Caracas City View from The Melia 

View Towards El Avila 

Caracas

It is sort of unnerving to return to a place after ten years. Especially if you lived in that place for two years. You feel as if you should know the place, and indeed it seems familiar, but in a déjà vu sort of way. The roads have names you recognize, but you don’t know where they go. The buildings look familiar, but not enough to walk into. You think you can find your way around, and yet you are lost. You think about the route you took home everyday, the drive to the country, the streets you knew took you to your clients. But they just don’t seem to be the same.

The offices I visited I have visited many times before. But all the players have changed. That should be expected after ten years, but because of the oil strike of a couple of years ago, the corporate memory is gone also. From my standpoint it is neither good nor bad, it just is. The people I meet want to like our stuff, and I think that they will. They want to BUY our stuff, and I think that they will.

I was much younger than I am now when I lived here. To me, it was the biggest adventure of my life, and I thought it was the coolest thing that anyone could possibly do. The coolest job that anyone could possibly have. Working overseas, especially in a “hard duty” post was what I had wanted to do for years. Coming back here makes me just a tiny bit nostalgic. But more for the feeling than the experience. I have had all the experiences that I need. But that desire to be at the front of the pack, the drive to experience it all was something else.

Expats are funny. I have written about that life before, and I probably will again. I think I mentioned about the expat game where you talk about how cool it was before the new guy got here. I still see people playing that game.

I am hoping to have dinner tomorrow with someone I used to work with here. More on that later, I hope.

Fruits

I generally don’t care for tropical fruits. Guanabana (usually called soupsop) is far too sweet, with a funny white pulpy texture and shiny black seeds. Lechosa (papaya) has a strange, other worldly taste and a very mushy texture when wipe. Mangos? Don’t even get me started. When I lived here in Caracas before, I had several mango trees on the property. They are VERY prolific, and I had rotting mangos around the house all the time. One of the dogs (A big, black cross between a Lab and a Doberman) would eat several a day.

But I love Parchitas. Called passion fruit elsewhere, I think that they are great. Too sour and bitter for most, the yellows skinned version you get here I find delightful. I can drink parchita juice all day long. I had some at breakfast today, and hope to have plenty more before I go home tomorrow.

En Route to Caracas

Waiting for a plane to leave is sometimes like not waiting at all. You get on the plane, and the slow process of the plane filling up is always the same. You wait to see ifteh seat next to you will be taken, and it inevitable is. You then wait for the “cross check and verify” command from the front of the plane, which means that you will be forced to turn off your cell phone. Then you wait for the “howdy” from the pilot, and you push back and get ready to live through the boredom of the next five hours.

This flight, from Houston to Caracas, was really no difference. It is, of course, imbued with a slight different frisson for me – this is the first time I have been to Venezuela in about 11 years (I need to check that to make sure), and much has happened in that time. But the waiting for the travel to commence was the same, maybe worse.

There have been afternoon thunderstorms in Houston for the entire month of July. Over a two day period a week of so ago, we got about five inches. Since then, it is a rare afternoon that goes by with no rain.

So once we loaded the plane and the rain started to fall, I cannot say that anyone was surprised. Then they stopped the loading of the luggage. Then the rain stopped, and we finally got to push back, about 45 minutes late.

But, as in any large airport, there are plenty fo other planes waiting to go as well. So we waited another hour or so. We are two hours late leaving, which means we will get to the Caracas airport about 11:30, up to the city about 12:30. That is not something that I am looking forward to.

I have also not made my own reservations, so I am at the mercy of my hosts. I have had bad experiences with this in the past, and, quiet frankly, I am expecting the worst. But before I finish this piece, the truth will be out.

I lived in Venezuela in 1993 and 1994. I was working for a software company that was international in breadth, but sometimes provincial in approach. I loved the work, I loved the countries where I spent time. I don’t want to make it more that it was, but I was an expatriate for those two years (and two years more in Asia) and I loved it.

Now, I hate to travel. I have mentioned that before, and I don’t need to belabor it here. It will be an interesting couple of days. I just hope that I will be able to drink some Polar Beer, eat some meat or maybe some cachapas, and try to get some business started.

What will they think of next?

If you need a doll, I guess a Calude Monet doll is as good as any.

