admonition

today i got admonished by my boss for sending an email to her boss without copyng her. i guess she has all the right to do so and i felt embarrassed. its just so frustrating to know maxim moves quiet slow to act on requests. oh well, i apologized nevertheless. lets see if my boss will confront me next week.

Rainy days are here again...

It's been 2 consecutive days that I got rained on in the morning. Wind is pretty strong, too! Talking about global warming. Did lance's project about a mask. I created a naruto character. I think my son has chicken pox but it's not full-blown. He is only showing few pock marks on his body.

moblog!

Today i have just installed moblog to my omnia I900. will see if it works. If you can read this post then it did!

Tita Cory (1933 - 2009)

Today, Aug 1st, 2009, 3:18am (Phil. time), a great leader, the mother of Philippine democracy, Corazon Cojuanco Aquino, passed away after losing a battle with colon cancer. It is a day of national mourning, gloomy and raining the whole day. Even mother nature was pouring its heart out. I was part of the generation that celebrated the famous people power - filipinos gift to the world. I don't think I'll ever live to see another extra0rdinary person like tita cory - a symbol of hope, courage, honesty and integrity. Tita Cory, you will be sorely missed.

Net 1 Center

This is the first of four buildings owned by the net group which is located in the progressive Bonifacio Global City (BGC). It is an IT park with several PEZA accredited companies. This is where Maxim Shared Service Center is holding office at the 2nd level and currently sharing space with Cypress.

Personally, I like this place as it is less exposed to traffic unlike its close neighbor Makati. It is also surrounded by high rise office buildings and condominiums. The famous ones are Serendra, Essensa, Pacific Towers and One McKinley. St. Luke's Hospital is soon to rise and the Shangrila Hotel is coming up in 2011. One can tell that this is where the next boom is going to happen and the skyline would soon change.

The biggest mall here is Market-Market owned by the Ayala group but the most famous place where the yuppies, students and high society groups are hanging around is the famous Boni High. It's a strip of restaurants, bars and hi-end boutiques with nice landscapes and views. You can see different personalities, different people and pets!

Rosewood Pointe

Oh, I forgot to mention about our first condominium unit, albeit rented, which is located in Ususan, Taguig. It's a mid-rise 2-bedroom apartment which is quite small but good enough for the family. I chose this place because of its proximity to the office. It costs me P23K a month excluding utilities, but I like it because of the comfort and amenities. It has a good size pool, club house, health club (small) and function rooms. It is guarded 24x7 and it's relatively peaceful. It's one of the home projects of DMCI.

My wife and I have decided to invest in our own condo unit as there is no point paying rent forever (as long as I work for Maxim) and not owning anything in the end. Paying an additional 60% monthly would give me the chance to own our first condominium unit after 10 years. Of course we have to paid 20% downpayment. Total cost of the 2BR unit is about P3.5M. Getting a mortgage from the bank woul jack it up to P5M. So much for reading Reach Dad, Poor Dad by Robert S.

Harry Potter 6

Today I watched the 6th installment of the Harry Potter series entitled Half-Blood Prince. I think except for an impressive computer generated graphics, it was the least interesting among the HP films that I've seen. Not much action but instead focus is more on the emotional side of the main characters. My son knows their names but I can only remember a couple of them. I'm more excited about GI Joe which will be shown next week.

Until then....

The dark past...

I refer this as 7 years of bad luck. I saved a small space here for this topic not to reminisce about the past but to remind me of my weakness hence using it as a lesson in order not to commit the same mistake again. I realized that prayer is the best weapon against Darth Vader and the dark force!

The new boss...

First the one before this one. He was a man of God. Though we were from different denominations he opened my eyes to religion. I reached out to my spiritual side and somehow find my inner peace.

Now about the new boss. Oh well, totally different and I thought women bosses are less intimidating. Not that I am intimidated but I think she is. I can tell she hates me and honestly I feel a bit of the same with her, too! Good thing now that she only gets to see me 1 day a week so it's not creating too much tension. I'll try to play it cool. I think I can handle her...

The new job...

The same role but different challenge... same regional responsibility but different situation...before it used to be all in-house..now it's mostly outsourced providers! It covers Korea, China, Singapore, Taiwan, India, Turkey and of course the Philippine shared service center. Team is made up of experienced individual who used to work for multi-national companies - one from Deutsche Bank (GTS), another from microsoft (BI) and the smarty but a bit tardy supervisor from IBM. Also had a couple of old timers from Cavite.

Financial system is SAP and the first few months had required me to travel to Singapore and the US (Dallas) for the transition and training. So far so good...if not for the boss...but that's another story.

New Company...

Jan 12th '09 - found a smaller company engaged in the semi-conductor industry. A fortune 1000 which is small compared to the previous one who was a fortune 300. But this fortune magazine rating scheme is not what it seems to be. I used to believe that it gives you a good basis to judge the health of a company but it doesn't. Gross sales is the beacon which is not telling everything. My previous company (a fortune 300) is burried in debt, billions of dollars. My new company (a fortune 1000) is debt free!

Oh well, I'm glad that I joined the new company at the right moment, at the right time. The pay is slightly better just enough to cover for additional expenses which is incidental with the move. Oh, did I mention that I have to relocate the family to a costlier place? Cost of living is higher, pace is faster, traffic is worse and people are ambitious. If not for some incentives which I managed to negotiate, it would have been a foolish decision.

But I realized I just did a very important thing in my life - make a change. I did a quantum leap leaving a "secured" job and join a totally new environment, culture and challenge. But staying in the oasis won't get me nowhere. I have to find my fate...

New Life...

Jan 9th, '09 - starting all over again. Left this company which I have served for 17 years and 7 months and 2 days to be exact. Practically spent a good part of my youth there but no regrets since it provides me the means to support my family and give them a decent life as well as provide me the skills and expertise to face a different kind of challenge. If I had to change anything, it would be to save more and invest earlier as I have wasted a good portion of my income on intangible things. But that is spilt milk and it's not yet too late to change. Here's to a new year...here's to a new life...here's to a new beginning...