Posted by Sander in Weather | 0 Comments

House repairs

Just a week before Pedring hit us, I hired a carpenter to fix up portions of our roof and wall. And looks like I made the right decision. Had I not done that, those parts would have probably flown along with the strong winds of Pedring.

I wanted to postpone small repairs because of the upcoming house renovation, but I decided to get the house ready for possible typhoons and bad weather. Now I am glad I did.

Other parts of our country was not so lucky, they were hit really bad, some local governement had to resort to equipment lease because their own equipments were badly damaged by Pedring and the flooding that came with it.

Lesson learned: It pays to be prepared.

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Posted by Sander in Government, Weather | 0 Comments

Falling billboard hits vehicles – Typhoon Nesat / Pedring

Earlier a billboard fell on 2 cars and a public utility bus. This has been a recurring occurrence that could have easily been avoided. Sadly our supreme court has recently stopped the government agency that is tasked to demolish improper billboards due to technicality. It’s sad when the keepers of justice is blinded by money, not seeing the possible dangerous implications of their decisions. Maybe they should put up giant billboards in front of the houses of the justices and personnel that was responsible in stopping the demolition of poorly built billboards. Lets see if they don’t complain about their safety. Really pathetic. -_-

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Posted by Sander in Cars, Hobbies | 0 Comments

Real Racing 2 HD

We have been enjoying the game Real Racing 2 HD for quite some time now.   Although it is a pretty straightforward game, it has a lot of depth and the game can be hard if you choose to disable the computer assisted breaks.   If you have an iPad 2 and you want to see how powerful the iPad2′s graphics engine is, then this is the game for you.

Some basic tips in playing the game:

- Adjust the AI assisted break to your preference, remember that the higher you set it, the slower you drive going into corners.  If you can, disable the AI assisted breaks and strategize your own usage of the break pedal

- Save money, and plan your purchases of updates and cars.   Since races in this game is balanced, it means that you can’t use powerful cars in some low level races.  You have to check the power requirements of the next races that you have to win and purchase the right car or upgrade for it.

- Do multiple small quick turns so that your speed does not go down too much.  If you do full turns, you will notice that you’re speed is reduced.

- Avoid bumping into other racers, although you won’t need collision estimating because cars in the game are not affected much by collisions, it will still slow you down on the moment of impact.

Just follow the tips and you will enjoy the game. If you have other tips or you think there is something a-miss do let me know.

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Posted by Sander in Blogging, Finance, Internet | 0 Comments

Make money at home by blogging

I make money at home by blogging.

It all started when we were looking for additional income.  I was working as a middle manager before but we were looking for something new.   My wife has has been interested in blogging from the get go but we did not know that we can earn money through blogging.

We tried data encoding, captcha decoding, pay per  click and other oddball online ways to earn money.   What really helped us though was when my wife got a work at home Transcriber job.   In between all these, my wife and I have been maintaining our blogs and have been getting more information about earning money through blogging.

And now, my wife has long since resigned from the Transcription job, and has focused full time on blogging.  She is earning much more than her income at the Transcription job while at the same time spends less time and effort.   Her income even  surpassed mine a number of times, which brought the two of us to decide to focus on blogging and other internet opportunities.

I have also resigned now and started working at home as a Web Content Producer.  It’s a nice change of pace and my family has gotten stronger and closer because we spend more time at home.  I still spend my spare time making money by blogging and plan to do so until I have too much money to spare.

Now our goal is to help other bloggers to see this opportunity as well.  You can make money blogging.  You can do so in a variety of ways: by getting advertisers, partners, sell products, get links and many more.  So if you are interested in making money via blogging, you can leave a comment or question with your e-mail address  on this post and I’ll get back to you with helpful replies.  I’ll be setting up a newsletter soon so do keep checking my site for updates.

 

Here is a glimpse at our current gear, I use these to play, socialize, make music and best of all earn money.  

 

This blog post is an example of making money through blogging.  I am participating in a blogger campaign by Bucks2Blog and was compensated.  I shared our short story to help and at the same time gained benefits.  Isn’t that nice?

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Posted by Sander in Featured Posts, Technology | 1 Comment

HP Pavillion G4 vs Macbook Pro

It’s been more than a month since I bought my HP Pavillion G4 and I have to say that I am satisfied with it’s performance. Although severely overshadowed by the quality of my wife’s MacBook Pro, my HP Pavillion G4 has better specs and compatibility.

