For our 25th anniversary we decided to spend a couple weeks in the Yucatan which had something for both of us. Beaches and warm water for my wife, opportunities to explore by bike for me, and walks around Mayan ruins for us both. Swimming, biking and walking. Just like a triathlon.
Try-athlon #1 – Isla Mujeres
We caught the ferry from the terminal near our AirBnB over to Isla Mujeres. With a name like that I was expecting a bevy of Mexican telenovela actresses, but alas it was not to be. The plan was to rent bikes and ride around the island, but when we got there the plan changed. The amount of traffic, mostly from golf carts, caused my wife to get cold feet. Instead, the triathlon turned bi, and we rented a golf cart and joined the crowd. The cart felt a lot like Autopia at Disneyland. It went whatever direction it wanted as there was about 180 degrees of play in the steering wheel, and the brakes were bad. Eventually I got the hang of the steering as we made our way down to Punta Sur, which despite its name is the easternmost point in Mexico. There we saw a small Mayan ruin and lots of iguanas. After that we drove up to the other end of the island for a swim at Playa Norte. At dinner time we got suckered into a restaurant with a 2 for 1 drink offer. I should have known it would be a scam, as the last time I fell for that I ended up seated next to a prostitute in Tijuana and was compelled by the friendly bouncer to order her a $10 beer (in 1990s dollars). After complaining to the waiter that her first drink barely had any alcohol, my wife was afraid to drink the second one for fear of what they might have done to it, because she complained.
Where the women at?
Triathlon #2 – Tulum
Midway through our trip we moved about 2.5 hours by bus down the coast to Tulum. Tulum seems to be positioning itself as an eco-friendly alternative to Cancun. After all, nothing says I’m saving the environment like flying thousands of miles to stay in an eco-friendly hotel or a condo carved out of the jungle. The large quantities of trash on the side of the road made it seem even more eco-friendly and authentic. We borrowed a rust bucket of a bike from the condo where we were staying and headed for the ruins. It seems all the bikes left over from Burning Man end up in Tulum.
This is supposed to make me feel secure.
At the entrance of the park were heavily armed National Guard searching cars. Apparently they were recently deployed to keep locals from harassing tourists. The ruins were not as extensive or as well preserved as Chichen Itza, but the location on the coast was tough to beat. This must have been the Malibu or Martha’s Vineyard of the Mayan world, which I guess is why the National Guard was deployed to keep the Mexicans out.
Mayan Malibu
After making our way through the crowds of influenzas with their narcissisticks and tripods, we headed for the neighboring beach. Shade was hard to come by, but eventually we found a spot under some trees with some locals. The beach is not as protected as Cancun, so there were some decent waves for body surfing but not so rough that you couldn’t stand around waist deep in the water while you’re peeing. After a couple hours of relaxation we rode toward town to book a rental car for the next day’s excursion to Coba.
Hit you with your selfie stick. You’re too slow. Take the pic!
Triathlon #3 – Coba
The next day we rented a car to go see the ruins at Coba and swim in some cenotes. The drive was uneventful except potholes that could swallow a car, a manhole cover orthogonal to the road, and the Mexican penchant for passing where no passing is allowed. There is no way I’d ride a bike on those roads, but some people did.
After paying the fee to the federal government for parking, and a fee to the local government to enter the archeological site, we paid another fee to rent bikes to see the ruins. Because Coba is less well known than other sites in the area, we had to contend with fewer people wielding their selfie sticks. The humid jungle air made it a little steamy in the nether regions, if you know what I mean. A little Chamois Butt’r would have been in order, but at least we didn’t have to pedal too far.
I know the feeling.
A little down the road we came to the ball court where the players tried to knock the rubber ball through a small stone loop several yards off the ground using their hips and shoulders. According to our guide at Chichen Itza a week earlier, the games could last five days and contrary to popular belief, it was the winning captain who was sacrificed, not the losing team. Decapitation is for winners. I’m guessing that after five days of playing a stupid game in the hot tropical sun the winner was ready to be put out of his misery. His balls were probably hot too.
Despite winning, the captain lost his head. Or maybe he just had no heart.
After the ball court, the trail led to the pyramid of Nohoch Mul, which is the tallest pyramid in the Yucatan. Unfortunately these days climbing the pyramids is not allowed, so we had to view the pyramid from the base. From the pyramid we backtracked a little bit to hop on a sacbe that took us to another group of ruins where we were heckled by a monkey up in the trees.
Stairway to Heaven.
