Category: Mexico

Pass the iodine

We got several bottles of iodine from International Aid a few years ago. We have not had much use for it. Thankfully.

Since I started playing football, the iodine has gone into service. Ever wonder why football players use knee pads? Or elbow pads? That is to cut down on the amount of iodine needed to keep a team on the field. I have so many rubbed off spots on my pointy surfaces.

We won our scrimmage tonight. I think the final score was 6 touchdowns to 3. We had a decidedly stronger defense than they had offense. We got a touchdown on our first drive, though they had the ball first. Your’s truly made an interception off of a long pass and was able to run the ball back a few yards before being taken down by 2 tacklers. That turnover set us up for the first touchdown.

After that we got one or two more and then they scored. With 10 minutes left in the game the score was 4 to 3 (our favor). We then drove down for 2 more TDs before the game was over.

It was different playing against another team. You don’t feel bad about hitting them hard. On the other hand, they didn’t feel bad about hitting us either. I was headed toward a runner and totally zoned out that there was an offensive lineman giving blocks for him. I got canned so hard… Did you know you can bruise your deltoid muscle.

As I admitted yesterday, my 37 year old body probably won’t recover like it used to.

The game was supposed to start at 8:30. We were told to be there at 8:00. There were 3 of us there at 8:00 and the bulk of the team did not arrive until 8:45. Not a single opposing team member arrived until 9:00. By 9:40 we started playing while they still had teammates coming in. We played until 11:00.

That, my friends, is Mexican time. That can be very frustrating if you allow it to be. After a while you realize that you will just have to live with it and you try to laugh it off. On the other hand, when I am in charge of an event, I start on time and don’t feel any grief when they show up after the party is over.

Random nothingness

It has been a while since I posted just a bunch of stuff that is floating aCurlersround in my head. Probably none of it is long enough to make a full post on its own.

We put our daughter’s hair in curls. She had a scowl on her face after she saw herself in the mirror. It took quite a bit of work to get her to smile for this picture.

My wife was complaining that her hammock was lumpy the other day. I am not sure how that happens, but I have fallen victim to that ailment sometimes too.

Local elections were held here in Mexico yesterday. Apparently the PRI party swept this area. We are in a very strongly PAN area. PAN was the incumbent party and is the party of President Calderón (elected last year). I was a bit surprised to hear that PRI made a come back. None of this stuff actually makes sense to me anyway. Both main parties have their advantages and disadvantages. As a missionary, PRI is a bit better for us.

Missionary Talks is well over 8000 total downloads now.

I have my first real arena football scrimmage game against another team tomorrow. I heard that the oldest player on the other team is younger than our youngest player. I fall in the middle to lower end of our age bracket at 37. They will probably be faster than us, but maybe we can make it up by actually having brains and using them.Swinging

A few weeks ago we took our deaf church to the zoo. This other picture is me swinging. With the exception of the other missionary family, I am the old guy in the church. We are made up of a group of teens and a couple slightly older people. So when we get together for stuff like this, the kid in me comes out. He is not too far below the surface anyway.

Last week my wife and I went out for Mother’s Day (on Monday) and hit the magazine rack. There are a couple of stores which sell US magazines–at a premium. My wife picked up a couple and I picked up a Runner’s World. I have really been enjoying it. Cover price in the US is $4.50 while I had to pay over $6 for it here. Not horrible, but I still can’t afford to do it all the time. I did find Runner’s World Mexico one time. It was around $4, but I have never seen it again.

How is that for an eclectic mix of randomness?

Visa renewal submitted

I finally got my visa paperwork in today. I have been working on it for about a month. I had to wait for some letters to arrive. Then I had to make an insane number of copies of inane stuff. I took in 130 pages of copies today along with some original documents. And this is just for a renewal!

We have used a lawyer in the past for this process. I guess the copy bill is what she was charging me $300 for. I was not aware that all this stuff that I have submitted in the past had to be copied twice. That includes every page of our passports. Since my wife and son’s passports are brand new (less than 2 weeks old) that means there are something like 17 pages completely blank. What a waste.

But, it is done. Now we wait for a month and call them to see if the visas are back. They undoubtedly will not be. Then we call in another month and so on. Then, when it is time to renew them again next year, we might get them back to start the process over.

