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A Landslide Victory

Posted on December 11, 2013

Thank you to those that participated in the landslide vote for tile here at the Calypso Couple’s beach casa (Casa La Punta Es).  After viewing the Blog entry on several computers we realized the colors of the tiles were widely different depending on the monitor and video cards – so tough to make a decision.

And the WINNER is…

But since it was pretty much unanimous color was probably not a limiting factor. The consensus was the other two options were too busy and perhaps dizzying.

In any case with such overwhelming support for Tile Option 3 – we went ahead and ordered it – 14 boxes of some very large (55 X 55 centimeters or 21.5 inches square). Here is some irony. Anita tipped the two delivery hombres that transported the tile from the bed of a huge truck in the road to our driveway. The distance was about 12 feet. I, on the other hand, carried all 14 boxes upstairs to the second level. Thirteen steps and about 40 feet – no tip whatsoever!

Later we returned to Zetuna for trim tile. We wanted a contrasting colored edge running along the long sides of the room. We had samples to take home – but at the last minute we made a decision. We went with Oaxaca Rojo (44 X 44). Cut in half they will provide a burnt orange 22 centimeter border.

Then to Autocad to see if this was all going to work without a tile wet saw to make many cuts. In the salon we recently tiles we had to cut but one tile (nothing short of a miracle that).

 The Bedroom Tile Layout

We did go for number three and now have 14 boxes waiting to be laid. We are incorporating a trim tile on the long sides of the room. Our choice (and we almost put it to vote) is a tile called, “Oaxaca Rojo”. The name seems appropriate if nothing else.

A word about porcelain tile these days. During the last decade the tile industry has reinvented the way ceramic tiles are decorated and produced.  With the advent of new inkjet printer technology there is no longer a need for screen or roller printing methods.  Like screen and roller printing, the image of the design is first scanned, then modified on a computer.  However, with digital imaging the design can be almost instantly transferred to an inkjet printing machine, capable of printing any design with any desired color; virtually an infinite possibility of designs on not only flat surfaced tile but relief tile surfaces as well.

This is done by using a print style called Drop on Demand (DoD) and by utilizing a special type of printing device called a piezoelectric print head.  With these new tools the printer creates an identical picture of the digital image by propelling tiny drops of ink (measured in pico liters) onto the tile.  Because the inkjet machines fit perfectly into the manufacturing process they have been able to improve efficiency and allow for a higher degree of customization by allowing virtually an infinite possibility of design.

And possibly the best part of the new technology is the GREEN FACTOR!  With less set-up, less waste and vast speed increase to produce tile this process is a winner.

Tomorrow we start laying tile – pictures and experience report to follow. Stay Tuned!

This entry was posted in Around Mexico, building, Consumerism, FACTOID, Frugal Travelers, Oaxaca,Opinion, Puerto Escondido by John Calypso. Bookmark the permalink.

Pimientos...salads and sandwiches made to order! In the Roca Blanca, Zipolite...

Casa Orquidea Zipolite · 356 like this

December 6 at 7:31am · 

• Pimientos...salads and sandwiches made to order! In the Roca Blanca, Zipolite...

  

  Located on the main street of zipolite

Casa Orquidea Zipolite

Casa Orquidea Zipolite · 356 like this

November 20 at 10:51am · 

• 
  
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• feeling chilly?? come visit Oaxaca! Have an excellent vacation at Casa Orquidea Zipolite in Playa Zipolite !!

  
  

  

  We just do it better!

Zipolite, Mexico

http://www.thedangerz.com/zipolite-mexico-2/

Spearfishing Tournament Puerto Escondido Oaxaca 2013

Edición 9 puntos suspensivos

Bing Crosby With Chorus - Silent Night 1943

Traveling by bus from Huatulco to Pochutla Oaxaca

Viva Veracruz & Viva Puerto Escondido, Time to Pay Up

Time to Pay Up

Posted on December 10, 2013

Following along lately? Then you know we are in full Home Improvement mode here at Casa La Punta Es! Now we need your help.

