Never expect the expected..

It can sound weird, but my conclusion is to never expect the expected and the expected will happen, Murphy's law??? I guess it is ! Aren't we pica?

Cool Article.

JuanE sent me yesterday this article, I found it quite cool and interesting.

Many of our problems come from within our own minds. They aren’t caused by events, bad luck, or other people. We cause them through our own poor mental habits. Here are 10 habits you should set aside right away to free yourself from the many problems each one will be causing you.

Stop jumping to conclusions. There are two common ways this habit increases people’s difficulties. First, they assume that they know what is going to happen, so they stop paying attention and act on their assumption instead. Human beings are lousy fortune-tellers. Most of what they assume is wrong. That makes the action wrong too. The second aspect of this habit is playing the mind-reader and assuming you know why people do what they do or what they’re thinking. Wrong again, big time. More relationships are destroyed by this particular kind of stupidity than by any other.

Don’t dramatize. Lots of people inflate small setbacks into life-threatening catastrophes and react accordingly. This habit makes mountains out of molehills and gives people anxieties that either don’t exist or are so insignificant they aren’t worth worrying about anyway. Why do they do it? Who knows? Maybe to make themselves feel and seem more important. Whatever the reason, it’s silly as well as destructive.

Don’t invent rules. A huge proportion of those “oughts” and “shoulds” that you carry around are most likely needless. All that they do for you is make you feel nervous or guilty. What’s the point? When you use these imaginary rules on yourself, you clog your mind with petty restrictions and childish orders. And when you try to impose them on others, you make yourself into a bully, a boring nag, or a self-righteous bigot.

Avoid stereotyping or labeling people or situations. The words you use can trip you up. Negative and critical language produces the same flavor of thinking. Forcing things into pre-set categories hides their real meaning and limits your thinking to no purpose. See what’s there. Don’t label. You’ll be surprised at what you find.

Quit being a perfectionist. Life isn’t all or nothing, black or white. Many times, good enough means exactly what it says. Search for the perfect job and you’ll likely never find it. Meanwhile, all the others will look worse than they are. Try for the perfect relationship and you’ll probably spend your life alone. Perfectionism is a mental sickness that will destroy all your pleasure and send you in search of what can never be attained.

Don’t over-generalize. One or two setbacks are not a sign of permanent failure. The odd triumph doesn’t turn you into a genius. A single event—good or bad—or even two or three don’t always point to a lasting trend. Usually things are just what they are, nothing more.

Don’t take things so personally. Most people, even your friends and colleagues, aren’t talking about you, thinking about you, or concerned with you at all for 99% of the time. The majority of folk in your organization or neighborhood have probably never heard of you and don’t especially want to. The ups and downs of life, the warmth and coldness of others, aren’t personal at all. Pretending that they are will only make you more miserable than is needed.

Don’t assume your emotions are tustworthy. How you feel isn’t always a good indicator of how things are. Just because you feel it, that doesn’t make it true. Sometimes that emotion comes from nothing more profound than being tired, hungry, annoyed, or about to get a head-cold. The future won’t change because you feel bad—nor because you feel great. Feelings may be true, but they aren’t the truth.

Don’t let life get you down. Keep practicing being optimistic. If you expect bad things in your life and work, you’ll always find them. A negative mind-set is like looking at the world through distorting, grimy lenses. You spot every blemish and overlook or discount everything else. It’s amazing what isn’t there until you start to look for it. Of course, if you decide to look for signs of positive things, you’ll find those too.

Don’t hang on to the past. This is my most important suggestion of all: let go and move on. Most of the anger, frustration, misery, and despair in this world come from people clinging to past hurts and problems. The more you turn them over in your mind, the worse you’ll feel and the bigger they’ll look. Don’t try to fight misery. Let go and move on. Do that and you’ve removed just about all its power to hurt you.

Extracted from: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/10-virtually-instant-ways-to-improve-your-life.html

Long time...

