My Weekend Journal

What's this van doing here? The country is saving electricity. Are we taking our part in celebrating Earth Day early? The answer is just a plain "No". The reason is too far from Earth Day's campaign. We are saving electrical energy for the coming election on May 2010. We have scheduled power interruption, - er not really scheduled because we don't receive any advisory from the provider - which happens almost everyday. As usual, I was burning my browses trying to beat my deadline. I'm on the process of quality checking my work when my monitor turned black. I thought there would be no power interruption today but why did this happen? We went out of the office trying to get some fresh air only to realize that we're the only one having power problem. Our line was dead because of overload. An hour or so later, a white van with a ladder on top on it came and we easily identified them as the power people. They effortlessly pulled the ladder from the van...

Did I just experience an earthquake or was it just my head spinning because of sleepless nights? At 6:52 this morning, I felt my monitors slightly shook. I thought I only imagined what just happened but it felt so real, so I checked the internet and found out there was really a strong earthquake in Mindanao. While I was reading the report from USGS , another slight shake happened at 7:16am. We are lucky to experience only slight tremors here in Cebu City. I just hope the quake did not result to any serious damages.

When I went out for lunch today, everybody on the streets is watching something on the sky. Some people were even taking pictures. Out of curiosity, I asked an officemate, who was then busy adjusting his camera. He told me to look at the sun. And, there it was, a magnificent rainbow around the sun! I hurriedly took my camera and captured this bizarre phenomenon. I have seen this occurrence when I was still in high school, but I'm still enchanted like a little kid. Some people say the rainbow was formed because of the sun's reflection on the clouds, others connect this to global warming, and some superstitious people believe this would bring something ... uncertain. Scientifically speaking, this is called a sun dog. According to the wikipedia, " A sun dog or sundog (scientific name parhelion, plural parhelia, from Greek parēlion, "beside the sun"; also called a mock sun) is an atmospheric phenomenon that creates bright spots of light in the sky, often on ...

As May 2010 approaches, more and more politicians are taking advantage of the campaign period (and some even before the campaign period) to gain more popularity and get an edge over their rivals. An increasing number of political campaign advertisements are scattered anywhere. Photos of politicians are seen on street lamp posts, walls, ad spaces, bridges, trees, house gates, garbage cans, electric posts, electrical wires - name it; they are just everywhere! Their campaign banners come in different sizes. You could easily identify politicians with high financial resources just by looking at their banners. There are guidelines for ad or banner posting but they seem disregarded. How could these people better serve the community when even on their campaign for service, they are already spreading their garbage? There are proper places for these banners or posters, and politicians (and their men) ought to follow the guidelines. For sure they have lots of greens to finance their campaign. ...

This is the first fire to hit Mandaue City this March. Over a thousand families lost their homes during the fire. [photo from philstar.com ] March marks the start of hot summer months and the Bureau of Fire Protection declared it as Fire Prevention Month. This is a nationwide campaign and various activities and information dissemination were conducted for the safety of all concern. However, despite all efforts to prevent fire from destroying properties and lives, the hard-headed glowing gas always finds its way. The dancing flame gutted 221 houses across Pilipinas Makro Cebu in Sitio Aroma, Barangay Subangdaku, Mandaue City Monday afternoon including the house of our officemate, Eric. In our desire to help Eric, friends and officemates shared some old clothing for Eric and his relatives. Hope these would, in some way, ease out some of their basic concerns. If you wish to reach out, any help you could extend or share to the homeless victims would be much appreciated. You may shar...

  photo from LA Times An escaped circus zebra in Atlanta galloped along a busy section of interstate highway on Thursday afternoon with police in hot pursuit. The rush hour traffic came into standstill and the busy interstate turned into a circus. After a 40-minute chase through downtown to the interstate highway, the Atlanta police captured the 12-year-old zebra, named Lima, along the Interstate 75-85 downtown connector. The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus spokesperson, Crystal Drake, told the Associated Press, police cruisers blocked off all southbound lanes of Interstate 75 and were able to herd the zebra over to the right shoulder and off an entrance ramp, where his trainer was on hand to capture and soothe him. This incident seems to be the real-life version of the movie "Madagascar". Marty, the zebra lived a life of comfort in the zoo but it led to boredom. Marty, never having seen the wild wished that on his tenth birthday, he must travel to the w...

Fourteen-year-old Lydia Ward from New Zealand was bodyboarding at Oreti Beach near the Southern City of Invercargill with her brother when a shark attacked her in waist-deep water, biting her hip. Lydia defended herself by repeatedly hitting the approximately 1.5-meter (4.9ft) long shark with her bodyboard until it let go. Explaining how she had read about a surfer who fought off a shark attack with her board, Lydia said, "That's what she did, and that's what you're meant to do." Lydia added, "I showed Dad and he didn't really believe me. But then I showed him my wetsuit, with all the blood coming out, and he believed me." Lydia survived the attack without serious injuries and suffered only several wounds that required medical treatment.

Giant squids are invading the California waters off Newport Beach and fishermen are having a field day attempting to reel in the unusual catch. The squid, some up to 60 pounds and 4 feet long, were first caught Thursday afternoon, and anglers began making twilight expeditions Friday night to catch the nocturnal sea creatures, which spend daytime close to the ground and rise to the surface at night. “When they’re lifted out of the water … they become a giant squirt gun. Chances are you’re gonna take a faceful or a chestful of water – and probably ink – when you pull them out … everybody laughs.” While the arrival of these amazing giant squids sparks excitement to some, the mystery behind this, I think, should create high level of concern to anyone. Where did these creatures come from? Why are they appearing on the beach? What must have caused them to leave their home? Maybe we might want to consider some good reasons before hunting them down and wiping them all out? Source: Los ...