In the United States, Memorial Day is a day set aside to honor those men and women who died while in military service. Now it’s a federal holiday and it ocurrs on the last Monday in May but it was originally called Decoration Day and it was established on May 30, 1868 to commemorate the fallen soldiers of the American Civil War.

Today, we have our own war dead to remember, along with all those who gave their lives in previous wars, campaigns and conflicts. Just this past week the U.S. Military announced the 1,000th death in Afghanistan and more than 4,000 U.S. soldiers have died in the Iraq War. It’s a sad statement of our times that almost everybody knows someone, or knows of someone, who has given his or her life in the defense of freedom. But Memorial Day isn’t a time to debate the evils of war – it’s a time to remember those who have died in service to their country.

And this act of rememberance isn’t reserved just for Americans. Men and women around the world have died to protect the freedom of their families and friends. More than 4,000 Canadian troops currently serve in NATO’s ISAF Coalition and right here in Mexico thousands of military and civilian warriors have died defending their country against the drug cartels.

So regardless of where you’re from, stop and take a minute today to say a silent “thank you” to those who served – and died – while in the service of your country.

My personal "Thank you" to those who served under this flag

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This may be old news for those of you who live “north of the border” but here in Mexico we got to see the final episode of Lost last night and all I can say is, “Wow!” I won’t spoil the ending by going into any details, but as an avid TV watcher I was very satisfied with the way the writers decided to end the 6-year run of the series. There were times during the series when I felt as though the writers had lost their way, but they managed to pull the confusing sub-plots, alternate realities and multiple timelines all together in the final, 150-minute episode and even left viewers with a few questions to ponder about the nature of life and death.

We watched the final episode (“The End”) on the AXN Network and they chose to show the 2-hour recap called “The Final Journey” immediately before the final episode, just like ABC did when these shows first aired last Sunday. That meant watching 4.5 hours (with the commercials) of Lost in a row, but I highly recommend doing this. The lead-in reviewed the first 129 episodes and filled in some missing information from the few episodes I missed during the 6-year run. As a result, I was up to speed and fully prepared for the final episode. And like the rest of the series, Episode 130 was filled with surprises and “ah-hah!” moments. It’s always sad when a really good series comes to an end, but – in my opinion – the writers of Lost handled their final episode as well as any series finale I’ve ever seen.

Yesterday (May 24, 2010) was a monumental day, of sorts, around my house. It started with yet another trip to the local immigration office to find out what was wrong with our visa renewal application this time. On May 1^st Mexico instituted a new “online” system for handling visa applications and renewals and, among other things, it allows you to follow the status of your application – or at least that’s the theory! We initially submitted our paperwork on May 6, again on May 7, and again on May 17. Our completed visa was supposed to be ready by Friday, the 21^st but when we checked the status it showed that we had a “notice at the office” (a fancy way of saying that nothing had been done yet) so yesterday morning we headed down to find out what obscure piece of information they need this time. We never were told what was actually wrong, but after nearly an hour of playing questions and answers with the INM clerk I was handed my completed visa – a plasticized piece of paper similar to a driver’s license that makes it legal for me to remain in Mexico for another year! Marty’s application folder, which has been “lost” more often than not, was once again lost but after 30 minutes of searching the clerk finally located it and soon Marty, too, had her new document. It was our 6^th trip to the immigration office in 3 weeks.

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Yesterday’s other big event was the arrival of my new Dell laptop. As you may remember, my 4-year-old laptop fried its video card back on May 11^th and I’ve been limping along using borrowed systems for nearly 2 weeks. I’m very happy with my new Inspiron 15z, even though the screen is smaller than my old 17” work horse. The new machine also has 4 gig of RAM and a 7,200 rpm, 500 GB hard drive. My last system only had an 80 GB drive! And, of course, it has Windows 7, but I’d been running that on my old system. The biggest difference with the new unit is its 8 hour battery life, which means I’ll be coming to you from the deck (or the couch or the beach) a lot more often. My thanks to Luc from Newport Beach Brewing Company (Newport Beach, CA) for bringing the new laptop across the border and down to La Paz.

Wow, this past 10 days has been a real eye-opener for me! I never realized how totally dependent I’d become until my laptop died last week and I was forced to find something else to do with the bulk of my time. I feel cut off from the outside world and I wander the house aimlessly looking for things to do. I even read a book (see earlier post) for the first time in more than a year!

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And I’m not even entirely computer-less…son Mike has loaned me his old (slightly broken) laptop and I use wife Marty’s Dell for short bursts during the day and after hours. If it wasn’t for their generous support you wouldn’t be reading this blog post and I’d be locked up in a padded cell reserved for computer-deprived crazy people!

My problem with loaner computers is that I don’t feel “at home” so I just can’t get motivated to do much. I don’t have ready access to my old email, contact list or calendar and my documents are no longer just a click away. All of my shortcuts and computer “cookies” are gone, so I not only have to remember how to access my banking but I also have to look up passwords every time I want to do something. Familiar software that I use every day isn’t installed on these loaner computers and I don’t want to make changes or additions to somebody else’s system.

A new machine has been ordered and, thanks to friends at Newport Beach Brewing Company, it should arrive here in southern Baja by Monday, so at least there’s some light at the end of the tunnel. Until then, I’ll be the guy drifting through cyberspace with a glazed look in his eyes mumbling, “Error, system failure!” over and over again.

