Police in Manila are looking to convert their patrol cars to run on a mixture of diesel and used cooking oil from McDonald’s, officials and the company said Tuesday.

With oil prices at crippling highs, the project would convert cars in the Makati financial district to run on a mix of 40 percent diesel and 60 percent cooking oil, its police chief Senior Superintendent Gilbert Cruz said.

Used cooking oil will be donated by Makati outlets of the hamburger giant, said McDonalds franchising manager Buth Salaya.

Other restaurants are also considering donating their used cooking oil as well, Cruz said.

One police car has been converted to use the diesel/cooking oil mixture and is already in use, and the government is studying how viable it is to convert more vehicles.

“It’s a win-win situation for us because we will both benefit,” Cruz said. “The cooking oil of their Makati stores will be re-used and the Makati police will use it as a component for their biodiesel and also save money.”

The head of police forces in the capital Manila, Geary Barias, said that if the project is successful, he may recommend it being adopted by police forces across the Philippines.

~~~

Hindi kaya mag-amoy utot ang Makati?

What say you?

Next, hallelujah, we have TV! Although, right now our local channels are still pointing to Los Angeles, CA (so Jeopardy is on at 10pm EST) at least I am updated with my peeps at the west coast. Besides, we have Noggin now and that’s all that matters.

Last Thursday, I finally got to meet Chloe, my GA-based marikit sis. Bless her kind heart, she gamely picked up the bilanggos (ie. Ninna and I) at home, haha! We had lunch at Cheeseburger in Paradise (sarap!) and then hung out at Barnes and Noble together with our hyper-but-cute chikitings, Ninna and Kuya T (as in Twister *wink*). I really, really had fun on our first meet-up (and by first meet-up I mean: I’m pretty sure there will be lots more to follow, right sis?), so I hope the next one is going to be soon! Thanks sis!

Friday, our apartment community put together an exclusive (and free!) Food Tasting event here in our complex’s “front yard”. I wrote about our Pica-Pica Afternoon at my other blog if you want to read up on the details. Me not cooking both lunch and dinner for one day, priceless!

Saturday, we got invited by my friend and new mom, Nanette, about a post-baby shower in honor of her cute little baby Alyanna Noelle. (From her name alone, you just know that she’s going to grow up to be a good, albeit kulit, little girl. Di ba, Ate Ninna?) It’s a post-baby shower party because the little girl caught everyone by surprise by coming out prematurely, hehe.

Born at 33 weeks and weighing around 4 point-something pounds, she truly is a miracle.

If that isn’t worth raving about, I don’t know what is.

And finally, Ninna has a school! I’ll tell you more about it in a separate entry. However, I just want to say that I think she is really destined to go to this school because I’m sure it was God, Himself, that made this “vacancy” possible for her.

Later today, I will become a certified library card holder, haha! It’s going to be a first for me since graduate school in 1999 and since we came to the US. I never thought I’d be excited at the thought of becoming a library card holder. There’s life after Conan (our college librarian), after all.

This weekend I have a movie date with my girlfriends to watch Mamma Mia! Day-off ng mga misis eh! Hehe.

And on Monday, hubby and I have a date with Arnel Pineda! Journey will have a concert here in Atlanta and hubby and I can’t not watch! Ang tanong, I hope some kind souls will be able to babysit Ninna for a while? *parinig parinig*

And I almost forgot about this one. Are you as excited as I am?

How about you, guys? How’s your week, so far?

I am posting this short piece for your reading pleasure, which was forwarded to me via email. What can I say, mayabang ako.

~~~

First published 6 June 2008
The Manila Standard Today
INTEGRATIONS
Maya Baltazar Herrera

There are no children here

This week, I went to a meeting at the UP School of Economics and I came away with renewed belief in the value of the UP experience.

If you speak to anyone from UP – student, professor, alumnus - you will get no Latin slogans or apologies about how the school teaches values in spite of its outward materialism. This is not a student population that thinks about basketball games or memorizes school songs. This is not a school that chooses one statement to drill into the minds of its students.

