as it were, per se

Damn you and your daily doubles, you brigand. One day it will be my turn, Trebek.

2009-10-27T11:42:00.005-04:00

It turns out that I'm still trying to make sense of all the photos taken from the (ridiculously amazing) trip to Iceland during August. Blame it on procrastination or the other usual suspects, but perhaps the below trivia spotted during a hike will keep provoking your thoughts whilst my procrastination sorts itself out.

dude, i finally got the venue i wanted

2009-04-26T22:19:00.014-04:00

Friends Jesper and Marieke, who moved recently to Boston from the Netherlands, made it down to New York last weekend, and it just so happened that the visit coincided nicely with the first Saturday game in new Yankee Stadium, a venue so tastefully and impressively done that really all I can say is that it truly feels real, which I reckon is not an immaterial compliment for a new American construct these days. Grant you I will that the weather was so delightful that you almost forgot that weather itself was still an enterprise, and, all things considered, it was one hell of a way to spend New York City's first real spring day in 2009.

Of course I remain fascinated with this disclaimer written in the second level of the outfield bleachers, a place where I still have no idea how a bat could travel and/or land.

where's the money lebowski?

2008-10-13T22:19:00.004-04:00

I've been reading an awful lot in recent months about the current "crises" that are holding hostage our economy and the trade that forms its foundation. Although no skilled politician wishing to be elected could ever say so, it's clear to me that there is no one in particular to blame. Knowing that's not popular enough an answer, then best we just blame everyone, or anyone, whichever makes us respectively feel better. Regardless, the problems do not go away, rather they are just blurred and disguised as something else. Like always.

Really at the root of it all though, in my opinion, is whether we as people value more: the concept of equity or debt. Debatable of course is the real value of equity and underlying ownership rights therein, but at least it is unlike debt, which must be repaid to the enterprise providing the money on said enterprise's terms. Or else. For example, take Iceland, who decided it would try to magnify returns by issuing significant amounts of debt, much of it owed to the United Kingdom, one of whose bankers was quoted in this weekend's Financial Times newspaper as saying: "The Icelandics had better get their fishing rods out. They've got a lot of cod to catch to make up for what we've lost."

I typically explain to slick businessmen/women trying to convince me otherwise the reason why I don't believe in debt by simply declaring: "I like to sleep at night." Perhaps I can compliment that by further declaring: "And I also don't believe in fishing for quantity's sake."

københavn

2008-10-02T22:25:00.003-04:00

Denmark, as best I can surmise, is an awfully good place if you are into liking good things. And, even if you are not, any country whose citizens out of habit drink chocolate milk with their hot-dog stand hot dogs is one whose goodness should not be underestimated nonetheless. The trip started with no discernible plan other than to have not much of a plan and ended with a lack thereof, or at least so it seemed. The Zurichsters even flew in for the lack of festivities, and in turn our never-ending, typically dithering conversations, including topics such as, for example, the pros and cons of wearing the same suit to work every day and/or the root of the financial crises and/or whether it is appropriate to put imported barbeque sauce on Pringles chips, continued uninterrupted. Also, Jesper happened to be up from Amsterdam for a couple of days, and with HP living there and graciously guiding the tour all week, it turned out to be a trip worth noting.

As you'll see here, Denmark is, for good reason, known both for its industrial design and bike culture:

Declarations were rightfully made that Logismose hot dogs/sausages, as modeled here, were without a doubt probably the best hot dogs/sausages in the world:

Here's an action shot of Slim explaining to HP and Jakester why he prefers drinking Faxe Kondi (a Danish soft drink) Light:

And, here's an action shot of Jakester demonstrating to Slim what Backgammon means when used as a verb:

A windwhirl sort of trip, you might say.

your money is being held by a kid named larry sellars

2008-09-28T20:33:00.000-04:00

In light of "The Bailout" appearing to be nearly decided by the powers that be in Washington DC, perhaps most ironic of the many interconnected ironies within, is that as best I can tell the US government is funding the asset purchasing program by issuing more debt. Said another way, is America throwing a ringer for a ringer?

日本

2008-05-05T20:37:00.016-04:00

Almost incomprehendible is it that it's now been nearly three months since returning from Japan. Almost incomprehendible was being in Japan. Accurate is it to say that the trip started with a long flight and ended with much of the same. But, I urge you to rest assured that immaterial were those flights in the grand scheme of things, whatever that is. Simply combine its people and its food and its landscape and what you end up with is something along the lines of dizzying cool. For dessert, order some of the best powder snow you could even imagine, yet alone actually ski, and you'll probably sleep all of the fourteen hours flying back home wondering what the hell just happened. And also wondering why the hell you ever had the nerve to leave. But, let my pictures fail to do this trip sufficient justice in hopes that my words will likely suffice even less:

What $20 can buy you at 5am (?) at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market, even if it was only sold by the wholesaler due to him being even more confused than we were. Simply have to boil in hot water and then let Lybrook take care of it from there:

Japan's rising sun greeting your backcountry ski run:

Japan's same sun no longer rising after said backcountry ski run:

But, as I've always claimed, the best powder days tend to be those when the sun rises not:

...and you see one of these on the side of the road while sipping obligatory post-powder ski road pops:

...you look at the following sign explaining how to proceed:

...follow its clear instruction:

...then wonder afterward if this nearby statue is real or merely a resulting hallucination:

So, that's Japan as seen by my lense. Suppose those are just a few of the reasons that I'm all set for a return trip next February. But, probably I'm returning in hopes that the local avalanche patrol will elaborate on its statement written in my 30th birthday's avalanche forecast: "the wind is not a river; eventually it will stop."

i like your style dude

2008-02-18T03:07:00.003-05:00

It's been several years now, but it still amazes me that Slim, when asked by his over-signed to make it a little more lively, sincerely included the below clip art on some subject-irrelevant client deliverable he authored for a big multi-national client in Zürich. Perhaps even funnier is that when told the below was not what the over-signed had in mind, he instead added some bengal tiger picture on the subsequent draft. You can imagine where it went from there.

you don't go out looking for a job dressed like that? on a weekday?

2008-01-29T22:21:00.000-05:00

This picture of Jacob, who forgot to pack his ski pants when skiing at El Bolson last summer (or winter, depending on your frame of reference), never fails to make me laugh.

thanks a lot asshole

2008-01-12T14:24:00.000-05:00

Did Bush's former press secretary Tony Snow really try to change the Iraq/Al Qaeda debate on this week's episode of Bill Maher's television show Real Time with the following comment: "what do you want to call it Asshole Aeda?"? I just rewound, and it appears the answer is indeed.

I still find it fascinating that there is no agreement on how one should spell or say the name of the organization (?) that these folks we somehow keep electing tell us we are fighting. Is that not at least not immaterial when thinking about the issue at hand, whatever that was and/or is and/or will continue to be?

Tony Snow was joking. But, perhaps he's right.

and i ain't ever seen no queen in her damned undies

2007-12-20T22:33:00.000-05:00

Having just booked a ski trip to Japan this February and declaring that I sure could use the vacation, it dawned on me that probably I was being overly dramatic when judged by context. For, I did manage to sneak away for a cheeky fly fishing trip to California with Brad for a week in October. Which I gladly offer was a hell of a time. Dry flies abundantly swarming around pristine spring creek water there were. Maker's Mark bourbon enjoyed creekside and between there was.

And, how could I forget our guide named Carl, who could both fish unlike anyone I've ever seen and talk unlike anyone I've ever heard. If you are ever in Fall River Mills, Cali and meet Carl, be sure to let him tell you about his first 12 hours in Belize, where he landed a flats fishing "grandslam" and was in turn dubbed "Carlito" by the locals for his feat. Carlito...now that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from.

it's a league game smokey

2007-11-21T11:51:00.000-05:00

As I wait at home for a newly purchased ping pong table to be delivered and pass the time browsing through iPhotos because daytime television is embarrassingly horrible, I conclude that a day at the park and a game of catch with a father and brother is more satisfying than being inside and at the mercy of a delivery man to arrive. It might go without saying that I'm very much looking forward to playing ping pong again. If memory serves me like it's supposed to, while swirling gin, tonic, and ice in a glass one night in Zürich, I bet Coyster on a game. Indeed, it will be fun to collect those winnings when he is here for his nearing visit. But, probably just like when the bill would inevitably come at lunch, he'll claim that he has no cash and ask me to front him the money yet again.

file under: chicken wing humor

2007-10-30T22:22:00.001-04:00

a chicken wing walks into a bar and sits down, and the bartender dutifully asks him how he's doing.

the chicken wing responds: "to tell you the truth, been much better. the subway was late this morning, and when it did show up, i was forced to stand on it for 40 minutes next to some dipshit eating chinese food with one hand and flipping through the paper with the other. then, i got to work and had to deal with a bunch of meaningless administration work previously attempted by folks that care even less than I do about its status and then sit in a 4 hour meeting where no one seemed to care what I thought. if that's not enough, my girlfriend was supposed to meet me here, but she said she had more important things to do than meet me at some bar and listen to me ramble on about my day."

the bartender, trying to cheer him up, says: "ain't no thing but a chicken wing, brother."

"what's that supposed to mean?"...the chicken wing asks.

the in-and-out burger is on camrose

2007-09-10T22:52:00.000-04:00

sometimes certain events' sequences' pictures go without folks having to say. but, it's at least worth noting that said leftover pizza survived 5 hours of bike riding in between being pit stopped next to a brooklyn bar locked only by an expertly clipped bungey chord; only to be dropped on the ground by the bike's owner as he opened the door to his apartment.

the telemark artist

2007-08-24T21:00:00.002-04:00

Yesterday marked exactly 365 days since I had bid farewell to Argentina. Which means that I experienced exactly four full seasons and their respective ups and downs and that the road that is life came full circle on so many different planes, even if, like most things, only temporarily.

It's still not really entirely clear just how much and in what context that trip influenced me. One thing I do know is that I experienced prolonged euphoria unlike anything I'd ever even imagined was possible. I admittedly laugh to myself when I think of the various thoughts that I processed during my time there. Perhaps the most ridiculous though was me inquiring to my journalist brother Andy (who, for the record, has decided he'd like his nickname now to be "Midtown") how I could go about getting a story entitled "The Telemark Artist" published in the New Yorker magazine. To his credit, Midtown actually replied to my message and wrote a well-worded response intended to gently return me to Earth, whereever that was.

Above and below are pictures of Jacob recently skiing in Patagonia for an eleventh straight year that I received while sitting at my work computer doing whatever it is that it was. Jacob, for the record, was to be the "The Telemark Artist." Initially, the artist designation was based on the flawless lines that were painted by his telemark skis time and time again on the untouched snow that is his canvas. But, as the "story" unfolded, I realized that the "artist" in him was less about his telemark skiing ability, of which many say might be one of the most impressive in the world, and more about his desire to dream and assume that everthing must be possible. You see: Jacob is the type of guy that says "maybe" before almost everthing he says: "maybe a helicopter for our ski lodge", "maybe we can ski that line", "maybe a coffee", and so forth. I realized after a while though that he was not asking these as questions, rather he was declaring that he saw no reason why not, regardless of how many obvious reasons why it could not be.

Anyway, I never did write the story. For, I was going around the full circle of the four seasons that were, per se. Maybe one day I will write it though. Maybe.

mr. treehorn draws a lot of water in this town

2007-08-13T13:38:00.000-04:00

When riding the morning subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan, I read the Economist most days it seems, at least when not increduously looking at my fellow riders also on their way to Maggie's Farm and wondering how the hell chaos is not streaming. It's a good magazine for many reasons, but it's willingness to report the harshness and unfairness of many things in this world in reasonably unequivocal terms is something that I admire. For otherwise, people would continue to assume that all is fine just like their favorite politicians claim and prove it by pointing to a short-term decrease in gas prices or a new public works project that will benefit the local economy even if it will ruin it just the same. After being in Argentina last year and seeing and experiencing vastly different economic circumstances than existed in cozy Switzerland (and everywhere else I've lived to be honest), I really started thinking more and more about the concept of globalization and trade. Here's what I've basically concluded in no certain terms, if you will.

The way I see it is that most all enterprises exist to realize a profit from their "efforts." And, at a very simple level and forgetting about any related trade-related moral context for a second, it seems to me that however disguised via more interesting sounding synonyms (e.g. "value add initiative," "synergy," and.the.like), these "efforts" are just trade in the end. In more familiar multiple choice format, it seems to me that: trade is a) a seller providing and/or giving up his/her/their good or service to which he/she/they believe(s) that he/she/they have/has the right to sell whether or not a buyer exists, b) a buyer providing and/or giving up his/her/their good or service to which he/she/they believe(s) that he/she/they have/has the right to buy whether or not a seller exists, c) a and b, provided a buyer and seller exist d) c but a moreso than b, and/or e) c but b moreso than a. Said another way, isn't trade (and the resulting economies that ensue) just the act undertaken by two parties that proceed mainly because each believe it is in their best interest considering their alternatives, however unfouded this belief is regardless of who is judging (or grading)?

But, then I keep coming back to a comment offered by an Argentine girl that worked at the hostel I lived in while in Bariloche: "it's nobody's land." Still waiting for the Economist to provide the answer to that comment. In the meantime, I'll keep reading comments such as the one in this week's issue: "Georgia complained volubly about a Russian missile that it said had been dropped by Russian aircraft into a field near the breakaway Georgian republic of South Ossetia. The Russians said the Georgians must have dropped the bombs themselves." Have it your way Dude.

wouldn't hold out much hope for the tape deck though

2007-08-11T00:01:00.000-04:00

Daft Punk landed in Coney Island's minor league baseball stadium last night. Just have to picture robots doubling as human electronic sound mixers reverberating earthly sounds with their metal hands in ways that merely serve to micro-manage unpredictable degrees of mesmerization. Which is why my brother's girlfriend Jennifer declared afterward that she wished he was a robot. Right? Assuming so, can't blame her as it seemed to me that robots appear to have their shit figured out. Easy for them of course as all they have to do is program it such that the shit figures itself out. And then proceed.

(photo © Jennifer Prediger)

and the dude was most certainly that

2007-07-29T15:14:00.000-04:00

Find me a better way to spend a stormy and hungover Sunday than watching Eddie Money's, yes, that Eddie Money, 25th music anniversary concert in Detroit. For: just imagine: a talent-deprived musician, who, after 25 years, is now even less able to use his voice as a form of effective communication, wandering aimlessly on stage and still wondering out loud to his somehow still-adoring, now grossly overweight, 40 and 50 something fans what would result if he could walk on water. He even had the nerve to lift his shirt up while singing his encore song: "shakin'." Do what? And, if that's not enough, this all presented in high definition TV on the HDNet channel owned by Mark Cuban, whom I'd say has figured some things out, including how to style his hair, for starters.

hambone and the beave

2007-07-24T19:50:00.000-04:00

addendum snap to the preceding post:

the dog days of summer

2007-07-23T22:20:00.000-04:00

Some snaps from a recent week-long trip in Idaho with my brother Hambone consisting of not much more than mid-morning coffees, more-or-less all day fishing depending on the degree of required daily laziness, and alternating beers and whiskeys in between fiercely fought evening air hockey games.

a repertoire of 24 quiescently frozen confections

2007-07-09T22:43:00.000-04:00

People: if you are looking to beat the heat, stop by and have one of the above provided I don't eat them all tonight, which I reckon is a real risk with about an hour before bedtime.

My three goals for the summer? I'm glad you asked. In a particular order: 1) buy juicer and concoct at least 3 different blends of real fruit juice ades using lemons and limes as the bases (extra credit: figure out how to package them in a bag so that they can be eaten frozen in mass quantities), 2) speak and write the word reckon more than once per day, and 3) develop or acquire enough in one thing or another so that someone refers to my resulting repertoire as "his repertoire."

it kind of tastes like whale

2007-07-01T17:20:00.000-04:00

Took a trip last month to Iceland, which I'd gladly volunteer is one of the more beautiful lands I've ever witnessed. It is awfully desolate, and its weather remains ever-changing. The people, when you actually see them, are wicked cool. The food is, if also a little expensive when using greenbacks as your numerator and/or denominator in your conversion calculation, rather interesting yet equally fresh and simple. Lots of lamb, fish, and seafood, which is what I think I can classify the whale I ate as, even if it is a marine mammal of sorts. Perhaps though the most memorable parts of Iceland were the views that seemingly changed with each blink of my eyes.

For example, the side-view-mirror view:

The hotel-room-with-a-view view (note the whale skeleton):

The window-at-the-oceanside-cafe-that-has-some-damned-good-fish-soup view:

The reach-out-and-touch-sand/lava/mountain view:

The bird's-eye-bird view:

The hotel's-geothermal-hot-tub view:

The I-can't-believe-it's-1:30am-in-Reykjavik view:

not exactly a lightweight

2007-06-27T00:11:00.001-04:00

Tonight, I hit an inside-the-Central-Park-homerun against the New Yorker softballclub. Sort of speaks for itself but probably it might not say enough on an unprovoked basis due to modesty concerns. After all, Central Park is big but apparently not small enough.

red, lemon, and blue

2007-05-12T16:01:00.000-04:00

just consumed my first popsicle of the summer; purchased it from a white truck parked on court street; waited calmly in line behind 4 kids that were maybe 1/4 the age counted for me.

well, what kind was it? you ask.

-a "mega missile." an awfully close relative of the "bomb pop" that existed in the days that were when i was a more frequent popsicle consumer.

and, how was it? you wonder.

-out of this world.

yeah. you heard me.

linked

2007-04-19T21:40:00.000-04:00

I am currently trying to build my first real-life Access database at work with the intention of linking various different data received from many different sources that deem it acceptable to offer their different data in different formats to ensure that all differences are indeed different and that creating relationships to bridge and link the differences differs in each circumstance depending on the dependency and/or dependencies. And: one aspect of effective databases that I've figured out from my newly delivered 1,000ish page book entitled the "Microsoft Access Bible" (I'm not kidding) is that each data table must have a primary key, which is the characteristic that makes each record unique and that for relationships between data tables to be able to be healthy, the primary key must somehow be involved and respected when finding what that link somehow is as otherwise the relationships will be corrupted.

On a related note, when walking out this morning in my pajamas to fetch my Wall Street Journal that I recently purchased a subscription to for reasons I'm still not certain about, above was the fresh pile of dog shit waiting for me on the first stair out of my place. Damned terrorists. When will "evil-doing" end I ask? Maybe only when folks are encouraged to figure out and then be proud of their primary key and then think about how they can link their differences to create workable and dependable relationships.

easy like sunday morning

2007-04-15T22:45:00.001-04:00

Courtesy of Nor'easter 2007, I was awakend this Sontag morgen by the same drop of water falling the 8 or so feet from ceiling to floor every 2 seconds at a speed of approximately 9.8 meters per second-squared. Even if your apartment is old and in Brooklyn and full of "character," it goes without saying that rain water in your apartment is not really an ideal situation.

Anyway, I spent the next couple of hours scooping buckets of water from the stairwell next to the backdoor until a plumber could come and relieve the storm drains. It was good timing, as I reckon if 30 more minutes had elapsed, my apartment would have been under a foot or two of water as my futile bucket-filling was proving no match, even if the plumber declared he believed that my "efforts had thwarted a disaster." What can I say? It was Sunday morning. Easy says. Easy does. I suppose.

And, I've never been that close to having my apartment flooding. But, let's just say that that was close enough, particularly as water was entering in 4 different places just slow enough for 10 old towels to soak up the impact. That said, it's really amazing how easy it is to forget how powerless we really are to alter the course of Nature when it wants to bring the heater to announce its authority.

Don't get me wrong, a bucket and a hand can of course help, but it's probably going to take a little more than that folks if we as a society value smooth sailing so.

best ski tip i know: don't eat yellow snow

2007-03-18T22:39:00.000-04:00

It snowed this weekend in New York. One thing I like about snow is that it is white.

Like most things here though, it was quickly discovered and exploited.

I'd be lying if I said I was not ready for Spring and the green and yellow that tend to accompany its arrival.

"As a group, lemmings have a rotten image, but no individual lemming has ever received bad press."

