Romanian Chicken Death Match Contenders and other observations

Romanian Chicken Death Match Contenders and other observations

Warning:  Chickens are larger than they appear.

I am in Romania to do a field check of some equipment that was recently installed here.  The field location is about a two hour drive from the small city of Medias, Romania, where I am staying.  Fortunately, I am not doing the driving.  I say fortunately, but I wonder about that.  The driver, Fione, is very familiar with the area, but these are winding two lane roads.  The asphalt paving has long ago worn out. And the patches have been patched. I sneak a look at the speedometer and we are going well over 80 kilometers an hour, and we barely slow down for curves.  We are in a small European manufactured car with those tiny 14” tires, and I am fearful that we’ll hit a pothole at these speeds and a tire will disintegrate. We pass all the slow moving vehicles like they were parked, and once we nearly pulverized a dog who decided to challenge us as we sped by.  

Fione crosses himself, as in a Catholic ritual, when we pass certain churches.  With the aggressive way he drives I hope he is building up Catholic points for godly protection. If he continues to pass cars on curves I may start to cross myself too.  It can’t hurt to hedge my religious bets.

On trips like this I tend to spend a lot of time in other people’s cars with drivers that don’t speak English.  There are two guys in the backseat and I am in the front with Fione.  He has one of those cell phones that sticks in his ear, and with no warning, he’ll suddenly starts yakking.  Since he speaks Romanian, with a few English words mixed in, I don’t know if he is talking to me, the guys in the back, or to the phone.  He’s one of these guys who cannot talk without using their hands, so he will begin gesturing wildly and raise his voice for no apparent reason.  I wish he’d just keep both hands on the wheel.  I am getting old, I guess.  I wonder if I should tell him not to run with scissors.

The guys in the back are blathering on in Romanian too.  It always seems like everyone talks at the same time.  Don’t they take a breath?  And there is talk radio on too.  So I am surrounded by voices but completely ignorant about what is being said.  It is easy for me to filter all this out. (I am married, you know). I ignore the voices and daydream in my own world.  For me it is a cacophony of silence.  

The rolling hills are full of the past season’s corn crop.  Either the dried corn stalks are still standing, or stacked in shocks in the field.  I see corn cribs stuffed full of dried ears.  I guess it was a good harvest.  As we drive past the farms, the modest homes have livestock milling about in the yard.  I see milk goats, sheep, cows, and a few horses.  It is common to pass a horse drawn cart that is used as the family station wagon, loaded with feed, or people, or nothing, being pulled by a trotting horse.  I notice that there are very few power lines in this country.  I am told that these homes have running water, electricity and gas, but their power consumption must be low.  

Most homes that we pass have small vineyards, where I suppose they grow grapes to eat.  They certainly could not produce enough grapes to make wine, in the spaces allowed, unless they grow them for a cash crop.  When you live in the country you do what you need to do to put food on the table and money in your hand.  I also see lots of giant free range chickens that seem to be in every yard.  Compared to the chickens that the fetching Mrs. Intrepid Traveler raises on our property, these Romanian chickens are huge.  They look like they would kick her chicken’s asses.  Make no mistake, I do not advocate chicken fighting.  I am not the Michael Vick of the Global Poultry Death Match Competition.  I’m just saying that these Romanian chickens look like they could bench press a Volkswagen bus.  Col. Sanders would be salivating.

I admire the folks who live out here.  The ones walking on the road, or in the villages that we blast thru, are the generation that lived thru the communist years.  They probably grew up knowing nothing but Totalitarianism.  I would love to have a conversation with some of them.  I am very interested in how European cultures live.  The problem is we don’t speak the same language.

I hope that I get our equipment problems solved here on this trip, but I would love to have an excuse to come back here in the summer.  I want to experience Romania when the crops are growing and the days are longer.  This is a beautiful, peaceful place.  Just don’t piss off the chickens.

