Category Archives: News

30 years and counting

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It has been almost a month since I wrote my last post two days before my birthday. I have to thank everyone who made it to my birthday party. It was really fun. I also want to thank all the friends and family members that sent me happy birthday wishes through emails, instant messages, phone calls, etc…

So what does it feel to turn 30 years old? I got to tell you that it feels really good. Someone told me recently that when you turn 30, you are now officially an adult. You can no longer excuse your stupidity by saying things like: “I was young and I didn’t knew any better!”. It also feels great that many people don’t think I’m 30, so I can pretend to be young and stupid if I really want to. But honestly, playing the grown up mature adult role suits me better.

My parents gave me Garmin nüvi 200 GPS for my car as a present. It is a really cool device and I’ve been playing with it a little bit. I really want to do a road trip to see its full potential and I’m also curious about Geocaching. I also got from my friends in Austin a really nice gift: a $220 certificate from Amazon which I’m still planning to spend. I’m debating between buying a lens for my D40x, a DVD recorder, an Airport Express or a bunch of toilet paper.

Life in Austin: Update (not worth reading)

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There is a time in every blogger’s life when you simply don’t have much interesting material to post about, so you decide to create a post about the last few things that have been going on. Unfortunately this is not the first time I do this, so feel free to drop some hate comments and show me your love and appreciation.

Last week I was recognized in my company with the ‘Engineering Excellence’ award which is given to about 8-15 engineers every year. I was pretty happy with the award because it motivates me to keep working hard and doing a good job at work. (Note to self: update resumé)

Last weekend it was Claudia Lorente’s 30th birthday which she celebrated at her place with a fabulous cricket game. A lot of friends were there and I had a great time. The day after was Gabriel’s bday and we celebrated it in my house. I hadn’t had a party in my house in a while and I figured I could have one. The party was really fun, lots of friends, alcohol and dancing until 5am. The next morning I had to play soccer with the NI Eagles and we beated team Black Star 2-0. There are only two games left this season and it looks like we have a chance to finish 4th or 5th place if we win the last two games. Right now we are in 7th place.

I already did my taxes which I still need to send, including a big fat check that I wish I didn’t have to pay. I was surprised how quickly I did my taxes. Either after 6 years doing taxes you get better at it, or TurboTax has became much better, or I just don’t care much about them anymore that I don’t triple check everything. I think it is the combination of those three.

I’m jealous of two friends (Eva Noyola and Natalia Uribe) who are going to Portishead concerts in London and Munich. So far I haven’t seen anything about them coming to the US.

Life is good…

No more FARC in Austin

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This coming February 4th: join us in the mobilization against FARC.

It is really sad to see how the “Colombianos en UT” group have changed the main objective for the mobilization. Here is the text they sent through the “Asociación de Colombianos en Austin”:

Please join us Monday, February 4 2008 10:30 am at South First and Barton Springs: we will march to City Hall.

Position of “Colombianos en UT” in reference to the “Un Millón de Voces Contra las FARC” March February 4 2008

We march against, and manifest our rejection of all crimes against humanity committed in Colombia over the last five decades by all of the different parties involved in the internal conflict of Colombia .

We march to say:
NO MORE Guerrillas (FARC, ELN, EPL…)
NO MORE Paramilitaries (AUC, ACCU, CONVIVIR, Aguilas Negras,….)
NO MORE complicity of government officials with illegal armed forces
NO MORE abuse by elements of the armed forces
NO MORE massacres
NO MORE kidnappings
NO MORE forced displacement
NO MORE targeted assassinations
NO MORE extrajudicial killings
NO MORE forced disappearances
NO MORE arbitrary detentions
NO MORE impunity for military and paramilitary officials
NO MORE death squads
NO MORE state sponsored terror

We march for PEACE as long as it is dignified and just. We march for LIBERTY and JUSTICE for all Colombians.

Please join us Monday, February 4 2008 10:30 am at South First and Barton Springs: we will march to City Hall.

http://www.colombiasoyyo.org/

Please distribute widely

This is clearly a mistake. It causes the mobilization to lose its focus. It causes that people identifies them selves with some of the points of the protest but not with others. It dilutes the clear message that started it all: NO MORE FARC. .

Update
I’m glad to inform that the original objective of the mobilization has been reestablish.

My new MacBook

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Apple MacBook
Finally I can tell you all about my new MacBook. I bought it last November but I couldn’t publish anything about it in this blog because I wanted to surprise my mother because I gave her my previous laptop as a present.

I’m very pleased with the MacBook but I have to admit that there are a couple of things where I think the PowerBook is much better. I like the PowerBook keyboard better and I also dislike the sharp borders of the MacBook, because it leaves marks in your wrist.

But to be fair, I love the new glossy widescreen display, the remote with front row, the iSight webcam.

I also installed BootCamp and Windows XP on a 10GB partition and was able to play Need for Speed Porsche. The process for getting Windows XP running on my MacBook was really straight forward and all the hardware in the MacBook was recognized and works great so I have to give Apple kudos for that.

Happy Holidays 2007

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Navidad VerdolagaDesigned by JD

Chichipanguanorrea 3.0 staff wishes you love and joy during these holidays and an amazing new year 2008. This time we are very sorry we could not hire neither Ugly Santa nor Ugly Elf, but we put together this beautiful christmas tree to keep the holiday spirit alive and we hope you enjoy it (specially if you are a ‘millionaire‘, a ‘devil‘ or a ‘powerful‘).

