it's my birthday, it's my birthday

today's my 29th birthday, and i'm happy. that's all i have to say =)

hmmm, i guess i am expected to say more. alright, i'm more than happy, i'm overjoyed! this is my second bday in canada, and i have to say this one's much better than the other one, only our kids are not here to celebrate it with us. the last one was last year in winnipeg, 19 days after we arrived from manila, and i celebrated it (in the evening after going to work) with nel, and my two kids, nick and bill, over a mcBain chocolate delight cake and a pint of ice cream bought from the nearby 7-11 store.=) it would definitely be one of my most memorable birthdays, one i'm sure i won't forget until i grow old.

it's a very cold day, minus 20 or less i think, and i had to work in the grocery store where i was hired just a week ago. my official job title was a stockman, and together with a fellow filipino and two vietnamese, i stock items in front of the store, and i maintain tons of things in the stockroom. that's the exact work they told me when i inquired about the job. the other minor thing that they didn't bother mentioning was that i also have to take care of the garbage. and since it's an asian grocery store, they sell lots of fresh "produce", vegetable among others. in short, they produce lots of garbage!

when i say lots, i don't mean one garbage bag, or two garbage bag neatly placed on a garbage bin. i mean hundreds of pounds of rubbish carelessly thrown into boxes(that previously contain the delivered and unpacked veggies, but are now part of the garbage to be discarded). discarding them at the back of the store where a 6 1/2 foot high, 10 by 10 feet garbage bin is located is really not a biggie. that is, if it's not a minus 20, with winds blowing at 25 to 35 mph, making it feel like a minus 30. now, imagine what i did on that day of my birthday, i made 20 or more trips carrying 40 to 70 pounds of awful stuff that i then have to lift over my head and throw inside the giant bin, it's really not easy(read: it's hard!).

oh wait, did i mentioned that the boxes are not supposed to be on the same bin? yeah, heard about recycling? the government is strict with that on commercial waste producers. so we actually have to giant bins sitting right next to each other, the other one solely for boxes. so when i discard the garbage, i actually had to hold on to the box and just empty the contents, which makes the task even more difficult! oh and i had to get rid of the garbage twice during that day =( i know that's too much whining already, so i'll end the story of my 28th birthday there.

hey it's my birthday, let's talk something fun and happy. so yeah, since my birthday this year fell on a monday, we had to celebrate on the weekend so our small group of newly found friends could join us. we had a small celebration last saturday night in our place, and i'm glad everyone enjoyed their time. i wasn't expecting to receive any present but i got five i think, including a Tommy and a Roots sweatshirt. oh yeah, nel gave me a pricey(for me) Swiss Army night vision watch which i really like =) . i spoke with my nanay(mom) and my tatay(dad) yesterday and they greeted me in advance. my kids called this morning and coached or not, i love the way they greeted me "happy birthday, papa! i love you, i miss you!". my brother in Kuwait phoned a while ago to greet me too, we haven't spoke in 8 months. my eldest niece rozelle left a friendster message with a greeting, my friends from manila left offline yahoo messages. some more phone call greetings, e-cards, yahoo messages, i can't be more than happy =)

when i was in my early year in college, i used to write into this small piece of penshoppe scratch pad. i write ugly poems, things i want to have(mostly impossible during that time), things i wanted to buy(in order of priority). things i wanna accomplish, places i wanna visit, again love poems, etc. also, there is this one page there where i wrote a silly goal, to have a million peso in my account by the time i reach 30. i know now it's really not that impossible a dream, and the amount is really not that high. i'm also sure that some of you reading this have already accomplished the same thing, and maybe even in a younger age. some might even pity me that i haven't accomplish something as simple as this yet at this time in my life. but yeah, for me, that was a decent goal during that time, with family's current financial status, knowledge of the current average salary of a professional, stories heard, movies watched, all factored in.

so why am i saying this? obviously it's because i turned 29 today, which gives me 365 days to accomplish that goal i wrote in a piece of paper which is now lost or probably burned years ago on a dumpsite somewhere in bulacan. i am now 10841 miles away from the place where i wrote it, but i know i can't escape it no matter where i go, unlike my godchildren which are probably gonna wonder why they are one gift short this christmas. would i reach my goal? maybe yes, maybe no, i really can't tell and i dont' wanna predict. it's only 52 more weeks, so let's just all wait. i have to broadcast this to put more pressure on myself, knowing that a year after, someone might ask me a question on wether i accomplished it or not. really not bad an idea, ain't it?

oh, there was another thing that i wrote on another page of that pad. to buy my mom her own house with a pool someday, but i know she knows i'm just kidding/dreaming about it during that time =) but who knows?

btw, Leo Laporte of TechTV's Call For Help is also celebrating his birthday today, and a handful of other famous people which you could just google if you like.

the swing

it was just a typical photobloghopping moment for me when i suddenly stumble into Ride My Pony's shot of the swing. i read the comments and found out that it's actually very popular to the toronto photoblogging community already (pity me, i only learned about it today). so what's the next best thing to do? to google of course! searching for "alley swing" led me to lots of valid links, with this one from lowresolution on top, and so far the only winter shot i found. later on i googled "secret swing", and the most dedicated of all swingers (i think) came up on top, rannie. he even made a secret swing album on his space, be sure to scroll down to see links to other swing photos from different photobloggers. invisiblethreads even accompanied the photo with some informative and humorous comment, and the swing record might belong to a certain christine.

my favorite shots of the swing are here and here.

an article was even written about it here, and here

there's even a video worth checking out, and so far this is my closest experience of "the swing".

and this one deserves credit for trying. i wanna see a photograph of someone swinging on this one =)

note to self: check out the swing when you get the chance to visit toronto, and don't forget your camera!