The Clever Blokes from www.lazyboneuk.com

A Salvador Dolly?

Lavish Dwarf Entertainment

Here is a quote from today’s (7.18.05) Wall Street Journal:


The festivities began with a trip by private jet from Boston to a small airport outside New York City. There, the revelers picked up some Wall Street traders and at least two women who investigators suspect may have been paid for their attendance, say people familiar with the matter. The partygoers -- including the groom-to-be, who was getting ready to marry the daughter of former Tyco International Ltd. boss L. Dennis Kozlowski -- then continued to trendy South Beach in Miami. The fun included a stay at the ritzy Delano Hotel for some, a yacht cruise and entertainment by at least one dwarf hired for the occasion.

"Some people are just into lavish dwarf entertainment," says the 4-foot-2 Danny Black, a part-owner in Shortdwarf.com, an outfit that rents dwarfs for parties starting at $149 an hour. Mr. Black says he spent part of the weekend on the yacht and worked as a waiter on the Friday night at a high-end Miami eatery alongside what he called "regular size" people. "A good time was had by all," he said, declining to provide further details.


I don’t even think that I need to add anything to this except:

LAVISH DWARF ENTERTAINMENT???!?!??!?!??!

My father in about 1979

Wine Blogging Local Wines

I wanted to love this wine. Heck, I wanted to LIKE this wine! I noticed about a year ago that a little Mexican food place down the street form my office had closed (There was a photyocopied sign on the door saying something about the non-payment of rent), and would stop back occasionally to see what the great county of Fort Bend would allow us to have.

Imagine my surprise when I went by around Christmas, and noticed a sign on the door that stand Circle S Vineyards would soon be opening in that spot. A Vineyard? In Sugar Land, TX???

Now, let me say right now that I don’t LIVE in Sugar Land (Hope of Imperial Sugar and Tom Delay), I only work there. I will write about where I live by and by. S-Land is a typical Houston suburb, with typical Houston suburban leanings. I never thought that a Vinyard was one of them.

So I waited, and waited. And waited…

They finally opened, and I slipped over there one Thursday afternoon. Nice facility. They have the primary fermentation tanks (Stainless Steel) there. They have some oak barrels, too, but I was unclear as to whether or not they were for show or for real.

I talked to the Vintner, who is fifth generation at this sort of thing. He grows some grapes up around Centerville (so named because it is midway between Houston and Dallas) and imports some from Italy. I asked for a taste, and he reluctantly agreed. I had a Montepulciano. I thought it was OK, so I bought a couple of bottles of this, and a couple of his Sangiovese.

We tried the Sangiovese earlier, and found it very simple and fruity. Much like red Koolaid.

Tonight, in recognition of Wine Blogging Wednesday #12 we tried the Montepulciano. It had more to say for itself, but it was still a very simple, fruit forward wine. No tannin, no acid, no nuthin! were my notes on CellarTracker. I like to drink local wines, and I like some Texas wines. I think that this one needs more time.

My dear sweet wife with our oddball cat Little Guy. 

Off to work! Yes, that is a blue seersucker suit. Blaze is trying to help.

Nancy Pelosi

About two weeks ago I got an e-mail from Doreen saying that we were invited to a book signing for Alexandra Pelosi. Her letter said “You should Google this woman -- she is Nancy Pelosi's daughter. Let me know if you want to come with me.” So I did. It turns out that she is the daughter of Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader of the House of Representatives.

Alexandra is on a book tour for her new book Sneaking Into the Flying Circus : How the Media Turn Our Presidential Campaigns into Freak Shows. She was on the Democrat’s presidential campaign bus in the last presidential election. Previously, she had done a movie about GWBush’s campaign in 2000. She followed him with a hand help camera. It is supposed to be good.

The event was this evening, and the weather has been horrible in Houston. I was reluctantly dragged out of our nice safe home to a nice house in one of the ritzier neighborhoods in town. I was convinced that we were going to be swamped with rain, but luckily I was wrong.

So we get to the house, and a couple of bodyguards are in the street blocking it almost completely. I was not amused. We finally made it inside, and Doreen started chatting with friends. I had a beer.

