This massive delay has again been caused by stupid amounts of work. If I thought my last stretch of work got in the way of blogging, I was sadly underestimating how much it could, in fact, get in the way. The last two weeks have been weekdays spent crunching at work pretty much every waking hour outside of showering and breakfast at home. My desire to hit the keyboard on the weekends (outside of more work on the weekends) has been effectively nill.
So as for what's going on, you can probably surmise that there's been much work and little play. This weekend I actually was able to put work away (though I will have a hell of a day tomorrow to get materials ready for a 4pm meeting). Finally, I was able to get some exercise in, which was sorely needed (though left me pretty sore in the end). Yesterday I got a good run in and today I played squash. Unfortunately, I ate enough yesterday to feed me for the weekend and still at some more today. I need to either make the time to work out more or start being at least somewhat cognizant of what I eat. I tend to rely on the exercise to balance my love for food but work has rendered that unfeasible of late. As such, my pants are not fitting so well right now. This project only has a week left so hopefully my next case will be a little more reasonable. Also, the next one should be my last case here in Brazil. I can't believe I have two months left. Two months from today is supposed to be my last work-day in Brazil.
On that note, there is an opportunity to stay here longer shaping up at work. How long and other details are as of yet unclear. I'm putting a lot of thought into the decision, as it is not an easy one. Especially at this point in my career, there are certain implications to the office I choose to be in for the next year or two... I'm not going to discuss where I stand in such an open forum, but it is definitely something on my mind a lot of late. Other than that, there's nothing much to report.
I was with my buddy Pedro today and we drove by Michigan Street, so I jumped out of the car and had him take my picture ... I happened to be wearing a Michigan t-shirt at the time. Cheesy yes, but I don't take enough pictures so why not? Once I get it off my phone I'll post it.
That's about it. I should know my next staffing situation soon - they don't dawdle here getting you going on the next case!
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Way behind ... apologies
Wow - sorry for the delay. It is amazing what happens when you are so busy during the workdays and Saturdays and hung over enough to have no motivation to write. Well, much has gone down since I last wrote.
Got staffed on a new case. Working in the call center biz and I'm staffed locally, which is cool. Was working on this case before we'd even done the final presentation for the other case. This office is crazy busy. The team is great, manager is cool, topic is interesting and the pace is fast. Just arrived in LA for a week of training, which is going to be interesting given the pace of my case back in São Paulo. Something tells me I'll be working during training more this time than NCT.
My brother has been here twice in the last three weeks. He came in for work on a Thursday while I was in Rio but stayed until Sunday. We hung out Friday night through Sunday morning. It was awesome to get to see him. Just had a fun, relaxing time. Went to dinner on Saturday with Pedro and Lia at Brasil a Gosto - awesome restaurant in São Paulo. We ended up going out for a little bit, a little later than planned but we were none worse for the wear. Tyson had to roll out really early the next day.
The following weekend I caught up with Thiago and some of his friends. I hadn't seen them since my first weekend here, and it really was all on me. They'd called once or twice and I was busy, then I just felt awkward calling after time had elapsed. Stupid. What a great group of people. I have since hung out w/ Thiago, Bruno, Bianca and Julio a couple of times. They, as a group, are part of what made me think Brazilian people are so welcoming, and they are very much living up to that. Bianca and Bruno are from Goaina, I think, and understand what it is like to live somewhere w/out family, so they have offered to act as part of my family here. I think that's what happened with Julio too :) I'm down for sure.
Looking at my notes from last weekend at the bar: Don't let the pianist sing. They turn every song into a bad hippie version. Although the band was decent, the sounded like a bad version of my high school band Nedlog (much more talent). They were tarnishing one great song after another.
I arrived in LA for training today. Goes until next Wednesday at which point I'm heading to Chicago. Pretty stoked to 1. be in the US and 2. see a great crew from the Chicago and Toronto offices here for the week.
Promise to be better at keeping up to date.
