San Ignacio's pool

Next week, hopefully, San Ignacio pool will open again. After two months from being closed, the pool reopens with new blue paint coverage. The pool was constructed at the mid fifties of the twenty century. More than 30 years passed without a drop of paint, being used day by day by the whole San Ignacio swimmers community which includes students, senior students, parents and of course the school’s swimming team.

Now it’s time to return to my training routine. Surely there will be great challenges for this year. In the picture below, you’ll see the pool being filled on its deepest part, the old chronometer red clock, a little grasp of the Avila’s hills and I properly dressed for work.

The clock trap

Brief reflection:

According to the new government measure that establishes that all the workers of the administration must stop working at 1:00 p.m., the whole evening is useless for the government tasks and functions. However there’s a trap. If the employees may be out of their work at 1:00 p.m., they must stop their labors at least at 12:15 - 12:30 p.m. In this sense you’re practically stuck if you’re willing to do some kind of diligence related with courts. That’s the way of the revolutionary leftist justice.

Previsora clock

Very close to midday I was in the highway. I usually look up towards the Previsora Tower to watch the digital clock. What a surprise! I was turned off. Then I realize that because of the new Venezuelan era, marked by the lack of electricity many things that you take as granted are no longer there. My advice: enjoy little things of life. You never know when a tropical blackout can impose a sudden departure.

Now on Twitter

Dear friends:

I shall like to invite you to follow me on twitter. Just look to this direction:


https://twitter.com/AndresFGuevaraB

Ucab Robbery

At the entrance of the university one friend of mine received a little paper containing a warning: “On December 2009 two robberies occurred inside the UCAB. The first one consisted in an armed assault to one student in a non specified part of the campus. The second case was a direct attack towards a car located at the relatively new parking lot”.

This paper contains only a small measure of a problem that the students aren’t taking as a serious matter. What will happen know? Will the ucabista community join forces to combat the hugest problem that Venezuela is facing at present time?

Square plants

I share with you a few pictures showing the work of the gardeners from the city hall. I don’t know the name of the plant species. You’ll watch that now the square is filled with bushes and that it’s pleading for grass. Well, sometimes you can’t get everything you want.

Close up of the plant

Panoramic view of the square

I’m not a classist, I say “hello”

At 9:30 in the morning I went to my car. Next to the garage, at the entrance of my house were a couple of employees from the Baruta City Hall. There were sowing new plants in the square that is in front of my house.

“Good morning”, I said. Immediately the guys stopped their job unbelieving what they had heard. Then they answered: “Good morning, mi pana [my friend]”, and then they returned to their work.

While I was driving I try to understand why they put such faces when they heard me. I’m deeply convinced that they weren’t expecting to receive a salutation from me. I mean, in this society filled with a bold social prejudice, why a middle class Caucasian guy should approach in a kindly way to a pair of swarthy gardeners of the city hall? It’s sad, but true. There’s a gap that’s destroying the social tissue of our country.

In order to change things someone has to take the first step. Saluting another as an equal could be an invaluable sign to obtain peace.

The poisoned tree

Today I had my first Probatory Law class of the year. Among the interesting things that I learned was the “Thesis of the poisoned tree”. According to this theory, evidence that is collected or is born under an illegal procedure it’s worthless inside the juridical process.

There’re plenty examples of this situation: for instance, a confession made to a fake priest (a police officer that’s cheating because of his duty to obtain information), or the confessions obtained by records of private conversations recorded without the duly authorization. These elements at least in the Venezuelan judicial system are forbidden.

Consequently, it’s obvious that all the supposed conspiracy theories that the government constantly states and tries to prove showing the records of conversations are totally illegal. Of course, there’s a long path that separates the law from reality, demonstrating that the tree thesis isn’t the only thing poisoned in our country.

Cargo Truck sleeping at la Fajardo

Heading to the University I saw a cargo truck crashed against one of the barriers from the Francisco Fajardo Highway. The curious thing was that the truck wasn’t located at the side of the road. Instead it was deployed like a worm from one side to another of the highway, going through the high speed channel until the final channel for the slowest cars.

Next to the destroyed container the authorities were discussing how to remove such disaster. A few meters abroad a legion of trucks were guarding the Francisco Fajardo Highway. Of the four channels only one road (marked with an orange cone) remained open for circulation, taking into consideration that the whole part of the highway blocked by the truck was totally collapsed.

At 6:30 in the morning a wide wave of cars were covering the main artery that communicates the west with the east part of our city. What a great present for the Three Kings day! Slowly but surely, Caracas says goodbye to hoolidays and welcomes an agitated year.

Shopping at dark

It’s not a title of a porn movie. I looked at the windows of my office and I saw the Centro San Ignacio mall darker than ever. Why? Guess. Venezuela is suffering perhaps the most critical crisis in the energetic system of its history.

Among the measures that the government took in order to face the calamity, there’s an order to shut down the energy of the shopping centers at 9:00 p.m. Thus, the movies, restaurants, night clubs and any other sort of common nightly entertainment cannot function because they don’t have electricity.

We aren’t on the nineteenth century. This isn’t only about fun and trivial lifestyle. Does the government realize the impact that such measure is going to have within the economic development of our nation? The current situation is leaving armless an important muscle of production and a source of jobs. Time will tell us. The principles of economy show us that if you can’t produce enough, you start reducing the costs of your business, and we all understand what this means.

Final Fantasy VII: Thirteen years after

Thirteen years ago this game was released. Until now it has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. However it was yesterday when I finally could beat Safer Sephiroth and watch the end of Final Fantasy VII.

Why did it take so long? Since I was a teenager every time that I started a new adventure in FFVII something bad happened. Mostly, I had to battle with the memory card by the time I was using my Playstation one. The difference now is that I have a Playstation 3 and there’s no need of memory cards to play the oldies games.

It can seem a little awkward to express myself with such excitement towards this personal goal. Nonetheless, I believe that there are many things pending from our childhood and adolescence that we must complete if we want to be happy with ourselves. Finishing the biggest RPG game in the whole history surely deserves a place in this list of commitments.

Dengue strikes again

Commonly, January 1st is thought as a day of relax and rest. Not for me, because in Venezuela everything is possible, including the possibility to expend supposed holiday time inside a hospital because of an illness that was eradicated in the past century but now has returned walking side by side with socialism.

Fortunately, I’m not infected with dengue, but half of my family is suffering the disease. By a simple bite of the Aedes mosquito you could suffer dengue. The symptoms are similar to those of the common flu, thus, it is important to make the proper tests to discard any possible infection. That’s the price you pay  for living on an underdeveloped tropical country: beautiful but wide.

Dead Aedes aegypti mosquito lying on my hand