Sandro T. Rafael
RESET. I'll be offline for sometime, no posting here, no instant message, no email... I need to regain my balance, search a bit harder where I am now, and figure out what's my road ahead.
Thank you for everything I can never measure... with all the words I'll never have...
I'll be back soon... God Bless.
Went home very late last night (this morning)… (Yawn)
Nice to see my
Acer group friends are still together even most of us are working now in different companies and countries. Thanks to some people who always initiate to start a single email message saying simple Hi’s and Hello’s to all, and will be extended to knowing each situation and condition as we replied to all addressee. It’s always a blissful feeling that all of us doing great in our career – I believe, those who decided to stay in Acer are just equally successful as who left like us. Just keep up the good work and keeps on learning.
I hope someone from that group can find this message here in my biolog.
Don't be afraid to speak...
As what our GM said, he doesn’t want to see us working more than the working hours – so I’m going home now. Masunurin ako eh.
Dinner last night was really cool - very casual and relaxing mode. No company issues, no tension, just all laughers and fun. Eventually, our GM delivers a very short but meaningful casual speech in form of ordinary conversation what is the purpose of that dinner – to give us some kind of refreshment and breather after our exhausting and tiring dedication to our work. He hopes for us to stay and maintain our level of quality of work and to serve as a model for others. He specially mentioned that he doesn’t want to see us working more than the working hours (as he staring on me), rather we should enjoy longer outside work life.
Ten of us attended, and I’m pretty sure all enjoyed the food. It was held in
Bukhara a very
cozy Indian Restaurant. I never imagined myself I’ll love Indian food; but it was simply great. Or maybe because of my selection of menu – all recommended by a very hospitable kabayan waitress.
….I’m trying to post this message since this morning, but I’m unable to hit the ‘post’ button – very busy day for me today. Today is Thursday; end of the working week, and usually everyone is in relaxed mode and just waiting for the weekend – but not for me today.
Our GM invited me for a dinner tonight - I don’t know what’s the occasion… I’m still here in the office; probably I’ll go directly to that occasion, I have no much time left to go home and refresh myself. Hmmm… Eating time again.
Why I’m still here in the office? Curiously, I change some settings in one of my server – I knew it (but I just don’t think about it) that once I change such area, there would be a chain effect to major parts of server configuration. That’s why I’m still here in the office updating and checking the whole system.
Oyez Oyez Oyez. Finally, after quite some time, I ate lunch in the canteen. Our Chef (a personal friend of mine) gimme a call this morning that he’s preparing my favorite seafood menu. The next thing happened is I’m here suffering “too much eating”. I really hate this feeling – I can’t read, I can’t think, all I want to do is to sleep.
So what I did is to browse Internet and find something interesting I can listen to (remember I can’t read) – and I discover one new great audio site
The Oyez Project. Here you can hear US Supreme Court arguments dating back to 1955 (when recording first began).
The Bush vs Gore arguments are online there already. There something truly fascinating about listening to some of the most important issues being argued by greatest minds before the highest court.
Interesting right? It must be.
What does Oyez mean? It's what the clerk of the court says before court sits. It's a corruption of the Latin for "listen." Click
here to hear the Marshall of the US Supreme Court announce the arrival of the justices.
Okay, it’s not really a seminar; it’s like a brief presentation given by our Internal Auditor about
Corporate Governance, Internal Control, and Risk Identification and Assessment. Kinda boring and dull type of session especially to some attendees who don’t have interest in this area. But for me this is very important and I have special interest in these unfamiliar corporate_world issues. Even before this presentation, me and the Internal Auditor talked about these topics many times both formal and informal. Actually I was the one who encouraged him to create a concrete policy and procedure, as well as to give awareness to each employee about the risk and importance of accountability, control and responsibility in our work. Most of the material and subject he presented was based from our original idea we collaborated before and of course he polished it to be more presentable and understandable by all employee.
Personally, I feel that general session is not enough, and maybe we need to have individual session for each department to be more precise and specific in their own area.
Oh man, this is like a community service to my company. It feels good inside - I hope I can extend this enthusiasm and I can sacrifice more time to focus in these very important issues. These are the hidden reasons why a company even with a good market or good employee or even good management and capital still fails or at least struggle.
Wew! This is a huge topic and maybe you’ll find it boring rather than interesting. According to our Internal Auditor very less people really think and truly care about these issues I’m talking about, instead people are trying to avoid this subject and see everything are normal and fine. This is true; in fact, I reminded him that this was the exact reason why the previous Internal Auditor (the one he replaced) was removed in this company, because of doing his job and being a little bit more active as we are now and some concerned person are maybe afraid of reality and interpreted it as hindrance in their irresponsible management – so we need to be careful whatever steps we will do. Company politics is as dangerous as national politics and even sometimes worst.
