Saturday December 29, 2012

Saturday December 29/12  update #326

I could have stayed in bed all morning with the best sleep I’ve had in weeks, but I needed to be up and ready since we were expecting the appliance repairman to stop by today.   He actually did show up around 10am and it took a lot of translator typing and a few phone calls to get it through this guy’s head that the stove doesn’t heat past 180C or 350 F, when the dial on the stove clearly indicates it should reach 250C or around 450F.  How this guy got to be a repairman is beyond me, he couldn’t even differentiate between C and F and started off by telling us that all ovens in Ecuador are calibrated not to heat higher than 280F.   After a call to his office, they confirmed it was 280C and I am sure he felt pretty stupid then.  We agreed they could take the stove in for repair or replacement on Monday and away he went.    He was back within the hour wanting to take the stove today and promising its return on Monday.

The next item of business was to consummate the sale of the bike to a couple from Seattle.   They claimed to be here for 5 more months and that they have bikes in Washington, Minnesota, Guatemala, and now Cuenca.   They live over by the Mall Del Rio and it took them 80 minutes to get here by bus.  They looked at the bike, rode it, agreed it was a great deal and went over to the Monay Mall to get money.  When they returned he talked about riding it home and I explained that it was a long way away, and mostly uphill, so they were better off to spend $3 and take a cab, with the bike in the trunk, up the Autopista to their home.   They finally saw the wisdom of my advice.   So now I have a few more dollars in the kitty for the purchase of my new camera.

I finished the initial cull of the Christmas Eve parade photos and I am down to 888 from 1145.  I am sure there will be more attrition as I now fine-tune the individual shots.  I managed to complete a whole 13 shots in a couple of hours before I headed out.

I had decided to go watch Jorge’s Ecuadorian group play volleyball and to bring them a New Year’s treat of some Zhumir and Coke.   I got there and nobody was around on their court.   I tried to phone Jorge but only got to leave a message.  

I had arranged for Bella to catch the #16 at 5pm, to call me when she embarked, and I would catch the same bus as it went by and we would go to La Vina for supper, and meet Bettye and Chris there.  At 5:15 Chris calls that La Vina is closed so he talked to Bella and decided we would meet them at El Carbon.  At 5:25 he calls again that El Carbon is also closed so we decide on the California Kitchen and we all backtrack.  As Bella and I rounded the corner we note that La Vina is now open so we call Chris and everyone is quite happy to go to La Vina.   The owners say they were closed because they had been to Chordeleg and the traffic back was a mess, so they got back very late.  The pizza at La Vina is our favourite in Cuenca by far  and Chris and Bettye enjoyed it, as we did the desserts too.

The streets are covered with people selling the effigies and with kids setting off fireworks.   Many kids were delighting in tossing them behind unsuspecting people and running away laughing.

That was today’s excitement.   Hugs to all.   

Playing Ecuadorian volleyball under dramatic Saturday afternoon skies.

Friday December 28, 2012

Friday December 28/12  update #325

Bella was off to the weaving store today and then off to her bridge club.

I snuck out to talk to the people at LauryVan where we bought our stove.  Since the stove must still be under warranty I felt they needed the chance to make things right.  The oven doesn’t seem to want to heat any more that 350F which is border-line for a lot of cooking.   We have toyed with the idea of insulating around the stove and even replacing the stove.  They have said the serviceman will come tomorrow.

Coming home I was amazed at how many vendors are selling effigies on our main corner!   These effigies are to represent all the bad things of the previous year, politicians, etc, and they are torched at midnight on New Year’s Eve, and all that cellulose and nylon makes a toxic stink!   Now why anyone would want to torch Miss Piggy or Kermit is beyond me, however I do understand burning the Hulk in rollers, lmao.

I had to hang around for Rosa today anyway so I arranged for my friend Paul Wolf to come and help me with my PhotoShop program.   When I have 1,145 photos to edit I don’t want to be doing them all individually from scratch.  95% of my photos get the same treatment so we are going to figure out which of the 3 options supplied by PhotoShop to use.   I have another free program called PhotoScape that can do a really decent Batch Edit but I preferred to have the options, or actions, given by PhotoShop, so we put our heads together to figure it out.   Paul runs CS6 and I stick with CS5 so we scratched our heads a lot and he showed me lots of amazing possibilities for adjusting photos.    We finally got a solution working fine with only a small glitch in the photo-naming, which we can’t seem to solve, so we’ll just live with it for now.   It is easy to just drag and drop a batch onto an icon, it opens the program, rattles through the files and processes them all with the actions chosen, and renames and saves them in another file.  Man, will that ever save me hours of repetitive work!!  It is as good as the PhotoScape operation but with the advantage of my favorite touches.   We’ll have to give that a try, probably tomorrow, on the big batches.

