I'm Tired

I'm tired of people jamming me into corners, despite my every effort to avoid it, and expecting me to do the impossible, time and time again. Guess what...it didn't work last time and I yet again painstakingly explained to you the reasons why. So, why are we repeating it all over again this time? And no doubt we'll repeat it next time, and the time after that...

I'm tired of people claiming they want to be independent, but then showing absolutely no willingness to do the things required to actually be independent. Guess what...being independent is hard work. We all have obstacles to overcome and when life throws you curve balls you are the only one who can adjust your swing accordingly.

I'm tired of people wasting my time by lecturing me about how to be more efficient. Guess what...if you want me to be more efficient, don't take 12 hours to tell me something that can be said in 3. Keeping me captive is only making me less efficient.

And I'm tired of people farting at the gym. I'm trying to breathe here, people.

Boonville Beer Fest - Recap

Last weekend Christen and I took part in our 4th Boonville Beer Fest. It's held in Mendocino County at the fairgrounds in Boonville. We camp among the redwoods at Hendy Woods State Park outside of Philo, only 5 miles or so from the fairgrounds. The beer fest organizers are kind enough to provide a shuttle to and from the fairgrounds from the campground. It only makes sense as the first year we went some drunk driver drove UP a slightly leaning tree on the side of the road in the campground. Anyway, it's amusing to be picked up in a van reading "Mendocino County Retirement Home". Just 40 or 50 years early, no? But, I tell ya, after 4 hours of "sampling" beers I'm pretty glad the shuttle has an electric wheelchair ramp. It makes it much easier to roll any companions that may have been overserved into the van. I'm curious, though, if the old people notice the vomit smell on Monday when they get the van back.

We didn't go last year. The year before (2005) it rained nearly the whole time (except, thankfully, during the beer fest itself). We woke up in the middle of the night to drip-drip-drip in the CENTER of the tent. Yeah, that's right, the center of our tent leaked. We slept the best we could the rest of the night with a river running between our sleeping bags. Just after first light we rolled up the sodden sleeping bags, thermarests, and tent into one big wet ball, stuffed it into the back of the GTI and high-tailed it to the nearest diner for a nice hot cup of coffee and some flapjacks. (Does anyone even say "flapjacks" anymore? It's a great word. We need to bring it back.)

Last year, the lingering memory of the previous year's rain-soaked disaster combined with the still-raw psychological scars of the snow cave adventure served to keep us away from the beer fest. If we had been rained on again less than a month after surviving being lost in the snow there is no doubt I would have lit everything within reach on fire while running directly to the nearest 5-star hotel.

This year was far less eventful. Gorgeous weather and delicious beer. They rearranged the setup of the booths so it took us a while to find some of them. At one point I couldn't believe the Eel River, Deschutes, and Russian River breweries all were not there. Crisis averted as someone clued us in and we managed to drink our fair share of their beers, too.

Me and the wife at the beer fest.

It's amazing how drunk some people can get in only 4 short hours drinking 4 oz of beer at a go (you get a souvenier sampling glass when you walk in). This year I saw a first: I was in line for a tri-tip sandwich at about 1:15 (the taps open at 1:00) and this dude was so drunk in front of me he dropped his money all over the ground. In the process of fumbling around trying to pick up the bills more of them continued to spill from various points on his person. His friends gave him grief for his offensive display of coordination (as well they should) and, in his distracted and inebrated state, while flailing for his money he dropped his sampling glass and it shattered on the ground. This caused everyone nearby to let out a big "ooooooooooooooh" in unison. It's a tradition at the Boonville Beer Fest; someone breaks a glass, the crowd does a big "cheers" in unison. I've just never seen it done 15 minutes after the gates open. This dude was wasted. Is it a good idea to yell at the overworked tri-tip guy because you no longer have a glass and your friends have convinced you it costs $30 (lie) for a replacement? It's no one's fault but your own, buddy. Maybe next year exercise some restraint and don't get wasted on bloody marys before showing up to a flippin' beer fest.

Cole, come on, show some restraint.

The winner this year was Lagunitas. They had great beers and many of them are normally unavailable in bottles. Mmmm...specially brewed beer fest beers. I don't go to a beer fest to drink Redhook IPA or Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, I go to drink the special beers, and Lagunitas' special beers were delicious. The loser was Pacific Coast Brewery. It pains me to say so as they are located a mere block and a half from my office in Oakland and I frequently lunch there and ruin my afternoon's productivity, but running out of beer at 2:30? Really? How can you miscalculate so badly that you run out of beer before the beer fest is even half over?

Cameron and Sierra dancing at the beerfest.

We camp every year with our friends Jed and Megan and Dan and Michelle. Between them they have 4 kids all under 6 years old. 8 month old Cole, 2.5 year old Connor, 3.5 year old Sierra, and 5 year old Cameron. Christen and I like to call it the Birth Control Weekend. Saturday night, after waking up to Cole's screams of hunger, I decided I'd take advantage of my wakened state to empty my bladder. Hearing Jed and Megan struggle in a tent to fill a bottle at 2:30am caused this exchange between Christen and I the next morning:
Me: "Let's never have children."
Christen: "Ok."

Me and Cole in a happier moment.

Cameron is a sweetheart and ridiculously smart. Cole is a chunk. I mean, they really need to wrap his knuckles in white tape and put some fake blood on him for Halloween. He'd look just like a UFC fighter. Connor and Sierra are in full-on potty humor mode these days. We'd be hanging out by the fire and hear, "Sierra, I'm going to pee on your head." followed by "Connor, you are made out of poo with pee inside." Hilarious. They'd both get in trouble for it, but you just can't stop it at that age. Heck, I can't stop it now and I'm 35. At one point it was discovered that they were in the big tent showing each other their "privates".

Sierra, Cameron, and Conner doing what kids do.

The funniest thing was Connor's mom, Michelle, in the tent Sunday morning, rolling up sleeping bags, yelling out the tent flap, "Connor, are you misbehaving?" to which Connor replied, "Yeah." Give the kid points for honesty, at least. After a few seconds Michelle poked her head out the tent with a slightly befuddled look on her face and said, "Well, get over here I guess."

All in all a good trip, and we added to our small glass collection.

The whole silly group.

Busy

I've been kinda busy lately. Sorry for the lack of posts. I'll try to get more India/Sri Lanka/Singapore posts and Part 2 of the snow shoeing rescue up soon.

