The Philippine Chronicles

2006-11-02T19:05:00.000-08:00

See this?

Can't find too many road signs like that in the Philippines. So that means... yeah, uh-huh, exactly. I was out of the country for a little while ;-)

I just came back from a (somewhat spontaneous) extended weekend trip to Hong Kong Saturday thru Wednesday, while the Jay-Man headed to the Northern Philippines to catch a few waves in La Union, becoming red as a lobster in the process. La Union, if y'all remember, is the place where he and I surfed a couple of months back. Jacob has really taken a liking to the place, with all its friendly locals with their laid-back lifestyle. He wants to go back there again in December, hah. Well, I was initially supposed to join him to celebrate his 25th birthday there but then my big brother (actually small brother since he's such a SHRIMP! hehehe) comes into the picture and says I should come over to visit him in Hong Kong. I kind of hesitate at first, showing him the moths that have taken up residence in my wallet, but then we work out a deal that sees me being able to see him. So I says to Jay, sorry dude, I have a chance to go to see John, and Jay is all cool about it and we celebrate his birthday with a fish dinner the night before leaving, where I was supposed to pick up the tab which he insisted on picking. Not that I was about to protest vehemently at someone else paying for my meal :-) Jay was probably just happy I didn't go ahead with a Danish tradition for 25th birthdays and empty a bucketload of cinnamon powder on him - a sort of punishment for remaining unmarried at that age (it gets worse as time goes by: at age thirty you use pepper).

So at any rate we split ways and before I know it I was speeding at high altitudes toward this place I only really knew about through cheap-ass (but kick-ass!) martial arts movies with a whole lotta ass-kicking going on. Bloodsport and Enter the Dragon come freely to mind. So, with me exiting the plane ready to unleash my Crouching Kitten, Hidden Puppy on anyone who might dare so much as to look at me twice, I was eager to check this Hong Kong place out.

A note on John: John is enrolled in the Asian Studies Programme at Copenhagen Business School and is in Hong Kong on an internship just like me. The company he's working with is Danish-owned Dracco, a toy company, where he's been tasked with optimizing the supply chain, or at least the company procedures that might be able to streamline supply chain management. In a sense, I'm doing something similar at SunPower, except the sole focus is on environmental issues. At any rate, you might know of the products that Dracco manufactures - among many others, they make those, well, bratty looking dolls of the Bratz line. You know, the ones that look alot like those loud 14-year-olds on the street with waaaay overdone make-up, the ones you just want to bitchslap for dressing so slutty and acting so retarded. Well you get those in Denmark and they're a royal nuisance.

To be fair, Dracco also produces many other high-profile products under license by or ordered by big name companies like Disney and Marvel. Which is cool because the X-Men rock. *Snikt*.

First night, John took me out for some Japanese which was awesome because he's half-Japanese, speaks Japanese and knows his Japanese shit. We then went straight to drink our brains out, and I hadn't even stashed my bag at his place yet so I had to lug it around. Apparantly there was this closed Halloween party we could get in to, so I was whisked there, just managing a quick glimpse of the impressive Hong Kong skyline by night before going up in one of the skyscrapers, which is apparantly where the clubs and high-end drinking establishments are to be found. The fun then ensued. Below are the pics.

A Chinese dragon among all the spiderwebs and bats and Jack'O'Lanterns and other Halloween decoration. Funny, right. Right?

Sigh. In China as in most other Asian countries, karaoke/videoke is da shit. It's even more unbearable in Hong Kong as the overwhelming majority of songs are sung in Cantonese.

Me getting into the Halloween spirit (pun intended), and posing with the other freaks.

Oh yeah, this is John. John is happy. John just won a drinking competition by being the fastest to drink a glass of orange juice with a straw, and got a 50 Hong Kong Dollar gift certificate to a boutique. Go John.

Actually orange juice is not the preferred drink to get drunk on in Hong Kong. Interestingly it's Chivas Regal and green tea. Quite nice. Below is a couple of pics showing the fucked-up drinking game they play there. It involves two or more people, your open or closed hands and any multiple of five up to the maximum number of fingers between the participants. The aim is to guess the correct number of fingers in two subsequent turns. John lost this one. Note cuteness factor of waitress.

That was Day 1. Didn't do much the following day except sleep off the hangover. Or rather, John slept off his hangover while I saw a little bit of TV and also slept to pass the time. John was drunk as drunk can be, you see - for instance we had to stop the taxi on the way home. Anyways no daytime pics yet. During the night, however, we went out again. This time we went to a birthday party of a colleague of John's, which again was held in a club somewhere up one of those skyscrapers. Here be the pics, including the pics prior to the party.

What would a trip to the laissez-faire capitalist capital of the world be without a picture of me posing in front of a piece of corporate art? So here it is.

Me at the entrance to the building where the birthday party was held.

Pics of the street.

I like my moray eel fresh!

The chill-out room reserved for the birthday party. Comfortable, airconditioned and fully karaoke-equipped. John and I had our revenge by singing Cartoon Heroes by Aqua. Mwahahahaha. (Cough) Yes, I did the Lene voice. For some reason one of the girls present didn't like my falsetto voice though and snatched the mic from me. What's up with that? :-)

The birthday girl with her cake, another pic showing that insane drinking game and some miscellaneous party pics.

I LOOOOVED the food in Hong Kong, so here is a picture section just dedicated to it. Behold the meat section of a cafeteria (we love meat, yes we do) with whole BBQ'ed peking duck - yumminess plus. Also behold a lunch spread of dimsum and other treats. And me.

Fast-forwarding through the rest of the mini-vacation. Here is a picture of me and my buddy, Jackie Chan.

Hong Kong skyline by day.

Um, yeah... containers.

The area where John lives, waaaay up in nowheresville in the Northern Territories, which is basically mainland China. Still, they live in them skyscrapers here. John lives in one similar to those shown here.

They use bamboo for scaffolding in Hong Kong. Funny, right. RIGHT???!

Bah, I got more but I'll just fling them at you at a later date. What else did I observe in Hong Kong... oh yes, compared to most Chinese, I'm big. At least that's what the girl said.

(Smirk)

2006-10-22T17:59:00.000-07:00

... Aaah.

A morning dose of Starbucks rocket fuel and a nicotine fix, and the sun rises on another workweek. Blogging feels about right for some warm-up excercise before returning to the other window I have open - the thing I was working on last friday that I hastily aborted as soon as the clock showed 4.30 pm. It seems I was writing about cornucopian environmental discourse. Fuck no, not going to get into that on a monday morning!

Last week was interesting, though, work-wise. An Environmental, Safety and Health committee has now been formed from members in all relevant departments at SunPower, and an inaugural meeting was held. Top priority for the committee this quarter is to focus on ISO 14001 preparation, and in particular assist Jacob and I in the work that we're doing. That's just neat as hell. Oh, here is the Action Register for the upcoming ESH committee meeting this week. You'll notice my name on it.

Item No.	Particular	Who	When
1	Provide training on the fundamentals of ISO 14001 for all the committee members	David	Ww 43
2	Create a folder on the common drive so each member can open EHS files i.e. meeting/training presentation and other pertinent docs.	Ranel	Ww 43

That's right folks. I've been given an hour and a half to provide an ISO 14001 crash course for the ESH commitee members, none of which have had previous training in the field (except for the guys from the ESH unit itself, and Jacob). I'll be teaching middle aged guys who have entire careers behind them. I'll be doing the same thing as the lecturers at my university but within a shorter time-span. And I'm not nervous... I'm looking forward to it! It's funny - I've always said to myself, fuck no I'm not going to go into a job that entails teaching. Sure as hell not as a university lecturer - it's the downside about taking a Ph.D., which has played in my mind at some point. As a Ph.D. student, you have to teach. I hate the thought of standing in front of a group of disinterested students with their mocking, hateful looks while I do a monologue. Shit, who's ever heard of a small 170 cm Asian punkass kid in hiphop gear (which I'm sometimes prone to wear) teach students up to a decade or more older? Who's going to take me seriously? Who's ever heard of anything more ridiculous? Funny thing is, I've posed the question to former group members during the past year. You know, whether they could see me as a lecturer and all that - totally half-joking. The answer I got was silence, a kind of funny look straight at me, and a 'yes'. My 'fuck you, get outta here' response was always my knee-jerk reaction but I always thought 'WTF? Sweeeeet!' in my head.

I've never thought of myself as a good with oratory skill. I have seen guys poorer at it than myself though. But I suppose after four years training in exactly that sort of thing at Aalborg University, I've found a recipe that works. Or I've begun to find myself comfortable with it. I've progressed to the point where I can improvise or do some straight-up bullshitting that even professors will buy in exam situations, hehehehehehe. I think I can do this ISO 14001 training quite comfortably. My aim will be to keep the committee engaged and get a laugh or two, because ISO 14001 is incredibly dull stuff for a layman!

Enough of the work talk and the disturbing insights into my head. Time for the weekend report. On Saturday Jacob and I hired a car and went off to Manila again, and did some sightseeing. First up was the American World War II memorial. The one in Manila is the largest of it's kind in the world, laying over 17,000 soldiers to rest and dwarfing even the one dedicated to those who fell at Normandy. Now, World War II holds a curious, special place in me. Most people see it as something that happened long ago and distance themselves from it. However, while two generations have usually lapsed between the average person my age and those who lived through the war, I have one. When you have a dad who can tell stories about remembering how they hid a Danish resistance fighter at the farm, or about the time he spat on a Kraut while driving past one on a bike and escaped with his life... or if a friend of your family is Jewish and was on one of the fishing boats that evacuated the Danish Jews to neutral Sweden the night before the Nazis rounded them up... some of that raw emotion rubs off on you. I could go on about how this peculiar bond with history has formed some likewise peculiar positions in me regarding the current world situation, but I promised no more disturbing insights into my head :)

Denmark and the Philippines were both occupied, by the Germans and Japanese respectively, and in turn liberated by Allied forces. I kind of wish I wrote my name down on the guest book at the memorial and wrote the words 'Thank You'. Here are the pics.

