los cabos part two

[jazzfish]

Crap crap crap. Had a post about two-thirds written about the tail end of the Los Cabos trip and the computer crashed on me, and now it's gone and I can't find it in me to rewrite it.

It was a good trip. Restful. Maybe the first trip I've taken where I wasn't ready to just be home at the end of it. I can't claim my brain has fully regrown but it may be getting there.

Highlights:

• Glassblowing: still the neatest thing ever.
  
• The beach road to Cabo Pulmo National Park was the least roadlike road I have ever driven or ridden on. Two and a half hours to go 60 km. It seemed as though some years ago someone just came through with a bulldozer, and since then it's cracked and potholed and collapsed in all kinds of interesting ways. We were driving a Chevy Aveo; literally every car that passed us was some sort of 4x4, except for the confused Japanese tourists who were also in some sort of subcompact.
  
• The snorkeling at Cabo Pulmo was totally worth it, though. I mean, the snorkeling itself had plenty of bright fish and coral reefs, but I tend to hit fish-fatigue quickly, and one bright fish looks about like another. But the guide took us out to see a small pod of whales playing, which was awesome, and a flock of manta rays popcorning up out of the water, which was even more awesome. They just kind of jump up and flapflapflap and bellyflop. Adorable. Plus we got to snorkel with sea lions.
  
• Lots of good art at the Art Walk on Thursday night, including one painting of an evening rainstorm that got its effect by being mostly in blue with pinscratches for the rain.
  
• Two weeks later I still reflexively say "hola" when I'm greeted upon entering a store. Language is weird. I think I regret not having a use for learning to speak a new language. I remember enough Latin to pick out words & phrases in written Spanish, and that coupled with E's mostly-forgotten high school Spanish (and the fact that most everyone speaks English anyway) was enough to get by.

And then work got very very stupid last week. On occasion they need to light a fire under the developers, so they pretend they're going to be shipping software to customers in a week. This is obviously false but it's from higher-ups so it has just enough plausibility that we have to get everything ready to go out. Then it doesn't ship for two more weeks anyway. Oh well.

This week hasn't been so bad; mostly it's been reorienting to being home and to a normal schedule. Yay.