Attention Public Radio fans!

Thanks sooooooooo much for this tip, G!!!!
My newest favorite website is definitely PublicRadioFan.com - never miss your favorite radio show ever again! This website lists public radio stations and their online live schedule. Take 'This American Life'. Chances are, pretty much anytime you log in, you'll find a station broadcasting it life somewhere. YEY!

The interesting thing happens when they mess up the schedule - I was looking for a station broadcasting 'Fresh Air' just now, but I ended up enjoying 'Calling All Vets'. Learn more about dogs than you've ever wished for... :)

Don't you feel like sometimes everything just SUCKS??

Whoa, jeez... this ain't the way to start a weekend. Here's an inspirational song from the always inspirational (sometimes in a very f*cked up way) Ryan Adams (G, try not to have nightmares about this one):
Wishing everyone a decent weekend (PD: I'll be moving to Claudia's place and will be offline in the evenings for sometime - explain later)


"Afraid Not Scared"

Look at this ocean with everyone drowning
Idiots screaming and everyone sinking in slowly
We're surrounded
In the yellow lights of the city wasted as bodies
In bed with somebody a touch away with nothing to do
We're surrounded
I'm really dying here
I'm really dying here
And I'm afraid, no I'm scared

She started freezing, lungs all collapsing
The momentum is passing, but the moment is eating us whole
We're surrounded
Put the guns in the water, they're turning to vodka
Triggering nothing we're sinking the sea takes the ship
And I'm really dying in here
I'm really dying in here
I'm afraid. I'm afraid. No, I'm scared. No I'm scared.
I'm just scared. Just let me down.

I'm getting really cold and I'm cold and I'm looking at you
You're not moving
I'm getting really cold and I'm cold and I'm looking at you
You're not moving...

...

(blame it on the cold medicine...)

Last night I dreamt I was in Ithaca!!
It was kind of a funny, nonsense dream. I was at CTB to get breakfast, and someone had recommended me the Amora scones because it was Amora season (Amora is a kind of blackberry, delicious, the irony is it only exists in Brazil). I ordered the scone and a Caramel Machiatto (which is a coffee drink that I used to like from Starbucks, except in the dream I was at CTB... go figure).
Anyway, there were more nonsense details to it, but it doesn't matter - the fact is that it felt soooo good!!! :)
(Obs: yes, I think it was grey and snowy outside - so realistic!)

Sorry

Sorry folks, I know I said I was going to post something over the weekend, but... guess I still didn't recover from the week in São Paulo - I was pretty tired all this week. Then on Friday night I went out... there was a FORRÓ band in town!!!!!! :)
Trust me, this was pretty significant, because all they play here is 'sertanejo' - which is Brazilian bad country music... blargh
So, I got home at 5am and that didn't exactly help on getting me back to full speed...
There's so much going on, and there's so much to tell! Will post soon I PROMISE (hear me, Greg? How about YOU post something here, eh??? Did you know you can?)

Back to Seven Lakes

After almost two weeks away for a long holiday weekend and the GCP meeting in São Paulo, I am back to 7L. I have a whole lot of stories to tell, but a whoooole lot of work to do, too!
Hopefully I can post something (plus some photos) over the weekend.

cheers!

Reply to Laura's comment on "Reply to Laura's comment..." post

Laura,
you mentioned the tree covered with birds - there's an interesting fact there.
I don't know the reason why (and no one here was able to explain me so far), but these birds, which are almost like a pest here, cuddle all together on a single tree every evening. The pictures on the random website must be a little old, because the tree you see there actually no longer exists - the birds killed it! So now there is another tree that gets covered just the same way, and it's close to my house (yes, I will photograph it...). It may look nice in a picture but it's actually pretty disgusting - around the tree the ground gets covered by bird crap and the smell is nasty (I'm pretty sure that the bird crap is what killed the other poor tree...)

Reply to Laura's comment on "I am giving this yet another try" post

Hey Laura,
first of all thanks for stopping by! You know, this is pretty much your fault. Basically I decided to resurrect the blog after getting your email saying "how come no more posts???".

