RETIRED WARRANT

The trip home

Hi folks, and I am really sorry about neglecting the blog for so long. I just was so busy doing stuff with Laila and others that I totally gave up on trying to keep up with things.

I am now in the air and on my way home. It was a great trip as we were able to meet some of the players in Unification Wars and learn more about the game. We also spent some good quality time together and with friends.

But now it is time to get back home and get to work. I will be blogging daily again and keeping everything updated from here on out. I do have a few things to get taken care of as usually happens after a long trip, but I should have that done right away.

We are about 4 hours out of San Francisco now and I think I will go ahead and blog quickly about the trip and then carry it on when I get to San Francisco and have some power to be able to plug into.

While the trip here was a total fiasco, the trip home has been a lot better. Laila dropped me off at the airport abut 4 hours before the flight. I got in a short line of only 6 people and it only took a little over a hour to get my boarding pass, which is pretty fast for Philippine Air.

I then went through customs and the second checkpoint, I forgot to tell of the one when you enter the airport, and then I called Laila. I talked to her for a while but the place was pretty crowded and I was really tired of standing so I went ahead and told her I was going to go sit for a while, which I did.

I was watching the standard airport stuff, like the people trying to sneak stuff through airport security, the lovers almost having sex as they said their goodbyes and all. I was talking with this one younger Filipino/American guy from San Francisco and then he wandered around making friends, mostly trying to meet women. It was all fun to watch.

I then called Laila back and talked to her until they started boarding. The only incident I saw going through the final security check and getting ready to board was this lady who was a first class passenger. She was really creating quite a scene as she did not think she had to wait in line to go through security since she was first class. The airline has nothing to do with security so she had to wait like everyone else and she was really angry about it. I got through before she did, but I had this secret hope that she would get all her stuff searched while going through. That went fairly quick and the plane was not full so I was able to stretch out as the middle seat was empty and the Filipino guy in the isle seat was really small so he had plenty of room.

I watched the first movie and then went to sleep for a while. The movie selection was the same old lame stuff that they usually have on these flights, all g-rated mostly Disney flicks.

Now I am waiting for them to either show the TV shows or rerun one of the movies or something. I have a set of NCIS video’s with me so I can put one of them on if I feel the need but I have been thinking abut a new spreadsheet layout for the game and I might work on that for a bit.

So I guess until I get to San Francisco this is it for now.

All right, I got to San Francisco and actually got here a half an hour early. It was kind of cool that I did get here early since it took forever to get off the plane and then when I did get off the plane it took forever t get my luggage.

Every time I fly with Philippine Air they give people grief in line about carry on baggage and all. Every time I get on the plane and then try and get off the plane I basically see all kinds of violations of the carry on baggage rule.

Philippine Air does have a charge for overweight carry on baggage and with the soaring costs of air travel and fuel prices, if I were them I would go ahead and start weighing the bags and assessing the fines at the cabin door. That would stop these people who try and move their entire household on the plane as carry on baggage. I carry just one small bag that fits under the seat in front of me. It gets extremely irritating to try and get off the plane while these people trying to get the bags and bags of stuff out of the overhead bins. I would be really grateful to see them enforce their policy. If these people had to pay out of pocket for the inconveniences they cause people they would stop doing it.

Next we had to take the long hike to customs. They have lines for returning US residents, but then no one pays attention to those lines and as they just go to whatever line they want to go to. So those lines were backed up and when I got to the counter the guy gave me the 20 questions routine. He asked me where I had gone, how long I was there and how many times I had visited. He then asked me if I brought back any CD’s in which I answered yes. That perked his interest until I told him that they were the Columbia House CD’s I took with me.

I then went to the endless wait at the baggage carousel and got my bag to take through customs and turn back in at the other end. That whole thing seems like a waste to me. Why can’t they just check you through and if they want to search your stuff pull it out as it is being transferred to the next airline. Oh well, they are the government and there to help me.

I then had no problem getting to the United Airlines counter to get my boarding pass. I then went through security there and off to the gate. I tried to call Judy on the payphone to let them know when I get in, but the pay phones were all broken. There was this guy there that saw what happened and let me use his cell phone to call, so I was able to tell them when I would get in.

I found a great spot with a receptacle and resumed the blogging until my flight starts boarding which should be in about ten minutes or so. Now I think that since it will be boarding soon I will hit the little boy’s room and get ready to go. I will write tomorrow’s post from work during the lunch hour.

Getting back to normal

One of the hard things of returning from a visit to see Laila, in addition to that empty feeling I get from being apart is getting back on schedule here. Since the time difference is so big it takes a little time to adjust back to the work and sleep schedule.

