NATIONAL BREAKFAST DAY

National breakfast day - Frankly i never even heard of this holiday before ever in my life, but according to the McDonald's promotional commercial on T.V. they will be giving away free McMuffin sandwiches to the general public nationwide  - AS IN FREE FOR ALL on march 14, 2016 6am to 7am. The General public was very anxious to hear about this announcement and have been waiting for weeks for this. I myself can't wait on those free sandwiches and wanted to try out they're so called McMuffins. There's an old saying that "the best things in life are for free" so I got myself One McMuffin on that day , may not be much since Philippine Sandwiches are half smaller than the ones in foreign countries , but the thought of giving without asking anything in return to someone you don’t even know weighs more in kindness rather than the size of the sandwich.  

 

Praise McDonalds for being true on its commercial on giving those sandwiches for free on the general public, I was afraid that they might turn out to be like some kind of scheme, like any Philippine government social worker propaganda on T.V (or any Philippine government agency in general). where they only tell a partial truth and majority was a fabricated lie. Hopefully my suspicion on McDonalds turned out be wrong.

 

As for Jollibee , I'm pretty sure they a "NO COMMENT" on this matter.

UNCHARITABLE CHARITY

Wasn't exactly enthusiastic nor even delighted to hear about this so called PWD's invitation (person with disabilities invitation from the local social service) coming  the town hall from the start. However since I gave my word that I will attend their invitation when the social workers visited a couple of days ago, I decided to went ahead - after all this for my dad's sake, and dad's was actually the one invited and not me - I'm only serving as a guardian and tag along on dad since he could barely walk.

 

As expected, the reception and treatment we got from the municipal hall of cainta rizal was pathetic and mediocre at best. It’s a good thing that we came there as a group along with other PWD's (people with disability) and there's a cab that fetched us to and from the municipal hall of cainta Rizal. To summarized it looked more like a PWD field trip rather than a social service kind of help. We did get help from the social services department on medical assistance part but they just handed out 20 pcs of pain killer tablets (all generic) and told us not to bother them again.

 

The same thing goes when our group was asking financial assistance from the staff on the social services department, office of the mayor. They told us that they can't help us and that the mayor wasn't in "his office" ( what ?! The mayor is not at work during office days and office hours ??? ). Probably the mayor is not interested at all meeting people with disabilities and senior citizens 60 yrs old and up - all are voter's in his domain. In any case personally I never liked the idea of "financial assistance" on the fact that it sounded more of like begging rather than helping , but either way help or not. The mayor was no public servant.

 

At early afternoon, a cab came in on the Municipal Hall to fetch us back and return our group to their homes.

 

Like I said on my previous blog entries that public service in the Philippines is none existent and pathetic, a person is lucky enough to find a friendly social worker. Almost all of the Filipino social workers are hostile and loathe helping the poor (and even the local citizenry). They are totally unfit as a public servant and boggles my mind on why they even end up as charity workers in the first place. As much as possible avoid asking help from them and a person is better off without them.    

PROBLEMATIC POSSIBILITY

Seems that every news I get lately about my work keeps getting worse than ever. Latest news I heard from one of my former co-workers thru social media is that there's a refresher course for PSCRB training Seminar and Career Ship Management Requires its crew to take that. "Theo" says that folks in the office required him to take that course and he's surprised to learn that Career hasn't informed me yet about this. I told him that the company must have forgotten to tell me about it earlier and will probably inform me on the latter.

 

Now the problem about this is that if ever Career Ship Management required me to take this (or decided to inform me on the latter) is that it will take me for a while to be able to accomplish that, and upon my research on the internet the cost of the refresher course, amounts to about 3,000 Php excluding the cost of its MARINA COP and other expenses. Overall I estimate it could be 4,500 Php . This price tag is no big deal a few months ago for me , however present situation I have is that I'm currently in a pinch right now and it's not sure on where the hell would I get the funding for it, if ever that would be the case. Bottom line is that it’s a hassle and problematic for me if Career Ship Management decides to impose this on me.

 

Another problem, I have to deal with is the re-medical exam issue that kept resurfacing. Apparently from what I read on the social media, medical certificates are good only for three months if I'm still stuck on land and valid for two years once I get onboard a ship (for legal purposes only and not employment) , if whatever case I never got deployed beyond the three month period , then its already expired and have to retake the medical screening again, which bottom line means another hassle for me.

