Oh. Off the top. "Paradise". This is a term very badly abused or at least misunderstood by people with low expectations. It is the start of January at 10:00 am. The sky is clear except for maybe some cloud wannabees off on the horizon. There is a mild wind: my small Mexican flag is well displaying itself. The sun is warm. The sea is calm. The mountains across the way have their tops covered with snow.
No hurricanes. No tornados. Not even serious rain storms. A few earth tremors last week. No rain in site. Never a frost. The temperature is in the low 60's and will get to the 70's later today and into the 50's tonight. The humidity is about 40%. So much for the Paradise geography.
The police will stop and ask about my dog. I have the most wonderful dog, Dido. I live alone in my motor home on a lot on the north side of town. If I cannot buy what I want here, I can go 70 km north to a middle sized town or 130 km north to Yuma. Minor health care here is free. My monthly blood test costs about $9 -- I do not attempt to recover it from insurance. The Yuma Hospital is a major medical resource for seniors in the southwest.
The children in the area all run to see me when I drive by. Why not? I probably have lollipops to pass out. Exercise? Walk up the sand dune across from my lot. Food? All of the Mexican food you could want at the local restaurants at at least reasonable prices. Friends give me free fish. They would give me shrimp but I do not like shrimp.
I pay no rent but I pay water and light. I get free Internet at the park. I pay 1 peso (9 cents) per minute for my cell phone. No monthly charge. And I am slowly learning Spanish. I do not lock my door at night and mostly I forget to lock it during the day. I do lock the fence now that the local economy is in the pits (thank you, GWB).
No local taxes -- you do not have to add 10% to everything you buy here -- but you do when you cross the border or even this side of the border in the cities. There is an 11% sales tax included in the price. Locally it is often ignored.
Now if any of you think you can top this, let me know. But do not bother me with locations inside the USA. I have been to all of them and none come even close.
I have a really sore knee left over from last year. Monday the 4th I go to El Centro to see the doctor. El Centro? Just across the border in California. Doctors in Arizona are too arrogant and you need to beg to get an appointment in less than three weeks. Given my Warfarin, I could die in three weeks from internal bleeding.
The verdict is in: the sore knee is permanent. The bone doctor says that I have worn the cartilage in my knees down to nubs. He asked if I had a cane. He gave me a cortisone shot and scheduled another appointment at the first of next month. Arthritis. There is no repair other than an artificial knee. I liked Dr. Diaz but after a few questions about artificial knees, I figure when that time comes I shall find a different doctor. He also said nothing good about Glucosamine and Chondroitin. This puts him into the "traditional" category. After waiting a day after the cortisone shot and getting no relief, I took a couple of the G/C tablets and found instant relief. Maybe I did not wait long enough for the Cortisone but my knee hurts. He also recommended the Tylenol sin Codeine that I was already taking for pain relief. In the last several weeks I have also noticed the pain changes with the weather -- and the weather has been changing a lot lately. Every few days the wind changes direction but never has died down. Up in Yuma there are serious clouds.
Yuma. No. El Centro. I was so tired from the lack of sleep from the sensitive knee that I never made it back to Yuma. Last night I slept OK. Not perfectly but with the G/C pills, the pain is seriously reduced and my knee feels stronger. I wonder how long it takes for Cortisone to take effect. Thank God and President Johnson for Medicare. Now if our lame duck president and our sold-out Congress will let everyone have Medicare, everyone can have the confidence that their health can be the primary consideration when they visit a doctor.
Traditional? Great for general practice but I need someone a little more "modern" but not "radical". Modern means that they are up to date on the latest technology and are ready to use it. Radical means that they are not only up to date on the current technology but would be ready to experiment on me with leading edge stuff. I do not want leading edge. I want the latest proved technology (No, General Motors, I shall not use your word) that will give me good results and take away the pain.
And General Motors invented the word "proven" as their legacy before going broke. It is sad that so many people watch TV that a company can actually manufacture a word and people believe it. Evolution of a language is necessary but creating words is obnoxious.