Got staffed on a new case. Working in the call center biz and I'm staffed locally, which is cool. Was working on this case before we'd even done the final presentation for the other case. This office is crazy busy. The team is great, manager is cool, topic is interesting and the pace is fast. Just arrived in LA for a week of training, which is going to be interesting given the pace of my case back in São Paulo. Something tells me I'll be working during training more this time than NCT.
My brother has been here twice in the last three weeks. He came in for work on a Thursday while I was in Rio but stayed until Sunday. We hung out Friday night through Sunday morning. It was awesome to get to see him. Just had a fun, relaxing time. Went to dinner on Saturday with Pedro and Lia at Brasil a Gosto - awesome restaurant in São Paulo. We ended up going out for a little bit, a little later than planned but we were none worse for the wear. Tyson had to roll out really early the next day.
The following weekend I caught up with Thiago and some of his friends. I hadn't seen them since my first weekend here, and it really was all on me. They'd called once or twice and I was busy, then I just felt awkward calling after time had elapsed. Stupid. What a great group of people. I have since hung out w/ Thiago, Bruno, Bianca and Julio a couple of times. They, as a group, are part of what made me think Brazilian people are so welcoming, and they are very much living up to that. Bianca and Bruno are from Goaina, I think, and understand what it is like to live somewhere w/out family, so they have offered to act as part of my family here. I think that's what happened with Julio too :) I'm down for sure.
Looking at my notes from last weekend at the bar: Don't let the pianist sing. They turn every song into a bad hippie version. Although the band was decent, the sounded like a bad version of my high school band Nedlog (much more talent). They were tarnishing one great song after another.
I arrived in LA for training today. Goes until next Wednesday at which point I'm heading to Chicago. Pretty stoked to 1. be in the US and 2. see a great crew from the Chicago and Toronto offices here for the week.
Promise to be better at keeping up to date.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
An Epic day.
The last 25 hours have been the things that vacation blogs are made of, not real life with work involved on a Wednesday night through Thursday night blog material. I know I have over a week to catch up on, but that's going to have to wait.
My project wraps up tomorrow but I tried to get the final pre-wire scheduled for today or yesterday since my brother arrived in São Paulo today and I was hoping to fly back. Sadly, it got scheduled for 3-5 pm tomorrow. So, I worked to get my materials ready for yesterday, which I did (as in finish the work for the project). When my manager realized that I was done, asserted that if I had nothing to do, why come to the office today. I couldn't have agreed more. So, I finished up and left the office so I could meet up with a guy I had met last week through a friend. He'd invited me to join him for some beach volleyball. This is where the vacation-ness all begins.
I left my place around 7:30 and walked the mile down the beach to get to the beach volleyball class that started at 8. We did drills for 45 minutes on Ipanema beach under lights with the ocean crashing in the background followed by three games of 3-on-3 beach volleyball. The drills were a pretty intense workout and we built up quite a sweat. What better way to wrap it up than a jump in the ocean? Soaking wet we stopped by a place for some dinner and a beer. Wasn't too hungry so I had a bowl of fruit, a cake with strawberries on top and a beer. Exhausted, I called it a night and was asleep by 11.
Woke up pretty early feeling great. Lounged a little; headed down for breakfast at the flat around 9 and headed for a walk along the beach. Walked for about an hour with a brief shopping stop to pick up a pair of shorts. I hadn't planned on a day off so I didn't bring any other than a bathing suit. Took some pictures which is in the album below.
The day was absolutely clear and gorgeous, so I decided to hit the Cristo (Christ the Redeemer statue). The views were stunning. On the tram on the way up, my camera crapped the bed. When I went to turn it on, it would extend the lense them make funny sounds and the screen would just say E18. This happened repeatedly. I even tried the usual rememdies ... remove and re-seed the battery; shake it; hit it against the chair (I've found that effective with many electronics but wouldn't advise it for others). Nothing. I was pretty annoyed, given that I'd already taken photos with it that morning and I was re-visiting the freakin' site to see AND get better photos. Oh well, what can you do?
