Baja, Mexico

 Here's a disorganized list of notes and some pictures from our trip to Mexico at the beginning of the month!   This trip used up the Alaska Airlines tickets we had for a San Francisco trip that didn't happen in April 2020.  Thank you to my parents for staying with the kids and to the kids for not catching covid right before we left.

• We noticed some dust in the air while we were driving and then there was a forceful whump as the wind and dust hit our car, that we both heard and felt.   Something in the car beeped a few times, but no lights went on.   We realized it must have been a dust devil but still don't know what it was that made the car ding.
• We saw one rattlesnake and it was dead on the road, which was fine by me.  It was a western diamondback from what I could tell, with 4-5 black and white strips just before the rattle.  Hiking in snake territory makes me nervous.
• Out hikes smelled strongly of mesquite, which I'd heard of but never smelled before.  It kind of reminded me of maple syrup, which I don't particularly like.
• We drove across the Tropic of Cancer a couple of times.
• We took two hikes.  The first was up around a dry stream bed and the hills on either side, just north of Los Barilles.   The second was right near the Cabo Pulmo Marine Park.  Two pitbulls and a lab were running down the road on their own as we parked.  I was nervous at first and the two pitbulls even jumped in our trunk while roughhousing, but they were not aggressive towards us.  The lab and one pitbull joined us on our hike and it was kind of fun.  I also worried less about the snakes when the dogs were running ahead and crashing through the brush.

hike 1

hike 2

• Our hotel was in Buena Vista, which we picked because of the nearby windsurfing opportunities.  We only had two full days and the first day was too calm to go out.  The second day was too windy for our skill levels, but we tried.  Actually we decided to just get one board and take turns, but Jack went out first and couldn't get upwind at all really so after he struggled for an hour I passed on it.  It was fun to watch the kite surfing there.

• Before we caught the plane back we swam and played some pool volleyball, which was fun.
• I was embarrassed to learn that Mexico's official name is Estados Unidos de Mexico, rather than just Mexico.  Spanish class let me down!
• The future finally reached us on this trip and for the first time we had cell phone data on an international trip (through Google Fi)!  This means we weren't reliant on wifi, which wasn't readily available, and we also were able to follow the kids a little bit.  Dd's daycare sends notifications and we also saw doorbell rings (including D coming home).  It also helped with navigation, of course.   
• Credit card payment was flaky (slow, unreliable) or un available in most places and we didn't drink the water.  We did eat raw veggies from restaurants though, because we read that they are washed with filtered water.
• We snorkeled in Los Barilles and in Cabo Pulmo Marine Park, where it was a little more windy than we would have liked.    We saw lots of stripy yellow, blue and black and white fish and a california needlefish.   From the shore we saw large jumping Pacific Manta.

• While we were driving we saw what seemed like a display of force by the police.   About ten police trucks in a row drove past us, many with officers standing in the back holding large guns.   They didn't have sirens on or anything so it seemed like a display.
• People were quite nice.   We were in a very small town most of the time.   The only tourist snare we encountered was guys telling us that we needed to take a taxi to our budget car rental place, even though we had been told that there was a shuttle.   There was indeed a shuttle and the guys didn't even register on the scale of the pushiness we experienced in parts of Morocco.
• The food was great!  I'm a relatively recent convert to tacos and they did not disappoint.

• We spoke some rusty Spanish.   I couldn't remember "afuera" (outside) and I ended up saying "quiero comida ahora" (I want food now) instead of  "quiero comer afuera" (I want to eat outside), but hopefully I was convincingly unsure enough to not sound rude.

job updates and a reflection on ten years

 It's now been ten years since we moved back to Seattle after our grand adventure (https://aglie.blogspot.com/2012/02/part-where-we-come-home.html).   After we returned on Valentine's day in 2012, we stayed with Jack's mom and step-dad for a couple of weeks.  I interviewed at Nuance in downtown Seattle, but I believe I set up the interview while we were still on our trip.   I started work on March 21st, delaying my start date while I went through my slightly complicated name change (https://aglie.blogspot.com/2012/04/rose-by-any-other-name.html) which required two court appearances.   Jack found an architecture job on Craigslist, which was described as a 3 month, temporary position.   He started on April 10th.      

We moved in to our apartment at 5th and Washington in Pioneer Square/ID in March, got new cell phone plans and found a dentist.   When we moved into the apartment, we also got our darling cat, Emo, back from Jack's dad and step-mom who took care of her during our trip.   We joined the downtown YMCA which was a few blocks north of us and both had good walking, running or busing commutes.  

That same spring we started looking at properties for our future house, mostly in south Seattle, near the light rail, but also on Beacon Hill and in the Central District.    Eight months after we returned to Seattle, we bought our lot (https://aglie.blogspot.com/2012/11/we-are-landed.html).

It was a busy, but simple time!   Living downtown was fun.  Seeing family more often was nice.   We still had some old friends around and randomly running in to familiar faces was a treat.   Also, people kept giving us free tickets to downtown games and shows, and we ended up out and about a lot, at least in the eyes of this working (from home) mother-of-two, two years in to a pandemic....

I needed to write this little summary of our first year back home in Seattle as context for the double job update I want to share.   

For me, the news is that I now work for Microsoft, via an acquisition that just closed on March 4th, 2 weeks shy of my 10 year work anniversary.   The $19.7 billion acquisition was first announced in April 2021 and took a very long time due to the multi-national nature of it all.   For people paying attention to such things, I guess this wasn't a big surprise as we were already partnered on some projects for the past couple of years.   In retrospect the 2019 spinoff of our automotive domain (which I had been working on) was probably also done with the prospect of possible future acquisition in mind. (https://aglie.blogspot.com/2019/12/spinoff.html)

Microsoft is pretty exciting and the more I learn the more it seems like a company to be proud of.   Not much is expected to change.   Our CEO will still be our boss but he now reports to a VP instead of our board.   In a year or so we'll probably get better benefits.   We're all excited about data and tools and opportunities.   I don't have any plans to go to the office (my old one downtown, or Redmond) but am excited about the Eastlink lightrail that would make for a pretty good commute and will open as soon as summer 2023.

Jack's news is much more of a personal achievement.   This week we signed the contract (as a spouse I had to sign too) and he's now a 15% owner of the firm he's worked in for almost ten years.   He's the first partner in addition to the founder, a fellow CMU grad and Seattle native ten years ahead of Jack.   It means he's done a good job, is good to work with and brings value to the firm.    In his ten years there they've gone from three employees to eight, at present.   He's worked on new residential construction, townhomes, remodels and two apartment buildings.   

Sometime I'll blog more about Jack's projects.   

Jack's partnership has been discussed for several years and it's quite surprising how both of these longer term deals came to fruition within days of each other.