Day 0: Before Sweden

Hello World! 

I’m here blogging live at NAIA.  I can’t wait to get to sweden.  It’s my first time to go out of the country without my family.  I’m gonna be there for about a couple of weeks for work.  :D  Wonder what it’s like there. 

Anyways, it’s 2:18am and I’m waiting for the check-in counter for my flight to open up.  This must be the longest time I’m having to wait to check-in for my flight.  That’s about 8 hours before my scheduled flight which would be about 10:45am.  hahah >_<  We were supposed to stay at a hotel tonight but our flight from Davao to Manila got delayed for a couple of hours and we arrived here past 1am already.  So we decided to just stay here and wait for our flight instead and battle it out with the benches.  I thought there wouldn’t be a lot of people waiting at this time of day but was I wrong.  The benches are full with people sleeping waiting for their flights also.  Note to self: take a pic of these people. wahahah

2:24am:  A couple of korean stewardess just came in to the airport and passed us by.  I should have taken pictures. tsk tsk tsk

2:28am:  This network is really slow.

2:33am:  A lot of foreigners coming in lately.  I wonder where they’re going?

2:36am:  My companion just went to sleep. lol. I’m getting really bored.  What’s there to do here?

2:40am:  Not much happening.  Just more and more people coming in by the minute.  First thing they notice are the people on the benches.  hahah.

2:46am:  My laptop’s battery is dying.  I’m signing off now.  I’ll get back when I arrive in sweden.  I’ll post pics by then too.  Wish me a safe trip. ^^

[Update]
After 17hours of traveling and sitting I finally arrived in Linkoping (read: lin-sho-ping), Sweden around 11pm local time.  I’ve never been so tired in my life for just sitting down.  The travel time from Manila to Amsterdam was 12hours and all I did there was sit my ass off watching movies and listening to music from the plane’s entertainment system.  My feet got cramped a few times coz I can’t move much in my seat.  I felt like a couch potato on rehab during the entire flight. hahahah.

I liked the plane’s in-flight entertainment system because it offered a lot of things to do.  It had movies, music, games, tv series, sms/email system and a flight tracking system.  It also had a nifty remote control which also functioned as a credit card reader, gamepad, satellite phone and a qwerty keyboard.  Wanted to use the satellite phone but t’was quite expensive so I went for the sms/email service instead.  One sms/email consists of 160 characters and would cost you $2.5 (roughly 100php).  EXPENSIVE!!!

After four movies, 2 meals, 1 snack and about 2 hours of sleep later, we finally arrived at the airport in Schipol in Amsterdam.  It’s one of the nicest airports I’ve been to.  Very clean and very organized.  It also has a lot of shops you can go around to if you have a long waiting time for your next flight.  Going through security isn’t much of a problem either compared to other airports.  2 hours later we boarded our plane to Linkoping. 

Arrived at the city 2 hours after.  The airport in Linkoping was quite small.  I was told it used to be a private airport for the plane manufacturing plants in the city but recently opened it to the public.  We were welcomed by our host then we took a taxi to our hotel.  The taxis here are expensive.  I don’t know the flag down rate but every 5 seconds or so after that the meter would increment by 1sek (~7php).  The city isn’t that big so it only took a few minutes for us to arrive at the hotel.  Went inside, unpacked, got acquainted with the rooms and called it a day.

Word of the day: tack, which means thanks in swedish.

See more at my flickr photostream.

Happy Holidays

It’s a little late but…

Merry Christmas to everyone and a Happy New Year too.

As the year comes to an end I can’t help but look back at all the things I’ve done over the past 12 months.  I’ve achieved less than 50% of the goals I set early this year and then some which would have been for next year.  I’d just like to highlight some of them:

• Moved back to Davao and started working here again
• Learned basic 日本語
• Passed the PhilNITS exam
• Started my figure collection
• Bought my first next gen console ^^
• Learned a whole lot of javascript (and I mean a whooole lot)
• Saved a good amount of moolah

Some of the things I wish I would have done are:

• Take my final certification exam (070-316)
• Bought a Nikon D40
• Learned more about 日本語

Not too shabby but definitely would have been able to do more if not for being too lazy to move my ass around. lol.  I definitely will do more next year.  I have about three days to think about my goals for next year and how to achieve them.

