tech update

I have updated the maps links in all themes to reflect our true location; no matter where we are, as long as I update the Datastorm map, you’ll get an accurate reading.Second, I found this really neat
create your own visited countries map or vertaling Duits Nederlands
You can get it here.
I have uploaded a gigantic amount of photos to Flickr. I have even organized them in numerous sets. Next to come will be geographic sets. The kids wanted to stay another day in Potrero, so tomorrow we leave for El Centro. Janet, I owe you an email!
I spent almost the entire day getting my Toshiba working on the new wireless router. We went to Yuma to pick up a satellite internet dish and I wanted to be able to connect to the internet wirelessly, so I picked up a router and a couple NICs to do that. Course, my Toshiba already has an integrated NIC and we’ve used it all over Mexico and the US. I got Dad’s old Thinkpad up and working wirelessly without any effort. I spent all freaking day (it is freaking COLD in San Diego) getting mine working. I could get online, but only wired. Finally, just before I had to make dinner (so the kids wouldn’t die of hunger) I got it working. Thanks to the folks at the datastorm users group.

Poisoned hair

I think you had to be there.  I was certainly the only one in the car laughing so hard, but Ellen has Poison hair. At some point in time, when we were staying at Aunty Chris and Uncle Chet’s house, the kids were introduced to the idea that oleander was poisonous if ingested.  The adult probably said, “if you put this in your mouth, you’ll get sick” but what the kids heared was, “if you even LOOK at this plant, you will begin to experience sharp stabbing agonizing pain and will die a very slow and painful death.”  Each and every time we pass within ANY proximity to an oleander, the kids scream at each other to avoid the plant like it could reach out and squeeze the life out of them.  They’re a little dramatic, my kids.  Have NO idea WHERE they get it.  Ocassionally, a child will brush up against an oleander, and Pike or Sissy will scream with alarm and insist on immediate removal of the poison atoms.

Yesterday, we headed to Target to stock up. For some reason Target is always a 2-3 hour adventure. If I were alone, it would take about 20 minutes, but Jamie LOVES to shop and the kids devour the books and wish upon the entire toy section. As we left, Ellen and Sissy needed to play on the big red balls that Target decorates their entrance with. The rest of us sat at the curb and waited. At some point, Ellen found oleander. Ellen loves to push the limits of everyone’s tolerance and seems to take certain joy in tormenting her sister. Though the youngest, she is definitely the alpha dog of the pack. Once the oleander was found, she rubbed her hair and hands in the plant. As far as I’m concerned, she could rub her body in the plant and I wouldn’t be bothered, but the kids went apeshit. Jamie washed Ellen’s hands and told her he’d wash her hair at the trailer. We piled all the kids into the car and headed back to the trailer. It was late and everyone was tired and JEllen must have thought it was time for some fun. She first found a necklace of her sister’s and put it around her neck. Sissy had an absolute coniption and screamed that the neclace was now poinsoned as it had passed over Ellen’s hair. With a maniacal gleam in her eye, Ellen then found numerous toys belonging to Sissy and started rubbing them on her poinsonous, infected head. Sissy erupted in screams and tears and I seriously began to worry about hearing loss. Unfortunately, I was in much more danger of killing the family as I was driving and laughing so hard I could hardly see. Jamie, never one to keep a calm head in chaos, started freaking that I’d crash on the freeway because I was laughing so hard. Ellen was rubbing toys in her hair, Sissy was screaming and crying with despair, the boys and Jamie were yelling that we were all going to die from me crashing the car and I was laughing so hard I had to pull over until I could see again. It was a fun night.

Today we’re on the way to Potrero County Park. We stayed here in January and we really enjoyed it. It was unseasonably green and lush after a very wet winter. It will be interesting to see what it looks like now. We’ll stay there, it is a great place for the kids, while we do errands in San Diego before returning to San Felipe. We’re having a lot of fun setting up the tripod and I promise to post pictures.

