Saturday, October 3, 2009

Dreaming of a hot summer (not here)

Sept 24th: The time has come. I just purchased my ticket to return to Spain and brings both joy and sadness… JOY that I’ll be back in my apartment in hot southern Spain… but alone again, taking care of what is mine and again in the company of sincere friends. On the other hand, it also brings to me yet another close to my time in the states after being away over a decade. To be in my hometown and living my second “childhood”, doing things here as an adult… things and experiences I had never had as a child nor as a teen. So this stage closes and with a date to fly out of here, I now begin my serious cleaning out of my stuff and determining what I can take with me, what I can’t and mail, and what gets trashed.

Of course, just the act of buying a ticket presented its problems too: I discovered a one-way ticket is much more expensive than a round-trip… so I opted for the return. Actually this helps me a lot as I have many things I’d hate to mail to myself as they are just too heavy: hundreds of CDs containing my virtual negatives, Spanish books and of course, my cameras. Amazingly the round-trip fare is $200 less than what I paid for my last January trip to Spain, and helps to save money for the many projects I have to complete and with the dollar dropping yet again as usual against the euro, my lousy dollars won’t buy me the many things needed once I am home again. I was hoping the new administration would bolster the dollar against the euro but that hope was short-lived.

I’ve been away so long I lost my Spanish residency and will need to re-apply, plus I will have to search for a reliable reasonably-priced internet provider. I also have a few ideas to build a fan supply and exhaust system to remove the high summer heat from my apartment, so I’ll certainly be busy. I have a small extra bedroom that I need to clear out to make it a real guest room, and then to repaint the walls. I’ll be buying the latest and greatest Canon EOS camera also, so many things are up in the air….. sigh

I need to sell my car before that departure, or to have a power of attorney for someone to sell in my name after that date. Anyone wanto to buy my nice red car and give it a loving home?

I am still embarking on weekend trips to see as much as possible, while combining a model or other paid shoot during the trip. Last weekend I drove to southern California (foreign territory to me) and enjoyed seeing some of the sights.As usual, the “paid shoots” did not materialize, so I just relaxed and enjoyed the visiting friends instead. I was close to the amazingly gorgeous colors of the Red Rocks Canyon State Park and saw the most colorful and beautiful rock formations. I also visited Edwards AFB to and enjoyed the static aircraft displays there and around the area, plus I even saw the space shuttle before it left early Sunday morning to the East Coast.

In my cleaning out of my stuff the other day I discovered one of my old trouser belts last wore while in Spain over three years ago…. even without the buckle attached, the two ends didn’t even meet with a difference of about five inches!! Wow!!! What a shock as I have never in my previous life been so “wide”. Cannot wait to return “home” to so I can start adjusting to my real life, and lose all these “souvenirs” from the USA…. Waliking everyday which doesn’t happen at all here will quickly – hopefully – trim those pounds off me.

Sept 27th: I know realize that as my travel plans change, my scheduled packing of boxes to be sent to Spain must change also. First, I have too many CDs full of images… estimated to be over 220 and growing. I have now decided to move all of the images off these CDs and most recently DVDs, to my three external hard drives (eHDs). I have one of 300 available gigs with an remaining 15gigs containing all of my “recent” files and images starting in late 2006 as I prepared to depart Spain, and to now three years later. I have another 400+ available gigs in a myBook hard drive which is filling up quickly, partitioned into four separate sectors to store various images under different themes beginning in 2000 when I first went digital to early 2006. Today (29 September) I’ve just purchased a 500gig Passport Elite and will start filling that with images starting with 2010 imagery.

On the other hand, I have made a few trips recently and am always most content to get away from the intense ongoing computer work that seems to be never-ending. But the stark reality is that every time I create newer images it just adds to the never-ending workload. How’s sitting in front of the monitor copying pictures off CDs with the computer being ON all day and night for a few 37hours sound to you?