This is my new baby at work, the ThinkPad T61 Model 7664A24. It replaced the T43 you may have seen in my other blog. This baby’s got 2GB of RAM, 250GB HD, a 14.1″ WXGA+ display and three USB ports instead of the usual two on other older T-series laptops.

Of course it’s not really mine, it’s the company’s. But I get to use it. Yeah. Small pat on the back for working so hard, I’d like to think. A raise and a trip to Hong Kong Disneyland, now THAT’s a pat on the back that I’d really like, but I’ll settle for this one for now. I’ve had this one for a week now and it’s sleek and fast and can stand its share of rough handling. Just the kind of thing for the way I work.

There’s a lot of things I’m looking forward to these couple of months. There’s Season 7 of CSI:Miami which airs in the U.S. on the 22nd. Couple of days from then it should be available for download on my favorite torrent site. There’s my participation in the CSR program of one of our clients when I’ll be going to Masbate with 10 or so desktop computers for donation to the schools in that area, and teaching the teachers and students how to use them. There’s sem break for Kuya Maui and perhaps another visit from Kuya Pax, and maybe this time we can go somewhere nice.

But this weekend Athelstan Emil was playing in the Magic: The Gathering Open Tournament, so in the hours when he was not playing, we had him at home.

Turns out I didn’t take anyone at all with me, but I did take a few pictures of the event, which you can view here.

But will I want my own Master Chief on an xbox 360 while he vegetates for a week? Even with the price cut recently announced by Microsoft, the xbox still is a bit out of my doting mother’s pocket’s depth.

Maybe next time.

Twenty-five years ago the most wonderful thing to happen in a woman’s life (bar none, I insist) happened to me. I had my firstborn son. His father named him Athelstan, after an ancient English king. I had added the name Emil in honor of his paternal grandfather, Emiliano.

For a time he didn’t have a proper nickname. Everyone called him Athelstan in its various Visayan permutations, but none was ever officially his nickname until we started calling him Pakluy, when he was around four years old. The pakluy is a Visayan term for a bird whose scientific name escapes me right now but I was told it’s a very noisy bird, which is why we named him after it.

The eldest child is always privileged, he earns the oohhs and ahhhs of his parents, awed by his first baby steps, his first words, the first book he reads on his own. He becomes, whether he desires it or not, the standard by which all other siblings are measured. He is, whether he likes it or not, the first thing that comes into his mother’s head when the word “baby” is mentioned. His mother worries, whether it embarrasses him or not, what happens to him and how his life turns out.

I wrote about him once, here, a long time ago. It may be scrambled eggs time again, but thanks to the Internet and mobile phones we can still eat virtual scrambled eggs together.

Happy birthday Athelstan Emil.