Mental Blabberings

In my whole life, I've only gone through 2 major catastrophies here in the Philippines. One is the Mt. Pinatubo Explosion, the other is Super Typhoon Rosing. The first catastrophy led to the death and loss of thousands, the next the devastation of even more. I experienced having to take in the fact that ash had fallen in Laguna, easily 400 kilometers away from the volcano and seeing the trees sway real hard due to the insane rain and winds of Rosing. I felt how hard it was in the provinces, because basically everything was under the mercy of the elements there -- not too many big buildings to get into, the houses were all small and looked flimsy. Even if our ancestral house there was commendable for being sturdy, everything else around seemed at the mercy of mother nature. Now however, the latest Super Typhoon to hit the Philippines hit hard while I'm safe and under the protection of a huge building. Sure, electricity service went out, but I didn't feel as vulnerable as I f...

I was bored to wit's end, and nothing was good on Cable TV so I Googled around for videos to watch and I stumbled opon this . Let me quote the description for everyone's amuzement: Paul Hildebrandt founded Zometool Inc. with co-inventor Marc Pelletier in 1985. He organized the Zome ... all » team, raised capital and coordinated research and development of prototype tooling, production systems, packaging and collateral material, and continues as president and board chairman. [...] Nearly 60 years after the first electronic digital computer was designed at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS), companies like Google are demonstrating the power of a world built from 1s and 0s. Zome is a system that models the world built from the numbers 2, 3 and 5. We will explore how these numbers are knotted together to form the structure of space, from the subatomic framework of the atom, to the geometry of life, to a recently proposed “shape” of the universe! Cool stuff! CHill!

The Cambrian House is an Intellectual Property Theft organization. Or what you call someone who leverages over someone else's idea and runs away with it. This seems like a cool concept, until you run into issues like Big Company A, B, and C creating stuff that was picked up from an idea someone else (not necessarily in their employ) posted on a public site. Maybe this will help the Open Source movement a lot, but then it might open the door for opportunistic monetization of non-original ideas. This also opens the door for casual Non-Disclosure Agreement breaking disclosures with the anonymity of the web. At any rate, it's a good idea nonetheless. I'm not even sure if it's going to fly, but it might be something to look out for in the near future. CHill...

How do you gauge a person's expectations of you? Do you ask them out loud or can you deduce that from the way they treat you? When you meet someone's expectations is that a good thing or a bad thing? Is it a good thing because you can meet someone's expectations so that the person can keep expecting that much or even more from you? Or is it a bad thing that you can't perform up to someone else's standards? It's just so frustrating that when you do whatever is required of you and you deliver -- on time, within budget, and within scope -- and then your efforts become 'played down' because of external factors you cannot control. I'm not after the appreciation or anything even related to that -- I'm just after the "justice" of it all. It's like building the bridge well and get blamed because the truck broke down. I think I just need to sleep. A lot. CHill...

My nephew turned 1 September 10th 2006. I am starting to love kids again, and hope I can be more of an influence to them as they grow older. Come to think of it, I want to be able to have my own kids too: seeing how fulfilled my cousins and sister are having to care for their children. I've gotten the chance again (for the second straight weekend) to rest and relax in Laguna. I've had a lot of stories to share with family, that it really feels good to be around them. I never thought how important family time really is, until I get to spend less and less time with them. Here I come week, I'm now armed with Solmux and Sinutab to fight off the sniffles and the cough for the next three days. Oh, and I want to go back to swimming again: maybe 2 kilometer swims at Makati Sports Club everyday? That should get me in shape quick... CHill!

I have the sniffles again. The bad thing about feeling better, is that you get reminded how bad it feels when it happens again . So now I can't talk right without sounding like I'm in a barrel. Anyway, it's 2:45 am here at the office and I feel like I want to go home in a while -- but won't yet because I need to do something still for the project we're currently working on: so that I have something to show to the team as a reference later today. I feel as though I would like to work in an environment where the distractions are very little, but I want to work with the team around me. This might be an impossible situation at the moment, especially since the new office isn't ready yet and everybody still works and meets in the office. I'm not complaining, but I'd like to be able to work continuously on something while the distractions are compartmentalized somewhere. After all, I have sworn to just require the team 8 hours worth of productive work in a day....