Me and my stall-ker
I don't make friends at work, I make associations. Or it could be more that people make associations with me. Due to my height, I'm usually the first to be associated with "Can you get that off that shelf?" Then of course if I've mentioned that I've traveled a bit, there is the association of asking me random travel questions, "Hey, quick, best things to see in Burma?" (I've never been anywhere in Asia, making my opinion more worthless than usual.)
As it turns out, yet another association has been made towards me in that I apparently stimulate urine production. This happens more so with one fellow than anyone else I've noticed. If I get up to go to the bathroom, he's right there behind me, ready to go as well, maybe one out of every three bathroom breaks. But, before you think it might be some badly thought-up attempt at friendship ("Helluva day for a piss, huh?") or his coming on to me ("Man, these stalls could easily fit two. At night. Maybe naked."), I need to point out that he's a duck and cover urinist.
For the ladies, this is going to be a foreign concept as you only have stalls in your restrooms. But in the men's restroom there of course is the option of urinal or toilet stall. While it seems obvious that anyone with only a need for #1 would use the urinal, there is a large subsection of men in the US who will always run to the stall for business, terrified in the thought of standing next to another man (with a partition I might add) when they need to pee.
I should point out that in addition to his duck and cover antics, he'll also wash his hands, leave the tap on, reach over for a paper towel, and then use said towel to turn off the tap. Of course he doesn't use the towel to then open the door outside, although many do as shown by the waste bin next to the door to toss their used door handle towels (Johnson & Johnson is missing a marketing opportunity with this one). I need to add that often he and many others don't bother to use soap.
I am at a loss as to how this twisted up approach to hygiene works in the US. Where did the logic come from? How did germaphobia sweep across this verdant land? And will there be a day in the distant future when two straight men can comfortably piss next to one another?
27 08 2010 1 comment
Tags: toilets, us america
Um, what's a cough?
I came across this poster on the Bart the other day. Basically, it tells folks to not cough out in to the open air, which is sound enough, albeit on-the-nose advice. The thing that's really amusing/sad is the "The CDC* Recommends" bit.
The asterisk is notated below by stating that "CDC" stands for the "Center for Disease Control". I'm not exactly sure why they bothered as those who aren't going to know what the CDC is aren't probably going to be paying attention to this sign and will continue carrying pink plastic bags and coughing without covering their mouths. Those who do know what the CDC is already know this little nugget about coughing. I guess that in the end, they just had empty space to fill as no one is buying billboards these days and this looked better than a beige spot, begging to be marked up by one of those darned pesky whipper snappers.
08 08 2010 4 comments
Tags: public transportation, san francisco, us america
The logic of thieving
It was a sad day when I walked in to this particular "sometimes office" and discovered that my laptop, backpack, and iPod had all been swiped by a thief who had made his way in to the building and took off with a fine selection of laptops. Thieving appears to be what everyone is in to these days. My mother-in-law had here laptop stolen sometime back after a previous break in had stolen other items. #1 Fan had her camera pickpocketed in Chile. And then of course there were my sublettors from a few months ago who stole an amazing assortment of my stuff, including my clothing, although civil proceedings are pending, so I won't get in to that anymore.
To some degree, I assume we have more of this to look forward to as the newer generations are being told that they're basically entitled to whatever they want and they have no concept of ownership due to their parents buying them everything. Ah, the millenials, I look forward to you. Of course, this only applies to my sublettors. The rest of the thieving in my life of late has come from plain old opportunists. They saw something they could take and they took it. In the case of my laptop, being that it was four years old, it probably wasn't the most worthwhile thing there was and I'm still rather bummed about that as it saw me through three continents and 15 or so countries. Kind of sad to lose such a stalwart traveling partner.
Naturally the thief logic is that you can afford to replace whatever they take because if you couldn't, you wouldn't have it in the first place. If it's not that logic, then it's something else that allows them to justify taking it if they're not feeding some kind of addiction. And that's about all you can do about it is look on and shrug given that the police never find small stolen items and there just seems to be a growing and willing army of thieves out there to take whatever things you might have. It would be great if one of my suitcases, bread knife, cookie book, and multiple items of clothing would somehow turn out to not have been stolen, but I don't in any way have my breath being held and am looking more towards replacing what is now missed, somewhere down the line when I can actually afford it.
25 07 2010 10 comments
Tags: us america
California is happier
It wasn't that I chose California implicitly to live it, but more the fact that I was born here. As to why I've stayed to date, the infographics tell that part of the story. All part of a larger article from here.
