extremely late blog post #2: new year in lucena

january 1, 2009.

every year during the Christmas season, we go home to lucena to relax and unwind. for this year, instead of going home during Christmas, we decided to go home for the new year… and it was a family reunion of sorts as my sister (along with john and miggy) went home also at the same time as we did. if only my brother (and geri and toni, of course) was there too and we would’ve been complete.

like always, i spent a considerable time walking around our house snapping off pictures. sayang lang kasi it was raining most of the time we were there so we didn’t get to walk around the village to take more pictures. here’s some of the photos i got during our short stint at our house in lucena.


you know it’s new year if there’s a bunch of fruits on the kitchen table… 13 fruits all-in-all. 🙂



images from the living room. we got the vases from our former colleague, radz.



images from one of the bedrooms. since we migrated to the city, our house has turned into a boarding house with eight rooms for rent.


papa used to place this proudly on his office table. i would want to have one of these someday…


yup, that’s a real deer. 🙂


i have a similar version of this shot before… but i seem to never grow tired of clothespins. 😀




some shots around the garden.



huge black dog making “ligaw” to our dog. 🙂




we gave miggy a lego set for Christmas and he immediately assembled it. 🙂



more pictures of miggy and his toys.


family pictures. 🙂


plenty of food to welcome the new year. 😀

all-in-all it was an enjoyable and refreshing stay at lucena… like always. with our impending car purchase (ang tagal naman! 😆), we’ll most probably visit more often. 🙂

extremely late blog post #1: parties galore

[we were extremely busy during the month of january which explains the blog inactivity. we’re starting to get some room to roam so finally we can get into all our blog backlogs. there’s a lot of them. 🙂]

the economic crunch is upon us but you wouldn’t notice it with the bunch of parties we had during the Christmas break. well, most of them were selle’s though so it seems like avon’s not affected by the crisis. 🙂

we won’t bore you much with words and just let the photos tell the stories. 🙂

december 12
avon Christmas party

unlike samsung, avon had a company-wide Christmas party. it was all about musical numbers of popular movies. the groups were really serious and competitive. the props and costumes were obvious labors of love. checkout the mission impossible high-wire stunt act at the end of the photo series. fun, fun night. 🙂










december 15
fruzz birthday party

the cake was ready. the confetti was ready. it was our gm’s birthday and the whole department went to his house to celebrate. 🙂







december 19
avon scp Christmas party

back at fruzz’s house, team scp had it’s departmental Christmas party… my wife’s third or fourth Christmas party for the week. 🙂











december 22
samsung equipment group Christmas party

same menu. same games. there’s still the annual raffle and a twist was added to the awards. for our Christmas party with our new manager, we went up to taaleña restaurant in tagaytay for a change.

impromptu photoshoot

like any ayala development project, ayala greenfield estates is a sight to behold. with a vast expanse of greens and fantastic views brought about by its elevation, we’ve always dreamed of living there someday. 🙂

with jc and angel’s wedding reception ending early afternoon, we took advantage of the beautiful scenery and had an impromptu photoshoot. 🙂

we had fun and we’ll probably do this more often in the near future. 😉


photo taken by jhay.

click here for the higher resolution version of the photos.

a Christmas wedding

with all the lights, the carols, the gifts and just the spirit of the season, Christmas puts everybody in a celebratory mood. and just a day after Christmas, we were off to another celebration… the wedding of jc and angel.

angel is a former officemate of selle. years of working together and with their desks being of close proximity to each other (thereby giving them plenty of opportunities na mag-tsismis-an 😀), their friendship grew to the point that even when angel transferred to another department and then subsequently to greener pastures, their friendship remained. i could vividly remember an incident which probably could describe their friendship. we once saw angel at a local grocery store here in laguna and they were so thrilled to see each other that they scared a couple kids away with their over-the-top shrieks. 😀 it was a beautiful sight, seeing how close they are. 🙂

again, i played the unofficial backup photographer role (along with macoy wielding his olympus dslr) for this wedding. with this being the third time for us attending a wedding at the same church and reception venues, i tried covering the wedding differently. i’m not sure if i succeeded though. 🙂 but it was fun shooting with macoy and in this church because guests can creep in up close (had to… wala pa akong telephoto lens eh. hehe) and take those closeup shots… something i usually cannot do at large churches. since this was a daytime wedding, lighting was sufficient and low-light shooting was not much of a problem. buti na lang. 🙂

here’s are a sampling of the shots i produced at jc and angel’s wedding (click here for higher resolution photos):






another thing i like about this church is the presence of a loft… and anyone can go up to it and take overhead shots like these.



a couple of ceremony shots.




the first kiss sequence.
step 1: gaze into each other’s eyes and smile.
step 2: kiss
step 3: hug
so sweet. 🙂





post ceremony shots at the altar… with the first two being post-processed.


food was prepared by our favorite caterer, kaye. 🙂



dessert buffet laid-out in style… something that is expected from k by cunanan. 🙂



the cake cutting and wine toasting ceremonies.


the newlyweds enjoying the singles’ game.


