It's the Gulf of Mexico, stupid

After assuming the presidency for the second time last week, one of Donald Trump's first acts was to sign an Executive Order changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America." His order also reverts the name of the Alaskan mountain Denali to its former name of Mount McKinley.

Like everything else that Donald Trump does, this is stupid and performative. The Gulf of Mexico is an international body of water - the United States' jurisdiction over it extends only twelve miles beyond its coastline - and has been known as such for centuries:

The Gulf of Mexico has had its name for about 400 years. In his book, The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation, published in 1589, English geographer Richard Hakluyt calls the water body “Gulfe of Mexico”. In Mexico, the gulf is also called by its Spanish name, El Golfo de Mexico.

Trump can rename the Gulf of Mexico for his domestic audience, but the rest of the world does not have to go with that name change, since there are no international laws that decide what a common maritime space or a disputed territory is called universally.

The practical effect of this name change is minimal - most people I know, myself included, just call it "the Gulf" - but the idea that the 600,000-square-mile Gulf of Mexico's name can be summarily changed for the sake of political aggrandizement or "owning the libs" or whatever is mind-numbingly stupid. 

Aside from the fact that it needlessly causes confusion (especially given that the word "America" appears in the name of both of the Western Hemisphere's continents) and is wasteful (think of all the money the federal government is going to have to spend re-printing maps and updating geographic databases), it creates an unnecessary, even if minor, disruption to the lives and habits of the millions of people who live along the Gulf of Mexico and have always known it as such.

Other countries will not recognize Trump's new name for the Gulf. A lot of Americans themselves won't, either: a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll indicated that 70% of Americans oppose renaming the body of water. The Associated Press will continue to refer to it as the "Gulf of Mexico" as well. 

One place where you will see the new name is on Google Maps; the company is caving to Trump's decree and will begin using the new name in their maps platforms. That decision is generating backlash here and abroad; it is unclear if other mapping platforms like Apple or Mapquest will make the name change as well. 

I will continue to refer to it as the Gulf of Mexico.

If you're looking for alternatives to Google Maps, here are some apps to consider. Texas Monthly offers some other possible names for the Gulf.

The great Topo Chico shortage of 2021

Forget toilet paper, lumber, microchips and everything else that has been or is in short supply due to the pandemic. This is the real crisis:

Texans, a distressing drink shortage is plaguing our great state, well, the nation actually. Topo Chico, a beverage many here in the Lone Star State hold near and dear to our hearts is being swept off shelves faster than the company can restock it. Stated bluntly, we’re experiencing a nationwide Topo Chico shortage , and, we might add, in the middle of a scorching summer.

A spokesperson for Topo Chico told KPRC 2 that the company’s experiencing a temporary shortage due to “extremely strong consumer demand and a shortage of raw materials,” adding that the company’s stock of Topo Chico “is temporarily tight across the country.”

“We’re working hard and implementing contingency plans to keep the products people love on shelves during this temporary shortage,” the company told KPRC 2.

Some news stories have indicated that the shortage is due to a lack of glass, but I've noticed that the 16-ounce plastic bottles of the Mexican sparkling water have also been difficult to find. They haven't been on the shelves at H.E.B. in a few weeks, nor have the pallets of plastic bottles (which I regularly buy) been available at Costco lately. For whatever the reason, Topo Chico (in any form) is simply hard do come by right now.

In many ways, this is my worst fear: has Topo Chico finally become "so popular that demand overwhelms the amount of water that the plant in Monterrey is able to produce, and the drink becomes increasingly expensive and hard to find," as I wrote a few years ago?

Texas Monthly's Emily McCullar, on the other hand, suggests that "maybe we should take advantage of this forced break between Texans and our Topo" to try other, Texas-produced mineral waters: 

These days, there are approximately one trillion sparkling water brands that you can get from H-E-B, Target, Brookshire Brothers, Lowe’s, and everywhere else. Sure, when Topo Chico was coming up, the only other brand widely available was LaCroix, which has tiny gentle bubbles and goes flat in half an hour, so Topo was obviously king. But now we have Austin-based companies like Rambler, which has a refreshingly potent carbonation, and Waterloo, which is killing it in the “flavor essence” game (I personally ride hard for Black Cherry, which tastes like a not-sugary Hi-C). Big Swig is out here getting wild with prickly pear, pickle juice, and jalepeño flavors; and you can always count on Richard’s Rainwater to cool you off in a pinch. Don’t even get me started on H-E-B, which has not only its own line of flavored canned waters but also the glass-bottled 1877 Mineral Water, which is just as good as Topo Chico, if not better. 

