And we have functioning printers again!
The newest cheap-o cartridge for my laser printer was acting up. Over the printed text there were often undulating lines of smeared text. Not so horrible if I was printing a page of a spreadsheet (just print them again until you get a clear version), but really aggravating when printing a transcript for proofing. There was often no way to tell what the text underneath those undulating lines said! [Hope it was right, as it couldn't be read.]
I had gotten a new cartridge that still exhibited this problem. Thought I could solve it by purchasing a new ID tag for the cartridge. Thought - yeah, this is the solution, but as it turns out, the tag that came as part of the refilled cartridge was stuck on with blobs of glue. No joy in Mudville here!
And we couldn't use Michael's printer because it just stopped printing! The new ink cartridge wouldn't fit into place regardless of what we tried.
And after Michael printed a portion of the transcript on my printer and then had to go through and re-print the messed-up pages individually, he announced that it was time to replace both of the printers.
Now, the Office Depot had had printers on sale several weeks ago and he talked me out of buying one for $79 pesos (about $5.25 USD at the exchange rate at that time). (Of course they used the older model of toner cartridges that fitted them - and are no longer manufactured; thank you,Michael.) Obviously today's cartridge refills were full price, but that's how printer manufacturers make money: sell the printer cheap and stick it to the users on the required toner cartridges.
So checking out Office Depot on-line, and comparing what they had in stock with what we needed to replace our current printers, we identified some options. While the most viable option was to get two of the same B/W printers, Michael had had a printer/scanner/color printer and I wanted to get the same for him again.
So we hemmed and hawed and eventually flagged down an employee to make our needs known. We bought a returned Canon scanner/printer/color printer for Michael that was on sale (and since someone had taken it home, it came with both the black and the tri-color cartridges in it at no extra charge. My laser printer was on sale for less than half of the laser cartridge - and it came with one in it (although no knowing that, I now have a spare cartridge).
So the total was about a little less than $2500 pesos - or at today's exchange rate (which was a little over $16 pesos to the dollar!), about $154 USD! Yippee!!!! So we celebrated with lunch at the local McDonald's - where they cook to order - and we ran into a friend who had questions about converting a Residente Temporale visa to a Residente Permanente visa that we were happy to answer.
Once we got home, we quickly installed the new drivers for Michael's Canon and my Samsung printers and they are operational and networked.
Whew!!!!
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Monday, August 17, 2015
Dental News
Although I still haven't managed to add the photos to my exposé on the cobblestones here in San Miguel, I have celebrated the end of my dental process with photos of my walk to the dental clinic that's been doing the work.
This photo is taken from the parking area of the best gym in town (at our corner, too, not that it matters) looking across the highway that goes to Celaya and Costco/Home Depot/Sam's Club. This is where I time my crossing carefully to make it across the road between the cars speeding down the highway towards the glorieta (roundabout) where the highway meets the Libramiento (ring road) around town. Reminds me of those warning signs on the Interstate 5 near the border control point that warn of people crossing the highway - only we don't have any warning signs here. It's take your life in your hands time!
The shop on the left is the Pharmacia Guadelejara - a good source for inexpensive drugs. Antibiotics (and perhaps some other drugs) require a prescription, but otherwise it's walk up and place your order.
Next to the pharmacy is a building that formerly held a Brazilian restaurant (recently closed) and then an appliance store for upscale kitchen hardware. The brownish buildings at the far end are part of a small shopping center with offices, shops, restaurants, and a bank.
After crossing the highway I walk in front of these buildings and turn left into the shopping center at the bus stop where there's usually a small crowd milling around. An intercity bus (Coordinados) stops there as well as an intracity bus that heads out to the sports center (Unidos Deportiva) outside of town. Some of the intracity buses fo three-quarters of the way around the glorieta, depositing passengers safely at the Mega parking lot; others drive straight through the glorieta and drop passengers for Mega at this point.
This is the shopping center. Shops and restaurants along the left side; more of the same at the far end. The unfinished building in the center of the photo is unnamed at this time; probably a restaurant with underground parking (the building took over part of the parking spaces) They've been working on it for about a year now. I walk through this center towards the back and out to the Libramiento.
Leaving the shopping center I walk on the sidewalk (!) past the TelCel offices (the cell phone service which we use - the driveways are for their parking lot). When the sidewalk ends (and it does), it's on to the dirt path alongside the Libramiento.
