My parents place in Ecuador

Hello again from here in Cuenca,
I had promised you all a tour of my folks place here in Cuenca Ecuador sometime ago didn't I? Well, let us hasten no further shall we. Before we begin lets look at their place from the outside before we go full force into their place.
This is their place from it's lobby which is off from their apartment less than five feet.
From last year we have Chuck coming back from the market with flowers for his sweetheart honey.I wonder who that could be?, don't you? And also from last year and recall the blog known as "Just a couple more days and I'm off again", remember this image of their living room from back in two thousand and nine.

This is the entrance from when you enter their apartment/condo look in from their front door. Most of their rooms are mostly the same from two thousand and nine to two thousand ten, here is their kitchen in "09" and here it is in "10", like I've said not much has changed there. Now lets look at their guest room from then till now, their guest bathroom hasn't changed one bit in a whole year.

One thing I didn't get from last year that I got was their bedroom.
Let's look at there outside of their place as well, and before I forget when we got here on April sixteenth Chuck was pulling back their curtain in the bed room and I missed a grand shot of my mom with her jaw opened like a cartoon character literately. Their back patio is so outstretched I'm going to only show a small portion of it because of it size but here it is from last year. Maybe some other time I will show how big their backyard is but that's another blog posting altogether. The one big difference between two thousand and nine to two thousand and ten is that they added add a glass wall/door from their kitchen to the outside patio. Now lets me tell you that they have a media room as well here's my mom on a computer from last year, and like the guest bathroom this room hasn't changed much over a year's time. Now let's go back to their doorway entrance of their place and lets now look at the NOT SO EMPTY living room area now, OK here it is Nancy & Chuck's new living room area: the painting on the wall is from my mother's cousin Bo Bartlett he signed this print: For Nancy. Nancy, Chuck, & Matt hope that you'll want to come for a stay with them in Cuenca someday soon but since they live here and I don't they would like to wish many safe travels wherever life's adventures take you.

Banana Splits in Ecuador

Hey All,

I thought that since I'm down here in Ecuador and since I had one tonight for my dessert after my meal at the BQ I'd like talk about Banana Splits.

When was the last time that you had one of those three scoops of ice cream, two bananas, some chunks of pine apples, strawberries, whip cream and finally nuts or sprinkled candy toppings, I bet it has been a long time for most of you! I have always loved bananas since I was real little, I think it's mostly the taste I like the most about them. There are many ways I like to eat a banana besides as a banana split, I like one from time to time with my cereal, here my bowel of cereal from the other day at my folks kitchen table.

The other way I like a banana is as a sandwich with either mayo or with peanut butter. I also like one with other forms of ice cream just in a bowel by itself. My favorite flavor most of all is Chocolate with bananas. I from time to time like a banana milkshake or even better yet a Chocolate banana shake from places like ZIPS. I have to say that one time last year I saw a grilled banana with cheese melted into it in a store window when I was here in Cuenca before. These are a Ecuadorian favorite among the citizens of Ecuador. I among with most you would be scarred at least in a way I would be, but at the same time I'd at least be willing to trying it maybe once.I also like a good fruit salad with bananas in it as well. Since being down here in Cuenca a second time I have already had at least two this trip to speak of in the way of splits here's from when we had our walk last Sunday just outside of the town square of Cuenca. And the second one is my dessert from last night at the BQ just around the corner from my folks place of residency here in Cuenca. Also please remember that banana splits are custom for down here in Ecuador because Ecuador is the Banana capital of the whole world.

What has the "LOST" tv series meant to you?

To the dedicated fans of a TV series known as As you all know it was a series by J.J. Abrams who had made a great run with a serialized series from two thousand and one till two thousand and five with a show about spies and double crossing agencies within the Untied States government to get things done. That show was named .LOST was airing it's first year with survivors of Oceanic 815 crashing on a Island that wasn't able to be found by the outside world and the said survivors finding a hatch on the Island and opening that hatch with dynamite as season one ended, where with ALIAS fourth year went with yet another agency running it's operatives around the world to stop other agencies with also including very complex family matters into all those missions and ending the season with seasoned agents Sydney Bristow & Micheal Vaughn in a car crash in it's finale. Lost has been about many different things in it's entire run, this year on May twenty fourth, two thousand and ten marks the end of the series. I myself as I'm sure many of you can't wait to see how it all unfolds. What I am very curious about is how has the show itself impacted it's worldwide audience? Has the show made you think a lot about how you see your own views on religion, or would you want to do things differently if you had the time to change what you know that you've done wrong in your own life IF you have the time to make the change, or would it matter at all would you still be you? To me it has opened a type of art form that I never thought I'd ever be good at and that's Writing.
For me since I was so into art as a kid growing up but not the aforementioned writing although I did try it once as I've said in previous postings about my attempt in the third grade. I always love art in the sense of using a piece of paper and a pencil. I know that for me the series called Lost has opened my own eyes to what I can do with my choices in life to be a more open type of person with my views of myself and how I affect those around me. I know that I cannot always avoid a bad or dark types of temptation but we can always try in putting our own ways to hopeful goodness for everybody's own circumstance, when we are around our family and friends and people we just don't know at all.

