Relatively arty, dog-free pictures from downtown santa cruz

I ended up making shepherd’s pie based on an old family recipe I found on the world wide wibbly web, with a few adaptations. During my research I found out that I was actually cooking cottage pie, since shepherd’s pie is made with minced lamb not beef. You live and learn. Anyroad, it was well nice and I got to use the Salsa tipo inglesa I blogged about a few weeks ago. And it goes pretty well with tequila, who’d’ve thunk it?

It wasn’t all put together as last minute(ly) as I’d feared because Sita’s first Tequila class only lasted 2 hours, not 4. It was just introductions from the 15 or so people there and reading a few powerpoint slides. So we had time to nip over to Waldo’s Mart (the 99 cent store across the road, well, 13 pesos including VAT) and stock up on extra forks and stuff. It looks like all the people Sita was hoping to interview for her project are coming to talk in her class. Saturday classes run from 10 to 2, there’s no way I could have hacked that yesterday. Sita is made of stronger stuff, it appears.

Next Saturday it’s a field trip to the town of Tequila where there’s a festival of some description going on, I might have to come along for that one. On Friday night we’re going to a Thanksgiving dinner with some teachers from the American school, which’ll be a laugh. Tuesday evening another mate of mine’s coming over for tea and bickies. So the social scene is picking up nicely. The employment scene is also starting up gradually. Jose’s got a few leads, and there’s another gringo graphic designer in the area whom I might be meeting next Friday. Voluntary work appears to be easy enough, though. Sita’s off to staff a creche for the women’s rights organisation today in the town centre. And I’m expecting translation work from the Gwod Metropolitan Park people any minute.

AgaveWeb.com is crawling along, I’m a bit stuck for what to do with the site and need more inspiration. I was playing with rounded corners, first using CSS, then giving in and going back to the dark age of tables. I’ll work something out… Jed themed maybe? A lengthy flash animation of a black tail in bracken, then Jed jumps out, frisbee in mouth into a puddle. The muddy water splashes the camera and a menu pops up with options…. No that has nothing to do with Agaves. I’m open to suggestions…

We planned to see Harry Potter yesterday but Sita was too knackered after a late night and academic stuff, so we watched War of the Worlds on DVD instead. Maybe today… keep your eyes on the “Media Box” on the right for my two cents. Harry III was my first review for this website… June ‘04 seems like a while ago. Well, it was…

and finally, here’s a video currently doing the rounds on the interweb of GTA playing grandma. More non-sequitur-riddled-posts coming soon…

cos it’s a huge waste of time. But it was that or Pacman and we got our taxes done today and had the dog innoculated against every plague going around so I don’t feel too bad… Anyroad, it led me to this page of winning entries for a “Make up a Jack Handey Deep Thought” compo and for that I thank it… almost as good as the old-as-the-hills originals. My faves?

Give me the strength to change the things I can, the grace to accept the things I cannot, and a great big bag of money.

Once, I wept for I had no shoes. Then I came upon a man who had no feet. So I took his shoes. I mean, it’s not like he really needed them, right?

Fernando’s flood pictures taken from his apartment, cunningly 3 floors above the destruction. He was all ready to go surfing at Plaza del Sol till the hygiene aspects of such a mission were pointed out.

Just found out Kathy and Vance have a Lewis Carroll inspired blog (thanks for the comment, Kathy) http://siximpossiblethingsbeforebreakfast.blogspot.com/ Looks like they’re off to see that rarest of things, Edinburgh on a sunny day… Enjoy : )

3.4 in Boulder Creek, just down the road… Went to see “what the bleep do we know” last night, but due to confusion over which cinema, we ended up seeing Napoleon Dynamite and falling asleep for last 20minutes. That’s always the danger with eating out and polishing off bottles of Malbec. Don’t think I snored too loudly, but it precludes me from reviewing it.

Am off to sort out Adrienne’s computer this morning, then we’re looking at a house which Sita has designs on. Still looking forward to goth night. Turns out its fancy dress- which doesn’t translate in America and sounds very quaint. Nope, they’re costumes over here, none of your fancy dressing, thank you.

Had a chat with me mum, she’s feeling a bit ill and is convalescing (sp?) for her trip out to CA on Veteran’s Day, less than 2 wks away. I’m taking a week off work to travel around a bit and show her the sights of Santa Cruz and surrounding areas in its famous rainy season.

I also rejigged the gallery page slightly this morning. Righty am off for computer first aid. Nos vemos, cheers, gwyn

So I phoned last week offering my services as a volunteer translator and they called back saying they might have work. I called today and they told me they’re looking for an English teacher to teach small classes of their employees. For free. And that they didn’t have any courses or materials yet. I’d be designing them… anyroad, to cut a long story short, I politely declined citing my web design work. To which they said they actually needed someone to do web stuff and they’ll call back. I’m quite chuffed at that, this would be the perfect inroad to getting some projects to come my way. I might know by tomorrow…

Sita did her stint playing Snakes (Chutes in US speak) and Ladders with kiddies in the town centre yesterday while I wandered off and took photos. Changing the world one Mexican at a time…

Once again we managed not to go a-Pottering last night. Jose turned up and we had another evening of informal political debate and updates on his philandering. Which was grand. Adolescent wizardry tonight though, hopefully.

To see the latest photos of the town centre, click here for the flickry slideshow. And have a picture of a frog to tempt you that way.

Thanks to a combination of fantastic friends, in-laws and compliant pets we made it to L.A. in one piece. We spent today reorganising the garage to hold not only Martin & Sally’s heirlooms but 2 bunnies and all our crap too. Looks like more trips to the dump are in our close future. Sally’s been cleaning, cooking and orchestrating good times all round. Martin had me taking pictures of the house to show to one of his ham radio buddies, it’ll take a while to upload them on dial-up… (the first casualty of moving is DSL)… but we’ll get there as long as no one rings us during the process. I’ve been in L.A. 24 hours nearly and we’ve I’ve managed not to go to any malls or chain stores. We’ve got to go shopping for luxury, EZ-Clean rabbit hutches tomorrow. We might have to go to a multiplex too to enjoy air conditioning and Mr.& Mrs. Smith or Batman Begins or maybe Bewitched which is opening soon I think. We watched Finding Neverland t’other day which Sally recommends. Not my cup of tea, really, but it hit the spot.

We stopped at the giant artichoke in Castroville yesterday and had fine local cuisine for brekky/dinner, the rest of the journey I got by on coke and Snickers mind, then arrived after 7 hours or so in one piece with a tired little doggy and 2 traumatised conejitos in tow.

Righty that’s it for now. Might have some more photos up soon. Byeee