Just a quick post to let everyone know I haven’t comletely fallen off the face of the earth. I’m on a brief hiatus, vacationing in the Queen City of the South – Cebu!
Actually, we’re heading back to Manila tonight so we”ll be back to our regular programming by tomorrow. 🙂 I’m off to enjoy my last day on this wonderful island!
You will never run out of things to do when you get your brain juices into function. This is exactly true when talking about arts and other artsy creations. Almost everything, yes, everything can be made into unmatched art creations as long as you keep your imaginations at work.
If you are the type of person who wants to try new things once in a while, glass art is a good choice for hobby. So what is it about glass art that makes it interesting? This is typical of modern works and an artist makes only one kind of every creation unlike art glass and studio glass which are smaller and made in many identical pieces. Most of the time, glass arts, since they can be really big, are best exhibited in public spaces. Or if you have a space at home where you can place it and no one will find it distracting and inconvenient, you can do place it there.
You may find it long but as soon as you learn how to work with glass, you can come up with glass sculptures that you can exhibit or sell at a really high price. This is because it is only a one-off glass artwork, thus it can be priced high. You can visit a Hand Blown Glass Art Gallery in Scottsdale for some ideas on what you can do or come up with. Meeting up with glass artists is also a great way to mingle with people who have the same inclination as you. And it is also the best way to gather tips and tricks in making your glass art more artistic and unmatched than ever. If you find time today, head over to a Scottsdale Art Gallery and enjoy the exhibits.
This week the news was full of stories about the ongoing Congressional inquiry on the plea bargain that the Ombudsman was considering (or had already approved, depending on who you’re listening to) for suspected plunderer General Garcia, and the subsequent testimony of Col. Rabusa exposing the extent of corruption in the military. Within days of the expose that was aired on national TV (and heard over the radio), former AFP Chief of Staff General Angelo Reyes took his own life. Reyes allegedly received no less than 50 million pesos as a going-away gift when he retired from the service. Two other former chiefs of staff were implicated in the anomalies. The amount itself isn’t the question, but the means as to how such amounts were accumulated and allocated by a government military institution. The same institution that claims to not have enough funds to fully equip its soldiers who are in the front lines in the war against terrorism.
But the news that saddened me more in the past week was the death of someone far less popular than the fallen general. In his life, he was an inspiration for his parents and to many strangers who have learned of his story. Â I think his untimely passing deserved a lot more airtime and media mileage than what was so freely given to someone else. Jon Angelo, the baby whose childhood was snatched away by an illness that kept him tethered to a breathing machine, has passed away.
I have mentioned Jon Angelo, and the Breathe Hope bracelets that his parents lovingly make and sell to raise funds to support his medical costs, several times in this blog, on my FB wall and even in personal conversations. When he passed on, I was completely surprised. His funeral was help very near my home yet I could not bring myself to pay him a visit. I did not see him while he was alive, and I didn’t see him as he was laid to rest. Yet in my heart, I held him there. I will forever cherish my Breathe Hope bracelets, Jon.
Going back to the investigation into corruption practices in the military, that’s what news organizations should focus on – not Reyes or his family in particular. It’s about time they cleanup the military and other government offices, not just of those practicing and promoting the culture of graft and corruption, but take away the processes that make us prone to it. Like putting a cap on the retirement benefits that officials get and ensuring that ALL soldiers get them. Why they didn’t shop online for retirement gifts red envelope is a good place to start. Haha 🙂
With Dreamhost, it was so easy to opt for a Google Apps hosted email Inbox over the self-hosted one. All I had to do was select that option and set it all up. I don’t remember having any problems with it when I moved from Philhosting to Dreamhost. But moving Badodong.Com from Dreamhost to Fatcow left the boyfriend without access to his Inbox for over a week.
I kept going back to my DreamHost panel checking the settings for the domain name – it seemed to still be pointing to Google and it was selected as the email provider. What was wrong then? Eventually, I realized that having changed nameservers to that of Fatcow’s most likely messed things up. I was right! It was NOT cool that there was no one click option within FC’s Control Panel to host your mail with GA, but chat support said there was a way so I kept at it.
The chat support people at Fatcow gave me direction for changing custom DNS records and I was able to setup the right MX records for my chosen Inbox. Yet mail.badodong.com was resolving to Fatcow’s default webmail service. My next mistake was adding Google’s MX record as the destination address for the subdomain. I asked FatCow chat support again if I had done things correctly and they kept saying yes! But nothing was working.
I wasn’t getting anything more from Google Apps support, and Fatcow support wasn’t much help either. I compared my settings from my old host and realized that the Fatcow panel didn’t give me an option to add or modify the CNAME. So, what I did instead was point the subdomain “mail” to ghs.google.com. And what do you know? That did it!
With that mystery solved, I should be able to move the rest of my blogs to their new home. The only question is, when would I have the time to do it?
A lady friend who runs a small clothing store had this problem about what to give to her clients and customers, as well as her employees, during Christmas. Even though her business was running on a tight budget, she wanted to show to everyone her appreciation for their having stuck with her through thick and thin during the economic crises.
While researching on the Internet, she stumbled upon a site offering custom promotional items. She was immediately drawn to the personalized note pads that the site has on sale. These note pads are available in single color pads or in pads of 4 colors, with sizes ranging from 2×3 to 6×8 inches. Intrigued, she decided to make inquiries with the site. To her delight, she discovered that the note pads can be made to her specifications. For note pads as giveaways to customers and clients, she had the name of her company, the address and phone numbers printed at the top of each page. For her employees, she had their names printed on the note pads, along with the company details. While her clients and customers were very happy with the handy gift, her employees were even more thrilled to see their names on the note pads that she gave them. One worker even approached her and said that the note pad made him feel that he was indeed part of the company.
At present, my lady friend always recommends to her business associates that they give custom promotional items to their clients, customers and employees. While they help to spread the word about your business, they also give your loyal staff that sense of belonging to your company.