Next stop, the original walled city that the Spaniards built - the Intramuros. These are from Fort Santiago, the bastion of that colonial power which is located on the mouth of the Pasig river. The typhoon did some damage do the area as you can see.

Me with my buddy, Jose Rizal. Jose was a dude who sparked Philippine nationalism and resistance to the Spanish. An enlightened intellectual and patriot, he studied in Europe, spoke seven languages and for his troubles, got apprehended by the Spaniards and was executed by firing squad. Ay Caramba.

Some of the goofier pics. Here is Jacob showing some sensitivy and appreciation of local religion.

Me helping out a Spanish guard with a light.

Those damn guards, falling asleep on their watch!

We again showed disregard for all things religious and stole a snapshot of a wedding at the old Manila Cathedral.

Inside the Intramuros, there is a myriad of... shall we say, architectural styles. Well-kept buildings and cobblestone streets and four-storey slum dwellings can be found no more than a block from each other.

Later that night, the highlight of the day... ladies and gentlemen, WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) SMACKDOWN SURVIVOR SERIES TOUR (TM) paid a visit to Manila! Don't you guys just love wrestling?! Waaahahahahaha, it's the best show on earth. It's a throwback to the old days in the Philippines growing up, when we went to the local store every now and then to grab hold of the latest wrestling entertainment action on betamax. They recently started showing wrestling on Danish satellite TV, so I was able to rekindle my interest in the sport. Yes, it's a sport! Kind of. :)

... And hey, how cool was it that I had the chance to see some wrestling action live while in the Phillies?! The Araneta Coliseum in Manila, which originally housed the "Thrilla in Manila" bout between Ali and Frazier, warms up to receive the WWE superstars and shown below.

And the action begins. Lotsa pushing and shoving and taunting and cussing. And of course, the delictable vixen in the background.

This guy wrestled in a dress! ROFLMAO!

Another piece of showmanship. This guy spent a full 10 minutes writhing in pain because of some leg injury. He was helped onto his feet by match officials and was on his way to be helped out of the ring when he suddenly lunged forward and caught his opponent, who was opening the ropes for him to come through, with a cheap shot kick. The opponent ended up landing somewhere outside the ring.

Chavo Guerrero vs. Chris Benoit ("The Wolverine").

THE ONE.... THE ONLY.... THE UUUUUUUUUUNDERTAAAAKER!!!!

Mr. Kennedy has The Undertaker in a figure-four leglock. My brother and I used to play at wrestling as kids (and still do as adults, but don't tell anyone hehe) and those figure-four leglocks hurt like a sonofabitch.

Undertaker goes old school and performs a Tombstone Piledriver at the request of the crowd! (Undertaker is getting old these days and sometimes walks around with stiff legs. Too many Tombstone Piledrivers in his career have taken their toll on the Deadman's knees)

All hail King Booker!

Meet Batista aka "The Animal". Batista is 6 foot 5, weighs in at 290 pounds and is from the Philippines. Yes, we can get that big. Fine, fine, he's half Greek, but we still claim him.

Batista lays the SMACKDOWN on King Booker.

The match developed into something of a farce. Batista was challenging for the World Heavyweight Championship but the was disqualified when he accidently knocked out the referee with a clothesline. In the ensuing chaos, other wrestlers entered the ring and proceeded to beat the crap out of Batista. However, The Undertaker then intervened on Batista's behalf and they both beat the shit out of everyone. I say again, don't you just LOVE wrestling??? :)

After wrestling, Jacob and I went for a meal and a beer in Baywalk , right by the water in Manila Bay, which was a festive place with live band after live band. We then went to check out a shooting that was going on down the road.

Not THAT kind of shooting, stupid. Some sort of action movie was being filmed and a crowd was gathering so we wanted to see what the fuss was all about. As it turns out, there was nothing to fuss about. Movie-making is incredibly boring to watch.

At any rate, the highlight of the story comes as we walk along on the way home and decide to piss on a tree. As it turns out, we pissed right in front of a mobile police station. As it also turns out, there is a city ordnance against pissing in public places with a fine of 1,500 pesos. So we wasted like half an hour detained by the police. The victory of the day was Jacob and I leaving that place without having to pay a fine, and even better yet, without having to pay the bribe that the police were so obviously looking for (Stern-looking police captain: "So... What is your solution?").

That was it, folks. Jacob's birthday is coming up this weekend and we're returning to La Union where we surfed a couple of months back... I'll be back with plenty of bloggy goodness from that trip. Oh yes. We will. We Will. Rock you.

2006-10-12T16:57:00.000-07:00

No posts the past few week or so because It's been something of a busy period for us. Work-wise, this week has seen a number of key events. Around the time the typhoon hit up until last week, Jacob and I really weren't doing much else besides quietly working on our project report. That's fine and all, seeing as we're supposed to submit a report for handing in on January 5th anyway. But while we're here we really want to acquire as much practical experience with ISO 14001 implementation as possible, so Jacob and I pushed for that during a meeting with the ESH section head early this week, and that got the ball rolling again.

What we got out of that meeting was quite nifty, actually. As a Nasdaq-listed, American company, SunPower operates on a quarterly basis, refreshing strategic objectives and also specific targets for each department every three months. These targets then transform into performance targets for department employees, using a grading system so each employee can be evaluated at the end of each quarter. Well, what we got was this - preparation for ISO 14001 implementation is now officially part of the targets for the ESH unit. More than that, the two ESH engineers in the unit have performance targets directly related to it, and to our work. This means that these guys are putting their heads on the block for us. What we do affects their performance. If they miss out, it means the ESH unit misses out on one of their strategic objectives, causing a ripple effect that will make the ESH unit look bad. This makes us important, which is cool. It's also good for the internship as more man-hours have suddenly been freed up for the ESH engineers to offer us direct day-to-day support.

Later this week we had another key meeting in the ESH unit, one of several coming up over the next few weeks. Now, after establishing the objectives and targets for this quarter, serious measures are being put in place to prepare for ISO 14001 implementation. One of the fun things we did during the meeting late this week was design an organization within the company for dealing with ISO 14001 directly, identifying key personnel that we'd need. This falls under the clause in the standard that requires Roles and Responsibilities for an Environmental Management System to be clearly defined. Until the end of our traineeship, we will be attending meetings with this newly formed EMS action group to assist them in their work. For instance, on the basis of our Significant Impact Aspect Analysis, the group will have to form Objectives and Targets to deal with the Significant environmental Impacts, and form environmental programs for dealing with them. I'm looking forward to getting some dirt under my fingernails.

At any rate, just wanted to inform y'all on some of the professional aspects of our work. Let's see, what else did we do this week... on Wednesday Jacob and I did a few errands in Manila that should have taken no longer that a couple of hours - if only there was no such thing as traffic. We ended up spending 12 hours in a car, roughly 80% of the time in transit. FUCKING HELL! We went to Manila to collect my repaired laptop (which they wanted me to pay for in cash, the motherfuckers), re-book our Cathay Pacific tickets from the 1st of December to the 15th (because we just WUV it here in the Philippines so much!), do some shit at the Danish consular office and pick up some material for our project from an NGO called Philippine Business for the Environment.

Before leaving Manila we stopped by a Danish restaurant and ordered some food to remind us a little of home. We had dark rye bread that didn't taste like rye bread, liver paste that didn't taste like liver paste, pickled herring that didn't taste like picked herring and Danish meatballs that didn't taste like the real stuff either. Oh, and beef tartar which really isn't Danish at all. Besides all that, though, it was all good. :)

And then on to the WEEKEND! Last weekend we took a long trip together with a colleague from work, one of the ESH engineers called Ranilio or Ranel for short. We visited the waterfalls of Pagsanjan, which entailed an hour's canoe ride or so along a river at the bottom of a jungle canyon - spectacular stuff. Wet, too! We then went to visit Ranel's family at a tiny provincial town called Luisiana, which was great fun... we got to sample Lambanog, which is very strong spirits distilled from coconut nectar. Well, we did more than sample, actually - we downed a good-sized bottle of the stuff. Thus warmed up, we were then ready to hit the town plaza where a fiesta was going on (this happens like once a year in that place so our timing was lucky) just a stone's throw away from the town's 16th century Spanish church with its blue neon-lighted cross :) It was a great setting for a memorable night. We enjoyed the show, the bands, the female dance troupes in their skimpy gear, and a backstage chat with two Philippine celebrities who were nice eye candy. On the way home the next day, suffering from hangovers, we saw some more falls at Majayjay (pronounced 'My High') where the water was frigid but crystal clear. And where I slipped on a wet rock and fell into a ditch. Go me!

Here are the pics. :)

Pagsanjan falls boat trip.

At the falls.

At Ranel's place. Me hanging with his kid.

Post-Lambanog drinking. Enjoying the show at the town square.

... Under the watchful eye of the Philippine National Police (A semi-military outfit).

Oh, Jacob got called on stage where he made a fool of himself :p

This is backstage. We met the two Filipina celebrities Myles Hernandez and Kristine Jaca by just, you know, charming our way through. Myles and Kristine are models who also do some acting work. They can be found regularly on FHM Philippines and are both FHM Viva Hot Babes.

