Siesta...

80% on Switching

2005-12-29T22:52:00.000-08:00

It seems that I am starting to like wordpress. For now my I will post there.

First post on my new blog

2005-12-27T05:11:00.000-08:00

Take a look at my initial post at WordPress.

One thing I did not like in WordPress is the editor is not as easy to use as Blogger's. I need to edit the html just to add a <br> tag.

Switching...

2005-12-24T02:09:00.000-08:00

I was thinking of switching to WordPress. It has one feature that blogger does not have. Categories.

The interface of WordPress is a bit cluttered though. But I think the category feature more than makes up for it.

Anime Birthdays

2005-12-23T01:04:00.000-08:00

My friend sent me the list of birthdays of anime characters and their voice actors/actresses.

Cool!

On exchange gifts and some other things

2005-12-22T18:35:00.000-08:00

Our exchange gifts last night was marred by the I want to have a GC(Gift Certicates) for Christmas fever. Exchange gifts does not look good when there are a lot of people wishing/giving gift certificates. It's too impersonal(although I am guilty of this myself for wishing/giving GCs). I actually had fun looking for the gifts. GCs are too easy.

So for next year, no more GCs!

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I have two Home album by The Corrs. One I received from as an exchange gift(thanks Sym!). The other I received from Cris(thanks!). I think Cris saw it when I was browsing Amazon.

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I just finished About a Boy(I received this one last week as an exchange gift) last Wednesday. Funny book. It's the story of Will Freeman who is hunting for single mothers to date and who in his hilarious search met a kid who changed his life. The book is also about losing other things to gain something.

A quote from the book:

There was no ulterior motive here. He didn't want to sleep with Fiona, but he did want her to feel better, and he hadn't realized that in order to make her feel better he had to act in exactly the same way as if he did want to sleep with her.

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I was so full yesterday! I had a buffet lunch at Saisaki/Dads with the CBIT team and had a seafood dinner with Supplier Portal.

Our Gift Certificates Sucks

2005-12-18T17:30:00.000-08:00

I just got my company gift certificates for Christmas. It sucks! Very limited coverage. No Powerbooks or National Bookstore and not even Tower Records.

Weekend Updates

2005-12-18T05:29:00.000-08:00

I got three books from exchange gifts. I received About a Boy by Nick Hornby, Neverwhere, and American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I got American Gods and Neverwhere because my friend Mario thought that he should buy all the items form the wish list. Thanks Mario!

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I saw Aldwin's Canon 350D and I was impressed. I love the ease of use of the manual controls and taking burst shots. Now I want to buy one as well. Either I buy the same model or a Nikon D50.

Money is a big problem though. It costs around 50k.

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Christmas is around the corner and yet I have a lot of work. Damn. My projects can go to hell but I'm not going with it.

Work + Christmas = Bad Combination

2005-12-11T02:24:00.000-08:00

It's nearing Christmas and I still have lots of things to work on. All I want to do right now is to do some Christmas shopping and attend every Christmas party.

Damn. I really hate work.

The Move

2005-12-04T02:27:00.000-08:00

The Guyver(my laptop) has landed in our new office in Ortigas last Friday. First reaction was the office was too far from the MRT station. Never mind the distance. But I would really do mind if it rains. There are no sheds nearby if you are in the middle of walking to the office.

The second gripe is the location of the office is that there is no shuttle(fx) from my place to the office. Damn. I need to board the bus and MRT everyday.

Pontifex

2005-12-04T02:15:00.000-08:00

If you want something done, do it yourself. And that is what we did. This week we formally started our side-project called Pontifex(I got the name from the book Cryptonomicon). Pontifex is an automated testing project. Our aim is to start automated testing in our work. We adopted a J2EE project and our goal is to design and build the automated testing suite of that project.

The project is a bit ambitious and time-consuming(since we will be doing that on top of our work) but if we won't step the first step in the right direction then who will?

Geek Gorgeous Calendar

2005-11-19T03:51:00.000-08:00

Something I found in Slashdot.

http://www.geekgorgeous.com/

It seems that most of the models are .Net programmers.

Doubts

2005-11-19T00:33:00.000-08:00

The week started right. It ended a bit flat. I was full of hope last Monday. On Friday I questioned my decisions.

I have two classes and a class to complete. I have three projects at work and side project that I really like to work on. I believe I can do it. Now doubt is quietly permeating my mind.

I am tired.

Leap

2005-11-12T19:05:00.000-08:00

I just watched Hitch the Date Doctor and I was quite amused with it("I am Michaelangelo and you are the Sistine Chapel"). The conversation that I like best is the last where Hitch told the girl(Sarah) that people leap hoping they can fly because otherwise they will fall just like a rock. As they are falling down they will ask themselves why they did jump.

There are some people, beliefs or ideas that make us make that leap and make us believe that we can fly. Whether we can fly or not remains to be seen. Fools rush in where angels feel to thread. Fools leap believing they can fly. Great feats are made by those who does not know that it is impossible.

This week I made a leap. The many things I want to do and the tons of work that I am obliged to do made me sleepless for a couple of days this week. Its as if I was given a choice. Is it work or do the things I wanted to do? I never made a choice. Somebody made me leap. Whether or or not I will fly remains to be seen.

I can't sleep

2005-11-08T10:49:00.000-08:00

New Blog

2005-11-05T00:58:00.000-08:00

I have a new blog! Since this blog is more of a personal blog I think I should move my more geeky(really geeky) commentaries to my other blog which I called Merienda.

Geek Week

2005-11-05T00:24:00.000-08:00

I took a week-long leave. Three out of five days of the week are holiday so I might as well take the week off.

Nothing significant happened with my week. I just made some little progress on my CS 298(Special Project) project and learned a little bit about Subversion and of course installed Kubuntu(apt rocks!). And of course I took a lot of rest.

I read Blink and Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. Tipping Point is about how small changes at the right time and at the right point can cause major changes or an epidemic. Blink on the other hand deals on instincts. Both are entertaining reads. I bought them last Monday and I finished Blink(I finished reading Tipping Point last Thursday) a while ago.

Shopping and breaking Kubuntu(again)

2005-10-31T06:59:00.001-08:00

I was about to continue studying the things I need to do for my project when my mom asked me to drive for her because she needs to do some business. I knew of course that we would go shopping after. So I rescheduled everything tomorrow.

I was able to buy books(Tipping Point and Blink) and now I am broke. Who am I to resist a 20% sale at Powerbooks.

After going home I almost broke my Kubuntu install again. This time around I have some trouble with System Settings. Its not that broke so I did not reformat it. I just posted on the forums.

