Fool on the Net

A Story and a Prayer

2010-12-30T12:17:00.004+08:00

The following is a true story submitted by Pastor Rob Reid of Rob Reid Ministries, showing how God works in the most inexplicable but ultimately divine ways. When you're having a bad day, this story is well worth the few minutes that it takes to read it.

The brand new pastor and his wife, newly assigned to their first ministry, to reopen a church in suburban Brooklyn, arrived in early October excited about their opportunities. When they saw their church, it was very run down and needed much work. They set a goal to have everything done in time to have their first service on Christmas Eve. They worked hard, repairing pews, plastering walls, painting, etc., and on December 18 were ahead of schedule and just about finished.

On December 19 a terrible tempest - a driving rainstorm hit the area and lasted for two days. On the 21st, the pastor went over to the church. His heart sank when he saw that the roof had leaked, causing a large area of plaster about 20 feet by 8 feet to fall off the front wall of the sanctuary just behind the pulpit. The pastor cleaned up the mess on the floor, and not knowing what else to do but postpone the Christmas Eve service, headed home.

On the way he noticed that a local business was having a flea market type sale for charity so he stopped in. One of the items was a beautiful, handmade, ivory colored, crocheted tablecloth with exquisite work, fine colors and a Cross embroidered right in the center. It was just the right size to cover up the hole in the front wall. He bought it and headed back to the church. By this time it had started to snow. An older woman running from the opposite direction was trying to catch the bus.. She missed it. The pastor invited her to wait in the warm church for the next bus 45 minutes later. She sat in a pew and paid no attention to the pastor while he got a ladder, hangers, etc., to put up the tablecloth as a wall tapestry. The pastor could hardly believe how beautiful it looked and it covered up the entire problem area.

Then he noticed the woman walking down the center aisle. Her face was like a sheet.. "Pastor," she asked, "where did you get that tablecloth?" The pastor explained. The woman asked him to check the lower right corner to see if the initials, EBG were crocheted into it there. They were. These were the initials of the woman, and she had made this tablecloth 35 years before, in Austria. The woman could hardly believe it as the pastor told how he had just gotten the Tablecloth. The woman explained that before the war she and her husband were well-to-do people in Austria . When the Nazis came, she was forced to leave. Her husband was going to follow her the next week. He was captured, sent to prison and never saw her husband or her home again. The pastor wanted to give her the tablecloth; but she made the pastor keep it for the church. The pastor insisted on driving her home, that was the least he could do.. She lived on the other side of Staten Island and was only in Brooklyn for the day for a housecleaning job.

What a wonderful service they had on Christmas Eve. The church was almost full. The music and the spirit were great. At the end of the service, the pastor and his wife greeted everyone at the door and many said that they would return. One older man, whom the pastor recognized from the neighborhood continued to sit in one of the pews and stare, and the pastor wondered why he wasn't leaving. The man asked him where he got the tablecloth on the front wall because it was identical to one that his wife had made years ago when they lived in Austria before the war and how could there be two tablecloths so much alike.He told the pastor how the Nazis came, how he forced his wife to flee for her safety and he was supposed to follow her, but he was arrested and put in a prison.. He never saw his wife or his home again all the 35 years in between.

The pastor asked him if he would allow him to take him for a little ride. They drove to Staten Island and to the same house where the pastor had taken the woman three days earlier. He helped the man climb the three flights of stairs to the woman's apartment, knocked on the door and he saw the greatest Christmas reunion he could ever imagine.

God does work in mysterious ways. His love is always with us, His promises are true, and when we give Him all our cares, we just know He will see us through. So when the road you're traveling on seems difficult at best, just remember someone is praying for you, and God will do the rest.

The Legend of Dragon's Gate (and why it's good luck to keep koi)

2010-11-09T12:40:00.006+08:00

Many people believe that keeping koi in your home brings good luck. But what few realize is that good luck doesn't happen all by itself; one has to deserve it. Here is a fascinating legend from China, which I believe explains why koi are thought to make auspicious pets, and why simply having koi in your home will NOT make you a millionaire.

On the western border of China's Shanxi Province is a 12-mile-long gorge where steep cliffs force the normally slow-moving waters of the great Yellow River through gaps as narrow as 50 feet, turning them into raging waterfalls. These falls, known as "Dragon's Gate" is the setting of an enchanting Chinese legend that explains why keeping koi fish is thought to be auspicious in many parts of the world.

The legend goes that long ago, the supreme god of the heavens--known as the Yellow Emperor--was greatly displeased with man's wicked ways, and ordered the rain god to flood the earth and drown every living thing. As the people perished by the thousands, the Yellow Emperor's grandson, Kun, pleaded with his grandfather to stop the carnage. But the supreme god refused. Overcome with pity for mankind, Kun stole into his grandfather's treasure house and took some "magic mud". He then came down to earth and sprinkled the magic mud about. Upon landing, the magic mud instantly grew, creating dry land on which the drowning people could take refuge. Naturally, this angered the Yellow Emperor, who sent the fire god to strike down his errant grandson. As the fire god approached, Kun disguised himself as a white horse, hoping to escape with his life. But it was all in vain; the fire god saw through the disguise and speared Kun with a lightning bolt. Kun fell to the ground, lifeless.

Ages passed and the flooding of the earth continued, until one day a golden dragon emerged from the belly of the white horse that was once Kun. The dragon, named Yu, immediately flew to the heavens to plead with his great grandfather to have pity on mankind, just as Kun did. Finally, the Yellow Emperor relented and ordered Yu to take some magic mud and dry up the floods on earth. Yu did as ordered, and before long there was only mud and the seas covering the earth. Pleased with his work, Yu then began creating rivers by plowing furrows across the mud, from the mountains to the sea. In most places, it was easy, as the mud was soft. But when he came to where rocky cliffs stood in the way, Yu had to double his efforts to create gorges through which the river (which eventually came to be known as the Yellow River) can flow. In doing so, he created a belt of waterfalls hundreds of feet high. It was then that Yu declared the place sacred to dragons, and called it Dragon's Gate.

From that moment on, every springtime the fishes living in the Yellow River--particularly wild carp--would swim upstream by the thousands, and attempt to leap over the falls. It takes enormous strength, perseverance and skill to achieve this feat, and it is believed that only one in several hundred are able to do so. Those that do are rewarded by being transformed into dragons, continuing their leap through the clouds and into the heavens.

Because of this legend, the colorful, domesticated cousin of the wild carp--the koi--has become a symbol of hard work, patience and determination--all of which are necessary if one is to merit good fortune. And that's how several cultures around the world came to believe that keeping koi attracts good luck.

SEMI-NATURAL: My 50-gallon Low-energy Fish Tank

2010-09-27T19:13:00.488+08:00

Fish keeping is somewhat of a paradox--the hobby appeals largely to nature lovers, but the energy required to maintain an aquarium (with electric filters, lights, commercial fertilizers and water conditioners, etc.) is not exactly doing nature any good. And while many aquarists around the world have been successful with the low-tech "Natural Planted Tank" concept, I personally could not claim the same. So here's my answer to the dilemma: a fish tank that's designed to make the most of natural processes, with just a little help from modern technology.

From the very first time I encountered Diana Walstad's "NPT" (i.e., Natural Planted Tank) concept, I've had my sights on building one in my living room. In my opinion, it makes perfect sense--you get to have a vignette of nature in your home, without being an energy hog in the process (i.e., no need to run lights and electrical filters 24 hours a day; no need for commercially produced fertilizers; no need for frequent water changes).

But with a 20-gallon aquarium already in place (set up the traditional way, with laterite substrate, power filter and at one point supplemental carbon dioxide), space and cost limitations have gotten in the way. So, instead of wasting all the money I've invested in my 20-gallon tank and rebuilding it the Walstad way, I decided to use the tank as my personal NPT experimentation lab. Over the past eight months or so, I've been gradually introducing NPT elements into the aquarium and observing the results. So far, I've observed that most of Wastad's principles do, in fact, work; the only thing that hasn't seemed to work for me is the complete dependence on natural light (i.e., sunlight). In my 20-gallon tank, I've found that light-hungry plants (such as Rotala colorata and cabomba) do need at least a few hours of supplemental light a day in order to survive.

Such was how things had been until recently, when by some stroke of good luck, I came across an incredibly good deal and ended up with a slightly used 50-gallon tank with a metal stand, for about one-third of the regular price--and it even came with an interesting piece of driftwood and some 10 kilograms of white pebbles, free of charge! It was the perfect opportunity to finally get to build my own Walstad-style aquarium--only, considering what my recent experience has taught me so far, it will not be strictly an NPT, but more of a "semi-natural" tank. Here's how I went about setting it up:

Tank Concept
The basic idea is for this tank to depend largely on the natural symbiosis between fish and plants, with only minimal involvement from artificial contraptions (thus keeping energy consumption at a minimum). Water filtration will be done primarily by the plants--which consequently means that mechanical filtration should be minimal (if at all), so as to allow organic waste (like uneaten food, dead plant matter and fish feces) to be absorbed by the substrate, fertilizing it in the process. The sun will provide lighting, marginally supplemented by a low-wattage fluorescent lamp (4-6 hours a day). Aeration come from the plants, with some assistance from the bubbles produced by a 3-volt air pump (operated only at night, when plants are not producing oxygen). Activated carbon will be the filter medium of choice, for its water-purifying properties. Temperature control will not be an issue, thanks to the fact that I live in a tropical country.

