five cents…

We celebrated my 30 year old birthday with friends and family in a disco. We wanted to try something a bit different.

Pictures are available here.

So after writing about some boring topics like telefonica, a skype phone, and so on, I couldn’t miss the opportunity of talking about our wedding


We got married on the 23rd of December in our city, Badalona. We still don’t have all pictures but here you have some of them:

• Alberto’s
• Judit’s
• Pepita’s

…I need to write this. I think I am a very calm guy but this is unbelievable.

Before we moved back to Badalona I asked my dad to contract the DSL service in our new place since I needed it to work from home.

1. My dad did his homework on May 12. He called Telefonica and after explaining the situation to the sales assistant, they suggested him to contract a new 10 Mb connection. It was a new service they were starting to offer for people that need a high connection at home.
2. After calling hundreds of times to get the service up, on June 22 they tell me that the 10 Mb connection is not feasible in our place for technical reasons. They tell me that I need to do a new service request that will take another 3 or 4 weeks. They suggest me doing the request using the online portal (still at Telefonica) since they are offering better prices and more options than by the phone service.
3. On June 23 I do an online request for a 4Mb connection. At the first attempt, the confirmation page goes blank so I call them to see if the transaction has been executed. They tell me that if I haven’t seen a confirmation number on the screen, the transaction is not effective. I repeat the process and I finally get a confirmation number.
4. On June 26 I receive three confirmation e-mails with three different service requests. I called Telefonica and they tell me that only one transaction will be effective.
5. I get the DSL kit on July 3. The service starts working on July 4 after testing it. Everything works fine.
6. On July 6, I login into the online portal since it’s not clear to me the service that I am getting. I send an e-mail asking about it.
7. On July 12, I get a response saying that the service I have is a 1Mb connection. With the e-mail they offer me a promotion that comes with the 1Mb service. They offer me free local and long distance calls paying an additional euro.
8. I called them and they say that they don’t know why a 4Mb hasn’t been installed since it possible to do that with my phone line. About the promotion, they say that I should cancel my existing service and get a new one that includes the promotion. I say no since I need the Internet connection for work and I cannot afford to spend days without internet.

After two months, I still don’t have the service that I wanted. They are offering me things that afterwards they cannot deliver,…and the sad thing is that I don’t see alternatives in the market.

After five years in the US we moved back to our hometown, Badalona. We are still getting adjusted…in many things…schedule, TV,… We are trying to arrange the apartment, throwing away some old stuff, painting, and buying some new things. It’s a lot of work but it will be great. We still don’t have dsl or phone service. I am actually writting this post since someone has an open wireless connection somewhere in the neighborhood.

After making a lot of effort and work, Claudia successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis yesterday. Congratulations Doctor Canals!

We are moving back to Barcelona by the end of May. It’s going to be another big change in our lives and there are plenty of things I’ll miss about the city, including:

• Friends living in NYC
• My commute, waking through the Columbia campus and from Times Square to 45th and Madison
• Netflix
• Naniwa restaurant
• Winter snow
• Internet speed
• Soha Cafe
• Strawberries from the farmer that sometimes comes in front of Columbia
• Brunch
• Central Park
• Sledding on the snow in Riverside park
• Le Monde restaurant
• Go for a walk at the Soho on the weekend

We had a big snow storm last night and today’s morning in NYC accumluating 26 inches (66 cm) of snow in Central Park. Yes! we finally got our sleds out of the closet

Pictures are available here.

The entire subway and bus public system was shutdown this morning causing a big mess in Manhattan. Seven milion people are affected including myself Even though cars can only get into the city if there are four people into the car, when I went outside early in the morning it was clear that there was a big traffic jam. Cars in Amsterdam and 125th street were not moving.

At the end my commute was not bad, I, as many, walked until 125th in the East side to get the North Line Train (they are not in strike at this point) until Grand Central. The only problem is that it was very cold (-6 celcius) and since it was a nice walk, I was pretty cold when I arrived at the station.

I asked here at work how long it lasted on the last strike. They said 11 days!

We didn’t run but we were there. See some pictues here.

Olga and Giorgio’s daughter got baptised on Saturday. Pictures are available here.

Today I got my first emergency kit at work. It is all carried in a nice small bag similar to this one.

The most surprising thing is that the kit includes a power bar!! I guess when there’s an emergency we need a lot of energy

This is the 101th post in this blog. They includes thougths and experiences about movies, books, sports, technology, travel, TV, XML, and life in general The site includes 79 comments from readers too! I want to thank everybody who has taken a look at this site. I hope to write 100 more

We had a busy weekend in the city. On Friday, we went to Opia to celebrate Patricia and Inaki’s birthday. We had dinner and a party afterwards. The place it’s really cool for parties and events. Click here to see pictures.

On Saturday we spent 4 hours walking and watching animals at the Bronx Zoo. It is one of the biggest zoos in the world! I was impressed by the tigers, the gorillas, cocodriles,…Pictures are available here.

It’s worth noticing not only the diversity on animals but also on people. I am not kidding. Going to the zoo in NYC allows you to see people from everywhere. The city it’s quite fragmented but the zoo is different. All kids want to go there, independently from culture, country of origin,..

On Sunday, we went to the Summer Stage in Central Park. We had lunch there and we listened to Las Ondas Marteles, Maria del Mar Bonet, and a couple of songs from Lila Downs. Pictures are available here.

Current weather in NYC deserves a posting in this blog It’s suffocating! Besides temperatures above 32 degrees celsius, the high humidity makes you feel even hotter. Now it’s 10 AM and the “feels like” temperature is 34 degrees. But this is nothing compared to what people feel in the subway stations. Since trains get all the hot air from their air conditioners out to the stations where people wait, I am sure we are above 40 degrees in there and it’s like being in hell!