Don Henley's Concert

I watched Don Henley's concert tonight at the Forum. It was filled with feeling and emotion. The concert opens with singer-songwriter Shawn Colvin, who plays a very nice and heart warming repertoire. If you want a sample of her songs, here is a link to Sunny came home:

After the break, Don Henley came out with his band. The playlist went back to the 80s, some covers for songs from the 50s and songs from his latest album. The forum was dancing, screaming, clapping in happiness and remembrance. The crowd ranged from 30 to 60 year olds. Parents and sons and daughters. If you enjoyed the 80s and have country music in a corner of your heart. You must watch this. Country, in the way it hasn't been done for a long time. There's a reason why his most recent album debuts at Number ONE.  

Every Breaking Wave

U2 is one of the bands that has defined me along with The Police, The Cure, Depeche Mode, PSB, OMD, and Erasure. Their concerts just keep getting better over time and their always evolving music and lyrics always capture me. 

If you haven't heard about U2, I'd recommend going to pandora or YouTube and listen to With or Without you, Where the streets have no name, Pride, The unforgettable fire, Desire, One and that should give you a quick introduction. My personal favorites are: Lemon, If God would send his Angels, Angel of Harlem, Cedarwood Road, Ultraviolet, Party Girl, red Hill Mining Town and so many other ones. 

Enjoy music and create your life's soundtrack! 

Juice Dieting

Juice Crafters Three Day Detox Program

http://www.juicecrafters.com/cleanse/about-the-cleanse

I was intrigued by the juice cleanse programs I keep hearing about and I’m a Juice Crafter kinda guy, their Fountain of Youth is one of my favorites so I decided to go for it. I bounce between the Ocean Park and the Robertson locations and the girl at the Robertson location took the time to explain to me the different kinds of cleansings they offered and I opted for the beginner three day Master Cleanse. I love juice and I think I shouldn’t have a problem having only juices every two hours throughout the day. We shall see! the girl did mention that I may be cranky on the first day (I’m guessing because I couldn’t eat solids). We shall see! $150.00.-

Day One

1st Juice: Greenest #3

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9:30 AM

This is a juice that is very similar to my morning green juice (which mom prepares for us almost every day: celery, parsley, spinach or baby kale, pineapple and spirulina). It contains spinach, kale, romaine, cucumber, parsley, celery, apple, lemon and ginger. I could really taste the ginger, it gives it a little spice which is tamed by the apple and the lemon. First juice is not bad. I finished it in no time! next juice is at lunch time.

2nd Juice: Cleaner #10

===================

11:30 AM

This looks like a very simple juice which I’ll need to drink once more later today. This second juice has Pineapple, Apple and Mint. Easy to drink, finished it in no time. I’m noticing that I’m not feeling hungry, but I felt a little light headed around 11 AM, but after this juice I’m back!

It is quite interesting how I’m not craving cookies or things like that.

3rd Juice: Rootier #6

=================

1:30 PM

The Third Juice had beets, apple,lemon and ginger. I took my time drinking this juice. Tasted good, but I wasn’t hungry! strange… Anyways, my energy level is pretty good considering I haven’t had any solid food.

4th Juice: Alkaline Tonic #13

=====================

4:00 PM

It is strange that I’m not hungry yet. It is a bit interesting to find myself forcing the juice down. This forth juice has Apple, lemon, ginger and cayenne Pepper. taste is somewhat similar as the previous juice and so far all the juices are very easy to drink. They all taste great! and somehow I’m still wondering why I’m not hungry.

5th Juice: Cleaner #10

=====================

6:00 PM

I am feeling very, very hungry now and now I’m drinking Cleaner 10 again and it’s a bit tough not to eat something. This is the moment the girl at the Juice talked about! Haha, and I thought she was kidding...