Up from Communism

1,2,3,4, We are about to blow.  5, 6, 7 Who will we incinerate?

Up from Communism

I can see at least fifty, maybe more, standing there on the short cropped grass.  They stay bunched in a tight group, surrounding a tall, slim man who is carrying a stick.  They react to his every gesture. They undulate around him like a slow moving school of fish.  It is amazing how coordinated their movements are even though the person they are watching seems completely detached from them.  He’s not really paying attention.  He is more intent on examining the turf ahead of him and trying to decide what to do to advance his position.  From my casual observance I’d think the guy did not have a care in the world. Looks can be deceiving.  "Where am I", you ask?  Could I be at a Washington area golf course watching the mindless followers of our nation’s current President? Mesmerized by watching him play yet another round of golf?

No, I am not watching Mr. Obama.  I am in Medias, Romania, staring across a hillside at a flock of sheep, being herded by a staff wielding Shepard, as they slowly meander across the rolling pasture.  I didn’t mean to denigrate these sheep by comparing them to Democrats, but there are similarities:  The wool suits, the vacant stares, the collective intelligence of…, well,… sheep. 

I am in Romania to do some fact finding about equipment problems.  I have an idea of what could be wrong but my theory needs to be validated with facts, unlike global warming, so I came to see for myself what is going on.  But I know you are not interested in hearing about that any more than I am interested in writing about it.  Better to tell you about Romania.

The terrain of Romania reminds me of Northern Italy and Slovenia.  Modest, tree covered mountains with broad, open meadows make it a beautiful place.  This country is just now emerging from the cesspool resulting from Communist control that started when World War II ended. After the breakup of the Soviet Union there was great unrest.  Many of the small countries that had been under the thumb of the Soviet Union were now free.  The Berlin wall came down.  Suddenly these countries could choose how to govern themselves.  Romania is one of those former Soviet satellite states.  The country had been run by strong man Nicolae Ceauşescu, who had ultimate control since 1947.  There was a coup in 1989 and he was subsequently removed from office and summarily removed from the living.

Since then, Romania has struggled.  The transformation to self-rule is difficult when a culture has been accustomed to Mr. Big, from Central Planning, dictating the next five year plan.  But the country now seems to be on the right path.  The day I arrived was Election Day.  A new president was chosen.  But it was not common knowledge from the people I spoke with whether the President has a four year or a five year term.  I was told both.  That kind of information seems like an easy bit of political science that any Romanian would know.  But maybe I am speaking with the same kind of people that are routinely interviewed on the streets of the U.S.  These U.S. citizens might know the size of Kim Kardashian’s ass but do not  know the name of the Vice President.  But, in fairness, maybe that is what happens to a population when there are no elections for half a century. 

The new President has a German last name.  I was told as if I would be shocked by that fact.  It was explained that it was a surprise for him to get elected since he was not Romanian. Huh?  You’d think they’d have written the election law to exclude non-citizens.  Turns out that what was meant by that comment was that a large German population migrated into Romania about 800 years ago….so this new President, being a part of that ethnic group, was a newcomer.  That explained a political banner I saw supporting a competitor and the sign simply mentioned that candidate’s name and Romanian.  I guess that little dig at the German’s heritage was all this fellow thought was a reason to vote for him rather than for that German interloper.  I say “guy” in a generic sense.  There were 14 candidates on the ballot and three of them were women.  The candidate that exceeds the 50% threshold wins.  This Election Day must have been the run off, but that was not mentioned by the person telling me about the election process.

Another lingering relic from the era of Soviet rule that I spotted from the roadway was the cooling towers for a Nuclear Power Plant.  I have since done a little research and learned that it was built with failed 1980’s technology. Now, I am hardly a nuclear power expert, but I noticed there was no containment dome over the power plant. Some of you may recall another famous Soviet Nuclear Power facility, with no containment dome, that experienced a mildly significant event.  This Romania reactor has the same design flaws as the Russian Chernobyl reactor.  I wonder if word of that disaster has reached Romania yet. 