2007-02-08T13:50:00.000-05:00

This, a statement included in an accounting newsletter recently sent to me explaining the SEC is now willing to accept market-based values (versus model-based values) when determining the compensation cost associated with certain stock options:

"(The SEC letter) pointed out that one of the key advantages of a market-based approach over a model-based approach is that the market can efficiently capture a consensus view of informed market participants on both the uncertainties related to the expected cash flows and the compensation that market participants demand for taking on the attendant risks."

I wonder if they consulted guys like Warren Buffet and Billy Beane to see if they agreed? Probably not. Probably instead some academic "experts" that have never had to determine the value of anything on their own dimes.

But, couldn't it be that the "consensus view" merely includes views of market participants that just might be the opposite of "informed"? I tend to think so, and I'd argue in this instance that it's not that the model-based approach that's wrong, it's just that people are not using the correct inputs or models.

Guys like Buffet and Beane are though. And, that's why they are successful. Because they are willing to think in different ways when determining a value for something and could care less if the lemmings in their respective fields create a consensus that ensures they receive the bad press.

think it's a pomeranian

2007-01-23T17:45:00.000-05:00

Note written by current vice president noted in NY Times article covering start of Scooter Libby trial:

“Not going to protect one staffer + sacrifice the guy who was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others.”

I suppose competence is a relative term. Not sure the same can be said about a meat grinder, at least when expressed literally. But, much more importantly, how is it even remotely possible that the jurors do not laugh out loud (aka "LOL") every time Scooter's lawyer refers to his client as Scooter?

we vamos in argentina skifahren

2007-01-11T22:22:00.000-05:00

Other than: What's up?, How are you?, How's it going?, What you been up to?, Wie geht's?, What's shakin'?, How's New York so far?, Another beer?, How's it hangin'?, When's that going to be finished?, perhaps the question I've been asked most often in the past 6 months is: How would you compare skiing in North America, Europe, and South America?

Similar to the other questions most frequently asked, I'm not all that sure that the folks genuinely care to hear my answer. Rather, I figure in most cases these questions are just a means to bridge the time from when the conversation (whether voluntary or involuntary) begins to when it ends. But, for those who know me, you know that I'm always rather keen to discuss skiing and ski days passed, so I tend to prolong my answer to this question in hopes that I can avoid reverting back to questions that result from continuing the smallest of meaningless talk.

Last year, I read the book How Soccer Explains the World, an easy yet thought-provoking read about, well, how soccer explains the world, authored by Foer, Franklin. Pretty interesting hypothesis to think about and one that might not have satisfied a middle-school teacher's demands that hypotheses be testable. But perhaps examining several different circumstances on micro levels, as does Foer in his book, is a better way to help understand and explain this crazy world in which we all try to live in on a daily basis. Otherwise, we have to revert to trying to write books entitled How the World explains the World, which, when attempting to pen, probably only gets as far as: "Has the whole world gone fucking crazy"?

I suppose I ski for many reasons: The challenge. The exploration. The solitude. The times with friends. The cold wind on my face. The tranquility of powder snow. The sun that makes for the occasional bluebird day. The cold beer that awaits. The cup of coffee before, during and/or after. And so forth. But, the more I ski and the more I ski in different places, I've come to realize that I enjoy skiing also for the chance to see new places, meet new people, and to understand different cultures and why they are different. And, trust me when I say you can really learn a lot by observing the local skiers, their skiing, and the surrounding skiing environment that tends to influence how they ski and live.

I've skied many places in my life to date. And, I'm awfully thankful for those opportunities because it's taught me a lot about the world and also myself. But, Jacob, who I skied with this summer, has skied literally the world over, and he's a much better person than most that I've met because of it. I'll let his website and pictures prove it: http://www.piltriquitron.com.

He has many more pictures that are equally good, and I hope that he'll upload many more because there's a lot to be both enjoyed and learned from them. Frankly, I don't know that I'll ever ski with anyone that is more enjoyable to ski with and perhaps the best part about the skiing was not the skiing, but the conversations that usually transcended small talk during the lift rides, the pre-ski coffees, and the post-ski beers and steaks. He is someone that's seen a lot of places (and done the related exploring without any book or guide) and met a lot of people (the picture of the afghan warlord and his sherpa carrying his skis remains my favorite). And, if he ever found some months to stop skiing, I'm pretty sure after listening to him this summer that he could write a pretty interesting and convincing book entitled: How Skiing Explains the World.

Anyway, skiing in South America is difficult to describe. I've tried to come up with answers, analogies, and detailed explanations, but generally all to no avail. I can describe North American and European skiing pretty accurately and am currently happy with my automobile analogies: North American skiing is kind of like a minivan that is family-friendly and does its job but whose entertainment value equally exists in the dvd-equipped TV hanging from the ceiling while European skiing is more like a fast all-wheel drive BMW that makes you feel as if you can explore in fashion but is also fast on the highway should you choose to travel the road more-traveled. But, the only automobile that I can analogize South American skiing to is one that I happened to stumble upon one morning while walking to the bus to the ski hill:

There folks...that's my answer to how I'd describe skiing in South America.

Verstehen? Entiendo? Understand?

the sock monster

2006-12-21T14:56:00.000-05:00

Why is that regardless of the brand of machine or the machine's country of residence, I always seem to lose at least one sock per wash cycle?

Good thing it's nearly Christmas, as I remain rested assured that my Mom will present me a gift of socks for the 2Xth straight year.

razzmatazz leversedge

2006-12-03T09:54:00.000-05:00

While buying milk at the deli near my apartment this morning, I noticed a jar near the cash register advertising organic lollipops. That's right folks, organic lollipops. Which I guess is how we should demand our lollipops the more I think about it. For, I guess licking poison is not healthy, or so I hear. I took a look thinking that I ought to buy one for no particular reason other than that they were there and organic, but then realized that I don't particularly like lollipops and can't remember the last time I ate and/or licked one. If I had bought one though, I would have settled on the flavor entitled "Razzmatazz."

Renton is a guy that we tried to assign an nickname to many a day and night typically when we had nothing else to discuss. We failed on each of those occassions mainly because his unique name and the fact that rentonster (see previous post) did not really roll off the tongue. However, as of today, his new nickname is Razzmatazz for really no reason other than it begins with an R and fits him even though it doesn't which is the case with most nicknames I've heard. Anyway, I still never fail to laugh at this picture taken of Razzmatazz with his head on Slim's shoulder and Dougster strangely to their left wondering what role he should play in this picture. Pay particular attention to Dougster's left hand. Is it on Slim's shoulder or Razzmatazz's? Could be both. I don't know.

at least it's an ethos

2006-11-21T11:15:00.000-05:00

maybe. i guess. good point, but:. or. at issue is. understood, however. one could argue that way. i don't know. we could, but. probably. on one hand. arguably. on the other hand. why not. not a bad idea. let me see. it depends. i'll need to think about that.

the chinaman is not the issue

2006-11-19T02:44:00.000-05:00

If you had asked me two weeks ago do you think that in mid-November you'll be in South Korea and take a tour to the 38th parallel and be within the DMZ and walk down 400 meters and over another 1000 in an invasion tunnel built by North Korea (although they claimed it was only for coal mining and painted the roof black to try and prove it) and next be "briefed" by some South Korean twenty-something soldier armed with a pointer that is aimed at various North Korean points of interest out on the horizon outside the glass, including the world's tallest flagpole and biggest flag only built to upstage the ridiculously big, but not big enough South Korean counterpart, and, after the speech, walk 20 feet off the paved road to see a sign posted on the fence that says in 4 different languages DO NOT COME CLOSE! and look up after realizing that you probably qualify as CLOSE and see 4 eyes watching through 2 slits in the watchtower big enough only for eyes and eyebrows and then go to your final stop, which is a new railway station meant to link Seoul and Pyongyang built by South Korea, who it turns out would very much like to reunite with North Korea based on my observations and discussions, and eating stale popcorn washed down by a mountain dew while reading a speech about "freedom" given in 2002 by the one and only W at the very same train station, I'd have replied: I don't know.

x,000,000 refridgerators=how many futbol fields?

2006-11-09T22:23:00.000-05:00

Sort of a harrowing experience to just have read a historical operating report complete with forecasted unit production (that would numb your mind) of a company based in Asia that you are flying to analyze and, after reading the required 400 or so pages, taking a break, turning on Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth," and then looking out the window after the movie is done only to be greeted by a sunrise interrupted by no clouds that ensure your view to the crevasse-laden and ultra-impressive North Pole is unobstructed and perfectly illuminated. Can't say the same about my mind given that I'm only 66% of the way into a nearly 15 hour flight. Which is the excuse I'm going to use when I say, in light of the many times I've tried to estimate the impact of producing several million units of refridgerators and thensome in only one year and then thinking that there are much bigger companies doing the same thing, I (in?)conveniently can't do it.

bathrobe billy

2006-11-04T11:24:00.000-05:00

When studying for my graduate degree, my university somehow allowed me to teach a management accounting class. Given that I was 22 at the time and even more ignorant then than now, it was admittedly a daunting task particularly since I, being the rookie, had to teach the 7:50 a.m. class which meant that if the students did show up, there was a good chance that accounting was not at the top of their minds if at all. I'll never forget the night before my first class. Was out at the bar with some friends, all of whom were keen to know if I was nervous. Believe it or not, I was not really so but probably because the beer was doing what it was not advertised to do. But, I did remember saying to one friend who shared a political science class with me a couple of years before that it would suck to have someone like "bathrobe billy" sitting in my class and busting my chops.

Bathrobe billy was in that same political science class, and, besides being well-known around our university's campus for always walking around in the same bathrobe that many people often debated whether it had ever been washed, he was without a doubt the biggest pain-in-the-ass I can ever remember sharing a class with. Ridiculous questions asked at ridiculous times and always quite keen to argue almost every piece of commentary offered by our really intelligent and stately professor-Loch Johnson. In fact, bathrobe billy was the first person I ever saw ejected from a university class. It was almost surreal: like he had argued a 3rd strike with an umpire who was keen to show who was in charge. The class cheered, and bathrobe billy walked out like a helpless batter with nothing to do except throw a rack of bats and a gatorade jug before standing on the dugout steps for several seconds before he realizes he's made a complete ass of himself. I wondered for some time what he did after walking out of the auditorium that day.

So, you can imagine my incredulous reaction the next morning when trying to act like I was not nervous a few minutes before class when who else but bathrobe billy opened the door and took a seat in the first row. I did not know whether to laugh or cry or check my underroos. Perhaps even more interesting was that bathrobe billy was an admitted socialist and despised all things capitalism, traits that make you wonder why he'd sit in a class whose curriculum was based on being able to determine how much money a company was making from conducting business. But, the kid was intelligent and always had researched his thoughts and opinions and never backed down in a debate. The kinds of traits that we in theory say are commendable traits but really actually probably despise deep down because we are either not intelligent enough or too lazy to care. Whichever.

Most of his fellow students did not enjoy bathrobe billy being in their class, and I never had the nerve to eject him from class (although I do note that, when umpiring baseball games as an undergraduate student, I did eject a coach before the game even started since he threw a bat because he was pissed that the game started late due to us not calling the game before even though there were 3 minutes technically left to play and would thus cause him to miss WWF's Monday Night Nitro). But, I must admit that it was interesting to have him in class as it both made me stay on my toes and also made me think a lot about accounting in a way that I had previously not.

Cut to me conducting interviews on NYU's campus a couple of weeks passed and asking all kinds of questions whose answers I was not really sure I knew either. During the 6th and final interview, I asked the guy why he had chosen to study accounting and expected some boiler-plate answer such as "it is the language of business" or "I really enjoy math and problem-solving." However, after he thought about it for a second or so, he managed to nervously spit out that he decided on accounting because: "it was the truth." It was all I could do to keep myself from laughing. I really wanted to probe further particularly as it was clear that these students had been trained to interview and that this was the first answer that did not seem rehearsed. But, I refrained because, well just because. The funny thing is that, although I originally thought it was a ridiculous answer, I've been thinking about this response from time to time over the past several weeks and can now see his point...even if I don't agree with him although I admittedly might have when a university student.

One pillar of accounting and why many of the people that practice the discipline do so is that double-entry bookkeeping requires entries to offset so that in the end: assets=liabilities + equity. This is a beautifully simple concept. For, in theory, there are no areas of subjectivity and no room for unsolved variables (since if a variable is not known, it is really actually known because it is effectively the "plug" that makes the equation equal) and thus no circular trains of thought that go unanswered or answered by something that we default to because trying to solve it would otherwise drive us to sleep in an insane asylum's room right next to, I have to assume, bathrobe billy.

Problem is that as beautifully simple as it appears on the face, once the proverbial onion is peeled, it becomes frustratingly complex, however intentional or un it might be. But, shouldn't the complexities not matter? Isn't that the beauty of double-entry bookkeeping? Should be. Or, at least that's what I was taught. But, then why do companies spend laughable sums of money to hire folks like me to "crunch the numbers"? Is it because in a global economy assets do not equal liabilities+equity? Or, does the equation still hold "true", but it's just that we are forced to plug too often and that the plug has caught up with us as people? Have we maybe under- and/or over-estimated the value of the plug? But, shouldn't there be no plug to begin with? That's what I learned in Algebra, I think. Is the plug only in existence because people that are smart realize the impact of not plugging and that it is in their better interests to influence folks that write our standards for us to blur the equation to ensure that they can continue to exploit, or tip-toe around, the "truth"? Perhaps. I guess. But, if folks still think assets=liability+equity using today's standards, does true=untrue?

Anyway, I don't really remember many of my students now as it has now been quite some time since university. But, I have to admit that I strangely do remember bathrobe billy and have to laugh thinking about whether he ever interviewed for a job and, if so, what he answered to many of the bullshit interview questions we are trained to ask and act like we care what is being offered as the answer. For, after all, aren't the answers most likely just being plugged?

and i hate the fuc*ing eagles

2006-10-24T21:36:00.000-04:00

earlier this week took a 45-minute minivan cab from the grand rapids, michigan airport driven by a gentleman named dave. dave was a nice man. probably about 55. real midwestern. lived in grand rapids his whole life.

listened to dave tell a hospitalized customer that called his cell phone hoping for a ride home that he'd be there "at 1pm sharp" and that the caller "could can count on it" (and probably actually count on it as proclaimed). listened to him answer my question about about why the detroit tigers' playoff shirt in the detroit airport advertised the slogan: "it's gum time!". but, perhaps most memorable was listening to the unsolicited joke he nailed while driving past the town's well-manicured cemetary: "you know...people are dying to get in there."

problem is: after my initial, obligatory artificial-laugh, i became less sure whether it was a joke.

"they" and "their" wisdom

2006-10-04T22:57:00.000-04:00

Just got done reading Let My People Go Surfing, a book written by Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia. I could try and do a 3rd-grade book report and try to summarize the book in 5 poorly-written and inconclusive paragraphs, but I'll spare you and report that it, in summary, chronicles how his company became and becomes, which is almost always by thinking differently in every step from start to finish and challenging conventions that are usually really nothing but conventional if you are brave enough to actually think about them, however hard it might be. I'm no qualified literary critic, but I thought it was well-written and thought-provoking. And, for what it's worth, I'd be happier now to pay the price for a Patagonia product after reading about the Company's approach to doing "business."

I mentioned in my initial blog post that I strongly admired Warren Buffet, another guy that had and has the courage to challenge conventions based on what he learns from actually observing what's right in front of his eyes. He has many principles that he bases his business decisions on, and most all of them seem so obviously obvious as to wonder why most of us though continue to do the opposite when it comes to our own. One point of his that I always revert back to is: wondering how it can be viewed by many as riskier to buy a dollar for $.50 than $.75 or $1.25, whichever the "expert" decides. At issue and what our many investment advisors fail to mention, is that when they mention terms such as "beta" and "risk-reward" and whatever other currently vogue term they choose to coin, it is a cover-up for the pretty likely scenario that they simply don't know how to value a dollar when going about making their investments on our behalf while they fly in private jets in designer suits trying to find ways to complicate their business so that we are so confused that we don't know where to start to determine if they are acting rationally for us and doing what they claim they'll do: make more money for us than we can.

Anyway, I tried to learn how to surf last summer in Portugal and, although I could stand up by the end of the week in waves, if you will, within the whitewater, I don't think I'd choose surfing over skiing or fly fishing for several reasons including the realization that I'm not even remotely cool enough to surf. But, after reading Chouinard's book, I'm pretty sure I'd like to work for a company or a manager that let me go do whatever it is I enjoy a little more often and encouraged me to do so because they realized that I'd probably be more valuable to them since I'd learn a little wisdom when away from the daily convention.

it really tied the room together

2006-10-01T17:13:00.000-04:00

After not working for 4 and 1/2 months, I begin work again tomorrow morning. That statement alone probably explains a lot of my current anxiety and simultaneous disappointment that's been coming and but not really going the past couple of weeks. But: I'll elaborate.

I mean, I feel like I did the night before starting 4th grade after an exhausting yet equally enjoyable summer. Part of me is glad because frankly I'm sick of living out of a bag and not even remembering where I'm sleeping because I've slept in so many different places of recent. Maybe it's the "structure" that folks call it that I need. But, part of me is sad because it's almost like the end of the innocence, that is: if a near 29-year-old can claim it. The only real difference is that I don't have my Mom around to ask what I'm planning to wear tomorrow for the first day (answer then and now: I don't know yet).

I'm pretty cognizant of the fact that anyone reading this post probably does not feel even the least bit sorry for me. And, I don't blame you. After all, we're supposed to be productive members of society, right? For, if I continued to not work, the risk exists that our GDP will not grow like it should at a 3 % or so constant rate. That's dangerous. We can't have that. For, we must press on and on and on. Or else, or so "they" say.

It's been a hell of a ride though. Some of the best months of my life. Lots of memories. Lessons learned. Ups. Downs. Strikes. Gutters. Unfiltered thoughts about things I'd been wanting to think about. Interesting people met. Mind-numbing geography. Cold powder snow. Many cold beers enjoyed with good friends--old and new. All of the above and then some, as it were.

But, there really ought to be no reason to suggest that work should preclude me from continuing to experience any and/or all of the above. It's just that it probably will to some currently unknown degree. Especially when working in America. And New York City at that. And, that's what's toughest to swallow. But, hopefully someone will hand me a glass of ice-less water to keep me from choking. That's all I ask.

Quite often I think of skiing and many of the great memories full of powder days that accompany it. Which is why it did not really surprise me that I started imagining I was carrying skis instead of rugs purchased with hopes that they'd tie the room together over my shoulder the past couple of days while walking to and from the many stores that have challenged my sanity of recent (FYI: Target, since it's now October, has "Spooktacular" savings abound...don't be irresponsible and miss out). Problem is that there are no mountains or snow in Brooklyn. Just ice cream and concrete. That's all.

But, here's a picture of me doing what I imagine myself doing anyway. Because the imagination's a terrible thing to waste, or so I hear.

Now it's back to half-interested head-nodding and voicemail checking and meetings full of participants armed with blackberries (or blueberries as Slim unaffectionately refers to them as) and alarm clock setting and carboned-copy emails and hourly time recording and memos full of sufficiently vague language to ensure that any resulting decision made could not be the fault of any of the experts involved. I better go now. Gotta get up early tomorrow. And imagine I'm not going to work.

a fruitful day

2006-09-21T04:46:00.000-04:00

Disclaimer: As I begin typing this, I'm sitting at a table in my black workout-shorts working overtime as a bathing suit and nothing else enjoying the Tuscan sun being tempered by a breeze that, like an oscillating fan, predictably returns without even having to be reminded. Disclaimer: As I finish typing this, I'm not in Tuscany and instead sitting on an airplane next to some guy that thinks he got 2 seats for the price of 1. Just wanted to politely forewarn as it probably explains what might or might not follow.

Anyway, I pulled out my computer after having awoken from a daydream that lasted anywhere between 5 minutes and 4 hours...I'm not really sure and don't care to know the truth. Today, my first full day in Tuscany was indeed a fruitful day, both literally and the opposite. I'll get to the literal part later.

