Monday – 18 Oct 2010

[smartads] Today was a day that saw me up at 0405.  I had to get up to watch the Cowboys lose, again.  They are getting so good at it.  They have mastered the art of shooting themselves in the foot.  Oh well, ain’t anything I can do about it, I’m not playing the game for them.  Problem is, they don’t seem to be either.

I talked with Ramil this morning on the computer, Facebook.  He is at his first day of work and they are getting ready to start training him to be their computer programmer.  Pretty sweet job if you’re smart enough.  Programming gives me a headache, so I quit trying to learn it.  Lita heard from Mar that Ramil would be making a lot more than the P2000 per week that I predicted in yesterday’s blog.  According to her, according to Mar, he should be making around P20,000 per month.  That’s 10 times what we paid him to be a driver.  Hope it works out for him and he is able to someday soon get to find a job closer to home, or at least be able to move his family there, if he wants to.  Not sure he would ever want to do that though.  I know I wouldn’t want to.  Manila is an okay city to visit, but I’d hate to live there.   Especially with all the typhoons they have been having.  Typhoon Juan (as they call it here) just smacked the crap out of them.  That’s like the 3rd typhoon to hit them this year.  The first 2 were not super typhoons like Juan is either.  So they will be having a lot of problems there again.  Fix the drainage problem, quit throwing trash in the streets and clogging up the drains.  They are doing it to themselves, plus the government is still busy sticking money in their own pockets.

A quick note on the lighter side.  Today Lita had the door open a little too long and Blue came in.  The first thing he did was pick a fight with Kitty Grace.  Lita use to tell me that Kitty Grace could beat up Blue, but I told her, no way.  Blue would beat the crap out of him.  Well today, it was proven that I was right.  Blue tore into Kitty Grace and no one in the kitchen, Lita and Vicky, could break it up.  Since I was in a hurry, I grabbed my bottle of water, ran in there and started tossing water on them.  After 2 applications, it was over and Blue headed back for the front door.  He still sits by the front door though, waiting for us to feed him, just like nothing happen.  Kitty Grace is scared to go outside now.  I’m going to dump hot sauce on their head if they don’t quit that crap.  They can’t even be near each other without threatening to fight, or actually doing it.  Bet they remember the hot sauce longer than the water, because I’ve done that several times, with the water,  and they always fight again.  I told Lita that trying to domesticate street cats is not easy, but she just has to try.  I’ll let her try, keep throwing water and stock up on the hot sauce.  Also about Kitty Grace, he has taken to sleeping in an empty box next to the refrigerator.  Lita put it there and told him it was for him, and he started sleeping there.  Weird.

Titing decided that he is not going to walk in the mornings.  He made up some excuse about having to cook more than he normally does now.  I think he was just drinking and said he would do it while he was a bit drunk.  He says it’s not true, he just has more work to do now.  It’s okay though.  He will let me know when he can actually start the walk.  In the meantime, I’m going to have to find a way to do something.  Since Ramil is gone now, I don’t really have anyone to hang out with to do things.  I’m either going to have to find someone else to do things with, or do things on my own.  That’s hard to do sometimes around here, if you don’t know the language.  Of course I can walk and wouldn’t have to talk to anyone, but Lita doesn’t want me walking by myself too far away from the house.  I’ve already told y’all a couple of times why, so I won’t do it again.  Right now, as long as I’m losing weight, I’ll stay happy.

They, Titing and Leo, already took the pos on a good test run, even though we won’t be needing it for the trip.  They said it ran good, but it still had a noise.  The noise seems to be something that doesn’t effect the safety, but they plan to get it to the shop to get rid of the noise for good.  I told them, I’m not riding in it anymore until it is fixed for good.  Lita got mad at them and told them to get it fixed now.  As I told you before, they try to keep Lita happy because she is the eldest, but they don’t cater to her every whim.  In this case though, she is right, and it needs to get done soon.  We have to pay for most of it, so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal for them.  We have to get them to take it to get it fixed for 3 reasons:  1) The truck is 1/3 Titing’s anyway, because he pays 1/3 the payment.  2) I don’t speak the language so I can’t explain it to the mechanic and 3) Lita knows absolutely nothing about fixing vehicles.  When they get the sound out, I’ll go for another ride and see how safe I feel.  If we can get some speed out of it and there is no incident, then I’ll feel better.  The more times after that, that I ride without incident, the better I’ll feel.  Hopefully after awhile, it’ll all be like none of this ever happen and it will no longer be a POS.

You know I was really bored today because I helped with the dishes.  Lita had a stack of dishes on the counter and I wiped them all.  Vicky was telling Lita that they are not use to wiping dishes here.  They usually just wash them, then put them away.  That’s weird for me.  I wonder if other Filipino’s do that?  Winda?  Gloria?  Anyone?

For supper tonight I had 2 packages of Ramen soup.  I have 5 packages left now.  Gary should be here sometime this week with my beef stew and other items, so that will relieve me until I can get to Tacloban.  Even if he doesn’t get here until next week, I’ll be okay.

Someone was celebrating their birthday in the restaurant at the Ciriaco Hotel earlier.  There were many people there so it must have been someone of some importance.  Maybe the owner.  Sounded like they were having a real good time. They forgot to invite me though.

Now I’d like to address a couple of questions that Wayne asked me about.  The new market.  I asked Mar while he was here and he said he is not exactly sure when it will be open.  He thought he heard November or December, this year.  So within the next couple of months.  He also said that Marlou would probably know better, since he is the head Engineer there.  I knew that, but Marlou wasn’t here, and I still can’t use this dang phone.  The Samar tours.  Mar said he could do that, but most of the good places to go on Samar were too far off the beaten path.  Not his words, but what he meant.  Also hiking to the good places would mean taking a chance of running into the New People’s Army (NPA) or as Ludy calls it No Permanent Address.  There must be some places in Samar to visit.  Even if it’s not that many safe places, their must be some.  I hear San Antonio island is looking good now.  Haven’t been there recently, but it was mosquito invested the last time I went.  I hear that is no longer a problem though.  I’m going to continue to bring the subject up to him, because as far as I know, there are no tours for this island at all set up.  We’d be the first to do so.  We can always start out slow, in fact I’m sure that would be best anyway.

My hits at 0717 this morning was 16775.  Sorry, still no new pictures.  Dang, I need to do that quickly.

Tagalog word of the day:  ulo (ew-low) means head.  The head on your shoulders (just to clarify, in case).

Philippine Trivia

1. Doctrina Christiana is the first book published in the Philippines, was published in 1593, by the Dominican press. Because of the monopoly of printing presses by religious orders prior to the 19th century, early written literature was predominantly religious in content and in purpose.

2. The first women’s magazine in the Philippines was El Hogar (The Home), which first came out in 1893.

3. The first Filipino immigrants to the United States (1850) settled in Louisiana.

4. Emilio Aguinaldo lost to Manuel L. Quezon in the country’s first presidential elections in 1935.

5. The largest crocodile ever captured in the Philippines (1823) was found in Laguna de Bay.

6. Fort San Pedro was the nucleus of the first Spanish settlement in the Philippines.

7. Farmers’ Market Foodome is the largest restaurant in the Philippines (in Quezon City).

8. Cesar Virata is the first and last Prime Minister of the Philippines after WW II.

9. The Cagayan River, the Philippines longest river, originates in Nueva Vizcaya.

Thank you for being here to read.  Don’t forget to leave a comment of some sort somewhere.  I’ll be back tomorrow, hopefully with a more exciting day.

Salamat, Palaam