These are some of the photo shoots they have made. One with Myles, one with Kristine and one where they both feature.

Right, back to the fiesta. Just some goofy pics. The small one taken by me while headbanging. Uh, don't really know why.

The morning after. A pair of hung over tourists, and some pics of the Spanish church.

Lastly, pics from Majayjay falls.

2006-10-04T19:57:00.000-07:00

So I'm sitting here at my cubicle having just finished a Mocha Valencia (don't ask me what that is - It's some sort of fancy coffee) and a curry sausage roll, contemplating on attacking the final part of my take-out breakfast... can I get a drum roll please... a strawberry and peach danish. Of course, the danish they make anywhere outside Denmark is totally unlike the danish you get in Denmark. Still, it somewhat reminds me of home. My other home.

You see, a Starbucks just opened up at the Paseo this Sunday and they are already greeting me by name there (whether that's sad or not I'm not quite sure, haha). So I decided to drop by there before going to work today because I'm a little tired of the canteen food at SunPower. And the canteen ladies who always like to engage me in conversation, grr. I already have a gf, okay? Fat det!

In other news, I completely busted up my big toe somehow by kicking the ground the other day. Flesh was hanging but my nail was ok, and it was nothing a little squeeze of isopropyl alchohol and a band-aid couldn't fix. Sigh... yes, I screamed like a little girl.

Oh, I am seriously worried about myself because all signs point at me turning into a smoker. Powers above help me, I can't use the "it's too expensive" argument here :( Ironically, Jacob is trying to cut back. On the bright side, I'm still doing the healthy regular workout thing. My aim has always been to gain muscle mass, and I'm approaching 80 kg now which is what I have wanted to reach for a while. Just think... when I was a kid my nickname used to be "Ng Payat", meaning skinny or scrawny. Even a few years back when I first started out at uni, I didn't weigh more than 55.

Let's see, what else... there may be developments on the household front in the near future, with the addition of a new member. More on that when I have more to report. Moving hurriedly on, here is today's cookie...

Are you ready for it?

It's the Jay Man again, doing his thing on the dancefloor!!! This clip was taken when we went out to Manila a few weeks back, at the fanciest place they have called Embassy Superclub. I could just watch this again and again and again and again...

2006-10-03T23:25:00.000-07:00

I'm managing a blog a day these days. Can I get a whoop-WHOOP!

Nothing much doing at work. I'm not really in the mood for studying the technical training presentation I have in front of me for SunPower's Reverse Osmosis/De-Ionization water treatment system. So I'm blogging. Jacob is working on our project structure beside me, sometimes pausing to give me that look that means we need to stick our heads together. Easy going day. We were supposed to meet with Sharon, the head of the ESH unit, later today to discuss the findings of our Significant Aspect Impact Analysis... however that has been rescheduled. SunPower needs her to survey the new production facility that is set to open in Batangas, a province south of where we live. Apparantly SunPower likes it here in the Philippines so much that they have decided to open a new plant that will increase output in terms of MW/year (compared to today) by about... oh, 400%. SunPower is becoming a big boy!

The Significant Impact Aspect Analysis, by the way, is what we have been working on here so far for SunPower. The analysis addresses clause 4.3.1 of the ISO 14001 standard which states:

4.3.1 Environmental aspects

The organization shall establish, implement and maintain a procedure(s)

a) to identify the environmental aspects of its activities, products and services within the defined scope of the environmental management system that it can control and those that it can influence taking into account planned or new developments, or new or modified activities, products and services, and

b) to determine those aspects that have or can have significant impact(s) on the environment (i.e. significant environmental aspects).

What does this entail? For Jacob and I, it means a shitload of excel work where we quantify material, chemical and energy data for the activities at SunPower, i.e the production process (most importantly), the facilities support activities such as wastewater treatment etc., and other support activities such as the canteen and shuttle bus service. The aim of the analysis is to rate each environmental activity according to a number of different parameters, and give it a score. Once that is done, the total scoring will enable us to identify, say, the top 5 worst activities, environmentally speaking. These will be our Significant Aspects that the company should focus on in the first cycle of its Environmental Management System.

If that was too boring or too technical, tough. It's what we're doing at SunPower. For me, damn interesting stuff. They have lots of funny little things they use in production, such as gases that explode once they come into contact with the atmosphere, and acids that cause 12-hour delayed acid burns that attack your body tissue, not the skin, and erode away the bone. Go figure, this company has a very high adverse environmental risk potential.

Right, today's cookie. Below is a DEVIL BUG!!!

Actually it's a species of rhinoceros beetle. One of the largest in the world, only the goliath beetle of Africa beats it in size. They taste good, too.

Just kidding. What the hell's the matter with you?! David out.

2006-10-02T19:58:00.000-07:00

Two weekends ago, Jay and I took the trip up north to the mountain city of Baguio (6+ hours by multimodal transport: tricycle, jeepney, bus and taxi), where we stayed with the Alfelor family who are friends of my family. The dad is the manufacturing manager at SunPower i told you all about waaay back, and their son Antonio went a class below me when I went to school in Indonesia in 1988-1995. They have a house there which was nice and spacious and had a fireplace where we gathered round one night. Heh, funny that. Fireplace in the Philippines.

Baguio is a university city in the region known as the Cordilleras and was originally settled by Igorot tribesmen. One of the delicacies in the region that the Igorots like is dog, but we didn't get the chance to try it out. At any rate, all of this fluff text is just build-up to the cookies for today, so let's just get right to it. Seen below are some pictures taken in Baguio. And here is a video from there - Jacob has a career in basketball ahead of him. Not. :)

The pictures show some purty panorama viewscapes, me at some shrine, Jay throwing a handsign, and some guy pulling on his pink pony (pause for laugh).

2006-10-01T18:07:00.000-07:00

How are you all? I'm back from the weekend safe and sound. As I'm writing, most of you are tucked away all nice and comfy in your part of the world, so this freshly-baked blog should be ready for serving together with your morning coffee, or however else you like to enjoy my ramblings.

Power was back on at around 3 AM Friday night. As most businesses were closed and it was raining, I turned in early instead of the usual weekend nightly outing with Jacob. Something woke me up, which pissed me off as I lay blinking angrily, thinking what the fuck was going on. Then I realized I was staring at a switched-on lightbulb illuminating the room. I briefly 'yay'ed to myself at having power back, then half-ambled-half-stumbled across the floor to switch the fucker off. Never occured to me to check the house first. Jacob, who went out earlier and found himself some bar (or bars) and proceeded to get himself wasted, arrived home later and found the TV blaring and the house otherwise lighted-up with me snoring upstairs.

The Philippines got relatively quickly up from it's knees after that. Despite the typhoon damage, daily life seemed slowly click into gear again.

Saturday night is a hazy recollection for me... the Paseo was back to business with liveband action and hunnys in red latex outfits going from bar to bar selling Marlboro cigarettes, and doing some promotional work on something or other I couldn't have cared less about. Not with so much else to catch one's attention. On Sunday my friends Ana and Julie came to visit and we went malling and saw a movie. Title was John Tucker Must Die. Might as well have been David Christensen Must Die... I cringed and cried in my seat the whole way through, such was the torture of having to endure this gods-awful teen chic flic. Dudes out there, don't force yourself to watch this one even to get laid. It's not worth it.

I found that Jacob and I were extremely lucky with regards to the typhoon's impact. Most of the people we've spoken with have had flooding at knee-height inside their houses, and some don't have either electricity or water yet as of Monday morning. Here are a few pics that show the impact of Milenyo as we saw it.

Inside the SunPower compound:

Out in the street:

Inside the subdivision where we live (I would have taken a picture of the tree inside the swiming pool, but they went to work quickly on that one and cut it up and removed it):

Finally, this is how it is to stand in line at an ATM machine after a typhoon has hit. It's the stupidest thing ever. People need to release funds fast to do immediate repairs and otherwise do some damage alleviation. What do the banks do? They make their ATM's go offline, creating bottlenecks at the few that do work. I don't know why they do it like that. Maybe its a macroeconomics thing. Something about too much money being spent and redistributed too fast not being good for the economy and the central bank. Somebody please explain why I had to wait an hour to withdraw 10,000 pesos?

And today's cookie is an example of McDonald's doing some local market product adaptation. Ladies and gentlemen, here is the McRice Burger. :p

In other news, our professional work at SunPower has more or less gone on standby while we await supervisor feedback. Also, there have been some key absentees at the Environmental, Safety and Health unit as people need to tend to their homes because of flooding, etc. We need the help of these guys for what we're doing, so until SunPower is 100% operational again, I can waste my time at work and blog freely :)

I have been productive in the meantime. I'm working on planning my 10th and last semester, where I would like to do some data collection abroad (read: get the fuck out of Denmark). I've been speaking to some lecturers and some personal contacts of mine, and going to Costa Rica or working for COWI have been some of the ideas I am developing.

Until next time, kiddos.

2006-09-28T19:41:00.000-07:00

Hey all. Just taking a break from doing some excel sheet (or shit, if you will - haha, I love that French mispronunciation of the word) work on SunPower's wastewater treatment, boiler and emission scrubber systems. The power grid is still down in all of Luzon except Quezon City, which is a part of Manila - Jacob heard from an employee that we could maybe expect power at our house again on Sunday. Bloody hell!