Long time without posting...... So much things have happened..., moved to a new house outside the city..., a place that by the way I like just so much.., the weather is like Bogota (15 to 20 degrees all the time) and that moving was taking almost all of my free time.., packing, getting rid of things that I'm not using any longer, organizing, and packing, packing, packing and packing...
Settling down takes some time....., I even have boxes without unpacking...
Getting used to the weather has also been a challenge, but now it's under control.
Also other aspects of my private life have had very big changes..., not easy to overcome all of them though..., but I did them for the best and my last intention was to hurt anybody but me.
I'm kind of speechless today...., so I'm not writting anymore.

Quieres un Margarito ?

Hey Burro, el video esta una caja completa, de donde lo sacaste?

Wrong email?

I googled my email today and found this entry.., and I'm quite sure that I didn't write even if I was drunk or something because there are words that I don't even know.

"...ah ya no mas argentinuchos todos son unos prepotentes, arrogantes, creìdos, chilangos, nacos, y sus novias, esposas, hijas, etc., son unas garnachas, osea tienen cerebro de guacamole, huelen a ajo y parecen una cebolla, ya dèjense de creerse los meros machos porque no son ni faldita, maradona su ìdolo es un drogadicto y un homosexual, al igual que el 99 por ciento de ustedes. si otro mexicano quiere unirseme a esta lucha, que me escriba a esteban8A@gmail.com y les damos a estos robacanecas lo que se merecen, chilangos!!!......."

test

<span xmlns:t="http://tapestry.apache.org/schema/tapestry_5_0_0.xsd"><t:select t:id="monthSelect" t:value="month" t:model="monthsModel" t:validate="required" onChange="Dodo.Utils.fixDayList('${clientId}');"/> <t:select t:id="daySelect" t:value="day" t:model="daysModel" t:validate="required"/> <t:select t:id="yearSelect" t:value="year" t:model="yearsModel" t:validate="required" onChange="Dodo.Utils.fixDayList('${clientId}');"/></span>

New Template

Finally google allowed me to migrate my blog to their new version.

Sleep Adjustment - Gain 10 days per year

10 days extra per year, and if you live for 70 years that gets translated into 700 extra days, does it sounds interesting?
I was reading the web and found this interesting article (http://www.dumblittleman.com/2007/05/sleep-adjustment-gain-10-days-per-year.html)...., I agree in the 20 mins power nap and with the lying in bed is not sleeping...

"On Dumb Little Man I have mentioned (several times) that I am generally awake each morning at 4AM. While that time may seem inconceivable to most of you, the simple idea of at least waking up earlier in general should be easy to swallow.

From 4-6 AM, I simply get a ton of things done. In fact, I'd argue that I get more done from 4-6 AM than I do from 8-Noon. No matter what I decide to do, it's uninterrupted simply because no one else is awake and functioning. It's purely a time for knocking out tasks (work or home related), reading, project work, planning, etc. It's great.

My life was not always this way, I used to be the guy that stayed up late and woke up with barely enough time to shower before work. So, how did I change that? It's actually pretty simple, I installed a regimen that I have now followed for years. On average, I believe that I have given myself an extra 5 hours per week or (do the math) an extra 10.8 days per year to get stuff done.

Lying in bed is not sleeping: 10:00 PM was my previous bedtime. Frankly, I chose that time because that's when my parents went to bed when I was a kid. I had no real reason for it. What I found was that I would watch the news and then end up lying in bed for an hour pondering and stressing.

In my belief, the key to extending your days is to lie down when you simply cannot ponder any longer. If you are drifting off at the computer, while reading, or watching TV, it's time to get to bed. Your bedtime should and will vary from night to night. Let your body tell you when to sleep as opposed to the following the 8-hour rule. Really, how good is that rule if you a laying in bed awake for an hour?

Rise and Shine: No matter what time you to go to bed - you're alarm should go off each morning at the same time, 7 days per week. When I started this self-programming, I chose 4AM and today, regardless of the time I hit the rack, I am up at 4AM without an alarm. I have gone to bed at 2:30 AM on occasion and still gotten up automatically at 4:00 feeling good.

Sleepy at Noon?: We've all heard the some countries encourage lunchtime naps. Well, me too. For lunch, I eat a sandwich and when possible (and only when I feel tired, this is not daily) I take a power nap that lasts all of 20 minutes. Instead of sitting at my desk for lunch, I will hop in the car and head to a forest preserve, behind a strip mall, etc. I eat, and then turn the radio down for a quick nap (set your cell phone alarm). I wake up totally refreshed. It's actually kind of eerie because the energy I have after this little midday nap easily trumps the energy I had in the morning.
These 3 simple things have created a self-adjusting alarm clock inside my body. Since I wake up at the exact same time each day, my body knows how to adjust. In the evening, it will (through drifting off) tell me to go to bed earlier if in fact I am tired. On the flip side, if my body has the energy, I can write on this site or do whatever until 1AM if I want. This is essentially due to a hormone release that happens internally. I am programmed to be drowsy when I need to be and productive when I don't.

Think about what you could do with this added 5 hours per week. I am not implying that you have to be up at 4AM, but if in fact you find yourself "trying" to fall asleep or watching TV for hours at night, this may be something for you to try."

Pessimism ???

This year the Colombian peso "COP" has been gaining value against the dollar, but in every magazine and newspaper that you read inside the country it says something like: "The dollar went down to $2.000 pesos for example, or the dollar went down $20 pesos..." and I can continue writing and writing things like that..
We all know that this phenomena is good for certain industries and disastrous for another's. For example, I'm being affected because of the revaluation of the peso, anyways.., my question and my post is about this: Why the concept is being written as something bad instead of something good?? A headline like this would definitively help:
"The peso won $20 pesos", or "The peso beaten the dollar in $34 pesos" should be used instead... even if it's not as good for some industries as for another's.
The conclusion here is that a positive writing produces a positive thinking inside us, while a negative writing produces of course a negative thinking.

Business Idea.

I've been offering some of the paintings that my mom does in the city, not too much luck.. So this idea came to my mind.., create a page called something like artistasindependientes.com, where independent or part time artists could post their arts and paintings, then people could log into the site and browse them.., having of course the chance to buy them...

PVD again..

Can't believe it.., Paul Van Dyk again in medellin!!

My favorite tool.

Today I was replying to some post that a guy did on codeproject.com asking for a tool that could allow him to model and understand a huge piece of somebody's else code.
So I suggested him to use my favorite tool, the one that I use on a daily basis: Cmaps !

This was my reply:
"...Most of the times I use a tool called "cmaps" (Conceptual maps) and let me tell you that I've tried a lot of knowledge modeling tools, but this one is terrific. Most of the times before facing a coding session I create myself a road map to clarify and polish my ideas about what I'm going to do. And not only for coding, when I'm reading a book I also use it to keep track and get a better understanding of what I've read... I also have used it for when I'm reading somebody's else code and it does a pretty good work. i highly recommend it to you.

You can get a copy from here: http://cmap.ihmc.us/

Just picture this: The tool was sponsored and is sponsored by the US navy for the single reason that they needed a tool that allowed them to teach faster to the soldiers in the aircraft carriers. (Having one single soldier for a year in one of this ships costs a LOT of money).
The tool allowed them to teach a 10% faster !! Just imagine that you could have a soldier 11 months instead of 12, and that each month per soldier is US 1,000, and imagine you have 1,000 soldiers, how much money did they save ?? Interesting !!!....."

Anyways..., this tool works in the same way the neurons work inside the body !

Doodling...

If there's something that I recommend is doodling...
Do
Our
Ophera
Ddue
Long
Itinerary
Never
Goes

Makes no sense though..jajajjaja

Ideas is what I have !!

That's my conclusion....

Nevado del Ruiz..

Last week we traveled to Manizales, and there we went to "El Nevado del Ruiz" which is a volcano. Getting to the snow was a big challenge having in mind that it was at 5104 meters above sea level. You could barely walk 1 minute without feeling your hearth beat going at 167 bpm, but it was definitively worth it. Eduardo and Velez got sick of the height (Puking and headache included in the pack).

