tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52968672011-04-21T22:29:18.292Zan american expatriate in PortugalAdverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.comBlogger351100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1106083994343513852005-01-18T21:28:00.000Z2007-01-01T21:48:07.343Z

Things sure have changed with Blogger...since I last posted over a year ago! Not sure why I'm posting now except I wanted to test drive the new interface. Seems excellent. Leave it to my friends at Google to make something happen. If anyone reads this - we've shut down our www.contemporarylove.com site. My wife and I simply had no time to maintain it. She's busy writing for the newspapaer and

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1066129639509073552003-10-14T11:07:00.000Z2003-10-14T11:18:19.390Z

Strat Collector, the Smoking Dog, and Guard Puppies Did it again. Another blog to worry about every day. This one is about Fender Stratocasters. It's on the "News Desk" of a new website, Strat Collector. Holding down the News Desk fort alone at the moment, but should have some regular contributors soon. Have written a few things for Contemporary Love recently about relationship advice and art,

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1065031081765548092003-10-01T17:58:00.000Z2003-10-02T08:36:44.430Z

Texas Holdem Have ignored this blog for the past few weeks in favor of Contemporary Love. Gave serious thought to abandoning this one altogether, but in light of the "free" nature of the Blogger/Google service, decided it might be a good place to talk about things not related to love. Sometimes a guy who's considered by some of his friends to be about as romantic as a mature watermelon needs to

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1064074662212740372003-09-20T16:17:00.000Z2003-09-20T16:17:42.230Z

Images of Portugal My friend who was visiting from the U.S. left today. He is a professional photographer and the two of us spent the last several days walking around various parts of Porto and surrounding cities, as you can see from the entries below. Looking at the recent posts, I decided it might be a good idea to collect the images I've taken of Portugal and display them on one page so

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1063963072353307962003-09-19T09:17:00.000Z2003-09-19T09:17:52.310Z

Afurada, Portugal Yesterday, my friend from the States and I visited a small fishing village located on the Gaia side of the Douro River between Gaia and the Atlantic Ocean called Afurada. Below are four images from the day. Some of the fishing boats and the waterfront of Afurada. A public water fountain. A local woman watches the river. Day's end.

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1063854523418073352003-09-18T03:08:00.000Z2003-09-18T03:08:43.510Z

Local Color, Part Three Another walking tour of Porto. As I said yesterday, Porto is a city of steep hills and narrow streets. Today we walked to the highest point of the city and down from there to the river. Below is an image taken on the way down. The next image again demonstrates the contrast between old and new - old buildings in the foreground and new construction in the back. A

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1063786630449813112003-09-17T08:17:00.000Z2003-09-17T08:19:49.090Z

Local Color, Part Two Had a great day. Proverb, a friend of mine visiting from the States, and two of our friends from Porto made a walking/taxi tour of Porto today. Below are a few of the photos. This is a shot of the Douro River that separates Porto (on the left) from a city called Gaia (on the right). Most of the Port wineries are located on the Gaia side of the river. The point at which

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1063583290525162652003-09-14T23:48:00.000Z2003-09-15T07:08:57.720Z

Local Color, Part One Plan to spend the next few days shooting various parts of Porto, the city in northern Portugal about thirty minutes (in good traffic) from the village where we live. The shot below is from a small town outside of Porto and close to our village. The graffiti, "VIVER e MORRER por TIMOR" means "LIVE and DIE for Timor".

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1063302380896022342003-09-11T18:50:00.000Z2003-09-11T20:45:33.316Z

The Myth of American Culture Living in Europe, I often hear negative comments about 'American culture'. Can't say that the criticisim is without foundation. Seems like European TV broadcasts "Porky's I, II, III, etc." at least once a week and seeing the underwear of young men wearing ill-fitting jeans is almost unavoidable in most major European cities. What inspires the criticisim of American

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1063233821179348462003-09-10T22:43:00.000Z2003-09-10T22:43:41.183Z

Sometimes I wonder if there aren't twenty-five monkeys typing HTML 24 hours a day. In time, everything imaginable will have been said online. Yesterday I came across this site: Creation Science Fair. For those of you who don't want to navigate there, it's a web page that discusses the results from a Baptist 'Creation Science Fair' held in 2001. An interesting read to say the least. One project

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1063102781518436442003-09-09T10:19:00.000Z2003-09-09T10:19:41.483Z

Proverb and I are married! You can read about the wedding trip and see a few photos on our Contemporary Love blogs. Today's post will be brief. We have to visit the Portuguese immigration office today to start the process that will legalize me. Haven't spent much time writing for this blog since we started Contemporary Love, but hopefully now that the site is underway and the wedding is a fact

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1061573353936182202003-08-22T17:29:00.000Z2003-08-22T17:30:02.710Z

In a period of about six hours after my last post on August 19, some amazing things happened that Proverb and I discuss in detail on Contemporary Love (in our diaries there). Not good things. You just never know. A week from today we should be on a plane heading to San Francisco, God willing, and we pray that nothing happens between now and then to change that plan.

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1061284139955855902003-08-19T09:08:00.000Z2003-08-19T09:08:59.980Z

Less than two weeks from our wedding. We leave for the U.S. a week from tomorrow and wed the following Monday. Hard to believe. If anyone finds this weblog interesting, take a look at our side-by-side diaries on Contemporary Love. You can see them by clicking HERE. Proverb and I also post on the Contemporary Love Forums - feel free to join the discussions. Spent a fair amount of time

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1060466687837468452003-08-09T22:04:00.000Z2003-08-10T15:37:35.146Z

Have to slow down. Contemporary Love went 'public' yesterday, as stated in yesterday's post. That's the good news. The bad news is I sent out an 'announcement' of the event to my friends with a typo in the heading: Contemporary Love Goes Pubic Sometimes I really amaze myself. Of course, from a marketing perspective it worked. Everyone had to see it. Essentially recycling some of the old posts

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1060359845340646002003-08-08T16:24:00.000Z2003-08-08T16:27:59.860Z

Alive and, well... Almost a month since my last post. What a month. Decided to try my hand at some 'Internet business' and, true to form, bit off more than I could chew. Finally completed the main website, Contemporary Love, today. 'Completed' is a euphemisim. It's still in a semi-rough state, but decided to take it public now out of fear I'd otherwise spend the rest of my adult life tweaking

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1057710960095133062003-07-09T00:36:00.000Z2003-07-09T00:38:22.690Z

The Things We Do For Love Sometimes I would pay for a dull moment. Haven't posted for almost a week. So much for daily. Got sidetracked (reverse hyperbole) with the site Proverb and I are developing. Learned a few new acronyms: PERL, SQL, and, my favorite, CGI, which stands for Computer Generated Idiot. I thought made-in-Taiwan bicycles came with hard to follow instructions. Try installing

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1057128196981514002003-07-02T06:43:00.000Z2003-07-02T06:57:51.896Z

Still thinking about my derisive comments last week concerning the pretty and the beautiful. This attitude could have something to do with the disappointing volume of my photo sales. The topic reminded me of a story I wrote last summer. Although the characters (except for Da Vinci) and the specific locations and events are fictional, the story was inspired by an actual entry in Da Vinci's

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1057074725056620992003-07-01T15:52:00.000Z2003-07-01T18:00:12.853Z

Do we live in a cave? Didn't shoot yesterday. Watched Matrix 2 instead. The movie was released while we were in San Francisco. Took a cab to a theatre that had a midnight showing on the release date, but when we saw the line we decided to have dinner instead. Glad we did. Not wearing the hat of a movie critic, but there's a limit to how much cyber-kung-fu I'm willing to sit through. Especially

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1056909127862198542003-06-29T17:52:00.000Z2003-06-29T17:52:07.840Z

The plot thickens... Showed this weblog to PROVERB last night for the first time. Proverb is seriously suspicious of the Internet and most things on it, so wasn't sure how she'd react. Not only did she enjoy it, she wants to start another one on which we both keep a journal side-by-side. That's how I spent the day, working on templates and HTML to pull it off. Tricky part is displaying two

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1056793527771407422003-06-28T09:45:00.000Z2003-06-28T10:18:38.033Z

Coming Soon... Happy to announce that a good friend of mine, Dan Yablonka, has finished recording a new CD entitled, Stand Up. It features Dan on guitar and vocals. Other players on the CD inclulde Richard Stekol, Greg Leisz, Kelly Fitzgerald, Frank Cotinola, and Karen Hammack. Although you may not know his name, you have probably heard Greg Leisz play his Weissenborn dobro, pedal steel,

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1056724309945577262003-06-27T14:31:00.000Z2003-07-01T16:48:48.706Z

A Vague Career I can't work in Portugal with my tourist visa but that will change in a few months when PROVERB and I marry. Decided it was time to put together a resumé. It's been awhile since I've had to do this so I looked for resumés or CVs online to get some formatting (not content) ideas and stumbled across this CV of a philosophy instructor. He lists three areas of expertise. It was the

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1056658836144251052003-06-26T20:20:00.000Z2003-06-27T08:49:23.526Z

Will these five minutes change history? Have they already? I am referring to the video footage of President Bush taken while he received news about the second airplane attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The video shows White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card informing Bush of the second attack and Bush sitting for the next five minutes showing no visible reaction (or taking

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-1056635462117138242003-06-26T13:51:00.000Z2003-06-28T01:06:33.706Z

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of my arrival in Portugal. An amazing year to say the least. Until I have an upgraded visa I cannot legally stay in Portugal for more than three months at a time, and, if I understand the clear-as-mud visa rules, my total time in Portugal over a twelve month period cannot exceed six months. So, although I arrived a year ago, over the last twelve months

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-960169432003-06-25T14:42:00.000Z2003-06-26T13:12:09.290Z

