Manny “PACMAN” Pacquiao once again proven how a strong fighter he can be. He knocked out Dangerous David Diaz on the 9th round of the fight scheduled for 12, Pacman snatched the World Boxing Council (WBC) Lightweight Belt from Diaz, which made him the first Asian & only the fifth in the world to win 4 titles in 4 different weight categories.

I share Freddie Roach’ opinion that Manny is in his “best condition” when he battled Diaz last Saturday Night (Sunday morning here) in Mandalay Bay.

Once again, Manny made every Filipino proud.

Judge Ester Piscoso-Flor of Banaue, Ifugao Regional Trial Court Branch 34 ordered Juan Donald Duntugan to spend his lifetime in prison. The court found Dugtungan guilty of killing US Peace Corps volunteer Julia Campbell on April 8, 2007.

The judge also ordered Duntungan to pay Julia’s family the amount of PhP39.7 million as actual, moral, exemplary damages.

Finally, justice have been served.

Hundreds of bodies still remains inside the wreck of M/V Princess of the Seas, the Navy stopped the search & retrieval operation last Friday when they found out the it was carrying toxic chemical Endosulfan, a pesticide for pineapple plantation when the vessel left Manila almost 2 weeks ago.

There are still over 700 passengers still missing & families of these victims agonizes each day that passes.

Both fighters promised a great fight & refuses to bow against each other, for me, the beauty of this fight is their stands, both fighters are southpaw. For Diaz, the pressure is keeping then belt while for Pacquiao the honor of being the first Asian to hold championship belts in 4 different weight division will be the biggest motivation.

I wish I will be able to see this match, if not because of my wedding shoot, I could’ve bought a front row ticket in a theater where the bout will be shown live. A large popcorn on one hand & a large root beer on the other & eyes wide open watching the larger than life image of the fighters in the silver screen.

I wish to get a blow-by-blow account of the fight or get the pacquiao - diaz fight result immediately.

This pose a very important question, why sail when there’s a storm warning at hand?

As far as I can remember, storm signal no. 1 was raised over Metro Manila & neighboring provinces on the night of June 20, 2008. The ill-fated vessel left the Port of Manila on the same night, according to the Philippine Coast Guard’s Policy, it’s in the discretion of the ship’s Captain to sail amidst the storm warning, which what the veteran Captain of the vessel did.

The moment that I learned about the incident, I realized that something was wrong with the policy. The government could have been more cautious in writing such a policy, our country is being visited by more than 20 typhoons every year, we could have been ready for such disaster.

Frogmen from the Philippine Navy is now conducting a search, rescue & recovery on the capsized ship, the hopes of finding living survivor is getting slimmer each day. Relatives of the missing passengers were enraged by what they claim to be “silence & inaction” of the company. Sulpicio Lines promised to shoulder all the expenses for the burial of the dead victims & will give the amount PhP200,000 to the families as damages.

The Board of Marine Inquiry is currently investigating on the matter, my only hope is that those who are responsible will meet the full force of the law & incidents like this will be prevented in the future.

I mourn with the families of the victims, there’s nothing more painful than the “untimely” death of love ones. My prayer goes with them & may they find peace in the midst of such tragedy.

As far as i can remember, typhoon storm signal no. 1 was raised over Southern Tagalog Region last Friday & the sound from the outside is not signal number 1. I was very tired to debate with myself if this is really signal number 1 or stronger, I just grabbed the book that I was reading & read until I fell asleep.

Winds was stronger in the morning, I logged on the the internet & check the latest news about “Frank.”

Image courtesy of Typhoon2000.com

Signal no. 3 was raised in our area, a passenger vessel sank near the Island of Sibuyan in Romblon carrying more than 700 passengers, thousand of passengers were stranded in different ports in the country, floods in CAMANAVA (Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas & Valenzuela) & evacuation of families residing in the flooded areas were being undertaken. These were the news that welcomed me this morning.

On a more personal note, I was not able to attend Sunday Service today, the wind was so strong for me to get out of the house & travel. Our Santol tree did not survive Frank’s wrath, I was able to salvage it from last year’s series of typhoon, maybe frank was too strong for “her.”

Rain, rain go away!

Two of them, Tin & Cielo I met previously when Ann & Kadyo sponsored an EB at Max’s Restaurant at the Mall of Asia, & the others I’m glad to finally meet them, they are Karmi (the hostess), Vanny, Lalaine, Dra. Rio, Sheng, Ariane, Rob, Yeye, Arvin & the star of the night Major.

After the hefty dinner at Superbowl, we went down to Dencio’s & had a few bottles of beer & a lot of chit-chat, Major almost divulged the secret of earning six digits through blogging.

It was fun as ever, I came home past midnight (way past midnight! hehehe). Who will be next to organize?

As usual, I left the house to attend the Sunday Service, midway on the service when our Pastor left the pulpit & called on every father to approach the altar, that’s the time that I went out of the church building. For the last 12 years I avoided the melancholy of such a ritual, of calling all the fathers & recognizing their greatness & with the kids offering gifts as token of their appreciation.

