San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

This morning I went to La Hacienda to get my RFC Number to collect taxes. I met Javier Salizar my new accountant there. Javier is Mario’s brother in law. He walked me through the process. I’m glad I had professional help for this part of the process. Next I set up a bank account with Bancommer. Later I went back to Migracion only to find that I had more paperwork. I should be completely done by Friday morning. I think I’m going to let Javier place the order for the receipts (facturas) so I don’t fuck it up. I realized that I am now officially a resident of Mexico. Cool! At least I’ll be legal in one of the countries.

Later I went to El Charco to meet Mario and make some calls on Skype. I’ve got a couple of projects running and needed to catch up with everyone. I wrapped things up with Susan at Casa Schuck on the phone too. I like her. I think that over time we’ll end up good friends. I talked with Nate too. He promised a working website to demonstrate our capabilities to the Belize Hotel Assocation by tonight.

Then it was time for Liz. I didn’t like ending things poorly with text messages. I went to El Charco’s tienda to talk. We came to the same conclusions. She wants me to show love and ignore his crap. I still want to show love by shoving my boot up his ass. In my opinion, sometimes you need to keep them in line long enough for love to take root. She said she needs time and it’s apparent. I’ll miss her. Two days until departure. My time in San Miguel is coming to a close.

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

Light night I ended up driving Liz around in pouring rain and large hail to try find Ulysses. The hail was bad enough that I wondered if the windows would shatter. He was late by about 2 ½ hours. Of course the kid had an excuse. He always does. I’ve decided that Ulysess is a shit bag. I’ve seen this pattern as a teacher; lazy, selfish, unfeeling, blames others, manipulation, lies, and poor grades to boot. He didn’t put himself in the place but the fact remains that he…..well…. is a shit bag.
His friends are the same ones as his booze serving coach (Manuel) so he ended up there after practice. Not even a fucking call from coach or son that he would be late. So there we were driving around.

As I’ve seen before, it starts with the parents. Liz tries her best to ignore it and deal with it. She wants me to ignore it too. It’s a mistake that will cost her boy dearly in the end. I KNOW why the neighborhood kids don’t seem to want him around. It’s also not hard to see why they chase him around the neighborhood for hours trying to kick his ass. Hell, I want to kick his ass. I confronted him later that evening and pretty much got in his face. He had no remorse for dragging us through this crap. I don’t think I want to be around her place much anymore. I left a 5am because I couldn’t sleep.

I’ve had a single mother for a girlfriend before. Cathy had two kids and they were straight from hell. She could never figure out why the kids were screwy. They are probably both shit bags too by now. I won’t get pulled down into that mess again. I’ve known guys in my position as well. You can’t correct the child because they don’t belong to you so you end up putting up with it ….or just leaving.

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

I got back to Casa Schuck today. Susan decided to tone down on the colors. The shots were oversaturated and I should have said something before. I’ll know next time. Anyway, I met another photographer named Antoine Hunt. He seems quite a bit more experienced than me but not at all in spherical panoramas. My work here is nearing an end. I learned a lot today.

I drove to el charco and told Liz that I’ve decided to stay in Alcocer tonight. I told her that I need to get up early but I really don’t need to hear Ulysses until I figure out how to handle this better…. or not. I guess that it all comes down to standards. Maybe letting a 13 year old boy decide his fate (professional basketball) is perfectly okay here in Mexico. He could find work (not professional basketball) and get a job eventually but it does seem a shame to let a kid lose out on his full potential. It’s hard to ignore that much and I really don’t want to relive my childhood. It definitely colors my view of Liz.

Liz just text messaged me that we should just be friends. Can I blame her? I’d never respect her if she chose me over her son. Well, at least she has that part right. What a pity. I really like her but I can’t ignore it. I shouldn’t intervene but she has little control or the respect of her son. Maybe she deserves it? I don’t know. I messaged back that it could only end this way and I’m sorry. Are all single mothers “nucking futs”?

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

Yesterday was a pain in the ass. Liz was upset with me. Evidently I’m a bit overaggressive in bed and she feels used. I apologized when she started to cry. I almost always give in when they cry. I did the dirty for 30 minutes this time and tried not to pin her to the mattress. Anyway, she is now happy and smiling again.
Today I went in to pick up my FM3. I keep hearing horror stories about Mexican paperwork but I just don’t see it. These guys went out of their way to make sure I got my paperwork FASTER by one week. Now I have to go to Hacienda to finish up. I’m told by a local gal that it’ll only be a couple of days for that to go through. Then again, everyone tells me I’ll be raped, robbed, and murdered every time I go into a new area or country.

Oh yeah, I was just reminded about “bofe” (b??f?). This is truly one of the nastiest things I’ve seen in awhile and it’s edible. In other parts of Mexico you feed it to cats and it costs $10 pesos a kilo. Here, you fry it and somehow it magically goes to $120 pesos a kilo and YOU eat it. Mario just told me that it’s the lungs of cattle. It was black, SLIMY, and shriveled up and looked like the vanguard of an alien invasion. Liz wanted me to try some but I didn’t even want to kiss her after seeing this crap.

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

The carnitas were everything I expected and more. I had always avoided ordering the skin with the meat because it looks really gross. HOWEVER, it was explained to me that you eat a slice of the skin with the meat. The skin is basically a slice of salty fat. Pure bliss got better.

Last night we went to a salsa dance club in Celaya for Anna’s birthday party. Nice girl. It was actually a REALLY nice place and it’s been awhile since I’ve been frisked to get in a building. Celaya is an industrial city about 60 km from San Miguel de Allende. Apparently if you want something reasonably priced you’ll go shopping in Celaya instead of San Miguel de Allende.

I am a fish out of water. Everyone swished from side to side as they paraded about the room even a lot of the men. I’ve also never seen so many narcissistic effeminate men in one place. I want to leave them stranded at the bottom of Sotano de las Golandrinas to die. But Liz and all the hot chicks like salsa so here I go.
It’s soooooooooo different than my life for the last 15 years. Salsa has got to be one of the most romantic dances I’ve ever seen but it is complex. People dance for years to get this shit right but I do like it. My salsa is getting a little bit better but I’m splitting hairs. I suck. We got back at 4am. My de-worming process is now complete.

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

I ate a huge juicy tender rib eye steak with fries at Nirvana yesterday afternoon. It’s just nice to sit down there in the middle of the afternoon. I went back to El Charco to finish uploading my new virtual tours. I’m running a bit late for the monthly updates (like by about a month).

Later that evening, we finally figured out why I couldn’t text message from my local cell phone. Mexico has some different dialing patterns than the United States. For example, if you call from a landline to a cell phone you have to add an extra cellular area code to the regular ten digit number. HOWEVER, if you are calling from a cell phone to a cell phone you DON’T add it. NOW, if you do (by mistake) add the extra cellular area code to the number you are dialing (cell to cell) you can call and talk with that person but CAN’T text message them.

Right now I’m sitting at the computer tweaking my crappy web pages and revising them. I’ve got at least four dozen business cards to add to my database. I’ll be heading to the local market to meet Liz and Ulysses at 2pm for carnitas tacos. Carnitas is pork for the uninitiated. Two corn tortillas (soft) with filled with fatty, salty shredded pork, topped with onions and cilantro, and smothered in spicy salsa. It’s pure bliss. I can feel my arteries hardening even now.

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

Yesterday I went to Liz’s neighbor with her. His name is Francisco and he’s pretty solid kind of guy. Sure enough, we found out that Ulysses wrote “bitch” on another neighbor’s wall and has been having trouble with Francisco’s girl too. I guess everyone knows that Ulysses is trouble. Basically the neighborhood boys are protecting the girls from Ulysses and probably just hunting him down for sport. I really can’t blame them because I want to kick his ass. There had to be at least two dozen kids out last night in 4 -5 different groups. ALL the kids were having fun. The only kid that wasn’t outside was Ulysses. Last night I got my back scratched and a shoulder rub.

Right now I’m trying my new Mexican foot powder called “Pedi PIE”. The last time I used a foot powder from south of the border, my chronic athletes foot went away in days! I’ve tried all the other ones in the USA. Some were very expensive. This stuff is 8% boric acid and 8% zinc oxide and would probably make a fairly good insecticide as it is. It’s the second day of my de-worming process.

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

My FM3 should be ready in a few days and I’ll be leaving soon. I’ve been thinking about what to do with Liz. She really does take care of me. Last night she cut my toe nails and then filed them. I think that it was basically my first pedicure but she told me otherwise. Evidently there are some critical aspects of a pedicure that are missing. This morning I got a full blown breakfast, a pill for worms (first of six pills), and a serious scolding for not brushing my teeth last night.

I like Mexico.

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

Today was a good day. I spent most of the day working on catching up with work. I processed the panoramas of Los Piscachios. Los Piscachios is the mountains immediately east of San Miguel de Allende. If you can get there, you’ll find beautiful Live Oak forest and fantastic vistas. The doctor takes a hike up there every Thursday. Here’s the link for panoramas of Los Piscachios.

Last night I reshot one of the rooms at Casa Schuck. Casa Schuck seems to always be ranked number one in Trip Advisor for San Miguel hotels. It’s pretty obvious to me why this is so. The service is freakishly good. The themed rooms are beautiful and unique but with the different types of light sources and colors are playing havoc with the white balance to shoot them. I think I’ll reshoot the Royal Room and the Yellow Room if I get a chance. I’ll post the pictures for everyone to see soon.
I also keep telling Liz that Ulysses’ basketball coach isn’t right in the head.

Apparently, coach had let the kids (12-17 years old) taste Michaladas. A Michalada is a beer with a hot sauce to spice it up. Now I am making the assumption that it’s the same in Mexico and the USA, teachers and coaches don’t feed booze in any form to youngsters and bone them in the ass. There seems to be a rumor going around that basketballs aren’t the only type of balls that coach likes to play with. Liz is starting her new job soon and should have more resources to get a Ulysses a coach that doesn’t want to play “hide the chorizo” with them after practice.

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

Last night I discovered that the neighborhood kids have been trying to beat up Liz’s boy Ulysses. He’s been chased around the neighborhood literally for hours . He says that they just don’t like him now and “doesn’t know why”. What a pile of crap! He treats his mother pretty bad and I could see him doing the same to someone’s litter sister and pissing them off. For a thirteen year old boy, is he pretty immature or just becoming the man he will be for life. I could see someone wanting to kick his ass. That was worth a couple hours of drama.

I screwed the hell out of Liz this morning. Guess I’m just marking my territory. I’m back at Mario’s place now and working on catching up with the photos I’ve shot already. Here’s a link to a panorama that shows where I’ve been living for the last 7 weeks near San Miguel de Allende in Guanajuato, Mexico.

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

This morning was interesting. My new girlfriend has decided to let me know that she is going to fart in bed from now on. I didn’t know it was such a big deal. Evidently, she’s been holding it in and has caused quite a bit of pain for the last two days. I did see her sit up in bed and double over in cramps a couple of times last night.

I laughed pretty hard and it embarrassed her even more. She told me that she tried to let one out on the sly while I was sleeping and I’m told that I yanked my hand off her ass and rolled over like a croc in a death roll. That’s why she’s been sleeping so badly.

It’s 3pm and I just got done meeting with Kimberly at Starbucks and we decided to a blog together. Maybe it’ll make some money. Who knows? Anyway, Liz works at an art gallery in San Miguel de Allende. I stopped in and found out that she was going to lunch with some guy to “trade books”. She offered to let me come along. I did. I felt like I was intruding on a date. Ricardo definitely wants to play “hide the chorizo” with my chick. My first Mexican cock block maneuver. I feel complete.