im-roberto » Personal

Happy 4th of July

Roberto — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:28:50 +0000

Happy 4th of July

I just thought I’d share a humbling moment I had yesterday while doing some market research at work. This is something I posted on my Facebook status and I will try my best to pursue a more modest outtake on my daily life based on this, and not take so many things for granted.

Today I spoke with 3 musicians from Congo, and they told me that we take all that we have for granted here in the US. We live in wonderland. I must say that after that conversation they really opened my eyes to how blessed we really are. Everyone have a Happy 4th of July Weekend

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Free Universities Courses on Youtube!

Roberto — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 08:17:23 +0000

Just recently I’ve ran across the Educational side of Youtube, more specifically the section that includes various videos from many well known universities. Today I sat down and watched through a few beginner programming courses, from the Stanford University Computer Sciences department, and beginner courses in Electronics Engineering. This is mind blowing and amazing all at once because most of these videos were recorded inside of the classroom of that University and if you can dig deep enough in the Universities website you can probably get a hold of other classroom handouts and other useful materials from that specific class. I won’t even speak of the MIT Open Course website because that alone is a gold mine of education. In any case I’m going to be cancelling all my dates and appointments and hide myself away from a few months while I sit and go through these classes online for free.

http://www.youtube.com/edu
http://ocw.mit.edu/

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Studying Japanese again

Roberto — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 04:07:59 +0000

I’m trying to keep with my New Years resolutions this year. One of them being, working on my Japanese reading and writing skills, unfortunately I can’t work on my speaking skills all too well because I don’t have anyone Japanese to speak to. So I’ve been going over some Kana and Kanji flash cards and trying to translate and read some basic japanese books. I’ve started with the iPhone app Hiragana Lite and Kotoba!

It’s the free versions of the software but so far so good. I just need to work harder on my writing skills as I haven’t really practiced much at all. Learning a new language can be pretty frustrating at times especially while self studying. I still plan on sometime taking a class here or a series of courses in Japan.

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Post Thanks Giving

Roberto — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 20:21:04 +0000

Happy Belated Thanks Giving! Woke up with no hang over, not feeling any post wine drinking session side effects. I really had a great time at my aunts house last night, with all my family, the food was outstanding, and had a good few laughs listening to my aunt joke around. I seriously woke up with sore cheeks. I won’t be doing any Black Friday shopping as I hate shopping with huge crowds around, and with a huge mess in every store. I’m sure I could find good enough deals without having to wake up at 4 a.m in the morning or some crazy thing like that. All in I wish everyone a good long weekend.

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Old E-Mails

Roberto — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 03:31:49 +0000

I decided to log on to my Yahoo mail account today, one of which I don’t use anymore because the high level of spam it receives. Once sifting through all that junk I managed to pick up some really old e-mails. It was really interesting digging through some stuff that has been sitting in a folder since 1999. It’s almost like going through that little box full of your personal junk and reading through your school year book or something.

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New Years plans

Roberto — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:30:58 +0000

I’ve been thinking as to what I want to do for New Years. Every year has been the same old thing, go to someone’s house and drink the night away. I want to switch things up a little bit this year. I have been considering the thought of visiting Times Square seeing that it is usually a hot spot to go to every year. Taking that into consideration I’m beginning to wonder as to whether or not I’ll even find a flight and hotel room. I’ve also considered going to Mexico and spend new years eve with the loved ones there. Though the flight might be a bit more expensive I know I don’t have to worry about booking a room. I guess I need to decide quickly because New Years is around the corner.

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No desk yet

Roberto — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:15:40 +0000

It’s been a little over a month now since I moved and I still don’t have a desk yet. My neck is now starting to cramp from using my computer on a desk made out of boxes. Yeah boxes! Well sort of a complaint to myself on my procrastination over me not buying a desk.

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Multiple posts at a time

Roberto — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:22:16 +0000

Due to the fact that at the time of this writing I don’t have Internet access, and not much else to do I have taken upon myself to write various things about what crosses my mind, things that has happened to me, or just anything I’m doing. Yes its Internet withdrawals, or the fact that I haven’t been able to log onto World of Warcraft for over a week now. In any case I must apologize in advance about the multiple posts that will be automatically posted by me when I finally get online access. In any case let me just show off my temporary poor mans desk. Basically build up of a couple of boxes and a flat piece of wood that I tossed on top of it.

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Spanish Readings

Roberto — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 05:48:52 +0000

Lately I’ve been trying to get back in touch with my spanish reading skills, and picked up a book that my aunt passed on to me to read. So far I have not been able to put this book down. The title of the book in literal translation is The Island of Lonely Men in spanish its La Isla De Los Hombres Solos, by José León Sánchez. I am so far very impressed by his simple use of localized vocabulary from the region where the story takes place in. As far as I’ve read the plot is about a young couple in a small town in Costa Rica who is constantly harassed by the local town Sheriff. The story goes as bad as the young man losing his wife and child in a storm and being accused of murdering his own family by the local authority and having him get locked up for life. Though it sounds simple the actual story has a very deep and sometimes stressful story line for the reader due to the fact that the bad guy has his way through. I honestly enjoy reading this book very much and can’t wait to get my paws deeper into this story as the story just worsens for the main character.

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Homeless

Roberto — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 17:44:00 +0000

From 2nd of September until the 7th I was homeless. Of course this story goes way back nearly a year ago in late October. My parents went through countless calls and visits with a nameless bank trying to do something to keep their house. The house of which we worked hard for ten years a house for which I worked hard since I was 16 and legally able to work. Countless hours of back breaking or mental straining labor that I went through for nearly ten years of my life. Unfortunately the bank was not flexible at that moment to help work something out. As other Americans in this country we took it upon ourselves to accept defeat, the loss of a ten year struggle. We decided to put the property on sale, knowingly it wouldn’t sell due to the type of Real Estate Market we were in.

Fast forward to July and we received the letter we were waiting for, the notice of an auction due to default on the note or what not. Come August and we had made arrangements to move out but unfortunately the apartment we had decided on moving to was not yet available because the previous tenants had not yet moved out. At this point we had a notice to vacate the property by August 28. Come the 28th and our apartment was not yet ready and we had not yet moved anything. The agent that was working for the bank gave us until the 2nd of September to leave the property.

We finally moved all of our belongings into a family friends garage, but also with the expectations of staying there for a couple of days because the property had not been occupied for over 6 months. That same weekend that we ended up moving our things into the garage of our friends house we get the bad news that the house had been rented by another family. Leaving us with no roof over our heads. That night was the longest night in my life, I had never suffered from High Blood Pressure or had stress nausea in my life until then. My whole body was shaky, nervous, and fatigued. By far I must say that it was the worst night of my life, and frankly I have gone through situations before, but never nothing of this category.

The following day my parents and my self drove away from Palmdale, the city that had brought hope and dreams, and later brought nothing but shame and pain. While driving around desperately seeking an apartment because the one we had applied for was not going to be ready until September 7th. My mom calls a distant aunt of mine (my dad’s cousin), who is retired and lives alone in her one bedroom apartment. She took us in with her doors wide open, and went out of her way in offering us nothing but what little she had to offer, of which to us was a true blessing. Never in my life had I been so grateful of having a little spot on the floor to sleep in. For a couple of days after I still suffered from the same symptoms I had from stress but they slowly fade away as my aunt comforted us, and gave us hope again. I will never find a way to ever repay our debt to her but deep inside me I will never forget how important family and our bond is to me.

Double Move Out

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