Poor Fred

Here's a completely hypothetical situation for you to consider:

Let's say an employee, Fred, has been asked by his company to attend a series of training seminars. Not so bad, happens all the time. Now let's say there are more than 4 of these seminars. OK, a little excessive, but, again, not too bad. Now Fred is told these seminars will occur during lunch. Well, now, this is a bit more presumptive, as the company is now asking Fred to attend these seminars on his own dime, as he does not get paid for his lunch hour. But at least he's getting a free lunch, right? Well, no. It turns out that, if Fred wants to actually eat during lunch, Fred is responsible for bringing his own lunch to the seminar. Additionally, Fred has heard from many others who have already been to the seminars in the past that they are completely useless and totally worthless wastes of time. So, now, let's review...the company is asking Fred to: Give up some of his lunch hours, work through lunch without pay, and bring his own lunch to seminars that will bore him to tears and provide absolutely no benefit to anyone.

Seems reasonable that Fred would want to get out of this situation, no? Well, Fred, using certain circumstances regarding his position and his smooth talking skills, manages to talk his way out of this session of seminars, postponing, or perhaps entirely avoiding, his fate. Phew, good work, Fred.

But wait! Our hero's boss has heard this! He is of the notion that Fred needs to attend these seminars, even after hearing from others who have been through them before that they are a "complete waste of time." Fred's boss intercedes and signs Fred up for the seminars anyway, telling Fred, "You will thank me for this later".

Oh, Fred does not think so. Fred does not think he will ever thank his boss for this utter and complete betrayal. Fred is angry beyond repair. This very well could be the last straw for Fred.

Sucks to be Fred. I'm glad I'm not Fred.

Happy Rescue Day

Today, Tuesday April 17th, marks the one year anniversary of me, Christen, Jon, and Natalie being rescued in the El Dorado National Forest, after wandering lost in a snowstorm for 24 hours. To mark the occasion I have started writing the story of the experience, told from my perspective.

This is part 1 of many, probably 4 or 5. It has the most pictures of any of them, since they were taken during the less stressful part of the trip. No promises on when the installments will be posted, but I will finish the story at some point, I promise.

PART 1:

It all started innocently enough. A trip to El Dorado National Forest, above Pollack Pines, to stay in a no-longer-in-service Forest Service fire lookout tower called Robb’s Hut for the night. It’s Easter weekend of 2006, mid-April. The forecast called for some light snow, but nothing major.

After waking up Saturday morning in Oakland, hemming and hawing about whether we actually wanted to go (something about Natalie misplacing the combo for the lockbox at the ranger station containing the key to the cabin), somehow we rallied and Christen and I head up Highway 50 with Jon and Natalie.

At the ranger station we luck out as someone is there to give us the key. Jon and Natalie grab a map, we ask a few questions, and off we go. The rangers confirm what we’ve heard about the forecast; some light snow, nothing to worry about. After taking our exit and following a two lane road another 20 or so miles into the Sierra foothills, we park at the trailhead, strap on our backpacks and snowshoes, and off we go.

As the approach to the cabin is a three mile all-uphill snowshoe trek, I find myself thankful that the cabin has mattresses and propane heat, lights, and stove. This allows me to leave behind my lanterns, Thermarest, tent, stove and a few other heavy things, lightening my backpack considerably. Since Christen does not have a “real” backpacking pack, per se, we have no trouble stuffing her things into Natalie’s smaller backpack and strapping her sleeping bag to the bottom, with me carrying the rest of our supplies.

The four of us make good time up to the cabin, following the trail of blue diamonds nailed to the trees, with some snow flurries beginning as we approach tree line. As this cabin used to be a fire lookout tower it is naturally located above tree line on an exposed ridge, for visibility. It turns out we’re not staying in the tower itself (which is boarded up), but in the outlying cabin. As we approach the cabin I notice it is barely visible. The snow is nearly up to the roof of the cabin, with a partially visible picture window. We hike up to the roof level of the cabin, around the side (at which point I could have walked onto the cabin’s roof) and down some snow steps into the vestibule to get into the cabin. Once inside the vestibule, sheltered from the increasing snow, we unstrap our snowshoes, drop our packs and head inside. Jon turns on the lights, fires up the heater and in no time the four of us are peeling off our layers and lounging around, enjoying the warmth.

On the way up.

The cabin, with the lookout tower in the distance.

Into the vestibule.

The snowfall continues to increase over the course of the remaining day and into the evening, making trips outside to go to the bathroom a very cold and windy experience. Every time we try to venture outside, opening the door reveals a wall of snow where the snow steps used to be. This requires the full-bladdered person to stomp, lie on top of, and otherwise smash all the new snow into some sort of steps or ramps, just to get outside. Once you’ve squeezed yourself between the snow and the eave, you are now out in the howling wind and driving snow. The girls are no longer making the 20 ft trek to the outhouse, opting instead to brave the elements and drop trou outside. Those not paying attention could pee right on the roof of the cabin and not even know it. By the time we’ve eaten dinner, played some cards, and bemoaned the fact we didn’t bring more vodka, the picture window is about half-covered by an ever-growing snow drift.

Eating dinner.

Waking in the morning finds the picture window almost completely covered. There is one small corner in the upper right still allowing light through, but the rest is a cross-sectional view of striated snow pack. An attempt to get outside led to the discovery we could no longer see the sky. Overnight, snow had completely covered the opening we had crawled through the day before. I had to poke through the snow with a snow shovel just to see the grey clouds overhead. Opening the kitchen window revealed the screen covered in ice. Only by banging on the screen to free the ice could we get airflow moving in the cabin.

The picture window before.

The picture window after.

These new developments, coupled with the burning of the propane lamps and heater inside the single-room cabin, led to an ever increasing feeling of claustrophobia. It is not a comfortable feeling to have your little cube of living space be slowly buried by snow. In 12 hours we all would have welcomed that feeling with open arms. But right now, we all just wanted to get out and get home.

We eat some breakfast, pack our things, clean the cabin and head out the door. Of course, the hole has been covered by snow again. I scramble my way up the powdery snow slope, poke a hole through the snow cover, and exit into a near whiteout of blowing snow. It was like being at the top of a ski resort during a storm. The wind blew so hard the snow stung my eyes. Jon and I, working together, he pushing from below, me pulling from above, managed to drag everyone and their packs up out of the vestibule and into the storm.

