Happy Holidays !

The hustle and bustle of this holiday season left me with no time at all to update this blog.

The second week of December comes so fast with snowstorms that sent us blanketed with 30 cm of snow and causes major road problems and school closure.

There were christmas parties here and there for school children and so I was busy making sure my son have everything for his school concert, secret Santa  and other classroom activities that left me running around with him in stores looking for the perfect costume and the perfect exchange gift for school.

Then comes the holiday season, invitation here and there, packing presents for family and friends and that explains that this was way busy December for me.

I put on too many shoes, but that is what  makes my life interesting and that is what makes me say for the most part “life is good”.

Canadian Men earned big honours on the international stage

Men of Canada, take a well-deserved bow.

It was a spectacular week for this four typically humble Canadian men.

Actor Ryan Reynolds, the 34 year old son of a Mountie, was named People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive – the first Canadian ever to earn that title.

Cincinnati Reds first baseman Joey Votto was named the National League MVP.

Justin Bieber claim the Artist of the year award at the 38th Annual American Music Awards on Nov.21

Rapper Drake, the former star of the” Degrassi: Next Generation“ was honoured by GQ as the breakout man of the year.

Four Canadian-born, Canadian-raised, Canadian-educated guys- baseball superstar Joey Votto, pop-music sensation Justin Bieber, Hollywood heartthrob Ryan Reynolds and actor/singer/fashion icon Drake – have each  shot to the top of their respective fields in the past few days and are now basking in an international spotlight.

For this shining moment, no matter how brief it might prove to be, Canadians should take note that we were able to produce four  typically humble men, in a way this country has never seen, or perhaps dreamt possible.

They say, nice guys sometimes…finish first.

Protect yourself from Email Scams

Never wonder again if you see floods of email messages in your inbox offering prizes,money and gifts.

Did you not notice that email scams gett worse at around this time of year.

Last year, I received one from Eurostar and now just a few minutes ago, I recieved one from Nokia.

On average everyday there are millions of fraud emails resulting scams.

In fact, online scams shows worst figures compared to off line crimes.

Just take a look at this  sample below:

You have won $500,000.00

From:	NOKIA MOBILE PROMO <mails@clientes.imagegroup.ws> Add to Contacts
To:

---

 

Congratulations!
Your email address has won $ 500,000.00 dollars in this Year’s Nokia ASIA Mobile Promo.
To claim E-mail your name, contact phone number and email address to hampton@asia.com

Nokia Promo Officer
Dr Philip Hampton.

Just glance at the email subject and headlines and the way it was address to you and you should feel suspcious already about it.

And here’s another one , just  look at the content of the email  is similar to a form of phishing and identity theft.

NOKIA PROMOTIONS HEADQUARTERS MALAYSIA

182 Empire Tower Jalan Tun Razak Kuala Lumpur

MALAYSIA

 
Dear Winner.

 
Good to hear from you regarding this year NOKIA ASIA MOBILE  I am Dr. Philip Hampton, the cash officer assigned to all winner’s of Nokia Mobile Promotion and I wish to congratulate you to have emerged as one of our lucky winners for the Promotion
 
We happily announce to you the result of the Nokia ASIA Mobile Lottery draws held  in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. from which All participants were selected randomly from a World Wide Web site through  computer draws system and extracted from over 10,000.00 Email companies and personal Mobile numbers from which your email address was one of the lucky emails in this year Nokia ASIA Xmas mobile promo. Your Email address attached to ticket number: B9564 7560 with serial number 046560 drew the winning numbers 

 
You are therefore been approved to claim a total sum of 500,000,00.00  (FIVE  HUNDRED  THOUSAND USA DOLLARS) in cash credited to file EAAL/90801100008308/10.

  

To begin the verification process of your prize, you are required to fill and send the claims form below in the drafted Application Text in bold and be advice to keep all winnings confidential during the processing of your claims.

  

 

FILL THE FORM AND SEND IT BACK IMMEDIATELY

  

 

First name…………………………………Lastname………………………………………………

Date of birth (yyyy-mm-dd)………………………………………………………………………….

