Time in Seattle - Seafair, The Seattle Gift Show, and Computer Tribulations

Seattle, King County, WA. USA – Seafair, it’s Seattle’s traditional summer festival. A month-long, region-wide barbecue, that brings an entire community together in celebration. For 58 years Seafair has been about community events, parades, Miss Seafair, the Navy and Coast Guard, amateur athletics, airplanes and of course, boat racing. It’s watching the parade as beautiful floats glide down Fourth Avenue, staring skyward as the Blue Angels suddenly appear and disappear from view, being thrilled at Lake Washington as a hydroplane comes out of the north turn bouncing from sponson to sponson. These are just a few of the exhilarating moments you can experience in person at Seattle’s Seafair festival – or view in HDTV from the comfort of your living room easy chair. This year was somewhat overcast so the Blue Angels had to do there low ceiling show; however, it still was a great time for all – particularly on the HDTV – nearby the refrigerator filled with beer and ice for celebration with martini’s and all without traffic!

Another fun event for Dolores and myself (and staff) is the summer session of the Seattle Gift Show (SGS), held downtown at the Washington State Convention Center and other permanent downtown trade centers. It's the largest market in the Pacific Northwest drawing independent/specialty retailers, national chain stores and corporate buyers from Canada and Alaska as well as surrounding Western states. It’s seven fun days of buying opportunities featuring the freshest gift, home and lifestyle products. Its an opportunity to explore over 10,000 national and innovative lines of new product, exciting new vendors and an industry-recognized educational forum. Our buying “store” is called the Want Not Shop. The picture shows our happy staff hard at work.

There always comes a time with computers when “gremlins” come on the scene. Suddenly our home office wireless network stopped functioning. We could connect to the network; however, nothing else worked – no email, no internet. After alerting our local “experts” and much gnashing of the teeth and depletion of the on board cervesa/refresca supply I made the decision to purchase a new wireless router. Since we have lost our land-line telephone number the past three years due to our extended stay in Mexico I decided to keep our cellular base (minus all the frills) and purchase T-Mobile’s new Mobile HotSpot @ Home. This has to tie directly into the cable modem, so I set about removing the old wireless from the network and hooking up directly to the cable modem – and the confusion began. I couldn’t get reception to the internet. After a couple hours I called the Comcast modem techs who carefully educated me on many things I didn’t want to know. We finally discovered that the computer “gremlins” had, on there own, re-set my internet properties. With this corrected I was able to get to our email and the net. Next (the following day when Dolores went shopping) I got out the T-Mobile phone/wireless router and began the installation into the system. With ‘it’s a snap” assurances from the T-Mobile store techs, good directions on a CD and clearly printed directions with graphics I anticipated no problems. The hardware installation went quickly, all the lights were flashing (except the tele) – guess what - I couldn’t get reception to the internet. After going through everything the modem tech taught me I was still without service. So –a call to the ”router tech”, a two hour hold, during which I vacuumed the house, emptied garbage, straightened up the office, bedroom and kitchen, all this with the cell phone glued on my shoulder, the connection with the tech was finally made while I was completing preparations to going out to dinner with friends. Looking quite “strange” when Dolores came in (under shorts, new blow-dry hairstyle, no shoes, etc) the new tech led me through another 15 minutes of education and, voila, everything came on line. It’s a great system, but I think the router installation tech’s have a guaranteed full time job for many months.

Now, Dolores can work in the home office with a cable connection and I can roam the rest of the house with a wireless connection – the best of all worlds. BTW – the new land line number (sent out by separate email) will remain with us for the long term and I can take it to PV this fall – much like Vonage.

Back in the PNW

In the Pacific Northwest
Lynnwood, Snohomish County, WA. USA – We returned to the great PNW, Thursday, July 31 at 8:00 PM on Alaska Airlines to meet old friends - rain (showers), clouds, and a temperature in the low 60’s. So what’s new and exciting? Well, no mosquito’s; three consecutive days of rain/overcast, then sunshine and mid-80’s; no sweating - sleeping under two blankets but still waking up in the middle of the night to get a tee-shirt; no bugs of any kind; and jumping into the heated swimming pool to find a refreshing 75 degrees. It’s a significant environmental transition from Puerto Vallarta; however, the difference makes coming back a fun and exciting time.
A parting “gift” from PV happened the day before we left. Our car had a slow air leak in the rear passenger side tire. We drove to the local llama bodega and in doing so I made a left turn across double lines into the repair shop. I did hear a distinctive horn behind me while I was making the left turn; however I continued and negotiated a tire repair with the mechanic – two small nails in the tire. As we left the shop a police pickup was behind me with blinking lights. Turning the corner to let him go by didn’t help so I immediately pulled over and did a quick refresher on my negotiation skills. He had obviously waited until the tire was repaired (or had a quite rest in the shade while the tire was being fixed) then presented himself as we drove off. After politely explaining my infraction including describing how far away the court was and speculating that the cost could approach $800 pesos ($80 USD), I asked if we could avoid the trip and pay on the spot. I knew we were winners when he responded that he couldn’t give me a receipt; however, if that was OK with me we could deal. My next question about how much, his response was please make an offer - $200 pesos later we were on our way. There’s something about this that I didn’t mind… much different from the states and probably a $100 USD fine and a $1000 insurance reaction – definition of the aforementioned “gift.”
Currently we are taking the time to get settled into our new routine – giving the condo its Dolores sprucing, buying groceries, fixing the computer wireless network which “died” the third day (the excuse for this blog being late) and adding a new laptop and other accessories to our system and the many small things needed to begin our three month stay.
We very much miss PV; however, we did need the time for skin repair (no mosquito’s and over exposure to the hot sun). It’s great watching the summer Olympics in China on our flat screen TV’s and reestablishing contacting friends that we haven’t seen for the past nine months.