About computers and Deng

Damn, I'm really getting better with other computer programs (besides the tools we use for newspaper and radio).
Learning Iphone and useful applications, blogging, Microsoft outlook. I mean I've been using Microsoft outlook since the program started in 1997. But I never really learned its other finesses.
I have to say that I am an "autodidakt" - self-learned - in terms of computer. But once at it, I'm quite gooood!

Anyway, the first time I went to a computer course was way back in high school, on my fourth year at St Paul College of Pasig, 1985-86.
The funny thing was that it was a computer course without computers! The only students who could practise what they had learned where those who had computers at home. I didn't.
So I was one of those who tapped keyboards made of paper that had a drawing of keyboard and its buttons. Then I write in my notebook:
If you push X button, then y will happen.

So you can understand why I didn't learn a thing. I thought that computers were bullshit and useless. It was like learning democracy - without actually seeing what it means.

I got a very high grade for a computer project though. But mostly because I made a fantastically creative poster - with the help of my family. But mind you, we used colored papers and pens. Not the computer!

I bought my first computer in 1993, thanks to my neighbour and friend Deng Babasa, a computer whiz.
Deng studied IT at a time when IT was still a complex branch that hardly anyone was pretty good at. He was ahead of his time in the Philippines, I dare say.
Anyway, he convinced me to buying a computer that cost around 21 000 pesos that time. He helped me choose the computer, helped carry it and install it at home.
This is how I will always remember Deng - my friendly neighbor who revolutionised my way of working. And I also dare say that Deng is among neighbors I have high respect for. He is always decent, careful, good and wise.

Anway, the computer was the second expensive thing I ever bought in my life. The first one was a camera I bought in Japan in 1992.

Other things that revolutionised my life? Cars, laptops and Iphone. I just can't work without these...