Andrea & Pascual

This year, my family’s Christmas Eve celebration was a little different.  It is because my pretty pregnant niece decided to hold the Gender Reveal Party also on the day before Christmas.  Everyone was so excited my mom’s house was colorfully decorated with pink and blue balloons and buntings for the event.

khris mae… my preggy niece

Games were played prior to the exciting gender revelation.  My family is so big that my nephew Den Den, the program host, decided to divide us into 4 groups.  In one of the games, called “Nominate A Name Game”, Den Den directed each group to think of a girl’s and a boy’s name whom we suggest be best given to our would-be newest member of the family.  The best recommended names will win the game.  Khris Mae, my would-soon-be-a-mom niece was, of course, the judge.

i was rooting for a baby boy while my elder sister wants a girl

There were so many suggestions, my group decided that I should be the one to think and provide our group’s nominated names.  I actually got an advantage because I have personally talked to Khris Mae during my birthday dinner buffet at Sofitel on what names does she plan to give her child. 

I however could not recall a single name that Khris Mae showed me as listed on her mobile phone during that Sofitel dinner.  During the game, I instead limit the names to names that starts with the letter A.  Besides, all of my grandniece and grandnephews names starts with the letter A – Arziolo, Alvia and Alexander II so I guess it would be perfect to name this baby with a name that starts with this letter.

When it was my turn to nominate a name, some gentle spirit seems to have whispered to me and made me utter the name Andrea.  A Greek-originated name that means “strong, brave and powerful”.  The very characteristics that I would want my brother’s would-be grandchild to possess.  A very appropriate name for a baby in this age and era of our planet.

For the boy’s name, the first name that entered by mind was Andrew, the male variant of the name Andrea.  But when I was asked what boy’s name I nominate, I suddenly uttered Pascual. That’s when I remembered suggesting to Khris Mae during my birthday dinner in Sofitel that I like the name Pascual.  I told her that it is to pay tribute and homage to my loving grandfather (Nengkoy’s dad) whose name was Pascual.

it’s pink confetti!

it’s a girl!

Later in the party, Khris Mae finally revealed that she will have a baby girl.  And guess what? My group won the “Nominate A Name Game”.

The Electrifying Time Square NYC

Stepping on Time Square every time a person tours and visits New York is always one of the main highlights.  I know that locals, unless they work there, would as much as possible avoid this pandemonium of a place.  But since I am a tourist, I have all the right to visit and feel the energy and vibe of Time Square.

New Yorkers should be proud and be pleased by the sense and feel that Time Square offers to its visitors.  Time Square for me seem to be the modern-day center of the planet.  There is no official language on this spot of earth.  Everybody seem to speak of their own.  And Time Square is one big animal that seem to celebrate a non-stop party, 24/7!

I don’t know but every time I step on Time Square, there seem to be some weird electricity that seem flow in me.  Maybe, this is the physical manifestation of a place being so electrifying!

Here’s a couple of photos I shot during my recent stepping on Time Square…

Basta! Ay lab dis pleys…

 

Malou’s Prayer 2019

In my country, the Philippines, any corporate event or gathering will not be complete without the Invocation otherwise known as the opening prayer.  It is as if the event will not be successful if the organizers chose not to supplicate and plea to the heavenly spirits for guidance, strength and protection while the affair is on-going.

Surprisingly, one of the most popular posts I have in this blog is an Invocation.  I often see my blog’s stats sour high during Christmas season because folks assigned to lead the prayer in their respective event, program or party seem to search online on samples of beautiful prayers.  I can attest that Malou’s prayer has been so popular in the past few years! 

needs to have my photo before the whole stressful yet fun event starts!

malou & edwin, the designated hosts of the program

Last January 21, being the yearly designated organizer of a company’s Employees’ Night Grand Ball, I again designated Malou to compose and lead a gorgeous and inspiring prayer.  Despite having so much going on in my head that night – anxiety, pressure, worries and apprehensions – to ensure and make the party a success, Malou’s pleasing prayer consigned my being at ease.

And because of that, I again requested Malou for a copy.  She said okay when I told her that I am to post it in my blog.  Here it is…

Dear Lord,

Thank you for the blessings of 2018.

Thank you for bringing us together tonight and giving us another reason to celebrate our successes, our friendships, our teamwork, our lives.

We thank you most of all Lord for giving us 40 fruitful years and may we be blessed with so much more.

As we face the New Year, may You grant us the strength and the courage to live each day to the fullest, being a reflection of Your love to each other.

May you grant us the wisdom to perform our daily jobs and bless us with the inspiration to carry on each day.

Deliver us Lord from everything that will destroy us and help us to put our trust into your perfect care.

May we be to each other a beacon of light, a loving and forgiving friend, a strength to hold on to, a joy to look forward to, and an inspiration to keep us going.

