I promise I don’t get commission from Skype

Here’s a few photos from the trip south. I’ve just come over v. tired and shall elucidate later, but in summary: Gorgeous landscapes from the border on downwards, very easy crossing, no major problems with the car, have met tons of tidy people already, i drove and sita was the official navegator/photographer. Just gave Jose (an old mate of mine) a ring and we’re meeting up tomorrow. Had a successful skyping with Sally, Martin and Margie (even heard Atticus in the background). Stay tuned for more events as they happen. Glad we’re no where near yet another Category 5 hurricane down Chiapas way. Benditos.

…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…

l-r: Victor, Fernando, Ana, Jose, Sarah, Sarita

Fair play. Jose can cook and his bragging was entirely justified. He made an astonishingly good shrimp based dish involving chiles, tortillas, calabaza sauce and stuff. And it was enough for 7 of us with some left over… Have a look around Flickr if you fancy seeing some of the steps in the creation of this dish. Sometimes, lent is a good thing.

I’ve got Monday off from work so tonight the festivities continue at the “Fiesta de Musica” (terrible name if you ask me, the party of music) where there’s going to be 6 stages and young people ‘aving it large, all a mere 10 blocks from our lovely little house. Expect more photos…

Here’s a gallery of photos in and around the house in da ‘hood.

This will take about 10 minutes if you fancy it yourself… fill in the blanks for 80s lyrics. Slightly US-centric but i’m not bitter. Can you beat 79.5? … Matt, I throw down the gauntlet…

just watched a bolivian film called American Visa review coming shortly in the right hand column… It might be time to move this computer upstairs, i’m writing far too many entries of late…

we made for Yoda the kitten way back in university in Swansea… I say for Yoda, but it was blatantly for us. Make your own cat TV with a cardboard box, cellophane and a long stick. Nowhere near as cruel as this though, not even close:

.

I think March of the Valkyries would be a better soundtrack than “Under the Sea”…