The Panagbenga Festival is held yearly during the month of February. The celebrations are held for over a month and peak periods are the weekends. The Panagbenga Festival showcases the many floral floats and native dances. The fragrant smells that could be presently teasing olfactory senses are probably less from the now-dried flowers from Valentine’s Day than air floating all the way from Baguio City. At this time of year, the City of Pines is almost surely in flower fury over Panagbenga festival, the city’s biggest festival.

Panagbenga is a kankanaey term for “a season of blooming.” It is also known as the Baguio Flower Festival, a homage to the beautiful flowers the city is famous for as well as a celebration of Baguio’s re-establishment. Since February 1995, it has been held to help Baguio forget the 1990 earthquake that distressed much of the city.

Panagbenga festival will have spectators enjoying a multiple floral and float parades over two days. The Baguio Flower Festival Association (BFFA) will have a street dancing parade and band exhibition. The Baguio Flower Festival Foundation (BFFF), meanwhile, will hold a parade. So where should spectators be stationed to not miss any of the float and floral parades? Session Road and Burnham Park. A search for the Mr. and Ms. Baguio Flower Festival, FM Panagbenga Pop Fiesta, Skateboard competition and Dolls of Japan exhibit were added to the BFFA calendar. The festival is supported by constituents of La Trinidad, La Union, Pangasinan, Marinduque and Masbate.

Often a Cañao is an undertaken to kick-off & celebrate the occasion. A Cañao is a dance that also is regularly performed at special occasions such as fiestas. In this two-person dance, the men hang blankets usually woven with an indigenous pattern or design-over each shoulder. The woman wraps a single similar blanket around her. The man leads her and dances in a circle with a hop-skip tempo to the beat of sticks and gongs. The dance must continue until the viewers decide to honor the dancers twice with a shout of “Ooo wag, hoy! hoy!” Once this has happened, the dancers can stop. It is an honor to be invited to join the dance, and elders and other respected members of the community are expected to join in at every occasion.

GETTING THERE

Baguio is easy to get to by air and land transportation. From Manila, the latter is the more popular choice, although at this time of the year, it may prove to be a hassle. If you prefer to fly to the City of Pines, some airlines maintain a daily schedule of flights from Manila to Baguio and back, like Asian Spirit. If, however, you go for a four-hour joyride, there are a variety of bus companies, garage cars, and tour operators for the convenience of tourists and visitors.

HISTORY

It all began in 1995 when lawyer; Damaso E. Bangaoet, Jr., John Hay Poro Point Development Corporation (JPDC) Managing Director for Camp John Hay, offered to the Board of Directors of JPDC the idea of organizing the holding of a flower festival in Baguio City. The Board, then directed by the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) Chairman Victor A. Lim and JPDC President Rogelio L. Singson, approved the project immediately. It was also decided that the Festival be held every February.

From the very start, JPDC saw itself as the maker, not the producer of the Festival. As a result, its plan was to present the idea to the different sectors of the community: government, education, business, media and civic organizations. This was not only to solicit their support, but also to gather their suggestions and ideas. Their response was generally warm and immediate, except for a few doubting Thomases. Nevertheless, the idea had fallen on fertile ground. It grew as a wellspring of community support fed resources into the project. The Baguio Flower Festival was an idea on its way to becoming a reality.

Making the idea a reality fell into the hands of the BFF Secretariat which was chaired by Attorney Bangaoet and operated by JPDC staff and volunteers led by Eric Jonathan Picart. In Addition, an advisory group of flower enthusiasts like Rebecca Domogan, Gloria Vergara, Julie Cabato, Willie Magtibay and Efren Chat was formed. They began by creating an identity for the Festival, one that would reflect the history, traditions and values of Baguio and the Cordilleras. In October 1995, the Baguio Flower Festival obtained face. Its official logo was chosen from entries to the Annual Camp John Hay Art Contest. The competition was open to elementary, high school and college students of Baguio. Its theme revolved around preserving the environment with a special importance on the flowers of the Cordillera. Instead of a complete painting, the eminent board of judges led by well-known artist BenCab chose a spray of sunflowers on the corner of the entry submitted by Trisha Tabangin, a student of the Baguio City National High School.

