The Geek Brewery

Last month, I wrote a blog post from an Android phone for the first time using my HTC Dream. Just a trivia, the HTC Dream was the first phone in the market that used the Android OS. During the last days of the same month, I bought the twin of my dream phone Nexus One – the HTC Desire.

Two days before August ended, I rewarded myself by buying an airplane ticket to Hong Kong. Since early August, I’ve been obsessed by the idea of going to Hong Kong or Singapore. There were countless nights when I slept late just to read Hong Kong and Singapore online travelogues.

In these two instances lie something common – I chased my dreams. I think it’s safe to assume that everyone of us has a set of dreams and aspirations in life but I believe I dream more compared to an average person, and you can, too. I must admit that my dreams are my motivation. The more I dream (postscript: I think obsess is a better word for me) about something, the more I work hard to attain it.

You don’t have start small. Don’t be afraid to try every opportunity that comes into your way that might help you reach your dream, no matter how big they are. Last July, there was this opportunity to work for the Google Word of Mouth project. At first I was hesitant to try it. I was starting to doubt my capabilities. Eventually, I gave it a try and fortunately I succeeded. Not only did I gain experience but I also got a chance to meet and work with interesting and inspiring people (including Googlers).

Chase your dreams! For those who are still confused on how to do it, here’s an article from eHow: How to Chase your Dream.

Here’s a short list of what I’m up to.

• Coordinating and following things up for an upcoming project with a company.
• Coding ACReS and hopefully committing the code to its Google Code repo once I build enough courage to do so.
• My application to GRIP UP (a sports climbing association in UP). Climbing, climbing and climbing.
• Working as a Student Assistant in DilNet.
• School.

I’m very excited for the first bullet. Woot.

Since 3am, I’ve been wasting my time here in iHOOKED Katipunan. Going to Internet cafes is not really my thing. The last time I regularly went to an Internet cafe was when I was in fourth year high school at a net cafe beside our school.

I’ve been locked out in my room. I left at around 1am to eat my dinner at Shakey’s Katipunan (which went 24/7 since last week, I guess) while waiting for my OS installation to complete. I only brought my wallet and pen with me. When I went back I discovered that the secondary lock was locked. It can only be opened from the inside. I tried to knock and shout at my sister for her to wake up but to no avail. I even tried to throw coins at her through the window but still I failed miserably.

For me to survive, my instinct told me to find a place where I can access the Internet. Next thing in mind was to find a place where I could spend the rest of my night.

And so I went to this Internet cafe. I haven’t been here before but I’ve been seeing it’s entrance everytime I withdraw money right before eating at KFC Katipunan. It’s a lot cleaner here compared to 168 129 Internet Cafe on the adjacent building. The seats are comfortable, the computers are responsive and they do have a good keyboard, mouse and speakers. The restroom was also okay, they had the necessary toiletries inside.

I kinda enjoyed wasting my time here watching Air Crash Investigation on Youtube, playing RockBand 2 songs and playing my favorite ATC simulator. I’ve also emailed and SMSed my sister to notify me thru email when she’s awake.

My only concern in staying here is that I’m using a public computer. There might be a keylogger here, that’s why I don’t type my password here directly. I copy-paste letters and numbers from webpages when typing my password. I also use Mozilla Firefox’ private browsing mode to reduce my footprint in this computer.

Good luck to me!

Since I was in high school, airplanes never failed to fascinate me. I spent hours watching take-offs and landings of airplanes on YouTube, the TV series Air Crash Investigation, and other relevant videos. I also spent a large chunk of time playing flight simulators, reading stuff about the modern jets and viewing pictures of airplanes.

It was my dream to enter a flight school after high school, but it was too expensive. I entered the University and gave up on my dream. My interest to airplanes slowly deteriorated up until recently when I was able to play Microsoft Flight Simulator X again.

