“A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.”

John Barrymore

“I dream of having no regrets”

John McCrarey

Sorry if I’ve used those quotes before. According to Facebook, I posted the Barrymore line five years ago. Eh, either way, it’s as true now as it ever was.

I’m not complaining about my lot in life though. Why should I? Here’s a glimpse into the 24 hours preceding this post. I report, you decide.

I started my Saturday evening by dining at one of my regular eateries, Sit-n-Bull. I ordered up one of my favorites, the large size pulled pork sandwich with a side of coleslaw, and I wasn’t disappointed. The owner, Ron, has some specials going on for the month of January–free refills on coffee (unheard of in these parts) and beers for 50 pesos. That’s the lowest price in town for beer, even Cheap Charlies has raised the price to 60 pesos.

After my meal and a couple of beers, I headed up the street to see what was happening at BarCelona. They had a decent crowd and at least one big spender was plying the staff with lady drinks. The gals were all happy of course and a few of them were drunk and loud. It was a little irritating though and the service was slow. I went out to sit on the rooftop as is my custom, but it was really breezy and chilly enough to be uncomfortable, so I moved back inside and sat at the bar.

One beer at BarCelona then I moved on up the highway to my beachside seat at Mangos. Quite a few customers there and judging by the parking lot, ICove hotel next door was packed again for the weekend. Almost exclusively Filipinos which seems to be the new normal. I had a few beers then headed on home. Played around on the internet some and was in bed by 9:00. On a Saturday night!

Early to bed and early to rise and all that. Up at 4:30 to catch up on the news of the world. It ain’t pretty. I’m increasingly concerned that we will either capitulate to China or there will be war. Xi’s threats against Taiwan are especially concerning. Of course, Biden is China’s bitch, bought and paid for, but it’s no sure thing when you are playing with fire. My guess is that President Duterte would side with China–he already jokes about the Philippines being a Chinese province. In the event of war, as an American living here, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be pretty for me. Especially if China sent their Navy to take Subic Bay. Anyway, it’s in my mind but I honestly don’t lose sleep over it. It’s beyond my ability to control, so why worry overmuch?

After the dog walk, I headed out to Baloy Beach for breakfast. Visited Blue Rock, the hotel I often stayed in as a tourist. Hadn’t been there since before the lockdown. Once again, all the hotels I passed seemed to be incredibly busy, at least judging by the parking lots. Even Mangrove, one of the most expensive resorts was packed. And the beach was full of Sunday morning revelry and the partiers were almost exclusively Filipino. I judge that to be a good thing since it appears increasingly likely that tourists aren’t going to be allowed back here anytime soon. I also like the fact that the locals are giving their government a big “fuck you, we are sick of this bullshit”. Actions speak louder than words sometimes.

On the menu, it was listed as S.O.S. I asked my waitress if she could tell me what that stood for and she said she didn’t know. I didn’t want to talk shit to her so I didn’t tell her.

After breakfast, I took a longish walk up the National Highway, about 45 minutes up, then back again. It’s not my favorite walk for obvious reasons but I had made a big ATM withdrawal (gotta pay the help tomorrow) and I was uncomfortable walking the backstreets with a pocketful of money. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never felt threatened here at all, but why take unnecessary chances?

Back home, a little more internet, some work on the dart league stats, a bit of solitaire, a nap, and here I am closing the loop with you, my faithful readers.

Alright, confession time. I honestly try to avoid engaging in political debates as I think it is pointless. Still, these past few days I’ve not been able to resist triggering my lefty friends by posting the kind of memes that I saw directed at Trump and right-thinking people like me these past few years. And it is so easy too! The hypocrisy on the left still astounds me and their only defense seems to be “whataboutisms”. It’s just so obvious to point out if it was bad when Trump did it, it is bad when Biden does. *crickets*

Anyway, here are a couple of my recent grenades:

And finally, there is this which nicely illustrates why any effort to engage the left in a meaningful way is pretty much a waste of time.

