yard work

Posted on October 30, 2007 by Ryan

It is a perfect day to work on the yard. I just cut the grass, watered the trees and plants, and planted a new bougainvillea (Rasberry Ice!). We have two types of bougainvillea in the yard, 3 bushes and 1 vine. I prefer the bushes to the vine as the vine, though able to grow up without support, grows too far up (10+ feet). As such, I have to frequently cut the vine which eliminates the flowers as they tend to blossom at the top of the plant. The 3 bush bougainvilleas have grown enormously this year probably due to some serious fertilization. Here is a picture of one:

And here is a picture of the Rasberry Ice Bougainvillea I planted today:

We are hoping to cover our entire west wall with bougainvillea, so perhaps I will visit the nursery later today to see what I can find. I had a difficult time finding the one above as it seems the vines are much more popular. I like this one though because of the multi-colored leaves. It’s also slightly a different color flower, so the contrast will be nice. I’d like to plant some red and orange ones as well.

Below are some photos of some Cosmos I planted a month or so ago which are coming in really nicely. Cosmos is a neat flower that I have yet to successfully grow (this may the first). I read Vishal Mangalwadi’s biography of William Carey the other day. Carey was a pioneer missionary to India with a plethora of interests; such as social, political theory, education, and he was a passionate botanist. I am not familiar with which eschatological paradigm he subscribed to (I’m pretty sure what he subscribes to now though), but I suspect he deviated from his theological tradition given his passion with things like social reformation and botanical dominion.

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I received my long underwear in the mail last night! Yunuen and I have been preparing for our upcoming trip more than we have prepared for the previous trips this year. Due in part I’m sure to being much more excited about this trip. I ordered, and hope to have before our departure, a sweet tripod and remote control for my camera. I think I might order a book today to read on the plane. I am just finishing Anselm’s Proslogian.

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cigarsintl.com

Posted on October 23, 2007 by Ryan

Cigars International has become one of my favorite places to visit online! They are running some killer deals lately. I have a friend at work that keeps a box of Kahlua coronas (among others) in his office of which we partake of as frequently a time permits. My brother-in-law has recently given me some Cuban Montecristos, a box of Ejecutivos (hecho en Vera Cruz y MUY raro!), and some other treats (including a Te Amo which I am going to try in a few minutes).

Brian and his wife Laurel came over for dinner last Wednesday, which was very nice. I smoked one of my Brazilians (Dona Flor) that Ben brought be back from Brazil a few months back. It was quite nice. Brian smoked one of my favorite Peruvians (Senor de Sipan) of which I have a few left.

Oh yea!

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Matt and Dana’s House in Dublin

Posted on October 23, 2007 by Ryan

This is where we will be staying in a few weeks!

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we got the time off!

Posted on October 10, 2007 by Ryan

 

Yun and I were really pleased to find out this week that we were able to get a couple weeks off in November to visit Matt and Dana in Dublin. We bought our tickets last night after hours of online research. It was disappointing to see the prices go up substantially since the last time we looked a couple days ago. We usually use expedia (usually the worst), travelocity, cheaptickets, cheapotickets, travelzoo, etc; but this time we found the best deal on orbitz.

We spent the rest of the night yesterday trying to forumlate some travel ideas once we get there. RyanAir is ridiculously cheap to fly to remote places in Europe, but the reviews are rather scary as the service is apparently horrible. Even so, here are some of the places we’d like to go:

Preference Number 1:

Preference Number 1 also looks nice in Winter:


Preference Number 2 looks interesting, particularly as the village is protected by a Medieval fortification:

Preference Number 3 is a place we have wanted to go for quite some time – it is also the lowest cost destination from Dublin we have found thus far! The Apostle Paul has been to this place a few thousand years back:

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watermellon!

Posted on October 10, 2007 by Ryan

We didn’t do much with the garden this year – just the watermellons. I’m not exactly sure what type of watermellons these are, but they are fairly small, round, and extremely tasty! I really had no idea when they were done growing or prime for picking, particularly as I had no idea what the expected size was to be; however, I pulled a few the other day. They pulled off rather easy and I had read somewhere that this was an indication they were ready. We were really pleased with how well they turned out.

 

 

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felicidades en la familia

Posted on October 10, 2007 by Ryan

We have celebrated a couple birthdays recently – Yun’s father’s in Mexico and Gabriel’s at our house. Both of which were celebrated with excellent food! We had molé for one and carne asada for the other. These both, along with chiles rellenos, are my favorite meals these days. Unfortunately our busy schedules do not allow for us to enjoy them as much as we would like. We are having Dave and Vivi over for carne asada tonight!
Below is Yun’s father enduring the horrible tradition of smashing the b-day person’s face in the cake.

Apparently the cake was very good – I never got piece myself.

I did get to parkate of the dinner though!

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Herf-a-Dor!!

