Starting the year right!

Its 2009!... okay, it has been 2009 for three weeks now as of this writing, but I never had the opportunity to share this experience until now. You see, on the second of January - which was basically the first Friday of the month, and the new year, I found myself with my family, in Festival Mall, Alabang.

Now, first of all, I have not been to said mall in a long time, as it happens to be far from my usual stomping grounds in either Mandaluyong, Taguig or Makati - in other words, its out of the usual routes I would normally be going to. So what made me go there? Bryce did. He had a 'date' with his girl friend - and yes, even if there's such a word as girlfriend, I just had to emphasize the separation - not out of a sense of denial for having a teenage son who's dating, but the fact that I know this dating is far from becoming a serious commitment...yet. Far as they are concerned, they're close friends, with mutual understandings. But back to the story.

Bryce had asked if we could go to Festival mall, which would give him an opportunity to spend some post-Christmas time with Sharmaine, his friend. And since we really had no plans for that day - owing to our wanting to rest from a very busy holiday season, we kept outings to a minimum... so here was a free day, and Bryce asking to go to Festival mall. Well, we did - and Bryce got to spend the afternoon with Sharmaine... but that is not the story. What they did while spending time in Festival mall, only they can talk about... after all, we... that is Barbie, Bernice and I decided to explore the mall... basically kill time while Bryce had his afternoon.

Well to my pleasant serendipitous moment, I found the comic store I knew was there - namely Comic Quest. Now... I know Comic Quest because 1) I collect comics, so I make it a point to know where to get comics; and 2) I did frequent a Comic Quest store - though not the one in Alabang.

So I entered, perused and chose two comics to get. The total amount for my comics reached Php350, and since I paid with a Php500 bill, well... its just as simple as 500 - 350, and you get the difference which should be my change, right?

Don't worry, this is not a mathematical post... though the computation is at the heart of this story.

So answering the above question, the store sales lady would have given me a change of Php150 - right? Nope...

I normally am in automatic mode - you know, wherein one does not really check for change when given to you... I know, that may be risky... but heck, this was a simple comic sale transaction, and there was nothing complicated with the computation. Ah... but the computation was not the issue, either... you see, I' sure she was doing her mental math - but she got her wires crossed somewhere - thus giving me a Php350 change. I, on the other hand, just got the proffered change and the purchased stuff of course.

As I was leaving the store with my family in tow, and as I was about to pocket my change, I realized something was wrong... I seemed to have too much change. I told Barbie and Bernice to wait as I returned quickly to the store - approached the sales lady once again, and did the math with her, while showing her the change she gave me.

To her surprise, she realized her error and I gave her the extra Php200 she had given me. That settled, I left the store. Barbie asked me what was wrong, and I told her the story. She jokingly made the comment that had that been her, she would have kept mum about it... and i jokingly told her "Bad...". Bernice, who was listening the whole time, smiled at the whole discussion.

So why did I do it? Why did I return the extra change given me? Take, note... i had nothing to lose... as this visit to Festival mall was, in my mind, a fluke. Something that won't be repeated again.

Sometimes I'd think, maybe because it was the start of a new year, and I didn't want to start he new year on the wrong foot.

Maybe I was thinking of the sales lady and how she'd have to try and explain the shortage of cash in the cash register, and how she could lose her job in a time of global economic turmoil... and felt a pang of responsibility should that happen.

Or maybe it was because I was still fresh from reading a book called 'The Shack', and was still filled with residual appreciation of God's love.

Maybe I wanted to set an example for Bernice - that honesty is still the best policy.

Maybe i felt that I did not need the bad karma during a trying time in my life... as far as my career is concerned.

Maybe its because I do know the store proprietor - and though he is nto a close friend, he has always been friendly and cordial to me.

Heck, maybe its all those hours teaching Accenture's core values - telling their new hires that they should live their core values... one of which is 'Integrity'... and without realizing it, I was conditioning myself too - into a sense of 'Walk the Talk' manner.

It could have been any one - or all of these thoughts influencing me that particular moment, but as I said, once i realized that something was wrong, I went back... no pause, no thinking if I should or should not. So if it was any of these, it was happening in my subconscious. Point was, I did it and it was that.

I did not do it to make a lasting impression - as I said, I had no plans to return to Festival mall on a regular basis, so this store was just an isolated convenience.

Well, life (or God) has a funny way of proving me wrong with certain assumptions - because the Saturday after that weekend... which was January the 10th, we were once again in Festival mall... for the same reason - Bryce and his date... and I, once again, had the chance to purchase another comic in Comic Quest... and 8 days later, I did not even remember the sales lady's face... and since there were several of them, I wouldn't know who among them I was honest enough to return the excess change to.

I simply focused on the purchase, paid and got my comic plus the change... and the sales lady, from out of the blue made a side comment that 'Ayan, tama na nag sukli ko' - which translates to 'There, my change is correct now'. Realizing that she was the one, and that she remembered me, I said smiled and said 'buti naman' which loosely means 'that's good' or 'good for you'. And as I was leaving, she called the attention of the other sales lady telling her companion, 'Kita mo yan? siya yung sinasabi ko'ng customer na nag balik nang...' again, loosely translated to 'See that (or him)? He was the person who was my customer - the one that returned...'

I know, I did not finish the sentence, but that's because I did not stay long enough to hear her finish the sentence.

But I was glad she knew - and though we never exchanged names, I'm relatively certain she'll continue to remember me... basically because I did something unexpected... which was being honest enough to return the excess change.

But... I can tell you, I felt good as I left that store - more so than the week before - and I realized, if I had kept the money, she might or might not remember me, and I might even be reluctant to buy there again... even if conveniently located to my current trip there that day. but leaving... and hearing her share the story with someone, and confirming with that someone that I was the person she was obviously talking about... that was - for some strange reason, fulfilling and reward enough... maybe more so than the Php200 I would have had the chance to pocket.

Now... I'd like to think that whenever I enter that particular store, and whenever she sees me, I'll be having good service offered to me - not because she must treat her customers right and friendly, but because she wants to treat me kindly - out of some sense of gratitude. Expected? Not really, like I said, I had nothing to invest in that store... but as I said before, life, fate, karma or the Lord had another plans.

But wait... there's more...!

Yesterday... I unexpectedly found myself in Festival mall again. you see my son had another date, but the plan was to meet in Mega mall instead (where the other Comic Quest branch - the one I frequent more often than not) was, and I was planning to look for a certain issue or two once we got there.

Well guess what, Sharmaine calls and for whatever reason, tells Bryce that she can't make to Mega mall. This derailed some plans, and Barbie was slightly pissed - but I decided to let Bryce go - though not without a reprimand that situations like this will not be tolerated again... and next time it does, we'd rather he cancel the date than put us in an inconvenient situation.

Yes, that's three straight weekends now... and once again, I went to Comic Quest... this time, we (the sales lady and I) recognized each other. I asked to see some comics, she services me as she normally would others - but we now seem to have this running joke, that whenever I pay, she would comment about not making another mistake of giving me too much change... not that she would have that day though, since I only bought one comic worth Php200 - and paid with a Php200 bill - so no change, but the humor was there. And to my surprise, the other sales lady also joined the 'running joke' bandwagon.

I again left the shop slightly uplifted, knowing I probably gained someone's trust - even if we still did not introduce ourselves to each other.


Oh yeah... two another ways that I've, or we've - as a family, started the year right...

1) more exercise - from a zero regimen in the past years, I am now slowly getting into the brisk walking groove, meeting Barbie in Bonifacio High Street and we'd be walking around the High Street block for close to an hour fro almost every night.

Yesterday, I once again tried the facilities of Slimmer's World after more than a decade of not going... I hope to make it part of my regimen somehow, and lastly... I've unearthed the - ahem... exercise moves of a certain Shawn T.'s video, from my video collections. Ben, Barbie and i tried it out and it still works wonderfully. So I will likewise use the video more often.

2) spiritual renewal - we've taken the step to attend mass regularly - and we do this by catching the 10am mass in Greenhills. It may be difficult at times - specially if I had a wild drinking night the Saturday eve prior to said Sunday... but we will continue to attend regular Sunday mass.

I did not make any of these as a New Year's goal or resolution. As the Nike commercial goes... I'm just doing it - and hope I can continue to sustain the momentum.

Fun pictures

Its amazing how certain software can enhance one's creativity, while others add to the fun factor. Some seem to cross the line and cover the two characteristics... take face recognition software partnered with preset templates of fun situations, and what can normally come off as uninspiring pictures can be looked at with a new vein of interest. Case in point, here's a picture of me in one of my serious modes - though in this case, I come across as possibly too dour to share such a photo in, say Facebook or Friendster (my opinion, of course). But... add the template I chose and viola... suddenly, a boring picture looks - well, less boring, to say the least don't you think? Granted, that the template is in monotones - now the picture will be give a second glance, and people may wonder... when did this happen?

The template is care of Photofunia - with the same site address, just add a '.com' at the end of it, and you're on your way to having fun, Though at times, the template combined with the face may look awkward, and this is where the added creativity comes in... combining the right picture with the right template. Some people have the natural eye for this - others need to do lots of trial and error. I humbly agree to being a little of both, and as you can see... some of my experiments bore fruit. This of course, considers the fact that I'm pulling from a library of existing pictures and not creating pictures that are tailor fit for these templates. Take for example this next picture of what seems to be a shopping mall's walkway with all those fashion posters... well if you look closely to those posters, that's a picture of Barbie with the Subic Yacht club's harbor view at the background. I tried thinking what would look natural with the template, and this picture seemed to fit the bill - as was my dour expression in the black and white television, which comes across as a person being interviewed or being grilled (or doing the grilling).

Here's another picture that I thought was going to be an easy mix - unfortunately, whenever I tried using this picture of Bryce holding a gun; just a replica, mind you... but the picture does not show this - I was having difficulty with it coming across as fun with just any template. For some reason, it just looked wrong.

I was having problems with the 'gun' being too serious... unless there was a template of an action movie. So if the gun was coming across as too strong, how would I soften it? Well, how about the cat? its a good contrast to the picture, and Bryce's leaning a bit on the right was perfect... as if he was avoiding the cat's paw... and some might even interpret the picture as him being ready to shoot the cat - I hope not. After all, as this template shows - he is not real here, but a computer wallpaper... and the cat is just on top of the monitor. So yeah... the cat softened the overall look of the picture.

Another template that is print advertizing inspired is this picture of Jogie that I took, holding a rubber shoe - it just seemed to fit the theme. A little background on the picture, we saw the shoe and wanted to let Ben (my brother-in-law) know about it, as it looked like a perfect match to a certain colored denim he had. Since Ben was not with us, we decided to take the shoe's picture, so he could see it. Hence Jogie holding the shoe to the camera - who'd a thought it would come across as a viable shoe ad? I didn't, at least, until I saw this template and tried combining both.

Then there's Bernice as a subject in a photo gallery - simple and cute... no other need for describing it in any other manner... and yes, thanks again to fun software like Photofunia without which, fun pictures like these would just be left to the imagination. I've others... and I'll share them at another post - right now, I've other things to do. So until next time... enjoy these pictures, and by all means, try out Photofunia when you get the time - and pictures to play with.

We Live in Interesting Times

There is a Chinese saying – some say a curse that goes this way… may you live in interesting times. Now that got my head scratching, until I thought that some aspects in life that a Chinese person would want would have to be consistency, dependability and of course stability – so… being a diplomatic bunch, their polite way of saying ‘interesting times’ would downplay the ‘hopeful’ lack of these three… in other words, inconsistency, non-dependability (as opposed to independent) and yes… instability.

