Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Praying Lent This Year
Lent offers us all a very special opportunity to grow in our relationship with God and to deepen our commitment to a way of life, rooted in our baptism. In our busy world, Lent provides us with an opportunity to reflect upon our patterns, to pray more deeply, experience sorrow for what we've done and failed to do, and to be generous to those in need.
"Father in heaven,
the light of your truth bestows sight
to the darkness of sinful eyes.
May this season of repentance
bring us the blessing of your forgiveness
and the gift of your light.
Grant this through Christ our Lord."
"Father in heaven,
the light of your truth bestows sight
to the darkness of sinful eyes.
May this season of repentance
bring us the blessing of your forgiveness
and the gift of your light.
Grant this through Christ our Lord."
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Sunday Night with Jane
Food and drinks were overflowing and we are monitoring our cholesterol levels. Why is it that when we were younger, we're not "blessed" with this abundance, how ironic....
Many are to be consumed but few came... anyway till December si Jane, there will always be next "times."
Saturday, February 06, 2010
More Feeding Pics
We never expect to "feed" Ma'am Rexy that day. She was looking for a tuo-turo to buy lunch, good enough, Gerald and Joey just finished cooking. We had Beowulf as "dessert." Oh, the good old days...
Ning was out trying to coax JM to join the pictorial. Sukat gusto magpa extra na - upstage siya san mga ninong hehe.
We'll be back soon, my dear lolos and lolas.
Bahaw Na An Feeding Pics
Gerald and Joey supervising the Marcial team in preparing the food.
Bagan last supper an blocking hehe
Gerald delivering his homily, hehe.
Yes, JM is helping distribute the food.
Tato giving fire safety tips hehe. Please take note of the apt caption on the wall.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
My recent visit to OLPS
With my kids, getting ready for a ride to OLPS which is a few meters away from our home. Our eldest, Mai-mai, is down with chicken pox and is quarantined at her grandparents' home in OLV Bibincahan.
Lia, JM and Steffi showing the "precious" stones they found under the "bahay-kubo"
This was taken under the coconut tree. At the background is the OLPS Chapel.
Lia showing her favorite pose; at the background is the "bahay-kubo," built by HS Seminarians as part of their intramurals contest.
Lia and Steffi doing their "pa-cute" souvenir shot while JM was busy collecting his "precious" stones under the "bahay-kubo".Wednesday, January 20, 2010
An Satuyang Harong
"Batingaw"
The library
Hallway outside the library
The study hall
Home for the clergy near the Study HallTuesday, January 19, 2010
"If you can't be a highway, be a trail"
"When you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. Don't just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn't do it any better.
If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. If you can't be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.
Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If you can't be a highway, just be a trail. If you can't be a sun, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are."
Martin Luther King, Jr. to students in Philadelphia, 1967
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Remember When
Piot, Sorsogon rocked that January 2003 night, not because of the band across the pond, but because a motley crowd of rascals yelled, whistled and heckled with displeasure and dismay at a rather pretentious hard rock music in the air? "An chit na? Chit na?," nervously asked Fr. Henry whose name was at stake as a newly ordained priest. Have we really changed?
Monday, January 11, 2010
Hot half-naked Aussie firemen--see my traffic zoom!
[Reposted from my blog:www.gibbscadiz.com]
My cousin and high-school batchmate, Tato, received a most unusual gift last Christmas. Not knowing what to do with it, he passed it on to the one guy he knew would look at it with more than passing interest: me.
The gift was a 2010 calendar with pictures of hunky Aussie firemen--half-naked. Why me? I demanded to know, not very convincingly.
Tato happens to be the fire marshal in our province. The chief bumbero, in other words--the alpha male in that most macho of cultures, the tough, crusty, testosterone-y world of firemen. In high school, Tato was already into karate/aikido while we, the rest of his classmates, still made do with unformed, fleshy (or, in my case, bony) adolescent frames. He was smoking and drinking before many of us learned to, had his youthful share of wild, raucous adventures involving girls and brawls and booze, and, in the seminary where we spent six years together, broke as many rules as he could--including, at one point, pilfering ice cream from the priests' pantry with his bare hands.