On other stuff,  I just gave my Christmas gift to my girlfriend last night.  I got her a Nintendo DS Lite as a belated anniversary and Christmas gift.  heehee.  It sure made her happy and that is exactly the reaction I was hoping to get from her.  Now she’ll have something to keep herself entertained when I’m not around to do it. ^^

So how was your 2007?

Scuba Diving in Davao

This is one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in my life…so far.  ^^  Last sunday, I went scuba diving with a couple of CS friends near Talikod Island.  It was my first time to go scuba diving and was nervous at first but that sure didn’t stop me.  We were joined by several divemasters and seeing them in their wetsuits just made me even more anxious to go on my first dive.  Since all of us are noob scuba divers, each one of us were accompanied by a PADI certified divemaster to guide us underwater.  First stop was at Angel’s Cove, our first dive site.  Didn’t know that such a beautiful place existed around here after living in Davao all this time.  LOL.

 
Angel’s Cove

Me and my gf went first so off we go into our respective wetsuits.  The wetsuit felt uncomfortable at first since it was sorta tight but the divemasters said that it’ll feel better once we’re in the water.  Also the equipment was really heavy which included the oxygen tank, belt weights and the vest.  It was then that I learned that the vest that the divers are wearing are the ones responsible to keep them afloat in deep sea.  And by pressing a button on a device attached to the vest, it keeps the diver underwater and if you want to go lower you just have to press a couple more.  All this time I thought they were really swimming.  hahah.  I didn’t know there was something to keep them above and below the water. XD  So off we went into the deep blue sea and that was our first diving experience. 

Saw Nemo and his dad. ^^

Saw a whole lot of other things down there…new and old, mostly new.  Went about 30 feet below the surface and was quite amazed at the many many things I saw down there.  I was in awe the entire time.  My jaw was probably hanging from my mouth the entire time if I didn’t need to use the regulator to breath air from.  LOL.  At first it felt kinda awkward to breath normally underwater and always keeping in check for equalization every time you go deeper but after a while I got used to it.  The divemaster that accompanied me even said that I was a natural.  Hahah.  We went back up after about 20-30mins more or less.  Afterwards we had lunch at Babu Santa which is a lovely and beautiful beach. 

At the beach in Babu Santa

After lunch and a little exchanging of gifts, we headed off to our second dive site, Coral Garden.  This time it was the rest of the gang to dive.  While they were down there some of us went deep sea swimming.  Really enjoyed that since I haven’t had the chance to swim around in deep waters for a long time.  Would definitely love to dive around Coral Garden next time since they said it was beautiful down there.  After the rest of us were finished diving we headed back home, exchanged pictures and called it a day.  T’was a tiring yet very very fun day.  Even when we were headed home we still couldn’t get over the fun we had that day.  The experience was just that amazing.  I will definitely try and go scuba diving next time if given the chance.  Maybe I’ll enroll and become a certified diver next time.  Maybe if I had the money I will…hahah! 

You can see more pics of our underwater adventure over at my flickr photostream.

Going On Vacation

Haven’t had time to do much of the things I wanted to do the past two weeks.  Even with the long weekend I was still busy one way or another.  To take a break from all this, me and my 恋人[こいびと] will be going on vacation this weekend in Cebu.  We’ll be heading out later this morning and be back Monday afternoon.

Can’t wait for work to finish so I can get the heck out of here and get my stuff ready.  Haven’t prepared anything yet and our flight is only a few hours away. hahah ^^  Procrastination seem to be innate in me. XD  See you guys next week.  じゃあ、また　来週[らいしゅう].

My Shiny New Toy

has arrived just the other night.  ^^  Check it out

Been waiting for this baby for months…^^

 
Included two free Blueray Movies

 
SHINY!