Show me your teamwork

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I spent all day yesterday at the 2007 Challenge organized by First Lego League (FLL) organization which is a Robotics contest for kids using LEGO Mindstorms. The day was very fun and the team i was coaching, the Pond Springs Pioneers finished in 19th place out of 60th teams. But the best thing is that our team got a 2nd place in the ‘Teamwork’ award and we got a nice LEGO trophy.

PondSpringsPioneers

KVUE news was covering the event and they said they were going to post pictures and videos later this week.

Almendra: A rare acquisition

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Last weekend was labor day holiday and usually different stores arrange sales. Half Price Books one of my favorite stores in Austin had all its inventory with 20% discount. This store carries used books, cds, dvds and even lps and tapes.

First I went to the photography books section and got my self a really good photography book that is currently in its 9th edition and sells for $84 at amazon. I payed $14 for the 7th edition. I also bought a smaller book called How to Photograph People for $3.

Then I went to the foreign language books and got my self two books in spanish Rumbo a la libertad y Halcones de la noche each for less than $5.

After that I went to check the music and decided to buy some Opera, so I grabbed Carmina Burana and a compilation of songs by Puccini and Verdi.

Finally and this is the most interesting part of my Half Price Books adventure I was looking at the international artists section and I found a cd from Almendra.

Almendra

This is an argentinian rock band from the 60′s and Luis Alberto Spinetta was part of it. The cd includes the album “Almendra”, plus some singles. I think this is an album that you will even have trouble buying in Argentina, so the fact that the cd is in Austin is really intriguing. How the hell this cd got here? I’m probably never going to found out, but it is interesting to think about it. Maybe I should do something similar: sale my Cuarto Acto cd from Estados Alterados or Shampoo from Calle Silvestre, hide a note inside the cd cover and ask the new owner to contact me and describe what he thinks about finding a very rare album from Colombia in Austin.

Got tickets for ACL 2007

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Austin City Limits 2007

Today I bought tickets for the Austin City Limits music festival 2007 and I’m really happy!

Some of the lineup bands: Björk, Bob Dylan, The White Stripes, The Killers, Muse, Queen of the Stone Age, Bloc Party, Arctic Monkeys, Aterciopelados, …

Smile to my new Nikon D40x

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Back in 2004 I bought myself a very small and nice digital camera Pentax Optio S4i as you probably already knew. For 3 years I’ve been taking lots of pictures and having lots of fun with my camera, but over this past 3 years I also realized how point and shot cameras are very limited and how SRL cameras can take gorgeous pictures. Photography slowly grew in me as a hobbie and I started getting interested more in the subject. Seeing the amazing collections of pictures available at flickr or looking at the pictures taken by friends like Johnny Kings or Niv was definately a motivator.

Nikon D40x

Anyway, thats a long introduction to tell you that I just purchased a new Nikon D40x digital camera with a 18-135mm lens and I’m really excited to learn more about photography!

August update

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Blogs turn very lame when you dont post regularly. Recently I haven’t had anything exciting to write about, so my blog has been falling into the lame category. This post is just to summarize some of the things I have been doing recently or that I’m going to be doing in the near future.

Party, party, party

After coming back from New York, I’ve been going out a lot in Austin. I have too much fun going out with friends and last night was the first friday in a loooong time that I stay at home, and it wasn’t even because I didn’t wanted to go out, but because I could not get my friends to join me and I decided to stay at home and take it easy.

Moving to a new group at National Instrumenst

After being in the Integration Services group at NI for almost 6 years, I’m going to be transitioning to the System Configuration Services group around September. I’m very excited about the transfer because I’m going to have new challenges and opportunities ahead. This group develops the ‘Measurement & Automation explorer’ application which helps users configure NI’s software and hardward among other services.

NI Week 2007

NIWeek starts next week and it means listening to great keynotes, having breakfast at Las Manitas, meeting with friends that work in other NI branches but come to Austin for NIWeek and in general being excited to be part of NI.

Wedding at Puerto Escondido

My friend Eva is getting married in Puerto Escondido, Mexico and I’m traveling there between August 15-19. Marcos is not sure if he can come because he is waiting for some paperwork related to his green card process. I hope he can make it though.

Facebook fever

Social networks is something that has been arround for a few years. I have accounts in hi5, friendster, mySpace, LinkedIn and recently signed in for Facebook. My experience with FB has been amazing. The website is very well done usability wise. Very elegant and simple, but powerful. I already have lots of friend connections and its great to know what is going on with their lives. Social networks are not meant to replace physical human interaction, but to enrich it. I highly recommend that you give it a try.

Austin City Limits 2007

Yes, I’m an idiot. I didn’t purschased my ACL wristband on time and now I’m going to have to wait for a last minute deal, hoping that someone can’t make it and wants to sell the wirstband to me. This year’s line up is amazing: Björk, Queens of the stone age, White Stripes, Killers, Muse, Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party, …

Me verás volver 2007

Soda Stereo one of my favorite rock bands in the world is doing a tour after their last tour ‘El Ultimo Concierto’ 10 years ago (1997). I’m going to see them live in Monterrey, Mexico on November 9th!