Nobody dislikes government red tape more than me and it seems that I now live at the center of the bureaucratic universe – Mexico! As an example, let me describe the process we’re currently going through to renew our Mexican FM3 visas for another year.

On Thursday, May 6, 2010, we presented ourselves at the immigration office with a complete set of the documents that had been described on the government website just a week earlier. Much to our chagrin, we were told that everything had changed, effective May 1^st, and that we now had to “pre-register” online before coming to the office. We were given a website address and told, “Everything you need to know is there.”

We went home, completed the online registration, printed the necessary documents and trudged back down to immigration the next day where our packets, including the manila folders that we must provide, were accepted and stamped with a smile. Since Mexican federal law now prohibits local offices from handling cash (that’s a good thing!) we were given an “invoice” document to pay at any Mexican bank. The bank provided us with an official receipt, which we immediately returned to immigration. They added the receipt to our folders, updated the computer and told us to return in 5 days to pick up our new visas.

A week later we returned to immigration in the naive belief that we would be done with this process for another year – yeah, right! It seems that the checklist on the new website had failed to mention a couple of things and so had the clerk who had reviewed and accepted our folders a week earlier. In addition to everything else in our rapidly expanding folder, we each needed to provide 5 photographs and a hand-completed form before our application could be sent to Mexico City! Since it was too late to do anything that day (Friday, May 14, 2010) we had to wait until Monday to drive back downtown, get our pictures taken at a nearby studio, wait for them to be ready and return them to immigration, along with the completed form.

Our immigration status is currently unknown, since our initial visa expired on May 13th and it’s now May 18^th. The immigration clerk assured us that  “No hay problema” because we’re “in the computer” – that’s the same computer that forgot to tell us about the photos and the form!

The bottom line is that the new online procedure that went into effect on May 1^st has increased the number of trips to immigration from 3, last year, to at least 6 this year – and that’s assuming nothing else goes wrong!

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrg!

I used to read a lot. It started when I discovered the huge library my first days as a freshman in high school. For some unexplained reason I happened to pick up a book about deep sea diving (aka helmet diving) and soon I had read every book in the library on the subject, both fiction and non-fiction. When there were no more diving books to read, I moved on to another subject but it didn’t take me long to discover the science fiction section and soon Asimov, Barr, Clark, Dick, Heinlein and others were some of my closest “friends” at school. The list continued to grow as I read through high school and during a 4-year hitch in the Air Force.

 I returned to college when I got out of the service and my reading necessarily turned to non-fiction for a while but quickly flipped back to sci-fi as soon as I graduated. However, since I’ve started writing my own novels, I find that I hardly ever read. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t allow myself the time or if it’s because I’m afraid I’ll unintentionally incorporate another author’s idea into one of my stories, but I don’t think I’ve read more than a dozen books in the past 9 years. However, I recently finished a great book by Sean Ellis and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes mystery, adventure, action, and/or speculative fiction.

The Shroud of Heaven (Samhain Publishing, 2009) takes place primarily in Iraq but it’s not a war story – not quite. It incorporates military action, to be sure, and Ellis’ years of service in the National Guard are apparent, but at the heart of the story is a search for ancient artifacts – both real and imagined. A quote from the book’s cover sums it up best:

 “Driven to uncover secrets that have haunted mankind for millennia, pursued by a mysterious assassin and an enemy consumed by hatred, Nick [Kismet] and [his mentor] Pierre journey into the desert to find the terrible truth that lies behind…The Shroud of Heaven.”

 Available everywhere books are sold: ISBN 978-1-60504-097-4

It seems that we’ve fallen into an electronics vortex lately – my 4-year-old Dell laptop started acting up last Saturday and on Tuesday it finally failed for good. I took it to a local repair shop Wednesday and they tried a fix, but it didn’t work and the replacement video card is about $300 on eBay – way too much money to put into an old laptop. I’ll have a new unit brought down the next time our landlord makes a trip to Newport Beach, but that won’t be for at least a month. In the mean time, I’m using an old “beater” laptop for email during the day and I’m using Marty’s laptop at night for my “production” work. It’s a pain, but I’ll get by until my new system arrives.

Good-bye, old friend

And if losing my laptop wasn’t enough, our Vonage telephone adapter started acting up and I missed several calls because of it. I think I’ve come up with a work-around for the Vonage problem but the permanent solution is to acquire a new adapter and they only ship to US addresses! I’m beginning to understand why most full-time residents of Baja return to the USA a couple of times a year – the heat takes a toll on electronics as well as on people!

Tomorrow is my “day of rest” so I’ll see you back here  Monday morning for our regular cup of virtual coffee. Have a good week-end!

Day One of Granddaughter Week (aka Princess Week) has passed and everything is going GREAT! For an old hermit like me, 6 adults, a 4-year-old, a dog and an 18-year-old cat are a lot to contend with all at once, but everyone is having a good time. Even LaBete (the cat I mentioned) is doing well – like me, she slept through a lot of the first day!

You may not find this event on your calendar, but it’s been on ours for several months. Tomorrow our granddaughter, Mariana, arrives from the Mexican mainland to spend a week with us. She will also celebrate her 4^th birthday while she’s here, so it will be a festive week. I mention this because all the activity at our house may impact my daily blogging. In fact, the temporary addition of 4 adults, a granddaughter and a dog to our household may make it totally impossible to blog some days but I’m sure you will understand. Regardless of what happens next week, I’ll be back on schedule beginning May 10^th.