Weak Fly

It must be the medz I'm taking and last weekend's fatigue that gave me the weak feeling today at the pool. The flys at the shallow end weren't as strong as before. In the first few short laps, I felt the arms didn't clear the water surface suficently. When I did the one-arm flys, the feet didn't synch well together as they kicked. I think I made 4-5 strokes one way on the 12.5m width. The strokes didn't feel strong nor fast enough. And the breathing was a disaster. So I just didn't breath for the last laps.

Nonetheless, I was surprised to find the water temp still pleasant. With all the rains the past few days and the cool nights, I thought it would've been colder. So that was a bit of good news. At the office, I felt very hungry and tired. My delts were sore too. Ahhhh..., the aging body creaks. So for brunch today, I had a hearty breakfast of Escabecheng Dalagang Bukid and Lumpiang Hubo't Hubad.

Weekend Work Bash

It's been a while that I've not gone swimming. I wasn't feeling too well since last Friday, the day that DH and I should've gone to their outing at Bryan's tab. But it was night swimming and has been raining all day plus it was DH's executive checkup. So we skipped that. For the most of the weekend, we cleaned unit A. It was DH, Tita Gay and myself on Saturday and it was everybody on Sunday. It was a lot of work. Here's some of what I did:
  1. Tightened the rope lining of many window screens. These have not been tightened ever since they were installed 6 years ago. I just use a tool (semi-round file) and a hammer to push back the rope in.
  2. Removed and scraped off the old flaking and loose clay putty.
  3. Used a caulking gun to put white sealant on the window panes to replace the clay putty.
  4. Put in a scrap cable tubing to replace the hose tubing in the water closet.
  5. Had the girls remove the peeling paint.
  6. Painted semi-gloss latex paint on the window sills.
  7. Shaved off the top of the aluminum screen door at the laundry area where it sticks. I bought a flat bastard file for this and was well worth it for the discounted price of Php179 from Php199. With a rubber plastic handle, it was convenient to use. I love it.
  8. Painted some of the kitchen window screens with aluminum-silver finish paint.
  9. Put in a new towel bar in the bathroom. The old one's rusting and the paint/plastic peeling off.
  10. Tightened one of the window screen frame in the rear bedroom by putting in a tox for the screw.
  11. Used Sphero white epoxy paint to paint the drain and some parts of the gates.
It was a lot of work for 2 days. I was so tired that I swear I briefly dozed off while sitting at the office!

And now I have a slight throat infection. I've been feeling this since Saturday but had to suppress and not think about it coz of the work we needed to do. I'm presently taking amoxicillin, carbocisteine and mefenamic acid (for the body pain).

Butterfly at the Shallow End

Pursuing my quest for that elusive butterfly, I resumed drills today after a couple of days' hiatus. And this hiatus was due in part to the left knee pain (from previous dolphining) and in part to the 'bed' weather. There were a few rainshowers, the first for May.

So for today, I positioned myself at the shallowest part of the pool. I did the left-arm and right-arm drills which were good. I also tried right-side breathing which felt more comfortable and streamlined rather than the front breathing which causes my hips to sink. But wow, what conditioning this stroke requires. Every short lap, I was gasping but I do recover quickly now. I know my lower back would complain with all that dolphin kicking and so I took mefenamic this morning. I even picked up a peso coin at the shallow end. I'm getting to like this butterfly stroke and will do more of it in the next few days. Can the elusive flip-turn be far behind? Ahhh, we shall see.

A New Resident at Home

I don't know what bird this is but it has made its home right near the laundry area outside where it's breezy and we sometimes have meals. It made its nest right smack center in a Fortune plant. The kids wanted to see closer coz it's their first time to see a nest with a bird in it up close. This pic was taken right after we had our lunch there.


Yesterday, Jerry and his neighbor painted the apartment roof. He asked me to buy sealants and stuff (which all amounted to Php1,800) but they only used paints - the roof paint and flat wall for the ceiling (A and B). We paid em Php800 for the job. They started at 7:30am and finished 10:30am. And then it rained at around 2pm! Just hope the paint job held up.

