Mr. T, Pinky Lee, and Scott Hamilton

President Bush visited Peoria today. A recent Journal Star article commented on some of the preparations and speculations involving a presidential visit. According to the article, if the president were to become sick or injured then he would most likely be taken to OSF St. Francis. Mr. T, Pinky Lee, and Scott Hamilton were listed as entertainers who have been patients at the hospital. That's some top notch reportin'!!

Back in touch...

Last post, I talked about some around-the-world-on-motorcycle blogs/websites that I had been following lately. I was worried because there hadn't been any updates for a little while and I quite frankly wondered if something bad had happened to them. Finally a little news about them.
The World Rider guy finally put up a quick post and picture saying he was in Santiago, Chile. No explanation as to why he hadn't posted nor were there any tales of his travels. He did say he was behind and has lots of photos and stories to tell.
The "Round the World or Bust!" couple also updated and included a bit of a journal with their adventures. The key reason they hadn't updated was due to a maid knocking their laptop off the nightstand and breaking it. They've got a replacement computer now and should be back to regular updates.
Weather
Yesterday the weather was to take a turn for the worse. Rain was to change to freezing rain and later this weekend it's supposed to snow a little. It didn't seem too bad at first, but as the day wore on, I noticed more and more cars with ice on them. Salt spreaders were out in force, trying to stay ahead of the weather. There was a really bad winter storm in November/December that shut down this area. The storm came and went but the recovery took longer than many think it should have. Now public officials are wanting to seem proactive and implement a better snow/winter storm plan.
Fitness
My coworker Greg and I have been trying to focus on maintaining a level of fitness that will allow us to pick up where we left off in better weather and hopefully notch it up a ways. We are afforded the opportunity to work out three times a week on company time. We typically run a trail in the back 40 that has some steep hills. The trail itself is just shy of three miles. Greg started working with us full time in the spring last year and it only took him a few times to consistently run the trail without stopping. I took much longer to get there due to shin splints and foot problems. After changing to the Brooks Cascadia trail shoe, my legs and feet got better and I was able to run the whole trail without stopping on a much more consistent basis. With the onset of winter, we've been determined to continue hitting the trail, but we're not running it every time. Some times we'll run as far as we can, other times we'll fast walk, and still other times we'll fast walk most of the trail and run some of the hills. We've not allowed rain or snow or darkness deter us. After the first snow of the season, we put on the mukluks and waded through some knee -deep snow. Another time it had rained all day, but we hit the wet muddy trail with enthusiasm. By the way, we didn't see anyone else out there that day!
Last year, we were prepping for a major exercise and in turn a major inspection to prove that our unit was ready for war. A big part of the exercise/inspection process is to wear an anti-chemical suit, flak jacket and kevlar helmet while waiting for attacks to happen. If it's a chemical attack, you have to put on a mask and gloves and do what you have to do. During the simulated war, you most likely wear the ensemble minus gloves and mask for your entire shift. The chemical attacks in these simulations will put you the whole getup and "sucking rubber" for up to six hours. Greg and I prepped for these times by walking the trail in our flak jackets and masks. This was July and August by the way. In September when we had to play the first war game, Greg found himself in the mask and started to get a bit of a mild "panic attack". He calmed himself down immediately by thinking back to walking the trail in the mask and knowing that he made it through that hard physical exertion so sitting on the floor waiting for instructions should be a piece of cake.
Another benefit we've both noticed is that we pass our annual fitness tests much easier than before. There are four major components to the test and each carry certain amount of points. Waist measurement and cardio recovery comprise the most points and if you can't get decent scores on those, you get a marginal or poor score. Greg and I both improved our cardio scores and that's directly attributed to our running/walking regimen.
Greg has a goal of running the 15k Steamboat Classic which I think is in June. I haven't decided if I want to do that yet. Either way, we'll be increasing our distances. Don't be surprised if I get roped into it!!
Rivermen
The Rivermen won last night and are third in their division and not too far behind first and second. They're looking pretty good overall, but occasionally will have lapses that cost them dearly. They face the same problems that all farm teams have to deal with such as player callups, injuries, injury-rehab assignments, and the dreaded impatient - foreign - players - who - think - they - should - jump - right - into - the - NHL - because - they - were - stars - in - their - country - but - aren't - adjusting - well - because - the - game - is - more - physical - and - faster - so - they - jump - ship - and - run - home - to - mama types. Let's see how the rivs do tonight against a Milwaukee team that's not too far behind in the standings.

Post #85

Welcome to my 85th post!! What a milestone! I know there are those of you who never thought it would go this far, but here we are!!! Can you smell the sarcasm?

Actually, I know there aren't a lot of readers of this blog, but I really need to do a better job of posting (doesn't that sound familiar?). There are some blogs and personal web pages that I've been following and I always enjoy their updates. I'm finding myself worried because there haven't been any updates in a while. For example, there's a guy traveling around the world on his motorcycle. He started in the US, made his way to South America, and had an accident in Bolivia. He broke his leg rather badly when his motorcycle fell over on him and he needed to be medically evacuated back to the US. He had surgeries and therapy and recuperated for about 9 months. He then went back to Bolivia, got his motorcycle repaired, ran in to some red tape, had another minor accident (tweaked his leg/foot), etc. Well the guy hasn't posted for a couple weeks and that makes me a little concerned for his well-being.

