I'm just a big dumb tourist

My second day in Lima I had a brief orientation with one of my volunteer supervisors. She told me to beware of pickpocketers and swindlers looking to take advantage of confused/goofy looking tourists. 

Well, apparently I wasn't paying close enough attention. Yesterday I went out to explore Chiclayo, the city where I will be working. There were hundreds of vendors and little stores, markets, etc. A young boy approached me and insisted that he clean my shoes on his little shoe-shining box. I went ahead and let him clean my shoes, and after cleaning the first one he handed me his "price list," which conveniently showed that the service I was receiving was the most expensive: 22 soles, or about $7.30. I rolled my eyes and told him it was too much, but in the end didn't put up much of a fight. When he was done I told him I needed change, and when he brought me his change he told me that it was 22 soles for EACH SHOE. I protested but he just handed me my changed and quickly walked away. $15 dollars for a 3 minute shoe wash is not a good deal. I was angry at myself the rest of the day for being taken for a big dumb tourist, and not putting my foot down (literally) when this kid tried to charge me too much. 

El viaje a Perú

I'm sitting in the Bogota Colombia airport, waiting for my flight to Lima. The flight from Houston to Bogota was long, and we got in at 4:25 in the morning. Since arriving I've been patted down twice, been pulled aside twice to have my bag searched, been sniffed by a pair of drug dogs, and practically robbed by a guy who asked for a tip after "helping" me find my terminal. ("Even though you could have done this yourself, since I brought you here you should give me money now.") A few other observations:

-In the States when you buy a mystery pastry, you expect that it will be filled by delicious sugary cream, compote, jam, etc. In Colombia when you buy a mystery pastry, it might be filled with mystery meat and vegetables. 

-I bought a Spanish basketball magazine in the airport bookstore here, only to find that it's from last November. The fold out poster is of Allen Iverson in his Nuggets jersey. How times have changed. 

Wow . . .

The University of Oregon School of Law recently held an Environment Law Public Interest Conference. People came from all over the world to attend seminars, learn about different environment law movements, and to be around other people with dreadlocks. Seriously, there were a lot of dreadlocks.

Inside there were lots of people and groups with little booths, each one in support of a different forest, creature, or cause. Of all the booths the only one that really stood out was the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEM). The VHEM is exactly what it sounds like: an organization whose purpose is to promote the dying out of the human race. Their argument is that we as humans have done a lot of damage to the Earth (which is true), and the only way to let Earth fully recover from our abuse is for people to die out. Completely.

The man at the booth was nice, and gave us complementary buttons and stickers that read "Thank You For Not Breeding." Certain people should definitely be encouraged not to breed, and maybe we need to be careful about depleting our natural resources. But there are more effective ways of accomplishing these goals than telling people we need to extinctify ourselves. 

Take a walk around their website and tell me what you think. Should we really die out so that we can secure a happy future for baby condors? 

A Night Out

My Dad and I were lucky enough to get some tickets for last night's Blazer game against the Orlando Magic. I made a really cool "Viva la Rudy-lucion" sign, and my Dad made some turkey sandwiches so we wouldn't have to eat the terrible concession food. When we got to the game we found out that, 1. my sign was too big, and 2. you aren't allowed to bring food into the Rose Garden. This is, of course, all part of an evil conspiracy designed to force people into buying 9 dollar cheese burgers (that have been sitting under a heat lamp for the last 3 hours) and 6 dollar sodas.

My dad couldn't wait to get this shout-out pic up on his facebook.

We decided to eat the sandwiches in the car, and to see if we could get the sign in through a different entrance. So we went back to the parking garage to eat. Now, the handicapped parking is on the lower level of the "Garden Garage," and to park there you either have to be handicapped, or have some sort of special VIP parking pass. Most of the cars down there are pretty fancy, since this is apparently where very important people park. There were some Bentleys, Mercedes, oh, and our 1994 Ford Aerostar with manual locks and windows. People gave some pretty weird looks, but they just don't understand the magic of the Aerostar.(like when me and a couple of buddies drove it down to San Francisco, and the "Check Engine" light was on the whole time but it still miraculously survived)

After finishing our pre-game meal, we went back into the Rose Garden and this time no one said anything about my sign. The temperature in 

there is pretty cool, which is perfect for my Dad

. He has MS and is pretty sensitive to any kind of heat. It was a little too loud for him though, so he decided to go with some ear plugs, thus rendering any kind of verbal communication totally useless. We narrowed our in-game communication down to three basic things:

1. The slow side-to-side head shake. This is used to express disappointment or disgust, usually when something goes wrong.
2. The slow up-and-down head nod. This is used to tell the other person that what just happened was really awesome.
3. The fist pump. Usually reserved for late-in-the-game moments, the fist pump says that you approve of your team's play.

Not only did I get my sign through security, I got it on television. Take that, Rose Garden Security squad.

At halftime I bought a bottle of water for my Dad (3.75, easily 3 dollars more than the going rate for a bottle of water this size) and a diet coke for myself (7.50--yes, you read that correctly). I would have had to take out another student loan to pay for a whole meal.

After a disappointing loss (disappointing even though I got on the jumbo-tron twice, and TV with my awesome sign) we headed home. Eventually my Dad took out his ear plugs (he wore them all the way out to the car, I was starting to wonder if he'd had enough of listening to me). We talked about the game on our way home. My Dad and I could always find something to argue about--politics, religion, whether or not he should wear his dirty old work jeans to a Blazer game, etc. But basketball will always bring us together and give us a common ground to stand on. It sounds like a silly thing, but it means a lot to me.

People Who Steal

My wife and I moved to Eugene Oregon at the beginning of this month. "Eugene is very biker-friendly," people would tell us. I am a sucker for having people be friendly towards me, so I decided I'd be using my bike quite a bit.

One of the first things I noticed was the overall crappy nature of the bikes that people ride here. I thought it was people's way of being unique or ironic . . . kind of like how it's cool to not wear deodorant or wash your hair here. A lot of the bicycles are actually kind of vintage and cool (not wearing deodorant? Still not cool), so I didn't think much of it. 

This morning I woke up and discovered that my bike wasn't in the place where I'd left it. My first reaction was to kick myself for not locking it up correctly, but on closer examination I found that they'd actually cut right through the lock. Now, when I bought my lock I decided spend a few extra bucks and get one of the expensive, thick cables. The ones that are supposed to give you better protection than those thin crappy cables you used when you were 7. So much for that "investment." I might has well been locking up my bike with rope. 

My bike wasn't super nice. Brand new it was 500.00 dollars, a big investment at the time for a poor college student. It was supposed to get me through the next four years, at least. I appreciated my bike, and took care of it. I loved the feeling of riding it to school or work, especially when I first got it, I remember catching myself just smiling as I rode along--I felt like a little kid again. Now it's being disassembled, sold for parts, or being traded for crack or meth, who knows what. Someone will end up with the bike eventually, but they won't appreciate it like I did. 

I learned something today though. I learned that people here aren't making some sort of fashion or political statement when they ride their beat-up, 1955, rusted through beach cruiser around. They just take comfort in knowing there is a very low demand for crappy bikes on the black market. 

Serious Question

How can you call a tea "Vanilla Almond" when it tastes like someone took took a huge dump in your cup? Shouldn't it be called "Huge Dump" tea?

New Blog

Stephen's Designs

I've been doing some more drawing and design work lately, so I decided to start a new blog. Hopefully there are people who like my art, enough to one day maybe pay for it. That's what I'm thinking. But if not, at least post a comment pretending to like some of it.