Gobble, gobble! Happy Thanksgiving

Guys! I have been so busy these past couple of months and didn't have the time to even update this blog. Anyhow, it's Thanksgiving break/holiday and I thought I'd revisit this blog.

Thanksgiving here in the US is a big deal. This is even bigger than Christmas or New Year. A lot of people travel back to their hometown or to the states where they grew up to be with their families and friends. Thanksgiving is also synonymous with turkeys and cranberry sauce and stuffing. This is one holiday that almost everyone eat like there's no other day. This is also the time where most of American love to shopping. Yes, Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving day.

But the real meaning of this holiday is actually to give thanks to whatever good or bad things we received the past year. I myself have a lot of stuff to be grateful for. The biggest thing that I am grateful for is the support that I get for my meds. Without my meds, I might not be writing this blog anymore. Thankful for waking up everyday and seeing the sun rays enter my window blinds.

On a lighter note, since this is sort of an update. I just would like to mention again two internet sites that I closely watch and they are slowly growing: The No Day But Today Project and The Love Yourself Project. Please support these two groups in anyway you can. They aim to create awareness of HIV/AIDS in the Philippines. So I beg to my 6 followers to spread the word.

The Love Yourself Project

Recently advocacy group started popping up in the Philippines. This is in response to the alarming increase of HIV/AIDS related deaths that has been happening recently. I another advocacy group several months ago in this blog, now I would like to introduce you to The Love Yourself Project. In brief, according to their website, "their aim is to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS among the youth and the Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) sector in the Philippines, primarily through education and counseling. It is the first project by the VINN Advocacy group."

The group was formed by Ronivin (Vinn) Garcia Pagtakhan and his close friends who were concerned by the increasing demand and queries by LGBT-MSM. The core group were all professionals, most of them are registered nurses or in the medical field and one life coach.

So if any of you reading this blog and would want to get involved with this group, you can contact them directly via email at TLYproject@gmail.com and you can also like their facebook page here.

Let us support all these advocacy groups, the only way we can create awareness about HIV/AIDS is thru education and these advocacy groups are in the forefront of these campaigns.

A Story from "The No Day but Today Project"

I came across this page recently on Facebook and from the moment I discovered this page, I have been a follower. I check this almost every day if not twice or 3X a day. Learned about the HIV/AIDS situation in the Philippines which is for all of you who just stumbled upon my blog is my beloved country. One story that caught my attention was that of Jake who is probably the creator of this page and Miguel who might be his friend on Facebook. Apparently for no obvious reasons, Miguel attacked Jake because the latter was fighting for a cause which is awareness about HIV/AIDS in the Philippines.

You can read the whole story after the jump.....

Filipino debuted in Guys With iPhone

He is known as Hotwetspeedo in the chatworld. He made a big debut in the internet world today. His picture was posted in one of the famous sites for iPhone pictures...the Guys With iPhone website.

Click here for his g-rated picture and his x-rated picture here. Update!! New picture here.

Truvada - one of my ARVs

Truvada one of my antiretroviral medications is said to have been found to reduce the odds of getting HIV from an infected person. Study shows that if a person is sexually active and choose to take Truvada as part of his daily regimen, most likely this man has a 73% chance of not getting infected.

In my humble opinion, safe sex or using condoms is still the best preventive measure against HIV/AIDS. Let's not put our trust to one drug. There is still a lot of testing to do. Although this is a result of a scientific study which means it has undergone testing and have been proven in the scientific community, let us not forget that there are number of strands of HIV, so in short...just put the rubber and enjoy safe sex.

Read the entire blog after the jump.....

HIV Treatments Prevent Transmission

The United States National Institutes of Health announced today that the results of a new study shows that if an HIV positive person adheres to an effective antiretroviral therapy regimen, the risk of transmitting the virus to their uninfected sexual partner can be reduced by astounding 96%.

read the entire story after the jump.....

Dustin Zito of Real World

He said and insisted that he did not have any sex with another man during his stint at Frat Pad. Dustin Zito is Spencer in Frat Pad and recently he was confronted by his roomies on the Real World about his past.

