Stuff

Here it is, on the second or 1st floor (depending on your cultural background) of the grey house.

It´s not very schipperke friendly and has a less than perfect parking situation but it´s a possibility. Breakfast with T was grand though (Hi T!).

Still no news on the job front, mind. It´ll come together soonish. And today it´s not raining so I might get to go out and find things to photograph. I just shoved some up on Flickr that are the result of me moping in the car while Sita sprang into action and there’re a couple of shots in the tunnel to Alameda with the camera set to “Fireworks”…

So we’ve seen about 5 apartments/houses since me last post, none of which have met our exacting standards. We’ve more to investigate tomorrow. Er, I’m losing a lot at scrabble. Real life scrabble that is, and am seeking refuge right now in extended Sunday evening DVD viewing (Big Love), which in turn reminded me of this clip from The IT Crowd…

I resolved to blog more for the new year. Not deliver quality posts…

…at least in the UK the sky had the common courtesy not to rain so much. On the plus side I inherited a lovely woolly jumper from me dad and once the central heating kicks in, it’s fair balmy round here. Everyone else couldn’t sleep what with the wind picking up trees and cars and slamming them into each other and new and vibrant waterways opening up in the garden, but a happy side effect of the jetlag is that I was blissfully unaware of it all.

So I updated this blog to the latest version of wordpress and somehow lost all the categories in the process. Arse. And I can’t create new ones because the database is buggered, on top of that I didn’t make a backup since I had tested the process with some of my other installations first with no problems at all. Hey ho. No one every used the categories anyway, but the ‘blogroll’ (stupid name) used to be split into peeps, podcasts and sites I’d made and isn’t anymore.

Plans for today? Translate agaveweb.com into English and set it up as a bilingual site, a conference call at 12.30ish, take Big Love Season 2 back to the video emporium, finishing touches to me CV and finally, maybe seek shelter in the cinema and watch “I Am Legend” with Mr. W. Smith. That’s if I can charter a boat to take me down the road to the Grand Lake Theater (sic).

We had a look at a few apartments in the Alameda area this morning after a hearty breakfast with Liz. The Oakland ones are pretty depressing to be honest. We put in an application for a nice house there, good area, one bedroom and a dark room for developing photos but decided against it because of the lack of “hook-ups” which is Americanese for places to put a washing machine and tumble drier. Also the Schipperke would not be welcome… All important factors. Still, this is the time of year when places suddenly become vacant apparently so there’s no rush and there’s also the other buy-a-house possibility that fills me with existential dread but might be a better idea in the long run.

I’m going pseudo-vegetarian to try to offset my pork/beef/lamb footprint from the last two years. My favourite meat dishes are more expensive here and there certainly aren’t plentiful cheap tacos nor donner kebabs just around the corner, but anyway the plan is to not eat animal flesh more than once a week so that I won’t be a burden if we go round someone’s house and they’re cooking for us. Otherwise, it’ll be cheese sandwiches, potatoes, and Branston pickle all the way. Also, all bets are off if I cross any international borders.

I’m applying for web design gigs off of craigslist.org and generally kicking my CV into shape. I’ve a few on the boil, but open to offers, anyone fancy a website?

Nicked from Mario’s blog:

1) Where did you start 2007?
In 2495 Garibaldi street, Guadalajara, Mexico with Sita, Daniel and Monica. Monica showed off her “smurf” dance and Sita had “Got the power” and Daniel showcased some impressive German pantomime skillz… Meanwhile I had to abandon a bunch of mates in El Muro bar.

2) What was your status of Feb 14th?
heading towards 4 and half years of matrimonial bliss.

3) Were you studying at all this year?
Yep, a couple of short photography courses, photojournalism and contemporary photography and beginner’s and intermediate PHP.

4) How did you earn money this year?
That’d be telling, but a fair amount came from gringo academic institutions and hard earned savings.

5) Any hospital visits?
Nope, but the day before leaving GDL I had to take photos for a local hospital’s website and ended up wearing scrubs and checking out operating theatres.

6) Any encounters with the police?
A couple of Guadalajara’s finest asked me what I was doing when I was out with my camera taking photos of reflections of puddles in the middle of the day.

7) Where’d you go on holiday?
Mexico was a permenant holiday, but my folks took us to Tulum which was a highlight. The UK was also nice to be back to. I grudgingly went to New York, and did a fair amount of travel within Mexican borders.

8) Did you buy anything worth more than 500 quid?
My Pentax + lenses.

9) Anyone you know get married?
Anel and Claus. From now on, no wedding will be complete without a marimba.

10) Did anyone pass away?
My grandma. Unexpectedly but painlessly. I miss her.

11) Did you move anywhere?
Just from Mexico to Califas.

12) How many gigs did you go to?
Ooh, nothing to top Shakira last year, but a handful including Keane, Kinky and the Killers. Any group beginning with K was basically seen.