Materials & Equipment:
All-glass 50-gallon tank (36" x 18" x 18") with metal stand
Substrate:
   generic garden soil (about 20 kilograms), purchased at a local garden supply shop
   leaf compost (one small bag), purchased at a local garden supply shop
   river sand (about 12 kilograms), purchased at a local pet store
   black sand (about 1 kilogram), purchased at a local pet store
   white pebbles (less than 1 kilogram), bundled with the glass tank and metal stand
Hardscape:
   rocks (assorted sizes, found lying around at a nearby construction site)
   driftwood (bundled with the glass tank and metal stand)
Other Equipment:
   low-power (3 watts), double-outlet air pump
   low-volume corner filter (with activated carbon granules and filter floss as media)
   standard 18-watt daylight flourescent lamp

Tank location
Considering the tank's semi-natural concept, the first major decision I had to make was where to place the aquarium; it would have to be a spot that receives some indirect sunlight--but not too much as to cause a drastic rise in water temperature. After much planning and consultation with my wife (who pretty much has the last say on anything home decor-related), I settled on the easternmost corner of the living room, next to a northeast-facing window. Here, the tank will be exposed to daylight from sun-up till sundown, with a portion of it receiving some 30 minutes of reflected sunlight when the sun is at a certain angle to the window.

Substrate and hardscaping
With the tank in its proper location, I was ready to lay the substrate. For this, I began with a base of generic river sand (to serve as a cushion and protect the tank's glass bottom from any sharp edges that the rocks and wood may have). A thin layer of leaf compost followed, which in turn was covered with a thick layer of plain garden soil.

Being a natural fertilizer, leaf compost eliminates the need for commercially manufactured solutions. However, I must note that if you plan to use compost in your substrate, bear in mind that compost, in general, tends to lower the PH of your water, making it acidic. And if you use regular potting compost (which contains animal manure), this effect can be magnified to the point of being harmful to anything but the hardiest fish. Thus, I recommend using compost that exclusively contains partially decomposed leaf matter. This, however, does not mean your water will stay PH-neutral; some acidity will still occur, but not enough to be harmful to your fish. The only down side to this is that using leaf compost can cause water tanning. Again, most commonly available aquarium fish are comfortable enough with this, but if you're bothered by the not-so-clear water, adding activated carbon to your filter medium is the easiest and most effective solution.

LEFT: Leaf compost over base of river sand (viewed from above and to the right of the tank).

RIGHT: Garden soil layer over leaf compost.

To top off my substrate, I used a combination of generic river sand, black sand and white pebbles. When using garden soil for substrate, it is important to use something heavier (and with larger grains) on top of the soil, in order to keep the latter from floating around and clouding the water in your aquarium.

For hardscaping, I used various-sized chunks of granite, and two pieces of driftwood. As with the location of the tank, my choice of hardscape layout was based on the objective of keeping energy consumption low. I had earlier decided that the focal point of my aquascape will be my red-leafed plants. And since these plants require lots of light, they would have to be: (1) closer to the water surface; and (2) at the spot where the morning sun would hit the tank. Thus, I created a mound in this general area, using the largest of my rocks and the smaller piece of driftwood as "dams" to help grade the soil. Furthermore, aside from the availability of light, I also considered the "golden rule" in choosing my focal point. In simple terms, this rule means placing the focal point off-center, approximately a third of the way from one end of the tank. And since my tank will be visible from two sides (from the front and from the right), I applied this rule on two dimensions: laterally (which places the focal point some 13.75 inches from the right end of the tank), and depth-wise (which puts the focal point at about 6.9 inches from the back wall of the tank).

With the substrate and hardscaping in place, I was ready to plant my aquatic flora.

My 50-gallon tank, ready for planting. Note the piece of tape at the bottom

of the tank (right of center), used to mark the focal point.

Plants

To take advantage of the varying amounts of light that this tank will receive, I selected plants with different light requirements--from low to high--to come up with an interesting and balanced aquascape. Below are the plants that I chose for this aquarium:

Plants that need high light:

Rotala colorata

Rotala rotundifalia

Sunset Hygrophila (Hygrophila polysperma)

Plants that require low light:

Cryptocoryne wendtii

Anubias nana

Plants with flexible lighting needs:

Sagittaria subulata

Valisneria spiralis
Amazon Sword (Echinodorus sp.)

Water Sprite (Ceratopteris thalictroides)

As mentioned above, the plants with high lighting requirements went on and around the focal point, where they can receive reflected sunlight for about 30 minutes a day. Meanwhile, I planted Sagittaria subulata, Valisneria spiralis and Water Sprite on the sides and corners of the tank. From my experience with the 20-gallon tank, Water Sprite is a very invasive plant that can easily take over an entire tank if left unchecked. However, the species makes up for this bad habit by being an excellent water purifier. Thus, I consider Water Sprite to be a must for any planted tank--provided you trim it regularly, and cull if necessary.

To provide visual accents in the shaded areas of the tank, I tied some Anubias nana to the arch-shaped driftwood, and planted a few stems of Cryptocoryne wendtii underneath it. I also threw in a few bulbs of Red Tiger Lotus (Nymphaea zenkeri) deep in the most shaded part of the tank--over time, this will send leaves to the surface, where they will provide a nice pond-like look. On the other end of the tank, I planted an Amazon Sword. Next to it, I placed a stem of what seems to be Dwarf White-stripe Bamboo (Pleioblastus fortunei), which was donated by a supportive friend. I'm hoping this plant will grow to well above the water surface and provide a unique accent to the tank. For now, however, the top leaves are just barely reaching the upper edge of the tank, and I have yet to see if the plant will actually grow any taller.

Equipment

With the plants in place, I proceeded to install my tank's "tech aids". On the least conspicuous corner, I placed a small airstone-powered corner filter, filled with activated carbon granules and a thin sheet of filter floss. On the back wall, I placed a spray bar. Both of these were hooked up to a twin-outlet air pump, which when turned on will cause enough bubbles to create significant surface agitation and gas exchange--and give the aquascape a nice, dynamic backdrop as well. Above the tank, I installed an off-the-rack lighting assembly with a 6500-Kelvin,14-watt T5 fluorescent lamp, positioned to favor my red-leafed plants. I placed aluminum foil on the inner surface of the lighting hood, to help increase the intensity of the light without consuming additional power. I,m hoping that this, combined with sunlight from the window, will be enough for my plants' needs.

Fish Stock

With everything in place, it was time to fill the tank with water and introduce my starter fish. After filling the tank to just below the topmost leaves of the Dwarf White-stripe Bamboo, I gently netted my school of four Zebra Danios from my 20-gallon tank, and placed them in the new tank. Being hardy and tolerant of a wide range of water conditions, Zebra Danios are among the most popular starter fish, and are commonly used to cycle a fish tank. Since most of my aquatic flora were transplanted from established tanks, I presumed that the plants were already teeming with nitrifying bacteria, thus shortening the cycling period. The rest of the fish from my 20-gallon tank (comprising three Rosy Barbs, two Red-eye Tetras, one Blackskirt Tetra and one Red Serpa), will be transfered gradually, about two heads per week.

Newly completed set-up, with initial stock of four Zebra Danios and a few snails.

The reddish hue of the light is flattering to the colors of the fish, but is not very beneficial for plants; thus, I eventually switched to white light.

With the set-up complete, I now have a moderately large fish tank designed to sustain a community of tropical fish at a fraction of the energy needed to run a more traditional set-up. Once fully cycled, this tank will have artificial aeration only at night (when plants are not producing oxygen), and have artificial lighting for only 4-6 hours a day. Mechanical filtration will be minimal; instead, fish waste and other organic matter will be allowed to settle on the substrate and eventually fertilize the plants. The combination of submerged (i.e., completely underwater) and emmersed (i.e., with leaves above water) plants will provide water purification and oxygenation, with only marginal help from the air pump. Water changes will be done bi-weekly, if not monthly (other NPT owners have reported going several months without water changes).

Night shot of my tank, 2 weeks after set-up, with additional fish stock and white light.

Post Script

For all the rationalization that went into almost every aspect of this tank, ultimately it is still an experiment, and only time will tell if everything will actually work as planned. Along the way, I'm quite sure that I'll be making several adjustments to the set-up. Nevertheless, it gives me a certain sense of fulfillment to know that I can enjoy this enchanting hobby without severely increasing my carbon footprint.

