Wedding Crunch Time

My wedding will be April 10th, in the beautiful Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. The planning for this wedding started almost immediately after our engagement, December 25, 2008. But, this is the point where the pressure starts to build, and it is not cold feet (at least not yet)… I am very confident that V is the one, but the wedding planning could be so daunting. Thankfully, V has been on top of things and I can’t imagine how she is coping with it.

We hired a wedding planner early on the process and incredulous me, thought it would be like in the HGTV or Bravo shows where everything just happens and I just have to show up. Well not quite… we have to deal with everything, flowers, decorations, local, photographer, music, food, cake, church, hotel, invitations, etc. Unbelievable, how many people make their living out of others getting married, I wonder if they are pro same sex marriage… you know how much more business they will have?!?! I may even think into getting in the business. The point is that once you come to an agreement with each of these vendors then the wedding planner will take over. Every ones says that they are worth their weight in gold the day of the wedding (thankfully our wedding planner is very petite), when everything just rolls smoothly and you get to enjoy.

Today, I heard a good advise from one of the co-workers in the floor. In the day of the wedding do not wear a watch or carry your cell phone. Not wearing a watch (or cell phone) will free you from time and schedule. Just go with the flow, if people are late, if a vendor is late, if you are late… don’t worry, be happy. Go with the flow, it is your day. This is the day in which you can be sure that people will wait for you. That said, do your best to be on time :-) for your future spouse’s sake. But don’t worry if the photographs are taking a bit long or if the food is taking a little longer than expected or if you have to… it is your wedding day, you don’t have to do anything except for…

1. Showing up (this step should be extended to ‘Showing up conscious and dress.”).
2. Say, “I do.”
3. Remember the ring (better yet, delegate that to your wedding planner)
4. Look into her eyes and tell her you love her (the bride, not the wedding planner, but maybe you’ll love her too once the day is over).
5. Optional, but very recommended… enjoy. A wedding cost too much to be spent stressed.

All that said, I’m not married yet. So, I will give real advise once I’m done…

Vote for a US Host City for the 2018/2022 FIFA World Cup

The US is making a run to host the 2018 or 2022 FIFA World Cup and it has a list of cities wanting to host it. Do your part and sign the petition for your favorite city, out of the 18 candidates, in this page or go here to read more about it.

Atlanta

Baltimore

 

Boston

Dallas

Denver

 

Houston

Indianapolis

Kansas City

Los Angeles

Miami

Nashville

New York, New Jersey

Philadelphia

Phoenix - Glendale

San Diego

Seattle

Tampa Bay

Washington DC

Crazy Texas Weather

Everyone in Texas is quick to tell you that if you don’t like the weather wait a couple of hours, because it is bound to change. I really wasn’t surprise with Austin weather, it is either hot or less hot most of the time and I’m used to the changing weather from Florida, where it could be pouring one minute and sunny (and super humid) the next or sometimes both at the same time. But the last few days have been pretty crazy here in Austin. Check it out:

• Sunday (February 21, 2010), Beautiful sunny day in the 70’s.

• Monday (February 22, 2010), Colder foggy day.

• Tuesday (February 23, 2010), Cold and snow!!!

• Today (February 24, 2010), Still chilly, but nice and sunny… What ever happen to the snow?

Here is a picture of the snow in IBM:

Quicker Ride Than Expected

Today (02/21/2010) was a beautiful day in Austin, low 70’s sunny day. V and I thought it would be a great time for a bike ride, so we headed out to attempt the same ride we did last Sunday, a twenty mile ride in the Avery Ranch area.

What was a nice ride last weekend turned sour quickly due to the wind. It was so windy that even going down hill was hard. We cut the ride short to 10 miles, but it was a very challenging ten miles.

Iron-V Multimedia Documentary Project

I mentioned my proposed documentary project in the previous post. I will be following V on her road to participating in Ironman Brazil next year. Initially, I wanted to photograph the story, but after doing some research I would like to expand the scope of the project to a multimedia and social documentary:

1) Multimedia – A multimedia documentary mixes all sorts of media to come up with an outcome which exploits each type in order to best tell the story. These include photography (documentary, portrait, environmental, etc.), video, audio (spoken or environmental) and music. The definition according to wikipedia.com, ‘A web documentary (or multimedia documentary) is a documentary production that differs from the more traditional forms—video, audio, photographic—by applying a full complement of multimedia tools.’ I would also include web page and web presentation.

