Blast from the past

Found this in Cherry's Facebook:


hehehe... kids! This must've been taken at least 10 years ago.... daym!

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The assassination of JM Taylor

The history:
Suspect JM Taylor is leaving the Philippines for the Land of the Rising Sun for a good solid 2 years. His close "friends" wanted to send him off in a body bag.

The preparation:
All the agents that where to be involved were informed weeks prior to the operation. Operational directives were given and Go/No Go statuses confirmed. All agents were in place on the day of the operation, and the key proponents of the assassination convened in the command center (the same command center where the takedown of the Druglord was planned years ago). Various plans were drafted, each with its own set of pros and cons. Murphy, however, was at it again and each time a specific plan was close to being finalized it had to be abandoned. Finally, on the 11th hour, a decision was made and the necessary events were set in motion. The team gathered their gear and prepared for the mission at hand.

The package contents:
1 Rubik's cube
1 numeric keypad
1 "unknown" medical tablet
1 LED light
1 bottle of water
1 bar of chocolate
1 set of instructions to get in the trunk and lock himself in

Mission parameters:
1. Agent V will retrieve the suspect's car keys from his traitorous father (yes his father was in on it, as well as his mother, sister and household help)
2. Mom was to ask suspect to go retrieve "something" from her friend's house
3. Agents V, B, A and S will proceed to pick-up point, and wait for suspect to enter the house. Upon entering the house, Agents V and B will drop off a "package" in car's trunk and proceed to covert observation point.
4. Agent S will send out an anonymous message for the suspect to check the trunk
5. Suspect reads the instructions included in the "package" and knowing its consequences, follows it to the letter.
6. Agents V, B, A and S will proceed and drive the suspect and his car to a safe house and conduct interrogation and torture methods with the "organization".

The events as they transpired:
1. Agent V retrieved the suspect's car keys from his traitorous father
2. Mom friend was not yet home. SNAFU
3. Agents V, B, A and S proceeded to pick-up point, but returned back to suspect's house where the car was parked and droped off the "package" in the car's trunk.
4. Suspect proceeded to usual area of physical training, unaware of his cargo
5. Agent S sent out an anonymous message for the suspect to check the trunk
6. Suspect does not comply and proceeds with his PT. TARFU
7. Agents V and B commandeers the suspect's vehicle and parks it in a more secure location
8. Agent S sent out another anonymous message for the suspect to check the trunk
9. Suspect does not comply and Agents V and B nearly got compromised. Agent A had to perform an evac and pick up the two agents. FUBAR
10. Other communication methods were utilized and intimidation tactics were employed. Comm methods were ineffective.
11. Suspect finally opens the trunk and package. Suspect does not comply with instructions. SNAFU
12. Agent V confronted the suspect personally and persuades the him to get in the f*****g trunk. Suspect complies after nearly an hour and half after the mission started.
13. Agents V, B, A and S proceeded and drove the suspect and his car to a safe house and conduct interrogation and torture methods with the "organization".
14. Interrogation and torture successful. SNAFU

happy birthday!

... finally something that she can call her own...

green-eyed monster

I heard yesterday that a friend of mine won accommodations and tickets for the first ever Formula 1 night race in Singapore in the next couple of weeks. Damn, I am dying with envy. All he needs now is to get plane tickets to Singapore, but that is chicken feed compared to being able to get and pay for accommodations and tickets during the race weekend.

Plus he has a chance to meet Lewis Hamilton in person! I wouldn't say I am a Hamilton fan, I know he is good but I am rooting for another guy to win the championship.

Man, I just can't say how much I would like to go to Singapore for the race. It has always been one of my dreams to watch a Formula 1 race, wherever it may be. But Singapore is the closest and so far seems to be very prestigious as it is the first night race for Formula 1. Perfect timing for him I guess.... dude, take lots of pictures! And give Hamilton a sneaky elbow to the ribs for me hehehe

getting back in shape

Ever since I got back from US, I have been greeted with comments such as "You've lost weight!" or "Man, you're shrinking!" and even "Dude, your dark!" (from my skin color hehe). And I do see and feel that I've lost weight... not just weight, but my muscle mass.

A couple of months not going to the gym and the stress of work does that to you. So now I am back to the gym with a new trainer trying to regain all the hard work I've put in. First few sessions was painful. It has been a long time since I got that burn. It doesn't feel good.... but at least I know it brings with it the thought that I will get in shape again.

Good thing about working out hard again is that my appetite is coming back. I need to eat a lot in order to work out, but the problem with me is I don't eat a lot if I don't work out. And I can't work out hard enough if I don't eat. That is where the trainer comes in. You are forced to work out since you have an appointment to make, and the fact that you paid for it.