The Richest Man In The Valley

2010-09-07T15:03:00.005+08:00

Something to remind ourselves everyday, before we rush off to join the rat race of modern-day living.
In the advertising agency business, pitching for (and winning) new accounts is your lifeblood; you can never join too many pitches. At the height of my advertising career, sleepless nights and weekends spent working on speculative campaigns were adrenalin rushes--in our minds, it was a sign that our ad agency was dynamic and "upwardly mobile". That was until I started asking: How much more business do we need? Is every single new account--however small--really worth the physical, mental and social toll?

It was then that I realized why I was an employee and not the owner of the ad agency. It was also then that I saw there was more to life than having a successful career--way more! Within a few months, I quit my job and began looking for some balance in my life.

Some ten years later, I came across this blog entry by an international motivational speaker named Francis Kong. And just in time, too, since I was at that particular moment feeling depressed about being 40 and still nowhere near making my first million. Upon reading the post, I took stock and realized I've been a billionaire all along.

"The Richest Man In The Valley"--it's a great read!

The Tale of Rocks in the Jar

2010-07-05T17:23:00.002+08:00

In an age when running around like a headless chicken is conveniently referred to as "multitasking", I find comfort in a simple story about rocks, pebbles and sand in an old mayonnaise jar.

I suppose it's one of life's ironies that as you advance in age, your physical capacity to handle multiple tasks begins to diminish--while your responsibilities increase, forcing you to place heavier demands on yourself. I'm turning 40 in a few weeks' time, and admittedly I'm starting to feel it. Gone are the days when I can work 20 hours straight, grab a quick power nap, freshen up and come back as if it were my first day on the job. These days, energy is a bit of a rare commodity--literally. Strangely, with a growing family, this is the time when I need to be most productive. Blame it on the fact that I started late on the family way, but that would be a waste of time. Instead, whenever I find myself in the proverbial "so-much-to-do-so-little-time" predicament, I turn to a story that I read many years ago, about a philosophy professor's "demo" of how to live a full life.

This story has circulated the worldwide web so much that its original source can no longer be verified. Many different versions have appeared, and different twists have been added to the ending. But the essence has remained the same. Here's my favorite version:

A Philosophy professor one day brought to his class a large empty mayonnaise jar, some rocks, a box of pebbles and small bag of sand. At the start of the class, he picked up the jar and filled it with rocks. He then asked his students if the jar was full; they unanimously agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up the box of pebbles and emptied it into the jar, shaking the jar lightly so that the pebbles rolled into the open areas between the rocks. Once again, he asked his students again if the jar was full. Again, they unanimously agreed that it was.

Then the professor picked up the bag of sand and poured it into the jar. The fine grains found their way through the gaps between the rocks and pebbles. The same question was posed, and the same unanimous answer was given.

"Now," the professor said, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The rocks are the important things: your family, your partner, your friends, your health, your children, and things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car. The sand is everything else. If you put the sand into the jar first, there is no room for the pebbles or the rocks. The same goes for your life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you."

Just before ending his class, the professor poured himself two cups of coffee and emptied them into the jar. As the liquid seeped through the sand in the jar, the professor added, "No matter how full your life may be, remember that there's always room for coffee with a friend."

The Tao of Tiny Tanks

2010-06-09T01:18:00.001+08:00

Every aquarist knows that a large fish tank is more attractive and easier to maintain than a small one. But small tanks do have their benefits; and it's worth every decent aquarist's while to keep one.

Ask any experienced aquarist what the ideal aquarium size is, and you'll almost surely hear something along the lines of, "the bigger, the better." I'm not about to contest this. It is, after all, a scientific fact--more water volume means more stable water chemistry, which in turn translates to higher survival rates in your fish stock; simple. However, I've never been a fan of taking the easy way right off the bat. In my book, the hard way offers more lessons. And once you weather the difficult stuff, everything becomes easier. It's no surprise then, that as I understood more about the benefits of going with a large fish tank, the more I got interested in having small (actually, "tiny" is the more appropriate term) aquaria.

Tiny fish tanks--5 gallons or less--are like drill sergeants to an aquarist. They give you basic training on fish keeping, and they make you pay dearly for every single mistake. I've experimented with tiny tanks over the past several months, and in that time a good number of fish have given their lives so that I may gain a good grasp of such things as water chemistry, bioload and plant-and-animal symbiosis--the basics of how to keep healthy fish. Now, with three thriving tiny tanks (two one-galloners and a two-gallon), here's what I can share with those who are thinking of setting up a small aquarium:

1. Never go under 1 gallon. Yes, there's a limit to everything. And although tiny tanks can make good homes for fish, keeping even the smallest fish in anything smaller than a one-gallon tank or fish bowl is just downright animal cruelty. Personally, I recommend something between two and five gallons.

2. Make it an NPT or nothing at all. NPTs (or Natural Planted Tanks) are the only way to go when you're talking of tiny tanks. Formulated by veteran aquarist Diana Walstad, the NPT concept does away with all the usual aquarium contraptions, such as mechanical filters, chemically enhanced substrates, supplemental CO2, and artificial lighting. Instead, it relies on the natural symbiosis of plants and animals to maintain a stable ecosystem and good water chemistry. Plants provide biological filtration, fish provide CO2 and fertilize the plants with their waste, and the sun provides lighting. Aside from helping you save on equipment costs, the NPT concept plays right into tiny tanks because it allows you to maximize the limited volume of the tank--no filters or other contraptions to take up valuable tank real estate. More importantly, tiny tanks hold so little water that only the self-balancing nature of an NPT will spare you from having to make daily water changes.

3. Floating and emersed plants are musts. Many aquarists around the world swear by the water-purifying properties of floating and emersed aquatic plants. Nature enthusiast and blogger Tunc Ali Kutukcuoglu presents some very interesting facts about this in his article, "Indoor Plants for Water Purification and Nitrate Reduction in Aquariums". And, considering how quickly the water chemistry in a tiny tank can go from less-than-ideal to outright deadly (I've had perfectly healthy fish die within hours of being placed in a bare fish bowl), you simply can't go without such plants in a tiny tank.

4. Stock conservatively. In larger planted aquaria, such as my 20-gallon community tank, a little overstocking is forgivable, provided you do your water changes frequently (I do mine weekly) and religiously. But this is absolutely NOT the case with tiny tanks. I recently stocked my 2-gallon tank with 3 inches worth of fish--a 2-inch dwarf gourami and a 1-inch guppy--and the guppy died within 48 hours. With tiny tanks, the 1-inch-of-adult-fish-per-gallon-of-water rule is non-negotiable. And if your tiny tank happens to be odd-shaped, such as a bowl or a tank that's higher than it is long, go by the surface area method: one inch of adult fish per 12 square inches of water surface area.

5. Choose only small and hardy fish. Contrary to popular belief, a fish bowl is NO place for a big-bodied, messy fish like a goldfish. For tiny tanks, only small, thin-bodied (i.e., laterally compressed) fish of the hardiest species will do. Species that have done well in my tiny tanks are the dwarf gourami, red serpa, guppy, platy and betta. Aside from being small, these species are relatively docile, spending most of their time casually swimming about the tank. I've also had success with a zebra danio in my 1-gallon bowl, but I wouldn't recommend it. Zebra danios are active fish that love to dart back and forth, and thus need lots of free swimming room; keeping one in a tiny tank would be like keeping a thoroughbred locked up in a stable all his life.

6. Feed very sparingly. It may sound cruel at first, but scrimping like Scrooge with your fish food is actually better when you have a tiny tank. Think about it. At most, you'll have five one-inch-long fish in a 5-gallon tank.They certainly won't consume too much food at any given time, which means that overfeeding will only result in uneaten food polluting your tank water. Besides, your tank will be planted. And if you have the right fish species in your tank (as mentioned above), they'll all have no problems feeding on algae and other plant matter in case they get hungry. My own tiny tank inhabitants have done very well with one feeding every two days; or once a day at most.

7. Change water every week. Adopting the NPT concept, and having floating and emersed plants, does not change the fact that a tiny tank holds a minuscule amount of water. So, although an NPT of 20 gallons or more can go for months without a single water change, tiny tanks are not so forgiving. My own 1-gallon bowl kept my betta healthy for over a month with only an occasional top-off, but that was more of an experiment to see how long the tank could go without water changes. My regular practice is to do a 20-percent water change every week on my tiny tanks. If you can manage it, a 10-percent water change twice a week would be even better.

Just as you would choose a sprawling villa over an apartment any day, any fish will always be happier in a larger tank. But then again, just as you won't really feel imprisoned living in an apartment, a fish can fare quite well in a tiny tank. And for an aquarist, tiny tanks offer a good many benefits: they're cute and space-saving; maintenance takes less than 10 minutes at a time; and they're cheap to set up. But the most important benefit of all is that tiny tanks provide a pleasant learning experience--not just in the science of fish keeping, but also in the virtues of patience, restraint and discipline.

