This past weekend was the Super Bowl.  I’ve kind of lost interest in the Super Bowl to be honest.  We don’t really get NFL football on TV here (there are ways to get it, like by paying for Internet streaming of NFL games), so I have pretty much lost interest in the whole thing.  Every year, I pay a bit of attention to the Super Bowl, though, just to know who won the game, and such.  I also follow the Super Bowl commercials a bit too, because they are usually so creative, and I like that.

This year, I saw a Super Bowl Commercial entitled “Halftime in America” which was produced, directed and featuring Clint Eastwood.  I like Clint Eastwood, have always been a fan.  We pretty much share political philosophy too, we are both relatively conservative politically.  I was shocked today to see in the US Media that many conservatives are quite against this commercial, which you can see below:

Apparently, many conservatives are saying that this is a commercial for President Obama, or to praise Obama for bailing out Chrysler.  Some sort of “pat on the back” for Obama.  I did not see the commercial that way at all.  In fact, when Clint Eastwood said that America can’t be knocked out with a single punch, and the country will get up and be strong, I didn’t think of that as anything about Obama.  My thinking was that it was saying something along the lines of:

We’ve been knocked down in the past few years with the poor economy, but we are strong.  We were born in 1776 and it’s just halftime for us.  We will get up and finish the game stronger than ever.

Nothing pro-Obama about that, that is pro-American.

Let me say, I am not an Obama supporter, although I have come to think that he will be elected, I hope that he is not.  But, I do want Obama to be successful, because that means that the USA is successful.  If you are hoping for Obama to fail, you are hoping for the USA to fail.  That’s not right, in my opinion, regardless of your political tilt.

I guess where I am going with this is here… does every single thing in life these days have to be about politics?  A TV commercial for a car company is not a political thing, it is put on TV to sell cars.  Why does every single thing have to be made into a political debate?

Frankly, I’m already tired of that.

In his most recent article, “Are you an extraordinary person?” Steve writes about his upbringing and how so many external influences pushed the message that he was nothing and never would be anything.  Steve talks about how this message was so engrained in his mind that he just accepted it as a fact, and went on to live a life of mediocrity, never striving for me.  I mean, you are what you are, and can’t change it, right?

Well, Steve did decide to change what he was, and to become an extraordinary person instead of just an ordinary person.  In the process, he came to the conclusion that every person is extraordinary.  I believe he really reached the truth when he discovered that!

The thing is, for me, you should always strive to be more than who you think you are.  The other thing is to show people that you are more than they think you are too!  Imagine, the people who told Steve that he was nothing.  How many of those people know what he turned out to be, and how extraordinary he is?  He has shown them that his more than they expected, by being more than he thought he was.

In my own life, when I was in Elementary School my teachers said I was gifted.  By the time I was in High Schook, I was living in another area, and I was treated by my teachers like I was below average in intelligence.  But, I always lived my life to show people that I was more than they thought I was.  It always helped me achieve new levels of success in life too.

These days, I am self employed, and I don’t worry too much about what most other people think, but for those who are important to me, I still try to exceed their expectations of me.  There is only one downside to this, and that is that when you live this way, people’s expectations become quite high, and are not always easy to meet.  You have to work extra hard to exceed those expectations.

It’s worth the work, though.

People want to comment!

The debate can be found on a site called Think Traffic.  I don’t normally follow this site, so I don’t know much about it.  A friend sent me the link to the article, Debate! Should You Allow Comments on Your Blog? Find Out What Two Remarkably Popular Bloggers Think, in which two popular bloggers debate the question about allowing comments.

Now, let me say, there are a lot of super-popular blogs that allow comments, and also a lot of super-popular blogs that don’t.  A few examples of blogs that don’t allow comments are Seth’s Blog, Zen Habits and Steve Pavlina.  Each of these sites is super-popular, and there is no way to interact with the writer (on Steve Pavlina’s site you can interact through their forum section, though).  I can’t argue with any of these because they are very successful.

In my case, though, I would never even consider turning off the comments on my blogs.  In the rest of the discussion, when I talk about my blog or my site, I will be talking about my Live in the Philippines Web Magazine, or LiP for short.  On LiP, my articles usually receive between 50 to 200 comments per article.  It is a lively group of readers who come to LiP, and the discussion we have through the comments fosters a growing community there.