 

For now I'm going to stay silent about this issues since , I haven't heard any news lately yet from the company. The longer I stay here , the more problems arise that I have to deal with.

 

In other news …..

 

I accidentally stumbled upon a special collectible BSP coin. It looks like a normal 5 peso coin on first look , but upon closer examination it revealed that it's an "OFW" themed commemorative coin. I took pictures of it to show it here on my blog what it looks like.

 

 

 

In another news….

 

I'm going to make a few movements within the coming of days, and have asked my younger sister that I will be borrowing money from her soon. My sister agreed but unfortunately for me, her salary is still as far as the 20th of this month and it meant for me that I have to sit tight for a couple of days until my sister gets her salary for me to borrow money. 

 

If ever I should get the funds, I'm going to secure first an X-ray chest plate and an NBI Clearance (law enforcement work clearance) which is needed for local employment.

STILL FAR FROM STABILITY

Things are returning again to normal , at least close to normal and the recent problem on mom's black listing in the dialysis clinic is now close to being solved , thanks to kind donors from mom's school mates.

 

As for my employment problem , it is still on going and yet to be resolved. There is some progress on the past few days and my "contact" on the company took a look on the reason why I'm still stuck here in the Philippines. From his search it turns out that Career Ship Management as of the moment have too many sailors around and less ships, resulting that some crew they have , are still up to now in indefinite hold status. From the looks of it , they have a lot of folks in the waiting line , One of my former co-workers few ships back  said that he's in hold status for 8 months now.

 

For now I'm in a loophole situation, I could choose to leave career ship management company and try my employment elsewhere but there's no guarantee once I get there that working conditions (and salary) will be favorable on my side, aside from that there's no assurance as well that document requirement will be the same. However if I sit tight around in Career - there's a possibility that I'd be stuck here for 8 months or even longer (no job and salary). To summarize both options have a positive and negative side , and I'm still weighing on what is the best decision I would make. Of course there's a third option that does not conflict on the two options I have above. Third option is to have a local job , which solves my short term problem.

 

The plans I have are good enough (or at least close to good enough) but are hindered by financial problems. A total road block , why my plans are very slow to implement. In the meantime for now all I could do is get my seaman's book from the office and patiently wait on what will my situation come in next.

 

In other news ….

 

Lately I had been having problems with my HP Gaming laptop, and from the looks of it , the old problem that’s been plaguing my computer a few months back has resurfaced and I had spent a few days trying to solve and remedy the problem. Previously I recall few months back that my HP has a nasty habit of shutting down, at first I thought it has something to do on battery related issues given that when I opened my laptop to check on its internal wirings , I saw that one of its three power cell was already "bloated" and damage. Upon further checking I'm unable to replace it or remove the battery as a remedy because its batteries are not detachable and wired directly . (for short batteries are internal and not external),

 

Now it seems that the power cell issue was not the case at all on why my gaming laptop is malfunctioning in the first place. Like I said the problem reoccurred few days ago and it happened when I accidentally didn’t notice that my HP laptop wasn't plugged on its electric adaptor and was running on its batteries. Given that one of its power cell batteries are corrupted , the power didn’t last long and suddenly shut my computer down. I tried to plug it to the power adaptor and press the on switch but to no avail, it wouldn’t start. After several minutes attempting , it did switch on but I couldn't play games and if I did attempt - it would only be met with immediate shut down.  These went on for a couple of days and it was an agony turning on my laptop as I repeatedly press the on button. If the laptop did switched on , I could only use it to run office apps and not play PC games - function only a netbook does and not a gaming laptop should do.

 

It was a hopeless case and I figured that if I'm going to replace this PC , it may still take a year because of economic issues I had at the moment. Then I did recall something after a few days, that after I successfully switched on my PC after numerous attempts , a black screen appears telling that HP thermal guard switched off my computer due to heat temperature issues. Thinking that hit something on my brain and figured that this has something do on the thermal issue. I search for a day about the possibility that I could switch off HP's thermal guard drivers in some way. I had looked on its manuals and found no direct resolution on how to do so and there was no possible way - at least switching off its equipment.

