Friday, October 30, 2009

My Sentiments Precisely

http://www.bettybowers.com/compare.html

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

World's Foremost Authority

My ex-wife loves to take every opportunity to try to show me how much she knows. She reminds me of a comic by the name of Dr. Irwin Corey. He was well known 40 years ago. I got to know him personally back in the mid 60's when I worked with him at the Playboy Club. He was billed as the World's Foremost Authority and his entire act was based on his way of double talking, and the fact that every definitive understandable statement he made was wrong. He was a very funny guy, a bit of a dirty old man when it came to the Bunnies, but very funny. (When I started to write this entry, I checked out YouTube to see if they had any old videos and I discovered that he is still working and he is 94 years old.)
On Friday night, my daughter asked that I go to dinner with her, Michael (her fiance) and her mother. I was not anxious to spend any more time with Bonnie than was absolutely necessary, but my daughter asked so I acquiesced. We went to a sushi restaurant which used to be called Fujiyama Mama. Michele and I ate there usually about twice a week. I love sushi and since Bonnie didn't like sushi I loved to go there. It was like the vacations that Michele and I used to take during her Christmas vacation. We always went skiing. Bonnie hated cold weather. Bonnie now eats sushi and this is the neighborhood cool Japanese restaurant. Some of her drinking friends were in there and sent champagne to the table which was very nice. I don't really drink anymore, so I just took a sip to be polite.
The waiter came over to take the drink order and while he was there Michael asked for an order of Etamomi, or something that sounded like that, to be brought to the table right away to snack on. (That's a dangling preposition, I know, but I would rather write this sentence than go back and correct it.) Bonnie said to make it two orders. I asked what they were ordering and Bonnie was like, "Don't you know? It's pea pods". The waiter said, "No Ma'am, they are soy beans". Made my day.

Front Row Center For "The Bathroom Follies"

Apparently there are two types of doors that are used on airplanes for the bathrooms. One is your basic turn the handle and pull type. The other is the type with a hinge that runs from the top to the bottom of the door and must be pushed in the middle from the outside in order to open. This was the type of door on the bathroom on my flight from Santiago to New York. My seat was right in front of the door. No one, nobody, not one person could figure out how to use the door. Myself and the other three people in my row were entertained by a constant flow of people needing to use the bathroom but unable to open the door. Most of them pushed at the wrong spot on the door, some with great force. Others, seeing a handle a good distance from the door tried pulling that to no avail. At first, a woman across the aisle from me offered advice to the people as they struggled. After a while, however, she was so convulsed in laughter that she was unable to help. Of course, once they got in many of them were clueless as to how to get out. We watched as these people banged and pulled and struggled with the door. Once these people finally got in they were so happy that many did not fully close the door which meant that the light did not come on. A couple of men actually peed and prevented the door from closing with their free hand or their backs. All they had to do was to close and lock the door to turn the light on, but that was clearly beyond their comprehension. One guy finally fought his way in and after a couple of minutes (really) finally locked the door. He of course could not figure out how to unlock it and once again the woman on my right had to get up to shout instructions to him. One guy brought his son to use the bathroom and stood outside holding the door open until he was finished. Because the state of plumbing in many parts of the country is so bad in the DR many people are afraid to flush their used toilet paper. They leave it on the side of the toilet usually in a waste basket. The plane has no waste basket nest to the toilet ( used paper is supposed to be flushed and their is a slot next to the sink for paper towels) so the people, and it looked like all of them, left all their used paper next to the toilet. What a stench.

My favorite bathroom customer, however, had to be the "Joe Cool" guy dressed in green pants, purple shirt and over sized sun glasses. He could not get in the bathroom and then he couldn't get out of the bathroom. An hour and a half later he again could not get in the bathroom and once again had to yell for help to get out. I would gladly have paid extra for my seat.

Good Thing They Let The People Know This

If they thought it was only 3 years they might do it more often.

