Listen To Bill

Thought I'd share something I received via email from a friend who looooves to forward these things:

BILL GATES SPEECH: 11 RULES YOUR KIDS DID NOT AND WILL NOT LEARN IN SCHOOL.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world doesn't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes, and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rainforest from the parasites of your parents' geneeration, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

And in that note, happy weekend everybody.

Street Photography 3

Cobblestone street in Izmir, Turkey. November 2009.

Six Pack

It's Six Pack time again. I failed to do a six pack last week. But here I am now.

Six Firsts:

1. FIRST ADVICE GOTTEN HERE IN US - To keep an overnight bag in the trunk of my car just in case I had to spend the night elsewhere. Now this advice while well meaning and was given by a blood relative was totally off. Spontaneously spending the night elsewhere just isn't my style.

2. FIRST CAR: HONDA CIVIC. I loved that car. It was a base model, did not have AC, had manual windows. I took it everywhere. I wasn't ready to replace it, despite consistent queries from brothers asking when I was going to retire my then 10-year-old car. I wasn't really going to buy another one or swap it, but I figured in a fender bender that wreck the car. I had to get a new car because my insurance company said it would be cheaper to give me the blue book value of the car than to have it fixed :(

3. FIRST MOVIE I'VE SEEN ON THE THEATER (USA): Sleepless in Seattle. Not only do I love that movie but it being my first movie seen here, it has a sentimental value as well.

4. FIRST COUNTRY I VISITED/SEEN OUTSIDE OF PI AND USA: Canada. Loved it instantly. Second was Singapore, loved it even more.

5. FIRST PIECE OF MEMORY I CAN REMEMBER: Looking out the window seeing a funeral procession. My folks told me that I was little when my g'ma died. This must have been that memory. I didn't go to the funeral.

6. FIRST BLOG: I first blogged on Friendster. I can't remember what I called my blog. I backed up the contents of my blog. It's somewhere in my pc. I should see what I was writing back in the day.

Out here in the US, we will have a long weekend in connection with Labor Day, which is Monday, Sept. 6. I still feel weird about Labor Day being celebrated in Sept when the rest of the world celebrates it May first. Anyway, have a lovely weekend everyone.

Of funerals, food festivals, and markdowns

Or how my weekend went.



Funeral:

On Saturday, I was dragged to a funeral of someone I don't know, one I never met. Sorry to use the word drag but that's precisely what it was. My husband's ex-coworker had expired and Saturday was the funeral. I have nothing against going to my husband's company functions. In fact I have done so many times. But this was a funeral of someone I have never met in any of these functions before. And there is something about funeral that I dread when I go. To make me more peeved I found out that I was the only spouse present. Why can my husband go to these things by himself????

And so it was a wonderful ceremony, although a tad long I'd say. It was a Buddhist rite and except for the chanting which was Sanskrit, the language used was Lao. The atmosphere was somber and me and my soft heart (pusong mamom) I shed a tear. I HATED THAT. I dislike the fact that I was shedding tear when I don't know the dead.

Anyway, it was a solemn ceremony, a first for me. I do pray that he will be with his creator at peace.

FOOD FESTIVAL:

Oakland's Jack London Square was the site of the REAL FOOD festival featuring - food trucks. Food trucks all over Jack London Square. Food trucks by the fountain, food trucks next to the waterfront, food trucks every where. How delectable is that?

I heard this was the second year in a row that this festival is being held. On Friday, they had the breweries out. Not on Sat when we went. Nevertheless we alloted $40 dollars for the event. Most of the food were either $3 or $5 each. We saw SPENCER ON THE GO at the entrance of the festival - tis a free festival, but their truck was the first one to get to coming from the parking lot. And because of that, we didn't get anything they had to offer as we wanted to round the entire place and scout which one we wanted to eat.

I saw 2-3 trucks of Filipino cuisine. There was nachos with sisig on top (did not taste), sisig taco (not technically sisig but they're calling it sisig, however it was yummy), and the usual lumpiang shanghai. There is one booth - not truck - that sells adobo over rice. The $5 adobo serving was not worth the price, I thought. Of course I didn't taste that.

Many different cuisines were there: Mexican, Indian, Mediterranean, El Salvadoran, Cajun, Chinese, Korean (they are selling the original korean taco *grin*), etc.

Our $40 dollars filled us to the gills. We had a whole lot of food. We even took home a jerk fish sandwich from the truck GET JERKED and a Cuban sandwich which we ate for dinner the next day.

Next year, I'd organize a group to go and stay longer and take more photos. I will post photos in another blog.

MARKDOWNS:

Have you ever encountered superior customer service? I have. From Fry's Electronics last week. The tv that we have been lusting after and waiting for months to go on sale, finally went on sale to a price we could stomach. So we hurried off after work to purchase said tv. We were helped by a wonderful tv guy named Pat who patiently answered every question we had and helped us with the purchase and made sure we could get the best deal possible. He was very friendly and we felt like we were treated like family. It certainly was the best we've been treated in a store before.

But his assistance did not end there. Two days after our purchase, the store brought the price down another $200. We saw the newspaper ads. And we also got a call from Pat asking us to return to store to get our adjustments. And again, when we returned he was there by our side the entire time until the transaction was completed. We really felt like we have been right all these years in patronizing this store.

Street Photography 2

Tiled Sidewalk. Alexandria, Egypt. November 2009

Summer Has Finally Arrived

Yap no kidding.

This week we're seeing three days in a row of 80+ temps. Finally some summer around this area.

Not that I'm crazy about hot weather. Not that. But a lot of people living around these parts are groaning about our exceptionally cool summer. It's about time they had their hot weather, doncha think. After all, I had my way with cool weather for most of the summer.

And while we're on the subject of wonderful summer days ahead, this past weekeend was a glorious sun drenched upper 70s in Sonoma Valley where I found myself tagging along hubby and his cohorts, er co-workers on a day of wine tasting.

The day was glorious, never mind that we were late in meeting up with the group because of the horrible traffic jam. We were guessing it's the race in Sonoma that caused the logjam, but this is the Bay Area where there's a traffic jam anytime, rain, shine, fog, mist, or smog. So, who knew really why the crowded streets.

Anyway, we met up with the group in Chateau La Jean and tasted a few varieties, none of which made an impression to my discerning palate (yikes!). Or my frame of mind was more on the photo taking rather than wine tasting.

Our second stop was Blackstone, a little smaller than the first one and the tasting room did not provide samples of dips and gourmet olive oil and gourmet vinegar, etc. But there was one red that I completely enjoyed - except for the price. At $17 a bottle, it was more than what I really am prepared to pay for my wine. But a good experience.

It's funny how when the lady giving the tasting ask our group where we were from and we almost in unison said, across the bridge, she didn't seem to understand that a group of over 10 people - relatively young and Asian looking - would be spending a lovely day wine tasting. We all said we just love to drink :)

It was around 2 pm when we left Blackstone and headed out to a deli a few blocks away - a deli I've been before and was not wowed by the food. We begged off and told the group we'd be on our way as we intended to attend Sebastopol's Apple Harvest Festival. We drove some 20 minutes and found out that we missed the festival by one week :) so we drove back home and ended up hungry in this hole in the wall combination of grocery and Mexican restaurant called Pepito's Mexicatessens. Clever naming isn't it?

The food was superb and well seasoned. I simply found another favorite spot.

Sunday was church and lazing around the house watching some tv and doing a lot of surfing - while Emma did a lot of sleeping. That cat can sleep for 24 hours if you'd let her.

All in all, twas a lovely weekend.

Street Photography

No reason for this post other than I thought I'd begin a photographic series here - once a week or something.

Street Shot. NYC. April 2009