38/365: On The Road, Legazpi City

Legazpi City, the land of the Mayon Volcano! Finally, I got to see the famous perfect cone...only, the whole time we were there the tip of the volcano was covered with clouds! Drat!

Again, we were the advance party for the boss—which was more fun, if you asked me. Though there were lots of work to do, we had more time to sight see.

Me, getting to shoot pictures and seeing places and eating my meals at leisure (not the eat-and-run affairs when you're traveling with the boss) is the only reward I want from these working trips.

37/365: On The Road, Baguio City

Baguio City is just a few hours from Nueva Vizcaya, my native province. To tell you frankly though, I didn't get to visit Baguio until I was in college...and then only briefly.

When I got to this government post, it seemed that all we did was travel to Baguio every now and then for some reason or another.

Meeting the boss at Baguio City's feeder airport

Baguio City is the country's summer capital. Filipinos always find an excuse to troop to this mountain retreat during the hottest parts of the year. It's about 1,610 meters above sea level so it's always cool year round. The highest temperature during summer hovers around 70°F. So far, the record hottest it's ever registered is 86°F back in 1988 during the El Nino drought. You can say Baguio City is the premier vacation destination in the Philippines.

These jaunts though are often for work and we rarely have time to visit...which is sad really because there are lots of fantastic destinations in Baguio. Plus, there's the ukay ukay—second hand stores where you can get an Armani trench in good condition for less than a hundred pesos (about $2.50 in today's conversion). I kid you not!

The object of this visit was to consolidate the governors of Northern Luzon and get them behind the President's whatever. The objective's obscure to me now but since our office was always troubleshooting one problem after another, I'm fairly certain this trip had that goal, heh.

36/365: On The Road with Foreign Dignitaries

What made my work tripley exciting—no, a hundred times exciting—was preparing for the official visits of foreign dignitaries. Ministers, cabinet secretaries, directors, and even on two occasions, presidents. I've even had a chance of leading the arrangements for the visit of then Defence Minister and now Malaysian Prime Minister Dato S'ri Najib Razak!

Welcome mat for a visiting dignitary.

The work's not unlike that of an orchestral conductor's. I had to be on top of several things at the same time. Of course, a team's always organized to prepare for one of these top level visits but being the boss' liaison with the rest of the team, one has to know everything that's going on if one is to keep her head attached to her body for most of the day, heh. And that meant making decisions, trouble shooting and pinch hitting.

This dignitary that's about to come down from the plane was in Manila for a hush hush visit. These days, the Arab spring has swept his country, too, and now he's in detention. But back when his father was part of Manila's peace strategy with the MILF rebels, our Christmas then was one hectic, frenetic affair.

I remember having a difficult time with the protocols for this kind of visit. Lots of meetings with the foreign affairs and armed forces team. And yeah, backdoor arrangements for a visit between him and a certain individual under house arrest, heh.

Exciting times, definitely. Exhausting work, too!

35/365: On The Road, Bacolod City

For the next few days, I'll be posting images from travels connected to my work as special assistant in a government agency beginning seven years ago. You'll see lots of roads and airports, and where I forgot to shoot, you'll see pictures of clouds, heh.

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Serving my Cabinet Secretary, we're on the road a lot. Airports, hotels, roads, convoys, cars, buses, boats, ports...They were my weekly staple.

The first time I went to Bacolod City, I was excited. I was looking forward to eating all those yummy dishes that my Ilonggo friends always had on their tables whenever I visited their homes.

New Bacolod Silay Airport

I think we went here for a public consultation/dialogue with the city's academia. All I can remember though is that the new Silay airport had been bombed by communist guerrillas a couple of years before. This was when it was still under construction.

As always, we had a security detail composed of policemen, military personnel, and plainclothes people with us—but that didn't take away the security issues. We were, after all, from the defense and security sector even though we—my advance party—were civilians.

But this particular trip which lasted for 4 days passed uneventfully, problem-wise. And I had fun. After all, I went ahead a day early and got back a day late of my Cabinet Secretary. I had time to go visit places and shop for stuff. Something I could never do when I was traveling with the Spymeister.

34/365: Central Florida Small Town Sunset

Now, this one is a regular sight...and my favorite time of the day.

God paints with a sweeping hand and with such stunning, dramatic colors. No two sunsets are ever the same that's why I love just looking at them. My world stops for a few minutes before the sun kisses the horizon to appreciate His fleeting masterpieces. Awesome, isn't He?

33/365: Central Florida Small Town Sunrise

I'm not a morning person so sights like this are very, very rare. When I come across one, I record it for posterity's sake.

A morning commune with the birds is a wonderful experience. Unfortunately, I'm more at home with owl hoots. When I normally hear sweet tweets and chirps, I'm just going to bed not getting up from it.

32/365: Afternoon Repast

This post should be called "Li'l Prince and My Laptop"...because that's my machine he's commandeered.

He's watching his favorite Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on YouTube and well, he's having his mid-afternoon snack -- loaf bread with raisins and cinnamon. His favorite, actually. Before he started making inroads into that bag of bread, it was 3/4 full. By the time he stopped, there were only the two loaves left. For all that, he's a picky eater.

Procrastination and Productivity: The Twin Devils of the Work-at-Home Life [Video]

Working from home can get quite lonely. Yes, you can dictate your work hours and you don’t have to commute—in 2 seconds flat (for me, at least), you’re in your ‘office’ and ready to start the day. But then, there are two evils that you have to contend with when freelancing from home: procrastination and productivity.

Yep, the two Ps of work-at-home life. And if you can’t conquer one, you can’t have the other.

Here are two videos that may shed light on the science of both and how to master procrastination and improve your productivity...and of course, increase the dollars that you can rake in. :) 

The Science of Procrastination

Indeed, there’s a scientific reason why we put off things that we can do today. It has something to do with rewards and dopamines. Here’s how AsapSCIENCE, one of my favorites on YouTube, explains it:

Takeaways:

1. Temporal discounting has everything to do with our tendency to procrastinate...something about getting rewards nowe—and having that rush of the pleasure hormone dopamine—versus getting our rewards later.
2. The Pomodoro technique...which is simply breaking down your work into 20 minutes then a 5-minute break...definitely helps.
3. Acknowledge that you will procrastinate so best do something about it from the start. Create a deadline. An externally-imposed deadline is more effective.
4. Enjoying the process of doing something will prevent procrastination. Make a list of the reasons why you want to achieve a goal.
5. Work somewhere else if you can't remove the distractions. That way, the things that encourage procrastination is far from you.