The first week was a false start, with me recovering from costochrondritis. Due to that recurring condition, I was advised to rest a couple of days. Rest. That’s something I have always taken for granted. Ironic or Embarassing it is to say, but when I’m advised to rest by the doctor, it’s usually in the emergency room.

After the first week (of rest) I went straight to the fun stuff. I started reducing my rice intake and then trying to squeeze in a couple of work outs in the week. I believe that was a fruitful push because I lost some weight in the process. When I say “some”, I mean 1kg.

Sadly, my hectic schedule did not go away.  I went back to juggling between my full time job and our business. It’s hard making a living these days. Fortunately, I can survive for a certain period of time with only a couple of hour sleeps a day. Concerned people say that I shouldn’t do that. But, until I can find people to help me with I do for my job and my business, things will remain the same.

Oh and by the way, I’ve spent some time organizing my blogs.

To better brand my blogs, I designed a consistent look across all them, and created cool and simple thumbnails for them in my main blog (this one).

That’s all for now.

Thanks for reading!

Spiritual

Due to my hectic and overlapping schedule, I often neglect the most important aspect of my life: my relationship with God. Without God, my life would be aimless and without purpose. By having regular quiet time to reflect on His words as written in the Bible, I will build an intimate relationship with Him.

Personal

Personal time with my family, and most especially my wife, has been greatly affected by my work-life imbalance.
I’ve also lost any alone time I have. I will reclaim my personal time and pursue my passions like photography and writing.

Emotional

Anger Management is a life-long challenge for me. Now that there are more stressors in my life, I’m slowly losing the battle. I will win this battle and be a symbol of peace (or just control my temper).

Physical

As mentioned earlier in this blog post, losing weight has been a downhill battle for me. I have been heavily dependent on stress-eating to relieve some of the tensions and tiredness of my life. I am currently at my heaviest, 244lbs, where my ideal weight based on BMI is 171lbs. That’s more than 70lbs to lose. For this project my goal is to at least lose the first 40lbs to jump start my weight loss and establish the discipline and habits to sustain the fat loss. I’ll document that part of the project at my health and fitness blog.

Financial

Our mentors always say that you should always save at least 6 months worth of your salary in your back account. Well, saving in the bank isn’t my best skill. Good thing I have a great wife who helps in that area. For this project I will have at least 3 months worth of my full time salary in my personal account. Now to make it more challenging, the money for this project won’t be coming from my full-time salary. Instead, it will be coming from my other sources of income. I’ll document that part of the project at my online income site.

This whole challenge will run from May 1 to October 28, 2012. That’s a lot to do in 6 months.

I better get started.

From left: Sean General (PR-Agatep), Russel Patalinghog, President Benigno Aquino III, Arvin Ello, Dennison Uy, and Brian Carrera Shaw

Tonight at 9PM, the documentary Inside Malacañang will be aired on National Geographic Channel.

As I was growing up, I’ve always enjoyed watching documentaries especially those from the National Geographic Channel. I would fight it out with my siblings just to take over the TV set during Saturday afternoon when National Geographic Specials was aired on a local channel. When I entered the video production industry, one of my main specialization was documentaries. I’ve toured the Philippines and even Africa doing documentaries.

Then early this year, I started seeing the teaser for  Inside Malacañang, a documentary that takes an exclusive guided tour inside the official residence of the country’s chief executive. I was thinking to myself, “finally someone did an Inside documentary in the Philippines.” The nationalistic part of me was proud that National Geographic Channel was featuring it.

Come late January, I got an email from Sean General of Agatep Associates, a PR agency I have worked with. I was invited, along with 14 other bloggers, to attend the exclusive premiere screening of this historical documentary in Malacañang itself last February 28, 2012. After the screening we, the four bloggers with the President in the picture above, were able to talk with President Benigno Aquino III about traffic, bureaucracy (how long it takes to order office supplies in the government), and his key agendas during his term. The President was open to all questions we threw at him.

Afterwards, I was also able to talk with the director, producer, and head writer of the documentary Marnie Manicad, the wife of Jiggy Manicad of GMA. Wonderful people, those two. We discussed the challenges they faced during the one and a half years it took to produce Inside Malacañang.

I won’t give spoilers, but instead let’s watch the documentary together tonight at 9PM March 18, 2012, on National Geographic Channel. Let’s support this historical event as Inside Malacañang opens the doors to this historical residence and as President Benigno Aquino III states in his speech during the premiere, he wants to break the common viewpoint that the Palace “is a well-guarded structure, removed from everyday life; a house of power and authority whose occupants influence the lives of all Filipinos.”

Cheers!

Yes, after a lot of time deliberating on that decision, I have decided to let go of my photography blog, www.beginnersphotographyguide.info.

There were a lot of factors surrounding that decision but it’s all for the best.

From now on, I will only create my photography-related posts in www.russelcp.com.

Thank you to those that visited the site. And as always, if you have questions about photography that you think I can help with, don’t hesitate to email me at russel@russelcp.com.

Cheers!