A Portuguese Immigrant

White morning.

2011-02-06T18:19:00.000-06:00

Austin is not like the Rio Grande Valley where Edinburg is.

This morning I got a good reminder of that very fact:

Only fun when you're not running against the clock!

Well, I made to work and back! ;)

Becoming a Citizen

2010-08-26T08:46:00.000-05:00

Today I become a citizen of the United States.
In a few hours, my citizenship ceremony will start, and that will be the end of my permanent residency.
I am sitting at home right now, shirt, tie, fancy shoes, and all that jazz...
But hey, it's a one time event.

As you can tell, Austin life has slowed down blog posting.
This is due to having a 40+ hr week job for a change. A fun one, by the way ;) And things like this on my calendar:

Anyway, pictures will follow (eventually), so, keep an eye out for that.
For those following my Picasa updates, the pictures will be there first.

Austin

2010-05-28T10:48:00.000-05:00

Ever since my first visit to Austin, I felt that this could be a nice place to live.

Little did I know that by May 2010 I would be an Austin resident.

The moving operation started last friday, and by late saturday we were more or less settled.

Austin is a cool place. "Keep Austin Wierd" is a popular saying around here.

Some friends of mine say I'm weird. That leads me to conclude I am in the right place.

So from now on, for those of you who were trying to visit me in Edinburg, forget it.

Things just got better. It is Austin, Texas, now!

Graduation 2010

2010-05-17T00:05:00.000-05:00

First of all, I would like to thank my wife.
She was the true support that made it all worth enduring.

And now, for the shot of the day:

Yes, I it is blurry, it is the big screen

(I was really far away)

but it is the golden moment of the ceremony!

However, another great gift was given by my great friend K, that made my dad's arrival possible. I will forever be grateful to him for making this next shot possible:

From left to right:

Nell, me, and my Dad!

A big thanks to everyone that shared this day with me, and made it such a treat.

Even if you were seeing it from a far, online.

I hope you guys saw the thumbs up I sent directly to the camera, right after that hand shake shot (first picture in this post.). I knew where the camera was, so... i couldn't help it.

That non captured thumbs up was for everyone I knew was watching the event online.

However, I would also like to apologize for not having warned about the online streaming a bit earlier. I was still studying for finals 3 days before the ceremony, so that may have not been a perfect timing.

Degree? Done!

2010-05-12T21:13:00.000-05:00

I came home with a different state of mind today.

Today, I submitted my last paper for a class, finals exams are done, and there is nothing else to be tested on. All finals, all papers, all classes! Everything is taken care of.

So as of today, I am a computer scientist. I am, for now, no longer a student.

This weekend I will attend my commencement ceremony.

And because we live in the information age, the ceremony will be transmitted over the web.

So, this Saturday at 9:00, my time, 15:00, Portugal time, you can go here and check the ceremony live.

Make sure you're paying attention, because someone will mispronounce my name right before I walk to the stage and get my certification. ;)

Last stage.

2010-03-15T12:30:00.001-05:00

Precisely 5 years ago, I was flying to the United States for the first time.

Today, I went to the post office to mail my last stack of paperwork concerning immigration.

I am now applying for naturalization. If it gets approved, I will no longer be a permanent resident. I will instead be an American Citizen.

From that point onwards, I will no longer have to worry about immigration status, or traveling arrangements. I will be free to go anywhere just as I used to do when living in Portugal. Also, I will be able to vote in all elections.

I will from that point on, have two nationalities. Dual citizenship.

Looking back, I would say it was the most exciting time of my life. I saw amazing places, met amazing people, amazing friends, gained another family, and all this because of one person that made it all possible. A very special thanks to that person, my friend, my partner, my love, my wife.

Today is Tiger Woods day.

2010-02-19T15:59:00.000-06:00

Self righteousness isn't nice.

I have a TV behind me using up the last 2 hours on the same topic. A superstar got some sex outside of marriage. Wow! I had never heard about such things before! lol Oh wait, rock stars, presidents, priests, you name it...

To get the TV ratings, the process is simple: show the drama, and if there isn't any, make it. And if you are a news network, be creative and put that on stand by.

Tiger Woods is an alpha male. Rich, at the top of his game, successful.

Whatever the problem is with his personal life, it is what it ultimately is: private!

I don't really understand why people think their kids' education should come from their role models, instead of from themselves, and then act like a bunch of cry babies because their role model is just like them: human.

Specially when the role model just wants to play golf.

Ultimately, I don't care one bit about Tiger Woods.

I just care about it enough to write this:

The world needs a lot on information to be provided by the so called news networks.

If only the news networks were as good at reporting important news as Tiger Woods is at playing golf... what a nice world that would be.

Stupid Trash

2010-02-03T22:38:00.000-06:00

As I was about to arrive at the bus stop, a guy coming my way unwraps a piece of candy, stuffs it in his mouth and casually drops the wrapping paper to the ground.

Unfortunately, this behavior is international.

More occurring in some places than in others, but still, unfortunately international.