Well I guess you guys will be the judge if he said this is not having sex with another man. Send him a message at @dustinzito on his twitter account.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

NEWSFLASH: HIV Classified as Disability

I dont know if I will be happy or not about this. Recently the US Equal Employement Commission classified HIV as disability. I haven't heard any comments yet as this is very new and fresh. We'll probably hear more about this soon.

IMHO, I think this will just add up to the stigma that HIV+ men and women experience right now. I mean if they consider this a disability they might as well also consider cancer or diabetes a disability. I guess this should be hardly thought off before throwing it out in the band wagon.

Find the short snipet of the news here: HIV CLASSIFIED DISABILITY BY EEOC

Elizabeth Taylor the Legend

Liz Taylor as known in the industry, died at 79. She is a fierce supporter of gay rights and HIV/AIDS charities. She is a legend. She's one of the most beautiful women of the world. She brought classic hollywood glamour to her time, something that isn't there today anymore. She will forever be the one, the only Elizabeth Taylor.

So What is Grindr?

When I learned about Grindr it was only available on iPod Touch/iPhone, now it is available on different platforms. Recently Android released it, currently RIM Blackberry is having it on beta testing. So what is really Grindr. Well it is a gay hook up site. Yes, it is where men who likes to have sex with men start their search for a potential sex partner. Sorry to be very straightforward but that is the truth. In Grindr's information advert, it say GPS blah blah trying to loop around the sex thing, but it all boils down to a hook up site. Technically, Grindr uses GPS or cellular site position to locate the possible sex mate in the vicinity of the user. It triangulates those position and gives off the approximate location of the user or the one looking for a hook up. Now sometimes, the approximate distance of how far the user is from his potential mate depends on the number of GPS or cell site available. Of course the more GPS/cell site, the more.accurate the location. So what's inside Grindr. Lots of semi-naked men. Showing their pecs or six-pack abs. Most of the men are headless, few men show their faces, some are old, some are not even 18! Oh yeah, Grindr has a policy too that you can't have a butt shot even when you're wearing a clothes but you can post an almost naked picture. Ironic. Any chance of hooking up on this site, Yes and No. Yes, maybe hook up with a troll who hides behind a picture of a model's torso. And No, just some of the men are picky even though they don't look good themselves. Warning: there is no way to know if the person is HIV positive or negative. Hook up at your own risk. But you can always practice safe sex.

First test blog from my phone

I have been trying to look for a way to blog from my phone. Blogger doesn't have an app yet (not that I know off) for Blackberry but I know Wordpress have one. Anyhow, I'm testing it right now, if the mail-to-blogger will work. The only downside to this that I can think of right now is that you have to open your email client from your Blackberry, which I'd rather want to use an app instead of my email. So we'll see right now if this will post including the picture attachement. I also wanted to see how this will look like in the actual blog. Good luck to me.

I have been recently reading the Manila Gay Guy blog again. It brings me memories back when I was still in the Philippines. Miggs is so lucky to be able to go home as much as we want. So when he blogs about the Philippines especially Manila, I really get into reading it from start to finish.

Anyways, I came across the story of Jake and I would like to post this link because I can feel what Jake was feeling when he discovered he was POSITIVE. It happened to me once. I felt so alone and reading his ordeal brought me back to that moment when the doctor broke the news to me that I am POZ.

Just to update you guys, since I know I haven't been active on this blog for a long time, I have been well for the past three years now. I am undetectable for two years now and been doing very well health-wise. My HIV doctor was very pleased with the results of my test and so far I have been his example to his other HIV patients. He even brags about me and all the stuff that I am doing here i.e., doing my research, attending conferences, presenting scientific papers, getting cited for my articles, etc. Sometimes, I am the one who feels shy about all the stuff he says to his interns.

So that's my life here. Busy with work and research. Again i will say that I will try to keep this blog updated but don't count on it. LOL Research comes first and facebook, but if there are some significant news about HIV, be sure to check my blog. I keep my self abrest when it comes to this disease.