Week Forty-One: Where Lies the Rain

In Spain, that would be mainly in the plain, or at least that is what I'm led to believe. This week was a crap sandwich, or at least crap bread around delightful filling and condiments. I love Madrid. That place is a lovely crazy place full of lovely people and a language that makes my ears happy.

Day 1 (281): 15th of September
Finally arrived in Madrid this morning. Had to stay overnight in Rome in a lousy excuse for a Holiday Inn. Thank you, Air France and Alitalia for making everything harder. One little pilot strike and the ripple effect means I get 250 euro (eventually) as compensation, two free meals, and a whole load of hassle. All told, I spent nearly eight hours in the Naples airport being jerked around. So really, I could have gone to my Wish I Was Here screening in the end, had I known all this would happen. Then I'd have just stayed overnight in Rome and left on the 0800 flight they gave me. Meant I missed the first bit of instruction, but the Spanish MoD folks were nicely understanding and really helped me out. After work, we went out to explore and have some cañas y tapas. Good Lord, I love cañas. Little bits of cerveza and some free tapas to go with. And all for maybe a couple euro. 

After much indulging in el Mercado San Miguel (ohhhhh so gooood), we wandered and found Plaza Mayor.

Such a gorgeous place. Love the details.

Got the backside of this poor guy. Was too lazy to walk all the way round to get the front view.

Also got the backside of this caballero. Not sure what else to say.

Day 2 (282): 16th of September
Madrid has such unique architecture. It is an amazing combination of old style Spanish, Cold War dictator chic, and modern sleek business. And it does my ears so much good to hear a language I understand. Spanish is so much more pleasant on the brain than Italian, which just grates on the ears. More post-class cañas y tapas and una exploracion de la ciudad. Got down to the touristy area and saw the palace. At least I got this guy's front. Wrong lens to shoot the whole building. 

Both of these poor blokes are just being shat upon. And sat upon. Asi es. These things happen.

This catedral is almost as big as el palacio right across from it. And check out el cielo. Las nubes bonitas.

A skyline from over a wooden wall. Que hermosa cuidad.

A monument to Quixote. Could have gotten a bot more centered, I know.

Day 3 (283): 17th of September
I love an Air Force style Military Hotel. We're in a place that defies my preconceptions of military digs, as the US Navy has never been known for its splendour. The Spanish know how to set things up, and even though the meals are not included, the huge breakfast spread cost me all of 3 euro for a huge amount of food. This city is proof that things do not have to cost an exorbitant amount (Naples, I'm talking to you). Love the little details at streetside bars.

La Policia out in force outside the US Embassy (across the street from the hotel). Not great for a night shot. Must work on that.

Day 4 (284): 18th of September
Not much to say today. Had a huge amount of homework to do and it was a long day of teaching. I really do love the clean streets and gorgeous buildings and wonder how it has taken so long to visit here.

A bit of rain in the skies, but that didn't put a damper on the amazing dinner of seafood done every which way. And great wine to go with.

Day 5 (285): 19th of September
Half day, as the test only takes the morning. Got a few hours to kill before my flight, so a wander was in order. Here, at the Plaza de Colon, another backside shot of a famous person's statue (in this case, Cristobal Colon), because I didn't want to go all the way round the roundabout to get the front shot.

There is no scale on this, but the flag pictured is at least 50 feet on the long side. Probably more, but I have a poor concept of size. All I know for certain is that it is bloody huge. And it did not want to flap just the way I needed.

Another bench (I seem to take a lot of pictures of benches when I travel). This was along a nice park-ish median near the center of town. Also near the Hard Rock where I ate for the first time in over a decade, and had the best bacon burger I've had in ages. Don't judge me. It was fantastic.

Day 6 (286): 20th of September
So the trip back was a bloody nightmare. Both flights (Alitalia) got delayed and were full of turbulence and screaming children, so my ill-timed back spasm in Madrid was slow to get better. Then a rush in Rome to another delayed flight meant another ill-timed spasm. And more turbulence put me in the most crap mood ever. So I didn't get my JFC Oktoberfest visit and was too cranky to even try to make it to my buddie's wetting down (so no beer for Rodeo... sad). Only bed and STILL NO INTERNET. EFF. I have the most useless landlords ever. So a bunch of hours in the NEX food court today for me... Madness makes the edits go crazier.

But the extra smoky sky made the sun go all neat.

Day 7 (287): 21st of September
Lovely (sticky) day, but STILL NO INTERNET. Back to the NEX to get things (i.e. this and homework) done. I love having time to read, but not being able to do the simple stuff is rather irritating. Trying to enjoy a nice morning in the garden with a book and a cuppa. Woo Saahh. Just a little tweaking of light balance, and this came out rather ok.