Well if there is anything that might describe how I’m feeling right now, it could very well be those three traits – no consistency as to where the next pay-check will be coming from, non-dependability of my current employ – I mean, they’re trying to stabilize a contract which they prematurely lost last December, and barring that, see if they can win a new contract, and I try not to worry, but yeah… you could describe my position right now as unstable (or a lack of stability). My family is not able to rely too much on me these days as opposed to… say… just a few months ago, and we did have a little lunchtime chat about it – bless the kids, they seem to understand that possible sacrifices may be necessary – until I get a new line of work.

Am I supposed to feel better knowing that I’m not alone? After all, the reasons could very well be traced back to the global financial crisis felt in the U.S., which affected many top banks and credit lines to top businesses… which has affected a lot of folks – some seeing their hard earned pensions wiped out… and I agree, they may well be worse of than me; or the person who’s been living heavily on credit and now sees their credit being yanked from under them… man that would hurt too.

But – not to sound insensitive, I don’t know these people, so I can’t really feel for them – my friends, and me… that I understand. Right now, we need to find ways to help each other out - after all, corny as it may sound, we're capable of doing more in a combined manner than just addressing things individually.

Who’s fault is this? How did this come to pass? Some would go far as to lay the current crisis on U.S.President Bush’s lap… him and his economic policies with little checks and balances... kanda simplistic an answer. See, they thought they had a good idea and trusted in the inherent goodness of everyone else not to abuse these easier to afford measures – specially in housing. Bush wanted his legacy to be a house for every American - so he wanted restrictions relaxed so the average joe would and could afford getting his very own house.

So what happened to make the bubble burst? Interests went high… possibly due to higher fossil fuel costs (but again, that's too simplistic an answer), then many middle class people just defaulted in their properties – unable to pay for the fees. Banks were left with illiquid assets… possibly lots of them. Since no one could buy, they couldn’t sell. So in this instance, innocent people got trapped into having to give up an investment they now could not afford - and their money is washed down the drain with the return of said property. Banks that should have known better than to allow for the risky credit had their hands tied 'for patriotic reasons'. Ouch...

Meanwhile other inappropriate practices were unearthed, people discovered the loss of many money on poor investments. Others had unknowingly invested on 'get rich quick' schemes… or should I call it scams? With some silver-tongued devil trying to get in and out real quick with all the money they got. Others misrepresented (i.e. hid) their losses, hoping it would just be kept under a rug of forgetfulness – only to have to confess to the losses, when discovery seemed inevitable. All these were happening - albeit, independently form each other - yet all seemed ready to burst at the same time.

Suddenly the U.S. financial system seemed to fall like a stack of cards… and a very tightly connected global economy got dragged along. End result? World-wide worry in an economic scale that would certainly make any economic saboteur proud – had this been sabotage, that is. I'm sure a lot of novelists will have a field day spinning all these into techno or mystery thrillers.

How did this affect me and a lot of my colleagues? Simple – our client, which happens to be a highly recognized Information and Communication Technology consulting company happened to see their top clients, suddenly panicking – pulling the plug on certain projects... ones they were preparing for by building up the necessary head count. Suddenly, less money was coming in.

Less profits were coming in, and all the while expenses were continuing - clearly, things needed to be plugged. Now, since we’re a training service oriented business – we just happened to be one of the easy-to-get –rid–of expense lines in their accounting books (ironic since this is the same company that came up with a study that came up with findings that training does has an average R.O.L. (return on learning) of 5:1 - meaning for every dollar spent on training, the returns average to about 5 times more than what was spent. I guess, they don’t bother listening to their own statistics when they are likewise in 'pull-the-plug on expenses' mode.

I just wonder, wehre does reality end and fearful speculation start? Because I feel that there are some negative - sometimes, near panicky reactions to this financial crisis. Anyway, regardless of what those ansers will turn out to be, here I am, wondering what to do next… but not wondering in a frozen manner, mind you.

