July 19, 2006 6:31 PM Wednesday, Jacksonville, Florida           

 

Happy Birthday, Gazel!

Early on, I received an invite from Gazel, a good friend of mine in Orlando to attend her birthday party on Saturday, July 15 at 12:00 noon. She also gave me a go signal to extend the invitation to our Pinay friends in Jacksonville.

Thus, last Saturday, July 15, I tugged along four of my Pinay allies to Orlando: Ate Susan, Marilyn, Janice and Lynnette with her 2 kids in tow—exact number of passengers to fit in a seven-sitter van. The three of us convene at Lynette’s place around 7:30 AM and then proceeded to drive about an hour to Middleburg, Florida to pick-up Ate Susan.

Just so you know this trip was our first out-of-town expedition without our husbands driving the car for us. Daring, huh? Well, I thought with a hard copy of Map Quest directions in my hand plus driving a van with a navigation system, what else could possibly go wrong? I was in fact confident without any wavering sentiment that we’ll eventually get to our destination and get back home in time.

However, for a non-savvy driver; driving and finding your way around at the same time is a daunting task let alone if you travel out-of-town in a not so familiar routes. Imagine reading the map or listening/looking at the GPS’ step-by-step instructions while going 70 mph in a five-lane heavy traffic freeway. I know veteran drivers can do this with no trouble but for a Pinay who’s only been behind the wheel for couple of years, that’s indeed very intimidating. So with that in mind, we settled earlier that Ate Susan and I will alternate to drive back and forth; one being the driver and the other person is going to be the navigator. Sounds like a good plan, eh?

We pretty much know that the major route to Orlando is to get on to I-295 to I-95 to I-4 and then take Florida Turnpike South Exit 77. From there, it should be more or less 25 miles to Gazel’s place. However, as we continue driving I-4, we heard the unexpected broadcast from the car navigation system that in quarter of a mile, exit 84 is on our left. I yelled back at the headset: NOOOOO! You are wrong! We are supposed to take Turnpike South Exit 77. We all chuckled and poke fun at the car navigation system. LOL

But then right after we passed by exit 78; we saw the sign up the road that says Turnpike exit is on the left. I blurted out, “that couldn’t be right because looking at my Map Quest guide; it says we have to take Turnpike South Exit 77 which I thought is on the right". The three passengers at the back gave me holler in chorus, “No, Ate Rhebs… the sign says Turnpike Exit is on the left!" So I conceded knowing my IQ about geographical poles, latitude and longitude is somewhat below zero! LOL I must admit I still get confused between south and north; east and west.

So we swung to the left lanes only to find out in .2 mile ahead that Turnpike Exit 77 is indeed on the right. Dang, it was too late for us to take Exit 77 due to the fact that the traffic was heavy. Obviously, we missed the exit. Therefore, we had no choice but to rely on the car navigation device again for directions. See what we got for being stubborn/hard-headed Filipinas?

But hey did you know that one of the neat features of the car navigation system is, if you choose to ignore a turn or missed the exit, the device automatically recalculates and provides audible available alternatives from the point where you are at that very minute and then puts you back in the right track? Yaay! High-Tech! Don't you love technology? I do :-)

Suffice it to say, we drove a total of 4 hours and didn’t get to Gazel’s home in Orlando until 1:30pm when it should have only been less than 3 hours drive if we didn’t mess up the direction. Despite being late, we were still the first group to pull in at the hostess’ driveway. The group of Pinays from Orlando itself and Tampa came in 2 hours later. Talk about Filipino time ;-)

Anyhow, the party was a big hit and we had a blast! The food was delicious and mouth-watering. Yum! As you can tell Filipino party is incomplete without lechon and karaoke/dancing. Ate Susan, Janice and Cheryl amused and kept us entertained with their “spaghetting-pababa" moves (see video1, video2). The birthday girl was in high spirits and undoubtedly happy on her birthday party. She's blessed and one lucky gal for having a super-bait and martyr husband like mine ;-)  except may datung lang nga yong kanya :-) 

We left Orlando before 5pm and didn’t get home in Jacksonville until after 10pm even though I was clocking in 80 to 85 mph when we finally hit I-95. Why? That is because the car navigation guide took us to the back road instead of taking the freeway. Anyways, after 2 hours of driving in the back road, we thought what the heck. We’ve got to get on the freeway otherwise it would take us forever to get home and so we did.

Over all, it was a good adventure to say the least. We managed to explore other places we didn’t plan on doing. Experience is indeed the best teacher!

I wish I had a chance to play this car navigation system before we left though.  Lynette, the owner of the van doesn’t have a clue how to use their navigation device. Sigh. I found out later, after I spent sometime exploring the different functions/options that Lynnette's home address which was previously stored in the memory of the navigation device had some driving restrictions like avoid freeways and toll. Go figure.

Nonetheless, I am hooked to this new technology.  DH though I found a new toy again when I tried to talk him into getting me a car with built-in voice navigation system. The problem is, at this time of the year only the big high-priced cars have the option for this type of add-on. Oh well, maybe we’ll wait for another two to three years before we buy a new car. Hopefully, by then the midsize cars should have that same option to add on as well and the price for it would come down a little bit less than a thousand bucks.

By the way, "NAKAPISO AKO" the following day when I share the story of our trip to DH and my mother-in-law. MIL yelled at me with a furious look in her face, "That’s 15 mph above the speed limit, Rhebs!!!! And you know you put the lives of other people in danger for doing that?!? Tony, take her to the emergency hospital so she’ll know what I am talking about”. DH just gave me a spiky look :-(   I pleaded guilty and made a promise in front of them to never do it again.   Ate Susan, however, is a good girl. When it was her turn to drive, she only did 60 mph in 70 miles per hour freeway. I wish I can drive the way she does so I won't get so peeved with those slow drivers who, in one or another, are on my way.

Photos are here.

July 1, 2006 8:58 PM Saturday, Jacksonville, Florida           

 

Never Hurt To Ask

I've always been the kind of person who believes in the old adage that, "It doesn't hurt to ask". And, if I need to hover around or haggle up to do the trick, I do that as well. DH gets really ticked off every time I do this to him. If he can only say in Tagalog, it would be like this, "ang kulit kulit kulit mo talaga! Umalis ka na nga sa harapan bago ako tuluyang mawalan ng matinong pag-iisip!" LOL No, DH is more polite than that. When he really gets pissed off with my "kakulitan" (pushiness), hel'll just say with a distressed look in his face, "OK Sweetheart, just do whatever you want!"

As I have mentioned in the previous post, after I got a full-time job in the city government last year, I was also able to persuade the General Manager and Sales Manager of CompUSA to agree with my proposition to allow me to continue working with them on a part-time basis but only on Saturday (11AM – to 7PM). So far, I still make my two managers happy with my good performance in sales despite being such a pain in their neck sometimes for calling out--not showing up to work in one or two Saturdays in a month. DH, on the other hand, has made an unconstructive pronouncement that if he was the one of the managers there, I would have been fired long time ago! He really gets on my nerves every time I called out work for some trivial reason unless I am indeed sick. His reason was, if I can’t keep up with my commitment to come to work every Saturday then I should quit the job instead of making the people at work hanging by not sticking up to the company’s schedule. See? You would think he loves me that much to forego some of my bad habits but unfortunately he never tolerates any of that crap. In retrospect, when I first went back to school to take some college courses here; I was still naive and very inferior in many ways at that time, I asked DH to go back to school too just to be my buddy so I won’t feel threatened by some smart-ass ‘kano/kana’ in school. So we were actually classmates in the first class I took. How sweet is that? :-) And you know, for once I though; hey, we can easily swap or share answers during the exam without any problem because we are husband and wife, right? Boy, was I wrong! Imagine, he’d rather get a failing mark or watch me flunk in the exam than get a passing grade by cheating! I swear, I sulked for hours after we got home but then I realized he was right when he stood up to his values and not relent to any of my twisted reasoning. Thank goodness, I got a barely passing score in that midterm exam. Needless to say, I managed to ace the finals garnering 8 points higher than his final score. Bwaaaaaa! 

On 3 months Leave

Ok, last week of May, I approached my new Sales Manager at CompUSA and told him that I’d like to put in a request to take off 3 months leave of absence because I signed up two classes for the summer as part of my continuing education and I wanted Saturday off to do homework and stuff.

