This must be one of the busiest summers I've ever had.  No, it's not about the back to back presentations I've had scheduled in the previous post.  That's the less exciting part.

The fun part is here...

108 holes of golf in two weeks.  Daily trek from Metro Manila to Cavite for my son's tee time.







































"Me and My Dad Camp" in foothills of Tanay, Rizal with my daughter.
















(Reluctant to smile as she hides her "secret")
































Marshmallows and hotdogs over a bonfire.

















It's a busy summer indeed.  But it has been the best summer by far.

Much of this blog, blindsided, is about retirement and the age of 40.  I turned 40 yesterday.  If what they say is true about life beginning at 40, then this is where everything begins.

I had a lot of time to do some thinking yesterday while watching my son's golf game.  I saw him tee off at hole #1 but couldn't see any further action until he came around again within full view at hole #5.  So here are some random thoughts tumbling in my mind within those three holes that I couldn't see my son playing.

1) Life doesn't really begin at 40.  For any person, real life begins the moment he/she accepts Jesus Christ as Lord/Savior/Ruler/Boss/Manager.  Whatever age that event takes place in one's life, that is when real life begins.  After all, we don't really know what life is all about until THE Author of Life maps it out for us.  I am extremely thankful that I was introduced to the real and living Jesus Christ in my college days.  Why do I say "the real and living Jesus Christ"?  It's because prior to that eventful day in 1984, Jesus for me was merely a "religious construct" - an idea which prodded me to try to stay on the right side of the road and avoid mishaps with sin, wrongdoing, and breaking the law (whether human laws or Divine laws).  I thank the many people who had a part to play in this wherein I eventually surrendered to God and said, "Jesus , come and rule my life".  Truly life as it was intended begins there.

2) I can only be grateful to God alone for how he has taken me through life so far despite my human frailty.  The entire day yesterday, this old song kept ringing in my head:

How can I say thanks
For the things You have done for me;
Things so undeserved
That you gave to prove your love for me;
The voices of a million angels could not express
My gratitude
All that I am and ever want to be
I owe it all to Thee

To God Be The Glory
For the things He has done
With His blood He has saved me
With His power He has raised me
To God Be The Glory
For the things He has done

With emphasis to that line, Things so undeserved, I am blown away by the fact that despite all the wickedness that lurks in man's heart, God still shows extreme kindness no matter how undeserving we are.  I look around at what non-material things God has immensely blessed  me with - a wonderful life partner, two beautiful and bubbly kids, friends, family, the fact that all my limbs are in place and working well, I can only say, "God!  What did I do to deserve this?".  If God were a merciless God who dealt with people according to the deceit and wickedness buried in their hearts, I should be blind, maimed and without speech by now.

Thank you God for being a God of mercy and love.

God is truly a great God!

-to be continued.

Omeng Cervantes once said about me (just about 2 years ago), "Hindi ka naman tunay na Ilonggo a!".  That is true - and I must confess.  Despite all the trappings of my Bacolod ways, I was actually born in Manila and grew up in Yabut-land long before it became Binay-land.

Welcome folks to my version of The Wonder Years.





The street where I lived.






















Rustan's.  Gilarmi Hotel had this large TOYOTA neon sign atop it.

Kimpura was located where Glorietta 4 is today.


















Paseo de Rozas cor. Makati Ave.  Alba's Restaurant was located atop the Dona Sisang Building.















EDSA before I littered it with billboards.




















Scenes from Makati Commercial Center with my Mom and cousin.

In the background, Sulo with its trademark vinta roof designed by Arch. Manosa.















Long before there was Bonifacio High Street, there were already the signature Ayala trellises and fountains paved along the walkways.  As such, Boni Hi Street is merely a deja vu.















Rizal Theater.  Yummy spaghetti at Leila's!
















                                                                               

I don't know who these guys are but being a Makati boy, I know this was taken at the corner of Jupiter and Comet St.  From there you could see all the way to Ayala Ave.  The large building behind is the Insular life building at the corner of Ayala and Paseo de Roxas.





