2) Social – I would like to exploit the available social tools for documentary content delivery, sharing and advertising. Currently we are making some progress on this front since you can follow V’s progress on her blog IRON-V and I will continue to blog about the documentary progress.  I’m currently working on the website. Soon you should be looking for our Facebook group and follow V on twitter or buzz (as soon as I convince her to start posting).

I also would like to share with you some great sources for multimedia documentary:

• Multimediashooter.com is a great source on information, technique and examples.
• ‘Remember Me,’ a touching and great execution of such documentary.
• ‘9 Multimedia Projects You MUST Experience’

My First Documentary Project

As a holiday present, V registered me in a documentary photography course taught by Ben DeSoto at the Houston Center for Photography. I was super excited since I like photography, although I read more about it than I actually practice it and I have never really looked into documentary style photography before. The course was split into two days, the first day we talked about the telling of a story through photographs and the history and styles used by the best. The second class was a bit more about technique, technology and what styles current artist are doing.

After the first class, a seed was planted in my head and I wanted to nurture it and see what I can do, but the problem was that I could not come up with an idea for a story to tell with my photographs. I had no idea because I was looking out for inspiration, instead of looking in. When I did looked into what was important to me, the idea was so obvious. V was the first thing in my mind.

One of the reasons I’m so proud of V and so attracted to her is her determination, specially in her physical activities endeavors. She sets goals and trains long and hard to be able to accomplish it. That means waking up early in the morning to go train before work or running for miles at night or falling off the bike in mile 24 during the 2009 Longhorn Half Ironman, getting back up and not only finishing the bike with major road burn on her right arm, shoulder and left hand, but also finishing the half marathon run to complete the race.

Now that she completed the Half Ironman, she wants to finish the real thing, a full Ironman; a total of 140.6 miles (2.4 mi swimming, 112 mi bike, 26.2 mi run). This will be taking place in May 2011,  Ironman Brazil Florianopolis.  In the meanwhile she will be training hard, participating in events, getting married, completing the Texas Tri Series and two half-ironman's.

And that my friends, is my project, I will follow V from February 14, 2010 until she completes her goal on May 2011. It will be a long road, I hope you guys can appreciate it as much as I will and enjoy as I fall ever more in love with every stroke, pedal and step V takes.

First Bike Ride this Year

Yesterday, V and I went out for our first bike ride of the year, a 20 mile ride that took us from the Avery Ranch area to Cedar Park, Leander and then back ( You can see the route here or in the map below).

The morning started a bit chili and in a bit of rush, since I woke up late and had to get ready, place all of our gear in the car and get there in less than an hour…. but we did make it. If you want to read V’s input check out her IronV blog post for this event.

Overall we did great, averaging 15 mph… not bad for being the first ride in a very long while. I was particularly impress with myself in the mini hills, since I was able to attack them without loosing too much time recuperating. I also rode on the largest (heaviest) gears and was able to keep up with V, something I couldn’t do previously. I have been taking spinning classes 3x a week this year and I’m glad to see that they are paying off.

My New Year Resolutions

With the pitfalls mentioned in my previous post in mind I made a list of simple changes that I would like to achieve consistently through the year. To achieve the list I selected a number of domains in my life and tried to select three things that I would like to do to improve in that area. Some of the changes are minimal and some may be gradual, but I think all will improve me.

So here is my list, please don’t make fun of me :-) :