 

Later I searched google using a public wifi for answers. What I found was HP devices did have some sort of thermal sensors on their computer and that It can't be accessed using software. In other words I have to manually cool the sensors in some way. Given with the idea, I went home and tried an experiment. My experiment was to put an small fan on its vents to at least let cool air in , therefore cooler air inside means that sensors will indicate that temperature has been lower and will not hit the automatic shutdown.

 

Thankfully my experiment work, and it seems that I still have a few more years left using this computer and I don’t have any more problems in switching my laptop on and off . The best part is that I could now play PC games as well, I tested it in playing Elder Scrolls 5 : Skyrim and Metal Gear Solid 5 and no problems were encountered, never had an incident were it had to shut down.

 

WAKING DREAMS

It been a long time, and yet I'm still here in the Philippines. Specifically its been almost four months now ( arrived at Oct 26th last year ) , and I'm starting to think all sorts of stuff on why there's no sign yet coming from Career Ship Management and I'm starting to suspect that there's something wrong going on why they haven't put me on any "Ship assignment" yet.

 

Recently I talked to one of my former co-workers via face book on what is his suspicions. Its glad that I talked to one of my former co-worker and our discussion  made me think on what is actually going on , or the very least gave me an idea. To start with apparently "jay carta" told me that Career Ship Management has nasty habit of putting things on hold for a very very long time for their crew, and based on what he said it's around at least six months , (some were rumored to be even put on hold as 8 months to a year - as from what I heard from A.B. "Patrick dondonilla" ). In any rate , it obvious that there's a possibility based on our conversation that I might be here longer , and recalling back what Captain Nidoy said is that during my latest visit - that "apparent Validity" of the med certificate is as far as a year , which meant indirectly that they could put me on hold on that long. The more that made me suspect was that I recall on my last visit in the shipping office that they're were still deploying O.S. sailor's on CSM principal and in fully controlled CSM ships , while I'm left out here on indefinite floating status, in other words - what makes me so different from them right ?! It only concludes that O.S. deployment were never a problem from the start, never was.

 

After talking with my former co-worker "jay carta" ,everything makes sense now why I'm still here and some of my co-workers are already there. There's are a lot of things that Career Ship Management isn't telling me right now (Specifically Capt Nidoy) on what exactly is going on, and probably the main twist on that is that I'd find out on the latter, which I'm already helpless on that point. For now it's difficult for me to determine what is going on in my company nor figure out their intentions , they haven't told me that I'm no longer needed and they haven't told me that I'm still needed - so basically I'm in limbo right now.

 

Nevertheless whatever be the case, it's about time I would take action on what is happening around me . Sooner or later I had to deal with this and it would be best I should deal with it soon rather than later where the problem will get worse. The main reason for now why I'm kept from leaving is because of personal issues back home, coincidentally me and my sister are currently preoccupied and battling with the financial debts (I will write later)plus taking care of  mom,. Without that factor, I could leave the company anytime I wish and at will without any serious problems or complications , and I'm sure anybody on their right mind would be doing the same if they're already here in the Philippines for more than four months. As a matter of fact everyone around me is telling me that I should ditch out Career Ship Management now.

 

Overall , I've done some thinking about my situation and concluded that I guess it's about time I moved on in life again and probably Career Ship Management already ran its course. If this is the case then it meant that it's just a natural cycle on career as a sailor about moving in , moving out and moving on. I'm never afraid to lose my job, and there's no hard feelings or anything personal if I'm no longer needed by CSM nor NSB , it's just simply ran its course - just simply I had to find another company to transfer and that’s it.

 

For now, I'm refraining myself to posting on anything in the social media until I sort things out first and frankly to stop any embarrassment that I'm still here in the Philippines, and avoid a jinx altogether.

 

IN OTHER NEWS…
 

A black list came by recently at the hospital informing that mom cannot be accepted in the clinic until she fully pays the 30,000 PHP debt. For the moment my sister has already gathered at least half of the needed payment for it coming from donations from mom's school friends on high school , The other half is still being figured out. Either way for the moment mom cannot undergo dialysis treatment until its resolved.

 

Last Sunday it was a blessing that mom had a dialysis for one last time , and its crucial on the fact that it needed to at least buy my sister some time to solve the bills problem, at least give a week more of time before things went to hell again.

