Police said a new set of security guards arrived at the Stradcom Corp. building around 6 a.m. and tried to takeover the building.

Radio reports said that the new set of security guards claimed they have a court order for the building’s takeover, but the old guards resisted.

Footage taken by ABS-CBN News showed the new set of security guards forcing their way into the building. The new guards attacked the old guards with truncheons until they successfully occupied the establishment.

Policemen arrived only after the new guards have fully taken over the building.

Around 7 a.m., a team of policemen from the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) arrived, but they were not allowed to enter the building by the new set of security guards.

Superintendent Constante Agpaoa, chief of the QCPD’s Station 10, was later allowed to enter the building and talk with the leaders of the guards.

Lawyers of the 2 groups arrived later at the scene. Agpaoa immediately met with the lawyers and started the negotiations.

As of this posting, negotiations between the 2 feuding groups and the police were ongoing. — Report from Francis Faulve, ABS-CBN News

According to the Saffir-Simpson damage scale the potential property damage and flooding from a storm of Megi’s strength (category 5) at landfall includes:

• Storm surge generally greater than 5.5 metres (18 feet) above normal.
• Complete roof failure on many residences and industrial buildings.
• Some complete building failures with small utility buildings blown over or away.
• All shrubs, trees, and signs blown down.
• Complete destruction of mobile homes.
• Severe and extensive window and door damage.
• Low-lying escape routes are cut by rising water 3-5 hours before arrival of the centre of the storm.
• Major damage to lower floors of all structures located less than 4.6 metres (15 feet) above sea level and within 460 metres (500 yards) of the shoreline.
• Massive evacuation of residential areas on low ground within 8-16 km miles (5-10 miles) of the shoreline may be required.

Whoop whoop! Bring it on! My camera is fully charged, my phones are all charged so I have flashlights should the power go off at night.

In some instances, it seems much longer than 7 months and in others, it seems as if it is less than 7 months.

My life here with Ian, our children and my new family has been fantastic.

Thank you Ian, you are and always will be my princess.

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I love timelapse videos of clouds forming and I can not help but stare out my bedroom window as I have a lovely view of the sky where most of the large clouds in the area form over the sea.

As a test to see how and if I can make a timelapse video, I have made one of the sun rising this morning. I set up the camera at just after 5am and started recording. An hour later at 6pm I stopped recording and started processing the video. My initial idea is to take approximately 60 minutes of video and compress it to approximately 60 seconds.

Here are a few stats of the video for those who are interested:

Total length: 63 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 720 x 1280
Video Format: MTS
Raw Video File Size: 4.2 GB

I converted the video from MTS format to Avi format using the Divx 4 encoder maintaining the quality and aspect ratio. This was mainly so that my video editor could read the file. MTS format files are high definition videos recorded by my camera. Converting it to an avi allowed me to load it into my video editor.

Final Video Details
Total Length: 48 seconds
Video Speed: Approximately 13x
Aspect Ratio: 400 x 720

At around 7pm, the rain hit manila and the sky covered with clouds. Over time the clouds changed diection as the storm dragged over manila.

At 9pm the electricity went off. It had already been off before for twenty minutes, but this time it did not come back on. With no air conditioning, I jammed the door open. I didn’t want to open the windows as they could have been ripped off or smahed.

I managed to fall asleep sweating. I woke up at around 1am to a very loud sound. I went out onto the balcony to see what the noise was. To my supprise, there was a tin roof blowing down the street.

The only recording I got was before the storm really hit. Once it had hit, I did not want to take my camea outside in case it was hit with some flying debris.

The next morning, the streets were filled with parts of trees. The entire outside of my house was splattered with pieces of leaves from the trees. I have never seen anything like it, but with around 22 storms hitting Manila every year, I expect to see much worse storms.

However I already had all this. But it’s just been topped by ian searching for a shop that sells Wild Turkey which is a Bourbon whickey that I love. Ian has even found a european resturant, but I don’t like it too much cause there are too many white assholes in there on most days. However, they serve wild turkey, so the white fuckers are almost bareable.

Ian my sweet, you have topped yourself. Just when I wondered if I could love you any more, you answer my own question.

In the uk I was buying seconds so that I could get them for £19.99 per shirt instead of closer to £50.

I was stunned today when I saw a range of Abecrombie and Fitch shirts in the local SM hypermarket for just 249.75 PHP which is just £3.52 each!!! What the fuck? These are real too, not fakes or copies. They are seconds and the label has been unstitiched, but it is still there.

I tried on the large as it was the biggest size they had. When it fit, I bought one of every colour that they had. I was half tempted to buy all their stock and sell it on.

To hell with the “developed” world, I can look more stylish here for less. Woo hoo!

Over the space of 6 months, I had sold off my stuff and downsized until everything I owned could be taken on a plane. However, I had originally planned to move to Spain, much closer to the UK than the Philippines. But things always change and I was lucky enough to be in the right position to do what I wanted.

Life in the UK had begun to feel like slow motion suicide and I had had more than I could take. I needed a change, I needed to plan my escape.

When I left the uk, 3 months ago today, I was ready to live away. What I mean is that I had sorted everything at home so that all I had was what was in my suitcase and carry on bag. Should things work out in the Philippines, I can stay there as long as I can. The longest flight I had been on before I came to the Philippines had been just 4 hours, so facing 3 flights totalling 19 hours and 45 minutes was daunting. Not to mention the 28’000 km distance or the fact that I was flying over almost all of Russia as I headed east over Europe, Russia and then just after Moscow, heading south through china and landing at Hong Kong. A quick cigarette at the airport and back onto a plane for the final leg of the journey, a short 1hour 30 minute flight into Manila, Philippines.

To this day, everytime I see a plane coming in to land, I think about that day, as I was sat on the plane nervously waiting, full of hopes and fears. It feels so long ago now as I look back.

I have setup roots here in the Philippines and am working hard to secure a future. I am doing more than I have ever done in the uk. We were at the Philippine fashion week (where the earthquake was).

During the same week we were interviewed on 99.5RT radio about a website we have been working on covering undiscovered restaurants, hotels, resorts and other Philippine local delicacies. All very exciting stuff. Not to mention getting to hand feed tigers!

The other week Nick asked me “is there anything you miss that would make you come back?”. I had never thought about it, but in the the light of day, the only things that I miss are my parents, my friends and Spain. I could not think of anything that I had in the uk which I do not here or miss. There are many really nice things about the uk, but not many of them were where I lived. Seeing yorkshire villages with rolling hills. Finding hidden coves on the beach in summer. I will miss all of these things, but I never had them in the first place.

The whole purpose of this post was a result of people saying that they can not believe that I went half way around the world. I can not believe it either. Not a single day goes by when I do not think about how amazed I am at it and how different things seem now. After all, if something is worth fighting for, you should fight to the death for it. Without risking all, you can never win.

So here I am risking it all every day, fighting for that dream and buying as many building blocks as I can afford. If you spend your whole life sitting on your hands, when you finally do fight, your hands will be numb and you will likely loose the only fight that ever mattered.