Then there's a couple who are on their way around the world on motorcycles. They haven't posted in almost a month. I'm a bit worried about them and I can't even begin to think about what their families must be thinking.

I feel weird getting caught up in the lives of these people I don't even know, but I enjoy reading about their adventures. They are doing something that I would love to be able to attempt someday. I'm not so sure about how far around the world I would want to go, but I definitely want to travel extensively on a motorcycle. I think I would probably start on some smaller treks within North America, but the coolest thing would be a tip-to-tip trip, the Artic Circle in Alaska down to the tip of South America in Ushuaia, Argentina. What do you think, Greg?

Around the world.......

Dan's blog had a nifty link to a website that let you check off a list of countries that you have visited and it would generate a map of the world with the visited countries in red. As I was checking off the list, I cheated with a couple countries in that I really didn't spend more than a couple hours at an airport there. Those countries are England and French Guiana. Two other countries on the list are a stretch but allow me to explain them.

One time I was going to Kuwait for a 30 day temporary duty with the Air Force. Someone at our base was misinformed on how to get there. This person thought that all personnel going to the Middle East had to take a normal personnel rotation flight to Saudi Arabia and would then continue on to their destination. After delays getting out of the US and finally arriving in Saudi Arabia, we (I was traveling with one other person from my base) were informed that we should not have flown to Saudi Arabia as there are no continuing flights to Kuwait. The base there really didn't know what to do with us so we spent the remainder of the night under a giant overhang outside and waited for further instructions. The next morning, a small plane that did a regular mail run was able to give us a lift into Kuwait, and then we were able to hitch a ride with some Air Force security guys to our base. So my visit to Saudi Arabia was brief and limited.

Once I was returning from Paraguay and had to change planes in Brazil. There was a mechanical delay there and the airline put me up in a hotel in San Pablo (Sao Paulo). It was a somewhat eerie feeling to arrive at the airport the next morning without proper credentials (no Brazilian visa in my passport) and try to convince security that I was legally there.

My Visited Countries

Get your own Visited Countries Map from Travel Blog

We were able to have a short visit with Greg and Deb on Saturday. Their little girls were terrific with our little girl. Allie was very patient and shared her Leapster and Julia surprised her parents by sharing her little babies. They said that Dan had mentioned us in one of his recent posts. Thanks Dan and Amy! And we think our Lourdes is pretty too!!


It was nice to see Greg, Deb and the girls. I hope we can spend a little more time together in the future. Perhaps we should consider a visit to the magical state of Wisconsin (even the name is enchanting!). Greg explained the problem he is having with his blog. Basically he goes through his web page with his ISP to import from Blogger. That method has always been a problem for him and basically his web page host/ISP changed something and he's got to figure out what he needs to do to get back up and running. Good luck!!

The end of Greg and Deb on the Web....

Greg mentioned that Blogger Beta has caused the demise of his web page. I'm not sure what he means as he didn't give any details, so I thought I would post an update on my page to see if there are any problems.
I know October was the last time I posted, so I'll make the same empty promise of trying to do better in the future.
Everything is fine here and Lourdes is growing like a weed. In mid-January we'll probably be helping her move into the dorms for the spring semester at U of I. Just kidding, she's growing by leaps and bounds and seems to be getting smarter all the time.
Time to take a shower and go visit the family for an early Christmas celebration.
Take care and Happy Holidays (Christmas, Chanukah, Kawanza, New Year's, and any thing else that I swear to God or your higher deity (or lack there of) that I didn't intentionally leave out).

Move over "Ask This Old House"

I had to work on the garage today. Last year I replaced the soffit and fascia on one side of the garage and put off doing the other side. Earlier this year, I had a roofing and siding company come in and replace the gutters on the house and garage. Well before they could do their thing, I needed to tear down the soffit and fascia. I was able to put up the fascia but ran out of time to put the soffit. Ideally one puts up the fascia and then the soffit and then guttering. So here I was with new fascia and guttering and totally lacking the soffit. I had to get creative to avoiding taking everything down and starting over. So I put up F-channel all around, cut a piece of soffit in half lengthwise, and slid the soffit into the F-channel. So much easier than the normal way and just as effective! I wish I had done this sooner, today would have been a beautiful day for a ride.

Bad Rivs

Last night was a very disappointing outing for the Rivermen. They played sloppy and didn't attack on offense after the first few minutes. The penalty kill teams did a pretty good job overall, killing something like nine out of ten power plays. Otherwise it was a poor showing and they lost. Actually they got shut out 5-0 by the Chicago Wolves. It's still early in the season, so I'm not worried, but it's not fun to watch your team get a spanking.

Greg called asking when we could meet on motorcycles, but it's probably too late to try it this year. Next weekend is the only chance we would have and that's not looking promising. After next weekend we both have work interfering for a couple of weekends or more. Then it'll be well into November and the temperatures will most likely not be comfortable for a long ride. But I think we'll keep our options open or plan for next season.

