Level of difficulty: Straightforward (hah!)
Typical tools and supplies needed:

• Repair Stand
• Screwdriver, Phillips #2
• Hex Wrenches
• Light lubricant
• Rags
• a third hand 😉

From the things everyone should know dept.

I’m on the phone with my ISP accounts dept. (Pablo’s girlfriend somewhere in the non-english speaking world of south Florida) I’m having to repeat the spelling of my domain name so many times it’s comical. The first iteration was
F C R U N V O D M E which we patiently corrected each letter by letter. S sounded like F, T’s like C’s… She got R, O and E right. All of this served up with a Reeky ReecardO dialect. The easy shot would be to label her as stupid or hard of hearing but it was just a language barrier. I am sure that she is fluent in her first language. I wish I had a second language. She’s smarter than me.

This month marks a one year culmination of personal blogs on strombotne.com. I’ve tried to put into words interesting happenings (or tried to make them seem interesting anyway :)) daily highlights inspired by current events or local drama. These blogs offer a perspective of my life flavored by family and others who are near-and-dear to me. I would like to thank my wonderful loved ones, my ISP, my Hosting Service, Allaire CF, Microsoft spell check, members of the academy… Hi Mom!

So I’ve selected the Group 65 DieHard and the clerk has asked me for credit card, which I furnish, and phone number. The phone number is the first field on his check-out screen and I see no valid reason to add mine to his list which gets sold to telemarketers. Most folks give it up and so do I except mine is bogus. (kind of like lying about ones age, eh?) What happened next I didn’t expect because his computer system actually ran a check on the number and reported back in the space of a few seconds that it belongs to a local motel!? It does indeed — the perfect pay-back, because it’s one digit off from mine and sometimes we get their calls. So, I use it without bad feeling on occasion to remain incognito. But now I’m discovered. In my best agent Maxwell Smart voice: “Would you believe it if I told you that I live at the Days Inn? Awww shucks! Just leave that part blank – would ya?

Favorite daughter child is enjoying her spring break in one of the seven cities of gold ( Las Vegas ). She and her traveling compadres were undeterred by the threat to homeland and on the eve of conflict braved the airlines and ventured forth. The reward is that they seemingly have the hotel to themselves. It is unknown that this is because:

1. it’s a weekday
2. it’s cloudy rainy
3. there’s a war on soon
4. their accommodations have a distinct Parisian theme

Anyhow, I’m proud of them for not fearing fear.

Caution: subtitles. A distraction at first but later you didn’t notice. We watched the foreign language (FRENCH) film (on DVD): AMELIE from Montmartre. (shortened for the USA release otherwise the stupide amercaine would not go to a movie that they could not pronounce 😉 Creative artful cinematography with a romantic storyline. A refreshing change from the vapid gratuitous violence and hatred from Hollywood. Despite their contrary adversarial anti-war stratagem, it gave us the warm and fuzzies for French peoples. You see there is a higher calling then money or politics and that would be art and culture. Oui even learned some French words.

The conference organizer promised that during the noon break a “luncheon would be served”…

The ‘luncheon’ turned out to be a conciliatory box with shrink wrapped sandwich and a piece of fruit inside. Bait and Switch. I ducked out for a proper meal at the Tortilla Factory uptown. What the hey! I’m on an expense account! A true road warrior would be proud. However — when it came to my car rental I blinked. Smertz asked if I wanted to accept/decline the insurance (a 49 percent daily price enhancement). The ultimate test of your expense account vitality is to let THEM refill the tank at $4.99 per gallon.

Now if we can just get them to offer a lunch-box upgrade…

Whereas yesterday was fraught with minor setbacks, failures and fires to put out, today just “clicked”. The missing suitcase was presumed lost for good but Hooray! American just advised it found ( JFK ). Even the baulky Christmas software, which was ‘this close’ to being reboxed for return, finally loaded on the old windows 95 machine ( would not co-exist with the 3D card on the newer ). The new CD player went into the Bug turn-key and played beautifully. The family summer holiday plan is coming together. We’re on a roll. Let’s keep it goin’.

End of journey. We retire with the door to our veranda secured open. This way we experience the full effect of the sea going experience. The wind and waves and fresh air is soothing. The gentle roll of the ship enhances the dream. We arrive in the port of Miami before sun light and I am awakened by the foreign sights and sounds of automobiles and traffic on the downtown expressway. Shock. I close my eyes and lay in my bunk replaying wonderful visions from the last seven days. You know — usually at vacations end you think: “okay, that was fun, but now I’m ready to go home”. Not this time. We had such a blast. We all wish it could go on and on.

The consensus is that, comparatively, Belise City is upscale. I mean, the streets are paved and the windows actually have glass in them. The girls are on horseback. I am seeing the Jungle by way of mountain bike. It’s similar to the trails back home accept that instead of root infestation one must be mindful of the soil embedded limestone rocks, which tend to hook your pedals. And of course, the trees are exotic and dense broad green everywhere. Once established the light darkens and the humidity ratchets. Our Creole guide says that each leaf and piece of bark is useful in someway. He tears one and an intense aroma emits. We all guess wrong. It’s allspice! But wait! There’s more. This one is a good remedy for diarrhea. That one doubles as heart medicine and pregnancy test (Yama bush). Then it makes sense. The local inhabitants don’t have a local CVS pharmacy on the corner that they can go to. They adapt and make use of their environment and do quite nicely without all of the conspicuous consumption that we have built in our world back home.

Just before we ride back to base camp and our awaiting lunch with refreshing river swim, we visit a very old cave system. As we wriggle and crawl deep inside we see limestone stalactites (rate of growth: 1/16 in/yr). The feeble flashlights that were distributed play eerie shadows, whipless scorpions and bats clinging death like in the overhead. We tease the squeamish and jokingly warn that the light beams will cause them to take flight — likely dropping straight down into our hair. I add that these creatures are probably less toxic then the requisite safety bicycle helmets that have been passed from sweaty rider to the next 🙂 Adding to the mystique, the guide points out bits of broken clay pot on the dirt floor. In fact, low and behold we stumble upon one which is intact! He claims them to be from ancient Mayan civilization. I reckon them to be from the village lawn and garden supply! But they do have some limestone deposits already, so we ignore them as props and take delight in his history lesson and story telling. Exit: stage left. Tomorrow we sail to Cozumel.