I first heard of the song "Take It Easy" in the streets of Beijing (of all places) as I was attending the "Women's Conference" in 1995. This song was released by the Eagles and went on to be a smash hit.
I found out later that this song was actually written first by Jackson Browne and he eventually let Glen Frey finish the song. Browne recalled that the song took a dramatic transformation when Frey coined the phrase "....it's a girl my lord in a flat bed ford slowing down and take at me".
But for me the best part is "...I got seven women on my mind. Four that want to own me, two that want to stone me, and one said she's a friend of mind".
I love to listen to this song when driving! Here's a video of Jackson Browne singing his version of the song.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
#3: Help from the Philippines
Murphy's law say "If anything can happen, it will". And it always happens on a monday.
Today as I was getting ready for work, I suddenly got frantic calls from three of our office locations. "Internet is down!!!" shouted one of our clinic manager. Great! I whispered as I whisked out of the shower, kiss my kids goodbye and grab my car keys as I got three more calls and a text message, which I choose to ignore.
As I was driving, my tech assistant finally called me up and started briefing me on the situation. "It's pretty bad, I restarted the firewall and the switch but nothing seems to be working", he said. "Do you want me to reset the T1 router?", he asked. I said NO, as I was sure it was something to do with our T1 provider (AT&T).
Arriving 10 minutes later in my office, I was confronted with some more co-workers throwing the same questions. "What wrong with the line?, is it gonna take long?" I have a deadline to meet". I ignored everyone as I slammed my door and start calling Technical Support.
After trying to navigate the complex Automated Voice Response, I finally heard a live person. "Thank you for calling AT&T, my name is Owen, how may I help you today?". It was a very pleasant voice that for a moment I amost forgot the reason for my call. As I was explaining the problem, I slowly realizing that am talking to a Filipino lady. How would I know? oh I know believe me.
She seems to know what she's doing as I heard the clicking on her keyboard. She put me on hold as she tries to determine the issue and got back a minute later. "Sorry for the inconvenience Eric, but there seems to be some error on the T1 line, we are trying to isolate the problem now and we should be able to fix your issue".
As I waited, I finally can't help but asked her, "Miss Owen nasa Pilipinas ka ba?". "Opo", she said. Wow! that's awesome, I said. "Yes sir, we are somewhere in Pasig", she continued.
Well back to the problem, she finally told me that it will take about 20 minutes to get some results back. She asked for my call back number and vigorously promised me that she will call me back.
Fifteen minutes later, the line when up and I can hear the whole office rejoicing! a few minutes later, Owen called me back and happily informed me that we are back online. I said yes we are. She finally asked me "Is there anything else I can do for you?". Well I said "pwede ba kitang ihatid?". "She laugh and said, "nakalimotan mo na yata, nasa Pilipinas ako". ooops.
This is a first time I ever encountered a tech support based in the Philippines. When we were just using a DSL line, I normally deal with techs in India. It seems that AT&T prefers the Philippines for the premium business customers like us. And they seems to get it right as my issue was resolved quickly.
Today as I was getting ready for work, I suddenly got frantic calls from three of our office locations. "Internet is down!!!" shouted one of our clinic manager. Great! I whispered as I whisked out of the shower, kiss my kids goodbye and grab my car keys as I got three more calls and a text message, which I choose to ignore.
As I was driving, my tech assistant finally called me up and started briefing me on the situation. "It's pretty bad, I restarted the firewall and the switch but nothing seems to be working", he said. "Do you want me to reset the T1 router?", he asked. I said NO, as I was sure it was something to do with our T1 provider (AT&T).
Arriving 10 minutes later in my office, I was confronted with some more co-workers throwing the same questions. "What wrong with the line?, is it gonna take long?" I have a deadline to meet". I ignored everyone as I slammed my door and start calling Technical Support.
After trying to navigate the complex Automated Voice Response, I finally heard a live person. "Thank you for calling AT&T, my name is Owen, how may I help you today?". It was a very pleasant voice that for a moment I amost forgot the reason for my call. As I was explaining the problem, I slowly realizing that am talking to a Filipino lady. How would I know? oh I know believe me.
She seems to know what she's doing as I heard the clicking on her keyboard. She put me on hold as she tries to determine the issue and got back a minute later. "Sorry for the inconvenience Eric, but there seems to be some error on the T1 line, we are trying to isolate the problem now and we should be able to fix your issue".