There is much more to say about Romania, but since this post is less funny than factual, I will end it here. I just hope that my reason for coming to Romania on this trip becomes as informative to me as this post will to the reader.  Even if you are the kind of person to play golf when you should be working.

Pets – If luvin them is wrong, then I don’t wanna be wrong

Who wears a tie with pajamas, anyway?

Pets – If luvin them is wrong, then I don’t wanna be wrong

I just returned home from an eight day trip to India, and, as usual, my Border collie greeted me with sincere enthusiasm.  She is usually so excited when I return from a trip that she looks like she is having a seizure.  (I often have that effect on women). Whenever I am gone for an extended trip overseas, or even to the hardware store, she goes nuts when I come home.  I guess a person can’t say that’s a bad thing. For years my daughters made a game of who could kiss me hello first when I returned from work each day.   I loved the attention, but it was evident that this game became less and less about showing me affection and more about sibling competition.  This was in the early days of video games, so I suspect they were pretending I was a space alien, being killed by their kisses.

At 2am this morning, one of our cats woke us up with her snarky, irritating meow.  She wanted food.  Or water, or nuclear disarmament of all western nations, or whatever.  We never know what she wants, but we can’t get her to stop waking us up.  She seems to have no concern about it being the middle of the night.  If I bought her a kitty wrist watch maybe she would she pay attention to the time?  I really don’t think she cares.  She wakes us up, which then wakes the dog, who wants to go out, and then will bark later to be let back in.  It is a nightly ritual that I don’t miss when out of town. 

Sometimes I think we are trapped in a come-to-life version of the Flintstones cartoons from the 1960’s.  The dog wants out, the cats want in, and there is continuous turmoil about which pet wants to be where.  I may have to give up wearing my leopard skin pajamas.  I don’t want to be seen wearing them outdoors as I pound on the door to wake up the wife after the dog locked me out of the house.

That old, crabby cat has always been crabby, so it is not an age thing.  She has been like this ever since we rescued her decades ago.  (Never do this).  All our pets are rescues, either from an animal shelter, or from being abandoned by someone smarter than us.  You’d think that these pets, after we take them in, clean them up, feed them and get them to the vet, would show some appreciation.  But no.  They just act like dogs, or cats, or goats*…. or whatever.  They owe us BIG, but you’d never know that by their attitude. 

We have another adopted dog, a Great Pyrenees, who is barking outside right now.  He was abandoned by someone who moved from a neighboring farm and so we started feeding him.  He is a very, very large dog, with long white-ish fur, a black nose and black eyes.  When I first saw him, slowly lumbering around in the pasture, I thought he was a polar bear.  But since free ranging Polar bears are not common in Texas I knew that was unlikely.  This dog spends most nights, trotting around in the woods, with his head to the ground, barking at nothing at all.  Apparently he thinks this is his job description. It gets very irritating and we are afraid either he will get shot by a neighbor or they will shoot us for saving him.

We moved out to the country about five years ago.  (It only seems like five decades ago) and the first country pets we inherited were some goats* that a friend of mine had too many of.  He lives in far west Texas and bought goats* to raise for meat.  He quickly realized that due to the romantic nature of goats* they soon multiplied.  The goats* were eating the grass down to the dirt, so he asked if we wanted to take some.  (That was a dumb question to ask my wife, the fetching Mrs. Intrepid Traveler).  She is intellectually brilliant but somehow could not form the word NO when asked this question). So we drove out there (12 hours each way) and spent half a day chasing goats*.  We caught two lambs.  Lucky us.

I have included an (*) after the word goat, because these goats* were not goats* after all.  They turned out to be sheep.  Not that it matters what type of critter they are, since every pet is an animal that eats, poops, needs shelter, and needs their own vet.  I think we discovered the goat* mis-identification after one goat* started getting romantic with the other goat*.  Eventually a third goat* appeared as a result of the romantic encounters, if you know what I mean.  Well, time marches on.  We were given another free goat (no asterisk this time since it really was a goat) that was no longer wanted by someone who was raising show goats for the county fair.  We took in the spare goat.

My wife’s pet adoption attitude may have been the basis for an urban legend which was started to save parents from having to tell their kid that the family pet died.  Kids….if your mommy and daddy ever said they took your pet to out to the country to live on a farm…..it could have happened for real at our place.  My wife is the living embodiment of this urban legend, and I get stuck with the vet bills.  What’s wrong with this picture?

Anyway, I digress.  The spare show goat soon became the object of affection of that amorous ram (goat* or sheep? Now I am totally confused).  Well, he did what animals do in the barnyard and somehow managed to impregnate the real goat.  We took the real goat to the vet. He assured us that it was impossible for one species to impregnate another species.  But it happened.  (This might also explain the existence of Liberals?). This one ended as a miscarriage and, of course, a large veterinarian bill.  I told the vet, “Sir how dare you invoice us for an impossible medical condition?”  (Actually, that’s what I wanted to tell him that, but didn’t since I am a pet wimp.)

Another of our goat stories is more tragic.  When we lived in suburbia, one daughter wanted to raise show animals for the county fair.  This seemed like a harmless way to keep her out of jail, so we funded her activities for every year of her high school doing this. She raised show steers, and one year she raised a goat too.  (a real one).  I remember one night, she was out tending her animals, when I heard a commotion going on at the front door.  I look out the door’s window and see a goat’s head, complete with horns, staring back at me. I open the door and my daughter spilled into the house, carrying her goat that weighted nearly as much as she did.  She yelled that the goat was sick with a fever.  We helped her get the animal into the tub, where we iced it down to reduce its body temperature.  I am not sure of all the events that occurred with this but the goat, sadly, did not make it. 

I am sure that not many of you have been greeted at your front door by a sick goat needing to borrow you tub for a bath.  Or maybe you have.  That might explain why you are still reading my stories.

To summarize:  Do not purchase, rescue, or temporarily agree to shelter, any kind of pet, of any type, breed, or species, from anyone.  Just like the warnings announced in the airport:  do not accept packages from anyone you don’t know or do know.  If you ever do find yourself at a weak moment, about to agree to rescue an animal, immediately stop the process and mail me your wallet.  You can thank me later.  But not at 2am.  And not in person.  I don’t want you to see me, locked outside, in my leopard skin jammies.

All the News that’s fit to plagiarize

All the News that’s fit to plagiarize, satirize, or bastardize, from the Sub-Continent.

 

“First, don’t do anything stupid…unlike the American voters”

Today’s headlines, ripped from real life fiction.  Yes, Gentle Readers, it’s time for another installment of news from India, the Sub-Continent.  The term “Sub-Continent” became popular after the Brits took over vast land holdings in India.  They used the land to grow submarine sandwiches, which had been popularized by King Jared of England, who lost 50 stone weight by eating a diet of only submarine sandwiches.  This was later referred to as the Paleo diet, because all Englishmen have a rather pale complexion.

International terrorist news - An Al Qaeda spokesman, recently interviewed, lamented the lost glory days when they had a monopoly on terror.  Comparisons have been made of Al Qaeda being like the Microsoft monopoly of the terrorist world, when it was revealed that Al Qaeda means “Windows” when translated into English.  The version Al Qaeda 8.0, had a software glitch that allowed Navy Seal hackers to penetrate the Operations security system. The new Management at the firm have recently released an upgrade:  Al Qaeda 8.1, where the “start” button has been replaced by the “sword” button to euphemistically end the program.  In the “72 virgins edition”, they have the same button but labeled “detonation”.  You only push that button once.