Dabbling with Kubuntu

2005-10-30T02:13:00.000-08:00

Its been more than a year since I've really touched a linux system. I remember installing my very first installation and I was very happy when I was able to make the network printer work. It took me almost a day to figure that out.

After getting a job in Makati, I just touched my linux box once in a while. Since I have a long vacation and I have a project to do, I decided to reformat my Linux box. The last distro that I used was Mandrake 9.1. Now I'm trying the debian-based distribution Kubuntu.

For some weird reason Kubuntu could not set the refresh rate of my monitor correctly. I have no problem with my Mandrake 9.1. Apt was great though. Not perfect but great. My next set of problems was to compile the needed software for my project. It took me a day(I'm a Linux newbie when it comes to installations) and wrecked my first Kubuntu install.

After reformatting again I took a long time to figure out how to install the X library headers. After a string of hits and misses I finally found the answer. Just install the "x-window-system-dev" package.

Weekly Update

2005-10-29T08:34:00.000-07:00

Monday

Officemate: Are you available 6:30pm for a dinner at Amici tomorrow?
Me: Why Amici and why tomorrow?
Officemate: Alan! your mind stopped last October 20!
Me:(Shit! I forgot its her birthday tomorrow) Oh! I'm really sorry! I'm really bad at remembering birthdays.

I'm really bad at birthdays. No joke!

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Thursday

The Software Engineering Professsion Manila Chapter was launched at last! We started at around four or five members initially then expanded to around ten before the launch. I hope we can get more active members for our software projects.

The reason why I'm really sad yesterday

2005-10-21T19:56:00.000-07:00

It was her last day yesterday or at least the last time I would have seen her since today is her flight back to Thailand. I did not really talked that much to her this week. Communication was really one of my weak points and this week it really showed. Aside from that, they are working most of the time and my work is different from hers. I am not even part of the meeting. I just attended because she is there. And indirectly because of that I am now piled up with work. But I have no regrets. Seeing her is much more important.

3 Bad Things on a Friday

2005-10-21T19:16:00.000-07:00

There are three things that happened yesterday that made my friday real bad.

The first one is that our pet cat died. Leilo as we fondly called him was found dead by my brother outside our house. The origin of Leilo is quite unique. He is not your usual cat that just went into your home. He is adopted by our previous pet cat, Mimi. Mimi hide him in one of our storage room so he will not be killed by our dogs. Yes, our dogs are cat killers. But they do bury them afterwards.

When we found him he is very thin and not accustomed to bright lights. We thought he was a girl so we named him Leila(after Leila Barros). We just renamed him Leilo when we found out that he was a boy. Leilo was a medium built cat. He does not look like the usual cats in the street. He is a bit bulkier. He does not know how to catch mice, which makes him a bit useless in my opinion. But he is really cute.

The second thing is the organizational announcement that was made by our boss. I will now be reporting to a different manager. It's not that i don't like my new manager. I just hate the feeling that I will be leaving my team. Although functionally I don't really belong to them since I usually work on different projects, I will surely miss the customs and traditions in my team.

The third thing deserves a post of its own.

Suddenly hearing love songs in the air...

2005-10-16T07:50:00.000-07:00

I saw her again today. After my missed chance of seeing her the last time, I really did miss her. It shows. Everytime there is a car going to the hotel's driveway, my heart skips thinking that it might be her.

I really like her. I know that what I feel right now will bear to nothing. She lives in another country and worst of all she has a boyfriend.

Right now I just want to enjoy this week. It might be the last time that I will be seeing her. She will be moving to another project soon.

Ugly Jerk

2005-10-16T07:47:00.000-07:00

I was recently pissed off when one of my friends called me or rather put me in the list of ugly jerks just because I can't attend one of our gimiks. I know that I am not attending a birthday party and I know that I missed some of our gimiks but in terms of attendance I am a bit better than some of my friends.

Being labeled as an ugly jerk is a bit extreme. All I did was miss a barkada gimik and the reason is quite valid(work).

Owned!

2005-10-09T04:32:00.000-07:00

I crammed for my final exams yesterday. Notes in hand, I reviewed in SBC with Jerms. Seven hours after numerous caffeine intake we went to the department and found our classmates not that worried about the exam. They are even ready to demo their MP to our prof and one was still working on his MP and not studying at all.

The exam was not that hard. The problem is I lacked preparation. I was thinking of what happened to us(since Jerms is also suffering the same laziness as I am). Back then it would have been unimaginable that we are not prepared for an exam. With the amount of preparation we made, we would have failed if this is an undergrad course.

Twilight

2005-10-04T05:29:00.001-07:00

For some days now I was doing my Lisp to Java converter. It is my project in my one and only one class. I was trying to implement the lambda function and could not find a way to do it. While browsing the net for a solution I came upon this.

The guy just wrote a Lisp interpreter in Javascript in one night and I was working on it for some days now. Makes me wonder if I am really that good.

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I still can't get enough of Itoh Misaki, the female lead of Densha Otoko.

Saori-sama!

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I have been listening to the OST as well. I love Twilight by Electronic Light Orchestra!

2005-10-04T05:29:00.000-07:00

Train Man

2005-10-01T07:26:00.000-07:00

I'm currently into mangas/dramas with loser-type guy who in one miracle or another finds love. Right now I'm watching Densha Otoko(aka Train Man). Densha Otoko is a story of an otaku who saves a beatiful lady from a drunk in a train. After two days the girl gave him a gift. Not knowing what to do he narrated his problems to a forum and people who see themselves in Densha helped.

The series was really funny and heart warming. You will see Densha in his adventures and misadventures and how his Internet friends help him get through. The series is also about being honest about yourself. Being an otaku/nerd/geek surely would not make you famous with girls. But if that is what you are can you live otherwise?

100%

2005-09-24T19:10:00.000-07:00

I was quite sick yesterday. I have a slight cold and its raining outside. I skipped the basketball game and just decided to concentrate on my machine problem.

It was after lunch and I still don't feel like working yet so I slept for two hours. After waking up I had my snacks then tried again to work. Still out of focus I decided to read a few chapters of Ichigo 100%.

It has a silly plot. A loser student director wannabee climbed up the school's roof to watch the sunset. Upon opening the door, a beautiful girl with strawberry panties(yes strawberry underwear plays a LARGE part in this manga) fell down on him. The beautiful girl ran away after falling down. He found a notebook in the roof and decided to return it. It turned out that the notebook belongs to their class nerd.

