The wait is over.

I just thought you all should know that after 4 months, I finally have cable.

There's still nothing worth watching, however.

I'm thinking about unplugging the boxes and just spending more time at the gym. 

12:30 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Another satisfied customer

Link to Flow story in newspaper

For those who have been folowing my cable drama, check out this article from another satisfied customer.  HYSTERICAL!!

9:30 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Ug...still no cable

I think most of my friends would classify me as a patient person, but I've had enough.  After nearly two months without cable TV, I've decided to take things into my own hands.

Steps I will try to make them give me cable:
1.  Shake my fist at the cable company every time I drive by.  Not a terribly effective measure, but certainly very English and very propper. 

2.  Call them.  Wait, where am I?

3.  Visit their office and demand an explanation.  Wait, where am I?  That could take ALL DAY! 

4.  Harrass my landlords.  Wait, they're out of the country (e.g. they are the smart ones).

ok, I give up.  Good thing Justin brought me DVDs when he was here.  For now I guess I'll have to entertain myself with those, the gym, and the constant racket coming from the political messages which are broadcast throughout our neighborhood.  I'll have to try and get a picture of that...

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Observations from Sunday 9-Sep

Good afternoon everyone, It's Sunday!

Even though this last week was quite short (I traveled on Monday), it was a long week for me.  I'm used to working a lot but somehow it just drained me this past week.  Friday was a good day though as we got a major deliverable turned in and then we all went to 51 degrees for an after work lime.  I left a bit early and had dinner at Trinidad's nicest restaurant, an American style steak house called Prime.  We have steak quite a bit in the US, but somehow it just tasted better here; maybe because it's totally unique and way above the quality of a lot of the other food here...maybe it's just familiar.  Whichever it was, it was expensive.  Probably at least twice the price of an American steak house (think Ruth's Chris or something similar).  Anyway, totally worth the price because it put a great cap on my busy week.

Anyway, we had an interesting time on Friday.  We started out at 51 Degrees, showing up at 5:00pm like they had advertised.  Of course, they weren't ready to let anyone in and told us to come back at 6.  So, we went across the street and down to one of the Chinese restaurants in town called Jenny's on the Boulevard.  Jenny has quite a large bar in the basement of the restaurant, so we went down there and hung out until the club opened.  I never realized how big that bar is; it just keeps going and going.  Anyway, we only got to have one beer because the service was so slow.  They could have tripled their sales if the person would have just got to us sooner.  By the time we had to leave we were frustrated and unfortunately sober.

When we got back to 51 Degrees, we were the only ones in the club.  One thing about Trinidad is that the people come out VERY late.  I think this has a lot to do with the traffic.  People get home so late from sitting in traffic that they stay home or by friends for dinner and then take their time coming back to party.  By the time I had finished dinner and made it back to 51 Degrees, the club was still empty and it was 10:00.  However, once the live band finished, the club filled up within an hour and we had a great time.  I hadn't been out in awhile and it was nice to be picked up by the great energy.

Not sure what else I can say today; my focus is pretty much on going home this coming Friday.  I get to be in Denver for a whole 10 days - it's very exciting for me.  I can't think of a single time that I've been home for 10 days in the past year and a half.  Justin says that fall is starting to creep in to Denver; that makes me very happy too.  I'll have to dig out my sweater.

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I couldn’t resist...
Current mood: bouncy

So I know I get a lot of crap because I stopped blogging.  Seriously people, I have things to do!  Okay, so I have been without cable for a month now and my eliptical machine is getting rusty...okay there's really no exuse.

So, a few interesting tidbits since last I wrote:
1.  As I mentioned, I've been without cable for nearly a month now.  One weekend I went to turn on the Food Network (as many gay men do) and alas, there was nothing but a red screen saying I should wait 30 minutes (= 2 seconds in Trinidad) and if nothing happened call them.  Right.  I promptly picked up the phone and spoke to a customer service rep.  I shouldn't be alarmed, she told me, because I was amoung the first in the country who's neighborhood was upgraded to digital cable!  Great.  So, she tells me that an appointment was set up and that someone would be out.  As I was was headed out of the country for the next week, I didn't pay it too much attention.  I could use more book time anyway.

2.  Okay, this is really still number 1 but it seemed to be turning into a runon sentence.  Anyway, I left and came back to discover that the cable company didn't turn up when they were supposed to.  Shocking.  So, the next day, they finally turned up and completed the wiring.  Our landlord's handy man (Dale) informed us that the cable company had made the necessary connection from the overhead lines to the house, but wouldn't coneect the cable until he re-wired the entire house with upgraded cable lines.  Fine.  [Insert deeeeep breath here.] 

3.  Yes, I'm still on the cable saga (see, this is an entire blog in itself!  So great!!).  So the next day, Dale begins to re-wire our house.  Furniture is moved, walls are cracked, new wire installed.  Now, this was over 10 days ago.  We are so close, only need the cable company to come back with the digital boxes and hook us up!  But, as with everything, we continue to wait.  I'll let you know when things get up and running.

4.  Finally, a new topic.  I saw a sign at our client's office recently:  "The Government of Trinidad and Tobago is not a stationary supply.  Employees should kindly walk with the appropriate supplies to perform their job funcitons.  Thank You."  Allow me to translate:  "Listen, we are too cheap to buy you pens, paper towels or trust you enough to put toilet paper in the washroom.  So bring it yourselves."

5.  Our power went out at work (again).  This time, the wire holding the power line snapped (again).  My car was parked underneath where it came down and the cable did serious damange to my hood.  The power company's reaction was: a) Send someone out to watch the cabling so that no one came to steal the copper out of the wire.  b) 1.5 hours passed before someone came to examine my car (it was raining, of course).  c) I now have to personally appear to have the estimate approved and then d) They MIGHT pay to fix it.  In 2010 I'm sure.

6.  This year's 2007/2008 fiscal year budget presented by the PNM party (the party in power) was deemed a "Love Fest" by the daily newspapers.  Apparently the country is so rich that everyone got a piece of the pie in the budget (it seems so).  I find this hysterical.  They estimate that T&T has 12 years of oil/natural gas resources left.  Perhaps that budget will be the "We're Screwed" budget.

7.  We (our parnters, actually) continue to get complaints about the working conditions of the project office here, siting electrical concerns (gee, I wonder why) and cramped working space.  Perhaps they would rather work in their own offices, which have paper piled to the ceilings and, as in the case of one office we visited, 1 inch of standing water on the washroom floor.

That's it for tonight.  Perhaps if my cable stays out, I'll have time to blog some more. 

Currently reading : An Embarrassment of Mangoes: A Caribbean Interlude By Ann Vanderhoof Release date: 08 February, 2005

11:30 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

4X4

This story was told to me a couple of weeks ago by Mr. Rawle Admimoolah, Commissioner Reform at the Inland Revenue Division (IRD), Ministry of Finance, Trinidad & Tobago.  It was part of a toast he gave to a group of IRD employees who had just completed two months of courses in order to become trainers on our first implementation.  This is my best recollection of the story:

"Once a teacher, always a teacher."

There was a man downtown Port of Spain - a former teacher who, being paid only a government salary, had run onto bad times and become a vagrant [street person].  One day, while walking downtown, he noticed a truck parked on the street.  He approached the truck and noticed that it had "4X4" written on the side of it.  The teacher in him bounced to life as he picked up a piece of metal off the street and completed the problem by etching in the man's truck "=16."  "Yes," he thought to himself, "that is correct."  The man walked away proudly.

The truck's owner returned horrified; it was brand new and quite expensive!!  He decided he must have this vandalism fixed and quickly took the truck to the body shop.  The damage was repaired quickly and nicely.  The owner decided he wouldn't take any chances with this problem again so he had the following painted on his new truck:  "4X4=16" in perfect professional paint.

