Medellin
Imagine driving 8 hours through mountains and "S" curves. No highways, just 2 ways tiny roads clogged with snail moving trucks for 8 hours..turn left, right, up, down. Then you reach Medellin- the hole. The hole is surrounded by mountains, you can´t see anything on the other side four sides, just mountains. How did ppl ever find these lands, I wonder. Its in the middle or nowhere..high on the mountains. No sea..no nothing around. Its also the homeland of the richest drug lord in the world (Pablo as the local calls him, Escobar as he´s more known world wide) Besides Botero- the famous 21st century Co. artist. The weather is perfect (yes, perfect) here. So, I´ve met Juan´s whole family (everyone..incl. the abuelita & abuelito!!).. its very overhelming. It will be a wonderful christmas and a very happy new year. Feliz navidad todos muchachos y muchachas.
9 days before christmas. (Novena)
One day in our house back in NYC, Omar was visiting. Omar mentioned he will be in Bogota for Christmas and then he and Paola started singing some childish spanish jingle. It was hilarous as he and
Paola wave a brush and shakes their head. So, supposingly thats what kids do at Novena.
Novena- 9th day before Christmas starts today. I don't know of any other countries that practises Novena besides Colombia. Basically, family take turns hosting Novena for 9 nights before Christmas where they gather, have fun and pray. So, you would go to uncle no.1 today, no.2 tomorrow, auntie no.3 the next day... etc. You would do this for all 9 days before christmas. I don't know what happens if you have no family or you don't like your family ( I think there's no such thing as not liking your family here.)
So, tonight will be praying in Spanish. I hope I don't fall asleep but I'm sure the rest of the time will be fun.
your weblog on google.
Google suggest- very cool. So if you start to type- nom (the 2nd suggestion is nomad). If you type nomadlife: there is 2,730 results returned by google. Many of our websites are listed there. Very cool both for google and nomadlife. Whereas if u search on "
normal google" , it comes up with 3,200 entries. I'm just curious how google algo works, seems that many ppl knows about it but me. Tell me someone.
how can you not have a religion?
coming to Colombia where most ppl are religious catholics. Ppl find it suprising that I do not have one though I still tell most ppl that I'm buddhist. What does that mean- they asked...
this
site explains accurately what Buddhism is to me-
3 universal truths: Nothing is lost in the universe, everything changes, law of cause and effect.
4 noble truths:
1. There is suffering, its common to all,
2. Cause of suffering- We are the cause of suffering.
3. End of suffering- stop doing what causes suffering.
4. Path to end suffering- everyone can be enlightened.
The path to end suffering it the
Noble 8 fold path
1. The right view
2. Right thought
3. Right speech
4. Right conduct
5. Right Livehood
6. Right effort
7. Right mindfulness
8. Right concentration
The 5 percepts
1. No killing- respect for life
2. No stealing- respect for ppl's property
3. No sexual misconduct- respect for our pure nature (mhmm..)
4. No lying- respect for honesty
5. No intoxicants- respect for a clear mind
This is my doubts to the religion:
Wheel of life
Heavenly beings, humans, asuras, hungry gosts, hell-beings.
The turning wheel
Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, P*** something, Arhats- enlighten themselves.
The
Lotus Flower
The lotus has its roots in the mud,
Grows up through the deep water,
And rises to the surface.
It blooms into perfect beauty and purity in the sunlight.
It is like the mind unfolding to perfect joy and wisdom.
What's the end goal?
To reach enlightment:
'He who has realized the Truth, Nirvana, is the happiest being in the world. He is free from all "complexes" and obsessions, the worries and troubles that torment others. His mental health is perfect. He does not repent the past, nor does he brood over the future. He lives fully in the present. Therefore he appreciates and enjoys things in the purest sense without self-projections. He is joyful, exultant, enjoying the pure life, his faculties pleased, free from anxiety, serene and peaceful. As he is free from selfish desire, hatred, ignorance, conceit, pride, and all such "defilements", he is pure and gentle, full of universal love, compassion, kindness, sympathy, understanding and tolerance. His service to others is of the purest, for he has no thought of self. He gains nothing, accumulates nothing, not even anything spiritual, because he is free from the illusion of self, and the "thirst" for becoming."
And btw, the Fat Buddha you see is Happy Buddha- its just a symbol. Its not the "real " Buddha.
midnight serenade
close to midnight yesterday, working on my red, blue and black colored font codes, probably half of Bogota already sleeping, suddenly the LOUD sounds of trumpets! BOOMED! from the front porch of the house opposite the park in front of this apt.(the park where I watch children from the nearby kindergarten come and play at 11.00am everyday :), makes me happy). Anyways, yes... the TRUMPETS and the GUITAR! so loud, the Colombians are SERENADING at midnight! Probably for some birthday or engagement celebration, who knows... but it was awakening!, ppl were peeping out from their windows, no one complained, don't know what they were singing but it sounded very romantic.
