Ed & Carol's Blog

The Nazca Lines

2010-12-30T18:03:00.000-08:00

The Nazca lines are giant pictographs or line drawing, carved into the deserts of the Nazca plateau in Southern Peru. Most are thought to be over 2000 years old, made by an ancient pre-Inca culture, the Nazca Indians. The lines extend over an area of 190 square miles (500 square kilometers). The lines are clearly visible from the air, but much less noticeable from the ground. The lines form various figures; hummingbird, spider, tree, monkey and their purpose is one of the mysteries of the ancient world. There are hundreds of simple lines, as well as several animal and human figures. The hummingbird is 310ft (93m) long. It was fantastic to be able to fly over the famous of them.

Ed and the guys he works with have developed a relationship with the pilots that fly tourist over the lines. They gave a bit of a special overflight, as well as commentary in English and the flight at their cost. The Nazca lines are located in one of the worlds driest areas. As I mentioned in my last blog, the Nazca plateau borders on the Atacama desert, the world's driest desert.

The driest and oldest deserts in the world are the Atacama in South American and the Namib in Southern Africa. Ocean currents that flow towards the equator are cold, and there is a cold current flowing along the west coast of Chile and Southern Peru called the Humboldt current. Likewise there is a cold current flowing along the west coast of Namibia called the Benguela current. The Atacama desert in Chile is so dry, there is a place there called Arica that gets 0.76mm of rain per year. At that rate it would take over a century to fill a coffee cup. No vegetation grows, it is what is known as an absolute desert. Likewise the Namib desert is almost completely barren. Ed and I spent quite some time in Namibia, the location of the Namib desert.

Reference

One of the World's Driest Places

2010-12-25T07:44:00.000-08:00

We spent a nice evening last night, Christmas eve, enjoying a buffet dinner at the Hilton Hotel in Paracas, Peru. It's a short physical distance from our hotel, but worlds apart in comfort and price. The drive there is through stark, treeless landscape. This is an area of poverty; dotted with disordered, ramshackle buildings.

It is so arid, it sometimes seems that we driving through the Sahara. We are bordering on the Atacama Desert, a 600 mile (1000 km) long ribbon along the western coast of Peru and Chile. NASA and National Geographic describe this as the driest pace on earth. Studies by a group of British scientists have evidence that there are some areas of the Atacama that have received no rainfall whatsoever for 120,000 years.

This is the location of the Nazca lines, which consist of a series of ancient geoglyphs drawn on the Mars like surface of Nazca desert, in southern Peru. There are representations of hundreds of different figures, ranging from simple lines to outlines of hummingbirds, monkeys and other animals. When people were able to view the lines from the air, in 1930s, archeoligsts began to study them. The pre-Inca Nazca people made the lines between about 400-650 AD, dating them to be at least 1400 years old. The construction was simple, removing iron oxide covered peebles to reveal the lighter white sand below. The largest figures are 660ft (200m) across. Most of the lines are shallow, consisting of trenches only about 6in (15cm) deep. The extremely dry, windless and stable climate of the Nazca plateau have preserved these designs until today. It is remarkable to think how long this desert has maintained a temperature of approximately 77F (25C) year round. You can imagine how vulnerable they are to an unexpected rainfall or flooding rushing down from the nearby Andes mountains?

Ed and the crew are working today, Christmas Day, 2010. They flew this morning, and Ed has left to do his daily aircraft maintenance. While at the airport, he will hopefully make plans for us to take a short flight over the lines in the next few days.

Peruvian Hairless Dog - An Ancient Breed

2010-12-22T06:19:00.000-08:00

In Paracas there is a paved promenade along the ocean, with many small restaurants and souvenir shops. Like almost all Latin American countries, there are a number of stray dogs that stroll up and down in front of the tourist restaurants, scavenging for food. I saw a bald dog, and remarked to Ed that I thought the dog had an extremely bad case of mange. Ed told me that was a breed specific to Peru, named simply the Peruvian dog. When I got back to the hotel, I researched the breed and found the following interesting facts. The breed is named the Peruvian Inca Orchid dog or the Inca Hairless Dog. It is an ancient breed, and was known to have been kept by the Incas. Ceramics of these hairless dogs have also been found from the pre-Inca cultures. Such ceramics first appeared around 750 A.D. in Moche culture ceramics. The arrival of the Spanish almost caused the extinction of the breed. They survived in the rural areas, where the locals believed they held mystical value. One site on the Internet said that the dogs were bred in part to sleep with their Inca noble owners in order to keep them warm. A very cold night was called a three dog night.

Visiting Ed in Pisco, Peru

2010-12-21T05:46:00.000-08:00

I arrived in Lima very late Saturday night, December 18th, 2010. Technically it was the next day, since it was just after midnight. Ed was there to pick me up, which made me very happy. The original plan was for me to take the hour long taxi drive from the airport to the hotel on the other side of the city. There have been crime problems with taxis in Lima. It is only safe to take a taxi from the government approved taxi stands in the airport. Ed had spent most of the the day driving eight hours from Trujillo to Lima, so I was especially grateful he was there to get me.

The next day, we loaded up the company Toyota Land Cruiser Prado and drove from Lima to Pisco. The Prado is the model designation used in Australia, Asia, Africa and Latin America. It is not sold in North America. The town of Pisco is located in the region of Ica, Peru. Quechua is the name of a native people of the central Andes and their language. Pisco is a Quechua word meaning 'bird', and a very appropriate name in this area. Pisco is located near the 'Peruvian Galapagos', a national wildlife reserve called Paracas National Reservation. We visited this magnificent place by boat yesterday. The trip was only possible because Ed's company is waiting for permits to fly in this region of the country. The reserve consists of a collection of islands just off the coast named Islas Ballestos. People are prohibited from visiting the islands, but boat tours are allowed. There is an unbelievable number of birds including; pelicans, cormarants, Humboldt penguins, Peruvian boobies, and Inca terns. There are also hundreds of sea lions, turtles, dophins and even orcas make an occasional appearance. These were once known as Guano islands. Guano is also a word with Quechua origins, from 'wano' which means 'the droppings of sea birds'. Guano is a very effective fertilizer and gun powder ingredient. The ancient Incas collected and used this guano for fertilizer, and it has been harvested for several centuries from these coastal islands in the modern era. There is so much guano, the islands appear to have a dusting of white covering all the surfaces, especially near the ocean. Visiting these islands feels as though you are living one of those marvellous television wildlife documentaries, with some extras that only come with the actual experience, because the stench is almost completely overwhelming. The adundant wild life viewing, so up close and personal, makes the experience worthwhile.

Another attraction of the islands is a giant candelabra carved into the sandstone using the same method of creation as the Nazca lines. Our guide said experts are divided over the age, authenticity and origins of this artifact. The Ica region of Peru has a long history, being settled over 10,000 years ago. It is one of the driest deserts on the planet and in places resembles the huge sand dunes of the Saraha. It literally never rains in the Ica desert, which even has an oasis named Huacachina.

This area is also the home of the Nazca lines. The Nazca lines are 32 huge figures carved on the surface of the desert in the shape of animals. They were created approximately in the 5th century AD. Their purpose is still disputed but most archeologists agree they were ceremonial. I hope to be able to visit the lines some time before I return to Colorado Springs.

In 2007, Pisco was devastated by an 8.0 Ritcher scale magnitude earthquake. About 80% of the town was destroyed. There is a great deal of rubble still there. We spent the first night in a hotel in Pisco proper, but have now moved to a hotel just outside of town in Paracas. The flight crew Ed works with, largely from neigboring Colombia, felt that Pisco was too dangerous a place to stay, so they pushed to move us. I'm grateful, because this hotel is much more pleasant. There are actually western tourists in Paracas, therefore so far, my trip to Pisco is much more pleasant that I had expected.

EpiPen

2010-04-21T21:26:00.000-07:00

I have been diagnosed with a number of allergies, and asthma. I had asthma as a child, but I last remembered having a serious asthma problem when I was about 12 or 13. It has been gone for that long, and I thought I had outgrown it. Last week, during a business trip to Chicago, I had a pretty serious asthma attack that left me unable to breathe to the point I could not even speak. The allergist and asthma specialist I see says I must take this very seriously, and has prescribed a double EpiPen. It's a scarey looking device that literally shoots a needle through your clothing into your leg, injecting epinephrine into your outer thigh. The fire science guy at work says his daughter is allergic to peanuts, and she carries an EpiPen. He said he tried out an expired one by injecting into some cardboard, and the force of the needle was so explosive, it fired into the air. Does that make you want to stab yourself with that thing? Me either.

Surviving Christmas 2009

2009-12-20T10:25:00.000-08:00

Ed just lost his only sister. She passed away while he was on the flight back to the states from Bogota, Colombia. To make matters worse, he is currently delayed in Newark, New Jersey by two days, due to the massive blizzard currently blanketing the entire east coast of the United States. It has only been a couple of months since he lost one of his brothers, so this is a difficult time for his family. He is one if six children, but there are now only three left living. Ed is the youngest child, by a decade or two We were thinking perhaps this is the lot of the youngest child, assuming everyone lives an expected life span. We are getting to that age where this types of thing starts to happen with increasing frequency. I suppose in that sense, we should be grateful we get to have this type of experience, no matter how painful.

I also find it ironic that Ed is delayed in New Jersey due to weather, while the notorious Denver airport is open, with blue skies and sunshine today, and predicted to remain for the next several days. Colorado Springs is absolutely stunningly beautiful at this time of the year. I enjoy just driving to work. The views of Pikes Peak and the Colorado Rocky mountains are just spectacular.

I need comedy to cope right now

2009-08-30T20:19:00.000-07:00

It's a difficult time right now for us. Ed has just learned of the death of his brother. My wonderful and long term friend is facing breast cancer. Work is very challenging. I'm coping by seeking out comedians. It's a good way to distract myself. I've discovered Danny Bhoy, who is a Scottish comedian with Indian heritage. There are some great Youtube videos of his show at the Sydney Opera House. This is a man who has been in Australia long enough to really figure out some of the core features of Australian culture (the greatest oxymoron of them all.)

Check this out: Danny Bhoy Live at Sydney Opera House (It runs from part 1 - part 8, all worth watching)

I love Eddie Izzard

2009-08-08T19:44:00.001-07:00

I have just recently discovered Eddie Izzard. He is a much beloved British comedian, who is openly transvestite. Our neighbors loaned us a 'Dress to Kill' dvd. I have never laughed so much. So I've now purchased every single of one of his dvd's (those available in the USA) and sent copies of "Dress to Kill" to friends and family. I've never heard anyone make jokes about history, or modern life in such an inclusive way. I think he is one of the smartest, most observant human beings on the planet. He uses the f-word constantly, and he is often dressed in women's clothing.

I watched his video when having quite a difficult time at work. My friend is taking a copy of "Glorious" with her waiting for consultations on her breast cancer treatment. This is helping her cope with the endless waiting in the doctor's offices. There are lots of youtube.com clips of his comedy, but you can't really experience is without watching the entire thing:

Race Walking Clinic

2009-08-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

I signed up for Dave McGovern's Denver Race Walking Clinic this weekend. It is a timely education for me, since I have also signed up to do the Denver 1/2 Marathon again this year, and it is a scant 10 weeks away. I intent to race walk the entire 13.1 miles, and it is so much harder than it looks. I have learned that I need to pick my feet up more. It is very energizing to have input from a coach like this. I'm loving it. Here's the coach's web site: http://www.racewalking.org. Here's my twitter page with tweets of the event: http://twitter.com/edcaroljm

Ed Went Back to Peru This Morning

2009-01-25T15:46:00.000-08:00

We woke up this morning to a light snow fall after several weeks of warm, spring-like weather. We packed Ed up and drove to Denver, where he caught his flight through Houston, Texas and on to Lima, Peru.

