Some Interior Design Project

The once spacious conference room of our office had to be renovated to be the new workroom of our Technical Support staffs. The conference room itself had been divided into three but more accurately 2.5 since only a low partition divides the resultant middle room and the adjacent one to the right. Outside that used to be the lobby, two more rooms were built; office for the supervisors opposite the receiving and repair room. (The glass door is the original entrance to the conference room)

Since there are plans that I will also move in to one of the new rooms later, I was given the privilege to decide for the look of the new office particularly in the selection of colors.

The photos below are the result of my desire to make it more homey than basically corporate. For the inside of the left room, I picked light pistachio green while lavender for the middle and right rooms which have two doors but share a common cube inside. Darker shades of the same palettes were used for the doors and base boards.

Ecru for the corridor isn’t my choice although I have no objections since it illuminates the area. I just thought of adding the random vermilion and chrome yellow quadrilaterals to save it from being a total bore. Despite the mockery of some colleagues comparing it to shapes in preschool classrooms, I personally drafted the shapes with pencil and marked what color to paint then left the rest of the labor to the painters. Eventually, the mocking birds appreciated the outcome.

This was done a couple of months ago already but I didn’t own a camera-phone then. How I wish I had pictures with the veteran and cooperative team who worked on this project.

BTW, I also proposed naming the workrooms something techie: Synergy, Collaborate, Merge, Interface, Drive and Streamline. However, some folks are yet just too conventional even if they’re in IT.

Let me know what you think.

WoW (Words of Wisdom) Riyo!

I was captivated by Miss Universe 2007 Riyo Mori when she did her farewell walk prior coronation of Venezuelan beauty Dayana Mendoza who eventually succeeded Mori. Personally, I find this part of such shows interesting because I get to know and see what the outgoing winners have become during their reign; had they improved or do they look like they really need replacement already.

Several interesting things with Riyo I think are first, her beauty is remarkable but still realistic and not tiring. Many just seem too beautiful that looking at them is tantamount to looking at a mannequin hence the feeling is devoid of a sense of life. Riyo is among the Misses Universe who looks human. Also, Riyo is the second Japanese miss to win the crown after more than 2 decades which is really impressive considering that until the few recent years seldom do slit-eyed Asians get a chance to get into the top 10 since they tend to be deviant from the norms. For instance, often their representatives tend to wear something that is far from being an evening gown for the gown competition.

Now, speaking of deviance, Riyo chose to wear a ladies’ tux in her final walk instead of a flowing dress many anticipated. She’s the first I know to do that and I give that personal statement two thumbs up. For me it’s a very charming way of asserting her identity and the ideal representation of how far had today’s women claimed social recognition through their perseverance and intelligence. They’ve broken the bounds of inferiority which the society had defined for them because there isn’t really a need for competition between the sexes. A few also reproved Riyo’s not wearing the crown while making her walk but I guess that was because first, a crown and tux doesn’t look right together although she wore the crown with a long dress in the early part of the show. Second, this year’s crown is not from the Mikimoto tiara Mori won last year so maybe the transition would not be exemplified if past year’s queen fastens a different crown to her successor. Lastly, my search in YouTube for replays revealed that Mori isn’t the only miss to walk without the crown; 2003 winner Amelia Vega of Dominican Republic was likewise guilty.

Still, most important was Mori’s message which thankfully was not confined to the typical thank-you-miss-universe-and-everybody-else and to-my-successor-well-wishes. Next to Natalie Glebova’s in 2006 that tells about making a difference, Riyo’s is a favorite:

Finally to all the young people of the world, if I could do it, so can you. Never give up on your dreams, always look ahead. Be patient, positive and happy.

A Mug For A Mug

A day before my birthday, I (slightly) vandalized someone's coffee mug. A day after, I received a gift. Guess what?


A coffee mug! Hah! The game of fate... Does this intend to remind me of the golden rule?

Anyway, I must thank its cheerful giver, Gracie. A sweet person she is, she has her way of making people feel special. An intellectual conversationalist, an eager listener, and a humble person. Her effort to personally deliver the gift is a gift itself. (pun intended) Her phone broke several days ago so we have no contact. She took advantage of her weekend break from her review classes for the Customs Broker Licensure Exams in Manila to meet me. She went to my school (also hers before graduating last March) holding on to the fact that all my classes are during the evenings but without assurance that I'll be in the campus that night; "aiming for the moon" they say. I really don't have classes and so I extended my stay in our office until I received a message in my phone saying that she wants to meet me. I've learned that she had to borrow the phone of my instructor and friend to be able to contact me. We promptly set to meet in minutes and the rest of the night was full of laughs and interesting and informative chats.


As for the mug, I think I'll use it as a pen holder so in case anybody would think of fooling around and make it a flower vase, at least I'm not using it for drinking. Now I'm being haunted by my own ghost. *grinning*

A Special Day

Today is my birthday. I consider it among if not my best but I’m not giving myself the gift of adequate sleep by forcing myself to stay awake to have this posted within 24 hours despite several prior drafts still await publication.

The Ad

A colleague makes monthly Birthday Celebrants posters. Previously were Photoshopped cartoons of the celebrants. Trademark traits of every celebrant are listed next to their names. This month, the concept was a magazine cover. I’m the first on the list and the catchphrase reads, “IT professional and working for the government? Bring out your inner FASHIONISTA. You can be fab too”.

Birthday celebrants posted on our corkboard

Yin Yang Prelude

Yesterday, something good and bad happened. The bad one was losing my SIM card which I’d used for 5 years after I ignored my hesitation that it might get lost by placing it in my mobile phone’s jacket instead of zipping it in my wallet.