May You bless our company with another 40 years of success and may we be a blessing to the people we serve.

All good things are not possible without You, Oh Lord.

 All glory and honor be to You Lord God, now and forever, Amen!

 

Gondohhh, di ba???

Osaka Halloween 2017

Channeling the mental state of Heidi Klum who loves to shock and amaze people every Halloween, I decided to dress up like an Indian Warrior.

happy halloween!

This is my second Halloween in Osaka and I equally love it just like the first.  Let the pictures speak for itself.

team langit before the street party (with nengkoy)

she was ursula in 2015, the queen of hearts of alice in wonderland in 2016. this year erika is coraline the other mother

team langit with darth vader and avatar characters

with c-3po, queen amidala and mariposa

monkeys!

with my evil smile, no doubt, i’m the most wicked! hahaha!

one of the popular t-rexes that night was my nephew alexis!

i had a blast!

i love osaka

Happy Halloween!

An Inimitable After-Wedding-Party of Alexis & Thatcher

I’m a proud uncle I must say.  Up until now I can’t seem to overcome the genial feeling at how the wedding ceremony and after-wedding-party of Alexis & Thatcher has turned out.  All elements of a fun party was there.  The wedding reception in particular was a well thought-off kind of a revelry.

The set-up was grand, the live music was impeccable and the host was entertaining!  Elements of Alexis and Thatcher’s personalities were present in all corners of the venue, from geeky/techy toys and designs to youthful books and journals.  I never realized that chic elegance and non-mainstream geeky-ness can jive well and would be such an exciting type of a wedding party concept.

grand!

nengkoy with the couple…

blue label…

ninong duties

Another impressive aspect of the party were the food and drinks.  When I saw the menu, I immediately concluded that the line-up of these exciting dishes were well-scrutinized.  The dinner was absolutely lovely!

I am not a wine connoisseur but my having three glasses of the red wine that night would signify how good the wine was.  But the most impressive of all in terms of drinks was the serving of Johnnie Walker Blue Label.  There was nothing geeky about it, but the serving of this rare Scottish whisky – a freakin’ bottle on every table – was sheer elegance!

But all these were topped by the dance number that Alexis and Thatcher has performed that night.  My family knows that the couple (both seem to possess considerable levels of geeky-ness) shall be the last to dance in any of our family’s occasion.  Seeing both strutting a swanky and ritzy dance number was such a treasure to behold.  Alexis and Thatcher’s romantic dancing made me super cheery, my emotional equilibrium went berserk that it made me cry for joy.

Here’s how grand the event was… watch it…

Awtstanding…

A Retro Party Video That Deserves 680 Views

Does a person who signed-in or owns a YouTube account can already be considered a YouTuber or does it take a certain degree before someone be considered as one?  I for one owns a YouTube account and I have signed-in my account for more than 5 years already, but still, I don’t consider myself as a legit YouTuber.  For me, a rightful YouTuber is someone who has at least a couple of hundreds of subscribers, posts videos on a regular basis and the number of views of their videos are in thousands (if not in millions).

I have high regard and admiration to these group of internet geniuses.  I am continuously boggled by the fact that these YouTubers were able to tap and has been consistent in tickling the interests of the video viewing public. I have yet to grasp and discover their seemingly elusive formula.  And I’m clueless on how the hell they do it!  Like a pathetic old fool, I have been doing YouTube but one video has yet to reach a thousand views!

Anyway, let me post the latest YouTube video that I did with the help of my officemate (Rey Ferrer) who introduced me to a new world of video editing.  This video is about the recent company party that I organized.  With the hardships and challenges of organizing a company party attended by 680 people, this video I suppose deserves to reach at least 680 views.  Enjoy…

peace!

peace!

Kapag ang bidyong ito naging bayral, maanlilibre ako ng miryenda! 

Channeling a Retro Fashion Passion

As soon as it was agreed that the theme of the company that I worked with was Retro 60s & 70s, I channeled on the personas of Billy Preston, the Jackson 5, Angela Davis, Jimmy Hendrix and the Supremes.  I plumped into the idea of donning into the so called afro fashion which became a fad during the 70s.

Fortified with a deep thought as funneled by these iconic 70s Afro-American icons that “with right fashion passion everything would be aflame” this is how my retro-party-look ended up:

with malou domingo...

with malou domingo…

your clothes should be as important as your skin...

your clothes should be as important as your skin…

i#bighair

i#bighair

It was super fun dressing up for a retro party!

Ang sarap pumorpa mga repapips! Bukas susuotin ko ulit yan pag-pasok ko sa opis!

Retro 60s and 70s Party Teaser

In the company that I am working for, Employees’ Night Party is held yearly.  Instead of the annual Christmas Party as observed by other companies, we prefer to hold the party after the season has simmered down.  It is because during the Santa Holiday Season out group of restaurants are the busiest entities in the metro.  We are actually the servers in others’ Christmas Parties!

