When does a hobby, or a labor of love, become a pain in the tail?
Many of us have favorite projects that add to our lives in rewards of accomplishment and even altruistic gifts to others, but when do we cross the line of love and fall into obsession and it becomes a pain? Well, there is no delineated line in the sand (or scratched on the tile floors in my case) and it varies from day to day, season to season. Today I'm thinking of two things, the weather station and photography. Both qualify!
The weather station started as do many things with a simple idea and a few questions. In Texas I had some of the basic components of a station cobbled together over the years and I enjoyed tinkering with them. Of course back in '06 I had made the decision to move to Mexico, and over the course of time as I communicated with residents of the Lake, I discovered there was no weather station at the lake. Apparently at one time there was an official station but it had long since disappeared and now the nearest recording weather station was at the airport in Guadalajara, some 30 miles N and on the other side of a range of mountains. Often the temps and conditions vary significantly from the Lake weather which is more protected and moderated by the large body of water.
In December of '06 I decided it would be fun to create a website and bring it down with me to capture local readings and share with others, either in residence, or just wannabee-in-residence folks from Canda and the US primarily - if anyone was actually interested. I thought up, and acquired, the domain chapalaweather.net and purchased an entry level wireless weather station and started into creating the web site. It's gone through countless generations of change and evolves sometimes daily as opportunities arise.
Last year a new station was acquired and smuggled into MX to upgrade the original system. Next a UV recording instrument was added and a webcam to capture a pic of our little world - do we begin to hear the footsteps of "waaay too much fun" yet? Each in turn, beyond it's cost, brings new challenges in programming and maintenance of the website. The rewards are totally non-monetary and often consist of meeting someone for the first time and in conversation finding they like the station, or an email saying "thanks".
A few times I looked at the number of times people check (hits) the web site and was surprised as it was in the hundreds and even spiked over a thousand during the rainy season and in the late Summer as snowbirds look longingly at spending the winter here. I also noticed the Fall spike in some of my photo albums of flowers etc. So we bumped along merrily oblivious to others, just doing our little things here at the compound that define our self created responsibilities.
This is the dry season and our average rainfall from Jan through May is 2.1", both of the past years have been less. This year on the last day of Jan it puckered up and began to rain which was almost a curiosity. Then the next day, the next and people started to get spooked, first because it was raining during the day (it's not supposed to do that) and that it was raining in Feb? - must be global hooha. On about the 4th day of rain it was getting chilly, without solar to warm us during the day the houses cool and get a bit nippy.
Day 5 and it was still raining and the cats had been indoors for days now, the outside cats had taken up residence on the covered terraza out back and at one point 3 adults and 4 kittens were all crammed into an old VCR box keeping warm as they snoozed (I thought about just folding the flaps in, taping it shut and shipping it to a friend in CO). Finally the sun broke through about 11am and life began to return to normal. However I had checked the daily hits on the weather site recently and was surprised to see an average of 3,000 a day with occasional spikes. So, when I checked during the rain it was up to 5,000, then 7,000 and yesterday 9,183? - who would have imagined. I guess getting 6.2" of rain already this year is of interest, last year that didn't happen until June 23rd.
Now it's getting scary because it's actually becoming serious and I got an email yesterday inquiring how a local solar company could advertise. You mean like actually pay me pesos? That was never a plan or thought, first of all it now is becoming a pain, an actual "job" that requires time and responsibility. More than that it could be a problem as actually making money is a problem on both sides of the border regarding taxes etc. And mostly I never started down this path to actually create something that consumes my time or resemble "work"? - how the heck did this happen?
Actually I had other plans for this year, I decided recently to get back to photography, this is such a different place with many things to be captured. I used to do some things 30 years ago, but had long since laid down the film cameras (well, actually stuffed them in an old Army gas mask bag) and taken to digital. I have a small pocket camera that I had bought for Chris and a better one I brought down with me when I moved. But, they lacked the abilities to take special pics, closeups of stuff, nightime shots, 7 cats in a box, you name it. So, I researched and invested in a new DSLR - digital single lens reflex Nikon.
Getting it down here was the first challenge. As it turned out a friend of my neighbor was coming down from Canada to visit and so the new "tool" (because we're getting serious) was shipped to a holding place in Michigan, picked up and smuggled into MX as his camera and all went as planned.
Next began the challenge of figuring out what all the bells and whistles do, remembering or relearning all the facets of shutter speeds, aperture openings etc. - which will take some time. Already this new, refound old, project has become an obsession. I've decided for the investment it needs to be serious, so I'm going to consciously carry the camera a lot more, stop and capture images of my world and hopefully learn composition etc.
The website? - yes, it's sort of become Max the Weather Cat and my signature and will continue, but we're going for the imaging thing this year, so stay tuned and see what happens, the first "installment" is in Photo Projects 2010, enjoy.
The weather station started as do many things with a simple idea and a few questions. In Texas I had some of the basic components of a station cobbled together over the years and I enjoyed tinkering with them. Of course back in '06 I had made the decision to move to Mexico, and over the course of time as I communicated with residents of the Lake, I discovered there was no weather station at the lake. Apparently at one time there was an official station but it had long since disappeared and now the nearest recording weather station was at the airport in Guadalajara, some 30 miles N and on the other side of a range of mountains. Often the temps and conditions vary significantly from the Lake weather which is more protected and moderated by the large body of water.
In December of '06 I decided it would be fun to create a website and bring it down with me to capture local readings and share with others, either in residence, or just wannabee-in-residence folks from Canda and the US primarily - if anyone was actually interested. I thought up, and acquired, the domain chapalaweather.net and purchased an entry level wireless weather station and started into creating the web site. It's gone through countless generations of change and evolves sometimes daily as opportunities arise.
Last year a new station was acquired and smuggled into MX to upgrade the original system. Next a UV recording instrument was added and a webcam to capture a pic of our little world - do we begin to hear the footsteps of "waaay too much fun" yet? Each in turn, beyond it's cost, brings new challenges in programming and maintenance of the website. The rewards are totally non-monetary and often consist of meeting someone for the first time and in conversation finding they like the station, or an email saying "thanks".
A few times I looked at the number of times people check (hits) the web site and was surprised as it was in the hundreds and even spiked over a thousand during the rainy season and in the late Summer as snowbirds look longingly at spending the winter here. I also noticed the Fall spike in some of my photo albums of flowers etc. So we bumped along merrily oblivious to others, just doing our little things here at the compound that define our self created responsibilities.
This is the dry season and our average rainfall from Jan through May is 2.1", both of the past years have been less. This year on the last day of Jan it puckered up and began to rain which was almost a curiosity. Then the next day, the next and people started to get spooked, first because it was raining during the day (it's not supposed to do that) and that it was raining in Feb? - must be global hooha. On about the 4th day of rain it was getting chilly, without solar to warm us during the day the houses cool and get a bit nippy.
Day 5 and it was still raining and the cats had been indoors for days now, the outside cats had taken up residence on the covered terraza out back and at one point 3 adults and 4 kittens were all crammed into an old VCR box keeping warm as they snoozed (I thought about just folding the flaps in, taping it shut and shipping it to a friend in CO). Finally the sun broke through about 11am and life began to return to normal. However I had checked the daily hits on the weather site recently and was surprised to see an average of 3,000 a day with occasional spikes. So, when I checked during the rain it was up to 5,000, then 7,000 and yesterday 9,183? - who would have imagined. I guess getting 6.2" of rain already this year is of interest, last year that didn't happen until June 23rd.
Now it's getting scary because it's actually becoming serious and I got an email yesterday inquiring how a local solar company could advertise. You mean like actually pay me pesos? That was never a plan or thought, first of all it now is becoming a pain, an actual "job" that requires time and responsibility. More than that it could be a problem as actually making money is a problem on both sides of the border regarding taxes etc. And mostly I never started down this path to actually create something that consumes my time or resemble "work"? - how the heck did this happen?
Actually I had other plans for this year, I decided recently to get back to photography, this is such a different place with many things to be captured. I used to do some things 30 years ago, but had long since laid down the film cameras (well, actually stuffed them in an old Army gas mask bag) and taken to digital. I have a small pocket camera that I had bought for Chris and a better one I brought down with me when I moved. But, they lacked the abilities to take special pics, closeups of stuff, nightime shots, 7 cats in a box, you name it. So, I researched and invested in a new DSLR - digital single lens reflex Nikon.
Getting it down here was the first challenge. As it turned out a friend of my neighbor was coming down from Canada to visit and so the new "tool" (because we're getting serious) was shipped to a holding place in Michigan, picked up and smuggled into MX as his camera and all went as planned.
Next began the challenge of figuring out what all the bells and whistles do, remembering or relearning all the facets of shutter speeds, aperture openings etc. - which will take some time. Already this new, refound old, project has become an obsession. I've decided for the investment it needs to be serious, so I'm going to consciously carry the camera a lot more, stop and capture images of my world and hopefully learn composition etc.
The website? - yes, it's sort of become Max the Weather Cat and my signature and will continue, but we're going for the imaging thing this year, so stay tuned and see what happens, the first "installment" is in Photo Projects 2010, enjoy.
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