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Gerry’s Grill in Union City and a UFO. I didn’t notice the hovering speck until I d’nloaded the pic from my camera phone.

There’s now a Gerry’s Grill on this side of the Pacific. It’s a welcome addition to the selection of Filipino restaurants here in the Bay Area. It’s a little bit more upscale than the average Pinoy hole-in-the-wall turo-turo diner. Decor and choice of furniture are decent. One wall is lined with capiz-adorned panel doors. A nice little water fountain is built into the wall to the right and a bar occupies the front-end of the restaurant. I was greeted, however, by a familiar smell when I entered the place. It’s that certain scent you smell when you enter a Filipino grocery store or when you first crack open a newly arrived balikbayan box. It sort of smells banig-like, you know what I mean? (Some Thai restaurants have it too.) It definitely adds to the authenticity. For sure though, you won’t see any “Hello, Garci” pre-paid phone card posters or Philippine government-issued calendars stapled onto the maitre d’s podium. Which brings me to the staff — they’re mostly non-Filipino of different stripes, sort of what you’d see at the local TGIF or Chili’s. Oh and the food? It was okay, I guess. I’m not much of a gourmand so I’m not going to elaborate on it further. I just remember having kare-kare, pancit and sisig. It was quite filling.

As much as possible, my buddies from back in the day try to see each other at least once a year. Two Saturdays ago was such an occasion. An old friend of ours was in town so the old gang decided to meet up. We got together in San Leandro at Matthew’s house.

This is how we looked like in the early ’90s. We were in what I’d like to call our “houser” phase:*

This is some of us now (plus other friends not pictured above) with spouses and children:

Rel (in the Giants shirt), I discovered, has a very popular Flickr site.

I’ll take the time to mention here that the book that Ric (bottom right above) co-edited is now available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble (I know some of you expressed interest in it):

Thanks for the copy, Ric!

*Just to give you a snapshot of that era, we’d go out clubbing wearing printed rayon shirts, Girbaud jeans, and steel-toed Dr. Martens. Our style of dance shifted from choreographed dance routines to freestyle, improvised moves known as “housing” (for examples, see this Herb Alpert video and an early Sway & King Tech video on YouTube). We haven’t joined the rave scene here yet. That would take a few more months to happen. The underground hip-hop phase was soon to follow.

What’s up with this? The only theater in the entire Bay Area showing A Scanner Darkly is the Embarcadero* in San Francisco. Bah!

Update (July 17, 2006): I just learned that more theaters have been added this past weekend, thanks to a heads-up by Mark.

(*I used to work at Two Embarcadero Center several years ago, btw.)

Lookee here, lookee here…

The kids brought home this Jack Sparrow Happy Meal toy from McDonald’s!

In anticipation of guests coming to watch the Pacquiao vs. Larios fight with us last Saturday, I hurriedly tidied up the house. First, I swept the leaves that have been falling non-stop from the tree in front. It’s not autumn, darn it. I’ve had to do this consistently the past few weeks lest I get dirty looks from the neighbors. The brittle leaves have been blowing all over the cul-de-sac, ending up in my neighbors’ yards. The tree was taunting me though, I’m telling you. As soon as I finish sweeping the last of the leaves, a couple more would drop.

Next, I plucked out rogue plants that have invaded our garden bed. They’re not classified as weeds, but they sure act like ‘em. Lastly, I finally installed the new dryer that was sitting in the living room for a couple of weeks. It was missing the giant three-prong plug which I eventually found and bought at Home Depot.

The Pacquiao-Larios boxing match on pay-per-view is the second Pacquiao fight I’ve watched. Manny is quite the unstoppable fighter. He studies his opponents and adjusts his style accordingly to eventually bring them down. Last Saturday’s bout was broadcast live from the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City. It was amusing to see that the typeface used in the “Araneta Coliseum” sign is the same as the one used in the poster for the first Star Trek movie. It reminds me of the time when RPN 9 nightly news (with Harry Gasser) used to use the Battlestar Galactica theme song in its opening credits two decades ago.

Out of all that happened this holiday, my eldest son learning to ride a bike is the one I cherish the most. It was a goal of mine to teach him to do so this summer. But I can’t take the credit for it. It was his uncle who taught him. And what better teacher than my cousin? He’s one of the most patient guys I know. My son went over to his house after church last Sunday to play with his kids. When I went to pick him up after a couple of hours, I was delighted to see him bicycling around their cul-de-sac with his cousins and friends. It was “peer pressure” that got him to do it, one of his titas said. I’m sure that’s partially true but I believe the fact that he’s learned to balance with his Heelys previously helped a lot. In fact, it’s what made him take on ice skating quite easily the first time we went.

My son was visibly excited to be able to ride a bike. It reminded me of the first time I learned. I was around my son’s age. A neighborhood kid taught me how. I didn’t have a bike of my own so I learned on his. The thanks I gave him was running into him with his own bike while he was doing a lay-up at the local outdoor court (accidentally, of course). Anyway, biking gave me a tremendous feeling of freedom. It pushed the boundaries with which I was allowed to cross in my neighborhood. Instead of just walking to the corner sari-sari store, I was now able to buy a bottle of Coke and a bag of shrimp chips from a store several blocks away.

I felt silly driving to work on Monday. Nobody was there. I should strike up conversations with my coworkers once in awhile in order to be up on what’s going on at work, shouldn’t I? So I turned around, went home and spent the rest of the day with the kids. We first went to the library. They read their books while I caught up with some work. A couple of hours later, we went to the park – to go biking of course!

My wife came up with a last minute plan to have a picnic at the park across the street to celebrate the 4th of July. We invited a few family and friends and had a couple of tables reserved early yesterday morning. We got the barbecue going, got a couple of banigs and folding chairs out, the kids got wet from the water guns, and there was more biking. We topped off the day by going to the adjacent city where setting off fireworks is legal.