Getting 'Hooked' in Twitter Follows?

The big numbers of followers in some Twitter accounts used to fascinate me. "How could I do that?" I asked. Now, the fascination remains, but it's tempered by an equally fascinating subject about engagement.

Followers, yes! How many of these do you befriend?

It's one thing to have 10,000 or 50,000 or even 2,000,000 followers. It's another to engage with them in meaningful conversations.

Let me explain.

A Slice of Working at Home

I work at home. Many people still couldn’t get what that means. I’m tired of explaining. Now, I just let them think whatever they want to think and not give a damn. Oh, how life has become simpler since then.

Working at home, in squatting position, in front of TV and with kids running around

Neighbors thought I work nights somewhere. That’s because they see me at home during the day, wearing shorts and tending my garden. My eyes go up each time someone mentions I work nights. But I have learned to cope with the punishment by saying, “Yeah! See you around.”

Google Chrome Finally Works Again in my Mac

Google Chrome has been my favorite browser in my MacBook. In my heart it has always been. But for around three months, it has loaded pages forever!

That has pushed me back to Firefox and Safari, which are good browsers also, to be fair. But you see, they're not Google Chrome, know what I mean?

I've been missing the singular box for both search and URL. I've been missing the automatic translate. I've been missing stuff that makes Chrome, Chrome.

Gmail That Reads Your Body Motion?

Who else has seen a weird "Gmail Motion Beta" announcement in their Gmail panels today?

I'm referring to this ...

I clicked on it. The next thing I knew, I got hooked to this very interesting video ...

Google Docs Discussion Button

I just noticed today that Google Docs has placed a 'Discussion' buttton in new documents you create.

The 'Discussions' button is a recent cool innovation

This allows us to have document-specific discussions, which is very great for article writing with a colleague or an editor, finalizing minutes of a meeting, updating progress reports and the like.

That was a wake up call, indeed ...

A homeschool colleague named Oliver was following my fatherhood blog and I didn't realize it. I ran across him in a homeschool gathering. Then he asked, "What's up? I've not read anything new in your blog."

Aluminum Apple Keyboard by Andrew*

That was a wake up call. I had not updated this blog regularly as I used to. For a time, I thought that was, "Ok." Deep inside me, something said, "No, Marvin, that's not Ok. You're out of integrity here." 

Bloggers like me put up blogs like this with a vision. In my case, I've been envisioning this blog to be read by fathers like me. There's just a lot of stuff out there that fathers could munch during breaks, to make them better parents of Filipino kids, especially in the information age.

Goals vs Purpose

Many gurus have talked about goals and life purpose. This is the best quote I have found so far that relate the two with each other (emphases mine) ...

Goals are a means to an end, not the ultimate purpose of our lives. They are simply a tool to concentrate our focus and move us in a direction. The only reason we really pursue goals is to cause ourselves to expand and grow. Achieving goals by themselves will never make us happy in the long term; it's who you become, as you overcome the obstacles necessary to achieve your goals, that can give you the deepest and most long-lasting sense of fulfillment. (Tony Robbins)

People who have "been there" says one thing. Yes, it's great to be at the peak of the mountain. But it is who they have become in the struggle to reach the summit that gives them greater joy. It's their ultimate take.,

So, given that, let's revisit this question: are goals important to our own happiness?

My answer to that is this: To a purposeful person, that answer is Yes. To a purposeless person, the answer is No.

He Chose to Visit Me to Get His Payout

I started giving out payouts to my writers last Friday. One of them is from the other side of the small city of Calamba. He happened to be shopping with his wife at SM City Calamba when I sent him SMS for his bank account.

His reply, "Can I go over there right now?" I thought that was surprising. Anyhow, I said, "Yes, you can come before 12nn because I'm gonna be leaving for a meeting."

This guy is a work-at-home guy as well. So, he has that flexibility to go anywhere during the day and be flexible about his schedule. Nice, isn't it? It's simply you can't enjoy while working in an office.

Social Media Week - Rome

Online jobs is the result of the combined forces of the economy, globalization and the internet. Watch and listen to Gary Swart, CEO of oDesk Corporation (odesk.com).



I'm sure many Filipinos need not leave the country to seek employment abroad. With proper orientation towards the growing opportunities available in the internet, there's a good chance for fathers and mothers to stay home.

Our Fantastic 2011 Family Vacation

The last two weeks have been hectic and exciting for my family. Sponsors in my big family took me, my wife and my kids to a two-week big family vacation that included trips in Cebu, Bohol, Camiguin, Bukidnon and Cagayan de Oro City.

Some of the places we visted

I have summarized the places we visited in the diagram above. It was a mix of air, land and sea travel. There were lots of sight-seeing, fun photos, swimming and snorkeling.