After having spent the morning and mid-afternoon doing a nice, long workout that included me lifting weights a la me lifting weights back in my high-school baseball days that resulted in no benefit then either, running countless miles around a nearby chianti vineyard, and swimming laps for the first time in too long, I sat down at a table next to our chalet in the vineyard that everyone, literally, else had vacated for the day in search of something better, whether it be another vineyard or town or road...I don't really know, or care for that matter. I was and am happy to be entrusted with the reigns of the vineyard for reasons I don't really care to explain should anyone somehow unjustifiably need further clarification.

When in Salta last month, Beth mentioned to me one innocent morning that I had talked a little in my previous night's sleep. This comment made me ponder what had I said and what prompted me to say what I had said to the point that that evening, I did a little investigative reading on some web sites happy to try and help me make sense of dreams and what they mean and why I should even care. For, I don't really remember nightdreams for the most part, thus making it tough for me to conclude that I ought to spend many of my non-sleeping hours thinking about what I tell myself during my sleeping hours.

But, daydreams are a different story. For, I think that daydreams probably ought to mean more to us because we can often remember them and try to make sense of what we're seeing and thinking in real-time mode, or shortly thereafter. Now, I'm not saying that my respective daydreams often make any sense, but that's probably how I like 'em to be because sometimes I don't like "sense" and the reality that typically tags along with it. One nice thing about my sabbatical, per se (since I'm not being paid), is that I seem to have daydreamed an awful lot, probably because of the Argentine landscape and also because I don't really have any of the typical day-to-day things, such as appointments and deadlines, to name a few, to prohibit me from doing it, even if I don't want to do it because sometimes my daydreams comprise some random thoughts that are similar to some of the ones I had today, such as:

-thinking about how many straw hats I'd own if I owned and/or worked a vineyard in Tuscany and wondering why my grandfather's parents ever left Italy to begin with since what else did they need (?)

-thinking about whether that spaghetti sauce I made last night would have been better had I bought those sun-dried tuscan tomatoes that were only €2 and when, if ever, I'd feel I had a tomato sauce recipe that was worth documenting and passing along with the title of Don Battaglia's Tasty Tomato Sauce, or similar, and whether, if not a tomato sauce recipe, I'd pass along something to future generations that was meaningful

-laughing about Jacob's statement while chilling and drinking mate at Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid's cabin in Patagonia that "maybe it'd be cool to rob a bank and not even for the money"

-thinking about my conversation with Slim while throwing the frisbee at Lake Zurich the other day and remembering him eating Pringles topped with barbeque sauce imported from Memphis and wondering why that is/was considered so strange and why almost everything else he does is considered "strange" by most others, even if he probably enjoys his life exponentially more than those most others doing the considering

-et cetera

The literal part I promised I'd get to was that perhaps the highlight of the day was enjoying an Italian orange from the local market in town that immediately jumped to the top 3 of my best all-time oranges list.

I don't know, maybe our vacations ought to be simpler and less-planned and less about checking yes on popular guidebook checklists so that we get the "most" from our vacations and more about eating the foods from the respective locals' land and daydreaming about how we can make our lives more simple, exciting, meaningful, and memorable--or simply: fruitful, if you will.

america!

2006-09-15T12:16:00.000-04:00

After having lived away from "the States" for almost 2 and 1/2 years, I'm moving back and have basically done so except for one last quick 3-day trip to Zurich to ship some things to my new apartment in New York that I'll begin occupying and overpaying for October 1. Although I'm rather excited to be back, I must admit that it is a little daunting because, well, because sometimes life in the States is: simply ridiculous. And, that ridiculousness (not sure if that's a word, but neither is the word "fabulize" I saw on a commercial yesterday advertising Queer Eye for the Straight Guy's "Fab 5") is amplified when you have a chance to be away from it for a while and witness it from afar in measured doses.

It must be daunting if the firm that keeps paying me for whatever it is I do offers a full-day repatriation class led by some leading "expert" human resources firm and also sends me a 200-page-book about how I can avoid "reverse culture shock." Not surprisingly to me, I declined the class invitation and don't remember where the book is. But, after having been back for about 2 weeks now, maybe I ought to reconsider because I've found myself incredulously laughing at many of the TV shows, everyday scenes, and lines I've heard from some of the worst furniture salesmen and saleswomen I've ever encountered. It's almost surreal; so surreal that it's almost fake.

I'm not sure how much I'll write once I begin working again, but at least periodically (I've always found that word perfectly vague). But, in hopes of helping me cope with my repatriation, I imagine I'll write about my experiences with culture shock or reverse culture shock--whatever. An easy place to start is American airports, which perhaps might be the most ridiculous of all things American. Given that I've been traveling on my own dimes and basically have no time restrictions, I've been blessed with the opportunity to have long layovers that gave me a chance to walk around and observe. Three things that seem to hold constant at all American airports are:

1) Seemingly thousands of middle-aged men walking around in golf shirts and khakis talking on their companies' cell phones about nothing important (because I've listened because it's hard not to hear) but that give the appearance of being busy and important and thus for some reason justify their use in their users' minds even though they should probably be instead placed in their holsters that clip onto a belt, holsters that should be illegal and punishable by death somehow performed with the help of the wireless earpieces used by most of the same men;

2) Mass confusion about security measures that are so frustratingly inconsistent but that ensure that whatever last strand of dignity we might have had are gone unlike the athlete's foot we probably will be acquiring when walking through the security monitor because we have to take our shoes off (even though the shoes we are buying are advertised supposedly as "airport safe") to prove we are worthy of boarding an airline's airplane whose existence we despise but for some reason keep patronizing; and

3) Souvenir shops with souvenirs that should be even more illegal than cell-phone holsters but that have to make you laugh even if only to think whether the recipient in some foreign country knows he or she is receiving an authentically tacky American gift bought on the way out of town because it is easier that way and because they are similar to the following examples I've seen over the last several months:

And, although the former souvenir was taken at some shop in the Atlanta airport, it might as well have been at the same store as the latter whose name pretty much says it all:

really? it rains a lot in seattle?

2006-09-14T14:08:00.001-04:00

When I made the decision right before starting graduate school to move to Seattle, a place I'd never visited nearly 4,000 miles from Atlanta but probably further away in Georgians' minds, about 95% of the folks I told responded with any and/or all of the following comments:

-doesn't it rain a lot there? better pack an umbrella.
-oh, you must like grunge music because that's where nirvana and pearl jam are from. be sure to pack a flannel shirt.
-you know: they drink a lot of coffee out there! that's where starbucks started.

I found each of them funnier by the comment. I only say the above because I'm currently sitting in a Seattle neighborhood cafe (no, not Starbucks) after not having been here for almost 2 and half years drinking a coffee with a patented Seattle drizzle happening outside that is forecasted to stop maybe in 6 days. The weather forecasts in Seattle, which generally always forecast a combination of sun, clouds, and rain, are almost comically complicated and thorough. I guess it's like the meteorologist's equivalent of getting the chance to play in Yankee Stadium.

I am not wearing a flannel shirt and not listening to Nirvana or Pearl Jam over the cafe's loudspeakers. Rather, I'm listening to my favorite radio station: KEXP 90.3, which is a listener-supported radio station that can be streamed through on the net via its website: www.kexp.org. No ridiculous commercials except for a couple every hour or so from local Seattle businesses just trying to make an honest living, and the DJs have freedom to play whatever they want and/or you request and do their best to just stay in the background and let their music do the talking like it was always supposed to be. They play all kinds of music from all over and even offer free weekly podcasts that automatically download to your iTunes should you somehow be sick of the resident music stubbornly not leaving the confines of your iPods.

There's really no point to this post, like basically every other post I guess, other than to say it feels good to be back in Seattle, where you still see local shops and cafes and restaurants and have a radio station trying to prove that it is possible to be a radio station that its listeners actually enjoy listening to and prove that by voluntarily supporting its existence. We ought to patronize those types of businesses as opposed to restaurants like TGI Fridays, who had the nerve to make me watch a commercial last night introducing its 7 new appetizers, including my own personal favorite: Sizzling Triple Meat Fundido. I would have loved to be sitting in that marketing meeting when they finally settled on that name and probably high-fived each other before walking out and sitting in front of their computers reading one of the 100 or so pointless emails awaiting them but that prove that they are busy, busy, busy.

Well, the sun has resurfaced as predicted and like it always did. Assuming though that the meteoroligist this morning was correct, better go take advantage of it before the rain and clouds return, which is supposed to be around the same time I put on my flannel shirt and head to the Pearl Jam concert with coffee and umbrella in hand.

fierce gatorade, purple rain, por favor

2006-09-06T12:56:00.000-04:00

When skiing in Patagonia, Jacob and I went for a coffee and a medialuna (Argentine croissant, per se) every morning. I also bought a gatorade in hopes that it'd make me a fiercer etc. skier. As you can see from the picture above, gatorade has beefed up its product marketing to ensure it can further confuse its consumers regarding exactly why they should be buying its product. Anyway, the first morning I asked for the gatorade and innocently declared to the person helping me that I wanted Fierce flavor. After realizing that they were all Fierce, I then resorted to the next "flavor" I could see, which was: Purple Rain. However, the person still had no idea what I was trying to order and thus resorted to pointing at the various flavors until she finally pointed at the Purple flavor, and I nodded and proclaimed "si." The next morning when making the same order to the same person, I could not remember the flavor (Uva) and had to resort again to Fierce, Purple Rain and go through the exact same exercise of pointing until she found the Uva or Fierce or Purple Rain or all of the above. Of course, we thought it was funny that the only way she could identify the flavor was via the one word that was effectively hidden and also written with the smallest letters. So, since she worked every day, I ordered the same gatorade in exactly the same manner every morning. And, the funniest part was that she every morning had no idea what Purple Rain was and had to go through the same exercise as she never remembered us even though we ordered something from her for 30 or so days straight.

Enough of that though. Maybe it's just because marketing in Argentina is different and consumerism seems almost completely contradictory to its American counterpart (which is in my opinion why the Argentines seem to smile much more than Americans), but I managed to notice perhaps a little more than normal the ridiculous marketing tactics of various companies desperate to manufacture a competitive advantage over their competitors. I think that the tactics of beverage companies are perhaps the funniest. Here are a couple examples that I encountered this summer:

The university I attended is notorious for its football tailgating tradition, which is kind of funny because it generally only comprised drinking whiskey and coke in hotter-than-hell heat before and during the game and beers after the whiskey ran out and having the same conversation about whatever it was we talked about every Saturday. One tradition that a small, select group of us began our sophomore year was to each have a Zima before having the first beer after the whiskey ran out since it was, well...refreshing, I guess. So, when buying beer for Brad's cookout, Steve and I could not resist buying a 6-pack of Zima for old time's sake. I know that Zima has had difficulty from the onset in trying to position its brand and find an identity. But, I thought it particularly funny that it now advertises that it is "XXX" and "Hard" on the bottle. Sure, I guess all brands would like to be viewed as sexy. However, these marketing gurus might have taken their bosses' orders a little too literally and probably could have found different ways to make its products sexier had they not just only walked to the adult section of their local video store in search of ideas.

My beer of choice in college was Keystone Light because, in addition to the fact that I could not afford anything better, I always got a good laugh when opening the first one and declaring to Steve that it was indeed "bottled beer taste in a can" as advertised. Predictably, we then audibly pondered to each other when a beer would market its taste as "canned beer taste in a bottle" and then I would listen to Steve ponder yet again about "who would steal a sheet" since he found it literally incredible that someone would sleep in his bed during a weekend trip home and steal only the top sheet and nothing else and then vanish into the night without a trace. Therefore, when buying the beer for Brad's barbeque, I could not resist buying Keystone Light for many reasons, but primarily because of its new slogan "always smooth," which was a slogan that I could identify with.

And last but least, here is a picture of a bottle of Jugo de Frambuesa, which is spanish for Raspberry Juice. It is one of the most refreshing drinks I've had in a long time and is made by a company based on El Bolson, Argentina. What's wrong with just putting Raspberry Juice on the label and a picture of a couple of raspberries in case its customers can't read and letting the product's quality take care of the marketing? For starters, it'd make ordering drinks an awful lot easier for the consumer and the person taking the order.

miscellaneous other

2006-08-22T18:23:00.000-04:00

In my profession, I'm often asked to take a look at whether a company's expenses are "reasonable." This is often an admittedly tough judgment to make since, when I'm the judge, I can't help but consider my own personal expenses and whether they are reasonable. And assuming that my Dad has been correct all these years and that they are not, then I start to wonder whether I, being so then unreasonable, am qualified to conclude whether a cost is within the realm of reasonableness when I can't be so myself.

Anyway, that's beside the point but probably not. For, what I've always found interesting is that every company I've ever worked with has an expense code titled something like: Miscellaneous Other, which is basically a bucket for some unmotivated staff accountant to drop an expense that requires some further research or thought, the exact code that based on my many failed attempts to re-organize my personal file folder to eliminate the "misc." tab, I'm pretty sure I'd use more often than not if I ever had to book an actual journal entry given that I've just resorted to tossing every warranty, bank statement, apartment lease, et, cetera, in that very same tab because, well, it's just easier that way.

So, that said, while sitting at one of my favorite cafes in Buenos Aires on the day before the day before the day I'm leaving Argentina for good, I thought it maybe a good idea to write down some of the other miscellaneous other, in no particular order other than miscellaneously, thoughts that entered but did not necessarily leave my trains of thoughts:

1. Perhaps it's just the fact that this week I've got a near 12 hour flight within coach class on Italy's national carrier, which, because it's said country's carrier, is seemingly always on the verge of bankruptcy and always inside the verge of chaos, but am I unjustified at being frustrated when opening up Sunday's NY Times and being greeted with a picture of John Mark Carr, the man who's confessed to killing JonBenet Ramsey, sitting on a chair on his flight from Bangkok to Los Angelos within first class? I mean, did the flight attendant offer this guy a hot towel before take-off? What did the people sitting around him that had assumed they'd overpaid for a slightly better night's rest than the jealous customers sitting behind them but only separated by a cotton drape that buttons to the wall when not taking off or landing so as to create a feeling of superiority and inferiority, depending on whose looking? Did the U.S. government cover the cost of this flight? If yes, did I then directly, even if only fractionally, cover the cost of this transport? If yes, then I hope my senator, whoever that is, knows that I'd like an upgrade for Wednesday's flight in addition to a law that prohibits President Bush having meetings in his ovaled-office with contestants of American Idol. And, if I'm denied said requests, then: shit...I'll be: like: confused.

(b) I wonder if, when in Tuscany next week, I'll have the nerve to compare and contrast the virtues of an Italian and Argentine grape and, if I do, whether I'll think both about the balance and about the complexity and about whether the finish is delicate or the opposite and about whether the Italian cabernet would make for a more or a less nourishing bathing concoction than its Argentine nemesis should I consider taking a jacuzzi bath before and after dinner made by a lady, that I guess I must assume, will be wearing an apron stained by tomatoes to which she gave birth.

>
-Why do we have to endure another Saddam Hussein trial?
-How many more will there be?
-After watching A Few Good Men last night on TV, will he break down in a similar fashion in the likes of Colonel Jack Nicholson and admit to the inquiring attorney that he probably might have maybe ordered the code-red?
-Given that the current charge in the trial-to-be is that he killed over 50,000 people in Iraq, if biases are removed and a textbook psychological experiment was conducted that simply stated in two separate efforts nearly 50,000 civilian people were inexplicably killed (whether via gas chambers or imploding bombs or whatever), would it be inappropriate for the control group to determine that in both instances there is a party that ought to be responsible and guilty?
-Is this just all one big made-for-tv event that will ultimately be paid for by viewing people that are asked to send as many as they want affordable text messages to the Iraqi cell phone company that will be responsible for tallying the votes that will ultimately determine his known fate after a message from its sponsors?
-Although it surely would have been the unpopular response, I sometimes wonder what the world would be like now if the U.S. had unitedly stood up and not retaliated against the Taliban and Iraq and whoever else that spit or has spit in our face even if there was no spit a la Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (I know that the title should be underlined folks, but don't know how to do so using Blogger's tools or lackthereof).

