A few days ago I did a vanity search on my oldest handle, found by oldest blog and read my oldest posts. I read, and read, and read. Then I felt a pang of pain. What I wrote back then was purposeful prose. It had meaning. It had a style. It had flashes of brilliance, moments of idiocy and elegance in the choice of words. It wasn't the best, but it had a unique personality that begged the reader to read on. I felt bad because I no longer wrote that way. Come to think of it, I no longer blog that much. It felt bad to realize that I may have lost something special.

That thought has kept me awake the last 2 nights. I used to write thoughtful, purposeful prose. I used to rush to a computer when a sudden trail of thought hit me and an urge to write it down was eagerly gnawing at me. I turned to blogging because it was easier than writing it all in paper. It was also a lot more practical than Doogie Howser's diary because blogs published themselves. I turned to blogging because there was a community around it, fellow bloggers who either liked or disliked your work. Who either linked to you or criticized you. Who commented with their dissent or encouragement. Now I find the provoking ideas rare and few in between. I find the bloggers, whose blogs I used to blog-hop to, have moved on to twitter and facebook. I too have moved on to twitter and facebook. They are easier to use, require less time to maintain. I have too many things to do all at once. They suit my ever shortening attention span.

As I spend more time on twitter and facebook, I've lost something. I have lost the patience it takes to write a thoughtful, meaningful, purposeful post; something longer than 140 characters with words that provoke minds to subtle agreement or violent objection.

My words, I need them back. I must have them back. Every writer struggles to find the right words to best say what they feel, think and experience. I have lost my words and I want them back.

I've been so busy with work, I had to let go of some things I used to do. It's been almost a year since this blog was even updated. Several of my HowTo blog articles/projects have been put on indefinite hold. I haven't updated several of my personal email accounts. I haven't touched a new linux distro or new version of my old favorites in months. I haven't gone to the old IRC channels I used to frequent. It's truly been more than a while.

The last two days have me hoping I can get back to the things I love doing. Yesterday I ran several 15-minute training sessions with my team members. I also launched a personal project, using on online quiz to get my team calibrated. Earlier today I attended a technical training and enjoyed it. I was chatting with one of the trainers during the break. He was really with me when I said I love the technology,but hate the fact that our jobs weren't really about tech or helping people cope with tech but about client policy. Although he agreed about loving tech, he did counter with, "and that's why I moved to training!"

So now, 2 hours later I am typing this. Awake, mind churning with random ideas and surreal thoughts, I am hopeful still. Hopeful I will have better days. Hopeful these stressful days will ease soon. Hopeful I will be instrumental in making a difference in the lives of those I come across, be it online or in the real world. It's been a while since I hoped. It's been a while...

I'm backing up pictures I uploaded online, the service hosting them is closing down this December. i was actually putting this off for a couple of weeks now, but have heard horror stories about difficulties downloading the files there. I have the choice to move everything to another photo-sharing service but that other one doesn't have the option to download the pictures anymore. You can them print it, but goodluck getting your own pictures back from them.

I'm in a sort of panic right now, I own those pictures and I can't download all the pics in one big lump. Otherwise, I would have left the computer on and have the download complete itself. But no, I have to download the pics an album at a time, which means I have to be here in front of the PC to select the next batch of pics that need to be downloaded. It's painstakingly tedious to do this. And the only time I do have time to do this would be during the weekend, and even then I have to do some errands.

I am doing this though because I want to preserve these pictures. Earlier, I felt a kind to longing for the past - the people I've met, the good times we've had, the memories we've made together I wonder if they still remember me. I miss the fun we had. I miss the good old days when we nary had a care. How powerful a media images are to stoke the idle human mind into longing.

That's why I'm sitting here, butt-aching and bored out of my wits, watching the download progress of each batch of pictures. I'll have to do this again for another set of backed up files next week. The free online back-up drive that I use is also folding up and I need those files. Every other service I've used for years seems to be going out of business. It's like the dot-com bubble all over again. So for the next couple of weekends at least, I'll be sitting whole days in-front of a PC. All for memories all but gone, except for those in my mind and reminders in these images.

It's amazing the amount of comment spam sites receive. I mean, you open yourself up to readers of your blog or site and you expose yourself to bots plying the web to check what forms they could post ads on. It's not comforting either that its so common to see one URL being posted over and over again by different spam bots. It just means that spammers are out to get us. Good thing I've got comment moderation turned on on my blog. Otherwise legit readers would be bothered by the sheer volume

The last time I was in a Starbucks was over 2 years ago. I met up with my friend Lany. This was in the Starbucks in Hacienda Luisita, Tarlac City. So having half an hour to spare after going to the Smart Wireless Center over at SM City Clark, I swung by Starbucks to get a Grande. They recently opened shop there. After waiting for my turn, I impatiently ordered a Cafe Mocha with an extra shot of espresso. It cost more then I spend a week in fare. Well, not really. But that is what I spend in a week when I try to save a little on tricycle fare by walking to where the jeeps ply.

Anyway, I splurged but enjoyed it. I miss the smell of coffee being forced out by slow powerful jets of hot water. I miss the cozy environs of the modern coffee shop sofa and armchair. I miss the act of ordering a complicated combination of options and having the full attention of the barrista as you dictate your demands. I miss having my name called as my order is served. What i don't miss is the crowd of hyperactive wide-eyed pretentious college kids sitting on the outdoor tables, drinking their fraps, smoking their cigs, trying to look "cool" or so. So after I got my order, I walked leisurely around SM Clark, Grande in hand.

It seems that I keep going on a recurring cycle every now and then. I post sporadically often for a few weeks then suddenly go quiet.

