And The Weekend Brought Friday

A week late on the follow up post, but anyway:

So after the GO!EMEA Team Building/Pool Party at Pansol, next on the agenda was the company-wide Christmas Party on Thursday night, ok food, ok venue, but it pales hugely in comparison to the Christmas parties of previous years. Back then, it was an actual party, everyone got a door prize, and beer was overflowing; this year, there was neither.

There was the usual Jam and Groove performances though:

Groove@HP performance

The next day, we had our group/tower/bundle's offsite team building. Since we had the Christmas party the night before, and the bus to Subic was scheduled to leave Makati at 5am, that meant no sleep for me. I decided that I would just sleep on the bus, but the travel time from Manila to Subic wasn't that long... so I didn't get that much sleep. So I thought I'd just sleep while I was on the ferry, but the ferry ride didn't take too long either, so I though I would just stay at the assigned room and sleep till lunch time. Except the room wasn't available yet, check in time wasn't until 1PM. By this time I was pissed.

But since Christmas is coming, I'll just be generous and just say that I enjoyed riding the banana boat (side note: this guy didn't), playing tag on the swimming pool (and bullying our teammates who couldn't swim by tagging them and swimming to the deeper end), eating dinner in the open garden (food for lunch was CRAP!), watching our teammates/managers dance/rap/embarrass themselves for charity (I have incriminating videos), and drinking/walking around the island from room to room to look for drinking buddies.

Pics!

It Started On A Monday

So this was a really busy week...

It started out last Monday, when weeks usually do. Our team (Global Operations EMEA + CDW L3, both current and former members) and the Capacity Management Team rented a pool house in Pansol, Laguna. And getting there was a challenge. For me, at least. So I decided that since Laguna is down south, and I live down south, it made sense to just join the carpool from one of the gas stations at South Luzon Expressway. I've done this several times, so I didn't really think I would run into problems, but then I usually wait at the Shell station. This time I decided to wait at the Petron station, because I got a text from Jerwin (who lives in Laguna) that he'll be waiting there too. Anyway, when I finally got to Alabang, I couldn't find a jeep that would stop at Petron. Turns out I had to go inside the Alabang terminal and ride a GMA-bound jeep. So when I finally found the jeep, I told the driver that I'll be getting off at the Petron station, but I guess he didn't understand me because he kept on driving until we got to Carmona exit, about 4 kms away. I got off just after the toll gate, and since I wasn't familiar with the area, I just decided to ride a jeep back to Alabang and retrace my steps. Luckily, the other carpool groups coming from Makati were still at the Sucat exit, so I texted them to wait for me at the Shell station, which is a lot easier to get to from Alabang. I arrived at the Shell station at just about the same time as the carpool group, and it was smooth sailing from there.

So the point of this story is: Good thing I know how to take public transpo.

Once we got to the pool house in Pansol, we had lunch (pork adobo cooked by Cez, and tilapia that was expertly gutted by Cla), swam for a bit, played cards, and had dinner (liempo grilled by the new hires.) We also sang our lungs out all night on the videoke (especially Cla, most especially Cla. BTW, tell me if you wanna see her straight-from-the-heart wild and awesome "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" performance :p) and got drunk on beer, vodka and Bacardi 151, which is how team buildings should be. We left early the next day and went back to work in the afternoon.

Pics!

----------------
Now playing: Up Dharma Down - the world is our playground and we will always be home
via FoxyTunes

Beer and Fireworks

Another October, another month of year-end performance reviews. The good part about fiscal year-ends in my company though is they are always book-ended by the Beer Bash, a night of free flowing beer and partying. The beer was San Mig (what else...) and the food was from Fish and Co., and music from Stonefree and Taken By Cars (there was a DJ too, but I didn't really pay attention to what he was playing, which according to Mia, sucked.)

The next day, our bundle/department/org unit had our second off-site event of the year. Earlier this year, it was an overnight stay at Subic where I got completely trashed. This time, it was just a day trip to Enchanted Kingdom, and it was tagged as a "Friends and Family" day, so I didn't expect to get drunk (I didn't.) On the contrary, I actually was only able to go on 3 rides (2 of them lame rides, and one of them, we had to line up for more than an hour.) I don't know if it was just me getting used to the feeling, but I honestly wasn't all that thrilled while riding on Anchors Away. I guess the thrill of Anchors Away was no match to last month's Abyss at Ocean Park.

