in retrospect…

protecting and sustaining the environment is not a job just for one person or government… this is a big job for all of us living in this one earth… i called up Magic 89.9 earlier today and talked about this with the hosts of the show, Mo and Grace, and Mo brought up one important question: how can a poor person even think of preserving the environment if he has nothing to eat?

again, we do not HAVE to go out there and preach about preserving it full time… there are so many little things we can do, that when you add them up, will have a great impact on the environment… here are a few:

…and a host of other things one can do to help preserve the environment… again, if we do our own little part, that will add up to a great deal…

Ciao, sweetie…

Tags: [ environment | preservation | An Inconvenient Truth ]

An Inconvenient Truth: A Global Warning

yes, this is the most terrifying film i have ever seen to date, and i have seen almost all of them… i am terrified for my son, for my son’s sons and daughters, and for all future generations that will come after me…

this film, featuring Al Gore, former vice-president under the infamous Bill Clinton, talks about the climate changes that is happening all over the world… changes that happen due to our misuse of the environment and everything that it gives us… and these changes bring us problems, not good tidings…

Hurricane Katrina, Typhoon Frank, Cyclone Nargis, and a host of other natural disasters are happening year after year, and the earth is crying out for help… a little melodramatic, i know, but that is the only description i can find as far as the global disasters happening all over are concerned…

and all of these are happening because of all our technological advances… global warming is due to the presence of 4 greenhouse gasses, namely carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and chloroflourcarbons… all of which are man-made… CO2 is brought about by the burning of fossil fuels… car emissions, coal burning, and forest fires instantly come to mind… methane comes primarily from garbage dumps [remember Smokey Mountain?]… nitrous oxide arose from our use of nitrogen-based fertilizers, and finally, chloroflourcarbons or CFCs come from using airconditioners and other refrigerants too much…

question now is: must we leave all technological advances we have made in the past 3 decades or so just to save the one earth we live in?? simply to preserve the future of our future? my answer to that is no, we should not… but we must also learn sustainable development and teach what we learned to everyone concerned… and by everyone concerned, i meant, every man, woman, and child that you come in contact with in your every waking hour… of everyday, for the rest of your life…

i am not saying that you stop driving a car… stop driving those gas-guzzling-big-American-made cars, and go for the environment friendly ones… or better yet, ride in mass transports and save up on gas… decrease your use of electricity and go back to the basics… and many others each one of us can do to help save the environment…

yes, there will be major changes to our way of life, i agree, but if we want to continue living in this one earth of ours, i suggest we do just that… and immediately… nature will NEVER wait for us to wake up and finally do what must be done… it will go its natural way, whether there is a person in its path [and more often that not, there are people in its path] or not… our storms will continue to rise in intensity, our summer heats will continue to rise no matter what, and our hurricanes will get stronger and stronger if we just sit on our fat asses and do nothing… the time to go forward and let your voice be heard is now… blog about it… talk about it amongst your friends… teach about it to your students… spare an hour a day explaining about it to your employees… but whatever you do, DO IT NOW!! before your way of life comes to an abrupt end…

Tags: [ environment | global changes | disasters | An Inconvenient Truth | Al Gore ]

now, what is wrong with this picture?

i was driving along Market Market when i saw this poster along a wall of a construction site… i have been seeing this for the past couple of weeks or so, but it was only today that i stopped in front of it…

there is a new building behind a student wearing a hard hat, and there is BSCoE [Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering] in big bold white letters, and… wait… what?? a student [or graduate of CoE] wearing a hard hat?? ow, c’mon… really??

for one, CoE graduates don’t really need to go in a construction site, ergo, no need to wear a hard hat… second, CoE in a hard hat??

c’mon, guys… fire your marketing people and get a better advert next time… tsk tsk…

Ciao, sweetie…

I have always sported a full head of hair, and am very proud of it… at least most of the time… it was all black, really wavy when it gets to a certain length, and really something to be proud of…

but yesterday, as i was combing my hair getting ready for work, i noticed [finally] not that it is already long and needing a haircut… not the gray hairs making themselves a home of my head [slowly edging out all the blacks], and not the dry skin peeling off whenever i scratch my head [no, dear, it is not dandruff]… okay, maybe i noticed all of the above, but what got me more was the fact that i hated that hair…

and so, today, i finally did the unbelievable…

as defined by Dictionary.com:

dare·dev·il (dâr’děv’əl)
n. One who is recklessly bold.

adj. Recklessly bold. See Synonyms at adventurous.

and i am pertaining to those 2-wheeled vehicles more commonly known as motorcycles… drivers of this dang contraptions weave in and out of traffic without care for life or limb… daredevils? yes… responsible drivers? NO!!

just the other day, while on my way to work, there was no traffic as it was still so early in the morning, and i was cruising along Makati Avenue following a white Totyota Altis… when out of the blue, a small blue motorcyle [and with the driver having no helmet to boot!!] cut me just when the car i was following braked!! i almost hit the guy, he looked back, and gave me that devil-may-care grin… i was just so… fuming mad!!! so mad i could’ve went after him and run him over, if not for the fact that running grinning daredevils over with a car is called premeditated murder… but i really could’ve done it just so i can see that grin wiped off his mug…

see, they know that us car drivers will always stop and be on the lookout for them, so they don’t really care… and that fact i hate the most… and the same goes for bicycles and pedestrians…

shouldn’t bigger vehicles have the right of way along streets and highways? should’t smaller vehicles be on the lookout for bigger ones? i still remember the days when we can travel the streets without always looking left and right fearing that we might hit a motorcycle… sheesshhh… where were those days?? tsk tsk tsk…

and you know what? this’ll get more and more worse as days, weeks, months, and years go by if we don’t do something… i dunno, probably our esteemed lawmakers can pass a law banning weaving in and out of traffic?? or designating a lane for them??