I’m attending a seminar right now about “risk assessment in my work"... I’ll tell you more about this... Finally my company has now awareness… good sign.
need to go home now. pretty tiring day but productive one. this morning, i'm extremely happy because i trained the employee i hate most in this company. 'twas really tough specially when we are starting - naturally he's giving me all the reasons to lost my cool but i'm just keeping my patience and we ended fruitfully. after the training, we spend talking about our family, religion, beliefs and other personal stuffs.
What is MindGuard?: "MindGuard is a program that protects your mind by jamming and/or scrambling psychotronic mind-control signals and removing harmful engrammic pollutants from your brain. It also has the ability to scan for and decipher into English specific signals so you can see exactly Who wants to control you and what They are trying to make you think."
A promising software - I'll try this and I'll let you know.
Miriam's Big Mouth Part 2 - Speaking in Filipino, she said that if she were president, she would throw the rich people of Makati in jail, and require them to read the Bible and the Constitution. Having taught constitutional law at the University of the Philippines, she would administer to them an exam on the subject. "At pag bumagsak sila, ipapapatay ko silang lahat (If they flunk it, I'll have them all executed)," she declared... "Kapag ako’y nakabalik sa Senado, dahil ako’y chairman ng constitutional amendments, babaguhin natin ang Saligang Batas. Ibabalik natin si Pangulong Estrada sa Malacañang".
[See also
Part 1]
a chaos going on right now in F1... as heavy rain and some oil spill caused all the cars spinned out of the track. maybe they will stop this race...
>no! the race still on going... and my ferraris are in 9th and 10th position and 10 secs behind leading DC. go schumi! go! you can still win this race!
>interesting race now... :) as my ferraris are in 3rd and 4th position, and just 1 sec behind DC.
>whoa! Schumi is now leading! and guess who behind him? Barrichello! hehehe! yes!
>this is it... Schumi already 17 secs ahead of Coulthard! While the average time of the rest is 1:56 the Ferraris post 1:50's. we're just in 18th of 55 laps... still long way to go. are u enjoying reading this? no ur not... i don't care... hehehe...
>A great battle between Frentzen and Schumacher Jr (Ralf) - i hope he can make it thru the pendulum - right now he's in 7th...
>Ralf is now ahead of Hakkinen at 4th behind Barrichello and Coulthard as Schumi still heading and extending the gap. wow! i'm really enjoying this race.
>Schumi clocks 1:47.9, his brother Ralph 1:45.6, Hakkinen 1:47.7. Obviously Schumi is driving securely now. If Ralf continues like that he will get David Coulthard, who is just 11 secs ahead. 21 laps to go.
>Ralf very fast indeed now, posting 1:43 compared to DC's 1:45. hope to see the Schumacher brothers both in the podium. Go Ralf!
>after some pit stops Ralf is now in 5th, Hakkinen 6th. 11 laps to go. and hakkinen is pushing really hard and could still overtake the Williams if he continues to be fast.. 9 laps to go.
>Only 2.4 secs between Ralf Schumacher and Hakkinen and obviously Ralf's brakes are on the limit as they produce a lot of dust. 4 laps to go. as Schumi still leads 31 secs ahead of Barrichello, 38 ahead of Coulthard then Frentzen, R Schumacher, Hakkinen, and Verstappen.
>ITS OVER! Michael Schumacher wins! Barrichello 2nd, DC 3rd, Frentzen 4th, and guess who's in 5th? Ralf or Hakkinen?... Ralf Schumacher ends up in 5th, Hakkinen 6th. nice job Ralf against Mika!
END of the race.
Nice to see that Jussel find this site, and not only that he’s willing to contribute. If you can afford time and if you have interest Osel, I can setup your own webpage. For the meantime, I’ll give your own section here and post your writings.
For other's information: Jussel or Osel the way I call him is my best friend back in elementary grades and up to now. Before you guys know me, he’s the first person that knows me from the root.
Not only that, he’s also my cousin.
Start again of working week. Yesterday, I have some doubt whether we have work today or not due to that holiday. Ordinarily if the holiday here in Qatar coincides with our 2 days off, it will be carried to the next working day. But yesterday’s case was an emergency holiday and was proclaimed only Friday night – no time for my company to officially announce that we have holiday today. Anyway, I’m here now in the office and working – it doesn’t make sense to talk about this.
TODAY has been declared a holiday in Qatar on the occasion of the
end of the border dispute between the state and Bahrain.
Malaysian Grand Prix Qualifying Result - Look who's on the top? Whoa! Tomorrow will be a great race.
how's my new layout? please gimme feedback.
uhmmmmm.... early to bed, early to rise... good morning everybody. today is my rest day. oh today is meat-free day also. try to abstain from it or do a fasting. it will feel you better not only spritually but also physiologically.
btw, what's the difference of abstinence and fasting? also annulment and divorce?
oh yeah... this getting better now... :)
maintaining simplicity is my main goal here... suggestion please...
hey! i'm doing some changes in my layout... please bear with me for some time my pages is not loading the way u expected. give me a shout also how's my new layout looks like, whether u love it or u hate it.
wew! i'm kinda tired... but happy.
From this
article that says Body Mass Index (BMI) determines attractiveness,
onlineMD offers you a
BMI Calculator. Not only that, it will tell you also your body surface area, lean body weight, and your ideal body weight.
Let's see how attractive you are...
Hips and Waists and Science and Sex. Yesterday, I received an email article forwarded by a friend and caught my attention, it's all about
The Science of Sex. Among other interesting things - such as the importance of
symmetry to beauty, which I'd read about before - the email talked about the hip/waist ratio and
how it equates to perceived beauty in women. Though the evolutionary argument for this seems
dubious to some saying BMI matter more. Apparently the same hip/waist ratio is preferred among all cultures - which challenges the common notion that attractiveness ideals are dictated purely by fashion. Certainly that's true for some characteristics, such as overall girth, but believe it or not, according to the email,
Kate Moss has the exact same hip/waist ratio
Marilyn Monroe had.
This science is interesting!
The science of sex appeal - "Tests carried out at the University of Northumbria last year showed that women found ugly men more attractive when they were secretly exposed to the chemicals found in their armpits."
Just now, I’m eating an apple…funny thing is when I was in pantry to wash it before eating; I asked our tea boy (for the first time) if he has a knife... and right away he gave me a sharp one.
I
stare him just like asking, “Why you’re not giving this to me before?” and he answer me back in
smile just like saying, “because you’re not asking it…”.
I’m working in this company for almost 2 years now, and I’m eating apple, pears and other similar fruits almost everyday without peeling it.
Tag line of the story:
May tawag sa taong kagaya ko, it starts with letter
T.
F1 = 220 mph + 17000 rpm + 500000 lines of code - Fast-forward computational dynamics are in the driver's seat of today's F1 cars. This isn't just a race - it's a technology war.
Manoy and me are great followers of this war. Go
Ferrari! Go
Schumi! I’m very excited in this year’s race, as Ferrari sent ominous warnings to rival McLaren in
Melbourne last week at the 2001 season opener, putting on a show of stunning form with its slick F2001 contender.
I love this race!
What Can I Do About Pimples? -
onlineMD have answers and some advice for that.
The Scarlet Pimplenel - "You know that line in Mulan where Mushu exclaims that the Huns popped out of the snow, 'like daisies'? Well, that’s similar to the way my pimples popped out. Once, I was blemish-free. Now, I’m a pimple factory."
Of course I’m not the one saying that...
I’m late today! I made a wrong judgment in my route. I know since the other day that there is a construction going on in that road but I still selected that short way. Bad start of the day.
I’m feeling sorry to 2 of my users today who lost some of their important data. The first one is really his fault, by doing some mistake and accidentally deleting his own data – silly! But the other one is kind of mysterious, probably done by other ruthless users or by a virus. I still don’t know because all his profiles including logs were all gone without any trace. I was stuck in these 2 cases most of the time today. Figuring out what happened and trying to recover data from outdated backups.
Large Criminal Hacker Attack on Windows NTE-Banking and E-Commerce Sites - The FBI and Secret Service are taking the unprecedented step of releasing detailed forensic information from ongoing investigations of the IIS, MS SQL Server and Windows NT breakins. "We don't normally post news about exploits, but the scale here is massive: more than a million credit cards have been taken in a blackmail-extortion operation that has been going on for a year." Says
SANS.
Everyone in the office observed that I gained weight – yes indeed. Also they are expecting that I spend my vacation reading and studying – nahhh.
Funny thing here in my company after this kind of long vacation most of my users have troubled in remembering password. This morning I spend most of the time unlocking and changing password.
It is a custom here of shaking hands and embracing (as if you missed each other so much) as a form of greetings. And this morning, as my routine work to visit and check the status of my network hubs in each building, I met lots and different kind of people. You can’t imagine how I smell now!
My vacation is now over. Mixed of fun and wasted time. I spend most of it watching movie, over-sleeping, late-night-sleeping, and just driving around. I tried to break my routine stuffs and I’m unable to answer many email and other online responsibilities, including technical support and personal one. I’ll try to attend all of them today.
