I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow

Well now, here's the end of it. The summer is practically over this August Friday. Gone are my summer adventures, wasting time doing things on the computer, babysitting some great kids, trying to cook new foods, and me contemplating my summer days. I wish summer could last forever. It won't. I know. With all things considered, I do hope to continue this fun next summer: babysitting, adventuring, playing, cooking, and so much more.

So I hope all of you readers, if there are any, my friends and everyone else who may have come along this blog, I hope you stick around and continue this adventure with me.
In the words of Tennyson in Ulysses and
part of which was spoken by Frasier saying "Goodnight Seattle":

"... Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
...

"Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now the strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow..

The summer's gone and all the roses falling..

Now as I see the sun setting upon the trees and in front of a yielding sky, I feel the slight wind upon my cheek, blowing across it in such a way as to tell me that the brown and golden leaves fall someday ushering the rain and snow we call winter.

This last week, I said some goodbyes and so-longs to friends and people I know who have helped me and have been there as a supporting presence all these years. One day I hope to catch up with them and to tell them how I am doing, ask them how they are, and to thank them for their supportive influence in my life..

Well now, the summer is almost gone and I can see the petals of my mother's flowers falling. Yet another spring they'll grow again. I'll go off on this new adventure, and I do hope you'll stay bide.

And so I face the final curtain..

It is a normal Pacific Northwest afternoon. The sky has the streaks of sun shining through though the sun itself is barely covering itself in the grey clouds to suppress any complete happiness or sadness in any young child.

As high school comes to a start for me and my forever classmates and colleagues, I wonder if I truly am prepared for this new adventure. And as I look and wonder at the past and the present, and my present circumstances, I feel as though time itself is coming to an end.
It is not. I know this. Yet I will continue this journey, this adventure, as a new era in my life.

From the words of Mary Schmich, I will wear sunscreen.

Now do I listen to the words printed on a parchment pasted onto a block of wood hanging in my bathroom.. It begins, "GO PLACIDLY AMID THE NOISE & HASTE, & REMEMBER WHAT PEACE THERE MAY BE IN SILENCE.." continuing on, "Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. .." And Max Ehrmann ended this poem, "Desiderata" saying to "Be careful. Strive to be happy."

The end is near..

"Well I know that you're in love with him 'cause I saw you dancin' in the gym. You both kicked off your shoes. Man, I dig those rhythm 'n blues.."

And now..

(*sound of blowing through his mouth as if he were tired and through with something*)
As this lovely, enchanting, dull, endearing, animating, and epitomic summer draws to its unfortunate end, I have regrets (yet too few to mention) in addition to satisfaction and contentment. I wonder if I have accordingly spent this summer.

5:43 PM
Alas after much thought, I think I have. I have traveled down Interstate-5 to almost its end and seen most of the grand beauty of California; I have read and pictured the moving events in a county called Maycomb in Alabama, seeing a brother and sister grow, and an innocent black man being served injustice; I have seen great art in Seattle that made me think new and fresh thoughts of the world and of thoughts itself; I learned to make great culinary dishes pleasing to the palate; I have put on a paper helmet, donned a cardboard shield of a red lion emblazoned on to aluminum foil, and with newspaper swords I fought great fiery dragons; so here's to life. (As sung by the fabulous Shirley Horn-) ..as long as I am still in the game, I want to play -for laughs, for life, for love.

I, Done

I was watching "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" this morning; it's something I've been doing during this summer. Anyways, it was the last two episodes of the show and also one of the saddest. I'm serious, it almost made me cry as I saw all of the characters saying goodbye to each other as Uncle Phil and Aunt Vivian were selling the house, Hilary and Ashley moving off to New York to do a talk show and go to the school of arts, respectively, Carlton boarding at Princeton, and Will finishing college at ULA. With each goodbye, the character of each person was shown in how they were like during the entire running of the series. Everyone said goodbye to "Will", and Will said goodbye to "Uncle Phil", "Aunt Viv", "Ash", "Hil", "C", "G", and "Nicky".
One more month of the summer is still here for me. As I and my colleagues begin a new era in our lives, I hope that all of you who have ever read my blog will stick around and find out how things turn out.

'Hard Drive Not Found..'

Within the last few days, I have encountered a problem with turning on my computer. When I push the 'on' button, the Gateway logo stays on while I hear the continual sound of intermittent clicks of my hard drive finding itself.
While I recognize my problem, I am not able to completely fix this problem. After messing around with the innards of this Gateway tower, I have been able to fully turn on this system to save all of the important files and do as much work as I can until this gets fixed.
As I saved and backed up my files but more specifically my endeared Favorites and Links, I felt saddened and sober after looking at these memories (files) and storing them away until another day. It was as if this was my last day on the job and I was packing off to leave for my next job.
Anyways, I hope you'll enjoy your summer. I may not be blogging for some time. So until next time..
( just so you know '...' may mean "I'll never be back whereas '..; means "I'll be back". :)

Danny Boy by Barney Gumble from the Simpsons


From A Life Less Ordinary, Ewan McGregor and Cameron Diaz singing Beyond the Sea


The Beatles with Hello, Goodbye


Johnny Cash singing Ring of Fire


The Beach Boys 1965 with Barbra Ann

For Whom the Bell Tolls

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a
part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as
well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine
own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and
therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

Last night ABC aired a special edition of "Primetime" with Diane Sawyer and Chris Cuomo. And the rich and heartfelt notes from the trumpet playing during transitions was courteous to the moment and the feelings across the nation and around the world.