I'm currently blogging from the couch using my new laptop (got it for my birthday) on my newly installed wireless network. The wireless network was easy to install. I followed the instructions step-by-step and everything came up perfect. I then fired up the new laptop which already has a wireless NIC built in and put in all the settings for security for my wireless LAN and bam! I'm wireless on my laptop.

I put a wireless card in my old HP desktop that I have in another room. I've been running SUSE Linux 9.3 on that thing for several months as an experiment in learning more about Linux. I like the fact that Linux can be free and often can breathe new life into older machines. The downside is that it can be a bit of a learning curve. Don't get me wrong, it was an easy install and is quite a bit like other operating systems that I've seen over the years. It even recognizes newly installed hardware. I haven't tried installing any new software yet, so I have yet to experience that. It recognized my PCI NIC and the wireless NIC, but the wireless NIC is a problem. It seems that many wireless NICs don't have drivers for Linux so users have to trick their computers by loading a piece of software that emulates a bit of a Windows environment and run the Windows drivers for the wireless NIC. Well instead of messing with that for now, I ran a piece of CAT5 from the wireless router to the HP and it was up on the net in no time. At some point in the near future, I will try to download the aforementioned software and be able to cut the umbilical cord to that computer. Wish me luck!

Well, I know that was boring to all but the geeks out there. What else can I talk about that might appeal to all? As I'm blogging, I've got the TV on to watch the NASCAR race at Talledaga, the dogs are napping all around me (if the computer weren't on my lap, one or more of the dogs would be), Lourdes is napping in bed, and Raquel just showered and is getting ready for us to go to Adam's house later for a fish fry/seafood fest. You can make fun of me for watching NASCAR but I don't care. These guys are running over 190 mph right now and are bound to wreck so I'm just waiting for the chaos!.

Last night I fired up Google Earth for the first time in a long time and checked out Paraguay. I had looked for Caazapa before and either I couldn't find it or there wasn't any detail yet. This time I found Villarica which is an hour or so north of Caazapa and I just followed the roa d south and found Caazapa. I marked the hotel that we stay at, the cemetary near my sister-in-law's house (I didn't want to mark her house), the sport's complex, and one of the hospitals. It was pretty neat to see. I tried to follow the road out of town to find where my inlaws live, but the details suddenly drop off. It was still really neat. Hopefully, the earth will get completely mapped in detail someday. Raquel actually got kick out of seeing Caazapa and her sisters house.

Well that's it for now. Besides the batteries are running low and two posts in two days is going to cause my friends and family to expect more consistent posts.

How did I get up here?

Okay another post. This makes what, the second one in three or four months? I should pace myself.

Raquel and I celebrated our fourth anniversary at the end of September.

Greg joined me in the ranks of the 40-year-olds last month.

The Rivermen kicked off the beginning of another season with a win last night. It was a good game that was 9.6 seconds away from a shootout. We were there and we'll go back to night for another game against another team. Good luck guys!

Lourdes keeps growing! I was gone for a week in September and she started putting more and more words together. It seems like she advanced so much in that one week. At this rate she'll be writing for the Times by age five. I'll be gone for another week soon, I wonder how far she'll be when I come back.

I'm suddenly very tired as I write this. I'm on the verge of being recovered from a cold but it feels like I'm coming down with it again. Let's hope that I'm just sleepy from a later than usual night. Plus I didn't get my weekend nap in. Actually, we've all had a touch of something over the last week and a half, but we all seem to be about over it.

Greg and Deb are closing in on their 10th anniversary. It seems like just yesterday that Greg and I were hanging out in his apartment, eating chili and ice cream after a workout at the gym!

I pretty much haven't been out on the motorcycle at all this year. I really don't like to ride it to work because so much of the time I stay after and run or walk and I don't want to have to change clothes again to get back on the bike for the trip home. Greg and I should try to coordinate a road trip where I head north, he heads south, we meet somewhere and ride for a short while then head back to our respective homes. What do you say Greg?

I wanna go home!

Lourdes keeps saying she wants to go home. The problem is that we are already home when she says this. What she is implying is that she wants to go to the neighbor's house. The neighbors will usually let her come over and eventually she'll want to come home on her own. One evening they had to go do some errands but Lourdes didn't want to leave them, so she ended up going with them and not coming home until after dark.

Like many little girls, Lourdes is crazy about the Disney Princesses. Well now she has her own little princess dress because like many dads, I like to spoil my little princess.

It seemed like we were gone quite often recently. We had two consecutive weekends of family reunions way out of town. We also had a wedding the day after one of the reunions, which meant a road trip. Then the following weekend we had a cookout to go to (also out of town). So we spent a lot of money on gas during that stretch. Even if we didn't have Lourdes, we couldn't have gone on the motorcycle because we had to haul some things from my grandma's house everytime we were near Decatur. I think all of that is behind us now and we're back to less frequent out of town trips.

There's another addition to the barn at my mom's. This cute little guy was born sometime around the middle of July. I think they now have 4 miniature horses.

"Stop touching my butt!!"

