Fathers' Day 2006

Last Sunday was Fathers' Day. It was good to have spent that day as a real father for the first time. Mylo treated the family out for lunch at the Makati Sports Club.





This is a picture of Joshua together with mommy, his Ninang Rica and Mylo. Joshua is now getting the hang of going out to public places.




This was taken outside the ballroom where lunch was served. We were looking at the pool and decide to go for swims on weekends as our weekly exercise for mom and dad.




Joshua is seen here with his Tito Roel. They get along fabulously. Also in the picture is his Ate Tricia.




This is Joshua with his cousin Isha (who is about 2+ years old). Both kids had a fun time playing around.




This is a shot with Luigi (who is soon to be Kuya Luigi on account of his mom being on the family way), Ninang Rica, Tricia and Isha.

Eating out on a Sunday at the Podium

These are pictures of the family when we decided to eat out at the Podium, a day before mama's birthday, last June 4, 2006. We chose the Banana Leaf restaurant at the 2nd floor it was pretty airy and served good food for everyone.

After eating, we walked around a bit. Ana took this picture of Joshua beside a McCormick mascot in food display on the 2nd floor lobby. Joshua didn't seem intimidated by the mascot and was more curious if anything. Seeing this picture reminds of a size comparison between models.

This is the kid posing in his favorite carseat. I think he has really come to claim the carseat at its spot in the car as his own.

This is mama with Uncle Bololoy and Tita Bebette. The latter had lived and worked in Singapore for some time before relocating back here to Manila. They say that the food was authentic and could compare to real Singaporean fare.

This is another view of the mascot, this time, with the family.

This was the high point of all the eating during lunch. In between story telling and eating, my uncles and aunts had a ball making faces at Joshua, who reciprocated in kind.

Remembering the three sisters

As I went through the pictures I stored in my PC, I came across the many snapshots Ana and I took during our trip to Australia in March 2004. One of the highlights of our Australian vacation was a trip to the Jenolan Caves and the Blue Mountains near Sydney. Being somewhat of an outdoors-type person, I enjoyed the day-long trip to see the well preserved cave complex in Jenolan and the forested slopes around it. I've seen my share of great outdoor vistas here in the Philippines and it sickens me to no end to see how many of them are being spoiled in the name of greed and incompetence.

The Jenolan Caves remined me of the rock formations in the Sohoton National Park which we vistied in April 2002 and the riverine caves of the St. Paul National Park in Palawan.

This is a shot of the Three Sisters (or that's what our guides told us they were). These were a series of unique rock formations rising above a nearby mountain range. The view from our vantage point was simply fabulous. I recall the chill mountain wind whipping around us as I took this shot. It was about 4:00 p.m. at the time I took this so the sun was beginning to set, leaving the rockface bathed in a warm, vibrant glow.

Here is a shot of Ana and myself near the edge of the viewing deck. The same Three Sisters are just about visible in the background. The mountain air, being very fresh and cool was invigorating. Good thing Ana decided to bring a windbreaker.

I've got a case of acrophobia which always tried to ditch but sadly, I guess I'll have to live with it for the time being. This shot was taken in the cablecar ride which brought us up to view the side of the mountains bordering the Jenolan Caves. I was impressed with how the locals practiced their forest conservation. I'm glad that their children will be able to enjoy the bounty of nature in their own backyard.

This is Ana with Taylor, the daughter of our gracious and kind guides Russell and Lisa Young. Lisa is Ana's friend from way back here in Manila. She met Russell during his stint at work here and they moved to Sydney where Russell hails from after they got married.

I'm certainly looking forward to the day we can go back and get to see the Three Sisters again. This time, Joshua will be coming along too.

The Soft Opening

We were at the soft opening of Henry Sy's Mall of Asia on May 20, 2006. This is an ambitious undertaking which consists of three commercial complexes built on a stretch of land in what was the reclamation area in the bay area along Manila's Roxas Boulevard. Where once there was ocean, there are now three commercial complexes ready for the shopping public. I was told that only one of these complexes has to date become operational.

My brother Louie entered into a partnership with some enterprising friends and took out a franchise on a Bacolod Chicken Barbecue restaurant. To the average Filipino, the word Chicken Bacolod brings to mind sizzling, tasty and crispy chicken barbecue, marinated and roasted to cholesterol-driven perfection. Chicken Bacolod is eaten with loads of garlic rice. The name derives from the city of Bacolod, located in an island south of Manila. Bacolod is in the heart of hectares of sugarland and is renowned for its dazzling mestiza women, delicious sweets, great beaches and easy-going, friendly dudes. Sometime back, the locals perfected the art of turning out fantastic chicken barbecue, hence the term given to such dishes: Chicken Bacolod.

We were lucky to arrive at lunchtime when there were available seats at the restaurant. It was a broiling, hot summer's day outside but the location of the mall plus its design allowed a breezy current to circulate around the grounds.



We met up with my folks and chowed down in earnest. Joshua came along as it was his first time ever to go around a mall, and by the looks of it, he simply enjoyed himself.