After getting to the 4400 mts again we headed to a region called "El Cisne", a place that's located at 10 kms from the "Nevado del Ruiz" and at 4138 mts. The landscape going there was just incredible.., it was like being in another world.., the rocks were red, dust everywhere.., it was a complete desert (but a cold, very cold one).

After some hard core driving (having in mind that almost all the time was a huuuuge hill to the right of the road, and that there was a turn called "La curva del putas" (Guess why..)) we arrove to "El Cisne" and popped up our tents. Sleeping there was hard !! I couldn't get warm at all, in fact nobody could...

The next day, we woke pretty early and headed up (walking) to a place called "La laguna Verde", the name comes from the fact that the lagoon has a huge amount of azufre (highly toxic).

When we got there we had to wait like 30 mins to be able to see the lagoon because there was just soo much fog.

After a cold night and a couple of amazing walks we went to thermal waters and got a very nice time there...

33 rules to Boost your productivity

I read this and found it very interesting.

1. Nuke it! The most efficient way to get through a task is to delete it. If it doesn’t need to be done, get it off your to do list.
2. Daily goals. Without a clear focus, it’s too easy to succumb to distractions. Set targets for each day in advance. Decide what you’ll do; then do it.
3. Worst first. To defeat procrastination learn to tackle your most unpleasant task first thing in the morning instead of delaying it until later in the day. This small victory will set the tone for a very productive day.
4. Peak times. Identify your peak cycles of productivity, and schedule your most important tasks for those times. Work on minor tasks during your non-peak times.
5. No-comm zones. Allocate uninterruptible blocks of time for solo work where you must concentrate. Schedule light, interruptible tasks for your open-comm periods and more challenging projects for your no-comm periods.
6. Mini-milestones. When you begin a task, identify the target you must reach before you can stop working. For example, when working on a book, you could decide not to get up until you’ve written at least 1000 words. Hit your target no matter what.
7. Timeboxing. Give yourself a fixed time period, like 30 minutes, to make a dent in a task. Don’t worry about how far you get. Just put in the time. See Timeboxing for more.
8. Batching. Batch similar tasks like phone calls or errands into a single chunk, and knock them off in a single session.
9. Early bird. Get up early in the morning, like at 5am, and go straight to work on your most important task. You can often get more done before 8am than most people do in a day.
10. Cone of silence. Take a laptop with no network or WiFi access, and go to a place where you can work flat out without distractions, such as a library, park, coffee house, or your own backyard. Leave your comm gadgets behind.
11. Tempo. Deliberately pick up the pace, and try to move a little faster than usual. Speak faster. Walk faster. Type faster. Read faster. Go home sooner.
12. Relaxify. Reduce stress by cultivating a relaxing, clutter-free workspace. See 10 Ways to Relaxify Your Workspace.
13. Agendas. Provide clear written agendas to meeting participants in advance. This greatly improves meeting focus and efficiency. You can use it for phone calls too.
14. Pareto. The Pareto principle is the 80-20 rule, which states that 80% of the value of a task comes from 20% of the effort. Focus your energy on that critical 20%, and don’t overengineer the non-critical 80%.
15. Ready-fire-aim. Bust procrastination by taking action immediately after setting a goal, even if the action isn’t perfectly planned. You can always adjust course along the way.
16. Minuteman. Once you have the information you need to make a decision, start a timer and give yourself just 60 seconds to make the actual decision. Take a whole minute to vacillate and second-guess yourself all you want, but come out the other end with a clear choice. Once your decision is made, take some kind of action to set it in motion.
17. Deadline. Set a deadline for task completion, and use it as a focal point to stay on track.
18. Promise. Tell others of your commitments, since they’ll help hold you accountable.
19. Punctuality. Whatever it takes, show up on time. Arrive early.
20. Gap reading. Use reading to fill in those odd periods like waiting for an appointment, standing in line, or while the coffee is brewing. If you’re a male, you can even read an article while shaving (preferably with an electric razor). That’s 365 articles a year.
21. Resonance. Visualize your goal as already accomplished. Put yourself into a state of actually being there. Make it real in your mind, and you’ll soon see it in your reality.
22. Glittering prizes. Give yourself frequent rewards for achievement. See a movie, book a professional massage, or spend a day at an amusement park.
23. Quad 2. Separate the truly important tasks from the merely urgent. Allocate blocks of time to work on the critical Quadrant 2 tasks, those which are important but rarely urgent, such as physical exercise, writing a book, and finding a relationship partner.
24. Continuum. At the end of your workday, identify the first task you’ll work on the next day, and set out the materials in advance. The next day begin working on that task immediately.
25. Slice and dice. Break complex projects into smaller, well-defined tasks. Focus on completing just one of those tasks.
26. Single-handling. Once you begin a task, stick with it until it’s 100% complete. Don’t switch tasks in the middle. When distractions come up, jot them down to be dealt with later.
27. Randomize. Pick a totally random piece of a larger project, and complete it. Pay one random bill. Make one phone call. Write page 42 of your book.
28. Insanely bad. Defeat perfectionism by completing your task in an intentionally terrible fashion, knowing you need never share the results with anyone. Write a blog post about the taste of salt, design a hideously dysfunctional web site, or create a business plan that guarantees a first-year bankruptcy. With a truly horrendous first draft, there’s nowhere to go but up.
29. 30 days. Identify a new habit you’d like to form, and commit to sticking with it for just 30 days. A temporary commitment is much easier to keep than a permanent one. See 30 Days to Success for details.
30. Delegate. Convince someone else to do it for you.
31. Cross-pollination. Sign up for martial arts, start a blog, or join an improv group. You’ll often encounter ideas in one field that can boost your performance in another.
32. Intuition. Go with your gut instinct. It’s probably right.
33. Optimization. Identify the processes you use most often, and write them down step-by-step. Refactor them on paper for greater efficiency. Then implement and test your improved processes. Sometimes we just can’t see what’s right in front of us until we examine it under a microscope.

