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)

Christmas 2016/ New Year 2017

(Started on Thursday, Dec. 29)

Well, things just aren't going to slow down!  So I'd better just do the best I can and get SOMETHING put together. I had thought that I'd get the several weeks after mid-November all "blogged" about two weeks ago, and then run another "special" for Christmas and New Year season.  Meanwhile several "road trips" and projects plus lots of meetings and music-work have kept me pretty well occupied. So we will START with some Christmas things, and then jump back to around Thanksgiving, and work our way through whatever will FIT into an average-length Blog posting.

"Christmas Letter" / "Annual Report"


(AND JUST IN THE MIDDLE OF TYPING THAT THE ELECTRICITY WENT OFF.  ELECTRICITY HAS BEEN PRETTY DEPENDABLE LATELY - by Philippine standards - NOW, about 30 minutes later, I am ready to continue, GLAD that it was restored pretty quickly, but I can hear from the electric-fan speed that we are having  some up & down "surges" in current.)

NOW, where was I when the lights went out?  Oh, yeah - - "Christmas Letter" etc.,  I will fill in a few details as I go along here but most of what would make up an OFFICIAL CHRISTMAS LETTER is covered in the last several Blog Postings, so please navigate to them using the list at the right of this page, if you are particularly interested in reviewing.  THANKS!!

Christmas and Seasonal Stuff: 

Decorations seemed kind of sparse around this area this year.  But in the last week or so I have been in the "right place at the right time" a few times it seems.

Walking past the Barangay** Hall on Dec. 25, Christmas afternoon,

I noticed the star up in the balcony opening, which it seems I had

NOT noticed in driving past there which I do several times per week.

It being the ONLY decoration is one reason I view things as "sparse"

this year.  However, closer inspection revealed some interesting

details about this particular star.

Did you EVER wonder "What do you do with a Mountain Dew,

when the Mountain Dew is done?"  WELL, I had NOT wondered!

But someone else apparently DID wonder, and it appears to me

that this entire construction is from 2 sizes and colors of 

Mountain Dew bottles (There IS an "orange" Mt. Dew, here).

What a "tour de force" in creativity!  

**SIDE NOTE - - RE: "Barangay," above:  This is the word for "neighborhood" here. 

(There are FOUR levels of governance that I observe in the Philippines:  National, Provincial, Municipal, and Barangay.  The first two you are perhaps familiar with; Municipal is typically one prominent city, but usually with enough "ground around it" to be like a county in the USA. BARANGAY  ("ba-RON-guy") is the immediate neighborhood of a few thousand with the equivalent of a "mayor" and "council members" of various functions.  They use local-language names for those positions, but the setup is pretty similar.)

On the same Christmas Day walk I noticed these bloomin' 

Mimosa trees, on the opposite side of the highway.  MOST of

the USA would not expect to see such, on Dec. 25.  At

about 5 p.m., it was cool enough to walk for a little while.

At times when there is full sunlight here, I sit in the shade!
Our temperatures remain in the mid-80s F., daytime.

I don't get out much, at night-time here.  There's not much going on, so there's no point in leaving the house.  Things are reasonably secure as to safety, but "ya never know" what could happen, anywhere in this world.    HOWEVER, our one-day-turnaround "road trip" to ILOILO*** ran pretty late,so we were traveling the last 2 hours after sunset.  Bugasong, about 25 miles south of Tibiao, turns out to have had a contest among their barangays to create decorative lighted structures in their main plaza.  I stopped and took a few photos that evening, and we took Timmie down there by bus the following evening to see it all - so I got a few more photos.  Seems like the contest "theme" was famous landmarks of the world.

 

From a little distance, the sheer amount and variety of the

lights created a "phenomenon" for our area here "in the

provincial backwoods."

Statue of Liberty, 

"Big Ben"

"Eiffel Tower"

"Leaning Tower of Pisa"

and "Brandenburg Gate"

were among the featured works, 

among a dozen others.

This tricycle-taxi with many L.E.D. lights was in
the roadway as we prepared to leave the  plaza.

Christmas is "done" a little differently in this area, than in the USA.  I think in the larger cities and among the more affluent ones here, it begins to resemble Western-style.  But mostly things are pretty simple, with perhaps a little bit of "special" cooking.  NEW YEAR's EVE and NEW YEARs DAY, and ALL SAINTS' DAY and CHINESE NEW YEAR all seem to have equal-or-more observance  than Christmas.  I noticed that all the "small vendors" were open as usual on Christmas Day this year.  I THINK they will all be closed for a day or two around New Years, but I guess I'll see when the Day is here.