The clincher of the night though was I the fireworks competition at the end of the night. There were 6 groups in competition, so it was fireworks overload after dinner, which I wasn't complaining about.


Pics are over here:
Beer Bash 2008
AMG at Enchanted Kingdom

----------------
Now playing: Coldplay - Death Will Never Conquer
via FoxyTunes

Lumot and Long Walks (Boracay 2008)

(click title above for pics)

Just got back from Boracay last Sunday. I went with my teammates from work, and most of the trip's expenses were paid by our company, which proves that company-sponsored off-site team building activities are still worth the stress of organizing. Boracay was fun! (Well, obviously.)

We stayed at a "resort for the budget-conscious backpacker" (or the budget-conscious office drones young professionals on a company-sponsored trip) and walked long enough most of the time to get to nice restos and bars and places that sell fruit (and mocha rhum) shakes that our legs got tired and stomachs well-starved for a nice big (free) meal but not enough that we could use it as an excuse to skip work when we get back to Manila.

Thanks to Club Paraw for selling us 5 expensive towers of mud slide and that blue drink that's like the Illusion Shaker from Cocomangas, and unknown numbers of Red Horse and San Mig Light bottles (and for making me buzzed enough that I was able to bust out my signature left-right-left-right dance =D).

And thanks to the boat guy who accommodated two dozens of us for some sunset sailing in paraws and snorkeling somewhere off the Coral Gardens in front of White Beach.

I passed on the island hopping trip on our second day because I've done it before (and it's not really island hopping if your only hopping off one island and then getting back to the same island, is it?) Anyway, those who did go on the trip didn't get to go to Puka Beach either because the sun was already setting. I spent my time instead walking all the way to Station 2 and swimming in the best no-lumot zones that I could find.

Speaking of which, I'd also like to thank the lumots for making their seasonal trip to the shores of White Beach and making it look like a group of vegans and various goats, cows and other herd animals puked on it after having a steady diet of broccoli, lettuce, and native grass.


(Oh, and right, thanks to SEAir for selling me last minute tickets because I umm... missed my original flight on that piso-fare selling airline. I love SEAir.)


----------------
Now playing: James Morrison - under the influence
via FoxyTunes

Snow in Zakopane, and Parties in Manila

I've been back in Manila for more than a few weeks now, but hey, better something than nothing.



Here are some pics from our trip to Zakopane

Zakopane is a nice, small town up in the mountains in the southern part of Poland, near the Slovakian border. We stayed at a really nice hostel called Stara Polana. And we made a snow man!

The place is really beautiful. The ten-hour train trip was worth it. =)

I came home just in time to join our off-site team building trip to Anilao, and two company Christmas parties. The trip to Anilao was awesome; my teammates are always fun to be with. The first Christmas party was for our bundle, the HP AMG-DME group. It was a costume party, as usual, and our team came as characters from Robin Hood. It was a pretty good party (I got a 10-cup coffee maker as a door prize!) I'll post pics on my multiply site later.

The second party was for the whole company, and to be blunt about it, it sucked ass. Logistics was awful and the food wasn't all that great. I can't wait to fill out that post-party survey.

Merry Christmas everybody (who celebrates it)! Happy Holidays (to those who will get to spend one)! and have a Happy New Year (if you get by the next eight days without dying)!



----------------
Now playing: The Postal Service - Such Great Heights
via FoxyTunes

Pasko, ikaw na naman?

Last Tuesday, my company held its Christmas Party at the Le Pavillon. The theme was Le Carnivale, and there were clowns, people on stilts, and mimes everywhere. The party was really fun, it started at around 6 pm and ended at about 1am (i think). The food was blah to be honest... It was supposedly catered by the Hyatt Hotel, but the food wasn't really all that interesting. (Last year's food was better.) All performances featured my co-workers, and most of it was really fun to watch. Cheers performers!

One thing I hated though was I got almost exactly the same freebie gift that I got last year! (Last year, I got a rectangular baking dish, this year I got an oval baking dish.) The good thing though: Free Overflowing Beer! Any party with an open bar is a great party if you ask me.

