selle loves to cook… and she’s good at it. 🙂 being her husband, i am responsible for catering to this passion of hers. giving her books was a start. then, as an act of encouragement, friends were invited to dine in and relish her cooking. now, she’s got these new “toys” to play with. 🙂
buying these was a product of too much food network tv… or more specifically, too much bobby flay and rachael ray. 😀 these are two of selle’s favorite cooks. this explains why we got the grill (tribute to the grilling savvy of bobby flay) and the sauce pan (tribute to the pasta-cooking of rachael ray).
selle really got excited with these purchases and she immediately started thinking out loud on the cooking possibilities. seeing her this excited is more than enough to justify the purchase. this moments are, sabi nga sa commercial… priceless. 🙂
i remember a discussion we once had at our church leadership group. it was about the responsibilities of a husband to his wife. yah, we we’re still single males back then but our group really dealt about these stuff (the better to prepare maybe? 😉). one of which is the responsibility to cultivate. it is up to us husbands to foster growth in whatever passion or endeavor our wives get into. eto yung topic na tumatak talaga sa akin when we were discussing this, which explains my actions regarding selle’s love for cooking.
so, what’s next? we’re going to get our groceries later this day and we’ll probably stock up on food items. this time, we’ll probably get some more herbs, spices and sauces for more grilling and pasta experimentation. anything to cultivate this passion of my wife. 🙂
my wife has another passion… it’s fashion. but that’s another story altogether… 😆
(left) grilled chicken breast and carrots
(right) penne in the hot tub
tuna pasta in pesto. all together now, yumm-o! 😀
it just occurred to us that we spend around 12 hours of our daily waking hours in front of a computer. that’s around 10 hours at work and another 1-2 hours at home for 6 days in a week (this 6-day workweek really eats up a lot of our time 😦). that’s 3 pc’s (one each at work and one at home) we get to stare at for such an extended period of time. since we spend so much time looking at our monitors, we’d like to share how our desktops look now… and how it looked then.
current desktop setup (our home pc)
a widescreen monitor gives us much more real estate to look at. to take full advantage of this, we thought it would be best to keep the desktop clean in order for our wallpaper to standout. this prenup photo taken by fol rana jr is one our favorites (one of many, that is. 🙂). everything about this photo fits perfectly on the screen.
it’s quite obvious also that we’re using vista as our os. despite all the ramblings all over the internet regarding vista, we haven’t encountered much problems with it (except that some applications won’t run on it yet). check out the performance meter though. with nothing running, vista eats up 30% of our 2 gb ram. yup, vista is a memory hog. 😀
current desktop setup (selle’s office pc)
no widescreen lcd’s for us at the office 😀. we so loved this photo which we grabbed straight out of fol rana’s blog post about our wedding. 🙂 the colors, the lighting and the happiness this photo exudes makes this an awesome photograph.
this was captured during office hours hence the many applications open at the taskbar. needless to say, green is selle’s favorite color. 🙂
current desktop setup (dyoks’ office pc)
i opted to use a spread from our diy wedding album. this layout is all about my wife so there’s no need to explain why i have it as my wallpaper. 😉
we have changed wallpapers a number of times already and we tried to replicate them for this post. here’s how our desktops looked before.
selle’s desktop fresh from our prenups. we love this picture because we were caught off-guard. ginamit nga namin ito sa likod ng invitation namin, eh. 🙂
selle’s desktop from way, way back. i personally laid this out and gave this to her. fav is our term of endearment. that’s short for favorite. because we started out as “favorite friends.” 😉
for a season, we did have identical desktops… and this was it. this was right after the night of our proposal… and the first and only time i gave selle flowers. 😉
my desktop after our prenups. this one can also be seen at fol rana’s blog post about our prenups. besides being a fantastic photo, i just loved how it blended with the black background of the desktop.
this was the 3rd photo taken by cellphone. paalis kami nito papuntang tagaytay on our 1st venue-hunting trip. extracted and turned to black-and-white para mas model ang dating. 😉 here’s the original photo.
here’s my desktop from a couple of years ago. ginamit ito as a semphil idol ad. this was derived from a photo of selle during one of her performances here at the company. here’s the original photo taken during our company’s Christmas party.
so how does your desktops look like? share naman dyan… 🙂
videography is really fascinating… more so wedding videography. capturing moments and weaving them all together is an art form at its highest level. we’ve seen a lot of works from various videographers, both here and abroad, and we’re proud to say that filipinos are the best wedding videographers in the planet. this has been proven in the past two years when a couple of our prominent videographers (jason magbanua and imacron) started joining international competitions sponsored by weva and reaped a ton of awards. if only more filipinos were able to join, we would’ve totally dominated the whole competition. beyond the awards though, it’s the recognition and the opportunity to showcase their craft that these artists crave for and, because only a few were able to join, a handful still remain unnoticed… until just recently.
