Today was quite a day for me. Well, not really.

To be more accurate, it’s what happened in the evening that made it quite a day. I joined my fellow Davao City Bloggers in the second Davao Bloggers Photo Walk, an event annually hosted by no other but the traveling expert from Davao himself, TheTravelTeller.com, Sir Olan.

The Silent One

I guess they just can’t help but notice my mute feel today. It’s not like I’ve ever been talkative when I was with this particular set of people – it’s just now that they took notice or voiced it out. That’s just me, a bit too noiseless as ever.

Import (not from) Abroad

The Davao Bloggers were joined by another traveling fella, one who is noted as Sir Olan’s first friend in the broad blogosphere – and that’s Dong Ho who goes by the blog [eskapo] (http://www.escapeislands.com/). It was my first time to meet him. I thought of him to be somewhat different knowing that he’s one of the more popular bloggers in the blogosphere, but he seems to pace himself fairly well with our young group.

No, I did not lose my mind when I wrote the text above, notably the young part. Aside from our import from outside of Davao City we were joined by a handful (or more) of [Markable's] (http://markable.me) minions. He dragged along some of his classmates, some of which are said to be into blogging as well. Of course I didn’t manage to socialize with them, you know how poor I am at that. But I hope I get the chance to meet the them, and hope they join the Davao Bloggers officially. There’s always a “next time”.

But what did we actually do during our Photo Walk?

It started off pretty odd. Our host, Olan arrived a bit late. The sky turned dark already and I couldn’t help but imagine it raining at any moment now. Then I realized that all the flashing going on was courtesy of the camera’s that my fellows brought out.

We later on found out that the reason Sir Travel Teller arrived late was because of the I.D’s. Once everybody received their I.D’s, we swiftly formed a circle and introduced ourselves. I had something new to say along with my name – being the Davao Bloggers’ Membership Coordinator for this term. Others introduced their blogs as well – which I failed to do, because my blog, may it be Pinoy Teens and even more so this awkward Personal Blog of mine suck at the moment.

After introducing our names (and our blogs), we positioned ourselves in front of the City Hall and took another few shots there. Pictorial is becoming increasingly longer due to the growth of cameras in our group. Back then, there used to be only one or two of them – now we had to deal with more than a handful of camera’s, each eager to get a snap.

We headed to the San Pedro Cathedral which was pretty empty as we arrived. The group has decided to settle near the candle lighting thingy (where people pray), and take shots of that place. Of course, there wasn’t much going on, on my end – because a. I didn’t brought a camera with me, b. I’m not that talkative c. you know how I am when in front of other people. I’m working on it, promise!

The next place we headed to wasn’t too far from the Cathedral, in fact we just headed right across the street of the San Pedro Cathedral. It was time to eat some street food. Guess what I ate? Nothing. I didn’t feel good at that moment and figured it’s best if I don’t eat anything just yet. I was tempted to try some street food, but decided to hold back for dinner.

It’s not that I don’t like street food, I do. In fact, street food vendors used to be pretty much my go-to-place to resolve my instant-hunger issues every now and then. I’d eat anything the street (vendors) offer, let alone Kwek-kwek and anything fish related.

Davao Bloggers marched on towards Rizal Park, right at the back of it. There were a few stands that offered massage sessions. I would’ve taken one right here, but I knew better and decided to stick with the group. I felt pretty drowsy and sleepy. And of course I haven’t talked much.

It’s a bit funny how many people have come to notice my being quiet. I think first of them was Olan, then I guess Ria Jose, too. And of course there was our Medical Officer, Joanna whose attention I’ve also caught by just being quiet. The Nierva couple have sensed my quietness, too, I think. It’s a work in progress!

We ride the… what do they call that again?

Forgive me, but I forgot the name of that orange colored rides we took (yes, it was some sort of electric tricycle but they called it something else). What’s notable about them though is, that these were electrically powered and riding with them was quite comfortable, except that I inhaled a lot of smoke from the surrounding vehicles.

Our final destination for the evening was Hudyakaan, a place specifically setup for this Araw ng Dabaw celebration. I’ve missed the good company from another blogging pal, Faust who would’ve joined me in having a drink. I was the only one who ended up with a peculiar order of some beer. All of the others settled for the more common beverage like water and soft drinks.

DINNER

I was pretty much excited for this part of our event. Why? I was hungry already! And like I said, I already felt tempted to eat while we were still in San Pedro.

I settled for two hotdogs, one rice and a bottle of beer. It was not quite up to par from what my stomach wanted but I couldn’t help it since everybody swiftly went home or some place else after our dinner.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though. During dinner, there was this awkward incident and misunderstanding when my seat mate took the cup which was for the beer I had in another cup. The one with ice. I managed to gobble down the beer without the ice just fine, but it tasted a bit odd to be honest. But hey. That’s a nonissue. Just something funny to note.