The good one was the fun we had before going home. Ok, it wasn’t all good because it’s a little evil but nonetheless fun. My computer had a trouble in the morning and the technician who serviced it was drinking coffee while waiting progress in his troubleshooting. Eventually, he left his tall mug on the shelf behind my partition until office hours ended. I picked it up and showed it to an officemate and remarked, “See? Raymund left his coffee mug in my place. Good enough they (the technical support staffs) don’t bring their mugs when they render field service to other offices or else they’ll be leaving it in other buildings”. Then it entered my clever mind so casually just like how air enters my nostrils. “What if I make this a flower vase, how would he react if he finds out?” Then the ever-supportive Jing grinned which triggered the enthusiasm and further brainstorming. She even remarked, “What if you also put soil?” but no sooner she retracted this joke. Ok, the soil might be a joke but that didn’t mean spoiling the plan that’s just conceived. “Why not?” I thought. “The past 22 birthdays were quite monotonous and typical. My wish for this year is to have some adventure”. The plot was formulated and carried-out in cooperation of my office pal and our immediate supervisor. That is to turn someone’s coffee mug into a vase and make it appear that it was given by somebody who was completely clueless about to whom the mug belongs. The two accomplices descended the building armed with a pair of scissors and gathered nearby wild flowers which made a nice bouquet; a lot more than I expected. Now, to still retain a pinch of surprise for me, I let Jing make the tags and didn’t read it until she had attached it to the vase. Since the mug’s design has the traits of a Libran (Raymund’s sign is Libra), she also searched online for the Cancer counterpart and taped it on top of the dedication tag. BTW, the tag reads “From Nag and Jing” because the climax of the plot is to see how the owner will react to find out that Nag (our supervisor) was one the masterminds. The centerpiece was set on the same spot where I found it to increase the probability that its owner will search in the place where he recalls to have left it.

Unfortunately, Raymund wasn’t visible the whole day which makes us wonder if he didn’t have coffee today or he already found out but decided not to spoil the “surprise” for me. We’re not losing hope in the next days though.

The evidence

Happy Birthday!

Mom woke me up by rubbing her fingertips on my cheeks and whispered her greeting. Her fingers were close in a rosebud-like form; I guess this is her way of kissing me now that I'm a grown man. Since she works somewhere far and her official time is an hour earlier than mine, she usually leaves while I’m still asleep and we only get to talk to each other in the evenings and on Sundays. Dad greeted me when I came down from the bedroom.

In the office, I'm glad to find my pals looking good as if dressed for the occasion. Jing is so thoughtful to get me a pint of ice cream on her way to work.

My supervisor's daughter scribbled her greetings for me

I have 2 boxes of pizza delivered in the office

Messageboard

Earliest - July 1: (Friendster Comment from Ann, Faculty)

Sweetest: My mom's

Most Persistent: Doth's (Our NetAd)

She forwarded through our WinMessenger, multiple copy-pasted 'happy bday' greeting 3 times thoughout the day plus her personal greetings

Most Unexpected: Sol's (a legal secretary who called and up to follow-up on something and greeted me afterward. Until now it puzzles me how she knew)

Unexpected:

Dan, former faculty in our school and director of theater arts (mailed through Friendster)

Dette, Manager in a nearby restaurant where we regularly eat. (Sent thru SMS)

Unknown Greetings: Those who might have texted me in the SIM card I'd lost yesterday thus whose numbers I also lost. This includes a greeting from the Insurance System in behalf of the President of the Philippines; last year I received one. This is computer-generated though

Office Outing in Pines City

The plan was to go south. No. There wasn’t a plan to go anywhere actually. I don’t know what hit our boss on the head or what had he ingested for him to retract his unofficial proclamation that there will be no summer outing for us unless all projects has been completed. It just surprised me one day some colleagues were busy researching options, corporate package proposals of resorts and hotels were coming in while documents for official travel were being sent out. (We want to believe that all projects had been completed indeed) All plans were bound south but cost analysis revealed that a southward itinerary would be expensive. However, since we were in the verge of the (summer) season, it was a now-or-never matter. And so to the North we went once more!

Last year, we felt deprived of time and fun since we’re in Baguio City for only less than 24 hours. Hence this time we dedicated our 3-day itinerary in Baguio alone and made sure to visit more of its famous parks and marketplaces and of course purchase Pines City’s specialty goods: veggies, sweets, cookies, fruit jams, silver jewelry, ornamental plants and others. Unfortunately, nobody could afford the fresh strawberries because it were priced at PHP200 more per kg than when in season; very high considering that it’s the price at the harvest fields so we wouldn’t want to know how much more is its market price in the city proper. The vendors attributed this to the damages of a recent storm.

My mates who have been with the company for at least 10 years now say this is the 3^rd time they held the teambuilding in Baguio but is the best outing by far despite that many failed to come along; last year’s trip is no match. But looking at their pictures several years ago and ours this year, I couldn’t agree less that this had been a lot more fun!

Ascending Kennon Road

Lion’s Head Welcome Marker

Stop for breakfast

First lunch in our destination (I look like a famished typhoon victim here)

Camp John Hay Historic Trail

Meeting Den and Lhaine, resident friends in Baguio

Set for Day 2

Wright Park

Mine’s View Park

Doglas (Mine's Park's famous St. Bernard)

Good Shepherd's Viewing Deck

Last Day @ Pines City

On the way home