Key Largo, FL Dive trip, Part two: Survival of the Wettest

Before the fall.

Key Largo, FL  Dive trip, Part two

Author's recap:  Andrew, Ben and I are in the Florida Keys for scuba diving and parasailing.   We arrived in Key largo Thursday night.  We did our scuba diving on Key Largo much of the day on Friday.  On Sat. we hired a boat for parasailing.  Then we drove an hour to get back to Key West for the last part of the trip.  Enjoy your read.

Andrew, Ben and I had our first dive on Friday morning.  We were on a flat, open pontoon boat, floating above one of the thousands of reefs that make up the chain of islands (Keys) known as the Gilligan’s, which sweep westward from the tip of the Florida peninsula.  Ginger, Skipper, the Professor, and Mary Ann were not on board.  I took that as a good sign since I only had four days for this trip.  The weather was spectacular.  Calm seas, 80’s water temperature, and no pirates or two headed sharks.  It looked like a good day to finally begin the sport of scuba diving.

We donned our gear.  It is always stressful on the first dive when you struggle to get into the water with the fins, mask and tank on.  I look forward to the day when we evolve back to sea creatures and don’t need this equipment.  But, as mentioned before, I only have four days for this trip, so I don’t have time to wait.  I stepped off the boat, like a leap of faith, hoping that I did not do something stupid like leave my bilge plug open or put my mask on backwards.  (Now that I do not have a mustache, the mask orientation is a bit tricky). I successfully made the transition to underwater swimming.  The reef below us was spectacular.  The variety of fish and plant life was mind blowing.  I cannot believe there are so many odd varieties and shapes of fish in one little spot on the globe.    This would make Dr. Seuss proud.

We did a total of four dives that day.  I was cramping up at the end since my leg muscles are not used to having giant duck fins strapped to my feet.  I had a few jellyfish stings, but that was the worst that happened to me.  I cheated death underwater and it was exhilarating.

The next day was Saturday and we paid our money to go parasailing.  This is where a boat tows a parachute with a human being strapped to it, a thousand feet in the air over the water.  I went first.  They strapped me in to the harness and deployed the giant parachute behind the boat.  Then the boat accelerated and I was suddenly elevated by the pull of the chute.  In no time at all I was 1000 ft high over the inlet where dozens of boats were darting about.  The only time I felt a bit concerned was when I saw a figure down on the deck of the boat, who appeared to be hacksawing the rope attached to my harness.  Hmmm?  Before long, I was cranked back in by the winch and was safely back on the boat. 

Andrew and Ben decided to do a tandem ride, where both are strapped side by side in to the same harness.  The chute deployed and they went quickly went up in the sky, just as I had.  The boat captain toyed with them a bit while they were way up high, by shaking the cable, and darting the boat around.  He slowed the boat down which caused them to be dragged near the waterline and get wet.  I suggested he go between the pilings of the nearby bridge.  He did not quite hear me and said “Go between them?  Are you Crazy? … OK !”  So he promptly began weaving in and out of the concrete pilings of the bridge.  The tow rope, parachute and passengers, were slung from side to side as he made the sharp turns. I could hear Andrew and Ben screaming like little girls as they ricocheted off the hard bridge supports.  There is only time for so much fun, so the captain speeded up and the chute lifted them back up to the 1000 ft level.  That is when we heard an audible “crack”.  The captain said “uh-oh”. 

I knew something was amiss.  The D-ring that connected the rope and pulley to the boat had just broken and the guys plummeted to earth like a stone...that was attached to a large parachute.  It is amazing how gentle the landing of a parachute is even when there is one guy crawling up the leg of the other guy, like a cat trying to get up a tree to escape a dog.  I heard one of them pathetically say to the other: “hold me!” before they finally ditched into the sea.  The boat captain raced out to their location for the rescue and yelled for them to unhook.  Ben got undone first, but that just caused the rigging to shoot up out of the water.  Andrew could not get undone without lifting his entire body weight with one arm while he desperately unhooked his rigging.

It was all over in just a few seconds and it did not seem serious, at the time, to me.  I was busy finishing off a refreshing Pina Colada.  But I did manage to snap a few photos for the lawyers to use in court.   I hope I get a piece of the compensation for the terror inflicted on these innocent young men.

