Daily Happy Thoughts

The other Friday (15 January 2010), I started experiencing the onset of acute gastritis which lasted until Monday  (18 January 2010) morning. Adding up to the sickness hype is an on-and-off fever that signals an infection last Sunday (17 January 2010). The biggest blow came on the evening of the 18th, right after I’ve seen Dr. Walden and bought the antibiotic prescribed to me, wherein my fever reached 38.9°C at 8:00PM and stayed at that figure until 10:00PM, and the level of the pain in my throat reached 10 (10 being the highest). Drinking a glass of water was a feat, even the simple swallowing of saliva elicited pain (now imagine when I’m eating). Mommy visited me 30 minutes past 7:00PM and coaxed me in to having myself hospitalized but I did not budge, confident that the first antibiotic I drank will soon work its effect on my poor body. I’m thankful that Mylan, a college student at St. Paul University Dumaguete who lives with us, was there all the time to assist me on my needs (Thank you, Mylan!). I almost conceded that it might be a good idea after all to be hospitalized when my temperature reading only subsided to 38.8 at 10:00PM, almost. To cut the backgrounder short, my fever subsided at 2:00AM of Tuesday, I continued drinking my medication plus the womens vitamins (sic) on time and the rest is history.

I woke up this morning feeling fully recuperated. When you are sick and lying on your back on your bed resting, you can only wish you’re healthy as a horse. So this morning was full of gratefulness to God for healing me completely. I offered a silent prayer of thanks to Him for giving me back good health and made a mental note to do this every single day. Boy! You can just imagine my happiness waking up without the slightest headache, soreness of throat, and an indefinite feeling of lack of health!

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Just got back to Manila a few minutes ago aboard a Philippine Airlines flight. That was the first time I was able to travel on board one of their larger jets. By larger, I mean the fact that there was a center aisle that seats 4 people, while there were 2 seats on both the left and right sides. I guess those jets are used for international flights.

Anyway, after the brief trip to Davao and Kidapawan, I was able to bring with me a box of my now favorite Durian fruit, which Davao City is very well known for. It was a photo finish check in again at the airport for me (as usual) since the the trip from Kidapawan to Davao took longer than usual due to the traffic.

I was not able to meet up with my in-laws due to the very tight schedule. I do hope next time my schedule would be a lot flexible so that I can spend time with them also.

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Been a couple of days since I blogged about my problem with the call dropping issue on my Blackberry Storm2 unit. It’s a good thing the supplier from whom I got the units has agreed to let me replace the unit from any of the products they have on their online store, or a refund, whichever I preferred. He also did tell me that they have already found the solution to the call dropping issue, which they got from emailing Verizon directly. It seems that they need to install some sort of a patch to take care of the call dropping.

Personally, it took me a long time to decide after I got wind of all these info as I may have already been hooked on my BB even though I still didn’t have it hooked up through the Blackberry Internet Service (how much more if I already did!!!). Over the Iphone, I prefer the touchscreen mechanism of the BB Storm 2 as I feel as though it allows me more control over the input keys.

Now I could really say that I am on a bind. My mobile plan lock up would be expiring on August this year and after that comes, I would like to do away with my other cellular phone and just retain one unit. I would prefer that the unit I would retain to have mobile data capability (unlimited surfing if possible like the BIS). Problem is, they don’t tie up postpaid mobile network plans with prepaid BIS. It is also hard to let go of the Globe mobile network plan since Globe has started offering Superduo services, wherein for just PhP 499 on top of your regular plan, you can already avail of unlimited calls to Globe and TM units as well as to landline phones in the NCR area. I do hope they also offer prepaid BIS to go with a postpaid call and text account.

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Now that I am assigned at our head office in Manila, I don’t have as much time to exercise than when I was assigned at the field. Basically, when I am at the field, even the trip up and down a steep flight of stairs of 20 or so steps have me out of breath at times. I am referring to the stairs up the rig floor. Furthermore, I would have the opportunity to play badminton on the field especially during times of rig mobilization.

How I wish I had my own personal treadmill so that I could exercise in the confines of our own lodging place. Then life would be a lot easier.

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For Christmas, Borski and I got ourselves techie gifts since our Sony Ericsson P910i units are already close to being extinct. But mind you, those units have served us pretty well since we got them in 2005 i think. It is a reliable unit, and quite durable. My only problem with it is that we can’t get a spare battery and my battery has been dying out on me rather fast these days, which is only acceptable considering the long and fruitful service life that it has provided us.

Now, on with my rant for this morning. As I said, we got ourselves two Blackberry Storm 2 units last Christmas. I could honestly say that I did lack in doing background checks on the performance of the unit, or a more thorough review, as I may have missed out problems regarding the unit until I just recently I have experienced the problem firsthand, only to find out that there were a lot of complaints already on the web. I do remember googling for “Blackberry Storm 2 problems” but somehow didn’t find enough convincing results to deter me from purchasing them. I guess I was too excited and impulsive for my own good.

One thing I don’t like about the unit is that, unlike Nokia and other more common brands, to access the net on the unit, you would have to enroll in the Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) to be able to do that, which you would need to pay on top of your regular mobile phone plan, whereas if it were, say a Nokia E72 phone, I would just be able to browse the net while just consuming my mobile plan consumable amount. Had I known that were the case, I wouldn’t have been so optimistic. Once again, it was a case of leaping before you looked. LoL. I guess I am learning from the school of hard knocks.

Another thing that has been eating up at me at the moment is the problem on dropped calls. When I went home for the Christmas holidays, I started experiencing dropped calls at the 20-30 second time duration of a call, which is so annoying to say the least!!! And as I googled the keywords “Blackberry Storm 2″ + “call failed”, guess what I found…there were already a lot of complaints on this issue, even from people locked up to a particular mobile carrier.

For now, I am at a loss as to how to solve this problem. I should just have gotten an Iphone instead. Grrrrr

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Now that the holidays are over, it is time to get back on track with the backlog of work I have left sleeping as the new year came crawling in. I still have the budget materials that I have to encode unto the offline templates, and I have to do a program for a project in Bacolod. I am just getting myself hyped up for the workload.

On a happy note, the calendars I have ordered for 2010 have already arrived via the couriers and we already managed to unpack them and wrap the desk calendars, ready to be given away, based on Borski’s list. As we were unpacking the parcel, Borski couldn’t quite help but comment that just from the packaging, she could tell that it was I who did it. LoL. And being the one who had packed it, it took us a lot of time to unpack the cardboard boxes. A box cutter would have come in handy.

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Another year has just passed. Oh how fast time flies by.

Earlier today, I sat in retrospect, looking at the year past, thinking of what I could have done better. For one, our blog has hibernated for the most part of the year, all thanks to our Facebook addiction. We had somehow lost the zest to update it on a regular basis. We haven’t been lacking on topics to blog about, from the profound to the mundane, everyday tidbits of life.

For the coming year, I do hope we can do a much better job at it. I guess we just have to set a goal, and keep focused on that goal. More along the lines of — setting our sights on what we want to accomplish, say..visualizing ourselves holding a DSLR camera, and imagining taking all sorts of beautiful pictures with it. LoL.

For now, I just wish everyone a Happy New Year. May 2010 bring forth more blessings to all!

Today is also the 35th year wedding anniversary of Dad Tony and Mama Carmen. We have also been blessed that they have chosen to celebrate their anniversary this year with us. I hope we have made it memorable in our own special way.

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