Alfaj0r.com

:ninja: This post does not exist.

Anyway, an old friend from High School in Argentina contacted me a while back to see if I could get him a MacBook laptop. Apparently, back there, after taxes, importation fees and a lot of bullshit, they end up costing about $3000, as opposed to the $1400 that they cost here. So, we talked about it for a bit, and we devised a plan.

Using Moneygram, he wired me the $1400 needed. I picked them up, which was pretty straight-forward and easy, and with fourteen Benjamin Franklins (or, one hundred and forty :tenbux: ) I headed down to the nearest Apple store, which happens to be in the Summit Sierra, the mall way South of Reno.
The purchase was very easy, and five minutes later, I had a fancy box with a brand new shiny laptop.

I’ve been using the MacBook, as agreed with my friend. I’ve loaded pictures, movies, games and applications. I’m going to make it look like I use it all the time… so that when I go through customs, I can write it off as it being mine, and not as something I’m importing. That way, I’m saving him a lot of money, and I’m sticking it to the man.

I hope I don’t go to jail!

I can’t believe I forgot to post the news! I’m going home for the holidays!

Home, just in case you didn’t pick up on it, is Mendoza. I haven’t been there in a couple of years, so it’ll be nice to be back home. I’ll be there from the 20th of December to the 3rd, so I’ll get to spend Christmas and New Years there.

One small detail: it’ll be summer! Oh yes, long days, warm nights, fun times. Although I don’t have too many plans other than hanging out with the family, I’m sure I’ll be enjoying being outside, checking out some wineries and the outdoors. There are quite a few things to do in Mendoza, and it’s always refreshing to go home and see things from an outsider’s point of view for the first couple of days.  Not to mention that now that I’m picking up my photography hobby, it’ll definitely be a cool subject to explore!

I’m back from the business trip to Providence, RI. I had a great time there, not only at the conference, but outside of it… in fact, more outside than at the conference. :toot:
But I’ve also discovered that I’m at my heaviest weight ever in my young life. I feared while on my trip that the lack of exercise and the excess of comestibles would not do me a favor, and today when I went to the gym I found out that my fears were not in vain. Bah, it’s not the end of the world, and it’s certainly not going to be like this for too long.
In case you don’t know, you should know this: I don’t believe in dieting. Instead, I find it much more rewarding and interesting to increase my activity level, so that if I maintain my eating habits, I’d still end up in a small calorie deficit. That is why today I’ve ran 2 miles, did 10 or more flights of stairs (jumping, skipping, sprinting, falling) and then I went to the gym for over an hour. I’m smelly, salty and happy.
I look forward to kicking my own ass tomorrow again.

I’ve decided to finally take part of Burning Man. This will be the year, and it might just be the beginning of something that repeats yearly, or it might be something I do once and I get to say “I was there”. We’ll see.
I first heard of Burning Man when I was an exchange student, in 1999-2000. My counselor/liaison Nicole was a burner at the time ( and probably still is, I wonder if I’ll see her among the masses! ), and she told me a little bit about it, and it sounded really awesome. Of course, I was 17 at the time, so rumors of drunken naked people and a plethora of drugs were really attractive at the time. :v:

I’ll be buying my ticket shortly, at the Melting Pot. It’ll be a whopping almost $300, but I’ve been saving up for this, and every year I’ve chickened out because it was a lot of money. But now I’ve decided to say fuck it, and go for it. I hear it’s worth it, and I don’t want to wonder what I’ve been missing anymore.

If you don’t know what Burning Man is, I can’t explain it yet. But I hear that even people who’ve been there for years and years still can’t explain it, that his why I like this quote from the FAQ: “Trying to explain what Burning Man is to someone who has never been to the event is a bit like trying to explain what a particular color looks like to someone who is blind.” Whoa, deep! :downs:
There’s always an entry in the trusty WikiPedia, so read up over there if you’re interested, and maybe I’ll see you there!

Turns out that in a month, I’ll be spending almost a week in Providence, Rhode Island. I was notified yesterday that I’d be assisting the SIIM 2007 Annual Meeting, and it happens to be on the other end of the map.
No worries though, I won’t have to pay anything extra, and it should be a lot of fun. I will be accompanied by Josh, the Network administrator here at RDC (that’s where I work, to keep you all in the loop), and we’ll be gone for 6 days.

