Monthly Archives: September 2010

The Shooting in Austin, Texas

The incidence of these mass shooting in the United States is increasing. For no reason, one person just decides to one day pull the trigger on everyone else and also takes his life. I sometimes wonder, why bring down everyone else? It is like an act of revenge for how society has treated them?

Thankfully this time, in the shooting at the University of Texas (UT) in Austin did not turn out victims, except for the gunman himself. It seemed that the guy enjoyed letting the bullets rain down on the school but did not actually hurt anybody. But he did kill himself. Classes were cancelled at UT because of the shooting.

In another light, residents of New York are being warned for a Tornado Watch. It seems that a big one is coming. When I was in New York City several years ago, I stayed or visited in the five boroughs of New York–Queens, Staten Island, Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn. I was so happy with the opportunity of visiting these places.

Anyway, one time, my uncle told me that they had a basement and it was functioning as their laundry room. He explained that all the houses in New York have basements because it was going to be their shelter against tornadoes, which are pretty common in their area.

What a scary thought! When I was in California, the scare was forest fires and earthquakes. In New York, it was twisters. I thought to myself, man, why do people want to go to America and they have all these natural calamities on a regular basis? At least in the Philippines, our most common natural happenings or acts of God is just monsoon rains and rather strong typhoons. hehehe

By the way, would you really believe that UFOs are tinkering with the nukes and other military stuff? I don’t think so. For one, I don’t believe that extra terrestrial beings exist. I think that the different governments of the different nations are just wasting so much money in the research for life forms in the outer space. Many movies have been made about them. But outer space creatures (aliens and Martians) are not real. They are just figments of our very active imagination. Like ghosts, they can embody because of what we believe in. If you don’t believe them, then you would not see or feel them. UFO Conference? hehe I don’t know, it’s up to you if you believe in the extra terrestrial stuff.

In the Coming Days

The weather has become rather unpredictable lately. We would make plans for our afternoon because of a rather sunny and breezy morning, but when 3pm comes, the sky turns dark. Around 4pm, it would then rain and our plans would be cancelled.

It had been some time now that I had been planning a picnic for my family. It could just be a picnic at the Capitol Lagoon where we will lay down my daughter’s Disney Princess mat on the grass and we can partake of sandwiches, crackers and juice. Another problem that seems to be opposing our picnic plans is the presence of mosquitoes. And they usually bite areas on our baby’s face because that is one part that we cannot really apply a lot of the citronella mosquito repellent.

You know, I am really excited to prepare a picnic basket for my family. Picnic baskets have a special place in my heart. When I was a child, my family would often go the beach. My mother would pack a really nice picnic basket filled with meats and hotdogs that will be barbecued, steamed rice, glutinous rice cakes, coconut candies, and ripe mango. And of course, there will be Coke and lots of ice. She would also put in our plastic picnic plates with dividers and plastic utensils and reusable plastic glasses. We had so much fun in the beach.

We left early to avoid the searing heat of the sun. We usually leave the house around 6 am, go to the beach, prepare for breakfast, and come home around 10am. We had a taste of all the good things of the beach without getting migraines and sunburn because of too much sun exposure. I have wonderful picnic memories and would like to build them for my child as well. :-D

Manic Monday

Whew! It is a manic Monday morning. Early morning, when everybody was still asleep, I went to the bank to withdraw money and then proceeded to another bank to pay my credit card bills online. But it turned out, the bank no longer supported online banking payments so I proceeded to another bank. All in all, I went to three banks in a span of four blocks so I had a good exercise.

When I got home, I got on the treadmill and further burned some calories for another 10 minutes. I got a really good sweat from there. Then I took a hot shower to relax my muscles. Then it is off to taking care of my baby and fixing things in the house.

Watching TV, I learned that the government is pushing for the increase in “sin taxes”, which are actually consumer taxes that will be added on products like liquor and cigarettes in order to bring up the prices of these things and therefore discourage the public from consuming them. That will also increase government revenue. Well, the companies will just pass the taxes onto the consumer as price increase, so it is up to the consumers to cut down or entirely stop their consumption of such products.

Paying my credit card bills, I thought of the Wall Street money that never sleeps. Wow! How I would love money that grows on trees. heehee Then I would not be running after money in order to pay my bills.

Later, I am thinking of catching the UFC 119 replays on TV. I hope they will be played on Solar Sports. If not, I will just watch Motocross Des Nations. I think I will rekindle my love for this fast sport with the Motocross of Nations.

By the way, have you heard of Tom Brady? I have heard of the tea party movement, but Tom Brady? Oh well, there goes my Monday.

Later this afternoon, we are really looking forward to swimming with my entire family at the Las Villas clubhouse. I hope it will not rain on our parade this time. We have been postponing our swimming party for so long now.

And oh, Happy 12th Birthday Google! Yeah, our favorite search engine Google is now celebrating its 12 years in the business. And Google is growing more than ever.