Nothing exciting. We had a week of serious rainy and windy weather. Mostly windy but the first real rain in almost three years. The town needed it badly. Now we have roads that are roads and not just beach sand aisles between rows of houses. Another culture thing: the Mexicans never seem to know when they are well off. They peel their fruits and vegetables and wonder why their kids are starved for vitamins. They pick and choose pieces of chicken throwing away what they call "grease". IN fact much of it might be grease but if they are so concerned about grease, then why do they eat the skin? And then there is KFC: always crunchy. Fat and carbs! But the issue here is roads. They seem to dislike roads. They spin around corners and just any place straight they can find. Soft corners here are always a problem. Spinning around them makes them worse. I do not understand. In another week the rain will be history and the corners will again be bad.
Visiting the CRA park, people are complaining about the weather saying that this is the worst winter they can remember. I have memory problems. I remember historic details but cannot remember what I ate for breakfast. But these gringos are just plain wrong. It is January. The coldest month. My door and windows are open and it is almost 70 outside. We had a week pretty cold but otherwise the weather has been very mild. More wind than usual making life hard for the fishermen but temperatures mild and only this week with rain and a few drowsy days last month.
This last week however was serious. The wind tore away my ramada (12' square) with the stakes being pulled up and making a pretty design on the hood of my Ranger before I could cut it free. The shower curtains that I use for shade turned the ramada into a kite. Now there is the bent up aluminum frame that I lifted over the fence so that it could not return and do more damage sitting quietly awaiting disassembly. The rest of the yard I have picked up and is like it was before the storm except the sand is a little better. Playing fetch with Dido, however, is returning the lot to its usual state: thousands of embedded paw prints.
I have been doing some cleaning. The lot needed it but I need to get busy with the things I have been ignoring. I replaced the circuit box connector that has been an eye-sore reminder that the guy I hired to do the lot work never completed the job. He had an 18" orange plastic hose temporary connector from the main CFE box to a box for the RV. After 2 1/2 years, this hose was just pieces. I wanted to replace it with plastic connectors but found that another hose solved the connection problem much cheaper. Just think, to go from the box around the corner, straight 6 inches and 45 degrees into the other box cost about $20 in parts. 2 box connectors. three angle connectors, and a section of gray pipe. With the hose, it is one foot of hose and two box connectors, about $6. For this I bought permanent hose instead of a bright orange temporary plastic hose. Now the boxes look almost professional and should last more than 2 1/2 years.
I repacked my outdoor refrigerator. I rearranged my electric toys in the Ranger. I repacked the new 50 pound bag of dog food into Zip Lock quart bags and loaded them into the waste basket I have for this purpose. And that is about it. There must be more as I am tired and have worked at this most of the day.
I am procrastinating on the vacation trip until February so that I can get past the January bills and see what needs to be paid. January always has lots of bills. This is the first year in 5 years that I have not had an IRS $10,000 payment over my head or credit card loans of the same amount due to repaying the previous year. So now I can take my "pension" in 12 equal chunks rather than take $12,000 of the front ($10,000 plus taxes) and deal with $1,000 more per month. And I need to spend considerable time reviewing my investments for the upcoming inflation. The peso exchange rate is starting to favor the peso. This is a bad sign for the American economy.
El Golfo is in serious economic straits. Fishing and shrimping are becoming history rapidly. With the wind this winter and the low shrimp counts, shrimping was almost nonexistent. With the wind again, and the longer traveling distances for the pongas, fishing is almost nonexistent. Longer? The lack of Colorado River water over the last 10 years of the northwestern USA draught has caused the Sea of Cortez to erode its beaches into the sea. The only solution is a massive dredging operation which will never happen. The sea is filling in. 100 years from now El Golfo will be swamp and beach all the way across to the Baja peninsula, There is a line drawn by the Mexican government which designates the northern sea as a preserve: only the small boats (pongas) can fish here. But there are many problems with t is. Fewer fish because the fishermen use mono filament nets miles long that catch anything that swims. A few Mexican Navy boats check the nets but for the Navy there is no motive other than the command to do so. Others in their family count on the fish. Mexicans do not look to the future and so have exhausted the already diminishing supply of sea creatures.