Thank you for your indulgence. We’ll get back to normal around here soon. Promise!

Today we look back on yesterday as we look forward to a better tomorrow. Hmm, kind of a play on that old saying: “Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday”.

So, the dart league meeting. I arrived on time at the appointed hour. I didn’t do a headcount, but it appeared almost everyone was there already. I was still feeling ambivalent about the whole affair. Which is good, because whatever the outcome, I figured I’d be okay with it.

Since no one appeared prepared to take the lead, I kicked it off by saying I had no agenda but would be happy to answer any questions about what had happened and the way ahead. Espie, the newly added player, kicked things off by saying she was looking forward to playing and she hoped she would be accepted. She said it had hurt her feelings that other players were blaming her for the controversy. That prompted me to explain again how it came about that Espie was the one I chose as a replacement (she had tried to sign up prior to the start but I already had my twelve players, so I put her on the waiting list). I also reiterated that I had placed Espie in the top division because that is where she belongs. Mark then chimed in by telling the group that I had contacted him prior to placing Espie and asked if he’d be willing to drop down to the lower division and that he had readily agreed.

So, we still had a vacancy to fill. I had resigned as a player so that Espie could take my place, thereby diffusing the controversy of her placement in the upper-division. One name was brought up as being similar talent-wise as the guy who had quit. I pointed out that the vacancy was actually in the top division now since Mark had dropped down to the lower. I suggested that Mark could move back up or another good player like Gerlie could be recruited to play. At this point, Billy asked if I would be willing to rejoin. I told her I had no real desire to do so. Then she said that if I quit she was quitting. A couple of other players joined her in this stance, and suddenly all eyes were upon me. And so I caved and agreed to play out the season.

And that was pretty much it. One other player made a comment that he believed I’d misunderstood the concerns raised regarding Espie as a personal attack on my integrity. He assured me that wasn’t the intent. I accepted that explanation and conceded that perhaps I had overreacted.

The meeting adjourned, the regularly scheduled dart tournament commenced, and I participated. Finished third against strong competition in hard-fought and well-played matches. It was pretty enjoyable all-in-all.

The other news from yesterday concerns the Friday walking group. I led the pack on an 8K hike around the valley, through the Naugsol barangay, then back to my house for lunch. It was nice and mostly flat, although we had to do a bit of trailblazing at one point to detour around the still flooded rice paddies. You can Relive the adventure here:

A few photos from the trek:

In unrelated news, I found this photo to be quite humorous:

Not as funny as this one though:

That’s it for now. Thanks for stopping by!

…even when it’s all you’ve got. Nothing much to offer up here today in the way of a post, but what I’ve got I’ll give to you!

Need to head out in about an hour to the singles dart league meeting. No idea what to expect from that. I’ll be fine with however it plays out. Que sera, sera, and all that.

Nice 8.5K walk this morning with the Friday group, I’ll update on that tomorrow. In the meantime, you can Relive my solitary hike from yesterday that I forgot to post if you want.

Last night it was beers at Cheap Charlies and pork chops at Mangos. And that was my Thursday.

Well, I did have the odd experience of looking out the window here at the house and seeing a snow-covered mountain in the distance.

I promise I’m not going to do this every day, but damn, the internet is chock full of Biden memes these days.

Yeah, I told you I had nothin’. I’ll do better tomorrow.

So it is written and so it must be.

The Wednesday Walkers, three of whom will be the Hares next week, made it our mission to scout ahead for Monday’s Hash trail. Scott took the lead as he already had an idea in mind. The result was a relatively short 5K hike but with two moderate climbs. The beginning and end portions of the trail haven’t been Hashed for quite some time and they bookend the familiar My Bitch route. We might look for an opportunity to extend the distance a tad when we mark the trail on Monday morning but honestly, I’m happy with it as is. I think it will prove to be more challenging than folks are expecting from us old-timers.

You can Relive the highlights here:

Here are some photos from the hike:

I’m sure you’ll agree this may be the best trail ever in Hash history. Or at least next week.

