Punzi's Corner Blog

Well I thought I will be resting for the entire day. But my folks decided to go to Trinoma this morning, for some last minute errands (shopping).

From the time it opened at 10:00 a.m. to when we left at around 1:00 p.m., there was only a small crowd. So it was a pleasure to stroll through the place at the time.

We are more or less set to bid farewell to this year and welcome the new one.

I could not ask for more from this year, as it has been a banner year in my professional growth. The office is more than thriving. And we partners have already bonded tightly.

For this, the crossroads of time, I really hope to shed all excess baggage I was carrying through the years and bring only the good ones, good memories, good vibes into the new year.

And I enter the new year with renewed anticipation of what lies in store for us. I expect 2009 will be a prosperous and exciting year for all of us, despite all indications to the contrary.

You know we Filipinos thrive in adversity and approach it, laughing at its face. That's what will pull us through next year and beyond. When the rest of the world is falling apart, the Philippines will be a beacon of hope and prosperity. I feel 2009 will be our year. For all of us.

So let us enter the new year with the attitude I have stated above. We will overcome.

A Happy and Prosperous New Year to everyone!

The highlight of yesterday was the wedding we attended of a neighbor's daughter who I saw grow up before my very eyes.

Whew! Time flies so fast. One minute she portrayed the angel in our Easter festivities (called the "Salubong"), that Bea also did a few years back. Then she's getting married the next.

It was, as far as I know, a perfect wedding, from the ceremony, to the choir, to the reception, to the food (though I personally had trouble with the seafood appetizer), to the program.

It was a welcome break from all the wakes my mother and I have been attending this year. I am grateful that we are ending the year attending a happy occasion, a high note.

But today was very different. I don't want to blog about it much. But it was mishaps upon mishaps. Let me just end it with that.

I expect tomorrow to be a rest day because I got to do the things I was planning to do tomorrow today. At least I will greet the new year rested.

And it's probably time to prepare my gadget inventory for posting on New Year's Day. And even before doing that, I can tell 2008 was a very good year for me at least insofar as gadgets are concerned.

Anyway, that's all for now... hopefully I can blog again tomorrow. One last time for 2008, a year that has been very good to me, to us.

For today, I'll just post some pictures of my father's maternal clan reunion in Laguna, although I really want to say something about that golf mauling incident that's really getting on my nerves. The arrogance of some people just because they're currently in power... just wait until they're out of it...

Anyway, back to the topic at hand:



We had fun, although we had to travel for some distance to get there.

But we also had to leave early so we don't get caught in traffic on our way back home.

I feel so blessed at today's mass.

I got to play with no less than Ray Sison. In case you don't know, he, together with Lionel Valdellon recorded Vespers 1 and 2. He's a professional flutist (he's with the MSO) and one of my inspirations in my flute playing. So you could imagine how starstruck I was.

I also heard his flute is worth about half a million pesos (about US$10,000.00). I now know it's true (it's a Verne Q. Powel, American-made, B-foot professional model). And just to prove how low my level of flute playing is, I did not hear the difference when I tried that half-a-million-peso flute. I even found it difficult to play the low-B. But then again, never in wildest dreams did I imagine even holding a valuable flute like that, much less try it out.

I hope I could say I held my own for tonight's choir. But I'm not even a fraction of his level of play. He was really fast and plays mostly at the third octave during the mass.

But even then, I feel so blessed and honored to have even played with him tonight. I hope someday I can be worthy to play that kind of flute.

And I hope he plays with us some more so I can learn more from him.

It's my birthday today.

But there will be nothing much to do today. We're still reeling from the family reunion yesterday.

I wanted to watch a movie but my free movie badge expires on Christmas season. I have to wait until next year to get a new one.

For today, however, I will go with Bea to the mall to buy her delayed Christmas present.

Anyway, I hope to enjoy this day be resting it off. That will be fun too.

Merry Christmas to all! Even to those who don't believe.

For today, let me quote a Christmas reflection of Pope Benedict XVI (then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger):

In one of his Christmas stories Charles Dickens tells of a man who lost his emotional memory; that is, he lost the whole chain of feelings and thoughts he had acquired in the encounter with human suffering. This extinction of the memory of love is presented to him as liberation from the burden of the past, but it becomes clear immediately that the whole person has been changed; now, when he meets with suffering, no memories of kindness are stirred within him. Since his memory has dried up, the source of kindness within him has also disappeared. He has become cold and spreads coldness around him.

