Roads and Stuff

(Begun Feb. 24, 2017)

Well, I have had a month- or- longer siege of computer trouble.  I think things have settled down, finally, but all kinds of little strange things keep happening.   Sometimes I am my own technician, and sometimes I can find someone to help.  There are a couple pretty experienced tech-types in this area, but they can be hard to catch up to, since they are in demand!   I'm actually learning a lot of things about how a computer system operates
  Poring back through my photos to see what I haven't gotten posted for the last couple months, it seems like there's quite a lot of "road photos."  Maybe because I have been moving around a little more frequently of late.  When I'm "out and around,"  odd little things keep catching my attention, and sometimes I have the camera handy.  But I have also managed to get a few things done here at home, and I suppose a few photos of those projects will pop into place here.

Grocery stores keep the same sort of things near the checkout lines here, as they do everywhere, I guess.  But I saw something "different" recently:

When I am thinking "Kit Kat Candy Bar," I am not thinking 

"green tea!"  But that's the flavor indicated on the wrapper, here.

I wasn't curious enough to try one out, but I "just had to" get a

photo, maybe for evidence that such a thing exists. I'd also

never seen seaweed flavored Pringles chips, or ginko biloba as

an ingredient in a coffee-mix packet, until I got to the Philippines.

(the Pringles and the coffee, posted in early BLOGs.)

Fortunately, these folks usually know how to put chocolate
where there should BE chocolate!  Quite a few American candy
bars are imported here,  and you can get a Snickers or Hershey
for (what seems like) a little less than double the retail price

in the USA.  BUT lots of other nationalities of sweets are
here, too, and this "BLACK chocolate" is close in "type" to
Hershey Special Dark.  Seems like it's from Japan.  Mmmm!

These large papayas were in our outside kitchen one morning,

so I got a photo with a coffee mug for size reference.  Papaya

is eaten at all stages of ripeness here; frequently cut up green

and put in stir-fried vegetable and stew- like combinations, or

allowed to ripen and eaten as fruit. It is not BAD to me, as a

fruit, but it seems kind of like under-flavored cantaloupe, so 

just not very worthwhile. 

                                             

Side note: I have been learning how to use the stem/"crown" end or the peeling of green papaya to tenderize meat; the local beef is not the same "breed" as what we're familiar

with from U.S. grocery, but the papaya works fine to soften it.  Beef here sells now for about $2.00 per pound, and if you are early enough to market, (before the whole "critter" is cut up into stew meat)  you choose any cut you want.  Pork: $1.60 per pound, sometimes a little tough, too - you never quite KNOW if it is a "confinement hog" from a "piggery" (more tender, but antibiotic-fed) or a "backyard" hog (sometimes older and tougher).  

Burger King opened a store in Iloilo a few months ago, and 

so for TWO trips down there, it has been my lunch stop.

There are pretty good Philippine burger and other fast-food

restaurant chains, but B- K- Iloilo has kept their menu all

original "American" as far as I can tell,  Seems like "home."

Sometimes I ride the bus on errand-trips to Culasi, about 15

miles north of Tibiao.  It's cheaper than driving if I'm by

myself, and I enjoy watching how bus and van drivers cope

with driving situations here.  This particular morning I was

barely out at the highway for 5 minutes before one of the BIG

Ceres Liners came along.  Ceres uses a medium/ compact bus

size about 28 feet long for most of its regular runs, but a few

of these 40- footers are showing up now - - the size of the largest

charter-tour buses you see in the USA.  A/C and wi-fi - - yeah!

  

He was having to get through some really tight streets as

we passed through "Tibiao Proper," the main downtown

area which has a half-square-mile of businesses and

substantial large homes.  

Many of the streets have been closed to through traffic 

with various detours (sometimes conflicting!) since early

November.  This nice side-street would only have taken

him to the "Main Street," Rizal Ave.,  which was "under
repair" and  dug  up so no traffic could pass there. 

(LINK, "Tibiao proper" area map)

Rizal Ave.,  coming from the Highway towards Tibiao Proper

was all fixed up with nice concrete for about 200 yards, a

couple years ago.   A slightly longer section remained un-

finished up to the area around the plaza, and what was
left of the old Asphalt pavement reminded me of some

of the photos I remember seeing of roads near Fallujah

and Islamabad during various wars. REALLY BIG holes
are everywhere, and the camera can't show the "tapestry
backside" texture of all the ruts and  potholes in between.

 In November, one-half width of Rizal Ave.  was dug out for
a length of 3 blocks, preparatory to re-paving.  This is why
the bus (and all other "thru traffic") was detoured one or two
streets east on a parallel route.  But so far, There is no sign
of any new road-base, or rolling, or pavement.  This one-
lane section has been in use for several months now, to
access places immediately adjacent.

The delay in the project - (Feb. 24) still pretty much as you see it
here in photos from around Thanksgiving - seems to be caused 

by trouble with equipment, as this track-hoe has not moved

since a couple weeks before I took the photo.  It is REALLY

hard to get things done in this area, a lot of the time.  Parts

for equipment, and other resources, seem to just not "be there"

when needed.   Everybody is looking forward to this project

being finished, but nobody seems to know when it will happen.  