My SM gave me an option to work on Sunday instead.  I told him in a heartrending tone of voice that in order for me to work on Sunday, I would have to divorce my husband first and forget about church.  At that point, he stared at me with look in his eyes like *do I really look like I care if you do that? I don’t give a damn!*  LOL but nope, he decided to be civil with me and told me to go talk to the new GM which I did right after the meeting. The GM, in turn advised me to get back with him a week later as he still has to confer my request with the higher ups. The following week, I spoke with the GM again and I was told the request was approved.  He even gave me his cell phone number so I can call him directly if ever I want to come back to work anytime soon ;-)  Yaay!! I must be doing something right, huh? ;). But in fairness to all, my bosses knew that I always do my best even work above and behind the call of duty to outdo other full-time employees' sales goal for the month. Take a look at this latest statistical sales report for June 2006. I put in only a total of 24 hours (3 Saturdays in a month) as opposed to other full-time salespersons who worked 30 to 40 hours a week yet I still managed to kick some butts!!

Statistical Sales  Report
6/04/06 to 6/30/06

	Hours	Net	Sales	Services	Sales
Salespersons	Worked	Sales	Returns	Sold	Per Ticket
Marvin Kano	120	$84,884.00	$10,626.00	$6,097.00	$408.00
Angeline Indonesian	158	47,074.00	3,986.00	4,345.00	841.00
Emilio Kano	154	43,676.00	5,575.00	4,085.00	633.00
Wai Instik	128	37,406.00	430.00	4,011.00	796.00
Scott Kano	158	35,602.00	3,345.00	518.00	152.00
Bradley Kano	160	32,915.00	4,093.00	712.00	139.00
Ben Kano	116	22,049.00	1,145.00	1,540.00	612.00
Ernest Kano	142	20,569.00	953.00	995.00	349.00
Brad Kano	158	20,211.00	2,410.00	80.00	101.00
Rhebs Pinay	24	17,476.00	360.00	1,225.00	1,248.00
Shane Kano	86	17,288.00	965.00	1,061.00	243.00
Kang Hapon	140	13,320.00	495.00	425.00	404.00
Mike Kano	130	9,129.00	550.00	563.00	537.00
Michael Kano	158	6,458.00	1,148.00	47.00	161.00

School Updates

Well, my first class in Financial Planning/Debt Management which was supposed to commence last June 5 has been cancelled. The college can’t afford to keep the class going if the number of enrollees does not meet the state’s minimum requirement of 10 students per class. So then, I had to call my GM again at CompUSA to let him know my Saturday for the whole month of June is open. Boy, he was quick to put me back on schedule!

Today, Saturday (July1) is my last day of work at CompUSA. Hopefully, I’ll be back to work on September 16, 2006. Now, I am left wondering if my other class; Investment/Retirement Planning and Employee Benefits is going to push through comes July 6. If not, then I will have to go back to work again for the rest of the summer. But you know what? The idea of getting into the Master’s degree program is very tempting, and why not?  I just got accepted into the MBA program of the University of Phoenix.  The tuition fee is ($612/credit) = $1,836.00 per class. I have to complete 54 credits or 18 classes with at least a  GPA of 2.5 to get the diploma in MBA degree.  All classes are done online which, to me, is really very flexible.  Only to find out yesterday that my government job would only pay for the tuition/fees based on the University of North Florida rate which is ($244/credit) = $732 per class. Bummer!!!   I didn’t realize that these private universities that offer online degree programs are actually more pricey than the government/state universities that conduct all their classes on campus. I guess that left me with only one option: that is to go in to the classroom twice a week. <Sigh>

Anyway, here's my goal: I am giving myself two more years.  If I don’t get pregnant until the end of next year, I’ll definitely try to get into the MBA program or maybe (just maybe) go in to take review classes for CPA state board ;-) It’s been my dream to become a Certified Public Accountant but didn’t have enough resources to do it back then. Let's see how far/high I can fly! LOL  Ambisyosang Rhebs sa Amerika pa gustong mag-CPA pero wala namang K!!!! LOL Hey, I am just day dreaming... besides, it doesn't cost me a penny to dream big yah know!? Who knows?!?

Have a good weekend folks :-)