Communication limits & weather report

Some thoughts on living temporarily in San Carlos: This has so far been an El Niño winter, with several cold fronts moving through Southern California and Arizona managing to drag the tail end of the front through Sonora. This means that we actually had a few days with sprinkles and a couple of days with rain and cooler temperatures. Not cool enough to not wear shorts and not long enough periods that we didn’t wait a few hours and manage to golf at least nine holes. But it has been a bit of a surprise compared to last January when temperatures were pushing close to 90°.

Having internet capability in the rented casa has been a vast improvement and I am certain that our four months here would be very different if we still had to go somewhere to get access like we did last winter. Having most of our bills and all of our mail managed for us back in Florence is fine, but it has been personally difficult for me to give up that control for such a long period of time. I am now concerned about business tax filings, even though we were able to have Alisha take some checks back to the States and have FedEx delivery from our accountant to Alisha in Washington D.C. so that the government could receive our payroll taxes on time. February 15th is the next upcoming date for business income taxes and it has me checking my memory and relying on Eric back in Florence to sift the mail for things that need to be mailed to our Eugene tax guy. The other things that I have tracked all year in QuickBooks® will be emailed. This brings me to the lack of a timely, reliable mail system in Mexico.

People here rely on many different methods to send a receive mail. The most common is a loose knit group that has picked a business location, like a Realtor®, to accumulate mail that is gathered at a similar point in a place like Tucson or Nogales. This seems to work reasonably well except when nobody is going or coming from that direction for long periods of time. Things pile up to the point where all of it will not fit in a passenger car. Really. Then there is the issue of some people shipping boxes. What is in the box? Is it legal? Will it get me thrown in the jail? These are serious questions. Another comment I have heard on this mail delivery problem is that the group may have worked 15 years ago, but with aging of the participants fewer of them make the trips north, thus bigger loads when someone does finally get there.

The mail system in Mexico was used as the model to construct UPS with its central collection point, or at least it seems so, but UPS works and Mexico’s system does not work so well. Apparently, everything coming into or out of Mexico goes through one central point in Mexico City, and then it is distributed out from there. So it is not uncommon for a letter from the States to take a few weeks or a month to reach San Carlos. That is far too long for any business purpose and one would never consider sending anything of value through the system because it could become “misplaced”, permanently. It seems to me that this lack of reliable cross-border transactional commerce would have a significant negative impact on the country’s economic development. I do not think that I would willingly opt for a more permanent residence here when such a simple thing as mail is such an obstacle. The fact is we still have a few things that need real signatures and are time critical. I have talked to several people that just accept the fact that they drive to Tucson monthly just to get mail and justify it by also using the trip to buy a few products that are difficult or impossible to buy in Mexico.

Bleachers & Backstop

The Paradiso Resort folks moved their aluminum bleachers over to where we play softball...
...and moved and installed a backstop for us.

They then sent a young man out with a table covered with water and cerveza for sale. All of this was due to the fact that the previous Saturday we had about 50 people in attendance. It also may have had something to do with our friend George putting a bug in the managements ear about how large our twice weekly outings had become.

We were rained out this last Saturday, so we have not had a chance to test out the new seating capacity, but it was probably a good thing because the bleachers needed a good washing after sitting under some trees for who knows how long.

Who knew?

Growing up in Tucson with bilingual Grandparents in Nogales and a bilingual father from the same town, I always felt that we Edmonson's had a foot in both Arizona and Sonora, despite the claim to Scottish roots. Well, I had a revelation today when Julie returned from Tony's open air market with the bottle of Crema de Tequila. Tony was feeling a little tired and remembered that he had a bottle of this stuff handy, so he shared a swig, or two, with Julie. Julia liked it a lot and ran pronto to the store to purchase a bottle.

This is really good stuff, way better than Baileys although along the same lines, and now I know that a good Scotsman, as my Great Grandfather surely was, would never have downed an Irish liqueur when something of this magnitude was available. Surely when Neal Munro mustered out of the army in Arizona Territory and operated a dry goods store, the future financial fortunes of the family would have been entirely secure if he found a source of this nectar to sell. OMG.

Softball

More Dogs (for Matt)

Why Some Men Have Dogs And Not Wives:

1. The later you are, the more excited your dogs are to see you.

2. Dogs don't notice if you call them by another dog's name.

3. Dogs like it if you leave a lot of things on the floor.

4. A dog's parents never visit.

5. Dogs agree that you have to raise your voice to get your point across.

6. You never have to wait for a dog; they're ready to go 24 hours a day.

7. Dogs find you amusing when you're drunk.

8. Dogs like to go hunting and fishing.

9. A dog will not wake you up at night to ask, "If I died, would you get another dog?"

10. If a dog has babies, you can put an ad in the paper and give them away.

11. A dog will let you put a studded collar on it without calling you a pervert.

12. If a dog smells another dog on you, they don't get mad. They just think it's interesting.

13. Dogs like to ride in the back of a pickup truck.

And last, but certainly not least:

14. If a dog leaves, it won't take half of your stuff.

Ultimate True Test: Lock your wife and your dog in the trunk of your car for an hour. Then open the trunk and see who's the happiest to see you.

