2009 - WELCOME!!

When we arrived here in California, among the numerous mail that Donna received were invitations from the various casinos to stay in their resort. One of them was from the Harrah’s in Las Vegas for New Year. On Sunday December 28, Donna called and booked the reservation. She was told it’s good she called because if she’s waited one more day she wouldn’t have been able to for it would have been too late.

Tuesday morning she packed our stuff for a three nights, four days stay from December 30 through January 2. At around noon she called Mary and told her we’re leaving around 12:30. Mary said they were getting ready to leave. We thought 12:30 was a good time to avoid the afternoon rush hour traffic. Wrong! It seems as if everyone was thinking the way we did. Including our stop at the Barstow station and a huge accident past Barstow, the usual four hour drive took us six and a half hours!

We were starving by the time we checked in so we had some snacks at the Harrah’s Diamond Lounge and then we went to see everyone at Robert’s sister Mila’s new house. I tried using the Prius’ GPS but it refused to give me proper directions. It’s good I asked directions from Mila’s son Ouel. Their house is located in a newly developed subdivision off the 215 freeway. Eph’s GPS is not updated, and that’s probably why it cannot locate the house.

They were watching the movie Get Smart when we arrived. We watched a bit with them while Donna and I were having dinner. They have a really nice home theater system with six built-in speakers on the ceiling, one center speaker and a sub woofer and they’re watching the blue ray disc on a 72 inch TV. Pretty impressive!

Mary’s sisters Alma, Shirley and Ate Lynn and her husband Cong Yeng were there. Romar, Girlie, Erline and the rest of the kids, Alma’s 2 teenaged sons on vacation from South Carolina, went to Disneyland and were driving the day after.


Unfortunately, when we walked out, I missed the last step outside their door and I twisted my ankle a little bit, not enough to do a lot of damage but I still feel some pain when I move it a certain angle. We went back to the hotel at a little past 10. Donna stayed downstairs to play while I went up to the room to try my luck going on line.

There’s no free WiFi in the room so I just downloaded the pictures I took into my laptop and started drafting this post.

Wednesday, New Year’s Eve, Mary called and said for us to meet them at the outlet stores. After a belly-bursting-lunch at the buffet, Donna and I went to the outlets to see them.
Here's Cong Yeng on the extreme left showing off his brand new Skechers.


We were anticipating the New Year’s Eve traffic so it was decided that everyone will go and park at the Harrah’s parking lot and we’ll go from there. Harrah’s is located in the middle of the strip, a prime location to wait and meet 2009.

Meanwhile, Romar and the rest of the gang have arrived and stayed at Onor’s place to unwind from the trip. They joined us before dinner. Robert had to meet them before they parked because there’s now a guard posted at the entrance of the parking garage asking to see either a room a key or a player’s club card.

After Theresa and Erline freshened up, we went downstairs to have dinner. We figured at $22 per person at Flavors, (we were thirteen in the group!) it’s going to cost us a chunk of change. We opted to go to Harrah’s Café this time instead of the buffet with Theresa and Romar treating. Thanks a bunch, you guys!



While we were waiting for our food, a few of us played Keno and Ate Lynn won $91.00


I had an open faced turkey sandwich and Donna ordered the crab meat/lobster salad.
Yummy!!


After dinner, the kids went out walking around the Strip and to meet Onor, Leann and JohnC. They’ve already closed off the Strip to car traffic by that time. Donna took me to see Steve Roy, an ex-employee of the old Hotel San Remo (aka as the Hooter’s Casino, nowadays). It turned out he’s now a supervisor in the High Limits Slots of Harrah’s. We haven’t seen him in years. His little girls are not so little anymore!


I wanted to give my ankle a break so Robert, Mary and I went back up to the room while the rest of the ‘old’ people stayed in the casino to try their luck on Las Vegas’ infamous one armed bandits. We all agreed to meet up front at around 11 for the count down and the fireworks on the strip.

This would have been our first New Year's Eve Las Vegas Strip experience. Now I know why we've always watched the countdown on TV either at home or in our hotel room. It was crazy!!
Check this out.
And here's the count down and fireworks.

Theresa called Robert from Caesar's and told her Dad there's no way for them to come to us in front of Harrah's because there was just way too many people on the Strip.

