auto auctions

Yun and I have been buying cars at auction for years. We’ve gone through many a car. The beauty of the process is that we buy cars for cash that we wouldn’t normally be able to afford. We drive them for a while and then typically sell them for what we paid for them (which turns out to be a pretty good deal for everyone).

Since we’re hoping to open a pharmacy in Mexico within the month, we might be traveling into Mexico every other weekend. Currently, we don’t have anything even remotely fuel efficient. So over the last week, we’ve been bidding on vehicles which are super fuel efficient (30-40mpg hwy).

One such auction ends tomorrow morning at 8am. We’re hoping to win a 2010 Ford Focus. Not a spectacular looking car, but with 30,000 miles, we’d get some mileage out of it.

Here are some photos:

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Homemade multi grain pizza

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Yun has skills when it comes to making pizza. Many of the vegetables on this one came from the garden.

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Sunday evening dinner tradition

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Carne asada traditions

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Our Sunday evening taco tradition continues.

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Saturday breakfast

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Guaymas July 2012

We took a trip down to Guaymas this weekend. It was a nice weekend getaway, but incredibly hot. We’re not used to this sort of humidity in Tucson. The sea offered little to escape the heat as water temperatures were in the low 90s.

We arrived around midnight on Friday. Abe always carries a well stocked fridge for nourishment. This provided the energy to discuss future business plans until the sun came up around 6am. With only a few hours of sleep, I was mostly destroyed on Saturday. Fortunately it doesnt take a lot of energy to lay on the beach, which comprised most of the day’s agenda.

We did get a chance to visit Abe’s future residence. It is not too far from his current home, but not on the beach. That probably has some advantages, despite the obvious disadvantages. It has a lot of outdoor space, much unlike his current place. Parking will certainly never be an issue again.

Scout will miss the early mornings on the beach more than anyone. Although, physically he is not quite the same since his leg injury from the demon cat. We also dont run him in the desert like we used to. I suspect he would be back to his old ways with another week of this level of activity.

We are on our way home now, having left a couple hours ago. Tragically, I forgot to replace the oil cap when I topped the truck up before leaving. This was brought to our attention with smoke streaming from the hood. Never a comforting sight, but it didnt amount to too much. Abe was kind enough to deliver some oil as we were not even out of Guaymas when my transgression was made evident. He was given a free t-shirt with his oil purchase which I now have as a special reminder to not do that again.

We did stop to purchase sea food before departure. We bought a couple kilos of red snapper and shrimp. Unfortunately they were out of scallops. Sea food is quite cheap there. The prices below are per kilo (in pesos).

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The drive home is always better than the drive down. I have yet to figure out why.

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The fat wars begin..

I weigh in at a rather disgusting 200 lbs these days. I am hoping to turn things around today. I hope to accomplish this by eating healthy (not easy) and by working out (also not easy).

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Killer

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new phones!

 

A couple years ago, we purchased the Incredible the weekend it was released. It has proved itself to be an excellent phone over the years and still operates at a level on par with many new phones released today.

We recently upgraded our phones to the Samsung Galaxy S3. This is the next best thing since the Incredible years ago. Generally we’re not early adopters, but our last couple of phones have put us into that camp. So far we’re extremely impressed. They are lightening fast and nothing on the market even comes close. The next iPhone to be released (the i5) will technologically behind this phone.

This seems like a good purchase.

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community garden

We had our monthly community garden meeting early this morning. By 8 am it was already mid 90s. The meetings are always fun and informative, particularly as Arizona gardening seems so especially difficult in light of the the climate. You can see above there are a number of gardens growing really well.

Here are a few things I learned today.

Lemons and grapefruit trees are especially easy to grow in Tucson. We’re adding three trees to the garden.
Soil pH is measured on a scale of 0 to 14. Battery acid is around a 0 and lye is around a 14. Each number on the scale is separated by a factor of 10 (so 2 is 10 times more alkaline than 1). Distilled water is around a 7 (which is considered neutral). The pH level determines the availability of nutrients and micro-organisms. Tucson soil is around 8 or higher. Our water here is also high in pH.
Soil pH levels cans be lowered through amendment. Sulfur is slow, but effective when worked into the top 6 inches of the soil. Lots of organic material in the soil helps. However, to break down the organic material (to improve pH levels) comes at the expense of nitrogen. Nitrogen levels will then need to be replaced. Manure is helpful for this. Bone and blood meal do the same.  Earthworms are great for soil.

What to start growing now? Okra and black-eyed peas. Black-eyed peas grow us a bush, so no trellis necessary.

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