Crazy day in July

Sometimes the weather here in Monterrey gets a little crazy. One day, the rain was so heavy that the streets literally changed to rivers. After the torrent, we hurried home from work to see how the house was doing.

Lauras car was parked outside, and the tree on the other side of the street fell just next to it! Fortunately nothing happened, we only lost the electricity for a little while and everyone survived.

Web album

After the scare, we decided it was time for some Frikadeller :) Good mexican style with Frikadeller, tortillas and some spicy salsa... yep it really rocks!

Oily waters + New land

Mexico has a really great thing to it - real beach resorts are never too far away :) A Friday afternoon in June, we took the car to Tampico, which is a 4-5 hours drive away. The city itself is maybe not the most interesting, it is heavily industrial - and not just your regular yada yada industry. It is full of Pemex refineries and general oil/petroleum business... smell horribly, and the ever-burning exhaust gases from the refining is not really too nice at night.

Ok, on to the good part - Tampico is at the beach, and as far as I saw there is no oil pollution! I was really happy to find a chair in the shade, as the Mexican sun can really give you a nice burn... At night we had to go out and chill down a little, all red in the faces...

Not too many photos from Tampico, but it was a really nice and relaxed weekend. The trip back was another story... I don't have any picture proof, but this story is true as Robin Hoods arrows.

We got stopped by the federales, the federal police. Normlly you should not get out of your car, but this cop was a little strange. He stopped me and the car in front for speeding. Then he went to the guy in front, and asked him to go to the police car. The guy got in, and in could see in the rear-view mirror that they were talking. The guy got out, went to his car for 10 seconds, then walked back to the police car with his fist tightly clenched... hmm?!?!?

The other car took off, and the cop came to our car. He asked me to get out and go to his car - not normal procedures... I went to his car, and we started the "talk now, or forewer shut your trap" conversation. Since I only had something like 10 pesos in cash, I told the cop that there was really nothing I could do and that he should write my name on his paper. He kept saying that if he wrote my name, there was no turning back. Then we started chit chatting, where did I work?, why was my spanish so good?, was that my girlfriend in my car? etc. In the end the cop told me to hurry up and leave and then he would let me go without a fine.
Laura was really angry with me, mostly because she never gets away "gratis" even from the normal traffic police - the transitos - while I managed to get away from the federales free of charge :) Hehehe

Ok, almost arriving back at MTY, we decided to go and look at a lot Laura was considering to buy. In Mexico, the government has started selling off areas of land, someone buys a chunk, then builds a few roads and makes sure there is electricity water etc. and then sells it off in smaller lots.

It is often in the middle of nowhere, and you need to use your imagination to see what it will become. In 5-10 years an area like this will probably be a small "parcelhuskvarter" in the middle of the vast Mexican praries.We didn't buy anything yet (not in Cancún either... sorry), but we are discussing it. Building a small house is not so expensive in Mexico, so it could be a nice base to have if we move to Denmark for a while. Something of ours to come home to in Mexico.

It first I was a little sceptical with the strange piece of land in the middle of nowhere with a few trees scattered around, but the idea really start to grow on me :D

Tecomán Tigers

The last months we had visitors from Denmark, helping out on the Danisco project. Harald and Carlos came from Kolding end of May, and stayed a few weeks in the sun, working hard...

The project in Tecoman is great fun sometimes, especially since I joined the football team :)

Finally we had a big improvement in the project - Danisco really started taking ownership and responsibility. One of the biggest steps was making our whole project the "cuiden" project - short for "cuidado energetico" or something along the way of "mind the energy". They did a big 3-day workshop with all the employees, where 1/6th of this was focused on the cuiden project.
Another part, which I found quite curious, was about working in groups. Of course, coming out of a danish university you have the group work etc. completely under your belt. Here it is not such an obvious thing, or was - they really cooperating a lot more with us now!

Alejandra Guzmán

In most cities in Mexico you will find the "Palenque". It is a small arena used for cock-fights and other events. We went to see Alejandra Guzmán, who is probably best described as the Mexican Sanne Salomonsen. Apart from that, Laura is the biggest fan in the world of Alejandra Guzmán and knows the lyrics of all the songs :)

We went to the small circular Palenque in Monterrey, and the show started with some cock-fights. I think that for the big tatooed guys on first row with a LOT of dollar bills, this was the main event. Atually i think they left before the actual concert...

Apart from the cock-fighting, they also had a lottery!? They had a small wheel-of-fortune, and then people could bet on a number. To get the actual bet, tennis balls were flying left and right to people in the crowd. Then they put their money and number inside the tennis ball, and threw it back in the ring! The system somehow worked :D

Austin, Texas

I have been in Austin quite a few times now, but our first visit in early May was really interesting. We went to the city center, to see the spectacle of the city with the slogan "Keep Austin Weird"?!