Can you find Robert in this picture??


...notice Donna and Mary's matching polka dotted pants?? (Allegedly a good luck charm for the New Year, and I thought only Chinese did that!!)


Our hotel room became the New Years headquarters of sorts. When the second group of revelers came up, all their shoes are muddy. (Sorry, you have to have a Facebook account to see the picture.) Onor explained something about walking on the ditch to avoid someone who's starting to have a panic attack around a throng of people.

And here's everyone just hanging out after the celebrations at the Strip waiting for the gamblers to come up!!


I couldn't take a proper picture of the triplets, they've lost their New Year's Eve glamour, by this time! There was no room on the two queen beds so they crashed on the floor.


New Year’s Day, we got up and had brunch at Flavors and then we did a dry run to the location of Choice Real Estate and Rental Management. This is the company which manages Nido and Emy’s rental property here in Las Vegas. He has some issues with the renter and the homeowner’s association and he gave me some documents to hand to Choice. I tried the Prius’ GPS this time. It did work but somehow old school me still prefer a regular map. It should be easy for us to find the place Friday after we check out before we go home. We went to Harrah’s Diamond Lounge for some snacks before watching the movie Valkyrie at the Orlean's. It’s about the last assassination attempt on the life of Hitler before the end of WWII. Tom Cruise did a good job playing the lead character. Donna was able to sweet talk the kid in the box office into selling her senior discounted tickets although we're not 62 yet. The perks of old age, don't knock it till...

We woke up around 9:30 this morning and as soon as Donna packed our stuff, we went downstairs and she checked us out. We then went back to Choice to drop off the paperwork Nido wanted me to give them and after a quick lunch at a nearby El Pollo Loco, we headed on home. The drive back wasn't as bad this time, in spite of a freeway advisory by Gold Strike Casino announcing "Heavy traffic to California.. expect delays"! I had Donna take a couple of pictures of scenes on the way home.


The opposing north bound traffic was a different story, however.


After five and a half hours we arrived in Cerritos. Donna wanted to do a little shopping at Target before going home. But she called Dan first and we met at Samurai for dinner.


And with that...
the Christmas Holidays are finally over!

Christmas 2008

I may have mentioned it in previous blogs that taking a shower in the Philippines, one derives a certain amount of pleasure. It feels good to take a shower, even a cold shower at that. Over here I take a hot shower and it doesn't feel good and it's dreadful to get out of it because it's so cold afterwards! On the other hand, experiencing cold weather around Christmas time is really special. Somehow, that's one thing that's missing with Philippine Christmas. Sure it gets somewhat cool at night and especially during the early morning over there but mid day it goes back to the same hot and humid feeling again. Anyway...

Emy had to work Christmas Eve so Donna had to do most of the cooking for our Noche Buena. The salmon to be baked has already been prepared ahead of time by Emy, however. Here she is on a stool because she was having a hard time in stirring the tall pot that was used in cooking the wonton soup.


Reggie called from Japan and he sent me a picture of his newly assembled car that he took with his cell phone and a bunch of pictures he took using his brand new Nikon D60.


By the way Reg, we were on our way to the Kodak theater yesterday and I took a picture of your Uncle Nido. Look at who's on the left....!


The first ones to arrive were Emy's brother Nelson, his wife Myrna and their daughter Vanessa, then Dan arrived. After a while Eph and Rach came followed by Rach's parents Rose and Jun.


There was a lot of food as usual. I cheated on my eating-prime rib-on-Thanksgiving-only vow. I had some Christmas Eve as well. It was so good, so sue me!!


Eph and Rach were pretty impressed by our Christmas gift to them - a custom made wedding album in the format of a coffee table book. I had it made by friend Ruston Banal through his and girlfriend Rona's company RonzDarlhynne Design and Photography.


At around 11:40, Donna, Dan, Eph and I headed towards St. John of God parish church in Norwalk to attend the midnight mass. It was great to hear Victoria, the choir's cantor, singing Oh Holy Night once again. We missed her in 2006 and 2007. By the way, she and her group were the ones who sang during our Silver Wedding in 2001.

After church, we dropped by Rachel's parents' place in Norwalk to pick her up and then we went to Long Beach so we can get the Prius for our San Diego trip in the morning.