So I will be in a lot of pain for the next month or so until I get back to my peak, which is all good. But my wallet is getting a beating as well though hehehe

Boracay day 7 and departure

Boracay night 6 (continuation of Boracay day 6), Socs and I went out on a date. Sounds weird, as the Boracay trip is pretty much an extended date, but this night was a little bit more special as we decidedly dressed up (island style) and went to the Bamboo Lounge for dinner and a couple of drinks. Food was expensive but good, I recommend the Lotus fried rice. Good thing their "Happy Hour" went until 1030pm.

Day 7 started off with a massage by the beach, and some more time to soak up the rays (yes I am now a bronze god hehehe). We had Gasthof's for brunch before heading back to the resort. I stopped by to buy a pair of board shorts, even though it was going to be our last (full) day in Boracay. I've always wanted to get another pair of a different shade of color than my current one.

Back at the resort, we rested for a bit as we had a reservation to rent an ATV. We initially thought of just renting one ATV for the both of us, however we ended up getting one each as it costs pretty much the same. We rode up to Mt. Luho to have a better view of the island. We also headed to a couple of other beaches Boracay had to offer. Little did we know it took us a little over 2 hours instead of the one hour we budgeted for (Socs was a little hesitant on the throttle). So we ended up paying twice what we planned, but we it was all good as we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly (Socs was even starting to speed up a bit on the road).



Dinner was on a low budget restaurant in D*Mall (plus a couple of isaw sticks for me) and it was off to bed as we had an early flight the next day. We had breakfast at the resort, and it was pretty good. It was done outside our room with the morning sun shining down on us. Perfect way to end the week in Boracay.

Boracay day 6

A quick recap, Socs and I went to eat at True Food Indian restaurant last night and we can probably say that it was the best dinner we had so far here in Boracay. It was a bit expensive compared to the other restaurants but well worth it. The lamb rogan josh and the motabhal combination together with their Naan is highly recommended.

Today we had a simple breakfast in one of the shops in station 3. It was cheap yet good enough to start the day. We spent most of the morning hanging out in the beach and working on our tan. We then headed back to D*Talipapa to grab some lunch. As promised we got lobster and clams.

The lobster was a little more expensive than what we initially thought it to be and the restaurant took a bit more time getting it out but was all worth it.

It was then on to more sun soaking time, this time in Station 1. We stayed there so we can get another round of Jonah's shakes (Avocado Banana is a new favorite) and take some pictures. We were hoping to catch the Boracay sunset, however the weather wasn't cooperating. We ended up simply snapping random pictures.

I did had to have a picture taken of me "conquering" Willy's Rock. It didn't quite come up as I imagined and I got more than a few cuts (that rock is razor sharp!), but at least I know it can be done... next time...

Again, I leave this entry open ended as Socs and I will be heading out to dinner in a bit...

Boracay day 5

Today started off a little slow... but it started pretty well. Around 930 Socs and I headed off to D*Talipapa and bought 1 kilo of huge prawns and another kilo of oysters from the wet market and had it cooked in one of the "cooking service" restaurants nearby. I thought we bought too much food, but it turned out to be just enough (I may have been able to eat a few more prawns or oysters though). It was a seafood craving resolved.... but we may go back tomorrow for some lobster and clams hehe

We took the opportunity to take pictures of the abundant seafood being sold in the market. Unfortunately we only took pictures using the Holga and Topeng's 350D (thanks by the way!) which is not recognized by Socs' laptop (we didn't bring a card reader either). So settle for the cooked food instead:

We spent the afternoon soaking up the sun and get more tanned (I need more color). Manong Ice cream man passed by and we had our share of ice cream to cool ourselves from the hot sun. Still no plans for dinner though, but we'll figure something out...

Boracay days 1 to 4

Socs and I are currently in Boracay and it is already Day 4, halfway through our well deserved vacation. Here's a recap of what transpired the last few days.

Day 1: After meeting each other in Ayala MRT station, we took a cab to NAIA Terminal 3. The cab driver insisted taking EDSA on the way and we ended up taking a little more time getting to the airport if we went through C5 or Pasong Tamo. In any case, our flight was delayed for an hour and a half. At least the airport was world class and waiting wasn't too bad... except for the steeply priced airport food.

Once in Boracay we spent the first few hours settling the resort and had one round in Bomboms during happy hour. We slept early as we knew the following day was going to be much more fun.

Day 2 was met with rain, but that did not prevent us from exploring the beach. Boracay changed a bit from the last time we where here. Breakfast at D*Talipapa, a little frisbee time, and lunch at Jammers sums up half of the day. We then met up with some of my college buddies who coincidentally was spending the long weekend here. We had dinner in Agee's place (a friend who went Boracay local after college) and a couple of beers as well.

We then headed off to Hey Jude! to get hammered. And so we did. Shots all around, beer, dancing... more shots. Lost of fun... and lots of headaches the following day.