Automat Restaurant.  Nearby (obscured on the left where the VW beetle is) is the SM Shoemart of old.  Behind the two girls walking was Mercury Drug.






First photo:  Ayala cor. Buendia.  Shell Maya Station wasn't even there yet.

New Beginnings was first posted close to three years ago.  Today, the sequel.

I have found that the month of April is like a January of sorts for me and my family.  Most of the milestones in our lives happen around this period.  At one time, we had four reasons to celebrate on a single Sunday in April.  That would have been the child dedication of my eldest daughter Bea, my birthday, the housewarming of the first house my wife and I built as a couple, and my wife's entry into a new job with the Department of Justice as a prosecutor (often commonly known as a fiscal) in Bacolod.

Today, while technically still in March, it certainly feels like April.  I feel like a Dad who is so giddy to bring his first child to school on the first day.  Only this time, I will be bringing my wife to her first day at work in her new job.

After close to eight years of serving the Republic of the Philippines as a prosecutor in the Department of Justice, she moves on to work as a lawyer with the Development Bank of the Philippines.  The time spent as a fiscal has allowed her so much legal insight into the nooks and crannies of life in the Philippines.

A concrete example would be that for a considerable amount of time, she has served in the family court of Mandaluyong, which is the venue for annulments, adoptions, and other family-related cases within the city's jurisdiction.  There, she has found that money is never indeed the elixir to happiness.  Annulments arise from the residents of a highly prominent subdivision in the city over the strangest of circumstances.  These stories are an attestation to the notion that "truth is stranger than fiction".  The plots in the cases she handles would put the writers of 'Marimar' and 'Maging Sino Ka Man' to shame.  I told her that when the time is right, she could be a consultant to scriptwriters of telenovelas. LOL!

She has also discovered that the law school one hails from merely provides "badge value" when lawyers are in what I'd call "marketing mode".  One's law school is hardly an assurance that they will perform well in court.  This causes us to smile whenever we're in this certain mall situated within walking distance to a well known law school.  The kids must be deluded into thinking that studying while sipping Starbucks coffee will enhance their performance in court in the years to come. 

As it was, the career with the prosecution has come to an end at the same time work drew to a halt for Holy Week.

A new chapter now unfolds.  And as I think of the fact that we are both in the neighborhood of 40, indeed, life truly begins here.

My wife just turned 40 last month.  I catch up in a few months time by April 2008.  The season between her 40th birthday and mine seems to mark a special period for us as we take advantage of major redirections in our lives.  Added to this, we will be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary this coming June 12, 2008 (yes, nag Centennial Wedding po kami).  So the time from her birthday last month up to June 12 of next year looks like an exciting chapter.  Two milestone birthdays and a milestone anniversary.

When people say that life begins at 40, they ought to know what are the mechanics behind the statement.  Here lies the clincher: you see, in our 20s, we usually have all the energy and the time but hardly the money.  In our 30s, we have the money and the energy and the money, but we don't have the time.  Later in life as we grow old, we have the money, we have the time, but we don't have the energy.  Ergo, the emphasis on 40.

My personal belief is that people should strike the perfect equilibrium of time, energy, and money at about age 40 (40 is just the ballpark number; it could be a bit sooner, it could be a bit later).  What a person ought to do at 40 cannot be dictated upon.  There's a myriad of activities and life pursuits to take on given the various personalities and temperaments we all represent.  However, at this point, ideally, there should hardly be an excuse for having a lack of any of the three elements. 

"Carpe Diem" as Eden Nares would always say.

Here's an item I saw on the Inquirer. net.  I'm reposting it here for your convenience but at the same time supplying the link.

Click here.

You may browse the article but please, do not fail to read my comment below.  Cheers!

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Do you really want to retire early?

