In Turkey

I have been in Turkey since December 16th.
The first flight from Corpus to Houston was delayed due to rain, the Lufthansa flight from Houston was held up for a few hours and only after German Shepards searched the 747 and the passenger queue. I missed my conecting flight from Frankfurt to Munich and instead found a direct flight with Sun Express. I arrived in Turkey and left the terminal to look for a payphone to call my contact. There were no pay phones outside so I had to go explain why I was returning and went through security. After finding a payphone I discovered that they do not take cash or coins. Most stores were closed but I finally found one who sold me a phone card. I spent a good deal of time dialing my contact's number with no luck, finally, the woman who sold me the card helped me use the pay phone and I finaly told my friend I arrived.

Finding the proper bus downtown also involved asking a number of people... it seems that less people speak English than the impression that I got from what I had read. Nevertheless, I wound up downtown and my friend boarded the coach to find me after I failed to get off at the proper stop. The End.

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"S-U-P just sent me a message!"
-my father

I've got an internship

I have an internship in İzmir, Turkey and I'm flying there on Monday. It's certainly a relief, as I was supposed to start co-oping (interning) three months ago. I was trying to get an internship in Mumbai (Bombay), but in light of the recent terrorist attacks, it's a mixed blessing I did not (I still would like to go).

It's either a rare coincidence or destiny to get an internship in that city. I've been staying with my folks for the past 2-1/2 months and while I type this I am sitting a few feet away from a ships portrait of my great-great-great-great grandfather's ship, the bark/barque Scio, in İzmir, then called Smyrna. My fourth great grandfather was a New England sea captain in the 1840s and 50s until his untimely death to scurvy, in 1849 he organized a company of miners, 49ers, from Beverly, Massachusetts around Cape Horn to the mouth of the Sacramento River in California for the Gold Rush; the ship returned to Beverly with gold. In 1855 the three-masted 429-ton Scio was built in Bath, Maine with Patterson as master and partner. My family has a ship's portait of the ship from the following year in Symrna Bay (İzmir) done by an Italian living there. Capt. Patterson died of scurvy less than two years later.
I will post a picture of the ship's portrait when I take a picture of it

Trip to Mexico

Whenever I am down visiting Corpus, my father always suggests visiting Mexico. I've been trying to secure financing to visit my friends who are working in Mexico City, but I have been less than successful in that endeavor. Last weekend my folks decided that the next best thing would be to cross the border and arbitrarily walk around. So the afternoon of "Black Friday", we drove down to Brownsville, Texas.

We parked the car in a parking lot in Browsville and joined the hundreds of people crossing the border into Matamoros, Mexico. We paid the 50 cent bridge toll and walked across the bridge only to stop before we physically crossed the Rio Grande because the garage called my father with information about his car. There were a number of people who appeared to be returning to Mexico from Brownsville with shopping bags, but we were the only easily-identifiable tourists crossing the bridge.

Bienvenidos a Mexico, we made it, my mother warned us all to turn off our phones because there were people under the bridge that would steal our numbers, whatever that means. Someone told her that, at least, about the horrible cell phone trolls who live under the bridge.

We went straight through customs and immigration, no one stamped our passport or asked to see it. ...if we were going further into Mexico we would have needed to acquired tourist visas, but at this border they assume you are either a Mexican citizen or a day-tripper. As we walked further into Mexico we saw this miles-long backup to the US border and were thankful we did not take our car.

We got to a tourist map and then I asked what the plan was. We had no plan, and my mother did not want to take my Mexico guidebook in her handbag, so we had no idea what we were doing. I said we should walk to the plaza. My parents assumed there would be all sorts of attractions conveniently located along the river. As we walked a block into the city we started getting hustled by Taxi drivers for rides, a man claiming to be a guide came up to us offering his services and his abilities to get us a Taxi. He had a laminated ID-card around his neck, you can't counterfeit something like that! So we got a Taxi and he took us to the market.

