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Time to wake up

It has been about eight months since the start of the quarantine. Although there is still work to be done online, that work is still inside the house. We do go out for the occasional food run but essentially we’ve been cooped up in the house for about eight months. It’s like I’ve been hibernating. And now I feel it’s time to wake up, get out of the den and move.

I have been thinking about a new camera among other stuff.

I was looking at some of the photos I took and and I thought my camera (and lens) needs cleaning. It still works well and I have been keeping the exterior tidy and clean but the internals need to be really cleaned.

My DSLR, although still functional and quite usable, is almost ten years old and its features are getting really dated. The film camera is almost twenty years and I have not checked it out for more than two years.

So lately I have been looking at what cameras I can possibly purchase. I am not a professional so the pro stuff is not in my radar. Well, maybe some lenses. So I am limiting myself to enthusiast level cameras. And my wallet agrees.

And, as always, there is a BUT somewhere in these kind of thoughts. I do have to get stuff that we need first.

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Updates and what are on the streams

It’s been months since I wrote here so…

Six years have passed since I lost my wife and I am contemplating getting another tattoo or two. Maybe two. But there is still a pandemic and I am a bit hesitant so I’m letting this ink project thought simmering a bit.

I started learning a new programming language (python) a couple of months ago and the learning is going well. I am noticing that I am starting to get a little obsessive about it. But it’s all good. I consider this as a healthy obsession during these days.

I may have to go and devote some time to making webpages and stylesheets so I’ve started reviewing HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It has been a long while since I made/edited any web page and its good to know they have made some improvements to the HTML and CSS code and some of the processes as well. Engineers do love to update stuff.

Local covid numbers as of 10 October 2020. Numbers from DOH.

On another note, the numbers have been relatively horizontal since September 22. It has not been increasing, which is good, but it has not been pointing downwards either. I am wishing that the numbers do decrease in the next few weeks.

Take extra care out there people.

We have have been tidying up stuff at home for some months now and that is still ongoing. Broken and non-repairable stuff have been disposed of and stuff that we wish to keep are being stored in boxes. It is slow going but it’s being done. The we-don’t-need stuff is going to be donated.

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That’s it so far

I’ve stopped updating because I suddenly found myself busy with troubleshooting some work-related stuff. And I preferred to actually write some personal things with ink on paper. Covid-19 is still here. A vague idea of a quarantine has set in and life is slowly restarting. The vaccine is estimated to come sometime 2021, later this year at the earliest. Life is still a little dangerous beyond the front door but life goes on.

So that’s it for now. And, hopefully, I will write here soon.

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Biking to Work

Che MTB
Preparing an MTB repurposed for commuting. I named the bike Che.

I used to bike to work more than a decade ago. I found it exciting and fun at the time. I considered it as a positive adventure at the start of each work day. After two or three years of fun and excitement, I stopped because there was an increase in the density in traffic combined with the erosion of discipline by a growing number of drivers and those reasons wasn’t making the ride fun anymore. We also moved to another building that did not have a shower (which is a bummer). Biking to work was getting tedious and stressful.

Commuting by bicycle is now being encouraged by government in getting to or from one’s workplace during gcq because there is a need. During the first day of gcq on June 01, there were no public buses, jeeps, and vans. I didn’t see any taxis on the road. The lrt is just letting 10% of passengers in per trip — that’s 100 out of 1,000 passengers. This only means riding public is much too unreliable and tiring. It’s either I ride a bicycle or walk.

I’m actually trying to prepare for both. I’m cleaning and prepping up Cherry’s former mountain bike (pictured above) which I previously converted for city commuting so It doesn’t have those knobby tires anymore. It’s old but it is quite usable.

I also will be cleaning and prepping my road bike (also old) which I prefer to use but it’s a fixie so there are no apparent brakes. But since it is a fixed gear bike, when you stop pedaling, it stops. But to make things easier I will be installing brakes on it.

I will be practicing on both bikes to determine which one is easier for me to use. I haven’t been on a bike for a while now so I have to practice for a couple of weeks to get back the confidence of riding on the road again.

And have started to actively do light exercise at first — morning walks, light yoga, light weights — just to wake up my system again and prepare it to be more active. It’s just a little more difficult because the weather’s a bit hotter these past few days.

Stay safe folks.

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Plans

Watching a recent webinar had me giving a thought about my plans. People has been thinking and talking about what’s going to happen after the extended community quarantine, after the general community quarantine and after a vaccine has been found and readily and easily available to the public. I thought about my short, medium and long term plans and how these plans have changed because of the pandemic.

Circumstances has become so fluid now and making concrete plans seems to be so pointless. But I do know that plans still has to be made and they have to made liquid like the times. They have to be made adaptable.

Cash is king. In this pandemic, I’ve heard this phrase repeatedly in the webinars, in the news, and in chat groups often enough that I hear the voices in my head chanting them almost every waking day. Fine. Gather enough to live and live comfortably. Practice wiser spending — wiser than even before the pandemic, if it’s at all possible.

So save whatever I can even however small it may seem to be. Sell stuff that I do not need. Maybe it’ll help to pack the stuff that I’d want to keep just to help things be tidy. Get a job after ecq — if I still have a job. Maybe. Or just get something on the side for additional income.

Things will not go back the way they were because I believe it’s a mistake not to learn from this life lesson and go back to the way we were like nothing ever happened. I see the general community quarantine will continue in some soft form or another for the foreseeable future. Washing hands, wearing facemasks in public and social distancing has become a norm. Maybe a year from now. I expect to see lockdowns or enhanced quarantines but on a smaller scale — maybe on a barangay level.

I see myself more paranoid than usual. I would be more cautious and be unapologetically unsocial for a while and would travel only when necessary. My work is about 12 kilometers away and, as I see it, my best option to get there is by taxi, bicycle or walk, in that order. The bus or the vans still has too many passengers for my peace of mind.

Long term, I do not see myself living in Metro Manila. I was born and raised in the province and, with the exception of the quarantine period, I have been finding the city increasingly noisy, crowded and polluted. I must admit there are plenty of distractions both good and bad. But I know I can afford not to be overly distracted.