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Some of you still on the forum, like Jack and chi town, knew me personally before I had my pretty serious stroke, others on the forum like John Boy and Garbonzo followed me through my journey.
A good friend of mine had a stroke and died this last year. So why did I survive? I am blessed to have a great wife and son, and my religion, to keep me going, along with daily meds.
So currently the stroke and age are hitting me fairly hard. I walk funky and can not walk very far, I can not sit for very long, and I use a wheel chair when I go to the bank at the mall. No complaints, life is great. I get to the gym (with a helper) 5 times a week and to all my son's soccer practices and tournaments.
As I do on every stroke update, I suggest to guys over 60 to get a check up and blood test every 3 months (I didn't) and keep your stress level low and exercise. I only drink red wine and some say that helps. Take care and thanks for the support.

 

When I designed and built our house I wanted to include comforts that I was used to, the openess of the flat roof I found in older Korean homes as well as incorporating a dirty kitchen upstairs.

Fast forward and I'm not feeling certain things. The views of having an open second floor is great and allows for quite a number of folks to come over for a BBQ or event. The problem is when the rain comes in sideways the dirty kitchen "area" can get quite wet. I was never a fan of having such a high pitched roof over the area but the wife said it was the "style". Even though we went with the thickest gauge of metal roofing we have had leaks from things failing and was to the point we would need to replace it anyway.

So the final decision was to close in the dirty kitchen area, with lots of windows and a sliding glass door to the rest of the roof as well as another concrete roof slab for that half to give us a third floor.

Only a few days into things and am pleased with the progress from this contractor. Hopefully the forms and scaffold will be pulled by the time I get home next month.

Attached are a few pictures and a rendering on what we are planning.

Shawn

 

Carry me back, carry me back, carry me back,
Baby where I come from.

 

I made my first order with Alibaba in August. Sadly, I did not see the "Alibaba scam" website in time. (https://andrewminalto.com/alibaba-s...e8b76c0058e7784fc72be6580fedf3#comment-483822) I ordered an item (Sine Wave Inverster with UP and Charger) from a vendor, Guangzhou City PooJin Electronic Technology Co., Ltd., and they were a few days late in sending it. This vendor is an Alibaba “Trade Assurance” and “Gold Supplier.” (Supposedly, trustworthy to have Alibaba back them up.) They sent a tracking number that the shipper never showed even existed. Meantime, I am screaming via email to the vendor’s rep. He assured me it was on the way. It arrived two weeks after it was due and it was the wrong item. The vendor sent an inverster without the internal UPS and charger. I went back and forth for weeks with Alibaba submitting evidence, pictures, etc. Once they offered a US$80 credit and keep the item. But it is not something I need or want. I offered further evidence, and they came back and offered $100. It’s still a rip off since the vendor is probably still making a profit from sending an inferior product, so I refused the settlement. Then, a week later Alibaba said they were awaiting evidence from the vendor. Today, Alibab says the vendor presented evidence that what I was presenting pictures of was not an item from them. Case closed! They provided no evidence to me of what the vendor said or showed to them. They just sided with their vendor. Yikes! This is how Alibaba “Trade Assurance” and “Gold Supplier” status protects you, i.e. not at all!

WATCH OUT!

 

On two occasions in the last week I have witnessed an expat being disrespectful, rude and aggressive towards the local staff in a supermarket. For very minor reasons (I won't go into the details as it's not really relevant) the two men started finger pointing, raising their voices, and hurling insults towards the staff such as "you have no brain!", "you're an idiot" and "why are all Filipinos so stupid?"

One shop assistant was actually in tears, the other close to tears. On both occasions I felt it necessary to apologize on behalf of their behaviour and explain they were being unreasonable and not to worry about it or take it personally.

Please please can we all try and be patient and more understanding. Have you no appreciation of the "saving face" culture here? The staff are just acting under instructions and doing their best.

I was, quite frankly, both embarrassed and disgusted by what I saw. I condone violence but must confess I felt an overwhelming desire to punch them!

I truly hope not many locals think this is how foreigners behave here. Remember we are guests in their country and the people here are generally extremely welcoming, friendly and hospitable. I hope this doesn't change because of idiots like these........

