Happy New Year!
This is day five of the Asian internet slowdown - it is like molasses, still. I can get very little done and I've become very aware of just how much I depend on the internet.
I'm going to spend my Christmas money from Mom on a big order of books from my Amazon Wish List since I've read these through several times.
I need to feed my soul with some off-line material anyway.
I finally download a bunch of photos from our camera, including the whole set from our Honolulu trip. Plus, we took some yesterday from Lanang Beach where we spent Christmas Day afternoon.
I've upload the Honolulu photos to my Flickr as well as the Lanang photos. I still have a bunch of others from earlier this year to upload.
All the photos from Honolulu are here.
Those Honolulu photos with Mom in them are here.
Here is a tag cloud so you can click on any tag and find those photos.
Here are the photos from Lanang Beach on Christmas Day
It's already Christmas Day here in Davao.
Last night Jenny cooked a Christmas Dinner for us here at the house. She found a big Butterball turkey - believe it or not - at the store (our version of Costco) yesterday morning early and got it thawed in water in time to cook. It was delicious.
We also had some canned/packaged goods Jenny had previously shipped back from the States: Turnip greens (canned), cranberry sauce (canned), and stuffing mix (packages). So it was pretty much of a US dinner for once. I had some pepper sauce I had made up of local peppers for the turnip greens.
December is a great month in the Philippines. The weather, for here, is cool. At night it's about 72 degrees, about 92 during the day. And not so humid. Quite pleasant in the evenings, actually. Here in Davao City, Christmas eve is quite nice. In Manila it's very noisy and smoky, lots of fireworks (and even guns sometimes) going off. But the Mayor keeps a lid on that here. Fireworks are banned. (Even smoking in public establishments is banned in Davao, unlike Manila). Very quiet.
My Vonage modem seems to have died. So my US number: 1 (941) 219-3513 doesn't ring here, although you can still leave voice mail on it.
Just a random picture off of Flickr - a girl enjoying fresh buko juice. They take a machete, chop off the top of a fresh coconut and stick a straw in it.
This is really just a test to see how well blogging directly from Flickr works.
Got a call from Mom this morning - using old technology, the phone, since her computer is kaput. Actually, she didn't know it but she was using the internet since I received the call over my Vonage connection (a phone hooked into my internet). At least she didn't have to pay international rates.
You might see something in the news about a super typhoon headed toward Manila. But this is having no affect on us in Davao. The weather here is beautiful.
As of now, it looks like the typhoon may hit just south of the main metro Manila areas - but it's a little early to tell. Winds are about 200 km/hr right now but should decrease with landfall which is happening about now.
I've started this weblog as a way for family and friends to keep up with what's going on with us here in Davao. Not all posts are visible to the public, though some may be. Some will be marked as visible to Friends and Family only. Some may marked as visible to Family only. And some, heh, may be marked Friends only.
But if you know of anyone that might want to have access as a Friend or as Family, just let me know and I'll send an invite.
I've been blogging publicly at Mamutong for over five years - primarily on issues related to the Philippines. When I moved back to the Philippines in December 2005 to set up a business I started another blog at Asian Energy Advisors that is focused on the consulting practice.
So this is the third. It remains to be seen if I can actually blog in three different places and keep things interesting and relevant.
