goddam sonofabitch bastard

Came out of a customer's house today to find my passenger-side mirror totaled. This happens frequently on the narrow streets of Ajijic, and results from one of two things: people parking really badly and sticking their cars' asses out too far; and asshole drivers. Note that I was parked fairly close to the curb.

Funny thing is I am taking the vehicle in Wednedsday, Feb. 1 (tomorrow0 for a complete body job, to repair all the nicks and dents that have accrued since I got here (two of them my own fault). Funnier thing is, I will have to wait days to get a new mirror, at probably an exhorbitant cost, and then it will be black... so I will have to haul it to the bodyshop for a paint job before it can be installed. Do we see money slipping away here, faster than it's coming in?

The good news is that, upon further inspection of my car, I realized they hadn't just stupidly zipped by and smashed the mirror with their vehicle. They'd actually manage to graze the entire length of the car. Why is this good news? Because it could have happened after I had gotten my car back from the bodyshop; instead it happened the day before, and will only be a bad memory soon.

Assholes. I'm keeping my eyes peeled for a dark-colored vehicle with a streak of Cappucino Cream down the driver's side.

Tower, tower, wherefore art thou....

In the ongoing saga of the Wireless Internet Wars (WIW), it seemed this morning someone stole the transmitting tower right off the roof of the Mexico Wireless offices. The office is just near the TelMex business office on the main highway through town. This could only be the work of some nefarious ex-employee, it was reasoned.



Turns out it was the work of the current owner and a nefarious employee! In an effort to scuttle business following a failed buyout, they figured they would get back at the lost new buyer by screwing up his business: cancelling out the signal to the Instituto Technologico, which has recently been given a huge gift of hardware by IBM U.S.A.

But wait! In the process, they scuttled the signal to a whole raft of their own customers, who were, to say the least... pissed. And wait again! Since the new owner never actually became the new owner, weren't they shooting... themselves... in the foot... to spite their toes?! Woh, yeah.

At the same time, some kind of connection snafu caused TelMex, which supplies their T1 lines, to suspect an overabundance of virused spams being sent out on Mexico Wireless's system, and they shut down one of their T1 lines. So even more customers were without service.

It never rains, but it pours, huh? Eh? Eh? Eh?

Eire

Ireland - we believe this country to be the home of our forefathers. Today Chris and I were digging around the web, connected between Canada and Mexico via Skype, looking for other examples of our family crest. AS Chris pointed out, in just a couple of years the amount of family history information available has grown massively. And we came across some cool stuff.

You can see a large version of our crest at www.rileyfamily.ca. And there is a link on the page to some information concerning the legend of the red/pink hand, shown dripping blood, bracketed by regal lions. Part of the legend concerns the origins of Ulster,and that made me wonder: what and where exactly is Ulster? I started rooting around again, and what I dug up is truly fascinating.

You can check out more about Ulster, the northern provinces of Ireland, by following this link to Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia.

Sheila Copps... is coming, to town (sing to "Santa Claus is coming to town"

One of the original Brat Pack (Dingwall, Chretien, Copps, Kinsella etc.... wait, Chretien??) in the Liberal government, Sheila Copps seemed destined for great things. She and her cohorts were, 15 years ago, the young, the un-tampered-with, the rebels in the government. My generation believed they would finally bring good government, responsible government, to Canada.

God only knows what happened. Patronage, swishy positions, false fame... who knows.

Anyway, Sheila was so hot in politics at one point that Canada's national news magazine, Saturday Night, actually got her dressed in leathers and posing on a motorbike on their cover one month. I tried to find that picture to post here, but I can't find anything of Sheila except one tiny .jpg. I guess the Saturday Night cover was copyrighted and there was a big fight with the photographer, so you who missed it may never get to see it.

All that being said, she is turning up here, in Frebruary, in our little town of Ajijic to speak to members of the Canadian Club (I am a member, but as with Groucho Marx, I won't go to any group meetings where they would actually have me).

Bad News for TelMex Prodigy Users

I'm not sure what's going on here, other than the little town of Ajijic has been swamped the past few weeks with SnowBirds and newcomers of all types, including Mexican tourists. But I have had a number of service calls from people complaining they can't send any email. And I haven't been able to fix any of 'em. Repeated calls to TelMex Prodigy's support line have gotten me the same answer: "Must be a lot of traffic on the servers, because there is nothing wrong on our end.

Well, I've tested the SMTP email server from my own PC, using our paid-for Prodigy service, the same one we use to access the 'Net. And guess what? Same problem. Now, I know it isn't my PC or any of my customers' PCs. It is on TelMex's end, and it has to be either a bandwidth or a hardware management issue. And until they are ready to admit the problem and do something about it, I am doing two things:

1. Emailing their tech department with a list of customers, with account information, who are having problems... so they don't just ignore this (ha!), and
2. Looking for a POP service online that doesn't cost anything, that I can set up for my customers.

