Off to La Union, Philippines

This will be my last post for 2008 as I will be off to La Union to visit my hometown. This will be my first visit again to La Union after settling in Manila and more than 10 years of living overseas. I'm quite excited as I expect to experience living in the barrio again just like when I was growing up. Likewise, be able to see my friends back in high school and college.



La Union is located in the southwestern part of Luzon It is bounded on the north by Ilocos Sur, on the south by Pangasinan, on the east by Benguet, and on the west by the China Sea. La Union is fast becoming a favorite among local and foreign tourist especially for surfing enthusiast as it is dub as the "Surfing Capital of the North" as well as " The Pilgrimage Capital of the North". The stretch of white and gray sand beaches along the towns of La Union is the main attraction to tourists. Beaches to check out are Bauang Beach, San Juan Beach, Agoo-Damortis National Seashore Park, Agoo,Caba and White Sand. while in La union you can also enjoy its historic landmarks, cultural and man made attractions.


Well, I better get ready for our trip to La Union.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year !!!

A great education site for teens

My nephew who is currently a 2nd year high school student would always ask me about his Algebra subject. Though I can still recall my Algebra, I must admit that I have forgotten a lot of things with regards to Algebra. Luckily, I was given an opportunity to review Brightstorm, an online education site that has great courses for high school students. I thought that online education such as Brightstorm is a good alternative for my nephew to increase his learning options.

Brightstorm offer online courses in Geometry, Algebra II, SAT Reading, Writing and Math, and AP History or Government . And since my nephew had asked me questions about Algebra, I choose Algebra II from the list of courses being offered. Hopefully this course would help him a lot in learning Algebra.

The first step was to Sign up for a free brightstorm acocuntwhich will give you access to a free episode in every course Second step was to purchase the $49 Algebra II course as taught by Joshuah Thurbee. After confirmation of our order, we were then given a link to launch the course.

Algebra II consists of several video modules such as :
i. Introduction
ii. Algebra Boot Camp – Solving linear equations and inequalities, arithmetic sequences
iii. Boot Camp Graphing - Graphing linear equations and inequalities
iv. Absolute Boot Camp - Solving and graphing absolute value equations and inequalities
v. Systems Boot Camp - Solving and graphing systems of equations
vi. What Is the Matrix - Matrix operations, solving systems with matrices
vii. What’s Your Function - Function notation, domain, and range
viii. Top Secret! - Composition and inverses of functions
ix. The X Factor - Solving quadratic functions by factoring and completing the square
x. Rooting for Quadratics - Solving quadratics using square roots and the quadratic formula
xi. Out On Limb - Simplifying and Solving Rational Equations
xii. Equations Are Radical - Solving radical equations
xiii. The Josh Curve - Exponential growth and decay
xiv. Let’s Get Explicit - Geometric sequences
xv. Getting to Second Base – Logarithms
xvi. All In The Family - Circles, parabolas
xvii. Let’s Get Hyper! - Hyperbolas, ellipses

I honestly don’t know how valuable this course will be for my nephew, but judging from the course content, the course we have chosen had covered a lot of the advanced topics in Algebra.

All Brightstorm courses are accessible 7/24 for a year starting from the subscription date and with a 30-day guarantee period for customers who are not completely satisfied.

My conclusion is that Brightstorm offers an excellent option for you to consider helping your teenage son or daughter get to deepen their understanding of their high school subjects and a good way for them to prepare for college.

Ladder Safety

Here are a few ladder do's and don'ts:

· DO position extension ladders correctly. For stability, a ladder has to be planted with its feet one-quarter of its extended length away from the house. This is not as tricky to calculate as it sounds: If it's a 12-foot ladder, that means it has to be positioned 3 feet from the house. For a 16-foot ladder, make it 4 feet. There is also a sticker on the side of ladders that illustrates the angle that the ladder should be placed. It looks like a capital "L," with the bottom of the "L" parallel to the ground.

· DON'T carry an extension ladder upright as you move it. This is a maneuver best saved for the clowns at the circus. You could easily lose control of it in this position, smashing windows and gutters along the way, and knocking into power lines. Instead, lower it and carry it parallel to the ground.

· DO make sure the ladder is positioned on a level surface. DON'T try to use rocks or bricks to prop up one side of it, figure these will fail just as soon as you reach the top.

· DON'T ever work on ladders alone. A helper can keep you from making stupid mistakes, such as having the ladder fall down while you're stuck up alone on the roof .

If there's one guiding principle with respect to ladders, it's this: If you feel squeamish, don't go up. Period.

Got A Wish ?

This Christmas, what gift do you plan to give to your parents who are living overseas? Well, why not try to give them something different and cool this Christmas by giving them a CEIVA Digital Photo Frame together with a Picture plan? Yes, it’s a super cool digital photo frame with an 8" hi-definition display like no other. Just plug the CEIVA Photo frame to an existing phone line and your family members or friends anywhere in the world could send photos directly to the frame. And if you order right now, you could have $100 off the regular price.

By the way, if you check out the page for the CEIVA Digital Photo Frame, you might notice that they have a CEIVA "got a wish" SWEEPSTAKES. With no purchase necessary to enter the contest, this Sweepstakes is open to any individual who is 18 years of age or older and is a legal US resident. Just go to the sweepstakes site www.SitonSantasLap.com, upload your digital photograph, provide all requested information, and then click the "Submit" button to transmit your entry to the sweepstake. There is a $500 cash prize for each randomly picked winner!

So why not check out this contest and the cool CEIVA Digital Photo Frame today!

Checklist in Childproofing Your Home

Every parent begin to worry about his/her child health and safety the moment their first child is born. The normal, active, physically healthy child will occasionally have some cuts and bruises.
What can you do then to control the impact of many injuries ? Childproofing your home should begin prior to your child learning to crawl because once he/she becomes mobile, you are faced with an ever-increasing, intensely curious whirlwind of activity. Inspect your home while you have the time to do it thoroughly.
Childproofing does not mean moving breakables to higher shelves. It means locking, securing, relocating or removing anything that may pose a potential danger to a child.

Here’s some checklist as a starting point for childproofing your home.
· Install covers over all electrical outlets.
· Install smoke alarms on all levels of your home.
· Place gates at stairways-top and bottom.
· Lift blind and drapery cords out of the reach of children.
· Use specially designed door stops and knobs that prevent children from opening forbidden doors.
· Turn down your water heater thermostat to between 120 degrees and 125 degrees to prevent scalding young skin.
· Install "child-resistant" locks on all cabinets within the child's reach. Remember, what is child resistant to most children may not be to yours, so don't assume that with the locks in place your child is safe.
· Remove all cleaning fluids and agents from lower storage areas.
· Keep all medications, including topical ointments such as insect repellents, inside a cabinet that is locked with a key. And place the key where the child cannot reach it.
· Keep all electrical and phone cords bundled and out of reach.
· Never leave a small child alone in the bathtub for even "just a second."
· Many houseplants are toxic. Find out which ones are and, if you have any of them, remove them from your home.
· Make sure that any potentially dangerous items are stored out of reach and/or locked up.

In addition-
· Place the number of the nearest clinic, hospital near your phone. Include with it your child's weight, allergies and any special medical conditions so you won't have to remember these when in a panic. It will also be available there for a babysitter or visiting relative.
· Have a first aid kit and know what to do with its contents.

Remember, childproofing is not a 100 percent guarantee that your child will be safe from injury. It is not a babysitter. Parents must still be vigilant. At best, childproofing slows down the curious young child.

You Need A Budget Software

A lot of people today are worried especially of the recent recession. In this economic hardship times, we really need guidance on how to budget and manage our money properly.

While surfing through the net, I came across You Need A Budget (YNAB) Pro software that is a personal budgeting program. Using the budget software provides a system for planning and executing short term and long term budgeting goals much more effectively. It will help you budget your money wisely in order to save a certain amount of money monthly until you would be able to save a full month worth of your expenses. Your savings could now serve as your buffer.

The YNAB Methodology uses four rules of cash flow management:
1. Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck - This refers to having to save enough money to live on last month’s salary.

2. Give Every Dollar a Job - You allocate all your funds that you have Available to your spending/saving categories until there are no more available dollars.

3. Prepare for Rain - This YNAB rule will help you allocate funds for emergencies or unexpected repairs. By allocating funds to these types of budget categories, you will avoid panic when these events occur.

4. Roll with the Punches - Using even with the best budget software available in the market, you can sometimes overspend in a Budget Category, YNAB will make small adjustments with that overspending, ensuring that you fix those mistakes before you go on to the next month.

Robot made of scrap materials

Mr Wu Yulu, A 46 year old Chinese farmer with very little education has built 26 robots made from scrap materials over the past 30 years.

His first robot could only shuffle along as it could not raise its legs. Over time, his designs became more complex and his creations are now capable of scaling walls, serving water, lighting cigarettes, playing musical instruments and writing calligraphy!



source : Weird Asia News

I just signed up with PayingPost

Yesterday, I have signed up with PayingPost and just now I received an email from PayingPost that my blog Reference Notes had been reviewed and was approved. This means that I could now browse the open opportunities and if my blog had passed the advertisers requirements, I can reserve those opportunities.