I also had some quick chit chat with Dong Ho who sat right in front of me, and with Perry who seated to my left. It was a happy ending to a boring day of mine. It’s always good to have the Davao Bloggers around to spice up any day with social gatherings like these!

After Dinner, I joined the two travel bloggers, Olan and Dong Ho to people’s park. I didn’t stayed too long though and headed home right after our quick tour around the park.

I think I’ve said too much already and have left little to write about on Pinoy Teens. But anyways. It was a fun experience!

Post with pictures, et al to be published on Pinoy Teens

I don’t know. But I just feel like I need to get something posted on my personal blog right now.

If you have been following Pinoy Teens’ twitter account you might already know that I am here in Manila right now for the Social Networth Media Workshop organized by Mulat Pinoy.

Everything seems to be going on absolutely perfect if we see it from the point of view on how the workshop has been progressing but from a more personal perspective, it isn’t quiet as how I had figured it out.

There’s this trait of me again, you could call it shyness or whatever but I’m just not able to make friends during the day – and here I am stuck in the room with no one but myself. I just don’t know how to jump in on the fun my two roommates have at the moment.

YET BEFORE THIS ENDS UP LIKE JUST ANOTHER PESSIMISTIC WRITE UP… let’s go back to the lighter side of things.

The morning of the whole event started out really well, we learned to know each other in some very unique ways. We also managed to set our expectations from this workshop and get familiarize ourselves with everything Popdev related. We even had a few distinguished guest speakers who are pretty well exposed to the social media world to guide us through then basics and show us a glimpse of how he huge social or new media world is going to look like.

We had Ana Santos (@dashofsas), Alvin Dakis (@alvindakis) and Gregg Yan from the Wwf-Philippines who shared with us their knowledge and opinions.

Geez. There’s so much more that I want to share with you buy my little iPod touch is t really helping at the moment. – this is where I am writing this post and a few others that I need to have done before a certain deadline. Kasi nga naiwan si MacBook Pro sa Davao.

Anyways. I shall get back with you with more once I get back to Davao or later when I have managed to secure some batteries for my keyboards whose batteries have run dry.

Lastly. I really hope that I could make some friends tomorrow. I really feel very awkward and shy. Ewan ko na. I just really suck in something I shouldn’t knowing the field (social media) I am in – making friends and dealing with people.

Just stay tuned and follow our twitter account @teensmedia

The Chef who accommodated the audience was no other than Niño Laus.

Aside from the delicious food that was presented to us and how we could DIY in our homes this Christmas season, the real star of the afternoon was the new lineup of Thermos Cookware!

I really thought that Thermos was all about Thermal Containers for beverages and food, but their product lineup has become so extensive that you can now cook using the Genuine Thermos Brand Cookware!

Advantages of Thermos Cookware

The Genuine Thermos Brand Cookware may come with a hefty price tag at first look, but you’ll later on realize that it’s actually pretty reasonable. You don’t get high quality products for free, you know

Thermal Cookware is basically a slow cooker or crock-pot that doesn’t need any electricity or the like and it has many advantages, especially for people who are camping, caravanning or four wheel driving. One big advantage is that you use a lot less gas, and with wood fires becoming harder and harder to use because of fire restrictions imposed by national parks, reserves or councils, campers find themselves cooking more and more on the gas stovetop. And it’s not always easy to just drop into the nearest gas refill store or garage and get the gas bottle topped up or exchanged.

For more information and updates about The Genuine Thermos Brand Cookware or other products, follow them on Twitter. If you’d like to see some demo videos yourself, refer to this link.

Photos, as always courtesy of: The Traveling Nomad

I may have lived in Davao City ever since I was still in Grade 5, yet I was never able to attend to a Christmas opening here in Davao, not even the first Pasko Fiesta opening that happened last year.

Now on its second run, the Christmas Season in Davao opened with a bang!

Featured Image courtesy of Renz Bulseco

Guada’s Villa Pension House in General Santos City

The whole house was well decorated and was very spacious. It has 3 rooms, including 1 master bedroom. Each of the other two rooms were priced at around 2,000 while the master bedroom comes in with a little price bump, but more aesthetics and comfort for those who need that extra feel.

No place better than Guada’s Villa

Family and Barkada Packages

Photos are courtesy of Davao’s very own Traveling Nomad.

One word, epic… It was simply epic.

I’ve not only enjoined company from fellow Davao Bloggers and fellow Bloggers from Mindanao, but have learned a lot from all the outstanding speakers at the event. I’ll speak more on that later on, though.

