I betcha that nobody even noticed I was gone.;)

Last week I moved from my 800 square foot house with the fantastic view to a place that had some view but was a little bit larger. There was no option if I wanted to remain married. Without exaggeration, there was not a single horizontal surface anywhere in the house that was not piled with S*T*U*F*F*, sometimes two and three layers deep. I'm talking about the rim of the bathtub, on top of the computer hutches, under the bed, covering the nightstands, on top of cabinets you needed a seven-foot ladder to reach. There was literally no place to put anything else.

So, we moved. It took until last night to get my computer system marginally functional again and get internet service working. The only peripheral that is set up is the network printer.

Attached is a pdf file showing where we moved to. It is a big file, about 4MB, and there is no earthly reason why you should be interested enough to download it, but I am quite pleased with the house and just had to show it off to someone. It came fully furnished, exactly as shown in the photos.

At the same time as the move, my in-car GPS broke. It actually still works, giving audible directions, but the touch-screen no longer accepts touches so unless I want to go to the airport (the last destination programmed) it is completely useless. We've had it for about six years, it was a discontinued TomTom model when we bought it that has so little memory that when people tried to update to newer maps it actually bricked the unit. (I avoided that trap by reading the reviews on Amazon.) As obsolete and with as few features as it had, it served my needs perfectly. I don't need voice recognition, I don't need traffic updates, I don't need any kind of bells and whistles. I just want to be able to enter a destination, either by address or by intersection, and get audible and screen instructions to get there as I drive.

There must be more than 1,000 on-dash portable GPS units at Amazon.com. And if I can believe the reviews, not a single damn one of them is worth the postage it would take to return it. Seriously, any GPS with less than 20% one-star ratings stands out as a champion in the field. Does anyone make a dependable, simple, on-dash portable GPS for car use, or have the in-dash and cell-phone devices killed the market?

Any recommendations?

tanstaafl.

Nice house! If if came fully furnished, did you sell/rent your old one fully furnished, too? Or are you pre-stuffed with stuff?

I haven't used a stand alone GPS in years - my phone does it just fine.

-jk

Smartphones destroyed the market. They're still around, but completely niche.

That house is beautiful! I love it! I'm very jealous. I assume you also won't have to drill through any concrete to get your guest wifi access? That view still beats any of the places I've lived!

And I hear you about the stuff. I'm currently in the middle of a ruthless cleaning of all my stuff. There are things that I've moved to five different places but have NEVER USED OR LOOKED AT, and that has to be some definition of insanity. My favorite method - which is popular now but I'm proud to say I thought of on my own about 12 years ago - is to take photos of things. I have an album that's nothing but photos of THINGS that I've sold or (most of the time) just thrown away. I even bought a photo box to take photos of the things before I toss them...which, yes, is another thing, but at least I'm using it and if I don't in the future I'll sell that too

We took very few furnishings to the new house. A few things we exchanged: our night stands were better, our Tempurpedic bed was better, but most of our furnishings we left in the old house.

Mostly we brought S*T*U*F*F* to the new house. The moving company didn't believe me when I told them that their off-the-cuff guess of the moving cost for an 800 square foot condominium was way too low. How hard could it be to move a kitchen/dining room, a bedroom, and a bathroom a total distance of 2.04 kilometers, right? It took a four-man crew a day and a half and two full loads of a pretty big truck filled with nearly 100 moving boxes to complete the move, which was about double what they anticipated but exactly in line with my prediction and budget.

The total cost of the move was just under $18,000 pesos, or around $1,000 USD. That's four men and a big truck working about 15 hours at a pace that would have killed me in 15 minutes. Don't you ever believe the stereotype of the lazy Mexican. My part in the move was to dismantle my computer system (more than 30 separate cables by the time it was done) and then sit back and watch my wife supervise the movers. Now we're in the "fun" stage, unpacking boxes one at a time and putting our S*T*U*F*F* away.

I had to apologize to my wife. I had accused her for years of having too much S*T*U*F*F* and thought we could use this move to get rid of at least half of it. Well, after going through my stuff to thin it out, there wasn't even a full waste basket full of it that I could bear to part with. And SWMBO's S*T*U*F*F* is much nicer and more expensive than mine!

The fun part of SWMBO's new house project was looking at other houses. Some were good enough to keep the rain off of us when we slept, but no more than that. Others were twice and three times the size of where we were, with less storage space than what we already had. One memorable house had a floor plan so convoluted that I would have needed a map to find my way back from the bathroom. So when she dragged me off to yet another house I was ready with all the reasons why it wouldn't do. The real estate guy opened the garage door with its indifferently applied lumpy green paint and 12-foot tall spike-topped stone security wall... and my jaw dropped. I spent the next 45 minutes wandering around trying to get a feel for the floor plan, my mouth hanging open looking like an idiot, my camera totally forgotten.

It was more money than we had planned or could afford, completely depleting our liquid assets (you don't buy houses in Mexico with a mortgage, it's a cash business) and we made our offer $5,500 USD over the asking price to be sure we got the house as there were other offers in play from other people. Now we're looking for a wholesaler of tortillas and beans, because that's what we can now afford to eat.

Good times, yes?

tanstaafl.

