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  • ekimswish

    Leyte Living

    By ekimswish

    I just arrived back in Leyte this afternoon and had a repeat of the feeling I had the first time I arrived here a year ago: holy crap, this is nice. I was snapping pictures from the airplane, but had the aisle seat so gave up when I thought I got everything I could get. Then, right before landing, we turned into a beautiful scene of the mountains and coconut trees puncturing and brushing against a bright blue sky, but my camera was in the bag! Oh yeah, one more turn, and we landed on the runwa
    • 4 comments
    • 4,898 views
The Art and Science of Sailing

Art And Science Of Sailing

The Art and Science of Sailing (my first "glob" ever, so bear with me folks)   One of my hobbies that I should continue upon arrival back to my native land is sailing. Either windsurfing or "flying on a Hobie Cat", they are both a way to get a free ride off Mother Nature. For those of you that have never experience slicing through the water just using the wind and the surf, the Philippines have many beach resorts that offer rentals and sailing instructions.   I will try to briefly describe m
Jake

Jake

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Elena's Blog

Problems With Opening An Account

Have a problem to open a current account in a Philippine bank. I sent an inquiry to several major Philippine banks and all denied me in the remote account opening. You need only personal presence. In addition 3 of 5 banks have requested the local ID, which can be obtained after 3-4 months to find in the Philippines. A month will be in Cebu, go to the bank are the two that do not require ID. If you manage to open an account without ID will write where.
Elena

Elena

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Elena's Blog

The Place Where We Want To Live

Finding a place for retirement is a complex issue. We do not want to live in a big city. However, we must be able to quickly get to the big city to get access to medicine or the airport. We were on Luzon, Mindoro, Mindanao, Bohol and Cebu. On each was that like and what does not fit. But the closest we fit Cebu. There is an international airport, medical, banks, large supermarkets and 2-3 hour accessibility by car pretty rural villages where there is little noise, pure nature, life is cheap and
Elena

Elena

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Elena's Blog

Start

So we decided. After 25 years of active service rashili retire and live for fun. It was difficult to decide, but now it has more problems to deal with. We live on this island of Sakhalin in the far east of Russia, north of Japan. The business of advertising production company, servicing companies operating in the oil and gas offshore Sakhalin. We have two children and elderly parents who need care. The state pension so little hope and wait until I was 55 years and 65 years to her husband does no
Elena

Elena

0
ekimswish's Blog

Long Distances And Close Connections

I've got an hour and a half before I leave for work to start another two to three week hitch of 12 hour nights working on an oil drilling rig here in Alberta. I couldn't be farther from the Philippines, yet it feels so close. Everyday I read news from the Philippines and SKYPE with my family in Leyte. Every week or two I send money there and do the currency conversions in my head. The gossip of my hometown is all I have to worry about as there's no gossip here. I care more about the Canadian em
ekimswish

ekimswish

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Jake's Blog

Blessing In Disguise

When I lost my job as a slot bench tech at a local casino nearly 3 years ago, I took up the game of tennis again. I started back in the 80's trying to perfect my strokes over the years but I still consider myself a 4.3 player. Any thing above 6.5 is a professional. More advance players are too serious for my blood.....I wouldn't be able to tolerate back to back tournaments in trying to climb that tennis ladder. My style of game is that I play with anybody and everybody -- often times I've be
Jake

Jake

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Jack's Blog

College

I have sponsored two young ladies to go to college there in the Philipinnes. Both were cam girls (I know scammers right?) Well one went for one semester then dropped out, but not before I had sent her tution for the next semester. The other young lady is in her first semester of her third year and soon will be starting her second semester. So I figure one out of two is not a bad average 50% considering I have never met either one except online. I know how hard it is for the average filipino to s
Jack

Jack

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ekimswish's Blog

3 Days In Paradise

I recently had another weekend visit to my family in the Philippines. I'm a short trip away, based in Taiwan, but the visits haven't been as regular as I'd like. This was one of those day and a half plans, in Saturday morning, and out Sunday afternoon, just to fill the space between longer vacations. Luckily, it turned into 2 and a half days, as my dad booked the wrong return flight for me to Manila, and I stayed an extra day. Returning home is always interesting. My wife doesn't have a lot of
ekimswish

ekimswish

0
Classic Dry's Blog

My First Experience Of The Philippines Part 2

Shortly after I arrived back at Fred's he asked me to run an errand. I was to go to the nearest town to collect some stuff. Take the motorbike he says. I haven't driven a motorbike for years, but what the heck. It's a half hour drive and as I pull in to town I get a rear tyre blowout. A guy points to it "Oh" he says, "You have a flat tyre"........mmm........helpfull. Seriously though, this guy is good, He organises a motor trike driver ( resting nearby ) to remove the wheel, and a pedal trike
Classic Dry

Classic Dry

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Classic Dry's Blog

My First Experience Of The Philippines.

