Endwendado?

Dwendes are mischievous Mexican dwarfs who are believed to live in the caves and mines up in Zacatecas. They are believed to play tricks on people and cause problems just for the heck of it. Endwendado means infested with dwendes. I wonder if I’m not infested these last few days though in truth its my own fault.

Driving my motorcycle through Santa Cruz on a dirt road under repair, I hit a slick spot at about 5mph and turned my 125 Honda over. Damn, embarrassing more than anything but no one saw it (wouldn’t care if they did), so I picked it up, wiped the mud off my scraped knee and checked the bike to see if there were any problems.

A couple of fine scratches on the cowling but now the gear shift won’t go backwards, only forward. It’s always been tight so something got bent I guess. Will take it in and see what it will cost to fix it though getting too chilly to ride it.

It was my fault for not driving over a few blocks over to avoid the street repair, but lucked out with only knee scratches, a few bruises and my right arm is sore, but better now since it happened on Saturday. Two blocks further two guys I knew called me over to chat with them and their rancher friend. We all had a couple of beers, joked and chatted on this pleasant afternoon and I drove on home before it got dark. Not smart to ride a motorcycle here at night, just dangerous with holes in the road, cows/horses in the road or on weekends drunks. So I don’t tempt the fates.

My little town got cable so the matronly woman trying to sell me on it with fast spanish was pleased when I signed up for it on trial for a couple of months. They offer 150 channels, telephone and internet (2mb) connection for about $70 a month. Seeing that I lived alone she offered me sex…gotta love Mexico and NO, I didn’t take her up on it.

Noticed the spare house keys I had on the motorcycle keychain were gone…rats…so put my truck house keys on the motorcycle keyring with the intent to have copies made. Of course I forgot and took off to Guadalajara in my truck, not realizing I’d locked my house with the keys still on the motorcycle which was indoors. RATS! Got home from Guad about 11PM and had to go wake Renee the locksmith.

He at first wouldn’t answer the door til I called his name. Said you never know when someone knocks on your door at night. But when he heard me, he knew it was ok. Drove over to my house and he popped my iron security screen door ($100 custom including installation!) and took about 20 minutes to get my inner steel door open. Total charge, 60 pesos ($6) so I gave him 70 and he was pleased. Nice guy and he speaks some english. Now what would a locksmith charge in the states for such a late call???

I attribute these little problems with being distracted with a VHS to DVD conversion project that is more complex than I intended when the editing is taken into account. In addition to the Physics of Crystals DVD, I will soon have 15 additional alternative science tech DVDs and possibly MP3s of them to listen to.

Something to watch out for. They are called ‘energy vampires’ and are the instant on features used by most TVs and electronics. In Mexico, we pay our electric bill once every two months. When I first moved here, my bill was $16 every two months! I had a stereo attached to my big TV, DVD player, VHS player, a laptop and this desktop. Over the 6 years, the only one thing that has been added, a 2.6.ghz desktop and yet my power bill jumped up to $120 every two months. I thought the meter was running fast or isn’t calibrated since these increasing bills started when they changed the meter out a couple of years ago.

As I wrote, I had added NOTHING except the new server and I keep everything turned off except the UPS units for the two computer. Despite my charts shown to the electric company, they refused to change the meter again. So should I use a supermagnet and slow the spin? Or bypass the meter as many do? Naw, something is causing this. No taps by neighbors, etc..

Since I turn off everything except the 200Watt stereo which has always been on even with the low bills, I couldn’t find a cause for the excessive power bills, so this last month, I turned off this 200Watt power amplifier everytime I wasn’t using it and this 2 month period my bill was about $55!!! I’m not sure what has changed inside the amplifier as it has always been on and never pulled this kind of power before, but it works fine, now I’ve just put up a powerstrip to turn everything off with one button unless I’m using it.