I was really going to wait on the polar bear pictures until I had finished the Morocco pictures, but they wanted to do a small printing project with the best of each of our polar bears. So, I had to do some pre-processing / sorting of the Churchill pictures today. Here are what I consider to be the best 3 bear pictures I took on my holiday — the rest are still waiting in the queue...
If you saw the pictures I posted on Facebook from my cellphone, these are the ones I took with my big camera, the Canon 5D Mk II.
If you saw the pictures I posted on Facebook from my cellphone, these are the ones I took with my big camera, the Canon 5D Mk II.
I'm back from polar bear visiting in Churchill, Canada, on the shores of Hudson Bay (where it was around 20°F or -6°C) and now I have a day to turn around my luggage for the nerdfest of the Microsoft developer conference in Los Angeles (where it's 72°F or 22°C) — leaving Dean home once again.
Despite camera problems, I came home with 56 GBs of pictures which will have to remain in the queue behind the Morocco pictures. One video I took of a bear is here.
And while Churchill was not intensely cold, thermometer-wise, there was a cold wet wind that blew from the north off of Hudson Bay and you were out back and forth from inside to out all day long. Churchill *was* the place to buy warm fur clothing — fox fur hats with ear flaps, seal fur elbow-high mittens, an entire suit made of polar bear hide, but I didn't buy any because California is not that cold and if you're going to buy fur clothing, you should wear it frequently so that it gets properly aired and keeps the insects off. And animals shouldn't die just to sit in my closet.
I cannot speak for the Canadians, but I was wearing the following (from bottom up and inside out) to try and keep warm:
Despite camera problems, I came home with 56 GBs of pictures which will have to remain in the queue behind the Morocco pictures. One video I took of a bear is here.
And while Churchill was not intensely cold, thermometer-wise, there was a cold wet wind that blew from the north off of Hudson Bay and you were out back and forth from inside to out all day long. Churchill *was* the place to buy warm fur clothing — fox fur hats with ear flaps, seal fur elbow-high mittens, an entire suit made of polar bear hide, but I didn't buy any because California is not that cold and if you're going to buy fur clothing, you should wear it frequently so that it gets properly aired and keeps the insects off. And animals shouldn't die just to sit in my closet.
I cannot speak for the Canadians, but I was wearing the following (from bottom up and inside out) to try and keep warm:
- Two pairs of wool socks
- Heavy Sorel snow boots
- Long underwear bottoms
- Insulated ski pants
- T-shirt
- Long-sleeved merino wool shirt (from New Zealand)
- Heavy synthetic fiber cross-country skiing shirt
- Merino wool / possum fur sweater (from New Zealand)
- Insulated canvas foul weather jacket
- Silk glove liners
- Insulated ski gloves
- Wool scarf
- Polar fleece neck warmer (to be pulled up over the nose)
- Polar fleece lined wool hat
We rolled into Fes at sunset, through wheat fields and olive groves, past an enormous lake. Lorries passed us, so overloaded with hay they looked as if a rope would snap, a board would bend under the weight and they would explode. We were staying in a riad, a private guest house, inside the medina. This multiple story little jewel of a house with fabulously decorated rooms... No windows but the center space open to the sky at the top. Except Gretchin and I didn't leap right up when they started to organize the rooms and we obviously lost the lottery. We ended up being the odd men out with the manager looking at us, saying "what do you mean you have two more people?"
So, we ended up 5 flights of stairs upward in a tiny room on the roof, where the sun had just set and the moon risen round on the medieval city. There was a sweet slight breeze. We'd been warned that Fes was the city of a thousand odors, not all of them pleasant. There's a reason you keep ending up with sprigs of mint as you pass through Morocco, but that night, Fes was the smell of spices and moonlight.
So, we ended up 5 flights of stairs upward in a tiny room on the roof, where the sun had just set and the moon risen round on the medieval city. There was a sweet slight breeze. We'd been warned that Fes was the city of a thousand odors, not all of them pleasant. There's a reason you keep ending up with sprigs of mint as you pass through Morocco, but that night, Fes was the smell of spices and moonlight.