My Trip To New York


I was leaving for New York last Thursday and I wanted to get to the airport early so that I could get an Exit row seat. They have a lot more leg room and the last thing I wanted was to be sitting next to some oversized, loud talking local. I arrived at the airport at about 10:00 A.M. for a 12:05 P.M. flight and got the seat I wanted. I went to look for something to read which served as a reminder of the state of education here in the DR. There were three DUFRY stores at the airport. That is Dominican English for Duty Free. But, more importantly there was not a newspaper, magazine, or book for sale at any one of them. Nothing to read for sale at the airport. What an amazing concept. I thought that I remembered, from previous trips, that they sold those things at the airport. They probably didn't have enough customers to make it worth their while so they discontinued carrying those things.

As I sat waiting there were several things that I noticed. As per always, there were 4 people in a hot conversation about flying and of course two of them, one a woman, were talking as loudly as they could. I would describe it as a modified shouting match, only it was just a conversation. I encounter this everywhere I go. People have no idea of how to control the volume of their voices.

I started to read on the Internet on my Blackberry and out of the corner of my eye I began to notice people arriving in wheel chairs. It was just one or two at first, but the number started to swell and about a half an hour later I looked up and found myself surrounded by people in wheel chairs. I have seen people in wheel chairs waiting to board a plane before, but I have never seen this many. There looked to be about 10, at least. I made a note at the time that this was a really excessive number and since I feel that most Dominicans think being sneaky is an admirable quality, the note mentions that there must be some advantage that they get by sitting in these chairs. Then I realized what it was. The people in wheelchairs are the first people allowed on the plane and they get to board in an unhurried manner. After all of the "wheelies" were brought to the gate they started to board the other passengers. My group was the first called and when I got to the gate I saw that they hadn't started to load the "wheelies". I counted and altogether there were 14 people in pictures. I took the above photo while they were still waiting. My phone camera does not have a wide angle lens, I couldn't get all of them in the picture, but trust me, there were 14.

It wasn't until we arrived in New York that I realized that I was on a "Plane of Miracles". People go to Lourdes or other Holy places to be healed. Apparently Dominicans take a flight to the US. During the flight, several people whom I had noticed in the wheel chairs suddenly were up and walking around the cabin. Dominicans hate to wait. They drive on the shoulders of a highway all the time and often use the shoulder (on either side of the highway) as a passing lane walk to the front of the line and always go through red lights. They clearly don't want to wait until the plane is unloaded for someone to bring them their wheel chair. When we arrived in New York I was one of the first people off the plane and I noticed that there were only 5 wheel chairs waiting. I asked one of the attendants and they told me that only 5 were requested. Apparently the others were cured by the flight.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Earth Calling Mars, Earth Calling Mars



Let Me Get This Straight



You can shoot the workers outside the factory, but not inside? Got it? Thanks.

What Is Luxury?



While I was in Haiti I stayed at the finest hotel in Dajabon. That is my walk in closet. Well maybe that is my Walking Closet (see earlier post for picture). The other photo is of my room, taken from the outside. You can see the sides of the door. The bed is pressed up to the wall on the left, which you can't see. You can, however, see the wall on the right. At the rear right is the table. Actually, it is more like half of an ironing board.

My American Idol Audition


I spent all of last week in Haiti. To be more accurate, A, it was only the work week, and B, when you cross into the Free Zone you are in Haiti. All the other time was spent in Dajabon, the Dominican border town. Well, it wasn't really American Idol, but it was an audition. Grupo M is the largest manufacturer of clothing in the DR. They have moved a lot of their operation to Haiti and they are in the process of moving everything there for many reasons. The labor is cheaper, the labor laws are much more favorable and I would be pretty sure that they are getting huge concessions from the Haitian government. I would guess that they are giving employment to close to 5,000 people that never had jobs before. These workers are only interested in doing their jobs well. They are very cooperative and that number should grow steadily in the coming years. The factories that I visited are huge. And hot? It was usually over 100 degrees on the floor after 1 P.M. I was there to observe and I did get a little involved with a number of things in a number of factories. If there were a job title that I could invent to describe what I could best bring to the company it would be "Director of Enlightened Thinking and Common Sense". They don't have any of either. The majority of the management is only interested in doing what it takes to get by. They certainly, from what I could tell from my short time there, don't have any interest in improving what they do.
(Photo explanation-In the DR the people who can afford one, and that is not everyone, drive a motor bike or scooter to work. They are considered the "wealthier" workers. In Haiti, the rich ones have bicycles, which they store on hooks, as seen in the photo.)

