Where's that remote?

One of Bree's favorite pastime is watching TV. She would watch TV all day if we let her. She would totally monopolize control of our TV. When i say monopolize, i mean she would hide the remote control, so that Clay and I cannot switch the channels.

Bree's hiding places for the remote are:

1. Inside the pillowcases.
2. Underneath blankets.
3. Inside Emily's (teddy bear) clothes.
4. Under her pillow.
5. Under her butt (she would sit on them)
6. Inside drawers/cabinets

Nagmana sa tatay - nakababad sa tv.

First Performance

So, today's the big day. Sunday 9am mass. Bree's first performance at the Children's Choir. It was great. The 9am was packed (it always is, that's why we usually go to the 12:30 or 5pm mass). The children did a good job. Loud and clear and in tune. And very funny, too. When Father Lawrence announced that after mass, there are free donuts, they all cheered.

So, as promised, after mass we got free donuts. Except of course, me. I can't eat donuts, or anything with sugar for that matter (not even a pinch of sugar).

The girls in the choir all wore Sunday dresses. Medyo semi-formal ang dating, others wore tights pa nga. Bree was wearing a tie-front bolero top with jeans. I told Bree that next Sunday she should wear a dress, too. She said No. She doesn't want to look cutesy, she wants to look cool. So, we compromised, she will wear her cool skirts.

Bree's Top 10 TV Shows

1. Zoey 101 - with Jamie Lynn Spears (Britney's sister)
2. Unfabulous - with Emma Roberts (Julia's niece)
3. Full House - esp. when Michelle is no longer a baby
4. Drake and Josh
5. Lizzie McGuire Show - this used to be No. 1 on Bree's list last year
6. That's So Raven
7. All That
8. The Amanda Show
9. Ned's De-Classified School Survival Guide
10. Rugrats All Growed Up

Sunday Choir

Sabrina recently joined the St. Robert Bellarmine Children's Choir, which sings for the Sunday 9am mass. She attended the practice on Wednesday at the church. There were about 30 kids, and 8 of them are from the 3rd grade class. She had fun because some of her close friends are there: Jenny, Dana and Amanda.

After the practice, they were given CD's of the songs that they need to learn. Sabrina popped the CD into her PC, and have been playing it and practicing each night.

Now that Sabrina has joined the choir, this means that every Sunday, we have to attend the 9am mass (and not the 12:30pm or 5pm). And we have to be there at 8:15am so that the kids can practice before mass. I guess Clay and I can hang out at Starbucks before the mass starts (sana Krispy Kreme na lang.)

This also means that we have to wake up at 7am every Sunday. Ugghh!

Day 4 on the beach

Last night (which was day 3), i slept with a headache. I didn't want to take a headache medicine because of the caffeine content. So, i was just hoping that my sleep will get rid of it.

I woke up today, day 4, with the same headache. This is a headache of someone who is hungry. Yes, i am hungry because the meals that i take on the South Beach diet is simply not enough. I mean i can eat all the lean steaks and chicken breasts and seafood that i want, however, the singularity of what you're eating makes it unappetizing after a few bites. If what i was eating was pluralized with let's say rice (i miss you) or potato or pasta, then i would be satisfied.

But i intend to stick it out to the end. Day 4 and counting...

Master of the Diet Game

I used to be a diet pill junkie - Ionamin, Metabolife, Exercise in a Bottle, Xenadrine, Adifax, and some over-the-counter stuff. I would lose a few pounds, and of course, gain it all back and more. Then i tried the different Programs - Atkins (raised my cholesterol to 345), Weight Watchers (slow but effective), and now i'm doing the South Beach diet. I noticed myself "waddle" more often these days, and that made me decide to try the South Beach diet. I had doubts because i was afraid my cholesterol might shoot up again like in Atkins.

But i thought i'd give it a try. Today is Day 3 of Phase 1. It's kinda hard, i'd say more difficult than Weight Watchers. The only reason i'm doing it is because after 2 weeks on Phase 1, a person can lose around 8-13 lbs. That's what i'm hoping for. Imagine 8 pounds in 2 weeks? Wow, that sounds great.

I loved being a Weight Watcher. However, weight loss there is kinda slow. It is a lifestyle change, and i do believe that. WW educated me very well about calories, fats and fiber.

South Beach will jumpstart my weight loss. I can't wait to lose the 8 pounds (or more).

