(Late) Father's Day Post

The greatest teacher I've had is none other than my father.
(Belated) Happy Father's Day, Pops!

A teacher tells.
A good teacher explains.
The superior teacher demonstrates.
The great teacher inspires.

A Rare Privilege

It's been exactly 3 months since I first had my DSLR camera. Three months of practicing and self-studying photography, buying magazines, reading books and looking at picture galleries.

Last night, I took my 5000th shot. It made me feel happy when I realized that it was a milestone for me, and it made me feel warm when I saw who were in my 5000th shot. =)





Janice and Glenn
Aperture priority
f/6.0 aperture
flash disabled
Taken at the Trellis, Taclobo Club

Kuwentuhang Brip

Last Sunday night, one of my friends chided me to join him for a late round of beers at a local bar in the Batangas area. What the heck. It was a very humid evening, and a couple of ice cold beers in an airconditioned bar sounded like a good idea.

We got a good table at the bar, ordered our beers and discussed some of the things that guys bring up in a conversation: the weather, work, girls, friends, sports and cars. We were there just really to past time and cool off a bit, so the topics were diverse.

Halfway through our second round of beers, a couple of girls approached us and struck a simple conversation with us. Pretty soon, the ladies settled themselves at our table and officially joined our conversation.

Girl A, seated to my left, opened a topic regarding her thoughts on men and their underwear. The topic was prompted by a hip-hop customer tugging at his baggy pants when he passed by our table.

Girl A: Yuck. Ayoko talaga sa mga hip-hop. Palagi silang naka-boxers.
Me: Bakit naman? Okay naman ang boxers ah. Depends on the place and the occassion.
Girl A: Gusto ko na yung mga magiging boypren o asawa ko eh palaging naka-brip. At hindi lang basta brip. Kelangan puting brip.
Me: Sige nga, explain mo sa 'min yung paniniwala mo tungkol sa mga brip.

Geez. I can't believe that I'm having this discussion with a lady-stranger.

Girl A's "brief philosophy" is as follows:

1. Ladies and sophisticated gay men adore men in clean tighty-whities. Hipster cut preferred. According to her, it's sexy and clean to look at.

2. Men who wear colored briefs have poor hygiene down there. The darker the brief color, the dirtier they are.

3. Boxer-type briefs or sports briefs are for grandpas.

4. Guys who wear "bacon strips" (loose garter) are either financially challenged or mentally deranged. Or both.

5. Only homosexuals wear the tanga-cut briefs.

6. Men who wear thongs shouldn't be allowed to talk to girls, even to little kids.

7. Metallic-colored briefs are only for wrestlers and transvestite performers.

-----------------------------

I was at the mall yesterday with two of my friends, a guy and a girl. When we passed by the department store, I blurted out that I'll need to buy a pack of briefs soon. Maybe in a month or so.

The girl asks "Why? Bakit next month pa?"

I told them that on the average, 2 or 3 of my undies are missing from my closet by the end of the quarter. So I needed to restock every so often. Same with socks.

And the guy goes, "Talaga? 'kala ko ako lang yung ganun. Kumokonti rin yung briefs ko e. Di ko malaman kung saan dinadala nung labandera yung mga brief ko."

Ahahaha... seems like we should introduce a 'Brief Fairy' to children's stories. Something like a cross between the boogeyman and the Tooth Fairy. And probably let the kids figure out that the Brief Fairy is your family labandera.

Industrial Photo

The big boss commissioned me to take some shots of our refinery so they can send it to Singapore and convert it into a wall mural for our company's office there. In the Asia-Pacific region, they're asking staff around to send in their best shots of their respective refineries.

So, one day when I thought I had about an hour to spare, I got a special permit to bring my camera to our highly explosive industrial workplace.

I'm not too good with landscape shots, but what the heck I gave it a try. AND, the safety helmet and safety glasses makes it difficult to do the shots properly. AND i should have brought a tripod along with me.

Store and Produce
1/30s shutter
f/4.5 aperture
ISO800
18mm focal length
Canon EOS 400D.
Shot taken at 551pm in Batangas.


Tabangao Refinery at Day
1/30s shutter
f/4.0 aperture
ISO800
18mm focal length
Canon EOS 400D.
Shot taken at 559pm in Batangas.


Tabangao Refinery at Dusk
shutter priority
1/6s shutter
f/3.5 aperture
ISO800
18mm focal length
Canon EOS 400D.
Shot taken at 647pm in Batangas.

Up

I managed to squeeze a couple of hours of wall-climbing in my busy weekend schedule. I dropped by at Power-up Pasig's new home at the Silver City behind SM Hypermart and Tiendesitas, joining up with Blos and Kat.

