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I hope you remember this once you get a stuffy nose. Yesterday I can't breathe through my nose. It's full of snot and my eyes are puffy. It really is uncomfortable to sleep. All of us in the family have some sort of cough, colds, and some gooey stuff dripping out of our noses.
I'm going to show you a way to breathe in and out as breezy as an industrial electric fan.
- Get your Vicks
- Ask someone to rub it on the soles of your feet (It feels better when someone else puts it on you)
- Put on a thick pair of socks
Works everytime!
After all the typhoons that struck the Philippines, onehorsepower still stands.
I was in the middle of it all when typhoon Ondoy struck Marikina, Philippines. Our house was filled with thigh deep flood water. Power and phone lines all went down together with our dampened spirits. The damage report:
- Both cars were submerged in filthy flood water, until now it smells
- All of our mattresses were wiped out, no beds to sleep on
- Precious photographs of our youth were also ravaged
- My daughter suffered from diarrhea and dehydration
There were a lot worse stories from other people compared to what we experienced. Still we are thankful that we're all safe, thank you to my sister's house with a second floor. There we spent several days as refugees when we were in the process of week-long house cleaning.
Slowly we're recovering from it all. We're taking the path to recovery one day at a time. Thanks to those who helped us, who texted, wanted to know if we're still alive and to my family for sticking together when the going gets flood.
I picked up a few good lessons from surviving the floods. That and much more, till the next post.
onehorsepower - flood survivor.
I've been saving up my loose change for several years now. I got the habit from my brother. I was quite surprised how far my loose change turned into a significant amount. My biggest earning to date is around 13,000 PHP thanks to the help of my wife. The sum was deposited to our account and I don't even realized where we spent it... but we were able to raise such amount!
I've noticed lately that the turn out has been slow moving. We're already at the last quarter of the year 2009 and the coin bank is half-full (keeping things on the positive side). I'd like to speed it up. How? I'll give our coin bank a slap of the loaded dervish longboard in the face. For the benefit of those who are not in the know, longboarding is my new hobby and I'm obsessing about the loaded dervish longboard. It is quite expensive really, as most hobbies are. With a picture of the dervish right smack in the middle of our coin bank will help me keep focus on the goal and hopefully earn the money faster.
I'm sure you have projects of your own that would require handsome funds. Try this one for a change.
The gum I'm chewing is made in China. The phone I use to call my wife is made in Mexico. The laptop I'm typing in is made in Singapore. The can of almonds I consumed last month was from Thailand. The jacket that keeps me warm is 'Fabrique En Chine.' The pen that I'm writing with is made in the U.K.
The notebook I make scribbles on is from Brazil. What else? My shoes! It's made in Marikina, my home town, Philippines. Finally, a product that's made here in our country. I wonder if these shoes are also available outside the Philippines too?
The fact that I'm using these products, there's a level of quality that these products met. A level of quality good enough for me to consume. These products that I mentioned are not overly complex to make. Given time and effort, I'm sure we can do it right here. I sure hope that more and more quality products will come from the Philippines. Products not people. It's high time we contribute to the world our talent and skills through the products we produce. Kudos to happy feet, my shoes, for putting out quality products!
This blog is Proudly Filipino.
Hi good news! SeaChange is hiring still. You or someone you know maybe interested in exploring new possibilities.
For a detailed description of the positions listed below, you download it here.
- .Net Web Developer (Sharepoint)
- Product Management Associate
- Senior Creative Flash Developers
- System Administrator
- Software Quality Assurance Engineers (QAII, Senior & Principal)
- System Integration Test Engineers (Senior & Principal levels)
- Technical Support Engineers
- Call Queue Monitors
- Contracts Administrator
- Project Manager - Professional Services, PHI
- Software Engineering Manager
- Software Engineers - Security (Senior & Principal level)
- Software Engineers - C++ (Senior & Principal level)
- Senior Software Engineers - Config Suite
- Senior Software Engineers (B-box/Porting)
Send your resumes to andrew.artajos@gmail.com indicating the position your applying for in the subject. SeaChange is located @ the sprawling hills of UP-Ayala Land Techno Hub, 2/F Building A, Commonwealth Avenue, Diliman Quezon City, Philippines 1105. Hope to see you on board. All the best!
I just had my creativity put to the test today. I wanted to attend this talk: Culture of Personal Excellence by Francis Kong. It's the closest thing to TED that I can get here locally. I want to attend but the cheapskate in me doesn't want to shell out the money for such a fleeting event.
Now here comes the challenge: Think up ways to attend the seminar and keep the cost to a bare minimum.
Here's what I did: I called up the office of Francis Kong and inquired about the going rates. Of course I already knew how much the tickets costs you silly, it's on the website. I called to ask for a discount. Luckily, the angel on the phone obligingly gave me an extension of the early bird discount which is about 20% off of the original price.
Not bad, not bad at all. I got a 20% discount for just asking. It pays to follow my own advice. Knowing that I can do better, I looked for the poster. The poster naturally contained the sponsors of the event. So, I asked my aunt who works in one of the sponsoring companies of the talk. I asked if she could hook me up with some tickets. My resourceful aunt gladly sourced one ticket for me!
Sometimes money is really not a constraint for reaching your goals. Be creative and look for alternative ways to get it. So, that's how it's done. That is how you get from here (point a) to there (point b).
Thanks Tita Al and PhilStar for my free ticket. Click the photo to visit PhilStar's site.
Finally, the long wait is over. I bring you Project Boston /Pra-jekt Bwas-tn/ (as I like to say it).
This is the product of my seven-week stay in Massachusetts. It was my first time ever to be in a business trip so I thought I should make the most out of it. I was like a bartender mixing it up, finding the right balance between business and leisure. But I enjoyed it a lot and ended up getting drunk on both.
I came there with little expectations but went home carrying with me baggage filled with good memories and stuff too! I can only offer snapshots of my experience there hoping to grasp its totality.
These are the people who made my stay Rock. All I can say is: You guys Rule! Cheers!
I have to set things straight and get this out now.
/Androoo Fôd-ra R-túh-hos/
This is how you pronounce my complete name. I think it is imperative that people know how to correctly say my name before it sky rockets to household name status.
I remember writing in my yearbook the caption 'Today Gokongwei, Tomorrow the World!' right beside my grad pic. I really didn't know what came to me and why I've written such a thing. I just knew I didn't want to put some boring text next to my picture. I wanted it to be fun, nothing to be taken seriously but it had to be catchy. Apparently, there's much more to it than its original intent. I realized that I am bound to go global, one article, one reader, one country, one continent at a time. It is indeed possible!