Let me do a quick detour into the realm of politics and religion.

As for religion, well, I’ve been worshipping every night!

That’s about all for now. I’ve agreed to participate in a Singles League meeting tomorrow afternoon. Should be interesting.

When I first moved into my house going on three years ago now, there was a couple living in the basement area in what is commonly referred to as the servant’s quarters or maid’s room. And that is exactly what it is–one room, with a small restroom and space for a tabletop burner stove and small refrigerator. It can only be accessed from outside the house. At the time I moved in it housed Man Tony, the property caretaker, and his wife (my house is one of four in this enclave and there are several others down the street). When I asked my landlord about what would happen to the basement residents once I took the house she matter-of-factly stated “they will be evicted”. Well, I wasn’t comfortable with that and it didn’t bother me having them in the basement area I wouldn’t be using anyway. So, I let them stay.

Over time they became almost like neighbors, although I’d give Man Tony 500 pesos a week for his help around my yard. His wife also did yard work on the properties and cleaned the house where the landlord’s family stays during infrequent visits (they are from Manila). Man Tony died early last year from diabetes-related complications. She never bothers to hop over to here for assistance and does everything on her own. His wife has continued her duties but the landlord saw fit to reduce the compensation by 50%. I thought that was a sucky thing to do and I tried to help a little by upping my contribution to 1000 pesos a week. The landlord died unexpectantly a couple of months ago and I’ve seen a couple of her sons coming up periodically to check on the property, most of which is still vacant. They have been doing some maintenance work on the houses so perhaps an effort to sell or find renters is underway.

This past weekend we saw a new face, the landlord’s daughter. From the gossip I’ve heard from my helpers, she prevailed in a family feud and will now be managing the Alta Vista properties. Doesn’t matter much to me, I have a lease and my rent is paid through June. But it seems like it is going to make a big difference for Man Tony’s widow.

Since Man Tony’s passing, I’ve noticed the widow has frequent overnight visits from her adult children, their spouses, and an occasional grandchild. I had no idea where everyone was sleeping but I suspected they overflowed into the servant’s basement of the usually vacant house the landlords use when they visit. None of my business really and except when they do that loud-ass karaoke they don’t bother me. One of the daughters is actually quite attractive although I’ve confined my lust to fantasies. Thus far. I’m kidding, of course, she has a Filipino boyfriend who also stays downstairs. He’s very friendly and we’ve had beers together outside on the patio a couple of times. Although I do decline his invitations to join in the singing.

Anyway, the landlord’s daughter, well, I guess she’s the landlord now, showed up unexpectantly early Saturday morning. Entered the residence she uses and discovered one of the widow’s male adult offspring sleeping inside. She was understandably livid. The widow denied knowing her son was sleeping in the house, which may or may not be true. She apologized and said it would never happen again. I’m sure it won’t. The landlord changed all the locks and fired the widow. That last part was pretty cruel given the fact that this is probably the only job she can get at her age. And I can attest that she does work hard, out there in the yard whacking away with her bolo blade as soon as the sun comes up. She was in tears when she told my helpers what happened.

The landlord also removed most of the furniture the widow was using in her quarters. That pissed me off some. I’m renting this house, including the basement, and that includes the crappy furniture that was here when I moved in. I also made it clear that no one could evict her from the basement other than me. I reiterated that to the sexy daughter and her boyfriend last night as we drank beers and dined on the baby back ribs I’d cooked in the crockpot.

So, I’m still not sure how this is all going to play out. I’ve not seen the widow or the landlord around here today, although there is a crew of maintenance guys working around one of the houses. The daughter and boyfriend kept busy cleaning up around the yard of my house this morning. I hope the landlord relents and gives the widow a second chance. Honestly though, even if she doesn’t I expect the widow could get by on the twenty bucks a week I pay her since she’s living rent-free. Lots of folks in these parts live on less.

That’s what passes for drama in my life these days so I reckon I can count myself as lucky. I did overindulge a tad at Cheap Charlies last night. I was drinking gin and soda rather than light beer and the alcohol content kinda snuck up on me.