I’ve still a few prospects to follow up. Maybe farm my updated CV to friends and relations, once again. See what may come up. Now, I can’t just wait for PrimaryEdge to resolve things... and while waiting, I intend to read and learn – better my current knowledge (and possibly skills), be more marketable – but mostly, somehow prioritize in marketing myself better.

Interesting times, indeed… but I’m not one to just wail “who moved my cheese”, I need to search for new cheese. I know that nothing will come out of worrying too much - so I won't even waste the energy.

This New Year may still prove to be prosperous… after all, we’ve got about 360 more days to do something about it... and Barbie isn't taking anything to chance either - she just got me a Chinese counter to an otherwise, lousy year - if Chinese astrology is to be believed, said counter ably countering any bad vibes that would somehoe find itself to me this coming Chinese new year.

Lousy Internet Service part 3

The last thing I thought of before, was to see this write up in three parts - alas, fate dealt a different blow, and I'm forced to share, once again, my frustrations with the Internet service... or to be clearer, non-service might be a better word. that we - as in my family and i, were experiencing.

Last time, I wrote about how frustrated we were with PLDT's DSL service being intermittent... and as the holiday came - non-existent. Well, this made us decide to shift from PLDT to Globe - after all, we were hearing good comments from people we knew about how stable their Globe internet was - so we did just that. We got ourselves a Globe wireless DSL, complete with a phone... and the first few months were heaven.

Service was fast, and consistent. I thought that was it for this article... in fact, I think I wrote part two of this as a form of closure... just to let others know how much better my internet service was those days.

I guess good things don't last... and now I'm writing this in reaction to once again not having any internet service at all during the holidays... zip... nada... nothing. unless you accept the fact that we'd get about 5 minutes worth of service - then two hours of no service... I mean, c'mon... 5 minutes, at the speed i was getting, wasn't even enough to update a Facebook status... let alone, read and answer email from friends. So yeah... I'd say, there was no decent internet service available to our household during December.

To Globe's credit though, their customer service was way better than what we experienced with PLDT - they were kind and responsive... we had people come in to check our hardware (checked out okay), they suggested we had an external antenna connected - just in case it was all these concrete walls in close proximity limiting the search and acquisition of their signal; and their technician came after a few days to do just that.

So here we were, with a hot spanking new external antenna - and we still could not receive consistent internet signals. To make sure, the technician double-checked our modem and PC... no problem there... so that left us with one possible problem... the transmitter.

Now I won't pretend to know the details of how wireless internet connection works exactly, but I have this sneaky feeling that there is a pool of available signals up for grabs - and to ensure that services are not poor, there would - in my opinion, have to be a ceiling to be followed as to how many people should share said signal. Go beyond that and we start feeling degradation of said signal. I mean, that seems to be the way in wired networks - so I think wireless would have the same headaches.

At first, our wonderful internet service was starting show stressful moments during week-ends, meaning there seemed to be difficulty at our getting any connection starting Friday evenings, and that would last until Sunday... which led me to think that the shared pool considered the possibility that not everyone would use the maximum capacity all the time, since most would be in school or at work... great business sense - if you can get away with it. But the service we signed up for was supposed to be unlimited, meaning it should be available 24/7 - which was clearly not the case. Now I don't know if people pretended not to know - which would mean they were trying to get away with the capacity load problem, or worse... were really inept at ensuring service was being given... but whichever the case may be, the end result was lousy internet service.

Like I said - hats off to the customer service pool, all the way to the responsive technicians... but what happens when the problem is more infrastructure? I heard that there was a hardware change - from Nokia transmitters to another brand... Erickson, I think, which might explain part of the reason for the degrading of signal sometime December, but after that had been properly installed and working, shouldn't the service (and signal) be better? I mean, wouldn't that be the idea?

It looks like a classical case of 'Sales' over-selling the available service - either ignorant of... or just ignoring any performance ceiling... and 'technical' getting stuck with the 'overstretched coverage' or 'spread out too thin signal' to meet customers' demands problem in this one... but the bottom line is, we... the paying consumers, get left in the poor service rut, and we don't really care which department is at fault.

