We met a guy yesterday. As usual when Jeanne’s around, the conversation veered towards Jeanne (we love talking about Jeanne) and kids in general. So somewhere there, he mentioned that he’s a a single dad. That he raised his 2 kids, now age 10 and 11, from the time they were babies. Being a parent is already a tough job. Doing it alone is like 2x as tough. And raising 2 kids? That’s like 4x!!! If that’s not awesome, I don’t know what is!
Yesterday was our anniversary (Happy Anniversary, mommy!) and we went to our customary Tagaytay trip. I was actually planning a surprise drive past the Sta. Rosa exit (the expressway exit to Tagaytay) and proceed all the way to Batangas and then Laiya. Unfortunately, last minute events led us to just go to Tagaytay.
We first tried Discovery Country Suites (where we stayed for our wedding). It was fully booked (Note to self: Book for next year already). We then went to Moon Garden (where we had our wedding reception). Again, it was fully booked. Michelle researched for other hotels and we ended up at Lake Hotel. Good choice. Nowhere near as good as Country Suites in my opinion but still quite good.
The Lake Hotel is not too big so it’s not as busy as, say Chateau Royale. But there’s a good range of rooms to choose from. Some even have a view of Taal. But even if your room doesn’t, you can simply go to the lobby or the pocket garden for a good view. The staff was nice, friendly, and very accommodating. There’s also WiFi (common these days) in the rooms and lobby, but it’s slooow (also common unfortunately). Overall, the hotel has that nice and upscale feel.
For dinner, Michelle, suggested Bag of Beans which has branched out to more than just coffee and dessert. It’s actually rated quite highly in some reviews but personally I found the food (we ordered porterhouse steak and pink salmon steak) to be just average and the crew not very well-trained in protocol (e.g. how to inform the customer that a table has a time-based consumable rate without sounding condescending). Transition pains, maybe.
Back to the hotel, buffet breakfast is complimentary and they let kids below 5 years old for free. There’s a wide choice of good dishes to choose from and you can eat to your heart’s content. Unlike, say Chateau Royale :P
Overall, it was a good weekend. Tagaytay remains one of the best places to spend a weekend. Probably even one of the best places to settle down. And I’m not the only one thinking that: Fully booked.
Jelly beans are Jeanne’s favorite treat. And it could just be my favorite… mobile OS. Maybe :P Along with the Nexus 7 (and a host of others), Google has announced the latest version of Android: Jelly Bean. It’s an incremental update, carrying a version number of 4.1, but it offers a lot of updates:
- Project Butter has brought smoother and faster feeling user interface
- Improved notification center with expandable and actionable notifications
- Updated widget behavior
- Improved camera and gallery apps for easy photo snapping and sharing
- Improved keyboard behavior with with word prediction
- Added Accessibility options with support for external Braille input
- Enhanced Android Beam allowing transfer of photos and video
- Offline Voice recognition and typing
- Google Voice search is more intelligent than ever
- Updated Google Search user interface
- Google Now adds automatic information feeds to your device (weather, traffic, sports, etc)
- Bi-Directional text and additional language support
- Truly high-resolution contact photos
- USB audio output and HDMI multichannel audio output
- App encryption and Smart App updates
Source: GSMArena
Apple has just opened up the iTunes store for South East Asia area (Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam). Guess what songs I immediately got? Manic Monday and Friday I’m In Love for my iOS 6 alarms :P
So much for synergy. A few days ago, Microsoft announced WP8 to much self-generated fanfare and a bitter fact: You can’t upgrade older devices to WP7. Used to be that’s not so much of a problem. But iOS has shifted the customer expectation towards upgradeability being a necessity. The result: a lot of disappointment and a big drop in stock price for Nokia. For sure other WP7 device makers were also affected. And for sure they already have WP8 devices on the works. But Nokia had touted “special advantages” when it decided to partner with Microsoft. Don’t you just hate it when your strategic partner doesn’t strategize with you? Couldn’t Microsoft have handled it a little bit better? When Android 4 Ice Cream Sandwich was announced, not all devices were expected to be able to run it. And even now adoption has been low. And yet that affair seemed better handled.