A flat tire and a folded-up note

As usual, I pulled up to a parking slot at 7:00 am this morning at the lower ground floor of my building. As I maneuvered the rear of the Jazz into place and disembarked, I noticed the blue ES Civic in the slot to my left had its right rear tire gone flat.

Tearing a page off the notebook that serves as my fuel consumption journal, I scribbled a note to let the owner know of the puncture, and left the byline "A Concerned Motorist." I pinned it under one of the Civic's wipers before walking to the elevator lobby.

I pretty much forgot about the note for the rest of the day, until I walked back to my car twelve hours later. The blue ES had gone, but the folded-up note was now pinned under my Jazz's wiper...with a reply in cursive writing.



Thank you for letting me know - got a taxi driver to change tires for me - :)
A. Cortez, Accenture 8F

Night of the bloggers

The meet-up with Joy went ahead tonight at Brooklyn Pizza in Alabang Town Center, along with her husband Tom, her friend Chingkai and her other WordPress-blogging friends Mervin, Laverne, Agnes and Malen.

Not even the decidedly subpar food and the insufficiency of the air-conditioning dampened the generally bubbly atmosphere of the meet. It was great making new acquaintances and friends. Tom and Laverne in particular were quite helpful with advice about the basics of professional blogging. Chingkai shared her colorful stories of being a writer in a country that doesn't appreciate them one bit. Mervin lamented the pitfalls of Smart broadband, while Agnes and Malen missed the Alabang exit on their way to the meet. As for Joy, she had a lot of fascinating stories to tell also.

I gave Joy my old "blue pill" USB flash drive, loaded with song rips of Sugar Free's first and third albums. She was looking for Filipino songs and those are pretty hard to find in Norwich.

I had fun, guys. Thanks.

Of hotels, comfort and grace

I've been on overtime for the past month, and out of that, I've spent three weeks at a hotel close to work. This week was the worst yet. I'm dead tired and unable to sleep very well. There was even one day where I was up the whole night, searching in vain for sleep to come.

I'm really burnt out, and I don't think the hotel stay helped this time. I guess I miss my bed too damn much.
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There's this new colleague at work I'm not very comfortable with. Okay, perhaps I'm being a little unfair and I should give her the benefit of the doubt. But I really don't like the way she looks at me and approaches me. Once she literally rubbed me the wrong way---on the shoulder---to borrow my cell phone charger. I could feel my blood run cold. Who exactly is this girl to me and why is she being too friendly? My friend Chielou assumes she has a crush on me---well this is exactly how NOT to make a favorable impression.

Being over-friendly also applies to this other stranger who keeps sending me messages in the hope of making me a so-called textmate. I have no idea of who this party is, other than "it" having introduced "itself" to me as "Trouble." To date I haven't replied to any of "its" messages, but that doesn't seem to have stopped "it" from trying.

Besides, if you were named Trouble, how good do you imagine my odds are of wanting to meet you?
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Regardless of how massively tired I've been this week though, I'm glad I had my friend Grace. We've become much closer over the past few days, and my day hasn't been complete without calling her up or sending her a few messages over SMS. In the insomnia-laced craziness of work, she's kept me on an even keel.

I only hope I've done the same for her.