Monday was my day off. We work a compressed schedule and so I get a day off during the week. I used to get just about every other Friday off, but I recently changed to Mondays off. So we left Lourdes with the neighbors in the afternoon for a few hours so we could see PotC: Dead Man's Chest. We enjoyed the sequel almost as much as the first.

We met up with the neighbors afterwards at the ballpark for their boys' baseball game. Lourdes was happy to see us but she had a great time without us. She didn't want to sit still for the game; she kept running away. I had to chase her a couple times and bring her back to where we were sitting. As I was carrying her, she started shouting "Stop touching my butt!!" Of course it seemed like everyone was looking at me at that moment. For the record, I was not touching her butt.

Took Pancho to the emergency room the Saturday night. Not sure what happened but he was very distressed and shaking and occasionally yelped in extreme pain. The vet examined him and determined that his neck was sore. We think that maybe he fell down the stairs while we were gone that day.

Dover got neutered a few weeks ago. I had asked about the removal of stitches, but was told he had internal stitches so there was no need to come back. Well, I thought maybe the stitches that I could literally see on Dover's junk were the kind that dissolve after a few days/weeks. Well the were still there today so I called the vet. They looked up his chart and said that he didn't have stitches. I explained that he really did have stitches and that I wasn't just imagining them. They suggested I bring him over for a look. Sure enough he did have stitches (I told them he did!!) and the vet hadn't annotated the chart correctly. They promptly removed them and we were on our way.

I had told Raquel on Monday that I didn't have to go to work on Tuesday because I was scheduled for a workshop/class on datacomm at a local vendor. Tuesday morning I got up and headed up to the local gas station for a cappucino and I called Adam's office to make sure he wasn't there and that he was on his way to the class. Well he was in the office and had forgotten about the class, but he wasn't worried because it was actually on WEDNESDAY!!! Needless to say I felt foolish and had to go back home to put on my uniform.

My World Cup Fever has broken!

I didn't have much of a World Cup fever. I watched part of a couple of matches (like the tie between Sweden and Trinidad and Tobago and part of a USA match and part of the England final game) but didn't get to involved with the whole thing. I would check on how Paraguay did but that was about it.

I tuned in today to catch the final minutes of the final game today, just in time to see the replays of the French dude head butt the chest of an Italian player. I thought it was hilarious that a star player could lose his cool at a crucial moment and may have cost his team the game. Who knows what the result would have been if he had remained in the game. Regardless, France lost, Italy won. Between those two teams, I was pulling for Italy anyway. I felt a little more connected to Italy, having spent 4 months there a few years ago. Besides, who likes the French anyway?

We hit the Rock Island Trail again today. We didn't quite go as far as we did yesterday, but we were close. I think we got in a little over 14 miles. Our goal was to go just past the 7 mile mark to this mulberry tree that has huge, ripe mulberries that are easy to reach. I took a couple of pictures and posted them.

We rented a some DVD's this weekend. A Dirty Shame stars Tracy Ullman, Johnny Knoxville, and Selma Blair. It was pretty much retarded. I don't think John Waters should be given any more film to make movies. Ultra Violet was much better but still not very good. The Hills Have Eyes rounded out our trio of stinkers. But please don't let my opinion prevent you from renting these on your own. I think a bad review sometimes makes a movie better. Go in with low expectations and come out saying "It wasn't that bad!"

Gotta go shower. Check out the pics on Flickr.

He said "Little girls aren't very smart!"

Yesterday, we decided to go to Lenscrafters. Actually it was decided for us when my glasses finally completely broke. They had been limping along, all bent up, for quite a while. Lourdes has been very rough on them. With lightning quick reflexes, she grabs them right off my face and wreaks havoc on them. She hadn't done that for some time, but did so a few days ago. She bent one of the temples and actually broke it at the hinge, but not all the way through. It gave up the ghost yesterday.

So we went to Lenscrafters because they normally get you the glasses in the same day. Not having a spare set of glasses, I needed new ones and pronto! After getting the exam, I started looking at what kind of frames I wanted. I chose some, as well as some sunglasses. I've had small, rectangular lenses for a couple of years and I'm tired of them. They are too small, which is normally a good thing, but being smaller meant there was a smaller area to see through, so they were in the way. So I chose some slightly larger (yet still sort of small) frames with a bit of a roundness to them.

Anyway, we were waiting for the regular glasses to be made and Lourdes was playing with some toys they had to keep youngsters occupied. A little boy that seemed to be about six years old came along and wanted to play with the toys as well. Most toys were for toddlers, but there was a rubber whale/shark that Lourdes was playing with. The little boy desperately wanted to play with this whale/shark and kept trying to get Lourdes to give it to him. He tried bribing her with other toys. We tried to help him a little by telling Lourdes to share, but she didn't want to give up the toy. The boy complained to his mother and she was unsympathetic to his plight. She told him to play with other toys but he insisted that the whale/shark was the only toy there for bigger kids. He tried and tried and Raquel laughed at his efforts. He said it wasn't funny and then he said "Little girls aren't very smart!" As his mother was collecting him and his brother to leave, she commented that she didn't like the way he was acting.

