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It had been awhile since I’ve had a chance to visit nyc. While mostly I was excited to be back, I forgot how needlessly intimidating New York really was. I was reminded of this pretty fast when I flashed one my classic cheesy smiles and a couple of raised eyebrows. I guess that’ll teach me to be friendly. My dad was a lot more patient than I was but even he got visibly agitated when he asked a couple of questions to the baggage claim attendant and got nothing back but dismissive one word responses.

BTW, the rain smells in new york. I mean, I know that sounds like a weird thing to say but it really does. A cross between metallic paint and wet dog fur. I mean, do you New Yorkers not notice all this stuff when you’re out there busy ‘representin?’. Moving on…

That night my cousin Janice dropped us off to stay my other set of cousins Kevin, Alan, and Ryan. It was nice to see them after such a long time. There was none of that awkwardness that usually happens when people haven’t talked in a long time ya know? We just picked up where we left off and caught up with what’s been going on since we last spoke to each other. We did this for the remainder of the night… it was nice.

The next day the entire Mayalil family went to Alin’s wedding ( pretty much the reason for my trip ). It was in this really great place called Russo’s By the Bay. The ceremony and reception hall had this rich feel to it, almost like I just stepped into a small Victorian era palace. By far, the most memorable thing about this place was the food. I counted 4 courses and each of them was really flavorful. Although the DJ wasn’t the best I still tried to make sure that everyone at our table was having fun.

After the wedding, we all came back and chilled at Kevin’s place and busted out the Cranium board. We took our time getting started though. I found out that I am really good at drawing accurate minute long sketches and not as good as I thought in the spelling cards <<curse you yellow cards>>. We (Iris, Ryan and I) ended up losing by one card… not too bad for someone who has only played it twice.

Fun times, and all of this in one day…

• I cannot wait to go to my first BarCamp Orlando dev day tomorrow. #
• Testing out my Twitter-wordpress integration #
• taking shelter from the rain #
• At the “Unit Testing is for Weenies” talk. I am hoping this one is as good as I think it is. #

Not as cool as this but I still love my two wall cubicle at Bonnier.

Reflections of a computer scientist….What do computers tell us about God… I was really expecting much more of a sophisticated presentation.read more | digg story

Heard this from my Pastor the other day… it really rushes to my head now when I need it:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. ~ Phillipians 4:8

I hope it helps you as well. Later.

So the last thing I want is to have my blog go stale.There’s been plenty happening but it seems like I don’t have time to share everything about what’s going on.

Let me see if I can sum up everything in one post.For starters, Happy New Year to all of you out there on the World Wide Web. So far, 2008 has been humming happily along. Managed to make a lot of resolutions only to find out a day after New Year’s that, yes, I had a certain obsession with all things sweet and sugary and there was no way that my new diet is going to work out for me. Ah, I wish it was last year again… it was around this time last year that the entire family went on them fancy Atkins diets. I tell you that first week was just painful but after about two months I lost a solid 15 pounds!! Now that’s a great diet! However, this year I have been a lot harder to motivate… maybe a couple of extra hard thumps felt in my chest will put me back on track. we shalle shee…

Next, wanna comment on projects that I swore I would take up this year. Brian, one of my former colleagues(who is now happily and gainfully employed from what I hear) threw an old G3 iMac in my direction. My hope is that I can turn the shell into a Macquarium! Wouldn’t that be cool?? I am gonna take some time out this weekend to start on this one… I can hardly wait!!I am also interested in making my mark on Facebook. I have been playing around with the basic API and I have got a couple of ideas so far that I want to try out. I’ll keep this blog posted. Very interesting stuff though…Some other pretty interesting stuff has been happening but I wouldn’t feel right about sharing it until… well until.. it’s fully developed?

Anyway, till next time just wanna leave you guys with my endorsement for one of the better animated series I have seen in awhile. The Boondocks is an enjoyable piece of work. Saw the entire first season last weekend. Be careful though, it is only supposed to be viewed if you can take “satire urban comedy”. Pretty good watch though.

It’s taken a few more days than I would have liked but I finally got my MacBook Pro in the mail today. More details when I feel like sharing them with you. Still, kind of sore from the Windows to OS X move but I think it is the right decision. For now, I am breathing deep… the air smells a bit more cleaner for some reason.