Garry & Tess’ Cassava Cake Recipe

I just woke up and heard the answering machine giving this tone that implies that there is a saved message. I got up and pressed the play button.

It was a message for Mama and Papa from Garry who needs the cassava cake recipe again. Since I saved it in the sent items in my email software, I am posting it here on the blog so it will never get lost, if ever they will need it again. Just visit http://cassavacake.benjarriola.com and it will always forward to this page.

Below is a copy of my previous email:


Hi Garry,Here is the recipe from Mama that you requested, I just took notes from Mama and this is what she said:

Ingredients:

-3 Bags of Grated Cassava
-1 Can of Coconut Milk
-1 Bottle of Macapuno
-1 Bottle of Sweet Jackfruit (Langka)
-1 Can of Condensed Milk.

Mix all ingredients except the condensed milk and cook. Once you think it is cook, then that is the time to add the condensed milk.

Since I brought my PC here in San Diego, we were able to print all the pictures you sent and Mama and Papa were really happy to see you all.

See you in August, take care.

Benj

How’s Everything!

Summary in a few words:

Unemployed
Still looking for a job, 2nd Screening for Lindows
Trying to close a deal
Having fun Chatting with Marcia
Passed the Driver’s License Exam
Joined a Taekwondo School

The Brief Details:

After applying for tons of jobs on Monster.com and HotJobs.com ever since I came here, on the first batch of jobs I applied for, one already replied saying I passed the initial screening and was asked to fill up another questionnaire for the second screening. The company was Lindows, Inc.. Position as a PHP / MySQL Programmer

I got a proposal with a major publication company for my company YDS Web Solution, and it is still in the works. No contract signing yet, but if ever I get this, this will be a major break for my company in the States.

Marcia bought a webcam and headset with microphone so I’m happy to see her in the flesh and hear her as well. I get to talk to and see Jamie as well.

I took the examination at the Department of Motor Vehicles for my driver’s license and passed the examination with a perfect 100%. They gave me a temporary license that I could use till September 20, 2004 until I get my actual driving examination.

Just joined Champion Taekwondo Academy under Master Won K Min. They are WTF style so my belt will be accredited. In the Philippines I am a high red belt, where that is 3 belts away from Black Belt, and Master Kim was offering me the same belt, 3 belts away from black belt, but I asked for a belt one step lower since it has been 1996 since the my last active practice of taekwondo. I might be pressured with the same ranking and my skill depleted through the years. I might get beat up with the same belt so I opted for one belt lower.

Of course Master Min knows Master Sung Chun Hong of the Philippines and I told him I am a student of the student of Master Hong. With my hyperthyroidism still hyper, I took some tapazole to lower my thyroid activity to lessen my heart rate in preparation for later, which is my first Taekwondo class in years. I will do some stretching before I leave so my body won’t have a big adjustment.

Hello to my family, I miss you all.

Setting Foot on US Ground

First thing I noticed was the sunlight. The sun was still up high and it was 8:00 pm. I’ve been living so long in an equatorial country like the Philippines, and observing the effect of the 23o angle of the axis of rotation of the earth was pretty cool. It is summer time and during these months of the year, the northern hemisphere is receiving a lot of sunlight, and the southern hemisphere should be winter time. In extreme polar regions, up north it is daytime everyday and down south, it is nighttime everyday.

Mama and Papa gave me a warm welcome. Uncle Totoy and Auntie was there and they were cool tool. As we hit the road, the roads were still clean, nearly white. Comparing it to the roads in the Philippines, if they reach one year or more, they start to get dirty, nearly black. Due to combustion exhaust probably. All roads were fast flowing and very wide. So there was no traffic as the traffic you experience in the Philippines. Flyovers are seldom since the volume of vehicles is in correct proportion with the road size, having nearly no traffic at all. I learned that there are also diesel vehicles but are seldom since gasoline stations with diesoline is also seldom. And the major cause of smoke belching in the Philippines is diesel engines not in tip-top shape.

Even aboard the plane, California seemed to have mountainous areas as well as planar areas. And on the road, you will always pass by a hill or two. Inhabited land grows certain shrubs and are a bit far apart, even grass is far apart and they look dry. Unlike in the Philippines, land with nothing is filled with the tall grass Talahib. Plants and trees were also hard to recognize what specie they were.

