There is nothing really earthshaking to report today. I had a good day at work, a good day with our (Lorena and my) exercise programs, a good day with advancements in the completion of the apartments, and I did not gain a ton of weight. All is good. Today was just a regular day and I am grateful for it.
My entire Mexican experience informed me that the only coffee available for general consumption, even at the finest dining establishments was Instant Nescafe. I was wrong and Tío Lauro very graciously showed me the error of my ways. In his trip to Veracruz he drank the spectacular local product that is some of the best coffee in the world. In addition, he filled a sorely needed deficiency in my working life. As is the wont of many programmers, it is difficult for me to work without a mug (read mug, not cup) of coffee at my desk. Lauro arrived in Monterrey with a much needed mug of the Café de la Parroquia from Veracruz. I am forever indebted.
Tío Lauro got back home from his family vacation to Veracruz on Saturday. He picked up Grandma Conchita after meeting and we all went to El Gran Pastor for cabrito. Lauro ordered a half cabrito for the table and we were only able to eat about half of that. After lunch, we went to a very high-end grocery store named CityMarket, then went to our favorite coffee house in San Pedro, Café Punta del Cielo. Can hardly wait to take Uncle Doug there. On the way home, we stopped by a jam-full CostCo to buy a counter-top oven, and finished the night hanging out and talking at the apartment. We hope he comes back a lot.
Lorena went to Carnicería Ramos with Grandma Conchita and bought 6.919 lbs. of a cut called Chuleton that Lynn says is a super-set of what gringos call ribeye. She paid a little under $38 dollars total for it which comes out to ~$5.38/lb. This is the same as what Lynn grilled up for us last Saturday night. We got a pound more this week than last week and plan to grill it all up tonight to heat up a few times over the week.
Unbelievably, last night we went to a working man’s outdoor taco place for the first time since we moved down to Mexico. As usual, it was just incredible and we cannot figure out why we did not do this until two weeks after we arrived.
The current incarnation of the GRIME2 (v0.4.0.0) ground-based camera water level measurement program was a port of much earlier code that was updated and pushed to GitHub on September 12, 2020. The earliest date I can find for the code that was ported was v0.1j.0 committed (to SVN) and released on July 30, 2009. My PhD adviser at University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) and I had a fairly long impromptu meeting this afternoon about the direction we are taking with this software and work. I have decided I am going to disaffiliate from UNL (to a certain extent–never not going to love my experience there) and focus my efforts on research associated with the GaugeCam GRIME Lab. That, in some sense is a difference without a distinction. What is really needed right now that I can contribute is
- publication of research that has already been performed,
- extension of the GRIME2 software package to handle much smaller calibration targets,
- integration of GRIME2 functionality into GRIME-AI (Artificial Intelligence),
- use of GRIME-AI to answer interesting hydrology, ecology, and agricultural questions,
- and publications of those results in appropriate journals.
So, that is my current plan moving forward, as part of GaugeCam and the GRIME Lab. Part of the reason for that is so that we can investigate the possibility of developing a user base and commercializing GRIME-AI as an independent entity, unencumbered by the lumbering bureaucracy of an institution of higher learning. That is why I am pleased that we had the foresight to license GRIME2 with and Apache 2 license and solely in my name long before I stared working with ANY academic institution.
Lorena and I are genuinely excited to be living in Mexico. Of course the food is spectacular, but there is so much more. We just happened to pick a time to come down here during one of the mildest summers in memory. The temperatures in August have been between five and ten degrees cooler than where we are building our house Southwest of Fort Worth. We are living in a working class neighborhood where everyone knows everyone else, the music is a little too loud, the streets are not exactly the cleanest in the world, but the people are truly the friendliest people anywhere. The added bonus is the closeness of family. We could not be more grateful.
Lorena and I took an Uber from the apartment down to the big HEB grocery store near San Pedro Plaza last night. There is a Carnicería Ramos (butcher shop) right by there so Lorena ran over and bought two kilograms of chuleton. Lynn says it is a cut that includes the ribeye and a little bit more. We $30 for 4.5 lbs. of ribeye plus for of those super plump, redder than the gringo version, extremely tasty hot dogs. We also got some potatoes, makings for salsa and a bunch of other stuff. It took about two hours from the time the carbon was lit until we ate, but that was just part of the deal. It was phenomenal and the four of us (Grandma Conchita, Lynn, Lorena, and I ate maybe a pound and a half of the steak and half a hot dog each. We were stuffed.
We are amazed at what it is like to live in our new neighborhood. Beside the beautiful vignettes of daily life we see out the front window (we loved seeing this cat relaxing on a shelf above the garage of the neighbor across the street), it seems like everyone here knows, or at least knows of, everyone else in the neighborhood. Last night, Lynn walked up to a deposito (a non-chain, neighborhood convenience store–they call them depositos because everyone buys their beer and returns their empty bottles to stores like this) to return some bottles from other renters in our apartment. The guy working behind the counter asked to whom he should credit the bottles. Lynn told him, “the girls from Veracruz” and he knew exactly who Lynn was talking about even though they had been here only a month.