Yesterday after work I was so beat down from lack of sleep I could barely move, but then after logging onto Unification Wars and going out of damage protection it took my mind off how tired I was and I went ahead and stayed up until the 11PM news went off before going to sleep. Now after a full night of sleep I am almost completely back on schedule. This morning I woke up feeling good and well rested though now that it is lunchtime I am feeling it in my legs.

Yesterday was kind of a lazy day after I got off work. I was going to go to the Commissary and do some grocery shopping but by the time work ended yesterday I just wanted to get some rest so I stopped by Ralph’s Supermarket on the way home and got some of their delicatessen fried chicken and potato salad along with some milk and a few other things we were out of and we had that for dinner. No cooking and little cleanup was the order of the day. I then watched television and got caught up a little with the news. When I was at Laila’s I didn’t even worry about what was going on in the world, just our little world.

Anyway I logged onto the game and was excited to see several new members had joined our federation and we had a new alliance with some folks I have made friends with over the past few weeks. In fact one of them Honor Bound was chatting with Laila when I got up this morning. We have been helping each other out the past several days and I was glad to see that Spartacus our federation leader formed an alliance with his federation. Anyway Laila found out that Honor Bound is a fellow Filipino and they were chatting like old friends when I got up his morning.

This is going to be a great alliance of two good federations. Also we have the same enemies in common. There are a couple of guys in particular that I would love to either attack or see attacked.

There are a few players that just don’t seem to get things. One in particular has been extremely abusive with one of my federation members in the PM’s. This guy is always talking about how he will attack him and all members of our federation without mercy. When I went out last night the weasel was waiting with a power ratio about three times higher than mine, and of course he attacked me several times. He even sent me a PM bragging about what he had done. The only thing he did was use up some of our outpost and stole a few planets. Anyway I just ignored him and rebuilt my fleet while my federation mates rebuilt the outpost. The idiot continued to attack me and then one of my federation mates made a mistake and accidentally built a fleet on his main system causing him to drop out of damage protection and so he came up to my power rating so out mates could protect both of us with outpost.

Another fed mate joined in the fun when his damage protection expired and three guys from our sister federation came up to join us. The knucklehead attacked all of as and the only person that suffered was he as his fleet kept getting destroyed. Anyway this continued for a little while and most of the other players seeing the six of us all together in the 600 million power rating range decided they didn’t want any part of that. Anyway I don’t know what happened but the idiot somehow or for some reason logged off the game and left his empire unattended. In a split second I used retaliation on him and I think some of my mates did because he disappeared so fast into damage protection it was amazing. It takes 8 tokens to wind up in dp. He had 8 after his last attack on me. A minor hit takes 1 token while a major hit takes 2 tokens. He went from 8 to zero in a matter of seconds and I made up more planets than he had taken so in addition to me smacking him really hard I think my fed mates as well as a few others smacked him really hard as well.

There was one more idiot out there that we have been having a run in with and he also hit me a few times. He is a suicider, which is one of the lower forms of payers. These guys build fleets just to destroy systems and screw up people’s holdings. They can also be used by federations against enemies by attacking from a high pr with an uneven or spam stack and in addition to destroying the outpost they can sometimes devastate a system’s planets. This clown appeared to be working with the other one and slapped me hard only to come up with nothing for his efforts. He hit me a few times and just as I was about to retaliate he disappeared. I found out that he ran and hid at a really low pr, so low it wasn’t even on the page I was on.

The problem with suiciders is that they do not build up their systems so they are always broke. Fleets cost a lot and as a miner I don’t worry too much about it because I can make the 5T maximum holdings in 1 or 2 turns. When he hit me and lost his fleet I don’t think he had the money to rebuild so off he went to run and hide. Anyway I still have a ton or retaliations built up against him and I am sure some day I will see him again.

Yesterday Laila and I worked on the new miner mission. I almost messed up because I was trying to complete one of the steps that required a power rating of 9 billion pr. I decided to do it with star bases because they don’t move you out of damage protection like other ships will. I miscalculated and through myself into the hole on credits and had to wait to sell ore and stuff to get out of the hole. Soon I was back at 5 trillion and reached the pr only to be awarded 1 billion in credits and 1 billion in food. I was a little upset with that but continued the mission figuring the game would give me a new system, which it did. The only problem was that it gave me a level 3 Sol system, which is just about the most useless system in the game. It also gave me 10,000 planets and later the mission gave me another 50,000 planets. Then the mission said I had to get to level 14 before I meet the next level but that will take about another week or so.

