It's been a busy few weeks

Captain's log: Stardate 30031.6

Sorry for the lack of updates, not much was really happening, and then it all happened at once.

Books first: I finally finished all 14 books of the wheel of time, probably totalling around 14,000 pages, It took me a little under 3 months, which is kind of ridiculous, but having long commutes and not much else to do, gives you a lot of reading time. In summary the books are amazing, and I would recommend them to anyone with a mountain of free time. I've now started re-reading The Martian but this time in Spanish. It's really slow going, but I think it's really improving my Spanish. It helps that I have a kindle with a Spanish -> English dictionary, so I can look up all the words I don't know.

Next, projects: I've done no work on my Tron game thing in ages, I don't even remember when I last looked at it. So for now, that's officially dead. I was mostly doing it as a way to learn more OpenGL and because it was fun. I think I've achieved those goals, and so I'm not too disappointed to let it die now. I may come back to it later, but for now I'm looking for a new project. I've got two in mind.

1. I want to teach the kids I work with about electronics, and so I want to buy some breadboards and through hole components in order to set up a series of lessons on what a circuit is, how to design one and how to actually build it and debug it. Ending with building some sort of car they can build and drive around using a controller (wired for now). I'd have to work out all the lesson plans, and attempt to build these things first, to make sure they will work. My current roadblock is finding the equipment and components that I need. Being I can't really go and order it all online (unless I want it shipped from the UK / US and then find myself stuck when I'm missing 1 440 Ohm resistor ....), I need to actually find a shop here that sells that stuff, which I'm hoping I can do, unfortunately I haven't found anyone who would know this yet. I plan on going to the local hack meet on Saturday to find out if anyone there knows where I could find this. Update: Half way through writing this I went out, and actually found a place. So now I need to work out exactly what to do, and buy all the bits I need.
2. This plan is a lot less fleshed out, and involves putting the FPGA development board I bought from uni 6 or 7 years ago to use. I don't really have a project in mind, just that I want to learn about FPGA development.

The charity I work for had it's 10th anniversary a couple of weeks back, and so we put on a big show, in the main square of Cochabamba. There was a circus show with the kids, a breakdancing act, and about 3 or 4 bands. As is the way of  things here in Bolivia, we found out the day before that our show was on Earth Day, which meant that all the power in the square would go out at about 2030 right in the middle of everything, for an hour. We quickly formulated a backup plan and rented a giant generator. As is also the way in Bolivia, about 3 hours after arriving and starting to set up, we find that actually we have been double booked with another stage. So at the last minute we cut our circus show down to 30 minutes, and were once again ready to go. Then it all changed again, so now we had more time than before, but we couldn't have sound, because the other stage was showing a film about a penguin which had precisely 3 people watching it, while everyone else watched our now silent and muddled about show. When we ran out of stuff to do, because we'd rushed so much, and had plenty of time to spare, we looked at Amy, and told her to go do trapeze for a bit. So she threw together a 5 minute trapeze routine on the fly, unfortunately I didn't see it, as I was too busy running around in a panic. I got to do one of my clowning pieces, which was amusing, and yeah. In the end everything worked out, but was a bit crazy. After the circus, we had to shut down for an hour while the other stage did something pointless, this turned into an hour and a half. During the break we decided to drop all of our aerial gear to make for an easier take down later. This meant I found myself about 8m up the top of a dubiously stable ladder when all the lights in the square got turned off. So yeah, colud have gone better, but we had loads of people watching the circus stuff, which the kids did a great job at, and people returned when we got our music up and running later on.

