Sounds from the past

You know how certain aromas can trigger memories? Well lately, a lot of sounds have been reminding me of old times.

I listen to a lot of Satellite Radio throughout the week and one of my favorite stations is called "Coffee House". It's a lot like Jam 88.3 in its early days; light pop, acoustic with lost of indie music. There's an announcer there that sounds almost exactly like Harry, one of my co-DJs during the station's early days.

Recently I also discovered that the animation company Harmony Gold posted their hit 80's seris Robotech on Youtube and Hulu. While watching episodes with my son, I noticed that the voice of the main character Lisa Hayes sounds exactly like Claudine, another one of Jam 88.3's first announcers.

I get so nostalgic when I listen "Coffee House" or watch episodes of "Macross", the voices of Harry and Claudine just take me back to those good old days. I miss the times, hanging out with with the first batch of Jam DJs. We launched the station over six year ago. How time flies.

Perspective after another year on Earth

Last Thursday marked yet another birthday of mine. It was my second since moving back to the US and my first here in our new home.

Since I turned 30, I spent a lot of time looking back on my life and dwelling on the past. But now I've decided to stop the dwelling and to focus more on what's ahead and what I have to look forward to.

So I'm writing down a few things I want to either accomplish or to be hopeful about.

Here they are:

- Having my daughter visit us here sometime soon.

(We constantly pray that her mom will open her mind to it.)

- Being more active in my son's school.

(My wife and I are joining his school's PTA.)

- Getting back in shape and losing the weight I've gained since my back injury.

(My wife and I have slowly started an exercise regimen.)

- Paying off at least one of our car loans.

(This may take a while, but it would ease a big financial burden.)

- Enhancing my career growth.

(I'm looking into taking classes in order to "raise my stock".)

- Becoming more active in Church.

(My wife and I are hoping we can work around our schedules to join the choir.)

These, of course, are just a few of things that I've been trying to focus on. Some of these are tougher to accomplish, but just changing my outlook keeps me driven and optimistic.

Helpless

Over the past couple of weeks, my family here has watched numerous videos and saw countless pictures of the devastation caused by Typhoon Ondoy in the Philippines.

To say that we've had mixed emotions would be an understatement. Although we felt lucky that we did not experience the disaster, of course we felt concern for our friends and relatives and extreme saddened for those hardest hit.

The worst feeling though is the helplessness. If my wife and I were still there I know that we'd be on air promoting the heck out of relief efforts. I'm sure that our friends in the media back there have been doing a good job of that, but it's still hard to handle.

The only thing we can do, i guess, is to continue donating to the recovery and praying for the country.

Not a bed of roses

It's been a year and a half since my wife and I left the Radio industry and moving to Houston, and we're in a pretty good place now. We both have stable jobs, our son is settled into a nice routine in a good school, and We recently bought our first home.

Looking at our story, one might think that we've had it easy. But that's not the case, by a long shot. I could list all the financial, personal and other problems we've had, but I don't want to sound like I'm whining.

My point is that many Filipinos believe that things are handded to you the moment you step on US soil. The truth is that there's a lot of hard work that needs to be done.

Of course, life is harder back home in the Philippines. But life isn't a bed of roses here either. You still put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears.

My wife and I have been lucky. We've been blessed with friends and family who have been extremely supportive over the last year and a half.

Of course, life isn't perfect for us. There's always room for improvement. But after all the struggling and perseverance, we appreciate more what we do have.

My favorite stations

In a previous post, I talked about falling in love with Radio again because of Sirius XM (Satellite Radio). It's quite interesting what my favorite stations and why. Here they are:

"Coffee House"
- This station reminds me of Jam 88.3 in its first two years or so. Laid back acoustic. Lots of indie stuff.

"90's on 9"
- You can't go wrong with the music of your high school and college years. I played a lot of these when I was first starting out in Radio at Magic 89.9.

"Sirius XM Love"
- I have to admit that I go back to this once in a while. I know almost every song because of the years I spent in 96.3 WRock.

"The Blend"
- Yes, there's a station with the same name as my former program at Jam. This is a mix of almost everything; 80's, 90's and current hits.

Obviously there's a bit of trend here. The years that I've spent on Radio have had a huge influence on my musical tastes.

When I start missing the old days back in Manila, I know I can just tune in to one of these stations and somehow it sort of takes me back.

The biggest news

If there's one thing that kept me the most busy over the past few months it was the fact that my wife and I bought and moved into our first home here in the US.

By the grace of God, we were approved for a housing loan early this year. We put the down payment last February and they were all but finished building by late May. We ended up closing the deal and moving in on June 9.

Due to a bunch of reasons (housing crisis, low interest rates, government stimulus, etc.) it turned out to be the best deal ever. It was a miracle that everything came together in order for us to get a new house the way we did. We couldn't have planned it better ourselves.

Now, we've settled in to a bit of a routine and are in another new phase of our lives.

It's been so long

I've been meaning to update my blog for months. But so much has happened that I've been having a hard time figuring out where to start.

So instead of one long post with lengthy updates, I've decided to just write several short ones which go straight to the point.

I've really missed blogging. It was therapy for me after leaving Radio. It helped me express some ideas that I was used to airing daily.

Over the next few weeks, I'll try to post short ones here and there. I look forward to it.