Fish Keeping and Global Warming

2010-03-24T12:09:00.008+08:00

Two months ago, I started fish keeping as a hobby. Now, I realize it can be an effective vehicle for making people appreciate the seriousness of the climate change problem.

"Climate change", "green living" and "sustainable lifestyles" are just some of the buzzwords that have, of late, been coming dangerously close to being cliches. The problem is hardly anybody actually understands what they mean. Sure, looking them up in online would very easily get you the definitions; but how many of us actually appreciate the seriousness of what they represent? I, for one, never really grasped the idea until my aquarium ecosystem came close to a cataclysmic collapse.

I had been keeping fish for a little over a month when it happened. Intending to super-charge the growth and proliferation of my aquatic plants, I jacked up the yeast content in my home-made CO2 generator, and moved my CO2 diffuser below the tank's filter intake. As anyone with enough experience in planted aquaria knows, supplemental carbon dioxide is essential for plants to thrive; and that it is important for the CO2 to be adequately dissolved into the water, so that the plants all over the tank can absorb it and get the benefit.And so, with my CO2 diffuser bellowing bubbles like an Alka-Seltzer tablet, and my filter sucking most of them up, I observed my tank. All over, there were tiny dust-like bubbles circulating, so I figured I had some really good CO2 distribution. Satisfied, I went off to work.Some ten hours later, I walked into my living room and found a horrible sight--the entire tank was clouded with algae, and the water surface was teeming with floating, motionless fish!

Almost instinctively, I knew what had gone wrong: my tank water contained so much dissolved carbon dioxide that my fish were suffocating. Franticly I disconnected my CO2 generator from the system (and made a big, foul-smelling mess when the fermenting yeast solution squirted out of its bottle), and hooked up a length of airline tubing to my powerhead (to infuse oxygen from the room into my tank water). I also hastily changed half of the water in the tank and scraped away all the algae that had so quickly grown on the glass. Within minutes, a few of the fish started stirring, so I thought I'd wait to see if any of them would actually make it. After two hours, many of them were swimming on their own power, albeit visibly disoriented. Sadly, for the rest, it was simply too late. In all, I lost seven fish out of my original stock of 17. By morning, everything seemed to be back to normal. There was some consolation to be had, however, from the fact that my aquatic flora did boom--especially the grass-like sword plants.

As I took stock of what this experience had taught me, it all dawned on me: I had just witnessed first-hand what's happening to mother Earth. Scientists and environment experts often try to explain the phenomenon of climate change by enumerating the harmful gases--most of which we couldn't even pronounce--being emitted into the atmosphere as a result of our daily activities. But the simple fact is that we are poisoning the air we breathe, just as the overdose of carbon dioxide poisoned the water in my fish tank. And, just as my fish had no way of leaving my tank, we too have no chance of leaving earth for a healthier planet.

Fortunately, in the same way that some of my fish were able to live through the disaster, we too have hope (or at least, I'd like to think so). If we act quickly enough to correct the situation (just as I did with my fish tank), it will only be a matter of time before we begin breathing clean air again, and maybe--just maybe--some of us will make it through. Though it comes in so many different forms, the culprit, ultimately, is carbon dioxide. And the sooner we cut down on it, the better.

It sounds like a simple lesson in aquarium fish keeping--carbon dioxide is necessary for the health of aquatic plants, but too much of it can be disastrous for fish. But from a broader perspective, it's a sobering reminder of how fragile our planet is, and how crucial it is for us to take its health seriously.

Make no mistake about it, people: climate change is a very real and immediate threat to our very existence. True, it's pretty much as mind-boggling as a trigonometry problem; and if for the life of you, you couldn't get your head around it, no one can blame you. Try fish keeping instead.

Crap! I'm not ready to have babies.

2010-03-17T15:26:00.008+08:00

... baby fish, that is. Imagine buying a fish for your community tank, only to have it give birth upon arriving--and you're totally unprepared, unequipped and uninitiated!

One fine Sunday morning, I took my wife and kid for a walk down to our LFS ("local fish store" in aquarium-community lingo), to see if we can find anything there that would add some color to my fish tank. As of that time, my 20-gallon tank had five rosy barbs, four zebra danios, and one tuxedo platy (originally I had six of these and the danios, but a catastrophic CO2 surge killed off the other members of both schools--but that's a whole different story). The fish I had were colorful, but the tank as a whole needed an accent.

At the pet store, a tank full of red swordtails caught my eye, and I immediately thought of getting a pair. I had the store keeper net me a spirited male, and any female that gets caught along with it. I pictured the pair cruising along in my tank, like two lovers casually walking through Central Park. The last thing I counted on was for this pair to actually breed any time in the near future. But, man, was I dead wrong!

As a matter of standard procedure, on arriving home, I let the bag of swordtails float around in my tank for about 15-20 minutes, while I went off to prepare lunch for the family. Minutes later, my wife went into a frenzy, screaming, "the new fish is having babies!" like a looped audio track on full volume... "and they're EATING the babies!"

I had to act--fast! But hell, I didn't know a damn thing about breeding fish!

As fate would have it, I had, only a few days before, transferred my betta from the community tank to its own 1-gallon bowl, which was already set-up with its own filter, gravel and live plants. Needless to say, the betta bowl immediately got promoted to a breeding tank. Hastily I sent my betta back to the community tank, hand-transferred both adult swordtails into the aquarium, and gently let the fry out of the plastic bag and into the breeding tank. Sadly, this was not before the adult swordtails could gobble up all but four of their newborn fry.

But four is better than none. So once everything was in order, I jumped on the net for a crash course on raising swordtail fry. Fortunately, this species is relatively easy to breed and raise--apparently all the little swimmers need is good quality water with a gentle filtration system (either a sponge filter or an undergravel filter--my betta-bowl-turned-breeding-tank has the latter), and regular feedings of brine shrimp and algae pellets, and they'd be OK. I have no idea where to get algae pellets, but I had some sinking shrimp pellets in stock. So I took a handful of those, pulverized them and placed the powder in a small jar marked, "Fry Food".

The fry are now three days old and seem to be doing well; they're growing visibly by the day, on a diet of powdered shrimp pellets given three times a day. Internet sources say it'll take them about 3-4 months to mature, but I'm guessing, in about a month or two they'll be about the size of zebra danios, and it'll be safe to place them in the community tank.

Meanwhile, I thought I saw the two adults going at it again in my community tank--which means that in about 4-6 weeks I could have another swordtail birth in my hands. I've also read that female swordtails can give birth to as many as six broods from a single mating, so for all I know there could be more little swimmers growing in this babe's belly. Pretty exciting shit, huh?

But I'm not gonna get ahead of myself here. For now, I'm happy to try my luck raising four little swordtails--and scouring the city's pet stores for a good deal on a breeding trap, just in case.

Betta Revelations

2010-03-04T17:59:00.009+08:00

Betta splendens, also known as the Siamese Fighting Fish, is a highly misunderstood fish. Here's what I've learned about this species, from a month's worth of experience in keeping one.

Betta splendens was pretty much the only tropical fish species I knew of (besides the goldfish) when I decided to get into the fish keeping hobby a month ago. Like everyone else, I knew this fish to be beginner-friendly--tough, low-maintenance--and very cranky (never to be kept in a tank with any other fish). And so, without giving it much thought, I decided that my first fish in this hobby would be a betta. Next thing I knew, I was looking at a 20-gallon planted tank in my living room, inhabited by a single fish that would never accept any tankmates. There's got to be a fish species out there that can co-exist with this guy, I thought. And so, on the Internet I jumped, and researched as much information as I can about betta splendens. This, coupled with a month's worth of personal experience in keeping this fish, has lead me to at least two eye-opening discoveries. Here they are:

1. Bettas are NOT the aggressors.

It's true, bettas are extremely aggressive--but only to their own kind, and particluarly to those of the same gender. Except for a very few abberant individuals, male bettas are almost certain to kill each other if kept in the same tank. They will even harass female bettas to death, which is why they should only be kept together in the same tank for a few hours a day--just long enough for them to mate.

However, when it comes to other fish species, it's a whole different story. As it turns out, it's the betta who has to be protected from other aggressive, fin-nipping species. This is because the betta has such flashy fins that other fish tend to see it as competition for female attention; thus, they go and beat the crap out of the betta. From research, cross-referencing and actual experience, I've realized that most of the generally peaceful species (such as mollies, platies and danios) make good tankmates for the betta. You need not worry about the betta going after these guys; my own betta spends most of his time wedged among my plants, completely oblivious to his tankmates.

What remains unclear to me, however, is how a betta would react to other fancy-finned tankmates, and vice versa. So far, my sailfin molly (which is technically fancy-finned) and my betta seem to be getting along. But this could be due to the fact that the molly is much bigger than the betta, and therefore intimidates the latter; the molly, on the other hand, is peaceful by nature. Will this be the same case if I put a betta in a tank with a school of guppies? I wonder.