Anyway I am getting more comfortable fighting in the game and all. Laila showed me an easy way of rebuilding my fleet after an attack and I have made some very useful Excel files to help me figure numbers of ships and all. Also I know who to attack and the best way, as well as ho not to attack and when. I have learned to save my retaliations and use them all rapid fire against my enemies. I help people out when they have unattended systems by attacking their outer systems to push them towards damage protection as well as hit enemies main system when they are unattended. I also know how to recon now to find out what kind of outpost someone is getting and all. I felt we have grown a long way in the past weeks.

Anyway, I can’t wait to get off today so I can gas up the car, make some spaghetti and get on the PC. Anyway, have fun and I am going to get ready for the afternoon session.

Court Hearing Resets

Today Laila had to go to court and we were hoping that we would get this last case resolved, The birth records thing is supposed to be over and the one with the fake Saudi ex is over, but we still have the remaining case to get through and it should be over by now.

The first time Laila tried to go to court on this one, it was canceled due to a typhoon. The second time it was canceled because the judge was out of the country. today it was canceled because the judge was sick. This is three times the case has been moved back, she has had to pay all three times and now this crap is going to be stretched out until June.

I told her she needs to find out where she can register a complaint, because this is crap. This is going to continue dragging out everything for several more months and I am getting tired of waiting.

I guess that is it for now. I am too bummed to write anything else.

Fifth Manila visit

Well I am back in the Philippines for the fifth time to visit Laila and trying to adjust to the hours, slow Internet speeds and the noisy streets.

Anyway Sunday after getting home from the airport we tried to get caught up on some sleep. We work a nap for a while and then got up for a while, then another nap and so on.

We finally got up and went to church but missed the opening prayers and all because we were a little late. We were also up in the balcony and couldn’t see anything. Next week I will make sure we go to the morning mass and make sure we are not late.

Anyway Sunday was Seventh Sunday in Ordinary time. The first reading was 1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23. The second reading was 1 Corinthians 15:45-49 and the gospel was Luke 6:27-38 and though the mass was inTagalog Laila translated some of it so that it was about a message saying love your enemy.

After the mass we went to dinner at a Chinese place called The Super Bowl of China. The food was OK but after walking all over the place and the lack of sleep I was very tired and only wanted to sleep.

We had a lot of leftovers and so we just brought them home and Laila and I went to bed early.

My DMV adventure

Yesterday I took an adventure and went to the Department of Motor Vehicles. I let the guys know that I was going there during my lunch hour and that I may be a little late. ET1 told me if I was going there don’t even bother coming back because I would spend my entire lunch hour just waiting in line, and that by the time I got done it would be too late. I told him that since it was a Tuesday maybe it would go pretty quick, but he didn’t think so.

Anyway at lunch time I jumped in the car and off I went. I got to the parking lot of the DMV and noticed the line to even get in was already lined up out in the parking lot and I couldn’t find a parking space.

Then I almost witnessed an accident as some knucklehead backed out of a parking spot without looking. In fact the lady he almost hit was parked right beside him. She pulled out and was getting ready to start forward and he almost backed into her. She hit her horn and the knucklehead then looked and saw her. That would have been embarrassing getting in a wreck at the DMV.

Anyway I took her spot and then went and got in line. While there I noticed that about 85% of the people were foreigners. Many were there with their entire families or friends. As I was going into the building after waiting outside I noticed all the no food or liquids and no cell phone signs posted everywhere. When I got inside I noticed that a lot of people blew off the no food, liquids, and cell phone signs.

I got to the counter and they gave me my number B282 and then I went to the waiting area where they were displaying the numbers. Since everyone brought their families, friends and all there was no seats left so I found an empty place to stand and then watched as they posted the next B number which was like B253 or close to there. It didn’t sound so bad and I figured it would go pretty quick.

Since everyone with a B number was there for change of Title or Registration the wait is a little longer than some of the other things like driver’s license and all. I finally got a seat near on of the registration desks and then watched as people had all kind of excuses for being late, trying to register without a smog check, not having the documentation and all kinds of other stuff. A lot of it was funny and some people are so dumb. If you are trying to shortcut or defraud the system these people are going to catch it. I mean that is all they do, is just this paperwork. Anyway I was watching people get turned away and watched while those with the proper paperwork spent very little time at the desk.

For a while it seemed like I was going to be seen right away as they started ticking through the B numbers really fast, but then they got stuck on the G and H numbers and for a while they didn’t even call B numbers.

Some big guy took the seat next to me and this guy was gross. He was big, fat, and he was snoring even though he was awake. He kept coughing and snorting and even belching. Every time they would call a non-B number he would complain. It got annoying and I was really glad when he moved. Then a Chinese guy sat next to me and I felt bad for him. He had a number in the B325 range and he was going to be there for a while, but he was pretty cool.

