Living in Mexico is as wonderful as all the stories you've heard. The US dollar goes a long ways when purchasing Mexican products, and my new wife (Punky-Doodle) and I found that we could easily manage on a budget of $100 US per week, while still paying off some debts in the US as a result of her surgery just before we moved. One month, when we were particularly short, we managed on a budget of only $66 US per week and still managed to go out for a filet miņon steak each Friday.

We had numerous American friends who had also retired to Baja, and every week, from fall to spring, we had at least one potluck dinner or fish fry hosted by one of our neighbors. It soon got to be a challenge to think up new and interesting dishes to take to the next potluck. (I enjoy cooking so I prepare all the meals for Punky-Doodle and I, do the grocery shopping, and the dishes too!)





Now that I was retired, I felt I could begin my career as a writer. We lived in a 5th wheel trailer to which we had added a patio and sundeck. We had also invested in solar panels to produce 300 watts per hour when the sun was shining, and I had put together a 10,000 watt battery pack which could power our DC to AC inverter for at least a week in total darkness. We could watch color TV over our satellite dish, operate power tools and cook in our microwave oven. Still, I was using a battery powered laptop computer (this was before Windows) and DOS operating system. I wrote and wrote, but nothing satisfied me enough to make me seriously consider submitting my work to an agent.

After six years in Mexico, I decided that I wanted to add the capabilities of the Internet to my research and pleasure. I also had learned that many of my friends needed a commercial mail receiving agent to handle their mail while they traveled during the summer months when Baja can become unberably hot. Punky-Doodle and I moved to Nye County, NV, because it is near enough to Las Vegas for convenient shopping, entertainment, and visits to the Veterans Clinic, but rural enough that auto insurance rates are low and Nye County does not require smog checks. I figured both of these would be pluses for my mail forwarding business as our customers could usually save enough on those expenses to pay for our service. I was right, too! In the past six years we have grown from a single customer to more than 80 now, and our only advertising has been by word of mouth or on the Internet.

My rural location also had a drawback as far as the Internet was concerned. When I first signed up with AOL I had to pay long distance charges to Las Vegas in order to connect. Naturally this did not allow much time for chatting or serious research. I soon signed up with a local provider and avoided paying long distance charges. I also found out how limited I had been with AOL and that there were many new experiences available to me using Outlook Express, Office 2000, and other applications. I also discovered the world of chat, which led me into web pages.

My first web pages were awful, and I hope no one today remembers them. I experimented with several of the 'free hosts' and found them slightly confusing. First, they all put advertising on your web site, so it was not really the best place to put a business page. Second, they all have their own site building tools, and though similar, they are different enough to make you want to pull your hair, and I don't have much of that to spare. So I got a book and taught myself HTML and a whole new world opened up to me!


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