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Monday, May 28, 2007

  • Location, Location, Location

    Musings


    Recognize this view? Secluded Mediterranean fishing village/celeb hangout? Just south of Pebble Beach? No, Zapallar, Chile. A very wealthy resort town in Chile... well, still much cheaper than anything in California or Cannes, but with the same level of view. Plenty of beautiful places in the world, but location, location, location. That is why I should find a work from home job so I can separate the whole optimal job-optimal location problem... not that I have too many complaints really.

    We got back last Saturday from Chile. It was a great trip. Only two bad things to report 1) We didn't go to the south or skiing and 2) I forgot all my French. By the end of the three weeks I was speaking in pidgin spanish...which I'm only pretty fluent in.

    Marcy's family down there was fabulous. If we ever move down there we'll have instant friends (well, family really.) If any of them ever read this I'd have to say a big gracia (drop the s) for such a warm welcome.

    Here's one of Marcy's cousin's family (Elisa.)  Thanks to everyone and especially thanks to Jorge (Marcy's dad) for showing us around, telling us stories, and keeping us out of trouble.

    Chile did get me thinking about why societies function well or not. Chile is a lower-class westernized country. It has well-to-do but also has lots of areas of shanty towns, ect. It reminds me of what the valley in Texas feels like. But Chile feels like it works. The systems work, government is transparent and responsible. But it is also a place where 35 years ago it was not clear that collapse was not about to happen. We went by the building where Marcy's parents lived when the coup against Allende was carried out. It was less than 2 miles from the Moneda (capital building) and they could hear the gunfire during the day (which was on 9/11 as well if there are conspiracy theorists out there.) And you wonder what allowed this society to pull itself back from the brink.

    And now we are back in perfectly manicured Switzerland. A society that is almost Stepford Wive-ish.

    Last pic -- Chile abounds with wild animals. Well, wild in that there are heaps of dogs and cats who live on the straight. Here's one of the ferocious beasts below. More next time on how much cooler a 3rd world zoo is than the San Diego zoo.
     

Monday, February 05, 2007

  • Valentine's Day

    Why my Wife is great: "Marcy and My Two Year Anniversary (hint: That's not Marcy with me)"

    So Valentine's day is only a little over a week away. This leads me to consider how lucky I am to have my Wife (MightyMarce.) I'm not only lucky because she's feeding me right now...yeah, right now. As in, she's spooning food into my mouth so I can continue typing. I'm also lucky because she seems to let me get away with a lot of things that get other guys in trouble. A short list: flying away for our two year anniversary to go to the UT-Rose Bowl game, a habit of becoming obnoxious when drinking, a habit of not paying attention when she tells me about...stuff...I'm not sure what because if I knew what it was that would mean I'd been paying attention, not giving me honey-do lists (which are apparently a staple in many marriages), accompanying me shopping where she gets to consider all 15 ski/winter jackets with each parameter of the jacket individually weighed and considered, and flying away for this upcoming Valentine's day. Apparently I love her everyday so I don't need to show it for one particular day. I'm not sure why I got so lucky, but I have a dark suspicion that it involves some kind of long term bargain for my soul that I'll have to pay for later.

     

    In general Valentine's day is a really difficult one for guys. You're never sure what to do and if you go overboard then that just means next year you'll have to go even bigger. If you somehow don't do anything, well then, you are in deep sh*t. And you know that even if you do the right amount (dinner, maybe some talking...with you paying attention this time) there will be some idiot out there that goes overboard and you'll look bad by comparison (he got her an F'in Kitten...with a SOMC bow on! What the hell is that? Paying two million dollars to profess your love at a Super Bowl game, or winning a major bowl game in OT and then proposing....all are bullshit if you ask me). And this, my friends, is why I scheduled a business trip for Valentine's day. And why you should too, if not this year, then next.

     

    Addendum -- for those wondering if I meant Round 12 below (Douze)...yes, Round 12. The Brits and Frenchies have had a few goes.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

  • French Vs English Round Douze

    Holy Merde,

    I've been working hard all week and falling asleep at 9-10 pm and waking up at 4-5 am so I was very grateful to my body that I was able to go out to dinner tonight and then do the crazy thing of going to a bar to get beers afterwards with coworkers (Colin and Kathy to be precise.) Work has been good, but nothing to write home about except the sneaking suspection that it might not get easier over here. So tonight we went to Les Braissers...home of artisanel beers and apparently hooligans.