The exit hole from inside.

The exit hole from outside.

Me and Christen are strapped in and ready first, and rather than stand in the blizzarding conditions, we trek to the outhouse to take shelter and pee one last time. Jon and Natalie meet us there, and in the lee of the howling wind we yell to each other through our cinched-tight hoods; Do we really think this is a good idea? Should we just stay here until the weather breaks? Christen is visibly shaken and favors this idea, and I can’t say I would complain if we stay. After some discussion, we take comfort in the fact that the car is only 3 miles away, downhill. All we need to do is head three miles down the trail to the car. If we struggle too much we can always drop the packs and speed to the car, coming back for the packs later. Additionally, we hope the wind will lighten up as we descend into the trees.

With this small comfort, and the overwhelming desire to be back in the comfort of our own homes, we begin to head down the hill to intersect the trail at the tree line.

I Never Posted This? Poker Recap From a Month or so Ago

So, poker went pretty well, and the faulty kegerator tower held up without any additional disasters. Although we put much more of dent into the keg than I expected. Probably because no one else brought any beer with them. I thought for sure my mention of the fact that Prohibition Ale would be the only beer offered would spur someone, anyone, to bring some sort of lighter beer. It seems we always have a case or so of Bud Light show up at these things.

Well, no one brought any so everyone was stuck with the Prohibition. Not that it's such a terrible beer to be stuck with. It was described at various points of the night as "chewy", "thick", and "sticking to my liver". Several people asked, at different points, and with various levels of slurring, "what's the alcohol content of this beer again?". Prohibition is 6.1%, for the record. If you're used to drinking a sixpack of 3.8% crap light beer and coming out relatively unscathed, I could see how Prohibition might hit your faculties harder than expected.

Maybe that's why I cleaned up. Like Merry Maids. The cards certainly hit me right, which no doubt contributed to most of my winnings, as my already mediocre poker skills were being further eroded by the aforementioned Prohibition Ale (what's the excuse for refusing a "fill up" of your glass when you're in your own house again? It escaped me all night). I caught two 4-of-a-kinds, the nut flush on an unpaired board, seemed to always hit trips when holding a pocket pair, once even with pocket rockets when an ace fell on the turn (with no straights or flushes possible)...it was a ridiculous run of cards.

Mike also did very well, so he and I spent the last few hours beating up on the small stacks and studiously avoiding each other. No reason to tangle with the only other person at the table capable of severely denting my stack at 1am.

Burning Poop, Buzzed on Beer

Working in downtown Oakland provides me a wealth of choices from which to obtain my midday sustenance. One of which is Quizno's. Never, in a million years, will I eat there. Every time I walk by that place I'm assaulted by a smell of such utter foulness, I really don't see why anyone goes there. It smells like burning poop. Literally, like some dropped some #2 on the floor and set it on fire. I'm sure it's just the combination of melting cheese and other assorted ingredients burning in the toasters (am I? Am I really?), but damn, the smell, it's foul. Why anyone eats there is beyond me. How does one walk in, smell that stench, and think, "Mmmm...I can't wait to eat me some of THAT!"?

The kegerator is back up and running. Freshly filled CO2 bottle, new keg of Prohibition Ale...and guess who disconnects the keg every night. This guy. The replacement tower arrived last night from Avante. We'll see how long this one lasts. Especially if I manage to install it before the poker game starts tonight. It may last only a few short hours, given the quality and sturdiness of its predecessor.

It also no longer smells like beer in the house, or, specifically, in the kitchen. Thanks for the new tower, Avante, but it would've meant far more to me if someone had come over and pulled the bottom drawer of the stove out and scraped the gag-inducing coating of dried beer/dirt/mouseshit off the floor underneath the stove and the adjacent cabinet. Just sick. If that doesn't qualify as "pain and suffering" and "emotional distress" I don't know what does.

While at Speakeasy last Friday getting the new keg, Christen and I were offered free beers. You know how, at Peet's, if you buy coffee beans you get a free coffee? Apparently it works like that at Speakeasy, too. But with beer. I asked for a full keg and two beers and he gave us the beers for free. Sweet. Christen got a Prohibition and I got a Double Daddy IPA. It turns out Double Daddy is 9.5% alcohol by volume. And I drank it in about 5 minutes. And it was 6pm. And I hadn't eaten since lunch. That beer hit me like a shot of tequila. I babbled and slurred and tripped over my own tongue for the next 2 hours. I just did not have enough warning to prepare myself to be buzzed like that. If you're on your third beer, ok, you can expect to be buzzed and increase the filtering of the brain-to-mouth censor accordingly. One beer? Not ready. I'd like to apologize to Mike, Kelly, and Carlos for any and all inappropriate, derogatory, or insulting things I may have said that evening. And, Christen, I'm sorry we can't hang out with those particular friends of yours anymore.

Sri Lanka, Day 1 (Friday, March 16th, 2007)

Thursday evening I went to the airport and picked up Christen. Totally uneventful, but it sure made me smile to see her come out the door. Luckily I had prepared her for the chaos that is the arrivals area of the Chennai airport, and the craziness was at a minimum. All told, no big deal.

Friday I worked half a day, then we were off to the airport (again) to fly to Colombo (the capital city of Sri Lanka). Before we left we had a final lunch at the Raintree (the hotel I stayed in for the previous 12 days). All week the hotel employees harassed me about my wife’s impending visit. They just could not wait to meet her. At lunch, the servers tripped over each other introducing themselves to Christen. To top it off, at the end of the meal they brought out a cake with “Bon Voyage” on it. They put it in front of Christen, but, whatever, I know the cake was presented in sadness of my departure. Right? Right.

Off to the airport…poor Christen…after almost 24 hours of transit getting from Oakland to Chennai, what do I do to her? Haul her to the airport again and force her on to another plane (at least the flight from Chennai to Colombo is only an hour and a half). As I rounded the last turn of the jetway and walked on to the plane I very nearly grabbed Christen and bolted back the way I came. Smoke billowed from the vents both above and underneath the overhead bins. After overcoming my fight-or-flight instincts and inspecting more closely I noticed the “smoke” dissipated very quickly and was actually more fog-like. Almost like the vapor from dry ice. I went from thinking I was walking into my death to feeling as though, with the billowing fog and the white blankets on the bright blue seats, I was walking through heaven.