Al Qaeda’s competitor in the terrorism industry is a newly formed organization known as I-SIS. It has become popular with hip young terror geeks, who claim that the I-SIS operating system is faster, more brutal, and savvier when using social media, like YouTube.  I-SIS even has a corporate logo that looks like an apple.  But everyone knows it is really a hand grenade. The I-SIS campaign to expand market share by stepping over red lines, has seen remarkable results, and they now dominate a new newly defined sales territory, I-Raq.  I-SIS is suddenly very profitable, after venturing into banking and crude oil production.  Next quarter’s corporate goal of I-SIS is to take over a region currently be serviced by another organization.  This new region, if I-SIS is successful, will be re-branded:  I-Srael. 

Political news:  Hillary Clinton was forced to abruptly cancel her India book signing tour due to lack of interest.  This came on the heels of her canceling the U.S. tour promoting her book about being Secretary of State.   Mrs. Clinton still had ten of the original dozen books that were printed for the U.S. market so she brought them to India hoping for a friendlier audience. 

Hillary was infamous for her ill-fated overture to Russia where she gave the Russian President a red “reset” button.  The Russians laughed at Hillary for the idea.  Her failure in India stemmed from a passage in the very last chapter of her book (chapter 2) where she told of giving the Prime Minister of India a smaller version of the red reset button.  In her book she said it was a “red forehead dot reset button”.  The India Prime Minister was not amused.   It was suggested to her that if the book had been printed on softer paper, that sales might have been more robust. There are 1.8 billion people in the country and there is a toilet paper shortage.

Washington D.C. - “Cautioner-in-Chief” Obama urged to do something. – When it came to light that over 100 U.S. citizens are now in Iraq and Syria fighting for ISIS, alarm bells went off in many political circles.  The potential for these individuals to return to the U.S. and cause harm has gotten many conservatives in a lather.  President Obama is being mocked for his “don’t do stupid shit” doctrine, which stemmed from his statement that he still does not have a policy for dealing with ISIS.  A recent headline suggests that there is growing pressure for Obama to abandon his minimalist foreign policy and “to do something stupid”. 

London – UK Cops tell victims to solve own crimes - Victims of petty crimes, like car theft, criminal damage, or dis-embowelment of prostitutes, are told to do their own detective work and investigate their own cases.  A report by the Inspectorate of Constabulary found that this do-it-yourself, or DIY trend was linked to the public’s viewing of certain television shows.  The viewing of TV shows that feature amateur sleuths solving crime, such as ABC’s “Castle”, and the PBS show “This Old Crime Scene” are fostering a new confidence about solving your own crimes, reports an un-named bank robber.  This un-named person happened to be investigating his own recent robbery of a bank.  “I am very close to solving this crime and my suspect is the notorious Al Capon”.  When questioned by a reporter about whether Mr. Capon could have actually done the crime, since he has been deceased for several decades, the investigator said, “Hey, we ought to throw the book at him!  Somebody gotta do the time!”  Mr. Capon was not available for comment.

And finally the lighter side of the news – Is your pet depressed?  Much like humans, your furry companions could also suffer bouts of depression.  What to watch for:  Pets who are withdrawn, have a lack of appetite, changes in sleeping patterns, dullness, or less chatty, These may be signs the pet may be suffering from either depression or from being covered with fur.  If your pet feels abandoned when you leave for a month, then do not let your pet see a calendar, or any multi-part television shows, so they won’t know how long you have been gone.  If your pet does not show signs of improvement after your return, one suggested treatment is to buy your pet his own pet. But make sure your pet is old enough to be responsible for his own pet.  And that your pet has no plans for any extended vacations.

Out of the Gulag, part 4 of Turkmen trip

Out of the Gulag

Send Lawyers, guns, and money.