just this year, sony hosted a wedding video competition for filipinos. being the first of its kind, pinoy videomakers got excited and a total of 36 joined the said contest. considering there’s a one-entry-per-participant limit, that’s a lot of videographers. 😀 also, having such a limit somehow acted as an initial filter thereby making the competition really stiff.
upon hearing about this contest, we immediately thought of our former supplier turned friend, bob nicolas. a master videographer with his very own unique style, we thought this would be a chance for him to be finally recognized. this year’s weva competition would’ve been the first but bob just missed out on the deadline (sayang nga eh at hindi nakasali. d bale, next year… 😉). this time, bob wouldn’t let this opportunity pass and he joined this wedding video competition.
we were both confident and excited about bob’s chances on this event. that statement may sound biased but remember, we have admired his works and skills even before we got to know him. our confidence and excitement were validated when the magic 5 was released and bob’s work was there. 🙂
we knew this even if the names of the videographers were not listed, only the videos. how’d we know? because bob’s signature style was very evident in one video. in our excitement, we texted bob to confirm this and true enough, he was a finalist. 🙂 we watched the other videos in the top 5 and were astounded by the varying styles each one presents. nevertheless, our confidence in bob did not waver but only grew stronger. bob’s entry was a true masterpiece… a bob nicolas masterpiece.
we were watching tv while awaiting the results of the competition. it was half past ten when bob texted the news indicating he got 2nd place. we were a bit bummed because we wanted him to get 1st but getting 2nd is good enough considering the caliber of the competition. buddy gancenia grabbed 1st place with his trademark reality tv style showcasing his editing skills. meanwhile, mayad studios of iloilo proved that there are videography geniuses outside of the metropolis.
we’re obviously both glad and proud of this accomplishment of bob’s (we wouldn’t be blogging about it if we’re not 😛). we remember more than a year ago when we first “encountered” him (if grabbing a free cd sampler on an unmanned booth is considered an encounter 😆) and realized that there’s more to videography other than jason. hindi pa kasi matunog si bob noon even in w@w. we’ve followed his work and he has consistently produced great videos. this guy just needed to be known… needed an audience… needed to be recognized. finally, he has been.
another batch of trainers completed our company’s trainers qualification program (tqp) and, like always, i gave a talk at the end of the training. this was my 6th time to give a talk and, as a change, i wanted to veer away from the usual way of presenting and offer something new and different. after a while of pondering how to approach this talk, i thought it would be nice to use a relatable topic and turn it into a jump-off point. you must be thinking, “what’s new and different with that?” there’s is really nothing new with that tactic but, as a challenge, i thought of using a topic that is not obviously connected to training, pull something out of it and then relate it to training. nice, huh? 🙂
the first easy choice was to use a popular movie. the predicament though was choosing a movie that i was certain that my audience has watched already (thereby making it relatable). that was a tough task considering i do not personally know most of the participants.
ok, no to movie. how about a book? nope. i don’t read that many books. a music video maybe? hmmm… interesting. 🙂 i can choose a music video and then use it as an opener. that way the whole audience will have immediate recall of the video thereby referencing to it would be much more effective. but what video would offer parallelism to training? and where would i get a copy of such a video? yet another dilemma…
and then it hit me. why not use our onsite video? that’s it! 😉
wait a minute… a wedding video as a tool for training trainers? yup. i told you i wanted something different. 🙂
be it a wedding video or in training, both have the ultimate goal of communicating a message across to an audience. for me and my wife, selle, a wedding video should be able to convey the emotions, the love and the memories of the day to its viewer. it’s beyond being simply entertaining using flashy effects and other cinematographic techniques (although that is nice to have also). the same goes with training. trainers should be able to impart knowledge to its trainees. yes, it’s nice to be an entertaining trainer (para hindi ma-bore ang trainees) but impartation should be top priority.
since our onsite video (which we love so much) was effective in showing the love and intimacy of our wedding to our guests (bob is really a master in capturing emotions and presenting them in a cinematic way), i felt like by studying and analyzing it, i can get pointers on the techniques used by bob and then apply it to training.
and this is a summary of what i found out and, consequently, shared to the trainees.
parallelism between training and a wedding video
wedding video: establish your characters.
training: define your terms.
