Sete anos de Canadá e...

Uma só viagem ao Brasil. :-(

Acho que sou de longe o campeão em tempo fora do país sem ter voltado ao Brasil. Desde que me mudei no começo de 1999 só estive no Brasil uma vez em 2002 e por uma semana.

Muitas pessoas me olham com aquela cara de espanto e me perguntam como consigo ficar tanto tempo longe do Brasil. Bem vou tentar explicar.

1. Vira e mexe tem alguém da nossa família por aqui. Meus pais já estiveram aqui duas vezes e a minha sogra acredito que três (sendo que da última veio em Maio e foi embora agora em Novembro). Portanto sempre tem alguém por perto.

2. Minha esposa e filhos vão praticamente todos os anos para o Brasil.

3. E o maior motivo pelo qual eu não vou ao Brasil: quando não estou trabalhando em algo aqui em Ottawa tenho que viajar a trabalho para algum outro lugar. O leitor pode então pensar "Já que viaja, tire um tempinho e vá ao Brasil!". Sim. O drama é que chega-se num ponto que o cidadão, eu, não AGÜENTA mais viajar. Colocando em números, esse ano passei a bagatela de 70 dias viajando fora do Canadá a trabalho. Fui parar em lugares desde Reýkjavik (Islândia) até Gozo (Malta)! Todo ano a estória se repete. São milhares de milhas no programa da Air Canada (aliás preciso começar a usar. A Virgin Atlantic já está dando vôos sub-orbitais por 2,000,000 de milhas. Mantendo-se a minha média anual, em alguns anos vou poder trocar milhas por uma viagem à lua). Por isso que quando posso ficar em casa, é tudo que mais quero! Chega de viagem.

4. Justamente pelo fato de estar sempre viajando, meio que não tenho parada em lugar algum. Isso por um lado é ruim mas por outro meio que aprende-se a não sentirmos lá tanta falta de um só lugar.

Esse ano não deu para escapar e amanhã estou indo para São Paulo. Fico quinze dias entre São Paulo e o interior do estado e após o ano novo estou de volta. Por um lado estou animado de ir (a esposa e os dois filhos estão lá desde o dia 05) mas por outro gostaria e MUITO de ficar em casa afinal esse seria o primeiro natal na casa nova. :-(

Tentarei postar algo no Blog nesse final de ano mas no interior de São Paulo vai ser duro achar o link de 5MBits que meu pobre notebook está acostumado...

Imigrando para o Canadá

Devido ao costume (trabalho 99% do tempo com pessoas que falam Inglês) normalmente escrevo em Inglês. Mas como o público alvo desse artigo é o pessoal no Brasil que está pensando em vir morar aqui no Canadá, resolvi postar esse em Português. O que estou disponibilizando aqui é um texto que escrevi, descrevendo diversos assuntos relacionados ao processo de imigração Canadense. Não somente como aplicar (documentos, links, requisitos, etc) mas também o que esperar daqui quando vir.

Assuntos como moradia, sistema de saúde, custos, clima, etc são todos abordados de um modo ou de outro. :-)
Espero que se divirtam com o texto e que o mesmo ajude vocês no processo de decisão de sair ou não do Brasil e se mudar para a Frigidaire. :-)

Imigrando para o Canadá
(formato PDF)

Home Theater

Yeah, I know, I know that I love gadgets. But there is something else that I really enjoy. Watching movies. Since we moved to our new house, I started thinking about building a nice home theater so I could sit down with the kids to watch some of the hundreds of movies we have. As our basement was already 60% finished, we decided to go ahead and not only finish it completely but to build a nice home theater. After my boss aproved the budget (boss = wife) we started. Note it is not completely finished yet (I hope to get this finished sometime in the second week of January) but the pictures already show lots of potential. :-)

