Unrelated News – Page 12 – My Thought Spot

Normal?

Things have been kinda crazy the last 6 weeks or so. I knew it would be, but I did not expect to be such a horrible blogger through it all.

As soon as we returned from our big road trip people started arriving at our house for a week long conference. During the week we were able to accomplish most of what we came together to do. We also spent time at the beach, shopping, Chichén Itzá, Dzibilchaltún (two Mayan ruins), museum and general site seeing around town. This was a group of pastors and missionaries who work with the Deaf here in Mexico. We were doing a planning meeting for camp this summer.

My wife went out of town with two other ladies who were here for our meeting. They all went to Cancun and Cozumel and left me here with the kids for a couple of days.

Today the kids and I went to the park and zoo. The zoo was closed, but we were able to ride the train that takes you through the main attractions of the zoo. We also went and picked up mail that has been collecting dust in the post office for almost 2 months. The highlight of the day…the immigration office. Ok, so maybe that was not the most exciting thing we did.

I am putting the final touches on a new Missionary Talks interview that may be up later tonight or tomorrow.

It looks like things are going to be getting back to normal pretty soon. Finally.

Spring Equinox

Friday, March 21, was the spring equinox. This is when the sun is over the equator on its journey from south to north. The fall equinox is when the sun passes over the equator going back south.

Here in Mayan land there are several phenomena that take place during this time. The Maya were well versed in math and astronomy. They built many of their important buildings to show something special on the equinoxes.

While the weather did not cooperate throughout the day, we visited two of these sites yesterday. While we were still able to see some of the events of the day, we were not able to see it all.

Dzibilchaltún
This is a Mayan town just north of the city of Mérida, where we live. has a temple that is situated so that when the sun comes up in the morning you are able to stand along a sac-be (main road) and see the sun rise perfectly centered through the doorway that is open in the front and back of the temple.

Because the clouds were very thick, we were not able to see the sun come up through the temple door. We woke up at 4:00 for the event and left home about 4:40.

We arrived at the site a little after 5:00 and knew that there would probably not be the show we were hoping for. While there were quite a few cars there already, it was not totally packed. I don’t know how many they were expecting, but anyone could have seen that it was going to be terribly overcast and a non-event before even leaving home. There were probably only a couple hundred people there.

After the non-event which was supposed to take place around 6:15, we toured around the ruins. We went down a path that took us by some of the house structures and led us to the main part of the city. We were walking around in the ancient Mayan city by ourselves when a guard came and told us we had to leave that area because it was not open yet. He was very gruff and acted like we had broken some horrible law. There was nothing to indicate to us that we should not have been in that area. He made us walk back to where a group of people were standing waiting to get in. We stood there for about 30 seconds and then they opened the area. Whatever.

Chichén Itzá
The big event that we were excited about was seeing the Kulkulkán snake make its way down the steps of Chichén Itzá. This is a phenomenon where the 7 large steps at the Pyramid of Kulkulkán casts a shadow on the 91 step staircase causing the shape of a snake which terminates at the bottom of the staircase at the large serpent’s head.

We got to the town about the time I anticipated, but I was very surprised by the amount of time it took for us to work our way to the parking lot and the ticket line. I dropped my group off somewhat near the entrance and they got in to stand in the ticket line. It took me about 30 minutes to park and get back to them.

I got in line with them for tickets and we waited about 40 minutes in a somewhat constantly moving line. About 4:15 a lady announced that at 4:30 they would open the doors and everyone outside would be admitted for free for the event to take place about 4:38. That created a mad push to the front gates which totally destroyed any order or idea of a line. The lady then announced that those who wanted a guaranteed spot to get in (they would only let people in free up to capacity), should still stand in line for tickets. We were willing to pay for the tickets, but there was no chance of getting to the ticket counter now that a few thousand people were told that they could get in for free if they were at the front of the line at 4:30.

Eventually 4:30 came and we rushed the gate with everyone else and were able to position ourselves to see the pyramid. The sun was still strong.

Just a few minutes (maybe 3) before the climax of the event, a very thick cloud rolled in front of the sun. And that was the end of the show. We never saw the sun again that day.

But it was cool being there and seeing what we did. They had anticipated 45,000 people at the event. Only 25,000 showed up. With a good possibility of there being no event, I understand why people stayed away. Especially the local people.

We personally spent about $50 in gas and tolls to take 7 people to this world renown event, while others spent well into the thousands of dollars to enjoy it with their families. I feel worst for those who planned their whole vacation to come to Yucatán on a once in a lifetime trip to see this take place.

The weather is normally very clear this time of year. We basically have no rain and few clouds from December to May. The chances of this not being seen is very rare. But it happened this year unfortunately. We still had fun.

