Souvenir Photo Studio, by Al Bourassa

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Tuesday October 27, 2015 Coral

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Tuesday October 27, 2015

Today we got rocking. First we went to send some money by Western Union to Cristina's sister and her husband Miguel for helping us finally get the Police report from Colombia. Then we delivered the Police report to the Immigration office where we were told that everything was fine and that they would email us, maybe in a month's time, to come and get Cristina's new Visa.

Since we were in the area, we did some shopping at Super Maxi and headed home. I hopped on Toxic and went to confirm that my move to Movistar for cel service wasn't a mistake.... I just don't know how to read their messages... Then I filled Toxic up with gas and headed home again.

We invited our friend Raul over for lunch and I didn't realize that he and Cristina had not met yet... Anyway we had a nice 3-way conversation of English, Spanish and Spanglish.

The weather cleared up somewhat so Cris and I decided to bus it way to the NW to the new Coral store to see if they had any of the smaller motorcycle helmets, but no such luck. We did pick up some lights that I hope to add to Toxic's arsenal for night riding, as well as a small wheeled cart for shopping. The Christmas decorations are already up everywhere including the monster tree at this mall. I had not been up to this corner of Cuenca in almost 4 years. This city has sure grown.

Again I am going to apologize about the quality of the photos taken with the small Samsung camera. It is just too small for me to get a really steady shot.

We came back and decided to go to KFC at Monay Mall for their 99c chicken burgers. First though, we did the balance of our grocery shopping at Coral and loaded up our newly purchased little cart. I tried to find some barley to make soup but could not locate any. Maybe Cris can find some at Feria Libre tomorrow?..

Walking home we stopped at the local bakery to get my favourite cheese buns. At least we won't starve for a while.

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

Coral tree #1

Coral tree #2

Coral tree #3

Coral tree #4

Coral tree #5

View from the high NW of Cuenca

Monday, October 26, 2015

Monday October 26, 2015 Dolls

Please see more of my artworks for sale at http://saccc05.tripod.com

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Monday October 26, 2015

I guess I will be apologizing a lot for a while until things settle down to a dull roar as the camera does not get a whole lot of thought at the moment. I can't just head out on a whim like before.

Riding Toxic is a pleasure, and Cristina enjoys being a passenger, so we do get out most days, even if it is just picking her up after work. Even with the dust and the fumes (Note to self: Stay away from the rear of the diesel buses) and the occasional sprinkle, it is a fast way to get around and just zip by traffic jams.

I hope I win the car raffle of Hearts Of Gold on Dec 4 at the Gala. I would never buy a car otherwise.

Saturday afternoon they had a fire at that lovely theater at the University of Cuenca. Apparently a short circuit in a 4th floor equipment room caused the blaze. It is not surprising considering the shoddy electrical work that is the norm here. They lost hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of sound equipment, and more, not to mention the smoke and water damage. I was actually shocked to see that the fire department had a bucket ladder to reach well above the fire. I would really be surprised if they carry insurance either... So sad.

The transition from being alone in the house to having a wife and 2 dogs has been remarkably smoother than anticipated. While Lupe and Mariposa are stubborn at times, they have been exceptionally good and are good additions to the family.
Saturdays are different, now that Joe and Joseph are holidaying in Palm Springs for 3 weeks and I have no work at Joe's Secret Garden. Looking forward to the Southern Fried Chicken menu when they get back....

Sunday we had our very thoughtful friends, Mark & Karen, over for supper. We never expect guests to bring anything but they always have something under their arms. This time it was a bottle of wine and a lovely housewarming/wedding gift of one of their stacking Russian dolls.

Today we finally got an updated copy of Cristina's Police Report from Colombia with the fabulous help of her sister Adiela and husband Miguel. It is a waste of time, money and energy, like usual, but Immigration will be happy and there should be no further obstacles to the issuance of the Dependent Visa.

