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Today's afternoon happened an astonish view in the sky. Many people viewed one beautiful and perfect rainbow. I never saw one like that. I took a picture of this great moment. See here.

***
After lunch I went to BH Shopping to buy my travel to Florianópolis that will take place in March. I'll go to Costão do Santinho, an incredible resort at Santinho Beach with all costs included. There I needn't even touch my wallet. So nice, isn't?

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On Sunday morning I and my friend Luiz went to Pampulha for a long walk. 10 kilometers!

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I wish I could write if my mind weren't so busy. If I knew it I would write have written early earlier, before the work had come tough tougher. This happened yesterday and today.

Changing the subject and taking a note for next March. I'll buy as a birthday gift to myself the book "The History of the Western Literature" by Otto Maria Carpeaux. It costs $78,0 (R$174,0) in Livraria Cultura.

See you!

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John Elfreth Watkins Jr (1852-1903) was a civil engineer. In 1900 he was demanded to predict 29 issues for the 2000 year. Some of them had come came to be true but most of them hadn't didn't. In accordance of to the blog "Next Big Future" review the utter right ones prophecies were:

Prediction #6: Automobiles will be cheaper than horses are today. Farmers will own automobile hay-wagons, automobile truck-wagons, plows, harrows and hay-rakes. A one-pound motor in one of these vehicles will do the work of a pair of horses or more. Children will ride in automobile sleighs in winter. Automobiles will have been substituted for every horse vehicle now known. There will be, as already exist today, automobile hearses, automobile police patrols, automobile ambulances, automobile street sweepers. The horse in harness will be as scarce, if, indeed, not even scarcer, then as the yoked ox is today. 

Prediction #10:  Man will See Around the World. Persons and things of all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electrically with screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span. American audiences in their theatres will view upon huge curtains before them the coronations of kings in Europe or the progress of battles in the Orient. The instrument bringing these distant scenes to the very doors of people will be connected with a giant telephone apparatus transmitting each incidental sound in its appropriate place. Thus the guns of a distant battle will be heard to boom when seen to blaze, and thus the lips of a remote actor or singer will be heard to utter words or music when seen to move. 

Prediction #18: Telephones Around the World. Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse with his wife sitting in her boudoir in Chicago. We will be able to telephone to China quite as readily as we now talk from New York to Brooklyn. By an automatic signal they will connect with any circuit in their locality without the intervention of a “hello girl”. 

Prediction #19: Grand Opera will be telephoned to private homes, and will sound as harmonious as though enjoyed from a theatre box. Automatic instruments reproducing original airs exactly will bring the best music to the families of the untalented. Great musicians gathered in one enclosure in New York will, by manipulating electric keys, produce at the same time music from instruments arranged in theaters or halls in San Francisco or New Orleans, for instance. Thus will great bands and orchestras give long-distance concerts. In great cities there will be public opera-houses whose singers and musicians are paid from funds endowed by philanthropists and by the government. The piano will be capable of changing its tone from cheerful to sad. Many devises will add to the emotional effect of music. 

To see all Watkin's prophecies go to yorktownhistory.org

Last week the BBC News launched the same challenge for to their readers. Will they be right or wrong? We should live till 2112 to see!

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Sunday of deep rest after one nice Saturday night with my beloved Priscila! Not really at all because late that afternoon I got out for a long walk around the PUC university and after that I read some articles.

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Saturday I went to Verde Mar to buy some fresh fruits for my diet. There I ate Japanese food and drank a lot of orange juice OJ. In that night I and Priscila cooked pasta and drank two bottles of good South American wine. Not too bad!

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Another tough Friday at work. Just that.

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The blood tests I did yesterday were nice despite cholesterol which one one seems seemed slightly high, although between within the range of tolerance. That had never happened before. All my early earliest results, since 2001, were below the minimum value of reference (200mg/l).

Izabela is finally free of the cyst on her head! The surgery was a complete success and she will probably get out of the hospital on the next Sunday.

After the lunch time I did some a preliminary tests for the Michigan Certificate. As always recommended by the teacher Marcos a.k.a Marcosteacher, I went straight to a silent room and started the test. My performance was not bad at all, but I must need continuing reading a lot while doing more and more grammar exercises.

