“If we devote ourselves to sacredness in our profession the world will rise up to meet us” — Joel Salatin, farmer, during TEDxMidAtlantic.

“Don’t you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don’t you believe in telepathy? – in ancient astronauts? – in the Bermuda triangle? – in life after death?

No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.

One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst out “Don’t you believe in anything?”

“Yes,” I said. “I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.”

Isaac Asimov, The Roving Mind (1997), 43

Via McGee’s Musings, hat tip to Estebán.

My sister finally convinced to buy one of these fancy cameras you can see today all over the place, a gorgeous DSLR from Canon. I wanted to have one for years, probably since the times I used to study them in the University and yay after 2,000+ point-and-shoot photos in Flickr the moment has come.

The camera arrived last Friday, just in time for our planed weekend in Philadelphia that none of us had visit before, perfect to start shooting with fresh eyes. Needless to say I completed the 4GB memory card within hours.

And for you, dear and faithful reader, I’ve made a special Selection of The Selection. My personal top 5, those ones I don’t know why –maybe because they’ve a minimum of technique and opportunity– I find particularly mysterious:

These alleys are seriously scary. I saw the car coming and I quickly grabbed the camera, aiming that the focus remained on the guys.

He drew all my attention, I wanted to make sure I didn't miss his eyes.

This wasn't particularly easy, I was in a cab and I wanted to get a sharp image of the girl, on the right side of the image so that you can see where she's heading to.

These guys were a lot of fun, they were skating in a forbidden area and did all kind of things for the camera, the goal was to get a still image of someone in movement!

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is worth visiting, not only the artwork is excellent, the way rooms are set up is impressive.

So far I have only played with the automatic modes and some quick post editions. I can’t wait to walk the camera and start messing things up with the wrong combination of focal length, speed, ISO and depth of field.

First things first: the White House:

Then the Capitol and Washington Monument:

Time to relax downtown:

Oh, oh, the FBI J. Edgar Hoover building:

and the final fun!

This weekend we tried something different to see the city. I had seen some people riding Segways the other day, so my old legs and I decided it was about time ride one of those, specially when I knew that my mates in Granada where organizing exactly the same plan. Cheaters.

There are several companies in the city doing this and they all look fine (and equally expensive). I chose one pretty randomly (the one who had the best timetable for us) and it turned out to be pretty good. It is Capital Segway and they also are official Segway distributors in case you want to buy one after the ride (I bet you’ll at least consider it). The tour guide knew well the city and the Segways worked great. I have to admit this poor nerd had a good fun.

Because:

• He puts a B in every V sound.
• He speaks 100% louder than anybody else.
• He compares everything you say with Spain.
• He forces a smile before the following words: flamenco, toros, siesta, fiesta, Antonio Banderas, Mexico and tortilla de patatas.
• He sings Julio Iglesias in the shower.

Patience dude, at least he is not French or Italian.

La foto de arriba esta tomada en una cafetería cerca de la calle 42 en Manhattan. Había quedado ahí con mis padres para empezar el día de turisteo, y me descubrí absorto mirando por la ventana mientras se me enfriaba uno de esos gigantes cafés americanos.

De Nueva York te pueden llamar la atención muchas cosas, empezando por ese olor que no creo que haya en ningún otro sitio. Sin embargo ha sido ahora que he descubierto lo que realmente me engancho cuando viví aquí hace ya 4 años.

La gente. Son las horas y horas que me pase mirando a la peña pasando por la calle. En un ambiente de dinamismo brutal, en Nueva York se maximiza la diversidad de nuestra especie. Si consigues convencer a los neoyorkinos de algo, no tendrás dificultad en que te siga el resto del mundo.

This is just to test WordPress post by e-mail feature, if everything worked at least you’ll be able to see a nice pic of Washington’s channel below.

With Guatemala:

Vaya país de auténtico lujo, habrá que volver.

Toda la suerte del mundo, compañeros.

