Saturday – 9 Oct 2010

[smartads] For some reason this day started at 0739.  It didn’t have to, but I figured I had to get up sometime, and I was up anyway to go to the CR, so I stayed up.  Lita talked me into making pancakes again this morning.  It wasn’t hard to do that.  We are down to 1 package left, so we’ll have to get some more when we go through Tacloban in about 3 weeks and 3 days.  I guess we are planning to leave on 30 Oct, maybe 31 Oct.  I know Lita wants to be in Catmon by 1 Nov, for sure, since that is All Saints Day.  I guess we could leave early on 31 Oct and leave Tambis early on 2 Nov.  We don’t want to stay very long.  I don’t particularly want to go at all, but it’ll be more quiet around here if I do.  When I made the pancakes this morning, or as mga bata calls them, hotcakes, Crystal and Khan got the extra 2 I had left.  Now when I make pancakes, I make the Texas sized ones, not the little bitty things.  I’m talking 2/3’s of the pan.  Anyway, the ones left over Crystal and Khan ate, because they are like hotcake maniac’s.  I changed their names today to “Hot” and “Cake”.  Crystal is “Hot” and Khan is “Cake”.  It just would feel weird to call a boy “Hot”, that’s the only reason.  Khan is already answering to “Cake” too.

Well the BBQ was less than P1000 again last night.  It was busy when I was out there awhile ago, so I’m hoping it will stay busy for the next 4 1/2 to 5 hours.  It’s 6:15pm now.  It’s Saturday, so it will probably do well today.  I wonder why they don’t open early on Saturday?  They started cooking some sausage that they got from someone.  Lita had me try it, but I didn’t like it.  I’m already a picky eater, but I’m even picker on sausage.  The sausage they have now is too sweet for me.  No, it is not longosina (did I spell that right?), it’s different.  Not sure how much they want for it, but they cut it down to like 1/5 of a link.  Probably only 2 or 3 pesos each.  I’ll check later to see how it is selling.  Lita likes it, and so does Vicky and Lynn.  I don’t know, there are only 2 or 3 sausages that I have tasted that I like.  The only one I know the name of is the Elgin sausage.  Elgin sausage is best when BBQ, so that’d fit in here.

Lita’s BBQ sauce is a smash hit here too.  Figures.  About 1/2 the people that come to eat here, come because they like the sauce.  It’s different then anything else they can get here.  It should be different, Lita has a secret recipe for it.  I’d tell you what it is, but then I’d have to kill you, so it’s best to not get into the ingredients.  That sauce is the reason why Jaclyn misses Lita’s BBQ so much.  When Lita puts on the sauce, she ain’t stingy with it either.  Well when she has a BBQ for us.  The customers outside just get to dip what they buy in the sauce.  No double dipping either.  Some people just tell Lynn or Vicky to let it soak in the sauce, and they’ll be back in a little while to pick it up.  Those are the smart ones.

Well today is Saturday and of course that means it is weigh in day.  I did my weigh this morning as I was suppose to.  Remember yesterday I told you I was scared that I would gain weight?  Well, I was wrong.  I didn’t gain.  But I didn’t lose either.  It was exactly the same.  That’s hard to do too because it weighs in increments of .05.  I was still at exactly 132.25 kilos.  I’m glad I didn’t gain, but I wish it would have been even 132.20 kilos.  Oh well, no hurry.  I’ll get there eventually.  I’ll bet that if I’d get off my lazy butt and exercise, I’d lose more though.

They came by to install my new faster internet today.  The said they’d be here in 5-7 days, and today was 6 days, so they hit that part right.  You know they really do things funny around here.  They came over here, installed all the equipment, then said they had to go by the office to activate the line.  Why can’t they just call for that, like in the States?  Anyway, so I had to wait until about 3 hours later.  When they did show up again, there was another problem.   Seems that the office in Manila has no record of this transaction being approved for installation.  So all the equipment they put up was for nothing, so far.  After waiting 3 hours, they came back and had to hook the slow internet back up until Monday.  It has been running pretty nicely since they re-hooked it up though.  If it ran like that all the time, I wouldn’t really need the faster speed, but that faster speed comes with the phone, so, in that case, I had to have it.

I just took a short break and went outside to see what was going on.  Not much, but there are a couple of people at the BBQ.  One of the neighbors is there.  He is outside a lot.  He is the latest to call me Joe.  The lady that was there, seemed to shy to say anything.  I find that to be true a lot.  Some people want to say something, but their lips don’t move to say anything.  Lynn hangs around here enough now, that she has gotten over that.  I don’t get to talk to her much, but when I do, I don’t have to repeat anything, or have her repeat anything she says to me either.  Lita was out there stringing slices of sausage on a stick, but she said that that was for them to BBQ and eat, not the for sale BBQ.

The fan in the bedroom was giving up on us today.  The motor was making a terrible racket.  We had Ramil bring it downtown to get repaired.  They actually did repair it too.  It cost less than P200, Lita didn’t know exact amount, and Ramil didn’t tell me.  Doesn’t matter in this case.  Less than P200 is good enough for fixing a fan that we really need.  It’d be hard to sleep with just the a/c running.  We can get the fan from the other room, but the fan already in the bedroom, is like a super blowing fan.  I like it much better than any other fan in the house.  Seems that there was just a worn out piece, that was made out of plastic that was causing the problem with the fan.  They just replaced the piece and it was good to go again.  It’s already back in it’s spot.  While the fan was apart, because Ramil just took the motor to the shop, I cleaned the dust off the rest of the fan and washed the guards.

Grace has my camera.  She came by today to borrow it for something for school.  She says she will return it to me on Tuesday morning.  I downloaded what pictures I had taken today and yesterday so I have enough pictures to put on here for 2 days, maybe 3 if I reduce them some.  I’ve got at least 9 pictures, maybe 10 that I can put on here for y’all.  It could be more, but I think I double took a couple because maybe they didn’t come out right the first time.  I also told her that if she loses the camera or breaks it, she owes me P6000, so I can buy another one.  She actually agreed to that.  I trust Grace a lot.  So if something happens to the camera, I now it wasn’t her fault.  I would never charge her money for losing it.  If it gets stolen, then that’s okay, I’ll get another camera eventually.  Can’t afford it now, but will someday.  Of course I doubt she’ll lose or break it.  She is very responsible.

Okay, lets find out what pictures I have for y’all today.  I’ll put 4 new ones and 4 old ones today.

I was wrong, there are 12 pictures to chose from.  So if I do 4 today, 4 tomorrow and 4 on Monday, that’ll cover me until Grace brings the camera back on Tuesday morning.  She said she will leave the pictures in the camera so I can use them if I want to.

World’s Longest Barbecue
On April 30, 2002, about 50,000 people participated in the “Kalutan ed Dagupan” festival in Dagupan City (Pangasinan province, Northern Luzon, Philippines) to help grill and partake of the 1,001-meter long barbecue, that broke the previous World Record of 613 meter-long barbecue grilled in Canchia, Peru on November 13, 1999.
The people of the city used hundreds of grills, each measuring 1.2-meter long, to cook the barbecue. The grills’ total measure was about 800 meters long, enough to surpass the Peruvian record. The barbecue consisted of bangus (milkfish), pork, chicken, vegetables and cold cuts. A video footage was sent to the Guinness Book of World Records for validation. (Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer)

This post turned out better than I thought it would today.  Hope you found it to be interesting and/or amusing.  Chat with y’all on the flip side.

Salamat, Palaam