Sunday, November 11, 2007

My 7 answers...

1. What did I fail?

-Handling monday’s crisis properly

2. What am I resisting?

-Avoiding the confrontation required to get the office to pay the allowances they owe me and get my finances into balance.

3. What did I do well?
-Cleaned the house, well I was manic (still I am I think hehehe, I’d rearranged my books a dozen times in the last two hours)

4. What can I do better?
-Stick to my schedule

5. Were you the person you want to be during the past week?
-No, I lose my cool hahahaha, that shouldn’t had happened, I used to handle the office stress quite well, guess is the lack of sex hehehe.

6. Did I get closer to achieving my short, medium, and long-term goals?
Short: Finish my thesis, nop
Medium: Go back in balance, nop, being avoiding that meeting with my boss.
Long term: I don’t even want to see beyond december, and I’m running out of time, only less than 50 days to change things.

7. What am I grateful for?
Spending a week with beautiful minds, devoting the weekend to my home.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Today's

1. Alia’s health is improving
2. My second attempt to prepare Jerk Chicken got great raves
3. Mom
4. Trough couchsurfing hosting Helio from Brazil, Manuel from Spain and Dominic from Germany, three very refreshing mindsets.
5. The mirror-like quality of the sea this morning with all those towering clouds hanging above it.

Friday, November 09, 2007

Progress...

Water:

  • Found a way to avoid the water keeping pouring after the timer turned off the bomb. The tank gets filled with two gallons of water, the setup looks awfull but I’ll work on the aesthetics next sunday, the mechanical timer I got has increments of 5 minutes, however the soil keeps moist with far less water than just pouring a whole jar on it. Sub-task 1 completed.
    Sometimes I forget and leave open the shower out of habit, need to work on that.
    *The pitcher advice worked well.
    *Got a sponge based mop and ditched the strands based ones, it takes less water to rinse it.
    *I’m doing the laundry once a week instead of every other day.

Gas:

Turned off the water heater. Only miss it in the morning :-(
Since I’m on a diet I’m not cooking big dishes, every dish I cook takes less than two minutes to get ready.
*Hanging instead of using the drying machine.

Electricty:

Being unable to find those motion sensing sockets for the lights.
Replaced all the incandescents bulbs at home by fluorescents less the one at the living room but I barely use the living at night anyways.
*Unpluggin any charger/electronics I’m not using.
*Tracking solar chargers for small electronics in town.

Gasoline:

Don’t own a car so no problem on that.
*Hiring cabs already with passengers. Using public transport or walk whenever I can. There are taxis using gas instead of gasoline out there, but they are the minority, thinking on making an arrangement with one to take me to work every morning and when I need to do errands out of public transportation routes.

Air Travel:
*None planned this year

The Carbon footprint calculator puts mine down average, that’s cool!!! Will mark this done.

Efforts...

Water:

  • Found a way to avoid the water keeping pouring after the timer turned off the bomb. The tank gets filled with two gallons of water, the setup looks awfull but I’ll work on the aesthetics next sunday, the mechanical timer I got has increments of 5 minutes, however the soil keeps moist with far less water than just pouring a whole jar on it. Sub-task 1 completed.
    *Sometimes I forget and leave open the shower out of habit, need to work on that.
    *The pitcher advice worked well.
    *Got a sponge based mop and ditched the strands based ones, it takes less water to rinse it.
    *I’m doing the laundry once a week instead of every other day.

Thursday, November 08, 2007

A platform that looks solid enough for Timelines

I found Croquet quite by accident, I was trying to find if Squeak still thrived and found a link to the Croquet project. They have an SDK, it’s a 2D/3D platform and it looks very mature. Wonder if can be adapted to be the Timelines engine.

Monday, November 05, 2007

My 5 things...

1. Being able to remember and share our life experiences with others.
2. Sharing an evening with aunt Mima, uncle Manuel, mom and grandma listening to grandma’s histories of her youth.
3. For having a family.
4. For all the advice from the Corgi-L group on Alia’s health.
5. John, sending me a virtual hug trough facebook when he learnt I was down because of Alia being sick.

Friday, October 26, 2007

Need to make progress on this one...

