Aruba, Day and Evening

There were too many requests for more Aruba photos. I admit, I’m holding out on you a little. I showed that stuff from San Nicolaas and then the beach but have yet to put in anything about the hotels, shopping, and various other attractions that many people find interesting. We’ll get there, just stay with me.

So here is another view of the interior of the island. This was taken in the area known as San Fuego, looking north, northwest.

The desert landscape is looking green thanks to the rain that has been falling more frequently in the last few years. (And yet, this year things have been more dry.) At any rate, the tall cactus among the boulders make for striking contrast. Those boulders are granite, which you might not expect to find on a Caribbean island but the vagaries of the earth’s geography put them here. On the far right you’ll see a bit of a large water tank. Aruba’s water comes from a desalinization plant and is pumped to these tanks to maintain proper pressure in the lines. Works great and the water is pure and delicious.

In this part of the island there are fewer houses than on the north end, which hosts most of the tourist activity. There are many old “cunucu” houses as they are called. (I’ll post some photos of them later, too.) When traveling through the area, you get the sense that the island is much bigger than its 17 miles in length. Between the hills, you might think you’re in the middle of New Mexico or some such place. But, after passing over a ridge or two, you’ll soon see the ocean and be reminded that this is a small rock in a big sea.

As mentioned before, my pal Bob loves to greet the sunset every evening. Here’s another one of those.

This one is looking south from Savaneta toward San Nicolaas. From those tiny piers sticking into the water you’ll often see kids swimming. We jump in there from time to time, too. Great place to splash around. They also show up in my book An Island Away as a principal location.

As you can see from these photos and the ones in previous posts. There are many places in Aruba where you can experience a part of the Caribbean that hasn’t changed much in the last seventy-five years. As small as the world is, it still has places like this, places that aren’t so much unspoiled as untarnished, places that may fit your ideal of what it could be like, if only…

Published in: on June 22, 2008 at 12:51 pm  Comments (2)  
Tags: , , , , ,

A Mission

While traveling about Spain, I invariably encounter pairs of older women out and about. Usually they give the appearance that they’re on a mission of great importance. Arm in arm, up the streets they go, toting oversized handbags and parcels to their critical destination. For all I know, they’re simply going home or to visit friends. Ah, but it’s fun to spin a little story. Maybe they’re delivering critical supplies needed for clandestine research that will save the world. Like these two in Cuenca:

I was on the easy part of this street. That is on the way down. Looking over the wall, I saw them coming up the lower part, before the corner at the right of the frame. They chugged up, one foot after the other, undeterred by the steep grade. I managed to snap this picture before they saw me, then quickly turned the camera away so as not to be offensive. But there was no foul. I touched my hat, they smiled, and went inside to complete their mission, whatever it happened to be.

Published in: on June 20, 2008 at 6:58 pm  Comments (2)  
Tags: , , , ,

New Fountain Pen

Couldn’t help myself. I was invited to a Mont Blanc event, the opening of a new boutique. Of course, while I was there, they put the press on me to augment the fountain pen collection. Could have been the whiskey they foisted on me. Maybe, maybe not. Either way, I’m not sorry. This pen is part of their Writer Series. I’m not a big fan of William Faulkner. (Nothing against him. He was a master, no doubt about it, just not my flavor.) However, the pen Mont Blanc designed for his name is exceptional. Here’s a first look:

The pen is heavier than my model 149’s. I like a heavy pen because I’m a clumsy, left-handed scribbler with a tendency to press. You don’t have to press with a fountain pen. It glides over the paper. So weight is like back pressure; it keeps you off the throttle. Here’s a close up of the nib:

Faulkner was a big fan of aerobatics. That’s why the airplane is cut into the nib. There’s clouds there, too. Each pen in this series draws something from the author’s life that is subsequently designed into the form of the unit. You should see the one for Jules Verne. (I’m secretly saving for it.) One more shot:

Fountain pens aren’t for everyone. I use them in the course of writing because I find long handed writing more productive than typing into the computer. For this silly reality, I offer no explanation. It works and I don’t mess with it. Ah, one more piece of eye candy:

This pen has been inked up and tested fully. Trust me, it writes like a dream. You can crank through twenty pages a day with no cramps, no crying. Paper selection is a key part of the solution as well and we’ll get into that later. I’ll also post a few shots of my older pens. (They’re shamefully dirty, but I don’t have them to look at. They’re the tools of the trade.) By the way, all these photos were taken by my wife, who I think did an excellent job.

What’s your favorite writing device? Let me know.

Published in: on June 18, 2008 at 9:22 pm  Comments (6)  
Tags: , , ,

All That Junk

Did you ever wonder what happens to all that junk? Your old car, broken appliances, maybe an ancient lawn mower? Well here’s what happens to the vast majority of it. Actually this is Phase 2. Phase 1 is the local scrap metal hauler, be it the trash collector or another individual, picks it up from you or your recycling center or some such place. Then it travels to a place where it ends up looking like this:

You can see flattened cars in the pile as well as a jumble of other things. From this pile, the material is fed into what is known as a “shredder.” This machine is technically a hammer mill. Just imagine a long shaft with huge hammers hanging from it. Now spin that shaft with a 2,000 horsepower electric motor. Whatever those hammers strike is shattered into little pieces. Below is a photo of your junk being fed into the machine.

Here’s another one. This time the claw of the machine is beside the throat of the shredder.

Notice the steam coming off the shredder. Plenty of heat is generated by those hammers pulverizing all that material. Water is sprayed in to keep things cool. The pieces fall onto a conveyor belt system. These belts pass through various sorting devices including magnets to separate the ferrous (iron) from the non-ferrous (copper, aluminum, etc.). That system looks like this:

Ultimately some of the material is separated by hand. At the end of the line, there are individual piles of ferrous scrap, non-ferrous, and “fluff.” Fluff is all the plastic, foam rubber, paper, and miscellaneous garbage that is not metallic. Believe it or not, fluff has many uses including landfill cover and fuel stock. This pile is of the ferrous scrap or “frag” as it is called.

In Phase 3, this will be sent to a steel mill and converted into new steel. Scrap iron is the most recycled commodity in the United States. Every year, millions of tons of junk are converted into new products. There is also a massive export market for this and the non-ferrous scrap.

So what’s this got to do with a guy who writes books and travels? Well, a friend of mine owns the plant shown above. He’s quite the entrepreneur. It’s people like him and the guys who work in scrap yards that sometimes form the basis of the characters in my books. Besides, there’s never a dull moment around this kind of action. It sure beats the office.

Published in: on June 18, 2008 at 7:42 pm  Leave a Comment  
Tags: , , ,
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »