Lou Dobbs for what????

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! That's got to be the joke of the year, matched only by republicans wanting to run Sarah Palin in 2012! ROFLMAO!

in reference to: CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Lou Dobbs weighing White House run in 2012 « - Blogs from CNN.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Bad day for iPhone users...

Looks like iPhone users are going to be facing some interesting challenges in the next few months. At the moment only jailbroken phones are at risk, but who in their right mind lets users install security software with a default password and doesn't require users to change it immediately upon installation? Bad, bad idea, Apple. Maybe if Jobs would pay less attention to this ego and his tantrums and more to the things that should have attention paid to them, they might actually get more market share than Blackberry. Me, I'm going Android. I trust Google a hell of a lot more than I will ever trust pathetic Steve Jobs.

in reference to: BBC NEWS | Technology | New iPhone worm is 'more serious' (view on Google Sidewiki)

Up to my gills.

If you're wondering why I haven't updated the blog it's because I just don't have time. Yesterday, for example, I woke up at 7:30am. School starts at 9am and ends at 6pm. I managed to get away for a few minutes to head to Banco do Brasil to request a CPF card (Cadastro de Pessoa Física), something similar to a US Social Security number, used to identify yourself for all commercial and personal transactions. I couldn't even activate a pay-as-you-go cellphone SIM card because I didn't have a CPF, had to go to the cellphone company store the next day to do that. It's a lot easier to get things done in Brasil if you have a CPF. Once school ended I went home, ate dinner, and worked until 11:30pm, at which time I did my homework and finally crashed into bed, exhausted.

That might explain why all I've seen of São Paulo is the four blocks east and west of Ave Paulista, perpendicular to the street where I am staying. That's OK, though. I signed up for this and I'm sure I'll get my chance to see more of the city at some future time. Right now, I have plenty of work to do and have to keep my priorities straight.

School is going very well, I am some 500% ahead of the other students, mostly because I know Spanish and can read Portuguese. The hardest part of this is trying to keep the pronunciation rules straight and separated in my head. I keep mixing Spanish with English, a habit that is not easy to break after nearly 50 years of the former and just two weeks of the latter. I am heartened by several strangers who have expressed surprise at how well I can speak the language after such a short period of training. I've also met with one client here and they were very impressed with my Portuguese, which at times was better than their English. We both tried hard, though.

The highlight of this week is a Cuban friend of mine from Havana, a regional airline pilot on the island, with whom I have corresponded for several years but have never met. He is here in Brasil, in training at a facility in the nearby town of Curitiba, about six hours away by car. He will be coming back to São Paulo on Friday before heading home on Sunday, so it looks like we will finally get to meet.

That's it for today. Time to get back to work. :)

Reminders

Today I was given a strong reminder that I'm not getting an younger... I met a young man by the name of Ruben Azenha. He works for a company that I used to work for, Borland Software Corp., which was supposed to be bought by Micro Focus, but now the deal is in question... but that's another story. The point is that I told Rubem, as we were walking to a very nice Gerais-style restaurant (in reference to Minas Gerais in Brazil), that I began working with Borland as a member of TeamB in 1988.

And he turns to me and says he was born that year. Just what I needed to hear, right? LOL! The food was great, the coffee even better. 'Nuff said.

Couple of pics of my classmates... some of them are from Texas, one from India, four of them are from Japan, there's more in the school from Spain, Australia and all sorts of other places.

Last night and today I spent some time walking around Avenida Paulista. Here are some views of that.

Autopilot my bunda.

Not much to report today... I am still making excellent progress with my Portuguese, and can now understand pretty much everything I hear, even from the other students with less-than-perfect skills, like me. It's getting better.

One thing I did want to comment about today was Air France 447, the unfortunate accident where 200+ people were lost a couple of days ago on the way from Rio to Paris. There is a tremendous amount of irresponsible, uninformed and frankly idiotic speculation coming from all quarters, including the as-usual irresponsible general news media.

