Truth is a complicated matter.  The more you search for it, the more information you get.  The more information you get, the more confused you become.  It muddles your quest and disheartens the seeker.  This is one truth I know: that Christ died for all our sins that we may gain eternal life through him.  It is all that I’ll ever need.

I was so sleepy in front of my computer one day that I just had to get up from my chair to stop myself from hitting my sleepy head on my keyboard. I walked over to my office mate’s cube to bother her. She gave me a piercing look and handed over the puzzle pictured above. I shrugged, took the puzzle from her hands and returned to my cube.

It’s a puzzle called or made by Lonpos. You have these various shapes that you have to fit into a rectangle. It’s almost like tetris only that it has more complicated shapes and the lines don’t collapse when formed.

Being the nerd that I was, I thought I would be able to finish this puzzle in just a few minutes.  Well, it’s been four days and I still haven’t been able to fit the pieces in the rectangle. I was told that there were about 200+ combinations and I still haven’t been able to get one! What is wrong with me???

Well, it definitely woke me up… with frustration. I just hope I’ll be able to get at least one combination before I return this. My office mate’s been bugging me to give it back…

This is what I get for waking up late. In my rush to get to the office in time, I managed to forget four essential things for the day:

1) I never leave home without my bible. It has been my habit since last year and I feel at a loss when I don’t have it with me.
2) Putting on my wrist watch is always the first thing I do when I dress up. I must have been a zombie this morning to forget this.
3) This is very important. My girlfriend cooked and packed this for me yesterday so that I could eat it later at lunch. I made a mental note to take it out of the ref before leaving but my mind was just not awake.
4) I realized that I needed to charge and transfer some data to and from my phone when I got to the office. Aaaarg…

So the plan is, I’ll go back to the house before lunch to get all these and make it back to the office before my boss calls for a meeting. I just hope I could get a taxi right away to make it on time. Well, wish me luck!

So I got this green squirrel/chipmunk as a Christmas gift from my team mate at the office. It keeps my acorn push pins organized around its base and looks at me as if it wants more. Still thinking of a name for him… any suggestions?

It’s a new year (happy new year everybody!) and a new chapter in my blog. I got my WordPress report yesterday and was very surprised about my progress (or lack of it) for the year. I managed to churn out four entries… FOUR ENTRIES for the entire year!!! Wow was I busy…

Hopefully that will change this year. I’ve got a brand new “baby” to help me produce at the very least more than four entries for 2011. Meet my new HTC Wildfire!

With this in tow, I have no excuse to not post anything on my blog! I bought this for myself as a Christmas gift for being such a good boy all year… ok, you can opt not to believe that… but hey, it’s with me already so there’s nothing else we could do about it. :p

Hopefully everyone had a blast last year and is looking forward to this new year. I know I am because I’m on “fire”!

I recently visited my Multiply account and was pleasantly surprised to see my friend post the surreal photo above.  He took this photo using infrared and it’s amazing how it alters the image colors into something so unreal!  The first time I looked at it I just knew that I had to try it.

So I did some research about infrared photography and how it is done exactly.  I asked my friend who took the picture how he did his and now I’m just saving up enough to try it.  All you need is a camera (one that does not auto compensate for IR hence, regular DSLR’s are out of the picture) and an infrared filter to achieve the effect.  I will be trying this out on my Nikon FM10 once I purchase my filter.  Hopefully, I will be able to post some of my own IR pictures soon. =)

UPDATE: Infrared photography is not as easy as I thought…  In addition to having the right camera and filter, one also has to buy the right film if using a film camera.  In this case, infrared film has to be used to attain the desired images.  Even then, you have to observe formulas on film speeds, shutter, and focus to get the right exposure.  Here’s a good website for reference.

Given this, I think I’ll be sticking to IR digital photography first.  I don’t know where I’ll be able to purchase IR film here in the Philippines so I’ll keep things simple and try it on digital first.  I’ll be sure to let you know when I’ve tried it. =)

I took this photo during our trip to the island of Camiguin in the Philippines (for the benefit of my foreign visitors, Camiguin is near Cagayan De Oro which is located in the big island of Mindanao in the Philippines).  I thought it appropriate since I just came from another trip this afternoon.

We just had our annual office outing this weekend at Montemar Beach Resort in Bataan.  I’m still tired from the travel but I’ll see if I could post some pictures from the place soon.  I actually have a lot of backlog in my blog.  I haven’t been able to post anything about our trips to Hundred Islands in Pangasinan, Casa San Pablo in Laguna, and Camiguin Island in Mindanao.  I’m thinking of just posting my favorite photos from those places for now.  I’ll try posting full itineraries and more details when I find the time (which I hope I find soon).  For now, just relax with me and marvel at the small yet mighty vehicle that is the “habal-habal”.

These are ominous times indeed.  With the Philippine elections just around the corner, I just have this feeling that somebody or some groups do not want these elections to push through.  Rotating nationwide blackouts, fluctuating mobile phone signals, widespread doubts on the automated counting machines… these are just some of the more popular signs that tell us that not all is well in our country.

I am actually a supporter of automation.  I believe that it has the potential prevent the traditional means of cheating provided by manual counts.  Coupled with voter education, automation becomes a powerful tool for these coming polls.  As long as the system is transparent, verifiable, and secure, automation holds the key to a clean election.

I think the politicos know the power of these tools.  It renders their means of manipulation useless thus their feeling of helplessness.  I don’t know the current statistics but I have a feeling that political killings are on the rise.  For what else could these power-hungry politicos do to ensure their victory but to outright kill the opposition?  If they can’t ensure a win in the polls, then they’d rather do something about it before the elections happen.

Some groups though, in my opinion, aren’t giving up on manual elections because of the “benefits” they stand to gain once the old system is again in place.  It is my theory that some people are on sabotage mode, crippling automation’s means of service by inducing power interruptions and limiting telecommunications services to sow fear in the populace.  Fear that they could use as ammunition to justify the suspension of automated polls and revert back to the old system.  This is the reason why I am wary of politicos who readily bash automation instead of coming up with ways to make the system work.

Some people will argue that automation is not perfect.  I agree.  There may be other systems that are better than the one approved by the Comelec.  But in my opinion, based on what I have read so far, this system still has the basic elements to make these elections clean.  I think that more than its technological prowess and properties, the critical element to this system’s success is the support from the people.  If we as a people read the facts, get ourselves educated on the system, research on its pros and cons, and once evaluated believe and support in this system, then automation stands a good chance of defeating the pervasive stains that have tainted our elections for ages.

writer's block by Lieva

It has been a long seven months since my last blog post.  I used to be able to post new entries at least thrice a week but recently, I have been having more and more problems restarting my blog.  I’ve actually visited my blog quite a number of times during the past months but have been unable to write anything.  I have traveled to a number of places already since my last post but still, I couldn’t quite rev up my writing engine.  So how does one exactly cure this writer’s block?

The simplest way I thought of to destroy this mental obstacle was to write about it.  At least this would give me something to write about.  It may be trivial and of little interest to many but this solves the problem of knowing where to start.  Writing about it lubricates the writing gears in my head.  This fresh start allows me to go forward and write things that matter to me and to those who read my blog.  Acknowledging this frees me from a psychological burden of missing out on writing events during their moments of freshness.  Just writing again makes me want to write some more…

So when the words stop flowing… write about it.  I guess that’s how you finally defeat writer’s block.  =)