After sitting down we discussed various theories for the fog. One idea proposed and quickly discarded was that it was a calming measure. Um, so they attempt to calm people by making them think the plane is on fire? As I said, quickly discarded. We ultimately decided it was a dewpoint-type effect of cold air from the AC meeting very warm, humid air. Anyone with a greater understanding of thermodynamics than I possess is welcome to add their thoughts.

The uneventful flight ended at the very nice and modern Colombo airport. I wasn’t sure what to expect, what with a civil war raging and all, but it was quite pleasant. Especially as compared with the dingy chaotic mess that is the Chennai airport. Things went smoothly through duty free (to stock up on quality booze while we still had the chance), immigration, baggage claim, and customs. Unfortunately, Doug, who thought he would be able to pick us up from the airport, was no where to be seen.

After waiting an hour at Passenger Pickup and still no Doug I decided to try his cell phone. Why not earlier? Well, this involved going through the process of exchanging money and then somehow obtaining coins for the pay phone, which, in turn, involved leaving Christen alone with our loaded luggage cart. Not my most favored situation, but at least so far the airport seemed civilized with a distinct lack of unscrupulous characters.

I headed to the information booth to ask about pay phones and they directed me to the little post office window. And quite a full-service post office if I do say so. Not only did the guy exchange my Indian Rupees for Sri Lankan Rupees (without ripping me off on the exchange rate) but they had phones I could use, too. There were three everyday white phones sitting on a counter. I picked one up, dialed Doug’s number and after several attempts finally connected. During the call the post office guy sat there with a stopwatch and timed my call. After hanging up he charged me a total based on the per minute phone rate. That’s an entirely new and unique take on a “pay phone”.

Good thing I called Doug. Plans had changed considerably and now involved us taking a taxi to a hotel. Doug said it should cost about 2000 rupees and take about an hour to get there from the airport. So now I have to go haggle with the taxi people. I go back into the airport, walk up to a counter and ask how much to take me to the address Doug provided. The guy says 2000 rupees. Sweet. I was fully expecting him to say 5000 and me having to assert the fact that, although I may look like a lost American tourist, I am not a mark and will only pay 2000. My relief soon vanished as, after handing him a 2000 rupee note and asking for a receipt, he told me there would be a 200 rupee “service charge”. Mm hmm, and then what’s next? A 500 rupee “destination charge”? A 300 rupee “luggage charge”? Now I really needed to assert my unwillingness to be blatantly ripped off, so I grabbed the 2000 rupee note out of his hand, said, “no way”, turned around and walked back out of the airport with the guy following me saying, “Sir! Sir!” Probably an overreaction on my part, but what the hell, it just came to me.

I walk back to Christen and the luggage cart muttering about how this guy is trying to rip us off and with no idea how we’re actually going to get to the hotel. After standing there for 30 seconds or so Mr. Service Charge sidles up next to me and says he’ll do it for 2000. Soon he’s writing me a receipt, the taxi is pulling up, the driver loads our stuff into the back, and we’re climbing into the van. Strangely, the guy I negotiated with gets into the van, too, saying he’s coming with us. Ok, fine, whatever.

After driving for about 15 minutes the van pulls over and the negotiator says something heavily accented about “getting out”. Um, no, I don’t think so. Doug distinctly said it would take about an hour to get to the hotel and we’ve been on the road for about 15 minutes. And, we’re stopped on some random corner in a rather remote and industrial part of Colombo. And, it’s dark out. I mean, I know I didn’t fall for your tourist trap game, but is that any reason to abandon us here, presumably without our luggage? Christen stiffened and actually grabbed my arm, non-verbally saying, “There is no way on god’s green earth I am getting out here.” I agreed. The negotiator turns to us and says, “Bye, have a nice trip” and gets out of the van, shuts the door, and the van continues on.

Oh.

HE’S getting out here. He’s not telling US to get out. Well, carry on then. Off to the hotel!

We eventually arrived at the hotel, met up with Doug and Jana (his girlfriend), had dinner on the beach (while being bitten by sand fleas, the little bastards) and slept soundly.

That's Just Swell

After being gone nearly a month in a part of the world with mediocre (at best) beers, one of my main objectives in life revolved around getting my kegerator operational again. I had an empty keg from Speakeasy Brewing lying around so I decided their beer would work nicely to welcome my kegerator back into operation.

It’s not that easy to get Speakeasy kegs. You have to go to their brewery in the lovely and not-at-all gang infested Bayview section of San Francisco on Fridays between 4pm and 8pm. Not a small task for someone who lives and works in Oakland, gets off at 5:30, and has no desire to fight Bay Bridge traffic to get to SF on a Friday during rush hour.

Oh, but Prohibition Ale is so very tasty. One of my top 5 beers. Maybe even top 3.

I persevered. I worked from Tim’s house in SF on Friday, and then left to Speakeasy to exchange my empty keg (and $50) for a full one. Since Sunday was the gluttonous event known as the Belgian Beer Dinner, I didn’t hook the keg up until Sunday night, and then poured only enough to clean out the hoses. The point here, which will be sadly relevant later, is that the keg remained almost completely full.

Forward to Monday evening. Christen and I walk through the front door after work and the first thing I notice is that it smells like beer in the house. Lots of beer. I’d say it smelled like a frat house, but it smelled like good beer (not Natty Light) and the underlying scent of vomit was missing. As the kitchen is in the back of the house, if I’m smelling beer at the front door this cannot be good. Trying not to panic I head to the kitchen where my worst fears are realized; there is beer all over the kitchen floor.

The kegerator is essentially a fridge slightly larger than a dorm fridge with a cylindrical tower attached to the top. This cylinder holds the tap handle from which the nectar of the gods is dispensed. This cylindrical tower no longer pointed to the heavens but now lay on its side on top of the kegerator. Due to its incredibly crappy design, it must’ve fallen over (perhaps nudged by one of the cats), and in the course of landing its valve opened, spilling all 5 gallons of my precious Prohibition Ale uselessly on to the kitchen floor. Now there is a goddamn LAKE of beer in the corner of the kitchen. I was using a rolled up beach towel like a broom and sweeping WAVES of beer out the back door. While crying. (Jason was a big help cleaning up. I guess that what he gets for harassing me non-stop until I finally accepted his invitation to come over and drink my beer).

