Monday Feb 6, 2006

Yesterday I broke my distance glasses. The little screw holding the left temple came off and when we tried to put it back on, I think it got cross threaded so now I’m using my work glasses which are only good for computer work. I’m not sure if I should go to an optometrist here and get it fixed or wait till I go back to Norwalk. I had Donna take my spare glasses at home tinted but I’m not sure if that’s done yet.

Today is more or less another free day for me. Donna and I have decided that I’ll go back to California to go back to work and formally put in my two weeks notice. So yesterday we tried to make phone calls to have my return flight to LA booked through Japan Air Lines. It turned out they’re not open on Sundays but at least we found which number to call. So this morning I made my phone calls as soon as I woke up. To make a long story short, there are no available flights until Friday Feb 17. There are a couple of issues however. I’m supposed to be back to work on Monday Feb 13 and weekend flights (Friday thru Sunday) going back to the States have a surcharge of $150.00. While I was having lunch Ed Sale called so I gave him an update on what’s going on and told him to call Donna who’s still in the San Francisco area with Cecille.

Donna and I have been sending each other text messages for the last hour or so. Our travel agent was saying that I shouldn’t be charged extra since I’ve already paid a higher rate for my ticket so she said she’ll look into it and find out if JAL in Manila is trying to make money off of poor me!

In spite of the bad news about Marley, Mon David sent me a text message this morning and he has some good news. He got chosen as one of the finalists in a Jazz competition to be held in London this March and he’s the only Filipino among all foreign singers. So he asks that we pray for him.

Come to think of it, I’m getting the hang of this ‘texting’ thing! I just have a problem with the usual short cuts here. My instinct is to spell everything out. And it feels weird using/typing Taglish!!

My construction team and I have scheduled ten a.m. tomorrow to be our ground breaking ceremony. Armin called this morning saying we cannot start working on the fence until all final drawings are completed but according to Kong Naring we can have the ground breaking anytime since I’ve already got a commitment from Father Bobet. Kong Naring said to take advantage on the deals he’s made regarding wholesale prices on building materials; we may need to put in certain amount as deposit if we’re not to start construction immediately. Father Bobet and Father Cito called me. Unfortunately, the latter couldn’t make it tomorrow because of some prior commitment to be in Manila.

I got a call from Donna this afternoon giving me an update on Marley. She had a quick conversation with our travel agent and she said I definitely shouldn't be charged a weekend rate so I called JAL back but they say their system doesn't show it. So it's going to be up to our agent in California to straighten this mess up.

We had dinner at Luring's tonight and I had some chop suey and barbecue chicken as well as stuffed grilled tilapia. They had chicharong bulaklak! After dinner we went to Remy's place for videoke. Her Mom sings really, really well. Jack requested for me to sing On the Wings of Love. But before I started, I accidentally swallowed a mosquito and this thing was stuck swimming in my throat all the time I was singing!! As you can imagine I struggled (coughing and choking) through the song especially on the high notes!!