Juan del Real

This website/blog is currently listed as the top result when you Google the name “juan”.

Diet Dr Pepper really does taste like regular Dr Pepper!

I got the chance to see and drive a smart car - the fortwo model. Well, we were only allowed to drive it around the parking lot, but it was still a fun experience. These cars have been available outside the US for years. They are supposed to finally go on sale here, in the US, next year.

Even though its small size, it doesn’t feel that small once you’re inside and driving it. It has a three cylinder engine in the rear which produces 60 hp. Since its a lightweight car, its able to move fast with such little power.

Its a really cool car. However, I don’t think it will be a good car for commuting long distances. Its just perfect to drive around within a city - which I think is the main purpose of this car.

My wife and I attended the MOO one year anniversary party last night. Even thought MOO is a UK-based company, the party was held at the 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco. We arrived fashionably late, so we missed the cake-cutting and anything that was said.  Even so, we still managed to get a goody bag, meetup with old and new friends, and have a good time.

• MOO Party Photos

My wife and I went to El Salvador on vacation. That’s where her mom’s side of the family is from. We left on April 25th and returned home on May 4th.

We spent a few days in the capital city of San Salvador, a few days in the city of Santa Ana, and a few more days at an all-inclusive resort called Decameron which is really nice.

I posted some the many photos my wife and I took on Flickr. We took over 3,000 photos combined so I’m still in the process of posting more. I won’t be posting all of them, just the better ones.

I’ll be writing other posts about stuff I learned or saw in El Salvador. Stay tuned.

Today, March 18th, is our first wedding anniversary. I’ll write more on what a great experience its been so far at a later time.

To celebrate, we went on a day trip to Napa where we had a great lunch at a winery called Domaine Chandon. We followed that with an adventurous drive (we got lost) to the Schultz Museum in Santa Rosa. We had been wanting to go there since we met over two years ago.

I ordered a set of Moo MiniCards through Flickr. These cards are small, about half the size of a regular business card. The cool thing about these minicards is that you can personalize them. You can have photos from your Flickr account printed on one side and any text on the other side. You can also add your Flickr account’s avatar and the Flickr logo on the text side. As for the photos you can add, you can select 100 different photos (1 for each card in the set of 100 minicards), or select a few which will be divided between the 100 minicards.

These cards seem to be popular among Flickr users and bloggers, but other crowds are getting in on them too. Crafty folks are finding creative ways to use them and some companies are using them as business cards too. At a seminar I attended, an employee from Linden Lab, the maker of Second Life, gave me his business card which was a Moo minicard.

Links:

• moo.com
• see what people are doing with their minicards

I just installed a new theme for my blog. The theme is called Misty Look. It doesn’t look as good as I thought it would. I’ll tweak it as I go along and try to improve it a bit.

3/8 Update: I changed some of the fonts and changed the sidebar on the right. Now I need to change the default photos.

The latest online craze this holiday is to elf yourself. This means to go to www.elfyourself.com and upload a photo of yourself which will be pasted on a funny dancing elf. Click here to see how I made an elf of myself. Enjoy!

Strolling through Costco, I came across this meat product branded with my last name. The company is called Del Real Foods and Costco is selling their cooked porked better known in Spanish as carnitas. I had seen this company’s name mentioned in search results, but they didn’t have a website and I hadn’t seen any of its products until I came across this one.

Their new website explains the company’s history. The company was started by a family with the last name of Cardenas, but it doesn’t explain why the name Del Real was chosen to be used in the company name.