Volubilis was the city the Roman established as their administrative headquarters once they moved into North Africa. Reading the history of North Africa, the first ten chapters end with ... and then the Romans sacked Carthage. And then after that, it was more like the beginning of Monty Python's Holy Grail, where the people doing the sacking got sacked and it got very confused. The most heart rendering moment of that history was about the 5th or 6th time the Romans marched on Carthage, the Carthaginians promised the Romans all their money if they wouldn't attack them and the Romans kept coming. So, the Carthaginians destroyed all their weapons to prove to the Romans that they were no threat and the Romans kept coming. So, the Carthaginians cut their women's hair to make bow strings, slaughtered their cows to make shields and armor, sharpened their plows into swords and fought the Romans street by street, house by house. Many of the last few survivors threw themselves into bonfires to avoid capture and enslavement because the first task the Carthaginians slaves were forced to do was dismantle their city brick by brick as if it had never existed and salt the earth so that nothing would grow.
Gretchin was very disappointed that she didn't get a video recording of me standing on one of the ancient stones of Volubilis shouting, "Come on, gang, let's go sack Carthage."
The amazing thing about the site were the tile mosaics left open to the sun and the rain.
More pictures from this day on my Flickr page with the tag Volubilis.
The entire Morocco set in progress is here.
Gretchin was very disappointed that she didn't get a video recording of me standing on one of the ancient stones of Volubilis shouting, "Come on, gang, let's go sack Carthage."
The amazing thing about the site were the tile mosaics left open to the sun and the rain.
More pictures from this day on my Flickr page with the tag Volubilis.
The entire Morocco set in progress is here.
Chefchaouen was all narrow walkways and blue doors, built into the hillside with stairs up and down. A maze of tiny little vendors with up and down giving you your strongest sense of direction. The squeak and rub of the weavers working in their tiny rooms — come in, come in, see my beautiful scarves. What they weave is "silk" which is the fiber of the cactus plants. And if you pause, they're quick to pull out their bic lighters and prove to you that it's inflammable.
Chefchaouen was my introduction to the "Moroccan finger", the no-no-no you're not taking my picture, the, no, you're not taking a picture of my house, the, no, you're not taking a picture, no. Even when you had the camera pointed at the sky or the ground or anywhere but them. Even when you're just giving them a smile and saying "Bonjour". During this trip, I had the Moroccan finger given to me by little girls as young as 4 years old and those babies in their mother arms that wiggled their hands at me, who's to say they weren't trying to give it to me.
It was my introduction to the hand of Fatima. Fatima being the daughter of the prophet Muhammad, wife of the fourth caliph, Ali. The way they told the story in Fes was that she was sending her sons off to battle and placed her freshly henna'ed hands on their shoulders to bless them and left the mark of her hands on their shoulders and this became a sign of her blessings. But you see the hand everywhere as a symbol of luck and protection against evil.
But it was also our introduction to the hammam, the public bath house, separated by gender either by having men's / women's sides or by time slots for women and then men. Showers in Morocco, even in expensive tourist hotels, were not so great. There were multiple points of failure — the shower was usually a handheld shower head on a flexible hose that clipped to the wall, so either the head had been dropped multiple times so that it's ability to deliver water was compromised or the wall clip was broken or the hose had sprung multiple leaks reducing the water pressure. The shower usually had a indent in the floor with the drain in it, but the drain would either not drain or drain slower, so the water would quickly run out past the toilet and out the bathroom. And in most places, there wasn't hot water. Hell, in Fes, we didn't have water at all, even for the toilet or the sink.
