MY HERO

Here's a few Jose Rizal trivia that I learned during my recent trip to Zamboanga del Norte. They sound like trivia to me probably because I wasn't listening during JOSERIZ class back in college. Here goes:
(1) The chickboy of a hero had 9 girlfriends!
Side Comment: He had 9 GFs in 35 years. My 5 pales in comparison.

(2) He had a Japanese girlfriend whose name is Sei-Kiyo-San.
Side comment: I also had a GF who is a quarter Japanese and her name is Judy Mineko.

(3) He had a love child with Joseph Bracken whose name was Francisco.
Side Comment: The love child Francisco was stillborn. I had a sister who was stillborn too. Her name is Charo.

(4) His forefathers were Chinese.
Side Comment: My maternal grandmother is a full blooded Chinese. Check out my eyes, it’s a give away!

(5) He lived in ZamNorte for almost 3 years.
Side Comment: I lived a stone’s throw away from Dapitan for 3 days!

DV8 IN DAKAK

In the afternoon, I deviated from the usual swimming, billiards and sing along that my peers indulged in. I opted pursue my 3 interests: photography, walking and basketball.

PHOTOGRAPHY. On day one, I was preoccupied taking portrait pictures as the un-official TCP photographer that I missed some nice landscape shots. I went to the resort's dock, reception area, garden and chapel.

WALK-A-THON. Going around the places that I mentioned was a blast. I must have walked nearly 2 kilometers of rolling terrain while taking pictures. There was this sign "to the repeater" which tempted me but decided not to because it seemed unsafe.

BASKETBALL. I love this game but nowadays the feeling is not mutual. We played ball with college students from Ateneo de Zamboanga University. One of the opposing team’s player was a varsity so he led his team to victory. We were led by an officemate who similarly was a varsity player during his college days. My role during that game was to bring the ball down, dish out assist and grab rebounds.

RIZAL DAY BUMMING.

Our escapade today was threatened by an early morning rain. Good thing it stopped just around 8 o'clock right after breakfast. The call time was 9:30am so I had time to walk around the resort and take my precious pictures. Then we were off to Rizal Memorial in Dapitan. I have to hand it to JR, he knows how to pick a location. In Dapitan, he lives by the sea. His compound in Zambo is at least a hectare nestled in a forest with a water fall, a pond and his own version of Willy's rock.

Next up was the pasalubong buying part. There was just time for one stop so we went to Montano's famed bottled sardines. Majority of my teammates bought half a dozen to a dozen sardines at p60 per bottle. I figured, a sardines is a sardines is a sardines. Nothing special so opted not to buy.

To tame our 'growling' stomachs, we had eat all you can at Kamayan ni Manay. It was a resto near the beach and halfway between the airport and the resort. Parking was packed so that suggests that they were racking in money that day. For P250 per person, you had overflowing iced tea, sesame seed peppered fried chicken, crabs swimming in coconut (or was it the other way around), tempting talaba, cholesterol friendly lechon cebu and nilasing na hipon para busugin ang customer.

DOCUMENTING DAKAK

I almost backed out of the Dakak, Zamboanga del Norte trip with 1/8th of the customer care team. I lined up my things to do for this coming week and figure there was no way I can complete them on time. Then again I already shelled out P3,500 for this trip so I better make my money's worth, leave work behind, have fun with my teammates and take tons of pictures.

DAY 1 AM : MORE MILES.
The airline of choice was Philippine Airlines hence more points added to my PAL Mabuhay Miles. The flight time from Manila to Dipolog was about one hour and a half. No we did not have a "smooth landing" so that suggests that the pilot was a newbie. From the airport, there's another hour of land travel to Dakak Beach Resort. The resort is located at a cove north west of Zamboanga del Norte. It's owned by the family of infamous ex-congressman Romeo Jalosjos.

DAY 1 PM : WE COMPETE.
The trip was not purely junket as we had parlor games in the afternoon. The first game was a relay where you had to fill up a 2 liter pail with water using a sponge. The blue team (that's us) won. The second game was the age old get-the-coin-from-the-bottom-of-swimming-pool. It was a tough one. It seemed so easy when I was younger. The red team won that one. In the evening, we had a sumptuous meal for dinner (a great recovery from the lunch meal that failed our expectation) and a big bonus was a show featuring regional dances.

