Email post test

Just wanting to try email posting to 2 blogs at once.

The curse is reversed, with help of Dominican players!

The Dominican Republic has got to be one big party right now. The Colmados were certainly overflowing with Dominicans sitting at platic tables drinking some grandes. Pedro Martinez is a national hero down there. Although Manny grew up in washington heights, he is still "one of them" as most Dominicans have a relative or friend living in washington heights. . . . .and David Ortiz. . . . .Big Papi. . .. a legend in the making.

Sure schilling was a "war hero", Lowe pitched incredibly, Damon was a spark plug. . . . but the heart of this team is Dominican. Both Manny and Big Papi will be in the AL MVP voting and Pedro. . . . . is Pedro. First ballot hall of famer and the current poster child for Dominican ball players.

It was great to see Pedro finally get a chance to pitch in the World Series and for him to come up huge. I shudder to think what Pedro could have done had he made it to the WS when he was in his prime. Certainly one of the most dominating pitchers of all time.

The economy in the DR has been horrible. Many night clubs and discos are empty most of the time except every other friday when people get paid. It seems that people just don't have the extra money to enjoy the nightlife. . . . . . . .until now. They will all find a few pesos to buy some Presidente, or chip in for a bottle of rum. . . . break out the mama juana and party like crazy.. . . . . . .

Pedro Martinez shines in World Series.

I can hear the people in the Dominican Republic screaming at the TVs in the local colmados or bars. If the Red Sox win the World Series, there will be wild parties in the Dominican Republic. After the ALCS 6 people were injured by stray bullets from people celebrating in the streets.

If the World Series ends in 4 games, there is a good possibility that Manny Ramirez will be World Series MVP. That would mean that the MVPs from both ALCS and NLCS plus the World Series are Dominican players. As for league MVPs, Ramirez and Ortiz would certainly be in the running in the AL, but may cancel each other out a bit, Vladimir Guerrero would also be in the running, along with Sheffield from the Yanks.

This has got to be the best year ever for Dominican baseball players and the future looks pretty bright. Pedro has shown he is not "finished" and may get a change of scenery after this season as he explores free agency. I can see a Parade down the Malecon with Pedro as the grand marshal. . .. .I'd love to get down there to video tape that!

Dominicans in baseball postseason

It looks like each team in the world series will have 3 Dominican Players. Also the ALCS MVP David Ortiz and the NLCS MVP Albert Pujols are both Dominican. It has been a very successful year for Dominican ball players. Each year there are more and more Dominicans in the major leagues, and there are a ton of dominican players in the minor leagues.

Many people in the DR are big Red Sox fans, so when the sox beat the yankees in game seven, the streets of santo domingo turned into a big party. Reports came in that 6 people were injured by stray bullets! Firing pistols into the air is a common form of celebration in some Dominican neighborhoods. Unfortunately in thsi isntance some innocent people were injured.

If the sox win the world series, I am sure the party will be evn bigger. Hopefully with less gunfire and injuries!

Dominican Baseball Video Clip

During the winter I went to a few Dominican Winter League baseball games and I brought my video camera to one game. I edited together a short clip to let people see the "flavor" of Dominican Baseball. There is drinking, dancing, partying and cheerleaders! It is certainly a fun way to spend an evening in Santo Domingo!

I have also been to a game in San Pedro De Macoris, which is home to many Dominican players. This winter I would like to see games in some of the other stadiums across the DR. Santiago may be the next stop. It is much different than going to a game in the states. The Dominican people REALLY get into it. It can be a bit crazy but always fun.

Baeball is so much a part of the culture down there. I also shit video of some young kids playing ball, for a documentary project that had segments being shot all around the world. The conditions these kids played under were horrible. I'll edit together a clip from that footage so you can see how the young kids take their baseball very seriously.

Here are the links to the baseball clips

Broadband video clip of Dominican Baseball

Dial up video clip of Dominican Baseball

I hope you enjoy the clips and get a bit of the "flavor" of Dominican Baseball!

New Videos Of the Dominican Republic

A few months back I decided to keep my video camera with me while sitting on my balcony, relaxing with a few Presidentes. Without leaving the balcony, I shot vendors in trucks, carts, bicycles etc selling fruits, ice cream, eggs and even live chickens! I wanted to show a "slice of life" in Santo Domingo. Here is the broadband version, and here is the dialup version.