Today, I did some gentle dolphin kicks. I wasn't going to rush through them coz of my back. My back's okay but my left knee though started acting up. The kicks were done using a hand-lead from the wall. The remaining kicks though were head-led breathing using a breastkick stroke. It's fine for a simple drill but so boring. I managed to pickup Php1.25 in coins.

I had a brief chat with Cecille this morning right at the bench. The free swimmers were in early today so I got out of the pool earlier than usual. While she was sipping coffee and preparing pandesal, I asked if the pool was closing in June. She's hesitant with her reply saying, it's still being thought about and asked me where I heard it. She said that there are plans to renovate/ repair the pools coz of some leaks which keep the water level always low.

Last night (or was it this morning?) I dreamt I was a student in a classroom and my classmates were bored and sleepy. Suddenly, my friend Mar L, stood up to sing (there was a singing contest, apparently). He wowed the audience and the pop song was really good and lively. After his piece, I asked to see the album cover of the karaoke cd. The song was entitled: "An Interesting Feeling to Watch." Strange.

Folk Tale Speech and Butterfly

Last night was another one of those 'close calls' for speeches. It was already 4pm when I managed to get my speech altogether. Ugh. This has got to stop. Fact is, last Wednesday I almost forgot that the Toastmasters meeting at Henlin/Tomato and Cheese would be the following day. Since I rattled at the thought, DH was rather amused that I DID forget.

Now here's the worst part about late prepared speeches. I can't get the groove of the gestures and body movement. I suppose getting the material in my head in so short a time is already bad. Twice in a row, it was a sore spot in my evaluation - not enough body movement. Though small, I gotta use the floor space more! Another thing is sudden shifting of the head from left to right. Unfortunately I can't help it. The seating configuration is such that you have audience 90 degrees to your left and right. I feel like I'm missing out on eye contact if I don't constantly shift my glances. Next time, I'll take a pic of how we're seated at our venue. One tip though is to pan the head SLOWLY. I'll try that next time.

The props I used (reversible beak of the crow) was rather nifty and it piqued the audience interest. At first I thought I'd be risking it but, heck, it's storytelling and so I went on with the puppet props and with my bird voices, it brought variety to the speech.


I must say the use of a mini-puppet was a risk on my part. Why? Simply because I've not seen anyone do it. Let's just say I wanted to add a little fun on the delivery side and put a little smile (or is that a smirk?) on my audience. Anyhow, I got the idea from a game that the kids play especially Sandra where they'd have an eenie-meenie-mynee-moh on a numbers game written on folded paper. The closing and opening looked like a bird's beak and so I had Sandra fold one for me. It turns out that the "beak" folded paper I wanted used the same folding for making these newspaper hats or boats. With just another fold, it becomes a bird puppet! The nice thing about this puppet is it can become reversible. And it worked wonderfully for the transition when the crow turned from white to black because of the curse. Yah, you gotta read the speech to make sense of what I'm writing here. Anyway, the bird on the left was the white crow and with the flick of the hand, the white crow on the left in Noah's time becomes the black crow on the right as we know it today. Ingenious, isn't it?

I also need to be earlier prepared coz I miss out on conversations before the meeting starts. I wasn't relaxed enough coz I sat or stood in a corner to read/ memorize the speech. The nice thing though is the audience seemed to enjoy my speech entitled "Noah's Bird". This is Advanced Speech #1, Folk Tale, in the Storytelling Manual. I thought my delivery of it though was a bit lacking. Next time!

See all my Toastmasters Speeches online here!

Just on a whim, I tried to do butterfly strokes today. They were crude I know but it's really just my first time. The AMAZING thing is: I had lots of stamina for it. It isn't the "die-as-you-swim" stroke that I thought it would be! I did laps on the 12.5m width of the pool. Funny, I'm not even feeling pain in my back or knees at all. Hhmmm... I'm getting gung-ho to learning it even though I was avoiding it all this time. Maybe the time is ripe - stamina, experience, maturity and all. I'm excited to revisit and relearn this once again. And this time, it's gonna be permanent.