So, I got up to the monument site and it was pretty much all that it is cracked up to be. Awesome. The views are amazing. Today, there happened to be a full police band up there getting ready to play. I wandered around, enjoyed their music, eavesdropped on other tourists. You know, the usual. Then I decided to try my camera again. I pulled it out of my pocket, knocked it against the stone railing once or twice, then tried to turn it on. Magically, it worked. Amazing how happy one can be taking pictures when 10 minutes prior it seemed impossible. I had already thought about writing the story of it being broken, looking for canned shots online and saying that's pretty much what it looked like :)
From there, I headed to Sta. Teresa, an artist neighborhood in Rio. It also happens to be prone to robberies. I had gotten warnings from various people about it, but I wanted to see if I could find some cool artwork to remind me of Rio. After my camera died, I was all about seeing if someone robbed a busted camera from me. I already had most of my cash stashed in a hidden internal pocket so I wasn't too worried. Once it started working again, I went back to being a little more cautious. I kept taking the memory card out when I wasn't using it in case someone did actually steal it. The camera is old and my backup, but I didn't want to lose the photos. The neighborhood was really quite neat.
There were some cool art stores, some with artists painting in them. Nothing really got me to excited, however, so I just wandered. A buddy had emailed me a restaurant recommendation that I forgot to write down. I also forgot my GorillaPod (sweet camera tripod-thingy) so there are zero photos of me. All I thought I remembered from the recommendation was the street number, 264. Where the cab dropped me off was 400, so after wandering for a bit, I headed for 264. Lo and behold, there was a restaurant there called Espirito Santa. The place had a really neat patio out the back with great food. Had namorado viúva - namorado is a type of fish here. White, pretty meaty. It had crushed Brazil nuts on top and it was on a bed of grilled, skinny hearts of palm. (Happens to be the first dish described in the NYT review linked above.) It was tres cool.
Took "The Santa Teresa Historic Tramway" down from there to the city center. The trolly is ancient, bright yellow and very cool. I managed to snap a couple cool photos, then my battery died. Seriously. That camera was as roller coaster today! I believe you pay if you sit, not if you stand. I was standing. The tram took me right to the heart of Rio. Where it dropped me off was very cool. The buildings were some of most modern I've seen in Rio. Especially such a close collection of them. I wandered from the center towards Copacabana. After walking for over an hour, I hopped in a cab to finish the trip to Copacabana as I was pretty tired.
I walked almost the entire length of the beach there, buying a pretty neat painting along the way. At that point, I was completely spent so I hopped in a cab to get back to my hotel so I could rest up a little before heading to yet another beach volleyball lesson. I needn't retell the experience because it was pretty much identical to the night before, including jumping in the ocean, but I only had fruit and beer for dinner, no cake.
That brings me to now, where I'm in bed ready to get some rest. Given that this was a Thursday, a workday, I think it may go down as one of my most memorable.
Apologies for the long delay in posting ... I'll try to keep my once-per-week-minmum pace up.
My project wraps up tomorrow but I tried to get the final pre-wire scheduled for today or yesterday since my brother arrived in São Paulo today and I was hoping to fly back. Sadly, it got scheduled for 3-5 pm tomorrow. So, I worked to get my materials ready for yesterday, which I did (as in finish the work for the project). When my manager realized that I was done, asserted that if I had nothing to do, why come to the office today. I couldn't have agreed more. So, I finished up and left the office so I could meet up with a guy I had met last week through a friend. He'd invited me to join him for some beach volleyball. This is where the vacation-ness all begins.
I left my place around 7:30 and walked the mile down the beach to get to the beach volleyball class that started at 8. We did drills for 45 minutes on Ipanema beach under lights with the ocean crashing in the background followed by three games of 3-on-3 beach volleyball. The drills were a pretty intense workout and we built up quite a sweat. What better way to wrap it up than a jump in the ocean? Soaking wet we stopped by a place for some dinner and a beer. Wasn't too hungry so I had a bowl of fruit, a cake with strawberries on top and a beer. Exhausted, I called it a night and was asleep by 11.
