Today I had to take a meeting with someone at The Fort. Going there was a 20 minute tricycle ride, a 40 minute shuttle ride and another 15 minute cab ride. I left at 1040am and was there around lunch. That's pretty good and comparable to when I lived in Cainta, especially considering the approx. 60+ kilometer distance. The difference of course was virtually zero traffic and we were moving all the time. Under the same conditions the travel time to Cainta would be less than half, but since the idiots who run that place can't get their heads together long enough to fix the traffic that's never the case.

Anyway, here's a pic of some adobo.

You make it by mixing a kilo of pork, half shoulder and half liempo:

With 2 cloves garlic minced and 2 onions chopped in halves, a cup of soy sauce and some leftover celery. I dunno why I put celery, I think I just didn't want it to rot in the fridge. You'd not notice it after it melts into the dish anyway. After 10-15 mins. of boiling on low heat (covered) the house is the literal definition of goddamn wonderful. This'll last me a week more or less.

For breakfast I had this:

Which is bangus baked with butter healthy yellow love sauce and nothing else. I swear to God realizing that bangus is wonderful just the way it is without having to drown it in garlic and vinegar is the one of the Greatest Discoveries I have ever made in my life, ranking 2nd to beautiful females, which of course I do not pay attention to anymore considering I am marrying the love of my life this May.

Ok moving on, here's how to make fried rice.

First you start off with frying an egg, then adding some garlic.

Then you put in some day old rice.

Now you're going to have to stir it all up in high heat. High heat helps break down that rice. However high heat will also burn it, so you need to stir, stir, stir.

And keep stirring.

Until you end up with this. Add some salt to taste.

Now finally I will show you expensive gym prices. I passed by one on my way home. Here's their regular rates.

Here're their promo rates until Jan. 15 I think.

And here are their 'packages'.

The only thing I'm interested at is the 'walk in / per session' thing, but at P250 I'm not too sure anymore. That's steep, man. Although maybe I can go 1x a week only if I'm bored or something, but still, P250 for a workout is still P250.

I noticed however, that P250 on the 'lean time promo' part was edited, from what looks like it started out as P150. I'm not sure but maybe I can figure out a way to finagle a deal or something. We'll see.

Sleep Apnea - I know I self - diagnosed this, but I've all the symptoms, including fatigue from lack of sleep, waking up at 3am to take a leak, deep set eye bags again from lack of sleep, waking up in a sweat every so often at night (because my lungs were struggling to breathe), and finally the most damning of all, dreams of drowning. The particular recurring dream is fairly vivid. I am on a white sandy beach with some rocky breakwater hills in the distance, which I investigate. While doing so, I enter small caves and whatnot, and before I know it the tide is coming in strong, so strong that I cannot go back to the sandy beach. I struggle to climb higher, but the strong waves start lapping at my feet and upward. At this point I assume I wake up.

Scoliosis - which isn't a big deal for the most part, but of course becomes a nuisance and actually starts hurting when I gain weight.

High uric acid - runs in our family. The fatter I get, the higher that gets, and it affects my kidneys, which eventually produce kidney stones. I've already suffered a gout attack twice. It is not fun.

So you see, being me isn't fun, that is, if I don't control my weight. Hence, those Gold's GCs we scored are a gift from Heaven, telling me I should take better care of my sickly, overweight ass.

Today I did a few drills at the basketball court, because I couldn't go to Gold's (it really is way too far, requiring a 40 - 60 min bus trip, and no i dont wanna bring my car). I did a few basketball drills where you put the ball on the floor near the hoop, hop and skip alternating lateral steps around the painted area, pick up the ball and power layup (bounce the ball hard with both hands then shoot it), then put the ball back on the floor and do it again the opposite way. It's supposed to help your lateral moves obviously, plus your concentration because you can sometimes forget the count and forget to alternate. And when you miss, you start counting over again. I did 5 sets of 10 of those.

I also did 5 windsprints, which were more like windwalks. At the end of these, I was sweating and panting like crazy, and the humid weather (there were rainshowers coming), didn't help. I looked like I took a shower in my clothes.

Then finally I jogged the way back to the house, and I promise you going up our steep hills is no joke.

So the point of all this is not to impress upon people of my monk - like discipline and make people think I have a magnificent physique (I am overweight by, oh, probably 30 pounds). The point of this post, I think, is that I need to convince myself that working out is good for me, so that when the time comes (and oh yes, it will come), when I am too lazy to walk let alone do windsprints / walks at the ball court or go to Gold's, then I will again have desperate dreams of drowning whilst holding on to dear life by a rocky hill, the ocean's angry waves crashing against, and eventually, taking me.

Yeah I think that's the point of this post. I will go to sleep now, I'm dog tired.

Not only that, he doesn't even apologize, merely replying after I texted him about it that it's been relisted and it'll be back in a few days. Yesterday he then texted to remind me of payment, after which I said 'sure, just put me in your calendar (so it wont happen again) ok?', to which I got no reply. EXCELLENT service right there, don't you think? Especially considering I sent a fair share of business his way when I was still in the web design business. I'm just glad this is just a personal blog and not a critical service like the Exchanges. If I were still hosted at his service (he was my first host), I probably would've made a personal appearance to wherever he is in Laguna.

Anyway, to better things. Yesterday was my first basketball game in a long time and I felt good if it weren't for the lingering effects of my cold from the past week. This after I thought I'd come to actually 'retiring' from playing. Credit Gold's Gym for not hurting as much afterwards, which isn't to say I don't hurt now, except it's a good kind of hurt instead of the 'oh my God I'll never walk again' type of hurt.

Not only that but instead of just resting my tired, old bones I feel good enough to go to the gym tomorrow. I'm looking forward to the bike with the back support (as opposed to another type of bike without one), which helps old fogeys like me with back and knee issues. I wanna pound that thing for at least 30 minutes cumulative, interspersed with weights and stretching to help stamina and generally work some weight off if such a miracle is at all possible.

In a perfect world, all I'd do is gym in the mornings, hit golf balls all day and analyze basketball games for a living, dispensing my loads of crap wisdom towards my waiting, loving mass of worldwide fans. Yeah, the more I think about it, that's exactly what I'd picture a beautiful world to be. Considering I get to go to a Class A gym regularly and dispense my opinion on basketball (logic - deprived or otherwise) on a regular basis, I can't complain. I just need to work my ass on getting a sponsor or two for BallEx and maybe I can work on the golf part.