In a Stump

For a couple of days now I've been doing a good 5 laps of freestyle as a start. I don't go for speed and just concentrate on slow and relaxed strokes focusing on technique. It's also the time to scour the pool's bottom for any coins. So I cover all 5 lanes in the pool. Thereafter, I do 5 laps of alternating breaststroke and backstroke. From then on it's just a play of free-back switches, sidestrokes and heads-up free. Yah, it's rather boring. It's so boring that I'm thinking of revisiting the butterfly stroke. That is if my back can take it. The way one coach there does it, it's so graceful and relaxed - not the big noisy splashers that competetive swimmers do.

Election Day

We spent the night at Pampanga and left in the morning after breakfast. It was already past 8am. The drive was easy and quick. There was little volume in the NLEX and we even managed 2 stopovers for water and bathroom break. We reached Munti at 10am and proceeded to St. Peregrine Church. There were long lines at the voting precint at the covered court and so we decided to defer voting until before lunch. Voting was quick as there wasn't a line in my precinct at 398A. I even saw Artem and had a long chat with him. I guess people do meet and get to talk with some long-time-no-see friends during election day. Among the senatoriables I only voted for 3: Pichay, Roco and Joker Arroyo.

In the afternoon, we had spaghetti afterwhich the kids went up the roof. That's DH at the back picking mango fruits from the tree.

King's Royal Resort Bacolor

Yesterday was Mother's Day and we went to Pampanga. After a hearty breakfast, we went to King's Royal Resort at Bacolor. We didn't bring much food coz we were too full anyway. What we brought was water and some snacks. I also slid some leftover tocino in my bag. There was a corkage fee of Php100 for the Coke litro so we just left it in the car. It was unbelievably hot. There were some small coconut trees but they were much too small. It may be 5 to 10 years more before those trees will become big enough to give real shade. Then it'll be cooler. My first impression of the place is it was right in the middle of nowhere as it had no neighbors. So just after a few minutes of driving I was surprised we were already there.

Here's the cottage we got and Tita Divine was with us. This is just near the entrance and close to the slides.


Here's a pic of one of the pools with slides.


Here's the four for a photo-op at the wavepool. There were too little people at this pool when there's no wave. Sandra even found a 5-peso coin.


Here's some action at the wavepool. The whip at the end of the waves is strong. There was a wall where the end of the waves splashed into but that created another whipping effect.


At lunch, DH went over to the resto to buy rice and we had lunch at the cottage. After the wave at 4pm which lasted around 20 minutes, we decided to packup. Here's a pic taken near the entrance. Further back and you can see the slides.


To view more pictures at the King's Royal Resort in Bacolor, Pampanga, click here.

After Dinner Speech, A Closed Manual at Last!

I'm finally done with The Entertaining Speaker manual. Yup, after so much preparing and revising, I've nailed that last speech project - Speaking After Dinner. It was already 3pm when I finally completed the script of my speech that was to be delivered at the Toastmasters Meeting at 6:30pm. This might be the shortest practice time I've ever had. Somehow, I was still confident of pulling it through. First, I know the material well. There are only 3 main topics. Second, the topics are easy to talk about coz they're mostly stories. It is ironic that the 1st topic (Breaking the Ice) I had for this project was rejected at my old club even though I gave it so much preparation. While for this 2nd topic - "My Message on Your Wedding Day", I had no problem at all. Maybe as Gov.Rema mentioned in her evaluation, it's the universal appeal of the topic. Ah well.

I'm getting rusty in this TM thing. I forgot to bite the tip of my tongue to keep the mouth wet. And this was a 8-10 min. speech so I ended up with a dry mouth again. Arggh. The evaluation on my speech was very good. Except for the hand clasping and very minimal use of the floor space (told you I was rusting) everything else was perfect! I had a slight sore throat after the meeting. I probly strained my voice competing with the noisy aircon. After the TM session, I picked up DH at P1 to fetch the kids. But we stopped over at Jollibee Sucat for a takeout bite. This is in addition to the Red Bull and Extra Joss I already took.

See all my Toastmasters Speeches online here!

