so much to ponder...: April 2009

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Documentary is a synonym for Life Sucking Creative Project.

I love watching documentaries... especially ones about interesting people whom have overcome amazing challenges in their lives. Here are a few I recommend.

America Movie:
This is a documentary about a guy who will stop at nothing to get his horror film made. This is the perfect example of self determination... and its so dang funny.
(Skip to 25 seconds into the YouTube video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7N2Jz1en4w

My Flesh and Blood:
This is a documentary about a year in the life of a woman who has adopted around 11 special needs kids. Its such a great documentary to see the love and outlook on life that these kids have despite their horrible disabilities and deformities. Very cute.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDIhXB5c0cA

Mad Hot Ballroom
I love thinking like a kid sometimes, so I love documentaries based around kids. This is the perfect documentary about pre-pubescent girl-boy interactions. And what better way to address these issues than by making them dance with each other. A great doc about a NYC after school ballroom dance competition.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLtWi1DXmKQ

These documentaries last about an hour and a half. But the audience never realizes that these documentaries took at least a year or more to create, shoot, and edit. The art of film making is a long and tiring process. Documentary is even more tiring due to its independent nature, small crews and lack of a large audience.

I took a documentary class in the fall of 2007 and realized the pain and struggle of making a documentary first hand. Although the final piece was only 10 minutes, myself, the others, and especially Molly Smith collectively spent over a hundred hours of our free time to shoot this documentary. We drove to Georgia, Miami, slept on floors, slept on couches, slept in cars, sacrificed time with friends, logged and organized every word recorded, and edited till our eyes and ears bled. But in the end, we created a magnificent documentary.

Although I finished this documentary over a year ago, I am finally uploading it for the world to see. I would like you guys to watch this when you have a free 10 minutes and tell me what you think. I am very proud of this documentary, and even more proud of Molly for finding this story and sacrificing so much of her time to tell it. And I am very proud of Ray Bellamy...

This is a documentary about Ray Bellamy, the first black football player to play for a major university in the South - The University of Miami. Not only did he overcome adversity on the field, but also challenged diversity in the classroom. This doc brings me to tears every time. I'm not sure if its because it was such a big part of my life for a semester or if its because of Ray's story.

I hope you guys enjoy.

"A People Thing"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV3vq6hlffg

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Isla de la Poopa

AN OLDER POST FROM MY FACEBOOK NOTES

Isla de la Poopa

Tuesday, July 29, 2008 at 4:25pm

On Tuesday of this last week I spent 12 hours in Puerto Lopez. It was a quick trip and I actually spent more time on the bus there and back then I did at the beach. 20 hours on bus, 12 hours on the beach. I had only a few days to see Ecuador and thats all the amount of time I had to see the beach.

The beach was cool but I can see beaches anytime in Florida, so I wasn't too excited about the beach. I was mainly there to see 2 things...

1. I got to see Isla de la Plata...

Isla de la Plata means "Island of Silver" in Spanish because of its white cliffs. You can see the white cliffs in this picture.

The tour guide says the cliffs are white because of the massive bird population. And what do birds like to do?
Poop.
The tour guide told us that the cliffs were white because of bird poop. At first, I wasn't sure if he had translated his English correctly. However, after a second and third questioning, he affirmed that the cliffs were white because of the birds' feces.

However, I am still not sure if this is true or not... so I may need to do some fact checking. You would think the poop would run away after a rain. Right?

Isla de la Plata is considered "The Poor Man's Galapogos" due to its population of exotic birds...
Like the Blue Footed Boobies. Seen below...

Also, there are another kid of Booby, seen here...

They are called the Nazca Booby. When nesting, they like to make a white ring around themselves (for some reason). You would think the ring is made of something natural like sand or chalk or White-Out. But its not. Its made of their own poo. They are a lot like my little sister Bethany when she was 12 years old... they have a common interest in playing with their poo.

Here is where the tour guide says the Sea Lions are...

Do you see them?
No?
Well, neither could I....
Its because they aren't there. I think the tour guide was lying to us when he said the island had Sea Lions...

2. The second thing I went to Puerto Lopez to see was...
THE WHALES!
Whales in Spanish is Ballenas.

Here is a picture of me and one of the whales...

Actually, this is the best picture I got of a whale.