It was a perfect affair for me, it was also the first event that I have attended with my fellow Pinoy Teens colleague and girlfriend, Princess Salan. Making it even more special.

BlogFest 2.0 was definitely a special event for her, because it was her first ever major blogging event. Lucky, her debut in the blogging scene happened in General Santos City!

On Philippine Blog Awards – Mindanao

On Philippine Blog Awards – National

Thanks to everyone who believes in Pinoy Teens and has voted for Pinoy Teens.

Paramihan ng Likes for Readers Choice Award?

Indeed, I’m also promoting my entry to all my friends and colleagues as well. But this criteria for future “Readers Choice Awards” needs to change.

I think it’s best if next time, it won’t be based on likes, but on some certain criteria, like who has the most active readership (based on comments) on their most recent articles or so, or maybe based on how often certain articles have been shared or on how active ones blog has been over all and the average comments per article from one set date to another (Jan 2011 – Dec 2011, to avoid giving established blogs with thousands of comments an advantage like mine would have then).

Of course I’ll go with the flow and play the game with the most likes no matter how it’ll end up, but like I said above, it won’t be the one with the most outstanding readership that’ll win, but the one who campaigns best among their friends.

Disclaimer: I’m aware that one of my friends has also been nominated for the Readers Choice Award. But I just have to get this word out, because it’s so wrong, I already wrote about this in other contest, too.

• Meeting Avel and Orman – I’ve seen either of the two at some occasions throughout the year, but I’ve barely caught two birds with a single stone! Meh, it’s gonna be another bun, meat, bun (sandwich) photo again when I’m amidst the two!
• It’s going to be more epic than the former! – BlogFest 1.0 was one heck of an event already, and this one is looking to be much more fun, and more epic! I don’t intend to undermine or underrate the first version, hah, even that event was great, but the way things shape up and all the hype that’s going on around BlogFest 2.0, this is certainly the blogging event of the year in Mindanao!
• Davao Bloggers galore in Gensan! – Olan, Faust, Lyle, Brendel, Alma, you name ‘em! Most, of the Davao Bloggers will head out to our neighbors from General Santos City to attend this once in a life time event (next year it’ll be BlogFest 3.0, so technically, BlogFest 2.0 is a once in a lifetime event :p)!
• Pinoy Teens represented by my girlfriend – This will be the first major blogging event that my girlfriend will attend to, how lucky she must be that her debut blogging event is going to be the BlogFest! The first major event that I attended though, also happened in Gensan which dates back 3 years… Mindanao Bloggers Summit 2.0!
• Getting my blogging vibes back! – I’m so positive about it that after this event, I’m going to be ubber inspired to keep blogging again the way I used to.

The party was certainly one of the most memorable events that happened in my adventurous blogging journey this year. Not just because it was hosted by Globe, not just because it was only hosted for the active blogging community of Davao, but because of everyone who was present at the said affair.

Matagal tagal ko na rin hindi nakikita sina Lyle Santos, Winston and co. sa isang okasyon na hind tungkol sa launching ng isang bagong produkto o di kaya sa isang preskon… It felt good to be with like minded people and be away from my Mac. I have never laughed so naturally, so carelessly and freely in a long time. In other words, I started enjoying being a blogger again, isn’t that what using Globe is all about? Enjoying the life and have it the way you want it to be?

Renz, Karla, Natalie, Anj, Kuya Olan, Richard and Princess accompanied me on the table where I sat… and we’ve definitely been the loudest group of the 3 tables full of bloggers. We talked about various issues that were circulating around the web, exchanged a few ideas about our Davao Bloggers Christmas Party and of course, had a ton of fun while doing that. Tamang tama lang at nababawasan ang stress ko ngayon dahil dito.

Everything was right that evening, from the food we got a the Probinsya (which is located near Victoria Plaza) to the fun games and raffle draws.

We had a quiz-style game. Our group has left a lot of points behind carelessly, answering supposed to be easy questions with far off answers like answering the question Where was A. Einstein born? with Israel instead of the more obvious and correct answer, Germany.

Pero hindi kami papatalo noh! the first round may have turned to be in favor of the other two groups, but it didn’t mean we weren’t competitive throughout the game. One of our members was even lucky enough to win a X2 in the first raffle draw of Globe.

Admittedly, the second round also didn’t ended up the way we expected it to be and I was pretty much helpless because I couldn’t relate to most, if not all of the questions given – but it was really a lot of fun.

Someone from the 3rd group then emerged as winner for the iPhone 3GS raffle draw.

It was ’round the 3rd part of the quiz when we excelled and closed in to the competition from table 3. We got as close as 1 point behind the leaders and 3 ahead of the second table.