The market sold all the famous trinkets that Mexico is famous for, Sombreros, silver, maracas, leather, wool ponchos, hammocks, et cetera. My mother bought a tacky silver wall crucifix and I bought a set of maracas with "Mexico" painted on them. We were brought around to every vendor in the tourist market, we saw no other shoppers. Although it was near closing time, it was Black Friday and apparently, according to our guide and the vendors, we were the only tourists in the entire city all day.

We then ate at a local restarant, I had some very good fajitas and some Tecate (beer). I practiced my Spanish with our guide, I remember a lot more than I thought I would.


We took a Taxi back to the border and then walked across. At the US border, they inspected our passports but did not stamp them.

After nixing the idea to stay in South Padre, we drove home.

Singing Cowboys

Three Tejano Cowboys and their song:
From the Ranch Hand Breakfast at King Ranch in Texas, three spanish-singing cowboys and their songs:



More live music:

Ranch Hand Breakfast pt2

Live music:

Rodeo:

The Ranch Hand Breakfast at King Ranch

Last weekend I attended the Ranch Hand Breakfast at King Ranch, the largest ranch in the United States. (more pictures from the Press).

They served the traditional cowboy breakfast of vinegar, piss, and camp fire biscuits.

These Texas Ranger reenactors were missing their Chuck Norris component

What I've been up to

Somehow, after planning to be abroad on an internship which has yet materialize, I wound up turning what was supposed to be a brief visit to South Texas into a two month stay. While being unemployed and car-less and not knowing anyone here less than twice my age, it's hasn't been an absolute waste, it's just been mostly a waste.

Read:

• Maximum City (2004:Suketu Mehta)
• Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy - I'm halfway (1998:Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw)
• Snakes and Ladders: Glimpses of Modern India - I'm halfway, I thought I was going to India for a while (1997:Gita Mehta)
  

Visited:

• The dentist (twice)
• The doctor (twice)
• My Brother

Activities:

• South Texas Museum of Art
• Texas State Aquarium
• Volunteering in Galveston after Hurricane Ike
• Wednesday night (sailboat) racing
• Sailing Cruising to Port Aransas
• Toured the Port of Corpus Christi
  
• Turkey Day Regatta
  
• Golfed (a few times)
  
• Went to the beach a few times
• Swam a few laps on an infrequent basis
• Got a Texas Driver's license because I lost my Pennsylvania one before I left
• Learned all about Greyhound Bus travel
  
• Wrote about politics and drew a new political map based on political, demographic, and cultural data
• Walked for Diabetes
• Took a bikeride
  
• Went to a Cowboy Breakfast/Rodeo thing on America's largest ranch (post soon)
  

Watched:

• Burn After Reading (2008:Cohen Brothers)
  
• Tropic Thunder (2008:Ben Stiller)
  
• Slacker (1991:Richard Linklater) free on Hulu
  
• Crawford (2008:David Modigliani) free on HULU!
  
• Bonfire of the Vanities (1990:Brian De Palma)
  
• Blade Runner - Director's Cut (1982:Ridley Scott)
• City of God (2002:Fernando Meirelles & Kátia Lund)
• Logan's Run (1976:Michael Anderson)
• The Motorcycle Diaries (2004:Walter Salles)
• Split: A Divided America (2008:Kelly Nyks)
• Mad Men, both seasons
  
• Arrested Development, entire series, Free on HULU!

Acquired

• A new laptop, an Eee PC 1000H netbook
• Motorola S9 bluetooth Stereo headphones
• External Hard Drive case for my old laptop hard drive
• External DVD/writer drive
  
• a dozen books at excellent Texan used book store chain, Half Priced Books
  

My New Political Map

I devised my own geopolitical map of the united states with borders based on geographic, political, demographic, ethnic and cultural boundaries:

Here are some region names:

• Continental Divide
  
• Tidewater South
• Gulf Coast
• Deep South
• Tornado Ally
• Little Scandinavia
• Piedmont South
• Upland South
• Bluegrass/Bourbon Country + "Middle Tennessee"
  
• Rust Belt
• The Maritime Provinces
  
• Northeast Corridor/Boswash
• Laredo
• LA Metro
  
• Mormonia
• Cascadia
• Silverado
• Greater Bay Area
  
• Phoenix/Las Vegas/San Diego --- name ideas?
• Chicagoland (might be annexed by Rust Belt)
• Upstate
• Northern Uplands
• South Florida
• Interior Plains

Any other name suggestions will be fielded

Galveston, 2008 pt4

Devastation from Hurricane Ike in Galveston, Texas.
November 2008

Galveston, 2008 pt3

This medical clinic in a shipping container was a part of a community charity organization.

While we worked at bleaching all the studing and ripping everything up down to its bare bones, community members stopped by looking for assistance and we directed them to the church where the charity had moved. It was for working at a community organization like this one, that certain people tried to somehow denigrate and demean the "community organizing" which Barack Obama chose to pursue in lieu of working for biglaw.

These people were providing meals at 3 for free aparently, it was all very crowded every time we passed it.

Galveston, 2008 pt2

A similar photo of this house was picked up by major news outlets, Sunfish and all. Note the silver kettle in the window.

Galveston, 2008

A few weekends ago I volunteered with a group doing cleanup in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Ike was the third most destructive in US history (in terms of property loss) behind Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Andrew. Burried in the headlines during the 2008 presidential campaign, it recieved considerable less coverage than much smaller and less destructive storms.


Boats strewn along the highway were steadily being lifted away by the time we arrived.

note that this Corvette that the house fell down on is not in a logical position of where a garage would be:

There were homes here a month before, the woman who lived in one of these houses found here bedroom behind a house nearly a block away. There was likely a tornado that went through this part:

Cruise to Port Aransas pt4

This massive catamaran shrimper sells its catch right off the boat in Port A.

After some breakfast and bloody maries we left back for Corpus Christi

Here you have to play "dodge the ferries" like frogger. They come from both sides and leave as soon as they fill up with 9 cars.

Cruise to Port Aransas pt3

We arrived in Port Aransas after sailing 3/4 the way and motoring the rest. We saw about two dozen dolphins and a few followed us for a while along the way.

Once there, the YC has a pot luck and there were a bunch of colorful baby boomers with all sorts of stories, there weren't any people less than twice my age, but I still had some interesting conversations.

When I got in a conversation about where I live and I said, "Philadelphia".
Someone said, "I'm sorry."
I realized they were just ribbing me but I repeated, "Philadelphia."
They then explained that they heard me, but they say, "I'm sorry" every time someone says anything other than Texas.
"No, I like living in Philadelphia."

As this was before the election, someone brought up Sarah Palin. Not because of any particular political belief or persuasion but rather out of the need to share an interesting fact which I had recently read, I felt like bringing up the interesting point that her husband might not be able to get security clearance because of his previous association with the Alaskan Independence Party. Nearly everyone I've met down here, which is a fairly small subset of society consisting of mostly friends of my parents and baby-boomer sailors, loves Sarah Palin.

Eventually, after establishing that I was not attacking Sarah Palin, an older Texan told me about Texan independence and that he was very proud that Texas was the only state that was an independent nation before it was admitted to the Union. I forgot to put on my diplomat hat and felt like correcting him that technically California was briefly a country as the Bear Flag Republic, albeit for less than a month. In retrospect, I feel like a jackass because the Republic of Texas was a nation for over a decade and recognized by multiple countries.

I ended up in a conversation with a retired government agent from a non-US English-speaking country who had some interesting stories of rerouting flights, terrifying third-world hotels, and deporting people around the globe.

Meanwhile, we were serenaded by a Jimmy Buffet look-alike (& live-alike) who lived aboard a sailboat at the marina singing Jimmy Buffet and folk songs and playing guitar.

This whiskey & rum dispenser was on a larger and interesting looking limited-production Taiwanese sailboat.