Next week the truck was again parked downtown and again the vagrant walked by.  "4X4=16," the main said out loud.  He thought to himself for a moment.  Then he reached down and picked up a nail off of the street.  "Correct," he said as he etched a check mark on the man's truck, right next to the correctly answered problem.

9:00 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

I'm back...and old.

My sincere apologies for taking a bit of an absence from blogging for the past month or so.  I've been quite busy traveling and having tons of house guests, etc.  So, I hope you understand and won't hate me forever for omitting a bit of my Trinidad experiences.  But, on the flip side, I'm back and will do my best to blog frequently for my adoring fans (all 2 of you). 

There are many interesting blog-worthy items that have happened since I last wrote.  Here are a few of my favourites:

1.  I've previously written about our electrical drama at the office here in Trinidad.  The service has gotten worse as we've had a regular power outage every week for about the last five weeks in a row.  If it's not the main breaker tripping it's a fire in the neighborhood that melted the power transformers.  The current approach to dealing with our problem is that they have taken the electrical panel off and put a fan next to it to "cool it down" so the breakers don't blow.  Yes, I'm sure this absolutely safe; the "electrician" told us to do it.  One of these days we're going to get fried!!  IBM plans to pull an additional power line into our office to take some of the load off; I'm sure that will only help this situation by doubling the amount of power we have running in our office.

2.  The client in Trinidad has taken to almost daily complaints to IBM about the power situation in #1.  Most notably, the people working on the second floor of the office are worried that they would not be able to escape a fire given that there are no exits on that floor.  My latest suggestion, which I shared with them, was to install an airplane-like escape slide that could be activated by heat sensor.  Second floor occupants would just slide into the neighbor's yard.  Now, what to do about their German Shepard...

3.  Trinidad has a new immigration computer system and just changed their immigration forms.  As a result I've never seen a more shocked, confused group of people than on my last return flight from Houston.  These people come to Trinidad so often that they were thrown off by the new form.  It was like a bell choir at Christmas with the flight attendent call buttons going off.  It may be a new form, but this is Trinidad...like they're even going to look at it people!!

3.  I recently took a trip across Trinidad with my friend Tim to Gran Rivere to see the leatherback turtles climb the beaches and lay their eggs.  It was a fascinating trip.  Yes, the turtles were cool but I was more fascinated by the fact there really isn't anything at all in the rest of Trinidad.  This country is trying to be modern and "progressive" and all that...but having visited the outside areas, I'm quite convinced that the majority of people would rather just keep things the way they are.  Who needs all this modern crap when you can lime by the sea all day and do nothing?  Anyway, the map was the weirdest part.  Turns out, in Trinidad, a "major highway" consists of a 1.5 lane road with more potholes than I could count.  At some points in the journey, the road was .5 lanes wide with wooden bridges that bent when you drove over them.  Ah, progress.

4.  I had a great trip home last week for my birthday.  The weather in Denver was finally nice enough to have a BBQ (we just got a new one after being without for nearly 2.5 years).  We did yard work and general spring cleaning; it was the most fun I've had in quite awhile.  There's just something nice about being home.  On the down side, I think it made me more home sick though.  Anyway, we had a fun group of people over and did a Mexican buffet with yard games and tequila galore.  The next day, as I left, it snowed 10".  I love Denver!

11:31 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Observations from 8-Mar-2007

1.  We had one of the partners of Fast in town over the last couple of days.  So, as is Fast tradition, we took the project staff out for dinner.  There aren't too many choices in Port of Spain, so we were thrilled when one of our favourite resturaunts changed chefs and opened as Angelo's Itailian Resturaunt.  Upon entering and being seated, the decor (which was Cajun before) had not changed at all.  Then we were given menus for the former restuaraunt and informed that, although they were under new management, the new menus were not ready and that they were still serving Cajun food.  They did have some Italian items and preceded to yell these out accross the entire room. 