If you really want to know what happened to AF447, I believe there is only one answer, and it's not terrorism, it's not an uncommanded autopilot dive as what happened to a Qantas A330 back in October. This analysis of the incredibly severe weather the captain of AF447 tried to fly through pretty much says it all. Look for yourself. It's technical, but crystal clear...

Meet the Brazilian alpine-climbing furball.

I have to get this one out here first. Remember the tiny kitten my host family owns? I don't remember if I told you anything about her... she's a tiny cat, one month old, her name is Lara. And... get this... she's a friggin' mountain climber. She's good at it, too! Watch the video!

Ok, so yesterday two days ago I've started classes, and already I'm getting compliments from total strangers at convenience stores of how well I speak Portuguese. When I tell them I've only been in Brazil for three days they are totally shocked. Something tells me this experiment will work out after all! (Cut to "Young Frankenstein" with Fräu Blucher and the hysterical horses.) I can also now understand the babblings of the bums hanging around the convenience stores (more like mini-supermarkets) so I know I must be making some progress.


The picture at left is one of the group classes at Fast Forward. The young man at the far end of the room is Marçel, my current grammar instructor,. Every Wednesday they show a Brazilian movie of some kind. In this case, it was some romantic movie that was too damn close to Latin American "novelas" for comfort. Thankfully, I am a private student so I didn't have to endure that particular show. This is also the break room and Internet room, where they keep a computer available for casual Internet access. It's not exactly a modern speed demon... I think my Blackberry has a faster connection to the net, and I'm roaming internationally with a Sprint worldphone connected to Brazil's "TIM Brasil" or something like that.


We're continuing with the current plan of morning grammar and afternoon conversation. The school's system is actually quite effective and it's clear these folks know exactly what they are doing. They have quickly figured out my rate of learning and have adapted to it by speeding everything up. The textbook and workbook are large but I think we'll finish them in the four weeks of class I am taking.

I think this weekend I will take a bit of time to visit a couple of museums. Still a lot of work to get done but I need to unwind a bit, the training is quite draining. And now I need to go do my homework, so I'll leave you with another video. The lady at the far right of the room in the dark sweater and blue jeans is my conversational instructor, Marilia (yes, I checked, that's how it's spelled.) The infectiously laughing Brasilian at the far left is David, my original grammar instructor. At the round table there are three Japanese students (there are tons of Brazilians working in Japan and another ton of Japanese in Brazil, the two countries enjoy quite a productive and friendly relationship). The student in the dark shirt is Taca and the one in the light shirt is Jun, the other student staying with us at our host family's apartment (he has a room, I have the separate studio apartment behind the main living areas.

Confusion, Day 1.

On yesterday's blog I talked about all the things that happened on the day I traveled to and arrived in São Paulo. That evening I met the other student staying at my host's family home. His name is Jun, and he's a 21-year-old young man from Japan who has been studying Portuguese for a few weeks now. He's very well-mannered and clearly very smart and motivated. I'll post a pic of him tomorrow.

On Monday, Jun was my guide to the location of the school, but not before a typical Brazilian breakfast of strong coffee, bread with a choice of butter, jam or cheese spread, some rolls and some small bananas. The coffee was excellent and it helped me awaken from the mess I had made of myself the day before. After breakfast, it was time to head to the school.

The apartment is on Alameda Casa Branca. To get to the school you have to walk down the Alameda for some four blocks until you get to Alameda Lorena. Alameda Casa Branca has something along the lines of a 20-degree incline. Of course, I never thought what would happen at the end of the day when I returned to the apartment. On foot. More on that later.

On Alameda Lorena you make a left, walk one block and run smack into Avenida 9 de Julio, a six-lane avenue. Thankfully, the traffic lights work, and so do the pedestrian signals. One half-block away is the alley that leads to the school. The school is a remodeled home that's been adapted for the purposes of a training environment. I was greeted by the receptionist, then taken to a small conference room where other students who were also starting their training on a Monday were filling out their induction paperwork (registration, short test to gauge Portuguese language abilities, etc.) I was also greeted by the owner of the school, another nice lady who unfortunately had just had surgery on her left leg and was on crutches.