Soon, Nancy Pelosi herself interrupted our group and was duly introduced to us. Wow Nancy Pelosi! One of the most powerful Democrats in the US, one of the most powerful people I have ever met face to face! She was saying that her daughter’s plane was delayed, and she wanted to get started.

So she gathered the crowd (about 20 people) and started telling some anecdotes about her daughter writing the book. She admitted that she now has to avoid some of her fellow democrats in the house because of some of the stories (evidently the book pulls no punches)

The talk, naturally enough, gravitates to politics. Tom Delay and Karl Rove are covered. I ask my question, (I always feel compelled to ask questions at these things) which was whether or not she would support non-partisan redistricting boards for the entire House of Representatives. She fumbled some, but said that if all the legal requirements (voting rights act, etc) are upheld, she would support it.

I had a chance as we were leaving to discuss this one on one with her. I asked her how many seats she believed were competitive in the House. She said that only (only!) 75% were safe. She said that the press exaggerates. I will go to The Economist (my favorite) claims only 29 of the 435 house seats are competitive. That is shy under 7%. I told her that if I could make my opinion know about one thing in our system it would be this. We’ll see if it makes any difference.

Vacations

When I wrote about our vacation in Spain, I mentioned that sometimes I don’t necessarily like to travel away from home.

HERE is a commentary from Marketplace in a similar theme.

Fortune Cookie

I got a fortune cookie the other day that said:

You are a fun-loving person, and you will find much happiness.

That about sums it up.

I'm fixin' to write more about this, y'all.

Do You Speak American . Sea to Shining Sea . American Varieties . Southern . Sounds | PBS

Dogs have feelings

We have a dog. A nice, mixed breed, brown dog. She is about 50 pounds, and is a brindle color. We love the dog, she loves us.

But she doesn’t like everyone. And she doesn’t dislike everyone, either. We have a yard with a white picket fence, so passers-by can interact with the dog rather easily. Some people she likes, and will run up and down the fence line with them wagging her tail.

Others, however, she hates. She tries to bite them, she tries to dig out of the fence so that she can get them. It is scary to see. Sometimes we run into these people when we walk her (and we walk very early – usually between 5:30 and 6:00 AM). She hates them then, too. So it is not merely fence aggression.

Why? What does she know that we don’t? Some of the people she hates almost seem normal. (well almost)

Generally, I trust her judgment. She has never hurt anyone either on our property or off. We even had our bikes stolen out of our garage when she was home, outside, and as far as we know, she had no interaction with the thief.

The New Yorker: The Talk of the Town

Not sure how long this link will work, but it is pretty good:

The New Yorker: The Talk of the Town

Hard to believe, but I feel sorry for Russell Crowe!

Seven Six Five

Today is my birthday. I am 48 years old. The cool thing about my birthday this year is that it is 7/6/05 – you know, Seven Six Five. Well, I think it’s cool.

My lovely and talented wife came home for lunch, and took me to eat lunch at the Original New Orlean’s Po Boy on Main street just south of Alabama. I had eaten there many years ago, and remember their food to be great. I would call it a road house or something like that.

The building is sitting pretty much all by itself in the middle of a huge parking lot. The building is painted yellow, and you can see the “shadow” of a little guy in a top hat on its sign. The guy has been painted over.

You walk into the place and are met with a long, long tray table. There is a friendly employee waiting for you to make up your mind about what you want. They have great hamburgers, but we were there for the oyster po-boys. They are the best in the cityt

These po-boys are made in front of your eyes. The oysters are not fried until you place your order, and they are fried soft – not into rock hard little dried nubbins. These are crunchy and juicy, with real oyster flavor bursting out at ever bite. The sandwiches are then dressed with tomato and lettuce, and just the right amount of tartar sauce. Add a couple of dashes of Tabasco, and it is po-boy heaven.

Coupled with crinkly fries and a glass of Ice Tea, it was the perfect birthday lunch.

Do you know who I am???

What is it about celebrity that turns adults into head bobbing, screaming teenagers?

I was at a party the other night to watch the fireworks for the 4th of July. They were serving drinks as usual, and the usual crowd was there. At one point in the evening a woman comes in whom I had met before briefly. I was introduced again, and as I was about to say, “I think we’ve met” she just couldn’t wait to blurt out “Ralph and Deborah Blumenthal are here! Well, I don’t know if they are HERE here, but they are here in the building! I saw their names in the guest register!”