This is not, of course, to say that UP does not care about values. It is that UP, in its own inimitable way, believes that values cannot be force-fed.

The statue of the naked man that guards the entrance to the campus in Diliman best represents UP’s approach to all education and the respect for students that is the center of its educational philosophy. All who come to this university, regardless of origin, bring themselves naked, carrying nothing but their thirst; like the proverbial empty teacup, making an offering of self, waiting to be filled.

Adults

For many students from private schools, the first lesson that is learned here is that this is a school for adult education. There are no children here, and that is why no parents are allowed either at freshman orientation or during enlistment.

The spirit of the oblation lies not in a mother or a father offering up his child to the world, it is that of the newly adult, freely offering of his self.

I remember quite vividly that moment that drove home how different the UP education continues to be. It was my daughter’s first semester in university and she had invited a group of her high school friends to our house. One of them asked a classmate whether she had gotten her parents permission form approved for that weekend’s outreach activity. From the UP population around the table came the mock horrified responses of: “Permission? ” and “Outreach?”

I thought about it and realized that all of these students were, in fact, legally adults. I thought it interesting that only the UP students appeared to appreciate this fact.

Even more interesting was the “outreach” comment. I think back to my own university years and the last three years that my daughter has been in UP and am certain there is no lack of civic activity. There are medical missions, house building projects, tree planting, community work and barrio work and so on. I realize now that the reaction was not to the activity as much as it was to the use of the word.

One of the most important differences of the UP campus from all the other campuses my children considered going to is that this campus has no walls. Many parents fear this. They are afraid their precious children will not be protected from the ills of society in a campus that is so open to the rest
of the world.

But UP is open to the world in more ways than just not having the physical walls.

Community

Being in UP means much more than being a student. This campus is enmeshed in a community. This community is made up not only of the transient population of students who go home each night. It includes the many, many students who lay their heads on dorm pillows each night, enduring time
away from families in the firm belief that this campus will bring them closer to their dreams. This community includes the families of faculty and employees who live on campus. It also includes the many people who work not for the University, but nevertheless work on campus. This community includes the lady who remembers the brand of cigarette you smoke and automatically hands it to you in the morning. It includes the gentleman who remembers you like pepper on your egg sandwich or the one who knows you will dip your fish balls into two of his sauces, who patiently waits for you to eat your three sticks before being paid. It includes the woman who saw all her children through college by selling peanuts every day on campus.

To a UP student, the daily heartbeat of the school is never far away from the realities of the country. The word outreach suggests that civic activity is something outside of the normal, something you do once in a while. It must be immensely difficult to think of community as a thing apart when your campus experience brings you face to face with all of the world’s realities every day.

Character

All of this probably explains that unmistakable sense of self that you will find from students who come from this campus.

Here is a campus where all have the same opportunities to learn. But also, here is a campus that will give all the same opportunities to fail. There are no guidance counselors who will chase after you because you have been skipping classes. The attitude this university takes is that you must take the
initiative – for learning, for seeking help, for realizing you need help.

That is not to say that no help exists. But it is help that is not forced upon you.

This is a university rich in both introspection and conversation. On this campus, the student is constantly exposed to people – faculty, administrators, community members, other students – who care deeply and passionately about the world. The conversations are almost never purely cerebral. A single graph can provoke comments about government policy and its effects on people.

As a result, UP is home to a student population that looks at the world and cares. It is easy to see pictures of protesting students and dismiss it as radicalism. But there are few campuses in this country where students go beyond a passing curiosity about what is happening in the world beyond their own lives. There are even fewer universities where students not only care but also actually believe they have a responsibility to make a difference – not in some hazy future – today.

And that, I believe, is what truly forges character. Character is not molded by speeches or long classes in ethics or theology. Character grows from within. It begins by being handed the keys to your own self and being told you are in charge; you now have power over yourself and your own actions – and with that power, you take on responsibilities.

Each student in this university goes through his own unique voyage of discovery. On his voyage, as he decides what he cares about, what he will fight for and what he will sacrifice, he crafts his own personal values. That is what education is truly about.