All that, until he married the smart and lovely Agnes, one of our kababata, and became father to four kids. More, he morphed into something we didn't imagine him becoming, at least during our devil-may-care years together: a pillar of the community.
Before Tato was designated fire marshal of our hometown, he rose from the ranks to become the national spokesperson of the Bureau of Fire Protection. He would appear on TV for interviews and updates on fire incidents, spiffy in his navy-blue uniform, the camera belying his slight frame. Somewhere along the way, he acquired a gravitas and sense of authority that suited him well and made us his friends very proud. (Not bad for someone who, as a seatmate on the first pew during evening prayers, once pronounced “oblivion” as “oblivation.” Tandang-tanda ko pa!)
Imagine this accomplished, no-nonsense he-man, then, receiving the glossy calendar with page after page of topless hunks--firemen like him, but still. The gift came from Agnes' sister Ging who, on a trip Down Under, remembered having been asked by Tato to bring home samples of decals, buttons, brochures, flyers or any informational stuff the Australian fire department gives away to the public, which he could then replicate. The fire chief, serious about his duties, is always on the lookout for new ways to spread the gospel of fire prevention. Perhaps his Aussie counterparts had new ideas he could use?
Well, how about posing half-naked in a calendar--for charity? The Perth Firefighters Calendar, already on its second year, aims to raise funds for the burns unit of a local hospital and “to support the West Australian team competing in the 2011 World Police and Fire Games in New York.” It has the endorsement of the city's Fire and Emergency Services Authority via the message of its woman CEO on the calendar's first page, so you know these are real firemen and not porn stars or some blokes hired off the street.
Ging remembers walking around a mall and seeing a long line of people clutching copies of the calendar. Several of the featured guys were there to sign copies, and since they were also terribly good-looking firemen, Ging queued up and innocently bought a copy to be autographed for Tato. The firemen, perhaps aware of the natural constituency of their beefcake photos, then proceeded to write notes to the recipient that, when I read them, had me shrieking at the subtext--unintended or not:
“To Tato, stay hot!,” said Doug.
“Hey Tato, have a great Chrissy!,” wrote Scott.
Chrissy!? Who says “Chrissy” for “Christmas”? That's it, I told the clueless fire marshal, there's the proof your fellow firemen had mistaken you for, ahem, people like me.
More bemused than nonplussed--the guy's never one to be caught off-guard--Tato asked, a merry gleam in his eye: Ano kaya if I ask my men to do this, too--for charity din? At that, we his batchmates howled with laughter. His city firemen, if you must know, are regular Joes--plain, tubby, big-bellied (many of them), no doubt good and brave workers but nowhere near the ripped, spectacularly fit variety embodied by their Aussie counterparts.
Speaking for my choosy confederates--'Wag naman po, busy kami! Unless--wait--there's a diamond in the rough there?
Also, I wonder how this prudish country would react at real firemen baring for the camera, even for a good cause, and the civic establishment itself underwriting the project. The moral busybodies would be cluck-clucking endlessly, while probably snapping up their own copies of the hot calendar. Still, if you do have men in uniform this good-looking, it's not such a bad idea--and look at the photos, they're not prurient in any way. The Aussies, bless their matter-of-fact spirit, are saying there's a good-natured, non-malicious way of doing it, and for something worthy yet.
I for one have had my fill of buffed, tweezed, plucked, scrubbed and microdermabrasioned pretty male starlets clogging our sights for far too long now. How about real men, for a change? I promise to buy the calendar--for myself this time, not for the honorable Fire Marshal.
My cousin and high-school batchmate, Tato, received a most unusual gift last Christmas. Not knowing what to do with it, he passed it on to the one guy he knew would look at it with more than passing interest: me.
The gift was a 2010 calendar with pictures of hunky Aussie firemen--half-naked. Why me? I demanded to know, not very convincingly.
Tato happens to be the fire marshal in our province. The chief bumbero, in other words--the alpha male in that most macho of cultures, the tough, crusty, testosterone-y world of firemen. In high school, Tato was already into karate/aikido while we, the rest of his classmates, still made do with unformed, fleshy (or, in my case, bony) adolescent frames. He was smoking and drinking before many of us learned to, had his youthful share of wild, raucous adventures involving girls and brawls and booze, and, in the seminary where we spent six years together, broke as many rules as he could--including, at one point, pilfering ice cream from the priests' pantry with his bare hands.
All that, until he married the smart and lovely Agnes, one of our kababata, and became father to four kids. More, he morphed into something we didn't imagine him becoming, at least during our devil-may-care years together: a pillar of the community.
Before Tato was designated fire marshal of our hometown, he rose from the ranks to become the national spokesperson of the Bureau of Fire Protection. He would appear on TV for interviews and updates on fire incidents, spiffy in his navy-blue uniform, the camera belying his slight frame. Somewhere along the way, he acquired a gravitas and sense of authority that suited him well and made us his friends very proud. (Not bad for someone who, as a seatmate on the first pew during evening prayers, once pronounced “oblivion” as “oblivation.” Tandang-tanda ko pa!)
Imagine this accomplished, no-nonsense he-man, then, receiving the glossy calendar with page after page of topless hunks--firemen like him, but still. The gift came from Agnes' sister Ging who, on a trip Down Under, remembered having been asked by Tato to bring home samples of decals, buttons, brochures, flyers or any informational stuff the Australian fire department gives away to the public, which he could then replicate. The fire chief, serious about his duties, is always on the lookout for new ways to spread the gospel of fire prevention. Perhaps his Aussie counterparts had new ideas he could use?
Well, how about posing half-naked in a calendar--for charity? The Perth Firefighters Calendar, already on its second year, aims to raise funds for the burns unit of a local hospital and “to support the West Australian team competing in the 2011 World Police and Fire Games in New York.” It has the endorsement of the city's Fire and Emergency Services Authority via the message of its woman CEO on the calendar's first page, so you know these are real firemen and not porn stars or some blokes hired off the street.
Ging remembers walking around a mall and seeing a long line of people clutching copies of the calendar. Several of the featured guys were there to sign copies, and since they were also terribly good-looking firemen, Ging queued up and innocently bought a copy to be autographed for Tato. The firemen, perhaps aware of the natural constituency of their beefcake photos, then proceeded to write notes to the recipient that, when I read them, had me shrieking at the subtext--unintended or not:
“To Tato, stay hot!,” said Doug.
“Hey Tato, have a great Chrissy!,” wrote Scott.
Chrissy!? Who says “Chrissy” for “Christmas”? That's it, I told the clueless fire marshal, there's the proof your fellow firemen had mistaken you for, ahem, people like me.
More bemused than nonplussed--the guy's never one to be caught off-guard--Tato asked, a merry gleam in his eye: Ano kaya if I ask my men to do this, too--for charity din? At that, we his batchmates howled with laughter. His city firemen, if you must know, are regular Joes--plain, tubby, big-bellied (many of them), no doubt good and brave workers but nowhere near the ripped, spectacularly fit variety embodied by their Aussie counterparts.
Speaking for my choosy confederates--'Wag naman po, busy kami! Unless--wait--there's a diamond in the rough there?
Also, I wonder how this prudish country would react at real firemen baring for the camera, even for a good cause, and the civic establishment itself underwriting the project. The moral busybodies would be cluck-clucking endlessly, while probably snapping up their own copies of the hot calendar. Still, if you do have men in uniform this good-looking, it's not such a bad idea--and look at the photos, they're not prurient in any way. The Aussies, bless their matter-of-fact spirit, are saying there's a good-natured, non-malicious way of doing it, and for something worthy yet.
I for one have had my fill of buffed, tweezed, plucked, scrubbed and microdermabrasioned pretty male starlets clogging our sights for far too long now. How about real men, for a change? I promise to buy the calendar--for myself this time, not for the honorable Fire Marshal.
Miss Sosogon
Got very busy sked last December, i have plenty of beautiful reasons and i'm posting it here. Enjoy and indulge like I did! I love Sorsogon!
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Friday, January 01, 2010
Sunday, December 27, 2009
B87 Christmas'09 Reunion @ Otats' Home
Gerald & Gerard
..more fun & laughter
Joey enjoying the night
With visitors from SLMCS B91 & Rhea Lastica-Espedido
The youngest "B87" member, Yuri Hermida
Yuri trying to parry the beer offered by Totep
Cheers to B87!
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)