We originally decided to do this in an effort to improve our financial situation, and make Ed's retirement more fun. Of course, we made that decision before the current financial crisis really became evident. Right now, it seems like the most prudent thing for us to do. Like almost everyone else, we have lost some of our net worth, and are feeling very vunerable economically.

I am embarking on a self education campaign to understand the current economic situation and think through what steps we think will be prudent for us. I decided to write a companion blog with book reviews and my best thinking on what to do with our investments. http://carol-finance.blogspot.com/

Christmas Letter: 2008

2008-12-12T04:22:00.000-08:00

2008 - The Year of the Bobcat

This has been a wildly busy year, and I mean that literally. We have seen a family of bobcats kill a squirrel in our back yard, coyotes kill a yearling fawn in our front yard, and a mother black bear and her cubs riffle through our neighbor’s garage. Ed had the presence of mind to grab a camera, and he got some fantastic photos of the mother bobcat and her babies chasing that squirrel. There are literally always deer in our yard, every day, up close and personal. Given our backyard track record, I’ve taken to calling it “the wild kingdom” out there. Of course, it’s probably more politically correct to say “the untamed kingdom”.

It’s almost unbelievable, but Ed went back to work for Carson Helicopters in March. He spent more than seven months in South America. I went to visit him in Peru, and we had a wonderful trip together to Cusco and Machu Picchu. When we were walking around Cusco, two little Quechua children ran up, asked us to take theirs photo together, and then demanded US$20. Cusco sits at 3,400 meters (11,150 feet), and most people arriving from lower elevations feel some form of altitude sickness (locally known as soroche). We stayed in a restored 16^th century monastery, remodeled to a wonderful, modern hotel. It was even equipped to pump oxygen into room, which you have to admit is a good feature. We feel it is critically important for all our accommodations to have oxygen.

I really love my job a s Dean at Pikes Peak Community College. I ran/walked the Denver Marathon in October. I had the best time, and my great friend Margaret came to visit and ran the full marathon. I had been training for the full marathon, but just couldn’t seem to break the 17 mile mark in my training. I have just found out why I was having those problems. I have been diagnosed with hypothyroidism. This apparently makes you easily tired, put on weight, and has various other symptoms. It’s not a serious problem, and probably a result of being a female in her fifties.

About a month ago, we adopted a silly little 4 lb (1.8 kg) dog we named Muttley. We called him that because he has a very impressive under bite. He has a tiny little round head, and his jutting lower jaw reminded us of a cartoon character from Rocky and Bullwinkle. It’s also pretty funny to look at.

This bloody "Wild Kingdom" thing is getting serious

2008-11-23T13:21:00.000-08:00

It's a wonderful, warm day today, particularly considering it is the end of November. The sun is shining and there is hardly a cloud in the sky. Colorado Springs on a day like to today is spectacular. Ed and I were even able to play nine holes of golf this morning. The golf course we chose, while very inexpensive, offers sweeping mountain views from every hole. We returned from playing golf feeling so relaxed. Ed was unloading his golf clubs in the garage, while I walked into our living room to confront an unbelievable sight. It is not unusual for us to see a large male bobcat in our yard. That bobcat was even the subject my last blog posting. He reappeared in the front yard very early in the morning last week. We are getting used to seeing bobcats, in spite of their reputation for elusive behavior and of avoiding humans. Yet, there was the astounding sight of three bobcats racing up trees in the back of the house. A mother and her kittens were giving chase to the grey squirrel that lives in the eastern side of yard.

The hunt was very impressive. The kittens began by staying on the ground, intently watching their mother chase the squirrel up the tree. As the chase proceeded, both kittens climbed the trees so fast, it seems a blur. Their mother leapt from one tree to the other, and seemed almost as agile as the squirrel in the foliage. In my agitated state, I yelled for Ed to come and see, and he had the presence of mind to grab the camera. We have some amazing photos, a couple of which I have posted here. At first we thought the squirrel would be able to escape, but there were just too many bobcats after him. The mother made the kill, and when one of the kittens rushed in to start eating ahead of her, she growled him into a respectable distance. All three of them were panting heavily after the chase, so it obviously took quite a bit of energy. When the mother had eaten her fill, she allowed the kittens to eat what was left. After all that exercise and then lunch, they all lay down and rested for about 45 minutes under the trees. They are so well camouflaged, it was almost impossible to see them among the shadows and ground litter, although they were all three less than 30 feet away from us.

We uploaded this blurry video to youtube of mother bobcat chasing the squirrel around a tree in our back yard. It does capture the speed and adrenaline of the hunt.

We have also shared our photos picasa photos from this morning.

Clearly it's time to rename our pets; maybe "Buffet" instead of "Boots' and "Morsel" instead of "Muttley".

Bobcat On Our Back Patio

2008-11-04T07:12:00.000-08:00

We woke up early today, election day in the USA. Both Ed and I already participated in early voting, but we turned on the TV to see how things were going with the election in Colorado. We were sitting quietly on our couch upstairs when Ed suddenly jumped up excitedly saying "look, look at the back patio".

The bobcat was back. He was casually sauntering along our back patio, just like he owned the place. He deftly jumped up over the stone wall along the patio, spraying all over the yard. Ed had his camera near by, so he took several photos. We have loaded them on picasa.

After seeing that cat up close, with his ripplying muscles, and relaxed demeanor, I am scared to let either dog out on their own for even a minute.

Our newly adopted rescue dog (all 3lb 12oz/2.1 kg) would barely qualify for an appetizer. We named him Muttley and our old dog, Boots, is not very amused by the introduction of a rival. Neither would make a very good snack for the bobcat. Boots would be grisly and fatty. Muttley would be tender but tiny. Here's some great photos of Muttley: http://picasaweb.google.com/edcaroljm/Muttley#

Huaca Pucllana

2008-07-14T16:58:00.000-07:00

We also visited Huaca Pucllana, an archeological site just a couple of blocks from our hotel in Miraflores. In the Quechua language, huaca is an object representing something revered, typically a monument. Each separate linguistic group in the Andean empires had their own sacred places, or huacas. Pucllana is the Quechua name used in the 16th century for a great ceremonial center built by people of the Lima Culture somewhere between 200-700 AD. They constructed a huge pyramid of adobe bricks, covering tens of city blocks. It survives today because of the extremely mild, dry climate of Lima. Lima has a subtropical, desert climate. It is very humid throughout the year, yet rainfall is almost unknown in the city. Any downpour would disintegrate the bricks and destroy the site.

A team of archeologists and restorers are still working to recover the site today. The Lima culture life was focused on the sea. Their religious world was also dominated by the sea, which is represented on their pottery by waves and two headed sharks. They made huge, clay pots, in which they buried the elites of their societies. There is also evidence they practied human sacrifice. The site was built over many generations using small, handmade adobe bricks. You can still see the imprints of ancient fingers on many of the bricks. There is just so much ancient and modern culture to see in Peru.

Here are our photos of the archeological site: http://picasaweb.google.com/edwin.jonasmorrison/HuacaPucllana

No Political Correctness here

2008-07-14T12:09:00.001-07:00

Left is the statue that greeted us every morning as we went to our hotel's breakfast buffett. Breakfast is included with the room, so we had quite an incentive to eat in the hotel every day. It is one of two such pieces on the property, one on each side of the wide door leading into the restaurant. We encountered this style of statue almost everywhere we went in Peru. There are also other depictions in this style; an Andean boy shepard, a Quequa mother and other locals. Nevertheless I found it jolting when I first saw it. This was not the last time we were to encounter such shocking representations of those of African descent.

On Sunday, there was a huge parade here in the suburb of Miraflores. The parade was to honor 'independence day', the equivalent of July 4th for those of us who live in the US. Floats, and marching bands participated from all over the country and spectactors came from all over the city of Lima. The army contributed too, and we found ourselves watching formations of soldiers drilling with rifles, and goose stepping down the street. Many spectactors were applauding the efforts of the soldiers. Goose stepping takes a lot of practice and drilling, and is meant as a demonstration of mechanized discipline. Watching them march, I just couldn't suppress a deep emotional reaction of horror. To me, this is a symbol of nazism, Hitler, the holocaust and terrible, murderous oppression.

Shortly after the goose stepping soldiers, came the 'Negritos de Huánuco' section. This group paraded in blackface style masks, twirling and dancing in their spectacularly colored and glittering costumes and huge feathered headdresses. Negro does not have the same meaning in Spanish, and simply denotes the color black. Huánuco is a region in central Peru, and houses the location of the archeological site with the oldest human settlement found in the Americas.

I have found Peruvians to be lovely people for the most part. They are very proud of their country and usually very helpful and friendly. I believe they would almost to a person be utterly shocked at my reactions to these things. I hate to use 1960s cliques, but it seems to me like a little consciousness raising is in order.

Here's a link to our photos of the parade: http://picasaweb.google.com/edwin.jonasmorrison/PeruDayParade

Dancing Salsa in Peru

2008-07-13T18:06:00.000-07:00

Last night we went salsa dancing with our friends who live here in Lima; Craig and Belinda. Salsa is a wonderful latin dance, a fusion of dance styles from Cuba and Puerto Rico. It is a partner dance, and it is found everywhere in Latin America. The name is Spanish for 'sauce', but connotes a spicy flavor, especially in U.S. Spanish. There are many styles, including Cuban, Los Angeles, New York and Colombian. In Latin America, you see an entire range of ages at almost all dance venues. It seems like everyone here dances. It is also popular knowledge here that foreigners cannot dance. We really enjoyed the idea of busting that myth. We knew it would be a really late night, so we took a long afternoon nap so that we could handle it. They took us to their favorite discoteca. The location is not in the best part of town, but it was a fabulous time. We had loads of fun with the experience, starting when we arrived. Gringo is a term used in Spanish and Portuguese to refer to white foreigners. You can see by the sign that the table is reserved for 'El Gringo'. Craig goes to this dance place so often, they call him 'El gringo' and all the waiters know what drink he will order, etc.

We arrived at 10:00pm, but there was only one other couple there. The dance club has a capacity of over 500, but in Peru (and most of South America) no-0ne arrives until after 12:00 midnight. All the music was salsa or merengue, played by a live band who never took a break. We stayed until about 2 am, where it was just starting to get hopping.

Local Rioting

2008-07-10T14:49:00.000-07:00

There was a nation wide strike yesterday, the equivalent of the 4th of July holiday in Peru. We knew about and had stocked up on food and drink so we could stay indoors if appropriate. Our neighborhood had a good amount of military presence, as well as security police. It was pretty quiet around here.

The center of Lima, and most of the major cities in the country saw big protests, riots and hundreds of arrests. The main Peruvian unions, the communist party and the leading political opponent of the current president organized the protests yesterday. News of the planned protests was all over the place, and the government made a big thing of announcing the fact that the army would be 'supporting' local security police in order the keep the peace. Today the government has said that less than 1 in 10 workers took part in the strike. The president acknowledged the complaints of some of the protesters, and pointed out that most of Peruvian soceity does not want to paralyze the country.

It turns out to be a good thing we visited Machu Picchu when we did. In other cities protesters burned government buildings, but in Cusco they threw huge rocks on the road to stop traffic and stoopped trains to Machu Picchu. Just a few days after we left, it would have been impossible to get the ruins. Peru has 40% of the population living below the poverty line, and this is prinicipal consistuency making up the protesters yesterday. It wouldn't surprise me if there were literally hundreds of tourist here who had no idea what was happening. Of course, that would not have been true for anyone in Cusco, hoping to visit Machu Picchu. A visit to Machu Picchu is usually the primary motivation for tourists coming to Peru. I would have been pretty darn upset if I was there during the strike.