IV) Why can't our country's presidents stop holding press conferences or giving speeches with simple summary proclamations meant to fool on taxpayer-subsidized-silk fabric such as: "Mission Accomplished" or "Making America's Future Bright" or "Finding Solutions for Medicare"...and why can't our presidents stop holding press conferences announcing an acceptance and/or a veto of a bill almost always served with pork surrounded by characters with stories that don't necessarily relate to the issue at hand? I mean, it's one thing in my opinion to (inappropriately) veto federal funding for scientific research that could (and probably would based on what is known today) change very much for the better the lives of many people that suffer from very painful diseases, but I'll be damned if I'm happy to see that the president has the nerve to fly (in first class I have to assume) in 20 or so kids from around the country (which, I'm sure I somehow directly paid, even if only fractionally, for the flights and the nice hotel at which they stayed and the nice welcome bag waiting for them in their rooms) and announce that: because of his careful thought and critical analysis, his veto would ensure that kids such as the ones standing behind him in a shortest-to-tallest-to-shortest line would not be afforded the opportunity to be adopted and standing confusedly behind him that day because if this research would be continued the embryos from which they were derived would not be in existence, all claims that, had the president actually read about stem-cell research instead of meeting American Idol participants in his ovaled-office, he might have realized are not accurate because the plan was to study cells that were only going to be thrown away and thus killed anyway (like they are today and every day). If we are going to throw them away and thus murder them or let them die a slow, painful death in a trash can being shared with things not worth further describing for decency's sake, is it maybe morally contradictory to say it is inappropriate to keep them alive and study how they work so that we can understand how we can maybe prevent or at least alleviate some of the pains and sufferings that un-invitedly go along with learning you have a medical condition that is difficult if not near impossible to treat with what we know today? How many people that have an opinion on whether stem-cell research should be undertaken, regardless of who funds it, actually know what a stem cell is and have taken the time to actually understand the facts, as we know them today, surrounding the issue? Do we really trust Ann Coulter to present us with relevant and thoroughly-researched information instead of views that will surely fire up her loyal reading and always-listening audience? If someone is against carrying out this research, I wonder if he/she would find it strange if hypothetically requested by a lab technician to throw away, like one of the 5 empty, plastic water bottles we throw out every day without even a thought going through our head, an embryo that is still alive? I mean, if we hold all things equal, shouldn't we roll back the clock on all the other medical advances we as a society of people have made based on almost always scientific discovery and just let people suffer as their respective gods would presumably hope for them to do because the respective books that they authored or co-authored are sufficiently vague in areas such as "when does life begin" (And, why should we even care about the answer to this question? Is it because it'll throw our sufficiently-screwed-up legal system into disarray?)? And, I'll happily go on record and state that I think that being a Republican or a Democrat and both parties' supposedly clean-slate consisting of ebony-versus-ivory, either-you're-with-us-or-against-us stances on the "issues" is nonsense and just one more way, no different than if we wear a sports team hat or a surf company's apparel or hang a religious symbol from the rear-view mirrors of our cars, that we people keep trying to label and associate ourselves with brands so as to win quicker acceptance with a group we might like to be able to stand with while sipping free cocktails at a party in two-gold-buttoned blue blazers or flip-flops and t-shirts, whichever appeals to us more, in between nodding that we agree with our favorite news correspondent's view that the world is indeed better without Saddam Hussein in power even if Iraq of course is a complicated issue now that could have dangerous consequences if not properly gotten on track, however that might be. Have we people become so lazy and non-concerned with thinking about the things that really affect the outcomes of the issues being considered that it's just easier to resort to the "one-page summary" that all the executives I work for demand because it's just easier to "understand" that way since we all somehow don't have the time to read the fine-printed details because they are confusing and under the level of the 25,000 ft view which a manager and above should be justifiably, or that's what they've heard, watching from? What do the terms "liberal" and "conservative" that the Republicans and Democrats toss over the concrete wall that ensures no meaningful change will occur in our country really mean? I mean, having lived in Georgia, I've heard the term liberal used negatively in almost every context to the point that it almost seems more abstract than the "issues" that we ought to be analyzing according to our politicians when driving our cars every 1, 2, or 4 years to the voting booths, which, when after visiting, we drive to TJ Applebees (which makes a damned-fine riblet and chicken finger platter that is especially good after a day of skiing at Stevens Pass, by the way) and wear stickers letting our neighbors know that, don't worry: we voted like you did. And, if the Democrats are willing to ever get their shit together and come out with a simple statement that they fundamentally, as a brand or party or whatever you want to call it, support the federal funding of scientific research with proven promise since knowing and the knowledge that comes along with knowing is a good thing even if we've invested an awful lot in already "knowing" (a university finance professor would gladly refer to this undesirable scenario as a "sunk cost"), would that maybe help them in at least temporarily making the claim, even if not true but probably not any less true than many of the insults thrown by both parties across the dividing wall-the wall that we keep inexplicably as a country adding to, instead of tearing down, another layer of bricks daily-that they are progressives instead of liberals and that republicans are regressives instead of conservatives? But, does every brand really need a mission statement and/or a motto? Is the author of one of Renton's how-to-manage-better books correct in saying that we should all have a "personal mission statement"? Probably yes to both, I guess. But, what would be your personal mission statement if the answer were indeed probably yes? Is it sufficient to just periodically think about what your personal mission statement would be even if never really settling on one? I don't know. Because I didn't read the book since I don't put much stock in learning about the same decision-diagrams and motivational acronyms that everyone else reads because then it's awfully hard to think differently, which is probably the way we ought to be thinking because maybe we need to...or else. After all, it's like Jake said when I tried to argue that dumping more money into exploration to Mars was an utter waste of time and resources: "the writing is on the wall." Why is it though that we can't be progressive as a society yet still believe in things that are old-fashioned, or rooted in "conservative" ideals...since, after all, I like many of the things that make up the history that explains, or at least attempts to explain even if not entirely factually accurate, who we are and why we are here (yet also equally dislike many of the things that make up the history that explains, or at least attempts to explain even if not factually accurate, who we are and why we are here). If that's true though, am I half-liberal and half-conservative or half-republican and half-democrat or half-whatever and half-whatever? If yes, does that mean I need both a two-gold-buttoned blue blazer and flip flops and t-shirts and that I now have to attend double the functions where I will be nodding my head and smiling in between complimentary whiskey sips? Or does it mean I go to zero such functions? Should I really care though since probably at neither group's functions will they be playing Taboo or Pictionary or Texas Hold 'Em and so forth in other words doing things that are fun and take us to a different state of mind than the states we reside in day in and day out, however proud or unproud we are of said citizenship? Can't we at least arguably learn just as much from the past as we can from the future or what we think might be in store in the future because our best science these days seems to indicate so for both, even if the futuristic scientific models admittedly often use the past as a way to predict the future because, it's like "they" say: the past is the best predictor of the future, even if the past consists of many decisions and actions that weren't based on anything intelligent, which is easily, almost 20/20-like, seen through history's lenses? That's probably at least better than not trying to predict anything at all though. Maybe so I argue. Is The Onion anthology entitled Our Dumb Century (I know-underline titles of books or be subject to a B+ at best) the best history book on the market? Does The Onion keep getting funnier by the week because it's almost too easy to parody this world and the people inhabiting it and making decisions based on one-page, if we're lucky they even read that much, summaries? Or is it because they hired a new editor? Probably both to some degree. I don't know. Should we really send a message to the rest of the world though that we as a country will not invest in scientific advancement, however controversial or uncontroversial depending on who is trying to decide whether it is or is not, because it must be that we know everything already and have no problems here in America within our soon-to-be-electronically-fenced borders--because our preachers and newscasters and superiors and politicians tell us so because we'll all collectively look stupid if their truths, or opinions disguised as truths...whichever..., are somehow proven even just a little wrong? Was Walter on to something when he declared to the other Jeffrey Lebowski-the deadbeat Lebowski: "3,000 years from Moses to Sandy Koufax: you're god-damned right I'm living in the past"? I'm too young to have watched Sandy Koufax pitch, but sometimes I wish that I'd lived in a time when I could have worn a suit to a baseball game and not be looked at as strange and surely a man doing business or just having done business that day. Is all that our generation has to look forward to: accomplishing an even-more-razor-thin cell phone that, I don't know, doubles as an electronic shaver that only needs to be charged once a month and makes obsolete the new 4-bladed shaving razors that I probably ought to buy since I'm clearly stuck in the 3-bladed past? Is the concept of "truth" in people's minds dynamic and just a continuously re-calibrating state of being that derives, at least partially, its definition from balancing the conservation of those things they like based on what they "know" and are thus happy to believe and liberation from the mind of those things that they do not like whether they do or don't "know" why they like them and are thus not inclined to believe (even though maybe they should not, or at least entirely, liberate these things from their mind, however tough that might be)? Maybe perhaps. I guess I'm not really sure I know, but I tend to think that truth is, at a minimum, progressive. Like a never-ending math equation for the literary-unenthused. Must be as otherwise Zeus et al would probably be more prominently-placed in my daily life and not just some almost-comically-imaginary figures we analyzed for several weeks in high-school latin class. Must be as otherwise there would still only be 9, not 12 at current count, planets according to the song that I was taught in 8th grade by Mrs. Weaver to remember them and their order: "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizza Pies." Must be as otherwise there'd be no need for news and the periodicals and dailies that chronicle it in a manner that entices us to keep buying it. One thing I do know though is that it's high time that the Republicans and Democrats both found new mascots. This world needs more and more-better mascots.

- Since it randomly came through the speakers in the cafe, thought it was funny to think about Jake, while out one night in Zurich at a bar, singing the Black Eyed Peas song "My Humps" with almost impeccable lyrical accuracy. Also, feel the need to make editorial correction to earlier blog-post about hearing a song while driving in Patagonia when the next song in the cafe after "My Humps" began. It should have read: "Don't Phunk with My Heart" instead of "Don't **** with my Heart." The editor, which, due to current budgetary pressures at asitwereperse, is just me taking a quick read and doing a spell check so give me a break damnit, apologizes for this mistake. It will most certainly probably happen again, but not if I involve my all-knowing friend and new editor-emeritus, if he accepts, Jake.

(F) Something I've really begun to enjoy is to glance at some JPEGs of times passed in my iPhoto library, especially when I don't really feel like writing anymore. I tried several times to upload some of these and tell the story about why they make me laugh, but Blogger, in addition to not having an easily-accessed underline button, can't seem to fix their picture upload function, and I'm tired and sick of it crashing my internet browser. So, it'll have to wait until next time I'm sitting around thinking about any-and-everything.

Pretty much sums up the summer in Argentina. Maybe I'll borrow from Jacob though and proclaim that sometimes, instead of traveling around and seeing things which challenge how I'd assumed things in this world really were even if I probably already knew but needed/wanted to see with my own two eyes, I wish I could be holed up in some St. Anton cafe talking about "shit that doesn't matter again with the same people I keep having that conversation with." However, that said, I think I have the perfect place to put this post in my personal file folder when I return later this week to my miscellaneous other items, the same ones I left behind when leaving Zurich late in May because I could not think of a reason that I'd need them, even if I might have wanted them or wanted to think I needed them, however short-lived, and if only for 3 great months that I'll never forget.

P.S.-I really am going to miss being served free of charge a shot-glass of water and a dulce de leche-filled-candied treat with my coffee.

come on down, you're the next contestant

2006-08-17T18:15:00.000-04:00

When I was a kid meandering through the summer's often repetitive days, I used to try my best to wake up by 10am so that I could watch the gameshow The Price is Right. I'll be honest and admit that there were days where my best was not enough, but those days when it was, I was always awarded with the pinnacle of television entertainment. After all, the show had it all: a white-haired and amenable host quickly making what were surely life-long friendships with contestants desperate to show the world that they knew the prices of products made by various manufacturers that were happy for their products to be marketed pro-bono by the show's host and his smiling marketing-models.

I'll spare the further details of my memories of this show other than to say I always found it strangely fascinating to think whether the contestants doing the guessing were actually trying to determine what they themselves thought was a fair value or just trying to recall the price they saw the respective products being sold for when doing their weekly shopping at the suburban supermarkets they loyally patronized because they had a frequent customer card that ensured a new rubbermaid container at year's end if they consumed enough. And, if the answer was the latter, did that inherently mean that the price was "right"?

How do two negotiating parties place a value on something and ensure that they are both getting what they want in return? Said another way, how do you know when the price is right? That is a question that I've pondered ever since I can remember remembering, which is more or less, back to the days of me watching Bob Barker and company in my sweatpants with a bowl of cereal in hand.

I'm not sure I really know a great answer to the question still or that I'll ever really be able to adequately answer it, but after staring at something for seemingly countless hours that is only owned by someone because he found it lying on the ground in his Patagonian hometown but whose message provides the inspiration for a company that you've always wanted to begin but that you did not know with what you wanted it to begin with yet always have hoped you'd find out one day or another because you did not want to build a brand around something that felt forced even if you don't have the guts to actually go forward with it to the scale which your gut tells you it could be if you can somehow find said guts, you can rest assured that the first thing I did after returning home from not having internet access for several days in Patagonia is send an email to my Mom and ask her to send the item the guy with whom you are negotiating wants in return for his cousin since he nor his cousin have the money to afford said item. The kicker is that my Mom got around to checking her email, and it turns out she does not have the item as I had just easily assumed and now I'm required to go buy the item in the free market I'm habitually a slave to should I wish to receive what I think I might want and/or might need.

Do I really need the item? If I do, then I think I ought to critically question whether the asking price is now too high. I'm still not really sure I do need it though regardless of whether to what degree I might want it. After all, I got the inspiration I've been wanting (and a picture just in case I ever forget). Isn't that enough and thus then all I technically need and consequently when I should walk away from the symbolic negotiating table?

But, you really like the guy and would like to see his cousin helped out because probably no one else will see that he is. Is that really my problem though provided I got what I wanted and/or needed? I don't know, maybe I want and/or need more. And, if I did engage in the physical transaction at the current asking price, am I potentially offering more than "fair value" and thus not engaging in a transaction at "arms-length", whatever that means, that the accounting standards I'm forced to know and regurgitate to show my clients that I "know my shit" suggest is the indicator of "fair value", the value with which, when I'm a "businessman," I should negotiate my transactions or otherwise be accused of negotiating fraudulently and then requires that I be sentenced to death by stoning by Sarbanes and Oxley in that respective jurisdiction's town square?

Why should we want more than we need? Do we need to know what we need before we know what we want? Or, do we need to know what we want before we know what we need? Do we really know what we want and need and/or need and want in the first place? Or, do we just prefer to rely on marketing geniuses to answer these questions for us because it is easier that way? Fortunately, things don't move so quickly in Argentina. So I'm pretty sure I've got plenty of time to continue pondering the answers to these questions even if that means forever in this ultimate Showcase Showdown.

i got a nikon camera, i love to take a photograph, so (asshole) dont take my kodachrome away

2006-08-11T17:06:00.000-04:00

Well, I guess I'll cut to the so-called chase and let the world know that yesterday afternoon in Mendoza city some asshole took my bag that held my new camera and my wallet that I had recently put inside to ease some of the pain associated with sitting on it. This is the kind of development that in hindsight had so many makings of an idiotic move on my part, but for some-damned reason I felt I could ignore my intuition. I'm going to do my best not to dwell and not recount every move leading up to the main event though as frankly there's not a damned thing I can do now except try not to let it happen again. After all, "if" statements are only hypotheticals in the first place, and my bag was not hypothetically stolen as much as I'd have preferred it to have been.

But, I guess in life we are forced to learn lessons and let's just say that I without hesitation confirm that this was as hard a lesson as I've learned, however uninvited. I guess though I was at least partially correct in saying that at least they were only "material" items and I'm happy that I was not held up at knife-point...something that one woman that was in line with me at the Mendoza police station seemingly also waiting forever for a chance to file a police report could not report.

But, if there are lessons to be learned here, perhaps here are some that initially come to my mind:

1. Think twice before buying an expensive camera because if it is stolen and you are between homes and without renters' insurance or similar, it is likely you'll have to pay the credit card bill in the same month you purchased it without any evidence of the camera being in your possession or being replaced without having to pay the same credit card the same amount the following month.

2. If you violate rule no. 1, then don't let anyone steal it because you probably won't like the feeling you feel afterward.

3. Don't put your wallet in your bag regardless of how much nicer it feels to not have to sit on it.

I had planned to update this blog periodically with my thoughts on my new camera with pictures to boot...a plan that will have to take a backseat for now, but hopefully not forever. But, one feature that I like(d) is that it took 2.5 frames per second, which is like the equivalent of 5 frames every two seconds. I of course had to test this feature out upon walking up to the following hip-hop dance class being offered in a park in Buenos Aires last week. Indeed, sometimes pictures tell a thousand words, of which "choreographed" was most certainly not of the thousand in these 2 particular seconds:

P.S.-I know that many of my smart-ass friends will be happy provide their brilliant comments within the comment option that I've thought long and hard many times about removing...but I'd prefer for them to refrain here as I can verify that I've thought every comment they could possible conjure and then some in the last 24+ hours.

But, the good news is that we're off to Salta tonight and will be there for 6 days...with my new disposable camera secured tightly in my jacket pocket because there is now no other place to put it, as it were.

gizster

2006-08-06T12:27:00.000-04:00

Doug, the partner of the group I worked in while in Zurich, is a man that refers to people by the nicknames he quickly assigns based on his simple system: if your name is one syllable, he simply adds a "ster" to the end. For example, Coy is Coyster and Jake is Jakester. However, if your name is more than one syllable (for example, Renton), the "ster" option does not roll so smoothly off the tongue, so the odds are more likely than not that he'll just refer to you as "fuck*** douchebag" or your actual name...depending on the day and his mood.

That said, you can imagine my excitement when seeing the following box that served as packaging for dog ice cream treats in Brad's freezer:

That's right folks, in America, one can now purchase his or her dog ice cream that comes packaged in a plastic cup. I was pleased to see that Dogsters' lawyers did not allow wooden spoons in the cup as I'm not so sure I've ever seen a dog using utensils, and I guess serving it in a cone was also not feasible at press time. But, I would not put it past Dogsters to figure out how to resolve both issues since who would have ever thought that a company could/would bring dog ice cream to the market in the first place in any form other than on the floor holding the ice cream we spill and are too lazy to clean up ourselves so instead we just whistle for the dog?

Anyway, the Dogsters were for Gizmo, the dog of Brad's friend Amy. I know that his real name--Gizmo, is more than one syllable. But, I I don't think the multi-syllable nickname according to Doug's simple system fits him, a conclusion I hope you'll agree with after seeing him in the picture below. So, without further ado, here is a shot of Gizster enjoying his Dogster on a predictably hot and humid Atlanta summer afternoon...an afternoon so damned hot that I almost broke down and opened one for myself after witnessing him enjoy his so:

memphis & slim's excellent adventure

2006-07-31T17:04:00.000-04:00

Everyone ought to have a colleague that is his/her "Memphis Slim," if not only to help break down the monotonous monotony that goes along with our jobs that we somehow keep getting up for in the morning. I don't want this to turn into some tribute post to Coy, but it's been a long time since I laughed out loud at an email patiently waiting for me in my Gmail inbox. That changed the other day when Renton gladly emailed me that work was good that day, if only because Coy was having a crisis since he had not surprisingly managed to book both his and his wife's plane tickets for their week-long vacation to Sweden in his first and last name. Apparently Swiss Air (true to form since those are the "rules") was not willing to change the name to reflect that Coy, although I'm sure he'd prefer the comfort, did not require 2 seats for himself. Here is the message from Jake, our steady, as it were, colleague, that caused said laughter but that pretty much sums Slim up:

"Fortunately we have Coy around to provide us entertainment in his attempts to navigate the simple everyday tasks of life - like catching a train to the correct destination, booking airline tickets with the correct name, responding to invitations, obtaining cash from an ATM, matching his socks to either shoes or pants - all at the same time as deciding whether he wants to join the foreign service to solve the crisis in the Middle East, flip pancakes in Memphis for ever, or just ride a motorcycle through India for 2 months."

The picture above and to the right is one of Coy riding in a Zurich tram to his bachelor party last fall. In his defense, we rented and thus suggested that he wear this costume for the festivities. But, it was a fun night indeed and one in which I witnessed him drink a life-sized cowboy boot full of beer after just having drank a half-gallon of beer topped with an inch or so of liquor, per se, that the waitress kindly lit on fire as if it were his birthday cake with only one all-encompassing candle. He was probably too drunk at that point to remember to wish, but he should have wished, even though it definitely would not have been granted by the bachelor party ferries, that he not have to drink that cocktail.

Now, I'm willing to admit that his fashion in the picture above was involuntarily modeled, but I do fondly recall that, one morning while discussing one of the many various topics of non-accounting discussion that we in the open Zurich office forced in hopes of putting off for another hour the boring work we knew was in front of us, both Renton and I noticed that Coy was wearing ankle-length-black-athletic socks with his light-khaki suit. Renton, being the fashion guru he likes to think he is, confronted and asked him if the socks were indeed what our incredulous eyes thought they were. Slim's reply in his native Southern Accent: "Sure are. I figured I give 'em a try to see if they worked." Renton quickly responded that: "they don't."

I'll refrain from providing my conclusion on whether they worked, but I'm sure that his plane-ticket mess was all resolved and that Kacey and he are currently drinking a stylish vodka in a trendy Stockholm bar...with Coy wearing his tight Swedish jeans he bought when he arrived in Zurich in hopes of appearing more European, crossing his legs for the appearance of more sophistication (if possible), and scratching his lower leg from the ankle up that is conveniently not covered by an uncomfortable, cotton sock.

lights, camera, inaction

2006-07-31T16:54:00.000-04:00

Imagine this: you are waiting at Miami's airport for your connecting flight that is still two hours away after just disembarking from possibly the worst flight of your life that included a passenger population that was at best 50% over the age of 3 years, an old man behind you coughing all night, a woman to your right that sneezed on you so loud that it woke you up, and a guy to your left from Alabama that somehow smoothly (?) transitioned his seemingly unending conversation from the merits of skiing in Argentina vs. Colorado to the debate about whether the Da Vinci Code was "truth or Hollywood," to use his parlance. I don't really recall saying anything, and I don't think he realized my lack of participation which almost made it acceptable for him to continue if not only to see how long it would take for him to notice.

Anyway, you're just happy to be off the damned flight and to have overspent on a Tropicana fruit smoothie at a Starbucks because they are the only place that takes credit cards as you have no greenbacks and the cashier politely declines your offer of Argentine pesos. After paying, you sit down and since you are in Miami, you are skeptically listening to "Fly Me to the Moon" being covered by a band that's probably never worn anything but flip flops and shorts. You look over and notice a family sitting at the table next to you--father, mother, son (approx. 12 yrs old), and daughter (approx. 10 years old). The family, since they are a family on "vacation", is of course not speaking to each other. But, the father feels the need to continue running his video camera and film the son and daughter looking around awkwardly at the lack of scenery with an occasional shot of the mother looking at her children wondering whether their dad will ever turn off the camera that they so obviously loathe. About 2 minutes after the song is over, and we've moved on to Bob Marley, the father simply declares: "let's go" and turns off his camera. The family quickly arises in unison, clearly relieved to no longer have to be characters in this ridiculous family sitcom, that is, however, much more entertaining than the 2 and a Half Men sitcom rerun I acted like I was watching on the flight in hopes of shutting up, if it was only temporarily successful, the Alabaman.

Watching this scene made me think back to my Dad buying a new dark-red JVC video camera for a family vacation to Hawaii when I was about 9 years old. We (i.e. my Mom, brother, and I) absolutely hated that damned thing. I mean, why should we try to make family interaction even more uncomfortable than it already almost always is when the children are under the legal drinking age? Of course, that was the first and last time that camera was used at any family event since my Dad was out-voted 3-.5 (I think he did not like it either, but would have voted .5 since it cost a lot of money and probably thought he could get some return on his "investment" if it was used again). I don't recall the last time anyone ever watched the videos from that vacation, and given that I was in my Jams and checkered Vans slip-ons stage at that point, it's probably better that way for all the characters unwillingly involved. It's funny though as I just purchased a new Digital SLR camera that I so far love and hope will help me satisfy my photography bug but that was expensive enough that I'm partially scared that it will be my very own symbolic dark-red JVC video camera. I don't think it will be, and I'll put myself on the record here to ensure that I'll actually use it but that I don't use it in scenes in which it is painfully obvious that the model would have preferred the camera to be in its new, protective-carrying case (Travis, who unjustifiably went as far the other night at Brad's bbq to refer to me as "Wang," excluded).

