Vatican Museum

Jose & I 07/07

Fun with Photoshop

Vatican museum 07/07

Photo Op

I miss taking photos like the one below. Rome 07/07

I personally like the B&W version. What do you think?

A New Barcelona Forms Every 10 Days

"According to a forecast by the United Nations, no less than half of the world’s population will be living in urban areas in 2007. By 2030 this figure should have risen to 60 percent. To give some idea of what this means, one would have to imagine a city the size of Barcelona appearing somewhere in the world out of nowhere every 10 days."

In addition, PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that the gross domestic product (GDP) of the E7 countries - comprising Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia and Turkey - will exceed the gross domestic product of the G7 - made up of Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, Canada and the US - by approximately 25 percent in around 40 years.

The main take away from this article is to heavily invest in emerging markets over the next 40 or 50 years. Follow the growth.

Unwanted tranquillity

The past few weeks have been extremely tranquil. I've been stuck at home for most of the day, day after day, because I don't own a car and Milwaukee has poor public transportation. I've been using my bicycle, but that obviously limits the distance you can travel. I try and fill up my day by job hunting, but honestly, how much can one job search per day? My personal record has been about 6 hours.

Interestingly enough, some of my most exciting moments have occurred while grocery shopping. Sad as that sounds, it's true. For example, just yesterday I got into an altercation with an gentleman. I noticed that he was opening up many grape bags, feeling them, rubbing his hands all over them and then emptying the bags, essentially making them unsellable. The man was clearly not well. Everyone watched this (clearly shocked) but no one said anything. Mind blow, I approached the man asking him what he was doing, pointing out that people don't want his hands all over the grapes. He looked up at me, mumbled something about working in a supermarket and ran out the store.

It's simply amazing what you can get away with here in the U.S. People happily watch illegal/odd/wrong or otherwise strange things without saying or doing anything (side note: perhaps I need to exploit this).

Enough, I better get back to job hunting. I'm at hour 4 and I my goal is to break my 6 hour record. Wish me luck!

An update

I've been missing in action for the past few weeks because I've been sick with the worst case of the flu that I've ever had. I started feeling like shit while in Chicago and can say with reasonable certainty that it's behind me now. Oh, and I turned 25 recently, too.

Managing our digital lives

There used to be a time when photography was easy. Digital photography has changed everything. Technology has given us many more options and overall made digital photography more enjoyable. The benefits are obvious. Immediate feedback and ability to take as many photos as you wish are just two benefits that immediately come to mind. Most people in my generation (generation Y) have become so used to the immediate feedback to the point where they must always see the photo right after it is taken. Heaven forbid the photo was taken from your “bad side”.

Nothing is free
An initial cost analysis may lead one to think that digital photography is less expensive than traditional photography. I strong disagree. Digital photography has more options and more options mean more complexity. The immediate costs to take one photo or 100 photos are the same. Yet, the post processing costs are not free and they have become increasingly “expensive”. They require something much more valuable than money: time. Post processing costs include all of the time and energy required to transfer, organize, edit, categorize, share and backup those photos. I don’t know about you, but these costs have become increasingly burdensome for me.

Sharing
All of my friends are taking photos as well. Of course, I want those photos. Then I have to integrate those into the photos I took and start all over again. Oh yeah, then my friends want copies…copies that I must make smaller because the original photos are too large for email. They could download them off my flickr site one at a time (which again took time to upload to). But honestly, what normal person has time for that?

F#@K, I lost everything!
I’m betting there will be a large portion of my generation that will have their photos (read: memories) erased due to viri, hard drive crashes and other crazy reasons like "ransomware". I’ve already seen family and friends lose their data far too many times. An informal survery of my friends revealed that approximately 75% don’t have any type of backup. This is crazy. I don’t know about you, but losing my music, photos, videos and documents would be like losing part of me. I would probably cry.

Preserving these memories is already challenging and will become more difficult as the amount of data increases.There must be an easier way to manage this process from start to finish (end to end) and I must find it…fast. Please email me if you have any suggestions. If not, perhaps this is a business opportunity. Maybe I just gave you the best business idea ever. Invite me oven when you are an internet billionaire.

But first, immediately backup all of your files. You’ll thank me later.

Monday mullet photos

I saw the following three mullets on my trip to Rome in July. I'm not sure if the second third qualify for mullets, but they sure are interesting.

Tradational, yet sexy. Well done.

Honestly, what are you thinking?

I don't know where to begin with this thing...Whatever it is, it's been years in the making.

