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Rafael Nadal:Interview after a 3rd round win against Australia's Bernard Tomic 2011.

For the past fortnight, our family came home and are glued to the TV set on what have become our yearly ritual, to watch the Australian Tennis Open. This year is made special by the classic match of Federer vs Nadal on the semis and the longest finals in tennis history – Jocovic vs Nadal, who are also the current number 1 and 2.

I actually watched the Federer vs, Nadal twice as it’s really awesome tennis. There were a lot of magical points between them. We wanted Federer to win but Nadal is close to our hearts as well. Unlike the second semis where we really favoured Jocovic against Murray. This was also a nail biting 5 set but the returns are not as impressive. There were very long rallies and Murray could have also won this. If anything, the game gave me a bit more respect for Murray.

Well the fortnight is over, Jocovic won over Nadal in possibly the most thrilling tennis finals we have ever seen. Azarenka had humiliated my favourite (Sharapova) in the Women’s finals in a quick game lasting just a few minutes longer than the first set of the Men’s finals. We now have to go through a few days of tennis withdrawal until the same time again next year. I’m seriously considering subscribing to the sports channel of Foxtel to follow the grand slam throughout the year – but I’m sure the air time of the games will be in odd hours here in Australia.

The beauty of living in Sydney is that every now and then something special comes knocking on your doorstep. The Picasso museum in Paris is undergoing renovation – so a major collection of Picasso arts is on loan to the Art Gallery of NSW. It was bound to attract a lot of visitors that the usually free admitance to the gallery now had tickets to see the Picasso arts. The tickets were mainly to control the number of visitors and make the visit a bit more enjoyable.

I am no art expert and would not pretend to understand Picasso art at all. But I felt priviledged to have seen the originals of a highly acclaimed artist. His life work is very inspiring on how prolific he was.

However, there were moments there whilst looking into these art how clueless I was. It’s like listening to an aria – you appreciate how much skill is needed to hit those notes but you don’t necessarily like it. Still you applaude if only to acknowledge the talent.

For now – great art to me is like looking at a very hot female. You look, appreciate and just thankful that you leave her at the museum and not have to maintain her

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 tips 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.

January started off with a bang. TJ and James gave us a gift we’ll remember for ages. Tickets to the Australian Open. We’ve seen Nadal and the future of Australian Tennis – Bernard Tomic. We also saw the top Australian women tennis player – Sam Stosur. We’ve posted the pictures in Flickr

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.

In late April, our friend Rick and Tess from Hawaii was in town. Tess was the organiser of a medical convention and Rick tagged along to play golf. We took them for dinner at the Banjo Patterson Restaurant at Hunters Hill. We also had a chance to show Rick the Bicentennial Park on push bikes.

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.

It took almost a year to prepare Jeanne’s 50th Birthday and our Silver Wedding Anniversary – but it was all worth it. Our venue was the new Weber Library Hall in Blacktown. There were approximately 130 guests from the Harana Concert Band, Nielsen Cycling Group, Ex-TIers, Thales, Ex-British Aerospace friends.

Jeanne, Celine and army of friends made the whole event possible. Jessica and I only prepared for our bit in the program. The party went well beyond our expectations, thanks to the friends who were very generous with their time and ideas. It is a traditional Filipino party with a few exceptions. For example, the menu was chosen by Jeanne to be a bit healthy – none of the lechon and the dinuguan. We started promptly at 6:30pm and ended also by 11:00pm. Still there’s the dancing and the singing, we even have a Filipiniana section where Celine sang ‘Maalaala Mo Kaya’, Celine and Jessica danced ‘Pandango Sa Ilaw’ with Joy, and our Harana Sax Trio played ‘Dahil Sa Iyo’.

If you’ll only watch one of the videos we uploaded, watch this.

The main star of the night however is Jeanne. Through-out the year she has been spending time with the mums of Harana to dance the ‘Jai-Ho’, and although they all felt funny doing it they lovingly oblidged to Jeanne. She also spent time with her ex-Texas Instruments girlfriends to dance the Korean hit ‘Nobody’. With her ex-BAEA girlfriends, she danced the ‘Time of My Life’ although for various reasons the number in this group dwindled to 3. But that is not to say that the ex-BAEA group has less participation – in fact they had the most. Vivien Q organised a Zumba presentation and also did a Rock-n-Roll number with Wayne.

Even the DJ, Yoppy, made a superb ballroom dance presentations. He even got Ursula to waltz the ‘Last Dance’. Baby Marquez, perhaps one of our favourite singer other than our own daughter, sang “Looking Through The Eyes of Love” specially requested by Jeanne. She also sang ‘Natural Woman’ in honor of her Tita. Jiko Manaloto also gave a special Soprano Sax Solo – Feel So Good. He had problem with his backing track – but he persevered and played acapella.

Our renewal of vows is a light hearted program officiated by Jessica. She even went the trouble of getting herself certified as a minister on the internet to give credence to the ceremony. Then she gave a superb wedding toast that family found it so cute they posted it on facebook.

It was a great evening and in the end everyone jumped-in on the dance floor and had a bit of a go.

There were 463 photos taken from our camera alone, another 138 photos from Dexter’s and 145 from Jun Velasco. These were just the photos shared with us. The highlights are uploaded in YouTube and Flickr. It is one night we will treasure in our memory made very very special by our friends and family who attended. Even more special to all the family and friends who have been watching our YouTube postings and commenting via emails, facebook and on the video itself.

As far as I’m concerned this year is eventful and mostly positive. Sure we have our share of drama and big changes but change can be very good. The biggest change perhaps for me is that I have moved on from Nielsen. As the year ended, Jeanne and I are practically finished with our role in sending our children through University. Though I must admit, we had it easy – they practically sent themselves through it. All we did was to be there when they need us.

Let me go through to last 12 months – I’ll start with Christmas Eve of 2009. We were on a plane from Manila to Sydney. Having used our frequent flier points to visit the Philippines, we didn’t have much choice on flights – so its no surprise that Christmas eve is the only flight we can take. It was uneventful – there’s not even a trace of Christmas air – it’s PC, no one wants to offend the non-believers. But, when we landed it was a different story – A huge Christmas breakfast is awaiting us – cooked and prepared by Celine and Jess.

January 2010 is one event after the other. First Mark and Joy had their engagement party. It’s a Japanese costume party. Then there was the Sax-In-The-City where I joined 100s other sax player at the Sydney Festivale. Jeanne took photos of the event – one of her photos was selected for a web magazine. The biggest surprise of course is TJ Miravalles calling me out-of-the blue. He was traveling to Sydney on a driving adventure for the first time with his friend James. They stayed in our place for a few days and we all drove on Australia Day to Ballina to visit Celine and her school mate Anne Marie. They were on a 6-week placement in Lismore as part of their Speech Pathology Curriculum.

Jessica has definitely been infected by the travel bug. In February, she spent a few days with friends in Brisbane. One of her friends became a stewardess for Emirates, so they all went and see her off and celebrated in Brisbane. Shortly thereafter, she flew to Fiji with another set of friends.

In April, we racked up one weekend, unannounced to Melbourne. Manang Helen took us to Geelong. Of course, April 2010 is also Jessica’s 21st Birthday – and since we’re not invited to her “Casino Style” party – we had our own private celebration at Kobe Jones. In case you’re wondering why we’re not invited – it’s a joint celebration with two other girls – also turning 21 in their group – and – yes their parents were also not invited.

The month of May was when I made the big move from Nielsen. It was a bitter-sweet end to my 16 years in Nielsen. Two years ago I transitioned from being a permanent employee to a consultant. Now I was moving away for good.

In August, Celine once again had to stay away from home. This time, she lived with the Laroco Family in Hornsby. It’s a rekindling of old friends and family as we find occassions to reconnect with our ex-Texas Instruments friends.

September is when we attended the wedding of Mark and Lara.

October is a big month as we played host to Manang Ditas. We took her to Melbourne, Gold Coast, Hunter Valley. We wined and dined so to speak. She wrote a blog about it. There were tons of photos and stories. It is on a blog written by Manang Ditz.

On November, it was the Tumalads turn to play host to their guest and we were also invited to stay a night at a beautiful old hotel at the Blue Mountains.

Then finally in December we met possibly Jeanne’s closest relative who lives in Australia. Jason is a nephew, son of Manong Jun – the only sibling of Jeanne who after almost 30 years of knowing Jeanne – I have never met face-to-face.

December is also when Celine and Jessica had their adventure to Japan. As a parent – I am absolutely worried whilst they are away overseas on their own but at the same time proud of their independence and character.

Celine promised me to write about their experience in Japan. But she will probably never get a round tuit. Nevertheless, I just want to put up a few of their photos to mark the occasion. I’m really proud of these girls. At a very young age, they can truly travel and be independent. I often apologise when people naturally assume that I even finance their trip – that I am such a doting father to send my kids on foreign travel. The truth is that these girls are self driven and never asks for things to spoil themselves.

It is not often that all four of us are invited to a wedding. Mark and Lara’s wedding is on a day when the weather is neither wet or dry. It has the most beautiful set of bridesmaids and grooms-men to complement an even more beautiful bride and smart looking groom. The ceremony is very traditional and refreshingly simple.

The reception is a blast – Mark and Lara made their entrance with drums and festivities which set the tone for the night and it was just a high from that point on. There were belly dancing and ‘tinikling’, a real representation of the mix between their two cultures.

For me, however, the highlight was when Mark made a speech. He surprised Lara with a song. Burt Bacharac’s – I Say A Little Prayer. A little cheesy you might think – but he got Glenn (brother) to pretend to be hurrying him along, Tita Agnes (his mum), to sing a line, all the bridesmaid to wear special hats as they sang the chorous – and the whole presidential entourage having props to wave along as Mark singing in acapella until this time was joined by the band … (did I capture that right?). We can see – even from across the wedding hall – how Lara’s face lit up, and we can only stipulate how Mark is scoring piles of brownie points at this.

But what really struck me is when Mark said (after a very long albeit interesting speech), ‘If the wedding is a contest on who gets the better partner – then I win hands down’. You could almost hear the crowd go ‘aaaooohhhhh’ (and I hear the register ringing more brownie points for Mark) … At this I find myself turning my head towards my wife, reflecting, that if this was indeed contest, I too have won the lottery.

Here’s wishing the best for Mark and Lara – you’re off to a good start kids – but knowing you all these years, and how wonderful you both are – the future is going to be spectacular!