Anyway, I know that slip-on Vans are back again (at least in Europe they are). But, I've been away from the US now for a couple of years, so I sincerely ask: are Jams also cool again? I guess that first requires asking the question of whether they were ever cool to begin with? Of course, I could watch the family vacation video to help answer that question myself, but I'll just assume they were for fear of finding out the opposite answer the hard way.

But, then you walk into your parents' home and glance at a school portrait of yourself from 3rd grade that your folks still somehow proudly (?) display and realize that your haircut looks hauntingly similar to the picture you reflect today when glancing at a mirror. Maybe I am/was and/or was/am cooler than I give myself credit for. Sometimes inaction can be a good thing I suppose.

hello...i'm pato

2006-07-24T18:01:00.000-04:00

When you are in Patagonia, you begin to realize that some things are awfully strange, and perhaps even stranger is that the folks here don't think they are so strange. It's almost as if the landscape here is so incredible that folks' brains spend their time trying to find some sort of mental equilibrium on that matter alone and the other circumstances associated with daily life are totally forgotten due to lack of enough time in the day, as it were.

Jacob and I have had many good laughs about certain things we've seen over the past month. Before getting to the pictures, perhaps setting the stage is a story Jacob told me when recounting his first visit here 10 years ago. While on a plane to Ushuaia, a city in the far south, the captain got on the loudspeaker to let them know they were about to land and for the flight attendants to take their seats. They followed his orders and dutifully sat down, but apparently an Argentine guy kept his stance and continued drinking his mate and talking to the folks in the row in front of him. Jacob and his girlfriend Connie watched amazed as the plane landed with the guy still standing and drinking his mate (not a drop spilled) with the flight attendants not doing or saying a thing about it. Can you imagine that happening in the U.S. or Europe?

It's almost as if people are completely oblivious to just about everything, but that is how I think they choose to be because it is less stressful that way. Good for them. Regardless, our joke when seeing strange things here..."just give 'em a mate and they won't know the difference."

Anyway, here are some pictures of some strange (at least in our minds) things we've witnessed so far:

Surely the architect that designed this kiosk near our hostel doesn't have the nerve to walk this street on his way home, right?

This is a new bar at the base of Cerro Catedral. One day when we were going to the grill in front of the bar for a choripan after our ski, the owner, who had just been talking to the guy that owned the grill and right in front of the same owner, started trying to persuade us for several minutes to go to his bar for food instead of ordering from the grill that was a daily fixture for us. I asked him why not just call this the El 101.9 bar? He didn't have a good answer, so we declined his invitation and instead patronized the owner we by then knew on a first-name basis and that gave us free beer due to our frequent customer status that we were so proud (I guess) of.

And, last but not least, this is a picture of Pato, a ski instructor in town and one of the funniest guys I've ever met. He speaks good English, but with a heavy Spanish accent that is funny by itself. One night after just having arrived at a bar at which he was supposed to meet his girlfriend, he spent a couple of minutes on the phone with her...and I just assumed he was telling her he had arrived and that she should come on down. I asked him if she was on her way, and he replied: "Of course not. If she came, I would not be able to look at the butts of the girls and...walk up to them and say: hello...I'm Pato." We laugh at that statement to this day, if not only for the nonchalant manner in which he voiced it.

Before taking this photo, I asked Pato what his shirt meant. He incredulously asked me: "well, you know the brand Levi's, right? And, you know what sharks are, right?" I answered yes to both questions, but then posed the question of what did the two together mean. His answer: "well, I don't really know and had not thought about that. Sometimes in Patagonia, we just don't ask questions like that because we'll never know the answer." After saying that, he said that he had been writing a song for over a year now whose lyrics tried to answer many of the unanswerable questions that exist in this world, but that he did not yet have a title. He agreed with my suggestion that "Levi's Sharks" would work. And, I told him that when he gets his first live gig, after he sits down and grabs his guitar before playing, he simply needs to lean into the microphone and declare: "hello...I'm Pato."

"telemark...is...a...good"

2006-07-24T12:23:00.000-04:00

The hostel I am staying at is owned by a guy named Carlos, one of the better people I've met in this world if not only because I'm convinced he thinks everything is wonderful, regardless of how much it might not be in other folks' eyes. Anyway, Carlos and his wife Nery, who are old friends of Jacob, have had us up for dinner several times this past month, and I've enjoyed every meal with them if not just to hear the same joke he's told every time.

According to Jacob, Carlos was the first Argentine telemark skiing around here, and, needless to say, I'm pretty sure he sincerely enjoys it. When he found out that I was also telemark skiing at the first dinner, unsolicited he started trying to describe why he loved telemark skiing and settled, in his accented English, with the following simple statement: "telemark...is...a...good." I agree, and, after hearing that statement and its simplicity, I started to wonder why we native English speakers have complicated our language so damned much that high-priced attorneys that are "experts" at figuring it out spend days, months, and sometimes years trying to figure out what we really meant when we wrote or said something.

Back to the point though, while drinking a beer late in the evening after a big powder day, when Carlos comes down and invites you to do a ski tour with him and 5 of his friends, you don't hesitate to answer yes because even if the skiing might not match that day just ended, you know that at a minimum, you're going to get some good exercise and a good story out of the experience.

So, we woke up early and accompanied Carlos in his car to an area he and his friends had decided on the day before. Our original plan was halted though when we realized from the car that there was not much snow in the valley we were hoping to tour and ski. So, an alternative location was determined, and we drove the 45 or so minutes to get there. We realized that once we got to the turnoff that this was a road we had tried and miserably failed to travel last week in our 2-door, 2-wheel-drive rental car. And given that Carlos does not have 4-wheel drive either, we did not make it so far and pulled up the following national park "office." This is Carlos asking the ranger if it would be possible to get a ride to the refuge hut where the ski tour would begin:

The answer was no, so all 9 of us began packing our packs knowing that we had about a 2 hour hike on the "road" just to make it only to the refuge hut. Here is a picture of Jacob, Peter, and Carlos walking the road not often traveled except by Land Rovers carrying paying tourists:

Here is a picture from a bridge-the first bridge, but certainly not the first river, I recall crossing when skiing with Jacob. Unfortunately, fishing season does not begin here until November, but I'm really itching to get back here to fly fish for obvious reasons.

We walked about 1.5 hours of the hike, when I increduously heard Carlos yelling at me from the cab of a truck to "get inside." It turns out that his friend had called his friend Martin, who had a 4-wheel-drive truck that could more easily get us to our destination but had been asleep when he placed the call. Like a good friend, he showed up though, picked up all 9 of us along the way, and somehow fit everyone and his/her skis inside the frame of the truck for the next 15 minutes driving on a road that only sometimes was during those minutes. Here is a photo of Martin trying to organize his truck after we all got out:

We thanked him profusely, got on our way beginning the skin up, and made it up to the middle of the mountain, when we decided to go down for a coffee since the wind was not cooperating as we continued our ascent and left the shelter of the forest.

Here is a picture of Carlos, excitedly right before his first telemark turn and right after he let me know it had been a year and that he might be a little rusty because he was "30 years too much for this":

Here is a picture of Carlos after his first turn:

And, here is a picture of Carlos after his second turn, neither of which even began to make him think telemarking was no longer "good":

But, here is a picture of his 3rd turn, the first of many successful and impressive turns:

Here is a picture of Peter and I gladly watching him skillfully make his turns and weave between the forest's trees:

And, finally, here is a picture of me skiing strong like always:

I particularly enjoyed that literally before every turn, Carlos yelled out "wow" as if each one was his first ever. It was an awful lot of fun to finally have the telemark ski that we all had been discussing now for 4 weeks. Truth be told, we probably all managed to make at most 15 turns each since the terrain was not so steep and the snow pretty heavy. But, it was one of the most fun days I've had since I arrived in Bariloche.

I am often asked by various people why I decided to telemark ski. I've been thinking a lot about my answer to that this month and hope to have words before too long that more adequately answer that question than what I've offered to date. But, for now, I think I'll borrow from Carlos and declare that I do it because "telemark...is...a...good."

if you want a face shot, guess you sometimes literally have to "get down on it"...

2006-07-23T18:40:00.000-04:00

Here is a photo Jacob took of me skiing yesterday. We spent some time trying to decide whether it was a good turn (and just deep and tricky snow) or the opposite (the more likely scenario, yet not the one I'm going with, when I think back to how I skied). Anyway, it is an interesting photo in my mind if nothing else. You be the judge, per se.

an animal?

2006-07-22T18:29:00.000-04:00

The weather in Patagonia is as unpredictable and equally extreme as I've ever experienced. After 6 straight days of no skiing due to rain that started to make me think that Seattle was a sunny beach resort, a massive snow storm began and lasted 2 days that dropped cold, light snow and presented us with probably the 2 best days of skiing yet. It is forecast to continue until Tuesday, which is fine by me, but I've learned not to put too much stock in weather predictions here.

Anyway, today after traversing out of the forest and arriving near the base lift for another lap, after watching me jump 3 or so inches high over the maybe the 1 foot of area on the road where there was no snow, an approximately 10 year old boy remarked to me that I was: "an animal." I'm not so sure he is correct on many different levels, but rest assured that I did not feel it was appropriate to argue with my new and probably only fan.

Hearing the comment though brought back a funny memory of skiing a couple of years ago in Canada with Lee, my roommate when I lived in Seattle. We caught a brilliant powder day and were skiing through the forest at the base of Lakeside Bowl on Blackcomb Mountain. Lee, who was ahead of me, stopped to take a breather when an out-of-control skier noticed Lee to his right and yelled out: "what's up powderhound?" I heard the guy say something but could not make out what he said. But, fortunately, in one of his patented stoic reactions, when I arrived to where he was sitting, Lee declared: "that guy just called me powderhound." I guess it is probably only funny to the two of us though for reasons all too obvious after trying to write an account of the story.

But, here are some pictures of some turns the past couple of days that hopefully prove we were not inside staring blankly at rain outside. The first skier is Peter, who is accompanying Jacob to Bolivia for their ski project next month. The second skier is Jacob. Both are good pictures of course, but I guess there can only be one powderhound a day, and that award goes to Peter for obvious reasons. For his 2nd place finish, I'll refer to Jacob I guess as the powderpup. I guess I'm just simply "animal."

this world needs more mascots

2006-07-20T14:06:00.000-04:00

Courtesy of Jake, I mean "Anonymous," this post is being reconstructed since the original post was admittedly "off the deep end," which can happen from time to time when you are at the end of a bottle(s?) of red wine that you enjoyed/required while typing since the 6th straight day of rain precluded skiing for as many days, the same rain that starts to challenge your sanity, if you somehow will.

Believe it or not, there was actually a point though in the original post that has become more clear to me the past several months and one that I'll hopefully articulate a little better in a future post (provided someone like Nissan will sponsor my effort) that I promise will be written only after notifying the bartender to cut me off after 2 glasses and getting his word that he'll pour 3 tops, subject to reasonable upward rounding error.

But, his wish of hearing about powder skiing is granted above. I'll work on the others but no promises to you "Anonymous."

let there be internet

2006-07-19T18:16:00.000-04:00

After 7 days of hearing that the internet would definitely be functional at the hostel the following day, the internet gods finally came through today. The great (?) thing about Argentina is that no one really seems to care when things don't work, which probably can be at least partially attributed to many of the citizens' Italian and/or Spanish heritage. There is a little internet cafe down the street, but given the numerous backpackin' folks talking on Skype at levels that I only previously thought Renton could muster talking on his cell phone while riding a Zurich tram, I made my visits there as short as possible...basically to check email and confirm that rain was still in the forecast. And, let me say that anyone who claims that PC's are better than Mac's is incorrect in every aspect of the lame argument he/she should not even attempt to attempt.

Anyway, I guess it's been over a week now since I posted anything, so I'll try to recount as best I can. Middle of last week the snow came in and gave us 3 days of great skiing, even a rare bluebird powder day as I'll hopefully prove later with some pictures. But, the weather turned last weekend, and we've been sitting through some pretty stubborn rain storms now for 5 days, days which have seen no skiing although we did skin up the ski hill yesterday for the exercise.

The first "great" day of skiing was pretty interesting. It was snowing really hard and the wind was blowing even harder. We sat on a 2 person chair that might have been installed in 1980 latest with wind at our side that made me scared for the first time ever while riding a chair lift. We were like a pendulum that I was convinced would expand from 180 to 360 degrees with every new swing. But, we made it off the lift and began traversing to the forest on the back side of the mountain in hopes that visibility would be better in the trees. During this traverse I was literally blown over twice while skiing, another first. We finally made it to the forest though and found some great snow, which seemed to validate it all until we came to the following creek. I guess this picture says it better than I can:

I wasn't officially diagnosed, but I imagine that I came in a couple notches below this guy on my Gatorade's Fiercemeter while figuring out how I was going to get across without an unbroken ski:

But, we made it over the creek after I figured out how to get my ski tip out from under the tree that was only temporarily fiercer than me. Then, it was on to the bamboo, when my goggles decided to fog up. Here was my view when the snow was not pelting into my face and eyes to Jacob trying to find a way out of the bamboo:

I especially liked Jacob's advice to just point your skis as otherwise I'd just get caught in its "trap." He was correct, and maybe Jacob's also correct when he says: "that's skiing...90% is shit and 10% is good." But, then you look at your watch, and it tells you a new day has arrived, and this day presents you with the following opportunities that certainly fall within the good percentile:

And then you turn around and this is your view:

And you know that these are in your future:

All of which somehow makes that 10% seem more like 51% thus giving skiing a "mandate" to continue its governance of me.

du er søn af en terrorist-hore (danish stating: well you know what...)

2006-07-11T17:54:00.000-04:00

I never liked video games all that much as a kid. Before today, don't think I've played one in about 15 years. But, now I think I've found one that can keep me happy for days on end and for all the right yet equally wrong reasons. What's wrong with an adult playing a game that requires me to merely click on my mousepad and have Zinedine Zidane head-butting Italy's Marco Materazzis (sic) for 15 or so seconds before I learn I recieve a red card for my retaliations for Materazzis (sic) calling my Mom a "terrorist-hore"? Is our world so-damned ridiculous that our athletes that serve as our "role models" still resort to bringing their mom into the argument while proudly representing their countries in the world's biggest sporting event that occurs only once every four years? Can you imagine if Zidane had called Materazzi's mom, the same one that, him being a good Italian son, he probably still lives with, a terrorist-hore? That revenge would probably have required the event being aired on HBO after, or in, a Sopranos episode.

Was pleased to read yesterday that the White House's terrorism "experts" were quickly able to conclude an explosion that leveled a 3-story townhouse in New York City's upper east side was not the work of "terrorists." Come on folks, isn't it just at least a little possible that we are so damned confused that we don't really know what the definition of terrorism really is even if we probably never have known to begin with? Is it really such that our country's terrorism experts are even more confused than us since they can conclude that terrorism is only present if it is violence carried out against innocent people performed by Muslims living in underground cells existing in locations that we don't really know whether are underground or aboveground because we refuse to try and understand why they might be under and/or above us or them since we are scared of finding out the truth? How long are we going to allow these experts to conclude that we are making "progress" in eliminating terrorism from this planet? Will there ever exist a day when people just simply get along and don't feel the need to express their anger resulting from whatever reason it might be however much we want to assume that there surely can't be a reason?

Is Zidane's mom really a terrorist because of where she is from regardless of how unimportant it is when trying to figure out if she is a terrorist? Maybe Zidane is the terrorist because he head-butted Materazzi? Or was Materazzi the terrorist because he insulted Zidane? Is Zidane an "insurgent" because he resorted to violence even if he might not have been a terrorist before Materazzi insulted him? Does the fact that the score was 1-1 at the time of the "attack" have any relevance when concluding who the real terrorist was and/or is?

Shit, I don't know but I probably do. But, maybe I'll just do what is easiest and wait for the White House's experts to let me know if terrorism was present in this particular circumstance and who the guilty party was. In the meantime, I'll just go back to doing what I was doing:

http://www.hyggestedet.dk/index.asp?game=zidane

P.S.-after your first legitimate powder day in which you were able to find a couple of face shots and fresh line after fresh line, what would you do if skiing in Argentina? Choripan and a cerveza is what we did...and will do again tomorrow. Whoever said powder snow makes you smile was a wise man.

i wonder if hulk hogan was ever given a red card?

2006-07-10T14:15:00.000-04:00

Jacob and I skied all afternoon yesterday at Cerro Catedral in what was our best snow to date. We managed to take the lift down around 5pm and wandered our way to the bus thinking that the world cup final started later and that we might be able to catch some of the game's last minutes at the hostel. We stopped at a little hut before the bus stop to grab a choripan (grilled sausage sandwich) and realized though that the game was now well into overtime since it took about 10 minutes for the 7 guys "working" at this small stand to acknowledge our existence, and I don't think they were happy we wanted to order something. I don't know...maybe the customer is not always right?

Anway, we walked up only a couple of minutes before perhaps the soccer play of the century that had I had a cell phone I would have almost certainly sent a text message to T-Mobile to vote for their "man of the match" that ESPN felt the need to advertise ad nauseum on T-Mobile's behalf during its world cup broadcasts. I still don't know why he did it and don't know if I ever want to know, but I don't think I'll ever forget the reaction on Jacob's face when he saw the replay for the first and most certainly not last time. But, I guess the Spaghettis got the best of the Frogs and now I suppose all we can do now is wait for 2010. When is that again?

Although I have an Italian last name, I'm still not sure if I'm happy they won if not only because of the picture that was on the front page of the New York Times' online edition this morning showing the team celebrating. One player appeared to be doing a dance, per se, in which he seemed to have assumed the "crane kick" so brilliantly executed by Ralph Maggio based on Mr. Miyagi's expert senseiing, as it were.

Here is a picture of Jacob watching the game on our restaurant's big screen:

(parentheses)

2006-07-09T18:40:00.000-04:00

(maybe what we really mean or want to say however abstract it very well might or might not be is what we write following our initial presumably-already-reasoned thoughts and related conclusions that ought to be sufficient (or so "they" say) on their own to begin with within the artificial barriers created by (parentheses?))?

patagonier

2006-07-08T17:15:00.000-04:00

Had a baseball coach when I was 13 that hailed from Brooklyn, a place too abstractly far away from the suburbs of Atlanta...name was Harry Mason-Coach Mason of course to us kids though. I've always thought I'd like my nickname to be Coach, but unfortunately others nouns and adjectives seem to so far have satisfied my nickname givers more. Anyway, to him, I was known as Battaglier. For, besides his ever impeccably trimmed mustache, the only thing I remember about him is that his Brooklyn upbringing left him without the ability to pronounce a short "a" in a way that sounded anything unlike the sound one makes when we normal folks see an -er at the end of a word. I remember riding to practice and games with a couple of teammates, Bryan Delorenzo and Ben Marsten, and we'd spend the entire car ride sometimes just trying to think of words that ended in -a so that we could impersonate how Coach Mason would pronounce the same word. You can rest assured that we sure enjoyed our trip to the tournament in Alabamer.

Anyway, I've been in Patagonier now for over a week now and well, shit...Idon'tknow, I guess I probably ought to not lie and declare that it's the most awe-inspiring and magical place I ever have seen through my own 2 eyes. Its contradictions are almost confusing to a point where you can forget to remember what time it is or forget to remember if you even care what time it is in the first place.

Now, I've never painted anything absent the required elementary-school-art-class-Mothers'-Day present of something still not really discernible but which my Mom probably said "wow, I love it Jeff" and gave me a hug in lieu of the handshake I probably at most deserved, but I can't help but think that sights such as these pretty easily provide the explanations why many painters go insane and cut their ears and shit off. It's almost dizzying to be here since you feel like you are in a perpetual 360 degree panoramic photo that is incessantly changing its thesis and 3 supporting paragraphs and doesn't even attempt to try to conclude in the required 5th and concluding paragraph that it doesn't even bother trying to write because it knows better. I mean, the damn sky here changes colors seemingly every second and not to just a different tint of sky blue, as it most definitely were.

