Moving and Shaking

Moving and shaking

The chronicles of moving your shitty shit to a new place.

So I lived in Sierra Vista for almost 6 years on the dot. I moved there on November 4, 2005, and I left November 2, 2011. I lived in a decent 500 sqft apartment. Nothing special, nothing to host parties with, nothing to make the ladies drop their panties, but it worked for me. Especially the last 4 years that I was averaging 100 days overseas alone, not to mention all my other personal travels. I was never home, so why have a nicer place.

Now I wouldn’t say Im a pack rat, I just have a hard time throwing things away, Im never going to end up on hoarders or anything, but a lot of shit accumulates over the years. Papers, documents, bills, cards, trinkets, shit from your pocket and the end of the day. You name it, it was on a couch, counter, desk, table, drawer, bag, cabinet or wherever else shit can find a place for itself and make a homestead. A good 90% of it I was able to make a command decision and just chuck it away. The last 10% was hard, I really had to think…..do I need this, do I want this, how strong are these memories, does the memory exist someplace, like maybe in digital format? So 50% of that 10% came with me, not because I was able to clear it because my poor little hybrid ran out of room. More on that later.

So I put out a request for moving quote online, received about 400 calls from potential suitors, oh to be loved. Most of them were about the same, some were lower than others, a couple were egregiously higher than others, like thousands more. I chose one that seemed to be like the others, just a little bit lower. Bought some boxes from Uhaul and proceeded to pack my shit. I packed most of my stuff up by Tuesday evening as I was leaving Wednesday morning. Received a call stating movers wouldn’t be there until late Wednesday. They showed up Wednesday at noon a little earlier than planned and that’s when the fun started.

The foreman comes in and says what is this, this isn’t on the inventory list. Motioning to my boxes, on here I have 15 medium boxes. Okay? Well, this is more than that. Well its less than 15, yeah but they are bigger. Okay? So what does that mean, you aren’t going to take them. Well, what it means is that your price is going to go up a lot. Like a lot a lot! Why? Well take these wardrobe boxes, each one is considered 5 medium boxes. So your three wardrobe boxes already equal your 15 medium. And now you have like 6 X large boxes and some of them aren’t filled to capacity, if I put them in the truck on top of each other, they could collapse because lack of support. Well if I fill them up, they will be even more heavy! Rolls eyes at me. The guy was a very mean tactless Israeli. And he hadn’t showered in a while or at least didn’t where deodorant. Much like my foreign friends.

So as my stuff had to go, I was kind of between a rock and a hard place. This guy was about to leave if I didn’t pay the extra. I said well my credit card is on file, just take it, and Ill talk with sales later. NO, you have to pay me 60% of all of this today. Do you want to call your mom or dad about this? Umm, no I think to myself. I did shave that day, but I don’t need their consultation. Do you need to call your company, whos paying for this? I am. Okay good because Im not going to explain myself to multiple people. WOW. So I write an email to the sales guy explaining the situation. He writes back saying he will check into it once he gets to see the inventory list.

So I sign about 32 documents and off my stuff goes. He asks if I was told when I would get my things. I said 2-10 days, he laughs, and says yeah more like 10-14 days. Okay, looking dumbfounded as to why this guy would be so happy with himself.

Being cleaning up all the knick knacks they wouldn’t take, throwing away even more and more stuff. Then start to clean. I hope I will never let cleaning get that out of date. I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. Finally had to go because I had to drive to Albuquerque that day. Which is about 6 hours away from where I live. Plus, I had to go outprocess from the apartment. That really didn’t entail too much. Basically pay two month’s rent as a penalty, get the hell out of there, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out. I packed up my car to the best of my ability. Filled every crevasse of the Honda Civic Hybrid and threw away all of the stuff that didn’t fit. Man I did not like throwing away stuff that I liked, wanted, needed, and wasn’t broken. Oh well, I guess most of you will say that I should stop being cheap and I can afford to replace it. Still!!!!