Right after he sat down up came B282, and I went off to window 15. I gave the lady the title which was all filled out and signed. She asked me the value and gave me a piece of paper to fill out. I told her that I was changing the name on the title due to the divorce and she said, good, that I didn’t have to pay taxes or get it smog checked.

She then gave me an amount to write the check for and sent me to a window to get new tags. I spent less than 5 minutes at her desk and when I got all done it was 1:30 PM so I was there for about 2 and a half hours, maybe a little less.

After that I dropped by the bank which is fairly close to the DMV and then headed for home. I stopped by the post office and got the mail. I think it is almost time to send my city councilman another e-mail as there are more and more panhandlers showing up in the neighborhood. I usually ignore them but some get a little abusive when you walk by. Anyway whenever the numbers of them start increasing I drop and e-mail to my councilman and they disappear for a while. They have been hanging out at the grocery store and post office lately and a few of them have been getting aggressive.

After that I went home, since it was too late to go back to work, and so I did some things for work on the laptop at home and waited for Laila to come on line. We were both very productive last night in gathering planets and Laila again got more than I did. Both of us made it out and back with little damage and then we posted for one of our fed mates.

When he went out, someone crushed him before he even got his fleet built so someone was sitting on him. I will keep that in mind next time I am building. I think the key is to switch fleets fast. I also have seen where some folks don’t attack my main but hit my other planets so I will have to think of a strategy for that.

Today is Valentine’s Day and Laila was happy to receive the flowers and chocolates I sent her. Also when I came in there was a note that we are having a meeting today so I will have to go there. I am going to stop off and get some food for the kids when I get off work today.

So I guess that is about it for today. Have a great week.

On my way home

Well after a long flight I have made it to LAX and an awaiting my flight to San Diego. I will have to go start getting ready to board that one in two hours for the little half hour flight south.

I called Laila from Manila but then the line went dead when I ran out of coins to dump in the machine. I was going to send her an e-mail from here but the darned airport does not have any of those portable e-mail things at this terminal unless I join some presidential flyer club thing or something like that for $50 so forget about that one.

The airport at Manila was really slow at first but it still didn’t allow me to get through the terminal very fast. It never ceases to amaze me how no matter what line I get into at Philippine Air in Manila it goes really slow.

Today I got behind a large family and then a group of contract workers. The large family had something wrong with their passports and that held up the line and then the group of contractors had screwed up paperwork of some type, which further held things up. I would think that since they deal with contractors all the time they would have a separate line to deal with those problems with someone trained to deal with those types of problems. Just as a customer service thing.

The other problem with the contractors thing is that when a couple get to the front of the line all their buddies come up to join them since they are all on the same documents, so the short line you were in immediately turns into this really long line that takes forever to get through. So after waiting in line for over an hour I finally got my bag checked and then went into the terminal section where I could call Laila. Since her PLDT landline phone is still not hooked up, I had to call her cell phone at 7 Pesos per minute vice 1 peso per minute. I had over 100 pesos in coins but they went fast and at the end of the money without warning the line went dead.

I then went through the rest of the security checkpoints and finally found a place to sit down, but it was next to this family traveling with a bunch of young kids. These kids were totally out of control and I was really getting upset especially with their little girl who was demanding all kinds of attention from everyone and would throw a temper tantrum when her siblings, mother or father did not act fast enough to suit her.

Then came the announcement that the plane would be late boarding as it had arrived late. That actually took an additional hour before we were able to board. Finally it was time to board the plane, and I like window seats but wound up with an isle seat. Also the little brat and her siblings were a couple of rows behind me raising hell, while their parents, maybe they are really smart or very neglectful sat several rows in front of me, away from their kids. Right next to me there was a couple with a small kid, about 15 months old and so I figured the flight would be hell. Actually the 15 month old didn’t make any noise at all until the end of the flight when the lights came on and then she quieted right down. The brat in the back finally shut up, after a few passengers had a talk with her and the siblings, so she settled down for most of the flight, but still raised hell from time to time.

The movies were ok this time except that every time the Steward made an announcement he would either forget to restore the movie or put the wrong movie on. After the first movie “The Guardian” I took a nap and then watched a couple episodes of NCIS on my laptop. The ride across the pacific was very bumpy this time, and though we left late we arrived at LAX early.

I went ahead and made it trough customs and immigration with no problem even though I did drop my jacket somewhere along the way. I was going to go back and look for it, but I had already made it through all the checkpoints and did not even want to attempt going back for it, with all the hassles that would involve. Besides I have another one at home.