Later we went biking on the Rock Island Trail. It is an old railway converted into a trail for biking, walking, running, and cross-country skiing (although I'm skeptical that it gets much use in that capacity). We've been trying to go out biking a couple times a week when we can. We've gone several times on the River Trail of Illinois in East Peoria which is also a converted railway line and last week tried the Rock Island Trail. We went about 12 or 13 miles round trip the last time and decided to push it a little further this time. Somehow we just kept going and ended up putting in about 18 miles round trip. Both trails have lots of mulberry trees all over and they are producing tons of sweet fruit right now. We found one tree that had mulberries about the size of large grapes. Lourdes couldn't get enough. She also couldn't get enough of them in her mouth and had mulberry juice stains all over her face!

I posted a couple more pictures on Flickr.

Gravity: Not just a good idea; it's the law!

Lourdes likes to throw things in the air. Most times the things will go up a little ways and fall to the ground behind her. Sometimes the things fall in front of her. Occasionally, she gets hit in the head.

She has become a bit of a rock collector. We walked to the post office on Saturday and she tried to pick up several rocks because she thought they belonged to her. There were some really nice white rocks at the base of the flag pole at the post office that she really wanted but I wouldn't let her have them and she couldn't convince me, try as she might, that they belonged to her.

Tonight, she brought one of her rocks inside and started throwing it up in the air in the living room. I was in the kitchen bringing a dead PowerPC Mac back to life and Lourdes began crying. She apparently hit herself in the head with her rock. I know she's young, but I hope that teaches her to not throw rocks straight up, not to mention in the house.

I uploaded a few pics to Flickr.

Baby Jesus in my underwear

Raquel is easy to scare. I can tell her that I'm going to scare her and still scare her. Yesterday she had my cell phone in her pocket. It's set to ring and vibrate. She was outside watering the flowers and I called her. The phone started to ring, but more importantly vibrate. This scared her. Of course I knew this would happen, so I watched her from the living room as I called. She jumped a little bit.

When she was finished watering and was coming in to the house, Lourdes and I hid by the kitchen table and jumped out to scare her. Of course it scared the pee out of her (almost literally).

Raquel had laid out a pair of my underwear for after my shower. When I was finished showering, she grabbed my underwear to give to me. There was something in it. She was scared because she didn't know what it was. She hurriedly gave me the underwear and was saying excitedly "What is it? What is it?" I took the underwear and shook it. Baby Jesus fell out. Well not the Baby Jesus, but a really small Baby Jesus from a really small Nativity scene that we have. Lourdes loves to climb up on the dresser where these little statues are and play with them. Somehow Baby Jesus ended up in my underwear.

Adam invited us over Saturday night for some brisket. Adam loves to cook and we love to eat his food. Lourdes loves to play with Zoey and Zoey seems to enjoy playing with Lourdes. So we ate some delicious food, watched Heavy: The History of Metal (I think that's what it is called) on VH1, and the kids played. Finally we put in the DVD The Ringer starring Johnny Knoxville and laughed our a$$es off. Johnny Knoxville plays a man who enters the Special Olympics even though he's not "special". Don't worry, it was made with the support of the Special Olympics and several special athletes.

Sunday, we went to Godfrey for a family reunion and ate too much.

Today, we'll probably see Over the Hedge and swim in the pool.

PS As I was putting on my shoes, I found a little angel from the Nativity Scene stashed away in one of them.

The end is near...

...well, the end of our trip is near. We arrived in Asuncion this evening without too much confusion or delay, despite the darkness, the lack of clear road signs, and the weird driving habits of the locals. We fly out tomorrow evening but I wanted to make sure we got here to avoid any unforeseen circumstances that might prevent us from getting to the airport on time. We could walk to the airport now. It would be a long walk, but we could do it if we had to.

We are staying at the beautiful Portal del Sol Hotel here in Asuncion. It´s a really nice place and the price is very reasonable. I would recommend making reservations as both times I´ve been here, we´ve been very lucky to get a room.

I had another Trans Chaco Rally moment on Sunday. We went out to Potrero Guazu for a final visit. It had rained on Friday and the road was in decent shape on the heavily used parts. We stayed late and headed back to Caazapa in the dark. Now, the road is a bit of a challenge to drive in daylight to avoid the worst parts. At night it´s a lot more difficult. The headlights cause shadows or hide ruts making it even more challenging. Throw in the fact that the not-so-used parts of the road are difficult to judge for driveablilty and you´re asking for trouble. Well I found it. A car was approaching in the other direction and I had to get back on my own side of the road. In this case it was the unused part of the road. It was rutted but look passable...in the dark. We got sucked over to the farthest right side of the road and just sank. Fortunately I was able to go back and forth a bit until I was able to get back on to solid road. The little Daewoo pulled through!