For bloggers like me, this is another way of earning some money through blogging or sponsored postings. The opportunities are vast at PayingPost too. If you have the ability to write, or you love writing articles, then why not consider joining PayingPost too. This way, you are doing what you love by writing articles and likewise you get paid to post. My colleagues who had been blogging have found out that they can turn their blogging into a profitable enterprise. They have been very thankful that I have introduced paid reviews to them. Even stays at home moms have now use blogging as their secondary or extra source of income.



Reviewing products is another great way that you as a blogger can make money. Many companies are willing to sponsor a blog or to hire a blogger to review their current or upcoming products and services. Some companies advertise this need on their website, but most choose to go through various blogging services like PayingPost.com which allow bloggers to pick and choose which products they care to review and then receive payment after developing a good blog post. PayingPost offers this opportunity to you when you sign up with them.

You see, getting opportunities at PayingPost is quite simple too. Just grab some opportunities that are open, write your honest opinion, post it in your blog and wait for your post to get approved.

By joining PayingPost.com also helps in building traffic to your site as you would be able to write a variety of articles. So why not visit PayingPost now and sign up.

For more information, you could also visit PayingPost blog.

Apples - Geek Fruit ?

An owner of a Fuji apple orchard printed up custom stickers of iPods and the Apple logo. He then put the stickers on his Fuji apples while they were still young and on the trees.




A month later after the apples had matured, he removed the stickers.



As you can see the lack of sun reaching the apple cause them to keep the stickers original design.



No word as to what was done with the box of Geek Apples, but they did say they were quite delicious.



Source : Weird Asia News

Personalized Holiday Gift

With the holiday season fast approaching; a lot of people are busy shopping for their gifts to their love ones. Shopping for the coolest gifts is not that easy and deciding on the kind of gift to give would really give someone a hard time to decide. Luckily, with the availability of internet, you could do your shopping online without the hassle of crowded shopping malls.

Talking of online shopping, I have stumbled upon Pexagontech.com website which offers great personalized holiday gift ideas. What's great about Pexagon is that from now until the end of the year, Pexagon is offering 20% off 4 awesome personalized holiday gift ideas!

Pexagon have personalized thumb drives that you can buy for as low as $7.99 after discount. These thumb drives are available in 14 colors and up to 16GB in capacity. Since it’s a personalized gift, it comes with FREE custom laser engraving. You could choose from 32 exciting themes such as "#1 Teacher" or "Happy Holidays" and also choose to engrave two lines of personalized text on the reverse side. They also have personalized pens for as low as $1.59 after discount. These pens come in 3 unique styles, multiple colors and a free line of personalized laser engraved text! For the environmentally friendly gifts, they have the wooden flash drives. And if you are looking for a simple but elegant gift for your business associates, you can choose the Business Card Flash Drives that looks like a business card. The back side of this card hides a small USB cable (with huge 2GB capacity) and the front side can be engraved for free with 3 lines of personalization text, for as low as $15.99 after discount.



So hurry, visit Pexagontech.com now to choose your personalized holiday gifts. Remember the 20% off is valid from now until the end of the year only.

Gremlin creature ?

Have you seen Gremlims movie ? Well, the Gremlins are those little furry creatures that if you get them wet, they multiply and if you feed them after midnight, they turn pretty evil.






Getting them wet (to multiply) and feeding them (to get pretty nasty) maybe fictitious, but apparently,a Gremlin, mouse-sized primate called a Pygmy Tarsier, has been found alive for the first time in 85 years. These creatures were last seen in 1921 and were thought to be extinct until this recent discovery.




These little Gremlins weigh about 2 ounces, have large eyes, claws instead of fingernails, and are covered in fur to keep warm in the damp and cool environment and were found hiding in the mountaintops of a cloud forest in Indonesia, .



We only hope that nobody will feed these little creatures after midnight.

Source : Weird Asia News

Need Quality Prescription Eyeglasses ?

As I was surfing the net last night, I stumble upon a website where you could order your stylish and quality eyeglasses. The site I am refering to is optical4less.com.

Browsing through Optical4less site, you will be surprise at the amazing deals on high quality prescription eyeglasses for as low as 15 dollars. Not only that, you could choose from the huge selection of their popular optical products. Whether your eyeglasses requirement is for distance, bifocal reading glasses, with single vision lenses, tinted sunglasses, or progressive reading eyeglasses ,Optical4less got all these at a very low price.

Likewise, shopping at Optical4less website was quite exciting as you could use the site's virtual try-on system. The system would allow you to try your chosen eyeglasses virtually. You just have to upload your photo and use the site software to fit on your chosen eyeglasses. With the virtual try-on system, you could also try to add special effects like tinting of glasses, adding/removing of cliparts such as mousetache, etc.