I’ll understand if you’ll skip this one. I just had to get this out.

Rant #1: Line of Sight

This is the our balcony’s view to the left.

And this is our view to the right.

Pretty, no? That’s why our apartment is wonderfully shady and cool.

The Question: can you live without TV for a month?

Well, we have. And its no fun especially if you have a nick jr addict, a gene simmons family jewels addict, and a jon and kate plus eight addict in the house.

For three whole weeks, going on four, we haven’t had satellite TV installed in our unit largely because of those beautiful trees outside of our balcony. Eto ang kwento…

First, we spoke with the satellite tv company with whom we had six more months of commitment, to transfer our account here. We patiently waited two weeks for this installation. Unfortunately, the installer guy simply concluded that we didn’t have a line of sight (ergo, can’t install because we won’t receive a good signal). We questioned his assessment because our next door neighbor (the people directly next to us) had a dish installed on their patio. He said that we could ask for a second opinion and we agreed. The thing is, if we would not be able to activate our account now, we are liable to pay charges for the termination of our contract, or to pay them monthly until the contract ends (all while getting no service out of it). We really had to make this work.

We then tried talking to another satellite tv company and they told us the same thing. It took them a week to schedule that visit.

Another week later, the second opinion guy from the other dish provider came back and confirmed the lack of line of sight thingy. He told us we could suspend our contract for six more months because it wasn’t our fault that we had no line of sight. Sigh of relief. But then, after those six months? Sigh na lang, wala nang relief.

You might ask, why didn’t we try a cable provider instead of a satellite provider? We did try! As it is, there’s an exclusive cable provider in our apartment complex and we even called them twice. But, on both times, #1 they were very rude on the phone, #2 they didn’t know what they were talking about, #3 they wanted to charge us for so many things (installation, receiver, etc), #4 one person said that they wanted us to make a year’s commitment for their service (but knowing us, will we be here for a year?), the other person had no idea, #5 one person explained their channel lineup and it was very very limited (mostly analog signals, a few digital ones, and no HD), the other person had no idea, #6 they were very rude, #7 they didn’t know what they are talking about.

You should have been here to sense my hubby’s level of frustration. A month of no ESPN can do that to a guy.

For a while there, we thought we would be forever relegated to our trusty rabbit antenna (that couldn’t sagap any channels unless either hubby or I stand up to manually direct the ears towards the right direction).

But since we had no other option, hubby called the monopolizer cable provider again, ready to bite the bullet, ready to be suckered into the abyss of lugi-ness and a year of involuntary commitment when, alleluya, the person he talked to finally had the right answers to his questions.

Yes, we can merge our contract with our satellite provider with them since their company was recently acquired by the satellite company. This means we can use our existing account and do not need to make a new commitment contract with them. Salamat naman!

Yes, we do not need to pay for a new receiver because our old one with the satellite provider will definitely work, too. Salamat naman!

Yes, their channels are fully digital and they do have HD (for an additional $10). Salamat na rin.

Yes, they can do the installation next week, or even earlier if they get an available slot. Salamat talaga!

I wonder if hubby was actually in the twilight zone the past two times he called. Or he just got very very lucky that he was finally able to talk to an earthling, not a martian, this time.

Also, for once, I didn’t hear hubby arguing over the phone with anybody, hehe. Stress-level: very low. We’ll see how it goes next week.

At least, one person in this house is still all smiles. And no one is going to jail for illegal logging.
*Kindly, remind me to return the chainsaw to Home Depot, ok?

Rant #2: Woe Is Mii

Ninna accidentally deleted all the trophies I won on MarioKart. I am slowly rebuilding my tattered wannabe-Danica Patrick reputation. Ever so slowly talaga.

Oh and would you like to be my Friend on MarioKart? Lemme know! Even though I don’t have any trophies or won any new karts, I’m still a good person. I think I deserve friends rin naman.