Woke up pretty early feeling great. Lounged a little; headed down for breakfast at the flat around 9 and headed for a walk along the beach. Walked for about an hour with a brief shopping stop to pick up a pair of shorts. I hadn't planned on a day off so I didn't bring any other than a bathing suit. Took some pictures which is in the album below.
The day was absolutely clear and gorgeous, so I decided to hit the Cristo (Christ the Redeemer statue). The views were stunning. On the tram on the way up, my camera crapped the bed. When I went to turn it on, it would extend the lense them make funny sounds and the screen would just say E18. This happened repeatedly. I even tried the usual rememdies ... remove and re-seed the battery; shake it; hit it against the chair (I've found that effective with many electronics but wouldn't advise it for others). Nothing. I was pretty annoyed, given that I'd already taken photos with it that morning and I was re-visiting the freakin' site to see AND get better photos. Oh well, what can you do?
So, I got up to the monument site and it was pretty much all that it is cracked up to be. Awesome. The views are amazing. Today, there happened to be a full police band up there getting ready to play. I wandered around, enjoyed their music, eavesdropped on other tourists. You know, the usual. Then I decided to try my camera again. I pulled it out of my pocket, knocked it against the stone railing once or twice, then tried to turn it on. Magically, it worked. Amazing how happy one can be taking pictures when 10 minutes prior it seemed impossible. I had already thought about writing the story of it being broken, looking for canned shots online and saying that's pretty much what it looked like :)
From there, I headed to Sta. Teresa, an artist neighborhood in Rio. It also happens to be prone to robberies. I had gotten warnings from various people about it, but I wanted to see if I could find some cool artwork to remind me of Rio. After my camera died, I was all about seeing if someone robbed a busted camera from me. I already had most of my cash stashed in a hidden internal pocket so I wasn't too worried. Once it started working again, I went back to being a little more cautious. I kept taking the memory card out when I wasn't using it in case someone did actually steal it. The camera is old and my backup, but I didn't want to lose the photos. The neighborhood was really quite neat.
There were some cool art stores, some with artists painting in them. Nothing really got me to excited, however, so I just wandered. A buddy had emailed me a restaurant recommendation that I forgot to write down. I also forgot my GorillaPod (sweet camera tripod-thingy) so there are zero photos of me. All I thought I remembered from the recommendation was the street number, 264. Where the cab dropped me off was 400, so after wandering for a bit, I headed for 264. Lo and behold, there was a restaurant there called Espirito Santa. The place had a really neat patio out the back with great food. Had namorado viúva - namorado is a type of fish here. White, pretty meaty. It had crushed Brazil nuts on top and it was on a bed of grilled, skinny hearts of palm. (Happens to be the first dish described in the NYT review linked above.) It was tres cool.
Took "The Santa Teresa Historic Tramway" down from there to the city center. The trolly is ancient, bright yellow and very cool. I managed to snap a couple cool photos, then my battery died. Seriously. That camera was as roller coaster today! I believe you pay if you sit, not if you stand. I was standing. The tram took me right to the heart of Rio. Where it dropped me off was very cool. The buildings were some of most modern I've seen in Rio. Especially such a close collection of them. I wandered from the center towards Copacabana. After walking for over an hour, I hopped in a cab to finish the trip to Copacabana as I was pretty tired.
I walked almost the entire length of the beach there, buying a pretty neat painting along the way. At that point, I was completely spent so I hopped in a cab to get back to my hotel so I could rest up a little before heading to yet another beach volleyball lesson. I needn't retell the experience because it was pretty much identical to the night before, including jumping in the ocean, but I only had fruit and beer for dinner, no cake.