After a lot of fiddling around and struggling, Ana and I managed to get Joshua's car seat affixed to the rear seat of our vehicle. The infant car seat turned out to be an instant hit. Judging from the look in Joshua's face, it seemed like nothing else was going to budge him from his position in the car.

The interior of Bacolod Chicken Barbecue was bright and lively, very clean and all in all, conducive to eating and just hanging out.

We decided to go around the mall and check out the shops. The place was sparkling new and it was abuzz with activity. I heard the next day saw hordes of shoppers turning it into a veritable mercantile madhouse.

This is a shot of the family while we checked out the first level of the mall.



Here was an interesting layout adopted by the shop's owners. Joshua seemed taken in by the blue balloons.

Louie also bought a stake in a Cafe Mediterranean joint in the second level. Unfortunately, the baby was quite knackered already and we had to call it a day. In any case, I'm going to be having lunch at his branch of Cafe Med one of these days when my itenerary takes me to the bay area.

Lost in the Immaterium

I don't know if its my PC or whatever. The final result was that the pictures I wanted to load in the last post did not come in. My cousin Mako who is a 40k fanatic would say that the picts were lost in the immaterium. Whatever. I hope they come out now.

A pretty good weekend

The month of May is almost over and for that i am very very glad. This month appears to have dragged on too long.... too many aggravations and too hot to boot! I wish classes start already so that kids who are not supposed to be where they are can be put where they are supposed to be!

We ate out at Superbowls at Greenbelt 3 and Joshua loved it too! Ana and I think that Joshua's going to be afflicted with wanderlust in his life sooner or later. We took a ton of pictures as usual and everyone had a fun time.

Mass at AIM in the morning was pretty good too. Father David had a way of getting straight to the point which was what we all appreciated. Some priests have this habit of prolonging a rambling and pointless sermon. I liken this to an incompetent dentist prolonging a painful tooth extraction. In either case, people suffer. That's why we stopped going to mass in San Lorenzo Village. No offense to the celebrants but the mass sermon ultimately degenerates into a session of story-telling-a-lie (as we used to say in my cadet officer days) filled with media gossip (something Ana and I despise like the plague), half-truths (or half-lies?) and absurd urban myths. All in all, the whole excersie becomes a farce, like the priest is going through the motions and trying to meet a quota of 30 minutes minimum time for a rambling sermon.

I guess sermons of this type are our pet peeve. We were at Christ the King last week and the priest also did a number on the people over there. While I was very understanding of his handicap in speaking English (he would have been better off if he talked to us in Tagalog), I couldn't make sense out of his seeming obsession with the Da Vinci Code. During the last ten minutes of an already circuitous, drawn-out and increasingly pointless sermon, he takes it upon himself to sprout the in-vogue party line of the local church: the Da Vinci Code is a lie and Dan Brown is a heretic. Good Catholics like you and me don't watch such movies nor read such books.
Nice, I'd have forgiven him for the aimless sermon if he just went on ahead with the mass, but he just had to go on (in his halting, terriible grammar) about how heretical the Da Vinci Code was....

I firmly believe that God gave all of us free will. He even gave us the freedom NOT to worship or reconginze him if we chose to do so. Implicit in the freedom he gave us is the freedom to read and watch anything we wish to do so. Of course, corollary to our freedom is the responsibility which goes with it. While you are free to read and watch anything you well damn please, you're likewise ultimately responsible to yourself and to your brethren as to what you will do after watching and reading what you choose to do so in the first place. With this, I don't think any religion or system has a damn right to tell me what to read and what to watch. Show me a religion or a system that advocates this kind of "big brother is watching you" attitude and I'll show you a religion or a system that tells its constituents what to think. After all, if you arrogate unto yourself the right to stop me from educating myself, you're practically already doing the thinking for me.

You can warn me, you can suggest and point me to the right direction - but you can never think for me. Thanks, but God gave me my own brain to do that for myself.


Anyhow, this rant has gotten too long and too cumbersome already that the point behind this post is almost forgotten. All in all, it was a good weekend in an otherwise good month, save for the usual heartaches and disappointments (but this time, the heartaches and disappointments are leading me to a clearer realization on what to do next in my life).

As to the charges of heresy, I'll keep those in abbeyance and watch the Da Vinci Code. Good thing the Catholic Church here has no Ordo Hereticus from what I've seen. Still, I'll be looking behind my back and keep my heavy bolter ready. You'll never know when an inquisitor might be getting the drop on you.....

Living a Lie?

I once ranted and raved about this.

I guess kids should be taught this the first thing they enter school: life is not what you were led to believe it to be. But then again, maybe not. If you take away their idealism before they even got out into the world, civilization will just collapse overnight.

Still, i was walking into the building yesterday when I saw one of the new large conspicuous signs outside the building: THIS IS A SMOKE FREE BUILDING.

I had everything I could from doubling up and laughing until I could not breathe.

Maybe the genius who ordered that sign to be put up should mozey along to Unit 1409 East Tower.

Smoke free my arse.