Checkout the results:

Cloze test: 7/10

Grammar: 2/10

Vocabulary: 8/10

Reading: 4/5

Total: 21/35 = 60%

I just arrived from one session of chiropractic. My body was a bit tense at the shoulders but the rest is pretty well.

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I went to the lab to make some blood tests and the results came will come tomorrow. These tests are part of my new diet based on 1.600 calories. I'd better lose weight with good feeding food intake because I'm getting old older and it's necessary to do something beyond only exercising. It's high time I realised that I'm not in my best weight condition. It's time to have a good breakfast, eat many fruits, have a modest lunch eating the correct measure of rice and beans. My doctor says I'd better stop drinking much alcohol, or change the beer for less more wine. That is the most difficulty difficult part!

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Not a nice day at all. A friend of mine went to the doctor's to do some periodical tests and ask him one definitive diagnose diagnosis about her frequently headaches. And she received a bad one. She have a cyst in the back of her head. She couldn't even went go out of the hospital after this afterwards and will have to wait for the surgery. It will take place Wednesday or Friday this week. The doctors said, after all, she was a lucky girl because they found the cyst on the very beginning and all the procedures and the treatment will be safe, accurate and quick. Lets pray for "Bela".

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I should have written down on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but I didn't do it. I'll do it right now for these three past days and, of course, today.

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I arrived in the office before the usual working time to get prepared for one meeting that was canceled just on in scheduled time. Indeed I was in the cab going to the client office.

Weather news: since Saturday evening we aren't having problems with heavy rain anymore but the sun came strongly stronger and stronger and the days have been pretty hot.

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It was a Sunday of nice sun at least last! Before weeks of rainy days I went to the Iate Clube to for swimming and have sauna. Writing this text I found out the variants "Turkish bath" and "Russian bath" to define "sauna". Whatever variant you want to use the fact is sauna is one of the most relaxing activities since ancient Greek and Roman times.

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Saturday was a great day too. I met my friends at Baianeiras restaurant in Santa Tereza. Baianeiras is a good place to eat the genuine food from Bahia, based on seafood, like Moqueca, Acaraje and good variations of shrimps. We have here in Belo Horizonte one of the most remarkable restaurants with this kind of food from Bahia, the "Alguidares". They are located in Sion neighborhood. But I think "Baianeiras" is one tough competitor. They have the same good taste but Baianeiras is cheaper than Alguidares.

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Friday was a hard day of working. I only got out at 8:30PM. I and my team were having problems with one specific job but in the end all worked properly in spite of the time spent.

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Very tired! Just running to bed at 8:30PM!

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"I must have to start studying English again, but I'll do it only when and if I get the chance to live in another country". I hear statements like that every time when conversations turn to the importance of improving language skills. In the past, I usually tried to refute this argument, showing likewise the benefit of self-studying, based on large amount of good learning material like Readers (in correct stages), dictionaries and grammars. As the time passed, I give up of my point of view because I realize that these kind of people, in fact, doesn't do not care about hard study. They only use this argument to cheat themselves. They are convinced believing the simple fact of living in a foreign country will be the solution of years of lack of learning. For these people I say only one thing: if you can't even study hard in the comfort of your bedroom, with many material support, won't be the solution to go away to London or wherever you want to, because you will, with all due respect, only changing change your place of non-studying. And it will cost much more...doubtlessly!

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Today I started exercising common errors in English. Example:

- Besides farming equipments the farmers in New Hampshire have a lot of calves but no sheep.

One of four underlined words is wrong, could you know where the error is? Obviously, if you realize the missed "s" in the plural of "sheep" you are completely wrong. Think, go to the next and good dictionary and try again.

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Today I was hit by one "pedagogical" thwack that now I'm not in a mood to writing. Although it was necessary, the way could be different, and I don't want to receive other ones. So let's relax, fall asleep and wake up tomorrow renewed.

Cheers!

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Sunday...

They should change the day name for Rainday.

So, I went to the cinema and saw "Un Cuento Chino". Just it. That was my Sunday.

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Today I went to the birth party of my uncle Celia. These moments are very pleasant because we meet with dear relatives that we don't see too much.

Yesterday I forgot mentioning the birthday of my niece Bia. It was her first year-old. The time pass fast! Time flies!