Half of Day 3 for me was spend sleeping and recovering from the monster headache from the previous night. At around 3 pm we were able to head out and have something to eat, as well a glass of the famous Jonah's shakes. It was back to Bomboms for a drink before we headed out to Juice bar for another night of drinking. We had one round of Adios Mother Fucker, which does bid you Adious and makes you say Mother Fucker after finishing the glass (if you do). We had a few more shots and a beer. Socs retired early, but I stayed on until around 3 am. It's been a while since I've been with these guys so I stuck for a bit. Luckily (and surprisingly) I didn't have a bad hangover the following day.

Today was spent pretty much hanging out on the beach. I needed to work on my tan so we spent a good hour and a half just sitting on the beach. Socs and I plan to work on our swimming skills while we are here so we might be heading out in a bit.

banzai!

Just a few days of coming back to the Motherland, JM and Verchie invited me to head off to the island of Corregidor. JM had some Japanese friends visiting and wanted to visit Corregidor (oh the irony), and since Socs and I have been wanting to go there for some time now we accepted the invite.

I love what they did with the island, preserving as much of the history as they could so that future generations could remember and understand what happened during World War II. There was a lot of respect for those who died, and survived the War. I could only imagine the horrors that the island went through during those times. It was a bit surreal as the island is now lush and green, with paved roads leading to the various battery emplacements, memorials and war torn buildings. It is like one huge museum... but with real bullet holes, real machine gun emplacements, caves and war damaged stuff.

My friends know I am fascinated by war, but seeing the shrapnel damage and bullet holes all over the place was awe inspiring. Makes me wonder what actually transpired during the exact moment that happened. It must have been hell.

The day tour of the island was too short in my opinion. A lot of places can be explored, do some introspection, and take lots of cool pictures. We might be heading back there, perhaps to spend the night and imagine the Japanese attacking...

banzai!

summited

August 2, 2008 2:47pm local time (-5 GMT) 4,393 ft. (1339 m) above mean sea level, summited Mt. Mansfield.

I finally did it! Although I was delayed by a week, I have conquered the highest peak in Vermont. Estimated ascent/descent time was 4 hours which was pretty decent. We (I came with an officemate) were hauling ass pretty much the entire way, either because of the weather (60% chance of thunderstorms) or we were just pushing each other. We both tried to summit Mt Mansfield on separate occassions and got to pretty much the same place. And I believe if neither one of us was with each other, we would probably have turned back sometime during the climb.

not the trail we took, but some profanity was spoken

In any case, we pushed on and reached the top. The mountain looked pretty amazing above the tree line despite clouds obscuring much of the view. The landscape looked like the Shire, for a lack of a better description. Mostly rocks, small trees, and some sort of moss. And as I have researched previously, parts of it was alpine tundra and we where requested not to veer off the trail to avoid destroying the sensitive flora.

After a few minutes resting and taking a few snapshots, we headed back down. And not a moment too soon, as the clouds started rolling in and a few drops of rain started to fall. Just before we got to the tree line it was pretty much pouring. Good thing I bought a (pretty good, I might add) rain jacket a week before. It was a bit treacherous going down a rocky mountain in the rain, but we managed quite well. There was a few slips and slides, but nothing major. Surprisingly, my knee didn't bother me until we were near the end of the trail.

I did wish I could have taken more pictures, or stayed longer at the top. But I did what I came to do and that was it.

next summit please!

ToDo Entry

*First and foremost I would like to apologize for the work reference in the title...

A few things that I want/need/hope to/will do when I get back home:

1. Go to Boracay for a week
2. Live fire exercises (Verchie, if you can read this let me know when this will happen... BANG BANG NA!)
3. Organize Anawangin Trip (anyone up for it?)
4. Consider a Surf Safari to Siargao
5. Decide on the next step of my career
6. Ask Pads if I can work on his farm for a week (Pads, I'm serious... can I work as a farmer in your hacienda? Hard labor, I want to get ripped! I will work for food, lodging and transportation)
7. Get ripped! (I need to hit the gym again)
8. Sharpen my knives (hehehe)
9. Organize my email, pictures and other files

upgraded

I have approximately a week left if Vermont and I still have a few things to do (such as climb Mt. Mansfield). I am ready to go finally go home... not just for the fact that I will be going home, but that I will be going home in style.

World Business Class baby!

the geek in me

As mentioned in my previous blog entry, I was in Houston TX last week with Manny. It was a side trip from our Austin kick-off meeting, and as luck would have it Manny had a friend in Houston so we had a place to crash into.

Speaking of crashes, one of the few things did in Houston was visit the Space Center (space shuttle... spaceships... crash landing? get it? sorry corny moment). Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I was a bit surprised that I was very interested in some of the things that NASA does, how they do it and why. I always thought I knew a bit about space exploration and the space program from the media (TV, internet, etc), but visiting NASA was a real eye-opener.

