Mexico Galleries Index Pages

So here's a link to the first in a series of mexico photo pages. i will be updating that later today and adding more as i finish going through the pictures and uploading the galleries.

Enjoy.

Here's one of my favourite pics so far:

This Just In!!!! Voila

Computer program... finito! this is the first in a series of Photo Galleries that will be posted regarding my trip to Mexico... Now I just have to run my fancy new finished computer script against all the web galleries... But this first one is ready!

Enjoy.

I'm so stoked to be done with writing this computer program that makes these fancy-pants pages I can't even tell you. and it only took me 15+ hours.

Sigh...

D.W. would be proud...

So I have actually been reading about all the bond measures, etc on the 3 June 2008, primary election... and taking notes and getting ready to vote... i'm so proud of myself... i almost broke my arm patting myself on the back... NO, really :-)

who was it that said, "democracy is the responsibility of every citizen??"

out here in san francisco we have a lot more elections than other states... trust me. i have been surprised...

tsk tsk. i know all this is possible because i'm single and don't have any kidz sucking away all my free time.

i really love being single, foot loose, and fancy free.

i think i'm gonna be a permanent bachelorette... by choice! it's fun. i love doing what i want with my free time... :-)

I Wanna YAK!!!!

Subtitle: Yak!!! City

This 3 year-old blonde boi... heretoafter referenced as Kiddy... just through a temper tantrum @ the local coffee shop. Let's set up the scene.... shall we?

Kiddy had an oat bran muffin from the local jewel of a bakery... Arizmendi.

ok. kiddy is 3 and that's wayyyy more calories than he needs for the WHOLE day. but at first i thought him and mummy were sharing the muffin which would totally have been appropriate.

mummy got bagel with cream cheese. apparently misunderstanding happened as follows. mummy asked kiddy if he wanted last bite of said bagel half. kiddy wasn't paying attention. finally mummy proceeds to finish off the bagel half.

kiddy then proceeded to throw a temper tantrum when he turned around and mummy had eaten the last bite!

good grief!

tough luck... kiddy! you don't like that oat bran muffin in front of you? poor, spoiled kiddy!

i was so bummed. i was thinking: "you're three kid... sometimes things don't go your way. it's better you learn that now."

people... please don't raise spoiled rotten kidz... the world doesn't need anymore of those.

thx for listening.

Fantastic Weekend

Lookout.... I'm making serious progress on that picture software and am almost done... So the pictures are almost up on the internet. I'll be sending an e-mail out shortly.

Yesterday I actually remembered that I'm a girl and had some fantastic girl-bonding with my amiga and local inner sunset hood-rat, CC... an irish-lady by ancestry with that stereo-typical fall on the floor laughing irish charm... it twas fun.

saturday night i had dinner at my favourite indian food restaurant with some other inner sunset hood-rats. that was great.

and mad props go out to Pacific Sound... I was only at the party for a few hours last night but it was awesome. Galen through another fantastic set as did Tasho... mad props... give it up!

Memorial Day

Whether or not you agree with the war, hang your head with me today in a moment of silence to those who have paid with their lives while serving in Iraq. Take a moment to honour those who have served in wars past... to protect this democracy we hold dear.

Veterans... I salute you.

Dujeous: City Limits

Dujeous is a NYC Hip Hop band and I am really their album loving City Limits!



I don't know where I came across Dujeous but when I came across a copy of City Limits in Amoeba I picked it's pretty awesome.

So far my favorite tracks are All MCs and Radio Daze. You should check them out!

Mad props to M.I.A.

An e-mail caught my eye a few weeks before i left for Mexico and i picked up a couple of tickets... I was hoping to get someone to go with me so I got an extra...

It's to G's credit that she said yes with the caveat that she liked the music... i provided her with a copy of Kala. it took her less than 24 hours to decide... i got a late night text.

well... it was SOOOOOOOOO worth it! she's freaking awesome. best $35 (+ f*~@!@#~ service charges... boo) i have spent in some time! it was an all around high-energy performance... great music, dancers... of course the costumes were fly. it was great!

also performing was Hot Tub. they were awesomely talented also!

w00-w00! i fealt like i was being ripped from the womb this AM as i got up for my run and i know i was dragging but life in the fast lane is mighty, mighty nice :-)

try to contain your jealousy ;-)

we are one good looking bunch of folks!!!

i'm up ridiculously early once again... mostly because i'm completely snowed under with things to do and burning the candle at both ends.

i'm going through the wedding photos and we are one good looking bunch of people! i'm doing the hand off to the bride later today with my crops and video edits, etc.

than i put the photos up on the web which includes me re-updating the photo-templating software i lost when my hard drive died in january.

stay tuned! this weekend is bay to breakers which will be eating up a significant period of time but i hope to get this done soon, anyway.