It is amazing what one can buy without leaving the front of your house or apartment. Many dominicans are used to buying food when they need it, rather than food shopping in a supermarket. With electricity being unreliable, storing food in a refrigerator is not a great idea unless you have back up power which most dominicans do not.

So they can walk to the corner colmado, and buy a handful of rice, a spoonful of butter, an egg or two, and some bread. THey can buy all sorts of food from the vendors that stop by. Some of which will anounce their arrival with a megaphone. I will never forget in one apartment we would here the same anouncement maybe three or four times per day. . ."veinte platanos, veinte pesos"! Which meant we could buy 20 bananas for 20 pesos. Prices have gone up since then! I still get a kick out of the "meals on wheels".

There is also a wide range of already cooked food available from street vendors, and we will post a video clip of that in the near future. We already have some great footage of "street corner cuisine".

This is what makes the DR so great!

If one spends enough time in the Dominican Republic it seems like every day you run into a situation that you find. . . . . .more than a bit odd. . . . .maybe even a bit crazy. . . . . you look around, and you can't figure out why the Dominicans don't seem to even notice? How can people not seem to be phased by such strange goings on? People can walk down the street or be stuck in traffic and not even blink an eye at stuff. . . . . . . .like. . . . . . .this photo.

I was doing some work on webstuff today. Learned a lot about RSS, Atom, XML etc etc etc. Ok, so not a lot, but enough to make my head hurt. I also spent time this weekend surfing the net for more info and content on the dominican republic. I stumbled across a new website at drsol.info
that had an RSS feed of their up to date Dominican Republic news, so I hacked my way through adding their news to my dr-tourist.tv site.

I also browsed the webs for Dominican Republic related websites and blogs to explore exchanging content, links, ideas etc. I found quite a few blogs with many being in spanish. In one blog done by Osmany, I found the above picture, I'll have to keep visiting that blog to see what else he comes up with!

Yo just testing the email posting capabilities on blogger!

Theoretically I can now post to the blog by email. Then I will have ZERO excuses if I do not update the blog more often! Of course I will dig up some silly excuses such as if I am not currently in the DR etc.

I have also been learning how to publish this blog to my website at dr-tourist.tv, using atom. Apparently Google has taken over blogger and they are coming up with some cool stuff such as using "Hello" to post photos to a blog.

I have decided to start another blog that will be photos of typical Dominican Life rather than tourist type stuff. I plan on carrying my Canon Digital Elf and my Sony PC -09 DV Cam EVERYWHERE I go in the DR to be able to capture special moments on tape and as digital stills. Then I will be able to share some flavor of the DR in multiple ways on multiple
sites.

I'm not dead yet. . . .

OK. . . .so it has been a LONG time since I have posted here on the Life In Santo Domingo Blog. I have been very busy and have not been living in Santo Domingo for the last few months. Plans are in the works to move back down after the new year. I have been hard at work with doing some video projects and have shot some new clips for the dr-tourist.tv website. I need to start digitizing and organizing all this new footage etc.

I have made several trips in the months between posts and will post some pics and links to video clips. . . . . just a wee bit after the fact. . . There has been lots of change in the Dominican Republic. Exchange rates are doing a dance, a new president has been elected, a bit more violence on the streets, electricity blackouts have been really bad, and natural gas shortages are not uncommon.

As usual the Dominican People seem to somehow go about life and continue to survive.Hopefully some of their resilience will rub off on me!

Back in the New York groove

Quoting Ace Frehley is probably a good way to start this blog entry. I have not posted in a bit, as I have been busy working on our websites and the power has been less than reliable once again. Some interesting stuff has been happening lately. . . . .such as:

Return of the Ladrones
Recently while sleeping we were woken up by guys in the street screaming for us to open the door to the bulding by buzzing them in on the intercom. They claimed to be cops, but uniforms down here are pretty ragged or sometimes non existant. Cari told me not to buzz in anybody! She called the cops. Then a car came down the street and the guys in the street took off running! That of course lead us to believe they were thieves trying to scam us into letting them in the building! They returned shortly and were yelling for us to open the door. They said there were 4 thieves on the roof. Little by little more people were showing up, one guy carrying an axe and they were all yelling at me to open the damn door! Cari was having trouble getting the cops to answer, and I was freaking out. I woke up her son Joan and put him in the back bedroom. I spent what felt like eternity running back and forth from the back bedroom to see the status of the police coming and the patio door to see if anybody was close to breaking in.