• Work Goals
  • Set up a two achievements per day behavior. I had a successful co-worker and friend when I used to co-op at Tivoli, which used to have a two achievements a day goal, which meant she set a to-do for the morning and one for the afternoon. She use to be surprisingly efficient, but if you look in your days between meetings and calls a lot of important to-dos get left behind, this way you always make time to get two done even if they are small.
  • Establish, actively update and promote an IBM internal blog. I got started on this one earlier, setting up the InfoSphere Security Talk blog, but usually my problem is actively updating the blog… that will be my challenge.
  • Complete status reports on time and keep a work log. Usually I got my manager asking me for status reports and then I don’t remember everything I’ve done.
• Personal & Fitness Goal
  • Lower my Body Fat Percentage to 15% by the end of the year. Right now I’m around 20 to 23% , I need an accurate measurement so I can start tracking my changes.
  • Continue to log my activities and food consumption daily. Pretty self-explanatory.
  • Better Grooming (Shave at least a couple of times daily and dress better for work.) This goal may seem weird, but I hate shaving… I don’t particularly like having a beard, but shaving is a pain, my skin get irritated and and I get ingrown hair, but I would like to increase my customer interaction at work so I should dress more presentable in a constant basis.
• Hobbies and Photography Goals
  • Setup and maintain a website in addition to this blog. I’m hoping to have a place where I can display my photography and to keep it updated monthly.
  • Complete a creative photography challenge book. David du Chemin is the author of the ‘pixalated image’ blog and a number of books, but some of his most interesting work is through PDF book (here) which usually number 10 different challenges for photography enthusiast to improve their skills. I’m hoping to complete one of these and publish it in my future website.
  • Photograph 2 zoos this year. Last year I visited the Austin Zoo with the goal of getting some animal photos for my nephews room (which he got this Christmas), but I ended up getting some pretty cool photographs and I enjoyed it very much. So I’m hoping to visit a couple of more and improve my technique. V already told me she was going with me to the Houston Zoo. Maybe I’ll get to go to the San Antonio Zoo as well.
• Home & Finances Goals
  • Pay off any wedding expenses accrued by the end of the year. For those of you who don’t know this year is my wedding, crazy times… But with any wedding a certain amount of debt is accrued, I’m hoping to get rid of it by the end of the year.
  • Completely Decorate 2 Areas out of the 6 areas of the house. V and I have been going back and forward on decorations for the house and what not, but I’m hoping to completely decorate two out of the Bedrooms, Kitchen/Dinning, Living room, Backyard and garage areas.
  • Bring down debt by 15%. We do not have a lot of debt, but between the cards, cars and house it adds up. I would like to take a chunk of it out by the end of the year.
• Relationship Goals
  • Bi-Weekly Date. I would like to take my bride to a romantic date avery so often and make it kind of like a tradition, so we can have nice us time.
  • Continue and Improve Communications. Now that the wedding is coming up I would like to continue to focus on our relationship. Not that is bad now, but I don’t want to let it slide.
  • Find and/or develop a hobby for both of us. V usually does her running and triathlons and I do my own thing, but I would lie to find something that we both enjoy doing together. Until now that has been going to nice restaurants, which we both enjoy, but I would like to do something more engaging.
• Family Goals
  • I would like to see my immediate family members at least 2 times a year. This difficult since my family is all over the place, but I should make an effort to accomplish this task.
  • Attempt to strengthen family ties and relationships. Aside from my immediate family (and some may argue that), I have not been a good family member. I would like to reconnect with my family and develop new relationships with cousins that I haven’t even met or have not seen in years.
  • Family Photo. My mom has not been able to take a family photo, since 2000… I think it is due for her to get her photo.
• Friends, Social and Volunteering Goals
  • Volunteer once a 1/4 with SHPE.
  • Volunteer once a 1/4 at Church.
  • Strengthen friend ties. I was thinking I can do a monthly get together or social outing. I know I’ve been a bit of a loner lately.

New Year Resolutions

Every one has them, but most do not accomplish them. Why is it? Every year thousands of people make new resolutions and I’m willing to bet that the most popular is to get in shape or lose weight. That’s the reason most gyms’ membership count jumps every January and parking is terrible during January and February. After Valentines, parking starts getting easier and that’s about the same time when people start jumping off the ‘resolutions’ wagon. It happens to everyone and it definitely happens to me.

This year is a big year for me. I got my wedding and my 30th birthday and I also wanted to be the year that I stick and complete my resolutions. So I went online and did some research on why people do not accomplish their resolutions and what I can do to be successful at it. I found out that the most popular 2 reasons for people dropping their resolutions are:

1. The Goal is not specific enough. For example, “I want to loose weight” or “I want to get in shape.” There is no way of breaking that down or knowing how much progress you have done or more importantly when are you done. A better goal would be to “lower my body fat to 15% by the end of the year.” In which case you have number to reach and a deadline. Depending on your current percentage you can plan accordingly.
2. The Goal is not realistic. For example, “I want to look like a magazine model.” Achieving major and healthy remodeling of your body needs time, persistence, and most of the time changing your lifestyle. Achieving all three takes some trial and error, so don’t expect to get there in a couple of months.