S'scusi, dove il bar?

The song "not now john" by pink floyd is stuck in my head
today, or more specifically the refrain that says "Fuck all that!"
sung by the backup singers.

Nobody hurt he says

Glenn Reynolds mentioned this article in the NYtimes that shows
how fewer mexicans want to go to the USA now, there are more opportunities
here in Mexico, fewer in the USA and the border region is dangerous.
(I'd bet on number 3, no matter how bad the economy I don't imagine many
suburbanites doing hard labor like picking lettuce for $2/hr)

Glenn then snarks that our employment situation is bad enough in
the USA that Americans will soon be sneaking across the border the
other way. I nearly snorted some coffee out of my nose when I realized
he was talking about me. I nearly had a job offer in the USA last
year when Macondo happened, and then the blowout killed any chance
I had. The deepwater drilling ban killed our operations offshore,
and got a lot of people fired/retired/transferred out.

When Obama implies that no one really lost their job due to his ban,
he shows his ignorance of how the world works. A minimum wage cleanup
job is not the same as technical offshore worker's wage. So thanks
Obama for keeping me an expat. (I'm not saying he shouldn't have
stopped drilling to review the licensing process, but he could have
done it like I suggested here last June)

The best cracker ever

I'm eating the best cracker ever, a slightly burnt saltine,
and the salty/smoky flavors are rolling across my tongue.
It's the first solid I've eaten in two days, which was the
continuation of a really sucky week. I got sick new years
eve, so sick I had to leave a party with free booze and lots
of good food. New years day every doctor in town was closed,
so I went to the emergency room and the guy there told me I have
the flu and gave me an antiviral with decongestant and Tylenol
mixed in (big honging pills that have to be taken for 10 days)

Stayed home all week, still feeling like crap, I went to an ENT
to see what was really going on, and he declared a bacterial infection
and gave me 10 giant antibiotic pills that have to be taken one
per day. I was feeling overmedicated, but better, until those
pills reacted, I ate something bad or someone gave me poison and
my digestive system as they say in the oilfield, reversed out.

The only thing comparable is being seasick on a boat for 15 hours;
with the flu; a hangover and 'irregularity'. I felt like that
point in the movie The Fly, when jeff goldblum holds the shotgun up
to his head.

Everything finally stabilized last night, and I slept like the kind
of sleep where I didn't blink awake or dream a dream, just an instant
of deep dark rest, followed a moment later by waking up in the morning
light, with my family looking at me like, "hey, you're alive". Now
I'm drinking changua caballo soup (onions and salt) and eating the best
cracker ever baked.

Bucket List

If taking a dump on a mexican bus while riding from Poza Rica
to Veracruz was on my bucket list, it's scratched off now. I
made the mistake of ordering something for lunch that wasn't
what I thought it was.

I asked for Steak Pimientado, which I translated as pepper
steak, a piece of hamburger with pepper. In Poza Rica, that
is translated as flank steak with black pepper, plus enough
spicy pepper that I was sweating on the back of my head. I
dove into the baked potato for some relief, it was just as
spicy if not spicier.

All in all, a very mistaken lunch, especially since I had
to take a 5 hour bus ride back to Veracruz. Not a good place
to have a tumultuous stomach, but I survived. The strange
thing is the toilet seat on the bus is spring loaded, so it
does a "no time for sargeants" salute when you get up. Adding
in the bumps on the road, the net acceleration wanted to turn me
into a toilet launched projectile.

The buses in Mexico are pretty good, the ADO Platinium
and GL buses are nicer than most planes now, and bus frequency is
similar to a good train system. There were no nice buses available
for this trip, I expected to be seated on a 1950's era school bus
with people carrying chickens, but in reality it was just the same,
slightly more crowded and without free headphones. I took a coworker's
advice and bought a 2nd child ticket for half price, and that gave me
enough room to take a nap.
buses available

Tubing the interwebs

The weather down here in southern Mexico has been very cool,
lows down around 14-15 deg C. The houses here are just cinder-block
boxes with a thin film of paint and stucco, so the weather inside
feels remarkably similar to the weather outside with a time delay
due to the thermal capacity of the building. Last night it was
warm until 1 am even though it was pretty cool outside by then, but
by 6 am it felt pretty frosty inside.

