Gormet Cuisine

I was just looking through some old pictures and found this epic shot:

One mother@#$%ing giant pile of processed
cheese! Stick of butter at right shown for scale.
Also note massive pile of wrappers in background.

This giant pile of processed cheese is surely one of the greatest things that has ever graced our humble kitchen. Some friends that Dan and I met at a drunken arm wrestling contest (another story), offered to come over and cook us dinner one night. They had been living with a host family for a while and had thus been subsisting off a mainly tortilla diet for way too long. They were so excited at the prospect of "western" food, that they told us they would cook us a giant Tex-Mex feast if they could use our kitchen. Obviously, we agreed.

When they showed up, they had brought with them enough oil in the form of "cheese product" to heat a Canadian house for a winter. The above pictured pile of artery clogging goodness eventually became a truly magnificent nacho cheese sauce. Don't ever let anyone tell you that processed cheese doesn't have its place in haut cuisine. It was really an amazing sauce.

Here's one more shot of "cheese mountain":

Its not easy peeling this much cheese. The head chef
and her sous-chef are hard at work here.

Home Improvement

Why is Dan hugging this filthy mattress on top of a burning pile of bricks? Read on to find out!

Could he be crazy? drunk? hungover? All are definite possibilities, but there is another more important reason for this seemingly inexplicable behavior. We had just finished the construction of our very own brick oven!

We started this project shortly after arriving in Xela and finding out that our house didn't have an oven. In a state of giddy enthusiasm, this seemed like a cheap and (get this...) easy way of providing bread baking capabilities to the intern house. Well, the project ended up taking the better part of 3 months to finish and involved feats such as carrying backpacks full of bricks across town, but in the end it was all worth it. This (in conjuction with probable drunkeness) is why Dan is looking so blissful resting his head on a dirty burning matress.

Below are some pictures of our handywork.


Dave

Here you can see the oven in operation.
We did weigh the pros and cons of building
a wood fired oven in our garage and in the
end staying dry while cooking won out
over turning the garage into a smokehouse.
Actually, we see this as a pro as well. Once
we get some meat hooks, well... welcome to
Jerkyville!

The first time we fired 'er up, we decided that
spraying some propane into the middle of the
fire would be a great way to speed up the
pre-heating process. Unfortunately, there's no
picture of the molten pile of Aluminum that
resulted. Don't worry Mum, no trips to the burn
ward this time.

I guess I still haven't explained exactly why there
is a old straw mattress on top of the oven. Besides
drastically increasing the chances of a house fire, its
main function is to add some extra insulation to the
oven.

Some leftovers from Bakefest I. Lamb roast, jerk
pork roast, spider-shaped bread. All delicacies
from the oven.

"Classical" Musicians For Hire

Its been a busy couple months for the Vigilantes of Funk. In between our weekly shows at Ojala, we've been having marathon practices 2 or 3 nights a week to make sure our funk is all in order. We were all feeling a bit burnt out after our Halloween show (see pictures on facebook: Los Vigilantes Del Funk) and decided to take a week off. However plans around here seem to be pretty fickle and Virgil and I ended up playing a show on Thursday night anyways.

Basically, what happened was: A freind of Kike's (the owner of Ojala) called him, to see if he knew any musicians who could play an instrumental set at university event. Kike called another friend, who called Steve, who told me and Virgil about this. Being as though we were kind of bored at work, we decided to meet this guy and see what he was looking for. What he had in mind was some classical music while people made their way into some sort of conference and then something a little more upbeat for the reception afterwards. Also, he wanted us to audition on the spot. Hmmmm...

Well Virgil and I don't actually know any classical music, but the guy said he was willing to pay us 200Q for the gig and we did have an acoustic guitar (me) and a mandolin (Virgil) - very classical instruments. Thinking quickly, I suggested to Virgil we play some "classical" Metallica and Guns 'n Roses. I figured as long as we played the songs slowly and with lots of picking no one would know the difference. It worked out great. We played "Sweet Child of Mine" and "Nothing Else Matters" and he said we'd be perfect!

This was all happening Thursday afternoon by the way, about 2 hours before we were to start playing. So we quickly went home to run over a few more "classical tunes" and put on white dress shirts (something I've seen classical musicians do a lot). When we rocked up to the university a bit later, the scene was frankly a bit intimidating. Everyone was impecabbly dressed in suits and ties and the conference was in a small, church-like room that looked like it could have hosted a presidential address. We met our buddy and he ushered us right up to a small stage at the front of the room and told us to start playing. We were both pretty dazed by the whole thing and were pretty sure our sham was going to get called. But in times of trouble you've got to go with what you know, so we launched into some "classical" Grateful Dead. We played for about 45 minutes while the suits filed in, and I've got to say they were diggin it! We left as the conference started to a solid round of applause and went to go grab a bite to eat before the reception set.

The second set went smoothly and we got fed lots of tasty food and a bottle of wine. After we wrapped up, Juanta, the guy we had been talking to, paid us and then invited us back to his bar for more free drinks and food. We ended up getting pretty drunk with him and his friends and had a damned fine night. It turns out that he also wants the Vigilantes to play a weekly show at his bar, which sounds sweet to me. I'll keep you all posted on what happens.

Dave

Concrete Slides...