Posted under Millionaires, retirement

When I was in my early 20s, I longed to retire at 30. Now that I have reached that marvelous age (plus several years), I realize I need more time. Besides, I can’t imagine not doing what I’m doing now. I would probably be lost without my writing that constantly defines and affirms every day who I am and what are the little things I can do to leave my little mark in this world.

A retirement survey by HSBC called The Future of Retirement in fact showed that many Filipinos would like to work even after they retire.

Boy Javier, an advertising executive, on the other hand, decided to get off the train early. And he is having the time of his life, according to this MoneySense article in the personal finance section of INQUIRER.net.

When I “retired,” I stopped wearing a watch and abandoned most things attached to it. An hour or a day or a week is totally irrelevant. Now is important. Now is forever.

Now I am reading a book. Now I am playing with my three granddaughters, cooking pasta, diving in Anilao, putting for my fifth bogey in the front nine. Now I am free! When I set my watch aside, I did not “retire.” I went off the train and took the bike into the unknown.

It’s been eight years since I retired. That bike has taken me to dreamland – to islands in the Visayas and Mindanao, some so small they could not be found on ordinary maps; to a farm in Lipa where there is always fruit in season and a hammock and a beer for listening to music with; to cheap bookstores so I could renew ties with Sufi and Zen masters, pundits of Wall Street and corporate America and journeymen of the sports and spiritual varieties; to hospitals where I awaited the wondrous births of my three granddaughters, made vigil over my wife’s thyroid operation, and anguished over my mother’s long and fatal battle with a stroke; to the kitchen where I experimented with pasta, meat, and seafood; to Palawan…to Boracay…to Thailand. Have you ever been held by border police while crossing Juarez into Texas?

It all sounds so…I don’t know…ideal? Romantic? Is this what I want with my retirement too? Then should I do everything to retire by 40? 50?

I want to feel this way now. I don’t want to wait till I’m 40 or 50, or even formally retired from work. I don’t think the age and the formal status matters. Filipinos need to do the work that they love so that it doesn’t feel like work. (Easier said than done, I know). Yet if we do find that Holy Grail, then perhaps we all don’t have to formally cross that “retirement” line.

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My comment:  Retirement is such a broad subject.  Especially nowadays when the entire concept of a "traditional retirement" as characterized in the industrial age no longer exists.  Hey, we've long crossed over into the age of information.  There's a whole new meaning to retirement now (another blog entry on that soon).

At any rate, here's what I have to say about the article.  I admire the blog writer's intent to pose this question, "Do you really want to retire early?".  However, in posing such, I feel that the writer is speaking primarily to male readers.  I may even go to the extent of reading between the lines that he is not posing the question to his readers but is in fact subliminally POSING THE QUESTION TO HIMSELF.

Look at it this way, I have been married quite long enough to know that you should not even dare pose a question like this to a woman.  After all, there are very, very few women who would like to be chained to a desk or be a cube-monkey.  If women had their way, they would spend the entire day doing SSS ...shopping, salon, spa, shopping, sipping Starbucks, socializing with the ladies, shopping, etc. ....of course apart from the other social responsibility and spiritual pursuits.

Do you really want to retire early?  In my mind I can hear the women say, "You're barking up the wrong tree".

There's this neat time calculator on the internet at www.timeanddate.com .  You can actually calculate the time between two dates down to the last minute.  I recently calculated the time from now until my 40th birthday.  The answer : 40 weeks.

With that in mind, I should write down the 40 things I want to do before I turn 40.  That way I'd have one week to do one item on the list.  Now, to get my pen and paper....

What's so important about being 36?  More specifically, 36 years and eight months old.

Let me tell you.

At the age of 36 years and eight months old, you would have only 40 months left before you turn 40.

If you were to make a list entitled "Forty things I would like to do before I turn Forty", this would mean that you'd have at least one item to do every month as you wind down the days to the big 4-0.  That way, your list would be more realistic as you could rename it to "Forty things I would like to do in the Forty Months before I turn Forty".

Not unless of course you are a crammer and you would prefer to have a list entitled "Forty things I would like to do in the Forty DAYS before I turn Forty"