Let's Go Mets 2 Boston

Another chapter has changed in my life…I recently left my previous job to join an innovative team that is extremely forward thinking and supportive of career growth. If you haven’t notice, I just don’t have the time to update this blog, but I am making a commitment to all of you who read it that I will try my best to at least make a post once a month…I won’t go into details right now about my new job, but soon enough! My previous job taught me a lot about management, negotiations, unions and the automotive industry which is just a microcosm of the business world. I will never forget that experience and I am sure I will call upon the knowledge I gained in that position for many years to come.

But in the spirit of this blog and my new leaf, I will take this time to speak about two events that occurred in my life recently. In chronological order of course…I went to a Mets game in flushing queens! I know what you are saying to yourself, “Who cares?” For those of you who know me, baseball is not my forte but my brother scored some sweet tickets and I like to try things. I have always been a Mets fan, purely on the basis of where I grew up.

“Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.”
- George Jean Nathan

Why can’t this also apply to sports teams in a sport you may not know very well? Love for a particular sports team has to have emerged from some catalytic event. Not to imply that this was one of those moments, but it has certainly fortified my enthusiasm for the team! About a week prior to this occurrence, I went to a Yankees game. The Yankees are a championship dynasty (26) and they deserve all the accolades they get. But the stadium (I sat in the bleachers) definitely needs a facelift. You cannot bring anything into the main stadium, only the bleachers. Everything is so expensive, given in miniature, water-downed fashion. Though they lost the game, I just did not see the excitement in the loyal fans which could have also been attributed to the blazing SUN! In contrast, I had a much better time at the Mets game. I was able to bring my laptop in the stadium, no problem. The stadium is so large (I remember going once before when I was younger and tickets only cost $2 for the UPPER UPPER DECK) with many more options of where to spend your money. Granted it is expensive here as well, but at least you can get a foot long dog for the same price you pay for a mini dog at the Yankees stadium. Only enhanced by the fact that the Mets won! The Mets are also building a new stadium, so being able to enjoy this stadium before they tear it down is also memorable. This must have been my sign because I will pay more attention to what the Mets do from now on…

The 2^nd event is my recent trip to Boston. I have been to Boston a few times, but I never stayed downtown. I usually visited a friend of mine at Stonehill College in Easton. This time I had the opportunity to visit a friend of mine @ HBS (Thanks Chris) as well as walk around a little. Boston is actually a nice place to visit. For those of you who enjoy history, culture and the small town feel in a bigger city, I can imagine this being a favorite place to frequently visit.

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As you notice from the pictures below, the weather was gorgeous. Winter time is probably not the best time to visit. Chris reminded me that since warm weather comes only for a short time, people here appreciate it that much more! I would certainly agree with that assessment. I plan on visiting again sometime soon, so be sure to be on the lookout for the updated gallery. I will probably not repost the slideshow, but mention the updated Boston Gallery on my page.

As a final mention, I took the Acela Express up to Boston, which is a fabulous ride. You can get there faster by plane, but with the security time and the inconsistency of the airline industry taking the train is a nice change of pace. Check it out!

Jawbone

Been a while my friends and I know that you have missed me…don’t fret! In my return, I am going to take a moment to recommend a piece of technology I have found to be extremely useful and live up to its hype. Lets paint the picture, you are walking down 5^th Ave in midtown…you have just finished a strenuous hour of shopping and you want to talk with your friend on the phone about all the great things you just purchased. You hop on your Bluetooth headset because you have a caramel frappuccino in one hand and your bags in the other. But as you begin to tell her about your new Hermès bag, she says “What was that, I cannot hear you…too much background noise, I’ll talk to you later!” And you begin to think to yourself, how rude! Here you are, trying to take time out of your busy day to share and she has the nerve to excuse herself based on ambient noise. Well, let me tell you…take away all excuses with the Aliph Jawbone.

My girlfriend recently purchased the Blackberry 8830 (best phone ever for Verizon…the new 8820 with wifi and out-of-the-box built in GPS will be the sicker one to own) for me, for my birthday, and it is such a good phone that it picks up “EVERYTHING” in the background. It loves ambient noise…great speaker phone, but the ambient noise is a problem. A friend of mine has spoken to me with it when he is on the train and I consistently hear the conversations of the people around him more than him. I needed to find a solution because I was not about to give up the best phone I have had in my life, just because of rudeness from friends. After research through reviews, the Jawbone is as advertised. Yes, I knew about it before the iPhone (great marketing, because wireless companies sell Bluetooth headsets in packages with the phone, but why not sell the best Bluetooth to confuse the buyer they are getting the best phone too).

I have had strangers in the street ask me about the headset and I always tell them, of all the Bluetooth headsets, it is the best one I have owned. Now, let me not mislead you into believing that this removes all the noise around you…we have not gotten there yet! But it does do noise cancellation (something I think no other headset company claimed their product could do and actually did). I have been in noisy cars, walking in the street and people still say they can hear me. I must say that they sound low, not as loud as I would like, but I think that is the 8830 not the headset. Either way if you are looking for a headset that lends no excuses to others hanging-up, other than pure disgust out of jealously…now you can add to their envy with your new noise cancelling Aliph Jawbone!

I purchased mine from here in silver: click! They come in black and red as well…any questions, you know where to reach me. Try my web bottom “Call Me” to the right and speak with me directly. They way of the future…I will speak on this web button in a later post but for now enjoy the video from Aliph below that explains exactly what happens!