Today's cookies are a video clip of two small Filipino's boxing for entertainment at a mall, if that is your fetish, and a picture below of Jacob and I at our cubicle, staring pissed off at our screens:

2006-09-28T06:33:00.000-07:00

Well, how about that? Typhoon Milenyo (international callsign 'Xangsane' - apparantly they resent Chinese names here... if a typhoon crosses into Philippine soil it had better damn well have a Filipino name) is being dubbed the worst storm to hit the country in 20 years. Skimming the news, the death toll isn't as bad as has been seen in the past: 10 fatalities directly attributed to the storm, and an incident at a Samsung manufacturing plant not too far from us left 50 hospitalized when three buildings collapsed. There hasn't been any cell phone coverage since the morning, which sucks ass since I can't even call my girl to find out if she's alright. Power is still out. Luzon has been hit by a massive blackout. Except for a few places, everything is pitch dark. Amazingly, one of the very few open businesses open at the Paseo (where they have emergency generators apparantly) is a cybercafe. Right now i'm in a room packed with Koreans playing Starcraft to pass the time, lol. I can't say I blame them. I was bored out of my fucking mind before I decided to take a walk and blog for you people.

I have video footage of the storm. This clip was taken at SunPower during the morning, when Milenyo was just getting warmed up. Absolutely shocking footage!

Ok, I was dramatizing a little. :) Enjoy the blog. I think I'll go to sleep early. Like hell I'm not going to read a book by candlelight, even though Dostojevski's Crime and Punishment is interesting (though not captivating) reading so far.

Flipside!

2006-09-27T18:18:00.000-07:00

Update: Okaay, maybe the typhoon was taken just a liiittle lightly earlier on. One branch snapping off and landing next to a parked car is one thing. Another thing entirely is waist-high flooding on the streets outside (no bullshit - the guardhouse has now been evacuated) and multiple fallen trees in and outside the SunPower compound (Jacob: "There's a tree floating in the middle of the road!"). The Environmental, Safety and Health unit where we work is empty. People are on on full alert running across the whole facility. Power is down. We are currently running on emergency generators, which have enough fuel to last a day and a half. I was sitting at a canteen table earlier, adjacent to one where an Emergency Response Team was having a meeting, and I caught from the Tagalog I can understand that they were talking about bringing out sleeping mats for the employees. Looks like we're in for the long haul.

Mom, dad, everyone, I love you. :p Send chocolate.

Oh, here are some pics taken by my camera phone. They show fallen trees outside and how all exits are cordoned off and manned, either by ERT members or by maintenence personnel who are doing their best to stem water from coming in.

Today's picture - for your amusement only - is of me in a bunny suit (rabbit ears optional).

Not much happening at work... there's a chance we'll be sent home though. Metro Manila and our area is about to be hit by typhoon Milenyo, which at the moment has been given a Public Storm Warning Signal 3 with maximum sustained winds of over 130 kph near the center. Storm signal 3 activates stay-home orders for all school levels up to college as well as all government institutions, but not private businesses. However, if it continues building up strength (outside our window a branch just snapped and almost hit a car - EVERYBODY PANIC!), SunPower might be forced to send its employees home. Yay! :p

Note to self: Keep updated on the news. Be suspicious if there is a power outage upon waking up. Be suspicious of lack of traffic on the way to work. Read the fucking news alerts that Globe Telecom sends to your mobile phone. And call ahead to SunPower to verify if it is indeed necessary to go to work.

2006-09-26T19:36:00.000-07:00

I like to ride my BICYCLE/
I like to ride my BIKE!/
I like to ride my BICYCLE/
I like to ride it WHERE I LIKE!!!!

BIIIIIIIIIIIICYLE! BIIIIIICYCLE! BIIIIICYCLE!

No, laptop still not back from repairs yet. Here's a pic of my set of wheels though. Cooler than the WebstaMadzMobile? I say yea.

David out.

2006-09-14T05:12:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry, ladies and gents, regular blogging service will be resumed as soon as I get my laptop back from repairs. Sigh. I could kick myself. You see, in the tropics sometimes massive rainfalls occur all of a sudden without warning, and I'm talking about the kind of showers where you get more rain falling in five minutes than what you see in Denmark over a month. It's that bad. Well, one day the sky decided to puke rain like that just as Jacob and I were on our way home with our bikes (yup, we bike to work). Me, thinking that my bag was waterproof, and in a hurry to make a date with this girl, decided to brave it. Jacob too.

1) The bag wasn't waterproof. In fact, it's a Speedo bag. Speedo is very good at making things (swimsuits) that, er, get wet. Dammit!

2) Neither was my laptop. Now, the thing has been through a lot with me. Shit, it's so battle-scarred it looks like it's been through hell and back. Unfortunately, this this was more than it could take.

The end result: water damage to the LCD screen, and now I'm having it replaced, for the price of something close to 3000 DKK. Witness my head thoroughly smashed and bloody from banging it on the table at the pure stupidity of what I did.

It affects my blogging because I usually do the blogs from home. At work, I use my computer for ~~surfing the net for porn~~ doing serious work, leaving me no time to write stuff for you guys. Right now I'm at a netcafe doing this, but I couldn't be half arsed to go here all the time.

Let's see if I can make this blog interesting and worthwhile. How about nekked ladies? :) I'd like to tell you all about my niece, who seems to have made it big here under the name of Juliana Palermo. This is her on the front cover of FHM Philippines. I almost wish we weren't related :p

That's all, folks. ;)

2006-09-07T00:11:00.000-07:00

Now that I've strarted blogging again, I should keep updates coming regularly. Here's a pic that was taken and sent to us by Lee, a Kiwi we met in Boracay (cheers mate!).

In addition, here is a link to Lee's Philippine photo album. Excellent pictures in there of my country. Er, my other country.

That's all for now. All the best!

2006-09-03T09:00:00.000-07:00

Has it really been three weeks since my last update?

Ugh. It’s one of those mornings recovering from a night on the town. Jacob and I hired a driver last night and tasted a slice of the Manila nightlife scene. Not really that hung over, though, just feeling extremely lethargic – more so than usual. So, quick-fried English breakfast, crappy morning TV and what else have I got planned for today? Oh, that’s right, absolutely nothing. Except maybe blog a little bit in the air-conditioned comfort of my room, with the sun bearing down heavily on the palm-tree lined scenery outside my window in what is truly a beautiful day in the Philippines. Life is good!

I’ve had a few complaints that the content of this blog has so far been mostly restricted to descriptions of shenanigans and tomfoolery of the most trivial, unserious sort. This I acknowledge! However, I will keep on at it :) But I do suppose it’s time I should write something that holds a little bit of professional interest for those who want to know about what I actually came down here for, which is an internship with Sunpower Philippines. First, I have to say Sunpower is an awesome workplace. It has a highly trained and young workforce, so going to work feels just like going to school - except people wear ID tags the entire time, Jacob and I included. It’s big, employing around a thousand people or so. It also houses an extremely high-tech solar cell fabrication process with the majority of the processes occurring inside cleanrooms where temperature, relative humidity and particle concentration are strictly controlled. The picture gives you a look inside. As you can see, they use full body PPE (Personal Protection Equipment), also known as bunny suits. I’m not at liberty to say what exactly goes on inside, but suffice to say, solar cell fabrication is complicated shit. I’m sure none of you are all that familiar with semiconductor device fabrication techniques. Neither are we, but we have had to contend with learning about stuff like plasma enhanced vapor deposition processes. The interesting part for us is that these processes use incredibly hazardous chemicals - whether toxic, pyrophoric, corrosive or otherwise nasty – and lots of it too. Our job is to figure out how to implement a systematic environmental management system that will enable the company to handle the environmentally harmful aspects of its activities. Its quite a daunting task, as we are doing this from scratch. We hope to do a good job, though… the intention is for the company to use our work as input for a strategy meeting next year, when ISO 14001 will be seriously considered.

This is the company’s product. It’s the A-300 solar cell, and it is THE most efficient solar cell in mass production in the world today. It yields efficiencies of 21%, and in addition, it has an edge over the competition because Sunpower has perfected and patented the unique construction of its cell so that there is no need for those metal gridlines on the cell’s ‘sunny side’. It’s all-black appearance and high wattage output per square meter are two things that are able to make Sunpower an industry leader. It has recently been floated on the Nasdaq and is currently the fastest growing technology company listed. Impressive stuff.

The first week at Sunpower was spent undergoing NEOP (New Employee Orientation Program) training, learning all about safety procedures, chemical handling, internal document management and statistical process control systems, among many other things. Shit, I thought I had finished my last ever lecture. Jacob and I even had to do a written exam in order to be certified for cleanroom entry. At any rate, we did the training together with batch 40, a new set of employees. The interesting and amazing thing we learned was that the people working on the shop floor here seem to be overqualified for what they do – every single worker is an engineer with at least a five year degree behind them! Although the fabrication processes are high-tech, Jacob and I are still somewhat puzzled by the need to hire full-fledged mechanical, electrical and IT engineers for loading/unloading work. The fact of the matter, however, is that labor is cheap here, there is a high unemployment rate even among engineers and there are loads of engineering graduates churned up every year. For the sake of becoming the industry leader, Sunpower is only happy to invest in the best-trained available workforce.

In the subsequent two weeks since that introductory week, we have alternated between working on our report and doing tours of the facilities and requesting data sets, which we are now beginning to receive and number-crunch. Nothing too exciting to report. I did have a funny (well not too funny) thing happen to me. I got an allergic reaction to something I ate at the Sunpower canteen and was unwell for a week, which sucked. I had just begun working out at the local gym, getting a rhythm going and then I got knocked off balance. I suspect what triggered the allergy was a delicacy here called bagoong (pronounced: bah-GOH-ong), which is salty fermented tiny shrimp. It tastes awful and I’m glad I’m allergic to it because I never willingly go near it anyway.

