Canstruction 2013 Hits New York City

The 21th Annual Canstruction NYC Competition was held in New York City October 21 to November 8, 2013 boasted very creative art pieces made entirely from unopened cans of food. These creative exhibitions were on display in the heart of the downtown New York City district at 285 Park Ave Lobby, Grace Building Lobby and One Liberty Plaza Lobby and were quite an eye-full of ingenuity and a creative expression of art for a worthy cause. At the end of the exhibition the pieces will be dismantled and donated to City Harvest for distribution to those in need. Canstruction admission is free but the public are encouraged to donate a can of food on their visit and the organizers had their eyes set on beating last years record of 91,000 pounds of food.

I had the opportunity of viewing this year's exhibitions as well as the winner of last years competition while on a visit to Manhattan. Even though I didn't have my professional Nikon camera with me I still managed to get a few decent photos of the amazing pieces on show with my Nexus 4 mobile phone. Here are the photos I took of this year Canstruction pieces, enjoy!

Below are photos of last year winning piece.

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The Bond of James

She came "From Russia with Love"  because I was recommended by "Dr. No" and she wanted me "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". She looked at me with her "GoldenEye" and said it was "For Your Eyes Only".

 Right then and there I knew for certain I had a "License to Kill". So I "Goldfinger" her "Octopussy"  with a "View to a Kill" because I am "The Man with the Golden Gun" and the "Thunderball". I made her see the "Living Daylights" which made her fingers become a "Moonraker" on my back.  She wanted to "Die Another day" because she was floating on cloud nine like she just scored big at the "Casino Royale".  

She said "Live and Let Die", because "You Only Live Twice" and "Tomorrow Never Dies". I told her without her "The World Is Not Enough".  She Held out her fingers and said "Diamonds Are Forever" because you are "The Spy Who Loved Me" so don't make my "Skyfall" because if you leave it would be a "Quantum of Solace".

- Stunner

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Deluge In the City and Danger In the Hills

Photo taken from Stunner Car Cam (AKA Blackberry). Intersection of Upper Waterloo and Shortwood road.

Yesterday evening I had a shoot in Portland, so I had planned to leave Kingston from mid morning or at least by midday. However, I went to bed late the night before... or I should say the morning and as such woke up late. By the time I got myself together and circled a couple gas stations in order to find one that actually had gas it was already past twelve pm. I woke up to sunshine, but by mid day the sky told a completely different story! Some mean, dark, heavy, scary clouds engulfed the city from the mountains hurling bolts of lightning and grumbled with thunder! Things looked really serious, some serious reain did a guh buss! I tried my best to head out of town before it started! Could I make it? Would I get out before the city was washed off the face of the earth?

I failed in my effort to get out of Kingston before the sky gave way to a deluge upon the land! I got gas on Constant Soring road, and by the time I made it to Upper Waterloo Road a few drops started to hit the  windshield, and by the time I made it to Shortwood Road I was in the middle of a deluge, extreme torrential rain, yes I was in what seemed to be a tropical storm from hell! For a moment I started to wonder, if I had somehow driven off the road in to a raging river! If you follow me @stunnerj on twitter you would have seen me asking if there was a surprise tropical storm! But don't just take my word for it... I have proof!


Video taken from Stunner Car Cam (AKA Blackberry).

This was not the end of it though, Kingston was not the only place to feel the wrath of the sky as the mountains of St. Andrew and St. Mary were pelted by the buckets from above! But this time I didn't only have the flooded roads to contend with in the treacherous mountains!

Photo taken from Stunner Car Cam (AKA Blackberry). One of many small waterfalls along the road.

Water washed along the road way, but also landslides claimed half of the roads in some areas, fallen trees in other areas along the narrow winding road and even waterfalls! Yes I had to use all my navigational and driving skills to avoid these obstacles along a narrow winding road filled with craters and stupid public transportation drivers, who love to try to cheat death! I even almost witness two large trucks colliding around a corner on the mountain side, but they skillfully maneuvered their way around each other. If my words aren't enough to convince you, then watch the video and photo below!


Video taken from Stunner Car Cam (AKA Blackberry).

Video taken from Stunner Car Cam (AKA Blackberry). Two trucks almost colling on the junction road.

Fortunately I made it through the junction road unharmed, but I was in for another shock! It seemed this rain was only confined to Kingston, St. Andrew and a small part of St, Mary!  By the time I cleared the junction road the rain had tapered off and upon approaching Annotto Bay the road was dry like the Sahara desert and the sky was light blue with just large patches of clouds along the shoreline. The only evidence of the torrential rain was the water on my car and the clouds that hung over the mountains behind me!

Photo taken from Stunner Car Cam (AKA Blackberry). Just outside Annotto Bay St. Mary.

I made it to Portland in good time despite the extended time it took to drive a normally two hour at most journey. The drive back was not as bad even though I had to contend with some thick fog in the mountains, which also extended the time it took to get back to Kingston. But once again, the Stunner completes his mission despite the many dangers and perils in the way!

Disclaimer: Please do not drive and shoot video and photographs. This was done by a professional with years of experience, training, much care and adherence to safety procedures.

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More Drought... More Water Lock-offs!

The fourth month of 2010 and the never ending drought still persists and so does the harsh measures implemented by the National Water Commission (NWC). As if loosing my supply of piped water at 12:00pm and even 11:00am on some days wasn't enough the evil NWC has devised an even more devious plan of torture! Now I will only be getting water between 5:00am and 11:00am, 12:00pm if I am lucky, every other day! The evil NWC has found an even more spiteful way to prove to Jamaican's that water is life, because they are certainly making our life more miserable with these inconsiderate water lock-offs!

Well, I do understand that the country has been experiencing a severe and extended drought, but having water just a few hours a day, every other day, is a bit too hard to swallow. I have been living out of bottles, bathing, drinking, washing my hands, cooking, brushing my teeth and the list goes on. It is even worse when the toilet can't be flushed more than twice per day... so now you know my pain! I would love a tank, but this dumb ass complex don't have such luxuries, so it's just straight bottle and pan for me. I dread the thought of what will happen if this drought continues another two months! By that time I will be getting water only once per week! Or better yet I may get a "No piped water until further notice" message from NWC!

Once again the shortsightedness of the Jamaican governments and authorities, including dutty NWC, has led to the despair of the Jamaican people. No the government and NWC cannot prevent a drought from hitting the nation. However, with proper planning to ensure the country and capital city has adequate water catchment and storage facilities they would have lessened the harsh effects of this drought. But all that is such wishful thinking with the idiots who have and are still running this country. So the suffering continues as the drought rolls on.

Here is a little video by Ian Lyn (doesn't look Asian to me), which will give you an idea why we are being hit so hard by the drought.

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No Water!!!

I am sure by now everyone has heard the saying, "Water is life". How true this statement is! The people of Kingston Jamaica have been seeing the reality of this more and more every day as this unusually long drought drags on. Residents and workers in the metropolitan region feel this more when it comes to piped water.

Since last year a lot of persons, myself included, have been living with water restrictions which seem to be getting even more stringent in the past months. When the first restriction was implemented, water was locked off at 10pm. a few months later it moved to 9pm, then to 8pm and then even to 7pm! Up to a few months ago it moved up to 5pm then to 4pm and now I have no piped water as early as 2pm! This is getting ridiculous now! And at this rate it seems we will be only having water for a few hours per day. I know it's a drought and we as humans have no control over that, but this problem is only compounded by the shortsightedness of the Jamaican governments and the ever worthless National Water Commission (NWC). Both these entities did not see it fit to increase the already inadequate reservoirs for the metropolitan area, which has grown (and is still growing) significantly since these reservoirs were commissioned.