That brings me to now, where I'm in bed ready to get some rest. Given that this was a Thursday, a workday, I think it may go down as one of my most memorable.
 |
| Most awesome day in Rio |
Apologies for the long delay in posting ... I'll try to keep my once-per-week-minmum pace up.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Photo links
OK - I've posted a couple albums from the occasions where I'm actually taken photos:
Wakeboarding (March 7, 2009):
The views from my hotel rooms:
My weekend in Maresias (April 3-5, 2009):
My weekend in Guarujá (April 17-20, 2009):
Weekend in Rio
Wakeboarding (March 7, 2009):
 |
| 2009 - Wakeboarding in Brazil |
The views from my hotel rooms:
 |
| 2009 - Rio Views from my hotels |
My weekend in Maresias (April 3-5, 2009):
 |
| 2009 - Maresias, April 3-5, Brazil |
My weekend in Guarujá (April 17-20, 2009):
 |
| Guarujá 2009 |
Weekend in Rio
 |
| 2009 - Rio de Janeiro, April 25-26 |
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Working, Running and being a tourist
As you may have noticed, there have been a few long weekends here lately, and I guess this next one coming up is again too. We get Friday off this week. Of the three long weekends in April/May, I really only know why we had one - Easter. The other two are a mystery to me. I'm sure there is a good reason for them and, per my desire to really consumer the culture wherever I am, I should probably know what they are. I'll get right on that.
After posting last week, the weekend took a turn for the more typical weekend at the beach. The partying and slightly foggier mornings came in with full effect. Overall, it was a complete blast. After the post we headed to the beach for a day of fun in the sun. Night one was a fairly standard party at a beach house with 25 people. Beers, music, jump rope, dancing, and more drinks. Day two was pretty similar except Clara and I went exploring at the beach along the rocks - think Tyson and me along the rocks of the Costa Brava (Spain) when we were young, only Clara is easier on the eyes than Tyson. I don't know if I'll ever lose my love of exploring rocky coastlines. Sunday night was a trip - apparently the alcoholic watermelon is a global phenomenon. That said, they certainly know how to do it right here ... we ended up putting quite a few bottles of vodka through Wilson, many more than a typical American application would support.
Below is me doing ... well ... having a deep conversation with Wilson.
Check out the photo album for more photos of what Wilson actually looks like.
Although last week was a shortened work week, we still got a lot done and had a major client update. It was an awesome 5-hour marathon. Overall it went well - the client was pretty happy. I got to meet the partner on my case for the first time ... 4 weeks in!
This week I decided to come to Rio on Saturday so I could take in some of the sights that aren't as accessible when you're working. After I landed on Saturday, I had lunch with Alan (Brazilian guy I met last weekend who was also spending the weekend here in Rio). He hadn't done the touristy things of Rio in a while so he offered to do some of them with me. Saturday, we went up to the Christ the Redeemer statue that looks over the whole of Rio. It is a huge statue, that's for sure. The views from up there are amazing even if it was a bit cloudy. The statue is huge, but I don't quite agree with it being one of the 7 New Wonders of the World ... Brazil happens to have a large, online/cell phone owning population which certainly helped when it came to voting for them.
Saturday night I went to a balada which is a disco/bar/danceclub. This one happened to have pretty much all three mixed across the three floors. I met up with three Bainees from the São Paulo office and had a few drinks, did some dancing and called it an early night around 1:30 so I could get up Sunday and continue the role of tourist. I met up with Alan again and we went to Pão de Açucar - another massive rock outcropping that juts out into the ocean and provides for spectactular views of Rio. There is a cable car that makes its way up there - I still haven't figured out how they got the materials up there to build the first one. That trip was pretty cool. The views were unreal. On the cable car, you can see people climbing up the side of the face. I have pictures of that but I didn't bring my camera cables on this trip ... will get those up at some point. The climbing looked really cool.
Sunday afternoon we headed to Maracanã, Brazil's largest soccer stadium. Current capacity is 95,000 but when it was built, it was closer to 200k. The record capacity is ~210k ... the upper deck used to be all open standing room. They've since installed seating which has seriously limited capacity. Safety ... what a crzay concept. The game was the first of two championship games for the Carioca Championship. (Carioca is a name that refers to people from Rio and this was the championship for the state of Rio de Janeiro league.) The game was pretty good - the fans were the best part. Ending in a 2-2 tie means the entire outcome rests on next week's game.