It took us well over an hour to get out of the site and the parking lot. With only 1/2 of the anticipated crowd, I can’t imagine what it would be like if they had all shown up.

280,000 miles

280,000 miles We got home yesterday afternoon from our trip to the US. We had a great time. We were gone four and a half weeks. And tonight I head to the airport to pick someone up to start our next event. We have a group of national pastors and missionaries who work with the Deaf in Mexico coming to our house for a week.

During the trip we turned over 280,000 miles in our truck. The Suburban is a 1990 1/2 ton, 2 wheel drive. This is its second engine and transmission from what I understand. The first ones were replaced with re-built units at 100,000 miles. The truck does have some problems, but that is to be expected after all these miles. Some day we will own a vehicle younger than our children, but probably not any time soon.

We made the trip up through Mexico in 2 days. We pushed a lot and made 14 hours each day. Coming back we were not in that much of a hurry. We casually crossed the border at 8:00 Wednesday morning. The sun had already been up for quite some time. We drove until we got to Poza Rica, part way between Tampico and Veracruz, about 6:00 that night. On Thursday we drove on to Ciudad del Carmen in about 10 hours. Then we just had an easy 4.5 to 5 hour trip on Friday to get back home.

On the way home our transmission started acting strange. I will know more on Monday as to what the cause of the problem is.

It is good to be home. We spent most of Friday cleaning up the dust that had settled in the last month. Our landlord had the house painted while we were gone too. We knew he was doing it, so it was no surprise. It looks really nice.

Staying active

While I have not been boring you with my lunch choices here on the site, I have been keeping myself busy.

Highlights from the last few days include running, golfing, shopping and interviewing.

I have kept up my running the last couple of weeks. I am getting ahead on my mileage again. I really need this since I will be traveling again next week and my running will be short if existent at all. I have a 5K race tomorrow morning too. I am shooting for a PR. Current 5K PR is 24:39. I am going to try and push it close to 24:00. With the cooler weather it may be possible. I have been running very well in the cooler weather. But I have not eaten so well the last several days.

Yesterday I went golfing with my son, dad and another friend. My friend is a Deaf man that I have known for many years. We have teased him terribly for his lack of speed. Then there was another person in our party that does not use granny gear for doing anything…that is too fast for him. My son has not played golf since he was 6 years old. He was a little rusty and seems to have forgotten how to pay attention and know when it was his turn. Needless to say, it was a very slow event. Normal people play a round of golf in 3 to 6 hours. We spent 4 hours just hacking our way through 9 holes. At the end of the day though, I had the lowest score. That’s all that matters.

We have stayed very busy shopping for ourselves and friends. It has been fun to be in a place where you can walk in the store and buy what you want. Personally I have been stocking up on some clothing items.

I got two interviews this week. Both were from mission board representatives. They are interesting in that these men serve in very different capacities. I think you will enjoy the interviews when I get them posted. They should be up within a couple of weeks over at Missionary Talks.

Just a couple more days here in town with our family and friends and then we head back to Mexico.

No end to the joy of owning an old vehicle

Today I started a project that was not anticipated. We started having a strange noise in Tampico, Tamaulipas. It is an odd grinding noise that almost sounds like a bad exhaust leak when we accelerate quickly, and mostly only when turning left. But, the noise goes away as soon as you let off the accelerator. Then, a few days later, I started getting a strange shutter just after the car shifts into third gear.

While listening to Car Talk the other day, they had a caller that had a similar problem (with the shuttering) and they suggested that the problem might be related to a bad motor mount. I crawled up under my truck yesterday and found that the bolt that holds the motor side of the mount to the frame side was broken. Part of the bolt was missing.

I called my uncle and we talked about it a bit. He guessed that it was my left mount that was the problem. When I told him it was the right one he immediately told me that my problem was related to the transmission mount. It was probably worn out. I crawled back under the truck to find out that he was correct in that there was a problem with the transmission mount. The problem was not that it was worn out though, it was because there were no bolts holding the mount to the transmission. They had fallen out.

I remember that I had that mount replaced a couple of years ago. It still looked to be in good shape. Since I had the transmission rebuilt this summer, I know that the bolts have only been missing, at most, 7 months. But more likely they went missing shortly before we started having the strange noise.

Dad, a friend and I got the transmission mount reconnected and one of the motor mounts removed today. We will have to replace that mount and do the replacement on the other side tomorrow. Of course this comes with a whole lot more effort than those 2 sentences can convey.

$20 and 6 hours worth of work and we will be back in business. While I hate having to tinker so much with it, it sure beats a $400 a month car payment.