is ever helpful in many ways and I hope to be able to be a coworker of his one day.

Our Persian friends downstairs are hosting another bash. They are really fun loving, energetic and thoughtful people. All enrolled as dentists in my school, they have such an interesting and at times happy and sad view of the world. Not oppressively negative mind you, just the kind of outlook that comes when you have a ridiculously hard headed, foolish, dictatorial and oppressive regime in charge of how you chose to pray or not to your God, among other astounding rules. Your penalty could easily be your life and though they love their country, I think that many will never return if given the chance. I can't blame them for that. Anyways, if tradition is held tonight, the shin-dig will not go into full swing until about 10pm when the BBQ will be lit, and the drinks will come out. I have some Chivas Regal (my favorite blended scotch) to wow them with. The world standard of "good scotch" seems to be JW Black Label, though I can't dispute it is good, I favor the smoothness of Chivas, though after a couple, I could easily drink almost anything and not know (or care)... Anyways, the menu will often include saffron (imported from Iran, and yes, it is the best) marinated chicken and meats, an herbed rice and several salads, pickled veggies like garlic, my favorite, and tons of exotic sweets and whatnot.

Well, thats about it for now, Kaern and I are really looking forward to the Xmas break and her mom and dad are visiting. We can't wait.

well,,,,

2006-10-05T06:37:00.000+08:00

Sorry about the huge time lapse in between blogs. We were without broadband for a while, and though I am sure it helped me focus on studies, I am glad to be connected again.

We have made a lot of good friends here, and have hosted a few parties and whatnot to mix up the constant school work.

We moved to a new apartment and are very pleased thus far. The location is a 10 minute jeepney or 5 minute taxi to school. We were happy with our other place, it was big, quiet, good security and real nice landlords, but we couldn't overcome the long commute and lack of high speed internet. So, here we are.

School is almost over for the semester, we are in finals week now. We have a lot to get ready before our trip home on Oct 16th for semester break, including immigration issues, early enrollment for next sem, unpacking into our new home and repacking for our trip.

I believe I have sent out an email about the breakneck pace of school here, 6 days a week, minimum 6-10 hours in class per day. We have been busy as president and first lady of "F.O.S.A" (foreign office of student affairs), and we just purchased a nice big sofa from our budget for this semester. Everyone hangs out and has a good time. I wish the rest of the world could do this rather than what they are doing. We have Phil-Ams (Filipino Americans), Koreans, Persians, Sudanese, and a handful of 20 other nationalities composing of 186 foreign passport holding students at University of Baguio. We have some big plans next semester, we concentrated on making our "lounge" area comfortable and accessible this semester.

Anyways, we are doing fine in school, we are comfortable and happy in our home and looking forward to seeing many of you (the ones we cant get to will be missed, but maybe summer, ok?)

Anyways, we are back on skype and here, too. I promise this time...

Sweet deals in Baguio

2006-05-25T12:32:00.000+08:00

come one, come all. its nice and cool here, in the 70s, for the past couple of days . we have lots of room, and are almost all mosved in. Still waiting on DSL hook up. We are visiting our school today to hopefully get a few credits creditedbefore starting for a couple of weeks... Everything here is pretty cheap by Manila standards, which is to say, real cheap by US/Canada standards.

Great News!!

2006-05-20T17:57:00.000+08:00

We found a great apartment. Around twice as big as our current one and a third of the price!! We also enrolled in our classes and are pretty well all set for the coming year. We move in next week.

I promised not to harp on it any more, but to those who are STILL holding out on getting Skype, I don't see how you could possibly avoid it now that they have a new promotion. All outbound calls are free within the US or to Canada until the end of the year. You just need a $5 headset with a microphone and a DSL connection (you will need to subscribe to a number IF you want to receive calls from landlines, but as always, Skype to Skype is free) I don't see how anyone who has a computer is not using the heck out of this. Download this and start calling for free.

http://www.skype.com/download/skype/windows/

Back in the Pilli-Peens

2006-05-13T07:40:00.000+08:00

Well, a nice flight back through CKS airport again and here we are, jet lagging like crazy. I recommend China Airlines, BTW, much better than EVA. We arrived at 10 AM, went home and at noon took a short 10 hour nap. Then up at 10pm until 6 pm the following day, where I took another 10 hour nap. I think I'll have it licked today.

We got great news about our grades, our anatomy & physiology classes came in with higher than expected scores. I finished with a somewhat respectable 92% overall average.

We need to postpone our Baguio trip to next week as we are still waiting for one of Karen's teachers to submit her grades...

We have a couple of apartments to look at when we get there... I think one of them is a cottage, 2 bed 1 bath 1CG type. The other is a Townhome. Both are a bit out of town, but appear to be just off well traveled jeepney routes, which is what I am really looking for, because I would love for us to not have to get scooters/cars.... I don't like the extra expense/hassle/exposure of a vehicle. Hopefully we won't need one....(though a small scooter for hiking excursions doesn't seem all that unreasonable)

My Grandmother is doing very well after her ordeal. I think she is doing an amazing job of keeping herself in good spirits and is eating up therapy like I have been eating Pancit Canton. I believe we grew even closer during the month that I spent there and though a rotten way to "get together", I am so thankful for the time we spent together, mostly talking about everything under the sun.

