Danny's Space

The Omicron variant is a fast spreader. Experts agree that it is a concern even if some of them think its symptoms are more manageable compared to the delta variant. Surges are occuring in Europe and the United States. when we got vaccinated fully the community thought that Covid is now behind us. New cases are in its lowest and the reproductive rate is less than 1 in all regions of the country. Or the other scenario is that this is a lull in the war, a temporary quiet period of sort. I just finished a zoom meeting with QNE software. I am trying to find out if there's help for small businesses in the rental concern about accounting systems and Tax report generation to the BIR. What I got is a basic accounting introduction using their software. I want to get help in reporting my income and taxes to the BIR. 

My Asus laptop is a backup to my desktop Ubuntu workhorse. It has been running debian buster for a while now and I found time to upgrade it today in fact this evening after work. I thought it's going to be a 2, 3 hour download and then buster to bullseye.  So I updated buster first. That's #apt-get update && apt-get upgrade.  To upgrade to debian 11 - bullseye i have to edit /etc/apt/source.list. This edit is a matter of changing "buster" instances in the text to "bullseye". I was prompted to also change "buster-xx" to bullseye-security. Nice catch there. This will point me to the upgrade mirrors.  Then I issued the command: #apt update. This will update the index to the new mirrors.  Then I typed: #apt upgrade. This will download the minimal packages. Then to take that leap to debian 11 I typed: #apt full-upgrade. This is the main upgrade process.  All the while my laptop kept sleeping and I try to catch it by disturbing the mouse pad. But...

I have ignored this booting problem for a long time. It shows two lines when booting Ubuntu. Error: Invalid Environment block. Cannot find command hwmatch. This affected upgrades to grub-common and three other packages. I found a solution in the Ubuntu help forum and followed their instructions.  https://askubuntu.com/questions/191852/error-invalid-environment-block-press-any-key-to-continue I didn't want to mess with grub because the boot continues, no-biggie, but when upgrades of certain packages are failing I had to find a better solution. As I understand it, I have to replace a file in /boot/grub called grubenv, create a new one which contains default=0. Restart the computer. No more messages during boot.  I then did an apt-get update and upgrade. No problem there too. 

Property tax rate in the Philippines is usually 1% in the provinces and 2% of the assessed value in the big city. I'm looking at you Metro Manila. I paid my brother's property tax today. It hasn't been paid since 2016 when we last paid it at Montalban. The assessed value of the property increases year after year. You can't stop that, especially as the town progresses into a city. My brother's real property does not have improvements. So it is just a matter of knowing the lot measurement in square meters.  I also pay "our" lot where we live, my mother and I. Unlike Lino's lot ours have improvements in the form of two houses. The old family house sits infront. It's the first thing you see from the road. It is now being rented out to commercial tenants and residents. Mom and I live behind the property in a newer but smaller house. That's all we need now. Compared to my brother's property, this is bigger and has improvements. The location of th...

The long wait is over I think. People are feeling more secure to ride public transportation. I see people entering restaurants. The Philippines is vaccinating 12 years and older (with parental permission). Slowly we are going back to our jobs because we are needed. I found Robert bringing his grand daughter's dog to the vet. We were still wearing our masks, but the thing is, we are worrying about our pets' health now.      My computer gave me a scare when it notified me about a failing hard drive in my zfs pool. I checked my Disk application to verify and the OS is not detecting one particular hard drive. I don't believe that the drive is failing. So I opened the box and checked the SATA cables. I have a few spares and I replaced the cables instead. I reboot the desktop and opened the disk application. This time the hard drive is detected. I gave the "zpool scrub" command to clean detected errors. I reboot once again. I really don't have any problems except ...

The number of new Covid cases at least in the Capital City, is peaking and recoveries are showing that vaccinations are helping. I am preparing Mother for her second dose which might be scheduled at the end of next week. Meanwhile, Jansen & Jansen released a statement regarding their single dose vaccine which was what I got. They are recommending a booster shot after 6 months. Which leads me to ask why they made it a one-dose vaccine in the first place.  Isko and Bongbong Marcos both announced their intentions to run for President of the Philippines in the election of 2022. I wont vote for any of these two. Both are weak on morals and opposition to Duterte policies. If you're considering any Marcos candidate for any position in government, you should have your heads checked. The viable candidates for me are Leni Robredo, Antonio Trillanes IV and Leila De lima (who as I write this, is still in jail for investigating Duterte).  The 2022 Elections for the Presidency is very i...