This is simply wrong. H-E-B's 1877 product is okay, but it's not nearly as carbonated as Topo Chico, and I certainly don't think it tastes any better. As for flavored waters, I'm not a fan in general. While I will keep an eye out for Rambler, I simply haven't found a sparkling water that comes close to Topo Chico in terms of flavor and feel. If that makes me a mineral water snob, so be it.

Here's to hoping that the folks at Topo Chico (as well as their overlords at Coca-Cola) find a way to address the shortage soon. Football season is just a few weeks away; I shudder to think about having to tailgate without a cold Topo in hand.

Puerto Vallarta video

I put together a short (under six minute) video of last summer's trip to Puerto Vallarta, featuring the beach view from our timeshare, a Pacific sunset, dive-bombing pelicans, a trip to Las Caletas, and a view of the city from a party boat. Enjoy!


I'm also working on a video for the 2018 Eurotrip and will hopefully have that up soon.

Puerto Vallarta 2019: Pictures, Dining Guide Update, and Timeshares

The summer of 2019 is at its end, which means it’s time to take a break from all my posts about 2018's summer vacation trip to write something about this summer’s vacation trip: Puerto Vallarta. Puerto Vallarta (which itself is located in the Jalisco state, although a lot of the newer resort development is occurring in the Nayarit state directly to the north) is my favorite Mexican vacation spot, which makes it somewhat surprising that this was my first trip there in over a decade.

First, Some Pictures:


The Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe features a wrought-iron crown atop its bell tower. It is located in the center of the city; it is an easily-recognizable landmark as well as a symbol of Puerto Vallarta.

Another symbol of Puerto Vallarta is the Seahorse Monument, or "El Caballito," located along the seawall. The painted letters are a more recent addition.

A view of the water from the Puerto Vallarta seawall, or "Malecón." Puerto Vallarta sits at the eastern end of Banderas Bay, which is part of the Pacific Ocean. That means the sunsets are awesome.

A view of Puerto Vallarta's hillsides from our waterfront timeshare. In addition to being a resort, Puerto Vallarta is also a top retirement destination. Some of those properties on the hills sell to American expats at rather substantial prices.

A view of Puerto Vallarta from the sea, featuring the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe to the right. Puerto Vallarta occupies a relatively narrow bit of land between the sea and the mountains, and the dramatic topography is part of the city's charm.

As I said in a previous picture, Puerto Vallarta's location on the east end of Banderas Bay means that it is the perfect Pacific sunset-watching locale. I took this picture from the balcony of my timeshare, and I waited until the sailboat was in the perfect spot. Sometimes I'm a decent photographer.

Another view of Puerto Vallarta from the sea. The construction of high-rise hotels and timeshares continues apace, especially on the north side of the city.

While Corinne, Kirby and I were in Vallarta, we spent the week eating, drinking, sleeping, soaking in the pool, sitting on the beach, and looking at sunsets. In other words, we had an ideal vacation.

Updated Puerto Vallarta Dining Guide:

Back in 2007, I wrote about my impressions of Puerto Vallarta restaurants that I enjoyed (or thought were overrated). Some of the restaurants I listed in that post are gone, others have moved, others have changed names. I've decided to update and distill my Puerto Vallarta restaurant list to five establishments that have stood the test of time (I’ve eaten at each of them at least twice) and are, in my opinion, among the most reliable and highest-quality dining experiences in Puerto Vallarta. This is not to say that any of these five places are the "best" restaurants in PVR, but you can't go wrong by eating at any of them.

Rio Grande (Av. Mexico 1175): They serve all kinds of dishes here, but seafood is their specialty (especially red snapper!). Good service and reasonable prices.

La Bodguita del Medio (Paseo Díaz Ordaz 858): The Puerto Vallarta location of this Havana-inspired restaurant has been a local fixture for many years. They have all your Cuban favorites: sandwiches, pork, rice, black beans, plantains and - yes - amazing mojitos. They have live music in the evening, so it can get loud. They sell cuban cigars, too.

The Pancake House (Basilo Badillo 289): This place was called Memo’s Pancake House at one point. It’s reverted to a more generic name, but it's just a good as I remembered. You’re going to have trouble finishing the stacks of big, fluffy pancakes that come in a variety of preparations, such as the “Black Forest” pancakes with chocolate and strawberries topped with whipped cream. They also have waffles, omelets, and Mexican breakfast specialties such as heuvos rancheros, huevos Mexicana, or Chilaquiles. Open until 2 pm.