He is a bit dissappointed that he could not find the girl since he wants to film the girl with the strawberry panties. His friends think that the girl is probably the school's "crush ng bayan". It turned out its not the girl either, though that girl also wears strawberry panties. Wanting to film the scene badly and knowing that she can't make her film the scene without her being his girlfriend, he decided to confess his love.

The class nerd told him of a silly plan on how to confess. It worked. The class nerd was watching in the bushes when suddenly the wind blows her hair. She was that girl from the roof after all. The dilmemna of the protagonist started there. The next volume involved him meeting other beatiful and sexy girls liking him very much.

It's a silly plot but sometimes I can't help enjoying the manga. Fan services aside, I can't help relate to the main character. The character is a loser. I'm also a loser. The only difference is that he is a very lucky loser. Imagine, beatiful girls liking him that much!

He also has inferiority complex. Although he knew that they really like him, he sometimes feel that they are better off with someone other than a loser like him. The girls who like him have numerous suitors following them around and he can't help but compare. The problem is he never saw what makes him click with the girls until the end.

Stubborn

2005-09-11T05:18:00.000-07:00

I am so stubborn sometimes that I ended up not doing anything or wasting my time. Take for example yesterday. I was burning my anime collection when suddenly I was having CRC errors on my burns or sometimes the burning fails.

After some attempts I am still at it, trying every conceivable settings. The only time I stopped when I have no media to test anymore. Almost 10 DVD-R wasted. Sheesh.

Wasting DVD-R blanks is forgivable. But I also wasted time that should have been spent working(I need to finish a deadline on a weekend) or studying.

Lack of stamina

2005-09-06T02:34:00.000-07:00

The company's sportfest is near and we had first basketball practice yesterday. Unfortunately I played badly. I lack stamina. I can't run for more than 2 lenghts of the court without running out of air.

I'm planning to join the next round of practices. I really need to improve my stamina. With a talent-laden team there is good chance that I might not get that much playing time.

Tita Annie's 50th Birthday

2005-08-28T05:43:00.000-07:00

I went to my Tita Annie's surprise 50th birthday last night. It was sponsored by his brother Tito Rudy.

It was not the party to end all parties. But it is a party that I will remember.

It took almost a year to prepare. Dance number practices are rehearsed in secret. My Tita Annie's friends were interviewed also in secret for their birthday messages. The whole family was involved except the birthday celebrant.

The invitation was sent a month before the celebration. Calls were made to ensure the attendance. There was coercion and an ultimatum: "magsaulian na ng kandila kung di kayo magpunta". My Tito Rudy arrived a week before the celebration. He checked-in in a hotel and orchestrated the surprise from there.

When my Tita Annie arrived at the place she was crying. She saw familiar faces that became part of her life. All were there at her 50th birthday.

It was not the food, not the venue nor the dance numbers that I will remember. It is that grand gesture.

Parties are usually characterized by overflowing liquor. This party beats them all. Love overflowed.

Doing a lot of geeky things lately...

2005-08-28T05:31:00.000-07:00

I have been spending the last few weeks playing Guildwars. That is one of the few reasons why I haven't blogged for a long time. Currently level 18 and playing again as an elementalist(mage).

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My paper on my Advanced Programming Language class is a comparison between Java and C++ generic programming. I wrote my paper using latex! I was so damn curious why many people like it. I also like the format and the font.

I wrote my paper in a span of five days. I think I lost one and a half day fooling around with latex especially finding a way on how to format my source code. I used the listings package(thanks Neil!) and hacked it a little(changed Listings to Figure) to do what I want. I used MiKTeX and Texnic Center(have to thank Riza for recommending this great tool).

Grand-daddy of sci-fi

2005-08-06T06:06:00.000-07:00

I've been reading books by HG Wells for the last few weeks. Although it is way far from the current crop of sci-fi books today, it is still worth reading.

So far I have read the Invisible Man, The Island of Dr. Moreau and Time Machine. Moving on to War of the Worlds!

Waiting for Eclipse to Update

2005-08-01T06:49:00.000-07:00

I am currrently writing this while waiting for eclipse plugins to install. I set-up my eclipse in such a way that plugins are stored in a different directory. I really find it annoying that it is very hard to upgrade eclipse because I have to re-install all plugins manually.

I really miss those days when all I have to do is to reconfigure and reinstall. Heck, never was a time that I never reformat for more than six months.

BTW I found the steps of how to install eclipse plugins in a different location here

Weekend Break

2005-07-17T02:19:00.000-07:00

Finally my Guild Wars serial number arrived! After working almost non-stop and being stressed from work, a weekend spent just playing is just what the doctor ordered.

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3-0 na ang UP! Sana tuloy tuloy na!

Justice

2005-07-10T03:23:00.000-07:00

The Catholic Bishop's Conference of the Philippines(CBCP) declared this afternoon that they will not demand the resignation of GMA. I believed that this is a good move by the bishops. The opposition after all did not exhaust all constitutional means to take GMA out of the presidency.

Guilty or not guilty I like to have a constitutional solution to this problem. If Gloria steps down and she is guilty then there will be no justice.

Finally I was able to blog again...

2005-07-09T06:17:00.000-07:00

After two weeks of non-stop work I finally have a break.

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Yesterday I presented my learnings on my latest project. My aim was twofold. The first one is to share how I managed to finish the project despite the unrealistic deadline and not so clear requirements. My solution was to create a website generator by using FreeMarker. Later I revised the templates to generate the ASP.Net web pages and code behind.

My second aim was to stress the importance of technical skills. I really find it strange that for an IT company we don't put that much importance on technical skills. It is as if they can survive with just management skills and contracting things out.

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I just finished The Mythical Man Month today! I'm really thinking of giving a copy of this book to my bosses.

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I'm trying to work this Saturday and as usual I can't. After working nonstop the last few days I think I finally reached my bodily limits. Might as well sleep and "try" to work tomorrow.

You know you are busy when...

2005-06-25T06:33:00.000-07:00

You start to think that you need to rest for a day so you can do more work.
You start to think Sunday as a warm-up day for Monday.

Staying home..

2005-06-22T16:59:00.000-07:00

I will be working from home today. I'm too tired to commute. I guess going to and coming home from my night classes while carrying Guyver(my laptop) is making me real tired.

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I got my second book this week! I have my teammate buy me Refactoring to Patterns, which was delivered last week, and another teammate to buy me Applying UML and Patterns. Although the two books alone cost me a lot of money I think its a good buy. Its hardbound and the reviews are very good.

Geek porn!

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Our lecture yesterday was about Prolog programming. I'm not good at Prolog or any functional programming languages, except SQL of course. At least I am good at one functional language.

What I like about functional programming is that they are more elegant than procedural languages.