What I saw this morning on my portable DVD player

Find out all about the most popular Green Lantern AKA:( Hal Jordan) in a movie that I found brought me closer to understanding his Character even though I've never have read one of his many comic titles that he has been in and learn the medium I found him in instead.
This Saturday morning I got up pretty early even for someone on vacation in Cuenca I got up at six thirty but tried to sleep some more but couldn't so at seven oh five I decided to get up I wanted to read my V the second Generation



,but I wanted to watch one of my many DVD movie I had brought with me on this very trip. At first I was thinking along the lines of that campy old BAT-MAN the movie

from back when Adam West was the caped crusader and Burt ward was the boy wonder from way back before I was born way back in nineteen sixty six, but then decided I wanted a cartoon adventure not live action I had brought with me five animated features and two live action movies, the other live action movie I brought with me was Bicentennial Man (Which is really by sci-fi authors Issac Asimov & Robert Sivlerbreg the book was titled The Positronic Man, and happen to be Asimov's last published work before his death in nineteen ninety two) I was aching for some Saturday morning cartoons in a way so I chose this
I don't have the two disc set because I picked up my copy used at Christmas time for five for twenty from Block Buster behind Albretson's where I work. Some of you may remember Green Lantern from this cartoon series called "Challenge of the Superfriends" from the late nineteen seventies that had him versing Sintestro as his main adversary from the Legion of Doom this was where the super baddies had there base of operation. In this movie First Flight we learn of both Sintestro and how Hal Jordan became who they rightful are within the Detective Comics comic universe. We see that after a new type test flight for a space ship that Hal finds that his ship is powered by something he doesn't yet understand,when he looks around he see a advanced type of space ship has crashed with it pilot nearly dead and the pilot tells Jordan that the ring he is wearing has selected him as it's new bearer.
Then ring leaves the alien's hand and goes to Hal he wonders why it is glowing so?, he then is donned with a similar suit as the hurt alien he just tried to help.

This animated movie seems to have a couple popular stars in it from ALIAS & BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, it has Victor Garber who plays Jack Bristow the father of double agent Sydney Bristow played by Jennifer Grander, he plays the shifty Sintestro cop who leads the Green Lantern crops throughout the majority of the film. Say What?, isn't he the villain though you know that, but in this film he leads Hal in his first outing as Green Lantern while fooling everyone including Hal of the crops,
while trying to find the planet with the Lanterns fearful energy of Yellow.
Cyclon Number six, of BSG fame is played by Tricia Helfer, In Green Lantern First Flight she plays backup villainous female Green Lantern Boodikkka who is seen here

trying to find out what Hal knows of the Yellow energy or the planet where it is so she and Sintestro can eliminate all the other Lanterns and the Guardians as well. Their only hope is to find a way to reactivate their power source of the now fractured green powered Lantern, but how do they do this? Hal meanwhile has found out about Sintestro's but can't do a thing about it because the Guardians have banished him from the crops altogether.

He finds a way to earn their grace back by recharging the source of the Lantern by cracking the yellow energy out of it. Which this is what upsets Sintestro when he witnesses
what the newest Green Lantern member who he calls "Earth Boy"has done to put the Guardians back in charge of order to running the universe. By the end of this movie anyone who knows nothing of Green Lantern comic history (This would also include yours truly), feels that they have a bit of a grasp on that & that they didn't just waste a few bucks deciding to rent this DVD. It would help that you the viewer of this do or had a liking or love of the four color page world known as comics. Until you chose to see this or not always remember Hal Jordan will protect your planet known as Earth as the Green Lantern always.

My time in the captial of Ecuador

Hey ya good ol boys and down home girls,
This will be my last blog from two thousand and nine of Ecuador: for the time being anyway. Before my trek back to a part of the United States known as Tri Cities Washington my folk and I went to the capital of Ecuador by plane from where they live in Cuenca. While on the plane ride to Qutio which was a forty five minute flight I got this volcanic mountain peak which my mom told me that the world's second largest Volcano for size. I was "WOWED" to say in the least.

We were there in Qutio for one whole day but I felt we got in a lifetime worth of things in that space of time. We went to a mall in Quttio that had at least thirty five floors to it because it was also a big hotel as well. Here is a looking up shot from the third floor and that day the elevator was out of order(or at least one was if I remember correctly there were four elevator but two were in need of repair)so we couldn't go to the top because we would be tried as heck when we got on the plane , for we'd have to climb up and then back down those same set of stairs besides we had better things to do besides ware ourselves out. Like other parts of Ecuador Qutio has big markets at for locals and tourists to shop this was right across from the mall/hotel in main downtown Qutio. We literately went to the center of the earth it took us thirty minutes to get there, No I kid you not Qutio Ecuador is where the largest city meets the center of the planet where a land mark can be seriously or so the early scientists of the seventeenth century believed so this was where they marked zero degrees latitude. Here is a walking path from the monument of the equator, what modern scientists have placed the true marker of where the monument should be is just southwest of where it is by less than one hundred yards as you see here where the flag is placed. Here my mother and I are touching at the poles of north and south on the dividing point of latitude right at zero degrees. Last but not least I got a shot of the city of Qutio Ecuador before leaving that day on the plane with my mom to come back to home in Washington State.

What are Batidos?

Hey all,
So just what the heck is a Batido anyway your asking right?, Well what they are is like a milkshake kids love those right? but would any kid love a Batido sure maybe they would if they were made of just ice cream like a milkshake is, hey your now asking what is in a Batido I will tell you in a minute after I show you a cousin to the Batido. Remember this image of me from "Just a couple more days and I'm off again!" This was my first time at the restaurant known as the BQ when I had my first trip here in Cuenca Ecuador, the drink I'm sipping is known as a Bananarama it is made with of course Bananas and then ice. A Batido is made with a fruit and ice. In my image that you see when I post on this blog is me with a
Batido. I have to say of all things drink wise here in Ecuador I do love these best! I did happen to find out just today April 16th here in Cuenca that they make actual chocolate ones

too. This was when my mom and I took some special ordered bedsheets to some Australian friends of hers and Chuck's that run a coffee shop in downtown Cuenca. When my mom offered to pay our bill (actually I was going to) the owner said "on the house"