El Andariego (Av. Mexico 1358): Good food, good service, and you get to sample their in-house tequila. What's not to like? Their murals are pretty cool, too.

The Blue Shrimp (Olas Altas 336): Since my last trip, this establishment has moved to a new location along the beachfront in the Zona Romantica (they've also opened a second location in Nueva Vallarta). They still offer shrimp prepared a variety of ways, as well as excellent cocktails and appetizers. This is not the cheapest place to eat in town, but you will not leave hungry.

Honorable Mention: pretty much any street taco stand. You obviously can’t go wrong if you eat where the locals eat, and there's just nothing better than a plate of authentic tacos al pastor. Two of my favorites are Tacos el Punto (Av. Mexico 1225) and El Carboncito (Calle Honduras 127); these are around the corner from each other and I'm familiar with them because they are close to my timeshare. Just be aware that many of these places don’t speak much English or accept anything other than cash.

I’ve also heard good things about El Barracuda, but I didn’t get a chance to eat there this time around (which is a shame because it was literally just down the street from my small timeshare). Guess that just means that I’ll go back.

Be aware that many restaurants will have people out in front of them, wielding menus and trying to get you to eat there as you walk by with the promise of a special drink or free appetizer. This practice can be annoying, but does not necessarily suggest anything about the quality of the restaurant (e.g. "that place is so bad that they have to beg people to eat there!"). It is simply a function of intense competition for tourist pesos in a city with a lot of restaurants. (Truth be told, I am convinced that you really have to try to find bad food in Puerto Vallarta.)

This practice is especially prevalent along the Malecón (which they improved since the last time I was there; what used to be a busy street along the waterfront is now a wide pedestrian promenade). The guy in front of El Jardin de Pancho Villa (Paseo Díaz Ordaz 732) discovered we were from Texas (he said he grew up in east Austin) and harangued us every day until we finally relented and ate there. It turned out to be a good place to stop for nachos and margaritas, which were pretty strong for their price. However, there was another establishment further down the seawall (towards the church and town square) that we ate at after being given a voucher for a free appetizer. The food was decent, but I can’t recommend this place because a so-called "tour operator" approached our table several times over the course of our lunch. I have a huge problem with restaurants that allow timeshare reps to disturb their customers while they are eating. Speaking of which...

Timeshares:

As I've previously explained, timeshares are a big deal in Puerto Vallarta. This is not necessarily a bad thing - the reason my family and I have cumulatively spent so much time in Puerto Vallarta is because of the three timeshare properties World InternationalVacation Club operates in the city. Puerto Vallarta relies on tourism, and timeshares are an important part of that industry. That being said, for a while the timeshare wranglers were as annoying as they were ubiquitous; it was impossible to walk down the sidewalk without being accosted by multiple people aggressively offering you "free" tours or dinner cruises or tequila or other gifts: all you had to do to get them was subject yourself to an hours-long, high-pressure sales pitch aimed at getting you to spend tens of thousands of dollars on unit-week at a local resort.

On this trip, however, the aforementioned encounter at the restaurant was one of the more egregious timeshare pitches I experienced. Maybe it’s simply because I’m more wary of the timeshare wranglers and go out of my way to avoid them, or maybe it's because the timeshare industry has generally evolved, but there just didn’t seem to be as much "in-your-face" timeshare-pitch activity this time around. There were fewer wranglers manning kiosks along Avenida Mexico or the seawall approaching tourists as they walked by. There also didn’t seem to be as many tequila shops offering “free” bottles of tequila. In fact, there were plenty of establishments with signs saying “NO TIMESHARE” at their entrances, suggesting an awareness that tourists had become weary of these gimmicks.

To be sure, there is still the “timeshare gauntlet” at Puerto Vallarta’s airport. This is a room between the customs area and the ground transportation/exit area that arriving passengers are forced to walk through as they leave the terminal and where timeshare wranglers aggressively pitch “free” hotel transportation to incoming passengers. I find it rather obnoxious that something like this was designed into an airport's physical layout, but it is what it is. The best way to deal with the gauntlet is to walk with your baggage as quickly as possible, make no eye contact, and politely say “no thank you” to the people asking which hotel you’re staying at.



This particular trip was my first experience using Southwest's international services out of Hobby. I have no complaints about that service - Southwest isn't fancy, but it is reliable - or customs at Hobby. My only gripe is the customs and immigrations setup at Puerto Vallarta's airport: it is very slow, and in combination with the timeshare gauntlet, makes the airport an exasperating experience.

But Puerto Vallarta itself is worth it. So I'll keep going back.

Countries I've visited, 2018 edition

It's been a couple of years since I last updated my running tally of foreign countries I've visited, so it's time to add some dates and some flags.

Last summer's foreign trip was to Cancún, where mom, dad, Kirby, Corinne and I snorkeled, visited Mayan ruins and relaxed on the beach. Although Mexico is the country I have visited most frequently throughout my life, this was my first trip there in a decade, and my first trip to Cancún in two decades. We also got to see Mexico City for the first time, thanks to a long layover (we followed this itinerary, which I recommend to anyone with several hours to kill between flights; contrary to some peoples' perception, downtown Mexico City is rather safe for tourists).

This summer's trip to Europe mirrored the one we took in 2016 in many ways - we stayed at the same timeshare in Austria, after all - but also featured longer periods of time in Italy and Slovenia and a cruise out of Venice to Croatia and Greece. There were also a couple of day trips to Berchtesgaden, Germany. As I mentioned in my previous entry, I hope to post at least some pictures and thoughts from this most recent trip in the coming months on this blog.

Anyway, below is an updated list of countries I've visited and the years I've visited them, with the most recent visits denoted in red. If I didn't stay overnight in a country - e.g. a order crossing, an airport stopover where I left the terminal, or a cruise port of call - the year I visited is italicized. (Note: my trip to Greece consisted entirely of cruise ports of call visits, but I slept in Greek territorial waters while I was on the cruise ship so no italics.)

Nations with an asterisk (*) next to them are among the world's 25 smallest countries, of which is my life's goal to visit all of them before I die. (I would have loved to have made some progress on that front by working in a visit to San Marino during this most recent trip, but it simply wasn't possible.)

Antigua and Barbuda*: 
2015

Austria: 
2002, 2016, 2018

Barbados*:  
2015

Belize:  
2006

Canada: 
1974, 1980, 1982


Croatia: 
2018

Czech Republic:
2002

Ecuador: 
1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 2001

Germany: 
2002, 2016, 2018


Greece: 
2018

Ireland: 
1985

Italy:
2016, 2018

Japan: 
2005

Liechtenstein*:
2016 

Mexico: 
1979, 1983, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2017

The Kingdom of the Netherlands:

The Netherlands: 
2002, 2006

Aruba: 
2014

 St. Maarten:  
2015

St. Kitts and Nevis*:  
2015

St. Lucia*:  
2015

Slovenia:
2016, 2018

Switzerland:
2016 

United Arab Emirates: 
2006, 2008, 2012

The United Kingdom:

England:
1985

Scotland:
1985

 Wales:
1985

Adding Greece and Croatia to this list gets me up to 22 out of 206 sovereign (or de-facto sovereign) nations, or just over one-tenth of all the world's countries (not counting the United States). I'm probably going to be stuck at this level for awhile, as my finances need to recover from this last trip (and pay for a wedding!) before I go on any more major foreign adventures.

(Flag source: World Flag Database)

It's that time of year again

The Rockets' season came to a rather ignominious end on Thursday night, Kirby is down to his final two weeks of sixth grade, the University of Houston's academic year ended with a speech from the Ahnold the Governator, and the cooler, drier weather we experienced this weekend is most likely "going to be our last true front of spring." All this means is that, regrettably, another miserable Houston summer is upon us.

That also means that it's time for me to do what I successfully avoided doing a year ago, and find a new place to live. I've enjoyed my five years in Bellaire, but my wallet has not, and so it's time to seek housing that's a bit more in line with my socioeconomic status. I'm not looking forward to packing and moving - I haven't even begun putting things in boxes yet and as I look around this house I'm already feeling overwhelmed at what I'm going to do with all this stuff I've managed to accumulate - but the time has come. I'll be combining households with my girlfriend at my new place, which will lesson the financial burden somewhat but which will also mean a big step towards the next phase of my life, depending on how things work out.

There are also a couple of summer trips planned: the usual June trip to New Orleans and a weeklong vacation to Cancun in July. It's been over a decade since I was last in Cancun, so I'm looking forward to heading down there again and sitting my fat ass on a beach with a beer in hand for the entire week. Maybe I'll manage to see some Mayan ruins, too.

Unlike last year, I'm not taking a formal summer hiatus from this blog, but posting activity will probably be very light for the next few months for the reasons I just mentioned.

May everybody have a great summer.

Topo Chico

The New York Times has finally discovered what Texans have known for years: Topo Chico is the best sparkling water in the world.

This super bubbly agua mineral, in retro green-tinted glass bottles, has developed a fervent following here in Texas. Devotees stock entire refrigerators with the stuff and tattoo themselves with the brand’s logo, an Aztec princess who legend has it was healed by drinking the water, which emanates from an inactive volcano in Monterrey.

Bottles of Topo Chico are tabletop everywhere in Texas this time of year, including tatty taquerias in the Rio Grande Valley and reservations-only restaurants in Houston.

The water is often the finishing fizz in cocktails at the hippest bars in Austin and the sidecar to espresso drinks at indie coffee shops in Dallas. Don’t even ask for San Pellegrino or Perrier; they’re likely not served.

At supermarkets and bodegas, it’s hard to find a shopping cart that doesn’t contain a 12-pack of Topo Chico. According to the market research firm IRI, Topo Chico has captured 62 percent of imported sparkling water sales at grocery stores in Texas, and 74 percent at convenience stores.

Sales in the United States were around $58 million for the year ending in June, up 83 percent from 2012, no doubt helped by health-conscious consumers who are avoiding sugary and artificially sweetened carbonated soft drinks.

Social media posts indicate that Topo Chico is difficult to find outside Texas. Its American distributor, Interex, in Fort Worth, said it is available, albeit to a lesser extent, in 29 other states.

Okay, so I could probably do with the overwrought "Topo Chico is a hipster drink!" vibe of this article. I've never seen anybody with a Topo Chico tattoo, and, no, shopping carts lacking a 12-pack of Topo Chico are not "rare," at least where I shop. And for the record, the only type of Topo Chico that comes in "retro green-tinted glass bottles" is the lime-flavored variety; the original stuff comes in clear bottles. This journalistic overreach aside, I'm not surprised that Topo Chico claims the majority of imported sparkling water sales in Texas (take that, Gerolsteiner!): its popularity is unquestionable. But what exactly is Topo Chico?

To be sure, travelers and even locals in Mexico are warned against drinking the water, but Topo Chico has been bottled and consumed there since 1895.

Before that, travelers from the United States flocked to Monterrey to drink and bathe in what newspapers of the era called “thermal springs” at the base of Cerro del Topo Chico (“little mole hill”). The water was said to have great medicinal value in the treatment of tuberculosis, liver disorders and rheumatism.

Nowadays the water continues to be bottled at the source after a purification process that the bottler, Compañía Embotelladora Topo Chico, said does not alter the water’s natural mineral composition, which includes sodium, magnesium, calcium, potassium and manganese.

Carbonation is added, but just enough to restore any fizziness lost during purification, in keeping with  F.D.A. rules for products sold as sparkling water.

The bottler makes no health claims other than that the water “quenches thirst” and “aids in digestive processes.” But some Texans insist it’s the best hangover cure.

I don't know if Topo Chico makes my hangovers any better, but its fizziness certainly feels great on a parched morning-after throat.

Beyond any curative powers, many fans of Topo Chico will tell you that it just tastes good. Justin Yu, the chef and owner of Oxheart in Houston, said it’s better than the sparkling water he grew accustomed to drinking while doing internships in Europe.

“There’s nothing better than a cold Topo Chico after a long, hard service,” said Mr. Yu, who was named 2016 Best Chef Southwest by the James Beard Foundation. “I think it has a cleaner taste, it’s definitely the fizziest and I really enjoy the slight salinity.”

The cookbook author and “Top Chef” judge Gail Simmons got hooked on Topo Chico while filming in Austin five years ago. “I would get in deep discussions with friends there about why it’s such an obsession — was it the size of the bubbles, the salinity, the slight citrusy note?” she said. “I consumed it as much as possible when I was in Texas, and then I came home to New York and was a little distraught because I couldn’t get it anymore.”

I think I began drinking Topo Chico 15 or so years ago, when I was looking for a mineral water that would approximate the taste and effervescence of Ecuador's Güitig (which I drank out of necessity when I lived there; Ecuadorian tap water wasn't allowed anywhere near my mouth). The breakfast taco place near my work was one of the few places in Denton that carried Topo Chico, and I became a fan. Obviously over time a lot of other people here in Texas have, as well; Topo Chico used to be carried almost exclusively by Mexican restaurants and grocery stores in Hispanic neighborhoods, but it is now sold by the pallet at Costco.

But what's the big deal about Topo Chico? you might ask. Aren't all fizzy waters the same? In a word, no. There are perceptible differences between brands - the taste created by the mineral content, the amount of carbonation in the water - and I believe Topo Chico simply tastes (and feels) the best. Los Angeles Magazine agrees; last May they sampled eleven brands of sparkling water and decided that Topo Chico came out on top:

This is officially the fizz water that all other fizz waters should aspire to. Topo Chico won big for what was aptly described by Audie as a “slicing bubble” (we really ran out of adjectives to describe bubbles) and scored a full 11 points over Gerolsteiner. The cute, retro glass bottle packaging also won our hearts. Well done, Topo Chico—you might be the new Mexican Coke.

Now that the New York Times has discovered what the "cool Texans" are drinking, will Topo Chico become so popular that demand overwhelms the amount of water that the plant in Monterrey is able to produce, and the drink becomes increasingly expensive and hard to find? That's certainly a possibility, and the Chronicle's Craig Hlavaty fears the Topo Chico shortages to come. Fortunately, Topo Chico's distribution range in the States is limited - at least for now - and it appears that the nation has already adopted La Croix as the popular, in-demand sparkling water. I'm not worried that there's going to be a run on bottles of Topo Chico anytime soon.

Besides... Even if Topo Chico does become the national rage, I'm not going to become the sparkling water version of the guy who liked a particular band until they became popular and stop drinking it. It's just too good of a drink to pass up.

A rigged election, or a sore loser?

Once again, the outcome of a presidential election in Mexico has generated controversy:

More than a week after Mexico's presidential election, the candidate who authorities describe as the runner-up said a partial recount was not enough to erase his doubts about the vote.

"We cannot accept these results," Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told reporters Monday, vowing to file a formal complaint before a tribunal on Thursday, the legal deadline for challenging the election results.

Lopez Obrador asserted that presumptive president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto and his party bought millions of votes in the election -- an accusation party officials have denied.

Given the history of Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which held its iron grip on power in Mexico for 71 years due to methods such as rampant voter fraud, one really can't argue with Lopez Obrador's concerns. While it would be nice to believe that the country's political process has moved past such chicanery in the dozen years that the PRI was turned out of power, the fact is that old habits tend to die hard in the realm of Latin American politics.

However, this is also the second time in a row that Lopez Obrador has come in second place in Mexico's presidential election. And it's the second time in a row that he's claimed that the election was rigged and that he was the rightful winner.

Lopez Obrador has criticized the election and refused to concede repeatedly over the past week, echoing comments he made in 2006 when election authorities said the leftist candidate narrowly lost the presidential vote to Felipe Calderon.

After that election, the former Mexico City mayor claimed election fraud and never conceded, referring to himself as "the legitimate president of Mexico." Lopez Obrador's supporters protested nationwide. In Mexico City, they organized sit-ins and blockades.

If any of this sounds familiar to long-time readers of my blog, it's because I wrote about this six years ago. Lopez Obrador, it would appear, is not a man who accepts defeat gracefully.

Officials have called this year's election the most transparent in Mexico's history. It was the first election in which scanned copies of district-by-district election returns were posted on the Internet.

But accusations have arisen of electoral manipulation by the PRI.

Opponents of the PRI said they have video and photo evidence of the party buying votes through thousands of cards that could be redeemed for products at a chain of supermarkets.

The PRI's spokesperson, naturally, has decried these claims as "a farce" and says the videos and photographs purporting to show vote-buying have been staged or faked by political opponents.

So was the election really rigged, is Lopez Obrador just a sore loser, or is it a little bit of both? And is this controversy a distraction that Mexico, as it grapples with bloody and debilitating drug-related violence, really needs right now?

Even after the partial recount, the election results remain unofficial. Mexico's electoral tribunal has until early September to investigate Lopez Obrador's complaints and officially ratify the outcome.

Pollo Feliz!

I discovered this particular Mexican roasted chicken franchise when I was in Puerto Vallarta last year. And I liked it; the food was inexpensive and pretty damn tasty.

I know that the Pollo Feliz brand has been making its way northward; the first Houston restaurant appeared on the west side of town last year. So you can imagine my excitement when I discovered their newest Houston location while driving down Wayside a couple of weeks ago:
This particular restaurant is only a couple of miles away from my house. Given my fondness for pollo asado, I fear I'm about to get a bit fatter.

More follow-ups

Happy Leap Day! I wanted to end the month by following up on a few previous posts.

• The office relocation ordeal is over, and, with two full weeks at the new office complete, things are about what I had expected. Which is to say, no me gusta.

As it turns out, I don't even get a cubicle at this new office: a "cubicle" would imply partitions on at least three sides of my work area. Instead, I've been assigned to a "workstation" - that is, a desk that's open on both sides. I can look to my left or my right and see what the folks at the workstations next to me are doing, and they, likewise, can see what I'm doing. I get to listen to everybody else's telephone conversations. They get to listen to mine. I'm not expecting complete privacy at my work, but this arrangement is distracting. Needless to say, my iPod has become an important work accessory.