Of course, strikes like this are a constant threat in almost all of Latin America. I think every few weeks some transit strike hits Argentina. We almost couldn't make it back to our hotel several times while in Ecuador, because Union workers were burning tires and throwing rocks on the road. The good news it seems like most of these political problems are over today. It was probably easier for people to go to a protest yesterday, since most people in the country had the day off. Continuing the protest today would likely mean having to give up a day's pay.

Machu Picchu

2008-07-10T08:49:00.001-07:00

Getting to the site of Machu Picchu from Cusco requires a four hour train trip, followed by a 25 minute bus road on unpaved mountain roads to the ruins. Machu Picchu is a UNESCO world heritage site, and the most visited location in Peru. This means you will be surrounded by many other tourists at every stage of the visit. My life experience is such that I almost always welcome the sight of millions of other tourists. Tourists to me mean comfortable facilities, restaurants, and a variety of choice. This is somewhat true at Machu Picchu. It is possible to have a comfortable, western style journey, but it will cost you literally a fortune.

We took the first class train early on Saturday morning. It departs from Cusco to Aguas Calientes, the closest stop to the ruins. The train winds through gorgeous mountainous terrain, with stops at Poroy, Ollantaytambo and finally Aguas Calientes. The cars are well designed for viewing the scenery, with ceiling windows allowing views of the staggering, jagged mountains above. The price of the journey is hardly inexpensive so you are left expecting the usual western style comforts. Another option would have been for us to take the ultra luxury Hiram Bingham train, which costs over $600 per person for the return trip. This train service is operated by Orient Express, but as we passed by it's much more opulent cars, they appeared devoid of passengers. The first class train offered us a fabulous visual experience, in a very unpleasantly cold environment. We were freezing for almost the entire morning trip.

The Cusco-Machu Picchu train starts off with a series of switchbacks, winding upwards to unveil an expanse of red-tiled roofs. It passes through dry plains before descending into the Urubamaba Valley. Past the town of Ollantaytambo, the rail line enters a narrow gorge, gliding past snow-covered mountains. Eventually the train descends into the ceja de selva (eyebrow of the jungle) until it reaches the rickety, accident of a town called Aguas Calientes (Hot Waters). Arrival in Aguas Calientes requires buying another very overpriced transportation ticket on a local bus that will take you to the ruins. The Machu Picchu ruins are a wonderful site to see, and are worth the hassle. There are many hassles, and you will likely feel ripped off from the moment you leave Cusco.

Photos do not really do justice to the majesty of the Machu Picchu scenery. The city's temples, streets, farming plots, aqueducts and stairways dot a mountainous ridge that drops in places about 300 meters (1000 feet) to the Rio Urubamba below.

Archeologists still do not know exactly when or why Machu Picchu was built. There is no mention in colonial chronicles. It was 'discovered' by Hiram Bingham, a yale archeologist back in 1911. Bingham was the inspiration for the Indiana Jones character. He came to Peru to find the legendary lost city of the Incas. As it turns out, this lost city is actually Vilcabamba, and is well described by Spanish soldiers.

See our photos on Picasa

Visit to Cusco

2008-07-08T11:03:00.000-07:00

Ed has been in Lima, waiting for almost three months, to get through all the bureaucratic hoops so he can start work. All of last week, Peruvian Immigration was holding his passport while they processed the renewal of his work permit. Peru has a turbulent history, and this has helped to make it a very security conscious society. As recently as the 1980s Peru's economy was badly mismanaged, causing hyperinflation. It was no coincidence that this period saw the rise of militant groups, like the Shining Path guerrillas (Sendero Luminoso). The administration of Alberto Fujimori cracked down on these insurgents, and was largely successful in quelling them by the late 1990s. Unfortunately atrocities were committed by both the Peruvian security forces, and the guerrillas. Back in the late 1980s, it was too dangerous for foreigners to visit Machu Picchu, due to insurgent activity in the area. Today, it is not possible to travel inside the country without carrying your passport. You are required to show your passport (or national identification card for Peruvian citizens) on all domestic flights, bus trips and at roadside security check points.

Ed received his new visa and got his passport back very late Friday afternoon. I realized we could make a hurried trip to Machu Picchu, and Ed somewhat relunctantly agreed to go. We rushed down to a nearby travel agency about 8pm that evening and purchased two tickets to Cusco for early the next morning; 6 a.m. Cusco is the gateway city to Machu Picchu. The Spanish simply transliterated the Quechua name, although you may sometimes see it written as Cuzco. It is a city of baroque Spanish architecture, in a beautiful location in the heart of the Andes. This is one of the top destinations in Latin America, but Cusco has kept its charm, despite being literally flooded by tourists from everywhere in the world. School children speaking Quechua and local villagers wearing their native dress are everywhere to be seen.

We arrived at our hotel in Cusco around 8am Saturday morning. They allowed us to check in early, and to even to have breakfast at the wonderful buffet. In Cusco, we splurged and stayed in the Casa Andina Private Collection. This hotel is a restored, huge 16th century colonial home, located in the old part of Cusco. They have done a wonderful job in the restoration, installing glass panels in the all the old Spanish arches. This retains the character of the building and allows a view of the flower filled courtyard, while keeping out the bitter cold of the Andean Mountain evenings. Cusco sits at 3,400 meters (11, 150 feet), and most people arriving from lower elevations feel some form of altitude sickness (locally known as soroche). This hotel is even equipped to pump oxygen into room, if you need it. We did not, but it's always nice to know you have oxygen when you need it.

Cusco has a long history, and was an Inca capital before Pizarro's conquest in 1533. Documents from the era report that Pizarro's scouts left Cusco, they used crowbars to pry 700 plates of gold off the walls of the Inca sun temple. The Spanish destroyed the Inca buildings, but left many of the stone walls as foundations. These walls now line may of the narrow cobblestone streets. The city is still a mixture of Spanish and Inca cultures, and you can Quechua spoken on the streets as often as you hear Spanish.

We spent the afternoon exploring this beautiful old city. At one point, we were leisurely wandering down a little cobble stoned side street. Ed decided to take a photo of me, and suddenly two colorfully dressed Quechuan children ran up to be in the photo with me. We gave them the equivalent of 50 cents each, but they then demanded the equivalent of $5.00 each. We laughed, but did not up the demanded payment. This experience was to prove an appropriate metaphor for the entire experience of visiting Machu Picchu.

While we were wandering around the streets and exploring Cusco, we realized we had left the charger for Ed's camera back in Lima. We must have gone to ten different little camera shops looking for a charger that would work. It seemed like you could buy every other type of charger, but not one that would work for our camera. So after more than an hour or so, we purchased another camera. Naturally this wasn't cheap in a tourist trap like Cusco. After buying another camera, we walked down towards the main square, and wouldn't you know it. We saw the charger we needed. There is no way to 'return' a camera in a place like Cusco, so now Ed has two digital cameras.

So many tourists mean there is a proliferation of restaurants, and other services. We ate in some wonderufl places, got massages and enjoyed just strolling around such a picturesque environment. We totally recommend a visit to Cusco, and it is especially worth it to find a beautiful old restored building for your hotel.

Here are our photos from Cusco.

Peru's Bureacracy

2008-07-04T05:45:00.000-07:00

Ed has been in Lima for over three months now. His days here have developed into a familiar pattern, which is better described using an aviation metaphor, a holding pattern. Every day he gets up and waits to hear about the latest issue the local aviation authority has discovered with their proposed operation in Peru. They will discover some new issue with either their aircraft, their paperwork, or their parts list. It will then take several days for Ed and his project manager to resolve. Then the next issue is discovered. When I have mentioned this to several locals; taxi drivers, hotel clerks, my Spanish teacher; everyone throws their hands up and says something like "unfortunately that is the way things are in Peru, you must ask how much it costs to go quickly." Living and working in a place is usually very different from the experience of the pampered and coveted tourist. Everyone seems to understand they have to make life easy for tourism, or those vacationers will choose to go elsewhere.

Ed, the pilot and the project manager all feel they are now close to being allowed to actually start work. We are hoping to move to the first job site within a week or so. The irony is that in order to complete approximately six months worth of work, it will have taken almost that long to wade through the huge paperwork burden. This assumes they do actually, finally, get to work in the next two weeks. Ed's company has worked in Peru many times before in the past 25 years, but some force has worsened Peru's bureaucracy to this point.

We will be moving from Lima to the small northern town of Chiclayo. The hope is we can move next week, but no one wants to bet on it. Chiclayo is northern Peru's most popular travel destination because of the Moche and Sican cultures. These were pre-Incan societies who built elaborate cities and tombs. Moche tombs of the royal lord and priest of Sipan, along with their mummified bodies, were unearthed in 1987 and 1991. This is said to be as important as the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in Egypt.

In some ways, it feels great to be travelling with Ed again. I have really missed him, and I am enjoying being in South America. I'm taking some immersion Spanish language lessons, helping me to rekindle my language skills. Our friends that live here have taken us to the central city of the city, and to some nice local restaurants. Yesterday I was chatting by Skype with a friend back in the states. He asked me if the tanks and machine gun sites were still posted around the Presidential Palace downtown. They are, but none of us even noticed. That sort of thing is the reason I tell people I am not a good travel companion.

First Days in Lima, Peru

2008-06-28T06:51:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Lima, the capital of Peru, Friday night a little after midnight. This is a city with a long history, as well as the largest city in the country. It was founded by conquistador Francisco Pizzaro on January 18, 1535. Pizarro had just defeated the last Inca ruler, Túpac Amaru, and taken over his empire. It soon after became the most important city of the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru, the colonial administrative district that contained most of Spanish ruled South America. Almost every catholic order of Spain built here, and there are more than a dozen baroque churches and convents in the downtown area. Lima also had the dubious distinction of being the headquarters of the Spanish Inquitisition for South America. The viceroyalty decreed that all the commerce of the entire west side of South America pass through Lima. This fueled a construction boom of elegant homes and promenades in the 16th and 17th centuries which gives central Lima it's distinct character today.

Lima became the site of the western hemisphere's first university, San Marcos University, established in 1551. It also housed the western hemisphere's first printing press in 1584. Jose de San Martin achieved Peru's independence from Spain in 1821. Lima is now the nineteenth most populous city in the world, with about 7.6 million people living in the city. About one third of the city's population live in poverty in desolate hillside neighborhoods, without electricity, sanitation or clean water. This means there is a significant crime problem.

Nearly all international flights land here. It is not a high priority stop for the many foreign tourists that flood into Peru each year. They are all headed for the ancient ruins of Machu Pichu, the Inca trail, and the Nasca Lines. They sometimes make stopovers in Lima for convenience, visiting the downtown area and staying in the beach suburb of Miraflores. Miraflores is where our hotel is, as well as the location of our friend's apartment.

July is winter here, which means an ocean fog, called garúa, rolls into the city nearly every day. My guide book says the fog "deposits a patina of grime that gives the city its gray, dismal appearance." Now if that doesn't make you want to remortgage your house to get down here, I don't know what will!

We went to visit Museo Larco which has a wonderful collection of pre-Colombian gold, textiles, and ceramics. It also contains a large collection of ceramic Inca pornography. We then walked 15-20 minutes to the Archeological Museum which shows a consensed version of the history of Peru. I found the thousands of ceramic heads fascinating, especially since it seemed to me that no two looked alike.

