The Photographer

So many things I want to do in my life.

video editor… check
teacher… check
basketball coach… check
basketball manager… check
software engineer… check
cook… judges? Hmmm… sige na, check

Now meet Arn the photographer. I just re-entered the field of photography (I used to do dark room film processing before when I was in school) however there’s still so much I need to learn.

I covered my first event as a freelance photographer – Margaret’s 1st birthday. Click here to see the pictures I took. No, they’re not of pro quality as I’m still a student of this art so don’t expect much.

http://arnoldrocks.multiply.com/photos/album/5/Margarets_Birthday

How much did I charge for this? A plate of lechon and pansit. I also received some crab rangoons for tip. =)

Of Happy Places

Toys R Us always had a special place in my heart. I remember back when I was a kid when the kid next door whose family frequented the US always had new and imported toys. He said all these came from a store called “Toys R Us” and I’ve always felt that it was this one magical building where all kinds of toys were made and sold.

I carried that feeling of mine for years until finally I was able to visit a real Toys R Us store in Hong Kong. Since we were on a budget, I remember buying two toys – a real microscope and a sea monkeys set. I was probably the happiest kid in the world having been able to visit the store and confirming that it’s not a mythical place after all.

A happy happy place.



One rainy afternoon here in Chicago, Louvre, Feliz and I dropped by the nearest Toys R Us store. After hours of roaming around inside, Feliz and I were done while Louvre was scouring the Thomas and Friends boxes for a good train set. In that section, there was an assembled Thomas and Friends set where a kid was playing. I sat down and thought that this was Toys R Us was all about – happy feelings. The kid was having so much fun playing with this huge train set. Louvre was happily rummaging through different boxes trying to find the ones he knows his kid would love (and there’s no greater joy to a dad than making his son happy). Feliz was sitting down and hugging the stuffed unicorn she picked out. Me? I was there sitting on the other side just enjoying this place and having no thoughts of work or problems. Heck, even my support phone couldn’t get a signal inside the store. What a place!

Like so many years ago, I’m still on a budget but I got myself my two toys. I wanted something that (1) would make me think but not stressed and (2) solved life’s tough decisions.

Cooking with Arn X

I miss home cooked Filipino meals. There’s an eat all you can Filipino buffet here along Clark street called “Little Quiapo” where you can eat inihaw na baboy and crispy pata until your heart jumps out and slaps your face.

I don’t eat there much though. It lacks that home feel since their meals taste more like cafeteria food. Besides, that restaurant is located between two cemeteries and it’s not a good location to chow down tons of Crispy Pata.

I want a home cooked Filipino meal and nothing says that more than...

Tapsilog

The famous Filipino food portmanteau. It’s the Filipino equivalent of America’s ham and eggs. It’s basically tapa (fried marinated beef), sinangag (garlic rice), itlog (egg) with atchara (pickled papaya), sliced tomatoes and vinegar with soy sauce and chopped onions. *drool* Oh, for the eggs, I like mine sunny side up and really runny. Mmmm!

Enter Arn – the sous (maryosep) chef.

I went to the market and picked out the meat. There was this woman there who was smelling, poking and thoroughly analyzing (as if there was something printed in the meat) the meat. I don’t know anything about determining if it’s good meat or not. I walked by the meat section, analyzed the price tags, grabbed the cheapest meat and walked away. What cut is it? Is it fresh? Is it proper for tapa? Heck, I have no idea. Who cares? I only have a few dollars with me so I grabbed the cheapest one. Life is simple nga diba?

Back home I sliced up the beef and marinated it in soy sauce, garlic, pepper, salt, sugar, etc then left it in the fridge overnight.

The next day, I cooked up half the batch. I fried up an egg and pan fried the rice with garlic and pepper. The egg was cooked nicely. The rice was perfect and the beef, well, it was too black to tell if it’s burned or not anyway.

Next, the taste test. I took a bite and there was silence. I chewed and swallowed and there was still silence. I looked out the window and I saw a pig flying around.

Arn burning food or messing it up is pretty normal. Arn preparing a decent meal is unusual is rare but not surprising. Arn cooking a great meal? Unheard of.

The tapa tasted great. It was tangy just the way I want it. It was even better than the tapa I eat at Goodah! and this can beat the crap out of the fast food tapa meals back home. I’ll even say this was the best tapa I’ve ever had. The eggs are just the way I like it - crispy edges but runny in the middle. It was so good it felt weird because I’m used to the overcooked, underseasoned mess I always have for lunch.



Maybe it's about time the cooking gods gave me a break right?

A Day Without Perfect Vision

Ontario and State street. Here’s a guy walking with big badass sunglasses. He’s walking normally but really he can’t see much as everything to him is a blur. He walks and walks until he rams his right shoulder into a bus stop. People were looking at this weird fellow as he dusts off his shirt and continued the long painful way home.

If you're a long time reader, no need to introduce the guy. First time reader? Meet Arn.

Imagine a day with severely blurry vision. Better yet, imagine a day where you have to wear your friend’s thick eyeglasses.

I had my eye checked at the Northwestern Hospital over at St. Clair and they dilated my eyes. It was the first time I had that type of eye exam and I initially thought it will just make me light sensitive. Wrong! Actually, after the exam, I could take the light by squinting. What made my day interesting was how my vision got blurry for most of the day.

From the hospital, they gave me these weird sunglasses. They looked hideous, but then they did the job. I looked like a fat dragonfly.

Hey, at least it did the job.

