Tonight is my birthday. I’m turning 29… I’m getting old but I don’t feel it… I still feel like I can do whatever I want. At the end, age is a mental thing and not so much a physical thing (err… sure). Anyway, Colombian soccer national team got beat REALLY bad tonight… I mean REEEEAAAAAALLLLY BAAAADD! We lost 5-0 against Paraguay in one of the worst soccer matches I have ever seen Colombia playing (except the time we lost 9-1 against Brasil… but I don’t want to go there)… anyway… all those things are now little details compared to the fact that Ana Laura, the daughther of Jose Euclides Correa (aka Pepe) and Claudia Patricia de la Lanza (aka Paty) was born tonight. Yes! She was born on my birthday and from now on, we will celebrate our birthdays toghether! how cool is that?
Category Archives: News
FIFA is peeing 2500 meters outside the toilet
Joseph S. Blatter strikes again. AP Photo/Diether Endlicher
“Está meando fuera del tiesto”, is an expression in Spanish that means that someone is doing something stupid (like peeing outside the toilet!), and that is exactly what the world’s most important soccer organization is doing by issuing a new regulation that states that no international soccer match can be played over 2500 meters above sea level. This is huge because three country capitals of the adean region in southamerica have an altitude over 2500: La Paz (Bolivia), Quito (Ecuador) and Bogota (Colombia) so the rule means that these three cities will never host an international soccer match. The whole thing started because a brasilean team (Flamengo) had to play against a Bolivian team at an altitude of almost 4000 meters. I agree that 4000 is too high, and FIFA could do something about that. Maybe the maximum altitude should be 3500 meters. But 2500 seems ridiculous.
In 2003 a soccer player from Cameroon died in the soccer field because of the high temperature. That game was hosted in France! Shouldn’t FIFA also ban international soccer matches at extreme temperatures?
The FIFA argues that they performed a medical analysis to support their decision. If that medical report is true, then I suppose that no other sport should ever be played at that altitude, which means that no one should be allowed to parachute ever, or climb the Everest, or practice skiing at the Alps, or…
FIFA is retarded!
2500 words
Can you write 2500 words a day?
El reto era escribir 2500 palabras. El motivo parte de una conversación con Lucia sobre una página que…. bueno entre la frase inicial y esto que escribo ahorita pasaron unos 30 minutos, pues antes de adentrarme a escribir 2500 palabras, preferà instalar en mi PowerBook una configuración de teclado llamada ‘US-International’ que acostumbro usar en las computadoras que tienen Windows instalado. Cabe aclarar que cuando me refiero a términos tecnológicos, me es mucho más fácil referirme a ellos en inglés que en español. Por ejemplo, lo primero que pensé en escribir fue ‘keyboard layout’ para luego tener que pensar como carajos lo decÃa en español. Tal ves ‘distribución de teclado’ en lugar de ‘configuración de teclado’ hubiera sido un término más acertado.
Retomando el comienzo de este escrito, repito que anoche mientras estaba en casa de LucÃa trabajando con ella en nuestro proyecto conjunto que más tarde explicaré, me preguntó de la nada si me gustaba escribir mientras se dedicaba a coser las páginas de un par de libros que estaba haciendo. Yo pensé que la pregunta iba encaminada a que me iba a regalar uno de los libros y le dije que lo poco que yo escribo, lo hago en mi blog (lo siento pero bitácora suena terrible) y ella entonces me contó sobre una página en internet que realiza un tipo de maratón literario donde las personas que se inscriben, deben escribir 2500 palabras diarias y publicarlas en dicha página. Según LucÃa, los contenidos podÃan hacerse públicos o privados, de manera que se podÃa escribir lo más inverosÃmil sin temor a hacer el ridÃculo. Según entendà 2500 palabras es la única exigencia. El texto no tiene que ser perfecto, ni siquiera tiene que ser interesante, no tiene que tener sentido, frases sueltas son válidas, incluso palabras sueltas que no hilen, ni rimen, ni tengan gracia. Obvio que escribir 2500 veces la palabra popó, o escribir el abecedario 100 veces (aproximando que el abecedario tiene 25 letras) carece de gracia, pero se supone que es válido.
