Rio de Janeiro is one of the four finalists cities to host the 2016 Olympic Games, the other cities are Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid. Fortunately this week I wrote an interesting article about Rio de Janeiro plus I added a video about the wonderful city.

The last step to choose the host city for the games is when the panel of IOC (International Olympic Committee) experts will visit the cities to know the proposed sites and talk with the government leader about all the organization of the event.

Because Rio de Janeiro hosted the 2007 Pan American Games the government thinks it will be easier to win the nomination to host the Olympic Games. If that happen Rio de Janeiro would be the first South American city to get the Olympic Games since the game was created. The first of the IOC’s Olympic Games were the 1896 Summer Olympics, held in Athens, Greece.

The final choice for will be made by secret ballot at the IOC Session in Copenhagen on October 2, 2009.

Central Park is one of the best places to visit in New York City. Last Sunday, my wife and I went there with a couple of friends to hang out and enjoy the day. The park is amazing, there were a lot of people laying in sun, playing sports, performing shows and much more.

Right before we went home, we were happy to see a group of capoeira performing a very nice show right in the middle of the park. A good number of people gathered around the circle and everyone seemed to really enjoy it the demonstration of the brazilian art, specially me. I took advantage of the moment and shot a video of the Capoeira group. The group is called Grupo Capoeira Brasil and they’re located at New York City. Boneco is the Master (Instructor) of the group and Caxias the counter-master.

Capoeira is a blend of martial art, game, and dance originated in Brazi during the 16th century, it was created and developed by native Indians in Brazil and the slaves.

For more information visit their website » www.nyccapoeira.com.

Sometime in the future I will write an whole article about capeira, how and who started, how to learn, the benefits for the health and so much more.

Miss Brazil USA team promoted a very special event last Thursday night at Newark, NJ. It was the second event of the year with the appearance of some of the contestants for 2008. This year’s first event of Miss Brazil USA was promoted on march 20th with the intention of sealing the partnership of Época Enterprise with Beatriz Leitzke, CEO of BRMedia.

Miss Brazil USA 2007 winner, Heloísa Alves, attended to the event. She walked the walk showing once again why she stood out the most last year. And it wasn’t the first time. Heloisa has won other beauty pagents like Miss Latina Seattle and runner up of Miss Latina Mundo, she has participated of mexican reality show La Academia and is the lead singer of the band Oziris. As well she had done TV comercial for Bally Total Fitness and Cingular Wireless.

Everyone of the participants of the contest have the same dream: to be successfull as former winners had like the TV star Ana Carolina Fonseca (winner in 1997 ), actress, model, TV hostess and journalist Sharon Lima (winner in 1996), and the singer and TV hostess of Fox Network Ana Lygia Galvão (winner in 1992), besides many others brazilian models which work in the fashion world.

This is the video of the event of Miss Brazil USA in Newark.

For more information about the contest you can visit the oficial Miss Brazil USA website and follow the news from National Brazilian Newspaper.

Event promoted by Miss Brazil USA team.
Época Enterprise and BRMedia.
Beatriz Leitze, Caca Santos, Caio Castro.
Photographer Lee Ivens-Ferraz.

Newark, New Jersey - 2008

This movie was filmed and edit by Thiago Prado. All rights reserved.

I couldn’t find a better way to show Rio de Janeiro better than a movie. This movie is perfect to show everything you can find in there.

And it doesn’t stop there. Brazil has a great variety of cultures, different types of land, vegetation. But what’s most amazing to me is the amount of variety you can find in such a relatively small state. One of the most well known shores of the world: Copacabana, Ipanema, Leblon. And that’s in the city. A two hour drive heading east will take you to breath taking beaches, where you’ll enjoy more reserved and rustic paradises like Buzios, Cabo Frio and Saquerema, the Brazilian capital of surf. Or even a little more south and you’ll find Angra dos Reis and Parati.

The west part of the state offers great mountain-like surroundings. Another great opportunity to immerse ourselves in the great culture Rio offers. In Petrópolis, you’ll be able to visit castles, museums, and historical building like the house of Carlos Drummond de Andrade. You’ll be able to enjoy, again breath taking, waterfalls, rivers. Indulge in the great food. The sweets are my favorite!
So pack away, make sure to bring plenty of sunscreen, insect repellent, and of course your camera with plenty of memory. You’ll need it!

Some countries are eligible to go to Brazil without the necessity to get a VISA. For the countries which aren’t part of this group check out the requirements to get a VISA to Brazil.

In 2006, I read a book that changed my perspective of financial independence, the book was Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. I believe many of you have read this book before, but only a few had put in practice of the author preached in the book.

The book has been criticized for having almost no concrete advice and too many anecdotal lessons. In my case, it worked out pretty good because I put his ideas into practice; like “make your money work for you instead of work for the money”. It changed my life.

Two days ago, I attended an event promoted by Rich Dad Company, which pretty much talked about how to build wealth through the stock market. The presentation was pretty good, they even gave me a USB flash drive with some of their promotional material, but it didn’t convince me to take their training, even though it was a lot more affordable than the other similar training programs and It allows you to bring a guest for free.

A short description of the training from their website:

We’ll give you the opportunity to learn what the market pros know and use everyday to make money in the stock market – no matter which way prices are headed!

You’ll learn specific techniques that can help you predict the direction of a specific stock, an industry in general or the market as a whole including:

* Fundamental Stock Analysis
* Charting
* Identifying The Best Entry Point
* Reducing Risks
* Protecting Your Trades With Stops And Exits
* Options
* Market Scanning
* And So Much More!

But on my way home, I started to analyze how this would really help my financial growth. The top points of the presentation were to teach you how to trade in a better - safer - smarter way, even if you’re a first time buyer. At one point, he explained how to trade stocks during a one year period and make 16% profit a year. It was good, actually pretty good in comparison to 4% that banks pays for a regular CD. Therefore I invested my money back home (Brazil) with a profit rate of 12.68% per year with NO RISK of losing my money if the market goes down.

At this point my conclusion is: why I’d spend money in a training that will teach me how to trade better - safer - smarter, spend at least one hour a day in front of my computer analyzing the charts and most important of all risk my money when I already make money without hustle?