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

Wednesday-Thursday December 26-27, 2012

Wednesday-Thursday December 26-27/12  update #324

Wednesday was simply a rest day for both of us and it gave us time to catch up on details for the upcoming trips.   I also tried to get more info on a camera I should buy and everything seems to point to a Canon T3i.  I stayed online until past midnight reading countless reviews from professionals and the vast consensus was to go with an EF-S 15-85 lens.  I did do a live chat with B+H Photo in New York, hoping to see the camera on the Friday and make the purchase on a Saturday, but since it is run by Hassidic Jews they are closed at the only hours I could actually make a purchase.   There seems to be better deals online too, so I am going to try to find one of these cameras to test it out.

Thursday morning we noticed an Etapa truck and some workmen in front.  We had a small river of water in front of our place emanating from the neighbors but hadn’t given it much thought.   They must have had a plugged sewer and an overflow somewhere because they were digging down to the pipes to fix something.

Bella headed downtown to mail out some tax forms for the crochet shows I will be doing in January in NYC and Phoenix.  She also checked out a new self-cleaning GE stove that she wants because our oven does not seem to want to heat above 350F.   I want to talk to the people we bought it from before making a wholesale change.   Maybe they will have a simple solution?

I went a different direction and hit every store that sold cameras I could find.  Finally the Fuji store kitty-corner from Santo Domingo directed me 5.5 blocks away to DigiCam on Mariscal Lamar.  They had the body and an 18-55 basic kit lens, but not the EF-S 15-85.  All the reports rave about the 15-85 and compare it to a professional lens.   The grip is not as nice as my Sony HX1 but I am sure I will get accustomed to it.  I loved the camera body, not too heavy and it has an awesome flip-tilt live screen which is a necessity for old guys like me that can’t bend easily.  Even with the crappy lens it focused and operated beautifully.   The T3i even shoots RAW so I may need a lot of lessons from some of my professional friends.

I am going to email a few places in NYC for quotes on a package of items.

I did see a few interesting sights while out there.   In the next block is another Mercado that we had been by on the bus many times but had never entered.  It appears a little closed in and intimidating but it really isn’t.  I was really amazed at the awesome quality of their produce in there, very fresh indeed.

Down the block a man was milking a goat right on the street and getting his results in a small glass.  Drinking on the run??

Santo Domingo church was also open so I peeked in to see the beautiful interior.  It is the second biggest church in Cuenca and is only 2 blocks from the big cathedral.
Oh, and I bought 9 more movies for $10, and I made sure they worked, were in English, good quality, and the sound matched the lip movement.  I'm getting better at this..

I noted that Raoul was installing dormers on the fourth floor where he may make himself his own small penthouse apartment.  It is a very small chopped area but could be made livable for a single person.

When I arrived home the workmen had already filled in the hole in our street and had left, so they must have been successful in their repair.

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

Tuesday December 25, 2012 Christmas

Tuesday December 25/12  update #323

Merry Christmas to everyone again, along with our wishes for a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year.

We understand it is about -20C in Calgary in the daytime while it is at least +20C in Cuenca.   We couldn’t have ordered a nicer, typical day here because we got a nice quick cleansing rain about 7pm as well.   People may think I am crazy, but for Christmas day I’d rather be where there is snow.  I just couldn’t get into the Christmas spirit with no snow, cool weather, kids, grandkids, presents, tourtiere, etc.  Bella will get to experience this next year.

Roger and Debbie Quilty from Nashville, who have been following my Blogs, arrived last night so I met them this morning and accompanied them to Joe’s for Christmas dinner and games.   I wasn’t staying, I was only there to take a few photos and then to rush home for final cleanup duty before our own company arrived for Christmas dinner.  I gave them a tour of Joe's facility and it wasn’t long before they were mingling with everyone.

Upon arrival at Joe’s they pasted the name of a person on everyone’s back.  Then the object was to ask questions of everyone you walk by to try to guess your secret identity, like Mr. Ed, Ethel Mertz, Rasputin, etc.  It was actually quite fun but everyone couldn’t resist the urge to go beyond yes or no answers.   When the snacks started flowing out of the kitchen I had to leave, they looked so-o-o-o-o good!

When I got home I was scrubbing floors so the house would look presentable, because Rosa doesn’t come again until Friday.

Bella was hoping all our guests would arrive by 4pm so she could serve food right away as the turkey was ready a couple of hours before.   Cooking at this altitude is a challenge in itself without having a stove that won’t go past 350F.   We are looking to insulate the stove very soon so Bella can have better temperature control.

