You are all very aware of my issues with money and Crimea. The Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), has a stranglehold on the Crimea and refuses to let any money into the place no matter the need. I've tried every method known to man, including VISA, Western Union and SWIFT, to no avail. I have to resort to the most draconian methods to get living expenses to my family. What's really frustrating is the folks at OFAC told me directly that living money for personal expenses was OK with them and yet they make it nearly impossible to do just that. This choking of Crimea has reduced the place to near poverty for most as there are only local and rather ineffective banks with little money and no services other than paying utilities which they charge far too much for.
Well, this trip home I tried to send money to the daughter of my wife's cousin, who just graduated university in Ukraine and needed some money to rent a flat and buy some furniture. I figured, wrongly, that SWIFT would be able to handle this as Ukraine is not under any sanctions. Unfortunately, the girl isn't totally aware of the nuances of OFAC control and she listed her home address in Crimea by mistake. Her family lives in Simferopol and, due to the way Ukraine deals with college students and the fact that they still claim Crimea as part of the country, her home address was listed as Crimea, part of Ukraine. Students don't have addresses in the town where they attend school and the bank required her 'real' home address which was Crimea. This little slip seems to have caused OFAC to decide I was trying to send money to Crimea and they blocked the transaction. Now, what really gets my hackles up is the fact that no one bothered to let me know that the transaction was blocked. For 4 weeks my bank kept telling me the money was in Ukraine when, as far as I could tell, it was in an account with OFAC. After 4 weeks of frustration on my side and on the Ukraine side I finally went to my bank and cancelled the whole transfer. It took 10 days to find the money and bring it back. Still don't have a complete explanation of where the money went and why it didn't get to Ukraine but that's the way these government agencies work. They do whatever they want and if it blows up your life ... too bad. There is no accountability and this clusterf**k of an operation has so much power to destroy lives and countries. They are the group that starved 500,000 kids to death in Iraq because they decided that medicines and food had military applications and therefore they were not allowed. Evil personified.
Unfortunately, this fiasco diverted my attention for over a month and kept me from setting up the website for my business and from getting my image sales started. By the time the dust settled on this disaster it was just too late to do anything. So the business is not yet running and there is no website. I hope to get it setup while I'm still in Crimea this time so there's something to sell when I get back in country next spring. I hope...
Big Sur #1
One of my bucket list items for this cycle was to spend time in Big Sur. It is such a spectacular place with cliffs and big surf and too many places to photograph. That was my intention ... but the weather had other ideas. The massive storms last spring washed out huge sections of rt. 1 on the coast, closing everything from Ragged Point in the south to Big Sur Station in the north ... essentially the entire Big Sur area. So I was reduced to driving as far as the closure at Ragged Point, then backtracking to rt. 101 and going north to where I could get to rt. 1 and driving south to Big Sur Station. I got a nice taste of the area but a thorough expedition has to wait for another cycle. However, I do have a not so nice memory of that trip. I stopped in a McDonalds in Salinas before turning west toward the coast. I ordered a chicken sandwich. After taking a few bites I noticed the lettuce was bad, covered with black spots and had a not so pleasant smell. I took it off the sandwich and stupidly ate the rest. I should have taken it back to the counter but was in a hurry to get back on the road. By the time I hit Big Sur Station my stomach was starting to rock and roll and a few miles north I was forced to find a place to park and be really sick. It was a miserable night on the side of the road and I didn't feel even a bit better until the sun was coming up. That's the first time McDonalds sold me bad food and it may be the last time I ever buy from them. Every time I went into a McD to check the Internet my stomach started rocking. Something like that sticks with you for a long time.
Anyway, before I got sick I was able to find a couple of nice spots to photograph. I'm not sure exactly where this location is, but it was just north of the town of Big Sur. Storm was brewing and surf was up big time so the image came out really well. This is a panorama made from HDR images. Lots of work to get everything right. Still a little rough in spots but I wanted to get the image out there so everyone could see it. Enjoy.
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| Big Sur 1 - 24mm,f/20,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0 |
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