Molson Golden

Random Morocco Pictures 1

2009-11-09T16:58:00.005+04:00

The end of an adventure

2009-06-30T02:08:00.007+04:00

I am back in the USA after a successful stint in Portugal and Iceland. Here is the round up of Iceland pictures:Skogafoss
Feeds into the ocean
Glacier!

Church organs? or Basalt rock
Black sand + stone beach
Waterall from **behind** the waterfall.

Harbor at Grundarsfjord

Sunset at Campset
Ram playing cards - each ram gets his "stats" printed under his picture. EVERY store was sold out.
Stables @ Langamyri
Manure excavation + swamp
Lower stables + maternity ward
Sheep out in pasture
One of 3 rhubarb fields. Look how tall they grow by the time of the first harvest.
Clearly Matthew is shrinking.
Home for Kjartan and Doro

Island

2009-05-31T00:19:00.005+04:00

3 weeks passed already in Iceland, only 2 more remain. Here are some pictures from the first part of my stay:

Nearby waterfall
Viking turf houses!
Mt Hekla! the Volcano we can see from our front yard. Literally due to erupt any month now...
Desertscape of Iceland
Laura and I at Gulfoss, we stood right in front of the falls and asked a man to take our picture. He picked the sky for a background instead of this:
Gulfoss waterfalls

Geyser at Geysir

A rare patch of forest
Reykjavik keeps its men informed
Modern Viking ship in the harbor at Reykjavik.

Going to the movies tonight!!!! The Boat that Rocked. I have no idea what it is about but I am simply excited to go to the cinemaaaa

Doylesons visit Portugal

2009-05-23T00:30:00.012+04:00

My Mother and my brother Grady came to visit Portugal for the first week of May. In all honesty I can say that we had a nearly perfect week together. We toured Lisbon, Evora, the Algarve, and Sintra along with a day trip into Seville. Here are some of the highlights:

Tomb made entirely of human remains in Evora

Temple Diana, oldest Roman ruin in Portugal
Culatra, a tiny fishing village off the coast of Olhao, located on the Southern coast of Portugal.
Alcazar of Seville, a palace and former fortress in Seville. AMAZING
Spugett?
Plaza del something in Seville?
Rio Tejo in Lisbon.
Sao Jorge in Lisbon

Profile pic pep pep?

Tiles.

National Palace in Sintra. Those are chimneys for the kitchen.
Moorish castle in Sintra.

Look at the color of the floor tiling in this chapel!

Another palace in Sintra
On the West Coast of Portugal

Only a taste of everything we did ... we also were able to return to one of my WWOOF hosts and stay at her guesthouse near Tavira.

Now I have followed Laura to Iceland. We are volunteering on a farm together in the Southern part of the country. Helping hundreds of sheep during a hectic lambing season and turning rhubarb into delicious candies and jams. More pictures on the way!!

Cowboy (workin in progress)

2009-04-25T16:37:00.011+04:00

Dont have the heart to type the update. But enjoy some uncaptioned pictures until then...Anyone can tell me how to rotate photos on blogger? Time to switch hosts I guess

Where were we?

2009-04-08T22:41:00.007+04:00

I am outside of Vila de Nova de Poiares, outside of Coimbra, with my latest WWOOF family. This family is a Mom and her 4 kids: Paula, Zoe, Manu, Marley, and Caia. The dad, Calu, lives down the road with his new wife Rita and 3 more kids. They are an amazing family, the majority of the food that they eat is all grown on the family farm, which the mom more or less runs by herself. Even the bread is homemade, coming from wheat and rye that they grow. They are also in a family band (reggae) called One Love Family and are heavily influenced by the Rasta lifestyle. I have only been here for a week and I am already leaving tomorrow, but they were an awesome group to spend time with. I was able to practice some of my Portuguese with native speakers and help them some with their English too.

Catching up a bit, the rest of the time at Dorine´s was amazing, as could be expected. Here 60 something year old friend came down to visit. Erma was a retired doctor and had more energy than I did, the three of us all had a good time together. Then I followed Laura (the german WWOOFer) back to my first host Susan's and we spent a couple of days there and drove into Spain to see Seville (Pictures below). We only spent one night there but I would go back in a heartbeat if I had the chance. It was a wonderful 36 hrs of completely ignorant tourism. We knew nothing of the city and had no guidebook so we simply walked around and visited whatever caught our eye. It is a beautiful, old city with lots of old buildings and luscious parks. Oh yeah and while walking out of a grocery store I ran into one of my International Students from Macalester, Tamara. She is studying abroad in Seville, but neither of us knew that the other was even in the country until we were standing face to face! We spent an afternoon catching up and talking about Mac and it was wonderful.

From Seville we went back to Susan´s and then onto Lisbon, for another quick tourist stop. Lisbon is hilly!! It was crazy to be in a huge city again and we got to see a lot of the city and two art museums (Pictures below). At the time I felt unimpressed with the museums, but looking back at my pictures I think that they actually weren´t so bad. Laura went back to Germany (I might see her again in Iceland???) and I came here.

Tomorrow I will head up to Porto where my last Portuguese host will pick me up and take me to his cattle ranch. Wish me luck!

Leftover from Lagoa I really like this one.
A snapshot from a daytrip to Lagos, a touristy city on the SW coast.
Cathedral in Seville.
Castle in Seville.

The parks were amazing.

Old timey tram in Lisbon, still functional.
Zipper!? In Lisbon!?

The coolest clock that I have ever seen.
The coolest mustard dish I have ever seen.
Medusa.

Donno anything about him but he´s cool.

Meerkats, for some reason they were a part of the Darwin exhibit at an art museum.

House here in Poiares.

The older boy´s room and the pine covered mountains in the background.
The back of the hamlet that our house is in.

Well that´s all for now, still don´t know where I am going in May, but I bet it will be somewhere good. My mom and Grady come out in 3 weeks now, exciting!

O Monte

2009-03-11T00:31:00.006+04:00

I am at another host, still in the Algarve. I am staying with Dorine Tideman outside of Santa Catarina. It is so beautiful that I wont even try to take my own pictures to show you, just take a look at the home page. O Monte is hidden off of a long dirt road, nestled within the soft hills of Santa Catarina. There is a cluster of buildings, the Guesthouse, the Big house, the Annex, plus the pool. The exterior architecture of the buildings is cement with clay tiling, very typical of the Portuguese countryside. But then the interior reflects its Dutch owner, sensible style full of straight lines, clean wood, and simple furniture. Dorine is my host and we get along fabulously and she has two dogs TheeBou and Olive and one cat Bec. I am weeding and clearing land and getting ready to build a shed with her neighbor, Senhor Manuel. Senhor is Portuguese, Dorine Dutch, and the only common language is French, so we do all of our planning en francais.
Last night we went to Jean Jacques (another WWOOF host from Belgium) and had dinner with his three German WWOOFers:Nina, Natalie, and Lara. I can't tell you how nice it was to spend time with people my own age for a change, plus German girls are fun (is it okay to generalize? here i think so).

Today we went into Tavira (the first city I have been in since Dublin) and I bought a big stack of postcards. So you can expect a note in the mail soonish. If I don't have your address (I know I don't have it for a few of you) then leave it for me as a comment on this post!(or email/fb/etc)

I think I am staying here next week instead of heading to Dorine's friend Benedicte. We went there this morning ... long story but she is not really ready to host because she doesn't have any food in her house and does not want to keep any there. So I will stay here longer and maybe even delay my move to Monchique if we are still getting along well. As I am writing this post Dorine and I are drinking our Nettle juice that we extracted from the plant we found the other day. It tastes awful and smells worse, but it will help the health of our kidneys (I hope).

Now I am going to switch topics and share with you some pictures from my previous "Solitary Confinement" spot.

Here is my caravan (trailer) on a (hand scrubbed) laundry day!

This is one of my favorite spots on their farm. I consumed 2-4 fresh oranges per day, usually as juice.

Here are the greenhouses, full of fresh produce and growing plants. It was in one of these that I was washing all of the flower bulbs.

A solution to the dilemma of the organic farmer. Because they dont use pesti/herbicides they must find another way to protect against weeds. So Volodomyr and James built an attachment for the tractor that lays polyurethane sheets into the plowed soil. The sheets physically block the weeds from attacking. One of the more fun projects I worked on was with Volodomyr to put these sheets down.

Although they didnt offer me any company, I did have use of the bike. I took advantage of it every day for grocery shopping and for amusement. I am trying for the third time now to upload this video. Hopefully the link will be here by the time I am done writing. No! the computer crashed and so we will have to wait again for this silly, short clip.

The other place that I biked to was the ocean, it was only 20 minutes away. Much of the Southern coast of Portugal is made of limestone. It is very soft and the tide eats away at the stone formations very rapidly. Since the tide is striking at the base of the stone, it takes that part away first. Then while the water works its way under the rest of the stone, its "digestion" of the rock releases gases that also eat the stone. The end result are deep pits in the middle of otherwise solid rock formations. These are called "Algares" and if you look down into them you can see the water crashing away, continuing the process.

These formations are also wonderful for climbing, and that is how I liked to spend my time. Here are some pictures that I took one Sunday afternoon while I was having a climb.

These first few pictures give you a general idea of the coast and the rock formations.

Oh wow! This picture (above) makes me want to go back to Lagoa.
I couldn't find any way to enter this cove, but I like to imagine it hides a lair full of treasure.

Here is a picture of one of the Algares.
And with the water at the bottom.

This is the way I climbed down, but I couldn't get back up. It was a ledge 5 feet off the ground that sloped up and to the right very sharply. I had only 1 ft of ground below me before a steep drop to the ocean. I had jumped down, but the face of the ledge was too smooth to use to pull myself back up. For a minute, I raised each one of my arms and legs to see if they could find a path that my eyes could not. No luck. After a moment of panic, I climbed down to the bottom and ascended at another point.
The top of this green patch is where I took my lunch. In total privacy, it seems none of the other walkers wanted to go out that far.

A little cove that I could access.
And a picture of me, reminding you not to hassle me because I am local. (The shirt I am wearing is featured in the excellent movie What About Bob?)

Back to life at O Monte. Today I have been moving wood chips all day, tonight I hope we have the big bonfire (unrelated). I just got off the phone with Lara and I am meeting them tomorrow to go to the beach and then for a big fish dinner. Fun! I hope they have salmon ...

Solitaire

2009-03-04T19:43:00.007+04:00

I've been playing a lot of Freecell, with a real deck of cards, because I´ve got some time on my hands. I'm in Lagoa in the 2nd week of two with my new host. No pictures to post, my camera is entirely devoted to my RoadTripNation efforts at the moment.

I am hosted by James and Suzanna (daughters Rosey, Isabelle, and Alice) Brits who moved here permanently some 12 years ago and havent looked back since. They speak the language, their children go to the local school, and they never go ¨home¨ (uk) more than once a year. We are situated on 6 hectares (or something) of land. They grow lettuce, oranges, flowers, berries, spinach, potatoes, tomatoes, the list goes on. And they sell it all retail at Da Terra, their shop that also sits on the land. They also keep horses and are teaching their young daughters to ride. They stay pretty busy then, and as a result i am ¨self catering¨. This means i live in a trailer on the back of the property and cook all of my own meals. The plus side of the deal is that i only work five hours per day (8am til 1pm), which then means that I have lots of free time. It´s a pretty quiet town, but luckily I am also only 20 mins bike ride away from the ocean. Which is amazing, I almost biked over some cliffs on my first visit there and I cant wait to post some pix of this place. The Southern coast is lined with lots of limestone, very soft, and the tide eats away spectacular (and dangerous) rock formations every year.

