I'm seriously considering the relaunch of my pseudo-blog network, which includes this blog, Ceskypooh's World, Cribs and Rides, and PR Depot. Why? Frankly, there are several reasons and time will come for me to reveal these reasons. For now, let's settle on a question to answer a question: Well, why the hell not?

Seriously now, I really want to restart posting on my blogs and write regularly. At present, I'm drawing inspiration from a few friends who have managed to balance their day jobs and personal lives with regular posting on their blogs. On top of this "inspiration" list are Kevin Constantine Codamon, who amazes us mundane folk in his role as Online Platforms Manager at Philippine-based online games publisher and operator Level Up! Games, and Carlo Ople, also one of the most reliable managers at the online games pioneer. What these people do on a daily basis is a mean feat that I wish to emulate.



Almost a year ago, I launched and relaunched a couple of blogs that I thought I could handle. I had dug up Cribs and Rides from my projects cellar, gave it a new look and feel, started posting more or less regularly, and felt good about the entire episode. I felt so sure that I could make the blog thrive that I relaunched Ceskypooh's World, a blog I used to "co-write" with my daughter, Cesky, on the Wordpress platform back when Pinoy Big Brother was reigning on the local boobtube.

Alas, I could not sustain regular posting, partly because of my daughter's month-long hospitalization due to pneumonia. I didn't lose hope, though. In November 2008, I launched Pinoy Journeylist as my personal blog and anchor blog for my pseudo network.

As you can see, I've only managed to post four articles before going into an indefinite hiatus, thanks to my employment at APAC Customer Services, a call center that set up shop in Palo, a municipality in the Philippine province of Leyte.

What about PR Depot? Actually, this blog is just an SEO (search engine optimization) experiment gone awry. I planned to convert it into a real blog, a company or corporate blog that would have launched my career as a blog and SEO expert catering to companies in the Philippines interested in establishing a presence on the World Wide Web. So much for dreams, eh?

Now, I'm back where I started two years ago—mulling the launch and relaunch of a pseudo blog network.

Prior to watching the dozens of Photoshop tutorials that Iceflow Studios posted on the Internet via Tutcast and YouTube, I had thought that I was a good, if not mediocre, Photoshop user. I've done professional digital imaging in the past, for a daily newspaper and for several websites and blogs.

So imagine my surprise when I discovered several Photoshop features through the Iceflow Studios videos that I never knew existed. For example, I knew that you can create water drops and make them appear on images for them to look like they're, well, wet or cold. But I didn't know how to do this ... until (yes, you guessed it) Iceflow Studios came into my life.

What's even better, my wife Joyce is taking a keen interest in developing her Photoshop skills, with the help of the Iceflow Studios tutorials, of course.

Here are three of our favorite tutorials:







Oh, wait! Before you run off and follow the tutorials, check the version of the Photoshop installed in your computer. Adobe Photoshop CS3 or CS4 works best.

Strange title, especially for readers who aren't from this little tropical country I call home. Don't worry, just read on. You'll get it soon enough.

About a month ago, my father in law, Jun (actually, he's Vicente, but he's called Jun, short for junior, because he carries his father's name ... think "mac" in old Irish names), gave me a tip that a call center was opening its doors to the job-hunting populace of Leyte, particularly those residing in Tacloban City and nearby towns like Palo and Tolosa. Since I didn't have work yet, I decided to give it a try.

Now, before I proceed, you have to realize how hard it is to find work in this central Philippine province, especially for those who haven't been staying here overly long. I've been trying to land a job in the past 11 months, to no avail. So it's quite fortunate that I've come across the tip of ol' Dad, who works for the Leyte II Electric Cooperative Inc.

So in mid-October, I found myself in the midst of other job-hunters, at the third floor of a local hotel. APAC Customer Services Inc., the call center that was hiring qualified personnel for supervisory and rank-and-file positions, had come to town, and it seemed dead serious in its bid to establish a base of operations in the town of Palo, about 13 kilometers from Leyte capital Tacloban City.

I applied for the position of Team Leader despite not having any previous call center experience. Needless to say, I got turned down. Fortunately, they asked me to come back a month later and try my hand at applying for a frontline position, the dreaded Customer Service Representative.

Yes, dreaded. For those of you who have no inkling about what I'm talking about, check out this video featuring a conversation between a Philippine Long Distance Company customer service representative and a client. My apologies for those who don't know how to speak in the vernacular. I suggest grabbing a Filipino friend to translate for you.



Customer service representatives, a friend who works in the business process outsourcing industry says, catches all the shit, ranging from taking rude or obscene calls to getting cursed and cussed on a daily basis. With this in mind on that fateful October afternoon, I was thinking of quitting on my application, right then and there. Unfortunately, I didn't have that luxury. Finding work and landing a job were on the top of my priority list.

So I came back a month later. That was two days ago, a Friday. I got the job! At least I think I did. I got this note saying APAC Customer Services would give me a call to tell me how to proceed with my application.

Does this mean I have my foot in APAC's door? The word "apak" in my title means "to step," by the way.

