Ayinger

Tonight a bavarian dark weizen! :)

Sushi and movie night

Yesterday Tiago, Chais, Noar, Miguel and I went for some sushi at a place called RA, very nice! Afterwards we watched a movie at Tiago and Chais's place. Had a great time for sure!

Dinner time!

Tonight carrots and sweet peas with black olives, baby corn, water chestnuts and sundried tomatoes with quinoa and black beans. All organic, obviously. Awesome!

Simple Living, High Thinking

Last Thursday Arnika and I participated in the simple living high thinking group meeting. We had a great time, saw old friends and enjoyed a delicious vegetarian dinner!

Lucky Buddha

Tonight tasting a beer with a very unique bottle!

Beautiful day in Houston!

This was an excellent day, Ravi, Austin and I went for a racket ball game, followed by some awesome home made hummus sandwiches! :)

Taking Arnika to the airport

She is going on a cruise with her mom, and this morning I drove her to the airport. The icy conditions on the road made the drive not so fun, but we made it ok haha

Icy day

Houston have freezing temperatures today, so I'm working from hone. Arnika got into a small accident due to a frozen road.. No injuries or anything, so it's all good :)

Lagunita's Little Sumpim'

This ale seems good, let's see!

Dinner time!

Game night!

Tonight Arnika and I went for a game night with or friends from the hare Krishna temple. We had dinner and played games, was a lot of fun!

Beer tasting

Tonight, a Phoenix Ale!

Preparing to ride back home

In a very cold night!

Bicycles for rental in Houston

We have a similar system in Brazil, were you can rent a bicycle using a credit card. It works really well. Here you see the rental bikes in the Montrose station.

Awesome day!

One more time I decided to bike to work. Here is me coming out of the office and a view of one of the streets I take to go home.

Cooking dinner

Arnika and I spent most of the afternoon in Hermann park, now it's time to recharge the batteries! :)

Beer tasting

Tonight one called Hibernation Ale. Let's see what happens!

Sunny morning

This was a nice sunny morning in Houston, so I rode my bike to work.

Beer tasting

Tonight the Alaskan! Looks good haha

Happy New Year!

For this upcoming year, If I could wish anything, I'd wish to be sober. Not sober as in free from intoxicants, but as in free from delusion. The hard truth is that no matter how much we strive to understand what are we and what is our real significance, we might never find out. Nature is strange. In a universe that does not necessarily conform to our likings, blaming the way by which we get to know our reality - namely, science - seems childish to me.

The fact remains that not everything there is can be quantified or measured by science as it stands. As René Descartes once realized, the mind and the body are indeed separate. No need for superstition or magic to agree with that. It may very well be that the mind and our own consciousness is just a result of an immensely complex network of unpredictable states, each governed by one or more neurons, and that this complex network is what gives us the ilusion of being conscious and aware. But even that turned the case, such illusion still exists. Meaning also exists, but cannot be measured or quantified in terms of material composition. The fact that it exists, however, does not imply that it is material as the neurons that supposedly produced it. This in turn implies that the mind and the physical matter that produces it are indeed separate entities.

So what do we really want from religion? Therapy? Comfort? Reassuring fables? Or a means to glimpsing into our actual circumstances? And if our reality does indeed extend beyond our physical world, be it by our consciousness alone or something else, may religion be your open minded way of tapping into it.

Happy new year!