Began the drive to Albuquerque, took a shortcut at Deming, got onto I25. Filled up for gas in Socorro, got food in Truth or Consequences, stopped at the Hard Rock Café in Isleta, made it to the Hampton Inn about 1130 that night. Stayed up to 1 doing things for the next part of the trip and talking to friends. Got up in the morning, had some bacon and yogurt, (good protein and bad protein), and got on the road. Made it quickly through Albuquerque and Sante Fe and then there was absolutely nothing for about 3 hours. Nothing nothing nothing, new mexico is the worst state in the union. I got to Raton pass and that is a very dangerous place to be. Its very high up in the mountains, about 7000 feet. It had just snowed the day before and my car was like, pues, what the fuck. This is too cold and too much of an incline. Needless to say, all batteries were exhausted. Made it into Colorado and there was jack until you hit Pueblo and Colorado Springs. They were very nice to drive through. Made it past Castle Rock, was not selected for a job there. Made it through Denver, where traffic sucked major arse. Then made it to Berkley East Boulder, CO and I have been all smiles since. I don’t care for hippies, in fact they are the worst thing on earth. Do you want, be what you want, but cant you shower or wear deodorant?!?!? That should be a rule applied to all, ALL!!

I got here with the stuff in my car and froze my ass off that night. I had a sheet, blanket, comforter, under armour and could not get warm. It was 85 when I left AZ and It was 35 when I got here. Lovely.

Fast forward 1 month and my stuff arrives, never use 1^st choice moving from phoenix. They are terrible. Had a broken lamp and a broken fan. They they tried to deliver my stuff on Thanksgiving so I had to wait another week after that. They grossly ball parked my total cubic footage, took longer than they were allowed. Made no attempts at a an apology or a recession of monies. So I filed my Better Business Bureau. Not like it will make a difference, but it made me smile.

And that is the story of me moving and shaking out of 520, out of 85635, out of Sierra Vista, out of Cochise, out of Arizona.

Until then,

Jacob

jacob of the caribbean

Eggs of the Caribbean

So it’s time for a new family vacation and another cruise. This time we were doing a cruise through the southern Caribbean. If you remember two years ago we did the Mexican Riviera, ooooh I know so fancy. I was very excited about this new trip because it was going to be all new destinations. We were flying to Puerto Rico, which was awesome, because I had only been to the airport previous. Please see the Grenada blog for details of how I watched a women die in first class.

Saturday

Wake up ass early and fly to DFW and then chill in general pop because when I’m not flying international I don’t have rights; and they don’t consider the Caribbean international. So I was delayed getting to San Juan, most vacation destinations are never on time it seems. I was upgraded the whole way, but I can’t remember anything special about the flights. Also it was almost three months ago. So I got to Puerto Rico and made it to my hotel. I met with everyone and then we headed to Outback steakhouse which is probably my least favorite restaurant and my downright least favorite when I’m not in America. I know Puerto Rico is a territory but it’s not America. I wanted some Puerto Rican food and rum. I had neither. So my parents are old and go to bed early and get up early. My sister is not old, but she’s tired, and my little brother is too young, at least we thought he was. So drewski and I went out and met our best friends, who just so happened to be going on a cruise from Puerto Rico and to the same destinations, just not at the same time or the same ship. It would have been epic had we all been on the same ship for a week drinking and eating, but alas, no such luck. So they were having a street party that night at the hotel near their hotel. They had mojito making contests and lots of fresas hocking Bacardi in tight tight Bacardi dresses. And just in case you were curious, Puerto Ricans as a species are some really hot ass chicks. If you like short and cute its paradise. We had Cuba Libres all night, which is rum and coke and lime and we had a lot of them. Then we went to the casino and taught the youngest girl in the group how to drink and gamble!! I won nothing at the crap table. We drank some more and then took off back home.

