Friday November 30, 2012

Friday November 30/12  update #301

I thought I had bought a DVD of the TV miniseries “Empire”, 360 minutes long, but it wouldn’t play in either the DVD player or the computer.   It turns out the disc is completely blank!  From now on I will have every DVD checked before I buy them. 

Tom Thumb is continuing to visit much to my delight, although I am now convinced this is a new friend.  He isn’t frequenting the same haunts in the trees, nor is he chattering and singing from on high, like my old buddy did.   This one chatters on every approach to the window though and is not scared to be fed from my hand.   I hope he sticks around for a long while.

Bella is off on errands and to play bridge, leaving me to open the place for Rosa to do her bi-weekly cleaning.   They have switched to Fridays now so we will be splitting those duties monthly.

I then met Bella for our favorite burgers at Big Kabuda’s.   Bella informed me that she found a store near the University that sells quilling supplies as she is anxious to teach Carolina this craft.

When we caught the bus home we were fortunate to find seats as the bus soon filled up to the brim with folks heading for El Valle.  We took lessons from the school kids when we had to barge our way through to disembark.

We are already making plans for Xmas dinner and have already filled our guest list.   We don’t have enough chairs for any more anyway.

No photos today.

That was today’s excitement.   Hugs to all.    

Thursday November 29, 2012

Thursday November 29/12  update #300

After forcing myself to stay in bed until 8am I hurried to do my uploads, emails and chores as hurriedly as I could since I was determined to get out of the house today.

There was a strange helicopter that buzzed by and landed on the hill where the amusement park had been set up last month.  There was a great cloud of dust and then they lifted off again about 10 minutes later.   This is only the second helicopter we have seen here, and the other is the police helicopter which has been conspicuous by its absence in recent months.

I heard from my buddy Chris that he is recovering well from his hernia surgery on Monday.   That is a relief I am sure for Bettye who relies on Chris for many things.

I met Jay Shink in front of Immaculate Conception and we started roaming from there.   I bought two of the pan flute CD’s and got them autographed for gifts.  Then we wandered west to San Sebastian Square, checked out the church and park before going into the Museum Of Modern Art.  There were some very interesting impressionist pieces today but also some realism that was so incredible they looked like a photograph.

Otorongo Plaza appears to be setting up for some sort of fair, probably starting tomorrow.

We headed over to La Condemine to see my Maypole sculpture then we went by that macabre museum which had doors and windows open so we could witness some of its ghoulish contents.

I then took Jay to Almacen Ochoa to buy himself a switchblade for $5, just like I have.   Next we started to ask around to find him a spare battery for his Olympus camera.   I remembered being referred to a Fuji store 3.5 blocks east of Parque Calderon when Dan had broken his camera so we headed there.  And guess what?!  They had the battery we needed, and at less cost than in Canada!

I then caught myself looking at cameras trying to find an SLR that would allow for manual focusing.  There was an incredible $800 Fuji camera with a short lens that went from 55-720 and it even had the tilt screen, etc.  Unfortunately the camera was still too smart for me when it would zoom in as I was trying to focus, to give better definition they said, but definitely annoying when it is not zooming in on the spot you want to focus on…

The fellow in the store then gave me a tour of their developing facilities and then their lovely studio and we got to chatting.  Guess what?  He runs tours and has access to vehicles of all types!  He and his wife are photographers so this could be a very good fit.  I briefly discussed that I am thinking of doing a trip to Saraguro for solstice day celebrations and then maybe to Ona for the late afternoon.    This could be interesting.

I have taken artistic licence with many of the photos today.  I hope you like them.

That was today’s excitement.   Hugs to all.    Please see all photos at http://souvenircuenca.blogspot.com/

Wednesday November 28, 2012

Wednesday November 28/12  update #299

I was up at 4am and didn’t finish processing photos until after 1pm.

Then I hopped the bus over to the Hearts Of Gold office to pick up some of their $5 raffle tickets to sell.   Contact me if you are interested in buying some.

I then stopped at the Papeleria Monsalves to get a new black ink cartridge for this bulimic HP printer.  I asked for a discount because the price was $20.42.  When she didn’t discount it I gave her the $30 I had with me.  That got me the $0.42 discount in a hurry….