Yes, community.  Community is what it is all about for me.  Commenting grows a community.  If you do not allow comments, your readers will know who you are, but they will have no idea who each other are.  By using comments, your readers not only know you, but they can know and interact with each other as well, which I believe is very important.

One of the most important things, in my opinion about comments is that you should respond to every comment that is directed at you.  Now, if “Steve” comments and addresses his comment toward “Mike” then you, as the writer of the article do not need to respond to Steve, although you certainly can if you wish to.  All in all, though, entering into a conversation with your readers, and engaging them through the comments does a number of things that will benefit you:

1. It helps grow your audience.  As people come to your site and check it out, when they see that you interact with the readers, they will feel more at home, and willing to talk to you, knowing that you take comments seriously.
2. Build trust.  By interacting with your readers, they will get to know you and consider you a friend.  When you gain this trust with your readers, you will have better success in selling them products that you endorse or produce yourself, like e-books.  You have to be careful, though, to always sell high quality stuff, and that way you will keep your reader’s trust.
3. Spur conversation and develop new ideas.  By engaging with your readers and listening to the comments that they leave, it spurs your own thinking process and gives you new ideas in life, and especially ideas of what topics to write about on your site.

Fact is, for me, it would be unthinkable to turn off the comments.  I believe that I am who I am today, blogging wise, and internet profile wise, because of the comments on my site.  As the site grew and grew, it was because of my comment policy and my responses to the comments that made my blog bigger, and made me more and more well known in the blogging community in my niche.

So, for me, I personally believe that using the comments to engage your readers is very important.  Yes, there are some big blogs out there who don’t do it, but overall, I think it’s the best way to go.

What do you think?

Well, the way that it was explained, the guy was saying that you should write down everything you need to do.  Next, look through each item on the list, and immediately scratch off every item that will not make money for you today.  Basically, concentrate your time and focus on the things that will put extra money in your pocket today.  Long term stuff should be put off.  Time wasters?  Throw them aside all together.  Well, there is some appeal when you hear the idea.  I mean, it makes sense to focus yourself on things that make an immediate pay off, right?

Wrong.

I disagree with this concept.

I disagree strongly.

I mean, most of the things that pull in nice money for me today are things that it took a week, a month, even a year to put together.  It was hard work that I had to do every day to put these projects together.  A project that took me a month to build paid me nothing for those 30 days that I worked.  But, if I did not invest the time to do it, I might have lost out on $100 or more per day in income.  Some of these things that I spent major time on for nothing while I did the work pay me handsomely now, and I do nothing now, just collect the money!  Now, that is something that is nice, when you get money everyday for work that you did years ago.  That is a better approach to managing your “to do” list, if you ask me.

So, how would I suggest you do your to-do list? What I do is that I list out projects that I want to complete.  I look at those projects and try to figure how much income they will produce for me in the long haul.  I mean, how much can I earn this year?  Next year?  Over the next 10 years?  Those that promise to bring me in long term money will pay off a lot better than focusing today’s efforts on getting that extra $20 that I might have missed out on.  Maybe I won’t make that $20 today, but I might make a half million dollars over the next ten years.  I prefer the latter.

How about you?

Basically, on Saturday, a concerned American Citizen, Robert Fernandes and his family, and I presume other followers set up a lemonade stand on public property in Washington DC.  This action follows many incidents of US authorities shutting down childrens’ lemonade stands in various locations around the United States.

What ever happened to common sense?  Voltaire, a French Philosopher probably said it best:

Common Sense is not so common.

Watch what happened at Lemonade Freedom Day

It’s true, it seems.  In doing a bit of research after seeing the video, I found that Police have even shut down Girl Scouts from selling Girl Scout Cookies on their driveway.

Lemonade

My God.  What has happened to my country?  It’s scary, to be honest.  Sure, we don’t want to have big companies setting up unregulated shops on public property, and there are laws against it.  But, for kids to sell Girl Scout Cookies, or lemonade, it’s just common sense that these kids of activities are not a threat to public places, and are just a one-off activity that will not lead to the setting up of commercial businesses on the public property.  Are there better things that the Police can do with their time than harassing kids selling cookies or lemonade?