DH from Orlando

Dwight Howard from Orlando Magic wins the 2008 NBA all star slam dunk contest. Howard, a 6'11" all star center from the second NBA team from Florida won a sweet victory over Gerald Green of Minesota Timberwolves. Green won the dunk contest in 2007.

GREEN OWNS '07
Green, a 6'8" power forward from the T-wolves won last year's dunk contest at the expense of Howard. The only Howard dunk that stood out was an ultra high leap dunk where he placed a sticker of his face on the backboard. I reckon more than half of the NBA players can easily do that dunk.

HOWARD SWEEPS '08
This year though, Howard owned the dunk contest starting from the first round. The first dunk was an off the "rear" backboard throwdown. Actually, I'm not giving justice to the dunk so you'd have to watch the contest on check out this link http://dwight-howard.com/. He got a perfect 10 score from the 5 judges for the first dunk.

SUPERMAN VS. BDAY CAKE
For the second round, Green blew a candle from a small cake placed on top of the ring support before dunking the ball. For his part, Howard wore a superman jersey, jumped from the free throw line and dunked the ball. Frankly, the dunk wasn't as impressive as the first one but enough to put him in the finals.

NO CONTEST SHOWDOWN
The finals was a face off between the defending champ Green and high leaping Howard. Green's dunks were so lousy that I couldn't remember what they were. On the other hand, Howard had 2 creative dunks that's never been seen. The first was a bounce pass, then ball bounced to the backboard using the left hand before throwing it down with the right hand. The second was just icing on the cake: using a small ring as a 'tee' he jumped to the ball, double pump before the throw down. Again, the first dunk was more impressive.

While I didn't get to see the awarding ceremony, there was no doubt it was Dwight Howard who won the contest. It was sealed as early as his first round dunk.

MTB: Decisions, Decisions

It's so sad to belong to someone else when the right one comes along... A nice song indeed but I'm trying to relate it to a decision that I have to make now that I'm officially back to my second love - mountain biking! It goes without saying that my first love is my family.

GIANT NRS
It's like this: I'm currently using a 2003 Giant NRS mtb. It's almost a 5 yr. old bike which I got via a frame swap deal. It still serves it purpose but I'm exploring the idea of upgrading the frame to a newer model. I maybe able to sell my current frame for a reasonable price of P20,000 ($500). The plan is to look into cross country frames like Giant Anthem or Santa Cruz Superlight.

GIANT ANTHEM
I love my NRS frame. It's an award winning frame which is a dream frame for entry level mtbikers. The ANTHEM is the next generation NRS however, my take is that the ANTHEM doesn't come close to NRS' performance. But the price is right. An ANTHEM retails for P30,000 ($750) therefore my cash out will be in the range of P10,000 ($250). If I upgrade to an ANTHEM, it's analogous to upgrading from a Toyota Revo to a Toyota Innova. It's your trusty Toyota for the mass market.

SANTA CRUZ SUPERLIGHT
This maybe a long shot and might cost an arm and a leg pero astig na option ito! Kung milyonaryo lang ako, wala ng isip isip pa, mag Santa Cruz Superlight na ako! I've always been fixated with the SC Heckler, the Superlight's older and mightier brother. It retails for $1,200 (P48,000) for the frame only at http://www.rbikes.com/, a US based web based bike store. In our lovely Pinas, it sells for a whopping P60,000 ($1,500). Owning a SC Superlight mt bike is like driving a brand new 3rd generation Honda CRV. It has a wow appeal and deserve a second look.

The biggest question is if I can justify the $700 (P28,000) expense to myself then to my family. We'll see in the coming months...

Kalulu

Menakit ku kalulu nandin.

Melunus ku rugu.

Marinat ya ampo lupang maranup.

Ligpasan ku ne uling mamalagwa ku.

Belikan ke rin, ali ku ayatim.

Dininan keng singkwenta.

E man pepasalamat.

Pero alang problema ita.

Meka saup naku man.

Kasanting ku pakiramdam.

Blog it!

It's been nearly 3 weeks since I last posted a blog entry. I've been swamped with THINGS TO DO. In previous entries, I mention about predicting a 2 notebook year this 2008 but it looks more like a 3 notebook year. The current notebook that I'm using is already 40% fill up and we're only on the second month. I'm happy that I'm busy because I feel useful at work and deserve the pay that I'm getting. On the other hand I'm also a little bit sad because there is less 'petiks' time like searching the web for just about anything. Surfing the net at home is taking a back seat because it's eating precious family time. Fact is, I wasn't able to view my friendster account for the whole month of January!