Saturday and it is raining again. Again, and again. Now are over a hundred municipalities on emergency alert in my state. Despite the great volume of water it seems to me that the number of homeless and deaths is low. Our politicians, one more time, do not distributed the money for that initiatives which prevent tragedies.

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Today I took a decision that wouldn't take anymore: riding on the streets in the rainy dark night. This is a horrible thing to do. I couldn't see 3 or 4 meters ahead and every second the sensation was "fuck I fell down"!

Driving a car is doubtless doubtlessly very different than ride riding a motorbike in some aspects:

1) In a car you can drive softly listening your favorite song while riding a motorbike you might have a clearly clear vision of unless 60 or 70 meters ahead.

2) Because you don't have strong lights like cars you should slow down speed to have a necessary time to avoid all street's street obstacles.

3) Brake of motorbikes are extremely weaker comparing with cars! I swear! Despite we run with less weight the brakes doesn't work good. If you need to brake suddenly something wrong already had happened before. You might prevent the bad circumstances and drive safety safely.

Good night!

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One great surprise happen happened this evening when the office lights were almost off. I received a phone call, out of the usually usual office time. It was my client telling me that she'd just found the exactly exact character for an interview that we are looking for. This man couldn't wait the next day to speak with us.

Firstly, I thought to call immediately to the journalist of my staff because she already had gone. I would ask her if she could make all the interview interviewing job and then the rest of writing story stories, even out of office hours. That isn't the work I was supposed to do, but I really like talk talking to people, know their lives, challenges, problems and expectations. 

And in this case much more. I talked to a man, 79 years old, owner of a small business in Conceição do Mato Dentro, Minas Gerais. He sells many items of local market in his shop like regional sweets, cheese and jelly. Many people buy them there: mining workers, citizens and tourists. He said that nobody went away Conceição without stop stopping in his shop. 

We talked about many subjects, his childhood in the town, his wife, daughter and grandsons. But the manly main purpose of my call was to inform him that my client, an important mining company will finally get asphalt asphalted and fix the manly main street of the city, in front of his shop. This make him very happy. For my surprise, when I asked him about some improvements and initiatives that he and his community are willing for the future, the answer was: one college so my grandsons could return and study here, not so far as today.   

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I need to confess: it's really difficult to find different subjects to talk about. Why is so hard saying things without a subject? Why isn't that easier?

I was thinking starting make a false interview with myself about general things because in this way I can practice questions, modals verbs, negative sentences. Would this work? Hey, see here a modal verb! This will work at the next posts. You'll see.

Today I'm a little bit lazy, sorry. I've finished "The Partner", a novel of the great american writer John Grisham. His books are raw material for many and successful Hollywood films like "The Client", "The Pelican Brief" and "A Time to Kill".

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Yes! I hope I found a title for all posts of this blog along 2012. It will work like a counter!

So, the rain finally stopped in Belo Horizonte but still continues in all over Minas Gerais state. At this moment we have 53 municipalities in emergency alert and 7 individuals lost their lives. In Ouro Preto, one of the most important cities towns, two taxi drivers were covered by mud after a slope felt fell (felt = past of feel) above on them, near the local bus station. One dead casuality, other another still disappeared unaccounted for.

Shall I change the subject next day? Certainly. Bye!

First post: title unknown

My new year list of resolutions have one thing that I really need to start to do doing: writing down essays every single day of the year. It seems difficulty if we stop to think in a lot of days that we can't even stand up to have a glass of water. Besides I'm starting I start doing it wrong wrongly because we already are at the 2012' 2nd day and how as you could can see, this is the first post. Then let's get start started.

Belo Horizonte is the city town that I was born in and where I'm living. Here is a good place to live but after five or six weeks of continuous and strong rains many citizens are having serious troubles. Rivers are flooding streets, getting the drivers crazy in the middle of huge and fast volumes of muddy waters. Many buildings' structures are being threatened by the wet ground and today a small one collapsed in the Northwest region. The local police advised the residents and most of them got out before the accident but one man didn't hear the recommendation and died. And the weather reports are not bringing good news: more and more rain will be falling down all the time in the next days.

Well, I'll stop here for today. See you tomorrow!