Ah I forgot, getting my bag was another adventure. They had two carousels going to get your baggage, and so I was watching both like a hawk. All of a sudden there was no more baggage, and so I was thinking here we go again. As I was wandering around to look where I had to go to report lost luggage, there was my bag on some guy’s cart. So I went and got that, without letting the guy know a thing, but I was pretty unhappy.

After that I checked my bag through and then set out for the American Airlines terminal for my connecting flight. I was going to try and get on an earlier flight, but it seems like they are really booked tonight and the lines were really long so I decided I would call Judy and tell her when to get me, and then just catch the one I was already registered with.

After calling Judy I went in search of one of those internet rip off machines, and even asked one of the security guards, but there are none in this terminal. I had ran my battery on my lap top down on the plane, so I then wandered around the terminal looking for a place to plug in, recharge, and blog. So now that is what I am doing while waiting for my flight to come up.

Actually I am thinking of going and getting something to eat since the breakfast on the plane was pretty bad. I had sausage, ham and eggs, as the alternate was fish, and I am not a fish eater at all. Anyway the eggs were runny and the pastry tasted really strange. There is a Chili’s, and a Burger King here and though I know they will charge an arm and a leg, I am a little hungry so I might just fill out the loan papers and buy dinner.

Anyway, that is the excitement going on for this trip home. Also for Laila, yeah I am still itching. I picked up some kind of skin thing and my chest and arms have been itching for a few days now. We think it might have had something to do with the change in climate or maybe something with the water. It hasn’t happened to me on past trips so I am hoping it will clear up when I get home and get back to the routine at home.

Well, I am off to the head and to get something to eat before going to the gate to catch the ride home. I will post this when I get there or maybe even tomorrow when I have more time. It is going to be hard to get to sleep tonight, especially with work tomorrow, but I will get back into the swing of things right away. Time to get moving.

Well I went to the head and it was one of the more filthy places I have ever been and after that good food on the plane I had to of course go number two so I really hope that I didn’t catch anything really strange from sitting in there, even though I cleaned it up the best I could. It kind of reminded me of the ex-wife’s friend Judy. This woman would never use a public restroom. She was Canadian and she would do everything she possibly could before having to use a public place. Humm that reminds me, I wonder what ever happened to her. She had moved and the ex lost touch with her. I have no clue where she moved to or what ever became of her. I do know that she was a walking advertisement for why socialized medical care doesn’t work. She had a rare blood disorder and moved to the US and became a citizen because she could not get timely treatment for her condition in Canada. Anyway, I hope she and her new man are doing great.

This was weird. I went to the different food places in the terminal but all the lines were really long and as a result I decided to skip out on eating until I get home. I then went to the terminal gate and they put me on a bus. We then went out for a drive along the runways to a little building with several gates. Of course this is the first time I have flown American Eagle as I usually fly United Express. Trying to fly around the holidays messes up normal plans I guess. Anyway, here I am at my terminal now and we should be boarding pretty quickly as it is 8:53 PM and the plane is scheduled to depart at 9:35 PM. It is one of those noisy prop jobs, but they are really nice for short flights and you get to claim you luggage really fast. That means if Judy gets to the airport on time I will be in and out of the terminal in a matter of minutes and on my way to the house.

I hope Judy managed to talk to Laila on Skype tonight to let her know what is up. Since I was not able to send an e-mail from the terminal, I hope she is not worried about me. We have had very iffy connections since the earthquake off the coast of Taiwan last week as the lines into and out of the Philippines were affected. In fact the kids were complaining that they were having severe problems playing Rose Online and were playing a game across the server instead which was slowing Laila’s computer down.

It could mess up our TV watching until they get it fixed. They said about two weeks at the most, but since they are trawling for some ¾ inch fiber optic cables on the ocean floor, I think this outage will take a little longer than that to fix. Then of course since I was busy with Laila, I haven’t really kept up with the progress of the repairs. I did notice PLDT came out almost immediately and blamed all of their server problems of the past decade on the brake. I am still trying to figure out how that affects Laila’s landline.

Wow, 9:02 PM now so we should be boarding soon. I hope I don’t have any problems. They gave me my boarding pass in Manila along with my boarding pass for PR 112. It has the flight number and airline, but no gate and no time. The TSA folks were eyeballing it carefully and I told them they issued it to me in Manila and used my military retired ID to get through security and they let me pass no problem and even thanked me for my service.

The one thing that did crack me up was they had a border patrol checkpoint over between Immigration and the Customs desk and he asked me the purpose of my visit to the Philppines. I told him to visit family for the holidays and then he asked me is if was married to a Filipina. I told him not yet, that we were engaged, but it struck me odd, why they would be asking an American Citizen about their travels abroad. I can see it from Customs and Immigration, but not the Border Patrol.

