the boredom of ramfree17

The pragmatic in me kicked in and I realized again that problems are what defines our existence. Only the  dead are free of them.

With that said I wish your problems will be sur mount able,  your challenges manageable,  trespasses against you forgivable,  and your heartaches forgettable.

Year 2013,  bring your best and worst.  We already have gone through the millennium bug and the mayan calendar end. We are as ready as we are going to be for the next round. 

ciao!

It started as a small drip

which an incompetent “plumber” sent by the Village maintenance head turned to a warzone slash swimming-pool

good thing my wife knows some good plumber sub-contracting for their company. The plumber was able to figure out that it was the Malunggay tree roots in front of the house that blocked the drainage pipe

so the tree had to go

And now our indoor sink is back to normal. Well it still needs a coat of paint but at least the sink is now usable.

Morals of the story:

• Always get a certified plumber to diagnose and fix leaks and blockages.
• Always get commitment that the plumber can put back whatever they demolish.
• Dont plant a shrub or tree on top of your drainage pipe.

Since we moved to Pasig to cut down our daily commute time we have decided to offer our house in Binangonan for rent. Most if not all who inquires keeps on asking if we want to sell it instead.

My wife says its the aura. Some houses have this light and welcoming aura while some would imbibe a dark and heavy feeling. Ours belong to the first category but I think it also has something to do with the people who live there.

More “as-is” pictures here.

Hailing from a rural area, my family never had a credit card. In fact hearing all the horror stories with its abuse, our view of its use borders in calling it as the spawn of the devil. After I graduated in college and started working I pretty much stuck with the “cash only” principle. That principle could not go wrong as it forces one to live by one’s own means, dispensing only cash that is available to you. That in itself is a fallacy that I will touch on later.

The company I worked for issued me an American Express gold card when I was assigned to Finland. The card remained largely unused as charging something on a plastic is a very alien principle to me. I even made it a sport heckling those call center agents who hawked pre-approved cards. However a couple of years ago I gave in and got my own credit card (with an extension to my wife who also dislikes using credit cards because of her own personal reasons).

What happened? My reasons were actually simple when you think about it:

• The argument of keeping within the “cash only” transactions will result to living within your means is definitely not true. It can help if you don’t have the necessary willpower to known when you can and cannot afford an item but its not enough. Even without credit cards one can easily fall into deep debts. I have seen that happen. Any vice and addiction can turn around one’s fortune as quick as a stock market crash.
• Living within your means can extend to credit card use, with the bonus of having the convenience of plastic. I don’t charge anything to my card that I cannot pay the next day. The next day, not the next payday. This is where willpower comes into play.
• Credit card allows me to pay the exact amount. Unlike in the US where every penny counts, the Philippine centavo has fallen away into obscurity. How many people today can say they still have seen what a centavo looks like (yes the one with Lapu-lapu). Groceries and department stores are rampant in specifying amounts to the lowly centavo but does not have any change to spare that they round off the amount to the nearest 25 centavos. My credit card is from my bank so I can pay the exact amount down to the centavo when I settle my bills online. Every centavo counts, right?



• Ease of accounting. My online statement allows me to keep track of my expenditures. I use Budget Pulse to keep track of my liquid finances and even if I miss entering my expenses daily I can always fall back on the bank statements to keep my accounting sane.
• Freebies. My credit card has some nifty freebies every 3 months; may it be free pizza, frozen delights, pulvoron or fast food goodies. The amounts needed to avail these have gone up but if I total all the freebies my wife and I have availed then they would have already paid for the yearly membership fee of our credit card. Which brings us to…
• Almost free membership. Well I still need to pay Php1500 per year but for the last 2 of the 3 years I have been using the points earned by my credit card to pay for that yearly membership fee. This year the rep waived the membership fee and reversed the charge on my credit card because of my good standing, and also because I called.

I only maintain 2 credit cards: the one from the company which I dont use and the one I have now. Overall its a good deal as long I keep on minding how I use our credit cards.

ciao!

With just a few hours of sleep, we drove back from Cabanatuan to Pasig in record time: 2 hours and 30 minutes including the pit stops! We averaged at the speed of about 60km/hr.

The drive was almost perfect. We left at around 5:40AM so most people going back to the city after the short weekend/holiday is still asleep due to celebrating the coming of 2012. Sounds good enough for us. We actually made it out of Nueva Ecija in 30 minutes

And there is something to be said about the weather conditions. We left Cabanatuan with the road covered in fog, and we arrived with Metro Manila still covered in smog. Here are some snaps that my wife took on the San Leonardo to Gapan road: