January 30, 2010 – 8:14 am
The first month of the year is about to finish and before it does let me share with you a picture from our New Year’s evening. This NYE we decided to spend on the harbour so we could see the fireworks. We had to wake up very early to get a premium spot. But it was worth it.
We had some of our friends with us: Peter, Helen, Henrique, Isabela, Natalie, Andrea, Michael and Susan. It was Gabi’s first fireworks in Sydney since before we were always travelling during this time of the year. Everyone loved it but it was also very tiring spending the whole day waiting to see the fireworks just in the evening and then go back home. It is the sort of thing that you do once and that’s it.
Unfortunately our camera broke and we had to get our friend’s pictures. Here is the picture:
December 30, 2009 – 7:24 am
Last post of the year. This Xmas we decide to go camping, with Tati, Matthias and the kids. We drove to Jervis Bay, 3 hours south of Sydney. All planned and packed just fine what we didn’t count on was the rain. Started raining on Christmas day and after raining for 24 hours straigth, we all had enough, it was time to pack and go back home. It was sad that we couldn’t enjoy the beach, but it was a nice family Christmas. I see you all next year.
November 29, 2009 – 3:51 pm
One of the things that I most like on having a website is to look at the statistics and find out how people gets to your page. Just recently I was looking the stats for this domain and I found out that there were people getting to my blog by typing on Google Antonio Rodrigues. Drilling down I saw that there were coming from Hungary, so I decide to type my on name on Google Hungary and look at the result:
Click on the image to view full size.
Not only my website site shows in third but MY PICTURE is there too! I couldn’t believe. It is like Google knows who I am!
October 30, 2009 – 9:03 am
I have been reading some interesting books recently. One of them was Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson from Wired magazine. The book is about all these business models that are created around free, especially on the internet and in digital form. Free is possible because the costs of digital goods in the digital era of the internet are very close to zero. I got this book from Amazon.
Another book that I have just finished is Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. This is a bestsellers book on personal finances and was first released in 1999. The book talks about how Mr. Kiyosaki had two dads, one rich and one poor and the different aspect of their vision about money. While the poor dad would tell Robert to go to school get good grades and get a secure job, the rich dad would teach about the importance of being financially literate. An excellent book that I got from the library, but I loved it so much that I want to buy it. You can find out about this book here.
In the book the author talks about the game that he created to teach people how to develop their financial intelligence, the game is called Cashflow. I had the chance to meet a group of people how plays this game and last weekend I had my first experience playing the game. I couldn’t achieve the game’s main goal, which is to get out of what Robert calls “the rat race” and have a passive income greater than your expenses, but I learned new things and I had a great time playing the game as well as I met interesting people. Looking forward to the next section!
After reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad and have enjoyed it a lot I start reading another book from the series Rich Dad’s called Retire Young Retire Rich. On this book Robert Kiyosaki tells the reader how his wife and him were about to, in 9 years, be financially free and retire. I am almost half way through the book and I am likely it so far. If you are interested about this book check out it’s Amazon page.
I haven’t always been a big reader but I think now I found topics that motivates me to read more and more and I simply started loving to read.
September 11, 2009 – 9:45 am
Last weekend we had a small family celebration for Anna’s birthday. Thomas was just recovering from a chickenpox so the main celebration had to be cancelled. Gabi, grandma Elizabeth, grandpa Tarcísio and I gave the kids some toys.
Here is a photo of Anna on daddy’s lap with her first doll.
August 23, 2009 – 9:10 am
I have mentioned that I was studying for the Citizenship test. So this past week I finally took the test. Apparently there is a lot of people that want to do the test so the next available day when I went to book it was 3 months away.
The test is really easy. I have read the book twice and I got 19 questions right out of 20. The only questions that I got wrong was about the Mabo decision. I didn’t know what was it. It was in the book, so I probably read it, but I couldn’t remember.
If you don’t know what is the Mabo decision and so I can never forget it again, here it is:
“Mabo decision restored unsold land to Aboriginal people if they had maintained their traditional ties to it.”
Latelly I have been thinking about the idea of share knowledge without expecting any financial reward. Like on the old days of school where your friends would ask you about a subject that they knew you know better than them, and you wouldn’t even think about money and would give them a private class.
So I realized that if you legitimatelly teach someone without excepting anything back, you have a good chance of get something back, and when you do that over and over again, with more and more people, the rewards will start coming on your way and will surprise you.
And when I started to think, I had this idea that may explain to you why. At least to me things became more clear now. People like to teach other people because it makes them to feel good about it. On the other hand, when someone teaches you something that is useful to you, you want to reward them.
Now comes the reward part of give, the reward can be anything, and will be in most cases as genuine as the given part. You will be referred to a job, to a new customer, to a new partner, etc. And these things can get really viral.
The more you give, the more you will get back. This works like a law of physics, when you give, you are throwing a ball of air that will gather more air and return to you.
Antonio in thoughtful moments.
Last 15th of June I turned 32. Unfortunately I haven’t got any picture of my birthday celebration at home to show you. But Tati and Matthias came with Thomas and Anna and we had a delicious chocolate cake that Gabi made for us. (As Thomas says: “Thank you tia Gabi!”) They sang Happy Birthday To You to me 
and Thomas helped me to blow the candles.
I snapped this picture the other night with my mobile of the Sydney Opera House. This is part of an event that is happening in the Sydney Opera House called Luminous.
April 28, 2009 – 10:06 pm
This month we celebrated my nephew Thomas’ second birthday. Here is a picture that I snapped from him and his friend Anais analysing the cake.