So, the best place to get really clean was to follow the locals to the hammam. Basically everyone strips down to their underpants, you pay someone to scrub you like a rusty pot (and you watch the dead skin and dirt sluff off), throw buckets of hot water on you, wash your hair, give you a massage and you're done. Everyone's in one big steamy room. The women's side has the kids running around playing, the women are sitting there gossiping while they shave their legs. I'm told the big difference between the men and women's sides are the massage, the women's side is a nice gentle massage — though this was the first time I'd had someone massage me who was also naked and you're just lying on the stone floor, so she'd do things like prop your foot against her naked chest so she could get a better angle on your leg. On the men's side, it's apparently a much more strenuous massage, more like a Thai massage where you are really bent and contorted, where they stand on your back.
I became a huge fan of hammam. (1) I'm a native Californian and untroubled by nudity and (2) I'm a huge fan of being clean.
More pictures from this day on my Flickr page with the tag Chefchaouen.
The entire Morocco set in progress is here.
While I seem to be dragging on, we did leave Casablanca quickly. Loading up in a 14 person van with a local driver and headed the 6 hour drive east across the top of Morocco to Chefchaouen. I was still napping off my jet lag, but we passed through small rural towns on long two lane highways. Even stopping in the least tourist town imaginable for lunch, the streets filled with men driving Massey Ferguson tractors and women and boys on donkey. (This is only fascinating if you're a farm kid like me. Because Massey Ferguson is a Canadian tractor company that you don't see that often in North America, at least I don't. The big corporate farms of North America require big tractors like luxury liners, cushioned comfort and climate controlled.) Behind the restaurant where we ate was a row of re-engineering shops, where plowshares could be beaten into Mercedes spark plugs, nothing useful abandoned if it could be fixed.
I didn't take pictures from the road for most of the day, though Dean has trained me well to just lean out and take pictures from a moving car. But how could I resist a prefect end-to-end rainbow as we approached Chefchaouen? I am not made of stone.
At sunset we finally came upon the town.
And while it doesn't look impressive from the top of the hill, wait until you see the pictures from inside the medina. The heart of the town is white washed with blue trim and blue doors.
I guess there had been some sort of mix up with the hotel. The original hotel that we were supposed to stay in had gotten confused because there was two groups from the same travel organization booked there and the desk thought it was the same group. Or some other group of tourists rolled in and the hotel got a better price for them and feinted confusion with us. So, we were booked into another hotel that seemed to open just for us, no one else was staying there — it was entirely blue inside. Even the lights had blue glass on them so that the light was blue. Which was interesting for about 10 minutes and then it just got freaky.
I didn't take pictures from the road for most of the day, though Dean has trained me well to just lean out and take pictures from a moving car. But how could I resist a prefect end-to-end rainbow as we approached Chefchaouen? I am not made of stone.
At sunset we finally came upon the town.
And while it doesn't look impressive from the top of the hill, wait until you see the pictures from inside the medina. The heart of the town is white washed with blue trim and blue doors.
I guess there had been some sort of mix up with the hotel. The original hotel that we were supposed to stay in had gotten confused because there was two groups from the same travel organization booked there and the desk thought it was the same group. Or some other group of tourists rolled in and the hotel got a better price for them and feinted confusion with us. So, we were booked into another hotel that seemed to open just for us, no one else was staying there — it was entirely blue inside. Even the lights had blue glass on them so that the light was blue. Which was interesting for about 10 minutes and then it just got freaky.
We spent the first full morning at the big Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca. And it was beautiful and big and amazingly clean — men with buckets actively scrubbing everywhere. A retractable roof like a baseball stadium. One of the few mosques that non-believers can tour.
The fountains out front were not running. We saw a lot of fountains in Morocco, just not many that were actually spraying fluid. Maybe they were saving water, maybe they were broken and needed parts, maybe they were only turned on when the king dropped by. But Morocco was the land of a thousand dry fountains.
The sky was very dramatic and by mid-morning, it rained in Casablanca. Well, sprinkled slightly, a heavy mist. The only rain I saw this trip.
Click on any thumbnail to see the larger version.
The entire Morocco set in progress is here.
