Doing business with Third World countries is obligatory, because all corporate overlords care more about skimming a few more cents of profit from the activity for the shareholders (including executive salaries and bonuses, most especially) than they do about the long-term health of their customer base, their communities, or even their own organization, which ultimately they tend to find disposable. If a corporation is no longer able to provide earnings for shareholders, it's discarded and the investment is moved to someone who does. Truly, corporate America is more like ravening plagues of locusts than the responsible capitalism that we're promised in our economics classes that describe the theory.
But to that point, we have to do business with Mexico. I was scheduled to go to Mexico next week, to visit one supplier in Ciudad Juarez, across the river from El Paso, TX on Tuesday, and then another one in Ciudad Acuña, across that same border from Del Rio, TX. This meant that I was going to travel by air on Monday, be there Monday night, have a (relatively) leisurely 6 to 6½ drive across quiet country roads in west Texas on Wednesday. Maybe a little longer, because I'd stop for a leisurely lunch in Fort Davis, which wasn't too far out of my way, and do a little site-seeing in the Davis Mountains, which I haven't seen in 15-16 years or so, and then arrive in Del Rio with plenty of time. Both evenings, it'd be easy for me to spend a couple of hours or so in the hotel reading my Manual of the Planes, or whatever other books I brought with me. As noted in my last post, I have an odd habit of bringing Manual of the Planes with me on business trips, but I'm not coincidentally re-reading it right now and utilizing some of its material for setting development; especially for EFX/Realms Traveler, but maybe even somewhat for DFX here and there too.
However, as the link above notes, Mexico is not a super predictable place. I had already made these travel plans when the government decided that October 1st is going to be a mandatory day off for all workers, with only about a week's worth of notice. Now, I will either 1) stay home until Wednesday, and just see the second supplier, without going to El Paso, Ciudad Juarez, Fort Davis or any of that at all, or 2) fly into El Paso on Tuesday instead of Monday, see the facility in Juarez much more quickly just in the morning of Wednesday, and then have a much less leisurely drive across Texas... although I'll still probably get a late lunch or early dinner in Fort Davis, and hopefully see the Davis Mountains long before it's dark, and then get into Del Rio at or around dark thirty. It's a six and a half hour drive from El Paso to Del Rio; about fifteen minutes out of my way to stop at Fort Davis, but of course, I'll need to get gas, I'll need to eat lunch/dinner, and I can't stand going out to the west and not seeing something. Seminole Canyon State Park a little outside Del Rio and on the way is probably going to be out of the question; even if it's not dark, it'll be closed. Luckily, I'll probably get back to Del Rio again for other business, but the drive from El Paso to was an unusual if not unique opportunity. I'm quite disappointed; I can still squeeze most of what I want out of the trip, including the fun stuff for me during the traveling, but it won't be as relaxed or leisurely, and I won't have as much free time to read in the evenings either.
And then, on Thursday, I drive from Del Rio to San Antonio, see my sister briefly, and take off the next morning to come home.
That's a whole lot of personal detail, but it may well mean that I'll read less. On the other hand, I was initially annoyed in the first place because my work trip is the same week that my wife will be out of town. When I'm no longer traveling, maybe I'll be reading more rather than less. She'll also be gone over the weekend, and although I do have some things I need to do over the weekend, I can still find, I think, lots of time to read or do other things in between doing those things.
Other than reading some old D&D books that I've already read and have owned for years (but which I'm really enjoying rediscovering, and they're still in Very Good or even Like New condition, because I'm always careful with my books), I also want to spend some time in the next couple of weeks wrapping up the Cult of Undeath fronts, and tying that whole 5x5 up before Halloween. That would be an appropriate Halloween activity to finish a 5x5 Front called Cult of Undeath, I think. And I want to create a new batch of iconics. The ones that I created previously ended up getting kind of coopted either into samples for the fronts, potential novel characters, or contacts. I now have a bunch of new races, and I'd like to turn those into more iconics.
Then, in November and December, I'd like to modify the DFX rules to have an EFX variant, and get rolling on my Solo Shadows Over Garenport stuff. Pretty ambitious, but I think that if I don't have some ambitious goals, I end up just frittering away my free time, and honestly, that kind of sucks.
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| Captain Borus, friendly and helpful Garenport NPC |
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