My Florida trip was good too, though short and sweet as they say. Karen and I stayed in her parents condo, called the Symphony. It is located right on the Inter Coastal Waterway (ICW) of the desirable Los Olas Region of Fort Lauderdale, next door to the Performing arts theatre and many other wonderful walking distance areas. There are yachts and water taxis out front of the private dock s in front of the towers. A great gym and spa facility proved to be the coup de grace, and the entire facility is truly a luxury accommodation. Valet parking, concierge, business centre, aforementioned gym and spa 5th floor pool deck and whirlpool, and the crown jewel: the @ 2nd floor club room over looking the ICW. Karen's parents, Paul and Maria threw a great party there and after Lola's pancit, and various other dishes from a great Chinese Restaurant like fried crab, baked chicken, my own Caviar recipe and caprese salad and maMy Florida trip was good too, though short and sweet as they say. Karen and I stayed in her parents condo, called the Symphony. It is located right on the Inter Coastal Waterway (ICW) of the desirable Los Olas Region of Fort Lauderdale, next door to the Performing arts theatre and many other wonderful walking distance areas. There are yachts and water taxis out front of the private dock s in front of theny others, the guests also had a wine tasting with prizes awarded for accurate guessing, an open bar (Crown Royal being the fave as I tended the bar for an hour) and the topper, was the chocolate fondue fountain with fruits for dipping. (the fresh pineapple being the winner here).

Karen and I also did two things that I have always wanted to do, go to the Everglades, and go Bass fishing.. We did them both at the same time! Our guide Tony, was referred to us by Paul. Tony has been a long time patient of Paul's and we had quite a treat, going out in the Glades, and pulling in pound for pound, the hardest fighting fish in the world. Karen, as always dominated the day, catching and releasing 10-12 fish, I managed a respectable 6. I say, it was her lure, a plastic worm from the onset that had her number so high, as I had several kinds of lures prior to getting the same plastic worm and then I was off to the races, too. Though Karen attributes her catch rate to skill and mine to lack thereof.

We managed to see my brother Jesse and Yvonne and they are doing well in their apartment, things were cozy when we arrived as my father and his girlfriend were there too, visiting for a week. Jesse is currently interviewing for a new job and appears to have "landed a bigger Bass" than the one on his line before, so we are all happy and proud of course. We hit gastronomic paydirt several times, once with my brother's reliable motza ball soup, once at "Le Bonne Crepe" and once at a great Indian place down the street, (lucky so and so) from his house.

My Dad and Terri seemed to have a good time in Florida, enjoying the beach and trying to stay cool as best as possible. They went to the Keys and had a great time there. They also stayed at the Symphony for the last couple of days with Karen and I, and my Dad and I had some great "sauna talks", hashing out our plans and the latest ideas.

We left Florida with Karen's sister and went to Albuquerque to visit my Mom for a few days. She had booked a room in Santa Fe to stage our outings from, and the first day, we went to the Petroglyph park to check out the several thousand year old- 500 year old drawings on a few conspicuous volcanic rock formations just on the edge of Albuquerque.

After provisioning at Walmart, we embarked north and went to Bandolier National monument, an interesting canyon area that has been the home of Native Americans for 1000 years plus, though has been deserted for 500 years or so. The site is amazing, and must be seen to be properly understood. The canyon walls were formed through the combination of rocks and more significantly, volcanic ash. The ash, over time is the solid structure in gene ral, while the rocks and other items were somewhat more transient, creating an interesting Swiss cheese like look to the side. The first people in the area recognized the value of the protection an elevated dwelling made of rock could provide and settled there in that beautiful area. Later, people began to move into the valley and they erected the "Pueblo-esque" type structures at the base of the canyon wall. They had the community built in a circle, again for defensive purposes, and lived there for hundreds of years until they too left, presumably after depleting the food supply or perhaps to seek more comfortable climate. The natives of this area used "Kiva" to conduct their spiritual/governmental pursuits. We were able to see them and go into one of them. I have a great idea for my next back yard, but I guess that may have to be cleared through Karen.

After, we went to Santa Fe, where we were exhausted enough to barely make dinner in this town, as the place starts to shut down at 9pm (this was Saturday night, after all!!)

The next morning, we found a great Breakfast place called Bagelmania, and after a sound gorging, we went to Taos to tour an active Pueblo. The native people who run and live at/near this location had a short walking tour of the area, and some interesting historical references. My Mom has been several times and was eager to expand her already profound knowledge of the area and to expand her collection of native flute playing, of which we were already priming ourselves with. The nifty shopping available there is not to be missed, the actual inhabitants of the Pueblo (100 or so, almost all elderly) rely on this as their means of preserving their Pueblo. We bought several CDs (from my Mom's favorite flutist, John Ranier Jr) and I must admit, this stuff is good. These guys play the wood flute in a way that is as expressive as Louis Armstrong plays the Trumpet, BB King plays the guitar, etc.... Amazing. After gorging ourselves on some baked goods from their own special ovens (think giant fresh fig neutons made with apples and dates) and I bought Karen a silver necklace with turquoise and a carved deer shin bone made into a feather. Also, I bought some burning herbs, sage and lavender and sage and cedar. After we had wrapped up the Pueblo, we ventured into Taos proper and grabbed coffee and had some shopping experiences, where Karen got me a nifty folder black with 24K accents. She was longing for something to get me for my Birthday and that fit the bill in style. I found a wooden box with Geronimo, my Mom's favorite person in the world, on the road back to Santa Fe, we stopped at a small bend in the road (mimmicking the river that plays alongside the entire trip back, and got some great pictures by the river. We wrapped it up in Santa Fe for another night.