The fountains out front were not running. We saw a lot of fountains in Morocco, just not many that were actually spraying fluid. Maybe they were saving water, maybe they were broken and needed parts, maybe they were only turned on when the king dropped by. But Morocco was the land of a thousand dry fountains.
The sky was very dramatic and by mid-morning, it rained in Casablanca. Well, sprinkled slightly, a heavy mist. The only rain I saw this trip.
Click on any thumbnail to see the larger version.
The entire Morocco set in progress is here.
By afternoon, we hooked up with some of the group of photographers we were going to be traveling with — Gretchin and I were the only Americans. The others were Canadian and Costa Rican and the rest were British and the British contingent weren't showing up until very late that night. My reaction was excellent, I am often Canadian when I travel. Mostly because (1) people jump to that conclusion because everyone knows that Americans don't travel and (2) well, many people outside the US have strong, complicated opinions about Americans.
We headed off the souk, the market place, where we were immediately descended upon by carpet merchants and other vendors.
This guy is laughing so hard because he tried to tell Gretchin and I that he was 150 years old (translation provided by the carpet salesman who'd attached himself to us). And Gretchin said, oh, you don't look a day over 95.
Have I mentioned that Morocco seemed to be without any kind of electrical codes? You saw the craziest ad hoc wiring jobs.
I found it fascinating that 10 dihrams which is the price of a cold coke (or at least the tourist price) was very much a standard unit of money. Though it was also true that this was a tough country to get change in. You would get 200 dihram bills from the bank — which are about 25 dollars US and they would be very difficult to break into smaller units. No one had that much smaller bills and coins. It was like trying to pass a $100 bill at a farmer's market. Even in Marrakech, where we wandered into a large, American-sized grocery store, the checker refused to take my 200 dihram bill.
And yes to answer your question, I bought a carpet in Casablanca. It's 1 meter by 2 and it's beautiful, hand woven from camel hair and dyed with saffron. And yes, I paid too much for it because I am terrible at the haggling thang.
More pictures from this afternoon on my Flickr page with the tags Casablanca and souk.
The entire Morocco set in progress is here.
We headed off the souk, the market place, where we were immediately descended upon by carpet merchants and other vendors.
This guy is laughing so hard because he tried to tell Gretchin and I that he was 150 years old (translation provided by the carpet salesman who'd attached himself to us). And Gretchin said, oh, you don't look a day over 95.
Have I mentioned that Morocco seemed to be without any kind of electrical codes? You saw the craziest ad hoc wiring jobs.
I found it fascinating that 10 dihrams which is the price of a cold coke (or at least the tourist price) was very much a standard unit of money. Though it was also true that this was a tough country to get change in. You would get 200 dihram bills from the bank — which are about 25 dollars US and they would be very difficult to break into smaller units. No one had that much smaller bills and coins. It was like trying to pass a $100 bill at a farmer's market. Even in Marrakech, where we wandered into a large, American-sized grocery store, the checker refused to take my 200 dihram bill.
And yes to answer your question, I bought a carpet in Casablanca. It's 1 meter by 2 and it's beautiful, hand woven from camel hair and dyed with saffron. And yes, I paid too much for it because I am terrible at the haggling thang.
More pictures from this afternoon on my Flickr page with the tags Casablanca and souk.
The entire Morocco set in progress is here.
To finish off the morning of our first day in Morocco, after the post office, we wandered past the fountain of pigeons where I was introduced to a charming Morocco custom where people rush at you when they see you holding a camera, asking you take their picture and then after you take the picture, demand money. Usually a lot of money, which you ignore and maybe give them a few coins, or not take their picture in the first place.
He's supposed to be a traditional water seller where for a dirham or two, they would sell you a cup of water. But his water bag doesn't look real full and no water was offered me during the transaction.
