Author: Jayvee Fernandez

Jayvee Fernandez is a tech enthusiast and sitting Techbology Editor for The Philippine STAR.

He is also an EAN certified SCUBA Diver and underwater photographer based in Metro Manila, Philippines. His photos and videos have appeared in various international and local publications including Random House Germany, Discovery Channel Canada, and CNN.

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Digressions

Four magical things happen when your parents transform into grandparents

When couples welcome children into their lives, the change isn’t just about them. The whole dynamic of parenting is extended to the new grandparents.

You are given a glimpse into when they first became parents
Let me paraphrase a line I read on a website several months ago about parenting. It goes something like “becoming a parent is like having new doors open that you never thought were there before.” It’s the same with grandparents.But in their case it is the reopening of doors that were closed when their children left the nest.

Joni Mitchell said it best – “we’re captive on a carousel of time.” Whenever my parents are with my two boys, an archive of almost forgotten memories are lifted from cold storage. Like how there’s always a serving of taho in the afternoon for snacks or how my mom would always sing and dance with me, as she now does to my boys. It’s like these memories were put on stasis and were triggered by my mini me’s.

Everything else to them is trivial (even you!)
This is funny but what’s the best way to get your parents off your back? Given them grandchildren! Nothing else will be more important after they’re out. I’ve heard this same phrase echoed by my friends who have young kids by their parents, “I don’t care what happens to you, just make sure nothing happens to my grandchildren!”

Their quality of life improves
You’ve probably read about it online, but studies do show that grandkids may be responsible for adding a few years to your parents quality of life. The company, awe, enthusiasm go both ways. What’s interesting to me is that I’m basically seeing a mirror of my childhood – the way my brother and I would hang with my parents in the bedroom at night is quite similar to how my parents do so now with the kids. And they’re both fine with keeping strict iPad time. Bless the world for grandparents, because they know how far they can go when it comes to spoiling our kids.

You experience unconditional love going full circle
When we examine the role of grandparents under the lens, we see nothing but love, wisdom and in a way, a different sort of nagging. It’s funny how I personally get reminded to do things, care of my mom but told through the mouth of my eldest son. “Dad, aba is asking if you went to mass na. Don’t forget to go to mass okay?”

This article originally appeared in the Manila Bulletin lifestyle section for September 2018.

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Press

7 Tips and Tricks For Selling Your Home Online

The decision to sell your home is one of the most critical financial decisions you will ever make. It can provide you with the capital you need to dedicate new ventures such as investing in a new property or amplifying your savings. Many home sellers in Florida are thrilled with the profits they earn from selling in today’s market, but frustrated that 6% of the payoff from the resources they have devoted to improving their homes is squandered on costly commission fees.

 

Selling your home by owner online is a great way to maximize your profits, but the process can become costly if not prudently executed. When marketing your home online, the MLS and social media are some of the best platforms for attracting potential buyers. Innovative companies like beycome can help you list on top real estate sites, acquire legal forms and documents, and obtain a comparative market analysis for a low flat fee. You will want to highlight inviting photos, neighborhood novelties, and proximity to local attractions when advertising. What are some fantastic ways to help your home stand out? Here are some ideas:

1. Take Stunning Photos

 

If you are planning to snap your own pictures, your cell phone will not do the trick. It pays to invest in or borrow a wide-angle camera, as it will help potential buyers get a realistic feel for the size of rooms and spaces. Investing in extra flashes, a tripod, and light stands will also provide you with the ability to take professional images that showcase your home’s natural charm. You will want to choose a day when rooms are lavishly permeated with natural light, and avoid artificial illumination that will detract from it. Glare can also wash out a room, so you will need to choose a time of day where there is abundant sunlight that is not overwhelming. You will need to declutter each room and remove accessories such as magnets from the refrigerator, holiday decorations, or family photos. Buyers want to imagine themselves living in your house. Take care to arrange your room to appear comforting, open, and stylish. If you don’t trust your own eye for design, a professional photographer can provide staging know-how and qualified equipment for the price of one scheduled shoot.

 

  1. Take Classy Videos

 

If you want a professional-looking video that canvasses a room like an admiring guest, it is a good idea to invest in equipment such as a DSLR camera with a wide-angle lens and a tripod with a slider. This will allow you to survey the room with smooth, even motion and spacious angles. As with your photos, be sure the rooms you are filming are free from clutter and staged in a welcoming manner. YouTube videos do very well online, and posting them on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram will increase the likelihood that home-seekers will call you for a showing.

