.: Subindo Para os Céus :.




I took some pictures from inside the plane and also filmed it taking off. Hmm... guess I was not supposed to do such a thing, but it is not like if I did it the plane would crash. All went well in the end!




Here are the departure moments!





This video requires Javascript to be enabled, and requires the Adobe Flash Player.



.: Relacionamens Que Interessam :.
Some people I know appear to be very friendly, and are very fond to many others, socially active and such. But I also have the feeling that some of these people even though they might look great to you, might turn their back at you, or simply not give much attention to you later. Something like speculating the highs and lows. And I am also speculating their behavior, because I do not have proof that they might actually do.
The second kind is those people who are quieter, that will demand more time to initiate interactivity with others, but is also harder to imagine them speaking bad of you when you are not around, on the contrary, they will support you. They are much more loyal and more generous. The type of investment that can give a lot more interests in the future. Many people see them with bad eyes because apparently they are tougher, but in the same time they have consistency, standardized behavior, just lacking a little sympathy at the beginning of the contact.
It is like feeling and like seeing an image, I am unable to explain how this is in my brain... People are in my head like shadows who come into contact with me when I am near them and when you observe them, they may even be thinking what I imagine what they are thinking, but these shadows are not perceived at the time, sometimes I just realize what is in my head when something turns to be what it really is. Something like realizing what you felt before only when it happens in the present. Well this is the best that I can I explain.
As the first impression is the one that stays, it is not always that we appreciate the people we enjoy today.
What I most miss are the people of this second kind. And as everyone cross each other constantly, what I also miss is having many of them together near me at the same time. I feel them as some sort of a bubble around several of others I know. Despite the bubbles are connected strongly, they are more distant at the same time.
Only to illustrate an example, I see Igor as the second kind and I wanted to be in the fraternity wondering this night just to start shitty chatting. Then others would appear at the fraternity room and would raise new subjects to the matter and continue the chat. And I would have been pleased to trigger the conversation and made an upgrade of the link of mental wonderment of all.
Another thing I feel is the day too short. I wanna bring forth many hobbies, dedicate to various projects, but the time goes by too fast. And I am afraid that time always goes by too fast and that my hair might be bad. Last week I attended to four lectures regarding health and quality of life and now I am trying to achieve a more healthy eating habit. Let's see if I can move on.
The typical stressed and annoying person or psycho depressive maniac I think would never be. I discovered that nerve stomach releases adrenaline in me and the effects are visible, since I become more talkative, more enthusiastic, and so on. It was incredible not realizing this before. Or better saying, realizing that these two things are connected with each other. I noticed them when the doctor pointed out to me and I started to speak up. And, throughout the day, until this effect ended, I was more agitated than the usual.
By the way, each individual is one of a kind, I am sure that there is not only these two kinds of people and I believe that all changes. The bubbles not only have distance but also have colors, shapes and lives on their own. I never managed to do an accurate analysis of myself or find someone similar to me. To find people with things in common to me, yes, but in terms of personality, hmm… I guess it is difficult to say. I think the more you know a person who has its own persona, the more difficult is to find someone similar. So I guess it is a good thing.
.: Apreciando o Mundo de Hoje :.
