World Cup Final

Spent my afternoon at Wingers in Guayaquil, a sports bar down here in Ecuador owned and run by a gringo like me. Downstairs were the Spanish expat supporters and upstairs were the Netherlands expats. Since one of my fellow teachers is Dutch, we joined her.

Good food, and it was as much fun watching the fans of the two countries as watching the game. Pics to come.

Eventful Saturday

It is amazing at how much you can get done when you get down to it. Last night (Friday) I worked until midnight on my new novel I'm plotting out. At 5:30 I was back up to get things rolling, doing my morning house chores and preparing for a Saturday advanced student class I teach at my school. At 11:00 am I was done with the class and I ran some errands, then traveled to San Marino, a local mall, to sit at TGI Friday's and watch the World Cup match between Uruguay and Germany. Right now it is 2nd Half and tied 2-2.

Cha-cha-cha-cha-changes!

Well, sometimes you're the windshield, and sometimes you're the bug.

I've been toiling on a rewrite of an early novel of mine, trying to resurrect it. I've figured out why it doesn't work: I don't have enough research behind me to make it seem real. I need to go back and do more research, then come back and rework the novel to make it go.

Sigh.

The good news is that it is not time waisted. At least I know why it doesn't work. The trouble is the fix is going to take a lot more than I thought it would. The additional problem is since for the present I am living in Ecuador it makes researching things in the United States and Europe a little difficult.

Windshield wipers please, clean up the bugs.

The last two years I have been researching down here in Latin America for a book I'd planned that revolves around the Spanish conquest of the Incas. I had planned a final research trip to Cajamarca (Peru) in August to complete my preliminaries for the book, so I am changing gears. I'm putting the under construction novels in the drawer for awhile. I'm instead starting to do some detailed plotting and character development on my new novel. It has a working title of  "To the River Stained with Blood" which is taken from part of a quote attributed to the Huancavilca cacique Guayas just before he died.

New Article on Ecuador Holidays

Here is a link to an article I recently wrote on helium.com

Important holidays celebrated in Ecuador

Just Sitting Here Watching...

...the world pass by. It is Friday afternoon and school is out. I have a bag full of exams and papers to grade and at home I have two novels beckoning. Tonight I have a gathering of some expats who are celebrating one of them finally getting permission to marry here in Ecuador (a four month process). At home there is a wife and housefull of dogs and cats and who knows what. So I decided for a time out.

So here I am, sitting at a comfortable table at a "Sweet and Coffee" - Ecuador's version of Starbucks. A minute ago John Lennon was doing his "Just Sitting Here Watching..." which is the inspiration for the title to this little post. Right now the opening bars of "Eye of the Tiger" are picking up, and meanwhile I am sipping on a brandy expresso with whipped cream, watching the life of Guayaquil pass by..

Okay, now I remember. THIS IS WHY WE MOVED TO ECUADOR.

So Similar - Yet so Different

School is over for the day, and I have a depressing stack of papers to grade. So it is another "Grade Date" with the wife, which is fine by me. For the moment, though, I have foregone the act of grading and instead I'm checking out the crowd. This is mostly forced on me since my laptop battery is low and the only table close to an available outlet is a wobbly thing that would make reading and marking papers to be pure torture.

I am sitting in the food court of "Mall del Sol" in Guayaquil, Ecuador, a modern mall that in many ways looks like something right out of the USA catalog. Down the way is a Pizza Hut, Dunkin Donuts, Taco Bell and Burger King. Behind me is a McDonald's and an entrance to a Tony Roma's. Over by the corner I can see just a corner of the local theater's Cinemark sign. Thankfully, these altars to American fast food hegemony are surrounded by more local establishments like Comida Tipica Nacional and Pinguino.

There are other differences too. There is a massive widescreen monitor here that is showing the live soccer finale for the Europa League. The people are dressed very similarly to their Norteamericano cousins still have much different racial mixes - lots of Latinos and Mestizos but not a single African (too poor to come to a mall like this) for instance.

Starting Up Again

After taking a time away from writing I've decided to get back in the saddle, with this blog as a way to reach out to the world and hopefully keep me on track. I am a 49-year-old US citizen living in Guayaquil, Ecuador. By day I teach at a local school, while at night I write - mostly business and travel pieces. I am the author of one book - The Brit's Guide to Las Vegas - and the story of how a US guy, living in Ecuador, wrote a book about Sin City for a London publisher is a story in and of itself.

My goals are to get back into doing a steady stream of articles for Internet and print sources. I am also working on a novel. I have written two novels before, but they were true garbage that I will never allow to see the light of day.