Thanks to both the Jamaican government and NWC, the people of Jamaica are forced to suffer  from the scarcity of this precious commodity. It is true that one never really appreciates what one has until one looses it and I can testify to that. I took for granted the ease of life when these is a constant supply of piped water, but now I can definitely see how precious that privilege was! Now I have to go long periods without the precious commodity much to my discomfort as i don;t have a tank. It's even worse now that I am home most of the time due to this long span of unemployment. This lack of water has now forced me to adjust my lifestyle in so many ways. What do I mean? Well...

• Every day I have to catch water in jugs and pan before NWC locks off the water
• I only get to have a decent shower once per day
• If I need a bath during the lock-off I have to grab one of my 5 litre bottles
• If I have to do a big number I have to make sure I go early before they lock off the water
• The toilet doesn't get flushed often (that's putting it mildly) when I have to take a leak
• I have to force myself to cook earlier in the days before water is gone
• If I have to cook after the water is gone I have to make do with water from a bottle which makes cooking a real chore
• Dirty dishes and pots are piled up in the sink until the next morning
• Doing even the simple things like washing my hands is a challenge

These are just some of the things on the top off my head, but I am sure it will get only worse as this drought continues and the resultant water lock-offs intensifies. If this continues, life as we know it will get even harder and I am sure that cases of gastroenteritis and other poor sanitary practice diseases will surface and increase. We need the rain now, and a lot of it to quench this thirsty land and hopefully the idiots that run this country and the NWC will learn from this drought and it's effects. But then again, they all have tanks and can afford to get water trucked to them, so that's just wishful thinking.

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Existing?

Image: http://honolulu.hawaii.edu

Are you living? Or, are you just existing? I find myself asking these two questions lately, every day in my short life that I watch go by I find myself asking these two questions even more. The more I think about it, it;s the more I lean to saying yes to the latter. I do feel like I am just existing, not truly living. Maybe it's the unemployment getting to me, maybe I am realizing that I am getting older. I don't know, but I can help feeling that way these days. Even though still being unemployed for six months now is getting to me, that cannot be the reason for me asking myself these questions and drawing closer to the answer of just merely existing.

At the moment I find that there a few things that I do enjoy as each day passes by. Don't get me wrong, everyday I wake up and I am able to get up out that bed I am thankful! God knows I am thankful for living to see another day, especially with all these disasters and the ever increasing crime wave claiming so many lives. But I just can't shake the feeling that I am not truly living, not truly experiencing what life has to offer, the many possibilities. It seems that my days are so transient, they pass by without me really feeling like I have accomplished something meaningful, nor do I feel like I enjoyed the day. I can still count on one hand the times I have said, "today was a good day" lately.

This feeling is not just confined to my present demise, no it extends way beyond that, to I time i have no control over anymore. I look back at my life, the brief twenty-nuff and I don't feel I have lived life as much as I should have. I don't want to sound ungrateful, as I am grateful for the milestones that I have passed. However, I just feel like I have not accomplished all that I should have. I feel like I have not had as much fun as I should have. Sometimes, it seems that I have just existed for the past twenty nine years, just merely going through the motions of each passing day.

But what is it to really and truly live? I don't think I know yet, maybe this is living, maybe it's not. I don't know, as I don't feel like I have truly lived, I am still wanting, still wanting more, more accomplishments, more fun, more... more living. I have heard many people speak of the experiences in life, the many things the accomplished, the many places they have gone, the many people they have met, the many wondrous things they have seen. Yet, my perception of my life, is simply dwarfed by what I hear being related to me by these persons who seem to be living life.

I don't know if all I just typed make any sense, maybe it's just a bunch of senseless ramblings. I might see this sometime in the future and wonder what kind of crap of a post this is. But until then, I do feel like I am just existing, yet giving thanks for every day I am blessed with. Maybe it's me, maybe I am the roadblock in the way of me truly living...

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Remains of AA flight 331 Under Threat!