Sometimes I am so worried about doing something that I ended up forgetting one very important thing: to enjoy it. My actual instructor once said that I am perfectionist but I don't agree with him. I try my best, I try not to regret and the last thing that would concern me is about a perfect execution. Sometimes I forget that no matter how much I try it is very important to have fun. Sometimes I fail, sometimes I am scolded and that's life, it's unavoidable. Am I supposed to get mad or to be sad on every step that went wrong? Pay attention to complains? No, I will not be upset about it. I am aware that each lesson is important to lead me to the place that I am now. Sometimes I know that I am heading to the right path, but am I feeling the joy of getting what I want? I mean joy in every little thing, in every breath I waste during day and night. The least I can do is to transform or to get rid of the things that annoys me. I know that I can be a very positive influence, but in the same time, I can be a very negative one. But destroying is easy.
I don't think that I need to proof what I can do to others all the time. I do persevere and try hard sometimes, but that's part of the process of creation. The world is like a spinning wheel. We never know what lies ahead, so we need to be prepared to deal with what is about to come. I need to remind myself to not to hurry and to live the present moment. Time is responsible to put things in their right place. Like Shakespeare would say, the more you struggle, the faster you sink.
I yearn to get what I want. I don't have patience, am I terrible but what can I do? Watch time goes by while getting old? I am controlling myself to give one step at a time and I am about to explode, but oh boy, a day does not have 30 hours. I guess I will try to enjoy while I do the home work and exercise my patience and wait the moment to do what I have to. Life is meant to be fun.
.: Poder da Criação :.
Recently, I have been feeling the need to do something different in order to stimulate my creativity and to experiment. Well, I did discover a lot of neat stuff on WWW and books and I started to plan where to spend time on my vacation. But honestly, I don't want to start doing a bunch of things that will not lead me anywhere. My focus was to gather all these ideas and connect them. There is a reason for me to want to visit new places, not only to enjoy the good moments. It is all related to this goal of mine.
The first step was already given by creating an open window that allows me to publish anything on the web. Not only publishing but tying information altogether. There are still a lot of things that I want to publish and update, it all depends on the priority and the time that I have available to dedicate myself to them. In this journey I discovered many interesting tools. The most useful of them is the Google Reader that makes it possible to create an online personalized magazine with real time feeds from all over the world, such is the power of the web. I even shared the news that I find interesting but I highly recommend the creation of a personalized set of subscriptions.
Still, the flame of creation burns inside of me. I want to use this flame to fly higher and to be challenged by new opportunities. Life is too short to be wasted, there are many living dead dragging people to their coffins. I admit that my flame is not red, it is blue. It is intense and I am glad it is my own. I believe that in the world that we live now we need to constantly reinvent ourselves. There are so many things that died in this country and it is like a burden to us all. But as things die, new opportunities arise. To be able to change is a proof that you are alive.
New relations are being formed all around us. The iPhone, that is much more marketing than innovation itself, joining what people was seeking (including the name Apple) into a product. Madonna that created a new format of business with Live Nation where records sales were doomed by the era of mp3. Wikipedia, YouTube, Amazon, eBay and many other web applications that changed the world of business. The ability to understand the customer relationship is the key to reinvention, a step further to automation , identification of opportunities and definition of strategies, in my opinion.
I am watching this world to change really fast and I am a part of this world. It is like opening the eyes with the feeling of wonderment. This feeling makes me want to explore not only what is outside, but also what is inside of me. I do respect my own time, it would be foolish to be contaminated and manipulated with thoughts that are not my own. We need to keep connected to the world, it is very important to bring us joy.
.: Dupla Resenha dos Pinguins :.
This weekend I watched two movies about little penguins. Happy Feet (2006) and Surf's Up (2007). Coincidence? Maybe, I guess there are penguins in my life. A coincidence like this happened before when I watched several movies related to time-space in the same week... Well, regarding the first movie, my driving instructor had bought and showed me the DVD cover. My sister also watched this one. The second one is on the big screens right now, and that's where I watched it.
This is the first one, cute little Mumble:

http://rodrigo.oshiro.googlepages.com/movie_happy_feet.jpg
Happy Feet/Warner Bross - 2006

The movie is all white. Ice everywhere. It will teach that there are some differences that may be good. It tells about how strong one can be to prove oneself in an environment filled with traditions and prejudice against the new. It was a good way to say: "Hey, I am different but I am no less than you.". The easy way would be to crumble and give up, but this stubborn Mumble was happy against all odds and ended up dealing with his difference and proving that he was no less. And he was not alone, he had a little army of friends that believed in him. Another message in this movie was about protecting the nature, because humans are destroying it...
The other movie is about the cool young Maverick:

http://rodrigo.oshiro.googlepages.com/movie_surfs_up.jpg
Happy Feet/Sony Pictures - 2007

Instead of a depressing-all-white-scenario starring a penguin that we want to pity, this movie had this crazy penguin rocking with the sound of Green Day. Instead of a cold place, there was a tropical paradise. The water effects in this movie are amazing. The computer graphics are beautiful. Well, the story of this movie is very similar to the other, about a different being trying to prove his talent. But the personality of this other one is different. Its like "Hey, I am different so what?". Oh, almost forgot, the other cool characters from this movie are the Big Z, Lani and Joe. They are a bunch of weirdos rocking with their peaceful lifestyle.
.: Tudo Sobre Mim :.
This weekend I moved all my web site to the Blogger format. But I did not do it alone, Google was there to help me in this task. I was trying to avoid moving my stuff to the world of the Web 2.0 or at least use it as less as possible. I like to be in control of everything, I don't like the servers to handle the information I create. It was not even my intention to move my garden to Blogger, I was just testing some stuff in Google Docs. I was surprised to see how easy it was to edit a document. Then I found out that every document that you create can be published in the WWW. And even more, they can be published in some blog servers. Then I gave up and created a Blogger account using my Google account and started to publish my old posts.
I had to face some challenges like how to deal with the dates. Most of my posts were from year 2006. I had to keep the consistency of the dates. But no big deal, you can do it on Blogger. The next thing was how to deal with the layout. It was not easy, but Blogger has a very cool template editor where you can edit its widgets. You can have almost the total control of the layout you create. So I used one template available and spent a whole day to customize it to make it look the way I wanted.
Well, Blogger is not a place to host web sites, but to host web logs, so it is not like you can build your home page in there. You don't have the control of individual pages, just the control of the template you will use. And since Google is smart, there is a very nice integration with the Google Docs. Every post I make is created and edited in the Google Docs. I have to say that this integration is not 100% perfect. I could not specify the title of the posts and the label to use. I created directories in my root folder to organize the documents and I also added dates in the names to organize the files in this folder. This file is called "071021 All About Me" and it is stored on the folder "Diary". The contents will be exactly the same when I publish on Blogger, but I will still have to edit the title and the label manually. I hope Google can automate this stuff in the future, it supports it but doesn't seem to be good yet.
To store images I am using the Google Pages. I cannot use the Blogger to upload image files, so I had to upload them in my Google Page Creator. I will probably be using the Picasa Web Album to manage my photos. So with these Google tools I created a mini portal to manage all my Zenith Garden. There is also YouTube where I post and link to videos! And Google Language Tools to translate my pages to any language, but this tool does not seem to work well too. Google Analytics gives me an incredible detailed report about visitors. It surprised me.
(...)
I have to think about it, Google knows all about me. iGoogle knows what I search on the web. It knows about my deepest curiosities. Although I do not use it too much, Orkut knows about my relationships. Gmail knows about the contents of my emails. Now Blogger/Google Docs will know about my posts, opinions and stuff that I decide to publish on the web. Quite amazing. Google rules all the text ads and with the acquisition of DoubleClick it will rule almost the entire virtual publicity out there. Google is now in the stock market so people will want money from it. I do hope that my privacy stays with them, although I know that they have the means to know a lot about me. At least in the real world it can't reach me yet.
Anyway, I am very happy with the power of the Web 2.0. The hard work is reduced a lot, I only have to worry about the contents and the layout. The rest, the hard and boring stuff, I will let Google to handle.
.: A Primeira Festa de Aniversário :.
Yesterday me and Miguel left the office and went straight to the Gurnee Malls to look for a gift for the baby girl. We wondered what an American would like to receive as a gift. At first we thought it was better to buy a gift card. But then we found a store with lots of cool stuff for girls. Catties, fluffy pillows and other kid like things. So we decided to buy our gifts in that store instead of giving a gift card... We also bought some gift bags. We could not find any 1-year-birthday-gift-card but I guess it was a already enough buying those little toys.
In the next day we had lunch at T.G.I. Friday's. I ordered and ate it all and even asked for a dessert. Then we picked up the gifts in the hotel and headed to Mike's house. First we tried to find the city of Silver Lake in the state of Illinois, but we completely forgot that the state was in Wisconsin! Anyway after 45 minutes or so we arrived at Mike's house.