Sniff, I’ll study first your idea about the project. Meanwhile, you can send the copy of your proposal to Gecko, if I’m not mistaken his group had similar scheme in the past but was vaporize. Please let me know about the status.
Belated happy birthday to Daisy. I’m very sorry if I’m unable to greet you on time.
Vivian I don’t believed it! You have now a BF? What happened Arnell? hehehe… Good luck Vivz and take care of it.
Okidoki, I need to work now…
Nice to be back – after 3 days of virtually disconnected to the online world. So, how’s everybody? I have good news for you. Mama responded positively in her mild chemo. It means she will maintain this kind of mild treatment. Praise God! In-behalf of my family we want to thank you for your prayers. Please continue praying for her.
Recently I came across a wide golden Thread hanging from a great gray sky. This one sparkled, and glittered, and swayed just so. I wanted to grab hold.. I smiled when my fingers closed around the end and I found that it was stronger than I thought. I became light like a floating feather and into the air I went.. tears came to my eyes when I looked down.. the Thread had taken me to a place I've been many times before, where the rays of the setting sun are present but fleeting.. soon darkness will come.
But then the Thread reminded me that the sun wasn't setting at all, I looked again, and sure enough, it was rising! It was morning and the day had yet to begin..
Copyright and all rights reserved by sniff. Posted here with permission.
For a change, i would like to share with you these self expressions of a friend. Maybe some of you will be able to relate with them. These are stories about the mundane theme of unrequited love. It's not very rare that we find ourselves loving someone who we wish would love us back but as much as they want to, they just can't. Love is felt not coerced. It simply comes and goes. That is the mystery of love. We can't question it's coming and going. In the end, we are left with no choice but to accept the truth that the person who we love cannot love us back and we just have to move on as hard as it is.
NEW HOPE (prelude to WHEN HOPE DIES)
new hope springs
a new season
a new reason for being
in your eyes
where heaven is
in your soul
where my treasure is
you are a gift
with you
i feel alive and complete
it's impossible
not to fall
in love with you
everyday
you are
worth waiting for
to grow with
to share life with
+++
WHEN HOPE DIESonce again
i succumbed
to the natural law
of birth and death
... of beginning and end
with a heavy heart
with trembling knees
with teary eyes
i surrender
... of summer and winter
as if those
magical moments
had no meaning
nothing to treasure
... of spring and fall
sometimes
it is our fear
that we have to conquer
Trivia (from the author): When this poem was read by the person whom it was written for, he actually liked it :) He said he has not read poems like these for a long time.
i have some minor headache right now. i want to close my eyes always - i can't stare computer monitor for long time. maybe this is due to my over sleeping.
my new web site is up now. according to sniff the reason of long down time was the service provider did some upgrades, meaning they're are providing better service now. let's see, and i'll try to observe first for a while before putting the new site online and available to you.
Still I'm unable to access my new web site… sniff where are you? I’ll *kill* you!
Nice to hear that my good friend and guru back in our
Acer time -
Ray is now a CCNA and preparing his CCNP and CCSA; and have an interview today going to US. All the best RayCer.
Oh yeah, I did a kick-start of my vacation; I clean my room and rearrange all my stuffs, specially my network cable. My room network is now running in 100Mbps. I have lots of thing to accomplish this holiday and I can’t wait to start it all.
Heck! I wakeup smiling and my mind is full of imagination to start coding of my new web site but *sniff and gecko read this* the server that hosting my new site is inaccessible. Grrrrr. I need to shop around again and this time I’m willing to pay for a better service if necessary. It just proved that there’s no free-thing anymore in this world if you’re after a QoS (quality of service). Hell to FreiXsm! Where’s now the net-community that I’m serving (for free)? I just need a FREE place for my house.
in the lower part of my page; i have an experimental cute search engine. give it a try to search something and report any bugs or error you can find.
i'm still working with ducks. wew!
nanana.... lalala...lalalalalala...la (singing mode)
peculiar thing happens sometimes... this morning, i'm very cool knowing i don't have any pending job to finish. my plan is to try hacking my new site and present it to you for evaluation. but heck, after posting my last blog here, my phone starts ringing... and the rest of the day is
working with ducks.
got a new web host now. thanks sniff for giving me this account. i'm still in the process of developing and designing that new site. if i can have enough spare time today, i'll make it available for public access.
i'll maintain simplicity and plain in design. don't expect any major changes - it will be similar theme to this site. i'm only after the scripting which means those are all invisible to you. i'll not give details what's the true reason why i want advance programming and scripting in a web page - you'll be alarm and will be afraid visiting that site. well, let's see how far i can go.