I realized what a daunting task space exploration really was, and seeing the actual items used during the early days made all of what I already knew more real.... and more personal. Seeing the training facility was cool, and I could just imagine what actually goes on the other side of the glass. It was pretty neat to touch a piece of the moon, the actual Apollo modules that brought people back safely to Earth. I just couldn't fathom what extremes those "things" went through before ending up to right where I was standing. And I just found out that they do plan to go back to the moon for further exploration and I understood why (economical and scientific reasons).

Our last tour (and I was glad we took it as the last tour) was to Mission Control. This unassuming guy gave us a brief description of what goes on in Mission Control and a few personal notes on what it feels like to work in NASA. It was a priviledge to know that he was actually one of the guys who trains astronauts that go into space, and that he knew a couple of the guys who died in the shuttle disaster pretty well.

That kind of tied everything together for me. They had 4 badges on one side of the room that would never make it to the successful missions wall of the room. Because for them, they failed in not bringing those people back. Because they made a mistake. They didn't care about how much it cost to run the space program, or how expensive the shuttle that just blew up... it was about the people. Because at the end of the day, despite all the technology and the accomplishments and tragedies it still goes down to the human person. Humanity without the boundaries of sex, religion or ethnicity. Space exploration raises the simplest yet greatest philosophical question of life.. personally and in the grand scheme of the universe, who are we and why we are here?

Naval Officer Vistan

I am currently in Houston, TX but this blog entry is about my trip to Austin, TX. Confusing I know, but I will explain it on my next blog entry (hopefully).

Manny, Arnold and I were invited to a corporate kick-off meeting in Austin, TX. After a long trip from Vermont, we arrived a resort in Austin and the first order of business was some fun. We had some ideas that it would somehow involve the lake... I initially thought it would be simply hanging out on a yacht in the lake sipping booze. I was pleasantly surprised that we were divided into 8 groups and given a sailboat. That's right, a true blue (and expensive) sailboat... and we were told we were going racing.

After a few pointers from our skipper on some basic sailboating concepts (like how to man the lines), we were off. As soon as we got out of the harbor the skipper asked who wanted to drive first. And as I was nearest the wheel at that time, I was tasked to man the helm. We practiced the concepts taught us earlier about tightening and loosening the lines and turning the boat (which surprisingly turns on a dime). Then it was time to race.

We didn't have a good run at the beginning as we were a bit off the starting line. We were a little behind a group of boats but we somehow was able to catch up. And as luck with have it (and some good driving by yours truly), we got the inside line on all but one boat going into the turning point. We turned pretty tightly near the buoy, strategically blocked the other boats, and caught a pretty decent gust of wind. There were a couple of boats that were trying pass us but we crossed the finish line ahead of them.

We had another heat, this time with me as one of the lines men. Unfortunately we finished dead last. We had great fun though, and I now understand the fascination of sailing. I am definitely going to try it again when the opportunity presents itself.

a couple of our competitors

I also heart NY

As some of you may already have found out Manny, Waw, Vianney and I went to New York last 4th of July weekend. I don't think I have the capacity or time to write up everything that happened during that week, so you would just have to visit their sites to read all about it. I will not post any pictures as well since I took crappy pictures so again visit their blogs and check their pictures out.

I will have to say that I enjoyed NY. It may be due to the fact that I got a chance to get away from Vermont but that's another story. All the walking was pretty tiring, but I what can you do right? At least we were able to go where we wanted to... plus the added bonus of getting a pretty good leg workout (man I need to get back to the gym...)

surfing dreams

I wasn't really in the mood to work yesterday (as usual), so I decided to go on the Net (as usual) and check out possible things to do for a possible sabbatical from work.

I have more or less set my mind up for at least a couple of weeks of surfing. Simply living the life of a surfer, with no hassles... just plain old hanging out and surfing. It should of course be economical in terms of transportation, food, lodging and gear (rent or buy, that is the question). Living local is probably a viable option. Rent a room or apartment (rather than a resort), cook your own food (or local carinderia), rent a board (or buy one, whatever is cheaper in the long run) and hitch a ride with my parents (they are also looking at going on a vacation)

As I was researching, I came across a blog which more or less what I had in mind. Living local in Siargao. I was almost in tears... that's my dream! I want that kind of life!

I did find a place that was relatively cheap, and I could use some of my NWA miles to buy my plane tickets. It would now simply be a matter of buying and tranporting a surfboard or simply renting it. Miscellaneous tranportation, food and supplies cost. And of course the timing...

I haven't really considered this completely (cost vs feasibility), I just might as soon as I get back home.

wait for further developments...

... literally.

Expended 1 roll of film, another one in the barrel with 3 shots left and another waiting in the sidelines. I will try to get them developed as soon as I get back home (3 weeks left!). Very excited on how the pictures turn out.

nearly 2 years late

Someone else was there first