The next day, after the what was now known as "the obligatory breakfast at Bagelmania", we set out early to wrap up Bandolier. This was a focused trip, to "summit" the ceremonial cave area. Well worth our effort, when we got to the top though the 6 inch wide path and series of 30 foot ladders, we were treated to an almost eire amphitheatrical experience overlooking the valley of a home for a small group of people for thousands of years. The Kiva at the top was reconstructed and visitation to it was permitted. We sat inside for a while, and I was reluctant to leave for some reason.

We got in the car and headed towards the Jamez Volcanic monument and area. The Earth Shattering volcanic event that took place millions of years ago and basically was 700 times more powerful that Mount Saint Helens. Some of the ejected boulders and rocks made it to Lubbock, Texas. The ash from that explosion most likely triggered a complete change in global climate and served to create the distinctive landscape of the states east of the Rockies like Utah, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, etc... Jemez Springs was essentially closed for the day by the time we got there, so we simply sat back and enjoyed the lovely colors and scenery of that region, going from desert, to mesas and canyons, to Alpine, back to Mesas, back to desert, until we arrived back in Albuquerque. I went and grabbed a handful of precious beers from an amazing collection at a liquor store up the street and we just vegged out watching the horrible and forgettable "Ring 2".

The very next morning, we were off to LA, spent a few hours with Grandma, my Dad and Terri, and my Uncle Rick and Denise before the shuttle came to take us back "home" here.

Courage

2006-04-13T04:57:00.001+08:00

As many know and do not know, things here in OC took a huge turn for the worse. I had left my grandma for an hour to pick my mother up from the airport to find her laying on the kitchen floor with a severely fractured femur. Though in reasonable spirits, this was a huge set back for her and the family. She underwent a successful surgery that involved the implantation of a titanium rod into the hollow portion of her femur, thorough her artificial knee. The leg is now at 0% weight bearing for at least 6 weeks. She has been transferred to rehab and has begun the arduous journey to recovery of her regular functions. She has really been courageous as the title suggests, and that is the only words I can come up with for her. I am at the facility every day for 8 hours + helping her along and helping her with the physical therapy as much as possible. With a bit of luck and hard, hard work, she should be able to be coming home with some temporary at home care and therapy in a few weeks or so (we hope less, but that is up to her surgeon and her own progress) In a couple of weeks, I will be passing the baton to my father, and then he will in turn pass the baton to my uncle to keep her steady and occupied during this time... Although this could not be under worse conditions, my time here with her is cherished. I will ask her if I can take some inspirational pictures of her progress. Though she will probably decline to allow them. The had her stand the first day after surgery, and are teaching her how to function minus the left leg. She has been incredible in her patience and determination, and is my hero......

In Taiwan internet booth at Chang Kai shek (spelled wrong, but I can't figure out how to spell check because of Chinese language protocol) Airport

2006-03-28T18:05:00.000+08:00

We have a 8 hour layover here, so we are just walking around, freezing to death.. It's 60 degrees here if it is a degree, let me tell you. We both have shorts and sandals and t-shorts, Karen of course brought her "hoodie", but we are quite uncomfortably cold, nonetheless..... There would appear to be some decent restaurants in the airport here, so we are eyeballing the "big bowl of soup" places here. The first leg of our trip was pretty quick, besides sitting on the tarmac for an extra hour, then in a holding pattern for about 30 min. ..... Thankfully, I have my iPod, and I am listening to a very good podcast by some personal development guru.. I like to listen to that stuff. A good recharge on the batteries.

In the airport lounge in Manila

2006-03-28T11:40:00.000+08:00

On our last day here, and we found the best deal... All you can eat buffet, 10 minute scalp massage, all you can drink (had a congac)and nice aquariums and real quiet.. what a releif after getting dinged with another 'immigration" issue... almost home!!

Almost home

2006-03-27T19:31:00.000+08:00

Well, we are all packed up and cleaned up, and ready to hit the road. Just in time, too. It's getting much, much hotter with each week. Last night it was rather inescapable... It will be great to get some fresh air and see everyone. Karen Is REAL excited about coming home. She misses everyone a lot, and I am happy for her to be going back for summer. We have things in order for our school in Baguio next year, so all we have to do when we come back is to find an apartment.. (shouldn't be too hard)

I finally got my cr-- stuff together for my immigration "situation". That was yet another lesson that I am forced to learn the hard way. But they say it builds character. .......

Good News and Bad News

2006-03-24T08:29:00.001+08:00

First of all, the good news.... We went to our new school to start our processing yesterday.. Everything pretty well seems to be in order, and the new school looks good.

The bad news, given my time constraints and money issues, my North American Summer Tour 06 looks pretty short and exclusive.... I have to make some hard decisions about where I can go, and how much time I can spend.. More details will follow as I go along.