Meanwhile, we stay busy around the house - -

One frequent activity here is Alex sharpening handsaws by
vise-clamping them and using a triangular file.  Quite a few
people prefer to have their sharpening done by him.

Our "poultry yard" is separated about 30 feet, behind our house-lot.

(The land in-between is a "complicated story" but will remain "no

man's land.") We have a pretty good selection of several types of

chickens and ducks there, plus a cement-block storage building

(we have lots of sacked rice after harvest, plus tools and "misc.").

Using the table saw near the house and "patio"-kitchen was

causing too much noise, dust, and debris.   So we planned

a "simple" roof/ shed to move saw operation back to the 

poultry yard area. 

Early stages of construction: re-bar fabrication, forming and

pouring cement piers and posts, and  fabricating/ welding the

trusses went pretty smoothly.  The storage building is at the

east end of the poultry yard, and I am standing about 1/2 of

the way to the west fence as I take the photo.
(Detailed postings about construction process, here, are in a
number of earlier postings 2013 - 2016.  Archive "navigation"
appears at the upper right of this page.)

Once the roof was fairly complete, my "advisers" all said

that the table saw and other tools would need to be in a

secured area.  So, we decided to build cement-block "half-

walls," and enclose above them with re-bar and chain-link.

This photo from the front of the storage building gives a

little perspective on how  the new saw-shed, extended to

the left side, fits in the space.  

We needed a better electricity supply to run heavy tools,

so one "sub-project" was tying into the service panel with

over 100-feet of wire-run.  We ran wire to our water- tank

tower at a point about 13 feet above ground, and "dropped"

across the no-man's-land to the top of one of our new

posts, about 10 feet above-ground.  We had to be a little

creative to be sure the wire will not slip or loosen; this

"wrap around plus clamp" system seems pretty secure.

Compare this to the "simple roof/ shed" I had thought to  make!
Few things EVER stay "simple." This is from about the same

point of view as 4 photos above. 

Nearly-completed side-wall.  We had to make two "low places"

with removable panels in the side- walls, so that longer-than-

9 foot  boards have enough space to run through the saw.

Other improvements are gradually appearing, too.  This

"stainless steel basin"  lighting fixture is like the ones we

made for the patio- project last year.  The wooden adapter
rings are turned true-round and smooth with the aid of
an electric drill clamped in a vise (= a temporary lathe).

Two of them provide LOTS of light just where we needed it,

  - - using only 3- watt LED bulbs.   I got to try out the "heated
sand" method of bending plastic pipe smoothly for the "arms"
they hang on - - BOY! that works so quick and easy, and
produces nice results (if I DO say so).  Idea c/o YouTube.

 Eggs are sold "per each" here, not by- the- dozen.  There
are no egg cartons here, though perhaps in large groceries
in the "big city."  So they often come home from the market
in a plastic sack.  "Spontaneous omelet" was a pretty frequent
side- dish for us.  Egg prices vary from about 11-  to 15- cents
(US price), or about $1.30 to $1.80 per dozen.  Bernadette
buys them from time to time when our "flock" is sitting on
their eggs, or for large food-preparation projects.

In January, I found plastic egg cartons in a department store
for 49 pesos = $1.00.  They hold 10, not 12.  But what a
great improvement!  Bernadette takes them to market, and
their return- contents come home in in egg-zactly the same
condition they were bought.

A recent day trip to San Jose yielded a handful of photos:

A slogan I noticed on the back of  a jeepney would seem

right at home somewhere in the USA.

The banner upstairs in a department store is a Chinese New

Year theme-decoration.

 

Just beyond the banner, half- a- truckload of fake-Chinese

souvenir figurines - - WHO BUYS ALL THIS STUFF, anyway?

We stopped for some Acacia tree photos on our return trip that day.

 This tree had been DOWN in the main national highway for
nearly 3 weeks, the day of this photo.  One lane had been
cleared fairly soon, for traffic to pass.  Its size is hard to see
from the perspective of this photo.

The size of the worker gives an idea of the size of the tree!

Its diameter is more than 5- feet, and the trunk and major

branches would have extended over 50 feet tall.  Equipment 

large enough to move the "monster" is pretty uncommon

here, so it is taken away one- slab- at- a- time.  A lot of

valuable wood will come from the  project.

50 yards away, the vehicle parked beside a MUCH smaller tree-
about 3- feet diameter - provides some idea of what the BIG one
might have looked like.

BELOW is a file-photo, University of Antique campus,  from 2013:

Note the people in the photo, (in front of the building) for

scale!  The tree trunk is more than 6- feet in diameter.  TWO

of the largest USA semi-trailer trucks could park nose-to-

nose, under its 140- foot spread, and be plenty well in the

shade. Some scholars think that "Gopher wood" referred to

for Noah's Ark,  was Acacia wood. 

Well, that's a fair roundup of what's been happening lately.  As I look through photos, I STILL see two or three "topical" series that I haven't found room to post yet.  And I think I "went kind of long" on this posting, though I haven't scrolled back up and counted them yet.

We live our days one- at- a- time, and usually we find something worthwhile to do.  We hope that will be true for each of you, too.   Have a great day!

TJ and Bernadette Larson

Antique Province, Philippines

(Finished, Feb. 28, 2017)