Sweetie got a new camera for her birthday (a really cool Nikon L1 digital camera. A tiny cute thing with 5 times optical zoom and 6.2 megapixel resolution).

One of her first outings with it was at the Ajijic annual Fat Tuesday parade, - our version of Mardi Gras or Carnival.

Easter is as important here as Christmas and the town goes all out putting on it's celebration of the beginning of Lent.

We get to watch the parade twice. It goes up one street about 5 blocks and then back down another. We watched the first pass in the streets with the crowds of families and kids. The second pass wends it's way through the main town square and we were able to get a table at Tapalo (a local restaurant on the square) to watch the second pass.

So Sweetie took lots of photos and I've posted them in our photo gallery.
You can see them here.....


Drop her a note and let her know what you think...

Photos of last year's Fat Tuesday parade (taken by me) are here....

From Delta Sky Magazine...

http://www.delta-sky.com/2006_02/Evidence/index.html

If the cherished ideals of human unity and harmony between cultures remain hard to achieve, maybe we would best look to a basic biological concept for a solution. Symbiosis, the dictionary says, is the life association of two dissimilar organisms for mutual benefit.

I thought of this on a recent visit to Ajijic (pronounced “ah-HEE-heek”), the prettiest of several towns laced together by a two-lane highway running along the northwest shore of Mexico’s largest lake, Chapala, 45 minutes south of Guadalajara. It is midsummer, the rainy season, when the air is soft and the surrounding mountains turn an exuberant tropical green. The setting is bucolic, Old World, with a rustic church and peaceful plaza, and a gazebo waiting for a band to arrive. Cobblestone streets slow traffic to a genteel crawl, and people come and go, murmuring a polite “buenos dias” as they amble by.

Some of the artists from Mata Ortiz came to visit Ajijic for a show and demonstation of their craft.

Marianne Carlsen of Maestros del Arte arranged the show and many people passed through the two day event which was held at the Nueva Posada.

During the show one of the artists threw several pots and fired them demonstrating their techniques and skills.

I was able to take a series of photos showing most of this process.

You'll find the photos here in our GALLERY.

CBS filmed a couple of pieces recently on the "Midlife Mavericks" in Ajijic - women of power who have settled here.

You can view the short videos here.
http://www.cbs2.com/video/?id=14251@kcbs.dayport.com

http://www.cbs2.com/video/?id=14300@kcbs.dayport.com

Karen Blue, a local author, wrote a book by the same title (Midlife Mavericks: Women reinventing their lives in Mexico) some years ago.

"Careers, corporate ladders, glass ceilings, stock options - heart attacks, ulcers, cancer and divorce. As young as forty, women are taking a second look at their choices and are asking, "Is this all there is?" Burned out, used up, or trapped in unfulfilling careers, an attorney swaps law for painting, a corporate executive gives up prestige in search of purpose, and a manager of a temporary employment agency sheds her trappings for a simpler life."

So Karen begins her delightful tale of life in the slow lane.

We are often asked "Where is Ajijic anyways"?
I've used Mapquest to locate the town.
Here are some links that will show you.

Where it is in relation to Guadalajara

Where it is on Lake Chapala

From Delta Sky Magazine...
Article by Roger Toll

If the cherished ideals of human unity and harmony between cultures remain hard to achieve, maybe we’d best look to a basic biological concept for a solution. Symbiosis, the dictionary says, is the life association of two dissimilar organisms for mutual benefit.

I thought of this on a recent visit to Ajijic (pronounced “ah-HEE-heek”), the prettiest of several towns laced together by a two-lane highway running along the northwest shore of Mexico’s largest lake, Chapala, 45 minutes south of Guadalajara. It is midsummer, the rainy season, when the air is soft and the surrounding mountains turn an exuberant tropical green. The setting is bucolic, Old World, with a rustic church and peaceful plaza, and a gazebo waiting for a band to arrive. Cobblestone streets slow traffic to a genteel crawl, and people come and go, murmuring a polite “buenos dias” as they amble by.

For the rest of this article please visit http://www.delta-sky.com/2006_02/Evidence/index.html

You won't see many photos like this of Mexico City!!