Let’s see, before I sign off, what can I show you guys to make this blog more exciting? Idea: Here is the various shit I have stored on my phone, bits and glimpses of my life here. Enjoy!

First up is pictures. This is Jay and I waiting for the shuttle bus on our first day at work… do NOT laugh! Hehe, actually Jacob commented that we looked like a pair of missionaries. But hey, we didn’t know everyone wore casual wear at Sunpower and didn’t know what to expect!

This is a glimpse of our hangout, the one and only Paseo de Santa Rosa. We live basically right across from it: it’s a shopping complex with a wet market that has a number of bars and restaurants. There is live band entertainment on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. We are regulars there now – all the serving staff know us by name :)

Hm. This is interesting because it shows how big some of the malls are here. What you are seeing on the picture is a roller coaster.

Me on a date.

This is remarkable. One day at Sunpower we were told that if we wanted to, we could donate blood as the Red Cross was visiting the company that day. Nifty idea, that. I didn't donate because I'm a pussy, but Jacob did.

Now, the movies. I have a clip of some hunnys dancing at the Paseo, a clip of Jacob bust-a-moving, and a clip of some fire-eating, taken at a theme park nearby called Enchanted Kingdom where I went with Anabel (see previous blogs).

See you around, kiddos!

2006-08-10T18:17:00.000-07:00

(Loosely translated from the Danish)

Jacob (looks into fridge): "Dude! We need to buy some more food!"

Me (looking disinterestedly up from reading FHM Philippines): "Yeah?"

Jacob (demeanour totally serious): "Yeah we need, like, more beer! And soda! And... and chips!"

As the above shows, we're living good here. So, what has happened since I last blogged is that we have begun our internship at Sunpower Philippines Manufacturing Limited, and are into our second week. I'd love to tell you all about it, but if I told you everything I'd have to kill you. Sorry 'bout that, nondisclosure agreements and all. I will be updating sometime over the weekend with something that has more substance. Right now, I thought I'd show you the pictures of some of the wacky locals Jacob and I met when we were in La Union a while back.

2006-07-31T08:18:00.000-07:00

Oh! Oh! Oh! One more thing! I took this picture today. It's the very same manhole I fell in over a month ago, and they have finally done something about it. Sort of!!! :)

2006-07-31T00:32:00.000-07:00

I have a cock.

It’s a big cock.

When it gets aroused, it swells up angrily to an even more intimidating size.

It’s an aggressive cock, and it always goes in for the kill. It’s merciless.

My cock weighs in at between 1.8-2.4 kilos of raw cock meat, and it has a mean look to it. It remains chained, for the safety of all things around it. It doesn’t like other cocks either. In fact, it will go out of its way to terminate the life of any other cock that might cross its path, and I’m damn proud of it. It’s a good cock. It’s quite territorial, too, and beats down heavily on the females to which it belongs, just to keep them in line. My cock is a champion cock, born of a lineage of champion cocks before it. When it is called upon, erect and pumped, sometimes emerging bloody and throbbing from the action, it never fails me. And the action itself is pure art. Regardless of whether it takes it’s time, almost playfully feeling the other party out, or whether it goes in directly, relentlessly ravaging the other party, it is an awe-inspiring sight to behold. You have not known fear and you have not felt humbled until you have seen my cock.

Below is a picture of my cock.

Hahaha, I’ll explain in a second. When I last left you guys, which was quite some time ago, I was learning how to surf and having a kick-ass time about it in La Union, far up in the northern Philippines (it was a two-day journey from Manila that included countless jeepney, bus, and tricycle rides – don’t ask). After that, it was time for me to head to my childhood hometown of Davao City in Mindanao to the south to truly revisit my roots and see family whom I haven’t seen in ten years. Perhaps you have heard of Mindanao. It’s one of the places in the Philippines that usually catches the headlines in the news. Usually it has to do with the problems they have there with Islamic separatists, from the Abu Sayyaf group of simple thugs to the now-pacified Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and its breakaway faction, the very much alive-and-kicking Moro Islamic Liberation Front, also known as – don’t laugh! – MILF (for those who didn’t catch on, see what this acronym can alternatively mean here). So, considering the danger areas that exist in certain areas of Mindanao (Davao City, however, not among the hotspots), it shouldn’t be too surprising that Jacob decided to remain in La Union while I ventured southward.

The trip to Davao City was largely uneventful. I thought I was pretty shrewd in choosing the Superferry over one of the numerous airlines that service the Manila-Davao route in order to save money, but what I hadn’t fully appreciated at the time was how long it took to reach my destination, which was a full three nights. Plus, there really was not much to do aboard the ship other than eat and sleep. And eat. And sleep. However I did meet some nice people. I shared my cabin with a just recently-retired army officer who was in Manila to collect a financial one-off retirement package that the government had offered soldiers in his position, only to be told there was no money in the coffers. That says much about the state of affairs in this country. Well, the guy was getting tired of going toe-to-toe with better equipped rebels in the jungles of Mindanao, and even more tired of the underhand deals his superiors would often make with the very same rebels, bribery and corruption being as much a part of Filipino life as the rice we eat with every meal. Heading back home, he took the ‘no’ he got with a shrug and a prayer - Filipinos being religious people - as he hoped for the best in starting a civilian business of his own. For the moment though, his long-term dream of one day running a tuna air-freight business would have to wait indefinitely.

Then there were the two girls, Anabel and Julie, who joined us at our table for a round of videoke fun. Now, the practice of singing along to songs is not exactly commonplace nor all that popular in Denmark, but this is what they do here in Asia. The people get big kicks out of massacring the songs they know, hehehe. Well shiiiiaat, when in Rome, do what the Romans do, right? So we got those vocal chords running and had a great time and had our shits and giggles, and quickly became friends. Anabel worked in a factory in Manila but came from the south and was heading home for the first time in years, and Julie was an OFW – Overseas Foreign Worker – who was based in Kuwait and had also been granted a vacation. It was good to meet them as we later hung out together in the (almost) two weeks I was in Mindanao. Ana was my travel buddy on my plane trip home, too.

Don’t worry, I’ll get to my cock in a minute. I did a bunch of stuff in Davao, not least see my family in the Philippines who are largely based here. Besides aunts and uncles and cousins, this includes extended family that I’m sometimes completely clueless about, if one were to ask how we were related. I stayed at what I consider to be my childhood home during the first four years of my life that I spent in the Philippines, which was still exactly the same as I left it, pleasingly enough. See the pics below I took on my brand new phone (a Motorola RAZR V3i) – the pictures you have seen so far were taken by Jacob’s camera, which he kept with him while I was in Davao.

Ana took me to see her barangay (village), Datu Salumay, in the spectacular mountains some 100+ kilometers north of Davao City, where it was as cool and crisp as Denmark on a clear autumn day. I had a hysterical time riding horseback, and riding water buffalo! Fuuuck, I never though simply riding in a saddle (or, in my case, simply an empty sack of rice which served the same purpose) would hurt that much. It was ridiculous, and you bareback horseriders out there have my respect. Also, one would think riding a water buffalo was easy considering how wide those fuckers are, but it ain’t so easy when the thing has a fondness of breaking into a run all of a sudden while trying to spear your legs with one of its horns. I challenge any of you to try, at any rate.

I went to malls, hung out with people I cared about and hadn’t seen for such a long time (who were impressed by how much I had grown, yay me!). Ana and I took a trip down to see Julie at her seaside home where we all went swimming and I tried the evil, local alcoholic beverage, which is coconut-based and goes by the name of Tuba. Imagine vinegar, alchohol and rotten fruit mixed together in a delightful brownish elixir, and you have a very… interesting cocktail.

I went out drinking with my cousins and the girls, and I got the chance to see one of the Philippine national pastimes up close, something deeply ingrained in our culture – cockfighting. It’s lethal, bloody, and the Filipino’s love it. Here’s where my cock comes in. Now, I grew up with this cockfighting thing – we always had fighting cocks at our house, and if there’s one thing I connect with my childhood home, it’s the incessant cock-a-doodle-dooing that these birds do, ALL THE FUCKING TIME, EVERY HOUR OF THE DAY! Nah, in truth I’m used to it, I can sleep all morning with those birds bursting their lungs outside. Most people couldn’t do the same, though, I think. At any rate, my uncle took me to a cockfighting arena one Sunday and I saw how these fights take place (I never went to a cockfighting derby as a kid), and how people gamble on them. It’s really quite an experience. Animal lovers will no doubt find it sickening, but for millions of Filipinos, cockfighting is the only pleasure they derive from their lives which are otherwise spent fighting tooth-and-nail for every meal they can put on the table for their families and in many cases their extended families, all living under the same roof. Putting these social injustices side-by-side with animal welfare concerns is no contest whatsoever. To me, at least. Besides, these animals are wired in their brains to kill each other, cannibalism practiced as early as six weeks of age.

But I’ll leave my thoughts on the subject at that. I saw all manner of cockfights, from fights that were over in five seconds to fights between cocks that just wouldn’t quit, and would keep on at it long after I thought they didn’t have any blood left. Spectacular aerial clashes, seasoned groundfighters, cocks who quit and ran away from the fight… no fight was ever the same, and I must have seen over thirty of them that day before I got hungry and left the shouting crowd for some lunch. Yes, I had chicken.