15 years ago

chatting with a friend, i suddenly start reminiscing about those times when i spend most of my day listening to my radio/casette player. compact disc wasn't even coined yet, and radio is your main source of music.

i had my first casette player when i was in first year high school. it's not a new one, but rather something that is of not much use anymore in our living room, so i got the chance to own it and place it permanently inside my room. i remember my family used to use it to listen to evening shows (the equivalent of today's telenovela) on the radio, so i know it was kinda old already. i even had to put "scotch tape" on one of the tape decks to hold it in place.

i can't afford to buy new casette albums back then, so i usually just copy from my friends or record directly from the radio. even my blank tapes are recycled ones, i record songs over and over them until the quality of the songs are no longer acceptable. all my tapes have no labels in them, or usually the labels were removed as they refer to the original songs contained in the tape.

when new single hits the chart, the first thing i usually do is spend more time close to my radio, with my fingers positioned in the record button. i can't afford to miss a single word from the DJ as i might miss his announcement of the next song he's gonna play. my goal is to record my target song, and i'd be one of the happiest person in the planet at that moment once i succeed. what's the one simple mistake a DJ could make for me to totally hate and curse him? to start talking while the song i'm recording is still playing! =)

now, things are a lot simpler. if you want a particular song. just find it over the net and chances are someone had already converted that song to mp3. you suddenly realized you haven't heard of your old favorite in a while and you don't have a CD of it? or even a tape? kazaa it and you should be listening to it in a minute.

i miss the rewind-stop-play days. the days where it is impossible to listen to the same song over and over again without reaching over to your casette player's control buttons, not to mention the pain of finding the start of the track when you rewind. of course, it was eventually addressed by the awesome auto program search technology. yes, it was a very high tech feature during that era of "you-cant-just-push-play".

autumn sunset

i left my camera at my friend's car last thursday, and i only managed to get it this afternoon. i have to travel 30 minutes on the bus just to get to their place as they live on the south side. going back home, i was so glad when i saw the bus coming as soon as i reached the bus stop. the temperature is already cold so you would feel lucky when you don't miss a bus. i rode the bus going downtown but decided to get off again after just a few stops. why? i realized the sun's setting and i noticed a very nice cloud formation on the west. who cares about waiting for another half an hour waiting for the next bus, besides the image below is worth the time in my opinion. i actually shot for almost half an hour, and by the time i finished, another bus is already coming =)

cute little angels

i have a guest photographer on my blog today. nel took my camera with her when she went to a friend's place, and there she found four lovely kids to photograph. all we're taken at very slow shutter, mostly 1/8s, resulting in some softness/blur.

simon


julianne


amelie


audrey


julianne, simon, and amelie


julianne, simon, amelie, and audrey

chinatown walls

i did a morning walk around the chinatown area today, and these are what i found...

a mural of eyes


an unfinished mural on a salvation army building parking wall


and some colorful graffiti

trick or treat (21 photos)

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DST no more

our clock's adjusted back one hour last sunday, 2:00am. this meant DST had officially ended. it's also a hint that nights are becoming longer and longer again, the second thing i hate about winter, next only to the freezing temperature.

having experienced DST in my system once again brought an old memory. i could still recall in my early grade school days when our government for some insane reason decided to try having our clock adjusted for DST. of course, i can't whine much about it's implementation during that time, except for it's obvious effect for us schoolers. the school flag ceremony normally starts at 7 am before that darn DST, and since sunrise didn't actually became earlier, we have to wake up on really dark mornings just to get to school earlier.

might be confusing but hear this, philippines is located near the equator, which basically means days and nights are almost the same in length the whole year through. actually, their length increases a bit, but the largest they usually gain is just an hour. we get maximum of 13 hours of daylight during summer and the opposite on christmas season.

now going back to our DST days, my school is 40 minutes from home, so i have to leave at 6:20 in the morning, but without DST applied, it is just 5:20! subtract to that the amount of time i need to take a shower, dress-up and eat breakfast, you're darn right, i have to wake up at #$%*@ four-thirty in the morning! the earliest the sun rises in manila is around 5:30, which means it is still very dark!

after i-don't-know-anymore-how-long, the education department decided to adjust the school time by an hour, effectively off-setting the DST, what a relief! i can't recall anymore how long that DST implementation lasted, as i started not to care as soon as our(us, students) problem was solved.

now, may i ask what the heck marcos and his government was thinking then?