The PS3 is one HUGE machine/gaming console/media player.  To get an idea how huge it is I put it up side by side with the PS2 and the PS2 was merely only about 60% of its size.  I guess it’s ok since the power brick is built right into the box itself which makes up for its size plus an entire collection of devices inside the thing from bluetooth receivers for the Sixaxis, an array of usb ports, the HDD, card readers and the blueray drive itself.

Glad it didn’t add any mess to the living room when I setup it up ‘coz the controller is wireless and it has a built in WiFi lan for the internet connection required to access some of its features.  Now all I need is a high def tv/monitor since playing the darn thing on a SDTV just doesn’t do the PS3 justice.  Well, I guess I’ll just have to deal with playing it on a SDTV for now.  Oh and I wish my games would arrive soon,  I’m kinda bored with playing all the downloadable demos over and over again. XD

How To: Setup PLDT DSL With Wireless Router

I’ve been planning on getting the house Wi-Fi enabled for the past few months now and have only been able to purchase a wireless router just last weekend.  Got tired of seeing too many cables lying around so I got rid of those and went the Wi-Fi way.  Plus, I don’t want to add another network cable for my new toy coming next week.  I had the entire setup planned months ago but to my surprise it didn’t work like I expected.  Searching around Google for instructions and guides turned up nil so here’s a guide to help those that are having the same problems that I had setting up a wireless network.

Note: This how-to is only for those that are on PLDT myDSL’s legacy lines.  How would you know if you’re on a legacy line?  Legacy lines are those still using PPPoE/PPPoA connection protocols (or in more simple terms, you still need a username/password to get connected).

I have a Linksys WRT54G for a wireless router but this should work for most routers out there as well.  If you’re on a legacy line then most likely you’ll have a ZyXeL modem/router that was provided by PLDT together with your DSL.  Make sure your PC is connected to the ZyXeL modem first then proceed below.

1. Access the web control panel of your ZyXeL modem by typing in the IP address of your modem in a browser.  (i.e. http://192.168.1.1)
2. Login to the web control panel (default username/password: admin/1234) of the modem and go to the WAN settings.
3. Change the settings to the following and save:
   • Routing mode: Bridge
   • Encapsulation: RFC 1483
   • Multiplex: LLC
4. Disconnect the ZyXeL modem from your PC and connect it to the WAN/Internet port of your wireless router (refer to the manual of your wireless router to locate the Internet/WAN port).
5. Connect your PC to one of the ports in your wireless router. Your setup should look something like this now: DSL -> ZyXeL modem -> Wi-Fi Router -> PC
6. Now you need to access the web control panel of your wireless router the same way you accessed the ZyXeL modem.  With mine, the default ip address of the router was 192.168.1.1 and the default username/password is <blank>/admin (just leave the username blank).
7. Once you’re in the control panel, set the connection protocol to PPPoE/PPPoA and input the username and password of your DSL account.  Your username should be in this format: xxxxx@pldt.  Call PLDT if you don’t know your username and password.
8. Now here’s the most important part.  Make sure you change the IP address of your wireless router so that it will not be the same with your ZyXeL modem and make sure they’re in the same network.  (i.e.  your ZyXeL modem’s IP is 192.168.1.1, change your wireless router’s IP to 192.168.1.2)
9. Save the changes you’ve made.
10. Now go to the Wireless settings of your wireless router and enable it.  Provide any necessary information needed like SSID and such.  Make sure to turn on the security for your Wi-Fi by using either WPA or WEP to avoid someone hacking into your router.
11. Save the changes and you should be ready to surf wirelessly anywhere as far as the router’s signal can take you. ^^

Some tips for your new wireless router:

• Make sure to change the default username/password of your wireless router.
• I suggest using WPA or WPA2 for your wireless security as it makes hacking a lot harder than WEP.
• Also, try adding a MAC Address filter to prevent unauthorized PCs from connecting to your access point.
• Disable SSID broadcasting so that others will not see your wireless router (including you I’m afraid).  Since you know your SSID you can easily connect to it anyway.

