Blog is Dead

I'm going to be real with you right now: blogs are old hat. Or if you don't have an old hat, think of the shirt you have hanging in your closet but haven't worn for several years. It's not so bad that you've actually taken it down and put it into a charity bag, but if you're really honest with yourself you know you'll never wear it again.

Things that are in right now:
1. Wasting lots of free time watching sports.
2. Reading Twitter, but not actually Tweeting.
3. Having a girlfriend.

It takes me back

Back to when I asked for a Nintendo, and my dad said "No". And so then I just had to watch my friend Kirk Snyder play. It looked like so much fun.

I could do this all day

http://soytuaire.labuat.com/

Saw this on NPR: All Songs Considered.

$.25 life

AHHHHHHHH! SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THIS ARTICLE ACCURATELY SUMMARIZE ME!

But more elements directly pigeonhole Oliver, so that makes me feel better.

www.eyeweekly.com/features/article/55882

Some key passages:
Boomer and post-boom parents with more money and autonomy than their predecessors has resulted in benignly self-indulgent children who were sold on their own uniqueness, place in the world and right to fulfillment in a way no previous generation has felt entitled to, and an increasingly entrepreneurial, self-driven creation myth based on personal branding, social networking and untethered lifestyle spending is now responsible for our identities.

The Quarterlife Crisis remains largely a middle-class, Stuff White People Like kind of problem, and usually manifests itself where certain problematic social norms used to exist, like who had access to education and interesting work, and who was allowed adventure and self-determination.

Having so much — youth, ability, independence — can feel like the worst possible scenario.

I wasn't spoiled as a child, and I'm not headed back to graduate school, and I'm not in debt, but I do identify with parts of this. And more than the specifics, I identify with the general theme of the article. I need boundaries -- feel free to suggest some.

Could be worse though.

The Grant Study

Most happiness/social psychology research is bollocks, because everyone is different and people are happy or unhappy for so many different rhymes and reasons. Sells a lot of books though.

My friend Sulove gave me a copy of this study and because of the approach I think it's worth passing around.

It's a study that's been running for 72 years on a group of 268 men, with the intention of identifying the common threads running through happy lives. It was originally slated as a research in what makes people successful, but the researchers quickly realized that since successful people are often unhappy that didn't make for a very interesting payoff.

www.theatlantic.com/doc/200906/happiness -- it's well interesting.


My biggest takeaways:

1. Our happiness depends on how we adapt to change, disappointment and tragedy.

At the bottom of the pile are the unhealthiest, or “psychotic,” adaptations—like paranoia, hallucination, or megalomania—which, while they can serve to make reality tolerable for the person employing them, seem crazy to anyone else.

One level up are the “immature” adaptations, which include acting out, passive aggression, hypochondria, projection, and fantasy. These aren’t as isolating as psychotic adaptations, but they impede intimacy. “Neurotic” defenses are common in “normal” people. These include intellectualization (mutating the primal stuff of life into objects of formal thought); dissociation (intense, often brief, removal from one’s feelings); and repression, which, Vaillant says, can involve “seemingly inexplicable naïveté, memory lapse, or failure to acknowledge input from a selected sense organ.”

The healthiest, or “mature,” adaptations include altruism, humor, anticipation (looking ahead and planning for future discomfort), suppression (a conscious decision to postpone attention to an impulse or conflict, to be addressed in good time), and sublimation (finding outlets for feelings, like putting aggression into sport, or lust into courtship).


2. I like this for a somewhat mathematical conclusion.

[Valliant] identified seven major factors that predict healthy aging, both physically and psychologically.

Employing mature adaptations was one. The others were education, stable marriage, not smoking, not abusing alcohol, some exercise, and healthy weight.

It goes on to say that if five or six of these factors are in your favor, your chances of being happy are quite high. If three or fewer are in you favor, there's almost no possibility that you're happy.

In my view, education, not smoking, not abusing alcohol, exercising and staying a healthy weight are all check boxes. You do them or you do not.

Having a stable marriage is more complicated and obviously many external factors contribute to this which makes it more difficult to control or predict.