  1. Post on Social Media

 

Much of social media is visual, so if you are investing time and money into creating a great video you will attract clicking fingers in no time. Joining local community groups is a smart idea, as chances are that folks residing in the village have friends who would be interested in viewing an attractive, well-priced home in the neighborhood. Facebook ads can reach many potential buyers for as little as $5 a day. On sites like Instagram and Pinterest, professional images are more likely to be shared if they are linked to home-beautification categories, such as boards on Pinterest or hashtags on Instagram dedicated to bathroom design or patio furniture.

 

  1. Work Your MLS

 

Serious buyers will definitely be checking homes in their price range on MLS regularly, so this makes it a great place to start when looking to sell your home without an agent. Find homes in your community with similar bedrooms, bathrooms, and apparent needs for repair. Look at the proximity to major highways, office parks, shopping and entertainment in your town. Are there homes with similar offerings to yours, and what is their asking price? Which homes in the area have sold in the past three months, and what was their price point?

 

When listing your home on the MLS, you will want to talk about distinguishing attributes in your description. What about your home makes it unique to the area? Is it the extra family room, closet space, or access to a local swimming pool? Be sure to pinpoint exactly what sets your home apart. Families and singles will be drawn to the way of life you are selling, as well as the physical structure of your home. Strengths such as the school district, neighborhood watch, or community clubs should not be overlooked.

 

  1. Ask For Advice

 

Who doesn’t like to give their opinion? When posting your photos and videos online, ask family and friends to say what they liked or would improve about the ad. Folks will view it before they respond to you, which could lead to them sharing it with potential buyers. Post with comments such as “Hey guys, just sharing before I list this. Let me know what you think.” You may get some offers from buyers looking for properties in hot neighborhoods before they go on the market.

  1. Use Your Community

 

Are you a member of a church, Lions Club, or government group? If you reach out to these communities through email or social media with photos and videos of your listing, you are casting a wider net than your immediate circle while remaining a credible resource. Those heartily involved in a community will be more likely to know folks who are looking to move in, and can pass your listing along with a word-of-mouth recommendation.

 

  1. Have a Little Confidence

 

If you have priced your house well, taken fetching photos, and posted crackerjack videos, your home will sell to the right buyer in a short amount of time. And you can hold your head high knowing that you are keeping 6% more of your profits by selling your home independently online.

 

Categories
Digressions

This Father’s Day, give dad the three things he really wants

This piece originally appeared for the Father’s Day special of Manila Bulletin’s Mom’s and Babies section.

In the grand scheme of things, it usually seems like Father’s Day is relegated as a second-class holiday compared to Mother’s Day. Maybe it’s because fathers are more subtle, more silent than expressive and default to the “if you’re happy then I’m happy” state of being.

It is Father’s Day. And as the shops pull out their specials for new shoes, watches, and wallets for dads not much has been said for what a father really wants on his commercially-imposed holiday. “I don’t need anything” is a typical response from most dads. But they’re usually referring to material things.

Here are three things that dads want that money can not buy on their special day.

They want a day where they do not need to make choices
Luxury is relative, and in an age where we have too many choices, the best gift one can give is not having to make decisions. Decisions are made seven days a week, 365 days a year. At work. At home. “What do you think?” can always be a loaded question. When dads are forced to make decisions every hour of the day, the best Father’s Day gift you can give him is to not have him make decisions. At least for the next 24 hours.

They (secretly) want kind words of acknowledgment
Fathers are men of few words. Case in point: I’ve learned how to modulate my grunting to express different things. There is a subtlety in a grunt of acknowledgment versus reproach. But despite being men of few words, it does not mean we can not appreciate words of kindness. I remember, during our pre-Cana seminar, the priest was talking about how knowing your partner’s language of love is important. One of these languages – “the words of affirmation” is really the easiest to give, yet often not given, because people underestimate their power. There is a stigma for assuming men are too hardened for words, but deep inside the simplicity of a few kind words from your spouse and children can make your day—and acknowledge it with a grunt.

They want a moment to reflect on their legacy
I revel in being an idealist, despite how the modern world has turned out. But as they say, shoot for the stars so you get the moon. This is how I picture the ideal Father’s Day meal: together with family, having the best seat in the house so I can see everyone—wife, kids, relatives and other loved ones. It puts into perspective why we toil. Why we work late hours. Why we try to squeeze in the 20 minutes of quality time with the kids before they sleep. It is a safety stop that pulls us away. Then we can see, perhaps once a year, our lives as fathers in a single snapshot and ask ourselves why we do the things we do. It puts into perspective the daily agonies and ecstasies that life throws at us, and ultimately having your brood in front of you, all seated, eating, loud and happy makes for the perfect day.

