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Last Sunday (15-Jan-2012), Celine, Jessica and myself attended a basic defensive driving course at the Eastern Creek Raceway. We’ve had this in our calendar for sometime now but with our CRV figuring in an accident last September and basically at the smash repairs for almost all of October, we finally found a weekend where we can all do it.

A full day course will probably not suddenly or magically turn you into a defensive driver but there were a few things we took away from the course. The most dramatic is realising how the ABS brakes work when you have to slam the brakes on an emergency. And there were practical tips from keys to seat belts and driving positions that can easily be adopted.

We were divided into 3 groups. The Holden, Ford and Subaru group – all 3 of us stayed with the Subaru Group. After a short introduction – our group drove off to the far end of the race track and practiced emergency braking. At first we accelerated at 40kph before slamming on the brake. Then 60kph , 80 kph and 100kph. At 60kph – the instructor jumped infront of my way forcing me to react and slam the brakes as hard and my heart went racing too. At the next 2 speeds of 80 and 100 – you can now appreciate the ABS braking and generally how good are the brakes of our cars.

I always had that fear that if I slam on the break that my car will spin like that in the movies. Yet at 100kph and slamming the break as hard as you could – the car simply pumped into a halt similar to someone pumping the brakes although my foot was on the brakes all the time. The race track gave the perfect opportunity to try this as it is unsafe if not illegal to be doing this on the road unless it’s a real emergency.

We were also suppose to be able to try our dynamic stability control. The feature of our car to automatically correct itself if it was violently swerved to avoid a collision. But I believe this takes more practice than the 4 that was given to us. By the time I swerve my foot stays on the brake rather than getting back to the accelerator and recovering – or on real life going back to track to avoid on coming traffic.

The day was fun – Jessica got a lot of praises from the instructor for her Mazda SP25. She’s now convinsed that her car will accelerate and stop faster thna my Honda Accord Euro. Celine’s Honda CRV does not have a dynamic stability control but she aced the brake-swerve and recover manuever better than I did.

Next – Celine and Jessica is now planning to attend the ‘Galmatic’ – a girl only course that teaches auto-mechanics, conducted also by a female mechanic. I just hope this two do not turn into rev-heads

We have a lot to be thankful for in 2011. It had shaped to be a very memorable year for us. This is the year when Celine and Jessica marched into the Great Hall of the University of Sydney to received their undergraduate degrees.

Celine graduated with First Class Honours in Speech Pathology. Jessica received her degree in Psychology and have now started her Masters in Jurors Doctor at the University of Technology Sydney.

In February – I also started on a new employment. It was a welcome change as it felt as if my career had been in limbo in 2010. There are now fresh hopes and aspirations. I am now a lot happier going to work and feel more fulfilled facing new challenges.

Celine also got her license to drive in May 2011. For those who saw her learn how to drive, appreciate this milestone. Driving did not come easy for Celine. Having a creative mind sometimes hampers the mechanical skills. Yet she persevered despite an over protective and most of the time ‘freaked-out’ dad who made her learning more daunting. Sorry Celine.

We had an old car – affectionately (or not) nicknamed by Jessica as ‘Two-Crap’ because it is too crap to drive anywhere. On the day Celine got her license, her sister challenged her to reverse park Two-Crap through our gates into our backyard. And so Celine took on the challenge, breaking a side mirror in the process. Still, I’m thankful at this little mishap, though still costs a small fortune to fix – had taught Celine to be a lot more careful behind the wheels – much more than any yelling or instructions can do.

This is also the year that Jessica bought her first ‘real car’. She has been working full time for almost two-years now and so she decided it was time to take on a lease on a Mazda 3 SP25. She convinced us to cleanup our garage which has now turned into a storage. We were forced to sort items that we can throw, sell, give away and keep. The process was brutal, passionate and had led to many arguments. But we stuck to it and had the arguments and letting go. There were weekends when we fill up our car to the roof with brick-braks to take to the Blacktown Markets to sell. In the end – we achived our goal, the garage is usuable once again and had became the home of Jessica’s pride and Joy.

This is also the year that we celebrated our 25th Wedding Anniversary and Jeanne turned 50. The celebration for both was held on the same day – yet the preparation took most of the year. Noone enjoyed it more that Jeanne, as she spent time with various group of friends to practice dancing and a lot of bonding time. Meanwhile, Celine, Jessica and I became regulars on various local restaurants and take-away shops – for dinner without mum might as well be cooked by someone else.

Yes 2011 is indeed a year to remember for us. As the holiday draws in closer, we are awaiting the return of Jessica from her trip to U.S. which includes a visit to Carlos Bakery in Jersey – the site of their favourite lifestyle program – Cake Boss.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

Jeanne had been asking me for years to get the Harana Sax Quartette to play again and I kept giving her excuses. ‘Gusto pa kaya ng mga bata?‘, We haven’t been playing for years. All the kids are now busy with their own lives, how can we ask them to give up weekends for rehearsals?

But when Joy picked up the phone one day and said : ‘Tito, can the quartette play at my wedding? I want you to play the Pachabel Canon as my bridal march‘. Without missing a beat, I said, ‘Of course sweetheart‘. Joy called each and every member and none hesitated. Such is the power of Joy.

To put it into context, even when we were regularly rehearsing about 10 years ago, we never dared try the Pachabel Canon. Individual parts of the music are relatively not too difficult, but as an ensemble, it’s an advance piece. For Ryan, Mark and Spyros to have said ‘yes to Joy’ meant we’re in for a few weekends of practice.

Celine sang on the Wedding Ceremony which earned her an invite from Jessica to her future wedding. Of course, she is yet to meet the man.

Our first problem was that we were not very sure how long the bridal march was going to be. Since Joy naturally would be the last one to march in, we wanted to ensure we are still playing her Canon as she walks down the aisle. So we decided to also have an extended version of the song. Again, to put it into perspective, the piece is already long, and breathing is tricky. By the end of the piece we feel like swimmers coming up for air – and yet we all decided to stay underwater for another minute to play the extended version. We were all determined to ensure we gave the best for Joy.

Joy is the second daughter of our friends Agnes and Rudy. We knew her as a child playing clarinet in our concert band. She is also a great filipiniana dancer. She is now a school teacher. Clarina, her older sister, summed it up really well in her toast, that her sister is kind, loving and generous as reflected by her choice of career. We’ve always known her as a gentle, soft-spoken character who would always say yes to lend a helping hand. She is very charismatic, as you can see, no one hesitated when she asks.

Even the gods are on her side. Her wedding day was not only picture perfect, it was the best Sydney spring day one could imagine. Flowers were blooming and it was neither chilly nor warm, thus the guests stayed in their best attire all day. The ceremony was flawless, a traditional Filipino Catholic Wedding throughout with a subtle difference. I notice that the homily no longer had the message of – ‘Man look after your wife, and wife serve your husband‘. Of course this message has already disappeared in non-religious weddings, but I am glad, being a father to two daughters, that women are no longer seen as servants to their husband but rather as an equal partner in life.

To Joy and Mark, my family wishes you all the best as you embark on your new chapter. We can tell that you truly are in-love with each other, and that is your biggest asset to build on. The 9 years you were together as sweethearts will now take a significant turn that is both enjoyable as well as challenging and it may be cliche but it is your love for each other that will hold you together. You both have wonderful parents to look-up too and if anyone had a better chance to start a new family together – you are off to a good start.

Thank you for inviting all four of us again to another Rupac wedding. It is a memory we will always treasure and value. Please tell us that Glen would also be inviting us (no pressure Glen). But please include in your proposal to your future wife that you have to invite Tito Rommel, Tita Jeanne, Celine and Jessica to your wedding.

A few of weeks ago, my daughters got themselves a MacBook Pro each. Then they urged me to switch to Apple. Of course, I was easily persuaded and got myself a Mac Mini. The Lion O/S is technically Unix, and being an Ubuntu fan for years, it was not that really a big jump or steep learning curve as anticipated.

There were a few hesitation as you would expect from someone switching from Windows. There were a few software that I need to replace like, Putty, ProShow Producer and Power Director. As for Putty, I quickly learned that the Terminal of Mac is as capable. I’m yet to compare ProShow with iPhoto and Power Director with iMovie.

I’ve started with iMovie, uploading my first video on YouTube last night. This is our rehearsal video for Joy’s upcoming wedding. It took 8 minutes to render this 8 minute video (which makes me wonder why rendering take much longer in Windows). I left it uploading to YouTube as it estimate it to be an hour. I haven’t done anything with this video, just trim the edges. I like the layout of iMovie, it is easy and not cluttered – so far – so good. I’m pretty sure it does not have all the bells and whistles of Power Director but I like being able to write this blog whilst another iMovie project is being rendered on the background.

This supports the first lesson I taught my daughters, i.e. in Mac, they need to unlearn a rule in Windows that you do one thing at a time or risk having to crash all of your work.

These are the things I like so far about the Mac
1. The Track Pad – I’m getting used to all the neat gestures that switching back to my office notebook is sometimes frustrating.
2. iTunes is more responsive. We have 3 Apple TVs at home and I always want at least one of our iTunes library up for Home Sharing of music and photos. We are a modern family that has converted our living room TV into a massive photo frame with music.
3. I still love my Ubuntu Server but might transfer some of the functionalities into the MacMini – like the XBMC Media Library on a MySQL Server.
4. I love being able to play tricks on friends, by making my Mac Mini talk from a remote ssh terminal.
5. It is just fully integrated with our iPhones, iPads and Apple TV.

What I don’t Like
1. Software will be a problem for sure. I use Password Safe and although Password Gorilla can read the database – I had problems when saving the database using it. The pwSafe in my iPhone was not able to read it. But I’m very glad there is the Password Gorilla of course.
2. Printer is an issue on our old and reliable Canon MP970 – it does not support CD Printing as well as duplex printing from Mac. It also has difficulty being shared to a wireless connected devices like the MacBooks. We ended up buying an HP Officejet 6500A, an apple friendly printer that allow us to print from our iPad, iPhone, Mac via wireless and even via eMail.
3. The Delete key behave like that of a Windows Backspace – that will take some getting use to.
4. It does not have a built-in optical media device but it is easy to configure a shared DVD/BD/CD over the network.

Overall – I’m happy with it – I find the need to switch back to my Windows 7 PC less and less everyday. The most common software I use are already ported to MAC. These are the Office 2011, Canon Digital Photo Professional for my Canon 450D and Jeanne’s Canon Powershot and the Logitech Harmony Remote Software. My favourite editor EMacs, is also more at home in this environment.

The biggest change however is speed. There are no unnecessary background process like virus scanner or security against attacks. There are no hundreds of video drivers or device drivers that loads because they ‘might’ be used for plug-n-play. It can read NFS files natively, but I wished MAMP Pro is free.

Here’s another cool stuff I created in iMovie. It was so easy it’s child play.