I got my Janssen vaccine today at SM San Mateo after waiting for my turn since the Sinovac was made available here in the Philippines. The Philippines use multiple vaccines as soon as they arrive they are made available to local government which operates on a set of prioritized group of the population.    It itched and the nurse gave me an antihistamine. After 15 minutes they let go home.  The Janssen vaccine received its Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA last February 2021. It is unique among the available vaccines in that it is a single dose jab.  Other vaccines namely, Pfizer, Moderna and Astro Zeneca are administred in two doses. These cards are given to vaccinated individuals with details about their vaccines.  At the back of the card there are two slots for the two doses. Mine will contain just one and it is sufficient to stop the virus from killing me or sending me to the hospital. Reports around the world confirm that these vaccines work and helps...

I installed Zoom in Gmail because its becoming clear to me the world wants to see me in video format. I am resigned to the world requesting my live face when I chat so to make my life easier I have installed Zoom in Gmail. Whenever I open Gmail in the browser I have access to zoom.  I have also enabled Google Chat in the side panel. This is something that is instantly obvious to chat users of all kinds. Chat in your email browser. duh! Will this change move me and my friends away from messenger? I don't know.  I am using Chromium browser which is the open source version of Chrome by Google. I enabled some display settings so it would play better with my desktop theme which is in a darker color scheme. 

Making the corona virus vaccines available to the rest of the world really makes sense. I thought about getting that jab for me and my mom but realizing that people next door can still get sick or maybe carrying the virus. That is just insanity. The quicker we do this, the faster things get to normal. The normal being people walking out their doors without worrying about getting sick.  My friend's parents got their vaccine calls along with a number of people. They spent three hours in the venue before they were released with their shots. One week later they have the symptoms of covid-19. Obviously, they got infected during the last mile of the vaccine delivery. Vaccinations should happen with social distancing and as few people at a time in the room. So instead his parents are spending 14 days of self-quarantine. 

To lose 1 lb of body weight, I had to burn 3500 calories more than what I eat for the week. I started and finished a straight cycle of intermittent fasting 18:6 for 14 days. My weight has plateau, no weight loss for 3 days. I had to revisit the period when I did loose weight around the last part of December 2019 and reached the lowest weight I got - 70 kg. That time I was running 2 hour cardio steady state at least 3 times a week. I was eating 1600 calories, low carb, 68(fat)-12(carb)-20(protein). The carb would sometimes dip to 5%. I try hard to adhere to keto but I was loosing weight I figured I was doing something right.  Congratulations to Carla and Jerome who got married in church this weekend in Tagaytay City. Happy for both of you.  Happy birthday Cobong!  The rainy season is finally here. It rained torrents yesterday and filled the pathway. Today Roger is cleaning the canal and making sure the roof is not leaking.  Mother and I are still waiting for our vacci...

I went to my friendly neighborhood eye shop. I got my eyes checked. I have difficulty in reading road signs and reading now. My prescription glasses wasn't cutting it anymore. I got them years ago. So they analyzed my eyes. My OD and OS are both -0.5. I'm getting a bifocal now that I am in my fifty's. 

Anna Fox played by Amy Adams was a child psychologist living alone in a multi-story apartment. She suffered from agoraphobia and was seeing a psychiatrist herself and taking medications. It will be later revealed that she was driving when her husband and daughter were killed in a road accident. Her psychiatrist encouraged her curiosity on other people which prompted her to observe neighbors.  The Russell's lived across the street and one day she saw Jane Russell murdered. She called the police but later the whole family confronted her with a Jane Russell alive and a woman who was different from the one she met. She apologized for her mistake, but later got more evidence proving she was right and the Russell family wasn't the perfect family after all.  Ethan Russell, the sixteen year old son revealed he killed his birth mother Katie who Anna thought to be Mrs. Russell. Ethan was the abused son but also the murderer in the story.  The plot is bland but the acting especially...