Our company finally did all arrive and we ate as soon as the turkey was carved, etc.  It seems everyone brought some lovely gifts for the cook and Mark brought me a beautiful Christmas tie so I won’t have to keep borrowing his.  We finally reciprocated Christmas dinner from last year with Brian and Shelley who brought their dog Frederica who has to be the most well-behaved, non-barking dog I have ever met.  The Boys were wary of Freddie but there were no incidents of any kind even though they passed within a foot of each other many times..

The food was delicious but the turkey was Jekyll and Hyde, some portions very moist and others very dry.  The guests were most complimentary and everyone left again around 8pm to be sure to get cabs home.

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

Sunday-Monday December 23-24, 2012

Sunday-Monday December 23-24/12  update #322

Sunday was just a rest day and clean-up day in preparation for guests on Christmas Day.   We are going to be so busy for the next 2 days I don’t know how we are going to manage it.

The birds outside were making quite a ruckus so I looked out to see what was happening.  From my vantage point it looked like a fat baby had come out of the nest and the parents were just frantic.  I got a shot of the little guy, already way bigger than a sparrow, but looking exposed, vulnerable and afraid.   Later I went down and saw it cowering against the sidewalk 2 doors up but didn’t want to touch it.  On my return home I saw what appeared to be a dead sibling right in front of our place, poor thing.

Monday morning I looked out and was pleased to see the not-so-little bird being attended to by its parent so that was heartening.  First he was under cover but then went out into the open again, hopping and chirping away, so at least he appears healthy.  I do wish he would stay under cover though.   There aren’t many cats in the area but there are loads of dogs.

I went downtown for the Pase Del Nino parade in honour of the Baby Jesus.  I Googled to get the correct Spanish spelling of the event and my video from last year came up first!!  http://youtu.be/eBBjIU9XSPk     It will take me a long time to process the amount of photos I took today, so bear with me.

The parade is an eight hour extravaganza that is world famous, both for its pageantry, beauty, and length. The parade has some of the most colorful costumes, animals, horses decorated with food, dancing troupes, and many tributes to the baby Jesus on his birthday. The children are a huge part of the parade and are mesmerizing, so well behaved and so beautiful, as only children can be. The length of the parade took its toll on many of them, some even falling asleep in the saddle. I took 890 photos last year so you will get to see a few new ones this year. I also took 39 videos of the dance troupes last year that I have also uploaded to YouTube starting with http://youtu.be/GAHITn7JWpU

I was to be possibly joined on the parade route by Jay Shink and Paul Wolf but didn’t see either one as it took me some time to arrive at my intended starting point.  I did run across many people I knew during the day though.   I had caught a bus to near San Sebastian and the parade started earlier than scheduled so I ran into it almost immediately.   I hung around that area until the parade got bogged down, as it always does, then I headed west to avoid all the wait time.  I had hoped to cut down on the number of photos but instead just eliminated any movie taking.   And who can resist all those children with the incredible dark eyes?   So I only took 1,145 pictures today…….    Those you won’t see for a while unfortunately.

I found the end of the parade near Avenida De Las Americas around 4pm, and by that time I could barely walk so I just headed to Joe’s Secret Garden and gobbled down a couple of muscle relaxants and a 292 while I flopped in a chair for an hour.    It took about two hours before I could move freely again.   Bella joined me for the Christmas Eve feast of deep-fried turkey and Mark generously brought me another Christmas tie to wear.  We met some more Canadian visitors and generally had a great time, as usual.    I am only uploading the photos from Joe’s tonight.

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

Saturday December 22, 2012

Saturday December 22/12  update #321

I was up ridiculously early to finish off the photos from yesterday and to get the Blogs published.   I also had to send a note to Daimler expressing our deep disappointment in the quality of the guides that were provided, especially for yesterday.  I don’t think I will be doing any more photography tours for a while as a result.  While not everyone was upset, because there truly are some wonderful, supportive photographers in our nucleus, it is a fact that it creates doubt in everyone’s mind, including mine, when things do not go as advertised.

I tried to rest in the afternoon again but an oncoming cold is making me stuffed up and unable to sleep.

So off we went to Joe’s Secret Garden for a “New Age” supper to celebrate that our planet did not blow up as the doomsday prophets had foretold.  

The supper tonight was special because it was also the night for the Herats Of Gold raffle draw being held there.  The founder of hearts Of Gold, Richard Verkley of Calgary, did the honours of announcing the winners.  Many of our friends won one or more prizes, with the big prize going to Teresa Durrant.

See the video of the draw on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/mbeb22VrO6Y

We met many more nice newbies to Ecuador tonight as the influx of expats continues.

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