where the moon shines

The band that we so loved since gradeschool is back in the headlines.

When I first heard the buzz about an Eraserheads reunion concert, I was thrilled. It shook the Pinoy Rock scene when front man (and my ultimate crush) Ely Buendia announced that he was leaving the band, many years ago. The remaining three members, Raimund, Marcus, and Buddy, decided to continue and even enlisted a new vocalist – a girl. That was shortlived though, because the Eraserheads would never be the same without Ely.

Then the news died down, I never really knew whether there was going to be one or not. Two days ago, I was shocked to learn that the concert was slated for Saturday, August 30. Shoot. I won’t see them. The most awaited reunion concert, and I was not going to witness it.

So I was sulking last night. And it didn’t help that Alfred couldn’t care less. He’s not a big E-heads fan, you see. He would go see Sandwich play (which former E-head Raimund now fronts) but he couldn’t care less about the band that started it all. He even had the gall to tell me that it was fortunate that I had missed it because the concert was cut short.

My first reaction was, where’s your humanity dude? We’re talking about a person who possibly had a heart attack! And not just some person either - it’s Ely Buendia for pete’s sake! It is alarming news, specially because he had already undergone a heart operation just last year.

When I heard about what happened (that was also the first thing my mom and dad told me when I woke up this morning), I felt all the more that I should have been there with the other 60,000 fans. I don’t care if they didn’t finish the concert, the thought that it could really have been the last time I’d see them play together…

Anyhoo. Ely’s at the Philippine Heart Center, but is already in a stable condition. His fans are all praying for his fast recovery. His mom died on the 28th, but the true rock icon that he is, the show must go on. Imagine the stress that he was under. But the people who were at the concert say that the band still performed well together, and they don’t feel that they were shortchanged. They got 15 songs anyway! That’s not too bad at all.

Hopefully they’d give in to the fans and perform again when Ely is fully recovered. I’d definitely won’t miss it.


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Last week, we talked about organizing our photo stash. Today, I’d like to share one way for organizing your digital scrapbooking stash.

I’m pretty sure this isn’t anything new, and I’m even positive that I got the idea from a Scrap Girls tutorial for beginning digiscrappers. But since this was the first method I used to organize my stash, I’d like to share it with everyone tonight.

There are two key assumptions to this method though:

1. The designers name and package their files/kits with a certain way that includes the designer name/initials, and the kit name.
2. That you organize your stash as soon as you download and unzip.

Now, because not all kits I downloaded conformed to assumption #1, and I didn’t always unzip the same day I download, I admit that this method proved to be quite tedious and took away from actual scrapping time.

Despite that, I still believe that it could be a great way to organize stuff. In fact, when I got down to do some actual scrapping, it was actually not that difficult to shop around my own stash and find things that would go well with my layout.

So what to do?

Set up your folder structure. Yes. This means that you need to prepare the folders in your hard drive in which you’ll be dumping stuff after you unzip. I’ve got a sample here:

I created a new folder inside My Documents, and labeled it SCRAP. Of course you can create your own folder elsewhere in your hard drive if you want. My real stash is actually in a secondary HD, and the folder name is Digi Scrap Store (because I think of my shop as a big store!).

Inside the SCRAP folder, I created FIVE basic subfolders that you can see in the screen shot: BACKGROUNDS – or Papers, ELEMENTS, FRAMES, PREVIEWS, and TOUs (Terms of Use).

The next level of folders is where the fun begins. You can have as many sub-folders that you can think of within the five basic ones mentioned above.

For BACKGROUNDS, you may have subfolders per COLOR or HUE. At home, I have a PINK-RED, BLUE-VIOLET, EARTH-BROWN, GREEN, YELLOW-ORANGE subfolders. I did have a separate folder for THEMED PAPERS though. That’s where papers for specific occasions would go (halloween, Christmas, etc.).

The same subfolders of color and hue follow for my ELEMENTS folder. Within each folder for a color, would be even more subfolders for the many types of elements/embellishments that exist! For example:

 Coming up with categories for your elements can be fun, but also sometimes confusing. Haha. Aside from these three, I have GLITTER, DOODLES, JOURNALLING MATS, and many others I can’t particularly remember right now!

With this particular method, it is quite easy to find papers and elements that would match the colors of the photos you are scrapping.

One thing that was a challenge though, is the fact that, going back to assumption #1, not all designers would put their name and the kit name in the file name for each paper and element in the pack. So, after unzipping, you would need to find time to rename everything to include the information. Of course, when I started organizing stuff, I wasn’t very diligent yet. So what happened was, I would use a paper or an element, and have a tough time identifying who made it or from what site/kit I took it from.

Next week, I’ll share another organization tip with you all.

In the meantime, don’t forget to visit the rest of the participants to Scrapbook Saturday. Start with this week’s host at Nothing but Purple.