Bella was out all day with errands and visiting friends.    The sky was looking really awful to the north and we had more wind today than any day in the past 13 months so we were expecting something bad, but so far we only got as few drops of rain…  I was glad to see Bella get home before any nastiness occurred.

No photos today.

That was today’s excitement.   Hugs to all.    

Tuesday November 27, 2012

Tuesday November 27/12  update #298

Bella was feeling under the weather and wanted to stay home and work on her bridge instructions so I stayed home too.

Almost all of my day was spent working on photos from the Mindo trip and I got about 60% of it done.  I chatted on Skype with my brother Germain in Saskatoon and with Ed from Montreal.

I had the most pleasant surprise this afternoon when I heard this “demanding” chattering at my window.  Yes!!  My little buddy Tom Thumb has returned!!  He ignored the tired old nectar that I had on hand so I ran downstairs to get a fresh batch.   As soon as I opened the window he came right back and ate again from my hand!  I am amazed that his little brain would remember, but I guess animals and birds have homing instincts for food.   Welcome back my little friend!!

I also took a video so you can see I am not making this up….

http://youtu.be/M2J2R7fl3-k

That was today’s excitement.   Hugs to all.    Please see all photos at http://souvenircuenca.blogspot.com/

Monday November 26, 2012

Monday November 26/12  update #297

I had a load of laundry washed and hung to dry before 7:15 this morning and I got kinda caught up on some of my photo sites and even uploaded some photos today.   I started to process some of the work from our latest trip and I am getting choosier because I already have a 400+ photo backlog for uploading….   I am still uploading stuff I shot in April for Pete’s sake.

Once Bella got up we went on a little shopping jaunt to Mega Hierro, Kiwi, Papeleria Monsalves, a Christmas store, and then Super Maxi, all near the airport.  Bella wanted a Christmas tree so we had to do some measurements…, well that is because we need to be able to store it later, and we only have so many places to hide things for 11 months of the year.    We finally settled on a 3’ fiber optic tree with a star on top for $15 on sale.  They were in better shape that the 4’ models, better constructed, and they had new ones in stock.

Upon our return we unpacked, had lunch and then headed to Coral for a few Xmas decorations and as many groceries as we could carry in our roller cart, and by hand.

We had picked up an extra black ink cartridge for the printer because Bella had 300 pages of a book she wanted to print.  All our ink ran out with 36 pages to go, even just using Grayscale!    HP makes a bloody killing off us idiots who buy their cheap printers that suck ink like a jet plane.

I am happy to report that my temporary fix for my computer’s memory loss is working great!  It is only a few extra clicks when I start up but then my computer is twice as fast as before.   I guess there was a silver lining after all.

We have set up the tree in the front window along with a garland with LED lights and it looks pretty sharp.   That is the only photo for today and that was today’s excitement.   

We wish you all the best for this holiday season, 

and especially a happy and prosperous New Year!

Hugs to all.    Al & Bella

Sunday November 25, 2012

Sunday November 25/12  update #296

I had to be up very early at 5am this morning to meet 4 other photographers at 6am in Parque Calderon.   Paul Wolf was leading this expedition and he was looking to get some nice downtown shots with “decent skies”.   Ron Phillips, Neal Adams and his buddy Michael were the other 3 fellows and they all had some pretty fancy equipment compared to mine.   Heck, Paul’s tripod is worth $1,000 alone. 

Oh well, I am not ashamed of my shots compared to theirs and I took many more shots than they did , almost 100 today, many of subjects they completely ignored.  I even tried out a couple of effects that my camera provides.   I hope you like them.   Hopefully everyone got the shots they wanted to get, although the skies were mostly overcast.

Bella was off to Joe’s to play bridge this afternoon.  Everyone is asking her to give bridge lessons so I probably have to help her compile a manual from 300 emailed PDF pages she sent herself…   That should be an interesting project.

We also had a call with an offer from Barry and Maxine Wilder of Calgary regarding some lodgings in the Galapagos for a week after I return from Canada.  Things are beginning to fall into place on that score.

We still haven’t completely shut off the possibility of getting to Africa next year.   We really need to find some cheaper and simpler transportation to make it work out.  Hopefully something will turn up there as well.

That was today’s excitement.   Hugs to all.    Please see all photos at http://souvenircuenca.blogspot.com/