Home Alone again this week

(after helping a friend not being alone at home... ->
it knows who....)

The title is an answer to a friends BLOG!!!
Well as I said I back home again. Last week I finally took some time to relax from summer hard work at the lab and get some deserved holidays!!!
This time I joined the useful to the pleasant and I went Zurich for a few days, visiting a good friend, in the way for the wedding of a common friend! By other words I visited Judith and we both went to Carola's wedding!!!!
Zurich is a very beautiful city and of course totally different from what I'm used to around here!!! It's very nice, very open, very clear city with a lot of green spaces and a nice forest to walk around very very close.
After spending some days in Zurich, a few places around, visiting the top of Santis (2502m), we went to Germany to a city called Spesbach near Landsthul, in the area of Kaiserlautern.
There were a few differences in the wedding compared with things around here!!! For a start my friend is Protestant (I'm catholic) so the ceremony is a bit different from what I'm used to. German apparently use their weeding ring on their right hand (left hand here in Portugal)!!! Instead of a very large party for the ceremony, they have something more cozy, and all their friends and know people have a party a few days before the wedding.

Ok I'll leave some photos as usual!!!

Judy's "office"


A lake


Zurich's Fraumunster


Limmat river in Zurich


Zurich seen from Polyterrasse


Zurich


Santis


Shelter / restaurant at the top of Santis


a walk in the forest around Zurich


Zurichsee


Chocolate fruits





PS - in that german area there a very strong presence of Americans due to the presence of a large US military airport, hospital and so on... Somehow I only had a song in my mind....

Lyrics ©2004 Rammstein. (translation)

We're all living in Amerika
Amerika ist wunderbar
We're all living in Amerika
Amerika, Amerika

Wenn getanzt wird will ich führen
auch wenn ihr euch alleine dreht
Lasst euch ein wenig kontrollieren
Ich zeige euch wie es richtig geht
Wir bilden einen lieben Reigen
Die Freiheit spielt auf allen Geigen
Musik kommt aus dem Weißen Haus
und vor Paris steht Micky Maus

We're all living in Amerika
Amerika ist wunderbar
We're all living in Amerika
Amerika, Amerika

Ich kenne Schritte die sehr nützen
und werde euch vor Fehltritt schützen
Und wer nicht tanzen will am Schluss
weiß noch nicht dass er tanzen muss
Wir bilden einen lieben Reigen
Ich werde euch die Richtung zeigen
Nach Afrika kommt Santa Claus
und vor Paris steht Micky Maus

We're all living in Amerika
Amerika ist wunderbar
We're all living in Amerika
Amerika, Amerika

We're all living in Amerika
Coca-Cola, Wonderbra
We're all living in Amerika
Amerika, Amerika

This is not a love song
This is not a love song
I don't sing my mother tongue
No, this is not a love song

We're all living in Amerika
Amerika ist wunderbar
We're all living in Amerika
Amerika, Amerika

We're all living in Amerika
Coca-Cola, sometimes war
We're all living in Amerika
Amerika, Amerika


Well... maybe not!!!

Still Katrina

Quoting a New Orleans inhabitant to a TV network:
"We see those tragedies on TV and we pray to God for those people....
But we're convinced that is never going to happen to us!!!!
Well... maybe not!!!

Katrina

Without wanting to put more wood in the fire just 2 simple ideas keep puzzling my mind:
- why is that rich people continue to build wooden houses specially in hurricane areas

- perhaps it's about time some people realize that Kyoto protocol (or something similar) is not so fool after all and some serious concern must be done about the environment...

"Open your eyes, open your mind
(...) don't pretend to be blind "
Guano Apes

I suggest a movie called "the day after tomorrow"

Well... maybe not!!!

Working away for a few days

For those who are acquainted with cientific lifestyle, know that cientific meetings are one of the ways or showing your work and discussing new ideas about it.
So that was my work last week: an international conference on Biophysics in Montpellier.
Ok you'll start thinking nice way to work... Well you can always skip some areas which the subjects don't relate so much with your area of interest and do some sightseeing... but I think that is also part of the job.
I decided to go by car to the meeting (ok long travel of 3500kms going & return) and also enjoyed an afternoon trip to Marseille and few stops in the way back in Andorra and Madrid...
As usual I leave you some pics...