In my opinion, adaptation is the wildcard. Bad things happen, we are frustrated by our failures and inadequacies and we are shaken by things that happen to us and to those around us. To some degree I'm sure the way we adapt is innate, but there's also some choice involved. And knowing the different ways we adapt seems like an important step in reacting to things in a healthy way.


3. Other interesting bits and bobs.

The line about how someone will cross the street to avoid talking to someone who gave them a complement the previous day. Some of us find stress in being praised.

Forgiveness is an absolutely necessary part of being happy (and is a vital element of adaptation), but telling someone they should forgive someone causes stress. It needs to happen naturally.

Through all the adaptation and reinvention, it's really about relationships -- keeping in touch, being good to friends and family. It's a virtuous cycle.


4. It's funny how we can sometimes fool ourselves into thinking we're happy.

The entire study seems paradoxical in that each reader will have a different opinion of whether the main researcher is happy himself.

You're o vision

I have friends and family who watch and even enjoy American Idol, though I try my best to forget.

Talk about American Idol in Europe and you'll be reminded that it's a spin-off of the UK show Pop Idol. Not sure why building a machine that spits out F-list celebrities and awful music is a source of pride, but whatevs.

Well long before Pop Idol there was Eurovision, and after American Idol and Pop Idol are gone, Eurovision may still remain. To put the magnitude of this contest into context, American Idol tops out at about 40 million viewers -- Eurovision maxes out 600 million.

The quick intro to Eurovision is that each country in Europe has its own national contest to pick a song and performer to represent their country. Then everyone votes and it's totally based on political relationships and there's all this dodgy Eastern Bloc controversy every year, and in the end a terrible song wins.

The only past winners you've heard of are Celine Dion and ABBA.

More background here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurovision

AND THIS YEAR'S WINNER!

Movies on a plane!

Took a couple of long haul flights recently and was prolific in my movie watching.

Flight 1: London to Singapore

Babel - starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett - 2 hours, 22 minutes
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett - 2 hours, 46 minutes
Bolt - starring John Travolta and Miley Cyrus - 1 hour, 44 minutes

My thoughts:
So that was over 5 hours straight of Brad and Cate, which was a bit much. Babel was definitely the most entertaining of the three; I'm sorry it took me so long to get around to watching it. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (director) is a visionary. For a short story adaptation they sure made Benjamin Button into a long movie. It struck me as a studio movie -- almost too well polished, especially when they superimposed Cate's adult voice onto a 7 year-old girl. Bolt was John Travolta at his finest, so it was pretty lame.

Flight 2: Hong Kong to London

Pineapple Express - starring Seth Rogen and James Franco - 1 hour, 51 minutes
The Wrestler - starring Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei - 1 hour, 55 minutes
Tropic Thunder - starring Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr. - 1 hour, 47 minutes
Che: Part One - starring Benecio del Toro - 2 hours, 6 minutes

My thoughts:
Four movies back to back to back to back is pretty intense, and I followed that up with 3 TV episodes. Since I don't have a TV at the flat, this is how I roll. Pineapple Express was hilarious. The Wrestler was as good as I've heard. Marisa Tomei is still hot, maybe even too hot for an airplane. I thought Tropic Thunder was pretty dumb, and Che was a little too heavy for a flight. Peep Show, which was one of the shows I watched after the movies, is hilarious. One of the best shows around.

I had an awkward moment when I realized my seatmate -- this big fat guy -- was watching WALL-E. I realized he was watching it (and he realized I realized he was watching it) just as it is unveiled that in the future we will all be obese and lazy and rolled around in motorized chairs.

On other flights this year I've watched Australia, Rachel Getting Married, and Madagascar: Escape to Africa.

When I watched Australia, I felt like I was losing money. Rachel Getting Married was GREAT, and I'm pretty sure that wasn't the airplane effect where everything seems better with altitude (see Forgetting Sarah Marshall). And Madagascar is brilliant. There is no funnier cartoon character in history than King Julien.

The End.

FAMILY

Today's is (American) Mother's Day. I love my mom so much, although after seeing this perfect family in Hong Kong, I do wonder why we didn't take similar pictures. We all have regrets I suppose.

I LOVE YOU MOM!

Distance and location

On my sister's request, I took this picture.

She's gonna put it, and pictures of my brother, parents, cousins, aunts and uncles and grandparents on a map to help my nephew conceptualize distance and location, to the degree that a toddler can conceptualize.

Things really do change when you have kids. It almost shocks me how wholesome some of these activities can be.

35 kilograms

That's what I weighed when I started high school. If you're American and don't speak metric, here's a conversion site for you: http://manuelsweb.com/kg_lbs.htm.

Thanks for reading.

This is nice

Combination of some good/great tricks. Plus good music. Plus Edinburgh, a very nice town.

Youth in Asia

I love it when I come up with the perfect title immediately. Had I done this post a year from now, I'm not sure I would've been able to qualify as youth, but then again last night the waitress at my restaurant guessed that I was 15 years old and a son to my work colleague.

So I'm in Hong Kong, the land of literally named buildings. For example:

Central Building
Commercial Building
Newish Building
Greenish Building
Adjoining Building

Some of the districts are also helpfully, if not creatively, named. For example the central district is called:

Central District

Some of the restaurants have practical names as well:

Vegetarian Restaurant
Quite Good Chinese Restaurant

Loving it here. Lots of energy in this city. Good old Honkers.

Sling a pore

I ate the following:

Fish pâté with maggots.

On purpose.

My little pony

Went to Hydra over Easter, which is one of the Greek Isles. They don't have cars there -- only donkeys. That makes two donkey-only islands I've been to. The other was Lamu, off the coast of Kenya.

Donkeys huh. Pretty cool. A great form of transportation if you're interested in going slower than walking.

Tomorrow I'm heading to Singapore. They have cars there, but no gum. A similar concept.

I'm turning into a hotel snob

I started this week in Athens and will end it in Singapore. In between I'll pop in on Frankfurt for some kraut.

The impact of all this traveling, apart from a giant carbon footprint, is that I'm developing some travel habits that would've annoyed and/or confused the old me.

My colleagues at work would be most surprised to hear that I've recently been showing up to the airport with plenty of time to spare. For me, a more interesting shift has been my preferences for accommodation.

Until recently, I didn't really care where I slept, especially when traveling on my own dime. I've stayed in some dodgy hotels and some dodgier hostels, but paying a lot to sleep somewhere never made much sense to me. I think it was my stay at Berns in Stockholm last Fall that started to change my thinking. This is the best hotel I've ever stayed at -- great location, great design, great restaurant/club/bar, and if you plan ahead, it's not really that much more expensive than any other hotel/hostel in Stockholm (and I've checked out a few, including one in an old wooden ship*).

I stayed at another good one in Athens this morning, Fresh Hotel, and last time I was in Amsterdam I was recommended Lloyd Hotel, which was also excellent. The Glasshouse in Edinburgh is fantastic and so is the Hoxton Hotel here in London, which I recently booked a room at for £1.

So now I'm a complete snob.

In case you're interested, here are some good sources for boutique/design hotels worldwide.

www.tablethotels.com
www.mrandmrssmith.com
http://unlike.net
www.blackbookmag.com
www.designhotels.com

And of course Guardian Travel and New York Times Travel can also be useful references.

If anyone has a good hotel suggestion for any of the following cities, I'd be interested in hearing from you: Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Muscat, Belgrade.

*The ship was called af Chapman. Not Diversity.

When life gives you eggs, attempt to boil them and fail miserably

This week, in honor of my MOM's BIRTHDAY! (HappyBirthdayandIloveyouMom) I took another step towards self-sufficiency.

In a weird way, I can also list this as a tribute to my colleague Oliver, who happens to share a birthday with my mother and a general dislike for cooking with me. Where we really differ is in our love of eggs. I love them. They hate him (allergies).

Feeling hungry and comfortable in the flat the other night, I looked in the kitchen to see what things in there I could possibly consume. I started with a bowl of cereal, then ate 30 or so spoonfuls of peanut butter. But I wasn't finished -- we had 3 eggs left: 2 in one carton, on in the other.

It seemed like a good time to learn how to hard-boil an egg.

For those accomplished chefs out there (and also for most with opposable thumbs), boiling an egg is the easiest thing to do in the world. For that reason I want to be very specific in explaining how I went 0 for 3 in successfully hard-boiling one.

Egg #1: I was a little rough with this one. I dropped it in the boiling water gently enough, but the water wasn't quite deep enough and it cracked slightly on the bottom of the pot. This caused exactly the type of messiness (water + yoke + whites) that usually keeps me out of the kitchen. Still, I persevered.

Egg #2: This was a no win. The carton listed an expiration date of September. Prior to reading this I had no idea eggs could expire. It all seems so perfectly contained and regulated. This egg, boiled or not, was never going to be good.

Egg #3: This was a good egg in terms of the egg life-cycle, and I gently placed it in the pot, even given the distracting egg yoke filthiness than muddled the boiling water. The problem here was my inability to gauge 3 minutes. I'm an impatient guy, especially when it comes to food. So maybe I shortchanged it a little bit and it ended up soft-boiled.

I ate some more peanut butter and headed to bed. Still a bit hungry, but also a bit fuller of non-delicious, in no way as satisfying as a hard-boiled egg, experience.

Little brother

If you're in the Houston area, take a good look at your life and ask yourself why? WHY?

But also, go to the Theatre Under the Stars (TUTS) and watch Les Miserables. It's a Broadway quality production and features Kyle Dean Reinford in the ensemble. If you've never met Kyle, he's like me only slightly less good looking and far more talented.

The most rubbish company in the world.

You may have heard that in Europe you can buy plane tickets for pocket change. This is false.

Western Europe is small (London to Amsterdam sounds exotic, but it's only a 40 minute flight) and densely populated. There are also a lot of airlines here (every country has at least one; imagine if every State did). There are also efficient train connections to compete with. When you plot this all on a demand curve, it should point to low prices (especially when you remove the currency exchange factor).

The big myth of unbelievably low airline fares has one main perpetrator: Ryanair. This is the most rubbish company in the world (I changed this from worst because the actual concept is a good one, it's just the application that ruins it.)

Here are 20 reasons why (from the Times London):

1. £0.01 flights are never £0.01
Even if you strike it lucky and find a £0.01 flight you actually want to take, Ryanair charge you for the pleasure of paying for it. To the tune of £4.75. For each passenger. Each way.

And that doesn’t even include…

2. The check-in charge
If you want to book a bag into the aircraft hold you must check in at the airport, which will cost you £4.75 per passenger, per way, if you book online and a whopping £10 per passenger, per way if you pay at the airport or over the phone. And it doesn’t matter if only one person in your party takes a bag, everyone else still has to pay to check in at the airport too.

This week Ryanair announced that from May airport check in will rocket to £20 per person, per way. That is a grand total of £160 for a return flight as a family of four.

All without factoring in…

3. The baggage charge
Which is an extortionate £9.50 per bag, per flight. Or £19 if you book at the airport or over the phone.

4. The sneaky weight limit
Ryanair set its weight limit for hold luggage at 15kg catching the majority of passengers off guard.

You’re not allowed to pool bags either so, even if you have a party of four sharing luggage, if the bag weighs 16kg you will be charged £14 per additional kilo. Nevermind that it makes not a jot of difference to the weight of the aeroplane.

5. Queues glorious queues
If you’re still talking to your partner following the inevitable blazing row about why you shouldn’t just pay the bloody charges listed above, you won’t be after being told to join the back of the enormous queue at the ‘payments’ desk.

6. The additional baggage charge
Probably best to wear all of your clothes at once on the flight if you are travelling somewhere for more than a couple of days (until Ryanair start charging passengers for excess body weight that is). Check more than one bag in and it will cost you another £19 per extra piece of luggage, per way.

7. The website is rubbish. On purpose.
You have no choice but to book a Ryanair flight through its website so the airline may as well make it as stressful an experience as possible. The website is ugly for starters, and it crashes. All the time.

Because you can’t easily browse for dates when cheap flights are available you have to dedicate at least five precious hours of your life to sitting in front of the screen and laboriously trying different combinations to find a good deal.

And if you don’t understand what you’ve just pressed there is no one to e-mail. Because Ryanair want you to spend more money and phone its…

8. Premium rate internet helpline
Calls cost £1 a minute to speak to someone in a call centre. Be amazed if you can explain what your problem is for under a fiver.

9. You can only fly cheap mid week
To get the bargains that make the pain of Ryanair worth the gain you have to be prepared to fly on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, which can rule out the bargain European weekend break. Kind of why you wanted to book with Ryanair in the first place.

10. You have to travel at obscene hours.
Not only are you travelling on a Tuesday you also have to be prepared to wake up at 2am to get to the airport two hours ahead of your 6.55am flight. Or, if you choose a more civilised evening departure time, arrive in your destination at midnight with no where to stay because…

11. The destination airports are in the middle of nowhere.
Don’t expect to fly to Frankfurt if you book a flight to Frankfurt, to name one of many examples. Frankfurt Hahn airport where Ryanair land is 120 km from the city centre.

12. A bottle of water on board costs £3
I know the moral of this story is to buy a drink from WH Smith before you board, but it’s still annoying.

13. Sweaty, plasticky seats
Whatever you do, don’t wear shorts or you might be stuck to your seat forever and forced to listen to…

14. The in-flight musak
Pray that your flight is not delayed before it takes off or you’ll have to put up with the bleepy, computer-game inspired musak that is played on loop as your board, over, and over.

15. The fanfare
Do we really need the shrill fanfare that sounds when/if the flight lands on time? Or does it just ruin the first three minutes of each passenger's holiday?

16. You can’t book a seat
As if the British holiday ritual of crowding round the baggage carousel isn’t enough to warrant the use of blood-thinning medication, Ryanair invite you to partake in the extreme sport that is racing across the tarmac to get a seat next to your companion. Flip flops are a distinct disadvantage.

17. No refunds, ever
Unless you have a spare few days to waste do not even bother trying.

18. Poor compensation
A report by the UK’s Air Transport Users Council has found that the world’s airlines lost more than one million bags in 2007 and more than 42 million pieces of luggage were mishandled worldwide.

Guess who it named as the worst airline for compensation if your bag goes missing or is damaged?

19. You are always being flogged stuff
No we don't want your ridiculously overpriced travel insurance, car hire or Ryanair tea-towels. Go away.

20. Michael O’Leary himself
Don't tell me you can bear to make him any more smug? (This is the CEO. He loves all publicity, good and bad. Recently he held a contest to get ideas for which discretionary charge they should introduce next. There are plans to charge for the restrooms.)

--------------------------------------------------------------

My biggest problems with Ryanair are that I have to pay £10 to pay for my flight if I use a credit card. And there is no other option. I also have a problem with the airports Ryanair (and similarly terrible airlines) they fly in and out of, and the passengers who fly these kinds of airlines. Dumpy airlines, dumpy consumers.

Buyer beware!

Ring my bell

I'm crazy about technology, which is why I use my MOBILE PHONE as an ALARM CLOCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My mobile even lets me name my alarms and set up to 3 daily. Here are the uplifting alarm names/times that I used yesterday on holiday, juxtaposed with the soul-crushing alarms I used today.

HOLIDAY ALARMS
10:30 AM -- awake and progress to beach
1:30 PM -- eat something? why not
3:00 PM -- think about going to airport

WORKDAY ALARMS
8:10 AM -- be alarmed!
8:12 AM -- get up already
8:20 AM -- seriously, get up. seriously.

PS, I had 2,101 unread emails in my inbox today.

Redefining things

Some of you know that I'm 80% through a project to transpose the dictionary. I'm taking a brief, 9-months and counting hiatus. I've got about 100 pages to go. At a rate of 1 page per day that means if I started back up tomorrow I could be done in roughly... well I'm not going to do the math. Just got back from vaca.

Anyhow here are some better defined words.

1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you've gained.

3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.

6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.

7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavoured mouthwash.
9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms
15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

A window into my world

7:39 AM me: you up?

no idea what time it is in denver...

5 minutes

7:45 AM me: it's 9.44pm there. if you're in bed, i'm embarrassed

7:48 AM Brad: hey man, it's so late there, I'm ebarrassed for you

me: i'm in africa, it's 8am

[jerk]

Brad: where are you now, Tanzanier?

ha

me: ebarrassed

Brad: how is it, just as you left it?

me: is that some new online catchphrase?

7:49 AM it's great here

Brad: snyder and kristy still there

what have you all been doing

me: they're on safari

sarah [last name removed to protect the innocent] too

Brad: elitists

me: so i haven't seen them yet

Brad: you with Nate and Julie?

me: we meet them tonight in zanzibar

yeah

7:50 AM and krabill is arriving imminently

Brad: [gosh], how many vacation days do you get?

Krabill is coming too?

me: and maybe thad is stopping by

Brad: [wow]

[WOW]

me: he was landing 4 minutes ago

Brad: Maybe [a mutual acquaintance we don't like]?

five bucks says he is not on the plane

me: [the mutual acquaintance we don't like] showed up but was turned away

the thad thing is the funniest

7:51 AM Brad: do you know if he actually made the flight

me: he's in malawi for something

Brad: naturally

me: thad?

i don't even know if he has a flight

he may meet us in zanzibar this weekend

Brad: ha

sweet, zanzibar!

me: yeah, can't wait

7:52 AM Brad: how long you there?

me: chilling at nate and julie's flat is fun though too

Brad: what a [really great] trip

me: they have a chef and a housekeeper

Brad: tell em hello for me

me: got here yesterday at noon. next friday i fly to doha.

then back to london on sunday

Brad: how long are you in Doha?

me: i'll tell everyone you said hey

2 nights

just a long layover

Brad: go to the souq

me: a long, soulless layover

7:53 AM you been there?

Brad: yeah

pretty sweet

me: where should i stay?

Brad: when do Nate and Julie come back?

I stayed at the Marriott

they have a good brunch for $50

me: yeah everything seems pricey

Brad: not in Tanzania though

7:54 AM me: n&j come back in july

to philly

Brad: eat [food] for cheap

me: i had a good [non-alcoholic beverage] last night for 60 cents

half liter

Brad: I'm going to sarasota in a few weeks, which is kind of like Tanzania

60[expletive]cents

7:55 AM me: it's not as cheap around here as it was 10 years ago though

Brad: are they coming to Denver for Harf's wedding?

me: it's boomtown

all the [three ethnic groups who are investing heavily in africa] apparently

if they get invited they will

Brad: I'm sure they'll be invited

if not, they should come anyway

7:56 AM me: in doha, should i stay at one of the big hotels? book in advance?

Brad: It's all big hotels, stay at the Marriott, you'll get your own beach

7:57 AM there are probably smaller places, but it's kind of like Dubai in that it is expensive and wealthy

me: and pool?

Brad: Pool was being remodeled, but is probably done by now

they work fast

me: nate and julie said they heard you never socialized anymore.

7:58 AM told them that was your last phase

Brad: it's true, but the rebirth is coming

kind of like shedding my skin, when the new skin comes in, I'll be [deleting this because i'm not sure if it was a typo or actually just really offensive] again

me: that's funny -- i told them i was expecting a continued renaissance from you

7:59 AM i think i even might have said the word reborn as well

Brad: Now I'm just an old boring white guy

let's just say I'm about to get a lot younger

if you catch my drift

me: gross

8:00 AM i'm nearly 29

if you catch my drift

Brad: oh yeah your b day is next week

celebrate by [common sense tells me to delete this]!

me: yeah sunday

give the cell phone a ring and i'll pass you around

Brad: the last of an era

I'd call your cell, but all I have is the rick roll number [call me anytime on (772) 257-4501!]

