Born in the Philippines in 1968. Moved to the United States with my family when I was three years old. Raised in Jersey City, New Jersey. Went to Catholic schools (St. Aedan's, St. Peter's Prep). Graduated college from Rensselaer in December 1990. Moved to Boston. Married Jenn in 1995.
I have two brothers, Ron and Renato. My parents live in New Jersey.
Jenn and I live in Burlington (outside Boston). We have a daughter named Mia.
Yes, I write a blog. I've been writing Rick's Ramblings since 2001.
May 31, 2023
On the Facebook group "Friends and Lovers of WJIB", there was a post requesting songs people had learned by listening to oldies radio station WJIB. The poster wanted...
April 30, 2023
I was in Jersey City, New Jersey a few weeks ago, the city where I grew up. The GPS put me on Rt 440 near Lincoln Park, and though I know these landmarks from my...
March 31, 2023
Last year, my old college friend Paul pointed me to "A Fox in Space". It's a cartoon in the style of Watership Down (1978), The Plague Dogs (1982), or Iron Giant...
February 28, 2023
Over the last several years, doing the dishes after dinner has become a welcome part of my day. It wasn't always this way. This task is called a chore for a reason:...
January 31, 2023
In 2022, I read 28 books (Goodreads) and watched 91 movies (Letterboxd).
December 31, 2022
Wordle is my favorite new thing from 2022. It's a part of my morning routine to sip coffee and eat cereal while solving this puzzle. I like comparing my solves with...
November 30, 2022
A few weeks ago I started Invisalign.
October 31, 2022
Earlier in the year, I bought a new car, a Honda CR-V. It has two remarkable features that make me think the self-driving car is perhaps a bit closer than I thought...
September 30, 2022
In a little over three weeks I have to give a presentation. It's about eBooks and how to make them. I haven't started preparing for it however. Since I made the...
I work in computers. At least that's how I put it when people ask me what I do. Below are some posts from my technical BLOG.
I'm the author of Learn Git in a Month of Lunches (Manning Publications).
July 14, 2020
Sometime in May, about two months into my forced "work from home" stint due to the novel coronavirus, I caught a bit of inspiration.I had been playing Cataclysm:...
February 3, 2016
For the past few weeks, I've been participating in Boston PHP's jQuery jAM. This virtual learning group is scheduled to run through the book Eloquent JavaScript,...
May 28, 2014
I'm writing a book for Manning Publications called Learn Git in a Month of Lunches. It should be out early next year, but you can purchase a copy of the book via...
February 14, 2014
Last year (2013), I finished a most remarkable computer book titled Code. It's by Charles Petzold, who wrote the venerable Programming Windows 95, among many others....
June 23, 2013
I've been working on a small "Word Finder" game, mostly as exercise to learn CoffeeScript, a language that compiles down to JavaScript. CoffeeScript hides the tricky...
November 22, 2012
I just recently finished taking an online course titled "Functional Programming Principles in Scala". The course was offered by Coursera, and it is an example of...
June 24, 2012
Indie Game: The Movie (IGTM) is a documentary about independent game developers. When I saw the trailer in July 2011, I saw a shot of a real computer screen filled...
February 5, 2012
I recently inherited an old Dell Latitude D600 laptop, but the wireless wasn't working on it. After some investigation, I learned that it somehow didn't have a wireless...
November 26, 2011
When using the Twitter API's "Streaming API", you often have to pass in Twitter User IDs as arguments, rather than Twitter usernames (aka "screen name"). I wrote...
November 14, 2011
I've been learning about Drupal Module Development the past few weeks. I'm using the venerable "Definitive Guide to Drupal 7" and a few times in the module development...
For a long time I didn't follow sports. But now I do. The links below will take you to posts from my sports blog.
August 31, 2022
Talking about Serena William's 2nd round match of the 2022 US Open.
February 12, 2022
Time for my Super Sunday pick!
January 30, 2022
It's a juicy Sunday of football! Against the spread, pick the Chiefs and the 49ers.
June 10, 2021
The only good thing about the Boston Celtics and Boston Bruins playoff runs is that it briefly signalled a return to normalcy from COVID-19 pandemic.
February 6, 2021
With about twenty-four hours left before Super Bowl LV (aka COVID-19 Super Bowl 1), I'm ready with my prediction. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will win the big game...
September 10, 2020
COVID-19 has upended the US sports calendar. It is September as I write this, and the NFL starts tomorrow. But also on the docket is a compelling NBA playoff game....
January 30, 2020
Go Jimmy G! What can I say? The San Francisco 49ers have a ground and pound game that I think will wear down the Kansas City Chiefs. The game will also be a study...
January 15, 2020
The table is set: the AFC title is between the Tennessee Titans and the Kansas City Chiefs, and the NFC title is between the Green Bay Packers and the San Francisco...
January 8, 2020
Yes, this is 2020! And its first weekend features the best weekend of football: four games featuring arguably the best teams remaining. Who do I like? Minnesota...
December 30, 2019
The wildcards battle it out this weekend as the 2019 NFL playoffs commence. I'm a Pats fan, so I'm surprised to be watching them this weekend, I'm not going to lie,...
I have plenty of pictures at a bunch of places [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11], [12], but I primarily update Flickr and, more recently, Instagram.
April 7, 2021
March 11, 2018
November 16, 2017
November 16, 2017
November 1, 2017
September 30, 2016
September 30, 2016
November 8, 2015
October 31, 2015