Gender:…………………………………………………………………………………

Occupation:………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Address………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

Country:……………………………………………………………………………………………………..

 

 

Winning Email Address:………………………………………………………………………………

 

  
Attach copy of your Identification Document or Passport.

DECLARATION

I ____________________________________hereby confirm that all the information given above and attached copies of Identification is to the best of my Knowledge and is true and correct. Any tempering or falsification of the above data render this claim invalid and void.

 ______________________
               date.
 

Yours truly,
 
 
     Dr. Philip Hampton

NOKIA MOBILE PROMO OFFICER
Tel: +60164002694

 

 
 
Copyright 2008 NOKIA All rights reserved

 …………………………………………………………………………………………
This email and its attachments are confidential and intended for the exclusive use of the addressee(s). This email and its attachments may also be privileged or protected by legal rules. If you have received this by mistake please let us know by reply immediately and destroy the email and its attachments without reading, copying or forwarding the contents….

Protect yourself and be wary about emails like this.

I immediately deleted it on my email but decided to share it here to warn any of you who might be persuade to  try it.

Remember there are miles to go and in our era this is a never ending battle, in which some will be exploited.

Always try search engines like google and yahoo, you might need about scams  which constantly help people with the latest update and information.

PHILIPPINES MANNY PACQUIAO A BOXING ICON !

I know I am kind of a bit late because this fight happen few weeks ago, but since it seems like it had not sink in yet for most of the boxing die hard fans all over the world for Manny’s 8th boxing title acquisition.

I felt compelled to write a post about it first because I came from a family that love boxing . I grew up with my dad and uncle involve in boxing  and karate.

So pretty much, I knew a bit  about it.

Second, I am a Manny fan.

We watched his fight on pay per view television with some friends and witnessed how in this time right now , there’s none that is similar to Manny in terms of speed and power.

I love to see Manny in many more fights, but I am sensing that we may not be able to see another Manny in a few years to come, an exciting fighter.

I want to share with you a little bit of Manny’s latest fight from youtube.

Winter is Finally Here !

Suumer and Fall….officially over.

Today is the coldest day we have here in Manitoba.

We had been blanketed in snow for 2 days .

The aftermath, bad road conditions.

And the annoying fact that most people drive like they thought it was summer.

Accident prone season.

Right now, as I am writing this blog, with  thick socks and sweater , I want to tell you right now that I am not the only one here who hate winter.

I had been wishing for few more milder days but this weather just drop like a bomb and people did’nt even have been able to winterize themselves before today.

It is -20 degree celsius plus a windchill 0f  -25

Ever know how it feels like to be in that kind of weather.

That is the so called Manitoba, Canada weather.

Immunization

I had been contemplating lately what must I really do.

It had been few days now since I was handed a letter and a form to fill out from school.

It is an immunization form I needed to complete and sign for the upcoming school base immunization for grade 4 students.

My son happened  to be in Grade 4 and here in Manitoba, Canada they have a school based immunization program.

Since 1998, grade 4students have been given Hepatitis B vaccinations in the school.

In 2004, grade 4 students were offered two additional vaccines in addition to Hepatitis B.

The additional vacciness are Meningococcal C vaccine and Varicella vaccine.

Immunizations in Manitoba are voluntary and only given with the consent of parent or legal guardian.

I know what the purpose of vaccines are  but the effectivity of the vaccine is something that had haunted me for years.

I am in a crossroad.

I hope I can find the answer in the next few days to come, by then maybe I am ready to give or not to give my consent.

Beyond what you See!

To most of us life is a kind of a drag.

Busy lives left us exhausted, and drained.

We multi-task , wanting to do all things at the same time.

When this happen, we are so wrap up with all the demands and expectations from us that we forget to simply stop and look to simple things that get neglected in the dust.

Sometimes when we are so busy we missed a lot of  simple things worth looking at.

I know that most of us are practical, down-to- earth people. No one would argue about that.

But also, most of us are deeply spiritual people  who can see the profound in many of the basic elements of our world.

