Ruby’s birthday in a few hours. Also our anniversary (yes, we became a couple during her birthday). I’m still stunned senseless over my good fortune.

And so it comes to this. Lights have been out for most of Manila (probably Luzon too) since last night.  It’s still out at home last time I checked.  Tried making calls from the office but it turns out people at the other end had more sense than I did and decided to stay home.  For most of the day, I was walking around the campus looking for anywhere with electricity, a computer, and a connection to the Internet.  The Internet cafes were either dark or filled with schoolkids playing their games.  I imagine I must have looked like one of those antelopes in Animal Planet, isolated from the herd, desperately looking for water. It was as if it was 1995 all over again, and to send an email I had to sign up days in advance for time in the university computer lab.

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There has never been a better time to be a programmer. Code is everywhere – from phones to netbooks to desktops and servers.  Programming platforms have become so much richer feature-wise, and there is no shortage of new, innovative languages and frameworks with which to express your solutions.

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I would like to think that the President’s oath is no mere ceremonial superfluity. The words are specified in Article 7, Section 5 of the 1987 Constitution:

I do solemnly swear [or affirm] that I will faithfully and conscientiously fulfill my duties as President [or Vice-President or Acting President] of the Philippines, preserve and defend its Constitution, execute its laws, do justice to every man, and consecrate myself to the service of the Nation. So help me God.

Although it is not the source of any actionable right, it’s a useful clue to determining the President’s core duty.

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In another life, before all this nasty business about being a lawyer, I was a programmer. And it was good.

What I did in particular was server-based web applications programming – and the order of the day was to figure out how to dynamically generate web pages and interface them with large corporate databases. That might sound ridiculously trivial now, with robust, open source content management systems and MVC frameworks popping up everywhere, but this was the early 2000′s. Either you cooked together a batch of Perl scripts (blech) on your own, or you coughed up a couple hundred grand for Vignette.

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I reinstalled WordPress and put up a cleaner, simpler design theme. Also cleared out the archive. The blog is so old and crufty (some parts date back to 2002) that it spans several generations of content management systems. From where I sit, you can read the strata of pasts installations, upgrades, exports and merges, littering the filesystem with conflicting schemes and compromises.

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So it’s been a while, but I’m just going to jump back into blogging. No more excuses, no more overthinking (the way I tend to when it comes to pleadings)

The story so far (for those who may have missed it):

* Fell in love with Ruby
* Took the bar
* Passed the bar
* Got a job in a Makati Law Firm
* Quit the aforementioned job
* Moved back to a smaller, saner law firm in QC
* Married Ruby
* Going back to teaching
* Slowly but surely getting back to programming

Still rehabilitating my writing muscles. Hopefully I can cover these past milestones, even as I go ahead with new ones.