Sure... Globe may be willing to talk about rebates or write-offs for services undelivered... but how do you equate the inability to connect to friends and loved ones during these past holidays? Now these may not have been transactions worth millions - but they were lost cherished moments, nonetheless.

Aside from that... it can simply be frustrating when for all your efforts in trying to do some possible repairs to get the system running, all I get from Windows is the diagnostic message: There may be a problem with your Domain Name Server (DNS) configuration. Windows failed to fins a well known host "www.microsoft.com" using the DNS. The server may be down.

As it is, we're thinking of switching to another provider - sure, there's a lock-down on the service, but if one party can't seem to deliver what was the agreed upon service, isn't the other party within their right to dissolve the contract? After all, we were never delinquent with our payments.

The big question though, is... if the two biggest Telecom service providers in the Philippines can't deliver internet service that is both responsive and really available 24/7 - specially during weekends, then who do we turn to?

A friend mentioned cable... and we already do have cable TV, so maybe... just maybe... that would be worth a try. So definitely, I'll have a part four for this... and hopefully... it will be a real closure to this problem.

Goodbye 2008 (or how I spent Dec.31)

Last December 30, I had a great night with two colleagues (Jingo and Brian), with Barbie and Ben. Jingo, Brian and I normally dub these as Bacardi nights because... well, it involves sharing a lot of Bacardi - though in reality it just wasn't Bacardi, as we also consumed Absolut Mandarin, Jagermeister and s few 'blow jobs' - a concoction of Kahlua, Bailey's and Cointreau in one shot glass... but mostly Bacardi with Orange juice or Absolut Mandarin with orange juice.

The discussions were great - and we were enjoying the drinks and snacks (mostly a variety of chips or peanuts), and before we knew it - what started out at 9pm was already moving strong until 2:30am. Had Brian and Jingo not have the need to go home, I'm sure we wouldn't have minded extending the gathering for another hour or more.

Definitely acquaintances worth keeping and sharing... and yes, we look forward to another Bacardi night.

The next day which was basically the last day of 2008, I found myself having a slight buzz - the one a person gets after having had many drinks the night before... a buzz that is not a hang-over (which goes to show that I drank a lot, but did not drink recklessly; meaning taking care to make sure that whatever I, and my drinking companions drank during that night, we followed the 'beer over whiskey, very risky' rule. In other words - a good buzz... not one where you woke up the next day swearing to yourself for putting you in a situation where the slightest noise would be jarring - due to a headache.

Just to share with those who do not know, the complete rule can be described this way: 'Beer over whiskey, very risky... whiskey over beer, never fear' Simply put, this means its okay to drink something else, so long as it does not contain a lesser alcohol level - that is, if you want to avoid a hang-over the next day. Whether its true is something I don't really know... but its proven to be a wise guide to follow - and the few times I did not follow such a drinking pattern, are those few times I had a bad morning the next day.

Anyway, back to December 31st... I had done the buying of necessary groceries the day before, but realized that there were a few more items I had not bought, so I needed to get then this day - preferably before the new year came, specially since one or two were needed for tonight's food. So off I went to Unimart... after I'd passed a cake shop near Tomas Morato to get myself a Chocolate cake we reserved the day before, too.

Once I got to Unimart, I realized the main reason I had the good sense do do my groceries the day before; mainly, to avoid the kind of crowd I now saw mingling in the groceries. There were people everywhere, and long lines at the counters - and you definitely know that the grocery was full - if not for the obvious physical proof as presented by the people all around, but by the fact that Unimart's shopping carts were scarce. It took me a minute and a half to find one just abandoned by its previous user.

To make matters worse, it seemed the the grocery had abandoned its express lanes, so people who needed to buy just a handful of items (like me) had to brave the usual lanes and line up with those who were doing all their shopping that day. Had I another option, I would have decided to just forget the entire thing... I mean, the scenario was not worth any effort of getting a few items only. But since I had no other choice, I just had to line up with the rest of the crowd.

