Shots

Attaching the spurs
At the cock fights

Homemade band saw in the carpenter's shop

Norma and her sister, Sara's mom

Four generations: Norma's mother, Norma, Denise & Catalina

Another pinata

Keone and friends enjoy the pool

Hotel Fenix meal

Norma, Glenda and Lupita

Marc & Geoff at the Hotel Fenix

Norma in a church in Tecoman

Adolf with a mohawk

Marc enjoys the pool

House Work

Since I last mentioned work on the house quite a bit has been done to make the place more livable. The downstairs bathroom is almost finished. Just a little more tile trim needs to be done and the fixtures are in place and working. There is only cold water but in this area, there is rarely a need for hot water. Most the downstairs light switches and plugs are installed. Ventilator fans with variable speed controls are in and working.

The main kitchen sink counter has been tiled and the sink installed. Denise wanted some religious icon tiles installed for decorations and this has been done. This is somewhat extravagant because these tiles cost as much as a maestro makes in two days.

As I write this a new balcony has been added, the rooftop platform for the water tank is complete, the water tank is hooked up and working, a dividing brick wall for plants has been finished and some of the concrete around the pool is done.

The house now has three resident geckos so it is really starting to feel like a Mexican home.

Rear view with pool and smoke
Beto carves channel for conduit

Rear view of the house

Entrance to the house

Chalino works on rooftop platform for the water tank

Beto works on plumbing

Raul and Sergio, both fighting cock breeders, talking about their birds and upcoming fights

Ernesto works on the new outdoors barbecue

Sergio cutting a tile

Lupita and Chay make a door into a window

Work on the new balcony

Update

As I have mentioned previously, I was having major computer problems. The laptop is screwed up from the fall on the floor and it was getting worse everyday. I could not do online banking. I could not run many programs. Then I could not read emails.

My backup computer is broken. It needs a new motherboard. It looks like I cannot get exactly the same motherboard here in Mexico. If I cannot get exactly the same motherboard, I will loose all the data on that machine.

All of my records for several years have been stored electronically. These two machines cost me almost $7,000.

I tried to get data off of the laptop onto DVDs. I had problems doing that. After I did get most of the data off of the laptop, I rebuilt the laptop.

Before the fall, the Vaio had two drives striped in RAID 0 for performance. After several tries, I could not rebuild the laptop in that configuration. I tried to rebuild it with the two drives in a non-RAID configuration but it was the C: drive which is damaged. So I was able to rebuild the machine in a RAID 1 configuration. This is where the data and programs are mirrored on both drives. This means that the Vaio is not as fast as it was with RAID 0 and has half as much hard drive space. I cannot run chkdsk any longer because drive 0 has failed and the machine is running off of drive 2, the backup drive. But at least it is working for the time being and I am back online using it to post to the blog.

I mentioned previously on this blog that Mexico has laws against bad mouthing or insulting someone in public. I now have some personal experience in that area.

A few days ago, I almost went to jail. After work, I wanted to go to the bank ATM, check with the people that have my desktop computer and go to the Hotel Fenix to talk with Jeff for advice on how to get computer parts. With Norma I drove the van to el Centro and parked the van near the bank. I parallel parked the van and slightly tapped the Ford Explorer in back while parking. A woman who owns the Ford and has a clothing shop across the street came over and started claiming damage to the Ford front bumper. The bumper had a slight scrape that I don’t think I caused so I looked at it and told the lady “Lo sciento” and went to the ATM. When I returned there were about 3 police, Norma and the lady talking. I stood there trying to understand what was happening. About 5 more police showed up. Finally, I said “Cuantos” to the lady and she ignored me. Then, I waved a 500 peso bill at her. She ignored that. Then I said that “La senora est loco” and “No danos”, no damage. Then she announced she wanted $2,800 pesos. And I called her a thief, “Ladrona”. Then the police took my driver’s license and were ready to take me to jail for probably insulting the lady. Norma did some fast talking but I ended up giving the lady $2,500, the cops kept my license and I got a ticket.

