Lodgers left and leave the only key where Jack can’t find it.
” I only have one key, ” Jack explains, as he takes a hammer and knocks apart the dead bolt. ” I don’t want to be accused of taking any ones stuff. ”
It only takes a few seconds of hammering to knock the dead bolt apart and open the door. The door handle has already been picked.
The only difference between breaking and entering, and getting a place ready to rent, is intent.
Growing up in the landlord business, with a dad who had more than one property, this is just a small irritation. With a new deadbolt, lock set, and key, the new renters will never know the difference.
They will get their only key and everyone will sleep like babies.
Dog lovers often bring their dogs on vacation with them.
This little guy runs down the beach and his owners tell us, as we pass them, that he will swim out to get birds all the way to the end of the pier.
Down the beach, only moments ago, Rabbit and I met a local woman with a pooper scooper who said she was watching for the dog that poops on her yard each morning. She also tells us, matter of factly, that she has a loaded shotgun and would love to make her day and shoot the dogs owner first.
You Tube is where aliens can go to get a good read on our planet.
This little dog needs to be careful about his business.
Shotguns can take you all the way out of this life even if the human who pulls the trigger is half blind and drunk as a skunk.
The difference between coming to Belize with money, and living here without money, is substantial.
Belize has staggering statistics.
It has the highest incidence of HIV in Central America. It has twenty to thirty percent unemployment. The doctor per patient ratio is among the worst in the world. 30-40% of the population lives in poverty and is dependent on agriculture and fishing for subsistence. Crime is familiar. Infrastructure is minimal. A high birth rate is matched by a high infant mortality rate. Housing and public utilities sputter.
Still, people from worse economies in Guatemala and Nicaragua come to San Pedro Town to look for work.
San Pedro Town has the barrier reef, tourist accommodations, things to do, an influx of money. Ambergris Caye, economically, supports the rest of Belize on its long narrow shoulders.
As a tourist, good overcomes bad. As a resident, bad is what bites at your heels.
Visiting and staying here are different as dogs and cats.
Kids go to school to learn, all over the world.
This Monday morning is a new week at a local primary school. Some kids, I observe, are smiling while others are not overjoyed, but most children all over the world go to school where they grow up and are introduced to what is necessary and proper to become functioning adults.
Cursory research states that 2/3 of the population of Belize are teens or younger, education is compulsory to 14 years, 70% of the teachers have professional training , a sizable minority of children don’t go past primary school. The best schools are run by the Catholic church who, some say, should never be allowed around kids.
Education opens futures for people, but the future here favors well financed foreigners with MBA’s who take calculated risks, have financing, study trends, and use money to make money.
Poverty, limited finances, and lack of education are all legs of the same creaky stool that keeps people depressed for a lifetime.
These kids, from where this ex teacher sits, look content,are sent to school with backpacks, a clean uniform, and, hopefully, homework done last night before bed.
While school tries its best to civilize them, there is little doubt that parents are still the prime reason behind kid’s early success or failure.
Those kids who succeed here, at this school, will stay in school longer and won’t stay on this island long.
In a world economy, good jobs seem to naturally go to the most skilled.
This passport takes me to 2021, well past end of the world forecasts.
Closing in on Belize, an airline steward passes out forms to be completed in ink for Customs and Immigration Officers in Belize City. These days all travelers need a Passport and are asked to provide one as a prerequisite for International travel.
The Passport is an odd document, more legal than personal, more business than pleasure. If you really want to know about someone you shouldn’t ask for their Passport; you should ask for their diary.
These days the Passport lets me move about the world in anonymity. Governments, who can barely keep roads paved, are not going to get to know me well enough to know if they are safe from me by looking at my Passport.
I complete forms because I am told I have to.
Do people run the State, or does the State run people?
If I don’t belong to myself, to whom do I belong ?
Sunday morning the Albuquerque, New Mexico International Sun port is a grocery cart rolling down a hill.
Jets jockey to gates as ticket agents fire up their computers, troubleshoot, load passengers and baggage. This time through security there is a change that makes me wonder whether security has to be all or nothing to make the country secure, or whether exceptions make security Swiss cheese – dangerous and full of gaping holes.
I am given a TSA Precheck, randomly chosen.
This allows me to walk through a separate screening station where I don’t have to take off my belt or shoes. I still have to put my carry on bag, computer and pocket’s contents into gray plastic tubs on a conveyor belt that rolls them through inspection, then walk myself through an x ray tunnel extending my arms above me and clinching my hands above my head.
I don’t argue with security officers and proceed quickly through the gauntlet to have pre-flight coffee, check e mails, check my passport and connecting flights, and slip into yet another travel itinerary.
Exceptions to rules make us less secure, but gives us our humanity back.
I am, despite my hate of security inspections, working on my fourth travel ring for the forefinger of my right hand. This will be another Scotttrek’s journey outside the U.S. where it is still easier to enter illegally than leave legally.
When local rancher Mack Brazell found extraterrestrial debris on his ranch and reported it to the local Sheriff a Pandora’s box was opened.
The local Sheriff called the local Air Force Base and a whirlwind of misinformation, disinformation, cover up was begun.
The Roswell Incident is known around the world, and, at its epicenter, Roswell has a museum dedicated to UFO’s and alien visits from that summer of 1947.
On Sunday, when people should be in church, inquisitive souls browse this museum, watch a Hollywood movie on ” Roswell “, snap pictures to post to their Facebook page.
The story, as told, is one of an alien crash and dead alien bodies. Mack reported strange metal scraps strewn over the desert with strange inscriptions that were impervious to destruction and, when squeezed, returned to their original shape. A mortician reported small bodies with four fingers and large eyes. There were sworn deathbed statements that documented unearthly events.
Official reports promoted weather balloons.
It is a question of faith in the absence of facts. Participants in the event have died, committed suicide, or told survivors what they saw, or did, or knew.
I wrestle with thinking versus intuition.
The explosion of technology, after 1947, is significant. The automobile was still a youngster on the block.. Television was barely into living rooms of the most wealthy. Then, after 1947, you get exponential scientific breakthroughs.
What our government is working on, in secret, is beyond this planet.
Did Einstein sit up nights discussing the universe with green men?
ABQ Marketplace on Louisiana has eclipsed Winrock Center, the original Albuquerque Mall.
While Winrock is now huge piles of dirt, exposed steel, jack hammered asphalt, chain link fences and construction signs, ABQ Marketplace is stocked with big name stores, food and restaurants, and stylish clothes that are already moving out of style. This evening shoppers jockey for parking spots and neon lights compete for human attention.
I sit outside the Apple Store and wait for Ruby to finish browsing Bebe’s. Watching her decide between dresses is a lot like watching paint dry and it goes easier if I sit out front and surf the net to see what Russia, China and the United States are up too in their latest wrestling match.
The Apple Logo is prominently mounted, above the Apple store’s front doors, highlighted by a spotlight. In diminishing light, clouds look as if they are plotting rain.
As powerful a mind as Steve Jobs had, he has moved on and other’s have picked up reins of his wagon and are driving it hellbent down winding mountain roads as outlaws try to steal his intellectual property.
Taking a bite out of an Apple has historic repercussions.
We still pay for Adam and Eve’s first unauthorized bite.
The fourth of July is the official birthday of the United States.
The American fight for Independence was hatched in Boston pubs and undertaken by a cadre of locals. Over taxed and under represented was the big beef and secretive plotting led to a Declaration of Independence from merry old England who was licking wounds from European wars and needed raw materials and taxes from America to pay for debts incurred.
There was fighting, men died, a Constitution was written, leaders got elected.
These days the metaphor for America is an aging Uncle Sam who sports a long white beard, wears clothes made out of a flag , has a top hat of red, white, and blue, a firm grip on your American credit card, and a hand in the affairs of other countries all over the world.
This is an older group present tonight, a group with a collective history.
This wild bunch has seen the Civil Rights movement, Kennedy assassination, Moon Walk, World War 2, Vietnam, Watts, Desert Storm, 2008 Financial Collapse, Government Shutdowns, the fall of Russia, Castro, Cell phones , Computers, Multiple Recessions, Gay Marriage, Food Stamps, Medicaid, TARP, TSA , Sex changes, Drones, Watergate, LSD, Disneyland.
Birthdays are good, once a year. They give a chance to pause, look back, look ahead.
What America says it is, and what it is, is a growing enigma.
It makes moments of peace, like this, more poignant.
The Sandia Peak Tram has been with us fifty years.
According to our tram operator there are 600,000 patrons each year and the only time the tram shuts down is when the wind blows over fifty miles per hour or threatening lightning storms are close.
The tram has been stuck in the middle of its run a few times when electric went out or a fuse blew, but the operator doesn’t say anything about an incident years ago that had people lowered by ropes from the tram car to the desert floor. In the summer, the ride makes mountain views and hiking easily accessible. In the winter, skiers can go directly to Sandia mountain ski lifts without having to drive the back side of the mountain up winding narrow snow packed mountain roads.
The idea for the tram came from a man named Robert Nordstrum, and his friend Ben Abruzzo. Mr. Nordstrum went to Europe and decided to bring a tram to Albuquerque. There were technical challenges but the tram has become a part of our community. Abruzzo started the Albuquerque Balloon Festival that maintains a world reputation and brings thousands to the city each fall.
This afternoon Robert, a friend, looks over the edge of the cliff. We are going to hike the trail that goes from the Tram to the top of Sandia Crest.
From up here, looking out, like ancient man, – my issues don’t look as important as I thought they were.
Recent Comments