We are kind of amazed about this. My sense is that this is not a common turn of events.
Lorena and I decided to walk from you apartment up to the house on the hill and found that it is quite a steep walk. I have decided I am going to do that every day for a couple weeks, then gradually work myself up to further walks. If I can get through the pain of not having walked on any serious inclines for years, it will be a great way to get into shape and, hopefully, stay there. The views up there are amazing and only getting better with the work Lynn is doing to make the house more open with more views from more floors. The picture below is of the new picture window in the first floor living room/office.
This is the view from the apartment’s azotea looking toward the Huasteca this morning. If you turn about 60 degrees and look up the hill on the other side of the valley, you can see the house Lynn is remodeling where we hope to be living within the next 4-5 months. The four window balcony is very distinct.
This is the view out the front window (over the kitchen sink) on the side of the house opposite the beautiful valley behind the house. It is amazingly quiet compared to many similar neighborhoods we have been visited throughout Mexico, but in the evening there are lots of people around with kids playing football (soccer) and other games on the street and sidewalks. The smell of Mexican food cooking and the sound of Latin music of a million varieties are ubiquitous. We are truly enjoying it, but realize that the street that runs by our house up the hill is significantly less active. I am enjoying the non-quiet for now.
The running like crazy has now slowed down to the running like mildly neurotic. We are very happy to be ensconced in our apartment where we can see this (and a much broader view) ourselves rather than through pictures sent to us. I took this picture Sunday morning in 75 degree weather with a light, cool breeze blowing. We are still getting set up and, after seeing everything, have changed our plans about what we want to do with the Mexico properties. We absolutely are going to love living here.
Lorena and I spent the night in sleeping bags in this spectacular, now empty house in Godley, Texas that is no longer our home. We have lots of great memories and loved just about everything about the house. Lorena did her exercises on the rowing machine and the treadmill in the media room with the huge windows looking onto the back yard. She took naps there on the sofa in the afternoon and we watched Midsomer Murders there just about every evening for the last six months. We loved the fireplace and used it whenever we could find an excuse–sometimes when it was not even cold outside.
I loved my office with its diploma wall, overstuffed sofa and chair, variable height bamboo desk, three huge monitors, and so much more. The office is where I did the last half of my PhD, met via video conference with my colleagues at Thrive Bioscience, read my Bible first think every morning with a glass of water, a cup of creatine laced coffee, and checked out the news on X and Telegram. Before we got the projector and big screen in the media room, Lorena and I often sat on the sofa and watched the British mystery series we like so much. We never did get around to installing bookshelves in the office or on either side of the fireplace, but we hope to do that at the very beginning in the house we hope to build in Granbury, Lord willing.
All our worldly goods are not safely in short term storage while we wait for our hose to be built in Granbury, Texas. The house is empty, so Lorena and I are spending the night in sleeping bags on the floor for one more night after which we will drop off a few things at our builder’s office (Coker & Company) before our favorite airport shuttle driver picks us up to catch a plane to Monterrey. If every thing works as plan and God is willing, Lorena’s brother Lynn will pick us up tomorrow night and install us in our apartment where we hope to stay for the next four to five months until our house on the hill, five blocks above the apartments is currently being renovated. Stay tuned for pictures!!!
All our stuff is moving into the trucks and, God willing, it will all be safely in storage by the end of the day. We plan to sleep in sleeping bags tonight and then be out of the house and on our way to Mexico late afternoon tomorrow.
This is a little bit of a religious discussion. I always assumed that all of every kind of fruit and berry grown in the Willamette Valley in Oregon was better than its equivalent from Washington. Our experience living in Centralia demonstrated that I was clearly wrong about Washington apples which are clearly superior to those grown in Oregon. I know believe that stuff that grows on trees in Washington (with the exception of cherries–those, in my opinion are a wash) are superior to those in Oregon, but that the berries of the Willamette Valley are superior at the same category of difference as the Washington apples are superior to Oregon apples. Troy is testing that all out right now with jams we sent him as a thank you gift for my graduation events in Lincoln.
The packers came to get everything in the house ready to move. There are three guys and the hope to be out of the house in 3-4 hours. Lorena has been a real champion in preparing and organizing everything so it will be a fairly easy job for the packers to make everything move ready. We got a bunch of snacks, water, and protein drinks for the works and plan to do it again tomorrow. I think we might run down and get some KFC to bring back to the house for tonight because we really do not have any way to prepare food in the house. I cannot believe we are only two and a half days from flying to Mexico. We can hardly wait.
I am very grateful to my brother because he reminded me and reminded me until I got the Living Trust, Last Wills and Testaments, Financial Powers of Attorney, and Medical Powers of Attorney completed, signed, and notarized before we head down to Mexico for a (relatively) short stint. It was just not that hard. We have the hard copy version of all these documents in a safe place along with soft copies for everyone involved. Our good friends, James and Janet Coker were kind to take the time to witness a bazillion signatures and their son, Brad’s, administrator notarized them for us. To top it off, it gave us an excuse to take James and Jan to Baked for lunch. It has been a busy, but amazing couple of days.