All posts by chivacongelado

Using an iPad

July 2, 2011 chivacongelado

I waited to buy an iPad until the second version was released as I’ve had issues before with buggy software as an early adopter of technology. It won’t replace your PC nor your mobile phone, but occupies a very sweet niche in between. It has certainly modified the media consumption landscape in my household, so let me explain.

Boot-up time is not an issue, so it lives with us in the living room and is available at any time. I can check e-mail or the web while watching TV or show videos to my son in the screen. Paired with services such as Skimm.tv I know exactly what I want to watch and when I want to watch it. My morning routine now includes watching the football highlights from the device with my son while having breakfast, in a win-win situation for us all.

Everybody talks about apps and games for the iPad (and yes, whatever you’re thinking about doing, there’s an app for that) but the other use it really has helped me with is with reading books, magazines and comics. If you travel and read as much as me you hate the weight of that 900-page book you can’t finish at home or carrying all those back issues of the Economist you haven’t had time to read and with a pretty decent catalog of Marvel and DC comics I have something to do besides work when on the road. Even better, if I’m traveling with family we can watch TED talks together in the train or plane and the journey becomes that bit shorter.

A person I met in Argentina was trying to understand what is the use for it as it’s too big for a smartphone and too small for a computer. Writing a blog post or working on a presentation on an iPad, while possible, is not particularly easy. However, consumption of information is a breeze (as long as it’s not in Flash :P).

Just make sure you leave home with a full charge. 🙂

in english

Foo Fighters in Helsinki

July 1, 2011 chivacongelado

Great to see the Foo Fighters live again and really glad that I was not the only one in the audience who knew the songs by heart starting from their first album in ’95, as it was last time. Hopefully it won’t be 3 years again before I get so see them perform again.

en español, in english

They shall call him… Little Pea

June 28, 2011 chivacongelado

He arrived unheralded and unknown in one of the best football teams in Europe from the biggest team in Mexico, where he rose from obscurity to become one of the biggest stars in the league and the national team having scored 21 goals in 28 matches.

After a summer where he scored against fancied teams such as France, Argentina or Spain, everybody (including himself) were very sceptical about his impact with his new club. They shouldn’t have bothered. His hunger and instinct in front of goal have been impressive, and he’s got a catalogue of impressive, resourceful and plain weird goals to his name: with his face, his hip, the back of his head, his heels, between two defenders, running into space, Panenka-style penalties, etc.

The bit that really impresses me about him is his attitude towards life. You see him playing every game with his heart out both for club and country, he’s always courteous with the fans and seems to have a pretty solid family life. Youth needs more examples like that.

en español

¿Ciudadanos de segunda? Mexicanos nacidos en el extranjero

June 20, 2011 chivacongelado 2 Comments

Mis nietos, si nacen fuera de México, no podrán ser mexicanos aunque su padre lo sea mientras cualquier persona sin lazos de parentesco con el país puede acceder a la nacionalidad mexicana mientras haya nacido allá, aún cuando el resto de su vida la pase en cualquier otro lugar.

Este rollo de las nacionalidades no está hecho pensando en el mundo globalizado en el que vivimos, pero para cambiar la ley no es tan sencillo ya que estamos hablando de la Constitución. ¿Algún político se apunta?

in english

Greece, magical Greece

June 18, 2011 chivacongelado

One of my favourite books growing up was an illustrated introduction to Greek history and mythology, with photographs of the most important archaeological sites. In 11 years living in Europe I hadn’t had a chance to visit Greece until now. It was too short and a history buff like me will have to return.

The story in pictures (more here, as usual).

Walking around Corinth — Modern Corinth doesn't have a lot of sights, but the flora more than made up for it.

Finally, my childhood dream, the Parthenon. 😀

Rally Greece Ceremonial Start — Not a bad sight to start your event at.

Austerity protests in Athens — The state of the Greek economy is all over the news. Thankfully this is as close to the protests as we got.

Loutraki sunset in HDR — I'll have to come back on holiday to really enjoy the place.

in english

Mexican Geography for Europeans

June 5, 2011 chivacongelado 1 Comment

One of the challenges I’ve had in explaining the security situation in certain parts of Mexico to some of my friends and colleagues has simply been the fact that people don’t necessarily understand the size of the country.

Now, courtesy of ifitweremyhome.com, I found this excellent map superimposing Mexico on top of Europe to prove my point. Just as people going to the beaches of Greece and Turkey didn’t need to worry about the Glasgow airport bombers, it makes little sense to worry about the security situation in the northern border if you’re going to the beaches of central and southern Mexico. I certainly won’t, and I go there every year (If you need tips, I wrote a small guide some time ago).

That’s what drives me crazy sometimes about the international news coverage of the country. I’m not telling you that there aren’t places that are screwed up, but using that brush for the whole place is misleading.

en español, in english

Córdoba, Argentina

June 3, 2011 chivacongelado

I had visited Argentina before in 2004-05 (during their summer) and had a chance to do so again recently. This time I didn’t have the opportunity to stay in Buenos Aires, beautiful city as it is, but was in the province of Córdoba for work. The people have always treated me well (even if someone did remark I speak like somebody from TV due to my accent :P), the food is wonderful and the landscapes of such a varied country are very beautiful.

Pictures are more eloquent than words, so some below (more here).

Bombilla de Mate — Mate is an institution.

Lago San Roque HDR — Villa Carlos Paz is the main holiday destination in Córdoba. No wonder why.

Monumento a los caídos en las Malvinas — The Falklands (Malvinas) war is still a sore point.

Bife de Chorizo al punto — The amount and quality of the beef on offer is not for the faint of heart. I can't imagine there being many vegetarians around.

WRC SS4 El Cóndor — One of the mythical stages of WRC, El Cóndor. We even saw condors there (no kidding).

Rally has a huge tradition (and traction) in Córdoba as you can gather from the ads below (1, 2).

in english, suomeksi

Finland World Ice Hockey Champions

May 18, 2011 chivacongelado

The Finnish national passion is ice hockey, where unfortunately the team hasn’t been as successful as their fan involvement would warrant. The only world championship until last week’s victory was won in 1995, and the party then has become legendary.

I was finally able to experience that this week. People started to believe in the team after the victory over Russia in the semis, where Mikael Granlund’s lacrosse-style goal has become the centerpiece of many a highlight reel. Then, the final itself was a thriller: Sweden led the scoreboard until Finland tied at the end of the second period, showing a strength of mind that many of their predecessors lacked (the ignominious 5-6 of 2003 comes to mind) and then went on a roll to win the championship.

The celebrations in Helsinki were wild and kicked off on Sunday night. The reception of the champions was organised in the Market Square the day after, and over 100,000 people attended (the whole country has 5.3 million people, so one could say almost 2% of Finland was there to celebrate).

The only black spots were the obvious inebriation of many in the team and the not-very-child-friendly music selection for what was a very public party, but in the end it was a shot of self-esteem and unity Finland really needed.

P.S. I think they should use Antero Mertaranta for the listening portion of the Yleiskielentutkinto (the official Finnish language exam). That’d make it hard enough! 😀

in english

Sardinia

May 10, 2011 chivacongelado

Visited Sardinia for work. Beautiful, sunny place with a climate and landscape pretty similar to that of the coast of Sonora in spring (heresy, you’ll say).

It had been a while since I had been to Italy, which was the first country I visited in Europe back in the summer of 1997. Funny how I see certain bits of their behaviour with Finnish eyes now, even if I still speak something resembling Italian and can communicate with them.