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.