6th Juice: Cleanse Guru #12

======================

8:00 PM

OK, now I’m drinking this juice. The sensation of hunger has gone away. I just got myself busy running errands to keep my mind focused on something else and that worked. I’m driving around checking out Marshalls and Ross for a gift and I’m back to normal. The storm has passed! But I’m skipping the next juice because I can’t drink anymore liquids ^^.

Day Two

1st Juice: Greenest #3

==================

7:30 AM

woke up and completed this first juice in no time. so far so good

2nd Juice: Cleaner #10

===================

9:30 AM

finished drinking this while driving to work. but I ate half an apple as well. It was a small half apple. The next Half will be for lunch.

3rd Juice: Rootier #6

=================

Noon

This was my lunch. I’m feeling pretty hungry. My friend Tuan gave me 5 blueberries.

4th Juice: Alkaline Tonic #13

=====================

3:14

Ok, now I need to drink this… It’s been more than 2 hours, but there are many meetings taking place today and I haven’t been very hungry.

5th Juice: Cleaner #10

=====================

5:30

The day has passed by very quickly! I had 4 cranberries earlier, and I counted them! LOL They tasted even more delicious than normal and so far the cleansing is going well. My body has ups and downs. I feel down usually in between juices. so I’m drinking them fast so I can replenish the energy. My theory is that the natural sugars from the juice ingredients (primarily apple and pineapple) are what keep my body going… They are the last day

Day Three

Intro Juice

========

I had to use my veggies at home, so I made a parsley, spinach, coca leave, spirulina and pineapple juice in the morning using a blender. The pineapple needs to be ripe and sweet to ensure a delicious experience! oh and I used the Aloe water, so it was very refreshing.

1st Juice: Greenest #3

==================

8:30 AM

Drove to work, listening to some tunes and enjoying this juice. So far so good. Not in dying need to eat yet.

2nd Juice: Cleaner #10

===================

10:30 AM

Had a busy morning and I’m surprised that I haven’t had the need to chew something. I made sure I finished this juice quickly and so far so good. My energy level seems high considering I haven’t had much meat! and I’m a carnivore! but I’m not in need of a big meal. very strange.

3rd Juice: Rootier #6

=================

12:46 Noon

I had a slice of apple that size! so I don’t think I’m cheating ;-) but I’m doing it so that when I eat my first meal tomorrow my body still remembers what to do LOL. I finished my juice at 1:08 PM. Still OK, haven’t taken a lunch break… still going strong!

4th Juice: Alkaline Tonic #13

=====================

4:00 PM

I finished my Apple and now I'm drinking the Alkaline Tonic. I find it interesting that I'm not having any cravings.

5th Juice: Cleaner #10

=====================

6:00 PM

This is my favorite juice. I feel light.

6th Juice: Cleanse Guru #12

======================

8:00 PM

OK, the last juice of the set! I can't believe I made it alive. Haha, I feel good, and I feel fine.

Day Four
Well, now the question is what should I eat? I drove to work packed with fruits, walnuts, peanuts, raisins and a light salad. Everything went well. No issues to report

Day Five
Mom's birthday. We went for seafood pasta. It was delicious as always, but afterwards I felt really sick. I don't think my body is really to digest heavy foods yet. Note to all of you, stay with the easy to digest meals for a few days after the juice cleanse.

Day Six
Back to the basics, had fruits, chicken breast, veggies, boiled potatoes and nuts.

Day Seven
Still eating light, grilled salmon, veggies, rice and lots of fruits.

Day Eight
Korean BBQ Day with friends. I didn't eat as much as it's expected in a Korean BBQ. I ate a lot of salad and some beef. My body seems ok. I'm back to normal!

The Death of Steve Jobs and Apple's simplicity and other random thoughts

My birthday reminds me of the passing of Steve Jobs as they are a day apart. It's been four years since the co-founder of Apple Inc. passed away and with him Apple's successful philosophy of simplicity and elegance.

