Weekly Report: A Long Detailed Summary

My view still can't be beat. This is
the view looking north up the Cagayan
valley. You can see the Bohol Sea in
the distance, and on a clear day you
can see 30 miles up the coast to Epril's
village of Jassan.It's been a hectic 7 days... but the worst of the moving effort is ended. The bags have been unpacked and everything has its place, the house has been halfway stocked but not yet well-decorated, the cable has been installed in three rooms, the internet is functioning but the WiFi hasn't been set up yet, there is a new motor scooter in the driveway that only has a temporary licence.

There is still a bunch of stuff I want to do, but almost all of the stuff that I need to do has been done.


My big TV.I've bought a beautiful 60-inch Sony Bravia HDTV with a home theater sound system, which was installed yesterday. Epril and I have started watching season one of "Heroes" on the DVD player. This Friday — with the Sony discount I received from my purchase of the TV — Epril and I are going out to buy a BluRay player.

I also bought a nice Kenwood microwave oven... all chrome and black. It has one of those weird monstrous electrical plugs on it that looks like it should connect Darth Vader's washing machine though, so I have to go find an adapter at SM Shopping Mall today on my lunch break.

The cable internet is installed in my house. I've got 3 cable television boxes: One for the living room, one for the master bedroom, and one for my office. The internet is functioning, but not particularly well: I'm paying 4,500 pesos per month for the extra fast speed, but am only getting about 2 to 4 times dial-up speed. I was told to expect very slow speeds, and it is about what I expected... but no wonder so many people complain about it. Considering that I subscribed to (and received) twice the advertised speed on my DSL internet in Thailand for 1,250 pesos per month, the internet here is a bit of a rip off. (Internet comparison shopping amongst expatriates in the Philippines is a popular pass-time, so I expect to see lots of comments directing me towards other providers.)


Motorstar Panther 150 cc.I bought a new motorcycle... a brand named "Motorstar", marquee of "Panther". It is very similar to the PGO "Tiger" I had before with a few pluses and several minuses. The motorcycles are both 150 cc with 1-gear, twist-and-go transmissions. The Panther is much smoother and quieter compared to the Tiger (although I kind of miss that throaty exhaust tone when I gun it), and the dashboard is much nicer to look at (although a tachometer would be nice). The main problems are that the brakes are woefully inadequate for the job (the Tiger had dual disc brakes and would stop the bike almost faster than I myself could physically withstand), and need to be upgraded. The tires are smaller too, and take a bit to get used to, but that's just something I'll have to drive around to overcome. The seat height on the Panther is actually an inch or two higher than the already-tall Tiger's seat. If I want to plant both feet on the ground with my butt on the seat, I need to stand on tip-toes to accomplish it.

The price of the motorcycle was very good, however: 55,000 pesos for the Panther versus 90,000 for the Tiger.

It was out to shoot pool for the first time in many months on Sunday night. Epril and I went with Mike and his wife, Marissa. I used to be a serious pool player when I was back in New York, and could have tried to make it as a pro if I had been willing to dedicate my life to the sport, but never made it much beyond a mid-to-high B-level player. I still have my pool cues though... the most valuable things I own (purchased back when my life and wealth revolved around pool halls). My game started off as a combination of "embarrassing" and "abysmal", but managed to improve to just "way off" after an hour or two. (The tables were quite bad too, with moth-eaten pock-marked felt and dead rails, but it was mostly me.) After playing pool, I took Mike and Marissa out to dinner at Country Steak House as thanks for everything that Mike has done in helping me out with my move.

Alright kids, you're all caught up for now. As I said: I'm settled in and pretty much back to the normal workaday routine. The blog should be updated more or less daily now, and we'll see what the future holds for Jungle Jil.


Epril and PBA basketball
player, Alex Crisano at
Manila domestic airport.Oh: One photo from Epril. At the airport in Manila, she met somebody famous: Basketball star, Alex Crisano. Epril was all shy and just wanted to stare from a distance, but I (not knowing anything about famous people in The Philippines — and even less about the Philippine Basketball Association ("St. Lucia Realtors" and "Coca-Cola Tigers" are some of the teams... and I won't forget to mention the "Purefoods Tender Juicy Giants") which play almost solely in Manila) went up and started a conversation with the fellow. It turned out he is from Brooklyn, and was a nice enough guy to talk to. Note: If you're an almost-but-not-quite-NBA basketball player in America, you can have a pretty comfy sporting career here in The Philippines. Anyway, Epril eventually overcame her shyness, came up and said hello, and had her photo snapped with Alex. Best of luck to him and his team. I suppose I'll root for them now if I ever find myself watching.