Tuesday – 1 Mar 2011

[smartads] This is the shortcut between our screened in porch and the Pepsi warehouse.  When I first arrived here I could not even squeeze into the thing.  Now I can get all the way through.  I still scrap the sides a little and I still have to scrunch down.  Guess nothing short of cutting my feet off is going to help that, so I guess I’ll scrunch.  I do not have to go into the warehouse very often, so it’s not really a problem.  The first time I made it all the way through, everyone was pretty surprised.  I’ve been through there only about 7 times since I’ve been here now so it’s not much of a surprise anymore.  They still acted surprised when I go through to make me feel good about losing weight, so that’s a nice gesture anyway.  Someday I’ll be able to get through ‘without’ scraping the sides and that will be about the time that my weight losing is finish.

Useless Knowledge: The first drive-in service station in the United States was opened by Gulf Oil Company on December 1, 1913, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  (And it was a full-service station too, check it out: http://www.post-gazette.com/neigh_city/20000712gas2.asp) (See that one worked, why don’t they all)?

Just a FYI Photo

28 Feb – Hits @ 0145 = 163214.  I didn’t go to bed until 0410, so when I finally got out of bed it was 10:59.  I was looking at the clock before I got up and decided that I didn’t want to wait until 11:00 because that might make me look lazy.  Kind of silly, but that’s what I was thinking.

When I got up and went outside, Cathy was just getting back from downtown.  She had to buy some Tanduay Rhum, it’s hard to keep that stuff in stock.  J was sitting on his bed in the store making little balls of puto, so I carried the case of rhum into the store for Cathy.  I told Cathy that I had to carry the rhum because Saddam was too busy playing with his balls.  They thought that that was pretty funny.  I told Lita and she thought it was really funny.  Even later in the day Lita told me that when she thinks about it, it still makes her laugh.

Tagalog Word of the Day: puto  (poo-toe)  They are little rice cakes.

I just finished eating the rest of my stew that I cooked yesterday.  When I first made it, I had Lita try it to see if she liked it, but after just one sip, she starting choking.  It seems that I put too many hot peppers in there for her.  Actually for me it was just very warm.  I put 7, not so small, red chili peppers and 3 hot banana peppers in the stew.  It was a good amount of heat for me because I like hot, just not super hot.  You won’t hear of me eating any Bhut Jolokia Chili Pepper (the ghost pepper), the, now, 2nd hottest pepper in the world.  Supposedly 300 times hotter than a jalapeno.  Even mixed with food, which is really the only way I will eat any pepper hotter than a jalapeno, I couldn’t handle that.  Maybe 10 times hotter than a jalapeno I could handle, but that’s a big maybe.  Anyway…I liked the stew the way it was.  I’m going to try to make it the same way, at least in hotness, every time.

Lita was going to make me some chili today, but the kidney beans that she was cooking got neglected and they burned.  I was sitting in here on the computer and I smelled them.  They were cooking outside at the dirty kitchen and there were 3 or 4 other people out there, and they couldn’t smell that they were burning.  That just seems weird, unless they don’t know what beans are suppose to smell like when cooking and thought that that was normal.  Anyway….no chili again.  It’s okay because I don’t really like the ground beef here that much anyway.  It’s okay and edible, but it just taste so different to me, the picky eater.

Upon checking my FeedJIT again today I saw that someone searched for “wonders of the philippines corrupted”.  Google pulled up my article about PI having world’s highest power rates (https://texaninthephilippines.com/2011/02/26/pi-has-worlds-highest-power-rates/). I thought that was funny so I included that here.  Funny and I’m sure, true.

You know I’m getting kind of mad jealous of this things I see were people put in “click here” and you can actually click there and go to where they want you to go.  I don’t know how to do that.  Heck I can’t even get most of my websites to come up clickable.  I still don’t know why some of them come up and some don’t.  Maybe someone will explain it to me someday, or I will figure it out.  I don’t know about the figuring it out part.  I tried for over a 1/2 hour one day trying to figure out the clickable website thing, but “If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all”.  Remember the show that that line came from?  And it continued with “gloom, despair and agony on me”.

1 Mar – Hits @ 0145 = 166780.   That’s 3566 in exactly 24 hours, or 148.5 per hour.  I went to bed at 0400 and got up at 0830.  I definitely see a nap in my immediate future.

I guess I don’t have to worry about figuring out what “Mintsy” real name actually is, she quit already.  She only lasted 2 days.  Lita was going to yell at her for sleeping on the job yesterday, but not now.  Lita did mention it to her though, letting her now that it’s something that you should never do.  It’s one of the things that you’d think a 16 year old would know, but I guess not in this case.