Well, we got screwed

2006-03-18T07:16:00.000+08:00

I have been going after the elusive "student visa" for 6 months now..... In order to get things done immigration wise in the Philippines, you have to "play ball"....I have a "friend of the family" inside that was "helping me". As it turns out, after a lot of money, time and energy, they produce for me a completely useless visa. The date on it invalidates my schooling that I have taken, and prohibits me from going to school in Baguio for 1 year! Of course, nothing like receiving this news 72 hours before my scheduled flight home. To make matters worse, I need to get a couple of other letters so that my visa is not "used up", therefore causing me to have to restart the entire procedure. Since there is no time to get this done within our scheduled return, we must unfortunately extend our return flight home to the 28th... Karen was real upset, I have managed to retain my cool. I am starting to get used to this stuff. I suspect that the woman helping us is basically ripping me off, but at this point, I cannot jeopardize the time and effort I have spent going to school here ,therefore she has me over a barrel.

Some pics of Dinner!

2006-03-13T15:47:00.000+08:00

Lola can whip up some serious grub. (That's Filipino for Grandma)

Some new Stuff

2006-03-08T15:42:00.000+08:00

I have outfitted my blog with some new gadgets to make it easier to use. (As if it is functional to actually "use" in a productive way, haha!) I have added an email subscription service, so that when I post something new, you will be emailed. Also, I have a selection of my recent posts for interesting websites that I have found. You can click the link, check out the website, and observe my asinine comments. I only "feed" the websites that I have bothered to comment on. This website roundup is from my latest online craze, www.digg.com where you go and find some very interesting and soon to be popular websites or cutting edge information, submitted by people. It is a kind of public bookmarking system that lets you see what people find interesting. Sometimes, you find it interesting too. I enjoy some of the side banter that happens when people don't agree with your opinion. It is user moderated, so that means that you can actually make a good point, and the idiot that responds that you should just go @#$@#% yourself, gets his comment voted down and moderated out. This type of thing is new to me, but has been around in other forms for a while. The site is quite tech oriented, but I still manage to blow an hour a day reading it. I have RSS'ed the feed so that I get the info that I want. I recommend learning how to do this (RSS if you want to save time by picking and choosing the content that you want.

Anyways, we are almost at the end of the school year. The school didn't surprise us when they announced yesterday that the school year was to be extended one week!! This being two weeks prior to the end of the year!! They fail to realize that some people like oh, I don't know, students and faculty might have other plans, like say, non refundable or exchangeable airline tickets. We have a workaround on this, so I just shook my head and laughed when I found out. It is amazing to see the differences in what is acceptable to people. I think many of the students are looking forward to the extra week of school. I can't say that for sure, but I suspect it. What the heck is up with kids these days??

21st century blog meets 20th century Phone line

2006-03-01T22:28:00.000+08:00

Hear my exciting nasal voice (sinus issue this week) here!!! Wow!!! This is neat, because you can call a number and leave an "audioblog". Good for road warriors and travelers. Hey, that's me!

Earthquake!!

2006-03-01T19:43:00.000+08:00

Well, so much for bad things in 3s. You can add Earthquake to the list now. We were sitting at our computers tonight about 30 minutes ago and the room started rocking around. We ran downstairs and waited a while. Nothing. Ok, so we went back. And now I am writing it here, for all!! Breaking News.. Disturbingly, When you go to google "earthquake alert" or anything like that, you can't find a current alert notice or anything. I hope there isn't any tsunami. For the record, I told Karen, "I loved you!" as I grabbed her hand and ran out the door. Her reply, "I love you too."

Interesting Times

2006-02-25T08:21:00.000+08:00

There was a lot of things happening in the Philippines, this month. We had a stampede in a game show, killing 100 poor old ladies, a landslide that completely covered a small town of 2,500 people under 30 meters of mud, and a failed coup attempt. As always, it's the innocent that are harmed, while the fat cats, (TV show producers, Logging companies, and the seated President and her government, respectively) that come out on top. We are winding down our time here this school year. I have a good feeling that my grade in anatomy will be acceptable. (I was worried about that one, for a while) We saw Memoirs of a Geisha last night, It was real good, I read the book some time ago. One thing though, I always find that using the native language w/ subtitles would be better than just English with a Japanese accent... However, it was good.

The Week of intramural

2006-02-10T09:49:00.000+08:00

This week was "intramural" week. In Filipino speak, it is also called "games". Basically, lots of volleyball, table tennis and maybe an egg toss or two. We have opted out of most of it. After all, how many hours can you sit there and watch people play volleyball? They go all day from 8AM till 5-6PM with activities. I don't want to be a party pooper, so I'll just be absent. Most likely, since attendance is mandatory, we will be obligated to do some kind of kitchen duty or cleaning schedule for a day. I am up for that, no problem.

I can hardly believe that we only have about 6 weeks left. I would just stay here and go to school over the summer break if I could, but financially it is not very feasible. I can make good money going home a working for a month or so. Then, some vacationing around and back here in June.

I have finally got the picture thing figured out, so you will have to look back at some of my pictures from prior entries.

Changes!!

2006-01-24T19:47:00.000+08:00

Funny, the new Biochem class with the teacher looks to be a big improvement. So in a way, I can thank that guy for pissing me off so bad. Anyways, anatomy appears to be my new "obstacle to peace", but I am at least passing, so I guess that will do since most of my "peers" are not. I can hardly believe that an entire school year is almost over.

We were in an FX on the way home (an FX is a four door truck/minivan that holds 12 people) and the guy drove like a maniac. He was probably going like 60 mph, and Manila may have the most unpredictable roads of anywhere I have ever seen. We got home in about 6 minutes. At one point, Karen shrieked "OH NO!" as we swerved in between a lane changing Jeepney and a bus. The guy was a nut.