We are tile flooring fans – even more so than wood flooring (the defacto U.S. standard). This is a good thing when living in Mexico – Mexico is all about TILE.

Locally here in Puerto Escondido there are a half dozen or more tile vendors and many installers. Our favorite, while somewhat frustrating occasionally, is Zetuna.

Lorena is our GO TO Salesperson – very knowledgeable 

We have some tile options for the master bedroom. We want your opinion on the best of a few choices we have narrowed things down to. Please don’t be shy – help us out here.

We will call this Sample 1:

We call this Sample 2:

Sample 3:

Please concentrate on the main tile(s). The rose border tile and the small designer trim does not count – just looking for your choice of best tile.

Please place your votes in the comment section. We need your help on this.

We have our work cutout for us – literally – Stay Tiled and Stay Tuned!

This entry was posted in building, Consumerism, Friends, Frugal Travelers, Opinion, Puerto Escondido byJohn Calypso. Bookmark the permalink.

Viva Veracruz & Viva Puerto Escondido, More Banking News

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Viva Veracruz & Viva Puerto Escondido

More Banking News

Posted on December 8, 2013

We interrupt our work in progress entry for this important update regarding expats and visitors to Mexico and the U.S. banking system.

If you have been reading along here then you know Bank of America has recently changed its free ATM withdrawal agreement with Santander Bank and Scotia Bank. Previously Bank of America customers could make ATM withdrawals for free at those Mexican banks.

Additionally they provided a favorable exchange rate of about two tenths of a peso fee for each U.S. or Canadian dollar exchanged. That was increased to one half peso taken from the exchange of each dollar to pesos.

Bank of America ATM withdrawals are now costing  from about $2 USD to as much as $20 USD..

Many expat residents in Mexico have maintained Bank of America accounts specifically for the reason of free ATM withdrawals and favorable exchange rates. Many.

There is now a petition circulating which it is important for everyone to sign.

Please sign the petition. Sign it even if you are not currently in Mexico or currently exchanging dollars for pesos.

Click Here for Bank of America Petition

In regard to all this Karina a member of Puerto Escondido Tom Zap Forum writes (we reproduce here with permission) BOLD emphasis is mine:

Karina [ PM ] [hide msgs from this user]Re: Bank of America Petition December 05, 2013 12:51AM

Registered: 6 years ago Posts: 124

I spent a rather unremarkable hour yesterday with the assistant manager, Scott Poindexter, at my local B of A branch in the U.S.

When I initially asked Scott to verify the new rules regarding ATM withdrawals outside of the U.S., he had not heard anything about it.

Fortunately for me, Scott and his new wife are interested in buying a place in the Playa del Carmen area and so will be spending some time in Mexico. Therefore, he had some particular motivation to find out the answer to my query.

After a number of phone calls on his part, he verified that B of A is no longer allowing withdrawals from Santander ATMs without a $5 transaction fee and a 3% foreign currency conversion fee. He wasn’t very happy about it either. According to the information he was given, B of A has not left the Global Alliance Network and still allows fee-free ATM transactions in other parts of the world. It was just severed its relationship with Santander/Scotia.

When I told him that there was a petition being circulated online against this move by B of A, he encouraged me to sign it and said that B of A actually pays attention to this sort of action by its account holders. So, for what it’s worth, it can’t hurt to sign the petition. For those who think it isn’t their problem because they don’t bank with B of A, your bank/credit union may be next.

And from another source:

“It’s fair to say that Bank of America (NYSE: BAC  ) is the pariah of the banking world. It found itself at the bottom of the heap in a J.D. Power survey of mortgage customers; it was the worst-performing bank on last year’s American Customer Satisfaction Index; and the industry publication American Banker recently announced that it has the lousiest reputation among both customers and noncustomers of any large lender in the country.” (Source HERE)

‘If I want to ruin my day, all I have to do is call up Bank of America,’ one commenter noted. ‘Bank of America engages in the biggest legal thievery in the USA,’ noted another. And ‘[Bank of America] takes perverse pleasure in hurting its customers,’ said a third.”