Ordering more than 1 pair of their trendy eyeglasses would entitle you to free worldwide shipping and with their fast delivery service, your glasses would arrive within a week. If you order 4 pairs of glasses or purchase $150 in a single order, you are entitled to a $50 value free gift. So what are you waiting for, visit Optical4less.com now to order your stylish eyeglasses.

Top 10 EC Droppers - November 2008

Thank you to all who have been actively coming over to my blog and thank you to those who do not make it to this month top 10 list.  Hope that you would be in my December 2008 list.

Top 10 EC Droppers for the Month of November 2008

1. Gumer
2. Out of the Blue
3. Random Thoughts
4. Gas Saver
5. Republic of A
6. My Careless Whispers
7. Great Registry Hacks
8. Gray and Becca
9. 24patrol
10. postcards from miss igorota

Did marrow transplant cure AIDS?

An American man who suffered from AIDS appears to have been cured of the disease 20 months after receiving a targeted bone marrow transplant normally used to fight leukemia, his doctors said.

Tough Choices for Treating Breast Cancer

A new and experimental treatment for breast cancer means that patients and doctors must choose treatments based on incomplete research.

Children Toys

With the holiday season fast approaching, have you prepared your shopping list ? Well, number one on your shopping list maybe toys for your children. But do you know that scientific evidence showed that some toys maybe a health threat to children ? Yes, its a health risk as children can be exposed to chemicals from many sources, and because the effects of these chemicals maybe cummulative, we should be very careful in choosing the toys that we are buying. One should avoid buying toys that contain dangerous chemicals such as cadmium, lead, arsenic, bromine and mercury. These chemicals such as lead can harm brain development, with effects including reduced IQ, shorter attention span, and delayed learning. Cadmium is a known human carcinogen, and can harm the kidneys and lungs. It can have adverse effects on motor skills and behavior.

So this coming holiday season, choose safer toy products as your gift.

For more information about children's product safety and hazards, please visit Kids in Danger Website.

511 Tactical Pants

Are you looking for pants that are durable and are made of quality materials ? Well, the good news is, you could find this at Work Boots USA. Work Boots USA does not just offer ordinary pants, but 5.11 Tactical series pants which has a 30 year history of serving law enforcement, military or firefighting personnels and has consistently stood the test of time. These tactical pants are durable, long lasting and are made of high quality materials that provide comfort to the wearer.

Listed below are just some of the tactical pant products at Work Boots USA that you may be interested :
a. 5.11 Tactical TDU Poly/Cotton Rip-Stop Pant - these teflon treated water resistant pants consist of 65% polyester and 35% cotton ripstop. It has a double knee / removable neoprene knee pads, expandable comfort waist with reinforced waist band, BBS™ cargo pockets with magazine keepers, hook-and-loop closures and triple stitching and rear utility pockets.

b. 5.11 denim pants - These 100% cotton denim pants has hidden pockets inside front and back waistband. It also has hidden magazine pockets and hidden handcuff pockets.

c. Tactical Covert Khaki Pants - These khakis feature an 8.8-oz., wrinkle and fade-resistant cotton twill that’s been treated with Teflon® for stain and soil resistance. These khaki pants feature a flat front and a total of 8 pockets: two traditional style front pockets, each with interior zipper-closed pockets for magazines or accessories, plus two standard rear pockets and two concealed vertical thigh pockets with zippers hidden along the side seams.

d. 5.11 Tactical HRT Flash Fire Resistant Jumpsuit - features 5.11’s proprietary fire resistant FR-X3 fabric which is lightweight, breathable and functional fabric.

Currently, the above 511 Pants are on a promotional discounted offer and even if you are not working as a military or firefighting personnel, you could order one for your own personal use.

Other best selling products of Work Boots USA are tactical clothing, uniforms, outerwear, footwear, eyewear, duty knives, tactical gear, holsters, etc.

With the holiday season just around the corner, I think I know what gift I should buy for my uncle who works as a fire marshal in our town.

Julian Beever Amazing Arts

His art is extremley unique and very amazing. This guy makes
his paintings on the footpaths and pavements but when you
look at them from a certain angle, they appear to be 3D !!!
And in some cases they are just lifelike !

I strongly feel that everybody should know about such an
amazing artist named Julian Beever and get a chance to praise his unique art!

Here are some of his truly amazing works.

Taking The Plunge



Red Car


Butterfly




White Water Rafting



Batman And Robin To The Rescue



To see more of his amazing arts, visit Julian Beever site


Photo Credit : Julian Beever