This season has been a little more rough than the past few years, around the first part of July, our Internet point to point microwave was rendered useless by a direct hit on our tower that sits at the top of our property.
The tower is like a beacon beckoning for a direct lightning hit to silence not only our ranch but two other small towns that our location is used to relay and carry on the Internet backbone from Morelia.
It took us about 2 weeks to order, clear customs and get someone to shimmy up the tower to install the new equipment.
Those two weeks sans Internet ( high speed ) put some brakes only surfing and uploading activities.
I was still able to check my emails by tethering my Telcel phone to my laptop, but at the rate Telcel charges for data usage, the mail got checked once a day.......period.
After not sitting in front of the computer for hours on end, I found myself having the time to read more and do more things that having a computer on line all the time was preventing me from doing.
It's at this time that you cut away to a crowed room, folding chairs set up in a semicircle, a variety of people standing up spouting various admissions.
When it is my turn I stand up and say "Yo soy Tancho and I am addicted to the Internet".
It's not that I sit in front of the computer, with cobwebs festooning between my appendages, with a weeks growth of unshaven facial hair, half a dozen empty coffee cups and plates of half eaten food stacked on top of each other..... nothing like that.
But my Internet hobby and thirst for information was taking up at least two to three hours a day.
At my age, two to three hours a day are better spent reading some books on the Kindle or even reading some fellow bloggers life experiences. Hey, but that's the issue at hand.. wasting too much time sitting around reading stuff on the Internet.
I seem to enjoy reading a lot of stuff on Wikipedia. It is amazing the amount of information one can get by simply doing a search on a topic via that site. For example, looking up Patzcuaro will fetch the following:
The municipality covers most of the Pátzcuaro basin, which is part of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt and surrounded by a number of mountains such as the Cerro el Blanco, Cerro del Estribo, Cerro del Frijol and Cerro del Burro. Almost all the water in Lake Patzcuaro comes from one stream called the El Chorrito and a number of fresh-water springs. The climate is temperate with rains in the summer. Temperatures vary during the year from between 9 and 23C. The municipality is primarily covered in forests with pine, holm oak and cedar trees. Most fauna consists of small mammals and fish found in the lake.[1]
In years past you would have to have endured a two hour sales presentation as well as a depletion of four to five hundred dollars to read a outdated summary in the world book encyclopedia.
Now all you need is a cheap table or laptop computer at half that price. So staying in contact, as well as a knowledge base has become easy, cheap and addictive.
So I have throttled back my blogging, but will probably revert back to old habits once the cold weather approaches, since sitting outside won't be as attractive as it is now. The daily rains have temporarily altered my personality so I can't wait to have the weather without the dark clouds. At least clear skies with the fireplaces burning will keep me at home reading and writing.
And yes, my desk is messy and yes that is three multi line telephones on the desk, along with a Vonage box to the left of the monitor. That's a topic for another post....one of these days, after my reading and other higher priorities have been accomplished.
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