My global roaming Smart phone got a AT&T Wireless signal and as we kept moving, it occasionally changes to Cingular. Yahoo Messenger was still working well with my roaming phone. Each text message I sent back to the Philippines cost me P15, even for balance inquiry!

One probably reason why the all streets seemed clean is I noticed the soil, it looks sandy and sand is not that soluble in water to you don’t get much mud as you get in the Philippines. The mountainous area I saw over the plane really looks rock hard and topsoil is usually formed by erosion on higher areas that move soil down below. But the mountains here look like they do not have much soil to erode.

Although flies, mosquitoes, spiders and cockroaches seem a lot more seldom here, I’ve seen a few. Flies here are a bit gray with raisin-backs. In the Philippines, although I also see these flies there too, flies in the Philippines are generally smooth and black backs. I haven’t noticed the mosquitoes that much and when I saw one, Mama was trying to kill it right away. I saw a gray walking spider and was wondering what it was doing in the house since I didn’t notice much mosquitoes nor flies that it could eat. The cockroaches I’ve noticed are mostly small and I can’t see their wings and has transparent skin. Maybe I have yet to see the full grown cockroaches and notice the difference. But for sure the flies are different since flies in the Philippines start to die in air conditioned rooms.

Well that’s all for today, other observations on some other post. Got to go back to work.

The trip to the US

The first long plane trip I had was in December 1978. Can’t remember much then and I was 5 years old. I was probably asleep most of the time.

In December 1999, I flew again to the US. It was a day trip so there was a lot more to see..

Today, it’s July 2004, I had a night trip. And for me the experience is a bit boring.

At the airport:
It was my first time to 1) fly straight to US, MNL to LAX, 2) ride on PAL, 3) depart from the Centennial Terminal.

The Centennial Terminal seems far way better than the NAIA Terminal. It’s newer than NAIA, and has less people.

My Baggage Problem
Each passenger is allowed to check-in 2 baggages both not more than 70lbs. And a handcarry baggage not more than 15lbs according to PAL’s websites. (Some frequent flyers I know said that you could bring a 15lbs or less shoulder bag and a 25lbs or less bag with wheels. Another said you could bring anything as long as it’s less than or equal to 25lbs. Another person advised me as long as I can carry it and it fits in the overhead compartment.) I had a 25lbs sports bag as my handcarry.

When I was packing up, I left a lot of clothes as well as my printer and scanner that once I get there I’m going to check if it’s cheaper to have them sent over, or for me to buy new ones in the States.

Being the computer freak that I am, I had a bunch of tools with me. Aside from the standard screwdrivers and pliers, I had RJ11 and RJ45 connectors and crimping tools, a soldering iron and some lead. On the xray machine, they saw these in my handcarry bag. And they said I cannot bring it. I insisted that I should bring it since I need them with my work. So since my boxes were both less than 70lbs, they checked-in my tools in the cargo which was also 2.4lbs.

On the Plane
I could say it was boring since it was night time. I could not see a thing but lights down below. Nothing special, you could see the same thing at Antipolo.

Since it was dark and I had no sleep the night before, I spent most of the time sleeping in the plane.

The only thing I noticed were these:
1) The TV screens were showing real-time data, speed, temperature, distance, time at departing country, time at arriving country. At a speed of 136km/hr the plane started to rise! What wonders wings can do! I drive a car sometimes reaching 120km/hr and is still on the ground, and the plane is so heavy and large that it only needs 100+km/hr to lift off! Cool isn’t it?

2) On the ground I looked outside the window, I see nothing but lights since it’s night time. After sometime, I saw moisture build up. So what? That happens when it’s cold. After sometime again, I noticed crytals on the window. I was actually between the glasses since there is a thick glass for the outside of the plane, and the thin glass that you see and touch from the inside of the plane. The crystal were actually water crystals that form the famous structure sometimes drawn in oversized proportions as Christmas decorations signifying snow. This struction is actually a fractal pattern which is a exponential (or logarithmic) pattern that goes over and over again. This happen in solid water (which is ice) but is not observable in large quantities of ice since they are stuck so much together. You could observe this in small quantities but if would be hard to view it from your freezer since once you take out a chunk of ice and try to break it into smaller pieces, they melt and it is no longer solid water but liquid water. Actually you may get to see it when it is snowing since the whole surroundings is cold that thinner layers of ice do not melt right away and you could see the crytal structure. Once property easily observable here is that when this happens, water turns into white and no longer transparent. (So that explains why clouds are white, they are water, but solid water, but not stuck together but a very fine particles.)

