Let’s Drink To That

Another belated post. LoL. I’ve been meaning to post about my musings as the year got underway but was just too damn lazy to do so.

First of all, I was feeling melancholic at the start of the year. This was mainly due to the reason of me not making it to the sendoff of my brother Ray. He had been arranging his work papers to Dubai during the 2nd half of last year and before the year was over, he got word that he’d be leaving early in 2009. He will be there for a 2-year work contract. When he got word that his final travel date would be January 7, he immediately texted me asking me when I’d be home. My base off from work would not be until the 10th so I asked him to delay his departure so that we’d still see each other before he leaves. There was no way I could escape from my work schedule and I was in Kidapawan that time.

Emotionally, I didn’t know how to describe how it felt thinking that he’d be leaving soon. Growing up separated by just 2 years (I am older, but I could easily pass off as younger than him..LoL), there was the usual sibling rivalry. It even is funny now that I think of the memories. My brother and I used to sleep in 1 bed together when we were still little. He was malikot when he slept, often kicking and turning about throughout the night, and I’d be awakened by this trait of his. At times, I’d punch him when this happened. Naturally, he would be at the losing end since I was awake, while he wasn’t..LoL. We weren’t that close growing up as I think I sort of looked at him as competition. Even in sports, we both were very competitive. I was even closer to my friends and classmates than I was with him. Oftentimes, we couldn’t converse without one eventually raising his voice. This did not get by without our parents noticing and numerous times, they even brought this to our attention. Blood was thicker than water, they told me.

As far as I remember, the turning point came when we were separated from each other for a long time, when he decided to work in Manila as a callcenter agent. When he came back after that, things were different. I couldn’t quite describe how, but it was just that. We were more gentle with each other. Another thing that brought us closer to each other was the game of badminton. We became partners and on a number of occasions, we went out of town to on road trips to join badminton tournaments. Yes, the usual conflicts between us were still there, but somehow, we were already communicating and it was easier to talk things over, unlike our situation before. When I was assigned in Bacolod, he’d text me whatever was happening back home, sometimes also to blow off some steam. I guess our bonding developed at that point. It came at a later part in our lives, but I think what was important was it did.

..1st runner up during our first tournament..

The whole family went to Cebu to send him off at Mactan International Airport last January 7..while I had to be contented with being passed around and talking to everybody on the mobile phone while they were at the pre-departure area. My brother is now an OFW.

Blood indeed is thicker than water.

Ingat always dinha brod!

This pic was forwarded by a friend. Found it so amusing since I studied elementary in an institution run by nuns. Hope you find the humor in this all.

Cheers!

This is my first entry for WW, so allow me to to be not so wordless. LOL.

I have just finished tinkering with the sidebars. Actually, I was tinkering with it yesterday, with disastrous results because when I finished with my experimentation, eureka! The sidebars were no longer to be seen..toink..so I had to re upload the theme through CuteFtp to reset it to its original state.

Now the question. Why was I tinkering with it? Simple. I wanted to either (1) add a scrollbar to the blogroll, (2) auto link the blogroll to appear and automatically update in another page, or (3) add a drop down list for the blogroll, all with the ultimate goal of saving some space and avoiding the clutter to the page brought about by having a loooong blogroll list such as the one on DHT. You see, I have been manually writing the blogroll page which is quite tedious and time consuming. So much for working smart.

Regarding item (1), I haven’t found any plugin that addresses this concern, although I have found one site (Reflexes) running on WordPress that had a scrollbar on the blogroll. On item (2), I found the plugin and installed and activated it, but didn’t get the desired results, meaning, it didn’t show in the other page that I created. I already queried the author regarding its status on WordPress 2.5.1, thinking this may be the only reason why it didn’t work as I followed their instructions to the dot. On item (3), I found a plugin for it and I was quite successful with making it appear in the sidebar, but encountered the minor problem on the alignment as it spills out of the sidebar (see for yourself LOL). Anyway, I am thinking that perhaps that particular plugin must have been designed for a single sidebar theme (just a hunch), but I have already asked the plugin creator to take a look at it and help me address the problem. It is actually a very cool plugin because it shows your links grouped into whatever categories you have grouped them in. I am just waiting on his reply and I do hope he can help me on this one.

*Fingers crossed*