Sunday night we met up with some friends of Alan's. One of them mentioned something about Michigan so of course I asked more questions. Turns out that one of her friends is heading to Ross for her MBA in the fall. We're all having dinner tonight - what a small world, eh?
Overall a pretty good trip to Rio - caught a bunch of touristy things and then hit something a little more local. I woke up Monday and decided to go for a run. I think I ran the farthest I've ever run - 7km (4.4 miles). It felt pretty good ... but running along a beach in Rio always makes it feel better :)
Yesterday we had a decent day at work but I learned that I only have my AC for the balance of this week. I'm on my own to wrap up this case for the last two weeks of work. Very cool opportunity, kinda freaky because the last two weeks will be some content creation but mostly working with the client to get the execution plan locked down. Lots of meetings ... in Portuguese.
We have another long weekend this weekend and I'm contemplating heading back to São Paulo ... Three weekends in a row out of town and my new squash raquet back from repairs make me want to put some time in at home. Of course, 3 days is always an opportunity to travel. Not looking likely this week but I haven't booked a flight anywhere yet!
Apologies for the delay and the overwhelming lack of photos - I'll work on that soon.
After posting last week, the weekend took a turn for the more typical weekend at the beach. The partying and slightly foggier mornings came in with full effect. Overall, it was a complete blast. After the post we headed to the beach for a day of fun in the sun. Night one was a fairly standard party at a beach house with 25 people. Beers, music, jump rope, dancing, and more drinks. Day two was pretty similar except Clara and I went exploring at the beach along the rocks - think Tyson and me along the rocks of the Costa Brava (Spain) when we were young, only Clara is easier on the eyes than Tyson. I don't know if I'll ever lose my love of exploring rocky coastlines. Sunday night was a trip - apparently the alcoholic watermelon is a global phenomenon. That said, they certainly know how to do it right here ... we ended up putting quite a few bottles of vodka through Wilson, many more than a typical American application would support.
Below is me doing ... well ... having a deep conversation with Wilson.
Check out the photo album for more photos of what Wilson actually looks like.Although last week was a shortened work week, we still got a lot done and had a major client update. It was an awesome 5-hour marathon. Overall it went well - the client was pretty happy. I got to meet the partner on my case for the first time ... 4 weeks in!
This week I decided to come to Rio on Saturday so I could take in some of the sights that aren't as accessible when you're working. After I landed on Saturday, I had lunch with Alan (Brazilian guy I met last weekend who was also spending the weekend here in Rio). He hadn't done the touristy things of Rio in a while so he offered to do some of them with me. Saturday, we went up to the Christ the Redeemer statue that looks over the whole of Rio. It is a huge statue, that's for sure. The views from up there are amazing even if it was a bit cloudy. The statue is huge, but I don't quite agree with it being one of the 7 New Wonders of the World ... Brazil happens to have a large, online/cell phone owning population which certainly helped when it came to voting for them.
Saturday night I went to a balada which is a disco/bar/danceclub. This one happened to have pretty much all three mixed across the three floors. I met up with three Bainees from the São Paulo office and had a few drinks, did some dancing and called it an early night around 1:30 so I could get up Sunday and continue the role of tourist. I met up with Alan again and we went to Pão de Açucar - another massive rock outcropping that juts out into the ocean and provides for spectactular views of Rio. There is a cable car that makes its way up there - I still haven't figured out how they got the materials up there to build the first one. That trip was pretty cool. The views were unreal. On the cable car, you can see people climbing up the side of the face. I have pictures of that but I didn't bring my camera cables on this trip ... will get those up at some point. The climbing looked really cool.
Sunday afternoon we headed to Maracanã, Brazil's largest soccer stadium. Current capacity is 95,000 but when it was built, it was closer to 200k. The record capacity is ~210k ... the upper deck used to be all open standing room. They've since installed seating which has seriously limited capacity. Safety ... what a crzay concept. The game was the first of two championship games for the Carioca Championship. (Carioca is a name that refers to people from Rio and this was the championship for the state of Rio de Janeiro league.) The game was pretty good - the fans were the best part. Ending in a 2-2 tie means the entire outcome rests on next week's game.