And my cock? You see, my cousin actually rears fighting cocks on his farm, which is a plot of land where he has more than fifty of them. Of these, around four or five are being prepared for a cockfight derby later this year. Its no small thing – after two years of rearing, preparation for a fight takes up to 90 days, and includes an intensive feeding regime, wing and leg exercises, and body conditioning which includes the use of medicines and steroids to improve performance on the day. Sometimes fighting cocks are given adrenaline prior to a fight. It all comes down to the day when a razor-edged knife is attached to one of a cock’s leg spurs, and two cocks battle to the death in the middle of an arena. MY cock will be one of those, come later this year. I have agreed to sponsor one of my cousins fighting cocks and finance its prepping, which is the most expensive and crucial period in rearing a fighting cock.

This should be fun. Multi-millionaires can buy their racehorses and jockeys can go ahead and think themselves as athletes for sitting atop their mounts and spurring them on. I have my cock, and this is where it’s really at. Below is a movie clip of what a cock fight, a non-lethal one, looks like. I recorded it on my cousin’s farm.

Until next time, people. My traineeship begins tomorrow and I’m excited. I’ll have another update here soon – I’ll be uploading the pictures of what Jacob saw when he was up north in La Union.

2006-07-11T23:30:00.000-07:00

OMG OMG OMG surfing is so damn fun I could pee in my pants and I’m really good at it and I was riding waves after like my fourth wave and Jay isn’t so good at it and had been surfing a day more than I had before I decided to try and still wasn’t standing up on the board and I kick ass and he sucks and I can stand relatively easily on a board except my elbow is now fucked up and no more surfing for me so that isn’t so cool but this place called San Juan north of San Fernando is real cool with the chillest beginner waves and the local surfer dudes and dudettes are awesome with names like Lemon and Angel and I’m a regular at Angel and Marie’s place which serves the best Oreo cookie milkshake and Lemon took us out to meet his foster father Uffe who is Danish and used to be the UNICEF director of Europe but has now retired to the Philippines on his UN pension and has a sweet set-up now where he is head of what originally started as an orphanage of sorts and looked after Lemon and like thirty-six other orphaned kids so the guy has a real big heart and the household is huge and Ma they are opening a new surf resort in January so you should definitely check it out and talk to him for your travel agency plans and well I’m going to keep enjoying this place until I leave alone on Thursday leaving Jay behind here to swallow some more saltwater while I trek down to see my family in Davao in the south so that should be cool but I don’t know what to do about the six hickeys on my neck because the place we’re staying has a go-go bar and putting that many band-aids on would definitely look ridiculous so while I mull about that I’m going to leave you guys with some chill photos and then I’m off to enjoy more sun and fun WEEEEEEE…!!!

Here are the pics. First up, you guys need to see what they use for public transport around here besides the tricycles I showed you earlier. These are jeepneys:

The view from our resort, and since I did some pics on the fauna here, here are some flora pics as well:

Heeheehee, and this is Jay doing a sweet wipeout:

Finally, me looking (insert adjective here) in a wetsuit, and in the water:

2006-07-03T03:38:00.000-07:00

These are from the trip back north again. 1) Our bus. 2) Inside the RoRo (Roll-on-Roll-off) ferry, they were transporting Carabau - Philippine water buffalo, which are used to plow fields. 3) A sunset. 4) A sunset with Jay in it. 5) Artsy picture of us both. 6) Sun is really setting now. 7) Very artsy sunset photo.

2006-07-03T03:34:00.000-07:00

Parasailing!!!

2006-07-03T03:28:00.000-07:00

More boating pics. 1) Our boat. 2) Me and another boat. Notice the boat's name. Do you get it, huh? Huh? Do you get it? :) 3) Me catching some sun. 4) Me fucking around in the water.

2006-07-03T03:20:00.000-07:00

Boating trip pics. 1) The locals have bodies I'm quite envious of :( This is a coconut salesman that approached our boat. He takes his machete, chops off the top part of a coconut and you have both a refreshing drink and a tasty snack. 2) This dude caught some good-size looking fish. 3) Jay on the boat we shared with Koreans and Chinese. 4) View from the front.

2006-07-03T03:14:00.000-07:00

These are from the boat trip we took. 1) Me, chilling before our ride came to pick us up to bring us to our set-off point on the eastern side of the island. 2) We're under way. Jay in a rare photogenic moment 3) I love my side profile. Not.

2006-07-03T03:13:00.000-07:00

A few daytime pics.

2006-07-03T03:10:00.000-07:00

Oh yes, I was in fact here in the Philippines to do some environmental management. I did find something thematically relevant on that topic. They have waste sorting in Boracay. See the pics below. (Yes, these pics are for appeasing our supervisor, who has been given the link to the blog :p)

2006-07-03T02:51:00.000-07:00

Some pics of Bracay by night. 1) Bob Marley is big in Boracay. You do see the occasional Filipino with dreads. 2) View from the beach. 3) Just some nighttime activity. 4)A fruit stall, with some fruitcake posing for the camera. 3) Seafood! Had a LOT of that! :)

2006-07-03T02:49:00.000-07:00

Local modes of transportation. The first one shows the tricycle, seen on every Philippine street.

2006-07-03T02:45:00.000-07:00

Alright, here come the pics. First up, some Philippine wildlife pics for ya.

Oh, update on the housing! As I upload these pics, Jay and I are enjoying the first day in OUR HOUSE! :)

2006-07-02T21:17:00.000-07:00

No, I haven’t forgotten you guys, I was just too busy having fun :) It’s been what, over a week since I last blogged? That coincides quite nicely with the week spent in Boracay enjoying the beach, people, food and thrills. I couldn’t be half-arsed to blog while there, sorry peeps. Right now though, I’m in limbo and have time to kill - I’m back right outside Manila, staying a few nights with the Alfelor family while Jacob and I get our house sorted. As soon as that’s over with, we plan to head up north to a place called La Union to catch some waves (It’s the place to go to surf in Luzon, which is the main north island in the Phillies), and then further on to Banaue which has the famous breathtaking rice terraces that have been called the ‘eighth wonder of the world’. After that, Jacob and I split our ways and I head down to my family in the south in Davao while he does… something, I’m not quite too sure what. See the mentioned place names so far on the maps below.

Tell you what, though, let’s start with Boracay. For those of you who haven’t heard about the place, it’s where you find the trophy beach of the Philippines, the place people flock to. It’s a small island at about 7 x 1 km in the central area of the Philippines, the Visayas, about 300 km south of Manila. As you saw earlier, getting to the place by the land-sea route is a hassle, but definitely worth taking in order to get a good ground-level perspective of the country, which we did. For such a small island, though, Boracay is absolutely packed with restaurants, hotels, shops, etc., all concentrated on a single 3 km strip called White Beach (the island’s west coast). If it’s a quiet place you’re looking for if you ever visit the Philippines, look someplace else – we arrived as the low season was setting in, and the place still had plenty of people. But hey, that suited me fine. During the low season prices drop so we had sweet accommodation for no more than 1000 pesos a night at an airconditioned bungalow. So, we came in by outrigger boat (called a bangka), settled down quickly after finding the place, and were then set to slam the beaches hard.

We had to wait a little bit before we were able to do that, however. Like, two entire days. See, the funny thing about the low season at Boracay is that it also starts at about the same time as the wet and typhoon seasons set in, heh. We felt a little bit of that when we came. It turns out a tropical storm (not a full-blown typhoon, as we originally feared) was hitting southeast Luzon at about the same time as we arrived, and we were feeling a little bit of its outer arms. It wasn’t too bad though, despite having to stay inside the whole time. Just straight up constant downpours without heavy winds or thunder and lightning. The people at the storm’s epicenter were the ones who must have really felt shitty. Not only was the storm hitting them full on, but a volcano was on eruption alert at the same time. Glad I wasn’t there.

Two days spent chilling inside, then. When the weather cleared up again we roused ourselves to do some activity. We…

… ate. Western, Filipino, Spanish, French, Mongolian, Chinese, Korean, Indian cuisines and plenty more comprised the variety of foodin’ on offer, and a-foodin’ we went. I personally ate out thrice a day at least. Ah, good times.

… swam. In addition to the beach, the place we stayed had a swimming pool, so I managed to get a few laps done.

… went boating. I’ll put up some pictures shortly to show you guys. It was sweet – one day the weather was great so we decided to do an island tour with snorkeling, lunch and cave exploring included in the price. The fucked up thing was that Jay got zero sunburn that day while my own arms turned a healthy deep brown-red color. I don’t get it. Jacob just seems better adapted to the tropics than me. On another note, I had plans to get a diving certificate in Boracay but here the prices stopped me – at USD 375 for a four-day course, I had to say no. I had 5 months houserent plus 2 months deposit to pay all at once before July 1st so I couldn’t splash out like that. Snorkeling was the closest I got to swimming with the fish.

… watched some World Cup action. Games are on at 11 pm and 3 am here, and while we never caught any of the early morning games we did see a couple of the evening ones at our favorite haunt, the Wreck Bar, which was quite popular – seats and tables were reserved in advance for the games.

… went parasailing. Well, just me. Jay was too damn chicken to try. As with the boat trip, I’ll put up some pics to show you guys.

… drank. San Mig, baby, San Mig!

… went clubbing. Well, just once. That was, er, enough for me. I’ll tell you why shortly. One day Jacob and I decided to check out what the place had in the way of nightlife, and sure enough there were a couple of clubs around so we picked a place out, one called Coco Mongo’s. Just one look inside, and I just knew I’d come to enjoy the clubbing scene in the Phillies… ladies and gentlemen, there is no sickening europop of any sort here, only – and I say this with a smile – straight-up hiphop. The fellas all have their basketball jerseys on, and the fine-looking hunnys grind and work it to various remixes of Crazy in Love. However, and this is a big however, they also ‘work it’ in various other ways as I found out (at this particular club at least). No sooner had I relocated myself to sit at another bar to gain a better view of the goodies than some sleazy guy approaches me from the corner of my eye, not looking at me while he speaks.

