Found A Bird in the Bathroom & It's Not What You Think

I was working on some labels at around 10:30 in the evening when my younger brother hurried down the stairs more excited than usual. "Kuya may owl sa banyo!" he expressed with much joy.  Minutes later something in his brain clicked and he said "I'm a wizard!"  His excitement turned infectious.  Dad was all smiles, and my sister was already posting on Facebook about getting her Hogwarts letter.

Just the owl. No Hogwarts letter was found.

The weather was pretty chilly, winds were blowing and the rain just finished.  The night was cold.  The owl could be just seeking refuge for the night, and so we let it stay.  My younger brother decided to take a bath somewhere else,

And he was still there by morning.

I absentmindedly walked into the bathroom the morning after, and saw the owl staring at me. I panicked a bit and quickly walked out the door. The size of that thing's talons could easily gouge my eyes out.

Manong Marcial came and took the owl from its shower curtain perch. It was rust brown in color, with orange-ish eyes and feathery horns.  I did a little bit of research and found out that it's an immature Philippine scops owl.

As it turns out, these were pretty common back in the day, and now they live in small forest patches where trees are tall, out of reach of felines, canines and whatever's supposed to be preying on them.  They live alone or in MONOGAMOUS PAIRS. CUTE.

Adorable, isn't it?

We've posted these in social media.  We heard stories from a cousin saying he knew someone who kept an owl as a pet, and some manongs and manangs saying they had one.  We were getting comments from people asking if they can adopt the owl.  Some were asking us to keep it and name it.  But, really, we don't know how to feed it, don't know any sicknesses he could get, how we'll keep him healthy and all so we decided to turn him over to the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources.

He was a real hit.

With these big black eyes, how could you leave it locked up forever?

The associates of DENR Camiling loved the owl the moment they saw it.

DENR's going to check for any injuries and disease before they release it to the wild.  Hope it grows up strong with lots of healthy owlet offspring!

Turnover papers. 

I'm a Mentor.

SO I WAS AWAY!

I'm so sorry. I've been busy so here's an excuse me post.

I've been around product design and development for quite sometime now, with a little experience designing for Woodinspirations Crafts since I was in college and then a whole plethora of other manufacturing enterprises in my three years with the Department of Trade & Industry Tarlac.  That's a spread of about 7 years developing designs for both food and non-food clients.

It was just last year, however, that I've seen a program as comprehensive and enriching as DTI & GoNegosyo's Mentor Me Program. In a nutshell, it's all about some 20 entrepreneurs to be taught business by local experts identified by DTI, accredited by GoNegosyo's Philippine Center for  Entrepreneurship (PCE).

I wanted to sign up for the program as a mentee, as they called the entrepreneurs, but apparently DTI had other plans.  They forwarded my resume to PCE and...

I got accredited.

Holy smokes.

And so started my being a product development mentor to MSMEs for the Kapatid Mentor Me Program.

As of this writing, I've mentored for two provinces already, Tarlac and Bataan.

The course content's been given by PCE, inclusive of the following topics:
1. Are You in the Right Business? Assessing Congruence of market needs, one's passion, skills and competitive offering.
2. What is a Product? Elements of a Product Idea. Different Kinds of Products
3. Needs & Wants, Concepts & Designs of Products
4. Problem- Solution method
5. Innovation mindset

I've added with this the section that I call "Responsible Product Development" which is a little talk encouraging MSMEs to go green, and how going green will affect their businesses and of course, their lives.

My Mentor Me Module 4 is like a brief condensation of several of my usual topics on branding, marketing, product development with a little extra, too.  Here are some photos:

Kapatid Mentor Me Program's Launching at Tarlac Events Place. Photo (c) DTI Tarlac

We're the mentors of Tarlac! Proud to be the youngest of the lot. Photo (c) DTI Tarlac

Alien? Jk. In class facilitating a recitation portion of the lecture. Correct answers get free lychee jellies. Photo (c) DTI Tarlac 

Showing Ms. Ofel product trends for 2018. Photo (c) DTI Tarlac.

Class picture! Photo (c) DTI Tarlac

Hope I get to teach more people!  Thanks to Go Negosyo's Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship, and the Department of Trade and Industry.

I get to take pics when no one's looking :)