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Digressions

Whiskey Can Be Paired with Anything, Even Lechon

There’s nothing like pairing good single malt with Pepita’s Truffle Rice Lechon.

So yeah, we were in for a treat at Mimi & Bros last night with the Glenfiddich 12, 15, and 18 year olds, all supposed to be paired with different parts of the pig. From last recall, the 12 was supposed to be paired with the skin, the 15 with the fat, and the 18 with the meat, with the tastes and texture of the lechon complementing the tasting notes of each whiskey.

I, being a dude, forgot to listen to Glenfiddich’s brand ambassador and just ate everything in three bites. Not sure if that was elegant, but I know it all ends the same way in your stomach.

Side note: I love whiskey pairing events. It’s only in these types of events where the host—usually the brand ambassador—will ask everyone to shout out their favorite brand. The evening always ends with an agreement that “all whiskeys are fantastic, but tonight let’s drink this one.”

Naturally, the 12 was my favorite, and as we journeyed to the older whiskeys hints of caramel and star anise were more prominent. But really, I’m fine with the Glenfiddich 12. It’s actually the whiskey I grab off the shelf from Changi Airport the most when friends ask me to grab a bottle for them. It’s also the most affordable of the lot. But yeah, cheap doesn’t mean “cheap.” Glenfiddich after all is the world’s most awarded single malt whiskey from the Speyside in Scotland.

This post originally appeared in MBites, by The Manila Bulletin.

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Best of Digressions

Parents, let’s not feel too guilty about screen time, OK?

Guys, I’m not a developmental psychologist. I’m a tired parent.

Let’s address the elephant in the room — the whole screen time issue with our children is a drag. The struggle is real: balancing the conflicted amount of guilt whenever we pull out the phones at a restaurant so that the kids can sit still and eat versus just having them sit and play with the food. Or that family photo that we need to curate well so that the kids aren’t looking at the phones when the picture is taken. Choose: sit and watch videos while waiting for your turn at the pediatrician or run around the hospital trying to catch them (on all fours my god)?

I’m not sure if this is how our parents felt — we grew up with television and the Family Computer. So maybe that was screen time for us? But what our parents did have was the luxury of not being judged on social media by whoop dee doo — other parents. And strangers who do not know what it is like to have a 5 year old.

Fellow parents, I say this: let’s not feel to guilty about the phone. I’ve managed to convince myself that these are the cards that are dealt to this generation, the so-called “digital natives.” And what many people forget is that they tend to isolate screen time as a problem in itself when in fact kids, by nature do get tired of the screen and would rather play outside (and get dirty). Yes my kids use the phone a lot. But i have to keep reminding myself that I have to give them two evening baths because they run around the house after dinner with their LEGO’s and dinosaurs and scooters. Or how weekends with their cousins are pure bliss — running around the park and getting scabs on the concrete pavement. So yeah, they aren’t missing out.

I do have three learnings I would like to share though.

Don’t use regular YouTube
If you do let your kids watch YouTube on the phone, use the Youtube Kids app. It’s a much safer way for them to discover content. There are a lot of disgusting people out there who release sexual content (using kiddie toys like Barbie or GI Joe) masking them as ‘Let’s Play’ or ‘unboxing’ videos which get placed in the Related Videos section and the algorithm can’t tell the difference. At the very least, the YouTube Kids app is a lot more well-curated by humans — and parents.

Switch them from passive to an active screen
When you can, “upgrade” them to video games. My eldest son (he’s 5) has discovered the wonderful world of rage quitting on the Nintendo Switch because he keeps falling off platforms in Skylanders Imaginators. There is a learning opportunity here — as I oft recall moments when I would throw the controller from sheer frustration with Mega Man for the Nintendo in the 80’s. So these father and son moments with video games are important in teaching life skills like how to deal with failure and frustration.

Sometimes we just need to ask
Last — sometimes we forget to ask our kids what they really want to do. There were times when I would mechanically hand over the phone to my eldest because I know, historically, that he wants to watch Dino Trux on Netflix. But then he tells me that he wants his crayons so he can draw The Avengers instead. I forgot to ask. Well, what do you know, right?

To end, I also have to keep reminding myself that back in the day our parents told us that MTV was bad. So were the Simpsons. And that their parents said that The Beatles were the devil reincarnated. We are part of a cycle of parenting.

This piece originally appeared in my Dad Buds column for The Manila Bulletin on May 20 2018.