Tuesday – 12 Oct 2010

[smartads] This morning saw me get up briefly at 0843.  Of course I went right back to bed at 0845, because I wasn’t as ready as I thought I was when I got up.  When it got to be 1045 though and I got up, that seemed like the right time to stay up.  Since we don’t have any more pancake mix, Lita decided to make breakfast this morning.  For some reason she decided to cook popcorn.  Yeah, that’s right, popcorn.  I ate it, but it wasn’t near as good as the pancakes.  Guess we’ll have to buy about 10 boxes next trip.  Don’t want to get too many and let them expire.  I hear expired pancake mix is very bad.

I am so frickin’ bored around here.  At least when I was in Texas I could go someplace, whenever I wanted to.  I can’t really do that here.  I could if I’d learn how to drive a stick shift or ride a motorcycle, I guess.  Then I’d have to worry about Lita and the cousins worrying about me being out by myself.  They are too over protective of me and I really don’t want any of their protectiveness.  I am pretty capable of taking care of myself.

Charlie Daniels is “Drinking my Baby Goodbye”.  Maybe I should learn to play the guitar.  It’d be something to do.  I’d love to be able to play this song.  It rocks.  Playing the guitar is something I’ve wanted to do.  Lita bought me a guitar once when I really didn’t have time to learn, well now I have time.  It’d be cool to learn, all I’d need is a guitar and a training book.

Last night I checked my hits before I went to bed and they were at 14181.  This morning it was only at 14384.  Now I will tell you that last month getting a little over 200 hits in one night, I would have been excited, but now, not so.  Just seems like it should be more by now.  Maybe I’m just thinking that because I’m so bored, I don’t know.

I was looking at the MJTS Flyer this morning.  I made quite a few changes, but I haven’t posted it on here yet.  I want to be sure that it is exactly right and let Mar look at it first, before I post it.  I put a new thing on there that I call “Build your own Philippine vacation”.  You just tell us what you want, how much you want to spend and we’ll price it for you.  Then we can work out any discrepancies before any payment even has to be made.  Seems like a win/win situation to me.  Once we receive the money, then we make all arrangements as per the agreement we had.  Everything will be done through e-mails, so there will be a record of everything that was said, just in case there is a problem.  Of course, if we have the problem on our end, it’ll be fixed as soon as possible, and I will see to it that a discount is given to anyone that we made a mistake on their arrangements.  Enough said about that.  Like I said, I don’t want to turn this blog into a full time MJTS blog, only just short statements about it.

I discovered that I’m going to have to learn how to use a phone in the Philippines.  I can’t even make a local call.  I found out today that if you have Globe service, and you call someone, even if they are next door, on another phone system, like Smart, then you’d acquire long distance charges.  Now how silly is that?  Can’t the phone companies even coordinate with each other?  I tried to call Grace today, because she was late bringing my camera back, and I wanted to check the phone out, but I couldn’t.  Seems that you have to have some type of code to dial out, or something like that.  Titing tried to explain it to me, but I’m not sure I understood him correctly.  I plan to go by the Globe office to ask them.  I also need to ask, how am I suppose to know who has Globe, who has Smart or whatever other service they have around here.  I mean do I have to know what phone service everyone I call has?  Or when I get the code and call, will I get a warning if it is a different company before I incur the long distance charges?  It’s driving me crazy.

I had chicken-cabbage stew for dinner tonight.  I like that stuff.  Lita did the cooking again, but she didn’t put any popcorn in it.  She did add some potatoes, carrots and red peppers.  The red peppers are not quite the quality as in the States.  We need to plant some pepper seeds to grow our own.  My best friend BJ said he would send me some, but it’s okay if he doesn’t.  It costs a lot to send a package here.  But just a package of seeds or two in an envelope with a letter wouldn’t be that much.  He was just going to send me a few other things too, like beef jerky.  If we get some, I’m going to be sure we have some Miracle Gro or something similar, because the soil around here is not that great for growing things that are not native to the area.  At least my jalapenos are not growing.  I really need for them to too.  I’ll get some of the Miracle Gro for them while I’m at it.  We’ve still got a few packages of jalapenos we haven’t planted yet.

I was outside a little while ago, and there was a lot of smoke there.  Chatty was there cooking fish in the dirty kitchen and it was smoking like crazy.  She finally went over there and turned them over.  Guess she wanted some ‘blackened’ fish.  Just a few minutes ago, there were 4 people eating at the picnic table we have outside.  They were people that bought BBQ w/rice and wanted to eat it here.  No problem, we let them do that quite often.

Something strange I discovered in music since I’ve been here downloading all these songs (I’m over 1900 now).  I discovered that I like a lot of the music of The Allman Brothers Band and Alice Cooper.  I never listened to either of them before.   I don’t know why for the Allman Brothers, but for Alice Cooper, it was because of the way he looks.  I guess that should teach me not to judge a book by it’s cover.  I don’t like all of their music, but just liking any of it surprised me.  Who knows who I will discover next, maybe Ozzy or The Marshall Tucker Band.  Think, I’ll try to listen to a few of their songs to see if they sound okay.  If they don’t, then nothing lost, except time, and I’ve got a lot of that as far as I know.

Mga bata next door have a kitten they are playing with.  They would drag something across the patio and of course the kitten would chase it.  Evidently the mother cat had kittens next door, upstairs in the Pepsi warehouse and this is one of them.  Don’t know if they are going to get to keep it.  They were scaring that poor little kitten a lot too.  With 4 bata chasing it, heck that would frighten a lot of little animals.  Even some larger ones.

Tagalog word of the day:  kuting (ku-ting)  means kitten.

Smallest Monkey in the World
In many respects, the Philippine tarsier (Tarsius syrichta) is different from other animals. Considered as the world’s smallest primate, it measures only about twelve centimeters in length. Its two big eyes cannot move and do not have a tapetum – the upper protective tissue. Because of this, the Philippine tarsier has learned to turn its head 180 degrees. It has also two grooming claws on each foot and an almost bald tail extending about nine inches.
Found in the islands of Samar, Leyte, Bohol and Mindanao, the Philippine tarsier got its name from its elongated tarsus bone. An ordinary tarsier weighs between 117 and 134 grams. It is able to move between trees by leaping as far as three meters. It also has keen senses of hearing and sight.
Today, there are only about 1,000 tarsiers inhabiting the wilds of Corella town in Bohol province where the biggest concentration of these rare animals was once reported. Ensuring the continued existence of the Philippine tarsiers is the Philippine Tarsier Foundation Inc.

Actually this monkey is one that would be included in 1 of our tours we have with MJTS.  Just saying.

Salamat, Palaam