Rant #3: Mileage

Now that hubby doesn’t have any rental car privileges from his company anymore, he has been using our personal vehicle for work. My rant attack? One, in terms of resale value, we all know how important it is to “preserve” a car’s mileage. Two, our car is a thirsty contraption, gulping in 14 mpg. Do that math! Third, having no car greatly diminishes MY personal mileage! Ninna and I are holed up in our TV-less home, no trips to the mall, no trips to the playground, and I can’t even meet Chloe for brunch!

Kaya bumabawi na lang with MarioKart, even though driving there takes me nowhere.

Rant #4: Big Red Car

For the past weeks, it’s the Wiggles DVD that has been playing non-stop in our home. I sort of tune it out because a person can only take so much fruit salad, yummy yummy.

But not for my Ninna. She turns into Sisa for them.

Rant #5: More False Alarms

The alarms are at it again. If you suddenly notice me anemic-looking, I’m sure you’ll find my blood all up in my head as they’ve since shot up there.

Hirap talaga kapag walang TV. End of Rant.

Bakit naman kasi kung kelan magkakabalikan sila, ng isang gabi lang, tsaka ako wala sa Pilipinas para panoorin sila?

Hindi talaga ako makatulog.

Gusto ko lang i-vent. Thank you.

Once again, Toni has resurrected the Project and I really really want to take part in it again.

However, since we just moved (as you all know), I haven’t been able to “dress up our ref” in time for Toni’s deadline. Still, habol ako!

Presenting… our poor pockmarked ref, hehe.

What would you have expected after two additional years of moving and travelling? A lot of things have changed from my first ref door project entry. First, our current ref is now black. Second, aside from the geographical magnets that my husband personally collects, he now has another collection.

Here’s a closer look at the top half of the ref. Can you find the flip-flop magnets?

Hubby has started to collect a flipflop magnet for each beach we’ve been to. There’s a total of 12 chinelas on the ref, the five ones on top are all from Florida alone. These are probably the only dozen chinelas I would never leave behind, hehe.

There’s a method to my ref dressing up madness, too. The newer magnets are on top while the older ones (some of which were featured on my first ref magnet entry are now at the bottom part of the ref).

Even I was surprised at how many magnets we have amassed over the years.

But wait, I know you are wondering what happened to our geographical magnets?

Here they are, demoted to the side of the ref, along with our grocery lists and buffet coupons, haha!

