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I sincerely believe that this isn’t gonna work here right now...
For those that pay attention besides Dean, I’m now on day one of my vacation to puerto Vallarta. Currently in the air out of Houston.
After discovering the water leak, the thing went to bottom the the barrel priority for me....I tell ya its losing some of the appeal for me. The freaking sales job keeps me at work for hours after we close often now. I lost two off days last month due to it falling at the end of the last week of the month. And to the company I work for, everybody sacrifices their off day on the last week of the month. I’m off on Monday, and not only did I have to give up the Monday at the front of the week, April ended on a Monday.
I made 800. 00, last Monday. It’s very hard to say no to that.
As they say, make hay while the sun shine! It's already May 7, so really June isn't that far off. Enjoy the time with the wife. Don't get too burned or too drunk. You're close to getting the monster running, so when you get back to it, the heavy lifting is done. Maybe.
 
Well day 1 in the bag.
This is what you need to know when considering a beach trip to a Mexican resort town.
1. The exchange rate. An American dollar is equivalent to about 25 pesos.
2. The cost of living here. We're in a condo the wife booked through VRBO. ( vacation rentals by owner) although it's small, it's a true condominium with a kitchen, One king bed, and our own private balcony overlooking the ocean. There is a community pool on the top floor, but we're the only ones here taking advantage of it it seems. The room cost 100.00 a night. In Less than a month, the rate will drop to half that. ( it's too freaking hot during the summer here) Bottom line, if you want a cheap summer vacation, you can come here after June 1, and rent this place for 50 bucks a night.
3. You gotta be open minded. It's a very gay friendly place. It's not uncommon to walk past a shop where dude is selling thong bikini bottoms............for dude.
fortunately, I'm a live and let live kinda guy,...i have a gay son, I gotta be. that doesn't mean it still doesn't geek me when I see two men kissing, but I'm learning to avert my eyes better.
4. You come here for the food. Everything is fresh, because the street vendors can't save today's menu, they sell until they run out each day. It's Mexico,...they sell Mexican food. A taco comes cheap. 1usd.
And it's the farthest thing from what you get at the Bell. You get your choice of steak, pork, chorizo, fish, or chicken, and it's all there, sizling yummy Just waiting on you.
5. Learn at least some of the language or risk taking the "Amazing Race cab ride".
Ever see the Amazing Race? Teams of two racing across the world while having to complete tasks, and contests at each city designed to slow then down. Inevitably, they have to take a taxi to some destination, and the cab driver can't read or speak English, and takes them to the wrong place.
And the team in the lead, ends up in last place because of it.
We took that cab ride yesterday.
It's very hilly here. It wears your ass out just walking around. Compound that with the heat, and a new set of fake knees, and that extra last mile you gotta walk to get back to your condo is just too damn far now.

So you hail a cab. He don't comprende'. But off you go nonetheless. right past your stop. And after about 5 miles, and when he can't find the street where ge thought it should be, you hand him your phone with GPS telling him how far past he's actually went, he blames you for not knowing whar the neighborhood was called that the street he was looking for was in, was called Amapas. ( Ju stinkeeng Gringo)

pic for the day....
IMAG0140.jpg
 
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When I need a phrase that I don't know and spanglish isnt working on the job site, I use the iTranslate app.

It only struggles to translate when I yell into the voice-to-text "READTHEFUKINPLANYOUDIPSHT"
 
Amapas! Imapas on that....

hoopty5.0, just check your settings.

iTranslate might be in the default Welsh mode

welsh__crank.jpg




According to my Welsh friend Ynys, it sounds just the same in Wales....


Great picture Mike. I've found that live and let live is a good idea. Isolationist policies often back fire. Altho' I'm a Second Tim the toolman 3:1-9 kinda guy, if I majored on the "from such turn away", other peoples view of my ideal holiday shot would look like this....who knows, Monk life probably created more Boy Fridays than a Mexican streetscape ever did.

Idyllic_holiday_crank.jpg
 
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Amapas! Imapas on that....

hoopty5.0, just check your settings.

iTranslate might be in the default Welsh mode

welsh__crank.jpg




According to my Welsh friend Ynys, it sounds just the same in Wales....


Great picture Mike. I've found that live and let live is a good idea. Isolationist policies often back fire. Altho' I'm a Second Tim the toolman 3:1-9 kinda guy, if I majored on the "from such turn away", other peoples view of my ideal holiday shot would look like this....who knows, Monk life probably created more Boy Fridays than a Mexican streetscape ever did.

Idyllic_holiday_crank.jpg

Im confused. Is the house there or not there? :leaving:
 
Now we're talking about living here. Literally.

Granted, once back in Birmingham, that frame of thought will be little more than wishful thinking,....but it will push Spain out of the equation until it either becomes reality or dies as just one more of my "One of these days" promises to myself.