To many of us, buildings aren’t just concrete and glasss.

They’re an expression of human ambition, human creativity and human fear of mortality.

This deep perspective gives us an insight into everything we see.

Hope we do not lose it, hope we can always find time to see the beauty of simple things around us.

Time Change

Tonight,  it is time for us Canadians to change our time.

As I am writing this blog, it is 6:51 at night right now, and new time we have on the other clock I already manually change read 5:51pm.

So, tonight I will head to bed the same time I do without changing my clock yet,that way, I am actually adding an hour more to my sleep and then I have to worry about changing it in the morning.

So that  I don’t run into a problem showing  up early tomorrow for my meeting, I left a note  on my desk   “first thing to do in the morning  “change the time”.

Make sure you do the same.

Please do not forget to change your clocks manually tonight.

ARE WE BECOMING A NO-BATH SOCEITY?

Are we really becoming a no -bath society?

Here in  Canada, we do have some weird weather sometime.

It can be super cold, in fact last year we have a – 40  degrees celsius that schools have to closed because buses are not running.

Granted that you live in a country like mine, are we suppose to forget about those daily showers either long or short ?

If you asked me if  daily showers becoming a thing of the past.

I would say  yes.

I am sorry to say this but for some people it can be .

In fact, I had been noticing this trend for a while, did you notice it ?

In the past few years beauty companies have subtly begun catering to the unwashed crowd.

We have multiple hair care brands that introduced spray-on dry shampoos, which masks an oily appearance and our not-so- fresh consumers with an extension on their next hair wash.

We even have a fabric refresher which make our  dirty jeans and stinky t-shirt underarms smell as if  they’re fresh from the wash.

And the fashion industry is popularizing the “unclean fad”  with  the grunge look , messy and disheveled hair and layer clothing.

What else can I say?

And here’s the catch why this trend is so popular.

It had been said that there are some real benefits to it.

For example less showering  is eco-friendly according to some groups.Doing so makes us use less water and cleaning products.

Second, there is a physical benefit. Infrequent scrubbing can actually be beneficial to both our hair and skin.Washing too often may be stripping away our skin’s essential oils, which can lead to dryness.

Granted that these can all be considered real benefits.

But  daily showering makes me feel good and clean.

Besides, messy hair and body odor is completely offensive .

Lastly, I do not want to be someone who everyone secretly thinks smells!

Would you shower or skip ?

You be the judge.

My Personal Thoughts on Halloween Risks.

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It is a time for good goodies again and children all over here are busy and excited about the long running tradition of Canadian children ….trick or treat…

For most parents, there is nothing wrong with the tradition and that it has to continue to be passed on to future generation of children to enjoy with.

I am not a big fan of Halloween, maybe because I grew up in  a place where it is  not so much widely popular for kids at that time, now times were changing and it is now being enjoyed by children.

Why I am not a big fan of Halloween?

I have two reasons.

First, the risks of accidents for children and teenagers specially unsupervised trick or treating in the dark  is present.

Second, too much of the sweet stuff . We all know that children have all sweet tooth, but sometimes during Halloween, you are for sure will be a bit of a shock of the amount of sugar your children will be having for a night.

If  I tell you that  I accompany my son to trick or treat every year and when we arrive home, it is amazing how much sugary stuff is loaded on his trick or treat bag.

Plenty.

Maybe to say it the most but not to exaggerate is  3  months stock of goodies for sugary cravings.

Mostly, when trick or treat is done, I habitually sort out the goodies with my son.

We would have two separate ziplock.

We sort it from the high-sugar content to mild sugar content. ( it is just our own way of sorting it out )

I took away the high-sugary ones. I do not know how you will find it but it does not bother my son knowing that  we had been doing it for years now, so he is happy with the less sugary coated bars.

It is just my way to “police” every sugary content to show how much I wanted my son to learn that indulging in sweet stuff  needs moderation.

Tomorrow, we will go trick or treat again.

I just prepared our costumes and the bags for the goodies.

I expect a load of sweet stuff and a busy street with a children’s giggles.