By now everyone should have heard about the American Airlines flight 331, which crashed at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston Jamaica earlier this week. Thank God there were no fatalities in this accident and most of the passengers only received a few bumps and bruises. The Gleaner reports that after investigations are completed and the recoverable equipment are removed, the plan is likely to find its way into Jamaica's thriving scrap metal business. That would have been sooner than later if it was not for the security forces guarding the site thus preventing the plane to suffer the fate of the ship wreck only a few meters down the beach from the plane. But the wanton thirst of the scrap metal people is not the only thing investigators and the security forces have to worry about! What else would threaten the remains of this ill-fated plane?

L.A. LEWIS of course!!!

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Michael Pryce Has Died

Journalist Michael Pryce has succumbed with his battle against the dreaded cancer when he died on Monday December 13 at the age of forty eight. He was diagnosed with multiple myeloma cancer in January 2006. Pryce is hailed by the Cancer Society Jamaica as a strong advocate for the fight against this disease that has claimed so many lives. He was hospitalised earlier this year at the University Hospital of the West Indies and subsequently travelled to the UK where he has citizenship.

He was born in Birmingham, England, but attended Kingston College and Vere Technical High School. He later returned to England, where he pursued university studies as well as serving a short time in the British army. Pryce's media career took spans several national and international media houses, including: BBC World Service and Choice FM radio in London, Television Jamaica, Radio Jamaica, and then finally joined CVM TV and HOT 102 in Jamaica.He worked as a broadcast journalist with CVM TV, covering and sports, anchoring news and sportscasts, as well as hosting current-affairs programmes.

This great journalist who was easily identified by his British accent on local TV and radio, will be missed by the media fraternity and the entire Jamaican audience.

Source: http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20091215/lead/lead7.html, http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/cancer-society-on-pryce

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Drought!

For almost the entire year the island of Jamaica has been experiencing a serious drought. The normally rainy months of April, May and October proved to be fruitless and with scarce rainfall too short and infrequent to mention. Even more disappointing was the peak of the hurricane season, even though I'm glad we didn't get a hurricane, but also we didn't get not even one good tropical wave to replenish the reservoirs and quench the thirst of the parched land! The Agricultural Minister announced that this is the worst drought the island has experienced in the past twenty years!

This drought has already begun to take its toll on the island, especially here in the Corporate area and even more so where I live. I have been experiencing water lock-offs since about June of this year, At first I used to loose piped water at about 10:00pm every night until e:00 the following morning, but things have now taken a turn for the worse. Now the water is being locked off as early as 7:30pm! And there is ominous news that as the drought progresses water restrictions will only increase, which would mean that customers will be seeing only a few hours of piped water per day.

However the far reaching consequences of this all island drought is not limited to just our individual pipelines, but the Agricultural sector too is feeling the effects if this drought being caused by what the scientist call El Nino. The longer this phenomenon continues our water supply, agriculture, livestock, and our normal day to day lives will continue to be placed into even more grave danger.

The National Worthless Commission... I mean National Water Commission (NWC), even though they cannot be blamed for the long term effects of this drought still needs to shoulder the blame along with the Jamaican Governments for the inadequate water supply the nation is facing. It seems that quite a few of the islands damns, especially the Hermitage Damn, which supplies the Kingston Metropolitan area have suffered reduced capacity over the past years due to silt. This reduced capacity coupled with increase population and businesses has further reduced the ability of these damns to collect and store enough water especially for times like these. However, our governments and NWC over the years did not see it prudent to increase our water storage capacity by dredging and/or increasing the number of reservoirs across the island, especially the city of Kingston.

It seems we all now need to take a backward... or I should say a forward step, to erect tanks and catchment facilities at our homes in order to ensure we have a fresh supply of water at our homes. Right now i think a meeting is in order at the half dead complex that i live to amend the Strata agreement to allow individuals to erect personal tanks, or for the strata to erect communal tanks for the complex. At this rate I will be living from bottle to bottle for my water supply and that just can't work! It's a serious state the country is in and even hotter, drier days are ahead as this El Nino drought drags on.

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So Scarce... Where is My Mojo? Where is Stunner?