Happy Mother's Day to mothers. I feel blessed that I am living with mine. Emphasis on the word "living". My mother never saw her father. He never came back alive after the war. My grandmother was pregnant with my mother when the war broke out. My mother feels happy how her children turned out. A box of goods from Lino who is living in Canada arrived last night. The delivery service always do this at night to avoid the traffic. Lino's boxes always arrive at night. Mom and I stayed awake a while longer to sort out what we have.  I opened the cardboard box and Mother would start remembering stories. So I start to list the items verbally and Mom will have a short story for me. Never mind if the item and the story isn't connected. I enjoy opening boxes. I was smiling all throughout until the box is empty. 

The Philippines dodge the bullet. The month began with a lockdown because a second surge is happening not only here but in Brazil and India. In the last week of March the numbers were pointing to 18,000 new cases by mid-April. That didn't happen to us. The reproductive number of the corona virus in the Philippines went down to 0.96. If we can hold this number until vaccine supplies goes up in sufficient level we are safe. The government feels that vaccine supply will stabilize by June-July.  Some frontline medical workers and seniors have been vaccinated at least with their first dose. I have been using Converge fiber broadband with speeds of 160 Mbps download and 70 Mbps upload. The difference is palpable. Youtube content is now HD - 720p perhaps even 1080p if it's available. Downloads and file sharing is a breeze. A 2GB file finishes in 10 minutes not 10 hours like before. I remember the days.  We are using the Internet in food delivery and payment facility. It's a brand ...

Converge ICT installed its fiber service last 6th April and I hold off any opinions until I've properly gone through all things I use the Internet for. It has been 15 days. I have not experienced any service downs and speed tests are consistent.  This Converge plan 1899 TOD for Day should give me 70 MBps in the day and 35 MBps at night. It consistently tops 160 MBps in the day and 90 MBps at night. It exceeds promised speeds for the day and for the night. This speed tests is fairly predictable now that I am confused if there has been a mistake about my chosen plan.  The ping of 2 means 2 ms or micro seconds. Any ping value of less than 100 ms is considered desirable. Ping is a signal sent to a host to get a response (find if they exist) and to measure how long the response takes. Any ping value less than 20 ms is exceptional. So here too I am confused until I used another speed test website (fast.com). It confirms that I am getting a significantly fast connection.   Ther...

Market day found me ordering online at Puregold San Mateo. I also use SM Shop online but I like trying out other services for comparison of their pros and cons. Puregold took their time replying to my app order - about 2 days. You can lose a lot of customers that way if they're not as patient as me. But once they replied they pretty much tried to satisfy my item list failing just one until the last minute. The last moments I tried to add 2 to 3 items and they accommodated the request.  The Community Quarantine was extended by a week. OCTA research recommended 2 weeks of quarantine to bring down the reproductive number or the Rt of the virus to at least 1. This will give frontliners control of the capacity situation in hospitals. But other opinions point out that farther restrictions in mobility and social interactions in public places have not worked and they add more suffering to people.  We remember the events of Bataan in the War and honor those who sacrificed their lives f...

I have two units vacant. One is a commercial space C2 and the other R1 a residential two bedroom unit. Both are ready for lease. I downloaded Meet from Microsoft because PLDT support team uses it. The appointment with Noemi at PLDT support went well although my problem was not solved entirely. Like most offices they are restricting public facing engagements. She advised me to bring my router to a Smart store. Presumably the Smart store is open.  I ordered fresh meat and poultry from SM shop at San Mateo. They charge 150.00 for delivery. They waived the delivery fee during Christmas and New Years.  Summer is here. Afternoon temperatures reached 36 degrees. I am using the aircon from 10 in the morning to 6 in the evening. 

The house is now fiber connected. My desktop is connected by LAN cable. The other devices are connected by wifi or WAN.  First Day tests repeated several times during the day showed the same results. Converge fiber exceeds promised speeds and look at the return pings.