The new walls are higher than the ones at the old Pasig site, and they have a rock-featured wall. I just did four climbs: a warm-up on wall 1, a climb on wall 6 (comes with 2 successive overhangs), a climb on wall 3 and finally a route climb on wall 1. I haven't climbed in about 8 months --- my back muscles are still sore til now hehe.

I took a couple of shots of Blos when she was scaling wall number 3. I would have taken more shots, but my hands were covered in chalk.

It's nice to enjoy doing something sweaty.

Marlon's Night

Musikero pala si Marlon, so I grabbed the opportunity to get some shots of a musician in his zone. It was his last night at our site for a two-month training, and he amazed us with some of his suave talents.



Marlon Dejadina. Real-life job: Project Engineer. Badminton player. Acoustic guitarist, K-hon percussionist, composer. Can only take 2 or 3 San Mig Lights, must be washed down with a Coke Light after.

Recent Have Nots

I'm running out of superlatives to describe my workload. It's been challenging and stimulating for me, but the work has really been depriving me of sleep, leisure time and I'm starting to make work as an excuse for NOT to have fun.

Urk... that's bad.

I haven't played on my Xbox 360 since May 10th.
I haven't watched a DVD movie in two months.
I haven't finished reading the book I bought two weeks ago at Singapore. It takes me a week on the average to finish a book.
I haven't been blogging as often as I used to.
I haven't been playing around with my DSLR camera as much as I wanted to.
I haven't gone to the gym since April.
I haven't hanged out with the Twiddlebugs.
I haven't gone to the mall (SM Batangas doesn't count) to do "malling".
I haven't played airsoft in over a year!
I haven't cooked for my siblings.
I haven't cooked any 30-minute dinners recently.

Duh.

But at least, I've been able to see a movie last week, gone out on a 'short' date some time ago, designed our badminton club's t-shirt, gone out twice with collegaues for three-or-fours (not one-or-twos anymore), played badminton, and been swimming at the pool (10 laps lang though) almost every other night.

Good thing its Friday. I'm gonna catch up on my have-nots this weekend. :D

The Roger Rabbit and the Running Man

Over the weekend I updated myself on what's going on with my fellow bloggers, and I came across Lissa's blog last. Lissa has a real talent for writing, and I was amused with her last statement.

It's about the roger rabbit and the running man.

Instantly, I was on a quick trip down memory lane.

Sometime in the early 90's (not sure if I was in sixth grade or in freshman year at high school), I was an appointed member of our batch's dance group. I don't dance for performances, but I do have a sense of rhythm. I'd copy the dance moves being shown by the Universal Motion Dancers at That's Entertainment in the privacy of my parents' bedroom. The more experienced dancers in our batch picked me as part of their group (guess that's where the barkada factor comes in). The group needs representation from all the sections of our batch, and they were at a dilemna who to get from the honors class.

And they picked the class valedictorian, hehe.

So for 3 weeks, we'd practice after school for about two hours. The performance was for an intermission number of our school's concert-event featuring the "Ang TV" cast. Our group of 11 did hops, waves, air-swims, dolphin get-ups, slam-claps and whatever choereography we could think of. What we did during those 3 weeks is good material for a movie storyline.

And of course, we had to insert THE roger rabbit and THE running man. It was, at that time, the dance craze. Along with the scissor steps.

Come performance time, all I could remember was that the crowd went wild when they heard the first bars of the roger rabbit theme. It was a 6-minute dance number, in front of a packed gymnasium. It was my first time to be onstage in front of the spotlight as a performer.

And when the sax portion kicked-in, we did the roger rabbit and the running man and the scissor steps. Executed them perfectly and in sync with each other. More shouts and more cheers.

It was one of the best 6-minutes of my life. =)

And that's why I smile whenever I hear or read about the roger rabbit and the running man. Being young then, it doesn't take much to get that feeling of enrapture.

How to Describe My Work

Last night, I joined Bai and Marlon for a late round of beers (note: ice-cold beer is definitely tops for the hot weather we've been getting recently) at Technobar. As I just recently got back from another business trip from Malaysia, the first question they asked me was "How's the meeting?".

My reply: "Crazy, dude."

I had to juggle economics, linear programming and engineering simulations during the course of the week. On top of that, there were a lot of info that were being thrown around by the discipline engineers that we're calling in from time-to-time. The whole week was something like hell week on my senior year in university --- lots of new things, papers due the following day, oral reports in-between, a lot of reading assignments and trying to get that 4.0 mark. And it wasn't on a single subject solely; it was on plenty of subjects!

I was pushing something like 16 hours/day just to keep afloat of all the info and tasks I was handling last week. ZZzzZzzz....

This morning, I received this picture file in my email. I absolutely laughed when I saw it, because there are a lot of similarities between the student's predicament on his problem set and the way I currently see my work's demands:

Happy Monday! bwahahahahaha... (sarcastic laugh)

Happy Mother's Day!