When 3rd place is really last place

I can vividly recall a free-throw tournament that I participated as an early teenager. A Catholic “fraternal society” called The Knights of Columbus hosted it. The objective was very simple: make as many successful free throws given ten attempts. The more the better. Duh. I think I made 1 out of 10. Nearly everyone in my age group made more than me. I obviously had no chance of winning anything. My young, fragile, impressionable ego would be crushed. I would always be a loser because of this traumatic tournament. Or so the adults must have thought , because I miraculously got 3rd place. At the time I didn’t think anything was unusual about it. I was far too excited. In fact, I could not contain my excitement as I rode home with my father, big medal around my neck.

It was not until recently that I realized that everyone got a medal. I imagine this “you’re all winners” mantra was meant to build confidence. Many people say that my generation is spoiled, sensitive, far too coddled and needs constant praise. I’m not surprised. Growing up, our parents and teachers made us believe that we were all special, so unique…one of a kind. Statistically speaking, this is impossible, of course. The sad, hard truth is that most people are average. You’re probably average. You don’t think it, but statistically, you probably are. You don’t think you’re average because psychology studies have shown that most people think they’re “above average”, regardless of what they are referring to (intellect, attractiveness, likability, etc). Don’t buy it? Go ahead; rate your own sexual attractiveness on a scale of 1 through 10.....

I bet it was higher than a 5. Oh, in case you were wondering, I think that I’m a 10 +. I know that it’s true because my parents told me. ;)

1 year - by the numbers

Below are a few interesting numbers from the last 12 months.

• Miles traveled: 38,000 +
  
• Cities visited: 23
  
• Countries visited: 11
• Passport stamps received: 16
• Flights missed: 3 (London, Madrid and Ibiza)
• Website entries posted: 221
• Unique visitors to this website: 6,500 +
  
• Average time spent on site, per visitor: 5 minutes 32 seconds
• Photos taken and saved: 7,500 + (with many more deleted)
  
• Videos taken: 239
• Months overstayed my tourist visa: 8 (whoops!)
  
• Total apartments: 5
• Total roommates: 12
  
• Percentage of money "evaporated" due to the dollar to euro exchange rate: ~33%

What an amazing year...

The elderly of europe

Older people in Europe seem to have more youthfulness and energy than their U.S. counterparts. I've always had an odd fascination with the elderly, mostly because I feel we can learn a lot of them. I plan to be a very eccentric older person. I plan to use my age as an excuse to do crazy things that only old people can get away with. If everything goes as planned, my brother and his wife will need to explain how Uncle Chris " just old" and "a little special." Until then, below is my photo tribute to the elderly of Europe.

B&W series

I noticed that I take a lot of street art and architecture photos and not a lot of "people" photos. The photos below are my first attempt to shoot random people in their everyday lives. I'm happy with the results.

The Puti's

More proof that Jose is an amazing graphic artist. Top to bottom: Me, Jose & Keyan. Done in the style of the cover artwork on the Best of Blur album. Simply amazing!

Why?

Please help me understand why...

• the quality of music always increases as it approaches closing time while the quality of people in the club dramatically declines.
  
• people want all the comfort of home in a hotel. You're not home. Get out of your hotel.
  
• many tourists dress as if they are on an African safari when you're walking in the center of a cosmopolitan city like Barcelona.
  
• most Asian tourists have telescopic camera lens that are at least twice as long as my, well, let's just say they are huge.
  
• so many British, Irish and Americans waste their vacation by getting drunk in an Irish pub. You ought to just stay home if you don't want to experience the culture...to learn something new.
  
• people buy and wear a t-shirt printed with the name of the city that you’re visiting before you return home. I can guarantee that the locals think you're a loser.
  
• the Spanish feel that it is socially acceptable to stop and talk with people right in the middle of a busy sidewalk.

Why??? Please help me understand!

The world is my playground

The world is my playground is more than a phrase...it's a mindset. This past year has taught me that the world can be anyone's playground - if you want it to be.

Jose made this one of a kind poster for me and gave it to me yesterday. It incorporates the phrase, along with many of the predominant landmarks from my personal travels this past year. Thanks again, Jose...it's amazing.

1 year - city by city

AMSTERDAM --> PRAGUE --> BARCELONA --> LONDON --> ROME --> MILAN --> LONDON --> LEUVEN--> BRUSSELS --> ANTWERP --> COLOGNE --> AMSTERDAM --> ROTTERDAM --> PARIS --> LISBON --> MADRID --> ZURICH --> BERLIN --> SITGES --> LONDON --> SITGES --> GIRONA --> MADRID --> SEVILLE --> IBIZA --> MALAGA --> GRANADA --> ROME --> MILWAUKEE --> NYC --> ???