20 07 2010 3 comments
Tags: california, us america
Sadly, we are still all dirty, dirty people
I saw this hand sanitizer at the Powell Street Station Bart. I find it ridiculous as you don't actually touch anything when you take our Bay Area metro system and it seems ridiculous that you would need to disinfect just for the sake of disinfecting. To emphasize how ridiculous this is, a co-worker at a recent "sometimes office" made some offhand remark asking if I was going in to surgery given how much I cleaned my hands after using the bathroom. Sadly, most people don't understand that a heavy hand cleaning--with soap--will do more than any of this damned hand sanitizer ever will.
09 07 2010 13 comments
Tags: bart, hygiene, us america
Better employment through omission
Offices in the US are terrified to hell of languages. On a certain level, it makes sense given that the majority of culture in the US happens in a monolingual environment and our closest neighbors are a 1.5-2 hour flight away. But in another way, it limits the outreach of whatever it is that that office is trying to do, although that point is rarely seen.
For the longest time, I was happy to include a listing of my language abilities and their level of proficiency on my resumé as I saw it a useful skill to have. Ultimately, this would always engender any number of comments from any number of people interviewing me. Something along the lines of, "Wow, that's a lot of languages. Why do you speak them?" For the record I speak:
English - Native
Spanish - World: Conversational / US: Fluent
Croatian - World: Basic / US: Conversational
French - World: Basic / US: Conversational
Catalan - World: Poor / US: Basic
I include a World/US variance due to the fact that how Americans rate their language proficiency and the rest of the world does are very different. But, as you can see, sure, I know a bit of a number of languages this was weird to people, especially when applying for a development job. I think that most people just saw any ability to speak Spanish useful only if you have to talk to cleaning staff, although they'd never admit it. It got to the point where I simply leave it off my resumé now and it's made all interviews go a lot more smoothly. I suppose it allows people to focus down on things, but understanding localization and internationalization is pretty important in web development work these days. Apparently, only to some though, only to some.
08 06 2010 2 comments
Tags: language, us america
Ohai US Immigration! Um, it's not 1910 anymore :(
So, #1 Fan went back to the US for a spell and on her way through passport control she got taken off to the infamous, "small little room" where a very thick, sordidly unintelligent woman who bathed in ignorance grilled her on what were basically the same three points: Why do you come in and out of the US so much? Are you working outside the US? You need to renew your green card, because it's going to expire.
Let's work backwards and state that the green card will expire in three months and she could only actually begin to renew it on the day that she arrived in the US. And yes, no fucking shit, you need to renew it or you're not in the US legally. But, one would think that this would fall under the, "That's our problem" line of thinking.
Next, there is the issue of working outside the US. Amazingly, that is legal and holy crap, you do need to report your earnings when you file your taxes in the US. In fact, when it comes to the US, you have to pay double taxes (to the country where working as well as the US) as it is one of, in not the only country in the world that will double tax its citizens. So, this isn't even an issue for immigration. This is an issue for the IRS, so why they kept insisting on asking it was beyond me, except that she liked to eat dumb sauteed in warm tard sauce.
Now we get to the fun part as to a person coming in and out of the US often. I would like to point out to immigration that people do not come in and out of the US on boats like my great grandparents did. In fact, we're a decade in to the 21st century and commercial plane flight has been around for over half a century. Yes, half a century, with it getting markedly cheaper in the last two decades. That is why people come in and out. It is a globalized world that we live in and while those working the "door" at immigration still think that the work is apparently flat, I would urge their supervisors to look in to this whole flight thing and not grill a French businesswoman (the one to go in first to the little room ahead of #1 Fan) as to why she comes in and out of the US on business because, trust me, she has no intention of staying in the US when she is a French citizen. Or how about not grilling a South African friend of mine (yes, he's white...) why he was out of the country for three months when he was visiting family and then comes back with his wife, who is an American citizen.
The list goes on and on. At some point, I hope that most people in the world just look at the US and say, "fuck it" because really, for a country whose entire economy is fueled by a constant influx of immigrant labor and money, there is a wickedly backwards approach to how they deal with all these people.
05 05 2010 2 comments
Tags: immigration, us america
Barack beyond US borders
Yesterday, I was invited to talk at the English club for a local high school here in Abengourou. No, I wasn't lecturing or anything that fancy. I was merely there to talk and have the kids asks questions in order to practice their English. There is another American girl in town from Michigan who is working on English teaching and goes to the club every week.
It's always interesting to see the perception of your country from the eyes of others who see it from an extremely distant vantage. Despite all the problems the US has, it is still, to many in the world, a mythical land of opportunity. Anyone living through the economic crisis and part of the unofficial 20% without work would probably question that at the moment, but time and again, to many people the United States is the greener grass.