The traffic situation, likewise, is about what I expected. It's horrible. Not just during the morning or afternoon rush, either. San Felipe, the West Loop, and even the side streets are congested all day. The traffic is so bad that simply getting into and out of the parking garage is an ordeal in and of itself. I've been leaving the office at 3:30 in order to avoid the worst of the afternoon rush just to make sure I can get to Kirby's daycare to pick him up at 5.

On the bright side, the "original" inhabitants of the office have been welcoming and friendly. Lunch options also appear to be better at this location, due to the large number of eating establishments in the area. All things considered, however, from now on I'll probably be working from home a lot more often. Considering that my boss is in Dallas, most of the people I work with are in other parts of the country, and my laptop and company VPN setup allows me to do just about anything from home that I could do at the office, there just isn't a need to be there on a daily basis.

• The British citizen who was detained at Dubai's airport last September and who was later sentenced to four years in prison because 0.003 of a gram of marijuana - a speck smaller than a grain of sugar - was found on his shoe has been pardoned. Common sense finally prevails in this case. While I certainly understand with the UAE's desire to keep drugs out of their country, and while I don't have a great deal of sympathy for DJs who "forget" about that joint in their pocket when they arrive in Dubai, when it comes to enforcement there's a difference between what is sensible and prudent and what is simply draconian.

That being said, travelers to Dubai need to be aware of the UAE's strict drug laws and obey them accordingly. Excuses like "I forgot it was in my pocket" or "but it was for my personal use" don't even fly here in the States, so there's no way they'll work over there. Don't be stupid.

• Speaking of travel to Dubai, it looks like it just might finally happen for me. I was originally slated to fly out there last fall to help with a project for the massive Dubailand development, but that assignment kept getting delayed and eventually disappeared. However, over the past week I've been informed that my help will likely be needed for a new project beginning in mid-March. Nothing is completely certain yet - tasks, schedules and travel arrangements have yet to be finalized - but this looks promising. It's been over a year since my last trip to Dubai, and I'd love to see how things have progressed at the World's Biggest Construction Site since my last visit, so I'm hoping this turns out to be for real. I'll keep everyone informed.

• If I do get sent back to Dubai, I hope I'll be able to fly Emirates nonstop this time. The service that began last December has been so successful that at the beginning of this month Emirates expanded their service from flights three days a week to daily flights.

How successful has the air connection been so far? Consider this: the IAH-DXB service operated three times a week during the month of January for a total of 26 take-offs and landings, and the Boeing 777-200LR aircraft used by Emirates for the IAH-DXB service seats 266 passengers, so the total number of inbound and outbound seats on this service for the month of January was 6,916. According to January statistics posted on Houston Airport System's website, a total of 6,918 passengers were enplaned to and deplaned from Emirates flights during that month. In other words: these flights were all completely full. Little wonder, then, that Emirates went to daily service so quickly.

Based on my own personal experience flying from Houston to Dubai in the past - I noticed that a lot of people on my KLM flights from Houston to Amsterdam were also on my flights from Amsterdam to Dubai, and vice versa - I had a feeling that this service was going to be successful. Although it remains to be seen how the addition of so many new seats created by daily service will affect the equation, and although there might be a novelty associated with this new service that will wear off after time, so far it appears that I was right.

• Unfortunately, not all of the international service news out of Intercontinental has been good. China Airlines discontinued their Houston-to-Taipei service in January, and Mexican carrier Aviacsa pulled out of the Houston market as well. The China Airlines service made a stop in Seattle between Houston and Taipei, and the fact that the foreign airline couldn't carry passengers between Houston and Seattle meant that this leg of the trip was not economical for them in the face of rising fuel costs. Aviacsa claims that their decision to exit the Houston market is the result of temporary restructuring and that they plan to resume service to Mexico in March or April. Whether that actually happens, however, remains to be seen.

And remember that interesting all-business-class service concept between Houston and Aberdeen, Scotland that City Star Airlines was supposed to begin this year? Not gonna happen. After announcing a delay in the proposed Houston service last December, City Star ceased all operations at the end of January following an incident at Aberdeen's airport last November.

Not all the news at Intercontinental is bad, however. Singapore Airlines plans to begin service between Houston and Singapore with a stop in Moscow in March, and Qatar Airlines anticipates the inauguration of nonstop service between Houston and Doha later this year.

