Work, Work, Work

As in the reason why I haven't blogged in almost two full weeks. I ended up going right back to Arizona the next week (for totally different and more time-consuming reasons) and this week, I've been out and about around San Antonio. But, don't worry. I managed to get a few photos done and they'll be some more posts this weekend.

Now, in the full post we have: "Arizona, The Sequel" and "Patterns I found while traveling around San Antonio for meetings"

Teaser: WARNING! This painting is NOT a hidden picture trick. Letting your eyes go out of focus will cause permanent damage.
From the baggage claim area of the Tucson Airport. It's called "Expanding Universe".

For this trip, we stayed on the Mexico side of the border. The hotel was cheap and had a fantastic restaurant in it. I greatly prefer Sonora style Mexican food to Monterrey style. For one thing there's more vegetables involved.

The rooms also possessed industrial strength heaters. These were unfortunately necessary. My last morning there is was 19F!

Another highlight of the hotel....Even with the relatively plain rooms, I still hit upholstery gold:

We didn't really have time to engage in any tourist activities this time around. But I managed to snap some pictures on the drive from AP to the airport.

Here's a much better picture of the mine entrances in Bisbee:
Last time, I drove through around sunset or sunrise so all my photos came out a bit dark.

One benefit of this trip is that I got to appreciate the view along I-10. Last time, I drove so I couldn't really gawk at the scenery, which is quite nice:
There's actually one bit that was much prettier but I didn't manage to get any good pictures of it because we were changing lanes so much. There were trains in the distance and everything...Darnit.

In the category of "I can't believe I missed THAT last trip", here's a sculpture from the Tucson airport:
Because, as sculptors have long known, nothing says "art" like a gignormous copper horse. Quite striking but those turquoise eyes were a bit freaky.

With the recent cold snap, I saw something surprising out my airplane window on the way back:
Actual snow-capped mountains! To a native Texan such as myself, these are a rare sight.

After the Arizona trip, I was all set for a nice relaxing week in the office. This was not to be. However, in addition to traipsing across town for meetings, I also made some interesting discoveries around San Antonio.

One day, we were out to lunch with a supplier and I noticed the carpet.
There was a valiant attempt to surreptitiously take this picture but the second it flashed, everyone at the table turned to me. One of the guys visiting from Mexico asked "What are you doing?". By the time I was done explaining, everyone was looking at me funny.

Also, after the meetings were done, we had to drive some visiting co-workers to their hotel. JACKPOT!

The second I walked in, before I even took my gloves off, I was digging for my camera. By this point, my co-workers had slipped into amused tolerance. Seriously, though aren't those patterns insane? And these were just the lobby.

Hopefully, I don't have to travel next week. My goal is to spend more than two days straight in the office for the first time since the New Year. We shall see.....

Link to full post.

On the Road Again: Monterrey, Mexico

Since I had to spend the week on the road and in meetings, I decided to take full advantage. This post is the result: My 1st picspam!

Teaser:
More below the cut.

The trip down was relatively uneventful.
Except for that.


Lunch in Del Rio resulted in this discovery:
If you eyes are sensitive, please avoid the Denny's in Laredo.


The Rio Grande:
Note: According to the plaque on the right, our trunk was still in the US when this picture was taken.


We had to stop at the border to get our business visas (or we wouldn’t pass the checkpoint on the otherside of Nuevo Laredo).
I was trying to get a picture of the white rock (top) because it had this really cool cracked pattern. I missed.


Nuevo Laredo has several nice plazas with life-size statues, gazebos and trees.
Of course, not everyone warrents the star treatment.


The border is an interesting place. There’s Spanish signs on the US side and English signs on the Mexico side. But sometimes, there’s Spanglish:
Origins: English “Junk” --> Spanish approximation “Yon-kay”.


With the Forum in town, our usually strictly business travellers hotel was packed with this huge gaggle of pink-clad women. I have no idea who they were but they took up most of the parking lot with their three tour buses. Anyway, I got a room at the very end of the hotel. But I had a nice view:


As I sat down for my breakfast in the hotel lobby, I happened to look down:
How had I missed that before?