There is a river passing the city center, and under the most central, the "largets urban bat colony" is living. When the sun sets, the bats come out, and there are really a LOT of them...



It is quite difficult to get an actual picture of the bats with my camera... small animals in darkness doesn't really come out well in the end.

Aurtin is famous for live music, and the 6th street in the city center. It is a street with a lot of shops, bars and people. When we went there they had some sort of local festival/market thing going on. They were selling a lot of local art and all the usual things people sell in places like that.

Birthday post

I just turned the sharp corner of 28 years - thanks a LOT for the presents :D

Here in Mexico, Laura and her family prepared a nice weekend, since August 30 was the birthday of Pepe, her younger brother. We rented a small room at a "weekend resort" with swimmingpools etc. Here we had some nice food, went swimming, and then later more family arrived and we had some beers and talked.

Sunday morning I got a present from Laura (yeeehaaaa - Wii Sports Resort!!) and we ate some birthday cake all of us. It was all in all a really nice and relaxing weekend, and great fun.

Monday I went back to work, and did not have big expectations of anything. At one point, the guards at the entrance to the Danisco plant called my office and told me I had to go there "ugently!". The picture is me with the basket Laura sent me - flowers, a balloon and various snacks!! What a girlfriend :D

Expect to see more of the last many months soon - I might do some of it the "easy" way and just link to some Picasa albums, but SOMETHING will happen for sure!

Schnitzel Flu

Either you already know ALL about the soon-to-come pandemic swine flu, or else you live in a box 6 feet underground. Panic panic, WHO just increased from level 4 to 5!!

Well, as far as I can read, the increase from 3 to 4, meant that the flu can jump from person to person. The jump from 4 to 5 means that this has occured in at least 2 countries in WHO - Mexico and USA I guess? I already read the news about the USA case 2 days ago, so I guess this update is just a reflection of the fact that they now have tested and verified yesterdays news...

Did anyone reflect on these definitions from WHO compared to the numbers we are talking about? In Mexico city, a population of 26 million people, about 160 people have died of apparent swine flu, and 1 baby in Texas. The average yearly death toll of the USA from "normal" flu is about 35.000 people, in Denmark it is between 1.000 and 3.000 every 2 years...

Of course I do understand the concern of a flu that we can not yet vaccinate for, it kills young and healthy people and that *might* turn out to be really bad, so the WHO focus and concern is understandable. Still, it seems like the news reporters using the info from WHO, has not really understood what it means!? Looking at the facts I know I might be seen as the stupid guy in 1 year, after we have had a deadly pandemic, but so far I simply can not support the state of panic the world is in.

Take care of yourself anyway!! ;)

First Gzz-Rdz adventure

With the kick-off of the soon-to-be famous geocaching team "Gzz-Rdz", the mexican caches are trembling with fear!! As the motto of the eagle-eyed team goes: "coming soon for a cache near you!"

A trip to Zacatecas marked the first offical hunt, and after a short and steep learning curve,

and a long steep climb up the hill in the background - cerro de la Buffa,











The first cache was quickly under our belt :)

The long walk (and a LOT of sun) did take it's toll on the team, so here are the eerie, tired and sunburnt leftovers at dinner that night:

Pancho Villa - the güero

It might come as a shock to some people - especially the mexicans - but their great revolutionary hero Pancho Villa was actually a güero...
What you see here is an actual image of Pancho Villa and his boss in Zacatecas, preparing their raid to liberate the city!!

Slow moves

Not a lot happening, but I guess this is worldwide since no other blog is being updated? Hmm, or might it be because too much is happening in DK?

I am going to move to my new house Wednesday, and look forward to a real house with a real kitchen and everything. It is even closer to Danfoss and has a big guy with hair between his teeth checking who is entering and leaving the premises ;)

Before the big sleepwalking episode I had a really amazing weekend in Zacatecas, and I hope to put up some pictures and text soon on this. My current problem is that I have no internet in my house, and I started using my personal computer and not my work computer for pictures - so I simply don't have them with me right now.

Zacatecas was the kick off of the Gzz-Rdz (Gonzalez-Rodriguez) geocaching team, and we managed to find 1 out of 3 caches there... :| On the way back we also managed to find one in the middle of nowhere - literaly! A highway through the desert, then 10 minutes on a small dirt track and then out of the car and search! Really cool cache :D

The last 2 weekends we have been geocaching here in MTY with the inclusion of Pepe on the team. First weekend we found 3 out of 5 and yesterday we went crazy and took 3 out of 3 - including a real magnetic nanocache found by Rdz! The plan is to go for a cache on top of the Cerro de la Silla - the big mountain working as the trademark of the city. The description is something like a 4 hour walk/climb, and we will look for a guide to get a save trip there. There is no date on this yet, but be sure there will be a story here after the big climb!

Apart from that, life and work is good here, and there is no lack of sun whatsoever!