13) Describe your birthday.
According to my blog: Peeps coming round here for pizza and drinks then Bar Calavera at 10:30ish for some Pocilga Beat, choons and ale. And lo it came to pass

14) What did you do in 2007 that you never thought you would?
See the Day of the Dead in Tzintzuntzan, Michoacan at the last minute.
Meet such a lovely bunch of people via a photography sharing site.

15) Favourite moment?
There were lots. Xmas was a highlight round me little sis’s and all kinds of travel, especially Chacala.

16) What have you learned about yourself?
That two years in Mexico aren’t enough for me. I might go back to edit this one…

17) Any new additions to the family?
The nuclear family remains Sita, Atticus and Me. Me cousins have been busy though…

18.) Worst Month?
The worst month was offset by the best celebrations, November/Dec. The bad bit was leaving Mexico, selling up, dealing with TelMex and saying goodbye to so many peeps, but we know we’ll be back and we had the best send offs.

19.) 3 favourite choons of 2007?

a) The Salmon Dance, Chemical Brothers
b) Foundations, Kate Nash
c) Acceptable In The 80s, Calvin Harris

are what occur to me for the minute.

20) ¿Quién fue tu mejor amigo de pedas? (who was your best drinking partner?)
Jose “Pinguino Frog” Obdulio wins this prize despite strong competition from the likes of Javier, Anel y Claus, Fernando, Paulinita, Abuela, Daniel & Monica and many others…

21) New friends?
Tons, then we had to leave them behind. But through the magic of the interwebs we’ll be in touch as long as there’s DSL.

23) Favourite party?
Again, too many to mention, but Pocilgafest 2007 was a definite highlight.

Have a fine 2008 all.

Hope you like the new look blog. I’ll try to fill it with suitably dynamic and interesting content to justify the makeover. I’m at sixes and sevens a bit at the minute, not knowing what the immediate future holds in terms of living arrangements and professional pursuits so I thought a change of blog interface would be a nice start to get me back into the swing of things before starting on a site for a Tapatian hospital and Andy’s furniture place. I’m going to try and resurrect the photoblog too.

New Year’s Eve was smashing, an excellently catered evening round Meg and Matt’s. It wasn’t even spoilt by the lads’ team losing the boys vs. girls Scene It, interactive DVD movie quiz thing. Yesterday was also fun what with a bbq in the afternoon for James’ b-day and then chillin’ and snoozin’.

Eh well, time for another coffee, to finally unpack and get this show off the road in general.

England was great, lovely to see all me nearest and dearest in person and share a pint or three. I shan’t leave it so long next time.

So now we’re in “Baja” Piedmont, next to Oakland and I’ve got meself a lovely new computer and shall slowly be getting back to speed with blogs, photoblogs, Flickr, Facebook, Bogglific, Scrabulous, friend´s blogs and various other virtual stuff. Vista is not as bad as it’s cracked up to be so far…

Anyroad, look out for a makeover of this blog in the next few days, cos I’m not un ingles en Guanatos anymore. Un ingles extrañando a Guanatos mayhaps? I´ll come up with something. Happy 2008 and hasta pronto folks 😀

Blog a little…

In the meantime, a photo can tell a thousand words and Dad´s pix are worth a look too.

I`m told it takes one day per hour of time difference to get used to the jet lag, which gives me 3 more days of excuses for naps and waking up in the middle of the night and eating twiglets and cheese sandwiches.

David Bowie and Bing Crosby are singing in the background and we’re heading to Oakland tomorrow…

Season’s Greetings y’all

…for the turnout yesterday, quite the night. Many, many thanks and indeed, gracias. Needless to say it pushed the time we set off forward by a couple of hours (5am was a bit ambitious…) and a flat tire on km 4 on the toll road to Tequila didn’t help along with repairs in Magdelena… Still, we’ve made pretty good time considering and are now in Los Mochis, about 500-600 miles from Gwod. It’s dark and we’re too knackered to go exploring. I have it on good authority (from a bloke called Mochis, named after his hometown, no less) that it’s not amongst the wonders of modern Mexico…

Still thinking about all our many despedidas and fine friends from along the way.
And, more prosaically, also thinking about where we can grab something to eat…

Best wishes to everyone, y sobre todo a nuestros amigos queridos de Guanatos.

Some things are easier to cancel than others. In the spirit of public service, here’s the list:

CFE: Electricity. You can read the metre and they’ll tell you how much you owe, however you can’t pay it until the next bill comes along unless you want to stop the service completely.

Megacable: Basic cable is easy to cancel, you have to do it in person at one of the outlets and you just pay the percentage of the unbilled month. A day or two later they disconnect you and you never have to suffer The American Network or Holy Channel 22 again.

Gas: Zeta gas, since there seems to be no gas pipes to anyone’s house in Gwod you just fill your tank to whatever level it was at when you arrived. It’s probably for the best given that entire streets have blown up in the past that were meant to only be water drains… Minimum order for a tanque estacionario 300 pesos.

SIAPA: Water. Easy, bless them. You go to your nearest office with the metre reading and pay it and you’re done. They’re just happy to be paid at all it seems, as half their advertising campaign right now starts “Are you one of those people who don’t pay for their water?” And has a fresh faced young lad with an admonishing stare saying “Qué poca…” which means You´ve got some nerve, more or less.

TELMEX: Phone and interweb. This is a heady mixture of going to offices and fighting to not get disconnected from their labyrinthine phone menus. They´re split into different corporate sections, each with a different phone number, “Your call is important to us” muzak and wildly varying degrees of professionalism. Removing extra phone services was easy enough, just a question of 7 menus and a 10 minute wait on the phone, but to cancel the interweb tubes they gave me another number which didn´t even get answered when I rang the first 10 times. Then I finally got through to a human, then he said “un segundo” and disappeared for 20 minutes and I got cut off. All the conversations start badly when they ask you for your name and I have to spell out Gwyn and explain my lack of a 2nd surname… Anyroad, I could go on, but basically you have to take the complimentary modem to the Telmex office with a “victory” code that you earn if you win your phone battles and then they´ll cancel it. Sisyphean, I tells you.

Because of the aforementioned trials today we didn´t make it to Tequila, which is a shame but it would have been a long day…

Bit tired now, in 4.5 hours I´m making sure powerpoints work… saludos!

… ever since visiting Aranza´s house in a street named after a salmon

Sita is at pains to point out that she liked the song before I did. And therefore wins or something.

Ever wondered how people avoid slowly cooking themselves to death while dressed as Dr. Simi or, in this case, ¿¡Barney!? (from Farmacia Generi-K in Tonalá) what with Mexico´s high temperatures?

Today I can reveal all with this AgaveWeb exclusive aerial shot…

So today we went to get an 8 piece dining set of ceramics from Tonala, just to give them one more thing to inspect as we cross the state lines on Monday. Lovely they are. Almost as good as the Provencale ones from a couple of years ago. I might have to leave my guitar behind to fit them all in the car. We won´t know till Sunday though.

Also, the Sauza family granted us a last minute interview and so we´re off to Tequila for the last time tomorrow afternoon before our last meal for a good while in La Matera and then other stuff.

Still to sell on the furniture front: 2 x computer desks, 2 x chairs, 1 kitchen cabinet, 1 folding table and kitchen bits and pieces. Sunday is going to be hectic. And tomorrow. And Saturday. And not to mention Monday…

I can´t post without mentioning Monday´s entertainment, as you´ll see in the post below we were expecting a quietish meal with our Flickr friends, we got there and all was calm then one by one the patio filled up with familiar faces dressed as angels, devils, kings, shepherds, and er mermaids… I didn´t know what the merry hell was going on for a good few minutes. It turns out they´d all got together and planned a Pastorela, a nativity play crossed with a Christmas panto in our honour. It was hilarious and such an unexpected and lovely send off. My appreciation for the peeps in this good town knows no bounds. I promised not to make the photos too public, but if you´re not in my Flickr contacts shout out and I´ll email you the link, and if you are a contact, then click away hence.

We´ve really been spoilt for friends here in Guadalajara, more than anywhere I´ve ever lived and I sincerely hope we can return the favour wherever we find ourselves next.

Righty, we´re off for tacos then down the pub cantina.

No news from Colorado yet, for the record.

Been well busy. As of this very minute, here are our plans…

Tonight: Flickreros Tapatíos Despedida round Aranza´s
Tuesday: Photography course, last day… Presentation
Wednesday: R&R, packing, goodbying
Thursday: Packing, Down the pub. To be decided.
Friday: Cancelling internet, cable, phone, water, gas. Paying bills, Behrnard´s arrival at Amour Fou
Saturday: SIT 2007, drinks at Famosos Equipales
Sunday: Packing, furniture distributing, handing over keys, final quiet despedida at Chop on Av. Mexico around 8pm.
Monday: Hit the road, probably Culiacan, possibly further
Tuesday: Nogales and beyond… Immigration fun.
Wednesday: Arrive in L.A. Reunion with la familia (+ Atticus)
Thursday: Unpacking, packing, shopping…
From this point on things get vaguer:
Fridayish: L.A. fun
Saturday: L.A. to Oakland
Sunday: Unpacking, getting Sita installed in her temporary office
Monday: Buy a new computer which works (expect a lot of blog silence in the interim)
Tuesday: Packing for England
Wednesday: Leave for UK from SF.
Thursday: Arrive in UK, bus it to Taunton…

3ish weeks of catching up with lovely peeps in Taunton + Bristol + (possibly) London
Back to the States. Immigration fun.
New Year´s Eve and all that…
Find job / set up business. Take it as it comes.

There´s still furniture up for grabs, and also some new satisfied customers pix. Tell your friends!

Hugo and Pati finally kindly took Monica and Daniel´s beautiful banana painting off our hands, and some other stuff.

…