Here's my photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/edwin.jonasmorrison

Ed is going to Peru and Carol is living in Wild Kingdom

2008-04-06T14:53:00.000-07:00

Ed has 'un-retired'. He has accepted a position doing his old job at Carson Helicopters. He is heading to work in Peru for the next several months. His schedule is theoretically two months away, and one month at home. The promised schedule was never adhered to in the twenty plus years he worked for Carson previously, so I'm not really expecting that. We are thinking he will work just another couple of years, and retire again. He managed to be retired all of one full year. One of the project managers at Carson has repeatedly suggested to him that he return to work there. The timing happened to be right this time. So we are back to living apart for much of the year. I hope the night before Ed left for Pennsylvania is not an omen.

At approximately 3am, on the night of March 23, 2008, Ed and I were awakened by loud screaming and banging noises. We both thought there was some kind of fist fight taking place immediately under our bedroom window. "Damn drunk kids", I thought to myself, "Why do they have to fight in our front yard at 3 o'clock in the morning?"

Ed grabbed the pistol, and I reached for the phone to call 911 Emergency Services. We both kneeled on the window seat and opened up the wooden venetian blinds to see what was happening. We were astonished to see three coyotes. Together they had bought down a fawn, a yearling. All the dogs turned to look at us, and the deer got up and ran off. We were relieved to think it had escaped. Our cat, Speckles sleeps in her basket on the window seat in the front of our bedroom. She intently watched everything that occurred. I wonder if she felt as disturbed as I did. The herd of deer, probably mostly relatives of the victim, followed at a distance behind. It was very difficult to return to sleep, especially since Ed was due to leave for Pennsylvania in a few hours.

We awoke the next morning to see the deer carcass in the back yard. The coyote pack had clearly fed well from their kill. I was very upset to see what was clearly the mother doe. She tentatively approached the body, scampering off when she felt afraid, but inexorably drawn back to the horrible sight of her dead fawn. She must have given birth to twins, since another fawn about the same age lingered close to her in the background. The rest of herd stayed a safe distance, remaining in our neighbors yard.

It was traumatic enough to face Ed leaving for 3-4 months that morning without this. It turned out that because the carcass was in our back yard, which is private property, we had to pay to have it removed. I was very concerned to have that done immediately, since there are many predators here. We have had coyotes, peregrine falcons, owls, mountain lions, black bears and bobcats in our yard. The carcass would likely attract all of them. I paid a local company, who removed it promptly that morning. Ed caught his flight on time, although we both struggled through our day, emotionally and physically exhausted. Ed is at Carson headquarters in Pennsylvania, readying the aircraft for the ferry flight to Peru as I write.

The afternoon that Ed left, I came home to an empty house. I picked up our cat to put her outside for a few minutes, as is our usual routine. She clearly remembered the trauma of the previous evening, as she began to shake like an aspen leaf in the wind. She is wise to be afraid. She did pull herself together after a few days, and continued to ask to go outside. I know she is predator savvy, and she has been staying very close to the house, so I let her out when she wants.

Last night, I was watching the TV news about 9pm when I heard a horrendous cat fight. I raced to open the dining room door. Our cat sprinted inside, her tail hugely puffed up. She rushed to the window, peering outside, obviously looking for whatever it was that occasioned her screeching.

This morning when I got up, she meowed near the dining room door, asking to go outside and I absentmindedly let her out. About 5 minutes later, I heard an other worldly screaming; it was two cats fighting. I raced to open the dining room door and stepped outside. My presence scared a bobcat, which immediately ran up the hill that is our back yard, disappearing over the crest. Speckles, our tiny cat, then rushed into the house, her tail huge and her stress level obviously off the charts. She was covered in some kind of scent, which is she spent many minutes cleaning off. I realized she has now survived two direct attacks from that bobcat. I just read that bobcats are opportunistic hunters, and have been known to attack domestic cats. No kidding!

I hope Speckles decides she needs to keep mostly indoors from now on. She loves playing in our back yard, but so far, she has survived attacks by owls, a peregrine falcon and now a bobcat. These are only the close calls we know about, so presumably she has used up most of her nine lives. Boots, our dog wouldn't stand a chance against that bobcat. He is old, has arthritis and walks with a limp. On the other hand, he seems well aware that he is coyote bait, and he goes outside only reluctantly. He all but panics if he is left outside unaccompanied by a friendly human protector. He is old and frail, but he isn't stupid.

Our neighborhood is so beautiful that I am resigned to living with all these predators. It is a gorgeous Colorado day; the sun is shining, the rabbits and squirrels are darting around the yard, and the deer are even back feeding. When the wind whispers through the pine trees, it is difficult to imagine a more beautiful place to live.

My First Marathon

2007-11-14T07:28:00.000-08:00

From the perspective of today, the rampant sexism that existed in Australia in 1980 seems almost surreal. Things had improved dramatically since my mother was in her twenties, but opportunities for women were still hardly equal to those available to men. Social rules and sometimes laws forbade women from entry into some types of business establishments, and from participating in various professions and sports.

In my final year of high school, a distinguished and well known history professor, Geoffrey Bolton, came to recruit students for Murdoch University, set to open its doors for the first time in January, 1975. I still remember him taking a moment to address the girls exclusively. In a conspiratorial tone he told us; “There is a wonderful reason to attend university you may not have thought of. Most of you will probably be able to obtain your M.R.S degree while you are there. Boys with university degrees will be much better providers and husbands. I even met my wife while at university.” This was a persuasive argument for many, and was so ordinary a statement; none of us thought anything of it at the time.

It is a little less than 40 years ago, in 1965, that a couple of Australian women made headlines around the world. They did this by chaining themselves to the foot rail of the men-only public bar of Brisbane’s Regatta Hotel. This was a protest against the law denying them entry to the public bar area. Local reaction was so intense, the women received death threats. In parliament, questions were posed about whether the children of these two renegades should be" in care" (American translation = removed from the home) and whether their husbands needed psychiatric help.

Many people believed it was unhealthy for women to run vigorously, thinking it was especially dangerous for women to attempt the marathon distance. Before 1972, women were banned from running the Boston Marathon in the USA. Olympic organizers felt that any distance greater than 1500 meters was too strenuous for women. The International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) is the international governing body for all athletic sports. The first women's marathon officially sanctioned by the IAAF was the Tokyo International, held in November of 1979. The first ever Olympic event for women’s marathon did not occur until 1984.

In 1980, I was an avid runner. My training in Wyndham included several 10-14 mile runs (16-22 km) per week. This was such a strange sight in the Kimberly at the time, I soon became known as the running barmaid. When I ran several miles outside of town, it would often happen that a station wagon filled with aborigines would come across me. They were so shocked to see a pasty white woman, running in the heat, several miles from civilization. They would inevitably slow the car down to match my running pace, one of them giggling and yelling from the car “Mrs, you feel’n alright, it’s pretty hot?” When I answered “I’m fine”, they would counter with “you want a lift?” I would then tell them I was doing this deliberately, and they would all howl with laughter, and drive off into the distance.

Given the outback culture, and the prevailing social attitudes, it was no surprise for me to hear the predominantly male clientele of the public bar declare that women were not physically capable of running the marathon distance. I was angry, and I argued with them. I defiantly declared that even I could run a marathon. It didn’t take long, and soon the entire town had laid down their bets, a majority betting I couldn’t do it. Nothing makes me more determined than everyone thinking I can’t do something I know I can. I set a date for the run, and started training.

I used to do a long training run each weekends, running seven plus miles one way up a gently sloping hill to arrive at a rainwater tank. Kangaroos and wallabies would sometimes hop to the edge of the dirt road, unafraid of me and staring intently with curiosity. The top of hill offered majestic vistas of five rivers (Durack River, Forrest River, King River, Ord River and Pentecost River) join the Cambridge Gulf. The view is fantastic.

Of course, all those who bet I couldn’t do it, lost. I wasn’t fast, and it wasn’t pretty, but I finished in about 4 hours. It was a sweltering day, under a searing sun, with a temperature of around 95 degrees Fahrenheit (33 degrees Celsius). The photo to the left shows me at the end of the run, wearing the ribbons of my few supporters (meaning those who bet for me to able to at least finish the distance). Unbelievably to me now, I used to run without a bra. These days I can't do anything without a bra, except sleep.

Still madly in love 29 years later

2007-11-02T18:54:00.000-07:00

There was no specific moment where I suddenly realized I had fallen head over heels in love with Ed. That deep emotion began as a faint suggestion, and gradually grew in duration and intensity. We didn't leap into bed with one another quickly. We dated over a period of several months. As our friendship evolved, we grew to deeply respect and admire each other. Our love sneaked up on both of us.

Wyndham in 1980 was a cliché of small town Australia. An American reading this may imagine small town America with an Australian flavor. This creates visions of Norman Rockwell tree-lined streets, houses with white picket fences, family, sobriety, Thanksgiving dinners and church on Sundays. America is still dotted by such small towns, and small cities.

Australia is different. Australia has the world’s most urbanized population in a land mass the size of the United States. 90% live in a city, most likely located on the eastern seaboard. Population density is 2.6 people per square kilometer. Compare this with US population density of 31 people per square kilometer. This translates into tiny little outback towns, separated by vast distances of empty desert or bush. In 1980 in Wyndham, there was no TV, no malls, no shopping, no restaurants other than the pub. Everyone in town knew everybody else. Everyone in town knew everyone else’s business. Gossip was the dominant form of entertainment.

When we finally decided the time had arrived to ‘consumate’ our pairing, we planned a weekend together at a modern hotel in Kununurra. The name means ‘big water’ in the language of the local aborigines. The town came into existence in the 1960s as a construction center for the ‘Ord River Scheme’. The Ord River Scheme was one of those dreams that politicians have, a plan that looks so great on paper but the reality does not measure up. The plan was to build a diversion dam, redirecting water to irrigate crops. They tried growing rice, safflower, linseed, sugar cane and cotton. All were quickly abandoned. Agriculture in the area battles tropical diseases, birds and the tyranny of distance, since markets are thousands of kilometers of miles away. Watermelons and bananas are currently the only viable crops, sold directly to South East Asian markets.

Ed booked a nice hotel room, and dinner for two in best restaurant in town. Kununurra is located about 50 km (31 miles) south of Wyndham. There was not a single dwelling, business or any evidence of human beings along the road between the two places. Everyone in town knew what we had planned that weekend. Most were exited for us, and most teased both us unmercifully about our upcoming tryst.

On the night we were supposed to drive off into the sunset, a couple of hours before our intended departure time, Ed got an emergency call from the oil rig. He would have to make the flight out to the rig. The helicopter had an engine failure while trying to take off, and he was required to travel there with the second helicopter in order to repair the first. The repair would take many hourswhich forced him to spend almost the entire weekend on the oil rig. Our carefully planned, fun weekend had to be postponed. What a public postponement is was.

One of the patrons of the public yelled out to me "hey love, don't worry, I gave him some good advice. Always be sure to talk to your girlfriend while making love. I'm sure there is a telephone on the rig."

We fell madly in love in Wydham

2007-10-22T19:30:00.000-07:00

When Ed and I first met, I had no way of knowing it then, but his behavior was very out of character. He asked me out repeatedly. Despite my continued rejections, he persisted. He must have asked me out fifty times before I finally said yes. It's true he wore me down. It's also true that the more we got to know each other, he grew more and more attractive.

Our first date is memorable for only one reason. I distinctly remember jumping into the truck he was driving, grapsing his arm to get his attention and looking him very squarely in the eye . I told him "I am never, ever going to sleep with you, so don't ask me." I really meant it too. It took me so long in life to learn to never say never.

One of our next dates was a brand new experience for me, my very first helicopter ride. Ed was the project manager of an offshore oil helicopter support operation in Wyndham. They were there to ferry the workers to and from the oil rig, located 200 miles (320 km) off the coast. When we took off, we went straight up for about 1000 ft (1600m).