8:01 AM what is your number

me: unless we're playing rook -- then just leave a voicemail

[not going to post my number on the internet]

Brad: cool, I'll give a call

me: or just call kristy or snyder

Brad: they are americans dude

their phones don't work abroad

8:02 AM me: 3G buddy

kristy has been texting

or maybe they got a phone here

pay as you go

8:03 AM Brad: post some pics on facebook, and tell nate and julie to get on facebook

I hear Nate never socializes anymore

he just hangs out on the corner with witch doctors

me: i gave julie a demo of fb yesterday

she was wowed

Brad: she'll be on in now time

she loves social capital

did I just say now time

8:04 AM it's sooo late here

me: postmodern academic

it's a whole new paradigm

8:05 AM Brad: I am the hyper real: http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com/cgi-bin/seigmiaow.pl

8:07 AM me: i'll check it out

was trying to find the link to this thing i looked at the other day -- 99 things to see on the internet [http://youshouldhaveseenthis.com/]

Brad: have fun man, I'm going to bed soon...jess went to bed at 8:30

Oh yeah, I saw that too, love the fail blog

http://failblog.org/

8:08 AM me: how do you do it brad

and still go to bed before 10pm

Brad: cultural capital

me: good talk

Brad: take care

me: sleep easy

Brad: have fun

me: kwa heri bwana

8:09 AM Brad: at least watch the video of the dog sleep walking

No one really says hakuna matata

Tomorrow evening I'm flying to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (via Doha, Qatar). I'm as excited about this trip as any I've been on since my last trip to Tz 9 years ago for my University's Cross-Cultural program. In fact, I'm so excited that I've been laying out clothes all week -- something else I don't think I've done since 9 years ago. I'm more of a Day-Of packer these days.

A few things that have changed about me in the past 9 years...

I have surgically enhanced eyes.
I weigh approximately 3 pounds more.
I have a degree and a job.
I must shave more than bi-monthly.
I'm no longer fiscally indebted to my parents.
I'm an uncle x2.
I'm all over the internet.

If you've never been to Africa you should be scheming of a way to get there at some point. It can be any corner, but for me it was an important trip to take to understand my place in the world. This will be my third time on the continent but Morocco and [especially] Egypt didn't really strike me in the same way as Tanzania.

Also excited to use my Swahili skillz. Saaaafi.

I'll end with a song. (Translation on the right).

Jambo	Hello
Jambo, Jambo Bwana,	Hello, Hello Sir,
Habari gani,	How are you,
Mzuri sana.	Very fine.
Wageni, mwakaribishwa,	Foreigners, you're welcome,
Kenya yetu Hakuna Matata.	In our Kenya there is no problem.
Kenya nchi nzuri,	Kenya is a beautiful country,
Hakuna Matata.	There is no problem.
Nchi ya maajabu	A wonderful country
Hakuna Matata.	There is no problem.
Nchi yenye amani,	A peaceful country,
Hakuna Matata.	There is no problem.
Hakuna Matata,	There is no problem,
Hakuna Matata.	There is no problem.
Watu wote,	Everybody,
Hakuna Matata,	There is no problem,
Wakaribishwa,	Are welcome,
Hakuna Matata.	There is no problem.
Hakuna Matata,	There is no problem,
Hakuna Matata. (mpaka mwisho)	There is no problem. (till end)

The French may steal another one

This is old news. He's 6 and a half now.

Disaster in Amsterdam

My caesar salad had olives in it.

I think I got them out of there before they contaminated the whole thing.

Close call.

The greatest county in an upside down kingdom

Elkhart County

two days, two great deals:

Deal #1: Get Married at the Pizza Depot [only 5 miles from the Wal-Mart Supercenter].

Cost: Only $55, which includes:
Two chiropractic adjustments…Dr Gene Neyhart
Wedding Service…Pastor Gene Hite
Wine…Jesse’s Little Store
Video rental…Millersburg Video
Oil Change…Stickler’s Service Center
Pizza and Pop…Pizza Depot
1 round of Golf for Two…Timber Ridge Golf Course


Deal #2: Obama comes to visit!