I don’t think I’m entitled to such an honor… As I was avoiding the scene, a kid approached me & handed me a small green piece of paper saying “Kuya, nabigyan kayo nito?” I took the paper & read what’s written on it.

What more can I say? I just took a deep breath & prayed…

Since yesterday was the first day of school, I have to adjust my time, I have to leave 30 minutes early than usual. I hate myself whenever I’m late in an appointment.

I saw some children along the way, I can see the mixed emotions on them, one can be excited & at the same time feel that summer did not end that soon. I could remember myself hating the first day of school. But as always, it’s a “reality” that I faced for about 12 years of studying.

Anyways, after meeting with my client & visiting the venue along Visaya’s Avenue in QC, I went to Makati to pick-up the album that I’ve ordered for the couple’s guestbook.

The government is saying that education is free for all public schools & fees to be collected will be purely voluntary for grades 5 & 6 only. Also, uniforms will also be voluntary. Seems so cool, I remember hearing GMA saying that “like the schools in the US & other countries where uniforms are not having uniforms.”

This would mean a student can come to school not wearing his/her uniform & no ID & probably no security guard (or Barangay Tanod) to check every entry. With the current set-up, the school PTA has no authority collect any amount from parents for any reason.

They say that the best things in life are free, but it all depends on how much we can give for this to stay free.

Napansin ko noong Sabado na may mga “spot” na maitim ang mga litratong kinukunan ng Nikon D80. Ang duda ko dumi ito sa sensor ng camera ko, speckles ang tawag dito, mga alikabok ang kung anik-anik na duming pumapasok sa camera tuwing magpapalit ng lente.

Ganun din ang itsura ng Nikon D70 ko, last year ko pa ito napansin, alam kong ganito na karumi ang sensor nito matapos ko itong bilhin mula sa isang kaibigan.

Para ma-confirm ko na marumi nga ang sensor, kinunan ko ng picture ang isang blank Microsoft Word™ document, I set the aperture at f22, the focussing to manual then I took the shot as close as possible, eto ang kuha ng Nikon D80.

At ito naman ang sa Nikon D70, sobrang dumi nito compared to Nikon D80, mukhang 2 taong hindi nilinis ni Roland ito.

Anyways, to address the problem, nag-search ako sa internet at nagtanong-tanong sa mga kakilala & fellow PiPho forumers, natawa ako sa reaksyon nung isang forumer sa text, “what?! tagal mo ng photographer, di ka pa naglilinis ng sensor?”, simple lang sinagot ko, “wala namang sensor yung film camera sir… :P”, which is true, 4 years na akong Photographer, pero lagpas one year pa lang akong “Digital” Photographer.

Finally, I got an answer from him, he suggested to get myself a Pec*Pad® Sensor cleaning kit, I got this kit from JT Photography for PhP1,100.00, eksakto naman kasi, umorder ako ng album na gagamitin ko sa signature album ng couple na kinunan ko kahapon.

Medyo nakakakaba ang process, the mere fact na you will expose your camera’s sensor is quite frightening, konting pagkakamali at babay camera! Hehehehe!

After a few minutes of operating on my 2 cams, eto na ang “finished products”, this time ulap naman yung kinunan ko ng picture.

Ang ipinagpasalamat ko ng todo ay nagawa ko ito ng matiwasay at hindi nasira ang camera ko. Anybody who wants to do the same, do it at your own risk, or have the professional do it for you.

Last Saturday, a macro shoot EB was organized at UP Diliman Campus by PiPho forumers, macro masters like Arbil, Neil & Orlee were there & it’s an opportunity to learn the tricks of the masters.

Different macro gadgets came out, some are commercially available & most of it were DIY¹, like the flash diffuser/bounce card that I borrowed from Neil, which was made from bubble packaging, I’m planning to build one for myself.

Anyways, here are the shots that I’ve taken, I will try my best to identify some of them.

Damsel Fly we used to call this “Tutubing Karayom”


Leaf Beetle

Do you really wanna know?

Some hopper.

Ants

Hmmm… I really need to research & learn to identify these bugs, any books that you might suggests?

1. Do It Yourself

Here are my latest macro shots using a manual extension tubes:

So, what’s an extension tube? You maybe asking, it’s like this.

It’s a metal tube that is being placed between the camera body & the lens, which in principle makes the image looks closer. Unlike Matt’s Kenko Extension Tubes, mine doesn’t have the AF (auto focus) & other contacts, and if you don’t know what that means, that means I have to rely on my 20/20 vision to focus the subject, I have to use my technical skills for the camera setting.

I used my 50mm/f1.8 lens for these shots, I stayed at ISO800, worked at the aperture of f5.6-f11 depending on how harsh the lighting is, shutter speed from 1/400-1/50″.

Believe it or not, my hit/miss ratio is around 25%, meaning 25 out of 100 is a good shot, meaning in focus & correct exposure, not bad for a full manual operation, of course I wanted to grab the one that is AF capable once I have the enough moolah to buy it, this would be a great opportunity for me to hone my focusing skills. I’d be joining some other macro enthusiasts from PiPho for an bug hunting at UP Diliman, good luck to me.