Milenyo

Yesterday was my birthday, and I spent the day pretty much waiting for the big storm to abate. Of course, storm signal #3 was already raised in Manila the night before, and classes on all school levels had already been suspended but this doesn't mean that work was automatically suspended too. Last week, I friggin left my mobile phone in a cab (more on that later) and so even if our Office Manager supposedly sent me an SMS to say that work was suspended... I wouldn't have known. Besides, PAGASA had been wrong before and I lived 10 minutes away from work, I had conf call meetings with HK and it wasn't even raining yet. So why not?

I parked across the building and went up only to then find out, that there were about 15 or so other employees that didn't get notified. Plugged in my laptop and saw about 15 emails that needed to be cleared. One email went on to look like I might be going to HK next week to monitor some vendor work, so might as well settle this issue today. About 30 mins later, it started to rain and boy did it really pour. We were on the 29th floor and by around 10:00 AM, the windows were chattering and the whole building was swaying... actually more like shaking. Got a little nervous of course since all I could think of was 9/11.

After several calls with the wife who was scolding me for ever going to work that morning, I decided to gamble driving home at about 1:30 PM. Can't really understand why it would be better to do so, since it would obviously be safer to stay in the building... but wives have never really made sense, so why bother arguing this time right? Of course I was fucking drenched as soon as I stepped outside the building. I had to wiggle my way out of a tight parking and then arrived home relatively without any incidents. Hooray! There was a blackout. Now I'm stuck at home with no TV, no light, no internet. Great!

Of course the little cretin (my daughter) was very happy I was home. She made me a birthday card with a nice dedication. We played for a while until I gave up and took a nap. About 3:00 PM, my brother called asking me to pick up his stranded ass in Makati. So off we went and it would have probably taken longer had I not taken a side street. Paseo De Roxas and Buendia was packed with vehicles. Apparently the roads were filled with uprooted trees and other debris. On the way back, we tried the Makati-Mandaluyong bridge but it too was packed. Was a stupid choice really since it was probably flooded. Went back to Makati Avenue and then avoided Buendia by going through Jupiter street. Of course there was no exit to EDSA so I had to go over the island in Buendia and make it to the EDSA-Buendia flyover. North bound EDSA traffic was almost at a stand still because of this:


I had to take the C5 flyover and then make a U-turn at the Fort. At least I was now closer to the accident and should be able to wiggle my way through easier. Long story short, I arrived back home at about 5:30PM. It wasn't really that bad actually since I know it could have been worse if we really got stuck in traffic. Watched the news and found out that Manila was hit pretty bad. 30 deaths and counting.

Can't beleive how stupid the news reporters are these days. On the pic below, the fx driver was killed when he got squizhed inside. One reporter asked a witness, "Ano ang itsura nya nung nadaganan sya?" Another one even asked, "Pano bumagsak ung billboard?"





Well... Happy Birthday to me!