Everybody Limbo

Dar and I are less than two weeks away from our trip to Pittsburgh to see the Steelers beat the ever living tar out of the malevolent (and probably syphilitic) Baltimore Shitbirds. Looking forward to kicking it with some San Antonio friends, having a great time in The Burgh, and whatever else this trip back to the US holds. Go Steelers!

We're also using our trip back to the States to pick up a few things we are not able to find in Mexico. Minor things we can certainly live without, but that do add to our quality of life. They're mostly supplements and personal care items. Vitamins are really expensive here, for some reason. On the other hand, I can have my testosterone delivered with my groceries without a prescription! Choose your battles, I guess.

Rather than waste time shopping while we're in Pittsburgh, we're having Amazon deliver what we need to the hotel. Yup, you can do that. Prime makes it pretty easy. I need to contact the hotel to make sure they're expecting our box of stuff.

Last weekend was Thanksgiving -- we enjoyed a very nice dinner at the JW Marriott. The food was great, but I think the staff was a little overwhelmed. No worries, it was great to have a traditional meal with all the trimmings. I also enjoyed the crowd. Our fellow diners were made up of expat US families -- most with small children. Sprinkled in were random hotel guests from other countries, as well as several tables of Mexicans. I couldn't help be speculate why the Mexicans were there? Had they lived in the US for some time and embraced the holiday? Who knows? I think Thanksgiving has a little something for everyone. After all, we should all take the chance to be thankful for something; if only the breath passing through our nostrils.

Mexico City is beautiful. I can't even describe how much I love this place. Every corner you turn is truly a thing on to itself. There is a real rejection of the ordinary or sameness here. We spent a lot of time walking around Colonias Roma, Centro, and Doctores this weekend. Blocks upon blocks of infinite, effortless richness.

I guess what's on my mind today is that a month has gone by and I still don't feel like I've found my feet here. Leaving San Antonio was disruptive and doubtless the right choice -- but that was a month ago. We worked diligently to reduce "The Noise" in our lives. I truly have very few things to worry about now. Work is going well, and Dar and I are happy and having fun. No more cars, no more house, and we're living with a subset of our belongings. There's less to be worried about or distracted by in every way. But it's been a month and I feel like I haven't done anything significant with my time. Worse, several things I thought would gel frankly haven't. While we've been walking a lot, I've done little in the way of working out. My diet has not been great. I'd like to say these are due to the altitude and all the great food I have access too -- factors for sure.

It's really all due to a lack of discipline -- a lack of habit. I'm changing that today. Every day for an hour, I'm either writing in this blog or on another project. Diet and exercise can come later -- for now, invoke the muse and make it happen.

Nothing else for now --

Presently somewhere,

Andy

Like Biscuits

Dar and I watched the episode of Good Eats where Alton Brown and his grandmother make biscuits together. It's a really cute episode and I've made Alton's biscuits from it a couple times -- they're delicious. At one point during the episode, the pair discusses how cut biscuits should be arranged for baking. It turns out that they should be touching each other on the baking sheet -- shoulder to shoulder. That way, as one biscuit rises during baking, it pulls the adjacent ones up with it, and, in turn, the adjacent biscuits also help it rise. This yields taller biscuits than if you baked them spread apart.

They help each other up.

Today is Dar's and my anniversary. Seventeen years together, with good days and bad. Mostly good, but the bad ones have been pretty terrible. We aren't perfect people, and I, as only she knows, am prone to some pretty epic bouts of self-doubt bordering on self-loathing. I also tend to be selfish and stubborn. Still, through 17 years of this and more, Dar has stood by me as my wife, partner, and best friend. She has been my biggest cheerleader and best advisor. She is also my biggest defender, and she is damn cute to boot!

As we move onto this new phase of our life, we will need each other more than ever. Other than saving for a self-directed future someday, we are purposefully not making plans more than six months out. We're getting used to living with less and we shed our non-essential belongings. This has been a massive change. For now and the foreseeable future, we plan to stay in Mexico. What does the future hold? Maybe South America, Europe or beyond.

Remote work for me makes this possible, but without Dar, I wouldn't have the bravery or ambition to make it so. We are consciously creating the life we dreamed of together, and for that, I am truly fortunate.

"We're like biscuits!" has been one of our favorite phrases since we saw that episode of Good Eats. Let's be like biscuits for another 17 years and beyond.