2.  In true Trinidad form, about half of us were required to re-order our appetizer or entree since they were out of many items besides the ones they fessed up to at the beggining.

3.  After a cocktail or two, we decided that a mojito sounded refreshing.  So we asked, "Do you have fresh mint to make a mojito?"  The answer we got was, "Yes, we do."  A few moments later our drinks arrived; but with no fresh mint.  They instead used some sort of mint liquor...it was sort of neon green looking.  This cocktail tasted EXACTLY like Scope mouthwash, and I've termed the Trinidadian mojito the Scopjito.

4.  The International Cricket Wold cup is in the Caribbean right now...you'll probably hear me talk about it going forward, if for nothing else to complain about the traffic.  Anyway, inflation at it's finest.  Word has it that a Carib beer (local brew) will be 18TT at the event.  Normal price:  6-8TT.  The price of doubles (a Trinidadian breakfast food) is $6TT.  Normal Price:  $2TT.

5.  More Hilton Trinidad drama.  Yesterday, someone set off two canisters of tear gas on the 8th floor.  This was where I lived for three months.

8:30 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Observations from 4-Mar-2007

1.  When we first arrived in Trinidad, I lived at the Trinidad Hilton for about three months.  So, last night, a bunch of us went back to the Hilton "Carnival" bar to reminis before they tear it out during the remodel.  At one point, we ordered a bunch of snacks, etc and they brought it in on a room service cart.  Some of the people (locals) at the bar decided that they would help themselves to the food; it's like they hadn't eaten in months.  Now, these were not street people...they were more like starving college students.  I find it weird that they had such an assumption that the food was just there for anyone to eat!  The hotel staff were good about it though and had a nice chat with them.

2.  The trinis were trying to teach us a Trinidadian card game last night called "All Fours" or something like that.  The game was interseting, but the way they played it was hillarious!  They basically had no qualms about asking their partner what to do.  There were supposed to be subtle "signs" one would do to ask your partner what to play...but in the end they would just say "hi or low?"  Anyway, turns out they just started pointing at cards and I played them.  We lost.

3.  Considering how long my MySpace page has been up, I have almost as many blog reads as I do profile visits.  What does that mean?

4.  I went to buy playing cards at the pharmacy (that's where you can get ANYTHING here!!).  After not being able to locate them in the suspected places, I asked a clerk.  Apparently, playing cards are deemed dangerous, unethical, or somehow lead to the slippery slope to hell because it turns out they're kept behind the counter and the manager has to personally ring them up.

2:30 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Observations from 1-Mar-2007

1.  Yesterday, our client held a presentation for senior managers and assistant commissioners - complete with gold custom balloons (for you, Justin!) that were made into "flowers" with the center being a white balloon and hanging green ribbon.  Anyway, the presention was done in an upstairs room, next to which is the roof containing the air conditioning units for the entire building.  No one seemed to care that they couldn't hear a word.

2.  During a meeting today, the lights started flickering.  This is fairly normal for Trinidad; the power isn't exactly stable.  But, after more flickering, the lights finally went out.  Count it with me...one...two...three... ... ... BOOM!!!  Turns out the cable that runs through the power lines in front of our office snapped, brining down all the power lines with it.  We had employees whos cars where snarled in power lines.  One of the client people actually had a live wire on his car and the electrical system fried.  Ah, Trinidad.

3.  Last I checked, this is the year 2007.  We are dealing with a government that is working with regulations (rules) made in 1964.  You can imagine the bredth of technology that was available in that year.

4.  More evidence that an election is coming: nearly every major road in Port of Spain has been re-paved.  Today, they started on the terrible road that is used to access our subdivision.  This makes me very happy...currently one has to swerve in and out of the opposing lane to not pop a tire.  Too bad it will be another two years until they do anything to the road again.  Now the real question:  if I was allowed to vote, would finally having this road paved make a difference to me?

6:00 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment