Sunday, April 8, 2007

Sites of Africa

Sites of Africa








posted by Asthong Kutchong @ 8:03 AM 0 Comments

Saturday, April 7, 2007

Tidbits from Politicians

It's election time. There were so many jokes about political personas and one of these was forwarded to me.

"A friend has been a Travel Agent for 30 Years. She says, of her 30 years of taking reservation requests from government officials, we are all in trouble.

Here's a few choice reservation questions from these bright people.

Senator Tessie Oreta asked for an aisle seat so that her hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window.

I got a call from ex-Mayor Joey Marquez, who wanted to go to Capetown. Explaining the length of the flight and passport information, he interrupted me with, "I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts ." Without trying to make him look like the stupid one, I calmly explained, " Cape Cod is in Massachusetts . Capetown is in Africa ." His response: (click).

Congressman Mark Lapid called, furious about a Florida package we did for him and tv star Kris Aquino. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando . He said he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain that was not possible since Orlando is in the middle of the state. He replied, "Don't lie to me. I looked in the map and Florida is a very thin state!" (so he expected to see the ocean on both sides of the hotel?!)

Sen Ralph Recto's popular wife asked, "Is it possible to see England from Canada ?" I said, "No." She said, "But they look so close on the map."


Senator Lito Lapid asked if he could rent a car in Dallas . I noticed he had only an hour lay-over in Dallas . When asked why he wanted to rent a car, he said, "I heard Dallas was a big airport, and we will need a car to drive between the gates to save time."

Senator Jinggoy Estrada called last week. He needed to know how it was possible that his flight from Detroit left at 8:20 a.m. and got into Chicago at 8:33 a.m. I tried to explain that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois , but he could not understand the concept of time zones. Finally, I told him the plane went very fast, and he bought that.

Congressman Ronaldo Zamora asked, "Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know whose luggage belongs to whom?" I said, "No, why do you ask?" He replied, "Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said FAT, and I'm overweight. I think that is very rude!" I looked into it and explained the city code for Fresno , California is (FAT) and the airline was just putting a destination tag on his luggage.

Former presidentiable now tv star Eddie Gil inquired about a trip package to Hawaii . After going over all the cost info, he asked, "Would it be cheaper to fly to California and take the train to Hawaii ?"

I just got off the phone with Senator Bong Revilla who asked, "How do I know which plane to get on?" I asked him what exactly he meant, to which he replied, "I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these planes have numbers on them."

VP Noli De Castro asked, "I need to fly to Pepsi-Cola , FL. Do I have to get on one of those twin engine planes?" I asked if he meant fly to Pensacola , FL on a commuter plane. He said, "Yeah, whatever!"

Congressman Dilangalen called and had a question about the documents needed to fly to China . I reminded him he needed a visa. "Oh, no I don't. I've been to China many times and never had to have one of those." I double checked and sure enough, his stay required a visa. When I told him this, he said, "Look, I've been to China four times and everytime they accepted my American Express!"

Senator Miriam Defensor called to make reservations, "I want to go from Chicago to Rhino, New York ." The agent said, "Are you sure that's the name of the town?" "Yes, what flights do you have?" replied the lady. After some searching, the agent came back with, "I'm sorry, ma'am, I've looked up every airport code in the country and can't find a Rhino anywhere." The lady retorted, "Oh, don't be silly! Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!" The agent scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, "You don't mean Buffalo , do you?" "That's it! I knew it was a big animal," she said."

posted by Asthong Kutchong @ 1:05 AM 0 Comments

Thursday, April 5, 2007

Heidi Lopez

Heidi, a petite girl with a fair complexion and vivacious smile, was my classmate when I was in 1st year college during the school year of 1985. She is simply beautiful and energetic. My world becomes so marvelous and my life for the first time then was euphoric every time I saw her. I didn’t know what hit me. I guessed that I had a crush on her or infatuated to her sweet smile.

I knew in my heart that I liked her, however my mind kept telling me that it was not yet the right time to have a girlfriend because of the following reasons:

  • I just started college and it was unfair to my mother who was working so hard to make sure that I could finish my schooling. She will be devastated if she will know that I focus myself to this young lady rather than my schooling.
  • I was afraid to tell her my feelings. I am afraid that she might reject me, which could result to frustration and affect my studies.
  • I had no money. In my mind, gifts like chocolate and flowers are very essential for every courtship. Where in the hell I could find such amount of money to finance this adventure.
  • As far as I knew she was rich. Being poor like me could have a negative impact in case I decided to court her.

To make the story short, I kept and hid my feeling to her and concentrated more on my studies and works. The next school semester I learnt that she was not in a block section anymore. Thus, she will not be my classmate. I guessed that this would quickly help me to forget her.

Time runs fast. I was taking my class-card in one of the subjects in my last semester of 1988 school year; I saw her standing by the door. She had changed from a young girl into a woman. She looked more beautiful wearing make-up and fashionable dress. I stared at her looking on how she came out from her cocoon and turned into a stunning lady.

You are probably telling me that it is now the proper time to court her and exploit my new horizon. But, fate had made things different; I am now seeing a new girl who eventually became my wife. Perhaps, my future wife had seen something in me that she had made sure that well I should belong to her and vice versa.

I put up a lot courage and decided to visit Heidi in the dormitory with a plan to tell her my real feelings. Guess what!! She had just left and went back to her home town – Nueva Ejica and nowhere to be found. For Heidi wherever you are, thank you for the little memories that you had shared with me. It could be irrelevant to you but your face and personality had been scribed in my mind. In my mind, you will always stay young and vibrant forever.

If I had only a time machine, I wish I would be back to the time when you were still my classmate and rearranged everything. Who knows, she could be very happy right now and she never even give a though or damn on me. Heidi is just part of my life to rekindle and presently I am very much happy with my wife and daughter.




posted by Asthong Kutchong @ 9:05 AM 0 Comments

Sunday, April 1, 2007

Pumapatak na naman ang ulan

Paggising ko kaninang umaga bandang 8:00 am ay napakadilim na ng langit. Mukhang bubugso ang ulan ng matindi. Hindi nga ako nagkamali eksaktong 9:15 ng umaga bumagsak ang napakabigat na ulan. Parang signal no. 3 na sa atin ito.

Bakit kaya napakalakas ng ulan ngayon dito sa Nigeria!! Eh samantalang sa Manila ay super init na ngayon. Nakapagtataka dahil halos nasa equitorial reqion ang Pinas at Nigeria.

Ang sarap sanang kumain ng tuyo at sinigang na bangus. Tapos ang kanin ay bagong saing. Ginugutom tuloy ako lalo. Ang almusal ko lang kanina ay isang nilagang itlog at kape. Hindi na ako pumunta sa kantina dahil sinadya kong matulog lampas ng 7:00 am dahil linggo ngayon at ang oras ng pasok ay 9:00 am kaso nga lang ikaw na bahala ng almusal mo dahil ang kantina ay bukas ng 7:00 am hanggang 8:00 am lang. Napakalakas ng hangin at matindi ang bugso ng ulan.......

posted by Asthong Kutchong @ 2:04 AM 0 Comments