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| Spring - The Woodlands. Trying out my new Micro Lens (Tricky) Album |
I finally had some time for a bike ride and to try out my new Nikkor Micro Lens. It was hard and tricky to focus... but had fun anyway... Read more!
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Spring in The Woodlands, TX
I finally had some time for a bike ride and to try out my new Nikkor Micro Lens. It was hard and tricky to focus... but had fun anyway... Read more!
Thursday, December 10, 2009
My Apple Wishlist
I've had Macs since 1987. I remember being an assistant in 1988 at a lab in my University that taught Excel and Word in Macs (released for Mac in 1985 and for Windows in 1987) when Windows was mostly unknown and people had to use codes to format text in Word Processors.
In more recent events, I downloaded iTunes the day it was released, but patiently waited to get a revised first generation iPod, just because I knew Apple releases improved products quickly.
If I had followed that trend, I would have purchased an iPhone a long time ago. But my strong negative sentiments against ATT prevented me to do so, and have since been patiently waiting for the iPhone to be released with another carrier, preferably with my current one, T-Mobile. I've thought of getting and iPod Touch, but then again, it has some disadvantages, its not of much use if you don't have a Wi-Fi network at hand.
So I've stuck with my Video iPod which has given me hours and hours of company with great music for at least 3 years and don't have a clue about apps, which even my 67 year old father uses with his iPod Touch.
I used to have a Power Book and then a Macbook, but I got tired of carrying it around and got myself an iMac. And now I want something really portable but powerful from Apple! So I am following all the rumors about the possibility of a Tablet... and of Apple allowing a new carrier for the iPhone. Bummer! I've got cash gifts for Christmas and my Mom wants me to pick something with the cash I got from her. She wants to see it under the Christmas tree... but I can't buy one of those things from Apple right now now!! I know this is a really stupid predicament to have, but, I hope Apple listens to us gadget-oriented-crazy-people soon!
Read more!
In more recent events, I downloaded iTunes the day it was released, but patiently waited to get a revised first generation iPod, just because I knew Apple releases improved products quickly.
If I had followed that trend, I would have purchased an iPhone a long time ago. But my strong negative sentiments against ATT prevented me to do so, and have since been patiently waiting for the iPhone to be released with another carrier, preferably with my current one, T-Mobile. I've thought of getting and iPod Touch, but then again, it has some disadvantages, its not of much use if you don't have a Wi-Fi network at hand.
So I've stuck with my Video iPod which has given me hours and hours of company with great music for at least 3 years and don't have a clue about apps, which even my 67 year old father uses with his iPod Touch.
I used to have a Power Book and then a Macbook, but I got tired of carrying it around and got myself an iMac. And now I want something really portable but powerful from Apple! So I am following all the rumors about the possibility of a Tablet... and of Apple allowing a new carrier for the iPhone. Bummer! I've got cash gifts for Christmas and my Mom wants me to pick something with the cash I got from her. She wants to see it under the Christmas tree... but I can't buy one of those things from Apple right now now!! I know this is a really stupid predicament to have, but, I hope Apple listens to us gadget-oriented-crazy-people soon!
Read more!
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Thankful for the good times and for my Nikon D90 helping me capture them
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| Europe faves |
This year I've failed the FAR CPA exam twice... and will probably fail the REG one I'm giving on Nov 30th. I really didn't study enough for them...
But I've had such a good time this year! The highlight was the Europe trip. But also the many friends and family members I've had the joy of spending time with back home in Ecuador and also in Germany, Spain and my beloved Texas. I also reconnected with my long lost schoolmates thanks to Facebook, had a great time with them in Miami.
In July, just before I headed to Europe, I bought a Nikon D90 camera to replace my old D70. I never expected the machine and the lens to be so good! Did great with poorly lighted places and specially with people, they just look great in them :-)
And Google notified me that my $20 a year for 11 gb were good now for 80gb so I can share my pictures in its original size. Oh, and that's why I take pictures for, not to brag about where I've been, but to share them!
I'll spend most of the Thanksgiving weekend studying, but this afternoon will have a great time and share great food with family and friends. Happy Thanksgiving!! Read more!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
0 Friends on Facebook... I got the chills..
It's really crazy how attached you become to your "web 2.0" possessions. The other day Facebook was having issues, and when I logged in I watched in horror how my friends list displayed "You have 0 friends". All I was able to see was whatever I had posted in the last few days, which of course wasn't fun at all. I am one of those people who takes pictures of everybody except myself. Why would I want a picture of me... I see my photo everyday in my twitter and Facebook account.
Well, I don't go around asking for people to be friends, so I would say 90% of my 220 'friends' requested me to add them, and I know 99% of the people on that list. I guess we latinos, and specially ecuadorians, use Facebook not to meet new friends, but to get in touch with long lost friends and family. And just going to the trouble of finding them all again was not something I wanted to do.
So when that happened I sent a status update from Twitter to FB, saying that, I was now going to be able to study because my Facebook friends had dissapeared. I had some funny comments like: "yeah right!" (somebody who knows me well), and some sweet ones saying "I am your friend whatever Facebook says"... They all came back the day after.
But anyway, the point I am trying to make is how used to get to things you didn't have a year ago. And how communication and interaction has changed... now you
* remember everybody's birthday
* don't bother calling or writing an email to congratulate them, you write on their wall
* find out if relationships started or ended almost immediately
* realize how old you are when you see your friend's kids growing up
* worry when someone dis activates his/hers account
We'll see where all of this takes us... But it's been a crazy year...
Read more!
Well, I don't go around asking for people to be friends, so I would say 90% of my 220 'friends' requested me to add them, and I know 99% of the people on that list. I guess we latinos, and specially ecuadorians, use Facebook not to meet new friends, but to get in touch with long lost friends and family. And just going to the trouble of finding them all again was not something I wanted to do.
So when that happened I sent a status update from Twitter to FB, saying that, I was now going to be able to study because my Facebook friends had dissapeared. I had some funny comments like: "yeah right!" (somebody who knows me well), and some sweet ones saying "I am your friend whatever Facebook says"... They all came back the day after.
But anyway, the point I am trying to make is how used to get to things you didn't have a year ago. And how communication and interaction has changed... now you
* remember everybody's birthday
* don't bother calling or writing an email to congratulate them, you write on their wall
* find out if relationships started or ended almost immediately
* realize how old you are when you see your friend's kids growing up
* worry when someone dis activates his/hers account
We'll see where all of this takes us... But it's been a crazy year...
Read more!
Friday, October 16, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
A good day
It was nice waking up today. Not only because Taylor Swift released her Fifteen Video, which is beautiful, artistic and with a great message, but also because of the news we got about Obama winning the Nobel Peace Award, which yes, I learned first from someone's Twitter feed.
These two events are far from comparable but as I was trying to finish a long due financial statement from a non-profit which I help, and the quarterly Financials of the company I work for, due today, I couldn't help read dozens of comments, some negative, some positive... and obviously couldn't help commenting everywhere I was able to:
"The news of this great honor to our President has been received in the US with many different views. But I just want to congratulate him. We know his true intentions, we know how he was brought up by really special people (her mother and grandparents), how his wife has influenced him. He has a great mission ahead, and I welcome the motivation that this prize will instill on him. He has to live up to it. I may have read or heard thousands of negative or positive comments, but I can speak for my self, I believe in his good intentions, in his common sense, in his clarity of views. I bow that he is able to overcome the status quo, the audacity of the lobbyists and corporations, and does what is best for the country and the world.
The day Obama became President, people of all countries changed the view they had about the US. It was overnight. He has a great influence, and it comes from what he is, what he inspired, what he accomplished with a lot of work.
This is my favorite Obama Quote, from the commencement speech at Notre Dame:
"The question, then, is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?
Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.
Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words. "
This is exactly the opposite of what is going on today in the US, but hopefully we will overcome it.
Read more!
These two events are far from comparable but as I was trying to finish a long due financial statement from a non-profit which I help, and the quarterly Financials of the company I work for, due today, I couldn't help read dozens of comments, some negative, some positive... and obviously couldn't help commenting everywhere I was able to:
"The news of this great honor to our President has been received in the US with many different views. But I just want to congratulate him. We know his true intentions, we know how he was brought up by really special people (her mother and grandparents), how his wife has influenced him. He has a great mission ahead, and I welcome the motivation that this prize will instill on him. He has to live up to it. I may have read or heard thousands of negative or positive comments, but I can speak for my self, I believe in his good intentions, in his common sense, in his clarity of views. I bow that he is able to overcome the status quo, the audacity of the lobbyists and corporations, and does what is best for the country and the world.