 

Then, last week we had Thursday and Friday off, so we went to an electronica festival. Wednesday night a few of us got a bus to Santa Cruz. We were meant to leave at 2200. A bit after 2300 we actually left, one hour late, is basically on time here, so not bad. We arrived in Santa Cruz at 1300 the next day FOURTEEN HOURS! Luckily the coach had pretty decent bed seat things, so it wasn't that awful, although it was pretty bad. We arrive and it's raining hard, like really really hard. We debate what to do, and eventually continue with our plans, which meant getting a trufi with all our bags to the other side of the city, and then taking a 3 hour collectivo (private car that will take you to a certain location). We arrive in Samaipata just as it is starting to get dark, oh and still raining. We are all cold and wet by then, and so the others accept my suggestion of finding a hostal. We get checked in and spread our clothes out to dry. Some others who we know also came, but as a separate group, they decided to find the site and get set up for the party. When they find the site, they also find that there is nobody there, and so they eventually return and join us in our hostal. After a few drinks and some food, we all felt much better. The next day we get up, had breakfast, faff around for a bit and decide to stay in the hostal for the next night. When we get back to the festival site, we find about 30 people there, and no music (there was meant to be 7000ish). When the music started up it was good, but deteriorated quickly, so we headed back to town for some food. On the way we found a house with a guy selling fruit wines, so we went and spent some time there, drinking shots of different types of wines and chatting. He told us about a monkey that kidnapped a 14 year old girl and put her in a cave, walling up the entrance with rocks, except a few small holes, then fed her fruits through the holes. Apparently it was a few weeks before they found her (alive). We bought 3 bottles of wine, grabbed some pizza and returned to the site. There were more people there then, but still only around 100. We danced a bit, I stayed later waiting for the other group (who didn't bother to turn up until 2200, despite having gone in the dark and the rain the night before). That was about it. The next day we got a 3 hour collectivo back to Santa Cruz, visited the Aunt of a friend who was with us, and then Amy and I went home, catching the last bus (just), luckily it only took 9 hours, because the seats were a lot less comfy. In total 29 hours on a bus, but it wasn't too bad, had some fun.

Yesterday, we had an excursion planned with work, and so Amy and I got up at 0600, and went to the other side of the valley to one of our centres, were we rented a trufi and a driver to drive 11 kids to a water world. There we were met by other volunteers and staff, who had brought a further 31 kids from our other centre and from our music program. The plan was to play games in the morning, have a BBQ and then go swimming. Unfortunately while we were eating, we were told that actually the swimming pool was too dirty despite them spending all morning cleaning it. Not really sure how a "water world" has a swimming pool so dirty it can't be used, but you know, Bolivia. So instead we took the kids to the boating lake, were we went out in little paddle boats. Between the fountains and the water fights, we were as wet as if we'd have gone swimming anyway. After that, we dried off, found all the kids, and took them home. Around half of Amy and I's group were sleeping in the bus on the way home, it was pretty cute. The kids had fun, as did we. We have photos, but they aren't online yet, so I'll post those in a follow up later this week.

Finally, visas. So we got our interpol certificate, spent a day in migration, queueing and filling out forms, and managed to get our 30 day specific purpose visa. Then we got some more photos and sent off some forms for our year long volunteering visa, that should have taken 10 to 15 working days. That was 21 working days ago. Our 30 day thing has now expired, and so we are here without a visa, although apparently that is fine. Hopefully it will indeed be fine, we'll see. So eventually we should receive this form back, and then if all is OK, we can send our passports to La Paz for a week, and then it will all be finished, until next year ....

That's all from me for now, I'll post more when I have something interesting to say.

Memo to all members of crew

Captain's memo: Stardate 07031.6

My communications officer informs me that some of you have been spreading unsound advice around the crew. This advice claims that 10 hours of techno is too much and inadvisable. My instinct tells me that this is not the case, and in fact after referring to my medical officer, it turns out that actually 10 hours of techno is great for morale and large quantities of bass may even have some health benefits. As such I am making it compulsory for all crew members to listen to ten hours of techno per week. I have asked Data to do spot checks in the logs, so I will know if any of you are disobeying me.

I recommend starting with the Kiasmos

Then moving on to some Stephen Bodzin



Finally make a note in your calendars to check out Moderat's new album: III On the 1st April.