Norma and I went to see the town treasurer. Norma asked for a reduction in the fine. When we went to the police station to pay the fine, it was reduced 50% to 119 pesos thanks to Norma. I got my driver's license back and don't plan to take it with me anymore except for a xerox copy.

I thought I started the process to get the FM3. Marc and I had a consultation (for 300 pesos) with an English speaking attorney in Colima who told us he could help us in the process. He told us his email address and said he checks it every day but he has not responded to the 3 emails I have sent him. We found out that the office for immigration for the state of Colima is not in Colima but in Manzanillo so I may just look for a new attorney in that town.

I appreciate the opportunity to work together with my son, Marc, on his Armeria house project. I think this is good for both of us. But I do not get to kick back and enjoy life in a hammock in Mexico. My job entails being a work crew supervisor, photographer, swimming pool cleaner, bookkeeper, flunky, watchman, payroll, et cetera. The compensation for these jobs is?

I am having second thoughts about being able to live full time in Mexico. Up north, most of my friends are college educated. Some are what you might call intellectuals. I am not being snobby, that is just the way things are. Here in Mexico as you know, it is a different culture with a different language. As long as I am learning something new about the culture and language, things and people are interesting. After sometime living here and getting more familiar with the people and culture, I think I will need more substantial friends. Everyone in Armeria seems low or middle class. I think after awhile, I would become very bored here.

Getting things can be a problem here; like computer parts, software, etc. I don’t know if I could buy something on eBay and get delivery in Mexico.

Some days in Armeria in January were about as hot as I could stand. What is going to happen in July and August?

I am starting to miss the variety of food you can get in the States, like Thai, Chinese, Italian, German, etc. I’m starting to get bored with Mexican food. Maybe after I get a regular kitchen and the time, I can cook some of these foods except for Thai and Chinese, my favorites.

I have a few photos I will post with my next post.

I'm working on it

Just a short post to let you know that I'm still alive. I will prepare a new post as soon as I can. The last three weeks have been hectic, visiting with family and a seemingly never ending party of beer, tequila, food, Mexican music and sometimes drama. I need a vacation from my son's vacation.

Part of the problem is major computer problems. I had to move my rig to make room for piles of sand, dirt and gravel for the house construction so I didn't have an internet connection. Then I dropped my Vaio on the concrete floor. It works in a flakey manner but I'm getting RAID errors, some programs don't run and I can not run chkdsk. My back up computer, my old desk top is having problems too, probably from the topes and rough roads I have been traveling on. The video card may have gone bad (a new top of the line ATI) because I get no image but the small monitor works with the lap top. So I have thousands of dollars in computer equipment now that is not working as it should be.

The theme of this blog originally was to be about my travels as a full timer in an RV. I am still living in the rig but it is now parked in front of my son's new house in Armeria. My son, Marc, Denise, Catalina and Keone returned to California on a Sunday flight from Manzanillo. I am once again the only gringo in Armeria. So I'm thinking of putting this blog on hold for a while and starting a new blog about a Stranger in Mexico.

Armeria

Shortly after my last post, I drove my rig from San Juan Cosala to Armeria. I took the toll road and had to pay 131 pesos twice in tolls. I got into Armeria in the early afternoon of the 13th. We picked up Marc’s van from the guys who had been doing some work on it. Around 9 AM the next morning we drove to Manzanillo and spent some time on the beach before heading on to the airport to pick up Marc, Denise, Catalina and Keone (Denise’s son from her prior marriage). When they arrived they were also accompanied by a friend of Marc’s, Todd, a 26 year old welding contractor.

Norma at the beach in Manzanillo

Manzanillo
Marc, Catalina and Denise at the Hotel Fenix

Catalina and Denise

Catalina, Marc, Denise and Norma

Since they arrived, I have been hanging out with them. We went to a birthday party of a friend of Norma’s at a pizza restaurant in Tecoman. Catalina got to try and break the piñata. Marc and Todd went shopping and returned with sombreros. I had been thinking of getting one myself so I returned to the place they bought theirs and got one myself. We have been doing lots of things, like going to the beach, visiting some caves near Ixtalhuacan and touring the Tortugaria to see the sea turtles where I finally got to see a crocodile.

Birthday party in Tecoman

Gary & Denise dance

Norma and Denise
Lupita combs Denise's hair

Cave entrance

Catalina with a goat



Into the cave

Gary and Grand daughter, Catalina

Lupita and Glenda

For two days we stayed in Colima at the Hotel Maria Isabel while visiting with Denise’s Grandfather and Grandmother. The Grandmother has several birds and four baby parakeets. She is a great cook and fixed a meal of enchiladas. Afterwards we played horse shoes in the park across from the Grand Parents home in Colima. We went to see her Uncle Jaime’s trained horse perform at the stables in Colima. The horse could not only do the dancing but could do a trick I had never seen before. The horse with a rider astride could kneel down and then lie on its side. After resting for a couple minutes, the horse could then stand back up with the rider still in the saddle. We went to Uncle Jaime’s Rancho about 20 minutes from Colima. He has 40 hectares of land with about 10 horses and 10 cattle.

Catalina at the Maria Isabel hotel

Denise's Grandma

Baby birds
Denise's paternal Grand Parents and Denise

Jaime on his dancing horse

Marc and Jaime on the second floor of the rancho
Carved door at Jaime's Rancho

Jaime feeds a colt

Catalina’s aunt and Denise’s sister, Glenda is spending the Christmas holiday with her mother, Norma. Glenda, 22 lives in Colima where she is attending college. So Catalina is the star of the family with doting parents, Grandmother, Grandfather, aunts, uncles and Great Grand Parents.

Another day we drove closer to the volcano to go to a Suchitlan restaurant that was very nice and had some exotic foods like rabbit and quail on the menu. After the meal we drove higher on the volcano to visit another 40 hectares of Jaime’s property in the pines. On the way the Vulcan de Colima had a small eruption of smoke which was kind of exciting. Jaime has about 15 cattle on this piece of land. Before I saw it, I heard that Jaime wants to sell this land and I thought I might be interested in buying it. It is a nice piece of land with a spring at a higher elevation to escape the heat but the land is too remote, the road is in poor condition and the volcano is active.

The feast in Suchitlan

Spider

Taqueria in the trees
Volcano spewing smoke

Jaime's mountain land
Some of Jaime's mountain herd

Grandma climbs a hill

Todd, Marc and Denise

One day we got up at 5 AM and drove to Manzanillo for a fishing trip. Keone caught a large mackerel and Todd caught a 9 foot sailfish which we released.

Last Saturday, Todd caught the plane in Manzanillo to Los Angeles.

Manzanillo fishing trip

Keone's fish

One day we visited another relative, Raul’s farm where he has a horse, goats and he raises fighting cocks.

One of Raul's fighting cocks

Denise dancing at the new house

Altar in the new house

Lupita, Catalina and Ramona in the new house

We had a family Christmas Eve party at Norma’s house. We had a lot of good food with Glenda cooking paella made with scallops, shrimp and crab.

Lupita, Glenda, Denise, Catalina and Norma on Christmas Eve

When Marc and Denise first saw the new house they were happy. Marc is a demanding building contractor. It didn’t take him long to find problems with the new house. He told the crew to stop working and removed Norma from being involved with the building of the new house. They went ahead and moved into the new house the Mexican way (half finished). The swimming pool is finished and has been a welcome source of relief on the warm days here. Electricity has been turned on with a few temporary lights and two outlets. There are no windows or doors installed but with high walls and wrought iron gates the place is pretty secure. A couple faucets are functioning but no fixtures like the showers, sinks or toilets are installed. You need good aiming to hit the sewage pipe in the bathroom near the swimming pool and then flush with a bucket of water.

I moved my rig from being parked in front of Norma’s house to in front of Casa de Schroeder. I now have electricity for the rig and the satellite dish is set up on the second floor deck with the cables snaked through the wrought iron. It seems that I will be staying here for awhile house sitting and supervising the workers after Marc and Denise return to Solana Beach, California in a couple weeks. The work on the house re-starts tomorrow.