The campaign was done by Pleaseletmedesign, Happiness Brussels and others… and the font can be downloaded at nl.toyota.be/iqfont

Empiezo por fotos de la boda de Mary y Marc, la cual fue tan divertida como emotiva. Tuvo de todo un poco… ‘bloopers’ en la iglesia, invitados tardíos (o de plano ausentes), apagón de luz en la iglesia (durante la sesión de fotos), excelente comida, mucho alcohol, bailarines profesionales, cuenta-chistes con zapatos dispares, etc. En fin, una boda muy completa jeje.

Además, debo decir que quedé con una impresión super positiva del fotógrafo, que aunque ya había visto fotos suyas de otras bodas antes, las fotos que he visto hasta ahora son increíbles. Aunque todavía no están todas listas, dejo un par de muestra de la sesión de fotos en la Feria de Chapultepec

Y bueno, de vuelta a la vida en Madrid no han habido novedades importantes. Me he escapado de las nevadas pero no del frío, aunque por lo menos ya empieza a mejorar la temperatura y los días son mucho más alegres.

Además de alguna que otra fiesta, también me fui un fin de semana a una casa rural con Álvaro y el resto de la familia brasileña-francesa-española-dominicana-bulgara. Muy divertido y la casa de lujo, aunque no sé si es exactamente lo que se conoce generalmente como una experiencia rural… con mesa de billar, televisiones planas, etc.

Y el último viaje fue otro fin de semana a Marruecos, un sitio que tenía muchísimas ganas de visitar y representa mi primer visita a un país musulmán. Definitivamente una experiencia que vale la pena, y más aún bien acompañado, como tuve yo la oportunidad de ir con toda la bola de nokieros y ex-nokieros. Aunque saque muchas fotos, pongo mis favoritas aquí.

Ahora, los próximos viajes planeados son a Barcelona y Toulouse… aunque me muero de ganas por visitar Paris, Londres, Irlanda, Alemania, etc etc. En fin, ya veremos a donde nos lleva la vida. Saludos!

This past Christmas I had the opportunity to go back home to Mexico for the Christmas season. It was great enjoying time with the family and friends. On top of that, I had my sisters wedding, which was great fun and lots of stressful moments, as any wedding should be. At the end, everything turned out well and we had a great time. I also had the chance to spend new years at Valle de Bravo with Marc’s family and, except for getting sick, it was great.

Overall it was nice going back to Mexico, but on the other hand it also felt strange… or rather than strange it felt dissappointing. I am impressed as how quickly things are getting worse in Mexico City. And it is not that there is too much traffic or whatever, what dissappoints me is that there is a complete lack of authority, causing that everybody does whatever they please. Some things that you would have never seen 5 years ago are now a daily, and the worse part is that no one seems to care. Talking about this with friends, I just got quick replies but no real answers. I guess people get accostumed to living in that situation but that obviously doesn’t change the fact that things are not as they should be. And I do realize it has a lot to do with the current government and that the rest of mexico is not like Mexico city, but it is still very dissappointing to see where it is all heading.

I now have the chance to live somewhere else and see it all from afar, but that doesn’t stop me from wishing the situation gets better. Let’s hope next time things start to change for the better.

Someway somehow it seems rather difficult to be regular at writing posts, but in line with Murphy’s law I always think of something to write when I have the least time available. Anyhow, let’s get on with another news update…

This past month has been good… without any major news, but as they say, no news good news. Winter has finally arrived, and its getting cold, dark and rainy in Madrid. Although I generally like winter, being home alone can make it a bit depressing, hence I am now only thinking about going to Mexico… which will be next saturday 20th. Related to that, even though we are close to Christmas I haven’t felt any christmas spirit at all… definitely don’t feel like going shopping (nothing to do with the , and all I’ve had (and will have all this week) are Christmas dinners… which is dangerous hehe. But hopefully all of that will change when I reach home

And well, lately work has been….  weird.  Lots of work but no projects, which means a lot of commercial activity doing proposals and commercial presentations, but somehow there is a big lack of planning. Besides work, it has been good… we suffered from Imad’s visit almost a month ago, and we had a great time. Lots of party and lots of jayness… Afterwards a couple of parties have taken place, with the last one including a big bunch of brazilians, some gift exchanges and even a visit by the police to shut us up.

Ahh and in a less important note, the tv show “The IT Crowd” has started the third season… hilarious, I highly recommend it for a good laugh.

And now the countdown has begun… only 5 days left before leaving, and lots of things to do (of which some I want to and others not so much hehe).  This trip back to Mexico marks another year that has gone by, and I am now in the first quarter of my third year in Madrid… which although very fun, starts to seem a bit scary. Let’s see how things evolve…

This is a long forgetten post that got lost in the drafts section. Although I don’t intend to say what I originally wanted to say, I do want to point out that this year was the 50th anniversary of the creation of NASA.

Over the course of these 50 years a lot of things have happened… from walking in the Moon to driving RC cars in Mars, the Hubble telescope and the International Space Station.