EVERYTHINGS A MESS

Had to admit that things right now for me are getting difficult, So difficult that I'm starting to live on getting any scraps I could get my hands on. Anyway its no surprise for me on this difficult situation given that I will be spending my 4th month here in the Philippines, and by logical thinking any supplies that I had stored before I arrived here have already been exhausted. Come to think of it my supplies actually would go as far as for this month if I haven't gave more than half of my saving on shouldering expenses at the house, A terrible mistake that I'm learning now  because I should have at least left half of my savings to myself. Some people say that being selfless is not that bad , but apparently in reality it’s a lot more complicated and it was a bad idea for me to contribute as it dragged me down to being helpless,. (the third time for me to happen)

 

For the moment , there is no news yet on when will I be sent overseas and my phone line for the office has been silent for months now - it is not determine yet if my company has any plans at all, which makes matters worse for me and I'm starting to think that it's about time I do something on this grinding halt. My latest visit on my company didn’t yield any significant results and only determined that I don’t need to go to another Medical exam after three months , and that validity

 

I had already planned out on what I'm going to do and all that needs now is a little money for me to reorganize and be back on track and get a local land based job.  For now given with the lack of funding , I'm stuck on doing part of my plan that doesn't involve anything with money like updating my resume (which I haven't done since 2012) and the like. 

 

This is the layout of what I will be doing within the next couple of days to few months (depends on the funding available and what I can find ).

 

PHASE A. "ReOrganize"

 

*Recover My Seaman's book (have to go to my company and "borrow" it)

*Update my Resume  (I have some old file on my computer)

*Print Resume  (just go to any nearby computer shop to print a few copies)

*Update my Chest X-Ray (I'd probably get these in a private medical Clinic)

*Update and get a NBI Clearance ( Apparently there's a new method so I heard)

*(Optional) get picture ID's , both 1x1 and 2x2 in civilian attire.

 

PHASE B. "ACTUAL"

 

*Search for a possible BPO company suited for me,

(this is a long process actually , The criteria for me will be that it should have facilities that are open and free to use and the companies location)

*Look for work there on the company

*Survive till I get the paycheck.

 

Sounds fairly simple if I have the funding, but of course it gets complicated since I don’t have it. Hopefully this will keep me occupied until things on the house would stabilize.

 

In other news…

 

Internal situations inside the house have been hard and it is embarrassing for me to write and admit that I'm already experiencing hunger and famine. In fact while writing this I have only ate once in a day (and the same goes for yesterday) due to the lack of available food around. Its seems sadly that mom's sickness has already took its toll and dragged everyone down into the brink of financial ruin. In theory and practice my sister and I could support the routine  maintenance of dialysis session, but regrettably not the unforeseen medical expenses, these combined with mom's hypochondriac paranoia, and emotional disorder are a deadly mix. Mom took advantage and exploited the fact that I was an OFW and that I had financial capabilities. She squander a lot of money on unnecessary medical expenses and thru hospitalization, instead of focusing only on dialysis session. Even the simplest of colds or difficulty breathing was reason enough for her to spend a few weeks on hospital confinement , even though she is medically fine as what the doctors tell at the hospital, Didn’t matter to her that she is using the hard earned money coming from me - all she cared about was recklessly spend.

 

Imagine the money that was thrown out just because of that and it was wrong of her to put the trust in a public hospital which never gave any medical treatment at all but charged us with 30,000 to 50,000 PHP per medical confinement.

 

For me as an OFW, I didn’t have the time to check what was going - nor even have the capacity to see what was actually happening, given that my situation as a sailor was very constricting to communications,. It took days before I received anything on the satellite email and days before they received anything, and the emails I had received barely describe on what is actually happening.

 

Eventually this Mom's imaginary illness , took its toll on the long run and eventually dragged me and my sister to financial trouble. The latest news now is that the dialysis clinic refused to help us until we settled first our bills (which amounted now close to 30,000 Php). Same thing goes as well on my younger sister's numerous friends, basically her debts are left and right and most of her "friends" avoid her because of it. I don’t have anything against with these people nor on the public hospitals dialysis clinic refusals to help us because those are bad debts , that needed to be addressed - otherwise it's not surprising that they won't help us at all. Regrettably Mom wasn’t wise in spending and resulted now in her being put on hold on from receiving medical treatment until it's settled. 

