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Peace.

74- And they're off

And they're off... 5 CDs for the swap. Dropped them in the mail today, they told me at the post office they'll be a couple weeks.

I took the time to actually listen to the mix with all the patience in the world today at work. And I have to say, this one turned out pretty decent =D

73- Told you so

See... I told you so... skip the fries and you can have 16 cotton candies xD

72- Arts festival, final part

Final day at the downtown arts festival. I have to say, for a third year, it was well worth it...

A while back I was thinking that there were no decent contact jugglers anymore, and much less in this remote area of the world. I saw a couple of those streetlight performers a few months ago, but they really didn't measure up to my reference benchmark, which for the moment is David Bowie (yeah, David Bowie), in Labyrinth.

But then I saw this guy, calls himself Costrini de Sebastian Marcelo Guz. And, I take it back... I have now seen a decent contact juggler in this part of the world =)

The photos from the festival turned out real good... and there's a couple which are absolutely amazing. I mean, to the point where they popped up on screen and I just stood there thinking "wait.. that shot is absolutely amazing... I cannot believe I did *that*".

Still a few days to go of processing, calibrating, and RAW conversion. But as soon as they're out, I'll let everyone know!

I did put up a few shots in the gallery, in case anyone should want to see what's come out so far.

71- Arts festival, part 2

And once again, it's off to the downtown area for the arts festival...

70- Be safe

One of the annoying things about doing concert photos is that many times you end up sitting for hours on end next to a huge speaker tower. Happened to me last weekend: one of the best places for stage shots was the tip of the stage... where the towers were.

So, I figured out a solution. Went to my local hardware store and got these. About $3 for 31 dB of attenuation. That brings night club level sound down to more of less the level you'd have playing in your living room. Ok maybe a little louder than that =D

And of course, at that level you can still enjoy the concert. Only thing is, you'll miss the trip to the emergency room with busted eardrums the next morning.

69- Here comes the train

March 10, 2011



Saw a train going by... not exactly in the usual way though...

68- Out for a stroll

March 9, 2011



Sleepwalking is one of those funny human quirks. It's a condition where the mind is still asleep, but can perform automatic behavior: those actions you do every day over and over again and you can do without even thinking. Like opening doors, walking through the house, picking up objects, etc.

And nope, nothing wrong with the brain if you sleepwalk. Just another one of those processes that the mind sometimes goes through, a bit unusual, but normal if you have the genes. Kind of like being able to wiggle your ears.

According to biologists, it's an evolutionary thing. Apes developed a brain function that paralyzes the body while asleep, so they wouldn't fall out of trees. That's in part the reason why you can't scream or lift heavy objects in dreams. With time, beds and ground level buildings, evolution started degrading that area of the brain. In many cases, that causes people to twitch and talk in their sleep. And in some, it causes them to sleepwalk.

So, what's with the discovery channel lesson? Turns out this morning around 4:30 I hear a door close downstairs. Probably the wind, I think. Then I hear it open. And I hear it close again. Ok, that's strange.

Then I hear things falling to the ground. And I figure I better go have a look. And I go down the stairs, and find my dad opening and closing file cabinet drawers. I get closer and he doesn't seem to notice... and so then I think wait a second...

And sure enough, he was asleep all the way. It became more than clear when one of the drawers wouldn't open, so he let go, then tried it again, then let go, then tried it again, almost like watching a Roomba at work.

My brother talks in his sleep and sleepwalks. He's done it all his life. I guess I know now where he got it from =)

The million dollar question: so, do you wake them or not? According to experts on the subject, nothing wrong happens if you wake them. It's similar to waking someone up from a nightmare. They're bound to be confused and startled for a few minutes, but they get over it. My experience? It doesn't do much to wake a sleepwalker, since they sometimes fake waking up. They act startled, maybe say a few coherent sentences and act normal, but they're still asleep as ever. And f you don't know that part of their routine, you're bound to just let them walk off thinking they know where they're going =S

I wanted a picture so he'd believe me in the morning, but my mom was horrified at the thought of using a flash on him in that state. In the end she talked him back into bed and he went along. Experience from 30 years of dealing with my brother I guess xD

67- 102 days

I -was- going to go on about how I hate myself for not having ridden to work today after having to spend hours stuck in traffic, and actually having to turn back on my way home after being immobile for almost 15 minutes.

But then I found something better... my WD Mybook World II has now been up and running, without shutting down and without problems, for 102 days =D

If you recall from 2010, on October 17 one of the drives simply died, out of nowhere. The following days' exchanges with tech support led me to find out just how buggy, dumb and just plain strange external drives from Western Digital are. But, a month later Western Digital was true to their word and I got a replacement hard disk in the mail.