Roses are starting to come back. Must be getting to be autumn time again. I have a hard time with the reds on this rosebush. Not sure why, but they always come out strange.

Loveliness sandwiched by crap. Like rain on a perfectly good parade. Or really I'd compare it to hail on a parade, because a little rain (unless it is Neapolitan Poison Rain) never hurt anyone. Now taking bets on how long I go without internet in my house...

Week Forty: Take a Moment

I recently received the fruits of a Kickstarter I backed. Got two Moment lenses for the iPhone, one a tele and the other a wide lens. To keep things simple (much homework and teaching a class all week), I figured I'd just experiment with my new toys and post the results.

Day 1 (274): 7th of September
Busy week ahead, as it is never simple to simultaneously run a class and do a day job. Apparently someone (OK, someones, and I was one of them), dropped a ball on reporting something Friday. Not that the world ended, but everyone got a new orifice added to their person as punishment. Brings some things to light, however., besides the fact that we need to Do Better. One is that what I and mine do has a marked similarity to an important bridge; we keep things supported all the time and generally no one notices, but the one time things go awry and the bridge is less bridge-y, the spotlight shines oh so bright and we become the Biggest Failures on Earth. A second is that no one really has a clue what our hours are; I am personally in the office from 0530 until 1600 on most days (much later on others), but because things went a little bit wrong, the fingers wag about leaving early on Fridays (I wish). Right, enough whinging. Here is Photo #1 with the Moment Tele lens.

Yup, that was the cat again. Here is not the cat - Photo #2 with Moment Tele lens.

Here's another with the Tele.

Day 2 (275): 8th of September
Decent weather today demanded a little workward jaunt for Indy. Still not a grand treatment of the spine, but we are getting better, so there we are. The Tele lens does such a nice job.

Gets such great detail. Far better than the old iPhone alone.

Even makes the battery holder look cool.

Day 3 (276): 9th of September
Not even sure what to say about today. Generally Wednesday-ful in that it is a Wednesday. And random, so that was the motivation behind these Moment Tele shots. Will tackle the Wide lens soon.

Yeah. Tree trunk.

Day 4 (277): 10th of September
Gosh I love teaching. Wish I could just do this all the time. But becoming a public school teacher only sounds good in theory. And in the Navy, one cannot stay in instructor land too long, or woe be to one's chances of promotion. Soggy day, though, so soggy shots. This is the first go with the Moment Wide lens. Not quite right, I know.

Also this. Still not quite right. I may get this sorted eventually.

Back to the Tele lens for this. Look! Drips!

Day 5 (278): 11th of September
Am so very losing track of things that I did not realise it was today till well into today when someone mentioned a remembrance / memorial ceremony for 11 September 2001. How silly. Of course I knew it was today. It has always to be today. No other choice. Wouldn't it be funny if it were tomorrow at some point. Would certainly make choosing weather appropriate clothes a bit easier. Ah well. No such chance. Not in this dimension, any rate. Got some good sunset shots (back with the Wide lens...). This one I cropped rather severely.

This one, too, but I like the way the clouds came out.

And a Tele shot of bright sun and a tree.

Day 6 (279): 12th of September
Largely soggy weather this week broke into a gorgeous morning. As I loafed in bed reading, I looked out the window and had to capture the cake-decoration looking cloud sitting on the horizon. Still think I've not solved the wide lens, but no matter; there's plenty of time for that. Also, when I was uploading these at the NEX (power outage broke my internet again), I heard some woman wearing an odd white wig beckon her son with the name "Atreyu." Ahhh, the people of My Generation. What can one say.

Another of the same cloud. Such crazy morning colours.

Day 7 (280): 13th of September
On the way to Madrid today (got another class to teach) despite Air France's best efforts. Means I'm missing out on a Backer-only screening of Wish I Was Here with a follow on Q&A, all in Rome (which they kept saying would be in October/November). Also means airports, so to keep things simpler still, here is a look at the lenses that have been doing all the work this week. First, the ever reliable Tele.

And the Wide. These guys are going to give me some fun.

So here we end this week's installment of Most Boring Girl on the Internet. Hope you had fun and we'll see you again next week, this time with some photos of Madrid. Might possibly be a little more interesting. 