Killer Seung Cho-Hui had a troubled mind. He was one the many killed on April 16 but he himself was a victim of his own doing and I cannot place his name with the names of those killed in this tragedy, which I believe have been revealed and the grieved family and friends notified.

These are the names of the victims killed in the massacre at Virginia Tech:

Ryan Clark

Emily Hilscher

Ross Abdallah

Jamie Bishop

Brian Bluhm

Rachael Hill

Jarret Lane

Minal Panchal

Erin Peterson

Michael Steven Pohle, Jr.

Matt La Porte

Julia Pryde

Austin Cloyd

Henry Lee

Mary Karen Read

Jocelyne Couture-Nowak

Reema Samaha

Waleed Shalaan

G. V. Loganathan

Daniel Perez Cueva

Liviu Libreschu

Kevin Granata

Partahi Lumbantoruan

Leslie Sherman

Matthew Gwaltney

Lauren McCain

Maxine Turner

Nicole Regina White

Dan O'Neil

Juan Ortiz

Jeremy Herbstritt

Caitlin Hammaren .

It is they for whom the bell of sadness tolls.

VT On the 'Net Effect

As I've been looking at pages and surfing throughout the Internet, mainly Flickr, YouTube, and other sites, I can see how this Virginia Tech tragedy has affected all of us. Seeing the crystal clear pictures on Flickr of the convocation and memorial events at VT. I saw this photo of what looks like a stereotypical local news reporter at the scene as well as another of Dan Rather on the spot. I remember seeing a photo of a reporter from Asian network TV Asahi just arriving at the scene of new developments yesterday; it looked rather odd seeing the reporter running to the scene and I laughed. I saw another photo of the convocation and a newspaper in the forefront. Yet one more deep photo of photographers and students gathered around the large VT letters and memorial. And finally was a photo of the American, Virginian, and VTech flags at half staff in Blacksburg.
This tragedy affected us all and touched us all, and we have got to respect that.
Not only that, but a phrase we hear now "We're all Hokies now." Now because of this tragedy it has brought the world together in such a way.

In Wake of the Virginia Tech Tragedy

Sorry I haven't been able to blog for several days now. So much has been happening in the news and the tragedy and feelings of grief upon all of everyone in America and the world right now.

I'm sure you know what you want to know of the Virginia Tech massacre so I won't repeat it again.
It was this morning that we learned the killer was Cho Seung-Hui and students were said to say he was known as a "loner."
I just can't understand why this had to happen but all I can do is pray for the family and friends of the dead.



In this tragedy, were stories of courage and comfort. I'm sure you know that Facebook was used as a means of communication between isolated students.
What I don't like about this tragedy is how people are trying to politicize the shootings and how it could have been prevented by increasing or decreasing the right to carry weapons. Idiots all of them, making darn politics out of sadness.

This week is a week full of history and has so many differences and similarities between then and now:
April 15 1961: the Bay of Pigs invasion occurred and ended on unsuccessfully on April 19.
April 15 1989: Students held demonstrations in the Tiananmen Square protests.
April 18 1906: Major earthquake in San Francisco resulting in a large death toll.
April 19 1993: the Waco Siege with David Koresh ended after 51 days.
April 20 1999: Two teenagers killed 13 other persons in the Columbine High School shooting.

Last night I was watching "World News With Charles Gibson". Charlie usually ends with "I hope you've had a good day..." but last night he ended "I wish I could say it's been a good day; it hasnt..."
Tonight Charlie is reporting from Virginia, be sure to watch him.
You can see excerpts of this on ABC News Now which is presently reairing it intermittently. Click on the link on the front page of ABC News.

We must think to realize that Cho Seung-Hui was a person with feelings and a heart but made a hurting choice that resulted in this.
We must also remember that those killed in this tragedy are humans and they had families and they deserve the right to rest in peace, without politics.
Here is a photo slideshow from ABCNews.com of those killed.

It's a sunny yet hard and rough evening here in Seattle but the sorrow and grief from across the nation in Blacksburg, Virginia can be felt everywhere today and in the days to come.

To the families and friends of those killed at Virginia Tech, all I can say is this verse from the Book of Numbers.

Feeling Sober (as in sad)

Once again, I am quite sorry that we (I) haven't posted in quite a while. (I mean seriously, my colleagues) Anyways, yesterday on the Today Show, the Teletubbies crew made an appearance. I thought it was rather interesting so here's a video.

When you were a small, little kid, did you ever make an imaginary spaceship that took you to the moon? Well I was taking out the trash and when I looked in the recycle bin, I saw my cardboard spaceship my brother and I made together. We made it out of a Gateway computer box and painted green spots here and there and rightly called it "the CowJumper." I think it had something to do with the cow that jumped over the moon and since Gateway boxes were white with black spots, like cows. Farewell dear spaceship. I had fond memories of traveling to the moon and meeting strange and funny creatures there. So that ends an era of space travel to the moon for my brother and I.

Also on a sober note, (I don't know if I should be talking about this). Have you ever been able to know your great-grandmother? I have known my great-grandmother.
You see, I'm from New York and I have a lot of relatives there and in the Philippines. Hmm, haven't told you I'm a New Yorker. Anyways, I've visited her in both places. And now, well... : (
She passed away a week or two ago. May God bless her.