From there we went to the Sacré Coeur Cathedral, a Catholic church built in 1930 which has been abandoned. There is a man sitting in a folding chair outside to take your money, but it's not clear what connection (if any) he has to the church or whether this is just another scam. Inside it is filled with pigeon poop and dirt, broken windows. I went to get a view of the city and because I felt it was an interesting contrast to the Hassan II Mosque which we were going to visit the next day.
In fact, you can see the Hassan II Mosque from the roof of the cathedral as you look toward the port.
From there, Gretchin and I found a cafe and a couple cold cokes and watched the bocci ball matches for an hour in the park next to the church. It was a highly organized event with uniforms and officials and some sort of orderly rotation as the matches were played, and an announcer with a loud speaker on the main court. The male spectators (because it was an all boy thing) brought folding stools and sat in the shade arguing passionately about the results. I can say with great confidence that the bathroom in this cafe was the worse, nastiest bathroom we encountered the entire trip, so *w00t* as far as plumbing options we got that over the first day.
He's supposed to be a traditional water seller where for a dirham or two, they would sell you a cup of water. But his water bag doesn't look real full and no water was offered me during the transaction.
From there we went to the Sacré Coeur Cathedral, a Catholic church built in 1930 which has been abandoned. There is a man sitting in a folding chair outside to take your money, but it's not clear what connection (if any) he has to the church or whether this is just another scam. Inside it is filled with pigeon poop and dirt, broken windows. I went to get a view of the city and because I felt it was an interesting contrast to the Hassan II Mosque which we were going to visit the next day.
In fact, you can see the Hassan II Mosque from the roof of the cathedral as you look toward the port.
From there, Gretchin and I found a cafe and a couple cold cokes and watched the bocci ball matches for an hour in the park next to the church. It was a highly organized event with uniforms and officials and some sort of orderly rotation as the matches were played, and an announcer with a loud speaker on the main court. The male spectators (because it was an all boy thing) brought folding stools and sat in the shade arguing passionately about the results. I can say with great confidence that the bathroom in this cafe was the worse, nastiest bathroom we encountered the entire trip, so *w00t* as far as plumbing options we got that over the first day.
I'm a little late with this, but here is the list of books I've read in the third quarter of 2009.
- Zeroville by Steve Erickson. [Review]
- Death with Interruptions by José Saramago from my Nobel Prize Literature list.
- Lost Man's River by Peter Matthiessen
- Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
- Magic Prague by Angelo Maria Ripellino
- Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey
- Desert by J.M.G. Le Clezio from my Morocco Reading List and my Nobel Prize Literature list. [Review]
- Glory in a Camel's Eye: A Perilous Trek Through the Greatest African Desert by Jeffrey Tayler from my Morocco Reading List. [Review]
- Harem: The World Behind the Veil by by Alev Lytle Croutier
- Byron in Love by Edna O'Brien
- The Exploration of the Colorado River and its Canyons by Major J.W. Powell
- Fez: City of Islam by Titus Burckhardt from Morocco Travel List
Let's start with the first morning of the first day. We arrived a day ahead of meeting the small group of photographers that we would be traveling with because it's a long way from California. Casablanca was sticky humid and thick with diesel smoke. The streets were filled with garbage and stray cats. It was not a beautiful city, at least in the center where we were staying. But I forced us out on the streets in the morning after breakfast to walk off our jet lag.
First stop, the post office. Because I'd seen it on the drive in at sunset the night before and it was red with beautiful blue tile.
There were 3 mail slots — Casablanca (local), Maroc (national), and Etranger (international). It amused me that the French word for "abroad" looks so much like "stranger".
Biggest disappointment the first morning — I couldn't get a GPS location from my iPhone with data roaming turned off. How lame is that?
First stop, the post office. Because I'd seen it on the drive in at sunset the night before and it was red with beautiful blue tile.
There were 3 mail slots — Casablanca (local), Maroc (national), and Etranger (international). It amused me that the French word for "abroad" looks so much like "stranger".
Biggest disappointment the first morning — I couldn't get a GPS location from my iPhone with data roaming turned off. How lame is that?
