Dear friends threw me a birthday party last night and it was a blast! I was very happy to see all the people that came over to my home. I think we all had a good time.
Last night I received a very special surprise. Without my knowledge several colleagues contributed to a fund to help me buy plane tickets to Puerto Rico. Due to their kindness, I will be able to go to my island (that’s right baby!) this fall to see my father.
My heartfelt thanks go to Anne, Brad, Christal, Connie, Daisy, Deanna, Irma, Janet, Jennifer, Jennifer, Kim, Marie, Michele, Mike, Noemi, Nora, Nydia, Pam, Sheri, Sunny, Sylvie, Tracy, Will, and all that were present last night (I apologize because there are three other signatures on the very special card that I could not make out at the time of writing). God bless you all!
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I wanted to share with all my readers that this Sunday September 30th is my birthday! Every birthday is like a new year to me. Though there are no fireworks per say, to me it is a very special moment of reflection and thanksgiving. I reflect on how I have grown by the grace of God to become a better man (and believe me the growing continues every day). It is also a time to review the goals I established last year. I take all the unaccomplished goals and I either modify them or recommit them for the next year. Afterwards I establish new goals for the next year.
The next year will be my 25th year on this planet! It is a moment to celebrate as I begin maturing in years and in wisdom. As the new year approaches it is a time of thanksgiving. I thank God, my family, colleagues, and friends for being there with me through moments of great joy and moments of great sorrow (the ups and downs in life). This year I will be thrown a small party at my home to celebrate.
In case you are interested in buying me presents for my birthday or Christmas or any other special occasion, I created a wiki called Mi Wishlist (in English it translated My Wishlist). Check out my wishlist and know that, if you buy something from that list, you are in a sense investing in my future. I like gifts that keep giving, whether it is a tool for productivity, a teaching series, a book, or a program.
I leave you with a set of pictures from my latest fotoshoot on September 26, 2007. Thank you for reading my blog and I pray that God brings both of us health, prosperity, and peace in the coming year!
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WordPress 2.3 is near and, according to Matt, it is coming out with tons of new features. This week I will be busy preparing and making the upgrade to the newest version of this neat blogging tool, not once, but several times. Presently, I maintain about 5 separate installations of WordPress. This blog you are reading also runs on the WordPress software. I love open-source software 
, how ’bout you?
Make it a great week! 
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Ladies and gentlemen it is Friday once again! Work was challenging and my personal life - well that remains a lonely scene 
. Nevertheless, the weekend’s here and there are a few things in the drawing board!
To start it off I have been creatively planning the layout and content changes coming up for the JCruz Presents: Blog. I can’t wait to get rid of this layout and make this site match my style. Right now it feels like the layout is a small, little box without personality. I hope the upcoming layout not only breaks out of the box, but that it complements my voice - as heard in every blog post.
So almost every weekend I have this little routine of mowing the lawn. It’s not that tough because I do it in the morning and the machine moves without having to apply much force. I think people call it a self-propelled lawn mower. Too bad it doesn’t know how to cut the entire lawn by itself! The bad part about this weekend is that I will have to trim bushes and trim the edges around the lawn. I would like to take some pictures so you can all see them featured on the JCruz Presents: Foto Album.
I’m also looking forward getting rid of my messy desk by taking care of these papers and bills. On the subject of bills, Wachovia decided to change my account and charge me a $20 monthly fee. Yup, that was my bank. I already have new bank accounts and stopped all deposits to the Wachovia account. The funny thing is that they claim to have superior customer service. From what I have seen and heard, both Bank of America and Wachovia suck. I should have taken the hint when all my relatives closed their accounts with these banks and when Wachovia decided to charge me (without first asking) for Quicken transfers. The funny thing is that I never transferred anything. Wow, it is obvious that, to these two banks, money is more important than providing excellent customer service!
I hope to close out this weekend by going to church and chilling out afterwards. Perhaps I can get to relax by the pool and read a book. It has been raining so much the past couple of days though. I’ll try to stay positive despite the odds.
How about you, what are you up to? I hope you have a terrific weekend and God bless.
This week the Cruz Personal Index (abbreviated CPí) closed at 56 points.
Get the PDF version or read more about the CPí.
If you are a student who wants to know what the top schools for Latinos [1] are, or a parent looking at a child who’s off to college in a about a year or so, check out the September 2007 issue of Hispanic Business Magazine. They came out with the top 10 business, engineering, law, and medical schools.
When you look at ratings, no matter who they are from, do your research. Take the propaganda, marketing, and biases out the door. I’m not saying Hispanic Business necessarily did that, nevertheless be smart about the information presented to you, don’t take it as fact and “that’s that”. For starters find out what their criteria was and how they arrived at their top ten. See who the people and company(ies) behind the magazine are, sponsors and stuff. Then, compare their choices with other well respected publications. In the end it is going to be a matter of personal choice what school you go to. Unless, of course, you have strict parents 
For example, Hildy Medina wrote on page 34 of the issue,
Most college rankings, including our Top 10 Business, Law, Engineering, and Medical schools lists, take into account a school’s academic excellence. But the Hispanic Business lists go beyond the straight curriculum questions to look at enrollment by U.S. citizens, faculty, student services, and retention rates.
Kudos to the magazine’s leadership for going above and beyond to bring us their list of top 10 business, engineering, law, and medical schools for universities around the United States. Read up and let me know if this was helpful.
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This week the Cruz Personal Index (abbreviated CPí) closed at 62 points.
Get the PDF Version or read more about the CPí.
The Cruz Personal Index (abbreviated CPí) was created to help me perform a self-assessment of the whole person by examining each individual area. I was inspired to create the assessment in a manner similar to financial market indexes.
The Cruz Personal Index will be updated on a weekly basis (on Fridays or whenever possible) and is not supposed to be complex like other indexes. So here’s my shot at creating a new “index.” It should be fun to watch how the numbers change and to watch each week as I try to stay above the average line.
Each area is rated from best to worst performance, a 5 being the best. The sum of all the areas is then multiplied by 2, resulting in the total points for that week.
UDPATE: The index was revamped for the week of 9/21/07. The index will now publish a higher resolution PDF file instead of an XHTML file. In addition the Average Line was replaced with a 90-day Average to make things easier and similar to the measurement used by real indexes.