Lourdes hasn´t been feeling well. She started with the standard runny nose, cough and a low fever just after Easter. Somehow we didn´t bring enough Little Colds multisymptom medicine with us and we had to buy some medicine here. It doesn´t taste very good and it´s a battle to get some down her. I´m not sure how effective it´s been. She improved, but not for long. She had a bloody nose yesterday evening and that was a little puzzling. I have to assume that with all the activity she´s had in her nose (runny nose, blowing the nose, picking the nose) that it just couldn´t take the abuse any longer. Other than being runny, her nose has been fine today. I think she may have strep or some virus as she has had a sore throat and has a couple sores in her mouth. The pharmacy reccomended an antibiotic (although if it´s a virus, the antibiotic won´t do any good) so hopefully she will show some improvement by tomorrow evening´s flight. I´m not sure what time we get home on Wednesday, but I´m sure it will be too late to get her to the pediatrician. Poor baby.

The Rivermen are in the first round of the playoffs and aren´t doing very well. They´re down 3-0 in a best-of-seven series. They play again Wednesday. I´m going to try and get to the game, might be the last of the season.

I don´t plan on posting on Tuesday, but I might do so to kill some time as our flight is in the evening. Regardless, once back in the states, I´ll probably have a bunch of catching up to do so don´t expect a post for at least a couple of days. I know, Greg and Deb will say that I´ll fall back into obscurity as far as posting is concerned, but we´ll see. I´ve got lots of pictures that I want to go through so keep an eye on the flickr.

Ciao for now!

Trans Chaco Rally x 2 (cont)

Raquel´s sister Abrelia had come home for Easter. Two of her sons live in Caazapa to go to school. She brought her two youngest daughters with her. I had never met Abrelia before because she lives way off the beaten path. It seems Abrelia got married and went away when Raquel was really young and so they have rarely seen each other. Needless to say, it was a nice reunion.

In fact, it was quite the family reunion. Veneria was the only missing. She went to Brazil in 2002 with her boyfriend and hasn´t come back yet. Avelino made it in from Asuncion. He took the bus as far as he could, then had to walk hours and hours in the dark, without a light to get to Potrero Guazu at about 2AM. I don´t think I could do that. Crispin lives fairly close by so he was able to make it. Diosnel lives in Potrero. Lourdes (the sister) still lives at home, and we took Juaquina. After the fact, I realized I didn´t take a picture!

So after Easter, Abrelia and her daughters Maria and Pricila made their way to Caazapa. I believe a relative gave them a ride. We decided we would take them on home. One of my brothers-in-law cautioned against going in the Daewoo. He said there was too much red dirt road to make it out there in the car, that it sat too low and that the roads were in bad shape, worse than going to Potrero Guazu. Abrelia and my nephews said that the road was in good shape, better than going to Potrero.

So off we went in the little Daewoo. Just me, the two woman, and three girls all under eight. No cell phone. No map. Of course from Caazapa to Caaguazu was all paved and we arrived in good time, about an hour and a half with a short stop in Villarica to raid the ATM. In Caaguazu, we made a potty break, filled up the Daewoo, and started down the dirt road. I remember asking how far it was to Abrelia´s house. She responded through Raquel something about 80 kilometers. The road wasn´t too bad, especially by Paraguayan standards. We were probably averaging about 45 kph, so I thought we would be there in no time. Did I mention that it had rained very hard three or four days prior to this trip? Well actually that didn´t really seem to come into play until after about 50 km on the dirt road. The road was really decent until we hit a long stretch of what was pretty much sand that probably was about 1.5 feet deep. By the time I realized that we were in the middle of it and losing traction, it was too late. The car just stopped. It wouldn´t go backward or forwards. We were perched on the center and the wheel ruts on either side were just too deep. Great! We were in the middle of nowhere and had no real options. There was a house close by, so Abrelia went to ask about borrowing a shovel or some implement to maybe dig ourselves out but there was nobody there with authority to lend anything out. We were still freshly stuck and were pondering what to do when a Nissan Pathfinder (or something similiar) came around the corner. There were three young men in it and they agreed to try and help us. First we tried pushing by hand but it wouldn´t budge. Finally the guy got some rope out of his vehicle and tried pulling us out backwards from the sand pit. No luck. Several motorcycles and a couple of four-wheel-drive trucks went by. The young man who was helping us changed tactics. He hitched up to the front of the Daewoo and quite easily got us to firm ground. In the mean time an old large farm type truck tried to make it through and also got stuck. I think the truck was too old and underpowered to get through, because it definitely had the clearance. The guys that were in it were well prepared as they got out and each had a shovel to dig themselves out. So we thanked our rescuers and offered them a couple of bucks for their kindness, but they refused saying to give the money to the poor.

Okay so we had our little setback. We were guaranteed that the rest of the way would not present any problems except that a bridge along the way was in poor shape. We went a little further and stopped in a little town to eat and pick up some supplies for Abrelia´s family. That took a little longer than I wanted but thought that it was no big deal because we only had a few kilometers left to go. We finally hit 80 km distance travelled. Abrelia said we still had a long way to go. Hmmm. We continued on. And on. And on. Finally at the 120 km mark, we made it. I think there was a slight gap in communications on the distance we needed to go. I guess Abrelia had actually said that her town was 80 km from another town along the way. Anyway, we made it and her family was glad to have her back.

