Hoho's Log

Hard Drive Upgrade

I upgraded my Powerbook's hard drive yesterday. It was easier than I thought it would be. The instructions on Apple's website were very clear and easy to follow. I now have 80GBs onboard up from the original 60GB.

The 60GB drive is now in a firewire enclosure, to be used as a portable hard drive for my photos and videos. It took me several hours to reinstall my applications and restore my data from backup, boring, but necessary.

*Edit* Just realized, I REALLY need to clean up the drive, even with the added space, I only have 20GB of free space! Darn.

80's Fill-in the blanks

64.5 points. Well. I'm just glad I knew "Colitas" which was worth 10pts, and I get to be called a "god". Some of the songs were from the early 80s when I didn't really care much for music, but more for playing hide-n-seek. Some songs, I recalled, but not the exact words to put in the blanks. So when I'd sing along to those songs, at the blanks would be something sounding like "anshrwr". Click on the image to take the test yourself!

Thanks to Dondi B for the entertaining link.

Celebrating

We celebrated Father's Day today. We had lunch with a group of friends at El Pescatore located in Jack London Square in Oakland, CA. This is also the same restaurant where my sister, Dette and her husband, Jason had a small gathering after their civil wedding.

Seafood... mmm... after lunch, we all walked down a bit and sat outside shooting the breeze.

L-R: Raymon, Bernie, Jason, Justine, Maria, Sheryll and Ron:

Coming back from getting some coffee:
L-R: Kit, Dette and Sheryll

Father's Day!

I would like to greet my Dad and my bro-in-law, Jason, Happy Father's Day!

Pop!

That's what a tire sounds like when it explodes at 80mph on the freeway. Yep, I blew out a tire this afternoon. Ironically, on the way to get all 4 tires replaced. Couldn't it have waited a few more minutes? Noooo... had to make me get out in the heat and change tires. Darn.

Of course, unlike Vic, I completely forgot to take pictures of the damned tire. Bah.

Happy Birthday, LiLo!

It was my cousin's birthday yesterday. And she decided on having dinner at Robin's Barbeque in Rosemead. I had the full rack of Baby Back Ribs, which was good enough to finish. :)

Lissa and her husband, Mike:

L-R: Trixie, Maitet, Voltaire and Benjie:

My neices and nephew, Angela, Katrina and Christopher:

More on my trip...

Here are more pictures from my most recent trip to Manila.

Here we are, relaxing at the beach house after our dives.

L-R: Me, Paulyne, Don (standing) and Apples, photo by Noel:

"Go fly a kite!", we told Don, and he did. That's me across checking my dive computer, and partially visible is Apples. Photo again by Noel.

Here's a shot right before we put on our gear, that's Cel, Roger and myself, again, the official photographer on my dive trips, Noel Dino.

That last day of diving was fun. Getting to the dive site was a bit rough with 2-3 foot swells getting to Maricaban Island. On the other side of the island, where we dove, the water was flat, since it gets shielded by both Maricaban Island and partially by Bonito Island.

Here we are at the Outrigger Dive Resort in Anilao, Batangas, our take off point for Maricaban Island, Noel finally gets his face in one of the pictures:

Here's what the view outside looked like before dark:

That's Taal Volcano. The restaurant, and the ridge of Tagaytay is the edge of the big crater. There's a smaller crater in the middle of the lake with another lake in the crater. Yes, that's a lake in a crater in a lake in a crater in a volcano. Whew. Stories told about the last time that Taal Volcano erupted was, that the eruption was so strong that it threw fish up from the lake down to the city about 75kms to the North. True Story? I dunno, maybe.

Road Trip!

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. And last weekend, I went on a road trip. What's weird is that the road trip was to San Francisco! I was staying in LA, and Bobby wanted to go visit his Aunt in San Jose, so we decided to drive up to San Francisco and make a trip out of it. Pilar decided to join Bobby and myself on the trip.

Now, I'm back in LA exploring job possibilities in the area.

Here we are at Harris Ranch Restaurant along I-5 on the way back to LA:

Harvard

They say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. In the Philippines, people sometimes name their kids after famous people, places or things. They also do this for businesses, I give you, Harvard:

Here's what's known in the Philipines as an "owner" type jeep. I call it the Philippines' version of the Hummer, the Hammer. That's me, sitting inside the "Hammer".

(L-R): Don, Apples, me and Paulyne, photo by Noel:

Wireless@Borders

A couple of months ago, I found that there was an open WiFi hotspot somewhere near my friend's place, but the signal was very weak and I kept getting cut off. Now, I've given up on that, and I'm logged on to the T-Mobile Hotspot at Borders in the San Fernando Valley.

There's supposed to be a T1 connecting this place to the Internet, but so far, I haven't been able to see the full T1 when downloading stuff. But who cares? The signal is strong, and the connection is decent enough.

I also used the T-Mobile Hotspot at the San Francisco Interantional Airport while waiting for my flight back to Manila. Unfortunately, at the Philippine Airlines' gate, the signal was pretty weak, but steady.

T-Mobile offers $6.00/hr on-the-go plans, a $9.99 Day Pass, all the way up to $39.99/month unlimited access. So far, I've had the chance to use up 2 Day Passes. One at SFO and the other one here, at Borders.

So far, I haven't seen the need to get the monthly plan, since I do have DSL access at home, but there is a special plan of $19.99/month for T-Mobile subscribers, so that may end up changing if I find myself out of the apartment for extended periods of time. Who knows?