Happy Anniversary, Dar Dar!

Presently somewhere,

Andy

Helpful Things 1

Not necessarily a Mexico City update, but...

I've always wanted to share a few things I've come across that have really improved my life. These can be products, services, habits, systems, you-name-it. Anything that has had a substantive, positive impact on my quality of life.

At first, I wanted to call this series of posts "Game Changers". But, let's admit it, Game Changers is a really goofy damn name. It's also overused and probably inaccurate. So "Helpful Things" it is. What do you think?

So -- without further ado, here's the first one...

Claritin

Yes, that ages-old allergy medicine. The active medicine is 10mg loratadine.

I take one Claritin per day, every single day, without fail. This one simple step has taken me from having two or more upper respiratory infections per year to zero in the last ten years. (Maybe more.) Further, I used to generally feel crappy whenever anything was in the air. Call me lucky. Now, I am asymptomatic for allergies unless there's tons of dust in the air -- then I'm merely uncomfortable. I haven't had a cold in all this time either. Nothing.

The key is most people take Claritin incorrectly. I blame the way the stuff is marketed. Claritin is marketed as allergy relief, but allergies are a chronic illness. Allergies aren't something you catch. You are always allergic, and if you're severely allergic to one thing, odds are you are at least mildly allergic to many others. This means people generally put up with low-level allergy symptoms all the time, resorting to Claritin only when they feel abnormally bad.

This is the wrong way to go about it. What they don't understand is Claritin takes more than 24 hours to kick in. They will not feel immediate relief taking Claritin. That's why Bayer introduced Claritin D, which is loratadine plus the decongestant pseudoephedrine. Yup, good old Sudafed.  Now, Sudafed will knock out your allergy symptoms quickly, but it will also make you feel like shit. You're not supposed to take it for an extended period of time. It can also be bad for your heart, I am told.

Plain Claritin can be taken every day, it is generally side-effect free, available worldwide, and cheap!

If you suffer from allergies, trust me, include one Claritin 10mg in your daily supplements. Yes, generic loratadine is fine -- I take generic. Unless you count on having sick days a few times per year -- a friend actually once told me that was the reason he would not be following this advice, the lazy bugger -- you will improve your quality of life and find this to be a Helpful Thing.

Presently somewhere,

Andy

Frida School, NFL, and Yelpers

This is me, Dar, on the first day of Spanish class.  

I feel like a kid, but not as tummy rumbling as I would get on the first day of class back in the day.  I feel enthusiastic to start my 2 week session at the Frida Spanish Language School.  The cost was about $360 including the registration fee and they roll loosey – goosey with everything from there.  I did take a placement test prior to arrival so when I got there the administrator told me I would start in Basic A.  Well I could have told her that.  But it was perfect and the first week was awesome.  Diego went through all of the basic grammar setup.  feminino v. masculino, plural v. singular, ser v. estoy, and on and on.  He gave lots of great tips like talking to ourselves in Spanish as we go about our daily activities, which I thought was brilliant.  The class was perfect.  There were 3 other students from various counties including Wales, Switzerland, and France Texas.  Yes, Texas thinks it’s a country.  We were a small crew and got along well and were interested in each other.  The week progressed easily and very interestingly.

The second week, well not so much awesomeness.  We lost Marion, our French partner, in the second week and the rest of us were thrown in with Basic B group.  Now we had new classmates from Italy, Germany, Japan, and a new “replacement” partner from France, and a couple of other people that never really spoke so I’m not sure from where they hailed.  Point being, there was a crap ton of us.  And some of us spoke much better Basic B than others.  Not pointing any fingers, but it was that Italian guy and girl from Germany.  Well they definitely raised the bar and the teacher, being the diligent teacher she was, taught to the highest level in the group.  Now, all lessons were given in Spanish and honestly, I didn’t get most of the questions much less most of the answers.  But I did get to practice diction, vocabulary, and putting together sentences.   So it was a worthwhile week, albeit frustrating.  After all, I did spend most of the week lost in translation.  Oh, and to be honest, I ditched the last day of class, just recapturing a little dignity.

