Frida, Trotsky and Coyoacan

Zocalo

Maguey

Tortillas

Xinantecatl

Today we took Justin to the Xinantecatl or Nevado de Toluca. I've been there several times but I always enjoy going. This volcano is renown for a few reasons. First, on clear days, Toluca enjoys a nice view of the volcano. It used to be snowed for most of the winter (hence the name) but nowadays it's only snowed during late winter. The second reason it's know is for two lakes inside the caldera. The larger one is called Lake of the Sun and the smaller is called Lake of the Moon. The third reason this volcano is interesting is because it's the only volcano in the world where you can actually drive into the crater.

Anyway, on clear days such as this one, you are able to see the Popocatepetl and Ixtazihuatl on the other side of Mexico City. I took this picture from one of the smaller peaks. It is also said that if you are at the tallest peak, you can see the Pacific Ocean. I've been up twice, but never on a clear enough day to see if that is actually possible. Maybe I should just do the math.


Well, I climbed one of the smaller peaks as Ili, Roberto and Justin went down to the lakes. I eventually caught up with them and we walked around the lakes. The Lake of the Moon was nearly all frozen over. Roberto and I enjoyed breaking chunks of ice and throwing rocks through the ice. We did the same when we got to the lake of the Sun, but it wasn't all frozen. In this picture bellow you can see Roberto walking ahead of us.

Three Cultures

Today was a day full of activities. Ili's friend from Australia arrived yesterday in the afternoon, so today we took him to several places. We fist went to Calixtlahuaca which is about 10 minutes from our house. These are some ruins originally build by the Matlazincas in the Toluca Valley. It was eventually taken over by the Aztecs and this urban center was used to control a large portion of the Toluca Valley. The most interesting structure is the round pyramid seen in this picture. There are only two or three round pyramids in the world and this is one of them. Since the cite is rather small, it's a nice place to avoid tourists and enjoy the views of the valley. See this location in Live Maps.

On our way back from Calixtlahuaca, we stopped by the old church in Tecaxic. I'm not too sure about the history of the church, but I do know that it has gotten some write-ups in tour guides about Mexico. So, I guess it must have some nice architecture on the inside. Unfortunately it was closed, so we couldn't see inside. However the outside is very nice.
See this location in Live Maps.

Later in the afternoon after lunch, we headed to downtown Toluca. The main place we were going to visit is the Cosmovitral. Toluca isn't a very nice city, but if you ever go, you must go here. The Cosmovitral was an old market turned into a gorgeous botanical garden surrounded by stained glass windows. The garden is nice, but the main attraction are is the stained glass windows that surround the entire building. The design of the windows show the creation of the universe and good(day) and evil(night). The central piece is the representation of sun which looks spectacular as the afternoon light shines through it. See this location in Live Maps.

That evening when we were back home, Justin commented that it was amazing to be in places and building that were much older than anything in Australia.

You can see more pictures of Calixtlahuca, Tecaxic and the Cosmovitral in my Picasa Web Albmum.

Christmas Day

The Christmas tree surrounded by gifts on Christmas morning.

Christmas Eve

Today is Christmas Eve! This view is looking west from our back yard. Here you are able to see the Moon high in the sky and Venus just above the horizon.

Cow

One of our neighbors down the road has several sheep and cows. Next to our house near Tecaxic there is a big field where he takes his cattle to graze. In this picture, one of the cows is eating some dried leafs that are on our backyard fence.

Mexico City

We went to Toluca today to spend Christmas there. Roberto took this picture on our drive out of Mexico City. This is a typical Mexico City cab. The street you can see in the background is the Periferico. It is sometimes known as the largest parking lot in the world, can you guess why? Since it's Christmas and many people are out on vacation, the traffic isn't so bad. This picture was taken by my brother Roberto.

Tamales

Tonight we went to Coyoacan to buy tamales for dinner. In this bad picture, you can see the lady taking out the tamales from the pots they are heated in. See this location in Live Maps.

Market

Today I accompanied my mom and sister to a market in Mexico City. This is a stand with several types of mole. See this location in Live Maps.

Denver Airport

I was on my way to Mexico and went through the Denver airport. This is a statue of some Apollo astronaut. See this location in Live Maps.

Radnor Lake

Today in the afternoon we went hiking to Radnor Lake in Nashville. My Australian cousins are visiting for the holidays so we took them for a quick hike around the lake. See this location in Live Maps.

Graduation

My initial flight from Seattle to Chicago was over an hour late and I barely made it to my connecting flight to Nashville. When we arrived at the gate I had about 8 minutes to run across the entire Chicago airport. Once we arrived in Nashville, I took this picture as we disembarked from the plane. See this location in Live Maps.


Jose, Kristen, Ili and Tim picked me up and we went to Cookeville for Martha's graduation. The next picture is Martha and me after she graduated the graduation. She obtained her M.S. (Master in Science) in Electrical Engineering at Tennessee Tech University; which is the same place I got my M.S. See this location in Live Maps.

Blackout

Maybe I shouldn't have made fun of the weather yesterday. Last night the wind speed was between 50 and 77 mph in Seattle and by the coast 90 mph winds were recorder.

The wind was pretty amazing last night and it finally caused the lights to go out a little past 1 a.m. I was surprised they didn't go out sooner since they had been flickering on and off all night long. However, when I went to bed, I wasn't expecting them to still be out in the morning.

When I woke up, I managed to check my email over the phone and find out the entire Microsoft campus was closed due to lack of electricity. Yay, I thought, no work! But then I realized that also meant no hot water, no hot food and no heat. Darn you electricity! When I own a house, Ill have a propane heater and stove.

As I heard the news, I found out that most of Seattle was without electricity and in the surrounding areas about 700,000 (including me) were also without electricity. I heard that several trees had fallen and caused major problems. One of my coworkers had a tree fall on his house and another was helping his neighbor who also had a tree fall on his house. I went out for a while to see if I could find any fallen trees in my area, but they had all been removed. I can't copy pictures form my camera to my phone, so Ill post the image later.

This type of storm is rather uncommon in this part of the country. But apparently it happens about one every ten years. The last time it happened was in 1993, so we were well overdue for one.

Quartz

Nothing much happened today except for the torrential rain, flooding, mud slide and 55 mph gusts of wind. I wish I could have taken pictures of it, but I didn't have my camera with me when I was out. So instead, I took a picture of this quartz my brother Roberto gave me.

Twenty Six

4! + 2 = 13 + 13 = 1A = sqrt(676) = 7 + 19 = 11010

Potato Head Star Wars

Remember that my office mate was a Star Wars aficionado? Well, today he added to his collection of Star Wars memorabilia. He got these Mr. Potato Head Star Wars figures. These are actually kinda cool.

Bowling

As a reward for a year of hard work (I've only been here 6 months), the entire Virtual Earth team went bowling. It was actually nice only working half the day; especially on a Monday. It's been 8 or 9 years since I've gone bowling, so needless to say (yet, I'm saying it), I sucked. I was lucky the first game and actually had several strikes. But, my luck vanished for the rest of the afternoon. I took several pictures, but really none came out well at all. I'm blaming the lighting.

See this location on Live Maps.

Country Music

Hey yall! Here is some good ol' country music right next to the first Starbucks ever. Them sure know how to pick a good tune. See this location on Live Maps.

New Coffee Machines

Today was a long day at the office. Certainly not the type of day you want for a Friday. Anyway, today we got new Starbucks coffee machines installed in the kitchenettes at work. Not that Starbucks is that great, but it sure beats what we used to have. Yeah, I know. It's not an interesting picture, but like I said, it was a long day at work.

Sidewalk Chalk Drawing

The new Windows Mobile platform was released a few weeks ago. So, just like they did with IE 7, they drew some ads with chalk by the entrance of our buildings.

Reed

Took this picture on my way to work this morning.

Microsoft Visitor Center

Went over to the Company Store after work today. On my way out, I stopped by the Visitor Center. In this view you can see the exhibit for the new Zune and in the background the history of Microsoft products. The Visitor Center is actually rather small, but if you are ever in the area, I'll give you a tour.

Fall Colors At Night

I didn't really take this picture today. All the trees have already lost all their leafs. I didn't have a picture for today, so I decided to post one from my collection. I think I took this picture walking home from work one night sometime this past October.

Almost Full Moon

Today, the moon is 99% illuminated and tomorrow is full moon. I was going to wait until tomorrow to take some pictures, but it just looked so cool that I went to Marymoor Park and took a few pictures. I wasn't planning on posting any since I want to try to post only one per day. But, this one looked so cool that I had to post it. This picture was taken near the soccer fields and I was a bit surprised the lights didn't drown out the moon. It almost looks as if the nearest lights are shining on the moon itself. See this location in Live Maps.

University Presbyterian Church

Went to church here today in the morning. See this location in Live Maps.