Maybe the blog still has a purpose after all - as you said, many people haven't a clue what this place (or the rest of Brazil is like).

To answer your question: yes, the name of the town translates to Seven Lakes and it's got this name because it has 7 lakes. But no, that does not mean windsurfing is possible :(
I have not yet seen all of the 7 lakes. One is in a private area and can't be visited. A few others are just outside town. Some others are in residential areas and have nice parks around them, and are famous local spots for walking, biking and running. I live just two blocks from one of the lakes - Lagoa Paulino. This lake is right on the heart of downtown Sete Lagoas. It makes for a nice view to have lakes around town, but unfortunately some of them (and it's the case of Lagoa Paulino) are extremely polluted and even get a little smelly during the dry season.

I am a shamelessly lazy photographer and still haven't taken a single picture around town (promise to do so sometime soon, after I come back from a couple of weeks away). In the meantime I've found a random webpage with photos of Lagoa Paulino (which, again, is just down the street from my apartment).

Happy Birthday, Dirceu! :)


I was chatting with Dirceu last night, and he said something I think would make a great title for the blog (see Di, I told you I would quote you on this one): "From the Finger Lakes to Seven Lakes"
Yup, that's my story, it'd be funny if it wasn't tragic.

(not so) Useless on a Saturday morning

So seeing that I went to bed at 4:30am and definitely could not hit the gym this morning, I decided to play around with my blog a little bit - in bed with some tea while it's pouring rain out there.

The main change is that I migrated the blog to the new Beta Blogger, which has some really excellent features for bloggers like me, who know shit about HTML. It still has bugs (it is beta after all), but I recommend the switch.

I also learned some cool stuff. Last night I made a bunch of changes to the blog, wrote a new entry, and yet the old page still showed at the URL this morning. I was starting to pull my hair out, when I found out (doing some online reading) that it was simply a cache issue. My computer was showing the old version of the page. Therefore, attention blog and Internet dummies out there: just add a ? (question mark) at the end of the URL and reload the page - this will clear the cache and load the updated version. Wheeeew!!

I gotta say this once again: Google RULES. Here's another awesome trick I learned on this (not so) useless Sat morning: it's all connected!!! Now I can embed an Album from Picasa into a blog post. Simply go to your Picasa album and retrieve an HTML, add it to the post and da-tá!

For example, here is the photo album from my recent trip to Diamantina.

Diamantina, MG (August 2006)

Aug 4, 2006 - 14 Photos

I am giving this yet another try

I was decided to give up on this whole blogging thing since I moved to Sete Lagoas (henceforth to be referred to as Seven Lakes, because it sounds good. It sounds better than it looks). But some folks have been asking me how come I don't post anymore... so on a bored Friday afternoon, I decided to give it another go.

I gave up mostly for one reason: this was originally supposed to be a way of telling my friends (who are far away) what I have been up to during my travels in Brazil. Well, I am done traveling and I have settled (although temporarily) in Seven Lakes and gone back to work. So what is this blog supposed to be about now?

I suppose I could write about my new experiences in the new town/job, but it's not my intention to bore anyone to death. Therefore this blog is left without a subject (note that the 'description' line that comes just bellow the blog title is empty).

For what it's worth, the blog remains true to its title, because I do indeed still feel like a stranger (perhaps more than ever).

PD: for those less informed, Sete Lagoas (or Seven Lakes) is a small town, central to the State of Minas Gerais. I've got a temporary post-doc position at Embrapa Maize and Sorghum (God, is it my punishment to go from one Federal facility to another?). I'll post something about the town...

caffeine, alcohol, nicotine

Yeah... that's pretty much what I felt like this past week.

Eu me sinto um estrangeiro

Translation: I feel like a stranger, like a foreigner. At first this title was a reference to my feelings of displacement as I returned to Brazil after more than 5 years. But it suits me well - new people that I meet frequently ask me where I am from, but they usually expect a short answer... I have no homeland. I am a citizen of the world, I will go where life takes me. But deep inside my heart will always be green, yellow, blue and white.