A Few Brazilian Thoughts

People,

           I can’t talk for long – I’m in Brazil for work. 

           I’ve wanted to say that all my life, and am not ashamed of the obvious brag-plaining. This one-liner snippet is ripped directly from callsign Ricktown’s facebook two months ago.   I missed writing, which is an extension of missing travel.  It’s been a minute, so let’s get into it.

Where am I?

I’m in Macae, the Petropolis of Brazil.  The city is simultaneously a triumph and a tragedy.  Macae is a triumph in that the town has experienced 600% population growth in the last 15 years, and its population currently enjoys double the national per capita GDP.  Those directly employed by Petrobras or its service companies enjoy the benefits of this new work, and many for the first time have proper health insurance, dental care (lots of 25 year olds with braces here), literacy and hope for advancement.  Millions more otherwise poor Brazilians have been lifted out of poverty into only-kinda-poverty, complete with downtrodden vending machine-esque apartment living from which my 23-story hotel is visible at all times.   They share this accommodation with a diverse array of prostitutes, criminals and drug dealers who move from bar to bar to accomplish commerce as if trick-or-treating.  They don’t typically have to make a long journey, as the supply of expats and commuters with ample money, minimal pee-in-a-cup concerns and pliable morals never runs dry.  Aloof, decided corrupt politicians have turned a blind eye to this for generations with no end in sight - one of the few things all Brazilians I’ve spoken to agree upon.  Despite all the money coming into this town, there is no serious hospital or police station.  The local schools are awful and the roads are typically congested, occasionally flooded. Streets 100 feet from the restaurants and hotels are no-go zones, even for locals. This makes it uncertain whether when so many dinos decided to die in the Campos, Victoria and Santos basins, they offered the future population a warm embrace or a collective Falcon Kick to the gonads.

            But let’s take a step back from the day to day of Maca-hell, as my friends here refer to it, and look at the parts of this experience which represent Brazil as a whole.  Doing so hurts the mind and soul much less.  In the same way that Parisians make Paris less desirable than it could be, Brazilians actually increase the value of whatever real estate they’re standing on.  From the two I shared an aisle with on the flight to Rio, to the team of field engineers I’m here to support, I am constantly impressed by the sincere warmth, fun mindset, all-in-this-together mentality they share, as well as the girls’ butts.  I’ve only met one Brazilian I don’t like.  He’s my survival training instructor – a self-proclaimed racist, homophobe, sexist, card-carrying ignoramus, gainfully employed as a local pastor when he isn't fumbling through teaching unimportant things like survival training. 

            To describe the people here requires anecdotes, because adjectives alone don’t cover it and tend to make for boring writing.  In my current home office, it’s no secret that the gang took a long time to warm up to each other, and that out-of-office interactions are not (for most) a daily occurrence.  Incidents of partying or any fun which is not company-approved are kept hush-hush, and corporate smiles prevail consistently over any honest display of emotion, be it positive or otherwise.  The complexity of human interaction is muffled for fear of the potential negative consequences of individuality.  Not so here.  On my first day, any thought of self-concealment to maintain my corporate stature was vacated, as no such efforts were ever extended on the part of my superiors here or my fellow grunts.  Instant honest optimism was coupled with the finest of oilfield profanity.  Tales of weekends past and profession of goals for weeknights soon to come flowed freely. I immediately learned Portuguese words for gender-specific body parts and their potential interactions.  Drinks were consumed, soccer riots were watched in real time, and concerts were attended in the first week of interaction.  I like it.  I like it a lot.

            Language here is a fascinating thing, and it’s my duty as brag-plainer/traveler to dispel a common rumor detrimental to all who believe it.  Speaking Spanish is NOT sufficient for living in a Portuguese-speaking place.  I succumbed to this belief after hearing it so many dozens of times, and planned my (lack of) studying Portuguese accordingly.  I am so screwed.  This theory sounds great and lets you sleep well at night only until you perform the smallest amount of research first hand.  Like the geocentric model of the solar system, the anti-vaccine lobby, or pull-and-pray.  Portuguese borrows syntactically and grammatically from Spanish, being a romance language along with French and Italian.  Several words are cognates.  The convenient similarities end there.  The written version introduces 3 new accent marks and 2 new letters.  The word for I or me is “Eu,” pronounced “you.”  The word for pull is “puxe,” pronounced “push-ay.”  R’s are pronounced like H’s, making my name Hoo-sell.  Or Hoosty.  When spoken aloud, Portuguese does not resemble a familiar Spanish base with some Italian slipped in.  It resembles Sebulba, the antagonistic pod-racer from Episode 1.  Furthermore it resembles Sebulba with a mouth full of live insects, angrily trying to explain something quickly to someone beneath him. 

            What are you doing there?

            This trip, much like my Singapore venture, represents in clear fashion the pros and cons of this industry.  My trip is all expenses paid, and I’m holed up in a 3 star hotel, which is surrounded by vast stretches of unfortunate poverty-stricken brownish people of some kind. Much like the Singapore trip, I was informed of it only 3 days before my flight was to go wheels up.  MLS, I do not yet have a return trip scheduled.  I may leave before Christmas, I may not.  We don’t get holidays in this world, we get projects.  And that’s ok.

            I’m here for the field trial of [SCIENCE WORD, DELETED], which my group designed to replace an existing [SCIENCE WORD, DELETED].  This [SCIENCE WORD, DELETED] [DOES SOMETHING BETTER THAN] its predecessor, by [ECLECTICALLY IMPRESSIVE QUALITATIVE COMPARISON]. Which is pretty sweet. The Brazilian group will be using this tool here in roughly 1 week.  Until then I am responsible for training locals, undergoing “intense” survival training (today our beloved instructor defined an “Unsafe Act” for us on the board.  He informed us it will be on the test.).  I will also be medically vetted and certified (this involved pooping in a cup), and performing a failure investigation for a different [SCIENCE WORD, DELETED] which has the potential to cost us millions.  

           In my spare time I’ve been woken up by my Venezuelan roommate bringing home hookers at 3am. Twice.  The second girl looked to have not missed many meals lately, and my subsequent inquiries of who paid whom for services rendered weren’t received with the same humor they were delivered.  I’ve also played soccer with the department here, which I liken to banging on pots and pans with a wooden spoon while Boston Pops Symphony plays.  This allowed me to continue my streak of injuring myself playing pointless rec sports; a proud family tradition.  Trying to emulate my coworkers I played shoeless.  Turns out Brazilians play soccer, like, a lot more than I do.  The blisters on my feet are repulsive.  Use your imagination. 

Are you going to end with another sweeping, unqualified generalization?

            No, and you’re a jerk for asking that.  My aim in this documentation was merely to set the stage for what is to come.  Sweeping generalizations can only be produced after the journey has sufficient time to ferment.  Still to come on this trip will be an offshore visit to a science project rig, where our client has given us the green light to simply try a ton of new toys simultaneously, mine among them.  I have yet to conclusively prove me theory of the failure mechanism of [SCIENCE WORD, DELETED], and when I do I’ll self-glamorize so hard Kanye will come to me for publicity advice.  The beautiful beaches of Buzios still awake my presence this weekend.  There is so much still to learn on this trip, and my excitement for learning how much I don’t know yet is palpable.  Thanks for the emails, to the few of you who have emailed.  For now, Shorthaake out. 