I am dreaming up my next computer upgrade, I have a wish list on "www.newegg.com" that should bring me up to speed, plus I can't get Karen to stop playing hours on end of World of Warcraft, as the saying goes, "If you can't beat em', ..."

Warning

2006-01-10T11:10:00.000+08:00

If you think potty humor is not for you, don't link to my latest offering, www.poopreport.com. This is perhaps the funniest site I have ever read. If you think you might find it funny, check it out. It is fascinating how many people are completely involved with their digestive system or as some call it on the web-site "The Hunt For Brown October"...LOL

Another strange tale

2006-01-10T07:42:00.000+08:00

Typically, Filipinos are very reasonable. Last week, during my BioChem class, there was this student standing outside the room, whistling this repetitive annoying whistle over and over again. For the first minute or so, it was OK. I mean, his friends in the class I was were chuckling, no biggie. Then, as time wore on (several minutes later) I began to get distracted and annoyed. I mean, this is Biochemistry and the topics are difficult for me to grasp under the best conditions. After a few moments of annoyance, I got up, went to the door and politely asked the guy to stop whistling. He looked at me with a dumb expression (he had a few friends outside, too) and denied that he was whistling. I told him that was fine, as long as whoever is whistling, just stopped. I went back and sat down in the class and what do you think happened? That's right, the idiot started whistling again, from around the corner. By this time, the entire class is thoroughly distracted, not only from the whistler, but the fact that I am intervening, and causing a scene. After about 10 seconds this time, I get up, heart pounding, fist clenching, teeth gnashing and without the politeness this time, step out the door, approach the guy and say "STOP WHISTLING!, the students in this class room cannot concentrate when you do that!" The guy stood there slack jawed for about five seconds. I was ready to pound the guy if I saw any hint of "Disrespect". Anyways, the whistling stopped. After the class, there was much talk and gesture towards me. I guess it is uncommon here to get into a conflict over something like that. Even the teacher simply ignored the person, rather than tell him to stop. It is a concept of "face" here that we don't have back home. The upshot, is that my teacher asked me yesterday if I wanted to take a special class with him and three other students rather than the regular class I am enrolled in because of the "distractions" of regular class. I said yes without hesitation.

New Year

2006-01-03T12:24:00.000+08:00

We had our New years party at Karen's families home. It was quite a party. The whole neighborhood shuts down then everyone starts blowing crap up. The fireworks are pretty much non stop and the noise was absolutely deafening, but fun. The kids appeared to have a blast, and the adults all had beer and whatnot. It was a good time, and the hangover wasn't too bad. Now we are back in school, I really can't wait to get this 1st year out of the way. I feel Baguio will be an even better move, but for now, I will slug it out.

Funny weird and "haha"

2005-12-28T16:03:00.000+08:00

Ok, there have been some strange things that I have not seen before happen here in Manila. About two weeks ago, Karen and I were in a taxi on our way home. Karen yells “Holy crap, she’s naked!” I start looking around, and then I see that right in the middle of the street, a woman of about 45 is running down the street naked. She was totally normal looking, healthy, hair combed and clean. Her expression was like, ‘I am running for exercise”. We just kept on going. We still laugh about it. Also, we were eating in a restaurant a few days ago and next to us, a family sat down to eat. A girl about 20 leaned over and bit her boyfriend on the ear. He flipped out and grabbed her hand and smacked it a few times. They both started crying. Everyone just kept on eating their lunch not even really reacting to it, so as not to lose face. After ten to fifteen excruciating minutes they seemed to make up, so we left, show’s over.

Something else is real funny too. Karen and I were staying over at her Uncle Mike’s (does everyone have an Uncle Mike?) house and as is the accepted custom I assumed, men are often shirtless in the Barangays (neighborhoods). Mike has four kids, mostly very behaved aged 2-12. (the one that acts up the most, Joevic, is a chip off the old block, as the explanation was given to me.) Mika, the 2 year old, was just starting to warm up to me, showing off her Spongebob Squarepants plush toy and backpack. As it was hot, I casually pulled off my shirt, not knowing that the kids are unaccustomed to body hair, of which I certainly have my share. Mika came walking by and as she turned to be, totally “double-taked”, and then with eyes real big and out of the sides, kept walking until she had reached the safety of her mother. Ever since that day, Mika has been apprehensive in coming close to me, even with a shirt on. I think they tease her when she is fussing or acting up with a “You better be good, or Kulya Joaquin will get mad at you” or even worse “If you don’t behave, you will have to kiss Kulya Joaquin” (that one ALWAYS quiets her down.)

hmm

2005-12-27T23:12:00.000+08:00

Well, I had an idea for some interesting facts about the Philippines, but couldn't find the site again, so I am winging it. 88 million people puts it at the 12th most populated. Putting it well over these countries.
Vietnam 83,535,576
Germany 82,468,000
Egypt 77,505,756
Ethiopia 73,053,286
Turkey 69,660,559
Iran 68,017,860
Thailand 65,444,371

Also, ex Filipino president Marcos is #2 all time stealer of money from his country, estimates have it at 5-10 billion USD. Joseph Estrada (another esteemed Philippine president, embezzled $78-80m to become the 10th biggest corrupt world leader.

