One of the natural wonders I’ve always appreciated are sunsets especially that I don’t get much opportunities viewing these since I live on the mountains. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t appreciate sunsets, but I guess everybody loves to watch the sun turn red and then go down from the sky and down into the deep sea.

These two places are my most memorable sunsets I’ve witnessed.

• Baguio City: I distinctly remember my early childhood days where the South China Sea can be easily seen on the balcony of my family’s old simple home. I learned later on that not all places in Baguio are able see that awesome sunset from the mountains: only those who live along Naguilian Road that overlooks La Union beaches are able to witness that.
• Nasugbu, Batangas: This is another most memorable sunset I’ve witnessed with a group of friends after enjoying the white beaches. The sunset was breathtaking. I could not remember the exact name of the resort – this all happened more than ten years ago.

  

These two places make it to my wishlist. Read the rest of this entry »

Some group of women took this seriously and tried to pass a bill that requires couples to renew their marriage every ten years! Good thing our lawmakers had enough common sense in their mind to immediately trash this bill down.

The women came up with this bill with the hope to make it easier to get out of failed marriages. Only few people could afford to pay for annulment which, I heard, costs near half a million pesos. Good thing I did not not make that foolish decision to rush into getting married just because I was expecting a kid.

Read the rest of this entry »

I haven’t made up my own set of New Year’s resolution and plans yet. But these resolutions are not just for teens and adults but can also be for older kids. Older kids should also learn how to come up with their list written down on a New Year’s resolution worksheet and stick up to that plan until the end of the year.

I’m off to encourage my kid to make at least one.

When I was still doing paid reviews, I used to be so conscious with my Google Pagerank (PR), so much to the point that I get to check my pagerank almost everyday. I’m still checking my PR only when I learned from other people that there’s a PR update but I don’t make such a big deal on this. I’m prefer ranking well using hot keyword posts than earning high PR. But PR still somehow matters, especially now that one of my blogs is indeed NOT performing well in Google.

Another pagerank update happened before the year ends and people are either happy or sad about this.

This blog, The Single Parent Talks seemed to be fixed at PR2 rank – it has been this way for several months now. I’ve been doing reviews but miraculously, I’m still still stuck at that even if the Alexa ranking is way below 1M.

The Lady Programmer (my main blog) rose up from PR0 penalty to PR2. The highest pagerank it got was PR3 before it got penalized due to paid posts.

The Lady Programmer Lab (maintenance blog) is down from previous PR3 to PR2. I got PR3 with only less than 8 posts. Now that I’m linking out from that blog using “followed links”, I understand why its PR was reduced.

News Break Daily – still at grey PR (PR N/A). The highest pagerank it got is at PR0. I’m having trouble getting this blog indexed even if I had submitted posts to social networks and linked this one to my good blogs. Google Webmaster Tools tells nothing more about why this blog is not doing well. I might try switching the subdomain from “blog” to “www” then wait and see the result.

TakawTingin.com – an upcoming food (and maybe travel) blog, rose up from PR N/A to PR 0. I bought the domain and have some posts and image ready but I don’t have time yet to setup that blog.

Interestingly, my Twitter profile is now at PR5. Even my Plurk account is awarded PR1.

Last year, my non-existent but oldest WordPress.com blog gained PR4 – and I really don’t know why except that autoblogs had been always wanting to get the excerpts and link up to my blog.

This is the tool I used to check the page rank of your website/blog right now.

If you lost your Google Pagerank, then this article might help you understand the reason/s why.

This is one of my all-time favorite songs. I could not embed the original one posted in YouTube so I hope this other version with scenes from the Gossip Girl would do.

To all men out there looking for love: this song has all the advice on how to love a woman.

Christmas songs are playing continuously on my computer from some online radio. The chilly weather here in my place is also noticeable. Some people have started lighting up their fireworks early 8PM.

Here in the Philippines, Christmas Eve in populated places usually keeps people awake. Usually people held parties with their families and even neighbors. There are usually singing in the karaoke, drinking sprees, lots of food served on the table and loud music.

Baguio’s celebration of Christmas is quite lonely if you don’t have visitors. People usually don’t go out – probably because it’s really cold and chilly outside the home – so it isn’t fiesta here. Many would opt to go down to lowlands since it’s more festive and warm. People who stayed here would often decide to sleep through the midnight due to the cold sleepy weather.

Around this time marks my second year of blogging. I don’t know the exact date when I started, and the internet wayback machine (a site that keeps records of old websites) turned out nothing. I distinctly remembered that I wrote my personal thoughts on the web anytime around the Christmas holidays.

I am thankful that my parents are in good health (except for my Dad’s blurry vision due to macular degeneration and a gout that he had managed using only Apple Cider vinegar to treat it), and I am able to even spend more time with my kid. I began to reconnect to old friends, which is actually a must for me since I don’t have much contact to the real world since the time I worked from home.

I’m beginning to have more time for my kid too. I began attending school affairs and I often found myself taking her out from school during dismissal. She’s now trying to view Santa’s journey throughout the world through the NORAD Santa Tracker which can be viewed here.

As for love, it’s still something that is still elusive and out of reach. I think less of that right now because my kid keeps me busy.

Finally, I moved this blog from Blogger to self-hosted WordPress. I’m not done yet with all of this migration. As you will see, the widgets seemed missing and the image just below the navigation bar doesn’t follow the width of the blog design.

Well, it’s just about time for me to make the move, because I’m already paying for my own webhost. This blog sits on Bluehost.

I’ll be updating this post later after that I had completed this.

Child's Angel

Remember when I shared my thoughts over social networks that I felt deeply sad for a friend who lost his daughter on one of the landslides brought by Typhoon Pepeng? My friend changed his Facebook profile picture and I noticed, so I found myself visiting his profile on that in the hope that I could leave some words of comfort.

However, I was surprised at the letter that accompanied the picture.

My Dearest Yana,

Do you have facebook in heaven? Maybe God plays Angelville that’s why you’re no longer with Dad. God harvested you because you have done so much good and matured a lot earlier. I do miss you a lot, maybe you can read this and then tell me that you are alright, or better yet, drop me a line will you? Invite me as your neighbor, anyway I know I am not ready to be with you yet. I still have Mommy and your sisters to take care of. It won’t be an easy job without you, but somehow I know I will manage. Because you are there watching and guiding me to do good…

How is it that God needs you more than I?……
I guess I will never know.

I do cry a lot and I try to hide it, but you can see me right? You’ve made dad very sad. But I know it’s not your intention. I feel that you miss me too, you miss your mommy, ate Yami and Yael. There are reasons why you’re not here anymore. I just hope I have the strength and courage to wait for those answers. You are so brave, I want to be brave like you, but to be brave, it means I have to let go…

Daddy wants to be brave, so I am letting go and accept that I won’t see you in this lifetime again.
But it’s not easy…but I have to. I have to believe that everything is alright.
I have to believe that we will be alright. I just want to believe that life is still good after you’ve left us and the pain of missing you will make daddy and mommy strong.
I want to have faith in everything…

So Daddy can let go…
Please do take care of yourself, I was not there when you needed me most and I am so sorry. I am still in so much pain from that thought. I wish could have done something. If only daddy went home early. I am really sorry. I just wanted the best for you, I know you understand that.

I will miss the times that you’ve been very patient with me, understanding my faults and seeing through my insecurities. Loving you and to be loved by you is one of the best things that ever happened to dad and losing you is my greatest hurt…

I love you Yana, so much. You are now daddy’s angel. Be with me always.

Love,
Your Dad
xxx

P.S.
To God,
Please do take care of my baby Yana. She’s a very special kid. She too will take care of you just as she took care of me. I am quite jealous of you now, her embraces and kisses will be yours to keep but only mine to remember and long for. She likes listening to stories, please tell her how great a child she is to me. That she is her mommy’s sunshine, ate Yami’s pride and Yael’s miracle. Tell her that we love her so dearly. Tell her things I could not. Show her the love that I wasn’t able to give. Tell her I miss her…

with permission from R. Dulay

I gave in to my kid’s wishes. We went out yesterday. I started teaching her how to ride a bicycle on our own Baguio’s own Burnham park. A rather old skill to learn for a nine-year old kid, I think.

She used to ride those bikes with training wheels. Based on my own experience, I told her that training wheels aren’t much use in learning how to balance. I managed to convince her to learn with my help.

I learned how to ride a bicycle in my early years on my own. I was twelve and about to graduate from grade school. One of my classmates was willing to lend me a bike because her relatives own a biking stall. I was practiced everyday. I distinctly remember that I mastered how to bike in seven days.

I guided my kid by running along with her as she struggles to balance with the movement of the bike. Sometimes I would suddenly remove my hands so that she could try to pedal and balance all by herself. I kept on encouraging her that she could do it.

She was so happy learning this new skill. I was so happy to be teaching her this stuff. She asked me if I we could do this again on the next weekend. I couldn’t disagree.

The teaching experience was so symbolic. As my kid grows up and faces life, I will have to let go of my hand to let her learn from small mistakes. Each time I let go, I should offer my body and my hand to support her for her failures. I should be happy and proud of her when she finally reaches success.

I hope she’ll still be happy to learn things with me.

I guess this is one happy memory she will remember about me when she gets older.

UPDATED: These pictures are not for the faint of heart – click here.

As I went on a “social network hiatus” (if there is such a thing) last week, the most depressing news that the Philippines (and the world) had known is the gruesome death of more than fifty people in the Maguindanao massacre (or appropriately Ampatuan massacre). They were mostly women, with one of them pregnant. Many of the victims were shot on the face to make them unrecognizable and even others were even shot in the genital area. They were traveling in a convoy before some armed men blocked them along the highway.

I felt so sad about that news that I really wanted to curse and get mad at the people who did this, even if I may not have blood-relatives to that incident. I think, this is far worse than what the known Mindanao rebels in the area do to their captives (the rebels usually kept their captives, ask ransom demands from the government and then usually released later)!

As the investigations unfolded, the death was purely election-related violence. The Ampatuans and Mangdadatus were always bitter enemies for sometime. It turned out that the Ampatuans wanted to make sure that they are still elected into power by eliminating the Mangdadatu family through that mass murder.

Vice Mayor Ismael Mangdadatu lost his wife and several other family members. He was not in the convoy that day due to death threats. He sent female family members to file certificate of candidacy on his behalf with that belief that women are far from being harmed.

The journalists and lawyers who accompanied with the convoy were not spared from death. There were even later reports that were even some civilians who were not with the convoy but were included in the killings.

Apparently, the original plan was to bury everyone after being killed on big dug-up holes on the mountainside. One of the news vehicles was crushed – in it were four journalist who met their death that way.

Andal Ampatuan Jr., the suspect behind the killings, is behind bars awaiting trial. Witnesses are now speaking up and are ready to speak up.

I am sure that this is not the only place where political greed happens. Our government had thrived on corruption and violence for many decades. We had rich politicians living amongst the poor.We had rebels in living in our midst.

With the international community condemning the news, the pressure to find the killers is on the government. But this massacre is just one media sensation – how are about the other election-related deaths that didn’t get a huge media buzz?