Massage please...

After an all day's work, there's never been better than a full body massage. I'm really addicted to massages. Everytime I come home from work and lay in our bed, I would ask Randy to give me a soothing massage. And he never failed me in keeping my body relaxed while he do his massage techniques. But lately, I've been thinking of these massage chairs that we keep on seeing in the department stores. We even saw one in my uncle's house in Los Angeles.

So, I've been thinking of buying one of those massage chairs. Well, as one of our options, here's the Massage Chairs by Human Touch. Just looking at their chairs, I already feel the soothing relief that these chairs will give me and my husband. They have this capability to follow the contour of your body and hit the tight muscles and sore you've been wailing about.

I actually tried sitting on one of their chairs at the nearest "Sharper Image" shop 2 weeks ago. And wow, it indeed gave me that relaxing feeling. It just so happens that we still don't have our permanent house now. But once we got, maybe I should try and buy one. Let's see...

You can definitely see the world in $8!

Last year, I had my spectacles for almost 3 years replaced. Just for the frames, I had to pay almost $250 (with some amount slashed because of their pre-winter sale). Then for the lenses, I had to pay $80. In total? A whoooping $330 just for the spectacles. (If I would tell this to my father, he would kill me, for sure...that is if I would be begging him for the money to buy this, hehehe.) Well, thanks to my *then* company..they shouldered a part of the lump sum amount.

But now, I've been planning to buy my husband his new set of eyeglasses. Yes, we're both wearing artificial eyes (if you would call it that way). But then, I couldn't afford to spend that fortune at this time just for his specs. Not because it's not for me...but somehow, I came to realize that I could have bought a cheaper frame/lens.

Especially now that I heard about Zenni Optical: Sell Rx Glasses $8 with case!, maybe I would try to visit them one of these days! What's $8 compared to the hundred dollars people spend for their specs? It's quite unbelievable...but why not try it! The reason why they offer cheaper prices is because they're selling their own manufactured frames directly to the customers.

The Better Side of the Philippines

From my inbox months ago (I just thought of posting this today for several reasons I'd rather not mention):

The following was
written by INTEL General Manager Robin Martin about the Philippines:


Filipinos (including the press, business people and myself) tend to dwell too much on the "negative" side, and this affects the perception of foreigners, even the ones who have lived here for a while. The negative perception of the Philippines is way disproportionate to reality when compared to countries like Columbia , Egypt , Middl e East, Africa , etc.

Let us all help our country by balancing the negative with the positive especially when we talk to foreigners, whether based here or abroad. Looking back and comparing the Philippines today and 1995 (the year I came back), I was struck by how much our country has progressed physically.

Consider the following:

1. The great telecom infrastructure that we have now did not exist in 1995. 1995 was the year the telecom industry was deregulated. Since then billions of dollars have been invested in both fixed line and cellular networks producing a system with over 5,000 kms of fiber optic backbone at a world competitive cost. >From a fixed line capacity of about 900,000 in 1995 we now have over 7 million. Cellular phones practically did not exist in 1995; now we have over 11 million line capacity.

2. The MRT, many of the EDSA flyovers (including the Ayala Avenue flyover), the SKYWAY, Rockwell and Glorietta 4, the Fort, NAIA terminal 2 and most of the new skyscrapers were not yet built in 1995.

3. If you drive to the provinces, you will notice that national roads are now of good quality (international quality asphalt roads). I just went to Iba, Zambales last week and I was impressed that even a not so frequently travelled road was of very good quality.

4. Philippine exports have increased by 600% over the past eight years. There are many, many more examples of progress over the last eight years. Philippine mangoes are now exported to the US and Europe .

Additional tidbits to make our people prouder:

1. INTEL has been in the Philippines for 28 years. The Philippines plant is where Intel's most advanced products are launched, including the Pentium IV. By the end of 2002, Philippine operations became Intel's biggest assembly and testing operations worldwide.

2. TEXAS INSTRUMENTS has been operating in Baguio for over 20 years. The Baguio plant is the largest producer of DSP chips in the world. DSP chips are the brains behind cellphones. TI's Baguio plant produces the chip that powers 100% of all NOKIA cellphones and 80% of Erickson cellphones in the world.