Free-Back Switch

The free swimming kids at the pool were early today. It seemed like they'd have some sort of competition coz the basketball coach kept mentioning it early on. Wait a sec, basketball coach? Yah. One of the coaches doesn't wear a swimsuit to teach swimming. Nopes, she'd wear these humongous basketball tops and shorts to teach swimming. Only 4 words, lady. What's... up... with... that???

Anyway, as I was going out, I casually said to Cecille: "Wow, ang aga nila ngayon ah". To which she repled exasperatingly: "Oo nga po eh!". Those "lessons" look more like rowdy outings.

Yesterday, I re-attempted a stroke combination that, 2 years ago, I had wanted to do. This is the alternate freestyle and backstroke. I've read it somewhere but I'm not sure if I've seen a video. I imagined it though to be a cool cool smooth stroke. Well, today, I'm close to getting into the groove of it. I think I did 5 lengths of it today. I start a freestyle, change to backstroke and then return to freestyle. It goes like this:
  1. Start with a regular freestyle for a few armpulls.
  2. After the right hand recovers and falls on the water straight, stretch it slightly and rotate the body to your left. At this time, you're face is out of the water.
  3. Begin the catch with the right hand and start pulling as a backstroke.
  4. Recover the left and continue the backstroke for a few armpulls.
  5. When the left hand recovers and drops to the water, just let it stay there and straighten a bit.
  6. Recover the right hand out of the water while continuing to rotate the body.
  7. When the body is almost facing down, start pulling with the left hand.
  8. The right hand should now do a catch-up style of freestyle so that the body retains its straight position.

Tired and Hungry

So tired and sleepy that I didn't swim today. I thought of rewriting my 5th advanced Toastmaster speech in The Entertaining Speaker manual - The After-Dinner speech for tomorrow's meeting. Maybe a livelier topic will be some kind of humorous advice to newlyweds set to a backdrop of a wedding reception. I'll have time to practice and refine it this evening with the kids out of the house. They're presently on vacation at Makati since Sunday night. We'll be picking them up tomorrow night after the Toastmasters meeting at 8:30pm. Will see how that goes. See all my Toastmasters Speeches online here!

I can now manage 4 walks a day. I timed a brisk walk (2 laps) through the long hallway of the building and it's around 15 minutes. A leisurely one is probly up to 18 minutes. Wow, with 4 brisk walks a day, that's already an hour. After a few days of this routine, PLUS the swimming in the morning, I'm ready to collapse after dinner in the evening. Unfortunately, I'm eating more too. Need to correct that coz I just gained 4 pounds. Ugh.

Brush with the Grim Reaper

I actually didn't plan on writing anything else other than my swimming today but heck. Anyway, I thought I was a goner this morning when I almost rammed against an oncoming truck. Well, "almost" is a relative word here. Some folks (speed maniacs, basically) would probly dismiss the incident as simply ordinary. But for me, it's enough to get scared. And it was my fault.

At that bridge (crossing the expressway) in San Pedro, it's a daily torture to have these slowpoke tricycles plying the area. In several instances I was lucky to have overtaken these turtles and sometimes snicker when other vehicles, especially the macho ones (pajeros, patrols, fortuners, etc.) can't manage to do the same.

Today, there was a tricycle going up the bridge and closely followed by a jeepney. I looked as my eyes allowed me to see the unobstructed view and thought it was safe to pass. It SEEMED okay. But as I was moving on to the bridge's crest almost overtaking the tricycle and jeepney, the truck approaching from the other direction seemed so much faster! And why not, it's uphill for me but downhill (and so much faster) for the truck. Gosh, I thanked my lucky stars I made it through that small (small for me anyway) space. The tricycle driver was probly scared as well (for me, that is). As I approached the tollgate, I just paused for a moment and pondered how much worse it could have been. The truck was heavy and was speeding downhill. Had I hit the truck head-on, it would've dragged me all the way down the bridge or worse, the truck could've hit me and me hit the tricycle AND the jeepney in a chain reaction. Scary.


The image above, incidentally, was my wallpaper many years ago back when wallpapers are just starting to be a rage. I remembered it and pasted it here as it is fitting in today's post.