***Mention of the Iloilo one-day turnaround trip, above, reminds me to mention the reason for that quick trip.  The display- screen of the Yamaha Electronic Keyboard had gradually been darkening, one horizontal line at a time.  The control system of the instrument is many- layers- of- menu- screens which select things like the "voices and sounds" of the instrument, and complex operations like recording and overlaying pieces of music into arrangements.  Without the display screen working, it is pretty much impossible to do more than the simplest of "real-time" playing, and even that becomes difficult to select and control.  I was able to order a replacement screen from the USA, and it arrived many months later via our annual "care package" box with many other items, on Dec. 18.  So, on Dec. 20, by pre-arrangement with the technician, we went to Iloilo to have the new screen installed.   A 14-hour travelling + errands day.

As you see, the repair was successful.  "Before," on the left, had gotten worse with nearly half the screen darkened in bold horizontal blackouts.  "After," so far in two weeks' time, is looking just fine.   I'm grateful to have it working again!! 

I THINK I'm going to try putting the rest of items in chronological order, beginning from where I left off in the previous posting, which was a week or so before Thanksgiving.

This is ALMOST the complete group that I met on Nov. 25 at

the Kalibo Airport.  Seems like two were still collecting baggage.

(Map Link Tibiao to Kalibo area)  The distance to Kalibo is about

80 or 90 miles, and required around 2.5 hours driving.

All of these Manila folks were "Philippines Large" (130

pounds and up) except for Alex's daughter YeYe, who

was more typical for our area,5 feet tall and perhaps 85-

90 pounds.Eventually all were "shoe-horned" into place,

5 in the cargo bed and  4 in the back seat.

Aklan Province, Kalibo's location, is noticeably more-trees

and less- grass-and-brush on its hillsides.  They have

been more proactive in controlling tree-cutting, and

the results show, after a generation or so.

The crest of the mountainous section north of Pandan is the

boundary between Aklan and Antique provinces.  We stopped

there  for about 10 minutes, on a weekday, between noon and

1:00 p.m., and only 2 motorcycles and one truck passed us

in that length of time.  This is the main National Highway, and

I suppose that the usage is heavier at the beginning and

ending of daylight hours. 

These cut- and-eroded bluffs were near the provincial boundary,
and their interesting appearance prompted a shutter-click.

Sometime during that day's travel I encountered this sign, and
my first impression was that it was made to use up all the left
over and "extra" letters from the sign making kit.  After
studying the photo several times, I have discovered the actual
WORDS there: "Kalibo/ Numancia Bdry. 42 Km."   Maybe it's
just that "letters are cheap, signboard metal is dear?"  

Gathered around the lunch table, about 2:30 p.m., still missing a

couple "bodies" from the photo.  The reason these folks had

a few extra days off is that most of them work for a customer-

service call center, and their clients are mostly USA.  So they

were "free" on Thanksgiving weekend!

A little later, Pumpkin Pie made quite a "hit" with everybody.

Smallish green-skinned pumpkin-squash is common here,

but usually prepared in a "stir-fry" with other vegetables. So

this was something a little bit "new" to try out.


We all walked beside the sea for a while around sunset.  I
imagine it was a real treat for them to NOT be in a congested/
crowded mega-city area.  It was nice to have a pretty sunset, too.

(This is where I got interrupted on Dec. 29th.  Now Jan. 3, I hope to finish the blog and get it posted.)

 (Miscellaneous photos)

This "western style" fishing vessel was moored several hundred
yards north of where I usually walk, probably a couple days after
Thanksgiving.  The ones of these that I have gotten closer to seem
to be about 60- to 75- feet in length.  I think they must pose fairly
significant competition to paddled and/ or motorized "canoes"
which are generally less than 20- feet long.   

NOT a UFO!  This is an end-view of a boat, the category  which I
call "giant canoe."  These are 30- to 40- feet in length, but with
the narrow-hull common to canoe construction, and the "outriggers"
I see on both sides of every canoe here, for stability. These are often
large enough to have a shelter mid-ship, and are powered (likely)
with adapted automotive diesel engines.  There were about
eight of these moored like an armada off the Malabor beach
one afternoon, but I didn't manage any photos that day.

I happened to see this jackfruit cut up for vending, so I

took  a quick photo.  Before, I had no sliced- jackfruit photo

on-file, for some reason.  This particular one is the size of

a smallish watermelon.  They can grow to 50 or 60 POUNDS!

The flesh, when chunked and stir fried, has a neutral to slightly-

sweet flavor, with texture a little chewy like pineapple.  Mostly

it and the seeds are cubed and added to other food.  Those

seeds are often the size-shape-taste of water-chestnut, and I

have some plans to try cooking and "flour making" with them.

(link: Wiki "Jackfruit" article)

(Returning to "Thanksgiving")

In a Thanksgiving festival, this little guy was a real "live wire" as he got into the dance-presentation that his siblings and cousins were doing.  The whole "troupe" is to the right here.

ALWAYS more projects.

Wind and weather had stripped all the "nipa" palm-roofing off

our water-drum tower, in only about 6 months.  Earlier roofing

had lasted two to three years;  It is getting harder for the "makers"

to find quality materials as demand increases. The price of the

"nipa" has also gotten much closer to the price of metal roofing.

The bamboo framing of the drums-shelter was pretty well worn

out, so we milled some hardwood slabs into new frame pieces.

By late afternoon the structure was replaced, and covered with pieces of re-used galvanized-metal roof we had saved from other "upgrade" projects.

 Several weeks later, I'm still occasionally working on

the float-operated Water Level Gage.  It is an option

that I successfully completed in 2013, but it is finicky to

keep adjusted and accurate.  We fill the tanks almost

every day, so this isn't crucial to have, but working

with it provides a level of perversity and challenge

that is a sort of "fun."

One of my "perennial perplexities" has been keeping an old-style

wall clock operating here.  It came from my younger brother

Danny's "estate" about 18 years ago.  While in Kentucky it kept

nearly perfect time with very little effort or adjustment.  Here

in the Philippines it has been cranky and capricious since the

first year or so.  I finally removed the "works" and soaked it

in clean kerosene for a couple days, then blew gently with

compressed air, then operated it for a week or so out of the

case, while liberally applying solvent-lubricants like WD-40.  

This is a Korean-made reproduction clock from the 1980s, a

pretty common item in the "clock world" apparently.  It seems

to run nearly perfectly on- time now - I'm still "tweaking" after

several weeks.    This bears "a STRIKING resemblance" to one

clock owned by our grandparents, which is probably why

Danny got it.  

We pass this prominent house en route to and from
our San Jose errands; it's about 30 miles south of
our place at Tibiao.  Last month I finally took a couple
minutes to stop for photos.  Located on the east
side of the National Highway, it looks westward
across the roadway - - -

to this panorama of ocean and islands.  What a
view!

Well, I'm a long way from being out of photos from the last few weeks.  But it seems like I've gone "long" again on this posting.

Today is Jan. 3, 2017.  The weekend was busy, and

already it is Tuesday!  A little after 7 a.m. the stream

of kids returning to school had thinned out a lot, from a

solid moving mass 30 minutes earlier.  Now around

10:30 a.m. it seems like the sun is out to stay, and

maybe some of the outside projects can be moved

along.  We are beginning a modest roofed-over area

which will help to get the table-saw and large-work

projects away from the front of the property - to spare

us the dust and mess near the house!  Should take

a week or so to finish.

Bernadette had the camera handy a few evenings ago
and snapped a couple photos of Timmie.  He is 2.5 years
old now, and is the "lowest maintenance" person his age
I've ever seen.  He plays with his own "stuff" without
constant monitoring, doesn't get into much other stuff, seldom
whines (I've never seen anything close to a tantrum), and
is counting fairly well and just on the verge of reading simple
words from watching educational cartoons.  His "peeese,
gampaw!" is really cute when he wants to watch
such things on the laptop computer.

Well, we hope that your 2017 is off to a good start.  I will try to get some of the yet-unposted photos up, in a few weeks.  Meanwhile, have a great rest-of-the-week, and our best wishes and thoughts go towards your "aims and hopes" for 2017!

Tim and Bernadette Larson

Tibiao, Antique, Philippines

(Finished!  about 3 p.m. on Wed., Jan 4.)