So much beer hit the floor the beer made its way under the linoleum, between the planks of the sub floor, and was dripping on to the dirt under the house. Mother loving crap.

How long do you suppose my house is going to smell like beer? 3 months? 6 months? 2 years? I don’t swear much on this blog, but…Fuck.

And now all my CO2 is gone, too, because, after ALL 5 GALLONS (did I mention it was a full keg?) of beer spewed out, the open valve did nothing but vent CO2 into the kitchen. Opening the kegerator revealed a frozen mass of beer and ice. You know how paintball CO2 cartridges freeze over when they’re empty? The same thing happened inside the kegerator, but with a 5 lb tank of CO2. You think it’s hard to get a keg of Speakeasy beer? Try getting a CO2 tank filled on the weekend.

The kegerator company (Avanti) has been good so far. They’re sending a replacement cylinder, although, it is probably of the same crappy design. Compensation for my lost beer, CO2, and perhaps damaged floors could be far harder to obtain.

That was my Monday.

God Bless America

Yep, we're back in the US of A. Jet-lagged as all get out, but back safely and really enjoying drinking the water from the tap and eating whatever I feel like eating. In fact, I had a bacon cheeseburger for lunch on Tuesday and fajitas for lunch on Wednesday. Mmmmm...American food. (Yeahyeah, fajitas are Mexican. Whatever. I ate them at Chevy's so they might as well be American food).

I will update with full reports on the rest of the trip at a later time. For now you should know that the flight back from Singapore was freaking long. And my seat back would not lock upright so I had to fight the slowly reclining seat for the whole flight. Goddamn irritating.

Oh, and the LTTE Sri Lankan rebels bombed the airport in Colombo just a few days after we left. My biggest fear while visiting the civil war torn country, even if we were far far away from the actual fighting, was that the rebels would seize the international airport and make it difficult or impossible for us to leave. Nearly happened! Yikes. Doug is crazy. Every US State Dept. and travel advisory bulletin I read regarding Sri Lanka said that all Americans in Trinco (where Doug is living and a place we got absolutely nowhere near) should leave immediately. And here's Doug telling us, "Eh, it's not that bad, really. The fighting is a good 4km away from me." Super Doug is insane. Although his blog has a nice recap of the sea turtle sanctuary we visited, so go check it out.

The Belgian Beer Dinner is Sunday at the Toronado in San Francisco. It's a five course meal with three Belgian beer pairings per course. Like wine pairings at a fancy schmancy restaurant. I like the beer pairings better. Some of the Belgians taste like mold, or like the inside of a used wetsuit. Those I don't like so much. But most work really well with the food. Anyway, it should be a drunkenly decadent good time.

More later, if I have anything interesting to say.

I Just Need a Stamp

I went to the post office the other day. Gripping, I know.

We left the office at about 11:30 in the morning. After a ten minute walk, complete with cars and motorcycles whizzing by my elbow (a feature of any walk to any destination here) we arrive at what best could be described as a “postal annex” and more accurately described as a “shack”. It’s a tiny little building featuring the requisite Indian chaos. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the organization of the papers, envelopes, and other objects I could see through the old-school, Clint Eastwood-style barred teller windows.

I tried to “speed post” the birthday card to my Mom (awwww, what a good son) but it was not to be. Apparently, we had to go to the “main” post office to do that. We determined this after a rapid-fire exchange of Tamil between my guides and the postal worker, who were soon joined by several onlookers, all who seemed to have an opinion or contribution to telling us how to get to this place. The rapidly spoken and nearly full volume Tamil flew everywhere and somehow I ended up right in the middle of it all. If I was a language-learning savant I would have looked like Trinity learning to fly the Apache.

Armed with our new directions, we hire a tuk tuk (or auto-rickshaw) for the ride. These things provide quite an exhilarating ride. The one wheel in front and motorcycle-style handlebars inside make them very maneuverable. We darted in and out of traffic and were making turns between two other moving vehicles. I think they’d be kinda fun to drive around. They’d be great for a version of bumper cars but they probably tip over easily.

We arrived at our new destination and this one looked more like a government office. Run down, peeling paint, signs everywhere, stacks of papers and folders all over, and more chaos. The concept of a “line” here is a bit different than in the US. If someone is conducting a transaction and there is a brief delay for, say, getting your money out of your wallet or some translation of the prices of the different delivery methods, the next person in “line” will just walk up, nudge you out of the way, and hand their letter to the clerk. I nearly, and I mean NEARLY, elbowed this guy out of the way the first time it happened. I mean, it’s so different than the American “please wait behind the yellow line” approach that my natural, almost instinctual, reaction was, “Dude, hello, WTF?!? Go wait your F’in turn, buddy.” But, hey, that’s how they do things here and it didn’t really slow down my transaction at all. I think it’s a product of having so many people in one place. I think. Dave says China is even worse in that regard, with cutting in line and other types of madness.

Christen comes in tonight and we’re off to Sri Lanka tomorrow. The blog posts will no doubt decline in frequency and may stop completely. We’ll be back in the US on the evening of March 25^th. I will no doubt be ready to come back to the US by then, although I am looking forward to lounging on the beach for a few days.

Temple and Random Thoughts

I did some sightseeing today after work. Manickam and Anwar took me to a temple not far from the office. The largest temple-type structure served as the entranceway into the complex itself. The vast majority of the structure consisted of a pyramid-shaped top, probably about 100 ft tall, on top of a cube, about 20ft square, with a 20 ft tall opening to walk through. Many, many carved and intricately painted figures depicting various gods and characters from traditional stories covered the pyramid roof.

After taking our shoes off, we walked through the entrance into the main complex. This was a courtyard type area with various shrines and smaller temples to various gods, also covered with the carved and painted figures. The stones making up the floor were pleasantly warm on my feet, although the thought of stepping on a wayward sharp foreign object did concern me a bit.

Some people wandered around, some sat on the ground, others waited in line to pay their respects to certain gods, still others bowed and kissed the ground at what seemed to the uninitiated (me) to be random spots on the floor. It was a much more chaotic, disorganized, and free form type of worship than that found in your typical Christian church. Some of the smaller shrines had certain routines associated with them. For example, at the shrine to the 9 planets of the solar system I could see a path worn in the stone where people walk (and were currently walking) in a circle around the 9 figures representing the planets.