Well it is now 9:08 PM so I guess I had better get the laptop stowed because we should be boarding soon. I figure a half hour flight to San Diego, another half hour to get home, and then I will log on to the Internet to say hi to Laila and let her know I got home all right.

I hope I get up on time in the morning, because even though I did sleep a bit on the plane I will still be tired, but I can’t go to sleep as soon as I get home from a flight as the adrenaline will still have me pumped up.

Well, I hope everyone had a great holiday season last year and I hope everyone has a prosperous and great New Year in 2007.

Celebrating Media Noche

I am beginning to really hate blogdrive. This darned thing can be such a challenge at times, erasing your entries in mid stream, screwing up links, and other hiccups that happen, but then I guess I am used to it. I guess that is why I usualy post by typing something in word first and then publishing it in Blogdrive Editor.

Of course, this morning is not one of those days and I have already erased this post twice. Anyway, here goes another attempt, and since I am not using word please forgive any spelling errors until Laila, my spellchecker and text editor gets her hands on it.

Last night was New Year’s Eve, and though I blogged about the fireworks, I did not say anything about the day. Laila and I will try and fix yesterday’s post complete with video sometime today.

Yesterday, we got up early so we could go to mass at 7 AM across the street at Sto. Cristo Chapel. Rev. Fr. Viviano, the Italian priest, gave the mass in Tagalog, and Laila translated it for me once in a while.

Yesterday was the Sunday within the Octave of Christmas, The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph which is quite a long title for the mass. We got there a couple of minutes late as Laila was a little slow getting ready, women.

The first reading as 1 Samuel 1: 20-22, 24-28. The second reading was 1 John 3:1-2, 21-24. The Gospel was Luke 2: 41-52. The mass was about family.

Rev. Fr. Viviano explained that we have three families. We have our immediate family, our spiritual family and our church family. Our immediate family is important for companionship and love. Our spiritual family is Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and that is for our spiritual well being. We then have our church family for a social ,family and companionship, kind of a community family.

The father also made it a point to tell us we were not a good church family member if we go to church but do not live the teachings. Anyway, that is what I got out of the mass between the Tagalog, Laila’s translation and some of the English the father used.

After church, Laila, her kids, and I went to McDonalds for a good Filipino big breakfast, then I helped Jun Jun with his school project. We then watched the last couple episodes of CSI (2nd Season) then in the afternoon, I cooked (thick cut) Steaks, mashed potatoes, and corn, for dinner while Laila made the gravy. I was kind of sick and collapsed while cooking due to exposure to heat and humidity but, Laila caught me before I fell on my knees on the floor. Junjun also helped me go back to the room and was able to cool down infront of the a/c. Although exhausted, I managed to have dinner with Laila’s mother and kids.

After dinner, we watched Passion of Christ while Laila napped in between some scenes. It was past eleven in the evening when we all went to the Balcony and watched the fireworks. In Philippine culture, the midnight dinner or Media Noche is served after welcoming the New Year but since we’re still full, we only served Goldilocks cake. Well, we will try to share and get our little video edited and posted.

Have a great New Years Day everyone.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year from Laila’s house in the Philippines. I am going to post a video clip we took from her balcony. Hopefully it will work.

This is what her neighborhood looks and sounds like on New Years Eve. Smile

Ooops won’t work Sad so I will try and post it tomorrow. Time for bed right now if the noise tames down a bit.

These video things are new to both Laila and myself, but at least I got my camera to record it. Now I just have to figure out what to do with it. Shocked

See you all tomorrow.

Christmas Eve

Sunday is here and even though we went to bed early last night, it was impossible for me to get Laila up in time for the 7 AM mass this morning so we will go to the 5 PM mass instead. I really wanted to go to the morning mass as that way we could go to mass and eat breakfast outside of the house, keeping us from having to clean up and do dishes and all.

Now that we are going to the 5 PM mass we will have to deal with traffic and then also I had plans on cooking a good Christmas Eve Dinner, but since we will be at church from 5 PM to whenever we will just eat outside and then go to the Christmas Eve 10 PM mass, leaving no real time to cook or clean up from a dinner at home.

Anyway, since we didn’t go to church we made breakfast this morning, then we checked out some news stories, and I checked out a few news sites. We were discussing how poor the Philippines is and how her government seems to be doing nothing about the people’s situation.