Sunday

Woke up and I think headed to breakfast with my sister. Breakfast was okay, it was even better that I didn’t have to wait thanks to my parents having super duper status at Hilton. The line for breakfast was ridiculous. The line for diamond members was pretty awesome actually…..no one was in that line. So after we went to breakfast we went to the grocery store because I needed to buy some rum for the cruise. You can’t officially take alcohol on the ship, but certain rules apply to some and to others….not so much. So I bought 4 bottles of rum and an 8-pack of coke. The bottles weren’t for consumption on the boat, well one was, but the others were for home or for gifts. Truthfully though, the bottles were there as a decoy so I could get at least one bottle aboard the ship. My suitcase is designed with lots of pockets and the way many of them overlap lends itself too nicely to clandestine rum smuggling!!! We went to the ship and got settled in, but it was still like 6 hours until we departed. So we went to the old fort and walked around. We stopped in a bar and watch the US women lose to Japan in the world cup, that sucked, but a lot of times in life, the team that comes from a place of tragedy usually wins. New Orleans Saints or Marshall University, that sort of thing, because they normally suck and will always suck, but they get to win once. So Japan was victorious. We ended up seeing our favorite family again on the streets walking around the fort. We recanted about the night before, we told them how we taught the girl how to drink and gamble, the parents were not overly thrilled with us. I thought it was all good, but I later heard that, the parents thought we were joking and just laughed it off. So I was told never to bring up the incident of our night in Puerto Rico again, fair enough. After an hour or so of sightseeing we went back to the ship. Walked around checking out what was there and then I got a call to come see ship security about some contraband. Now contraband can be anything: irons, cooking utensils, play toys and knives, or multiple bottles of alcohol in my case. The security guard was super apologetic and asked to go through my stuff. I said sure here is one bottle in this compartment. Thank you, may I look in this slot, looking nervously….sure I said. I had over the next bottle. Then he said can I move your clothes around, so I showed him nothing else to see here and he said sorry for the inconvenience, made a record of my stuff and said I could get it back in a week. I said thank you and walked away with my other bottles intact. Holla holla holla to me!!! Went to our first of fancy meals and then headed to the casino afterwards. I really like eating at cruise ships because everything is already paid for in terms of food. You just go through the menu and say Ill have this that and the other and one more of those and the maître d’ just says, mmmmm good choice sir. I didn’t win anything at the casino, which is normally my luck. So that was my last chance for the trip.

Monday

Wake up in St. Thomas which is still considered America. Walked around because the girls wanted to look at diamonds and shit. Every Caribbean stop has diamonds international or some other jewelry store and it’s the same shit and every stop. Duty free rums, duty free cigarettes, and crappy Caribbean souvenirs. I did pick up some red sunglasses because mine broke earlier in transit. We headed out to Meghan’s Bay. It’s a nice place and the bartender ended up being from El Paso and went to my high school, so we talked a lot about Chico’s mostly. I went for a swim and for a walk around the cove. It was nice, it was overcast too. I was hoping to get one shade darker pale, but I’m not sure if it worked out. I apply sun screen like a son of bitch. Gotsta keep the money maker free of moles, wrinkles, and freckles. That night was the first of our formal evening wear. Most people on the ship wear suits or sports jackets or just tuck their shirt in and think that that is good enough. Well not us; all four guys were in tuxedos and looking smashing if I do say so myself. It actually looks pretty cool to see a bunch of 6’+ people walking around trumping the other families. Some jaws dropped, I’m not going to lie. Some wives and girlfriends took longer glances than usual. AS THEY SHOULD!!! Fancy clothes also mean fancy meals on the ship. Lobster, prime rib, filet mignon, yadda yadda yadda. I think that night I walked around every floor and level of the ship just looking to get stared upon. Yes I need that much validation in my life.

Tuesday

Was our first day at sea and I absolutely love days at sea, because you don’t have to wake up early, there’s no place to go, nothing to see, its total lounging. It also means we go to every single trivia challenge and run a train on our competition. All the challenges except sports, man alive we suck at sports. And when I say we suck I don’t really mean that, we could probably beat you, it’s just that in order to win trivia you need to get about 90% right and we are somewhere in the 75% range. It’s not that we don’t know sports, (we really don’t), and it’s that we don’t know sports from anything before 1990 really. So my dad can help out, especially with years, but still he doesn’t know enough. So I think we only walked away with one medal because some of the questions get recycled and we can remember very well. So we just knew enough of the answers later on in the week. On days at sea we also played major miniature golf, someone different always wins; my dad isn’t THAT good at golf. I think we went to about 3 or 4 trivia’s a day. More rum and coke and more dinner. We had a really good comedian on the ship; we had a not so good comedian on the ship. I think it’s always a challenge to be a comedian without cursing or speaking dirty. Now I like dirty profane comics, but if that’s all you got, I’m probably making more than you are as a comic. The one guy who only relied on profanity made dirty Puerto Rican jokes, which were funny because he was also Puerto Rican, but they get old fast. The funny guy was just plain funny and that’s all she wrote.

