Thursday, Feb 2, 2006

I had a meeting with Armin and Kong Naring today at Mer's place in Sindalan. The revised floor plan is in complete compliance of all the requirements of the subdivision. And everyone agreed that it's ready for resubmission to Greenfields. This was around 11:30 am and Leda sent me a text message saying they've already arrived at Len's place in Baliti.

So I left for Baliti while Armin and Kong Naring went to: 1) submit the letter I made to the SFELAPCO General Manager requesting for 110V lines to be installed; 2) deliver Kong Paing's donation of Encyclopedia to Mexico Elementary School; 3) turn in the revised drawings to Greenfields and 4) get information from the city on the procedures of acquiring home building permits.

When I got to Len's place, sure enough Leda was already there but Daddy was nowhere to be seen. It turned out he sort of got bored waiting and walked around the neighborhood talking with people which is typical of him. He arrived after a few minutes. Ayrin, Mike's wife, also took a break from work to have lunch with us. Right before lunch Donna sent me a text message asking where I was and that she needed to talk with me right away so I text'd her back saying I was at Len's and gave her their land line. I had lunch of fried chicken and tilapia and buko. During lunch however, here comes Donna's phone call. We talked for almost an hour and by the time we finished, everyone's done with lunch and Ayrin has left to go back to work. Then Berna came in a tricycle with her little daughter. She said she's resigned from her work as a merchandiser because she got promoted but they're transferring her to Manila or Olongapo and her husband was against it so she quit. She's venturing in starting a carinderia which was blessed by Leda since she has a lot of experience in it. Leda's fast food business by the way has been turned over to Jay-jay and he's allegedly doing a good job at it. Leda and Daddy left afterwards. She said she had to pick up some plants (it seems gardening is her current hobby nowadays) from Bulacan. Daddy also gave me some money saying, "Hey this is the Philippines." Not sure what he meant by that so I took it. I figured I'm running short on pesos so now I'll have some to pay Armin's and Kong Naring's wages!!

We gave Berna a ride back to St Jude's and I went and regrouped with Kong Naring and Armin at Francis's body shop. But when I got there Armin has already left to turn in the floor plan to Greenfields fearing the office may be closing for the day. I took Kong Naring to St. Jude to show him the house for rent that Atching Pie and I checked out yesterday. In his opinion it's worth to rent between 3 to 5 thousand pesos a month. And looking at the door, he's certain that it's 3' X 6'6". I told Donna to measure our Norwalk front door and if it's wider than 36", that means I cannot rent this house because our furniture will not fit through it.

Sorry to say I failed to take any pictures today so Indo's pictures will have to suffice!

Wednesday, Feb 1, 2006

Today Atching Pie and I went to St Jude to check out the house belonging to her friends that they intend to rent out. I think it may be big enough to cram all of our house hold stuff in. It's a two bedroom house, 1 bath with a carport long enough for 3 cars. It has an added-on big room on the side. There are a couple of issues though. The house is pretty much 'furnished' right now and that will be taking up room instead of ours. The other concern is the size of the doors. I'm not sure if they're big enough for our furniture and cabinets to go through. I sent Donna an eMail telling her I need all of the dimensions on our stuff especially the big items.

Monday/Tuesday 01-30-06 thru 01-31-06

Owed a couple of days blogs so here goes..

Last night, Jack treated us to Jerry's Grill in SM for dinner with my usual chop suey and a grilled blue marlin steak this time. Remy (who works for Jack) and Thelma (who works for Kong Orling at the shop) were with us. Jake (Jack's boyfriend) met us at the restaurant. After dinner we went to Jorma's for some videoke. Lot of fun!! We sang our hearts out till closing time.

This morning I went and picked up Kong Naring from SM and we went to see Armin in Angeles to check out some prices on materials for the house. We went to a couple of hardware stores and got information on wood laminate, ceramic tiles, etc.

We had lunch at Robinson's food court in Balibago. I had chopsuey, pinakbet and a side dish of sashimi (yes in Balibago!). We were discussing and comparing prices after lunch when this lady started arguing with a sales clerk at one of the restaurants in the food court. She was ranting and raving at the top of her lungs. I had to talk to a waitress and told her they should call security. After a few minutes, a couple of security guards showed up but this woman would not be stopped. She created such a scene at the food court that everyone just started staring at her. We cannot hear each other, yes that's how loud she was. I'm thinking if this happened at Cerritos Mall for example, she would have been handcuffed and carried out!

