My nephew Joe is taking an international studies course in Ecuador. Here’s his latest message.From: Joe
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2003 07:07:44
Subject: I’m finally changing the subject line…
Howdy folks,
I thought that before I leave on my weekend excursion I would fill you in more thoroughly on last weekend. By the way, this weekend I leave on a class salida to Chota and el páramo del angel. Anyway, after writing to you folks last time, I realized that I forgot to mention the ecuadorians that we met while in Atacamés.
Our first meeting was on the bus with a man whose name I have long forgotten — surprising to anyone? Well, it turns out that he lived in Atacamés and owned a couple hotels there. He gave us the low down on the surrounding areas and told us what’s what about tourism on the coast. Also, when we left the bus, he led us to the beach. The bus just drops you off in the middle of town and you basically have to smell your way to the salt water.
Our next encounter was later that night, at one of the many beachside bars. We were sitting on our swings (yes, instead of stools there were swings) when this guy comes up to my companion Sarah and starts going on about how he speaks german, or something like that. He was obviously far beyond drunk. Anyway, Sarah, being the kind-hearted soul she is, looks at me and says, switch seats with me. So, being the strong masculine beast that I am, I oblige and put myself between her and the unwelcome intruder. Well, he proceeds to talk to me, and then comes over and puts his arm around my shoulder. By this time the people working at the bar have come over and said, ¿te está molestando?, to which I of course answer, ¡sí! Luckily, this bar happens to be the only one on the beach with ‘security’. His name was Maurice, a kind young ecuadorian man. After about 10 minutes more annoyance, Maurice escorted the drunkard away, and while they were gone, my friends and I took our leave.
The next day, while sampling some wonderful banana splits, Maurice happened by, and stopped for a chat. He was very cool and told us a little about himself and about his city. Later that night we had our final encounter with a suspicious character. Allow me to set the scene. The three gringos are sitting on the beach at night, sipping drinks and playing cards. We are about 15 feet away from the bar and about 20 feet from the ocean. Out of the corner of my eye, a man starts limping up to us, yes, he had a limp. He introduces himself as Carlos, and seems nice enough, though I am ALWAYS suspicious. Well, he begins to tell us about the dangers of sitting on the beach at night. This leads me to believe that he is one of the dangers. However, he did have a limp, and even though i’m scrawny, come on!! As it turns out, I think he was just trying to mooch some liqour. We were having none of it, though we did invite him to join our card game. After teaching him the rules of Go Fish, we played out 3 whole games. It was interesting to say the least. After our final game we retired to the hotel, promising Carlos to return to the bars to do some dancing, which we never did.
Anyway, I’ve bored you long enough with my story telling. Have a wonderful weekend, and I’ll see you all on the flip side.
joe
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2003 07:07:44
Subject: I’m finally changing the subject line…
Howdy folks,
I thought that before I leave on my weekend excursion I would fill you in more thoroughly on last weekend. By the way, this weekend I leave on a class salida to Chota and el páramo del angel. Anyway, after writing to you folks last time, I realized that I forgot to mention the ecuadorians that we met while in Atacamés.
Our first meeting was on the bus with a man whose name I have long forgotten — surprising to anyone? Well, it turns out that he lived in Atacamés and owned a couple hotels there. He gave us the low down on the surrounding areas and told us what’s what about tourism on the coast. Also, when we left the bus, he led us to the beach. The bus just drops you off in the middle of town and you basically have to smell your way to the salt water.
Our next encounter was later that night, at one of the many beachside bars. We were sitting on our swings (yes, instead of stools there were swings) when this guy comes up to my companion Sarah and starts going on about how he speaks german, or something like that. He was obviously far beyond drunk. Anyway, Sarah, being the kind-hearted soul she is, looks at me and says, switch seats with me. So, being the strong masculine beast that I am, I oblige and put myself between her and the unwelcome intruder. Well, he proceeds to talk to me, and then comes over and puts his arm around my shoulder. By this time the people working at the bar have come over and said, ¿te está molestando?, to which I of course answer, ¡sí! Luckily, this bar happens to be the only one on the beach with ‘security’. His name was Maurice, a kind young ecuadorian man. After about 10 minutes more annoyance, Maurice escorted the drunkard away, and while they were gone, my friends and I took our leave.
The next day, while sampling some wonderful banana splits, Maurice happened by, and stopped for a chat. He was very cool and told us a little about himself and about his city. Later that night we had our final encounter with a suspicious character. Allow me to set the scene. The three gringos are sitting on the beach at night, sipping drinks and playing cards. We are about 15 feet away from the bar and about 20 feet from the ocean. Out of the corner of my eye, a man starts limping up to us, yes, he had a limp. He introduces himself as Carlos, and seems nice enough, though I am ALWAYS suspicious. Well, he begins to tell us about the dangers of sitting on the beach at night. This leads me to believe that he is one of the dangers. However, he did have a limp, and even though i’m scrawny, come on!! As it turns out, I think he was just trying to mooch some liqour. We were having none of it, though we did invite him to join our card game. After teaching him the rules of Go Fish, we played out 3 whole games. It was interesting to say the least. After our final game we retired to the hotel, promising Carlos to return to the bars to do some dancing, which we never did.
Anyway, I’ve bored you long enough with my story telling. Have a wonderful weekend, and I’ll see you all on the flip side.
joe
I don’t know what took them so long. After the simple-minded kneejerk cries of treason and the ridiculous record burning shindigs, I was disappointed a while ago when the Dixie Chicks went to the media to apologize for their statement expressing “shame” at George W Bush’s unstoppable lust for war. I was hoping they would denounce all those turncoat fans. Good riddance, they should’ve said. We prefer an audience that has a clue. Just because you live near cattle doesn’t mean you have to act like them. Unfortunately their publicity machine forced them into a tentative mea culpa, even though their attack on Bush was simply stating the obvious.
We were just discussing how there’s been no word on whether the upcoming Return of the King trailer would be available for download, but according to 
I am embarrassed to admit it but I didn’t find out the Emmys were on Sunday until the afternoon of the day before! At least I didn’t miss the program, but it came up so fast I wasn’t able to build up to it.
I’ve been recently been toying with the idea of trying out DVD X Copy for my DVD burner, with the purpose of archiving or backing up discs. The only problem is there are so many flavors of DVD X Copy (Gold, Platinum, Express, Plus) that I’m not sure which is best or has the features I would like. In some instances I can see wanting to compress the disc entire, in some cases to backup the movie alone, and in some cases to compress the feature and maybe one or two extras. Maybe one DVD X Copy can do all these, but I can’t tell for sure.
From my friends on the Buffett listserv on Yahoo!. Here are a few links to east coast webcams, with which to watch the progress of Hurricane Isabel.