No car guys down here....(nothing more than basic transportation MOF)

Ironically, that really isn't too big of a red flag...Considering my recent bout of "lack of give a fck" where the monster is involved.

I was talking with a couple of residents down here, and they recommended spending an extended vacation down here before doing anything rash. He said 3 weeks down here will "make or break" any hasty decisions to just pack up and start living the life of " Whadya wanna do today"
In a Mexican west coast beach destination.

Good advice.

I don't think we'd just pack up and move, but instead buy here, and rent it out throughout most of the year for the first several years.

If we decide to jump off after that, then I'd think we'd be more educated about the pros and cons. If we decide to sell, all the better I'd think.

In the grand scheme of things, this whole thing here this morning is really little more than a conversation over coffee...much in the same vein as me openly talking about some exotic MOD to the monster...

They both would take forever, and never really happen.
 
Nothing wrong with dreaming Mike. I want to live up in the mountains someday, its absolutely beautiful in the mountains nobody around to :leghump: with me. Alas my wife has terrible anxiety with mountain roads and has to literally drug herself to even get in the car to drive down one...:(
 
How much fun would that trip be!?

The monster will wait, enjoy being with that sweet chick of yours. She's a sweetheart.
You know what, sometimes a break is exactly whats needed. Enjoy your vacation, and all the to do's coming up.
After the Op He's got Betty Davis Kneeees, and best of all with a Holiday, CMA won't catch industrial disease.....

Enjoy your Vacination, um, vacation.


As we say down here.....Leeky BarSteward, goin' on a Bally Holley Day!
As they say, make hay while the sun shine! It's already May 7, so really June isn't that far off. Enjoy the time with the wife. Don't get too burned or too drunk. You're close to getting the monster running, so when you get back to it, the heavy lifting is done. Maybe.
Now Mike, let's not kid ourselves. I had an "hour worth of work left" as well, and I have worked at least 3 hours since typing that statement.

I'll forsake the daily update of how great it is here, and focus on the back comments from you fine folks today.

Firstly, thanks for the well wishes, I appreciate your comments.

nextly, to Collin.....im serious....the car was together....there would've been nothing standing in the way of a restart attempt until I came down there and discovered the pond under my car.
Fortunately, I cut the header flange in half. I only had to remove one half of the thing. It took all of 15 minutes.
I kept reassuring myself......" Imagine how pissed you'd be if the old turbo setup was covering that leak"....The turbo, two pain in the ass wastegates to wrestle off, a drain hose that was always one degree away from getting cross threaded, never wanted to start.....and even after all of that came back off,.....there was the strut tower scratching, 30 pound Medusa monster exhaust manifold still left...

I was almost singing to myself this time around...

I'll be ready to get him running after all of this lousy langing around I'm doing this week.
( I have officially become a lousy langer)

I gotta get the threads of that Bolt sealed and fill the cooling system back up to be sure it's not gonna leak anymore. Once that's done, I'll sing another little song to myself while I Bolt my 3 tube header back on, and couple it to my down pipe with the 3 v band clamps that hold it all together.

Then,.....ill stare at it for a while, set up a video capture so we can all experience the birth of my new reptile baby, and turn the key.
The future bus picking up, then throwin it back down, High tension line snapping, radiation breath spewing, city center destroying end result of one nuclear test too many.
 
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I'll forsake the daily update of how great it is here, and focus on the back comments from you fine folks today.

Firstly, thanks for the well wishes, I appreciate your comments.

nextly, to Collin.....im serious....the car was together....there would've been nothing standing in the way of a restart attempt until I came down there and discovered the pond under my car.
Fortunately, I cut the header flange in half. I only had to remove one half of the thing. It took all of 15 minutes.
I kept reassuring myself......" Imagine how pissed you'd be if the old turbo setup was covering that leak"....The turbo, two pain in the ass wastegates to wrestle off, a drain hose that was always one degree away from getting cross threaded, never wanted to start.....and even after all of that came back off,.....there was the strut tower scratching, 30 pound Medusa monster exhaust manifold still left...

I was almost singing to myself this time around...

I'll be ready to get him running after all of this lousy langing around I'm doing this week.
( I have officially become a lousy langer)

I gotta get the threads of that Bolt sealed and fill the cooling system back up to be sure it's not gonna leak anymore. Once that's done, I'll sing another little song to myself while I Bolt my 3 tube header back on, and couple it to my down pipe with the 3 v band clamps that hold it all together.

Then,.....ill stare at it for a while, set up a video capture so we can all experience the birth of my new reptile baby, and turn the key.
The future bus picking up, then throwin it back down, High tension line snapping, radiation breath spewing, city center destroying end result of one nuclear test too many.
Well good for you, I am truly jealous. I've since added another 3 hours to that tally, with no end in sight.
 