I have no idea what there is to do out in Providence, but it does look like we have a pretty occupied schedule anyways, so there should be plenty for us to do at the convention center. Still, I’d like to get out and about, since I would have never gone to Rhode Island by myself, and I don’t know when I will again. Any suggestions? So far, my best idea is to verify that Providence has more coffee/doughnut shops per capita than any other city in the country (according to this little article), and to assess their quality :v:. But more seriously, WikiTravel will probably be our best guide.

Yesterday I was browsing good ole Craigslist, and I found this backpack. I immediately emailed the guy, and 3 emails later, we had agreed on a place and time to meet.
Later in the evening, we met, and after trying the backpack on, I decided I’d take it. It fits great, and it’s just what I was looking for, at a third the price I was about to pay for a new one. :toot:

Once again, Craigslist comes through. Besides this, it’s helped me find:

• A great job ( my job here at RDC started by replying to a post in Craigslist! ).
• Mountain-bike.
• Helmet for when I was riding the Vespa.
• A buyer for the Vespa (Yes, we sold it last week).
• A 2nd snowboard, with bindings and all.

What’s not to love about it? :D

We’re back from Florida, nice and tan. Reno welcomed us with a cold front, and snow last night. :psyduck: And speaking of Reno, I’ve created a new “category” so that I can throw out here things that have to do with the place we live in. Firstly, I’d like to mention a few blogs and websites that are a more modern approach to local news, so check ‘em out!

• http://www.renolanslide.com
• http://www.renodiscontent.com/
• http://www.downtownmakeover.com/
• http://hollandreno.org/

We’re having an awesome time out here. Steve (Stef’s dad) and Leslie (Steve’s wife) are being great hosts, and are showing us a good time. Florida is also treating us pretty well, with nice warm temperature and sunny skies while we’re at the beach.
I’ll make a list of things we’ve done so far:

• Parties at the “chicki hut”, a party spot in the backyard. Fun times!
• Swimming, tanning and volleyball at Bonita Beach.
• Fishing from Captain Steve’s boat. It was my first time fishing, and I caught a nice fat Snook!  Stef was showing off, and was fishing like a pro. It is worth noting that Steve is an actual Captain, and has his own charter fishing business, so we were in great hands.
• Kayaking up and down the Estero River. We rented a couple of kayaks and padded until our shoulders were about to pop out of their sockets.
• Rode in Steve’s 1984 Jeep, that he fully restored to its current state.

And lots more… and even more to come! Tonight we’re going to hang out and chill-out, since we’ve been pretty busy and doing lots of things. Stef is cooking something special, and it’s starting to smell pretty good in here. I think I better go check, and make sure everything is tasting right. ;)

Tomorrow morning we leave, heading to the home of Stef’s dad: Bonita Springs. We’ll be there for a week, and we are leaving without knowing anything about what will happen during that week.
We haven’t seen Steve (Stef’s dad) in almost 4 years, so it’ll be nice to see him. It will also be nice to catch some ocean air, and maybe even soak in it a few times. :toot:

The day after Christmas (that’s December 26th, just to be clear), early in the morning (that’s at 5am, to be clear too!) we left for Oklahoma.
We arrived at around noon, and even though the flight had been without complications, United Airlines had somehow managed to loose one of our suitcases. Admittedly, it might have had something to do with the snow storms that Denver had suffered, and how backed up everything was there. Fortunately, they were able to get the suitcase to us about 8 hours later, which was pretty good service!
We spent most of our time at Stef’s paternal grandparent’s house, in Noble. We also went and spent a night at her mom’s dad’s place in Purcell, and we even got to have lunch with Gary’s dad, in Norman.
The main thing that we did was visit and eat. It was nice :)
We came back on January 1st, arriving just a little bit before midnight. Luckily, no luggage was misplaced in this trip!

Yesterday (Tuesday January 2nd!), we both went back to work, and have been trying to resume our “normal” lives. I already have a few calls lines up from ComputerTechs, and I’m still working out at the gym consistently.
When I have a couple of hours, I’ll be working on a couple of projects for the website:
1) A plugin that will allow for translation to Spanish, and perhaps even other languages.
2) A long-due update to the picture album.
However, my computer has been acting kind of funky, so I’ll have to figure out what is going on in there before I can really do much with it.