Poble Nou Street Art & Vagabonds

A few hours before I left for Rome, I noticed some fun new street art very close to my house in Poble Nou. I made a mental note to take some photos when I returned from Rome. Yesterday I went back when it was starting to get a bit dark. The lighting made for good photos, which you'll see below. Even better, a group of vagabonds were chatting in front of some older graffiti. I immediately saw an opportunity for a good photo. I didn't want to disturb them and wanted something more candid, so I took the third photo below while I was on a bicycle riding past them. For some odd reason, one of the guys shouted, "que tal, guapo" (how are you, sexy) as I rode past the group. The framing turned out very well considering that I captured it while moving on a bike.

Back from Rome

I'm back and feeling a bit overwhelmed. All of the travel from this past month (Madrid, Seville, Ibiza, Granada, Malaga and Rome) has been a sensory overload, causing my head to feel like it is spinning. Now that I have a free calendar for the next 5 days, I must prepare for my return to the U.S. next week Tuesday (july 31st). I have mixed feelings, but overall I feel renewed and ready for something challenging.Time will tell what lies ahead for me.

I have lots of photos to review, organize and post after I get caught up. Watch for them within the next few days.

Rome Update

Both Granada and Malaga were remarkable. Unlike Barcelona, the culture in southern Spain is unmistakable Spanish.

I arrived in Barcelona on Saturday morning and Jose and I left for Rome earlier today, leaving less than 24 hours to prepare. It is my second time visiting Rome and his first. It is also my last trip before my departure to the U.S on July 31st. We're having lots of fun and eating extremely well.

Watch for some exciting posts before I leave for the U.S. Until then.

New RSS Feed

If you use a feed aggregator to read my site, please update your address: http://feeds.feedburner.com/chrisrako.

Do you have no idea what I'm talking about? You should. Please read below. Feeds are cool. Think email in 1997.

Most of you probably check this site (along with a lot of others) with a set frequency of whatever (X). The problem doing it that way is you never know if you're wasting time due to no new content. Likewise, you may visit my site only to see 5 (or more) new posts causing information overload. Constantly checking multiple sites is difficult, time consuming and easily forgettable.

There is a better way. You can "subscribe" to my site and any other site with a feed. It's simple. "Aggregators reduce the time and effort needed to regularly check websites for updates, creating a unique information space or "personal newspaper." Once subscribed to a feed, an aggregator is able to check for new content at user-determined intervals and retrieve the update. The aggregator provides a consolidated view of the content in a single browser display or desktop application. Such applications are also referred to as RSS readers, feed readers, feed aggregators, news readers." - Wikipedia

Want to get started or get more info? Go here. Then subscribe to my feed. :)

Quick update

I depart for Malaga and Granada in 3 hours. I arrive back to BCN late Friday night, but leave once again on early Sunday morning for Rome. I don't expect to post anything until I return from Rome on July 25th. P.S. Yes, Ibiza was amazing. I'll post photos when I return from Rome.

If you are bored and have time to burn, feel free to view my photos on Flick or browse old posts under the "journal topics" section on the lower right side of this page.

Monday mullet photos

I'm not exactly sure why it's been so long since I posted mullet photos. They were some of my most popular posts. Go figure. Anyway, the Monday mullet madness continues with some Madridian mullets. Enjoy!

Seville Spain photos

Simply amazing. The photos show the beauty much better than I could ever explain it. View all of the photos here.

This guy owned what I think is the best tapas bar in Seville.

The Cathedral in Seville. Remarkable

Plaza España, Seville

Cathedral in Seville

Yes, I have the skills of SpidermanView all of the photos here.

World's cutest old man

If this isn't the world's cutest old man then I don't know who is. He was enjoying a nice stroll along the beaches of Barcelona earlier today. His over sized clothes, socks pulled up, vest, hat that, gangster style, was slightly shifted to the side...too much. I love it!

Sevillian Gastronomy

I was in Seville during the Festival De Las Naci Nes, an annual arts, cultural and gastronomical extravaganza held along the Guadalquivir river. Food, music and arts from Colombia, Cuba, Greece, Germany, Jamaica, Ecuador, India, Mexico, France, Peru, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, along with many other countries were represented. I had food typical of Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, France, Peru and Argentina. It would be fair to say that I ate enough food for a week in my 3 days in Seville. Check out the photos below. Yum!

Argentinian Steak. Need I say more?

Typical Spanish breakfast. Cafe con Leche (espresso w/ whole mike), pan (bread) w/ Jamon (ham).

Argentinian sausage - amazing

Cuban spiced chicken and beef with killer sauce.

Salmorejo, a very typical dish of Seville.

French crepe. "The Exotic": Chicken, nata, cheese and pineapple. Loved the mix of flavors.