Brownouts, Fireflies, and Fate

Here in the Philippines we call power interruptions, brownouts or blackouts. We've been having them regularly for the past few months because of infrastructure problems and the rising cost of electricity in this region. Add to that the fact that I practically live in the forest and you can expect them quite a lot.

Yesterday, I was so excited to attend a webinar that was supposed to be the first I ever attended in my life. I waited for 6 hours (in Philippine time 6:30 PM to 12:30 AM). 

I have MS notepad open, Chromium, MSPaint for the screenshots and I have the web conferencing service GoToMeeting, ready for the big countdown to 12:30. 

 
While I waited, I watched Jason Calacanis' show "This Week in Startups" where he talked about ngmoco, a game company that's bound to become the Farmville for the iPad.

The show began on time and I hastily made some notes.

Call me old fashioned or whatever but I was really happy because TenGoldenRules CEO Jay Berkowitz mentioned my name in the show and welcomed me along with several other new members of the Internet Marketing Club. I'm 28, and I was practically born in the same year Bill Gates founded Microsoft but I still haven't had the experience of actually interacting via audio with a person who I practically listen to everyday on a podcast. (Sorry for the long sentence) 

He also greeted the birthday people and then proceeded with the show. 

I only got to strategy number one of the 10 Strategies to Stay on the Cutting Edge, which was twitter. I must say that I perfectly agree with him. In fact, I built two websites around it, namely TwitaPrayer.com and TwitterListings.org.    

That's When the Power Went Out

Everything was pitch black you'd think you were in a horror movie. I sat there in the dark staring at where my monitor was supposed to be - perhaps waiting for it to turn back on. I sat for a full 5 minutes before finally accepting that I won't be able to attend the webinar anymore. 

Then the fireflies came. It would have been nice if I was able to take pictures of the fireflies. But I don't think that's possible. First it was pitch dark, second I don't think my China made digital camera would have been able to perform with that lighting condition (or the lack of).   

I checked on my kids and went out of the room and sighed. I remembered the times when I was still working in the financial district of my country, Makati City. To get there I've had to commute and transfer vehicles 4 times. 

I also remembered peculiar moments when it would rain. What's peculiar about it was that it would rain whenever I was outside of a vehicle and it would stop raining whenever I was inside. In that way, I always got wet on my way to work. 

Anyway, the webinars that Jay holds are done on a weekly basis so I am looking forward to attending another one next Wednesday.