            

Costa Rica - Futbol, Ziplines, and Hookers: Oh My!

Team,

Work can make a person boring. Addressing friends and coworkers the same way any time an email goes out to more than two people at once is one of the least socially caustic tendencies working a standard 8-to-5 can give a person.  The rest are worse.  Like responding with "Welp, it's Monday!" to anything that happens during those Godforsaken 24 hours.  Like doing the same on a Wednesday.  Like giving Fridays more credit than they deserve, or avoiding opportunities to go skinny-dipping at 3am on a Thursday.  Like waking up early on a Saturday to do one's ironing.

I realized, one month ago, that I did all of these things in the same week.  Cue cold sweats, calls for help, etc.  The only reasonable solution was to go to Costa Rica, watch a world cup qualifier, and surf my face off.  Doctor's orders, everyone.  Promise.  He also prescribed writing about it... so I hope you once again enjoy my selfish attempts to sound cool.

Firstly, this marked an important milestone in the Rusty's Path To Adulthood chronicles.  An international vacation was booked with friends on our own impetus.  There was no program, no large group, no obvious occasion, and not even a holiday involved.  We had merely a birthday and a soccer game to go by. We would go to San Jose, party some, watch a World Cup Qualifier, party more, go to Jaco, surf, party more, surf more, then zipline/ATV across a jungle.  Then we'd go back to work sunburned, fat, broke and utterly satisfied.  We've had worse plans.

American Airlines began their stellar performance on Thursday afternoon, procrastinating our flight back 3 hours from 4 to 7pm in gradual 20 minute increments.  This pushed back our arrival in paradise, resulting in an audible in evening plans: we would search for soccer ticket connections at the bars by the hotel!  Because those are always awesome!

Anyone familiar with a B-team bar setting (Addison) can imagine the silly strip mall scene.  Walking by closed sushi restaurants and an open McDonalds, we closed in on what sounded like Major Lazer's birthday party.  We couldn't have been more out of place had that actually been the case.  It was like a Hollister store hired a novice DJ, served overpriced shots and then kicked all the white women out. This was not without benefit: Central American hips in jean shorts can be hypnotizing, and if you told me that more than 50 words were exchanged between my companions and I, I'd question if you counting by 3's or 4's. It became abundantly clear that these people had no interest in us whatsoever (typical for me, but my companions were better looking/wealthier, so they weren't as accustomed to this), and that we were likely the oldest people in that bar by at least two hands' worth of fingers. At this point, slightly less solvent, utterly friendless and no closer to soccer tickets, we left to find another bar.  This was abortive and brought us back to HQ for the night.  Starting off right. La Da Dee Da Dee.  We Like To Party.  Hey.

Day two brought us to San Jose proper.  San Jose is not a third world city, but it's no San Francisco either.  The streets are a maze due to the Tico's (Costa Rican for "Costa Rican") preference on navigating with hand gestures and landmarks.  All stores advertise soccer in some way.  Every 15 feet we saw a stall selling the same assortment of annoying plastic horns and soccer jerseys.  I assume this is the remnant of some Mayan tradition.  The stalls were so close...it just made no sense.

In a fit of jealousy over how awesome Costa Rica is, witches from Salem cursed it during the 15th century.  They decreed that every afternoon around 2 it would rain for the next 3-5 hours.  Every.  Damn.  Day.  Our time in San Jose was no exception.  This complicated the art of scalping which was to take place in the hours approaching the game, and upon which we placed a large weight regarding the success of this vacation.

Leaving one of our team (callsign Spa) at the USA pre-game bar to guard our beer, I ventured off with the third sparkly Tri-Force constituent (callsign The Mayor) to haggle for technically illegal goods on the streets of a third world country.  In the rain.  While kinda drunk. In Spanish. This is why I don't tell my mother what I'm doing on weekends until after I've done it.

What followed surprised us all - Not only was I interviewed by a Tica Journalist (I'm famous!), but we obtained three front row seats for $60 each.  These are, to reiterate, front-row seats to the biggest sports ticket in the country this year.  Thanks, global economic imbalance.  I owe you one.  We celebrated by buying a handle of bacardi at the bar for our American Outlaw friends and ourselves.  For $30.  You know, exactly like a Cowboys game and bottle service at Concrete.

The game blew the mind.  Estadio Nacional seats 34,000.  "Seats" is a bad word because no one sits.  On this night it sat roughly 33,920 Ticos and maybe 80 Americans.  I didn't do the math, but wouldn't have been surprised if the Riot Police assigned to our section outnumbered us.

USA won last time  on what is considered a gimmick (snow), and the Ticos are all painfully aware of it.  One thing that struck us all and was pointed out by The Mayor is the literacy of the crowd.  Every little thing done right by the Ticos or (more often) wrong by Tio Samuel was applauded vehemently.  I had flashbacks to SMU games with half the crowd on their smartphones and the other half absent, and cried a little on the inside.  It made me respect soccer and the Ticos.  The final was 3-1, and if you've ever been curious to see what raw passion looks like, find yourself in a third world country after they win a birth to the World Cup.  Traffic was immobile, parties erupted in the streets, and we were denied access to our own pregame bar "por su propio seguridad."  I'd never been kicked out of a bar for my own safety before.  Live and learn.  After searching for the proper post party unsuccessfully, we called it a night in preparation of the second leg of our trip:  the coastal jewel of Jaco.

The following statements should not be a surprise to anyone:
1.  Surfing is hard, and makes your nipples tender if you don't wear a shirt.
2.  Zipline needs to establish itself as a mainstream form of transportation.
3.  Most people who live in Jaco hated us.

Wait, now about that last one?

Jaco is on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.  It is a beautiful setting and the ire of all Ticos who don't live there.  Unbeknownst to us while booking this, Jaco built up too fast.  Tourism began in the 90s based on nature, surfing, adventure-ing and the high life. This turned into money'ed spring breakers pillaging through town renting Nicaraguan and Tica hookers faster than the town could supply them and providing a market for a large supply of Panama-trafficked Bolivian nose powder.  I'm not making this up.

The Ticos refuse to sacrifice their integrity the way they feel the Mexicans did with Cancun, Acapulco etc.  Jaco, to my eyes, was a beautiful place where we could surf, do ATV things, ride on a zipline shirtless and upside down (because I'm That Guy), and get some excellent meals to boot.  Jaco is, to the Ticos' eyes, a den of drugs, prostitution, miscellaneous villainy and a cheapening of the otherwise wholesome culture of the population.  In other words, they hate it for the exact same reasons so many foreigners love it.

