Ingredients:

Pakbet Anda - Ingredients

Malunggay (fruit)
Kamote (sweet potato thinly cut)
Okra
Bungon/Alukon (Ilokano) /Ambabaay (Bolinao) (I don’t know how is  it called in English or Tagalog)
Sitaw (string beans)
Ampalaya

Additional Ingredients

Hinimay na Isda (Debonned Fish)
Kamatis (Tomato)
Bawang (Garlic )
Sibuyas Tagalog (Red Onion)
Bagoong (Fish Sauce)

Procedure:

1. Saute garlic, onion, tomato and fish until cooked
2. Add all the other ingredients. Add malunggay, kamote and “alukon”  first. Once half cooked, add sitaw, okra and ampalaya.
3. Add fish sauce (bagoong) and allow to simmer.
4. Add a cup (or more as desired) of water. Allow to boil until cooked.

Pakbet Anda

Few important things that I learned from Ardy Abello, Chinkee Tan, Ptr. Jayson Lo – the speakers and God keeps on reminding me since I attended are:

“Success is 10% skill and 90% character”

“Success is good if it doesn’t reach your head, the same with failure to your heart.”

 ”Success is attaining your goal without sacrificing your role”

Success = Patience + Persistence + Prayer

FEAR = False Expectation Appearing Real

15 minutes a day can change your life

To be successful, be unique. How to be unique?
1. Work hard
2. Fail Often
3. Be you!

God wants us to succeed. The Bible said, ”The Lord… has pleasure in [our] prosperity.” Psalm 35:27

Batlag Falls: Main Swimming Area (Photo Credits: Bryan Villamor)

Ever since, I’ve been fascinated with water falls. The fresh water that flows down from a mountain, it’s sound as it falls to the rocks, the serene environment, the green moss – very therapeutic. Thus, last Holy Thursday we decided to escape the city with tent and foods packed we traveled to experience a wonder of nature, Batlag Falls in Tanay, Rizal.

Batlag Falls is located further up the Daranak Falls. It’s a privately owned (unlike Daranak Falls)  by the lot owners where it is situated. Entrance Fee is Php50 per head (day stay) and Php150 (overnight, though this is now prohibited).

To get there, ride a jeepney (Php53/head) or van (Php70) at Star Mall Terminal (corner Shaw and EDSA) going to Tanay. Then ride a tricycle (Php75/head or Php150/trip. You can try to negotiate with the driver) going to Daranak/Batlag falls.

Batlag Falls is indeed a good place to experience nature – the trees that surround it, the mountain, the cold water, the rocks that are shaped through time. It’s a good place to intimately talk to God, to pray and to cry your heart out to Him. It’s relieving to wake up in the morning and here sound of the water falling from the mountain, the crickets, the insects and the birds singing. It’s a serene place.

Batlag Falls: Balance Life (Photo Credit: Bryan Villamor)

All these things you can experience after 6pm until before eight in the morning. When only us are left in the falls area to stay. However between 8am-6pm, when a lot of people visit the falls to swim, drink and have fun, it’s totally different. They leave there trash in the cottage, bring their food and drinks in the falls. They even throw the “balut” shell near the swimming area (really annoying). This kind of attitude of the visitors destroys the beauty of the falls that I hope the owners will try to control so that Batlag Falls will be protected.

Have you ever wonder, how does Simsimi works? Whether you chat in English, Tagalog, Bisaya or Ilocano, it responds using the same language that you use. Intelligent isn’t it?

Simsimi is  a chatting robot. It is one of the services of Simsimi Inc. It exceeds the limitation of technology of natural-language processing system by collective intelligence and it has a chat with over millions user per day.

Simsimi learns from the chatters who takes time to teach it. No wonder why there times you ask a question, it gives unreasonable answers.

Talking to Simsimi is fun if you have no else to talk to. However, since it is a robot, you can’t expect the best response or advice that you need. It only shows that that human is still more intelligent than robots.

Simsimi is just another product of technology. Just like any other technology, it does have a limitation.

http://www.quora.com/Should-I-use-Amazon-EC2-S3-or-Dreamhost-for-web-hosting

http://www.jonasblog.com/how-to-use-amazon-ec2-cloud-computing-for-your-website

http://www.craigburke.com/blog/2011/06/27/amazon-web-services-vs-linode/

http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/20603/what-is-the-real-price-of-an-amazon-ec2-machine

http://paulstamatiou.com/how-to-getting-started-with-amazon-ec2

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1518594/when-should-one-use-the-following-amazon-ec2-google-app-engine-microsoft-azur

Here’s a bonus! AWS guide (kudos! to the Filipino programmer who created this)

http://media.jonasblog.com/docs/Amazon_AWS_Final_3.pdf

Looking at it’s structure made me wonder how much is the development cost and how long is the ROI (lol, the business-side).

Each gandola can accommodate up to six(6) passengers (minimum of 4). With two other guys (Sir Shirley and ?, can’t remember), we took the ride. The gandolas are air-conditioned and little you would feel the motion that you are going up in a circular manner.

Up the wheel you will the MOA structure, the nearby hotels and of course the classic Manila Bay. It amazed me to see the whole thing and I wished to stay up a little longer. It would be great to take long exposure photographs.

The ride took ten(10) minutes until it can complete a single round. Unfortunately, the Php150 ticket will only allow one round. I wish that management will change it to at least twice to make the experience even more worth it.

The only constant in this world is CHANGE

It’s a cliche and we can hear it everywhere. Whenever there’s change, our option is to live with the change or stay away with the change.

Change does happen everyday and we can’t avoid it. It can be a change in plan, direction, ordered menu in a resto, – a change of mind.

People change – their dreams, attitudes, life’s direction, function, perception, relationship, job, interest and the like. People may change by circumstance or because of self-realization. Others are just simply inspired to change and some because God touched their hearts.

Business change – directions, plans, management, business-model, and even business name or branding. A business that doesn’t change in any way is at risk.

Places change – either through the initiative of the people living in it or naturally changed by the weather.

Many times change makes us feel uncomfortable, we loss our focus, we feel disappointed. It is difficult for us to adjust and move away from the things that we were used to. Some times, we even tend to stop the change. However, most of the time, we don’t have a choice but to accept the change.

Whenever we encounter or we need any change in our life, we have to face it. Regardless if it appears to us as a negative change, we have to see the good side of it and ENJOY the change.

Perhaps, it’s best to write the greatness and love of God for us for the rest of the year. A lot of things happened – good and bad. Some made us feel better and others even bitter. But the best thing is that He allowed us to be excited again and look forward for another year.

Personally, I had a lot of memorable and remarkable experience like being “holdap”, owning and losing a laptop, receiving a joypad tablet, travelling to Palawan, hospitalization and operation, strong typhoons, successful and failed project implementation, positive and negative feedback, new business opportunities, meeting new friends and reunion with old ones, being stable and shaky,  stormy yet colorful life.

2011 has taught me a lot things like

anything we possess here on earth will be gone anytime;

relationship matters – at home, at work, in the society;

be assertive and firm;

the value of patience and perseverance;

failing doesn’t mean it’s the end, rather it’s a start of a success;

if you succeed, the first people who should feel it is your family and loved ones;

look back and thank the people who molded you to where you are now;

thank God in everything and trust Him in His plans for us.

 

All in all, 2011 is another great year of smiles, adventures, trials and success. All glory and honor to our loving God for never failing to whisper how much He cares and how wonderful is His plans for us whenever we stumble down. A happy year-end everyone and looking forward for a blessed 2012.

Video by Bryan Villamor

Last Nov. 30 (it was a holiday!), we tried to visit Caruz Eatery to try their ginataang kuhol. And guess what? It’s the most delicious ginataang kuhol I’ve ever tried. Very well done with fresh ingredients and proportionally blended taste. For only Php65, a full-bowl ginataang kuhol is served to their customers.

We also tried their ginataang hipon with “sitaw and kalabasa” (beans and squash) plus “liston kawali”. It was the most “sulit” meal ever! I’ll definitely go back to try their other menu.