Now, I know who Ralph Blumenthal is. He is a reporter for the New York Times. I have not heard of his wife, but she evidently writes children’s books. This woman was going NUTS because this fellow was in the SAME BUILDING as we were. I mean, really. She was a professional who owns her own business, and was going crazy over a reporter?

So why do people do that? Are they looking to make some money off the celebrity? Gain some credibility? Learn something?

One of the things I find most annoying on the radio is interviews with musicians and artists. I find them mostly boring and tedious. I figure if you want to know what a musician wants to say, listen to their music! If you want to know what an artist has to say, look at their art! If you want to know what a writer has to say, read what they have written! There is no reason to listen to Pete Seegar prattle on about how he came to write If I Had a Hammer. Or what Bruce Springsteen was thinking about when he went on tour the last time.

But this stuff sells, so I guess we are all voyeurs at heart. I just wish I knew why.

Food and Wine

I like to have a glass of wine every now and then. It relaxes my mind, and it is an enjoyable experience from almost all perspectives. Over the past couple of years, I have started buying more and better wine. This is a problem sometimes. Why? Well, one thing is that in Houston, it is hard to keep your house at the ideal “Cellar Temperature” all year round. That is 55 degrees F. If your house is much warmer than that, the wine ages poorly, or can even go bad. Not overnight, of course, but over the course of a year or two.

So I bought a wine cooler. No, not a Bartles and James, but a EuroCave. Which meant, of course, that I had to get better wine to justify that expense. Then it was hard to keep track of the wines I bought, so I had to find some way to record my wines. So I found Cellar Tracker. That way I could record my wines, my impressions of my wines, and read about other people and their wines. Now this sound suspiciously as if it becoming a hobby. I don’t do hobbies.

So what does this all mean? I tend to couple it with my enjoyment of cooking and eating. In my opinion, it is impossible to enjoy a great meal without a wonderful bottle of wine to accompany it. When I cook, I try to cook around the wine that I want to have that night. When I eat out at restaurants, I tend to select the wine before the food.

When we travel, our best time is when we find a little out of the way place to eat with a nice local wine. I am not a snob when it comes to food or to wine. What I object to is a homogenized or dumbed down cuisine. For example: The food on the Plaza in Vera Cruz is great. The same in San Miguel de Allende is overpriced and sad. The difference is this: In Vera Cruz, they are catering to their friends. In SMdA, they are catering to tourists or gringos.

Not that you can’t get good food that when you are being catered to. But when I think of great meals I have had, I can think of places like Lima, Peru. Milan, Italy. Beijing, China. Not tourist Meccas (of course, give me a great meal in Paris (scroll to the bottom) and I will die happy) but cities with a genuine population of people who love to eat. Mexico City. Singapore.

So I eat. I drink. And I write.

Been On Vacation

I have been on vacation.

You can see it here.

I am back, and will be posting again soon!

This is a mess of fried chicken that I cooked last Sunday. It was a lot of work, but quite tasty!

I have a cousin who works in Alaska, This is in front of his office. 

Digital Cameras

I have a digital camera. Actually, we have seven in the house if you count the cell phones (3) attachments to a handheld Dell, and the legacy camera with which we took all our photos a couple of years ago when we ran away from home. People are always asking me about what camera to buy. The answer is: Get what you want. Attached is a link to an interesting article in the NYTimes about how to use your camera:


The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > Less Cursing, Better Pictures: 10 Suggestions

Remember, you need to register for the NYTimes

Dolphins use sponges as tools

This is cool. It seems like the definition of "sapian" will have to be redefined:

CNN.com - Researchers: Dolphins use sponges as tools - Jun 6, 2005: "

BBS: The Documentary

Since I used computers in the early days, ie Pre-World Wide Web, I am quite familiar with the old BBS or Bulletin Board Systems of early dial up computing. Evidently, someone has written and filmed a FIVE HOUR documentary about these early days of computer communications:

BBS: The Documentary

I will write more about BBSs - I was very active in several of them when I got my first Mac in 1984.

I baked an apple pie this weekend. 

Our dining room. Jazzy chairs. 

