E for Excellent

Rach was giving out blogging awards last Thursday (Feb. 21). She passed one of those awards to me:

So, here's a "Thank You" to Rach for thinking I've got an excellent blog.

Lukewarm Valentine

Chocolates and Rose
Ladies in the office were lucky today. Boss Mon gave each one a rose. Boss Jun gave M&M chocolates. The good stuff about this day ends here.

Fire Follow Up
Sal called me up via cellphone early this morning ... I was still asleep so it was a "missed call". She called up again during lunch break. Ofcourse it would be about the Manila fire. She couldn't get hold of Willy. She wanted to know if her photo albums were still there. Told her I took some to Laguna years ago, but I can't remember if I left some albums there. She had asked Edith to bring her albums to California. Tough luck. Edith passed by the house yesterday but did not mention anything about the albums. Edith flies back to the USA today (or was her flight last night?).

Getting a Virus
One bad thing about commuting is that I am exposed to people with colds or cough more often than people who travel using their own cars. What's worse is that I pick up their virus quickly. Which is why I have been nursing a slight fever for days now. Problem today is that I already felt weak, but heavy Valentine's Day traffic meant I had to stand and wait about an hour at the bus terminal to get a ride. Result? High fever and feeling really bad. I know I won't make it to the office tomorrow.

TARA 2 Finale
The final 3 teams at The Amazing Race Asia Season 2 in order of their start times were Marc and Rovilson (Philippines), Adrian and Colin (Singapore), Pamela and Vanessa (Malaysia).

At the final stop, Adrian and Colin were first, followed by Pamela and Vanessa, with Marc and Rovilson coming in last.

Marc and Rovilson would have taken the top prize if they put some thought into who should do the final task which was a Roadblock. The task was identifying and arranging the flags of the countries the Amazing Race has taken them to ... in the correct order. Since Marc and Rovilson have been taking turns at Roadblocks, Rovilson took this one. Problem is, the race has proven Marc to be the nerdier of the two. I know Marc could have finished the task faster since he was muttering about Rovilson getting flags wrong while he watched from afar. Rovilson started the task ahead of the others, but he was the last to finish. Consequently, he and Marc got to the final pitstop last. The cool thing is seeing Colin and Adrian get to the Roadblock last, but the moment I saw Adrian start picking up the flags with certainty, I knew he would finish first.

Garn! I wonder if any Philippine team would get into Season 3?

-----edit Feb. 24-----
Since Cristy hadn't realized that on the same day Rey had his picture taken with the actress Mylene Dizon, we also had our picture taken with Marc, Rovilson and another TV talkshow host, I am reposting that picture here:


Cristy would love to apply for Season 3 but has a hard time convincing Joseph to be her team mate.

First thing I told Cristy: She doesn't have a sense of direction. She told me Joseph is good with directions. Plus he doesn't flare up when she does. Good combination. He he he!

Daze

News of the Fire
Just before 9:30 AM, Jon called me up on the phone to tell me he is in Manila. The apartment burned down and he is looking at the extent of the damage. That's when I recalled hearing a news report from the bus radio about a fire happening on our street early this morning.

So it was our apartments on fire.

It seems to have started from my room at 2527 which is at the back, then it spread to the front then the back room of 2529 and 2531 before firemen contained the fire.

It was a relief that no neighbor's house caught fire.

The one big question is ... how the fire started that early in the morning. It wasn't too hot for the fire to have started spontaneously from the heat. That leaves faulty electrical wiring. How it could start from my room is another question. Nothing is plugged-in in that room. When a light conked out in 2529, my brother took the flourescent bulb from my room. When his electric fan was busted, he borrowed the one in my room. He returned it eventually - after it conked out on him as well. The same thing goes with my table lamp - he borrowed it when it was working then returned it to the room when it was broken. Ofcourse when he returned them, he didn't plug them into the sockets since they're already broken.

Tess is okay. She's obviously distressed, but bailing the water from the firehoses out of 2529 is keeping her mind occupied at the time Jon called.

Jon took some pictures and videos of the scene then he and Tess went home. Yup. Tess will be staying with us permanently instead of staying the night here on long holidays.

We won't be able to touch the scene till the arson investigators are done with it.

Needless to say, I was in a daze the rest of the day.

When I got home, I saw the videos and pictures Jon took. Nothing of my stuff survived the fire. My room is just one big hole at the side of the house. Sal's dresser is still standing. Tess and Jon's things got singed but not all burned. Wow. Lucky them. I'm sad cause I got zero.

Lunch with Tullett-Prebon
Broker Tullett-Prebon treated the FX group to lunch today at the Spiral, Hotel Sofitel (used to be the Westin Philippine Plaza). Since our office is near the hotel, and the brokers were coming from Makati, we had to wait around 10 minutes. Good thing I had my cellphone to play with, so I took some pictures.

Shayne:


Rey and Danny:


The Spiral:


Wonder if I could enter this in the DLSU "green" photo contest? He he he!:


Pasalubong
My oldest brother's wife is in the country on one of her business trips. She passed by the house to drop off some token gifts or pasalubongs. I got this cute, small bag:


Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!

I don't know when I'll get to use it though. I haven't even used the other small bags Sal sent me... and they're at least an inch bigger than this one. Now if I'm into partying, bringing nothing but my wallet and cellphone, those bags would be useful.

Oh dear, this got me thinking - I wonder how much of the stuff we gave Tess which she never used got burned in Manila. So sad.