UPDATES!!!!! With PICTURES!!!

Almost a month has passed since I last updated my blog...*ducks to avoid the glares thrown his way*...and quite a LOT has happened since my last post. Here we go!

A Close Encounter with Cory

No, not in the ethereal sense. :)

I was on my way to see Gail during the day of Cory's funeral procession from The Manila Cathedral to Sucat, and since I take the SLEX heading to Makati, I grabbed my DSLR in the rare chance that I spot something nice enough to shoot. As I drove up SLEX heading to Makati, the people along SLEX kept getting thicker and thicker...so what the heck, I stopped a grabbed a few shots.

I then got stuck in traffic right be fore the Buendia/SLEX intersection coz Cory's funeral procession was near, so I decided to climb on a truck to get a better vantage...and whaddyaknow, she passed right next to the truck! That moment was awesome...right before she passed by, people were noisy, cheerful...a couple of moments before she passed by, people suddenly hushed up in a moment of silence...and as her truck came closer, everyone spontaneously cheered and chanted her name. Awesome, I tell you.

Ella and Paulo

No, they're not together...di sila talo. :P

Ella and Paulo have moved on to...er, greener pastures. Or "to pursue their passions." :P Ella is now working for a company that is uber top tier, while Paulo is now marketing director for a fashion company. We had official despedidas for them in the office, and since we're cliquish, we decided to extend the despedidas to an overnight in Tagaytay!

Dreams and promotions

For Gail, that is. :) She was just promoted and got all the benefits and perks that come with it...well, almost all the benefits and perks. :) Here's hoping the car swap happens! On top of that, she also got accepted to be a faculty member in DLSU-CSB to teach her passion...WINE! (woot) Congratulations honey, I'm so proud of you! You deserve every little bit of happiness that you're getting coz you worked so hard for it! (cozy)

Coron

Organized by the legendary Jillian Sze, a huge chunk of the MDO and our respective significant others went to Coron in Palawan for 4 days of fun! Tiring fun, but fun nonetheless. :) Swimming, snorkling, shipwrecks, hiking, twin lagoons, a safari...FUN!

Paulo also shot some photos of Gail and myself...beautiful!

Till the next update! Hopefully it won't take too long this time. :)

*image credits: Myself (large photos) and Paulo Tirol (small photos)

Holy Week Travel

The Holy Week just ended, and I fully expected to spend it as I spent the last 5 Holy Weeks - staying at home. You see, in this great country of ours (for the foreign folks who read my blog), Holy Week is also known as the Great Traffic Jam Outside of Manila. Almost everyone travels to visit relatives or to just take a vacation.

Not me - I always treated Holy Week as a break from the world, so I usually just spent it at home with the parentals. We would just go do the traditional visita iglesia OR do the Stations of the Cross on Maundy Thursday and stay at home on Good Friday.

This year, however, my dad requested that we all go to Baguio, as it's his last year before he officially retires from his office. So I said "why the hell not?" and decided to go with them - then they told me that we would be leaving on Maundy Thursday.

Good Lord. That's the equivalent of taking a nice quiet stroll at the Korean DMZ.

To make a loooooong trip short, the trip to Baguio took us 9 bloody hours. Yes, 9 hours to travel 300 kilometers (which included an hour's worth of lunch). To give you perspective on how bad it was, during my last trip to Pagudpod (~600 kilometers from Manila), it took me 8 hours to get there.

Plus I forgot to fully charge my iPod. Argh.

The trouble spots were NLEX because of a) numerous stalled vehicles, especially one that involved an 8 car pileup, b) the long line at the Dau tollway (5 kilometers!), and c) the SCTEX toll entry from NLEX (25 minutes!). To be fair to the NLEX management, they did an excellent job of managing the traffic during Holy Week - all stalled vehicles had at least one patrol car along with the proper orange cones for safety, AND at the Dau tollway, they were physically managing the traffic by coordinating the merging of cars as one approaches the tollway itself. PLUS they had numerous employees ranging ahead to collect toll fees. PLUS they all had a positive cheery demeanor that you really didn't feel the urge to lash out at them. The NLEX problem was really brought about by the volume of cars - which, given that it was the middle of Holy Week, should've been expected.

SCTEX was another matter. For some insane reason, it took us 25 minutes to get our toll card - we were debating why it was taking so long (my mom was saying that maybe they were collecting the payment already) but as we arrived at the toll, the lady did *something* to the card (either swiped it OR printed something, since I heard a dot matrix printer) then handed it to me. It took her about 7 seconds to do that - which, in my opinion, was idiotic. Why do you need to do something to a card that comes from just ONE location and the payment system was based on where you entered?! The SLEX system uses the same payment system - but when you get up to the toll, they just hand you a magnetic card that's pre-encoded with the entry point where it was handed out. No fuss, no delay. SCTEX should fix that system - it was the one fault that they had.

Anyhow, after spending just 41 hours in Baguio (yeheesss, let's talk about payout, shall we?), we zoom zoomed to Manila, which took us just 6.5 hours. Not bad at all.

It would've been great if I was able to bring Gail along - but as my mother said, "since Chad and Gail aren't official yet, no one can bring their respective significant others as well." *lol* Now if that isn't an endorsement, I don't know what is. :P

Allow me one rant though, about motorcycles.

Everyone knows how motorcycles behave in this country - no need to go into that much detail about their generally despicable driving ethics. But take note of this pic:

Pardon the lousy shot, I had to shoot it through the tinted windshield of my dad's car.

Now if you're going to drive like a moron without any regard for manners or the proper and safe way of driving a motorcycle, at least have the effin' decency to wear a HELMET. Now, if you like living on the edge, that's fine - hey, it's your moronic life, not mine. But for the love of all that's holy - if you're going to compound your idiocy by making your CHILDREN ride a motorcycle with you, at least have THEM wear a bloody helmet!

*growl*

Ok, rant over.

It's been a while since I've purposely gone out for a photo shoot - hmmmm. Must schedule one soon. My DSLR's glaring at me already for ignoring it.