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to find more of these magnets so I think only about two states were added from last time. Fortunately, even without the help of these magnets, Ninna still managed to learn her US geography so.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed your mini-tour of our ref. As for me, it was a pretty eye-opening experience seeing how much we’ve traveled over the years. We will probably need a bigger ref soon, hehe!

~~~

By the way, aside from our ref magnets, I have another collection, our Postcards for Ninna, which I featured here HERE. Go visit!

We just got our internet connected last night so I will be a-commenting galore today. I’ll catch up on all of you even if it kills me.

Well, hindi naman. Gusto ko pa naman dalawin kayo in person, hehe.

See yah!

It’s the first of July and we are officially “moved in”. Yey! Our new apartment is smaller than our previous ones but it’s panalo in terms of location and amenities. Also, three of our family friends live in the same community so I’m pretty excited about that! Just this past week, we haven’t had dinner by our lonely threesome at all! We’re always eating with friends. Sarap!

Unfortunately, we still don’t have cable TV and internet (not until next week!) so the rabbit antenna’s out and I am here relying humbly on the free wi-fi of my generous neighbor, hehe.

We did go shopping at Ikea last weekend. If you could only see our home, it’s like a showcase area for cheap Ikea furniture, haha! At least, if any of you suddenly drops by for a visit, you know that you won’t be sitting on (or eating off!) the floor.

As Ty Pennington would say: “welcome home P* family, welcome home”.

*P as in MrsPartygirl, MrPartyboy, and MsPartygirl Jr. *wink*

Update #2: Hot Off The Grill

I would have loved to have pictures with this entry. However, at that time, I haven’t yet figured out where I packed my camera’s battery charger as my camera was dead. Kawawa. I’ll update this entry once I am able to mooch off copies of our pictures from our friends who did bring fully-charged cameras with them, hehe!

Friday night, we and our friends had a poolside bbq - our first of, I’m sure, many weekend get togethers. Of course, Ninna had fun swimming with her friends, Hubby had fun making chika with the guys, while I was chatting up a storm with the girls.

Since the bbq was an impromptu thing (the invitation came at 5:30pm!), we weren’t really able to prepare anything. All we had that night were pork bbq (two kinds: one that we marinated ourselves and one that was marinated by Costco, haha!), baby back ribs, red hotdogs (on sticks), burgers (with buns, tomatoes, lettuce, mayo, and cheese), chips, rice, beer, and iced tea. Kulang na kulang sa preparation (di ba Mother Macky?).

Basta, all I know is that, here in Atlanta, we won’t go hungry for food and for great company. Lip-smacking good.

Update #3: TKO

Since we still didn’t have cable (let alone PPV), we managed to congregate in the living room of one of our friends who did - even if we had to drive all the way up north to Alpharetta for it.

By now, I’m sure everybody knows about Manny’s win over Diaz. I have never really seen Manny perform as effin good as he effin did last Saturday. The effer was just effin good! Even his English has effin improved! (Oops. Now I am even mooching off Diaz’s effin speech, hehe!)

I am just so proud to be an effin Pinoy right now.

Update #4

Hubby and I have been inquiring and viewing pre-K schools left and right, in the hopes of finding the one that will be the best fit for our Ninna.

Here in GA, the government funds certain schools for pre-K, which makes it affordable for most families to send their kids to preschool. However, the slots are very limited and are easily filled-up so, for people like us who just moved to GA, I guess there’s no way to mooch off the educational system at this time, haha!

From what we know so far, some private pre-K schools charge as much as $220-$300 per week! That’s not a typo, friends, that really is how much they charge per week. Ulk. I can already see my purse dreams drifting away… priorities, priorities.

Anyway, we have limited our choices to a couple of Catholic preschools nearby. And Baptist. And Presbyterian. I’ll make a separate entry for our school-hunting soon, hopefully, with pictures. Wish us luck!

That’s enough mooching for now. Perhaps next time, the updates won’t be so shameless anymore.

Or not.

~~~

Hey guys, how was your weekend?

It all started this morning, very early morning, as in six AM, when the fire alarm went off in our building. Hubby and I jumped out of bed in a panic, checked everywhere for smoke or fire and, finding none, ended up thinking that maybe the fire was from another area of the building and perhaps even on its way.

I grabbed the only two things important to me at that time: Ninna and a bra. Nyek.

So anyway, the fire fighters came and turned off the alarm after about thirty ear-splitting minutes. That darn alarm was so darn shrilly, every wiiih-wiiih-wiiih and ehh-ehh-ehh just bored right into my skull. Imagine a car alarm going off right beside you, magnified twenty times.

We thought that was the end of it, right? Noooo. About an hour later, just as hubby left for work, just when I was able to squelch down the adrenaline rush that coursed through my veins …. the alarm went off again.

Eh-eh-eh-eh. Wiiih-wiiih-wiiih. Eh-eh-eh-eh. Wiiih-wiiih-wiiih. Oh Lord.

Since I was alone with Ninna, I just prayed that it was still a false alarm and that I wouldn’t have to lug our boxes of stuff outside by myself. I also hoped that John and Sheng, our “foster home” owners, had renters insurance because, save for their family photos, I wouldn’t know what stuff of theirs I’d bring out as well.

Anyway, the alarm finally stopped as I am writing this. And even though my head is still throbbing in different places, between a blazing inferno and a headache, I’d go for the one a simple Advil can put out.

~~~

A few weeks ago, I watched a show (I can’t remember if its 20/20 or Dateline or something else) where they did an experiment about fire alarms and children. Based on this, they learned that 100% of the children tested (twelve years old and below) did not wake up to the sound of a fire alarm.

You can now count my Ninna in the statistic. My girl just slept right through the alarms - and the sirens of the fire engines, and the frantic to-and-fro-ing of our neighbors, and her panicky parents.

Needless to say, Ninna will be sleeping with us, in our room, from now on.

