Fixings & Changes

Work had a summer retreat at my boss's house - the pisco i brought seemed a big hit. While leaving the bathroom (not related to the pisco), i noticed that the doorknob was a little loose, so i used my Leatherman to tighten it up. Five years ago i wouldn't have even noticed it. Fifteen years ago i would have loosened it more.

Granite

Rode a train today, saw some pretty rocks stacked on top of each other. It was kinda nice & peaceful.

Peru Montage, Take II

Ok, figuring out a simplistic spiral wasn't that tough, fit well into lunchtime:


The pattern (and the problems with the algo) becomes more apparent the smaller you go:


The images also need to be sorted better - using the mean instead of average of the pixel values should help a lot. Next time. And the time after that, maybe recognize the pattern inside each image.

Photos from Peru

Remember Christmas? I started looking through my photos from my Winter vacation.



Sure, same boring montage of the selected images as i did with the Mongolia photos. If my brain were up to it i'd montage them in a spiral fashion after some other Peruvian relics; for now the simplistic algorithm rules the night.

Either i've misplaced my photos from back in Lima or i didn't take any, who knows. Again as with the Mongolia photos, i'll get around to editing them Later.

Peru 2006

The differences are many, from the daily trash pickups, enough casinos to rival Vegas (tragamonedas - i hear the Chinese tourists especially enjoy them), walled houses/barred windows (no wonder the Dead always rise in the States, they'd never make it here), political graffiti, etc, etc. It's a little bit difficult to describe all the differences between such a foreign country and the US, sometimes so much so that it's difficult to even spot them - when i travel here i know that it is so incredibly different yet it is taxing to try to describe why.

First pass at trip photos

Here's a first pass at the photos from my Rome and Peru trips. I think i need to add one or two photos to the Peru gallery.

Rome 2004

Peru 2004

Christmas in Peru

The last Ann Arbor Christmas Eve that i remember was the night i walked around town until shortly past midnight - the streets were cold and dead. As i returned home, a car pulled up next to me and a young man inside asked me if i wanted a blowjob. Without breaking my stride, I responded, "no thank you", and continued on my way.

Christmas in Peru is a little different. The streets were still very lively when we drove home from my grandmother's house at 2am, and are still noisy as i write this. One thing latinos always do on time is Christmas; the moment the clock turns to 12am, fireworks explode (less after recent disasters led to strict fireworks laws in various countries) and hugs and presents are shared all around. The rest of the 25th is left for relaxation and recovery.

Mountains

We went to Colca Canyon, the second deepest canyon in the world. The deepest is a few hundred km away, Cotahuasi Canyon, but would take at least a day to get there, provided the road is actually passable. Colca Canyon is famous for its farmland views and the possibility of sighting the Andean Condor, one of the largest birds in the world. The drive from Lima to Chivay (in Colca Canyon) is rather nice: sandstorms, 1000m drops, winding roads with plenty of switchbacks, falling rocks, gutted dirt roads, lots of dust, steep climbs, views of altiplanos, vicuñas and the other andean dromedaries, ichu, etc, etc. Oh, supposedly the highest sand dune in the world is along that path, just outside of Nazca.

There's nothing like the air at 4000m. I'd like to own a hotel and bar up in Chivay, i bet it'll start doing very, very good business up there in a couple years.

Also close to Nazca (the place mainly famed for its lines, like the one on my arm) is a 1700 year old aqueduct, still in use. I got to crawl through part of it - it is too low to stand up in and very narrow, probably much like the tunnels the Viet Cong built during the Vietnam War. These Nazca were quite smart; one reason the aqueduct is still in use is that it uses redundant supplies of water: some coming from the closest river and some coming from the mountain springs. More redundancy is built in for the water to areate - the aqueduct itself runs underground (the area gets quite hot and dry), with entrances every few meters. These entrances are spiralled in different directions so that any way the wind blows, air will blow into the well and provide oxygen for the water.

Driving in Peru

My father paid $33 for 6.7 gallons of gas, roughly $4.90/gallon.

Driving here is worse than Rome, which is worse than Boston, which is worse than New York. About 5% of the vehicles here don't use their lights at night. Lanes and lights are suggestions. There are three methods of letting people know they are about to hit you: flashing your lights, creating sound (horn or other variet of squeals, yelps, twirly noises), and swerving in their direction. There aren't many bikes or motos, not like Rome or Phnom Penh or Amsterdam. Some parts of town have covered trikes, like the tuk-tuks in Bangkok, but they are forbidden from travelling in other parts. For the most part people go in the right direction down the road, not like Cambodia. The roads are severely torn up in spots, watch out for people swerving to avoid those. Buses are plentiful, all sizes, and apparently random (read the sign in front, and know your map). Most of the cars are sedan or smaller, not as small as Rome, some pickup trucks and fewer SUV's. There are many, many taxis on the roads, more than anywhere i've seen.

Vacation Time

Supposedly i've been on vacation since Wednesday, yet i've logged almost as many work hours as i have vacation hours. I don't mind - i enjoy my work and it keeps my mind someplace where i feel i'm doing something halfway worthwhile.

In the hours that i don't work, i get to read. Tonight i also visited and ate with my abuelita at her house, along with my father and uncle. We then went over to see one of my aunt's - she recently opened an internet shop in her garage, a nice little place with 10 computers set up for use. In 6 hours my mother arrives in town and in around 12 we head for Arequipa, and, eventually, the world's second deepest canyon and then the deepest canyon, if i can convince them of it. The air at 4000m; i'm looking forward to it.

Arrived in Lima

Flew to Lima earlier today.

I checked my mail from the Dallas airport and saw that one of my more important servers had crashed (it also came back up ok, total downtime of maybe 20 minutes, if even). Is it a coincidence that i also happened to be reading about the H.F. Harlow "the Nature of Love" study - the one which determined that creatures need the physical proximity of a comfortable figure in order to work properly?

I was the last person through immigration, and arrived at my father's place around 3:15am. I logged into my machine at WCC and have been working ever since. This is my vacation!

I've reached the point in my sleep deprivation pattern where i am feeling wavy as my mind starts to black out every now and then. Time to pull over to the side of the road and run around a bit, that should buy me another hour of driving time (or another good near-death story).