2. Bettas are NOT low-maintenance pets.

Hardy as it is as a species, the betta still requires considerable care if you want yours to live a long and happy life. For one thing, bettas hate strong currents because their large fins cause so much drag, and a strong current only makes life miserable for them. This can put an aquarist in a dilemma: on one hand, you need a good, fairly strong current to get good aeration, especially when you have plants--and bettas love having plants to hide in; on the other hand, a strong current stresses the betta. So keeping a betta splendens actually comes down to a balancing act--you want enough current to get good aeration, but not too much as to stress your fish. Personally, I've found this to be a matter of spray direction and deflection. After much trial and error, I've settled on a rain bar, attached to my internal power filter, that spreads out the spray from the powerhead. By placing the rain bar high (just below the water surface) and pointing it at an upward angle, I get to prevent my betta from coming directly in the "line of fire" of the spray, while still maintaining good water circulation throughout the tank. This set-up also creates some safe havens, where the current is weakest--such as behind the rain bar and directly above the powerhead--for my betta to hang out in.

Feeding is also, in reality, more of a chore with a betta than with, say, a platy or molly. This is because the betta is a carnivore and won't eat any plant matter. Thus, the only way for your betta to get any food is through manual feeding. Platies and mollies, on the other hand, are omnivores who can live on algae and other plant matter that are naturally present in a planted tank. Technically, this means that compared to bettas, platties and mollies can survive longer without manual feeding.

Thirdly, bettas require more care in your choice of aquascaping elements. This fish's large, flowing fins are prone to snagging. Thus, you need to make sure that there are no sharp objects in your tank that can damage your betta's fins. Compare this to smaller-finned species like danios, which can pretty much dash about like crazy without worrying about getting snagged on anything in the tank.

Lastly, because bettas are such beautiful fish, they require optimum water conditions in order to keep their fins soft and silky; and their scales vibrant and shiny. I've had my betta for a month now, and I've been regularly treating my tank water with liquid fish vitamins. The fish's fins look soft and its color is an almost-luminous blue; but still, I believe there's still more beauty to behold in my betta. I'd love to give my fish the recommended weekly treat of live bloodworms, but keeping live bloodworms is in itself a high-maintenance affair. Besides, I really don't know where I can find live bloodworms in Manila.

As I get to know my betta better, I'm pretty sure it will reveal a couple more secrets. So stand by for my future reports on those. Meanwhile, I hope you'll keep these tips in mind the next time you plan on keeping a betta splendens. Some of what I've mentioned above may or may not be scientific fact, but they are derived from personal experience. At any rate, one indisputable fact is that betta splendens is one of the most fun-to-keep fish in your aquarium; I highly recommend it for both beginners and veterans alike.

Let's play Fishville. For real.

2010-02-01T18:35:00.011+08:00

On 17 January 2010, I had the idea of taking up fish keeping as a hobby. Two weeks of planning, research and conversations with an aquarist friend later, I turned that idea into reality. Here's a step-by-step account of how my fish tank went from a glass box to a working ecosystem.

When I first thought of taking up fish keeping as a hobby, I had my eye on a space inside a glass cabinet as the spot for my fish tank. My plan was to have a tank custom-made for the space. But after reading up about the hobby and talking to people about my plan, I eventually came to realize what a nightmare it would be to maintain a tank in such a location. And so I ended up going for off-the-rack equipment--sometimes it helps to tell people what's on your mind.

So here's what I ended up with:

20-gallon tank (untempered glass, 24" x 12" x 15")
submersible filter
tank lighting (consisting of two Compact Flourescent Lights with 40 watts of illumination each)
about 15 kg of river sand
a large piece of driftwood
3 kg of commercial substrate

I lost track of the actual cost, but roughly all this equipment set me back around PhP 3,000--not bad, considering that most other hobbies cost way more than this.

The Set-up

My friend, Laj (himself a veteran aquarist), graciously offered to help me set-up my tank--with a few plants from his own thriving aquarium, free of charge! However, he warned that it could take a whole day, so we decided to wait until the following week to do mine. Meanwhile, impatient to get started, my wife Alelee and I went and bought a male Siamese Fighting Fish (betta splendens), named him "Nemo", filled the tank with water and placed the fish there; Nemo would spend a week in semi-bare but livable conditions--with only an interesting piece of driftwood, and the bubbles from the filter, to keep him company in a 20-gallon tank.

Setting-up day, to me, was like Christmas to a child--it seemed to take forever to arrive. But eventually it did, and here's how it went:

After transferring Nemo to a 1-gallon fishbowl (which Alelee and I had owned but not used for years) and emptying the big tank, Laj and I began by placing alternate layers of river sand and commercial substrate to form the tank bed. We landscaped this to have its share of peaks and valleys--getting as much as 4 inches tall at the highest peaks, and about 1.5 inches at the lowest points. Some fine gravel (which I had lying around in the house) was sprinkled on the lowest point, to add some color to the tank bed.
Once we were happy with the tank bed, I placed the piece of driftwood at the desired spot, a little left-of-center. Not only was this going to be a focal point, it was also going to serve as a "current breaker" to break up the jet stream coming from the filter, thus preventing the current from getting too violent for my fish.
Next up were the plants. The plan was to start with the short ones, then work our way up to the tallest. This way, we could also fill the tank with water, portion by portion. As I understand it, aquatic plants can wither and die within minutes of being taken out of the water, so it's important to start "flooding" the tank as soon as the plants are in place. And so, in came the sagittaria subulata and the pygmy chain sword (echinodorus tenellus)--which we placed randomly across the tank bed (even under the driftwood); and the dwarf hairgrass (eleocharis parvula)--which we planted on the gravel patch. Once this was done, we poured water EVER SO GENTLY down the trunk of the driftwood (to avoid disturbing the gravel and sand) until the blades of grass were safely submerged.
The mid-ground plants were next. Since these were tall-growing plants, we planted a cluster of dwarf rotalas (rotala rotundifolia) in front of the filter (to eventually hide the filter from view). On the opposite end of the tank, for visual balance, we placed a small community of coloratas (rotala colorata) and sunset hygros (hygrophila polisperma), with a few stems of Cubas (ludwigia inclinata var. verticillata) Along the back wall of the tank, we also threw in a few stalks of rotala rotundifolia, to accentuate what would eventually become a curtain of straight and corkscrew vals (vallisneria spiralis). We then flooded the tank about 2/3 of the way to see how it all looks. It was then that it occurred to me how much I was saving by not having to buy my plants; and I can't thank Laj enough for this.
Satisfied with the plant lay-out thus far, we went on to line the back wall of the tank with vals, and then filled the tank all the way. Then, we sat back to take a breather (and appreciate what we've done), only to find out that we still had some stalks of pearlgrass (hemianthus micranthemoides) and the notoriously invasive water sprite (ceratopteris thalictroides) left to plant. At this point, we went the way of Mother Nature, and just randomly wedged the pearlgrass in the roots of the driftwood, and placed the water sprite behind the wood, to eventually help hide the filter from view.

Now, my tank was ready. Gently, I eased Nemo into his new home, and immediately I could see how delighted he was to find so many nooks and crannies to hide in, and leaves to toy with, in his new "fully furnished" home.

Home-made CO2

As Nemo explored his crib, Laj talked me through DIY-ing a CO2 generator--as he explained, plants need extra boosts of Carbon Dioxide in order to flourish. We took an empty 1.5-liter Coke bottle, filled it halfway with tap water, poured two cups of table sugar and two tablespoons of baker's yeast, and shook the hell out of the bottle until there was nothing but liquid inside it. Laj then handed me an improvised bottle cap (the regular Coke bottle cap with a small hole drilled through the center, and a short piece of plastic tubing inserted through the hole). Into this piece of plastic tubing went one end of a length of rubber hose, while the other end went into the Oxygen intake of my filter pump and out through the outlet nozzle.

The idea here is for the yeast to feed on the sugar and colonize the water in the Coke bottle. As they do so, the CO2 that they exhale would find its way up the rubber hose and eventually out into the water in my tank, where it will be dissolved into the water and taken in by the plants.

With our little contraption done, we placed the filter back into the tank, plugged it in, and voila! I now had a planted aquarium. I was officially a novice aquarist, and proud of it.

Next step: wait a few weeks for the tank to complete its cycling process (I'm expecting this to be shorter than normal, since Laj helped me out with a few drops of off-the-shelf beneficial bacteria), and then start adding new fish.

The question now is WHAT FISH TO KEEP. I'm quite decided on keeping Nemo in the tank for good (though if push comes to shove, I could transfer him to the old 1-gallon bowl), so I'll have to find fish that are good betta tankmates. My research points me to a combination of one dwarf gourami, a small school of zebra danios, and a few mollies or swordtails. Alelee, however, has been bugging me to get some fancy guppies, and that's where the big dilemma lies. Will fancy guppies be safe in the company of a gourami and a betta? Some sources say maybe, others say no. So which is which? I've got a few weeks to decide, and any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks.