Filipinos are #2 in t.v. watching, #7 in total University students, #5 in total Christian population, and I just bored myself silly with this blog, sorry to all that read it.

Xmas Break

2005-12-18T05:30:00.001+08:00

Well, its that time of year again. Reflections or whatever you want to call them... I like to reflect, I just dont Windex the mirror first, if you catch my drift.

This has been a great year for me, mostly because of my dearest and sweetest, Karen. She has made the impossible in my life possible.

This year I have had the opportunity to go to Cancun, Honduras, Belize, New Orleans, Gatlinburg and Nashville, Chicago, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, Ft. Lauderdale, and of course I am writing this self indulgent tale from Manila. It has been a banner year of travel for me, the crown jewel being that I am back in school, studying to become a Health Care Professional of what capacity only time will tell.

Every day I learn something new and interesting here, if I had a nickel for every sociological lesson that I have learned the hard way in my travels, I would be a millionaire. I guess its boastful to say that in a way, but I say it with the most sincere self-depreciating tone that I can. Hey, Im lucky and I know it. Also, I think I make my own luck by allowing myself the opportunity to let chance and randomness take the reigns once in a while. I guess I am non-structured and disorderly to some, but hey, it works for me.

I just bought a harmonica from a guy in the street selling them for about $0.75. It is without a doubt the cheapest of harmonicas that one could purchase, but ibrainier brainer because I am always busting the reeds on my $40.00 Lee Oskars and my budget is such that if the opportunity to buy a crappy harmonica presents itself, I jump at the chance. I havent played in so long. I hope to jam out one of these days, just need to find a blues band. I saw Freddy Aguilar in the Hobbit House a couple of weeks back. Freddy is a Dylan-esque standard in the Philippines, singing and playing music about Filipinos, women, and Filipino women. I got his CD and had it autographed, I thanked him for his performance (though short) and he said "Sorry man, I was so drunk". I excused him and casually (a bit drunk myself) asked if I could jam with him one day (he is a regular at the Hobbit House) and he humored me by saying "sure" though I am sure he was just being polite, I mean the guy is a legend. And from what I have learned, though extremely polite in social discourse, Filipinos would rather say "yes" even if it means "no, actually". Either way, it was a very good night, even though my squeeze was not feeling well enough to make it out. BTW, the Hobbit House is a very well known establishment featuring big name draws to its intimate 1500 sq/ft size. Another thing interesting about the place and size is that it is run and employed by midgets.

Gettin a bit frustrated

2005-11-29T12:20:00.000+08:00

My teacher today during Religion 2 was very expressive today about his dissatisfaction with the administration, general class participation, and the lackadaisical (sp?) attitude of most of the students at the school. I was in complete agreement. Karen and I are pursuing school in "Baguio", a beautiful northern city five hours drive to the north. Fresh grown coffee, no pollution and a mean temperature of 80 degrees. Hold me back!!!

Back Home

2005-11-14T20:01:00.000+08:00

Well, after three weeks off, we got back home (for now). After the usual jetlagged zombie state, we are faced with the daunting enrollment procedure that is necessary to get you the classes that you want. After approximately 25 signatures from administrators, librarians, student advisors and the like ; I am about 50% done. Tomorrow should the essential rest, then another week to fine tune it. I should have anatomy and physiology (and lab), chem 2 (and lab), Filipino, English 2, Algebra 2, Sociology and my P.E. and two more I am forgetting. This will bring my year one total credit hours to 56!!

Anywho, I am back to the grind, and it's all good, as usual.

High yellow

2005-10-02T18:57:00.000+08:00

Made my 2nd yellow promotion today. Sparred with a 14 y.o.. He was scared witless, but he did ok. I gave him a few points. In all, we had a good time, Karen got her 1st yellow. We are really looking forward to our vacation back home, and I have my schedule mapped out on my calendar on this blog. We have decided to stay here in this apartment for the time being. Once we finish our exams, we will be leaving the next day, no time lost....

We bought a pirated copy of World of Warcraft, per my sister Rinah's recommendation. The version we have here can be played offline, to basically see if we want the online (real) version. Video games, beer, pizza; ahhh, the life of a student..

The High Five

2005-09-29T09:52:00.000+08:00

Glenn Burke and Dusty Baker are often credited with having participated in the first baseball high five in the Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles in 1977, with Burke receiving credit for "inventing" the high five (in the context of sports) because he raised his hand first after Baker scored a run.- Wikipedia

The High Five had some good times in the late seventies and even through the eighties. but in the early 90's, it began to erode into parody, finally dropping off in North America when Bill Clinton high fived Al gore on his innaugeration night.

Did you know that the High Five is alive and well in the Philippines? I was amazed at all the high fiving going on here. I thought I had been teleported back in time to an advanced screening of Police Academy: The Movie.

It seems to be the exact context when you would have seen a High Five being executed in say, Simi Valley California Circa 1983. One participant usually says something to another, then a witty remark is exchanged to the other, resulting in a mutually agreed point that is glorified for all bypassers and onlookers to see with an ensuing coordinated hand clap.

