RAB (Roamed Around Bogota)

Just coined that title for fun!  Me and some of my colleagues roamed around Bogota.  We all shared the same feeling that this is the only city that we have seen so far is so well decorated for Christmas!!

That's right.  The city was beautiful.  Lights all around, parks, museums, shopping malls and roads were all beautifully decorated.  Wondering how much they would be spending on electricity. 

We visited most popular parks (park el virrey and another park in calle 93).  Shopping mall like Andino and also visited Monsarratte just to have a view of the city during night.

My view of Bogota can be seen here

Ciclovia Nocturna

Yet another thing that I observed in Bogota is that every Sunday morning at 7AM they close some of the roads for vehicles except for the Cyclists (of course for walkers and joggers).  I like it.  It is called "Ciclovia"

Similarly couple of days back here they had something called "Ciclovia Nocturna".  This is similar to Ciclovia but it starts in the evening and goes on the whole night (I think so). 

The only inconvenience I had was that on my way back from work I had to walk a lot as some of the main roads were closed.  But that was ok for a day.

I went out with my Canon and started shooting after 11PM.  The city was awake and unusually active.  I could see happy faces riding cycles and people were standing on the road and watching the cyclists.  Small shops cropped up on the platform selling corn, winter hats and what not. 

I wanted to try out some tricks like motion blur and the like using my Canon and I think I achieved it to an extent.  You can view the fotos of Ciclovia nocturna by clicking here.

Exponential Times

Did you know, we are all living in exponential times? 

There are over 2.7 billion searches performed on Google each month.  To whom were these questions addressed B.G (Before Google).  Are we going to call the time span as B.G and A.G (After Google)?  Perhaps.  Don't be surprised to see a term coined, BG and AG, atleast among those nerds who always try to find an answer for something that bogs their mind.

More than 3,000 new books are published daily.

It is estimated that 1.5 exabytes (1.5 x 10¹⁸) of unique new information will be generated this year.  This is estimated to be more than in the previous 5,000 years.

Third generation fiber optics has recently been tested by NEC and Alcatel.  This is capable of pushing 10 trillion bits per second down one strand of fiber.  This is nothing but 1,900 CDs, or 150 million simultaneous phone calls, every second.

 

47 million laptops were shipped worldwide last year.

What does this all mean?  Shift happens.

Note: This is a compilation from the world wide web.

Dance... Dance... Dance...

I went to a Christmas party yesterday with my colleagues.  This party was hosted by the Ministry's IT team.  It started with a welcome drink.  It is a tradition in Colombia to mix Jaggery dissolved in water, aguardiente(another traditional drink of colombia) and Lime. After a few minutes I could see everybody was dancing. 

It was really good to see people dancing to music.  To my surprise everybody was dancing well (may be according to my standards!!)  I feel that dancing is a national sport in Colombia. 

I too was invited by a couple of ladies for dancing and one of them was nice enough to teach me dancing.. he he he!!  But I was really bad at dancing.

Car Themes

Two days back, I just visited Gmail and they have introduced themes.  The themes change themselves depending on the geography you are in and the time of the day. 

Themes and skins bring in a kind of harmony, they are spontaneously visible and they bring out the taste and mood of the person choosing it.  The software world has adopted it long time ago.

But how nice it will be to have themes in cars?  How about having a forest theme?  As soon as you fire the engine, you will see the dashboard having a background picture of a forest with the mellifluously flowing brook, when you apply the brake you hear elephants trumpeting, when you open the door you hear birds chirping and when you shift gears you hear frogs croaking and when you honk you hear lions roaring.

The dashboard, the steering, the music, the honking everything should look and sound in line with the theme. 

Then there should be themes that could be downloaded from the internet and uploaded into the theme gallery in the car with the help of the CD / DVD drive in the A/V playback systems in the car.  Or perhaps the mobile devices like the PDA, smart phones can be used to just apply themes in your car using bluetooth or any other similar technology.

I can see that day is not too far or perhaps somebody is already working on it! 

Bomb blast in Bogota

It was nearly 10PM when I reached my apartment building and I pressed the buzzer for the security to open the door.  At the same moment, I heard a huge noise and I could see bright light on the wall of the opposite building.  The first thing that came to my mind was it could be a burst from some electric transformer.  The burglar alarms, cars and pets started screaming due to the heavy vibration that it created.  But the security was telling me that it was a bomb blast.  That sent a wave of fear inside me and I looked up the building to see what is happening in my apartment and I could see the light glowing in one of our bedrooms.

I went in and spoke to few friends on the phone and slept.  The next day I came to know that the blast happened near the apartment where we are staying.  There is a Blockbuster in the same street and somebody planted a bomb in the parking lot.  But it was not a very powerful one and so did not injure anybody.

I was just walking past that place say 30 seconds ago and I was returning from work.  On that day, to my surprise that place was deserted.  Usually it will have cars parked all around and people going in and out of Blockbuster.

Somebody told me that it was all just to remind people that there are groups that are unhappy about the Government.  Strange isn't it.  Face of terrorism!!

Back in Colombia

Hola todos.  I have come back to Bogota, Colombia.  The trip was good.  After my trip to Montevideo, Uruguay this is what I think about Uruguay or consider it my opinion.

All Uruguayans(we call them Uruguashos)  drink something called Yerba (so called herbs) in a container which is called 'Mate (pronounced as Maathey).  So everybody carries his own mate kit'.  A mate kit has a flask(for hot water), the mate, a straw (called bombillo) and the yerba.  They prepare the drink on the spot and keep drinking it. 

     

We saw a couple doing shopping in a mal.  One was pushing the cart and the other was holding the mate and drinking.  When the other wanted to drink, they changed their roles.  A simple task like shopping takes 2 people and so you can imagine other tasks.

So, always one hand is not free (carrying the kit and the mate) and they have to do things with the other hand.  Don't you think it takes twice the time and resource to do a job?