I tried to clarify this with one of the managers present at the job fair, Nizette Navia. All she said was that I need not worry as "You're SO in."

Wonder what that means.

And the brain hungers for the puzzles that go with adventure. This idea busted through the doors of my shifting thoughts about an hour ago as a torrential downpour destroyed the thinning canvas that protected my in-laws' house's terrace from the sun and rain. My wife, Joyce, and I had to act fast; if we let rainwater in, we'd already have a foot-deep wading pool.

So where's the adventure in that? Well, for starters, the rain—and, of course, the water—made it hard to climb up the terrace half-wall where water kept pouring in the large, uhmm, window. The canvas was also in tatters, making it difficult to hoist it into position again and to hold the damn thing in place. If we were not careful, we would probably have skewered each other with the pairs of scissors we were carrying.

The puzzle? Well, like I said, the canvas was almost in tatters. The trick was to pull it taut over the top part of the window, lash it onto the grill, and hope it holds and not rip itself into pieces. Doing this in fair weather is challenge enough. Doing it in the middle of a downpour is a bit crazy.

The entire episode pulled on the strings of my memory, back to 1990, when I was in Baguio City, studying at the University of the Philippines campus there. For those who don't know, a strong temblor shook the very bedrock of the Philippines' Luzon island on July 16, 1990, and Baguio City was one of the most devastated areas, probably next only to Dagupan City in nearby Pangasinan province.

Going back to the story, I was at the boarding house on that fateful day, relaxing with friends after a long day at school. Then the earthquake hit, and everybody panicked. Fortunately, I had the good sense to stay under the door frame. Some of my pad-mates were not so lucky as they fell off and rolled down the stairwell, from the third floor to the second floor mezzanine.

To make a long story short, I was stuck in Baguio City for a week, surviving on rations or whatever my friends and I could get our hands on with what's left of our money. We also slept on cold pavement or damp earth at the campus of the University of the Philippines. Water was a precious commodity, so precious that prices of bottled water soared to more than double, forcing us—and probably the lot of earthquake survivors—to gather rainwater in containers and drink the putrid stuff.

How did we while away the hours and the days? We walked around Baguio City and surveyed the destruction wrought by Mother Nature. Here's a stark reminder in dull 1990s color:



Sigh. If I go on and on about my adventures in Baguio City before, during and after the quake, you'll probably doze off from viewing fatigue. Need a different perspective? Go check out the July 1990 earthquake entry of Ramny from Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada. Many thanks to Kylee, owner of the site Nifty 1990, for the photograph.

I'd like to think that the term "Journeylist" is unique or original but it is not, despite the fact that the word came to me while brainstorming for the name of my personal blog (yes, the one you're reading now). When the term Journeylist popped into my head a few nights ago, I ran to the computer and typed the word in the Google searchbox. Sure enough, Journeylist had already been coined way before it entered my noggin, and that there were at least two blogs using the term.

Fortunately, as in most coined words, the term Journeylist means differently to each of us who uses or wants to use it. For example, Journeylist to Blogger blogger afishcalledgoonda might simply mean an online diary she keeps as she journeys through life. That's way off from the way British blog network Orbital Media presents the term. A blog under its wings, JourneyList, is actually about travel and all things related to it.

So what does Journeylist mean to me? It's a combination of both, I would say, and a little in between. First off, I'm really a journalist, or at least I'd like to think I'm still a journalist (my byline hasn't seen the light of day since January). Here's how I usually start my application letter whenever a job opening comes up:

I started my career as a correspondent for The Manila Chronicle in 1995. After around six months to a year of rigid training under then Executive Editor Noel Cabrera (who now serves as the Philippines' ambassador to Myanmar), I was promoted to editor, handling various sections such as Science and Technology, Environment, and Agribusiness. The Chronicle closed down in 1998 due to labor problems.

After a short freelancing stint, I landed a job at media giant ABS-CBN, which was then expanding the scope of its News and Current Affairs department to include New Media, otherwise known as Internet publishing. Thus, I was tasked to head the small startup sub-department for ABS-CBN News Online.

Needless to say, my career in journalism flourished in different publications, including Manila Standard (now known as Manila Standard Today), where I headed the night operations, and The Manila Times. I also had the opportunity to publish a magazine I co-owned with some friends dubbed Barangay Pinoy, which catered to overseas Filipinos and their families.

Back to the term Journeylist ... second, I wanted to come up with a word to describe this blog. In my brief self brainstorming session, several keywords came to mind: journalist, experience, writing, travel and family, among others. The result is exactly what you see on this page right now.

Pinoy Journeylist, being a personal blog, is all about my experience as a journalist (this word keeps popping up), a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a friend, and an overall nice guy (yeah, right). Under Experience As A Journalist, I'll probably write about the publishing industry, famous people I've met, writing and editing for publications, and my conversion from a number-cruncher (I took up Accountancy and Mathematics in college) into a lover of the written word. Under Experience As A Husband ... well, you probably get the picture.

There's so much topics to write about that if I don't start now I'll probably run out of time. So let me cut off this conversation and ask you to stick around for many things to come.

Main image taken by Joel using a Samsung D-500 cellular phone.