And, perhaps even more interesting than the landscape are the people that are forced to live here and try to act as sane (or is it insane?) human beings each and every normal living, non-vacation-for-them day. For, it's desolate to the point that you should be embarrassed to have claimed that you've listened to silence before, raw to the point that you can't help but feel guilty having worn a gore-tex jacket in noncommittal rain while watching a gaucho who probably does not know he's one untying his horse in his front yard only protected from the same rain by wool and a leather hat that there's a good chance he made himself, and imaginary to the point that you should expect to daydream about any and everything but not necessarily in that order for hours on end, and ending prematurely only for reasons not really known but that will probably anyway begin again shortly thereafter so it's not worth wondering why it ended in the first place.

Perhaps this scene simply says it all...imagine: you are riding in a 2 seat, red-rental car whose trunk somehow allows you to put skis in while at the same time still being able to close the front doors that the skis' tips are scratching and whose odometer indicates it has driven over 350 thousand kilometers most likely all recorded over this ridiculous landscape listening to the only radio station around that your dial spent 45 non-stop minutes desperately seeking playing a song whose Spanish lyrics are being hummed by the popular Argentine band Los Rayos, the kind of band you can imagine listening to in an old saloon in a more-than-one-horse-Argentine town while sipping the worst whiskey the bartender's got, since anything better would have been inappropriate. Not but one second after the Spanish guitar registers its last reverberation, a top 40 pop music song by an artist whose name is unimportant begins as follows after an electronically-egineered rythm's lead-in: "don't fuck with my heart." I bet you and the person driving your rented car would also only be able to do what we were only able to do: have a quick laugh without saying anything and return to being interrupted by the sky sitting right in front of you but seemingly still days away wondering where you'll end up staying that night or whether you really even care or ever could care to begin with.

Here are some selected photos, none of which really do this place any justice, but maybe help explain why I'm sitting here typing in Patagonier really enjoying this what-should-otherwise-be-really-awful-already-mixed-in-the-bottle-only-purchased-because-it-was-the-only-acceptable-alcoholic drink-choice-in-this-town-of-200's-general-store Fernet and Coler.

Jacob taking a picture of the car he really wants to buy for his upcoming August ski project in Bolivia.

My permanent view while watching the above sausages and chicken cook over the mesmerizing Patagonian fire. I tried taking the picture 3 times with the moon in what I swear was the middle, yet this is where it ended up every time in the resulting picture, which is probably where it belongs anyway.

Our rental car that did its job driving hundreds of kilometers of unpaved Patagonian roads even when I was certain it would not and that I was probably a little more than embarrassed to turn back in to its owner if not only because of the smell that is created by 2 guys that did not shower for three days and whose ski boots could probably smell a little fresher, per se. Notice the mate on the dash board that only sometimes held its position when unjustfiably not being used.

P.S.-while at the Argentine bbq last night that made me embarrassed to think that I own a Weber grill (see picture above) in the backyard of the hostel we stayed at and run by Jacob's great friend Dario, perhaps the person who almost single-handedly yet unknowingly helped me answer the many self-unanswered questions about this world that I often ponder, I increduously listened to this same guy tell me that his Indian tribe's people that natively inhabit the Patagonia describe the magic of this place in one word. I'm not going to divulge the answer because you ought to come down here and learn what it is yourself.

Think about that, I speak and write a language that miserably failed to allow me to describe its magic in the several hundred words that appear above. Stay tuned folks.

is it really the best a man can get?

2006-07-04T18:42:00.000-04:00

After my required shower after today's ski, I applied my deodorant underarm and realized that I am now dangerously low and running the risk of not smelling like Gillette's opinion of how "Frost" probably smells any day now. Thinking it not fair to civilization to opt for the alternative to not buying another stick, I quickly glanced at the type and flavor, per se, in hopes that I could find a similar one here in Argentina.

It turns out that in addition to liking the idea of smelling like Frost in lieu of the assumed alternative, when making this important, more-or-less-monthly purchase that I generally give 2-3 minutes of critical shelf-marketing analysis before tossing that month's winner in my basket, I also thought that I required a "fresh stripe" complimented with Gillette's new cutting-edge "power lock technology." I wonder how many freshly-minted ivy league MBA's were required to describe a glorified bar of soap, which I've finally concluded really only works when you engage in activities that do not cause you to sweat in the first place, in such a convincing manner to its company's loyal consumers?

Now thoroughly intrigued by the masterful marketing on the front, I read the back of the plastic container that existed secondarily to ensure that Frost's odor remained contained. In addition to encountering a bunch of ingredients that don't mean anything whatsoever to me yet whose mere existence being required to be displayed by my elected government's officials strangely comforts me at the same time, I read and re-read that should I have kidney disease, I ought to consult my doctor before using it.

Well, shit, I'm not sure if I have kidney disease in the first place nor do I have currently have a doctor with whom I can consult if I was worried I had it. Even if I did though, I can't imagine that while being trained in school, a doctor in waiting is taught when it is safe to allow his or her patient to use deodorant should said patient be diagnosed with kidney disease. Are these the kinds of things that you folks think about when buying a stick of deodorant? I can't help but think yes of course...but I guess I must remain mindful there are some pretty odd folks around that might not.

All this thought of actually in the first place because today's ski created a sweat that made me wonder whether I ought to consider switching deodorants merely out of courtesy to the folks staying at the hostel that are now forced to deal with my currently-drying-embarrassingly-wet-long underwear protection.

Today was a really nice, blue-sky day. The sun softened the snow allowing for some awfully enjoyable telemark turns. However, the sun gave mid-mountain and below a temperature boost, which when trying to navigate one's way out of the forest sometimes covered in, at best, centimeters of snow, melted whatever Frost was left under my arm. But, it was a great run and worth every minute of it, even if the same conclusion can not and should not be reached by the folks in the hostel.

Let the record also show that I also managed to drink a Quilmes cerveza on the mountain that washed down my chorizo sausage sandwich from a limited edition steel can in the shape of a bottle. I of course packed the souvenir in my pack even if it will probably just sit stuck in some apartment drawer in New York because I stubbornly deemed it worth it at the time.

The only negative memory of today though came courtesy of the taxi driver, who had his radio tuned to a station that somehow felt it was still allowed to play the song "Waiting for a Star to Fall." I like skiing while listening to music, but I can't help but think that I could have done better than this when having a song stuck in my head all day. I'm happy to report that I did not know who sang this song until my recent Google search that re-directed me to Wikipedia, which amazingly had the following factual, I guess since it's an encyclopedia as it were, information to educate me regarding my enemy's artist and then some:

"Waiting for a Star to Fall" was the most successful song by the pop duo Boy Meets Girl. It made number 9 in the UK charts during December of 1988, although may have been placed higher if it had been released for the non-Christmas market. It charted higher in the United States, reaching #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary Chart. The song was originally written for Whitney Houston but was rejected as unsuitable.

Indeed folks, I had a song in my head for 7 or so hours that even Whitney Houston rejected as unsuitable. Tomorrow though that all changes. For, we are planning to rent a car with a radio that will surely offer a new song and head to Esquel and Cholila in hopes of doing some ski touring and evaluating some real estate. I'm pretty sure we'll be without internet access, which, after just spending the last hour typing this ridiculous analysis somehow thinking it acceptable to both discuss the finer points of deodorant marketing as well as admitting that I had a song stuck in my head today that would have placed higher only had it been released "for the non-Christmas market," I think is a good development.

finally, an actual ski report

2006-07-03T18:14:00.000-04:00

After some uncertainty this morning whether or not Cerro Catedral's lifts were open, word came through at about 9:15am while sipping mate that we were in business. So, we promptly elected to call a cab instead of waiting for the bus and made it to the lift ticket line by 10am, where we shelled out 90 pesos no questions asked to be able to ride the mountains' lifts, regardless of how many were not in operation for whatever still unknown reasons.

Anyway, we managed to make it up the mountain and in between coffees and a sub-par hamburger managed to get in 4 or so hours of unpredictable, per se, skiing. For the rain stopped yesterday, but the temperature dropped creating some interesting icy conditions for the entire mountain that when skied over by the hundreds in attendance created what sounded like 10 Boeing 747's incessantly taking off. But, fortunately the sun managed to be able to show itself and softened some places up for what turned out to be a good first day of skiing all in all. This mountain is definitely interesting and very wild, exactly as I had read and heard and thus had led myself to believe.

Some promising clouds showed up late in the afternoon, so tomorrow might see a powder turn or two if all goes according to plan, which when skiing in Patagonia is probably something not worth having based on what I've experienced so far and which is also exactly why I am falling fast for this place.

My first view from the lift, which probably by itself validated its cost.

The first and most certainly last member of the Jacob Slot fan club.

About 5 or so minutes after declaring on the chair lift that we probably ought to wait until tomorrow to traverse out to the forest in the backcountry, this was my view of Jacob walking to the very same forest whose invitation he had just declined.

Our final forested destination. The rain that fell the previous couple of days created some interesting conditions, but I can for now only imagine the turns one can get in 20 cm's or so of fresh snow. Hopefully, I will be able to more than imagine sooner rather than later.

Rule numero 18: When skiing in a foreign country, everyone should be required to wear a winter hat advertising the country in which you are skiing, even if only to give the person you are skiing with a daily opportunity to make fun, however unjustified, of your hat.

In addition to not volunteering that the hike out of the forest was in excess of 1 mile on a dirt road, Jacob also failed to volunteer that he would offer our seats to the maybe 20-year-old Argentine girl behind us in line for the bus, the same girl that tried to guess where I was from and settled on Brazil. I am still not sure whether that is a compliment coming from an Argentine. Anyway, I guess I should not complain though since I was able to find a seat nearby on the bus whose power was one horse too few for the next 45 plus minutes. Here is a picture of the view from my seat during those minutes.

day two ski report: a little trivia...how many kilometers per hour must wind travel to close never-opened ski lifts?

2006-07-02T14:24:00.000-04:00

Apparently 70-80 is a safe answer, at least if you are answering from Argentina.

Yes folks, ski day two has now come and gone with no transceiver switched on, no goggles fogged up, and no boots being un and/or re buckled. The rain that we analyzed and rationalized ad nauseam yesterday finally subsided early this morning, but the mighty Patagonian wind that followed managed to convince Cerro Catedral's operators to postpone our grand entrance for yet another day. I suppose I can just refer you the day one ski report below if you are curious about what we did in skiing's absence...which, if you do manage to read it, makes me wonder why I was allowed to just declare to Jacob: "damn, I'm tired."

Of course, I did manage to snap a couple of photos though in hopes of capturing the day.

These are Argentine school-children playing a game that did not require operating lifts but that seemed to make them at least equally happy. Apparently, the schools in Argentina organize ski trips for their students, and we have literally seen hundreds over the past two days. Children in Argentina are required to wear uniforms at school. What is interesting is that they are also required to wear matching ski uniforms (including backpacks) during ski holidays. Jacob finished fourth in case you were wondering...he probably would have won if only he spoke Spanish.

The wind here is unlike anything I've seen before, and I've not even made it two steps up the hill, where I imagine it is even more impressive. These are two flags above the ski lift at the base of the hill. The flags are only about 10 meters apart, but I found it interesting that one flag was blowing one direction while the other nearby flag was blowing the opposite direction by wind that was strong enough to wrap it around its pole.

The sun did peak out of the clouds, albeit only temporarily, prompting Jacob to immediately locate his sunglasses that were probably not physically, but sure were pyschologically, necessary to wear.

We didn't think it a good idea to wait in line for the bus to return to Bariloche and instead hired a taxi. Here is our driver attaching our skis to his makeshift ski rack with bungee cables that did its job as well as a Thule or Yakima rack that commercially sets the standard for us brand-hungry Yanks and Europeans.

But, tomorrow will surely be great according to snowforecast.com...which provides well-needed hope, however synthetic it might be.

when should we just concede?

2006-07-02T13:37:00.000-04:00

Was sitting around last night watching three Argentine guys making futile attempt after futile attempt to start a fire for the barbecue and started listening to an Argentine girl offer her scientifically-supported rationale for why Germany managed to beat her country's mighty soccer team. Folks: apparently Argentina did not lose because the Germans outplayed them or adeptly disrupted her team's offensive gameplan or better managed their nerves during their penalty kicks. Rather, apparently the Germans only won because the game's result had been predetermined by referees that were hired to ensure that Argentina could not and would not continue its participation.

This girl's argument is one I've now heard many Argentines hypothesize since Friday using equally ridiculous evidence, or lackthereof. I think that the Chilean guy staying here said it best today: "they actually believe it though and will spend the next four years making their case." I imagine they most certainly will regardless of how skeptical and/or uninterested the rest of the world is. All which can't help but make me laugh about how we as people manage to convince ourselves that the excuses we use to rationalize an outcome we would have not preferred somehow eventually become matters of fact, even if only to the person trying to do the convincing.

And, I suppose that I could probably successfully link this kind of futile rationalization into political analysis using a certain current president of 50 supposedly united states as an example, but I'll refrain remembering lyrics from a country music song I heard a couple of times while in college: "let's talk about anything in this world...but: politics, religion, and her."

Sage advice indeed.

day one ski report: lots of snow, if it had been freezing or below

2006-07-01T15:40:00.001-04:00

After not having been on my skis in more than three months, I gladly set the alarm on my watch for 8:15am thinking that my way-too-many-month hiatus would change in 5 short hours. When said alarm un-gently awoke me at 8:15am sharp, I brushed the stale beer and malbec wine taste out of my mouth, fumbled through my stack of clothes and somehow successfully found my ski gear, and then emerged from my room eager to catch the next bus to Bariloche for the what was to be the first of many great Argentine ski days over the next month or so.

After walking a couple of blocks in downpouring-show-me-what-you-got,-gore-tex, rain to the bus stop thinking that surely it must be cold enough on the mountain to be snowing powder snow by the hourly inch, I sat down on the next red Bariloche bus that came our way and just hoped that my legs would have enough in them for three or four hours of good, first-day-in-three-months kind of skiing. As the bus climbed 300 or so meters in the next 30 minutes through stubbornly incessant rain before arriving at its final destination, I understandably began posing the more appropriate question of realistically how long we'd sit holed-up in a cafe trying to dry our gear and debating whether or not we ought to pay the ninety pesos to confirm that it was also raining on the mountain, a question that indeed proved prophetic.

After coffee number one that would be required regardless of whether it was raining or snowing, we decided to walk around the village and check out if folks were riding the lifts in hopes of fresh snow awaiting them mid mountain (answer: no) and whether we ought to head up the lift anyway since our jackets were now dry again, if only temporarily (answer: hell no). Instead, deeming that we needed to dry our jackets and boots again after 10 minutes of being outside the friendly confines of the cafe, we ducked into the next one that welcomed us, sat by the gas stove, ordered coffee number two, and talked about rain's role in skiing and how said role is often an unwelcomed, yet generally well-needed development for those vertical-meter-counting skiers that forget to appreciate where they are and why they are there. For otherwise folks would not get the chance to sit in an Argentine cafe at the base of the mountain wondering what was theoretically within ninety pesos' reach, which is sometimes more satisfying than actually finding out the answer.

By noon and after our gear was now finally dry again, we decided to move to a different cafe in hopes of watching the England-Portugal match and finding some different indoor scenery. Ten minutes and wet gear again later, we found some great terrain inside our third and final cafe. At that point, another coffee seemed a little excessive, so we gladly ordered the first of three rounds of Quilmes and watched all 135 minutes plus penalty kicks of the match, just long enough to ensure that we could brave the walk to the bus in, if again only temporarily, dry gear.

After we paid the required three peso fare, rode the bus' thirty required minutes home in yet-again-wet gear, and made it home just in time to watch the France-Brazil match, a great match indeed. (If not only for old time's sake, wouldn't it be interesting to watch a now conceivable France-Germany final fought in Berlin.)

All in all though, I'd say it was one of the better first days of skiing I'd had in many seasons. After all, I managed to avoid the unfair cost of the ski lift, know that my legs won't be sore tomorrow even if I can't say the same about my ass, and with the temperature dropping as I type, the next several days look promising. If the temperature does not drop though, there are plenty more cafes situated in lines that we did not manage to "ski" today and that could keep us entertained for many more days if need be.

View of the mountain from cafe no. 2 confirming that I am not lying and that we were not just too lazy and/or hung over to ski.

Wet boots next to warm gas stove that I guess, with the assistance of hindsight, did not need to be dry anyway.

Maybe we should have skied, if not only to just be able to say that we did not have to wait in any lift's lines.

Jacob pouring the first of three well-deserved, if you will, Quilmes cervezas.

In what has to be one of the strangest advertising campaigns I've ever seen, this cafe had paper placemats sponsored by a hot dog company that was trying to obtain customer loyalty by offering a collection of Scooby Doo stickers. For starters, I did not even know that Scooby Doo was still shown on TV. You can only imagine the next several questions that popped into my head. Who says that traveling is not a worthwhile experience?

an extremely sudden death

2006-06-30T16:20:00.000-04:00

The final score was 1-1, but the final final score that created more tears in a town of 80 or so thousand than I thought could be the case was 4-2...in favor of host Alemania. Deeming it wholly inappropriate to go skiing on gameday, I shook off my hangover from last night and watched the game at the hostel I am staying at with about 12 others, mostly Argentines other than Jacob, another guy staying at the hostel who just happened to be German and had a flag to prove it, and me.

The first half was uneventful as both teams seemed out of synch. But, during the second half both teams settled down and proceeded to play 75 minutes of pretty impressive soccer all in all. However, the game moved into penalty kicks since the teams could not settle the contest amongst themselves in the way that they had practiced all their lives to do.

Right before said kicks, I witnessed the Argentines in the room sing Argentine fight songs for at least 10 straight minutes creating noise that I only thought 75,000 fans in a domed stadium could muster. I couldn't help but wonder if America has any commonly-accepted fight songs? Regrettably, the only song that came to mind was James Brown singing Living in America in Rocky IV before his fight against Ivan Drago of hated Russia. Deeming this utterly insufficient, I have decided that we probably ought to make creating a national fight song a priority just in case we ever figure out how to play soccer in a way that warrants us singing one in the first place. Being an election year, I'm sure that our elected Republicans and Democrats could efficiently agree on some lyrics on our behalf once they make progress on the now-important flag burning legislation that America apparently now so desparately needs in these "different and dangerous times."

Anyway, one guy was so passionately excited that he literally was climbing the wall next to him; another guy spent the entire penalty kick period kissing the Argentine flag on the Argentine jersey covering his soon-to-be-broken heart. But, in sudden death penalty kicks Germany out-engineered Argentina and lived to play another game.

Argentina on the other hand died a literal sudden death. The folks in the room went from shedding tears of pride to tears of utter helplessness. I left pretty shortly thereafter with Jacob and the German to get some lunch and quickly found many Argentines aimlessly wandering the streets of Bariloche. You could see it in their eyes...it was as if none of them had any idea what they should do next. There were several for-no-reason fights fought between Argentines alike and many police worked hard to successfully avoid full-scale rioting. After witnessing four arrests on the same block, we moved on and noticed an ad-hoc protest parade being led by hundreds of flag-wearing fans, flags that were probably being worn for the last time until 2010.

Finally determining that we had seen enough, we entered a restaurant that doubled as a shelter until things cooled down a little. The nice Argentine waitress asked us where we were from, and the German guy proudly volunteered his answer. The waitress gave a half, uninterested smile in return I suspect because she knew her tip would otherwise be in jeopardy. We ordered a $2 steak sandwich and reminisced about the game while eating a sandwhich as big as our heads. Concluding that things were a little safer now, we asked for the check. I did find it funny that when she handed us the check, she finally volunteered the response she wanted: "if I were you, I'd probably not tell anyone else where you are from"...and then she quickly turned her back and walked away. This all listened to while I looked out the window and noticed that the ad-hoc protest parade had made its way back for the third time and was gaining strength.

We are debating whether or not we'll go to the bar tonight for various reasons. But, I suspect somehow or another we'll end up there before the night is over. Man, I sure hope that the German guy doesn't have the nerve to order a Warsteiner.

if you're going to Buenos Aires, be sure to wear some toothpicks in your ear

2006-06-28T18:35:00.000-04:00

The streets of B.A., to put it bluntly, are covered in dog shit. Dogs seem to feel comfortable relieving themselves wherever they please, and worse yet, their owners don't pick it up instead making the buildings' tenants clean their respective sidewalk areas every morning on end...something which I am having a hard time rationalizing on many different levels.