I was so nervous, my mouth was "bone dry". I told cari that if people got in to lock herself and her son in the bedroom, move the bed against the door and not to open it for anybody. I was going to do my best to hold them off with a kitchen knife and frying pan! In retrospect. . . . . more thna just a bit dumb!

Then at one point a motor cycle pulls up. . . . .people start running. .. . .cops jump off the bike, draw pistols and give chase! They apparently shot at one guy and he stopped in his tracks. They dragged him back to the bike, cuffed him and then beat the crap out of him. He was knocked to the ground by a few really good punches to the face in an effort to make him talk. They also stuck a sawed off in his face and threatened to blow his brains out.

They threw him on the back of a motorcycle and left!!!! Now the angry mob returns and I'm thinking it is his friends and they are PISSED! Back to extreme panic mode! Cari is still calling the cops and finally a cop car pulls up. We already knew these guys from previous visits. They pull guns, we buzz them in and they search the building and rooftops etc.

I head downstairs and find out 2 of the guys screaming to get let in were in fact security guards for the government building on the corner. There were also some very concerned neighbors out there. One guy was sleeping in a car and saw the ladrone climb a utility cable onto my balcony. As I was sleeping on the floor right by the glass door, he skipped my place and climbed up to the 3rd floor trying to pry the sliding glass door off it's tracks, at the apartment of 2 Italian guys living there.

Our neighborhood is really the second oldest part of Santo Domingo, and is close to the Zona Colonial which is the oldest city in the new world. Our building is brand spanking new, Bright white paint job. Living there are myself with Cari and Joan, the 2 Italians, and a French couple on the 3rd floor. A brand new building in an older area, chock full of foreigners apparently makes a great target for cat burglars!

The guy they caught is going away for about 3 years and they are trying to make him "talk" as to the where abouts of his buddys and possibly my laptop etc. We offered 5,000 pesos reward to the cops if they recover my laptop. That is about 100 bucks, but about 3 months salary for these cops so they will do their best!

I am back in New York for a bit and spoke to Cari last night. The owner of the building was there all day installing locked metal gates at every entrance etc. Deadbolts on the doors etc. No cat burglars could get in now, so Cari can sleep better. . . . . .we hope!


Chillin on the Malecon. . . . .

On a much lighter note, because we were basically broke and also because we weren't crazy about leaving the apartment alone at night, we didn't go out much the last few weeks I was down there. Luckily we discovered a few ways to have a good time, very cheaply and more importantly within walking distance of our place.

There is a fairly big park right around the corner. The park is right on the Malecon. The Malecon is the main drag right on the water. There is no beach in Santo Domingo, just some rocks along the coast that the water gently "crashes" into. I took Joan there one afternoon while his Mom was busy taking more photos of girls for www.latinadominicana.com He was having a blast riding the swings etc. Then he tried these excersise rings and in the middle of trying a "backflip" fell to the ground. . . . .face first. Poor kid was crying, had sand stuck to his face and I was sure Mom would blame me. . . .. .so . . . . ..what to do? What else. . . . . take him for Ice Cream!

There is a "Helados Bon" right on the Malecon half a block from the park so we went there for Ice Cream. He loved it. hanging out just us "guys" eating Ice Cream etc.

He told Mom all about our "great" day later that evening. So the next day, we all went to the park. This time he brought his baseball glove and bat etc. We all played a bit of baseball together and Joan loved it. He was digging a day out with his "family". Every time he hit the ball anywhere he would jump up and down and scream "home ron". . . ."home run" and do a little dance!

Sunday is "Malecon Libre" day. That means they close the Malecon to vehicles and it becomes a great pedestrian mall for families to bike ride, roller skate, fly kites etc etc etc . When it got too dark to play more baseball, we all went to Helados Bon again and stuffed our faces on Ice Cream, then walked down the Malecon to see what was happening. They had clowns, pop corn machines, vendors selling snacks and toys, beer, little kiosks selling rum, pizza, hot dogs etc.