Al final lo que la página busca es que las personas escriban, y le pierdan el miedo a escribir. No se cuantos dÃas dura la prueba, no se realmente cuales son las reglas, y no tengo intenciones de inscribirme pues se me hace más sencillo crear yo mis propios escritos y hacer con ellos lo que se me de la regalada gana, pero me quedó la curiosidad de saber que tan fácil o difÃcil es escribir 2500 palabras al dÃa.
En este momento tengo la impresión de que la tarea no es tan fácil. Llevo aproximadamente media hora escribiendo y hasta aquà calculo que llevo menos de 500 palabras, lo cual significa que para cumplir la meta debo seguir escribiendo durante otras dos horas. Es definitivo que no tengo el tiempo para hacer esto todos los dÃas si tenemos en cuenta que prefiero invertir mi tiempo viendo series como Heroes, Studio 60 y Lost, cocinando, chateando con mis amigos, leyendo o investigando alguna curiosidad tecnológica. Hago entonces un paréntesis ahora para comprobar el número de palabras escritas. (Nótese que mi intensión era hacer el conteo cuando comencé este párrafo, pero al verlo con detalle sentà que ni loco iba a tener 500 palabras, que tenÃa que seguir escribiendo un poco más y cambié el texto a ‘menos de 500 palabras’ para no hacer el ridÃculo. Pero ya no postergo más el conteo, asà que aquà va:
561!
Caramba! no pensé que realmente hubieran 500 palabras en el texto. Al copiar el texto a Word cupo en poco más que una página, asà que 500 palabras ocupan aproximadamente una página. Es claro que no tengo el tiempo para escribir 5 páginas diarias.
Ahora acabo de comenzar el ejercicio de releer el texto y ajustarlo un poco asà que las 561 palabras iniciales seguramente cambiarán un poco.
Y luego de releer el texto y hacer unos cuantos ajustes, me di cuenta que nunca expliqué cual era el proyecto que estaba haciendo con LucÃa. Estamos haciendo un software que calcula las dimensiones necesarias de material para construir una caja de cartón, comúnmente usadas para preservar libros.
Finalmente y luego de leer el texto completo he decidido publicarlo en mi blog, no sin antes investigar la página del concurso para anexarla como referencia por si alguien se anima a escribir.
PD: Comments to this post need to be 500+ word long!
References:
Short Story Challenge 2007
National Novel Writting Month
Happy Bday to me!
Wow! I always thought that my birthday was sometime in June, but apparently I’m a Capricorn and my birthday is in January.
Microwaves
This week I purschased a new microwave oven (Sharp R-1505LK) because apparently my old microwave oven was leaking. My old microwave (Kenmore) was a gift from a former housemate and it was about 10 years old. The way I figure it was leaking microwaves was because when I turned it on, my Dish Network signal will be lost. The tv will show a blue and gray text message telling that the communication with the satellite was lost.
I read on the web that microwave ovens can affect wireless networks, cellphones and other devices and not necessarily have to be leaking. But the only way to find out if my microwave was leaking, was purchasing a leak detector and I didn’t wanted to do that. Since my kitchen originally had an over the range microwave oven installed that never worked and that I removed, I decided it would be better to buy one and take advantage of the fact that the microwave wont be using any countertop space. Besides if I ever sell my house, I would probably buy a microwave so the kitchen looks better, so I decided to buy it and enjoy it now.
About the installation of the Sharp R-1505LK
The installation wasn’t very easy. My friend Jeronimo helped me out, but it took us about 3 hours to install it. What screwed us was the fact that the microwave comes with a piece of paper that helps you to make the holes in the wall for the screws that will hold the microwave. Well, the holes in the piece of paper dont match the holes in the mounting plate. So we had to drill back a few holes. I’m going to email Sharp and let them know about this. Besides that, the microwave looks very good.
5 years living in Austin
I moved to Austin 5 years ago (Nov. 3rd 2001) and started working for National Instruments on Nov 12th. Back then I had a short-term (5 years) and a long-term (20+ years) plan: the short-term plan was to get my masters at UT and to save a good amount of money to start my own business in Colombia. The long term plan was a backup in case I decided to stay in Austin, I still wanted to go back to Colombia eventually and retire over there.