When I am working I am washing flower bulbs (very tedious but evidently worthwhile. Chanel perfume makes a killing by using this type of flower in their perfumes. They farm it in huuuge quantities in the North of Africa) or pruning bushes, weeding fields, clearing dead stuff, or laying polyurethane sheets into plowed soil for protection against weeds. The last task is the hardest to explain and also the most fun, because I dont have to do it alone. I work sometime with Igor (25) but mostly with Vladmir (40s/50s) who are Ukrainian farmhands. Vladmir doesnt speak a work of English, so we have to get by in Portuguese. I would describe him as gruff and knowledgeable (he taught me the proper way to eat an orange the other day, with a few slashes of a knife you can eat the whole thing in less than 10 seconds). If I'm not working with Vladmir, then the rest of the day is spent on my own.

Luckily, I have received some good advice about living on your lonesome, so i am doing things like sleeping, making sandwiches, and creating my own puzzles. I´m also biking (theres a really neat path that takes me to the local grocery store, im gonna try to film it) and reading (some good books about crazy Brits who have settled on rural farms in Spain and Italy) doing crossword puszzles, listening to NewsHour and Washington Week on podcast, and cooking for myself. Never really had to cook formyself before. Doing a lot of rice and beans and pasta, sometimes with meat (churico). Lots of salads because i have all of the fresh veggies that one might ever desire (the avacados are the best) and at least one glass of fresh oj per day. Also the first time I´ve lived entirely on me own. Some days it is absolutely terrible, but most it´s very calming. Speaking of firsts, this is the first time/place that I have had to do all of my own laundry by hand. Drying things on the line, I can get behind that. but scrubbing out my own filth in a sudsy bathtub full of warm water? That's a moment where I am glad to live alone so as not to have to do this chore with a shared load of laundry...

New section in the blog called ¨Look Em Up¨(wanted to call it Have Some, but thought twice about that), a list in the upper right of the page. It is a list of nouns that I have either experienced directly or indirectly in my time here. I put em on the list because they are interesting and you should look them up. Perhaps with Google, although I did a bit of poking around, I guess about a month ago, and if you search the same keyword with Google and with Yahoo you get pretty different results. Not when you are looking for a specific site, but if you are looking to compare prices or service providers, there is a difference. It makes me remember that Google is a for-profit company and it doesnt have us users at the top of its priority list. On the same idea of for-profit companies, Facebook is getting pretty creepy. Not because of how people use it (that is debatable) but because they are a black hole of data. Most social networks, Twitter, Myspace, whatever, will export some of the data they collect to external sites. For the purposes of integrated functionality, presumably. But Facebook is not so generous, it keeps all of the information that we enter to itself, using it to find ways to make money. Once I am regularly connected to the Internet again, I think I am gonna offload my fb profile to another site, most likely another blog.

Wayyy off the point. I will put some pictures up here in a bit, as well as some stories a la ¨day in the life¨. In the meantime I recommend you listen to this free episode of ¨This American Life¨ which does an excellent job of explaining what da heck is going on with the banks and the bailout:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=375

internet access is limited so pictures are worth thousands of words!!!

2009-02-20T14:38:00.006+04:00

my orange tree and daily snack supply
my lemon tree, not so much for snacking
the west coast at aljezur a very nice beach

pool at Caldas
stream at Caldas
hiking behing the farm
found a rock face and did some climbing. that was more or less my first time climbing and it was a lot of fun
the turbines that overlook our farm
the hood

my host farm. the back of the property that leads off into a mountain range

the southish side of the property, looking onto the garden andsome of the lemon trees

garden before i really gotstarted.. yikeees

the back courtyard of my little guesthouse... i'd build the rock fountain here if i was staying longer
the entrance to my house. i lovvve the colored trim on the white cement.. everyone doesit here
my gueshouse
the gallery in alte
before we started moving out
look at all the stuff

it's been a good run here gotta go nowww headed off on monday to my next host. this time we will be doing strawberries and flowers, i think?

oh yeah and we's gonnna be on TV probably. me, nis, and jennifer are in Round 3 (of 3) at roadtripnation.com so if we do this right then we're gonna be on network television yalll.

Feb 10

2009-02-14T18:09:00.001+04:00

So beautiful and green. But also much cooler than I expected (at night
anyways.) I am I'm SB Messines, or 'Mayseenish' as it it pronounced. I
am living on a small hilltop 15 minutes outside of town, staying with
a lovely person named Susan. She is 65, born in NYC, emigrated to the
UK at 30 (her passport was taken away in the process and she has never
had one since) and has lived I'm Portugal the last 8 years. Her place
is called the 'Kindred Spirit' in honor of her late husband. Let me
say that she maintains a healthy attitude about his passing, the
magnet on her fridge reads, "It is better to have loved and lost than
to spend the rest of your life with that psycho. "
The property is sprawling and includes the farmhouse (which she lives
in), the recently-built guesthouse (where I am staying) a variety of
sheds and tons of vegetation. Part of my WWOOFing will be to take care
of the orange and lemon trees, the grape vines, and the rest of the
garden. But first we had to move her art gallery. Today, Susan and I
started to dismantle the "Off the Wall Galeria". The gallery is in
nearby Alte. To reach Alte from SB Messines, we drive 15 minutes along
hillside roads, which overlook lush valleys. The landscape is spotted
with white stone houses. Some are new and immaculate, luxury
destinations. Others are old, and crumbling under the cool, moist air.
Alte is 45 minutes off the coast and is almost a tourist trap. Which
explains why the gallery opened here two years ago and is closing
today. Susan is an inspiring woman, full of energy and ideas and sheer
will power. She just designed and then built the second house on her
property to let out to visitors. She runs a gallery for a dozen
artists and contributes her own work. Since the gallery isn't
flourishing in Alte, Susan is transforming her garage into a new
showing space. She is writing a grant that would sponsor an 'art tour'
-an opportunity for enthusiasts to travel along the south of Portugal
and discover original artwork along the way. And on top all that she
is the mother of nine!
The gallery has paintings, enamels, photography, tiles, hand carved
frames, and jewelry. The artwork is good stuff and all of it a bit
pricy. Taking down paintings is interesting work. It's like going to
an art museum where you can touch everything. Whenever I tire of
carrying things, I can break and enjoy the gallery. Susan doesn't
seem to mind my wandering attention, in fact I think she does her best
to encourage it. The other day we took a break to enjoy the
accomplishments of a couple of her many daughters. [Susan is the
mother of seven girls and two boys. Today their ages range from 29 to
45]. We listened to the latest album by Electralane, her daughter is
the drummer. We looked at tour posters from various stops, including
Russia, and at a magazine featuring the band. Then Susan brought out
some more magazines, these with pictures of her daughter who is a
model. "And she doesn't mind taking off her kit either." said Susan. I
flipped through the Vogue and some other fashion catalogues and it was
quite clear that she didn't mind.
Both of her daughters are beautiful, almost in a manly way. High
cheekbones, a square jaw, and sharp almond shaped eyes. With a look
that says, "I will fight you. And I will win." Her children live
around the world, some in the States, some in the UK, Greece, France
and I lost track after that.
Susan has introduced me to many of her friends (largely ex-pats): Aud
(sp?) the very friendly yet shy to speak Norweigan who helped us TONS
while we emptied the store. Peter and Hazel came by to say hello and
invite us to dinner. Both work in Scotland but keep a vacation house
here. "Where did you find him?" asked Hazel when I met her, even
before greeting me. Then lunch with Paula (English) and Ursula
(German). Ursula was especially nice and invited us over to her house
for lunch later in the week. We went and dined with another Brit.
Lunch was 'Arroz de ... duck" and absolutely delicious. We sat and
talked for hours, although to be fair I mostly listened as the main
topics of discussion were house & property maintenance in southern
Portugal and marriage within & across different cultures. Everyone was
smart and funny and pleasant - so I did enjoy myself. One last
interesting note. Ursula had some kind of "ridgeback" dog that
sometimes hunt lion in Africa. I intend to look up that breed - very
badass.

Sent from my iPod

Wow Dublin was colder than I expected

2009-02-11T17:43:00.003+04:00

The arrival terminal at the Dublin airport reminds me of my public school days. Wooden doors and stone speckled floors. Didn't strike me as very modern. Also very cold.

Today (Feb 8th) I spent8 hours walking thru snow and then rain. My feet are covered in blisters (damn work boots) but I'm still in good spirits. I'm almost to Portugal, travel is so simple. I spent part of the morning in a cafe, warming up and reading the Sunday Tribune.

Irish media is funny, "Pornographic material was found on 29% of Irish (office) PCs last year, up from 25% in 2007."

In the city I walked around Trinity college, all around the city centre. I found lots of tourist shopping (mostly closed on a Sunday) and lots of fun graffiti. Here are some pictures below.

Peh peh peh peh PEH

2009-01-06T13:33:00.010+04:00

Many years ago, while in Wausau, my father brought me and my siblings to a nursing home. We went to visit a priest who had suffered a stroke; as a result he could only speak the syllable "peh".

It is fitting, then, that my current ambitions follow the pattern of three 'P's.

1. Portugal
I want to go work on a farm in Portugal. I want to see the country, its castles, the ocean, the sand, and the land. Maybe I will learn some of the language, but according to a friend it sounds "freakishly different". My main goals are to work hard and sleep well. If possible I would also like to learn how to ride a horse and "get some color" (if not a true tan).

2. Palo Alto
Back to work, research research research. There exists an interesting internship that would allow me to spend a finite amount of time doing a project in an applied setting. The lab that I want to join uses psychology, computer science, sociology, human factors, etc to examine the way people use technology in social settings (primarily via the innernette). As I mentioned, this is a finite commitment (~12 weeks) and would wrap up in time for the next step.

3. Paris
Following the steps of my sister, I would enjoy spending a year brushing up on my French. Moreover, there are some smart people working on exciting and novel projects. The web, along with accompanying software, holds the future of art, science, and society. Therefore, enrolling in this programme and especially spending time with these people will help me experience and understand the paradigms that will shape our future. Who knows, if I can catch the blitzkrieg then maybe I will get to play my own part.

I spent some time tonight (I am having trouble falling asleep) drawing depictions of what I imagine my 'P's will look like. I am not fond of my Palo Alto, if I had a gray pastel I think I could improve the picture. I enjoy the colors of Portugal most and prefer the images of Paris.

Below is a photograph that I stole from the Art Institute of Chicago. I want to look like this when I grow up.

apple F for audio tracks (and then video ones)

2008-12-31T12:25:00.003+04:00

I am listening to E.V.R. (i think) specifically the Mark Ronson 'Authentic Shit' podcast. And I just discovered that I have a new need. I was excited when I found out that you could use apple F (or control for you haters) to search through adobe or .pdf files. Using ascii code to search through an image. swank, with increasingly high fidelity files (and with file size/storage space becoming less and less of an issue) i suppose an inevitability.

but now i am listening to this podcast and all of this talk talk talk and i am waiting for the lily allen cover/diss of britney's womanizer and i want to jump to the point. So some assholes (microsoft? bell? etc?) are developing voice recognition software and I want them to include the apple F feature. i want to type in a word and then i want your software to scan through the audio file to find my query. got it?

and then do it for video files.

in the swing of things

2008-12-08T10:30:00.006+04:00

current

planning the family reunion. it will be the first time since last xmas that the doylesons will
be together if you know what i mean. so i am thinking we will go down to chi town for 3 nights.
michigan ave. museums. hotel. you know what's up.

working

yeesh. i am working for UPS as a driver helper.
marcus does the driving and i do the helping. he tells me funny stories and scans most of the
packages and is a good person. i descend from the truck and bring your package to you
as fast as possible.

listening

arthur king summer 2008
t pain ringleader and cant believe it remix
east village radio the let out thksgiving podcast

reading

the brief and wonderous life of oscar wao (thx grady)
interdisciplines.org
wired.com
coolhunting.com

watching

transporter 3
rachel getting married

news

talking to an italian in paris.
talking to an american in chicago (or minneapolis)
waiting to talk to an aussie down under.
looking for jobs.

getting ready to go to saint paul this weekend. i feel bad telling marcus that i'm gonna take friday
off... but such is life. group birthday party. maybe get in touch with an old acquaintance.
i'll keep ya posted

Pictures that aren't mine

2008-10-27T09:16:00.013+04:00

tru dat
dont you think?
yes
watch me
burnt
for me?

red moon
fan mail
zine
cuz
mit
xray
wax

Yes, Ohio is flat.