We were going to go to "la ceniza" which usually serves the coldest beer on the planet but Cari wanted to check out "Adrian's". The only restaurant on the caribbean side of the Malecon. We got a nice table with a great view and drank some Ice Cold Grande Presidentes! Joan of course had Frozen Lemonades. Joan enjoyed playing with the Parrots they have at Adrian's. We spent a few hours there and wound up moving inside for some snacks. Cari ordered Mofongo and Joan and I split some pork ribs. Cari said the Mofongo was good. The ribs were different. No BBQ sauce etc. Just flavored with Garlic and grilled. Not bad really, just different. Our bill came to about 1,000 pesos which was about 20 bucks with the current exchange rate. Not bad for a few hours with a great view and ice cold beer etc. "Adrian's" will become a new hang out for us I am sure. It is not very far from our apartment and is near the Juragua Hotel so it is easily walkable. Walks down the Malecon are great reminders of why I decided to live in Santo Domingo for a while. With the location of our new apartment I am sure we will do this more often.

The last night I was in Santo Domingo, we returned to the park. Joan has learned how to say "let's go to the park" in English so I am sure we will be there quite a bit! This time we brought his nerf football, and we all played football for a while. They don't really play football in the DR, so Joan had asked me about this game he had seen me watch with a funny shaped ball and guys pounding the daylights out of each other. "football" was actually one of the first english words he learned. I took him to both Champions sports bar in the Juragua and Tony Romas to watch games on sunday afternoons. We have our little "guys day out" to watch football.

After playing football, we walked across the Malecon and sat down at a little plastic table and chairs outside of this shack that sells food,beer and rum etc. We hung out there, a few yards from the Caribbean, drinking beer taking pictures and talking about my trip back to New York. It was very mellow and a great way to end my stay in Santo Domingo. Total cost for this was under 5 bucks. I'm talking 5 large beers, a plate of some dominican dish for Cari and Joan and a soda plus bottle of water for Joan. I can see us returning to this "shack" or any of the others just like it on a regular basis!

Catching up. . . . .

I've been a bit busy lately, so haven't had much time to Blog. The lights have also gon eout quite a bit, and that cuts into my computer time! I was typing a long email yesterday and suddenly, no lights, computer shuts down, lose all my work. I'll have to resurrect the UPS I have and see if it still works.

We had the phone company here yesterday. They improved the DSL speed to where it is decent, but I am still not getting the velocity I am paying for. Another guy is coming today to check the lines etc. We'll see. Overall their customer service is getting better.

We ate at Mcdonalds last night and Joan ate 2 happy meals. I am pretty sure he did it just to get 2 toys that come with the meals etc. He went to school today and said when he returns he wants to learn more english. He is learning pretty fast for an 8 year old.

I went to a Baseball Game on Sunday. I brought my video camera and shot a bunch of footage. I will edit it together when I get back to NY and post it on my dr-tourist.tv site. Games here are a blast. People go CRAZY over baseball. They drink beer, and rum and wave flags, dance in the aisles, make an incredible amount of noise and even have cheerleaders!

It was a playoff game between the Licey Tigers and the Giants of Cibao. Licey won big time. I wanted to see Timo Perez of the Mets play but he didn't. Luis Castillo played for Licey as well as Jose Offerman. The players actually seem to enjoy playing the game, and it has a whole different vibe than a major league game. Any baseball fan that visist the Dominican Republic needs to attend at least one game.

The Caribbean World series is next week, and I might try and make one of those games as well.

Things have been relatively quiet. . . . .

I've been taking it easy lately. I have been busy writing tutorials for my "day job". I also had to make a trip to UPS to pick up my replacement credit card. I am now busy updating my CC info at a number of online vendors that charge my crads monthly etc. What fun. Have I mentioned how much it sucks to get robbed.

Cari has been busy recruiting women for our website. We have a client in town that has met two of the women so far. He seems to be enjoying himself but no "sparks" yet. Another client, who got married down here in December, is coming back down on the 20th. I need to book my return trip to New York so I can buy a new laptop and take care of some other stuff.

I want to return to Santo Domingo for Carnaval in february. I want to shoot some more video of Carnaval to put on www.dr-tourist.tv We have a clip online from Carnaval 2003 in La Vega. I would like to shoot some more footage in La Vega, maybe Santiago, Definitely Santo Domingo as well. If I have the time I would love to make it to Monte Christi as their Carnaval is different from all the rest. Some men put on the Carnaval masks and fight each other with bullwhips! I think that could make for some great video! If I don't get hit with a bull whip!

Cari needs to computer today, so I will probably head out to shoot some video etc. I really miss my little DV camera that got stolen. It was very compact and I could carry it any where. I will try and get a replacement very soon.

That's it for now. I need to get out more and be less boring!