As in America in the 80's the ultimate rejection of someone would be the non return execute of an offered high five. To avoid this obvious social faux pas, I have seen people High five others who they obviously disagreed with, but politely returned the jesture, lest they "leave you hangin'" which is the equivalent to the hand extended to shake, yet ignored. It takes exactly 3.8 seconds to go from soaring emotional bliss to rejected foolish shame when the highfive is not reciprocated. Anyways, you will see at least 10 High Fives in the Philippines a day, more if you are a student or employed. In contrast to America, High Fives can be seen being participated by generally more women than men. Though the cause of the High Five is almost assuredly about the mutual agreement of the foolishness of a man.

What to do?

2005-09-20T13:38:00.000+08:00

I am sitting in an internet cafe in near my school.... I have 55 minutes until my next class starts. I have eaten lunch already.. They don't have the latest games here, so I guess an hour long session of "BattleField2" is out of the question...
Looking forward to going home for a couple of weeks. The schedule is set tentatively for a time in Socal, Florida, Utah and then back home. I can't wait to rink some good beer. That has to be the one luxury that I have most missed these past months (coming up on 6!)
I am going to try to post pictures on here one of these days. It isn't as easy as it would seem. I have TKD tonight and am looking forward to sparring. My last match was a bit one sided as my opponent came to class late (fresh legs) and then was instructed to merely"counter" my attacks, and I was instructed to attack with 3-5 kick combinations. in about 45 seconds, I had kicked myself into exhaustion (ever try kicking 30-35 times? in a minute?), while my opponent would sit back, and counter my (by this point) slow and tired flaylings. Still, it is a good lesson in endurance and I am better for it, I suppose. I made inquiries into other Martial Arts available here. My instructor says that his brother is an accomplished "Arnis" combatant. I am interested in that particular art as a friend of mine with much experience in full contact sports has recommended it highly. I mostly enjoy the mental challenge that martial arts provide. You test your strength in many different ways, and usually surprise yourself when you are called upon to use it.
Today we are to hand in our take home test in Chemistry. It almost seems laughable to have a take home test given the likelyhood and prolific tendandancy for Filipino Students to "lend" and "borrow" eachother's class work. Karen and I generally do not participate, but every once in a while I slip, either sharing or looking to receive a "share".
I actually remembered to bring my umbrella today and Karen forgot hers, making me the temporary "nah,nah-nah-nah, nah" king today, as she usually holds that post unchallenged.

Inappropriate feelings stirred by Katrina

2005-09-09T21:57:00.000+08:00

I am more shocked and more disgusted by what Katrina did to show of our society than the actual storm damage itself. A natural disaster is horrible by any account, yet they are unavoidable. Preparedness can only get you so far, but ultimately, whatever belief system you employ is going to be the factor in how well you make it or not when an earthquake, tsunami or hurricane hits you. Painfully so, Katrina pulled away the much praised patchwork of one of my favorite cities and showed it for what it was. A gross example of apathy, ignorance, pride, greed, vengeance....
aren't there a few more to make seven? Rather than letting us feel compassion and caring, we the people of the current era find ourselves bitterly angry at each other once again, as if someone needs to be blamed for a disaster. It's the President, it's the Governor, it's FEMA, it's the Mayor, it's the police, it's the looters, etc., etc.
Imagine for a moment if this would have happened to America 50 years ago, our grandfathers would have rolled up their sleeves, and started bailing New Orleans out, one pail at a time, not thinking for one second to stop and figure on whom to cast blame. How can you blame mother nature? You could of course, but where will that get you? After the cleanup, there would be questions, but there would be a greater resolve to work together. Now look at today, in the aftermath of this tragedy, there will be further divisiveness and further disdain. The people will be pulled further apart from a common goal and they will take further distant stances from each other. All the while, people who profit from this chaos (certain media, politicians and other power hungry predators) are greedily licking their lips at the headlines and the mindless drones that fill their ranks and pocketbooks.
It's sad what happened. Also, the hurricane really sucked, too.

Many lessons learned

2005-09-05T16:37:00.000+08:00

As usual, I brashly walked into another painful lesson that I had to learn the hard way......Filipino meteorology.... It would seem that the weather that we had for the past month was in no way indicative of the weather we were to have on Saturday night. It slowly and steadily rained for the entire party. Not to be out done, the food and drink arrived two hours late. We were saved by the graciousness of our guests, who seemed to enjoy our company regardless of the bribery of enticing imbibments. Eventually, there were large tarpaulins made available and we rigged up some tents on the roof and ate and drank anyway. It turned out to be probably more memorable in the long run. I hope my guests will look back on the event fondly, I am still shake my head with the "timing" issue of the rain, something that I obviously had no control over...
This is the week of Pre-Final exams, so we are to be examined and then released early, we are in good spirits as any students is being allowed to play "hookey". I have my Algebra test tomorrow, it is on word problems and linear equations. So far this is my most difficult area of the class. Karen is usually eager to help me in my studies, but she has not yet offered to help in this particular occasion, I think she must share the universal disdain for word problems that everyone else has. If I can figure it out, I will post some pics of the party and general life here... Maybe one of me in uniform!

The Party

2005-09-02T19:18:00.001+08:00

We are having a party tomorrow. Gonna get some good eats supplied mostly by Karen's family. (Her uncle is a caterer and her other Aunt is also going to make some stuff. In all, we should have 60+ guests at our rooftop shin-dig. An interesting mix of people, karaoke, booze and food. We spent the day basically working out the details and fine tuning our operation. Tomorrow should be a breeze. I will be charging up the camera to take lots of pictures. Check here for them!