Happy Father's Day

2005-06-19T05:59:00.000-07:00

My father had been asking me to go out for the last few weeks. Since it is Father's day I obliged this week. I have a lot of things to do but those things can wait.

My father is a paralytic. He had polio when he was in grade 5 and he can't walk since then. He was able to finish high school but was not able to finish college. He is an activist and since it was martial law during those years, my grandparents made him stop.

He was able to marry(although my mom claims that he used gayuma) have children and live a fairly normal life.

One of the things that I will never forget about my father is when he was tutoring us when we were in grade school. He will translate English stories from our books to Tagalog on the fly. He reads it only once then he can translate it line by line.

He is also a good writer. He can write well in English and in Tagalog. In fact he checks my work for grammatical errors and make suggestions on how to improve my writing.

I got my love of books from him. Everytime we go out he will buy a book or two. And being a smart son that I am I will join him in his trip to National bookstore so my book purchases will also be free.

So off we went to the mall this morning and bought our books!

Saturday Rants

2005-06-17T18:28:00.000-07:00

I'm very sad that I was not included in trip to Thailand. Sure my role is not that important and the only reason I want to go there is personal but still I can't help being sad.

It is the second time I was denied. And their reason for not letting me travel is that I have 0.5 allocation for the project?!? Hello!!! When was I a 100% on any project!

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I have been reading The Mythical Man Month for a week now. This is one of the books that every software engineer and especially software manager should read. If this book just costs 500 PHP i might give one to every manager on our floor.

You know you are busy when..

2005-06-12T20:32:00.000-07:00

You have not watched last week's episode of Gundam Seed Destiny
You have not reformatted your Windows box for more than 6 months
You have not cleaned your PC(motherboard, videocard etc..) for more than a year

Unexpected things on my weekend

2005-06-12T06:32:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to work this weekend but due to unfortunate circumstances I was not able to work that much. I found out that the images that I needed was not emailed to me.

The good thing is I enjoyed my weekend a little bit.

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I got 2 MYMP CDs from my teammates as a birthday gift.

Thanks!

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My mom woke me up a bit early this morning. She said that my grandfather needs to go to his sister. My grandfathers legs has gone stiff from arthritis. Though he can still drive my mom was afraid of him driving so she asked me to drive for him.

Since I won't be working that much I said yes. Family after all is more important.

Birthday Rant

2005-06-10T20:43:00.000-07:00

I was working last year when the clock struck twelve. It was officially my birthday and I was working overtime.

After a year the same thing happened. It is my birthday and a saturday at that and I will be spend my day working.

Damn!

Online/Offline

2005-06-04T19:56:00.000-07:00

I said that I need to do something.

She said its ok.

I came back some minutes later.

Then its her turn to excuse herself.

I said ok and asked her to let me know when she comes back.

I plunged myself on some other things. Things that are important. Things that matter.

I waited for her message but it did not come. She might be doing something important so I continue what I am doing and tried not to disturb her.

After some time I noticed that she was completely gone.

Then and there I learned how important she is.

Turning Point

2005-06-03T19:35:00.000-07:00

One of the hardest thing in a software project is customer management. You have written the specifications and all of those things and yet the customer will always find a way to make you do this and that. You can't always say no since you need to make them happy. Most of the time I just pad the estimates. If they don't add something then I'm happy. If they do then at least I will have the time to finish it.

The rush project that I am working on is a ticking time bomb. I have other projects to think about, my allocation is too low thus I can't pad and customers are a little bit demanding. I knew it would come to this and I warned them about this. But they would not listen and still they went on with the project and gave it to me.

I felt that I was fed to the lions. I felt betrayed. I never felt so lost these past few days. I am crumbling. Everything now is going so wrong.

I can still survive. I always do. But I don't know if the respect and trust that I have to my superiors will still remain.

I have been their loyal soldier, fighting in the frontlines and in the trenches when called. Now I am a mercenary, working for money.

Friday Disaster

2005-05-29T06:38:00.000-07:00

Last Friday was a disaster.

I was not supposed to work on one of my projects and yet I spent the whole day working for that project because of certain issues.

I have loads of work to do and I don't know how will I manage them and yet my boss added some more work to me.

Our IM was down and I cannot chat.

Sheesh!

Detachment and attachment

2005-05-24T07:28:00.000-07:00

I just watched Star Wars yesterday and one of the Jedi teachings that was emphasized in the movie is the concept of detachment. To become truly selfless a Jedi must detach himself from all things. That is why I think Jedis are trained at a really young age.

That is one of the flaws of Anakin. Since he was trained at a relatively old age he developed an attachment to other people. This influenced his judgement on many things and eventually led to his downfall.

But attachment is also what saved Anakin eventually. It was Luke's belief in his father that led to his redemption. It was Luke's attachment to his friends and to his family that saved the galaxy.

Losing it

2005-05-22T00:43:00.000-07:00

I was trying to use the new build of the spring framework for .Net. But unfortunately I can't seem to make it work. I almost spent a whole day trying to know why it won't work when it's just a simple upgrade.

In my former configuration i wrote it like this:

on the new release it should be...

<object name="..." type="...." >

I never noticed it in the examples and I actually spent a whole day making my code work. I'm really losing it.

Some random thoughts while learning a foreign language...

2005-05-21T07:11:00.000-07:00

I was trying to learn a foreign language when something struck me. When learning a foreign language there are usually two words that someone would like to know. The first one is how to say "I love you". The other one is how to curse in another language. Just musing around with the thought that this might lead to knowing a person's personality or at least gain an insight to a person by just knowing what does he/she prefers to know first.

Weddings are for cynics

2005-05-21T06:48:00.000-07:00

I attended my friend's wedding today. He only told me last wednesday. He began with the text, "May gagawin ka ba ng sabado?". Which I replied, "Meron. Bakit?". He then replied "Ikakasal na ako sa sabado. Sana makapunta ka.".

I was supposed to do something on Saturday but a wedding happens only once(at least most of the time). So I decided to go to the wedding. The wedding is simple and small. Only immediate relatives and close friends were invited. Counting myself, there are only three of his high school friends there.

There is something sweet with weddings. May it be simple or extravagant, civil or church, the simple exchange of "I do's" can turn any cynical and jaded person believe that there is love.

DSL disconnection blues

2005-05-20T18:33:00.000-07:00

This week I was trying to solve my DSL disconnection issues. My former setup was I put splitters on every extension that we have. Telephone lines are embedded into our house. My mom would never let me run cables around the house.

What I did was connect the main line to my room and have it pass through the splitter. I then connect the phone jack of the splitter to the phone jack reserved for my second phone line(we have a reserve phone line just in case we want another phone). I connected the second phone line to the other phone line previously connected to the main line. I redirected the main line of our second phone to the other jacks.

The connection is a lot better this time though I experience some disconnects once in a while. One funny thing is that everytime I turned on the shower I get disconnected. The electrical wiring of the shower must be really close to our phone lines.

Bumming around

2005-05-20T02:48:00.000-07:00

I am working from home today. I need to report my DSL to PLDT. I am getting disconnected all the time. There is a relaunch party in our office and I don't want to attend. Sometimes I get sick and tired of those motivational and propaganda speeches. All talk but no action.

The party will last for three hours. Sheesh! The only thing that will make me regret attending the party is food and because my friends will watch StarWars episode 3 after the party.

Good thing there is freemarker to amuse me while I'm at home.

Going Back

2005-05-14T02:10:00.000-07:00

For two weeks now I have been working for 3 days. The last time there was a holiday on Monday(May 2) and I had my vacation leave on that Friday. This time around I phoned in sick last Monday and Thursday.

I have many problems the last few weeks. It ranges from my inability to finish my CS298 project, or to my inability to start working on it, my lack of motivation regarding work and some disdain on work policies. I am spiritually and mentally sick.

The good thing is there is still a place for me to go back to. Aside from home there is another place to refresh my spirit. So I packed my digital camera and off I go to Freshmen Enlistment 2005 to meet old friends.

Stepping out of the car, I already felt the familiar chaos of the freshmen enlistment. Parents with their kids, OUR personnels working on last minute preparations and the CRS team tweaking the software and fixing some computers.

The OUR personnels greeted me warmly and the CRS team happily welcomed me. It was so good to be back. For the whole day I just took pictures and chatted with my friends. Before going home I promised them I will be back on thursday.

Thursday was busier. There are more students that day. The people are busier so what I did was reflect on things. Why am I feeling this way? Why I am so demotivated? Why I am not good as before?

I also notice a few different things in me. Compared back then I was more timid now. I don't exhibit the same energy. My eyesight is also getting bad. I can't even spot pretty girls the way I used to. My aggresiveness is not there. I terribly lack it. I do not plan anymore as much as I use to. I take what life gives me right now and just accept it. I lost that cynical attitude and grew naive on how the world works. I started to believe in mushy things. I am very much different right now. Perhaps because I tried to be someone who I can never be. Going back to familiar places and situations, I saw the person that I really am and should be.

A Mother's Love

2005-05-07T03:22:00.000-07:00

Last week while I was sleeping I was waken up by the sound of dogs and cats. My dogs have caught their prey again. Lazily I stood up to look at the cat my dogs had killed. Initially I thought it was our cat. But looking closely, the cat that was being bitten by our dog was small. Looking at the wall our cat was there ready to spring into action. Surprisingly another cat was beside the dogs. It was one of our cat's girlfriend. It must be his child the dogs are killing. It was dangerous and yet she was filled with concern for her child. She later left knowing that she could not do anything. It was heartbreaking. In any case it only affirmed my belief in a mother's love for her offspring. It does not exists only in humans but in other species as well. If there are some things that are constant in this world like the concept of right or wrong, justice and truth, a mother's love for her offspring is one of them.

Happy Mother's Day!

Battery Charging

2005-05-02T06:30:00.000-07:00

I tested my digicam;s continous shooting capability. I drained my batteries in the process. I charged my batteries in the charger. Four hours later it was fully charged. I turned the charger off then turned it on again. The weird part is it charged again. This time it only charged for about 30 minutes. I don't know why. At first I thought that my charger is time based. But the battery charged for only 30 minutes before it charged in trickle mode(just to refresh the battery).

Coding

2005-05-01T19:15:00.000-07:00

Gusto mo bang mag-code habang buhay?

This was the question of my manager when we had our one on one meeting. Of course I cannot code forever. Eventually I will tire out around when I am around 35-40. I would have other things to do then like taking care of my kids(assuming i get married).

I was tempted to answer yes. As an (software)engineer and a computer scientist I want to explore the breadth and depth of my field. I don't believe that much in the holistic approach. You can be a well rounded individual even if you are a specialists. I doubt if you can find that much of people that has the genius of Leonardo da Vinci who is good at everything. I believe in developing your other skills but you have to be at least be very good at something.

Slowing down

2005-05-01T18:30:00.000-07:00

It's a good thing that today is a non-working holiday. I have three straight days to rest. I currently have some sort of a sleeping problem. I seem to wake up after six hours of sleep even if I don't need to wake up early.

A long weekend can give me a chance to slow things down and go back to my more sleepy self. The mental fatigue seems to be piling up and I have a hard time relaxing.

The great Popeman!

2005-04-10T04:08:00.000-07:00

This is a little bit blasphemous:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7394352/

Bribe from Heaven

2005-04-10T02:21:00.000-07:00

There are some things that you should not be talking about if you do not want to go to an instant argument with someone. Three topics would be national language, religion and the existence of God. If you are in a party try talking about one of those three things and you would surely have someone to argue with, unless of course you are in fairly homogenous crowd.

If you can't avoid talking about those things, at least avoid the third. Atheists are usually touchy on that topic and will make the most passionate arguments. Browse at some forums having those topics and you know what I am talking about. I try not to argue on that subject either. It is faith versus logic.

I am a man of science. I do not believe in magic. I am a skeptic and would not believe easily unless there is a proof or at least it is scientifically proven. But I do believe in God. I believe that he exists. I have faith.

Actually I have a silly explanation why He exists. Here it goes.

I am not workaholic. I only work overtime if I really like what I am doing. Otherwise I will just work my usual hours. Reality is most of the time I will be working on something uninteresting. Most of the time I will be forced to make those silly overtimes. I hate every minute of it. The only reason I am doing overtime is because I need to earn to feed myself. But there are times when i am too tired that the "i need to earn" reason will not suffice. After all the worst thing that can happen is that I will be fired. A broken body and spirit is not worth keeping a job for.

At that point, when I really need to do something and my spirit and body is opposing it, that divine intervention will happen. When I am at the brink of just giving up, an instant message from one of my crush(yes I have many) will pop up on my screen, or I will see someone I like in the most unusual timing and talk to her. Clearly it is a bribe from heaven. It is as if someone from above is making fun of me and saying "Told you it will make him work".

It is a very silly explanation but during those times I really feel God. I can feel Him puling me from when I am about to give up.