No sé cómo me las he apañado.  Aunque soy como quien dice un recién llegado, el mes que viene me presento a unas elecciones.

No son las europeas, son para una cosa llamada “Consejo de Residentes Españoles” (CRE). Un órgano de enlace entre el Consulado y la comunidad española. Voy de último suplente (como si nos hubieran ordenado alfabéticamente) así que mis aspiraciones de salir son  bien modestas.

Nos presentamos dos candidaturas, la Participación Ciudadana Progresista – Españoles en el Mundo y la Candidatura España y Libertad. Como sé que se lo están preguntando se lo digo ya. En la primera hay un par de miembros del PSOE y en la segunda del PP. Pero no me entiendan mal. Esto del CRE no es algo político, las dos candidaturas están encabezadas por independientes y no están controladas por ningún partido (lo puedo asegurar al menos de la mía, la progresista).

Así las cosas nos reunimos ayer en el Consulado para presentar nuestros programas públicamente. Una de estas reuniones de las que no te arrepientes ir (y eso que no daban comida gratis). Se discutió de lo divino y de lo humano, de programas y de personas, todos contentos.

Todos contentos hasta que a alguien del público, viendo que ambas candidaturas tenemos programas bastante parecidos, se le ocurre preguntar que cuál sería la señal que nos distingue. Me alegré, teníamos una buena respuesta (el proceso abierto y participativo, a ver si no cómo estaría yo aquí). Y entonces, de repronto, uno de los representantes de la otra candidatura contesta (reproducción libre, no tengo la grabación):

Si algo nos distingue es que nuestra candidatura jamás pedirá perdón por lo que hicieron los españoles durante la conquista de América. No hay nada de lo que arrepentirnos.

Dirán ustedes que tener la conciencia tranquila es síntoma de mala memoria. Yo me limité a quedarme patidifuso. Imaginen que estamos de cervezas en un bar y pregunto: ¿cuál creéis que es la mayor diferencia entre el Barça y el Manchester United? Y va alguien y dice:

Si algo nos distingue es que en Manchester tuvimos lo que hay que tener para apoyar la guerra de Irak y así poder cortarle el cuello a ese hijoputa de Sadam.

Llámenme cobarde pero, si alguna vez me veo en estas, sacrifico la cerveza (y la tapa) y me largo al bar de enfrente.

Así que, a lo que iba, si eres español y resides en Washington DC, el 13 de junio no te olvides de votar.

Actualización: Nos quedamos anoche hasta tarde en el Consulado con el recuento de votos, y ¡ganamos! Con un margen bastante amplio, y olé, gracias a todos por participar.

You can find below a nice collection of photos summarizing the atmosphere we’ve had during the last three weeks (thanks Victor!). There you can see the folkls I work with, and also some of the activities we’ve developed in Mexico, like the shipment of Oseltamivir:

Bonus: with a bit of attention you can also find me totally concentrated doing god only knows :)

The organization has been more flexible than I expected. In a big institution you’d say there are internal inertias difficult to change, requiring weeks to be redirected. However, we adapted our work in a matter of hours. We left one day with a list of priorities, and by the end of the next morning we had them rewroked. Having a smart boss is important.

I also thought that with hundrreds of people available, we were gonna set up shifts to keep the normal working hours to a certain extent (even if we needed to work in the weekends or night). Wrong again. It’s true we had shifts, but a large core of people decided to stay available 24/7, spending way more than 8 hours per day in the office. I don’t think this was about a lack of personnel but a commitment to their responsibilities.

In any case, it’s the first time I live a situation like this (and hopefully the last one) so I may be struck by things the veterans consider natural in emergencies. I’ll take my time before finalizing the (long) list of lessons learned –from day zero, like a reflex, I got a notebook and started writing down all kind of things: stuff to improve, to pay attention to, workflows, organization charts, research articles…. Like in the avian flu, this is hopfeully the kind of situations which make international institutions more effective, right?