The pongas have been traveling further south but when they cross the preserve line, they are competing with the large boats (barcos). Many of these from foreign countries. so fishing further south is not only more expensive but not productive. And Puerto Peñasco has its own fishermen that do not have to travel from El Golfo.
The government has a solution. It is buying back the fishing licenses at very high prices. The intent is for the fishermen to start new tourist businesses in El Golfo. But this is also non-productive and a real waste of money. Instead of investing in their futures with these new businesses, they are improving their homes. Why not? A block home with real glass windows and a front door is better than a 3-ply shanty with a tarp rood and dirt floor. A car that can travel with the entire family rather than a clunker that gets them around town but not on the highway (like my old Tercel) is desired by anyone on the American continent. There are also lots of new hotels and restaurants. Vacant. There are no tourists.
Tourism is down for several reasons. There is the American economy. There is the American fear of Mexican travel (travel in the USA should be so safe). There is the Mexican insurance thing. The frontier is gone so you do not go 200 miles into the country just to be turned back for lack of papers. However, you may need the same papers just to cross the border but at least you have not waster 400 miles. There is the American dislike of anything foreign, especially Mexican. And these are generic things.
There is the specific El Golfo competition with Puerto Peñasco. Here is where El Golfo loses big time. They have just completed the new pretty highway from San Luis to Puerto Peñasco. They have not yet completed the border crossing gates but those are coming. You will be able to just drive from I-8 out of Yuma down new American highway to the border and then Mexican highway to Puerto Peñasco. You will have missed all of the small towns between Yuma and San Luis. You will have missed driving through San Luis Arizona and Mexico and you will have driven nice highway straight down to Puerto Peñasco. 96 pesos toll: a bargain at one tenth the price. El Golfo: just a stop along the way.
When you can get to Puerto Peñasco with just another 90 minutes driving time why stop at El Golfo? There is no night life here. The stray dogs will attack you after dark and the remaining fishermen protect their streets by parking at odd angles to prevent tourist traffic. Change is coming whether they like it or not. Mostly not. Children will be killed and cars damaged before this happens. There is apartment construction but no one is moving in. There is the "invasion" north of town. Good luck guys. The previous invasion was dispatched by the Federales and the Army.
Back to the Mexican (Sonora State) government. I think that they would be helping everyone if they had an office here assisting the nueveau riche with plans for future businesses. The last thing we need is another hotel with no parking spaces. Currently a lot of people are visiting relatives a long distance away in their new cars. So whereas the town appears to the tourist that do come here to be increasing in wealth, it is an appearance only for the time being. In the next ten years we can expect to see major hotel franchises further south and maybe a few north. Sort of like in Hawaii. The hotels built their own "towns" on the beach away from the existing cities and thereby the hotel owners collect all of the money leaving the towns to fend for themselves. In Hawaii there are, or at least, were, sufficient tourists to satisfy both. El Golfo no and maybe never will. But whatever happens will happen around the current population because there is no government direction assistance. Just government money that will not produce food.
Enough.
We need to go on that vacation. I need to get away from here
and travel a bit. Dido needs to see some snow. I need to
get m knee back in shape. I do not know how to do that. The
cortisone shot from the doctor seems to have had no effect. The
Glucosamine and Tylenol seems to help. Maybe just time after the
couple of bad twists is doing the most. But going shopping is a
painful experience. Next time I shall use my walking stick as a
cane and see if that helps. Last week I was almost in tears by
the end of the day.
Something is going on. I noticed that the checkpoint at El Doctor
is more thorough. Semi trailers were lined up so far that the cars
were using the shoulder. "Suspicious" cars were being gut checked.
Suspicious was the term that the soldier next to me used when I asked
about it.
Then there was an army checkpoint at the turn for 57 -- in all 3
directions. It was gone later in the day. I think this is a
traveling, random, surprise, checkpoint.
The line at San Luis was long but that is normal and I headed for
Algodones. The line was a little long but I have seen much
longer.
But slow. I was there over an hour and a half in a line that
ordinarily would have taken 40 minutes. They even tapped the
floor of
the bed of my pickup but nothing unusual for me. There are now
Mexican
soldiers making random inspections going north. The Border Patrol
X-ray truck was there and that sometimes slows things down but it was
not being used that I could tell.
I know Calderon addressed the Juarez situation last week on TV. President Obama has sent Calderon some cabinet
-level people to discuss the border problem. Maybe, just
maybe, the US will start doing its share halting the drug
traffic.
Trickledown economics is just another Republican trick to make the
rich richer and the poor poorer and to eliminate the middle
class. Making life easy for the rich does nothing for the
others. Such a lie. The rule of supply and demand is that
if you decrease the supply, demand is not met. If you change
demand, supply also needs to change. Turning this upside down
does not work. Applying this to the drug industry means that the
US needs to reduce its demand and the supply will decrease to
match. GWB and the others all blaming Mexico for supplying the
drugs does nothing to help. It just makes things much, much worse.
Calderon ran on a platform to reduce the drug trade. But one
man cannot change a culture. GWB left him out to dry. Mexicans on
both sides are dying. Obama has given only token support.
Until now.
I really wonder how so many Americans can live with their blinders
in place. This is an American problem. If America would do
the three things that I have said in other places, the problem would
stop. Three things? Reduce demand. Reduce money going
south. Reduce arms going south. If any or all of these
happened, the drug industry would dry up. No demand. No
money. No weapons. No problem. The police wear masks
to protect their families. Unlike the USA, family is very
important in Mexico. For every police or soldier or drug dealer
killed there is a fatherless family. The American people cheer
when one of the enemy, any enemy, is killed. They shed a tear, a
dry tear, when one of their own is killed. When any human being
(or an animal) is killed, the entire world is diminished. Love is
lost. The Mexican drug dealers would not be drug dealers if the
Americans did not make it profitable. If Mr. Obama is starting to
help, we have made the first step in a long journey. Forget
people crossing the border. Stop the drugs from crossing the
border.
Later -- when I am not so angry.
Whatever you do, do not sign up for the Telcel Internet!
You sign an 18 month contract that you must pay regardless whether or
not they provide the service. And they do not provide the service
-- their toy air card cannot handle the traffic and just stops.
Every 15 minutes or so. Sometimes hard to tell as the data speed
makes dial up on an analog line seem fast. Their air card reminds
you of a children's toy telephone. Pretty blue with lots of bells
and whistles but it does not really make calls.
When I was in Junior High (called Middle school now), I attended a
brand new school, Longfellow. I have lost track of directions but
I think it was the north side. It was entirely
non-academic. If contained the shops, the art classes (Thank you
Mr. Crandall), and the home economics. And no, boys could not
take Home Ec and girls could not take shop. But for three years
we learned in art class to carve soap, glue toothpicks, and draw.
I did poorly. We also had metal shop, wood shop, electric shop,
and print shop. Yes, we learned to set type and we learned the value of
serifs. If the type is set in the correct directions and properly
seated, the serifs form a straight line from one end to the
other. This is how you told if you had an inverted sidewise
character. I remember print shop and I also did poorly but not as
badly as art class. But wood and metal shops were
invaluable. No, I did not do well in them either. But it is
shop that I now know made a great difference in my life.
We learned to use tools properly and to use the proper tool.
We learned safety and procedure. I still remember: "Measure
twice. Cut once." We learned to use the original stick when
making copies and not use sequential sticks. Sequential sticks
tend to migrate longer or shorter. We learned to cut all of our
materials and then assemble them. Process.
I have had a series of those aluminum strut ramadas in front of my RV. Ten foot
square things you can buy at Costco or Sam's Club or WalMart for about
$100. The prevailing winds will tear
apart the canvas top leaving you with just a frame. I replaced
the canvas top(s) with shower curtains and swim tubes. I thought
it sort of pretty as I mixed the colors. But the other day a
serious wind came along and uprooted my ramada leaving a trail of stake
paint cuts across my car hood.
El Golfo is in serious economic trouble. The shrimp/fishing
industry is gone. They are building hotels and
restaurants and there are no tourists. Even the real estate
agents have fled town. One of my Mexican friends stays employed
by the construction of these buildings and the modification of others.
So I hired him to put up a permanent ramada with green mesh screen on
top.
I watched outside for a while and made various comments to improve
what was being done. I would have needed to replace his work if I
had not been there. When I felt I had corrected what needed to be
corrected I went back inside and watched Jurassic Park. Had I
stayed, he probably would have left and we would have both been angry
and our relationship damaged.
Some thoughts here. All of the lumber bought at the lumber
store is used and not new. It is marked up and full of broken
knots and dried split outs. But it is good hard wood and not the
soft white wood that I would have gotten at Home Depot. The wind
is not going to knock down my new ramada. The green mesh turns
out to not be square. This causes some fitting problems. We
made the ramada eleven feet square presuming an extra six inches per
side. We were lucky to get it to fit on the wood frame -- the six
inches were never n the same place.
But the disheartening part here was that the man had no concept of
what would have to be done. The four corner posts were each set
in concrete. He measured each one separately and cut each as he
dug the hole for it. Me. I would have dug the four corner holes
and then cut the four corner posts. When setting them into the
holes, added concrete, staked them with angled wooden
supports. I would have measured the holes for altitude and
location. I would have measured the posts as I set the
supports. I would have measured the diagonals to make sure that
my ramada was square. This for starters. My friend cut each
post, dug each hole, and set each in concrete, held by his assistant
until it did not move on its own. He measured the location
multiple times as he set each new post. It never occurred to him
to measure the diagonals. When I suggested it, he just remeasured
his original distances and pronounced it square. It pretty much
was -- mostly because of the continuous repetitive remeasurment process.
Two days later he came back to install the roof. He measured nothing
here except to measure how long a piece he needed and then cut to that
length. He placed five cross pieces set with those metal
collars. He measured each one. Each time he cut the piece
slightly too long and had to hammer the piece in place. Oh. He
had made two lengths and bolted them in place before he made the cross
pieces. He cut threaded bars instead of using bolts. As a
result each "bolt" is a different length. Since he bought the
bars according o the needed length, he had to drill out some of the
wood on his final pieces and his original were longer than
average. Besides looking shoddy, it cost him extra work. He
maybe saved a dollar with his bars. It cost him hours of hack saw
cutting and filing the end threads to accept the bolt. He did not
understand my suggestion of placing nuts on the bar before
sawing. His crossbars could have easily matched exactly to the
side bars. He could have measured where the collars should go in
both location and height. Because he did not measure the height
one end of the first and last crossbar was misaligned by more than half
an inch. It never occurred to him to drill the bolt holes in any
of the posts or supports before installing them. He drilled each
as he went along. He then started to place the green mesh over
his misaligned cross pieces and this is where I stopped him. I
made hid cut down the corners so that the green mesh was not stretched
across a sharp edge. Things did not get better from here and at some
point I shall need to replace the mesh. But if I had remained any
longer the ramada would not have been greatly improved and our
friendship would have dissolved.
He had his wife use her cell phone calculator to compute
distances. In measuring 5 crossbars. You place the end bars
and then divide the remaining distance by two for the mid piece and
then divide by two again to locate the other two. He could not
divide the distance by two without his wife's help. He had
approximated it by folding his tape measure in two.
And this is why I value my shop experience. My making projects
with my father who was much more strict than my teachers made me mostly
impossible to work with in an environment of uneducated workers.
I will pay him more than he would have been paid by a local
"contractor" but not nearly as much as I would have had he done a good
job. Mostly I am sad.
This is not just a Mexican thing although it is disheartening.
He worked very hard to produce what he thought was a good job for me
and it was not even close to the quality I wanted and would have easily
done for myself. I had originally thought to do it myself and
have him only buy the materials for me (as a gringo I pay more at the
lumber store).
I had a boss once who always repeated: :Work Smarter. Not Harder." Thank you, George Berry.
I shall always remember the annual tours of the Ford Motor Company
in Dearborn. On Henry Ford's birthday every year there was an
open house. You got to see the offices and walk the assembly
lines and have cake and ice cream and soda. A big deal for us
locals. The disheartening thing here was the two by fours used to
align the car doors. At the end of the assembly line, workers forced the doors into alignment
with these wooden studs . Car assembly was not a precision
process. Remember the Nissan TV ads where the ball bearing
smoothly rolled the metal fitting lines? We invented the
automotive assembly line. We could have made the cars to the same
precision of the Japanese. We just refused to let our education
show through. And now I resent every American product that I buy.
Dido died today. Nothing else matters until I get my head back on.
OK. Trying. I spent most of the night on the Internet searching for a Dido replacement
dog. My criteria was specific: it must not remind me of Dido but
must be intelligent and trainable. I searched pet adoption web
sites, animal shelters, etc. I felt that until I had a new dog
that I would just sit and cry. And I was doing a lot of
crying. I found 4 or 5 dogs that met my criteria.
The big problem was that for the pet adoption centers you needed to
fill out an application and maybe provide an interview. If you
ever had a dog run over you were ineligible unless you could prove it
was not your fault -- and it is always your fault. The county
animal shelters did not have this requirement but you took more chances
on the quality of the pet. In the morning I headed out to the
Mesa AZ animal shelter. They had a good looking match for
me. By the time I crossed the border and was halfway to Mesa, the
dog was gone. An adoption center north of Phoenix (Anthem)
stopped returning my calls. A place in California called "Halfway
ToHome" sounded like they had a match for me -- I had seen his picture on the web. I got to Los
Angeles and I could not get past an overloaded answering machine and
then headed back home unhappy about the loss of a dog but satisfied for
the diversion taking the entire day. Then I got a call from
"Halfway ToHome" with the dog. Lancaster/Palmdale. 4 hours
away. I spent the
night in a motel (really rare for me but I needed a good night's
sleep). My judgment was gone and I needed to resettle my
focus. In the morning I wondered out into the desert north of
Lancaster to meet the Halfway ToHome woman: Suzanne.
When I say "middle of the desert", this is an exact
description. I left asphalt behind and entered a network of
dirt-track roads. Some of the corners had make-shift signs.
Most did not. I live in "Beach" desert. This is "high"
desert. I felt right at home. The Saguaro cactus have
evolved into Joshua trees. I love Joshua trees. When I got
to where I thought I should be, I
called. Suzanne was standing 30 meters from me in a driveway.
She said the dog was
not a Border Collie. It was an Australian Shepherd. I fell in
love with it instantly -- from 15 meters away. Suzanne had 25 dogs and
this one stood out. Spindly but excited that there was a visitor to the ranch.
The next problem was that Suzanne was hesitant on Mexico but she
had promised and she was a woman of her word. Her organization requires a
contract that I shall have difficulty filling but I am also a man of my
word. I shall have the dog chipped. There are no dog
licenses in my town. But if lost with proper tags, he can be returned
home and if lost north of the border there is the chip.
It was a ten hour drive home and I slept well. You can read more about the new dog on Bingo's web page. And he is indeed a Border Collie!
It is now the 20th and one of the neighbors tells me that down on
the next block are some Dido puppies about to open their eyes. He
remembers because they are so pretty. And they are already sold
out. Puppies sold in El Golfo for real money? Wow.
We went to town today. Visiting Telcel took so much out of me
that when it took an hour and a half to cross the border, I stopped at
Kinko's, KFC, and the CRA park and then returned home. I needed
to go other places but I was worn out. from Telcel.