If, however, we have to leave the country while our paperwork is in Mexico City and not in our possession, we get to pay $25 each for the privilege of leaving the country. We happen to have a couple of trips planned in late June and July. We hope the visas are back by then.

It is a red letter day indeed

Today is bloggable. My wife found Diet Dr Pepper Capsomething in the grocery store that I thought we would never see. And, furthermore, we may not ever see it again. It could be a shipment got mis-directed. But, until then, I am going to enjoy it.

We have 12 cans of Diet Dr Pepper in our house! As soon as one chills and the kids are in bed, I am going to crack one open and relax and enjoy it.

I wonder what it tastes like? I have not had a Diet Dr Pepper since last summer. I hope it tastes like it does in the US. I remember my first regular Dr Pepper I had here in Mexico. It was NASTY! It was a 20 oz. bottle. I had one a few weeks after that and it was horrible too. I thought maybe it was just a bad batch. Unfortunately, no. But, since then the quality has improved and I have never had a bad can of Dr Pepper here. I think it just had something to do with the bottles. Consequently, I have not seen a bottle of Dr Pepper here in the country since we moved here 2 1/2 years ago.

Mexican races

Frustration. That is a single adjective to describe many of the races I have been to here in Mérida. Today was no exception. I try to stay flexible, but today pushed my flexibility a bit too far.

I got notification on Thursday that there was an 8K cross country race today. I was very excited about that since I would like to do less road running when possible.

Sunday races are always difficult for a pastor in a Christian church since Sunday is the “big day” of the week for us. Fortunately, our church does not start its services until 11:00. That means that I can race in the morning as long as I can be home by 9:30 to get ready for church. This race was to start at 8:00. That would allow me enough time to run and hang around a few minutes before having to head home.

Out of the 12 or so races I have run here, only 3 have charged an entrance fee. So it was not unusual to not see any fee amount in the race announcement. It was not an official race announcement, just a posting that someone put on a local mailing list. When I got to the registration table this morning (pre-registration means that you are there at least a few minutes before race start to register) the lady told me that the fee was 15 pesos (about $1.40 USD). The amount certainly was not an issue. The fact that I was parked quite a ways away from the venue and had to return to my car was. I went back and dug between the seats to try and find 15 pesos.

I returned with the money, thankful that I found exact change. Otherwise I would have had to make another trip back to the car to put away the change. I registered and pinned on my bib. 219 was my number.

Race start was at 8:00 and it was currently 7:40. Enough time to do a slow lap around the course as a warm up. The course was 2 Km. in length. About 3/4 of the way around the lap I heard the announcement that the ladies would be starting at 8:00 and the men would start at 8:30. 8:30? What happened to an 8:00 start?

When I made it back around to the starting area, apparently this announcement took others by surprise. No one was complaining. They were just talking about how they should not be doing as much warm up yet since they did not start for 30+ minutes now. No biggie to them.

But for me, this was not going to work. The announcement said 8:00 start which was fine. 8:30 would give me enough time to run and rush straight home with hopes of maybe being ready on time. Really it was going to cut it too close.

I went back to the registration table to tell them I was not running and to turn in my number. I was not looking to get my money back. I did not really care about that. I mainly wanted them to know that the time change was a deal breaker for me. Did they care? Probably not.

They offered to let me start with the women. I don’t think so. “8K won’t take that long to run,” she said. I told her that some of us are not elite runners.

To me, it did not matter how long it took to run. Changing the start time to later was not acceptable. I understand that it was a small course and they wanted to give everyone a chance to race without being too crowded, but this decision seemed to be made just before the race was to start.

I was really frustrated.

I went home and ran 5K. That helped some.

I put off doing a long run yesterday because I knew there would be a race today. I have not had a good long run in a while. I need to get an 8 or 10 miler in soon or I am going to lose something there. I may have already been away from it too long.

I heard there is a 6K race next Saturday. I would not normally be interested in doing a 6K as opposed to a long run. But, since it is a very rare Saturday race, I could stick around for the awards. I have only been able to stay at one other awards ceremony. It was a Saturday race as well. Saturday races are very very rare here. It is a shame to pass one up. The only Saturday race I have run was a PR at 5K.

Oh, and one other point of frustration with racing around here are the distances. I have moaned before about how the races are rarely never the distance advertised.