Christmas Day, we left La Mirada around 11 a.m. to visit Mary and Robert in San Diego. It's good to see them after all these months. There were a bunch of Mary's sisters and brothers when we got there. Ate Lyn and husband Cong Yeng were there as well. They've only been here in the US for a few months. Their sister-to-sister immigration petition finally fell through after 20 odd years! Romar and Theresa were also there.


They have a lot of food there as well. I just know it will be a bear to lose all the weight we've gained here!!


Josie and Rey also came, along with Ryan, Alice and Baby EJ. Of course EJ is the star as usual. He's such a happy baby and he's so cute in his Santa suit!


When we were in Spain, we made friends with Flor and her husband Marc. Her daughter Marliza lives with them in El Puerto but they have 4 sons who are all commissioned officers in the US military and we got to meet 3 of them. They visited Mary and Robert as well. They arrived with Flor's sister and her husband.


It was already around 9:30 at night when Donna and I arrived back into La Mirada.

Donna just had to do some after Christmas sale shopping Friday so we went to CVS across the street and she was able to get a bunch of chocolates on sale. We dropped by to give Rose the letter I wrote to the Greenfields security so they'd let her in. She'll be flying tonight to the Philippines and we told her to stay at our house. We then went and had dinner at Samurai. After dinner we watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It's an interesting movie about a guy (Brad Pitt playing the lead character) who was born old and he grew backwards growing younger (physically) while he was advancing in age. Not sure why but for some reason it reminded me of Forrest Gump.

Saturday, December 27
The coordination between us friends to watch the Fil-Am Jazz Fest at the Catalina Jazz Bar and Grill yesterday was pretty chaotic at best! To make a long story short, we ended up having dinner at the CPK (California Pizza Kitchen) in the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. We picked up Mary and Robert from Fullerton and we headed to downtown LA. Before we got off the freeway, we got a call from Ed and he suggested for us to park by Catalina and walk the few blocks to Kodak Theater. Ed and Odette along with Gene and Elaine were already seated when we arrived. When the waitress was taking our order, Imelda and Dan called and said they were parking so we also ordered food for them.


We're already started eating by the time Dan and Imelda arrived.


We just had to have some pictures taken by the huge Christmas tree in the Kodak Theater after which we walked towards Catalina Jazz Bar and Grill.


There were already a lot of people when we arrived. We saw Roger (or did he see us?) inside. He's with some of his friends. We ordered our minimum drinks once we were ushered to our seats by the side of the stage.


The show was great. In addition to Mon, a bunch of extremely talented Filipino Jazz singers (Charmaine Clamor) and musicians (Jazz pianist Tateng Katindig) were featured.

There were a great number of performers including Mon with his three songs set. Watch his first song here. Click here to watch his second song.

After the show we interrupted Mon as he was signing autographs for fans who bought his CD to have our pictures taken with him.


JASHS Class '70 is so proud of you, Mon!

Pagmaragul na ca ning Balen Capampangan!
LUID CA!

Pampanga Day Celebration USA Dec '08

On Sunday December 14, there was a Pampanga Day Celebration held here at the San Gabriel Hilton Hotel. One of the organizers, Josie Borja Phillips, gave Nestor Pangilinan tickets to sell for the event. During our alumni meeting in November at Imelda’s in Cerritos, Cora and Arnold, Gene and Elaine bought two tickets for me and Donna. Donna didn’t feel like going so I invited Cong Paing with me since it’s a Capampangan function and he can never say no to such functions. Unfortunately, at the last minute, Cong Paing had a student come in for some art lessons so he couldn’t make it either. It’s such a pity to waste the $60 ticket so I called Ed. And of course when I ask Ed to jump, he’ll ask back, “How high??!!” But seriously, he dropped what he was doing (ironing some of his office shirts) and started to get ready. Thanks for the company Ed. It's greatly appreciated.

He was waiting for me at the hotel lobby when I arrived. Jess Espanola, an Outstanding Achiever Awardee, greeted us by the door. We got acquainted in one of the Internet Capampangan group sites in which I was a member of.


There was a bit of confusion at the reception table whether our tickets were paid for or not but it eventually got settled after which Ed and I got ushered to our table.

