Meeting with Marcos Victor Roces

Yesterday I spent the day with Marquitos Roces. We caught up before lunch then had a nice leisurely lunch of lumpia (Lola Enchay's recipe with camote), gyoza, and red rice. It was very nice to catch up with the family as the last time I was with them I did not get to spend much time with them.

Yesterday we went over some old pictures of Lolo Rafael and then read his handwritten notebooks of his own discoveries of the family tree. I'm very excited to scan these books and get them posted into the family archives. There are also lots of photos of both Lolo Rafael and Lola Enchay (endearingly referred to by Tito as "Papa" and "Mama") The stories that I'm seeing unfold are making me quite jealous that I did not get to know Lola Enchay better nor did I get to ever meet Lolo Rafael.

After leafing through these pictures we went up to see his computer system. I was quite impressed with the Mac G5 and the large Cinema display. Having spend some time working that machine, I think it's time to stop being so cheap about my technology and move back to the apple roots that brought me into the technology world.

I will get together with him again today and possibly see another elder. I'm quite excited about all that is going on that I really cannot sleep between the excitement and the jetlag.

Shangri-la Hotel Makati, Manila

I'm here at the Makati Shangri-la hotel. It's a pretty place what looks like near the financial district since I can see all the tall buildings with bank names on them from our room.

It has been a bit difficult getting adjusted to the time change since it's directly 12 hours difference from NYC.

The food is yummy. Getting to eat Tapsilog and daing for breakfast is a wonderful thing. I feel like a kid again. Mangoes, mangosteens, and lanzones are very tasty for breakfast as well.

Dori has started her day at 5:30AM and I followed suit. I'm just waiting for it to be a reasonable time to start calling family members to make plans for the rest of the time I am available.

LA Power Outage

Apparently there was a massive blackout in parts of Los Angeles which affected our hosting provider. I have not had time to look at the situation as we're packing and gathering up our things and last minute items for our trip tomorrow.

The site is finally back up but was down for over 24 hours.

Thank you all for your patience.

Gearing up the technology

Tonight is the last night to futz around with technology. The computers should be ready and 3/4 packed. Spare batteries, media, accessories all need to be inventoried and put into final pockets.

I added a portable dvd player into the mix since the laptops have never had enough battery life ever.

I am lusting after a JVC 30gb hard drive DVcam. It looks reallly nice but c'mon $999.99 is not an easy price tag to swallow. Especially for an impulse buy. If I had more time to consider it I just might buy it. Next trip I just may have a camcorder. We have a digital8 but that is not the same thing at all.

Let's gear up and move out!

Travel test

I am typing this entry from my handheld onto an Avantgo Blogger client.

While the window is tiny it does work almost as well as the othe journal client I use.

Forced Hiatus

I had to take a brief hiatus from working on the site due to a death in the family on my wife's side of the family. There are still more things to work on but the biggest task is complete. I got back from Pittsburgh this afternoon.

I started to look at what I needed to do in order to be ready for next week when we leave for three weeks. Two weeks in the Philippines and one week in India. The two weeks being in the Philippines I think will hit me just as hard as my visit to Madrid earlier this year.

It isn't like I'm having a midlife crisis, but actually more like an acute heritage awareness that I've never felt before. As an American-Filipino I always felt like an outsider to both cultures. As a kid sometimes I never felt American enough around my friends growing up. Conversely when with my cousins I never felt Filipino enough. It was not until college that I came to terms and comfort of being me just the way I am.

I know that my parents instilled the culture within me but never imposed it. I know that they instilled it in me because the oddest smallest things Filipino can send me into a childhood memory.

This week I will be preparing. I will pack what I can already this weekend so that we're "ahead" a little bit and I can concentrate on finishing up work related tasks and projects. I'm also trying to figure out just how I plan on updating from the Philippines. Usually when we go to Iceland I write on a daily basis into my Palm handheld and then when I find some free wi-fi I send it all up. Since Dori is going to be working she will subscribe to internet access at the hotel so it won't be that bad. In fact now that I think about it the only time I am going to be unsure of it will be when she is actually going to be on vacation as well during the 2nd week.

Back in NY after visiting LA

A business trip took me to LA for the past week. I'm now trying to catch up on what I've missed out on. I also now have to prepare for going to Manila. We leave in just about 15 days.

Lots to do in that time. I would love to meet up with any of the readers when I get to Manila. If you are interested in meeting up, please feel free to drop me a line.

I have a little more forum tweaking to do. I have made some photo galleries broken up by family clans. I will move those Sassy Mae pictures into the various categories but ultimately it's really for you readers out there to post your pictures accordingly.

I'm hoping that I can get some good photos of family members for their biographies.