On Sat, 21 Jan 2012 11:14:30 -0500, "
wrote:


The place we bought our furniture (NE Ohio) wasn't grid connected but they had
electric lights, calculators, and even took credit cards (chalked up ~$15K
with the 5% teaser cash-back - the reason I got the card). The attached
furniture factory had power woodworking tools and out back three Cummins
diesels powering their generators. Oh, and they have a web site, as well. ;-)

http://www.greenacresfurniture.com/

Sort of related. I was thinking of going back to Guatamala, where I
spend 7 weeks 41 years ago, most of it after I broke my leg there.

Only 234 dollars round trip from Ft. Lauderdale. I think I would
have paid 80 or 100 one-way 41 years ago. (Based on the fact that it
was it was 150 from Panama to Miami to San Antonio.

Mostly I'm going to look at places I visited before.

I looked up the place where I broke my leg. It had been a
T-instersection of two 2-lane highways. Now it had a cloverleaf! I
thought, Well, I know I walked a bit, 100 feet, 200?. Mmaybe I was a
few hundred feet down the side road, iin front of the rich guy's big
house with the iron gate. I looked there, and it was full of streets
and small houses So I guess when I get there, everything that was
there will be gone.

I looked up the two hospitals I was in. The first one was Nuestra
Senora del Pilar, which at the time had at most 6 patient rooms and 8
beds. Maybe less. I had to take a taxi to another place that had an
X-ray machine.

Now they have 50 private rooms, 38 semi-private, a fancy building with
plants and a double vaulted ceiling in the lobby, and they have their
own webpage, www.sanatorioelpilar.com

The second hospital Herrera Llerandi was also listed in the list of
Guatamala City hospitals, and seems to be at the same location in what
had been a well-to-do residential n'hood. but only has an email
address. I had to go there because the doctor at the first one
wouldn't give me crutches or pain reliever and expected me to walk
when the pain was enormous. So I called the US Embassy and asked
what hospital I should go to. They gave me two places. The second
was a profit making hospital where I got my choice of meals the night
before, a newspaper delivered to my bed every day, and a complete
sponge bath by a pretty nurse every day (except the 10th day when she
wasn't pretty (different nurse) .

Both doctors were orthopedists, both had done residencies in the US,
but the second one said the first had set my leg wrong. I'm glad I
only waited 5 or 6 days from when I got out of the first hospital to
go to the second.

This was 1971. The first hospital was non-profit and charged 5
dollars a day, the second was profit making and charged 10. The hotel
I stayed at in the red-light district charged 1 dollar a day, and the
Hilton charged 30. The Hilton in Chicago charged about 30 at the same
time.

I couldn't find my hotel on google maps or google. I found the
Supreme Court of Guatamala, which was one block away, but Guatamala
city must have been the merger of several growning towns. The same
streets appear several times, and can only be distinguished by zone.
There are at least 12 zones. I have to figure out which zone I
lived in. (I have notes and sourvenirs but they would be hard to
find.) I'll rent a car and drive around until I find everything. I
can still speak Spanish pretty well, from what I learned on that 4
month trip, but I can't understand unless they speak slowly.