I had to replace a hard drive element of my zfs pool. I've been getting some warnings about errors in writing and reading weeks before. zfs is the last to know about a failing hard disk. If you want to know a disk's health then the SMART logs is your best bet.  This disk was finally made offline a few days before being replaced. The remaining three disks continue to function for the pool. I have a new disk ordered last November online that's waiting for this same situation to happen. I used it to replace the non-functioning disk. I like that zfs designates the broken disk as /dev/sdb1/old and the new disk as sdb. zfs automatically resilvers the new disk. It took about an hour and everything is functioning as good as new.

I am starting a fast tonight. I hear the wail of the horn telling me it's 10 pm. I had my last solid food at 9 pm - a banana. Let's see. This is how I'm going to do this. I am adding sub-posts here as my fasting progress. Wish me luck. edits:  linked to finding donato  

We are experiencing above 40 degrees Celsius in the afternoon. It is now Holy Tuesday and just like in 2020 some traditions are being modified because of the pandemic. The government just announced a general community quarantine over Metro Manila, Bulacan, Laguna, Batangas and Rizal. The National Capital Region is experiencing 10,000 new cases which is projected to increase to 18,000 daily cases by the middle of April. A curfew has been imposed over the Capitol from 6 pm to 5 am. I hear the wail of the horn every late afternoon that signals the beginning of the curfew.  My PLDT Home router/ modem is broken. I called their hotline 171 yesterday and the lady and I tried to troubleshoot the problem. In the end she diagnosed the problem as a defective SIM. She advised me to bring the device to their aftersales. It's the middle of a Covid-19 surge lady. It's Holy Week. I am not even sure if your office is open. In the meantime I have no wifi.  I have my cellphone data. It's my l...

I got my very 1st Hemoglobin A1C test last Monday and I got the results the next day. What prompted me to have the test is my family history with diabetes and it's my birth month. I don't want to get blindsided by this disease. And oh yes, the result is 6.4%.  A result of 5.7% and below is normal. This number also corresponds to an average blood sugar level of 117 milligram per deciliter (mg/dL).  A result in the range of 5.7 to 6.4 means I have prediabetes.  Prediabetes means my blood sugar level isn't high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes. Many doctors consider prediabetes as diabetes stage 1.  What this means to me is that I have to take some actions to prevent this present condition to progress to full diabetes. How? The first thing to do is a healthy diet and weight loss. The second thing to do is increase my physical activity. 

It is 2021 in Manila and we are again going back to another lockdown. COVID-19 cases are surging the past 3 weeks in and around the capital city, Metro Manila. Thirteen thousand Filipinos dead of the corona virus and its variants and complications. And we are back in square one. This is just awful and horrible.  How awful? The economic situation is at its most dire since World War 2. Philippine debt is now at 9.8 Trillion Pesos, that's 54% of the Philippine Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  GDP growth plummeted in the first lockdown (March 2020). Filipinos found a way to earn money to buy food, pay their utilities and rent. The government lifted some restrictions. With this surge, the government is going the lockdown path once again.  The vaccine against the corona virus is trickling down to the medical frontliners and I doubt the younger ones will ever get it by Christmas this year. Medical experts advise continuing with social distancing and masks even after you get vaccin...

I decided to make a blog post of this first. I ordered "Wild" from Youtube. If you don't know it, Youtube has a streaming service for some very good films. Wild is about Sheryl Strayed and her life, starring Reese Witherspoon. Sheryl Strayed walked or hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, a 2,650 mile hiking and equestrian trail along the west coast of the United States. Hikers usually begin their hike from May to September before the snows and the cold. One can't bring a lot to protect himself from the cold or change clothing and gear from dry dessert hiking to snow deep mountains. It is a punishing walk for a 100 days and for some more than that.  I hope this will be the first of many movies from Youtube that I'll get to watch. Like it. Like your service.

I have seen it and learned about it in my life. How we regard women and value their place in the world do not equate to reality at all. Women have always led and carried more than what we expected. It is their work at home and family to leadership and entrepreneurship that sets apart the promise of success or failure in many endeavors. My mother who is 79 years old makes me proud and grateful. I am happy to be living in these times when we can celebrate women's day together with the rest of the world. March 8th is also her birthday. She was born when the world was marching towards war. She did not see her father alive because of the war in the Pacific. She finished her schooling thanks to free education afforded to the sons and daughters of soldiers who did not come back. I believe the benefit was aimed at men who after the war needed to finish their schooling - the GI bill so called. Well my mom is a prime example of what happens when we help women accomplish what we expect from m...