 

We couldn't use this so called PHIL Health medical insurance because last month's disastrous hospitalization, resulted in complete depletion of that insurance on reserved for at least for 6 months. She just used it all in one blow on the last hospitalization.      

 

There are days that I just simply wish to wanted to end and "fast forward" on to the next, however it only meant to be troubled again on the next day to replay the horror of starvation, A repetitive and looping nightmare. Most of the days (actually already a month now) , I just went to my pc and spend my time there and played games , hoping that the hours and days would simply be over soon. It worked for a couple of weeks as a diversion but then again video games is just a retreat from unpleasant realities through fantasy - never solved anything , just delayed problems.

 

Anyway it's all said and done. Despite my rambling on this writing , I have to face these and resolve in any way possible. All I can say is that my house is a mess right now.

 

WHEN AND WHERE PART

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DEADLOCKE SITUATION

EVENTS HAPPENED ON JANUARY 25TH

Being stuck in the hospital is a dragging situation for a week now and there is no sign yet that it will be over anytime soon. I guess being inside the hospital starting 10 pm till 12 noon the following day babysitting mom is stressful enough, More stressful in the sense is mom is not cooperating at all., As expected amang rodriguez hospital is doing nothing in treating their patients and just gave mom an oxygen tank bottle for her to breathe.

 

The whole hospital area is littered with patients , even on walking spaces - the patients are line-up outside in hospital beds , and on my perception the whole place looks like a 21st century makeshift bomb shelter hospital bunker like you see in the movies.

 

Another week came by and it was still the same, It was mentally and physically grueling being there , I only sleep roughly two hours each day and some of the days none at all. It was a blessing that I bring along my tablet PC on the hospital to keep me from getting bored to death on doing nothing during on my "guard". Basically the public hospital hasn’t done anything significant yet to medically treat mom , they just simply change her oxygen bottle once in a while and that’s basically sums everything up for the whole day.

 

Anyway I don't expect much in a public hospital these days in the Philippines, Medical care here as like in any third world country is extremely cruel and self-serving. On top of that medical staffs like doctors and nurses, certainly don’t live up to their names as being "life saver's" and believe it or not they have total disregard for human (Filipino)lives - CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT !??

 

Speaking of which a few days ago, one of the nurses in the female ward apparently ripped me off and stole a pack of medicines from me. Well she didn’t exactly "grabbed" our stuff without permission , but what she did was tell me to hand over our supply of medicines I had and said that since this is a hospital ward, all medications must be first hand over to the nurse station - for them to give to the patient. Being clueless on what was going on and that I haven't been on the hospital in years now, I handed it over in good fate - the whole medicine pack, not knowing what was going on. Two days later I found out from my younger sister that they never gave my mom any of the meds I turned over on the nurse station - NOT A SINGLE TABLET AT ALL, and it gets better when I heard from my younger sister that nurses here in the public hospital often steal meds from patients and profit from then by selling the meds they stole.

in the public hospital , you see people die right of youre eyes. infact everyone on the whole medical ward see's a person catch his last breath live.

A WEEK OF DARKNESS

Previously - word from Career Ship management has made work as a sailor to a grinding halt and the worst part is that they gave no definitive date on when will be this "floating status" to be over. From the looks of it , it won't be over for a while. NSB for now doesn’t guarantee that I'd be back there (or be back at all) once their cadetship program is over.

With no assurance on when will I be back , it further pushes economic and financial strain on my house and soon I have to think or resort to ways to get some cash. I came up with a couple of plans , nothing solid for now and it will change depending on the situation. Nearest I could think of is to return back to the BPO , given that it only takes a small amount of money to get there compared to being a sailor . If it gets worse then it's possible that I have to look for work on a different shipping company altogether and ditch out Career Ship Management - and it will be easy for me given that my U.S. Visa is still active and I don’t have any financial obligations so far in Career.

