American Kids vs. Hispanic Kids

American Kids: Move out when they’re 18 with the full support of their parents.
Hispanic Kids: Move out when they’re 28, may have saved for that nice house and are a week away from getting married …. unless there’s room in the basement for the newlyweds.

American Kids: When their Mom visits them she brings a nice bundt cake and you sip coffee and chat.
Hispanic Kids: When their Mom visits them she brings 3 days worth of food, a pot of soup and immediately begins to tidy up, dust & do the laundry.

American Kids: Their dads always call before they come over to visit them and its usually only on special occasions.
Hispanic Kids: Are not at all fazed when their dads come over, unannounced, on a Saturday morning at 8:00 and starts pruning the peach & Lemon trees.  And if there are none, he will plant some!   

American Parents: You can leave your kids with your parents and you always worry if everything is going to be ok plus you have to feed them after you pick them up.
Hispanic Parents: No problem, leave your kids there and if they get out of line your parents can set them straight …. plus they get bathed, fed and get told stories of when you were young.

American Kids: Always pay retail and look in the yellow pages when they need something done.
Hispanic Kids: Just call their dad or uncle and ask for another dad’s or uncle’s phone number to get it done…cash deal.

American Kids: Will come over to visit their parents and get only cake and coffee, no more.
Hispanic Kids: Will come over to visit their parents and get B-B-Q, Carnitas, carne asada , mexican rice, beans, chips & chile (salsa) , Tortillas, a nice flan, sodas, Kool-aid or some drinks…usually it will be a late dinner as well.

American Kids: Think that being Latin is a great thing,
Hispanic Kids: Know that being Latin is a great thing,

American Kids: Never ask the reason you have no food.
Hispanic Kids: Are the reason you have no food.

American Kids: Will say ‘hello” but are hesitant to hug.
Hispanic Kids: Will give you a big hug and a kiss, and great big hand shake and pat you on the back.

American Kids: Hardly invite others over to eat or they’ll have to share their portion.
Hispanic Kids: Always have your friends over to have something to eat -regardless

American Kids: Call your parents Mr. and Mrs.
Hispanic Kids: Call your parents mom & dad.

American Kids: Have never seen you cry.
Hispanic Kids: Cry with you.

American Kids: Will eat at your dinner table and leave.
Hispanic Kids: Will spend hours there, talking, laughing and just being together.

American Kids: Borrow your stuff for a few days then give it back.
Hispanic Kids: Keep your stuff so long they forget it’s yours.

American Kids: Know a few things about you.
Hispanic Kids: Could write a book with direct quotes from you.

American Kids: Will leave their parents behind.
Hispanic Kids: Will hang out with their parents.

American Kids: Would knock on your door.
Hispanic Kids: Walk right in and say, “I’m home!”

American Kids: Are for a while.
Hispanic Kids: Are for life.

American Kids: Will ignore this.
Hispanic Kids: Will forward this.

I wonder which way Jannike will turn out to be…

Grab That Bull

 

My friend Juan went to NYC and took this very original picture with the Bull on Wall St…Nice.

That looks like something I would have done too.

“Leo is…” [Facebook Status]

One of the most important features of Facebook, if not the most important, is the status message. That little feature that helps you keep track of what your “friends” are up to. I must confess, I’m a Facebook status junkie and it is sort of a love-hate relationship because sometimes I spent hours in front of my computer just jiggling at the things people put in there and sometimes I find it extremely annoying too. Overtime I’ve been noticing some trends and I’ve been able to categorize the authors by their status messages. So this is my attempt at presenting the most common (at least in my group of “friends”) kind of ‘status updaters’:

• The OCD: Let’s start by the one that I often find to be the most annoying. The OCD is that “friend” who finds it necessary to let you know what he or she is up to every 15mins through out the day. This is the kind of person that takes the default text in the status box (see picture) very, very seriously. You’ll pretty much know what this person is doing at any given time of the day, but beware, sometimes it gets a little bit too much. This person is able to do this thanks to mobile access and sometimes that’s all what their Facebook activity consists of.
• The Joe Cool: Joe Cool is that friend who rarely updates his/her status and when it does it just blows everyone away, to the point that you actually look forward to the time when they update their status again. Sometimes you wonder if between status’ updates all they do is trying to find the smartest and coolest thing to say. They never do it from their cell phone, they are too cool for that and their few and precious status messages usually generate a lot of comments because everyone likes to be associated with them.
• The Breaking News: This is the kind of person who usually abuse in a very deliberate way the exclamation sign. Whatever they say is usually followed by several repetitions of it and 99% of the time their status message is some sort of super important thing they want to share with the whole Facebook realm. Mobile is definitely their main tool and spelling or grammar is not really that important, the most important thing is to get the news out there and let everyone know. They generate a fair amount of comments usually by the same people who seems to always be excited for them. Some times I wonder if they are always running on an adrenaline rush.
• The Mexican Soup Opera: Definitely my least favorite “updater”, the Mexican Soup Opera is that “friend” who always, and I mean always, seems to be involved in some kind of drama. Their lives are like an infinite source of material for writers of “Days of our lives” it just keeps going and going. Their favorite posting times are usually first thing in the morning or late in the evening and they manage to generate very little comment usually from other friends showing unconditional support. I must confess this is one of the most intriguing categories of all, I always wonder what do they try to accomplish with their practice.
• The Philosopher: “To be or not to be” – The Philosopher is that person who wastes not their status message space with meaningless words. This person is always trying to let you know how smart he/she is and how deep their thoughts are. These are the ones that make me laugh the most because I personally think if you are really that wise I would think you have far more relevant and philosophical things to do in your life than to waste your limited time in this world in Facebook. These persons rarely use mobile access and are commonly ignored by the rest of us ignorants. 
• The Inside Joker: “Jane can’t believe you-know-who did you-know-what ” Yes, there are many of my Facebook friends who are always speaking in some kind code language that’s only understood by a few who have the privilege to be in their circle of trust. The vast majority of their status messages consist of you-had-to-be-there kind of messages leaving no opportunity for the rest of us to know what’s so funny. They usually update their status several times a day with the same kind of message and the amount of comments they generate are from those who “know” what they’re talking about and some other nosy person who always asks what they are talking about.
• The Pot Stirrer: We all have a “friend” like The Pot Stirrer, this is that person who knows how to push several people’s buttons with such a short message and knows how to get a reaction from them. Usually they drop the bomb and leave, what that means is that they rarely participate in the discussion they start with their messages. They can generate high amounts of comments but usually from the same two or three people who are killing each other because of this other person’s message. I have a feeling this person really enjoys doing this.
• The Fundamentalist: They could be confused as Pot Stirrers but they are not. The Fundamentalist is that “friend” who are very radicals about very specific subjects, the most common ones being, you guessed it, politics and religion. This is the kind of person who are always having some kind of political debate on their status or they want to let you know how close to spiritually perfect they are and everyone should be the same. They generate medium amount of comments and usually by people who disagrees with them.
• The Show Off: Do I need to say more? Doing that would be giving them the pleasure of getting the attention they earnestly seek.
• The Passive Aggressive: This is the person who is always talking ‘at’ or ‘about’ someone in a very indirectly manner. Basically they just feel like letting it out without having to have the balls guts to say it to their face. Who is he/she talking about? Is it you? or Tom? You’ll never know but somehow it bothers you and I’m sure the rest feel the same way. They generate no comments and I usually feel sorry for how lame their lives are [wow, I’m actually being one of them right now]  

 

At some point or another I’ve been one and all of them in my Facebook life and I’d like to say that I’ve matured but no, sometimes I reverse to one of these categories before I even realize it. So, there it is now I’ll get to see how many “friends” will “unfriend” me from Facebook, which might actually be a good thing,  because approaching 400 “friends” seems like a very unrealistic number of “friends” and I’ve tried to clean up my list a couple of times but it’s hard because I like to read and jiggle at their status messages all the time.

I Don’t Know What To Think About This

The picture above are the daily stats for Jannike’s Photoblog. As you can see the daily average of visitors to her blog is about 30-something, the vast majority of those visitors are family, relatives and close friends who like to look at her pictures. What’s funny about these stats is the steep peak on the 24th, you see, I posted a picture of Jannike holding my credit card. Then when I realized how stupid it was to post a picture of my credit card on the Internet for everyone to see, I went into Facebook and updated my status explaining what I just did. And seems like everyone poured in to check it out…hmm…sneaky people…did you want to look a Jannike’s picture or just at my credit card info? huh?

Cheney: Worst VP Ever

A new survey suggests that 23% say Vice President Cheney is the worst president in American history, while 1% say he was the best VP ever…

Let me tell what’s wrong with this poll, that 23% should be closer to 99.9% and that 1% should be closer to ‘0′

That’s just my opinion.

[Link]

My Two Babies

My baby girl Jannike was born two months ago and that same week when she was born I also got another baby: the T-Mobile G1 (aka The Google Phone).

So, let me tell you about my experience with these two very different and unique creatures. On this corner we have Baby J, adorable cute little thing (except at 3:00am), I’m still getting used to the idea of having a baby. She is doing great for a two months old but right now I can’t foresee having another kid and like I mentioned in a previous post time doesn’t seem to be passing as fast as people warned it would. I wish they were right, it actually feels like everything is in slo-mo, it must because I’m so sleep deprived. Again, I need to clarify, I love my baby girl and she is awesome, I can’t wait until she can actually interact instead of looking at me with her face so serious all the time.

On the other corner we have the G1, now let me say this right away, Android is not an iPhone killer yet. And that “yet” is the key word in that statement. Still, the Google phone is an awesome phone and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I always tend to cheer for the underdog and between the iPhone, BlackBerry and G1 the G1 is definitely the underdog. I love mostly every aspect about it, the only one thing I can’t stand is the short battery life. Seems like it never came to them they had to put a good battery in a touchscreen phone that can do a lot of things. I’ve never been a fan of smartphones but I’m glad I never had one until now. Is it perfect no, but it has a lot of good things going for it.

So, there you have it, I was able to write about my baby and my cellphone, all in the same post. Talk about things that are important.

Talent Can’t Compete With Bias

 It’s everywhere, it is better to be the favorite and have no talent than to be talented and not be the favorite.

 How do you compete against that? And it usually comes from the most unexpected places or people. 

Like they say: “It’s not about what you know but who you know”

Sad but true…and it’s everywhere.