New Sidewalk!

Small things do make a difference and help make your life easier. Starting today, instead of having to walk or bike down the dusty path to school, my street has a new sidewalk! Yeah, I know, it doesn't sound that exciting, you probably wonder if it even merits an exclamation point. Well, it certainly does for me, since I no longer have to eat all that dirt or step on the street as I head out to class. It made me think of the years that went by without a single improvement on my neighborhood streets in Colombia, or even in Houston. My family and other neighbors even made phone calls and requests to the city to have stuff fixed and nothing ever happened. Here, instead, the sidewalk got paved and at least I didn't even have to move a finger.

Family Tree Blanks

Juan Pablo Martinez Torres Rojas Serrano Lopez Hernandez Baquero Acevedo Velez BLANK Olarte BLANK Perdomo BLANK

It must have been the old pictures my mom brought back from Colombia that sparked my interest on my family tree. I've talked to my grandfather about it before, but I have a newly found interest to fill-in the blanks of missing names. In Latin America there is a fairly easy way to track down your lineage (as long as you keep up with it), by simply adding your mother's maiden name after your last name. That means that when I have children, they will get my last name, followed by their mother's maiden name, followed by my mother's maiden name, followed by their mother's maiden name, and so on. Now, that doesn't mean it will appear that way on their birth certificate, there, only the father's last name and mother's maiden name are recorded. It is just an imaginary trail following behind that allows you to know where your parent's parents family came from. And I am missing a lot of them on my mother's side. My mother's dad passed away when she was young, and for what I understand, her mother Isabel never got along with his side of the family. Although she is alive, we have never had much contact with her. She is my only contact with that part of my family, so my next little project is to send her a letter hoping she'll be able to recall at least a couple of generations, that way I'll get those blanks out of my line of last names.
It's actually fun when you think about it. People you never met, whose names you've only heard a couple of times in your life. Yet, that's where you come from. Who were they? Where did they live? What did they do for a living? How did they meet? I think it's fascinating.
(The picture is of my mother's father, newly recovered on her last trip to Colombia)

Pat your Mac

A short side-story related to my last post.
As I waited for my Mac to be fixed, an older lady showed up to claim her laptop from the genius bar. After she got it back, unaware that I was looking, she smiled and patted her computer twice. It was funny how I empathized with the reassuring feeling she must have felt. Then, when nobody else was looking, I patted mine too.

Limewire users beware

For the longest time I wouldn't admit that my Mac was acting up on me, I just could not accept the possibility that Apple computers would do weird stuff just as much as Windows-run PC's did. Then my address book got wiped out and I decided to take matters seriously.
I took my laptop to the Mac store and told the "genius" my story. He pulled out a stack of disks out of his magic box, shuffled through them and declared: "It will take 45 minutes, but we will find out what it is; just watch this screen and tell me when it turns green" So I did. I watched the screen for 45 minutes and it actually turned red. He looked at it, typed a couple of commands and said "ah, that was easy" as he flipped the monitor to show me picture of my beloved Limewire icon.
"Limewire corrupted your system. I need to zero-out your hard drive. Go home, back up all your files, and come back".
To make a long story short, my Mac is now running beautifully, and I learned a lesson the hard way...I guess I'll now be buying music from iTunes, or I'll probably rip songs from friends' hard drives, but I won't be using Limewire anymore.
Long live the Mad

Lonely Planet Says: "Visit Colombia"

This is a great 10 minute Podcast about traveling in Colombia! I was excited to find a nice and short review acknowledging the advances in terms of safety and improved conditions for tourism. If you have a few minutes to spare, check it out (and if you're interested, let me know, I would be more than happy to show you around the next time I go visit my family!)
Listen to the Podcast Here

Bathroom Lecture

I walkeded hurriedly towards room 1.222 of the main building. The lecture had started 10 minutes ago and I had never been to that part of the building, I should have checked before. I went past two doors, took the elevator from the basement and I finally began to get close.
Room 1.219, room 1.220, almost there...Room 1.221...I made it. Room 1.222. Uh.... the sing by the door reads "Women's Bathroom". Damn it.
I took out my lap top, opened my calendar, checked the email again...yep, the email says room 1.222.
The name of the lecture I was supposed to attend? "Defense Intelligence Analysis".

Deceiving us about deceiving us...

This is an interesting excerpt from Margaret Carlson's article in Bloomberg.com:

What Bush did. . .was engage in deception to defend himself against charges of deception. [He] changed course from his earlier defense that everything he believed was right to everything he believed was wrong, but, hey, who wasn't fooled? He also contends that everyone saw everything he saw and then concluded (rightly) as he did that Saddam had to be taken out. But the Congress never has access to the intelligence that the president has.
read more...