Wednesday

I think this was our day in Barbados and that equals one thing. New country!!!!!! New tick mark, one less country to see. Holla holla holla to me! We got off and if you have ever been to a cruise stop you know that there are going to be hockers for all types of tours, adventures, excursions and whatever else you can imagine. So you should just skip those and go for a walk until you find something away from the ship, because the further you walk the cheaper things get. We found some guy and thought, ehh, he’ll do. We went on a tour around the island, where different countries fought for the Barbadians, went to the tallest hill in the country, went and saw where Richard Branson likes to stay and where Tiger Woods got married. Then we stopped off at some hole in the wall and had lunch. It was a very good lunch, I actually had marlin and it was tasty tasty fish. It’s more like meat than fish, not like cartilage at all. Made it back to the ship and that is where I saw here. The beautiful goddess of Romania. All of the people who work on the ship are foreigners. Most speak English, but not all. The entertainment staff generally speaks English. So the girl, Maria, speaks Romanian, but she also speaks Spanish, be still my heart. She is our trivia challenge girl asker of questions. We totally dominate and I strike up a conversation with her about where she’s been and where she’s from. For some reason I have a hard time talking to American girls, but a foreigner, that’s no big deal. Blah blah Ive been to your country, blah blah yes I am cultured. American girl: ughhh, don’t talk to me your pretentious prick. Sad face. But back to the cute foreigner. Shes got a nice toosh, nice black hair, blue eyes, holla holla holla. We’ll talk more.

Thursday

I don’t even know where we are this day. I think St. Lucia. Which as I later found out is a sovereign country, boom new country, new tick mark. I think St. Lucia we just went to the beach and drank beer. My brother and I fought a lot, like wrestle in the water, fight on the beach fighting. I got sun burned and a little drunk. We went back to the ship to have some lunch, then we proceeded to have a royal rumble in the room. If you can remember that seen from How I Met your Mother where everyone goes outside to fight that guy. Everyone loose except Marshall, because he grew up with his three brother who were all bigger than him. In the episode everyone makes fun of him for play fighting in Minnesota, but as it turns out, they have dungeon cage mma matches. Well we kind of did that in our cabin. The three brothers, all of various heights and weights, Im also kind of the smallest if you can imagine. The two younger ones wanted a shot at the title to be the number one son or the king of awesome, who knows, but they won, they beat the shit out of me, but not before I bruised my hand with my super knuckles. I think we fought about 5 or 6 times, I think I won two of the fights. That day we did some more trivia and I don’t know what else.

Friday

St Kitts, not even sure what I did. So we made it back to the ship and it was another formal night,…..our last formal night. The food was excellent, the wait staff and cooks all sang for us. I walked around like a pimp all over the ship, with none a girl giving me a second look. Ho hum, such is life. My younger brother and I just grabbed some buckets of beer and talked up in the adult serenity section. It’s a place for crappy rich white people. We aren’t them, but that’s where we drank.

Satruday

Welcome to the Netherland Antilles. Specifically St. Maarten, more specifically, new hard rock café pin, w00t w00t. I have now been, OFFICIALLY, to 36 hard rock cafes, ive been to more than that, but it was before the passport program began. So this was the day where we actually had a shore excursion, but it was raining and there were no cancellations. So we went on a rainy snorkeling adventure. I went to get drunk, because there was so much rum punch and rum and coke to be drank. I don’t really like snorkeling, I have a hard time breathing under water and I don’t really care to get good at it. Ive seen turtles and fish and other cool things, but it didn’t excite that much that I need to do it more. Its mostly just a check mark. So im all for sunning myself and drinking rum. One of the coolest things about the excursion is we went past the airport. For those of you who are up to date on interweb videos you have probably seen the video of planes practically landing on the beach, the water ends and the runway starts about 50 feet away. Well that is here, its in St. Maarten. Giant 747s land here. We parked the catamaran right in front of the runway and watched as a decent sized us airways plane landed over us it was pretty sweet. Next we went to the bay where they would be swimming and my brother and I would be fighting. We fought for awhile and then went back to the boat to start drinking, rum after swimming not before. They also made us sandwiches and in the process of flock of seagulls followed, they ran, they ran so far away, j/k not those ones. But they did follow us because I guess everyday this boat makes the same journey and the birds know to follow because they will get fed. Got back to the boat and proceeded to finish off my rum and watched some harry potter. Went to the going away show, went to our last dinner on the boat and that was about it.

