these are photos and videos taken of tropical storm omar hitting the south west coast of curacao by the hilton and hook’s hut beach. both piers in concrete and wood have been swept away and winds and rains are flinging the island. omar was born last night from tropical storm 15 approximately 200 km north of curacao.
we’re at home frying our own fishes (courtesy of neatorama). so i’m taking the time to massively update some entries i found vastly entertaining in the past few weeks. yes i’ve been busy in paradise…
all our bags are non-packed but we are ready to leave on the next jet planes to visit our friends and families in chicago and france. thanks to annia and jordi, we’re also making a little escapade to eivissa where we will visit them for a week.
sunset on chicago
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in france @ +33.2.35.89.32.26
Inspired by the story of hypermilers in a Mother Jones article , I decide to bring Erin, my fierce Honda Civic 1995 to a gas consumption test.
Hypermilers are a breed of drivers who, notwithstanding the de facto testosterone rules of the road, cruise to achieve the best mileage possible. No need for electrical cars or hybrids, Wayne Gerdes, the protagonist of the article does it in his plain old Accord. His magic trick? anticipation and aerodynamics.
My little 1995 Civic, a beautiful donation from my friend Kathy, could already average 20 miles per gallon (mpg) with its 10 gallon tank. In ideal circumstances during our road trip from Chicago to Miami last year, we even managed a nice round 30 mpg. Conditions are not perfect in Curacao where most of the trafic is semi-urban but I felt the need, the need for green.
Relax max, chill bill, an antillean grandma is caressing my rear bumper as I let go of the accelerator a while back. She can read my plate as long as she wants, I have no reason to accelerate since the light ahead of us is still red. I’m rolling in gently and realize that I won’t need to break this time around. Conditions are perfect and I fluidly reintegrate the flow of cars who had passed me a few seconds ago.
Over the course of the next three weeks (that’s how long it took me to waste my tank away), I learn all inclines and declines to accelerate and break as little as possible. Conserving momentum is essential when trying to save gas. My tires screech on a few high-speed turns and I never pass 40 miles per hour but the limits are being pushed.
Ultimately, Wayne and I have different motives. Regardless, Erin will achieve a landslide victory and roll 400 miles on one tank, placing the gas consumption of this 13 year old Honda to 40 miles per gallon.
Next step? Recycling water and harnessing the sun. I heard people have done it.
victoor.com is back online so it is rather time for an update on the past few months which took place around victor’s keyboard.
“sweet home curacao” is the new anthem. the easter bunny last year brought jess and i two tickets to a tiny island in the southern caribbean. i will cut short on the easiest job search ever with a few stats: 2 websites, 2 emails and 1 phone interview, 5 days later we were hired half a world away.
our departure from chicago came rapidly and after a round of parties with all our friends, we were on a road trip to the blue island via miami (link to the photos of the trip). fortunately together with our families they now have a refuge from the ice-age temperatures hitting the midwest. kudos to the first to pack their bags: michelle and leeanne appeared on our door step in november last year (link to michelle and leeanne’s visit). families were quick to follow suit: my parents first (link to their photo set) then my brother and his fam (more pics following this link) and the faivre’s (with their own snapshots through this link).
needless to say, we now have 3 full beds to convince you to step into paradise.
life on the island will probably be the subject of another post, the title of which could very well be “an ascent in quality of life”. our jobs at the international school are exciting (i.e. require a ton of energy), but it is all too easy to relax when people and surroundings are so pleasant. yes, we are lucky bastards.
since then, we went on to visit the dominican republic (link to the voyage) and we are planning more trips for the summer. i hope this will quench your thirst for the moment.
ayo!
after difficult months with a bow-legged version 8 of the site which was not very pleasing, the easter bunny laid version 9 in its path. this new version of victoor.com features a completely new interface for the photos based on wordpress 2.5. adieu joomla and its poor treatment of my images.
we hope to re-add all the (3000) photos very soon. for the moment you will have to content yourself with the newest galleries. soon will appear the rest, back from the day in 1998 when the first digital camera started shattering reality around itself.
when i was younger, much younger than today.
very soon as the upgrades take place, we will update the whole of www.victoor.com to its new version 9. version 8 was abruptly deceased.