It looks like Jazel will be leaving soon also.  She was just here and she told me that she’s going to miss us all.  I asked her, “Why, are you going somewhere”, and she said that she was going back home, where she belonged.  I don’t know when she plans to go, but probably pretty soon.  She is the yaya (nanny) for Cathy’s 4 mga bata (Crystal, Khan, Precious and Casandra), and they are too much for her to handle.  I told her that you  have to be firm and show them that you are the one in charge, but she’s young and she is apprehensive about being strict.  I guess she just needs some more experience that life has to offer.  I don’t know how Cathy is going to manage, but I’m going to suggest that they next yaya is older.  A lola (grandma) would be best, they should be able to handle the rowdiness.  Cathy’s mom (Bebie) is usually the one that has to pay for the yaya, so I say let her pick one that she thinks can do the job.

Well right after I finished typing that last paragraph, Lita told me that Jazel might stay.  Lita suggested that she get a friend of her’s, my Tambis to come here to work also.  I said that she still won’t be able to handle the children so why doesn’t she get someone that can handle them and she can work here and that other person could be the yaya.  I got the 3rd degree on suggesting that because evidently when Flor and Jazel first arrived, Flor was suppose to be the yaya and Jazel work here, but Cathy wanted Jazel instead.  I don’t see how that has to do with my suggestion, but I got tired of hearing Lita talk negatively about it.  I told her it was just a suggestion, but I don’t really care who does what, then I dropped the subject.

Earlier tonight, before she started on the negativity of my suggestion, Lita told me that Poppa had to go to the hospital yesterday.  I don’t know what’s wrong with him, he’s 88 years old, but he needs some medicine that cost P250 per tablet, according to Lita, but she’s been known to get facts turned around, so check back.  He already has a few pills but tomorrow when I go to the bank I will get out some money to buy him a few more to lessen the chance of him running out.

Ado and I will be going downtown tomorrow, and now I think Lita also, around 10:00.  So I guess I’ll have to go to bed at a decent hour tonight…0200.  We (Ado and I) might have to go again on Thursday because that is when my 21 working days wait period is up for withdrawing my money from the bank.  Tomorrow I’m also going to try to try one of the restaurants at one of the hotels on the blog.  I’m not sure which one yet, but at least one of them.  Maybe it should be one of the ones that I have no report on at all first.  Yeah probably Eduardo’s Diner and Tourist Hotel, F & A Suites or I’s Plant Hotel first.  I do get a lot of hits on all 6 of the hotels, even Joy Palace, but there is not restaurant at Joy Palace yet, although they have plans for a couple of little eateries there.

I guess I’ll close for the night.  Not too bad of a post.  It turned out better and longer than I thought it would.  Hope y’all enjoyed it and I’d like to thank everyone for all the hits that the website has been getting.  It really is more than I every, rationally, figured.  I have hallucinated about having 10,000 hits per day, but I must have been drunk or something that day.

Useless Knowledge: Termite queens are fertilized regularly by the same mate for life, unlike bee and ant queens, whose male partners die after the first and only mating.  They live up to 50 years.  (that figures that one of the bugs that breeds things that help destroy humans, lives a long life).

Salamat, Palaam

Today in Philippine History

27 FEBRUARY

Daniel B. Maramba

1870 – Future Filipino revolutionary, governor and senator Daniel Maramba y Bautista is born in Santa Barbara, Pangasinan during the Spanish colonial times; he would be inducted into the secret revolutionary society Kataastaasang, Kagalanggalangang Katipunan nang manga Anak nang Bayan (KKK)) in 1893 and in 1897, will begin protecting his town from the Katipongos, a group masquerading as Katipunan but with members engaging in looting during the interim period between the outbreak of the Philippine Revolution of 1896 and its official renewal in 1898 after the camp of Gen. Emilio F. Aguinaldo, who earlier seized revolutionary leadership from Supremo Andres C. Bonifacio, returned from truce-related exile and resumed the military aggression against the Spaniards; during the Filipino-American War (1899-1914), however, following his imprisonment and capture by the Maramba will rather quickly swear fealty to the enemy flag on May 1, 1901 a few weeks after Aguinaldo himself was captured and swore allegiance to the imperialist United States; during the colonial American period, Maramba will become become governor of Pangasinan, member of the Committee on National Defense (along with Felipe Buencamino, Jr. Benigno S. Aquino, Maximo M. Kalaw, etc.) and will also be elected Senator in November 1941, about a month before succumbing to tuberculosis.

Photo credit: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Daniel-Maramba/275674867074?sk=info

28 FEBRUARY

1 MARCH

Katipunan Seal signed with blood