More Later

Sunday, October 11, 2009

The Perfect Age

This is a theory that I came up with a long time ago and had forgotten about it till today. If I have ever had to guess a girl's age I have always said 27. It's the perfect age to guess. If the girl is younger than 27 she will be flattered that she looks mature, more like an older woman. If, on the other hand, the woman is older than 27 she will be delighted that she looks younger. Wait a minute. No wonder I had forgotten about it. Other than Massiel, most of the women in my life over the past 15 years have all been so old that this wouldn't work. Somehow the idea of using 37, 47 or more doesn't seem to be so clever. But if the person is in the 20-35 years old range, go with 27.

Majung Fish

Massiel and I, along with her friend Yadira, drove over to Maimon today. Tomorrow is Massiel's birthday. Being a huge fan of birthdays, I felt badly that I am forced to go to Haiti tomorrow morning. I will be spending the whole week there. It is sort of an audition for a job, which I need. Maimon is on the way to Puerto Plata and it is known as a town full of roadside stands that sell very fresh fish, usually fried. It's really great food. When I asked Massiel what we could do to celebrate her birthday today, this was her idea. The place that I always go to (I should mention that I have probably eaten in Maimon 5 times in ten years) is called Jhoan's. Today when we got there at 3 o'clock and it was jammed. We had to wait about 20 minutes for a table and when we finally got one it took a while for them to clean it. When everything was ready and the waitress came over to take our order I ordered my favorite, which is Mero. Massiel in her truly discerning manner told the waitress, " Just bring me something big. Any type of fish, just make it big". I told Massiel that I hoped that they brought her this "new" fish that has become popular. She asked what kind and I told her it was the Majung fish, majung being the word for big turd in Spanish. I described it as being a long brown fish with wings.

Mangled English


Me, I'd prefer a walk in closet.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Hey, Where Have You Been?

I haven't been writing for a while. I have been kind of bummed by my lack of activity lately. I did go to Haiti, but that was kind of boring as well. Anyway, I was watching the NBC Nightly News and they had an ad for a stop smoking drug called Chantix. Once before, with a drug called Abilify, I posted the warning that comes with it, but this was too good to pass up.

Warning:

Serious neuropsychiatric events, including, but not limited to depression, suicidal ideation, suicide attempt and completed suicide have been reported in patients taking CHANTIX. Some reported cases may have been complicated by the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal in patients who stopped smoking. Depressed mood may be a symptom of nicotine withdrawal. Depression, rarely including suicidal ideation, has been reported in smokers undergoing a smoking cessation attempt without medication. However, some of these symptoms have occurred in patients taking CHANTIX who continued to smoke.

All patients being treated with CHANTIX should be observed for neuropsychiatric symptoms including changes in behavior, hostility, agitation, depressed mood, and suicide-related events, including ideation, behavior, and attempted suicide. These symptoms, as well as worsening of pre-existing psychiatric illness and completed suicide have been reported in some patients attempting to quit smoking while taking CHANTIX in the post-marketing experience. When symptoms were reported, most were during CHANTIX treatment, but some were following discontinuation of CHANTIX therapy.

These events have occurred in patients with and without pre-existing psychiatric disease. Patients with serious psychiatric illness such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder did not participate in the pre-marketing studies of CHANTIX and the safety and efficacy of CHANTIX in such patients has not been established.

Advise patients and caregivers that the patient should stop taking CHANTIX and contact a healthcare provider immediately if agitation, hostility, depressed mood, or changes in behavior or thinking that are not typical for the patient are observed, or if the patient develops suicidal ideation or suicidal behavior. In many post-marketing cases, resolution of symptoms after discontinuation of CHANTIX was reported, although in some cases the symptoms persisted; therefore, ongoing monitoring and supportive care should be provided until symptoms resolve.

The risks of CHANTIX should be weighed against the benefits of its use. CHANTIX has been demonstrated to increase the likelihood of abstinence from smoking for as long as one year compared to treatment with placebo. The health benefits of quitting smoking are immediate and substantial.