Orion's Birthday Surprise!

Last Friday was the birthday of my freelance job team mate - Orion. It has been a month-long plan that boss is going to give Orion a gift with the help of the group. It took many gift suggestions before our boss agreed on giving him a surprise birthday instead. However, it was not a typical surprise birthday since Orion is from Pagadian and most of us or should I say the rest of the team are based here in Cagayan de Oro. So as per suggested by no other than myself ;) Orion traveled from Pagadian to Cagayan de Oro with free transportation provided. Our boss chatted him on the day of his birthday that he needs to travel Cagayan de Oro the next day for an emergency meeting with the rest of the team.

So Saturday Orion was pick-up at the terminal, treated to lunch, strolled Limketkai Mall, and enjoyed the teams company playing at the Worlds of Fun. Later in the afternoon they head on to Big Flat Bread for the supposed to be “Meeting”. A surprise Orion was shocked when he taught that BFB crew is just going to sing a Christmas carols at their table but instead they sung a happy birthday song for him. Sadly, I missed that part there! I was a late comer on that day... :P

So when I arrived I just grab a bite of BFB’s Godfather Pizza, finished two sliced of Red Ribbon Chocolate Cake, and took a sip on the Juice Coolers and then we headed to Willsbar Music & Video. The rest of the night was spent with music and a bottle of beer…

Bukidnon Blogging 101 & Make Money Online

It was a fun and challenging experienced yesterday during the Bukidnon Blogging 101 and Make Money Online at Malaybalay, Bukidnon. The event was organized by Miss Irene Aserios of Bukidnononline.com and invited the CDO Bloggers as the speakers. This plan supposedly takes place months ago but due to schedules of both Irene and CDObloggers Group is so busy the event was always postponed. However, yesterday the event successfully concluded and the new Bukidnon Bloggers group finally emerged with a new set of core group. Together with 10 CDObloggers we travel Malaybalay early morning, 7 of us were speakers of the event and the other 3 are the support group.

As one of the speakers in the event it was not easy. I was not used in talking in front of a big crowd. And even though CDObloggers already organized several blogging events I still got stage fright. Well, during this series of blogging events I'm the person behind the cameras so my stage fright is justified. :D Oh! I remember I did experience being the speaker once. It was during one of our Blogging 101 forum this year but it was not a big crowd. Anyways, I'm so glad my talk went well and that I was able to share my knowledge to fellow bloggers and aspiring newbie bloggers.

The Bukidnon Blogging 101 would be one of my good memories to remember because not only I was one of the speakers but also I witness the organizational meeting of the new Bukidnon Bloggers group which took place after the workshop yesterday. I was happy that finally they have an organized group and active core that is willing to give time and effort to help promote not just Bukidnon but also Mindanao. And as I can see from their meeting yesterday the group will be very busy the next months because Irene already asks support from Bukidnon’s very own Migs Zubiri and some other big personalities that are willing to support the group and its cause.

Check out the Bukidnon Blogging 101 & Make Money Online participants blogs:

• BukidnonOnline Link exchange Page
• Bukidnon Blogging 101 Workshop and How to Make Money Online... A Success!!!
• Bukidnon Blogging 101
  

My 2nd Wordcamp Philippines!

I have just attended the Wordcamp Philippines 2010 along with fellow bloggers Mindanaoan, Cherry and Jenjacqs. This was my 2nd time to attend this event and the first one was last year. This year Matt Mullenweg grace the event which is no wonder participants was more than a half compared to last year. One thing I will always remember is that I got lucky have the chance to take photos with Matt Mullenweg as well as chat with him casually. hehehe credits to Mindanaoan ;) And also I won yet another t-shirt but this time its a "Make Web Not War" Wordpress t-shirt from Microsoft. Last year it was a Wordcamp t-shirt that I won but this year the Wordcamp t-shirt was given freely inside our kits. Which reminds me that I like so much our kits this year it was packed in a uniquely design bag Wordcamp logo.

Anyways, here's my summary of the event...

In the morning we attended the 3 breakout sessions we choose upon our registration online and mine was the following:

• Misty Belardo – Integrating Social Media
  - The speaker more likely talk on getting to know social media. Topics tackle was for beginners.
• Jonas Roque - Customizing a WordPress Blog with Themes and Plugins
  - This was a fun session and I really did learned a lot. The topic was more on the technical part in costumizing webpage/blog. Jonas Roque was kind of not used in speaking/explaining infront of so many bloggers all of us go out in the room with new knowledge.
• Jayvee Fernandez – Blogging with Passion
  - As the description itself the speaker did shared how he blog passionately and what motivates him to blog.