Week Thirty-One: The Things She Carried

...and that, Best Beloved, is how the Leopard got its spots. Oh, hello there! Welcome back to the blog. We have a lovely installment for you this week. Full of dreams and imagination and memories and strange things. Alright, truth be told, this week is all about those things I find any and every time I decide to initiate a Great Purge. Doesn't always happen in the spring/summer, but does happen on a fairly regular basis. As I've moved hither and yon, I've accumulated rather a lot of stuff. Some of that stuff is useful and meaningful, but most of it is the byproduct of my tendencies to ferret away frightfully useful things that may or may not be needed or wanted at a later date. These, Dear Readers, are my skeletons. Please don't judge me too harshly...

Day 1 (211): 7th of July
Best thing about this week? Other than the mere four days of work required, the leaving on a jet plane and heading west young man is the highlight. By late evening on Saturday, I'll be safe in the bosom of the ancestral home where things make sense and I can bask in the glow of denial. Makes all other Life silliness bearable in the interim. Also motivates the Purge, as some things will be carried back Stateside for donation or destruction. Turns out I have some rather odd things in the running for Purge. Both impulse buys and strange things with unknown origins. For example, one hideous uncomfortable pair of sun specks (yes I tried them on), and one odd Happy Meal-looking bobble head toy that I know I've had for at least two moves, but I've not the foggiest from whence it came, or really even why it exists at all...

Then of course we have the pile of things that have either not been touched for years or have just far outlived their purpose. Here we have some ancient burgled airplane headphones, the charger from a Nokia I had in college, an underwater film camera (film still in it...), the charger/sync station from my 2006 Dell palm pilot (it was free and has since disappeared), and finally a 2012 planner (with not a single mark in it). Who does this?

Day 2 (212): 8th of July
An unfortunate side effect of digging in drawers is that the hits just keep on coming. One odd discovery begets another and so on. The heap of long expired birth control gave way to three cans of unused film and more odd bits of paper than I care to detail. Furthermore, found a stack of C4ISR magazines from 2011 (gosh I'm nerdy), a v rusty slinky, a random thing of lavender tea (probably stolen from a Hong Kong hotel considering the chinese lettering), gun oil, and not one but two packs of (expired) dollar store C batteries.

My many deployments and travels have resulted in the accumulation of much foreign currency, such as Japanese, Malaysian, Korean, Singaporean, Emirati, etc. Don't even get me started on the amount of Djiboutian Francs I still have. So much Monopoly money. At some point I acquired some odd plastic christmas toys with parachutes. And at the bottom you'll find a beaded bracelet I made a million years ago when having beaded bracelets was just the coolest.

Day 3 (213): 9th of July
As a wanderer of the world, I stay in many hotels, be they on ships, bases, or in normal towns. I also take things from hotels. Like keys (that I forget to shred), and apparently coffee singles, sugar, and pens. Sadly this is but a small portion of the amount I've discovered throughout the Purge.

Good Lord. It just keeps going. Must be a compulsion. Who needs this many notepads?

Day 4 (214): 10th of July
Nope. Nothing exciting in life at the moment (is there ever?) But honestly, what is this? A bag of marble-y things (with a hole in it so they can spill all over the place), and a scary finger puppet.

Good news, readers - I have graduated from places. And apparently needed several hat tassels to do so. Was I wearing three hats upon my high school graduation? And two after University? Good grief.

Day 5 (215): 11th of July
Hello. My name is Rodeo and I am a pack rat. If you give a Rodeo a little container, she will fill it with whatever will fit. For example, what to do with a Jelly Belly tin? Why not fill it with nothing but pennies, a pair of earrings, a marble-y thing, and movie ticked stubs from 2009.

I do tend to buy a lot of notebooks. It is a compulsion. Some of these have nothing in them, and some have loads of chicken scratch and doodles (apparently I have long been a doodler).

Day 6 (216): 12th of July
Ahhhh Business Class... America Bound! No more to say. But the things on the chopper this time are t-shirts. A great stack. Either impulse buys, grab bag buys, or random too-big shirts I'd have happily rocked at the age of 8, when I figured the bigger a shirt was, the better (thanks, '80s). Also some dresses that are either too big, too small (I've been many a size in my life), or too hard to explain (try things on, people!). All are getting their own bag for carriage back home. For photo purposes, my collection of nail polish that I've not used in rather a long time. So many colours.

Quality, no? Clearly I use these all the time...

Golly, Claire's?? Why? And When?

Day 7 (217): 13th of July
Erasers... so many erasers. This must have been a thing when I was just a wee young lass.

Yes. Polaroid. So much Polaroid. This one still has 3 photos left in the film.

Most importantly, I carry my memories. Daw... Gosh we look young.

My skeletons. And this has only been the tip of a large, frightening iceberg. Necessary evils, indeed.