Archive for February, 2007
We had a great, really productive weekend, I love those kinds of weekends. We managed to get through 5 episodes of Battlestar Galactica Season 3, El Laberinto del Fauno and Borat, at home. We went to see Stranger Than Fiction at the cinema (which is a wonderful - btw) and stuffed ourselves on nachos with a gianormously large pile of jalapeños. We caught the ridiculously long and bloated Oscars, who Ellen Degeneres single-handly saved with excellent joke set-ups (was she the best host in 10 years or what?!). We also managed to catch an ok, but somewhat crowded surf session at Burros on Sunday morning and between all that, I still managed to put together a rough first edit of photos from our incredibly too long trip. The first edit is 1000 photos. Obviously I need to pare it down by at least half, but it’s a start. I changed my tack, instead of weeding out the bad ones, I picked just the really “good” ones; photos that are technically good, have good composition and tell a good story. It was a much needed change of strategy. Hopefully in the next few days, I’ll have the pile to a manageable state where I can finish any processing that needs to happen (we’re talking RAW here, they all need to be processed) and get down and gritty with the keywords. Aperture has been a total dream, while in Los Angeles I picked up a new 15″ Macbook Pro and the two together, are a formidable pair. It’s amazing the difference in performance from a Dual 2 ghz G5 to the 2.33 ghz Intel Core Duo when running Aperture. Enough of the nerd talk.
I’ve loaded up this site (my site) several times over the past few days and each time I wish it could magically change to the new theme and content structure I’ve been batting around in my head. if only. when I think about the time it’d take to code the whole thing out, my eyes roll into the back of my head and my ears listen for the sound of any incoming waves slapping the beach two blocks away.
In other words, I’d rather go dig a hole then have to pull out my sorry xhtml+css skills to get this site overhauled like it needs it. when I think about how easy it should be, in a perfect world, it makes me get all sour-pussed at how web 1.0 word press really still is. despite it’s advances in this and that, it still takes some serious heavy lifting in the code department, to get it to do anything other then the bare basics.
what am I getting at?
Maybe I’m just thinking outloud and one of these days I’ll stay up all night, knocking out the code that goes along with whatver is in my little noggin. in between bouts of photo editing and whatever else i’m doing. what is it i’m doing again? oh yeah, I’m building a house in Sayulita. Plans are coming along nicely, with any luck, we’ll start building in mid-March. pics to come, of that as well.
this entry is way too cryptic…
Well, after 5 full days of having the flu, Marcia and I are just starting to get our life back to together and enter what most people call “reality”. That was the single worst flu either of us has ever gotten, further, that’s also about the most sick I’ve ever felt, flu or no flu. it was intense. We’re still coughing, hacking etc… and for some reason, if I do anything but sit and watch movies, I sweat non-stop, yet, with no temperature. makes no sense, it in senses me…
On the flip side, with my uncle Tim in town to ply us with great old films we’ve been very diligent at making the most of our movie time. Films we’ve seen in the past few days: Lawrence of Arabia (excellent), The Night of the Hunter (brilliant best art-direction), Nights of Cabiria (Fellini’s best). and next on the menu: Contempt, The Leopard and The Bicycle Thief.
Over the past few days, between movies, we’ve slowly put the apartment back together and done a little spring cleaning and today is our first full day on the move.
I’ve finally got all 6,682 photos from the trip uploaded into Aperture and I’m ready to start editing….
Friday, Feb 16th, 2007
Categories: travels
So we made it back to wonderful, small, warm and sunny Bucerias Mejico. Marcia and I rolled into town on Tuesday night and promptly, I came down with a wicked flu that is still working it’s way through my travel-wrecked body, it’s been three days now and my fever has subsided but for some reason, I continue to sweat profusely.
Marcia came down with the flu yesterday as did my uncle Tim who extended his two week visit to catch us before he left. sorry guys! My body is finally allowing itself to be sick, after all that traveling, now that there’s time to rest.
Going to start editing photos from the trip, tonight, should be very fun.
Sunday, Feb 11th, 2007
Categories: travels
Yesterday we arrived in Los Angeles and Tuesday we head home to Vallarta. I wrote this email about a week ago or so, just getting around to posting it now, word press has been such a pain in the neck. Here’s the not-so-latest:
So we’ve been driving from city to city in Rajasthan, for a week now. Our first was Agra, home of the Taj Mahal and neither Marcia or I were really prepared for how gorgeous it is, in person. Jaipur, the “pink city” was next, with it’s pink washed houses (although it’s more salmony then pink), large city palace and several mountain palaces and forts, inhabited and abandoned. Udaipur, the “white city” was next, with it’s insanely gorgeous mountain fort, lakes and city palace. Today we arrived in Jodhpur, the “blue city” known for the blue wash on the houses and the giant “Meharanghar Fort” perched above the city. And in two days, we’re off again, to the last stop west, Jaiselmer, at the edge of the Thar desert.
These ten days, we’ve given up the 5 and 10 dollar/night backpacker accomodations, moved up to the 30/night range and hired a car and driver to drive us all through Rajasthan. It’s been 5 days now, with 6 to go and we’re really enjoying this mode of traveling. we just sit back and our driver shuffles us from interesting spot to interesting spot. all we have to do is watch it all fly by. It’s really been a wonderful change. No trip planning, hotel booking, places, trains, etc… Getting used to the driving has been another thing though, there really are no highways here so it takes 5 hours to drive something that should have taken 2 hours. and the big trucks, cows, motor scooters, boars, goats and now we have camels to add to the road side attractions. As we whinded our way from Agra to Jaipur the green country side slowly gave way to craggy rocks and scrub brush with lush river valleys with tiny two horse towns perched inside like an oasis. really some of the most amazing countryside.
Coming to an understanding with our driver has been a real “experience”. The first few times we tried to take rickshaws (think three-wheeled lawnmower motorcycle with roof) he got extremely nervous and we had to assure him we weren’t going to be kidnapped. I guess he’s used to more “green” tourists. and he kept playing the same country music cd over and over, until we pulled out the ipod and hijacked the radio. Now we are all in understanding and getting along quite well, although I do have to say that traveling with a driver is like having another person on vacation with you. It takes some getting used to.
Today, on our way from Udaipur to Jodhpur we took the back road over a large mountain range to Ranakpur, a 500 year old living Jain temple. The road was like the road up to San Sebastian. heavy cliff side, 300 foot drop turns. whoa. Ranakpur was worth it. The temple is entirely built out of white, white marble and in the sun it radiates light. the carving is not only the most detailed i’ve ever seen, it’s also so intricate and deep, it’s almost as if the temple is a giant sculpure, carved from a solid block of marble. and the architecture is sublime and mathematical. it very much reminded us of Angkor Wat only made of marble and never sacked and burned and left for ruin (and found again and restored). Very intimate and also very grand.
With less then a week now, we’re both ready to come home, but at the same time, we’re getting serious feelings for India, we’re going to miss an awful lot about this place. In many ways it’s been the most intense place we’ve been, but also the most rewarding, educational,intimate and humbling. It’s taken us 2 weeks to really get used to being here. But now that we’ve finally adjusted, our trip is days away from ending. India truly is incredible and day by day we love it more and more. It really is like no other place in the world.