since an onsite wedding video is just 3-5 minutes long, it is important that the lead characters (bride & groom) be established early. you wouldn’t want the viewer to be thinking, “asan na yung bride? yung groom?” or “ah, sya pala yung ikakasal!” in training, the counterpart of characters are terms. like in a video, it is important that the key terms be defined early in the training. this way, the trainer avoids confusion. a trainer should never assume that his/her audience knows the terms already.
wedding video: have a clear storyline
training: have a clear outline
stories are best told when one can sit through it from start to finish without needing to go back-and-forth (pause-rewind-play in case of videos) just to understand what has just happened. a smooth storyline avoids confusion and builds up to a climax. the same goes in training. instead of a storyline, a clear and organized outline of the whole training should be present. kung sa movies merong beginning-middle-end, sa training naman meron dapat opening-body-conclusion. an effective opening determines the success of a presentation. the body should cover all points alluded in the opening. a conclusion is necessary to summarize the points mentioned in the training.
wedding video: captivate your audience
training: captivate your audience
onsite videos are shown at the reception wherein guests have the tendency to be easily distracted. an effective onsite should therefore be captivating in order to grab and, more importantly, sustain their attention. more so in training, where it is much longer and have a tendency to be boring. a trainer therefore should use different tools to capture his/her participants’ attention. put life into training by connecting with the participants. surprise them, avoid predictability. know your audience.
wedding video: details + angles
training: details + angles
wedding details are the oftentimes unseen and overlooked aspects of a wedding. adding it makes a video more interesting. meanwhile, using different (and unusual) camera angles of key points of a wedding adds more drama and dynamics to a video. applying this technique into training is simply saying that a trainer must have something extra (details) and something different (angles). it’s important to know more than enough. give personal insights, share stories and present your topic aside from the usual perspective.
it was a thrill to have conducted that last talk especially since an unusual methodology was used. hopefully, the latest batch of tqp participants got something out of it. 🙂
tqp batch 6 participants with judges
front row, left to right: me 🙂(judge), cris, myriam, frances, len, malou, rose, grace (judge)
back row, left to right: ryan, rj, randy, bhurr, kiko (judge)
special awards:
as-good-as-my-predecessor award: cris
only once before has a company nurse underwent tqp… and she topped her class. filled with so much life and energy, cris kept her audience enthralled throughout her presentation and, based on my ratings, followed her predecessor’s footsteps by topping this class also.
don’t-judge-me-by-my-size award: frances
clear, loud and arresting. it was a pleasant surprise to have such a voice coming from a woman with such a diminutive body frame.
oo-tapos-na-po-ako award: jackie
record-holder for the fastest presentation ever in the trainers qualification program. it was so fast, i barely even got to jot down my comments. 😀
the fiba americas concluded a month ago while the european version just finished a couple of weeks ago thereby completing the leading cast for the favorites to get 2008 olympic gold for basketball.
like i said in a prior blog posting, i do like sports (better yet, WE do like sports as selle has learned to appreciate it 🙂). basketball may not be my favorite sport but i still am fascinated by it. international basketball was even made more interesting when professional players were allowed to participate back in the 1992 barcelona olympics.
historically, usa has dominated olympic basketball. their 62-0 record though was snapped in the 1972 olympic finals against soviet union, which still remains one of the most controversial moments in olympic history. usa though regained the gold in the following olympics and continued their dominance until 1988 (except in 1980 wherein usa did not participate) where, finally, the american college stars had problems with their more experienced opponents and consequently only took bronze. this probably was the reason why usa basketball lobbied for the inclusion of professional players in olympic tournaments. they got their wish and in 1992… the dream team was born.
in 1992, usa proved that there is still a huge gap between them and the rest of the world when it comes to basketball. successive trashings of the opposition in the following world championships and olympics even cemented this claim. it was this same dominance which will prove to be the reason for their gradual downfall. top players started losing that desire to play for their country stating that there is nothing more to prove. even the organizers started treating international basketball more like an exhibition and not a serious competition. all these culminated in successive “failures” in 2002 world championships, 2004 olympics and 2006 world championships. note that for team usa, anything less than gold is considered a failure… although usa historically didn’t take the fiba world championships seriously.
being proud people, team usa had enough and have since employed a different approach to international competition. their goal was to get the gold back in 2008.
but before that, they had to qualify for the olympics at the fiba americas.
did they qualify? not only did they qualify… they obliterated the competition. it was sight to behold with each game being practically over by the 2nd (sometimes 3rd) quarter and, yes, at times, it was like watching the dream team all over again.
but even with such dominance, skeptics still abound stating that their opponents did not field their best players (most notably argentina) hence tainting usa’s victory. if the same logic is used, usa also didn’t field their best players in recent tournaments so does that mean argentina and spain’s victories are illegitimate also? i personally think this kind of logic is skewed but never mind the critics and let’s just look at what team usa’s chances are for 2008.
