Earthquake or not

Sitting still, I saw my PC's monitor was moving. I was not moving in my chair but the monitor was still moving. I think it was an earthquake. I asked my officemate who's about 2 meters away from my desk if he felt the earthquake. He said no. "Was I just feeling dizzy or what?" To remove the nagging question in my head, I searched for the PHILVOLCS telephone number . I contacted PHILVOLCS and the operator connected me to the Seismology Department. The lady on the other line informed me that "yes, there was an earthquake, intensity 1 in Quezon City area, intensity 4 in Subic, intensity 3 in Clark and intensity 2 in Makati area." Yes, it was an earthquake, I thought I was just feeling dizzy.hehe :)

FYI: PHILVOLCS telephone number is 426-1468.

Potholes Ahead

POTHOLES AHEAD

I walk down the street. There is a big hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in. I am lost. I am helpless. It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
I walk down the street. There is a big hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it. I fall in.
I can't believe I'm in the same place, but it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
I walk down the street. There is a big hole in the sidewalk.
I see it there. I still fall in. It's a habit. My eyes are open.
I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately
I walk down the street. There is a big hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
I walk down a different street.

- Author Unknown

I remember this piece I read from my old Campus Journal devotional book when I was driving and didn't remember the new potholes on the road. Because of the recent rains and floods the "ice-phalt" (asphalt) on the road melted. I have to memorize the new potholes added to the previous ones. There were times I forgot the locations of the new potholes and ran over them again. The other day, I made a mental note of all the new potholes. I hope next week I've learned my "lesson" already and will not run over those potholes again. :)

In life we commit mistakes but what is more important is to learn from it and not commit the same mistakes again.

"I got to keep my eyes on Jesus through the weak days..." sings Steven Curtis Chapman in "Weak Days", a song included in his First Hand album in 1987. (Visit Steven Curtis Chapman's new website www.stevencurtischapman.com to listen to his albums online.)

Retreat and Surrender (part 2)

Along Felix Avenue

Still along Felix Avenue

Heavy downpour of rain with lightning and thunder plus quite heavy traffic...
A week ago I decided to retreat and surrender. This time I made a choice to apply "No retreat, No surrender"! :)
After almost 2 hours of travel, I made it to our office. Thank God! :)

FYI: For the latest in weather news, call PAGASA's new 24-hour hotline at 433-ULAN (433-8526) It has a pre-recorded weather bulletin and you have an option to listen in English or Filipino versions. Cool! :)

Good Food

I have a growing appreciation for food lately. I don't know why but I look forward for eating time.hehe
And I discovered that eating with family and friends makes the food tastes even better. :)

Random list of foods I recently appreciated:
- Nissin's Ramen Noodles Seafood Flavor (local and imported)
- Vanilla Ice Cream
- Meatballs in Sweet and Sour sauce
- Purefoods' Longadog with Fried Rice
- Hot Pandesal with Kraft's Cheez Whiz
- Monay with Coco Jam
- Magnolia's Mango Tea
- Rodic's Tapsilog
- Rodic's Tocilog
- Mang Jimmy's Sizzling Pusit
- Mang Jimmy's Sizzling Tapamix
- Mang Jimmy's Sizzling Tuna
- Mang Jimmy's Sizzling Sisig
- Mang Jimmy's Lechon Kawali
- Fruits in Ice Cream's Cappucino Ice Cream
- Fruits in Ice Cream's Pistachio Nuts Ice Cream
- Fruits in Ice Cream's Raspberry Ice Cream

Happy eating! :)

Additional foods as of Aug 29:
- Holy Kettle Popcorn
- Tokyo Tokyo's Miso Soup
- Homemade Fried Chicken
- My mom's adobo
- Knorr's Chicken Noodle Soup paired with Fried Galunggong
- Lucky Me's Instant Pancit Canton Toyomansi Flavor
- McDo's Twister Fries
- Nestle's Koko Krunch Duo Breakfast Cereals
- Bread dipped in hot Milo for breakfast
- Ham Sandwich

Happy happy eating! :)

Retreat and Surrender

"No retreat, no surrender" is not always applicable.

Today, I learned that there are times when it is better to retreat and surrender. Due to strong downpour of rain last night, our village's main road became flooded this morning. I was hoping that the rain would stop and the flood would be gone. My mother told me not to go to work today because based on the information she got from our village's security personnel, the main road is not passable already for vehicles except for fire trucks and big trucks. I was quite persistent and keep on rationalizing that my car could make it through the floods. My mom suggested that maybe I could go after lunch. After a few minutes of "deliberation" and weighing my options, I decided that I would wait for the flood to subside.

A couple of hours before noon, I thought the flood is gone and decided to survey the streets. My brother accompanied me and we rode his car. The main road was still flooded. When we were approaching the "deepest" portion along the main road, we saw quite a long queue of cars hesitating to face the deep flood. Few cars already made their decisions and made U-turn. We were still taking our time weighing the situation when a fire truck appeared from a distance. The fire truck hitched people from our village's gate who wanted to go home. As the fire truck was approaching, my brother looked at me as if I'm the "captain of the ship" and asked, "what's next?" Well, seeing the situation, as much as I want us to go ahead, I ordered him to retreat.