    So everyone is minding their own business, French are drinking, we Americans are complaining about work, British soccer/rugby tourists/hooligans are singing what appear to be drunk bar and/or football songs...heck I didnt even realize they were English since drunk people pretty much mumble the same in any language. Anyway, they were English because they all had on rugby kit and were stocky, unhealthy, untanned, blokes who could use some dentistry work. So then one of the Engish gents spilled a tad bit of beer on a group of young french turks (you could tell they were French because of their outrageous accentious.) This was after beer spilling by everyone around...it was a drunken bar after all so it really wasn't unexpected. The English bloke proceeds to say "sorry" in several languages. Apparently one French lad thought that "sorry" meant "your father was a hamster and your mother smelled of elderberries" because he proceeds to walk around a railing and begin sorta doing a 1940 attack thing on the stocky brit after a bit of yelling...sorta 1940 as in it didnt look all that effective and the brits looked more amused. Not content, then the French Bonapart's friends decide that the revolution has begun and they launch a volley of beer mugs, chairs, and 10 L bongs of beer (with no beer, they had sensibly drunk the beer before launching an attack) in the general direction of the English Channel. Now, the funny part was that the average french teenager in the attack, no doubt skilled in setting cars on fire, was maybe all of 65 kilos whereas the English were stocky, 90-100 kilo mutton eating front-line beasts who didnt need to attack the left flank of the French because they could bloody well bull through them. However, the volley of glass objects really shocked them....where were they, had they stumbled into the American Colonies right at Lexington and Concord? These guys were French...The brits had forgotten that nobody stages a riot quite like the sons of Gaul. It was aweseome. Bodies, glass and chairs were flying everywhere and in the middle, as kinda of colonial era in reverse joke was a security guy from the Congo trying to blow on a whistle and get it broken up. The French actually retreated pretty fast after their daring raid leaving the brits kinda jovial, but one with a nick above his eye...nothing compared to the average darby by any standards. Then a Swiss guy comes up and says, "that is shit, I am very sorry that you saw that, it is sad for everyone..." Here I imagine that he then tells us of how the Swiss are peace-lovers who have not made war for 200 years and they are very sorry that must inhabit this continent with such uncouth individuals as the French, Germans, Italians, British, Spaniards, but that the Swedes are OK.

    We thought the funniest part was that in the States, assuming no one just got shot, was that the Security would have been some big beefcakes in the middle of a cycle with tasers who would have proceeded to grab the perps, and possibly other people standing too close to girls the bouncers wanted to impress, taser their ass, drag them outside, bang their head against the concrete a couple times and then tell the Cops, "These guys tried to attack us, you'd better bang their heads some more and take them to jail."

    So after that we talked with the Swiss guy and his friends (who turned out to be French-Swiss of course) about all kinds of stuff. And then I came home after successfuly staying up to near 3. Cheers to me.

Monday, January 08, 2007

  • I can speak English and Sprench

    Day 1 of trip to Geneve (can't figure out how to get the correct accent mark.) -- This whole language thing is rough. And that's with 50% of the people here knowing some English. All those pissants who are all over immigrants to learn English (which I do think they should for their own good) need to try the overseas thing and see how easy it is to pick up. I did the overnight flight thing which resulted in my lack of really any sleep at all leaving me kinda delirious by the time I arrived at the hotel. On the flight this kid was apparently getting tortured by his mother because he seriously cried for an hour which resulted in the daschund a cote de la fenetre also getting upset. It was a cry-yip fest, but both were cute enough that no one actually killed them even though there was some under the breath muttering in 4-5 languages (that is not an exaggeration.)

    I did have enough energy after getting to the hotel to go out and try to find various necessities (power adapter, phone card.) My favorite part of this is that if someone doesn't know English they will know some italian-spanish hybrid which I can kinda get by in with spanish. I seriously don't know what language it is, but I just talk in Sprench and they seem to get it. I think the phone card was tres cientos centavos pour trente minutos...but I guess I'll find out. I almost feel worse when I try to speak French first to the poor shopkeepers. "J'ai bession du adapter/echufar (spanish maybe.)" They seem to think I'm Ok and begin speaking in French, then I mumble back something about Los Estados Unidos (def Spanish) which causes them to tilt there head....then, ah "LezEstazUnides, bien....no, nous n'avons pas.(here they try to speak to me about the next shop to try which kinda just gets me to go out the door, turn left and walk a block.)" But it was a productive hour since I did get what I needed (the power adapter is actually a tripartiate pact of US-EU-Switz daisy chained together.)

    Here's to hoping it get easier. On the plus side I have a view of some cool looking mts from the hotel room. I'll have to post picts later (Babe -- can you bring the USB cord?) More tomorrow. Au Revior

Saturday, December 23, 2006

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