So back to the window… In the gaseous state, molecules are farther apart, and are closer in liquid and closest in solids. So the air between the two glasses in the window already had water in the first place. As the plane went higher, temperature dropped and so did pressure and it reached freezing point (which is 0oC and is even higher as lower pressures. Meaning when the pressure gets lower, it is easier to freeze water.) I saw in the monitor on the TV screens on the plane that the temperature was -570oC! That’s subzero! Any glass of water outside the plane should really be ice! And since between the glasses was only a small amount of water vapor, thus with a very small amount and stable temperature and pressure way up there, I was able to see the nice pretty crystals, just like the ones you see during Christmas on some decorations. Cool isn’t it? Literally really cool!

Marcia’s Eavesdropping and House Interior is Still a Mess!

Last night Marcia was able to talk to one of the clients of the company where she works who had a truck and some helping hands whom we asked some assistance in moving big stuff from our Teresa Heights house to the North Olympus house.

Some of the stuff didn’t not fit through the tight house and they need to be carried through the second floor window. Since it was already night time, we decided to work on this the following day.

While Marcia was dusting the things in the garage, she heard some of our neighbors talking about us saying: “Mayaman ‘ata sila, iba’t ibang sasakyan pumupunta dyan, pati ‘yung van, sa kanila ‘ata. Puro bata at mukhang mga anak mayaman mga pumupunta.” (“I think they’re rich, different kinds of cars go here, and the van parked there, I think is also theirs. The people that go here are young and seem to be children of rich people.”)

All I can say about that is…….. nyhahahahahaha. Me? Rich? nyhahahahahaha….

They see a lot of different vehicles, yes they do…

-My Blue ’93 Lancer: I still owe my Sister and Bro-in-law P15,000, my last balance for buying the second-hand car from them

-Kuya Jeff’s L300 from Bicol that my in-laws use for going to Manila.

-Rene, my Bro-in-Law’s Toyota Revo.

-Puking’s Car

-Harry’s Van

-Louie’s Mad Max Harley-Like Motorcycle

-Adam’s L300.

The only one that is mine is the blue lancer, and it is not even fully paid yet! 😀

Young and looks like rich kids… Yes we do look young, I still believe we are young. Look like rich kids? I guess not. Maybe we are just conversationalist and knows a lot of things under the sun. And this knowledge is sometimes perceived to be part of being rich.

In my previous post you could see that the house from the outside relatively looks good already, but the inside is a mess. See our room, it has my three PCs all over the place. A Pentium IV 1.8GHz, a Pentium III 800MHz and an AMD Duron 500 Mhz. I’ve been fixing the other two for Marcia and Jamie.

Set115_02.jpg
One PC on for working, the other for watching TV using a USB TV Box.

Our New Home

We just moved in to our new house and so far, Jamie did not have any problems adjusting to the new environment. We haven’t moved all our stuff yet, like my 2 BMX’s and 2 Mountain Bikes and a whole bookshelf full of books that are all still at the Teresa house.


Our house. You might think it is big, but this is a townhouse, so it is only up to the aircon hole at the 2nd floor, pass that on the left is not our house anymore.

Thanks to Mang Jun, who just lives near by whom we got to fix the house up. Emil the Iron Works guy, thanks to him too, who worked on the steel gates and window grills. Both really gave us very ideal prices. Thanks to them we still have enough money left to place food on the table. 🙂 LOL


This garage is just right for our car. You even have to park it a bit sideways to get the whole car in and still have room to walk around and be able to close the gate well.

Our garage did not even exist before, the soil was so high that we needed to have truck loads of soil hauled out. So our front door is much higher than the garage.


Stairs between the garage and front door

A view from the garage below facing the front door.

This is not a big house, but since it is a corner lot, at least we still have some space on the side for gardening, well probably have some grass on this mini-yard. This space is still good enough for Jamie’s mini swimming pool, a pingpong table, jumping around, morning exercise, kicking exercises and other activities.


This is not as big as it looks like. It just looks longer in pictures.

The back gate

Good enough to live in but is still working on it. We do not even have a refrigerator yet so all we eat should be good enough for us to have no leftovers since we have no place to store them. We have no washing machine yet, but I think we’ll buy a refrigerator first.