We went with the intention of spending the night. When we were making good time and the distance was thought to be substantially shorter, I had started to think that maybe we would be able to get there, visit a little while and return to the paved road all before dark. The reality was that we didn´t get there until between 3 and 4 and that there was no way to visit, leave and make it back to Caaguazu before dark and then go on to Caazapa.

My brother-in-law Rosalino is a very nice man. He greeted us warmly and made us feel very welcome. Lourdes and I went with him to get some mandioca. He hitched up a small cart to a horse and off we went. Lourdes loved it. She couldn´t stop grinning. Rosalino and I talked about his land, how he used to make charcoal from wood in a big oven but it was too much work and besides the oven collapsed. His primary use of the land is to grow herba. Apparently, the leaves of this tree are harvested, dried, cut, and sold to make a sort of tea. So we got to where the mandioca was. Rosalino made short work of cutting the plant with his machete and pulling the roots out. Lourdes helped carry the mandioca back to the horse cart. We climbed in and made our way back to the house. Again Lourdes was in heaven. Along the way, the horse let out some gas. Lourdes mixed her english with her spanish and said ¨horsey pedo¨.

Abrelia and Rosalino live way out in the middle of nowhere. I don´t even know the name of the little town (if you can call it a town). It turned dark and we had duck for supper and by 8 we were getting ready for bed. Raquel and I were outside brushing our teeth and I was astounded by the stars in the sky. It´s very difficult to find a place near my house where the night sky doesn´t prevent you from seeing the stars clearly. The sky was clear and I could see every star, not just the bigger brighter ones. It was amazingly beautiful. I wish I knew more about astrology, I mean astronomy.

We made it home the next day without incident. Abrelia was very proud that we stayed with them since we´ve never stayed with Juaquina or at the parent´s house.

Time for now. We´ll be arriving home next Wednesday. If anything else comes up, I´ll try to post.

Trans Chaco Rally x 2

I was out of touch for a short while. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of Holy Week we went to the in-law´s house. We didn´t spend the night there but I didn´t have the chance to make it to the Internet Cafe to post any updates, then it was closed on Saturday and Sunday. Monday and Tuesday were travel days to visit a sister-in-law´s house far, far away.

The family tradition here for Holy Week is to get together and make chipas for the Friday when they can´t eat meat. So Wednesday they made hundreds of chipas and Thursday they all got together to grill chancho. Okay, I don´t know how to describe a chipa, but I´ll try. A chipa is made from corn-meal and made into little cakes and bagels and baked in an oven. The oven is a round earthen oven that is superheated by burning wood inside. All the ashes and wood are removed and then the cakes get cooked from the heat that built up. Chancho is pork.

On Good Friday, we were out in the country again and it looked like rain. To me, it looked like rain before we went and the whole time we were there it looked like it was going to rain. Finally, we decided we better hit the road before we ran into the rain. The reason it´s so important to beat the rain is because of the 40 plus kilometers of dirt road that is in pretty bad shape without rain and becomes a quagmire when wet. Well, we didn´t beat the rain. It came down hard. I couldn´t see a foot in front of the car in most places. We crept along slowly, trying to stay out of the worst parts of the road and making sure we didn´t hit anybody or anything. We decide to continue to Boqueron which is about two-thirds of the way to Caazapa. The road to that point had lots of rocks so we weren´t too worried about getting stuck. We safeley made it to Boqueron and the rain, correction, the downpour subsided. My brother-in-law said we should be okay to make it to Caazapa if we continued. If we waited, the road would really soak up the water and be impassable. Off we went. The going wasn´t too bad and as we got close to Caazapa, we came upon a four-wheel drive vehicle. It was going much slower than me but I couldn´t risk passing it because there wasn´t a good place to pass. I slowed down and stayed behind it. The closer we got to Caazapa, the sloppier the road became. The vehicle in front was creating a nice rut for me to follow in and we were doing well. Then we encountered a long rut that was full of water. Too full. The car, a Daewoo something, sputtered to a stop in the water. It wasn´t too deep, just deep enough that with our momentum, the engine got doused and died. It wouldn´t start. We waited and tried to start it. No luck. It was acting as if the battery was dead. We waited and waited and tried again still with no success. After about thirty minutes or more, it finally started and we were on our way. We made it to Caazapa. The little Daewoo came through.

Well I better go for now. I´ll try and continue on later.

Sir, your Armani suits have arrived.

If I forgot to say so in an earlier post, our baggage arrived in Asuncion Saturday afternoon. Our rental car agent was able to retrieve them and put them on a bus to Caazapa. We got them that night at midnight and it seems as though everything arrived in good condition. Gracias a Rene Palacios de Sudamerica Rent-a-car!

Stampede, Sunday Bingo, Pikivoli and Attack of the Killer Chicken

I tried to blog yesterday but the connection here was really slow for some reason. Today it´s going reasonable fast so I thought I would catch up. I´m blogging from an internet cafe in Caazapa. It was here last year but was terribly slow so I only used it once. I hear there are a couple of other internet connections here but I haven´t tried to find them yet.

For Deb: Our neighbor is looking after the cat and dogs at home. She´s been a terrific help in the past and we´re lucky to live next to such great people.

