Grimas

I didn't realize Mai's reopened after the fire...

We rented a condo on 40th between 5th ave and the beach in PDC. Lots of nice resturants/bars in the area 38th and 5th area and a great location if you are looking for a more laid back, non-party scene. The beach club right at the end of 40th was perfect for us - 500 pesos per person for chair and umbrella with the full amount credited to food and drinks. The north end was much more chill -residential/expat - than closer to centro which was more touristy. Beaches ok but we took a day trip to Cozumel on the ferry and most definitely it was better there for clear water and snorkeling. We did like the vibe in PDC more than Isla, Tulum, Akumel or Puerto Adventuras in terms of going out to eat and hitting the local bars and having a variety... Wife even discussed getting a place in the area for when we retire in a few years... Teens found a workout place on 28th and we had no fear when they took off on their own to work out. Of course, wife and I caught Covid while there so are dragging now that we are back...

Miško Broliai need to remember their roots and start blowing up some Russian rail lines again...

Looks like a fun trip home flying from Cancun to Houston tomorrow...

https://m.facebook.com/RedSargazo/ Good site for the status of beach conditions and the seaweed...

He actually did something before being an announcer as well...

Lithuania remained something like 93% Lithuanian during the USSR days and the hate of anything Russian is still strong today. Kids in the American school in Vilnius are complaining of "discrimination" since the invasion and the attitude is "so what? What did you expect..."

After a regional power outage across all of PDC and Cozumel that lasted almost 3 hours (cell also out), we hit the beach and there wasn't much junk on the beach. Yea, there was some but they had cleared it off by noon... Water was a little dirty from the rain they got on Monday.

USA Transfers still top notch. But watch out for the bar where you wait- ordered 2 margs and a beer and they wanted 90 USD. Uh, no and I’m glad I asked before started making them…. Driver had cold beers in the van- 2 for 5 bucks…

Southern and western side of the house getting all the sun on ground floor is the attached garage which stays pretty cool (foam insulation on the garage doors that used to take a beating with the setting sun. The attic above the garage has the radiant barrier sprayed onto the under roof and it does make a difference in that part of the attic. Not gonna get any relief from crape myrtles on that side of the house unless they are 30 feet tall and i only have limited space to plant anything due to the property width... ( Previous neighbor pulled out some 20' tall plants on his side of the fence to widen his driveway...)

Thanks - Stayed at a condo on the beach in Akumal a few years ago and had to cross 30' of it to get to the water...

Following... Headed there tomorrow with the family. Stayin in a condo on the north end of 5th avenue on nte. 40 a block from the beach. Close to beach but far enough from the party scene. In our case, it's basically eating, drinking and beach in Playa. Beach club recommendations where chair rental fees get applied to food/drinks? (Want more of a read a book and get drinks on the beach rather than the bachelor party scene...) We are near Mamasitas and Encanto Beach but looking for other options...

Yea, I got a NEXUS card for that specific reason but to renew it, the nearest location to do the renewal from Texas was Detroit...

Argh- 4 months and still waiting...

I guess I missed you post with the "data". I guess the banks and private equity people I deal with daily missed your posts as well... I apologize for all of us in advance... My last comment I'm gonna make on this thread as this isn't the CR but didnt you post 2-3 years ago that you spent 15k on a $30k solar system for your house with the subsidies and discounts covering the other half you didn't have to pay? Not that I have anything against taking advantage of anything available but would you have still bought/leased the system without the subsidies/discounts? Looks more attractive when someone else is footing half the total cost...

To be honest, I don't remember the source of the graph was as I has it on a folder on my hard drive. Regardless - go ahead and drop nuke out of the discussion if you want for arguments sake - solar and wind still are at the mercy of the weather/location/season and are not the "cheapest way' to generate power. Go to the base level of cost vs. power generation (MINUS gov't subsidies and the utilization of existing infrastructure like pipelines/powerlines/refineries/inverters/batteries/etc.) and show me where the cost per KW generated is better with "renewables" than most existing sources of energy... Until energy storage capacity become more efficient (which it isn't in large scale applications) to capture generated as well as take into account that you can only generate power say, 50% of the time depending on location/season, they aren't efficient as other sources of energy like hydro, coal or gas. Coal and gas (and hydro but it's being more limited now by weather as well) are "stored energy" - meaning I can convert them to energy on demand which I can't do currently with solar or wind. IIRC, solar is about 15-20% efficient (in terms of energy created when the sun hits the panes for those "12 hours" (time/season/latitude) a day) vs (up to) 40% for coal and up to 60% for natural gas where the remaining energy is lost to some form of heat. In my earlier comment, DONG/Orstad would not have taken the path it did if the government subsidies didn't exist and would have lost money and gone under if those government subsidies didn't exist. Take the subsidies out of the equation (for oil/gas/hydro/solar/wind) and level the playing field to actual energy efficiency and there isn't a fair comparison to say renewables are a superior way to generate the cheapest power... Someone (via their taxes) is covering the costs for the subsidies but in terms of pure energy efficiency for generating on-demand power regarding the supply of energy, there are more efficient ways to generate power 24/7 than "renewables"... At least until energy stage technology (batteries) gets better, you can't run an economy 100% on "renewables"... (A factory that needs to run 24/7 - are you gonna depend 100% on "renewables"? Good luck with that... Mercedes in Germany will soon find out...) Drop subsidies out of all - oil/gas/hydro/nuclear/solar/wind/hydro- and then show me "renewables" (sorry, only hydro is truly "renewable") are the cheapest way to generate power compared to the others... (Similar when folks at Chesapeake/PetroHawk/others tried to say "unconventionals" were a different type of reservoir and convinced the SEC to change the financial "rules" - ignore the "sunk costs" of leasing the land and everything else in the pre-drill economics and let's just focus on costs and profit once we drill the well and forecast 30 years of production as these don't behave like "conventional reservoirs" - decline curves don't apply here!- when in reality, if you don't make back your investment in 18-24 months, you didn't make money...) Ignoring the actual physics/science and "trust us, it (appears) cheaper"...

