Did you mean…
I typed a phrase into Google translate, and it asked me if I wanted to change it…
No, I didn’t mean that! Thank God, I didn’t mean that!
Computers and internet
Visit Ixtapaluca (but please, don’t bother getting up)
All right, so of course I want you to actually really visit us in person. But last month I made an amazing discovery – Google Street View has come to Ixtapaluca!
If you’ve never tried Street View, it works like this. You can go on to a map, then you can actually go down to street level and see what you would see if you were driving down the street. You can look around, up, down – all around. You can go back the other way, forward – the ability to move yourself and look around really does make you almost feel like you’re there.
What you’re seeing are a collection of special photos taken by Google employees. So they’re not right up to date, but it looks like the ones of Ixtapaluca right now were taken sometime this past summer.
So you can see the places we drive and walk every day, see the shops, the cars, the bicycle taxis – even people about their business. You can even zoom in and get a closer look of things. Amazing!
An image of Ixtapaluca from Street View.
I spy a bicycle taxi, combi taxis, election signs…
Now, every street isn’t on there – partly because there are so many closed communities (ie gated). But still, there’s a lot you can see.
And surprisingly, you can – now, don’t tell anyone – but you can actually see our house. Now I won’t tell you where it is here in public, but if you call or send me a note (and if I know you!) I might just spill the beans.
Meanwhile, go here to see Ixtapaluca. Take the little orange-ish man on the left side, and drag him on to one of the main streets. Give it a moment, and it will show with a blue outline all the streets with Street View. Drop the man down in the place you want to start exploring. More details on using Street View can be seen in the video below.
I’ll give you one clue – the street named Cuauhtémoc is what we drive down each day to take our kids to school.
I just tried it. I found a mailman on a motorcycle – cool. 😉 Hey, there’s a store we shop at all the time! Oops… looks like that guy is having car trouble.
Oh, sorry – I’ll let you go explore for yourself! Use full screen – looks great.
Google video explaining Street View
More of a main street in Ixtapaluca
About Modern Times
Every once in a while it’s good to remind ourselves about some of the realities of the modern world. Much of what’s in this video you may have heard before, but it’s a great collection of information (and we all need more information!).
There’s an obvious orientation toward viewers from the USA, but I’m sure those of us from elsewhere can find useful information beyond that….
(Note: I’m not sure the music always fits what’s being said… but the audio isn’t necessary, so feel free to turn it down.) 🙂
Thanks to The Roes Garden for the heads up on this one.
Yes, we have internet access!
Yes, as of yesterday we have internet access, and even a phone. How long has it been? About a month, I guess. Not bad considering the circumstances, although I had been hoping I would be able to check email and so on more in the mean time.
So, here I am with dozens of emails – people wanting me to do this, check that, fix these things, tell them the other stuff. I got a phone message telling me they were going to cut off this if I didn’t do that (turns out it actually wasn’t my responsibility at all), someone wanting to sign Shari up for that, a call about a free trip I had qualified for. The phone kept ringing even after I went to bed.
So anyway, I need to go through these dozens of emails and figure out what to do and say in them all – so thanks for your patience!
We’re still working out the bugs – the internet isn’t actually working in the office (of course, I can’t go up there anyway because the stairs are being tiled!), and sometimes it doesn’t want to work at all. But we’re getting there as you can see!
I’ll write more about the progress of the house later. The big news of the day really is that Shari gets back into town today! We’ll be picking her up at the airport this evening. 🙂
The view from our (former) roof
Here’s the view from our (former) roof in Cuernavaca. I liked our roof, so here’s my first attempt at a 360 photo from photos I took just before we moved.
You’ll be able to see some of the houses around (and the brick and white wall of the house behind us), the flowers on the fence, and the surrounding scenery. Just press and hold your mouse button to move around, or use the controls at the bottom.
From the Roof, Cuernavaca, Mexico
Gallery meltdown
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My deepest apologies to anyone who has been trying to look at photos in our gallery. Yesterday, for some unknown reason, it started having problems. The good news (for me) is that it wasn’t anything I did – I didn’t do anything, actually.
Anyway, trying to fix it has been one problem after another. As you can see, some recent photos are back in there. However, you may still be having problems with some of these. For example, if you click on a thumbnail, you may next see something totally unrelated. Just go to the original version of the photo, and everything should be fine (see upper right corner for different photo resolutions – choose the biggest).
The good news (yes more good news) is that the photos themselves are backed up, and some of the information is backed up, so they’re not "lost". But it may take some time to figure out what’s wrong and get everything fixed.
Of course, it had to happen right when I told everyone to go visit. Does Murphy have access to the server?
Thanks for your patience and understanding.