For the next couple of week I will be working in my Spanish exercise book.  Once we get back from Pittsburgh I can figure out next steps on the language front.  Meanwhile, we have been enjoying American football and watching our Steelers (Los Acereros) kick ass this season.  We are headed to Pittsburgh to see them whip on the Ravens next month at home.  Mexico City is having a big time with American football.  Today the Raiders are playing the Patriots in the City.  There’s a lot of excitement surrounding game day.  There’s a handful of teams that this city loves.  The Steelers happen to be one of them.  La Reforma, a primary boulevard through the City, is lined with over sized artistic football helmets on display representing the teams of the NFL.  There are a few select quarterback that were created in a caricature style and Big Ben happened to be one of them.  All day people are taking snaps with their favorite team.  I certainly got one of Andy giving a high five to Ben.  I like to think it’s brought the team all the good look for a winning season.

On a final note, I'll be Yelping it up!  You can followup my account at Dar M  If there is a particular place you would like to know about, sound out and we will check it out.  We are always on the lookout for new food opportunities.  You can also follow Andy at his Snack Master account.

Blog To Dos

This is Andy --

I like the idea of keeping up this blog, but I think I need to make my efforts a little more directed. I know what the blog is basically supposed to be about; chronicling our time in Mexico and elsewhere. Chronicling what? Everything? Probably not -- I mean, who needs that level of over-share. Still, some focus is needed. To this end, I've decided to make a list of stuff I need to do for this blog:

1. Update weekly -- no-brainer here. Unfed, blogs, like goldfish, end up stinking up the apartment.
2. Post some gosh darn pictures. Unfortunately, my picture taking skills are nonexistent. Not an excuse. See something interesting, shoot it. What's the big whoop?
3. Link up with other similar blogs. There's a term for this, I'm too lazy to look it up.
4. Start my "Game Changers" series. Stupid term for a cool concept. Every so often you come across a product, service, personal habit, etc. that positively impacts your life. I have a few which I intend to share here; if for no other reason to keep a record of these for my own reference.

Mexico update --

I'm sitting in a nearby coffee shop as I write this. This one if you're interested. Very nice space to work -- the street outside can be a little busy, but nothing headphones can't solve. They also serve a nice cup of tea. 

Wanna know how I know I'm not in the US? There's a band that sounds like something out the Sicilian wedding scene from The Godfather playing outside. Do you remember the scene? It's pretty weird, to be honest, hearing this while writing this blog entry -- it sounds vaguely like a drunken version of Winter Wonderland. Anyway -- here's the scene from The Godfather:

Dar and I continue to adapt and settle into life in Mexico. She's still going to Spanish class, but I'll let her update you on that. I can definitely hear her Spanish improving. It's really cool! I am so proud of her.

I'm working a lot. Things are heating up toward the end of the year as I get ready to deliver two projects. No worries -- so far people are onboard, which makes it really easy. Anyway -- my work setup is actually a little better than it was in San Antonio. Crazy, right? I think my coworkers think I'm weird doing what I'm doing -- well, that's like their opinion, amiright?

Speaking of San Antonio, we finally sold our bedroom set back at the house. That was a major pending item. The last of the items left to sell! Now we just need to sell the house. Yikes!

Here in Mexico, we spent Saturday with a couple of my high school friends and their families. So I graduated from high school 30 years ago -- no seriously. It's nice to see good friendship can last across decades. So much has changed, but then again so little has.

Dar and I need to take at least one day trip in the next couple weeks. Not sure to where. I need to look into it. Maybe there's a last minute cheap fare to the beach -- or maybe we can take a bus to San Miguel. We'll see.

We're looking forward to our trip to Pittsburgh. While Amazon Mexico has everything we need and more, there are a couple items we're going to pick up while there. Silly stuff really -- supplements and the like. Go Steelers!

Nothing else to report -- I'll be here, enjoying the perfect weather!

Presently somewhere,

Andy

How about an update?

Andy here...

It's Wednesday, a week and a half of working remotely from Mexico City, and things are definitely finding their pace.

First, a couple quick tech notes. You know you want 'em!