Now... you'd think I'd find this exercise rather frustrating, right? Well... yes... and no. Normally, that would be a definite yes, but something different happened in that line - not too profound, but it still affected how I felt that morning.

So, yes... it was frustrating, because the grocery might have had establish better 'crowd control' and enforced the express lane - or not having that, opened the few remaining lanes to accommodate the large crowds... as I spotted at least five other cash registers not being used that morning... preferably both options should have been used of course, after all, I'm sure this kind of pre-New Year shopping happens all the time. So many people love to do things on the last minute... strange, huh?

Then again, as i was saying earlier, 'No'... because those long lines gave me the time to text my new year greetings to my friends and relations - something I might not have done otherwise. I mean, hectic as things were this entire Christmas season, I hardly had tome to plan for and greet my friends. So as I was in the line, I whipped up my cell phone ans started texting my New Year's message.

One more thing, this waiting in line afforded me an opportunity to meet a very amiable old lady, who happened to be right behind me, in the line. She was very friendly, rather conversational and would have made a very great grandma for any family get together. She needed to get something else, so she asked that I wathc over her cart - which I did. Now, since the line was moving (thank God for small favors) she probably got confused as to wehre she had left her cart - you see, I had kept her cart beside (behind) mine, and the carts ans I had eventually moved closer to the counter as she tried looked around for those other things she needed.

She eventually found me and explained, in her own pleasant way why she took a little long - because she had forgotten where she left her cart (as I suspected) - and this was not fully her fault; guess she forgot about the moving lines, and she probably was looking for her cart in the last place she left it.

Anyway, having talked to her a bit, I eventually came to the cashier and paid - and as I was about to leave, we greeted each other a Happy New Year. To think, I did not even get her name. We were just two complete strangers, making pleasantries in an otherwise time consuming and possibly frustrating situation. But that simple act of communicating in a very pleasant manner, changed the frustrating factor into a nice and friendly conversation.

Since that happened in the morning, you could say it set the tone for the rest of the day. New year seemed relatively fair, and with the overcast clouds and seemingly constant shower; which I'm sure many people who had invested a lot in fire works for the evening, found it worrisome. But for me, I'd choose that weather for New Year's anytime.

See, though I had bought just a few fireworks (about 500 pesos worth) just for the tradition, I wasn't really going to lose money had the rains really poured. I mean, tradition it may be, but its still a night filed with noise and smokes. And I never really did like my New Years too noisy or polluted.

As it happened, everyone had a window for good weather minutes to midnight - long enough to have our fireworks light up, then have the rains come afterward to wash out all the dust, smoke and garbage.

We did our traditional noise barrage using pots and pans, threw coins in every room for fortune, and yes... even jumped high for the possibility of growing taller... well, this tradition was for the kids really, not I. After which we took a few pictures, and then decided to rest... after all, we had things to do the next day - a Cavite trip being one of them.

Over all, 2008 was a good year. Not spectacular - but it gave me more than enough to save for the holidays. It could have been better, of course... but no complaints here. As I look back and reminisce with my handy dandy 2008 planner, I see some poignant events that happened... mostly work related... some just trivial... met new friends - lost one. Sat in for teach-backs of some colleagues... and watched them get better as recognized facilitators.

Went to Hong Kong with the family, facilitated a wonderful and honest to goodness cross-cultural session, watched Bernice as a scout leader, watched Bryce (on the side) enjoy his first date. My faily - including the Cuenca side, were all relatively healthy... specially Bing Bing, who had a scooter accident with a jeep/truck and had to undergo a painful operation to reset her bones in August... now relatively cast-free. Yup... thank God for that one.


Now, all I need to do, is work for an equally spectacular 2009. ... aside from the fact that we're all wondering how this coming year will be - based on how the world is being affected by the U.S. recession - I'm sure there are a lot of promising activities just waiting to be explored.

One can dream, right? And as long as its a positive dream... well, let's let the Law of Attraction do its work.