Naturally, a lot of the questions revolved around visiting the US and the differences in life there vs. Côte d'Ivoire. Not easy questions to answer obviously as the US is enormous and so we tried to mainly focus on that aspect and how life in Michigan differs from life in California, which is a large topic unto itself. But eventually, the question of politics and elections came up. For those who don't know, Côte d'Ivoire has been without official national elections for 15 years, having dealt with a number of coup d'etats and other unfortunate, power hungry lunacy. So, these kids have not actually seen an election in their life and given that Obama has been in power for only a year and is African, they're fascinated by him.
It goes without saying that in America, the fascination exists as well. But, while we're now starting to look at Obama's policies and wonder what the hell he's actually doing, the man still is an icon outside of the country. Even though he's half white, it doesn't matter and I doubt that it will ever matter. He could be a complete failure and serve one term, but to these kids and to a great many people, he still represents the achievement of a dream that seems impossible.
This is all incredibly on the nose and may seem obvious, but you really don't see what mythic quality a person has until you see him/her through the eyes of others.
04 02 2010 0 comments
Tags: obama, politics, us america
Sad to be leaving, but happy to go
I have to say that while being in San Francisco for a week and a half, I'm quite happy to be leaving. I went for a walk up to North Beach two days ago to buy salami and I thought, "Hey, I won't see this place for awhile, let's have a stroll." That was a rather tremendous mistake as shop upon shop is closed. It was just sad. This city is a husk of what it was and it goes to show how intangibly debt-driven the economy is here. Although, it did make me anxious to leave.
So, that's it. A total month and a half back in the US and now I'm off again. Why am I off again? Because economically, things are really still quite down. I knew that this would be the case though as January-March in any year are a hard time to find work. Of course, I had a sunnier disposition about things this time last year, which ended up burning me. But, given the fact that my rent wasn't increased for the first time in five years and a quick perusal of Craigslist shows that yes, things are not turning around, I am tossing in the towel and leaving the country.
Heading off to Europe again? No, not this time. As much as my in-laws would probably like to have me grilling meat and watching the puppy, I'm going a bit more adventurous this time; I'm heading to Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) for five months. Yes that is in Africa (West, not South) and yes, they do speak French there. And yes, it is quite hot there. So, why on earth am I doing this?
First off, I've wanted to actually live outside the US for an extended period of time. I've only really traveled outside for a maximum of maybe three months through a variety of countries. The closest I've come to living was staying in Figueres with my in-laws and that didn't really count as I wasn't paying rent, mom-in-law did the shopping, and I was there on the three moth tourist visa which I damn near went over on. Really need to use the other passport more...
So, this will be not only the longest time outside the US, but also the first actual living in another country. It just took until I was 33 to actually pull this off (I'm a late bloomer.) This is all being made possible by #1 Fan having a temporary contract there that was will take care of basic living expenses. Seeing how the economy was heading, she did something very smart last Fall and found this position which will not only allow us to hopefully weather this economic storm, but also work on that other project that I spend so much time on, Maneno. Also, I am hoping to come back speaking decent, as opposed to chicken-scratch, French by the end of this as well. Even though it's not my favorite language in the world (the multiple 'u' sounds and the numbers kill me) it is an incredibly useful one.
Most people who read this blog probably don't read Subsaharska that much as it's about Africa and African technology primarily. This one is a bit more fun, dealing with such things as food, tea, airport frustration, and of course, toilets. Speaking of which, there should be an article forthcoming about that last item. Otherwise, if you want to see some of the more cool things I'll be doing and the people I'll be working with, take a look at that blog.
If I didn't get a chance to meet up, I'll make sure to do so in July and will be happy to see a lot of folks again after so much time away, although I will be online just as much as here in the US and I have a SkypeIn number for those wishing to call as well. Au revoir!
27 01 2010 4 comments
Tags: california, in to africa, san francisco, us america
Spanish 'easy open' technology still in beta; maybe alpha
If you glance below, you'll see the result on my tempting fate and using the 'obertura fàcil' (or 'abre fácil' in Castellano if you will) tab for a package of pasta. Didn't turn out so well. This is not a surprise. Spanish food vendors know that 'easy-open' is the shit because they see it everywhere in the US. But that being as it may, they still have some back-to-the-drawingboard time to spend on their actual implementation of non-knife-needed packaging systems. Of course Spaniards are no where near as fat as Americans, so maybe it's for the better that you gotta fight to get at your food in Spain.
29 11 2009 0 comments
Tags: food, packaging, spain, the europe, us america
