From

[Enlarge] On Lupita’s birthday last December, she was honored by all her family and friends.

After five years on an HP notebook – I am finally writing from a new machine. The change was long past overdue. After downloading all the programs and updates I needed, I spent the rest of the weekend getting accustomed to the new working environment. It is working out well, as you can see by the additions to the family fiestas gallery tonight. I added some fotos of Lupita’s birthday to the start of the album and of our New Year’s party to the end of the album . Not only was it faster and easier to do – little things like proper accents on Spanish words have become as easy as switching the keyboard layout with the click of a mouse.

Things are looking ^up. —>

Family

[Enlarge] Whacking a pinata looks simple, but it can be dangerous…

Family fiestas in Mexico are always fun and in the period from October through December, there are many to enjoy. The foto above is from a family party between Christmas and New Year’s. The pinata was a lot more difficult to break than I thought it might be! We all ended up taking a swing at it and it finally began to shred. The problem is, it was full of popcorn and a piece of it flew into my eye when I took my swing. I ended up having the doctor in the family remove it the next day. But don’t worry, I recovered quickly when the option to go to Leon was offered.

I have a number of fiesta fotos I gathered together in a gallery. They span many events and are all happy memories as I look forward to going back. —>

I

[Enlarge] This elf wants to know if you have been naughty or nice…

I was expecting to spend this evening putting some more fotos into galleries. I was wrong.

The server transfer went fine – except that Earthlink took a very long time to update their routers to the new IP address. That really had nothing to do with the server where this weblog is located, but it has everything to do with me being able to access it. I am using Earthink to connect to the Internet. When an IP address is changed, if they don’t update their routers in a timely fashion, I can’t access it.

While I was blocked, a certain spam operation was not. They set up a script which on a regular schedule was using trackback to spam my weblog. I was getting emails letting me know, but there was nothing I could do to stop it because I couldn’t access it myself. It was frustrating because at the same time, some very ugly comment spam was posted. I don’t know if it was coincidence or not, but it was not something I wanted on my journal.

After several hours, I was able to access the server and I found a way to block trackback spam – Referrer-Karma. It wasn’t how I wanted to spend my evening but I refuse to let someone take over this space for their spam. At this point, I’m not sure it is working, but it is worth a try.

So, whoever you are – you are on notice. The above pictured elf lives at our home in Cueramaro. He has your URL and he will see to it that you get your just rewards. In the meantime, I’m going back to regularly scheduled activities. —>

Morelia,

[Enlarge] The jardin in the Centro district of Morelia, November 2004

There are two places in Mexico close to my heart, Cueramaro and Morelia. Cueramaro is where we have a home, and Morelia is where I work when I am in Mexico.

Because Morelia is where I work, I never have as much time as I would like to explore the city and just enjoy it. When I reviewed the pictures I have though, I realized I do have quite a few. I have been able to spend some time taking pictures, especially in the Centro district which shows so much of Morelia’s colonial heritage. I put them in a gallery for everyone to enjoy.

Morelia isn’t an industrial city. It is the capital of the state of Michoacan and a city of professionals and many small and medium-sized businesses. It isn’t crowded or difficult to get around in. The city has worked very hard to make itself accessable and inviting to tourists. It isn’t likely to get the type of tourists that visit the well-known beach getaways of Mexico. It is a place to relax and enjoy much like some of the smaller cities in Europe. For me, it is a wonderful place to be. —>

Happy

[Enlarge] The cake from Anna and Miguel’s wedding anniversary

All in all, the failure of my previous digital camera and the loss of my previous weblog have been good things. I have a much better camera now for my purposes and a journal that does what I hoped when I first started Memoria de la Fotos. I still have a lot I want to do, but I see that it is possible with what I have now and I am happy.

Over the weekend, I managed to finish getting the fotos from Anna and Miguel’s 50th wedding anniversary in their gallery entry and I found a few more of the casa in Cueramaro including some from the ground breaking. I have so many pictures, especially from the more than three months I spent in Mexico last year, it takes a lot of time to put them all together. But as I do it, I remember all the events and people I enjoyed so much, and that is wonderful.

There are a lot of odd moments I will be adding to the galleries over time – if you are interested in new entries, check the dates on the galleries and see if anything new has been added since the last time you looked. It is easier to do it little by little than to find the time to get a whole batch online. —>