- Canon 5D Mark II, rented from www.borrowlenses.com
- Canon 24-105mm lens
- Canon zoom lens EF 70-200mm
- Canon macro lens 100mm
- Canon fisheye lens 15mm
- Hyperdrive Colorspace 160GB USB drive with cardreader and USB cable for backup
- Storm jacket camera cover
- 2 spare batteries and battery charger
- Small 2 plug power strip with right plug adapter for Morocco. (I like my power conditioned slightly, thank you.)
- Canon Speedlite 580EX flash
- iPhone and USB cables / plugs for recharging
- Spare earbuds for iPhone
- Many, many compact flash memory cards
- Blue Mic microphone for the iPhone
- Len paper for cleaning the glass
- Tripod
- Large wire mesh security bag that you can put gear bag inside and padlock to the toilet or some non-movable fixture
No computer.
When you're tired and stressed out, doesn't everybody sleep walk at night? What? It's just me? The good news is that while sleep walking I can't seem to figure out how to open doors, door knobs are an insurmountable technology hurdle to my sleeping brain, and I get stuck in corners easily, so as long as everyone remembers to keep the door to the bedroom closed, I can't wander far.... The bad news is that waking up standing with your nose in the corner has a weird "Blair Witch" kind vibe to it...
Ok, traditionally I go dark in August... Working for a company that does consumer products, Christmas is a big deal and all the new products for Christmas have to be finished by September so that they can be in the stores by October, so they can be under your Christmas tree in December. But if I have things worked out, I have my trip for the year planned out for fall before I fall down the rabbit hole and disappear.
Back in June I scheduled a trip to Morocco for this fall. All taken care of, nothing to worry about, except for that small detail that Dean has fallen ill again. Nothing life threatening. A bacterial infection in his lungs that an extended course of increasingly nasty antibiotics has been prescribed for. The worse thing is that he's not sleeping because he's coughing so hard from the fluid in his lungs. And when you're sick and moving slow because you're in a fog from lack of sleep, the last thing you want is to be on the road in Sahara Africa where it's hot and dusty. You want your own bed. So, I decided that I'm not taking Dean with me, even though he's upset that he's letting me down, so keeps saying that he can go, he can go. I've got a girl friend I've known for years, I'm taking her instead. I'm lucky she can go. It's very hard to find someone to take a free trip to Morocco. Most people have schedules that don't allow them to leave for 2 and a half, 3 weeks on a moment's notice.
But today, today, was the epic battle with the airlines to get the tickets changed / set up for Gretchin. I dreaded this part (and it was very difficult). Took me an hour on the phone — the problem being that to get from San Francisco to Casablanca requires 3 airlines and 3 countries. You just can't get there from here. The ticket agent at Northwest / Delta (because that's the confirmation number I have) had to all but beat the computer with a bat to get it working. Everything had to be done 3 different ways and I'm not sure a live chicken wasn't sacrificed in the end. But I am still headed for Morocco when this %@!!*&% release is out the door.
Back in June I scheduled a trip to Morocco for this fall. All taken care of, nothing to worry about, except for that small detail that Dean has fallen ill again. Nothing life threatening. A bacterial infection in his lungs that an extended course of increasingly nasty antibiotics has been prescribed for. The worse thing is that he's not sleeping because he's coughing so hard from the fluid in his lungs. And when you're sick and moving slow because you're in a fog from lack of sleep, the last thing you want is to be on the road in Sahara Africa where it's hot and dusty. You want your own bed. So, I decided that I'm not taking Dean with me, even though he's upset that he's letting me down, so keeps saying that he can go, he can go. I've got a girl friend I've known for years, I'm taking her instead. I'm lucky she can go. It's very hard to find someone to take a free trip to Morocco. Most people have schedules that don't allow them to leave for 2 and a half, 3 weeks on a moment's notice.