But the history of space exploration also reflects the history on earth, from a race to space to an era of cooperation with an International Space Station. And now NASA has competition not only from Russia and Europe, but also China and India are investing heavily on their space programs. Last week even Australia announced they are planning on launching a national space agency. All this focus on Space exploration shows the importance it has for real life on earth…

However, although NASA certainly has earned the right to celebrate (despite the several unfortunate accidents that are always innevitable), I can only think of the ageing fleet of Space Shuttles. Built during the 1980s, only 3 remain (Discovery, Atlantis & Endeavour) but are scheduled to be retired in 2010, which is not that far away. They are planned to be succeded by the Orion Spacecraft, but with the current financial crisis and shrinking budgets, lets hope NASA can celebrate with as much pride in 25 years.

Well, recently it has been a weird mix of good and bad things… first of all, I received the visit from Gautam Chandarana, an old friendo from Erasmus I met in Jönköping, Sweden. It had been a veery long time since we last saw each other, to be more precise about 5 years. But what impressed me is how after such a long time during which we hardly communicated, he is still the same fun guy and we still get along great. He arrived last thursday and came with his brother… in a small detour from his family visits to London (although from indian origin, he was actually born in Kenya and lives in Florida ).

With Gautam and Rishnan’s visit, the bad news started… first, while cleaning I accidentaly connected my old Xbox directly to the powerline, which caused an inmediate puff followed by a thik and stinky cloud of white smoke declaring the death of my old Xbox. I think my poor old xbox almost deserves a post of its own It has a very peculiar story but in brief, I bought it in Canada in 2002 while studying a summer course. It was the first generation, just released… I carried it in my back to Mexico where it enjoyed years of service Then I took it with me to Querétaro, then back to México, and last February I brought it with me to Spain. While performing a software update I half-crippled it, loosing the ability to play movies, and now this weekend I gave the final blow… which I guess is a good excuse to buy a new xbox or PS3

But my bad luck didn’t end there… later on during the same day, while watching the TV with Gautam and his brother, it suddenly went pitch dark. At first, we thought it had accidentaly powered off, but no… it suddenly started making screetching noises and showing lines and odd things at the top of the screen. And so, both my xbox and tv died the same day The TV is almost new (3 months) so it is still covered by the warranty, however it is a royal pain in the ass.

But we end with some more good news I had a great time with Gautam during the weekend… we started off with Diwali dinner on friday, went to Segovia on saturday and visited Madrid on sunday. They are leaving tomorrow tuesday, and my parents are coming over, arriving on thursday and staying for a week! And yes, I will post pictures soon!

So in summary, unexpected bad news but still good news and good times to come

Definitely worth a read…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/03/AR2008100301976.html

A lot of things have passed, so I guess I will try and start from where I left off… I have moved to my flat. Actually I have now been for more than a couple of months in the new flat and overall I am very happy about it. As always it has a million things I don’t like… such as hitting my head on the low ceiling, getting horribly hot, cracking floor, etc… but still the feeling of being my home and only mine is great! Yes I get to do all the cleaning, but at least I can keep it as clean as I want to, which results in the cleaning not being so bad after all.

And well, concerning my home, I recently bought a nice flat tv in order to watch movies and play videogames (I don’t really watch much tv). However, I had the great idea to update the software in my modded xbox (first gen) which resulted in a half-crippled box! :S I can still play original games but no longer “backup copies” of games nor watch dvd’s or other media. This is quite unfortunate, and is making me consider on buying a new generation console So still trying to decide between the PS3 and Xbox, and waiting to save some money

For the summer holidays, I went to Tenerife for a couple weeks with Alejandro, Virginia and Miguel. It was great to enjoy a lot of sun, sand and sea although surprisingly not everybody enjoys the beach! hehe It was a nice relaxing trip, and although it was a lot of fun, I have to admit it felt a bit weird going to Tenerife without my family… making me feel homesick more than usual.

After coming back from Tenerife, with a considerable delay due to Spanairs’ accident, I left the next day to Valencia with Alvaro, Jesús and Mauricio to the F1 GP of Europe! It was my first time at a F1 race and was very excited about it, plus it had the added bonus that it was the first time the race was held in Valencia, with a new street-circuit. And overall, I enjoyed the experience quite a lot. I have to say there were some things I liked a lot and some I didn’t like that much… The event is during three days (although we only went to two), which makes it bit intense… you have practices, qualifying rounds, GP2 races, porsche cup races, bmw cup races, etc. etc. and of course the F1 race. And for all of this you are sitting on a under-sized seat under the sun/rain next to a fat stinky guy Still, the sound of the engines is amazing… nothing I had ever imagined, and the atmosphere and excitement made it all worthwhile. Still, I have to admit you need to be quite a fan, but definitely something that needs to be experienced at least once in a lifetime

You can see some pictures from the summer holidays on the following public facebook album:

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=29510&l=1d47f&id=500254325

And well, now back to work and daily routine I started working last week, with the office half empty and not too much work to do. Now people are coming back from holidays and activity is gearing up again. So lets see what future project comes. We are already in September and the year is going by quicly… lets try and make something out of what’s next!

Cheers!