Tuesday – 19 Oct

[smartads] I didn’t sleep very well when I went to bed early this morning, a couple of minutes before 0300, but I got up at 0737 anyway.  I figured that I could just get up now and take a nap later.  I got up, did the CR thing and decided to cook some oatmeal for breakfast.  After that I helped Lita out some, outside with some of the clothes. Then I figured it was time to check the blog out to see if I reached my goal of 500 overnight.   Of course it was only a little over 6 hours since I turned the computer off.  At 0300 the hits were at 17247 and at 0920 they were at 17311.  Now only 64 hits is not my idea of  a good evening.

I guess that only small amount of sleep was really catching up with me.  I had to go take a nap for almost 3 hours just now.  It was just after 7:00pm and it got to be impossible to keep my eyes open.  Yeah, I know, 7:00pm is not a good time to take a nap normally, but I think I’m still sleepy enough that I will be able to go to bed at 1 or 2am and still get at least 6 hours sleep before the sounds of the day force me to get up.  Sleeping late on the weekday is difficult to do around here with everyone getting ready for work and especially school.

Lets get down to it.  For some reason unknown to me, Eddie did not pick up the tricycle this morning.  Maybe he is sick, I didn’t get an explanation.   This is only the 2nd time he didn’t get the trike that I can remember.

Lita gave Vicky the money to go to the market by herself today, because she did not feel like going with her.   It’s cool though, we trust Vicky, and she always brings the receipt for the records anyway.

Since Ramil is in Manila now, I had to wipe the truck down today.  I also had to help pick up trash that got dumped over by some dog that found a way into the compound, even though we have things locked up good.  We think we know how, so were going to try to correct the situation tonight.  I usually hear the dog while I’m on the computer, and I probably did last night, I didn’t bother to check when I thought I heard him trying to get in.  I’ll have to be checking from now on though, unless I want to continue to pick up trash.  I thought we had that taken care of with everything being closed so I didn’t worry about him getting in, but evidently I was wrong.  So I’ll be investigating all noises from here on out.  It’ll be impossible to live with Lita, if I don’t.

I changed the blog around a little bit.  I’m sure you noticed the background is different.  What do you think?  Is that better, worse, doesn’t matter..what?  In addition to the background, I also added a map.  Glenda requested a map and this was the only way I could think of to be sure that it was available on each and every post that you read.  The map is available in a link under “Philippine Cities and Towns”.  I’ve already tested it to make sure it works.  In addition to that I also added 3 new links under the the title of “Blogroll”.  That is kind of like the catch all link on this blog.  The links under this one, I’m going to try to remember to change every month, so y’all will have a variety.  So please at least take a quick peek at what’s there.  There are a couple of stories there now of some Americans that each took a bus trip from Manila to Calbayog.  That’s a long trip and they each had very different adventures.  I liked their stories so I included them so y’all would have a chance to read them also.  The remaining link under Blogroll is a site I found that has basic facts and history of the City of Calbayog.  That also seemed interesting, hence it is here on the site.  As I said, I will try to remember to change these every month, but if you think one or more of them is something that could be used again in the future, then I’ll find a way to add it to blog permanently.  I’m not planning on having more than 3 links in this area, so I won’t have so many to look for each month.

I did get some new pictures today.  I grabbed the camera to get a picture of Titing’s little eatery, but by the time I got there, Anna Pearl was closing it up.  It was an hour early, but I guess they ran out of food or something.  She said it wasn’t up to her, Titing told her to close.  I took a couple of pictures of her next to the eatery with a couple of things still left in the case, so I didn’t come out completely empty handed.  Since I had the camera with me anyway, I decided to take a walk down the street and take some pictures of things on our street.  It’s the first time that I’ve actually walked down there AND paid attention to what’s there.  I didn’t know that there are about 5, maybe 6 little mom & pop stores down there.  Not that far apart either.  I only walked about 100 yards down the road, and that’s how many I saw.  Probably between here and Calbayog, about 1 mile away, there will be a couple of dozen of those little stores.  That’s even taking into account that about 1/2 of that mile on the left is all ocean and part of the area on the right, is a cemetery.  There are also more houses on the right side then I knew of within that 100 yards too.  Think I’ll venture out more often to see what else I can see.  Could go the other direction, away from town too.  I’m sure they’ll be something I didn’t know about there also, but it’ll be less, because we are close to the end of the houses and businesses.

We did end up getting  quite a bit of rain today, from that typhoon.  It rained very  hard for about 1 hour.  The winds picked up and were gusting hard enough that we had to close down the BBQ and move everything inside.  But nothing serious, all is back to normal.  The BBQ opened up again, and the rain stopped.  That’s probably what we can usually expect from any typhoon up north.  That’s the first time, since we’ve been here, this time, that we’ve had anything that strong, and it wasn’t any worse than the many storms we’ve been through in Texas.  There was even less thunder and lightning with this one.  I just finished telling my Father that we didn’t hardly have anything happen here about 2 hours before this happen.  That will teach me to mess with Mother Nature.  Next time I’ll wait before telling anyone anything.  I guess, “So far, so good”, will be a better statement.

I’m trying to start a new blog.  Not sure if I’ll go through with it though.  It’s only going to be something that I update once a week, maybe once a month would be better.  All it is…well the title would speak best, I call it: Putting My Thoughts In Type.  I had the name: In My Opinion…., but when I went on the internet to look for it, there were so many different sites that had those 3 words in it.  It would be very hard to find my site that way. I looked up “Putting My Thoughts In Type” (in quotes) and there was nothing with that ‘exact’ wording.  So when/if I go through with it, and when/if you decide to read it, when you look it up the first time, just put it in quotes and it should be the first item you come to.  I’m going to test it to be sure, after, if I do it.

Tagalog word of the day:  siko (sea-co) means elbow.

Philippine Trivia

10. Aimee Carandang is the first Filipina to become a commercial plane pilot.

11. The oldest Philippine university for women is Centro Escolar University.

12. Jose P. Laurel has the most children (7) among the Philippine presidents.

13. Eva Estrada Kalaw is the first Filipina to be elected senator twice, in 1965 and in 1971.

14. The first modern building in the Philippines is considered to be the Crystal Arcade in Escolta, completed in 1932.

15. Aurora is the only Philippine province named after a first lady.

16. The biggest game preserve and wildlife sanctuary in the Philippines is located on Calauit Island in Palawan.

17. The most translated Philippine poem is Mi Ultimo Adios.

18. The Philippine mammal with the biggest eyes in relation to its body is the tarsier.

I think I did pretty well today on this post.  I’ll insert those pictures I got from my little walk and hopefully y’all will find them interesting enough to make comments.  I know Winda and Wayne have already thought of something to say about me taking that little walk down the street.  Am I right?

Salamat, Palaam