Fremont Troll and Gas Works Park

Went sightseeing today. The first place I visited was the Fremont Troll. It's been part of Seattle since 1990 and can be found under the Aurora bridge and 35th street. His eye is made from a hubcap and in his left hand he clutches an old VW beetle. See this location in Live Maps.


After visiting the troll, I went to Gas Works Park which is near by. The park used to be an old gas manufacturing plant. It was eventually shut down and turned into a park. Besides it's green areas, it also has some remains of the old gas plant and several play areas for kids. See this location in Live Maps.


The park has a great view of Lake Union and provides an excellent northerly view of the Seattle skyline. Check out more pictures in my Picasa Web Album.

Christmas in Redmond

Santa's Workshop at the Redmond Town Center. See this location in Live Maps.

Homemade Bread

Thursdays seem to be the worst day of the week. Do you know how I noticed? I was looking through my previous posts and noticed that I had not posted anything the last two Thursdays and I was about to not post anything today. Oh yeah, and today was a not a very good day. Some people hate Mondays. I can deal with Mondays, but Thursdays are just about the end of the week, but your not quite there yet... It teases you with its almost weekend feeling, but you know you have one more day of work and can't relax yet.

Anyway, I was tired of the breads they have at the grocery store. Although they have a very good bakery, I wanted something homemade. So, for the first time in years I baked bread. To my surprise it actually came out just like it was supposed to. There is nothing like soft, freshly baked bread.

Frozen Lake

I took this picture yesterday morning. It snowed Monday night and this is what it looked like Tuesday morning behind my apartment. The lake was almost completely frozen, but there was small area where the ducks still had some water left. It rarely snows around here, so all the roads were covered with snow and frozen over. I never thought I would get a "snow day" from work but we actually almost did. Of course, instead of going to the office we just worked from home (or at least pretended to).

Fire

With the snow and the cold weather it sure felt nice to have a fire tonight. Before the logs consumed themselves, I took some pictures and liked this one the most.


Have you ever wondered what phase of matter fire is? Well, if you have ever wondered, but never knew, here you go. Fire is considered to be plasma. To be specific, a low temperature partial plasma.

Let it Snow

When I woke up today, the ground was covered in a light snow. It was more ice by then since it had been several hours since it snowed the previous night. However, just as I got back from work, it started snowing again. About 10 minutes later I took this picture and there was already about 1/5 of an inch. It accumulated fairly quickly up to about 1 inch.

Drummer Boy

I went to downtown Bellevue to see the new movie Deja vu. As I crossed the sky bridge from the parking lot to the movie theater I heard drumming, trumpets and Christmas music. Since I only had my camera phone with me, I could only take a picture of this drummer that was closest to the bridge. It was actually rather cool, because the entire block was lined up with drummers and a couple of trumpets on both sides of the street. They also had fake snow coming from the buildings.

See this location in Live Maps.

Tow-Away Zone

Today I went to Pike's Market in downtown Seattle. I saw a lot of interesting stuff including a group of people gathered around a Tow-Away sign. I fail to see why they were all gathered around this post with the sign. Can't they read? It clearly says "No Stops".

See this location on Live Maps. See more pictures in my Picasa Album.

Over a Century of Flight

It's a bird! No, it's superman! Oh wait, it's just a plane...

Instead of joining the masses in post-Thanksgiving materialistic consumption, I payed a visit to the Museum of Flight. The museum is comparable to the Smithsonian's in in Washington, D.C. It has everything from a replica of the Wright Brother's Kitti Hawk, to the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird seen in the picture bellow. In this picture you can also see several other planes including an Extra 300, two NASA experimental planes, US and USSR war planes, some older commercial planes and a replica of the Viking Mars Lander.



Most of the planes are on display in large hangars where it's nice and warm. However, some of the cooler larger planes are on display outside where it's cold and windy. One of the planes outside includes this recently retired British Airways Concorde.

See this location on Live Maps.

Press Any Key To Continue

With no food in the fridge and too tired to buy and prepare food, I went the easy route and got pizza. I went to Pizza Schmizza located in the Redmond Town Center. The entire place has its walls decorated with fun stuff. On the roof, they have an assortment of board games (yes, board games). On the walls, they have a variety of other collections, ranging from Pez dispensers to pigs on bicycles (yes, pigs on bicycles). The wall next to the table with the drinks and napkins was covered with old mice and keyboards of the old fashioned type (yes, old).

Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear