Halloween, Alaska, a local Minnesota band, provided the soundtrack while driving into work and admiring how wondrous nature truly is.

One, important to maybe half the people who read my blog, is that we released 0.2 of Étoilé yesterday!

The Étoilé project is pleased to announce the release of version 0.2 of the Étoilé User Environment for UNIX-like systems. The Étoilé project aims to produce a user environment for desktop and small form-factor devices, with tight integration between components. The 0.2 release is primarily targeted at developers interested in a GNUstep-based environment.

Complete release announcement can be read here.

And for the visually-inclined, here are the obligatory screenshots (thanks to Yen-Ju for making those — I’m far too lazy):

I have to say, I’m quite happy with how it’s shaping up so far. Visually, not perfect yet, and yes, of course there are still bugs and crashiness, but we’ve made awesome progress this last year and a half, and now we have some great stuff planned for 0.3. And, assuming everything goes as planned (which it never does, but dammit a boy can hope!), 0.3 is going to be very, very sexy, both on the surface and under the covers.

In other news, and, far more importantly (sorry Étoilé fans!), my little one is turning 4 YEARS OLD tomorrow! The lucky girl even got a new hairdo for the occasion:

The irony of the haircut situation is that in a country where we (well, I — Tanya does just fine) barely speak the language, and most definitely do not know how to say “reverse bob” or any other hairstyle-related terms in Portuguese, the stylist manages to cut her hair exactly how we want it, something that’s been failed twice in the United States by English-speaking beauticians.

But anyways, Ali’s soooo excited, and even more excited by the fact that she gets to have two parties: one here while we’re still in Brazil, and one once we get back to Minnesota. I have a feeling I’ll be seeing a lot of princess-themed items around my world for the next few weeks :)

Follow my adventures in Brazil. Use RSS.

Follow my adventures in Brazil. Use RSS.

Follow my adventures in Brazil. Use RSS.

On Friday night we decided we wanted to go on a tour of the bay (“Bahia” is the old Portuguese word for “bay”), and check out all the little islands, or at least two of them. So Saturday we stopped at the hostel we had stayed at previously, because part of staying there is that they’ll book island tours and other outings for you. Unfortunately, we got there at 6:30 pm and the booking office closed at 6:00. Russell, the guy who runs the hostel, was awesome enough to still try to call, and when he didn’t get through, told us to just do it on our own and gave us all the details.

So, bright and early Sunday morning, we caught a cab to the docks and, when we arrived, were quickly shuffled by some random street person and convinced to go on a different, but similar, tour. I was a bit skeptical, but since we didn’t pay anything up front, and since it was cheaper and Tanya and her friend Cassie felt okay with it, we went along.

The tour was for two islands: Ilha dos Frades and Itaparica. Ilha dos Frades has only around 70 inhabitants, while Itaparica has around 70,000. We were to leave at 9:30, get to Ilha dos Frades around 11:00, stay there for 2 hours, take a 40 minute trip over to Itaparica, get lunch and stay there until 4:00, then head back and get to the mainland around 5:30.

The tour started out really great, with a fun three-piece band singing traditional Brazilian songs.

All Saints’ Bay is quite large, and still seems to be a major port for the country, as we saw many large (and some ridiculously large) vessels.

Three different men took turns navigating, and a few of them caught Ali’s eye for little Brazilian flirting sessions.

Not long into the trip we were told that we would have to make a stop and let on 10 more passengers. I had no idea this “stop” would consist of sliding upside another boat and precariously helping people over.

Salvador is big. Really big.

1 1/2 hours later we pull up at Ilha dos Frades, with its crazy ruins and bizarre landscapes.

Ali and I pose for a pic… apparently wind-swept boat-ride hair is my new fashion statement.

Ali is a ham, no matter where in the world we are.

Tanya thought the sand was brown sugar, and had to snap off a shot of her and Ali’s feet. I concur… it was the softest, most perfectly brown sand ever.

I have a good story about the natives of Ilha dos Frades, but I’ll save that for later.

After a quick 40 minute ride we’re over at Itaparica, which means “circle of stones” in the native Amerindian language.

We were served a buffet-style meal of “food typical of the Bahian people”, the best of which was spaghetti. :)

Shortly after 4:00 it was time to head back.

It’s winter here now, so it starts to get dark right around 5:00…

…thus leading to an amazing sunset and the most magical colors on the waters of the bay.

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Tanya crazy and wild-eyed after no sleep and a successful landing in São Paulo.

Me crazy and wild-eyed after no sleep and a successful landing in São Paulo. And Ali, totally oblivious to the excitement.

Apparently, we were lucky enough to land in Brazil during an air traffic controller strike…

After waiting in line for 2 hours, the news and camera crews decided to show up.

But we still managed to make it! Salvador here we come!

Salvador is one of the oldest modern cities in the Western Hemisphere, and its expansiveness shows it.

Welcome to Bahia, where all our signage and t-shirts are in English (and here I thought I’d be reading sooo much Portuguese).

“ORDEM E PROGRESSO”

I almost thought I was in Florida… those sneaky palm trees are everywhere!

First day at the hotel, and already Ali has snuggled up in the hammock with her buddy, Lil.

The Barra Guest House, a great hotel in the Barra neighborhood of Salvador. This is where we spent our first four days in the city, waiting for our host family to get back from vacation. We happened to come down during the big festival season of Brazil, called São João.

All of the hotels, guest houses, and residences are walled and covered in spikes. If good fences make good neighbors, then spikes on your fences must be the reason Brazilians are so touchy-feely.

And for our first Brazilian meal… PIZZA! There is a saying in Brazil “tudo acaba em pizza”, meaning “everything ends in pizza”, implying that when people don’t make decisions, people end up just ordering pizza by default. Truer words were never spoken.

The restaurant we ate at. I’m not really sure if the pizza was as good as I remember it to be, or if I was just that sick of airplane food.

Ah, the Barra Shopping mall, where during São João they flood and freeze the central area of the lower level and let Brazilians ice skate. Hilarity ensues…

In Brazil, they start teaching them how to put on skimpy bikinis at a young age. These were basically giant magnetic colorforms covering a shop they were remodeling in the mall.

Ah, the beach. I was the whitest dude there… I almost blended into the sand.

Ali had fun though, except for when she tried wiping sand off of her popsicle… using her sand-covered hands.

Totally the perfect beach day.

Ah, we’ve finally made it to the host family’s house! Here’s the kitchen (PS: their fridges open on the wrong side).

On the 20th floor, we have an amazing view.

Priscila, the lady housing us, has a little open terrarium in the house. There’s a turtle in there somewhere.

More amazing views.

And more.

Invest in duct tape, because that is the only thing holding this country together.

More awesome views.

You learn rather quickly that 20 floors up is very, very high up.

I think they installed this gating over the windows more for my benefit than for the children’s. Luckily, this is the closest I’ve gotten to the windows since I’ve been here.

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Follow my adventures in Brazil. Use RSS.

Today, I look like this:

That look on my face is not a result of the hair loss. Rather, it is a result to what happens when one takes too many pictures with their webcam.

Oh, and they donated my hair to Locks of Love, so I did a good deed today.