I have to admit that I have done nothing towards obtaining my masters. To be honest I don’t want to go to school right now, but I reconsider this in the future. About the money I’ve done ok, and I think buying a house was a great way of forcing myself to save more money. Also after 5 years here, I really like Austin. I’ve got used to the life style, I made great friends and I like my job a lot, so I don’t have a strong reason for going back to Colombia. Besides I can always go for vacations to see my family and friends, which is something I want to do every year. But this doesn’t mean I’m going to stay in Austin for good. The truth is that I no longer have a plan. I still dream about going back to Colombia one day, buy a small ‘finca’ and work as a professor at a University in Colombia. But only time will tell what I’ll end up doing with my life.
Anyway… happy 5 years in Austin anniversary to me!
Trip to Spain: Episode I
[Update - 10/24/2006] : My visa just got approved! 
Pa’ España me voy! Joder!
A few months ago, I was chatting with my friend Carolina Vásquez and I was telling her that the next three places I would like to visit for vacations would be: Australia, Spain and the southern part of south america (Argentina, Uruguay and Chile). Since she is living in Barcelona, Spain she told me that I should go and visit her and the idea sounded really good. We talked about it a few more times and then I decided to get serious about it and started looking at flight fares and convinient dates to travel. I talked to Johnny Kings since he is doing his PhD in Barcelona asking him for some advice and he sent me a link to the Spanish Consulate in Chicago where I found the different requirements for the Schengen visa. The list of required documents was quite long, but I started collecting everyone of them.
Last week I got all the documents ready and I planned a trip to Houston last sunday, to go to the consulate first time in the morning. In Houston I went to Ikea and bought my self a nice wine bottle organizer and a frame for a Guillermo Velez painting (Caldo de Pollo) that I had on a very cheap frame. Then I met with my friend Carlos Marchani who is going to be moving to Norway in November and then I went to David Levinson’s apartment where I stayed.
On Monday morning I got to the consulate at 9am when they open and there were 5 people already there. The consulate was a very small office and by 10:15am I was done. The women in charge told me that I should now in about 10 to 15 days if my Schengen visa was approved or not.
Hopefully I will be posting again in a couple of weeks telling you good news.
If you have been to Spain I would highly appreciate if you post a list of places/events/food I should try over there.
Ole!
Colombia: Superpower in Speed Skating
No, I’m not joking. Colombia has won the last few world championships of speed skating and it is very close to win it again this year in Anyang – South Korea.
It really amazes me that Colombia can beat countries like the USA, Italy, Spain, France, New Zeland, among others. I really can’t understand the reasons for this situation. I know that speed skating is not an olympic sport and that might be the reason why other countries do not invest much into it and maybe Colombia realized that it had a shot into becoming very good at it and it did it.
Congratulations Colombia!
My first story on AgoraVox!
I was contacted a few weeks ago by AgoraVox, a news web site based on blog entries from authors all over the world. They wanted me to join their community and since all it was required from me, was to allow them to use content from my blog I accepted and joined them.
Today I got an email from them saying that they have published the entry I posted last night about the World Cup final.
Cool! 
World Cup 2006 – Jogo Feio
Another World Cup is over and that only means that we have four boring years ahead!
Today the Italians won their 4th World Cup 24 years after they won their last one back in 1982. I must say that the Italian team was very compact and well organized in defense. They played very good as a team and they had their top match against Germany. I think Germany, Argentina and Spain were better teams but Italy had other elements playing in their favor like the referees always favoring them and the luck of playing weak teams in the finals (Australia and Ukrania).
If the Brazilians are the masters of the ‘Jogo Bonito’, Italians are the masters of the ‘Jogo Feio’. It is sad that they use so many cheap tricks when they have enough talent to win games fair and square. Today in the final Materazzi used his big mouth to insult Zinedine Zidane and the french lost its cool and attacked the Italian with his head like a bull. None of the four referees saw the incident and the Italian goal keeper Buffon asked the 4th referee to check a video replay of the situation. Then the 4th referee explained the incident to the main referee Horacio Elizondo and he pulled a red card on Zidane. FIFA has never allowed the use of video replays during soccer matches to make decisions, so I think it is terrible that they allowed this rule to be changed on the fly on the most important game of the World Cup. Shame on FIFA! I think it was horrible what Zidane did, but since none of the referees saw the incident nothing should have happened.
Anyway, I have this feeling that neither Italy, nor France deserved to win this World Cup. I think Germany should have won it. But again, Italy beated Germany fair and square, so I guess they did deserve it at the end.
Update [07/10/06 - 11:52 a.m.]
FIFA is now claiming that video replay was never used to pull the red card on Zidane. I hope this is true.