The day Obama became President, people of all countries changed the view they had about the US. It was overnight. He has a great influence, and it comes from what he is, what he inspired, what he accomplished with a lot of work.
This is my favorite Obama Quote, from the commencement speech at Notre Dame:
"The question, then, is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?
Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.
Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words. "
This is exactly the opposite of what is going on today in the US, but hopefully we will overcome it.
Read more!
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Shaking off addictions...
Yeah right... a hundred and forty characters are not enough for me... but it seems I never use any characters at all to update this blog, or the one in Spanish. I have many things going through my mind all the time that I want to post here, but never take the time. Who cares anyway? Haha..
Twitter is about three years old but I think this year it has changed the way we communicate. If we are, for example watching an award show, like the famous (or infamous) MTV awards, you go there first to get reactions from the search timeline or share what you think. It's as if you were watching it along with a huge group of people... But it is also as if you were talking to deaf people... or as if everybody was talking at the same time... It lacks feedback, you don't know who is reading or anything.
An exception was what I felt when I was watching the famous (or infamous) Juanes concert in Cuba.. the nice thing was that there were people from many latin-american countries, united for a cause: peace, and if felt great.
This pop culture communication thingy is really time-consuming and addictive. I had to take my CPA exam early October, and the weeks before, I had to literally use all my will power to avoid checking out Facebook or Twitter. In fact, the week before I didn't log in at all, which was a victory for me. Lately I try to log in briefly once or twice a day.
Every other day I hear from my mom back in Ecuador about all the emails regarding the dangers with Facebook accounts, who knows, maybe they are right. I only add people I know, or that at least I have gotten to know in one point in time. So far I have to say that thanks to Facebook, I had the most fun mini-reunion early September with my school friends from Ecuador that now live in the States. We met in Miami and had a blast.. I've also had reunions with cousins and relatives I hadn't seen in years. The point is that if you don't spend that much time in Facebook, and you get actual 'physical' reunions or phone calls, it mustn't be that bad...
The other day I posted two photos of my sister's sixth grade class, and tagged two or three of her classmates that I have in my 'friends' list. They in turn started tagging everybody else, and in two days there were around a hundred comments below that picture. I didn't really mind having my e-mail account full of comments, because I enjoyed them too. I was just two years younger than them and had very similar experiences. The fact is, they got in touch with classmates that they hadn't seen since Elementary School, and organized a reunion in Guayaquil close to Christmas... Isn't that awesome? I invited myself to the celebration and offered to be the photographer.. haha
Speaking about my sister and Facebook, she lives in Brazil and when she got those scary emails, deleted everything from her account, although she still has it open. She never comments or anything. The other day I called her, we hadn't talked for a month, but she knew everything I was up to. It seems as if she even reads comment number 15 in some of my status updates. (I don't normally get that many comments, but when I do, it seems she reads them all.)
Twitter is a whole different story; most people use it to follow famous people, artists, etc. At least that is what I do. And although it's a lot of fun, it's also hmmm yeah.. shallow and senseless. I am one of those ridiculous middle aged Taylor Swift fans.. and had a lot of fun just reading all the reactions after the MTV event. The week she didn't write after the Kanye issue, was one of the longest in history (haha) I used to check the @taylorswift13 timeline, and read how her fans begged her to write because they were so used to knowing what she was doing every day.. Isn't that crazy? But true, I missed her tweets also. (Guess it's 'crazier' to waste my time reading other people's reactions). Then they started following her band members, who are really talented, and fun, just to be able to know what she was up to. (Yeah I was already following them before that happened).
Oh and I know there are thousands of middle aged Taylor Swift fans because I have been to two of her concerts. The first in March in Houston and the other one in Dallas in late September (I somehow enjoyed the first a lot more, no stages and costumes but it was better). It sounded funny when the other day I was talking on the phone with a cousin who lives in Ecuador. It was her birthday (which I remembered thanks to Facebook) and I told her that I had gone to the Dallas concert with my cousin and my 5 year old niece, and that we both liked her. She laughed.. an artist that you and your niece like??? Well... Yeah...
