Still hanging in there

Flash recently alerted her readers to the existence of cow magnets. Which I think is delightful. I’m pondering ordering the Bessie Bovine explains all educational package (ages 6 and up)… Nothing worse than Hardware Disease… particularly relevant for Michael Eavis and his surfeit of tent pegs apparently.

So yesterday we wandered over to Berkeley Marina, a place I’d been before back in the dark old days as a NGO program manager for various conferences. It was nice to reclaim it as a site for walking and photography rather than learning about sustainability and human resources. We wandered along the lengthy pier and then had a Flip This House marathon evening with the remains of Meg’s surplus wine from the night before.

This morning we helped shift a few boxes for T’s move-in over in Oakland and discovered the delights of Zachary’s pizza and I had my first ever go on a Nintendo Wii. This afternoon, we’ll probably get out to enjoy the sunshine somewhere local and stockpile vitamin D for the deskbound coming week.

In Taunton’s local rag, The Gazette, there’s a first for local small-town journalism. At the time of writing, they managed to publish a headline for an Easter Extravaganza without resorting to spelling it Eggstravaganza. Which I think is laudable and without precedent. Maybe they’re moving upmarket or have just hired a new staff writer…

The strangest weather’s going on right now. Huge bolts of lightning arcing across the sky, no rain. And thunder that’s setting off car alarms. Feels very apocalyptic. We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto…

Read the article here – Feb 12, 2006 She seems fine now though…

And if you fancy doing this youself, click here.

Click the photo or here for the photos from today’s excursion to Iztépete. I’d never heard of the place until I flicked through Sarah’s Guide to Gwod book and it sounded interesting. It’s no Chichen Itza or Maccu Pichu but it’s pleasant enough. Hell, it ain’t even stone burrows on the Quantocks. It’s not far away, just off the corner of the huge streets Mariano Otero and el Periferico and though not really signposted, it’s easy to see. It probably looks better in the rainy season but is still worth a visit. It was discovered in 1954 and dates from around 650 AD, so not as old as the roman ruins mum and dad were wandering around in Cartagena…

Afterwards we went to Home Depot to pick up woodstain and stuff, which was like being back in Downey. talking of which, I think we’ve worked out when we’re going back for a week or so to help with the move and to renew visas. No Pink Panther this evening, I’m pleased to report. So it’s pizza and either Capote or American Visa…

This morning I played around with the fantastic mosaic program (website here) and knocked up a few mosaics, they’ll be on flickr soon enough, but are taking forever to upload. While we have a decent DSL connection for downloading, the upload limit seems to be around 5k per second. Not something they advertise, the cabrones at telmex…

As demonstrated below, sometimes only Mexican Spanish can truly express how you’re feeling…

INTENTE DECIR: Tengo sobrecarga de trabajo en estos momentos
EN VEZ DE: Estoy hasta la madre de chamba.

INTENTE DECIR: ¿Lo que mencionas es en serio?
EN VEZ DE: ¿Te cae de madre cabrón?

INTENTE DECIR: Lo siento, pero yo no estuve a cargo de ese proyecto.
EN VEZ DE: Ese no es mi pedo.

INTENTE DECIR: Estoy absolutamente seguro de que esto no es factible.
EN VEZ DE: No mames güey.

INTENTE DECIR: No estoy seguro de que esto pueda ser implementado.
EN VEZ DE: Esto ni a madrazos sale…

INTENTE DECIR: Ajustaré mi agenda para ver cómo puedo programar esta nueva tarea.
EN VEZ DE: ¿por qué chingada madre no me hablaste antes?

INTENTE DECIR: Él no esta familiarizado con el tema que nos atae en este momento
EN VEZ DE: Este pendejo no sabe ni madres.

INTENTE DECIR: Por favor, ¿puedes buscar a otra persona para que te ayude?
EN VEZ DE: ¿Qué me viste cara de tu pendejo o qué chingados?

INTENTE DECIR: Disculpa, por ahora me es imposible atenderte como se debe
EN VEZ DE: Ándele… a chingar a su madre.

English monolinguals:
It’s a guide for politeness at work, eg. “He isn’t familar with the issues currently affecting us” rather than “He doesn’t know his arse from his elbow” and other much more colourful phrases. See comments for an anglo version. Doesn’t really hold a flame though…

I was having a fine old time today in Tequila. Sita’s contacts are paying off nicely and we were “gifted” all manner of tequila-related multimedia on everything from mp3s to a set of vinyl records from the 70s. Including a VHS of “Tequileros” which had parts filmed in Columpio, my favourite Destilado de Agave factory.

Anyroad, driving back we noticed there were workers close to the road in the field jimando, ie harvesting and chopping the leaves off the agaves, so I leapt out with my camera and started photoing them. They posed and everything. Naturally, when I got home I realised I had me camera on the wrong setting which has led to some very grainy shots, still it was a great experience. And I’ll not make that mistake again. With highly configurable cameras comes great responsibility it appears.

Here’re me faves (that’ll probably find their way to my photoblog soon):