2008-10-01T07:15:00.003+04:00

current

Getting a letter ready for another job application. I have sent my stuff out to a few places, with mixed results so far.

D.E. Shaw, the hedge fund in NYC is not interested.
Epic, the local healthcare IT provider is interested.

I'm still waiting to hear from Google (in Cali) and the Madison-based C.O.W.S. (Center on Wisconsin Strategy).
I'm also thinking about applying to Gallup (In London or elsewhere). I've got a good feeling right now, and I think I will apply for a few more places before the week's end.

listening

106.7 and i'm not happy about it. send help.

reading

the axemaker's gift. A historic and cultural explanation of science and technology (and civilization).

turn of the screw. an old school ghost story

chessplayer's challenge. can you mate on the move? on two? on three? yes, yes, and please sir i'd like some more

watching

bottle rocket. i think this is wes anderson's first flick. it's subtle, but i like.

news

Just went with ma mere to ohio to visit mik at oberlin. The campus is amazing, much larger than i expected and generally quite elegant (yeahhh the conservatory isn't that swell). it was fun to hang with mik and meet his friends/roommates/etc. we went to a play "bug" that was terribly cliche, but performed well by the students. we also went to friendly's and then target, which was probably the worst 1-2 combo known to any woman or man.

i also have been applying to jobs, see above.

unless i get the gig with google- i'm gonna try to swing a job abroad, so wish me luck!send me some ideas of where i should work if you have any, i am pretty opennnn. maybe.

hanging out with Obama

2008-09-20T05:18:00.003+04:00

current

the only organized activity i have in my life is the time i spend hanging out with obama. last week my dad and i made some phone calls for the campaign at HQ on monroe st. we cold called people and asked them who they were supporting for prez, and then tried to convince them to support mr O. of the 60 calls i made that night, only about 12 people picked up and only 4 of them weren't nuts.

i liked bothering people so much that i went and did it again on saturday and again this wednesday. on wednesday i brought PhD Patrick with me to keep that mac connection live (we graduated together). on saturday i also went door to door registering people to vote. i signed 8 people up, including one former felon who thought he would never be able to vote again.

the (volunteer) work is actually pleasant- it reminds me of my days recruiting and running people for experiments in the psych lab. no matter how funny they respond, i'm just keep plugging along.

so tomorrow morning i am gonna wake up and help Obama out some more.

listening

1 in 3 things that thefader.com posts
plus a lot of Public Radio International :Social Entrepreneurship
would be thrilled to find some more schtuff

reading

still Feingold.
plus theselby.com
also some brookings.edu

watching

lost and for the first time,
arrested development.
and it's football season, so that's a plus.

news

really what is there to say here? no news is good news.
i'm getting my resume ready and then we'll talk

It's a Midwest Thang

2008-09-06T03:10:00.006+04:00

current

In Madison settling into my apartment and domestic life in general after spending a long week at the cabin and in the Twin Cities.

listening

ratatat's new LP3
diplo's SANTO mixtape
tricky's new knowle west boy
plus spanish/and public radio podcasts

reading

a russ feingold biography. i think this is the first biography i have read in years ...
the writing is pretty bad but feingold is interesting enough to make it happen. he was a Rhodes scholar. wish i was cool enough to be one too.

watching

can't wait to watch the Brothers Solomon again with my brothers. it was pretty HILARIOUS

news

spend some time at the cabin 2 weeks ago with nis and scott. it was perfect and relaxing

then i spent some time in saint paul catching up with EVERYBODY: nis & emma, paul & marina, scott & sonia, will, wes, rebecca, rachel, kristina, brooke, aaron, majid oh yeah and said goodbye to grace before she left.

now i am back in madison with the fam, living the glamorous life.

movies with dad tomorrow. nick's birthday on saturday. i might get deputized to register voters on saturday morning. who knows what else is coming around the corner?

All better

2008-08-22T17:56:00.006+04:00

current

I'm back at home the first thing I did was to fall sick. But by today I think I'm in tip top form. I spent the week catching up with the brothers, spending time with the parents, meeting up with a few friends, etc. Started looking at apartments, but now there's a chance I'll be in Saint Paul, another Al Futtaim venture ... I think I'd rather spend my time in Madison. Well at least most of it.
I'm still adjusting to the time zones, which means I can't stay awake past 11PM and wake up every morning at 6 or 7. It's actually great to be awake in the morning, especially this time of year. The morning is the coolest time of day and the park is completely green. Grady and Ian have started their practices for soccer and >cc>, in fact I caught Grady getting ready this morning.

listening

went to the best place ever, strictly discs, and picked up some santogold (self titled) and lykke li (youth novels). waiting on some ratatat and tricky to come in. i'm excited to have a decent music shop around again ...

reading

How to Make Friends and Oppress People: Classic Travel Advice for the Gentleman Adventurer.

It's 19th century travel advice from various british gents, pretty great.

watching

lost & CSI. With the fam. Got hooked on Lost with the cuz in Jordan and CSI has always been a classic.

news

Scott and Sonia came thru today on their way to a Joanna Newsome concert in Chicago.
I took them to the Med Cafe and it was grrreat. Showed them around the city, but it was a pretty brief visit.

Next week I'm going up to the cabin with some of my friends from Mac. we're gonna be up there for a realll long weekend and I am pretty excited. I might also come thru Saint Paul for a bit, but I dunno how long? kinda depends on some other stuff going on (aka maybe another "job")

mik is going to oberlin on monday so tonight we are going out for the classic family dinner. I think Adeline and Homewrecker will be there so it should be pretty classic. Too bad base will miss out.

WAOWWW

2008-08-15T00:56:00.003+04:00

current

I am looooving Jordan. The history, the people, the family, the friends. Spending time with the cuz and her fam is excellent and I am really getting to do some good tourism. Plus we went out and spent some time in the diplomatic community tonight, which was new and enlightening for me.

news

today Lara and I went to Petra. Petra is an old Nabatean city, full of buildings carved into the sandstone gorge and mountains. I think that Indiana Jones might have been filmed there ...
One of the first buildings you see when you enter the site.
The end of the walk thru the gorge, right as you open onto the ...
treasury. an amazing building carved into the side of this stone wall/gorge/cliff
Whether you can tell or not, the best hiking shoes I had were converse ... but I survived.

the city in the hills, literally.

It was a great day, good to have Lara with. She just graduated in Bio from JMU. We talked about religion & science, life in a divorced family, she filled me in on what it's like to be the daughter of a diplomat. Plus she is an activist (esp. with coal issues in the virginias) and she told some stories about her being arrested during an "action" as well as some about less fortunate activists from all over the world.

it was a 3 hour drive to and from petra, and we were both sleeping each way. but as soon as we returned we each took a muchhhh needed shower and went over to another diplomat's for dinner. but it was actually a pizza party for the kids of the american diplomats in amman. so it was a fun mix of watching kids scream and eat pizza combined with talking to various men and women about their experiences abroad. One man was headed for a year in Iraq while his wife and kids waited in Jordan. Another family had just been evacuated from Yemen. It was their first deployment in the foreign services and they had been there for a month or so. Then one day Al Qaeda shot mortar rounds at the US Embassy. They missed and hit the girls' school that is next door. The next morning the media said that "Clearly some of the familes at the school are having serious disputes with one another." ..... yah. Shortly thereafter the same people started hitting the US living compound with shells... so everyone was evacuated. The family was supposed to spend 2 years in Yemen, but now they have been reassigned for 2 in Jordan.
So it was fun and amazing to hear about what everyone had done and is doing today. Then, just before we were about to leave, we were interrupted by bottlerockets, firecrackers, music, and cheering as a wedding parade passed outside the apartment window.

After that, Michael took Lara and I to the Embassy for a going away party (for a marine gunnery sergeant). It is the first time that I have ever been to an Embassy and it was cool being hosted by the RSO (he runss the security for the whole place and is the boss of all of the marines). we talked with some other diplomats, alllmost met the ambassador, and met head of the CIA for the area. the party was in the Marines' living area, which was a little weird, but everyone was nice and I think we left before the party really took off.

I am having a lot of fun walking through the desert every day, being a tourist. I am also enjoying experiencing life in the world of diplomats, ever if for a short time. Plus it's great getting to know my cousin and her family better. They are very easy to get a long with and lots of fun, I wish that I was staying longer than 5 nights!!! That said, I am excited to go back to WI.

they're everywhere they're everywhere.

2008-08-12T18:57:00.008+04:00

IAN CAME TO DUBAI

check out the news section for pics.

current

I'm in Amman, visiting the extended fam. Staying with my cousin Maria and her husband plus their 3 little girls. Both work for the Embassy, I think I am going to go check it out this week (I've never been to a U.S. Embassy before...). He's worked in embassy security for 20+ years and she has been a political officer for the last 10. They are coming from working in Syria, which was a much older place, with more attacks, and a much smaller embassy. The US Embassy in Jordan is large in part because Jordan receives a lot of US aid; for it's 'support' on Israel and it's support on Iraq. Currently, the US embassy in Jordan it also acts as the US Embassy for Iraq and is the staging point for everything US that goes to Iraq.

I'm here visiting/meeting the fam and doing some tourist things for a few days before I head back to the states. Thankfully Al Futtaim arranged my travel so that I am flying straight back to the states from Amman.

I'm staying with the fam in a rulllly nice embassy apt. From there I went to the Citadel and the Roman theatre this morning.

Amman is veryyy different from Dubai. It's older. The aiport is kind of a dump and a lot of the buildings here are falling apart. But it's more of a city. The population here is more homogenous, all arabic (lots of palestinians), and not so many english speakers (which makes cab rides a lot more interesting. and impossible). I learned approx. 0 arabic while in dubai, and what i did learn is more appropriate for teasing 14 yr olds and not fit for everyday conversation.
sooo i am learning the basic basics on a need to know basis and borrowing cell phones to call my cousin for help. it's as simple as that, ya turkey.

Amman is a city of jebels (hills) that are all covered in small houses and shops and roads. None of it strikes me as very modern, but Maria assures me that it's newer than Damascus. The citadel is on top of Jebel al-Qal'a. Here I am in front of Hercules' Temple. My visit to the site happened at high noon in August, so believe it or not there weren't many fellow tourists there to snap my pic. So I did my best with the timer ...
I think this is a pretty good one. I'm siting in front of an Umayyad palace here. My brain is supersaturated, there's not much space for new information to enter. I'm not entirely sure of what I saw today. BUT the Umayyads were a group of people that lived here a long time ago. The site included the palace, a mosque (just the ruins), a bathhouse, a HUGE well, plus the remains of a Byzantine church.

