Monday, January 31, 2022

Nadal Wins Grand Slam Title #21!

Wow! Rafa Nadal just won the Australian Open. He beat World #2 Daniil Medvedev 2-6, 6-7, 6-4, 6-4, 7-5 in 5 hours and 24 minutes, the second longest Grand Slam final in history. And while any title that Rafa wins makes me happy, the way that he won the first major of the year and its historic significance just made me ecstatic beyond belief. Let's run down this absolutely mind-blowing achievement: 1. Nadal is the first male player to have won 21 Grand Slam singles titles. For the first time in his career, Rafa is ahead of every other male player in the major singles title count. 2. He now has two Australian Open titles, which means he joins Roy Emerson, Rod Laver, and Novak Djokovic as the only male players in history to win at least two each major. He and Novak are the only players who have achieved this feat in the Open Era so far. 3. He came back from two sets to love down in arguably his greatest comeback ever. In fact, he was 0-40 triple break point down at 2-3 in the 3rd set. Most people, including myself and many other Nadal fans, thought he would finish second for a fifth time in Melbourne. But Rafa kept fighting and kept working hard (and smart!) to give himself chances. In the end, he managed to overcome incredible odds and an impressive Medvedev to win.

4. That he would achieve this feat at the event where he had the greatest heartbreak made his victory even sweeter. Twice before, he was up a break in the fifth set against his greatest rivals - Djokovic in 2012 and Federer in 2017 - but he still ended up losing. In this year's final, when he served at 5-3 in the 5th set and got broken, most people felt he choked a bit because he was so close to the men's Grand Slam record. But in this interviews after, you could tell that his past losses were in his mind. He managed to regroup after getting broken and he immediately broke Daniil back. In his second chance to close out the match, he did so emphatically.

5. He won the Australian Open after winning the Melbourne Summer Set. This means that Rafa has won at least two titles every year for 18 consecutive years. I don't know if this is a men's record but it must be up there.

Rafa must also have a lot more confidence heading into the next Grand Slam event - the French Open, the event where he has had the greatest success. Whether he can build on his momentum this year and claim his 22nd Grand Slam title and 14th French Open remains to be seen. After all, Novak is still a supreme threat on any surface, even in Roland Garros where he beat Rafa last year. Also, Nadal was out for several months last year because of a foot injury that left him wondering if maybe it was time to retire. I really can't ask for much more since Rafa has already given his fans to much by achieving fantastic things in his illustrious career. That said, if he does accomplish more (such as his 22nd Grand Slam title), I certainly wouldn't complain haha.

The other big news of course is the fact that Novak Djokovic was prohibited to play the Australian Open since he wasn't vaccinated. I think that Tennis Australia could have handled this much better since they seemed to give Novak hope that he could play even if he was unvaccinated against Covid but in the end, Australian immigration didn't think so. That said, it will be interesting to see whether Djokovic eventually does get his shots so that he can compete at and win more Grand Slam events.

While we're talking about the Australian Open, congratulations as well to Ashleigh Barty for winning the women's title. She did so without dropping a set. I admit that when she moved up to #1 a couple of years ago, I was a bit uncertain about her, thinking that she reached the summit due to a lack of competition. Her relatively early losses in Slam events last year (round 2 in Roland Garros and round 3 in the US Open) seemed to support this idea. However, no other woman has been as consistent, whether it be Grand Slam tournaments or other events, and she has made a believer out of me. Barty has now won three majors, all on different surfaces. I won't be surprised if she wins more.

Major props also to Deirdre de Groot of the Netherlands for winning the women's wheelchair event. She has now won six consecutive Grand Slam events. Oh, and she also won the wheelchair women's doubles. That is just phenomenal! Meanwhile, Dylan Alcott, who together with De Groot achieved the Golden Slam last year, lost in the final of the Wheelchair quad singles event to Sam Schröder of the Netherlands. This was Dylan's last tennis match as he already said that the Australian Open would be his last tournament as a tennis player.

Congratulations to all the winners of the Australian Open!

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Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Quarantine Stories Part 16

I recently discovered Nestle Butterfinger Ice Cream, which is made by Dreyers. It's description says that it is light vanilla ice cream with Butterfinger candy pieces and a peanut butter swirl. I am now a big fan. It's not always in stock but whenever it is, I buy it.


I also recently purchased a new electric kettle. I broke the one I had early last year so I borrowed my grandmother's electric kettle because she wasn't using it anymore. Unfortunately, that one broke as well. With no convenient way to heat water for my pour over coffee, I immediately bought this Imarflex IK-140 1.5L Electric Kettle from Lazada. I've been satisfied with it so far.


I also recently replaced my car battery. I purchased food for my family and when I got back in the car, it wouldn't start. I immediately called Motolite. I really do love this service since they bring the battery to wherever you are. (One time, my car battery conked out on Christmas day and their service was still available!)

I also gave my old TV to the woman who irons our clothes. I asked her if she thought she could sell it and she asked me if it was still working and if she could have it instead. I said it was, but not perfectly well. So far, she and her family have been able to use it and it's performed well enough for them.