Even though I still enjoy country and TS's music, I am in a detox period now, listening to a lot of Latin Pop, Alternative (the poppy ones, I think that is my favorite genre of music, but I mean it, not the heavy ones), rock, etc. It's a lot of fun... It's exciting that some of my favorite Latin artists are releasing their albums soon (Shakira, Juanes, Alejandro Sanz) and Nelly Furtado released an album, which I love, entirely in Spanish!. And now I need to go, I have another exam ahead, hopefully I'll do better this time at shaking off addictions.
Read more!
Twitter is about three years old but I think this year it has changed the way we communicate. If we are, for example watching an award show, like the famous (or infamous) MTV awards, you go there first to get reactions from the search timeline or share what you think. It's as if you were watching it along with a huge group of people... But it is also as if you were talking to deaf people... or as if everybody was talking at the same time... It lacks feedback, you don't know who is reading or anything.
An exception was what I felt when I was watching the famous (or infamous) Juanes concert in Cuba.. the nice thing was that there were people from many latin-american countries, united for a cause: peace, and if felt great.
This pop culture communication thingy is really time-consuming and addictive. I had to take my CPA exam early October, and the weeks before, I had to literally use all my will power to avoid checking out Facebook or Twitter. In fact, the week before I didn't log in at all, which was a victory for me. Lately I try to log in briefly once or twice a day.
Every other day I hear from my mom back in Ecuador about all the emails regarding the dangers with Facebook accounts, who knows, maybe they are right. I only add people I know, or that at least I have gotten to know in one point in time. So far I have to say that thanks to Facebook, I had the most fun mini-reunion early September with my school friends from Ecuador that now live in the States. We met in Miami and had a blast.. I've also had reunions with cousins and relatives I hadn't seen in years. The point is that if you don't spend that much time in Facebook, and you get actual 'physical' reunions or phone calls, it mustn't be that bad...
The other day I posted two photos of my sister's sixth grade class, and tagged two or three of her classmates that I have in my 'friends' list. They in turn started tagging everybody else, and in two days there were around a hundred comments below that picture. I didn't really mind having my e-mail account full of comments, because I enjoyed them too. I was just two years younger than them and had very similar experiences. The fact is, they got in touch with classmates that they hadn't seen since Elementary School, and organized a reunion in Guayaquil close to Christmas... Isn't that awesome? I invited myself to the celebration and offered to be the photographer.. haha
Speaking about my sister and Facebook, she lives in Brazil and when she got those scary emails, deleted everything from her account, although she still has it open. She never comments or anything. The other day I called her, we hadn't talked for a month, but she knew everything I was up to. It seems as if she even reads comment number 15 in some of my status updates. (I don't normally get that many comments, but when I do, it seems she reads them all.)
Twitter is a whole different story; most people use it to follow famous people, artists, etc. At least that is what I do. And although it's a lot of fun, it's also hmmm yeah.. shallow and senseless. I am one of those ridiculous middle aged Taylor Swift fans.. and had a lot of fun just reading all the reactions after the MTV event. The week she didn't write after the Kanye issue, was one of the longest in history (haha) I used to check the @taylorswift13 timeline, and read how her fans begged her to write because they were so used to knowing what she was doing every day.. Isn't that crazy? But true, I missed her tweets also. (Guess it's 'crazier' to waste my time reading other people's reactions). Then they started following her band members, who are really talented, and fun, just to be able to know what she was up to. (Yeah I was already following them before that happened).
Oh and I know there are thousands of middle aged Taylor Swift fans because I have been to two of her concerts. The first in March in Houston and the other one in Dallas in late September (I somehow enjoyed the first a lot more, no stages and costumes but it was better). It sounded funny when the other day I was talking on the phone with a cousin who lives in Ecuador. It was her birthday (which I remembered thanks to Facebook) and I told her that I had gone to the Dallas concert with my cousin and my 5 year old niece, and that we both liked her. She laughed.. an artist that you and your niece like??? Well... Yeah...
Even though I still enjoy country and TS's music, I am in a detox period now, listening to a lot of Latin Pop, Alternative (the poppy ones, I think that is my favorite genre of music, but I mean it, not the heavy ones), rock, etc. It's a lot of fun... It's exciting that some of my favorite Latin artists are releasing their albums soon (Shakira, Juanes, Alejandro Sanz) and Nelly Furtado released an album, which I love, entirely in Spanish!. And now I need to go, I have another exam ahead, hopefully I'll do better this time at shaking off addictions.
Read more!
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