I may not be Hiro Nakamura* with teleportation abilities, but I can still travel virtually with my favorite browser and a few clicks of my mouse to my favorite destinations… with a sigh though. My big sis’ family will be off to Finland soon, and recently she showed me photos of her choices for their house which gave me some idea of the culture and architecture of this place. It would be nice to visit them one of these days (yeah, I’m dreamin’) and when that happens I would very much like to explore the Finnish Lapland, known as Europe’s last frontier where the Sami indigenous people live. It would be fascinating to experience their way of life among old villages and possibly watch herds of reindeer along lakes.
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Blogger’s block or whatever it is… it’s been a struggle to post anything sensible in this blog these days. I’ve had some topics lined up but I seem to be uninspired. I noticed I haven’t posted here for a week after doing a series of memes. Well, at least you know that this blog is still breathing. 
Note: The title doesn’t mean anything serious, it’s just taken from a Duncan Sheik song.
I’ve been nearsighted since I was a kid but I disliked wearing glasses. I would often leave them someplace until they got lost or broken. Good thing I’m now wearing my contacts which I call my ‘tiny secret glasses’. Wearing contacts can be a hassle for some — taking care of the lens, soaking, rinsing and cleaning them, and keeping the lens case safe — but for me, it is way better than having to wear some weird glasses that make you feel uncomfortable. There are many types of contact lens to suit the needs of the wearer — disposables (weekly or daily), color lenses, RGP (rigid gas permeable), bifocal and custom lenses. I use an RGP and it’s just fine with me.
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The weather has been humoring us lately. Well, at least here in my part of the world — hot and sunny on mornings, raining in the afternoons. I was confident it wouldn’t rain when I looked at the clear blue sky during lunch, but I was wrong. OK, I am not that good in predicting the weather after all.
With the numerous opportunities brought about by the Internet, a lot of working individuals have chosen to go freelance, by being self-employed or ‘working solo’. Most freelancers work at home or in their own offices full time while some juggle work together with freelancing on the side. While this type of career brings a lot of good changes to the individual — increased time with family, flexible schedule, decrease in transportation, food and office related expenses — there are some disadvantages too such as the irregular flow of income particularly at the start, the need to pay more attention to finances, and careful planning for future income resources among others.
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I had another chance to be with my big sis’ kids again during my recent trip to Thailand. They’re still the same hyperactive bunch and having conversations with them is just fun.
R-vin, on choosing a favorite song from an album I let him listen: “I like this song. Some parts are slow and some parts are fast.” Good basis, it shows his preference for diversity within a song. Funny how I used to carry him at the back of my bike, now it’s the other way around.
Anzel, on R-jed's report card: “R-jed’s card has many zeroes in them.” I checked the card and laughed when I find out the ‘zeroes’ she meant were actually big letter O’s which meant ‘Outstanding’. Incidentally Anzel topped her class being ‘Student of the Year’.
R-jed, on seeing me taking photos with the camera: “Take picture of my shoes too.” Well for whatever reason, I don’t understand. Nevertheless, I took a shot of his shoes which he placed on top of a small chair. He's fond of looking at the camera’s small LCD screen to see the result after I take his pics.
By the way, my big sis, hubby and kids will be moving to Finland next month and will be staying there for two years or so. Sigh. I will be missing my pamangkins more. The possibility of going to Europe to visit them is just too vague compared with nearer Asian countries but who knows, I might be there sooner than expected. 
Related posts:
Kids’ logic
A day with the kids: sleepy heads at the airport
A day with the kids: Japanese crepes and fruit shakes, anyone?
A day with the kids: Sandcastles at the playground
It’s been more than a week now since I made an update of my daily expenses, I almost dreaded to open my accounting software today. I tried to be brave though and opened it anyway, and I saw the past expenses on the account register glaring at me, waiting for some new inputs.
Keeping track of my personal finances can be difficult if I neglect doing it even for just a few days. Good thing, I use an accounting software which makes it easier for me to track down my income, monthly budget and daily expenses among other finance related stuff. Looking at my cash flow forecast for the next 30 days is enough reason for me to pack up my things and head on to Mars. Yes, it doesn’t look nice. Sure, I can always juggle funds, though I avoid it as much as possible, it just make things complicated sometimes.
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Who would have thought that a simple lowly plant could actually teach me a lesson in life? I wrote about its eye-catching blooms last year, a perfect example of contentment — how it managed to flourish in its frailty amidst the tough conditions surrounding it. I was always encouraged whenever I see it in our front yard as I passed its way. However, I was saddened to see it weeks after, its purple flowers withered and fell one by one, left only with stems that made it look just like any of those ordinary grasses along the way.
For so long, it remained in its pitiful state which brought a slight tug at my soul. I would even talk to it with my mind sometimes, and ask why it didn’t bring any blossoms for several months now. I almost forgot its presence by the roadside until I saw it recently with a new bud!
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Getting noticed can be as easy as simply not minding about yourself if you’re a natural beauty who need not strive to attract attention. On the other hand, most people would make themselves more attractive with makeup or by wearing the latest in fashion or by even resorting to cosmetic surgery. Well, that’s basically the same in the World Wide Web. While content is king, as stressed by the experts, and quality content means more visitors and audience, a site’s value and popularity doesn’t only depend on content alone but on other factors such as design, usability, and particularly website optimization. Sounds pretty much like applying a makeover to your site to attract more visitors, right?
How many websites are there in the World Wide Web? Millions of ‘em! And the numbers increase day by day. So, how does your company’s website get noticed from among the rest? If it doesn’t get the attention and the visits you want, a good SEO (search engine optimization) makeover can do wonders to increase its online presence. Employing the method of SEO helps drive traffic to your site by ensuring high rankings for relevant search keywords or phrases in search engine results.
The SEO process
It’s also important to get the services of an established search engine optimization company like Submitawebsite and leave all the technical aspects of website optimization to them. With your site listed among the top of search engine results, more visitors would be sure to hop over to your site and finally get the attention it deserves.
There’s this Blue Mountain Arts card with a phrase that caught my attention: Follow your destiny, Wherever it leads you. This quote is from Vicki Silvers and I find a lot of truth and encouragement in them as I relate it to my own life and my dreams these days.
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Guess who will be holding her own cute baby in her arms soon? My cutie sis! Will it be a girl as they hoped it would be? How will the baby look like? Will it be a quiet and behaved bundle of joy or a restless hyperactive bunch like its cousins? We have lots of questions but we are surely excited about the baby.
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Checking on the weather bureau PAGASA tells me that typhoon Bebeng has left the country and is heading for Japan.
Typhoon Alert: Typhoon "BEBENG"(MAN-YI)
Issued at 11:00 a.m., Wednesday, 12 July 2007
Typhoon "BEBENG" has intensified further as it continues to move away
from the country.
After having some really heavy downpour and gusty winds the past few days, finally we will be having some fine weather ahead. There are still occasional drizzles throughout the day though.
So, why am I talking about the weather? Well, I can’t help but compare it with the recent downpour of memes here in my side of the blog world. As they say, “when it rains, it pours.” And my oh my, a deluge of memes came my way after my blog hiatus. But just like the typhoon, they’re slowly leaving me since I’m now down to my last tag. Whew!
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Other than blogging, most of my online activities involves browsing through interesting articles, usually by chance when I hop from Google search results and end up reading something unrelated to the topic I was searching for in the first place. If it’s a site worth visiting again, I bookmark it and go back to it again when I have time. Some bookmarked sites would lead me to other great sites and so on. Incidentally, here’s another website where you can find interesting links to news articles, websites, videos, photographs, and other articles from the web, Thoof.com.
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What is a thinking blogger? Is it just a blogger that makes you think, or is there something more than this definition?
Lorelle VanFossen says it best in her article on the Blog Herald “Are You a Thinking Blogger?” Reading it only makes me realize that I am way too far from her description. Personally, my definition of a thinking blogger is somebody who puts his heart and soul into his writings. The posts may not be agreeable to everybody at all times but they always provide a different way of seeing things, challenging readers into pondering on a variety of issues from the trivial to the important ones. Am I a thinking blogger? All I know is that, as a blogger, I have so much to improve and learn.
And so I thank Snglguy for including me in his list of thinking bloggers and giving me the Thinking Blogger Award. Wow, what an honor! LOL. *accepts badge with a bow*
Now it’s my turn to pass on this award to five thinking bloggers.