Shortly thereafter, a Festival hymn was composed by Professor Macario Fronda of Saint Louis University. To this music was added the rhythm and movements of the Bendian dance, an Ibaloi dance of celebration. The Bendian dance’s circular movements speak of unity and harmony among members of the tribe – themes that foretell the coming together of the various sectors of the community to bring the Baguio Flower Festival to life.

One of Nickelodeon’s biggest shows, with an appeal over an incredibly large cross-section of viewers, was Avatar: The Last Airbender. When you couple a big-name kids’ show with great storytelling and a huge following with the rolling slow-motion train wreck that is M. Night Shyamalan, you get The Last Airbender, coming to theatres July 2010.

The Last Airbender will send us out with Aang, the last of the Airbender race and heir to the great legacy of Avatars, masters of all four elements. Aang ventures forth along with some familiar friends to defeat the grasping Fire Nation, masters of the fire element who have conquered most of the planet. Check out the trailer.

Will the Avatar movie manage to carry enough support from its audience to be a hit? Or will audiences stay away from another M. Night Shyamalan movie in droves, having learned painful lessons at the hands of The Happening and Lady in the Water? Hit the comments section below and fill us in, and thanks for watching!

The Last Airbender Cast: Noah Ringer, Nicole Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, Dev Patel, Aasif Mandvi

The Last Airbender official movie trailer provided by Paramount Pictures. The Last Airbender opens in US theaters on July 2nd, 2010.

In the end, this small things that you remember;
little imperfections that make them perfect for you.

I think it’s time for me to update and share what I am using right now in my notebook to grab flash videos.

What is flash videos?

Most of the videos right now that are being viewed from the internet are called VOD or video on demand. Also if you can recognize it’s extension file is .flv and this is what the famous youtube is using in its server to deliver videos online. Well, as what the definition says it is a file format used to deliver video over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player (initially produced by Macromedia) versions 6–10 and it’s obvious on the file extension. I’ll cut some specific discussion about macromedia flash, lets move on the purpose of this topic.

All though this is a little bit more techie procedure, I’ll make it easier for everyone to understand.

Things needed and what should be installed:

1. First, I am a Firefox user  so if  you’re still an IE user switch to Firefox believe me its much better. After you have Firefox installed open, then click Tools >> Add-ons then search for  Net Video Hunter (you must be online) and install. It will you ask you to restart Firefox do so. NetVideoHunter will detect all the flash videos available for download.
   
   Below is the video how to do it:
   

   
   

2. Install Allok Mpe4 Converter to convert all your flash video files in to several formats for you to be able to play it on your dvd players or media players.
   

By the way, flash video files can be played also using VLC media player.

More than 1,500 inmates rehearsed for nine hours straight to put on the show just two days after the pop singer died.

The inmates have previously performed songs like ‘Jai Ho‘, but it was their dance to ‘Thriller‘ that made them so famous. They started their tribute with a prayer to Jackson, then they sang and danced to his hit with Lionel Richie, ‘We Are the World‘.

They then performed the other hits ‘Ben‘ and ‘I’ll Be There‘ before finishing with their famous dance to ‘Thriller‘.

The original ‘Thriller’ video by them has been watched over 23 million times on YouTube, and prison officials had heard that Michael himself had watched it. Their choreographer Byron Garcia, said he was shocked at the news that Jackson had died and that many of the inmates were devastated.

More related links:

1. Manila Headlines
2. Quick Video Links

I know people who work 12 hours a day, six days a week, or more. Some people do so because of a work emergency where the long hours are only temporary. Other people I know have put in these hours for years. I don’t know if they are working all these hours, but I do know they are in the office this long. Others put in long office hours because they are addicted to the workplace. Whatever the reason for putting in overtime, working long hours over the long term is harmful to the person and to the organization.

There are things managers can do to change this for everyone’s benefit.Being in the office long hours, over long periods of time, makes way for potential errors. My colleagues who are in the office long hours frequently make mistakes caused by fatigue. Correcting these mistakes requires their time as well as the time and energy of others.I have seen people work Tuesday through Friday to correct mistakes made after 5 PM on Monday.

