Going out...coming in...

Every exit is an entry somewhere.
- Tom Stoppard

I couldn't agree more with this quote. An end to something, especially when it brings happiness and good into your life, is almost always a never easy thing to accept. However, it is only when we let go of what we are holding onto tightly -- be it in relationships, opportunities and many forms of comfort zones -- and be willing to embrace what is ahead, then and only then can we experience the joy and excitement of new discoveries and beginnings.

Rescue Music Video

One of the things which took a chunk of my time while I was absent from this blog was my active participation in our church's recent concert project. Being a part of the multimedia team, I was tasked with making several videos to be used as background during the acoustic concert performances.

This is one of the videos I made, I created one without audio (as video background to the music team's live performance and saved a music video file I can upload to YouTube and embed here). I find Desperation Band's rendition of this song to be the best and most suited for the video I made. Check it out...

Hope you were blessed with the song's message.

Back On Track

Wow... I soooo missed this blog! I think my recent absence was the longest I've been away. Life's demands and busyness just caught up with me these past few weeks and just had to prioritize those other things. Thanks to everyone who still dropped by despite my absence, I appreciate it guys!

It's good to be back...

Sandbox Wisdom

I really enjoy receiving newsletters from Simple Truths. Besides their site updates, they regularly include in their correspondences beautiful excerpts from books they are currently promoting, so even if you could not secure (just yet) a copy, you could at least get a hindsight of what you can learn from the book currently offered.

Here are some excerpts from the latest book they are promoting, a lot of beautiful insights can be grasped here:

Sandbox Wisdom by Tom Asacker

Sandbox Wisdom revisits our childhood to see what we should strive to rekindle as adults.

Fun, Laughter, and Enthusiasm...We should strive to keep that childlike spirit in our work and our play. When we grow up we take ourselves way too seriously, and sometimes we become a heart attack waiting to happen.

No Limit Thinking...As children we believe that we might become president, a great artist or a great explorer. But as adults we begin to put fences around those dreams.

No Inhibitions...Children speak from the heart, and as adults we should strive to do more of that.

Read People and Situations...Children can see past the trappings of material success and see into the core of people. As we grow older we begin to label people, and as the saying goes, "labeling is disabling."

Creativity and Imagination...A great philosopher once observed, "Genius is childhood recaptured at will." The imagination and creativity we had at five too often begins to fade at fifteen.

Hope you learned something from all these, I sure did today.

Do You Care?

There are just too many things going on inside and outside of our lives, that at times it's difficult to filter which ones we need to care about most and and which ones we should just plainly ignore. Check out this dNneero survey and find out mine and other people's answers to some important (and some absurd) issues raised here...

Watching TV on the Net

Hubby and I purposely have never subscribed to cable TV ever, since we are not really much into "heavy" TV watching anyways. Besides, with the amazing internet technology nowadays, watching your favorite TV program can also be done now through the Net.

Just google "watch TV online" and you'll find many available options already for online TV watching - with a vast array of worldwide channels, I must add. When I'm in the mood for TV, I just normally tune in to the live news telecasts to keep abreast on the local news in the Philippines, the only thing is I just have to adjust to the time difference or watch the recorded ones if I cannot see the live broadcast.

If you are Filipino abroad like myself and would like to watch local Philippine channels on the net or perhaps you'd like to see other channels abroad (BBC, CNN, Discovery Channel, American TV Channels, etc), here are my favorite live TV sites which you can check out (please note that a broadband connection is a pre-requisite)...

ABS-CBN Live! Streaming

GMA Live! Streaming

Studio 23 Live! Streaming

QTV Live! Streaming

International Channels

Enjoy and have a great day!

Dry Spell

Hi, guys! I'm sure a lot of you are wondering -- "What's up with this blog?", "Why aren't there any new posts?"... well, your friendly blogger has been busy (*cough* lazy *cough*) lately.

I guess it's just one of those days commonly called as "blogging dry spell", a critical condition (should I say -- "virus") that attacks a blogger resulting to a slump in writing... LOL! I'm sure all bloggers experience this at one time or another, it's normal especially for those who have been writing for quite some time (am I justifying it too hard?), and a remedial break is all that's needed to do the fix and jump start afresh.

So here I am... back from my blogging slumber, and now ready to get the groove back. Now, where shall I start?

Rare Parrot Flower

The uniqueness and beauty of this rare flower grown in Thailand will literally leave you speechless...



Scientific Name: Impatiens Psittacina
Thai Name: Dork Nok Khaew
Size: Plant grows to app. 6 feet (1.8) meters
Leaf : Broad, sharply pointed, to 2 1/2 inches (6 cm)
Flower size: App. 2 inches (5cm)
Stem thickness: To 1/2 inch (1.5cm)
Bloom season: October/November in Thailand
Growing conditions: Tropical, humid, moist
* This is a protected plant specie which is illegal to export.

See other Wordless Wednesday entries HERE.

Useful Softwares

I have recently joined the multimedia ministry in our church, and it has been a fun and fulfilling experience so far. I have always had a knack for techie stuff and I find pleasure in learning new things especially along the lines of new technology and internet/computer know-hows.

While browsing the Net to look for multimedia resources (I'll save this for another post and share with you very helpful multimedia related links next time), I came across two very useful softwares which you might be interested in downloading (free trial versions, clicking on name will take you to the download page link):

Camtasia Studio
Do you have powerpoint presentations which you would like to convert into a video file without losing the animations? Camstasia does this with its screen capture feature. Anything you play or do on your PC screen - a movie file, photo slideshow, even your internet browsing activity, can be recorded by Camtasia. Cool, huh!

AVS Video Converter
AVS Media has many products but this is the one most helpful for me. This video converter enables you to convert any media file into your desired format, e.g. flv to avi, mpeg to wmv, strip audio from video file and convert to mp3, etc.), and you can even edit the videos before your conversion. I usually download videos I like from YouTube with Firefox's DownloadHelper plug-in and they usually come in flv (flash) video format, with AVS I can easily convert flv to the accepted format required by some media presentation software I use (like Easy Worship for church).

There are many more very handy softwares out there, and in my future posts I'll share and recommend to you my tried and tested ones.

Salads - An Effective Nutrient Booster

Did you know that salads can effectively boost four vital nutrients every person needs?

People across the world are trying to eat healthy, and salads are a big part of that equation.

In a recent issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, a study of more than 9,000 women and 8,000 men found that those who eat salads and raw vegetables have higher intakes and better blood levels of four nutrients: vitamins A and C, folate and the phytochemicals or plant nutrients called carateneoids. These nutrients are tied to reduced risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes.

So, make sure to include salads in your regular food intake.