People, be wise about this election. Think before you vote, please.

J.V.

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.

Unicorns are real!

So they have found a single-horned deer in Italy. That's weird. What else are we going to find?


Speaking of Unicorns, I just read a very interesting article about Art and Computers, some computer whiz figured out a way to put together possible the world's biggest digital photo.

Memorial Day

Happy Memorial day people.

Let's catch up

As you may have noticed, I blog a lot less these days, and it's not for lack of wanting to post. Is not that I don't have anything to write about, au contraire...I have too much stuff going on, and I don't get a chance to sit down and type a blog post, before some small emergency comes up, as we speak, we've left the kids downstairs and we are up in the bedroom, this is very uncommon since we usually give the kids full attention, so, let me walk you trough a typical day in my life.

It all starts early in the morning, I have my alarm set up for 7:00 but I am usually up a lot earlier, Martha gets up at 6:00 to go running, around 6:30 I am up and getting ready to go to work, this morning routine involves a lot of steps, including changing diapers, making coffee, getting dressed, taking a shower, (not necessarily in that order) I usually leave for work around 7:30, my drive to work is 10.9 miles and it takes me 32 minutes on average, 32 minutes of %$###@#$%^&& South Florida traffic. Then I get to work.

Now, it's funny, I love what I do, but work is still work, when I am there I get immersed in whatever I am doing, and it's like I have two lives, my regular life, and the life as a motorolan. I like working there even though it's stressful. Maybe because I am constantly learning new things, or because I work with good people. But at the end of the day, I am tired, and ready to go home, on the days that Martha has school, I leave around 4:30 PM in order to get home at 5:00, I make sure the kids don't kill anybody or themselves from then on, while Martha goes to class, everyday it's an epic struggle to get both kids ready to go to bed. At around 8:30 PM, I sit down and I either log in to work remotely, and/or I listen to my lecture online, and I try to do my homework, currently I am taking Foundations of Digital Signal Processing, with Dr. Taylor, he's the best teacher I've had at UF so far.

Martha gets back at 9:30, we usually talk about the day, we try to pick up the house, and I try to finish doing homework and stuff, depending on the workload, I go to bed anywhere from 11:00 to 1:00 AM, and then I go to bed to pass out and repeat until the next day.

Usually, I browse the blogsphere and delight myself reading from all you crazies, that usually happens at work when I am waiting for a build to finish, or when I am catching up on email.

So there you have it, I am leaving a lot of parts out, but sums it up. I wish I'd blog about all the things that come up at our lunch table at motorola, I sit with a bunch of guys who love to argue as much as me, we all run our yaks and get to discuss all kinds of subjects ranging from politics, science and technology. It is not unusual for one or more people to disagree on something to the point where one of them has to do a google search in order to produce evidence for an argument, it has happened more than once. That keeps things interesting.

Anyway, that's all for now. Got things to do, places to go, etc etc.

Be good to each other please.

J.V.

5 years ago

I remember sitting in a chow hall at base in the middle of the Jordanian dessert. The TVs were tuned to Fox news, we were watching the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. I honestly thought that our Unit wouldn't go in. Little did I know, less than 6 weeks later, I would be in Baghdad. And I will take part in this chapter of World History.

I really wanted to believe we were doing something good for the world. I am not so sure anymore. But those were my intentions. Right now, I really hope we can bring the troops back home, heal our country. Somehow stabilize the Middle Ease without violence.

I know that's a dream, but who knows? When I got back I felt guilty that the war did not hurt me like it hurt some of my fellow combatants. I felt confused when it came to the people of Iraq. I loved them, I hated them, I feared them, I pitied them. I met some of them, ate at their homes, showed them pictures of my family. I also raided homes in the middle of the night, snatching human beings to be taken for interrogation. I shot at human beings. I saw people die. I saw blood, and for that, I hate fucking war. I hope the human race can learn not to do that. I wish we could eradicate violence. I know, I know. It's a naive dream. But whatever. That's only my opinion.

5 years. What can we do now? Will the government learn from the mistakes they've made? Will the Iraqi people forgive our wrongs and remember the goodwill we tried to bring?

Anyway, I got to go. I have stuff to do. Thanks for reading.

J.V.

Wow

I just realized that someone born in 1990 is now old enough to vote.

That just made me feel like an old man.

Hillary?

Really Florida? are you serious. Oh well, FLA doesn't count for the Dems anyway.

Good job McCain.

And what's up with Ron Paul?

IF you are in Florida

Go vote. No excuse.

DUDE

Is this commercial awesome or what?

Bummer

I had quit the Robotics team.

It was too much. I feel really bad, but school and work are taking up most of my time.

Stuck doing homework

So on Tuesday I freaked out, why? I opened up my UF inbox to find that a Homework had been posted, I said to myself, cool! my first Grad-School project...well, that sucker was six pages long, just to explain what I have to do, and to top it off, I had to read it a couple of times to comprehend just what the hell they were asking me to do. Basically I have to write a program that simulates multiple tasks running at the same time, kind of what happens when you have multiple windows open in your PC.

My problem is that I stress out about this things, when I look at a problem and I don't know what to do about it, I get restless, this whole week I've had this homework in the back of my head and today I am resolved to getting it done, it was so bad this week that I actually had a dream about it. In my dream I am teaching Anthony how to program Java so that he could do my project while I'm at work,

ME-"Anthony, you have nothing to do all day, here, let show you how to implement Intrinsic Locks and Synchronization"

ANTHONY-"OK Daddy"

ME-"Great, Mua Haa Haa Haa(evil laugh)"

I woke up alarmed at myself, but I actually considered it for half a second...but nah, he's too young, and I don't want to raise a little hacker anyway.

So this is Saturday for me folks. Just me in the Monkey House doing some homework.


J.V.

Little pearl brought to you by the web

As those of you who've seen my facebook profile know, I am a big fan of aphorisms, you can get me to read any random disparate rant if you just put it in a list. But enough about me, I found this list of tips from someone who just turned 50, I really liked it, so I will post it here.

"50 things I've learned in 50 years, a partial list in no particular order"

Good Bye Bill

Back to school again

Well, it had to happen, my vacation days are over, and I'm back to school, after a year hiatus I felt the familiar pang of my first day of class, only that today, there was no long drive to campus, no hassle looking for a parking spot, no rush to get to class to get a good seat. I am a distance student at the University of Florida, the good ol' FLA Gators (which they sucked this year in football btw...lose to Michigan? really? come on!) Anyway, so today I had my first lecture as an official Grad student. It feels no different than my two years ago to be honest. I got a little anxious when I heard that I had to write a research paper. I thought to myself...shit! I forgot about those! I was never good at writing those things. Oh well,

ROBOTS!

My favorite thing about writing software...you guessed it, I get to play with Robots.
I get to mentor a local high school team to design, build, test and compete with a Robot. Here's the competition kickoff video:




We are going to go to Orlando, New Jersey and Atlanta to compete against some very smart people. It's going to be a lot of work to get a robot to do all those things, but it's fun work. I look forward to it.

The Fam

Anthony is getting so big so damn fast, he's pretty smart for a two year old, but so far he uses his wits to get his way, I can tell that we are going to have our hands full with that one...where does he get all that stuff? I've got to wonder..was I that bad? I don't think I was as crazy as him.

Gaby rules the house with an Iron fist. I think she's so spoiled, but I can't help it. It's easier for me to discipline Anthony, but it's going to be hard to do with my daughter, good thing that Martha is there to balance things out, I know that Anthony is always going to be Mama's boy. And that's ok, I still have so many things that I look forward to doing with him. I have about 11 more years until he's a teenager and then things will get rough. Hopefully if we do things right the first years, puberty and adolescence won't be so bad.

Good books

Right now I am working on War and Peace. Little by little I'll get trough it, I got it for Christmas and I didn't think I would have the time to read it, but I could not help myself and I started it. If I had more time I could read it in a month, but since I am kind of busy I am reading it at the leisure pace of roughly 15 pages per day, at that rate I will done by late April, just in time for finals.

Over the break I read The Idiot, excellent tragedy by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Also I read an interesting book about the Bible: Misquoting Jesus.

Well, it's back to work tomorrow.

So long.

I'm on vacation!

Well, relatively speaking, I am not at work, so by default that means I am on "vacation" ha ha, vacation, that's funny, that word implies rest, peace and tranquility, well, I sort of remember what that used to be like, the year was 1995 and I had a peaceful day, well, back to reality, I am sitting at home, Anthony is trying to take over the laptop, he just tried to attack me with a pen, Martha yelled something but I can't really make it out, I have her tuned out with my Ipod. let's see, where was I...oh yeah, so I am on vacation.

On Thursday we came back from vacationing in Orlando. It was good, we went to Epcot, Magic Kingdom and Seaworld then we went to Kennedy Space Center in Cape Cannaveral, I must say the latter was my favorite, but I really like going to Orlando, there's something about those parks that make you feel like you are somewhere special. The NASA trip always makes me wish that I worked there. I bet those Engineers really like their job. Maybe someday...

Anyway, last night Anthony was a little sick, now, that's something, I don't have the stomach to see sick people, but when I see my own son not doing well, it feels like some hidden paternal instincts kick in. I wanted to do whatever it takes to make them feel better. Well, everybody understands that. So he had a little fever last night, but he's doing better now.

So that's my vacation so far. The beginning of next year is going to be a little busy. I start Graduate school in January, also, I am participating in FIRST, a high school robotic competition sponsored by Motorola, I am really excited about that, I really want to encourage local, American talent to get interested in Science, Engineering and Technology, we used to be the world's most technologically advanced country. Now days the majority of high school grads can't find Iraq on the map. I want to help change that.