"Le Corum" conference center



Montpellier's place de la comedie



overview of Marseille (from Notre Dame de la Garde)



Madrid's Plaza Mayor

Fire chapter log 1 324 509 459

It's always abou the same!!!
Every year the same problem and the same lack of working solutions!!!
In the last 5 years ate least teh equivalent to over 100 000 football pitches burn. whether it's a hot year or cold, whether it rains a lot or not!!!
To give a hint I found in the NASA website satellite images of a satellite dedicated to take pictures and outline hospots!!!
More comments for what?

Image courtesy of MODIS Rapid Response Project at NASA/GSFC
click to see a more detailed image at the MODIS website

Well... maybe not!!!

Ainda o concerto dos U2

Está um blog criado pelo sapo onde o pessoal tem posto as opiniões sobre o concerto. Ideia, opiniões e polémicas à parte sempre tem fotos do espectáculo que dão para ter uma ideia geral.
Aqui fica o link ->

Entretanto ponho o link de algumas das fotos lá colocadas






Well... maybe not!!!

Dismantling the atomic Bomb

First of all: why is that when you really need your digital camera, you're out of battery? Maybe that's another of those Murphy laws about battery devices....

After that and almost loosing hope of getting a ticket 3 days before the most wanted concert of the year a friend makes the most simple question of them all? Do you want a ticket for U2? Ok it was stupid expensive, but was an opportunity of a lifetime.
So there I was on Alvalade Stadium with 52000 people. You can easily hear another languages to be spoken around like Spanish or English with some funny accents.

In the end it really worth the money. I just stay with 2 mental notes: Being on the bench is not that bad since you're having you seat marked and you won't have to go there too early to get inside; and never again stay next to some snob like people who went there just because they could afford a ticket an in any other good concert would stay at home. Somehow I felt like I has the only jumping around all the time and did not sit down after 30min in good area around me.

To the organizers: stop playing with people and don't take so long to bring them back to us again. (by the way next time can you give us 2 nights instead of just one?) You're joking on our faces...
Well... maybe not!!!

Financial Times Article 24-Jul-1999

FRONT PAGE - WEEKEND FT:

Today's generation of high-earning professionals maintain that their
personal fulfilment comes from their jobs and the hours they work. They
should grow up, says Thomas Barlow Financial Times ;

A friend of mine recently met a young American woman who was studying on a
Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford. She already had two degrees from top US
universities, had worked as a lawyer and as a social worker in the US, and
somewhere along the way had acquired a black belt in kung fu.

Now, however, her course at Oxford was coming to an end and she was
thoroughly angst-ridden about what to do next. Her problem was no ordinary
one. She couldn't decide whether she should make a lot of money as a
corporate lawyer/management consultant, devote herself to charity work
helping battered wives in disadvantaged communities, or go to Hollywood to
work as a stunt double in kung fu films.

What most struck my friend was not the disparity of this woman's choices,
but the earnestness and bad grace with which she ruminated on them. It was
almost as though she begrudged her own talents, opportunities and freedom -
as though the world had treated her unkindly by forcing her to make such a
hard choice.

Her case is symptomatic of our times. In recent years, there has grown up a
culture of discontent among the highly educated young something that seems
to flare up, especially, when people reach their late 20s and early 30s. It
arises not from frustration caused by lack of opportunity, as may have been
true in the past, but from an excess of possibilities.

Most theories of adult developmental psychology have a special category for
those in their late 20s and early 30s. Whereas the early to mid-20s are
seen as a time to establish one's mode of living, the late 20s to early 30s
are often considered a period of reappraisal. In a society where people
marry and have children young, where financial burdens accumulate early,
and where job markets are inflexible, such reappraisals may not last long.
But when people manage to remain free of financial or family burdens, and
where the perceived opportunities for alternative careers are many, the
reappraisal is likely to be angst-ridden and long lasting.

Among no social group is this more true than the modern, international,
professional elite: that tribe of young bankers, lawyers, consultants and
managers for whom financial, familial, personal, corporate and
(increasingly) national ties have become irrelevant. Often they grew up in
one country, were educated in another, and are now working in a third. They
are independent, well paid, and enriched by experiences that many of their
parents could only dream of.

Yet, by their late 20s, many carry a sense of disappointment: that for all
their opportunities, freedoms and achievements, life has not delivered
quite what they had hoped. At the heart of this disillusionment lies a new
attitude towards work. The idea has grown up, in recent years, that work
should not be just a means to an end a way to make money, support a family,
or gain social prestige - but should provide a rich and fulfilling
experience in and of itself. Jobs are no longer just jobs; they are
lifestyle options.