Applied to four proyects trough the UN Online Volunteering Programme

Created a Google Calendar to handle the time devoted to volunteer work , will start with four hours a week and scale to 8 hours a week.

Would start reviewing the courses already in progress at PEOI to see where I can lend a hand and start plans to write and submit my own.

Compassionist asked me to organize a walk group for his next year’s project , would be great! Never done something like that, taking care of the organization and resources would be great and I’ll learn a lot.

A great service that the UN site has is the notion of groups, as a volunteer I can help those groups and as a group I can submit a request for help to the other volunteers, but to be a group It has to be registered in the country of origin. I’d enrolled a friend to help me with the paperwork stuff, a foundation of sorts, I’ll ask my neighbours at Nabuur about what’s the best way of doing it.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Ithaki

Cavafis, I dreamt once I was taking a stroll with him along the beach, outside Alexandria, I couldn’t understand what he asked me but I answered “It hasn’t changed”, we kept walking in silence.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Drupal

I always get to a point I start working and then waste 90% of my time doing sidelines, not the intentional task.

Removed Typo3 and decided to give it a try to Drupal, a lot of good stuff but it would require time to setup, get familiar with the template system and since I wasn’t able to do anything useful in less than an hour gave up on it.

One thing I liked of Drupal is that it has a module to create facebooks applications, I’ll schedule another hour to give it a try next weekend.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Weekly Review - 13-Oct-2007

1. What did I fail?
The redo of the Update logic. It took more time than the older one.
2. What am I resisting?
Work on my Thesis.
3. What did I do well?
The Java SMS subsystem.
4. What can I do better?
Be realistic with task times. Acknowledge for unknowns instead of giving the “ideal world” times.
5. Were you the person you want to be during the past week?
No.
6. Did I get closer to achieving my short, medium, and long-term goals?
Short: Yes Medium: No Long term: Undefined yet
7. What am I grateful for?
Getting in gontact with my UK friends again.

7 Questions to answer every weekend - at my GTD Weekly Review Session

Got them from here

1. What did I fail?
2. What am I resisting?
3. What did I do well?
4. What can I do better?
5. Were you the person you want to be during the past week?
6. Did I get closer to achieving my short, medium, and long-term goals?
7. What am I grateful for?

Thursday, October 11, 2007

My experience with GTD

I use Jello Dashboard for the GTD flows in Outlook, sync to my Jornada and print a daily report into my paper notebook. Use Plaxo to sync between my PC at home, my PC at the Office and my Google Calendar.

GTD is a methodology easy to follow, no big complex rules, just common sense workflows, if you are technical oriented or a programmer, you’ll love it, indeed, you can implement it only with paper and pen if you want.

Get the audio book too. I put it from time to time to avoid the cubicle noise.

One of the most rewarding things...

I used to see myself as a Siberian Husky guy, but Corgis are another issue entirely, where my sibes use blunt force to get what they want, Alia is clever enough to see how to get it or trick me into doing it for her, I bet if she had more bigger fingers I’ll find her one day smoking like a 20’s diva and reading “Dangerous Liaisons”, yep, she’s mean, she’s smart and she’s gorgeous and she knows it.

Some setup...

Bought some construction paper and put a big piece at the wall in front of my bed, my intention is being able to see it everytime I wake up and work some time on the goals written there.

Today I’ve to show a preview.

Spanish...

My first friend was a Canadian boy called Jerry, I’d to learn english in order to communicate with him, I was eight then, my next friend I got when I was finishing high school,bye then, all my journals and inner talks where done in english those years, so, If I need to express something very deep, emotional, it’s hard for me to do it in spanish, since english was the language for that. I wish I could speak more about my feelings in spanish, since when I must, I just shut my mouth and say nothing, sometimes I can’t even find the words, had to use their counterparts.

Now, how I do that.

on 3:00AM cooking and Ratatouille Moments....