The remainder of the day we strolled around the small city of Key West, sampling the local beverages in many establishments.  In fact, this sampling went on well into the night and early in to the next day.  I was exhausted from trying to stay up with the young pups.  I finally quit trying at 1am and went to bed.

We flew home the next day, and recapped our favorite moments of the trip.  Mine was doing my first real dive and not drowning.  I guess Andrew and Ben’s favorite moments were right after they were rescued from the ocean.  But there were many great memories made.  I hope to go back and do some more diving one day.  There are many reasons for people flock to Florida.  I am sure that not all are there to see two grown men drop out of the sky and scream like little girls.

Dateline: Key Largo, FL Dive trip, part one.

Dateline:  Key Largo, FL  Dive trip, part one.

Greetings gentle readers.  This Intrepid Traveler Report comes to you from sunny south Florida, the home of skimpy bathing suits and tanned bodies.  The population here has such dark leathery skin that it looks like they are wearing Manatee costumes.  Skin cancer is the new normal here.  If you can’t flake off a pound of scabs in a day, the locals think you are just not trying.

I am traveling with Andrew and “Ben” (yes, the same two fellows mentioned in a previous blog post).  Andrew and his wife, my daughter Ali, are expert divers.  They have logged nearly 50 dives, which qualifies them to be on the cover of “Prune Fingers” magazine.  Andrew graciously allowed me to tag along on this dive trip, which will be the first actual dive for me in clear water.  Up to now, all I have practiced diving in was murky, cloudy water.  Now that I see what a difference clear water makes to the diving experience I promise I will start cleaning my swimming pool.

A few nights before I left for this trip Andrew texted me and suggested I trim my mustache in order to have my swim mask seal better against my face.  It is a bit annoying to have seawater fill up your mask when you are trying to survive under water. And having 40 pounds of gear strapped to your body like an anchor does not help either. To demonstrate my commitment to this dive trip, I shaved it off completely. 

It is interesting to hear the reactions to me shaving my mustache.  Andrew snapped a photo of me as we departed for our dive trip and sent it to Ali.  She was 40 miles away at the time, but I swear I heard her gasp in agony when she saw it.  I have had a mustache my entire “adult” life, so neither of my daughters have ever seen me without it.  Ok, there was that time in Anchorage where I had to barter it for whale blubber when we ran out of food, but other than that, I have sported some sort of facial hair for 30 years. 

The reactions created a larger firestorm when the photo got posted by Micah, my other daughter, to her Facebook page.  Many of my girl’s friends, who oddly enough, are also grown adults now, made a flurry of comments about it, like:  “EEEUUUGHH!”,  “Oh my gawd”,  “Put it back! Put it back! Put it back!", ”My mind is still blown. I can't wrap my head around this!! What is happening?!”, "Won't somebody please, think of the CHILDREN!!!",  “Isn’t there a law against that?”, and “Doesn’t he know that the more his face is covered the better?”  The reaction from my wife, the fetching Mrs. Intrepid Traveler, was a bit more subdued….like:  “I didn’t notice”.  At least she didn’t say “Bill who?”

Greetings from Minnesooooota.

Paul Bunyan, life size. (not really life size)

Dateline:  Bemidji, Minnesota

Hello Gentle Readers, As I write this I am in the process of returning from a business trip in the northern area of the state, in the small town of Bemidji (pronounced:  how the hell should I know, I don’t speak Minnesooootan).  I heard it was named after a wise old Indian chief who was famous for saying:  “he who chops his own firewood warms himself twice”…..and who probably had a nagging wife telling him to chop firewood. 

I learned on my trip some interesting, yet useless facts.  Bemidji, Minnesota has several claims to fame.  One is that they say the Mississippi river starts here.  Well, I guess it had to start somewhere.  And this is the area made famous by Paul Bunyon.  Mr. Bunyon, the legendary giant lumberjack, was an avid, yet awful golfer.  He would repeatedly swing and miss the ball   creating divots all over the state.  These divots, according to tall tales, filled with water and became the area’s lakes.  This is the land of 10,000 lakes, so Paul was a busy boy.  He played almost as much golf as President Obama. In addition to creating lakes, Paul unsuccessfully tried to introduce plaid shirts and suspenders as the official dress for professional golfers. 