Posted on September 25, 2007 by Ryan

I got home last night around midnight to find a package with my name on it sitting on the kitchen table. I didn’t recall a recent purchase online, so I figured it was probably a new cell phone or something like this for Yun’s brothers (they order phones to our house with some regularity). To my surprise, I opened the box to find one of the sweetest and most essential items for proper cigar transport: a Herf-a-Dor!

I love getting gifts, especially things I really wanted. A HUGE thanks to Matt of the Mcreynolds clan of Rathmines for this treasure. I will definitely be loading this fellow up prior to our visit, Lord willing, in November. I will be able to put it to immediate use at tonight’s board meeting.

Liam, Yun, and I went to Ben and Lis’ house for rum-laced ice-cream on Sunday where we made plans to head to San Carlos in October. I’m not sure if I will be able to get the time off – but it would be quite nice to take this trip. We found some really nice places to snorkle on our last trip there, so with the possibility of Liam going this time, we could do SCUBA instead. We also talked about going back to the White Mountains in January. It would be a great opportunity to see and enjoy some snow!

I spent hours this morning cutting/trimming our mesquite tree in the front yard. That thing grows at a rather rapid pace, so this is a frequent responsibility (normally prompted by threats from our home owner’s association).

The grass in the back yard is coming in quite nicely and there are only a few bare spots presently. Yun and I have been spending a significant amount of time of late pulling weeds back there. That seems to be a perpetual task with this house, especially during and after the monsoons.

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Garden 2007

Posted on September 11, 2007 by Ryan

We’re back in Tucson now which is nice because it is so hot here! I worked on the yard all day today – mostly on the weeds that seem to never stop populating around the house. I also mowed the grass which is coming along quite nicely. We have a perennial bermuda and I will seed an annual rye in a few months so we’ll have grass throughout the winter as well.

I didn’t do much with the garden this year. I started growing a few watermellon plants at work and then earlier in the year transplanted them into the garden. For months nothing really happened and I just figured that I had planted them at a bad time and that it would yield no fruit. Then, what seemed out of no where, I found 5 good sized mellons growing a few weeks back. The photo below is from today. I have no idea how to tell when they are ready to eat.

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back to Cuzco….

Posted on September 6, 2007 by Ryan

We caught the train early this morning from Aguascalientes to Ollantaytambo where we caught a local bus to Cuzco. It is a really beautiful train trip through the Andes at a very high altitude – we saw lots of snow. It was really neat seeing small villages of remote Peru.

We arrived in Cuzco early enough to catch a good meal and find a nice place to stay (where I am using their computer at the moment). I have learned to negotiate the price of everything and we´re paying about half the normal rate where we are presently staying. We bought a lot of nice things from the market today, including the sweet Alpaca sweater I am presently wearing along with a sweet new hat for my collection.

As we are getting a bit tired of Peruvian food (it all tastes the same to me and it isnt spicey!), we went out for fire cooked pizza. It was really good. After that we went to a second floor pub overlooking the main square. It was especially nice because of the wood burning fire (its really cold here!).

It was neat to finally get an update this evening from Matt and Dana in Dublin. It appears all is going well with them now and apparently they were waiting in the welfare line today…? Not sure what that´s all about, but we´re assuming they´re on welfare or something like this…

Risa

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Aguascalientes, Peru

Posted on September 4, 2007 by Ryan

We arrived at Aguascalientes last night around 10pm from Ollantaytambo by train. As it was night, we couldn´t see much. The market in Pisac was really nice to visit yesterday, as were the ruins of Urubamba. We did an enroumous amount of hiking and I took hundreds of photos. Our guide explained how the Incan fortifications were destroyed by the Spaniards upon their conquest. We ended our tour yesterday in Ollantaytambo which also had a massive amount of Incan ruins and terraces. Their architecture was quite amazing. We spent 4 hour in the town and then caught the train to Aguascalientes. We had the cheapest tickets on the train, but it wasn´t so bad. We met a young guy named James from England, a student of Chinese at Cambridge who has been traveling throughout South America for the last few months. He had many interesting stories to share – he has been robbed twice (both in Quito).

When we got to Aguascalientes we immediately arrived at out hostal and then went to bed as we were exhausted and had to get up early this morning at 4.45am. We had initiall yintended to hike to Machu Picchu from our hostal, but decided against it (I was way too tired), so we decided to take the bus for 18 soles. We were quite glad that we chose this option as the hike is incredibly difficult (we hiked to our hostal from Machu Picchu). We arrived at MP very early and found it absolutely amazing (especially at this hour with the rising sun and clouds). Pictures are insufficient to describe the majesty and splendor of this place – it is absolutely amazing. We spent hours touring the ruins and learning about the place and Incan culture.

We really enjoyed Machu Picchu and it was clearly the highlite of this trip. The hike back to our hostal was brutal, particularly since we hadnt eaten all day (it was too early to find anything when we left), and it is a LONG hike. To compound the difficulty, it started pouring rain a few kilometers from our destination, so we arrived soaked with no way to dry our clothes. When we returned to our hostal – we fell asleep exhausted for over 4 hours.

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