Here are the specs of my HP Pavillion G4 vs my Wife’s MacBook Pro:

If you look at the specifications, my HP has the upper hand.  I have very quick boot up and shutdown time, I can play 3D games, I can instantly connect to Projectors and LCD/LED TVs without the need for adapters and I can use basic headsets with mic.  These are things I won’t be able to do with the MacBook Pro – well  not without shelling out dough for adapters.

However my wife’s Macbook Pro dominates in real world matters.  The Macboook Pro has a very sturdy design, while my HP feels “plasticky” and fragile.   The LCD display looks better on the Macbook Pro than on my HP.   The keyboard of the Macbook Pro looks and feels better than my HP, it also has a keyboard backlight feature that’s not found on my laptop.   The touch pad of the Macbook Pro is glass, very smooth and inviting to use, while on my HP, although it’s not as bad as the ASUS 1215b touch pad, it simply pales in comparison to the glass touch pad of the Macbook Pro.

Last and most important of all, the Macbook Pro beats my HP in terms of style and brand.  There’s just something about Apple that gives it a high quality look.

Even with all that, I am still a happy camper.  Since I am a gamer, I can never imagine myself having an expensive laptop that I can’t play games on.  I might cross over and bite the Apple in the future but for now, I am very much happy with my HP Pavillion G4, even my son approves

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Posted by Sander in Food | 0 Comments

Tuscani from Pizza Hut

Just got this news from Pizza Hut, they now have this “Tuscani” available. It is a new crust style from Pizza Hut, that as the advertisement says – is soft on the inside and crunchy on the outside. There are five flavors to choose from: Supremo, Premium All Meat, Gourmet BBQ Chicken, 3-Cheese Bacon & Spinach, and Roast Beef. And it is only available in Medium (10″) and Family (12″). I wanted to try it today but it was only available for dine in orders.

Next time we go to a mall, my wife and I agreed to try it out and to write about it as well. Since Pizza Hut has WiFi, I can browse around www.wholesaleinsurance.net while enjoying this new pizza. Hopefully the Tuscani is as good as the picture suggests.

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Posted by Sander in Events and Holidays, Family Moments | 0 Comments

Christmas season

The Philippines have a very long Christmas season.  It starts with the first month that ends with “ber”, and that is no other than September. Having grown up in Manila, I get surprised and flooded by a mix of emotions and memories whenever a Christmas tune suddenly plays at a mall or on the radio on September 1st. September is still quite a hot month, although it is rainy. Christmas chill will kick in around late November, and that is the time when people start turnign on their infrared heater for warmth. But the most soothing Christmas warmth of all comes from the love that is given from God and from our families.

This Christmas will be quite different because of the new addition to our family.  He will be one years old on Christmas and will already be able to appreciate the season with all the love, colors, songs and gifts that it brings. I hope that my sons will not only remember the season, but instead remember the REASON for the Christmas season. Jesus Christ

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Posted by Sander in Daddy Essentials | 0 Comments

Dad’s Vanity

Being a working father, time is really of the essence, every task has to be done within a specific time frame or else my other tasks will suffer. With this strict schedule, somehow I find it hard to find spare time and energy for vanity, let alone long beauty regimens.

But Dads also deserve to look good and feel good. So what I normally do for that is go to the nearest spa for cleansing and massage. However if you truly want to look good you have to go to beauty experts. This is where a good Cosmetology school comes in. We want experts to handle our car maintenance – so why not have beauty experts handle our physical maintenance?

One such example is the Regency Beauty School. From what I have read, they started 50 years ago and now they have 80 campuses all over the United States. This is a sure sign that people do understand that vanity and beauty is an important necessity that requires expertly trained professionals. I will definitely feel secure if the person that will handle my next facial will come from Regency.

This blog post was based on information provided by Blogitive. For more information, please visit Blogitive.com or contact Regency Beauty Institute – 7100 Northland Circle, Suite 312 – Brooklyn Park, MN 55428

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Posted by Sander in Health | 0 Comments

How to avoid Razor Bumps?

One of the many disadvantages of growing up away from my father in an age where the internet is still at it’s infancy, is that no one taught me how to properly shave. So now that I am a father myself, I want to make sure that I give out this important and overlooked instruction to my son. I have done my un-scientific research through painful trial and error, really “bloody” errors, and I intend to help my son avoid these mistakes.