The replacement disk is still in the closet, in its unopened packaging. I had bought a replacement locally while the new drive from WD shipped and decided to keep it instead of opening the new one and stashing that one away. Eventually this year if I get around to upgrading to a desktop PC I'll use that new disk.

Well, it's been 102 days since I last turned the drive off, and it's still going. Without locking up, without making any weird noises, or anything of the sort.

And I'm pretty hopeful it'll keep on going that way, at least for a couple years more :)

66- Cashews

If you've ever wondered where Cashews come from, here's the answer.

A cashew is actually attached to the base of a fruit that we call marañon (Anacardium occidentale) that looks kind of like a mushroom.

They grow on trees and taste like, well, marañon. They don't really taste like anything else so there's no point of comparison. And they smell all the way across the house, it's that strong, though not really a bad smell, depending on whether you like the fruit or not.

The cashew itself is toxic when it's taken off the fruit. The seeds are acid and irritating, like poison ivy, so you don't want to break the skin on the seed. What you do is roast them over a fire, which gets rid of the top layers and produces the cashews you get in stores.

65- Kati

This is Kati Winnegrad. Aka "la doñita".

She's been around for as long as I can remember, always showing up at concerts all over the place. And while most people sit and listen, she'll dance all over the place to whatever the beat may be that day.

About a year ago, she got a voice. Someone decided to create a fan page for her on Facebook. And she had way more fans than anyone could have ever imagined. That was the day all 7.675 of us finally met Kati.

She doesn't say much about her past, probably because she's too busy living in the present. But when you talk to her, you realize you're not only dealing with some lady: you're dealing with a force of nature. One of those forces that the universe just steps aside to watch.

And one thing's for certain: whatever you might call the gift that she has, she's come to share it with the entire world. And she'll keep on sharing it for as long as she can.

64 - Developing

This weekend they're having an arts festival downtown. Which is a pretty unusual setting since the downtown area is generally seen as degraded, polluted, noisy, and unsafe to be in.

But it all makes sense when you throw in a good amount of police to watch over, and some really good performers.

Downtown San Jose is a neat case study. Most people all over the world are born into ready-made cities, which had solved their major problems long before. San Jose hasn't. Running the city like it's still 1950 and ignoring basic urban infrastructure laws has made the downtown area... as many would put it... a polluted, stinking town.

Fortunately 10 years ago some people started thinking about that. And 5 years ago they finally got the nerve to do something. And since then, the city has been transforming itself, little by little.

It's something I see as kind of a privilege... getting to watch a run down urban center transform itself. It's the stuff you spend years reading about in urban design textbooks, but can never quite put your finger on it until you actually see it happen.

63- Big ass latte

No work today. They were rewiring the office, so everyone got the day off.

So I ran all the errands I hadn't bothered to run in like 3 months, including going store to store to see what they had in monitors: I need to buy a new one, given that my old one got this annoying flickering there's no getting rid of.

I also took my old monitor to the repair shop, to see if there's anything they can do to it.

When I finally got home, I started poking around for old stuff in closets... and found an espresso machine someone had purchased, used once, and never used again.

So I made myself a huge family size latte.

62- How to clean a carpet

So, how do you clean 20 year old carpet? Given that I was out of that vintage cleaning solution they used to sell, and that the carpet was probably going to be ripped out eventually, I decided to bend the rules in the instruction manual a little bit.

So I took a couple buckets of water and dumped them on the carpet, the followed up with a bit of powdered detergent, and I scrubbed the whole room down with one of those hard bristle brooms.

Yeah yeah, I know, the manual says to never, under any circumstance, under penalty of law, never ever let your carpet get soaked. It also says that if you do your ears will fall off the next day, but I figured I'd take my chances.

Then I set the machine to maximum vac, and vacuumed the carpet dry. And opened all the windows and doors in the room and left it like that the entire day.

And it actually worked pretty good. Since there was a whole lot of water, the entire carpet foamed up and the foam did it's function of trapping the dirt in, instead of letting it fall back to the bottom. I dumped the water out of the vac.... and it was pitch black. 20 years worth of dirt for you.

Not to mention that now I can actually see some texture in the carpet again. Before it was just flat as a pancake, now the fibers actually rise again.

It's a shame eventually it's gonna get ripped out... good to see my experiment worked though =D

61- Virtual improvement

Did a little virtual improvement on an ad campaign I saw this morning =)

60- Here's to the brave ones

Here's to all those that still brave the morning ride despite the rain...