Our home in Madrid is called Casavars. It was designed by the Spanish Architects Acebo y Alonso. I recently started photography lessons. I am on to my second class. My teacher is Spanish photographer Mauro Fuentes who is also Spain´s number one photography blogger. His blog is called Fotomaf. I have a detailed post in Spanish on my latest lesson and what I learned about using tripods, developing with Lightroom and overall handling of my camera, a Canon 50D (not yet the 5D) with two lenses: a fixed 1.2 85mm and a 24-70 2.8 Zoom.

Here are my pictures:

And here are Mauro´s pictures:

This post is only directed at Europeans and is based on the possibility to bring Peek to Europe. This is not an announcement and the Peek may or may not come to Europe. Now here´s the question. Peek is basically an email machine. You can study the product here. It is like a bare bones Blackberry. It only does email, no sms, no twitter (there is another model that does Twitter but this post is not about that model), no browsing, no telephone calls, just email. Now here´s the question. If you could buy a Peek device for 20 euros and pay then 15 euros per month to get your email anywhere in Europe and the USA without any roaming charges and contracts. Would you get one?

I already have a poll in my Spanish blog for this issue. It generated many votes and comments in only one hour. Some people like the opportunity but I see that many commentators say that they get their Blackberry service for only 19 euros a month so why do they need a Peek. But the issue here is that operators force you to pay 59 euros a month and stay 18 months so you cannot get a plain stand alone Blackberry service and a Blackberry for 19 euros. Blackberry contracts have minimum commitments of over 1000 euros when you add them up. The Peek as you can see, in USA has no minimum commitment. But when you compete with giants with enormous advertising budgets people get brainwashed so if people believe the comparison is Blackberry for 19 euros or Peek for 15 euros Peek apples to apples, Peek does not have a chance even with free roaming around Europe and USA. Or it has a very limited niche. Because a Blackberry does a lot of things and the Peek just email.

In the future Peek may also come with browsing and sms capability for say 50 for the device and 19 per month with unlimited texting in your own country and browsing all over Europe and USA. I also included that possibility in the poll.

I don´t know if many people do this. But personally I can´t live without my “cloud” in my pocket. I have different Macs. At home I have a big iMac. At work I have another one. I also have a MacBookPro that I carry around sometimes but I find it very heavy and with a horrible tendency to overheat. But even though I use 3 different Macs I have a system by which they are constantly cloned. Whenever I use a Mac I use an external bootable 500GB HP hardrive. I use the same HD whatever Mac I use. Whenever I start with a new Mac I boot off my HD by pressing Power and ALT at the same time. So in the end I always have the same info whatever Mac I use. So what I take around is a HD in my pocket, not a laptop, my pocket cloud. I have not found a way to do this with Linux, nor with Windows.

As most of my readers are not Americans I would like to share what Halloween in USA, in Miami of all places can look like.

Here’s a video of a transvestite competition for the best costume. I am sorry I could not capture the MC saying his favorite line which he repeated all evening and it was this one “I need a volunteer to cut my penis off”.

And here are the pictures a few taken with a Canon D50 with a 24/70 2.8 zoom and most with the new Canon G11.

Remember that imaginary product called La Fatera (coming from La Fonera)? Well it now exists and it´s called Withings. It is so exactly what we blogged about that if it is a coincidence Loic Le Meur and I will accept not to take royalties. The Withings (terrible name) is actually very well designed. It is a scale that shares your weight on the internet. It is the social weight loss method. Unfortunately unlike the Fonera the Withings does not Tweet itself. Withings has to work on that. But it does share you weight on the internet. Here is mine. My objective is go to back down to 82kg that I had before the wedding and honeymoon. In the meantime I thank Loic Le Meur for giving us the Fatera as we wedding gift! It is a great gift because we all know what happens oto people after they get married….especially men.

People are not absolutely rich, absolutely middle class, or absolutely poor. A person who makes 1000 euros a month is poor in Europe and well off in Brasil. Now add financial crisis to the euro at $1.5 and while I can´t gurantee you that you will be rich in Miami I assure you you will definitely be richer in Miami than wherever you are from Europe. Prices in Miami are insanely low for European standards. Let´s say you are a young graduate in a relationship and you managed to save 6000 euros and so has your boyfriend/girlfriend and you want to take time off or can´t find a job. Well with 12,000 euros a couple could come to Miami and live for half a year tickets included. I will give you an example. Even though we rent a car for 28 euros per day we love to go around in a scooter. And in Miami you can buy a NEW scooter for 650 euros. And because gas costs half of what it costs in Europe you can go anywhere around South Beach in this scooter for 60c per day which is what we do. We prefer the scooter to the car. Restaurants are in such competition that if you walk on Lincoln Road you are bombarded with offers to eat a good meal for 10 euros per person. Apartments are in great supply that you can rent one for say 6 months for 3000 euros. And on top of this you are in Miami. These days every day is a high of 31C and low of 23C, perfect beach weather. People are nice and fun, and even though they are going through the worst crisis in their lifetime, they don´t show it.

Our dear friend David Sifry is known to most as the founder of Technorati, and now of Offbeat Guides. But what few know is that he is also an amazing photographer. Here´s the proof in our first installment of our wedding pictures. But as you will see, Nina and I decided to open source the photography at our wedding and ask all our friends to show us their view of the event. As other friends publish their pictures I will share with you. In the meantime Nina and I want to thank all of our friends from coming from so far away to Miami to share this moment of great happiness with us.