Top 40 software ppl in the world
Geek like me like knowing this stuff like this :P, though not relevant for readers of nomadlife, sys-con listed the top 40 software ppl in the world to be voted for top 20. I think I only know 10 out of those.. how many do u know? Afterall, these are the ppl that makes the most abstract things real:
Tim Berners-Lee: "Father of the World Wide Web" and expectant father of the Semantic Web
Joshua Bloch: Formerly at Sun, where he helped architect Java's core platform; now at Google
Grady Booch: One of the original developers of the Unified Modeling Language
Adam Bosworth: Famous for Quattro Pro, Microsoft Access, and IE4; then BEA, now Google
Don Box: Coauthor of SOAP
Stewart Brand: Cofounder in 1984 of the WELL bulletin board
Tim Bray: One of the prime movers of XML, now with Sun
Dan Bricklin: Cocreator of VisiCalc, the first PC spreadsheet
Larry Brilliant: Cofounder in 1984 of the WELL bulletin board
Sergey Brin: Son-of-college-math-professor turned cofounder of Google, Inc.
Dave Cutler: The brains behind VMS; hired away by Microsoft for Windows NT
Don Ferguson: Inventor of the J2EE application server at IBM
Roy T. Fielding: Primary architect of HTTP 1.1 and a founder of the Apache Web server
Bob Frankston: Cocreator of VisiCalc, the first PC spreadsheet
Jon Gay: The "Father of Flash"
James Gosling: "Father of Java" (though not its sole parent)
Anders Hejlsberg: Genius behind the Turbo Pascal compiler, subsequently "Father of C#"
Daniel W. Hillis: VP of R&D at the Walt Disney Company; cofounder, Thinking Machines
Miguel de Icaza: Now with Novell, cofounder of Ximian
Martin Fowler: Famous for work on refactoring, XP, and UML
Bill Joy: Cofounder and former chief scientist of Sun; main author of Berkeley Unix
Mitch Kapor: Designer of Lotus 1-2-3, founder of Lotus Development Corporation
Brian Kernighan: One of the creators of the AWK and AMPL languages
Mitchell Kertzman: Former programmer, founder, and CEO of Powersoft (later Sybase)
Klaus Knopper: Prime mover of Knoppix, a Linux distro that runs directly from a CD
Craig McClanahan: Of Tomcat, Struts, and JSF fame
Nathan Myhrvold: Theoretical and mathematical physicist, former CTO at Microsoft
Tim O'Reilly: Publisher, open source advocate; believer that great technology needs great books
Jean Paoli: One of the co-creators of the XML 1.0 standard with the W3C; now with Microsoft
John Patrick: Former VP of Internet technology at IBM, now "e-tired"
Rob Pike: An early developer of Unix and windowing system (GUI) technology
Dennis Ritchie: Creator of C and Coinventor of Unix
Richard Stallman: Free software movement's leading figure; founder of the GNU Project
Bjarne Stroustrup: The designer and original implementor of C++
Andy Tanenbaum: Professor of computer science, author of Minix
Ken Thompson: Coinventor of Unix
Linus Torvalds: "Benevolent dictator" of the Linux kernel
Alan Turing: Mathematician; author of the 1950 paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence"
Guido van Rossum: Author of the Python programming language
Ann Winblad: Former programmer, cofounder of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners
Rough paths worth exploring
Underated. For such a diverse, wild, sensual country in landscape, ppl, culture, partying!, weather- Colombia is way under visited. You find the Caribbean in the north, the Pacific ocean in the west, the Amazons in the south, the cities surrounded by mountains. The pink dophins, the anacondas, the sloth (see Paola's weblog : http://paito.nomadlife.org) . Every city here has its own unique culture- ones associated with black descendents or drug cartels or guerillas or best coffee in the world or bad slang (the paisa's :P) amongst the history, fruitas, unknown.
As beautiful as Colombia is- it's not easy to backpack. To start- you should be able to "hablar espanol fluent", the "tierra" is filled with mountains and hence land transportation could be very long and sometimes dangerous when u have to pass through small towns. There are some parts of the country (very few states) that still have guerillas in small towns near the mountains :(. (But, if you're an Aiesecer.. you probably have nothing much worth robbing, no? ) Nonetheless, its worth the trouble and when you do.. u will find yourself fascinated in places right out of a travel magazine or postcard with very little plata ($$), having picked up some espanol and salsaing with a latin lover.