I then pointed out where our country is selling out the taxpayers to foreign investors through the SPP, which I have blogged about before. That is that superhighway being constructed from Mexico to Canada for the rapid transport of Chinese goods. It is being sold under the radar as a program for mutual protection of the countries in North America. Actually I wonder if it is setting up future infrastructure for when China decides to take over the United States.

Also last week I think I blogged on how China is purposely devaluating the dollar and have been working on that since Thanksgiving. I showed where some stories about the true American Government and the bridges to nowhere in Alaska. Want to know why the country is so broke and is afraid to report the real national debt. It is because they will spend the taxpayers money that you pay in, for unneeded bridges in Alaska so the 50 inhabitants don’t have to take a 5 to 10 minute ferry ride.

In the meantime the Government will not tell you that if they took 100% of what everyone in the country makes and apply it to the national debt, the debt will not be paid. This was also from a previous post and due to Internet time I don’t have time to look for the links.

All in all the world of today is scaring me. The ACLU will spend millions protecting those that would do our country harm, child molesters, and atheists. Our own President along with the Presidents of Canada and Mexico have this secret plan to sell off our sovereignty to foreign businesses, mainly China, a future and potentially dangerous future enemy.

Want to find out why Bush and Congress do not want to stop the illegals from coming across the border. That is because by 2010 there will be no borders so why get the future inhabitants of the borderless North America upset with us.

And where is Congress while all of this is going on? Well let’s see, home for Christmas, working on their next campaign, trying to get the next presidential hopeful selected. You know anything other than protecting the country. I have read a lot about this here SPP over the past few months and I can not believe that the congressmen and senators in Washington have no clue to what is going on. Rick Roberts has been reporting this on his radio show for over a year now.

Where is O’Reilly, Hannity, or any of the main stream media? The article I read on the Michael Savage site stated Lou Dobbs from CNN has been reporting on it, but then I don’t watch CNN.

I am just wondering if anyone is going to do anything about it before it is too late and one day we wake up to no United States. It looks as if the day is coming.

Anyhow I guess I should go ahead and start getting ready to go to church soon. Enough said on the sad state of American politics and politicians, as frankly I have had it with all of them.

I will just go ahead and try and have a nice holiday and forget about the Washington buffoons.

Anyway, everyone, have a great Christmas and a great New Year.

OK we are back from church so I figured I would just add it to this post. We left the house at 4:20 which was plenty of time to get to the church. We first stopped at the Perpetual Help Parish over by the mall but they changed their schedule so we then went to Sto. Domingo. There was quite a bit of traffic and Sto. Domingo was quite a ways away, so we were about ten minutes late. The place was only about half full and we got seats up close to the front.

The mass was given by a Bishop but I did not catch the name, I could just tell by the special robes and all. The first reading was from Micah 5:1-4a. The second reading was from Hebrews 10:5-10. The gospel was Luke 1:39-45. The message was about sharing, and I had to depend on Laila for that as the mass was in Tagalog. I caught parts about fancy gifts and trips and big meals, and I think his message was that while we are celebrating, we should not forget about the poor.

After mass we were going to go to the SM Mall and eat at the Super Bowl of China. Laila loves it as it is a Chinese food place, but the kids were not too impressed. I guess that is one of Pearl’s least favorite places to eat, so instead we went to a Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Laila got the spicy chicken and we each got a plate of spaghetti. She got the spicy chicken because it was already done and we would have had to wait 20 minutes or more for the regular chicken to be cooked. I guess they were not prepared for all the customers they had last night and yes it was very crowded.

After eating we had a really hard time catching a cab. A lot of the drivers wanted to charge inflated rates for the holidays. We finally got a cab and the ride back to the apartment was a different route then I am used to. We went past the compound where her father’s family lives. Her father’s family has their nose too far up in the air to have the extended family live there. As far as they are concerned Laila, her siblings, and all the grandchildren do not exist.

We also went past her old high school and her sister’s house on the way home. When we got home the kids and Laila started playing Rose online and I took a short nap while waiting to go to the 10 PM Christmas Celebration Mass at Sto. Cristo. We left at 9:40 and just had to cross the street, but when we got there the place was full. We managed to get inside but there were no seats so we stood for the mass. Pearl also managed to get inside but Jun Jun, Tin Tin, and Denise had to stand outside along with hundreds of others.

I guess when times are hard Filipinos as with many other folks turn towards God, and I have seen the churches packed here during the holidays. After all times are hard. The Value Added Tax (VAT) imposed by President Arroyo is absurd to people earning so little. Inflation has the prices higher, the VAT is adding extra expense to anything they buy, and then they are being denied but billed for basic services such as water.