The Cow and The Pig

2009-10-13T17:48:00.014+08:00

An interesting parable, based on a homily I heard at Mass one Sunday.

Dear Ysak,

One day at the barnyard, the pig and the cow were talking. The pig was sad and a little bit angry. "It's not fair!" he exclaimed. "What isn't fair?" asked the cow. The pig answered, "I live and breathe to feed people, and I give every bit of myself to them, hardly anything goes to waste when they're done with me. But do I get any recognition for it? Of course not!" The pig looked up at the cow. "Look at you," he said, "you don't give as much of yourself to people, and yet you are worshiped in some parts of the world." He turned around and sank his snout into the mud. "I don't understand these people!"

The cow thought about it for a while, and then replied, "I think I know why that is so." The pig looked up again. "O yeah? Why?" he said to the cow. "It's because while you're alive, all you do is take," explained the cow, "the only time you give of yourself is after you die." The pig was speechless. "Us cattle are beasts of burden," continued the cow, "we spend our best years helping people till their farmlands and take their crops to the market after harvesting." The pig slowly lowered his head, turned around and began walking back to his pen. He did not say a word; he was too busy thinking of what he can do for the good of mankind.

Oftentimes in life, dear Ysak, it is not how much we give that matters. What's important is how much we GIVE UP for the sake of others. Giving is always good, mind you. But when you give away what you no longer need, you are simply keeping those things from going to waste. But when you take something that you need and give it to someone whom you know needs it more, then you are making a worthy sacrifice. And that is the best kind of giving.

Life and Grocery Shopping

2009-09-01T17:45:00.012+08:00

Life is a gamble--will you stake everything on one big dream, or spread yourself out over several small dreams?

Dear Ysak,

Do you remember the occasions when your mother and I would take you along to the supermarket, where you would ride a car-shaped shopping cart while we go around picking stuff for the house? It's called grocery shopping, and we do that every month to stock-up on food and other things that we need around the house.

Grocery shopping is a balancing act for your mother and I. We walk into the supermarket with a set budget and a list of what we need. And then, along the way, we make decisions on whether to spend more on one item and less on another, or to just spread the money evenly. There are trade-offs to each decision. A pack of better-tasting cookies, for example, would cost more than average-tasting (but good, just the same) ones. But in the end, the important thing is that when we leave the supermarket, we have everything we need in the house for the coming month.

Life is a lot like grocery shopping. Only, instead of money, we budget our time on earth. As children, we often write down a list of the things we want to do and achieve in our lives. As human beings, we all have a fixed number of years to live on this earth. Some of us have many years, others have few. But either way, what matters is how we spend those years in achieving the things we want to achieve. Are you going to spend all of your years going after one dream? Or will you spread your time evenly to be able to do several things with your life?

Don't forget that there are trade-offs. Sometimes, in order to achieve one goal, you have to go all-out for it. This is like going into a supermarket and spending all of your money on the most expensive, best-tasting cookies in the store. The danger here is that once you've eaten all of those cookies, you'll have nothing else left to eat. On the other hand, there is also some good in dividing your time and spending a little on each of several goals. This is like the way your mother and I normally do our grocery shopping, where we spread out the budget to be able to buy everything we need. You may not go home with the best-tasting cookies in the store, but you still have everything you need.

As you go through life, be smart with how you budget your time on earth. Go ahead and spend more on the things that you think are worth it, but always make sure that you have everything you need.

What's your go-kart?

2009-08-18T17:42:00.004+08:00

A few words on the true value of money.

Dear Ysak,

One day, your mother and I were snooping around the toy store looking for something to bring home to you. There we saw a nice, sporty-looking go-kart, and we both thought how perfect it would be for you when you're a little older. And so, since that day, we have been saving money everyday so that when the time comes, we can buy that go-kart for you. Our goal is to save 4,000 pesos, because that's how much the go-kart costs. But if along the way we come across a similar go-kart that costs 1,000 pesos, then that will be our goal. Actually, our goal is not to save money, but to get you a go-kart that you can enjoy riding with your friends.

When you become a grown-up, many years from now, like everyone else you will be caught up in the search for money. Because in the grown-up world, you need money to live. When this time comes, I hope you will not forget about how your parents got you your first go-kart. Do not save money for the sake of saving money. Instead, save money for the sake of affording what it can buy. If you do this, it will not matter whether you save 4,000 pesos or 1,000 pesos. What will matter is that you are able to buy your go-kart and have fun with it. When you are already earning your own money, remember to ask yourself this question everytime you count your savings: What is my go-kart?

The Beaver's House

2009-08-15T17:35:00.003+08:00

You can learn a lot from a rodent.

Dear Ysak,

Have you ever seen a beaver's home? It looks so shabby, it's almost like a pile of mud and broken tree branches. But the beaver is proud of this house because it is his house. He built it with his bare hands. He spent many days tirelessly searching the forest for the right trees, the right branches, and cutting them to just the right size. He built it to keep his family warm on cold nights. Here his children will be born, and here they will grow up to become hardworking beavers, who in turn will build homes for their families with their bare hands. The beaver built his house for keeps, and he will defend it bravely from anyone who will want to destroy it.

Compare this to somebody's pet dog, who is tied to a beautiful dog house that his owner made for him. Why do you think the dog has to be kept on a leash? It's because the dog, when you let him loose, will try to run away. He doesn't care what happens to his dog house. He is more interested in doing what he is not allowed to do, which is roam the streets on his own.

It doesn't matter if the things you have are not the best in the world. What matters is how they became yours in the first place. When you work hard to achieve something, it becomes the most precious thing in the world, and you feel like the richest man in the world because of it. But if something is given to you for free, you tend to neglect it. It may be the most expensive thing in the world, but to you it's not worth anything, and you are poorer because of this.

Balloons and Rocket Ships

2009-08-15T17:28:00.004+08:00

There are two ways of getting to the top: fast and easy, or slow and deliberate. Which do you prefer?

Dear Ysak,

When you fill a ballon with hot air, it quickly rises above the tallest trees. but no matter how much air you pump into it, the balloon can never soar above the clouds. And when the wind suddenly blows, the balloon can veer off course or come crashing down to the ground. A rocket ship is different. It takes years of studying and hard work to send one into outer space. But up there, way above the highest clouds, it is safe from even the most powerful storms.

When you reach for your dreams, will you be like a balloon full of hot air, or like a rocket ship that flies on the wings of knowledge and diligence? Remember that a balloon can crash at the slightest change of weather, while the rocket ship can stay in space for as long as it wants.

Counting Days and Weeks

2009-07-02T10:12:00.014+08:00

What if we had 4-day work weeks--permanently?

Is it just me, or is there really something inherently complicated about the Gregorian calendar? I mean, what's with the erratic number of days in different months? Not to mention the seven days per week, which makes it impossible to divide the months equally into weeks. And then, you've also got the fact that in these demanding times, five straight days of work just seems too stressful to bounce back from over a two-day weekend.

Okay, I get it--God seems to have thrown us a curve ball when He decided that it will take exactly 365-and-a-quarter days for the Earth to make a full revolution around the sun. But be that as it may, I think Pope Gregory XIII could have done a better job in dividing those 365.25 days into weeks and months.

Imagine having six days per week instead of seven, and five weeks per month, instead of four--this gives you the same 30 days per month as we have at present. The only difference is that in the 5-week-month scenario, the months are evenly divisible into weeks. No two or three days left dangling, as we have in the current 7-day-week calendar. As far as work days go, having 4 in a week (plus the same 2-day weekend) still gets you a good 20 working days every month, while making a world of difference in reducing stress (yes, 4 straight days of work, versus five, makes a big difference). Granted, this is 2 working days short of the current 22 working days per month. But what if we spread these 2 days out over my proposed 4-day week? Say, 9-hour work days instead of 8. This means 180 working hours in a month--four hours more than what we currently have. What business wouldn't like that?

You may be thinking: twelve 30-day months amount to only 360 days--5.25 days short of a full year. Well, so was I. Here's where I'd take from Pope Gregory's wisdom. We alternate 30-day months with 31-day months, just like we do now, but only for the first 5 even-numbered months. Confused? In simple terms, the last week of February, April, June, August and October are 7 days long instead of 6. Whether the extra day counts as an additional workday or an extended weekend, I could go either way. The point is we still have five weeks flat in every month.

So that accounts for 365 days. And what of the extra quarter-of-a-day? Pope Gregory's solution still works--we add an extra day to every fourth year. Only in my proposed calendar, that extra day goes not in February but in December--the last remaining even-numbered month that has yet to have a 7-day week.

Six days to a week instead of 7; five weeks to a month instead of 4 (with one extended week every other month)--call me nuts, but I just want to make life simpler. Don't you?

Faith, simplified.

2009-06-23T01:11:00.007+08:00

As screwed up as our world is, it's hard to keep from asking, "How can God let this happen?" Here's my two cents' worth on where God is in all these.

