1 Adventure

Your Parrot Better Speak French or Else

Wanted to share this story before I head to bed. Just came back from a week trip to Chicago for the Search Engine Strategies Conference there. For those that don't know I work as a professional search engine marketer, and really do love it. I was reporting on the event as press with another buddy of mine. It was a good conference, if you are interested in reading some of my reports and articles please visit here, my handle is Phoenix.

The Non-French Speaking Parrot

I am pretty fond of stories people tell when they travel. Skip the small talk and tell me how the world works in your area. I met a guy in the hotel bar the first night that was from Ottawa up in Canada. He managed all the marketing for his particular company. Here is the story he told me about living in French Canadia.

In Quebec City, a place predominately French Canadian place, and very proud of the fact too. There is a "secret" or organized group of enforcement officers that maintain the level of french speaking people in the city. Basically they want to make sure that french is the main language, and ensure that business are using french in signs, in speaking, and in the general business districts of the area. Well there was a pet shop located near the city centre that sells a wide variety of animals and supplies for whatever you might need. He told me he visited there often to get dog food and take a peak at the critters everynow and then. He said that this particular shop had a parrot that spoke english, it said such things as "Hello" and "Beautiful". Well the french speaking enforcement police went into this pet shop to see if they were up to snuff in their french speaking bilingual support. Including the signs and various other things they had. Cause forbid they speak anything else! Well they noticed the parrot that had lived in the shop was speaking english. This would not fly in Canada, and something had to be done. The police told the owner that he had 2 weeks to teach the parrot french or else. The shop owner was quite a bit shocked and conceded that he would have to teach the parrot a bit french. Yet the problem with teaching a parrot french is that it can be incredibly hard and not something that happens overnight. These birds repeat words they have heard over a good amount of time. Well the shop owner tried and tried to get the parrot to speak french. I think they tried to teach it "bonjour" or something like that. After 2 weeks no luck. Well the french muppets came back to the shop to check on the progress. The bird uttered "Hello" in english to them. They freaked, and instantly took the bird, and told the shop owner they would be hearing from him. He came back the next day and gave the shop owner a fine of over $200 for the infraction, and said they had killed the parrot as it was violating city laws. The whole goal of the enforcement police is to make sure that at least 75% of the citizen and signs speak and are in french. Pretty weird huh. So they killed the poor parrot and fined the shop owner because the bird would not speak french. Pretty crazy in my opinion, where else will they kill your parrot because it will not speak french!?

More Pics from Lost Maples

Kiyo

Matt Ponders Something On Cliff

Pretty long week, and quite tired with a busy Saturday ahead of me, but couldn't resist working with a few pictures before I head to bed. Liked these too the best. Thought they were some of the best people shots of the trip. I usually have many shots like these, but rarely put them up as other ones I spent more time working on take priority. But these are good. The first was a girl from Japan I believe hiking with us, she was a quite nice person. The other one was a one of the guides Matt who was taking about 10 minutes to look out over a large cliff into the valley below. Wonder what he was thinking about, but cool moment to capture. I was sitting at the base of these tree doing some of my own scenic viewing, pondering, and of course picture taking when people were not looking. ;-)

Campground C - The Ponds

Sunlit Yucca Branches - Leasburg Dam State Park

Spent a couple minutes taking these yucca plant branches while I was waiting for everyone to use the restroom. Sky was incredibly blue as it normally is in New Mexico. I was on long road trip this summer to the grand canyon to go backpacking several days. We stayed in probably one of the BEST campsites I have ever stayed in ever. It wasn't overcrowded, the facilities were really good, such as covered pubelo coverings. Community use showers were the best the entire 9 day trip. Ok, I'll stop about the camping. Leasburg Dam was considered the luxury camping spot on our trip. We stayed once on the way there and once on the way back. By most standards it was the bare essentials (covered rock pad), but for $10 a night for 4 people, I promise it was better than any Hilton I ever stayed in.

The last night we stayed at Leasburg, we basically had to break in to find a place. We ended up getting back quite late to the park, after 9, and they lock all the gates then, turn off lights, and you can't get in or out. Problem since it was the only place to stay for 50 miles, besides that we could sleep in the economy car, not fun in the middle of the Kmart parking lot. lol. So we ended up jumping the fence, waking some dude with a shotgun in a camper to find out if he knew the code to the gate. We probably looked pretty suspcious at 10 at night. We almost left, and my friend Dan asked is he knew the gate code. He did. We were in luck. So we drove in, and spent the night. :-)

South Texas Sundown - Colors of Fall At The Ranch

Love this photo. Had a good time taking it too, random time after we had gotten back from setting up feeders and such for the hunting season. While not a huge hunter myself, I do find it enjoyable mainly because we have such a good time with dad and brothers. I tend to bring the camera more than I would a gun. ;)

In any case, sunsets or at least the glow from sinking sun on the horizon is similar to the way things change in the desert between day and night. They are quite subtle, somewhat pronounced, where you can hear the surrounding chirping of the grass and insect in it. Or you may hear nothing at all. This is a good example of what you might see on any given night with clear skies.

Felt like I needed to spend some time posting some pictures this evening. Work has been great, but its been a lot of work. The ever growing back log of photos from the last 6 months is mounting everytime I do some more adventurous random photography. I plan to give this particular photo to the grand parents for Christmas. So while I know my grandfather has never turned on a computer in his life, and I don't think my grandmother reads here, I should be fine revealing such info. So don't tell them. lol.