Today is the last day of 2011 and it is once again when people look back in time and realize what they have done throughout the year and if they stuck to their promises. I don’t give that much importance to events like new year’s eve or even my birthday but I decided to write a blog post and to think about what happened on 2011.

December is also the month I’ve joined Igalia, I have been in the company for 3 year and the changes seem to have been quite some.
I feel 2011 was not a very productive year from the point of view of side projects. I have been working on the toolkit that powers the MeeGo Harmattan (Nokia N9) for a year and a half and that, together with other tasks in Igalia and in my personal life didn’t leave me much time for creating new projects. Still, I released 5 new versions of OCRFeeder; 4 versions of SeriesFinale and ported it for the Nokia N9. Also I have given once again presentations in some nice events like FOSDEM and LinuxTag.

On the personal side of things the big event this year was my wedding with Helena. After that we had a nice time travelling in Turkey after having cancelled the plans to visit Japan due to the earthquake.
We also spent 10 days in Berlin, we are still in love with the city and we wish one day we’ll experience living in there (could it be 2012?).
After 3 years living in Spain, I feel comfortable here, I recognize its virtues and flaws but I want to know more cultures, more languages and thus more ways of seeing life. As for Portugal, it is part of what defines me but Helena and I are not planning on living in there for the foreseeable future, especially these times when the government(s) is(are) making things difficult for everybody.
Related to this and the economic crisis that is going on, this year I joined a demo and a strike for the first time and I keep hoping that things get better for everyone.
I also realized I am now used to donate to some institutions throughout the year and it is something that makes me feel good.

As book counting is something often present in this kind of year’s review, in 2011 I read 10 books and a short story. The most important ones, in case you’re interested are: The God Delusion (Richard Dawkins), Through the Language Glass (Guy Deutscher) and Citações e Pensamentos de Agostinho da Silva (“Quotes and Thoughts of Agostinho da Silva” by the philosopher).

The future

People often say “next year is gonna be a year of change” but things do change and some situations that happened this year have made me think about my life so I really feel there are going to be changes in 2012. Hopefully they will be good ones.

I wish you all a happy 2012.

As announced in last year’s Summer, I proposed to Helena and we got married in Portugal, last June.

Planning a wedding almost 900 Km away is not easy so you can imagine the busy first half of the year we had.
Still, it could have been much harder if it wasn’t for our families and for Mr. João Patameira, manager of Boavista Golf Resort, the little paradise where we had the wedding. He knows how to plan a wedding, he was nice and professional and always made us relax, saying everything was gonna be okay and it was. At least to us, it was perfect!

(Sight from the Boavista Golf Resort)

This wedding had no religion implied, instead we had a little ceremony with a lady from the government (from the registry office). She gave a little speech apart from reading a bunch of laws but “that’s a recent thing that is mandatory by the government”, she said.
My friend Seco (who takes cool photos of beautiful places) was really nice to propose himself to be the photographer of the wedding and he did a great job! Thank you man!

Of course we couldn’t invite all the people we thought of but we had people coming from Portugal, Spain, Finland, Angola, The Netherlands and The UK!
It was especially nice also to get together again with some of our best friends from the University.

In the end of the night, having had already live music and karaoke, we had live performances by some guests and myself.
In what wedding do you have a Cuban and a Mexican singing “Gimme tha power” (by Molotov)? I had it in mine thanks to my dear friends Edu and Victor. As for me, I played “Bad Things” (by Jace Everett) which I can never do completely well normally, let alone when already half-drunk

And that was it, I am now married to my best friend and got the best wedding I have ever attended.

I would like to thank our friends (especially those who were so far away but came for us), our families and the restaurant staff and entertainers.
Thank you!

Yesterday I drove down to Portugal to spend Christmas with my family.
Once again I couldn’t make it to Igalia‘s Xmas dinner which was last night. (maybe next year…)

And that’s all, I wish a Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays or simply a fine weekend to anyone who reads this.

PS: For a more detailed description on how I might spend Christmas, check out the “last year’s edition” of this post.

I don’t normally post on subjects that everybody post but this year I’m writing a post about Christmas.

Not being a religious person, for me Christmas represents a time where people try to be nicer and where I can calmly be with my family enjoying the holidays. Because of this, I love Christmas!
You see, being Portuguese, Christmas also means we all get together today, on Christmas eve, and enjoy a big dinner where turkey (hmmmm turkey!), lamb (haaaa lammmb!) and codfish (ohhhhh codfiiiishhh!), all are present. Of course, we also abuse sweet desserts and later open presents.

Note: My father tells me that many years ago, presents were given at the Epiphany (January 6) but eventually we adopted the American(?) tradition of giving presents on the midnight of December 24 (and I prefer it this way ). Curiously Spanish people still give presents on January 6 but my fellow Igalians told me things are also changing in there.

So, I wish you feel as fortunate as I feel this night to be able to spend it with the people I love most.
Merry Christmas, and if you don’t celebrate it, happy holidays!

Today is my last day of vacations. Two weeks ago I went to Portugal, in the pleasant company of my girlfriend, to visit family and friends. I arrived at dinner time on Saturday, had a quite dinner and although I was really tired I still managed to be until 5 AM finishing a paint I wanted for so long give to my cousin. The following day we had a nice supa-lunch with my family, a good beginning for the busy week that would follow. On Monday and Tuesday we were in Évora to meet with some good friends and my crazy brother. The rest of the week was spent in Lagos, the home town of my girlfriend and a land with some of the best beaches in Portugal.

In the middle of this past week we returned to Coruña as we had stuff to take care of but yesterday we went with our friends Victor, Edu and his wife Silvia to the “Festival de Pardiñas”, a very Galician folk music that started 30 years ago. We were supposed to spend the night in the camp but it had been raining a lot and the humidity and mud convinced us it was better to take the invitation of Silvia’s friend Fernando and sleep at his home which was 10 minutes from there.
The music was nice, we were late for the first band and tired for the last one but we could watch the great performances of “La Belle Image Fanfare” (France) and “Hedningarna” (Sweden). Although I think everyone of my party liked the French folks much more, I really enjoyed “Hedningarna”! Some of its songs reminded me of some metal bands I like from Scandinavia and I think it makes sense…

Now, back at home, I upgraded my WordPress successfully and will watch a movie and relex a bit so I’m all set for tomorrow’s work.