Goethe deals with the same ideas as Dickens in his account of the first celebration of the feast of Saint Roch in Bingen after the long interruption caused by the Napoleonic wars. He observes the people as they press, tightly packed, through the church past the image of the saint, and he watches their faces; the faces of the children and the adults are shining, mirroring the joy of the festal day. But with the young people, Goethe reports, it was otherwise. They went past unmoved, indifferent, bored. And he gives an illuminating explanation: they were born in evil times, had nothing good to remember and consequently had nothing to hope for. In other words, it is only the person who has memories who can hope. The person who has never experienced goodness and kindness simply does not know what such things are.

Recently a counselor who spends much of his time talking with people on the verge of despair was speaking in similar terms about his own work; if his client succeeds in recalling a memory of some good experience, he may once again be able to believe in goodness and thus relearn hope; then there is a way out of despair. Memory and hope are inseparable. To poison the past does not give hope; it destroys its emotional foundations.

Sometimes Charles Dickens' story strikes me as a vision of contemporary experience. This man who let himself be robbed of the heart's memory by the delusion of a false liberation -- do we not find him with us today, in a generation whose past has been poisoned by a particular program of liberation that has stifled hope? When we read of the pessimism with which our young people look toward the future, we ask ourselves, Why? Is it that, in the midst of material affluence, they have no memory of human goodness that would allow them to hope? By outlawing the emotions, by satirizing joy, have we not trampled on the root of hope?

These reflections bring us straight to the significance of the Christian season of Advent. For Advent is concerned with that very connection between memory and hope which is so necessary to man. Advent's intention is to awaken the most profound and basic emotional memory within us, namely, the memory of the God Who became a Child. This is a healing memory; it brings hope. The purpose of the Church's year is continually to rehearse her great history of memories, to awaken the heart's memory so that it can discern the star of hope. All the feasts in the Church's calendar are events of remembrance and hence events of hope. These events, of such great significance for mankind , which are preserved and opened up by faith's calendar, are intended to become personal memories of our own life history through the celebration of holy seasons by means of liturgy and custom. Our personal memories are nourished by mankind's great memories ; in turn, it is only by translating them into personal terms that these great memories are kept alive. Man's ability to believe always depends in part on faith having become dear on the path of life, on the humanity of God having manifested itself through the humanity of men . No doubt each of us could tell his own story here as to what the various memories of Christmas, Easter or other festivals mean in his life.

It is the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open doors of hope.

A Reading from the Gospel according to Matthew (1:1-25)

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ,
the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Abraham became the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.
Judah became the father of Perez and Zerah,
whose mother was Tamar.
Perez became the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of Ram,
Ram the father of Amminadab.
Amminadab became the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
Salmon the father of Boaz,
whose mother was Rahab.
Boaz became the father of Obed,
whose mother was Ruth.
Obed became the father of Jesse,
Jesse the father of David the king.

David became the father of Solomon,
whose mother had been the wife of Uriah.
Solomon became the father of Rehoboam,
Rehoboam the father of Abijah,
Abijah the father of Asaph.
Asaph became the father of Jehoshaphat,
Jehoshaphat the father of Joram,
Joram the father of Uzziah.
Uzziah became the father of Jotham,
Jotham the father of Ahaz,
Ahaz the father of Hezekiah.
Hezekiah became the father of Manasseh,
Manasseh the father of Amos,

Amos the father of Josiah.
Josiah became the father of Jechoniah and his brothers
at the time of the Babylonian exile.

After the Babylonian exile,
Jechoniah became the father of Shealtiel,
Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,
Zerubbabel the father of Abiud.
Abiud became the father of Eliakim,
Eliakim the father of Azor,
Azor the father of Zadok.
Zadok became the father of Achim,
Achim the father of Eliud,
Eliud the father of Eleazar.
Eleazar became the father of Matthan,
Matthan the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary.
Of her was born Jesus who is called the Christ.

Thus the total number of generations
from Abraham to David
is fourteen generations;
from David to the Babylonian exile,
fourteen generations;
from the Babylonian exile to the Christ,
fourteen generations.

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the Holy Spirit.

Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly. Such was his intention when, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,
which means “God is with us.”

When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home. He had no relations with her until she bore a son, and he named him Jesus.

The funds I was expecting came in the form of checks, although there was enough for me to tide over the holiday season. But with this development, the bulk of the funds will be realized next year.

If I was in a bad mood, I would call that collections below target. But I'm in a good mood. This will turn out to be a good holiday season after all. And there's so much to be thankful for. The new office. The whole boatload of opportunities that lie ahead of us in the coming year.

So instead, I will call these checks "forced savings." Or a safety device so I don't overextend myself financially.

Only one gift left to buy... make that two... or three...