Our destination for the day was Troughton Island located approximately 40 miles (62 km) north of the Wyndham coast. The goal for the flight was to set up an alternate fuel site for the helicopter. In the event the helicopter could not land on the oil rig, they would not have sufficient fuel to make it back to the first refueling stop. The crew loaded up 55 gallon drums filled with jet fuel to leave on the island. From the air, Troughton Island is a tiny spec of land barely rising above sea level. The highest point on this flat, desolate place was only about 10 feet (3m) above sea level. Miniscule and insigificant as the island seemed, there were two inhabitants living there when we arrived. Two young men were surviving in a single tent. They worked for the oil company as radio operators, ensuring the oil rig was placed in the right location. They had been there all alone for about six weeks when we arrived. Both were clearly feeling the effects of the isolation.

One of the young men couldn't stop talking, and stayed as close to me as he could for the entire time I was there. He explained that they hadn't seen a woman for months. The other young man helped the crew unload the fuel barrels, then retreated away from the newcomers and the noise, watching us from the background. The chatty one shared an exciting story with us. The two fished every day from a small outcropping of rocks on the island's coast. One day they returned with their catch only to see movement in their tent. They thought that robbers had somehow sneaked onto the island and were ransacking their belongings. The resolved to take action, but were very startled to find a 6 foot long (2m) salt water crocodile taking advantage of the only shade on the island. Looking around at that desolate and remote little place, I could only imagine what on earth it was thinking.

Saltwater crocodiles are the world's largest living reptiles. They have been know to grow up to 7m (22ft) long, although they average around 4m (12 ft) long. They can live to 100 years old, and weigh up to 1000 lb (455 kg). Relocated salt water crocodiles have been found to swim across vast tracts of open ocean in order to return to their original capture sites. While attacks on humans are rare, the result is not usually good news for the human. My advice is to avoid confrontations with them at all costs.

In the photo above, I am standing in the back near the helicopter. The pilot, wearing his spiffy white knee socks, is walking to the emergency exit door of the aircraft. One of the two radio operators for the oil rig is watching the unloading of the fuel barrells, hands on his hips.

It's amazing to think that Troughton Island is now a major aviaition transfer facility for oil rig personnel.

Our date at the movies in Wyndham

2007-05-05T19:20:00.000-07:00

After a few days, I settled into a daily routine. The hotel chef, Tad, also settled into a daily routine. He embarked on a campaign to convince me to marry him, so he could live in Australia legally and permanently. He first tried a romantic pitch. When that didn't work, he described in great detail the large diamond he would have his mother buy for me. He told me how in Hong Kong it was possible to buy huge diamonds, but much cheaper than it was possible to buy them in Australia. When that didn't work either, he moved on a tactic of forcing himself into all conversations and social situations where I was present. I mostly tried to ignore him. There was no TV signal to Wyndham, no malls, no supermarkets, no large stores. In fact, almost all social life revolved around the pub, where I worked. All the men in town were after the new, young, single barmaid; me.

There were very few venues to take a date in Wyndham. Drive in movie theaters were very popular in Australia, although many of the Western Australian outback theaters were called 'picture gardens'. Ed invited me to go with him to the pictures. Movies in Australia are often referred to as 'pictures'. In Wyndham, going to the pictures meant attending the "Wyndham Picture Garden". Many of the locals called this place "the open air pictures." It was a combination drive-in, 'walk-in' arrangement. It was built by volunteers from the parent committees of the local public and catholic schools. Projectors from the Wyndham meatworks cinema were moved in 1969 to the new picture gardens. Screenings were every Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Commerical television came to town in 1982, two years after Ed and I left. It was so popular that attendance at the 'picture gardens' dropped to nothing.

The evening Ed and I first attended the "Wyndham Picture Gardens", it was a very clear night. Clean skies, wide open spaces and almost no ground light provide some of the most spectacular views of the stars and planets. It was a cool, balmy evening. A pleasant relief from the day's oppressive heat. We walked together, stopping to get ice cream, before making our way to way to deck chairs in the front. As Ed lowered himself, about to sit down next to me, Tad suddenly leaped from seemingly nowhere, and plonked down on the seat before Ed could sit down. He was loudly proclaiming "I wuv you, I wuv you", while trying to pretend Ed wasn't even there at all. This was one of the few times in the last 28 years I have seen Ed exasparated and almost angry. Ed quietly instructed Tad to move, which he eventually did. Our relationship was off to a colorful beginning.

Wyndham - The Site for Romance?

2007-04-29T19:26:00.000-07:00

When I arrived at Wyndham, I had never been that far north before. It was my first trip to "The Kimberly", and my first time in the tropics. The Kimberly is a unique region of Australia, and there are many things that set it apart from elsewhere in the nation. It is one of the last great wilderness areas of the world. It was named after the Earl of Kimberly, Secretary of State for the Colonies when the area was founded by a white explorer in 1879. Of course, the aborigines were there all along.

The Kimberly has a tropical "monsoon" climate. Extremes shape the seasonal variations, known locally as "the dry" and "the wet". It is called "the wet" because approximately 90% of the precipiation falls from November to April, when cyclones are common. It may receive up to 50 inches (1270mm) of rain a year. It is always hot, but sometimes very hot with an average temperature in November of 39C or 103F. During the wet, rivers could swell to 14 km wide, making travel by road all but impossible. Ed and I arrived at the height of the wet season, in January 1980. The locals were well aware that those of us from the "big smoke" or city were not expecting the proliferation of wildlife found during the wet and made great sport of this.

Unless you have experienced it for yourself, it is probably impossible to imagine the virtual plague of frogs that coincide with the wet season in Wyndham. As the sun sets, the roar of the male frogs begins and does not subside until sunrise. It is not unusual to be awoken in the middle of the night with a frog literally jumping on your head while you are sleeping. We know that frogs are diminishing in number all over the world, probably due to global warming but any visitor to the tropical north of Australia during the wet could be forgiven for doubting this fact.

My room at the hotel consisted of a bed, wardrobe, and a tiny desk with a small mirror. All of us barmaids had our own bedrooms but shared a common bathroom with a couple of toilet and shower stalls. I didn't think much of it when a small group gathered outside the bathrooms during my first ever morning visit. They were all waiting to hear the screams of a newbie experiencing her first frog encounter. Frogs are literally everywhere there is water; in the shower, in the drains, in the cistern for the toilet and in the toilet itself. Let's just say I was pretty darn surprised when something wet and slimey jumped back at me while I was sitting on the bowl. This was my official welcome to Wyndham.

Other abundant wildlife include salt water crocodiles, fresh water crocodiles, flying fox or fruit bats, various types of kangaroos, emus, and of course, ubiquitious insects. Cockroaches were so abundant the helicopter crews made a game of them. Each pilot or mechanic had a distintly colored paint spray can. Whenever an unpainted cockroach was foolish enough to show itself publically at the airport, the race was on to see who could paint it first.

The Kimberly is also home to the Australian boab tree. It is sometimes referred to as a 'bottle tree". These trees are related to the African baoboab trees, also found in Madagascar. Each boab tree is unique, and many are very old. Aboriginals used these massive trees for shelter, food and medicine. There is a famous 'prison boab' near Wyndham with a trunk circumference of over 14m or about 46 feet. This tree is estimated to be at least 1500 years old, and was used by local police as an overnight lockup. Since this tourist attraction is fenced off, the locals refer to it as the "largest prison tree in captivity".

Back in 1980, there was no TV broadcast to Wyndham. Social life revolved around the pub, or the "Wyndham Town Hotel", and it's three bars. I soon heard stories about local magistrates handing down a sentence that banned minor offenders from the pub for a period of days. That would be a tough sentence indeed. I think it may be 'urban legend', or more accurately in this case, "outback legend". In 1980, Wyndham was a place where you simply had to create your own amusement. With a tiny population, consisting of mostly men, a popular activity was to see if you could seduce the town's newest barmaid.

Our First Meeting

2007-04-21T11:48:00.000-07:00

Wyndham is the definition of a tiny outback town. It's dusty and hot, and the 'culture', I use that word loosely, is decidedly 'ocker'. Wikipedia defines ocker as an archetypal, uncultivated Australian working male who may or may not be boorish, uncouth, and chauvinistic. That seems like a decent working description of Wyndham in 1980, provided we include chauvinistic, uncouth and sometimes boorish.

My job at the Wyndham Town Hotel was to be waitress and barmaid. Mostly I was a waitress. I had worked in these small outback pubs before. While studying for my bachelor’s degree, I worked in the pubs “up north” every summer. This provided me with enough money to supplement my living expenses throughout the academic year. I had decided to work this job for six months or so, until I had enough money to travel to Europe. Most young Australians try to spend a year or more traveling the world after they graduate. The idea is to see the world, before you come back home and settle down. The pub would pay my wages, all my living expenses, including food and shelter. I could save everything I earned. It was an attractive proposition at the time.

Ed was there as part of the offshore oil helicopter support operation. He was one of two Americans in town, and Ed served as the the ‘project manager’ of the entire operation. The company was a joint operation between an Australian and a US helicopter corporation. The US company was the majority partner, and wanted one of their own to manage the operation. Since there were only two hotels in the entire town at that time, the company had basically rented out almost every room in the hotel where I worked. In other words, Ed was in the charge of almost every customer they had.

The manager of the hotel was nick named “Higgins”. He was a giant of man, about 6’5” (192 cm), with arms like small tree stumps. He was a very affable, happy-go-lucky personality. A typical Aussie bloke, the quantity of beer he could drink was staggering. He decided he needed to entertain Ed, his very best customer. The day I arrived in town, “Higgins” had taken Ed fishing. The fishing supplies they took with them for the day included a couple of cases of beer, an esky (cooler to Americans) and the bare minimum hooks and bait. They had driven by four-wheel drive to a stunning river out in the Kimberly where they fished all day for barramundi, a local delicacy.

I arrived in the afternoon. Someone came and picked me up from the airport, and drove me in the hotel van to my new place of employment and home. I spent the afternoon unpacking, and looking around the premises. I was told that it was the cook’s birthday that evening, and all the hotel staff and permanent guests were invited to dinner and drinks in the lounge bar. I was told by my bar maid compatriots that the cook had recently arrived in Wyndham from Hong Kong. He was very actively seeking to marry an Australian girl, so he could legally stay in the country. “Watch out for Tad, he’s on the make”, they told me.

Traditionally in Australia, the ‘public’ bar was where only men drank. The ‘saloon’ bar was a place where mixed drinking was allowed, men and women together. The ‘lounge’ bar was a more upscale environment, where men, women and children could enjoy dinner and drinks together. Often, all three types of bars existed in a single establishment, which was the case at the Wyndham Town Hotel. Anti-discrimination legislation enacted in the late 1970s had recently destroyed the notion of public drinking areas based on gender. Women were now allowed in public bars in Western Australia, although most of us did not exactly stampede to exercise our newly established freedom to drink with the boys.

I arrived at the designated time for dinner in honor of Tad. I was assigned a seat next an older American gentleman who was exceedingly drunk. Since I had never been outside the country at that time, I literally thought nothing of it. So the very first time I ever met Ed, he was blind drunk, having spent the day ‘fishing’ with Higgins. He slowly fell to his side, leaning on my shoulder and murmuring "I don't normally drink like this". I barely noticed him, smiling weakly as I gently pushed him upright again. He then gradually fell on me again, and we were to spend our first moments together in this strange, slow dance.

Ed and I First Met in Wyndham, West Australia

2007-04-15T16:10:00.000-07:00

We've had so much happening in our lives. There are some great and compelling blog entries there, but most of the excitment is a result of my new job. Blogging about that sort of thing gets you fired very quickly. So I thought I'd reminisce a little and blog about how Ed and I got together, 28 years ago.

We met in early 1980, in a little Western Australian town called Wyndham. Walkabout.com describes it as "an exotic and unusal isolated town in the far north of West Australia". This site goes on to describe Wyndham as "slowly boiling under the oppressive tropical sun, surrounded by salt lakes, desert mud mudflats which stretch to the horizon." It is the most northerly town in Western Australia. It is 3440 km (2140 miles) northeast of Perth. The population then, as now, is about 800. The town is physically divided into two areas. The climate is tropical, with a wet season from November to March, and a dry season from April to early November. November is the hottest month, with average maximum of 39.4C (102F). Reading this, I'm amazed we were able to survive there at all.

Ed was the project manager of the offshore oil helicopter support operation based in Wyndham's only hotel. I was working in that hotel, having just graduated from university and not quite sure what do next. In 1980, this tiny little town was very narrow minded, misogynist and typically 'outback' Australia. A thoroughly male society. Even so, I really enjoyed my time there. Probably because that is where I met the love of my life.

I got off the bus from the airport, carrying my violin case, my suitcase, and a brand new B.A. degree in psychology. Australia is a very different culture from America. In America, a working class guy looks up at the man living in the mansion at the top of the hill and says to himself, "one day, I'm going to have a life like that". In Australia, a working class guy looks up the man living in the mansion at the top of the hill and says to himself, "one day, that bastard is going to be down here with me".

I would venture to say very few in that little town had a university degree. They needed to take me down a peg the moment they met me, so I was immediately nicknamed "barge arse". Ed did not escape, and found himself dubbed "septo". This is derived from rhyming slang found in the eastern coast of Australia. It is short for "yank", and derived from the phrase "septic tank yank". So my next entry will detail our budding romance, set in the epic coastal landscape of the mosquito infested, sweltering Kimbery region of Western Australia. The great blossoming of love between "barge arse" and "septo".

Home Owners Association

2007-03-30T07:48:00.000-07:00

We moved in, and after about 3 days, I heard from our new Home Owners Association. They left a packet of information, including the copious rules, on our front door step. There was a hand written note asking me to call someone. I did. He asked me about four times if he could come over to our house. I finally got a little snippy and told him that there were unpacked boxes everywhere, that we wouldn't be ready to invite anyone inside for several more weeks. Then I pushed him for what he really wanted. There is a TV antenna on our roof, he wanted us to take it down because it violates a HOA rule about having visible TV antennas. I explained that we had just moved in, we did not put the antenna up, we didn't even know what it was for, and we didn't even want it. He seemed relieved and hung up.

I admit it, I was miffed. Why didn't they ask the previous owners? This is harrassment! I got over it, and the next weekend (antenna still up) we went to buy a new HD TV set. It was fun! We got a great deal, came home and installed it and suddenly realized what the offending antenna could be. May it is a rooftop antenna for receiving locally broadcast HD TV signals over the air. I looked up the antenna on the Internet, that is exactly what it is. Not only that, I found a little nugget on web about these antennas (http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/info.aspx?page=FAQ#_Ref28770286). The Federal Communications Act of 1996 prohibits restrictions that impair the installation, maintenance or use of antennas used to receive video programming.

I called the HOA back and asked them a very simple question. Are you certain your rules are in compliance with federal law, specifically FCC 1996, section 207. They are having to rewrite the home owners association rules. We are keeping our terribly offensive antenna.

Loving Colorado Living

2007-03-12T19:48:00.000-07:00

Living in Colorado Springs is fantastic. We've only been in this house a week, but we love it. Yesterday morning, I slept with the windows open in the bedroom. I awoke to the sound of chirping birds, and the wind rushing through the pine trees. As I got up to make myself my first cup of tea in the morning, I saw little brown bunnies and a squirrel hopping around in the back yard.

Every morning, on my drive to work, I see numerous deer, does following large bucks spoting big racks just strolling through the development. Last week, in a precursor of the Spring rut to come, I noticed two large white tail bucks sparring, their antlers locked together as they pushed against each other for advantage. Sparring amoung males determine a dominance hierarchy. Bucks do not eat or rest during the rut, their sole focus is mating with as many females as possible. I will be very excited to see the fawns that result in May or June. Deer just wander anywhere they want around here. It's very charming.

It's amusing to watch our cat, Speckles. This is her first experience of squirrels and rabbits, although she has mainly contented herself with watching the outdoors from the large, extenstive network of windows from our family room. Apparently watching a chipmunk through double paned glass windows is some type of combination of nirvana and sexual ecstasy for cats. Her gyrations and screaming left Ed and me rolling on the floor, laughing. Her first awareness of the large deer who had bedded down for the day in the thicket of scrub oaks in our next door neighbors yard could only be described as awestruck. She has basically been unwilling to go outside without me or Ed being there since that moment.

Boots, being a dog obsessed with food, is much more sanguine. The day we moved in, Boots trotted at a good clip towards the french doors in the dining room, in order to explore our new back yard. He was so shocked when he was suddenly repelled backwards by a secret force field. My sides were splitting from laughing at him. He has never seen fly screens on doors before, only on the windows.

Moving, what did not go wrong?

2007-03-06T09:52:00.000-08:00

We are finally moved into our new house here in Colorado Springs. It is a wonderful home and we already love it, even though we are living out of boxes for now. The move itself was a comedy of mishaps, but we were not laughing.

The day before we were supposed to close on the house, we got the final figures from our title company. One of the tasks we needed to complete was to get a certified check. We use Bank of America, and had double the amount of money in our account to cover the check. The problem was that Bank of America has no branches anywhere in the state of Colorado. We tried to get them to wire the money to the title company, but they would not budge. This meant we could not close on the appointed day. It also meant one of us (Ed) was forced to drive all the way back to New Mexico in order to physically appear at a Bank of America branch and get the certified check. All the while, the clock it ticking on the rental of our truck, another day in our hotel. We also had to rent a car for Ed to drive back to New Mexico (an almost 3 hour drive - one way).

Needless to say, we are NOT happy with Bank of America. As soon as it is convenient for us, we will change banks. We even had a mortgage with them. We have banked with them for many years, and they were so rude, uncompromising, unhelpful and just plain awful to deal with. Don't use Bank of America, they stink.

Ed did drive all the way back to the Colorado/New Mexico border and get the required check. So we closed the following day, a Friday instead of a Thursday. We rushed to find the title company first thing in the morning, grabbed a near by parking spot, jumped out of our car and stared in amazement at back right tire of my Subaru Outback. Flat to the rim!

Ed rushed out of the closing to try to get the tire repaired so I could drive him back to our hotel. He would then drive the truck to our new home and meet the workers we had hired to unload our belongings. No such luck, there was no lug nut wrench in the car. We were forced to call our emmergency road service provider, and they took over an hour to come out. All the while the clock it ticking, and we are now paying workers to sit and wait for us until we can get our truck to our new home.

We never, ever want to move again! EVER.

Skin Cancer

2007-02-25T15:29:00.000-08:00

I found out last week that I have to have a probable basal cell carcenoma cut off next week. Since I am Australian, 50 years old, with very fair skin and freckles, I am not too surprized. I am not too happy either. The doctor says I may have one on my head too. We are moving from Albquerque to Colorado Springs next Thursday. Thursday is the only day the doctor can do the procedure. At least it will be later in the day.

I can hardly wait until Ed is here with me all the time. Niether one of us can believe that we lived for over 10 years with very long separations. We can barely stand to be apart for 6 weeks, and we have been seeing each other every weekend, except for this one. How did we survive separations as long as 8 months apart? I cannot believe our marriage went through this type of stress, and we are still madly in love.

Moving is such a pain in the ... neck

2007-02-18T09:49:00.000-08:00

I'm here in Albuquerque for the weekend. I've driven the 5-1/2 hour drive (half way) every single weekend now. It is really getting old. I will feel so relieved when Ed is up there with me full time. We are starting to get excited about moving into our new house. I've uploaded a picture of the kitchen in our new house, as well as a photo of the family room fire place. We have never had an all electric kitchen before, since we have always built in the past. When given a choice, we choose gas oven and cooktops. It seemed like almost every home we looked at in Colorado Springs had one of those flat electric cooktops. That is what we have in this house. The only thing this house uses gas for is home heating.

I am excited about this move. Our new house sits just south of the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, in the northwest part of the city. The development is called 'Hunters Point', probably because of the herds of deer that are running all over the place. A little higher up on the hill are the really expensive homes, with views of the mountains and city lights. I think we have one of the least expensive places in the entire neighborhood. That is always the advice you get about real estate; "buy the least expensive home in the best possible neighborhood". So that is definitely what we have done in this case. It's still a nice home for us. Actually it is a very large home for only two people. It will be the largest home we have had so far. We are both hoping this is the very last move for many, many year. I have already learned to never say "never". Every time I do that, something just seems to pop up and change everything.

Of course, there are many things we want to do to make changes to our new house. It does not have hardwood floors through the main floor, for example. We will eventually add hardwood everywhere on the main level. The master bath suite is very large, but needs upgrading with modern bathroom fixtures, new tile, a new spa tub. It currently has wall to wall carpet, in the master bathroom. We both really hate that, so we will change that too. Downstairs, where the other bedrooms, one bathroom and a media room are, there is also wall to wall carpet. We will want to replace that at some point too. We are NOT wall to wall carpet fans, to put it mildly. We don't know whethere will be replace the downstairs carpet with wood floors, or perhaps marble or travertine tile. We want to investigate installing radiant heat in an existing home. Then it would make the most sense to have some type of tile. Colorado Springs is a true mountain community, lying at 6500 feet (2000m) above sea level. It gets plenty cold when the winter comes, although it is usually very sunny.

Snowy in places

2007-02-14T20:05:00.000-08:00

I was at a conference here in town today. There were snow showers here all day long. For those in Australia who have never seen snow, it falls in complete and utter silence. When I entered the conference center this morning around 10am, there was a slight dusting of snow. At 6:30 pm, when I left the center to start my drive home, there was several inches of snow on the ground.

Fortunately, I have a Subaru Outback with the 'winter package', so I started the car to let it warm up for 10 minutes or so. I got out of the car and used my ice scraper and brush to remove all the accumulated snow from the vehicle, and scrape the ice from the windsheild and back window. All the while, the snow was slowly, silently falling, covering my coat and reducing the visbility for driving.

The conference was held at a resort in the southern part of Colorado Springs. The hotel I am staying at is in the northern part of the city. It usually takes me around 25 minutes to drive from the southern area of the city to my hotel. I was very surprized to see a slow but steady reduction in snow fall and accumulation as I drove 'home'. By the time I got to my hotel, there was only a slight dusting of snow on the ground. Now I realize that when people tell me that being so close to the mountains causes various micro-climates to exist in the city, they are NOT kidding.

I survived my first week on the new job

2007-02-10T12:05:00.000-08:00

I survived my first week on the job. I'm not so sure about the snowy weather here in Colorado Springs during this second week. Ed is staying in Rio Rancho until we close on the sale of our house in Albuquerque. I am staying in a hotel in Colorado Springs, until we close on the purchase of the house we have bought here in town. All this happens at the end of February.

Around the middle of March, Ed will retire and come up here to Colorado. We can hardly wait until we are both together all the time. I think we both under-estimated the emotional impact of moving, changing careers and jobs, and Ed retiring.

The house we bought here in Colorado Springs is at the base of the mountains. There are deer running around all over the place, as well as coyotes and possibly even mountain lions. It should be interesting to see the reaction of the dog the first time he is confronted with three big hairy deer in our back yard. I hope his little doggie heart can take the shock. He is getting older. He is eight years old, with arthritis, and eating food for 'senior' dogs. The cat will probably have the 'big one' too. It should be good for a laugh!