of course, there are responsible motorcycles out there, not all of them are bastards… but majority of them are… you will see them everywhere… with babies in front of them, with riders at their backs, or alone, they are everywhere…

i. really, hate. these. people.

bastards…

Ciao, sweetie…

Alam ko masama na talaga ang kalidad ng edukasyon dito sa Pilipinas… alam ko dumadami na ang tangang Pinoy (pasensya na, totoo lng)… alam ko, dumadami ang di natututo magbasa at magsulat… pero, kailangan ba natin ipangalandakan un? at sa world stage pa man din??? taena!!

sa mga namamahala ng Binubuning Pilipinas (pun intended), bakit nyo naman hinayaan na manalo ito?

panoorin sa youtube

BAKKEEEETTTT???

bumaba na ba pati ang inyong mga pamantayan?? kagandahan na lng ba ang kailangan para manalo sa inyong patimpalak?? e hindi pa nga gaano maganda e!! hindi na ba tinitingnan kasama katalinuhan?? o kasama ang kabobohan sa inyong mga criteria sa mananalo???

kung ganun, tang ina nyo lahat!! ipinakikita nyo sa lahat ang kabobohan ng mga Pinoy. eto ang tanong ko sa inyo: sa Miss World ano ang gagawin nyan?? magpapa-cute??? o magtatanga-tangahan na naman sya??

ewan ko ba sa inyo… sana kung wala kayo mapili, di na lng kayo nagpa-panalo!! di ba may mga interbyu kayo ginagawa? nakapasa sya dun?? hindi kaya meron nangyari na di dapat mangyari para lng sya manalo?? wag kayo magagalit sa akin, dahil ako’y nagtatanong lng!!

(To my foreigner readers: I am so sorry if i have to do this in my native language… i am jsut so ashamed of the contents, that i cannot let you be a part of this farce… so ashamed that we let things like this happen to us… so sorry… and if you ever find out what this is all about, please know that not all of us are like her…)

itigil nyo na ang kalokohang itoi!!!

Ciao, sweetie…

the son, not the father…

Ciao, sweetie…

i want to wish my son, Mistral Julian, a very Happy 8th Birthday today!!

Happy Birthday, son… please know that, though we haven’t seen each other for the past 3 years, you are always in my heart and my thoughts… always…

i love you, Ian…

Ciao, sweetie…

Although my job here at [hehehe] does not require me to do training or teaching for anyone, the teacher in me always surfaces whenever technical questions, most especially in Linux, arise… last week, during my 2nd day here, a question popped up that perked up my ears, and i immediately rose to the challenge… it was a fairly simple question: “Sir, how easy is it to learn Linux?“, i was asked by a subordinate… the answer? very easy!!

that was why i am now, for this week, at least, training them the essentials of running a Linux box… administration would probably come in later… we started last Monday, where i introduced them to the world of Linux [very vast], its different flavors [wow! so many!!], and what it can do for an environment like ours…

yesterday, we tackled simple installations, and today, my students will continue installation, this time, doing multi-boot environments, and so on… who knows? if my staff/students are willing enough, we might just continue this next week for advanced administration, eh?

anyway, i am now on my 2nd week at work, and i must say that i am enjoying this immensely… although my work hours are from 6am till about 4 or 5 in the afternoon, i am enjoying every bit of my stay here, so far… my co-workers are all nice [always smiling], the teachers treat me with utmost respect [everyone does, really], and my staff are all skilled and open to new ideas [like this Linux training]… i have high hopes… haayss…

next week? start of classes again, that was why we are so busy preparing everything for the re-opeing of classes… and we hope to be finished by tomorrow… see ya again soon!!

Ciao, sweetie…

aside: if you are on the lookout for Value Hotels in the Philippines to stay in for a night or even three, look no further than Legend Hotels… Legend Hotels caters to a wide range of clientele - company executives, families, OFW’s, balikbayans, provincial business travelers, local and foreign tourists. be sure not to miss it!!

Ever since 1998, when i started working on an NOS [network operating system] aside from Microsoft, i have always maintained that anything not Microsoft is infitely better… infinitely… better…

and i will still maintain that stand wherever i go, whatever compnay i am in… i have come back to work for an academe very recently, and so far, everything is working well… at least, so far as the desktops are concerned… but working with Microsoft really gives me a pain in the ass [and not because i am biased towards Linux], and I have plans now of transfeerring some of them over to Linux… of course, i cannot readily transfer applications needed primarily by the Finance and the Admissions departments, but all others, i believe i can…

for one, we have Citrix servers and about 100+ thin clients which I need to run, not because I have to, but because we already paid for them… yep, they’re not working, or if they do run, only about 40 of the 100+ clients can run all at the same time… more than that? the 2 servers will start to go crazy, and the clients will freeze up one by one… in APC before, i was able to createone whole laboratory of about 40 clients using only 1 server using LTSP… of course, i have had problems with it, like it doesn’t support a particular network card or a particular graphics card… but all in all, once the server settled down and my students started using the thin clients, everything worked fine to my satisfaction… now, i am left with the problem of making the Citrix environment run… *darn*

second, i plan to teach my people Linux administration… from there, we’d be able to plan better our next steps, i.e. which servers to migrate… prolly, we’ll start with the websites [which are, incidentally, made in ASP and dotNET] so i am now in the process of researching how to make those run in Apache…

lastly, only PLDT have lines in our area?? i am actually considering putting a redundant connection for the school, but i was told that only PLDT have rights to our area… so, do i go wireless, then?? **double darn**

anyway, that’s all for now… more [as in really more] to follow soon…

Ciao, sweetie…