My dual SIM phone is working out really well. Apple doesn't make a dual-SIM iPhone -- why would they? -- so I had to get an Android. I've been wanting to get off the overpriced Apple bandwagon anyway. I decided to go cheap. Figured, if it gets lost or stolen, who cares? How cheap? I bought a Redmi 4a off Amazon for around $100. I really like it! It does everything I need it to and even takes decent pictures. It's also speedy and very configurable, which appeals to the nerd in me. (Of course, I encrypted it!) The dual-SIM functionality works like a charm. I have a Mexican Telcel SIM in slot one, and my US Verizon SIM in slot two. Once I run out my Verizon contract, I'm porting my US number to Google Voice and replacing SIM two with a memory chip -- or who knows. Anyway -- definitely a success.

I resolved the issues I was having with the WiFi dropping out. I had a major drop out in the middle of my Friday engineering call. It was a shitshow! My "office" is two heavy concrete walls away from a WiFi router which I have no control over. It's a generic all-in-one job with an integrated fiber optic cable modem. There are dozens of other WiFi networks nearby competing for bandwidth. The poor thing does stand a chance. Even right next to it, the WiFi, while fast, will drop out for 30 seconds at a time. If you're plugged into the ethernet in the back of the router, she's dead steady. Perfect for the three or four teleconferences I have per day. So, instead of relocating to the where the router is, or running a 100-foot ethernet cable, I decided to buy a pair of Powerline network adapters. These use the apartment's electrical system to route the network traffic. Amazon to the rescue! About $80 and two days of shipping later, I have a steady 50Mbp in the office. Not the whole 200Mbps, but fast enough for anything GoToMeeting can throw at me. My network monitor says I've been up 50 hours without a single failure. Sweet!

Anyway -- what else is up? Dar and I went to a couple ex-pat events in town. I'm sure she will update everyone on those. I really enjoyed meeting people at both. We got a chance to watch Monday Night Football at Chili's of all places, with some really nice folks. It was great hearing them share their experiences living in Mexico City. Hopefully, we'll be able to keep in touch with them. One of the guys there is into paragliding -- something I've been wanting to try out. Maybe I'll have an airborne update soon.

We had our first home-cooked dinner last night. I made meatballs in chipotle sauce. Even though we had to adapt the recipe because we weren't able to find a couple of the ingredients, they still turned out great! We've committed to cooking at home more -- eating out, even here, gets expensive. Here's the kicker -- one of the local supermarket chains will deliver your groceries for $2. Crazy, right? No excuses not to cook anything you want at home.

So much more to share, but it will have to wait until the next entry -- maybe Dar will fill in the banks with her next post.

Saludos from Mexico!

Presently somewhere,

Andy

Talk, talk, talk

Learning the language

It seems I have always tried to learn Spanish.  I took a class in high school, another in college, community courses, audio tapes, and just about every means known to modern man to crack the code of learning a language over the years.  Each attempt brought new promise and each attempt brought failure.  I really thought my brain was not wired to learn a new language or I’m just too damn old already.  What I didn’t know was that it wasn’t the method that failed me, but the lack of time dedicated to practice.  Four or five months per attempt at learning just wasn’t going to cut it.

Once we decided we would be relocating to Mexico City at some point in our lives, I decided to commit all of the time available from that point until the actual move to long, slow burn learning.  A friend recommended Duo Lingo.  I hadn’t tried app learning yet and it appealed to me.  I loaded the free app and committed to 10 minutes a day, in the morning, during coffee.  I took Sundays off.  Given the easy schedule I set for myself I stuck with it.  In a little over a year I had finished all of the free lessons.  I had a basic vocabulary and was able to begin to put together basic sentences.  During our trips to Mexico in that year, I started to see progress during each trip.  I knew I was on the right path and ready to take the next steps.

This week I started researching language schools in the City.  I found one on Insurgentes, Frida Spanish Language School.  Classes begin every Monday and it’s a 20 minute walk from our current digs.  Signing up was easy.  I just sent an email and they responded the same day, enrolled me for next Monday and provided the online placement test.   I have also been reading some other blogs with recommendations on language learning.  Someone suggested reading children’s books.  I think it’s a brilliant idea.  I bought my first book from a street vendor for $120 pesos.  I’m still working on translation, but it’s kind of fun to feel like I am acutally reading in Spanish.    Well, my class starts Monday.  Four hours a day M-F.  I love the Mexican’s respect for mornings.  Class starts at 10:00 am.  That’s my kind of school. 

