Earthquake details:

Location: 9.964°N, 123.246°E
Depth: 20 km (12.4 miles)
Distances: 72 km (44 miles) N of Dumaguete, Negros, Philippines
74 km (45 miles) WNW of Tagbilaran, Bohol, Philippines
80 km (49 miles) WSW of Cebu, Cebu, Philippines
569 km (353 miles) SSE of MANILA, Philippines

Tsunami details:

The image below shows the max expected wave height according to the latest computer models

This will not reach Manila and it does not seem that it will leave the Cebu region with any destructive power as it will only effect the two islands that it is between.

A few days later, we bought a strawberry cake and here are some of the photos of it. YUM! It tastes as good as it looks!

It’s Christmas eve and 29C outside, with large grey clouds in the sky and a heavy cold that gripped me yesterday. If it wasn’t for the temperature outside, it would be just like Christmas back home.

I still find it weird going outside at Christmas time with just shorts and a t-shirt on. In the uk, I would be wrapped up in jeans, a shirt, jumper and coat at least.

Last night, I spent just short of 24 hours in bed. I simply passed out due to my cold and stayed there until I felt well enough to get up.

When I woke up, Ian was here cooking for the family. It is Filipino tradition to have two large meals, one on Christmas eve and one on Christmas day. These are called Noche Buena which is a feast on Christmas eve and a Christmas day lunch.

The only solution was to be put under for the operation, but for that I needed clearance from two doctors. After a few months, and a lot of hassle, I had the clearance. I went to the dentist who checked me over one last time, giving me an xray and a checkup. It was worse than we both thought. Initially, we had thought there would need to be one extraction and two teeth filled, but it seems that there are three extractions and no less than twelve teeth that need fillings! FUCK!

As I sit here writing this, a heavy storm is lashing rain at my window, lightening flashing and thunder so loud it is shaking the windows and doors. Tomorrow at 10am I will be at the dentists being put under for the operation. I can not eat or drink anything from 5am.

Tomorrow, I will be having three wisdom teeth extracted and a few teeth filled.

No, I am not looking forward to it, but once it is over, I will not have the pain coming from my teeth any longer.

Cleared one drive for it. Should be a breeze.

Will post photos once it’s complete. So you will either see a lovely Open Suse desktop on my laptop, or you will see the laptop in pieces on the floor!

As with most linux distributions, it is completely free to use. There are many variations of Linux as well as many variations for each distribution.

If you are moving straight from something like xp or windows 7, I would suggest Ubuntu. If you know your way around a computer and feel a bit more technical, I would suggest Open Suse or Mandriva, but to be honest, it all depends what you want it to do.

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

– Carl Sagan (Co-founder of The Planetary Society), Pale Blue Dot, 1994

Taken from the story located here.

My memory comes back as we are staggering through the streets. It was gone midnight and we were heading to the tram station where we would catch a tram to the shopping centre where we would get the connecting bus to the different places we were staying. To us, it was an adventure going out, drinking and finding our own way home blind stinking drunk.

One of the males with us was totally wasted, he would stagger around, muttering inaudible comments. We pushed him around to keep him in line and walking in the right direction.

As we got off the tram, we walked out of the station and down the regal stairs. The drunk motherfucker with us seemed to get a rush as if he were some imperialist royal making a speech. As we started down the stairs, he slowed down, throwing his head back and singing “two world wars and one world cup” over and over again.

Fuck the world cup, but just a few days after I arrived, a British guy was slaughtered by a Nazi with a machete in the lift in the apartment block next to the one I was staying in for the next two weeks. It was a fucking mess. The killer was never found.

As he shouted “two world wars and one world cup” over and over again, I felt like I curled up inside, I wanted to hide and get away from this psycho drunk. All I wanted was a good drink, I was in no mood to get involved in a fight. Especially one that had fuck all to do with me. “oh fuck, oh no, oh god” I muttered as the others tried to shut the fucker up. It didn’t work and people on the street were now starting to look at us.

Myself and a few others walked ahead to distance ourselves from him. Before too long, we were way ahead of him and went our separate ways. I walked one of the other guys home cause he was a fucking pussy and didn’t want to do it himself. I then staggered home myself, past the apartment block where the British guy had been slain just hours before.

Edward had no shoes again. When asked where his flip flops were, he explained that he had given them to his older sister who had cut her toe. No problem, we both said, we will simply buy more flip flops.

Ian noticed that Edward was not eating and asked why. He explained that he had brought his sister over so that she could eat and as such, he was letting her eat his food. Bullshit! A generous act of that nature needs to be rewarded. There was no way in hell he was gonna leave my house without eating the same as his sister.

Later, Edwards sister asked if she could get clothes, towels and toys. Edward quickly reprimanded her, telling her to be grateful for what she was given. I was totally shocked. I have never in my entire life seen any child ask for clothes and towels. These are prerequisites for any child. The first two things she asked for were clothes and towels. What the hell man?