When I got back to Guagua late afternoon, Jack and Remy were on their way to Floridablanca to check up on her grocery store and they dragged me along. See various pictures. Nido - did you recognize any of those Floridablanca pictures I posted?

Had dinner at Chow King of (guess what!!??) boneless bangus and chop suey! After dinner, Remy took me to their place for some more videoke!!

Monday, Jan 30, 2006

I was able to accomplish quite a few things today. I went and met with Armin and Kong Naring at SM's food court. While we were having lunch, we discussed some more of the drawings and construction issues. Armin was able to modify the floor plan to comply with the subdivision's requirement regarding the car port posts. He said he'll be able to show us the modified version tomorrow afternoon and we'll turn it in for reapproval at that time. Kong Naring has been doing a lot of legwork on canvassing of labor and material.

After lunch we left Kong Naring at SM. Armin and I went to PHS so I can talk with the principal. Her office is being renovated and it got moved temporarily next to the canteen. It was swelteringly hot!! I noticed that the 'stage' in front of the library in the main building is now flush with the ground and the carabao horns sculpted in front are now totally buried!

Then we went to SFELAPCO to get information about the 110V lines in Greenfields. We found out that I have to draft a formal letter addressed to Jose Lazatin, the General Manager of SFELAPCO requesting for 110V to be installed towards the property. Once we get the approval, we'll have to pay for whatever it costs to install the 110V lines for the Greenfields property.

Sunday Jan 29, 2006

Woke up this morning with my feet cold and an urgent need to go to the bathroom. We found out later we forgot to close the windows! There’s a big sign in the bathroom, “Huwag pong gamitin ang heater, sira po!” and I was too chicken to take a shower. I had liver spread sandwich and Milo for breakfast. Then I had Ronnie accompany me to church to hear the purely Ilocano mass (!) at 9:00 am via taxi then I bought a shirt from SM took my clothes off and wore it right there. I was starting to feel hungry so Ronnie and I had merienda at the food court. We went to Starbucks at Camp John Hay and waited for Pareng Nasty. When he arrived we waited for another of his clients and when the guy didn’t show up after about 15 minutes, we hailed a cab and proceeded on to the house, dropping by to pick up a couple of rotisserie chicken for lunch on the way. We’re here at the house right now waiting for one more of his clients, then we’ll be heading south towards home.
Well, they didn’t show up until later and they had to go and get the vegetables that Mareng Didi wanted Pareng Nasty to get. By the time we left Baguio, it was already 4:04 p.m. We had dinner at Luring’s in San Fernando, had some barbecue chicken, barbecue posit and barbecue chicken paldeut. It was already around 9:30 when we got here in Guagua. Jack had to postpone our Karaoke date till tomorrow.

Saturday, Jan 28, 2006

I had to take another shower this morning because I didn’t wash my hair last night. I had to suffer through another cold shower!! I started to get ready afterwards. Didi said Mergine called earlier saying she would pass on the Baguio trip which made Didi back out of it as well. Pareng Nasty, Bane and myself went. That was around 10:30 am. Nasty took us to his farm in Bulacan (check out pictures). We got there at past 11. It was a pretty cool set up he has over there complete with a small rice farm, a few fish ponds with bangus and tilapia, a small piggery, some chickens, ducks, a goat and about 3 dogs. He has 2 caretakers doing everything from farming, maintaining the fishponds and the household. We got there, Jon one of the caretakers was barbecuing chicken which smells good. Pareng Nasty smelled it too so we decided to have lunch over there and join Jon and Jerry. They have a few coconut trees with buko so Jerry climbed up one of them and picked several buko which I pigged out on after lunch. After lunch we left at around 2 for Baguio. I dozed off on the road and when I woke up we were already in Mabalacat. Several Tarlac and Pangasinan towns zipped by.

Tarlac:
Bamban; Capas; Concepcion; (this is where Hacienda Luisita is located and I noticed a huge statue of Ninoy going down the plane) Tarlac City; Gerona; Paniqui; Moncada and San Manuel.

Pangasinan;
Carmen; Rosales; Urdaneta; Villasis; Pozurobio; Sison.

