Worn the same two changes of clothes over and over again

Sniffed my clothes to see if I can wear them again. More often than not, I ended up with a plaque clearing, head shaking “woah.”

Eaten dinner alone. ( I wonder if it’s related to wearing the same clothes over and over again. )

Watched bad, mindless TV in my hotel room. I knew it was time to go when I came across a Fran Drescher (The Beautician and the Beast) movie, and I WATCHED IT!!

Solitaire

Peru

Chicken with french fries. Everybody eats chicken with french fries outside of Brazil and Argentina. And when you can find something else, you almost always get french fries.

Bad coffee.

Things I haven’t done enough of -

Learned enough Spanish or Portuguese

Seen enough of the world, specifically, Brazil, Argentina and Chile.

Lan Peru

Seen enough Brazilian beaches, specifically bikinis.

Started a revolution in Bolivia, becoming El Presidente. I was sick the entire time I was there, restricting my political goals.

Law and Order and CSI — Las Vegas. I’ve gotten kind of addicted to these shows, I’m hate to admit. I haven’t watched hour long TV shows since “Hill Street Blues.” Then again, the other option was well, staring at the walls.

Taken enough pictures.

Brazilian steak houses.

Argentinean steak houses.

Things I’ve learned…

Seattle is the greatest city I’ve come across. Buenos Aires was pretty nice, and I could probably have been talked into living there. But Seattle has it all — geeks, different cultures, art, music, fast and free internet access, mountains, CSI and Law and Order, pasty women (wait — strike that.) and gadgets.

America leads the world in bathroom technology. Granted the Japanese have a pretty good lock on the toilets, but they can’t compete with our whole package — shower and toilet. I start my showers now with a rousing “Star Spangled Banner”, a salute, and occasionally a tear.

I’m tired of being single. I’ve seen a lot of really cool stuff, but I want someone to share it with. I have this to refer too, but it’s not the same. The times spent with Louis were some of the best time of my trip, and a large part of it was there was someone to talk to. I don’t think I’m going to take a trip alone again.

I like my country more now than I did before. I mean I liked it before, but now, I think it’s even cooler. Especially the showers, and the soft, soft toilet paper that you flush away.

People in the US are horrible drivers. I didn’t see bad drivers anywhere in Latin America. The only wreck I saw was in Buenos Aires, where, incidentally, they are the most polite (no horns, respected pedestrians, etc.)

I’ll go back to Argentina.

I still can’t grow a beard.

South of Denver, around Colorado Spring, it was raining hard. When I pulled over to put on my rain gear, I discoverd it at the very bottom of my bags. By the time I got it on I was soaked. Colorado Springs ended up getting 3 inches of rain that day, and there were several flash floods. Luckily I missed most of _that_ rain.

Once I got out of the rain, it was once again 1000 degrees. Pulling over to take off my gear

I noticed my bike making a horrible sound. Ack.. My valve job didn’t hold. I knew what it was right away. When I did the valve job, I didn’t tighten the lock nuts down very tight, since I was worried about stripping them (you have to tighten them to 7 ft/lbs or was it 7 nm?) If you use a small wrench — 6mm, choke up on it, and tighten it by hand, you can strip it the bolt. Either way, I screwed up.

It was getting late, I had just gone over a pass in New Mexico, and it was pretty cold, so I figured it was time to pull over. Couldn’t find a hotel with Internet Access, so I got just a hotel. The town was called Raton, which is spanish for Rat. If you ever get a chance to avoid this town, do it.

Next morning I pulled my bike apart to tighten the valves — to fix my problem. The lock nut was completely gone. I don’t cry, so I didn’t. But I do curse, and boy did I. Once the shock of what happened wore off, I realized it wasn’t TOO bad of a problem. As luck would have it, the thing the lock nut is suppose to hold in place (I don’t know the name) had backed all the way off. Had it gone the other way — extended all the way to the valve, holding it tight, there would have been dire consequences. The valve could have bent or the lifter could have been damaged. The only other issue is where the nut has gone. I’m not too worried about the nut getting into sensitive engine parts, since I’ve got an oil filter.