Getting Serious

2005-04-09T19:02:00.000-07:00

There are some things that changed this week. First is that I will be leading two people in a project. I have lead before and I know I have the capability to lead. This time it is different. The environment, clients and my team is different. Back then I am leading a bunch of geeks. It is a homogenous team. Right now one is the same type as me(a geek) the other is not. Our customers right now are not the department personnel whom I can easily talk to(they are also hard to talk to initially but if you can charm them...) but people who needs to have their problems resolved quickly or else money will be lost. The environment is also a lot hell different in terms of working hours, office policies and the expectations of the bosses.

Today I will be reading those slides to give me a good overview of our project and will be reading the One Minute Manager.

The second thing that changed is that I am getting a bit pissed off by our software engineering practices at the office. I know we can still make things better. We are instituting changes in our team but I think changes should be spread to other teams as well. I do not believe in CMMI that much. After seeing a horrible code of a CMMI level 5 company my view of CMMI was verified. Most of the time I will just be a passive observer. Right now I will stand up and institute change. There are still a lot of geeks in the office who feels the same and I believe I can rouse them to action. It will be the return of the geeks(the Agile kind).

A number of things to say..

2005-04-02T23:25:00.000-08:00

I went to my cousin to retrieve some of my anime CDs that he borrowed. While he was looking around for them I browsed at his book collection. Lo and behold! My starwars trilogy book was in his shelf. I thought this book was lost in the floods four year ago.

Lucky!

----------------------------

This week was so exhausting both physically and mentally. I had two production cutovers. The first one went well the second one is not that well. I have a three day meeting and I need to manage releases and change some of the web pages. I have been sleeping almost 4-5 hours on the average. I feel so bad that I can't drink my normal dose of coffee(I had to settle for Starbucks since Seattles is stronger and more acidic).

I was almost at my limits, both physically and mentally. The good thing is there is something that I look forward to during those days.

There was this cute Thai girl that I liked. I can't quite say if she is pretty. I usually don't try my senses if I'm too tired. I guess its her confidence and the way she turns her eyes are the things that I liked about her.

Right now I can't do anything. I try to do my project but i can't. I am too damn tired to do anything. My body still can't recover from the sheer exhaustion. Most of all I miss her.

----------------------------

I am having my gadget lust again. I have been staring at digital camera reviews for the last few days. I want to buy a Canon A95 or an S60.

----------------------------

I visited Carla and her daughter Pia yesterday. I really didn't plan to but Mario said he will visit her so I tagged along. After working and working for the last few weeks and missing a gimik or two it's nice visiting and talking to your friends once in a while.

I have changed for the last 3 years. I learned that there are more important things than work and money. It's useless throwing your life away working unless it's for a worthy cause. There is more to life than working.

When I went to work in the industry there is a great difference in my feelings for work. Back then I will kill myself just to finish our project. I would have almost sacrificed anything for the love of UP, for the students and for those who believed in our group.

I left the job because I am not programming that much anymore. I am slowly becoming a full time manager. There is also no carreer path in that job. The only thing that kept me from leaving a long time ago is the feeling of serving others. When I left I sensed some sort of emptiness in my heart.

I almost said its right in front of me

2005-04-02T07:26:00.000-08:00

She asked me if I might want to catch up with the rest of the gang instead of going with them shopping.

And I blurted quickly that I don’t want to join up with the rest because it might be too late to join them. I wanted to say that it’s really her that I wanted to go with.

Later as we go around the mall she asked me if I was hungry.

I said not that much. My stomach was complaining but I wanted her to enjoy her stay more. She will be gone in less than an hour. I eat so slow that her time might be wasted waiting for me to finish my food.

As she was shopping she asked if I was looking for something in particular.

Some minor rant

2005-03-19T15:42:00.000-08:00

I felt good today. I got my more than usual dose of sleep. I worked till 2 AM on Friday and had dinner and played Half Life 2 up to 3AM on Saturday. I did not sleep that much when I got home. People on our house have a bad habit of waking me up in the morning.

The good feeling never lasted for long. I realized that I have a lot of things to finish. But of course I would not sacrifice my weekly basketball game with my brother and Manny Pacquiao's match today. I have been working a whole week and I deserve those things. I have to make time for those little luxuries.

Five years ago(or is it six?), I would have sacrificed many things just to finish what I need to do. That is how I think back then. This time around I have things that I should do and other things can wait. I don't want to grow old and realize that what I have done in my life is work. I could have sacrificed many things for my acads but not work. Acads most of the time can stimulate your mind while work most of the time numbs it.

Enough rambling. Back to work.

Haay

2005-03-12T18:57:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to the wedding of my cousin. During the wedding my parents chatted with the husband of their friend. One of the subjects they talked about was sending your childrend to study masteral degrees in the US and letting them work there for a year and going back here to work as a manager and earning tons of money. The husband of their friend told them the amount needed for going to school and he claimed in three years the cost would be recouped.

This morning my morning told me, "Maghanap ka nga ng papasukan na eskwelahan sa US. Popondohan ka namin". I don't know if my mother is serious or not. If they have given me this offer after I graduated I would have no apprehension. But right now I doubt if I still have the energy to pursue a masteral degree abroad. I can't even finish my MS in CS here because of work. And if I ever go back here, I will be in a managerial position. A position that I most likely would not like.

The Elegant Universe

2005-03-06T01:55:00.000-08:00

Finally! I finished reading The Elegant Universe. I fondly call this book "String theory for dummies". Although it is written to be understood by non-physicist it still very hard to understand. I bought this a year ago and finished it just now. I haven't been reading it religously. Acads, work and some other more interesting books made this a low priority book. It's only some months ago that I made an effort to finish this. I reread some part to have a better understanding of general relativity and quantum mechanics.

One of the more "interesting" concepts in this book is the concept of supersymmetry. Briefly, supersymmetry, or at least from what I understand of it, states that if this particle exists, a partner particle must also exists. It is an aesthetical theory. It relies on the assumption or the observation that the universe has an elegant design. When Einstein was asked if the theory of general relativity was not verified by Eddington's experiment he replied, "Then I would be sorry for the dear Lord, for the theory is correct." The author, Briane Greene, commented that in Einstein's view general relativity is too beautiful not to be true.

What I really find funny is that even in the realms of physics there is a concept of aesthetics.

My Bestfriend's Wedding Announcement

2005-02-27T05:37:00.000-08:00

I was surprised when my bestfriend told me that she was getting married and she is three months pregnant.

My bestfriend is three months pregnant, getting married and its only now that I know. It's not her fault that I don't know. I was after all, was out of touch.

We really are weird. I am the silent type, she is not. I am a nerd, she is cool. I use my head most of the time, she uses her heart. That is why a lot of people, both of us included, are surprised that we actually get together easily.