I recognized a couple of people from Montebello, Gene and his wife Susan and his sister Gay.


Before they served dinner I was surprised to see Eph’s in laws Jun and Rose. She said they were invited by another Capampangan friend.


Of course Nestor and Daisy came, as well as Imelda and Dan.


The food was pretty good; it was a formal Chinese dinner wherein waiters serve each dish one after another and usually the rice gets served last. No one knows why but everyone notices this practice when served a formal Chinese dinner.

The event was well attended in spite of some vacant seats. Jess received his award along with other Capampangans in various fields. Governor Panlilio delivered a videotaped address. They also silently screened some RocKapampangan videos as well as Jason Laxamana’s shots of a Pampanga River Delta trip. Their special guest singer was Stephanie Reese. Here she is singing The Prayer with Sonny Madera and here, she sings the famous classical song Nessun Dorma popularized by tenors Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti.





Ed and I left when they started the dance since we had no one to dance with.

Flashbacks - JASHS Class '70 USA Christmas Party 2008

I froze my butt off! It never fails when I go walking around the park. I went walking yesterday afternoon and about half a mile from the house, I wanted to turn around and put on some warmer clothing but I get lazy and continue on. So of course I freeze my butt off! Maybe I should avoid walking in the afternoons and do it in the morning like everyone else. It's just that it's so gorgeous walking about the lake around the time that the sun is setting before I realize it, I've walked an hour. I've been taking pictures each time.


But once I get by the lake and my heart starts pumping a bit faster, I don’t feel as cold. Anyway, back to the blog at hand…

On December 6, we had our annual JASHS Class ’70 USA Christmas Party at friend and classmate Roger Catalan’s beautifull hilltop house in Rancho Palos Verdes. It was a clear evening and the lights down below were gorgeous. As usual Ed and Odette were the first ones to get there. They came with Cora and Arnold and their guest. Jun Galang and his son Christopher (boy, he’s grown quite a bit!) were already there as well. A few minutes after we arrived, the rest of the gang started coming in: Boy and Remy with daughter Mary Jo, Elaine and Gene, Imelda, Dan and children Krystal, DJ and Andrew, Manny with his trusted keyboard, Josie, Rey and son Ryan and his girlfriend Alice and their son EJ, Bert and Merlyn, Nestor, Daisy, grand daughter Janelle and niece Inah. Ed’s daughter Ethel joined the party a bit later. There was quite a lot of food. You know us Filipinos, when we cook we tend to always over estimate and of course we end up bringing ‘doggy bags’ home!


We had the usual parlor games dominated this year by the Danganans who raked up all kinds of prize money. There was the usual newspaper dance, musical chairs, etc. Nido introduced a game for the first time with contestants having a coin up in their forehead and the first one to be able to put it in his/her mouth wins by just making faces trying to make the coin slide down.


Our games were interrupted once Pacquiao and De La Hoya started slugging it out. Roger was nice enough to order pay per view for this historical fight. For the duration of the fight everyone was glued on to Roger’s big screen. I don’t think I need to tell you the results, right?


Back to the games after the fight.. Manny had this idea for people to sing Oh Holy Night with each performer singing it in a higher key than the previous one. Nido started it, then he gave me the mic and Emy I think sang next as well as Inah. After a while all the girls sang their version and then it was the boys’ turn! I don’t remember anyone winning that competition. There were special performances by Adrienne singing No Doubt’s Running accompanied by Giancarlo on guitar and Inah Pangilinan on the keyboard with her version of Leona Lewis’ Bleeding Love with Nestor and Daisy’s grand daughter Janelle standing by her side for support. I thought that was pretty cute. Everyone got some prize money for their effort.

When everyone ran out of Christmas carols to sing, Nido sang some OPMs followed by Emy, Jun Galang’s Bee Gees songs and of course Cora, the newest singer of JASHS Class ’70 USA!


During the meeting on November 22 at Imelda’s place in Cerritos, a medical mission was introduced as one of the projects of the group. One way to raise funds, Imelda gave away colorful cylindrical cardboard boxes containing a wine bottle. Her idea was for people to create a hole on top and drop their loose change into the box not unlike a piggy bank and then these will be collected before the medical mission goes to the Philippines in 2010.