Then on Friday, I went to another Christmas party, this time it was the our Bundle's Christmas party. As it's becoming a tradition of sorts for out team, we were all supposed to come in costume. Two year's ago the theme was the 80's, last year it was the Movies, and this year it was White. Each sub-team had to wear a common costume, as long as it was predominantly white. The party was held at our teammate's house in not-so-nearby Commonwealth. (We came 2 hours late, besides getting caught in traffic, we took some time dressing up, and also had to take a slight detour to pick up some props: our balloons.) Oh yeah, we came as kids in a kiddie party

Last thing on the agenda last week was our sub-team's Team Building. We left Manila Saturday evening and made our way to Tagaytay City, Cavite where we had dinner at Lesley's (the dinner was heartstoppingly delicious: Bulalo, Crispy Pata and Sisig. Yum!) After dinner, we proceeded to this awesome house in Nasugbu, Batangas (thanks Vic!) where we slept till late in the morning. The next day, we went to San Juan, Batangas to enjoy the beach! We booked ourselves to La Luz Resort. La Luz was a little disappointing. The rooms were really nice, but aside from the beach, there was not much to do once the sun came down. Good thing we brought some vodka with us. That definitely kept us entertained till the early morning. We played our team's favorite game, 1-7-11 (woohoo!), and another game that Primo introduced to us, Raise (Race?) It wasn't really a game as much as it was a way for us to finish of the bottle of vodka. WOOHOO! Once the vodka bottle was all cleaned out, we used it to play spin the bottle. All I can say is, we didn't have enough bottles to get us to talk out of our asses that night.

Cheers to all who organized the parties! Last week's parties was really fun.

One party I failed to go to was the one organized by my college friends. It ran smack into out team building, so I couldn't make it. Sorry guys.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On a more bitter point, I'll be working on both Dec 25 and Jan 1. Jeez... And what do we, holiday workers, get for it? Nothing. Not even 1% extra pay for working on those two holidays. Because the company I work for somehow has this twisted policy where they do not pay their employees anything for working on holiday. And they expect us to be motivated and deliver high-quality output.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Settembre?

1. August 31 was my teammate Vlam's last day at the office. I have to admit that it was sad to see him go because he wasn't just a great co-worker, but is also a great person. Last September 2, he invited us for a weekend trip to Fontana. Fontana was awesome, unfortunately, despite a weekend out-of-town trip, I still had to work all night till early morning :(

Good luck on your new career as a businessman, Vlam! :D

2. Our bundle, BI/DW(Business Intelligence/Data Warehousing), had our off-site team building last weekend at Lagos Del Sol in Lake Caliraya, Laguna. Lagos Del Sol was really beautiful. But despite the fact that it was our team-building, I again had to work (at midnight!)

3. Just got myself a cd of John Mayer's Continuum and Snow Patrol's Eyes Open. I am right now reading The Sandman Volume 2: Doll's House (it's one of the books I bought during Powerbooks' month-long sale). I spotted a hardback of The Wake (Sandman Vol 9) at Bibliarch in Glorietta 3 that I'm tempted to buy too. It's really expensive though, but The Sandman has always been my favorite indulgence, so I might just get a copy :D

4. I'm in the middle of a four-day break from work right now. It's so tough to shift from being a midnight DM to a regular working hour routine every week. I officially hate it.

5. I became a 1-year-old professional last Tuesday.

6. Two teammates of mine recently came back from Warsaw, Poland. Their trip was related to our (sub)team's transition to 24x7 application support hours.

The next few months should be interesting.

Galera Days / I Still Love Typhoons

Last weekend:

I went to Galera again (yep, second time this month) for some teambuilding activities with my (duh) teammates from work. I must say that this trip is much better than the first one, if you consider the simple creature comforts (such as having a place to sleep in) a major factor in rating your vacations.

We got there on a smooth Friday morning, and I was really pleasantly surprised that there were only a handful of people on the beach (as opposed to the number of people as seen in the entry below)... Oh yeah, this is what beaches should be... No annoying, noisy people getting pissed drunk, losing half their locomotor skills (Read: Me, three weeks ago.) No overcrowding of seashores and restaurants... Just a small army of you and your crew, the blue sea, the nice not-so-white sands of White Beach, and the small parts of the sun that was able to peek through the gray clouds.