Sorry the picture of the whales looks like one of those UFO sightings... the kind where the UFO actually looks like a spec of dust on the camera lens. The whales never got too close to the boat. They were always about 100 feet away or more. But, a few times they did poke their heads out of the water. However, I was never quick enough to get a good pic. I think the whales never got too close to the boat because of this kid...

This poor kid was blowing chunks off the side of the boat the whole trip. And if you were a whale, would you want to get close to vomit?
I wouldn't. Poor kid. Poor whales.

Here is a pic of my meal, while I was eating dinner by the beach & reminiscing.

Well, my trip to Puerto Lopez was quick, but fulfilling.

P.S. - The original title for this note was going to be "Boobies & Ballenas!!!" But after thinking about it... I thought it was too middle-school boyish... Now I am more mature than that.

What kind of movies do Pirates like?

AN OLDER POST FROM MY FACEBOOK NOTES

What kind of movies do Pirates like?

Friday, July 25, 2008 at 12:07am

Movies about Pirates... duh.
Like this one...

Oh yeah... Pirates like Arrghh-rated movies, too.

Or this one for the kids...

Since I have been in Quito, I have become quite the pirate.
In Quito, on just about every street corner, there is a store full of pirated DVDs. Now some stores are more professional than others. Some actually make the DVD cases look legit and cover the DVDs with designs so that the DVDs look like the actual.

However, some do not go to such great lengths. Some DVD cases are just photocopies from the movie's website. And the DVDs are just white, blank DVD-R disks.
But what do you expect for $2?

But I think I have become addicted to buying pirated DVDs. This is my collection so far...

Yes, that was High School Musical.
No, it wasn't for me.
It was for Brandon Wade because he opened my eyes to the miracle that is High School Musical 1. However, this copy was a defect. The movie worked fine but all the words were behind by like 3 seconds. And you know, I cannot sing along unless my lips are insync with Zac Efron's.
But what do you expect for $2?
So I returned it for another movie.

Now, some of you may be wondering... pirated DVDs... didn't Metallica or someone like that tell me that was wrong? Well you are correct. Pirated DVDs are TECHNICALLY illegal.

BUT! The congress of Ecuador are making pirated DVDs and CDs legal for the sake of the poor. So many people in Ecuador make a living off of selling Pirated DVDs. So instead of shutting down these businesses and putting these people in jail. They are going fix the problem by making it legal... makes sense, right?
So TECHNICALLY it won't be illegal in about 2 months, so I don't have a guilty conscience.

However, I did get a guilty conscience after I bought "Que Tan Lejos" for $2.

"Qué tan lejos" translates to:
"How much further?" in English
or
"Are we there yet?" in Annoying little kid

"Que tan lejos" is a great independently-made film about 3 people on a road trip through Ecuador. Two girls, strangers, are on the same bus headed from Quito to Cuenca. One (named Tristeza) is trying to stop her lover from marrying someone he doesn't love. (I think I like the movie because I have a crush on her. I am a sucker for hippie Latino girls. However, this changed when I saw her in the Bonus section of the DVD where she had a uni-brow in an interview. A little too hippie for me.) The other (named Esperanza) is from Spain traveling through Ecuador. A third man joins them (his name is Jesus... it made me feel really guilty for buying the pirated movie... WWJD :-/ ). But its a great movie if you want to see what Ecuador is like - the mountains, kids selling chiclets, Quito, Cuenca, la playa, late buses, famous Spanish singers, and Liga... haha.

Here is a link to the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNnzrllQlzQ

After watching it, I felt like the Independent Film Gods were going to strike me dead.

To make up for it, I am going to have you guys buy the legit DVD for me! Haha.
Here is a link to the website where you can buy it for $20.
http://www.medulafilms.com/siloin/

Actually, I am going to buy it when I get back to the states (because its next to impossible to find a legitimate DVD store in Quito... haha).
But you should buy it to support Independent Film in Ecuador.

Que Lindo, Mindo

Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 9:39pm

I love the challenge of thinking of some cheasy, somewhat catchy title for my posts... "Que Lindo, Mindo" means "How Pretty, Mindo"... and it rhymes if you didn't notice. I should be an Ad Exec, like Mel Gibson in "What Women Want".

Anyways... Mindo...
Mindo can be describes in two words...
Mariposas... aka Butterflies

Cascadas... aka Waterfalls

However, the waterfalls at Mindo were more like this...

After a 10 minute truck-bed ride, we reached the top.