SQL Server NULL

Learned something very important today about SQL NULL in this article from SQLServerCentral.  Never knew there was so much behind a simple variable like NULL.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Four Rules in Handling NULLs:

1. Use NULLs to indicate unknown/missing information only.  Do not use NULLs in place of zeroes, zero-length strings or other “known” blank values.  Update your NULLs with proper information as soon as possible.
2. In ANSI SQL, NULL is not equal to anything, even other NULLs!  Comparisons with NULL always result in UNKNOWN.
3. Use SET ANSI_NULLS ON, and always use ANSI Standard SQL Syntax for NULLs.  Straying from the standard can cause problems including portability issues, incompatibility with existing code and databases and returning incorrect results.
4. The ANSI Standard COALESCE() and CASE syntaxes are preferred over ISNULL() or other proprietary syntax.

More about this later on.  I need to get some sleep.

Niece Pictures

Well who would’ve known I’d be an uncle so soon.  I for one wasn’t expecting it.  Here’s a few pictures of my newly born niece (my brother’s daughter).  She’s just a little over two weeks old from the time of this post.

She was born last September 21st which makes her a Virgo.  No idea what that really means for her but but I thought I’d just point it out.  XD  She’s the first granddaughter/grandchild in the family so everyone’s kind of excited most especially my mom and sis.  Everyone except me.  The thought of being an uncle hasn’t really sunk in yet.  Maybe give it a few more weeks. ^^

Her name’s Cristel Deni Chen (not really sure how they spelled her middle name).  One weird thing I noticed was that for the past two weeks her face seems to be changing very often.  She doesn’t look like that with her other pictures.  Maybe she’s still searching for a cute face?  heheh.  Can anybody tell me if this is normal?  When I first saw her I really thought she looked kinda generic.  All babies seem to look alike.  Well, that’s just my opinion anyway.

In other news, I’m having a hard time with my schedule lately.  I never knew having those nihongo classes could have such a dire impact with my schedule.  To show how hard it is here’s a brief summary of my daily activities:

1. Wake up at 11:30am.  Get ready for school and eat lunch.
2. Go to school at 12:30pm (classes start @ 1pm)
3. After classes (4pm) I have three options: Go home and watch anime/write blog/play games and other hobbies, go home and sleep or spend time with gf.
4. At 9pm get ready for work.
5. At 9:30pm go to work
6. From 10pm - 6am = work
7. At 6am go home and sleep.
8. Repeat 1 - 8.

My real problem is I barely get enough sleep.  Sometimes I’m just amazed how my body can keep up with all that.  And to think I was planning to squeeze in another 3-4 hours of extracurricular activites.  o_O  Good thing my weekends are free.  Probably got used to all those sleepless nights in college. ^^

Nihongo Classes

Earlier today I enrolled for a nihongo class at Philippine Nikkei-jin Kai.  Sweet! :D  I’ve been planning to get into one since like years ago.  Classes are from Mondays to Fridays @ 1:30-4:30 pm.  I start Monday next week.  I’m kind of excited about it, going to school and all.  ^^  I’ve been out of school for the past 2 1/2 years.  I guess I kinda miss it.  I do hope the teacher is good coz’ I definitely would like to learn the language ASAP. heheh ü  My only complaint though is the school is too far from my house and I don’t like to travel around noon time cause it is freaking HOT outside.

Guess I’m gonna be pretty busy for the next two months and I’m gonna have to adjust my body again.  I usually hit the bed when I get home from work around past 6 in the morning and wake up around 2 or 3 in the afternoon.  Aside from the classes, I still have an exam to take and some other things to finish as well.  I hope my body doesn’t give up along the way.  It’s going to be a very tiring 4th quarter for me.  Wish me luck. XD

Iron Man Movie Trailer

Check out the recently released trailer for the Iron Man movie which is due by mid of next year.

Iron Man Movie Trailer @ Apple.com

The trailer is PURE AWESOMENESS.  GO checkit. XD