3. TOSHIBA laptops are produced in Santa Rosa , Laguna.

4. If you drive a BENZ, BMW, or a VOLVO, there is a good chance that the ABS system in your car was made in the Philippines .

5. TREND-MICRO , makers of one of the top anti virus software PC-Cillin (I may have mispelled this) develops its "cures" for viruses right here in Eastwood Libis, Quezon City . When a virus breaks in any computer system in the world, they try to find a solution within 45 minutes of finding the virus.

6 . Today a majority of the top ten U.S. Call Center firms in the U.S. have set up operations in the Philippines . This is one area in which I believe we are the best in the world in terms of value for money.

7. America Online (AOL) has 1,000 people in Clark answering 90% of AOL's global e-mail inquiries.

8. PROCTOR & GAMBLE has over 400 people right here in Makati (average age 23 years) doing back-up office work to their Asian operations including finance, accounting, Human Resources and payments processing.

9. Among many other things it does for its regional operations network in the Asia-Pacific region here in Manila , CITIBANK also does its global ATM programming locally.

10. This is the fir st year ever that the Philippines will be exporting cars in quantity courtesy of FORD Philippines. (I have an idea this article was written between 2001 - 2002, so this operation should have been on-going for the last 3 years or so. CYN)

11. The government is shedding off graft and corruption slowly but surely. This is the first time in our history that a former president is in jail and facing charges of plunder. Despite all odds, we are still pursuing the ill-gotten wealth of Marcos now enjoyed by his unrepentant heirs.

Next time you travel abroad and meet business associates tell them the good news. A big part of our problem is perception and one of the biggest battles can be won simply by believing and by making others believe. This message is shared by good citizens of the Philippines who persevere to hope and work for our country.

56,000,000 Filipinos speak, read and write in English even if we have our own national language. Speaking a second language takes a certain kind of unique intelligence.

PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO OTHER FILIPINOS!!!

My name is LEILANI

Since everyone is doing this, I might as well do this:

What Leilani Means

You are relaxed, chill, and very likely to go with the flow. You are light hearted and accepting. You don't get worked up easily. Well adjusted and incredibly happy, many people wonder what your secret to life is. You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone. You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together. At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together. You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing. You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long. You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start. You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection. You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive. You have the classic "Type A" personality. You are very intuitive and wise. You understand the world better than most people. You also have a very active imagination. You often get carried away with your thoughts. You are prone to a little paranoia and jealousy. You sometimes go overboard in interpreting signals.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

Panning

This is already a late post. I actually already posted this in my Multiply account. I have cross-posting activated however, for the reason I don't know, this post did not come through this blogger account.

Another topic in Photography that I'm somehow struggling (you might be wondering what topic I master...well, actually, none. I'm actually a "Jill of all trade, master of none!") is the PANNING.

Practicing panning I can say, can be really fun but somehow also frustrating. There's really no specific technique on how to do it but I can say that you really need PATIENCE in this attempt. Once you master the skills of doing it, you will be able to produce amazing results.

I really love panning shots! It really depicts motion and action. You don't just see still photos -- pictures become moving objects in your naked eye.

As I will quote one of the websites I usually visit: "The basic idea behind panning as a technique is that you pan your camera along in time with the moving subject and end up getting a relatively sharp subject but a blurred background."

As for the outputs of my first attempt, I was very glad that I produced "considered good (for me)" results in my 1st and 3rd shots in a row of continuous shooting. I did not expect that I would be able to produce these shots. We were just walking along Magnificent Mile in N. Michigan Ave and I spotted an oncoming bus. I pulled my camera and began shooting every vehicle... I was then surprised to see these 2 favorites:




Looking at my outputs, I think I need some more tweaking to be done. But so far, I'm pretty satisfied. I have in mind some other interesting subjects to shoot for Panning... let's see... :)

Low light photography

Well, I must admit that I was preoccupied with some other stuff lately that I completely forgot about my hobby. Well I can say that I did not forget it...I was just too lazy to upload outputs.

So, to somehow compensate my absences, here are just some of the shots I got in low light conditions. As bits of information, I still don't have Speedlite (I've been planning to buy one but my attention always gets diverted to some other things to buy) and I'm still struggling in shooting low light conditions. I'm too lazy to bring my tripod...and *pasmado* ako...so, I'm guessing I really don't have future in shooting in night modes. But well, it's not really bad to try it sometimes. Here are just some of my feeble attempts:



NOTES:
Date: December 29, 2007
Location: California Adventure (Disneyland, Los Angeles)

Well, only these are for now... I'm still struggling, as I've said. :(

Are you a real estate agent?

When I was still young (and I'm not saying that I'm too old now in saying that) I can still remember my mother struggling hard in organizing her clients, meetings, trippings, commissions, contacts, etc when it comes to her real estate profession. Yes, my mother had been a real estate agent for at least 5 years. The industry was doing very well at that time (not sure if it's still booming now). When I was still a kid, I can remember that my mother kept on tagging us (with my siblings) along in her trippings. We would reach almost all towns in the southern luzon area. My mother was soo busy then.

She was soo busy dealing and organizing the needs of her clients. Too bad now that she's no longer in the real estate industry, a particular software has emerged to help these real estate agents to organize their itineraries. By using the real estate software in this link real estate software, the agent would be able to organize his contacts, trippings, and other related stuff. He can even create flyers and letters thru the software. And what's also good is that the purchase price of the software is just a one time fee of $149 -- so there's no need to worry about any monthly maintenance fee! What's $149 when you can keep a well-organized records of all your clients and would make your time be maximized by gaining more clients?!?

A bookworm..again

I can still remember that when I was a child and my family would go to a shopping mall, I would just tell my mother to just leave me in the National Bookstore or Goodwill Bookstore while they do their toy shopping with my siblings.

When I was in grade school, I was a big fan of Sweet Valley (all series - Kids, Twins, High, University, Saga, etc), Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Choose your own adventure, Goosebumps and many other pocketbooks. Sometimes, I would also sneak some of my Tita's tagalog pocketbooks (oh yes, remember the novels by Hilda Olvidado? At the age of 6, I already know her...hahaha!). And I can still remember that I would spend all day and night (there were also times that I would just put flashlight on and stay up until 3am just to finish my pocketbook - my father would usually scold me in doing that) reading.

When I reached the mid-high school days, I was diverted to some other hobbies. I stopped from being a bookworm. But I still read...but not as intense as before.

But right now, I was surprised that I'm suddenly coming back to my old senses. I just finished 2 pocketbooks - both in 1 seating. I'm again addicted to bookstores... I am surprised to choose Barnes & Noble and Borders over the other boutiques when we walk into the malls. Randy is also surprised to see me stay up until midnight reading a book. He has never seen me like this before.

Oh god. I'm again a bookworm. Right at this moment. (Raising eyeglasses)

Being a neophyte in web hosting

By professional certification, I am not in anyway related to Information Technology. However, due to emerging financial issues and scandals (those who are also speaking the same language as mine would remember the Enron scandal revealed in late 2001), my profession has become more challenging and now encompass the IT aspect of every business process. This is where my current job comes in - being a Systems Validation Consultant/Auditor.

However, eventhough I am somehow engaged in some IT stuff, I can still say that I'm ZERO when it comes to network and web development. Last year, I started studying/learning some basic facts about web dev't. That is for the purpose of building our wedding website. However, it took me months before learning the full knowledge about these stuff -- so I just decided to build our wedding website using the wedding announcer where it's free and they already have templates. So I stopped learning the web hosting.

However, now, my desire to learn more about web dev't suddenly came back. And I no longer want those "built-in templates" to have. I want to design my own habitat in the cyberspace. I'm planning now to have my own website -- built and designed by me. But for this to come to reality, I need a host to publish my site. For that, I'm currently using web hosting choice to help me choose for the right and affordable host. They have fields available in their site where you can key in your specifics to find the right host for you -- considering your bandwidth and disk space requirements. This function I think would be very helpful for me since I can be flexible on my requirements.

Our 1st anniversary memoir

This is already a late post. Last December 2007, Randy and I went to Universal Studios Hollywood in Los Angeles, CA which we consider as one of our celebrations of our upcoming 1st wedding anniversary. We were really thinking of something that we could have to somehow make us remember of our first year of being together. Something that will not be forgotten or something that will not only collect the dust in the cabinet or be lost in our electronic files (if it happens to be a digital thingy).

We were then enjoying Universal Studios' facilities when we came by this booth with the sign -- AIRBRUSH CARICATURE. We watched as the 2 artists painted/cartoonized a teenage guy and suddenly, TING! We had an idea! We approached one of the artists and asked him how much would it cost if we want a COLORED caricature with the two of us (Randy and I) in one frame. It's somehow too expensive (I can already buy a nice Fossil timepiece with the price) because we need to pay for 2 persons eventhough it will only be using 1 frame, but Randy gave me his green light. Well, as you know, my husband is one of the most thrifty persons I know ... sobraaang kurips! But then, what I like about him, is he's into quality more than quantity... as long as worth naman, why not coconut!

We thought that this would best fit in our soon-to-be bedroom. And we haven't done this before so it's somewhat exciting too. Plus, according to the traditional wedding anniversary gift ideas, for the first year, the gift should be made of PAPER: http://marriage.about.com/cs/anniversaries/a/wedannivideas.htm

So, this somehow fits into that:

Coldest day in the winter season

Today is the coldest day I've ever experienced in my lifetime. Everyone here is dreading for this day since this will be the coldest day in the entire winter season. The forecast for the last few days is high of 4-degree F to low of -0 - degree F. And today, we registered a temp of -1 F!!! When you peep through the window, you will be greeted by very strong rays of sunlight...you would think that this is a perfect day to go out. That's also what we thought.

So, at 10am, we hurried outside and decided to go to the nearest bank (I needed to deposit a check). But as soon as we reach the doorstep, we were surprised to feel a freezing temp...it was real! As we hopped in the car, the temp registered this:

Our hands were almost numb and in just a matter of seconds, we already found ourselves hurrying to the nearest covered area. And here I am, hands and legs are shaking while driving... our heater was already at full blast...

It was mentioned in the news that if you stay outside for more than 15 minutes, you will experience frost bites... ooouuuucccchhhh! So, we decided to stay indoors today... Keep warm, everyone! (Tamang tama anniv namin bukas, hahaha...ano raw! bastus, bastus!)

...another addition in MAC family! Wooohooo!

Early morning today, my boss immediately came to my cube as soon as he arrived. He seems to be soo excited that he'll explode anytime soon. In the office, we are mac buddies...our usual topic is all about Apple products. Plainly because we both fascinate the Apple products and the only difference we have is that he can afford to buy any of those, and me being a "think twice" buyer.

Well, the first words that came out of his mouth was: "Lei! You won't believe this! I'm replacing my mac soon!" And I said, "WHY?!?" Oh well, it seems I was too busy these past few days that I didn't have enough time to visit some sites I usually visit.

Apple just announced last Tuesday the arrival of another addition on its MAC family:


Excerpt from the Apple website:

MacBook Air is ultrathin, ultraportable, and ultra unlike anything else. But you don’t lose inches and pounds overnight. It’s the result of rethinking conventions. Of multiple wireless innovations. And of breakthrough design. With MacBook Air, mobile computing suddenly has a new standard.

We immediately contacted the nearest Apple store and they told us that it is not yet available to any Apple stores. I was somehow disappointed since I was just planning to visit the nearest apple store and play around the new mac. But it's ok...since I'm not really planning to buy this one... I just want to... to... to... to... experience it. That's all. Believe me.

Oh...c'mon, don't laugh. I'm telling the truth... as I always do. Randy, don't laugh at me... I'm not giving my old macbook to you, noh!

Macbook Air

Most livable city?!?

A posted entry in a certain forum caught my attention:

"....by the way I've been doing research and for this year's Employment Review magazine and CNN Money's Best, they rank either Houston or Chicago as the most livable cities in the nation...that's why ang kulit kulit ko magtanong about these cities."

(Raised eyebrow)...with all the snow, negative temperature, strong winds, frequent rains, high cost of living ---

I DEFINITELY DON'T THINK SO!

Actually, all my bags are already packed...I wanna go home to Philippines! :(

Bad credit? Worry no more!

When I was still an Associate Auditor in PwC and was on out-of-town assignment, one of my senior associates told me that she's badly loaded with overdrafts in her credit card accounts so she asked to pay for our OOT expenses (Seniors are assumed to shoulder the OOT expenses). That time, I keep on asking myself why these people cannot control their expenses. Don't they know their credit limits? Don't they keep their own records? Well, I assumed that we all (especially us in PwC) keep our own records...since we're auditors.

When I was promoted to Senior associate, I started having loads of credit cards. At first, I was very hesitant to use them. I'm just too afraid to use them that I might lose control of myself. I was very successful then of controlling my impulse to buy using these cards.

But now, I came to realize that here in US, it is really necessary to use credit cards -- which as they say, is for you to have a credit history. But what if your credit history became too bad?!? Instead of using it in your advantage (to get quick approval for some loans), it now becomes a hindrance for attaining more comfort and benefits in life.

Well, I can proudly say that there was never an instance that I had a bad credit. I really consider CREDIT as one of my fearful things. But come to think of it, if you have a bad credit, who else can trust you?

Of course, there are still some FEW establishments who can trust you and lend you money or offer you housing/personal/auto loans. But as I've said, they are very FEW. And now to help you find these FEW establishments,bad credit loans comes to picture.

Since I just came here in US and have not yet established a credit history and since I need to apply a personal US credit card, I came across this page of credit cards in bad credit offers.com. Using the link, I can choose from several companies which offer loans even you have bad credit or no credit history! Now, they're no longer FEW... because you can now see COUNTLESS establishments who can trust you even with your bad credit by just looking to this site!

Thousand miles

Today marks the 1st month since I received my driving license. As I mentioned before, I'm still using the public transportation. But yesterday, I waited for 1 hour for my cab to arrive. But hell, I was forced to call my leasing agency and asked them to pick me up. So in short, I was forced to rent a car (Here, if you are renting a car, they offer free pick up from anywhere within a defined parameter). So also, starting today, I'm already driving from our place to client's office.

I'm also glad to say that I can now drive at night (with super duper extra caution) and tomorrow I will be driving Randy towards the train station for his 2nd interview in downtown Chicago. I still feel nervous whenever I drive (I just hope it's normal for a new driver). And tomorrow will be the first time to travel alone (once I drop Randy off) and quite pretty far from our hotel.

...I may not have travelled a thousand miles...but I know I've learned a lot from this 1 month experience.

Good marriage -- one click away!

It has never been easy to find a suitable partner that you can spend the rest of your lifetime with. Don't get me wrong...I am happily married and now reaching our 1st year mark! My husband and I were classmates in high school...before we decided to finally tie the knot, I have known everything about him (that's as far as I know at this point...still not so sure though how far my knowledge is about him!hahaha!). It was very easy for me to say "Yes" when we asked me before to get married...I'm somehow confident.

But these days, with all the available dating sites, I can say that anyone can easily find his/her match over the net. But I couldn't help but wonder how can you trust those dating sites? How can you be assured that the person you're meeting actually matches your expectations? How would you know that the dating site is not divulging malicious information about you which they treat as *required* information?

Well, don't fret..I just heard that aside from these dating sites, there's now another site which rates the different dating sites. This way, the single men/women would be able to compare each dating site and help them choose which one is appropriate for their expectations in finding their lifetime partner or maybe just someone who they can share a short-term relationship. Whatever it is, I think <Personals will be able to help these single men/women in their goals.

Eventhough I am already considered ineligible to use this site, I tried looking to test drive its function. Well, I've been hearing about this eHarmony.com being shown on TV commercials. I just usually laugh about it but I didn't know they actually set up couple-matching for those looking for LIFETIME PARTNERS! I didn't know that they actually had many satisfied and now happily married customers! Here's the link where I got this information: eHarmony.com

And I was also delighted that prime dating site also tackled about match.com (they also have several commercials on TV...). From this link match.com, I learned that match.com also offers video introduction and allows its customers to leave voice mails for their contacts (no need for phone number which is really a sensitive information).

Well, with this prime dating site, I can really say that Good marriage is indeed just one click away!

...yet another 13th of the month!

Today marks our 111th month of staying together as bestfriends and lovers -- with who else? Randy. Can you just imagine the length time we've been together now? We're now soon to reach 1 decade ... and now also gearing towards our 1st year anniversary as husband and wife!

I'm just now wondering how the life ahead of us would change.

A baby soon? Hmm... let me sit down for a while and think about it.

I'll let you know. For now,

HAPPY MONTHSARY, HONEY!

*don't mind the term I used..it's something you call "i-still-feel-high-school-so-what" term -- MONTHSARY, that is!

Let there be light -- and there was LED LIGHT!

How could I possibly missing christmas and new year? I feel so sad today. Well, today is a Sunday and here I am enjoying a good book. I spent the whole day finishing a fictional book I just bought last night. 6PM. I'm on the last chapter.

I peeped at the window...and all I can see is a dark and blank space in the backyard. How sad to look at the surroundings. I used to love nights -- but that was just few weeks ago. C'mon. Christmas and New Year's over... which also equates to the fact that there would be no more christmas lights. But who says so?

I think I should now refrain myself from calling it "christmas lights". Because today, with the emerging technology and reduced manufacturing costs, LED lights finally came to the scene -- people can now have decorative lights all year round!

LED stands for Light-emitting diode (Thanks to Wikipedia, by the way!)..but in layman's term LED just means energy-efficient and cost-efficient landscape lighting and outdoor decorative lighting. It's really nice to have a garden filled with lights ..not purely for aesthetical purposes though but also to protect your house from thieves who particularly attack at nights (when all seems to be dark!).

You also would not worry about some lights failing when they get installed distantly from their source transformers -- this is actually not relevant for LED lights.

My husband is currently in the planning process of our soon-to-be built home. And we'll definitely include LED lights since we're planning to have a good landscape plan (with fountains and all!) with it. What's the purpose of having a good landscape when it's not well-lit?!? 101% , we'll refer to low voltage landscape lighting. These articles would definitely help us in making a good plan of our soon-to-be home!

Whateva!

Feeling sad today? Well, you might wanna see this vid I stumbled upon in Youtube. The kid is soo cute! She will make you laugh!

You can see the video here: My Multiply account

I want a new car!

Last month, I posted this entry where I let everyone know that I finally have my driving license! Wooohooo! But believe it or not, I'm still taking public transportation (for most of the times, that is). For the first few days right after I received my D/L, I rented a car which I used for a couple of days. Then I had to stop it because of the expensive rates of renting cars. Don't get me wrong, my company pays for the rental fees, gas, insurance and tax -- anything related to car rental actually. However, it's really a pain in my ass to see my receipt. I usually spend $80/day in renting a car (exclusive of gas) while I just spend $20/day (in total) in taking cabs going to my client. Eventhough it's being paid by my company, I still cannot accept the fact that I'm spending that huge amount for just an 8-mile/day trip. So, what I do now is I just take cabs on weekdays going to my client and just rent a car on weekends -- for our personal trips (fyi, weekend rates are 50% cheaper than weekday rates).

However, just today, I thought of buying a car of my own. But maybe not...because first, if I buy a new car, I will shoulder the monthly amortizations of the car since the car will be under my name (not my company's). Plus the fact that I'm often out of Chicago or Illinois. I won't be making any full use of the car (Randy has no D/L yet).

And so..I thought of just LEASING a new car! Related to this, I stumbled upon this contract hire. Looking at their rates, they absolute offer low leasing rates...plus the fact that they have any car model you can think of. Now you can drive your dream car at low rate. Plus, they also deliver the car you intend to lease right at your front door -- isn't that great?!

I do think that leasing is better than buying a new car -- especially if you don't have enough cash or you just want to be on a safety side by not sticking yourself into 1 car for the next 2 years.