Macro

Most of my free time over the last few days has been spent trying to implement the comments section on this site. Something that would have been super straightforward on a regular CMS is not quite so for a static site. Initially I tinkered with the idea of side-loading the comments feature over to the fediverse. It worked okay but it did feel quite choppy. Looking around a bit, I decided to give ISSO a chance. It seemed to have all the features I was looking for and was reasonably easy to setup. As with most things tech though, I had quite some difficulty tweaking it to work the way I wanted it to. Taking a break and getting back to it after a few days, did get me to approach this from a different perspective and I think it’s super close to where I’d like it to be. ...

A few weeks ago I sent out a poll to the ESC group to gauge interest in a group hike at Nevado de Toluca. There was reasonable interest and we slotted this to be a family hike on the 24th. The Padilla’s and Johnston’s had to drop off last minute. It was just going to be Hadley and the Arturo’s now with the three of us. We reached the Shuttle point around 1015, hopped in a shuttle and got to the trail-head around 1100. Couldn’t wait to hop off the shuttle - the gasoline stench coupled with the super dusty windy roads was more than churning my tummy. S did terrific with no complaints! ...

Bacalar has been on our travel list for quite sometime now. Between work travel, syncing our individual schedules and just getting around to actually booking the trip; we finally get around visiting this beautiful place this weekend in November. As we get off the plane, we’re immediately hit by a waft of the Yucatán humidity, soon followed by thick droplets of rain. Strikes me just then that we’re also right in the midst of the hurricane season. A quick lookup on the weather forecast reveals Hurricane Sara would be swinging past us and into the Gulf of Mexico in a bit. I slap myself on my wrist for not doing any research beforehand but also shrug this minor oversight very quickly. How bad could it actually be? Maybe some showers here and there? We walk outside the Chetumal airport for about 500m and take a taxi from the main road to Bacalar. Oscar offers to take us there for 550 pesos. This was about 50 pesos shy of the amount the tour planner had quoted. M immediately accepts and we’re on our way. First impressions of this place immediately remind me of Trivandrum - lush green vistas with coconut trees strewn all around, narrow roads and barely any traffic. There’s construction for Tren Maya happening along the route but it barely impacts our drive. In about 50 minutes we reach the hotel and check-in. ...