So, it bugged me so much, we are now arranging for clothes and towels for them. The fact that a child who thinks she can ask for anything in the whole world will ask primary for clothes and towels really does not sit right with me. Towels and clothes she wants, towels and clothes she shall have.

With the recent reaction from the church about the Reporductive Health Bill here in the Philippines (the church threatened to excommunicate the president if he allowed the bill to be passed) I find it rather ironic that in my house, I have homeless children that I am feeding, yet in the house of god (a church) they lock their doors and do not feed the homeless or poor. Which house do you think is more holy in the eyes of the lord. Correct, my house, with all its alcohol and swearing. And that is a very sad fact that the church should face up to. When I am doing more good than they are, there is a serious problem somewhere, something is fucked.

One of the first days that I was here, I got up in the morning and saw some children opening my rubbish bin. I was about to shout for them to stop it. I had no idea what they were doing. But I didn’t say anything and instead watched them. To my horror, they were going through my bin to look for cardboard, plastic, glass or anything they could sell for scrap.

Over the months since, I have saved up my glass bottles so that when I see the kids going through my bin, I can give them all the recyclable material I have saved. But that didn’t feel like enough. These kids were walking around in their bare feet and digging through bins with their bare hands. I had wanted to go and buy a box of flipflops for them to wear. Ian stopped off at a stall on her way to my house and picked up a few pairs of flipflops.

Recently, I saw one young boy of about seven years old who looks a lot younger. Ian went out to see him and I made him a sandwich and a drink of fresh orange juice. He ducked behind the gate post to hide from the sun while he ate his sandwich. His eyes are way too big for his body. Every time he looks at me, I can hear my heart shatter.

The next day, he was back and we invited him into our home. As he came in, his friend was walking past and also looked in our bin. Ian went out to get him and he sheepishly walked through our gate. As soon as he saw his friend in our house, his face lit up and he cracked a huge smile. The two boys sat on the daybed in our lounge with the tv showing childrens cartoons as we made them sandwiches, sausages and juice. They laughed and smiled. It seemed like the first time they had openly laughed. It was music to our ears. I never sit with them or stand near them, I make the food and drinks. They don’t speak English and I can’t bare to see them living the way they do. I am normally in the kitchen, upstairs or in the yard smoking. Ian sits with them and talks to them while they eat. When they finish, we put them into a trike with enough money to get home so that they do not need to walk home.

The next day, they came back again. We had told them that if they were hungry, they can always come here and we will feed them, shelter them from the rain etc. Both boys were so happy because they normally make 15 pesos (£0.22 / $0.34) per day, but due to the paper, cardboard etc that we gave them yesterday, they made over 80 pesos (£1.16 / $1.83) which allowed them to eat well yesterday. I had seen them on this day with their bright new flip flops, walking past with a bag of juice and a big smile.

My god, doesn’t this put things into perspective? I doubt these boys even know what a PS3 or a Wiii is. If they do know what one is, I am sure they will know that they will never see one, let alone own one. What kind of life is this? They are like the forgotten and ignored people of the world. No one else seems to actively give a fuck. Saying you care is one thing. Doing something about it is entirely different.

Many people will say “I am just one person, what can I do?” to which I reply “I am just one person, look at what I have done, together, we can do so much more”. A line from the great film “the network” springs to mind, “I am a human being god damn it, my life has value”.

And to think that we, as a world spent ONE TRILLION DOLLARS on Iraq. My god, even $50 would have helped these people, but to waste one trillion on a bullshit war, seeing our own people die for a lie while the rest of the world decays, even dooming ourselves to financial bankruptcy as we could not afford this war makes me fucking sick.

The American defence budget alone would clothe, educate, feed and house every poor person in the world, not a single one excluded, then we could explore space together as one unified planet, instead of the bullshit we are still dealing with.

Think for once.
Doing my best to make a difference,
Dave

Just a year ago, I was concerned as I did not have everything I expected to have by the time I was 30, all I had was my businesses.

Now, just 6 months or so further forward, I have everything I need. A beautiful girlfriend, a fantastic family, a life in a hot country.

I am so happy with what I now have. I will not turn 30 kicking and screaming, I will instead roll through it with most of the people I love.

So, the plan for tomorrow is as follows:

10am Car and driver arrive. I hired a car and driver for the day.
11am Go to Ians Studio to pick up her wages.
12 midday We will head to the malls in Makati and spend a few hours shopping, picking up some wild turkey whiskey, maybe even going to the Hard Rock Cafe for our lunch.
2-3pm Arrive at Ians house and take the children out for a meal.
6-7pm Back to my house to watch movies, have a drink and maybe even go to the bar over the road.