I still amazes me that even in a college environment (the bus stop was for the campus shuttle buses), someone is capable of completely ignoring the fact that it is everyone's tax money that will have to pay some dude to come clean after this guy. Actually, part of the guy's taxes will pay someone to clean up after him.

I hate trash. I really do.

So much that whenever someone defends it with the argument that it creates jobs, I immediately suggest making it socially acceptable to spit on people so that we can create a new job: the mobile spit stain cleaner.

There is only one thing I hate more than trash:

To see the wrapper flying in the wind while the stupid trash walks away sucking a piece of candy.

Religion is chasing me!

2010-01-25T13:19:00.001-06:00

A couple of weeks ago, religious friends of ours (mine and Nell) asked us to go to some event that their church organized.
The reason for the invitation is pretty obvious:
Nell is an Agnostic, I am a militant Atheist, and the event was about Faith and Doubt.

We went, we listened, and we came home to talk about it.
Unfortunately, Atheists were not very well portrayed, and I left under the impression that every religious person in that room now likes atheists a bit less after having heard what we did.
I am not going to get into details about that, because I know my audience. ;)
Let us just say that the explanations about what we represent were accurate, the quotes of popular atheists were too, but the conclusions were pretty offset by the emotions of faith.

As such, and after stating my opinions to my friends, I was invited back (oh, the event is a 4 week presentation on Faith and Doubt, that's why) to see it through, and now the presenter knows they had and will have an Atheist in their midst. I told him on their website.

Now remains to be seen how different the speech will be.
More details on the blog: Religious Faith Challenger, soon!

Monster Jam

2010-01-23T21:38:00.003-06:00

I know Americans like big vehicles.
But I had never been near a show where the cult to the big vehicle was the main point.
This all changed today:

When you follow the truck with the camera over and over in the hopes that you will get a flying focused truck, you are bound to get lucky at some point, as I did in the above picture.

Another interesting detail was the fact that noise blockers were highly recommended. I still thought I could handle all the noise. But in the end, I thanked Nell for having brought ear plugs. :)

No more Pizza Hut!

2009-12-31T12:24:00.003-06:00

At some point during the last school semester, I got myself a chance of applying for a job on UTPA campus. Assistant Webmaster at the online newspaper, in addition to being a server at Pizza Hut.

After telling my manager about my upcoming availability changes, the manager encouraged me to do it, stating that we had too many servers at the time. Cool.
I was now a full time student, and had two part time jobs. The hours were cool though.

Later, it turned out that we didn't have servers to pick up the last shift of the day, and they started assuming I was going to be the guy to fill in for the people that are supposed to be on the last shift, and scheduled me to do it. In the interest of fairness, I did that for about 7 weeks, in the hopes of seeing a closer or two get hired. People come and go, so, why not give them a hand?

After a few requests to get the schedule I had before, excuses came to justify them doing whatever they want even though my availability wasn't matching their requirements... over and over and over again.
Their excuse?: "Nobody likes to close, so everyone closes when needed."

After running out of diplomatic options, something had to be done.
Solution? Simple: Quit. Done.

Another semester!

2009-12-21T16:03:00.002-06:00

This school semester ended last week. It finally created the free time I wanted to catch up to some pending tasks, one of which is this: blogging.

One more semester and I'm all done.
More on that later.

In the meantime, all is well.
I will be eligible to apply for US Citizenship in a few months, and as far as immigration goes, that will be the end of it.

Everything else remains the same. ;)

Mexican Cab Driver

2009-10-20T12:40:00.001-05:00

This is not a portrait of Mexicans in general.
However, it is an accurate description of an amazing breed of humans (the ones that usually exist everywhere in the world in more or less abundance) that Mexico can also create.

My sister is living in Mexico (in Mexico City to be more precise) for a few months.
This happened to her:

My sister got into a cab with a friend, and so they went.
As they were talking, they noticed the radio was a bit loud. The taxi driver was paying attention to whatever debate of some sort was going on.

Cab in Mexico City, Mexico.

My sister's friend asked the driver:

"Would you mind lowering the radio a little bit?"

The cab driver pulled over and responded:

"I am trying to listen to it. If you don't like it, you can get out."

They did.

Note: for the record, my sister has taken rides with cab drivers that were much nicer than this one. But then again, that is not too hard to accomplish, is it?

Cars and Human Nature

2009-09-21T13:49:00.004-05:00

In less than a month, both our cars got damaged. The smart fortwo got scratched, by someone, front to back, with a key, and the Malibu got hit this morning by someone backing out of a car space across from ours. Hit and run, no note, no phone number...

This type of destruction, in less than a month, is not a Texan thing, nor an American behavior. It is just human nature. It is simply the result of living in an affordable place, where anyone can stay and live, from the richest, to the poorest loser that can afford the rent but not the fixing of a neighbors' car that they just hit. We all know that rich people don't live here, so we also know who we are left with: the non-rich, and the occasional loser(s).

