Cuenca Updates: Saturday-Sunday March 10-11, 2012

Saturday Mar 10/12 update

I got tired of waiting for Xavier, the reluctant computer guru, to get back to me after 3 days so I have sent emails to two other recommended troubleshooters. Bella’s laptop is working perfectly, wirelessly, through the same router on Windows 7. Logic then tells me that the problem with my desktop and laptop has something to do with some configuration within XP… I hesitate to play in those areas where I have no expertise and can only make matters worse.

So our only outing so far today has been Bella running to the Coopera market store to get meat and veggies. I hate waiting for people to return emails etc as we need this problem resolved quickly.

In the evening I finally got an email back from Xavier, my computer guru who thinks it is a firewall problem, saying he could maybe see me Tuesday night and asking for a day’s wages for an hour’s work. I told him to go pound sand and to remove my testimonial from his website. His service sucks.

I decided to unplug and re-plug the wires coming and going from the router, and voila, problem solved….. Why didn’t I do that 3 days ago? Ugh. At least then I felt better about telling off Xavier. I sent apology emails to the other 2 computer guys (who hadn’t responded over about 5 hours either) and that was that. Boy, is it ever a relief to get back to normal. It sure underlines how much we depend on these machines now. It was murder not being able to get through to my photo sites, or blog.

Sunday March 111/12 update

I was up early had a surprise 45 minute Skype call from our friend Sean who teaches English in China. He is presently in a city in central China, works 12 hours a week and is paid $2,800 a month. The downside is that his wife and child are in Beijing but only 3 hours away by a high-speed bullet train. He feels inflation has eaten away at his salary over the past few years so that makes saving more difficult.

I tried to talk Bella into going exploring but she said she had shopping and cooking on her agenda so I ventured to El Centro on the #3. I also explored a corner we usually tend to miss which has great views and an interesting family sculpture. I also got a couple of daytime shots of Turi, with the white church on the hill to the south that I would like to visit at night when it is all lit up.

The flute players were there, without war paint this time so I took two videos and put them on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/GcpgUdxvPqI playing flutes

http://youtu.be/FTrl6lOWPdw playing pan flutes

On my return I went a very short ways east from the Monay Mall to see the view of our area from across the Rio Tomebamba so you can see how close we are. We are the backside of the duplex with the red roofs (see arrow).

Our stepdad, Lucien, age 93, is in hospital and is not doing very well. We wish him a speedy recovery.

That was today’s excitement. Enjoy the pics. Hugs to all.