But today, today, was the epic battle with the airlines to get the tickets changed / set up for Gretchin. I dreaded this part (and it was very difficult). Took me an hour on the phone — the problem being that to get from San Francisco to Casablanca requires 3 airlines and 3 countries. You just can't get there from here. The ticket agent at Northwest / Delta (because that's the confirmation number I have) had to all but beat the computer with a bat to get it working. Everything had to be done 3 different ways and I'm not sure a live chicken wasn't sacrificed in the end. But I am still headed for Morocco when this %@!!*&% release is out the door.
It's not that I've abandoned my journey through the lands of nerds with an enormous instant film camera, it's just been resting...
This is John (again). But John feels like he deserves multiple pictures because he's in the middle of a multi-year construction project, much like building a new freeway overpass over the interstate. Step one was to remove bone from his skull and graft it to his jaw to strengthen it. That was April before I took the first picture. End of August is step two where they pull his lower jaw forward, hopefully not damaging any of the delicate nerves that run through the jaw. And then there two more steps beyond that.
David is the new guy. It only took us a little over a year and a half from the first interview to the job offer. So, you see why I visibly cringe when people talk about leaving the group because I'm the one who has to do all the initial résumé reading and first phone interviews. I've got 4-6 job positions to fill at the moment and seem to be currently working my way through the country of Russia, with 1-2 phone interviews a day. And then there'll be those priceless moments like where I had a scheduled time to call and talk to an engineer who's been out of work for 4 months and 5 minutes in he tells me that someone dropped by that he wants to hang out with, so he's going to cut me off. He can't give me the full 15 minutes we've scheduled.
Really? That's as good as you get? That's when you're really trying to be charming to a potential boss?
This is John (again). But John feels like he deserves multiple pictures because he's in the middle of a multi-year construction project, much like building a new freeway overpass over the interstate. Step one was to remove bone from his skull and graft it to his jaw to strengthen it. That was April before I took the first picture. End of August is step two where they pull his lower jaw forward, hopefully not damaging any of the delicate nerves that run through the jaw. And then there two more steps beyond that.
David is the new guy. It only took us a little over a year and a half from the first interview to the job offer. So, you see why I visibly cringe when people talk about leaving the group because I'm the one who has to do all the initial résumé reading and first phone interviews. I've got 4-6 job positions to fill at the moment and seem to be currently working my way through the country of Russia, with 1-2 phone interviews a day. And then there'll be those priceless moments like where I had a scheduled time to call and talk to an engineer who's been out of work for 4 months and 5 minutes in he tells me that someone dropped by that he wants to hang out with, so he's going to cut me off. He can't give me the full 15 minutes we've scheduled.
Really? That's as good as you get? That's when you're really trying to be charming to a potential boss?
Years ago now I read William Gibson's Pattern Recognition and was enchanted by the idea that some day, somewhere in the future, you could make a living out of knowing what was cool when you saw it. That by drifting through odd places, odd flea markets, odd corners of the web, you could be one step ahead of the pack. (In reality, these people already exist in the fashion and music industries, but, alas, I'm not hip enough to run with those packs. Geeky engineers are never introduced to the "talent".) But now and then I can surprise my husband with briefly brushing up against the cool.
Friday night I accidently discovered that the punk band, Bowling for Soup, was playing for free at the Alameda County Fair. (Nominated for a Grammy in 2003 for their song, "The Girl All The Bad Boys Want" in the "Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal" category. A small stage in the corner of the fairgrounds, very relaxed, no security, cameras welcome. If only we could see all our favorite bands that way. :)
And yes that is an In And Out Burger paper hat that he borrowed from someone in the crowd while singing "Almost".
Friday night I accidently discovered that the punk band, Bowling for Soup, was playing for free at the Alameda County Fair. (Nominated for a Grammy in 2003 for their song, "The Girl All The Bad Boys Want" in the "Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal" category. A small stage in the corner of the fairgrounds, very relaxed, no security, cameras welcome. If only we could see all our favorite bands that way. :)
And yes that is an In And Out Burger paper hat that he borrowed from someone in the crowd while singing "Almost".
The list of books I've read in the second quarter of 2009.
- Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux
- A Traveller's History of North Africa by Barnaby Rogerson from my Morocco Reading List
- Sunnyside by Glen David Gold
- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith [Review]
- The Meaning of Night: A Confession by Michael Cox
- City of Thieves: A Novel by David Benioff from my Russian Reading List
- Daemon by Daniel Suarez [Review]
- Rodin: A Biography by Frederic V. Grunfeld [Review]
- My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk from my Nobel Prize for Literature List [Review]
- Now the Drum of War: Walt Whitman and His Brothers in the Civil War by Robert Roper [Review]
- The Dream at the End of the World: Paul Bowles and the Literary Renegades in Tangier by Michelle Green from my Morocco Reading List
This probably hasn't come up in conversation, but I am fatally attracted to stolen obelisks. I found my first stolen obelisk in Rome behind the Pantheon in the Piazza della Minerva 10 years ago, set on the back of a marble elephant carved by Bernini. Since then, I've deliberately gone out of my way to search for them.
The idea of these enormous monoliths being carried by ship around the world, the engineering feat to reseat them in a new environment, what is this hold that ancient Egypt has on us? That Babylon, Carthage, and Assyria did not?
So, of course, while in New York, I had to go to Central Park and find the obelisk.
It's called "Cleopatra’s Needle", originally carved from pink Aswan granite in 1400 BC-ish as one of a pair of obelisks to celebrate the third jubilee of Thutmosis III, an Egyptian pharaoh, for the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis on the Nile River. "Repurposed" by Caesar Augustus, who brought to Alexandria in 12 BC. for the Caesarium, the temple for Julius Caesar. Donated in exchange for foreign aid and remounted in Central Park, January 22nd, 1881. The other obelisk from the pair is in London.
Oh, the best part is that under each corner of the obelisk is the a bronze sea crab (an 800 pound bronze crab).
When humans are long gone and the cockroaches have evolved into intelligent life forms, what stories will they make up about our scattered spires of stone?
The idea of these enormous monoliths being carried by ship around the world, the engineering feat to reseat them in a new environment, what is this hold that ancient Egypt has on us? That Babylon, Carthage, and Assyria did not?
So, of course, while in New York, I had to go to Central Park and find the obelisk.
It's called "Cleopatra’s Needle", originally carved from pink Aswan granite in 1400 BC-ish as one of a pair of obelisks to celebrate the third jubilee of Thutmosis III, an Egyptian pharaoh, for the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis on the Nile River. "Repurposed" by Caesar Augustus, who brought to Alexandria in 12 BC. for the Caesarium, the temple for Julius Caesar. Donated in exchange for foreign aid and remounted in Central Park, January 22nd, 1881. The other obelisk from the pair is in London.
Oh, the best part is that under each corner of the obelisk is the a bronze sea crab (an 800 pound bronze crab).
When humans are long gone and the cockroaches have evolved into intelligent life forms, what stories will they make up about our scattered spires of stone?
I have never been off the highway into Sand City and yet Dean and I found ourself in an odd industrial area followed by a police car looking for a bar / cafe where Andrew and Morgan were playing.
My niece, Morgan, between songs, Big Tree
Her brother, Andrew, Andrew Heringer Band
They had some weird blue / purple rock and roll lighting, so I fell back to black and white.
My niece, Morgan, between songs, Big Tree
Her brother, Andrew, Andrew Heringer Band
They had some weird blue / purple rock and roll lighting, so I fell back to black and white.
It's not politically correct of me to love the African / Oceania carvings and masks, the dance costumes, the strange primitive shapes dragged upward from the cave of dreams. I'm supposed to be all modern and slick, the strong, clean line, Bauhaus and titanium. But the more we deconstruct ourselves, the more complicated we become.
Ah, the simplicity of unreconstructed creation. Something done once and then left alone.
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