788 replies to this topic

[Macman]

Two things I forgot to say -

First, regarding "Real Steel", I don't want to raise anyone's expectations if he is a real movie aficionado. I'm sure many will see it and say that it just follows an old, hackneyed formula. Actually, that's true, but it was very well done, well acted, with great graphics. At this stage in my life, I'm not looking for any deep meaningful messages in my movies; I just want to be entertained, and I was.

The second thing concerns something that happened while in Hong Kong. Angel wanted to see Macau, and I agreed to go even though I had no real interest. We took the ferry from HK at 11:00 AM, and arrived in Macau at noon. There really isn't much to see, the weather sucked, and neither of us is a gambler. For those reasons, we had lunch, and took the 4:00 PM ferry back to Hong Kong. At immigration, Angel was detained, and taken into a room. I tried to follow, but was told that I couldn't. I was told to just wait. About 20 minutes passed, and I really started getting nervous. Finally, an official who spoke English very well came over to me. He said, "Your friend, did you meet him, er, her in Hong Kong?" I told him that we had come from The Philippines together for an anniversary vacation, and planned to leave the next day. When I said that, his whole demeanor changed. He told me to wait there while he checked. He was back in a couple of a minutes, and said that Angel would be right out. From the questions that were asked of Angel, it seems that the fact that we went there and came back in such a short time raised a flag. Of course, that was coupled with her nationality and ladyboy status. I think they thought that she was a hooker who met me in HK, and persuaded me to take her to Macau for some nefarious purpose, most likely smuggling. Once they found out that we were a couple, everything changed. One happy note: while Angel was being detained, a female official lowered her voice, pointed to the M gender designation on her passport, and said, "Are you really ...?" (meaning "masculine gender"). The fact that she had to ask really cheered Angel.

[jayarr]

Hong Kong was nice? I always heard it's real smog-y

[Macman]

It's a great city, jayarr. Yes, it is a bit smoggy, but that's offset by everything else. It's a must-see as far as I'm concerned. I went to Dan Ryan's Chicago Grill twice and had their 16-ounce, 3-inch sirloin steak, baked potato and apple pie a la mode. OMG. My mouth is watering thinking of it. It made it a little tough to be back here where I can't get anything like that.

[Macman]

I haven't posted here in a while because there really hasn't been much to say. Angel and I have settled into a very comfortable, loving relationship that seems no different from anyone else's. Obviously, there are many differences from the norm, but that's not how it feels to me. Angel has become a very good driver, and I'm comfortable riding with her for the most part. I actually prefer that she drive at night because her eyes are much better than mine, and the roads are loaded with trikes and motorbikes with no lights and pedestrians who just pop out of nowhere with no regard for safety.

Yesterday, after golf, my buddies asked me if I'd like to go fishing with them that afternoon. They said not to worry about gear; they would provide it for me. One of the guys said that his cousin had a raft. Okay, here's the thing. This guy is arguably the richest man in all of Leyte. He and his family practically own this city, and have numerous holdings across the province and in Cebu. We get there at around 2:00 PM. There are 4 of us. There's the raft. It's a piece of some kind of pressed wood, about 2 1/2 by 2 1/2 meters , with 6 metal canisters tied to the sides acting as pontoons. There's a makeshift rail around the thing and some metal rods supporting a canopy. They put 4 plastic kitchen chairs (the same kind of damn chairs we had in the truck on our trip to Canigau Island) and a folding card table on it. We had a cooler; an old wooden box with a frayed rope as a handle, with a styrofoam box inside it. Inside it were some bottles of water and our bait. In the distance, you could see a gathering storm, with some pretty fierce lightening strikes. It was starting to get windy. One of these guys knows everything; he's always quoting statistics about the people in the U.S., here, China, etc. Obviously there is one weakness in his font of knowledge. He didn't seem to know that you don't go out in the open sea in the middle of a lightening storm. A tiny dinghy pulls up, a kid gets on the raft, and they throw him a line. He can't tie the line to the railing because it would just tear right off, so he just hangs on to it. Some other kids push the raft, while the dinghy heads out. Out we go, into the bay. We go out about 7 or 800 meters, get dropped there, and the dinghy heads back to shore. Remember, I'm with some pretty wealthy people. They pass out the gear. We each get a small plastic spool with some fishing line on it, 2 tiny hooks and a sinker. That's it. No rod, no reel - a friggin' spool. I asked what kind of fish we're going for. Blank stares. I asked if we should be bottom fishing or what. "We don't know," came an answer. About 20 minutes later, the storm hits. The wind is so strong it blows the card table over, onto my leg. The bait, water bottles, sandwiches, etc. go flying. It's raining so hard that it's hard to see. The canopy is useless, because the rain is coming sideways. The raft is rocking, and water is washing all over the "deck" (friggin' board). Within minutes, we're all soaked through and through. During this, I keep getting texts from Angel; "Hi, hon. How are you doing?", "Hon, it's raining here.", "Bring home some fish for supper.", "Are you having fun?" Don't think that because of this we didn't get any fish. One of the guys, the 90 year-old, caught one fish. I don't know what it was, but I can tell you that if it were a cock, KK would have thrown it back in. Finally the storm subsided, and we all sat there in our drenched clothing and continued to "fish". After a while, a speedboat of sorts came out and towed us back to shore. We had been out there a little over 2 hours. When I got home, Angel greeted me with a big smile, but a little disappointed that we wouldn't be having fish for dinner.