Extracted from http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/05/33-rules-to-boost-your-productivity/

Mountainbiking..

Last weekend did with poveda mountainbinking. We started from Oviedo, then went throughout Envigado until "La Catedral" which is the place where Pablo Escobar built his famous jail (Getting up there was hard, everything was a hill and I wasn't in the best shape plus that it was raining), now you can't see anything of it, except a new house that was built above it (Honestly, I wouldn't have built in that zone..., kind of bad energy though).



The zone up there is now a Natural Area, so it was kind of funny to find a goat in the main gate as a pet.
She was looking into our stuff trying to get something to eat, we gave her some banana but she didn't like it at all.

After a short rest we continue biking, and this time we started to go down the mountain using as road what is widely know in Colombia as a "horseshoe road" or "camino de herradura". It was full of mud everywhere, we could hardly bike on it... After a couple of hours descending from 2,147 meters we arose the 1,500 meters in Caldas (pretty far away from medellin considering that we were tired, hungry and wanting to get home). My ass was in pain after that kind of muddy down hill.

After another rest, we started heading towards Medellin. Considering that we were in Caldas our shortest path would include passing by "La Estrella" followed by "Sabaneta" then "Envigado" and finally "El Poblado" to get to our beloved destination.

The funny thing is that when we were arriving (1 km remaining aprox) poveda's bike got a deflated tire !! We were so tired that we decided to walk instead of changing it...., after a hundred of meters we found a gas station were we replaced the tire and filled it with air.., then we continued our journey.., and finally we were able to say: "Home...., Sweet home...".

New music

I got this new remix of "Guns N' Roses" called "Bossa N' Roses", if you ever had the chance to listen to "Bossa N' Stones" you'll like this one..

Finally...

After blogger went from beta to a stable version I've been trying and trying for months to upgrade my account with no success. Finally..., today, I was able to move them..., now my blogs are stable !

Quote of the Day

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
- Ernest Hemingway