Mexico – Page 36 – My Thought Spot

New Printer: Epson C67

I bought a new printer today. This is my first printer that has come in a box since around 1998 or 1999. I did buy one new in 1996, then that one at the end of the decade. I have acquired a few here and there since then, but nothing new. The one bought at the end of the century is still in use at my parent’s house. I have been using a printer that they bought in 1997. The one I had did not support Linux and their’s did. So I switched printers with them and they were never the wiser. They ended up with a newer machine anyway, so it was a good deal for them.

Today I purchased an Epson Stylus C67. Epson C67 Printer It is sold in Latin America, not in the US. The price at Office Depot was $549 pesos. That is about $50 US Dollars. The cheapest I have seen that printer for online is $66 (USD). I feel like I got a good deal.

In the process of buying the printer the cashier asked me if I wanted to charge the printer on a 12 month interest free plan they were offering. Hmm, that would work out to less than $4.25 a month. What an idiotic program this is. It is an infection. I can see “12 months same as cash” on a $500 product, but $50? The disease of credit (which is wicked and why so many people are in financial trouble today) has infected México as badly as, or maybe worse than, the US. You can get credit to buy almost anything here. There is one store whose whole business model is selling stuff on credit.

Well, I certainly was not interested in buying a $50 printer on credit. If I cannot pay $50 for a printer, then I don’t need the printer. If it were a pressing issue and I had to do some printing, I could easily go to any one of the thousands of Internet cafés here and print my paper for a few cents. Then save my money for a few months and buy the thing with cash. That is what our grandparents used to do. They did not buy stuff if they did not have the money for it.

So, I told the cashier that I would not buy the printer on credit, but that I wanted to pay for it all at once. “And, furthermore,” I told her, “credit is an invention of the Devil” (in Spanish of course).

Then something interesting took place. She had to call a manager over. Because I was not buying with credit, the manager had to override the purchase. Huh? Why? Well, the “no interest for 12 months” is not entirely true. I found out that if you pay cash, then the printer only costs $494 pesos (about $45 US Dollars). There was nothing on the display saying that it cost less if you pay cash than if you do their credit. I saved $5 (USD), simply because I used cash and not credit. So how do they get by saying that there is not interest if you use their credit? I guess it is not interest if you charge the extra $5 up front.

Anyway, I am pleased with my purchase. This is the first time I have bought something other than food or clothing here in México where I feel like I have gotten a good deal. Normally we would pay much more for something like a printer than the equivelant in the US. The cheapest Epson printer I currently see at Office Depot in the US is $90. That is twice what I paid for my printer here. Never mind the fact that the one at the US Office Depot website has a scanner. It is still the cheapest you can buy from them.

This one works perfectly in Linux too. Or at least as much as I have tested so far.

Ahh, a day off

Friday is not really a day off for us, but we always consider it our day to go and do. It is library day. We hit the local English library. It is pretty well stocked. We have recently been bringing home magazines. Even though some of them are from the last century, Readers Digest does not change that much.

But before the library today I went to a friend’s house to see what was wrong with his computer. It is acting wonky. I think the biggest thing is that if he had a bit more RAM, that would really help. I did all the normal diagnostics and found nothing amiss. The good thing about the house call was that I got to eat “second breakfast” today. At home I had a couple bowls of cereal along with my coffee. Then I went to their house and had pancakes with real maple syrup from Ohio. A friend of theirs makes it.

That was at 8:00. About 10:30 we were ready to head to the library. But before the library we had to check the post office for new mail. Nothing. Then to visit the pastor of our church. He is a plumber by trade and I needed hot water heater recommendations. Off to buy a hot water heater. Then finally the library.

After our fun filled day at the library we hit our regular Friday eating out spot…Burger King. Costs just as much as it does back home. Maybe a bit more. But, they have free refills on their drinks. Also, air conditioning is always very nice to have when it is 99 degrees outside. And the kids like the play place. That gives us time to read a bit on the books or magazines we get from the library. Today I did not pick up any books, so we played Sudoku on the Palm Pilot.

Then we ran back home to get the baby down for a nap around 1:30. While she was sleeping, I worked on pulling the old hot water heater out of place. To do that, you have to shut off the water. The water shut off valve is up near the water tank on the roof. I don’t have a ladder that can reach that high. We live in a house with tall ceilings and two stories. I need a 20 rung ladder to make it all the way to the top. My ladder is 13 rungs. So, to shut off the water, I waited until the pump kicked on which let me know the water level was as low as it would go. I quickly shut off the breaker to the pump. Then turned on all the faucets and showers to drain off the rest of the water. I was able to get the water drained and the old heater pulled before 3:00.

At 3:00 we left to meet some friends at the bowling alley. Like always, they arrived late, and they are not even Mexican. I have always enjoyed bowling, but it is not something for which I have a passion. This was the first time since we have been here that we have bowled. We were there till just before 5:00. I rolled a 157. Much higher than my average in college which was 135. I was pleased.