Then I went to an old Roman theatre. I guess an American was shot there recently and we aren't supposed to go, but whooops. The stadium seating at the theatre goes up pretty high and is very steep. The stairs are very small and made of a soft stone that is falling apart. Basically, with my fear of heights and my sandals I was quickly terrified as I ascended the monument. I didn't fall, or get shot, and I am safe and sound writing you this wonderful note.

After that I went for a late lunch with Maria and the older 2 girls at the Wild Jordan. The cab drivers did not have any idea how to get to the place thought and it was mos def an ordeal. But I made it and it was an interesting little tourist info place. Built with US $$$ and obviously catering to westerners. After lunch I dipped out and took a walk along Rainbow Road. A semi-happening road that featured lots of furniture galleries, book stores, cafes, falafel places, and gun shops. I wandered far enough along the road to find King Hussein's club and then the Iraqi Embassy (not the US embassy for Iraq that is in Amman right now, but Iraq's Embassy). At that point I figured it was time to turn around so I did and came back home (again with taxi difficulty).

Tonight my cousin's husband's daughter from his first marriage is coming into Amman. She is 22 too, which means I'll have a partner in crime for most of the rest of the week.

Tomorrow: Jerash & Aljun
Thursday: Petra
Friday: Petra &/or Dead Sea
Saturday: US of A

news

Ian Doyle Olson came to Dubai. To visit me. Isn't he a sweetheart? We were talking on the phone and I said, "You should come." and he said, "Ok." Within 2 days (or 3 depending on how you count, teeny) he was there and then we spent not quite a week haaaaangin out. We slept a lot. Ate a lot of realllly healthy food (you'll probably see some very charming pics of me/us on his fbook soon). Watched some Olympics, at really weird hours of the day. I introduced him to the Malls of Dubai, the room service of Sofitel, Dune Bashing, plus riding on camels/driving go karts in the desert, belly dancing, etc. We also went to the Dubai museum which was pretty nice and kind of saw the Burj Al Arab (7 star hotel), they don't let you come onto the grounds unless you pay a looot of money. We also drove out onto the Palm Jumeira, but it was hard to see anything because it was after sunset during a sandstorm. The most important part of the trip was our SUIRP movie. It doesn't really counter but instead compliments the famous SPHYNX.
Suirp chronicles a toy prius as is breaks into the evil SOFITEL hq and narrowly escapes a thuggish guard and near death. Ian gets most of the credit for this masterpiece. I was only the cameraman. Sometimes.

I spent the whole summer in a desert and today is the first time I got a sunburn. We were never outside long enough in Dubai to get burnt and in my effort to abandon all unnecessary items I left the sunscreen before coming to sunny Jordan. Back home on Saturday and reallllly looking forward to it. I am exhausted.

no work and all play

2008-08-02T23:31:00.005+04:00

current

Finally done with work! We had our presentation on wednesday and it went very well. Brett did a good job of prepping us and we actually rehearsed a fair amount.

with a bit of work, i finally sorted out a trip to jordan. because of no visa, i probably won't be able to make it to pakistan. i leave for jordan on the 11th and then come back to madison on the 16th. i already have a lonely plant for jordan, so amman and petra are already on the list. i think my cousin may recommend one or two more places, but i have less than a week there.

by contrast, i have more than a week here in dubai and not that much to do. i will go to the gym, read books, watch movies, and hopefully visit some more with other mac kids. Soham is back in dubai now, Haider and I had dinner with him before Haider left (yup, he's back in pakistan so i am flying solo here).

news

pictures for you from france.

there was a rollerblading party
we found cool drawings at the pompidou

we went out for sushi (the mango and crab was the best)

fam on the arc de triomphe, with eiffel tower in the background
a little whirl on the ferris wheel

and then we had some burgers.

France was the perfect vacation. It came just when I needed it and it was good to be with the sibs. And I know that I've told all of you this by now, but the weather was perfect.

I think I am gonna find some museums to go to this week and head over to Jumeirah (the palm and the madinat) and who knows what else? early morning at the beach? desert bbq? mountains of fujairah? i'm sure i'll find something.

i think i found an apartment for madison, if the poster responds to my email. now it's time to start thinking about plans for the spring/fall 09. another country? job/fellowship? hmmmm

no end in sight

back in the USA ... eventually

2008-07-28T02:46:00.005+04:00

current

i've returned to dubai from paris. took a nap this afternoon (5 to 9 pm, whups) which has amplified my jetlag. wrote a paper for work tonight. [editor's note. as i finish this entry i am forced to point out that i am suffering the consequences of the light nap. it is 5 in the morning and i don't think i will sleep tonight]

still no computer. the service center here sent it to europe for repair, now it's there waiting for a part. the computer i am using is my roommate's and doesn't have the processing capacity to deal with pictures, so those will have to wait.

i've just a short time left in dubai, until i move on to my next destination (yet to be decided). the choices are jordan, pakistan, usa, and anywhere else. i have to wait a few days to receive my stipend and then i will start booking tixxx.

our final presentation is this wednesday, and our preparation is still in its infancy (honestly it's younger, still just a twinkle in my eye...) the head honcho, however, is now in paris and may not return in time for our presentation. this is frustrating because, the whole purpose of this internship is to instill a sense of business responsibility in academic youths. but if our role model (presumably the CEO) is not modeling good behavior, well then however are we to learn?

news

i think it will be easiest to share with you excerpts of my journal...from france. from here. whenever. I keep a journal and a blog because the process and product of writing are significantly more rewarding than the output of typing. i can reach more of you, however, via typing.

JULY 20
Sunday in Paris. Slept in LATE today. til 12 and didn't leave the hotel until 2:30. The hotel is at the Saint Paul metro near le Marais and la Bastille. It's a good neighborhood. Lots of restaurants, markets, and shops. It's on Rivoli and we can walk to Pompidou and the Louvre with no problem.

We went to the Louvre, saw the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, Venus de Milo, plus an open statue area that I had never visited before. We went to check email and buy tix for the underground train to London, but they were too $BANK$. We went to Pompidou next. I was worried because I was sick of it last time. But I walked thru backwards and it had some new rooms.
"Is that Jeff Bloomin?"
Basically it was more exciting that I expected. Then we came back towards St. Paul and had sushi for din-din. The maki was soso but the crab & mango cali rolls were delicious.

We came back to the hotel for a refresher and then walked thru the wondrously winding
streets of la Bastille (mostly w/bars and restaurants)full of young peeps - even @ 11pm on a Sunday!

It's a lot of fun being with Casey and Michael, telling each other jokes from the Office & Tim and Eric Awesome Show, checking out each others' newest fashion sense & whateva. Paris is to me everything that Dubai isn't - a city with history, museums, architecture, new fashion, very beautiful people, neighborhoods to walk thru, etc!

and the weather today was perfect.

JULY
22
u nvr axd me, "()"

I want some juice, with ice. My own room, my friends, a cinema, money, a bagel with cream cheese, turkey, spinach, and cheddar. SPACE TIME PURPOSE ACTIVITY POWER INFLUENCE ATTENTION

cramped

this is, in fact, jeff bloomin. in case any of you wondered.

i have more things to tell you, about Dubai and work today and some books. But I have a lot of morning in front of me.

family reunion

2008-07-18T18:59:00.002+04:00

current

packing for france! trying to do laundry and take care of my travels docs before i leave for the airport at 10. also i wanted to post here and send out some emails, i won't be on the internet much while in paris.

news

still no working laptop. and since i lost my ipod, now i am using one of the shuffles. it's actually pretty convenient. the price for the nano isn't that much more, but you can't beat the minimal design of the shuffle.

this week we worked at ACE and one day with Marks and Spencers. At Ace we didn't have that much to do, but it was fun to see. We were hosted by a great guy from South Africa, who is currently the retail operations manager but before used to be the personal chef to the president of South Africa. intresting, huh? While at Ace we also went out to the Jebel Ali Free Zone and saw some of the logistics and SCM that Al Futtaim outsources. The company we met was by far the scariest of the summer. They are a huuuuge global solutions provider. They will transport anything for you, at a price. Their rep. was telling us about the live sharks, fish, WHALES, tigers, and lions that they are currently transporting into Dubai. Next up are penguins and polar bears. But shhhhh! don't tell everyone because a lot of the environmental people don't like that kind of thing. Other than animal transport, they mentioned they sub-contract to some other companies when they need *other* flexible transport solutions, especially ones that cross international borders. the nice aspect was that when we went to lunch, we did get to meet the group president. who woulda thunk it?

what else? I'm trying to coordinate with my cousin Maria to go visit her in Jordan in early August. She's actually in Wisconsin right now, visiting the rest of the family, but she will be back soon. Working on finding a place to live in Madison for the fall, the tricky part is that I only want to live on the East Side and require a pretty flexible lease. Any takers out there?

Last night we went out with another friend from Mac, Proma - Iwas her mentor this past year- and some of her friends from work (French folks). We were of different ages, so we had some trouble getting into the venues, but one place finally let us in and we found out it was one of the top 10 bars in the world! we had a littttttle bit of trouble finding out way around new dubai but it was fun to meet up with old friends and make new ones. also got the chance to bust out some French before I arrive there tomorrow.

Hmm Haider and I had a funny thing happen yesterday, as we were leaving our hotel room we ran into one of the AF group directors (soon to be chairman of Robinsons in Singapore, which AF just bought) in the hallway. turns out he is staying across the hallway from us!!! Butttt he didn't have his glasses on and it took him some time to recognize us, so it ended up as a pretty awkward moment.

Thenn today I woke up (relatively) early to drive 1.5 hrs (with ram, always an adventure) to Abu Dhabi to meet a friend of a family friend. He's Lebanese, but spent a lot of time in Cali, worked as an MD with our friend Mark, and just came over here to UAE last fall. We went for a lunch at the Emirates Palace and just talked. It was a lot of fun because we share so much and yet are so different. He's a competitive Bio grad from UC Irvine (neuro hotspot) who then went to grad school at USC. Now he's a divorced father of 5 (4 girls and 1 boy). So we talked about families, school & careers, and coming over to the UAE from the states. If I have the time to meet him again after France I certainly will. He hasn't made it down to Dubai yet, so I'll have to bring him down here (but I won't know where to take him other than the malls...)

short and sweet today. no pics and no cpu to put them up with anyway. i'm cerrrtain i'll snap some en paris. so stay tuned for updatesss

molson golden

the office

2008-07-13T22:20:00.002+04:00

current
this crap browser that i am using won't let me format, but if you look at my last two posts you can see that i was trying to start a trend.

basically, today was the best day of the summer because it was exactly like the office.
we met with the 'buyers' for one of the companies and sat in on one of their weekly meetings. it was absolutely mind numbing, and no one in the room would have disagreed with me. and then the buyers told us about their vendors. and how they go to trade fairs to keep track of the vendors' products. so basically the sales crew in 'the office' are the vendors and i was with their counterparts today, the buyers.

and thennn, during the meeting, the 40 something british man named ashley with frosted tips started flirting with the 30 something filipino woman with braces and gave her a chocolate. she kept saying "merry christmas" whenever he delivered good news.

as if that wasn't enough... the buyers' manager (yes that's michael scott,for those of you keeping track at home)started telling us his 15 rules of negotiation!!! the most insightful being "always think like a dolphin". i can't wait until tomorrow to try out some of my negotiation skills on him, like suddenly changing the location of the meeting, or refusing to speak first!!!

end
tonight i will spend all of my free time on wikipedia, learning the art of negotiation (and reverse psychology)

technical difficulties

2008-07-11T18:02:00.003+04:00

current

my laptop is broken, again. it was broken freshmen year, stolen junior year, and broken again senior year. luckily i have most of my files backed up this time except, as i just realized, a lot of my pictures. so, this post will not have much in the way of visual support. however, if i am able to successfully navigate my last repair, apple care, and find an authorized repair center here, i should might be able to recover them.

with reduced cpu access i have turned my free time to books. namely, finishing off revolutionary road and starting shogun again. read this quote from revolutionary road. it comes from april wheeler, a young & unsatisfied suburbanite.

