Sunday night

Mahar and I spoke about how we should be more outspoken about what we want as customers. I agree with him. I think that there are tons of services out there where we are offered things that service offerers think are important to us, but actually are not. These are thoughts percolating in my head when someone tried to share me some membership in a hotel club type scheme. I know, sounds like one of those tiresome marketing things right? Well, I sat through a painful two hour discussion, but was patient coz the point was to get the free 3 days - 2 nights stay at one of their hotels. I got them and I'll probably even be able to use them.

Courtesy of our trivia night largesse, had Sunday roast tonight at Murphy's. The lamb was. . .substantial. I wish they just seasoned it better. The desserts were very good, especially the apple pie. Homey food at Murphy's along Esteban, very near the Rufino corner.

The weekend was un-eventful. But I think I am quite ready for the coming week which promises to be quite busy. I'm looking forward to it.

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unfortunately this weekend also included seeing videos and images of people in Tehran having been beaten or even shot by their own security forces. a silent prayer for the people in Iran standing up for their freedom.

Saturday morning

Last post, I wrote that the upcoming week I had to write a report. Well, that's exactly what I did, and it occupied most of my time. I didn't go the gym at all, which is a semi-big deal to me. But when I manage to get good work done, I don't really care. I've been wanting to do a good job for a while now. So worked many hours on the report, and it has been going through a process of continuous refinement which gives me confidence that it will turn out well and polished. Getting the support of various members of the advisory group also helps very much. We're even getting someone to lay this one out for me. (Oh thank you, thank you really). One other thing I wanted to share was that I am confident about all the data in this one. All of it, even the controversial parts that people are going to perhaps bitch about when they see it. That makes me feel strongly about this. So what all this rambling's point was: yes, I spent a lot of time on this and I'm happy so far with the progress and output.

And as if the week wasn't a good enough one yet, I was staffed into a new project, that perhaps will take me to Cebu and Zamboanga later this year. That rocks.

I'm in a good mood.

The morning and afternoon is a scorcher and poor Namee was sweating a lot. She attributes this to her higher body tempature because of all that yoga. Perhaps that is the reason. I ate some food with Nams and her family; there was some Thai vegetarian salad (which might have had dog-hair in it, i know, yuck right). But I tried to forget about that. I ate some of the "nice french food", which market regulars know who we're talking about. It was just a tuna and vegetable sandwich but the bread was substantial and tasty. La Cuisine Francaise is opening a restaurant in Salcedo Village. It will be the space in Paseo Park View, just across Apartment 1-B. Sedeno Street now has those 2 and Terry's on it. Nice new attraction for the neighborhood. I hope it does well.

Finishing up some of Fellini-Satyricon before I go out to do some running. It's just too hot to go out now.

June weekend

Malakas kami uminom sa pamilya. That's my conclusion, since I practically drank an entire bottle of wine for myself last night, during a friendly home mahjong game, and was none worse the wear. Mahar, Gica and I have been introducing the game to the debate society, including Chinese friends who seem to have a lost a little something of their cultural heritage for not knowing the game. My hypothesis is that their parents wanted to insulate them from the culture of throwing tiles and fighting with each other over lost games. In our case anyway, we play an 'old-ladies' game where we play for little or no money, and the fun is in the tactile handling of the tiles as the game is played. We played from 5pm to around 1030pm. Time flies when you play mahjong.

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I'm reading this old book now, a Ruth Reichl book called 'Comfort Me With Apples'. I much prefer it to her later book 'Garlic and Sapphires'. In the latter book, she was already an established restaurant critic, and the writing was about her journey as a writer for the New York Times. This one focuses more on her life as it transition from her Berkeley counterculture life to that of a hopelessly bourgeois restaurant critic. I feel pangs of sadness in the first few pages (and it's raining outside too, that doesn't help) because I already can tell that she's going to be leaving her husband before this book is over.

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I spoke to Cris today, part of my dad's other family, and was reminded that she was quite the runner in HS and College. She ran marathons and did excellent times. She called my 10K time slow (which I'm not too concerned about). But I will be sticking to my 3x a week training, and won't take her suggestions (just yet) of running almost everyday, and at minimum distances of 10K-- as training for my half marathon later this year. No thanks. But I'm glad that we talked about running anyway. It used to be her dream to run the Boston or NY marathon. I don't know if I'll get that far, but I'd like to eventually run a marathon out of the country. Like in Berlin or some far away place where the weather is cooler.

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A new week is coming up, and I have to write a report.