I walked home and as I mentioned, I accidentally rammed my right shoulder into a bus stop while turning. Ouch! Everything was a big blurry blob though I was able to read big print like store and building names. What I couldn’t read was small print like my cell phone or newsprint. Back home, I left my computer on but I have no idea what’s on it. I think someone IM’d me in MSN and I think that’s my outlook open but I couldn’t read anything

I was in no condition to work. I know I’m a shock trooper but in this case I have no choice here but to rest, stay home and take the day off.

So how do I call my manager? I can’t recognize anything from my phone. I don’t have her number memorized.

I gave my roomie my phone but he says her phone number wasn’t there. I couldn’t send even send emails or IM’s. Ugh! I walked all the way to the office to tell her I was pretty much useless for the day. Feliz was kind enough to walk me home and made sure I wouldn’t fall into the Chicago river. Back home though I couldn’t watch TV or surf the Internet.

Interesting day. Not bad. Interesting is more like it.

I started to get my vison back after lunch but then it gave me a terrible headache because it wasn’t 100% yet and it was like reading underwater. I decided to wait until my vision is completely back before doing any reading.

Without perfect vision, I thought my other senses would be improved. In my case, I just got hungry and ate and ate and ate. Daredevil lost his eyesight and developed superhuman hearing. I got blurry vision and it just made me hungry. Life’s not fair.

CeeJay, Feliz and Arn in Chicago and Oak Park

For all those requesting that I post more pictures from Chi-town -->

http://arnoldrocks.multiply.com/photos/album/4

Enjoy!

Me and Nikki

One freaky day when we had matching pants, shirts and tummies.



... then again she's carrying baby Logan while I'm carrying Panda Express. :P

Exploring Oak Park

Ernest Hemingway’s birthplace and Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio. Two landmarks associated to two famous Americans located in Oak Park, Illinois. Hemingway was a writer while Wright was an architect both considered one of the greatest during their time.

I took CeeJay and Feliz to Oak Park via train to see these two landmarks. We wanted to do something different and see other areas near Chicago (and well, we were low on funds). Oak Park is comparable to Makati’s Forbes Park. In a word - “sosyal”. The houses all look good, it’s an obvious rich neighborhood and all the people are nice. We took a stroll across downtown Oak Park until we reached Hemingway’s birthplace. A few more blocks and we reached the home and studio of Frank Lloyd Wright. We took plenty of pictures and enjoyed just walking around the neighborhood.


Ernest Hemingway's birthplace


Frank Lloyd Wright's Home and Studio

Can’t help but compare Pinoy houses and American houses. American houses have:
- a front yard with garden
- a driveway and a garage
- a mailbox with the red mailbox flag
- a backyard
- picket fences (for some).

Pinoy houses have:
- a crude basketball court (or just the rim)
- No mailboxes (if there was one, mailboxes are not used my mailmen anyway... IF they managed to correctly deliver your letter)
- A small grass patch (for some)
- 10 feet high bakod with…
- Broken glass on top of the bakod -- high tech way for warding off intruders.
- A BaGua mirror (despite the fact that they’re Catholics).
- An old palaspas that was there since Ramos was in office.

Cooking with Arnold IX

Post after post after post of kitchen tragedies (see my “Cooking with Arnold” series in the history), a good Samaritan has come to my aid all the way from Madrid, Spain.

Meet Cherina from the Application Integration team. Web server wizard. She posted some ridiculously easy recipes on her site specifically for me to try. If she went through all this trouble posting it for me, I might as well give these a try. Besides, going through the recipe instructions, these things will be easy. There’s no way anyone can mess these up.

But then again, I’m the rice burning, potato mashing, pancake smoking, Coke using chef slash arsonist. And oh, I make you have allergies too.

“Gazpechas”

The ingredients are listed in Cher’s site.

I cleaned and chopped up the veggies (tomatoes, cucumbers, garlic, onion and green pepper). I’m not a veggie person and there so many things yet for me to learn about vegetables.

Do you take out the tomato seeds? (I didn’t)
How do you cut green pepper? (I chopped it in half sending seeds flying in every irection)
Do you peel cucumbers? (I didn’t)
Do you take out cucumber seeds? (I didn’t)





I took out a blender, pureed the veggies then realized that I went through all the trouble chopping them all up and end up pureeing them anyway. D’oh! The concoction turned brown. It doesn’t look good. It smelled like freshly cut grass. I added the seasonings (olive oil, salt, pepper, vinegar, water), stirred it and stared at it. It looks horrible. I placed some plastic wrap over it then left it in the fridge to cool.



The next day, Feliz was over for lunch. I was too cowardly to taste this and I brought in someone else. I took out the bowl from the fridge and removed the plastic. Feliz saw it and jumped up and down “Wow! KARE KARE!”

An angel and a devil appeared on my left and right shoulder, both of them waving their hands and shouting “We know what you’re thinking! Don’t do it! Don’t do it!”. I sighed but agreed.

I told Feliz it was actually a cold veggie like soup. I took out a small spoon and I asked her to taste it. It felt like I was pushing a lamb into a lion's cage. Before she could approach the bowl, I took the spoon and mixed the bowl with it. I took a small portion and slowly brought it to my lips. My hands were shaking. I was so nervous I dropped the spoon which bubbled to the bottom. With Feliz and Louvre laughing horribly in the background I took out another spoon, closed my eyes and tasted the damned thing.

It tasted just like that… damned.

I ran to the sink and spat it out. I took the bowl and dumped its contents into the garbage disposal. I was still doing some spitting sounds because I couldn’t get the taste out of my mouth. On the way out, I picked up a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Cookie Dough ice cream just to remove the awful taste.

Gazpechas… Gazpacho na lasang…

Not Your Ordinary Sky

I looked up one day to see the sky and took a deep deep breath. I notice that the sky was blue, purple, pink and yellow.



Wow, I never thought the sky would ever look so gay.