ADN - Everything is connected

That's the company's slogan, whose offices we are working at. And I must admit it seems quite true.

Today, we have visited one of the data centers we are evaluating for our company hosting. It was a Tier 1 company, that is networking, connections... nothing special there. The amazing thing is one of the people we meet there was visiting Australia a year ago, and he is also a photograph passionated. I feel him a bit like a twin soul of mine as we are planning to visit Australia on our marriage trip where I will take a lot of pictures, of course. We were talking and he gave me some interesting URLs about his blog, travel agency and the like. So again everything seems connected, as Google knows so frightening well.

Anyway, we went there by motorbike which was a plus not connected to anything else, but too much funny in any case.

Keep going

I took this photograph last weekend at Consuegra where we went to observe the night sky, just for fun, as we used to do. I'm sure you don't need to be told that Polaris and Ursa Major are the start on the left and the constellation on the right side. And that's why I am not telling you ;-)

Anyway, the interesting thing for me here is the effect of the Earth rotation movement. Polaris is said to be in the Earth rotation axis prolongation (it is also said this will change with time, a lot of time indeed). But, by now, for us, it can be considered a fixed point in the sky: the north point which remains a point in the picture regardless of rotation. Every other star appears as rotating around Polaris, despite the truth is we are the ones rotating. I almost can imagine I see the Earth from outside.

Lazy beggars

Yesterday in our way to the restaurant (an Italian buffet near Callao, or the "Pizza buffet" as we name it) we saw a funny beggar which asks money for "more beer", "whisky" and "resaca" (those two, his dogs names). Of course he also claims at least he is honest.

Talking about it, Jose Luis told me he had already seen that (them) in a web we managed to found again: www.lazybeggers.com

Globalization and technology has it curious side effects. And that has a lot to do with my job.

In case you are too lazy to visit the web, here you have some pearls:

• "One euro probably isn´t much to you but to us its half an hour in a cyber cafe (or a beer ;-)"
• " Those who travel on rivers of wine sometimes float."
• "We´re honest. We make you smile. What more can you ask?"
  

And that's true, I smiled, I laughed.

Old freaks, new geeks

This weekend I meet again two old friends from the debian planet. Zazu and Amaya come to our sweet home, that they liked a lot (we are very proud about decoration indeed). We talked about old and present time, saw a movie (a curious and not recommendable one), eaten Japanese food and taken some photographs with my new camera (I'm trying to do my best to understand how it works so I can shot wonderful pictures). Amaya pointed me out that camera was the one all the geeks have in the linux meetings. Great, I used to be a hacker, I though I was now a freak but the truth in seems I have came into a geek without pretending nor knowing it. I miss those days when we all were freaks ourselves and that was the cool thing to be. Of course nowadays nobody is plainly "cool" anymore, even more anybody is a freak now, one way or another.

Unfortunately, some other things doesn't change like my Debian inactivity Amaya also pointed me out. She told me I will lost my account unless some kind of activity on the project is shown on my part so I will try to do my best in the hope I won't disappoint her, I won't lost my account and the most important I will make some contributions to the community I say I support. She left me a bit worried about that, but also she motivated me.

You geeks join and conquer the world!. Oh, have we already done that?.

More than words

Surely you have heard that song by Extreme. I like it (mental note, maybe it has its place in the wedding, maybe not).

Anyway, it came to me when I was thinking about life is "more than work". Job switching is having much more good points than I expected. I've just finished the book I was reading for months in just a few days. Public transportation has also it benefits, despite some people can't see it. The book was "In cold blood", by Truman Capote. I liked it the same way I did with "The Talented Mr. Ripley" cause the authors in both cases made me fell and think the same way as the protagonists so I was really transported to the places and situations I was reading.

But, moreover than that, I fell again the vitality and the burning life of a huge cosmopolitan city like Madrid: people of several conditions and thinkings, a vast cultural offer, the news, theatres... intelectual activity, creativity!.

That is, just more than work, and just a few steps from the office.

Friendship

Maybe one of the learnings that shocked me the most was discovering friendship can end, just like love. I grew up thinking and hoping friendship was something which last forever, something you can always rely on. By that time I also thought everything was black or white, one or zero; a perfect binary world.

Probably, I studied computer science because I needed a closed system which I could understand and control. But life is far from that. And I learned that the day I realized a friendship could end even without knowing the reason. That day I left childhood to become an adult. That day my world turned into a colorful place for living with black and white, but also a lot of grays. A much more interesting place to live in.

Unfortunately, all that also open the door to feelings like lost and missing which are quite difficult to accept. A lot of people destroy their rememberings trying to bring them to life again just because they want to continue living from the past and not from the present time. They can't accept a relationship is finished. Obviously, it's hard and sad on that moment no matter in which side of the decision you are, but I think accepting it makes things easier.

Anyway, in any case, I'm grateful to all the people I ever meet as I really think all of them contributed to the way I am now, despite some of them are no longer part of my life, because, I learnt some friendships doesn't last forever.

The beginning of a new diary

Two weeks ago I left the job I had been for the last year and eight months at IBM. I promised myself and the good friends I left behind I would start a blog to keep in contact with them. So that is this blog: the accomplishment of that promise.

As usual, every job change I have gone through is on the spirit of a new challenge. This time it will be a really big challenge as it is the first time I will be in charge of a group, more concretly, in charge of the systems group. And of course, the first decision was to do almost everything with free software. Even more, with Debian. Great!

I will really enjoy all the investigation stuff I will need to do, so my mind is truly awake thinking, learning, testing and documenting, of course. That and the ubication of the new office right in the centre of Madrid, a place I like so much which have a lot of significance for me and my fiancee as we had a lot of walking on our first dates here, makes easier not missing so much the IBM people this first entry is for.

Keep in contact!