We´ve been out to Potrero Guazu several times and Lourdes loves being outside in the warm weather and the family loves spending time with her. On one of the trips, we stopped to visit a relative and we were parked in the street talking to a couple of aunts. An uncle was nearby trying to corral some cows. It seems that one of the ex-bulls was a little randy and wanted to fool around a little and was after some of the cows. In the process of keeping the peace, a mini stampede came our way. Nobody got hurt and there probably wasn´t much danger but it´s still unsettling to have a large, determined bovine headed your way.

We also got to play bingo. I didn´t really come close to winning anything, but my nephew won an entire fried chicken so lunch was free. I think everyone enjoyed playing. My nephew also came close to winning the final grand prize of 300,000 Guaranis in a blackout game. The rate is currently just under 1 to 6000, so it was roughly $50. He didn´t win but there were some anxious moments as a couple of people thought they had the entire board covered only to find out that they didn´t so there was a second and third chance.

Later I went back with a brother-in-law and a nephew to watch pikivoli. Pikivoli is similar to volleyball in that you play with a volleyball and play on a volleyball court (in this case grass), but you can´t use your hands. The players must only use their chests, head and feet to play. I´m not sure which is more popular here, futbol (soccer) or pikivoli. It was pretty entertaining to watch and there were some pretty talented players. Raquel said that kids grow up playing pikivoli and it was obvious. I wouldn´t mind trying it sometime but I think it would be difficult for me since I can´t see very well without my glasses. I would also be at a real disadvantage since I have no talent at this sort of thing. Maybe someday I´ll have corrected vision and be able to give it a shot.

Last thing and I´m going to go. Lourdes loves all the animals out here and has no fear of them. At her grandma´s house she got to chase chickens all day with no problems. However when we went to visit an aunt, a rooster took exception to someone trying to grab one of its kin. Poor Lourdes ended up with a couple of welts/scratches on the back of her leg. She didn´t cry or at least didn´t cry much and said "chicken bad girl" and still has no fear of the animals.

Ciao for now!

Fish soup and spaghetti with beans

It´s Saturday and my Armani suits still have not arrived. I have an insurance policy for this vacation and after what seemed like no results from the airline that brought us here, I decided to call the policy´s Travel Advisor or Travel Assistant or whatever they call themselves. They allow you to call collect. FYI to make a collect call from Caazapa, Paraguay to the US, dial 0012. Let me backtrack a moment. We flew from home to Chicago and then to Miami on an AMERICAN AIRLINE whose name shall remain anonymous so that I am not libel or committing libel or whatever you say when you write something bad about a person or company. From Miami to Sao Paulo, Brazil and on to Asuncion, Paraguay, we flew on a non-AMERICAN carrier. The folks in Asuncion tried but didn´t seem to get any help or response from the American Airline.

My travel insurance dude connected me to the American Airline and stayed on the line to help me. The lady at the American Airline was not very cooperative or helpful at first. I didn´t have the baggage claim tickets with me because we left them in Asuncion with our rental car agent. Our rental car agent is going to claim our bags and put them on a bus so that they get to us eventually. So the lady on the phone from the American Airline said she couldn´t help us if we didn´t have the baggage claim tickets because otherwise she just had a blank computer screen. Even though I wanted to reach through the phone line and strangle her with her own headset, I managed to stay calm. I explained to her a little of what happened and she miraculously was able to search recent claims by my last name and found out that the bags were still in Chicago and that they were scheduled to go out that afternoon with a possible arrival in Asuncion on Saturday afternoon. I then asked that if they didn´t arrive on Saturday, and I call back, would they be able to tell me with certainty that the bags left Chicago. She said she couldn´t because they would be transferred to another non American Airline once they arrived in Miami. I couldn´t get it through her thick skull that I was not concerned about the other carrier, that I wanted to be able to know if the bags left Chicago. Finally she relented that superivisors could do a sort of world trace that goes beyond the American Airline and might be able to help me with that. Geez! I think there have been terrorists who have given more information with less prodding than this lady. Afterwards my travel insurance dude said that now that we have the baggage claim numbers again, he will be able to help us track the luggage if it doesn´t arrive.

Our drive to Caazapa in our rental car was a bit of a mess. We were given directions from our hotel to get to the ¨ruta¨ but the lack of clear street signs or road signs or city signs got us all kinds of mixed up. Raquel doesn´t know the way, and the last time I drove, my brother-in-law was the navigator. We got really good directions from a gentleman who was waiting for his wife/girlfriend/sister/friend. Those directions got us to a fork of two rutas. I don´t know why, but I got my thinking all screwed up and took the wrong ruta. By the time we found out we were headed in the wrong direction, we had travelled a good ways out of the way. Fortunately we were given some good directions on a short cut to get us back on the correct ruta.

So we´ve been in Caazapa a couple of days now and Lourdes loves being out in the nice weather playing with her family, chasing chickens, and showing off how cute she is. The food has been pretty good over all. The meat is usually a little tough, but tolerable. We had a couple of traditional meals to include a fish soup one time and spaghetti with beans another time. They were both quite good, the only complaint about the fish soup would be the tiny bones that are inherent in certain fish and the fact that the skin was left on it.

Time to go.