I am a yellow belt!

2005-08-28T12:28:00.000+08:00

Made my yellow belt promotion today. It was at least 95 degrees in the dojo where I took the exam. Had to perform the first two "foundations" then do a series of fundamental self defense postures, followed by a personal interview with a Taekwondo master. Passed with flying colors. Celebrated by purchasing some Taekwondo shoes and a t-shirt promoting the "lifestyle"..... We mysteriously have the day off of school tomorrow, so I will be kicking back (no pun intended) reading and probably take in a movie.
Karen and I are planning on hosting a party on our roof top next weekend. She is "allowing" me to take the reigns, though I think she seceretly wants me to be publicly humiliated! Kidding. I was planning on a basic affair with swimming and some games (maybe a clown, ugh) or the kiddies, then some karaoke and food/drinks for the adults later. Mostly, it will be Karen's family, our school mates and Taekwondo friends. Should be fun, I am getting a list together of what we will need. Party catering is a big business here, and it is fairly affordable for us.
I weighed myself today at the gym and noted that I have lost 21 lbs since I arrived in the Philippines 4 months ago. Most of this is a result of dietary change and non stop sweating. The Teakwondo doesn't hurt either. I am going to look into some dumbbells and a small bench just to keep muscle tone. The diet here is kind of lacking in protein, so I eat a lot of eggs and tuna (the easiest and most readily accessible forms of protein here)

Should I or Should I Not?

2005-08-25T21:02:00.001+08:00

I was given the opportunity to anonymously comment on the current facilities at my school. After some moments, I found that I had nothing complementary to say, so I withdrew my opinions and crumpled up the survey. Then, I began to look at what was really bothering me and realized that most of it centered around misunderstandings and the like, not institutions. I also considered the fact that someone could be hurt by remarks I might make, especially out of context or misread. This is a dangerous thing to comment by the written word. It has a degree of officialdom to it. Like you researched and came up with a theory, not just some casual hypothesis. The written word is a powerful weapon. I hope to one day to wield it with skill and precision. If I should be clumsy with it, may my blows be glancing and superficial. (that was a very elaborate safety net, wasn't it?)

Pizza

2005-08-24T19:47:00.000+08:00

I have friends that have spent years in the Pizza business. I have always loved pizza and have eaten amazing quanity of it. On one occasion, I actually ordered the pizza "unsliced", then folded in half and ate it "Calzone style" (long before Calzones had been introduced widely as they are today), to the amazement of an onlooking friend. I guess gluttony is at the core of all of my best pizza stories. Here in the Philippines, real pizza is rare to find. There is a decent establishment making pizzas from a combination of native and imported ingrediants. The result is surprisingly good and somewhat affordable in comparison to other imported cuisine. My eating habits have changed slightly when it comes to pizza, I must admit I now prefer either margharita (sp?) with fresh basil, tomatoes and garlic, or a vegetarian, but always a thin crust. My strangest pizza was a taco pizza topped with ground spiced beef, sour cream, lettuce, red hot sauce and grated cheddar cheese. I was always threatening to get it, like "oh, let's see, that TACO pizza looks interesting...... (a lie)". In the end, the taco pizza was consumed though not feverishly as is the general rule. I can eat pizza for every meal of the day, though I prefer it cold only for breakfast.

The Way of the Foot and Fist

2005-08-23T21:19:00.000+08:00

Today I had my Taekwondo class. Taekwondo is a Korean Sport and Martial Art. Similar to Karate, but instead of an emphasis on strikes and form, Taekwondo is more fluid and favors kicks to punches and wearing body armor and sparring to performing elaborate pre-determined forms.. You can translate that to " ......'Pop!' Hey, was that my hamstring?!"
Karen is taking it now, too. . She is keeping quiet about her experience to the instructor for fear that he will ask her to lead a class or something, I have found this will be an excellent leverage point to lord over her as in, "If you don't do the dishes even though it is my turn today, I will tell the instructor you are a blue belt!" On Sunday, I am to take my yellow belt promotion. I have taken many forms of Martial Arts in my life, this one is the most challenging. Though I wish it were for the reason of style difficulty, it's more of an "age" thing. I can kick well over my head now though. The methods of stretching would make a medieval dungeon keeper wince.
Ok, going to bed now. Sound sleep is assured!

2005-08-22T22:17:00.000+08:00

Well, my first real post. We have "Week of Prayer" this week at school. 2 x 1.5 hrs a day for the whole week. This will be the most religious service I have attended in my entire life put together. On the home front, Karen and I are figuring out our living arrangements yet again, and it looks like we may be moving in with her Aunt's immediate family, not far from where we are right now. This would help us out financially to be sure, though the loss of privacy might be the issue du jour for a while. It rained like crazy today, stranding me under an awning while making me late (though still 30 minutes early by Filipino time standard) for our 2nd chapel period.

Filipino time will be familiar to some as the "Manyana" (sp?) type of attitude towards various meetings or deadlines. Similarly there is a cultural indifference to punctuality, and to a lesser degree, a sort of fatalistic view of events, e.g. A professor cannot show up for a scheduled class because there is a required workshop elsewhere across town that he must attend. After the professor is approximately one hour late, someone will pop their head into the classroom to inform the well mannered and not in the least bit agitated class of students that their class was "cancelled". Not a raised eyebrow or question will ensue.