Still and all, considering where we live, it is hard to believe we even have access to high-speed Internet.

New Gorey Details

Listening to National Public Radio today on Sirius satellite radio, I stumbled across a Martin Luther King Day conference, at the the Daughters of the American Revolution's Constitution Hall in Washington. I did not recognize the voice of the man speaking, live, to a very enthusiastic crowd. He was effectively, intelligently, and factually tearing down President George Bush's recent public foray into dangerous political waters: admission of usurping and bypassing American Constitutional laws protecting the freedoms and rights of U.S. citizens. The speech's polemic concerned Bush's revelation a couple of weeks ago that he is aware and has authorized wiretaps and other illegal surveillance techniques on his own countrypeople.

Is this something new? Are all the political espionage movies and books that proclaim illegal spying, in the name of "democracy", as a good thing, merely works of fiction based on... fiction? Or would one suppose that this has been going on for years, and that we just have never been informed publicy about it?

What's all the fuss about? I am 100% in favour of using any means possible to snare "the bad guys": those we perceive as terrorists, criminals, politicians on the take... whomever. BUT of course the question here is: who gets to decide who is "bad"? Until Watergate and Nixon's ignominius resignation, we all felt pretty secure that the powers that be knew who was good and who was bad, and acted accordingly, in line with our generally accepted consensus of right and wrong. But that's all changed now.

Is it a big leap, or a short step, to compare the possibilities of potential abuse in American government with those underhanded and filthy techniques employed by the likes of Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and Ida Amin? In all of those cases, the people of the countries they "led" were misled into believing it was all good, all good. In retrospect, with the lessons of history in our heads, we can surely see how wrong, and how bad, and how corrupt those regimes were. Is the America of today any different?

Yes, it is. So far, there is no open threat of violence against those who disagree or will not tolerate the government in power. People like Al Gore will not be assassinated, murdered, or simply caused to disappear by the U.S. military for taking a bold and powerful public stand against the Bush regime. At least, not yet. Aye, and maybe that's where we must look ever more cautiously: not yet. Because the laws that people like Gore are revolting against are truly scary. They are not revolutionary in concept; they are historical in viewpoint, and they stem directly from the same kind of thinking that made men like those mentioned above such dangerous tyrants: they give the government the power to detain any person for any reason, for an indiscriminate length of time. Without providing them, as guaranteed in the Constitution of the U.S. and many other developed countries, the right to an attorney, nor even a phone call, nor even a notification to their family that they have been detained. Nor are those detained even given the right to hear the charges against them, let alone defend themselves. All in the name of National Security.

What if it was your father? Or son or daughter? Or friend. We in the Western world express disgust, dismay, and righteous indignation when we hear that a citizen of any country has been detained against their will on seemingly trumped up charges, in so-called developing countries, and so-called third-world countries.

On the other hand, Gore is running again for President in 2008, and it's pretty easy to take shots when you're on the other side. So, who do you believe? Who do you believe?

(You can read the text of Al Gore's speech today at http://www.algore04.com/)

Both Sides of Selling Real Estate?

A news item in this week's local Guadalajara Reporter, our English-language newspaper, reports two stories concerning real estate on its front page: one indicating that the selling boom is far from over, with the average listing selling at $250,000 (!); the second, that inmigración is about to come down hard on gringos selling that same real estate, when they don't have a license to do so.

This topic has become quite a bone of contention among licensed sellers, both gringo and Mejicano alike. Inmigración looks fairly on people like Cecilia, who has lived here for almost 30 years, speaks the language, has strong ties to the community both socially and in business, and has been legally licensed. But the fact that at least 50% of agents around Lakeside are not Mexican has irritated a lot of Mexican agents-- and buyers.

There are, by recent count, over 180 individual agents registered here. That means 90 or more are not indigenous. And apparently a large number of these are not properly licensed, nor do they have proper visa or working-paper status with the Federal/State governments. There is also a grand disparity and a huge frustration over the recent pricing of homes, due to the continuous influx of foreigners (like me). Prices are ridiculously high, forcing housing out of the reach of the majority of the Mexican villagers, and now even beyond the grasp of the type of person who came down here to retire in the first place... because it was cheaper.

It will be interesting to witness the outcome. The question is: should non-Mexicans be able to take over in real estate, or any commercial area, the way they have? What do we do in Canada when something like this begins to appear on our radar? On the other hand, big business can come in and take over large percentages of the technology sector, and governments in both countries give them financial incentives to do so, in the hopes of generating more tax income. Right now, it seems to me to be a two-faced argument. The local public only gets up in arms when it affects them directly.