The phone conundrum

There has been so much discussion around the phone situation that it’s an exhausting topic.  I won’t bore you with typing out all of the questions surrounding the phones, but it seemed to be an endless circle of unanswered questions without an objective solution.  We called Verizon before we left the states to ensure our phones would work. Check.  When we arrived we tested our phones to ensure we made local and international calls.  Check.  The first day we received a notice from Verizon that each day we used the international service would be a $5 charge per phone.  Oh check no. 

The following day I awoke to be presented with THIS! Special thanks to Andy for clearing things up for me.  But I guess it made perfectly good sense to him, and for that I am very appreciative.  All I know for sure is that by the end of the day my iPhone had been retired and I am now using the “unpaid phone”, Andy has an android phone and a Mexican phone number.  Not sure where all of this is going, but we are still in process.   I am quite sure it will all work out in the end.  Someway.  Somehow. Only Andy knows.

The calendar, a parting thought

We arrived in Mexico City on a Saturday.  It was a Saturday celebrating Dia De Los Muertos.  There were parades and all manner of celebrations that day.  A 20 minute ride from the airport turned to 2 hours.  But we were here and we were happy to be in the traffic.  Still, I have since uploaded the calendar of Mexican holidays so we will not be caught off guard again.  I won't forget, Mexicans take their holidays seriously.  And tonight we are attending our first event.  A Dia De Los Muertos celebration with InterNations in the Zocalo.  After a long first work week, we are looking forward to our night out, meeting new friends, and talking with the locals. 

One of the many Dia De Los Muertos displays in our area.  Beautiful!

Andy's first post

Hi! This is Andy and this is my first post. Writing for both of us, my lovely wife Dar was the author of the previous two.

This post will be little more than a hello and what's up. I'll introduce myself more fully later.

So, hello!

It's Wednesday -- our third workday in Mexico City. I am sitting at "Mission Control" listening to the morning traffic go by. Mission Control is what Dar affectionately (I hope) calls the collection of computers, mobile phones, cameras, power adapters and cables which always seem to cluster anywhere I sit for more than five minutes. In this case, it's my remote work setup, and it consists of my laptop and webcam on an adjustable stand, a USB speakerphone, a USB hub, two mobile phones (more on that in another post), the Mardi Gras mask I wore for the office virtual Halloween costume contest (definitely more on that in another post), the various knickknacks the AirBnB hostess left for our office use, random decor -- and the ever present cables, cables, cables.

So far, working from Mexico City is pretty uneventful. Our digs are comfortable, centrally located and well appointed. I have a nice work space in the apartment with a window overlooking a busy street -- which I like a lot.  The washing machine is busted -- hopefully that will get fixed this week or next. With cheap laundry service ubiquitous in this city, it is not a cause for concern. We're even getting used to walking up to the 3rd floor. Coming from 900 to 7356 feet above sea level that's no joke!

We're walking everywhere! Haven't been in a car since the two-hour Uber from the Airport -- that was a crazy! There were major closures all over the city due to all kinds of events. It led to the worst traffic I've ever seen in Mexico City. (Welcome home Andy!)

The food has been amazing so far. We're trying to not only eat out, and so far we've successfully committed to eating a late breakfast at the apartment and a late lunch out as our final meal of the day. So far so good. More on eating diet later -- that will be a long one.

My one complaint is Internet access keeps dropping. I asked the AirBnB hostess to bump up the speed for an extra cost, which she graciously did. It is very fast -- 200Mbps for all my fellow nerds... when it's running. Netflix and other streaming are affected only minimally, so we've got that going for us.

I'm estimating 99% uptime, which by all accounts should be awesome; but, that 1% downtime, when you're on a video teleconference call, is a killer. And it's not like the downtime is one second out of every 100 second. It's more like 30 seconds out of every hour. So, I drop off for 30 seconds at a time once per hour. Netflix can tolerate this because it buffers enough video to minimize the problem. For my meetings, not so much.

I installed Net Uptime Monitor to log the outages. I'm pinging Google and Level 3 response times for stats. I am also pinging my local gateway to see how much the WiFi is playing a part. I may move next to the router and hardwire in for calls if that's the case.

My key concern here is that I need my remote work to be seamless here vs. the US. At this point, the outages are not as bad as for some of my coworkers. Shit like this puts me on edge, but I am far from out of options.

Told you I was a nerd.

Anyway -- that's all for now, much, much, more to come!

Presently somewhere,

Andy