"i had this idea that there was a whole world of marvelous golden people somewhere, as far ahead of me as the seniors at Rye when I was in sixth grade; people who knew everything instinctively, who made their lives work out the way they wanted without even trying, who never had to make the best of a bad job because it never occurred to them to do anything less than perfectly the first time. Sort of heroic-super people, all of them beautiful and witty and calm and kind, and I always imagined that when I did find them I'd suddenly know that I belonged among them, that I was one of them all along, and everything in the meantime had been a mistake; and they'd know it too. I'd be like the ugly duckling among swans."

I enjoy this quote because I find it easy to relate to, in fact I was planning to spend my social time with those marvelous golden people once I'd returned to Madison this fall. Also the bit about never having to make the best of a bad job, at the moment I am considering not working this fall if I don't find a job that fits my requirements. But perhaps it would be better to have some experience rather than none?

as far as shogun goes, it's a much more entertaining novel. i am able to follow the tale of pilot blackthorne, an Englishman washed ashore in Japan in the ... 1600s? Forced to fit into their culture and survive, succeed,etc,etc. This choice was inspired by my recent stint in the Japan and is an excellent way to spend my time.

news

my brothers have made it to the spanish language village in MN. i think there was a bit of a fuss as they settled (liam y grady son mis hermanos) but hopefully they are having a better time. i think my friend from mac, tim, is working there around this time so maybe they will spend the 2 weeks together? i still remember when tim visited our house one fall break and we played monopoly with my little brothers. liam (age 9 at the time) landed on one of tim's properties and tim failed to notice, and did not collect rent. once the next player moved and it was too late to collect the rent. liam teased tim for being "stupid" in front of paul and nis and the rest of us. liam was little and excited to brag about having tricked a college student. tim is gentle and not usually competitive, so he was a bit hurt to be mocked. the game continued until a few turns later, when tim was able to pull the same trick at liam's expense. at which point he blurted, "WHO'S STUPID NOW? LIAM!" Hahahahahah. That's the same fall break as 'which seat in the suburban is the safest?' and 'scoop it out, matthew', stories some of you already know and the rest may hear eventually.

we spent the last week working in the IKEA in DFC. it was a good place to be, the people were friendly and the environment was comfortable. IKEA follows a very strict franchise model, so it is one of the places we have visited with the least obvious Al-Futtaim influence. We actually learned a bit about business practices, they were very open about the IKEA concept and the way the design every aspect of the store to take care of the customer and earn money. Some of the lessons might have been good to know during the StarBooks era ... Early on while at GMASCO we learned the AIDA marketing technique: Attention,Interest, Desire, and Action. All steps in the consumer purchasing process. IKEA hasthe best method to induce ACTION that I have seen, in the form of their Breathtaking Items (BTIs). They are the small things (this month scrub brushes) placed at the entrance and sold at prices low enough to only cover cost. This technique immediately turns the client from visitor to customer, and starts the spending process.

It was also fun to hear about the stores' founder, whose stubbornness and swedishness make me think of nis ...

we are putting together our .ppts for our japan trip & experience a little difficulty on the group cooperation end, but hopefully the troubles will solve themselves shortly. putting together a bizniz presentation is much different than aschool one. basically it has to be much more interesting and much less grounded in fact/research/anything...

morale

with the computer difficulties, just so-so. but i am having some fun spending time with haider and osmoon. and mail from the states (and france) is starting to find me here at sofitel, so i suppose things will be just swell. also the movie funny games is showing here in dubai (i have no idea why/how) but i look forward to seeing that when able.

next week is at ACE hardware (why?) that seems like too long to learn about a big box version of a familiar brand ... but they follow the a licensing model more than a franchise one, so maybe we will learn on that front.

wish me luck getting my cpu back -- i'll most certainly need it

-molson golden

JACK REBNEY REPORT

2008-07-05T21:16:00.009+04:00

current

some of you know about found footage festival. 2 classy guys collected a bunch of home videos and old exercise tapes and now present them to live crowds, with commentary. they tape the shows and then sell them as dvds to fans (meeee).

*the* classic clip is of jack rebney, the extremely disgruntled rv salesman. today i can relate to him, i quote "my mind is just a piece of shit this morning."

news - dubai

we just got back from japan yesterday and then went straight to the yacht to celebrate majid's birthday. we took the yacht to a club that was throwing a beach party ... it was straight from the movies but maybe more extravagant. at the same time, it wasn't particularly enjoyable. neither haider nor i drinks ... everyone there was rich or trying to go home with someone that was rich ... it was amusing to view for awhile, but no fun to be around for long. of course then the party moved onto the yacht and there was drinkingsleepingpassingoutgirlsandboys DRAMMA and we slept for a few hours and then took out the other boat to go fishing at 7AM. we caught some huge fish (hammour) immediately, it wasn't sooo much fun because the poles are electric reels and there are like 5 crew on deck to help us bring in the fish once the motorized reel is done pulling it in.

yes, we did eat our catch for lunch.

butttt on the plus side we did get to spend some more time around some of majid's friends. actually cool people. some of them study in the states (virginia and DC) and one was actually born there (vegas) and then moved to saudi and then UAE. the guy studying in the states was talking about a jewish history class he took - which was cool because of the way the UAE feels about jews/israel. it was the first time anyone on this trip has brought up the notion that something interesting has ever happened in a classroom.

morale

i could launch into a monologue about my general discontent with the culture here in the UAE but i'll spare myself the typing. to stay concise, i don't find this lifestyle rewarding enough to merit the cost (time, mental and physical and social effort, commitment, etc).

news- japan

i have gone on without even wrapping up japan
a) i suppose i need to interject and point out that KITKAT chingching was the unofficial sponsor of our japan tour.
b) we saw people walking around inside the imperial palace which is crazy because people are only allowed in twice a year (and this wasn't one of the days) so we saw divine people.

c) i nearly died at the tokyo tower because i was certain that i was going to fall thru the glass displaying how high in the air you are.

d)on our last night in toyko we went to a small sushi joint run by a husband and wife. it was me, the arab brothers (majid and hamad), the pakistani (haider), and our tour guide. the only other guy was an 80 year old retired biznizman. after downing too many rounds of octopus, eel, tuna, and fish eggs we were invited to 'an interesting place' by the geezer.

he said we would go to a place with beer and 'nice chinese girls'- but we wouldn't have to drink. i tried to steer our group clear by pointing out that none of us had enough cash on us to enjoy the facilities, whether we would be drinking or not, but the group as a whole was too determined to see the chinese girls to be dissuaded. the octopus in my stomach rolled as i thought back to my last strip club experience. while in montreal, my roommate of freshman year had insisted we go to the cheapest strip club in the city and for the rest of that night i was stuck trying to avoid the flat beer that was being spilled on me and instead focus my attention on the 45 yr old women on stage ...

so when we walked into this german place called 'Beer' the lighting was too good, the floor to clean, and the clientèle too sober to be, well it was simply a normal restaurant. we sat down and the 80 year old's fav. waitress came over to take our order, a 20 year old chinese girl dressed in full german attire. he laughed with her and pointed at us and i sighed in relief when i was certain she was going to keep her clothes on. the language barrier was pretty serious ... but he drank sake and ordered us a round of raw horse to eat as we talked about ... chopsticks, dubai, and chopsticks again.

e)after tokyo we spent a night in hakone and then left from osaka. hakone is an area in the mountains that used to be a checkpoint for those traveling to edo. it's a hot spring area, so it smelled just like yellowstone park. we climbed one of the mountains, at the top they hardboil eggs in the thermal water until the shells earn black and then serve them to be eaten. for each egg you eat, you live 7 years longer, so despite the sulphuric smell i managed to down one for longevity's sake.

we spent the night at a traditional japanese inn and spent all of our short time there either at dinner or in the hot springs. we dressed in trad. clothes too so check it out
majid isn't pictured here because he slept literally the whole time we were in hakone.
toooo many other pictures to share, hakone was the best.

the hot springs/sauna/cold tubs were super relaxing and akira san our tour guide snuck in to take nudie photos of us while we bathed. i don't have any digital copies of the photos, but he did provide us with a photobook including hard copies, so maybe a few of you lucky readers ..

back to the daily grind of dubai tomorrow. and then by the end of the week we have to give our japan presentation to mr. omar and all of the directors. really i think we have to do some serious work before thrs and i am struggling to find a theme around which we can frame our 'learnings' as brett would call them.

haider has a friend, osmoon, from pakistan in town. we had dinner with him tonight and he is cool.

i am trying to go to abu dhabi this week to meet up with a friend (amine) of a friend (mark) for dinner.

i just bought the oldiegoodie 'shogun' by james clavell. i think i read it in middle school but those 2 weeks in japan made me really want to read the one thousand page version of the last samurai...

paris. 2 weeks. doyleson family reunion. be there or be []

T-O-K-Y-O

2008-06-29T11:46:00.007+04:00

here we are in the big city.

i know i already mentioned going fishing, but here are some photos.

here is the crew

happy birthday majid
the mast fisher at work.
the catch. headed for the imperial palace.

after nagoya, we spent two nights in osaka. on friday we went to nara to visit shrines and temples. after having a rather lavish lunch (2.5k per plate) we went to one of the temples. it surrounded by tamed deer, which loved to be fed with crackers.

once we were in the shrine, some local schoolgirls wanted to have a photoshoot with us

one of my favorite parts of the temples are the statues. this one was one of two guardians placed near the entrance

and below you can see us in front of one of the oldest buildings in japan. this pagoda is over 1000 years old. many of the shrines and temples that we visit have been reconstructed time and time again because fires are so common here.

then on saturday we went to the island of miyajima for the morning and then to the peace memorials & museum at hiroshima. it was strange to be at hiroshima as an american. there were a lot of japanese there, a lot of europeans, and a lot of american soldiers (in civilian clothing). there is a marine post not so far away from the memorial, as i understand it.

on saturday night we ran away from our tour guides and snuck into an italian restaurant. we were able to successfully order pizza and cokes without any hired help!

sunday morning we woke up early to take the shinkansen (bullet train) to tokyo. it goes as fast as 300km/hr i believe, and it still was a 3 hour trip. my friend megumi's mom (peggy) was waiting for us at the station. she joined us for lunch and the first part of our tokyo tour. she is an american who has lived in japan for 30 years and studies its history. she is also a loud and direct and smart person. so when she joined our tour she really joined it, and put the other tour guides to shame (she knew more about the city and the country than they did). she taught us cultural lessons at lunch (reasons behind taking off shoes, how to place our chopsticks when they are not in use - if you stick them straight into the rice it means you are at someone's funeral) and then she took us to a museum of the city's history and guided us through it. i was extremely grateful to have a new person take direction of the group/tour. it was much needed breath of fresh air.

here we are all the museum togetherrrrr.
then we checked into the hotel and went back out to meet up with some mac kids.
i worked as a mentor with both shoko and jun, and jun was haider's mentor. they are both japanese and currently working in japan, so we got in touch and went out for dinner. they brought another friend who is a student at stanford and working at IBM this summer and we all went out for indian food. it was really exciting to see shoko again because she graduated 2 years before me and it was great to see jun as well. it is cool to know that through the mentor program, i can go pretty much anywhere in the world and find someone i know.

