235: Am back home...sort of

It's happening I thought. After quite an eternity of waiting, the intercom suddenly crackled. "Ladies and Gentlemen we are now approaching Ninoy Aquino International Airport. Today's temperature is 32 degrees celcius. The local time is 6PM. Welcome to Manila and thank you for flying Hawaiian Airlines". I jumped out of my chair startled. I feel the cold in my room and it was all dark. It took me a while to regain consciousness. My phone vibrated and I sleepy checked an in coming text message. It was my sister. "Leaving in a few hours, will call you with mama when we get there". She's leaving for the Philippines and I am not.

#204: Tinseltown

We're at Tinseltown and no we're not here for American Idol. We're here for Josh's audition for Berklee College of Music in Boston.

But before the big day, we first had quick drive around Little Tokyo for a nice late lunch. Then walked along Hollywood Walk of Fame and saw this guy got lucky with Marilyn Monroe.

Hollywood! Depending on what your purpose visiting this city, it could be heaven or it could be hell.

#137: Free Wi-Fi what's the catch

Google is playing Santa early this holiday season by offering free Wireless Access to major airports around the U.S.

"We're very happy to extend our Holiday Wi-Fi gift to the millions of people who will spend time in airports over the next few months," said Google vice president of search products Marissa Mayer. "We know that this is a very hectic travel season for people, and we hope that free Wi-Fi will make both traveling and connecting with friends and family a little bit easier."

 But what does Google gets in offering such generous gift?

Travelers who log into free wireless networks will be invited to reciprocate by making donations to one of three charities, with Google promising to match contributions to a maximum of 250,000 dollars.

Many travelers probably are armed with an iPhone, Blackberry or the Driod already connected to the Internet. But if you are tired of looking at the miniature screen, then using the free Wi-Fi access is a good option.

But not so fast. Keep in mind that open systems like these are vulnerable to hackers. So here's some good tips you might want to follow in case you get tempted.

Have a worry-free and safe traveling during the holiday season.

#48: Bleed Normally?

I just came back from a 2 day Open Source World conference in San Francisco.

In a nutshell, the conference showcased the next big thing in technology which is Cloud Computing. I did talked about this technology earlier in this post and it looks like a wave of companies are getting into it. Pretty soon, the cloud will most likely dominate the way we do business online.

Anyway, it's always a great experience attending this type of conferences. You got to see emerging trends that could spun a new revolution in the computing world.

It's been two years since I last visited San Francisco and each time I didn't had a chance to see the city. Although, I was surprised to see a Jollibee just across the Moscone Center on 4th and Howard. I quickly snap a picture of it.



The trip is quite hectic. I spent most of the time in the conference center, going in and out of the countless sessions. Information is enormous. It would take me a couple of days to review all the materials I gathered. By mid afternoon on each day, I was struggling to keep up and what made it worse is they stop serving coffee after 10am.

By the time I finally boarded the plane back to San Diego, I was so exhausted that I thought the stewardess said on the intercom "...although we don't expect any change on the cabin pressure, if needed, oxygen masks will drop down. Clobber your mouth and bleed normally" (the correct phrase was actually "Cover your mouth and breath normally").

I let out a short chuckle, closed my eyes and relish the thought that in an hour Ill be arriving in sunny San Diego, back in the comfort of my home...

#43: Good (not so) old friends

The last time I saw Elite (Emilie Trinidad Bandayrel) (at least from what we think we both remember) was in 1993. It was during another friends' (Liberty and Pancho) wedding. Then we lost touch.

I finally had a chance to meet her today. She's in town with her husband and classmates in High School.

I met with her party at goldilocks in national city. I can see they miss Filipino food a lot as they ate their hearts out with crispy pata, sisig, pansit, rice and halo halo. I would have loved to join in but I'm on a strict diet.

Anyway, I drove them around National City and Chula Vista then finally headed to the border between the U.S. and Mexico which is just 10 miles away. Some of us wanted to actually enter Tijuana but not everyone had their passport handy.

We end up instead at Las Americas Premium Outlets which is located just on the U.S. side of the border. Going to the outlet is a little bit tricky because of it's proximity to the Mexican border. When you're driving, you have to watch the sign that say "last exit to the U.S.". If you miss the turn, you will end up on the other side.

The girls did a little (or maybe a lot) of shopping, while we guys enjoyed the "site seeing".

Unfortunately I have to excuse myself as I have some errands to do. It's a saturday and it's my usual grocery day.

I rarely go out since I really don't have friends in San Diego but having good old friends visit me makes my day a great one.