But as usual I’m too busy to find proper time. However, when I do have a “Ratatouille moment” (usually when hungry, after 3:00am while marathoning to finish a deliverable) I pull something from the net and try it. My favourite stop for it is the 101 cookbooks site

Would be titled something like :

3:00 A.M.
Cooking for programmers, slackers and workaholics

Sounds good! I can imagen the website interface: A big empty fridge and cabinet and a selection tool “What’s in your fridge?”, “What’s in your cabinet?”. You select what you have and the site returns a list of recipes ranked by easiness, time to deliver, filling score and what will do to your body at the time of cooking.

Now I’m wondering, either I’m manic (this is my 5 night in a row I’m full awake this early), the office’s new coffe is too strong (been skipping sleep since they changed the automatic machines) or is all that water I’m consuming (put a pitch of iced water next to my bed).

Thursday, September 27, 2007

One laptop per child

Have great news this morning, been following the XO laptop and it seems they are ready to deliver. Well, is not the USD 100 intended price, the asking donation would be of USD 200, and the laptop would be given to a child in a developing nation.

Friday, September 21, 2007

To Ken:

Hello Kiddo,

Some things I want to point:

-Life gets better.
-People is not as bad as you think.
-You’ll be heartbroken 4 times.
-You’ll be loved a lot, you’ll miss being alone.
-I won’t tell you wich ones, but you’ll make two of your dreams come true.
-You’ll still argue with mom

Take care Kiddo, I miss you a lot, Wish you were here…

Your future self

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

URL - 12 vignettes

Starting a new one. URL stands for Unrequited love. The vignette part took it from a CD of music called Sex 12 vignettes that I really enjoyed, there were short pieces of music that told an history.

And writting is about storytelling isn’ it.

Thanks for...

1. Working again on finishing my thesis.
2. Love
3. My peristeria blossoming
4. Starting a volunteering site.
5. Tears

In Barbados...

It started to rain hahahaha, I remember the movie was Mr & Mrs Smith, we had to close the window, thankfully we discover we can listen using the radio.

I'm aware is not food but wanted to share it!!

I got a Peristeria Elata (“Flor del Espíritu Santo”/”Holy Ghost flower”), is my country’s national flower, a terrestrial orchid, when the flower opens it can be seen inside of it what looks like a nested dove with its wings open.

Mine is blooming…

Friday, September 14, 2007

Some Ideas I like...

Be inspired by nature
Unfold, organically grow and blend with the surrounds
Be an organism in itself, self-contained, self-regulated
A place I would’d enjoyed to play as a kid

Fallingwater comes to mind…and some twists of Gaudi would be awesome.

spiraljetty pointed me to this awesome place in Mexico, Las Pozas by Edward James

The only person I can't run away from...

Is sadly me, is funny, I was checking this and saw this goal, a song came to mind I heard before but can’t remember who sings it, the lyrics said “I was running out of trouble, you were running out of me”..I definitely need a date with myself to make ammends, there’s something itching and I need to know what. A good excuse to open that Shiraz I was keeping for a special date.

Day one

After being introduced to the rest of the group my advisor asked the group to present themselves and their work, two e-learning systems for primary and secondary school mathematics and physics, an e-commerce site and a security manual. My advisor asked me if I wouldn’t want to go for the post-graduate subjects instead, I would love too, but I’m not financially ok right now to do the investment, so I declined the offer and said I was ok, my turn came, “Content filtering using semantic networks” and gave a small introduction to what I’ll try to attain, she requested the conceptual framework for next week,said 40 pages would be enough, I’d 150 completed, overall it was great, she likes it, I told her since I did the proposal three years ago this has been done and I wanted to try something else, but she insisted is a good one, I can find something else to add to it later.

Regional oriented volunteering info site.

I’m thinking more and more on the possibility of creating a local site to promote online volunteering and allow contact with the different groups and associations that do volunteer work in my country.

I checked two frameworks already developed with this in mind. Hope to get a chance this weekend to do instead of write and put this idea to work.

Wish me luck!!

The site would be at Oderay.welcomepanama.com

Monday, September 10, 2007

Have two days...

To produce 200 pages on Semantic Networks.

Nanowrimo get that! hahahaha

Some Ideas I like...