Recruiters at financial companies, consultancies and law firms have
promoted this conception of work. Job advertisements promise challenge,
wide experiences, opportunities for travel and relentless personal
development.

Michael is a 33-year-old management consultant who has bought into this
vision of late-20th century work. Intelligent and well-educated - with
three degrees, including a doctorate - he works in Munich, and has a
"stable, long-distance relationship" with a woman living in California. He
takes 140 flights a year and works an average of 80 hours a week. Some
weeks he works more than 100 hours. When asked if he likes his job, he will
say: "I enjoy what I'm doing in terms of the intellectual challenges."
Although he earns a lot, he doesn't spend much. He rents a small apartment,
though he is rarely there, and has accumulated very few possessions. He
justifies the long hours not in terms of wealth-acquisition, but
solely as part of a "learning experience". This attitude to work has
several interesting implications, mostly to do with the shifting balance
between work and non-work, employment and leisure. Because fulfilling and
engrossing work - the sort that is thought to provide the most intense
learning experience - often requires long hours or captivates the
imagination for long periods of time, it is easy to slip into the idea that
the converse is also true: that just by working long hours, one is also
engaging in fulfilling and engrossing work. This leads to the popular
fallacy that you can measure the value of your job (and, therefore, the
amount you are learning from it) by the amount of time you spend on it.
And, incidentally, when a premium is placed on learning rather than
earning, people are particularly susceptible to this form of self-deceit.
Thus, whereas in the past, when people in their 20s or 30s spoke
disparagingly about nine-to-five jobs it was invariably because they were
seen as too routine, too unimaginative, or too bourgeois. Now, it is simply
because they don't contain enough hours.

Young professionals have not suddenly developed a distaste for leisure, but
they have solidly bought into the belief that a 45-hour week necessarily
signifies an unfulfilling job. Jane, a 29-year-old corporate lawyer who
works in the City of London, tells a story about working on a deal with
another lawyer, a young man in his early 30s. At about 3am, he leant over
the boardroom desk and said: "Isn't this great? This is when I really love
my job." What most struck her about the remark was that the work was
irrelevant (she says it was actually rather boring); her colleague simply
liked the idea of working late. "It's as though he was validated, or making
his life important by this," she says.

Unfortunately, when people can convince themselves that all they need do in
order to lead fulfilled and happy lives is to work long hours, they can
quickly start to lose reasons for their existence. As they start to think
of their employment as a lifestyle, fulfilling and rewarding of itself -
and in which the reward is proportional to hours worked - people rapidly
begin to substitute work for other aspects of their lives.


Michael, the management consultant, is a good example of this phenomenon.
He is prepared to trade (his word) not just goods and time for the
experience afforded by his work, but also a substantial measure of
commitment in his personal relationships. In a few months, he is being
transferred to San Francisco, where he will move in with his girlfriend.
But he's not sure that living in the same house is actually going to change
the amount of time he spends on his relationship. "Once I move over, my
time involvement on my relationship will not change significantly. My job
takes up most of my time and pretty much dominates what I do, when, where
and how I do it," he says. Moreover, the reluctance to commit time to a
relationship because they are learning so much, and having such an intense
and fulfilling time at work is compounded, for some young professionals, by
a reluctance to have a long-term relationship at all.

Today, by the time someone reaches 30, they could easily have had three or
four jobs in as many different cities - which is not, as it is often
portrayed, a function of an insecure global job-market, but of choice.
Robert is 30 years old. He has three degrees and has worked on three
continents. He is currently working for the United Nations in Geneva. For
him, the most significant deterrent when deciding whether to enter into a
relationship is the likely transient nature of the rest of his life. "What
is the point in investing all this emotional energy and exposing myself in
a relationship, if I am leaving in two months, or if I do not know what I
am doing next year?" he says.

Such is the character of the modern, international professional, at least
throughout his or her 20s. Spare time, goods and relationships, these are
all willingly traded for the exigencies of work. Nothing is valued so
highly as accumulated experience. Nothing is neglected so much as
commitment. With this work ethic - or perhaps one should call it a
"professional development ethic" - becoming so powerful, the globally
mobile generation now in its late 20s and early 30s has garnered
considerable professional success. At what point, though, does the
experience-seeking end?

