August 2004
Second Week as an Expat

It’s been a long day.

Finished most of the necessito repairs on the house this morning. The hot water works, the Internet works, the TV works, the sewer works. Still don’t have any locks on the doors, but that will come.

Found a fellow botanist in town, an orchid guy, and went to his place to see his operation. Pretty nice. He really knows his stuff. Made arrangements to go out with him on a collecting trip in a few weeks. Should be extremely interesting, hiking the back mountains, searching for the rare plants he peddles. Part scientist, part bandit: I can relate to him.

Then went to WalMart to buy a TV. I know that the popular sentiment is to shun the tube, especially here in paradise, but I’m a media junkie. While in college I was a radio DJ for a short time and then worked in journalism for a few years. Then I worked at a Public Radio station.

Something about the media intrigues me. I also know that you’re supposed to hate WalMart, and I do because it’s so tacky, but it also has some bargains and I’m a bit of an opportunist when it comes to economics. WalMart lets you pay in US $$ and gives you the highest exchange rate possible at the time. Seems to be higher than easily obtainable even in the banks. They’re obviously courting us Gringos.

I find myself eating a lot less here in Vallarta than back in the States and I like more of what I’m eating. I drink a lot more water here, too. And some might say a tad more alcohol. I’m not sure about that, tho.

And I am a lot more active. At first I thought that my penis was larger here than in the states, and it is, I guess, and that’s probably from escaping the cold. You all know what cold can do to a penis… This is just a casual observation and it doesn’t really relate to the observation about being more active. It’s like the observation I also noticed about feeling a little ‘high’ all of the time. Mentioned this to a Canadian expat here, Fox, today and he explained it (from a pilot’s perspective) as the increased oxygen available here at sea level compared to the high altitude I lived in back in the States. More oxygen to the brain, he claims.

I’m not sure if I believe this theory or not. I’ve never been able to accept as gospel any theory that leaves a few holes to be questioned. From this statement, I guess you can tell I’m not too religious.

Stopped by some furniture stores today and didn’t see anything I liked except at one consignment store where I saw a 6’ tall carved wooden statue of a Spanish ‘jefe’ with a bottle in one hand and cigar in his mouth, with one foot on a human skull. Sarah said she’d buy it for my birthday. It was beautiful, but I can see why it was still in the store at such a low price. Might be a bit pedantic for most people.

Walked by the south-bound bus station on Basilio Badillo and the timeshare shark on the corner yelled across the street, “Hi, Mendocino!” He remembered me from 6 months earlier when I had talked to him about when he lived in a town near my hometown in Mendocino. Pretty nice guy. Timeshare is a disgusting business but it seems to attract quite intelligent salespeople.

This evening Sarah and I went to Langostino’s on Los Muertos Beach for the VallartaScene “Board Meeting” to meet JR and Juliana and whoever else from the board showed up. Mike and his wife, Candy, from Portland, were also there. Seemed like Juliana or JR knew every other person who walked by.

The margaritas were effective: I got up the courage to head over to CyCs next door to see if my arch enemy, Howard, was there. I won’t bore you all with the melodrama here, mainly because I don’t understand it, but Howard is the single person most responsible for the creation of the VallartaScene Forum because he basically had me run off of the other Puerto Vallarta board. And then he published on his private fishing equipment (!?!) bulletin board a link to an article written about me by an ex wife.

I suppose he thought it would ruin my reputation… Good luck in your crusade, Howard. The Ex’s story is a fairytale compared to my real life. If this guy ever finds out who/what I really was, he’ll see how petty his attacks against me to this point have been.

Don’t ask me: I haven’t a clue what bug is in his pants. I’ve never even met the guy.

Anyhow, the plan was to walk up to him and put my arm around him and have Sarah and JR photograph us so I could blackmail him by implying an association with a known undesirable.

Didn’t work. He wasn’t there. He must have heard that we were coming. Instead, I gave a rose bought from one of those ‘street kids’ selling WalMart roses all over Puerto Vallarta to Brenda, the founder of the board that I was run off of. I’ve always liked her. Don’t see why she wastes her time with the Howards of the world, tho.

To ease my disappointment over not getting the photo-op with Howard, JR promised to give me a stock photo of him so I can Photoshop us together. This is enough gossip for one day. Gossip seems to be big down here.

I had thought that by moving to a new country I could be finally rid of having to deal with mean spirited idiots like Howard, but I was wrong. Idiots are everywhere. But so are people worth knowing.