Semester's end is in sight, and so is New York and Mexico

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - Three weeks into the semester the end is already in sight in early December. About 100 students in my four classes are already counting the days until I stop thumping on their undergraduate heads.

So am I.

In the midst of all this, I have continued to pump out my weekly column for the Finger Lakes Times, the high point of my week, really. My column-writing students - whether they appreciate it or not - have been helping me brainstorm with column ideas. They have their own colums to write, so it only seems fair to have them help me, too.

In about a week, I will wing my way via Jet Blue to New York to attend a public hearing on a proposal to build a propane storage facility on the shores of Seneca Lake three miles from my new house in Watkins Glen. The idea is about as bright as the notion of building nuclear power plants on the shore of Japan. (Whoops! They did that, didn't they.)

I will be going as a journalist/observer but perhaps as a participant. This project is so dangerous, so out of whack with sanity with what Seneca Lake has become as a tourist destination, I might have to come out from behind my journalist's shield to speak against it. Greedy idiots don't care what damage it does, as long as their corporation makes profits for its shareholders and the officers of the corporation get their multi-million dollar bonus checks each year.

Brine pond

In addition to storing millions of gallons of propane in salt caverns (risky business at best, industry experts say) the Kansas City, Missouri company wants to build a 91-million gallon uncovered salt brine pond as part of the entire industrial project on the side of a hill, perched over the lake. Jaysus! If that salt water gets loose and lands in the lake, Watkins Glen can kiss its water supply goodbye for months - maybe more... And will it get loose? Well, in the last few weeks the area has had an earthquake and then brushed by a hurricane.

Need I say more?

After NY, it's back to the classroom until Adm. Fox and I got to Mexico for a short hiatus. She and a Seneca Lake amiga Barb Cook will be going down to help with a spay and neuter clinic. Barb and Sylvia will be doing the medical work, my job is to shoot film for a video about the experience with the working title: Salty Dogs in Mexico.

Or maybe we can just call it Woofing Below the Border.

Dreaming again of La Manzanilla and Arroyo Seco

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - The days are getting short, daylight-wise, and also short until we load up the Grey Goose Express II and head south to Mexico again for another season of, well, I don't want to bore you.

Ok, I'll bore: swimming, surfing, boating, hiking, eating great food, drinking cervezas and margaritas, playing music, dancing, writing and, and, and...

It is extremely hard to grade student term papers these days - or prepare lectures for my four classes - when what I really want to do is practice the ukulele, draw plans for developing the Arroyo Seco lots and develop my new website, called The Backpack Journalist.

That website isn't ready for prime time. But if you are reading this, you will be the first to know when it is.

But when I was looking around at some Mexico photos, I found this one, taken by someone in the last year or so in La Manzanilla.


Pulling the tail of the croc

What the gentlemen with the double-digit IQ doesn't know, is that the crocodile can turn around faster than he can stand up - and can also run faster than he can for probably 30 or 40 yards.

Plenty of time to make the double-digit IQ tourist into a snack. Ok, maybe a full meal. I don't know how much a full-grown croc eats, but I bet the croc in this photo would be willing to share with the hundreds of other crocs in the lagoon.

I understand that the croc lagoon overflowed out into the bay in front of La Manzanilla quite dramatically this summer with the heavy rainfalls, possibly sending more than a few lagoon residents - like the one with the tail above - out for a swim into the ocean.

Anyone ready to go surfing?

We found crew for our voyage to Mexico in December

LAND PARK, Sacramento, Calif., USA - It's a long way from our driveway here in Land Park to Tenacatita (about 1650 miles, I guesstimate) but the Admiral found the perfect crew member & pet to take along with us on our trek south and east.

He should also be relatively amusing - and/or annoying - once we hit the beach in Mexico, especially once his Spanish improves.