from the Green Mountain State to the Red Sox Nation

Last Monday night, I drove 179 miles from Montpelier to Cambridge and met up with Patrick and Bikka. It was a long drive in bad weather (it rained pretty much the entire way) but well worth it. It was nice to meet up with friends in a foreign country and simply by sheer timing with Patrick taking up his MBA, Bikka on a vacation and myself on a business trip.

We had a few drinks to celebrate the occasion the first night we met up, then it was on to exploring the city the following day. Unfortunately the weather wasn't cooperating and it rained pretty much the entire day. But we still braved the weather and went around town to see the sights. Harvard, The Freedom Line, Boston Common, fresh Maine lobster, taking the subway, shopping at Macy's and a visit to Patrick's school were some of the many things that we did that day. I was pretty wet and tired when we finally came back to Bikka's hotel room, but was all good.

What kinda sucked was that the weather in Boston when I left earlier today was great, the sun was up and shining a perfect day to enjoy the city. It also sucked that I had to drive the back nearly 200 miles to go to work.

The gang in Boston Common

lucky 3

I headed out for lunch earlier, had a hard time looking for a place to eat as Church Street Marketplace is pretty busy on a Saturday afternoon. I ended up a true blue American diner where I sat on the counter and had toast, home fries, bacon, sausages and eggs plus a Pepsi.

I hung out for a bit, taking a couple of snapshots. I particularly like this one, oh the irony:

Having nothing else to do (plus the fact that I only had a 2hour free parking) I headed back to my car. A guy stopped me and asked me if I wanted to participate in a survey. He looked kinda dubious and was kinda leading me to a corridor. I was already thinking of an escape route but decided to man up and see how things go. Long story short I did, and around 20 minutes later I was done. As I signed my name on the list of participants I noticed that there was a column called "Amount received" and surprise surprise I was handed $3! Cool!

caught

We were caught speeding earlier this morning. Doing 82 miles an hour on a 65, which translates to $144. A whole lot of money.

Good thing I was asleep in the back seat. Too bad for my officemate though, what a way to start a Wednesday morning.

It was a nice experience though hehehe

I lovermont

sachet of sugar in Vermont

Three weeks into my stay in Vermont and so far I have no updates in my blog. That doesn't mean I haven't done anything since then, well nothing of significance except maybe for this:

I got mine in Stowe Mountain

I'm still aching from snowboarding (or trying to) so I'll keep this blog short. Will try to post a more detailed story (and more pics) on what I've been up to here.

brrrrlington, brrrrmont

I'm now here in Vermont, the place is beautiful.

It's been a tiring trip to say the least, however I am settling in ok. The hotel is nice, I have a decent car (SUV baby!)... and the weather sucks. For a tropical guy like me, but I like it... hopefully I'll get used to the day long sub-zero temperatures.

First impression of the project team is good. They are accomodating, and they are young troops like me. That should provide us at least with something in common.

Will definitely try to get some pictures up soon.

first look...

... at where I'm gonna be living in the next 2 months (at least, I think)

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/legacy/collegestreetcam.shtml

new stuff, no time

A quick update on what's happening, Socs and I went back to La Mesa Watershed a few days ago. This time we had some of the Oracle troops accompany us. Good fun and a nice break from the hassles of city life. Big thanks to the blood lusted, adventure freak Mr. Verchie Totanes for organizing the trip.

Earlier this week a few friends of mine (and a few strangers as well) went on a tour around Binondo. Good thing this was a walking food tour, ate a lot of good stuff! You guys should try it, especially if you've never been to Binondo. Socs and I are also considering trying out the other tours.

I'm flying out to Vermont next week! Another country/city to mark on my list of where I have been. Once there, I can say I have been to 2 continents... Europe and America. Is Asia another continent though? According to Wikipedia in depends, oh well. Europe, Asia and soon America will be off the list. Antarctica is gonna be a problem though.

Finally a chance to be on a project at the very start, I'm very excited. I hope I do a pretty decent job as this is an investment in my career.

Unfortunately I will have no per diems for the 2 months I am onsite, so no chance of earning a few extra bucks. Hopefully the project manager will let me reimburse costs related to fun, did I mention that Vermont is a haven for skiing? I just hope I don't freeze to death 5 mins upon arrival though...

just like in college

My Lakbayan grade is C!

How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out at Lakbayan!