An important landmark can be found in Red Wing, Minnesota.  This is where the Red Wing boot company has the world’s largest boot on display.  It is a size 638 ½, (in men’s, EEEEE width in case you are shopping for boots).  And you may be interested to know there is a museum dedicated to Spam, the canned pork product, in Austin MN.  The admission to this museum is free, so it must pose a dilemma for economy minded Jewish tourists.

I have heard a lot about ice fishing from the guys I came to meet with.  A lot about it. Apparently this is some kind of winter ritual.  Ice fishing, man cave style, is where the local men drag small, portable buildings out on to the frozen lake in a spot where they think fish might be.  These man caves don’t have floors in them, which is perfect since men aren’t going to vacuum anyway.  Some of these man caves have leather chairs, flat screen TV’s, propane heaters, and ice chests full of beer.  (What a shock).  The fishermen cut a hole in the ice, drop a line, and then ignore it for hours at a time while they watch football, drink beer and avoid vacuuming.  I am not sure why they feel the need to use fishing as an excuse, to hide in their little rooms.  I guess they have nagging wives that would be after them to cut fire wood.  That seems to be a common theme among nagging women.  (did I write that outloud?)

I can just imagine what would happen if I, Your Intrepid Traveler,  had an ice fishing man cave.  I would drag it out on to the frozen lake, and cut the hole, as usual.  I would drop a line in the water, and stare blankly at the slushy hole.  Since I am a Texan, and not used to the low temperature, I would rapidly get chilled to the bone.  So I would do the natural thing and turn up the heat inside the man cave.  I’d quickly make it toasty warm, not thinking that the heater would melt the ice, soon leaving only a man cave sized hole in the frozen lake.    Where did Bill go?

You may be asking yourself:  “Self, how did Bill learn so much about Minnesoooota when he was only in the state for 36 hours?”  Answer:  A wise old Indian chief, hiding in a teepee shaped man cave, told me.

 

 

 

House sitting

Cheers !

House sitting -  July 2013

Hello Ali and Andrew

Thanks for letting me stay at your house while you were away.  Everything here is fine, now.

When I first arrived it was a bit stuffy in the house, so I opened up all of the windows and doors.  But then it got hot, so I cranked down the thermostat of the A/C.  You have a great unit.  I could feel the cold air boiling out of the windows when I sat out on the deck.

I decided to make myself an adult beverage and found your blender and a bottle of 18 year old scotch.  I knew you’d appreciate me using up that old scotch so you could buy some fresh scotch.  I poured the entire bottle into the blender, along with some fruit and ice.  You’d think the fruit would make it a healthy, yummy beverage but it tasted like crap.  So I tossed it out.  I then found a full bottle of vodka that I used for the next three batches of fruit drink. 

I felt very refreshed after that. So refreshed, that it seemed like a good idea to fire up your grill and cook something.  I had the fire going really, really well, then realized I had not checked your refrigerator to see if there were any steaks to grill.  There were not, so I drove to the store to find something to cook.

After a few hour of driving around your neighborhood, lost, I stumbled back on to your street.  Thank goodness the trash can that I had knocked over when leaving for the store was still in the street or I might never have found your house.  It was quite busy around there, however, because some nosy, George Zimmerman wanna-be neighborhood watch character had called the fire dept.  It seems the coals from the grill had fallen out and caught your deck on fire.  I think it was probably time for you to replace it anyway, right?

This neighborhood watch guy gave me some fake sounding name like “Ben”, like I am going to believe that is his real name.  He said he spotted the smoke coming out the front door.  I told him it shows that the house has good ventilation if the back yard air can freely come thru the house to the front.  He should be happy for you. 

The fire dept. says the smoke damage inside is minimal, and the deck and garage are replaceable, so no harm done, right?  Too bad the dogs did not know to stay away from the flames, however.  Ben claims he took them to an animal hospital for treatment.  Does he think I am so stupid as to believe there are HOSPITALS for DOGS?? Yea, right.

Anyway, the good news is Ben picked up the garbage strewn all over the street from when the fire truck hit the can that I knocked over. The carpeting is beginning to dry out from the fire hoses, and your A/C is still pumping our very cold air to the neighborhood.  I am sure you will be applauded by everyone for lowering the temperatures around here.  I am happy to help you be appreciated by your neighbors.