Sacbes were the Mayan roads created with limestone stucco over a rock bed. They were most prevalent within the towns, but some connected cities. One of the longest known sacbes connects Coba with Yaxuna 100 km due west. On the one hand I think it would be interesting to clear that road and open it up for cyclists and hikers, but on the other hand, the jungle scenery is kind of monotonous as the landscape is so flat there really isn’t much to look at. To paraphrase our former President, once you’ve seen one stretch of jungle, you’ve seen it all.
After lunch in town we headed a little further into the jungle to go swimming in a cenote, which is basically a sinkhole filled with water. Since the Yucatan is made of limestone, the place is riddled with cenotes, some exposed to the open air, some completely closed off. We visited Multum-Ha which is accessible by descending about 60 feet down a circular staircase. The water is 20 to 60 feet deep, and it is so clear that it looks like you should be able to touch the bottom only to be surprised when you try. There are even some fish swimming around. How did they get here? Many of the cenotes are connected so it could have come from another cenote, but I’m not convinced that the fish weren’t planted.
Indoor swimming pool.
Would I go to the Yucatan again? Probably not. Cancun feels like Daytona Beach. That environment was fun as a college student on Spring Break, but I’m an old fart now. The ruins were worthwhile and were on my bucket list, but veni, vidi, vici. I got tired of all the people trying to sell me stuff and all the scammers. It’s like nobody knows how to give correct change, and all the errors mysteriously go in the same direction. Maybe there’s something to be said for the all-inclusive resorts in a place like Cancun, but that’s not really my style.
did the FX replace the G3 or not?
Thanks for the report!
Cancun feels like Daytona Beach. That environment was fun as a college student on Spring Break, but I’m an old fart now. The ruins were worthwhile and were on my bucket list, but veni, vidi, vici.
I’ve never been to Mexico but that sort of sums up my feelings – there’s interesting stuff, but it’s outweighed by the bullshit.
There’s a lot of different parts of Mexico, so I wouldn’t rule out the entire country. I really enjoyed our trip to Morelia and Mexico City last spring. They had a totally different feeling. Cancun is about as close to Mexico as you can get without being there.
It seems all the bikes left over from Burning Man end up in Tulum.
We had some ‘fleet vehicles’ on the playa that I was sure had last been used by Mexican coyotes getting customers over the border, so I guess it is a fair trade.
Had a beer in Juarez, that’s my Mexican story and I’m sticking to it.
Thanks, JR, for filling in the blanks of my international travels.
Well done
Thanks! If the computerization of transport continues we are all going to be riding bicycles.
Trains were designed to break down after third-party repairs, hackers find
Nice to see that Ars remains an impartial reporter of news:
“Republicans slam broadband discounts for poor people, threaten to kill program”
I’m sure that headline is totally accurate.
My favorite is Beth Mole.
You can read the disdain in every sentence she writes.
According to the letter Republicans sent (which will likely go nowhere because gutless cowards), they are complaining that the people getting discounts already have broadband. Basically, they’re subsidizing people who already had internet rather than connecting new customers.
There’s a handout for fucking everything these days. On Medicaid? Here’s $35 a month to buy “OTC” items (that includes Tide Pods). Here’s some food stamps. Here’s an Obama phone.
Basically, it’s an endless trough the only argument for is that there’s a shit ton of welfare for the rich, too, that doesn’t generate outrage.
Democrats complained when Republicans wouldn’t back extending the Medicaid eligibility waiver. “Millions of children will lose coverage!”
‘Decapitation is for winners. ‘
What a retarded society.
If you were their god would you want them sending you their losers?
Are you saying they were sending their best?
+3 Tripods Trilogy
The large quantities of trash on the side of the road made it seem even more eco-friendly and authentic.
🙂
crowds of influenzas with their narcissisticks and tripods
🙂
Would I go to the Yucatan again? Probably not. Cancun feels like Daytona Beach. That environment was fun as a college student on Spring Break, but I’m an old fart now. The ruins were worthwhile and were on my bucket list, but veni, vidi, vici. I got tired of all the people trying to sell me stuff and all the scammers. It’s like nobody knows how to give correct change, and all the errors mysteriously go in the same direction. Maybe there’s something to be said for the all-inclusive resorts in a place like Cancun, but that’s not really my style.
Thanks for the article and review. Sounds like I should pass on the Yucatan.
The wife and I have been to the Yucatan three times, staying at all-inclusive resorts in Playa del Carmen all three times (our honeymoon and twice paid for by her employer as a reward for the store she managed meeting sales targets). The resorts are a few miles away from downtown, so it’s a much better atmosphere for middle-agers and oldsters, but you are close enough to downtown and the ferry out to Cozumel that you can mix it up with the youngsters if you are feeling up to it.
