I'm procrastinating on three separate projects as I type this!

I guess tomorrow I really am going to have make myself get started on these things (some of which are in progress). Today with the news of my aunt's surgery, it's no use-- I'm not gonig to get anything done today.

Your place sounds great.

file an extension!

quote:

Originally posted by piqué:
file an extension!

The whole notion of an extension has always annoyed me and I've never done it, simply because you have to already have an idea where you stand and pay then when you file for more time, so why bother? Seems the work to get that estimate is better spent on actually doing the damned things.

(Apologies to Elena for derailing her thread with the most disgusting topic possible.)

I just proved to myself the folly of filing for an extention, by doing my state and Federal (long form, with profit or loss from sole proprietership, self-employment, etc.) Took about an hour. Wrote the checks and dropped them at the post office. So I can get back to reading and posting guiltlessly.

But to get this thing back on topic, do those Cubans have to pay income tax, Elena? If not, I'd say their revolution was for a very good cause indeed.

One other point, about that deforestation of Cuba--I read a long time back that Fidel had brought that about in the mid-60s with his initiative to cover the island with sugar, with the intention of cornering that market, only to find much of that land not well-suited to that purpose, so the devastation ended up serving no good purpose at all while costing Cuba a lot of its natural beauty. Tragic incompetence, really.

SAVE THIS THREAD!

Wrote that first to make it easier for the technostuds or whomever, when they go over this batch's content to decide what's immortal (and should be preserved).

This was fantastic Elena, including Rick CG's fascinating hijack which is also worthy. YOU DID YOUR TAXES IN ONE FRIGGIN HOUR YOU SLIMEBALL??? (Still recovering from encounter with H & R Block which cost me WAY excessive, even though I had every needed scrap of paper with me for a change - at the cost of a sleepless night. And they still have to amend it because of at least one error I picked up first thing )

Only found myself wishing more photos had the IDs marked or clearly noted. (eg., not having recognized him from the baby pic , which one of those Antioch students was your relation? They all have interesting faces most of which could have been kin).

quote:

Originally posted by ChickGrand:
I crowded the cliff edge while the truck crowded the rock wall so we could inch past. The alternative was one of us reversing about 15 miles. I didn't get out and look, but I'd bet my righthand tires were barely on the road.

They put in a guardrail now.

Google Street View

Short sections of it have had guardrail for some decades. But I could never quite decide what their criteria were for which spots should have it as pretty much any of it one might fall off of promised something slightly fatal.

One of my most vivid memories of childhood was one time as a child when we were on a family vacation out west, high in mountains on ill-kempt two-lane. We came upon a spot where a rockslide had taken out one lane and there was no rail on the drop-off side. I remember sitting there stopped for a good half hour having a family conference about whether the family station wagon was going around the next bend or not, with my father saying it'd be "fine" and my mother quite animated insisting not. My mother allowed the munchkin vote from the back seat and we turned around. I think it took the rest of a day to get where we were headed by an alternate route. Spoiled interstate system babies don't know what an adventure it used to be.

the trip on which i met mr. pique, i had to travel a road like that. the valley where he lived was so incredibly remote, the owner of the ski outfitting business who was running the trip i was assigned to cover and i spent a good hour on the phone trying to figure out how i would get there.

the nearest airport was a four hour drive, meaning he'd have to drive eight hours to pick me up. the drive from missoula was 7 hours, through completely uninhabited terrain, around hairpin turns and blind curves, and involved traversing roads that were only one lane wide, had no guardrails, along cliffs that plunged more than a thousand feet into a river canyon, and were regularly taken out by mudslides and avalanches.

the ski outfitter was pretty sure the worst of the recent mudslides had been cleared off this road, so it was decided i would drive. as usual i got a late start, and i was never so terrified driving as i was on that one-lane road, without a guardrail, driving in the middle of the night.

sure enough, i got to a spot in the road where it was almost completely blocked by a mudslide. there was no one around at all, and no way to turn around--i would have had to have backed up around hairpin curves in the dark. uh-uh.

fortunately the car i was driving had four wheel drive and i muscled it up and over and through the mudslide.

i cursed and swore i would never again drive this absolutely terrifying road.

then i met mr. pique.

suffice it to say i ended up driving that road more times that i care to count.

quote:

Originally posted by Matt G.:
Google Street View

Interesting seeing it from that view. Disorienting really and a bit vertigo inducing.

I'll dodder into my old age at the end of that red arrow in the house on the cliff.

That largish white rectangle centered in the village is the old mission church. It's not actually a rectangle. The white bits north of it are part of the structure, including the belltower and main chapel.

The house includes the outbuildings, a barn currently used as a garage and the ruins, which run south. The land is bounded by the cliffs and the road to the east to that little point on the south end.

That's the Pecos to the west down in the valley and the trees to the northwest on the valley floor are a communal orchard. Foodcrops are grown communally on the fields to the east (lower right). The aquaduct hugs the edge of the cliff right at its base, carved out of solid stone, making it pretty much indiscernable in the image (mostly it's hidden in the shadow of the cliff).

I uploaded this video. We intended to do a video documentary of the trip but for some reason it runs out as soon as we get to my mother's house. I think we ran out of battery on the video camera and forgot to bring the charger.

I think it less interesting than the photos because it is all closeups of my parents, talking about where they lived, etc. My dad does mention an interesting anecdote of US military yet again disrespecting local culture!

If someone knows how I can change the aspect ratio it loaded at on Youtube please let me know because the image is condensed at the moment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmXBRqqpQaY

Lucky I posted those pics earlier. My computer crashed a few days later and I have had to get a new computer. I have the info saved in Canada so I will be getting it back, but not right now!