Teotihuacan

As long as I have been coming to Mexico there have been two places I have wanted to visit, Teotihuacan and Chichen Itza. I can now cross Teotihuacan off my list. As I posted yesterday, I took a seven hour tour to Teotihuacan.

Teotihuacan was the largest pre-Columbian city with a population of more than two-hundred thousand people. All of the records of the city were destroyed by the Spaniards when they conquered the area, so nobody knows exactly who the people were who inhabited the city.

Our tour started at the Citadel. Our tour giude gave us a brief introduction to the site and then set us free to explore for two hours. I made my way to Templo de Quetzalcotl, or the Temple of the Feathered Serpent. It was only thirty-nine steps to the top, but at more than seven-thousand feet above sea level I was breathing hard when I reached the top. Archeologists were working around the temple, which was very interesting.

From there, I started my 1.6KM journey down the Avenue of the Dead to the Pyramid of the Moon. After going up and down many steps, I was approached by at least one hundred people trying to seel me something. I finally gave in and purchased obsidian carved figures of the sun and of the moon from the man who claimed to have carved them. They are carved out of the same local obsidian that I wrote about yesterday. It is not pure black, but has a goldish tone to it.

I walked up and down many more steps before I reached the Pyramid of the Sun. I was taking many photos along the way. At the Pyramid of the Sun there is a ramp at the base and then two-hundred and forty-five steps to get to the top. Actually, you do not reach the top until you walk up a mound that is about five feet in height. At that point I tried to take a picture of the view and found out that my camera battery was dead. I switched to my iPhone at that point. I was very dissappointed that after all of that hard work I could not even get any photos. I guess that means I will have to go back.

I walked back down all the steps and headed back down the Avenue of the Dead. The structures along the avenue were much more intact between the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon. It was a great experience walking down the avenue. Our tour guide told us that we would not be able to walk to the top of the Pyramid of the Moon because archeologists are excavating inside of it. I still had to walk up as high as I could, which turned out to be forty-eight steps. I could not even get to the halfway point of the pyramid.

Archeologists are excavating inside the pyramid to see if they can find anything that will give them clues as to who built Teotihuacan. They have also left the lower fourth of the Pyramid of the Sun on the north side covered in grass the way it was found. It is interesting to get a glimpse of what the site looked like before it was excavated.

I really enjoyed my trip to Teotihuacan and would recommend it to anyone. I really made me want to visit Chichen Itza though.

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Long Day

Father's Day was exhausting for me. I exercised, mowed the lawns, went to my parent's house, went to The Queen's parent's house then took a short nap. And after all of that, I hit the road to the airport headed to Mexico City.

I got to my hotel at about ten o'clock local time, went to my room to freshen up and then went downstairs to meet my tour guide. I went on the "Pyramids and Guadalupe Shrine" tour, which turned out to be about seven hours long. It was great, but I must say that I am now really exhausted. With me on the tour were our guide Angel, our driver Albert, an older couple from Colombia, a young man from Israel and an older man from Norway.

The Guadalupe Shrine is supposedly the third most important religious center in the world behind Mecca and St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. It is a complex that consists of the Antigua Basilica dating from 1536, several small chapels and the new Basilica of Guadalupe that was completed in 1976. You can read more about the shrine on your own time. I must admit that I really was not that impressed. I was more impressed by the Cathedral in the Zócalo.

The new Basilica of Guadalupe looks like a modern building from the seventies that is just out of date, which it is. There is nothing impressive about the building other than the unique doors and the Our Lady of Guadalupe painting that is supposedly made on cloth from a cactus that should not lost as long as it has. It is also supposed to be the image that appeared on Juan Diego's apron miraculously. I don't know what is true, but there are a series of about five moving sidewalks that take you past the original so you can view it up close and even photograph it.

Our tour left the shrine after a short while and we headed out to Teotihuacan. Before getting there we made a stop at a place that houses artisans who work in obsidian and silver. They gave us a small tour and told us how the artisans work with the unique obsidian of the area and silver.

They showed us the maguey agave plant (cactus) and told us all of the items that the cactus provided for the local residents. You can peel paper from its heart, use the needles for sewing the threads that can be peeled away from the plant and even make a fermented "wine" named pulque. Then we got a chance to drink some pulque and tequila. The pulque had a sweet, easy drinking flavor. We were told that it is more watery now because of all of the rain they have had lately. When the weather gets hot, the pulque gets a lot more milky and has a strange texture. I liked it.

After that we got the hard sales pitch in their store. They kept following each of us around and commenting about how nice the piece was we were looking at. I resisted temptation and did not purchase anything at their store. They kept telling us that you cannot by any obsidian or silver anywhere else that is the same quality. We left after a short while and headed to Teotihuacan.

Teotihuacan was amazing. I will write another post all about it tomorrow. I was taking a lot of photos, but by the time I reached the Pirámide del Sol, my camera battery was dead. I started taking photos with my iPhone, hoping they will turn out OK. We spent over two hours at Teotihuacan and I walked more steps than I ever have in my life.

We left Teotihuacan and went to have lunch at a restaurant near by. The Moctezuma Restaurant was another tourist trap that our tour guide took us to. He suggested we order the especial, Molcajete Moctazuma. The fix a mixture of meats, onion, nopales and a special sauce that uses pulque in a molcajete. They serve it to you in the molcajete along with corn tortillas. You then make your own tacos. It was a lot of food, but it was pretty expensive at one-hundred and eight pesos. For comparisons sake, I can get a steak sandwich for less by ordering room service at my hotel. I was not able to finish all of the food, but it was really good. About three quarters of the way through our meal, a man dressed as an Aztec indian started dancing around and singing while his wife was banging on a drum. He finished and left us alone, but he did ask for a tip as we left.

We headed back on our hour drive back to our hotels. I got to my room at about six o'clock and about a half hour later it started pouring rain. It is a thunderstorm like we do not see back home. The thunder is very loud and continues for hours while the rain alternates between a downpour and a consistent rain storm. It is great weather as long as you are not out in it.

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Am I An Apple Fan Boy?

I bit the bullet and preordered the iPhone 4 yesterday. But let me tell you, it was not easy. I started doing some research on Sunday in anticipation of the preorder date. I did a little more research on Monday evening to try to figure out what time the preorder would start. Nobody knew for sure, but the iPad preorder started at 5:30 AM, so that was what I went with.

I woke up and went for a run in the morning. I got back home at about 5:30 and jumped on a computer. The post it note saying they will back soon was up on the Apple site. I jumped in the shower. While getting ready I jumped back on the computer and saw that the Apple site was back up. It was not working correctly though.

I went to work and kept trying both the Apple and AT&T websites with no luck. I was checking for updates on Google as to the status of preorders. I finally noticed that there was a new Apple Store app that allows you to order hardware so I downloaded it at about 10:00. I tried it and it did not work, but it gave me a number to call at Apple. I called the number and actually got to speak to someone within about five minutes. He told me that the AT&T site was having problems so they could not verify accounts. He took my name and phone number and said he would call me as soon as everything was back up. He never called me back.

I kept trying the AT&T site and was soon able to preorder my iPhone 4. The process was slow, but it did work. At least I hope it worked. I got a confirmation and received a confirmation email message within an hour. I just checked my order and it is being processed.

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Another Year Down

I know this blog title may seem odd as New Year's Day was six months ago, but my birthday was last week. So in reference to age, another year has come and gone. As I think back about my thirty-ninth year, I believe it was a pretty good one.

As far as family is concerned, the year was great. We did not have any major emergencies. Nobody got hurt too badly. We actually made the decision to add another child(ren) to our family. I think we grew a lot as a family this past year.

My career remained on track. Nothing major happened. I think I am becoming a much more integral part of the company in my boss's eyes. He has really leaned on me for more decisions this past year. I feel good about where I am in the company, but would like to move higher. I guess that will be my goal for this year.

I feel like I have grown a lot in my personal life. I really started to exercise seriously this year and I feel much better than I have in a long time. I am in better shape than I have been since about 1996. That is a big accomplishment for me. I just need to stay on this path and continue to feel even better.

I have also been able to maintain my goal of reading twelve books this year. So far I have read five books and listened to one audio book. I have been reading the newest Intellectual Devotional as well. I am on pace to exceed my goal and even have the audio book as a bonus.

I have learned a lot from the books I have read. I have even been able to use some of my new found knowledge in my job. I have been acting as a mentor to our Assembly Manager. He comes to me for advice about the operation a lot. He just came to me again this last Friday. I told him that I may not have all of the answers, but I can give him an opinion based on a broad knowledge base and an open mind. I really think he appreciates my advice.