Sunday night we met up with some friends of Alan's. One of them mentioned something about Michigan so of course I asked more questions. Turns out that one of her friends is heading to Ross for her MBA in the fall. We're all having dinner tonight - what a small world, eh?
Overall a pretty good trip to Rio - caught a bunch of touristy things and then hit something a little more local. I woke up Monday and decided to go for a run. I think I ran the farthest I've ever run - 7km (4.4 miles). It felt pretty good ... but running along a beach in Rio always makes it feel better :)
Yesterday we had a decent day at work but I learned that I only have my AC for the balance of this week. I'm on my own to wrap up this case for the last two weeks of work. Very cool opportunity, kinda freaky because the last two weeks will be some content creation but mostly working with the client to get the execution plan locked down. Lots of meetings ... in Portuguese.
We have another long weekend this weekend and I'm contemplating heading back to São Paulo ... Three weekends in a row out of town and my new squash raquet back from repairs make me want to put some time in at home. Of course, 3 days is always an opportunity to travel. Not looking likely this week but I haven't booked a flight anywhere yet!
Apologies for the delay and the overwhelming lack of photos - I'll work on that soon.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
It's 10:49 and, yes they think I'm crazy
It is 10:49AM on a Saturday and the people around me think I'm crazy. I, however, am happy as a clam. I'm sitting out by the pool having a plate of leftover spaghetti with meat sauce for breakfast after an early run and hop in the pool. The running part is not so crazy, the leftovers for breakfast is.
There are back-to-back long weekends here in Brazil which is why I'm back at the beach this weekend. This time with a different group of friends. Carla, who organized it, apparently rents this house with some frequency. It is lining up to be a pretty awesome weekend. We've rented a house and I think by the end of today, we'll have 16 people here. It is a beautiful setup made much more convenient by having a cook/cleaning lady. As my obsession with media continues, here's a video that I took with my BlackBerry Pearl Flip that's a brief tour of the house (really just walking down the stairs and out to the pool)
Of course, I can't travel without a requisite minimum number of cables to connect to various speaker systems etc. Last night, we were able to watch a movie from my iPod using one cable and then we went old-school with the radio adapter to connect to a radio/speaker set. My camera has a bulky cable connecting setup so I didn't bring it... then I realized that I have my charging cable for my Pearl Flip. I can take photos and videos with it and upload them pretty quickly (I should have brought the Flip video recorder that my sister gave me ... better video quality and no cables needed! but you can only carry so much tech stuff, right?).
Shockingly, we're listening to Jack Johnson again. Such a great option for hanging by the pool, and also an easy option when you have too much music to pick from and no easy playlist set up.
Alright, back to being social and enjoying the sun.
There are back-to-back long weekends here in Brazil which is why I'm back at the beach this weekend. This time with a different group of friends. Carla, who organized it, apparently rents this house with some frequency. It is lining up to be a pretty awesome weekend. We've rented a house and I think by the end of today, we'll have 16 people here. It is a beautiful setup made much more convenient by having a cook/cleaning lady. As my obsession with media continues, here's a video that I took with my BlackBerry Pearl Flip that's a brief tour of the house (really just walking down the stairs and out to the pool)
Of course, I can't travel without a requisite minimum number of cables to connect to various speaker systems etc. Last night, we were able to watch a movie from my iPod using one cable and then we went old-school with the radio adapter to connect to a radio/speaker set. My camera has a bulky cable connecting setup so I didn't bring it... then I realized that I have my charging cable for my Pearl Flip. I can take photos and videos with it and upload them pretty quickly (I should have brought the Flip video recorder that my sister gave me ... better video quality and no cables needed! but you can only carry so much tech stuff, right?).
Shockingly, we're listening to Jack Johnson again. Such a great option for hanging by the pool, and also an easy option when you have too much music to pick from and no easy playlist set up.
Alright, back to being social and enjoying the sun.
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