She always has this on and off relationship with her boyfriend then. When they are in the off state, she will be with me. I would always kid her that she is only there when they are quarreling. She would sometimes answer me that I was only there when I need her advice regarding my love life(or the non-existence of it).

College came, lot of new friends a new life and tons of homework. The nerd that I am, I prioritized homework. Months and years came without contact. I finished college and still no contact. It is only some years after that we talked again. I found her because of friendster. We me and wonders of wonders she just broke off with her boyfriend(not the same one I mentioned earlier). We remain in contact for some days then one weird day she said that she needs to go away. I don't know why I just said: "ok". We never talked to each other again. Until I saw her online in YM and said hello and she broke the news.

Reading Rampage

2005-02-26T03:24:00.000-08:00

I am on a reading rampage! I finished Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind last Thursday, read about 25 chapters of Hellblazer(Constantine) and finished Survivor's Quest(a Star Wars novel written by Timothy Zahn).

I hope I will be on a working rampage soon!

Famous Leader

2005-02-21T19:26:00.000-08:00

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Classic Movie

2005-02-21T19:14:00.000-08:00

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Disconnected

2005-02-19T17:50:00.000-08:00

I feel very disconnected the last few days. My connection to the universe is broken, much like a Jedi inside the Force bubble of an ysalamir. Without the connection to the Force, a Jedi is almost useless. Without my connection to the universe, I find it hard to do things.

Giga-Guyver Launch!

2005-02-12T18:34:00.000-08:00

I upgraded my RAM to 1GB last Wednesday. For some months now I find my lack of RAM irritating. So last Wednesday I finally purchased that 512MB Kingston ValueRam. So far so good. No crashes or whatever.

More than an increase in performance, there is also an incrase in rapport between my laptop and me. After I opened it and personally put the RAM in it, I feel that I knew my laptop more.

Another weekly update

2005-02-12T18:25:00.000-08:00

I went out with my barkada last night. We ate our dinner at Dampa Libis courtesy of the birthday celebrants for November, December, January, February and January. It's bad though that we never had the time to watch Phantom of the Opera.

Right now work seems to be getting in the way of my life. So much for work life balance. I also have not been able to finish what needs to be done this week because of those unscheduled estimation tasks that I have to do. I needed to skip a day to rest my body and recover a bit of my sanity. Missing deadlines is not a good feeling after all, especially if you are consistently missing them.

On the good side of things, our team had its team building session last Thursday and Friday. I got to know my teammates better and gained a bit of insight on their personalities. I also learned a thing or two from Tina, our facilitator, about fine dining.

Ginebra won the championship! Too bad that I went home late from the team building session that I failed to watch it.

The tale of a 76 Pesos pint of strawberry ice cream

2005-02-07T21:13:00.000-08:00

She asked if it was mine. I replied affirmatively. She then demurely took a couple of scoops. And at that moment, something started.

I was going home and there she was at the elevator. We chatted a little bit. She asked me my job. I replied. And at that moment, the elevator went down.

As we got out of the building, she said goodbye and flashed her pretty smile. I also said goodbye and just sighed. And at that moment, it ended.

What is the price of happiness? What is the price of dreaming?

Siesta

2005-02-07T20:55:00.000-08:00

I always have the habit of not putting my email in their proper folders and then sorting them out later on. I did learn a few techniques like you should first sort them by name first since email of the same person will always belong to the same category. I also learned that I should do it in the early afternoon or during team meetings. Its usually at those time that I am not productive anyway.

While I do my usual cleaning of my inbox, I fell asleep. I did not mind that the bosses are meeting in the conference room next to my workspace. The aircon is cold, I slept late and woke up early and no coffee in my system for the last 3 hours. The perfect condition for a siesta.

Siesta is one of those things that I took for granted when I was a kid. I really hate sleeping in the afternoon back then. I started to appreciate it when I was in college and especially when I started to work. I appreciated it when sleep became a luxury.

More than sleeping, siesta is a quick way to reboot your system. It's a pause from the maddening pace of work. It's a way to reflect on what happened on first half of the day and to plan for the next half. Much like the way halftime breaks in basketball works. It's a time to pause, to think and plan while you are still in the game.

Politics Oriented Software Development

2005-01-30T01:20:00.000-08:00

Truth and perception are worlds apart, but in politics they are the same.

I forgot who said the quote above but in certain cases you can add software development in it.

Geeks in management

2005-01-26T06:42:00.000-08:00

I just read this morning a post on slashdot about geeks in management. Being a developer and a geek myself , I wonder how hard will it be for me to shift to management. My problem is the almost non-existence of a technical career path in the company I am working for. I only see few people in my job who are purely technical. And by my estimate their salary level is not that high as of those who are in the managerial position.

So its either do something that I love to do and receive a not so high salary or do something that I don't like that much and get a high pay.

My choice? None!

Programming New Year's Resolution

2005-01-24T05:45:00.000-08:00

One of my new year's resolution was to blog regularly. But then again laziness got the better of me. As I was programming I made a few programming resolution:

1) I will not skip code documentation.
2) I will not skip making test cases.
3) I will use proper frameworks and would not resort to shortcuts.
4) I will be agile.
5) I will design and refactor properly

Opening my laptop

2004-12-30T18:30:00.000-08:00

I opened my laptop for the first time last night. The 600PHP tools(Stanley star screwdriver and KYK precision set) was worth it! As they say you can never claim to know your box until you open them.

The experience made me itch for a memory and an hdd upgrade.

Christmas Gifts for myself

2004-12-23T05:26:00.000-08:00

List of gifts for myself(and justifications):

Krups Espresso Machine
- I dont know if this is really a good investment since I'm not using it that much. The only good thing about this espresso machine is that for some reason I finally lost my cravings for Seattles everyday.

Sennheiser Earphones(MX-450)
- The rubber fitting on my last earphone was lost so I have to replace it with a new one.

Logitech Optical Mouse Plus
- It looks good with my laptop and I can neatly pack it in my bag because of its cord wrap feature.

A week full of holidays

2004-12-04T22:55:00.000-08:00

Monday:

No work because of the governments holiday arithmetic. I went to Shang with my family and bought some toys(earphone and espresso maker) and a Kitchie Nadal CD(she is so cute!). It rained hard because of Winnie(typhoon).

Tuesday:

A typical working day. The only highlight of this day was I was left in the meeting alone and I can't quite understand what my clients are saying and it didn't help that the line was bad.

Wednesday:

Another typical working day.

Thursday:

No work because of the typhoon! But I went to the office because I don't know that we have no work. Damn!

I made my first espresso that day.

