Esperando que suba la marea

Esta es fue una escena que me llamó mucho la atención y por eso la fotografié. Tres personas a eso de las diez de la mañana sentadas, contemplando el mar, ahí tranquilos, esperando que suba la marea. Playa de Las Canteras, agosto de 2017.

¡Feliz 2018!

Jugando en la calle

La calle siempre fue el mejor lugar para jugar, pero, con el tiempo, la calle ha sido tomada por las carreteras y los coches, disminuyendo el espacio de juego de los niños. Por esa razón, muchos ciudades están devolviendo las ciudades a sus legítimos dueños, que no son otros que los vecinos, peatonizando los barrios. Valsequillo, octubre de 2017.

One shot and then another

It's the first job I have to do this month. My hands are shaking and my heart is pounding. I can feel the beats in my temples and in my chest. I'll never get used to this shitty job. I've been sitting almost two hours. Only five hundred meters from his house. Watching the people pass by. Carrying with them the weight of their normal lives, happy and unhappy. Someone looks at me distracted, I'm sure he's noticed my appearance. I'm wearing my red Chicago Bulls cap up to my eyebrows. I always liked Jordan. I also wear my glasses black, which gives me a rather disturbing look. I admit it, but I don't care.

In the tranquility of waiting and as I read "The Hunt for the Killer." I remember what it was like the first time. Ugh, it was hard, I have to say. Killing a person, when you're only 13, is hard. 

The band, like a pack of wolves, puts you to the test and the test was blood. It's always blood. They gave me a two-inch dagger with a nacre grip. I still have it. The target was an asshole, a sneak. I had to teach him a lesson. But the nerves. The tension of the moment and the adrenaline flowing through the blood, did the rest. A stab wound to the ass, but the fucker twisted like a Staffordshire and the other stab went straight to the neck. I looked at him as he tried to stop the blood spurt with his hands. But it was in vain, because he soon vanished, bled to death like a pig at the hands of a murderer.

From then on, I earned the band's respect. The fucking respect. "An initiatory blood baptism, common among youth gangs," I read a few years later. Because I learned to read. It made me very angry not to know what the papers were saying. Then I became an incorrigible reader.

Since I was born, my life had been a disaster. My father's motherfucker was an alcoholic. He died two years ago, and my mother, my poor mother. She endured as much as she could and more. But he fell down the stairs, running away from my father's motherfucker's umpteenth beating. She ended up lying prostrate on a bed, fed by a troop of purulent sores. A brutal infection sent her to the afterlife. Poor old lady!

But that's all in the past. I work on my own now. How far those years are, how far away...! It's almost time. I recognized Mercedes Benz's blue license plate. I get up and I'm on my way to number thirty-eight of this very street.

I ring the bell when I get there. I am greeted by an impressive black dog, with face of very few friends.  He keeps barking, wagging his tail back and forth. I insist again with the darn bell. 

While I'm waiting, I remove the safety catch from the gun, pulling it out of the back of the belt. I pull out the muffler and screw it into my Parabellum. The Parabellum is the best for this kind of work. 

I see him show up. Confirm target. I'm a good physiognomist. And I'm paid to be. I don't like to make mistakes. He comes up and opens the steel gate for me. Grab the dog by the necklace. He looks at me and, without saying a word, I shoot the dog in the head, leaving it out of play. In the next millisecond, our eyes meet. He knows it. He's gonna die. One shot, and then another, between the two eyebrows. He didn't have time to react. He fell flat on his face beside his dog. I closed the gate. I walked down the street, leaving behind that shocking scene.

I have to quit this job. But I don't know how to do anything but shoot. I'm a hitman.

 Image source: Pixabay 

Alfredo Kraus a contraluz; uno de los grandes

Alfredo Kraus, uno de los mejores tenores de la historia. Una gran escultura lo homenajea en Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, cerca del auditorio que también lleva su nombre. Noviembre de 2017.

Auf Wiedersehen, adiós Hamburg

Ya llegó la hora de despedirse de Hamburgo. Han sido unos días muy intensos.

Es ist Zeit, sich von Hamburg zu verabschieden. Es waren ein paar sehr intensive Tage.

The title of the post? Short

At this point we all know that titles have to be attractive and there are a large number of entries that tell us about the topic; according to St. Google, 12,400,000 results speak of the topic.

Here at Steemit, we have a lot of posts that talk about it, however, I am not going to tell you about all the aspects that must be taken into account in order to make a title attractive. I am going to tell you about a single aspect that for me is one of the most important and is its size, because, once again, size does matter.

It matters because our brains like short titles, because they bring clarity and help in the processing of information.

Keep in mind that our brain processes 400 million bits per second and that's a lot of information for us to complicate it, even more, putting a long and incomprehensible title.

For that reason we have to make an intellectual effort to try to make a title as short as possible and at the same time the title must to talk about the content of your post. 

Yes, I know it's complicated, but not impossible. 

The first thing you have to take into account is what you are going to talk about in your post, because if you don't know, it will be very difficult to make a short and clear title, because, many times, we have an undetermined nebula of what we are going to talk about and that detail complicates the issue a lot. 

One thing that can help you make a short, clarifying title is to write the entry first and then write the title, because it might give you some idea for the title. 

So the first step in making a short and clear title is to know what we are going to talk about in our post; that is the fundamental principle. If we have that aspect solved, making the title won't be too difficult.

Once we have determined the issue we are going to deal with, we need to design the title of our entry. 

To do this, it is necessary that the title does not contain more than 60 characters. In this link:  Contador de Caracteres para SEO  you can "measure" how long your title is.   

As I have already said, our brain likes that of "yes brief, twice as good", but not only does our brain like it, but also St. Google, who enjoys indexing short titles, not more than 60 characters, the long ones shorten them without compassion. Because, my friends, it is not only necessary to think about the 7 crucial days of life of our posts in Steemit, but also that those posts will be read in the future and that they will form part of our personal brand.  Don't forget that.

Another aspect that has to be in the title is the main theme of the post. I know it is logical, but there are still people who do not have it very clear, so we must do everything possible to make that the message in our post is in the title.

I know this is difficult, but we have to try, because the title is the doorway to our post, it's the first thing our potential reader and follower reads.

That there is such a relationship between the title and the entry is very important because one of the aspects that bothers readers most are false expectations; if your title says pears, talk about pears, do not talk to us about apples, avocados, bananas, oranges and mangoes, no, talk about pears, that 90% of your entry talks about pears.

So you already know it, the title of your post, short, clear and containing the essence of your post. 

 Photo source:  Canvas