Wow, my posting here has been scarcer than the rain in Jamaica! Well, maybe not as scarce as rain here, considering that the rainy month of October passed without any rain worth mentioning! It seems I have lost my Blogging Mojo, because I have been here so infrequently and the same can be said about me visiting blogs. is it that I have lost that drive to blog and keep up with the posts of other bloggers? Or is it really that I lost my Blogging Mojo and need to find it back? Or maybe it is Twitter to be blamed since I am almost always tweeting away? Well whatever the reason, I hope I can start posting here more frequently. So what has been happening in the Stunner's life?


Well, I wish I could say I am happily employed in a job a love and enjoy and being well compensated for my hard work. But alas, that's just a figment of my imagination as I don't even have a miserable job that can barely pay the bills. Yes my friends, I am still unemployed, still combing the Gleaner for job ads, still sending out applications one after the other, still unemployed and looking. Hopefully I will find something soon, and the searching goes on.

My photography

On a lighter note though, I am still toying with my hobby, photography, and trying to improve my skills in hopes of making some decent money from it. In fact, I have had a few gigs, the money isn't much to talk about, but it can pay a one bill here and there. In fact I have one to work on right now, but this damn place to damn hot to do anything that requires moving from in front the fan for even a second! If you are interested you can check it out here http://www.flickr.com/photos/stunnerj/. Maybe you'll see a photo you like and order a print from me, or like my portraits and hire me for a shoot, right, right, right...

YS Falls St. Elizabeth

My girlfriend was here for a few weeks and that kept me busy, no not in the bed, behind the steering wheel as we were on the road quite often. And I found myself traveling from St. Elizabeth in one end of the island to Portland on the other side of Jamaica. I didn't mind it though, it was great to spend some time and also to get out of this damn hot house and enjoy a bit of Jamaica. I finally made it to YS Falls after being disappointed on so many occasions before. I actually wanted to see this attraction for over four years now and never made it. So getting to go there and see it first hand was a wonderful experience for me. However there is more traveling in store, as this weekend will be the monthly flickr group photography trip and I am looking forward to that!

That's just about it in a nutshell, nothing super exiting and dramatic. Hopefully I will drop a decent post soon and get back that mojo! Come on mojo, you can do it come on...

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Trip to the Centre of the Island!

Last month I went on my monthly Jamaica W.I./Lovers of Photography Jamaica Flickr group trip which took me along the south coast and into central Jamaica. I always like to go on the Flickr group trips as apart from getting to indulge in my photography passion, I get to explore this island I call home and with a fun crowd of people with similar interest. It is amazing how little of this island I know in all the almost thirty years I have been living on this island. These Flickr group trips are a wonderful way for me to explore the island as it only costs a nominal fee as we all pool together to charter a bus which significantly saves on the gas money I would have spent if I decided to ventured out on my own.

As I was saying, the trip took us to several places in Clarendon, St. Catherine that I have never been to before, some I have heard of and some had no clue existed. Here is a summary of the places that we visited on our last Flickr field trip.

The first stop of the trip was the ruins of Colbeck Castle, located in the community called Colbeck located two miles north of Old Harbour, St. Catherine.

Colbeck Castle St. Catherine

The next stop was a little pumping station located along the path of Salt River.

A boat docked along the river at the pumping station

The third stop was a quarry located in Clarendon, not sure of the name of this quarry.

A small lake that has formed in one of the holes of the quarry

The next stop was the bathing area of Salt River, where we enjoyed not the warm and cold salty water of the river but some spicy fish tea.

Salt River Clarendon

Next it was to one of the Oldest Churches in Jamaica, the St. Peter's Anglican Church located in a community call Alley.

St. Peter's Anglican Church

We then visited Alligator Hole, known not for alligators, but for crocodiles and manatee (sea cow). Unfortunately even though some of the members of the group got to see a lone manatee and some shots of the manatee, I had no suck luck.

Alligator Hole

The final photography stop of the trip was at Guts River, on the black sand beach where the river meets the Caribbean Sea.

The beach at Guts River

I had fun on the trip and I am already looking forward to the next trip, where I am sure I will have fun, see new places and of course get more photos!

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