Bored?

This economy finds me bored and tired. Cold calls and writing proposals for jobs you have no clear cut idea you will get all leads one to be disenchanted and distracted. I check the weather report in Mexico every day and think how nice it would be to sleep with all of the windows open this time of year......Then I check the calender again for my next vacation. This is not me! I am a driver, a pusher, get it done kind of guy....

Dreams are what built this house, and that is what will get me through this stage. One must look to the horizon; check for squalls; read a good book.....and wait for the storm to pass?

Painting and other tales

When we had the house built one of the issues that I really should have paid a lot more attention to was the paint job on the house. Needless to say, the house is less then two years old and it could use a paint job in some places. We have come to find from a person who watched the house being built that they did not power wash the house before they painted it. That combined with poor paint quality you get a house that has peeling paint after 16 months. We know that painting the house was going to be an on going issue over time. The simple paint scheme for the house was chosen for this very reason...to make the repainting of the house as easy as possible.

We talked to Victor about a month ago and we cut a deal with him to repaint half of the house now (the south side facing the ocean as well as the west face), and then paint the other half in May or June. His plan is to power wash the house, prime the bad areas, and paint the house with a high quality paint.

We were down at the house this last week end and we needed to get the paint. At first I thought about bringing the paint from home, but we decided to get the paint down there; one to help the economy there, and two so we would have a local source for the color if we needed more paint. We chose a top of the line Sherwin Williams paint with a low gloss. The paint on the house now is almost a flat finish which I think helped contribute to the low durability. Our hope is that we can get this done now and we can buy us about three years before we need to do this again.

On another topic, with all the debate about medical expenses in the US this may be of interest. We thought we would stop by one of the larger pharmacies to see if we could fill one of the inhalers for Lourdes. Basic albuteral (sp?). They ended up being $4.00 each......a great deal. So we check on Allegra (sp?)....$22 for 10 tablets..not a good deal. We checked a couple other items and it is my opinion, like most things in life one needs to shop around, but all in all if one had to get your drugs in a pharmacy in Mexico I think it would cost you the same on average as it would in the states.....just my opinion.

As far as our stay at our house that week end.......like most weekends at the beach it did not suck. Many times the memorable things we do on a trip are common item like those of this past week end; going to the paint store and watching them mix the color not with a computer, but the old fashion way with ones eye, and experience. Going to the pharmacy. Buying great mango's (why we can not get the same quality mango's in Phoenix is just crazy)....these simple things can be fun to experience in a foreign place and one of the good reasons to have a house in Mexico; a chance to slow down; oh... and the beach is there as a great amenity.

August.....I guess we had to go.

As I had reminisced about in my last blog entry, August has traditionally been a good time for a trip. My week sucked so with a quick text and a call to Chris, we turned a happy hour on a Friday to a run down to the house for the weekend. As Chris said, "happy hour in a third world cantina sounded better then one here in Phoenix". We then called Darren. I first got his voice mail so I called his wife. She said he had had a very crappy two weeks and he needed a break..........so with his hall pass all set, we were off.

We got out of Phoenix and to the house by about 9:30-10:00. We unpacked and made a trip down to the beach in the dark. It was a very dark night that made the sky feel even closer. As Darren walked out through the tide pool he noticed that with each step there was a green glow. He called us over to confirm that what he was seeing was not alcohol induced, which it was not...at least at this stage. It was one of the coolest experiences ever on the beach. The water in this tide pool was bio-luminescent and with each step and splash it looked like green glow stick splatter. The splatter would not last but a second or two, but you could kick a portion of this tide pool water up onto the sand and it would still glow. We played like school kids in the ocean for about 45 min and until the two beers each we had in our pockets were gone.

The auto generator start worked perfect and I slept great. The next morning was nice....very quiet. As like our last trip there was no one on the beach. We had a great breakfast with eggs, hash browns and some of the great green chilies that Darren packed. We packed up the ATV and spent about 2 hours at the beach. The ocean was nice...warm, but still refreshing.

The evening was great. We hit the Boo Bar, as well as the Blue Marlin for some tacos, then a quick run out to the Reef to see the new beach bar set up. Again, no body was there except for one couple in some of the lounge furniture with techno music blaring. Not our scene. We then made our way to Capone's and had a few beers there, talking to anyone who would listen and basically having a good time. From there we tried Manny's.....same deal...dead. We were told by the bar tender at the Boo Bar earlier that evening that he had expected a good crowd later that night so we went back. There was a good crowd of ex-patriots, American locals, etc. that made for an entertaining evening of talking, and basic BS. Good times.

The drive back was good.....the border was just like town....no one in line. We made our way home with another August trip under our belt. Sounds like a tradition is taking form.

Memories?

I was thinking about Mexico today and the fun we always had in August. I had thought that I had started the blog last summer....but in fact it was just December. Funny thing the mind.....You do something for 9 months and you think you have done it forever.

Last August before school got started for the boys we ran down and enjoyed a weekend....I wish I could leave right now.

On that August trip we found some crab traps in the tide depressions in front of the house. The traps still have a few live crabs in them...good size ones as well. This was the first time the John and Shane came down to the house.

The August before the house was not done yet, but Chris and I came down and spent one afternoon just sitting in the tide pool, drinking beer, taking about old times. That afternoon, we made it about 1/2 way on the El Golfo highway. The new road was not quite done, but we thought we could make it all the way over there.....we had enough gas, but not enough beer for the trip...so we came back to town and eat tacos and enjoyed the malacon.