We constantly hear cries that there is not enough money to police the streets.  Crimes go unsolved.  Some kinds of crimes are not even investigated by the Police any longer, because they don’t have the resources.  Just last week our government issued a new policy under which they will only deport illegal aliens who have committed crimes.  Uh, isn’t it already a crime to have come into the country illegally.  All of this rests on one principle.  Common Sense.  But, Voltaire already told us about common sense centuries ago.

Lemonade Freedom Fighters

Our public officials cannot figure out how to run the country.  They can’t decide what spending to cut.  They can’t decide if we should keep borrowing more money.  Yet, the system is being used to bust kids for selling lemonade.

Like I said, what has happened to my country?  I have not lived in the USA for the past 11+ years, but I am still an American Citizen.  The USA has changed drastically in the years since I left and moved to the Philippines.  From what I see, every day I am more and more happy that I made that decision.

How could it be?

Have you ever heard of brainstorming?  Do you know what that is?  For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, brainstorming is a process of thinking of all kinds of ideas.  The best way for a brainstorming session to be conducted is to have a group of people, maybe 6 to 10 people or so.  You agree in advance that all ideas will be considered relevant, nothing is stupid (no matter how stupid it really is!), in other words, nobody will be teased or belittled for any idea that they throw out, even if it is rather senseless.  Set a time for the brainstorming session, let’s say 10 minutes, or 20 minutes.  Set a topic.  Let’s say that you are going to have a brainstorming session trying to come up with a new product for your company to start making.  Then, everybody just throws out every idea that comes into their head.  You don’t come up with an idea then think it over, consider how good or bad it might be, you just blurt it out when it comes into your mind.  The leader of the brainstorming session writes the idea down, and then other people blurt out their ideas.  When the brainstorming session is over (at the agreed time deadline), then the group considers the merit of each idea.  The interesting thing that happens is that none of the ideas may be found to have merit, but maybe combinations of multiple ideas, or slight variations of ideas might be found to be perfect!

I remember when I was a kid, my Dad worked in the paper industry.  He was an engineer, and later moved into management in the industry, and he was quite successful.  I vividly remember my Dad had a joke that was a picture drawn on a piece of paper, it was a design for a new toilet paper recycling machine.  Actually, it was obviously a joke, because the way it was designed, you would re-use toilet paper that had already been used, with no cleaning or processing or anything.  Obviously, if this were a serious idea, it was a stupid idea, but perhaps if the right person saw it, they may have come up with a real workable idea based on the joke, who knows?

Anyway, the thing is that as we think, or come up with ideas for things we should do or try, many of the ideas we come up with are stupid, or unworkable.  There is nothing wrong with that, it is just part of the process of coming up with good ideas that will make us money or improve our lives in some way.  Perhaps our good idea will improve society, or help other people.  But, we would not be able to come up with good ideas if we did not go through a certain number of stupid or bad ideas in the process.

Perhaps the most valuable asset one could have is the ability to filter through the stupid ideas and discard them, while saving and refining the good ideas that are in the mix!

In my own life, when I come up with a new idea, I often think that it is a good idea, something valuable that will improve my life in some way.  Then I start thinking it over, and I often feel after a day or so that the idea is not workable, it turns out it was just a stupid idea.  The good thing, though, is that as I think about the idea, sometimes that thought that comes from the stupid idea spawns new good ideas that I never would have even considered if not for my pondering about the idea that was actually stupid!

So, stupid ideas are not a waste of your time.  They are a breeding ground for good ideas, and are actually a necessary step that you must go through in the thinking process.  We all get stupid ideas.  The key is in being able to recognize that it is just another stupid idea, and to discard it before you invest too much time or money in it.  And, also, being able to use that stupid idea to spawn other ideas which are actually quite good!

As far as I can recall, I don’t think I’ve missed a single day of riding the jeepney somewhere since I started last week.  I’ve had mostly good adventures on the jeep, but the one bad one that I wrote about a couple days ago.  Today, I need to go to Union Bank for some business that I need to take care of there… so I’ll take the Jeepney again.