Finally an Empty Mailbox!

Phew! 28 unanswered messages! That is what happens when I have to put my email aside and turn in papers for school. I finally got caught up with school work, and I have been at my desk since 10:00 p.m. replying to messages and filling out forms (applications for Research Assistantships next year and other school related stuff).
I can't usually study if my apartment is not organized, and I guess after that my mailbox is the next priority; I hate to have stuff due, replies due especially, and I can't go to sleep until I've taken care of all of them.
Well, finally an empty mailbox. I guess it is now time to sleep.

Pool Vandals

I too have jumped into pools at late hours of the night, so I didn't think much of the kids who, at 2 a.m. last night, were having a little pool party at my apartment complex. I assumed they were a bit inebriated since they were jumping into the pool and it was a cold night but, meh, ...been there done that myself.
Yet this morning when I opened my blinds I found a grotesque spectacle (my balcony looks over the pool). Every lawn chair, table, flower pot and trash can in the pool area had been thrown inside the pool and was half submerged, the dirt of the flower pots making murky trails in the water... those little bastards.
It pisses me off even more to think that every "splash" I heard last night was not a drunk kid falling in the water but a chair or a trash can been thrown in by them.
So I did the neighborly thing, I went door to door to every apartment surrounding the pool area and left a letter expressing my dismay and encouraging my neighbors not to be intimidated by the little pricks and inviting them to report to the apartment's management office if they know whoever did this.
I guess I'm old. But you should see the pool. The chairs would have been one thing, but the trash cans? And the flower pots? The pool had just been cleaned and treated a week ago, so it will probably be a while before we can use it again. And it just looks gross with all that stuff floating there. Damn pool vandals.

I think I need a drink with "the guys"

I just re-read my last few posts and realized that ... how shall I say this without offending any female readers... I suppose there is no other way of saying this, and there is honestly no harm intended. But what the hell is wrong with me and all those freaking girly posts about my curls, a cluttered apartment, doing dishes and some other crap? Damn it. I still have to stick to my self-stablished policy of not deleting previous posts, but they're kind of worrying me.
Oh, well, I guess I should now go back to ironing my underwear.
That was a joke.

let me tell you about the bee...

Last weekend I was rock climbing (I was actually up on the rock) while my belayer and other climbers were down below me sharing stories about bee and hornet stings and how so and so had gotten stung and how painful it was. Luckily I had reached a small ledge before two bees began hovering over my head. I just waved my hand a couple of times expecting they'll fly away, but apparently one of them was interested in my hair.

It got trapped in my curls.

Now, this was not funny at the time. I was hanging twenty+ feet above ground on a tiny ledge, and a bee was desperately trying to free itself from the curly trap it had gotten into. Have you heard a mosquito buzz at night? Well, picture that about 20 times louder and the wings flapping a million times faster. It sounded as if the bee was inside my head, and I was shaking my hair with both hands, freaking out about being stung or falling to the ground. Meanwhile the climbers below just stared and were probably wondering what the hell was wrong with me. I said " a bee got trapped in my hair" and they all looked at each other the way you look at your friends when you all -without exchanging a word- agree that someone nearby is really weird and probably belongs in a mental asylum. Until they witnessed the bee flying free and I finally stopped convulsing up there.
After that it was all a funny anecdote, but I guess that ought to teach me to wear a helmet when I climb eh?

Apartment From Hell

I did feel bad for a moment. I guess I have no right to criticize how other people live. But I think if there is a place where I would go insane spending more than five minutes it would be this "little place". So yes, I decided to share it with anyone who might care to check it out. The oddities one finds while surfing the web... I was looking for a picture of a cinder block and somehow Google Image took me to this website. Just follow this woman's short description of her apartment and click on the links to the pictures, if you think it can't get any worse just wait until you see the next, and the next, and then the next little corner of her "tiny little place". I think I would go insane. What's great is that she seems to be so happy with it. There is one thing missing in those pictures though. A Cat. Anyone who lives in a place like that has to have a cat. A feline clearly belongs in that cluttered, tiny, overly-decorated, tacky, fluffy, claustrophobic, furry, hideous place! (No offense to cat lovers, but let's face it, even your cat would call this place paradise).
I need a walk and some fresh air, that tour was too much for me.

Mother knows best

After years of teasing my mother for doing the dishes immediately after we finished dinner, I have come to realize that there is no better way of getting them done. Nothing is worse than to let dirty dishes pile up in your sink. Before you know it, you're facing a giant mountain of greasy plates and pots, and every time you add something to it you feel less and less like washing them. Until there are no more plates, and you finally have to face the reality of the task ahead.
Listen to your mother.
Do your dishes first.