The August before that year, Chris, Darrin and I made the trip.....we had a great time. Town was slow as it normally is that time of year. We eat at Flavio's and drank cheap tequila...needless to say I did not have clams for some time after that trip.

It is August again.....what shall I do with my self?

Finaly Back!

I had been about 45 days since our last trip to the beach. Too long for me, but baseball and other summer things had kept us away. This time of year is for the tough....with temperatures close to 100 degrees and the humidity about double that of Phoenix only those who love this place and or who need to be in RP are there. We arrived on Thursday not knowing what day type we would have. It started with a call to our house in Phoenix @ 6:30 am (as Lourdes said, one never gets good news at 6:30 in the morning) It was Yolanda telling us that we did not have any power at the house. She said she would clean the house the best she could, but she wanted to warn us before we got to the house. With that news, we prepared to stay in a hotel if needed, but we had to go the house first and see what was really up.

Gin and tonic....and a little sun screen spell summer on the beach.

We were able to get out of the Phoenix by 3:30 or so, and arrived at the house right at 7:30pm. The house power was not on, but the batteries did have a charge. With a reset of the inverter, we were back on line. We had to clean out the refrigerator, but the generator started and we had air-conditioning. That evening was nice with a great breeze that helped keep the main room of the house cool. Due to the power usage, we typically air-condition the bedrooms, but not the main room of the house. Once we get city power (more on that later), we can then run the three ton AC unit for main area of the house.....maybe next summer. Matthew and his close friend Shane came with us, and they settled in for some PlayStation while Lourdes watched a movie and I sat on the patio enjoying the night. I slept like a log....I did not worry about the generator not running or anything.

Some high tides you feel like you are living on an island

The next morning I made a pot of coffee and really enjoyed the quiet on the patio. We still had some cloud cover and it had the morning even better. I read for about 45 min. and then did a few odd jobs around the house and then took about an hour ride on the ATV. The tide during this stay at the beach was very high; one of the highest of the year. The water was so high that the low road to the north of our house was flooded. It was fun to just ride around and check out some of the areas close to the house. There may have been 20 people total in Playa Encanto that morning....no one on the beach, and just workers doing odd repairs on people's homes. We finally got going around 12:00....Gerry came by to check on the power situation. We could not set the auto start on the generator so we drank two beers and decided we would tackle it the next morning.





The beach was good. I loaded up the ATV with all our beach gear and we spent the about three hours on the beach. Not a single person on the beach. I got a little too much sun. It was so humid you are in the water a lot, and that combined with the humidity I should have re-applied the sun block one more time. We got back to the house, took a quick shower, and made a trip to town. We stopped at the fish market for some shrimp, a quick drink at the Boo Bar, another stop for fireworks (one can not take Shane to Mexico without allowing him the ability to blow something up) and then it was back to the house. The evening had less wind then the prior night with almost no breeze until around 8:00 pm. We got hot and fired up the main room air-conditioner and watched some TV and then off to bed.

A couple of drinks at the Boo Bar never hurt anyone.

The next day, Gerry and Steve were at the house at 8:30 to work on the auto start issue. With a little investigation we found that the generator battery had so much corrosion on the terminals that the control wires that we had hooked up to the battery were corroded through. We got that all cleaned up, and with a couple of test runs we had it all set. The boys did not get up until 10:30 - 11:00 and after getting something to eat, we made our way to the beach around 1:00 for a nice day. I put my chair in the ocean and relaxed. Lourdes was hot and stayed in the house with the fan and a cool drink.


At around 6:00 that night I noticed a black mass about 300 yards off shore. I got the binoculars and confirmed what I thought...which was a dead whale. You could see a slick around the animal about 50 feet past the animal as the whale bobbed up and down in the swell. I did not want this thing coming ashore in front of the house. We went up to the guard house and let them know as well. By the look on his face he did not want it to land on our beach either (he and the other guards would have been stuck cleaning up that mess I am sure). The tide changed as the evening wore on and we lost sight of the whale as the the sun set. The next next morning we had no whale on the beach (thank god) and the animal was no where in sight.

The Heat Is On

Summer in Mexico can be a great time.....the water is warm and the beer is cold. This summer like the last few for us has been consumed by baseball, but we will get there before school starts I am sure. For our house, like all of those in Playa Encanto, we run on solar power and a generator, so the summer adds an level of stress on the overall system. One would think that summer would be the best time to generate solar power; the sun is always out and and you have have the long hot days. The reality is that the summer is the toughest time. Heat actually diminishes the rating on the solar panels so one creates less power as the temp goes up. Add to that the added load of the refrigerator, and all of the fans running, and the generator is needed. The generator on the house can run all four of the bed room air-conditioning units, but it can not run those for the remainder of the house at the same time....put power is coming to our small community. We had thought that by this summer we would have "city" power, but it is Mexico and that has been delayed. It is close to being a reality with most of the infrastructure installed. I had hoped that it could be done by labor day...but who knows. What we do know is that by this next summer season we can enjoy not having to worry about making power; Instead we can worry about being able to pay the high Mexico utility rates.

No Photos of Me

I was going through some old posts and I noticed that there is not one photo of me.....which I need to fix in the future. For now, here is one from October at the RCMP show and one from this last June......and a goooood shot of my feet. I could be in flip flops all the time if life was fair.