It was a great year. Here is looking forward to an even better fortieth year!

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I'm Exhausted

It has been a long week for me. I was in a great meeting all day Tuesday. When it was done I ordered some great Chicago-style pizza and worked out. I actually worked out before eating the pizza. Giordano's is the best Chicago pizza I have had. It was a little birthday gift to myself.

It is really hard to get motivated to exercise this week because I am travelling. The good thing is that I have been alone on this trip so far, which means I have had a lot of time to think about not exercising.

Every morning I wake up exhausted, but I have managed to exercise every day except today. My schedule just did not have any time in it. I started the day with an eight o'clock meeting in Green Bay. From there we went to Neenah for two meetings. We ended the day with a customer visit in Milwaukee.

I try to stay on California time when I travel so I don't have to adjust much when I get home. It usually works pretty well. I guess I will find out tomorrow if it worked this time.

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A Lot of Information

My meetings here in Rosemont have been very good. I am learning a lot that I can take back to my company. I have met a few customers that are great contacts to get us in the door of a few target companies. It has been a very productive trip.

This year the meeting have focused a lot of time on marketing, in particular internet marketing and social media. I know there is a lot more that I can do in both of these areas, it is just hard to carve out the time and to justify it. I have learned some things this week that should help me with both of these.

Last week I had a conversation with my advertising agency and was about to throw in the towel with regards to social media. I had a bad attitude about it and I think my account manager felt that and just went along with it. Our meeting turned into a trash talking session about what social media cannot do for my company. I admit that I was not seeing any potential. I came to my meeting this week all ready to dismiss social media as a waste of time.

Two sessions really changed my mind. One session was led by a marketing person from a company in my industry. He focused more on web site analytics, but he started to change my perspective. The second session was led by a consultant who works with companies to establish their social media presence. I think that he convinced me that I am not wasting my time and need to actually spend some more time on social media. I really need to get other people in the company involved with blogging, Facebook and Twitter. He told us that we cannot do it alone. It needs to be a company focus. I agree.

I am planning to get started with the implementation of a social media strategy when I get back into the office. I am already thinking about who in the company will buy into the strategy and really work to make it successful. At this point I only have about two people who I have identified.

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I Love Chicago!

I really do love to visit Chicago. It is one of the cleanest big cities you will find. My only problem is that on this trip to Chicago, I am not really in Chicago. I am stuck in Rosemont, IL which is at the airport.

I am in town for some meetings. The trade association my company belongs to has two days of meetings every year and it seems like it is in Rosemont about every other year. I had to attend because I am a member of a committe that is also having a meeting in the same location. So I get three days of meeting in Rosemont.

The weather yesterday was great. The only problem was that I was stuck inside for most of the day. I did get out of the hotel in the morning and took a taxi ride to Target to get some supplies. I also got out of the hotel yesterday evening and took a 3.3 mile run around the neighborhood. This area looks like the typical Midwest from TV and the movies. The houses are all brick with some rock work and most of the yards have some nice raised planters. All of the grass is green and the flowers are in bloom.

Today the weather is not very good. It has been raining all day. I really wanted to take another run today, but I guess I will have to settle for the treadmill in the fitness center. I am really trying to get back into my fitness program on this trip so I can continue it when I get back home.

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Review of The Toyota Way

I finished reading The Toyota Way on Saturday. This book was packed with so much background information on the way that Toyota operates that it took me a while to get through. I read a book some time ago on Six Sigma, but TPS is totally different.

I learned a lot from this book, but I don't feel I learned enough to implement any of the ideas. I feel like this book was just an introduction to TPS that gave me a background to know what areas to pursue further. In particular, the idea of one piece flow is great. I just did not find any practical examples of how to implement it in the book.

I know my timing with the reading of this book was bad after all of the problems Toyota has been having, but the reaction I get when I talk about it is always the same. Everyone brings up Toyota's recent quality issues. What they don't understand is the level of commitment Toyota has had over the years to recreate their culture in every department in every one of their locations around the world. They do an outstanding job with creating a learning organization. They do so well that I have no doubt that they will bounce back from the recent issues and become an even better company.

Overall, The Toyota Way was a great book. I would recommend it to anyone, and as a matter of fact I have already done so.

I have moved on to my next book already. I have started reading Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. So far so good. It is an easy read.

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