The atmosphere was also very calm, owing probably to the effects of the huge typhoon that wrecked through the island. (Side note: there was no electricity in Puerto Galera at that time as power lines were knocked down. The island is still under a State of Calamity until now, so people, donate where you can, when you can.) It made the seas look calmer and bluer than what I remember it. You could even see some coconut tree leaves floating freely from the shore. All that made Puerto Galera look like this new-found beach in a nice piece of island far away from the urban towns of smoke and booze. Just nice.

(Yeah, I'm unnecessarily dramatic sometimes. Fuck off it.)

One of the first things that we did when we got there was to ride the banana boat. While we were signing up at the registration counter, rain start to pour. We were waiting for the banana boat to get back to the shore (it just started pulling its latest victims away when we got there), so we just lied down on the beach for a while watching out for thunders that followed the lightning. When it was finally our turn, it was still raining and man, that banana boat ride in the rain sure was fun. It was awesome too that the motorboat went well far away from the shore. Being in the middle of the sea made trying not to fall from the banana thing all the more exciting (on the other hand, I think we just established the record for fastest banana boat tip-over (less than 10 seconds from when the motorboat started going vzrooom.)

My point being -> Janis Joplin and Nick Drake rock. And so do typhoons.

p.s. We went back to Manila on Sunday morning, where we were welcomed back on the Batangas City Port by our officemate Geebee who prepared lunch for our party (Joseph, Karon and Me)

Later that day, Me and my family went to Intramuros' Patio Victoria to attend my cousin Iris' debut party. Happy 18th Iris!

Today, I withdrew the first batch of the 80% of money that I have on my payroll account. And I couldn't be more excited. =D

Natalie Portman, You Own Me Now.

It's already the middle of March and I still haven't posted anything here...

So here I go.

My brother left for the US (to Atlanta) about two and a half weeks ago for a project he's been assigned to at work. He'll be staying there for atleast three months. Ano kaya ang magandang hingiing pasalubong?

--------------------------------------------------------------

My favorite show of all time - The Amazing Race - is back with a new season... Woohoo! And it's back to the good, regular format of teams-of-two-racingaroundtheworld! (Good thing they ditched that completely sucky "Family Edition" racearoundtheUSandnearbycountries shit)

By the way, AXN just bought the rights to produce an Asian version of the Amazing Race. I'd join this, but I don't think I can take a month off from work... tsk tsk...

--------------------------------------------------------------

Finally got to buy the Up Dharma Down cd... Haven't listened to it yet though... I'll try to post my thoughts later...

--------------------------------------------------------------

Hostel!!!

---------------------------------------------------------------

I scored two tickets for last night's advance screening of V for Vendetta. The movie was AMAZING. It's a really really really good movie (a timely one too) that I highly recommend to anyone. So watch it!

I shall die here. Every last inch of me shall perish. Except one.

An inch. It's small and it's fragile and it's the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it, or sell it, or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.

It's a really smart movie (I don't want to use "intellectual", because honestly, intellectual is such a blrergh word, you know?) that combines substance and style in an awesome way. It's a Vertigo movie is what it is. I could go on and on about how much I loved this movie, so I better stop now.

---------------------------------------------------------------

F1 season is back again! Great start of the season with the Bahrain Grand Prix too, with Fernando Alonso overtaking Michael Schumacher on his way out of the pitstop, at the most perfect time in the race! Kimi Raikonnen took third place after starting the race at the bottom of the pack after sufferring suspension failure during qualifying (again). Still, good race...

---------------------------------------------------------------

Last March 3-4, we at the office had our first teambuilding activity of the year (hope there's many more to come.) We had it at this resort at Balai, Indang, Cavite just a few kilometers off of Tagaytay. The place we rented was really nice, had very nice houses and rooms, good food, weather was great, it was a great weekend over-all... Except for one hilariously embarrassing thing that I did...

We were assigned our rooms and I was supposed to room with my manager, my team leader, and a teammate of mine. So we're four in the room right? Well, the short story is that I was the only one who actually got to sleep in the room because I fell asleep before everyone else and locked the door. Accidentally (y'all have to believe me on this). My three roommates (yep, including the manager) ended up sleeping in the sofas outside... So yeah... a little awkward seeing them the next few days...