Videos

Blizzard while driving in Colorado.





This was three weeks after I started practicing fencing.
No technique, but great instincts.




Snowboarding and trying to jump. It's harder than it looks! :(




Practicing my ice skating backward strokes!

Short stories

I've just created a new blog to post my short stories. I've been wanting to do this forever now, but never found the time, or the patience. I posted two stories I wrote a while ago, one in English and one in Portuguese, and I have three more on the oven. I haven't written anything for some time, but I think this Summer I'll be able to finish those.

Feel free to comment, criticize, praise, etc. I won't mind any of those.

---------------------------------------------------

Finalmente eu criei um blog pra colocar meus contos. Eu tava querendo fazer isso faz tempo, mas nunca tinha tempo ou paciencia. Coloquei dois contos lah, um em ingles e outro em portugues, e eu estou escrevendo mais tres historias. Eu nao trabalho nelas faz tempo, mas quem sabe nesse verao eu terei tempo de terminar uma ou duas.

Comentarios, criticas, cumprimentos sao bem vindos.


Andre

http://spaceandmindstories.blogspot.com/

How to get ready for a Summer Internship in four days

This text is a week old:

Life just doesn’t stop! Right now, I’m in Sunnyvale, California, for my summer internship at Google (at Mountain View) and I’m staying here until end of August. I’ve been here for a week already and I’m loving this place. This place: California, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Google, you name it.

Some interesting first few days. First of all, when I arrived, Friday, May 18^th, I didn’t have a place to stay yet, so I rented a car at the airport and made sure I got one of those GPS systems (great help, highly recommended when you’re not familiar with your surroundings). My target? A furnished one-bedroom apartment. I had a few addresses I found online, which I inputted in the GPS system and off I went. Friday, however, wasn’t my day, since I only found overpriced and places that didn’t have vacancies–if I found the place at all, or the manager!

When business hours were over, I found myself my secondary target: an inn to spend the night. Evaluating my progress that night I realized that all I had was an appointment to check out an apartment on a nearby town, because the rude manager was sooo busy with some paperwork and oblivious to my presence there that all she could say was: “I only show apartments by appointment.” So there I was holding her card, which I promptly ripped in thousand pieces. It was overpriced anyway. What an unproductive Friday, and I’m not even considering the fact that the inn that I was staying, which was said to have wireless Internet available in all rooms, in fact didn’t. When I talked to the manager, he told me that the wireless thingy was supposed to be working in every room. After a couple of frustrated trials, I ended up with my laptop hooked up in the pool area, with a huge extension cord that was plugged in where the sprinkler system was before, because my laptop battery only last 15 minutes, tops. I made sure I found several more addresses online to look for the following day, so I didn’t have to worry about Internet again.

Oh yeah, let me tell you about my cell phone! Before coming here, I decided to buy a real cell phone so I could talk to people even when I was not home. I shopped around and found that Cricket had the best deal: 55 bucks per month and you have unlimited minutes on several different cities around the US (these cities were marked by a dark green spot on their coverage map) and the map clearly indicated that Lincoln, Nebraska, and San Francisco, CA (and San Jose) areas were covered by several dark green spots. If you were on transit, you could still use 100 minutes (200 minutes for a mere 5 extra bucks per month) for roaming service, on the wide area in light green (almost all the US is covered in this light green area, in their coverage map). This plan sounded perfect for me… too perfect to be true. Throughout the time I was driving around San Jose-San Francisco areas, whenever I used my phone I got a message saying that I was roaming. It turns out, that the dark green spots in California were for cities about one hour and a half from the San Jose-San Francisco areas, such as Modesto and Fresno ( I know cause I dug up the info on their web page). False Advertisement red flags were going up like crazy in my head. I emailed them my resentment, protesting my consumer rights to no avail, not even a reply back telling me how stupid I was. No worries, they’ll be hearing from my attorney soon enough.

Saturday was a lot better, not perfect, but better. What I had to do, however, was to drop the furnished requirement, since I wasn’t being lucky there. The only furnished apartments I had found were from Corporate Housing business, which meant they were incredibly, ridiculously expensive. With this new mind frame, I actually was able to find some (unfurnished) apartments to go into. I found out that the best places were found while going from one address to the other and just stopping by and checking them out, which was exactly how I found this one that I really liked. The manager told me that she could hold it for a couple of day, if I paid the application fee and the deposit. I wanted to keep looking, because it was still a little expensive for an empty apartment. After checking out a couple more addresses, I started getting tired of this whole thing, and instead of spending two more days (my internship would start on Tuesday) looking for the perfect apartment, I could save the money on gas and inns and spend it on furniture. I called, then, the manager and told her I was moving in that same day. After a quick stop at Wal-Mart to get the basics (such as an inflatable bed) I was in my new apartment.

Sunday and Monday were days for me to find stuff: a real bed, a desk, a table, a sofa, a TV stand, and a TV, and so on. I drove for two days, looking for garage sales, yard sales, and furniture people would advertise on a weekly ad magazine. I found all the things above, except the sofa and the TV things. I did find however, one of those extendable, reclining chairs that goes by the sofa. In place of the sofa, two body pillows can be found trying to look like something that people can lie down, but failing miserably. I think I need some more pillows if I’m not getting a sofa. It’s funny, because if you sit on the chair or lie on the pillows, you stare at nothing but an empty wall. I did actually stop by at Best Buy to buy a TV+DVD set, but I’m not paying 200 bucks for one. I’m gonna wait till I find something interesting on craigslist or something like that.

Thus I started my internship, bags still unpacked, computer desk and dining table disassembled, and the only things put away from the supermarket were those that are now in the fridge. Some busy first four days. Oh, did I mention that I had a nice tan on my left arm?


Andre

Lucas!

My favorite nephew was born on May 15, 2007, with curious eyes and a coolness that will rock this world (I can tell ‘cause I’ve seen the pictures!). Colorado (not a reference to the state, but to the soccer team) since day one, he’s known to enjoy the best life can offer, the best as he can, sleeping and eating all day long. :)




Lucas, I’m dying to meet you!

Your drooling uncle.

Andre