Souvenir Photo Studio, by Al Bourassa: March 2017

Friday, March 31, 2017

Friday March 31, 2017 El Patio

Please see more of my artworks for sale at my websites: http://souvenirphotostudio.neocities.org/ or http://saccc05.tripod.com/

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Friday March 31, 2017

I had been waiting for 2 months to come to this 7:30am appointment with a physical therapist examiner, which was arranged by my surgeon. The cute Doctor Ana at IESS gave me pills, and protein powder, then ordered 30 days of physio, 10 days at 3 different stations. The pills are for neurological disorders including epilepsy but, according to Wikipedia, it is unclear how it works…. Dosage could be up to 6 pills per day but I am only ordered to take 1 per day, so that is OK with me.

I was able to make the appointment at one station but they don't start until April 19th, Ughhh.

I was to return at 10:30 to make appointments with the other 2 stations. It was still raining at noon so I finally just walked back in the rain. Neither of them could do any therapy in the intervening 18 days so now I have therapy running from April 19 to June 9, and the last session I am back with Diego, whom I started with in January. Diego says that I will have 4 of the 10 sessions for White Wave (I think I heard it right) therapy that is going to hurt (looking forward to this for sure…), and I’ll need some days to recover, so the WW is on 4 Fridays, recuperate Saturday-Sunday, and then 2 regular sessions for the first 3 weeks on Monday-Tuesday.

I was supposed to go take some house photos for Dot in the afternoon but the rain continued all afternoon so that gig had to be postponed. So, a long nap was in order to counteract the poor sleep from last night.

The rain finally quit in the late afternoon so I got to walk the girls without getting soaked, but I wore rubber boots. The river is really high and the banks are eroding to the base of many very aged eucalyptus trees along the banks. I am certain that we will lose a number of these magnificent tall trees this year. This makes me recall visiting Boquete, Panama in 2010 after they had had devastating flood damage and were doing something about it. They had backhoes and articulating trucks working in the shallow river (like ours) and moving the big rocks to the banks to stop the erosion. This also had the effect of deepening the river a tad. Mother Nature would quickly adjust the plant and fish life so no real

ecological damage is done, on the contrary, it eliminates a lot of future damage. I have no idea why they don’t do this quickly in Cuenca. I took a few shots with the tiny Lumix, one-handed, holding 3 dogs, so please forgive the quality.

This evening Gustavo picked us up to go back to El Patio because we both love Gyros. This is a clean collection of street vendors in little trailers in an organized setting on 27 de Febrero just east of Solano. The Gyros are a welcome change to the usual boring fare available in Cuenca. At El Patio we have many choices from Mexican to sushi. Cristina ordered something from the picture menu at a Colombian booth but they sorrily didn’t have that item this evening so she was put off and didn’t order from anywhere else, she just wanted a coffee.

Then we came back home and I treated Gustavo to Debby’s cinnabons, and he was in heaven...

I hope you enjoy the photos. That was the day’s excitement.

Cheers, Al

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If you want to borrow a picture for sharing with family and friends, PLEASE give me credit for the photo.

NOTE that you may click on any photo for an ENLARGED VIEW.

My prescriptions from Dra. Ana

After the morning storm #1

After the morning storm #2

After the morning storm #3

Rio Tomebamba is very high

The water is eroding the riverbanks

Soon we will be losing some very old eucalyptus trees

Finally got a good shot of the sign

One section of the food fair

Another section with seating in the center

A view from near the entrance #1

A view from near the entrance #2

The Gyro trailer. Food ready in 10 minutes

Cristina getting a coffee

Gustavo in heaven with cinnabon

Thursday, March 30, 2017

Thursday March 30, 2017 T-Rex

Please see more of my artworks for sale at my websites: http://souvenirphotostudio.neocities.org/ or http://saccc05.tripod.com/

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******

Thursday March 30, 2017

Cesar and I finally connected at T-Rex Hot Dogs/Burgers to take some promotional photos of his food offerings. He actually has 5 different Hot Dogs, a burger and is now also offering a hearty breakfast, nothing over $3.50. His place is located at Benigno Malo 6-57, just 1.5 blocks south of the cathedral.

While I was there, Debbie from Bone-ito delivered me some cinammon rolls that I had been craving, complete with cream cheese. Yummy! Cristina thinks they are too sweet... OK, more for me....
I went to catch the #13 home and waited with many, many other people for over 40 minutes with my heavy backpack and big package of cinnamon buns before I started walking. I walked about 10 blocks before I was able to hail an empty cab. I was glad that it didn't rain until after I got home....

Then I went out to join the Herederos ride tonight. I tried for my usual shot(s) of Todos Santos but it wasn't even lit up... That was a first! We ended up cruising by a brand new place called "The Patio" on 27 de Febrero just east of Solano. This is a collection of food kiosks who were doing a roaring business this evening. One microbrewery even had free beer!

While there, I ran into Neil from GringoTree, and Natasha and Maria-Josee from Hearts Of Gold. Then we heard the wonderful news that Neil and Natasha have set a date for sometime in October to tie the knot! CONGRATULATIONS !!!!!

Then our riding group continued over to the burger joint of one of our members and had a bite to eat. I had skipped supper so I was quite famished by that time.