The end has arrived.

The last full day here, and tomorrow morning is all that's left of this vacation.
I gotta tell ya, never in all my past vacations would I have been content to do as much " nothing" as I have done this time.
Something's changing in my life.

In reality, there's a ton of stuff to do if you want to, but EVERYTHING comes with a price tag attached to it.
We could parasail, but it costs this much..
We could go snorkeling, but it costs that much..
We could do an atv adventure, but it costs this much..
We could go sailing on a Catamaran, but it costs that much.

As long as you're content,...it costs nothing to do nothing.

We walked to one of the nearby communities to see if it might be an affordable possibility to buy a place down here...further away from the ocean, more towards the middle of town.
it ended up feeling like a border town.
Filthy, hot, and smelled like pee.

Uhh.... No said the monkey fighting finger.

That brought us back to this side of town.
And back in touch with reality.
You can buy a 1/1 down here with water " views" for about 150-200k. And at the same time be able to keep it rented for most of the year, which will more than pay your mortgage.
But why own a place that is somebody else's for the majority of the year, just to have use of it, one-two weeks out of the year?
Unless you consider that it could be an investment that other people contribute to on your behalf for 9 months out of the year. And at the rate they rent at, One week's rent pays two months of the mortgage.

That's what I'm talkin'bout Willis.

I don't know,......

All I know is that people flock to these places, and always have. The right place in the right place should be a pretty strong investment.
 
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The end has arrived.

The last full day here, and tomorrow morning is all that's left of this vacation.
I gotta tell ya, never in all my past vacations would I have been content to do as much " nothing" as I have done this time.
Something's changing in my life.

In reality, there's a ton of stuff to do if you want to, but EVERYTHING comes with a price tag attached to it.
We could parasail, but it costs this much..
We could go snorkeling, but it costs that much..
We could do an atv adventure, but it costs this much..
We could go sailing on a Catamaran, but it costs that much.

As long as you're content,...it costs nothing to do nothing.

We walked to one of the nearby communities to see if it might be an affordable possibility to buy a place down here...further away from the ocean, more towards the middle of town.
it ended up feeling like a border town.
Filthy, hot, and smelled like pee.

Uhh.... No said the monkey fighting finger.

That brought us back to this side of town.
And back in touch with reality.
You can buy a 1/1 down here with water " views" for about 150-200k. And at the same time be able to keep it rented for most of the year, which will more than pay your mortgage.
But why own a place that is somebody else's for the majority of the year, just to have use of it, one-two weeks out of the year?
Unless you consider that it could be an investment that other people contribute to on your behalf for 9 months out of the year. And at the rate they rent at, One week's rent pays two months of the mortgage.

That's what I'm talkin'bout Willis.

I don't know,......

All I know is that people flock to these places, and always have. The right place in the right place should be a pretty strong investment.

My wife and I briefly talked about buying a condo on the beach in Florida. At that time you could buy one on the beach for around 180k, and like you, we were going to rent it out the majority of the year to pay for it.

The killer, besides having 2 mortgages, was after the recession lending laws changed in Florida and to borrow for a beach front home required a 50% down payment of it was not your primary residence. A friend of mine, who had some inheritance to play with, did it and it has worked out very well for him so far.

I say do it if it's what you want. It is a retirement dream of mine.

Joe
 
The end has arrived.

The last full day here, and tomorrow morning is all that's left of this vacation.
I gotta tell ya, never in all my past vacations would I have been content to do as much " nothing" as I have done this time.
Something's changing in my life.

In reality, there's a ton of stuff to do if you want to, but EVERYTHING comes with a price tag attached to it.
We could parasail, but it costs this much..
We could go snorkeling, but it costs that much..
We could do an atv adventure, but it costs this much..
We could go sailing on a Catamaran, but it costs that much.

As long as you're content,...it costs nothing to do nothing.

We walked to one of the nearby communities to see if it might be an affordable possibility to buy a place down here...further away from the ocean, more towards the middle of town.
it ended up feeling like a border town.
Filthy, hot, and smelled like pee.

Uhh.... No said the monkey fighting finger.

That brought us back to this side of town.
And back in touch with reality.
You can buy a 1/1 down here with water " views" for about 150-200k. And at the same time be able to keep it rented for most of the year, which will more than pay your mortgage.
But why own a place that is somebody else's for the majority of the year, just to have use of it, one-two weeks out of the year?
Unless you consider that it could be an investment that other people contribute to on your behalf for 9 months out of the year. And at the rate they rent at, One week's rent pays two months of the mortgage.

That's what I'm talkin'bout Willis.

I don't know,......

All I know is that people flock to these places, and always have. The right place in the right place should be a pretty strong investment.

CAUTION* investment property noob question...

Who does the maintenance when something breaks or a renter trashes the place and you live in another country?
 
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