About Me

I am a web developer/designer by trade. To be more specific, a front-end developer who primarily uses the Ruby on Rails, HAML/SASS and jQuery toolsets.

To anyone not in the web app programming field, I make websites.

And here’s a little more about me:

  • I was part of the design team that gave the world the Timex Indiglo watches.
  • I once sang backup on a TV commercial I conceptualized.
  • I have played drums before 4,500 screaming females.
  • I sold my first acrylic painting at age 5.
  • I was the undefeated Spelling Bee champion up to sixth grade.
  • I was once Steve “Afghan Girl” McCurry’s guide through rebel country in southern Philippines in the ’80s.
  • I aced one of the hardest exams in one of the world’s top institutions for electromagnetics, taught by a professor from NASA.
  • I once disrupted James Cameron’s shoot by walking across the set.
  • I helped feed evacuees after Mt. Pinatubo erupted.
  • I saw Jeff Beck back to back with Stevie Ray Vaughan before Stevie Ray died.
  • I once took the exams for our school paper (came in 1st) before trying out for our varsity in basketball (made starting five) in one afternoon.
  • I have designed, on a lark, an actual house.
  • I painstakingly recorded all 8 tracks of a song, playing all the instruments and singing all the parts.
  • I was ambidextrous at one time in my life.
  • I have shaken Cory Aquino’s hand.
  • I once dunked a basketball.
  • I can tell a cabernet sauvignon from a merlot.
  • I have used a Mac since 1985.
  • I once led and won a pitch over the best ad agency in the country.

More thoughts/drivel - a brain dump of sorts.

  • I write right-handed but I do most everyday things with my left hand - texting, opening jars, driving. I hope it is not an intermediate step removed from schizophrenia.
  • I have an overdeveloped sense of self-worth, which comes in handy in fields like advertising, but is totally useless in my career as a husband.
  • One fine morning I took a bamboo pole, dug up some worms, fashioned out a fishing rod of sorts, and caught a couple of tilapias in the pond at the back of my school. It would have been unimpressive if I wasn’t 5 and was supposed to be in my preschool class.
  • This sneaky family has kidnapped my worries and discontent, with no plans of returning the willing victims to their proper place.
  • I was able to dunk a basketball once. Immediately seizing the importance of the moment and the futility of duplicating the effort, I decided to rest on my laurels and never attempted another one.
  • I have owned two beautiful drum sets by dint of hard work and sold them separately by virtue of circumstance.
  • I secretly relish my boys’ eyes lighting up on those rare occasions they see me play ball - only one of them has the passion for it while the other one plays it as a way of not breaking his old man’s heart.
  • Concepts come easy to me, it’s the execution that keeps me from reaping the benefits. Lack of focus has always been an ugly step sister to inspired thinking.
  • I have put off writing for a living because I do not want to turn the one thing that I truly enjoy into homework.
  • I have always taken the express route between stark raving mad and pure unadulterated bliss, but have decided, of late, to spend more time in the stops in between - much easier on the old ticker.
  • As a kid, my idea of a wife was the antithesis of my alpha female activist mom: a home-bound presence whipping up feasts on short notice and being a constant presence around the home. And looking exactly the opposite of those NGO dudes, I mean girls.
  • My best-case scenario would find me playing music summoned from deep in my soul in near-empty dives on any given night.
  • The fact that I no longer touch a basketball regularly is a constant reminder of the need to rekindle my passions.
  • I still cringe when I step on cracks in the pavement. I used to blow on my fingers whenever I touched anything - Melvin Udall had nothing on that 12-year-old obsessive-compulsive.
  • For years the last thing I did on my birthday was write a letter to myself, to be opened and read five years hence. I looked forward to reading them every year, only throwing them all away when I got tired of all the angst.
  • I was barely five feet tall when I was 14. Growth spurts can work wonders for a teenager’s self-esteem.
  • I know I will bawl like a school girl on my son’s wedding day, when we throw away our vow forged when he was four to live together until my old age.
  • I do not care for organized religion. Take away that belief system if you truly want peaceful coexistence.
  • I can confidently say, speaking from first-hand experience, that mediocrity does get you through life unscathed as long as you follow the right rules.
  • I never thought people would pay me good money to think all day with occasional bursts of typing in between.
  • Not even my debilitating fear of heights could keep me from riding the roller coaster during the Vancouver World’s Fair in ‘86.