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16 July, 2009

Market Rehab Underway

Last week all the vendors in the tents in the middle area of the Corozal Market were moved out and over to the vacant lot beside the post office and behind the police station. This was, we were informed so that new bodegas could be built for them.

My thought was, "Yeah, right. Any excuse to move them out and open up the area for more parking and more access to the vendors along the perimeters.

Well, lo and behold, we came traipsing along this morning and what do we see? They have kicked the automobiles out and have been getting ready to pour some concrete. This is amazing progress so far. Our suspicions that this was a ploy to get rid of some vendors was groundless. Which is nice to see. This whole project might go a long way to cleaning up the Corozal market, making it a more attractive and fun shopping experience.
Corozal Market Construction
I know the quality of the photo isn't up to par. I've got a boatload of excuses.
  1. My Nikon Coolpix is on the fritz (I think... May be related to battery problem below)
  2. I'm having a hard time right now finding US made Duracell AA batteries. I can find a ton of Chinese counterfeit Duracell's that last about *** that long.
  3. I forgot to bring my specs along this morning.
  4. I took the picture with my cell phone camera - I need the specs to read the screen.
It was a good thing Doug was with me this morning, to read the menu on the damn phone. Maybe I should have had him take the photo too! Well, anyway, it isn't supposed to be art - it's news, or something similar.

The quality reminds me of when I was in the Navy. A good friend of mine then was a photographer's mate named Willy Dyer. I spent a fair amount of time hanging out with him in the ship's (USS Iwo Jima LPH-2) photo lab (You could flip the darkroom warning light on, which showed out in the passageway. No one would dare enter the lab with that light on, thus ensuring some hour's of quiet and escape.).

Anyway, we had occasion (Apollo 13 Recovery) to have a photographer from AP or UPI on board. He just freaked us out with his photo development techniques. He'd over-expose his film, then run into the lab, flash develop a roll in the chemicals for no more than 30 seconds at each stop, dump the negatives, still wet, into the enlarger tray, expose a print, run the paper through it's process, slap it into the print dryer (set just about on fry), peel the print off the drum, and stuff it into a fax machine (one of the old 11-minutes a page models - hot stuff at the time) that had been installed for the press' use and his image would be on its way to New York or wherever in an instant. It was amazing to watch him at work. His stuff was always so grainy and just really terrible looking on print stock, but would show up in the news looking good (We had to take his word for that - we never saw any of his stuff in published form since we were out at sea for that whole time).

So, there you have it. News as it happens, right here in Corozal. Almost as fast as it did in 1970!

5 comments:

Wilma said...

Great story about the press photographer. And thanks for posting the latest news about Corazol. The Belize fixes that I get from your blog and the other Belize blogs that I follow keep me going in between our trips to Belize. Cheers!

Unknown said...

I believe my uncle was the radio operator on your ship during apollo 13... Richard Gothard... I'll double check... Small world!

Joe

Unknown said...

You know, getting older and needing the "damn" glasses all the time is really becoming a real pain. I have one solution that drives my wife completely bonkers -- says it makes me look "so stupid". The trick (if you have enough light) is to take your thumb and first two fingers and create a very small hole that you can just barely see through when you bring you hand up close to your face (the "stupid" part). At that point you have a "pin-hole lens" and by varying the diameter of the hole created between the fingertips you can actually focus on something close up. It really, really works -- and if you are comfortable with you image and don't think looking stupid for a moment will kill you it will help in a pinch. ** You might want to pratice a time or two before showing off this new abiltiy!!! *grin*

Dave Rider said...

Wilma, I'm glad you like the blog. I get a kick out of doing it. Nice to know other folks like it too.
Dave

Joe,
Sometimes it is a small world. Thanks for writing and checking.
Dave

Julian,
What a cool little trick. It really does work. Looking stupid or not, if it works and your spec's aren't handy... Isn't it amazing how looking 'stupid' isn't quite the big deal it was as a teenager? What happened?
Cheers,
Dave

Unknown said...

Well, as my doctor (the sorry young sucker) would say, "too many birthdays" is the cause -- this is his favorite answer to most of my questions that start with "well, what causes ..."

Me personally, I don't mind looking 'stupid or 'nerdish" but Karol, my better half for over 34 years now, will still cringe and pop my arm and say, (just like my mom) 'Julian Foster, quit that, you look silly'. Oh well....

Have a good weekend!

Julian