Month: July 2007

Crossing the border

The border crossing went fairly well. We got the green light at the main crossing. That is where they will tear into you car and check everything for legality. You would also apply for your car papers here if you need them. Since our papers are tied to our visa, then we did not need to renew papers.

The second check point is about 75 miles into trip. This is the customs check. If the man chooses, he can request a written statement of everything you have in the vehicle and then charge you duty of anything of his choosing. Also, they check to make sure you have the car papers in order from your crossing 75 miles back.

He asked for our visas and car papers. I gave him my visa paperwork. Our visas are actually in Mexico City being renewed, but I have a paper stating that we do have visas and they are in Mexico. He then wanted the car papers. I found a copy in one of my big files. He wanted the original. So I handed another big file to my wife. She started thumbing through that while I thumbed through the first one. I took my time and never found the original. Finally my wife found it in her folder.

I handed it over to him with the comment, “It sure does take a lot of paperwork to live here in Mexico.” He casually looked over our papers and handed them back and told us to go on. I think he was afraid that if he asked for anything else it would take 10 minutes.

We were thankful it went so well.

My Thought Spot 11: Crossing Borders on the Run

Much to the chagrin of my wife and probably my mother, here is another running episode of MTS Podcast. When I got home from my run the other day and I had my recorder in hand, my wife groaned and said “you didn’t record while running again did you?” Yup.

No detailed show notes. The blog postings from the last week are what is included here. If I get a chance when I get home I may add links. I am just trying to get this uploaded before I cross the border headed back to Yucatán in a couple of hours.

My Thought Spot 11: Crossing Borders on the Run [ 20:26 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We are not in Mexico anymore

After we crossed the border into Texas, we drove about 10 miles before we hit our first red light. Which, because of the fuel pump problems, meant that the truck died. We had a bit of trouble getting it restarted before the light turned green. By the time I got it started and was able to move at a crawl, the light turned red again.Native Texan

Here is the difference between Mexico and Texas. In Mexico, the man who was sitting behind us at the light would have been honking his horn the whole time and probably yelling curses at us for making him miss the light. But, since we were in Texas, what actually happened was that the man behind us waited patiently and as soon as he knew we were having problems, he pulled up beside us and asked us if we needed any help. There were no horns. No curses. Just a friendly smile and an offer of help.

Where was he when we were sitting on the side of the road in Mexico for 3 hours waiting for someone to help?

Can you tell I am a native Texan?

The root of all evil

We finally found the root of the truck problems. To make a very long, and somewhat boring, story short it was the fuel pump.

While the fuel pump was suspected early on, it was ruled out by just about every mechanic who laid hands on the truck. In fact, I think they all suspected the fuel pump as a possible cause, but upon further questioning, it was ruled that it could not be the fuel pump.

The reason it was ruled out is that the truck would maintain speed when you got it up to speed on the highway. Even though it was rough to get going sometimes, and sometimes top speed was only 40 MPH, it was always able to maintain that speed…until Saturday.

While changing the timing chain and a few sensors that mechanics said were probably the cause, I even did the “bang on the tank while the truck is running” trick. The idea is that if it is your fuel pump and you bang on the tank while it is running rough, that shock may kick the fuel pump into action. Though the test does not rule out the fuel pump as the problem, if it does run better, it is almost assuredly a fuel pump problem.

I have changed sensors and timing chain (which desperately needed it anyway) and reset the timing and checked all the vacuum hoses and replaced the gasket in the glove box. But because the truck was not showing some classic fuel pump symptoms, it was determined that it was probably a computer problem. The reason that was suspected is that each time you started the truck, you would get a whole new set of symptoms. If it ran poorly after a restart, then starting it again may give you better results. That certainly did not indicate fuel pump.

Then there was Saturday. This was the day the transmission had been rebuilt. We got back on the road to make it the last couple of hours to the border. I could not hold highway speed. The 1 hour 20 minute trip took 3 hours. Most of the time we were cruising along between 40 and 45 MPH. Not fun. Every time we slowed down the truck would die. Each time you hit a speed bump. Every town that you had to go through. It was fun restarting the truck several times while waiting in line to cross the border into Texas.

As soon as we got across the border we headed straight to the place we are staying. We pulled in and that is when the truck would no longer start. The fuel pump completely died. It no longer kicked in when the key was turned on.

1300 miles and 2 weeks traveling, it at least waited until we pulled into our destination of a few days before it gave up the ghost.

I borrowed** a bicycle and made a few 10 mile round trips to the parts store to get the truck going again. We called a church that we had visited before and they sent someone to give us a ride for church Sunday.

Monday morning we borrowed** some gas cans from the same place where the bicycle came from to empty the 20 gallons of gas that was still in the tank. There ended up being another 10 gallons in the tank that we were unable to get out because we did not have enough cans.

My wife is becoming a pretty good mechanic’s helper. Also, since we did not want to risk blowing up the house we were staying in if something went wrong, she did a good job of helping me push the Suburban to a less damaging location if something went BOOM. (BTW, 9 year old boys are not real helpful when trying to push a Suburban.)

**Listen to the upcoming episode of the podcast to hear where the bike and gas cans came from.

Book Review: Duel in the Sun

I had seen this book last summer when it was new. Since I knew nothing about Dick Beardsley nor Alberto Salazar, I was not really interested in reading it. When I heard about the book through a recent episode of Phedippidations, I really wanted to read the book.

I picked it up last month on my trip to California. Unusual for me, I paid full price for the book at Borders Books.

One of my joys in reading a book is to read it to those around me. Most of the time my wife just endures the book along with me. This time though it interested her in reading the book herself. It could also have to do with the fact that we started on a 3 week trip and she did not have a book to read of her own. Our reading tastes are so different that the only time we read the same book as the other is when we are reading books to our kids. However, she picked up this book and enjoyed it as much as I did.

While the book was well written most of the time, I had a couple of complaints about it. There were times when the author was writing about one of the runners, but the description really seemed like he must be talking about the other. I could not fit those two sections into the full story properly in my mind. I finally decided that there was either poor editing going on and something got moved to the wrong spot, or that I just was not following the story as closely as I should have.

The book jumps from the ’82 Boston Marathon to the lives of the two runners both before and after the race. While I did not have a problem with the concept, I did have some trouble following the time line. It would have been a great help if the author had included a few year numbers in the text. Many times he would say things like “three years later…”, but you would have to go back several pages to find out when the current events were taking place so that you could add the three years. Sometimes I was not sure if the events in the story were before or after the marathon.

I also did not like the use of profanity. I have complained about this in many reviews through the years as I have read books and write about them. The argument has always been “Well, people really talk that way.” While I dislike it, I do agree that there are some people who talk that way. Unfortunately that is becoming more and more common. But this book went too far in my opinion. Not only was the cursing included in the dialog, but it was part of the descriptive text as well.

Finally, I thought the book was very unsatisfying. I finished the book feeling like there was much more to the story. Had the story just been about the marathon, then there would be a specific conclusion to the events. But the book was more about the lives of the runners themselves, then we don’t know what the conclusion is or will be. I would have been much more interested in the book had it just been about the race.

As a whole the book was very interesting but dissatisfying. I now know about the lives of the two protagonists, about which I knew nothing before. I don’t feel I learned much about the race though. In fact, the book never says directly who won. It only tells you who did not lose. Also, the official time of the “one who did not lose” was never stated, only that he was 2 seconds faster than the one who did not win.

If Border’s had a 100% money back satisfaction guarantee on their books, I would be glad to return this one and get my money back. It was not a horrible book, but I was not completely satisfied either.

Duel in the Sun, John Brant, 2006 Rodale Press. 203 pages.