Wisconsin is a beautiful place. I never liked the big cities, I would never live in a place like Chicago. I am a beach boy after all... Also, I studied in a very peaceful city in college times. But pay no attention to my nonsense, I also like the big cities. Anyway the most important thing is the people living inside these cities.
In the middle of the road I realized I had forgotten my camera, I was so mad with myself. But at least Miguel was caring his. Mike's house looked exactly as a standard American house. There was a big garden, grass in the ground, a big garage and the house itself was made of a wood like material. We could find the house because his younger child, little Michael, was playing outside. The mailbox had the family's name written though.
Once we arrived Mike welcomed us with a drink. Little Michael was very funny. He was driving those bikes for children. He seemed a smart boy. He tried to explode a balloon by sitting on it, but luckily he couldn't do it. It was dangerous and I told him not to do that. There were also two other children, Mathew and Jessie, the oldest son. And of course, the baby Anna. I guess these names are all family names, since Anna is the name of Mikes grandmother.
You know, that family was amazing! Very kind and I never expected to be invited to a family party. I kinda felt that it was a party for the people close to him. In the beginning I thought other people from the office would come, beside me and Miguel but I was mistaken.
One of the Mike's child, Mathew was very, very nice to me. I don't know why but he started to say all sort of things to me. Hmmm... I had the feeling that somehow he is always trying to do his best. He said that he was not thaaat close to his little brother, because I thought they would play together but you know, children are children anywhere in the world. He even wanted to show me the playground and the shared toys. Well he complained and said nice things too, tried to show me and Miguel the cool things that he could do with the bike, skateboard, etc. Jessie was with one of his friends, he did not talk much with us.
Many other Mike's relatives started to pop out: mother, father, grandpa... The family of his wife was all there too. All American-Italians: big family, big heart. I know about Italians it is like it always fits one more person.
The party itself was great. I was not very hungry because of all the food I ate in the lunch, but I could tell it was good. The whole family sang the Happy Birthday and Mike shot the movie. So much joy!
Well, the baby was very calm. She ate her cake and smiled to everyone. It was really a princess! We all ate the cake, there were two types of cakes, one of chocolate and one of vanilla I suppose. I ate one piece too and it tasted good.
Then Sheryl started to open the gifts. I do hope they liked the message that I wrote in the card and the Hello Kitty doll I gave to the baby. Oh, I also gave them some chocolates from Brazil. There were so many chocolates in the bag that I hope they did not get mad at me, because you know, children can't eat too much sugar.
After some time my body was started to feel heavy, damn weak body that I have! Well, we took a picture with the family and then thanked Mike for the hospitality. A great man with a great family, that is why I am a big fan of him.
In the way home Miguel used the GPS to find the route and I came seated with my stomach aching so much. I had to lay down as soon as possible. Well, back in the hotel this was just what I did and I relaxed after a warm bath. Well, anyway this was quite an experience. One of those that I will treasure in my heart.
.: Primeiras Impressões dos EUA :.
Well, how can I say, there are so many things that are very different from Brazil, but nothing like I really can't get used to. The avenues are somehow larger, there is a clear division between the residential area streets and the freeways. So the avenues are larger and has traffic signs that indicates when it is possible to turn left or right for example, so the crossing among ways are very well organized. The speed limit is very low, 30 miles around railroads, 40 miles in general and higher speed limit on other highways. Tolls are not that expensive I would say, but they do exist.
The food is very different, you almost will never find white rice to eat and the beans here have a very different sauce and taste. Almost everything is spicy, maybe because the weather here is colder so... Food feels hotter when spicier. As for the drinks I believe they are the same everywhere in the globe! Water is water anywhere and so is the lemonade. But it is difficult to find fresh fruit juice, actually I haven't found a place that serves it yet. It is all manufactured stuff. Anyway, the local food here is very good I do not have any reason to complain. It's different for sure, but it also taste good. And as for the desserts they are just as delicious as those from Brazil. I love a good dessert after dinner. Oh, I guess the people here dine very early because whenever we go out to have dinner at night the places started to get empty and people starts to disappear!
Now the most important comment to me is about the people. I cannot say I met and talked with all these different cultures we can find around here. There are people from India, Mexico, Latin America, Eastern Asia, China, Israel and also the Americans themselves. There are many young Americans that use very strange and Gothic cloths. Weird hair, black shirts. The kids are very cute though. I wish I could take pictures of all those people, there are so many different cultures crossing you when you hit the places you go. And even in the place I am working there are different English accents. Also, there are not so many native Americans around. Where the Americans are used to work?
Talking about people, my host here is the coolest man around. He is so simple and yet good in his own way. He welcomed us with open mind and even invited us to the birthday party of his baby girl, Anna. Absolutely just the person I though he was. I am still getting used to the other people around I did not have much opportunities to have contact with them. I am the kind of person that takes some time to get familiar with another person, but once I get used, the relationship becomes much better and smooth.