Despite the economic crisis being experienced in the US, everyone left the party feeling happy and somewhat elated knowing material things may come and go but close friendships and good relations are here to stay!

My heartfelt gratitude goes to all those who attended especially to Roger and wife Bevs for hosting our party. And of course to Manny and his keyboard without which we wouldn't have enjoyed the party as much!

Here are all the pictures I took during the party.

Various Happenings, Winter '08

This past week we met Sharon, my comadre from Goodrich, and she treated us for lunch at a small Japanese restaurant called Yasai at the food court of the AMC 20 Theaters in Norwalk. Sharon lost quite of bit of weight! Yup, she’s on diet again!! She took our former co-worker, Eunice with her. Eunice excitedly showed us pictures of her daughter who’s almost a year old. Of course Donna and I told her about our grandson who’s coming in May. Thanks for lunch, Sharon! I even got a present from my god daughter Sara..!!


After lunch we went back to Goodrich so Donna and I can say hi to the rest of the people in our department.

Here they are below from left to right: Ben, Sharon, Norma, me, and Eunice; at the back are Kevin and Kent. Ben is a new hire and this is the first time I met him.


We liked the food at Yasai so much Donna and I went back after shopping at the Target store in Buena Park. She picked up a couple of things for Indo and she also bought Dan’s Christmas gift.

Last Saturday we watched the movie The Changeling a true story with Angelina Jolie as a mother who lost her 9 year old son in 1928 LA only to have the police come back after a couple of months with the wrong boy. Pretty riveting story. We watched it at the second run movie theaters across the street. It’s a fairly old movie so it’s not showing in the first run theaters anymore. Donna had to ask the clerk at the box office twice when she said it’ll cost us $3 for two tickets! What a deal!!

We had dinner afterwards at Samurai with Daniel. We were just going to have a snack somewhere else but Donna called Dan and he said he was ready for dinner. After dinner Donna and I went to Cerritos Town Center to watch Seven Pounds, with Will Smith in a dramatic role. Heavy drama! Too bad, there were no car chases, gunfights and explosions - not a typical Will Smith movie at all!! It’s still pretty good though.

Today, Donna distributed the tamales she ordered. These are the Filipino tamales and not the Mexican kind. We went and visited Cecille at her place in LA to give her her tamales Christmas gift. As soon as we got there, her dog Pipo started running around. Cecille says he behaves like that whenever there are strangers around, just like a little boy showing off. She had her sister Doris pick up some take out and we had dinner in her apartment. Cozy! She had one tamales, for dessert. For the life of me, I still can’t figure out people’s fascination with this delicacy.


Mary and Robert were scheduled to arrive last Saturday but I got cc’d on an eMail from him saying their flight got delayed which resulted in them missing their flight from JFK to delaying their arrival for 24 hours. We talked with them a while ago. They finally got home in San Diego at almost 11 last night.

A certain Joe/Joseph has been leaving comments in my blog. I guess he was a college buddy of Cong Eddie Tiongson in Baguio . He was surfing the net and Googled Fisherman’s Grill and he happened to stumble on my blog..! Welcome, Cong Joe!

Trying to Survive the Cold

It’s been a never ending sleep-wake-up-eat-sleep-some-more routine here. I figured I have to walk some of it off so every day I try to go to the nearby park and walk for an hour or so. It was so cold however that most times, I realize my hands are squeezed into fists with my thumbs inside until about halfway into my walk when warm blood finally circulates and I’m able to relax. Dang, it’s cold here..!

Nido has a treadmill in the corner of their brand new den at the back of the house but I find it too boring. At least in the park I see trees, and the myriads of birds and ducks and people feeding them. I even saw a pelican and a small flock of seagulls the other day – them being seabirds I thought it was odd they’d be here since this is a small man made fresh water lake and we’re miles away from the nearest beach. But then again, they have wings…


The other day I saw a guy fishing and he caught a pretty sizeable carp. If I have to guess 3-4 lbs. easy. I was thinking, "Uh-oh, someone's going to have grilled fish for dinner." The first thing I noticed was how he carefully held the wiggling fish in his left hand while he gently took the hook out of its mouth and to my surprise he slowly let it swim back to the lake. There are no "Catch and Release Only" signs around the lake. Oh well, I guess everyone deserves a second chance.

