Carlos Garre del Olmo About me
Who am I
Hi all! I am Carlos Garre del Olmo, currently an Assistant Professor at University Carlos III (Madrid, Spain). In this section you can read something about my personal interests to know a little bit more about who am I, beyond the boring curriculum vitae.
Interests
Here you will find some information about the things I like to do with my spare time
Windsurfing
I started windsurfing when I was 15 years old, when I was too old to keep sailing in my Optimist.
After many months of persistent attempts, I finally was able to hook the harness and put my feet on the footstraps, and in that moment my life changed forever.
Rather than trying to be an expert of one single windsurfing category, I prefer to have basic knowledge of most categories, so that I can say that I practice at least 4 completely different sports. From long distance planing with low wind in extreme courses (formula), to extreme speed competitions with friends (slalom), to spend one whole evening of wipe-outs trying a new trick (freestyle), to surfing and jumping and trying to survive in small waves (wave).
I usually don´t participate in windsurfing races, but I was 1st in 2008 at Spanish Inland Windsurfing Competition (Circuito Nacional de Aguas Interiores) for the Open class, and second in 2009.
My home spot is Mar Menor, and I am a proud and happy member of Club de Windsurf Mar Menor.
This is the equipment I have now in use:
- 5 boards: JP Real World Wave 82l, F2 Air 260 95l, Starboard S-Type 115l, RRD X-Fire 120l, StarBoard Formula 162l.
- 7 sails: North Ego 3.7, North Instinct 4.2, NeilPryde Core 5.0, North Duke 5.9 , North Ram F8 7.3, NeilPryde RX1 9.3, Severne Code:Red 11.0.
Boardgames
I love all type of boardgames and I spend a lot of my spare time playing and sometimes designing my own games.
My favourite game designer is, without any doubt, Vlaada Chvatil.
I have 220 games in my current collection (at the moment of the last update of this website).
If you want to make me a present, you don't need to think too much. Just take a look at my whishlist. ;)
Electronic music
Since I was I child I always loved music. I started playing violin, then guitar, then drums and finally synthesizers.
In 1995 I published my first web site (unfortunately no longer online), about the Yamaha SY35 music synthesizer, and soon it became the most visited site on Internet about this synth.
This is the equipment I currently have in my home studio:
- Synthesizers: Yamaha SY35, Korg Z1, Novation Nova, Yamaha Motif Rack and Roland JD800.
- Samplers: Akai s6000.
- Groovebox: Yamaha RM1X.
- Other hardware: Emagic Unitor 8, Doepfer Pocket Control, Boss BX16, EMU 0404, EMU 2x2.
- Software: a lot... Cubase as main sequencer
Other hobbies
I also like:
- Comics: Neil Gaiman, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius are my favourite authors.
- Beer: I have a collection of ~700 (or so) different beer labels, and I have also brewed my own beer.
- Transformers toys: I have a collection of more than 70 figures.
- Reading: science-fiction, fantasy, classics, science divulgation.
- Other sports: Snowboarding, Kayak riding, Karate, Kung-Fu.
- Many other things: astronomy, origami, miniature painting...
Personal projects
I have always many personal projects in mind. These are things that I do only for having fun and for learning new things, and I am not used to share anything in social networks, forums and so on, as most people do.
Maybe some day I will publish here or anywhere else some of my projects, but currently I can only write a few words about some of these projects. Please, let me know if you want to know more about any of them and I will gladly give you all the details.
All the projects mentioned here are 100% my own creations. I won't mention anything about projects I did following other's designs or instructions.
Past projects:
- Software and hardware synthesizers: CantorSynth (fractal sound synthesizer based on Cantor set), DSPic-based hardware additive synthesizer, Replicas of real synthesizers (such as the Technosaurus Microcon) using Reaktor.
- MIDI hardware and software: IdiMIDI Linux monitor, MIDI Thru box 4x, programmable hardware MIDI controller.
- Robotics: nonholonomic line follower, kayak riding robot.
- Hacking and networking: I created (just for fun) a complex network infrastructure at my parents home with many servers, some of them for learning about hacking, using mostly discarded computers. The room I used for this was called by my parents "the NASA room" because it looked like a NASA control room. :)
- Music composition: I have composed and recorded more than 10 songs using computers and synthesizers, but most of them were lost forever after a hard-disk crash. :(
- 3D Printing: I have a BQ Hephestos 3D printer and I have built many things, including my own designs of miniatures and tokens for boardgames.
- Videogames: I made many videogames when I was a teenager, programming in TurboPascal in my brother's 286 PC. These games consisted in graphic adventures and simple arcades, with graphics and sound. Doing this was a big challenge back in the Pre-Internet days.
- Brewing and cooking: I have brewed ale beer and many bottles of the best limoncello you could taste. I also enjoy cooking chocolates with different fills and shapes.
- Delta haptic device built with (hacked) Lego Mindstorms EV3.
- Hardware sampler based on a Raspberry-Pi.
- An euro-thematic boardgame with (own design) miniatures about... well, I won't tell anything about it yet... :)