Last week,  my children and I spent the weekend at Ridgeview Chalets.  Since SM was just a short drive away, we went there for our meals and was surprised with the new offering — 3D movies!  If I am not mistaken,

Whenever I get the chance to buy things for me, I tend to go for books or CDs.  I love to listen and make music.  My selection vary and they range from Pop, Acoustic Rock, and even Country Music.  I have a very huge selection of playlist on my PC, Mac and Nokia.  I like to listen to music while working and when I needed a break, I like hooking my earphones and listen intently to my favorites.

I love to sing.  I think Filipinos are naturally music lovers.  We love to sing love songs… We love to rock…  :)

I used to play the piano as a child, but I love the guitar the best.  Although certainly no John Mayer nor a Gabe Bondoc or a Marié Digby, but I love the way a guitar sound and has always loved to sing along with an acoustic guitar as an accompaniment.  My love of music stemmed from my growing up with brothers who plays the piano and guitar.  There was always music when I was growing up.

I used to sing duets with my brothers.  We used to sing all those 80′s music, Roxette, Bruce Springsteen, some Barry Manilow’s and even Basia, Whitney Houston and Bon Jovi.  I started with the piano at the age of 6, and the guitar at the age of 14.  I was professionally taught piano-wise, but self taught with the guitar.  I started learning the guitar when I realized that the guitar is way cooler than the piano.  :)

Tomorrow, I am checking out Perfect Pitch to check the prices of acoustic guitars.   I want a black acoustic guitar.  I am also checking out online guitar sites.  Anyone have any suggestion?

I came across this article from Spot.ph and reading it reminded me of my favorite band so many years ago.  Wolfgang.  Back when everybody was into Eraserheads and Rivermaya, I was totally into Basti Artadi, Manuel Legarda and Mon Legaspi.  It was not the coño look, but the long and curly tresses and the unique voice that a few local band has. That long hair’s gone now. Basti is now sporting a clean short cut.

So whatever happened to Wolfgang? Well, they seem to have come back.  Unfortunately, since I am no longer in Manila, I have not heard much about them apart from what I get from the Wolfgang’s Official Facebook Page.  I searched Youtube for their video and found something I have never seen nor heard– Wolfgang with the UP Singing Ambassadors.  How cool is that?

To those who crave heavy metal and the dark tunes of Wolfgang, check the video below:

One of the frustrations of living in catastrophic Philippines is the lack of urban planning.   As a country along the typhoon’s way, one would assume that we’d learn from our mistakes and go from there.  But its hard to pick up the pieces especially when urban areas continue to grow at an escalating rate everyday.  With the absence of livelihood in the rural areas, and the continuing growth in Manila, alot of people fled their small rural areas with the hopes of finding better opportunities in the cities.

Overcrowding, squatting and poor urban planning contributes to the floods and destructions of homes every typhoon season.  Philippines would you believe get an average of 6-7 tropical cyclones every year.  Ketsana last year has caused so much destruction in the north which according to Huffington Post, “430,000 people were affected by storm, including some 115,000 people who were brought to about 200 schools, churches and other evacuation shelters.”  Imagine 1 months worth of rain in just 12 hours.

Poor urban planning has long been blamed for the floods and the cause of traffic in the country.  But how do you fix  decades of mistakes?  Is it possible at all to start all over again?  During my travels to Papua New Guinea and Australia, I came to realize years ago how badly our houses here are built.  Its crazy to see European style houses sprouting here and there including the countless of low lying homes by money sucking low cost housing in the urban areas.  These subdivisions does not have proper drainage and sewerage systems that during typhoon season, these were one of the places affected by floods every year.

Me at Suvarnabhumi Airport

True to my promise, I did not use Cebu Pacific when I went to Bangkok for a client meeting and took Philippine Airlines.  The flight went well anyway, although I was pretty curious about the new airport, I decided to take the more reliable airline- Philippine Airlines.

The bought the ticket online a month early so I got a better deal.  The price difference with Cebu Pacific– the airline that suck, was only P900.  Since this is a client paid trip, my itinerary was short and this was also my first trip without any of my children.  It was pretty weird waiting in the departure lounge alone.    It sucked and I resisted calling my kids since I know this transition is necessary for all of us.

So how did my trip go?  It was good.

This was my first trip after 2 years.  My first trip out to anywhere without my children.  With quick planning and ardent budgeting, I made it to Bangkok with hefty shopping money and in one piece.

I booked myself at a small family run hotel, Bangkok Loft Inn.  The location of the hotel was great and convenient as it was on the Thaksin Ave, and close to the Bangkok Skytrain.  To check out how I found the Bangkok Loft Inn, click here. I used my internet savviness to find a budget hotel.  What made Bangkok Loft Inn ideal is its size.  Their Superior Room is ideal for a lone traveler, as well as a couple.  The bedding is great and true to their ad, the room boasted with a Samsung Flat Screen Television, free and robust wifi connection and good bathroom features. Its not crowded, and the location great.  The Inn was only a Skytrain ride away from Siam! Fantastic!

It is so obvious that businesses thrives on consumerism. Consumerism is the attitude that values the acquisition of material goods. I did our last minute shopping today. As expected, the traffic was horrible and hair-raising. Consumerism is so alive today. Makro was full of people with overflowing carts. Recession seem to be out of the window right now. Makes me rethink my post about deflation… or perhaps we are not feeling the effects yet. And us Filipinos has to rethink our idea of huge noche buenas especially when times are harder.

I felt sorry for our neighbor but at the same time thankful for her. She is currently busy planning a “huge” noche buena for the neighborhood. Yes, you heard me, the party is for the entire neighborhood. She said it is her way of saying thanks to her neighbors for patronizing her sari-sari store– the biggest in our small village.

