Jan & Steve's México Report #8 March 4, 2005
ONE-HUNDRED AND ONE WEEKS
Yet, another reason why I love this country!
My local film processing-magazine and newspaper-Cuban cigar-and anything else shop had a box of "Clean Inside" fiber bars for sale. How could I resist? I mean, it has "linseed oil, from Canada!" If that, combined with fiber, doesn't clean your insides, what will?
In my last Mexico report, I mentioned our microwave breaking because of power surges. Well, we have been loosing power in the apartment building a lot lately. My computer is on a battery backup, but the stereo system in my home office is plugged directly into the outlet in the wall. I was making lunch one day, when I the lights flickered and I heard the battery backup system for my computer beeping. By the time I ran from the kitchen to my office, my stereo receiver was smoking!
Now, I'm not an electrical engineer or anything, so I looked up "receiver is smoking" in the owner's manual. It wasn't listed under troubleshooting, so I assume the unit is beyond my capacity to repair. However, I am tempted to send the stereo off with the guys who fixed our microwave. Who knows how powerful it would be, when it returned?
The last three months have been very interesting for us, down here in Mexico. We ended last year with a family visit to Chicago for Christmas, and then we returned to Mexico, in time to celebrate my birthday in Puerto Vallarta. This is where Jan & I spent our honeymoon, nearly FIFTEEN years ago. The town has really grown. Jan & I thought we were going to the end of the earth 15 years ago, and who'd have thought then, that we would be able to drive home from Puerto Vallarta someday!
We spent our time in Puerto Vallarta with Lupita and Sal, and their two boys, and let's see, two more of their cousins and one family friend. I was in good company, hanging around with five young men, aged 17-20. Except that, they don't like to get dirty! We rented 4-wheel ATV's "motos" on my birthday, and they all avoided the puddles. Not me! By the time we stopped for lunch, the only place left clean on my entire body was where Jan's arms crossed the front of my t-shirt.
We celebrated the new year on an island off the coast of Puerto Vallarta. The island uses torches and candles for light. We ate by candle light, and then followed torches down a path, to watch a dance performance. Then down to the beach to dance in the surf and ring in the new year by a large bonfire! My kind of party!
See: http://www.stevefilipiak.com/mexico/Puerto_Vallarta/index.html
For those of you who don't know, I left iExplore in January of this year. In 1999, when I joined the company, I was told that I would be a millionaire in a "year or two." Well, I was more than patient. I worked for the company for over five years, and never became a millionaire. So, I left. ;-)
I am taking some courses at DePaul University, through the Internet, with a plan to enter their graduate program in Human/Computer Interaction later this year. I also had hopes of getting really good, at doing nothing. This isn't easy for me, because every time I try to do nothing, I always end up doing something. I mean, there is always something interesting to do. And, as we all know, something is not nothing.
My dreams of nothingness crashed and burned in February, a mere four weeks after leaving iExplore, when a friend recommended that I put together a quote for developing a website for a U.S. government aid organization. I was awarded the project. However, we are still going through some governmental red tape before I can start.
In January, I received a strange phone call from a woman who said something about how she liked the photos on my personal website. Jan translated the rest of the conversation for me. This woman was USING photos from my website in a publication for the Mexican government without asking, and wanted to offer me some small payment. Susana stopped by our apartment the following week to show me how she used my photos in the book she had created.
Over tequila, she asked if I was interested in photographing the next meeting of the governors of Mexico's 31 states. I agreed, and a week later, Jan took a day off work to accompany me on a seven-hour drive to Zacatecas, a town northwest of Mexico City. As we checked into our hotel, the man behind the counter told us that the governor of Colima's plane crashed on the way to the meeting! Due to the governor's death, the entire conference was cancelled!
The following morning, we met with Maestro Rolando Garcia Martinez, from the organization of Mexican governors. He informed us that they would still pay me for my time, but they wanted more photos of the area around Zacatecas. He invited me to photograph the next conference in a town called Aguascalientes (hot waters) and proceeded to tell me about future conferences, which are held in a different Mexican state, roughly every other month. If this works out, it could be a dream job!
As we left the meeting with el Maestro, it began to rain. The rain became worse, and the winds grew so strong that they had to stop running the cute, photogenic, cable car that takes tourists up to "La Buffa," the little mountain on the edge of the city. Then, it got cold, so cold that you could see your breath. This made everyone in my photos look as if they were in Chicago, or some other cold northern city.
Here I was, on my first big photo shoot, and the weather was killing me. While standing in the rain, I started to notice the reflection of buildings and lights in the rain puddles. Thanks to that observation and a very water-resistant wife with the patience of a SAINT. I was able to take a number of good photos. It didn't stop raining until Sunday morning. Of course. So we stopped at a couple of small towns on the way home, so I could get a few photos of people who looked warm!
See: http://www.stevefilipiak.com/CONAGO/
Thanks for reading
Jan & Steve