Wow

In a Past Life...

You Were: A Blind Philosopher. Where You Lived: Boliva. How You Died: The Plague.

Who Were You In a Past Life?

I guess that fits . . . . I was . . . never mind. Hopeless. I'm leaving now!

Cheers!

Departing

So I'm leaving for Southern California, (But I know that I'll return, some day, [That is the Leaving of Liverpool, for all you non-celtic folks]). I'm journing with my younger brother, Mother Dearest, Younger Cousin 1, Slightly Young Cousin 2, Auntie PJ and Uncle Patrick. I'm bringing lot's of Them and a bunch of Them and maybe a little bit of Them I really like this album. Good music makes good times. I've got like a total of 10 hours on the way there and 10 on the way back. Good Thing I have a long battery life of my precious. Not that it's really anything special, since you ahve to bog around in id3 tags and all that crap. I really want a mp3 player that is a plug and play, with a folder system like that old school archos jukebox had. I'm waiting for the rest of the world. And it's gonna be a long wait.

HA!

This is what I have been doing recently.

Journal 2

Here ya go. I'm staggering it so you appriciate me more.

This is Father Ignatius, for all you peoples out there.
Journal 2
After getting up bright and early (6:30), we took showers and had a fabulous breakfast at the posh hotel. Then a van is rented and the elders get into that. Father Ignatius, our tour guide for today, has a VW something or other, and so Myself, Peter and Don, and later on Dad, cram into his car. Since this is the first daylight I have seen in Guatemala City, I will now tell of the surroundings. The buildings are mostly modern, since earthquakes happen regularly (every couple months). Typically 2nd or 3rd stories, with an occasional skyscraper. These are rarer than an American city; I’d say 20-30 in the whole city, but It’s hard to say. Guatemala City is chariterics include some amazing canyons, which split sections of the city apart from each other. Airport to Posh hotel as the crow flies is like 4 minute drive. As the car drives is like 35-40 minutes. All the way around. No bridges either since people live down there.

The entire city is plagued with buses. Big ol’ American School buses, brightly painted, emitting black gusts of diesel everywhere. (Note: there is no fuel filters for any cars. None. The Entire city is a dense smog magnet. If you’re lucky, a hurricane will come by and take it all away, but those only happen every couple years or so. Winds don’t do all that much, since the geography, the smog just gets caught in the lee of buildings and such.) Fr. Ignatius said that 25-30% of people own cars. The rest take the buses. Each bus driver owns his own bus, and they all are part of a union. Since such a high percentage of people rely on buses, the bus drivers go on strike because of whatever, not enough protection, not high enough rates (The City sets the rates of the buses), etc., When that happens, the whole City shuts down. They can’t just hire more drivers, because they own the buses themselves. So nobody gets to work. Nothing happens. UNTIL the Buses drivers get what they want. This power puts the up along side the Gangs and the Military as the three major power holders.

People drive insanely fast. Way over the speed limit. Passing people. Running lights. Yeah. All of the cars are stick. When there are traffic signals, people tend to just ignore them altogether. Somehow, amidst all the commotion, there is actually less honking, flipping off, road rage etc. then there is in big cities in the states. There just isn’t. People are nicer here. Aggressive drivers, but nice. And they all use strange blinker signals. Like both turn indicators at once means you’re slowing down really fast, Flicking your light on and off, means I’m going and all sorts of weird stuff. And Hand signals. Like waves and nods and things. At one point we were doing 100 kph in a 60 kph zone. People also don’t seem to think that It’s necessary for you to fix a car once you get a ding in it. I concur. Tons of cars with scratches and dents. As long as it runs, it’s not worth the money to fix it.

Father Ignatius drove in the typical Guatemalan manner. Let me say before hand, he was a 65-70 year old man, white hair, sucking some sort of candy popper. Driving stick. The sucker never left his hand. So we’re driving from church to church (13 churches and chapels in his “Parish” or 130,000 people), and he’s giving us a casual detailed tour in English (he grew up in Chicago). He is driving aggressively (you need to, otherwise you’d never get anywhere), passing people, well over the speed limit, Stick, sucking a popper, giving a detailed tour, gesturing with the sucker in his hand.
After we went from church to church. . .
More to follow, it's just that it's gonna be a long day and I need to go to work.

Utah

"Then the bombs started fallin’
and pounded his brain
He thought about Utah
and who was to blame
for sending him to Vietnam"
--Big Time in the Jungle

Man, I can't get over this song. It's so amazing.

I had too. . .

I'm totally obsessed with this movie.

