Ecuador - a first impression

I got into Quito late. Almost 12 hours late, to be more precise. After spending the night in the Guayacil Hilton (4 hours of sleep in a very nice bed) I arrived at the Quito airport at 0700 and made my way down to the Mariscal to find a cold dinner on the table in the room and a very sleepy Lulu in the bed.

After catching up on some more needed sleep next to my sweetie we awoke and ate the leftover, cold dinner for breakfast and headed out to see the Mariscal area of Quito.
I like the Mariscal. There's so much life there amidst the cafes, bars, discos, restaurants and wacky hostals. It as colorfully vibrant as much as it is vibrantly colorful. Well, enough b.s. wordplay - get on with the story...

Lulu played tour guide for me and her new friend, Mary, around Quito on Sunday in miserably overcast, cold and cloudy weather. Saw some nice churches and the old town with a large statue of the Virgin Mary overlooking everything.
Monday saw us waking up early and heading by coach up to Cayambe, a small village at the foot of a BIG mountain of the same name. We drove up a very precarious road that scared the hell out of Lulu a few times (me too, admittedly) and when we finally got to the "parking area" our driver did this f'd up 5 point turn to get the van pointing back down the mountain and seemed to be trying to back off the cliff. I'm sitting there yelling at him to stop, that Lulu's scared and that we want to get the F' out and let him turn around w/out us in it. He was laughing the entire time and said he thought it was funny. That dick.
The hike up Cayambe proved to be little more than half an hour. Not a long time, but when you're at 4000+ meters (12,000+ feet) and were on the beach 2 days before - let me just say... it ain't easy. I was sucking wind like a chain smoker does walking up two flights of stairs. But I made it to the glacier. Not having packed my cold weather hat, or my extra fleece to save weight and space, I was freezing. Stupid! It was short lived misery in the end. Only walked up to the glacier for about 10 minutes, snapped a couple of photos and left for the warmth and comfort of the car.

The rest of the time before the Galapagos cruise was spent in Quito searching out a boat to cruise around the Galapagos on. But that'll be for the next entry...

The new boss

Joe's 67 year old chain-smoking ass has only been gone 12 days and already Scott (the new boss) has been the victim of his shitty work habits. He has had to pay a hundred bucks in order to balance out the money on site when the audit came out incorrectly. Today he said that he thought Joe was a "total fuck-up". How right on the money he is I don't think he'll ever actually realize. Needless to say, Scott is pissed.

I'm elated, though! I no longer am gloomy and miserable when coming into work - I don't exactly look forward to it, but at least I don't dread it anymore. I'm just so happy that I don't have to be around that crusty old man with his nicotine-orange-stained-fingers and his breath that smells like warmed over death that I can actually get through a day of work without wanting to quit. It's really quite refreshing.

As for the new boss - he seems pretty decent and good. At the very least, he can carry on a conversation that isn't work related (a problem MANY have in this particular career field) and I think we're going to get along just fine. Not that we have much time to get along...
I'm planning on being out of here by fin July and on the road starting my Latin America trip w/ Lulu by mid-Sept after a quick reprieve in the USA catching up with family and friends. I'm excited about that trip.

No one's perfect, least of all me, but Joe was even less so.
I only write this because I know no one (except my dear sweet wonderful Lulu) will read this.

Neat and orderly to a stupefying degree

This is my coffee table. And it's nearly always like this. By that I mean that it's always neat and orderly to a stupefying degree. The remote controls and cigarettes are in their place, and the ash tray, ps2 controller and water are always close at hand.
Pretty scary, actually. Of course, when Lulu's here, it's never like this. There's always other random CRAP all over it. Well, those are the joys of being two, I suppose.

photos n the future n other stuff - a general update

I've been playing around on flickr.com a lot lately. I've uploaded all the best pics I've taken in the last couple years and, when I find the time, will upload some more. If anyone out there wants to go ahead and buy me an upgrade to a "Pro" account for $25/yr. please feel free! It'd be a nice X-mas present for me.
In the next several months, with the website going down, I'll be putting all the best pictures up on Flickr. I don't think I'll be posting any of the old stories from www.one43.com on here, though. So if you like those, I'm sorry - just go and save the web page to your hard drive.
In the further future I'm hoping to be updating this blog more and more regularly - like, once the darn FUN begins (eg: TRAVEL!!!). Once Lulu and I are out on the road I'll have a lot more to talk about and will be more motivated to write something down. PLUS with this new blog I have the benefit of easy editing from anywhere, small upload times because it's mostly text only (although I will be putting photos on the blog once I'm on the road) and I'll be able to write about wherever it was I've been/am going while the photos I've already taken do upload. It works out perfectly.