Why do bad things happen to good people? Worse, why do the greedy, manipulative opportunists get to live the good life? Optimistic Christians say it’s God’s way of keeping us on the straight and narrow. Pessimistic Buddhists say life is inherently miserable, and that accepting this is the only way to transcend it. Every faith has its own way of explaining this undeniable reality. Not to put any particular religion down, but I must say that none of these explanations have ever really made sense to my sometimes overly logical mind.

Big problem. To stop believing in a God is out of the question. But at the same time, I’d like to have a God I can actually believe in. And honestly, I’m not so sure I can stay faithful to a God who in my lowly human capacity for comprehension can only be one of two things: (1) a prankster whose favorite pastime is pissing the crap out of people, just to see how far their faith goes; or (2) an indifferent bystander who watches idly as the devil throws shit into the fan.

For years I pondered on this, and eventually what I came around to is a rather amusing concept of God and man. Ultra-right-wing purists beware: this may make you want to stone or burn me at the stake. But for whatever it’s worth, I think I may have just figured out a way of reconciling the concepts of an infinitely merciful God (the bedrock foundation of Christian faith), free will (which is probably the only thing differentiating us from the animal kingdom), and reincarnation (which, although scientifically unproven, is also empirically impossible to disprove). Fancy these postulates, if you may:

The point of human existence is to earn our place in God’s kingdom. We are given an entire lifetime to do this. And it’s all our call—God does not meddle into our affairs. Our fortunes and misfortunes are all consequences of our use of free will. The catch is that we are graded for the choices we make and the deeds we do. Come closing time at the end of our life, we get audited to see if we’ve stacked up enough merits to gain entry into the company of angels.

Hell is neither a place nor a dimension, but a condition known as Earthly life. For those of us who don’t get it right the first lifetime (and therefore do not get admitted into Heaven), there is no real penalty. There’s no eternal damnation in the fires of hell, or anything of that sort. Instead, we get a second chance—our souls get sent back to earth, to literally live life all over again. This, of course, means having to survive the cruelties of the world all over again.

God gives us infinite chances. If the second lifetime doesn’t work for us, no worries. We simply get sent back again… and again, and again, until we get it right, or God gets so exasperated with the world that He just decides to trash the whole thing, whichever comes first.

Quite a simplistic way of putting it, some might say. But seriously, does faith really have to be complicated? It’s not like God doesn’t want us to stay in His company, He does. So why in Heaven’s name (no pun intended) would He make things difficult for us? The way I see it, He simply wants to protect His home from rowdy drunks, and so He tells us to go take a walk, sober up, and then come back.

At the end of the day, all I want is to make sense out of this twisted world and keep my faith. And if coming up with a few twisted ideas of my own is the way to do this, then maybe in this case, the end can justify the means.

A Writer's Dilemma

2009-06-20T00:15:00.009+08:00

I'm no Hemingway. But I think I understand why many, if not all, of the best writers are crackpots.

In the early 1990s, a disturbed, anorexic and struggling singer-songwriter from Canada recorded an album of songs that teemed with raw existential angst--the kind that most people of any age could readily identify with. The artist's name is Alanis Morissette, and her debut album was a smash hit. Fast-forward to the present day: Alanis Morissette has had her share of fame, fortune, relatively long-lasting relationships and occasionally good health; her music, apparently lacking the anger and hatred that defined her debut album, is nowhere near as successful as before.

Not that it can be supported by facts, but my personal conclusion is that Alanis Morissette is the victim of some kind of cruel joke of Fate. It seems that in the early days, when the she-rocker was down in the dumps, her cynicism was intense enough to squeeze out a wealth of soulful material from her creative head. Ironically, when the said material fetched fame and millions of dollars for Alanis, life got good. Now there was no reason to hate the world--and therefore, no soul to be bled into her music. Simply put, the secret to Alanis Morissette's success was the lack of it. Poor Alanis, it's almost as though she's got no right to be happy!

Now, for the record, I do NOT presume to compare myself with such a gifted artist. But I would venture into saying that as a writer, I sometimes feel as though I am saddled with a somewhat similar Catch 22. From the first time I learned to write prose, I have always considered it quite self-fulfilling--even therapeutic--to compose my thoughts into a written piece. But then, as I matured, the inspiration to write became harder and harder to find. Eventually I realized that for me to churn out works that are worth sharing with another person, I have to sensitize myself to things that normally should be shrugged off as just "the way of the world." For the most part, these are the lamentable, the annoying, as well as the comendable acts of man.

Fair enough, you might say. But then the problem is there seem to be much more of the former than the latter. So ultimately, the more I engage in this self-fulfilling craft of writing, the more dissatisfied I get with the world I live in. Am I to fill my heart with hatred, just so that I can indulge in that which I enjoy most? Quite a ridiculous proposition, isn't it? One that only a sick joker like Fate can come up with.

At the end of the day, I guess it's just another balancing act that I have to perform on a daily basis; every one of us has his own, anyway. Perhaps the trick is knowing when to switch to the fault-finding "what the f@%k is happening to the world?" mode, and how to snap back into the "It's a shitty world but it's all we've got" setting.

Infinity breeds idiocracy

2009-05-22T17:00:00.020+08:00

Modern technology is supposed to be improving our lives. But is it?

Poor Blu-ray. Barely has it even made consumer-technology status (i.e., affordable to the average-wage earner) and already a new data storage format is threatening to send it the way of the laser disc. Apprently, Australian researchers are making headway in the development of an insanely gluttonous disc that will reportedly hold 1.6 freakin' terabytes of data! To put this in perspective, that's the equivalent of about 10,000 DVDs. Bitchin', no doubt. But somehow I have to ask: what the hell would an average person do with all that storage space?

I'm no anti-techie; in fact I'm a bit of a gadget junkie myself. But seriously, we all should step back for a second and take a good look at this obsession with all things mega, giga and tera. Just a few years ago, 40-gigabyte hard drives were considered monster-size storage; now a whole terabyte doesn't seem to be big enough for our needs. Not so long ago, we couldn't stop counting the stuff we could do with a 2-GHz processor; now the only way we'll be happy with such is if it came in dual-core configuration. Eight-gigabyte iPods used to make us happy, now we're complaining that 32 gigs can't keep up with our immensely vast (and growing) range of tastes in entertainment.

The truth is digital technology is a double-edged sword. By design, it's supposed to be the faithful buttler to all of mankind--its basic job is to assist us in speeding up our day-to-day chores, so that we can have more time to be well-rounded human beings. But as the dark side of human nature goes, what technology has actually done is fuel our primal greed and condone our inherent laziness. Case in point: in my earlier days in advertising, clients were willing to wait a day or two for the agency to conceptualize and design an ad for him. And then he was happy to see a fairly raw sketch of the ad with doodles to indicate where the text should be, and read the actual copy on a separate sheet of dot-matrix print-out. Today you have clients giving a telegraphic brief via SMS, and demanding to see a good-as-final artwork in two hours. Oh, and did I mention that the ad has already been booked to come out in tomorrow's newspapers?

Theoretically the logic should be simple: if you can do in 4 hours what used to take 8, that means you have 4 extra hours to enjoy life--say, spend quality time with your kids, or build real (not professionally symbiotic) relationships with associates. The reality, however, is nothing less than twisted: if you can do in 4 hours what used to take 8, then there's no reason why you can't do it in 2--in which case you'll free-up 6 hours to do three more things that used to take 8 hours each. Throw in the multitasking crap, and the result is a culture of perpetual cramming and sloppy planning disguised as "productivity." From the moment ancient man developed the concept of owning possessions, it has always been our nature to want more as we acquire more. The infinite scalability of digital technology simply provided us with the proverbial carrot on a stick.

And what of our over-dependence on these two lowest-value numbers, 0 and 1? How many people do you know who can blurt out their own phone numbers as effortlessly as if it were muscle memory? When was the last time you planned a meeting with a friend without saying, "I'll text you when I'm in the area"? In the pre-computer days, copywriters and art directors would begin work by grabbing a pencil and a sketchpad, and toss ideas to and from each other with their brains in high gear. These days, the norm is to turn on your Mac (it's gotta be a Mac, otherwise you ain't creative at all), get online and hope that the Internet would throw a brilliant idea your way. Apparently, machines have gotten so smart now that on most days we simply don't see the need to use our heads anymore.

Even our leisurely pursuits have not been spared. Gone are the days when people made a conscious, split-second, on-the-spot decision on whether or not a particular moment is worth capturing on film. So is the practice of choosing your cruising music before you get in the car and drive away. These days, we just don't bother anymore with these mundane acts of mental calisthenics. After all, there's more than enough memory in our storage cards--NOT!

Still, to be fair to those guys gestating the mammoth memory disc, I honestly don't think it was anyone's intention to turn us into overly wound-up lazy-brains. It was us--the users of the technollogy--who went and missed the whole point. So how about pausing for a moment to regain our bearings, huh, digital-age dudes?