Picture is from just south of San Felipe, BCN (added 9/10/12).

on the beach

After last night, I don’t think I’ll ever complain about drunk Canadians. To be perfectly honest, the DC’s and DA’s have been really quiet and calm this winter. Both Jamie and I have been pleasantly surprised by the lack of noise and partay. There is usually a campfire and drinking but the noise stops at a very reasonable hour and it has been quite pleasant. It is still really loud in camp; noise from the town and firecrackers and simple goings on. Jamie and I have been quite spoilt by the empty camps we found all over the mainland and have had us longing for El Requesón; a spit of water along the Bahía de Concepción.

I guess we didn’t appreciate the lack of general noise. About 1:00 this morning, a young(er) man who had been staying in a trailer close behind ours came hone in a belligerent mood. Coming home from a hard night of drinking in town, he began to yell and swear at his trailer-mate, waking everyone within a 10km radius. They burst out of the trailer, yelling and egging each other on. I was astonished to hear the unmistakable sound of punches landing and bodies thumping on ground and other campers vehicles. One of them started yelling about a gash to the head and I honestly started to worry about OUR safety. I honestly didn’t care much about the fighters; I just wanted peace and calm to resume. They continued fighting, yelling and there was only one adjective used; you can imagine what it was, though I did learn a new one, “cck fck”. Finally, someone called the police who must have scared the boys enough with nightmares of Mexican jails and they kept the fight inside their trailer. I’m not sure, but I think the police might have told them to stay inside the trailer. They took that suggestion to heart as we then heard glass and other sundry items breaking in the trailer. The door was slammed repeatedly. They finally relegated the fight to lower tones and eventually we heard laughing. I was astounded that they could be beating each other’s brains out one minute and 30 minutes later laughing. They left early this morning, half-heartedly continuing to berate each other.

The wind whipped up last night and by morning, there were 10 shrimp boats in “our”cove. Camp really emptied out today and Mom and Dad’s old spot against the sea opened up. I have always loved that spot and with (big) Jesse’s help (not my son) I was able to back out of our spot and up against the beach. Only took about two hours. Piece of cake. We will stay here tonight and tomorrow night, leave Tuesday for Yuma; head over to San Diego; back to San Felipe (and hopefully a camp just as empty as today) and hang out here for a couple weeks before heading back to the Bay Area for Christmas. After Christmas we’ll head for the Pacific coast of the mainland.

THEY'RE on the road

Mom and Dad left this morning headed for the Bay Area. Our plans change like the wind. We had planned to go back to the Bay Area until after the New Year, then changed that to go to El Requeson until Christmas (then back to the Bay Area), then to go to the Bay Area for a week and then down to Oaxaca, then well, we don’t know. Right now, our plans are to head to Yuma on Monday (or tomorrow) to pick up our new Internet satellite dish. Then we head to San Diego to pick up stuff we had shipped there (and a carseat I bought eons ago for Ellen). Then, well, our plans peter out. We know we’ll be back in the Bay Area so the boys and Drew can get together for a week and the kids REALLY want to spend Christmas there, but the adults want to high-tail it for the Mexican Pacific coast. We’ll see.

It was hard to see Mom and Dad leave, but we know we’ll see them soon. I don’t know if it will be possible to pepper this post with the pictures I want to, but I’ll try. If not, check Flickr. I installed it on each theme except the B one. What the hell is it called? Oh! Benevolence. I think. I’m recovering and Jamie is feeling much better. We’ll figure him out soon; his prostrate looks good; he doesn’t have parasites, but his tummy bugs him. So we’ll see.

a joke

My mom sent me this joke. I usually don’t laugh at a lot she sends me, but this one got me. Maybe it has something to do with all the medical crap we’ve been going through, or maybe I can so identify with the poor guy, but I got a chuckle and wanted to share it with you all. Don’t you feel lucky? 

The owner of this drug store walks in to find a guy leaning heavily against a wall. The owner asks the clerk : “What’s with the guy over there by the wall?”

The clerk responds: “Well, he came in here this morning to get something for his cough. I couldn’t find the cough syrup, so I gave him an entire bottle of laxative”.

