Fireworks for 2012

I didn't write anything about the New Year's party but here is a video I found on youtube that describes rather well how great the party in Amsterdam was.

Have a great 2012 everyone!

Óbidos Medieval Fair

A cousin invited us to join her, her sister and her mother at the Óbidos Medieval Fair and we promptly agreed to go - there were no plan for the weekend and it sounded like fun.

We took advantage to travel a bit on the West coast of Portugal. Beautiful landscape and wonderful places to go camping.

When we arrived and rested a bit we started to try out some medieval costumes.

Eventually we got to Óbidos centre (the old part of the village) and enjoy the medieval fair.

Beginning of May was a great time to windsurf at Aveiro.

In the beginning of this month I had some really great windsurf sessions. The one with the most violent winds was definitely on the 13 of May, winds averaging 35 knots but with strong gusts but also lot's of dead zones.

The most annoying thing with this kind of wind is that in on moment your a sitting duck, the board sinking in the water and a second later you're flying. The strain in your arms and shoulders rapidly wears you down. At the same time it's quite a challenge and I do love those.

Gybing becomes a question of looking into the water to see where the gust is and then using the gust to push you up to speed again.

All in all a great day. No at al like on the 3rd of May, where the wind blowing at 40 knots and my tiered hands of non stop afternoons of windsurfing were a conjugation that I could not overcome.

Of course the memory of what happened to me on the 27 of February didn't help.

On that day, with the weather forecast predicting a hurricane type wind me and other two valiant warriors decided to change our luck fighting the storm. All was going well until out of nowhere the gusts increased ten fold.

The Ria de Aveiro, usually a place of calm waters, become agitated. Small but with a very short period waves made it difficult to ride and as the wind gusts become stronger and stronger it was also impossible to keep the sail (4.1 m²). In the end a couple fishermen came with a rather heavy boat to pick me up. It was a really nice thing from them to do and I am truly grateful.

This storm did some damage in Portugal but as it moved North-West to France it even more troubles. I am happy to have fought and survived that day.

The two other wind warriors had two different stories to tell. One of then managed to get back by swimming with his gear. The other was dragged to the other side of the Ria, ending up with the board severely dented and quite a fright.

The unprofessionalism of Blue Air

Blue air is a low cost flight company with operations based on Romania. It's the only company currently flying a direct flight between Lisbon and Bucharest and as such has been my choice when flying to Romania. It has been one of the most unfortunate choices I have made. There wasn't one single trip that was not a mess.

The first time I flew with Blue Air the flight was some 5 hours delayed. I understood that there were weather issues (although other flight companies seam to deal better with those) but there was no excuse for the lack of information of attempt at keeping the costumers slightly less uncomfortable.

The delays have actually been a custom with trip with Blue Air. I don't believe there was ever one were there wasn't a bigger than one house delay.

Then there is the changing the flight plan at the last moment. The information is provided at the last moments possible and with implications that are profound in your trip plans. For example, changing a arrival time from around 15:00 to 1:00 the next day. In the middle of the afternoon there are still lot of choices on transport means but at 1 o'clock in the morning in most places there are no possible transport means.

So here is my advice for all people traveling to Romania: do not use Blue Air. The delays and changes of plans will ruin your trip. You'll be tiered, upset and cursing the decision to ever trust such amateur run operation.

ps: I wish the best to everyone working at Blue Air. It just seam that you can't work together very well and some of you might somewhat lack in the understanding of what is that you're supposed to do.

Happy New Year!

Time as come for the year of 2009, a year that was filled with interesting events, ups and downs, to go and give room for the new year of 2010. To all of my friends and to everyone else, a happy new year.

Memories from University

I started to remember how great university was, and how lucky I was with the people I have meet during the course. Of course that colleagues are those with which friendship lasts longer, but there was one or two teachers that were also, for a reason or other, relevant for my development as a human being.

I remember Professor Ernesto Costa, a teacher that was either loved or hated by the students. His brilliant mind, is devotion to education, to never stop trying to get something out of the students, to push them into their potential, his witty, but so smart comment on the students. I'm just sorry that I had only one class with him (Artificial Intelligence and not more (I had one of my worst marks in my course at that class). I also remember how much he liked Common LISP... I guess a pure software theorist is always bound to fall for the pure aspect of LISP programming but I was told that now he come to his senses and learned (as is teaching) Python.

I know that he still remembers the time when he caught me with a supermarket bag with a bottle of vodka and two of juice - me and some friends were going to have a party that day and I was the one that was supposed to take the vodka, other took other things - I know because he still tell this story to anyone that want to listen to it. Specially if I am around.