Quick hits

Whoa! More than a month since my last update. That is so not good LOL. Here's a quick rundown of a few things that have kept me busy in the last month...

Attended my first beach wedding in Boracay

Tisha and Donald got married in Boracay on Feb 1. The last time I went to Boracay was in 2005 so I was looking forward to it. Especially since I had never been to a beach wedding before. Feb 1 was a Friday so I took the day off and spent the weekend in Boracay. The ceremony was held in the Parish of the Holy Rosary and the reception in Seawind. It was really cool! To add the experience, all the guests received a package when we got to our respective resorts. The package contained, among other things, recommendations on restos to try out and things to do. Coming up with a suggested itinerary was meant to encourage the guest to try out the same things. That way, when we think back to the wedding, we all remember the same things. Pretty smart idea, actually. So from the fact that we were in Boracay to the food tripping to the poker games to the beach volleyball to hanging out with really great friends, this wedding will truly be one very memorable one!

Valentine's Day Harana

The band org we have at work decided to organize some kind of Valentine's Day Harana thing - for a nominal fee, employees can request us to serenade anyone they wanted us to sing to. It was decided very last minute and only approved on the evening of Feb 12, which meant the email announcement would be sent only on Feb 13, a day before Valentine's day. We decided to make the activity last two days. That way, people more time to figure out if they wanted to avail of the service or not. It was so last minute that I was worried that not enough people would avail of it, but as it turned out, I grossly underestimated. In our building at least, there were a total of 18 requests sent in over two days. Now, that may not seem like a lot. But consider this - just because we had this event going on didn't mean we were exempted from work. Also, we had only two vocalists (myself and KC) and one guitarist (RJ) in our building (in our other office building, they got 8 song requests for only 1 day, and they had 2 guitarists and 3 vocalists). To top if off, most of the songs we would do, KC didn't know. So I ended up having to sing most of the songs (I sang solo in about 10 of the songs, and KC and I sang together in 4 of them).

I ended up having to work really long hours on those two days to make sure that my real work would not suffer from this activity. But it was worth it. Not only was it fun to sing for people but I also got to learn and perform a lot of really cool songs that I had never performed for anyone before such as "Fly me to the moon", "You and me" by Lifehouse, "Danny's song" by Kenny Loggins, and Kenny Lattimore's "For you". Considering that we didn't have a lot of time to prepare, I think we pulled it off quite well.

Still Oz reunion!

Well, kinda. Our bassist Sep just started a new job last November, but his scheduled is so whacked out - it changes from week to week - that we can't really gig just yet because we don't know when he's available. Anyways, our rhythm guitarist Bunky managed to get us a pro bono gig in Mayric's (where the great bands are born!) on Tuesday night last week, and Sep said he was free so we figured we might as well give it a go, even if we wouldn't get paid for it. Of course when we arrived, we confirmed what we felt before getting there - that our musical style wasn't exactly suited for the venue. I mean, the bands there play much heavier rock (as well as their original songs!) and here we are covering Dave Matthews Band. We were given half an hour to perform and we initially planned 5-6 songs but before we started we decided to trim it down to three. We did #41 and Grey Street by DMB, plus the DMB version of the Dylan original "All along the watchtower". It's the most uncomfortable I've ever felt on stage but the crowd was actually quite appreciative of our efforts. I'm still hoping Sep gets a more stable schedule so we can gig again soon.

Party for Raffa's 30th birthday

Raffa turned 30 the other day but Joh set up a birthday dinner for him last Friday night in Claw Daddy in Bonifacio High Street. Most of our barkada are already living abroad, and it just so happened that Pia was in Batanes and Meann in the US that day. So only Peegee and I made it to dinner. Joh invited Raffa's team as well - most of whom I knew - but she also invited Raffa's high school batchmates. Peegee had to leave early, and once dinner was done, so did the rest of Raffa's team. So I ended up hanging out with Raffa and Joh and Raffa's high school friends, having cheesecake and coffee in Miss Desserts in Serendra 'til past midnight. It was a great night filled with lot of great food and fun conversation. Thanks again for the blowout, Raffa! :)