I do not really like KFC. I like that their grilled
chicken is meat and bones and not covered with crust. The real
thing is my dog. I like the dollar specials at Carl's Jr. but
they are like hamburgers: mostly bread. I do not want to fill my
dog up with bread.
Bingo sleeps in the back and does not like the front. I got my
new cell phone(s) in the mail. My poor old PEBL has a broken
external display that I suspect will cause a problem one of these
days. I have already seen a message claiming the SIM was bad (I
hope not). The Samsung died the other day and so I ordered two
new phones: one purple and one blue. The Samsung was OK: a bad
charger drained instead of charging. Interestingly the new
phones came with brand names on them although they are unlocked.
My Blue phone is Telcel and thinks it is AT&T. Technology has
sped past me. I cannot figure out how to make the Bluetooth
operate even though I can get the computer and the phone to pair.
I need to go online and get device drivers for the phones to use the
USB cable. I have a new Microsoft mouse that will not install and
so it uses an older driver and the wheel operates sporadically.
Today we do laundry and rest up from the trip yesterday. And I
forced a new driver in for the Mouse so that it works OK. And
after many add/removes, I got the PEBL Bluetooth working. I
needed this to copy the pictures to the PC so I could download them to
the new phone. The new phone Bluetooth seems to work OK but
pairing took a while.
Tomorrow is Bree's birthday. I always remember her original birthday.
Not much is happening. My knee seems to have recovered as it
only aches a little. I fell down walking the dog and my thigh
hurts. I guess that happens as you get older: falling down is not
simply a matter of getting up again. I went to the health clinic
this week and got flu shots: regular and super (H1N1). For the
first time in my life I had no reaction to a flu shot. I was
surprised. A friend had two sore arms for a few days and could
not work. Flu shots in Mexico are free as is most preventative
medicine. Anyone against Medicare-for-all is just stupid.
Oh. I heard on the radio that even Mexico has national health
care. Finally I hear about someplace other than Canada. The
radio only had half the story. IMS ("EEMS") is the national
insurance and costs about $280 per year. Gringos under 40 can
sign up for it. Gringos over 40 may also sign up but need a
certificate of good health from a doctor. This gets you free
health care at any hospital with any doctor.
But what if you do not have IMS? You get free health
care at the local clinic. I do this. Local clinics and
hospitals are primitive but serve their purpose. A woman can go
to one of these and have the baby delivered for free -- by a
gynecologist. She needs to supply her own clamp for the baby's
cord and diapers for herself and the baby and has to pay about $100 for
the baby. Her care was free. And the USA? The
politicians are afraid that the insurance company profits will
suffer. and who cares about the guy who has to pay the premiums
and finds the insurance company won't pay his bills for some
technicality.
I have ordered new sandals that should come at the end of this
week. When I get to Phoenix, I shall buy some hiking shoes and
some tennis shoes. At the start of the year I figured I could do
one of two things. I could take out enough money to pay off the Ford
and have more to spend on other things. Or I could spend more on
other things and try to pay off the Ford with what was left. I
have been doing the second. I have lived poor for so long that I
need to feel a little like I can use some of what I worked 40 years to
accumulate. Like shoes and next month a dentist.
But thanks to Jim Loney at UBS, my income tax is about 20% instead
of 5%. For those of you paying a financial advisor, I can only
say this: I was stupid enough to do so and it cost me half of my
retirement funds. I have moved most of my money into a Fidelity
account and am slowly recovering. I am taking out $2,000 and the
account is growing by about $4,000 more per month and I am still
offloading things that Loney bought in favor of more profitable
items. The money that he still controls is diminishing and not
growing in a market that is growing to fast for its own good. How
do you lose money in such a market? I think it takes real work
and I know he is making good profits from his lack of effort.
I have been so busy for the last 6 months taking care of my world
(and fighting TelCel) that I have not had time to move my stuff away
from UBS. That shall happen this month. I need to talk to
Fidelity on the phone and Morgan Stanley in Yuma and maybe a few others
to do this. My self-directed IRA has grown 30% since I took it
away from UBS. Another 30% and I can stop worrying about my
future.