I've got several presentations for work this week, plus lots of stuff
to write, but I can't seem to drink enough tea to clear out the cobwebs
today, so I'm pretty much just tubing the interwebs. A poor sort of tubing
without a 2nd tube containing an icechest of beer.

Reading Sharon over at smART, she's poetic even when describing getting out
of the hospital.

On the ride home I just looked out the window and watched the lights from the chemical plants shimmering in the dark across the Ohio River. When I was a little kid coming home from North Hills Passavant finally, I remember having the same thoughts…

What is it like to be just one light shining across the water like that, at night

It's always scary reading about being in the hospital. I hope she gets better soon.

....It's now 30 minutes later and I haven't even managed to open powerpoint.
Apart from the bitter cold 60 degree temps last night, we got a good scare
coming in the door. We opened the gate to the carport/patio area when we
arrived home and found the skytv remote inside by the gate. I was pretty
certain it meant we had been robbed of our few meager possessions (everything
is still in the shipment) and they dropped the remote when trying to lift the
tv over the wall.

I crept around the house turning on lights, with my finger ready to be
extended into pistol position (bang bang, take that fargin iceholes).
Everything was still there, unassembled sams club desk, undecorated
charlie brown christmas tree, crappiest borrowed sofa in the world
(borderline better than nothing, but thanks!) and satelitte tv/sams club
LCD TV. It turned out that a friend visiting yesterday had accidentally
picked up the remote in her purse, returning it
on a late-night ninja through the gate mission.

Hurricane Blogging, Karl, 11 am

Power just blinked off and came back on, i think the hotel
is on a generator now, the lights seem dimmer and the wifi
signal is almost zero. Hopefully the generator has diesel
for several days.

The government is now saying to stay in place if you're in
a strong structure. I think they are missing the idea of a
forecast that would have said yesterday to be ready to go to
a shelter. There's a problem with the coverage we get in the
USA, sensationalism from the weather channel and news ('we're
all gonna die'), but here it's too far the other way, they are
talking about preparations and the center of the storm is almost
onshore. The real problem will be flooding of already full rivers.

Here the wind appears to be from the southeast, the waves are
mostly blown down and flat, any crests are swept up by the wind
in a flash of spray. The corridor outside is filling up with water
from blowing rain, and the satellite tv is down, other than that
and the power, not much effect. If no more posts that means the
lights went off.

Hurricane Blogging

I'm in Mexico and strangely enough there's hurricane headed right
here. I've been watching weatherunderground when the hotel's
internet is up, and as usual the projected track is behind the model
response. Eg. An outlier model points off the main forecast, then the
other models start to agree with the outlier, then they adjust the
forecast track. The key learning is when just one model points in your
direction and you have an easy option to leave and go to Mexico City
or Little Rock...then start to make plans to go there.

In theory the forecast takes it north of here enough that it will just
be windy and rainy, but the drumbeat from the surf is getting louder
by the hour, by morning the waves will be crashing on the seawall.

It's a big hotel, built up high and pretty sturdy looking, at this point
probably safer than being on the road at night, so I'll hang out here.

Feliz Compleanos a Mexico

September 16th is the 200th anniversary of the "Grito of Dolores"
that started the the war of Mexican independence from Spain.

My children: a new dispensation comes to us today. Will you receive it? Will you free yourselves? Will you recover the lands stolen by three hundred years ago from your forefathers by the hated Spaniards? We must act at once… Will you defend your religion and your rights as true patriots? Long live our Lady of Guadalupe! Death to bad government! Death to the gachupines![3]

Reading the wikipedia entry for the war of Mexican Independance,
it sounds like the Spanish were more relentlessly evil in fighting
the rebels; Hidalgo who delivered the Grito was executed by the
Inquisition. I'm not sure if the spanish were more evil than the British
or just more competent at putting down revolution, but like the Indian
independence movement, the independence of the USA depended partially on
the British not being relentless and evil. (If the British had put more
effort to capturing and executing leading rebels in the first 2 years
when the continental army lost almost every battle, the revolution might
have fizzled.)

Anyway, the celebrations of the night before the Dia de la independenca
are on every channel on TV here and I should go out and drink beer, but I
have to catch a bus in the morning. (Nice bus with flat screens showing
movies, no chickens or goats)