That is a spectacularly nice looking property! Looks like the roof terrace is the place to hang out -- mountain views and more I suppose.

With about 4552 sq.ft. of living space, it would be of similar size to many of the homes on the street where we now live, so I get a good feel for just how MASSIVELY HUGE it must feel for you now!

Security wall, bars on the windows.. hope the neighbourhood is nice.

Cheers!

By the way, I love all the masonry. I've never seen ceilings like that, and the fireplace is gorgeous. Again, I'm super jealous of your house...

For a standalone GPS, I have had a Garmin Nuvi 3790 ("LMT" package, with Lifetime Maps and Traffic) for the past 11 years (or more?), and still like it very much. It is quite slim (similar to a smartphone), can be used in either vertical or horizontal orientation, allows a choice of 2D/3D viewing (I very much prefer vertical, 2D viewing!!), has handsfree capability (plus bluetooth for handsfree phone, too), and uses a micro-SD card for storage expansion. The suction-cup windscreen attachment has a built-in amplified speaker for in-car use, along with an FM receiver for obtaining/showing traffic updates on the map.

A wonderful unit. Long since discontinued, but used ones are still available.

https://www.amazon.com/Garmin-Bluetooth-Navigator-Discontinued-Manufacturer/dp/B004A88RM6

I did manage to crush it and break the LCD screen once, but a replacement screen and new battery cost under $40 delivered from China, and it continues to work very well to this day.

Operationally, I find it far superior to anything I have yet tried on my very decent smartphone. Google Maps/Nav is horrible for driver use in-car: the street lines are too faint, the text unreadable, forces a 3D tunnel view, and the buttons are too tiny to safely use while driving. Or at least all of that applies in comparison to the standalone Garmin, which has none of those flaws.

All of that said, for local driving I now use Google Maps inside "Android Auto", which means it projects the interface onto the largish in-car touchscreen in my 2018 vehicle. The one killer feature of Google is that it has live, on-screen traffic conditions and updates, which are quite handy for the daily commute.

The Garmin now gets used with our other vehicles, and for holiday travels outside of Canada.

Cheers

I have the Garmin nuvi 3490. Similar to above, also includes traffic, etc.

I use it mainly when travelling in rental cars, especially in places where cellular data for my iPhone is expensive or outside of cellular service range.

Agree with the mlord assessment. Internal battery allows it to be useful outside the car and when car power is not working. Map updates are via a Garmin app thing. Works, but can act weird at times.

Doug, I have a Garmin nuvi 52LM. I even bought an SD card with Mexico maps before moving here 3 years ago. Next time you come into the city, if you want to swing by or meet somewhere, you can have it for free. Here in the city Google Maps or Waze is much more useful because of the traffic, so we just use our phones.

I live in Zapopan right next to Plaza del Sol.

The suction cup to attach it to the windshield has lost its mojo, so you'd need a new one.

EDIT: I think I'm going to be dropping someone at the airport on Monday around noon, but don't have any plans currently that will take me any closer to the lake.

The ceiling is called a "techo de bóveda" or arched roof. They're extremely common in this part of Mexico and can be seen in buildings of all types. Practically all buildings except modern high-rises and some warehouses are made of masonry, and they have it down to an art form. Check out the interior of this church in Tapalpa, a little mountain village not too far from Guadalajara. One of my favorite places to get away for a weekend.

EDIT: another shot

Benefits of a warm climate: lots of nasty wood eating bugs, so much more masonry in construction!
Also lots of mud and stone, as opposed to decently sized trees.

Or, alternatively, you've used all of your trees to build the world's (then-) greatest navy, so you have to resort to building houses with bricks.

That is incredibly generous of you. I accept whole-heartedly!

I will gladly meet you there. I'm actually able to find the airport without my now-defunct TomTom GPS, as I average about two trips per month there and back.

There is some chance that I won't be able to get there on Monday, I think I have a real estate closing to attend (I've sold the land in Jocotepec I was going to build on but I bought the new house in Ajijic instead) but at this time I'm not sure of the time, or even for certain that it is actually on Monday. Waiting to hear from the real estate guy...

One way or another I will see you soon!

db

Funny. It seems there *is* such as thing like a free lunch (or in this case: GPS unit) after all then. (Sorry, couldn't resist)

Sounds good Doug. I'll PM you my phone number so you can contact me directly. If it doesn't work out for Monday, no worries. I'm not going anywhere, so whenever it works out for you.

Gorgeous!!

Mexico has never had the worlds greatest navy, so I'm going to assume you're going back all the way to the Spanish Armada. I'm not aware that any profound deforestation of Mexico was done to provide timbers for the Armada.

Now when I lived in Belize, I learned that timbers were a major colonial resource that was extracted by the British, first for logwood (used for red dye), and later for mahogany. The Spanish also extracted logwood, including from Mexico on the Yucutan peninsula. As far as I know, most colonial deforestation in Mexico occurred more for local building materials, fuel, and to clear land for agriculture than for anything else. Apparently the areas where silver mining was taking place were especially stripped barren of natural resources.

I think Roger was referring to Britain, and why British houses are brick.

That makes a lot more sense.

Found a new monitor for you Doug to enjoy with all that new room in a fantastic looking place. I can’t quite make out how many columns in Excel it supports though with that photo.