Taking the Camry for a spin

I had a meeting at Clark, Pampanga today with a client so I took our new Toyota Camry for its first long distance drive.  I've been wanting to figure out what its mileage is like under a long, smooth driving condition with no traffic.  One of the nifty features of the car's dashboard is a real-time calculator of its gasoline mileage.  Under Manila's normal city traffic conditions, the best I can do is between 6 to 8 km/liter under "Eco Drive" mode.  A long distance drive with no traffic should show a much better performance.

At its peak, I was able to clock a sweet 16.1 km/liter!  I cruised between 80 to 110 kmph during the whole stretch.  It seems that the optimal mileage can be reached by the car if you set it at cruise control and just let the computer take over; or maybe it was just my imagination.  Sigh... if only inner city driving was as fuel efficient.

Hello World Conner Drake

Cols and I woke up early today because we were supposed to drive Ethan to Xavier for his Saturday make-up class.  But because its been raining heavily the whole night, the school decided to postpone the make-up class.  Cols and I proceeded to Cardinal Santos to have a check-up since she is scheduled to give birth already anytime this week.  The maternity unit said she is already open 2cm and when they contacted Dr. Madamba, she told the staff to inform us to come back later in the day to induce labor already.

We went home first to have lunch and relax a bit.  We drove back to Cardinal Santos around 4:30pm.  When we got to the maternity unit, we were surprised when they told us Cols is now at 5cm and can give birth in 2 hours time!

I proceeded to the admission counter while they prepared Cols to go into labor.  By around 8:30pm, Dr. Madamba predicted baby will be out by around 9pm.  So at quarter to 9, we were moved already from the labor room to the delivery room.  With just a couple of push, and almost right on the dot, Conner Drake popped out of his mom's tummy!

Conner weighed in at 6.7 lbs.

The Bungi Family

I bit on something really hard about 3 weeks ago while eating pizza.  I cracked my upper left molar (the one next to the incisor).  The fracture has been bothering me for several days, and finally today, I decided to have it removed!

It was actually not as painful as I was expecting.  Kudos to Dr. Alicia Tan of Mt. Sinai Dental Clinic!  She did inject anesthesia to numb my gums.  But pulling the tooth out turned out to be very effortless.  I hardly felt anything.

Caitlin also had a tooth extracted because her permanent tooth underneath was already pushing it out.  Ethan lost one of his front tooth about a month ago.  Then he lost the other one while playing badminton a couple of weeks ago.  So here we are -- all with missing teeth.

Look at our missing teeth!

GCHS Batch 87 Reunion

Hard to believe it has been 25 years since we left the gates of Grace Christian High School!  But thanks to the selfless efforts of a few batchmates, several of us got together last night at Chivz in Greenhills for a night of fun and memories.

From GCHS Batch 87 Reunion

It was fun trying to figure who is who after all these years.  Some classmates still looked exactly the same, while others, err..., have "matured" more.  hehehe.  Section 3 (my section) was the most represented (thanks, classmates).  Lets hope the next reunion will not take another 25 years!

Importing and Exporting Data across Firebird Databases

In the past couple of weeks, I've encountered a few problems with the Firebird databases that I maintain.  In both cases, I had to retrieve data from a backup and restore it to the one running in production.

Firebird does not come with any built-in utility to do that function.  Thankfully, as with majority of open source projects, there are 3rd party solutions that seem to do what you want.  In this case, I found FBExport:

http://fbexport.sourceforge.net/

The command-line syntax is very straightforward.  First, you extract:

fbexport -S -H hostname -D database1.gdb -U username -P password -F file.fbx -Q "select * from sometable"

Then, you import:

fbexport -I -H hostname -D database2.gdb -U username -P password -F file.fbx -Q "INSERT INTO sometable(field1, field2, field3)"

It works great!

Trick Art

I took the kids and my nephew to Seri Fantasy World this afternoon.  The group-buying sites have been promoting them in various deals and lots of people have been buying, so I've been curious as to what is in there.

Seri Fantasy World is located at the second floor of the Manila Ocean Park.  My first impression when I saw the place was that of disappointment.  It looked like a ran-down, low-end version of Active Fun.  Our P198 voucher was good for unlimited viewing of their 3D movie and the Trick Art Museum.  The kids seem to have enjoyed the 3D movie although the quality was pretty lame compared to our Samsung 3D tv at home.

The Trick Art Museum was the highlight of the trip.  The place was actually very small and very unimpressive to look at.  All the images on the wall look very flat and 2D-ish.  But interestingly, when you take a picture, they look very 3D-like.  Check out our shots.

From Seri Fantasy World Trick Art Museum

Koshi Noodles at Moshi Koshi

When along Shaw Boulevard, pass by and try Moshi Koshi Noodle Boss.  Its a modern Japanese diner which specializes on koshi noodles, a term used to refer to the "chewiness" property of freshly prepared Japanese noodles.  The udon is the specialty although I also love the soba.  They serve zaru soba (cold soba) even though it is officially not in the menu.

Moshi Koshi also serves toppings (donburi) and salads.  No sushi or sashimi on the menu.  Pricing is affordable (mostly below PHP200).  Moshi Koshi is the brainchild of one of the founders of Yellow Cab Pizza.