Created by Eugene Villar.

pull

In line with Soc's updated blog, I'd like to update this here blog of mine with a new entry. I just came back from a long weekend of wakeboarding in CWC!

I enjoyed the trip thoroughly, the place was wonderful! Really world class facilities, food was good, and the prices were just right. I highly commend Governor Lray Villafuerte on his initiative on this endeavor.

I had initially set some personal goals regarding the trip. I knew that we had to kneeboard for the first few runs to get a feel of how the cable systems work, but I was confident I would be able to do a whole lap on a kneeboard. (Luckily I was not humiliated in this regard) Then it was on to the wakeboard.

We only tried the simple boards they had for rent (not LiquidForce boards), which was pretty much a simple wakeboard with slip on straps (not actual bindings, which are like boots). Naturally the first few runs I fell flat on my face... or on my side or on my back, I was all over the place. After a few spills (right in front of professional wakeboarders I might add), I was able to get my balance and stand up for a brief moment. I then progressed to reaching the first set of obstacles , which I duely avoided by the way.

I initially figured it was a fluke and kept my head down on trying to get the wakeboarding thing down. I got another good ride and reached halfway to the second set of obstacles, and then the cable operator told us it was our last ride (on the 1 hour session). I got myself composed and took off. At least I did not waste the last ride wiping out, I thought... then I got halfway to the second obstables figuring I was going to wipe out big time. I was a bit suprised I went further, way further.

The corner was coming up, I thought "Shit, I'm going down for sure". I kept to the right, and got past the corner! Nice! That was quite easy, I thought. Then bam! Down I went halway to the second corner. I had a big smile on my face.

Last ride, best ride.

My second day was similar in some ways. A few wipe outs and a few good rides, I think I managed to get past the second corner once. I was satisfied, despite not reaching my goal of riding one of the obstacle hehehe. I had a feeling I wouldn't be able to do a whole lap on a wakeboard so I resorted to riding an obstacle (twisted logic eh?). Alas I didn't have the balls to do it. I don't blame myself either, it was scary as hell... and dangerous too. I'm just glad to have gotten a few good rides.

ending a day of wakeboarding fun

surferdude.blogspot.com

I have found my calling... surfing, it seems, is in my blood. After only 3 surfing trips, and around 12 hours of surfing under my belt, I am hooked.

My first surfing trip was in La Union, our introduction to the wonders of surfing. I found it fairly easy to catch a wave, with the help of Manong surfer who pushed us so we can ride the fairly easy waves (1-footers). Although I knew I had a long way to go in terms of skills, I felt I had the basics covered which, as far as I was concerned, was standing up and keep standing up until the wave died out. The following day, this time with no help from Manong surfer, we failed to catch some waves as there weren't as many good ones as the previous day. I, however, was not deterred.... me and my friends vowed to come back.

Brgy. Pundakit in Zambales was entirely a different story. We enrolled in a surf camp offered by Stonemoney Surf and 'trained' by surf-master Joe Villatora (a real surf pro from Hawaii). The waves here where much much bigger... 5 footers I believe, since a typhoon has passed by recently. We never caught any waves, but this was the real eye opener for me into the surfing lifestyle. As Joe said, 90% of surfing is paddling and I was okay with that. I loved the notion of paddling into the line up and waiting for the right wave to come. And the feeling of the wave just when it catches you.... heaven.

Finally, before the surfing season ended, Tots invited us back to Zambales for a final surf trip this time in San Narciso. Everyone was excited and really stoked to catch some waves, but disappointment greated us as we approached the beach... no waves. So we ended up playing frisbee and hanging out for the rest of the day. The following day, I woke up to my friends saying "Let's head off to the beach, there are waves! Time to surf!". And so we did... after some time of trying to catch one, I finally did it. I caught my own wave, and from then on I pretty much caught wave after wave... such is the life of a surfer.

goodbye wardude....

.... hello surferdude

no more

I just checked friendster.com... my primary photo is no longer a featured photo.

Oh well, I can't expect it to be featured forever. But it was nice while it lasted :)

wow philippines

dive batangas

surf la union

the curse of the new shoes

I bought new futbol shoes last weekend and I was really looking forward to using them today but alas, the futbol gods said “No! You will not get to wear these babies today”.

I guess there really is a curse of new futbol shoes. Ruth and Topeng had similar experiences with the futbol gods and their new shiny shoes. I just hope I'm not like Topeng who was not able to use it until after a year! hehehe...

Oh futbol gods, please do not forsake me!

redirect

I'm not really in the mood to think of a nice way of putting this... to just visit Socs' blog entry. Let me know if you are (or know anybody who might be) interested.

By the way, I've had some bloggable stuff that's happened to me recently but I'm just too lazy to blog about it. So I leave you to your web surfing...

beach

identified

Socs was bugging me to post some Pinatubo pics in my flicker page, however before I was able to upload a single pic I decided to organize the existing pics I had. It had numerous photos of our Cyprus trip, and given that we went to a lot of places I wanted to make sure that the tags of each picture was accurate.

Now it has been more than a year since then and I forgot the exact names of the places we've been so I started doing some research. I googled for a map of Cyprus and some pictures to help my try to match the places with the names. Limassol, Larnaca, Nicosia, Troodos where identified and with the information I had at my disposal, I realized that the big ass rock in Kakopetria Socs and I mentioned in our previous posts (here and here) was an actual tourist attraction! It's apparently called Petra tou Androgynou.

Although we only stopped at Kakopetria for lunch, its nice to find out that we where able to visit a tourist destination even after all this time.

welcome to the rock

the lost world

I'm taking the opposite approach to Socs on this entry. Just one pic and a whole bunch of words for me...

Around two weeks after the La Mesa Dam Wathershed trip and almost a month after my second JEST experience, I was off to another adventure. It was to experience Mt. Pinatubo after its latest eruption way back in 1991.

Socs, myself, and 4 other officemates set off from the bus terminal to Brgy. Patling in Capas, Tarlac early Saturday morning and met with our rented 4x4 jeep that would take us to our jump-off point for the trek to the crater. After a quick stop at the office in Sta. Juliana for registration and to pick up our guide, we forged ahead and found ourselves in the middle of nowhere.

An adventure in itself, the ride through Crow Valley was wonderful. The 4x4 jeep carving its own path across the lahar field/airforce bombing range. It was a mix of rocks, ash, cliffs, streams and Mother Nature reclaiming the desolate landscape. Then it was time for the walk.

We walked two hours through the ash and rock and the occassional stream, surrounded by cliffs of lahar and rock. It was picturesque to say the least. It was a long walk, and we were all tired from the trek and heat (we're not hardcore climbers nor extremely fit people, just your ordinary office folk). Finally we were there.

We set up camp, took some pictures and rested our weary feet. Then the rain came. Luckily we didn't have to stay the entire afternoon huddled in our tents, so we had a bit more time for photo-ops before taking care of our dinner... 4 cans of trioxane-cooked sisig (finally put that trioxane to good use).

After a relatively sleepless night (it rained pretty hard and Socs and I had to abandon our tent), we woke up to the warmth of the sun and the cool morning breeze. There were signs of possible rain coming down later in the morning but we enjoyed what was to be our last moments atop Pinatubo. A quick breakfast of trioxane-cooked hotdogs (I just love that stuff) and we were off.

The trek back was different. Although you remember the area and the significant 'landmarks' the trail itself has been changed by the rain from the previous night. We where also pressed for time since a dark cloud was looming behind us, threatening to raise the water we frequently cross.

Luckily the rain didn't fall during the trek and we made it safely to the 4x4 pick-up point, albeit an hour late. Crossing Crow Valley we came across a groups of foreigners, also riding their own 4x4 jeeps off on their own adventure.

Back in 'civilization', we had a rejuvinating volcanic ash treatment (I fell asleep as soon as I laid down) and bath (more than 24 hours had passed since our last bath). By the time we were finished, it was way past lunch time so we headed to a local canteen and had our fill.

It was time to head home and after some time waiting for a bus, we finally left the Mt. Pinatubo adventure behind. Maybe we'll go back there sometime... or maybe we'll just set off for another type of journey, who knows...

paradise in the city

Verchie invited me and Socs to the La Mesa Dam Watershed and I must say that it was quite an eye opener. Such a beautiful place in the middle of the city, well it didn't feel like it was in the middle of the metro.

I'm a bit pressed for time to post a decent entry here so I'll leave you guys with a picture. I'll definitely be going back there for more :)

jungle fighter

*photo courtesy of Manuel Pangaruy Jr.