…properly last night. Thunder and see-it-with-you-eyes-shut lightning woke me up at around 3 am. I went downstairs to check on Atticus but Sally beat me to it (he was fine). I couldn’t get back to sleep after that, but on the plus side, I got to see Legally Blonde on the telly again, and The Mummy. I think I dropped off for 10 minutes or so and then at 6:30ish took Sally and Martin to the airport. It stopped raining soon after and we had one of the freshest, nicest mornings in a long time. If memory serves me correctly we’re probably due for another cloudburst tonight. Just checked me blog, it’s almost exactly the same day as last year that the rains came, who’d’ve thunk it?

Anyroad, have some feel-the-freshness pix from the jardín this morning:

Yesterday we took M & S to tequila, while they went on the obligatory Cofradia tequila factory tour, I drove off to a few tiny little villages and headed into the fields to capture a bit more of the agavero landscape. Here’re me faves:

Not sure I ever mentioned that we’re having an article published in a US journal on food and drink, Sita’s words and my pix. Go Team Tequila!

… a freelance gardener showed up in the nick of time and made our 3m x 10m stretch of prime agricultural land look more than half decent. He even managed not to mangle our agaves when he strimmed the lawn, which is something of a first for hired help. Maybe it’s because they’re starting to look a bit fiercer, we’re a mere 6 years from harvesting it to roast, pulp, ferment and distill into the finest tequila Calle Garibaldi’s ever produced. He also knew what he was doing when he took on our nispero tree (if that’s what it is…) which now cuts a fine figure and decorates rather than ominously looms over the yard. Atticus, needless to say, is loving it. Back in Downey California, he was all about running round and round and creating canine crop circles. Now he’s adapted to a straight line which he runs down, executes a perfect leap into the wall and launches himself back along the line Olympic swimmer style, hence the new trench all along the wall. Maybe he’s trying to communicate with aliens in binary…

Sally and Martin arrived Thursday afternoon with no problems at all and a suitcase stuffed with gourmet goods such as Irish Mature Cheddar and California Zinfandel along with half a metric ton of doggy treats. The reunion was as joyful as you like and we dined that night at the Santo Coyote, which has recently hiked its prices up, the average meal now costing about 195 pesos. Still excellent food mind. Yesterday we went to San Juan de Dios to shop for watches, craft, fruit and DVDs. Had a coffee in the centre of town. I asked for a mug of café americano and an espresso to put in it to boost it a bit. In a Lost in Translation moment I duly received my espresso and an empty mug to put it in. I’ve no idea what they thought I was planning to do. Maybe they thought I had a special shaped mouth which couldn’t drink from small espresso cups. Anyroad, no worries. Then I had a business meeting of sorts about a website, luxury jewelry for the European market… anyway, part two of the Guadalajara Holy Trinity of restaurants in the evening, El Sacromonte, where the robalo (sea-bass) is highly recommended… Possibly La Matera tonight to complete the trio.

The plan today is to go back to Tequila and not interview anyone for a change. I’m looking forward to it even though we only went three days ago. And then in the afternoon, apparently Michael Moore’s latest film, Sicko, has “leaked” onto the web…

This post needs some photos but I haven’t downloaded the latest yet… but have I mentioned I’ve got A NEW PHOTO BLOG =P

I’ve stopped writing my blog in the mornings and end up writing fairly disjointed missives these days. Apologies. Sometime soon I’ll get back into the swing of things.

First off, check out M & D’s blog. They’re at the beach and if what Monica writes is to be believed, Daniel’s working hard and spouting folk wisdom about sea creatures and Monica’s postponing swimming with dolphins.

Meanwhile in Gwod, we had coffee with Ana and I gave her her computer back and set it up then we went to Tequila for some more interviewing of local bureaucrats. As per usual I had a wander and the resulting photos are shown below. Then in the afternoon, a siesta, Baskin Robbins, oil change and then PHP class. Then the wind blew Sita’s office door shut and locked it and I had a good 30 minutes of trying to open it again so she could get to her computer… A variation on sliding a credit card worked…

That’s all for now. I’m a tad tired and tomorrow’s a big day with Sally and Martin’s arrival. Hasta pronto!

Y todo por no estudiar = And all because I didn’t study

Alcoholics Anonymous Tequila

…by whoring out my photoblog and web design page with pay-per-click ads. At this rate I’ll be able to pay for this month’s hosting and a couple of tacos by 2009. I’m really enjoying the photoblog thing- it’s a very self-congratulatory way to spend 10 minutes a day browsing through old photos. Thoroughly recommended though.

So today I took on the inside patio and the cucarachas that have been accumulating of late, did some repotting of my albahaca (basil) plants and tidied up the garden a bit. I printed a “Wanted, Gardener” sign and stuck it to the gate on Friday but there’s been no interest since then so I launched myself at the nispero tree and ripped it down to size mano a arbol and dug over the earth a bit. Once it starts raining properly all bets are off. Things just grow and there’s nowt you can do about it.

I’ve started taking my camera everywhere with me more than ever. Hence photos like the one below…

Who ya gonna call?

unfortunately due to various bureaucratic cock ups I’m not getting paid in time to get the new camera I wanted to order and have Sally and Martin bring on Thursday. Never mind, I reckon there’s still a lot of mileage to get from my point and shoot Kodak model. I’m itching to have a go at making some HDR photos like CasaDeGuadalajara’s been uploading of late on Flickr.

Tomorrow I’m giving Ana back her computer so Jorge has no excuse for not finishing his end of term essays and then we’re off to Tequila once again. Sita’s interviewing local dignatories and I’m probably going to go exploring the agave fields. I’ll have to be back for my PHP class at 5, so no shennanigans are planned…

Other news: Flickr’s just gone multilingual which should boost the number of Tapatian photographers on it. And there’s an interesting thread at VivirGuadalajara where people are going to do a Guadalajara alphabet of photos. I’ll wait till I fully understand the rules before joining in, but that should be nice to check back on. They’re on A at time of writing. There’s a Flickr tour on Sunday, but I think we’ve got other plans. Shame, but there’ll be more…

I’m still a fan actually. 2 become 1 still hits the spot… Ginger Spice was my fave. I was so young, with so much to learn.

This breaking news comes via alt1040.

Meanwhile, here’s some photos from yesterday’s wandering round town:

Please, iGoogle Homepage, let it be true…

So, in brief, no PHP today. Yesterday was a little dull, XOR etc relationships with binary numbers. But next week we get into forms and databases so it’ll be fun all the way.

This evening we’re off round a friend’s photography exhibition with wine and cheese which’ll be nice and this avo I think I’m going to try and find the Corpus Christi procession which they’re shutting off half of town for.

Just had a lovely chat with bert who is also rocking the FaceBook which I’m slowly getting into…