I really enjoyed Tulum. Last spring when we were there, we almost booked a private trip to Chichen Itza but didn’t pull the trigger. Now I regret it, because it looks like we won’t be going back anytime soon as the wife switched jobs this year.
Are we not doing phrasing? CNN running cover as usual.
Opinion: Sometimes a sex tape is just a sex tape Opinion by Jill Filipovic
I thought the other guy was the staffer.
A. Jill Filipovic is possibly the dumbest in a profession of dumb, and…
B. yes, this was “just” a sex tape. Which makes the decision to film in that locations extra stupid.
Yes. That’s why I put her byline in the link so you know what you are getting into.
Yes. I’d expect to canned if I filmed something like that at my office. And my company would likely also be impacted negatively and have to do damage control. So I don’t think it strange that the Senate has to do the same.
I remember the before times when that was the sacred temple of democracy and all that.
I don’t know, I think it’s kind of unbecoming as a nation to allow gay porn to be filmed in your nation’s highest lawmaking chamber. These are the same people who said mean tweets were demeaning to the office of the presidency. Getting fired is the minimum punishment that should be meted out here.
You know how you make a story go away? Stop writing about it.
+1 Bud Light ad campaign.
She’d be totes cool with someone wearing a MAGA hat railing someone right in the chamber.
Cool, or sweaty and worked up about it? You know, from just how awful and dangerous it was that those manly wreckers and chisled kulaks having hot, steamy, animal like, primal passionate sex….
Go on…
In this profoundly screwed-up landscape, the last thing we need are politicians and reporters who fancy themselves sexual hall monitors, demanding not just that a poorly behaved individual face consequences, but banging on the doors of politicians to demand they answer for their employees’ impulsive and boneheaded but ultimately victimless decisions.
I haven’t seen anyone banging on Sen. Cardin’s door demanding that he “answer for” anything other than “what was your chief of staff thinking when he hired this twink?”
That seems like a reasonable question.
So, did you see a chak mol? That is the stone alter they use when cutting out hearts.
There was one at the local Taco Bell when I was a teen. Not joking.
These are awesome, by the way. Keep it up. Also, I have heard that the Quintana Roo is much better if you want to see the Yucatan as it was, and not as it is full of drunk college kids.
It has been ages since I’ve been to Mexico. I’d like to go back but the cartel violence seems pretty prevalent. I can’t tell if that’s media hype or reality.
The cartel isn’t interested in you and me unless you are involved in the drug trade. It would be bad for business. I haven’t felt physically unsafe at all, and that includes a visit to a state that the State Department says not to visit. The only thing that felt unsafe on this visit was my wallet.
I hate pickpockets.
Since the Feds can tell the plebs to “fuck right off” the locals are doing it as well. Many local governments have an attitude of “Citizen participation? I got yur cizizzin participation right here.”
https://apnews.com/article/local-government-secrecy-records-meetings-4812c60d19b584c59f6fe2a007c09393
No motherfuckers. You are temporary employees who work for us.
Our Democracy lives in darkness.
UV sterilizes democracy?
There is a stunning lack of information on what political party the local officials belong to, and I’m guessing it is known. Just a bland few paragraphs on increased division across the country.
Supposedly many of the local positions are non-ideological. Which is BS, because, as you hint at they have become pressure points in the run up to the current authoritarianism.
The universe tends to unfold exactly as it should. With me First. And you second.
Colorado ‘s Supreme Court says that Trump can’t be on the ballot because he is guilty of insurrection.
I’m really curious how they were even able to rule on this. Who would have standing to bring a case, and how the Colorado state court would have the authority to rule on it.
What office of the government is warded to the winner of any single state primary? None. You don’t hold any office of government even if you win every state primary. You just become a political party’s nominee for a later election, which is not an office of the government. Ergo, the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply at all. Come back when the defendant is President-Elect.
sin,
anyone who’s read the 14th Amendment.
I was typing up the same below along with questions on standing. I did some quick Google searches of the people who brought the case. It’s a bunch of nobodies. They appear to be ordinary voters simply eligible to vote in the GOP primary.
I guess there may be some precedent from the 19th century where former confederates weren’t allowed on primary ballots, but nothing like that is cited by the Colorado court.
Indeed, a federal court kicked this back down to the state courts because they found no fucking standing for the “electors” here to challenge this on constitutional grounds.