So it does not surprise me that they are turning to God and begging for relief. Their government has a deaf ear, much like the government of the United States. The political elections are more of a popularity contest here with the top twelve well known people elected to the Senate and they are not responsible to any specific region as our Senators are. Instead they represent the whole country, and I feel that is a bad thing.

What the Philippines have for elected officials is people with name recognition. Their politicians are made up of singers, actors, sports personalities, or anyone else that makes a name for themselves.

They have lots of name recognition but no experience. They are from the upper class and have money so they are oblivious to the plight of the common Filipino. So as a result they turn into followers, and they follow the career politicians that have power and desire to hold office, no matter what the costs to the people.

Right now as we ride around Quezon City there are signs on almost every lamp post and telephone pole wishing you a Merry Christmas from local councilmen, the Mayor, and other elected officials. While I don’t know much about how Philippines local politics go, if it is like the States these signs placed everywhere are being paid for with public funds I would be willing to bet. So while Laila still does not have reliable water service and still has no landline phone service, while being billed for both, they are spending the public funds for name recognition for the next election.

Well anyway, I guess this is the same anywhere though. I also saw something about Katrina victims being upset about something again yesterday. Maybe they will finally be happy in 20 or 30 years when all their wants and needs have been taken care of or when FEMA is broke and disbanded. Then of course 150 years from now we will have to deal with the reparations debate as some Je$$e Jack$on, or Al $harpton comes along showing them how they were wronged by the government many years ago and must pay, pay, pay and pay again.

Anyway it is Christmas Eve so I guess I should write about hope for the future. Over the next couple of days I will think of my wishes for the New Year. Stand by because they may be interesting.

Anyway, on a positive note, I would like to wish everyone a safe and Merry Christmas. I hope everyone has a wonderful time with family and friends. I also hope everyone gets some useful and desired items.

Make sure that you do not forget the real meaning of Christmas, the birth of our lord Jesus Christ and don’t cave into the commercialism. Also I hope no one has any of those typical Christmas Disasters, like missing parts to things you need to assemble, no batteries or the wrong batteries for those must have kids toys, or the wrong connections for the video game equipment. Just past things that have happened to me used as examples.

Remember fire safety and keep an eye on that tree and the Christmas Lights. Again be safe and have a great day.

Laila and I, and both our families wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year 2007!

Day 7 in Manila

Day seven of this trip has arrived and it is really hard to believe the time is going by so quickly. I haven’t been so great at keeping this blog up as I would like to be. I have been writing updates on my laptop, but then we will get doing something and I will forget transfer the file over to the blog.

Today we got up at 6 AM again, and we showered and made breakfast and all. Then along came the battle to wake up the kids and all. They like to stay up all night playing Rose Online and do not go to bed until we shut down the router, usually when one of us has to make a nature call in the middle of the night.

Laila had a few chores to get done and so I was encouraging her to get everything done in the morning before the traffic got bad. With the holidays everything is really crowded, especially a large shopping mall like SM.

My goal was to get to the money exchange, our first stop and then to the bank by 10 AM. We left at 10:30 AM because we were on Philippines time which is kind of, if you leave before noon that is just as good as being somewhere by 10 AM.

We got the money changed and deposited and then managed to get to the mall by about 11 AM. We bought a few items and then headed for home. We had all of our running around done for the day and so we got to hang out in the apartment the rest of the day.

I chatted with my kids at home and heard that Judy dyed Carlos’ hair. David thought it was hilarious so it could be interesting to look at when I get home. I guess the middle is brown and the sides are black. I guess I will have to wait and see what it looks like.

We then updated our Neopets accounts with the daily freebies, then took a nap for a while waking up just in time to get dinner started.

Laila wanted an authentic American Home Cooked Hamburger so while I was doing that she cooked up some Authentic Pancit Bihon, her favorite Filipino dish. While we were cooking her Mother stopped by so we invited her to join us for dinner. I guess they were all kind of surprised at how big the hamburgers were, but then that is how my mother taught me to make them. Everyone seemed to like them and both dishes were so filling that we had a lot of leftovers.

After dinner Laila came in to do her Rose Online stuff, and then at eight we continued something we have been doing. I brought several CD’s from home. In the hotel we started watching “CSI” and “NCIS” and then at 8 PM each night we have been watching “NCIS” here with the kids.

Last night I switched up what we were watching and threw in “Dead Like Me” for the evening viewing. My kids loved the show and from watching last night Laila’s kids loved it too. We watched the pilot and two episodes before Laila decided it was time to go to bed for the evening.

Anyway tomorrow is the anniversary of the first time we met in person so we will have to do something special. We will see what I can do to make things a little special. I always have my unique way of making things a little interesting.

Now it is time for us to shut down everything and get to bed. Have great holiday season.