I was actually quite surprised when Jicel sent me a friend request on Facebook this morning. Of course, I accepted. Could it be that this sexy young thing really likes me and wants to get to know me better? And then I got a message from her! Wow, this is so exciting! I opened it up and read the first words she would ever say to me outside of the bar: “will you please delete the photo of me you posted on Facebook?”. Yes, dear. Right away, dear. Sorry!

Today’s a brand new day and new adventures await. I decided to start it off right by eating breakfast out:

And of course, I’ve got the Hash this afternoon. I’m going to start the trail early and I’m going to start it from my house. No apologies! I march to the beat of my own drummer!

Another rainy morning here in my neck of the woods. Nothing to be done but make the best of it. So I did an abbreviated dog walk and the boys didn’t seem to mind coming home early to get dry in dog fashion:

The rain lightened up some, so I hoofed it out to Arizona.

Walked back home and have been fooling around with the Singles League stats. Round 1 is now complete and it ended like this:

Now I’ve got some work to do to prepare for Round 2 Division play. I’m taking the top six in one division and putting the bottom six in another. Should be competitive for everyone that way.

The big event for me yesterday was the Friday walking group. I was tasked with leading the trail and I opted to go long and mostly flat. Headed out to Naugsol barangay to explore the remaining portion of the Hash trail I missed two weeks ago. We left from my house and finished up at Cheap Charlies. A solid 12K hike, which is about the limit of my endurance for a single continuous hike. Why yes, I do have some photos. Thanks for asking!

It was actually quite an enjoyable hike if I do say so myself. You can Relive it here if you want another view:

Adding in the steps I took prior to and after this hike I had an unusually productive day.

Well, damn. I had planned to get some steps in this afternoon but here comes the rain again. Shit.

More darts on tap tonight. I’m starting to get back into the routine and enjoying it a little better lately. Still not throwing the way I’d like but I guess I’m doing alright for an old guy.

Here comes the rain again
Falling on my head like a memory
Falling on my head like a new emotion
I want to walk in the open wind
I want to talk like lovers do
Want to dive into your ocean
Is it raining with you?

I’ve had better days but on the spectrum of my life, yesterday wasn’t anything to complain about. Not much to write about either though. I was feeling a little blah and uninspired. Took a shorter than usual morning walk and did a one-hour afternoon walk all within the confines of the neighborhood. A little internet and some blogging and that was just about it.

I did go out and enjoy a few beers at Cheap Charlies last night. Then moved up the highway to Palm Tree for a couple of more. Ran into one of my neighbors, a guy named Tony, there and he shared his story with me. He’s a Brit who first visited the Philippines while he was working in Hong Kong. When Tony returned home to the UK he met a Filipina in the grocery store where he shops. They dated and then married when she was 40 and he was 45. She almost immediately got pregnant for the first time in her life. Shortly before giving birth, she was diagnosed with some form of bowel cancer. She had a son and then died three years later. With the help of his family, Tony raised the child. When Tony turned 56 he took early retirement and moved to the PI with his son. The boy is 13 now and doing well. Tony also told me tales of being scammed by Filipinas since moving here, but honestly, I think I’ve got him beat in that department.

We had a night full of thunderstorms which is quite unusual for this time of year. The rain had stopped by the time I took the dogs out for a walk this morning.

And it looks like we are in for another erection.

What else? Oh, Fitbit emailed me my stats from 2020 this morning:

MOST ACTIVE DAY: March 28. You logged 34,568 steps on this day. Nice work!

TOTAL STEPS: 6,450,022. That’s like walking the length of a cruise ship 16,266 times.

TOTAL MILES: 3099. That’s like crossing the English Channel 148 times

Well, thanks for letting me know Fitbit. I just did the math and see that I failed to achieve my goal of a daily average of 20,000 steps. I only managed 17,671 a day. Damn it. Well, I’ll consider it motivation for this year. And I don’t give a shit about the English Channel but I did walk enough miles to have traveled coast to coast in the USA. So there’s that.