Soon after that, I met my first instructor, David, a 28-year-old with an infectious laugh and a great sense of humor. And that's where the confusion began. You see, I can read Portuguese but I have a hard time listening and understanding, and let's not even talk about speaking it. Imagine what it might feel if you were to become stuck inside a Cuisinart food processor equipped with the ginsu knife blade attachment, and someone turns the damn thing on. That's how my brain felt after about an hour of "education."

To make matters worse, David was substituted by another instructor, Marçel, who is a bit younger but equally well-qualified to teach, as all Fast Forward instructors are college graduates with degrees in what the Brazilian education system calls "Letras" or "The letters." In other words, they all have degrees in the Brazilian language. Actually, my brain got worse. Marçel was doing a fine job, and has been doing a great job since.

My other instructor is a very gregarious and strong-willed lady by the name of Amarilia (I think I spelled that right, I have to check tomorrow with her). Marçel is my grammar instructor, Amarilia is my conversational instructor, and yes, they are my instructors because thankfully I am taking four weeks of private instruction. Why thankfully? The group sessions are not running nearly as fast as I am, since I can already ready the language to a fairly technical degree. Had I been in a group I would have been held back by the slowest student. As a private, intensive, full-immersion student I can plow ahead at my own speed, which according to my instructors is as close as you can get to a Caterpillar backhoe running downhill in the middle of a hurricane.

By the end of the day, I was dead to the world. And then I realized... holy moleed, I forgot I have to raise my altitude to the level of the entrance to the apartment building using nothing but leg power. After nine hours of mush, wearing flip-flops and carefully avoiding strategically-placed piles of apartment-size-doggie-poo.

Well... one thing's for sure, I'm going to lose weight and I'm going to finish the month in much better shape than when I arrived. More tomorrow. Need to get some sleep and I still have other work to do.

Brasil day is here. Let the confusion begin!

Today is June 1, 2009 -- Brasil day. Already I am about as a confused as a cockroach in a chicken dance (a very Puerto Rican saying... think about it, it will come to you.) I've been without Internet since I arrived, so I'll bring up to speed.

The trip over here was very, very long. However, in Miami I had the good fortune to run into an Admirals Club attendant who told me I could also go downstairs in Concourse E to the Flagship Lounge. It appears that Executive Platinum customers flying internationally in any class of service can visit this very different kind of Admirals Lounge...

How different? Check out the pic! If you know me you have probably heard my stories with comparisons of international airline clubs with US airline clubs. The former are usually equipped with open bars (yes, FREE booze, you choose, you pour!), tons of free food and snacks, etc. The Flagship Lounge is the American Airlines equivalent of the international lounges. The pic is of only a small portion of the self-service area of the Lounge. Yeeeha! :)

The flight from Miami to São Paulo was uneventful, but I had a lot of work to finish before I arrived, work that had piled up before I left, and I made the mistake of taking care of it during the flight rather than getting some sleep. The great food and free drinks didn't help. Before I knew it, it was 4:30am São Paulo time, the crew was serving breakfast and I was totally blown out, but couldn't rest. At least I had finished the work.

On top of that, it took me a whopping hour and a half to get through immigration and customs. As it turns out, early in the morning is when most international airlines pile up their arrivals, and the result is pandemonium. The baggage area is not setup for so many people and the lines were winding all over the place. Lesson learned, do not pick a flight into São Paulo that arrives early in the morning.

When I exited the baggage area there were a zillion private drivers, but thankfully my driver had the good sense to not only spell my name correctly, but also print it out in something bigger than 12-point Verdana. Let me tell you, spending half an hour with a private driver and not being able to have any sort of an intelligent conversation reminds me of 1970's New York cabbies. And yes, it took at least that long to make it to the building where I am staying.

Ok, so I was told the apartment belongs to a Brazilian hairstylist. Needless to say, I was... well... concerned. As it turn out, she is a very nice lady who lives with her daughter, a lovable hairball of a dog (Lhasa Apso?), an older cat and a really, really cute and very tiny kitten that's just a month old and behaves like someone wound him up just a bit too tight, knowwhatImean?

My room is like a private little (emphases on the size) apartment behind her apartment. It has an elevator behind the building that takes me all the way up (it's a 20-floor building and I'm on the 20th floor!). It's got a tiny bed, as you can see, and a tiny bathroom, and a big refrigerator. Go figure.

Soon afterwards I took a shower and a nap, but then it was time to meet my friend Peter Schmitt, who opened an office of his company in São Paulo some years ago. He brought his entire office staff (assistant, his 16-year-old daughter and her mom, all three generations) and we headed to a great little restaurant by a lake whose sole purpose in life is to give people the windsurfing experience in a landlocked setting. (Are you paying attention, John Stewart???)

The food was great, the two caipirinhas were even better but they contributed squat to my condition. If anything, they made it worse. We headed back to his office, where I found he needed a computer fixed (of course!) and then back to the hotel. Thank goodness he had a few Diet Coke's and lots of caffeine. It was a good idea after all, because it kept me awake until 10pm and that reset my body clock nicely.

Tomorrow I will update you on the school, Fast Forward Language Institute, and I will explain why the mass confusion, because just about now my mind feels like the inside of a food processor after five minutes with a ginsu knife attachment. And I have homework to do! LOL!

B-minus-1: Madly trying to finish pending work

It's Friday, the day before departure, and I'm madly trying to catch up with work that needs to get done before I dive into the language training. I've had so much work lately I haven't been able to keep up my Rosetta Stone sessions. I keep telling myself I'll catch up on the plane, but I know that won't last. I'll have to get some sleep. What I've done so far will have to suffice as beginner's training.

Then again, I can read Portuguese fairly well now without the help of Google Translate, and the words I don't immediately recognize make sense once I apply the mental rules I've devised to work out those meanings. I'm still using the translation service to draft letters to customers in Brazil, but I always have to edit them because the translations are not perfect. The fact that the recipients are not sending back replies questioning what in the world I am talking about tells me I must be doing something right.

I've worked through the majority of my pre-departure checklist items, including travel insurance covering medical and AD&D, washed all my clothes and now just need to pack everything.

And most importantly, I manage to arrive in time for my son's Senior Prom. It was dicey they for a while when the American Airlines 737 broke down in Caracas and had to pull back into the gate. I talked to the pilot and he told me the problem -- a ground sensing switch light was coming on, which meant the aircraft could not tell if it was in the air or on the ground. That blows me away -- how about just paying attention to the pilot? I'm usually pretty good at telling if my wheels are on the ground or somewhere above it. Reminds me of the day the Airbus 300 prototype crashed into trees because the computer thought the pilot wanted to land the aircraft and the pilot could not convince it otherwise. I'm a pilot and a computer programmer too, and I never let the programmer side tell the pilot side what to do!

Anyway, when the pilot said the last time that happened it took three days to fix it I went ballistic and immediately decided to take the next flight to Miami. I hate having to do layovers in Miami,. but I didn't have a choice -- it was the only way to ensure I would arrive home in time for the big party. And what a party it was! We had a great time with our dance at one end of the El San Juan Hotel and the Gipsy Kings at the other end, in the lobby!

I better get back to the things I need to finish before I leave. Stay tuned, there will be much more to come as I make my way through this training program in Brazil.

Welcome to my (new) blog.

I've cleared out all the previous entries in this blog because I'm starting anew with a brand new mission: documenting a trip to Brazil to learn Portuguese. Stay tuned. There will be pictures, there will be stories, there will be caipirinha. Count on it. -- Juan