Shameless. Kababaeng tao.

There's not much I can say about it. Except that while I do not agree with armed men holing up in a posh hotel, I do not expect government to ram its way through its lobby with a tank.

I also do not agree that newsmen, including Ces Drilon, Pinky Webb and Sandra Aguinaldo should be "processed" in Camp Bagong Diwa because some of the rebel soldiers disguised themselves as journalists. Are we really that stupid in their eyes?

I also do not agree with curfew as a knee-jerk, harebrained reaction to protect one's (questioned and questionable) position in government.

Fried Sinigang: Naga tales

I can't cook. But I know sinigang and fried fish don't go together. In Naga, where I was early this month, they do.

They also put young coconut meat in sinigang. Eng?

And lots of chili on anything that can be eaten. Until I wanna call in the firefighters.

This place will make Koryn happy. They have nice food, too.


I was so bored waiting for the plane to arrive I took pictures of everything that moved. Even those that didn't.

Do you drive a Jimny? Wanna meet up?

I keep wondering who else drives a car like this. Aside from me and Vond, whose girlfriend has managed to convince me to buy two things: a car and a laptop.

Anyway, it's a compact 4 x 4. It seems to say it's only for the select few who love adventure. I sometimes think it's for socially-challenged people, too, like me. Or for four people who love each other so much they won't mind sniffing each other's scent, desirable or not.


"Gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling just looking at it, right?" asks Vond. I fall in love with my car each time I see it, or another like it.


What kind of person buys a car like mine? I wish I could meet some of you soon. How about an eyeball on December 26, a day after Christmas? Say, NLEX northbound? Shell station? Around 2PM?

I want to know why you bought a car like mine. Where you have driven it. How far. How well it performed. Besides, there's too few of us. We might as well get to know each other.

Maguindanao

Just got back. It was a "fun" trip. I can't elaborate.

Anyway, don't be thinking rustic yet.



The real picture is not too pretty.



I wish this kid is able to go to school. I wish he grows up with options. I can't elaborate. Yet. Maybe next month.



It ain't easy all the time. But the learning is always tremendous. I love my job.

The dodo drives under the influence

Dear Dino,

My escapade up north did not begin without a hitch. I slept late, which made me wake up late. I was supposed to leave at 5AM. I woke up at 7AM and was on the road at half past 8.

As I was weaving my way through traffic in EDSA, two cops asked me to pull over. I was furious, pulled the window down, and went on a minor yadayada. Wadahek did I do this time? I didn't do nuthin! Then I think I blushed when they told me what it was: Jiminy Da Cricket was number coded that day.

I've been on vacation once this year. On my birthday, because I hate the birthday stuff where you eat with people you love on certain days and then they sing that stupid song with just four words and a couple of notes in it. And this one, because I had to challenge myself to go out of my comfort zone. Since I'm on vacation, I thought the world must be, too, as must number coding. Eng. That factor did not even figure in my mind that morning.

So here it is. My first ticket. Angela, you are no longer alone in collecting tickets.

All because I was NOT driving under the influence of a brain.

Stupidly yours,
JJ the dodo

PS- With this explanation, any cop in his right mind would not have given me a ticket. But you still did! The nerd!

La Union

La Union will always be memorable to me. This was my first destination with Jiminy Da Cricket last year, during the Holy Week break. I was able to return two weeks ago, during the extended break.



The room is relatively cheap. And with my room with this kind of view, who would complain? And I love Ilocano food. Haaay. I want more money and time for vacations.



I fell asleep on one of the plastic benches here while reading a great book during my vacation.It felt great to wake up to this kind of great view. All I needed was a man! Haha!






This father and son team didn't mind the darkness. The son wanted to learn how to swim.

Road trip II

On my way back to Manila from Ilocos Norte, I passed by Candon. I just had to take a picture.


Papang, my paternal grandfather, always spoke of this place with fondness. He spent many years of his life here. Then he met and fell in love with a Batanguena and settled in the land of Ala Ehs.


I bought a couple of watermelons in Moncada, Tarlac. I still haven't found a brilliant way to take pictures of the trees here. Them that hug each other from across each side of the street. Any ideas?


When I got home, my plant was thirsty.

Next destination: I'm thinking Quezon province. Hay, Jiminy Da Cricket, you are a great car for a lady.

Dear CJ, Talia, Sage, Sabine, and Sadie

How many legs does a carabao have?



When you grow up, please wait until you see the whole picture. There's always a logical explanation to things that seem to be bizarre.



Try not to look for logic in me, though. Most of the time, I have none. I'm just having my own brand of fun.

(Pictures taken in a very remote farming community in Batac)

Road trip

Fired Angel, I hate to do this to you, man. You who got stuck in Manila. But since you asked for it....here's the first picture I took of Jiminy Da Cricket during my trip up north.


Save for three more shots from other angles, this is the only picture I was able to take on my way to Laoag. What I did was take note of the nice places I saw on my way up, then I took a leisurely two-day trip back to Manila so I can have more time to take pictures.

Why Laoag? Well, I figured it was time to go out of my comfort zone. I've been to La Union, I needed to go further up.

I'm thinking next time, I'd take Jiminy to a trip that entails a ferry ride.

By the way, I had soda here in Narvacan.

Then I had soda here, too. But it was on my way back to Manila.




I like this bridge because it deviates from what I call the "elementary school design" of our bridges, those that have no art in them. However, this bridge needs fixing, too. It has lumpy asphalt, all the way. Argh. Why can't our engineers do things right?