“You want a girl?”

Eyes wide. Realization sets in. Then a smirk, as I turn and decide to sate my curiosity. The guy introduces himself as an ‘agent’, and while I let him do his sales pitch and hear him out, I nudge Jay and give him a heads-up, suppressing a chuckle. I steer the conversation with sleazebag away to other things, such as what the locals are into in the way of illicits, at which point the guy shakes his head and quotes a price higher than company for the night, for tiny quantities of stuff. “It’s very difficult.” He explains. I thought as much, considering that any smuggling into the country is punishable by death. Still, what he said was enlightening, and the conversation ended with him slipping me his cell number which I later threw out.

That wasn’t the last of the fun surprises that night. I wasn’t deterred from checking out the working ladies going all-action on the dancefloor, and at some point during the night I was approached. Except it wasn’t by a girl. Well, it was supposed to look like one. The guy/girl wasn’t all that dressed up, but no mistaking it, this was one of the ladyboys I had heard about before coming here. Oh, he/she was real sweet, very good at giving the doe-eyes and occasionally reaching out for a shoulder touch, but no less sleazy than the guy before. To my amusement, he/she was looking to clinch a deal, ANY kind of deal. First, he/she offered him/herself. When I explained the way I tick, he/she called over a friend, and I was briefly introduced to Grace before she hurried off again as the deejay began playing My Humps. Wistfully watching her departing figure, I turned back and did some serious evasive maneuvering, much to the ladyboy’s well-hidden irritation. He/she grew increasingly desperate as the night wore on, finally resorting to offer me… a boat trip. I kept a straight face as I remained noncommittal, though if he/she had pulled out a basket full of tourist souvenir articles right there, I would have bought a couple of trinkets to keep him/her happy. Well, the place closed at 4 AM and I was weary of dodging pimps, so I took a tricycle home giving the working girls one last pouting glance.

And Jacob? Heeheehee…. He decided to stay on a little bit. He fell into conversation with a Fil-Am (Filipino-American) and his American buddy, and went with them after the club closed to… a karaoke bar! I only heard about it the following day, but when I did, I almost died. Apparently he was talked into, or was piss drunk enough to (I suspect the latter) sing along to “The Final Countdown”. How’s that for an enduring image of pure horror etched into your brain, eh?

One last note before I take off for now: I have only hinted at how capital-starved this country is in the above. The Philippines is a buyer’s market. Anything and everything is for sale if you have the coin, in a manner that honestly troubles and unsettles me deep inside. Coming back here after so many years, it’s a facet of life I’m still not sure how to form an opinion on. I at least am SO very thankful I am able to blend in with the crowd in this country if I walk alone, to the point where people speak Tagalog to me directly assuming I know the language. If I’m with Jacob, we are harassed every single moment by vendors selling whatever it is they sell. Every moment, I’m not bloody kidding.

Hugz and hand signs,

-D.

2006-06-24T22:46:00.000-07:00

More stock photos. From top to bottom: 1) Another pic of the Roxas kids in the water 2) Early morning market activity at Batangas pier right we left the place 3) What passes for entertainment at a Philippine ferry: Karaoke. If you could even call it that. See the guy sitting on the chair holding a mic? He was attempting to sing, giving no effort to attempt to follow the song's melody, but was loud enough so that sleep was somewhat difficult. He sucked.

2006-06-24T22:31:00.000-07:00

The on-off raining doesn't seem to be letting up today, which means another trip to the internet cafe for me. And guess what, I have more stock pictures for you. These are from London Heathrow, showing Jacob, John and My pretty self. And then one of the two others together. I tried the oreo cookie milkshake at TGI Friday's at the airport, by the way, and I didn't give a damn that I went up to the bar and asked for a milkshake while others had their alchoholic beverages. Oreo cookie milkshake = goodness. Definately recommendable. So, here are the pics.

PS - Marie! Alle billeder fra huset og så opefter er nogle jeg har uploaded på selve blog'ens server, så det kan også godt lade sig gøre at gøre det på den måde. Det er oven i købet mega-nemt at sætte dem i. Jeg har reduceret dem i størrelse så det fylder ca. 50 kb hver, men jeg ikke hvor stor grænsen er for uploads. Og ha' en fed tur til Barcelona!

2006-06-24T20:15:00.000-07:00

And here's a heart-warming pic of a bunch of Roxas kids who decided to jump in the water and shout 'Hello' at the foreigners (there were a couple of Irishmen on the ferry as well). Talk to y'all later!

2006-06-24T20:13:00.000-07:00

This is the view of Roxas beach from the departing ferry, and a pic of Jacob at an intersection right near the pier:

2006-06-24T20:05:00.000-07:00

While I'm at it, might as well show some pictures from our trip. This is from the seedy motel I talked about earlier. I had a suspicious feeling when I lay down on my bed, and had a peek underneath. What I saw is on the second pic... those aren't used candy wrappers, people.

2006-06-24T20:03:00.000-07:00

Master comfort room and shower. These are the last of the house pics.

2006-06-24T20:01:00.000-07:00

Master bedroom:

2006-06-24T19:58:00.000-07:00

Upstairs hallway, upstairs 'comfort room' (toilet):

2006-06-24T19:54:00.000-07:00

View from the stairs, and a look from the stairs up at the upstairs hallway:

2006-06-24T19:52:00.000-07:00

Here is the downstairs living/dining room area:

2006-06-24T19:24:00.000-07:00

Hi all. Currently in Boracay after choosing the following land-sea route:

Alabang-Batangas (bus)
Batangas-Calapan (fast ferry)
Calapan-Roxas (van)
Roxas-Caticlan (roll-on, roll-off ferry)
Caticlan-Boracay (small boat)

As always, when in doubt about a place name, Wiki it!

Now, why go through all that hassle you ask, when there is a direct route to Caticlan from Manila airport? The total price was about half the plane ticket, and that includes an overnight stay at the harbor city of Batangas (heh, at the seediest of seedy motels where 'Guest Relation Officer' companionship was offered. More about that in a later post :p). Weather here in Boracay was great when we arrived, but we had a first taste of the wet season that has just begun today. Why else am I cooped up in an internet cafe? :)

Here are some more pics of our place. First up, a look at the kitchen area from two vantage points:

2006-06-22T20:16:00.000-07:00

I'm having a little idle time at the hotel before I check out. Here is The pic of me from before. Also, here's a pic from the London-Hong Kong flight, with John looking dazed beside me.

2006-06-22T20:07:00.000-07:00

Testing this function, and it seems to work. Sweet! These pics take a lot of time to upload to the university server, so I won't be showing all the pics of our new house here. However here is one I took of the outside view today. I'll have more pics for you later. Peace!

2006-06-22T10:06:00.000-07:00

Note: Will work on putting up pictures ASAP!

Making progress on the time adjustment front. Second night in the Philippines is coming up fast, and I’m feeling appropriately sleepy this close to midnight. Active day today. As was mentioned earlier, today was house-hunting day and, well… we saw houses all right! Right next to the Technopark, there are a number of subdivisions where you find houses at different price classes. We started with the high-end housing at what are called the Santa Rosa Estates I and II, where the prices range from between around 25,000 Philippine Pesos to the highest at 60,000, which is an exception - a house with an indoor swimming pool (see how much this is in your own currency Here). Not that it’s needed. The estates are closed off areas with excellent secutiry, and have a number of amenities – the standard tennis and basketball courts and swimming pool. Second-tier housing is to be found at the San Jose Village (Villages? I think there were two of them as well). Rental fees here range from just under 20,000 to 30,000 max. There are no public, shared amenities here, and the quality of housing here varies considerably. We passed by a couple of condemned houses even, cordoned off with yellow ‘Caution’ tape. They are not too keen on transients in both housing areas, which is to say people who are staying less than a year, but there were still quite a handful of places to look at. The Philippines IS a capital-starved country always on the lookout for a potential customer or two, and the real estate business is no different.

We started off early after a sleepless night and took a heavy breakfast at the hotel buffet - combined Philippine/European style where cereal, toast and omelets were on offer as well as Philippine breakfast specialties such as sweet-marinated pork with rice, and a noodle dish with vegetables and chicken. Tropical fruits of the season were also available. At 9 AM, we met up with a Vidian Centenos at the hotel lobby (not too sure about the spelling at all! But notice the Spanish-influenced names, which are quite common here although no one really speaks Spanish), who was the person our Sunpower contact arranged for us to have a look at houses. And off we went. Following along with us was a broker, a girl named Monet who apparently takes a 1/12 commission on any deal we make, although she was extremely valuable and I don’t think we could have seen the wide range of houses we saw without her. Pleasant to talk to as well.

House-hunting was made over two legs – from 9AM to 11 and from 2 PM to about 3 or 4ish. In between, there was a much needed nap and lunch break. This shit is energy-draining stuff! What really surprised me was how much I perspired like a pig in the heat while we were looking at homes. Seriously, I find this extremely odd – back when I used to live in the tropics as a kid the heat was not a problem at all, but now I’m sweating more than Jacob. Not acceptable, must take measures to acclimatize! I’m not dehydrating, however, I’m feeling quite healthy and the signs are good. My leg is fine too, btw. At any rate, as for the houses, all of them were two-storey units, almost all of them well over 100 square meters in living area. Some would include furnishing in the price, some wouldn’t.