I had all the time to think about my situation , but for now I'm occupied in more pressing internal matters

Can't believe it that 15 years , My house is once again will be plunged into darkness - literary. I have no idea and do not know what’s exactly is going on, but I was caught dumb folded on the morning of January 15th when a personnel coming from the electric company visited our house and said that they will have to cut off the electric supply of our house due to unsettled bills. I was in disbelief at first and was hoping that it was all a big mistake, unfortunately when I checked the paper from the technician it confirms that, house will be disconnected. The Technician said that he wanted to speak to who's is in charge of the electric bill. I hurriedly went back inside calmly and told my dad that he should speak to the person from the electric company, To my dismay my dad was unwilling or simply too caught on the surprise that I had to shout numerous times for him to go outside and approach the personnel. Figuring that it was taking too long , I also went outside to see what's going on , it was by stroke of luck that the technician gave us a 24 hours before he pulls the plug and left - probably out of empathy on seeing my dad.

Immediately i sent an SMS to my sister informing the situation on the house, 5 hours later I received a reply via SMS and told her everything. She says "She'd see what she can do on the situation" . Up to now a few hours later I'm still having anxiety problems about it. The funny thing about this situation is that my mom and dad doesn’t seemed to mind or even bother that the electricity here in the house will be cut off, they did the usual thing they do every day.

Eventually It was found out that the technician that came to the house isn't exactly a technician at all or even associated to the electric company, turns out that this person was some sort of scammer and was trying to rip out the house off by stealing the electric meter installation. Apparently from what I learned on my sister the , Electric meter installed on the house has some sort of monetary valued if stolen and sold which attracted con's and planned to steal it. Recalling back the electric metered installed on the house has been unchanged for 17 years and it's still analogue compared to today's digital electric meter.

The second time the con man arrived , I locked the gate and said that I have to verify first his association with the electric company. Immediately called my younger sister for help and they had a conversation on the phone (I set it to loudspeaker). On the conversation the con man failed to identify who he was and his association to the electric company, and when my sister mentioned that she's going to call her classmate during high school who now works in the Electric company. The man made excuses and hurriedly left .

Funny in the sense that if you're really are associated and work for the electric company , why would the man leave in such a hurry.

After the small trouble , another bigger problem awaits ..

On the early morning of Wednesday , January 20th . We had to rush mom on the local public hospital due to complaints about her breathing, we didn’t take it seriously and assumed that Mom was just making a ruse to return to the toxic environment of the hospital - like she did a lot of times before. 

We did disagree of her returning to the Rodriguez Hospital on numerous reasons, The most notable why we don’t want her to the hospital is because they won't treat her there anymore and that she will be just put on hold in that place indefinitely without any cure or remedy. In other words Government Hospitals would be more of like a prison rather than a place for treatment, and not only do they refuse to give treatment but, will held you off against you're will until you paid them off. Imagine paying money for nothing or paying money for detention. Anyway eventually mom had her way and we had to put her on the hospital, and as expected mom is being held there and the hospital refuse to give any treatments , they only thing they could provide was the expensive oxygen tanks for mom to breathe - beyond that there's nothing more.

It's already a fact that mom's condition is terminal and there is no cure, the only remedy we knew is "Kidney dialysis" , which is a last ditch effort - beyond that line , its death. Being in a public hospital and seeking treatment there doesn't help either, Not only are the doctors and staff are rude but generally care little about human lives and on top of that The whole facility is run downed that there's a possibility that a healthy person would get infected and catch a diseases sooner or later there.

Mom insists in staying and being in the hospital without any knowledge of the repercussion of what will be our condition there, she doesn’t have any idea that being in a Philippine government hospital is one of the worst places on earth for medical care. A little slice of hell on earth in the Philippines.

DISC IMAGE

Never occurred to me that my sister would catch up and get me a new star bucks planner . In fact I thought that getting that darn planner would never materialize at all, hopefully my sister proved me wrong and on the morning of January 03 my sister came to my study tablet and gave me this small star bucks paper bag and inside it was the long waited (and highly desired) collectible star bucks planner 2016. My eyes lit up like wild fire the minute I saw what's inside the paper bag and got my hands on it. Of course I immediately posted on all my social media accounts that I got a new 2016 star bucks planner . Facebook , Twitter and even Instagram. This seems childish but it always brings me a smile on  each year to get this notebook, no matter how shitty or crappy year I had.

