Archive for April, 2003

It’s A Boy!

Friday, April 25th, 2003

O and I are proud to announce the birth of our baby boy. He came in at 8 lbs. 12 oz., 19 inches long. It was a relatively quick delivery.

He is still being observed at the hospital. He has exhibited rapid breathing since birth. Tests have been done and with proper treatment, things should normalize. We expect him to come home in a couple of days. You should see him - he’s this fat baby among the other little angels in the nursery. His brothers, ages 6 and 2 1/2, can’t wait for him to come home.

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Easter Weekend

Monday, April 21st, 2003

Here’s a quick rundown of my weekend. On Friday, I got out early from work in order to prepare for the meditation on the Seven Last Sayings of Christ at the Good Friday service that evening. I was assigned to speak on the third saying of Christ, “Dear woman, here is your son.” It was a privilege and honor to speak in front of the congregation. But I feel I’m not cut out for public speaking (like Moses?).

Saturday morning was all about chores. Later I took the kids to Fry’s Electronics where I saw a couple of really good deals on Mac games. I bought the Spider-Man game and Alice game for $9.99 each. My wife meanwhile went to see her good friend’s newborn baby at the hospital. We are still waiting for our own little bundle of joy to arrive.

Later that evening, we had choir practice at my cousin Winston’s house for our Easter Cantata presentation the next day. It was also the birthday of Winston’s wife, Alma, so mucho delicious food was served.

At 6:00 a.m. the next morning, I woke up to head over to our Easter Sunrise Service at a park close by. It was quite chilly. Pastor Alois delivered a stirring sermon on the resurrection of Christ. Here are some pictures:

Shortly afterwards, we went to our respective homes to get ready for the later service where we were to perform the cantata. I got the church bulletins to print out almost without a hitch. My printer had a knack of stopping mid-way in manual feed mode. I’m glad I found out that having the paper go out through the back slot minimizes snags.

We had several guests that morning. Our Easter Cantata presentation, just like our past performances, was preceded by several weeks of practice. This time, however, felt like we were less prepared than usual. Sure enough the entire choir forgot a stanza as we sang the final song. We quickly substituted words from an earlier part of the song. From later inquiries, some audience members indicated they hadn’t noticed the faux pas. I think they were just trying to be nice. Overall, I feel the resurrection message has been proclaimed joyfully, both in song and sermon. Our fallibility does not diminish Christ’s glory and honor.

After church, the family went to my sister’s house for a little egg hunt for the young ones. Also present were our parents and our tito and tita from Virginia. The apos kept them entertained the whole afternoon.

We capped off the day with an evening at the movies. We saw Anger Management. I’d have to tag on a full movie review here if I talked about it so I won’t go there. So much for the quick rundown.

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Kartunista

Thursday, April 17th, 2003

I was delighted to correspond with Ariel Atienza, creator of the comic strip West Side appearing weekly in the Philippine News. You can check out his blog here. Thanks for the mention, bro. Thanks also to Ganns for Ariel’s blog link.

Perusing the comic strip section of the Philippine News, I was surprised to find that Mr. Pol Galvez got out of retirement to revive his Sanoy strip. Hoy Dennis, will you follow suit?

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Spirited Away

Wednesday, April 16th, 2003

Saw Spirited Away on DVD last night. It opened with Pixar’s John Lasseter introducing the movie to viewers. Although distributed by Disney, this Japanese production doesn’t fit the typical Disney mold (no song and dance numbers by cute furry creatures). There were creatures but they were other-worldly creatures too frightening for children to watch. At least in the beginning I thought. I saw this movie with my two sons, ages 6 and 2 1/2, and I expected them to watch certain scenes from behind the couch but they just took it in stride. They seemed to fully grasp that this was pure fantasy, enjoying every minute of this delightful albeit unusual movie. It reminded me of the time I watched as a kid the animated adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (of which Spirited Away shares some similarities). Although frightened at times, I was riveted to the screen, swept by the exhilarating finale as Aslan defeats the evil Snow Queen and reclaims Narnia as his kingdom.

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Bold Stance

Monday, April 14th, 2003

Santa Clara G4 County Sign
Across the street from Intel headquarters, Santa Clara - the heart of Silicon Valley - defiantly shows its allegiance to the G4 chip.*

*(G4 actually refers to the San Tomas/Montague Expressway, hehe. I work about a block away from here)

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