Like many, I have enjoyed the simplicity and ease of use of Apple software for many years, but the honeymoon is over. I often find myself talking to my iPhone in discontent asking "why?". I have found myself walking the isles at the Microsoft store, Best Buy, Sony, etc. seeking for a phone replacement, but Samsung's gorgeous displays and functionality are eclipsed by the Android's OS lack of uniformity and simplicity. There are too many versions, too many hacks, too many bugs which would simply add up to my already stressed American worker class life.

iTunes for example, has gone from being easy to use to unnecessarily complex due to the addition of features that I don't even care for. Before playing music on the iPhone was easy, I could do everything by tapping an icon, with one finger, without having to read the display much. Today, I have to read long lists of menus which are clutter that get in the way. I actually have friends still using the old iOS (from the iPhone 5) and they refuse to upgrade, because they take a peek at my phone and get stressed after a few minutes.

The only reason Apple devices are still popular is because there are no good contenders out there. Samsung has great hardware, but the Android OS is in essence like Linux. "Hey! making it work is half the fun!" - For kids probably, but I'm a young adult with a job that imposes an amount of stress only comparable to climbing Mount Everest, and I'm not alone. There are many friends and colleagues that have it worse than me and I hardly have a weekend off and my personal relationships, if any, are hanging by a spider web's thread and that's what our American society has turned to: a high percentage of jobless folks and the other employed ones are over stressed, suffering from a number of nervous system disarrays ranging from panic attacks to eating disorders and obesity. The root cause to this is disorganization and poor leadership at many different levels, but us, the working class contribute by not doing something about it.

On October 4th, my birthday will pass by once again finding me wiser, more knowledgeable, economically stable, without much free time, with less time to hang out with friends and loved ones, doing less fun activities than before, spending more money on things that help me relax (spas, gym, magazines, books, etc.).

And to end my ramblings, Apple will hopefully go back to basics and what their essence used to be, otherwise they may end up badly and Steve will not be there to save them again. A new company will emerge to challenge Apple one of these days.

LA Downtown ArtWalk

Have you ever gone to the LA Downtown ArtWalk? What are you waiting for?! It takes place every month! The next one is on June 14, 2012.

Here is a link: http://fe.gd/1M2 Don't be left out!

and Here are some pics from last month's walk! and more pictures here!

Anime Convention coming to LA Downtown!

Between June 29 and July 2nd 2012, The LA Convention will be the home of AX, the Anime Convention And you can register here.

Director Ei Aoki, Producer Hikaru Kondo, Animation Director Tatsuo Sato are only some of the names of the Guests of Honor that you will be able to see/meet at AX - Not Armani Exchange... Anime Expo :-).

24 days left, so don't be left out! https://www.facebook.com/animeexpo

Here are some old pics from previous years...

See you at the LA Convention Center!

Photo Explorations - CAR Show @ Farmer's Market

I definitely would like to shoot more, but this weekend... all of a sudden I had time for Photography! and I had a friend with free time! so armed with my camera, lenses, tripod, and my imagination we went out to capture the moment.

During the day, there was a car show at the Farmer's Market on 3rd Street and Fairfax.

Here are some photographs I took for the car show!

This gorgeous Bubblegum purple vehicle was one of my favorites! too low to the ground, but it was the most amazing thing I had seen!

Everywhere I turned, there was a car more beautiful than the previous one! I was in Paradise!

 



This is the Ford Woody, which is sold in its toy form at the Malibu gift shops with a surf board on the top! I wanted to take it for a ride along PCH !

Yes, this is the Stingray! Truly a work of art!

and saving the best for last... my Baby! my one and only... the Mustang convertible in red!

Here are more pictures!

UX, Why should we care?

The primary function of UX is the development of an architecture that creates a delightful, emotional, and sensory experience. This is why it’s vital to customer experiences and engagement. UX is, among many things, designed to be experiential, affective, useful, productive, and entertaining. And, most importantly, it’s devised with an end in mind where the means to that end is efficient and optimized for each channel.