Pretty cool experience. Too bad I couldn’t take pictures (not allowed). I did take a few from outside of the big entrance temple. Not like you’ll see them.

Iron Maiden is playing in Bangalore (about 2 hours from here) on March 17^th. Too bad I’ll be in Sri Lanka and unable to play with Indian madness.

At lunch the other day the water poured from the metal pitcher, presumably filled from the tap, was a nice shade of yellow. Um, can I have some bottled water please? Thanks.

There’s a brand of car out here called “Tata”. If you own two of them do people ask, “How are your Tatas?” Heh heh.

I spent all of Thursday on the way out here from California in the dark. I took off at 5 after midnight on Thursday morning. Darkness followed us all the way to Hong Kong where the sun finally came up on Friday morning as we reboarded our plane.

People out here point a lot with their middle fingers. It’s disconcerting and I still am not used to it. “Oh yeah, buddy? F you too, pal. You wanna go? Oh. Right. Sorry. Here’s your hat back.” Though I did just read it’s rude here to point or gesture towards someone with your left hand. I don’t know if it’s quite the equivalent of flipping someone off, but, well, I’m an American. Isn’t it just assumed I don’t know anything about anyone else’s culture? They can cut me some slack.

Shady Dealings

I spent today (Sunday) lounging by the pool on the rooftop of my hotel. I’m trying to get as much lounging practice in as I can before my trip to Sri Lanka. That and I need to tan my pasty white American skin.

Christen and I have one night to kill between Sri Lanka and Singapore. We’re staying in a beach resort south of Chennai. Very posh. It better be for the prices we’re paying. It’s spendy by American standards.

Paying for the room turned out more difficult than necessary. I booked the room over the phone, since the website wasn’t working. The lady on the phone told me I had to go to the 2^nd floor of an office in Chennai to pay for it. Why I couldn’t pay over the phone I don’t know.

So, Saturday morning, before going to work (total BS) I gave my taxi driver the address I was given and we were off. Turns out, this city is so confusing even my cab driver couldn’t find the place. It took the two of us, collaborating in very broken English before we could even find something that looked like the right building. It had some closed clothing store on the first floor. No obvious way up to the second floor immediately presented itself.

My taxi driver kept motioning me to go around the side of the building and into a darkened doorway. I couldn’t help feeling like Loraine Bracco in Goodfellas when Robert DeNiro is telling her he has some dresses for her “…just around the corner. Go ahead. Through that doorway. It’s ok, go ahead, right through there.” I have never seen a more dilapidated staircase. Broken marble, piles of trash and construction materials, the building looked abandoned. I just couldn’t picture giving my credit card info to someone in this building. I almost turned around and left but figured I might as well at least go up to the second floor. Up I go and I’m greeted not by an enclave of squatting feral children, but by the standard security guard seen in front of most offices. I ask for my contact and he directs me through a set of glass doors into an ordinary office. I went from “condemned building” to “everyday office” disorientingly quickly. Everything else went smoothly (I even got a receipt), although I’m still confused as to why I had to go to this strange office building to pay for my hotel room.

Did you know the mom from Six Feet Under shows up at the end of Scent of a Woman? And why does the HBO here have commercials? What kind of crap is that?

By the way, thanks to everyone for the comments, they make my day.

Road Rage

I finally witnessed my first fender-bender today. Witnessed it from inside one of the cars with the bending fenders. It wasn’t so much a bend as a scrape. The other car thought its dimensions would allow it to squeeze by my taxi. It was wrong. I just happened to turn my head as the car started going by and I thought, “This is gonna be close.” But so often I’d seen the maneuver done successfully in the past when I was convinced it would fail, I figured this time it would work out, too. Nope. Sckeee-rape.

More intriguing was the aftermath. If I haven’t made it clear before, these roads are narrow and jam packed with a variety of vehicles. The “traffic light” had just turned green and we were the second car in “line”. After the scraping did the two cars pull over to the side and get out of the way? No. They stayed just where they were, rolled down their windows and started yelling at each other in Tamil. I couldn't understand a word of their shouted exchange but I'm pretty sure it wasn't, "Pardon me, dear sir, for my vehicle's most terrible obstruction of your glorious right-of-way." "Think nothing of it. Here, allow me to pay for the damages to your most splendid conveyance."

It’s at this point I’m thankful I’m in India. I mean, at least I didn’t have to worry about seeing the barrel of a .38 poke out one of the back windows (Hi, my name is Eric and I live in Oakland). Meanwhile, everyone else is honking, and honking some more. The motorcycles and bicycles that managed to squeeze by either yell at the obstruction or make some sort of arm gesture. (Gee, I wonder what that means?). After 2 minutes or so of yelling the windows roll back up and the cars drive off. That’s it. No exchange of info or anything. Unless, of course, they were yelling insurance information at each other.

At least we didn’t hit a pedestrian. One of the travel sites I read said that if you’re in a taxi that hits a ped or a cow you should get out and run as onlookers have been known drag the driver (and sometimes the passengers) out and beat them. Dave suggested I take the initiative and drag the driver out and start beating him myself.

Interviewing the Liars

I’m working too much. How am I supposed to treat this as a boondoggle if they’re working me all day every day? I’m interviewing people like a coked up Larry King. Or trying to, anyway. The HR manager at CTS, Ragesh, has been lining up interviews like crazy. If 50% of the people actually show up, the day is considered a success. Whether or not those candidates are actually qualified is another matter entirely.

Apparently, it’s ok here to blatantly lie on your resume. “Familiar with” or “knowledge of” a product does not mean “I’ve heard of it” or “I saw the box once in a store”. We all exaggerate our resumes, but if you can’t even tell me what it does, don’t list it. Why put it on your resume only to flail in the interview? Most of these people can’t even answer the equivalent of “where is the on button?” about this stuff. One guy today, when I asked him to describe his specific usage of a piece of software his resume (of course) claimed he used extensively, started reciting what I now believe are the marketing bullet points from the website.

And the language barrier…I mean, I don’t want to be an insensitive American prick about this, but if you’re going to be working with a development team in America, and conference calling your American boss once or twice a week, when I very slowly and with perfect enunciation (I swear!) ask you “Where is your current development team?” you should not respond with 5 seconds of blank staring followed by “I work in QA”. Good lord.