the father of the groom leading a toast after giving a very touching speech… a highlight of the reception.


the gaynilo family followed up the touching speech with their very own touching gimik starting with a handwritten note read by his sibling, followed by a song rendered by his other sibling which segued to the father-daughter dance. another highlight.


the smiles say it all. 🙂

congratulations, jc and angel. remember the wise words spoken at your reception… they’re true. 🙂 married life is fun… enjoy it every day. 🙂

merry Christmas

photo courtesy of charles chan.

first step

next step: actually learning how to drive. 🙂

Christmas shopping

we weren’t supposed to go out today but decided last minute to do because selle wanted to buy gifts for her officemates. after about two hours of shopping, we ended up buying much more. 🙂



it’s our 23rd month of being happily married so it’s justifiable to go shopping. besides, like i always say, anything to make my wife happy. 🙂

i didn’t get a haircut like before… but i did get a 290 peso sd card though. 😀

the dream match?

the match was all hyped-up. the media blitz and marketing was unreal. it was touted as the dream match, a collision between two of the best fighters in our lifetime. a matchup that only happens in video games has become a reality. unfortunately, in the end, it was all hype and nothing else.

for a sports afficionado, the match was a total let down. there were parts during the match i caught myself booing… not because manny was winning but because it was not even a fight. it was as if only one fighter came (manny) while the other didn’t (oscar). what most experts predicted to be a lopsided fight did become one… but it was the other way around. while the whole country is in frenzy due to manny’s victory, i myself seemed perplexed and couldn’t find myself celebrating as much as i want to. no, it’s not that i am not happy that the “pambansang kamao” won, it’s the manner of how he won and the lack of resistance he got.

honestly, as most experts did, i thought oscar had a distinct advantage going into the fight. he was bigger (supposedly). he had the longer reach. he had the perfect weapons against manny, the left jab (to control manny) and the left hook counter (to make manny pay when he goes in). my only question before the fight, and i discussed this with one of my friends, was his age and how will he cope with the weight cut. those questions were answered immediately at the very first round. oscar was sluggish at best. he had no legs. he couldn’t move. his left jab? it wasn’t there. heck, he didn’t even throw it. left hook? nada. oscar was so pathetic that manny could leisurely walk straight at him and he wouldn’t even taste a punch. freddie roach was right, oscar couldn’t pull the trigger anymore… age has crept up to him. meanwhile, oscar’s sluggishness? blame that to the weight cut.

i’m a mixed-martial arts fan and many time it happens that fighters gas out too quickly when they couldn’t hydrate quick enough due to the weight cut. most of the time (not all the time), when a fighter fights not in his normal weight, he will gas. i thought oscar wouldn’t because he was down in weight weeks before the fight… but, obviously, with the weight cut, he got weak. way too weak.

as a result, it was a massacre. oscar became a punching bag. that’s wasted money for those who shelled out hard-earned money to watch it on pay-per-view expecting a competitive fight. it wasn’t even a competition… it became an exhibition of manny’s blazing hand speed and footwork. yes, manny has grown as a fighter. before he was just a slugger who would mindlessly rush a fighter and throw bombs from all directions. now, under the tutelage of freddie roach, he has been molded into one of the best, if not the best, pound-for-pound fighters in the world. hopefully though, next time, he would fight someone who would be willing and able to give him a fight. ricky hatton maybe? (i think, manny will pummel him to bits… even if it was fought in england). floyd mayweather? now that will be a fight… if somebody can convince pretty boy to come out of retirement.

personally though, i’d like manny to fight current title holders. aim for the titles and not the big cash prize. he has enough money already (thanks to this “dream match”), it’s time to collect title belts. it’s good to be a champ in the eyes of the people, but it would be better to be a champ in paper also.

as for oscar? it’s time to retire.

test driving and food tasting

it was a long weekend, a 3-day break from work. it was a perfect time for us to leave rural laguna and visit urban manila (the fort to be exact) and spend time with our trusty gimik friends. 🙂

and together with friends we went to another auto show, this time held outdoors at the fort, to continue our selection process for our first car. if you can recall, we went to our first auto show a couple of months back and we were somewhat sold that the new honda jazz was the car for us. but a few weeks after that, we saw a ford focus hatch somewhere in cavite and were instantly attracted to it. then, a few more weeks later, a new ford focus was released and we were intrigued even more. this auto show was the time to answer the question, honda jazz or ford focus?


vena checking out the leg room of the jazz as selle looks on. plenty of leg room for a compact car. 😦 (btw, we bumped into vena and neriz at the auto show)


not only did the jazz have plenty of leg room, it had plenty of cargo space too. 🙂


the jazz dashboard.



the beautiful exterior of the focus… be it looking from the front or the back.


even the interior looks clean and elegant.

the nice thing of holding an auto show at the fort was, for one, it wasn’t mobbed by the general public. agents will have more time to entertain visitors. another thing, since it was held outdoors, test driving was easy… and test drive we did (or, at least, francis did. we were test passengers. 😆). all-in-all, we tried out four vehicles:

• ford focus
• honda civic
• honda jazz
• honda cr-v (wait. before you get funny ideas, eto ay ni-try lang ni francis. out-of-budget eto kaya wala eto sa mga pinagpipilian namin… although gus2 talaga eto ni selle. 😀 actually, we wanted to test drive the accord also kaso nagugutom na sina selle. 🙂)

look at what we saw at the end of the road as we were trying out the cr-v. was it a sign? 😉

since handling, riding comfort and interiors were things we were keen about in a car (plus reliability and maintenance cost), we concentrated on these things while we were test driving. afterwards, we collected all our personal inputs (francis as a driver… kami naman as passengers) and these were what we found out:

• suspension system of the focus was far superior than that of the honda. very smooth ride. we were terribly disappointed with the civic which had stiff suspensions. mas maganda pa ang sa jazz maybe because its suspension system is new compared to the civic.
• like we observed before, the jazz has super comfy seats. next was the civic at last yung focus. may katigasan ang seats ng focus. according to francis though, in the long run, initially having harder seats are better.
• francis was surprised (and delighted) by the response (and power) of the focus. take note, this is francis we’re talking about. 🙂 this can be attributed to the powershift (dual-clutch system) of the high-end focus… w/c is not our target (mid-range focus lang habol namin).
• in terms of blocking out noise and engine sound, focus comes out on top… kahit na diesel engine pa yung ni-test drive namin. next would be the civic. last yung jazz.
• the dashboard layout of the focus is more elegant.
• the audio system of the jazz is superb. we didn’t try sa civic while sa focus naman eh we tried only using the radio. we can’t compare fairly.

those were our first-hand impressions. we left the auto show still not decided on which one, the jazz or the focus. either way, we’re quite confident that we’ll get a great car. 🙂

after the auto show, we proceeded to serendra for dinner. francis recommended this restaurant which offered filipino cuisine with a twist. it sounded interesting so we agreed to dine at a restaurant called guava. food was unique and very yummy. 🙂





after dinner, gaya ng dati, we gotta have dessert. since we’re in serendra, we went to selle’s favorite, cupcakes by sonja’s. 🙂 (trivia: we got introduced to cupcakes by sonja’s by our dear caterer, kaye. naghahanap kasi kami nun ng wedding cake made of cupcakes and kaye recommended sonja’s. we tried it out and nasarapan c selle. we didn’t push through with it though kasi we felt the cupcakes will just melt in the morning sun.) francis and kathleen agreed to try it out naman kasi they haven’t tried sonja’s. we even gave them a tip that the cupcakes are best eaten a day after (which they tried and proved it was true. 🙂). but given the tip, they still tried out the cupcakes on the spot and they loved it. 😀




that should’ve been the end of our gimik but right beside cupcakes was a shop called miss dessert. intrigued, we peaked through their glass doors and found this posted.



best cheesecake in town. this has got to be put to the test… and test we did. 🙂



masarap nga! fully satisfied, we went home afterwards.

it was a very pleasurable day with friends. sure, the question on which car to buy remains but the time and experience with friends were something to treasure. til the next gimik, guys… 🙂

welcome visitors

back in the 80’s, there was this tv show with a cult-like following entitled “v”. the show was about aliens “visiting” our world hence the title “v”… as in visitors. we had our own visitors last weekend but they’re certainly not aliens. their good hearts and spirits can be out of this world though. 🙂

they were supposed to visit a couple of weeks ago but that didn’t push through. finally, last sunday, our friends (our should we say, family) from vcf took the long journey from manila to laguna and visited us at our humble abode.

it’s been a while since we last saw the kind-hearted sapuls, the straight-out-of-looney-tunes janice and the always innocent wengi (actually, we just saw wengi a week prior) and we had a blast spending time with them again. the riot actually started the moment they stepped out of mother’s spanking new honda city. 😀



like curious cats, they went straight for our photo albums, exchanging with one another as they finished one album after another. they liked our artbooks the most though, giving constant praise to the quality of work (and giving janice added inspiration to pursue photography). afterwards, they wanted to view our wedding video but it had to be delayed for a while for it was time for them to taste selle’s rachel ray-esque cooking. 🙂



just after a couple of group pictures, these four girls ate like guys as they emptied the whole plate of spaghetti in no time. 🙂 so proud of my wife as they cannot stop giving high praises to her about her cooking. 🙂

then it was wedding video viewing time. they were glued to the video… probably taken aback by all the drama… only to be interrupted from time-to-time by janice’s looney attacks. 😆 all throughout, they marveled at the excellent craftmanship of the finished product (girls, don’t forget the name, ha… bob nicolas. 🙂).

after a few more video watching (we showed them a few of my works) and more exchanges of stories, we thought it was pack-up time but these guys had a surprise for us… as they gave us their very early Christmas presents. 😀

thanks guys for coming. even if the visit was short, we enjoyed every minute of it. i hope you guys did too. next time, we’ll be the one who will do the visiting. pa-handa na din pagkain ha. 😉