And in the afternoon also a lot more topics discussed by various speakers; Social Media: Powered by WordPress, Blogging Ethics and Google University. After that was the question and answer portion with Matt Mullenweg.

My special thanks to Ria Jose and avatar media for inviting CDO Bloggers for the dinner after the event. Kudos to Avatar Media and the Wordcamp Philippines 2010 organizers, volunteers and sponsors for the success of the event!

Sanuk Sandcastle Competion

Yesterday CDObloggers where invited for Sanuk Sandcastle Competition at the Limketkai Mall Parking Lot E. It was fun witnessing 8 groups busy building sandcastle's. They all have different designs in there sandcastle some of it are sanuk sandals, turtle, sharks, mermaids and different types of castle.

The winners of the event are:

Dark Green Team - Sand Nuke

2nd runner up

Lightgreen - Debuho Iliganon

1st runner up

Orange team - Adcashemanic

Champion

Big thanks to Sanuk and to Miss Tara Valencia for inviting the CDO bloggers at the Sanuk Sandcastle Competion. We will look forward for next year.

After the event we had dinner at The Bridge formerly Skypark at the North Concourse Limketkai Mall.

And as usual I ordered there specialty and my fave grilled stuffed squid.

Harvesting Lanzones in Camiguin Island

Yesterday I left Cagayan de Oro to visit my lola and uncle in Camiguin Island. It was a fun experienced visiting my birthplace. Even though going there was a tiring because I rided the "wrong" bus.

I woke up early to catch the early ferry boat to Camiguin. When I arrived at the Agora bus station at 5am there's already a bus ready for leaving so I ride in immediately. And because I slept late the following night I slept in between while on the trip going to Balingoan Port. Until I noticed that it already took me a lot of time traveling from Agora to Balingoan. I looked at my watch and was shocked to see that its already past 9am when supposed to be at 7am ill be in Balingoan Port already. When Arrived at the bus stop in Balingoan there I see the name of the bus I just rided and it was D&C Express I really thought it was Bagong Lipunan bus because it has the same color red color. Duh! I must be still sleepy when I rided that bus...

Tip: Buses like Bagong Lipunan and Bachelors are non-stop buses so the trip just takes 1-2 hours or less from Agora bus station to Balingoan. And this buses offers aircon and non-aircon.

So when I arrived at Balingoan bus station I rode a tricycle that will take me to the Balingoan Port. Shuttle Ferry 11 was about to live at 9:30am so im just minutes early.

I arrived in Camiguin Island past 11am. I headed to my lola's house. Eat. Rest. And on the afternoon we went to Bio-ong to get some lanzones. There were already lots of ripe lanzones everywhere and a lot more waiting to ripe. My lola's working student and a cousin harvested some of the ripe fruits which I will be bringing back to CDO. This was my anticipated activity in this travel because its a chance for me to eat-to-sawa with the lanzones freshly picked from the tree. Its been 3 years since I've had my first experienced of picking lanzones right from the tree. And for a city girl like me this experienced shouldn't be missed!

Tip: Only ripe lanzones should be harvested with the use of knife, unripe lanzones should be untouch and wait until it is ripe to be harvested.

After helping in harvesting lanzones we went home. I could still catch the last trip back to CDO at that time but my lola doesn't want me to travel last trip because ill arrived in CDO already dark and I have a box of fruits to carry, its not safe for me daw. So I went J & A Lagoon instead I roam around watch fishes in there big pond.

Tip: In J & A lagoon you can catch fish from there fishpond and you decide how to cook the fish you catch. They will weight the fish you catch and you'll pay the total kilograms you catch. So the bigger you catch the more expensive depends on the price per kilo. Cooking of the fish on your decide dish is free though. ;)

I also tried there Halo2x while waiting for the freshly catched fish which I ask to be cooked into soup. My lola was right not to travel back to CDO because it was gloomy in CDO and a friend just texted that it was raining hard, lightning was scary and there was power interruption.

The next morning I left Camiguin Island at sunrise...