Kid Salon

When I was younger, I remember getting myself rejected by a barber from cutting my hair. This is for a reason that many barbers or haircutters find kids as a very hard client to handle. Kids tend to move a lot and is very hard to instruct to stay still. I guess being on a seat for sometime may be very boring for a child.

Well, I saw why it was so now that I had a toddler myself. My wife would have a hard time to make my baby sit still while she cut her hair. We even only had successfully cut her bangs while the baby's asleep and when I tried to distract her.

Luckily, these days Kid Salons have opened up in the metro. I think it's a blessing for parents to ensure their kids would have a better haircut even when they move around a lot.

And so, we went into this Kid Salon one Sunday before mass in Robinsons Galleria Mall in Quezon City. The haircut costs Php270. Also, I think the salon had other branches in other major malls in the metro.

The salon's setup is that instead of barber's chairs, they had race car carts as their seats for the kids. This way kids may take hold of their car's steering wheels. Also, beside their big mirror is a TV screen where they played cartoons to distract the kids. And aside from that, the salon is filled with stuffed toys, toy cars and other stuff that kids can play on to.

And so, the first thing we did is select a car chair. I chose the red one for my kid. And so with my DSLR I started taking shots of my baby as her hair is being cut. We had asked for the Mr. Bean cartoons to be played on the TV as it is my baby's favorite.

And after about 15 minutes of snips and cuts, it's done. And Janine now has her new apple-cut style. It was such an easy one for her hair cutter.

Tribute To My Camera

In my personal travels, one thing certainly had been in my top of the list of thing to bring. This is my digital camera.

It was in 2004 when I first bought my own digital camera, a Sony Cybershot DSC-P91. I bought it at around Php26K back then as it was just newly released in the market.

It was in time for my first leisure trip outside the country and my first to Singapore. With it, I was able to capture our moments and memories while we were there and that started my facination with taking pictures.

With the years I had my camera, I've captured quite a number of memories and moments. I was able to bring it on top of the mountain in Mt. Maculot and Banaue, on the beaches of Boracay and Bohol, into the caves of Sagada, up to the Great Wall, and the Grand Canyon.

My Cybershot has produced me very high quality pictures and great flexibility with my choice of using preset modes or doing manual adjustments just like in a DSLR. I loved how I was able to capture beautiful night shots with it though I had to buy a tripod to give me better shots. One good thing with it is that it uses 2 rechargeable AA batteries, which is easy to find in case I lost charge.

Through the years it had been with me, it sadly endured some misfortune like when it was dropped by a photo staff in Disneyland when I was in Los Angeles in 2004. Then in December of 2007, it suffered from the wintery chills in the Grand Canyon when it whites up all zoomed shots. But lastly in 2008 it finally bade goodbye when it plunged down a pool.

Overall, it served me very well and I can say that it had been one of my best properties whom I've bought in a very good price. Irrepairable it may be, I have kept it still as a memorabilia.

Anyways this year, I have acquired a new camera. It is a Canon 450D DSLR camera. Going forward I'm looking into the future of having a very good relationship with my new camera. I'd hope I'd be able to bring as well to odd spots to capture my future memories.

Well, so far from my kid's birthday to our hike to Mount Pinatubo, it has not failed me. But I've still need to take more time to learn all the capabilities of this new camera and maybe later buy an additional lens and flash.

Moving to Another Company

Just October of last year, I made the decision of leaving my old company, WeServ Systems which is a subsidiary of Fujitsu Philippines hoping for a better opportunity to another company. And so, I've decided to move to ProV International which is located in Makati.

It was such a hard decision to make. After all, I have spent 8 long years in WeServ and have made a lot of friends and stature in the said company. But again, due to economic reasons and having a new family I have decided to proceed on moving to ProV. Well ProV offered me about double of what I earn in WeServ. Such an irresistable offer.

And now, jump 6 months after. I did not realize that I'll be again undergoing a transition to a new company. This is something I have not thought of doing but due to the current situation I had to do it. Since January, ProV had laid off a number of people. Since last year, many employees are disheartened by how things are going on. Some have left and some were forced to leave.

And so, starting tomorrow, I'll be joining the fleet of people who decided to move on to another opportunity. I feel fortunate that I landed on a project which has offered to take care of us in this times of economic crisis. As other felt the burden of looking for a new employer, I had a hand who caught me from being thrown out of the window.

As I face a new opportunity beginning tomorrow, I hope this would end up better. I hope I won't get disappointed like I had with ProV. And hopefully in the next few month, we finally join Besix.