Thomas More, counselor of law and statesman of integrity, merry martyr and most human of saints:

Pray that, for the glory of God and in the pursuit of His justice, I may be trustworthy with confidences, keen in study, accurate in analysis, correct in conclusion, able in argument, loyal to clients, honest with all, courteous to adversaries, ever attentive to conscience. Sit with me at my desk and listen with me to my clients' tales. Read with me in my library and stand always beside me so that today I shall not, to win a point, lose my soul.

Pray that my family may find in me what yours found in you: friendship and courage, cheerfulness and charity, diligence in duties, counsel in adversity, patience in pain—their good servant, and God's first. Amen.

from this link.

Prayer to Saint Thomas More
A Prayer for Lawyers
By Scott P. Richert, About.com

For today, I'll just provide the picture. For the words, I like to defer to my partner's speech on the occasion of the blessing of our new office. I was waiting for him to post this and he finally had the time.

His words and thoughts are peculiarly accurate. I expect these words to be nothing less.

Well first things first.

Nico pulled through his 24-hour observation period without any incident. And I'm very grateful and thankful for that.

Since he was not really hurt, I'm going to let things simmer down a bit but I'll deal with the school, the parents and the kid after the Christmas holidays.

Because Nico's alright, I had a chance to meet my childhood friends yesterday in my old neighborhood again. It was a smaller gathering but it was just as fun. I already posted pictures in my Facebook account, with Multiply to follow a little later.

But I forgot that I was due to renew my driver's license today so I had to disclose my alcohol consumption the night before when I gave my urine samples. The doctor said it was no big deal, through.

The experience was a little heavier than my father described as he renewed his early this year. The lines were a bit long. That's because there will be an 8-day holiday this month. So all those who will renew for this month have to do it with 8 less days. And for this year, my birthday was also declared a holiday.

Anyway, it was not as painful as my last renewal. That one took almost all day. This one took about an hour and a half.

Mental note to self: Don't renew in December next time around.

I think the LTO (the Philippines' equivalent to the DMV) allows renewals as early as two months before actual expiration.

That's it for now. I'm tired already.

...like a father with a hurt son.

I even got off work early to attend Nico's Christmas presentation at school. A good friend volunteered to buy his exchange gift for me because I did not have the time.

Everything was going well, until the end of the program when some brat child of jerk parents decided to push Nico off the stage. He landed head first.

Furious? Of course I'm furious. To the point of suing both those dysfunctional parents for all they are worth. And the school with it.

Anyway, first things first. I took Nico to the hospital. He's now under 24-hour observation since last night. If there's something different about Nico, I have to bring him back.

First, to tend to Nico. I'll deal with these people later.

Started the day with a break from getting to work early. My hearing was at 10:00 a.m. and the venue was only five minutes away from my house.

During the hearing, opposing counsel manifested it was our last hearing, giving me a break from hearings until next year.

When I got to my car after the hearing, the battery took a terminal break. Fortunately, it gave me enough power for just one more turn over of the engine, so I was able to drive the car to have the battery repaired. But that unexpected errand gave me a break for the rest of the day.

So there. A day of breaks. Hopefully, I get good breaks in the coming days.

This is so surreal.

I can actually post a blog entry for today that is exactly the same as yesterday's. So here goes:

It's been a long day. My started at around 4:45 a.m. and it just ended now. Actually it has not ended, because I'm still texting a client and reading a draft document and I just arrived home just a while back.

And of course I'm exhausted.

In boxing or some other sports, it is more tiring if you try to land something (be it a punch or a golf or tennis swing) that eventually did not connect. That's what I feel right now. We swung at something that did not connect.

And not only is that tiring, but it is also very disappointing.

Hopefully, tomorrow will be another day.

Good night. My tomorrow will be just as long as this one. And it will start at the same time so I have to rest.

So surreal...

It's been a long day. My started at around 4:45 a.m. and it just ended now. Actually it has not ended, because I'm still texting a client and reading a draft document and I just arrived home just a while back.

And of course I'm exhausted.

In boxing or some other sports, it is more tiring if you try to land something (be it a punch or a golf or tennis swing) that eventually did not connect. That's what I feel right now. We swung at something that did not connect.

And not only is that tiring, but it is also very disappointing.

Hopefully, tomorrow will be another day.

Good night. My tomorrow will be just as long as this one. And it will start at the same time so I have to rest.

Yes, I heard in on the Twittervine.

For this Pacquiao vs. dela Hoya fight, our office did not get it on PPV, because our cable provider was not selling any. Apparently, it struck out on the last PPV and chose to sell the fight only on commercial venues like bars, restaurants, cinemas, etc.