Housing and Houston

My younger sister just bought a house. I know that if you live in most large cities in this country, that can be a trying experience. In Houston, it is never that bad. She bought a house, a nice 1700 square foot house, seven minutes from her office. AND she works in the Houston Medical Center! It was a good deal, not outrageously priced, and will be a great place for her to live. Below is a picture of her son Quinn. I think he will be 16 this fall.

My Nephew Quinn 

Amazon.com: Books: The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection

So here is an interesting thing that Amazon is now offering:

Amazon.com: Books: The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection

Is this just what it seems like? 1,082 titles? Wow. I wonder how many of these books I already have.

A Celebratory Splash for an Enigmatic Figure - New York Times

Link to a story about Cy Twombly in the New York Times (remember - registration needed)

Love him or hate him, he is an important figure in 20th century art.

A Celebratory Splash for an Enigmatic Figure - New York Times

THIS is a link to the Cy Twombly Gallery in Houston.

If you are anywhere near Houston during the next month, you should stop and see this stuff. I am not fond of it myself, but Doreen loves him. We have other friends and neighbors who love him as well

Speed Bump 

Traffic

One of the things that I love to talk about in Houston is traffic. (NO, not Traffic, the band – you know The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, but that does bring up an interesting aside. I live in Peru for a summer when I was 18 years old – and one of the very few English language albums I had was this Traffic one. I also had The White Album by The Beatles. SO if I ever hear While My Guitar Gently Weeps I am immediately transported back to San Juan, Peru – where I was working six days a week for S/.100 per day) and what I can’t figure out about Houston traffic is “Where are all those people going? Why don’t they just stay home?”

More later.

Doreen on The Beautiful Amalfi Coast 

A Race to the Top - New York Times

Another editorial from the NYTimes - this time from Friedman, regarding Europe and the world.

A Race to the Top - New York Times

We Eat Our Young

Not many people can say that there were present at the beginning of an entire industry. Or perhaps more importantly, not many people when they are in the middle of the invention of a new industry KNOW that it is the beginning of a new industry.

I will readily admit that while I was there, I did not really recognize the truly mind altering aspects of what I was living through.

I am talking, of course, of the PC revolution. As I have mentioned earlier in this monolog, I have been in the software business for a very long time. When it started, it was all mainframes and dumb terminals. The company I was with at the time would ultimately have its legs cut out from under it by PCs, but none of us really realized that was going to happen.

Moving from dumb terminals to PCs seemed harmless enough until you did the math. We would g et about $10,000 a month from a good client in our timesharing business. We would sell the software we used (think of it as a very specialized, very complicated spreadsheet) for $10,000 + 15% annual maintenance. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that we were eating our young.

And yet, the company survives to this day.

It happened in the midst of a bust and a boom. The bust was the oil industry, with hundreds of thousands of people losing their jobs, at the same time that the start of the PC boom was taking root. Many were swept up with both sides. I was one.

I will save the sad and happy, sorry and lucky tales for later, but the facts of the matter was that the seeds of the oil bust were sewn in the computer boom.

But that is a story for another time.

Fear and Rejection - New York Times

This is a pretty good editorial by David Brooks from the New York Times. You will have to register at the NYTimes site if you haven't already done so. They are claiming that they will start charging for content like this in the future. I wonder if that will stick - it didn't for Slate. It seems to for Salon

Fear and Rejection - New York Times: "The Western European standard of living is about a third lower than the American standard of living, and it's "

This was not staged. When Little Guy was small, he would jump on my shoulder or head while I was working on the computer. 

Big White (Gone, but not forgotten) and Djimmah 

This is Little Guy, AKA Malmo, AKA Nemo. 

This is is Djimmah. She is sort of standoffish... 

Me with Bill White, Mayor of Houston, and Doreen (My Wife) 

Napoleon's horse: Vizier. He is stuffed in a museum in Paris. 

Me, with a shotgun 

Out for a night on the town 

Hey! Whose head is that? 

Cononut Palms 

Dan in The Tropics 

New Camera, New Photos

I got a new digital camera not too long ago. I also bought a 1 GByte compact flash card to go with it. That means that with high resolution, I can have over 1,000 images on the camera at a time. I am a picture taking fool!

It wasn't me, I swear! 

You lookin' at me?