Friday:

Still no work or rather we were forced to work at home.

I made my first latte/capucino! Maybe being a barista is my calling after all.

Saturday:

I went out with my college batchmates. We ate at Dencio's and talked at Seattles Best.

Development Team Reality TV

2004-11-13T04:33:00.000-08:00

I just have this crazy idea of having a development team reality TV competion. A group of developers will be randomnly grouped into a team given a software specification, a nearly impossible deadline and asshole testers. For each milestones there will be a required working deliverable. It would be fun to watch people cramming and tempers flaring to meet the deadline!

Waiting for my download

2004-11-09T08:50:00.000-08:00

I am writing right now to pass time. I am currently downloading from bittorrent. It will be finished in about ten minutes and after that I need to sleep. The time is too short to do anything significant. Too short to read a chapter of a book or to code. But the time is just right to finish a blog, check my email or perhaps finish some other insignificant task. It is doing something insignificant and finishing it versus doing something significant and risk not finishing it. It is very much like the question we ask ourselves when we think on how to spend our life. Do we spend our life doing something significant and risk failing because a lifetime is not enough? Or spend a huge chunk of your enery and time on your ideals knowing well enough that the probability of success is low. Is it better to have a good and comfortable life without or little risks?

I don't know the answer. I don't have time to think about it either. My download is finished.

Before Sunset ...

2004-11-06T21:56:00.000-08:00

I just watched Before Sunset. Nice movie. It's about two person who had a one night stand and promised to meet six months after but never did. Nine years after they meet again. Older and more experienced in life, they discussed what they have been through.

They just talked in the whole movie. The converstation was very good. One of the things they talked about is that people never really change. There is always that core in you that stays. And as I ponder on what they said, I remember that I too have stayed the same. I became cynical, unromantic and lost my ideals and yet here I am watching a romantic movie. I like to watch movies that have characters that tries to do the right thing, movies where ordinary guys triumph or movies where the protagonists beat the overwhelming odds.

VPN Problems

2004-10-28T20:28:00.000-07:00

I've been fixing my VPN for the last few hours and I learned a lot of things on how Marimba works. For some reason my VPN program can't get the routing table right. So what I did was uninstall and reinstall. But its not working :(

Haaay...

2004-10-27T02:32:00.000-07:00

Seems like I am royally screwed. My PDD was bashed and as promotion day is less than five months from now, I have a very bad feeling that it will negatively impact my rating.

Coding stage is near. Bawi na lang =)

Laziness - 1 Alan - 0

2004-10-23T06:07:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to build a Swing app this saturday and review on sunday. I changed to a more realistic plan to review on both days. Damn! I haven't reviewed yet. I got lazy and started reading mangas and watched "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly".

Progress Bar Syndrome

2004-09-15T06:59:00.000-07:00

I just got my DSL connection last week and its been a week since I have writtent in this blog because I am afflicted with the progress bar syndrome. Progress bar syndrome is the state wherein you just stare at the rate of your download. Everytime you see that you are not utilizing your full bandwidth you have that feeling that you have to download more. And everytime your download rate is at its peak you can't help but sigh and feel good. Yeah baby!

UP Lost

2004-09-04T05:46:00.000-07:00

The Maroons lost. Their ball handling was bad and they have too many turnovers. They did go down after winning six straight games, but they did not go down without fight. They will not make the final four. But perhaps their string of victories will inspire the next generation of players that even though UP players are not as flashy and talented like the other UAAP players, with teamwork and the desire to win, victory is possible.

Broken

2004-09-01T20:51:00.000-07:00

Today I will take my first exam in CS 259 and I have a big problem. A very big one if you will ask me. It’s not because I have no time to study because of work. I did have a lot of time last week. It’s not because I had a little sleep last night. It’s a problem but not much. It’s because of my seemingly indifferent attitude towards it. In short I don’t care anymore.

Success is the opposite of failure, but in life its indifference. Sometimes it does not matter much if you fail, but to lose interest in living? That is a big problem.

I'm feeling down...

2004-08-30T19:33:00.000-07:00

That’s it! I missed the Buendia MRT station and I have to go off at the next station. I don’t know what hit me. When I saw a small mass of people blocking my way I didn’t forced my way through off the train. It’s not as if I cannot go through. I let a small amount of obstacle overwhelm me.

I’m not feeling like my old self the past few weeks. I don’t know why. Is it because I’m too bored at my work? Is it because of her? Is it because nothing is going the way I want to?

I just totally lost it. Too many times I failed but did not lose my enthusiasm in life. Right now I’m not even failing yet I feel so down right now. I don’t have something to get excited about. All of a sudden life seems to be a thick mud that I need to wade through.

Stucked at home...

2004-08-24T22:43:00.000-07:00

I'm stucked at home. To put it correctly, I made myself stucked at home. In any case, this is what happened. It rained very hard. The rain was not that strong when I left my house. It is after. I got to the terminal and boarded a shuttle as I normally do, and it all started there. The wife of the driver called and she said to her husband to go home since there is flood everywhere. Since the shuttle is full the driver decided to go on and drive to Makati. We went around town and searched for every road that is passable, but alas we did not found one. So we went home in defeat.

Before I went home I found some busses on the road. It’s a long cut to the office but at least I can go to the office. But then again there is the very big problem of going home later on and the rain has not abated yet. I’m wearing office attire and the likelihood of being soaked wet is very high. So I just decided to go home.

I was thinking that if this happened during my college years I will stubbornly go to school. Come hell or high water I will go to school. So why the sudden change of attitude? Maybe I’m a bit bored about work this week. Maybe school is more important after all. Maybe it’s because of the current circumstances. I have an exam tomorrow and I am not finished studying yet. I might have a meeting this evening and the earliest I can go home is 10pm and the responsible man that I am I will do my work well and would not cancel a meeting because of something that is not related to work. The rain and the flood provided me with an answer or rather a very good excuse to crawl my way out of my problem. Maybe that is why I just rolled along with the wave of fate and decided to go home instead of defying nature as I usually do.

Too Tired...

2004-08-23T07:44:00.000-07:00

This day really irked me. First I just had a whole day CMMI training. I don't like the training. Not because its boring. It's because they keep on comparing software engineering with manufacturing. You cannot treat people as raw materials. They are not the same. People are people. A good process can make a good programmer better. But no process can save a project if you have bad people. There is no magic bullet in software engineering. CMMI can make things better but its not a panacea. There is more to software engineering than CMMI.

The second thing that irked me is that I'm still working up too 10:30pm. I went to work around 9:30am and I am over 12 hours in the office already and counting.

Sheesh..