(… And a partridge in a pear tree. Heh.)
Not much updates from me, except:
- Got three more great finds from Booksale: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein, The Confusion (Vol. 2 of the Baroque Cycle) by Neal Stephenson, and Something Wicked this Way Comes by Ray Bradbury — all for under a hundred pesos.
- I had the pleasure of trying out two sleek notebooks: an Acer Aspire Gemstone and a Gateway T-6311. Both were from balikbayan kamag-anaks who asked me to, er, stress-test their new toys. More on this when I’m done playing with them. Suddenly, I’m craving for a replacement to Mathilda (my Dell Inspiron) — not!
- My bro gave me a Seagate FreeAgent Desktop external hard drive. Yay! It’s 500 GB in a cool black finish, with a footprint of an office stapler. It now rests next to the 19″ LCD monitor. All I need now are a cheap NAS solution and a UPS, and my home computing setup is complete.
- Due to several NDAs I signed, I couldn’t blog much about what I do at work. Let’s just say it’s been a very interesting engagement. I’ll be in between team deployments (but with the same client) next quarter, so that gives me some breathing space to take on vendor and in-house training. My blogging will more or less be the same — I’m actually thinking of changing my tagline to “Posts of a weekend blogger”.
Originally uploaded by iandexter.
Julian Emmanuel’s first birthday is coming up.
I gave this flyer a grungy look because it fits Julian’s personality well. He’s got that gritty look in him, and just the right amount of mischief peeks through every time he smiles. We call him “sutil”, a Filipino term that’s similar to “naughty” but not quite there.
(Fonts from dafont.com. Grunge brushes from bittbox.com.)
UPDATE: It’s finally up, my review of 2007 in pictures, cover-flow style.
I’m building up a review of 2007, using Flickr photos. Nothing spectacular — just a retrospective tool for me. We have had many blessings this year, and what better way to reminisce than through pictures. For now, I’m collecting photos from various sources, one of which is provided by Flickr:
Our son, Julian, just got out of the hospital, after being confined (again) for what appeared at first as severe cough and fever. He was diagnosed with pneumonitis on both lungs. His doctor also said he has also acquired asthma.
We spent a total of six days in the hospital. I can tell you that despite the creature comforts that the hospital provides, there’s still no substitute to lying down in your own bed or playing in the yard with the kids. We all missed being home.
Now that we’re back home, hopefully, Julian and his kuya, Gabriel, will settle in to their routine. For Julian, it would be waking up early (at around five AM), play a bit in his crib before getting his mom or yaya’s attention for his first meal of the day. The only deviation now is that he has to take a puff from a measured dose inhaler twice a day, along with a battery of antibiotics and other meds. It’s difficult, specially for him, but the prognosis is good: if all goes well, he’ll be off the fluticasone/salmeterol cocktail after two months. We’re planning for the long term as well: get him into sports (swimming, for one) when he’s old enough; and other activities that would strengthen his lungs.
Still, life goes on for all of us. Hopefully, it will be better tomorrow, and onwards.
