Sunday – 17 Oct 2010

[smartads] I was so happy to get up at 0903 this morning.  Lita had the TV blaring, then she got up and left.  So I was happy to get up and turn it off.  Some guy on the TV was singing Country Rap.  It wasn’t all rapping, but a lot of the ‘songs’ were.  Never heard anyone do ‘Country” rap before.  Of course I don’t like that rap stuff anyway.  Turns out I don’t like it country style either.  If I don’t like it that way, I’m not going to like it at all.

I’m listening to my songs again so Dire Straits is getting “Money for Nothing”.  Now that I like to listen to.

When I checked the number of hits this morning I was hoping to get at least 500, as I am hoping every night, but it was only at 16208, when I went to bed it was 16139.  It didn’t even make 100 last night.  Very slow night.  Hope we don’t have too many more nights like that one.

We did have a first time commenter, not sure if she is a first time reader though.  Jade Ruby, she is a niece of mine.  She is in some of the pictures I have posted here.  Her parents are Jun and Luz.  Jade is the one that also joined the medical field, like her mother.  Glad she stopped in to look around.  Not sure why she decided to read it now and not before.  Maybe she just found out about it?  Anyway, I’m glad to have a new reader, even if it is a relative.

Dolly Parton is singing “Two Doors Down” now, next she’ll be singing “Why’d You Come Here Looking Like That”.

Lita had me outside hanging up clothes today.  I hung them up on the second floor so they would dry faster.  Lita didn’t want me to because she was scared that I would fall going up or down the stairs.  She is too over protective sometimes.  I made it up and down, twice, without incident.  There were lots of clothes up there already so it wasn’t easy finding a place to put the clothes, especially mine, because they are so big.

Speaking of big.  When I arrived here in the Philippines, I just started wearing 4X shirts.  The shirt I have on tonight is a 2X.  It fits pretty good too.  Probably all 2X shirts still won’t fit me, it depends on the manufacturer, but it’s a start.  My goal is to get down to where the Large shirts fit at least as good as this 2X.  I doubt I’ll ever be able to wear a medium again, doubt I would want to be that small again, but just being able to by my shirts without have to pay an extra $2 because they are so big, will be nice.  I always dreamed of that in Texas, but it seemed like a very long shot of ever happening, but not now.  Now it seems very possible.  By the time Jaclyn shows up in May or June, I should be looking pretty good.  At still 286 pounds, I’m still on the very heavy side, but it’s so much better than the 330 pounds I weighed in May.  That’s 44 pounds in 5 months, 8.8 pounds per month, 2.2 pounds per week.  I was told that to lose weight, and keep it off, I needed to lose weight slowly, about 2-3 per week.  Well I’m right in that area, so when I started my exercise this coming Tuesday and continue to lose weight, I should really be on a paved road heading somewhere then.  I will be taking a picture soon, but not right now.  Lita tells me I look better, but to me it still looks basically the same.  I know it’s smaller, but it looks the same, still way too big.

The Doobie Brothers are singing: “What a Fool Believes”

I was in the bedroom, just dozing off to sleep, when Lita came in yelling, go get the clothes, it’s going to be raining.  I had to go back up the stairs, but all the clothes weren’t dry yet.  All but four were dry.  She just had me hang them under the car port.  Again, lots of clothes there already.  But with only 4 to hang, it wasn’t such a problem this time.

Dr Hook is telling us what happens “When You’re in Love with a Beautiful Woman”.

Did you notice that I changed a lot of the links?  I changed the Cities/Towns, Pictures and People.  Seemed no one was looking at any of them and I wasn’t sure why.  I figured they weren’t interesting enough to read, so I changed it up a little bit.  I asked before if I should even bother putting them there, or do y’all just come to read the blog only and ignore all the links I have.   Any hoot, they have been changed so at least look to see if you want to maybe check them out.  I did it a little different then before.  Like on the people, I didn’t just put a person, I put “The Filipino People”.  Some of the are even videos to watch.  I think I put 3, maybe 4.  Only 1 of them is even close to long.

Some of the fellows are over there drinking again.  Titing, Layo and J are there.  I went over there for awhile.  I bought 1 bottle of Red Horse.  Rather I had Grace go buy it for me.  Grace is not a big drinker.  She says she has never been drunk and has no desire to get that way.  She rarely drinks, in fact it’s so rare I can’t remember any time every seeing her drink.  Not like Juvic.  Juvic enjoys drinking, but I’ve never seen her drunk either.  The closest I’ve seen her drunk was at Majalog Beach once when all the young ladies were drinking and getting crazy.  Grace wasn’t at the beach that day though.  It was fun to watch them have a good time.  They are usually the ones that have to do all the work when we go anywhere.  The younger ones do most of the work, as it should be.  As for buying the beer here, I’m not even sure where they go to buy that beer.  I know it’s not too far from here, but I’ve just never gone with them to see.  They were drinking some type of wine, that I forget the name of right now.  I bought the large bottle and drank 1 glass of it, then it was time for them to eat.  I let them eat and I left to come back here to do the blog.  I filled up my glass before I left, it was almost empty, and I still have about half a glass left as I’m typing here.  I don’t like to bother them while they are eating.  They are always trying to get me to eat with them, but they know I don’t like that dried fish and other things they eat.

A Filipino, I think, can live in any part of the world, because they will never starve.  They eat things here that we as Americans wouldn’t even think of eating.  Of course that is what they grew up eating, so they are use to it.  I guess some of the things that we eat are weird to them too.  I know they think pinto beans are weird, and that’s one of the food staples in Texas.  They don’t know what cornbread is, can you image?  I’ll bet they can learn to eat it quickly though.  They can learn to survive in any environment, that’s why there are so many all over the world.  Some of you Filipinos in the States know what I’m talking about, right?  When Lita first came to the States, she didn’t eat hamburgers, pizza, hot dogs or steak.  She does now.  In fact, she loves steak.  The 9 oz house sirloin at Applebee’s is one of her favorites.

Earth, Wind and Fire are singing “Shining Star”.  One of their best, I think.

“Don’t Bring Me Down” says Electric Light Orchestra.

91 Percent Proud to Be Filipinos
In a survey conducted by Social Weather Stations (SWS) in November 2001, 57 percent of the 1,200 respondents said they were very proud to be Filipinos while 34 percent claimed they were proud of their national identity. Only 9 percent said they were not proud and 1 percent claimed they were not proud at all of becoming Filipinos. The respondents also cited the following qualities of the Filipinos: God-centered, industrious, faithful, has convictions, responsible, peaceful and law-abiding, and loving and caring.

None of that 9% live in this household, that’s for sure.  Everyone here is very proud to be Filipino.

Happiest People in Asia
Despite the many problems hounding the Philippines, Filipinos still consider themselves as among the happiest people in the world. Results of regional surveys conducted by MTV-Asia, AC Nielsen and the Economist magazine have indicated that Filipinos are the happiest people in Asia.

But in the World Values Survey conducted by University of Michigan in 1998, the Philippines was ranked 12th among 54 countries in the world in terms of happiness index. Among Asian countries, it was ranked first. According to the survey, the top ten happiest nations in the world were Iceland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, Australia, Ireland, Switzerland, Great Britain and Venezuela.

If the Philippine government should fix the big problems they have here in the Philippines, then I’ll be this country would rank higher on that list.  Probably move up to the top 5 at least.  On 9 of those top 10 places that are the happiest, I’ve always wanted to visit 9 of them.  Venezuela is the only one I don’t care to see, just because of it’s location.  Sweden and Denmark at right close to the top of my list.  Lita wants to visit Australia.

I still don’t have any new pictures, so I’ll put some of the older ones on there.  I’ll try to try to stay away from the water pictures, I’m sure y’all are tired of those by now.  I also hope I don’t repeat any pictures.

Tagalog word of the day:  kamay (ka-may)  means hand.

Salamat, Paalam