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

Lupe always wants to be close to the action

A lovely Saturday noon

The stacking Russian dolls are works of art

Thank you Mark & Karen

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Friday October 23, 2015 Queen

Please see more of my artworks for sale at http://saccc05.tripod.com

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Friday October 23, 2015

Well, I had to download another program called a DNG converter to be able to use my RAW files and process them in my PhotoShop CS5. The conversion of the RAW files was relatively quick and I just needed to double-click to get them to open in PhotoShop. Then I did a test converting to 3 other formats and they all worked well. I am a happy camper on this score.

But I am two Word programs and I have been fighting mightily to get one to word-wrap properly and to get the other to work in English. That has made the issuance of this particular Blog very challenging. I hope I have it solved, and I can delete that extra program.

Part of the reason that I made all these changes was because I was getting errors when uploading artworks to RedBubble for this past month and wasting tons of time and effort. Nothing we have tried so far is solving the problem and my patience is really wearing thin. None of their suggestions have brought any relief and I have lost a lot of good programs and tons of prior work in this changeover. Many of my wonderful old programs just won't work with Windows 7. I wish that I could turn back the clock and go back to the comfortable Windows XP.

I picked up Cristina from her job at 1 pm and we rode out to La Yunta, a restaurant at kilometer 7 south of Cuenca. They were advertising a Friday special, English-style fish'n'chips, and I get a craving for that often. I had brought the camera but the weather was changing so I didn't take any shots. The fish and the juice were excellent, the fries were very good but not very hot, and the peas were small, old and shriveled. I asked for some white vinegar and they brought me a thimbleful. I was still prepared to give them a very glowing recommendation until we got the bill for $22.50! I guess we won't be going back there very often.

On the way back we stopped at Mall de Rio to browse around and lo-and-behold we see the same advertising model from last night Chevy gig now passing out pamphlets for the Hyundai dealer... She recognized us right away and came over to say hello with that big smile of hers.

Joe's Secret Garden is on a 3-week hiatus so we will looking for something different to do on Saturday.
Tonight we saw that there was to be the competition and crowning of a new Miss Cuenca to be held at the theater at the University, and normally these events are free, so we decided to go check it out. We didn't leave too early and got there shortly after 7:30. The lineup was way shorter than expected and we soon found out why.... People were desperately trying to sell us $22 entry tickets,.. per person..!! Thanks but no thanks!! I'll bet that each contestant had a quota of tickets to sell and the family members were anxious to reduce that debt load.

The mayor was there and I gotta say that I like this guy. He is everywhere, and he seems to use a lot more common sense than his predecessor who really pissed us all off when he snubbed a roomful of gringos at a Meet The Mayor function. This new fellow knows the meaning of good PR.

So, we just caught the bus home, turned on the TV and there was the Miss Cuenca competition on Channel 4!! From what I saw, that event certainly wasn't worth that kind of money.

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

A small lineup because of the cost to enter... $22/person

Mayor Cabrera seems to be everywhere these days

Many different Queens in attendance

This concert interests Cristina..

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Thursday October 22, 2015 HoG/Metrocar

Please see more of my artworks for sale at http://saccc05.tripod.com

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Comments or purchase requests are graciously accepted at souvenirphotostudio@gmail.com.

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Thursday October 22, 2015

Yesterday it was a breeze to get my new Cedula at the Registro Civil. I think I was in & out within 40 minutes...

Therefore I was hoping that things would go as smoothly as we went to begin a new Visa process for Cristina today. However...... we got all our documents submitted but they asked if we could get a new police report from Colombia. I countered with the information that they have the information on file in February plus she has no stamps in her passport showing that she has been out of the country... They still recommended that we order it online, plus make up a letter saying that we want them to accept certain documents, so we came home to try to comply.

They also asked for our original Marriage Certificate and I said that they had taken that from me during the process for my new Cedula, so they went to the other department and swapped a copy for the original. Typical right hand vs left hand BS.
One very pleasant surprise though was that the new Visa only cost $30 for the Mercosur region folks, instead of the usual $250.

We could get the Colomian police report ordered easy enough online, but when we went to pay the $10 fee (31,000 pesos) with my Credit Card it showed that it would only accept a debit from an account in Colombia... Since Cristina has no such account, we made several phone calls to her sister and brother-in-law to use their account. Every time we input some info, the next page would ask for more, ... like a Cedula number, debit card password, a token password, etc. Then, because it had time limits, and we fouled it three times, the bank site would not accept any more tries... After 3 hours I was just burning.... We went back to Immigration, gave them the completed letter and explained the situation and Cristina offered to try another tactic via her sister... Going through all these hoops for unnecessary, and maybe unneeded, documents just burns my ass.
And I got a visit from my ex, Bella, with the wonderful news that our Powers-Of-Attorney are invalid, so we have to do a whole bunch of new Notary and lawyer visits to get our own properties free and clear. That will be next week's headaches....

At 5pm we went to the Hearts Of Gold 2nd Anniversary celebration of being a legal foundation at the MetroCar dealership on Huayna Capac. MetroCar is supplying the Chevy Aveo for our raffle (even though we are paying for it..??) so they hosted the event with some snack food, music, and a model for a photo booth. The turnout of people was disappointing but everybody had a good time. The HoG personnel and the MetroCar folks are to be commended for putting on a pretty classy event.
I didn't expect to have to apologize for these photos, which were taken in RAW format, but unexpectedly my PhotoShop didn't want to accept them from my camera even though my camera is on their accepted list... UGH!!!! More trials and tribulations from upgrading my computer in an effort to sort out problems with a site where I sell my photos. Today RedBubble tells me maybe the problem may stem from using the AdBlock Plus program..... Why didn't those dummies tell me that in the beginning??????? UGH....
One of my sisters had a sign in their home "Every time I think that I can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends..." I sure am feeling this is so true lately.
Late update: I have just been informed that one of my oldest friends, Ray Zotzman, of Edmonton has finally ended his suffering and is finally pain-free. His family now has the incredible chore of sorting through Ray's many collections and dispersing thousands of items. I do not envy them in this task on top of their grief.

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

A visit from Andrea The Giant (its a female)

A brilliant sunrise this morning

They had 3 different cakes

The wife and I were happy to attend this event

We have our tickets for the Gala

This is the kind of car HoG is raffling (only 500 tickets!)

Umberto entertaining us

A lovely spacious showroom for the event

People kept arriving right until the end

Part of the HoG family

The photo booth was popular. I wonder why??

The wives were very watchful, lol.

Dave and his Cuenca Expats Magazine

We were given a tour of the shop area too

People got to show off their soccer skills too

Food and drinks and amiable company

The dealership folks were active

Avalina stayed occupied and scored regularly

The Hog and MetroCar principals

A little closer shot

The 3 cakes are lit with 2 candles each

Did they make a wish each??

We even had dancing

Many different styles

Lots of moves

Everybody had a dance

Some of us won prizes

All the HoG and MetroCar folks

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Saturday October 17 , 2015 Joe's Secret Garden

Please see more of my artworks for sale at http://saccc05.tripod.com

Welcome….. Please note that you may SUBSCRIBE below to this Blog.

Comments or purchase requests are graciously accepted at souvenirphotostudio@gmail.com.

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

Saturday October 17, 2015

Sorry that my camera never left home all week because our mind was on too many other things that had to get started. Cristina started new work this week and I tackled Immigration again to change my Cedula to married status, etc.

Today I gambled to upgrade my computer as I was having horrible problems working on my photos and uploading to my sites. I bought a Windows 7 disk and PhotoShop CS5 disk for $9 and had the invaluable help of Andres from Servicable to at least get Windows 7 working. The CS5 disk is not providing the right codes to allow the PhotoShop to function, so that means another trip downtown....

It also means that I have lost most of my programs, including MS Office so I have been forced to download a different suite to be able to open my documents and begin this Blog.

Joe's Secret Garden had Chicken Piri-Piri on the menu tonight and around 90 people seated. There were definitely no bugs in attendance as the smoke covered the entire neighbourhood. I had tried to beg off going tonight because I was having so many computer problems, especially not having a working PhotoShop. But Joe said they had 2 birthday parties tonight (one had a car accident and didn't make it) so I went to do my work. It was also Rein & Linda's 29th Anniversary.

So, my apologies for the poorer quality of today's offerings which were batch edited in PhotoScape only....

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