I hope you find this post useful

Mae, a member of my team, dreams of one day becoming a chef.

I found out about it during one of our early coaching sessions. In my attempt to get to know my new team, I had intentionally set out to have an informal chat with each one to learn more about their work and personality.

In turn, I also told her that I wanted to get better at baking, and how I’ve been looking at short courses being offered around the Metro. She was familiar with the culinary schools too since she’s been looking around. So that’s what we talk about sometimes.

Before she left the office today, she told me that she had heard of another culinary school – The Center for Asian Culinary Studies (CACS). I went ahead and checked out their website. Apparently, Chef Gene Gonzales is the founder and President of that school. I used to watch Chef Gene on TV when he still hosted a cooking show (How ’bout my place, and some others). My mom and dad liked to dine at his restaurants: Gene’s Bistro that used to be in Morato and the Cafe Y sabel in San Juan.

Their curriculum looks rigid and packed but there are no short courses offered currently. I sent an email inquiring about the fees and am praying I don’t get too shocked at the response. Culinary schools tend to cost an arm and a leg!

I remembered an info-mercial about a charity where celebrity couple Judy Ann Santos and Ryan Agoncillo talked about the teachers they idolized. Juday’s was Chef Gene. True enough, when I checked out the Gallery posted on the site, there were photos of Juday with her classmates on their finals. The good thing is, the school isn’t capitalizing on its most famous alumna to promote the institution. They list instead their graduates who are now blazing their trails in the food and restaurant industry. (more…)

On Tuesday, my team and I spent time at a different kind of spa.

There were no special treatments in this spa, and there were no attendants/therapists walking around in hushed tones. Kids are allowed in this place too. We had a fun, relaxing time. We spent four hours at Ace Water Spa on Tuesday afternoon.

I realized that we didn’t take any photos. It was understandable not to have photographed ourselves in the spa because it wasn’t allowed. But we had a nice dinner afterwards and still no pictures to show for it! I guess we were very hungry by dinnertime that that was all we coud think of. No moment to pause for posterity!

Last summer, my nephew bugged me about taking him there. Unfortunately, he had just gotten better from mumps so I wasn’t able to take  him this time. He really wanted to go though, even saying that he no longer had fever. I had to promise him we’d go next time. I think that promise will be filled sooner than later.

Aside from the big hydrotherapy pool and it’s different sections, along with the lazy river surrounding it, we really enjoyed the dips at the hot herbal pools. There were three pools of increasing temperature. The first one was the mint pool, then the jasmine pool that smelled oh-so-nice, and then there was the lavander pool. You’re only advised to dip for three to five minutes each time, and then have a quick dip at an ice cold pool to regulate your temperature and prevent your blood pressure from shooting up. That was nice.

They have sauna and steam rooms too but I didn’t try those anymore.

They have a 25-m lapping pool too and towards late afternoon, there were several people there doing what seems to be their regular laps. I was surprised that I was able to go the whole 25-m length without stopping in the middle! I only lasted halfway on my way back though. It reminded me again how much I loved swimming, and how it just might be the exercise that will get me to lose all this weight (that is if I don’t eat too much after the workout!).

Though not everyone from the team made it to the spa, it was a fun day and I understand the reasons why the others couldn’t make it (no not really). They actually have plans of making this a regular activity, sort of a monthly team habit. Why not?

Ooohhh and August is nearly over which just means we are only a few days away from vacation! It looks like it’s just going to be Alfred and myself. This will be the first time we’ll be going on a real vacation on our own. Friends were supposed to come with us, but for reasons unforeseen, they won’t be able to make it.

I’ve made reservations at the Dao Diamond Hotel in Tagbilaran City, and I’ve also made plans with a tour guide to take us to the sites and to spend a day at Panglao Island. I am getting more excited by the day!

Wow, I dropped three hundred Entrecards today. Which means I visited a little over 300 unique sites/blogs too!

It wasn’t much fun though. Because the sun is already up, and I feel sleepy, I didn’t really spend my time on each and every blog I visited for those 300 drops. Which for me, defeats the purpose of blog hopping.

So will I do it again tomorrow? Perhaps not. I’d rather drop a few cards here and there while leisurely reading through posts.

I did find interesting stuff though.

I didn’t know that the Eraserheads reunion concert was actually pushing through on August 30 and tickets are already selling. Because I didn’t know, I probably won’t be able to go see it.

Bloghopping allows me to see beautiful page layouts and templates. I saw several templates that caught my eye, and some that looks to be easily customizable. I’ll be visiting those sites again to know more.

There were a lot of tips about making money online too.

Entrecard sure has introduced me to so many new digs to visit. If only there were more hours in a day.

Funny how I was able to stay up for five more hours since getting off work when I was already sleepy while I was still there (and just half way through my shift).