Category: life

Resigning from the Board

I’ve been thinking a lot about what to do about my participation on GNOME Foundation’s Board of Directors in face of the fact that my wife and I are expecting our first baby in February. After careful consideration, I decided to resign. I want to be fully focused on my family (especially in the first few months) without feeling bad for doing Board stuff while I could be with my family or not doing Board stuff while I’m spending time with my family.

So, considering my priorities now, I feel that I would be more useful to the Board by stepping down and letting another person with a lot of energy to take my position on Board for the rest of this mandate. The Board has decided to appoint Jorge Castro to replace me. He’s highly motivated and I’m sure he’ll give good contributions as a member of the Board.

I’ve had a great time in my two and a half years on Foundation Board. It was a great way to support the community in several ways and to work with some very nice people. The GNOME Foundation is getting better everyday and I feel very proud to be part of it.

From frozen to rainy lands

Yet another London cliché
Yet another London cliché!

So, here I am, finally, in London. In the last 25 days (most of them without internet access at home), Carol and I have been doing basic settling in stuff, doing some sightseing, going to some nice concerts (I really love to have a real cultural life again!), getting scared by the insanely high living costs, and all other obvious things a couple would do in their first month in London. So far, so good.

For us, there’s a very strong relief feeling associated with this move. Mostly because being in London marks the end of a very painful visa process (and all the consequent problems) that we went through in last 5-6 months. I feel a bit frustrated with all the wasted time and energy during this period. It’s like there’s a kind of “hole” in my 2008 which made lose most of motivation for a lot of things I love to do (which made me suck a lot as a GNOME guy this year btw). On the other hand, the new life in London brings me a refreshing energy now.

As you probably know, London is the land of clichés.Yes, anything you do has probably been done by some milion of other people already. So, I couldn’t help myself to have cliché photo in this post!

In Boston

So, I just arrived in Boston. When I got to the hotel, my room was not ready yet so I had to randomly walk around the city for about 1 hour. I was quite tired but it was a nice walk after all. I found this nice bookstore where I bought two books I was looking for with very good prices: the biographies of Coltrane (by Ratliff) and Davis (by Davis). I’m reading now the biography of Jimi Hendrix (by Cross). Cool stuff.

Anyway, if you’re around and want to have dinner/a beer this week, just let me know.

Back

Long time, no blog posts.

I’ve been going through a stressful UK visa process since mid-April and that (in addition to several other small problems occured during this time) gradually busted most of my energy for GNOME stuff. Anyway, the good news is that the visa process is over and I’m back!

Some quick/random notes:

  • GNOME 2.24 was released! Congratulations to everyone who contributed to this release!
  • The new much-saner session manager was integrated in GNOME 2.24! I was a bit worried about this because, in middle of the development cycle,  I realized that I wouldn’t have time to finish what I started on time for the 2.24 release. Fortunately, Jon McCan stepped up and made all the necessary major changes and fixes to make this release possible. So, big thanks to all contributors of this gnome-session release, especially, Dan Winship, Jon McCan, Matthias Clasen and Vincent Untz!
  • LiTL stuff is moving on very well: great team, exciting project. The whole LiTL team will meet in Boston during the week before Boston Summit and some of us will attend the Summit this year. If you’re interested in working with us, talk to Havoc!
  • Carol and I have been watching lots of movies. We got some DVD boxes: Die Hard, Band of Brothers, and The Godfather. Also, some TV series: Lost, In Treatment, Heroes, CSI, and others.
  • I created some “topic-oriented” pages in my blog to share my experiences with jazz and wines. I’ll gradually increment the content of those pages. I’ll write a new musical snapshot soon as there are lots of new stuff to talk about now.
  • I bought a Canon 50mm f/1.8 II lens. Nice and relatively cheap. Here are some photos took with the new lens.

Joining LiTL

It’s time to tell where I’m going. I’m sure this is not a surprise anymore to many :-)

I’m joining Havoc‘s team at LiTL to work on a very exciting project.