More pictures in the days to come. Next time, I hope I have a photo buddy with me, with Angel your pasaway girlfriend in tow.

At dapat may 250mm na tayong lens. Pautang naman!

Explaining this blog

A few friends who recently came to know of my blog are raising questions, which I think deserve answers.

Welcome. This is my private area. I don't discuss details of my work here, nor the results of my work as a journalist, save for the occasional shameless plug. If it is something I was not able to include in any of the articles I have written - especially those critical of any individual or event - I see no reason why it should see print here. I also try not to discuss what went on behind the scenes of what I research and write as a journalist. These too, should be part of the article.

I chose to make this an anonymous blog because I do not want to confuse people of what I say personally and officially. As you can see, this blog is my "garbage pail," to use the term of one famous psychiatrist. As someone who still has to master my role as journalist AND manager, I do need my garbage pail every now and then.

Having said all that, I do not exempt myself from the occasional rant post like all others who work and blog. We do all have our moments of frustration, and I am more inclined to whine - and wine - than most.

In short, this blog is more about my life outside journalism. This is about fishing (whether for men or real fish), books, rants, pet peeves, and pets I won't adopt. It is about my dodo moments, inanities, ridiculous experiences, and errors that make me the most unique idiot you'll ever meet.

In the older days of this blog, I used the title Lucubrate; to work at night by lamplight. That was accurate then, should you have seen my work table at home.

But my place was burglarized in February this year, and I lost my VAIO laptop, three Canon cameras and my already spotty sanity. When Angel coerced, err, convinced me to buy a Mac, I changed the name from Lucubrate to mayamanako. There are two reasons: one is that I wanted to end my feeling of being poverty-stricken after losing the instruments with which I earn my living and two, I want it to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hope and positive thinking are, after all, magnets of good fortune. (Next I'll go for world domination)

Atticus is the name I chose because my favorite book is "To Kill a Mockingbird" and I'd like to believe my Dad is almost like Atticus Finch except he died too early and failed to explain the complexities of the Boo Ridleys I'd meet later in life.

Miranda is again, courtesy of the irreverent Angel and her Tres Lokas group. It's the main character in that hit chick lit book - which I will never read -"The Devil Wears Prada." Angel explains I am Miranda Priestly in her kind moments, which, judging by the movie, was a moment as rare as a pink carabao. In fact I saw that dang kindness only at the end of the movie, so fleeting, just as the curtains were about to fall. Explaining the name a bit more, Koryn said "You're "the bitch who riled against mediocrity all the time." Now, that's what I call "hug and stab" statement. And since we have no control over what people call us to our face and behind our back, I let it be.



I use this picture as my icon because CJ is my latest nephew, and I have yet to see him in person. We do talk a lot on the phone, and I wonder if he will be able to connect the voice with the person when I finally get the chance to visit him.

As for the pictures you see in most of my post, I bravely took them believing I'm good behind the lens. And if you disagree, I'd like you to prove your point by becoming my third nude subject in my lifetime.

So, please, disagree.

Five hundred miles

Jiminy Da Cricket and I traveled a total of 1,020 kilometers or 633.79861 miles the past four days. I just got back this afternoon (and immediately wanted to be away again). *Sigh*

Anyway, on to more important things...

One of the pleasures of a vacation like this is the opportunity to talk and listen to people from all walks of life, and learn from them. Minus the pressure of beating a deadline, of course, which makes it more leisurely.



I forget his name. But he says he is old, very old, "72 or 73?." I smiled and said he doesn't look old, and definitely does not move old. He says he was born in 1932. Then he turns to me again and asks me how old that makes him. I didn't know what to say so I thought honesty would be fine. I said that makes him 75. He bit his lip for a while then chuckled, as if summoning back his cheerful ways.

"Why do you travel alone?" he asks me. I said most of my friends are not on break yet. "Settle down, it's fun to be married," he said. I smiled and changed the subject.



He doesn't know how many kids he has anymore. All he remembers is that he has buried a few of them.

He's been to Manila, he proudly tells me. It was when his sister left for Hawaii to get married. It must have been five decades ago, give or take a few years. The Manila he saw then was not as ghastly as the one we have now. It must have been a major operation for the whole family, for they all went to the airport to see the sister off.



"It's tough to farm," he says. The old farming song about planting rice is still true. The farmer says their mayor allows them to plant rice just once a year, because the water used for irrigation has to be diverted for the city's requirements. "Sometimes we're lucky, sometimes we're not," he says. This year the harvest is lean, as some portions of the irrigation canal were erased by tons of mud and rocks after two recent storms battered the region. Luck has nothing to do with a lot of the process, though. Most of the time it requires brute force, the willingness to just sleep off the exhaustion and physical pain, and a strong will to survive.



"We can't afford to rent the town's harvest equipment," says this man. That would mean almost two sacks as payment, plus money for diesel. They have resorted to a gentleman's agreement instead: neighbors will take turns helping neighbors until all the grains are harvested. It takes weeks for the whole community to finish the harvest. Then the harvest has to be spread out under the sun twice, before it is ready for milling.

Then they will have to pay the lenders for the money they used to buy fertilizer. Set aside some amount for the next planting season, which they said they often end up using for other needs. Which takes them back in front of the lender. It's a cycle that never ends.

The earth is draining these men's youth, blood and sweat. It has, for generations now.

Unless our farmers are able to benefit from a more modern way of farming, it will remain that way.