Anyway, I bet I've stepped in it 9 times already (as I type, my shoes are outside the door getting fresh air), and, well that stinks literally and figuratively. No travel book I read prior to traveling here recommended it, but allow me to be the first to urge you to plan ahead for your trip here and pack a couple of spare toothpicks, as it is the only way to rectify the damage once and only once it dries and then stagnates in the treads of your souls (sic).

I've been in B.A. more than 3 weeks now, and just now finally feel that I am having coherent thoughts regarding my opinion of the city. First off, make no mistake about it, B.A. is big, and after having seen lots of it over the past several weeks, it seems to be getting bigger by the day. But, it is manageable though and embraces, like most places, those that are willing to wander around and explore a little of the less explored areas that most travel books don't note in their expert analyses.

Many people I've met here that are also traveling always want to compare it to another city, and I think they have a difficult time defending their answers because the city is very unique. I've just come to the simple conclusion that it has a lot of most every place I've ever visited, big cities and small towns alike. On certain blocks, it has the feel of a busy street in New York; on other blocks, it has the feel of a more tranquil city in Europe; and yet on the next blocks, it has the feel of a quaint college town stuck in the middle of nowhere but that still rightfully refuses chain stores and restaurants. Said simply, Buenos Aires is a city full of contrasts, many of which battle against one another without even knowing. And, I think this ignorance is what makes it such an interesting place.

I guess when properly assessing a city, I think that the following four characteristics deserve special attention:

The food--I have found the food here to be amazing. Sure, beef dominates the scene and for good reason at that, but there is a huge variety in the types of restaurants and the food they respectively serve. The sushi, pizza, pasta, and seafood are all very good as advertised. The Chilean salmon that can be found in many restaurants is damned good, and this coming from someone that lived in Seattle for 3 years and became all too acquainted with the idea of freshly caught fish. Almost by itself, the food warrants a visit.

The people--The people here are great. Given that many of the residents are of Spanish or Italian heritage, it is pretty easy to see from where they derive their seemingly unending passion that comes out in almost everything they do. Like most big cities, there are all types of people that are living a vast range of lifestyles, but the people here respect one another and seem to coexist rather well considering that the city seems to treat some people much fairer than others. I had heard and read a lot about several folks living glamorously here, but I must admit that although sure there some of these folks, my perception is that it is nowhere near what I had been led to believe. Given the devaluation of the Peso in 2002, many people cannot afford to travel outside of Argentina. so they are always fascinated to meet people from other parts of the world that they cannot affordably see for themselves. Perhaps it stems from the fairly recent economic woes and/or the political instability over the past 100 or so years, but the people are pretty well grounded all in all.

The parks--B.A. has some great parks and green spaces, and the neat thing is that people seem to actually utilize them, unlike some cities I've visited. Many folks are out playing soccer, throwing frisbees, and/or simply relaxing hanging out with friends and sipping on mate for hours on end. Some of my most fond memories to date come from strolling around these parks on a nice sunny day and people watching, as it were.

The culture--Yes. See "the people" above for further discussion.

But, as much as I've enjoyed living in the city, I'm excited to get the mountains, where I can breathe some fresher air and stare without interruption at big skies that I just skied under. I've also never seen bamboo forests, not to mention skied through them. This all changes beginning tomorrow morning though.

Sometimes I wonder whether I ought to throw in the city's ever-dirty towel and just move to the country where I've heard I can sip whiskey and freshly squeezed lemonade while sitting in a wooden rocking chair on my very own front porch. At the heart of this debate is whether I'm inappropriately compromising by living in the city working probably more hours than I'd ideally care to and living in an apartment that I don't really like yet feel privileged to not be spending more on, while the things that I passionately enjoy and seemingly spend most all of my waking, non-working (and let's face it, several working) hours doing or at least thinking about are best and easiest enjoyed in the country.

In his blog, Memphis Slim states that "compromise is a boring solution." Well perhaps it sometimes is, but I'd argue that it is certainly not always the case. And after having sat in an open office with him the last year listening to him try to solve equations with unknown "fundamentals," it will frustrate yet probably won't surprise him that I reach that middle-of-the-road conclusion. Maybe I've just moved on to pragmatism as my preferred -ism because "they" said I would but also because I've come think that compromise very often creates some potentially very interesting solutions, ones that would otherwise not ever be attempted if folks just assumed that the resulting solution would not be exciting enough.

I think at the this point in my life, as much as I love to ski and fly fish and whatever else one can do in the country, I also think it pretty neat to live in a city and experience its culture and excitement and am not afraid to admit it nor do I feel the need to apologize for it. For, I lived in Ketchum, Idaho, for 3 months before moving to Seattle. Life those three months were tough indeed: fly fished and mountain biked all day and helped run resort bars at night. But, as much as I enjoyed it, I remember there were many days when I longed to be in a city even of the likes of Boise, if, for any other reason, to simply eat at a restaurant I'd never tried before (apologies to my Boise subscriber). Now, in 2, 5, 10, or 30 years, I imagine that conclusion could evolve, and frankly reserve the right for it do so. But, for now I'm OK with my solution, however "boring" some might think it to be.

That said, I'm interested to see how I feel come end of July having spent several nights in many small Argentine towns with populations that make Ketchum seem like New York. Like my days in Ketchum though, I don't really feel (nor do I think I'll feel) sorry for myself one bit, but I imagine I'll be excited to return to B.A. and ultimately finally settle in my final destination--New York, and all of the dog shit, per se, that these cities have to offer.

2006-06-28T16:05:00.000-04:00

why is it that the maid that 6 days of every week cleans the house i'm living in is always so damn nice and happy?

after having several conversations with her in the morning in a language i only fractionally understand yet walking away always smiling thinking what a great person she is, i can't help but get pissed at myself for ever even thinking of complaining about my job and the opportunities it's created for me to date. realistically she'll never: get the opportunity to learn a new discipline or receive a promotion that ensures a better city view or eat a company-bought meal followed by dessert or have the pleasure sitting in an office chair that ergonomically supports her or travel the world trying to help some corporation find a way to increase its profitability so that its executives can exercise their stock options that they worked so hard to grant themselves and now, as a result, finally have a way to pay an unfair tax code's property tax bill on that new vacation home in the mountains that they've been needing so that they can finally relax. but, i'm pretty sure she does not let it affect her because her smile says so.

how is that even remotely fair? hell, i don't know. maybe even just merely pondering that question is at least worth something though considering the alternative--just continuing on assuming like a lot of folks do that the rest of the world lives lives filled with amenities that some of us take painfully for granted. probably not worth much as it realistically won't change anything, but i can't help but think about my mom all those years telling me time and time again that i should respect and be nice to everyone especially if they are so to me--advice that seems simple enough but for some damned reason people have such a hard time practicing when confronted with the challenge of actually having to do so. i'm not urging marxism here folks, just a smile and a polite hello if you can somehow garner the energy.

but then i walk down a street in miami and pass a store with a tank top in the window embroidered with the statement: "if you're rich, i'm your bitch." and, i can't help but wonder why i even ask myself these kinds of questions in the first place.

all of which leads me to la regla numero diecisiete:

if we are going to have to be made to watch an mtv documentary about the hilton sisters, it should not be longer than 30 minutes including commercials. and anyone that acts any of the time like paris hilton should not be allowed to even apply for a trademark in the first place, yet alone for one on the statement that should never be said by anyone to begin with: "that's hot."

what are we doing to pass 2.9 hours at the airport?

2006-06-22T11:57:00.000-04:00

I took my school coordinator's advice and arrived at Buenos Aires' airport approximately 3 hours before my flight after concluding that she must have some local knowledge that I'd be foolish to disregard. I was almost disappointed to walk right up to the counter immediately upon my arrival and learn 3 minutes later that I'd been successfully checked in for my flight. It was almost too easy...made me long for a challenge of the likes of Newark or Heathrow, the challenge I had been anticipating. Anyway, here's how I proceeded to pass the next seemingly infinite hours before my flight:

1. Walked to passport control. Handed passport to attendant at front of line, who deemed my offering acceptable. Walked to end of roped maze and handed passport to attendant at end of line, who also deemed my offering acceptable. Still had not been greeted by border patrol agent though. Wondered how many more times I'd have to show my passport. Answer: 4.

2. Realized still had 2.7 hours left. Found iPod in carry-on bag and hit play on an album I conservatively estimated I'd listened to 75 times, give a few. Made a pact with myself that I'd finally load some new music when I get the opportunity, whatever that means.

3. Decided I was hungry, even though I wasn't and found a suitable-at-first-glance airport cafeteria. Ate cheese pizza covered with sliced tomato on top that seemed to redefine the term ripe.

4. Debated with myself regarding whether I'd sleep better if I had a couple of beers on the plane. Lost the debate and settled excitedly on ginger ale instead when I remembered they'd probably have it. Wondered why I don't ever drink ginger ale unless I'm on a plane.

5. Walked around entire airport in hopes of negating impact of pizza. Thought about what terrible sitcom's reruns I'd have to watch on the flight and also hoped I would not have to Cheaper By the Dozen 2 on yet another flight.

6. Shopped in duty-free shop. Determined I didn't have any room or need for twopack of Glenfiddich 20 year regardless of how much I'd be able to cheat the government out of. Noticed that shop strangely offered Nerds packaged in fours at the check-out counter. Realized hadn't had Nerds in an unacceptably long time. Couldn't determine why a little colorful ball of candy-covered sugar warranted the name. Thought that 4 packs might be a little too much though since I knew I'd eat every last one in the next 9 hours. Couldn't build up the nerve though to ask the cash register clerk whether the Nerds costing 4 pesos were also duty free.

7. Flipped through passport and wondered how many countries I'd visited in my life. Counted 18 provided the judges were accepting Canada.

8. Walked by indoor golf center with driving range nets you find inside a golf shop when hoping to test a new golf club. Thought about getting a bucket of balls before being stopped by security guard who informed me the course was closed. Couldn't help but wonder whether the revenues earned by this company ever exceeded the night security guard's nightly fee.

9. Sat down to watch replay being shown of Portugal playing Mexico, Argentina's next opponent, earlier that day. Remembered watching Portugal play Greece in 2004 Euro Championship outside some bar in Zurich on its big screen and tried to rationalize how Greece could be Champion of Europe, but not allowed to even participate in the next World Cup.

10. Went into bookshop to see if there were any books I should buy to read on the flight even though I have a book I keep meaning to finish but that requires me to start. Took second look at Da Vinci Code for the umpteenth time. Said no yet again remembering that I'd just seen the movie and didn't think I could get image of Tom Hanks' hair out of my head while reading. Walked by magazine section and took 2nd look at the prominently-placed new Playboy, whose cover consisted of only a faceless woman's breasts half-covered, well almost half-covered, by a tight Argentine soccer jersey. Thought it might be a nice souvenir for me, but remembered articles would be in Spanish and so walked away empty-handed.

11. Walked by little kiosk and held off on buying of pack of gum for flight until later, concluding it would give me something to which I could look forward.

12. Waited 30 or so minutes, walked the 100 feet back to the kiosk, and bought pack of gum I'd been wanting.

13. Learned via loudspeaker that American Airlines was pleased to let me know that boarding for my flight had begun. Handed boarding pass and passport (for the final time) to ticket taker wearing his company-issued blue blazer with Argentine soccer jersey underneath and no tie. While walking to plane, tried to figure out why he asked me if I had a lighter.

14. Sat down and flipped through American Airlines' magazine and read CEO's welcome letter that was written in a way to try and fool me into believing that he actually gave a damn that I was on this plane.

15. Watched safety video and realized that in light of the seemingly hundreds of times I'd been instructed on how I was supposed to react if the pilot came on the intercom and calmly notified us that we were in deep shit, I don't think I could successfully do any of the required tasks other than see the fluorescently illuminated exit row lights on the floor. Considered whether I ought to take flight attendant up on her offer to press the flight attendant button if I had any questions about the safety video. Concluded against it though since I figured everything would probably go fine and that everyone else probably knew what to do and would help me out if need be.

16. Listened to flight attendant indicate that the time had finally come for me to turn off my electronic devices, including my cell phone and pager. Couldn't think of anyone I know that still carries a pager.

17. Was gently reminded 5 minutes later that I needed to turn my iPod, which also qualified as an electronic device, off as were about to take off. Felt sense of relief that I would finally not have to listen to even more music I'd listened to too many times to count.

18. Listened to flight attendant indicate shortly after takeoff that it was now acceptable for me to use my electronic devices. Immediately pressed play on iPod after longing for its uncomplicated companionship.

are we still allowed to refer to them as "pictures," as it were, or must i conform and use "pics" or "picks"?

2006-06-20T17:50:00.000-04:00

Here are in no particular order some photos I took while in B.A. that I'd like to have posted for when my computer's hard drive inevitably decides it's had enough:

View to the Rio de la Platte from a park near La Boca, the neighborhood where the heralded Boca Juniors play their soccer games.

Me doing pro bono marketing for Quilmes Cerveza, my favorite Argentine beer. The wine here gets all the press, but the country has some great beer if you're into that sort of thing.

Best restaurant name in Buenos Aires and site of the infamous pinguino.

At Milonga (tango club) with classmates Francois and Marion sharing bottle of champagne served chilled in nothing but the finest of plastic containers. My camera does no justice to what is happening in the background (aka the dance floor), but maybe that is best left up to the imagination.

Martin, my Spanish teacher, pleased about his country's 1st round efforts in the World Cup.

Two guys making music, if you will, on the streets of Buenos Aires. No game that day so no soccer jersey, but notice the Argentine colored ribbon on the guitar.

Square in San Telmo on a sunny and lazy weekday afternoon. I'd gladly put this square up against any in Europe.

those are las reglas

2006-06-20T16:00:00.000-04:00

Don't think it would come as too much a surprise to those that know me, but I'm not a big proponent of unchallenged conformity. But, all in all when I think back on my life to date, I suppose that for whatever reason I've pretty much managed to follow society's rules irrespective of what I think of many of them.

That said, let the record show that I do have my own random thoughts about some concepts and ideas that, if embraced by society, would probably result in no tangible benefit whatsoever.

But, this is my blog, so I'll be damned if I'm not going to document them here if and when the symbolic light bulb flickers in my head. I'll simply call them the rules (en espanol: la/las regla/s), and since I need to practice my Spanish numeros, they will be labeled accordingly. I've got 0-15 down cold, so I'll start with:

la regla numero dieciseis

Everyone ought to own a pair of jeans with at least a dime-sized hole (or at least what is the beginning of one), even if said hole did not exist before dropping the jeans off at the full-service valet laundromat in Buenos Aires that washed and folded his or her 3 weeks of laundry for a price that makes one wonder how he or she can justify not changing his or her underwear every other hour.

all i ever needed to know, i guess i learned in grad school

2006-06-20T08:22:00.000-04:00

One recent afternoon while walking home from class, picked up some chicken empanadas at a little establishment called Solo Empanadas (which when translated to English means: Only Empanadas). An empanada, which is a very popular and cheap menu item here in Argentina, is basically a pastry turnover filled with whatever meat you fancy...sort of Argentina's answer to the American taco.

The place was clean and had modern electronic cash registers etc, but you can probably imagine the type of place that sells only empanadas really is. About 5 minutes after placing my order, the cashier put the oven-fresh goods in a Solo Empanadas' bag and sent me on my way.

While eating these treats once at home, I noticed that Solo Empanadas proudly advertised that the Company was "ISO 9001:2000 Certified" on its bags. Said simply, if a company is ISO 9001:2000 Certified, it can claim it has adequate quality and control management and meets the standards that we consumers apparently demand.

I'm pretty sure (yet embarrassed to admit) that this was one of the invigorating topics taught to me while in graduate school. Probably had to read some worthless 20 page case study that analyzed some big multinational's struggle with ISO 9001:2000 compliance and participate in a discussion facilitated by some half-interested professor regarding what I'd do if I was the partner that had to sign said multinational's ISO 9001:2000 compliance opinion.

The mere fact that I even knew what this certification on Solo Empanadas' bag meant is the reason why I probably ought to begin lying to folks that I meet about what I do for a living.

But, as utterly preposterous as I initially thought it was that Solo Empanadas both paid for this certification and used it as a way to advertise and achieve a competitive advantage over the other empanadas restaurants in B.A., I must admit that I couldn't help but be initially comforted after just having taken my first bite. However, I would have thought that for a company that eponymously makes only empanadas, it would have wanted to talk more about its actual product as opposed to the strength of its quality management and back-office control environment, which most empanada eaters probably and rightfully value less when deciding where to pick up their lunch.

If you're in B.A. and in the market for an empanada, try Rancho Hambre at Vidt and Santa Fe instead. Don't think it's ISO anything compliant, and the restaurant sends them along with you in a plain brown paper bag, but it makes a pretty damned good empanada--one that I think does a pretty good job of selling itself.

all aboard

2006-06-19T11:30:00.000-04:00

If you did not believe me that soccer is big down here, let me inform you that there is a channel with what I think is 24 (but at least 16) hour coverage of the Argentine team in Germany.

They are currently boarding the team bus, a shiny Argentine-baby-blue Mercedes with ARGENTINA painted above the grill, to go to practice. They have been boarding it now for at least 30 minutes, and the camera has not moved away once during that time. It looks like the driver, who is the main character by default, is finally getting irritated. I am internally embarrassed that I have not changed the channel once during this coverage.

I wonder if their coach makes them run wind sprints if they are late to practice? I'll just have to stay tuned to find out.

Guess it's a good thing that it's raining in B.A. today.

aussie rules futbol

2006-06-19T10:52:00.000-04:00

Only caught the 2nd half of the Brazil vs. Australia game today, but I think that it was the best (I'll define best here as: my favorite) 45 minutes of soccer I've watched in the tournament so far. I know that no one is giving Australia a chance, but I thought they played awfully well today, and they ought to be proud of their effort against a team that no one gave them a chance to beat or to even hold their own for that matter.

They ought to be even more proud of their all-black uniforms, that in my opinion, are hands down the best uniforms worn yet in the tournament. It made them look a rugby team, and given that a one of the Aussie players had a shaved head, it was a noticeable contrast between the ever artistic and colorful Brazilians. Regardless, both teams played with composure and created ample scoring opportunities that were neat to see unfold on both sides of the field time and time again.

While watching the game, started thinking about my friend Pete, an Aussie I worked with in Zurich, and a die-hard sports fan through and through. I bet he was sporting some great Aussie game-watching gear and nearing a baker's dozen beers by game's end.

Last fall, Pete was kind enough to invite me and our friends Renton and Andy to accompany him at the Oliver Twist Pub in Zurich to view the Aussie Rules Football championship, when the almighty Sydney Swans won their first ever trophy. The game began at 6am Zurich time, and with a cold beer in hand at 5:59, it was the earliest, but proudly and equally regrettable not the latest of course, I'd ever had a beer. In what I suspect was typical Aussie Rules fashion, the beers kept a coming, and by game's end, we were all into it as if we (Pete excluded) had ever even seen an Aussie Rules football game before, yet alone knew why we were cheering. The game ended around 9am or so, we had a couple more beers after for dessert, and I reckon I was in my bed passed out by noon.

Andy and Pete thought it a good idea to have another beer though and then have a swim in the nearby Limmat River, which is always cold but definitely more so in the fall. Andy was known to enjoy jumping in and "swimming" in the Limmat regardless of the hour, but I think, judging on the pre-swim, camera-phone picture I saw of the two of them in their underroos, as it were, Pete was a little uncomfortable. It appeared Andy also thought it was uncomfortable too, but only because he was not used to swimming with clothing.

when in doubt, just add an o

2006-06-19T10:31:00.000-04:00

I've now finished two weeks of intensive Spanish, that at times has been more frustrating than hell and that at others has been an absolutely pleasurable experience. Practically speaking, I've managed to pick up a respectable amount, but still cannot communicate too much beyond a kindergarden level if forced to be brutally honest. I've got a decent base though and hope to pick more up when skiing, but really when it's all said and done, I'll probably have spent $500 so that I could know what I am ordering at a restaurant and how to order it, engage in consumer-oriented transactions, and to be able to ask where a place is and where a person is from etc. All rudimentary abilities on the face of course, but probably more important than I give myself credit for.