First day as dean tomorrow

2007-02-04T18:27:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is my very first day on my new job. I'm very excited, and happy. We have sold our home in New Mexico, and bought one here in Colorado Springs. We settle on the sale of our home February 26th, and the new purchase February 28th. It is a relief to have that out of the way. I'm hoping nothing goes wrong with either deal. I do the homeowners inspection tomorrow on the house we are buying. I plan to take lots of photos, so I'll post a link to our picasa site to show everyone what we are buying.

I completely underestimated the emotional impact of moving, starting a new job, Ed retiring. It is all very challenging to work through. It does help to have parties, and other events marking such a big event.

Right now, I am living in a small hotel room with a kitchenette. Ed is living in our house in Rio Rancho, continuing to work until we close. We are making sure the deal goes through before we quits, since it would be very difficult to sustain two households on my single income. There do not appear to be any problems or issues, however.

House Hunting in Colorado Springs

2007-01-26T09:24:00.000-08:00

I did my last big presentation to a senior Intel manager this morning. He did not show up for the meeting a team of about 50 people spent over a week working on. What a relief! Now there is nothing pressing for me to do until my final day this coming Friday.

House hunting, on the other hand, is NOT fun! I see why people count moving up high on the stress-o-meter. Selling, buying and coordinating a move is tricky and expensive. I hope we don't have to do it again for years and years. Ed will be here this weekend, and we hope to find a house to buy then.

A Wonderous Birthday

2007-01-21T19:16:00.000-08:00

Ed and Sue (a friend) threw me a wonderful Birthday party. It was the best birthday I've ever had, the 50th birthday. The party was at our ballroom dance studio, and was wonderful mix of dancers and non-dancers. It was so great to eat and celebrate with so many friends, and dance (or not for those militant non-dancers). We are so lucky to have such fantastic friends. We were so shocked to find that someone had paid for the rental of the dance studio. How wonderful! I almost cried right there.

Where is our Global Warming?

2007-01-05T08:44:00.000-08:00

We have more snow on the way. Albuquerque hasn't even managed to dig out from the blizzard last week. Ed and I seem to have the only snow shovel on our street. We should have been renting it out to make the big bucks, but that isn't very neighborly.

I've been working from home so that Ed can drive the Subaru Outback to work every day. The Miata doesn't work so well in all this snow and ice. Most of the parking lots and side streets around the city have not been plowed, and are still snow covered and icy. The blizzard last week was the worst snow for over 50 years in this area. It's clear from the aftermath that Albquerque is used to only a few inches of snow, that melts off by the following day. The city only has about four snow plows. The city of Rio Rancho has none!

We are getting quite excited about our impending move. I should say "my impending move". The weather is so bad, we haven't exactly had a run of potential buyers looking at our home. Ed will stay employed, and stay here in Albuquerque until we sell this house. Then we will start looking to buy another one in Colorado Springs.

We are both excited and a little nervous. It's a big thing to sell up and move, for Ed to retire, to start a new job.

Snow Storm

2006-12-30T07:20:00.000-08:00

This is one of the worst snow storms Albuquerque has experienced for many years. We got over a foot (~1/3 meter) of snow accumulation. It snowed all day yesterday, last night and is still coming down. Forecasts are for the snow to continue until Sunday morning, when we will finally get a little sunshine.

There are currently 9000 people without power in Albuquerque alone, not to mention the surrounding areas. There are also thousands of people who were travelling through, by car or air, that are stuck here in the city. We just saw a story on TV showing all the families stuck overnight in the Walmart parking lots, since all hotel rooms are full, due to the storm. Colorado Springs has received about double the amount of snow accumulation that we have had here. Something to look forward to.

Our dog Boots, a seven year old sheltie with arthritis, simply cannot
resist playing in the snow. Boots has intermittent arthritis in his legs. The vet had us put him on a regime of glucosamine, which really makes a significant difference to his behavior. Before he started on the glucosamine, he had trouble walking the one mile (~1.6 km) around our development. After about six weeks on the drug, he struts around like a young dog. In this snow, he loves to run straight into the snow drifts, and bury his entire head. He isn't very tall, so he really has to work to get around in snow this deep. He suffers after he gets back inside, and sometimes can't even get his back legs to work well for a couple of seconds once he relaxes and warms back up. Nevertheless the lure of jumping through the white stuff is just too much for him. It's fun for us to watch him enjoy himself so much.

I know all my friends and family in Australia are figuring ways to cool off in the fierce Australian summers. Give a thought to us here in New Mexico, digging out from the Blizzard of 2006.

Caveat Emptor

2006-12-29T20:25:00.000-08:00

Caveat Emptor is Latin for "Let the buyer beware". The dictionary defines it as "the axiom or principle in commerce that the buyer alone is responsible for assessing the quality of a purchase before buying."

I have been scouring Internet real estate sites, looking at different neigborhoods in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Ed and I have been up there twice, looking at houses. We have decided to wait until we sell our current house before buying anything else. There are just too many variables to consider.

I discovered that Colorado Springs has two significant issues that any home buyer should protect themselves against. The first and most pervasive is the problem of expansive clay soils, also sometimes called bentonite soils. These soils expand and contract depending on the amount of water they contain. Some can even swell to fifteen times their dry volume.

These dangerous soils unlay many foundations in the state of Colorado, and in Colorado Springs specifically. Unless prentative measures are taken during construction, and the drainage system carefully maintained after that, severe damage to the foundation can occur. Swelling soils cause damage to thousands of homes every year. Ed and I have really become educated consumers about this issue. I am astonished at the number of realtors and current residents of the city who are ignorant of this significant danger to their homes. This is especially suprizing to me, since a home is the most expensive purchase of a lifetime for most people. See this website for a great article about this problem. We will hire a geotechnical and structural engineer to do a thorough inspection, on top of the usual home inspection before we comitt any serious money to our next home purchase.

The second issue is the presence of subterrian coal mines throughout a band running through the city. The mines are approximately 175 feet (~58 meters) below the surface . There is a phenonomon called subsidence, defined as "the loss of ground elevation, gradual or sudden". In Colorado Springs, subsidence is caused by the underground collapse of abandoned coal mines. There are 3000 or so houses in Colorado Springs built above these old coal mines. One home owner in 2004 returned home from work to find a 15 foot (~5 meter) diameter, 8 foot (~2.6 meter) deep hole in his driveway. He just barely avoided losing his car. There are maps of the coal mines, and newly educated, we won't be buying a home above a coal mine.

Of course, we need to sell our home here in Rio Rancho, New Mexico before we buy up there. Actually we've been so busy putting our house on the market, I haven't blogged for weeks. I read all those articles on the Internet about the best way to sell your house in a buyers market. So we rented a storage area, and decluttered our not very cluttered house. I interviewed realtors, and selected a nice older lady, who has a stellar sales record in the this area and was hirely recommended by our neighbors, the builder who built the house in the first place. I figured you need to interview your real estate agent, since you paying them the equivalent of a year's salary for some people. I want to get what we paying for. I also figured that builders know their own business, and could recommend the best agents.

Things are inching forward toward our move to Colorado.

Moving to Colorado Springs!

2006-12-18T20:14:00.000-08:00

This town is absolutely gorgeous. I can't wait to move there, although I'm sad to leaving friends and our lovely home in Albuquerque. Moving is not fun. We have decided to rent for at least 6 months, before jumping in to buy another home. We have to sell the one we are in first.

Visit this stunning photo for a glimpse of the environment in this town. http://www.flickr.com/photos/iceman9294/285378075/

Eating over 50

2006-12-08T08:33:00.000-08:00

I just can't believe how little food my body seems to need, now that I'm almost 50! Apparently my daily caloric requirements are approximately equal to that of black-chinned hummingbird. That translates to a stick of celery and a baby carrot a day, or I put on weight. My middle aged spread is starting to take on the dimensions of Hilter's invasion of the Sudetenland. It's a full fledged expansionist invasion. To continue with the World War II analogies, all I've managed so far in terms of confrontation of my nemesis is a diffident appeasement, with similar results. I'm losing the early part of the war.

Auntie Margaret's Funeral on Pearl Harbor Day

2006-12-07T07:31:00.000-08:00

Death in the Family:
My Aunt Margaret passed away last week. I couldn't be there to attend the funeral yesterday, but I felt there in spirit. Breast cancer has taken someone else I care about. Auntie Margaret was not a blood relative, but Joan, my cousin is. I'm reading about breast cancer risk factors at http://www.breastcancer.org/prv_all_risks_can_control.html

Many factors might affect your risk for breast cancer and other diseases. You may be able to control and modify some of these, including:

what you eat,
how much you weigh, and maintaining a healthy weight,
how much you exercise,
whether you smoke,
whether you drink alcohol and if so, how much and how frequently,
the types of chemicals in your environment, and
whether you took hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for menopausal symptoms for five years or longer

Other risk factors are genetic, due to age, and I can't control them. I do note that I have many of these risk factors. All I can do is get regular checkups. Looks like I need to lose loads of weight, stop drinking wine, and step up the amount of exercise I do. All good things that I'm finding very challenging, especially while I'm in my current job.

Pearl Harbor Day:

Have you seen National Geographic's fabulous web site commemorating Pearl Harbor? It's very much worth a visit. They have a searchable archive of survivor's stories. Being a history buff, I know there is nothing that brings a historical event to life like reading the account of an eye witness. They have included both US and Japanese unedited postings from survivors. They have posted photographs, and written paragraphs about their experiences. Some accounts have been written by the survivors children, presumably due the infirmity of old age of the eye witness. Soon we will have lost all living rememberances of this huge event in world history. http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/pearlharbor/

I got the job!

2006-11-29T07:31:00.000-08:00

The second interview went wonderfully. I got the job offer yesterday. It's much less money than I make now, but a respectable amount. This new job will be much more stable, I won't have to constantly be planning for a possible layoff. I'm going to be Dean of Math and Technology and have about lots of people to manage. There are full time faculty, adjuncts, plus staff. I'm very excited about this new opportunity.

I don't start until February 5th, 2007. I won't be resigning from my current position until mid to late January, so at work, this is one big, fat secret. With all the layoffs and downsizing, they'll have me out of there before the end of the year to help them meet their headcount reduction goals. I'm not ready to leave until I want to, late January.

The toughest part of this is that we have to move; selling our house in a down market, packing up and sorting out all of our stuff, buying another house. We have made some great connections here in Albuquerque too. It will be sad to leave, but exciting too. This will also trigger Ed retiring. Big, big changes ahead of us.

Colorado Springs is an absolutely gorgeous town. You can see Pikes Peak from pretty much anywhere in town. The US Olympic team trains there, so there are all kinds of sporting activities and support for those activities. The town is also known as a base for many evangelical christian organizations. The scenery is fabulous. http://www.experiencecoloradosprings.com

Thanksgiving Time in the USA

2006-11-22T12:06:00.000-08:00

For those of you overseas, Thanksgiving is a truely American holiday, most religious groups participate, and it is one of the biggest travel weeks of the year. It seems like everyone in the entire country is on the move to visit family. This year, Ed and I are staying home, eating vegetarian (no, we're not having tofurkey), and relaxing around our house.

We do have a lot to be thankful for this year. On my side of the family, my little niece Violet is making great progess in her physical therapy. For those who don't know, Violet is 2 1/2 years old and very severely affected by Glutaric Aciduria Type 1. Children with this disorder who were not diagnosed at birth (which unfortunately Violet was not) usually never walk or talk, or have control of their movement. Both Violet's mother, Janet, and Violet are real Aussie battlers. They both work tirelessly at her physical therapy, and because of that; she is able to eat on her own, move around in her walker, and we are even hopeful she will learn to speak a little. Every achievement Violet makes is a testiment to her parent's devotion, her hard work, and is a little miracle of sorts. I'm very proud of them all.