Opportunity

Apparently since Mr. Teacher at my high school was going to be the one who was supervising our movie, and thinks that I know what I'm doing, he recommended me for filming an interview between another teacher and a 60-year-old alumni who is a nun. So the Alumni director called me and asked me and I said "heck yes!" No, I just said "sure" So I'm ordering a tripod and a battery and then I should be all set. Aparently, I cannot use an external microphone on my Video camera, which means I need a detacheble source. I need to make sure, but I definately cannot use the built-in microphone on the camera. It tends to pick up the motor on the camera and results in a low whirling sound. This is most unfourtunate. Curses. The basttery and the tripod will be very nice though.

Guatemala

Although i have not the entirity of my journal entries, here is the first one. It is late, but I did at least fufil my promise of it being up by the weekend. At least part of it. Enjoy the adventures of The Devouring Moose in a 3rd world country with a bunch of old fogies, his dad, and two older brothers.

FYI:
Group Memebers were the following: Bill, Hank, Peter, Wilma, Dorthy, Father Ken, Dad, Older Brother 1, Older Brother 2

Old Fogies = Everybody except my family

Journal Day 1
Pretty uneventful at airplane travel, but finally an unfortunate event overtook us: Father Ken lost all his bags except a small briefcase, so Peter will loan some of his small supply of clothes, since he is the only one of us that is a large/extra large shirt wearer. So will pile into a minivan and head off to a posh hotel, and have a dinner on the free appetizer, because the dinner was way too expensive. We indulge on some free beer, which later turns out to be very expensive non-complimentary stuffs. I desire to reign upon the throne, and my father says that I should get his bag in addition to my bag. We are on the 9th floor. Our room number is 834. Just in case it is a weird hotel or something, I briefly go down either way on level 9, just to make sure that our room wasn't there. It wasn't. However, there is a bathroom sign. I head towards it with the bags. The door is locked. I run all the way back the cafeteria place, and tell Dad that now i really need to go, and drop off the bags. I head into the elevator. I enter and another person enters with me. He hits the ground floor and I hit 8th floor.
These elevators, to reduce people coming in on the street, need to use a key card before you enter the floor #.When he gets in entered his card. A light around the button for the ground floor lights up. I hit the button for the 8th floor, but the light doesn't go on. He enters his card, but it still doesn't work. He says "perdon" (Spanish, sorry/pardon). I say "de nada" (Spanish, it's nothing). But it sure as heck is more than "nada" I really need to go now. Th elevator goes down 7 floors We finally hit ground floor and when the doors open for the guy to get out, another guy gets in. The light for #8 goes off, and the guy enters his card and hits #2. I just say to myself, it's fine. That will take no time at all. And I'm right. Once he gets off, I hit #8 again. The elevator stops at the 5th Floor, A dude enters. My light goes off and I catch the hang of things and enter my card. The guys mistakes my actions and says "gracias" (Spanish, thanks) and hits ground floor. I try to smile, but I really got to go. We hit ground floor and I smack 8th floor. I anxiously wait for someone else to intercept me, but I finally make it, enter my room, and am at peace. Jeeze. People these days.

Advice

Never get a pit bull. Bad news.

Coffee

You Are an Iced Coffee

At your best, you are: hyper, modern, and athletic At your worst, you are: cheap and angsty You drink coffee when: you're out with friends Your caffeine addiction level: medium

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

The funny thing about this is that I don't drink any coffee and caffine seems to have little or no effect on me. But I'm guess I'm hyper, umm Modern, and pretty althletic. I dunno know about "cheap and angsty". I'm not objective enough to tell.

Got from her

Sleep

I have been oftly sleep deprived since I came back. The journal will be up during the weekend, I promise.

Back

I have returned. I'm a dead moose though. I will post journal entries soon. Once i get some sleep.

Troubles

I have replaced the images with external links for all of your sakes, although I need to edit the HTML and set everyhthing straight. Something very weird is happening and I don´t like it very much. We have returned to posh jotal numero uno nad our flight leaves at like 8 tomorrow. We get to bum around an expensive hotel and then leave. It is very suprising that none of us has gotten Malaria, disintary, typhoid, or anything likle that. I supose we´ve been being careful although we ate from street vendors once. I guess we just got lucky and we´re all in our prime. Read the other post below this one for more info.

still

I am still writing in my journal, folks. Expect a full report in the next two days. Also, for those of you to whom I can give CDs, I intend to make a photo/write journal using most of my 600-700 pictures I have taken. I have been busy. I will hand or mail people a copy of this CD as soon as possible (At least by the end of the month, I am going back to a job y'know). Soon, very soon.