The Marketing of the Christ

2009-05-20T17:18:00.010+08:00

An open letter to Christian and other religious organizations

For a long period of my life, I was a man of very little faith. All the evil in the world, the fundamental indifference of man to the interests of his brethren, the ease with which we give in to our basic biological instincts for self (and self-interest) preservation—all these, at some point, led me to wonder about the business of an omnipotent, omni-present God in the affairs of mankind.

Walking the world on the brink of godlessness is a lonely and pointless endeavor. Certainly not the kind of existence I found enjoyable. And so, one drearily uneventful evening in 2004, I went to see a special screening of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” hoping not as much to restore my faith as to find the inspiration to re-evaluate my faith, and the lack of it.

Sadly, whether or not the film had the stuff to affect me that way, I probably will never know.

It wasn’t a bad film. On the contrary, it’s by far the best, most graphic, most hard-nosed take on the crucifixion ever. You better believe it: I felt every lash that tore into the Christ’s flesh, cringed at every spit that landed on His face, raged at every mockery that mangled whatever dignity He had left. From Zeffirelli’s “Jesus of Nazareth,” through the countless Christ films I’ve seen—I spent all of my formative years, and the better part of my teens, in a Catholic school—this one was the first to ever really do justice to the event. Unsanitized, un-glamorized, un-editorialized.

Until the film ended.

As was my usual habit at the end of a good film, I began to read the credits while doing a quick organization of my thoughts about the film, for a more thorough reflection later on while lulling myself to sleep. Unfortunately, no sooner had the credits begun to roll when my thoughts were rudely interrupted by one of the organizers of the show. In his hand was an invasively written interpretation of the film, which he read aloud, as if the film needed such “supplementary reading.” And, as if this weren’t insulting enough (for me, at least), ushers soon began distributing leaflets, the contents of which I didn’t even bother to know—I walked out, rudely (sorry), before they could get within a mile of me.

Admittedly, the courage and dedication of many volunteer evangelists is admirable, the way they expose themselves to such rudeness as that which I displayed, in the (genuine, I hope) desire to reach even one soul out of the hundreds (or thousands) in attendance. But, speaking as a lost soul, I must say that’s no way to do it. And I’m quite certain that I don’t speak only for myself.

So what would penetrate a godless cynic’s thick skull? I don’t presume to be an authority on any of this, but I can speak as both a spiritual vagrant and an advertising professional. I don’t presume to preach about the right way to preach, but I can share a few basic principles that might help in marketing Christian spirituality to people like me. Yes, evangelization is essentially marketing, believe it or not. And like marketing, it’s not as much about what is being sold as it is about whom it is being sold to.

Soft-sell. The fact that my kind is already plagued with doubts about God is a wall that is next to impenetrable. An unsolicited sermon on the mount (or in the movie theater, or on the bus, or wherever) most definitely won’t work. Free will is a powerful weapon—especially in shutting out unwanted messages. So try a little subtlety. Smooth talking doesn’t always have to be a conning tool. As the saying goes: drop a frog in boiling water, and it will jump right out; heat the water slowly, and the frog will boil without knowing it.

Keep it relevant. The plain truth about marketing is that your product’s best features are not necessarily its selling points. A spiritually sound existence is probably the mother of all “products.” It’s loaded with features, and it’s free! But that doesn’t mean that everybody will want it—or at the very least, know that they want it. To presume that people (especially the lost souls) will readily listen to “the words of God” out of conscience is bordering on self- righteousness. If you really want to sell someone like me a piece of Heaven, find out first what makes me tick—my needs, wants, fears, issues, dreams, turn-ons… And then speak to me in those terms.

Keep it real. The promise of salvation and eternal life in the kingdom of God is like Einstein’s theory or relativity—we’ve all heard of it, but honestly, who the hell can grasp the idea? The point is that people in this day and age have so much on their minds that there’s hardly room (if any at all) for profoundities that are not readily translated into tangible, everyday, real-world concepts. The challenge to evangelists is this: offer a realistic, tangible, and believable instant gratification for accepting (in the real sense of the word) Christ into my life, and you’ll have legions of loyal customers in a heartbeat.

Keep it simple. The most enduring advertising strategies are the ones that can sum up the brand in a one-word elementary concept: Volvo is safety; Marlboro is cowboy (and all the qualities that a cowboy represents); Coke is fun. Often, the advertising concept is hardly even traceable to any inherent product feature. But the campaigns have stuck simply because they are, well, simple. No highfalutin ideas; just basic concepts that can be empirically explained to even a six-year-old kid. For Christian organizations, here’s the brief: the brand is Jesus Christ; the proposition is spiritual salvation; what’s the one-word elementary advertising concept? Answer that, and I guarantee you’ll be God’s top hotshot salesman.

Fortunately for me—and no thanks to the preachy, self-righteous evangelists—I have managed to grow a little bit of faith over the years since that night of the film screening. And since then, I’ve learned of several spiritual activists who attempted to use the ways of the world to achieve God’s designs. Most essentially flopped, but kudos to those guys for thinking out of the box!

Last week I read about some church communities in America who’ve started using Twitter during services, which as expected got the purists and the pragmatists at each other’s throats again. The debate on the so-called commercialization of Christianity will always come and go, and probably never really be settled. But let me just pose this question to the old-school clergymen out there who insist that modern ways have no place in evangelization: why in God’s name do I have to pay to receive my 7 Sacraments?

The point is we live in a world run by commerce and all things modern. And if the way to save souls is to play by worldly rules, I say it’s a game well worth playing.

AI vs HI:Why grey matter still wins

2009-05-18T11:10:00.009+08:00

Sure, pretty much everyone who's legitimately part of the 21st century is nuts about smart gadgets. But to the lazy-brains out there who believe they can let their gizmos do the thinking for them, get your heads together--being a moron will never be in fashion! Besides, to think that a smart chip can ever replace your noggin is just plain naive. Here's why:

Until somebody invents lithium-ion-adrenaline batteries, gadgets will always conk out way sooner than a strong-willed human.

In “I Robot”, a droid saved Del Spooner and left a child to drown because it calculated that the dude had a better chance of survival than the kid. Hey, it could happen to you!

In your experience, how many times has clicking “Help” actually helped? (see number 4 for a follow-up argument).

Despite leaps-and-bounds advances in Artificial Intelligence, have you ever heard of a cybernetic call center agent?

Translate the sentence, “Pang-ilang presidente ng Pilipinas si GMA?” using the most sophisticated translation software, and see what that gets you.

When push comes to shove, beating the crap out of a human has a slim chance of getting him to work. Not so with computers.

With twisted logic and a little intimidation, a human adult can reason with a 3-year-old brat. Good luck doing that with a computer.

For all their advanced intelligence, the Autobots needed a loser named Sam Witwicky to find the Allspark.

Retro came and went, and nobody ever tried to do a remake of “Mr. Roboto”—not successfully, anyway.
Who else but a human would design computer logic that’s so profound as to say, “to shut down, click START”?

10 Things Only the "Kinda Old" Know

2009-05-17T01:30:00.015+08:00

1. The etymology of the phrase, "sounds like a broken record."

2. The origin of the term, "cut and paste."

3. What the inside of a library looks like.

3a. How to use a card catalogue

3b. What a card catalogue is.

4. How to load film into a camera.

5. The fact that the human brain is actually capable of memorizing phone numbers.

6. That "party line" does not refer to an event-guide hotline

7. How to operate a rotary phone.

7a. What a rotary phone looks like.

8. How to operate a cassette player.

9. The reason why floppy disks are so named.

10. How to use a typewriter.

I Don't Like (Playing New Wave on) Mondays

2009-05-17T00:00:00.012+08:00

Ever wonder why radio stations usually play old songs only on Fridays?

I've heard of taking a trip down memory lane, but this is ridiculous!

A couple of weeks ago I stayed up late preparing an advertising strategy for a client whose market consisted of late-teeners and early-twenty-somethings. To "get into character", so to speak, I slapped on my headphones and played my 80s-90s playlist, hoping to remember how it felt when I was my market's age. At about 3 a.m. I called it a day and hit the sack, falling fast asleep with the music of The Cure, Depeche Mode and Flesh for Lulu playing in my head.

The following morning I woke up feeling depressed. I should have woken up happy--my one-year-old son had his face buried in my armpit, and my angel of a wife was sleeping like a baby with her head resting on my outstretched arm. But no. I felt sad because I realized I will never be in high school again. That's not to say that I haven't been reminiscing before. Heck! I've hardly missed a class reunion in years. But on that weird morning, for the first time, my insides seriously yearned to spend even just one day back in 1985. Sadly, 24 years later Steven Spielberg's concept DeLorean has yet to hit the streets. So the only option for me was to lumber out of bed, whispering to myself, "We've had some really great times, haven't we?"

Over breakfast, as I fought desperately to psyche myself for work, it dawned on me: retro hits really should be played only on weekends (and maybe non-working holidays).