The Long Way Up

Numbers account for the things one can see People and structures and college degrees Hours of practice and money amassed Different metrics of one's own success Estates don't state what is of great import Property ventures and assets to sort Climbing the ladder society scales Fame is not character; pomp is for sale World, would you stop? Don't define me by stats Flow charts and pie graphs and ven diagrams Polls are just popular, not always right Figures disfigure the joy in one's life Status pursued, in a moment, will pass Treasures, like life, are just fleeting at best Glittering gold is not nearly as dear As years spent in peace, in absence of fear Not in the quantity, many, a lot But in the meaningful, few and less-sought Not hard to find but one does have to look All is laid out, it's inside the Good Book Faithful consistency measures the heart It's in the finish and not how one starts As you keep going d...

There are certain things about my life that I have chosen to willingly make public through social media and actual social interactions with the people in and around the periphery of my life. These aspects about me that I have decided to share online and in conversations are pieces of who I am that I want to put out there so that people -- with varying degrees of closeness to me and with different access to my life -- can get the right information  about me and form their opinions of me based on facts that come 'straight from the horse's mouth' . If you get to see content about my travel adventures (locally and internationally), it means I've given you access to that part of my life. You can talk about it as openly as you want, because I have shared it as openly as I want. If you come across a social media post or if I casually talked to you about my love for either Switchfoot or Jars of Clay, it means you've been allowed to peek into and speak into that ...

With the abundance of television networks, cable channels, and streaming services available in this day and age, finding one that consistently provides superb output has become as arduous as looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Over the years, there have been standouts in this industry that left in me ineradicable admiration for the quality of their programs. Among them is HBO , which produced Six Feet Under ,  The Night Of , and the widely (and wildly) successful Game of Thrones . Another is ABC , which put out  Lost , Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. , and Once Upon a Time (not counting the seventh season). And, of course, AMC , which wowed me with  Breaking Bad  (my all-time favorite series), along with its spin-off, Better Call Saul . In mentioning these three-letter networks, it's good to take note that their success has increased the competition in broadcast media and, as a result, also increased the quality of television, cable and streaming se...

After having done my business with Notre-Dame de Paris -- my feet tired from the four-hour walking tour that started at the bus station at Porte Maillot -- I was now looking to set my sights on the grand Avenue des Champs-Élysées : the penultimate stop on this seven-and-a-hour Parisian tour. Champs-Élysées, according to Wikipedia, is  "widely regarded to be one of the most recognizable avenues in the world." When I arrived at the eastern tip of the busy boulevard, I was surprised at how wide, how busy and how colorful it was. It reminded me a little bit of Cebu City's own  Osmeña Boulevard,  albeit much more expansive and -- from the looks of it -- much more expensive. I remember -- as I was strolling on the northern side of the avenue -- being amazed at all the lights that emanated from all the night signs from the shops, restaurants and theaters. I think, somewhere deep inside, I felt a little bit like Ewan McGregor's wide-eyed character,  Christia...

Somewhere and sometime during my movie and TV series viewing life, I heard someone say that memory changes over time . In the middle of writing all these entries about my short tour of Paris, I began thinking that my recollection of those experiences there might have been (slightly? greatly?) altered because of the two-and-a-half-year gap. Still, I know I experienced them... perhaps the chronology and some minor details may just have been shuffled around... a bit... Ooops! :) Nevertheless, moving on with this mini-series! I was making my way to the eastern-most stop of my night visit to Paris: the Notre-Dame Cathedral ! This would be the tip of my almost seven kilometer tour route (one way) and where I would make a U-turn and walk all the way back to the bus station (another seven kilometers). En route to Noter-Dame, I kept checking my watch for the time because I needed to be back at Porte Maillot by ten o'clock to catch the 11 p.m. FlixBus to Frankfurt. The excitement to...

The rest of my seven-and-a-half hour tour of Paris was like a whirlwind trip to wonderland with a little bit of a suspense-horror vibe going on. Why, you might ask? Well, I arrived from Maastricht at around four in the afternoon. The sun was getting low and the darkness of the cold mid-winter night in the French capital was slowly creeping in. So, after about 30 to 45 minutes of just being mesmerized by the Eiffel Tower and its peripherals, I proceeded with my self-made itinerary, using the river Seine as my main point of reference. On my list of spots to briefly visit and take pictures of (and with) were the Louvre , Cathedrale Notre-Dame , Champ Elysees , and the Arc de Triomphe ... all of which I crammed into my walking tour. I make it first to the Louvre after Tour Eiffel. The museum was already closed, but I wasn't really there to see its interiors; I was after its very interesting external architecture. Perhaps I came at the right time of the day because both of th...