~~~

What’s ominous was, a day before we signed our lease to move into this building, I was reading through the tenant reviews of this apartment. One thing that stuck to me was this comment:

“…and don’t get me started about those fire alarms.”

Hmmm. So this is what he meant. Ay yay yay.

I better stock up on Advils then. And some ear plugs (for me and hubby at least).

When we left Kentucky, I was sad about leaving the cool, quiet life we had there. Lexington and Louisville opened my eyes to the side of America that spelled: a good place to be. It was where hubby, Ninna, and I first found our independence, first faced our fears of going at it alone, and first built the bones of the kind of family we were destined to be. It was where we experienced perfect beautiful seasons, gracious American hospitality, go Big Blue and Smarty Jones, where hubby and I officially became a couple for Christ, authentic KFC, first-world medical services, and where I passed my first US driver’s exam. As it were, that same license was the one I used to drive away from the place we first called home. First home.

And then we moved on and forward.

When we left Charlotte, I was heartbroken. If asked to look back, I would say that Charlotte takes the top spot as the happiest place we’ve ever lived in - not because NC is better than any state, not really - mainly because Charlotte was where we forged an extended family made of the bestest friends we would ever make on this extended journey. Having them around made being away from Pinas so much easier, more than just bearable. However, it also meant that saying goodbye became unbearable, too, twice over. But then, you could never easily erase something that’s deeply etched in the roots of the heart. Now, it seems wherever we travel, anywhere on this continent, we have a friend waiting for us - a piece of my heart gluing itself back.

And then we moved on and forward.

When we left Houston, I did so with mixed feelings. I know I said that whenever we moved out we seemed to move up - and Houston was definitely up. After living the sleepy, country life, we were suddenly thrust into this city where everything was bigger. For the first time we had more Filipino restaurants and bakeries than we can count, we were finally living near a relative, beaches, oh the beaches, Tex-Mex yum, Ninna almost becoming an olympic gymnast, and good friends of mine (not hubby’s, as it was mostly the case before) were only an hour or two hours drive away. I couldn’t really picture myself and my family making Houston our end zone. Yet, I couldn’t picture my life living somewhere else and losing the chance to have all of the above. It all became moot, though, when the decision was taken out of our hands.

And then we moved on and forward.

When we left Miami, I did so with a long, drawn-out sigh. It was almost a year of me, hubby, and Ninna again, very much like how we were in KY but with more humidity. It was lonely in some spaces but South Florida more than made up for it. The place has a heartbeat of its own and it will beat for you whether you choose it or not. It’s also a warm, gooey melting pot and we’re lucky to have had the chance to take part in it. With its beautiful beaches, sunny weather, ocean drives, and seafood, it embraced us in a way that when you close your eyes, it almost smells, feels, and tastes like Pilipinas (with less the cuban flair, that is). There are still so many things, places, and flavors we haven’t experienced that it’s such a shame to leave so soon. But we have to. We always have to.

And now we have moved forward again.

What could be the memories I would make of Atlanta? Right off the bat, Ninna will go to the “small school” here for the first time. A lot of our Charlotte friends are here as well so it’s a reconnection of sorts that has actually already started from the very first day we arrived from our 13 hour drive. Hubby will work on a new, more sustainable, project and, perhaps, we could also get to experience at least three of the four seasons again.

Every time we pack and unpack, drive miles and miles, search for an apartment, find the nearest filipino/asian store, find the nearest church, find a pedia, etc etc, the feeling is always so familiar. It is what we have been doing for the past four years and we know what to do like clockwork. And yet, despite the circumstances not changing, it is always different. It’s tiring, yes, and I wouldn’t recommend this lifestyle to anyone as it could be really frustrating at times, not to mention full of unknowns. Call us adventurous, or call us hopeless. However, it’s precisely the difference, the unknowns, the silent geyser of hope, and the promise of adventure that keeps us going.

And going. And going.

And staying for a while.