What do you think ? Great title eh. Yep, it's a crowd puller all right. Ok, well you have to remember that I only spent two weeks in the Philippines and a couple of days it rained, so I can't tell you much about the place per se. So what you're getting is a teeny weeny glimpse through my eyes. I didn't know much about the Phils but I did want to go and have a look. I thought it might be nice to keep a base here in Australia when I retire, but spend lots of time somewhere in South East Asia w
Classic Dry

Classic Dry

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Building the dream

Putting A "face" To Your Land

What's mine is yours?? So it should be mentioned that we are not present on our lot on a daily basis. We have good friends that live across from our lot and help ensure that we do not have any squatting action going on. However, on one fine day a few weeks back, my friend heard some "whack whacking" going on.... and walking down to see what was going on ....noticed someone trying to cut one of our trees. After convincing them to move on.... the guy did.... he moved right on to my friends proper
Dzighnman

Dzighnman

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Building the dream

Roofing Material Selection

Roofing Material Analysis I saw my selected roofing material posted in a thread recently, which prompts me to share the selection and the associated process. Our design will not have a great deal of roof coverage, however, our most high ranking criteria is to ensure long term durability, low maintenance and lastly noise reducing and insulative values. Our criteria for selection were cost, appearance, ease of installation and maintainability. Cost was one of the more complex to assess as we nee
Dzighnman

Dzighnman

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Building the dream

Internet Connectivity

Our experience with Globe WiMax internet connectivity We assessed our internet access options in 2010 and after considering PLDT, Smart and Globe, we arrived at Globe WiMax as our selection. PLDT, was immediately dismissed for not having enough lines available on our trunk run (Valladolid, Carcar City) and even at that, you needed to accept their phone service and overall, we were not impressed withtheir phone asistance in conveying all this info to us. Smart was not selected simply because i
Dzighnman

Dzighnman

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Building the dream

Family Matters

Among the many things we all have in common as we learn and adjust to another culture is we inherit family that is often times, not as vested into adjusting to western cultural idiosyncracies as our asawas may be, and also, may require much more adjustment on our parts. For those residing abroad, of course, this is not nearly as impactive on your life .. at least not on a daily basis... but for those that are in the Philippines... and those in particular that live near this new extended family..
Dzighnman

Dzighnman

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Building the dream

It's A Process Not To Be Rushed

What? not rushed? What I mean by this is the design of the structure needs to reflect how you want to use it, but also, work well in your site. There are so many factors that could be considered when developing the overview of your project. I use formal engineering based brainstorming and logic tools to identify and process these criteria... but even without those formal tools anyone can make lists and pare them down to define the design that meets their needs and this step is so important to p
Dzighnman

Dzighnman

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Building the dream

More About The Author

As I searched the internet for blogs and sites that helped me to learn more and add value to my design for this project, I often came across good information, but without a familiarity withthe author, I was not sure how to take some things. As with most of those authors, I am not a professional writer. So in lieu of me becoming one for the purposes of this blog.... I thought it might be helpful to provide more insight into my background, both in terms of what I have learned throughout my career
Dzighnman

Dzighnman

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Building the dream

Basic Power Strategy

Power Strategy Our main, long term, power plans will include the rental of a pole transformer. We currently rent a smaller capacity unit, at our current location, and it works extremely well for us. Cebeco, being the local power supplier, brought us out a transformer, hung it on the pole and ran the supply lines to our current home. We had a local electrician provide the feed off of this to an auxillary 110vac box and we have dual voltage available in certain areas that we ran new supply boxes
Dzighnman

Dzighnman

0
Building the dream

Getting Started

The Startup I will be residing onsite during the construction of our home. Since it is only I and my brother inlaw to start, we will setup an encampment that will suffice until we have our workshop structure in a livable state. To get us going, we will make use of a couple canopies we have, along with my favorite import… a rubbermaid brand plastic garden shed. The kind that is composed of several panels and assembles in an hour or so, but provides a solid floor and a reasonably dry space.
Dzighnman

Dzighnman

0
Building the dream

The Plan

How the Plan Developed My wife and I are planning to build our new home just outside of Carcar, Cebu, Philippines. I have started, and will attempt to maintain, this blog as an ongoing record of this effort. It is intended to also serve as reference material for those that may see similarities in our plan and while we certainly hope to avoid as many pitfalls as possible, it may serve as a window into our errors and corrections for others to learn from. We recognize that our plan and implementat
Dzighnman

Dzighnman

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Jake's Blog

Part 4, Windsurfing

On a high performance windsurfing board trimmed out for max speed, you're skimming the surface while hanging on for dear life. Just like everything else, the adrenaline coursing through the body can be quite addictive. Trying to predict the behavior of winds dancing across the water in front of you is a real challenge but pays off when you anticipate its strength and direction correctly. This is especially important when you're windsurfing -- it's just you against Mother Nature and often times,
Jake

Jake

0
JAKE's Blog

Part 3, The Thrill Of Speed

In both Hobie Cat and windsurfing, I prefer flat water conditions rather than dealing with the ocean swells and chops. My last time out in the surf line, I made a mistake by hot dogging with my Hobie and paid the price. Yeah, I flipped it over as I jibed too early and ate it big time. The wave hit me broadside and I immediately bailed out from all the lines, sails, boom and mast. Didn't want to get knocked out cold as the boat was trashing about like a wounded shark. By the time it beached itsel
Jake

Jake

0
JAKE's Blog

Part 2, Art And Science Of Sailing

Some of you may have noticed the profile of a Hobie Cat (no -- not her profile!). It's banana shape with the bow having the leading edge sharp and narrow. Hobie Alter was a pioneer of surf boards in the mid 50's and transferred his innovated design to his new catamarans with similar rocker profile of a surfboard. Using light weight materials but built like a tank, the Hobie Cats were made to play out in the surf line. When my fellow friend and skipper dared me to come out and play with him, I t
Jake

Jake

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ekimswish's Blog

Philippine Vacation

(I have to rush through writing this, as I'm on an old computer at 711 with a short battery) I had my much needed vacation to the Philippines last week to see my family after five and a half months of working in Taiwan. I had a great time with my wife and kids, and I don't know how much longer I could've waited. My one and a half year old daughter, Kiana, was strange with me when she saw me. She must've thought she was dreaming, as she'd been laying down with mom. After 30 minutes she was ha
ekimswish

ekimswish

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