Riding on a Jeepney

Actually, riding the jeepney has really made me re-evaluate a number of things about my life in the Philippines.  It sounds silly, but I’m serious on that.  Normally, if I am driving, I hate the jeepneys.  They are constantly blocking traffic and such.  Now, riding in the jeepney, though, I can see it from their side.  I still may not like it if I am driving… but I think I’ll cut them a bit more slack in the future.  There have been some other things as well that have come from riding the jeep, which I think will make me re-address some of the things about my life here, and, I believe, make me a better person.  All from such a simple thing as riding on the jeepney!  Ha ha… funny, but true.

I have to say that I have enjoyed the experience overall, and I have made a firm commitment to myself that I will be riding jeepneys on a regular basis in the future too.  When I first started, I didn’t think I would be doing that, but I have felt that riding the jeepney has been a good cultural learning experience, and I’ve enjoyed it too, so why not continue?  My only complaint is that it can get hot in the jeepney, so I will have to adjust to that still.

Yesterday, on my way home from an errand, I had a fun experience.  After having rode the jeepney to take care of some of my errands, I had already gotten off and was walking the rest of the way home.  Two young boys, probably like 8 years old started waving to me, yelling “hi, Joe” and such.  I spoke back to them in Bisaya.  I passed by them and kept on the way home, and in a few more minutes they had chased me down and wanted to talk to me.  I stopped and talked.  Here is how the conversation went:

New Friends

Boys:  Sir, can you speak Tagalog?

Me:  Dili, Bisaya o Ingles lang ko. (no, just Bisaya or English)

Boys:  Ah, OK.  Wow, you can speak Bisaya?

Me:  Oo, sigurado.  (yes, for sure)

Boys:  Sir, naa kay bola? (sir, do you have a ball?)

Me:  Wala koy bola, sorry. (I don’t have a ball, sorry.)

Boys:  Ah, sige.  (Oh, OK)

more small talk… then after a few minutes:

Boys:  Naa ka bay kwarta? (Do you have money?)

Ha ha.. I never give money to beggars, but these boys were not begging, they were just curious and friendly, so…

Me:  Oo, naa koy kwarta. Kong hatagon ta ka ang kwarta, pagbahin mo. (Yes, I have money.  If I give you money, you share.)

So, I gave them P20 (almost 50 cents US) and they told me they would buy some crackers for a snack.  We said goodbye, and I headed home.  I am sure they will be watching for me to pass again… there might be more money, after all!  Anyway, looks like I have two new friends in the neighborhood.

So, as you can see, it’s been fun traveling the Filipino way.  I’m going to keep it up!

Over the weekend, I got a notice from the Post Office (it’s called “PhilPost” here in the Philippines) that I had a package waiting for me, and I needed to claim it at the main Post Office in Davao.  The PhilPost Office is closed on Saturdays, so, since it’s Monday morning, I decided to go down and pick up my package first thing this morning.  I had recently ordered something on eBay, and was looking forward to receiving my purchase, which I was sure was the package waiting for me.

For about a week now, I have been trying something new.  I’ve been riding the Jeepney when I needed to go somewhere in town.  The Jeepney is sort of the main public transportation system in the Philippines.  There are thousands of Jeepneys in a large city like Davao City, where I live.  I have ridden the Jeepney a few times over the years that I have lived here (more than a decade), but only a few times.  Since I own my own vehicle, riding the Jeepney is just not something I need to do.

A Philippine Jeepney

For those reading this who are not familiar with the Jeepneys, they are larger version of Army Jeeps from WW2, which were converted into public transportation vehicles.  Over the years, an industry started up building new Jeepneys, since there were only a limited number of Army jeeps to be converted.  A Jeepney can hold maybe 12 to 20 people, depending on it’s size, and how tightly the passengers are packed in.  At the point that I would consider a Jeepney to be full, it would be about 12 passengers.  In the Philippines, do you know how many can fit in a Jeepney?  Always one more!  Ha ha…  anyway, let’s just say that they really pack them full.