We had to cross a big chasm to get to the waterfalls.
It looked a lot like this one:

Well, actually like this one:

It was a pretty canopy top to look at from the basket on a string that carried us from one side to the other.
Here is Katrien (my Belgium friend, one of 3 of us) in the basket.

We had to walk for quite awhile...
Jenny (my French friend) wasn't the happiest about the long walk.

Here I am telling the girls, "Don't eat that! It will kill you in 30 seconds."

I know a lot about poisonous plants of South America. I wasn't a cub scout for nothing. Plus, I like to tell girls what to do. Liberal, atheist foreign chicks love it when guys tell them what to do.

We also had to cross a river by rope...

Okay, not really. There was just a random rope in the path.

We walked for about 25 minutes before we reached the first waterfall.

We had to cross a bridge to see the waterfall really well.

Once again, Ecuadorians don't care about the safety of their tourists. At some parts there were big gaps in the walkway.

I was proud of myself (quite prideful) for not falling or slipping on the way down to the waterfall (one of the persons in our group fell - it was quite funny). However, when I decided I wanted a picture of me on the rock with the fountain in the background, I slipped.

I hate a wet sock & shoe.

Luckily my backpack was on or I would have really hurt my head on the way down.

Then we headed to the next waterfall. It was really big and had a spot for swimming. So I decided to make my way towards the swimming hole.

Here I am not sure if I want to dive in. It was pretty dang cold.

Here I am having trouble breathing in the water because it was so DANG cold.
I was only in the water for about 15 seconds. I had my full of Ecuadorian waterfall swimming adventures.

I was exhausted after a long day of walking and swimming.

Peak-a-boo with Cotopaxi

Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 6:12pm

(Note: I wrote this note about a week ago and I didn't even realize the pun in my own title until just now (peak-a-boo & mountain peaks). Even my subconscious is cheasy... I'm hopeless).

About 2 weeks ago, I went to see Cotopaxi - the world's highest continuously active volcano. It erupts about every 15 minutes.
We were lucky enough to get this picture when we were there.

Haha... just kidding. It erupts more like every 15 years... which is still pretty active. But it is one of the most symmetrical volcanoes.

However, when we visited it, it was behind clouds for most of the time.

The family and I drove up as high as our car could take us and stopped to walk. We then walked up the slope for about 15 minutes before we decided that none of us had the lungs to reach the snow.

However, as we were walking down to the car, we were blessed with a few snow flurries.

Hmmm... taste good.

And finally, Cotopaxi peaked its peak through the clouds.
We were able to take a few pictures of Cotopaxi's peak.

¡Que symmetrical!

And since we weren't able to reach the snow peak, we found a little patch of dirty snow by the edge of the road. Nicky was determined to have a snow fight. Kids.

See the snow ball flying at the camera!?

And I joined in on the action.

By the end, everyone was throwing snow balls.

What great fun

Household pets... Que Rico!

AN OLDER POST FROM MY FACEBOOK NOTES

House-hold pets... ¡que rico!

Monday, July 21, 2008 at 6:18pm

This weekend I ate one of the following house-hold pets.
Guess which one.
a) Dog

b) Cat

c) Goldfish

Goldfish... not baby.

d) Guinea Pig

If you guessed Guinea Pig, then you are CORRECT!

The "Abuelos" said I had to try Guinea Pig before I left Ecuador, so they were kind enough to treat me to a nice lunch this Sunday.

In Ecuador (and some other South American countries), Guinea Pig, cooked, is known as Cuy. Its cooked over coals like Rotisserie.

Then served WHOLE.

Wanting to get the full Ecuadorian experience, I tried it. It wasn't that bad. It was kind of hard to get a big bite of meat because its muscles are so small. So I had to pick and search quite hard. In the end, it was a pleasurable experience. And no, it doesn't taste like chicken. It tastes more like the "Turkey Legs" you get from Disney world (that are actually Emu legs).

THEN... they took me to see the Virgin of Quito... aka Virgen de El Panecillo.

It was built on a hill in Quito, so it can be seen from miles away.

From the top, you can see lots of Quito.

¡Que Lindo!

She looked very pretty that day.

Here I am with the Virgin.

I had to do the obligatory tourist-copying-the-statue picture.

THEN... they took me to the top of a hill in Quito, called Cima de la Libertad.
Here is where the military has a museum called the Templo de la Patria.