“On September 12, the federal district court remanded the
case back to state court, concluding that it lacked jurisdiction because the Electors
had no Article III standing and the Secretary had neither joined nor consented to
the removal”
The Colorado courts denied the sate GOP’s first amendment objections because FYTW. I guess that’s the double-edged sword of having political parties themselves encoded into law which has never made much sense to me. A political party’s primaries were their own business and encoding them into law should be blatantly unconstitutional. It’s the establishment of official political parties. That’s kind of a separate argument and the ship has really sailed there. The Democrats and Republicans encoded themselves into our laws in ways that were never intended and which are really absurd.
They basically said FYTW over the question of whether the 14th even applies to the president and whether a state court even has say over the matter.
Look at this shit:
Accordingly, states exercise their plenary
appointment power not only to regulate the electors themselves, but also to
regulate candidate access to presidential ballots…And nothing in the U.S. Constitution expressly
precludes states from limiting access to the presidential ballot to such candidates.
See Lindsay v. Bowen, 750 F.3d 1061, 1065 (9th Cir. 2014)
No party in this case has challenged the Secretary’s authority to require a
presidential primary candidate to confirm on the required statement-of-intent
form that he or she meets the Article II requirements of age, residency, and
citizenship, and to further attest that he or she “meet[s] all qualifications for the
office prescribed by law.”
Totally the same as using the 14th amendment!
Parse through this bullshit:
In other
words, CRSCC is well within its rights to choose with whom it affiliates and to
decide which candidates it recognizes as bona fide. “It does not follow, though,
that a party is absolutely entitled to have its nominee appear on the ballot as that
party’s candidate.”
It’s plain as day – they decided this case before they actually had the authority to do so. They’re counterargument? Why, it’s a reasonable regulation! No shit, that’s what they say. This is “eminently reasonable.”
The decision is a mess.
1. The entire primary process really should have nothing at all to do with the state at any level and should be entirely on the political parties to organize and administer. That clearly isn’t the system in place, and it opens the door to “eminently reasonable” regulation such as the above.
2. I have little objection to ordinary voters getting standing to challenge this, but the level of scrutiny applied to giving them standing is clearly not applied equally.
3. The 14th amendment simply does not apply to the question of a primary ballot, if it even applies to the office of the presidency.
4. You can’t simply substitute the power of states to choose their own electors with the power to disqualify presidential candidates.
5. It isn’t up to the Colorado Supreme Court to rule whether Trump committed insurrection. Whether the 14th applies, whether insurrection occurred, are matters for Congress. Quite clearly. And handwaving this away is laughably the shortest part of the decision. The try and substitute an argument based on whether section three of the 14th is automatically applied, but this does not address the question of whether a state court has the authority to rule on the matter of a candidate’s loyalty to the country.
Basically, there was a pretty clear test for applying the 14th amendment when we were still dealing with people who fought in the Civil War. They had taken an oath to the confederacy. Trump did not. Congress did not convict Trump of insurrection.
This court has no basic to rule on this, and normal voters have no standing to challenge this in a state court. It’s all laughable.
It’s either the stupidest or the most crooked court decision I’ve ever seen. It boggles the mind that supposedely intelligent people can come up with what this bunch came up with.
This was discussed earlier, but I saw no questioning of standing. All of the shit that they rule someone doesn’t have standing with which to proceed, but you have a bunch of yahoos here who were allowed to take this case up to the state Supreme Court to throw a guy off a presidential ballot?
The people bringing this case were a group of “electors” eligible to vote in the GOP primary.
Compare and contrast this to any case questioning the results of the 2020 election. How the fuck were they just permitted standing outside the FYTW clause? Especially given that this is a state primary in the first place – not even the actual election. The 14th amendment cannot reasonably apply to merely be on the ballot during a fucking primary.
Just some thoughts/questions on this blatatantly political partisan horseshit:
1. How can the Col SC find insurrection when he hasn’t been charged with same much less convicted?
2. Insurrection in this case is a federal issue and they’re way outside of their lane.
3. 7 Dems on the CSC and three voted against.
4.This is simply a case to provide cover to other states who desire to exclude Trump to do the same…if the US SC finds against them they’re back to square one and no biggie, there’s no penalties for these twats; if the US SC punts for whatever reason the Hail Mary play will pay off like gangbusters.
5. There have to be some kind of legal and professional sanctions for judges that engage in on its face unconstitutional ridiculous nonsense like this. This is as bad as I’ve ever seen.
It’s even worse than that because Congress, the ultimate authority here, voted to acquit Trump. The Senate holds final say and already voted. Trump won.
They don’t address this at all in their ruling beyond arguing that section 3 of the 14th is “self-executing.”
