January 13, 2013

• Report # 961

  Hey everyone, I hope that you’ve all been having a fantastic weekend. On Thursday I headed out in the morning and took the metro to a station that I hadn’t been before to see if I could make my way to some places that I wanted to go and take lots of pictures. It was a perfect day, super sunny, not a cloud in the sky, and around 25 C. (77 F) My day went super well as I wasn’t lost once and found everything I wanted to see.

  I found my way to Parque España and entered and took a bunch of pictures there. It’s a nice small park with places to swim, though the pools were all empty that day. Afterwards I continued along the highway and making a turn on a street that I thought would take me to where I wanted to go. I was right, but it was a super long walk. I was walking in the south part of Monterrey and it is great as it’s even closer to the mountains so I got some great mountain scenery the whole way.

  I was walking for around four hours by the time I arrived to Super Salads to have lunch. I was so surprised that it was so busy at 3:30 pm, but I waited for a while and then got a table and read a paper and had lunch. Afterwards I waited for a bus to take me back downtown and I picked up a frappuichino and some donuts and headed home. It was a super long day, though I was happy that I got such good exercise and managed to take lots of pictures…. 156 in total !

  On Friday I talked with my aunt and grandmother on skype in the morning and then I went for a run in Fundidora Park. Afterwards I came home and had a shower and walked up to the Galerias mall to see Fire with Fire, which was a Bruce Willis action movie about gang wars between blacks and aryan groups. It was a very interesting movie and I enjoyed it. I headed home in the evening stopping at Subway and that was pretty much it for Friday.

  Once again I ran yesterday morning and then after coming home and having a shower I headed out again downtown and had lunch at VIPS. I had picked up a newspaper and I was probably sitting there reading and eating for almost two hours. I will have to go back to VIPS a few times this months as I have a discount card and the next three times I would get 30, 40, and then 50 % off. I picked up a frappuichino after from a place but it still had ice cubes in it so it was poorly made… I don’t think I’ll be going back to that place again.

  I walked along the Santa Lucía Riverwalk heading back through Fundidora Park and to the metro station and home. In the evening I walked up to the taco place and I noticed they had some types of tacos that I wanted to try, and they were really good with cheese, so I will definitely be going there again. On Friday I finally got an email from the company telling me that my documents have been delivered to the migration institute. I now have a case number and a password with which I will be able to login to the migration website and follow the process of my case.

  I’m not able to read the number I need to use for logging in as it’s so small in the email I received, so I will have to try and print it off and see if I can read it that way. If not I’ll have to call the lady in a few days and see if she knows the number. Either way at least I know the company has finally done their part and now it’s just a matter of waiting for the authorization before I can make an appointment with the Mexican consulate in Vancouver.

  I don’t have to be in Mexico while this is happening, but I would love to be able to get the authorization before going back to Vancouver. I have a month, so I’m hoping they can get it done in this month ! If not I don’t know if I would go to Texas for a few days and see if I could come back and wait a bit longer, or just go home and wait there. I would have to think that part through, but for now at least I know progress has finally been made.

  A few months ago I talked about the decision made to take away cyclist Lance Armstrong’s seven consecutive Tour de France titles. Lately I’ve been reading about how he has been considering coming clean and confessing that he used performance enhancing drugs to help him win his seven consecutive Tour de France titles. It’s just a shame that after denying this for so many years and finally seeing people lose faith in him that only now he has decided to come clean.

  It’s a real shame because I remember how much of a story this was before hearing about someone overcoming cancer and still being at the top of their sport, winning such a grueling competition, that most people who have always been super healthy could never do, year after year after year. Of course no one is perfect and we all make mistakes, but all these stories about some athlete who achieved so much in their sport, who was adored by fans, to be caught cheating, it’s a major let down for so many people.

  And as some former baseball players are finding out, cheating is not getting them the places they originally wanted to go…. the hall of fame. And while many of these players still proclaim their innocence, there is obviously compelling evidence against them if they are being denied trips to the hall of fame in spite of what otherwise were remarkable careers. The main lesson here is that using any type of performance enhancing drug is wrong, and while it clearly helps athletes in terms of being even better, at the end of the day it’s cheating…. no matter how many others are doing the same thing.

  And one day all of these people will have to face the music for the decisions they have made, and I have a feeling most of them will be regretting them a lot. It can’t be too much fun being Lance Armstrong right now, and some of the baseball players, even faced jail time over the whole thing. So while people can put on a show and impress so many fans around the world for many years, eventually the truth will come out and these people will be labelled frauds, and not only will they come back down crashing to earth…. they will be buried by history as frauds and I can’t imagine that’s how anyone wants to be remembered.

  And while I don’t think everyone in the general public should be going out of their way to humiliate these people, they’ve already suffered enough of that, certainly the people have their right to share utter disappointment and pain because as fans they’ve invested so much of their time and money into following their favourite athletes, and to be let down in such a big way, they have a right to feel that way. However I would say just let the history books judge these cheaters and the athletes themselves will be left to clean up the pieces of their broken life of shame.

  And all society can do to avoid these huge disappointments is to educate people at a young age, and continue to educate them as they grow up. That using any sort of performance enchancing drug is wrong. And if someone is still stupid enough not to understand this, or still wants to try and cheat and amaze people with their fraudulent talents, they can do so at their own risk….. though I certainly hope all of those losers are caught and roasted for their deceptions ! For the next question:

  What are your thoughts on performance enhancing drugs in professional sports ? Should the athletes who use them be punished more severely and banned from Hall of Fame consideration ?
  
  I will leave you all with some of the pictures I took from the other day. Take care and I’ll talk to you all on Wednesday, bye for now.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  • 11:58 am
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