These photos were taken this week when I took my little brothers Mateo, Daniel and Lucas to the Australian National War Memorial in Canberra. I have to admit that I had slightly selfish intentions on this outing – I’ve been wanting to go and see the tanks, planes and guns for a long time now – but it also provided a great excuse for spending time with my younger siblings, and also to help make their school holidays memorable, exciting and (less-importantly) informative.

Anyways we saw many aircraft, seacraft, landcraft, weapons, uniforms, drawings, and other wartime artefacts. I’ll probably have to go back there again some time soon, because It’s pretty much an awesome place.

Photos taken 7th January 2009

A belated New Years’ salutation (though who is to say that the earth actually completed and started its solar rotation on the 31st of December/1st of January is beyond me, but the arbitrariness of this holiday is a discussion for a different day…), and welcome to the year 2009.

I hope you all enjoyed your celebrations with great enthusiasm, wrecklessly ignoring the following morning’s consequences and digestive repercussions. I, on the other hand, can safely – and somewhat-regrettably – say that there were no excesses to be enjoyed on my part. This can be blamed partly on my failure to work the previous week, and partly on my failure to change out of shorts before I left home for the night. A lesson has been learned from this experience, however.

Actually, I’ve realised that each new year, or more pertinently, each New Year’s celebration, brings a lesson. Last year’s lesson will not soon be forgotten – get to the party on time so you don’t have to catch up. And if you do have to catch up, don’t try to close that six-drink gap in one, or even two, hits. This year I learned that, on any festive occasion, you should think and plan ahead before you leave home. Never assume that what you are wearing during the casual part of the day will suffice for the rest of the day and into the night. Another lesson – which I have only just realised – is that at all times (and especially on festive occasions,) when you leave the house, you should have a camera with you. I failed this time, and accordingly, I don’t have any photos of my celebrations to share. Fail.

Despite the few downsides however, I did enjoy my segway between 2008 and 2009, and it wasn’t a complete loss. I got to see the Canberra fireworks (though I missed what was supposedly Sydney’s best display ever), I got to spend time with my awesome family, I hung out with some of my closest friends, and best of all, I remember all of it. I guess that’s what these occasions are all about – Fireworks, Family, Friends, and Memories.

- Juanito Jua-Jua

Feliz Navidad!

Juanta Claus.

Thankfully, my siblings have raised very resourceful children – possibly due to the fact that the parents are quite well acquainted with the Australian postal system. Here’s a quick view of the artistic contributions that I have the opportunity to exhibit, thanks to a couple of very creative little tackers.

gallery colour-lion drum my-face family happy-face happy-faces lego

A big thanks to all the contributing artists, and a reminder to all other budding creatives – the J.Ojeda Commemorative gallery-wall is always looking for new pieces.

-J.Ojeda,

Art Curator extraordinaire

For those of you who aren’t Ojeda’s or aren’t familiar with the Ojeda family traditions, here’s a quick outline. A few years back we came to the realisation that while we love giving to all our family members, inflation, exchange rates, credit crises (yes, that’s the plural for crisis), consumerism, rising unemployment statistics (though less pertinent in our family), and other evils of the western civilizations, all make it difficult to give what we feel our family members really deserve. To this end, we devised a simple, yet ingenious method through which we could give thoughtfully and generously without feeling the economic sting the morning after.

Yes, we invented Secret Santa.

OK, so since I’m not allowed to know who is giving generously to me (I SAID GENEROUSLY!!), I’ve been asked to compile a list of desirable goods, services and/or experiences, to be displayed somewhere on the interwebs. So here goes. Yes, this list is for viewing by my Secret Santa, but don’t let this arbitrary title stop you from making a generous donation… Even if you’re not THE Secret Santa, you could still be A Secret Santa ^_^

My wishlist

items I won’t hold my breath for

• A steelstring, acoustic guitar
• A digital SLR Camera, lenses and/or other accessories.
• Skydiving experience
• A Wacom Intuos3 4×6 (or bigger) Graphics Tablet
• A Dell 22″-24″ LCD Monitor
• A Colour Laser printer
• Playstation 3 or Playstation 2

items which are more realistic

• OxFam donation thingies – give my gift to those who actually need stuff. Seriously.
• Anything Coffee-related (except a plunger – I have that already)
  • coffee grinder
  • espresso machine (the sunbeam one rawks!)
  • A nice range of coffee beans
  • A nice range of ground coffee
• Movie Tickets, Concert Tickets, Theatre tickets, etc. All are good stuff.
• Music CDs – Vouchers for JB HiFi are probably the way to go.
• DVDs – Vouchers or actual DVDs.
• Clothes vouchers

And because the parental figures of the family unit are practically living in the stoneage, far-flung from the technological advances of Web2.0, I feel it is my duty to convey their wishlist on their behalf. Be advised that the tightlipped cavedwellers were very reluctant to divulge, so I’m sharing what little information I could glean from them. The rest will have to come from your own investigatory skills.

Samuel’s Wishlist

• Una Campana. As always, the first and only request was for a tinkling toy for his bell collection.

Leah’s Wishlist

• A gift voucher for a local hair salon. I believe Leah wants to have her hair treated, dyed, cut, blow-waved, curled, straightened, perfumed, shampooed, cut, fashioned, tied up with a bow or wrapped in celophane. I’m not sure exactly.

Finally, a note to all Secret Santas, especially mine. Even though we have these lists to help us out, the real fun comes from finding out more about our loved ones, and using that knowledge to give gifts of love. So go forth and become super-sleuths, find out about each other and use that information for good!

-Juan-two-three