One cold winter’s day in December I was putting mail through the door slot of a house on my mail route. A woman opened the door and invited me in for a hot chocolate. Well, damn, that sounded good so I said yes, thank you! As she was serving me, her robe came open and I could see her smoking hot body through the negligee she was wearing underneath. One thing led to another and we wound up in the bedroom doing the deed. When we had finished, she smiled and hand me a dollar. I asked her what is this for? She responded “I don’t know. I asked my husband what to give the mailman for Christmas and he said fuck the mailman, give him a dollar!”

Alright, that didn’t really happen. It’s just an old letter carrier joke. I did have some nice adventures and encounters with customers on my route, but always after duty hours.

Alright, I suppose that’s just about enough of this nonsense. More to come tomorrow, maybe even something of substance! Well, comparatively anyway.

Time for darts!

Eight hearty hikers and eight scenic kilometers. The stars aligned, the gods smiled, and for those brief moments in time, the world was in balance. Okay, perhaps I’ve engaged in some hyperbole. It was an interesting hike though, and documenting that journey here hopefully fulfills my obligation to post something “interesting” today.

We began our trek with a longish jeepney ride out to Philseco in Subic town. Then we commenced walking through the scenic countryside and didn’t stop until we reached our destination–The Roadhouse in Castillejos. We opted not to do a big climb, irking a couple members of our group, but it was a pleasant walk and plenty enough challenging for me.

You can Relive it here:

I truly do enjoy our out of town walks. Mostly because I like walking new paths and seeing new views. It enhances the adventure. So, it was a good day in that regard.

After a couple of brews at Roadhouse, we caught a bus back to Barretto. That was just a matter of good timing. We were waiting for a jeepney empty enough to accommodate us when the bus rolled up. The fare is not much higher and the ride is way more comfortable. We got off at Cheap Charlies, our traditional watering hole, for more beers and lunch. I took some flak for ordering a Hawaiian pizza. Hey, pineapple needs love too!

Came home and took a much-needed nap, then it was time to get ready for darts. Didn’t finish in the money though. Hey, win some, lose some.

And that was another day in the life. It may not be much but I’m glad to have it.

A nothing kind of day leads to a nothing kind of post. But I will not be deterred! I take the day off from walking on Tuesday so there’s not even that. But today was much busier than normal which is why this post is going up so late. I’ll post about today tomorrow.

So, Tuesday is grocery shopping day and I got that accomplished. Changed that activity up a little by visiting Pure Gold supermarket to try and find the things that are always out of stock at Royal. Then went to Royal for the things they do have that Pure Gold doesn’t. Exciting stuff, eh?

What else did I accomplish? Well, I managed a second-place finish in darts, so there’s that. And that’s pretty much all there was. But I did spend some quality time on the internet and came away with these gems:

I’ll do better tomorrow. I promise!

You know that old trees just grow stronger
And old rivers grow wilder every day
Old people just grow lonesome
Waiting for someone to say, “Hello in there, hello”

–John Prine

Life continues apace, moving forward step-by-step. And so do I!

Last night I took a third-place finish in the darts tourney. Not bad considering the competition was strong, my partner was clueless, and I was off my game. There is peace in not caring!

For whatever reason, I had a craving for bulgogi last night. So after darts, I popped into John Kim’s The Pub restaurant and ordered me up some. I was disappointed that there was no kimchi available. The waitress said the price of the ingredients made it too expensive to serve as a side. That’s not the first time I’ve heard about a spike in the cost of veggies here lately. Not sure what’s going on with that. Coincidentally or not, the Royal supermarket has been sold out of kimchi for a couple of weeks now too.