I know what you are thinking.  You, the discerning reader of these Intrepid Traveler stories are thinking:  “wow, that Intrepid Traveler has led a charmed life.  He travels the globe, poking into the dark recesses of the world where ordinary humans never have a chance to look.  Back home, he has the Fetching Mrs. Intrepid Traveler to keep the home fires burning, and who blessed him with a beautiful, charming, witty child.  (Since I have more than one kid, it will be fun to watch them try to figure out which one I might be referring to)

Along with my charmed life, I am one who never seems to lose his cool. Well, I just about lost my famous cool on this trip.  Let me explain.

I flew to Turkmenistan to consult with a customer on some equipment that was not working properly.  The equipment was located one hundred miles from the nearest point of civilization, surrounded by a harsh desert.  The customer’s facility is essentially a work camp, and the only way in or out is to use their roads and go thru several of their security check points.  The moment I arrived at the “camp” I had a bad feeling about getting back out.

My colleague and I were greeted by a fellow who spoke limited English with a distinct Russian accent.  When he smiled he exposed his poorly capped gold teeth.  He asked for our passports and said he would return them soon.... “No worry”.   We were brain dead from 24 hours of travel, and without asking questions, we just handed them over. 

We were each assigned to a room.  This is where we would call home for the next week or two.  The indefinite length of time was a big concern for a control freak like me.  The room was about 10 ft by 10 ft.  It had a bed, a desk, and a broken chair.  There was a metal wall that partitioned off the bathroom.  The bathroom had a cheap shower curtain separating the shower from the toilet and sink.  It was illuminated by a single dim light bulb.  The shower wand was hooked to the wall if you wanted a hands free shower experience.  But the shower head was squirting water in all directions.  This might not have been a problem except there was an electrical outlet just inches away from the water splash zone.  I never smelled singed hair or burning flesh, so I apparently did not get electrocuted.  And yes, I did move the spray head. Over the sink was a small magazine sized mirror, hanging at an angle from a nail, which was about chest high to me.  When I looked in it I wondered where my head was.  (Thinking back to when I agreed to come here I wonder where my head was then, too.) 

Within an hour of check in, I heard pounding on a door down the hall, and someone saying WORK! My colleague, came to my room and said they want us.  We took a mini bus to another location which consisted of a row of sad looking one story buildings. There we met some of the managers, and were issued our work clothes.  Before making this trip I bought outdoor clothing specifically to wear here to help cope with the 100 degree heat, but we were told to wear the company issued pants and heavy cotton long sleeve matching shirt.  It was more like a uniform.  There was an underlying message:  we had to conform.  The uniform was bright red, as if to tell the wearer that there is no way to blend in with the desert fauna, and we will spot you if you try to escape.    

There were small trucks and SUVs constantly moving about the camp.  Each had heavily tinted windows so you could never tell who was in it.  I am surprised there were no armed guards visible.  The first full day at the camp we were taken into a brand new modern office complex then escorted into a stark conference room.  The room had a huge table in the center.  On the far side of the table sat some important looking Chinese men, who were never identified, and did not offer business cards.  Thru an interpreter, we were told, again, that there were problems with the equipment which we needed to fix.  

The interpreter was a tiny lady from the computer dept.   Her voice was so weak that I could hardly understand her.  She, like many oriental people, abhor exposing their skin to sunlight. So when she was outside she wore a full face shade, which covered her mouth and muffled her tiny voice.  She vainly tried, all week, to help us talk to our hosts, but bless her heart, she was not much help. Most of the communications were done by babbling and gesturing.

We spent the week being shuttled to various locations in the complex of petroleum refining facilities.  Our equipment was installed in the strategic piping all over these locations.  Wherever we went, there seemed to appear out of nowhere a collection of workers.  They gathered around like curious farm animals.  In all the locations we visited, there was never a problem with my product.  The problems were always with the instruments that were purchased to work with our equipment.

By the end of the week it was apparent to me that we were nearly done, so I contacted our agent for Turkmenistan by text messaging from a borrowed phone.  I told him to put the wheels into motion to get us out of the camp.  This meant booking the two hour flight back to Ashgobat, the capital of Turkmenistan, and start the long chain of flights back to home.  The two hour flight fills up quickly and if we missed one we would have to wait another 24 hours for the next one.  There was a lot of resistance about our departure from the Chinese management.  They thought we were leaving before we were done.  I tried to assure them it was not the case, but they came up with a list of 29 installations we needed to check before we left.  The Chinese were very relentless and this  list was going to kill our chance to get out of here .  I don’t know why they waited until the last minutes to show the list to me.   Maybe they are the real control freaks.  

On top of this we still did not have our passports.  We kept getting excuses for the delays, which always concluded with “don’t worry”.   Well, I was worrying.  An American passport is worth a lot of cash on the black market. My cell phone did not work in this country and the internet connection was unreliable.  I felt isolated from the world.  Was I destined to die in a desert camp that I could not find on a map?  I did not want to be here a moment longer.  These guys were in control and I really couldn’t leave without their assistance.  Inside my head, panic was creeping in.  I was losing my cool.

So I went into “American” mode.  I no longer waited for them to tell me where we were going or what we were doing.  I showed them the list and told them we were going to item one immediately.  We did.  And it turned out it was not even our equipment.  Item two was the same.  Way down the list we finally found something we needed to look at.  We did, and determined the problem and the solutions. From a list of 29 items only handful were even ours. 

So, in just a few hours after I felt the desert closing in on me, we flipped the situation around and were done.  We headed back to our camp.  Our driver was already there, so in short order we showered, packed and were on the road to the airport.  I told him to drive like he stole the car.  He did not understand the words, but knew the meaning.  Getting the hell out never felt better.

Collapse, part 3 of Turkmen trip

Photo courtesy of someone who owns a fire proof camera

Collapse, part 3 of Turkmen trip

I am here in the country of Turkmenistan.  It is mostly desert.  It would be a great place to visit if you enjoy a sandy Hawaiian beach vacation but do not like the water part.  Or girls in bikinis, or Mai-Tais, or having fun.  I am here to do some trouble shooting on my equipment used in a multi-million dollar project being built here in northeastern Turkmenistan.  This project is the construction of a facility to process natural gas, being produced here in the desert.  This area is much like West Texas, where eons ago, the area was covered by an inland sea.  (About the time when Willie Nelson first started in show business).  Bullions and Bullions of tiny sea creatures died and were buried.  This happened a lot of times.  (Probably bullions and bullions of time, unless some of those creatures were immortal).  Apparently proper diet and exercise was not part of their routine.  Their little crustacean bodies started piling up and magically fermented into flammable gas. 

The oceans went away, due to Global Drying and the area turned into a desert.  (Al Gore warned us about that too, back then, but he had not invented the internet yet, so we did not hear about it).  Now, the fermented crusty critter residue is ready to be used but is trapped under the sand.  Who the hell left all this sand, anyway?  So, rather than remove the sand, it is easier to drill a small hole in the ground and send a long tube down there to let the flammable gas out.  This is what the Communist Chinese are doing here now.

The Soviets were drilling this area back in the 70’s.  In one area, they hit a gas pocket and had a blowout.  A big hole opened up in the sand and the drilling rig sank into the hole.  (I mentioned this in a previous post). The flammable gas was bubbling up and could ignite.  So the Soviets removed the threat of the fumes in the hole being ignited by ….. (Wait for it)……. setting it on fire.  It is still burning nearly 50 years later and is a tourist destination for those who love to roast marshmallows.  Now that logic helps illustrate why the Soviet Union collapsed.  Perhaps their drilling rig was symbolic foreshadowing to what eventually happened to the Soviet Union.  They built a country (the drilling rig) on soft sand, (a communist economy).  It eventually collapsed, as all giant Centrally Managed economies eventually do. 

No one would have predicted, in the 1970s, the collapse of the Soviet Union.  But 20 years later it did.  And the aftermath is that there is still a dangerous hole in the ground that may never go away.  There are those today that think that China is the model for a giant centrally planned economy.  Really?  Tune back in for that outcome in 20 years.  I wonder if the Chinese are familiar with the phrase:     History does repeat itself.   Here is another prediction:  In 20 years, invest in Marshmallow futures.

A pleasant surprise, part 2 of Turkmen trip

Chef Boy R. Dee?

A pleasant surprise, part 2 of Turkmen trip                      

Since this is supposed to be a travel blog, I thought it might be nice, for once, to give you my opinion on some actual transportation choices.  What a concept.  If you read the newspaper, or received a personalized hand written card from me, you know that I am in route to Turkmenistan.  The trip over will be made in three flights, and hours of automobile travel.  In all, it will be over 24 hours portal to portal, so I have not been looking forward to this trip. 

Due to the uber thrifty (read:  cheap) company policy, I always have to fly Coach Class when traveling for the company, even on long, overseas flights.  The longest single leg flight I routinely take is 16 hours.  If you think of that in terms of an eight hour work day, then that flight is two full work days.  Yes, I am a math genius.  So, if you can imagine sitting in your office or cubicle, which has been reduced to the size of an elementary school desk, for 2 days, you can understand my lack of enthusiasm for taking any long trips.  Why is it that the people who make the seat buying decisions are always tiny people who have no appreciation for the value of leg room?

A colleague suggested I fly Turkish Airlines for this trip, so I asked our travel agent to book the flight with them.  When we got to the airport we were told that we could upgrade to seats with more legroom for $350 each.  Turkish Airlines refers to this as Premium Coach, and is what I originally asked our ticket person to book in the first place.  When we got on board and found our seats it was a pleasant surprise.  The seats were wide and spaced out.  Each chair had its own set of arm rests.  No elbow wrestling with the person next to you for use of it.  The leg room was amazing.  When seated there was about 18 inches between my knees and the chair back.  This is an unheard amount of legroom for upgraded Coach seating.  I could actually open my laptop all the way to write this without the seat in front of me interfering.  Now, the only thing interfering with me writing this is talent and brains.

The flight attendants started the food and beverage service immediately after the wheels were up and the captain had taken the “fasten your seatbelts” sign off the lighted board.  Ya know, I have never actually seen the captain do this.  He must be a very stealthy guy to be able to climb out of the cockpit and change signs without me spotting him.  I guess he does it while I am in my usual take-off and landing position:  eyes clamped shut and fingers in a death grip on the person’s head in front of me.    The meal came out and they gave us real cutlery and actual glass dishware.  And the food was delicious.  But since I had already eaten dinner, I just nibbled at it. 

Soon I noticed a guy dressed in the full chef outfit, the white double breasted coat and big white floppy hat, slowly making his way down the aisle from the galley.  He was asking the passengers how the meal was, just like in a high class restaurant. I was impressed. When I first saw him I figured Chef Boy R. Dee was a passenger on our flight.  But when he started offering the passengers a tray of desserts, I realized he was part of the flight team.  I then remembered my hardly touched tray of food sitting neglected in my lap.  I panicked.  I felt it was my duty to have eaten the food to show him his effort was appreciated, but there was no time.  So I grabbed the food tray and was just about to dump it into the seat back pocket of the chair in front of me, when the steward picked it off of my lap.  I felt instant relief.  Turns out Chef Boy R. Dee never made it back to my part of the plane anyway, so he did not get my appreciative dumb looks.

This blogpost has been very complementary of Turkish Airlines.  But be warned, If you fly in their standard coach area. The seating is pathetic.  Cramped and hot and torturous.  Like sitting thru an IRA audit when you have digestive tract issues.  The attendants just toss bits of leftovers at the passengers, like a zookeeper feeding the animals.  But at least there is no tray of food in the seat back pocket of the chair ahead of you.  That is reserved for Premium Coach Class.