The owner, wide -eyed and excited shouts : “You idiot! You can’t treat a cough with a bottle of laxatives”.

The clerk calmly responds: “Of course you can, look at him. He’s afraid to cough.”

organic mushrooms

Every time I post about our intestinal upsets in Mexico I feel like I’m single-handedly destroying the tourist economy. Even the lab technician said that to avoid parasites, you pretty much have to never eat out. Even then…

So, yeah, I have not only parasites (E Histolytica to be specific) but a raging case of mushrooms. Well, not exactly mushrooms, but that is the literal translation. Makes it much funnier than “yeast galloping madly through your intestines”. Mexican medical care is so much more civilized than the US. I suspected parasites, went to the lab, handed in my sample and at the end of the day got my results. I have some anti-aemoba drugs left over from Dolores (we got them for Jamie but it turned out he didn’t have parasites) and I’ve already started. I’ll head to the clinic tomorrow to verify the drug and dosage with a doctor and see what he thinks about the mushrooms but I’m hoping to be on the mend. To stop the viscious D I stopped eating, drinking only chicken bullion and sugar water ocassionally as even that would trigger D. It will be a very light TDay for me tomorrow, but at least I can work on it now. I think from now on, instead of trying to wait out tummy trouble, I’m heading direct to the lab. I’m now really weak and tire easy after almost a solid week of viscious D. I guess not eating doesn’t help.

We saw a doctor at the “American Hospital” today for Jamie’s complaint. He suspects an enlarged prostrate and Jamie had his PSA today. We’ll get those results tomorrow. The doctor spoke fluent English and thinks Jamie’s tummy trouble is completely un-related to the typhoid, even though it was after his typhoid that he started noticing problems. So tomorrow we get the results of his PSA, he’ll have a parasite check also (he was tested in Dolores and was negative so I expect this will be the same but we’ve already paid for the test) and see what comes up. We’ve been googling “enlarged prostrate” like mad and it looks pretty normal and uneventful.

I love Mexico; why does she hurt me so?

Once again, I’m doing electrolytes (chicken bullion and water with sugar as I cannot STAND the taste of Pedialyte) and I’m absolutely CHAINED to the toilet. You really don’t want to know more than that. The first two days weren’t that bad but the last three have been hellish. The stomach cramping, the issuance that can’t even be described as “D” but fiery burning and completely liquid. Today we found a clinic for Jamie. Ever since he had typhoid (May? of this year) he feels his digestive tract was never the same. I’ve read that about typhoid, but he thinks it is something so he finally gave the OK to start finding out what it could be. When we were in Dolores he was tested for parasites and typhoid and was negative, so we’re pretty sure it isn’t that. Parasites are REALLY obvious signs and typhoid is also REALLY obvious. Kind of like labor. If you have to ask, you know you don’t have it.

So he isn’t on top of the world, but mostly a feeling of disquiet; like something that he can’t put his finger on is wrong. Here in San Felipe, they have the “American” clinic. USD30 for a consult and while that is so much higher than the mainland (the clinic in Dolores Hidalgo, while not an “American” clinic, was a private and good clinic, only charged USD5), it can’t even begin to compare to what we would find in the US. He has an appointment on Wednesday and tomorrow I head to the laboratorio to find out what the hell is bugging me (and you can bet, it will be a bug). It is so nice to simply be able to go to a laboratory, tell them the tests you want, they do them, and THE VERY SAME DAY (at least in the mainland) they give you the results. I’m thinking I have parasites (again) and if not, will simply get Lomotil (or something like it), more probotics and hope for the best.

My folks are headed to El Centro to pick up Thanksgiving fixings as they plan to celebrate the holiday Mexico or no Mexico. No-one has an oven that will fit a turkey, so I think they’re planning on a couple ovens doing turkey breasts. At any rate, I’ve been so out of comission I don’t even know what is planned. The kids are excited at the possibility of partaking of many varieties of food.

We are planning on heading up to Yuma and San Diego to pick up technology items that we’ve had shipped there on the weekend, but we’ll see what happens. We might be down here for a while…