2007 Travel Review

The past year's travels might not have taken me to faraway or exotic destinations of years past, like Dubai or Japan. But Lori and I both did get to get out of Houston on at least a few occasions over the past year, and in the process got to see a few new things and visit a few new places. Here's a rundown, complete with pictures:

In early May I flew up to Washington, DC to visit my brother-in-law Danny, who was living in Northern Virginia at the time. It was my first trip to the nation's capital, which was kind of cool in that, after thirty-something years, I finally got to see in person all the things I've seen on TV for my entire life. Like the Vietnam Memorial, for instance:
Danny made sure that I got to visit the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles airport during my short trip there. This annex includes military aircraft such as the SR-71 Blackbird and the B-29 Enola Gay, civilian aircraft such as the only surviving Boeing 307 Stratoliner, and even the Space Shuttle Enterprise. The place is a must-see for anybody interested in aviation. I thought this picture I took of a 1930s-era Grumman Goose sitting underneath the tail of a retired Air France Concorde was kind of cool:
In early June, I made the first of two trips to New Orleans. This was my second trip to the Crescent City since Katrina, and I took note of the city's excruciatingly slow process of recovery. FEMA trailers, lots full of weeds and debris, and dilapidated structures such as this one on Canal Street were still the norm for much of the city, almost two years after the hurricane:
While I was there, I did get to see some attractions that had recovered since the hurricane, such as the New Orleans Museum of Art's intriguing sculpture garden:As slow as the recovery process is, the city is clearly doing better than it was during my previous visit in June of 2006. There were more people - and importantly, more tourists - in New Orleans in June 2007 than there were just a year before. Bourbon Street continues to be a top tourist attraction, and is keeping it as sleazy as ever; we'll not talk about how drunk I managed to get on said street the night of the Sopranos finale...
In July, I flew out to Denver for a few days to visit my brother David, who had moved there just a few months before. He seemed to be doing well, with a decent job and apartment near the intersection of Broadway and I-25 just a few miles south of downtown. While we were there we took a day trip up to Rocky Mountain National Park, as well as an excursion up to Jones Pass in Arapaho National Forest. David finally got to take his Jeep Liberty off-road for the first time, and it performed admirably; it took us up to about 12,000 feet, well above the Rocky Mountain tree line:
As one who has lived almost all of his life only fifty feet above sea level, I would have found the alpine environment of the Rockies to be a unique experience in any instance. But the fact that we were met by these guys at the Continental Divide made our trip all that much more fun:
Seriously. The mountain goats were cool.

In late July, Lori's wine-selling gig had its annual meeting in California. She decided to attend, and made a trip to Sonoma County. While she was there, she did what any good wine snob would do: she toured some wineries...
Mmmm. Grapes.
Lori also got to take her very first business trip over the summer, as she attended a symposium at the J. Eric Jonsson Center of the National Academy of Sciences in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in August:
While she was there, Lori took a tour of Martha's Vineyard. Here's a picture she took of the lighthouse at Gay Head:
In mid-September, I made a second trip to New Orleans, this time to watch the Cougars play Tulane. In between trips to Central Grocery (for a muffaletta) and Mother's (for jambalaya), I took in the street scenes around Jackson Square. It bears repeating that the French Quarter was largely unaffected by the ravages of Hurricane Katrina, and that, if a person with no knowledge of 2005's catastrophe were magically transported to Jackson Square, they would have no idea that two years ago the city surrounding said plaza was an apocalyptic morass of murky floodwater, rampant looting and unspeakable human suffering.
Speaking of human suffering, the Superdome will be a lasting image of Hurricane Katrina. But the facility has been restored and is once again hosting Tulane football games. Being a University of Houston fan, I am accustomed to seeing disappointingly small crowds at football games. But even I can't help but wonder how Tulane's football program will be able to survive, long-term, given the paltry fan support it currently appears to attract; hopefully that will change as the city repopulates. Of course, this crowd would probably look a lot better in any place other than the cavernous Superdome:
In October, Lori and I took a trip to what we consider a friendly and familiar destination: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. This was Lori's third, and my fourth, trip to the Pacific resort town. We found it to be just as pleasant as we remembered from previous visits.
While we were there, we subjected ourselves to a timeshare presentation in order to get a free "canopy tour" of zip-lines over the tropical forests south of Puerto Vallarta. It was really rather fun. Lori enjoyed cruising along a cable above the trees:
I enjoyed myself as well. It's good to know that, apparently, I have the "cojones" to undertake such an adventure...
2007 was a fun year for travel. Since Lori and I love to travel, we're looking forward to even more fun and excitement in 2008.