Well, we settled on a house. Tomorrow we’re set to have a look at it one last time and then we can finalize matters. I’ll say more about it next time I blog and hopefully show you the pictures. It’s a house in the Santa Rosa Estate I and there will be plenty of space for a guest or two! Hint, hint!

House-hunting took its toll on the both of us and we dozed off in the hotel room for hours afterward until we couldn’t hold off the hunger anymore and needed fooding. This was about 8 PM. We were supposed to meet with our main Sunpower contact sometime late in the afternoon but he never came. He did show up on our way out, however, by coincidence. A note on who he is: Telesforo Alfelor, or ‘Boy’, is the Manufacturing Manager at Sunpower who is an old friend of the family and quite superhuman in his working ability, seriously. He was delayed because a family emergency suddenly popped up but despite that and the fact that he had been doing a 12-hour working day, he took that time to have a chat with Jacob and I and dealt with practical matters about our housing and vacation planning incredibly. I’m entirely at ease with Boy and I’m sure the traineeship will be great with him keeping an eye on us.

We have our short-term vacation plans settled. Tomorrow, after finalizing the housing, we check out of our hotel and head straight to the Boracay tourist resort via a bus down to Batangas (Wiki it!) and then a 10-hour ferry trip to the island where Boracay is at. Beaches, cervezas, sports and fun... Fuckin’-A! We’ll be brought to the bus by Boy’s son, a guy called Antonio (nickname ‘Nugget’) who is my age and went a class under mine in my 7 years in Indonesia during my childhood (this is where Boy’s family and mine go back, by the way). Looking forward to seeing him again!

The day was rounded off by Jacob and I eating out again. We had Filipino food this time, the local version of one of my favorite dishes that my mom sometimes makes – Pork Adobo, a traditional Philippine dish. It’s essentially pieces of pork cooked in a sauce that includes a lot of garlic, soy sauce and vinegar among other things, and eaten with rice. It was nice, but nothing beats momma’s cookin’!!!

We downed a handful of San Miguels at the same Mexican bar/restaurant we went to yesterday, a place called El Simon. The bare midriff girl is named Claudette, she’s 23 years old and very, very sweet. She expects gifts from us once we get back from Boracay, and I don’t suppose we’ll disappoint her ;)

Lights out. Catch you all on the flipside!

PS – Ma, I need the contact info for Jojo – he lives close to Boracay right? Thinking of dropping by. Also, the telephone number down to the family in Davao… could you perhaps call in advance and tell them I’ll be coming to visit sometime in July? Or should I do it? Love ya, catch ya later!

2006-06-21T13:38:00.000-07:00

Alright, so this next update is being written at 3 AM local time (jetlagged, can’t sleep, don’t ask), Thursday at a hotel so there have been a few developments since flying over Mongolia. We touched down about 15 hours ago. I didn’t manage to write anymore during the trip itself but trips are boring anyways. So, I’ve arrived safe and sound on Philippine soil and we have already been around seeing a lot of stuff here in this (hot and humid!) place. Let me skip what has happened since I touched down, however – I’d like to spend a moment to tell you that the most absolutely insane thing has happened to me here before I’ve even spent 24 hours in this place. I fell into an open manhole cover! For real. Shit like that only happens in cartoons, right? Nope. Take a developing country where they don’t bother to put up warning signs for stuff like that on the sidewalk, and there you go. One second I’m walking side by side with Jacob and talking, on our way to check out the shopping area close to our hotel, and the next second I’m suddenly below ground level from the shoulders down in a manhole, not really registering or believing what is happening to me. Right now my leg hurts. I slammed my shin into one of the ladder rungs when I fell in and I’m not quite too keen on running in this state. It could have been a LOT worse though. Imagine if my arms didn’t save me from falling all the way in! Jacob remarked that there was a long way down. Fuckfuckfuck, too scary to contemplate.

Well, there’s nothing quite better than something like that to bitchslap you into understanding that, yes, you are now in the Philippines. Welcome! In all honesty I feel more personally insulted than anything else, though. Stuff like this should happen to other people, not me, and now I’m not really in shape to do kitesurfing or any of the other things Jacob and I were thinking of looking into. No, I’m making it worse than it sounds, I walk with a limp but it’ll go away soon. I’m still psyched about doing shit here for a month and a half before our traineeship begins on August 1st.

What else happened, since we landed? We got picked up at the airport by a former classmate of my mom’s who is working at a research unit of the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources. So it’s real neat, we had a lot to talk about and she’s a friendly lady who had no problems taking us under her arm. A short note on her work – she’s currently doing research on the impact of GMO crops on biodiversity, and doing environmental assessments of the development of the Boracay tourist area. Sweet stuff – the GMO thing surprised me especially as I only originally thought that was something that worried us over at the EU. At any rate, she showed us this house that she had lined up for us as a possible place for Jacob and I to rent. Two-storeys, and with swimming pool, basketball and tennis facilities nearby. Not. Too. Bad. At. All.

Tomorrow we’re having a look at some more houses before we make a final decision. After we saw the house I just mentioned, we drove over to the Laguna Technopark Hotel, at the Laguna Technopark itself (an industrial estate) where Sunpower is located. Here we met our main contact at Sunpower and he gave us a tour of the area, pointing out all the good places. It seems Sunpower is a heavyweight in the Technopark. Area-wise, it occupies one of the largest plots of land. It employs around 1000 people and it is expanding production. 100% of their solar cell production goes to export sales, in markets like Germany. I’ll tell you more about Sunpower as I learn more about it, and if I feel I’m allowed to divulge the information ;)

To round off the day, Jacob and I had a couple of beers (try the Philippine local cerveza, amigos – San Miguel!) and went to the local shopping area where we had dinner for two for around 50 DKK, and that was on the expensive side so I’ve heard. Fuck… I’d better watch my weight while I’m here! Oh, funny thing about the Philippines is their aggressive marketing, hehe… outside where the bars and restaurants are lined up, fiiiiine-looking Filipina ladies have this thing where they all wave to you and call out, inviting you to come over and have your meal or drink at the establishment they work for. They sometimes work in groups, Jacob and I found out, surrounding you and showing you to your table whether you like it or not. I must confess, I suggested a Mexican restaurant after being charmed by a cute thing with a bare midriff I couldn’t take my eyes off.

Er, on that note, I guess I’ll stop it here. Stay tuned to this channel. My blogging will not be very regular as Jacob and I fuck around in this country to do some traveling, but I’ll keep you guys updated as much as I can. Talk to ya!!!

2006-06-21T11:05:00.000-07:00

Yoyoyoyo, what’s cracking, people?! So this is my first blog entry, written on June 20th (21st? I’m not sure anymore), somewhere above Mongolian airspace at 11125 meters above ground level, rocketing ahead at 579 km/h. At least that’s what the display screen in front of my seat says – might I just spare a word here for giving kudos to Cathay Pacific, the niftiest airline ever(!) with its in-flight entertainment and information system that makes the whole journey somewhat bearable. I won’t be able to send this out until we touch down in our final destination, unfortunately, so what you’ll be getting is a collection of the miscellaneous ramblings I will have accumulated along the journey. Might make for a fun read. Maybe. I take no responsibility for whatever the hell it is that pops into my head to write down.

The time is presently 7:54 Greenwich Mean Time, which is the only timeframe that even marginally makes sense I think. It means nothing to me. My body is confused. Airplanes have a way of lulling your senses and fucking them up, and I’m both wired and fatigued at the same time. Which is kind of weird, actually. You really want to be active and do something but not only do the physical limits of a metal cylinder with wings packed with people stop yourself from doing that- you also seem unable to get your lazy ass off your uncomfortable seat. I swear, they must be putting something in the recycled air.

While I’m typing away, I might as well introduce myself before I forget, for the benefit of the first-time readers out there who don’t really know me all that well, why the hell it is I’m doing a blog, and what is up with me going to the Philippines, my final destination. First off that’s me on this Pic during our stopover at London Heathrow. Quick run-down of my stats – I’m David Christensen, height 1.7 meters, 74 kilos, a Malay/Caucasian ethnic mix, also termed a Mestizo (need to set that straight for some guys out there who keep calling me a fucking Chinaman. I’m not Chinese! Okay???!!! Dudes, it’s like me calling you Frenchies frogs. Hurts my feelings, man :) ). I hail from Aalborg, Denmark, until quite recently – happen to study there, in fact. I just finished my fourth year of the Master of Science program in Environmental Management (see the Website). Why is that even marginally interesting? It’s the reason I’m headed off to da Phillies, besides me wanting to do the revisit my roots thing. As an integrated part of the study program, there is a semester set aside for a traineeship, and in that connection I’ll be undergoing training at Sunpowercorp in Biñan, Laguna, outside Manila (see the Website). Here I’ll be doing work implementing the ISO 14001 Environmental Management System. Some day I’ll tell you guys ALL about what it’s all about. But, ladies and gents, sorry to disappoint you but it won’t be here. I’m not bored enough to do THAT yet.

I travel with Jacob Rasmussen, sitting to my left watching American Idol on the in-flight system (WTF? He’s losing street cred with me). Tell you more about him later. He’s the guy I’ll be doing the traineeship with in the Phillies. To my right sits my big bro, John, currently playing a video game on his system, and sucking ass at it. John is traveling with us as far as Hong Kong, where he will be resuming his own traineeship in a toy company. He’ll be blessing us with his affable and pleasant presence until then.

Urgh. Laptop off. I’ll continue this later.