Philippine Terno, Filipina Beauty

By Dionie

The Philippines is a country that has absorbed a lot of the Spanish culture, cuisine and traditions for the 300 years the country has been in Spain's control. Fashion is one of those where the Spanish influence is quite strong, in fact, even to this day, the Barong and Terno is still a statement of style and fashion for formal events even among the elites.

Back in June 2006, I was fortunate to be given the opportunity to cover a Pitoy Moreno fashion show here in Washington, DC and it will be lead by no other than Princess Lara Quigaman, Miss International of 2005. Pitoy Moreno has been for some years now been considered the "Fashion Czar of Asia" whose designs have been worn by world renowned celebrities, said to include, former US First Lady Ms. Nancy Reagan.

This event was a fund raiser initiated by the Philippine Embassy in DC for the benefit of Gawad Kalinga through the non-profit umbrella ANCOP USA foundation. The theme of the event is for the centennial (100th) year celebration of Philippine immigration to the US.

A couple of these ternos of Pitoy Moreno design can be viewed in my DC Fashion Show Flicker set.  Ms. Princess Lara Quigaman led other pageant beauty title holders in the catwalk wearing designs to cover different eras of Philippine history.

    

My spouse took care of capturing the event on video and yea, she loved the sequence, the colors, the beauties and the designs.  Clips of this event are posted in my YouTube Channel.  Please visit, then after, thank her.

The event was capped with a show in the stage and Ms. Quigaman parading from the rear followed by the honoring of the designer who was then given a bouquet of flowers for what went as a very successful event.

See also my Blogger Blogs, Flickr Photostream, Twitter Tweets and YouTube Channel.

Spore GA: How To Make Fence Houses, Key Factories, and Spoffit Empires appear in your game

By Dionel

If you want to have something that was only meant as an adventure prop as something in the main game, especially a Maxis creature or object, do this:

• Go into the Sporepedia and find what you want to appear. Click Edit.
• Enter the "Tags" menu and remove the "gaprop" tag.
• Eventually, that item will appear as a building, vehicle, or creature.

You don't have to worry about Robot Chicken adventures. I personally had a "Pet 2 Empire", a "Yellow Pet Empire", and a "Suzy Woozy Empire" in my Space game.

PS. If you find a "Clark Empire" or a "Stanley Empire", that was me.

Sun-Powered "Green" Orbs

By Dionie

There has never been greater movement towards the protection and preservation of Mother Earth than what's happening today. Different directions have been taken towards utilization of limited natural resouces, be it towards using natural gas, bio-fuel production or harnessing wind power, hydrothermal or solar energy not only for industrial, commercial or transportation but for home use as well.

The federal government, through the initiative of the Economic Recovery bill has been a proponent for the research and development of various technologies, in fact, for pure electric vehicles, huge amounts of tax credit (not deductible) is given to encourage purchase of these vehicles. Add to that state incentives and you are looking at a possible $14,000 total tax back to you.

In our own little worlds, we can also do our share and one of the simplest and cost-non-prohibitive things we could start with is regarding our lighting needs. Most available "green" lighting right now is the use of compact flourescent lamps or CFLs. Considering that to get 100W of lighting, a CFL could only consume 23W, that's almost 80% electricity savings compared to incandescent bulbs. Since CFLs generate less heat than incandescents, you would also save on air conditioning during the hot summer days as well. Garbage disposal is the only major disadvantage of using a CFL as it contain a small amount of mercury that is toxic to Mother Nature and to us.

Best savings though could be achieved by using light-emitting diode (LED) based lamps or bulbs which pushes your savings towards 95% compared to incandescents. These lamps though are a bit pricey but considering it's lifetime, very-well makes up for the price. Do you remember those red little lights on your betamax or vhs players? Those are LEDs and they just don't seem to die. During Christmas season, we mostly use LED based series lights because we love the saturated colors they create, their being cool to the touch and low power needs.

The image in this photo diary are three colorful glass garden decorative orbs that has been fronting our abode for a few years now. Each has solar cells to capture energy from the sun during the day and use it to power the single LED inside to give the orb it's cool glow in the dark of night.

See also my Blogger Blogs, Flickr Photostream, Twitter Tweets and YouTube Channel.

Be Out In The Sun

Wooden Bridge, Great Falls, MD
Photo By dionie

By Dionie

Sometimes a scary doctor's visit yields surprising consequences. Take for example, any heart related issue really scares me and because of family history I tried (not my best) to really stay within the healthy zones of diet and exercise yet there I was scared enough to take an unscheduled visit.

On this particular visit was a kick in the butt because the finding proves to be a vitamin D deficiency. Isn't that something we are told we get in the sun and our parents use to just coerce us to drink milk fortified with vitamin D ? This deficiency if left unchecked has health effects including but not limited to cancer, skeletal and cardiovascular problems, low self-esteem, depression, disturbed sleep and even weight increase.

However, the amount of vitamin D we get from food and other sources other than sunlight, gives us only miniscule amount in the range tens to a few hundred international units (IU) of vitamin D. Yet, 20 minutes of summer sunshine direct to our skin gets us 10,000 IU of vitamin D which is 50 times more than the US government recommendation of 200 IU.

Sunlight we are getting should not be blocked by clothing, glass like in cars or windows or even with sunblock protection, in fact, a low SPF sunblock hinders 95% of the vitamin D from sunlight from being absorbed by the skin.
With this, I am starting out a photo diary to have a reason to be out in the sun and have fun.

This image was taken when I took my family to Great Falls, MD to see the falls last May 1st, 2010.

See also my Blogger Blogs, Flickr Photostream, Twitter Tweets and YouTube Channel.