And after the busy service during Christmas season, we seem to be ready for a Halloween Party because everybody looks like a zombie by the end of the season.  Nevertheless, during the kris kringle season, I would publish posters counting down the number of days prior to the day of the Employees’ Night so as to build up some excitement.

retro-posters

a collage of “countdown” posters i published in the office

Employees’ Night is held usually on the second or third week of January.  And every year, a theme is appointed.   This year’s theme is Retro 60s and 70s.  The styles, fashion and music of the 60s and 70s era.

Every year my co-employees looks forward to our Employees’ Night.  Almost all of employees would participate in donning in an outfit based on the party theme.  I am just as excited as the rest of them.  And to add more excitement, I created a cute video which features some of my co-employees who has lived during the cool 60s and awesome 70s…

Thank you peeps for submitting your cute cool retro photos! I love them all.  Let show everyone how an awesome party should be done.  See you at the party!

Eksayted na ko…

Halloween in Osaka: I got to be The Riddler!

Thanks to Halloween and the tradition of dressing up to be someone else on this day.  It is because it is one day in a year when the young ones and young at hearts got to exercise their wonderful sense of magical imagination.

I have always been the “I don’t care about Halloween” type of a person.  But my Halloween this year is totally different!  I spent this year’s Halloween in Osaka, Japan.  And I had a blast!

i got to be The Riddler

i got to be The Riddler

It was the night I got to be someone I was not.  I got to be The Riddler!  It was the night that no soul stopped me from looking weird and acting strangely.  It was one night that I just took all my cares away.  And the best part of it is that I got to party with some of my monster pamangkins (nieces & nephews)!

What is so awesome about the Halloween in Osaka is that herds of people wear costumes for the occasion. The array of costumes are just unbelievable!  And they would walk the streets of Osaka in a very cheery mood creating an awesome street-party-like atmosphere!

aylavet!

aylavet!

super fun!

super fun!

amazing!

amazing!

one with the osaka halloween

one with the osaka halloween

Me and my pamangkins, in our respective costumes, walked and went to the Triangle Park known as Sankaku Koen where people in their amazing costumes converge to see and be seen.  A lot of people say that walking the streets of Osaka in costume during Halloween will be incomplete if you won’t pass by Sankaku Koen.

One extra ordinary thing about this Halloween tradition in this park is that there seem to be no planning, no advertisement, no organization nor program being followed.  But everyone just turns up to this park in their costume so as to amaze and be amazed!

nemesis galore...

nemesis galore…

bongga!

bongga!

the queen of hearts and the joker

the queen of hearts and the joker

the riddler and the stormtrooper

the riddler and the stormtrooper

party! party! we owned the dancefloor at balabushka!

party! party! we owned the dancefloor at balabushka!

After witnessing the colorful, amazing and unbelievable costumes in Sankaku Koen, me and my pamangkins went to Balabushka – a dance club – where we all danced our Halloween cares away!

Kakaibang gemba! Kakamangha!

Malou’s Opening Prayer

malou domingo

Organizing a company Christmas Party is a big task to accomplish year after year for an HR practitioner like me.  Committees of various responsibilities need to be reminded, assisted and monitored about the status of their respective tasks.

This year, I requested Ms. Malou Domingo, our company’s Marketing Manager to deliver the Opening Prayer for LJC Restaurant Group’s Support Service Christmas Party.  When the party was on-going, I personally asked Malou for a copy of what she has prepared because I was impressed by what she has composed and rendered for the group.

I personally believe that the Opening Prayer is one of the most vital parts of any social gathering since it is a spiritual yearning for the awareness of God’s presence during the course of the revelry.  The prayer was unadorned yet grateful, pleasing, appreciative and sincere. It moved me!

Here is the simple yet pure and remarkable invocation written by Malou…

“We thank You Lord for gathering us today.

We thank You most of all for giving us a reason to celebrate each year…

… a chance to reunite with friends and co-workers,

… a chance to enjoy each other’s company

… and a chance to reconcile and to leave the past behind

so that we may look forward

to better working relationships in the coming year

2010 has generally been a good year for all of us

and we thank you for the blessings you have given.

There were setbacks yes

but we trust that these are only ways for You

to open up new doors and new opportunities for us.

Bless our gathering today and bless this place

and bless each and everyone and our families as well.

We will soon welcome a new year and we will step into it

with full trust in You who makes all good things possible.

Bless us with joy, peace, good health, prosperity

and most of all wisdom to know how to attain all these.

To You be Glory forever, Amen.”

And when I absorbed what Malou has said and I said my Amen, I knew that the party will be fun and will be a success.  And it definitely was!

Isang malaking palakpak sa ‘yo Ms. Malou!