Since I started riding Jeepneys regularly about a week ago, I don’t ride Jeeps that are already full, or what I consider full.  I just wait for a different jeep that is partially empty, it’s just more comfortable to get a seat that way.  If a Jeep is full, the people will squeeze together more tightly and give you about 6″ on the seat to sit down.  Well, frankly, my butt won’t fit into 6″, which is why I always wait for a partially empty jeep when I want to go somewhere.

So, this morning I was off to the PhilPost Office to get my package.  I walked up to the main highway where I could catch a Jeepney, just a 10 minute walk or so, and I waited on the corner, watching for a Jeepney that was going to the area where I needed to go (the sides of the Jeepneys are marked with the route they go).  After about 2 or 3 minutes of waiting, an older gentleman, perhaps in his 80′s, strolled up and he was also waiting for a Jeepney.  A few jeepneys pulled up that were going on the route that I needed, but they were so full, I decided to just wait.  I could see that the older man was also trying to avoid a full jeepney, just as I was.

Old man in the Philippines

After about 2 or 3 more minutes, a Multicab pulled up.  A Multicab is similar to a Jeepney, but smaller.  The Multicab was also going on the route that I wanted to take.  The older gentleman also started moving toward the Multicab, and I thought to myself, “Oh, he is going on the same route as I am.”  As the older man started to step into the Multicab, he glanced over and saw that I was behind him.  He immediately jumped down to the ground.  I motioned to him and said “Ikaw ang ikaprimero…” (You will be the first…).  He looked at me in a sort of scornful way and said in a rather mean voice “I’m not riding.”

I felt bad, because the way he said it, it seemed to me that he didn’t want to ride if I was going to ride on the same Multicab.  I cannot be certain, maybe he just realized that it was not the correct route, but by the tone of his voice, I felt that his decision had something to do with the fact that I was going to ride.  He did not want to ride with me.  I don’t know why he would feel that way, and as I said, perhaps my interpretation of his feelings was incorrect, but it did feel bad to me.  My first reaction was that if he didn’t want to ride with me, I was willing to let him take the Multicab and I would wait for another one, but he walked off quickly and didn’t give me the chance to offer that to him.  The Multicab was not crowded either, there was plenty of room for both of us, and a few more people as well.

Anyway, if I did something to offend this fellow, I am just not sure what it could be.  Offending people is not something I would want to do, and especially a senior citizen like that.  My feeling is that perhaps he was not comfortable riding with a foreigner, but I am not certain.

What would you have done?

I can feel that I am getting older, though.  They say that my age is still young, and I suppose it is, but I don’t feel like I did when I was in my 20′s or even in my 30′s, I feel older, a bit slower and such.  But, still good though.

Feyma took me out for lunch today.  She told me to choose the place, and I did.  She was surprised at the place I chose, because it is a simple place, but that is where I felt like going.  Sad thing is that she was right, the food was not so good.  It was OK, but just OK.  I could have chosen somewhere that was really good, but those places we go to normally, and I felt like something different today.

My young niece, Nicole is here celebrating my birthday with me.  Nicole is just 5 years old, and over the past few months she has been coming and staying with us regularly.  I am a bit scared, becuase I am really falling head over heals in love with the girl.  She has a special place in my heart.  I am scared that one of these times when she comes to visit, I won’t be able to say goodbye to her.  I am nearly at that point now.

Anyway, I want to thank my family and friends for making this birthday a special one for me.  I remember the days when it was all about what kind of present you would get.  These days, honestly, that kind of thing matters little to me.  If I want “stuff” I can go buy whatever I would like to have.  But, friendships and family relations are the most important, and those are priceless.  Thank you everybody!

Another thing, of course, is that since I have become so widely known under the moniker “MindanaoBob” I didn’t want anybody else to end up grabbing the Domain Name “MindanaoBob.com” so I jumped on it, and set up this website.  And, since I got the Domain, what better use than to put up a site answering all the questions about myself that I receive daily in my e-mail?

It seems that there are a lot of people who would like to make a drastic change in their life, start out all over again and move to the Philippines (or some other country).  Since I have already successfully done it , I guess a lot of people are curious about my life and how I accomplished something that they also want to do.

So, I’m happy to start up this new site, so that you can get to know me better.