Sunday

Went to the airport and I was denied access to the Admirals Lounge because I wasn’t flying international. I did get to the airport with plenty of time to spare so I told the TSA to feel me up. He was very displeased with this. Since Im used to getting felt up in Germany I let the TSA do it just to buck the system. When I got to the gate I began to read a book and then the Clarks showed up. So we shared stories of the cruise and talked about other things. Then we played a card game that involved dwarves and mining. Then we said goodbye to the older boys and the El Paso Clarks and I boarded the plane. They went right to coach and I went left to first. We hung out in Dallas for a while and chatted about different things. It was really nice. Said some more goodbyes and my vacation was over. Made it home safe.

Thanks for reading,

jacob

nepal

Friday

Day off from work and CE and no cultural tour, because sadly I must go to Nepal. Many people were/are impressed that I get to support other continental endeavors, “Ahhh, lucky, I want to go to there!!!”, “How is it”, “Which do you like the best” and other such questions that let me know Im not sucking at life. We left Portugal to London, which means I got a Portugal stamp, awesome, didn’t get one on the way in because we flew into Spain. The bag that I travel with is a large duffel and I keep every sticker and ID tag that I can. When the girl at the airport looked at me she asked if I was George Clooney. Then she looked through my passport and all its stamps and said Oh yes you are George Clooney. She was rather concerned that we did not have a visa for India. As we were not going to India, I didn’t have one. I was only transiting though there. She said hmmmm let me check them all the way through to Kathmandu else you wont be able to leave the secure area in Delhi, you cannot buy a Indian visa at Customs. Okay fine, much obliged. So landed in London, sat in the lounge in for about 4 hours and then hopped onto a British Airways flight for 8 hours to New Delhi, I think its called just Delhi now. My headphones didn’t work on the flight over, but luckily this time, since we were on a non shitty US based airline I had a screen at my seat. I think I watched 4 movies. This couple on the airline had two middle seats and was trying to get together. The aisle guy on that side wouldn’t move because he had long legs and there was no seat in front of him, not as long as mine, in fact he was Indian, so he had practically no legs. Then the girl came to me and asked me to trade. Sorry sista, you got nothing to bargain with. Im already stuck in coach, I will not willingly go to the middle seat. Especially since you are neither old nor hot. Plus, you are just boyfriend girlfriend, you can stand to be apart for 8 hours.

Purgatory

We landed in Delhi and were put into an indefinite holding pattern. Not in the air but trying to navigate that which is the transit area of Delhi. There is this area with about 6 big big seating sections and people are sleeping on the floor, some are in sleeping bags, others in blankets. Peculiar I say to myself. There is one counter with about 5 desks. All say Air India and one says Jet Airways, that’s what we were flying so we made our way there. Now there were about 9 people behind the counter for 5 stations. Sounds like a good thing, huh, except there are no computers, they are doing everything with carbon copy. Peculiar I say to myself. Whats more, all except 1 person is working, the rest are sitting talking or doing nothing. When we get to the counter we see this girl is pleading to get through with a boarding pass but they wont let her for this reason or that. She is asking them to page her boyfriend who already made it through, nopers. The other people look on and go about their business. We finally get to the counter and they take our passport, luggage tags, ticket numbers and write this down 3 times on separate spreadsheets. Peculiar I say to myself. The lady then starts making phone calls and writing more and more things onto the spreadsheet. 45 minutes later we have boarding passes, and to quote my favorite blog writer, I am complete BULLSHIT at this time. How in the hell does India, a tech giant, not have computers, how in the hell does India use carbon paper, how in the hell is only one person working behind that counter. So we now get to go through the joy of airport security, India style. I don’t travel lightly, my bag generally has all of my electronic gadgets and I have 8 pockets and 2 mesh container holders. There have been times where my carry on is weighing in at 50 pounds. After I get a thorough rub down from the man, this lady perceives to open every pocket and take out everything with an on off switch and send it trough x-ray. She herself gets lost in the process of pocket searching and is amazed at how much shit I have with me. She is done and proceeds to do that whole ordeal with my boss. Now we are finally though and trying to find a lounge.

Saturday

Find a lounge, get kicked out, they say try to go to another one, we get booted out. So we are forced to hang with the local populace. Its about 7 in the morning at this time and we stop to get some tea and coffee. Strewn about the airport is advertisements and banners for the Cricket World Cup. India is big into cricket and doing very well at the moment. So everyone has specials for the Cricket world cup. We later stop at bookstore and a bunch of kids are hanging out in the kama sutra section. Laughing and giggling and being a mature 27 year old, I must check this out too. 365 of kama sutra, goodness, how can there be that many variations, there is only so much twister you can do and there are only so many options for holes and things to insert them with. I guess I need to get on with and step it up in the boudoir. So we have about 4 hours to kill and Ive been up for almost 30 hours or so and Im cold and hot and cranky, im menopausal evidently. Get on the plane and it looks like an empty flight, but we aren’t going anywhere. There are only so many flights to Kathmandu so I guess they are waiting for other passengers. It ends up being a full FULL flight. Get to Kathmandu and we are sitting in middle of chaos. You can get your visas at the airport, so as we can, so does everyone else. No one, NO ONE, got their visas beforehand. We don’t even have pictures. But, we have a military escort. And we are blitzkrieged through all that commotion. Get pictures taken, get visas stamped in, go wait for some more time as our luggage shows up in bits and pieces for the next 20 minutes. Oh vey, its these time when you all would not want my job. Get our luggage get on the bus and make the 15 mile trek through the nice part of Kathmandu and through the bad part and through a back alley and through a slum. And I am nicely reminded of why I was blessed to be born in Texas. Get to our hotel, check in, get a nice room key with a ruler attached to it. I haven’t had a non key card key in about 20 years maybe. Get in, check out my awesome twin bed and take a shower. Go downstairs to see about getting some food and we run into some coworkers, so we decide to go on an adventure and see whats what. I took the lead, or rather was forced to lead. I somehow have a good sense of direction and don’t get lost, normally, and can usually find good restaurants. I got lost in Belgrade and had to call a taxi….sad face. So we went out to the main drag and started walking. First we were in search of a ATM, next it was food, we walked down a ways, passed a sitting cow, a cow that would be sitting there all week as you will read later, I don’t know if he couldn’t walk or what, but cows are sacred there so don’t fuck with them. We found this place, called Mama’s Place, it served all kinds of food. It had pizza on the menu and pizza is always safe so we went in. The cricket world cup was going on and it was India vs. Sri Lanka. Two countries that don’t like each other and the restaurant was split between the fans. We were eating with our New Zealand friend and he explained the game to us and finally it made sense. It was a lot of fun to watch, games can sometimes take three days so if you are into cricket you better be prepared. We rooted for both sides because we didn’t want to get into any trouble. Our food came out and it was undercooked, hot but the pizza crust was a little doughy. I have a pretty good stomach in terms of immunity so I went ahead and ate away, washed it down with beer and all was well the next day. We stopped at a corner store on the way home, got some water and snacks and made it back to the hotel. Finally, time for another paragraph.

Sunday

Woke up with my alarm. Kathmandu is 4.75 hours ahead of Lisbon. I don’t know why? I guess because they can, they want to be different. India is 4.5 hours ahead and I guess Nepal wants to be extra different. Went down to breakfast and proceeded to eat 3 plates of food. Something about being jet lagged my body needs extra calories. Had eggs, bacon, potatoes and Nepalese sopapillas. Come que Nepalese sopapillas. One of the dishes at the buffet came with fried bread and the dessert station had honey, viola, a little taste of home. It was glorious. I had that every day that they offered it. Went back to our room because we couldn’t find our pacific counterparts, so I chilled for awhile. Then went for a walk around the block to check out some of the merchants. Finally we found them and we went to work, we worked for about 4 hours that day. Sometimes in these countries you have to be careful about water and food, so I brought these super caloric protein dense snack bars, had one of those for lunch. That night we went out to dinner to this Korean restaurant, it took a long time, but it was good food.

Monday

We didn’t do any work, we just sat through briefings all day, and they went over stuff from the previous conference. Yawn fest, they had internet so I mostly played on that all day, but it was slow slow slow internet. That night they had an ice breaker for us. So in the mean time I went to get a massage. I had looked earlier in the day at a couple around the hotel, but they looked a little sketch. I wasn’t looking for hookers, just wanted a non sexual rub down. One of them had two grandmas working in it, generally the uglier and older the masseuse the better the massage. The other one had some cute girls and I thought, hmm, that might get expensive fast. So the hotel offered a 30% discount so I opted to go there. It was in the same place as the salon and it was the same room, just blocked off by some metal. The table was rather short, or Im rather long. When I put my head down, my legs were hanging off almost up to my knees. I had already stripped down when the girl came in asking me to pay first, so Im trying to do this awkward reach over to get my wallet and keep all necessary parts covered. I had like 10,000 rupees on me, which isn’t much, but here eyes got all huge and I thought mmmm I better hide said wallet. So she comes in and rips off the towel and proceeds to massage my ass for like 30 minutes. Couldn’t have asked for a better massage. Generally massages massage everything except your butt, but not here. During the massage the other ‘room’ was taken by some old man from Australia, he walked in from the pool and the girl asked him to take off his bathing suit and he was all super offended but he gave in, then she asked him to remove his underwear and he wouldn’t and they got into an argument and then the two girls started talking in Nepalese to each other, it was not exactly inducing to a good massage, but whatever my ass was thoroughly pampered. So she turns me over and does the rest and then she whispers to me if I want a breast massage and I think to myself, did she say breast or chest, I say yes and she kind of massages my nipples, well alright that was interesting. Then she asks if I want a hair massage, did she say hand or hair, I say okay and proceeds to rub and scratch my head with oils, it felt pretty nice. Then she taps me on the penis and asks if I want massage and I thought to myself, no way this is actually happening, I thought of all the places that would be upstanding it would be in the hotel. I kind of shrug and think to myself, when in rome, okay, rub rub tug tug…..best massage of my life. She has very broken English and is asking me if I have a wife or girlfriend or Nepalese girlfriend, no to all three, and then she asks me to come back first thing in the morning and I bet it would have involved more fun massage, less useful massage, I said yes, but I didn’t return. As Im getting up, she towels me off and I say is that it. She nods but doesn’t leave the room, should I get dressed I asked, she nods, alright well I guess im getting dressed in front of you, awkwardly put underwear on, then jeans, sock and shoes, try to pull my wallet out of shoes because I thought I could have hid it there safely, now I just look dumb, as Im putting my shirt on she hugs me, oh you so tall, you very very tall man, I like you. STAGE 5 CLINGER!!!!!!!!!!! Okay, nice to meet you, I say and walk out as I can feel her puppy dog eyes still on me. That night the reception is outside in front of the salon and I do my best to keep my back to the salon the whole time. The reception was good, lots of food and drink. And that is the story of my first happy ending massage and it has already been the source of much laughter to some of you that I have told.

Tuesday

Our first day of real work and it goes okay. I give one presentation and then try to steer the data committee or at least help out as best as I can. Finish the day and my bosses stay home to do some work so my coworker and I head out to dinner. Were going to the Mt. Rum Doodle bar. It’s the bar where all the trekers come to when they get off the mountain. It has famous signatures from Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa and about 1000 other people who have climbed the various mountains and ranges in Nepal. The food was pretty good I had some chicken wings and beer. On the way we got lost and were walking down some shady dirty parts of Kathmandu. We came across some dudes speaking English riding mountain bikes and they pointed us in the right direction.

