Mike’s Personal Blog

I have three kids - Kei (7 years old), Vhi (5 years old), and Jae (2 months old). As a dad, I find myself from time to time scolding my children - especially the older two and I would also spank them at times so this article that I’ve read from LiveScience.com got my attention. The title says, “Study Reveals Who Gets Spanked“. Now that’s interesting.

Here are some points that got my attention:

Children in homes full of books and educational games are less likely to get spanked, new research shows.

And according to Andrew Grogan-Kaylor of the University of Michigan

A home environment that is intellectually stimulating gives children an opportunity to work through and practice their emotions, think through the consequences of their actions and imagine possibilities for alternative actions in the future, he said. “Allowing children to stretch their brains in that kind of way is allowing children to behave less anti-socially down the road,” he said.

Personally, I don’t know how that works but I have to admit that I agree with Grogan-Kaylor said. I grew up in a wildly-changing home environment. During the times when I lived in an intellectually stimulating environment, I seldom got spanked but during times when I lived in a “typical” home, I usually get the spanking more often. Why? Dunno.

One more thing that caught my attention in the article is what it said about Protestants:

The researchers also found that Protestants were more likely to spank than parents with other religious affiliations.

I believe this is so because of what is often taught in parenting seminars in Protestant churches and that is to not spare the rod often quoting Proverbs 13:24 which says, “He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly.” Though I agree with that particular verse, I still think that there are Protestants who abuse this teaching and just keep on doing corporal punishment instead of teaching their children to behave properly which is exactly what Grogan-Kaylor said:

“To reduce the use of physical punishment, it may be beneficial to focus on interventions that teach parents to increase the amount of intellectual stimulation in the home,” said Grogan-Kaylor, who has also done research showing that children with fewer behavioral problems come from homes with increased intellectual stimulation.

Well oh well. In the end, I think its still how much caring, loving, time, and understanding you spend with your kids that determines how much spanking they get. The more parents talk with their children, the more they will understand each other. The more they understand each other, the lesser friction between them.

I was starting my day by logging in to wordpress and approving some comments and typically, I would some new websites linking to me in the dashboard. I found one which caught my attention, visited the website and whoa, a blog post with lots of photos - photos of different bloggers and I was included.

Apparently, the site owner - Cristian Mezei is compiling a list of 2000 Bloggers and mine was included among them - 6th column of the 14th row.

Two thumbs up to Cristian!

Who doesn’t want to have his own piece of real estate on the vast lands of mother Earth? I know I do. What about you? I was always told that my father’s father was a rich man. Makes me think, how is it that I am not? Then I realized that wealth is not inherited - rather, it is created. And so I worked my way to building my own wealth so that my children won’t have to work as hard as I am doing now when the time comes for them to build their wealth.

Ok, back to my dream - the house houses mansion. That’s more like it - MANSION. Or perhaps even a castle, I heard some are for sale. For now, I’d settle for a mansion such as this.

The Breakers

Will I buy an old existing mansion? Well, I don’t think old mansions are good. If ever I’d buy something old, I would go for a castle. But for a mansion, I think I should set myself to building my own - The Lopez Mansion.

Ok, now where to start…. Perhaps I should go and talk to Neil Crespi Monness & Hardt and ask for their professional advise.

Dream on!

Who doesn’t want to have his own piece of real estate on the vast lands of mother Earth? I know I do. What about you? I was always told that my father’s father was a rich man. Makes me think, how is it that I am not? Then I realized that wealth is not inherited - rather, it is created. And so I worked my way to building my own wealth so that my children won’t have to work as hard as I am doing now when the time comes for them to build their wealth.

Ok, back to my dream - the house houses mansion. That’s more like it - MANSION. Or perhaps even a castle, I heard some are for sale. For now, I’d settle for a mansion such as this.

The Breakers

Will I buy an old existing mansion? Well, I don’t think old mansions are good. If ever I’d buy something old, I would go for a castle. But for a mansion, I think I should set myself to building my own - The Lopez Mansion.

Ok, now where to start…. Perhaps I should go and talk to Neil Crespi Monness & Hardt and ask for their professional advise.

Dream on!

My stepfather’s family used to own a large piece of land in Bulacan. Back in the 80’s, the place was like paradise with lots of fruit-bearing trees, birds that you don’t see in the city, a small fishpond, and of course fresh air! I remember the time when we would just pick tomatoes and harvest some eggs from the few hens we have and cook dinner - no money involved.

But that changed. A few years later, a guy known as “Mang Ato” bought the adjacent properties and converted them into one big dumpsite. This dumpsite was placed in the middle of a residential area and no one in the government is taking action against it. Looks like Mang Ato has some power to boast of.

A group of people including my mom attempted to gather enough force to close the dumpsite but they failed. Now, the former paradise is a place for garbage flies, rats, worms, and foul toxic smell.

Now that I’m old enough, I think I should start doing something to stop this abuse of mother nature. I was told that filing a class action lawsuit against him is what I need to do but I need to ask a few lawyers about that first. Nonetheless, I scoured the net for information and I came across this class action lawsuit info by George Jr.. The site is pretty general but I think reading through the cases listed there would be a good start - for now.

Hopefully, Mang Ato’s garbage dumping days will soon be over.

My stepfather’s family used to own a large piece of land in Bulacan. Back in the 80’s, the place was like paradise with lots of fruit-bearing trees, birds that you don’t see in the city, a small fishpond, and of course fresh air! I remember the time when we would just pick tomatoes and harvest some eggs from the few hens we have and cook dinner - no money involved.

But that changed. A few years later, a guy known as “Mang Ato” bought the adjacent properties and converted them into one big dumpsite. This dumpsite was placed in the middle of a residential area and no one in the government is taking action against it. Looks like Mang Ato has some power to boast of.

A group of people including my mom attempted to gather enough force to close the dumpsite but they failed. Now, the former paradise is a place for garbage flies, rats, worms, and foul toxic smell.

Now that I’m old enough, I think I should start doing something to stop this abuse of mother nature. I was told that filing a class action lawsuit against him is what I need to do but I need to ask a few lawyers about that first. Nonetheless, I scoured the net for information and I came across this class action lawsuit info by George Jr.. The site is pretty general but I think reading through the cases listed there would be a good start - for now.

Hopefully, Mang Ato’s garbage dumping days will soon be over.

No, I wasn’t referring to you. I’m talking about a friend who’s losing hair and I would sometimes call him Hoy, Kalbo! (Hey, Baldy! in English). He’s losing hair fast and he admits it. Well, good for me I have thick hair and I don’t remember anyone among my ancestors losing hair when they got old.

Anyway, if you’re losing hair and you want to get ‘em back then you might want to hear what I always say my good ol’ friend and that’s - “You should get hair transplants New Jersey style.”

Now imagine what his face looked like when I said that. Tip, he replied with a “Huh?”

But what really is the reason behind losing hair? Instead of me explaining it here, why don’t you read the following articles to find out:

Wikipedia - Baldness

- and -

The Science of Hair Loss, and Some Hope

And lastly, if you’re losing hair, don’t worry. There are lots of popular people sharing the same case as you (think Patrick Stewart a.k.a. Professor Xavier and Bruce Willis). Cheers!

More dreams for good ol’ me. Hey, if you feel bored reading this then just let me know (post a comment below). Otherwise, enjoy with me.

I don’t know how to drive but I do dream of having a car. A car that’s not of the typical kind here in the country. I want to own something that would draw ooohhhhssss and aaahhhhssss when I pass by. My thirst for such a car came about when I saw one in a BMW showroom near school back when I was in high school. The thirst was so great that I decided to contact an exotic car dealer on the phone (myself pretending to be some rich guy) and making inquiries. Bad thing is that the thirst hasn’t been quenched - YET!

As of now, here’s the car of my dreams…

2003 BMW AC Schnitzer Z4 C30

Now that’s something huh? A few of the cars in my post Best Police Cars in the World interests me as well - except the last one.

We have two dogs of the type we call ‘askal’ here in the Philippines. Askal means “Asong Kalye” or “Street Dog” in English. The older one of the two dogs is a female and we loving call her Saddam. LOL, I know, Saddam of all names? And for a female dog? Anyway, she’s a good dog and knows her limits. She’s been with the family for the past 8 years (or more) already and I do believe it would be a sad thing if we lose her. She’s also been the mother of tens of puppies during those 8 years.

Our second dog is a male and we call him “Blackie” though he really isn’t black. In fact he has more white than black - the black being just spots on his face - but my two daughters named him Blackie so Blackie he is. Blackie is one of Saddam’s puppies and is now 6 months old if I remember correctly.

Among these two, Blackie is the naughty one. He would take our slippers and play with them sometimes to the point of ruining it. This evening, Blackie played with Evelyn’s cellphone’s leather casing and bit it. Teeth marks are all over the casing now and oh, how mad Evelyn was.

I think this dog needs to get some dog obedience training somewhere but I don’t think such a service exists here in the Philippines. Perhaps, I should just spend some time with the dogs and teach them myself but extra time is something that I don’t really have at this point.

Oh well… Guess we just have to take good care of our things and make sure the dogs, especially Blackie, won’t get his paws on them.

I see myself trying things that I never tried before more than I ever previously did. I already started this last August of 2006 when I decided to get a new look. Now, I’m growing my hair back and I mean really grow it. This time, I’m looking forward to having a long ‘rock-star’ like hair.

One more thing I would like to try is to get some tribal tattoos on my body. I already have a permanent tattoo on both my arms so I think I will just try temporary tattoos this time. Perhaps, I’ll have one that looks like this placed on my nape.

Yeah, that would look cool. I always wanted things that have wings.

What else? Body piercing is tempting but I think I won’t give it a try for now. Oh, I almost forgot! Contact lenses. Last time I checked I had 20-20 vision so I think I’ll just get one of those fashionable contact lenses for me. Perhaps red, green, and white will be nice.

What about you? What’s your wild side?