Yes, you read it right – Microsoft. I installed Windows back on my laptop, originally to play WarCraft 3 Frozen Throne again. Then I gave Microsoft FSX a try again and I got hooked on it in no time. The other day, I’ve started playing an air traffic control (ATC) simulator, which I found very hard at first but later realized it wasn’t that hard when I got the feel of it. My interest on planes grew back, as well as my dream to become a commercial jet pilot.

The dream is back. After finishing my bachelor’s degree, I’m planning to save some cash for flight school and pursue my dream. I hope that I’ll be taller by then. (Should you have any tips on how to grow taller, just share them on the comments area.)

One of Cebu Pacific’s Airbus A319-100; actually rode the same plane with same registration number

Fifteen (15) minutes ago, I was flying an Airbus A321 on a flight simulator. Five to ten years from now, I envision myself flying a better Airbus (I’m an Airbus fan) jet in real life.

I know I’m asking myself much. In case I fail to pursue my dream, I hope I can be an air traffic controller at least. It’s a great job, too!

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PS: It’s 2:49am already. Tomorrow’s my first day of being a Junior College student. Hopefully, just another two more years and I’m done on my bachelor’s degree. (goodluck)

Woot. I’m still alive!

If I were to tell everything that happened to me from my long break here then it would make this post the longest post I’ll ever make. But I’ll better not tell everything because odds are you won’t care anyway.

Star Wars. I followed Randalism‘s suggestion to watch Star Wars starting from The Phantom Menace (Star Wars 1) to Return of the Jedi (Star Wars 6) instead of the “usual” Star Wars 4 to 6 then Star Wars 1 to 3. I still haven’t started Star Wars 5: The Empire Strikes Back up to now due to lack of focus. Yes, I prepare myself before I watch movies. I guess it’s due to my short attention span.

After watching Star Wars 1 to 4, I now want to be Master Windu, Luke Skywalker or Han Solo although my favorite character is Jar Jar Binks. Liz made a “Konrad Skywalker” cartoon as seen above. Out of my addiction to Star Wars there were days when I plurked in Gungan Basic. LOL.

After 19 months, I now have Windows on my laptop again. I installed Windows 7 just to play the games I used to play. I missed the fun during the North Alliance’s last overnight party. I didn’t have Windows installed on my laptop so I wasn’t able to join them in X Hero Siege (a WarCraft 3 game, it’s actually a downloadable map). (more…)

For the past few days, me and some of my DilNet friends have been planning to play RockBand 2 after our inuman/drinking session. Sadly, none of them pushed through due to financial or soberness constraints.

The last time I played RockBand 2 was right after our Math 55 second long exam. I was with two of my Kalai friends; my highschool roommate and a college roommate. My sem has ended but still I haven’t played the game again. Now, I’m officially missing RockBand 2.

Before, I’ve always wondered why my ate/sister loves to play RockBand. I thought the game wasn’t for someone like me who used to hate music.  It took my Katipunero friends (friends who reside along or near Katipunan Avenue) some effort to finally convince me to join them in playing RockBand. We usually did it after our rare inuman sessions. There was even this time right after I arrived from CWTS Camping, it was about 12mn and I invited my fellow Katipuneros to play RockBand 2. We ended a little early so they decided that we drink ’cause they’re really not used to just playing RockBand 2 without drinking. LOL.

Now, everytime I hear songs we play RockBand 2 makes me crave for RockBand. I end up jamming with the beat. On our usual list are:

• 21 Guns by Green Day
• Wonderwall by Oasis
• Hands Down by Dashboard Confessionals
• Creep by Radiohead
• Linger by Cranberries
• Last Resort by Papa Roach
• Gives You Hell by All American Rejects
• That’s What You Get by Paramore
• Crushcrushcrush by Paramore, among others.

Waaaaaaa, I want to play RockBand 2 anytime really soon. How I’d love to have my own RockBand 2 set in our apartment room. But before that, I’ll have to soundproof our small room unit. XD

Hello guys! It’s been a while since I last posted here. For the past few days, I can’t seem to understand what’s happening around me. Things just happen. Most of them are actually unexpected if you’ve known me before.