View from the front of the room
Components Rack and Projector
Main lights off

So why should someone build a home theater?
Well first of all there is nothing like a big screen. A 42" plasma is nice but sorry, there is no comparison with a 106" screen. This is more than four times the area. You simply feel completely immersed in the movie. It is like being at a real movie theater.
When people see my home theater the first thing they think is 'You spent a LOT of money'. Wrong. As of today you can go to Futureshop or BestBuy and buy a 42" Plasma for $1800 (even less if you shop online and get it in US). A home theater projector (that will easily get you a 100" picture) will cost you the same and depending on the model, even less (may be half of that price!). So overall the whole thing may be way cheaper! Of course to fully enjoy your home theater you will need a receiver (you can get a very decent one for $300 these days), speakers and a DVD player. But you will also need all these if you are going to buy a plasma or LCD TV!
The only drawback with projectors is the fact you CANNOT watch it if your room is not dark (completely dark is the ideal!). In my case I have a separate room, pitch black so that is not an issue.
But if you are thinking about having a projector to watch the news at 1:00pm in your living room with the blinds open, no, it will not work. In this case a normal TV (flat or not) will be a much better option.
For the gadget freaks out there, this is what I have on the home theater:

- Hitachi HDP-J52 Projector, 3 LCD panels, 1280x720 resolution, 5000:1 Contrast Ratio.
- AAD Speakers (Center, two fronts, two surrounds, two rear surrounds and one subwoofer) for a 7.1 channel setup.
- Pioneer Elite 36TX Receiver.
- Pioneer Elite M-10X Amplifier.
- Pioneer Elite PDR-W37 CD player/Recorder.
- Pioneer DV-578A SACD/DVD-Audio Player.
- Toshiba HD-A1 High Definition HD-DVD Player (Playing at 1080i).
- Sony Playstation 3, BluRay, High Definition Player (playing at 1080i).
- Zektor HDS4.1 Component Video Switch.
- XBox and XBox 360.
- Marantz RC5000i Remote Control.
- Elite Screen R106H, 106 inches, 16:9 format.

Picture is simply amazing and we do love sitting down to watch a movie! Right now we just need to paint the room, call the carpet company to put the carpet down and put the screen on the wall!
If you have a basement in your house and you are considering buying a 'Big Screen TV' make sure you consider the projector route! After all, 50 inches is not that big...

PS: If you guys have any questions on how to setup a home theater feel free to contact me at anytime!

Gadgets - XBox 360

Well I did it again. :-)
At least I did not have to sleep outside Best Buy or some store like that to get my XBox 360. Months ago, as soon as Toys "R" Us started taking pre-orders I put the $50 down and reserved one. So at the launch date I simply went there and got my brand new XBox 360 Premium with 2 additional wireless controllers and 3 games.
All I need to say is, after spending $900 on all this, I am still quite happy. :-)
The 360 is a huge improvement over the previous XBox. Do not get me wrong here. I do like the original XBox and I have been an owner since launch date sometime in November, 2001. Great machine.
But the 360 is something else. Considering the current games are all first generation ones, we can see the potential this console has. Just give developers 6 to 12 months and you will be blown away by the games to come.
Out of the box you have access to the XBox live (for online gaming, demo downloads etc) and you can even access Music/Pictures on your Windows XP machine! You can also access music on your iPod (connected my iPod nano and it found all my stuff there!) and even access pictures on your digital camera for a stunning slide show. Simply connect it to the USB port in the front and there you go!
The games I have so far (PGR, Perfect Dark Zero, Kameo and King Kong) look very good in high definition. I have the XBox connected to a Hitachi Hi Definition projector (I will post about my home theater sometime soon!) for a 106" picture in Widescreen. You feel like being inside the game. Impressive.
Of course I had to have some issues with it. :-)
After playing for a couple hours with the kids we saw a message about overheating. What the hell? My brand new 360 was overheating! After further inspection and google reading I found other people having the same issue and someone told me to check the position of my power supply (it is now external, not like the first XBox). Mine was laying down on its side and that was the problem. After changing the power supply position, leaving it standing on its rubber feet, no more overheating issues! Way to go XBox community.
Overall a great machine. If you have nothing to do with $900 head out to Futureshop/BestBuy this weekend and get yourself a nice XBox 360. :-)
And even if you do not like gaming, go out and buy one. You can sell them on Ebay in less than a week for twice as much what you paid. Call that a good investment!