we also spent a bit of time shopping and i did find some transformers, including a soundwave figure who actually plays music!!! so of course i bought it.

i think i'll still use my ipod most of the time .... but it's a fun toy to have.

time to run to the imperial palace now ... sayonara

toyota city

2008-06-26T01:38:00.003+04:00

here we are in nagoya, a city of 2 million people. just outside is 'toyota city', home to toyota global HQ. we have spent the last 2 days meeting with toyota's UAE team & touring various facilities. we've been to 3 or maybe 4 museums/commemorative halls/exhibition halls to learn about the toyoda family and the transition of the company from an automatic looming company to an automotive one. it was actually more interesting that i thought that it would be, the first time. after that it was terribly repetitive.

we also went to a car factory. i think dad took us to a GM factory before we got our suburban. it's no wonder that toyota dominating the world auto scence, none of their employees were asleep on the floor (sorry GM janesville ...).

last night we did the ukai fishing. i think i mentioned it a few days ago ... the fisher holds 12 birds on a rope around their necks and lets them catch the fish. once they have one he pulls them into the boat and collects the fish. we went out and had dinner on our boat, and then watched them go fishing some more. they were collecting fish for the imperial palace. it was majid's birthday yesterday, so there was cake. we got him a collection of crazy japanese things that you can find in a japanese convenience store, including tiny underwear and cartoon pornography. i think he appreciated the gesture (who wouldn't)? but he's not very emotive.

let's see ... it's early thr morning here, we have to spend abouut 7 hrs of our day today traveling,
first to another car factory (to put it bluntly, they're the worst. not interesting in the least). and then we check out of the hotel tonight and go back to osaka. which reminds me, right now i am checked into 3 different hotel rooms: nagoya, osaka, and dubai. crazyyy shit, huh?

okay i have to run and catch a train. more pics coming soon.

feed the animals

2008-06-22T19:20:00.010+04:00

first up, new music. my sister indirectly reminded me that girl talk released his latest album (it's pay as you please, so check the link). i've listened once or twice - doesn't have the shock value of night ripper, the songs are prolly less classic, but it's still pretty good. it doesn't have the same gestalt value as the first one, but it took me a few listens on night ripper to learn to listen, so maybe this will also grow with time.

we also happened to go to tower records tonight (we were going to not-so-ironically watch 'the last samurai', but that fell thru). there, they had an ed banger recs display (because vol 3 is out now). i didn't get vol 3 (uffie: yes. justice: yes. dj mehdi: yes please! but mr oizo, so me, krazy baldhead ... mmm not for my $bank$). but i did find a black ghosts album and mixtape with some songs on it that i like. i also saw a cut copy album, listened to a few tracks (the word for track in french is 'piste'. isn't that nifty?*) and bought it too. i've listened to them now and they were gooood picks. i desperately needed new music and it will be good to have with my 4+ hours of travel time tomorrow (i didn't go for tha carter III because i have already listened to 'lollipop' hundreds of times and have had the rest of the leak for months.)

the travel time tomorrow is so much because we are going to 2 diff. panasonic factories. one is the matsushita eco-technology centre (METEC). from what i have heard it does some serrrious recycling, maybe i will throw some digits at ya after tomorrow. later in the day we are going to have our last dinner with miyazaki-san (he is a panasonic rep who has been one of our many tour guides over the last few days) and then meet up with another mac student after dinner. jun was a mentor with me my 2nd year and she was haider's mentor as well. she is from kyoto, but couldn't meet us on friday. she'll be in osaka tomorrow so we are gonna meet up for mentor fun!

speaking of kyoto and being there on friday, that's where we were on friday. we aren't the only ones who think it's a good idea to visit kyoto in japan, evidently 70 million tourists go every year. crazzzy. we started with a boat ride down the hozugawa river. ayumi was our tour guide, and provided me with the above fact, and generally kept us well informed throughout the rest of the day. the boat ride brought us down a river that crept between misty mountains covered in heavy forests. it wasn't a sunny day, but it was beautiful. we saw turtles, herons, and cormorants, and went down a few little rapids. above is a picture of the boat we went on and below is a picture of a train line that followed most of the river from the mountain side. it's an old line, used for only for the 'romantic line' these days, a sightseeing ride.
at the end of the ride, a little motor boat pulled up alongside of us and tied itself to us. they sold drinks and snacks. the guys got some kettlefish and i tried some dumplings, it was a nifty little schooner and the people on it were nice!

with the rest of our time in kyoto we went to some temples and a castle.
one of the temples we visited is the rokuon-ji temple, home to the golden pavilion (see below). i don't remember everything that ayumi taught us, but i believe the temple was built by a shogun, who built the pavilion in three layers. the bottom layer represents the aristocratic class, the middle layer the samurai (not sure on this one???) and the top layer the monks. the top of the pavilion is graced by a phoenix. the phoenix means 'uniting people' and its presence on top of the 3 layers was meant as a symbol of his ability to preside over all 3 different classes ... it's a pretty building. we weren't allowed inside, but they did tell us that george w. was when he visited ... which doesn't seem quite right because wasn't there a certain kyoto protocol that he opted out of ??
i'm having trouble remembering the name of the other temple that we went to, but it was also fun building to visit. i like seeing the different style of architecture. check my fbook for some more pix of that one. finallllly, we went to the NIjo-jo castle and walked around. the floors were built to be squeaky in case of ninjas, and they were noisily effective. everyone kept laughing when i told them that i wanted to live in a castle, when i grow up, but i still want to do it. miyazaki-san said that i would have to either win the lottery or marry the daughter of a duke of japan. for the record, i am willing to do either of those 2 things to live in a castle. anyway, here's a picture of me and haider in front of my future house?
once we got home from kyoto we all collapsed before going back out again. i am actually experiencing the worst jet lag of my life right now (the rest of the group is also suffering), i think it's because i have little control over when i do things (very tight itinerary) like sleep or how much i am eating (miyazaki-san always orders way too much and i eat a lot of food that i don't like to be polite). when we went back out we went to karaoke, without any tour guides. maybe we could have used them this time, because the people there spoke zero english. but, we made it to a room, and then had some fun.

sometimes certain people (the writers of 'lost in translation' and even me) have been known to highlight the japanese difficulty pronouncing 'r's and 'l's in a comedic fashion. i don't know how culturally insensitive the practice it is, but fooooo real it's not culturally inaccurate. please see this karaoke listing for the FUGEES:
that amused me to no end, but i was pretty much the only one in the room who cared.

on saturday, we went to universal studios japan, which was ... universal studios. the only noteworthy thing there was that panasonic supplied us with some special bracelets that allowed us to cut to the front of any line for a ride, which we definitely took advantage of. the jurassic park ride was wayyy more fun than i remembered (basically just the big dive and splash at the end). but never ever ever go to see backdraft, under any circumstances. oh yeah, all of the movies and presentations were in japanese, which was prettttty annoying by the end of the day. once we came back from the studios, we crashed again. or in my case once we got in the car to come back from the studios.

then we had a dinner with someone important from panasonic. the restaurant was on a converted estate that had been owned by a duke, and was really impressive. it had a waterfall and a garden (with fireflies) that surrounded the estate. plus there was a rolllls parked out front (but no bentley). we ate more saga beef and i had lobster (for the first time in my life i think). the lobster was pretty good, but they cut them in half and then cooked them on an open stove while they were still alive. right in front of us. that was definitely disturbing (tho evidently not disturbing enough to prevent me from chowing down).

after dinner i am pretty sure we slept some more, and then haider and i tried to go gambling at an arcade. i say tried because we couldnt figure out the yen to token converter, and then we couldnt figure out how to get the tokens into the slots for about a half an hour. after finally asking for help (with hands, because no one spoke english) and being directed by staff to another floor of the casino, we spent 100 yen (about one dollar) losing at slots. we settled on some basketball, air hockey, and the drum game again before calling it quits.

today we finallly got the chance to sleep in, and did so until about 3 pm. we had lunch at 4 and then went to visit some multi-brand electronics retailers (one of the stores was 10 stories tall).
these visits had something to do with our internship, because the japanese electronical market is perhaps the most mature in the world and therefore can serve as a role model for al-futtaim group electronics retailing (which is also multi-brand) ... but i think i'll save that discussion for my presentation in a couple of weeks (have to talk to omar when we get back from japan, 100 milesperhour)

this weekend is the first time that i have started to feel homesick (for macalester, for madison).
i have plenty of things to do, and they are mostly fun. i get along well with all of the people, but
it's hard to tell them exactly what i want to say because they are all new people to me (you could say that this problem is killing me softry). plus i don't have a working phone here, so it's been harder to have realtime conversations with people from back home. not that i was able to all of the time in UAE, but i could more regularly.

speaking of home, where will home be next & when will i arrive there?
right now i am planning to come back and get a place in madison this fall, and spend some time visiting twin cities, oberline (mik is going), ples elsewhere. casey and i talked and she might take over a lease from me in jan. so i can scoot out somewhere (?) again. hm. i'll find out soon enough i guess.

time to think a bit about total quality management (tqm) as its my focus for our presentation (110 milesperhour) and we are going to the factories tomorrow.

night.

*base taught me that

crunky in osaka (then kyoto)

2008-06-19T19:22:00.008+04:00

at the local convenience store we found crunky bars, which always help get the party started.

we came in to osaka thru kansai last night. the flight was verrrry comfortable and we all slept most of the way. haider & i are sharing a room and majid & haider have one. we have 2 different helpers staying in the same hotel. one is a panasonic rep. and the other is a language facilitator and tour guide.

we slept early at 10 (after eating an amazing japanese dinner; mostly of fish and chicken). hamad and majid called at 4 am ... i had been up at 3. we got some room service, learned some essential japanese vocab words, and then went sightseeing at 5 am. we found a mcdonald's, a convenience store, a photobooth (we took pics, but no digital copy) and a shrine.

someone was kind enough to take our pic, then we returned to the hotel to eat breakfast and start our day.

we spent the morning learning about the matsushita business philosophy. matsushita is an electronics production company that owns panasonic. the presentation was really interesting. i was especially surprised by their commitment to the environment. they plan to reduce C02 emissions by 300k tons next year (altho of how many total?)

for lunch we had italian ... which was raw snapper followed by an unknown soup and then pasta with dried fish and then veal. not exactly the italian cuisine with which i am familiar

we spent the afternoon at the house of history where we learned a little too much about konosuke matshushita, the founder of the company.
we all fell asleep on the car ride home and then took a nap until it was dinner time.

for dinner we went to a traditional sukiyaki (cook as you like) house. we ate saga beef, which is finely marbled meet. it is cooked in sugar and soy sauce and then dipped into raw eggs before eating. the food tasted wayyy better than i expected- it was probably actually the best meal that i have had all summer. i'm also getting pretty good with chopsticks, i could handle the beef and noodles and onions, but i crushed the tofu while trying to pick it up ... 2 more weeks to practice

after dinner we walked back to the hotel through a shopping arcade. there was a light rain, which helped cool us off in the warm evening. we got back too early to sleep, so we went out again to look for ??? anything. we found convenience shops open, but the mall was all closed by 11pm. even at the cinema, the last showing was at 840 or 910. sooo we started to head back, but then we stumbled into an arcade. it was surprisingly occupied, mostly by chain-smoking, aging men. we drove taxis around, raced each other, and then had a drum-off (think drumline; here's the best scene of the movie, but if you haven't seen the whole thing you should probably go rent it right now.)