We visited Donna’s favorite hangout last week, Pechanga. Eph loaned us his Prius since they now have a brand new Highlander. The traffic on the drive over was horrendous but the Prius made it all worth the effort since it uses its battery during stop and go traffic. The usual one hour drive took us two this time. It was already dark when we arrived. We had dinner right after we checked in. Instead of watching a movie, I surfed the Net through the high speed hotel provided DSL.


The next morning, while Donna was still playing a bit, I went and watched The Punisher-War Zone. Pretty good movie, actually. We took off after lunch and went and watched The Day The Earth Stood Still (a remake of a 1951 movie with the same title) at the Edwards Theaters in Cerritos Town Center – nothing to write home about with a wooden Keanu Reeves playing the alien Klaatu.

A funny thing happened at the box office. Donna noticed a senior discount sign and she asked the clerk if she’s eligible. She was told if she’s over 55 then yes she is. Between the two of us, we saved 6 bucks, that's almost 300 pesos! It costs $11 to watch a movie here now. Shoot, that’s like watching 5 movies in SM!

I've been chatting with various friends on line and they tell me how gas has gotten back to its original price when we first arrived in the Philippines two years ago which was around 36 pesos a liter. Sweet! I'm so looking forward to going back and ride around Pampanga getting to know its towns and quaint cultural differences.

I miss home!

Last Saturday, Dec 13, I went to Cong Paing’s house in Bellflower to meet with some of our ANASI members. When I arrived, Ed was already there, along with Amor de Jesus and guest (from another group, Alaya) Jess Espanola. We talked a bit, discussed some potential projects and read some Capampangan poetry. We then went ahead to the Stonewood Mall in Downey to have some lunch. Fellow member Pids Rivera met us over there.

Here we are from left to right: Jess Espanola, Pids Rivera, (I had to stand up so I'll be the tallest for a change!), Amor de Jesus, Raf Maniago and Ed Sale.

After lunch, we went back to Cong Paing’s place to talk some more. Pids Rivera introduced us to the new site of ANASI and encouraged everyone to register for membership.

Towards the evening Donna and I got ready to watch the annual Colors of Christmas show at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts. When we still lived here, it’s been a tradition for Emy and Nido to get tickets as their Christmas gift for us. Of course, we missed the 2006 and 2007 shows, both Christmases we spent in the Philippines. Nido got us boxed seats above the stage. He and Emy went and met us at the theater coming straight from another party.


We didn't have any picture taken by the Christmas tree in the theater lobby because there was none! For some reason they didn't put one up this year. Sign of the times, perhaps?

Peabo Bryson hosts each of these shows every year. This time his guests were Melissa Manchester, Stephanie Mills and Jon Secada. I know, a bunch of oldies but then again Christmas is a centuries old tradition so it’s all the more appropriate. The show was amazing as usual with all the performers singing their hits as well as a bunch of Christmas songs.

We all agreed that Peabo Bryson and Jon Secada sing just a tad better than me and Nido.

A NEW ERA

I got a call from my daughter-in-law, Rachel, a few hours ago.

I'm going to be a Grandpa to a Maniago baby boy in May!!

WOO-HOO!!

Tyson aka Yoshi

After lunch today, we went and watched Transporter 3.

Woo Hoo!

For a change, definitely not a chic movie!! Car chases, explosions and martial arts - chic movie it's not!


A couple of days ago Emy's brother Nelson was here. They left with Giancarlo and when Emy and Gian came back they had another member of the Mejia family with them.


His name was Tyson but Adrienne didn't really care for it which according to her, "reminds me of Tyson frozen chicken!" So Tyson got renamed Yoshi!

As expected, Nike didn't really care for the newcomer as evidenced by pictures below.


But he soon warmed up to him I think. With a sort of not-too-close-not-too-distant attitude.


They do get jealous of each other when Emy cuddles one and not the other. And last night when everyone turned in, Yoshi started crying. I had to get his bed and put it outside by our door and he went on it listening to us pray and talk afterwards. He eventually fell asleep.

Tonight Nido left him on his bed in the den but with a small radio on and he seems to be quiet but we're still over here close by watching TV. I'm not sure what his reaction will be once we leave for our room....