Not trying to turn this into a CR discussion but you are absolutely incorrect. If you look at the EROEI (Energy Return On Energy Investment) – how much energy we get back if we spend to generate 1 unit of energy. For solar this means – how much more energy does a solar panel generate in its lifetime than is used to create it? Solar and wind suck compared to other sources of power generation and storage based on the cost to generate it... This calculation is based on what it costs to construct the facility (the panel, the windmill, the well, the coal or nuke plant) with all costs included. Wind and solar energy can't be stored efficiently until better battery technology is developed... Need more energy right now, feed more coal/gas/neutron into the plant as it's energy stored. Wind not blowing or it's dark outside, solar or wind sit idle and generate nothing... Coal, hydro, nuke and coal can run 24/7 if needed. Sun and solar - well, that depends on the weather... New nuke technology is closer to 120 on the graph below... (Buffered is the equivalent of energy storage...) (And no, I'm not a nuke guy other than it makes the most sense in the long-term future. And no, I don't want a want a plant anywhere near where i live unless you send me a royalty or lease check as mailbox money...)

Not sure if the free trial works more than once... I did it last year with the family - I'm GE but they don't travel enough to justify it - and it was easy and I canceled the trial after the trip. Signed up again for the free trial again last week with a different email but with family in tow but not sure it'll work a second time since they have our scans in the "system"...

There's a lot of money to be made with renewables. Do O&G companies not like making money? Most of the money I've seen is all based on subsidies in the renewable space. Don't get me wrong, I've got issue with developing alternative sources of energy where it makes sense... Nuclear sure does... Dong Energy (now Orstad) was the first integrated company to decide to go "all in" on renewables 7 years ago and took advantage of all the subsidies available. (Most the the windmills you see in the North Sea are theirs.) The sold off their O&G division to Ineos and the stock at the time was around $20/share and is currently $30/share and dropping... (it did hit a high in the 70's during COVID but has been screaming downward since everything opened back up...) Ineos isn't publicly traded but I'm sure they are printing money right now like everyone else in the integrated O&G business. Do you know that over 90% of the world's O&G is controlled by National Oil Companies (NOC's)? Even if all the "majors" went away tomorrow, the NOC's will keep pumping as for most of them, it's their primary source of income... (Dubai runs out of their oil in around 20 years which is why they have pumped so much into development so they can survive once the oil runs out.) The only real place left to make real money for E&P is in the US (at least for now). XOM or Chevron may be in Saudi or Iraq but they basically are acting as sub-contractors to the NOC. They get to recover their costs and make a few bucks a barrel. Oil at 50/bbl? Here is your 3 bucks. Oil at 120? Here is your 3 bucks... Guess who gets to profit? The NOC's... Only in the US and somewhat Canada allows the companies to profit from the upside (and take the losses on the low prices). I know companies who reformed their companies to only work in areas where they can make money at $50 oil and $3 gas. Divested anything that didn't meet that criteria. They are printing money now but 2 years ago, they were laying off staff and cutting to the bone just to keep the lights on. There is a big stink of XOM making something like $24B in profit this year but it isn't mentioned that they lost something like 22B last year... How did "big pharma" do last year? Why aren't they paying windfall profits tax?

Shell just bought a renewable developer and is cranking up development of wind and solar. The smart O&G companies will follow suit. Huh? Only appearing "smart" with a gun to their heads... If you are a European-based O&G company, you are forced to have 2030 and 2050 plan related to ESG's and all things "green" or you can't get any financing... Want to borrow a billion for that platform to produce that oil you just spent $200+ million on to discover but can't produce a drop for 7+ years while you wait for the platform and infrastructure to be built? Good luck with that without a "green" plan... See the recent offer from Hamm to buy back the outstanding shares of Continental Resources ($4.3B cash of the 17% he didn't already own, IIRC) so they could go back to being private and not have to worry about equity associated with restrictions in financing due to renewables...

Clear has a free trial that works for the whole family. Signup just before trip, use and then cancel. Still waiting 4 months for my conditional approval for my GE renewal...

The Baltics combine only have 6 million people with Lithuania having about half of those... Poland on the other hand has something like 40 million...

Tablespoon of Dijon and about a cup of olive oil and a little balsamic in a container and shaken until emulsified -best salad dressing ever... (I don't measure but do it by eye)

This remined me to make an Amazon order for one before a trip next week...