*This video was not edited by me. The video above is to be treated as a link within my blog.

Cooking & Football

I enjoy great food! One of the things I love about travel is experiencing the local cuisine as well as culture. Through food we can learn so much of any given culture. I know for Trinidad & Tobago, our food is delicious. And if you speak with anyone from Trinidad, it is definitely one of our most heralded pastimes. One person who shares my view is Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. This guy from NYC is someone we should all pay attention to. His show is about travel and food, what is wrong with that life!

The photos below are from cooking classes my girlfriend and I have taken at Williams-Sonoma. The first set of pictures (as they cycle through) were from our first class, where we learned about different meats, preparation procedures, knifes, pan materials and much more. Most people wonder if we are doing the cooking…NO! They hire an executive chef to come in and cook the meals. While he is cooking the meal, we ask questions (pertinent to the current dish or not), joke around, eat (sample sizes) and drink (non-alcoholic of course). It’s a relaxed atmosphere, to the point where in the most recent class we took, the chef kept saying “You guys are so quiet”, inciting more conversation. And after the class is over (usually the class is held in the store after store hours, so space is limited and I would suggest contacting your local William-Sonoma for details) you get a chance to get a 10% discount on any items purchased that evening. There is a cost associated with this lovely evening (nothing free in this world) and it differs by location.

The second set of photos are from the 4^th of July class, where we learned how to make friend chicken, corn on the cob (surprisingly different than typical methods), stuffed burgers (click for recipe) and strawberry shortcake. It was so good! The recipes are online at Williams-Sonoma website. I made the stuffed burgers for the gathering on 4^th of July (posted on July 9^th, 2007) and everyone enjoyed it. Take a look at the pictures for yourself.

Isn’t your mouth just watering…

The video below is in celebration of the USA vs. Brazil victory (2 – 1) U-20 World Cup match that helped USA advance out of the group, while knocking out Brazil. Brazil, my 2^nd home, I am sorry but USA definitely put on a great match. The future is looking bright for American Soccer. They have come such a long way since knocking Trinidad out of its first world cup hopes in Italy in the 90’s (I saw that match in Trinidad, in the stands and it was heartbreaking for my country). Enjoy the highlights…ADU did his thing, especially at mark 6:47!

*This video was not edited by me. The video above is to be treated as a link within my blog.

Videos (4th, Chill, Flash & IKEA)

This is going to be a short post, so that you have time to just enjoy the videos!!

This first video is from 4^th of July. My good friend (since 2^nd grade, long time ago), our girlfriends and I enjoyed the best fireworks show any of us have ever seen. The fireworks show lasted for about 30 minutes, but because of constraints of online posting, I had to post the best 10 minutes! Trust me it is worth a view at least once. If you have seen fireworks, THIS CLOSE, that are better, please let me know because I am hard pressed to believe any different.

These next set of videos comes from kipkay.com. It seems as though this guy does some really cool videos on hacks of things in our everyday life. Its best to click on the video and watch it from this blog. But if you are interested in seeing more of his videos, click the link above or click on the video itself to go to metacafé to check out his other videos.

*Neither video was edited by me. The 2 videos above are to be treated as links within my blog.

This last video is a commercial for IKEA if you can believe it. Just watch, definitely need to TIDY UP…enjoy!

*This video was not edited by me. The video above is to be treated as a link within my blog.

Uncensored & Alarm'd

I know I was not going to put up a post everyday, but it is my blog and I will do what I want!

Today I wanted to alert people to these two new websites I read off of the WebWare RSS (Again, read my last post about this great location for new web services). The first one can turn a couple heads. One issue we all run into when posting on the internet is copyright infringement. I know most might not consider it, but we all have to rethink our ideas on copyright…I’ll leave that conversation to the law makers! But, BAYIMG is taking the issue right out of the equation. Their angle is free uncensored image hosting (of any resolution). You read that correctly, free – uncensored - image – hosting! Can you believe this, a location on the web where you can put whatever you want up? The implications are far reaching…but don’t fear, there is a removal process. When you put the image up you need to remember the removal code, you set up at upload, because that is the only way the image is coming down.

“Bayimg.com is a place where you can host all your images. We do not censor them. We believe in freedom of speech, it's of utter importance to us…We will not remove any pictures that are just immoral or in any way legal to host under Swedish law.” ~ Bayimg.com

Right on… I may need to rethink my vacation plans and see what they are doing over there in Stockholm. I had friend when I was younger (Robin) from Sweden and I remember him telling me about how liberal they are over there. I wonder what he is up to these days…Robin if you read this blog, email me or comment below!

This image is hosted by BAYIMG, from my trip to Rio. I know the removal code now, but I will conveniently forget and see how long it stays up. Ah how beautiful this can be…A world where you express yourself freely, post images you can trust will be up FOREVER. You think china has blocked this website already?

The 2^nd one is for those who sleep with their computers on. How about making it into one giant alarm clock. Now you may already have a program that alarms for you…possibly wakes you to smooth sounds, a cd or some other noise of your choice. This website allows you to set an alarm (no installation required, just leave the page up) to sounds you prefer (I like the standard noise, will definitely wake me up), but now you can wake yourself up to a youtube video! Or Pandora (another great free music source) or last.fm! Basically, it gives you alternate option other than your standard clock. Then again with the invention of the computer you already had that figured out. Enjoy ALARMD!