Since Monterrey is part-desert, they make water conservation a priority. The result are these:
When you push on the lever, the water flows. But if you release the lever, the water stops. I greatly prefer the above design to the motion sensors on sinks at our US office. Those are buggy and prone to malfunction.


For lunch, the “El Buey” taco stand.
These are the nice ladies who made our tacos.


After a long day of meetings, we had a lovely dinner of Mexican-style sushi...
Among other things.

On local TV, they were showing some exhibition shows from the Forum. Wednesday was apparently China’s night to shine. I was not initially impressed. The first act I caught was a Chinese River-Dancing Juggler.
Thigh high faux leather boots are exceedingly unmasculine.

But they got better.

The hands-down, best of the night were these guys:
Imagine an even more-brightly attired Chinese version of the Barn-Dancing scene from “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” with no fight at the end.


Thursday I get up early, and notice these around my hotel room.

They aren’t crazy but I find them interesting anyway.


Instead of the free hotel breakfast, we decided to check out a taco place on the way to the plant.
New for me: “Asado de puerco” tacos. Yummy.


After 1.65 days of meetings (and some progress), we left Monterrey.
Magno says “Moo!” [trans. - "Adios!"]


Northern Nuevo Leon:



Six Hours In Car = Help Me.

Getting Car-Searched by Mexican Federales = Not The Most Relaxing Way to Keep Up Your Spanish

Getting Home to Find Tivo Recorded the Supernatural Season Premiere = AWESOME.

Link to full post.

On the Road to Ciudad Acuna

I spent the last couple of days in Acuna working on a build. During my stay, I had a very interesting conversation regarding the GM/UAW strike. Granted, it’s already over but as of Monday, there was some concern. The perspective from across-the-border suppliers (like our plant employees) isn’t usually mentioned in any reporting on strikes. Somewhat educational for me.

Also, I managed to snap a several photos of Acuna. Here’s the main tourist district (“zona historico”). This is right past the border crossing:


And, the view across the road from our plant. That poor lonely school bus:


From my hotel, I have the following two additions to my “Eye-Watering Pattern Collection” (Realizes I never uploaded the collection to Photobucket. Scrambles frantically for several minutes, uploading like an uploading fiend before continuing).

(ahem) The hallway carpet:

And my bedspread:

In all other respects, the hotel was satisfactory.

For the full collection of eye-catching patterns found while traveling, see here and enjoy.

Link to full post.

Warning! Rapid Subject Changes Ahead

Will be travelling to Monterrey, Mexico for the next couple days. I am looking forward to a visit to the plant as they are always interesting (at least in the Chinese sense of the word). I plan to spend my lunches at the local taco place indulging in something Mexico is hands-down better at than US: Carne asada tacos. For 49 pesos, I get 4 reasonable sized tacos with plenty of meat, cheese and avocado. Such an experience makes you realized how generic & uninspiring American tacos are.

I watched the penultimate episode of Heroes last night. Can I just say: Holy Crap was that good! Every character had something to do, great one-liners, excellent continuity (bringing up stuff from the 2nd episode), and all of the action leading to the final confrontation. You know, I’d watch a lot more non-genre shows if they were written & plotted as well as this one.

Current books I am reading:
Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy by Dr. Kip Thorne – Liking it but I’m reading it very slowly. The book is about some advanced physics so I’m having to concentrate a bit. Very interesting stuff though. And Dr. Thorne does a good job about presenting it in an understandable way.
Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen – Not liking this very much. It’s really boring actually. The author tries so hard to have interesting characters that they don’t actually register as people but are rather each a collection of random, supposedly endearing quirks. I’m going to finish it on general principle. My uncle loaned it to me after a glowing review. I’m not going to tell him it sucked without saying I gave it a real shot.
Conquests & Cultures by Thomas Sowell – Absolutely loving this! He looks at 4 cultures that have been conquered &/or conquerors in their history, how conquest effected them and how it effected those they conquered. He talks about the British, the Africans, the Slavic Peoples & the American Indians. I’m in the middle of the Slavic peoples and so far, it’s excellent.
Number of Books in my To-Read pile: 13
Number of Books on my To-Buy / Reading List: 267 (Not a typo)

One final note, did anyone else know that guacamole is good on tater-tots? Or am I just slow?

Link to full post.