I hope you enjoy the photos. That was the day's excitement. Cheers, Al

******

If you want to borrow a picture for sharing with family and friends, PLEASE give me credit for the photo.

NOTE that you may click on any photo for an ENLARGED VIEW.

T-Rex has good food

This is where to find them

This is the T-Rex Burger

This is a nice meal

This is the loaded up Hot Dog

This is a pretty good meal too

This $3.50 breakfast is sure to please

It even includes a grilled cheese sandwich

Cinnamon buns for $2 from Bone-ito

Gee, I have to eat them all myself... BooHoo

Plants growing out of the Puente Roto (Broken Bridge)

Isn't this just a great meeting place??!!

Parking was at a premium outside "El Patio"

Lots of food and beer kiosks

Lots of people enjoying the food

And a good seating area,.. and they had music

Peomotion girls were helping out

Stopping at Christian's eatery

Hmmm, I wonder if this is a Yamaha???

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Wednesday March 29, 2017 Beauty

Please see more of my artworks for sale at my websites: http://souvenirphotostudio.neocities.org/ or http://saccc05.tripod.com/

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WooHoo!!!!….. You may again SUBSCRIBE to this Blog on the right.

******

Wednesday March 29, 2017

I see that I still have over 200 faithful readers to whom I am very grateful. THANK YOU all. I hope that you are taking advantage of the subscription service on the right which is working well again. Without this Blog forcing me to get out and take pictures and mingle, I would be very bored...

I am only uploading one photo per day to RedBubble and Fine Art America and I am amazed at the time it takes. I do not know how I ever coped with uploading 3 photos per day, RedBubble especially is so time-consuming.

I made it to Spanish class today and Teo and I got into political discussions and ideas that we ate up the whole hour very quickly. I didn't mind. It is always good to get other people's perspectives on things.

It was just so darn nice out that I didn't want to stay in the house. I offered to Cristina to go visiting in Ucubamba on Buzzer but she begged off. So I went down the block for lunch, a whole $1.75 for potato soup followed by a big meal with a chicken hotdog and tasty juice. This is the cheapest lunch in this area. The owner came over for a small conversation as he always sees me in the park with our dogs.

Then I enjoyed the sun and headed out to visit Mike and Lotis. I had to park on the sidewalk opposite because the roadway was being gradered about 2 feet below and their sidewalk had a lot of workers on it. Eventually they will have nice concrete road in front. They say that that nice new road they built across the river from us will extend all the way to their area. That will make for another nice option to ride east...

It is always good to catch up with good old friends to find out what is happening in their worlds as it intersects with ours....

I guess I got home just in time, as I hear the thunder announcing yet another rainstorm...

I hope you enjoy the photos. That was the day's excitement. Cheers, Al

******

If you want to borrow a picture for sharing with family and friends, PLEASE give me credit for the photo.

NOTE that you may click on any photo for an ENLARGED VIEW.

I started eating the soup before remembering to take a pic

This plate was very filling

Couldn't resist riding on this gorgeous afternoon

Poor Sully just got back from the vet and is tired.

Bella is so photogenic in photos, much like our Princesa.

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Tuesday March 28, 2017 Art

Please see more of my artworks for sale at my websites: http://souvenirphotostudio.neocities.org/ or http://saccc05.tripod.com/

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WooHoo!!!!….. You may again SUBSCRIBE to this Blog on the right.

******

Tuesday March 28, 2017

The rain we are having in Cuenca is very reminiscent of the rains in Okotoks, Alberta in 2005. Consistent rains simply saturated the land so the water had nowhere to go except to the low spots in town where the sewers could not handle the load. Therefore we had floods on June 7, 17, and 27. When walking the dogs this Monday morning, every step was squishy because the rain is no longer being absorbed into the ground. They have recently upgraded the sewers in many parts of Cuenca. I do hope that they can handle the load.

Peter, my sound system supplier for the OBG dance has suffered a car accident and hopes to get his car back within a week. I need a backup plan,... because this is Ecuador.

Somebody posted a silly graffiti art program on FaceBook and I had to try it.... What do you think???

Today I put out the OBG dance info to the dancers on my email list and made a small note on Facebook. I need to be careful not to invite TOO many people to this free dance.

Then we went downtown to El Centro to take care of business, i.e. will, power-of-attorney, burial instructions,.. all the necessary end-of-life documents. I started this last year with a US-trained attorney new to Cuenca and it was a disaster. Then I had the accident and luckily I am recovering from that, but it sure drove the point home as to how important it is to have this advance planning done, or poor Cristina would be completely lost. My documents need to be reviewed, amended to conform to local law, approved, translated, and all proper documents re-drawn. They figure it can be done in a week.

The office is right downtown, on the second floor. I looked down in the center courtyard to see one of these floors tiled in an optical illusion. See the photo below... What do you see???? Maybe diamonds, boxes, ribbons, stairs,....??????

Then I went to help a friend, Cesar at T-Rex, to take photos for him but he had an emergency so we got postponed, but had a good lunch. He had some neat art on the wall that i could not resist photographing for my pleasure in making new artworks...

I hope you enjoy the photos. That was the day's excitement. Cheers, Al

******

If you want to borrow a picture for sharing with family and friends, PLEASE give me credit for the photo.

NOTE that you may click on any photo for an ENLARGED VIEW.