Those of us that were involved in the Web design industry prior to the codification of user-centered design, usability and Web accessibility would know that we used to make websites in a different way. Before our clients understood the value of user-centered design, we made design decisions based on just two things: what we (the development team) thought was awesome and what the client wanted to see.

We built interaction based on what we thought worked — we designed for ourselves. The focus was on aesthetics and the brand, with very little thought, if any of how the people who would use the website would feel about it.

The emergence of the Mobile experience has triggered a transformation of the Web. Websites have become so complex and feature-rich that, to be effective, they must have great user experience designs.

We’ve also become aware of the importance of accessibility — i.e. universal access to our Web-based products — not only for those who with special requirements, such as for screen readers and non-traditional input devices, but for those who don’t have broadband connections or who have older mobile devices and so forth. services such as Modernizr address this need in a very effective way.

The driving factor of how we build websites today has become the experience we want to give the people who will use our websites. This change of mind is echoing notably among new start up companies, specially here in Los Angeles, where the eco-system for the growth of new start up companies is growing rapidly attracting investors and incubators to the southern lands of California. 

Web Evolution

Nikon D7000 Digital SLR Camera Body - 25468

“A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer” – Bruce Lee

WEB EVOLUTION

2012 looks set to be an interesting year. Short of owning a crystal ball, it’s tough to predict exactly what’s in store, but I can share a fraction of my findings in the last few weeks:


1. Progressive enhancement:
The rise of mobile and the dominance of Webkit-powered smartphones over the old desktop/laptop web browsing is pushing even die hard skeptics to embrace progressive enhancement, HTML5, CSS3 and other aspects of standards-based design.  It is important to note that Microsoft’s backing of these new standards has added to the “rush” to embrace the shiny new.


2. Responsive design:
We are experiencing a ‘standards nightmare’ in the hardware arena. There is a plethora of devices out there with widely differing abilities.  It’s never been more confusing or challenging to create brilliant interfaces that work across all of them.  This is why responsive design will play a big role this year as we all try to bridge the enormous gulfs between platforms.
2011 saw an explosion in the number of websites built responsively, and the beauty of it is that we’re all involved in developing the process. It’s still in its youth, developers are concocting new approaches all the time, and we’re a long way off nailing down any real best-practices. Should we first design for large screens and use media queries to gracefully degrade our designs for mobile? Or should we design for mobile first, progressively enhancing for more capable devices? Or should we favor feature detection over browser detection?


3. Typography:
Two noteworthy aspects of typography are the aesthetics and the growing understanding that type exists primarily to be read. Typefaces don’t have to be microscopic to appear chic, and the emphasis on content first is pushing us towards a web full of big and beautiful type.


4. Mobile gets bigger:
We’ll see the rise of mobile MVC frameworks. There is nothing like Rails for mobile web app development: a company named 37signals is creating a web app MVC framework specifically designed for mobile phone web apps. The code will be comprised of local JavaScript, with the network just being used for data. The apps will work offline, when live data transfer isn’t required. The framework is built in CoffeeScript and Eco (a new templating language created by 37signals).


5. Grid Systems:
A big player of the Responsive layout is the grid. 2011 has seen fixed grid frameworks make flexible improvements, not to mention the appearance of even more tools to help us out. All of the following frameworks, tools and guides cater for today’s needs and offer fluidity.


6. Horizontal and Vertical Scrolling:
The rise of mobile devices has reminded us that we can scroll and there is relevant content below the first few pixels of a web page. Some designers have taken this to the next level and made scrolling a fundamental part of the browsing experience.


7. Native support for plug-in features:
As support for the various aspects of HTML5 and CSS3 improves, we’ll see greater pressure for native browser support of features that we used to use plug-ins for (i.e. adaptive streaming of multimedia, webcam and microphone access, etc.)


8. Web app fragmentation:
example: Chrome only apps. For some inexplicable reason the proliferation of market places for web apps has induced a proportional growth of custom manifest formats. Each app store, each platform now supports its own.  This plethora of formats may be seen as damaging. A single format (a standard) to describe literally the same thing: app meta-data with, eventually, some platform- or store-specific data sprinkled on top of it seems to be a growing necessity.


9. Start-ups explosion in LA and a plethora of technologies:
Los Angeles is experiencing an explosion in mobile and web Start-up companies.  There is also an abundance of development frameworks, portable database formats, open source solutions and the likes that are collaborating to the growth of entrepreneurs in Southern California. There are many investors and incubators with their eyes placed all around LA trying to find and investment opportunity.  Many of these LA start-up companies are thriving, and it will be interesting to see the new technologies that will evolve from these companies as we see 2012 unfold. I can only mention a few companies as an example: Penango: makes secure e-mail easy to use, simple to manage and accessible everywhere with its end to end authentication and encryption to webmail and securing services such as Google documents. Bitium: Offers a free management tool to companies to manage their SaaS accounts.

There’s no way I covered every significant development in the web design front. I hope I’ve inspired some of you to go out and learn more about this fascinating area of technology.

Thoughts on the future and what's coming up

Education seems to be the key in a struggling world economy. We live in times when an intangible piece of software is worth more than rice, apples or water. Simply looking at the amount of patents registered in 2011 we can see that South Korea is surging in that area, and Brasil, the Latin American economic leader is far behind S. Korea, the apparent technological leader in Asia, specially after Japan's devastating earthquake, and China's communist and artificial policies.


Regardless of these issues, we can say that we are living in a better world. if you think we are not, then ask yourself this question: Would you rather live in this time and age or would you have preferred being born 100 or 200 years ago. I personally love living in this time and age. We have made great technological advancements in the medical field, we can travel to different countries and to other planets!, we have the internet, etc., etc.


And so... what now? as a young adult, the current economic view seems a bit scary here in the U.S. Our leadership doesn't seem to know what to do, we are wasting a lot of money of things we shouldn't be, education is pretty bad, and we seem to be lagging behind Asia in education, technology, and behind Brasil in terms of alternative energy. 


The U.S. perhaps, still has the opportunity of seizing the current opportunities in the Latin America area, but instead, I see a scary inertia... and the presidential candidates seem to be both very weak to lead the strongest nation of the world to success... I'd even dare to lean in favor of Mitt Romney, even though i'm not a fan, but I think Mr. Obama is the worst of the two...


And BRICKS? yes, Brazil was one of the last major economies to succumb to the global recession, and one of the first to emerge. The Brazilian economy dipped into a short recession in late 2008 to early 2009, since then growth has stabilized. Why? The country’s finance minister credits Brazil’s fiscal and monetary policies, as well as macroeconomic fundamentals, something the U.S. should learn about...
Wait, wasn't it BRIC? well, Korea and Singapore are surging in Asia helped by a great education, efficient policies and governments and because of the leaders ideology, like Lee Myung Bak said "Never waste a good crisis" and they haven't, they are showing they can lead the Asian front and Singapore's 'Majulah Singapora' is indeed being followed, they have been declared as the most business friendly country, and though their economy contracted in 2011, they seem to be stabilizing very quickly and they will most likely keep moving forward as their motto indicates.


The worst enemy of progress is inertia. What is a young adult to do in the U.S. ? a country where employment is hard to achieve, and once achieved, is anything but rewarding economically. Start-ups are surging in cities like Los Angeles, and investors are creating incubating circles that invest in promising new companies, but is this the way to go? Perhaps... only time will tell. But whatever we decide to do, we need to learn another language, and stay in motion... whatever we decide, we must keep moving, just like Bruce Lee said: 'There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.'