Be inspired by nature
Unfold, organically grow and blend with the surrounds
Be an organism in itself, self-contained, self-regulated
A place I would’d enjoyed to play as a kid

Fallingwater comes to mind…and some twists of Gaudi would be awesome.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Grateful

1. Family.
2. Friends.
3. An unexpected hug and kiss from someone I love secretly.
4. Reading Starship Titanic.
5. Being able to feel brokenhearted.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Today's entry

1. For being alive
2. For being able to listen the birds sing this morning.
3. For being able to see the clouds drift among the mountain top
4. For being able to feel the heat of the sun and the cold of the mountain breeze on my skin.
5. For being able to understand I should be grateful for what I take for granted.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Grateful for whatever it was...

I woke up this morning and went to the kitchen for a glass of water, and then it hit me, or more exactly, poured over me, I felt loved beyond anything, love poured literally over me, as Zeus should have poured over Danae, however it wasn’t sexual at all, it was more like I imagen Caritas (God’s love) to be, I was so extatic tears start running over my cheeks, it got so intense I was afraid I’ll get lost on it and fade away, unlike the oneness I feel with meditating, it was one on one, whatever the other “one” was.

My theory is since I was just awoke and way out tired of working late my brain just played me a trick since I was meditating on love the day before. But what a trick :P

Couchsurfing...

Meeting new people always terrify me, now, asking a stranger to host me for a couple of days in a place far away from home, well, I hadn’t done that before, so, why not, that’s what facing fears is about right?

I’m writting this from a small bedroom at Dave’s house, outside you can hear the bird sings and the insects doing their mating calls, stoped raining a couple of minutes ago, I’m at El Valle, an old volcano caldera (the Valley is actually the volcano’s caldera) in Cocle, Panama.

Dave loaned me his bike and I went for a tour of the town, rain got me in my way, I was soaked, but God it felt good, the rain was cool, not cold, I ended having lunch at a small restaurant called “Niña Delia”, seafood pasta and white wine, it was good and cheap, actually there were more seafood than pasta. At the market in the center of the town I bought a quartz laced in leather, I like it and bought it, tought I’m unsure who I’m going to give it, also asorted local treats I hadn’t seen since childhood and some bracelets with the panamenian flag to give as gifts to my guests back at home.

I guess I can write off this fear. :-)

Friday, June 15, 2007

Joy

When I wake up this morning to let the dogs out I found my marigold had blossomed, that put a big smile in my face that has lasted trought the day.

My 5 things...

1. I was able to do work together with my best friend as a team, and this endeavour would be basically our first business venture together.

2. I got to see a re-run of V, I love that movie.

3. Today my marigolds blossomed, the oregano is growing and the rosemary tasted soo good.

4. That feeling of joy that permeates everything I do.

5. I miscalculated and hadn’t enough money to going to work, then Cindy came back early because she forgot something and was able to loan me for the taxi, when I went downstairs Mimi called that she was going to my place and Omar called to see if I needed a lift to work. I ended accepting Omar’s offer. It’s amazing how the universe conspires to give you what you need.

Changes...

I started re-taking my apt back, and it feels good. First step was the container garden that I lost to grettel (my new puppy) and summer drought. I got some flower bushes and started my herb garden anew. I arranged with the cleaning lady for her to clean the apt twice a week and on saturdays evenings. The dogs would stay confined to the kitchen/laundry area when I’m not at home, sleep at my room and able to roam freely after I had took them out, in the morning and in the evening. My desk is half catalogued and empty, just the other half to go. I need to dispose the old clothes, there’s a charity service that may get good use of them.

Starting tomorrow

I’m lacking in this goal.

Since I’ll be able to sleep tonight (thanks the Movistar project is done) I’ll be able to wake up early tomorrow and start training at the Omar park. I’m still unsure how long that track is but I’ll find out tomorrow.

:-(

There are opening so many new restaurants I’m thinking on give up this task at least for a month.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Why I admire Jane Austen

A story about outscape

He planted 12,000 trees in my country.

Besides he does Ruby!

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Got my tile

/

In the section you. Posted a self-portrait

Ken’s Yahoo Time Capsule

Been visiting a couple of sites...

/

It’s amazing everything you can do. The Canal Referendum is just in two weeks, but I don’t see a good point in neither both sides. The “yes” and the “No”, guess politics is part taking sides and keeping with it.

Friday, September 29, 2006

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Got down to the un-attainable 200Lb mark

/

It’s amazing. My weight is dropping faster, I wonder what’s the difference between what I’m doing and fasting, excepting maybe I’m eating less than 2000 calories a day, taking supplements and vitamins and working out at the gym on a daily basis. I no longer feel tired, but the tension on my muscles after the gym tends to drop faster. Everything else is normal. I’m having a Cholesterol test on saturday.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Volunteer task #2

/

This one found trough Nabuur It’s a small cooperative of peruvian women in the andean mountains that wants to get in contact with distributors outside Peru. Manuel put a website for them. I’m proposing setting up an e-commerce shop to ease the administration and posting of the garments.

Cochiyara site built by a volunteer, Manuel

The e-commerce proposal for Cochiyara-Puno

Volunteer task #1

/

Will help a small town in Kenia to post and sell their crafts trough a website.

I’m full with anticipation!! :-)

God I'm hungry...

/

40% off of my daily caloric needs. I’m hitting the gym more often in order to prevent wasting.

My 26 things Challenge

/

1. overcome
2. at the top
3. pile of
4. coated
5. button
6. soft
7. strange
8. package
9. team
10. fly
11. words
12. traffic
13. fresh
14. craving
15. town
16. small spaces
17. scream
18. boring
19. shadows
20. curvaceous
22. blur
23. tv
24. meaning of life
25. price
26. mirror
27. macro

Monday, September 25, 2006

The problem:

/

I’ve a big collection of ebooks in pdf and lit format. I need to extract the isbn data from everyone of them (they are too many) in order to be able to upload them to Library Thing and create my online library.

Friday, September 22, 2006

My 26 things Challenge

/

1. overcome
2. at the top
3. pile of
4. coated
5. button
6. soft
7. strange
8. package
9. team
10. fly
11. words
12. traffic
13. fresh
14. craving
15. town
16. small spaces
17. scream
18. boring
19. shadows
20. curvaceous
22. blur
23. tv
24. meaning of life
25. price
26. mirror
27. macro

Thursday, September 07, 2006

From rain streams to the seven seas...

When I was a kid growing in a poor neighbourhood mom didn’t allowed me to go outside when it rained. The strong rain would create big streams that would turn the dirty road into a river and as the rain force subsided small streams wouls run down the street. My whole knowledge of the world outside my neighbourhood was limited to the stories of ancient greece in a small tome of a encyclopedia some previous owner let at the rented home we had. I would see the streams running, would open the wood door without making a noise and put on the stream a paper boat, watching it get lost in the stream, sailing away to the lands mentioned in the books. Innocence is such a beautiful thing.

I increased my chest press

God it hurts hahaha.

Friday, September 01, 2006

On Zen and Let it go

/

I was pondering this evening in hot4550 advice , I thought I would meditate on it at home after work. Then I realized it. You see, when you do Zen, as a basic exercise you need to admit things into your consciousness, embrace them, find their cause and then let them go. I would describe it as forming leaves out of thin air then dropping them in a small creek, watching them flowing away with the stream. I know how to let things go, but I hadn’t been applying that knowledge to every aspect of my life.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Woot!

/

Found a great online database of birds at natureserver.org

They have range shp files available. It’s feasible then to upload the map data as layers to a panama google map! Would be ubercool!

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Vox Site

/

Good, just two pages more to go.

Prototype

I was wondering if instead of buying a laptop I should invest in a server.

Afraid of..

/

My relationship is 5 months old, we came from different backgrounds, meet by chance. I’m past beyond the times I would think of myself unworthy of anyone, but, I love her so much, that I can’t avoid thinking sometimes I should let her go because she has chances of finding a better mate, and I won’t be able to face not giving her everything I wanted her to have. If I only could put in order my life, maybe I would feel safe in the security I have something to offer her, but right now, uprooted as I feel from everything, she’s the only point of reference I have.

I’m also afraid of letting it go. I know I can, I can let it go my fears and embrace it, but would be advisable, shouldn’t I talk with her, explaining to her so she would have a choice, or I should expect I’ll be back on my feet sooner than later.