As I waited, I finally can't help but asked her, "Miss Owen nasa Pilipinas ka ba?". "Opo", she said. Wow! that's awesome, I said. "Yes sir, we are somewhere in Pasig", she continued.
Well back to the problem, she finally told me that it will take about 20 minutes to get some results back. She asked for my call back number and vigorously promised me that she will call me back.
Fifteen minutes later, the line when up and I can hear the whole office rejoicing! a few minutes later, Owen called me back and happily informed me that we are back online. I said yes we are. She finally asked me "Is there anything else I can do for you?". Well I said "pwede ba kitang ihatid?". "She laugh and said, "nakalimotan mo na yata, nasa Pilipinas ako". ooops.
This is a first time I ever encountered a tech support based in the Philippines. When we were just using a DSL line, I normally deal with techs in India. It seems that AT&T prefers the Philippines for the premium business customers like us. And they seems to get it right as my issue was resolved quickly.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
#2: Desktop Software Applications for free, anyone?
It may not be known to a lot of people but there are abundant desktop applications that can save you hundreds of dollar.
If you can't afford to buy Microsoft Office, you can opt for openoffice.org which is a complete suite that includes wordprocessing, spreadsheet and presentation. Don't even worry because files you created on each of this applications can be saved into different file formats such such as word, excel or powerpoint. Openoffice runs on windows, linux and mac operating systems.
What about editing your photos and adding some special effect? Most would say photoshop right? Well there's gimp which has all the features comparable to expensive graphics editor. Again this software is available for windows, linux and mac.
Can't afford quarkXpress, Pagemaker or Microsoft Publisher for your newspaper layouts? check out scribus.
And lastly, I love using thunderbird and evolution for my email clients instead of using outlook or outlook express. These email client can access virtually any type of email server (e.g. gmail, hotmail, yahoo).
These are just some of the thousands of free software on the internet. A great place for searching free and open source applications is sourceforge.net
So why pay if you can get them for free?
If you can't afford to buy Microsoft Office, you can opt for openoffice.org which is a complete suite that includes wordprocessing, spreadsheet and presentation. Don't even worry because files you created on each of this applications can be saved into different file formats such such as word, excel or powerpoint. Openoffice runs on windows, linux and mac operating systems.
What about editing your photos and adding some special effect? Most would say photoshop right? Well there's gimp which has all the features comparable to expensive graphics editor. Again this software is available for windows, linux and mac.
Can't afford quarkXpress, Pagemaker or Microsoft Publisher for your newspaper layouts? check out scribus.
And lastly, I love using thunderbird and evolution for my email clients instead of using outlook or outlook express. These email client can access virtually any type of email server (e.g. gmail, hotmail, yahoo).
These are just some of the thousands of free software on the internet. A great place for searching free and open source applications is sourceforge.net
So why pay if you can get them for free?
Saturday, June 27, 2009
#1: It's June 27, 2009
Today is my birthday and to celebrate my existence, I am starting my blog - Aemes World.
This blog will be updated every day from this day for the next 365 days or until my next birthday. I think this will be a piece of cake considering am wired to the teeth to connect online through my home broadband, my phone and a of course super T1 line in my office. I even have a free wifi access through a local coffee shop and not to mention a careless neighbor hooking a wireless access point using default setup leaving the device open to the public.
Also, today, I got greetings from friends and family through my facebook - thanks everyone. And of course gifts from my kids Joshua, Deirdre and Nadire - a keychain, a Led Zepellin shirt and this heartwarming poem written by nadire on father's day:
This blog will be updated every day from this day for the next 365 days or until my next birthday. I think this will be a piece of cake considering am wired to the teeth to connect online through my home broadband, my phone and a of course super T1 line in my office. I even have a free wifi access through a local coffee shop and not to mention a careless neighbor hooking a wireless access point using default setup leaving the device open to the public.
Also, today, I got greetings from friends and family through my facebook - thanks everyone. And of course gifts from my kids Joshua, Deirdre and Nadire - a keychain, a Led Zepellin shirt and this heartwarming poem written by nadire on father's day:
When I was young I never realized the love in my daddy's heart. My juvenile mind was not informed until the second I was born.Today is my day but this day I owe it to my mom and papa (bless his soul). I love you both...
I remember the faint sparkle in his eyes. Seeing that I rapidly interpreted that he would always care. Then on this father's day I date back to that day and saw how he's watched me through all these years. Nothing will change my love for him. Now the light is dim but all I can say is that his love makes it all right.
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