During a series of conversations with locals (waitress from Georgia, teacher from Jersey, her two awful fat friends from various "before" pictures), we were repeatedly indirectly scolded for being nasty tourists.  Jaco doesn't get a lot of American tourists who come for things other than Tica prostitutes, evidently.  This was news to us all.  A formidable social barrier exists between the locals and the tourists for exactly this reason.  Those who moved to Jaco adopted the sensitivities of the locals.  It would be like if I relocated in the rough part of South Oak Cliff and decided, because of my new digs, to stop watching M*A*S*H reruns and eating broccoli.  The Ticos and walk-ons are so offended by the perceived lack of genuine interest in what Costa Rica has to offer that there is a barely-not-open hostility lurking beneath the outwardly friendly exterior of most of the Jaco residents we encountered.  They feel that unchecked tourism ruined one of their finest locations.

And do you know what?  I get it.

Costa Rica sits in the world's upper echelon in natural beauty.  Generally speaking its people are hospitable, welcoming and helpful, almost to a fault.  Truly cool folks. But there is a tacit expectation among them that tourists also come with the same good faith in which they are received.  That they come to enrich themselves with the landscape and the mentality Ticos have to offer, not merely to get ones' rocks off and leave the locals with slightly more money but less culture and happiness.  When this implicit trust goes awry, the resulting disdain shouldn't baffle anyone.

It's also possible, and many will support this theory, that so many Ticos have been so damaged by American Airlines, that they've grouped any and all US citizens under the same dual-horned devil helmet worn by whoever is running that miserable operation.  I wouldn't blame them.  Spa's flight out, which he awoke at 3am to make, was delayed and subsequently cancelled.  The Mayor's bags were shipped to London, because that makes sense.

I flew United.  I met a nice girl from Brooklyn and actually enjoyed the in-flight meal.

So this will conclude my "summary" of this trip.  Hopefully you enjoyed reading it as much as I loved being all up in it and then recording it as such.  I encourage you all to live in a crappy apartment, eat microwaved frozen vegetables for at least one meal a day, shun expenses like cable and dentist appointments, and then go stamp the bujesus out of your passport.  You only get one go at this "life" thing, and it's a big world out there.

Keep Calm and Blonde On.
-That Guy

Combat Poetry: Date Auction Done Right

Friends,

This message is a departure from your regularly scheduled programming.  By popular demand, and by my own desire to grandstand and shamelessly self-promote from the safety of my own keyboard, I am going to share "the poem."

Blondes vs Brunettes Dallas owned me this summer.  I enjoyed the slavery - amazing group of people, plus philanthropy for an important cause, plus coaching.  What's not to like?

Accessory to this commitment, an opportunity arose to take part in a date auction.  I earmarked a ticket to Book of Mormon for this purpose, and then had to come up with a talent.  This proved difficult, as it turns out no one cares how long my neck was in high school (really long) or how well I think I can speak Spanish while I'm drunk (perfectamente).  I settled on what's to follow herein: a poem illustrating my prowess as a purchasable date, the night to come, and make up a few words.

Note to the feint of ear:  This is offensive.  Even to me.  I couldn't keep a straight face reading it.  Mom, go look at this instead: OMG CATS!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BeDGuqe6O0

Transcript is below, minus one line that I made up on the fly.  Had to throw a priest joke in there...silly Catholics.

Hugs and Handpounds everybody.  Remember that every time you share my blog an angel gets its wings.

Haake'ums

Date Night

Attention lovely audience, and I don't mean the males
If you're new to "date auctions," most of whats to come is just sales

I was nervous at first, id been tasked to compete,
With all these philanthropic young genius playboy elites

But my fundraising goal's high, I want to go get it
So I'll rely on appreciation for me offensively waxing poetic

The pen is mightier, there are few greater skills,
poets screw more women than republican-backed healthcare bills

My aim isnt political, please stow all the groans
Im here to impress offend and seduce, so pretend you're watching game of thrones

Superior oral prowess makes women swoon without hesitation
On date night this will be in full swing, as per the following demonstration,

With such eyes as yours a longing gaze is due
Until you look away briefly, then it's down at boobs, then back to you

Your beauty's unreal, I hope my pants don't betray
You have me upright and locked like an airline seat and table tray

You unravelled my heart, my emotions unfurled
"You're the only one who could do this, insert-name-of-girl.

I can now see in your eyes, that internal urge rising,
If I told you I googled triple orgasm would you find that enticing?

And knowing my search history,
I hope your urge is proliferating
This is a night you'll always remember while fondly reminisce-turbating

I'm committed to this date, I'm in, all four thirds!
Don't question my math, fractions speak louder than words

Never encountered engineers? Have faith, im no nOOb,
Wikipedia prepared me to handle nature's little Rubik's cube

But that website's Metallurgy section doesn't accurately depict me
 in the presence of warmth and moisture rust never, ever comes quickly

Now the Demo's finished, I believe it'd be shrewd
To discuss what will happen if I'm bid on by you

I love watching musicals, though I seem so very callous
Bid highest for me, and we'll see the sold-out Book of Mormon in Dallas

If you're unfamiliar, no recognition in mind,
Look up what a Tony Award is, this musical won 9.

And though I may seem cocky I tell you the truth is
If this goes for less than $100 ill be bluer than smurf jiz

Without further ado,
I will no longer offend,
Applaud or faint or whatever, but please throw money. The end.

Denver - My Favorite Suburb of Littleton

This Memorial Day Weekend was spent in the Land of Amazing Butts, or in the native Cherokee tongue, “Denver.”  This being but a 3 day adventure an email is hardly justified.  Denver being the land of the thin, I intend to pass off a lack of content in this message as merely following theme.  With it thusly established that this message will leave any reader only just-the-mental-tip stimulated, onward we go. 

The weekend saw two events of increasing importance.  The first was the night out in LODO, the bar scene of this wonderful little town.  The only reasonable metrics by which to judge a city, the quantity of well-worn tight dresses and the difficulty of parking, both registered two standard deviations to the right of the normal.  Well played, Denver.

The real point of this communique is the giving away of my best friend Schilldawg.  Names changed to protect the innocent….kind of.  And being that this website is dedicated to personal grandstanding and literary brag-plaining, I’ll skip to the good part and copy/paste my best man toast below:

Alex told me I'm obligated,
For the best interests of all attending
To produce one toast which was pre-written sober,
Thusly reducing my risk of offending

But my friend was sadly unaware
That for a wedding to be valid
My family tradition dictates clearly
That one toast must be a ballad

So head to the restroom or go grab a drink
If you don't have time for my song
But as King Henry said to each of his seven wives
I promise I shan't keep you long

Part one of this toast concerns this man
The tall dude who caused all of this
Part two for his wife, the gem of all gems,
Of quality which baffles gemologists

Alex has long possessed the title,
One of unique distinction,
Of being my best most loyal friend
to that, grab a glass and lets and drink some.

His salsa dancing doesn't scream "I'm Man"
his golf swing you can take to the bank though
he won't harm a fly, but he killed lots of turkeys
And vaguely resembles James Franco

His calmness always is beyond compare
A product of growing up watching Sakic
One can frivolously drop the word "cool"
But its considerably harder to enact it

But the best part of our schilldawg
Forgive me one line of sappy,
Is that nothing, NOTHING satisfies him
like seeing those close to him happy.

With that we'll move on to the woman,
Who you've conned into saying I do
It's not that I ran out of material,
Just that she's easier to look at than you.

Jessica Brehm Schiller
What a wonderful human being
And I doubt I'm alone in thinking this,
your new name has a very nice ring!

I feel that I must thank you,
I feel I'm in your debt
i was behind cancun spring break and the bachelor party,
And you haven't killed me. Yet.

Despite all alex's fore mentioned clout
One thing is far beyond debate
Even if he never began boxing
With you He's still be punching beyond his weight

This poem has a third part,
Which you can chug through if you find boring
Its compulsory to at some point to pay homage to the classic how-they-met story

Alex and Jess gelled immediately
Two better fitting people? You cannot produce them.
I hope everyone here is enjoying the party.
You're welcome - I introduced them!

The schilldawg of yore spent once spent his days
around smu with the likes of yours truly
Then Jess arrived from Waco to Dallas
To intrepidly continue her schooling

Jess was single, and not too long been in town
Alex was fed up with an ex
Cupid decreed we'd get margs at ozonas
I think the first night they had second date plans

They returned from postgrad life in Waco to Dallas
And their affection for eachother elates me
However rarely in their home do i see it myself
Because teddy their puppydog hates me

Seriously though, when I say it elates me
I'm not kidding, yall do me a favor
You're a reminder that real, honest love exists,
Worth every effort to locate, protect then savor

It's an honor to be here, plus be your best man
I hope this poem wasnt pedantic
I'm impressed and way stoked and optimistic for you,
In case that was lost in semantics

For the sake of the party Lets wrap this up, it's getting old Standing just talking
Cheers to you both,
Cheers to tonight
And as the Steve Miller Band once said, keep on rocking

The crowd then proceeded to do as instructed in the final verse.  I received a lot of congratulatory pats on the back for this, most of which by people whose names either got chased out of my brain by bourbon or were never there to begin with.  But one among these congrat-pats stuck with me because it helped answer a question I’ve been asking myself lately, which is why I don’t try to write with regularity and make money doing it. 

The congrat-pat went something like “That was really easy for you to write, wasn’t it?”  I was surprised to hear this, but the middle-aged mildly drunk gent spoke the truth.  It had been.  I churned that sucker out on the plane ride from Dallas, inserting only minor edits later.  “It’s easy when you just speak your mind about something you care about and then make it all pretty like that.  It’s barely writing, merely redecorating.”

I was mildly offended, but couldn’t help agreeing.  And that, in short, is why I don’t write on the reg for anyone anywhere.  I can’t rely on myself to have something to say, and to thusly redecorate.  Writing is raw, and forcing a feeling is a crime against oneself. 

So that’s all for now.  Thanks for reading, and by all means do follow Steve Miller’s instructions.  He’s one hell of a redecorator.  

Tanzania/Kenya - I thought Africa Would Be Hotter

To my peeps,

Greetings! For those new to my distribution list, welcome aboard.  I travel, usually work but also personal when possible, and I love to email to my peeps about it afterward.  Occasionally someone around me will drink too much and say things s/he doesn't mean, like "I really enjoy your writing."  So I keep up these journalistic efforts to entertain and inform whenever I get to disappirate to somewhere fascinating.  To the rest of you, hello.  It's been a minute.  Please see Facebook for pictures and videos, and thanks for indulging my little literary hobby.    

First, ya'll know I lived near Boston for about 7 years.  I saw this and it made me feel good.  So you should watch it and feel good too, if you haven't already.  And go donate blood already. 

So.  Now that we're all acquainted, I'll get to the point. The two people who brewed me in a test tube celebrated 30 years of more-or-less blissful marriage this year and wanted to do something awesome. They performed lots of research.  After much googling, questioning and soul-searching, we decided on a Safari through the Serengeti with some Afreaky stops along the way.  At this point Jack, Garrett and I began pouring hour after hour of research into the trip (went to a zoo, watched Lion King, and this).  We booked time off work, booked flights, and bought books for the flights.  We were then victimized by American Airlines, separated from our bags, deviated to Dubai, and went through more lines than Whitney Houston circa 1990.  FINALLY, we arrived in Nairboi. 

The pre-safari safari consisted of an insertion in local life.  Our guide, callsign Ray, introduced us to a man named Paolo.  Paolo, for lack of a better term, was real.  Describing his village, Karutu, presents the most fascinating journalistic challenge I've encountered to date.  Red dirt everywhere, no roads.  His home was a mud-floored 2-room smaller than my apartment (but with more places to sit) , and all 5 of his kids and his wife live there.  He and his family played music and sang for us, we had tea, and discussed that his oldest son is waiting on university acceptance letters.  His village is a commune of sorts - everyone has a job, and laziness is detested.  The village surrounds a giant quarry dotted with kilns - if someone in the village is without work, he makes bricks and sells them.  Then the village will take care of him.  If he's lazy and won't make bricks, no one will help him or his kids.  He becomes a social if not literal exhile. See ya. 

Paolo took us to church.  Paolo's people, the Iraqw, were of Ethiopian descent, and accordingly are Shi'ite Pentecostals or something like that. The five of us trudged into a building, again, roughly the size of my apartment, which had mud floors and several dozen little plastic lawn chairs in it.  These lawn chairs were occupied by Karutu-ians (?) who were dressed to the nines in the epitome of soulful-black-woman-going-to-church attire.  Go figure.  They even had on nice shoes, which boggled the Haake mind collective, as our mud-caked footwear had to be shaken off or in some cases removed prior to entry.  The church bigshots wore suits, and the only electricity we saw in the village (except cell phones, oddly) was used to power a keyboard and speakers.  The service was in Swahili, so I paid attention a little more than I usually do.  Also, we danced.  Like, everyone.  Brothers Haake were drenched in sweat through our neo-fratty safari shirts, but the village people [sic] around us didn't sweat a drop through their heavier fabric clothing.  We thanked them, prayers were exchanged, money was donated, and off we went to "auction."  On the way mother was instructed on how to make Ugali (think cornmeal) and I taught a wee one how to use crayons.  Cute. 

The "auction" occurs every first sunday near Karutu.  It pulls Massai tribesmen and other randos from over 20miles away.  All on foot, of course. People drag their wares to the auction, set up shop, hawk as necessary, and then go home.  I'm no Census expert, but I estimate between 8000 and 10000 people were present at this "auction."  We were the only Wazongo there, and as such were constantly followed by vendors trying to sell us everything from old 80s-90s sporting goods to "medicine" in legit potion bottles (250hp, just like that).  There were giant beef and goat shanks available, but sadly I'd already eaten.  

The next day we went to a school.  When I was in sixth grade I was either fighting, talking or spending my parents money virtually at all hours.  The children we encountered were none of these things.  Many of them walk 5-10km each way each day to get there.  The children studied swahili, english, history, math and science.  Roughly 40 to a class. Most treat notebooks and used pamphlets like a luxury item, and all the colorful laminated "learning aid" crap we grew up partially ignoring was nowhere to be found.  Our gift of crayons and notebooks appeared to be an absolute godsend.  See video and pictures for more info.  This was too humbling to adequately describe in this medium.  

So onto the other part of the trip - the cutest baby animals we saw, from ugliest to awwww-liest:

10 Wildebeest

9 Hyena

8 Zebra

7 Gazelle

6 Impala

5 Baboon

4 Giraffe

3 Lion

2 Leopard

1 Elephant

I have photographic documentation to back this up.

The diversity and density of wildlife in the Serengeti defies description.  Not only was the whole cast of Lion King represented, but they were ubiquitous.  We became animal hipsters by the trip's termination - we began by stopping at every sniff of a giraffe or zebra, taking pictures and ooooh-ing and ahhhh-ing.  By the end of the trip we regarded these herbivores with the same grandeur as anything we'd eat in a bowl with milk on it.  Couldn't care less.  In a week of hanging out in sweet tents on the 'Geti we encountered hundreds of gazelles and impala, thousands of wildebeest and zebras, plenty of giraffes, and a few dozen elephants and lions.  In the metaphorical schoolyard, Lions are bullies who take what they want because they're the biggest. Leopards and sneaky, reclusive and clever.  Cheetahs are perfectly engineered killing machines, but aren't very big.  Land Sharks.  The BMW M3 of the Animal Kingdom.  Elephants are terrifying when they're feeling protective, regal and intelligent otherwise.  Rhinos are tanks.  Impala make me wonder what Chevy was thinking when searching for mid-size Sedan names.  Giraffes remind me of myself in high school.  

A noteworthy portion of this experience is that, to all my friends (both of you) and coworkers I'd spoken to about the trip, the phrasing of it was always:

Oh you're going to Africa?

How was Africa?

Did you get AIDS in Africa?

While there, we traveled more or less constantly for 10 days, and felt we'd seen a tremendous amount of geographical and zoological diversity, not to mention social and economic weirdness.  On a map, however, we saw one pinky-finger-nail of the continent.  Saying "I've done Africa now, what's next?" is akin to visiting Delaware and remarking "Man, North America is pretty sweet!"  So, as is typical with these trips, I return knowing that the amount I now know as a result of this pales in comparison to all that I know I don't know yet.  I want to go do more. 

Also, South America and Antarctica are the last continents that haven't been corrupted by yours truly yet.  I'd like to work on that.  Who's with me? 

Thanks for reading all of this. I imagine it took several days and some kind of bookmark.  See yall around, and keep it adventurous.  I have a bunch of these travelogue thingies now, so I added them to the Google+ thing because I'm not hip enough to do otherwise.  Add me if you'd like to have a read. 

Yours in volleyball dominance,

Rusty

Gulf of Mexico - A Life Aquatic

Friends, Family, and miscellaneous walk-ins,

Howdy.  This is the latest in my lifelong series of poorly-written dispatches designed to convince myself I have friends.  Also, when I turn 30 and senility sets in, I'll have these to remind me I used to be cool. With that theme in mind I shall proceed.

Where am I? 

I'm on a rig.  Specifically, I'm on Transocean's Development Driller 3, part of BP's Atlantis Project.  Let's start with some numbers, to give a sense of scope:  At 200,000 bpd, the Atlantis project is singlehandedly responsible for 3.5% of America's domestic oil production.  That's a lot of oil. This particular rig is roughly the square footage of a football field and has 6 decks with people commonly on them, as well as pontoons/engine rooms below and the drilling derrick above.  Tip to tip it's over 400 feet tall.  It is 123 miles south-ish of new orleans and at this moment sits in 5480 feet of water.  So think about the last time you ran a mile (or walked...) and imagine that length of pipe just to connect this behemoth structure to the surface tree below.  The reservoir is another 10,000 feet below that.

What am I doing there?

For the last 18 months I've been in charge of developing a product called the slickline sampler.  You program a timer, stick it on a string, drop it down the hole, and come up with super-pressurized sample fluid.  Super simple.  This is its field trial, where we put it on a string with other tools and work with textbook rednecks and coon-asses to hopefully not blow anything up.  The well is "live," which means in full communication with the reservoir, so it's dangerous and I'm therefore super bad ass.  I've been here since monday, and since that time our particular part of the operation has been delayed 4 times.  As of this instant we dance tonight around 2am.  

Who am I here with?

My work companion here is the most narrow-minded coon ass to ever be offered, and subsequently consume, the Halliburton kool-aid. I am so desperate for intelligent non-work-related conversation that I've left my food out to rot in hopes the mold will pull a Li'l Shop of Horrors and start talking to me, demanding to be fed. To those who've g-chatted, emailed, etc., I salute you.  You're preserving what sanity I have left. 

The diversity of personnel on the rig is startling and worth comment.  From the galley hands to the BP chief engineer there are 200 people on board this vessel at a given time. Most are Transocean employees or contractors responsible for the day-to-day operations, varying in importance from roustabouts and laundry hands all the way up to driller and toolpusher (fairly awesome titles to have on one's business card).  There are about 2 dozen on board with a college education at any time. 

I was privy to the pre-job meeting before the well went "live" last night around 1am, and to describe that meeting requires an extended metaphor.  

I am here to be Muhammed Ali's Towel boy. 

There is a longstanding, determined and sincerely dedicated effort to this reservoir right now. The concentration and preparation of hundreds of people will culminate in it successfully "switching on" in a few weeks time.  The dedication to the craft that I've seen evident from the engineers and hands who LIVE OUT HERE speaks of a word normally reserved for athletes with 1/10 the mental capacity of these folks - greatness.  The handful of 30-year experienced vets out here run things in a smooth, safe (nowadays...) and intentional manner in an environment so hopelessly complicated that in my handful of years experience I'm still asking questions like a Mormon walking into the Condoms and More off Greenville in Dallas. The scope and success of this particular operation leaves me few other words to describe the team accomplishment in bringing the well online.  Greatness.  And I'm such a tiny part of it, but I damn well better be ready when they call my number and require my service.  

So what's weird about being out there?

Well, everything.  Meals are copious - sweatpants are the normal dress code around here because rapidly expanding waistlines are an issue.  Relatedly, Offshore-Business-Casual also consists of sweatpants and a t-shirt, even if you're talking to three senior completion engineers (yesterday) with the customer.  So that's nice.  

I ran a half marathon Sunday in Lafayette, just in case I don't get home in time to do one in Dallas this coming Sunday, and have actually spent the majority of my time off lying in my bunk thinking of clever metaphors and popping advil.  However the gym is decently sized, but contains unexpected hazards.  One can easily forget you're on an ocean-going vessel, but one would easily remember it upon setting foot on a treadmill.  The swaying of the ship turns it into a drunk treadmill, which is at first dangerous (yes, i fell off) then annoying, but finally no big deal.  For weightlifting, as the fitnessy-inclined in this audience will attest, it's a great thing provided one has a spotter.  Working those stabilizer muscles is essential, it's almost pool season. 

The number of attractive women here rivals that of the finest Lambda Chi Alpha party, or living in Addison.  I've seen two women this week, not counting dreams.  One of them left this morning, and another one just arrived.  It was pointed out to me that women view this type of work in all the wrong ways - they get treated like a princess out here, get their own change room and dorm room, and are surrounded by (sometimes) clever, (sometimes) worldly, (always) overpaid men who haven't seen another woman in an undisclosed time period.  It's really a great pond to fish in.  Ladies, Halliburton's hiring.  Experience in absolutely anything would be preferred but not required.  Just smile a lot, we'll take you. 

There's wireless internet nearly everywhere, but it's too slow to do any meaningful work (Netflix, March Madness, UMF live stream).  The rec room has billiards and pingpong, and my room has a TV.  So it's not like I'm writing this from prison. 

It's fun to go out on the aft deck by the helipad and look around.  I can faintly see three or four other platforms in the distance (all in the Atlantis field).  And lots of fish.  And I wonder, who the hell decided this was a good idea?

What's the big picture message you're going to end this one with?  Don't you always do that even though you're 25 and don't know anything about the world, and most of the people who read this are older and think "this arrogant little shit..."?

Be cool, stay in school.  Don't chase women, chase money and they'll chase you.  Brush your teeth.  Wear sunblock.  Be nice to Jack he'll be rich one day. 

That's all I got.  I hope you enjoyed reading some of this.  And that if you didn't, you'll lie to me to spare me my feelings.  

Hugs/Handpounds,

Shorthaake. 

Scotland 2 - Aberdeen, the Houston of the UK

To you people,

As inconsiderate as it may seem, I am going to shamelessly crowd your inbox with another probably automatically deleted email about cool things you aren’t doing.  I’m not kidding.  Sorry I’m not sorry. 

This message will be composed of three sexy sections – First, I’m going to describe in more detail what I was doing/have done here.  Then I’ll make my usual sweeping (often incorrect, but never in doubt) generalizations about this place.  Finally the true meat and potatoes of vintage Rusty writing; baseless self-satisfying wisdom nuggetry.   Let’s cut to the chase. 

A product I designed is going offshore for its first dance soon, and we have to run the old tool it’s replacing in tandem.  Turns out no one legally allowed in the USA knows how to work the old one (or the new one, since my team just built it).  So, expressing the naivete of a freshman girl who thinks she was invited to senior prom for her personality, I raised my hand and volunteered to fly toScotland in January. I’d become the only American trained on this tool. Go, me.   Then they gave me a training partner in case I get hurt/sick and can’t go out on the gulf.  Even better.  Every little detail imaginable went pear-shaped this week (They said it best...), but we did it. 

This tool is goofy.  Its subassemblies include, and I’m still not kidding;

1 – Anti Premature Closing Device, to make sure fluid transfer lasts the proper amount of time

2 – customizable Flow Regulator selection and installation, for whatever type of flow you’re anticipating

3 – Dual Priming Nipples, a final step to prepare the system for high temperature action

So, hey ladies, pay attention – I’m qualified to build, charge, prime, operate and redress a Proserv SPS-15 Sampler.  Please try to stay calm, I’m not looking for anything serious right now.  But take a number anyway. No pushing.

Aberdeen represents the Houstonification of an otherwise awesome Scottish city.  The City Centre is as old and charming as the majority of Edinburgh, although it lacked that medieval certainty that there was a witch burning at a stake nearby.  It is also a college town, with three international universities within stumbling distance of downtown.  So, young people around.  But no girls.  The ratio here is reminiscent of most Lambda Chi parties my pledge class threw. Some dudes wear skirts just to break up the monotony. It’s depressing.

By Houstonification, I mean a generally bad thing.  I didn’t like Houston, and have been on the record with my employer that I’d rather be transferred to Nigeria than back to the 713. Aberdeen has an overabundance of new (last 40 years) O&G money, along with the transplanted foreign citizens that come with it.  It’s also on the verge of the social white-washing that occurs in oil and gas meccas, where all religions turn towards the bank to pray twice monthly.  The traffic is miserable and shows poor planning.  I realized my hotel was little more than a hostel, and in fact I stayed in nicer hostels in New Zealand.  But finding another vacancy in the city proved impossible because, and I’m not kidding, the international curling championship was ongoing this week.  I stayed late most days at the office to catch up on Dallas worky stuff and shamelessly G-chat with friends, and was unable to book a taxi home unless I’d booked it at lunch time. '

The un-Houstonified Aberdeen would be a much different town. Without the total hassles of transportation, I’d find the snow every day to be awesome.  I did manage to let my inner child out a few times– I made snow angels in my coveralls and started a snowball fight with my trainer.  Expected.  Literature and Whisky take a backseat in this town to the concerns of apes like myself, and the city as a whole caters to this biggest buyer, which is corporate slavery in lieu of tourism. This sucks, in my mind, because the Scots have really figured out how to proficiently both cultivate and kill brain cells, and I hope they don’t lose that.  Their obsession with literature is ubiquitous (Robert Burns day is a national holiday) and scotch is a culture all of its own.  I’d hate to see the Houstonification continue.

Despite the soul-crushing traffic and weather conditions, I managed to properly explore on foot. Monday and Tuesday night were intrepid walkabout nights, wherein I stopped a bar fight, discovered a pub called Campus - “Scotlands First Frat House” – caught a cold, and discovered that Aberdeen is a city of deception.  Several huge old churches turned out to be bars with funny names like Soul and Absolution, a building labeled “Garage” was actually a club, a neon’ed out building visible for blocks around was actually His Majesty’s Theatre, and an obvious run-of-the-mill oriental brothel was actually a Chinese restaurant.  I’m still not kidding. 

Wednesday was the hardest work day – our trainer had hernia surgery so the two of us were on our own, and I’ll pat my own back and say we kicked ass.  I stumbled into my hotel around 630 devoid of the will to keep living, then realized I had to take advantage of this trip.  Exhaustion isn’t an excuse.  So I walked into the city center and did what I think anyone would’ve done: I pre-gamed on Glenfiddich and got a ticket to Soul Sista, The Ike and Tina Turner Story, at His Majesty’s Theatre.  I’m not kidding.  The moral of this musical, when looked at from Ike’s point of view,  seemed to be: Date much younger, talented, starry-eyed women by being nice at first, then treat her like second-hand nothing, abuse and manipulate her, cheat on her repeatedly, and you get to see the world, be famous, and retire a millionaire.  I’ve been going at this so wrong for so long… 

And now the moment you’ve all waited for, the half-assed wisdom.  And I know you’ve waited for it only because it immediately precedes the conclusion, but that’s ok too. 

Before embarking on this trip, I watched Lost in Translation because Bill Murray is awesome.  It’s a story about the real world business trip, except that he meets a cute redhead from Yale in Japan, so it’s clearly also science fiction.  Travel isn’t always glamorous – it’s lonely.  You’re multiple time zones away from people you care about, and no matter how much you try, they can’t understand what your new environment is like.  Hotel gyms all suck, or are nonexistent.  Single-serving friends aren’t really friends.  Strangers aren’t friendly everywhere like they are in Texas.  Haggis is delicious but local cuisine is a crapshoot.  Hotels are soulless. I don’t mean to whinge about trips, but only to say that I understand how this lifestyle can wear a person down, and that I felt that way on this trip a few times. Go see the movie (for free on Netflix), and you might totally get it.  I guess it’s technically a rom com, so girls dive on in. And hey Dad – growing up I always thought you must just totally love being out of town for work all the time.  I get it now.  That life's rough. Thanks for doing that for us.

TS Eliot wrote that

                We shall not cease from exploration

                And the end of all our exploring

                Will be to Arrive where we started

                And know it for the first time

This little stanza stuck with me on this trip, because it’s clear that while some people travel to change the world, no matter who you are the world will in fact change you.  Returning from backpacking Australia fundamentally changed the way I look at my life, and every time since that I’ve gone abroad and returned good ole’ US and A seems to have changed while I was gone.  It really hasn’t, but I have.  This is still the case for my Scotland adventure.  Perspective is the lens through which you see the world, the codex which breaks down what you feel and experience.  Travel upgrades the lens.  I’m grateful for the job I have which lets me do this on someone else’s dime.  Kinda wish I could’ve been an English major too though.

But unfortunately the change hasn’t been the sort of change to make me stop typing long-winded travel essays that no one reads anyway. To the three of you who’ve read this entire thing, I hope you’ve enjoyed it.  I’m eager to return to Dallas.  I haven’t seen sunlight or worked out in 7 days.  

Southbound 35, hey Texas feel my soul. 

Your friendly inbox polluter,

Short Haake

Scotland 1 - Edinburgh is for Lovers

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It's that time of year again - that time when I pollute your inboxes with brag-plaining and painstakingly constructed metaphors about how cool the world is.  For the newbies to this experience, I offer but one apology, that you've somehow become my friend without reading the fine print on the contract.  I write stuff when I travel. Some people like it.  I'm sure some of you have used it to teach yourselves how to read.  No thanks necessary.

So let's start with the backstory.  Thursday afternoon, I discovered that for various science reasons I had to be in Aberdeen, Scotlandall the following week. Feeling inconvenienced, as I'd stepped off a plane from Houma, Louisiana the day before that, I decided to attempt a shady corporate technique, the "lag-cation."  I couldn't just fly to Aberdeen Monday and be jet-lagged all week - what if our science things broke?  People could be wasted and time could be hurt.  Or something.  It was imperative that I be fresh and ready to kick ass, so I needed to get the hard flight out of the way early.  Like, Friday.  And while I'm at it, send me to Edinburgh instead because it's cheaper per night than Aberdeen.  To my tremendous confusion this line of rank bullshit was accepted.  #somehashtagwouldworkhere

However, First world problems reared their ugly heads shortly thereafter.  I spent 5 hours at DFW friday night before being told my flight was cancelled because London-Heathrow can't handle snow.  Next flight out is the next day, and is also delayed 4 hours, reducing my Edinburgh tourist time to 6.5 hours.  I then made the executive decision to do a double backflip with a half-twist off the sober January wagon.  I did not stick the landing.  Sorry I'm not sorry. 

And now we'll get to the actual meat of the email - Edinburgh!  I must begin with a disclaimer - I was woefully hungover for the majority of the journey to this wonderful place, and had only minimal time to peruse the its history.  I hope you'll forgive any inaccuracies.  

Edinburgh was founded in the 15th century by Mexicans.  They erected 3-story townhomes, a castle, churches and whirly-swirly roads in every direction as far as the eye can see, and at night they all look like Diagon Alley.   Sadly the Mexicans were chased away by the Protestants in the 15th century, and then boarded the Mayflower to the New World, which was subsequently renamed Houston, where they could continue building.  

The construction industry ceased in Edinburgh at this time. NOTHING in Edinburgh looks like it was built in the last 500 years.  I'm sure some of the massive street clocks run on plutonium, but the entire city is straight out of A Knight's Tale, which I still haven't seen for moral reasons.  Cobbled roads connect the entire city.   Even Starbucks' have turrets on top.   Also, it's super hilly. No matter how oft-running your ass is, it will be sore if you walk around this city all day.  Promise.  

Edinburgh (pronounced Ed-En-Bro' like the Sigma Chi's say it) is built around the Royal Mile, which connects the Castle to the hoards of tourists trying to visit it.  Very prescient of the Mexicans to organize it so.  I walked up and down the RM a few times upon recommendation, and was perplexed by the shear volume of flannel for sale.  I guess I should have expected this - flannel is a natural bi-product of the whisky distillation process, after all - but each several hundred year old store front remodeled for touristy purposes seemed more faux-grand and less necessary than the one before it. Just ridiculous.  But I bought a scarf because protecting my go-go-gadget neck from the cold was overlooked while packing.  

The castle itself is an insane example of complex engineering at its finest, and is older than the combined ages of everyone on this email list.  Engineering without calculators, construction without cranes, and stability with no metallurgy.  You could tell me the thing could fly and I would only be slightly more surprised.  It's amazing.  

My second epic fail of the trip occurred while trying to get to a literary pub crawl, a process involving drinking at the pubs where then-anonymous and now-famous authors went to drink away the misery of being an anonymous author. First, to the Mitre Room, where I was informed that the bar crawl no longer works out of there because the pub crawl director told the bar owner to (verb) himself, but why don't you have a whisky anyway?  Then to the Scotsman Lounge, where the same story and offer were repeated.  Finally I booked a ticket online for the tour meeting at the Beehive, bought the compulsory whisky, and was floored when told that I was the only one who signed up for the tour.  My very attractive would-have-been tour guide said it requires 6 or 7 participants to do it right, and would refund my dues.  My intuition tells me her boyfriend wisely detected a threat and made her choose, him or me.  Some people are afraid of danger and new things.  Can't blame her.  

So with my evening thusly freed up, I recalled a friend used to nanny here while on an enlightenment binge known as "backpacking."  With the address in hand, 4 drinks in my stomach and zero other plans, I left the Royal Mile and decided to check it out.  I found several novel ways to travel Edinburgh (got lost), and wound up in the middle of a Cuban Salsa class.  I'm not kidding. Back in the day, they all called me "Cuban Salsa Rusty," as most of you know.  So, abiding by YOLO n such, I participated and made friends who can't wait to forget me forever.  After getting sufficiently down, I rambled on into the night.  It was snowing heavily at this point.  This was at first cute and endearing, but later made me sneeze and hate the world.  Like cats.

Princes Street is an interesting place.  It's as if the local interests of Edinburgh want it to be a main drag, complete with shopping and trendiness, but the protective enchantments placed by Aristotle in the 17th century prevent it.  This place just refuses to grow modern.  Big-name department stores stretch on for about half a mile. Then the Princes area collectively catches a case of the Fuck-its and turns into old adorable enchanting E-bro again.  Cobbled streets and tiny pubs rule the town again.  It's awesome. 

