Life Transplanet

We have been having what we call “vacation weekends” for the last few weeks.  This is where we do things we’d normally just do on vacation.  Like going to movies and visiting coffee shops.  That’s what we do when we are in Rincon and  Puerto Rico anyway.

Cassie Using the Computer at the new coffee shop Blue Mug in Greeley

Last weekend we went out to see the Rum Diary in the theater.  It is  based on a Hunter Thompson creation and takes place in Puerto Rico in the early 60′s.   It stars Johnny Depp too so we figured it was worth checking out. Cassie had read the book a few years ago and even then they were planning on making a movie.  It turned out pretty good.

But of course we are biased since it is a PR story! A lot of the scenes we knew exactly where they were filmed! I thought it did a good job of showing both the poverty and wealth of the island through the eyes of an outsider who attempts to uncover some of the news stories on the island in between Depp’s character’s drunken romps. It even went a little into the history of the US military bombing ranges on Vieques and Culebra and rampant corruption.

Depp’s character gets to drive a sweet 53 Corvette.

I’ve always thought it would be fun to take my Corvette down to PR but it’s not as cool as this 53 and it would be pretty expensive to ship it.   That and the sea air would most likely destroy the frame!

In other sort of related news, the offer we put in on the other house didn’t go thru otherwise we would most likely be working on weekends and nights.  It’s nice to have some downtime although it’s going to get really boring over the next few winter months until we get down to our place in Rincon. We are thinking January or early February depending on my work on-call schedule. With all of these ‘vacation weekends’ we are really geared up to get down there and get some work done on our house and property. But we’ll probably still take a few breaks at the Banana Dang and see a movie or two at Caribe Cinema for good measure.

Britton and I just watched the movie Feel the Noise. I think it is one of Jennifer Lopez’s films and I thought it was pretty good. They had a lot of music, especially reggaeton and hip hop. The parts I liked best were the scenes in Puerto Rico. There were a couple of scenes where they were playing basketball by the Fort -El Moro. We were like, I know exactly where that is…except when we were there a horse was on the court! Truly! See below…

Click for a bigger view-Horse is in middle of picture…only in PR

Anyway, I’d recommend the movie. It’s not spectacular or anything, but it’s fun and gives you a feel for Puerto Rico and the connections to New York which they call Nuyorican.

I liked this song because of the coqui frog sounds incorporated into the beat.

By Cassie
Saturday was a pretty fun day. We had to run a few errands, but then Britton and I went to an event sponsored by the local library district that was promoting Science Fiction in general and the book Fahrenheit 451 in particular. They invited Connie Willis, a local author who has written many sci-fi books and won lots and lots of awards including the Nebula and Hugo Awards, to come and talk about Ray Bradbury’s book as well as science fiction and writing in general. Afterward, they had a book signing and Britton took a few pictures of us.

Connie Willis signing Bellwether

Connie Willis and Me

Later that evening we went out with Melissa and Alan to the new independent movie theatre that just opened downtown. It was pretty fun. We saw the new Woody Allen movie, Vicki and Christina in Barcelona, I think it’s called. They serve alcoholic drinks and dinner, and you can eat dinner during the movie. The movie was so-so, and half the food order took FOREVER to come (I think Melissa’s food finally came about half-way through the movie), but it was still a good time. I hope it is able to stay in business. Small, local businesses have a hard time thriving in downtown Greeley.

All four of us, after

Afterward, we went back over to Melissa and Alan’s place, chatted, drank more beer and watched the new Chris Rock show on HBO. It was a great night.

I received a couple of movie tickets from the Greeley Tribune for blogging on their site, so Britton and I decided to go out to dinner and see a movie. We were trying to determine the last time we went out to a movie. It must be over a year. We usually get them in DVD form for free from the library. Libraries are the best!!

Me with the free tickets

We saw WALL.E. because Britton loves Pixar technology and we went to Toy Story for our very first date what, oh, over eight years ago now! It was crazy though because we were the only people in the theatre without a companion that was 10 years old or younger. It was kind of funny. But hey, as an adult, we can choose whatever we want from G to X, I suppose!

WALL.E had a good message about the amount of consumption and trash we generate on a daily basis and how this is destroying the Earth. The people of the future were big blobs that couldn’t even move and were totally tied to the (future) television. The ironic disappointment I see, however, is that our current “Buy N Large” of Wal-Mart type stores are selling “WALL.E action-figures”. The message seems to be lost…we don’t need more junk…Interesting how our fairy tales warning of the “big bad wolf” have turned into the big bad…us.

WALL.E says, “PLEASE, stop consuming!”

Here is a classic BUY NOTHING DAY commercial