those gorgeous clouds and more

I have been packing like crazy..... I am down to those tiny little nonsense things that mean nothing to others, but to you they mean the world, and hold so many memories... of places seen and things done. I have too many of them already, and building even more all the time. I've already missed one deadline.... suitcases all too heavy, folding bike in a box too dam big and too dam heavy.

things seen recently on the streets when I can break away from the nightmare of packing...

thoughts and more

I've been driving around a lot, trying to see as much as I can before I leave to live in my spanish apartment next year. In the past weeks I've driven to Big Sur, wound my way to gorgeous Fremont Peak State Park, and have a lot of weekend trips planned for the months to come. I can now even say I went to the Gilroy Garlic Festival and though it seems more like a commercial convention that just happened to have garlic stuff on grassy dusty fields, it was enjoyable up to a point. I've seen a lot, more than I ever have of my home state, but I want to see even more before I depart.... Yet another long week in Eugene next month gets me some more funds to add to my "get Tony to Spain" pot, and have extended the trip a few days so I can see some places in the Northwest that I never was able to see while living there. These little trips are memorable aside from the images I am capturing, and something I will remember long after my SF experience is forgotten.

The departure dates next year aren't set in stone yet but it can be as early as early spring or as late as mid-September. It all depends if I am able to sell my car and how long I need to wait till it's sold. Though I'll have a LOT of work in my apt, at least I'll be home finally and no more trips.

My Spain return will be so strange since first having a car in the late 70s, to be planning to be somewhere ~ anywhere ~ without a car! I've decided from my San Francisco experience to just rent cars when needed since I walk a lot and take the bus - public transportation is so much reasonable and reliable in Europe than it can ever be here. Plus the transport companies don't insult and yell at you as they do here.

While I am happy to get back to my own place, it leaves a lot of projects unfinished. Living with my sister has helped me - and I hope she feels I have helped her also - but it has left me with a giant repair bill in my spanish apt. I'll be busy for months! At least my apt will finally get finished to how I wanted it from when I first moved in, plus I have a few ideas and personal projects I'll begin in the hopes of moving air around in my apt, to prevent the huge heat problem I have during the summers. This year my little town has been hitting 90s and 100s on a regular basis for some weeks, something that has never happened while I was there 15 years till the very last two years prior to departing ~ I guess the sad reality of global warming is striking home.

My departure plans have also changed; I originally planned to bus to the East Coast and stay with friends before I fly out but as a traveler of the very mean and dangerous Greyhound buses (crazee drivers and corporate Greyhound doesn't care), plus the pleasure of being within ghetto bus stations in this grand country, I've decided not to subject myself to that demeaning dangerous and last ugly look at America - I want my last weeks to be nice and positive.... thanks Greyhound for opening my eyes to your careless drivers and sloppy operations, though if not for those dirty windows, I would've never seen a section of americana that I only see and hear about on CNNi and the evening news.

I am now hoping to fly out of California on a "comfortable" cargo plane to the East Coast, then make my way somehow across that big pond to Spain. It won't be an easy nor reliable journey, but I've done it before and one last roller-coaster ride (hopefully) won't hurt!I need an out, an escape from this unreal virtual world... I'm dying each traffic jam at a time, and it's draining everything out of me. I'm only happy when I am on the road, but being on the road isn't so wonderful any longer. I need to fly... escape out of this mess... and live my own life alone. No more false lies about happiness in the future, no more dreams of being happy anywhere with anyone.

The faces that turn to grab you and lie are everywhere... I just want something static, alive, real and one way: unchanging. I need to just GO!!

gas prices in Spain and more

....while in the passenger seat of a friend's car - unusual place for me to be - we stopped to buy gas and I decided to snap a pix of the gas prices in this part of Andalucia. While this might even look cheap after the exchange rate is considered, remember this is the price per liter! when I lived in Spain, the prices were much different and I was paying up to 60€ per liter to fill my tank. Also remember that here the diesel (gasoleo A) is cheaper than unleaded and what everyone is buying these days. My old car while i lived here was also a diesel..... but it had great tubro power and I really loved passing sedans up steep hills/mountains even when my car was loaded down with heavy furniture in the back!!
I joked with friends upon my arrival in Spain about how green everything looked. Again on the bus I noticed how unnatural Andalucia appeared in such vivid colors ~ I told my spanish friends that while on the bus it looked so unreal that I thought I had hopped on the wrong bus and was headed north to Galicia instead of Andalucia. Galicia - in the NW region of Spain - is similar to our northwest in that it rains.... and rains, and rains even more. As a result, everything there is very green!!

The pictures above are both taken with my cell camera - I've just posted my last pictures if you care to see them.

I'm back on the road again as I start my travels to return to San Francisco. I can't believe how quickly this month lasted, or didn't last. It all went by so quickly!! The last three days were spent cleaning, packing and re-boxing stuff, almost all at the same time, and the apartment was so clean as I left this morning. Though it rained throughout my stay, I enjoy the rain and the cool pleasure it brings to me. I love seeing storm clouds over the Bay of Cadiz also, and there were certainly a lot of those. Tomorrow morning I get my final ride to the Sevilla airport and start those flights back to the states......

2 hours to copy four gigs

oops!! Make that three hours!! I finally broke down and yesterday purchased a 500gig external hard drive. Gosh ~ I remember when 500megs cost almost a thousand dollars alone!!!! In trying to manage my image files, I have run out of room everywhere! On my desktop's 160gig HD, I don't have too many corners still available... I had purchased a 350gig external HD in Spain before departing in 2006 and that is now filled, though I have frantically been trying to burn off the files during the last few weeks and months - with little success as each week I shoot more, adding to my backlog and worklist.

Last night it took four hours to format the new HD, then after a reboot it took another three hours to partition it to make organizing the files better and easier. As I type this, I am moving the files slowly over to the 500giger from the 350gig HD, and to move 4gigs it's taking an average of three hours.... grrrr

Luckily, while last weekend attending the opening exhibit at my friend's gallery collectively Grasp when she introduced me to a musical website where you can hear your style of music, all the while remembering your likes and dislikes, then searches for more music that fit your musical likes so you only hear the type of music you enjoy, and those similar. I love it.... The other day I listened to about five hours of flamenco guitar music which I really love, and makes me miss Spain even more. Right now I'm listening to Dido-type music while moving these massive files and am enjoying with immense pleasure the tunes of these different artists with a similar style, many whom I've never known by name but by their music.

Once I get everything moved to the new external HD, I'll format the other external and partition that also, something I've been trying to do but not really, since I have over 280gigs of images on there and I didn't want to risk losing them in the case something happen during the partitioning process....

Suuuuure, all this should keep me again in front of the monitor for about a month at the very least!!!

In the meanwhile, my eyes and vision continue to slowly improve as they heal... I've driven a few times at night now and am happy I can see better in dim light where I am not uncomfortable driving blindly into the darkness as it was that situation previously. I often like to look around ~ for example while stopped at a red light ~ and see distant billboards, buildings etc, to test my vision and how I couldn't see something clearly last week, and now can. I can clearly see 18'x24' billboards a block away well, and other lettering farther as well. "Seeing" is to define the act of seeing sharp focused edges, define the lettering, the message and sharp lines; and the ability to see low-contrast colors as opposed to brighter colors.

Hey!!! Only two and a half hours remaining on the copying to the new HD!!!!

Just a picture captured while around the city as Halloween nears; snapped with my Motorola RZR cell phone camera...