Out to the movies

Last night we saw the Dark Night, I liked it, it had many Moral lessons thrown in, and I couldn't help to notice a lot of parallels between Gotham city and post-911 America.

It's funny, last year after being kind of disappointed with disturbia, I swore off going to the Movies, too much hassle, too expensive.

But the other day we went to see Wall-e and we liked it. So now we are giving Hollywood another chance to win us over.

Heath Ledger was excellent as the Joker, tremendous performance. What a waste he had to go so early.

This morning I am tired as hell, we went to bed at 3:00 AM, that's because we watched the movie in freaking Kendall ! (we met up with friends down there, Kendall is in South Miami, about 40 miles from us) My mother in law watched the kids, but she was in northern Broward, so we ended up driving close to a hundred miles. What a night.

The Mission today, study, get homework done, study some more, and in between spend quality time with the kids.

J.V.

Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch

Just read in the news that he has died today. Very sad, he was a good man.

His last lecture at Carniege Mellon was very touching.

J.v.

Multitasking

Multitasking

The Mission: Monitor my email inbox at work, Make sure the kids stay alive, review for my exam, prepare lunch before 12:30 when Martha comes back from School.

I don't know how Martha does it, but today I am staying with the kids, while trying to get ready for a test, and keep my job! Let's see how it goes.

So far, so good, people at work don't come in until later.

9:26 - Martha just left to go to class, Anthony tried to run to the door but the floor was wet and he slipped backwards and fell on his back, he's fine, just shocked, he still has not learned the whole slippery floor concept I guess. He goes back to watching T.V. I keep having connection issues with Motorola. VNC is very slow.
I am reading about State-Determined Systems and it's all greek to me, both literally and figuratively speaking.

More updates later.

10:59 - Things got hairy at about 10:00 AM, upon checking my email I saw that I needed to merge files (not fun) merging files is tedious work, basically when two programmers make changes to the same file, you now have three versions of the same thing. To Merge is to reconcile the differences with a version that contains all the changes. In a C files this would be trivial, the issue is, we use a Tool called Rational Rose, this tool stores everything in XML format, which is hard to read, if you make a mistake merging two XML files, well, may God have mercy on your soul, because it's hard to catch an error. Anyway, I was doing that when suddenly the kids started to cry, I don't know why Gaby was crying, but Anthony wanted to watch "Mickey" but the Disney Channel(s) were not showing anything that resembled Mickey Mouse, so I had to convince him that watching Discovery Kids is what he wants to do anyway, then he tried to catch my attention by un-plugging MY Mouse from the USB HUB, I had to asses the situation, fast. So then, I gave him his coloring book and started lunch, while mentally going over the steps to merge all the files correctly, at this point, UF is out of the picture, I'll have to study tonight when the kids are asleep. Things are under control now, I merged the file, (it was a one line change) Lunch is almost ready, and Anthony is delighted since I showed him how to draw his own hand by placing it in a piece of paper and tracing around his fingers.

Status report, all quiet on the home front, all suspicious activity contained, standing by for back up to arrive.

The last post is an excellent example of what happens when I don't get enough sleep...I ramble.

Sad thing is, that is what I probably sound like in real life.

J.V.

Studying

I've been sitting here, staring at my notes for an hour, I am too tired to keep studying. Yet, I am wide awake and can't go to sleep. Don't know what to do. So, by default I am here writing, blogging, if you will.

By the way life is good, I stay busy, I get up, change diapers, get ready for work, commute, get to work, make coffee, read my email, work on whatever is going on at the office, (lately is fixing bugs in the code) and then get home, have dinner, put the kids to bed, and then study until I can't anymore. Somewhere in between I check my facebook account, and browse reddit.com to see what's new in the web. During lunch I socialize with a few friends from work, I call it the Lunch Mafia, we get together and discuss a wide range of subjects, everything from College Football to Theology.

I always think about how much better I can make this blog, but there's always something going on with a higher priority.

Right now I can't do anything else. But apparently I am too tired to write.

Well, about a month ago I found a facebook group for the school I used to go to back when I lived in Venezuela. Suddenly I started talking to people I have not seen in many years (16 years to be exact) I left Venezuela when I was 13 years old, and it's funny that some people remember, not all, but most, and talking to them again is great, I don't know, this sounds crazy, but it feels like things make sense, to be able to talk to people that belong in the past gives life a sort of continuity, you see, I've met a lot of people in these 29 years I've been around, but I have changed circles dramatically, my early friends were in a city in Venezuela called Puerto La Cruz, then I came here and when to high school in Lauderdale Lakes, where I met people that were different in every way, I made friend from Jamaica, Haiti and Florida, as well as people from all over Latin America, throughout high school I only knew a handful of other Venezuelans, so I felt very foreign. Then, when I joined the Marines I had my second culture shock, I was surrounded by, well, marines. Young men from all over the States, mostly from the South and Blue collar states like Ohio and Texas. These guys made me feel like a total outsider, I really learned a lot about people and about myself those days. I must say, that was something else, I am glad that I left home to see the world and to meet all these people from different backgrounds.

Anyway, I am going to stop writing now, I am going to hit the "Publish Post" button and that's that. Good night.

J.V.