Some of these people I actually feel kind of sorry for. Some are so nervous and twitchy and desperate seeming I want to hire them out of pity. What do I care? I’m not hiring for my product. One dude was practically deaf. I almost burst out laughing when I caught myself yelling simple phrases towards his good ear. It’s like I was interviewing a 7 year old Helen Keller with rudimentary QA skills.

Was that too far? Eh, you’ll be fine.

This extraordinarily shallow talent pool makes me just that much more thankful for the rockstar team I have right now. Too bad for the other managers that my product is all staffed up with the good ones and these other products have to choose from the dregs. Bwahahahahahahaha! *cough*

In more pleasant news, I booked tickets to Sri Lanka for Christen and me. Hooray for vacations. Doug is feverishly planning our tropical beach paradise itinerary, right Doug? I keed, I keed…but it will be nice to relax on the beach for a while. Civil war, schmivil war. My next vacation is gonna be in Sudan. I would have said “Iraq” but from what I hear there is no civil war there.

You’ll notice there are still no pictures on this magnificent blog. That’s due to the fact that, apart from not going outside as much on this trip, I broke my f’ing card reader. That’s what I get for bragging about it costing only $8. It broke due to operator error, not due to any sort of product defect…but still. Karma is a bitch. Not like it matters. They work me like a Himalayan Sherpa here, allowing me only glimpses of the sun through a dirty window as I trudge my way to the printer to pick up another superlative-laden yet criminally misleading resume.

Tuesday, Monday, and Last Week

Another day, another near death experience. Ok, not really, but yesterday I rode in a tuk tuk for the first time. (If you don’t know what a tuk tuk is, check out the December 2006 archives). The crazy Indian traffic intensifies further when one weaves through it in a three-wheeled tin can. Considering one of the guys in the office, Natarajan, offered me the choice between riding on the back of his motorcycle or taking a tuk tuk, I believe I chose wisely. Part of me really wants to take him up on that offer at some point before I leave.

That reminds me...today I saw two guys re-painting lane lines in the middle of a road as my taxi courteously gave them a 6 inch berth. Hahahahahahaha. That's a good one. I'm assuming they were part of a performance comedy troupe since the disregard for lane lines here is total and complete.

You may have noticed the lack of pictures on the blog for this trip thus far. There is a good reason for this; I have not taken any yet. Perhaps my sense of wonder and amazement is diminished as this is my second trip here in three months. Perhaps I continue to forget to bring my camera with me when I go outside. Perhaps they are working me like a dog on this trip with nary a moment to spare wandering around outside. I suspect it’s a combination of all three. I do have some pictures of Singapore but I have yet to determine if they are blog-worthy. A high probability exists they are not as I was extremely hungover when I took them and could barely see.

Today we ate lunch at a place called The Rainforest. At the risk of offending my coworkers who took me there, the place was quite silly. I think I ate in a similar place at Disney World once. Fake thunder noises, rain sounds, walls made to look carved from stone, as if you are eating in a cave. The best part had to be the stuffed animals. Tigers, snakes, and monkeys all scattered around the place. One poor monkey hanging from a clothesline looked as if he was strung up by his thumbs. Good food, though. Mmmm…tikka masala.

I don’t have malaria yet. At least, no outward symptoms.

It’s not as hot here as I expected. It’s toasty, but I experienced worse during the summers of my youth in Contra Costa County. Of course, it’s only March. It is, however, a drastic change from where I was a week ago. Where was that, you ask? Driving through a flippin’ blizzard. Coming back from Tahoe I drove through some of the worst conditions of my life. This from someone who lived in Colorado for 9 years. It was daytime and the falling and blowing snow prevented me from seeing more than 2 cars in front of me and sometimes only one. If someone up ahead had panicked or become disoriented or even blinked I think we all would have followed her off the road one by one like a pack of lemmings. After dumping snow for the previous 24 hours it dumped the whole way from Truckee to Auburn and showed no signs of letting up (in Auburn it turned to rain making the visibility even worse, which was quite a trick). When trying to leave on Sunday afternoon I shoveled a good two feet of snow from around the car. After being defeated on that attempt (no, really, I love spending 45 minutes traveling 50 yards in traffic that moves only when someone bails out and pulls a U-turn), I shoveled another two feet the next morning. I mean, seriously, if you’re not going to close 80 in those conditions, when do you close it? Some portions of the highway looked like Beirut with cars scattered all over, facing every which way, people wandering around in a daze. If the weather had been like that during the snow cave adventure I’m not sure I’d still have fingers with which to type this mediocre blog entry.

Snow cave? What is this snow cave adventure of which he speaks? That’s a tale for another day, perhaps when I’m sitting on the beach in Sri Lanka, drinking a mai tai.

Don't Touch My Stuff

Well, here I am, back in Chennai. And super tired, since I got in at 11:30 last night. Which is actually 3:00am in Singapore or something. And, if you'll recall, I was up until 4am the night before. Wah wah wah.

I hate the aisle seat. Why do people covet this seat? I had to get up about 6 times during a 3 hour flight to let my row-mates in and out. What a pain in my ass. And you, Mr. Window Seat, when Mr. Middle Seat gets up to go to the bathroom, THAT is the time for you to make your move. NOT 30 seconds after Mr. Middle Seat returns and he and I have settled back into our seats. What other conclusion can I draw but that you're doing this to us on purpose? No one is that much of an idiot.

Oh how I wish that last sentence were true.

And there was luggage drama. First, it took for-freaking-ever to get through the immigration line. By the time I got to the luggage carousel I could barely see the luggage meandering along on the belts due to the crowd gathered 3 or 4 people deep. We always hope, in this situation, to walk up, see our bag, grab it off the spinning treads and be off. Alas, by the time the same haphazardly duct taped box reappeared my bag had not made it's glorious re-entry into my life. 5 more sightings of the sad little box and still no bag. 10 sightings and now the crowd is thinning and I've moved beyond the "hoping my bag appears soon so I can get out of here" phase to the "please, god, I just want to see my bag even if it comes out looking as if it's been run over repeatedly by drunken baggage handlers" phase. Let's just say that there is no Singapore Airlines Customer Service counter in the Chennai airport baggage claim area. Half an hour has gone by and the last of the people are piling their bags on their carts and heading for customs. I'm all by myself. And now the baggage-moving belt has stopped. Terrific.

