I guess I'm still alive after all

Wow, I can't believe it's been over a year since I wrote her the last time. I really got to give me some time to let the world know I'm indeed still alive and kicking.

So what's new? Everything! Well, almost. I'm still doing software, still at NI, I'm staff now, so I get to pretend I know what I'm doing. The bad thing is people actually expect me to. Oh, well.


This is Nellie. She's the new member of my Austin family and has been with me for about 3 weeks now. As you can tell she's a German Shepherd mix with a lot of personality. I'll be posting much more about her around here.

What else can I report on? Well, I bought a house recently, so I can officially start complaining about property taxes ;)

Gus moved to NY city, yes, it was a sad moment, but I know we'll see each other again. and I'm sure we'll have some cuban food together. You should check out his blog to see how he's doing.

Anyway, it's time to go, I'll be back soon to talk some sense into you people :)

Relay for life: the morning after

I confess, my team and I didn't stay all night. I must say I did vote for staying for a while, but I wasn't about to stay alone and I really didn't find it entertaining to see my friends so cold and sleepy. So we decided to leave around 2AM. I finally got home after 3, but I still wasn't ready to go to bed. So I watched some pre-recorded tv and finally went to sleep around 4.
Somehow I wasn't ready for the next morning. When I went to sleep my feet were hurting a lot, but I figured I was just tired, when I took off my shoes and socks my feet were really swollen, but I figured it would all go away in 8 hours... I was wrong. Today I'm still walking very slowly, with an artificial quality, kind of like ASIMO, Honda's walking robot. I'm hoping all symptoms will go away soon and I'll be ready to run and dance in no time. One thing is for shure... I'm going back to the gym, this is really embarrasing. A real life ASIMO, with feet bigger than tamales, who'd have thought.
I must mention here how grateful I am to Jeremiah and Nicole, they both donated to the cause, and I'm really thankful for that, I said it in my donations page and I'll say it again here: Cancer is not about good or bad, about corporations or individuals, about pollution or revolution... Cancer Is Real. It's the modern life's race against time. I want to win, and I know you do too. Thank you, my friends. Next time I'll write some more about all the new people I've met this weekend.

Last Year's Tamales Photos

I've finally made an initial draft of last year's photos. I need to start using a different application to generate my albums, but meanwhile here it is in my .mac account

Tamales

I know it's been a month and a half since my 3rd anniversary in Austin, but we've been so busy and otherwise engaged that we just couldn't settle on a Date when most people could attend. Finally we decided on may 7th. For those of you who still don't know what a tamal is (or even worse, still call it "Tamale"), here it is:

Tamal from Belize

A tamal is a piece of corn dough stuffed with meat or vegetables and a sauce, then wrapped in a leaf and steamed until ready. However, there are different types of tamales, depending on the region they are from.

• Tamales Norteños: northern Mexican Tamales, usually the kind you'd find in Texas, they have a bread-like consistency and are wrapped in corn husk. It's more common to find sweet tamales (strawberry, pineapple, vanilla or corn with raisins) of this kind than any other.
• Tamales Oaxaqueños: These are from the central Mexican state of Oaxaca, the dough is richer and more dense, it has a soft tortilla consistency and the tamal is wrapped in banana leaf, just like the one shown above. The typical Oaxaqueño is stuffed with chicken or pork and black mole.
• Corundas: They come from the central Mexican state of Michoacán, and although they're wrapped in banana leaves like the Oaxaqueños, these are packed in a triangular form. Last time I tried them the dough seemed a bit dry compared to the other ones, and they were stuffed with cheese. In Patzcuaro you'll usually find them served on a red sauce.
• Tamales Chiapanecos: This is the kind of tamales we're gonna cook here. They are similar to the Oaxaqueños, but they are from the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. They are stuffed with meat, sauce, olives, red peppers, egg, raisins and prunes.
• Tamal Cubano: This one is not made out of corn dough, but actually corn, that has to be completely ground. The other big difference is the fact that it isn't wrapped, but it's cooked on a pot, like a casserole.
• Other South American Tamales: As you travel further south you'll find multiple versions of the above mentioned tamales. The variations are usually in the condiments.

There are a couple of variations that might be worth mentioning, mostly for their value as a low cost meal in Mexico City:

• Tamal Azteca: This is more an upgrade rather than a downgrade to the common tamales. Basically you grab a bunch of tamales, remove the leaves and place them on a casserole dish, then make a dairy based sauce and spread it on top of the tamales, layering with corn and cheese. Finally to bake it all to make a tamal casserole. In times where tamales are all there is to eat (like when you go crazy and cook 200 of them and your freezer can only hold 20). This is a good way to put a new spin on the old food.
• Torta de Tamal: If you were to wander through El Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City around 9AM on a weekday you'd find the streets filled with people wearing suits eating this "Delicacy". The idea is simple: if meat is so expensive then wrapping it in cheap corn dough and steaming it is better... So wrapping that in more dough... Say... Bread must be "more better". Yes, they open a sandwich roll, place a tamal inside, then cover it with salsa. It is the cheapest, most filling breakfast for the fast-lived executive of Mexico City.

So In about a week I'll be recruiting even more and more people to help out making the already infamous tamales. If you want any more information, if you wish to be invited or you just want the recipe of some of what I mentioned before drop me a comment.

Back to life

Yeah, I've been pretty much gone for the last month or so. It's mostly because I'm working a lot, and while it really doesn't take all of my time I simply find myself not wanting to sit down in front of a computer. But hey, sometimes I do feel like writing, and so I run to the blogger to post whatever is in my mind.

3 Years and counting

It was a sunny day, march 18, 2002. I came into the office, waited around security, got my badge, spent countless hours on orientation and then, finally, I got to my desk... Wait a second, where is my desk? Well, as it turns out, I didn't have a desk; instead, I had to share my mentor's cube, sitting right behind him facing the wall, and every morning as I came in I was watched and recorded by his security camera.
But on march 18th I barely knew him. I met him 3 days before, on Friday, when I came to NI with the car loaded with all my luggage (at least all I considered necessary at the time) and my mother. I told him the same thing I told everyone: My car is fully loaded and I need a place to stay, 'cause I can't afford to keep paying for hotel rooms. Gus and Michael told me to go to AMLI:
"That's where we live, it's awesome... Just take the Gracy Farms all the way to Stonehollow"
"Huh? Gracy Farms? Stonehollow?"
"If you take the frontage road on mopac and keep going you'll be in Gracy Farms"

At that point I was too embarrassed to ask what a frontage road was, I really thought it was the name of the road. But they showed me in the map, and it all seemed simple enough. Sure enough, I took the frontage road, kept going, and then somehow I managed to be on Burnet Rd. instead of Gracy Farms. I tried two more times, and the third was the charm. It took me days to finally understand the weird right turn after crossing Duval.
So I got my apartment at AMLI and, hey, what do you know! I'm still here!
I remember that on march 18th one of my biggest discoveries was that my then mentor now manager Gus is actually Hispanic. Nobody could believe that I couldn't tell, but he is pretty much white, with brown hair and eyes, not the definition I had of Hispanics in Texas.

So today, March 18th 2005, I celebrate my third year at NI, my third year in Austin, my third year in the U.S. Celebrate? Well, yesterday was St. Paddy's and today is still a SXSW night. So I don't think most people will be available. But we'll have tamales soon :)

Welcome

Finally, after 2 years behind schedule, my new english blog came to life. It still amazes me how capable I am to put off something. Well, let's not talk about the past, but about the future. Some of the things I'll be posting here might not seem very relevant, but they'll always be entertaining.