i say their chances are good… really, really good.
why so? two things:
their mentality. these guys are angry and they play with something to prove. they’re intense on both sides of the court… and they never let up.
their athleticism. hands down, usa has the most athletic players in the world and they put it in good use. they run, run and run a lot. they pressure the ball which leads to turnovers… and they run even more.
but just to be really, really sure… i think (even my wife observed this), team usa needs to have a few personnel changes. generally speaking, they need:
a more suitable backup point guard. whenever jason kidd sits down, team usa slows down. whenever team usa slows down, they do not play to their strength which gives their more disciplined opponents some semblance of a chance.
another dominating big man. only dwight howard can be considered a wide body in the current lineup and nobody else. they need another one when they matchup with those physical european teams. amare can play center but he’s better suited at power forward or play him together with another rebounding monster. it would be nice if they team-up chandler and amare both at the same time but i just do not see the coaching staff doing it.
so who stays? who goes?
jason kidd definitely stays. he ignites the fastbreak. finds the open man. he is the key to this team.
dwight howard is a certainty also. to ignite the fastbreak, a team needs to control the boards. howard is a monster at collaring rebounds.
lebron james, carmelo anthony, kobe bryant stays by default. they’re versatile and explosive at the offensive end. though i think they can live without kobe (note: i don’t like him 🙂), i don’t see usa basketball taking him out of the team. he does play sticky defense… i’ll give him that.
amare stoudamire stays also. he is the only big man on the current roster with low-post moves (i’m not counting carmelo because he’s really not a big man).
michael redd is definitely in. this team needs a consistent outside threat like him. i’ll take michael redd over kobe any day. (did i mention already that i do not like kobe? 🙂)
chauncey billups & deron williams. one of them, if not both, will go. they just hog the ball too much slowing down the potent quick-attack offense. plus chauncey takes too many shots. personally, i say chauncey is out and deron has a 50-50 chance to return.
mike miller & teyshaun prince. both are in the bubble. miller’s shooting performance was just off during the tournament while prince may be too thin at power forward against bigger teams. i think only one (or maybe none) of them stays… not both.
tyson chandler. another one in the bubble. he rebounds a lot and blocks a lot of shots, all that is needed from a big man on this team. the only knack on him is he has zero offensive game and he can be overpowered. though i think he fits the big man role well, he will most probably be replaced.
who are the prime candidates?
dwyane wade. although this team might not need him (lebron, melo & kobe is crowded enough), barring an injury, he will be on this team. he does bring defense and agressiveness on offense.
chris bosh/elton brand/carlos boozer/shawn marion. one of these guys (or maybe two) will be inserted on the lineup for that added rebounding dominance and low-post presence inside (bosh/brand/boozer). marion is interesting because his style of play perfectly suits the run-and-gun tactics being employed by team usa.
chris paul/gilbert arenas. chauncey surely didn’t work so they need another point guard. it’s either the play-making ability of chris paul or the defense and scoring of agent zero.
shane battier/bruce bowen. they can replace teyshaun prince and act as the designated defensive stopper. both bowen & battier has better shooting than prince but prince can guard bigger guys. in any case, this team must have a defensive stopper.
yes, we are leaving out other more popular (and more talented) players (shaq, jermaine o’neal, ben wallace, kg, tim duncan (eeew 😆), t-mac, ray allen… etc) simply because they are not part of the pool assembled by usa basketball. plus this gives usa basketball a chance to use use the skewed logic mentioned above as an alibi and state that they did not field their best players in case they lose. 😆
bottom line, i always believe that in basketball, a team must play their game and not their opponent’s style. since team usa’s real strength is their athleticism, their style of play must showcase that (which they did at the fiba americas). they should continue to play man-to-man pressure defense (forget the zone defense please…) and use automatic switching on screens. push the ball hard and play open-court basketball. quick-passing on half-court offense leading to either an open 3 or an easy dunk. it’s that style of play more than the personnel that would lead team usa to victory.
anyway, let’s just see what happens on beijing next year. it will surely be fun to watch. 🙂
ps if they can’t find another point guard, i suggest they use lebron as their point whenever kidd is on the bench then surround him with shooters and power dunkers. that would be fun. 😀
selle and dyoks are engineers working for two separate manufacturing giants. she is smart, attractive and vocally-gifted... that's why he fell for her. she's also a loving and supportive wife... and that's why he's falling for her even more. he is smart, passionate and both technically and artistically-inclined... and a loving husband as well. they are happily married and are living their life for the glory of God.
selleANDdyoks 