The Evolution of Web Design (source: kissmetrics)

SQL 2008 SSIS - Data Profiler Tool

This link has a pretty good video tutorial on how the tool works!
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/ff686909.aspx

Windows 8, Metro and RIP .NET

I attended a Microsoft event today in downtown LA about Windows 8 and the future according to Microsoft.

In a nutshell, Microsoft is turning the Windows desktop into a web browser and is going the way of Palm Web OS. HTML5 + Javascript/unmanaged C++ for Windows Apps and they are pretty much signaling the end of the CLR (Common Language Runtime) -- (the .NET framework and all that it entails seems to not fit anywhere in the Microsoft roadmap anymore and unmanaged C is coming back...). The move also points to the time of the big mainframes (now called the cloud) and pretty much Microsoft is noting that the Cloud becomes the computer and the OS you run on your device has pretty much no relevance... (The new Metro look)

When users boot up their new laptops or desktops using Windows 8 will always see the Metro look, and if they want to use the good ol' Windows Desktop, they would have to find the tile to launch it.

Of course there is a Registry Hack that would allow you to change this behavior so that you can end up in the good ol' desktop all the time... but no comment on Microsoft shutting that down yet... hopefully not.

I really don't want to talk about the Metro look, and its App Store, but is being advertised heavily by Microsoft, Basically the ugly 3 year old design of the squares will be running on the Microsoft WinRT which basically replaces Win32\Internet Explorer\.NET CLR. Metro and Windows 8 Desktop will both coexist on your laptop/computer like enemies.  You cannot access a File that resides on your Desktop from Metro and viceversa. You could in theory write a web service and host it on your Desktop machine and have your Metro application consume it to access data from your desktop, but that goes against the MS licensing agreement...

Metro applications can only be distributed thru the App Store, and MS would have to approve your application prior to releasing it to the App Store (they are imitating Apple, just not in a very smart way)

Metro applications will be developed in C/unmanaged C++or Javascript, but Javascript would pretty much be able to access / interact with WinRT the way C does... weird huh?

Even though Metro looks and feels like Windows mobile, it doesn't support Silverlight marking the end of that technology.

WinRT basically represents the taking back of the .NET Framework into the core Windows team and offers first-class support for C and C++ (as you would expect) and Javascript... 

HTML 5 is pretty much taking over Silverlight... why? most likely because they are trying to attract today's application developers. Most of client-side developers are building HTML apps, another big number are writing iOS and Android apps. Learning XAML/Silverlight technologies is very difficult and Microsoft has done a poor job at teaching\promoting WPF. Since they are losing the battle against iOS/Android, going HTML5 might be their only option to regain some of the market, but I think they are going about it the wrong way...

The blogs are flodded with more questions and doubts than excitement... here is a link to Channel 9 where you can read more about it...

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/A-quick-look-at-Windows-8

We can just wait and see what happens, but this may very well be what Apple needed to expand even more into the enterprise.  the cards seem to have been spread.  Will Windows market share decrease even more? I doubt they can afford another Vista like deployment (seriously, a lot of folks still use WinXP) Will Apple up their game? We can only wait and see.

Comikaze @ LA Convention Center

Drove to Downtown this morning to attend the Comikaze convention. It was pretty packed and people with costumes did show up! so I have some pics! I didn't bring my Nikon camera... just my little point and shoot Lumix, but I got some ok captures ;-)
I was kind of disappointed that Stan Lee wasn't there today... If you wanted his autograph, you had to pay $50 for a reprint of the first spiderman or the 1st Avengers comic and pay $14 for shipping so that they can mail you back the comic...
Something interesting was this iPad app used at almost all the kiosks... Square! which allows vendors to take a credit card payment from anyone and they get charged 2.5% per transaction...

Joker and Harley Quinn

<--- I thought this couple's costume was pretty awesome! and they were willing to pose for everyone so that people could get a good shot of them.

a group of girls dressed up as anime :-)

I spent about 4 hours at the Convention Center.  The worst feature at this convention was the food.  It looked pale and not very attracting... they had hamburgers and tacos, but I skipped them and left the Convention Center seeking good eats ;-)

I was actually surprised to see the Wonder Twins!

