Then-and-Now Pictures of World War II with Google Street View

Here are some WW2 era pictures from The Atlantic, placed along with the equivalent view today in Google Street View. Amazing how little things seem to have changed in some of them, over the past 65 years.

American soldiers march along the Champs-Elysees in August 1944, with the Arc de Triomphe.

Google Street View

Parisians scatter for cover as a sniper fires in the place De La Concorde, August 1944.

Google Street View

Crossing a damaged bridge in Cherbourg, July 1944.

Google Street View

Allied soldiers on Omaha Beach in Normandy, June 1944.

Google Street View

American soldiers march past the Colosseum in Rome, June 1944.

Google Street View

Mike on a Ball

Pictures of me sitting on various decorative balls around the world:

Atlanta, September 2007

Milwaukee, January 2011

Makati, August 2011

Noteworthy: I'm wearing the same jeans in the first and third pictures.

Comparing

A friend recently posted on Facebook:

Stop comparing yourself to others..start loving yourself :)

Funny. I compare myself to others when I want to feel good about myself.

712,958 Steps in 12 Weeks

A few months ago at work we got an irresistible offer to join a program meant to motivate people into keeping fit. Irresistible because it's completely free.
The deal is we get a free pedometer in the mail, and for 12 weeks we report our results on pedometer steps, exercise minutes, and weight management. I was less interested in the exercise and weight goals-- my weight is just fine. But I have come to develop a bizarre fondness for gathering data on things normally taken for granted, so having a pedometer was an alluring prospect.
My total: 712,958 steps.

Pedometer steps per day

My most active day (29,646 steps) was on May 29, when I joined a 10K fun run in the morning, then went to the Mall of Asia in the afternoon. Only one other day breached the 20,000 step level.

My least active day (1,138 steps) was on July 25, when I stayed at home all morning, slept all afternoon, and worked from home at night.

Pedometer steps per week, 12 weeks.

This weekly graph shows the same data but looks more stable, less affected by daily events.

Cumulative pedometer steps

The kit included a little booklet that I used to track my daily progress of steps, exercise minutes, and weight management. It also included a rough guide to how many steps you should be taking for a healthy lifestyle. The recommended number to aim for is 10,000.

• Under 5,000 is Sedentary
• 5,000-7,500 is Low Active
• 7,500-10,000 is Somewhat Active
• 10,000-12,500 is Active
• Over 12,500 is Highly Active.

For me, simply getting to work means walking for about 1 km-- or 1200 steps-- so I'm already pretty much assured of 2,400 steps per workday. Still, only one third of my days reached that magical 10,000 step target. Worse, another one third of my days failed to reach even 5,000 steps-- which is classified not only inactive, but sedentary:

Other numbers to look at:

• Days: 84
• Total steps: 712,958
• Most steps in one day: 29,646 (May 29)
• Least steps in one day: 1,138 (July 25)
• Average steps per day: 8488
• Most steps in one week: 88,813 (Aug 1-7)
• Least steps in one week: 36,869 (July 4-10)
• Average steps per week: 59,413
• Days with over 10,000 steps ("Active"): 28 (33%)
• Days with under 5,000 steps ("Sedentary"): 33 (39%)

Assuming an average stride length of 80 cm (a figure I came up with just now from a few minutes of Googling), my total steps in those 12 weeks would add up to 570 km, which is approximately the straight line distance from Manila to Cebu.

The 12-week program may be over but I'm still wearing the pedometer this very moment. I think I'll decrease the tracking of my progress to a weekly basis now though, lest I lose my mind in graphs and statistics.

Flood of Wedding Photos

Well we finally received the complete set of photographs from our wedding photographer, and I was immediately crushed by the sheer volume of it. The whole thing came on 10 DVDs. Not CDs, but DVDs, each of them with their storage capacity reasonably used up.

The photos are shot at a resolution of 4288x2848, and average about 5 MB per image, with the largest ones reaching 10 MB. I had to copy them straight from the DVDs to my external hard disk because I simply did not have space for them on the actual laptop.

Here's a breakdown of where all these pictures are coming from:

Granted, the vast majority of these are duplicates, and it's not uncommon to have 15 images of the same pose with minuscule variations:

It will take several days-- perhaps weeks-- to sort through them and clear out the redundancies, choose the favorites, and post them on Facebook (that is, of course, the point).

Here's a random image. Not even one of the greatest photos, just a good random one:

Credit must be given where it is due: Our wedding photographer was Rolando Pascua, who is based in Cebu, extremely talented, and worth every cent.

The YouTube Alphabet

YouTube's search does the same thing as Google does, suggesting the most popular search queries when you begin typing something. Here's a list of YouTube's top suggestions for each letter of the alphabet. Perhaps predictably, almost all of them are related to music.