Wednesday

Woke up to find out that the guy I went to dinner with was beyond super sick. He was throwing up all night and wasn’t going to be coming to work that day. Sucky. No one wants to be sick in a foreign country especially one where its unsafe to drink the water. We’ll get back to him tomorrow. Wednesday was the cultural tour event. We went to some hill where you could see everest, but only if it weren’t cloudy, polluted, or overcast. So they joked and said, youll just have to come back. Next we went to this Hindu temple. The compound was really big and we walked around all the shops and bazaars. The architecture was very cool. We weren’t allowed to go in because we weren’t Hindus, but it was still cool. While we were in the museum we had another black out, so we didn’t get to see much of the exhibitions. The bus ride was long and boring but it was still fun. Especially since CE is no longer doing cultural tours. We got back that night and headed to a restaurant and I had more mo mos!! Mo-mos are like pot stickers or yakimandu, take your pick. Steamed noodles with something in the middle. The big things here were chicken, buffalo, mutton, or vegetable. No beef since cows are sacred. Had about 24 of those suckers. They are cheap and go down easy and since they are deep fried, usually pretty safe since they cooked at such a high temperature.

Thursday

Friend is still sick and puking his guts out so we take him to the Embassy where they don’t want to treat him, but after enough coercing and paperwork checks they allow him in. They give him a shot, some meds, and an IV. I saw him that day after work and he looked like he had been hit by a bus, the bus stopped reversed over him, and then drove back over him again. We did some more work that day but we got to stop soon so we could go to the cultural dinner. It was a nice evening. We had cultural dancers, some cute ones too, then a nice cocktail hour, followed by a really good buffet. I had a lot of good conversations that night, made some new friends. Always a lot of fun.

Friday

Had another day of briefs and just sat through all of that. Packed up a little before lunch and then had to attend another brief with all the generals. That evening we went back to the Rum Doodle, had some more chicken wings and beer and then called it a day.

Saturday

Went to the airport with about 3 hours to spare and we got into the security section with about 2 hours to spare so we just sat and sat and sat some more. Finally, when we got to go through my security my bags were checked just as thoroughly as they were in India. Every pocket was examined and every zipper was opened. I was rubbed down almost as nicely as I was rubbed down with the massage. Then we got to our holding cell and waited some more. Then they called our flight and we went through pre-pre boarding check checks. Check boarding pass, ID, and go through bags again. Walk out onto the tarmac and pre-checks. Check boarding pass, passport, and bags again. I was checked 3 times in a matter of 500 feet. Im not sure why, I can recall someone saying that Nepal doesn’t want to be seen as the weak link in global security. They sure aren’t. It was a little ridiculous if you ask me, but I guess the plane was super safe. Then we get to India Purgatory again and we are forced with going through that carbon copy transit area again. I think we were there for 2 hours of the 7 hours we had there. We had to do some willing and dealing, phone calls, flash the black cards, and say we were flying First class. We weren’t, but they didn’t need to know that. So we finally get to some lounge and Im freaking tired by this time, have some tea and some small snacks. Watch a movie and then head over to our flight that wasn’t leaving until midnight. The airline security was just as bad again in India. Getting felt up, quadruple checks of boarding passes and passports. The flight was from Delhi to Chicago. 15 hours of flight, glory glory. We were flying up over Russia, the north pole and down over Canada. LUCKILY, I was in business class. I watched 4 movies and I think took a 7 hour nap. That is my new record for sleeping on an airplane. We landed in Chicago right about 5 am, but not quite 5 am, so we were forced to sit on the plane because the USA doesn’t open up until 5am. Thank you very much lazy TSA. Why there would be a flight that lands before you can disembark I don’t know, why not leave India later in the night, make a 130 flight, who cares, everyone is already walking about looking like a zombie. We get checked in and make our way to the showers, then head over to the first class lounge. At least they have food there. Hang out for a few hours and then make our way back to Tucson. Touched down about 11am and went to see the cousins and then headed home. WWWWhhhhheeeeewwwwww……………I was tired for the next three days. 1 more trip and 4 more stamps.

Talk to you all later,

jacob