Pig Loves Cow

Everything happened so fast…but since I wanted a job where I did more application development, a great opportunity came to me. The thing about it though is that it’s in Canada, which means I need to move to Canada. It was a tough decision to leave the country where I have lived for the past 6 years, but I feel that this experience will be great. I accepted the job and got ready to move to Canada.

During my last few days in the Philippines, I made the most out of it by saying farewell to my good friends and doing things that I will most likely won’t be able to do for the next couple of years. Mark surprised me by taking me to a dinner date.

We went to CWC to wakeboard.

My family and Mark drove me to the airport.

On April 20, I flew to LA to take the risk of processing my papers there. I didn’t want to process them in Manila as it would take much, much longer. God was, and still is, good to me. My second grade teacher, and my mom’s previous co-teacher Tita Virgie and her husband were staying near downtown LA as Pastors in a church located in West Temple St. I stayed in their rented room while I filed my application. The Canadian Embassy was just a 20 minute bus ride away from their place. After a week of filing my application and getting a medical exam, I was fortunate that one of my closest cousins, kuya Jay, went to LA for the weekend even though they lived 7 hours away in Sacramento. He and his wife, ate Daks, picked me up and we went to Disneyland. I could never thank them enough for their hospitality and kindness as they picked me up from where I was staying until they offered to drop me off at kuya Jay’s eldest brother’s house, kuya Nestor, even if it was out of their way. I was really glad I was able to spend time with them as I haven’t seen them for years.

Kuya Nestor and his wife ate Adela and their kids live in Salinas. God has especially been good to them as he has given them a lot of blessings. They too were as hospitable and kind as kuya Jay’s family. I couldn’t thank them enough for everything they have done for me. They let me stay in their house for almost three weeks. Their kids, which are technically my nephew and niece are also one of the coolest people I have ever met. I was barely a teenager when I last saw them, and we were too shy to hang out back then. But now they’ve grown into two wonderful people who showed me a great time in Salinas.

I took the Amtrak train back to LA on the 23rd of May to follow-up on my application. When I got there on Monday to inquire, as it turns out, my visa was already stamped since the 18th and my application has been approved. I booked a flight to Seattle and a ferry to Victoria (c/o Richard) and made the most out of my last week in the States, LA most specifically!

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With the advent of twitter and facebook status updates, it’s harder to write paragraphs =(

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I know the two titles are very much unrelated, but these are stories that are in my mind lately.

I have recently read the book Stardust by Neil Gaiman. I had seen the movie first before the book so I already knew the story. I still enjoyed the book, but this is probably the first time I would say that I liked the movie more than I liked the book. In the book, there is no humor, everything is fantasy and serious. Also, Tristran (Tristan in the movie) had “powers” in the book, which comes from being the descendant of the royal family. He’s a pathfinder…he knows where things in Faerie are when you ask him, even if he hasn’t even heard of the places yet. Also, their time at Captain Shakespeare’s ship wasn’t detailed (oh and the captain isn’t gay in the books. He’s not a terror either). But what really disappointed me was the fact that no fight scene occurred at the end. Septimus (the last surviving son of the King) was killed because he opted to revenge his brother by burning the witch’s hat, but the witch summoned/turned into a poisonous snake and bit him. Tristran also didn’t leave the star Yvaine without any warning, as he still had feelings for Victoria. Victoria had feelings for Mr. Monday…she never liked Tristran and was set to marry Mr. Monday. Tristran also wasn’t allowed to cross the wall coming from Fairie at first. He returned to Wall only to realize that he loves Yvaine, and said goodbye to Victoria and his family. When he came back, he fell asleep and Lady Una talked to Yvaine. When she left, the witch came for Yvaine and told her that she was going to cut her heart out (the witch seemed nice!), but Yvaine said that it wouldn’t be possible anymore because she had already “given her heart” to Tristran. Oh and they got married but didn’t rule yet; they traveled throughout Faerie for years before they decided to rule.

On Sunday, after Mark’s basketball game, we watched Sherlock Holmes (last full show) at 10:45 at ATC. We also bumped into Tel who was going to watch the same movie at the same time. I enjoyed the movie! I love the whole bohemian effect to it, and the fact that it was all about logic and mysteries. It’s an old movie with effects of the 21st century, yet the charm remains and wasn’t butchered. I love how every major character played their role. It’s a bit similar to The Prestige…wherein magic relies on scientific inventions, and the secret(s) is/are revealed at the end. The only thing I didn’t like about this movie is Watson’s fiance. I couldn’t seem to like her, and had always been hoping for her to be the bad guy.

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http://www.piglovescow.com/2009/11/28/vietnam-2009/

I got my lens fixed a couple of months back, but I just got to posting some pics now. Here are some pictures from our recent trip to Vietnam.

Bullet For My Valentine
On Bu Vien Street	Embers and Envelopes
Dame Details
Hotel Sanouva	Next Chapter
Stars and Bullets
Spending like millionaires
Eiffel Post Office	Saigon Post Office Ceiling
Cyclo
Inanimate Objects in the War Remnants Museum
Inanimate Buddha
Empty Plates outside Ben Thanh
City People	Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica

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I have been using Lotus Notes for 11 months by now, and I can’t say I like it that much, and here are the reasons why:

1. I find it hard to search through my mail.
   • Ctrl+F (Find) only searches the current folder, and it searches for a substring that matches your keyword on the subject and sender only (there may be other fields but it certainly doesn’t search the content or body of the email). It also just goes to the email of the first email found that matches your search, and all the other emails still show up. If the subject is long, it’s hard to find where your keyword is found. Also, you have to click on “Find Next” to go to the next email found that matches your search.
   • To be able to search the body/content of your emails, you need to go to “View”>”Search This View” (also I didn’t find a keyword shortcut next to the menu, so I assume you need to really hover over that menu and click that to be able to get there). Fortunately, “Search This View” sticks to your page like a toolbar so if you like it, just don’t close it. Sucks if you want flexibility on your UI though since you can’t just hide and show it with one (or two) keys. Oh yeah, did I mention it’s amazingly slow? It takes me ten years to pull up if I have plenty of emails containing my keyword. It’s nice that it just pulls up all the emails matching my search though, and removes the other emails away from my view. But again, you’re going to have a hard time finding where the search found your keyword, as it’s not highlighted or anything. Notes uses the concept of a little check symbol next to your emails to indicate selected documents. It also uses this feature to “select” the results of your search. The bad thing is that once you click on the check symbol, your email gets unselected, and it’s automatically removed from your search results view. Boo notes!
   • I can’t use regular expressions to search. The only options located in the “More” section of “Search This View” are: Save Search, Load Search, and Search in results. Notepad++’s search functionality is way more advanced than Lotus Notes, and this makes me feel that Notes was based on the same concept as Windows’ Notepad.
2. The mail filter just doesn’t do it for me
   • Filters in Lotus Notes is pretty basic. You can create “Rules”. Rules consists of 1) Conditions/Exceptions – “AND”, “OR”, field (ie sender, subject, etc), contains/does not contain, is/is not…and the keyword. You can add or remove as many conditions as you want (or so I think). 2) Actions – move, delete, copy, forward, etc…and another field that satisfies the action selected. Again, you can add or remove as many conditions as you want (or so I think). And finally…AGAIN, you have no option to use regular expressions for filtering. But you have the option to never delete your rules…if you need them to work, just enable them.
   • The filters doesn’t work that well. I’ve had many instances wherein one day, my mail rules just stop working. I don’t know why or how, but it just stops. I had to create another mail rule to replace the old one, and sometimes that works, yet most times it doesn’t.
3. The IMAP/POP feature is disabled by default
   • I know that Lotus Notes isn’t specifically designed to handle just email, and that it is probably a great tool for collaboration for non-IT users, but I find it disappointing that to be able to access my mail using another software, ie Thunderbird, I would need the IMAP or POP option to be enabled. Since I’m not a Domino (the notes server) admin, I have no access to the configuration. And our domino server has disabled IMAP/POP, which leaves me no choice but to deal with Lotus Notes for my email.

The GUI is WTF, OMG, and BBQ

• I don’t know if it would do me any good to explain this. Too many buttons located in different menus? Too many toolbars scattered everywhere? Unconventional icons/images? Usually I don’t read manuals for software when I need to find something since the GUI is user-friendly and easy to navigate. For lotus notes? I’m a developer myself and have trouble locating features. I feel that the user-unfriendliness of the GUI is causing my productivity to be slow. It’s easier if I can locate everything without thinking about it, than being baffled, staring at the screen and trying to find something for 10 minutes.

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My lens is currently in the repair shop, hence the lack of updates.

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A weekend well-spent in Baguio

To Heaven
Tree House	Helicopter
Ready for Marshmallows
A Flower

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So today’s motto is…’The geekier you get…the heavier you become’?

This is not taken by me. I found it somewhere in the internet, I forget where.

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IBM company outing in Bulacan View full (click on pictures) to appreciate :p

Orange Sea	Red and Blue Lovers
Tribo
Think Happiness
Left Alone to Rot
Go Red Team!

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