Wait...and then wait some more

As mentioned in my last post, today me and Claudia (accompanied by my mom) went to get our Mexican passport. We got there at 8:20am and left at 12:30pm, probably 4 hours of waiting, and 10 minutes of actually doing stuff, not to mention the 1.16 hours it took us to cross to the US (I ended waking up at like 5:50, instead of 5, haha).

One hour waiting in line outside the building

Then another hour in a line inside, then like two hours of waiting to be called

Never owned a passport before

I knew it was going to take long, but didn't think that long... oh, well, that's how those things work... next step, renew my Visa, cause as of June 5th I will no longer be able to cross the border, but I think it'll take me a couple of months to save the $200 dollars I need.

I just can't sleep early

I have to get up at 5am cause I'm going to El Paso to get my Mexican passport (it's easier in the Mexican embassy in El Paso than here in Juárez), but I have to get there early, to get out early. It's past midnight, and I just can't sleep, I keep doing stuff and I know I'll regret not going to bed early. But it's not a physical thing, it's psychological, if I went to bed, I could sleep...I just don't feel like going to bed. Also, I didn't know what to blog about, haha.

This dude should be asleep

Fresh start

I had not formatted my laptop's main partition since I bought my computer (April 2010), and I think this is the longest I've managed without reinstalling an OS, so it had to be done, I just can't help it.

So I reinstalled Windows 7, and it didn't recognize my graphics card, and it looks shitty as hell :P

800x600 resolution on a 1366x768 display

Downloading appropriate drivers as I'm writing this :)

Little advice, don't do this at midnight when you know it's going to mess up your GRUB menu (the menu when you boot that lets you choose the OS) and you have to use Ubuntu early in the morning, haha.

Spam comments

If a spam comment is going to be left in one of my blog entries? Why one that was almost 4 years ago?

Shade's suffering

So, today, I was in a car crash, hahaha, it was a "carambola" (don't know how to say it in English). Nobody got hurt, but my car did :(, but since I wasn't at fault, they other dudes insurance is going to pay for damages to Shade (my car)...but I'll be carless for some days.

The car in front of me made a very hard brake, and I did too, staying inches away from it, but the dude behind me did hit me, and as a consequence I hit the car in the front, and then a girl hit the dude behind me, so I got hit again, haha.

After like 2 hours of bureaucracy and explaining my story to like 10 people, we came to an arrangement, I just need to take my car to the shop so the insurance can pay for the fix, it still works perfectly though :)

Where the hell does this piece go?

Today my boss bought me a desk, cause I'm going to move to the office that wasn't being used, so I now work in an actual office :D.

But the desk...was not assembled, so I had to do it myself. The biggest thing I had ever assembled was a desk chair, and thought it wouldn't be too hard...and it wasn't really, but it took me almost 2 hours, yup, 2 hours of not being productive at work.

This was about 1/3 of the way

Despite the title, I didn't have any pieces to spare, and could do almost everything on the first try, besides the occasionally backwards piece, haha. I don't understand how some people can't follow the instructions, it's pretty easy.

Final Product

And I will once again start working full time on a Mac... with a non-Mac keyboard... whose shift key doesn't work so I have to use the little onscreen keyboard for special characters like !@#$%^&*()_+{}:">?|~ (I will swap a keyboard from another PC when nobody is watching)

Second book

Today my programming book collection grew :).

This time it is a JavaScript book, and it's designed to be a reference book more than a learning book, but that's why I chose it, cause I will probably get more out of it that way.

Over 1000 pages of fun :)

I will take a pic of my collection with every new book

I'm going to take it to work, it will help me a lot. Next week I'll order my third one, still don't know what language, so I accept suggestions.

yum

Geek post.

I've been using Ubuntu and Ubuntu-based Linux distribution for quite a while now, some 4 years give or take. And I consider myself an intermediate user, cause there's lots of shit I still don't know how to do in an efficient way. But, the thing is, I learned most of the stuff I know in Ubuntu, so, there are certain things that I know that don't transfer to other distributions...and I recently realized that, cause I had to install some stuff to the server that my employer's site runs on.

So, I have to do everything in a terminal cause I connect via SSH. And what do you know, the server has CentOS, which is based on Red Hat. Most of the stuff I knew did work, but when it comes to installing stuff, since Ubuntu and CentOS use a different type of packages, you can't install stuff the same way (unless you compile the software yourself, which is what I had to do to install Git).

yum install :)

But yeah, I enjoy very much working on a console, cause I feel more productive (if I know what I have to do), and I like how it looks like if I was a total geek, haha. And here's hoping I become an expert in due time :D

Btw, the post is called yum, cause if you're familiar with Ubuntu's "apt-get" command, well, the CentOS (and all distros that use rpm) "equivalent" is the "yum" command

Inconsistent

I have a Google Labs feature enabled that puts the number of unread messages in the favicon of gmail. But every once in a while, it gets stuck in another number, and it totally bugs me out.

I don't know why my YouTube emails are in Spanish, haha

I have no unread messages but the favicon says I have one, ahhhh, now I have to reload the page just to keep that counter working

Movie time

After like 3 weeks, I finally went to the movies again. I think it's a world record...ok, more like a personal record since like 2 years. And I decided to go to the busiest theater on the busiest day and at the busiest hour, haha, cause it's the closest :P. Good thing I didn't go to see Pirates of the Caribbean cause it would've probably been sold out.

Took the pic after the movie, but before it was like 10 times the people in this pic

Socially awkward

Today I went to a carne asada with Tenampa and some of his fellow psychologist friends. It was in celebration of psychologist day apparently, so I did not belong there...but free meat, I can't say no to that. I kept asking Tenampa to do all these things for me (asking his friends for stuff, like a cup or another piece of meat) haha, and I told him that I was socially awkward to get him to do it, haha.

Btw, I poured half the beans out of a full cup into an empty cup, and both cups ended more than half full...how the hell is that possible???

Ok, I know, the top part of the cup is wider, hence, it holds more volume, so half of the total volume is not actually in the middle of the height of the cup, still, it looked kind of weird to me :P

Pocket's

Tonight I went to play some pool. I looooooove playing pool, though I'm not that good, but it may be cause I don't play too often, I'm going to make it my mission to go at least once every two weeks :)

But I can say, I play waaaaay better than six months ago, I now make difficult shots wanting to, not by accident haha. I forgot to take more pics.

Hotmail

Ugh, just thinking about it gives me shivers...but I have to use it for my school mail.

I think unconsciously that's why I don't check it so often, haha. I've missed a couple of assignments because of that :P.

Down to 3 partitions

Ok, si my HDD was a mess, it had like 10 billion partitions and it was hard to keep track of all of them, so I decided to cut the crap and reduce it to 3 partitions (no swap partition, with 4GB of RAM it's kind of pointless):

1. Windows 7,    400GB (will split it in 380 and 20 in the future for testing out new Linux distros)
2. Ubuntu 11.04   50GB (I will always keep my main Linux-based OS in this partition)
3. projects             50GB (no OS in this partition, just data)

I now feel confident enough to change the OS settings manually in the files. This is a list of the partitions

I will use the projects partition as a data-only partition where I store all my different projects. If I ever feel the need of testing out a new OS (which I will), I will take some 20GB out of the Windows one, and dedicate that new partition ONLY for testing new OSs, meanwhile, the projects partition will always be available. So, no need to move data around.

Dropbox

Since I switch from Windows to Ubuntu very frequently, sometimes I need to access the same files on both systems. In Ubuntu that's no problem, I just mount Windows partition, but on Windows I can't mount the Ubuntu partition cause of the file system, so Dropbox comes in very handy.

And I also very frequently uninstall and install new Linux distros so, I don't need to copy those files, I just install Dropbox and it syncs automatically :)

Can't sleep early

No matter how early I have to get up, or how little sleep I've had in recent days, I can never seem to be able to sleep before 11pm, and more often than not, before 1am. I always try to get more out the day, well knowingly that in the morning it's going to be a pain to wake up.

I'm not much of a morning person, that's why I hate waking up against my will. But the worst part is that I don't even use that time for things I have to do like homework, or actual work, I usually stay up playing or watching a TV series, or programming something that won't remunerate back, haha. And that is why I don't take classes in the morning if I don't have to.

Boxes everywhere

I started playing this game called Art Style: Boxlife for DsiWare where there's a lot of "cardboard" in the floor, and you have to cut it in shapes to form boxes, and then fold them, it sounds pretty weird, I know, but I like it a lot, cause you have to think really fast to get more points, and to not make mistakes and to not waste any cardboard.

Anywho, now, whenever I see the tile floor in my house, I keep trying to divide it in shapes to form boxes, haha, that's pretty messed up :P

I twisted my foot

Hahaha, that title was totally dedicated to Mari :P, cause today at the family reunion we played a little basketball and I twisted it, but afterwards, I kept saying it and Mari heard me say it like 5 times, hahaha. Had been a while since I saw Mari, like 2 months, I missed her :P. But yeah, it was fun, next week I'll go visit her :)

Totally unrelated, did you know the Umbrella Corporation actually does exist? Here's proof:

Pretty cool, haha

Spit it out!

My stupid car stereo sometimes doesn't feel like cooperating in my changing moods of music. So when I want to swap CDs, I press reject and when it's trying to push it out, I have to remove the faceplate and jiggle the tip of the CD that's visible, cause it won't come out on its own, it gets stuck.