Dan and I had to change the oil in our motorcycles the other day, so to warm up the engines a bit first, we decided to take a quick cruise up Baul, a nearby hilltop park. I had been up Baul a few times but had never partaken in one of the main attractions - the infamous concrete slides. This is pretty much the first thing people mention when Baul comes up (after the spectacular view). So seeing as though we were up there anyways, and for a change there we no annoying kids hogging the slides, we decided to give em a rip. Up until this point, everything sounds cool. However, here's a few extra details: (1) The slides are steep. And long. (2) It had been raining and the slides were wet. (3) I was wearing sandals. (4) We decided to slide down on flattened oil containers for extra speed. (4) The slides are made of @#*!ing CONCRETE!

To be honest, I was a little uncertain about the whole thing, but hell, I had seen small infants sliding down, so I was not about to back down. So I hopped on my oil container and let 'er rip. I started picking up speed at a pretty alarming pace and because I was in sandals, didn't want to use my feet to brake. I caught a bit of air going over a hump in the slide, but managed to stay on course. It actually all pretty fun...until the end.

The slides end in a small concrete 'holding pen' about a foot off the ground, so basically, your only hope of surviving is to land on your feet. Well, lets just say that if that happened, I wouldn't be writing this post. I hit the concrete and slid across the holding pen with one foot underneath me (which turned out not to be too good for my foot) until I hit the wall at the far end. The picture below pretty much sums up the results of my concrete slide experience. Needless to say I'm not big proponent. Guatemala is full of hazards though, and considering I was riding a motorcycle around in sandals as well, I probably shouldn't be too upset.




Until next time,
Wear closed toed shoes.

Dave

Los Vigilantes Del Funk

Alright. First off I've got to apologize. This post is waaaaay overdue. It is truly a momentous piece of news and there's no excuse for keeping it from our loyal readership this long. So, without further delay...we have started a band! We are The Vigilantes of Funk. Now, Dan and I have been skipping school/studying/working/family events/etc... to jam for as long as long as I can remember. We've even gotten our shit together enough to play a couple shows at parties, barbeques and that sort of thing. But this time, things are serious. After talking about it for a couple weeks, we got together a solid group including: us (los conquistadores), Steve, Kyle, Lindsay and Allison and started practicing. Through Steve's vast network of connections in Xela, we got ourselves a gig at Oja-La, a sweet bar/lounge before we had even found all our band members. We rocked our first show and now have a weekly gig there in the much covoted Friday night timeslot. Somewhat contrary to our name, we are playing a mix of rock, pop, local hits. Of course we always include a healthy dose of the funk.

Our current lineup, which has changed a bit since the band's inception, includes:

Dan (ukelele, bass)
Dave (guitar)
Steve (guitar, bass)
Virgil (mandolin, harmonica)
Allison (vocals)
Lindsay (vocals)

We've got a facebook page going for Los Vigilates Del Funk too. If you want to check out some pictures, set lists and the latest gossip from what's been dubbed "Xela's funnest band" add us and revel vicariously in our lives as rock stars.

Keep the funk alive.
Dave

Working hard or hardly working...

Unfortunately, at the moment it seems to be the former. Lately work seems to be really interfering with what I consider my primary occupations: playing music, riding around on the motorcycle and of course writing for Los Conquistadores De Pupusas.

Seeing as though all this time is being squandered on work, I though I might as well write a quick post to let everyone know what I'm doing. My big project of the moment is building an anemometer (wind speed measuring device). It is going to look kind of like a weather vane when finished and will record the wind conditions at a potential wind turbine site. We're going to install in a community near Coban for about a month to see if we can set up some wind power for the people there. I'll try and post some pictures when it starts to look interesting.

I'm also working on casting some new pelton cups (which are turbine parts) for a micro-hydro system in Nueva Allianza. I haven't really done anything on this project yet, but I'm totally stoked to start playing around with the casting furnace that another intern built. This could be one of the few projects where I feel the need to wear closed shoes as opposed to sandals.

I'm also headed out to check out a new potential micro-hydro site tomorrow. These visits are always interesting and usually accompanied by the eating of several dozen tortillas per meal. Yum.

There's lots of more interesting stuff I have to report on, but it will have to wait for another post. Just to keep our readership interested, some of the upcoming posts will be: "The Vigilantes of Funk", "Independencia", "Home Improvement" and "Concrete Slides: Economical Playground or Silent Killer". Stay Tuned!

Dave

Electrical Engineers...

...seem to have this reputation for being the "cleanest" and most high tech breed of engineers. People picture them working on satellite electronics in a NASA clean room, or meticulously soldering together microchips that will cure cancer and record the next five Friends episodes for you at the same time. Well, today its my pleasure to dispel this stereotype. Here's a picture I snapped of Dan's workplace while he stepped away for a minute (probably to replenish the empty bottles). Lets see how many out of place items you can spot in the picture:



To name but a few, there are:

- open alcohol bottles
- flammable aerosol spray
- high voltage circuit with exposed wiring
- a large puddle of water

Now, this would be pretty funny if I had set the whole thing up just to take a crack at electrical engineers. That is part of my sworn duty as a mech. eng. But this scene was not altered in any way - honestly! This is serious shit people. Keep a close eye on any electrical engineers you know and for god's sake, under any circumstances, don't ever stand next to one in a puddle of water!