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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.

I’ve been meaning to post this sooner. Last Sunday in San Francisco, I met with Mark of ClickMoMukhaMo.com and Gerry (aka Ibalik) of Dekarabaw.com. Gerry was in town for a short vacation. It was nice to finally meet these online friends in person.

We rendezvoused at the entrance of the Metreon then proceeded to walk past the Powell Street cable car turnaround up to the recently renovated Union Square. We checked out the new obelisk in the middle which had an inscription about the Spanish-American war that played out in Philippine shores in 1898. It’s funny how we all busted out with our cameras as soon as we got there. We felt like tourists.

We all hadn’t had lunch so we looked for a place to eat. We ended up in a Japanese restaurant in Chinatown.

  

After eating, we headed back to South of Market. We got our cups of coffee and sat atop the upper level of Yerba Buena Gardens where we chatted a bit more. Seemed like we didn’t run out of things to talk about. But alas, the meeting had to come to an end. Mark had a train to catch back home, Gerry had a later commitment to attend, and I had to get back home to help the wife study for her finals.

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Friendster’s a hit in Manila, according to this Wired article. It “first gained traction with the large Filipino community in the San Francisco Bay Area, then spread across the Pacific.” Although part of this community, I have for years not succumbed to signing up at the social-networking site. I share the same sentiment as this quote in the article: “(w)hen you put up a website, your audience is the world.” With my website, I’m a Google search away from anyone who wants to find me (and a few old friends have). I imagine, however, that I’d greatly benefit from Pusit, Friendster’s Filipino answer to Craigslist, if I still lived in Manila.

(via philweavers)

Yesterday turned out to be a day pleasantly spent with a couple of old and new friends. I met up with Edmund, a long lost friend of mine, to check out the Macworld expo together. Ed was a roommate/co-worker from back in the day.

Ed and I at Cha-Am Restaurant across the street from Moscone Center.

Click here to see how we looked ten or so years, and pounds, ago.

Cha-Am is a Thai fast food restaurant which occupies the space where Jollibee used to be. While dining there, I recognized Mike of Pusod and Jayadewa.com. I introduced myself, then invited him to join our table. We had a nice little chat about Macworld (which he himself attended), the internet and work.

We do! We do! We do need our steenkin’ badges!

More Macworld pics here.