Gifts I would have given to my mom and my friends who are moms and my friends' moms if my wallet were bottomless:

1) To Ma: that LaZy Boy couch from Blims that she's been making parinig to me since her birthday, wrapped in her favorite color apple-green. And the pearl earrings she saw in Cebu. and shoes that she saw in Hongkong. and a round-trip ticket to Canada to visit her amigas.

2) Mrs. S (Quito's Ma): a dozen long-stemmed red roses and an orchid bouquet, delivered to her by her apos at her bedside when she wakes up. Note: I need to coach my godsons (her grandchildren).

3) Tita 'mommy-ni-MJ': pictures of my available guy friends na ipapakilala kay MJ. And a fashionable hat for her summer trips.

4) Mrs. Molina (mommy ni Tin): charcoal portrait of the Molina family (na kasama na si Buddy).

5) Mommy ni Glenn: Fuel cards from Shell, so she can go out on more road trips with her anaks, apos and family.

6) Mommy G: A gift certificate to San Benito. The ultimate spa treatment for the hippest and coolest young mom I know.

7) Tita Cors (mommy ni Chard): a Saladmaster pot, to replace the one that I and Chard burnt 6 years ago while cooking at the apartment.


Each gift will come with a handmade greeting card, saying "You're one of the best mothers I know!"

Happy Mother's Day, everyone!

Muted Sighs

A muted sigh is a sign of silent surrender. It's what helpless people do in the short instance when time seems to be suspended. It's the feeling of having a pocket of dense air that you swallow and settle at your stomach. It makes your ears red sometimes and your eyes watery.

It's what a kid does who eagerly looked forward to a weekend fun trip with his dad, only to be disappointed later on because his dad was called on an urgent business trip.

It's what the shy girl does at the prom who eyes on a guy, waiting for him to ask her to dance with him, only to see him scan the faces and leave abruptly.

It's what the beggar does at the end of the day after counting his meager alms before he sleeps on the cold pavement.

It's what the traveller does when he finds out that he won't make it to his flight because of the traffic jam.

It's what I did when I was told today that the organization cannot grant me my release window yet and take up a broadening assignment.

*Sigh*

But these people who do not sigh out loud are brave people. Surely, they look forward to the following day, week, month or year hoping that things will be better. They do not wish to invoke unrest in the balance of things and events in their influence.

I just need to hang on a little longer. I hope that the time does not come when I sigh not because of regret or surrender, but because of a compromised fulfillment. I hope that the time will come when I need not sigh.

p.s. I look forward to working with my future boss. It should make my current career more bearable and inspiring.

Lola's House Test

I'm a good boy.

One of my officemates requested if he could sleep over at our house in Baclaran last weekend because (1) he was playing in a badminton tournament at Manila on one day and (2) needs to be at Timberland Heights in Rizal for a trailrun at 6 am the following day. His normal place of residence is either Batangas or Sta Rosa -- both too far and a great waste of 'rest' time.

After getting the necessary paalams from my parents, ate and my dwendes, I agreed that he could sleep over.

I was wondering at that time if my lola would make her presence felt to my colleague when he sleeps. You see, lola has this habit of letting it be known whether or not that she is in favor of our sleepover guests being the friends of her apos. And she lets it be known when our guests are sleeping.

What lola does, if she disapproves of your sleepover guest, is that she visits the hosting apo in his dream and reprimands him for bringing the unfavored guest to HER house (our Baclaran house used to belong to lola). On top of that, she grabs the sleeping guest by the ankles and suppossedly pulls them off the bed.

Among our sleepover guests over the years so far, lola has pulled the ankles and tugged the blankets of five of our visitors. A couple of them actually screamed in the middle of the night (and waking up the whole household). They have reason to scream, because only a few of us can see lola. She's been dead since 1942.

The descriptions of lola's scare tactics are consistent: something tugs the blankets, then a clammy feeling at the ankles, followed by a sensation of someone holding your ankles and pulling you off the bed. Some slept through it, only to find themselves halfway off the bed when they wake up (nobody can provide an explanation how they ended up like that). The two people who screamed got scared at the 'clammy feeling' stage. Who wouldn't, specially if the airconditioning in all our rooms are perfectly okay?

But anyway, lola's been a good judge of character. Ma would give us warnings on our choice of friends everytime lola does her thing. The persons she pulled off the bed -- they wasted their lives eventually, pulling down a lot of their friends with them.

So when my colleague slept over at our house in Baclaran, all my siblings were excited to know the following day whether or not lola visited me in my dreams and if my colleague had an encounter with her.

(Un)fortunately, nothing extraordinary transpired. Both of us even got a good night's sleep. (Actually, we were dead tired from a badminton tournament that day).

I guess lola judged that my colleague was a good guy and that I'm still a good boy.