Once I got the bike back together, my plans changed once again. There is a BMW dealer in Santa Fe, so off I go. The bike sounds like hell, but I don’t think it has any permanent damage.

On the way to Santa Fe, I passed through a town called Las Vegas. It should be called “Not that Los Vegas.” It was an unremarkable town, except for lunch. The place was called Taco Express. Everybody was nice, but I don’t know how they stayed in business. At lunch time there were less than a six people in the place. The woman behind the counter didn’t know how to ring up items displayed on the wall behind her. Now the cool part was the guitar player. This fast food joint employed him to play for lunches. He was pretty good, and friendly (he asked me if I want to play.) Wouldn’t it be cool if McDonalds had something like that?

I found the BMW dealer pretty easily, and everyone was very nice. By nice, no one laughed at what I did. They were able to take my bike right away. I let them keep it, hoping to pick it up Friday morning. I hope they find that nut.

Across the street was a Comfort Inn advertising free High Speed Internet. Huzzah!

If these things are going to happen, Santa Fe, New Mexico, is better than Santa Fe, Mexico.

Before my valve job, I went for a walk in the general area where I am staying, looking for a few items to help with my valve job (latex gloves, metric wrenches, size 10 and 16mm.) Walking down the street this woman handed me a card. Normally I don’t take these, but I did out of suprise and shock, and well, she was kind of cute. The card said “SMART CARD — place your thumb firmly on the red box for 15 seconds. If you are a “good” person, it will turn greenish-blue.” Eventually I found out the fucking thing doesn’t ever change colors. It’s always red. God damned woman gave me card whose sole purpose was to make me feel like I’m a bad person. It’s like my childhood all over again. And just like my childhood, it’s not very nice.

As luck would have it, Jay and Chris sold their house today. I happened to be sitting around the hacienda, working on my bike, and they happened to be gone most of the day. I got to take care of the dogs. About 5 p.m., I noticed that the pack was looking at me like I was the second coming of Jesus or a big side of beef. About the time I figured out they were hungry, Jay called and gave me the code on how to feed them. There was an order, different amounts, and even a little bit of protection for the little dog. I also promised to scoop poop from the little dog (don’t ask.) Thanks to luck and a bit of duct tape, I didn’t have to. These little guys worshipped me like a god. Following me everywhere, shivering when I bend down to pet ‘em, trying to remove the duct tape. It made me feel like a big man.

I also got to hook up a wireless router for these guys. I guess it was really more for me than them, since it let me be a bit of a geek, a fix I always need. I’m hoping I can talk them into letting me turn their only PC into a linux server with a T1 line. Just because.

Jay and Chris were doing there house thing for most of the day and long into the night. I grilled a nice ribeye for myself — probably the last meal I’ll cook for myself for a long time. Jay works for DirecTV, so he’s got every channel they make. Lets see — big ribeye, lot’s of cable channels and wireless internet connection. I’m planning to stay for the next two months — that is, unless Jay and Chris start hanging around.

Jay and Chris are selling their house

which adds a lot of odd energy to this stay. For instance, yesterday we had to be out of the house for several hours while the house was being shown. Not that big of a deal, except for they own a whole squadron of little dogs (four.) Entertaining little dogs isn’t quite as much fun as entertaining children. Well, chicks dig 5 year olds more than shaking dogs. I’m here as much to spend time with Jay and Chris, not pick up girls, so what we do doesn’t matter too much.

We did a little bit of house hunting. It’s always interesting to see what houses from different markets sell for. It seems like every house we looked at had a separate bath and shower. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in Seattle. Seems like a good idea. Overall houses seem to be quite a bit cheaper in Denver than in Seattle, but I haven’t seen the whole market.

Denver has been hot, hot, hot. And dry. I’ve had several nose bleeds since I’ve been here. Chris has them all the time — I don’t know how he deals with it. I’m looking forward to leaving Denver so this doesn’t happen any more.