They bring up all kinds of nonsense, but they never address the elephant in the room that Congress had the ability to directly bar Trump from being president again and refused to do so. They sidestep this and instead argue that because section 3 may have been meant to be self-executing that they have a right to rule on the matter.
They are implicitly overruling Congress here and conducting their own review of the evidence to make their own determination. It will never stand up to scrutiny at the Supreme Court. Not because of bias, but because it’s utter nonsense..
They applied the “Brandenburg Test” to Trump. They used the January 6th committee’s findings. They looked at anything they could to find Trump guilty besides the actual vote the Senate took which I don’t think is ever mentioned. I’m not reading the entirety of this crap to find out.
Ah, the Honorable Jan. 6th Committee, sounds legit then. It’s almost too silly to take seriously except it has to be taken seriously.
Happy hump day! It’s a great day to be alive.
🌄😁
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xTgKRCXybSM
Rock on. 🎶🎶
Morning, Sean.
*waves*
Song should have been do the humpty hump with that segue
Good morning all!
Next up in the Christmas Carol travesties, The Restroom Door Said Gentleman.
Share and enjoy!
Good morning, Beau, U, and Sean!
Morning.
Made it to the office.
I think my first four Lavender seeds aren’t in any mood to sprout. I wonder if I should put the pot in the fridge overnight to try to give them a little winter.
I’m not good with plants, but I’ve never heard of anything like that as a suggestion. Somehow I don’t think that’s the answer.
The idea didn’t come out of nowhere. The side of a seed packet says you’re supposed to refridgerate for… 3-4 weeks prior to planting to stimulate germination. In the wild that would be the “Winter is cold” signal to seeds that would have fallen in late fall and for which germinating prior to winter would be dangerous.
Huh. Well, it’s worth a try!
I have apple seeds in the refrig (some for a couple years). I’ll start some next month but takes a long time to germinate, last year some started sprouting after 6 weeks or so. I’ll plant lots, hope to get a few started.
Listen to this guy, U! He knows what he’s talking about!
During the wee hours of the morning, I was wondering about how I might convert the Pi into something resembling a cyberdeck, but unsure how to make it visually distinct from a laptop or tablet. I could do it with off the shelf parts except for the case, which would either be a converted commodore shell, or something 3d-printed. I haven’t looked at the cost of a commodore shell, since I’m back to “people are just going to mistake it for X or Y.”
Anyway, that’s a “Next year” idea.
Mornin, everyone
“convert the Pie into something”
Doesn’t sound too tough
Good morning, 4(20)! Has winter arrived in your neck of the woods?
No winter, hovering around freezing, ground is bare. Forecast for Xmas Day is rain. The very little snow has come and gone. A couple days ago I was poking around the yard with a stick, didn’t seem like any frost. Lakes have a skim of ice, no one fishing, some lakes still open.
My entusiasm is waning on the idea already.
Especially when I found sites selling replica commodore cases for modern internals. It’s just not as fun anymore.
Daughter, grand daughter, great grandson arriving today.
Happy to see them come, fortunately only my daughter will stay here, the rest will be nearby at their in-laws and only visit here
A little bit of family goes along way, eh? I’m enjoying having having my daughter on vacation with us. Yesterday when we were out, she took my phone and enlarged all my my fonts so I could see my phone without my glasses that I forgot.
I have been listening to too many woke acolytes lately.
“Daughter, grand daughter, great grandson arriving today.”
I read this as some sort of inbred woke birth announcement.
I think the CO SC should kick McNuggets off of the McD’s menu.
Signed,
Potential McD’s customer which gives me standing to have the CO SC dictate terms to a private corporation.
This reads equally well as satire of New York and Chik Fil A
I’m getting a preview of the future. I got up before 6:30E. My wife got up even earlier. The heat is locked out until 8AM. The fireplace won’t turn on either. It’s 56 degrees in the house.
Biden is the best president ever! Kamala is really smart and did not get where she is by getting on her knees! AOC is the a brilliant economist. Please increase my social credit score so I can have some heat.
My toes are numb. I may go jump in the hot tub. It’s at 104.
What went wrong with your heat?
It not coming on even though the control says Heat is on.
I would address that with screwdriver and pliers. No house locks me out of my own comfort.
Sean is late today.
Wait, what?
Sorry, didn’t see you earlier.
I may be working/shooting the Area 8 match near Pittsburgh.
🙂
https://www.lehighvalleynews.com/allentown/booting-ups-driver-could-cost-allentown-parking-authority-supervisors-their-jobs-chairman
I don’t know how anyone thought that was a good idea.