For I while, my strategy was just to listen to the radio. But thanks to the Twittervine, I found a lot of streaming live links to the fight. After that, it was just a matter of putting the feed out to my LCD TV and I got to watch it (albeit a few seconds delayed). And this marks the end of pay-per-view.

In any case, it was a great fight. Manny deserves the win. But now he's in the fight of his life. He was swarmed by politicians after he won.

Good luck, Manny.

We "celebrated" a milestone yesterday. It was our first lawyers meeting in our new office. This started at around 6:00 p.m. and the "festivities" ended at around 9:30 p.m.

For the "occasion" we chose takeout from a place that is not available in our old office: Racks. The takeout was good, except they did not provide us enough BBQ sauce. Maybe in the future, we should buy our own bottle.

From that meeting, there will be one final busy push before the Christmas holiday. Hopefully, the busy push will be financially rewarding for us.

That busy streak may even spill over after Christmas, although there will be no more official work days after 20 December. But if you ask me, I'd rather be busy this season than idle and miserable.

The agenda for today is more of the same: more work. Will have to skip chamber sessions today for a lunch meeting. But I have to be out of there early enough to pick Bea up from her "sleepover" birthday party she attended last night, from which I'm getting a lot of flak from my mother and sister. I will have, though, another extended choir practice session after the night mass to practice Christmas songs.

Anyway, this entry marks the 4th Anniversary of Punzi's Corner Blog. I have been through a lot in the span of four years since my first entry. I'm so grateful I got to chronicle them on an almost daily basis through this blog. And I don't see any reason to stop in the immediate future, despite new distractions like Facebook and Multiply. Blogging will still be my main internet activity (aside from work-related internet activities, of course).

I don't usually endorse products. But I'm endorsing one now.

I don't really understand how it works. For that, you can just google it up.

But I only know it works. Wearing the necklace gave me almost instant relief from my shoulder and neck pain. And when my left foot was acting up again, I looped the necklace near the painful area and amazingly, I felt relief. And I thought my foot had a relapse and I had to spend another two weeks stuck up at home.

The only drawback is it is kind of expensive. But I am thinking of getting the ankle supports tomorrow.

In the work front, I just got home now, though my work day started late. I had to pick Nico up from school first before heading out to our new office. But I got out of there at around 7:00 p.m., only to attend two meetings near our old office.

That's just about it for this day. I have to rest because I have a hearing tomorrow, then go to my consultancy and then to our new office for the weekly lawyers meeting.

Good night.

So I was in a foul mood yesterday. And it seems watching a movie (if you really must know, it was "One True Love," okay?) did the trick. Watching Marian Rivera may have been the cause (of feeling better).

For today, I'm doing a favor for a cousin from Canada. And I did the same favor for one of our lawyers, as I went to our new office for a partners meeting.

They are still painting and the fumes are... tolerable for my standards because I'm used to living around a renovation (my father's an architect, remember?). But I have to admit, I cannot stand a long day there as long as the fumes are still there.

And we still don't have phones and internet there. I had to lend the office my landline sim so the office would have some semblance of a landline.

Anyway, I never knew I was that intoxicated until I left the office and headed home. I was so groggy I missed a turn coming home and I had to double back. Lost my concentration there for a second.

And my foot is acting up again...

I also had to miss a birthday dinner-treat of a colleague tonight.

Oh well. Tomorrow is another day...

Apparently, I was tagged by Janette Toral on this matter way back in 2006 nearing 2007.

So here goes: 5 Things people don't usually know about me:

1. I had my first girlfriend in 1991, when I was already 21 years old and a freshman in law school. Never really gotten interested in girls before (in a romantic sense) until that first one came along. Somehow, I was able to juggle a complicated (read: tough) first relationship with the rigors of law school (even making dean's list almost all the time).

2. I only had two girlfriends (and one near-miss). The second one, I married, 11 years ago this day, if I might add. With that, I fulfilled a self-prediction (that I would marry my second girlfriend). The happily-ever-after potion was an illusion that was shattered some four years later.That second one would probably be my last since I'm back to my disinterest in (and forgive me, disdain for) girls again (in the romantic sense).

But who knows? I have been known to eat my own words.

3. I used to be frail-thin as a child, despite present evidence to the contrary. I don't know when and how I developed this appetite.

4. I also used to be whiter as a child than I am now as an adult. Swimming almost everyday in the middle of the day without burn protection when I was young fixed that.

5. People know me as musically inclined, but not as a singer. But people rarely know that I got second place in a singing contest in grade school, participated at the time by the likes of, get this, Janno Gibbs.

Who to tag? Anyone who wants to share, I guess.