Let me know the next time you both will be out of town at the same time.  I will be happy to house sit.  But please get more vodka and steaks.  A man has to eat, you know.

 

Poor Thing

pre-boarding condition

Poor Thing

The fetching Mrs. Intrepid Traveler is one of those unlucky travelers who has an inner ear affliction which causes her dizziness and nausea when she is moving.  If she can’t see the horizon or get fresh air on her face, or guzzle a quart of Grey Goose before boarding an aircraft, a boat, or a fast moving escalator, she is in trouble.  In no time at all she will turn a pasty blue color and start looking for a trash can or toilet to puke in to.  She’s been known to get air sick when watching the movie “Top Gun” or sea sick from eating Captain Crunch cereal.

The TSA has her profile in the National Traveler Data Base as a known “projectile vomiter”.  The Airlines, now aware of her problem, proactively print her boarding pass on a little white stomach distress bag which has a dotted line across the top with the words:  “do not over fill” printed on it.  Her seat assignment is closest to the toilet, in Row I, seat 6 (get it?:  I sick)  On most planes they now have installed a clear glass panel between her seat and the rest of the passengers, similar to the sneeze guard you’d see in the salad bar of a buffet restaurant.  The boy in the bubble was not this isolated. 

Recently we were flying home from a trip to San Diego.  I was sitting near the window, Wifey was in the middle seat and a fellow passenger was to her right.  Somehow the topic came up about her getting air sick.  I think I may have innocently brought it up.  I told him about the time we hired a small plane to fly us around Mt. McKinley when we were in Denali National park in Alaska.  We had waited two days for the weather to clear in order to make that flight and my wife was very anxious to take the trip.  We finally did get airborne, but she almost immediately got air sick. I think she went thru a dozen stomach distress bags.  There is now a permanent stain on the glacier we flew over from what she ate for lunch before our flight.

Anyway, I was telling our fellow passenger about her proclivity to be air sick, and perhaps embellished the story, a bit.  Then I handed him one of those air sick bags and said “here, you will need this. She always pukes to her right”. I could tell from the expression on his face that he thought he was in the middle of an Ebola virus outbreak.

Many years ago, she and I went deep sea fishing in Mexico.  Wifey knew she needed motion sickness medicine but she may have taken too much.  She was curled up in a fetal position on the deck, her face an ashen blue color.  She was nearly passed out from the Dramamine.  I don’t know how long she laid there, but long enough to get a sunburn on half her face.  I guess I should have been paying more attention to wifey’s plight, but this was an expensive charter and I was very busy not catching anything. In hindsight, I should have done the proper husbandly thing and flipped her over every half hour.  I think one of the other fishermen finally thru a towel over her to keep the Fish and Game inspector from coming aboard and arresting us for illegally poaching a rare blue faced dolphin.

Her sunburn later reminded me of the Richard Dreyfuss character in the movie “Close Encounters” that got a sunburn on half his face from looking up at the spacecraft’s lights.  My wife’s face was quite a sight, half of it was red from the sunburn and the other half  was blue from the motion sickness.  She looked like she was painted up and ready to go to a college football game.  We finally had to coax her away from the edge of the boat because we were afraid of sharks and did not want her to add any more chum to the water.

These days, Wifey takes Industrial strength motion sickness pills to get her thru the ordeal of a trip.  These pills are so strong they would tranquilize a dozen would-be jihadist hijackers, except they are the non-drowsy version. So now, instead of sleeping, she is wide awake and fully aware of her nausea.  But at least she does not do the Linda Blair “Exorcist” kind of head spinning, then across the room puking that I have come to expect.  Poor thing.

Mumbai Outsourced Blues

yes, I know it is upside down. 
It's from the other side of the world.