Karla & Anj from Davao Bloggers - Princess & Kevin from Pinoy Teens

Yet we failed to keep the momentum going and ended up with a wimpy third, but of course not empty handed.

It’s all about Teamwork

The word teamwork has popped up every now and then throughout the evening. And it has really got me thinking. I remember the host saying that Globe is also exercising a good practice of teamwork across the large community they have. The games also proved to be that it a one-man show isn’t going to cut it because everyone was able to chime in something at some point… It was the effort of the team as  a whole that mattered at the end. And I believe that it was the effort of all the bloggers from this City that has earned the recognition of Globe to have such affair planned for us.

There’s more to come from Globe

People from Davao should be pretty excited and are probably really lucky about what Globe is planning for Davao City in the coming weeks. Like I’ve noted several times across some of my blogs… Davao has always been special to Globe, and the SUPERLAHAT20 Promo is the most solid proof of that. Yet there’s more, way more to come. Not only for the Mobile Users, but for people who are using other Globe services as well. I’m so excited about the slightly speedier internet from Globe since I have been a subscriber of their broadband service for several years already.

Don’t worry readers of Pinoy Teens. We’ll provide you with all the updates you want and need to read about Globe and their future plans. Dito ako nagsisimulang mag-iinternet and

Today, we’re a little closer in going all-Globe at Pinoy Teens, so, go lang ng go!**

Congratulations to Crislyn for winning an iPad 2!

**We are planning on something Globe related.

Photo Courtesy of Koya Andrew (ata) :p

My parents, particularly my mother disliked the idea of me traveling out of town. She’s scared because of all the hype we see on television that war is going on in Mindanao. Aside from that, my father (who had a stroke attack back in June) also dislikes the idea to travel out of town at the moment. We’re also very low on money. Even the Pinoy Teens’ funds is low on money. It’d be a terrible idea if I’d borrow some when I still have a  few payments due by the end of this month, right?

One of my sponsors for the month has backed out because they’ve got in trouble financially, too; and that really nailed MBS5 for me.

I was so excited, so eager to make it, but I was left with the ultimate decision by my parents… It’s going to be either BlogFest 2011 to which I travel with Princess Salan or the Mindanao Bloggers Summit.

Believe me, it was a tough choice to make, but reassessing our present situation and financial status of my parents [they are building a house], I just had to back out. We all have to make sacrifices sometimes!

I don’t know why I bothered writing this… but thanks to those who bothered to read it. I’m sorry for whoever expected me there. </3 Kitakits nalang sa BlogFest because that’s the blogging event of the year that I’m not gonna pass out on!

ps: I’m still looking forward to a press release of the event so I can still write about it

Software Freedom Day will happen on a Saturday, September 17, 2011 at the 6th Floor of the Finster Hall, at the Ateneo de Davao University’s Computer Studies Division. SFD is a celebration of free and open source software (foss) which is simultaneously going on all over the world.

It’s nothing new for me to talk during Software Freedom Day, more so, talk about WordPress. This is going to be my 3rd session about my favorite blogging tool in the span of 4 years (I missed SFD 2010)

Anyway, I’m very happy to tell you that I’ll be giving away a decent number of domain names during my talk… add to that 1 year hosting courtesy of my kind hosting provider, too.

It’s really hard to figure that one out before I have them before me. That’s why I broadened the scope of my 1 hour slot to talk not only about the basics of WordPress but to extend beyond the out of the box functions.

WordPress Basics and Beyond – Student Blogger Edition

• WordPress Fundamental
• Background of WordPress
• Looking back at 2.x – 3.1
• Installing WordPress
• cPanel 1-click Installer
• Manual Install
• WordPress Basics
• The WordPress Dashboard
• Write Page
• Posts Area
• Pages Area
• Comments Area
• Settings Run Through
• Appearance
• Widget fiddling
• WordPress for the above average Joe
• Lucky 7
• 7 Favorite Free Themes
• 7 Must Have Plugins
• 7 Things to Check
• WordPress as CMS
• Custom Menus
• CMS-type Themes
• Making WordPress Faster
• The Fast Five Plugins
• WordPress Beyond
• WordPress Help
• Codex
• WPBeginner
• WPRecipes
• WordPress Themes
• PaddSolutions
• WordPress.org Theme Repository
• Elegant Themes
• Studio Press
• WooThemes
• WordPress Communities
• WPTavern
• Weblogtoolscollection
• WordPress.org
• WPCandy
• WordPress Hosting
• Eleven2
• Dreamhost
• Bluehost
• (if time allows) Blogging and the Blogger
• Why do you blog?
• Blogging Ethics
• SEO Basics
• GIVEAWAY Portion
• 1 x 1 year domain + hosting
• 3 x 1 year WordPress hosting
• 4 x 1 domain