LA 1st Street Food Festival and Today's Comikaze

Last year I attended the very first Street Food Festival in L.A. and I made q little quick video of it. Today I'll be attending the very first Comic Expo in L.A. organized by Stan Lee's new company Pow Entertainment! If I get lucky I'll make up a video about it too! if not, then I'll just write a follow up article packed with pictures!

Here is that good old Food Festival video I did last year...

Microsoft's Vision on the Future of Healthcare

At this year's Mix in Las Vegas (I really hope I can attend the next Mix!) Daniel Makowski had a presentation about what the future for Healthcare could look like... Most of the things displayed in this video can be achieved using current technologies, but I don't know of any vendors that produce these yet. I do know that in Spain, they've developed a Kinect enabled image / record library used by surgeons while in surgery so that they can view/flp thru images on the screen using kinect which allows them to keep their hands sanitized while viewing records and there is no need to re-sanitize their hands... but let's watch the video now! Enjoy and dare to dream !

Asteroid 2005 YU55 to Approach Earth on November 8, 2011

Near-Earth asteroid 2005 YU55 will pass within 0.85 lunar distances from the Earth on November 8, 2011. The upcoming close approach by this relatively large 400 meter-sized, C-type asteroid presents an excellent opportunity (if indeed it doesn't hit the earth) for synergistic ground-based observations including optical, near infrared and radar data. The attached animated illustration (from the NASA website) shows the Earth and moon flyby geometry for November 8th and 9th when the object will reach a visual brightness of 11th magnitude and should be easily visible to observers in the northern and southern hemispheres. The closest approach to Earth and the Moon will be respectively 0.00217 AU and 0.00160 AU on 2011 November 8 at 23:28 and November 9 at 07:13 UT.

You can read more about this here: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news171.html

GMAIL's new look

I've been using it and it's great! Hurray for UX Professionals! :-)

Kina Grannis "In Your Arms"

A few posts ago, I made note of another song she had: Valentine, which was simply packed with feelings and great vocal tones... Now this new song jumps at me.  it is called "in your Arms" and i can't say enough good things about this single.  Please listen to it and let me know what you think!

She just released a new, very creative video for this song using Jelly Beans as background drops... really transports me to my childhood :-)  Here is the link: www.kinagrannis.com/

The fall of the United States of North America and the rise of the Latin American States, but are they ready?

Peruvian Foreign Minister Roncagliolo considered that 'paradoxically', the external crisis may serve to enhance the role of Latin America in the World...  He feels the current economic crisis is attributed to the lack of financial responsibility of the countries of the north and this situation is forcing the southern region to defend its stability by enhancing its presence in the global economy. 
The economical instability of the United States, the high percentage of unemployment, and Obama's silent but effective deportation program for illegal immigrants may be contributing to the ideological change that America Latina has been needing. Some countries in South America are experiencing great growth like Peru, Brasil, and Argentina, but are they ready to face this new challenge? Perhaps, but there is much work to do.
In the case of Peru, there is lack of organization, lack of infrastructure, lack of education and a huge gap between the high and low classes. Mixing this with the rampaging growth of crime on the streets and the lack of laws to control transportation seems to be a recipe for disaster.
However, the appearance of distinguished new characters such as Gaston Acurio, Johnny Schuler and others has awakened a country that lacked identity and purpose. Peruvians are all of a sudden inspired by these figures to do what John F. Kennedy asked Americans to do... 'Don't ask what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country". Under this new current of thought, the younger generations have found purpose and seek solutions to the many problems that their society faces.
Many european and asian investors are moving their capitals to a region where natural resources are abundant, where there is an opportunity to implement infrastructures that exist in the U.S., Asia, Europe, but not in Latin America yet...