Mumbai Outsourced Blues
words by Your Intrepid Traveler -

(sung to the tune:
“London Homesick Blues”
with apologies to Gary P. Nunn)






If you're not where you wanna be
And you ain’t got a Rupee
In Mumbai, you’re are hopeless
Even the Taj Mahal has been taken down
And moved to Las Vegas
Now I know why
And I’ll confirm what they are saying. In India they are paying
Much less for the very same position
And they will dirty their air and apparently don’t care
It’s their country which they have to live in
                                                                                                                                                                                             Chorus                                                                                                                                                                                     We We wanna go back to full employment
To the days of work enjoyment that we had before
we were outsourced to New Delhi and to Bangalore
                                                                                                   
2nd Verse
Well, it’s hot over here, and I swear
I wish they owned an A/C
But they can’t under bid, and still provide what we did
All the comforts in the office and the shop floor.
It takes more than ten of their scrawny men
to equal an American workman
they have no payroll taxes, and no middle classes
So they can underbid our plan

Chorus                                                                                                                                                                                       
We wanna go back to full employment
To the days of work enjoyment that we had before
we were outsourced to New Delhi and to Bangalore
                                                                                                          
3rd Verse
Well, I decided to finally prove to you
That American products are better
We’ll compete with them and work hard again
Just like we did before we were outsourced
We will re-capture the prize that our Lefties despise
Some people call American know-how
Our productivity will begin to shine
And our market share will soon be fine
We’ll be on top again, now

Chorus
We wanna go back to full employment
To the days of work enjoyment that we had before
we were outsourced to New Delhi and to Bangalore                                                                        

DENIED



whoa!

DENIED

In my younger days, back in high school, I rarely dated.  I was very shy and could not stand the thought of approaching a girl and being rebuffed.  I think that is a common feeling since no one would want to feel the pangs of being rejected.

Fast forward a few decades.  I was scheduled to go to Perth, Australia for a large industry trade exhibition.  This event is held every other year and I missed out on being able to go last time. So, I was excited that I would finally get to visit Australia.  This was going to add another country to my list and also a whole new continent.  I would then only need to visit Africa and Antarctica and I would have gone to all the continents on earth.  That would be very cool.

I had our company travel agent book the flights, and made my plans.  I would be gone for more than two weeks.  No matter how excited I was in making this trip, 16 days is a long time to be away from the fetching Mrs. Intrepid Traveler, my dog, and my farm.  But sacrifices must be made.

A few days before departure, I went on an Australian government website to see what the weather would be like and what points of interest would be near my location.  It was going to be late summer in the land down under. Last year I got my scuba diving certification and I wanted to take advantage of some water sports while I was there.

On this website I found the entry requirements for the country.  And to my surprise, there are about six countries that need an entry VISA to get in to Australia; the United States being one of them.  Damn, who’d have thought the Aussies would have any restrictions for Americans to come down under for a visit?  No matter, I just had to fill out a simple online questionnaire and pay $20 for processing. 

When I was done, I was supposed to get an email with my confirmation number.  Instead, I got a message saying:  “Check back in 12 hours for the results”.  Twelve hours?  OK, but I leave in a few days, so I hope this does not become a problem.

I checked my email the next day and saw in the message the word:  DENIED.  I was denied entry in to Australia!  Whaaaaa?  There had to be a clerical error. Maybe I put a wrong digit in the credit card number or got a letter out of position on my name.  So I re-submitted and waited another 12 hours. But I got the same results.  Panic is starting to set in now.  The departure clock was ticking and I didn’t have an entry VISA. 

I called the Australian consular office in Washington DC.  A lady with a melt your heart Australian accent began working with me to get this issue sorted out.  We went thru the same questions I answered on line.  She could not understand why I had a problem before.  She asked if I was in good health?  “Yes”.   She asked if I was of good character?  (gulp. by who’s standards?)   I paused, then said “yes”.

She called me back several hours later and said she could not fix the problem because there were multiple attempts for me to register.  The system had me locked out.  ARRRRGHH. Of course there were multiple attempts.  I was trying to get an F-ing hall pass to go to F-ing AUSTRALIA, FOR GOODNESS SAKES!  She said my only way to get a VISA was to visit the nearest Consular office in person and get this resolved.  The nearest office to me was her office, in F-ing Washington DC! , which was halfway across the country and my flight was scheduled to leave Houston in 8 hours.  ARRRGH.

I finished packing, kissed the wife and dog goodbye and headed to the airport.  There had to be someone there who could fix this problem.  I was flying Singapore Airlines and a counter attendant listened to my quandary.  She got on line and tried to register me too.  She made several phone calls but no one could get in to the “system” to even find out why the VISA was denied.  This was way worse than that shy high school boy being turned down by the cheerleader to be my date to the prom.  I was just spurned by a whole country.  25 million people don’t want me!   But I am really a good person, why don’t they like me?

I gave up.  I threw in the towel. I know when I am not wanted.  I gathered my luggage, called the van service and had them take me back to my SUV in the long term parking.  On the long drive home, I started thinking about all the stuff I really didn’t want to do in Australia anyway.  I didn’t need to go diving and run the risk of being stung by a Lion Fish, or eaten by a Great White Shark.  I had no use for meeting an Australian Aborigine or buying a gallon sized can of Foster’s beer at a local pub. 

I feel stupid about all the hours I wasted in preparing for this trip.  I immersed myself in the Australian culture by watching hours of Crocodile Dundee movies.  I collected a dozen or more recipes on how to prepare fresh Koala.   And what am I to do with these croc skin boots and leather vest?  In the big picture of life, who really needs to add another country and a new continent to their list?  Who the hell is counting countries and continents visited anyway? 

Sadly, I am.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Big Sleep

The Big Sleep

At a recent medical exam my doctor was concerned about my daytime sleepiness.  I told him I was always sleepy.  He gave me a questionnaire to rate how sleepy I was on a scale of 1 to 3 with 3 being “very likely to”.  There were a dozen or so questions like “how likely are you to fall asleep while riding as a passenger in a car.  Or fall asleep in a work meeting, or while watching TV. Etc.  I did not finish the quiz because I think I nodded off.

He looked at my results and suggested I take a sleep study to find out if I had some abnormal sleep behavior.  A sleep disorder study is where you go to a medical facility at night and let a perfect stranger see you in your jammies as she sticks sensors and wires all over your scalp and body parts.  Then you are supposed to sleep without disconnecting any of the wires or strangling yourself.  And during the entire ordeal you are being watched and videotaped.  I don’t even like the idea of being watched at the drive thru bank, so having a stranger watch me try to sleep was a bit disconcerting.  The sleep study itself seemed like abnormal behavior. 

The night of my sleep study was wet and rainy.  The parking lot was empty and I grabbed my overnight bag off of the back seat.  I went in to the lobby of the building and it was completely vacant.  There was a sign that told me to go down the hall and take a left.  The glass doors closed automatically behind me, and I felt like I was in jail.  Gee, do I get conjugal visits?  Was I supposed to bring my own conjugator?  Is that even a word? 

I checked in.  The attendant was a friendly lady who put me at ease.  She gave me several forms to fill out.  I had to sign permission for them to call my next of kin in case of a major medical malfunction.  I noticed on the form that parts of it were already filled out in my wife’s handwriting.  The box was checked where it said “do not resuscitate”.  Hmmmm.   

The attendant had me change into my night clothes after we did the paperwork.  She used a measuring tape and a pencil to mark specific areas on my scalp to put each sensor.  My hair is rather thick, so she really had to dig in to my scalp to mark the spots for the electrodes.  It felt like she was carving a pumpkin up there.   The attendant said these sensors were to pick up brain activity.  I told her according to my wife; there is was no brain activity.  The attendant was not amused.  I also mentioned that the spots she was carving in to my scalp were becoming a bit tender.  She suggested that when I got home to have my wife massage my head.  I told her she did that regularly, usually with a rolled up newspaper.  The attendant was not amused.

The attendant started to wire me up.  She strapped two elastic bands around my chest that held on what looked like a transistor radio.  I really was not in the mood for music.  Maybe it was the remote control for the TV?  That actually seemed like a clever idea.  I am always losing the remote, so having it strapped to my chest would have benefits.  She ran electrical wire down each leg and connected them to my feet with tape.  She hooked up two more on my arms.  Then she globbed some sticky stuff on those pencil marks on my scalp and attached electrodes there too.  This reminded me of a moment in the movie “Back to the Future” where Doc had a vegetable colander on his head that was connected to a tangle of wires.  The wires were connected to a toaster and when he sneezed the toast popped up.  Maybe I am not remembering that part right.  Anyway, the attendant gathered up all the wires dangling from my body and scalp and plugged them in to that box on my chest.

I was finally wired up and ready for the study to begin.  It was still early so I watched a little TV before going to sleep.  The TV remote was apparently not working because no matter which button I pushed on my chest, I could not change stations.  I drifted off around 10pm.  I prefer to sleep on my side, so I knew that this box on my chest was not going to stay put for long.  And sure enough, several times during the night the attendant came in and had to re-plug in some of the wires that I managed to loosen.  At 3a.m. I woke up and could not get back to sleep.  But being a tight wad, I wanted to get my money’s worth, so I laid there until five.  

I was happy that the test was over and I could get unhooked.  I hope the Dr. will get some useful information from watching the video of me asleep.  I hope I didn’t do anything weird like sleep walk, or pee in the corner, or put the TV in to my overnight bag.  However, I did not feel rested at all, so I would not recommend this activity for anyone who has difficulty sleeping.  When I got home I told my wife all about the study.  I mentioned the suggested scalp massage.  She immediately looked around for the Sunday paper.   Hmmm, maybe I should go back and do another study.

 

Dueling for dollars

Dueling for dollars

the young fellow on the right did not have time for a duel. 

Those of you who are faithful readers will perhaps remember that I made my first trip to China last year.  The purpose of that trip was to present my design for equipment to the decision makers of a Chinese corporation that does energy development projects globally.  The project I was vying for was in Turkmenistan.  The result of that trip was that we were awarded a huge order (yea!) and are in the final stages of completing the job now.

We got word that the President, the Vice President, and the Purchasing Mgr of this energy development company were traveling from Turkmenistan to Houston and wanted a meeting with my company.  Since I am Product Mgr., that meant I was the guy who had to prepare for them.   This meeting was a big deal and we did not know what to expect.  We were late on the delivery of the equipment so we assumed they were going to jump all over us for this.  To shield myself from the delivery issues, I had our Manufacturing Manager travel to Houston from India for the meeting too. 

There were continuous changes in their schedule and the meeting date kept being postponed.  My Manufacturing manager had been in town all week and needed to get back to his job.  Finally, we got word that the visitors were heading to Houston from Turkmenistan. 

The day of the meeting I was also participating in a charity event.  I could not pick up our guests myself, so I sent a limo to pick up the group. I raced to the office after my event  and arrived just in time to change clothes and set up my presentation. I had a real bad feeling about this.  I really wasn't prepared to discuss the details of delivery schedule.  I was more focused on the new project coming up. We have another huge quotation to this company that I really want to get.   But I was concerned that our late delivery was going to kill this next opportunity.  

We got the call from the limo driver saying that they had arrived.  So, any moment now all those big shot decision makers would gather in to our conference room.  But when we went to the front entry, only one man was there.   The lone visitor was Mr. Liu, the Vice President.  He later explained that the other executives had problems with their VISAs and could not make the trip.   

This situation reminded me of an old Bugs Bunny cartoon.  This is the one where Bugs encountered a terrifying space alien.  This giant alien was wearing a menacing space suit, but when he crawled out of it, he was actually a tiny non-threatening little pipsqueak.  When Mr. Liu showed up, he turned out to be a tiny, non-threatening fellow himself.  He seemed irritated at the beginning of the meeting, but eventually we got along well and he was a pleasure to know.

After our meeting, we went to dinner.  Mr. Liu was traveling with his adult son, who was a grad student at a U.S. university in Washington D.C.  So before we ate we went to their hotel and picked him up. Mr. Liu’s son had earned a Finance degree and was still in school since he could not find a job.  I told him he would never find a Finance job in Washington D.C. since no one in that town apparently understood money or finance.  He did not understand my meaning.

The son asked what they could do for half a day in Houston before they had to get to the airport. Since the charity event that I spent the morning at was a team pistol shooting competition I mentioned that it might be fun for him to go to a gun range and shoot a pistol.  His eyes lit up.  He said he had never fired a gun because private citizens in China are forbidden to own weapons.   So, after hearing that, I suggested  this:  rather than shoot at a gun range he and I could just have a friendly duel.  Or I said we could pretend we were filming a Hollywood movie.  He could be the villian.  I would give him an empty gun to use and he could just throw it at me while I fired away.  Upon further reflection, he decided that they really did not have any time before their flight.

So, the evening ended with new friends being made, more potential business in the future and no blood being shed.  I guess that is about as good as it gets for an evening that I had originally dreaded.  It is always gratifying for me when I can do my small part for creating global cooperation and avoid an international incident.  But I hate to let my pistol shooting skills be wasted.  Maybe some congressman in Washington D.C. would be interested in a Duel?  I wonder if they would notice that their gun was empty?