If you think that I have not thy shipping address(it seemith likely), either send me a email [Joe(AT)T-tine.com], or post a comment.

Elsewise, there dost niether that thou couldest do.

Cheers!

baptismal font

baptismal font
This is the baptismal font where the three of us were baptized. It seems that it was donated to the church we are in and is now in constant use again. yay!

Guatemala City
This picture was taken on the first morning of our trip. It is from a posh hotel`s 8th floor and overlooks guatemala city and the whats-its-called volcano in smoking in the background. It erupted recently. It smokes for months afterwards though. I took the picture. I likes this place. More photos soon.

another action post

Here I am again, blogging in the feild. I am in yet another internet cafe in Anitqua, and it´s about 11:42, and me Don and peter are gonna meet dad at some local cafe adn eat some stuffs and then hang out for a while in la plaza. Then of fearly to bed and visit some ruins tomorrow. There was a tranpoline at our hotel and do got some action shots of me flipping. pretty wild. Again, I have been keeping a consistent and detailed journal which I will type up and publish as soon as we get home. I appologize for the mistakes in spelling and grammer. I am in a rush and the keyboard is sometwhat diferent then the ones in the states. extra lñetters and things. It seems to be a rather punctual weather schedule, nice and cool in morning with a breeze, and then it gets steadily hotter and more humid until 11:00, and trhen it clouds up and rains at about 1:30. Then clears up at about 3:00, and then may or may not rain at about 5-8. Depends. So, since it{s so predictable, we have not gotten rained on yet, and niether do we intened to. We have never brought our rain coats with us when we got adventuring and I don{t think we will ever need to. No worries about geting to cold, pants often make us a tad warm. I will try to post some images soon, but the bandwith for this site or any photo hosting site may not be enough to support full resolution. We´ll have to see. I need to go me dad, and then devour some lunches. Toodle pip. I´ll be Back. . . .

in field action

So here i am, blogging from a small internet cafe in Antiqua, Gautamaela. I am blogging with my two brothers, as the crazy cars wizz past amid the gatherring. night. It{s been good times aqui, and I hope that it will only get better. I keep checking my ti mecounter. You get 15 minutes for 2.50 quezals. I will rush over to a grande catherdra adn attend mass with my dad and brothers, then rush basck to the hotel and eat a dinner, and then have another wild day in Antiqua. I am keeping long diary entries, so this is just a in field acount, more will be added sometime in the coming days. Perhaps I will find so stuffs for you all back there. Perhaps not. Do{nt get your hopes up, we{ll have to see. I am chargiung my batteries as we speak, and will have many many pictures to share with you all back in the states. Me and Don leave for Emma´s parrents house on friday, and we stay in Antiqua until then. I expect to get to know this town fairly well. There is little danger of getting mugged or anything criminal since there are such a high percentage of tourists here. Peter´s friend lived here and he says that there is very little danger, unless you are alone, late at night, with few pedestrians. Which is also ture of Sna Rafael, so no worries. This turned into a rather long blogg on acount of a number of thngs that cannot be explained now. I will return, and then you shall be enlgihtened throughly until point of enlightenment has been apexed. ¿OK? OK.

Dmoose in Action

Excuses

Due to the lack of internet access in Guatemala, posting and updates will be held to a minunium. I will return, however, and post all my manuel journal entries here. So just wait and anticipaite. I will be gone for approximately 8 days. I will have many stories to tell, and many experiances to share. Farewell to everyone. Cheers!

Packing

I'm packing for Guatemala, and trying to keep it light. I'm taking a camera, hackysack, tiny flashlight, battery charger for camera, and its cable. That is all for electronics. I am restraining myself. We travel light, so everything is gonna fit into a single duffel bag. I'm pretty excited, because I have great plans of my future fourtunes being shipped in their entirities to 3rd world countries like Guatemala. And setting up fresh water facilities and schools.

I will live in a tinest tiny of small apartment, very run-down, and just a bed, table, computer, and bathroom. Everyday, I get up and go to a large Cathedral for mass, and every weekend I go to confesion. I work long hard hours, and put lots of money in the bank, and then funnel it to missionaries in 3rd world countries. I go for long exhilerating walks in my free time.

That is how I will live.

Ha! Beat that.

Quotes

I quoted this to a girl. Just me and her.

"I want to believe in myself once again
So I dream of a man whose hopes never end
To kiss with a girl who's as lovely as you
I'd give you my heart, if you gave me the truth"