I think I've misplaced my amber Speedo goggles. I've been using them for quite a while and didn't expect to lose them in this pool. I've asked the pool boy and he said that the tykes in the free swim lessons must've seen and taken it. Well I do have several pairs more and I'm not expecting it to be returned.

I saw Albert and Jeanette there at the pool today. Their kids were having lessons.

Up to June Only

Despite my being tired from the Tuesday's Starland swim, I still swam yesterday and today. I lost count on how many backstrokes I did on the full length. Just when I was pooped, I tried the regular breastsroke. I found it so much easier to breath on the second stroke, rather than every stroke! Wow. In the past, I was just gasping for air everytime. Now, I could even finish a whole length easily. Okay, I may not be fast, but at least it's seems so much easier now. Now that's improved conditioning.

This morning I learned from Mang Ruben that the pool may just be opened until June only. Management plans on closing it for the rainy season coz electricity cost is too high and they're losing money in that season. Actually, this just confirms what I heard from a worker there asking a co-worker when the resort closes. The other fellow said June. Mang Ruben said that his swimmers' renewals were not accepted - just like Prince's.

Haaayy. All good things must come to pass and this is one of them. What to do next? Try to find another pool? Hopefully with a membership option where I can swim anytime? Starland? Filinvest? St.Joseph? Find another long-time sport? Do more table tennis? My Power Walking is gaining ground and I'm now doing 2 laps. These Cracs are a God-send and feels like walking on clouds. They're so easy on the feet. Nowadays, I no longer wear them at the canteen. After eating I go up, and put them on and then walk.

I've had 3 yearly renewals with the pool and I'm sad that it's closing this year. On the bright side though, those 3 years were the best times I had in my swimming life coz I learned and improved so much. In those 3 years, I've had breakthroughs and milestones. I learned to tread, swim confidently and learned all sorts of water skills. And I'm so darned proud of it.

Family-Funded Funday at Starland

Today is a holiday and so I painted the roof tacks with roof paint. I started this at 6:30am and by 8am it was getting too hot. Then I put on the videoke disc I made and sang all the songs there. Gosh it took me an hour and a half to finish all.

There's no Family Funday this year at the office. No budget, no cash-convertible, no subsidy, nothing. So we came up with our own and calling it the Family-Funded Funday. It's been a looong time since we went to Starland at Metropolis and we know it's been renovated since then. And so we decided for a look-see and swim. The place has been refurbished, the slides removed and niced roofed areas for the tables were added. Too bad though that water was wasted with some of the leaking showers.

We got there a little around 10:30am coz of the horrendous traffic near the Alabang Tollgate. There were swimming lessons until 12noon and so we were not allowed in but we bought tickets at Php150 each just the same. DH suggested lunch and so we had an early lunch at the parking lot. Good thing there were now some benches in the area. That's Renz below at the right finding his spot and sitting on a cooler.


After lunch, more waiting. Here's Renz with a forced smile from Ate Dada. From afar (they went strollong), Karen wondered who I was talking to inside the car and thought it was a dog. Nopes, it was Renz.


Yup, the place is much better now. The unsightly old slides are now gone in this big pool. But maybe they should've gotten rid of the big post in the center as well. I had a mild case of leg cramps and concluded it was dehydration. My working on the roof was probly the culprit.


Now here's one thing I just don't understand. You go to the resort to have a fun time, to swim. There'll be lots of splashing, lots of food around. So when you go to the resort, you go: "Sunscreen lotion - check, swimsuit - check, towels - check, goggles - check, food and drinks - check". So why the heck would you bring a laptop? And not to mention the big security risk it poses. Mr. Laptop boy (with the yellow towel below)


Later in the afternoon, Renz had fun throwing coins for the sisters to dive for and retrieve. Funny, I didn't feel at all bloated in this outing. Maybe it's because I ate BEFORE the swim and not during. And I ate a lot! Hmmm, there's a tip right there.


We finally rounded up and left, tired but happy, at 5:30pm and had dinner at Jollibee Slex.