Life, Day by Day

Together with blogger friends, I attended the Google Map Maker Summit last April 12, 2012 held at the Santuario De La Salle here in Bacolod City.  I know of Google Maps and Google Earth since I use these a lot for research and references but this was the first time I became aware that there was a Google Map Maker.  I did not even know that I was already using this application when I was adding tags to my house in Google Maps. That just tells you how much of a newbie I still am when it comes to web development (most of the participants said they were "developers"). Anyway, I learned a lot that day and have registered to be a volunteer in Mapping the Philippines, in particular my city and province.  In fact, I plan to organize a mapUp in my city before classes open in June. A mapUp is basically a gathering of about 10-20 volunteers whose goal is to map their area of the world.  Here are my pictures of the event. Mapping is more fun in the Philippines!

The Woman of Substance My mom was born in Cebu City on May 1, 1934, the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker to Norberto Yanson Riego, a ship captain and Estrella Guingona Meñes, a pharmacist. They named her "Erlinda" although she claims that she has another name, Maritza but she never got a record of it because birth records in Cebu before the war were destroyed by fire. From age three, she was raised in Manila where she had her secondary and college education at the Philippine Women’s University (PWU), graduating Cum Laude. She was the student council president, an Intercollegiate Girl of the Philippines, the school's representative to national student organizations. She rubbed shoulders with national leaders, so much so that people around her thought they had her future life all figured out.

As a small child I went to our friendly elderly dentist in our small city. This was in the late 60's when sedative dentistry was not commonly practiced by general dentists.  I don't know what it is but unlike some of my playmates whose baby teeth would just fall off, mine seemed to be indestructible and so when I was seven years old, my mom brought me to our dentist since one of my permanent front tooth was already growing behind the baby tooth. Needless to say, after my tooth extraction, our poor dentist lost some patients waiting for their turn that day. He then informed my totally embarrassed mother that he will be referring me to a modern clinic in the next city for advanced dental work since I also had a decaying molar that needed to be removed as well as major orthodontic work. A few months later, off we went to see this new clinic. They had a beautiful, air-conditioned office with several chairs and I was assigned to a young good-looking male dentist who smiled a lot.

The weather this past week tells me that summer has arrived albeit a little late.  I was up and about early in spite of the fact that it was Sunday, because of the sweltering heat.  And to add to everyone's discomfort, there were several blackouts ranging from 15 to 30 minutes duration that went on the whole day.  As the day went by, I saw my son getting the inflatable pool out. The fact that he was too big for it did not discourage him from having a cool dip together with my daughter and niece. I was very tempted to join them but as you can see, there isn't much space left...hahahah.  It was a fun thing to do on a really hot summer day.  

The Avengers started showing two days ago in local cinemas but I still have to watch it.  I rarely watch movies (I wait for the DVD to come out) but when it comes to Marvel comics, I make a beeline to the movie house. Except for Thor, I watched all the movies: Fantastic Four, Captain America, Iron Man, Spider Man, Daredevil, Hulk and the X-Men. I think it's because these comic characters whom I grew up with have finally come alive.  I have a collection of comic books but the best of these are those of Marvel. I loved the drama, the stories, the fictional characters that seemed so real and the natural drawings.  Unlike other comic characters that seemed too good to be true, the Marvel characters were more real-life.  I was fascinated with Captain America and his love story. I felt for Spider Man when he lost his Uncle Ben.  Yes, they were superheroes, but they also proved to be very human.   As an afterthought, I wonder if Stan Lee does another cameo in The Avengers. No sp

sell your products online Yesterday, my mom's friend called me for help on how to do internet marketing for her small business.  I did not know that she even had one because she is more or less retired, but surprisingly she makes these Filipino-themed T-shirts decorated with hotfix crystals which she markets at a local showroom for the last two years. She told me that most of her buyers were either OFW's, balikbayans and tourists, and not the local residents, which made her realize that if she wants her business to continue, then she has to bring her products to the global marketplace. When she learned that I was a blogger she immediately thought that I might be interested to help her set up a website for her business. I said yes without hesitation, since I believe that in this day and age, putting up a website for a business whether big or small is a not only good practice but a necessity. 2011 statistics on internet usage show that the percentage of internet users is 32