For today’s walk, I decided to hike to the old Navy base via the highway and return to Barretto on the beach. It’s been quite a while since I’ve done this route because frankly, walking on the highway is a pain in the ass. The cars, trucks, and jeepneys tend to take the curves by intruding onto the shoulder where I’m walking. So you always have to be alert and ready to jump into the drainage ditch beside the highway should survival dictate such drastic action. Luckily it didn’t today. The walk back on the beach is a little shorter but not without its perils. There are a couple of seawalls you have to scale and also some pretty big rocks to climb up and over on the way home. I used to sometimes go both ways on the beach route but lately, all the access points want to charge an entrance fee. I can’t abide that bullshit when I’m just passing through.

On my way out of town, I popped into Arizona Resort for breakfast. It’s been some time since I’ve been there. The waitress still remembered me though. No other customers were there either. Sad, not sure if the place is going to make it. The owner had been advertising on Facebook about showing the football games today and opening early, but there were no eyes on the televisions. Mine included, I don’t give a shit about American football anymore.

Alright then, so on with the walk! Once again, I recorded the adventure on Relive. Well, technically, I recorded the hike on the Map My Run app, and Relive pulls that data and uses it to do their thing.

Oddly enough, this time Relive didn’t sort the photos into the proper sequence. I think the reason is that my highway route out and beach return didn’t have enough separation between them for the Google Earth coordinates to differentiate whether I was coming or going. No big deal I suppose. I also discovered that I can only post ten photos on the free version of Relive. I’m not quite ready to go premium yet though.

No worries, here are all the photos in the order I took them:

Another day, another hike is in the books. Well, on the blog anyway. There was something unusual along the way this time though. When I’m out walking alone I wear my headphones and listen to music on the Spotify app. I do have the premium version to avoid commercial interruptions. I’ve made several playlists on my own but Spotify also offers up a “Daily Mix” of songs the algorithm thinks I might like. I listened to one of those today. And while most of the songs and artists are familiar, sometimes I hear something completely out of the blue that resonates enough that I’ll actually stop and open the app to see what I’m hearing. That happened twice this morning and both times the artist was John Prine. Now, I had a vague recollection of that name but had never been a fan and don’t really recall knowingly listening to his music before. So, to be wowed twice in one walk was pretty impressive. I was sad to read in the link above that he died of a COVID-related illness last April. Rest in Peace!

The songs I liked were Ain’t Hurtin’ Nobody and Hello In There. Give them a listen if you are so inclined.

A song that didn’t come up on the playlist today but came to mind as I walked along the highway and provided the title for this post is an old favorite from the Flying Burrito Brothers.

White Line Fever a sickness born down deep inside my soul
White Line Fever the years keep flying by like a high line pole
The wrinkles in my forehead show the miles I’ve put behind me
They continue to remind me how fast I’m growing old
Guess I’ll die with this fever in my soul

I wonder just what makes a man keep pushing on
Why must I keep on singing this old highway song
I’ve been from coast to coast a 100 times or more
I haven’t found one place that I ain’t been before
White Line Fever a sickness born down deep inside my soul
White Line Fever the years keep flying by like a high line pole

For yesterday’s group hike, we did a little scouting around for a potential trail when we Hare the Hash on February 1. Scott had some ideas but they didn’t really pan out this time. That’s part of the process–eliminating possibilities gets you a step closer to finding a suitable path. Anyway, it was a mostly pleasant 6K hike, just a couple of rough patches. Always good to be out and about with friends on trail!

Scott posted his pictures from the hike (most of which are included above) on an app called Relive. I thought it was pretty cool how it incorporates the photos into the section of the trail where they were taken. So I thought I’d try it out on my morning walk. This is the result:

Oh, cool! It actually embeds. Wasn’t sure it would. Nothing special about my walk today. I basically did the photo every thousand steps or so thing again, but I got distracted a couple of times. Anyway, when I uploaded the photos it somehow knew where on the trail I took them. That is both impressive and a little scary! Another thing I like is that it has an elevation bar at the top of the video screen. My trail was mostly flat today though. I still need to learn how to insert elevations at various points in the trail. Give me some feedback on how you like the app. I’ll probably still use photo posts like usual anyway so I can add my witty commentary. Anyway, something new to play with.

And that’s the way it is with me.