I also have a new credit card. This was really unplanned. Right before Christmas, I got a text saying that an online transaction for a very expensive purchase from a UK website was blocked. I didn't make that purchase so I called my credit card immediately. We couldn't be certain how my card was compromised so they said they would just replace my card at no cost. I'm just really happy that my credit card had strong enough checks in place to mark that transaction as fraudulent and inform me. Whew!

Finally, I paid my real estate property tax for 2022. I didn't want to be amidst large crowds in city hall so I decided to file a personal leave so I could make the payment on a weekday. It turned out to be a really good idea because when I got there, there were only two people ahead of me in line. There was no crowd and I was done in a jiffy.

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Friday, January 21, 2022

An Interesting Start to the Year

My nephews visited their relatives on their mom's side during the New Year weekend. When they came back home, one of them had a sick kitten with him. I thought it was owned by their relatives and he brought it home so he could take it to the vet. As it turned out, it was an abandoned kitten that my nephew had rescued. Since it looked really sick, I drove my nephew to an open vet clinic. Unfortunately, when we arrived, there were dozens of people there. We ended up waiting 2 hours before a vet could look at the kitten. By the time we had purchased the meds and paid all the fees, we had spent 2 1/2 hours there.

So I guess it's not a surprise that I ended up getting infected with Covid. After dodging the disease for almost two years, I finally got hit, along with hundreds of thousands of people during the surge in early January. Did I pick it up at the vet? Possibly. I could also have picked it up from the place where I bought our food for New Year. I actually dropped off a gift to one of my friends and she got it as well. We were only exposed to each other while we were outdoors for less than 5 minutes and we had masks on so I can't really tell. I also can't be sure I got it from her or she got it from me or if we maybe got it from other people. With so many people getting infected, it really is quite impossible to identify where I picked it up.

That said, I was very thankful for several things. First, I live alone in my pad so I was already quarantined. Second, my building has a very good process for handling persons under monitoring and people who have tested positive. Third, I got the symptoms at the time when I could still get an RT-PCR test and I still managed to book a home test (my building didn't allow me to leave my pad anymore so I really needed a home test). I heard that around the second week of January, it was quite impossible to book a schedule since labs were already fully booked. Fourth, no one else in my family tested positive. Considering that I interacted with all of them without a mask on during the New Year weekend, I was relieved none of them picked up Covid from me. Fifth, aside from that one friend who also tested positive, none of the other people I met up with, even for a short period of time, developed any symptoms. Finally, I developed really mild symptoms. I only had one bad day, and it wasn't that bad. I also had symptoms for just a few days. (I did have to wait for my quarantine to end before I could step out.)

It kinda feels a bit weird to be a statistic now. When I saw how many new positive cases there were on the day that I reported my positive RT-PCR test, I knew I was part of that number. Still, I'm extremely grateful that my case was really mild. And I'm also really proud of my nephew for rescuing a sick kitten. I'm also happy that our new kitten is in much better health now.

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Monday, January 17, 2022

Welcome 2022

Happy New Year!

The global Covid pandemic continued through 2021 and in fact, Metro Manila had to go back into MECQ at some point during the year. This meant that there were still a lot of limitations as to what people could do. That said, there were still many positive and memorable things that happened last year. 

Probably the most important thing that happened last year was that I finally got vaccinated. Not only that, my family all got fully vaccinated as well. I also started blogging a whole lot more (I only had 27 posted in 2020 but I more than doubled my output last year with 65 posts). I still haven't traveled since the pandemic hit so I instead started to write about some trips I took before I began this blog. I have so far written about my visits to the UK and China, along with the Europe trip I took with my mom (which included Italy, Greece, and France). I also started posting throwback travel pics on social media.

I finally subscribed to Netflix and to HBO Go Asia. I also watched a few Filipino films on IWant TFC. While I haven't played physical board games face-to-face with my friends, I have played online versions that were purchased on Steam, often by myself playing against AI but sometimes playing with my friends. I also started playing Axie Infinity. All this time spent blogging about past trips, watching shows on online platforms, and playing online games meant that I had less time to read, but I still did get to read two books: Before the Fall by Noah Hawley and A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles.

Despite the pandemic, life has had to move forward and this is evidenced by sporting events that have resumed after taking a break in 2020. The Olympics were finally held in Tokyo and Hidilyn Diaz finally gave the Philippines its first gold medal by winning the women's 55 kg weightlifting event. Three more Filipinos - Nesthy Petecio, Eumir Marcial, and Carlo Paalam - also won Olympic medals, all in boxing. Gymnast Carlos Yulo also took home a gold and a silver at the Gymnastics World Championships.

As is to be expected, it wasn't all good. I lost my dear friend Karen and my family lost our dog. I saw  several family and friends share social media posts about loss, some due to Covid and some due to other reasons. As more and more people get vaccinated, our health care system in the Philippines has become less overwhelmed and I'm hoping this means that there will be less collective grief in 2022 as our hospitals will be in a much better position to accept and heal patients. I'm also hopeful that things continue to get better and that it will be a lot safer for people to go on with their lives.

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