A lousy day.

I woke up feeling a little bit lousy today.

I checked my mail, and I had three emails from friends, with all kind of cool stuff and invitations to go hang out and play console games.

I get a call from Eduardo, we have a quick conversation about VPNs, proxies and catchup on other stuff, like his upcoming birthday.

Then I noticed I had a message on my answer machine, It was Dix, saying hello and seeing if I could give him a hand with the ADSL installation.

I was still feeling lousy, but I call him back. I get the his answer machine. I leave a message saying I'll be at the pool, and that maybe later I could give him a hand.

As I drive to the pool, I am feeling very angry and frustrated. I have the urge to scream aloud, but I do so only inside of me.

When I am near the old market, I am remembering some of the adventure ideas I had, like doing a rappel event from a chopper. I never found out the costs for that. I procrastinated.

I get to the pool, and I see Walter with a tie. It is such an unusual sight. I have always knew him as the pool lifeguard, so it is kind of odd for me seeing him all “formal”. We joke a little bit (about him).

I paid my pool fees it quarters, Ruth was looking odd at me for doing so. I bust her balls, telling her how nonconformist she is, “if I pay in dollars, you want coins for the soda machine, now I pay in coins, and you want bills?”.

I have not finished saying so, when a lady comes with a busted dollar bill, asking for change...

I go and change. The ambient temperature is quite low, and the sky is clouded. I keep thinking that the water is going to be cold. Quite the opposite, the water is very warm. So warm I notice it.

I start to swim, today I do not care about laps or timing. I just want to swim and dive.
Half way on the lane I see Dix, he says aloud “Hey Roman!”. I briefly lift my hand from the water, but I continue swimming.

After two laps, Dix is at the beginning of the pool, so I stop there. As I am removing my mask, he is already giving me his hand, all exited to see me. I shake his hand, and he introduces me to another guy that I have never seen before, ” hey this is Kalh, he flies helicopters”. I shake Kalh hand, but I am speechless.

So I let Dix do the talking. He is talking about his passion, spearfishing. After a couple of minutes, I go on on my swimming, and as I do so, I can not stop thinking “I should have taken the opportunity to ask about how much does it cost to rent an helicopter”.

A couple of laps, and I stop again to listen to their conversation. Now Dix ask's “how much does it cost to fly an helicopter”. It is as he had read my mind. So Kalh goes on with the hourly policy, the types of helicopters available in Panama, and so on. I now have all the information I wanted to know.

O well, they take off, and I stay.

I had to go out of the pool a few times (diving too much gets your pee bag loaded).

And every time I came back into the pool, somebody else greeted me. Like “Hey I have not seen you in a while”. I do not even know the names of some of the guys.

On one occasion I went to the changing room, to apply more defogging agent (tooth paste) to my mask, and there was an old man changing. I have never spoke to him, and I have never seen him speak to anybody. But he exclamate “are you done now?” I say, NO!, I still want to extract more juice out of my two dollars pool fee. He laughs.


Eventually I decide to leave the pool (after only two hours). My hands look like dry raisins already.

As I was showering, I was thinking.
I should get organized and get on a medium outdoors adventure once a month. I as thinking that being so long on the concrete jungle is what has me so fed up.

I change quickly and quietly. But as I am leaving the changing room, Gae sees me, and greets me, “Hey Roman, how are you doing man!”. I just answer (surprised) “Cool, cool.”, and leave.

I am hungry, no, I am starving. I drive to the Nikos. As I enter the place, I noticed my mood had changed. I actually greet people (people I do not know) on my way in.

As I get to the cashier, the girl even initiated a conversation with me. She is curious of why she only sees me at night, she has been paying attention. Quick chat, and I take off to enjoy my meal.

I get home, and just after I hang my wet clothes, brush my theet and log down my pool time on my exercises book, I land on my bed like a rock.

I barely hear the phone away far far away as I am falling asleep. It is a wireless headset, so I think I must have left it someplace else, like the living room.

Two and a half hours later, I wake up. I am thirsty, and as I drink two liters of water I let the computer check my mail.

More mail. Apart from the usual spam, there is a message from a Panamanian girl living in the USA. I do not know her, she is intrigued with my adventurous life style, and curious on how do I manage to constantly go on such adventures so often, and take the pictures I do.

I look around, and I see the phone headset on the desk next to my bed. Oh my good, I was really sleepy when I thought this thing was in the living room.

I check the answer machine, and it is Abdiel. Out of the blue he is calling from Benigans to invite me to join on lunch.

It is almost mid night now, and as I look in retrospective onto today's day, I can not help to feel a strange sensation.

I mean, if all these social network events happen withing a week, I would not be surprised.
When they happen all on the same day, I find it bizarre.
When they happen all on the day that I was feeling lousy, I find it to be beyond bizarre.

I told nobody I was feeling lousy, and yet the world seems to have orchestrated in some way to kick me out of it.

Referendum.

Ya voté.

No se que me asombra más, que las mesas de votacion abrieran puntuales a las 7:00am, o que yo haya madrugado un Domingo.

Elephants Dream

I was up late, “working” on a project.


And all the suddent, I realize that I have no idea how to organize myself using the Open Office suite.

So I decided to try to seek on the web for an GPL kind of project management software (yea, GPL is my friend).

Anyways, jumping from site to site, I stumbled upon an Open Made movie!

Yes, an animated movie created only with open source programs (you see, I am not the only GPL fan outhere).

Elephants Dream is the world’s first open movie, made entirely with open source graphics software such as Blender, and with all production files freely available to use however you please, under a Creative Commons license.