I’ve been into wall climbing for some time now. I’ve had my first wall climbing encounter during UP Fair 2010 (YouthStock in particular) last February 13. I liked it so I went back and spent my entire Valentine’s Day Night climbing over and over again. A week after, I invited some UnPLUG friends to go with me at the Power Up Gym in Tandang Sora. Since then it became a hobby of mine and decided to get a two-week membership which is bound to expire this Monday.

I’m yet to make my wall climbing post since I still don’t have even a single picture of me wall climbing or at least the gym itself.

That would be all for now. More updates soon.

Last January 29 to 31, 2010, the first batch of CWTS2 MMME campers went to Boy Scout Jamboree Site in Mount Makiling to have our CWTS camping. The camping was a venue to apply the skills we’ve acquired during our CWTS1 and CWTS2.

Including our adopted groupmates, there were 23 of us in our group. Our group’s first activity for Day 1 was navigation in which we were tasked to find the stations using Azimuth coordinates and a compass and apply the different skills we’ve learned (ropesmanship, bandaging, Tyrolean and two-rope traverse, UP Naming Mahal, etc). On the last legs of our adventure, we climbed up to a steep slope. It was longer than the usual uphill paths we’ve taken and after several minutes of ascending, we saw a road. There we realized that we’re lost. We decided to kill our time there for a while to rest and play card games. There were no signs of civilization there except for the road.

Our Day 1 afternoon activity was swimming. We were asked to swim 50m non-stop in a pool. Since some of us can’t swim that long, we were allowed to “save” other people by swimming their 50m. Since we wanted all of us to have a decent grade, we decided to “save” everyone who can’t swim. I swam three 50m, one for myself and two for two highschool batchmates.

On our second day, we had our trekking and rappelling. The rappelling was quite disappointing because the previous batches rappelled in a cliff, not in a rappel tower. The trekking part was fun although haggard. During the last legs of our trekking, we passed by the road where we got lost the day before. Upon seeing the road, our group yelled for joy. From the road, we knew how to get back to the camp. That’s where we realized that that part of the trek was for descends, not ascends as we did the day before. Here’s us after the trekking.

I guess we were also the group with the most food. Instead of Milo, we had Swiss Miss as our chocolate drink. We had lots of ham, hotdogs, tocino and not to forget the flock of canned goods.

Here’s some for pictures of our group and some random pics with highschool batchmates studying UPLB who visited us up.

Hello guys.

Since my last post, many things changed. The year incremented. We finally had our 32″ Samsung Series 4 LCD TV and 250GB PS3 here in our studio-type room in Katipunan. I’d like to post of a picture of it but sadly I don’t have any decent camera anymore. The new and improved Jollibee Katipunan is up with more space and better architecture.

I’ve been busy keeping myself busy even with a lot of stuff I don’t usually do such as doing reflection papers, studying for exams and helping my groupmates in group works. To keep myself from burning out, I find myself amused playing my favorite PS3 demo game, Mushroom Wars and my only full game Call of Duty 5 courtesy of kuya Jehz.

I don’t really know what’s in store for me for the next few months. I’m thinking of quitting something time-consuming I’ve started last year but I’m still unconvinced of my lame reasons (to have more time to enjoy my life). I really don’t want to quit but I’m in a way unsure if I can devote enough time for it. Waaaaaaaaaaa.

Last Monday to Tuesday, our highschool batch had our outing in the Island Garden City of Samal. Despite all our efforts to contact everyone (thru Facebook, SMS, word-of-mouth), only less than a third (around 20+ out of 91) made it. Some batchmates were not allowed by their parents (we’re scattered all over Mindanao so they have to travel) whilst a few were uninformed.

Even with relatively low turnout, it was FUN! We’ve decided to do it every break (except Summer break since a huge number of us attend summer classes).

Here’s us!