I watched the US vs. Italy soccer game at a bar, and an Argentine guy probably in his mid-40's asked if he could sit at the table with me. He did not speak a word of English, and after the pleasantries were exchanged in Spanish, there admittedly was an awkward silent pause for a little while. After having a couple sips of liquid courage and mentally piecing together the various vocabulary I managed to have learned to date, I began conversing with him about where he lived, who he was rooting for etc. A nice conversation ensued, and it turned out that he skis as well and was quite keen to let me know his thoughts on the best places to ski in Argentina and convey his knowledge of the areas etc, all valuable knowledge of course.

His Italian wife returned from shopping to catch the 2nd half, and we all enjoyed watching the next 45 or so minutes together. I don't really remember what all we talked about, but that is probably best as it was memorable enough just to have a non-scripted conversation (like you generally have in school) and for me to understand the gist of what he was saying and for him to understand the gist of what I was trying to say. And, maybe that is good enough. He had never met an American, and although I'm certainly no ambassador, I think he was glad to have met and conversed with one yesterday. He even insisted that I eat half his lemon meringue pie.

You can learn a lot about a person and a country's people by at least trying to speak in their native language. It creates a lot of goodwill for one, but more importantly, I have found that most people (Americans included) are eager to show the rest of the world how they live and what is important to them as people, for I am of the opinion that many of the world's citizens aren't convinced that the media does a great job in conveying these very things.

The 2004 US presidential elections were unmemorable for many reasons, but one circumstance that still occasionally frustrates me to this day was the Kerry campaign's efforts to conceal the fact that he spoke fluent French. This was of course a strategy aimed at capturing the vote of the freedom fry eaters, but I can't help but think how beneficial it is to have a president that has traveled a little in life, understands based on his or her firsthand accounts the inherent cultural differences between countries, and that recognizes that the world is a little more complicated than many of us Yanks would like or are taught to believe. I'm not suggesting that we ought to amend the constitution to require our president to have attended boarding school abroad and/or speak a foreign language, but maybe at a minimum we ought to not poke fun at a man who can claim both on his resume.

Learning another language, whatever it might be, goes a long way toward understanding the rest of the world because you begin to notice the subtle differences in how different circumstances are communicated. For, often how we say something in English, if literally translated, can be interpreted to be offensive in another language and vice versa. It seems to me that when the President of the so-called "free world" enters a meeting to negotiate with another country's leader on a sensitive subject, being inherently mindful of these differences would be awfully valuable at the negotiating table.

I lived in Europe when W was president and after he had managed to alienate the rest of the world in 2003, and it was and still is not too often that I encounter anyone abroad who has a positive perception of him as a result of his failure to communicate his policies in a way the rest of the world can understand. And, I personally don't think these negative perceptions are solely a result of his political views (after all and believe it or not, most people fundamentally want to live in a safe world and one that is free from "terror"), but more so the way he presents himself and is seen by others in the world based on how he "communicates" with them.

I'm not suggesting that he ought to go out and learn a language over the next months in hopes of salvaging his 2nd term, but maybe if he did (or more ideally had), an Argentine man sitting at his table during a soccer match might offer him a bite of his lemon meringue pie instead of smashing it in his face, an action that I can't help but think means the same in Spanish as it does in English, as it were.

sher ba mah tay (spelled: yerba mate)

2006-06-19T10:07:00.000-04:00

Some of you might have heard of this or drank it before, but the Argentines drink this often...so often that I am now thinking coffee in Seattle is relatively unpopular. A mate is basically a wooden or leather cup in which you put the yerba, which are ground leaves from trees in forests in S. America. You fill the mate up about 3/4 full of yerba and then pour hot water in the cup and drink the resulting mix through a metal straw that filters the leaves--called a bombillo (see attached photo for much better description).

The process of drinking yerba mate can take 30 minutes or even an hour and is very relaxing. It definitely has a unique taste but I believe is fairly compared to green tea or similar, although many new tasters claim that it tastes unpleasantly bitter. It is a very social drink (think chain smoking), and folks drink it all day (think also chain smoking). I had the chance to try yerba mate in Austria this winter since an Argentine was living in St. Anton, and I guess I enjoyed it...but had no idea how popular it is. If you ever get the chance, do yourself a favor and try it...if you do not like the flavor, you will definitely at least appreciate the way you feel afterward.

Met a guy last winter in St. Anton while riding a ski lift that claimed he had quit his job in the US and was currently traveling Europe to find a something that was popular in Europe, but that did not yet exist in the US, in the hopes of starting his own business back in the States. Many of you know that I've had many business ideas over the years, but borrowing from that guy's approach, I think that an Argentine-themed cafe, per se, would be a neat idea in New York...and then the rest of the country once the franchising begins.

Picture this, a friendly, inviting place with comfortable chairs and couches...people sitting around sipping on mate or Argentine coffee, nibbling on freshly-grilled Argentine chorizo sausage sandwiches, eating real Argentine ice cream, all while listening to authentic Argentine music. I for one would pay the entrance fee for any of that.

But, here's the kicker, I hire Coy (aka Memphis Slim), send him to B.A. to learn, and then have him hang around for hourly tango shows. He'd probably have to shave his beard, but I think he'd do it in exchange for the chance for a career change and a chance to earn tips.

it only takes one to telemark

2006-06-19T09:57:00.000-04:00

I'm not going to even attempt to try and articulate my thoughts about the tango other than to say it is cool to watch, and I'm not nearly cool enough to pull it off.

The tango is a very legitimate part of the culture here...it is not just a myth nor just part of the tourism circuit. Last weekend, I went to a Milonga, which is basically a club where folks go to tango, in a local neighborhood not frequented by tourists. I had heard beforehand that folks look around the club in hopes of making unmistakable eye contact followed by a nod, which signals an implied yes to the next dance.

I went with three other non-tangoing folks from my school, and I think we all breathed a collective sight of relief when the lady sat us in the dark back corner of the room. I intentionally did not wear my glasses though...just in case. And, no, I did not teach the Telemark Dance to those tango dancers in attendance for I was not sure of their abilities to grasp such a difficult sequence (plus apparently folks don't tango to Kool and the Gang).

I have thought about taking tango classes here if, for anything else, to be able to say that I have taken tango classes. Realistically it probably won't happen though because I think I'd feel guilty showing up my friends yet again on the dance floor next time I set foot in their respective lands. I suspect they'll appreciate that.

1-1*

2006-06-18T10:03:00.000-04:00

Now, that I've had a chance to sleep on it and collect my thoughts, am I the only one that can't help but question US soccer captain Claudia Renya's following statement: "It's one of the performances of this World Cup, and for us one of the best ever"?

Particularly when I don't really recall* the US creating any really good scoring opportunities, and the only goal recorded the Yanks was scored by an Italian defender. Don't get me wrong, I'm very keen to see the US advance and, although I left my Uncle Sam foam finger at home yesterday, I was the only one at the bar publicly rooting for them. But after watching several other games whose participants recorded, in my opinion, much better performances of this World Cup, I think that a team captain would have more appropriately offered a statement such as: "We're still alive and happy about that, but we've got a tough match on the horizon, need to execute better, ensure that we keep 11 folks on the field, and create more scoring opportunities against a tough Ghana team that just beat a team 2-0 and that made us look like a team of 4th graders 6 days ago."

" Let the record show that my recollection might have been impeded by the Quilmes Cerverzas consumed during the game and also I'm no soccer expert.

"" In addition to not being an expert, I'm also not much of a gambler. But with a week now gone by, I think an England vs. Argentina championship match is at least reasonably possible. I saw the two play a friendly in Geneva last fall, a game one by England 3-2 with 3 goals late in the 2nd half, but a game in which I also felt that Argentina on the whole played better. If Argentina continues playing like it has though and continues to display almost flawless ball control and capitalize on scoring opportunities, I think they have a legitimate chance. Should my prediction run its course, I think night of July 7 will be an interesting one here.

Bife de Argentina

2006-06-17T14:23:00.000-04:00

This is a picture of bife de chorizo, which Argentina's equivalent of a New York strip steak. The name of the restaurant was Des Nivel in San Telmo neighborhood. This picture was obviously taken before tasting, but in hindsight it was and still is the best steak I've eaten since arriving.

Argentina's reputation for steak is well-deserved. Not sure exactly how many steaks I've had since arriving, but I know that I'd need more than two hands to count. This is a good development though after living in Switzerland, where I'd argue you can find some of the most disappointing beef around (even though there are cows galore). One can find pretty comparable tasting steaks in the US, but what strikes me is that you have to work hard to find an average or below-average steak here (sorry TJ Applebees' fans). And, it is as cheap as advertised--think USD 10 for a great cut of meat, salad, potatoes, and wine. I very easily became acclimated to the idea of steak lunch 4-5 times a week, and it sure beats a quick sandwich from the Migros grocery store in Zurich unenjoyed at my office desk.

When taking this picture, I strangely remembered a similar situation involving my brother Andy's friend. After hiking in the Swiss Alps and while waiting for the bus to return to Zurich, he bought a meticulously prepared cookie from the bakery in front of the bus stop. It was so meticulously prepared that he felt the need to take a picture of it. I must admit that I thought it a little strange at the time, but not nearly as strange as the approximately 10 year old boy sitting incredulously next to him. Upon putting his camera back into its case, the guy turned to the boy and said without hesitation and in a natural southern accent: "I bet you've never seen anyone take a picture of a cookie before son, have you?" The boy rightfully did not answer for I suspect several reasons, beginning with the fact that he probably did not understand English. Fortunately I don't think anyone outside of the folks sitting at the table with me saw me take the photo, but for whatever reason I did not think it was strange at the time. Now I kind of do, but sure am glad that I have the photo nonetheless.

How many days do you wear a pair of jeans before washing them?

2006-06-17T12:58:00.000-04:00

Yes, that is a picture of a man brewing and serving cotton candy from a cotton candy maker (not sure how else to call it) that is resting on the handlebars of his bike. I'm not the biggest fan of cotton candy, but the more I think about it, I don't really know why as I like both cotton and candy, but probably cotton more if I'm forced to choose between the two. Anyway, upon seeing this man running his business, I couldn't help but think whether he rode his bike from his home with this machine attached to his handle bars, and, if so, whether or not the cotton candy was being made as he peddled. Also, I did not see any electrical cords and am still unsure how the hell the machine was able to continue to run. Perhaps he had invented a mechanism to capture the kinetic energy resulting from the peddling? Regardless, I still don't know, but I sure would like to.

Something that I've always found interesting when traveling is checking out the types of foods that roadside vendors serve in parks. The vendors in Buenos Aires offer a wide variety, but it seems that the most popular item going right now is a fresh roasted peanut covered in honey and sugar...served warm. They come manually packaged in a clear plastic bag and generally cost one peso, one peso that is merely an investment in happiness. Today while walking around in a park in Palermo, the neighborhood in which I live, I could not resist the smell and handed the gentleman a two peso bill. I realized though that I had interrupted him making caramel covered apples covered with popcorn and served on a wooden stick. His hands were predictably sticky, and for him to hand me my change consisting of a one peso coin, he had to resort to flicking his thumb since the caramel on his hands was preventing gravity from doing what it claims to do. At least I don't have to worry about loose change jingling in my pockets now.

i think i'd like to find out how the surfing is in nicaragua

2006-06-16T16:09:00.000-04:00

I've never enjoyed a meal with anyone from Nicaragua, that is until I recently attended a barbeque with my Spanish school at a ranch just outside of Buenos Aires. The ranch itself was somewhat lame, and I've never been one to enjoy waiting in line behind 20 Japanese tourists to be able to ride a horse 200 meters around a fenced-in field (disclaimer: I don't really enjoy riding horses at all for that matter although I'd gladly ride one if being escorted to a remote fly fishing stream otherwise unreachable). But, it was nice to get outside the city, hang out in untrampled grass, and enjoy some authentic Argentine meat prepared by, at least what appeared to be, an authentic Argentine gaucho that had commandeered the asado.

After having sat down for the meal and exhausting all of my Spanish pleasantries to the family to my right, the daughter asked me in unaccented English where I was from, and I replied los Estados Unidos. The family was happy to volunteer that they lived in Miami for approximately 12 years beginning in 1979. Upon further discussion, the father explained that when the Communists took control of the government in 1979, they promptly arrived at one of his 3 homes and notified him that he no longer owned his homes and that he needed to leave the country. I'd estimate the man is now about 65, which would have made him 40 or so when this occurred. But, he followed their orders (as he explained he had no choice provided he wanted to continue living) and bought his family tickets on the next plane to Miami, not knowing where else to go. He said that he was forced to knock on doors and find work, something that must have been difficult to swallow for someone his age and that had been successful enough to own 3 homes. I did not probe too much though since his grandson (who is currently a student at University of Florida) was keen to change the subject since he knew his semi-drunk grandfather was happy to let the rest of the world know in grave detail what he thought about what had happened to him. But, he managed in Miami and returned to his home country when the communists were voted from power in 1990. I admittedly am not knowledgeable about the current political situation in Nicaragua, but the family was quite worried that the communists would be victorious in this year's upcoming elections...a victory that would probably require them to move yet again. If I were in his shoes and this result did indeed ensue, I'd probably feel warranted in saying something along the lines of: "I'm getting too old for this shit."

But, all kidding aside, many of us Yanks, regardless of our beliefs about the current state of American politics, are fortunate enough to be able to say that we at least live in a country in which it is reasonably likely that we'll wake up tomorrow and still be the legal owners of the house that we slept in the previous night. And, given the current trend in politics in many South and Central American countries, that is a belief that many citizens cannot confidently hold. Even if nothing comes of it, I can't help but respect Sen. Arlen Specter (chairman of Senate Judiciary Committee and a Republican) for publicly challenging the Bush administration's beliefs on its ability to ignore laws on whatever basis it chooses to engineer. For, I for one don't want Dick Cheney knocking on my door and telling me that the door on which he just knocked is no longer mine. As ridiculous a statement as that may seem, try telling someone who was living in Nicaragua in 1978 that it is ridiculous. I bet he'd be happy to let you know his thoughts.

how patriotic are you?

2006-06-16T15:23:00.000-04:00

Futbol is quite simply everything here in Argentina. This is a picture I took of a park that sits near the Rio de la Platte, the river on whose shores Buenos Aires resides. The stretch of grass was approximately a mile long, and there were goals every 50 or so yards. I saw some awfully good soccer being played by young and old alike. Often, the soccer ball was kicked "out of bounds," which generally meant if the ball went over the dirt path bordering the grass, it stood a great chance of being run over by one of several oncoming cars. I couldn't help but think that to some degree, this was similar how baseball was played in the streets of brooklyn in the 40's and 50's.

I've been watching lots of World Cup futbol since last Friday, and I've now seen two of two games involving Argentina (both fortunately were victories). Last Saturday (the first match), I walked around the city before the game, and it is tough to articulate how much excitement was in the air...but trust me when I say a lot (made the Georgia Bulldogs' tailgates look like an low-level minor league baseball game in west Kansas).

Something that I thought was funny was the cop monitoring the street (there are lots of cops in B.A) spent the entire game inside the bar I was watching the game at but did manage to go outside for a minute or two during the commercial of the halftime show. Perhaps he was worried his boss would also go outside to check and make sure his people were hard at work?

It seems that around every corner someone is wearing an Argentine soccer jersey, and almost every store is currently offering Argentine gear of every sort. The most popular item after the standard replica jersey is patriotic, per se, women's underwear. However, I unfortunately only saw the replica jerseys being sported at the bar during the game today though. The Argentines were indeed excited about their 6-0 victory over Serbia & Montenegro, but I guess it is still only the first round...and, as I've heard, nothing interesting ever happens during the first round of strip poker either.

march of the pinguinos

2006-06-16T14:48:00.000-04:00

That is me being fed an Argentine Malbec wine by my classmate Francois from a penguin disguised as a carafe...at a restaurant named where else but "Don Battaglia." Upon ordering a bottle of wine, the waiter pre-poured the bottle into the penguin and dutifully put it front of us to drink. It took us about 30 seconds to figure out what it was, but once we did the entire table started laughing in unison. A lady from our school accompanied us to dinner, and she calmly explained to us in between our tears that the penguin was once a very popular way to serve wine in Buenos Aires back in the 50's and 60's...and that it was making a strong comeback around town. I never really recall learning anything notable about penguins other than seeing some photos in middle school textbooks, but upon further investigation, I was pleased to learn that penguins do not (naturally) exist in the northern hemisphere and that they cannot fly since their bones require them to be heavy enough to swim because they find approximately 70% of their food in the water. Now, I reckon that's the kind of answer my Dad was seeking when he routinely asked what I learned at school when sitting at the dinner table.

Perhaps it was just the fact that it was late and we had yet to receive our food, but it's been a long while since I laughed that hard and rest assured that when the waiter asked if we wanted anything else, I gladly replied: "quiero un mas pinguino."

dear blog:

2006-06-14T15:30:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to me, for I have finally jumped on the blogging bandwagon. Not really sure why now or why at all for that matter, but I suppose I figure it's high time that I try to jot down some of my thoughts about various matters for the rest of the uninterested world to read. If there is one thing I've learned since university, it's that it's one thing for one to internally ponder or verbally convey, but when forced to actually write thoughts in an understandable and coherent manner, that is when truly sound and logical conclusions are achieved.

That stated, I enjoy writing, yet it seems that most of my writing is work-related and hence not very enlightening when it comes to thinking about things that occur in this world outside of the sexy subjects of accounting and finance. However, in the past several years, I've been fortunate to have the opportunity to travel and see several different cultures and circumstances (both within and outside the U.S.), and up until now, other than some subpar photographs, I don't really have much to show for my experiences. My primary goal with this blog is, from this point forward, to change that and attempt to document the places I see, the people I meet, and the things that I think about that I'd like to know how I thought about them today come 5, 10, or 25 years from now. A secondary goal of this blog is force me to research and learn more about those things (be it current events, places, politics, sports, music, or whatever) that interest me, for as I stated before, when forced to write thoughts and opinions, one is subsequently "on the record," and I'd hate for this record to be inaccurate or tarnished with unsupported and/or inadequately reasoned thoughts.

As I am typing this, I'm currently in Buenos Aires, Argentina, learning Spanish and taking an extended vacation from work...both which I am enjoying immensely. With several weeks of skiing in Patagonia on the horizon, I figure there is no better time to begin documenting experiences and my thoughts about these experiences. I'm not really sure how often I'll write or what I'll actually write about (or be willing write about), but I suppose only time will provide the answers to these uncertainties.

Why the title? The title--as it were, per se--is, to put it simply...meaningless. While fishing in Scotland last fall, our guide had a tendency to finish every statement with the phrase "as it were." I'd never heard anyone say that before, and probably more so from the sheer quantity of times he said it coupled with his unmistakable Scottish accent, I began to like it. Importing it back to the office in Switzerland, I found myself saying it from time to time for no real reason other than the fact that one of my co-workers (Memphis Slim) and I began to more frequently notice other meaningless phrases often used in everyday English language, of which "per se" also struck me as strangely funny. Combine the two phrases and you end up with an appropriately meaningless title.

Why the subtitle? The subtitle--to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail--is an old saying that is often repeated by Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger (both of Berkshire Hathaway), two men that I strongly admire. They use it when trying to explain to the average person the various fallacies committed by most all investors (professional and amateur alike). Clearly this saying is valuable (at least monetarily) when applied to the investing discipline, but I personally think that its meaning goes a long way in explaining the various misconceptions and problems in this world that result from poorly-reasoned decisions made by people that are either too lazy or too stubborn to properly research and/or consider the most likely outcomes that will result when making a decision. In short, I personally believe that the idea of "conventional wisdom" often lacks the all-important second word in that phrase (for the mathematically challenged, I mean wisdom). For, if people would even just occasionally be willing to think more critically or in a manner that at least considered the alternative point of view, decisions and resulting outcomes would be much less unsuccessful for themselves and also the folks living in the world with them. I suspect that many of the thoughts that I post will trumpet this issue, so I figured that the subtitle was fitting, as it were, per se.