This is a general decrease in exercise and a recovery phase but prolonged by the pandemic.

I have been watching and following a number of youtube channels focused on Sailing and sailboat repairs these past weeks. I've been subscribed to the Sailing Delos channel and Sailing Uma channel since last year. I am attracted to adventures that call for an extended number of days to complete plus the places shown and the occasional emergencies encountered along the way. There is science and mathematics in attempting to cross thousands of miles of oceans. There's the probability of storms and squalls along the way. Sailing channels are not just travel video blogs but there's also a lot of drama - and the music is addictive if not crucial to the message of the channel. The sailors who record their adventures become youtube superstars, with hundreds of thousands of subscribers and hundreds of thousands of views each episode.  This week I began following another sailor albeit with a unique circumstance. He is Juho in the Alluring Arctic Channel . Juho sails a Beneteau Idyll...

The Trump Impeachment trial, the 2nd one, is different. The facts are largely known because Trump himself spoke publicly to his supporters what he wants to happen last 6th of January. His supporters did exactly as he said they have to that day. The result is a mob attacking the Capitol when Congress was doing their constitutional duty to declare who the winner is in the November elections. In addition Trump used his twitter account all throughout the event. And then after.  Every one watched as the mob entered the building, broke windows and climbed walls. Journalists and bloggers from both sides pretty much covered the violence that happened inside the building. The video and the photos speak for themselves. The individual mob participants themselves used social media and apps to document what they were doing. The FBI and police made arrests based on facebook posts and twitter posts sometimes by the perpetrators' family member. Truly, they did it because Trump told them to do it. ...

I don't know if I should call this my Valentine post or the First February post but here goes.  I 've just gone to Paraiso to offer flowers and light candles to Imee's grave. Filipinos remember their dead on their birhtdays and / or the day they passed away. I guess most cultures do this. Filipinos always find an excuse to visit their loved one's graves almost every month. It's been a year since my sister died. Rest in peace.  Valentines Day in the Philippines is the day of flower bouquets and of course eating out with that significant other slash loved one slash spouse. I don't know how this Valentines day will go in the midst of a pandemic. I guess if there's a will there's a way. I imagine a couple in their 3rd floor apartment trying to make this work. Good luck. I am a fifty year old single man so what do I know.  Also it was the Chinese New Year last Thursday. Usually my chinese friends send us tikoy in various flavors. They come in ube and the regu...

I'm suppose to start working on the business lessor's permit first day of the year 2021 but PLDT installers called they were surveying my application for fiber that week, week 1 of 2021. I've been waiting for them since after Christmas Day. I didn't start with the business permit until the 11th. Fortunately, I finished the process in one day and returned for the permits and all after three days. They were asking for additional documents for the fire safety clearance and the Renter's ID which I haven't completed yet. I paid more than 10 thousand pesos this year. Most businesses did not bother paying their permits since they're closing shop. Most food and restaurants are closed. Those that can operate online orders and can deliver remained. But with more than half of their former employees laid off. Very very grim this year. Sales of computer parts and PCs are up. Internet services are in demand. Everyone needs to be online because it's the...

Number 45 made another controversial phone call, this time to the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.  The recording of the phone call was released today and listening to it explicitly shows the US president asking Mr. Raffensperger to alter the outcome of the general elections for the President's benefit. Number 45 also spoke of several conspiracy theories about election fraud that even facebook and twitter consider "fake" and baseless rumors. I think they would have to drag the 45th president from the White House come January 20th. Simply put, he is like a crime lord trying to avoid prosecution after being caught.  Here in Manila where Covid-19 is still producing 900 new cases everyday, it is a horrible scandal for the Presidential Security Guard Unit to avail themselves of still unauthorized vaccines for the virus. Firstly, the vaccine was smuggled in, outside the FDA procedures, so it was dangerous and they used government money, the people's money,  to...