CD refuses to come out

I don't mind it too much, but sometimes it can take me up to 10 minutes (very rarely, it usually takes me like 30 seconds), what a waste of driving time, and by the time I manage to change the CD I arrive at my destination and I don't know if I'll be in the mood to listen to that CD when I get in the car again... But also, very rarely it will come out normally without removing the faceplate...those moments make me smile :)

Thinking

It's so weird, my first language is Spanish, but when I'm thinking or talking to myself I always do it in English...haha, I find it amusing :), and sometimes when I have time and am checking my mail or checking Facebook, I try to say out loud what I read (cause I have them in German).

Did not what pic to put

They grow up so fast

Same dog, same shoes, same nasty habit of biting them :P

Que le damos joven?

Nada, no me gustan los dulces y no tengo dinero...

Every Monday, at around 11am, this sir comes to the office selling candy and junk food, and it's always, and I mean ALWAYS the same conversation, I never want anything, cause I don't like candy and he doesn't sell Sabritas chips, so I will not buy anything ever from him. But he does not loose hope.

I've hidden from him a couple of times just to avoid the meaningless conversation

And I bet it's only cause the girl that works with me buys something from him like every third week, so he keeps trying, but in about 6 months that he's been going, I have always told him I don't like candy, and I've bumped into him in the store, so he tries to guilt me up, telling me how come I go all the way to the store to buy chips when he goes to the office to bring them to me...he does not know those tactics don't work with me :P

Save key

I always have change lying around, can't help it, that's why it's great having a...um...piggy bank? (alcancía).

Angie got this for me 2 or 3 years ago, cause she knows I have awesome saving skills :P...it has since suffered some kind of burn, but still serves its purpose :)

Anyhow, since I can't save up very big amounts of money in there, I try to save up all the money I can between paychecks and see how much it adds up, I can always manage to go to the movies with it, though not a fan of paying with change, cause I only put coins in there that are under 5 pesos worth (including US quarters that I for some reason sometimes have). For my big savings, like for the epic trip, I have a savings account :)

First book

And hopefully, only the first of many to come. Today I finally got my book I ordered last week. It's a Rails book, and I was so damn excited for it, today I continue my journey of becoming a Rails expert, just you wait :).

I want to write a programming book, so I'm going to start buying lots of 'em :D

Working from home

This is how work should be, from home...I don't get the whole "you have to be in the office" thing, at least for my job, which as long as I have internet connection I'm good to go.

I actually took this right before writing this, but just imagine it's day time :P

Today I went to work and the office was closed, my boss is out in NY and the only other person who has a key was her day off...so, I drove all the way there, and THEN my boss told me that today I should work from home...wicked, huh? I can't complain though, I love working from home :)

Seriously?

Programming Languages, this class has so much hope and potential, but I loathe it, it makes me sleepy like hell.

This is literally the whole class, the teacher just reading a presentation he "prepared" (copy pasted mostly from Wikpedia). And come on, that presentation is crazy, it's only text, and it's like 50 slides, come on teacher, step it up!!! Show us you know what you're talking about!!! I cannot possibly like coming to this class. I have to write this post in the middle of class to not fall asleep.

School...

School break is over, now to face the cruel truth and head back to school

I took the pics on my way out of school, that's why there's almost no buildings and lots of cars, haha. But yeah, 9 more days of classes in a lapse of two and a half weeks... they will be a bitch, but I'm not too worried, even though I probably should be...

12 steps

No, not the ridiculous AA religious ones...but that's the number of steps the stairs in my house have

7 and then 5

I have this weird obsession of counting steps whenever I'm going down or up some staircase, since I was like 12. For some reason, about 90% of the ones I've counted have an odd number of steps, so if in a hurry I can usually get on the first step and then do two at a time and end up at the top...yes, I'm not joking about this...useless, but to me, interesting, haha.

Why did it turn off!?!?!?!?!?

When I'm in my room, I like plugging in my laptop to my TV, I have an extra mouse & keyboard to not have to use the laptop ones.

Pretty cool, I like it, and I have it set up so that it does nothing when I close the lid (if it's plugged in, of course), so it works out perfectly, but then an urge may come to play a little bit, so I start the game

Cool, 1080p, as of now I don't have surround sound, but I can live with it...and after half an hour of playing, the stupid computer shuts down!!!! WTF!!!!!! It only does if I'm playing and have the lid closed, if I leave the lid open and playing on the TV, it doesn't happen, and if I'm not playing, it can say up for hours with the lid closed, why, I just want to know why?!?!?!?!?!

And here's a little gameplay (again, recorded at 30fps, but normally played at 60):

Finished unpacking

After a whole week, I finally finished "unpacking", haha. I had a bag full of stuff that I had been lazy enough to put in their place, but now I'm done :)

I only did, cause my room had already become a pig sty, haha...reminded me a little of Angie's room when she lived in EP, haha