Unfortunately,  I can’t tell anything about the project for now (actually, I think it will take some time until we can say anything). But yes, it’s GNOME-related and involves the development of a consumer product comprising hardware, software, and online services.

I’ll stay in Finland until June doing remote work and then move to London to work on a LiTL office there.

Woohoo!

Leaving Nokia

I really enjoyed my time at Nokia and Finland. I was very lucky to directly work with very talented and generous people. I’ve made some good friends here and it will be hard to say goodbye soon. My last day at Nokia is March 28th.

It’s too early to tell about what I’ll be doing in the near future. Exciting stuff, for sure. :-P

Update: Xan, Tommi and Johan (who doesn’t have a blog) are leaving too. See you around guys! :-)

Musical Snapshot III

It’s been a long time I don’t bring a musical snapshot. Actually, it’s been more than 5 months since my last one. Wow. Because of that, it’s kind of difficult to summarize everything I’ve been listening to. My addiction to jazz is getting stronger every day. I bought Ken Burns’ Jazz documentary (quite nice!). During my vacation in Brazil, I had the chance to buy quite many albums from brazilian artists. I also tried some african and mexican stuff. So, here it goes…

Jazz

Shit, the list is so long that I don’t know where to start… Freddie Hubbard, Miles Davis, Joe Henderson, John Coltrane, Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Cannonball Adderley, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius Monk, Max Roach, Kenny Dorham, Ornette Coleman, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, Jaco Pastorius, Wayne Shorter, … I’ve listened to more than one album with each of those guys. I have some special remarks though. Hubbard’s Straight Life album is just amazing (featuring an all-star band with Hancock, Henderson, Benson, Carter, and DeJohnette). I became a big fan of Joe Henderson after listening to his Inner Urge album – very Coltrane-ish. He even has the same sidemen than in Coltrane’s most famous albums: McCoy Tyner and Mr. Elvin Jones. Sonny Rollins’ Saxophone Colossus is a great album. I took some time to listen to Coltrane’s My favourite things some more times (this one only loses to A Love Supreme, my personal favourite jazz album). Ornette Coleman’s Tomorrow Is the Question! is quite interesting too. Got the classic Savoy Live Sessions of Charlie Parker, the roots of bebop (such Koko, Ornithology, and so on). Here’s the winners list:

  • Inner Urge (Joe Henderson)
  • Straight Life (Freddie Hubbard)
  • Red Clay (Freddie Hubbard)
  • Somethin’ Else (Cannonball Adderley)
  • My Favourite Things (John Coltrane)
  • Complete Savoy Live Recordings (Charlie Parker)
  • Saxophone Colossus (Sonny Rollins)

African

I’m from the most african state in Brazil. African culture is simply part of me. I listened a lot to two Richard Bona albums. Quite musical stuff. The afrobeat of Femi Kuti is really nice.

  • Tiki (Richard Bona)
  • Reverence (Richard Bona)
  • Shoki Shoki (Femi Kuti)

Mexican

Federico was really kind and sent me some really cool initial references of Mexical music. This is just the beginning of my research on the mexican world.

  • La Sandunga (Lila Downs)
  • De México y del mundo (Chavela Vargas)

Brazilian

During my vacation in Brazil, I had the opportunity to buy quite many albums from brazilian artists. Got two new Mônica Salmaso’s albums. I’m a big fan of her. I finally managed to buy Max de Castro’s Samba Raro. This is one of the electronic music albums I’ve ever listened to. Really nice compositions, high quality arrangements. The latest Djavan album Matizes is quite boring. Carlinhos Brown’s A gente ainda não sonhou is cool. Highlights:

  • Céu (Céu)
  • Iaiá (Mônica Salmaso)
  • Noites de gala, samba na rua (Mônica Salmaso)
  • Samba Raro (Max de Castro)
  • Nêga (Luciana Mello)
  • A gente ainda não sonhou (Carlinhos Brown)
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