Skype

I have been talking with a lot of people I haven't spoken in a while. It's nice. Yesterday I spoke to Mano for quite a while and this lunch time I spend sometime talking with my cousin from Rio de Janeiro, Holberi. It nice how the technology approximates us. My cousin I haven't spoken in many, many years.

Harvard

Sometimes a beer is not so bad for you. After a couple of beers this evening I think I achieved two things. The first is to get the opinion of a professor at Harvard from an idea I had for research. The second is another possible invitation to give a talk there. So who said beer is bad for you?!

Muqueca today

A person here in the lab is leaving and some of us will go to Muqueca restaurant for a farewell party. Look forward eating some nice food. We'll be there around 8pm.

Hawaii Hotel... Free :-)

I just booked my trip to Hawaii. The nice thing is that I got a free night from hotels.com and I used to book a room in Kona Big Island. The place is called Mauna Lani Resort (photo). Check their website here. I'm flying from Honolulu to Kona and back for $80. So I'll go there, see the volcano, sleep and stay in this hotel and back to Honolulu on Saturday night. On Sunday, I fly back to Boston. I hope this place is as nice as everyone say.

Patricia Barber

Last night I went to the regattabar for the concert of Jazz pianist Patricia Barber. What a disappointment!! She has a very nice, well controlled, voice but in terms of jazz she is very weak. She tried to look cool by making faces and such when she plays the piano but the quality is simply not there. The band that played with her only made it worse. The guitarist looked like he was playing on a funeral or something. I'm glad it was very expensive. The only good part of the concert were the two songs from Cole Porter that she played: Ce Magnifique and I've Grown Accustomed to his Face. She also played one of my favorites songs of all time: Blackbird (Beatles), but she managed to make me dislike it.

Happy Darwin's day!!

200 years ago today one of the most important scientists in history: Charles Darwin. 150 years ago he published his most important work: On the Origin of Species. Happy Darwin's day!!!!

Jazz tonight

I think I'll try to go to Patricia Barber tonight. I heard she is a good jazz piano player. Let's see.

Mac is back!!!

I have my mac back. I'm so happy to be able to do some work. I missed it. Here my mac is my only friend :)

Early-start day

I'm still without my computer butbim trying to do some work. It's hard becase I have a lot of code to write. Apple promised the machine yesterday but didn't fulfill the promise. I hope I get it today. I'm quit behind on the things I have to do. I got here to the office at 8:15am today which is my record :). Not bad given that I went to bed at 1am.

More squash and no mac

I've played squash today for about 45 minutes and my knee was fine :) in fact today as a day or not much work because in the afternoon we went to watch the soccer game between Brazil an Italy. Brazil won 2x0. Then I cs back to the office and despite Apple promising me to give mac back I got nothing. :( Hopefully I'll get it.

Boston library card

I got my library card this morning and hence I'm now an official resident of Boston. LOL. The library is huge and you can find any possible book you can think of. Kalil would love it also because you can get a lot of music (piano) scores from every kind of music, from Rachamaninov to Beatles. I believe they also have free wireless so I might go there to work sometimes if I'm bored here.

Significantly significant

At at talk here in the lab a candidate jus wrote on the slides that
the results are significantly significant!! At least this tells me
that not everyone interviewing here is as good as they all seemed to
be up to now.

This one you may not understand

Sorry. This one has some Portuguese. Learn it or forget about this post :).

Gatinha you must hear the song entitled "teu nome mais secreto" particularly the part that goes more or less like this

Não sei, não sei mais nada
Só sei que canto de sede dos teus lábios.
Não sei, não sei mais nada.

This is exactly how is feel now. :). But the whole song is beautiful. Listen to it!!

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

No mac for you!

My mac broke the Ethernet card and now I have to work the old fashion way: manually! I hope apple gives it back to me soon.

Ronaldo (back) in Boston

I went to my room, left everything there and I'm now on the T going to the lab. Looking forward doing some work.

Last night

I'm currently on the plane on my way back to Boston. Yesterday I went with Paulo to a concert from Donald Harrison Jr. a sax player from New Orleans. The concert was very good. I'll later post some pictures from the concert. I now have a proper camera with me so the quality of the pictures should improve :)

Late with Bill

I think I'm back on track. The last few days here in Washington DC were not as productive as I thought. Well when you have to work from 8am to 6pm non stop it is hard to think about anything else. Fortunately I've made the right decision today and decided to work a bit late. Paulo is not here so it is easier. Right now it is my paper and Bill Frisell playing Poem for Eva. If you haven't heard it before just get it. You'll be happy.

Ronaldo in Washington

I'm on my way back to Boston but had first to stop in Washington DC to reviews some proposals to the NSF. I'm flyin to Boston on Sunday morning. So far the review process went pretty smooth. Paulo is here and trying "hitting" on a ex-fiancée of another friend of mine. LOL. I was partially responsible for the other engagement but I don't have anything to do with this one. I'm waiting tower what happens.

Got my key ring!!

Sarah gave me a key ring today :) I no longer have to deal with the "kiwi" ladies about this issue. Adele will be very happy I got the key ring since the kept me asking about it since the day I wrote about it in the blog.

Ronaldo in Melbourne

I'm home and it was nice to see Sarah and the kids. We went to a party today at Cheryl's and as expected it was very nice. I'm glad to be here and sadden that I'm only staying a few days.