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Digressions

The Alabang Creek Canal Bike Trail

There’s a bike route I’ve been following more often. And the irony is the trail is within a mall.

The Festival Mall canals are really something else. In a way it reminds me of the huge ponds of the former QUAD (now Greenbelt) in the 1980’s and Virra Mall but on a larger scale. Festival Mall’s humongous expansion extends the mall towards Asian Hospital with new outdoor areas around a forum that follows the freshwater Alabang Creek as it makes its way out into Laguna de Bay. The creek itself isn’t a sight to behold, and to be honest I have doubts of how “safe” that water is as I’ve seen freshwater fish floating dead in some of the more stagnant waters. But easily accessible bodies of water are a rarity in the urban sprawl, and in this case — it IS the urban sprawl.

Read on to see the photo gallery.

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Categories
Geek

I asked ChatGPT if AI will be the future of tech reviews

I asked ChatGPT if AI will be the future of tech reviews. This is what it said:

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Categories
Digressions

The bike that saved me

I never really thought about year-end goals until I checked my Strava account. Ever since my wife got me a bike last year, I’ve been trying to clock in rides every week. Some days I have daily streaks of 20km rides. Other times, every other day but longer distances of 30 to 40km. In the beginning I used to come home with aching legs but as the time passed, I have been breathing better, making less pit stops, and exerting less effort on my rides to go faster.

It wasn’t always like this. I spent most of my 30’s finding an excuse to not exercise — or at best to try to be inspired by those “from couch potato to hero” motivational workout regimen. There was a short time before the pandemic I got into kettlebells, but again, knowing me, I could not last. I fear gyms in general because despite all the movement, I’m stuck in a room.

Fast forward to the pandemic.

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Categories
Digressions

Home renovations in the time of Covid

I’m writing this while confined with a mild case of COVID. After two and a half years of evading the virus, it finally caught up with me. Thankfully, symptoms are very mild, with slight cough and fever the first few days. 

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Geek

Resetting my brain with Solitaire (and other classic games)

This afternoon, I introduced my kids to Battleship. It was a game I played as a kid in the 80’s. We didn’t have the ABS plastic set, as most kids during these times transcribed their imaginations into paper. The grid notebooks were the best for Battleship of course — but it was also easy to cheat, as we would often draw odd shapes (an Aircraft carrier shaped like an L!) to confuse our opponents.

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