The things going on around here are many but not exactly life changing events. That’s cool though. At least we have different things going on and they could develop into something more interesting later.
First of all, let me get this out of the way. My cribbage playing recently has been so terrible. The cards have not been coming my way for several days especially playing against Christian. We have play 12 games recently and he has won them all, plus 3 of those were skunks, so a total of 15 games. I don’t mind losing so much, but so many times is a little too much. It mostly stems from me not getting good cards in my crib. All 7 games yesterday, I had 1 good crib. The rest of the time I never exceeded 8 points, mostly getting 4 points or less. I’m glad I never play for money.
The Thanksgiving lunch is on schedule. We have a confirmed 19 guests coming, but I think at least 2 more, plus I sent out an invite in another expat group that is based in Tacloban. That’s probably too far for anyone to come up just for Thanksgiving, but you never know.
Our little bakery is now open and doing pretty good already. It’s still going to do much better because he puts out a good product. Once the word gets around about how good his product is, he’s going to be overwhelmed and have to get a bigger oven to make things. I’ve had the oatmeal-raisin cookies, cinnamon rolls, brownies and just this evening I tried one chocolate chip-oatmeal cookie. All good.
I’m still waiting on the completion of the staircase to start the movies. It’s been raining so much recently, it’s hard to do anything.
Someone suggested we start a free library with paperback books (because we all have a lot of them). I’m thinking that will not go over very well, but, of course, I’d posted it and we’ll wait to see what the majority say.
A couple of other ideas that have been floating around here, that have not taken any roots yet, is a western style pizza place and a washeteria.
For the pizza, 2 or 3 guys want to go in together to make a brick oven and teach someone to operate it. It’s a nice idea and would not take up very much room as it would be take-out only. The pizza in this town is now good, but a brick oven pizza would be better, plus it’s a lot closer to me than the Shakey’s on the other side of town.
The washeteria is actually one of Christian’s many brainstorms. He has a lot of them running through his head. He has a big space outside of the restaurant now and is trying to figure out what would be good to put there. We have several washaterias in this city, but none in our immediate area.
I like the idea he had of building a game room there, but, in the end, it’s up to him. Of course, there is room for whatever he wants to put there. The property still has plenty of empty space. The biggest thing standing in the way is the money to get it all done. Eventually, with Mango staring to get business again, the money will be coming in and things will get built.
The guy that I was telling you about before that was having the money problems with his “friend” in the US stealing his money (instead of sending it here like he said he would) may have found a solution. The guy’s son in the US went to the bank and the bank has agreed to call him here in the Philippines to verify his identity. When they do that, they will take that “friend’s” name off the account and put the son on it. That man should also be finding out about his social security within the next 2 weeks (Nov 29th is the scheduled call date). Fingers crossed for him and his little son here. They have been having a hard time surviving for several months because of the “friend”. I’m thinking how surprised he will be when he goes to the bank to withdraw money and finds out that he is no longer on the account. I hope he took out a second mortgage on his house or bought a new car recently. How will he make those payments? I’m hoping he won’t be able to. A little taste of his own medicine.
I purchased lottery tickets that have the drawing this evening. Of course, I do not expect to win, but I can dream that I will. First thing I buy, if I win, are tickets to Texas. The jackpot is for over P100M, so about US$2M. After the 20% tax, P1.6M, or more because I think it’s more like P113M. So, that probably means I will be buying 1st class tickets. I don’t plan to waste all the money, but I’ve never been in 1st class before, and it may be my only time.
I hope it was interesting enough to keep y’all’s attention. All these things could lead to more interesting things later. I hope so.
Salamat Y’all