The photographer is a helicopter pilot who has collected some amazing perspectives of the largest city in the world. You can view it as a set
of photos or as a slideshow.

http://homepage.mac.com/helipilot/PhotoAlbum31.html

I've been able to set up a service to provide a feed of changes and updates to this website by email using a cool new service called FeedBlitz ....

Enter your Email


Powered by FeedBlitz

If you enter your email address you will receive a daily summary of changes on this website. You will first be asked to sign up for Feedblitz. This service will send you an email every morning with the news from the web that you want to subscribe to.

Signup is easy and only requires your email address. I have NOT received any unsolicited spam from these folks since I signed up.

This is NOT a spam blocking service.

It's only purpose is to send you an email notifying you whenever I post a new entry to our website.

Skype has rapidly become one of the most popular applications in the internet. And why not?? Free pc to pc telephony is a good thing.

Activating Skype is quite simple - as simple as MSN Messenger.

Requirements:
1) A computer with audio output (Can you play music? If so you can hear Skype.)
2) A microphone (a $3 mike will do). Some folks like to use a headset with mike and headphone.
3) A high speed internet connection. I've had some success using it on a dialup connection as well although the sound quality isn't as good.

First download it from www.skype.com - it's free - it's not a large download. If you already have a copy that is some weeks/months old don't bother using it. They are constantly fixing it and improving it so you can always get the latest and greatest at their website. There are currently two versions - version 1.4 is the voice only classic version and 2.x beta is the new one with built-in video (you need a webcam for the video but it will still work fine if you don't have one and only want to use voice).

Many of us are now using online photo galleries these days instead of mailing huge digital photo files around the net. This is a much more efficient way to distribute photos to those who care without choking their systems. They can download only those photos they want or in some cases, order prints.

FLICKR has established itself as a leader in this field a it combines photo galleries with social networking (the latest web buzzword).

Here is a link to a simple tutorial that explains the what why and how of this fine web application.

http://www.benbishop.me.uk/software/how-to-flickr-into/

All the states that we've travelled.....



The site where you can make your own is...

http://douweosinga.com/projects/visitedstates

We've had the opportunity to do a lot of travelling over the years.

A cool tool I found on the web lets us map out where we've been.

Check it out.... 47 countries visited so far



Lots of places still left to fill in...

You can find the tool at http://douweosinga.com/projects/visitedcountries

Every year our good friend Marianne Carlson assembles together a group of indigenous Mexican artists who practice traditional arts and crafts for a grand sale in Ajijic. She was originally inspired by the book "Great Masters of Mexican Folk Art" which you can purchase from Amazon right here. She has made it her goal to produce an arts fair with as many of the artists included in the book as possible.

This year the feria was held November 11, 12 and 13th at La Huerta, a local public space. The 2005 show has it's own website at http://www.mexicoetc.com/maestros.html. This year she has managed to bring eight of the artists in the book to Ajijic as well as many many more.

Marianne's focus for years has been to promote the art of the Mexican culture. She is a co-owner of a shop in Ajijic, Mexico called Galeria Maestros del Arte (formerly Papagayo and Avant Gourd) where she sells traditional hand made arts and crafts throughout the year.

The few photos I took can't convey the beauty of much of the work on display. You can see them here. If any of my friends post their photos online I'll link to them here.

We went to Patzcuaro for the Night of the Dead festivities again this year. This was our third visit to Patzcuaro during this most wondrous of Mexican festivals. I won't go into explaining what the holiday is all about. If you want to know more here is a link to a terrific article that goes into the holiday and it's origins and significance in Mexican culture.

We and Howard and Helena and Connie and Ted and Jim and Mags travelled together to Patzcuaro in two cars. We all stayed in two rooms at the Hotel los Escudos where we had stayed last February during our visit with Connie and Ted. It was tight but fun.

Photos from the trip are in the photo gallery here.

A list of sites that track torrents for various tv shows.
www.xtvi.com/
www.tvtorrents.com
www.fulldls.com
www.tvtorrents.com
www.bttv.com
www.myspleen.net

The sites below provide lists of torrent files that include various types of downloads - tv, movies, software, etc.
www.torrentsearch.com
www.piratebay.com

To download torrents you will need bit torrent software.
There are two that I recommend... both are free.

Azureus - http://azureus.sourceforge.com (Needs Java - a resource hog)
µTorrent - http://www.utorrent.com/ (Only 89k in size)