Author: crisn

I'm Cris Nacionales from the Philippines.

Last Smock

So it’s been eight years since I found myself wearing an antistatic smock. This room in the picture is gone, goner than any structure on Marcus’ Fallout game. Retrenchment breaks buildings apart faster than nukes, huh?

Incidentally, I’m still into my 2008 posts migration and one I’ve already inserted the name Intel which I once held back to be discreet about some topics. Now all those are basically declassified.

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Mood: 3/10 Honks! (Plan B on blood extraction. Cancelling today’s St. Luke’s appointment.)

Heavy

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Any break is routine is always welcome. Like Saturday’s. More than a month ago I seem to have injured my left leg having started running cold. I had it massaged once but the pain seems to linger although not as much. My wife suspects it’s something to do with uric acidicity, I think it’s about my 10 pounds excess weight. So yesterday I had it massaged again this time in a place that reminds me of no spa but of my old bed space days. Surprisingly, my co-worker who moonlights as a massage therapist can do better service than most I’ve had. Hope to get back to running again in a few weeks.

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Mood: 3/10 Honks! (Today we’ll try to send Marcus’ blood abroad.)

Car Crash

My wife couldn’t help but still prepare a simple celebration for being a year here in our new house. She had spaghetti. And Marcus had his cousin as our one and only visitor–the same kid who stayed with us for days a couple of years ago back in Cavite. It’s one of the rare days Marcus would be with someone his age at home. They played video games and they got bored and they drew. Right there is Marcus’ car crash. Close enough, right?

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Mood: 2/10 Honks! (Got new Bluetooth speaker for work via Lazada. Made me miss the old PO process.)

Today’s Wish: See a Garbage Truck

I can’t recall a daydream that I have ever wished to see a garbage truck. Not. One. Daydream. I’ve wished to see celebrities. It happened. I’ve wished to see America. It happened. I’ve wished to go to the moon. This one remains to be seen. But so does our garbage truck.

Today we turn one year in our new address and we’ve only seen the garbage truck once. Yes, just once and it stopped by to pick up our trash just because we offered to pay for it. It didn’t show up again after that. So what happens to one year of trash? Everything goes up in smoke.

An ironic statement from someone very particular of sorting and recycling stuffs. But that’s how we’ve been doing it for the whole year however opposed we are to burning garbage in our backyard at the expense of the environment and right under the risk of our son’s asthma being triggered because of the smell of smoke. 

The metal drum I converted last year into an incinerator is already beginning to crumble so it should be about time to get another. I can make a new one, it should be easy especially now that I have my own power cutting tool. Yet I decided to give our barangay another chance. I’ve dropped by the office last week to inquire when the garbage truck really passes. They said Monday. Today is Monday.

So here I am for the first time in my entire life so full of anticipation to see if that garbage truck still exists. I’m keeping all fingers crossed, toes included, that today I get to see a week of trash taken by our barangay’s sanitation department or whatever it’s called locally. When you see white smoke though, it means only one thing: the truck misses and we start burning our trashes once more. Next step? A visit to another complaints desk.

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One of things that fascinated me while in the US is seeing in person the modern sanitation equipment at work. One sunny but cold morning the motorized street sweeper made its regular pass on the neighborhood’s court. My in-law said it is just to keep off dirt that could turn into sludge and clog the drains. Too bad Marcus didn’t see everything but it would have made him remember those cartoon shows. Well, Call of Duty was more important that day.

A day or so later came the huge green garbage truck. No other personnel with it but the driver. It performed a seemingly well rehearsed stop beside each covered plastic bins of each house, picked them up using a hydraulic claw, dumped its contents at the back of the truck, returned the empty bins in front of the fenceless yards, and left the court without any fuss. All in a day’s work.

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Image above is a derivative of William Warby’s Smoke Plume as seen on Flickr’s Creative Commons. Truck is from Google. Driver is Marcus’ Spongebob.

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Mood: 2/10 Honks! (So this is one year.)

Call Center Light Bulb

How many call center agents does it take to change a light bulb?

Just one. But there would be probing questions.

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How many call center agents does it take to change a light bulb?

Just one. But it’s going to be recorded for quality and training purposes.

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It’s almost a year since we transferred house but there are still boxes with contents waiting to be stored in shelves or to be disposed. The latter is preferred. This minimalism thing is tougher than it seems which is why it takes time before we let go of stuffs that we don’t really need. The last one that was hard to give away were my MBA books but I gave it anyway. So far no regrets except that I could have sold it for a minimal fee.

Next in line are our Reader’s Digest issues from 1997-2006 with only a few missing months. If not for this magazine’s shift from educational and clean entertainment articles to Cosmopolitan-like contents then we could have continued our subscription. There’s now an urge to read everything for the last time before I throw or give them to someone else again.

Facebook and Kindle would have competition in the next months.

So if those light bulb jokes sound familiar then those are inspired by once again enjoying Laughter is the Best Medicine and All in a Day’s Work segments of Reader’s Digest just like the good old days. This reminds me that I’ve been wanting to be paid $100 for an RD contribution.

Out of curiosity if my call center light bulb jokes are noble ideas,  I downloaded Plagiarism Checker on Google Play Store and the app says these are considered unique results. It means they are mine but feel free to use them for fun anyway. Just in case–far-fetched thought, let me know if want to pay for it for commercial purposes though. 

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Mood: 2/10 Honks! (Feels like summer already.)

I Failed the Shortcake Test

There won’t be any other place that could claim that it was our most frequented place while in the US but the kitchen. Our weighing scale would say aye to that. But we learned something from that stay–or at least wifey did. This Sunday she tried doing the shortcake my brother-in-law taught her and it was almost perfect, not bad for a first timer.

My patience was shorter though. Shorter than the shortcake. Her instructions when she left the house this afternoon were: let the cake settle then you may take a picture of it before you eat it. Obviously my craving got the best of me as it was so soon that I seem to have forgotten which order comes first. Barely five minutes after she stepped out I took the cake out of the fridge and had it for snack realizing too late that the Jello and cream are still sloppy. I took a picture of it still after fixing here and there and I think I deserve a clap for making the damage appear less obvious.

(Postscript: So it’s not only that I lack the patience but I also don’t know my desserts as well. I Just saw the package in our kitchen and it shows that this is actually a cheesecake not a shortcake.)

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Mood: 4/10 (Marcus evicted me out of his room for snoring last night so I’ll sleep in our own bedroom tonight.)