 

Last week I stopped along National Hwy to pick up my wife from a store. I pulled over on the side, she saw me and started walking out to come to the car. There was a traffic enforcement officer standing nearby and he stepped in front of my car and took a picture, then came to my window and asked for my license just as my wife was getting into the car. I said, I will give you my license but you can not write me a ticket because I am not "parked", I am just temporarily stopped for the purpose of picking up a passenger which I am allowed to do. He said, "yes sir, I understand" and walked over to a little table on the sidewalk and filled out a ticket for Illegal Parking which he then came back and handed to me.

Here is the actual section of R.A.4136:
(l) "Parking or parked", for the purposes of this Act, shall mean that a motor vehicle is "parked" or "parking" if it has been brought to a stop on the shoulder or proper edge of a highway, and remains inactive in that place or close thereto for an appreciable period of time. A motor vehicle which properly stops merely to discharge a passenger or to take in a waiting passenger, or to load or unload a small quantity of freight with reasonable dispatch shall not be considered as "parked", if the motor vehicle again moves away without delay.

Today I went to the LTO office (not the office where you go to pay the ticket) and went in to speak to the manager who has a small office in the back. I walked in and he asked what can I do for you? I showed him the ticket, he said this is not where you pay, I said I do not want to pay I want to explain that this ticket was not legally issued. He asked what do you mean? I explained that I had just stopped to pick up my wife and within a few seconds the enforcement officer came and gave me the ticket and that does not count as "illegal parking" and the ticket was not justified. He laughed and took the ticket from my hand and said "no problem sir, I will have this voided for you".

It is only a 200php fine, and my wife said just pay it don't argue about it. I said no, it's not the amount, it's the principle, plus I don't want this on my record. It turned out to be very easy to have the ticket voided. I'm sharing this in case a similar thing happens you should know what the law is, and that getting a ticket dismissed if you did not deserve it is not difficult to do.

 

Found a place the other day with pretty decent burgers. If you're going north on Flores, just after you pass by Hayahay keep going straight along the ocean. After just a short distance you will see this new center that is just constructed on the left. There are a few shops there, and a Mafioso restaurant that just opened (they still have a limited soft opening menu). Across the parking lot from Mafioso, back in the corner (and apparently owned by the same people that own Mafioso) there is a little place called Food Rehab that specializes in burgers. They have quite an assortment, bacon cheese, mushroom, Hawaiian, I had what was called the "What the Truck" burger. It was huge, covered with chili, and served in a cast iron skillet. It's a small little place, if you didn't know about it you would probably never find it, but if you're craving for a good burger I would recommend checking it out.

 

If you can get a few miles outside of Dumaguete's light dome and the sky is clear and transparent, the Milky Way is there for your viewing pleasure.
The following image was taken on Sept.29 at 9am, just before the Moon came up to spoil my fun. I used a 19mm/f2.8 lens with a 30sec exposure at ISO3200. With this amount of exposure, if there was any light pollution you would not be able to see the dark lane of cosmic clouds that bisect and obscure the Summer Milky Way. This image is facing directly West from my terrace.
The following night was hazy, but it produced a beautiful Lunar Ice Halo, with the Moon situated between Orion and the Pleiades.
I was also able to capture China's Space Station passing across Orion's Belt.
There is a fair amount of beauty here if you know where and when to look.
(no wise cracks! I've heard them all before!)
Please enjoy the images!
Dr. Ski

 

I was shopping in Robinsons for mens clothing and need to try on some shorts. I took several shorts along with some shirts to the dressing area. I had just recently received a very expensive pair of sunglasses and took them off in the dressing area and put them out of the way so they would not be damaged......I also forgot to get them when I left.

About 15 minutes after we had left the store I noticed I no longer had my glasses. Went back to Robinsons and one of the young men fetched the glasses for me which had been found by someone there. Thank you to Robinsons and also the young man that retrieved the glasses.

 

There is a new german bakery that opened a couple of weeks ago now at the south end of the plaza square called Ludwigs bakery, very good quality bread and many different types to choose from, they also have a small cafe with a good range of foods to choose from and sell beer there as well.

We have been buying bread there every few day and find the bread to very good quality