One other thing to report - Today I went to Tacloban to renew my visa. I forget if I mentioned this earlier in this thread, but the Tacloban Immigration office is the HQ for all of Leyte, but the paperwork is done on a typewriter. A FRIGGIN' TYPEWRITER. I didn't know that they still existed. This visa thing is a real pain in the ass. More than 5 hours of traveling (round trip) for a 20-minute process. Ah, the things we do for love.

[Crackerjax]

That doesn't sound like fun Mac. Maybe next time the old "discretion is the better part of valor" should apply? Glad you made it back to shore safe and sound.

[Macman]

CJ, it wasn't fun, believe me. There won't be a next time, at least not with these guys. Angel's friend has a boyfriend who likes to go fishing properly. I'll go with him, but that's about it.

One thing I forgot to mention about yesterday. I was leaving the apartment to wait on the road for my ride. It was 4:45 AM. I'm used to hearing the loudspeaker from the church down the road at that time, but this time the sound of singing and chanting was getting louder and louder. When I reached the road, I saw why. There was a procession. About 20 people bearing candles, followed by a motorized cart with a woman. She had a portable loudspeaker, and they were wending their way through the streets. LOUDLY. This was at 15 minutes to 5:00 on a Thursday morning. I know and agree with Dixon Cox that it's their country and their customs, but come on. Why, ffs? Can't they please pray in their hearts instead of in my ears at that ungodly (no pun intended) hour?

[viking675]

Macman,

always enjoying your "relationship"endavours but i am curious how your one and only looks like ... and i am sure i am not the only BM ... would appreciate if you can satisfy our curiousity.

viking

[dixon cox]

... but i am curious how your one and only looks like ... and i am sure i am not the only BM ... would appreciate if you can satisfy our curiousity.

Have a look at Page 5 of this thread.

[Macman]

Thanks, DC. Viking, even though Angel has said that she wouldn't have a problem with my showing her face, I'd prefer to keep our privacy a bit. We're trying to live an ordinary life, and while I love the LB-69 Forum and its BMs, it's not exactly Facebook. As always, though, I really appreciate your interest.

[viking675]

Macman, i respect your decision on wanting some privacy.

Hope alll is well after that horrible fishing trip ..

[Macman]

Thanks, Viking. Yeah, all's well. The funny thing is that I was just talking to my sister, my ex-wife and one of my sons in New York. I couldn't talk to my other son or my daughter because they both are without power because of the freak early snowstorm. My sister's daughter and her husband are school teachers in upstate New York, and she told me in an e-mail that their school district has already used 4 "snow days" because of the hurricane last month, and now they have 10 inches of snow. Here I am in a land of volcano eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons, and it's been peaceful as hell here (except for those rough seas the other day), and back home they're getting smacked with everything. Two weeks ago, there was a bad storm, and a limb fell on my car and broke the windshield (my younger son is keeping it for me in his back yard). You never know.

[Macman]

I haven't been posting much lately because my life has become pretty uneventful and mundane for the most part. Of course, I could go into another rant about the banking system here, but I'm pretty much worn out by that.

Saturday was going to be busy because I had been asked to be a godfather to the son of one of Angel's cousin's. I found that the custom here is very different from most other countries. Instead of having one godfather and one godmother, they usually have about 5 of each here. If I were a cynical kind of guy (which I am), I'd say it was to get that many more presents at the christening itself and at all the subsequent birthdays and Christmases.

Of course, the day began in typical Philippine fashion; with a blackout. The baptism was to be at 4:00 PM, and the power went out at 6:00 AM. Angel's uncle is an engineer at the power plant, and he told us it would be out all day, and would come back at around 7:00 PM. He was close. It came back at around 7:15. As I've mentioned before, power outages here not only mean no electricity, but also no water (because the pump from the tower above our place works on electricity). Great. A roasting hot day during which I would have to go and buy a present and dress for church, and no air conditioning, no fan, no car (in the shop awaiting a part), and no water. There's always a bright note (well, maybe not exactly bright, but dimly lit); my Kiwi neighbor managed to hook up a hose to our water system, bypassing the tower, and at least allowing a shower. It was during this time that I got another example of "Filipino time". Angel told me that the car would be ready at around 3:30. I thought that was cutting it kind of close, but she felt I could make it to the garage, back to our place, and then to the church by 4. When I got there, they were washing the car (a nice touch), and I was getting really jumpy. I got it at 3:50, raced back home, got Angel, and went over to the church. No one was there. Angel sent a text to her cousin. Ah, they needed a ride to church. Keep in mind that it's already past 4:00. Okay, no problem. We sped over there,expecting them to be waiting outside their place. Ha! What a fool. Have I not learned anything yet? We left their place about 15 minutes later, and got to the church at about 4:35. No priest. He showed up about 10 minutes later, and we all stood around. I asked Angel why we were not starting. She said the priest decided to wait until 5:00. Why? Shrugs all around.

Well, we finished, and all adjourned to her aunt's house for the party. Cooking, eating, singing, sweating; all in the dark. Let me tell you something; when there's a blackout here, it is friggin' DARK. Oh, well. After about an hour, Angel, knowing me well, announced that we were going home. The power came back just as we were leaving, so Angel planned to come home, change her clothes, and go back to the party, letting me bask in the newly-returned AC at our pad. Praise the Lord.