- Just wish I didn't have to wait 9 months to start - grrrrrrrrr.

This is a shot of my father playing w/ a flashlight one night when it was very, very dark. It's about a 10 second exposure.

A rant about my F^(&!N boss!

Joe is my new boss. He's a 67 year old retired USAF Master Sergeant. And he's mean as hell. He's, according to his own words, a grumpy old man. Edinson says he's an angry old man - I don't think there's a word for grumpy in Spanish so Edinson uses angry. Either way it's an accurate description of him.
So why is he so mean, you may be asking yourself?
Well, for starters it's not normal for the boss to work LESS than the employees. We're scheduled (and paid) to work from 7 until 7. But he's often out the door at 3 in order to get drunk w/ his friends. This leaves me free to finish up everything that didn't get finished before he left including putting away all of the tools that he left out from whichever job he was working on.
It's very unfortunate (for me, at least) that he only does the interesting part of our job and not the boring stuff. There's been sh*t laying around the office for a month that he said he'd get rid of and still has yet to get to it. I suppose playing spider solitaire is more important than SOME work; but C'mon, let's get real.
Another thing that sucks is that I no longer receive upgrade training towards furthering my career. How can I ever become a manager if I never receive management training???
So is my boss really 'mean' or just really annoying me? I guess he doesn't do so many mean things like kick puppies or push people down stairs or anything - but he's certainly NOT the best boss I've ever had.
Well, perhaps here's an example of how he's 'mean': We have several guests on the island now - all gringos - who Joe is very friendly with. As gringos it's nice to get together with other gringos so we can speak in our native language and relate to each other on a similar level, which can be hard to do w/ a Colombian. Last night Joe went out with all the gringos in the area except me. Now, I don't mind not going to dinner. Where they went is an expensive restaurant and all they would have spoken about, I'm certain, is work or work-related topics. Well, I already spend 12 hours at this place, I don't need to spend 3 more in a bar talking about it. That's TOO much work time. It would have been nice to have had the opportunity to say 'no' to an invitation however. As it plays out the odds are that I wouldn't have said no because Lulu would have liked the social situation. So in this aspect, by not inviting us or "forgetting" to invite us he's 'mean'.
I get the feeling he has a strong disregard towards me. You can tell when someone has a negative stance towards you by the way they address you and speak to you. When that dialogue is filled with swear words and harsh tones I think it becomes pretty evident that you're not a desired commodity in their view. But if I weren't around HOW would all this work get done?

So that's it! That's my rant. I don't know if these things qualify him as mean but he certainly is old, though! Perhaps it is just my perception of the situation that is skewed from reality. I'd like to think so - but it's still possible he kicks puppies. I just wanted to put this down on screen in order to get it off my chest so I can go home to my wonderful and perfect girlfriend without having to carry it home to her - like I did last night. I'm sorry my Babie.

Working with Colombians

It's funny working with Colombians sometimes.

Sometimes.

Other times it's just damn frustrating - bordering on insanely impossible.
But, perhaps, that's just my US citizen viewpoint speaking. Allow me to give examples instead of just pointing out some useless opinions for everyone (or no one for that matter) to read.

Funny: Edinson, one of the Colombian technicians with whom I work here on site, told me yesterday that he thought I made $10,000/month (I wish!). I laughed right in his face. I told him that I didn't even make HALF that and his jaw dropped. What'd he think - I was rich, or something? Okay, so it's really not so funny that I earn such a pittance for the amount of hours I put in. But at the time I thought it was pretty amusing.

Frustrating: I asked one of our drivers, Gonzalo - who speaks pretty darn good English, to go downtown and buy a few things for the site. Included in this list was a scalpel. I didn't know the word for scalpel (I do now) and I didn't have a scalpel on hand to use as an example to show him exactly what I wanted so I had to (got to?) describe it to him... And I did so in Spanish - "La cosa tu usar para cortando el guerpo en cirugia". Translation: "The thing you use for cutting the body in surgery." I also mimicked slicing into my chest like I needed a triple bypass or something. He smiled very big and nodded enthusiastically that he understood, a sign that I took to mean that he understood instead of the usual furrowing of his brow and asking me in English "WHAT?", and drove off after a hasty "Yes, sir!".
He returned with everything I needed except the scalpel. I asked him where the scalpel was and he showed me the brand new boxcutter he bought for us! A useful tool, indeed - but not for cutting open bodies for surgery! And, unfortunately, not what I needed.
It's now been a week and I still don't have that damn scalpel!!!