Mid 30’s crisis?

The feared date is near

/

34 years old!! Looking back, I wonder how I managed to survive this long. I was supposed not to live beyond my 24 birthday anyways.

The Maelstrom of past year had subsided, and with it the excuse for not to put in order my life, living as a wanderer has that advantage I guess, you keep postponing because you belong nowhere.

So, Ken, what about the next 10 years?

Monday, August 28, 2006

210Lb

Steady. I’ve lose weight but it seems I can’t pass the 210lb mark now, and I’d been three weeks going to the gym everyday, maybe I’m just adding muscle weight.

Routine is:
1 hour at the treadmill
Weightlifting for two hours
30 min swimming
20min Sauna/vapour

A young man prays to the Black Christ of Portobelo

/

This one I took in a trip to Portobelo . Portobelo was an very important port found in 1519. Now it’s a sleepy town. The icon the young man is praying is the Cristo Negro (Black Christ), the legend tolds a spanish ship looking for harbour from a storm got to portobelo carrying the statue to South America, but everytime the ship tried to leave the port the storm would came back, so they left the statue and were able to leave. For his feast people would walk miles from other towns in the country, dressed as the Cristo Negro in purple in order to give thanks to the Christ for miracles conceded.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Royksopp's What else is there

/

It was me on that road
But you couldn’t see me
Too many lights on, but nowhere near here

It was me on that road
Still you couldn’t see me
And then flashlights and explosions

Roads and getting nearer
We cover distance but not together
I am the storm and I am the wonder
And the flashlights, nightmares
And sudden explosions

I don’t know what more to ask for
I was given just one wish

It’s about you and the sun
A morning run
The story of my maker
What I have and what I ache for

I’ve got a golden ear
I cut and I spear
And what else is there
Roads and getting nearer
We cover distance still not together

If I am the storm if I am the wonder
Will I have flashlights, nightmares
And sudden explosions

There’s no room that I can go and
You’ve got secrets too

i don’t know what more to ask for
i was given just one wish

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Been too busy lately!

/

Working a lot! going to the gym at early morning! How long I don’t enjoy the simplicity of the sun rising.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Started Hebrew classes by email!

/

Neta offered to help me to read Hebrew by email as part of one of her goals at 43things!

We’ll start to learn the typed alphabet.

Cool!

It feels so great to workout!

/

Feel more energized, less appetite and better overall.

Routine right now is:

12:00am-12:40 Cardio/Treadmill
12:40pm-1:20pm Swimming
1:20pm-1:40pm Sauna
1:40pm-2:00pm Lunch and back to the office

It’s great having the gym just a hallway distance from the office!

Evening:

6:00pm-9:00pm Weights

Here's mine

Friday, August 18, 2006

I seek refuge in the Buddha

/

I was walking back to the office, rain just stopped falling I was all wet and the heat had started to hit once again. An old man asked me for a minute of my time. He wanted to know if I had some work for him to do because he was diabetic and needed daily shots of insuline. I saw an ulcer under her tongue and he was missing his right feet toes. I hadn’t a single dollar on myself, and he told me the ampule cost was $15. I was going to dismiss him, the heat was so high, I just wanted to go into the office and cool off. And cool of, this old man was walking with helpers, if he hadn’t money for his medicine probably would have less for himself. I told him to wait for me at the entrance of the WTC. Tooked some money from the ATM and offered to him. His eyes were shinning when he saw the bill. I feel awkward, I knew the correct would be stay with him for a while, chat with him and help him to feel better. I couldn’t, I gave him a smile and a pat in the back, this was just one man, and like him, there should be a lot, that thought saddened me, my eyes became tearful while I got back to my office wondering who would be going to help him tomorrow, or the day after. I feel powerless, I look at the veiled smile of Chenrezig looking me with compassion from my desktop. So many questions.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

The power of motivation...

/

It’s amazing how a project that captures my imagination can totally overcome the most stubborn of my habits.

I completed the Inflationary Finance Module in two working days!

Monday, August 07, 2006

Why I admire Neil Gaiman

He’s a talented writer, “American Gods” is one of my favourites.