I wanted one more trip across the border before I take my short
vacation. I stopped off at the vet and then headed for the San
Luis crossing. As usual a long wait. OK as I needed some
Glucophage and I headed off for Algodones. Bought my medicine and
saw another long line. Wow. I headed for Mexicali
East. The longest line ever. Made a stop for the dog and
headed for Mexicali Central. Another long line but this is my
last hope. On the phone while waiting I initiated the IRA
transfer to Fidelity. Really helpful and it should happen this
week. Hooray -- the end of the theft of my money by the UBS money
handlers.
But El Centro is not Yuma. There is a FedEx north of town but
no Kinko's -- no Internet. The stores here are always short on
"good" although the recycle guy in the Walmart parking lot is a
positive part of the visit. Going down the list:
Bigger and better since they opened the new one a couple of years
ago. Old format so it must have been more than 3 years. But
they are always out of the things that I need. The pet department
in most Walmarts is under stocked but this one is bare bones. No
new leash for Bingo. No choke chain. Yes. anti-tick
stuff. McDonald's. I wish more Walmarts had other
restaurants. McDonald's is not a good choice for WalMart.
It leaves a bad taste for Walmart when you eat at the fast food that
gives you the least food for your money and then count what you have
left for you shopping. The last time I went to a Walmart
McDonald's the tiny piece of fish from two fish sandwiches fit into one
bun with room for a third piece.
And they had no (zero!) shorts in size 48. There was one 46 in
their entire stock. I do not mind paying the extra $2 for the
large size but at least stock them! Since I was down to two pairs
of shorts, this was a primary item for the trip.
I like Lowe's because they usually have what I want and I got tired
of going to Home Depot's and after searching discovering that they did
not. Now I do not bother -- I just go to Lowe's. But in
Lowe's I always run into the parts bins either empty or full of the
wrong merchandise for the label on the bin. This was no
exception. I finally got all of the fence and gate parts that I
needed and went to check out. I was lucky. there was only
one check out open and only one person in front of me. But then
one of my pieces did not have a sticker. I know someone was
working the outside fence stuff as I talked to him while I was
there. But when the cashier called, no one answered. She
sent someone back. She went to the next register to help other
people while I waited. I think my comment to them that the wait
for my stuff would take a long time was sufficient incentive for this
action. She ran out of people to help. I ran out of
patience. I left with no fence parts.
This trip I did not stop there as I needed more meat than bread for
the dog. When I first started going to EL Centro there was a
Carl's Jr. at the main corner in El Centro. I went there
once. I ordered my food and then went to the rest room. I
wished that I had done this in the reverse order as I would have never
ordered the food. The rest room was so filthy dirty that it
looked like it had never been cleaned since the restaurant
opened. I mean layers of dirt on everything: walls,
toilets, urinals, sink. Sink? I felt cleaner when I went in
than when I left. The food tasted OK but I felt dirty inside and
out. The restaurant burned a few weeks later. I suspect
they lost their health rating and it was arson but then who am I to
make such accusations. If dirt burns, it is amazing they lasted
as long as they did. There is a brand new Carl's Jr. there now
but since it probably has the same management, I do not bother even
trying.
There is another Carl's Jr. on 4th. I went there but they
overcharged me on my hamburger (their big) and I complained.
Since this held up the line, they refunded the overcharge and the
manager accused me of refusing to pay the sales tax. No. She was
illiterate. I showed her where the register had charged a higher
price than their billboard for the hamburger. She could not read
her own receipt when I showed her the difference. Where do they
find these people?
This is a disaster. This is the second time of two times that
I have left with spoiled chicken. Usually I prefer KFC to the
other brands (e.g. Church's) because the chicken is larger and
fresher. Not at this KFC. Both times I left with a stomach
ache. I should have known there was a problem when the dog would
not eat it. I headed back to Yuma from here.
This ende