on our way back to the hotel, we ran into some b-girls practicing their routine. they were pretty good and we tried to offer our services to improve the performance- but they were so focused that they didn't really notice our efforts. maybe it is we who need more practice.

tomorrow we wake up earrrrrrly (6 hrs from now) to go to kyoto to visit a palace and raft along a river. i'm sure there will be more pictures & stories soon (universal studios on sat!!!!)

sayonara

"i don't know if you'll be going to hong kong tho"

2008-06-16T20:43:00.007+04:00

[<-Haider and I at the Intercon hotel last week. kool & the gang hung out in these same chairs in January]

this afternoon we were at the training centre (our HQ @ al-futtaim) talking about our upcoming trip to japan. we were talking with one of our bosses about which brands/companies we were going to visit, especially those that are partners w. al-futtaim. "yeah, " he said, "and the biggest toys-r-us in the world is there. i don't know if you'll be going to hong kong tho."

we've spent the last days working at plug-ins, (they don't do online sales tho!) the UAE's best stab at best buy. every day we hear about how they sell electronix- so that part isn't fascinating. it is interesting to hear about the structure of the company, the way the people/functions flow together. the bigger picture of the al-futtaim group is starting to become clear, now that we are on our 3rd or 4th stop. today someone was talking to us about prepping for bizniz presentations, and told us with a straight face: "if i know myself and i know my enemy, i can fight 100 battles without losing." no way! i can't believe they take themselves so seriously.

morale is generally low here: we are struggling to sort out how we'll get our paychex, the hotel & company are still mis communicating about the room service charges (i think we have run up a bill > $ 1 k already), our driver forgot what time to show up this morning, and ... the list goes on.

we look forward to japan as a beacon on our horizon. we went to YO! Sushi for lunch yesterday and it was delicious! it was my first time ever at a sushi bar, it was a fun way to get my food, and i am starting to eat the raw fish/crab/etc & like it well enough. at dinner last night i had to choose a starter and couldn't pick one. so i got something called tarrine(?) which consisted of cold pork, goose, and rabbit (the goose tasted like tuna). i much preferred the raw fish covered in wasabi.

back to our work, here is a little photo tour of our past 2 days:

here we are experiencing the home theatre at plug-ins

and enjoying the biggest display of panel tvs in the world

then we rolled up our sleeves for an afternoon in the toyota workshop.
they service over 500 cars per day here, building the brand one customer at a time.
majid has come here in his free time for years, to learn how the cars work & even fix them himself... but today he was just directing us (practice as CEO?)

and then we finished the day with a treat! dome cheesecake, amazing. the guys had bluebuerry, but i insisted on cherry.

tomorrow we wrap up at plug ins, & then we have some time to pack our bags until we catch the 2:30 AM flight direct to Osaka. wonder what it's gonna be like once we get there???
i guess that depends whether or not we make it to hong kong ...

happy graduation

2008-06-14T01:46:00.005+04:00

today is michael's graduation from high school. great job! back in the day, that would have meant playing 'pomp & circumstance' on my viola for 4 hours at the kohl center. but things change.

the presentations to the automotive directors well went. majid came into work late, which was frustrating. i think we are gonna talk some this weekend about the goals for the summer and work on giving each other critical feedback. hopefully that will be a fruitful conversation.
haider is still not back at city centre. his flight was supposed to come in an hour ago, but it was delayed. he seriously has the worst luck with travel.
yesterday i went out to dinner with soham's (one of my old mentees) parents. they took me out to an indian restaurant, where the food was delicious (chicken, lamb, tofu-looking cottage cheese, and prawn). they were great company, and we plan to meet up again once haider is back & once we return from japan. i just found out today that osaka will be our base of operations in japan. we will be staying at the swissotel. here is a picture of the pool:
what else what else? today i slept in. kept reading revolutionary road - the main lesson i am learning from that book is not to take a dull job for the purpose of making $bank$. it was an option on the table for me (and it might come up again at the end of this internship) so it is good to be reminded ... then i went shopping for a bit. later, majid, ali, sarah, eva and i went out to see 'kung fu panda'. i told michael that i was going to see the movie and he said to me, "even your little brothers don't wanna see that movie". i pretty much agreed and i thought we had lucked out when we got to the crowded theatre & there were no tix left for the movie. so, we when to see marky mark in 'the happening' m night shyamalan's latest mistake. the writing reminded me of 'HOOOKIN' UP!!!' by ron greenberg.
chchchcheck it.

crunch time

2008-06-12T00:15:00.002+04:00

i have to be at work in 8 hours. that's no good.
didn't get to sleep much last night because we were at the yacht late and then had a project to work on.

today we kept mystery shopping. the salespeople in UAE are much less friendly than in US. i found myself putting out effort to maintain the conversations in the showroom. it was bizarre. i almost missed the sharks from back home. tomorrow we have to create, administer, and analyze a focus group, and then add what we find to our mystery presentation. we are presenting to the head auto honchos and word is they don't take kindly to criticism, constructive or otherwise.
we have to show up early to get all of this stuff done, so by presentation time i will be running on empty.

then after work, i am going over to a mentee's house for dinner. soham isn't actually here in dubai right now, but his parents are, so i am going to dine with them. i look forward to the dinner very much, but i am worried that i will have 0 energy left to be social. majid might come, but in any case it should be good.
affffter dinner we are then gonna go back to the boat, or i will meet up with them. we are plan to sleep over there (hopefully we will take it out too? although it may be too late) and it is aziz's last wknd in dubai so we will have some people over. should be fun, we were jet skiing at night yesterday, which was really cool (and prolly super safe too).

today aziz, ali, majid, and i went to the mall. majid wanted to get some louis vitton sandals, but they didn't have the right kind in stock. so he bought a couple $k's worth of camera gear instead. he is actually a really good photographer, he has been taking pics over the week & i am trying to get them from him to put up here.
after the mall, we went back to majid's house for dinner. we ate with hamad and omar, and omar gave us some more pointer's on the biz. that guy seems to be working 24-7- seriously intense. then we tried to work on our presentation for tomorrow, but instead we just swapped stories about paris and majid filled me in on the politicks of the al futtaim group. word is that the brits are out and aussies are in. but is there a future for americans?
okk i'm gonna call my bros to wish them a happy graduation ( i am missing mik's high school graduation, grady's 8th grade, and liam's 5th grade, plus the MEGA-doyleson gazebopalooza, quel dommage!!) and then crash.

reality bites (and then there was one)

2008-06-09T22:13:00.004+04:00

so ram picked me up from work today and brought me home. he is a sweet guy & asked very politely if he could have friday off. he also asked if i could give my recommendation to majid & hospitality director at the end of the summer. of course i told him that we would help him out. ram is from nepal, he is married and has 3 kids. he has been working here in dubai for 4 years and gets to go home for 30 days each year. although he doesn't go home, because his family now lives in india. we talked some more about his family. his oldest daughter is in 9th grade and she hopes to study at a university in the US.
he asked me to talk to her and talk to her about direction, future studies, and university in the states. so ... he texted me her email and i sent her a note. i told her a bit about mac plus i told her about the UWC schools. i don't really know what sort of help i can offer her, but i am willing to try ... and curious to see what she has to say.
the reason ram picked only me up is because head office told us that haider had to go home to get his visa for japan. so - they rushed him back to pakistan to take care of that. majid has been out for the last 2 days on a dental absence. so i spend the afternoon alone at Gulf Market Research, getting ready to be a **sEcRet** shopper!!!!1!!! which is my activity for the day tomorrow (and majid's, if he comes). on one hand i am kind of excited for time at GMR because it will probably be the stop that comes the closest to the work i did at mac, on the other hand, it's mostly about car sales....
just got word from haider, he is safe in pakistan. hopefully he will be back soon.

the girl effect.

2008-06-09T00:08:00.004+04:00

so i look at this website a lot: coolhunting.com. everyday it just posts a couple of things (products, ideas, people, etc) that its editors think are cool. sounds like it would suck, but i like a lot of the things i see there. recently they posted about a website called the girl effect.
the site is interesting. it suggests that to save the world, we invest (time/money/energy/efforts) in young girls from developing countries. statistically they are more likely to reinvest back into their family and community (than boys), so helping them would presumably help the girls/women & consequently everyone else more than current forms of aid. look at the site, it has a great intro, read it over and think about it. does it make sense to you?

today we finished with DFC and AFGRE. we toured the intercon (hotel side) and the festival centre. there was a guy from jordan, a guy from australia, a woman from dubai, a woman from slovakia, and a guy from detroit. he had actually worked/lived in milwaukee and was responsible for east towne and hilldale for a few years. weird huh? he was very nice- today saw the nicest and most natural people. at the same time he was kind of a tool because he said "making the most money possible" at least 5x over the course of the morning. according to him, the 3 goals of his dept are to: 1. make the most money possible 2. enhance the guest (read: people who come to the mall) experience 3. protect the brand, so yah ... kind of zzzzzz

lunch (at the bistro) was more interesting. the slovakian woman (never quite caught her name) was talking about how she was going to have a xmas party soon, because she hadn't taken down her tree yet, so she thought "what the hell, let's do xmas again", which was a refreshing example of personality and normal behavior that had so far been lacking from the people on the trip... also, this diverse group (all different ages too) were evidently partying together last wknd, because one woman (35yrs old) said to a guy (50-60 yrs) "we had another round after you left and then we went back to my place and watched some movies, we were up til like 4 in the morning" it was cool to hear that they are coworkers, but also a group of friends.

anyways, the slovakian continues to tell us that she is going on vacation soon to slovakia and then hungary and austria. she starts talking about austria and about some city where she is going ... she says that the beer is cheap and the women are beautiful. as if on cue, the american starts to pay attn to her and asks, "what's the name of that place? i wanna write it down." ha.ha. so she tells him and then she starts talking about vienna with respect to the women from the other city. i am half listening to her, but mostly i am paying attention to my lunch plate. i ordered the chicken, which turned out to be an entire chicken. it proved nearly impossible to cut into the chicken with just my fork and table knife as the bird kept rolling around the plate before i could pin it down to really dive in. so she goes on while i struggle "but their sisters in vienna aren't so lucky. they were bred with horses. all of the people in vienna marry in their own familes, because they all live in hamlets." i did all i could to not burst into laughter... but everyone else let it pass, so i think it looked like i was laughing at my own chicken. once we got back to the car i asked haider if he heard what i did and he confirmed it. then the jordanian guy with us says, "what does this word mean, bred?" ummmmmm
so. exhausted after work today, i took a nap. then played squash vs haider. he routinely mopped the floor with me (like nadal vs federer today). then we went to the nicer restaurant the hotel has: the ambiance was excellent, food delicious, and i had the chocolate beignet for dessert, with "sparkling fruit salad" which was basically fruit salad with pop rocks on top! (what are pop rocks and how do they work? ) now we're just hanging out (actually he's asleep now), before we go to work again in a few hours.

goooooooood night dubai! (good morning vietnam was on TV the other day ... i know, kind of a stretch)

saturday > friday

2008-06-07T23:00:00.013+04:00

FRIDAY
wasn't so hot. we slept in, went shopping, couldn't get a hold of majid, then we tried to go out to dinner at a place i found in the lonely planet for dubai, called the olive house.

to the left <- is a picture of the famous clock tower that we passed, it is one of the oldest landmarks in dubai.
so ram took us onto sheik zayed road (it is a famous one with lots of skyscrapers, including the tallest building in the world) but he had a little bit of trouble getting off of the main way to the restaurant. haider and i were frustrated because we had made a reservation ... and then we get to the place and the building is kind of falling apart, the food is so so, and the service is the worst. still we cant find majid (nobody has voicemail here) so we come back to city centre and go to the cinema. the ac is broken *** news flash we are watching some sort of MTV award show and they are giving and award to adam sandler and the tv here just censored tom cruise when he said the word "hanukkah" crazzzzzzzzy*** so the only movie still showing was prom night, which was the worst horror movie i've ever seen. the only plus side was that two of the detectives from the movie were stringer bell and ziggy from the WIRE.