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I have to say bye to my ECS Desknote (i-Buddie A929) which kept me company for about 3 years in my work. The Desknote (a term conceived from ‘desktop’ and ‘notebook’) is a desktop replacement computer which provides the portability of a notebook computer or laptop (though a bit bulkier) but with the full capabilities of a desktop computer. In my case, my i-Buddie’s 20 GB hard disk space is not enough to accommodate the new versions of the programs I’m using resulting to system reminders every now and then that I lack disk space. Oh well, that’s the price you have to pay for technology advancement. Latest versions of applications require higher amount of RAM (random access memory) and disk space. I will surely be missing my Desknote, thus the detailed blahs above. I am happy with my new ‘lappy’ though.
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Being online is a huge part of my life these days and like most web-browsing enthusiasts, I have my own favorite sites for emails, blogs, photo sharing, news and sites which add fun to my online experience. So when Sweetperceptions tagged me with a meme about listing my top six frequently visited sites, it gave me the chance to assess my web-browsing habits and preferences.
Here are my Top Six Frequently Visited sites:
1. iGoogle — my homepage and one stop page with links to Google search, Gmail and all my favorite sites and online services
2. PayPerP0st — it’s been my daily habit to always check out new opportunities to blog about
3. Yahoo! Mail — my primary email (secondary is Gmail)
4. Ideas in Pink and Essential Tidbits — my blogs
5. Wikipedia — my top reference site where I always turn to for information on a lot of topics
6. Flickr — for uploading images
Runners-up: Adobe, Autodesk, Inquirer, Technorati, Sitemeter, i.PH, YouTube, the blogs on my links list, PayPal and my online bank account
I’m tagging Snglguy to come up with his own list. Finally I get to tag you back again, hehehe…
Anybody who wants to do this meme will be given some link love, just let me know when you have done your list and I will update this post with a link to your entry.
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Update:
Daisy of Blueapron - Meme: My top six frequently visited sites
Aileen of Simple Pleasures - 6 FVS- Frequently Visited Sites
Unpack some things, sort out some clothes, gifts and other stuff, arrange some documents… aarghh…messy pink room again! This is usually what happens after coming home to my room from a trip, my things are all over the place. Fixing it up would take me a whole day or even more, and just thinking about it is so stressful. I found out a better way of attacking the disorder though — arrange and fix things, one at a time, piece by piece, a portion of the room a day and so far it looks better now. The entire room isn’t arranged and cleaned yet but at least I’m done about 80% and I’m happy with that. Just like tackling any problem at hand, sometimes the trick is not to overwhelm oneself with the whole thing at once but to manage it bit by bit.
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This is a meme from Wil. Actually he featured two memes in his post and he asked us to choose which meme we’d like to do. Well, I chose both. The other one was the 15 idiosyncrasies meme which I already did and this one — to list 5 reasons why I blog.
Here goes…
1. To share my ‘ideas in pink’. This is the main thing. hehehe…
2. To jolt my brain cells from the brink of being stagnant and improve my creativity in writing.
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These days I am getting worried about my weight. I think I gained few pounds lately. I used to make time for exercise at least 20 minutes a day three times a week but lately I haven’t been doing it since my schedule has become more hectic than ever. Nowadays I am so tired I just wanted to sleep rather than do some reverse curl ups. Maybe I should write myself a letter again and reprimand my sluggish self?
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One should not leave Thailand without visiting its ancient capital, Ayutthaya. I’ve been to this historical site more than I can remember and stepping foot on its soil always gives me that feeling of curiosity and admiration.
Wat Phra Si Sanphet
Just recently, we toured a guest around this place and as I looked closely at the bricks which composed the old temples, I wondered how ancient they really are. Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. The mere fact that I was standing on what used to be the ancient capital of Siam was enough to put me in awe.
Wat Yai Chai Mongkol
It’s a strange feeling having walked above the ground where kings and royalties used to live, and I shuddered to think that this place was once a battleground when the Burmese army destroyed this once glorious city to ruins. It isn’t surprising to know then that this cluster of building remains which form the Ayutthaya Historical Park is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
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Ideas are powerful. A train of thought can make or break, build or destroy. The choice is ours. Our ideas become our future. I believe that life’s meaningful lessons are best learned when shared with others.