I eventually arrived at the house of nannying and took a picture, then realized that this was A) a completely random place to stop and B) a little creepy of me.  People live there.  Better go.  Fancying a nightcap, I stopped at a bar called Belushi next to my hotel which was playing Sweet Home Alabama as I passed by.  I there met two Scotsmen who confirmed everything the world ever thought about Scotsmen.  They were crass, vulgar, anti-catholic based apparently on a soccer rivalry, drank vodka martinis, hated Tom Brady, and could not for the life of them carry on a conversation.  I understood 1/3 of their words.  But they were vastly more entertaining than most vapid prep-school blahblahs I'd be bumping elbows with in Dallas, so it worked.  They also had been to Dallas previously.  They went on and on about (i think, language barrier) how friendly and attentive the people are.  So way to go everyone.  High Five.

I'm currently in Aberdeen solving all the science problems of the world.  Right now we're finding ways to paint mountains on hot pockets that turn red when they're hot.  My word count is approaching the added-up BAC's of the room I'm sitting in, so I'll cut this one off here.  There will shortly be another photo album for my Aberdeen portion of the trip as well as another email.  Shun the internet accordingly. 

Keep it classy everyone.  And go to Scotland sometime in the summer.  This "cold weather" is for the birds.  

Yours,

Uncle Roost

ps - aggressive brunch Sunday in Dallas.  I miss my friends.

Singapore 2 - This is Hard

Peeps,

Once again, I'm going to write as if you all have nothing better to do than read this.  An intentional miscalculation on my part, but let's get down to it nonetheless.  

You may see the time at which this is sent (saturday afternoon) and think "what the hell is he doing spending his saturday afternoon indoors writing an email? Shouldn't he be out corrupting the locals and taking pictures of it?"  

There are a few different ways for me to respond to that.  The first is that this morning I went out and, after getting lost twice, explored the Botanical Gardens.  The second is that I found out I have a friend from college staying at an awesome resort here, who reminded me there's an app called What's App that effectively gives free international texting and phone calls.  I had to return to the hotel to install it.  Finally, a unique feature of this country is that in order to sweat out any alcohol consumed in the last three years, all you have to do is put on normal clothes and stand outside for 45 seconds.  I'm drenched and need to recover.  So sit back and enjoy some correspondence, damnit. 

I'll start out by just saying what I've been doing, proceed to say what I think I will be doing soon, and conclude with vast sweeping generalizations I'm woefully underqualified to make.  For the optimal learning experience, follow along on facebook for pictures and typically crude commentary.  

So.  Ugly stuff first.  Work.  I'm here to help with an integration test.  The first one took two days to set up, failed, and took about 3 hours to figure out why.  We're rebuilt, bought new parts, and are ready to go again. It made me delay my departure from here until 2AM Wednesday, but now I get to fly out via Tokyo instead of Moscow and get another passport stamp.  Plus I get another crack at the $20/day breakfast buffet here, inarguably my favorite part of the Orchard Hotel.  I haven't starved on this trip.  

My colleagues here are all smart as shit and, I recently learned, get paid approximately half of what I do.  My title is Associate Technical Professional.  The guy I mainly work with here is one step up, a Technical Professional, and our team lead is one above him, Senior Technical professional.  I make twice as much as the TP, and about 50% more than the STP.  They both work longer hours and, simply put, do less cool shit than I do.  This was extremely humbling and motivating to learn.  It would be so easy for them to think and say "this american asshole doesn't know what he's doing and just kills us in the salary and dating white women departments, and he doesn't even know what he's doing!"  A new career objective of mine is now to be unquestionably worth what I'm paid, now that I'm more cognizant of what's around me.  I need these peoples' respect, not their disdain.  Gotta know my shit.

Onto nicer stuff.  Wednesday I went out to Clark Quay for Margaritas with my friend-of-a-friend, the PartySwede of Legend.  Clark Quay is what the San Antonio Riverwalk would be if it were exponentially more multicultural, safer, bigger, and at least 3x as expensive.  Restaurants, bars and hotels line it for miles, and I could hear live music in every direction.  Every kind of food and drink I could think of was present, as were people of those nationalities.  There were zero cops around, which I found interesting given the obvious party nature of the place.  This was explained to me as "you just don't cause trouble here.  There are no cops because there are no bar fights.  No Crime."  What a concept.  

Our partners for this little sesh were PartySwede's work colleagues, both of which were an indeterminate species of brown, but who were both breathtakingly intelligent and could've grown up down the street from me for how westernized they were in thought and speech.  I consider myself worldly enough to make racially provocative jokes and commentary, and they were beating me to the punch.  One explained he was "Indian, but the dot-head kind, not the feather kind."  I kindly thanked him for his clarification and asked what happened to all of his other arms. Lost in a fire.  Tragic.  

Between the four of us at this table, we spoke 13 languages fluently, had 7 advanced college degrees, and were, I am learning, in no way special.  Singapore is a smart place.  A cultured place.  No one here has the time nor willingness to dick around at anything.  

Thursday was a tour day.  This is where pictures are useful because it's impossible to tell you how crazy beautiful opulent this place is without them.  The engineering and architecture that went into the Marina Bay Sands and the Gardens By the Bay blow my mind.  Unfathomable.  But it still maintains a certain unique flavor and character that Hong Kong lacked because it's Chinese and the Chinese DGAF.  This place is something like 30% Chinese with Malays and other various coconut islanders making up most of the balance.  

Fun fact - it achieved independence at the same time as Kenya and Malaysia, both of which are poverty-entrenched, unsafe hellholes where I'd be robbed before I got off the plane.  How about them apples.  Planning and stuff work.  

Friday I discovered that cabs don't come to Tuas (where my lab is) on their own volition, and that getting one on a friday evening is actually impossible.  I walked half a mile to a bus stop (in my filthy coveralls), took two different busses to a train station, wandered hopelessly around there, and finally found a cab.  Two and a half hours later I was home, in bed, pooped.  I did all this wearing steel-toed boots after working all day.  Bullshit.  

I say this all to set up a compliment for the Singaporean people, actually.  On these two busses, I didn't have any money on me (AMEX only).  I had no clue where I was going.  Neither bus driver would take my american money, and both said "If you don't have one dollar to pay, I will let you ride for free."  They both held up their routes to tell me exactly where I needed to go.  They both got up out of their seats to walk to the back of the bus and let me know when we'd reached my stop.  Maybe I just looked like a miserable filthy human being, but these dudes were extremely helpful to a total stranger.  When I finally reached the taxi stand the line was enormous, so I bought a beer and wrote to my pen pal.  I couldn't pay for the beer (no SGP money), but the waitress gave it to me anyway, told me where to find an ATM (over 100 yards away), and insisted I take my time and go get money when I was done, then never hassled me about it.  How cool.  

So today I'm heading to the Marina Bay Sands to be an idiot tourist in the casino for awhile with a friend from college (Kristina Theleen, I believe several of you know her).  Her father invented China and she's here for the weekend to kick it.  You know, like we SMU people do. Then Papa Haake arrives for work, and we'll do more of the same.  He and I are actually leaving on the same flight back to the states for turkey day.  Ruling the Galaxy as father and son, Star Wars style.  

So that's all for now.  Feel free to forward this on if you'd like.  Cassface, I don't have Cole or any of your family's email addresses handy, but I wanted to send to them too.  

Keep it classy, America.

Middle Haake