After Pangasinan’s last town is the start of Baguio’s zig zag at the infamous Kennon Road. About half an hour to 45 minutes later we were at the house. This is a house owned by Pareng Nasty’s compadre and it’s where all of his friends to stay in anytime they’re in Baguio. There’s a couple (Ronnie and Vilma) who takes care of it. (he’s the one who accompanied me to church and SM this morning). It was around the low 50’s, Pareng Nasty loaned me a light sweat shirt. We unloaded our stuff, parked the car and we took a taxi to have dinner at Balajadia – small hole in the wall restaurant that serves pretty good Filipino dishes. They ordered bulalo and pancit and I had chop suey and kalderetang kambing. Afterwards Pareng Nasty called a lawyer friend who’s a former councilman in the area. He took us to this place (I forget the name) for videoke. There’s no one singing when we got there. I immediately signed up for 6 songs. None of the gang wanted to try. After my last set we headed on home. We hit the sack at around 11.

Friday, Jan 27, 2006

Woke up kind of early this morning and took a quick shower to get ready for my trip to Manila with Jack and Ate Pie. Remy who works for Jack and Pap (our driver) were with us. Jack however drove to Manila. Pap was the back up on the drive home. At around 8:30 we left for Manila. At Bocaue exit we picked up Ate Pie’s friend and we proceeded to Makati where Jack had a business appointment at 11:00. I’ve sent text messages to Didi, Nasty and Mergine the night before so they’re aware that I’m coming. Sherwin responded to my messages saying to send them to him instead since his Dad doesn’t read/respond to text messages and he’s going to be the one to pick me up anyway. Jack took the EDSA route thinking the other way may be packed since they’re going to have a ticker tape parade for Manny Pacquiao. We got to Landmark at around 10:30 and literally a few seconds after I got off the car, here comes Sherwin in his Dad’s Pajero. Bane (I was to find out later was short for Giovanni) their driver is behind the wheel. After the initial hello’s and stuff, he asked, “Where to?” I told him to look for a restaurant since I haven’t had breakfast and it turned out neither did he. He took me to this breakfast place called Heaven ‘n Eggs. I guess it’s the IHOP counterpart here. I ordered a crab meat and asparagus omelette which turned out to be a fairly big serving with real crab meat (bits of shells and all) pan cakes and fries, the latter are actually fried big slices of potato with skin. Bunny had most of my pan cakes and fries. Since Didi and Pareng Nasty were still at work, we went ahead and looked for the office from where to get Indo’s permit to come over. Sherwin thought it should be the Department of Wildlife or something like that but when we asked the guard, he pointed us to the Bureau of Animal Industry. We went there and sure enough we got to the right place. We had to wait a few minutes because the guy at the counter was out to lunch. When he showed up he gave us the form to apply for the permit. I noticed there’s a date when the pet will arrive. Since I didn’t know when that is, I told the gentleman the situation. He said it should be OK because once released the permit is good for two months which may still be not good for us. So I just took the application with me along with the list of requirements (see enclosed pictures). The permit application fee is only Php 100, by the way. Then we went and picked up Sherwin’s girlfriend Pam from Ateneo. We went to a nearby Starbucks because Sherwin wanted to see Indo’s pictures in my laptop. We stayed there for quite a bit while Pam was writing some application for OJT training at Procter and Gamble. She’s majoring in Information Systems at Ateneo. All along we were sending/receiving text messages to/from Mergine and that’s how I found out that she went home because she started feeling ill due to her high blood pressure. This was still mid afternoon and I mentioned earlier that we’re on the lookout for a vehicle to use here. So Sherwin took me to a Toyota dealership and we test drove the new Innova, the newer model of Revo. Pretty impressive, nice ride and the new car smell is evident here as well! I took some pictures of it since they didn’t have a brochure for it. The sales lady gave me a price list instead. Next is the Isuzu dealership where we were shown the Crosswind and Strada. I got some brochures and a price list. These models are a little more expensive than the Toyota’s. After dropping off Pam, we picked up Sherwin’s little sister Chick-chick who’s a junior in a local high school. Then we picked up Didi who got off work at about the time we picked up Chick-chick. We went home to their place in Valenzuela and a few minutes later Pareng Nasty came home. We watched some basketball, interviews of Manny Pacquiao while waiting for dinner to be cooked. Finally we heard Mareng Didi yell out, “Dinner’s ready!!” She laid it out in their yard: grilled bangus and fresh tilapia, mussels, nilagang talong. Did I say it was pouring rain while we were eating outside? After dinner we went inside and watched some more TV. Mergine called and I had a fairly long conversation with her. She said she’ll try to make it tomorrow just as soon as her BP goes down. I kicked Chick-chick out of her bedroom with the AC. The shower was super cold for some reason which helps in a way since I’ve been away from Donna for quite a while now. Anyway…..

The Baguio trip in my next blog…