We went back to Old San Juan the other day to hit up Salvation Army. It seems that every time we go to Old San Juan we find something new and different that we had not seen before.
Ps. No, we didn’t buy anything at Salvation Army. They mostly just sell jackets and everyone that works there is trying to get you a “good deal” on stuff. I guess they work on commission there.
I recently heard that Polaroid is calling it quits on the whole instant picture scene. Yeah this was bound to happen with the digital camera age upon us. But if you look at the quality of the pictures of the Polaroid vs the digital camera you will see a much bigger loss than that of the American way, I call it the” I want it now” syndrome.
America to me is obsessed with “wanting it now and wanting it big” i.e fast food, 100 oz soda drinks.
I guess it was not fast enough and Polaroid film has a certain look to it that many over look, a certain 70’s and 80’s look that I just can’t describe. Yes, I had a Polaroid camera for a bit and I know that the film is super expensive and the only way of copying it is to scan it. But surely worth the picture when you see the marvelous brown and yellow tones.
So with that being said, I will be sad to see you go from the instant film business, Polaroid. You were a good friend, and made me look like I knew what I was doing when taking pictures.
Polaroid did make enough film to last until 2009 and hopefully someone will be buying the recipe to make instant film and not charge too much for us Polaroid people.
UPDATE!- found this blog to save the Polaroid get er done and sign a petition or something
This is our buddy Skip, he seems to have taken residence on our front porch.
At the Bearfoot Travelers Inn, the owners were telling us of people here who don’t care about their domestic animals. They were telling us story’s of people that don’t spay or neuter’s their domestic animals. Then leave the puppys and kittens in the rainforest to starve to death.
I looked it up and sure enough, there are no laws here that state that you must spay or neuter them.
There is a Humane Society, but only one that I could find is located in Guaynabo. . Which in turn makes for a lot of wild dogs and wild cats.
What did they do about all the stray animals? Check this out . Animal Control Solutions (government hired private company ) was not taking them to shelters and were instead killing them by throwing them off bridges, burying them alive, and inhumane injection. In some months they killed over 900 dogs and cats. There are approximately 100,000 stray dogs and cats on the island of Pureto Rico.
Apparently there is a beach called dead dog beach where teenagers go to run over live puppy’s and kill them with arrows or machetes.
It is legal to have cockfights here in PR and they show the fights on television. However Puerto Rico does have some laws against the cruelty to animals but it is almost never enforced. Animal activists are pushing for new laws that would impose larger fines, and increase jail time.
There is something you can do help, sign this petition and let the government know how you feel
Over on Banos Ave. there is a section that smells of cat piss so bad that it will nearly knock you over. It is almost unbearable. It’s really sad to see most dogs and cats wandering around are very thin and malnourished. I have noticed people leaving dog and cat food out side to feed the animals.
The owners of the guesthouse were also telling us that they adopt out dogs to people in the states ,and that there are many other programs like this here in PR.
Since Iguana’s run wild here and you see them where ever you go, I guess it would not be uncommon to see a kid walking down the street talking on a cell phone and holding an iguana. It made me think, was he just transporting the iguana? Was he taking him around to show him the sites? Or did he just find the iguana? Right after he walked past us, all these little girls at the bus stop started screaming.
Here is a new picture for your desktop. It was taken at Santurce on Ponce De Leon Ave . When we were on our way to see the contemporary art museum of San Juan.
We have noticed here in Puerto Rico there isn’t much wild life. While walking through a preserve we found in Humacao, we only heard the coqui (a type of frog) and that was about it.
So when I found some tide pools I wasn’t surprised to see little life going on. The tide pools are about 10 minutes walk from where we live. However we we did see a lot of crabs and a couple sea urchin. Looks like there used to be some type of pvc pipe connected to it. Maybe to measure the height of the water?
There is a place on the coast of southern California that I remember going to when I was a kid. There was so many little animals and all kinds of sea urchin. I would give you directions but I can’t remember where it was located.
Close up on a crab. Click on the picture.
Right out from this point is where all of the surfers go to surf. There weren’t many out today but last night there were about 20 or so of them out in the water. I have been heading out to body board almost every day (with the exception of today to let my body boarding rash heal a little bit). Ocean Park beach is a popular place to go kite surfing because of the constant eastern wind. I usually go around 10 am to avoid all of the kite boarders. If you go out past 1 p.m. there are usually around 5 of them in the water at a time, and they will get within 3 to 5 feet of you. You wouldn’t want to get hit in the head with a kite surf board either.
Free furniture in an abandon lot. The locals all gave us looks when we were walking off with it. Just clean it up a bit, and we got ourself a sweet new chair.
The cockroaches out here are ridiculously huge, and I do believe we have a whole army of them in our apartment. We bought some Raid, Black flag and roach hotels to fight back. Eat this roaches!