Humans are the only species on the planet that was able to come up with ideas such as torture, killing for pleasure, the atom bomb, or, hit and run!
I am not talking about hitting a car in a parking lot and running away, but the real serious hitting of another human being and then running away from doing the decent thing: helping.

For both cases (hitting a car or a person, then running away), I believe the solution to be very easy: force people to take on the responsibility of such actions towards other people's property or body. The penalty? Oh, I think a few surveillance cameras and my imagination when it comes to sentencing would do just fine... ;)

At least in my parking lot...

What about that trip to Portugal?

2009-08-25T10:29:00.006-05:00

About a week ago, I had the pleasure to go back to Portugal, visit my family, my friends, and other things I left behind when I left my country to come the U.S.A..

Also, I was in excellent company, and took with me four Americans: my wife, her brother, her brother's wife, and a great friend of ours.
To all of them except my wife, that was their first trip to Portugal, and their first trip to Europe.

Before I start rambling about how I felt about seeing my family 3 years older, and how I missed this and that, I would like to extend an invitation to all that came with me to Portugal.

I invite all that came with me to Portugal, to send me an email with what they thought about the whole experience, what their favorite moments were, the food, how did they like Portugal, in general, and how the whole trip compared to the expectations they had.

If any of them feel like doing just that, I will share their thoughts here, (with their permission, of course!) with them as guest writers of this blog. Let's hope they feel like it! ;)

On the comments to this post, feel free to post generic questions that you would like to know, so that they can answer them if they want. The faster you ask, the better the odds of them reading those questions before they write their thoughts about it all.

Drive to the trash.

2009-07-08T23:36:00.003-05:00

My apartment complex is very simple. Two story buildings a few meters apart from one another, each with usually 4 apartments on each side.

Today, I was amazed at how someone's laziness, made him put a trash bag on the passenger seat, drive the car 100 meters to the trash container, then drive those same 100 meters back, park, and finally head back into the apartment.
It all could have been a 2 minute walk each way.
Where I grew up, someone would have laughed at this.

Visiting home.

2009-07-07T19:17:00.002-05:00

Next month, the trip to Portugal will happen.
In a couple of weeks, it will have been three years that I left Portugal and flew to the United States as an immigrant.

Preparations are happening, and those 10 days will be all I have to enjoy once more, the good things, nice places and great people that still exist back home.
I am excited to go back home, even if just for a short while.

Religious Faith Challenger

2009-06-30T09:36:00.003-05:00

When I was living in Portugal, I would never feel the need to have a religion related blog. However, after arriving at the United States of America, I felt that voicing a non religious view of the world was more important than ever.
I have to admit that Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Bill Maher and others, indirectly motivated me to do so.
But religion is a tricky subject. Falls out of the realm of logic and healthy thinking. That means that if someone really wants it, they can stick with whatever randomly generated lunacy they desire, and the world will be here to protect those beliefs.
I found that to be a very disturbing reality not to do anything about.

In a world where atheism grows year after year, it only made sense to me that I would be just one more to give a helping hand to that tendency. I am doing it here.

We're back!

2009-06-26T12:49:00.003-05:00

Hello again. After a long long pause, this blog is coming back.
With my immigration process drawing to a close, it makes total sense to wrap up my portuguese written blog about this whole experience.

Given that, this blog is going to be the one where I am going to be dropping my cultural opinions, relevant experiences, and ultimately, keep in touch with friends.
It sucks when people ask "So how have you been? What have you been up to?" and then the answer is: "It's been cool, the usual, you?"

Not me.
I'll dump it in here.
Keep an eye on it.

News on the paper work.

2005-12-08T18:04:00.000-06:00

The paperwork is getting closer once more.
Nell and I are happy since we saw some progress now. We were getting pretty impatient.
We are now on paperwork dated August the 3rd. 3 more months and it's us (November the 2nd, actually).
Let's see how it works out from here.
It's going to take longer than we think.

A new section in this Blog.

2005-12-08T08:51:00.000-06:00

This blog will, from now on, have a section with my personal preferences when it comes to music, software, etc...
Just to let my closest friends know where are my endless computer hours going to! lol
Hope you like it!

Passport

2005-11-30T21:39:00.000-06:00

"Good news, everyone!"
I got my passport today. The postman came to hand it to me personally yesterday but because i wasn't home or didn't answer the door, he took the passport back to the post office and left a notice in my mail box. So i got it today by going there with my ID and the notice. They don't leave important documents in our mail boxes here. They always hand them to people or leave a notice and take them back to the post office.

Paper work...

2005-11-19T13:18:00.000-06:00

Our paper work is getting closer to being processed.
They're no longer working on papers dated July the 7th. Although slow, they are now getting closer to our papers, dated November the 4th. The sad thing is that they're still stuck on papers dated July the 15th. Not much of an advance, but... we have to be patient.

Immanuel Kant once said:

2005-11-15T18:50:00.000-06:00

"Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life."

Portugal just got better.

2005-11-14T12:22:00.000-06:00

My government increased the minimum national salary in something like an extra 37 cents a day.
I feel so much better now.