So what's the difference of the new 2016 SB planner than last year, first off the new planner they issue is a bit of a setback compared to last year , with a much smaller space and a lot less paper inside it. So basically star buck fans were not very happy to see their beloved planner to be downsized after that much trouble in collecting the stickers first , and as a matter of fact - up to now the new 2016 planner is still being distributed, (compared to last year that it sold of early). Regardless of the disappointment of fans, I'm thankful that my sister gave me one and she went on that trouble just to get one, - it's kind of a tradition that started way back in 2011 that my sister yearly gave me this. Given that I myself is a prolific write I enjoy every bit of material that is given to me that I can write on during my spare time, given that my situation being frequently trapped on a floating gas station  

Aside from that …

Lately I had been studying and digesting a lot of information about financial investing , since I'm planning to start an investment account later this year. I had to be patient in reading and at least understanding on every detail I need to know before I venture on this uncharted area. For now I had to painstakingly understood on a lot of jargon terms and terminology which give me a migraine every time I try to understood it. Anyway it's obvious for me that it may take me a while to fully understand what's going on.

Thru tremendous searching on the net , I stumbled upon a blogsite titled "investor Juan" which teaches some terminology and basics about investing and how to make your money roll, now of course it's not exactly a certified rule book but it gives idea's on what to do about the money.  (just type and search it on google)

Another thing I will write about is the recent discovery I made on how to hide pirated installer DVD / CD's from airport security. And yes I computer science this shit up for the convenience of the whole OFW out there.

As we all know in airport security basic's, this is one of the prohibited item's that should not be brought along on the trip (at least on the airport) and anyone caught possessing such item carries a penalty of a few thousand dollars to a few years of jail time depending on which country you got caught. Now for my perspective since having a pirated DVD / CD's are the lesser evil on the long list of prohibited items on airport security , I decided to share my discovery on how to get past airport security, and in general carrying pirated Cd's without actually carrying a physical pirated DVD / CD's inside my luggage.

Remember that the data inside the CD's are more important that the physical CD's themselves. Of course I have to apologize on this part because this requires and average to advance skill in computer to pull this off , which as far as I know mostly Filipino OFW's have poor or below average on computer skills which includes also Filipino Sailors, so basically this will be difficult to be understood for a common OFW.

Anyway here's the thing , all you need is this.

LAPTOP / COMPUTER that has a DVD / CD Drive

External DVD reader / writer (in case you're computer doesn’t have a CD drive)

Pirated DVD's or CD's (Stuff that you will copy data from)

Any CD copying software (in my personal choice is daemon tools pro advance)

A little brain power (seriously)

Steps

1 install any Daemon tools pro advance virtual disk drive on your pc . Compatible with windows 7 , 8 , 8.1 and 10, this creates a virtual disk drive on the computer's hard drive which in turn will be needed later on to read the copied data.

2 put the pirated CD / DVD on the CD tray of the computer or external drive.

3 Run the Daemon tools and choose the option "make disc image" , or anything similar that copies the disc.

4 Store in your computer or any external storage device like , hard drives, memory cards etc.

Presto now you have a disc data that doesn't have a physical CD. Just remember that in order for the data to be played you have to "mount" the data first to the virtual data drive , then play it there via any media player or any other programs that plays the disk.

Overall by virtualizing or whatever you call the process in copying an image disc , it greatly reduces the possibility of an OFW being searched or detected in their luggage some pirated DVD's or CD on the airport , because there's no CD's inside in the first  place - well at least physical CD's, it's now  just only disc files inside a compact hard drive. This is the practical application of my discovery to a common OFW's perspective.

In other news …

January came and I was figuring out what the hell has happened on Career and why haven't they called me yet, more thing that adds to my puzzle was the recent call made by Mr. Nidoy. So I decided to drop by a week after new year and see what the hell was going on,  When I came to visit - I immediately checked the IVRS system and see if the "line-up" for me on Cape Texel was still active . Unfortunately it isn't and I went next to the processing counter to confirm if I was removed , it checked out. The last objective of my visit is to know why and had to see Mr. Nidoy on the explanation, He told me that the reason why Cape Texel was scrubbed was on the fact that Filipino crewmen there got laid off and replaced by Chinese crew and there are still figuring me out on what ship will I be reassigned. The main bottom line is that I'm in a "floating" status, no line up's awaiting and definitely extended on vacation.

I do have faith that career will sort this shit out for me in due time and that it will be in enough time that I won't take another medical on it.