Well, there's a reason. As most day jobs go, there are times that you really have to really work hard to get the results you want. It's been a busy 2 weeks for me, not because of added work, but because of tensions in the office.

Recently, our operations manager decided to give us extra tasks. We're now doing more QC (quality check) work on the work output that our agents do. Mostly its boring work, pulling long hours reviewing stuff. It's worthwhile work, though. We see where our guys could use some help or areas we could help them improve.

Then there's the part where you have to deal with people. We (collectively, me and my supervisors) have had to deal with really difficult people in the past month. A lot of fear mongering and whining has been going on and we can't really give them all the information we have. Speaking for myself, I come across a lot of information that explains why things are happening. But I am duty-bound not to disclose that to people who do not need to know. I can only share what I am allowed to speak about. Ironically, some of the higher up's are surprised that I sometimes get information earlier than they do. I have a secret weapon in my arsenal, and it's called Google-Fu ;-) Hehehe.

Anyway, tonight I'm staying home. My schedule got changed to 11 am instead of the night shift. I got a call yesterday morning from one of my supervisors asking if I could adjust my schedule to cover for another sup who was supposed to be working today. She filed for vacation time and was going to be out for the whole weekend. I said yes without hesitation. Tonight, before leaving the office, I talked to our shift manager and he told me he was in the office when my super called. He mentioned my super was all praises for me because I was always ready to take one for the team. That was in direct comparison to one other person in the team who always weaseled out of any schedule changes that didn't happen to suit his personal preferences. Hehehe - score one for me, yaay!

Now enough about work. I have been able to update my blogs here and there. Minor stuff, but it's coming along. Adding the Paypal Donate button on each of my blogs was the most major one. I also plan to do some more reviews for my tech blog. I haven't done those in a while and from the looks of my hits, it appears most of my Google clicks are coming from the last few reviews I did. I need to do some more of that. I'm actually lining up a mini-reviews of Puppy Linux, TinyMe 2008 and DreamLinux. And since I have old hardware that would make for interesting tinkering, I'm going to do a Part II of of my Vector Linux mini-review but focusing on how it will perform on a barely running Pentium II -266 MHz machine.

Now, to find time to do that...

I was able to finish listening to TWIT 144 this morning before going to sleep and they were talking about OpenLibrary.org. Brewster Kahle, the guy who heads this project is also responsible for the Internet Archive project. He talked at length about how OpenLibrary.org was helping preserve old books for future generations. Their main efforts were in getting books scanned and translated into digital forms to preserve them electronically. It's a great effort and it should be supported. Too bad their funding from Microsoft stopped. They would now have to source their funds from the public. It's a worthy cause, you might want to consider donating to it.

On the topic of free books, they got to talking about Cory Doctorow's new book towards the end of the podcast. I didn't know he gave away free eBook copies of his work. I went to Craphound.com to get me an eReader copy of Little Brother. A for-pay copy is available in audio form, an excerpt of which they played after the credits on TWIT 144 (kinda like the way that extra scene was shown after credits in Ironman - hehehe). Anyway, if you would like to support the author and listen to the audiobook version, click on the graphic below:

Found out through a tweet from John C. Dvorak that the twittering public can track their packages through Twitter. Following the instructions, the way to do it is to follow @trackthis on Twitter. You then send a direct message (and not @reply) containing your package's tracking code plus a short phrase describing the package (useful when you start getting the updates). A direct message will be sent to you every time your packages moves locations. The service currently supports FedEx, UPS, USPS and DHL tracking. Neat, huh?

It was a rough first day. Today was my wife's first day back at the office. My world was again jolted out of orbit because of the change in the schedules we had grown accustomed to in the last few months. I went to work, and she was there in the morning to welcome me home. This morning, she left early to get to work by 8am.

Sleep-deprived, I brought our son to the doctor this morning. He had been running a fever on and off since Saturday night. Doctor said he was having an episode of tonsillitis again. Weather was not helping at all. The heat was affecting him, but we had no choice but to make the commute to the hospital. We finally got home by 1:30 PM. His fever got worse. I had a hard time getting him to drink medicine. My baby girl wasn't in the mood either, she was crying whenever my mother (or I) put her back in her crib. As if in jest, she had no trouble sleeping whenever I rested her on my shoulder.

Two hours of sleep was all I managed. And I'm going to work tonight. This is going to be a long night. And tomorrow is going to be a long day. Sometimes, it seems I will never see the end of the week without trouble creeping up unexpectedly :-(

If you haven't seen me posting anything, there's a reason. Been trying to sell my PC for the past week or so. A buyer finally made and offer and I took it. She texted me a few days back and I remember feeling sad about it. I grow attached to things, really. Too much of that emotion thing going on. I proudly say that I build them (PCs) myself and they never break down. Now, I feel kind of odd that I'm selling a machine that I built for the satisfaction of it.

I used to always tell my wife that me building PCs is a "blood, sweat and a bucketful of tears" affair for me. I agonize over what parts to use and what functionalities to compromise for the sake of price. I do the research, I scour the shops, I haggle for the best prices, I take the parts home and roll up my sleeves. When building a machine, I am a reclusive hermit for at least half a day. I troubleshoot and test it the next day to ensure I have a stable machine. So to me that machine is a whole lot more than just the sum of its parts. It's time well-spent, learning and tinkering. It's me giving parts of myself. See, I told you I was too sentimental for my own good.

So lately, I've been setting it up over the last few days to her specifications and she'll be picking it up by Saturday. So, I'll be posting from internet cafe's for a while and Twittering from my mobile. See ya...