Another problem is that people who are in the office for long hours are not pleasant company. They often complain about other people (who aren’t working as hard); they are irritable, or cranky, or even angry. Other people avoid them.Such behaviour poses problems, where work goes much better when people work together instead of avoiding one another. As Managers,there are things we can do to help people leave the office.

First and foremost is to set the example and go home ourselves. I work with a manager who chides people for working long hours. His words quickly lose their meaning when he sends these chiding group e-mails with a Time-stamp of 2 AM, Sunday. Second is to encourage people to put some balance in their lives. For instance, here is a guideline I find helpful:

1) Wake up, eat a good breakfast, and go to work.

2) Work hard and smart for eight or nine hours.

3) Go home.

4) Read the comics, watch a funny movie, dig in the dirt, play with your kids, etc.

5) Eat well and sleep well.

This is called recreating. Doing steps 1, 3, 4, and 5 enable step 2.

Working regular hours and recreating daily are simple concepts. They are hard for some of us because that requires personal change. They are possible since we all have the power to choose to do them.In considering the issue of overtime, I am reminded of my eldest daughter. When he was a toddler, if people were visiting the apartment, he would not fall asleep no matter how long the visit, and no matter what time of day it was.! He would fight off sleep until the visitors left. It was as if he was afraid that he would miss something. Once our visitors’ left, he would go to sleep.By this time, however, he was over tired and would scream through half the night with nightmares. He, my wife, and I, all paid the price for his fear of missing out. Perhaps some people put in such long hours because they don’t want to miss anything when they leave the office. The trouble with this is that events will never stop happening. That is life !

Things happen 24 hours a day. Allowing for little rest is not ultimately practical. So, take a nap.Things will happen while you’re asleep, but you will have the energy to catch up when you wake.

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Bring your loved ones!

The Philippine Madrigal Singers

presents

MADZ ABOUT LOVE

Meralco Theatre, February 13, 2010 7:30 P.M.

]]> http://www.jimerston.com/philippine-madrigal-singers-presents/feed/ 0 http://www.jimerston.com/hes-been-faithful/ http://www.jimerston.com/hes-been-faithful/#comments Fri, 15 Jan 2010 09:32:56 +0000 jimer http://www.jimerston.com/?p=1008 This is one of my favorite inspirational song. Though some times I forget Him, this song gives me the assurance that no matter what…He’s always faithful to me and that’s how He loves us. Featuring Jarrod McNaughton and John Owens from the Voice of Prophecy Family Reunion Concert Series.

At the moment, you can watch live TV from broadcasts of ANC, Al Jazeera and DZMM Teleradyo. There’s a short delay of about 30 seconds from what I see on cable TV and what is streamed on IWantV! but I guess that’s due to the compression to low-bandwidth quality.

On cable, I’m also on Destiny so I don’t get ANC. IWanTV streams ANC live. So far the live TV looks okay and streams quite well. I wish they’d put an option to make it available on full screen.

On the other hand, ABS-CBN shows are provided as video-on-demand. It’s not live but archived shows from the previous days/weeks. Great for when you missed last night’s episode of “May Bukas Pa”.

The current list of video-on-demand shows include: Katorse, May Bukas Pa, Dahil May Isang Ikaw, Pinoy Big Brother, TV Patrol, Bandila, SNN, The Buzz, E-Live, Wowowee, Maalaala Mo Kaya, Kalye, Correspondents, Profiles, XXX, SOCO, Bottomline with Boy Abunda, Sports Unlimited, Showtime and Lifestyle Channel Shows (MetroWear Randy Ortiz 60s, MetroWear Gala, Metrowear FDCP 2008).

Live channels only include ANC, Al Jazeera, Myx and DZMM Teleradyo.

Aside from Sky Broadband and Bayan DSL subscribers, ZPDEE, Bayan Broadband and Surfer by SKY subscribers can also register for free as long as they have at least 512kbps download speed.