Trying again on the website.

I'm going to give another try at putting together my own website.

The new address is:

http://www.atlastrekker.com

I'll be blogging over there, plus putting together articles as well, since wordpress will give me that ability.

Enjoy!

Feliz Navidad

Well, Christmas is here, and so is the last day of my mini-vacation. Not a whole lot going on today. Most businesses are closed, and town is pretty dead. I went for a swim earlier, then took a ciesta on the beach. Pretty rough, I'll tell ya.

I did manage to pick up a La Paz, Mexico patch for my backpack yesterday. I've been looking for one of those for a while now. I'll sew that up here in a bit. That will most likely be my excitement for the day.

All of my family seems to be doing pretty good today, everyone is having a good time. My daughter has the flu, though, but she's still finding a way to open presents. My thoughts are with her, I hope she gets better soon. My son is doing good too, hanging with his mom and his aunt. Good times for everyone.

Next time I blog will be from work. I'll put up some pictures and reports from the Sea of Cortez next week so you can see where I'm working right now.

Another day in Paradise

This morning I woke up with a need to not eat tacos for a day. They are so good, but I'm starting to get tired of them.I spent the day in search of something to eat other than tacos, and found a pretty good pizza restaurant about a half mile away from my hotel. I also thought that maybe I would be able to buy some food at the grocery store and then have a little cook out on the beach. It seems that the stove is my downfall here. I went brought one, but it uses isobutane, and as my luck would have it, there is none to be found down here. I was thinking about just buying another stove, but the only one I could find was outrageously priced. It was a coleman dual fuel that I have bought before (JUNK!) at wal-mart in the states for $30. Here it was 680 pesos! Holy moly! Some one needs to open up an REI type store here, or maybe I do? It seems odd that there isn't one.

I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon cruising town and checking out the sights. I'm starting to make up some good plans for a trip I'm hoping to take the next time I'm down here, but I'll talk more about that later.

Other than that, I'm doing pretty good out here. Just hanging out and getting some good R & R. Another day in Paradise.....

Money

Money in Mexico is ending up to be quite a trip for me. I'm still not quite sure how it works, but it's sure not the same as the US.

The prices of things is really crazy to me, some things are super cheap, then some things are really expensive. I'd guess that's bound to happen, but it's going to take a bit of time to adapt to it. While I can say it's a good thing, getting a full meal at a taco restaurant for cheaper than it costs for a combo meal the local Burger King is pretty interesting.

I also bought some headphones for my MP3 player for 16 pesos (about $12 USD, the exact same thing was $30 in California when I was there last. At least it looked like the same package and everything, and I bought it at the Radio Shack here.

On the other hand clothes and shoes are the opposite. Pretty much everything costs the same here as in the US, if not more. No bargains to be had here. Good thing I brought plenty!

I spent all day today getting familiar with the area, I feel I have a pretty good grasp of where most things are now. At least that really matter to me. I did find a bike rental shop, but didn't go in and ask about prices. I'll go tomorrow, if they are open.

The taco stands are out of control good. I've eaten at several of them now, I haven't gotten sick, yet. I'm knocking wood now!

Spending the week in La Paz, Mexico

So after a little scheduling hiccup, I'll be spending this whole week in La Paz instead of working. That's alright with me, I'll get to spend some time exploring around and seeing what's going on here. I did get to spend some time walking around the last day or so, and have come to the conclusion that I need a bike. I'm not too sure how to get one, but that's next on my list. I did look for a bike shop and couldn't find anything, but I hear that there's a Wal Mart here, so maybe I'll go pick one up there. I should be able to keep it on the boat and use it in the future, so it wouldn't be a bad investment.

One thing that seems kind of crazy is that the hotel that I usually stay at when I come down here, Los Arcos, was closed due to a strike the last time I was here, and it still is now. I couldn't imagine a strike closing a hotel in the US for that long. It doesn't really make sense to me. Another interesting thing going on is that the police are in the street intersections talking to all the people that drive by. At first I thought that it was a fund raiser, like the fire fighters do with the boot for charity back home, but then I realized that they are upset because they were given the day off, so they are trying to raise money for themselves. I'm not quite sure I understand the situation, I need to research it a bit more. Seems strange to me.

While talking about Police, there are so many cops here! They are everywhere, with all kinds of different names. There are local police and about 5 different levels of federal police as well as troop carriers full of Army troops driving around with full gear and M-16's. I was sitting on a corner taking a rest, getting a drink, and I watched a city cop pull over 10 cars in a matter of 20 minutes. It was crazy. I'm not quite sure of the circumstances, but this has been enough to make me not want to drive down here, like I have been wanting to do for some time now. Either way, I'll be very careful when I finally do it, but I am going to have to adapt a little more before I would feel comfortable.

I got a little outdoors time in lately

Last weekend my friend Tim and I went up to the mountains for the weekend. We stayed up at the Grass Valley Sportsmans Lodge, and then helped them close it up for the winter. Every year they board up and drain all the water out of the pipes, so that when the snow comes nothing will freeze or break. They still have one part members can go to during the winter, but access is only by snowmobile or extreme 4x4, so there isn't as much demand. Maybe someday I'll be able to join, but lucky for me my friend can bring visitors. The club is a great group of guys.

While we were up there we took our kids fishing and did a little bit of four wheeling. We made it all the way up to Faucherie Lake, but we also stopped at Sawmill Lake and Bowman lake. There was a good time had by all. It won't be long before there will be 10 feet of snow covering all this area, so it was really the last trip of the year for me. It's a great place, I've been visiting for years, and will try and visit as much as I can for the rest of my life.

I'm half way through my vacation now. I'll head back to the boat next weekend, and help them get it ready to come out of the water at dry dock. This should be an interesting process, I'm looking forward to it. It's been nice spending time with my daughter and mom, but I'm already ready to go back to work. Too much idle time is not real good for me, I'm a busy body.

Trouble on the water

Just the other day the owner of the company that I work for announced that there will be a pay cut for every employee and lay offs as well. I ended up with a 10% pay cut, and on top of that I already took a 25% schedule reduction when I took the engineering job. Pretty sad when the world is effected by the economy of this country like it is. I'm greatful to have a good job, and I'm hoping that we can pull out of this as a company, because we are very good at what we do.

There are several people that are predicting rough times for years to come, but I'm of the opinion that if you are smart enough, you can make anything work out in your favor. I'm positive that Lindblad is good at what they do, and I know they can pull out of this just fine.

The rest of the country is who I feel bad for. Especially the cruise line industry. If you don't have your act together at this point, it's only going to get harder to survive in this business climate. Good luck to all the boat workers out there on those other lines, I know it's going to be rough for you.

The good news is, with the price of oil down so much, it may be some relief. I know I enjoyed the opportunity to do a little four wheeling, and it didn't even cost me half a months savings. Take the good with the bad, right?