Small Victories

After being given a huge stack of exams to grade for a professor from the program I realized they were too many to fit in my bag (a messenger bag). I had to get a couple of huge rubber bands and a small plastic bag to put them all in and wrap them up. Everything was fine until it was time to go home. Errr...I had to get on my bicycle and pedal uphill with the stupid plastic bag. Needless to say, my own bag was really heavy, as I was already carrying my laptop and four thick textbooks.
Off I went wobbling and swirving up Chase Hill Blvd (oh, did I mention only my front brakes work on my bike -i.e., I can only break with my left hand?), steering with my left, which is my stupid hand as I am right handed, and trying to not get hit by a car. More than once I envisioned myself on the pavement, with exams flying all over the street and being dragged by the small wind currents created by cars speeding down the nearby highway. I had to stop.
Think, Juan Pablo, think.
I took off my sweater, threw the exams inside and tied up the sleeves really tight around the giant stack of papers (I'm talking about 400 or 500 pages). I then slid the sleeves through the steering and left the package resting against the front of the bike, almost where a bike basket would have gone - hey, there are limits to my dorkiness, I am not buying a bicycle basket!-
Anyhow, I still had several hunderd yards to go and I made it comfortably and safely all the way home. I regained my balance and my wobbliness was gone too. But most importantly, right after I got on the bike the second time, the small victory of reason over a stupid stack of paper made me feel very good with myself, I had that feeling of..."he saw his bundle of papers tied with a sweater to the front of his bike, and it was good".

Unbreathable Trade-Off

I've been sitting outside one of my school's buildings for the past two hours trying to enjoy today's perfect weather. Yet, I don't even have to look up to realize I am surrounded by smokers. To my right and left people are lighting up cigarettes one right after the other, and just when it seems that they're finally done and I can begin breathing some fresh air, either another smoker shows up, or they pull out another smoke from their pack. It's the most frustrating feeling. I suppose I can go elsewhere -where I will surely find other smokers- to try to get away.
Then after a while I began to think, why should I stay locked inside and allow the smokers to enjoy the nice weather all by themselves? Moreover, they're spoiling the air, and make it not enjoyable to others. It almost seems like they're being rewarded when they're asked to smoke outside, and every table, bech, chair and umbrella appears to be a "smoker's only" area.
Non-smokers have no choice but to inhale the smoke if they want to sit outside, and of course we can't say anything, because anyone with a cigarette can argue "I'm outside, you can go somewhere else". True, I can go somehwere else, but why should I? What gives them the right to ruin my day? And anywhere I go -as long as it is outside- all I can do is shrug my shoulders and walk away if a smoker is nearby. I shouldn't be the one walking away.
I think all public seating areas should be smoke-free zones.

Please Use Correct Change

Just keep the extra 25 cents, stupid vending machine, and give me my M&M's! Don't you just hate it when the only thing between you and a snack is that piece of glass and you actually have the money to pay for it but the machine would not sell it to you?

JORGEDOBLEU

I bet someone has already named their kid like that somewhere in Latin America. (It reads whore-hay-duh-blay-yu, or something pretty close to that)

You may [ ], but you may not [ ]

Maybe some day I'll just decide to post again as if no one knew my blog's address. It seems like most people close to me know where to find this, and although I guess that IS the point of a blog, it's taking away all the fun. It's funny how we can be so nice to friends and family and, without meaning any harm, have our own thoughts and opinions about what they think, what they say or who they are. For a while I was able to post those thoughts here, but as more and more people got to know about my blog I had to be more careful about hurting any feelings.
Some times I just don't care what my readers think, but some others I chose my words carefully or don't post them at all to avoid offending someone. I feel the day is coming when I will post a "disclaimer" warning everyone to read at their own risk. I think the day when I'll say you may [read], but you may not [complain] is not far, and I hope not to step on too many toes.

Random thought of the day

I never thought about the possibility of being a movie critic. But I just woke up to the realization that even if I had wanted to, I couldn't be one. Or at least, I couldn't review horror movies. They give me nightmares.

Oh, The Places They'll Go

This would usually go in my Politick blog but it just made me upset enough to share it here. What is the ACLU thinking? They just sued the city of NY arguing that random subway bag searches violate their fourth amendment guarantee against illegal searches and seizures? I just don't get it. Would anyone rather be inconvenienced by a bomb going off in the subway than by a bag search? This is the kind of stuff that allows for stupid things to happen in this country. Besides, the cop searching your bag cares very little about what you have in there as long as it's not a bomb. I really just don't know what to say, does it make any sense to anybody? I'm confused.