Cecilia in London

That's Cecilia with her sister, Caro. Taken some years back when the two were obviously still drifting in hippie-land somewhere. I mean, check those hats.

Cecilia is visiting Caro right now, and London is cold and damp. Unfortunately for C, she hasn't had to experience a winter in just about 30 years. My Gawd. It took a month of planning just to figure out what to take to keep warm. Luckily, a number of friends pulled through with coats and hats and thermal undies and stuff. But you should try shopping in Mexico for winter boots. Maybe in the northern states of the country... but here at Lakeside, where all the tourists come for the winter, it's a little tricky. But, she got some: pink, to boot.

Everybody wish her a warm time, K? And luck to both of them during this hugely important reunion.

King Rat

A week ago, Mom took the two doggies to a local vet to be cared for and groomed, for eight days... so we could have the fumigador dude come in and get rid of our mice. Pretty big mice, in fact... I have been told that unlike our cute little field mice, these can look as big as rats.

Well, here it is a week later, and we have the dogs back, nice and clean and happy to be home. Brinka immediately went into the laundry room, which seemed to be the place where the mice were hanging out. Guess what she sniffed out? Yep, see the picture.

Only thing is, you can tell from the tails... these guys are not big field mice. They are rats. One of them was dead under the washing machine, the bigger one. They had been feeding on stuff that looked like colored granola or wheat cereal (completely ignoring the rat poison cubes lying everywhere), and it caused a bunch of internal bleeding, leading to fatal heart attacks. The vet assures me they feel no pain, just get sleepy and die. But the smaller of the two you see there had obviously spent a lot of time licking his chest area, because it was still wet and matted. And he is pretty thin compared to his compadre, leading me to believe the poison really does something not pleasant.

It is really nice to have the dogs home and not barking or running around like head-hunters, trying to flush out the mice. And perhaps when we awaken on the morrow, there won't be any more knocked over flowerpots or partially consumed mandarin oranges. Yay! 

Technology: Can't live with it...

Hey, CES has come and gone again. I see the NEW Harmony remote clocks in at $400 U.S. That's pathetic. I don't care how much research goes into a product... even HIV drugs are cheaper than that.

But there were some other cool things:

http://engadget.com/2006/01/09/best-of-ces-2006/

I wonder when Mexico will get gadgets that let me watch my favorite TV shows on a 1.5 inch screen? God, I am already blind and I have a widescreen Sony that I need glasses for. Barf.

Christmas.... Did We Have That Already?

Christmas '05. Done. Gone. I am now the proud owner of a bought-in-Mexico flannel robe and two super-cool daytimers. I gave up using the PocketPC two years ago for scheduling: trying to type using a stylus, in the car between visits, was causing bipolar syndrome in my tiny brain.

In Mexico, with no snow, no blaring Christmas commercials, and in my little village, no big stores parading the latest "stuff", Christmas seems far less intrusive and important. Mexicans, many of them Catholics, truly cherish the holidays as holy, and spiritual. (Oh, yeah, they like the presents, but what turns them on more is the Day of the Magi--January 6-- which is when they really do the gift-giving thing. I'll see if I can get photos on Friday to celebrate that day.) So when Christmas finally comes, after all the waiting and shopping, and then leaves again, it seems too sudden; even more swift than its departure after the Canadian holidays. Boxing Day doesn't have any meaning here, except to expatriate Canadians. Which is very cool. The Brick be damned.

Whack-a-Santa

About 12:30, New Year's morning. Cecilia, who has provided the Santa pinata full of candies and peanuts, gets to bash her own creation. The lady that runs this annual party on Cecilia's block never lets anyone get away: she grabs them, puts the blindfold on, and sort of points them in the direction of the pinata. Two of her family members are out of site, yanking on the rope every time the happy-go-lucky whacker tries to get in a hit. This Santa took about 15 whacks before he finally exploded, showering candy cigarettes and lollies everywhere. Then, the kids rush in and grab whatever they can, while the family sets ups the next pinata. 

New Year's! In Mexico! Yay!

This particular party was down the street from us. See the little corner store, or tiendita, on the left? One of the family owns a music store or something; set up this massive sound system on the street. The music could be heard all over the village. Pretty damned obnoxious, and it went on until about 4 am. REALLY loud. But the kids around here really enjoyed it. On the right, we see a young cabellero doing (I forget the proper name) a cut dance. You've seen it on TV: looks like the guys is trying to slice the girl in half about six times in a row, then they dance, then slice, then dance. Ouch.