My son is still too young, but I have already written down the steps for his future use, and I am posting it here as a reminder to other Dads, that it is our duty to help our son avoid Razor Bumps, and to achieve clean and perfect shaves. If you feel I missed something important about shaving, or that this post was enlightening, do hit the comments.

Perfect Shave Tips:

- Prepare your tools, make sure you have a clean, relatively new razor (non-electric), shaving cream and aftershave.
- Better to do the shaving after a nice, preferably warm bath. It helps soften up your beard or mustache.
- Next step is to feel your beard / mustache and know where the hair growth direction is. Typically for the mustache, the direction is from the nose towards the cheek. The common hair growth direction for the beard is from the mouth going down the neck.
- Visualize how you want the shave result to look, know if you need to avoid certain areas.
- Remember to use the razor along the direction of the handle when shaving, never swing your razor from side to side, as it will obviously bloody cut.
- Apply the shaving cream, then shave your facial hair going with the direction of hair growth.
- After the initial shaving, you can then do a perpendicular shave (i.e. when your first shave is from up to down, the next shave will be from side to side). Just remember NOT to go against the grain to avoid those pesky Razor Bumps. Repeat until preferred smoothness is achieved.
- After careful shaving, wash your face gently and finally apply the after shave (which might sting a little if you were not careful with shaving), it reduces the chances of infection on the cuts and bruises along the shaved area.

Hope my son will get less Razor bruises when it’s his turn to shave, and hope that this quick post will help other too.

Note: I am participating in a blogger campaign by Bucks2Blog which explains the link. However, the views and opinions are entirely my own, and I sincerely hope that with these quick information my son will get less Razor bruises when it’s his turn to shave.

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Posted by Sander in Finance, Technology | 0 Comments

Asus 1215b Touchpad – Update

The nightmare is finally about to end. After more than a month of waiting and wasting time, money and resources going to and from the stupid Premium PC Depot at Gilmore, finally they decided to give us the refund. Not without further hassles though. I paid them cash straight out, while they refund me with a check that is not convertible to cash… I just didn’t want to further deal with them anymore so I took it and left. Hopefully this check will not bounce and we can move on with our lives.

Funny Information: The manager mentioned that Asus has issued a recall for all their Asus 1215b. But I seriously doubt that – because the next store has the same problematic netbook for sale.

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Posted by Sander in Anything Under the Sun, House & Home | 1 Comment

Growing flowers at home

One thing that I want to see in our new house next year are home grown flowers. So I have been doing a bit of research on how to start growing flowers at home. Here are some basic initial steps:

1. Make sure that you have the basic garden tools
2. Make sure the soil is in great condition before planting
3. Don’t immediately go for your favorite flowers, start with easy growing flowers like Annuals.
4. When buying flower plants, group them according to their shade and sun requirements.
5. Get a variety of flowers and make sure they have the right amount of sunlight.

These are just some basic steps that my family will soon adopt and hopefully we will get to have some great looking flowers. It won’t be as nice as the ProFlowers located in San Diego, but it will do a lot in uplifting the atmosphere of our new home. Hope the little tip helped!

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Posted by Sander in Finance, Technology | 2 Comments

Refund

Finally, after a month of keeping my money, someone from Asus Customer service has approved the refund of their defective 1215b Netbook. Even if it took them a month, they finally did the right thing. So a word of warning, if you encounter any ASUS notebooks – make sure you test all of it’s functionalities, especially the touch pads as I have read that this is a common defect on most ASUS netbooks. I certainly do not want anyone to have to go through the same ordeal. To be fair, Asus seems to have better priced laptops – and I have been an Asus motherboard user before so you may still get some good ones, but as for me, this is the last time I am dealing with them, unless they send me one of their high end laptops to compensate for the frustration, time and resources wasted.

And if you ever get to a Premium PC Depot store and their offer is too good to refuse, make sure you test every nook and cranny of the item your buying. They are nice sellers, but bad at customer service after sales – spare yourself the trouble of having to deal with management that does not care about their customers. I had to contact ASUS directly to get the touchpad issue fixed when they should be the ones to expedite the resolution – because they were the ones that sold me the defective netbook in the first plaace!

Anyway when we get the refund, we can put all of this aside and finally wear some funny tshirts, and just charge this crazy purchase and customer service… to experience.

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