Just a thought: As we were going back home, I remember a chapter about surrender in Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life. Thoughts about surrender flooded my mind. Most of the time we are wrestling with God for control of our lives. But there will come a time when we need to make a decision: are we going to continue to fight with Him or simply surrender? I made my decision to surrender to Him several years ago. I'm sure it was the most important decision in my life that would affect my eternity.

Adventures of Tintin

In France, almost everyone knows who Tintin is; in the Philippines, I don't know.hehe

My brother and I like to watch Tintin series on TV when we were younger. We bought volumes of Adventure of Tintin comic books but we weren't able to complete the set. It is a series of Belgian comic books created by Belgian artist Herge, the pen name of Georges Remi (1907–1983). Tintin is a young reporter and he travels a lot with his white terrier dog named Snowy.

I just remember Tintin because a friend asked me if I was able to read all of the "episodes". I think I've read almost all. I have to find the lacking volumes in order to read them "all".

Just a thought: Good thing the Bible comes in one volume, 66 books-in-1. One could not say, I haven't read this "book" because I wasn't able to find a copy of that. And besides the Bible is the best selling book of all times. :)

I Will Be Here

I was listening to Steven Curtis Chapman's All About Love album on my way home couple of days ago. I pressed the "repeat" button when "I Will Be Here" track was being played. Good chillin' out music when stuck in traffic. :)


I remember I was able to watch Steven Curtis Chapman sang this song with our very own Gary V on national television a month ago. Thanks to Mary Beth (SCC's wife) for the picture. Check her blog entry about it on their Asia and Beyond blog. SCC sang the Gary V's version of the song. The original singing the cover's version, huh? ;)

Tara na, byahe tayo! (Come, let's travel!)

I visited Corregidor Island last month. This catchy travel advocacy song stayed in my mind for quite some time. It was played several times when we were in the ferry boat. I was able to watch the MTV of this song on government-owned channels several years ago. Recently I discovered this cool site "Lakbayan: How much of the Philippines have you visited?" Got a grade of D. I only visited places mostly in Luzon area. 7,105 islands to go! :)

To view the lyrics and MTV of "Byahe tayo!" song, visit this site - http://www.lakbaypilipinas.com/biyahe_tayo.html

My Lakbayan map:

My Lakbayan grade is D!

How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out at Lakbayan!

Created by Eugene Villar.

Please signal your intention

"Please signal your intention" is my begcry (I'm begging and crying at the same time.hehe) for the past weeks for all the drivers out there. I didn't get formal driving lessons but one thing I've learned from my good "teachers" in driving is to signal your intention a few meters away before making a left or a right turn. I'm not an excellent driver but I'm trying my best to make "signal" a second nature to me when driving. Wish all drivers could make the same effort. Hmm.. oh well, they are not under the circle of my control so might as well guard myself. I'll try to be more understanding and patient on the road.

In relation to this, I'm just wondering if I could say this begcry to God whenever I encounter not-so-good circumstances. Most of the times we are wondering what is God's intention in letting us go through certain circumstances. Hmm... I remember Pastor Peter's message last Sunday, we need to go through difficult circumstances in order to grow. Well, if God would say His begcry for me it would've been, "Shut up, just grow up!" :)

When simple seems hard

There are things that look simple but seems hard when doing it. I was tasked to make screenshots for the documentation we're doing. Hmm.. I think it's quite easy as simple as pressing the "Print Screen" key. Then I began to wonder how will I capture the entire page. That's the problem. I asked around what tool I could use to make my work easier. Mr. Google had lots of suggestions but I don't have time to try it all. Thank God for a friend who recommended Hypersnap. It has a free trial version that works perfectly fine. I haven't explored its other features but I think it's good. Its "Capture" function has a lot of options and I particularly use the "Entire Page with Scrolling". Amazing, Hypersnap makes my work easier! Hmm... this sounds like a testimony in a marketing channel on TV.hehe. Check out www.hyperionics.com for the free trial version of Hypersnap.

WinZipping is just as simple as doing a right click on the folder or file you want to zip and choose "Add to zip file". That's so easy when you're using a PC running on a MS Windows. For me who's using Linux CentOS... it's a problem. How will I zip the folder? Thanks to Mr. Google. After reading site after site after site, I finally found the answer. I just have to open a terminal then type the word "file-roller", press "Enter" key and an Archive Manager GUI (Graphical User Interface) will appear. Voila! I can now make a zip folder then just add the files I want to be zipped. Actually there are options in the Archive Manager on what archive type you want the files to be compressed (i.e. .tar.bz2, .tar.gz, .tar, .zip, .ar, .ear, .jar, and .war). I felt the feeling of Ferdinand Magellan when he discovered the Philippines.hehe