Pour House

I stopped to have a beer at the pour house. The place seems okay but nothing special. I'm on the Back Bay area here in Boston. I'm going to use a GPS tag from this blogger to see if it works. Click here to see where I am.

The weather is great today. I little warmer than I wished but it is fine. Tomorrow it will be ideal. There are a LOT of people on the streets. Bostonians are enjoying the sun as much as they can.

Johnny A. Wow!!!!!

I just got out of this guy's concert. I'll talk more about it tomorrow but I'm in total shock!!! I not afraid to say that this was one of the best guitar players I have ever seen in my life. This guy is slimply amazing. I'm speechless!!!! Wow!!! :)

Johnny A.

I'm again at the regatta bar to watch this guitar player I have never heard in my life: Johnny A. I had to exchange a ticket I had for another concert and this as the only option. I hope it is good. It's guitar so it is a good start :)

Bartley's Burgers

I'm at Bartley's burgers waiting to eat what is apparently one of the best burgers in the USA. Let's see. Or better, let's eat!! ;)
UPDATE: the burger is really good but quite expensive. It was $14 for a burger that is not that large with a soda. I'll come back only to bring Kalil to try it when he comes in July. But for the money we can eat a lot better in other places.

It's hot here!!

Wow. It's 65F today and it will be 89F tomorrow. Now this is an unexpected change!!

Echoes

Echoes from Pink Floyd must be one of the most builtiful songs ever recorded! The emotion, peace that it passes to the listener is beyond anything you can possibly experience in any other song. If you never sat through the 23 minutes or so of this one you're missing out. :)

Scullers Jazz Club

In at scullers to watch Nicholas Payton. I'm hoping for a good concert. Last time I saw him was in Italy in 1997.

Fortaleza won again!!!

Yesterday I watched my soccer team on the web :) There is this website that broadcast every single possible soccer game you can think of. It's very nice because I can follow my team a bit better. Yesterday we tied with Paraná in their home. Since we won in our house we advance to the last 16 to meet Flamengo. We have a good history against Flamengo so we may do well even though they are in a very good phase. But it doesn't matter, what matters now is that we advanced. The next game is in about 1 week.

New England feels like England

The day today here in Boston feels exactly how I remember the weather being in York, England. I guess I now know why this region is called New England; it may be "new" but it feels like the old. The weather here today is gold, wet, gray, foggy, that is, everything England is known for.

Sleeping burrito

My default meal here in Boston is burrito at Qdoba. Last night not only I had one for dinner but I actually felt like one! The heating in my house was not working so I spent the entire night wrapped like a burrito. LOL. First I've put on some socks, the wrapped myself on a sheet and finally wrapped myself on the duvet cover. It really felt like if I was inside this giant burrito. At least I managed to sleep the entire night. Worse is that I may have to do this again tonight.

Out of Coffee

Today is a holiday here in MA: Patriots Day. The result is that we are working in the lab but because we had no deliveries we run out of coffee. I had to go this afternoon to the coffee place to buy beans to place on the espresso machine. Tomorrow the lab will refund me (so I hope). At least the beans are great not like the secretary normally buys.

Boring Sunday

Yesterday nothing happened here. The highlight of the day was the food at the Thai place (Pho and I). I went home early to watch a movie and choose to see "the unborn". What a terrible movie!!! It's so bad that it took me a lot of effort to finish it. It is a bad story coupled by terrible acting. It is a sort of Exorcist of someone who has not even been born. Go figure. The actress is quite cute and that is about it. There is nothing else I can say about her. Do yourself a favor. Don't watch this one.

Wally's

Sometimes it's hard to explain why this city is good and interesting. I just got out of this place called Wally's Jazz Cafe and it made me think again about the pros and cons of this city. The weather now is pretty good so that is no longer an against. Wally's on the other hand is a pro. It's located about 2 blocks from the university and this was my first time there. The band was made of kids probably from the Berklee school of music and they sounded great. The sense us that you are hearing the future of jazz and I have to confess I liked it a lot. Why don't others like it? This city is pretty good and the longer I stay the more I think this is re kind of place I'd like to live at some point. The pros outweigh the cons by a big margin. Wally's is just an example.

Fortaleza 4-1 Guarany

My soccer team yesterday won the first of the semifinals against Guarany. The game was away but we managed to win with a 4-1 score. The second game is Sunday. We only need to draw.

Another Check Mate

Yesterday I had a couple of checkmates on chess with friends. Jerry made a mistake and could not recover from it and the other buddy I play also lost I also figured out that he is from the west coast. We exchanged a couple of messages.

Nice change in Boston

Yesterday we had the first real Spring day here. The temperature was about 78F and the city transformed itself. At Kenmore square the restaurants had tables outside, at Harvard square the bars also had people outside. The ice rink in front of the Charles hotel gave place to a bar :) The mood was completely different and the city started to show its true culture.

Fly concert

I just left The Fly concert. It's a trio where two of the guys play with Brad Mehldau. The group is a bit avant-garde and quite different from what they play with Mehldau. I bought the CD there and got them all to sign :) awesome.

Dinner with Jesus

Today I went to have dinner with "jesus". This is the running joke between Sarah and I when I refer to Prof. B. We went, me, him and a candidate to a position in the lab to the kenmore area. Nice place. French restaurant. Sarah might remember tyt area because it had the worst traffic due to some construction; where the barnes and noble is. The dinner was very nice and I had re opportunity to understand the human, mortal side of jesus. Lol. He is a very pleasant guy but very serious about his work. He is social but doesn't forget to talk about his work. The area of the restaurant was very busy due to a red socks match. But I think that area seems to be good all the time. I have to convince Sarah to come here for a few days.

Poor Guy

Here at the lab we have a person who couldn't look more like a nerd. Nothing against nerds but this person is the extreme. After all we (computer scientists) are all nerds a little. This person, let's call him A, wears that typical shirt (see example in the picture), with his pens and a small notebook; actually I thought his kind of image was more like for movies. I was wrong.

Last night we were having a beer on the party and he confessed (after a few drinks) that it's been more than 4 years he doesn't have a woman. He said he is not that good with women and he actually gave up trying. Poor guy. The problem is that he was serious and I felt bad for him. I recommended him to save his money and go to Fortaleza, Brazil. But I'm not sure. His case is extreme. I can't see how he'll manage to approach a woman. It's hard to imagine. I'm writing here because I sincerely felt bad for him. He sounded as if he wanted to find a girlfriend but just didn't know how or had the courage to. Poor guy...

Dr. J last day

Last night we went to a Korean bar for Dr J. farwell party. We gas quite a few beers and even some liquor. The liquor was called "100 years" and it is supposed to be medicinal but I don't believe it ;). The drink was okay. Not bad. Dr J. is returning to Korea and the lab will loose a lot after he's gone (today) as he is one of the nicest guy in the lab. We have discussed the possibility of collaborating in the future on doing an analysis of the network of Brazilian music. Hopefully one day we can really do it. It would be quite interesting to know to see the portrait of the Brazilian music.