SATURDAY
we were supposed to wake up at 7 am to go yachting with the al futtaim's - we got no call, so we slept in and then got some room service. we're starting to run out of groceries ... hopefully we get another infusion soon ... i was reading my book revolutionary road "an evocative portrayal of the opulent desolation of the American suburbs. Frank and April Wheeler, a bright, beautiful, and talented couple who have lived on the assumption that greatness is only just around the corner" when finally majid calls to go out to the yacht. so he picks us up in his tricked out lexus (the al futtaims take brand loyalty seriously ... what would the consumer think if the CEO didn't use his own product?) and we go out to an isolated yacht club and drive down a gravel road to small marina.

let me take you on a brief tour of the THUNDER

all aboard!

maybe you want a snack? how about some turkish delight?

or maybe a quick nap in one of the kids' bedrooms (2 and 3 beds each) or maybe this guest bedroom?
but why settle when you can crash in the master bedroom ...
check out my fbook for more pictures, but it's a pretty nice (88ft) air-conditioned yacht.
we didn't go out into the sea, we just stayed in the marina ... first things first we took out the racing jet skis. first i took a ride with majid and then i went for myself. these things moved fast and they were so easy to use, like no problem. after we played around on those for awhile (hamad sprayed me in the face pretty good) we went back to the boat. then we jumped off of the top deck into the marina, maybe 30-40 ft? everyone else took a turn, and i didn't want to be a wallflower so i leapt. the fall wasn't so bad, but as soon as my head went under hot, salty water rushed into my eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. it tasted like ... burning. i coughed my way back onto the boat and then we tied some of the inner tubes onto the jets. hamad took me out and spun me around for half an hour. he is a master rider and was spinning me in circles, bouncing me through his wake, and somehow slapping the rope into the water to splash onto me. i did my best and held on tight ... and he wasn't able to flip me for some time. once i got tired i yelled to him that enough is enough and told him to bring me back. "hamad" i yelled "don't flip me". thumbs up from him, so he revved the engine, took a sharp 90 degree turn and sent me flying out the the tube. water. burning. i popped back up to the surface (yes we were wearing life jackets) and he was saying "sorry" but couldn't stop smiling. he got me pretty good.
the boys kept tubing (haider couldn't get enough) and i read my book. once the sun set (it was a spectacular sight, as you might expect) we sat down and haider started to teach us bridge. it was just a beginner's version, but a lot of the rules were like euchre, so i caught on alright. it was me & majid playing against haider & cheeto (the head of the filipino crew that takes care of the boat). soo the yacht was amazing (flat screen tv, dvds, full fridge, at least half a dozen bathrooms, 4 bedrooms, jacuzzi, a mini crane for loading ski jets, tanning area, kitchen, plus a second set of everything for the crew's chambers). we are gonna try to go out again next weekend. majid says there is an island 1.5 hours away, and if we can we are gonna go on an overnight adventure!
tomorrow we are at DFC again, will be glad to have that done with. and then i think we move onto trading enterprises (jeep, volvo, honda, chrysler, dodge) for the rest of the week. cars? not my favorite, but i guess i'll have to wait and see what's in store for us.

ch-ch-ch-changes

2008-06-06T19:48:00.006+04:00

so I found this host is linked to gmail, plus it's format is more convenient and more functional.
i think i will settle here.

this is a snapshot of me ... holding the ad campaign from creative design for the fj cruiser, while we are about to go into the dunes in our fj cruiser.

here is one of haider (in my sunglasses of course)
after we changed into some slightly better desert gear (it was still verrrry hot out there)

below are some pictures of DFC, which we went to today. it's funny to me to see these brands in arabic...

A picture of some of the DFC housing ... with style inspired by Yemen

hip to be a square

2008-06-05T23:18:00.000+04:00

finally the weekend has come- i am exhausted.

this morning we started our first day at Al Futtaim Group Real Estate (AFGRE). we learned more about how they are developing dfc. it is truly a massive undertaking, you have to take a look at their site. they have schools, hundreds of shops, hotels, apartments, villas, hotels, marinas... the list goes on. now they have already started building another one in cairo and are close to starting one in qatar.

we toured some of the intercon residences and went back to the four seasons gulf course. the tour was better than the lecture about the sites in the morning. at least we got to walk around and interact a bit. in the afternoon we went back to the training center to debrief. we came back to the hotel, i went to the gym and haider went swimming. after that ram picked us up and took us to the creek and the gold souk. the souk was not a great combination of modern and old ... it was a much less glamorous side of the city. more normal people, more poor people. i did not see any of the traditional markets or buildings that i was expecting. the highlight of the souk maybe was when some guy at the jucie bar started chatting us up. we just ordered drinks but he was trying to sell us more. we were kind of ignoring him, but then we needed to ask him where to find the creek. so we turn to ask him where is the creek? he just nods yes. haider asks him in urdu and still he just nods. so i try one more time and i turn to him and ask, where is the water? he nods again and smiles this time. he leans in towards me and with a twinkle in his eye, points at the menu and says, "fish burger."

after that ram caught up with us and showed us to the creek, without any fish burgers. ram, by the way, is our driver, but he is actually from al futtaim security, so i prefer to think of him as our bodyguard. the creek was nicer. we spent some time next to it and then went to bur dubai and saw some historical parts of the city. we had dinner on the creek. it was good but it was soooo hot. it was 9, 930, dark and we could not stop sweating. usually the heat has a source, the sun, the radiator, the stove, something. here the heat comes from everywhere- sun shade it doesn't matter, it comes from the air around you. while we were eating our dinner some cats came out to spend time with us. there were three spotted cats that were playing under our table and just beside it ... i think they liked the smell of our kebab.

now we are back at sofitel. majid is at dinner with ahmed his brother and aziz his friend. we will go out with them tonight ... if we are still awake when they call. tomorrow we will do some shopping and then maybe go out into the city some more. then sometime this weekend we are supposed to go out with the al futtaim's on their boat, which should be splendid. if not that, we will find something else to occupy our leisure time.

that's it for now, i was listening to huey lewis earlier, hence the title. also we are pretty [] here in dubai, so ya know how that goes

Dune Bashing (walking the talk)

2008-06-04T23:18:00.000+04:00

i think i mentioned last time that we are working with the marketing branch of al futtaim to put together a mock campaign launch for the fj cruiser (i wish this program had spell check ...). anyway so we collected information from the client (UAE toyota) and presented to khaled, the head of creative here. over the course of the day they put together some concepts that we could use to turn around and present to the client as part of the marketing campaign.

some of the ideas they came up with seemed pretty good, here is one of the ads they put together for us based on our presentation

i thought that it was pretty good- the catchphrase of the campaign was that the fj cruiser is the "ultimate rugged off road performance vehicle". at the end of the day we (haider, majid, and myself) gave a presentation to the client to share with them the creative concepts from our firm. given that we had only 4 days on the job, and only 30 mins to put together the .ppt, i think that it went pretty well.

so since we had been talking about the FJ cruiser for 4 days straight and sellings its off road merits to our hypothetical clients all afternoon, we had to test it for ourselves. majid got his hands on a cruiser and we went with ali out into the desert to go dune bashing.

so this software kind of sucks... it just deleted 20 min worth of typing ***now 2x***. ok, recap the lost story: we drive out 30 minutes from dubai and go into the desert. it is unlike any other place i have been. there are red sand dunes with a surprising amount of greenery (mostly shrubs but some trees too). we go off the road and into the desert. majid is clearly an experienced driver, within no time we are flying through the sand, driving next to cliffs, and sliding down dunes. we make our way to the biggest dune in sight and start taking turns trying to go up. we go 2 at a time (because the car is lighter that way).

so ali and i were waiting for majid and haider to go up, they go over a hill and we wait 20 min for them to come, but there is no sign of them. eventually we get a phone call saying that they are stuck. in the sand. and we have to *walk* over to come help.

so ali and i start walking the distance it took them 20 min to drive and we start talking about his home in india, his family, and his work over here in dubai. he is 38 now and has been working in dubai since he was 19. his family still lives in india, with his current job, he is able to go home 2 mo every year to visit his wife and kids (6 and 2). so as we are hiking across the dunes as the sun is setting and ali mentions to me that this is the time of the day that the snakes come out. but only by the rocks. i look to our left and we are walking next to a rock-lined cliff.

so we make it to the beached car and manage to avoid any more trouble. when we arrive there are 2 other westerners (brits that were bashing as well) there to assist. we push the car out and then continue with our adventure. we drive to a more secluded dune and we get out to enjoy the night view. from the dune we can see all of dubai and sharjah (the 3rd biggest city in UAE). majid tells us that he came out to that very spot on new year's eve and he could see 8 different fireworks shows. we sat in the sand (it was still hot - burning hot once you dug your hand in once inch under the top) and looked at the stars in the clear sky.

the only drawback to the picture perfect setting was that there was litter all over the desert. it is a very popular destination for tourists and locals alike. they go out to barbeque and just use the desert as the trash can

__________________

tomorrow we start our first day at dubai festival city (dfc). omar built it, of course, and it is a city within dubai. it has the ikea, ace hardware, newest shopping mall, the four seasons and W are going up there, the intercon is already there and it's where we went for dinner (at the golf club) the previous night.

i'm not sure what out main agenda is, i guess we will find out tomorrow. i think we are supposed to take a helicopter tour of the city as a whole, but that may not be the case any more because the presidents brother (this only works as a link without the apostrophe, so bear with me) just died in a heli crash. of course i will bring my camera (and maybe parachute?) just in case we do go.

also today we rushed into the mall to get passport photos for our japanese business visas. we will be there in less than 2 weeks!!!! hard to believe.

already past midnight, have to wake up soon.

famous roommates (dinner with the C.E.O.)

2008-06-03T20:13:00.000+04:00

t's the end our 3rd day in our summer internship, it's been a long day.

we are spending our time now googling our own names. it turns out we are famous, both haider and myself. he is a world famous bridge player, and i earned my name by doing psychology research at macalester.

today we spent the day gmasco, learning mostly about PR. it's a more complicated business than i originally imagined. the people are also nicer than i expected, but their business is sales so perhaps they are practiced at smiling. we spent the morning learning about PR and meeting the team, then we spent the afternoon preparing a mock brief for a toyota client. they were launching an fj cruiser (below) last year and we are making a brief to give to the creative team tomorrow.

the work is pretty straightforward and seems intuitive. the goal is to understand the demographics and psychographics of your target audience and position your product (thru media) to connect to the consumer. the phrases "shifting perception", "making the rational emotional", and "getting the guy to fall for it" were all used frequently today.

quick note - dubai is a diverse city. at lunch with the team yesterday we were eating with faycel (arab), geoffrey (african), anish (indian), piero (lebanese), as well as andy (danish?).

tonight we had dinner with omar (the CEO, majid's father). we weren't really planning to, we were going to visit some part of the city (either old or new) but majid called up and said the dinner was tonight. he took us to the 4 seasons golf club (which he owns, of course) there were lamborghinis parked out front and the building was ritzy to say the least. i can barely stay awake so i will have to update again tomorrow. to tell you a bit though, he is a very thoughtful and kind man. easy to have a conversation with and not (socially) intimidating