When the local authorities tell me to jump, like the good non-citizen that I am, I say, “How high?” Yesterday, that meant an eight-and-a-half-kilometer walk in the rain. And in a first for me, I got to experience the “joy” of wading through the flooded streets of the St. James neighborhood in Calapacuan. Take a look and see for yourself:
And the painted ponies go up and down
We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
Just goes to prove I’d rather walk (and wade) in the rain than sit on my ass day after day. I wouldn’t call it fun, but it was better than nothing.
We made the trek into town later in the day and enjoyed the ambiance at Sloppy Joe’s. I had planned to climb the stairs to BarCelona but discovered it is now closed. The sign said “temporary,” but my sources tell me otherwise. There’s just not enough customers to go around these days. We did our nightcap at Green Room and spread some love in the form of cookies, lollipops, and lady drinks. We ordered take-out from Sit-n-Bull and headed home at the end of another rainy night.
From the LTG archives, memories of visiting a Buddhist Temple on Oahu in April 2010.
In today’s YouTube video, Reekay reveals the hard truth about love, friendship, and betrayal. It all comes down to knowing who your friends are, I suppose.
The humor is a dry and mild as ever:
That’s all I’ve got to share for now. Still pouring down rain as I write this.
More to come tomorrow. Rain and a post.
Here’s a belated song in honor of the passing of Ozzie Osborne.
She had gone to her flooded family compound
How flooded is flooded? Do they need more help than just food?
Mentioned it to an expat in the bar that night, and he laughed. “Hope you have a boat!”
But now that you’re a seasoned veteran of the area, you know all the high and low points, I’d guess.
A bad time to be setting up a carnival.
All sorts of safety-related alarms going off in my head.
Confirmed: Jesus wasn’t among us.
I don’t even know why you bother with umbrellas.
A temporary escape.
Not slick with algae, I hope.
This place floods every year. That’s probably why it’s abandoned.
What genius decided to build there?
I had planned to climb the stairs to BarCelona but discovered it is now closed. The sign said “temporary,” but my sources tell me otherwise. There’s just not enough customers to go around these days.
The retirement community is shrinking. And I guess the tourists are staying away, too.
Reekay reveals the hard truth about love, friendship, and betrayal.
When he talks about women, he’s basically talking about a form of the sunk-cost fallacy and how to avoid it.
It was actually coming down sideways, but my photography skills were insufficient to capture that view.
If you can adjust your shutter speed, you might catch the droplets. Make it faster. The downside is that you won’t let in as much light.
Here’s a belated song in honor of the passing of Ozzie Osborne.
The man’s been effectively dead for decades. His body finally caught up to his soul. I gave Ozzie my usual ululate! tribute.
Kev, as I understand it, the compound is now lakeside living. The water has invaded one of the residences, and Swan invited those relatives to take refuge in our basement today.
I know most of the local streets that can’t handle a heavy rain. But seeing St. James underwater on the Wednesday Walk was a surprise.
Yeah, that was my first thought when I saw the carnival rides: built to Philippines safety standards. No thank you!
What genius decided to build there?
Welcome to the Philippines. Sense isn’t common here.
There’s been a lower than normal number of tourists this year, and most of the old fart expats aren’t willing to climb the three flights of stairs to get to BarCelona. I asked the building owner about putting in one of those small outside elevators. He said too expensive and unreliable.
New tricks with the camera are inconsistent with my status as an old dog.
I was never much of an Ozzie/Black Sabbath fan, but I’ll give him credit for being a pioneer and bucking 70s music trends to form his own heavy metal genre.
[Second attempt. Please delete previous comment.]
New tricks with the camera are inconsistent with my status as an old dog.
I get that it’s easier to be lazy than to learn something new, but if you have an Android, I don’t think changing the shutter speed is that difficult. It takes only a half-calorie of energy. Here: I’ll do your work for you and spell it out.
1. Turn on your camera.
2. At the bottom of the camera’s screen, look on the menu for a clickable link or button that says “More.” Click it.
3. Another menu pops up. Look for “Pro.” Click that.
4. At the bottom of the screen, there’s a new menu that you can slide with your finger. Find the link/button that says “Speed.” (It may already show what your current shutter speed is.) Tap it. To photograph raindrops, select a faster shutter speed than you’re currently at. If you’re already at 1/250 (i.e., 1/250 of a second), for example, adjust the speed to something like 1/1000 or 1/1500 for a faster shutter. Try snapping some raindrop shots. If the image is still too blurry, adjust the shutter to a faster speed (1/2000, 1/10,000). If the snapped image is too dark, use your camera tools to adjust the pic’s brightness. Don’t adjust too far, or it’ll make the image too fuzzy/grainy.
Good luck! Practice the faster shutter speed by having Swan spit a fountain of water out of her mouth while you photograph the water and/or her. Do it in bright light if possible, but if it’s a cloudy day, adjust the image’s brightness as I mentioned above. I might try some raindrop photography myself. But it hasn’t been windy enough, lately, for sideways raindrops.
While you wait, there’s this from two years ago.
Kev, I followed your instructions to the letter and everything happened just the way you said it would. Thanks for the lesson! Now, I’ll wait for the opportunity to experiment. Oddly enough, it stopped raining now. What is nature trying to hide from my camera?