Me and Marcia really spent a lot of time thinking on how everything looks like before we had things made and we really looked around for the best deals. Tiles at Federal Hardware was cheaper than others. But our bathroom tiles came from this tile store along Regalado near Lagro. Basic supplies from Ramos Hardware just in front of the North Olympus gate at Phase IV. Ace Hardware and Handyman were also cool for the puzzle carpets and other high-tech stuff. Cabinet handles were very cheap at Uniwide Sales Warehouse at Novaliches. A big drop from the prices at Ace and Handyman. HomeWorks at Ever Gotesco had cheap entertainment system furniture and living room center tables. Briones-Casal aluminum and Glass works always gave us the best deal. Our dining table was on sale at SOGO/Blims at Robinson’s place Novaliches.

I like going around looking for the best price, but I would not feel like doing it alone, that’s a good thing that Marcia likes going around for the best price alone or not alone, so it was nice going around with my wife looking for the best deals in town for our house.

Keep visiting this site from month to month and you’ll see how our home will even improve a lot more.

Get-Together Event Today

To ICI-Commonwealth people,

May celebration daw, it is:

  • Tiney’s Post-Birthday Celebration
  • Tiney’s Despedida Celebration
  • Bong’s Despedida Celebration
  • Annabel’s Welcoming Celebration
  • Shawie’s Birthday Celebration
  • Benj’s Despedida Celebration
  • Benj and Marcia’s House Blessing to be blessed by Fr. Louie Morales

And we are having it here sa house namin, just come here after work. Potlock tayo ha? Kahit ano dalhin n’yo. Kwentuhan lang naman tayo. The address and sketch will be posted sa informatics-ph@yahoogroups.com, pass the message na lang sa mga wala sa egroup.

Mama and Papa Arrival

As the day started, I was still awake from the previous day. I was burning CDs for my students in PC Networks and Troubleshooting. When I reached the last CD, I laid down on two chairs and closed my eyes to take a nap, and after 10 seconds of rest, Marcia woke me up and told me to get ready to go to the airport.

We left the house at 4:45am and got to the airport at 5:15am. I even felt like I was not going that fast since I was sleepy and would not want anything crazy to happen since sleepiness sometimes slows down reaction time. We were a bit early so me and Marcia slept first in the car.

When we woke up, it was past 6 already. We first saw Joey and Puking in the van. Then we joined Emil, Janet and Harry. I was so sleepy, I sat on the sidewalk as they waited, experiencing microsleeps. When Mama and Papa came, we all greeted them, welcoming them back to the Philippines.

Harry was the first to leave since he still had some work and already had a memo on tardiness at GSIS. Marcia, I and Emil left next since Marcia had to get to work since her boss was getting irritated already for her many lates and absences. I needed to get to work as well. Emil had to go, since I also needed to assist him to his appointment at Dr. Jameson Uys clinic.

Before we left, Janet asked is we could bring Harry’s pants, that he left with Janet. When we passed by GSIS, it was all traffic all the way back to EDSA.

At Emil’s appointment, he found out that he has a cyst in his knee. Thus a surgeon should work on his knee and not a chiropractor.

When I got home, I prepared to go to work, got their late. After my class I received a Notice to Explain document, tell me to explain my absences and tardiness.

When I got home we still needed to go to and fro at North Olympus up to night time.

Things not done

I had to bring CDs today at Informatics. They are the PC networks and troubleshooting CDs for my students. I was not able to burn them all on time.

I had to bring the BayanTel application today. I was not able to, since I was burning CDs.

I needed to bring some printouts to En Blaze, but was not able to. Since I needed to clarify some things before I printed them and was not able to talk to Ms. Lani.

It was tiring going back and forth Olympus, Teresa, Olympus, Teresa… but that’s fine. As long as it is for family and relatives, since these kinds of events don’t happen all the time.

Jamie’s Fever

It’s the 3rd day of Jamie’s fever. It’s a Monday, and it’s my day off at work. So most of the time I’ll be with Jamie. She has been taking Biogesic for kids orange flavor, 2.5ml every 4 hours.

Passed by North Olympus to bring some plates, spoons and forks since Kuya Gerry & Emil are there right now.

Will call up Dr. Jameson Uy later to set an appointment for Emil. Then bring Ate Dawn to her UPCAT Review.

Got to finish a CD for my PC Troubleshooting and Networking class. And talk to Lani of En Blaze for print-job clarifications.