At 5:00 my wife dropped me off at home and took our son to chess class. I installed the new water heater (at least enough to turn the water back on to the house) and showered before 5:40. At 5:40 I ran downtown to teach my class at the Deaf school from 6:00 to 7:00. I got home around 8:00 after talking to some friends for a while.

I am writing this at 8:30 and have to go get my son from a youth meeting at 9:15. Then home to relax for the evening.

So, that was our rest day. How was yours?

New podcasts

I am moving from one computer to another with my iTunes library. I had been wanting to make the move for some time, but have been pushed into it recently. The index file for my library got corrupted. The computer I was using wanted to erase my iPod and start over. I figured if this was going to happen, it was time to move to the new computer. It will be easy to import my mp3s. I just need to start collecting my podcasts again and setting up my playlists. Though I had many playlists, I really only use two.

In the process, I noticed that the two Spanish podcasts that I was listening to have died. When you are subscribed to as many as I am, it takes a while to realize that a podcast is not being updated. Sometimes a podcast will come back from a long break and make a comment about being gone and I will not have realized they had been away.

I picked up a new Spanish one to replace my others. This one is Spanish from Spain called Notes in Spanish. I listen to their advanced podcast. As I live in México, the Spanish sounds funny to my ears. We make fun of Spaniards and the way they talk. I am sure they do the same about the Mexican Spanish.

When all is settled in the next week or so, I will try to give a list of those podcasts that made the cut. Of course I already have gotten all the running podcasts re-subscribed that I was listening to. If you have suggestions of your favorite podcasts, leave a comment and I will see what new might interest me. I am mostly into technology and endurance sports podcasts, but have various and sundry other interests.

Jarana Yucateca

La Jarana is the typical dance of the Yucatan. It is danced to 3/4 or 6/8 timed music. In its strictest form, the dancers do not touch except an occasional hand hold. It is not a dance, but a style of dancing. The clothing used is typical of elegant yucatecan dress.

The city of Mérida has several weekly events where the jarana is highlighted. On Monday nights there is a show of just the jarana dance for an hour. We thought it was to start at 7:00, so we were downtown ready to go at that time. When we found out it did not start till 9:00, that put a damper on the evening. One of the ladies with our group had to take a few hundred pictures, so the wait did not seem that long. A little bit of ice cream helped pass the time as well.

The lady in the picture with me is a Deaf friend who did a special presentation of jarana dance for us at the Deaf school this evening. She has gone to dance school to learn how to do the jarana. She just needs someone to tell her when the music starts (a particular song) and she dances along with the music and finishes right on cue.

After the festivities on the main square, we went to get my truck out of the parking garage. We got there and found out they closed at 9:00. I thought they closed at 10:00 or 10:30. Fortunately for us, there was a city worker going in to get a vehicle. This lot is used by the city. He took my money (and a bit extra) and said he would pay the parking lot in the morning for me. I think he probably will. Either way, I have my truck and I did not have to figure out which bus passes near my house.

Cuzama Cenotes

We have had some friends in from Guadalajara this last week and have continued with our site seeing. Yesterday we went to a place called Cuzama here in Yucatán. There are several cenotes around this area, but 3 are well known and developed as tourist stops. This was originally a plantation (hacienda) that had the henequin (sisal hemp) carted around on small carts pulled by donkeys or horses.

The attraction is that you ride on a cart drawn by a horse down these old tracks about 6 miles to go see the three cenotes. At the end, you turn around and come back the way you came. If you meet up with another cart, one of you has to get off and pull the cart off the tracks to let the other pass.

The cenotes were crystal clear. All three of these are below ground in a cave. This is unlike the cenote at Dzibilchaltún which is open to the air. The one at Dzibilchaltún is considered a “mature” cenote in that there is no cave structure around it. A new cenote is one which is really just a well to the under ground river. And a developing cenote is one that still has the cave around it.

These cenotes were just amazing. We were told that it was approximately 35 feet deep in one of them. You could easily see the rocks on the bottom. We were inside a cave, but there was enough light coming in through the ladder entrance and natural entrances to be able to see. I am not sure that it was really that deep at one point. But it was really deep. I don’t know how deep I can dive, but I can hold my breath for well over a minute. It took me everything I had to dive down and touch the bottom and then swim back up before the breath ran out. It was very deep.

I swam in two of them. One was 40-60 feet deep. I did not get in that one. The third one we were in was a large cave. A friend of mine and I swam to the back of it. I love to swim and scuba dive, but I am somewhat of a chicken when it comes to water and I cannot see the bottom. Being in a cave, it got darker as we got further away from the entrance, which made the water impossible to see through even though it was perfectly clear. After a bit of anxiety, I made it to the back and quickly swam back to the entrance.

Very well worth checking out if you are ever in the area.