As suggested within the many comments made on our Forum taking all your money out of Bank of America has a profound effect on them. We suggest you consider changing banks if you have that option before you. Our current pick is Charles Schwab – you can read about that Here and Here.

Next time back to what we are up to.  Stay Tuned!

This entry was posted in Around Mexico, Consumerism, Corruption, Expatriots, Frugal Travelers, In The News, Opinion, Puerto Escondido, Shock & Dismay by John Calypso. Bookmark the permalink.

Poor Man’s Wood Posted on December 2, 2013 One knot in the clear finish of life at the edge of the Ocean is termites. Here at Casa La Punta Es and all of Puerto Escondido the termites are endemic.

Viva Veracruz & Viva Puerto Escondido

Musings from and about living in Mexico

Poor Man’s Wood

Posted on December 2, 2013    http://www.vivaveracruz.com/blog/?p=5368

One knot in the clear finish of life at the edge of the Ocean is termites.

Here at Casa La Punta Es and all of Puerto Escondido the termites are endemic. A cannonade of these bugs were here before us. Our beach casa came with a lot of pine furniture. We are not sure what the previous owner was thinking because soft pine is a consistent treat for these wood recyclers.

They are quite simply insuperable when owning anything of wood including but not limited to picture frames, books and doors: for example:

Three Years Ago This Was a Regular Looking Door

The Calypso Couple came to the beach as neophytes when it comes to termite experience having lived most of our lives in arid climes. Of course everyone has heard of these insects, but truly their ability to rapidly destroy wood is quite amazing to experience. Clean a sawdust pile from the base of a table leg only to find a still more heaping handful from their handiwork the next day.

A nice stout china cabinet was a feature of buying our beach chateau. It represented a reparation to the battle of hammering out a deal. But alas in short order we had to sadly cut the cabinet up in garbage collection sized pieces to remove it and the insect city within. As we pieced it out it was amazing to see the tubular paths winding within the thin cellulose remains of that fine cabinet.

Disappointed to be losing all the pine furniture we went on a mission to learn how we might battle these bugs. According to Wikipedia we read:

“As eusocial insects, termites live in colonies that, at maturity, number from several hundred to several million individuals. Colonies use decentralised, self-organised systems of activity guided by swarm intelligence which exploit food sources and environments unavailable to any single insect acting alone. A typical colony contains nymphs (semimature young), workers, soldiers, and reproductive individuals of both sexes, sometimes containing several egg-laying queens.”

SWARM INTELLIGENCE! OMG this was starting to take on the flavor of Hitchcock’s “The Birds”. We were under attack!

In the end we felt one needs to accept the vagaries of termites at the beach if we are to be happy here. So we started to convert everything wood to plastic and metals (which have their own susceptibilities to the beach climate).

All this while remaining wood lovers – especially me. Mostly known to the Calypsos in hearsay and cartoons termites soon became a total vexation.

Eventually we learned about some hardwoods that were termite resistant, even perhaps impervious to the critters. High on the list of surviving madera was Parota wood, described as “A poor man’s Koa Wood.”

We checked into Parota finding there were few if any poor men that could afford the stuff! Nothing was falling down. We tried to ignore the problem. Now in our third year here the framework around the side door which as is often the case is our principal entry portal was alarmingly exposed to rot (see top photo). Atop our things to do to the casa punch list became a new door and frame – side door.

Our neighbor Fernando who recently built some beautiful apartments contiguous to our property (short-term rentals – contact us for more information on availability) had some beautiful woodwork done there. We inquired as to who did the woodwork.

That tied us into Primitivo Soriano; better known as Tivo. A wood craftsman with a good reputation in our area.

Tivo came out and assessed all of our six wood doors (we have inside and out) as well as surveying our cabinets, tables and chairs etc.

One of two nice pine armoires that were here was on our list as the next item to be deconstructed for garbage pickup. Tivo declared it to be salvageable – for a price. Money was rapidly becoming a ‘price is no object’ condition – we wanted the bugs GONE!

With Tivo we prioritized the mission to eliminate termites! First would be the entry door, then the frame around the front door, then the munched armoire. The list started to grow and ‘price is no object’ started to swing back towards reality (you know how that pendulum sways).

Saturday the first item from our agreed upon list arrived for installation.

Undeniably Lovely Grained Parota

Three hours with Tivo and assistant working finally achieved door number one.

Installation Complete!

If you are moving to any of the fine beaches of Mexico consider termites; the bottom-line.Stay Tuned for more to this story.

This entry was posted in Around Mexico, building, Consumerism, Expatriots, Frugal Travelers, Mexico-Travel, Oaxaca, Puerto Escondido by John Calypso. Bookmark the permalink.

Great Gildersleeve Christmas Leroy Scooter 1946

How To Plan Your Finances For This Year’s Travel by paradise

New post on This Way To Paradise

How To Plan Your Finances For This Year’s Travel by paradise Travel is never a matter of money, but of courage.-Paulo Coelho The excuse most people give who want to travel but don't is that they can't afford it.  I am here to tell you that you can.  It just takes a bit of planning.  You have to make traveling a priority and put all of your focus on it if it's something that you want to do. Here are my recommendations on how to plan your finances for this year's travel. Photo by Images Money/Flickr CC 1.  Compare Bank Accounts It is  on my list of things to do to compare bank accounts in January.  January is when many banks offer promotions to try to get your business.  Some of them will even offer cash to get you to move your accounts over to them.  I would like to find a bank that offers cash back when I use my debit card.  You might as well earn interest on the money you are spending as well as saving, right? 2.  Have a Savings Account For A Travel Fund Having a savings account for travel is a great way to plan your finances for travel.  My goal this year is to try and improve my savings account balance.  I have decided that when I receive money that I will put ten percent in my travel savings account before I do anything else.  This is a great way to build a travel fund. 3.  Make Your Coffee And Meals At Home It's so easy to spend $3 here and there at coffee shops, but did you know that if you do this every day, you can easily spend almost $100 on coffee!! What would happen if you put that in your travel fund instead?  You would have $1200 at the end of the year.  Eating out is also so much more expensive than cooking at home.  There are so manygreat recipes on the internet that you don't even have to go out and buy a lot of expensive cookbooks to get started.  This is one of the greatest ways that I save money for travel and is a great way to plan your finances so that you are saving money each month.  4.  Get A Credit Card That Gives You Cash Back For What You Spend There are a lot of credit cards that will give you cash back for the money that you spend with them.  I actually make more money on the money that I spend than on what I save.  However to benefit from this, you must pay off your credit card balance every month.  When I use my credit card, I deduct the balance from my check register as if I've written a check.  I then have the credit card automatically deduct the full credit card balance from my checking account each month.  Do not fall victim to credit card debt!  So many people are in debt because they are paying interest on items that they didn't really need in the first place.  When you spend money, ask yourself if you would rather have the item you are buying or a dream trip around the world?  You will find yourself spending a lot less when you think about each purchase before making it. 5.  Make Use Of Free Travel Apps And Travel Websites There are a ton of travel apps and websites that can save you money for your trip and help you plan your finances. With these apps, you can find cheap airfare, hotel rooms, and discounted meals at restaurants. Don't forget to consider alternatives to hotel stays such as couch surfing or house sitting. paradise | December 11, 2013 at 2:10 pm | URL: http://wp.me/p359Wl-UV

Open Mic Night, Livelula bar, los miercoles 8:30pm, with The Zipolite Beach Billies

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Andrew Sisters Christmas Special 1945

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Casa Orquidea Zipolite

Stacy Lynn

Bienvenidos a nuestra casa ... privada y segura en Zipolite, con vista espectacular... excelente lugar para sus vacaciones!

Welcome to our... private and secure home in Zipolite, with spectacular view...-excellent place for your vacation! (Translated by Bing)

Casa Orquidea Zipolite

Casa Orquidea Zipolite is a beautiful, large (1600 sq. feet/150 sq meters) and private new vacation rental home overlooking Zipolite town and beach with a spectacular sunset view from all rooms of the house, outdoor patios and garden. It has two spacious bedrooms on the second floor with ceiling fa...