Kathryn is a successful American academic, 29, who bucked the trend of her
generation: she recently turned her life round for someone else. She moved
to the UK, specifically, to be with a man, a decision that she says few of
her contemporaries understood. "We're not meant to say: 'I made this
decision for this person. Today, you're meant to do things for yourself. If
you're willing to make sacrifices for others - especially if you're a woman
- that's seen as a kind of weakness. I wonder, though, is doing things for
yourself really empowerment, or is liberty a kind of trap?" she says. For
many, it is a trap that is difficult to break out of, not least because
they are so caught up in a culture of professional development. And spoilt
for choice, some like the American Rhodes Scholar no doubt become paralysed
by their opportunities, unable to do much else in their lives, because they
are so determined not to let a single one of their chances slip. If that
means minimal personal commitments well into their 30s, so be it.
"Loneliness is better than boredom" is Jane's philosophy. And, although she
knows "a lot of professional single women who would give it all up if they
met a rich man to marry", she remains far more concerned herself about
finding fulfilment at work. "I am constantly questioning whether I am doing
the right thing here," she says. "There's an eternal search for a more
challenging and satisfying option, a better lifestyle. You always feel
you're not doing the right thing always feel as if you should be striving
for another goal," she says.


Jane, Michael, Robert and Kathryn grew up as part of a generation with
fewer social constraints determining their futures than has been true for
probably any other generation in history. They were taught at school that
when they grew up they could "do anything", "be anything". It was an idea
that was reinforced by popular culture, in films, books and television. The
notion that one can do anything is clearly liberating. But life without
constraints has also proved a recipe for endless searching, endless
questioning of aspirations. It has made this generation obsessed with
self-development and determined, for as long as possible, to minimise
personal commitments in order to maximise the options open to them. One
might see this as a sign of extended adolescence. Eventually, they will be
forced to realise that living is as much about closing possibilities as it
is about creating them.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited



Well... maybe not!!!

One year after

one year has gone already... can you believe it?
I want it back... but it seems it's not possible...

Well... maybe not!!!

Holidays...

Hi everyone.
I decided to take advantage of our sun and my uncle's house by the pool in Cascais...
Ok I could enjoy more than a week of holidays but work waits to be done...
Anyway I'm going Switzerland and Germany for a wedding in September and enjoying another week of holidays...
That's not that bad...
Well... maybe not!!!

Greves...

É só impressão minha ou uma greve à sexta-feira, ainda por cima véspera de ínicio de férias de muita gente, soa assim a modos que conveniência mais? Principalmente quando a maioria do pessoal da função pública que faz greve não vai para o sítio onde as greves fazem sentido: à porta do local de trabalho....
Se calhar sou eu que estou errado ou sou mesmo do contra....
Well... maybe not!!!

Finally a chance

I think one of the biggest "tortures" I have to stand these days is trying to go to/from work and have to stand traffic jams from people going/coming to the beach...
and the worse part is me having my swimming suit in my car and not being able to go there for a swim....
Well I finally managed it. It took a while but it worth it. I definitively have to do it again and preferably more often...
In the meanwhile I have been going to jog a little in the park next to my house. It feels good to relax a little in the end of the afternoon...
I'd rather go to the beach but maybe I shouldn't complain...
Well... maybe not!!!

It's done...

I still remember the time when I was 6 and Pedro (the guy on the left) was a rover and also help leading my wolf scout unit. It was a long long time ago. First it was his now it was my time to become leader. It's in these situations we start saying were getting old...
It was an interesting ceremony and only who is scout for so long understands the meaning of getting one of these green scarfs. But just when I saw the pictures I actually got spooked with it. It weights tones....
Now it's my time to start teaching kids, those good rover times are over now.....

Welll... maybe not!!!

Planning holidays

Ok ok I admit I've been a very very bad boy lately taunting you with my pictures. I know you're probably thinking about holidays now. I leave you a tip just in case you haven't decided yet or for a future plan.
I had been searching for this for a while and know I found it the movie.
I hope you can enjoy it.
In this link -> you can find out more about Portugal (in several languages).
I just leave an appetizer. I strongly recommend the movies download area...
(c) ITP 2004 -(Portuguese Tourism Institute)
Well... maybe not!!!

This one goes out to....

the ones who live in the cold up north!!!
Just a simple figure: 35ºC!!!


just got away