(This was captured from a VivaSan Carlos forum post by our friend George.)

Mexico going to the Dogs

This is our friend George with his two rescue dogs. He has taken on the care of five more in the fishing village of La Manga, just north of San Carlos. La Manga is a squatters encampment of considerable size, with a fisherman's co-op and structures of all sorts. The local Rotary Club installed a windmill and large water tanks last year in the first Village (there are three), and individuals have been trying to identify and coordinate the care free animals lest they get totally out of control. They are now fed regularly and he has had all of them spayed or neutered, but having water for them has been a problem because any container her leaves gets appropriated for other uses.

Julie and I poured a small concrete basin yesterday to hold water for the dogs, thinking that a few hundred pounds of concrete would be a little harder to cart away. I brought the materials and George brought a shovel and an "experienced" pick. I do not believe that George has used a shovel very often in his life because this one was short handled, held on by one rusty nail. Well, I was already on my knees mixing the concrete on the ground when the handle separated and the rusty nail is presumably somewhere in the new 5 gallon water dish.

George is forgiven because after the labor he took to a restaurant in La Manga overlooking the bay for a coke and chips with salsa. By that time I was too tired to remember my camera, but I will go back next Saturday with the biesbol group and get some good photos.

Comida, ten minutes ago

Comida today.

Alisha's Time

Why would Alisha take this picture? She has always been a mystery.
Mexican Train game gone bonkers.
At La Palapa Griega.

Nacapuli Canyon

I won, I won, I won

This little Bugatti Veyron is on order now that I am the confirmed winner of the Lotto NL! Wow, who would have thought that out of all the people on the internet that little 'ol me would be the big winner. I can hardly wait until Monday when the banks open to transfer some money to Lotto NL to cofirm that it is me and that I want the big prize. Read on, and remember that I am the Sir in "Sir / madam"..

Sir/madam,

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

We are pleased to inform you of the result of the Lotto NL Winners
International programs held on the 1st December 2009, Your e-mail address
attached to ticket #: 00903228100 with prize # 778009/UK drew ?1,000,000.00 which was first in the 2ndclass of the draws. you are to receive ?450,000, (Four hundred and fifty thousand Euros). Because of mix up in cash pay-outs, we ask that you keep your winning information confidential until your money (?450,000) has been fully remitted to you by our accredited pay-point bank. This measure must be adhere to avoid loss of your cash prize - winners of our cash prizes are advised to adhere to these instructions to forestall the abuse of this program by other participants. It's important to note that this draws were conducted formally, and winners are selected through an internet ballot system from 60,000 individual and companies e-mail addresses - the draws are conducted around the world through our internet based ballot
system. The promotion is sponsored and promoted Lotto NL.

We congratulate you once again. We hope you will use part of it in our next
draws; the jackpot winning is ?85million. Remember, all winning must be
claimed not later than 20 days. After this date all unclaimed cash prize will be forfeited and included in the next sweepstake. Please, in order to avoid unnecessary delays and complications remember to quote personal and winning numbers in all correspondence with us.

Congratulations once again from all members of Lotto NL. Thank you for being
part of our promotional program.

For immediate release of your cash prize to you, please kindly contact our
Paying Bank
( Atlantic Finance Rotterdam The Netherlands.)

Send them the following:
(i). Your names,
(ii) Contact telephone and fax numbers
(iii) Contact Address
(iv) your winning numbers
(v) Quote amount won.

Contact person: Mr.Van Clarkson.
Massainstraat 24b 1103 ML
Rotterdam, Netherlands

(I deleted the phone numbers and email addresses that were provided, and that I was urged to respond to with all rapidity.
The next sound you would hear after responding to this wonderful, winning news would be a giant sucking noise from all of your bank accounts being drained. I think that I will go ahead and send this on the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center. They like this sort of stuff a lot! We spoke to them not long ago after Eric received a car loan offer funneled through a North Carolina address from a Russian Federation web site, along with legitimate offers from other companies. The FBI shut them down in a day and tracked them reopening as a new scam the following day.)

Strategy Session

With refreshments in hand, following another gruelling baseball game at the Paradiso soccer field, the Cerveza League players contemplate their next move. Play the Guaymas teams, or jump straight up to Hermosillo before taking on the Arizona teams?