The only people left not going through customs are a group of about 8 people gathered in one spot, arguing loudly. I meander over that way hoping to find a customs official to start pleading my case to when what do I see? My backpack lying on the ground just outside of the circle of loud people. I can only assume they were fighting over whose turn it was to detonate the "unclaimed" bag. I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to whichever motherloving fartbag made the courteous and helpful decision to take my bag off the luggage carousel and just leave it on the floor, out of view. I hope Dick Cheney personally gives you a full body cavity search in Guantanamo.

Oh, and hey, how about waking up at 5am in India scratching the side of my head where the mosquito who somehow found her way into my 5th floor hotel room bit me repeatedly? Fun times. Especially since it brought about the realization that I forgot to take my "24 hours before you arrive" malaria pill. If I get another fever on this trip I will not be calm about it. I will most likely panic.

I'm tired and I want to go to sleep. Not ask the same questions and pretend to listen to the same answers. Yep, I'm interviewing people.

Clubbing in Singapore

Sounds fancy, doesn't it? I can now cross it off my list of things to do in life. And it was pretty bizzare.

Let's get right to the meat of it. The last club we went to had an entertainment act called "Double Penetration" - a dance team consisting of a skinny Asian dude and a fat white guy. They danced around on stage in a variety of spandex outfits that revealed waaaaaay too much. They were, however, surprisingly good dancers. The chubby white dude even, at one point, strapped on a pair of old school roller skates and busted out some fancy moves. He did some nice backwards crossovers (not easy on such a small stage) and at one point did the Running Man. On roller skates. A whacked out DJ who looked like Crazy George from the old A's games provided the music. He also had a penchant for gold spandex, and, unfortunately, at the end of the show, a thong.

(This is perhaps the first time in modern history a paragraph containing "double penetration", "strapped", and "thong" remained PG-13.)

After their show ended the real dancing began. A new DJ took over, spinning earsplittingly badass beats and looking disturbingly similar to Jesse Goffin. Only 1 of my 3 readers will know who that is.

We stayed out until 4am. I'm amazed that there are no "club drugs" here, as the crowd was still pretty lively when we left. I'm only assuming the lack of drugs given as I just read about a Nigerian whose death sentence was carried through in January for 700g of morphine.

Working backwards, we ate dinner first at a wine bar along the river walk called The Wine Garage. Really, was "The Wine Hardware Store" name already taken? Regardless, they had good food, and I drank a LOT of wine. I don't remember the last time I drank that much wine. The servers kept coming by and refilling glasses making it nearly impossible to keep track of how much I'd consumed. Always trouble. Especially with such a delicious pinot.

At the Wine Smog Check Station I met many of Dave's friends, all ex-patriots, or "expats". In the past, whenever I'd heard of an "expat" I'd pictured some 50 year old white guy with a 16 year old Vietnamese girlfriend, sweating in the back of some smoky bar in Saigon, doing his best to keep a low profile and probably on the run because he accidentally killed a man during a flashback in 1978. Not the cute 24 year old girl from New York having the time of her life and the rest of the very attractive people in their late 20s and 30s eating, drinking, and heading out to the clubs.

Near 3am some crazy looking local type began forcing his way into our little group of dancers consisting of Dave, me, 2 expat guys, Dave's friend Tamara (who is just crazy and a trouble-maker, in a good way) and 2 or 3 local girls. This guy, looking about 50 or so, appears from no where, butts his way in, and forces himself between Dave and the local girl he'd been dancing with for the last half hour. All the while he's got this crazy looking smile on his face and his awkward bobbing and shadowboxing is completely out of time with the music. Nice windbreaker, dude. My only guess is that he was tired of seeing the expats dancing with the local girls and decided to step in and finally "do something about it". At one point he actually pushed Dave out of the way, leading to one of those silent exchanges between me and Dave that went something like: "Can you believe this guy?" "He's an idiot" "Should I kick his ass?" "Whatever, man, I'm ready to leave either way". Basically this club was like any other club, aside from the crazy dance show in the beginning.

In other news, congrats to Grant and Emily Watkins on the birth of their first child.

Off to Chennai tomorrow.

Safe in Singapore

It's Saturday morning and I'm hanging out at Dave's and hanging in there. After arriving yesterday at about noon, napping, then heading out to dinner and a few drinks, I grew tired of Dave making fun of my "slits for eyes" so I turned in. I dropped an Ambien since I didn't want to wake up at 4am and be unable to go back to sleep. Well, they call it "hammer in a bottle" for a reason. I was out cold for 10 hours. Good stuff.

If you deem this post not up to my usual breathtaking standards of wit and charm, I've just given you many reasons to screw off.

This was all after the taxi driver I took from the airport couldn't find Dave's address. He dropped me off in the general vicinity but I was left to my own devices to find Dave's actual building, carrying both of my backpacks. Some of the area looked familiar from my (romantic) midnight stroll with Dave the last time I visited, but as I continued to search and dig up memories I found myself wondering "what happens if I can't find his place?" I don't have a working cell phone and I don't know Dave's cell number...do I just wait in one of the many bars here for Dave to come searching for me? Climb in another cab and hope they can do a better job finding the place? I decided my first plan would be to call Eric Strasser's cell and go from there. But, all of this was unnecessary as, using the crudely scribbled map Dave provided on the back of a business card I was able to do what the local cab driver couldn't: Find Dave's building.

So, here I am. It's almost noon and we're going to go out and eat some food, maybe jump in the pool, and see what happens.

Take care.

---Eric

Poker

Played poker on Friday night. It was a good night for me. Ended up winning more than twice the amount for which I bought in. The best hand was when I hit my flush on the river (which just happened to also be the nuts on the unpaired board), and as I was trying to figure out how to extract the maximum amount of money out of Scott he says, "I'm all in". Well, alright! Call. Scoop chips.

Another hand I had a pair of 3s in early-mid position with 4 or 5 limpers. The flop comes 10-J-Q, clubs and spades. I check, hoping to catch a 3 on the turn. It was not to be. A bet, a raise and a call drove me from the pot. The turn came a three, of course, and the river a 10. D'oh! The two remaining players went all-in with a straight (don't ask) and a flush. So, I folded a moneymaker, but I'm ok with it. Who stays in with a pair of threes on that flop? Not this American.

Jason lost. I hate to say it, but he's funnier when he's losing. His semi-drunken bad beat rants are things of beauty.