Cost: Your county must attain the highest unemployment rate in the USA!
www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2009-02-08-elkhart_N.htm
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/02/09/president-obama-no-stranger-to-elkhart
http://gawker.com/5149711/liveblogging-obamas-guilt-trip-to-unemployment-town (one of the commenters appears to be a GC grad, a Mennonite, or at the least an Anabaptist sympathizer).

Don't let this go to your head Elkhart.

I'll have what he's having

Snow way that just happened

So it snowed in London. And everyone cares and it's a huge story and businessmen at the airport giggled at the delays like schoolboys while our flights got delayed and then delayed and then cancelled and then rerouted and arrived 12 hours after we were supposed to be home.

There were lots of snowball fights that escalated and ended in arrests and assaults. The London Underground didn't run (it's underground, as the name implies). No one went to work except for a couple of Americans who had seen snow before. My flatmate got to work to find the elevators out of commission. She walked up 38 flights of stairs; no one else showed up to work.

Really strange how everyone reacted is all. They revelled in it and then just got paralyzed and hopefully tomorrow they'll get on with it. Usually you'd expect Londoners to skip the revelling and paralysis and just get on with it straight away, so I'm slightly disillusioned. Just when I thought I had them figured out...

Frustrating day.

Bon Hiver

I have two new pet peeves:

1. Wearing ski boots.
2. Walking in ski boots.

Apart from those parts, I had a great weekend in Val d'Isere (French Alps) learning how to ski. I was ok. I didn't embarrass myself but I also didn't really put it all together until the last few runs of the 3rd morning (my last day on the slopes). I never imagined I'd be so cautious.

Skiing is just one of those things, like language and swimming, that's good to learn early in life. And so I'm happy to pass blame on to my parents. Then again, we lived in Indiana.

Thankfully it's never too late to learn how to Apreski and I didn't even require a lesson. Same goes with Raclette eating.

Be a better complainer

If there are two things I can be counted on for, they are:

1. arguing with doormen and bouncers.
2. complaining about airports and airlines.

I have a lot of experience doing both, so I argue from a place of truth. Perhaps I should start being a bit more formal, a la this genius letter to Richard Branson, head of Virgin Atlantic airlines.

www.popbitch.com/home/which-one-is-the-starter-which-one-is-the-desert

Please read the whole thing. He really hits his stride when he starts discussing the overwhelming quantity of mustard delivered with his meal, and suggests that perhaps the potato masher broke and the contingency was to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.

And you complained about your chicken parmigiana.

My nomination for toddler of the year

It may not be possible to cram more cute into 3 seconds. He put those boots on himself, mind.

Casual Friday in Paris

They might as well call it Pop Your Collar Friday.

This year's holiday will not be in the Carolinas

Last year I did a Who's Who of European travel for my London anniversary. If you didn't make the list in 2007, you weren't about to miss 2008! Except for all those people who did.

This year I'm switching to a fiscal calendar. And the winners are:

The 2008 HOF
Brad (I'll count Cairo)
Bernardo
Conor (I'll count Budapest)
Derek
Drew
Glenn
Lorraine
Nate (x2)
Rebecca
Sang

On first glance this list looks shorter than last year. Like half. That makes me sad about 2008, which runs counter to my actual 2008 which was the best year EVVVVER.

Let 2009 be the year that -- against all odds of being [most likely] rich and white -- you take advantage of free accomodation in London. Or meet me somewhere else on the continent or the hemisphere. I will meet you in the middle. WE CAN DO THIS.

So this is the new year. And I don't feel any different.

Just got back from a marathon tour of Americana: friends, family and work. Now it's 3:19am and I'm wide awake in London. Hungry but with an empty fridge. If 2009 means a poor dietary regiment and late nights then it sounds a lot like 2008. Which wouldn't be a bad thing.

I have high hopes for the year. I'm going back to Mother Africa in March. I'm hoping to see Asia for the first time. Maybe I'll do the trifecta of emerging market continents and shoot for South America at some point.

I'm excited about work. My role has shifted slightly and I think it suits me. I want to work hard and get things done this year.

This year I'll turn 29, which is the last year that I'll enjoy being alive until I turn 30 and realize it's not really much different and that another year of experience has its positives.

That is all.