Here's the walk alongside the highway. We walk on the dirt path rather than the paved shoulder because cars zip past on the roadway as they come up the hill and make the curve (we hope) - and they're not too careful about observing the painted line denoting where the shoulder is located! Shoulders are used for many things here in Mexico: pulling over to let another vehicle pass; passing another vehicle; driving on when you're a slower car than others in your lane.
This photo shows the edge of the parking lot for the new Burger King (just out of sight), the Pemex station next door, and some offices along the Libramiento. There is no sidewalk here, so one has to be careful of cars entering/leaving both the gas station and the new fast-food restaurant. At the far end of the picture is the used car display area for the local Nissan dealer.
Having made it safely this far, we then head off overland on this little path, cross a cobblestone road, walk past the next set of offices (sort of maroon in the picture), then walk along the shoulder (watching for on-coming traffic) and eventually reach the dental clinic (it's in the building in the distance). The whole trip takes 15-20 minutes and you hope there's no rain 'cuz those dirt paths turn into mud holes!
On Saturday I finally had my permanent bridge cemented into place (it fits so much better than the temporary, which kept coming unglued between appointments). There's only a second cleaning left for this afternoon and I'm free! Until next year or until something else goes wrong with my mouth! I've been dealing with this process since May, when a tooth broke. Of course, we had a 5-week cruise booked for later that month, so the process has taken a little bit longer than normal, but my mouth is back to near-normal.
This photo is taken from the parking area of the best gym in town (at our corner, too, not that it matters) looking across the highway that goes to Celaya and Costco/Home Depot/Sam's Club. This is where I time my crossing carefully to make it across the road between the cars speeding down the highway towards the glorieta (roundabout) where the highway meets the Libramiento (ring road) around town. Reminds me of those warning signs on the Interstate 5 near the border control point that warn of people crossing the highway - only we don't have any warning signs here. It's take your life in your hands time!
The shop on the left is the Pharmacia Guadelejara - a good source for inexpensive drugs. Antibiotics (and perhaps some other drugs) require a prescription, but otherwise it's walk up and place your order.
Next to the pharmacy is a building that formerly held a Brazilian restaurant (recently closed) and then an appliance store for upscale kitchen hardware. The brownish buildings at the far end are part of a small shopping center with offices, shops, restaurants, and a bank.
After crossing the highway I walk in front of these buildings and turn left into the shopping center at the bus stop where there's usually a small crowd milling around. An intercity bus (Coordinados) stops there as well as an intracity bus that heads out to the sports center (Unidos Deportiva) outside of town. Some of the intracity buses fo three-quarters of the way around the glorieta, depositing passengers safely at the Mega parking lot; others drive straight through the glorieta and drop passengers for Mega at this point.
This is the shopping center. Shops and restaurants along the left side; more of the same at the far end. The unfinished building in the center of the photo is unnamed at this time; probably a restaurant with underground parking (the building took over part of the parking spaces) They've been working on it for about a year now. I walk through this center towards the back and out to the Libramiento.
Leaving the shopping center I walk on the sidewalk (!) past the TelCel offices (the cell phone service which we use - the driveways are for their parking lot). When the sidewalk ends (and it does), it's on to the dirt path alongside the Libramiento.
Here's the walk alongside the highway. We walk on the dirt path rather than the paved shoulder because cars zip past on the roadway as they come up the hill and make the curve (we hope) - and they're not too careful about observing the painted line denoting where the shoulder is located! Shoulders are used for many things here in Mexico: pulling over to let another vehicle pass; passing another vehicle; driving on when you're a slower car than others in your lane.
This photo shows the edge of the parking lot for the new Burger King (just out of sight), the Pemex station next door, and some offices along the Libramiento. There is no sidewalk here, so one has to be careful of cars entering/leaving both the gas station and the new fast-food restaurant. At the far end of the picture is the used car display area for the local Nissan dealer.
Having made it safely this far, we then head off overland on this little path, cross a cobblestone road, walk past the next set of offices (sort of maroon in the picture), then walk along the shoulder (watching for on-coming traffic) and eventually reach the dental clinic (it's in the building in the distance). The whole trip takes 15-20 minutes and you hope there's no rain 'cuz those dirt paths turn into mud holes!
On Saturday I finally had my permanent bridge cemented into place (it fits so much better than the temporary, which kept coming unglued between appointments). There's only a second cleaning left for this afternoon and I'm free! Until next year or until something else goes wrong with my mouth! I've been dealing with this process since May, when a tooth broke. Of course, we had a 5-week cruise booked for later that month, so the process has taken a little bit longer than normal, but my mouth is back to near-normal.
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