I'm thinking after completing Phase 1, maybe i'd switch to becoming a weightwatcher again. We'll see. Abangan ang susunod na kabanata.

Jeans Day

The students at Sabrina's school wear uniforms. They have an informal uniform, a formal uniform and a PE uniform.

However, every Wednesday, the students have the option of wearing jeans instead of plaid shorts or PE shorts. But in exchange for the jeans, you have to "donate" one dollar to the school. If the parents do not want to donate, then their kids must come in the proper uniform.

Last year, the "donations" that the school received on Jeans Day were given to the tsunami victims. We were encouraged to donate more than $1. So, sometimes i would give more than the required dollar.

This schoolyear, the Jeans Day funds would go to the Katrina victims. Today, Sabrina donated $3. Last week, she donated $5.

If there were no disasters to support, the Jeans Day money would just go to the school - probably to purchase newer and better equipments, or maybe to re-decorate the classrooms, or maybe to buy more plants or something. I don't know. Whatever the purpose is, most of the kids still give the dollar during Jeans Day because they want to wear jeans.

I remember when i was in school, we would do anything to have "civilian" day. I'm sure the kids in Sabrina's school feel the same way.

Blackout

Los Angeles had a major power outage this afternoon. Hindi brownout ang tawag dito. Blackout or power outage. Why kasi "brown"out ang term?

I was at work, on the 43rd floor in downtown LA. Around noontime, i noticed my PC flicker slightly. Oh so very slightly, so i didn't care. Then a few minutes before 1pm, i went to our kitchen to heat up my lean cuisine frozen lunch. I put it on 3 minutes, but i noticed that the microwave was kind of silent. It was working, i can see the light inside the microwave, and the timer counting down, but then something wasn't quite right. I was staring at the microwave to see if the settings were messed up. Anyway, my food was done, so i went back to my desk and started eating it. Then after about a minute, the power in our building went out. PCs died, lights went out, airconditioning stopped. Then, a few seconds later, the emergency lights and generators came on.

Some of my officemates had handheld radios and we listened to the news. Power outage nga sa Los Angeles area. Our building security was talking over the P.A. to calm everybody down and to say that only one elevator is working per elevator bank, and it should only be used for emergencies. I guess a lot of panic-y people raced to the elevators to evacuate the building.

But not our dept - the IT dept. We were more concerned with our systems, servers and other equipments. We were told that we only had enough back-up power for 2 hours. So, we were busy coordinating our Disaster Recovery plan. We were trained to react to disasters and which systems and servers to bring up first, which can be sacrificed and turned off. We have an Irvine office, and we were already talking about going to Irvine in case of a long-term power outage (fyi...Irvine is about 60 miles from our LA headquarters).

Since airconditioning is down, our computers might not survive, even the 2 hour back-up power. We scrambled around the office to look for every desk fan (electric fan baga) we can find and put it in our data processing center for our computers. I was laughing to myself. Here we were, human beings, and yet we were more concerned about the computers. We didn't evacuate the building because we need to make sure our high-priority servers are working. Tapos, wala ngang ercon, we were almost sweating, but yet we sacrificed the electric fans just so mahanginan ang computers namin.

But, after about an hour of downtime, the power got restored. My PC took forever to reboot, but finally got logged in. I tested all the servers i'm responsible for. So far so good.

Turns out that Utility workers were to blame: "when workers installing an automated alert system cut several wires simultaneously, instead of one at a time."

wonder if they got terminated instantly?

It's So Lamig

Just sharing a pic from our recent trip to San Franciso. Coming back to LA, we took the scenic route - Hwy 1 and 101.
This was taken at Pigeon's Point Lighthouse.

Owa is hurt

We are all praying that the procedure will go well, and with a quick recovery to match.

St. Josemaria Escriva, please pray for my Owa.

Breebree

Daddy groovy

One of Bree's favorite TV shows is Sister Sister with the twins- Tia and Tamera.

One day, Bree called me on the phone (i was at work) and she said she wants me to be like Lisa, Tia's mom who is a fashion designer. I asked her why, and she said, "So that you can be cool, like Lisa."

Then i said, what about daddy, do you want him to be like Ray, Tamera's dad? She said, "No, Daddy's cool already."

walandyok

Pancit

One of Bree's favorite food is pancit.

Pancit number one: bihon or miki-bihon
Pancit number two: palabok
Pancit number three: canton (or any other variation of pancit)

did you know? Clay's all-time favorite is bihon, too