• adele rolling in the deep
• bruno mars lazy song
• chris brown
• drake
• eminem
• friday rebecca black
• give me everything pitbull
• how to love lil wayne
• im on one
• justin bieber
• katy perry
• lazy song bruno mars
• michael jackson
• nicki minaj
• on the floor jennifer lopez
• party rock anthem
• queen
• rihanna
• super bass nicki minaj
• the lazy song bruno mars
• usher
• victorious
• wiz khalifa
• x men first class trailer
• youtube
• zumba

Special credit goes to Bruno Mars for taking B, L, and T.

The Google Alphabet

Start typing into Google's text box and it suggests to you the most common search queries. Here's a list of the top suggestions for each letter of the alphabet. The unsurprising result is a veritable who's who of internet giants, retailers, common search terms-- and for good measure, some companies I have never heard of.

• amazon
• best buy
• craigslist
• dictionary
• ebay
• facebook
• google
• hotmail
• imdb
• jet blue
• kohls
• lowes
• mapquest
• netflix
• orbitz
• pandora
• quotes
• redbox
• southwest
• target
• usps
• verizon
• weather
• xbox
• youtube
• zillow

Transfer Passengers, Delayed Flights, and Running Through NAIA-3

Once upon a time, Cebu Pacific proudly advertised that their flights were 95% on time. Can't remember if that was the right figure exactly, but the point is that punctuality was their strong point. Not that it should matter much-- It's a wonder at all the humans can travel through the clouds at 800 km/h, so who cares about a delay of a few minutes, right? Yet, things always seem to go wrong when it matters the most.

Getting from Dumaguete to Puerto Princesa via Manila with Cebu Pacific was my first time to have to transfer to a connecting flight within the Philippines. I'm not even sure if I'm using the right terminology, that's how rare it is. Before this it has always been a straight trip from source to destination. And when traveling in the Philippines, one of those is almost always Manila.

Dumaguete to Manila

The time between the scheduled arrival of our first flight and the scheduled departure of our second flight was only 55 minutes, so it was with some trepidation that we boarded the plane in Dumaguete well after it was supposed to have taken off.

Already late, it was even more concerning when the plane flew north past the airport and circled Metro Manila seemingly aimlessly. I continued peering out the window as the plane wandered above Commonwealth Avenue and the Batasan complex, then around the grassy hills of Rizal, then the fish pens of Laguna de Bay. For some reason. A plane from Dumaguete to Manila has no business flying above the northern part of Metro Manila. The pilot hadn't announced anything, and he never did.

Airport dash

When we actually landed and got into Manila's NAIA Terminal 3, it was already a few minutes beyond the scheduled boarding time for Puerto Princesa. Adding to the troubles, it seems that the NAIA-3's infrastructure for transfer passengers to get straight back to the pre-departure area was under construction or something, so we had to go the long way-- pretty much just like normal passengers, except without lining up for check-in.

We climbed up the broken escalator, ran past the broken walkalators, up more non-functioning escalators to the check-in area, then through the maze of security checks and bureaucracy. I even had to pay the terminal fee. It's 200 pesos per person to briefly run through an airport terminal that is neither our starting point nor final destination? I was too much in a hurry to be frazzled by the injustice of it. Luckily a kind (or apathetic) soul let me cut to the front of the x-ray machine line when I told him I was already late for my flight.

Finally, out of breath, we reach the fathest end of the most inaccessible gate, and the dude tells us that the flight to Puerto Princesa is delayed. Boarding isn't for another 40 minutes. Heh.

Manila to Puerto Princesa

The delays did not stop there. Even after boarding the plane late, it just sat there on the runway for 20 minutes. I fell asleep, then woke up, and we still had not moved. The scheduled arrival time had already come and gone by the time the plane got to the air. To the pilot's credit, he did regularly give updates of the situation (something about the weather) to the passengers and apologize for the delay.

In the end the plane arrived in Puerto Princesa at 1:45pm, around 1 hour and 15 minutes behind schedule. Yes I did travel over 1200 km in hardly half a day to get to where I was going. But the minutes do seem longer when they're part of a lost hour of the only honeymoon I'll ever have.

Getting a Cebu Pacific Ticket for Palawan

Choosing a honeymoon destination was something that came up on the agenda soon after getting engaged in April last year. In some ways it seemed like more of a thing to look forward to than the actual wedding.

It should be somewhere new and exciting, as me and my then-fiancee are both game for adventure. But also somewhere relaxing to unwind after what surely would be an hectic run-up to a big wedding.

Singapore was an early contender, as we've both never been there before. And it seems like a trip to Singapore is just something people do at our age when they have the energy and the money. But going abroad seems to have its risks, and puts too much pressure on me to see all the sights in a short period of time.

Eventually we settled on Palawan, with its reputation of being the Philippines' final frontier, and its untamed but pristine beaches providing the right mix of excitement and relaxation we were looking for.

Booking a cheap Cebu Pacific ticket

Way back in August 2010, long before we had started to draft a honeymoon itinerary (or even begin to think about it seriously), Loren excitedly contacted me saying that there was yet another Cebu Pacific dirt-cheap ticket sales.

I have no idea how Cebu Pacific is able to sell plane tickets so cheaply. You can look at the payment breakdown on the emailed ticket-- at the most extreme, they pretty much get no revenue from this. They basically give out a limited number of these seats for free, to whoever can race their way through the online booking system fastest.

Now, me, I'm always wary of these promos. Booking tickets that far in advance has often not worked out well for me as plans change, and the cost of rebooking a ticket is usually ridiculous. But it's hard not to get caught up in the excitement when you realize what a bargain it could be. Also, these are seats in demand-- spend too much time thinking about it and you lose your chance.

So, with no research about our destination whatsoever, we decided we could go to Palawan on a Monday morning (two days after our wedding), spend four nights there, and return to Manila on Friday afternoon.

Boom. Five minutes later we have a round trip ticket from Manila to Puerto Princesa for P750 ($17.50)-- for TWO PEOPLE. Cheaper than dirt.

Booking the expensive Cebu Pacific ticket

Fast forward to April 2011, when we actually start to think about what we're going to be doing with our time in Palawan. The capital, Puerto Princesa, is the definitive entry point on the island, but all the reviews say that the real highlight is in El Nido, a grueling 8 hour bus ride away to the north. Our new plan is for 3 nights in Puerto Princesa, and 3 nights in El Nido. It is clear that the originally planned return trip ticket is unusable.

But our ticket actually going to Palawan is still good, right? Well. No. The thing is, although our Palawan trip would still be starting on that day and would require flying from Manila to Puerto Princesa, we're actually coming from Dumaguete. The original idea was that we would buy a Dumaguete-Manila ticket separately, but as it turns out, the gap in time between the arrival of the scheduled Dumaguete-Manila flight and the departure of the Manila-Puerto Princesa flight is just 50 minutes-- not enough time to get to the check-in counter.

After a frustrating call to Cebu Pacific's customer service representative, I was resigned to the fact that the only way to do this would be to buy an all new ticket for Dumaguete-Manila-Puerto Princesa, and the original Manila-Puerto Princesa ticket was unusable as well.

The result

So much for the cheap Cebu Pacific promo fare. But you only get one honeymoon, right? This is as an appropriate time as any to bite the bullet. Total damage:

June 20: Dumaguete - Manila - Puerto Princesa (for 2)
PHP 11,027.52

June 26: Puerto Princesa - Manila (for 2)
PHP 6,639.36

Totally worth it.

7-Day Palawan Intinerary

Palawan is, I think, the most remarkable place I have been to in the Philippines. Puerto Princesa is such a peaceful and homey city, filled with pleasant people and things to do. And God seems to have let his imagination run wild when he made the stunning Bacuit Archipelago in El Nido, with its limestone cliffs rising dramatically out of the waters and hundreds of feet into the sky.

Sunset view from El Nido

Below is our glorious 7-day Palawan honeymoon itinerary-- Puerto Princesa City, Sabang, and El Nido. I was very pleased with the way it all turned out, allowing us to see almost all the highlights, with just enough rest time to keep our sanity.

Day 1 - Monday

8:00am - Check in at Dumaguete Airport
9:00am - Plane departure from Dumaguete Airport
10:00am - Plane arrival at Manila NAIA-3

12:30pm - Plane departure from Manila NAIA-3 (very delayed flight)
1:30pm - Plane arrival at Puerto Princesa Airport

2:00pm - Check in at Hibiscus Garden Inn
3:00pm - Lunch at Balinsasayaw Grill

4:15pm - Butterfly Garden
4:50pm - Baker's Hill
5:30pm - Mitra's Ranch

6:00pm - NCCC Mall

7:00pm - Dinner at Kalui
8:30pm - Back at Hibiscus Garden Inn

Day 2 - Tuesday

6:30am - Check out from Hibiscus Garden Inn
7:00am - Tricycle to the van terminal
7:30am - Van departure from Puerto Princesa
9:00am - Van arrival in Sabang

9:15am - Check in to Sheridan Beach Resort

11:00am - Boat to the Underground River place
12:00pm - Underground River tour
1:00pm - Start Monkey Trail / Jungle Trail
3:00pm - Arrival back at Sabang Beach
3:30pm - Lunch at Daluyon Resort
5:00pm - Back at Sheridan Resort - Rest time

8:00pm - Swimming at Sheridan Resort pool
9:30pm - Dinner at Sheridan Resort's restaurant

Day 3 - Wednesday

8:30am - Breakfast at Sheridan Resort

10:00am - Mangrove paddle boat tour
11:30am - More picture taking and swimming at Sheridan Resort

