australian fires in the sky

herewith are four pictures taken by louie of the second team entry in the first pyro olympics held near sm's mall of asia in one of the reclamation projects on manila bay...











it was a nice thing indeed to have seen this particular show -- turned out they won. makes me wonder what the other entries' displays looked like. when we got to the viewing area, there were some in the crowd muttering that the first entrant's display was lackluster (we did see parts of that show in the distance as we were driving up to the area). curious, since that entrant was china, and they invented the art form.

...

it's the light...

recently, i've noticed that i keep waking up between 4:30 to 5:30 in the morning. and this happens seemingly irrespective of the time i go to sleep, strangely enough.

now, this is no bad thing: waking up early = getting to work early = less undertime deduction = more money on payday. the unfortunate side effect is that since i've noticed over time that i need at least 7 hours of sleep a night to be useful the next day, waking up that early means that by early afternoon i get drowsy and can't focus on mind-numbing hyperspeed 3D video tutorials that i need to get through if i'm to get a handle on the particle engine of our main 3D app.

so, pros and cons of waking early.

by way of backgrounder, the room in the makati apartment where i stay has a curious quality. once day breaks, the light outside never varies much in intensity (short of thunderstorms and the like) -- it's as if the time outside the frosted jalousies is stuck in a permanent twilight (even at high noon). i suppose it has to do with the room's windows facing the backyard of the neighbor where there's a rather massive mango tree that overhangs even their other neighbor's backyard. all in all, save for the afternoon heat, it's a room where one could literally sleep all day in that twilight.

now, usually, a light is left on in the stairwell for those nocturnal occasions to the downstairs bathroom to take a leak. added to that, i generally keep a light on in the room -- a 25-watt lamp with a hemispherical shroud whose opening i have facing the wall. it's a less-glaring effect than having the light wash on the floor (and i can see the bulb while lying in bed -- no good).

last night, by way of a test, i turned both lights off.

well, whaddya know. woke up at 8am. and got to work at 10, for an hour's deficit. ugh.

so it may be the light that makes waking up easier(?). tonight i'll leave the lights on, and tomorrow will tell.

recap part 1: december 26, 2005

this post was supposed to happen first week into the new year, but an unforeseen event of significance upstaged it (refer to the previous post) -- no updates on that, and i somehow hesitate to ask.

so: the recap begins --

as i suppose is the way with trips that require more than one vehicle, an oft put-off trip to tagaytay began to take shape on december 26. of the establishments ensconced around the tagaytay ridge, the goal of the trip was josephine's, which was supposed to have an eat-all-you-can breakfast (and perhaps lunch) buffet. seeing as the assembly time was about 9-ish in the morning, breakfast was a moot point; so lunch was the target.

inevitably, the assembly process endured some kinks, so lunch was beyond reach too. so off to leslie's once more -- where it transpired that a goodly number of people also took the chance to have lunch among the clouds. so that meant that the scenic view huts were fully occupied. we then settled for a long table, and we were promptly disregarded by the harried waitering crew.

sometime after a stack of dishes met their untimely, clamorous end (a waiter slipped), we finally got our order in. sometime after that, food arrived. then the curious quiet of the really hungry descended on the table.

afterwards, the photo-op.

done.

next agenda was to make the run to the sm mall of asia (supposedly the largest in the world) -- where the world's first pyro olympics was scheduled to have it's opening evening at the bayside promenade next to the almost constructed mall.

so: from tagaytay to the roxas boulevard reclamation area in pasay city on manila bay. 3 hours. the traffic was agonizing. even as we approached the area, the fireworks from the china entry were already starting. parking, complicated by those who felt a curious need not to pay the 100 peso entry fee, was a complete mess. by dint of some luck, we managed to park all three cars, and began the long, long walk to where the firework festivities were to be viewed.

i didn't pay attention to the time spent walking, but it must have been anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes worth of a walk to get to the promenade. that's quite a ways. 2 kilometers, i'd hazard.

we got there in good time, actually, to see the australian entry light up the sky with their fireworks. on a comparative note, there wasn't the immediacy of the previous year's makati city new year celebration (the latter had more physical impact, you could feel the shockwaves from the exploding firework shells); but there was a rather nice variety to the show, not to mention the 30-minute length of the display. all in all, worth the effort.

all too soon, it was over. given that the immediate area around the mall of asia was gridlocked still, dinner was decided on. chowking, as it transpired.

thence we all went home and thereafter commenced christmas vacation (well, some of us -- i elected to go to work for the three working days that week).

i'll try to post pictures next time (with permission from the photographers, of course).

think

sunday just past, helping rather ineffectually in a long-overdue cleanup of the apartment in the wake of the downstairs office moving to another, larger, place across the street.

text message - my sister: apparently, my mother was thinking of visiting my gone-long-time father in the hospital. news was that he was suffering complications from some unspecified condition and had to be rushed to hospital.

notwithstanding massive inertia (haven't seen the man in over 21 years, the last time he popped into our lives after essentially disappearing years before), decided to go see him anyway.

the middle man in our brood of five was staunchly against visiting, and as it transpired, our eldest had gone the day before. the youngest i persuaded to tag along, recalling a statement our half-grandmother had said during a post-christmas impromptu reunion: go visit him, he's human too.

upon getting to the quirino memorial hospital, turns out that visiting hours were over, and the old guard was quite hard-nosed about not letting us in at all. my twin half-sisters were working themselves into picking a fight when the guards changed shift, and the younger one let us in with an admonition to not stay that long...

on the way to the ward, one of the twins gave us a brief heads-up: it was a tumor in dad's stomach, an endoscopy had been performed and they were awaiting the biopsy results in a week. the doctors were mum about the prognosis; the twins, having lost their mother to cancer two or three years back were prepared to assume the worst. naturally, none of this was to be mentioned to dad.

entered the ward...

after the initial surprise of seeing us start to troop in, he seemed to have gotten over the shock of not recognizing our eldest the day before, and he guessed it was me. we all assembled in the room; my mother, me, my sister, and our youngest brother. we dissembled about the reasons we weren't complete and proceeded to the small talk.

after the "mano po" bit, the youngest decided that he wasn't having any more of this, and left the room.

the bulk of the conversation that followed was borne mostly by my mother and i. my sister's husband was introduced; we answered the obligatory work questions; all the while i was studying my father's face and general demeanor.

he was so much thinner than i'd ever remembered him; but he didn't seem to be in much discomfort; except when the revelations came that we'd known about and had been meeting with his other offspring for the past three years without his knowledge... that surprised him, and he mentioned that he'd been thinking about us and introducing his other family to us -- except that his kids beat him to that punch via the magic of the internet.

he was also quick-witted, reacting to a comment my mother made about his drinking and smoking with a smile; a statement to the effect that it was, after all, "legal suicide" to be drinking a gallon of whiskey a day. he seemed to approve that none of us were smokers or drinkers.

at a certain point, i ventured that it was time to go; in the spirit of the non-disclosure of his likely condition, i said: "get well soon."

he exchanged a high five with my mom and afterwards he shook my hand, saying: "i'll have to, now that you're here."