On Ed's side of the family, his oldest child Dale, had a case of peridcarditis serious enough that he needed an operation. The pericardium is a double walled sac that contains the heart and the roots of the great vessels. Click here to see a wonderful illustration of the pericardium. Pericardistis is imflamation fo the pericardium, which can cause fluid to build up in the sac. Excessive amounts of fluid can block the heart from beating, or compress the great vessels of the heart. Dale's case was serious enough, they had to operate. He has come through the operation well and we are very relieved.

Sunday of this holiday, I'll drive up to Colorado Springs for my second interview for dean. I'm not sure I'm willing to undergo a third interview, so I hope they make up their minds soon. I will have 'lunch' with the college president and the VP for Instruction. Wish me luck!

Second Interview

2006-11-19T08:51:00.000-08:00

Now I have a second interview with the college in Colorado Springs. I heard from the president's admin that I am one of three second interview candidates. Would I come up and have lunch with the college president? So I got my hair cut, agreed to drive up there again, and I am preparing myself for the 'lunch'. There is so much going on right now with the job that I have, it is actually quite a struggle to manage this. I have now dedicated two vacation days to this effort, for example. I hope it yields the best result for both of us. If this is not going to be a good fit for both of us, there is no way I want to do it. So think of me the Monday after Thanksgiving, November 27th, having lunch with the college president. We will both be sizing each other up.

So the interview went well, now the waiting...

2006-11-12T14:09:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in my post November 5th, I interviewed for a dean's position in Colorado Springs this past Friday. It was an 8 hour day, with tours of the campus, an interview with the college VP, an interview with the search committee, ending with an interview with the faculty. It also included a wonderful lunch at place called Cheyenne Mountain Resort. If you are ever in Colorado Springs, I recommend it. The food was excellent, but the views from the restaurant were completely stunning.

It seemed to me that the interviews went extremely well. I felt a great sense of rapport with the interview committee, and I really like the campus. They are a very well organized college, doing an excellent job with limited resources. They interviewed eight candidates out of an applicant pool in the hundreds.

Taking this job would mean a significant pay cut, but during the course of the day, I knew I would accept the position if they offered it. I wasn't completely sure about that until after the interview. They were interviewing me, and I was interviewing them (whether they realized it or not). Colorado Springs is a gorgeous city, nestled at the foot of Pikes Peak and the front range. There are fabulous mountain vistas from almost everywhere in the city. I love the city, I am impressed with the college, I liked the people I would be working with. Most importantly, I realized the position could be long term, which is a very important consideration.

We will just have to wait and see what they decide. It's out of my hands now.

Since I'm writing about looking for a job, I have included my favorite web links on this subject. There are outstanding tips on how to write a compelling resume and cover letter, and ace an interview. They are all well worth reading:

Maybe this will be one of those life changing moments for Ed and me. Only time will tell now.

A Huge Aussie Cultural Event - Melbourne Cup

2006-11-06T17:44:00.000-08:00

I had a brief conversation with my sister and mum in Perth this afternoon. I learned it is Melbourne Cup day today. This is a giant cultural event in Australia. The Melborne Cup is a thorough bred horse race, for three year olds or older. It is run at Flemington Race Course, near Melbourne in the state of Victoria. It is held traditionally on the first Tuesday in November.

The entire country stops whatever they are doing to listen to the race call. It is sometimes called the race that stops the country. I have very vivid memories of the race call being broadcast into my grade school. We all knew that every teacher and the head master had made theirs bets, and were listening with the attention that only money in the game can give.

Horse racing is so big in Australia that a horse is a national hero. The most famous race horse in Australia was named Phar Lap. The name derives from a Thai word for lightening. Phar Lap was foaled in New Zealand in 1926. Born in New Zealand, Phar Lap became an Australian hero. He is known as the greatest race horse in Australasia. He won 37 of his 51 races. He died in 1932, under suspicious circumstances while visiting the USA. To this day, some old timers will still say to me "You live in America, but they killed Phar Lap?" His stuffed body was placed in the gallery at the Melbourne museum. His heart was donated to the Anatomy Institute in Canberra, and his skeleton to a gallery in Wellington, New Zealand. There are many songs, movies and books about Phar Lap.

The Melbourne Cup is also widely acclaimed for the fashions shown off by race attendees. There are prizes and notierity for the best dressed male and female. The women wear the large hats. The race day fashions often bring as much attention as the race itself. Melbourne Cup Day is public holiday in the state of Victoria. In the year 2000, it was estimated that 80% of the adult Australian population placed a bet on the race.

I'm sure non-Aussies reading this will find it difficult to believe, so "cop a load of this" http://www.melbournecup.com.au/, the official web site of the Melbourne Cup. You'll see you can join the Phar Lap club, watch "Fashions of the Field", or just catch up on the horse race itself. Some days, I really miss Australia, but this isn't one of them!

Missing Post

2006-11-05T15:29:00.000-08:00

I wrote a post November 5th about going for an job interview. Something weird is happening with blogger, because it's disappeared and I didn't delete it. I've decided not to try to recreate it, but essentially it was bringing everyone up to speed on a job interview I have this coming Friday. I'm interviewing for a position of dean at a community college in a fairly large mountain town in Colorado. It seems like the perfect job for me, at least on paper. It would be wrenching to have to move. We really love Albuquerque, and of course, I do already have a pretty great job. I'll keep you all posted.

Carol's Ballroom Dance Shoes

2006-10-26T21:13:00.000-07:00

This is my ballroom dance shoe collection! I have 13 pairs of dance shoes, so far. 13 is a good number, since 13 is prime. The next prime number is 17, I will have to think long and hard about comitting to my next purchase.

Duke City Marathon & Taos Pueblo

2006-10-24T06:56:00.000-07:00

My friend Margaret, from Washington state, is visiting me this week. We ran the Duke City Marathon on Sunday. Margaret ran the entire marathon and I ran the half. This is the largest race in New Mexico and is held every year around this time. The day of the race was perfect weather, a little cool, sunshine without a cloud in the sky. This is the third year I have run the half marathon. The difference this year was that I did not stick to my training schedule very well. I could really feel that around mile 11, when my legs started to feel like lead weights under me.

After the race, we came home, showered and went up to Taos for the day. What a great way to end up the day. The Taos pueblo web page says the following about the site:

"Taos Pueblo is the only living Native American community designated both a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and a National Historic Landmark. The multi-storied adobe buildings have been continuously inhabited for over 1000 years. We welcome you to visit our village when you travel to northern New Mexico. "

We learned that about 150 or so people live year round inside the pueblo, living without modern conveniences like electricity and running water. Census 2000 counted 4,484 people at the pueblo. There are also families that live in modern houses outside the pueblo walls but still on pueblo lands.

The pueblo is made entirely of adobe, a mixture of sun dried clay and straw. Most of the walls are several feel thick. The roofs are supported by large timbers, called vigas. Smaller pieces of wood, called latillas, are placed next to each other on top of the vigas. The pueblo is actually individual houses, built side-by-side in layers five stories high. It's well worth the trip to the T aos pueblo web site.

Writing from Phoenix Airport

2006-10-20T18:15:00.000-07:00

I'm returning from a business trip to Portland, Oregon today. I'm sitting in the Phoenix Airport, waiting for my connecting flight back to Albuquerque. As many of you know, I am currently working for a major high tech hardware company. We are laying many, many people off and 50% of my team was cut last week. This week was the last week at the company for many, and my first and second level managers organized team events to 'say goodbye' to those leaving. It was a busy and emotional trip. Each of the two nights I was away, we went out as a team to eat dinner together for last time.

The company has announced more layoffs will come before the end of the year, and yet again before the middle of 2007. For those of us left, it does not feel like a full pardon from the president. It doesn't even feel like a repreive from the governor. It is more like an overnight delay from the warden before the inevitable.

Ed's First Interview for his personal history

2006-10-17T18:59:00.000-07:00

I am interviewing Ed about his personal and family history. It's a short podcast, a little more than 5 minutes. Click on the hyperlink to access the MPEG3 files, or click on the icon to listen to our first podcast (MPG3 5:34 minutes).

The blog is working

2006-10-16T20:27:00.000-07:00

I already love how many people we have reconnected with via the blog. Friends from Peru, a reprobate but really fun British and Canadian helicopter pilot, seldom heard from relatives. This is an incentive to keep posting. To keep this post visually interesting, I've added what I think is a nice photo showing the view from our living room. It's old, taken back in 2001, but the view hasn't changed too much since then.

We are experimenting with podcasting, and I have the bright idea to start interviewing Ed as a way to uncover clues to his family history, and to create an audio heritage scrapbook. He is reluctant. I tell him his children, and possible grandchildren will find this fascinating.

We ran through our first attempt tonight, using our first generation Dell Jukebox. It recorded in almost perfect sound quality, even if it was possible to hear the cat walking through the living room, screaming, in the background. Only then did we discover that Dell has not enabled any way to move the voice recording from the device to the computer. An Internet search confirms this. So tomorrow night, we'll start over and hopefully post the first installment of our podcast. You will only have to click to hear the 'interview'.

I am already surprized by a couple of things I learned tonight. After more than 26 years together, it feels like I know everything there is know about Ed. It isn't true, of course. I discovered new facts just in asking the 'family history' questions I have collated. He has even reluctantly agreed to discuss some of his Vietnam experiences. Ed under-estimates how interesting his stories can be. The memories of someone who went to war for 6 years, then spent the next 25 years in the helicopter business, living literally all over the world are often compelling.

I already want to purchase a really good quality, easy to use, digital recording device. There are so many of our relatives that I would love to record for posterity. So next up will be podcasting. I'm thinking 5 - 10 minutes intervals. We'll see what we end up with?

Carol and Ed's photo

2006-10-15T14:19:00.000-07:00

We use Piscasa to organize our digital photos. This one was taken a couple of years ago before some ballroom dance event we were attending. You can see a few photos we have posted for public viewing our picassa website.

Picasa is an automated, digital photo organizer. It is available free from Google. It's very easy to use and offers effects like red eye reduction, color enhancement and cropping. Photos can be organized into albums, which can be organized into collections. Images can be resized, emailed, printed or exported. You can even order photo prints with it.

Picassa web albums is a photo sharing application, like Flickr. You can get a photo too at http://picasa.google.com.

Welcome to our blog

2006-10-15T07:17:00.000-07:00

We are starting this blog primarily as a way to communicate with our family and friends around the world. It's a one to many form of communication, so not completely personal, but effective nevertheless.

It's Sunday today, the day we sleep in. We got up around 6:30 am, and made ourselves a typical New Mexico breakfast; egg burritos. We ate while watching the hundred or so balloons here for Balloon Fiesta take off and gently drift in the cool autumn air. The rainbow of colors, all slowly moving south is spectacular and somehow peaceful at the same time. Albuquerque hosts the 'worlds' largest' hot air balloon festival every year. There are about a thousand pilots and hundreds of balloons. There are balloons from all over the world. The fiesta includes special events, like mass ascentions, balloon glows and Special Shapes Rodeo and Special Shape Glowdeo. The special shapes are always a favoriate with little children. I love the the two huge balloons, made in Brazil, that look like bees. They ascend velcroed together, holding hands only to eventually drift apart. It's a great experience to take the freeway to work in the morning, driving stone cold sober, and seeing a giant pig, an enormous rubber ducky and bottle of champagne hovering over you. Where else do you get that?

Check out the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta web site: http://www.balloonfiesta.com