karaoke insanity

I'm wayyyyy behind on getting my pictures up on the web... still... but i *did* get this up on you tube! enjoy... my amigo does bryan adams well... no??? and he has his own dance troupe!

trying to get settled

so i must have been home for a few hours when my wall-mounted book shelves in my walk-in closet decided they were too tired to continue. they promptly fell down. they didn't care that they carried precious cargo: my backup record collection amongst as i'm already sore now (not from running... i was wicked sore before i started my running regimen for the week but i can't figure out why i am sore? maybe walking the five flights of stairs in my building multiple times?? dunno). i will be running both tomorrow and saturday and walking five miles on saturday so you if you're curious you may check this blog next week to see if i actually am still alive. other things....

back up record collection you ask??!!!: those records that are so good and/or from a foreign land so i ordered a copy so that i might never have to face life without a copy of that record in it....

yes, tsk tsk. i'm aware there's several twelve-step programs i qualify for.

well, anywho. so the maintenance guy *just* now fixed the shelves this evening... and i reclaimed some of my apartment floor space.

i've been listening to this as i put my shelves back together and it's muy excellente.

i'm way behind on getting the Mexico pictures up... and to complicate my schedule further: a DJ group/friends of mine are having a website emergency right now and because their site had been down the entire time whilst i was frolicking in Mexico i gave them priority over my photos...

despite the fact that i haven't worked with them for a couple of years now. sigh. it's was just one of those scenarios where i'm the only one who CAN help so out of respect for our shared history and because it's the right thing to do I am doing it. despite the fact that i'm completely snowed under with sh*t to do.

however, i'm hoping to get both my pictures and their site done this weekend but i will be doing a 10-15 mile hike on Sunday so this may not be doable... i'll prolly be dead after the hike on sunday...

at least i got an old version of friend's site up. i'm SO nice that i'm actually going to take that older version of their site and rework it to what i left them with back in early 2005. i know i probably shouldn't have offered to do that but i'm always too nice... it's a mental illness, really. i hear myself mouthing the words to sign myself up for too much stuff to do and somehow i seem to be incapable of not doing it!

which leaves me to the conclusion to this post: i am not really calling people yet so if i haven't returned your phone call yet, i'm sorry... i'm just tired and overwhelmed right now... i have been too tired after work to return phone calls mostly. please forgive me.

First Couple of Pics

When you're a gringa running around Mexico... naturally people want to take pictures of you and then sell them to you... and they are well equipped with ploys such as sticking iguanas on your head or parrots on your shoulder.

well... they got me! twice. once on a picture of some of us getting on a boat trip to yelapa:



and then again five minutes before this when i was wandering in an early morning daze on saturday, 19 april 2008.

Mi Querencia and Downtown Puerto Vallarta

I just got back from downtown Puerto Vallarta... I photographed all the statues by day this time sans touristos.

I just had the best meal i've head in my entire time in Mexico... At a restaurant called Mi Querencia. Muy, muy buena.

Downtown Puerto Vallarta is seriously pretty. I photographed a church named after the virgin mary guadalupe... Curiously, catholicism really took off mid-1500s post the virgin mary guadalupe's emergence... She's their equivalent of the virgin mary. Very curiously indeed...

I did some last-minute peso infusion to the Puerto Vallarta economy... Got a gift for a friend... and now I'm due @ the airport in less than an hour. See you soon!

Downtown Puerto Vallarta

Downtown (old town) Puerto Vallarta has statues every 50 feet or so along the road right along the beach. I asked a waiter and was told it's an Aztec tradition... The current president had them brought in from another place and placed alongside the boardwalk... I photographed them last night before dinner.

It is still the Mexican holiday weekend so there were many tourists. What I noticed was how everyone naturally just got out in, took their picture with a loved one in there, and then got out of the way for someone else to have their turn...

There's an inherent "coolness" in Mexicans... More evidence you ask???!!

I was waiting for the bus last night obviously a gringa... I'm taller than most Mexicans and well... I am not dressing the part, either. I was told to look for a bus that said downtown on it... several buses passed by... every 30 seconds it seemed and I was thinking of just getting on one when this older guy walked by me and said downtown as a bus pulled up... Sure enough it was going downtown despite the fact that it wasn't listed as one of the destinations in the window.

It was really nice of him.

There's a pole along the boardwalk that looks @ least 50 feet in the air... A guy stands atop it and starts blowing his fife and playing the tambourine and shaking his bootay and turning around... the four guys are up there with him... Eventually the guys flip off upside down hanging by ropes while the apparatus begins to rotate the four men counterclockwise...

What's the rope attached to you ask??!! Their cajones of course!! JUST KIDDING.
The ropes get longer and longer while the men get closer and closer to the ground. If you can't picture this... don't worry... I got a video of it... I'll be putting pictures and vidoes up tomorrow from San Francisco. The elongation of the rope/lowering of the men takes over two minutes... I bet their faces are purple @ the bottom... It's amazing they don't pass out.

Something I need to get off of my chest

I've finally had the break I needed so very badly and the time alone that I have come to crave... For whatever reason I've become firey and independent... These days I can count the meaningful conversations I have with people per week outside of the office on two fingers.

Which means when I actually *do* attempt to talk to people I need to be listened to and respected... It's hard for me to try to talk to people anymore... Most people are in a constant stream of non-stop conversations with their kids/significant others/families... I have none of these (and therefore don't do this maintenance shallow conversation so well). I tend to have two conversations per week that last a lot longer than this stream of maintenance conversation others have and spend the rest of my time alone... And I have come to rely on that alone time for my mental health.

Anyway... I got plenty of the needed alone time here in Mexico and then some and should be returning to SF with an ear-to-ear smile, a healthy tan, and a couple of scars from the reef on Cozumel and a trip on the cobblestone streets whilst running. Can you believe the owner of the dive shop asked me if I was always in a good mood??? He said he's never seen someone so happy & smiley...

Contrast that with the idiots who occasionally stop me on the street or elsewhere state-side to ask me why I'm not not happy or tell me not to be so angry. SERIOUSLY! You have to be an absolute MORON to stop a stranger and tell them what to do about the mood you assume they have based on your misread of their facial expression... The appropriate thing to do in case of concern is to ask this person if they are OK or if there's something they need. The latter is the best thing you can do, personally.

Some people's mouth's in their natural state turn down @ the corners... It's not a frown... it's their natural facial expression. The offending individual would know that were they not a complete stranger. Which is why they shouldn't be making assumptions about the root cause of a stranger's facial expression in the first place. SIGH.

The funny part is... If I somone actually *is* unhappy... having a stranger attack them about their facial expression would be the WORST thing for it. Now they would have to worry about their facial expression in addition to whatever the root cause was of the facial expression in the first place...

It's what you call a multi-level moron statement.

However, when I return to SF I will patiently explain this DNA phenomena to those who so obviously are at the lower end of the intelligence pool... It's the big dummies that make me really appreciate the smartey pants people I have the privilege and good fortune of hanging out with most of the time....

Speaking of which... I'll close this post with a see you soon! I do love and miss you all.

Accomodations all fouled up

I had quite an adventure when I got back in Thursday night from Cozumel... The hotel I made reservations said I hadn't paid and I thought I had... It was confusion based on the confirmation page... It seems like a common confusion involving the internet.

But the guy @ the desk proceeded to bully me verbally and nobody bullies me, EVER.

The room was not great either... In fact, some might call it quite a dump. I had questions in my mind as to whether the AC was going to work and I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep without it... There were necessary bars on the windows... You get my meaning. So that combined with having the same conversation five times in a row with this guy resulted in my taking my dive gear bag and bandaged/war-zone of a body in search of a new place to stay... at 11 PM.

On a big Mexican holiday weekend... I tried first the place we stayed for the wedding which was probably a bad idea in retrospect... Considering the vigor of the wedding festivities for 1 week solid... I might have asked them to help me further had I felt passionately about staying there.

So I schlepped my gear to the next twice-as-fancy-pants hotel... These guys claimed to not even have a phone book. Enter helpless female... You... yes you reader. Stop your laughing. I pulled it off successfully. With a huge smile and a bandaged hand... I ended up one hotel down @ a nice place for the night and the next day finding a much better place then the original place I started with...

The room I have now is twice as big as anything I've stayed in throughout my time in Mexico for cheaper. This is more evidence of my belief that things happen just as they should... I also met a rapper and vocalist from Vancouver who I have enjoyed hanging out with (Nobody Really & Licorice)....

There's gab about me gigging in Vancouver... I gave them a CD and they enjoyed partying to it last night into the wee hours... I'm going to do what I can to help them out in San Francisco, also... It's all about community after all.

Mostly Healed Now

I'm in Puerto Vallarta right now... I will be heading home on Monday.

I probably could have used those stitches after my dive accident... It will be probably another 12-24 hours before all of the wound has closed over... The reef sliced up in between my ring and pinky fingers on my left hand... That is the part of the wound that is having the hardest part healing over...

It's kind of interesting watching the skin grow over today... It's growing over from the bottom up... Until it's closed I can't run or elevate my heart rate in any serious way... I'm glad I got almost all of my weekly running done in Cozumel... I'm not going to be running again until SF.

I'm completely out of the woods as far as a sinus infection from my diving goes although my ears are still water-logged... I'm hoping that alleviates itself before the plane trip back on Monday.