But while I am thankful, I felt sorry for her, since the pressure of giving a huge party is getting to her physically and emotionally. Since groceries and food is far more expensive now than last year, the expectation of the neighborhood is high and she did not want to disappoint everybody since she felt sorry for most of our neighbors are on the class D and E– just too many unemployed people and people living below poverty line. I surmised perhaps all of us owe her something in one time or another.

Anyway, that’s her way of celebrating and my way is another way. Salve at Money Smarts is offering a challenge for a budget handaan. Is there really a budget handaan? Is this possible? Actually my children and I are not going to have a noche buena but I intend to celebrate Christmas tomorrow by giving an extra-special lunch. The menu is simple and straight forward. Like I said, Christmas is about the celebration of family and not about how much gifts we gave nor received. Let us just get back to the real root and meaning of Christmas. Only the big businesses are profiting over the idea of Christmas. I think it is time for us to rethink our values and what we deem as important.

I believe there is an unseen world around us.

- Stephen King (1947-), Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

I managed to get part-time help. She comes twice a week to do general cleaning, ironing of clothes and gardening. She is actually my ear, since I rarely venture out of the neighborhood, she tells me all sorts of stories about the people I live close to and alot more.

Last week, she informed me that there have been several break-ins in her own neighborhood. Chicken, fighting cocks, bicycles, and laundry has been taken under the noses of their owners. All break-ins happened in the middle of the day. She also told me that my aunt’s electric cable has been stolen but her employees saw the culprit and ran after him and the thief left his loot just to save his skin.

Today was another day… This time she asked me if I have heard of banging on the roof at night. I said, no, and to think I sleep late than most people… So I took the bait and asked, “why?” Then she said, that there has been stories about flying creatures in the night. What is scary she said was the fact that the creature was heard to be dragging something and it can be heard as the creature hops from one roof to the other.

Hmm. Not the first time I have heard of this flying-creature-with-something-dragging story. My neighbor’s mother actually mentioned this weeks ago to me. That as she actually saw a silhouette of a flying creature one night and that it scared her because of the sheer size of it and the fact that the creature has a long tail. Hmmm, a tail or perhaps something hanging on to something…

This reminds me of a quote by Edmund Burke, a political philosopher and he said, “Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.” Very apt, and appropriate I’d say. I believe that voodoo or witchcraft can only affect the people who believe in it. Though I was raised in a rural area, I was not exposed to alot of superstitious beliefs. Perhaps its because my parents are very religious, but this is not the cause in most people who even though they are very religious, they managed to combine and amalgate animistic beliefs with religion. This is not very unusual since indigenious Filipinos were pagans.  I used to find it strange for religous people who also believes in manananggal or any of the similar creatures.

At any rate, before I digress, my part time maid even warned me of people who “stares strange” and I was supposed to “stare them down” in order to ward them off.  She even mentioned the town next to ours as witch county or land of the aswang as she said.

The logical me rationalized to my maid that the creature might just be a huge bird carrying a prey– could be an eagle carrying or dragging some smaller animal on its talon. I have no idea about hunting behavior of eagles or birds of prey, but hey, night time is a vulnerable time for any creature since its dark and defenses are usually lower. She then asked me if I believe in ghosts or witchcraft, and slowly choosing my words, I said, “I do not believe in ghosts, but I believe in the evilness of people and the hunger and desire of some to create chaos and mischief at the expense of the weak.”  I think we should just leave things at that…

I had the opportunity to watch a friend operate her rice business. She owns  hectares of land grown with rice and she co-owns a couple of hectares with other farmers as well. I watched her bargain with a farmer about buying their unmilled rice and drying and milling the rice herself and selling it through her thriving store here in rural Misamis Oriental.

It is really amazing watching her actively bargaining the purchase from P11/kg to P10/kgs of unmilled rice. According to her, one sack of unmilled rice would net her 10-15 kgs of rice which is currently still sold at a thundering P35/kg here. The price of rice has gone down a bit from P46/kg. From where am at, I guessed that she must be profiting P20-25 per kilo of rice. Not bad!!!

I asked her how she manages her farms and she said as usual the key is finding a reliable and trust worthy farmer-overseer. Having worked with a huge production farm in Negros years ago, I had more or less some understanding on land preparation needed for rice production. What I lack right now is land. My friend actually asked me if I am interested in financing some farmers in our area, since most farmers here have problem with money to start seeding, planting to fertilization of their rice. Not mention, harvesting, drying and threshing of rice during harvest season… I asked her how much it would cost to do so. She quickly whipped her calculator out and said more or less P2,000 for 2 square paddies and that usually yields to 30 sacks of unmilled rice, which would in turn yield 12-15 sacks of 50kgs of rice. At the current price of P35 let’s say, gets P1750/sack. In total she’d get P26,250 total for 15 sacks of rice.

I am interested in co-sharing or financing rice production with some of the growers here. I do have P5,000-10,000 to pay around with and with P2,000 or more for a couple of paddies which would yield P20,000 or more… that is actually NOT so bad at all. The thing with rice production is it is labor intensive. Like for example, land preparation and planting would take a couple of days and a couple of people. Not to mention the one week of drying period before the rice is milled.

I asked my friend how she pays her farmers and she said she pays them with rice also. Sharing usually goes 60-20-20. 60 for the financier, and 20 to the farmer and another 20 for the rest who helped with the planting and fertilization. But mostly, these other farmers needed more cash and they end up selling their share to her also.

Not bad at all… Now if only I could find a farmer who needed a financier soon…

Powered by Zoundry Raven