Monday, May 11, 2009

a slice of pisa


Pisa has nothing on Melaque.


Pisa has a leaning tower.


Melaque has a leaning conch shell.


You may recall that I was crowing about Mexican ingenuity in
solutions on the half-shell. When we last left our intrepid heroes, Juan and Mauricio, they had devised a method to install two conch shells as finials on each gate post leading to the beach.


Their inspiration was to imbed a piece of rebar in the post. Drill a hole in each shell. And then mount the shell on the rebar, caulking it into position.


The solution sounded clever to me at the time. But I share the impatience of young men.


If I had been thinking like an engineer, I would have recognized that one of the environmental parameters was probably being neglected: the temperature.


It gets hot here. And it gets even hotter on the sands of the beach -- a fact Dudley Moore discovered in 10.


Well, Huitzilopochtli had his way with the shell -- rather, with the caulk holding the shell in place. And when the caulk gave way, so did the shell. It now sits at a coquettish angle that would be the envy of a Catrina doll.


Pisa could teach Melaque a thing or two. No need to rush into a quick fix. Let it lean and charge tourists to view the unique wonder of it all.


There are no mistakes. Merely opportunities to separate tourists from their pesos.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi steve,

when i first saw the picture, i thought it ws a rose. of course no one would put a single rose in such a big container but that's what it appears to be on first glance.

enjoyed my visit with chris. turns out he graduated cum laude-tha't my boy ;-) he has picked up glass blowing as a hobby and has made some beautiful items. today we are going to the chihuly museum in tacoma, then i'll drop him off at the airport.

glad to see things continue to go well for you. i'm sure you have many adventures just waiting to happen.

how is the professor doing?

have a great week!

teresa

Steve Cotton said...

Teresa -- Tell Chris congratulations for me. Job well done!

Jiggs is doing a bit better -- all things considered.

Kirsten said...

Hi Steve and Darrel, I have been wondering how your weather has been the last few weeks. Have you had much rain yet? How is the humidity and heat? I have never been to Mexico during May - October but I have heard stories about the humidity. Kirsten