1:30pm - Check out from Sheridan Resort (late check out requested)
2:00pm - Van departure from Sabang
3:30pm - Van arrival in Puerto Princesa
4:00pm - Check in again at Hibiscus Garden Inn

4:15pm - Lunch at Jollibee
4:45pm - Puerto Princesa Baywalk
5:15pm - Unitop
6:00pm - Palawan Provincial Capitol / Baragatan

7:30pm - Dinner at Kinabuchs
8:30pm - Back at Hibiscus Garden Inn

Day 4 - Thursday

7:00am - Van pickup at Hibiscus Garden Inn
8:00am - Van actual departure from Puerto Princesa
2:00pm - Van arrival at El Nido Airport (drop off at airport was requested)

5:00pm - Boat departure for El Nido Lagen Island Resort
6:00pm - Arrival and check in at Lagen Island Resort

7:30pm - Buffet dinner at Lagen Island Resort
8:30pm - Cultural show

Day 5 - Friday

7:30am - Buffet breakfast at Lagen Island Resort
9:00am - Boat departure for island hopping tour

9:20am - Pinasil Island - Cathedral Cave picture taking
9:45am - Cudugnon Cave on Palawan mainland
10:40am - Vigan Island (Snake Island)
12:15pm - Picnic lunch and picture taking at Entalula Island
2:30pm - Miniloc Island - Big Lagoon tour
3:00pm - Miniloc Island - Small Lagoon kayaking
4:00pm - Snorkeling near Miniloc Island

5:00pm - Arrival back at Lagen Island Resort
5:15pm - Swimming at Lagan Island Resort pool
7:30pm - Buffet dinner at Lagen Island Resort

Day 6 - Saturday

7:00am - Boat departure for more adventures
7:45am - Buffet lunch at Miniloc Island Resort
9:20am - Dibuluan Island - Picture taking, swimming, catamaran ride
11:30pm - Back in Lagen Island Resort

11:45am - Swimming in pool
12:30pm - Buffet lunch

2:00pm - Check out from Lagen Island Resort
3:00pm - Boat departure from Lagen Island
3:45pm - Boat arrival at El Nido Airport; Tricycle to El Nido town
5:00pm - Check in at Rosanna Cottages
5:30pm - Walk through town; Pasalubong shopping
6:30pm - Dinner at Sea Slugs

Day 7 - Sunday

7:00am - Van departure from El Nido
12:30pm - Van arrival in Puerto Princesa

1:30pm - Crocodile Farm tour
2:30pm - Pasalubong shopping at Tiangge Tiangge
3:00pm - Late lunch at Chowking

4:30pm - Check in at Puerto Princesa Airport
5:30pm - Plane departure from Puerto Princesa Airport
6:30pm - Plane arrival at Manila NAIA-3

The Pacquiao-Mosley Effect on Wikipedia

I actually didn't even watch the Pacquiao-Mosley fight on the day itself-- first time I missed a Pacquiao fight in at least five years.

Anyway, here are a bunch of interesting graphs showing the spike in Wikipedia page views for the articles related to the fight. All of these graphs are from the Wikipedia article traffic statistics tool by Henrik.

Manny Pacquiao vs. Shane Mosley - The main article for the fight got 62k views on the big day.

Manny Pacquiao - Pacquiao got 260k hits. His Wikipedia article, I mean. The man himself took significantly less hits that day.

Shane Mosley - Mosley's article got 122k views, less than half that of Pacquiao.

Boxing - Even the article for the sport of boxing itself received 3x the usual number of page views.

Sarangani - The province where Pacquiao serves as congressman got around 10x the normal number of page views.

General Santos City - Pacquiao's home town. He's no longer introduced as being from General Santos, but the page still got around 6x the usual number of views.

Mama Said Knock You Out - Shane Mosley's entrance song got over 3x the usual number of page views that day.

Eye of the Tiger - Manny Pacquiao's entrance song got 10x the usual number of page views.

Survivor (band) - The band that made "Eye of the Tiger" a hit in 1982 also got around 10x the usual number of page views.

Jimi Jamison - The lead singer of Survivor from 1984-1989 and 2000-2006 performed "Eye of the Tiger" and walked with Pacquiao as he entered the arena. He went from virtually unknown to getting 10k views that day, a 100x increase.

Lupang Hinirang - Even the Philippine national anthem got 5x the usual number of views that day.

Jimmy Lennon Jr. - Showtime's ring announcer for the fight got a massive increase in page views.

Michael Buffer - HBO's usual ring announcer was not a participant in this fight at all, but still got 7x his usual number of page views, probably from people wondering what happened to him.

Antonio Margarito - Pacquiao's last opponent got 10x the usual number of views on fight day.

Juan Manuel Marquez - Pacquiao's old nemesis and likely next opponent.