Small Hands, Smell like Cabbage> Travels

Yesterday Kyra and I stumbled upon a little bush-league amusement park. Oh, the smell of cabbage was in the air. All of the employees here were authentic carnies and without exception drunk. We found an old school shooting game and I did pretty well. After hitting the bumper cars we went on one them tilt-a-whirl dealies and both got thoroughly nauseas. (In fact several people in line for the ride actually walked away after seeing us get off, we were that green.) It was then that we stumbled upon these strange and dated Beverly Hills 90210 characters painted on the outside of a haunted house. And yes we went in there too. A cut out wooden Shannon Doherghty would yell at us for looking at a cut out wooden Dylan with and I quote, "Man-stealin' eyes."
Scary shit.

Amazing Race> Stuff

Sorry about the long absence. I now have an interweb connection, but alas, I have been a bit lazy. Kyra and I have been enjoying our last week together, in Prague. She is off to London on Monday, I am off to the US on Tuesday and that's about all I will write on the subject.
Last night we watched the second episode of this seasons Amazing Race. It took them from Beijing to Mongolia and was shot in the places we first met. The travel logistics in Mongolia happened to by handled by Ger to Ger, the non-profit that took Kyra and I into the Mongolian countryside. Ger to Ger will also be putting together a Mongolia tour for this summer for my new tour company. As we watched I told Kyra that this would be a great promo to reference to on my website. That was until the girl riding the horse was clothlined by a tree and in slow motion fell off her horse. And cried. AND then some other chick feel off her horse and was dragged for 15 feet. And cried. AND then one of the ox got spooked and ran off, nearly running over a one legged contestant. And, yes, she cried too. Yeah, I guess we will have to leave this out of the brochure. The thing is, none of these were flukes. I nearly fell of my horse several times and the ox cart nearly ran over my leg a few times also. Anyway, very entertaining to watch other people go for a similar adventure. Also, watch the Amazing race. I don't ask much.

Salt In The Wounds> Expated

Surprise! One Man Luge is still being written from a wi-fi internet cafe. That's right, I still do not have internet at my apartment and it won't be installed until Monday at the earliest. This is after my landlord promised it would be ready the day I moved in, this past Friday. Then later they promised it would be up on Tuesday. Then I found out that they had in fact never ordered the internet. So I had to order the internet myself and the internet company told me it would be ready by Thursday, today. I called them today and they told me it won't be installed until Monday. All this so I can have internet for one week to do my job. I am so sick of this shit.

Brazilian Sugar Ethanol> Politics

Today's NY Times has an op-ed from Tom Friedman on Biofuels. Just read the first three paragraphs to further illustrate how backwardsass our energy policy is.

"I asked Dr. José Goldemberg, secretary for the environment for São Paulo State and a pioneer of Brazil’s ethanol industry, the obvious question: Is the fact that the U.S. has imposed a 54-cents-a-gallon tariff to prevent Americans from importing sugar ethanol from Brazil “just stupid or really stupid.”

Thanks to pressure from Midwest farmers and agribusinesses, who want to protect the U.S. corn ethanol industry from competition from Brazilian sugar ethanol, we have imposed a stiff tariff to keep it out. We do this even though Brazilian sugar ethanol provides eight times the energy of the fossil fuel used to make it, while American corn ethanol provides only 1.3 times the energy of the fossil fuel used to make it. We do this even though sugar ethanol reduces greenhouses gases more than corn ethanol. And we do this even though sugar cane ethanol can easily be grown in poor tropical countries in Africa or the Caribbean, and could actually help alleviate their poverty.

Yes, you read all this right. We tax imported sugar ethanol, which could finance our poor friends, but we don’t tax imported crude oil, which definitely finances our rich enemies. We’d rather power anti-Americans with our energy purchases than promote antipoverty."

Girfacts> Stuff

I was surfing around on the interweb and I stumbled upon these “Girfacts”. Good times!
-Larry
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Girfacts!- Fun facts about the animal that stand out in a crowd

Even though giraffes are often seen together in groups, they do not form the complex social groups of many plains species. Theirs are loose associations, constantly changing in make-up. A group of giraffes is called a “caboodle”

The giraffe has the same number of vertebrae (seven) in its neck that most other mammals have. They are just really big and elongated.

When giraffes were first brought to Rome in 46 B.C., they were thought to be a cross between a camel and a leopard. Although we've long since learned the giraffe is not a combination of these animals, the scientific name camelopardalis, which means "the fast-walking camel-leopard" stuck.

The word "giraffe" comes from the Arab word xirapha, which means "really tall animal".

Giraffes enjoy watching television

The giraffes life span is 20 to 25 years

The giraffe has the highest blood pressure of any animal in the world. One giraffe heart could pump the blood for 108 human babies!

The giraffe's heart weighs 24 pounds.
The giraffe has the largest soul of any animal.

An adult giraffe's tongue is 18 – 27 inches long

Males and females tend to eat from different parts of a tree to ensure that the sexes do not compete for food.

Newborn giraffe calves begin their lives by falling 6 feet to the ground. (Authors note: My life sadly began in a similar manner, but I survived and it only made me stronger)

Every step a giraffe takes is 15 feet long

A giraffe's kick can kill a lion and propel a football the length of three football fields!

The gestational period of a giraffe is 14 to 14.5 months. It is a popular misconception that male Giraffes can become pregnant. This is simply not true.

A giraffe can drink 12 gallons in one sitting. Milk makes them kind of gassy.

Giraffes rarely lay down; they even sleep and give birth standing up.

A giraffe usually sleeps for only 1 - 12 minutes at a time. When a giraffe goes into a deep sleep it curls its neck back and rests its head on its rump. Giraffes sleep no more than 5 to 30 minutes in a 24-hour period.
The Giraffe’s predators include Lions, Hyenas, Wild Dogs, Leopards and Bears. Fortunately bears are not native to Africa. (In 1993 tragedy struck when the ill conceived “Jirafas y Osos!” enclosure opened to the public at the Parc Zoològic de Barcelona in Spain.)

Giraffes are non-territorial and sociable. They live in loose, open herds.

Giraffes feature in African cave paintings and in ancient Egyptian art and designs.

The Giraffe is considered by the Chinese to be a “rich man’s horse”

A giraffe has 3 speeds: walking, galloping and sauntering.

Giraffes are fast and can reach speeds of up to 35 mph.

Although scientists agree that there is only one species of giraffe, there are many kinds of giraffes in the world : Kordofan Giraffe, Angolan Giraffe, southern Giraffe, Nigerian Giraffe, Mexican Tequila Giraffe, Reticulated Giraffe, Masai Giraffe and Rofts Giraffe.

Giraffes are one of two animals born with horns. The other is the Orangutan, which is born with prehensile horns that fall off within six weeks of birth.

Giraffes live in the African savannah, scrub, and open acacia woodlands south of the Sahara

Like human fingerprints, each giraffe's coat is unique.
The only animal in the world taller than the giraffe is the blue whale, standing upright on its flipper.

Evicted!> Angry Rant!

So I am now in a new flat in Prague. How did this happen? On Thursday Kyra and I had just gotten back from a nice walk and lunch in our neighborhood. We were in our wonderful apartment and I received a call on my mobile from the owner of the apartment. She told me in very broken English that three Finish girls, who had come by and seen the place the day before, wanted to rent the apartment for a year and then buy it. She told me that Kyra and I would have to move out the next day. Fuck.

Normally I would have had a contract with the landlady to protect me from this kind of shit. I had in fact signed a month long lease with full paper work, but that had expired a few days earlier, on the 9th of September and we had agreed verbally that I would stay until Oct 3rd, when I fly back to the states. I had even paid her full rent up until the 3rd. Without a contract I was shit out of luck and the real estate agent that had found me this apartment informed me that the three girls would move in at 4 on Friday and that she would try to help me find a new apartment for the two and a half weeks I have left in Prague.

I tried to fight it by making both the real estate agent and apartment owner feel terrible about throwing us out. It was incredibly unethical to do that when they could have easily told the Finnish girls that the place was rented for the next two and a half weeks and that they could find them another place until we moved out. This didn’t work and the next morning I went to see the only place the real estate agent could find on short notice that would rent to me for such a short time and that could be equipped with internet by Tuesday, when I start my next contract.

I considered just leaving all of my stuff at a friend’s flat and going on a short vacation with Kyra until the 2nd, but my Swedish client needed me to get to work as some my consulting is tied into a mailing that they have already sent out, making my work time sensitive. So we took the flat after a good deal of bargaining. They wanted 17,000 crowns for the two and a half weeks and I was able to get them down to 13,000 crowns, which was still a big rip off and still more expensive than the apartment I was being kicked out of. To top it off this apartment is run down, with less comforts of home (toaster, nice plates, cookery, towels, bed sheets, etc.), I can’t be guaranteed the internet will be up by Tuesday, the kitchen is hard to work in, the bed has a foam mattress which is f-ing up my back and it’s a much smaller apartment than the last one. Yeah, I am pretty pissed. Once again I have learned the importance of having a contract for everything.

So I am done renting Czech apartments. The one I had from Jan-May was a pain in the ass with internet, the gynecologist toilet and in the end they tried to rip me off on the deposit. This debacle has pushed me over the edge.

More Thoughts on Russia> Rant

I just read an interesting article in Foreign Affairs Magazine entitled “Russia Leaves the West” by Dmitri Trenin. It explained why Putin and Russia have been paying less heed to Western criticism lately and what the future portends. I knew the main reason was that the price of oil is very high and they have a lot of oil. The other reason, which seems pretty obvious, but I hadn’t really though about it, is that Russia doesn’t like the way the Western world treats it. Since the fall of the Soviet Union we have treated them like a developing country instead of the 1st world nation they think they are. Just one example is we let them into the G-7, but they haven’t been given full membership privileges. They feel like the West gives them shit no matter what they do. (Gee, can you think of another Superpower that gets shit no matter what it does?) So much like a pregnant teen on Jerry Springer they said fuck it, “We do what we want… Whatevah.” Anyway, I understand their perspective more now, but I still have some serious problems with Russia. I wrote this in my journal while traveling but forgot to add it to my blog:

“What really jerks my Tolstoy is why Russia is so backwards ass. All over the world places are backwardsass you may be saying. True. I can handle it when it is because people are inept, incompetent and lazy. The thing is in Russia things are this messed up because they want it like this. By "they" I mean the government, the mafia and sadly the people also. I think they like being miserable. One example is playing pool here. The balls are almost larger than the pockets. They need to be wedged in to go down. I played a one hour game of pool that was only finished through some miraculous shots and a tub of Vaseline. Fucking Russia.”

Streets of Shanhaiguan> Traveled