A strange world. I did several photo assignments in Los Angeles about the plight of the homeless, including a series of images of the homeless children on San Julian Street in downtown L.A. that was published in the San Francisco Street Sheet a few years back. That's right, homeless children, a topic that hasn't received the media attention it deserves. More recently, my fiancé (PROVERB), who

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-959834682003-06-24T15:27:00.000Z2003-06-26T09:25:50.430Z

Missed the hammerfest last night, but made it to the Festa de S. João in the neighboring village of S. João de Sobrado today for the Procissão de S. João. (Procession of St. John) and the Dança Entrada de Mour e Bugios (Dancing Entrance of the Moors and the Bugios). The event is a parade, half religious and half, if I understand it correctly, a celebration of the role played by the Bugios in the

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-959709702003-06-24T05:14:00.000Z2003-06-26T09:26:50.130Z

Last night was Porto's hammerfest celebration of St. John. The hammers fly on the eve of the holiday (which is on the 24th and not the 25th as I had thought). I missed it. My fiancé and I spent the night with her family enjoying a several-hours-long traditional dinner of sardines and pork (both barbequed) with potatoes, green peppers, olives and wine. And more wine. Her father maintains a 1,500

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-959487392003-06-23T15:48:00.000Z2003-06-26T09:27:40.963Z

The wedding plans continue to take shape. We marry in Gibraltar on September 1st then honeymoon for a few days in London and Paris. Would have preferred to spend all the time in Paris but I have to visit the Portuguese Consulate's office in London to take care of my visa. Our first face-to-face meeting was in Paris on May 7, 2002. We found each other over the Internet. I was living in Southern

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-959125152003-06-22T10:48:00.000Z2003-06-26T09:35:25.406Z

The gypsy... On our way home yesterday we stopped at the supermarket (hipermercado). When we got out of the car I grabbed an empty Coke can to throw away. Didn't see anywhere to get rid of it until we approached the market door. There was a new trash can. A serious looking fellow stood next to it with his hand on top of the lid. Walked up to him and the trash can and opened the lid. He gave me

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-959031972003-06-21T23:38:00.000Z2003-06-26T09:28:38.660Z

Had planned to take some scenic shots of Porto yesterday, downtown and the ocean. It's a beautiful city but I'm not much of a scenic photographer. Interesting shots of the day ended up being interiors. Figures. My idea of the great outdoors is underground parking. What you see below on the left is my favorite Portuguese food. It's called 'Francesinha', which means 'little French woman' in

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-958910022003-06-21T12:48:00.000Z2003-06-26T09:56:31.186Z

Hope to get some shots of Porto today. My fiancé worked late last night so she probably won't be up until late afternoon. Takes us forever to get out of the house. Good light today, neither too hard nor too soft. Isn't this the first day of summer? Probably something you should know if you live in a farming village. Here's a shot I took in 2001 in Orange County, California, one of the divorce

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-958696712003-06-20T17:43:00.000Z2003-06-26T09:29:54.110Z

Received an email today from the Fender Museum in Corona, California. The museum is owned and operated by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, maker of such well known guitars as the Stratocaster and the Telecaster. A few months ago I helped a collector acquire the #2 Fender Custom Shop Harley-Davidson Stratocaster and then arranged to have him loan it to the Fender Museum for display. It

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-958621622003-06-20T13:50:00.000Z2003-06-26T09:30:20.316Z

Spent time looking at some of my images from 2000 - 2001. Two of them are below. The image on the left was taken in Little Saigon (the city of Westminster), which is in Orange County, California, and the other was shot at the August, 2000, Democratic National Convention and depicts several protesters next to the gate that sealed off the portion of the Staples Center parking lot close to the

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-958571762003-06-20T09:13:00.000Z2003-06-26T09:30:59.696Z

Hats off to the village DJ. The pre-hammerfest music played until midnight last night. He played covers of American oldies in English by some unknown group for the last hour. But I'm not an Ameriphile. The hat goes off because the volume was a lot lower than ususal. This is my player, a Gibson '67 Reissue Flying V made in 2000. I've had it for a year. Bought it on eBay. Was like new,

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-958288832003-06-19T14:59:00.000Z2003-07-01T17:44:57.466Z

Today is a Portuguese national holiday, 'Corpus Christi'. I live in a small village outside of Porto, or Oporto as it's also known, in northern Portugal. Across the street from where I live is a 'tasco', which is a family run informal and unofficial café. I have a clear view of the tasco from the window in my study. That's it in the image below. This is where many of the local men spend the

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296867.post-958192142003-06-19T06:41:00.000Z2003-06-24T19:44:32.000Z

I spent the month of August, 2002, in New Orleans. The true short story below took place during that stay. I changed the name of the location because my guess is the characters I describe would prefer it that way. THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE Every day I spent several hours at a coffee house in the French Quarter of New Orleans called La Place. It had a Parisian look and feel. The tables were

Adverbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00013460648247387851noreply@blogger.com0