POSTING #137

On Becoming a Road Warrior

It was a few days before Christmas in 1994 and I was flying home from Moscow. Two colleagues and I had just spent a couple of weeks in Russia trying to decide whether we would recommend that the Canadian Government submit a bid for a two-year World Bank contract to construct some 20 model employment offices from Moscow to the Pacific Ocean.

In the end we had decided to recommend that a bid be submitted. The terms and conditions required that the bid contain the name of an on-site manager. After some arm-twisting, I had agreed to let my name be used.

We didn't think that it was likely that Canada---if it did decide to bid---would win. It seemed more likely that the US, which had already submitted a bid, would win. 

But as the plane headed for Montreal, I was running two  'What if' questions through my mind. What if Canada decided to submit a bid? And what if it won?         

It was a big project. How would I run it---not from Canada---but from Moscow? And how would I cope with all the travelling involved---the travel to and from Russian, and the travel across the eight times zones from Moscow to the Pacific?

The man in the seat next to me was tall, slim, dark-haired in his later 30s or early 40s. We had chatted briefly when we embarked, enough to establish that he was from Montreal, had been working in Russia for two years, and was going home for Christmas. As soon as the seatbelt lights had been turned off he got out his computer and started writing something.

Meanwhile, I continued pondering about what would happen if Canada won the contract.

My seatmate turned off his computer  and we began to talk. He was an aviation engineer with a Montreal company that had a joint arrangement with a Russian firm to produce aircraft components. He was working in a city a few hundred miles east of Moscow.

I told him about the possible bid we were working on for the World Bank project, and about my concerns about how to manage the project if we won.

He said that I would have to become 'a road warrior'---the first time I had heard that term.

When I looked puzzled, he stood up and got a large, shiny black leather case out of the overhead compartment---the kind of case I had seen lawyers tow into court on a set of wheels.

The front of the case dropped down to provide a writing surface, with pens, pencils, paper, Post-it notes and other stationery items neatly arranged in pockets. He showed me that his computer fitted into a compartment behind the stationery, along with a portable printer. Behind all that was another compartment for telephone and email communication items, including an acoustic coupler, assorted telephone jacks, electric transformers, and an assortment of electric plug adapters. In yet another compartment, he had what he called ' survival items', for example rubber plugs to fit Russian hotel sinks and bathtubs, a small roll of toilet paper, a bar of soap (all items that most Russian hotels didn't provide), some first aid items, and a Leatherman knife with a wonderful combination of knives, screwdrivers, wrenches etc.

I was bowled over, and immediately decided that if we won the contract I would have to create a road warrior kit.

He put the case back in the overhead compartment and started to talk about what it was like to work with the Russians. His Russian colleagues were well trained but not very well motivated, at least by North American standards. He described things he had tried to do in order to motivate them, some of which had worked, and some of which had failed. I listened carefully, storing away his anecdotes and advice.

As we got closer to Canada, he started to talk about a relationship problem that he would have to deal with during the Christmas holidays. He didn't say whether it was a wife or a girlfriend but it was clear that it was going to be messy. When he had been talking about his work, he was calm and competent, but as he shifted to talk of the relationship he cleared his throat often and fidgeted with his hands. He was not looking forward to the confrontation that he said was going to happen.

Looking back on our conversation, I think he had enjoyed talking to me about his road warrior kit and about his Russian experiences because they had taken his mind off what awaited him in Montreal.

When we arrived in Montreal, he wished me luck, gave me his business card and invited me to contact him if we won the contract, and if I needed some advice or a shoulder to cry on.

I set out to find the bus for Ottawa, and he went off to deal with his relationship issue.   

I never had to contact him---the fact that he worked outside Moscow made that difficult---but the few hours of conversation in the plane were enormously helpful to me in my work in Russia. It was an invaluable 'Idiot's Guide to Living and Working in Russia' ---something this 'idiot' needed in the worst way.

As soon as the World Bank gave the contract to Canada, I started assembling my road warrior kit. I decided to use a soft case instead of his hard one, feeling that the soft case would be a little more flexible but my kit had all the same essentials as his.

My road warrior kit was a best friend for the two years in Russia, and then later in the Kingdom of Jordan and Azerbaijan. 

Airline check-in people would sometimes blanche when they weighed it and saw that it was---as normally happened---well over the 10 Kilo limit. But they never separated it from me, or forced me to take things out of it.

Last year we had a cleaning-out bee and I decided that the time had come to say goodbye to it. I took a picture of the case and then handed it over to a company from Niagara Falls called, Just Junk. The company boasts that it donates useable things to charities, and I like to think that someone, perhaps an impoverished college student, is using my case. 

The travel-worn bag that housed my 'road  warrior' kit. I don't have a photo of it in operation, bulging with everything needed to 'set up shop' in hotels, airports and airplanes. It also served as a welcome footrest on long Aeroflot flights. (Pat thinks I should have had it bronzed!)

I often think of my airplane companion, and of his kindness to a new road warrior.

And, I wonder what happened with his relationship issue.

Working in Russia in the 1990s (and perhaps still today) was often tough. A supportive relationship, as I was lucky to have with Pat and our family, was a real plus.

I hope that things worked out well for him.

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See you on March 4, 2012 for Posting #138 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting,  or email me at johnpathunter@gmail.com.

Note:

Posting # 7 of The Icewine Guru blog is now up. The Guru offers his views on the birth control furor in the US, on whether it was 'an epic blunder' by Obama, or a clever trap set by him for the Republicans. Click on  http://theicewineguru.blogspot.com/

POSTING #136

Random Thoughts on a Florida Holiday

            The Weather

We all ask people who have just returned from Florida the same question: "How was the weather?'

But we don't really want to know.

Unless there was a hurricane, a tornado, or a month of monsoon rains.

Then we'd be interested.

It all reminds me of my time working in Ottawa. During a January cold spell, a colleague from Vancouver would always call and ask how our weather was. After I had told him about our storms etc., politeness required that I ask him about his weather. And then I would hear about the daffodils that had just come out, the Japanese cherry trees that were now covered with pink blooms.

That sort of thing.

So let's get our Florida weather out of the way, knowing that you really don't care.

It was fantastic---a record-breaking stretch of warm, dry, sunny weather.

Now, let's move on---quickly.

            On the Road

Unlike our other drives to and from the South, the weather was super, the roads were clear and we made great time.

That was good, but we kind of missed the adventures of earlier trips---stranded by snow in Emporia, Virginia, eating beans for Christmas dinner, and all that.

I can only recall a couple of pretty lame stories.

At a restaurant in Pennsylvania, located in an ancient-looking building, we arrived just after what must have been a busy lunch time. The harassed-looking server shouted at us, "Sit at any place that's clean". We passed nearly 50 tables loaded with dirty dishes and finally found a 'clean' one back by the pool table.

When after a couple of forgettable grilled cheese sandwiches, the owner came over to ask how the meal had been, we changed the subject and asked him about the history of the building. He told us that it was over 200 year old, and had originally housed an apothecary's shop. When he was putting in the restaurant, the renovations unearthed a dry-well into which the apothecarists had thrown old medicine bottles, broken scissors, bandages and the like. A local antiquarian asked to be lowered  into the well on a rope so he could search for artifacts. He had to be hauled up when he passed out from a lack of oxygen. Later he went back with an oxygen mask and collected an amazing assortment of items which the restaurant owner now had in bins in his basement.

Pat was itching to volunteer to check over the artifacts but we had to move on.

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At a service station, after gassing up I needed to use the facilities. My need was so great  that I forgot how to speak 'American'. I asked the young, gum-chewing woman for directions. She pointed, and then said, "Y'all must be Canadian. Canadians always ask for 'the washroom', not the 'restroom'."

Chastened, I rushed to the 'restroom'.

            The Florida Economy

There are lots of official statistics that an economist could trot out to show that the Florida economy is slowly improving---employment is growing, the Gross Domestic Product is increasing and so on.

Since we were on holiday, I ignored the official statistics and fell back on my informal indicators.

• Newspapers were thicker and heavier this year than last (more advertising),
• Restaurants were busier, and
• Stores were more crowded.

There you have it. Rock-solid proof that things are getting better!

But there is a long way to go before the housing sector is back to 'normal'. A shop keeper, on hearing I was a snowbird from Canada, tried to sell me a 'second home' he had bought during the housing boom. He gave me a hard-sell on the merits of the second home and insisted on drawing me a map so I could check it out. I got the impression that he was treading water, financially, as he tried to cover two mortgages. As I left, he pressed his business card into my hand and pleaded with me to call him. (I am afraid I didn't.)

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In doing some Google research on the price of houses in the Naples-Bonita Springs area for this Posting, I came across a newspaper story that described how a real estate agent had had the sale of a lifetime. She had sold a house on Gordon Drive, Naples for $50 million. (Gordon Drive is home to the .0001% of our society---Hollywood celebrities, famous CEOs, and other super-wealthy people who have enormous Gulf-front estates.) She said that she would use the commission of $1.5 million to send her daughter to university.

In an ironic twist, the article noted that the new owner was going to demolish the existing 1930s mansion and put up a new, even bigger, even posher house. The reporter interviewed the new owner who said that it might seem ridiculous to spend so much money and then tear down a perfectly good house, but housing was always a good investment, wasn't it.

I hadn't checked the date of the article before reading it. When I checked, I saw that it was from 2002--- just when the housing bubble was starting to get really inflated!

            The Silverspot Cinema, Naples

Apparently cinema attendance has been dropping in North America, with experts blaming it on the economic slowdown, the emergence of home theatres, or lousy movies.

Pat and I love 'to go to the movies' but we don't go as often as we would like because of other factors. We hate having to get there an hour before the showing of a popular movie so that we don't end up in a seat in the first few rows where you have to look straight up at the screen. Or end up in a seat up at the very back where the air is thin and you need oxygen.

And, we hate the line-ups to buy tickets.

And the narrow seats, and the even narrower leg room. (Is there anything worse than latecomers loaded down with popcorn and drinks squeezing by---some of whom don't even bother to say 'excuse me'?)

Come to think of it, there are a lot of things we hate about the usual cinema.

That's why we were so delighted to find the SilverspotCinema in Naples. 

At the Silverspot, one can reserve and pay for seats on-line via a user-friendly website and then arrive 10 minutes before the show starts. The seats are as wide as first class airline seats and covered in hand-stitched leather. There is lots of leg room so one can stretch out and people can get by easily.

If one wants to dine or have a drink before the movie, the cinema has a gourmet restaurant and a lounge.

Tickets are a couple of dollars more than at the run-of-the-mill cinema---a bargain in our view.

We were told that Brazilian capital is behind the cinema---a case of the 'developing world' coming to North American to show us how things should be done.

A son tells us that the Cineplex Varsity and VIP Cinemas at 55 Bloor Street West have many of the same features as the Silverspot. He just wishes that more cinemas would convert themselves to this more customer-oriented approach.

Hear! Hear! 

            Reading in Bed

I love to read in bed but as my eyes get older I need more light. The bedside lamp at our rented condo had a 60 watt incandescent bulb---not large enough to provide the light I need. I went to the local hardware store to get the kind of energy efficiency bulb I use at home, which burns only 42 watts but gives the equivalent of 150 watts of illumination.

I was astonished to find that most of the shelf-space in the 'lamps' section of the store was still devoted to incandescent lamps with perhaps only a quarter devoted to the energy efficient bulbs.

After a search, I found the bulb I wanted and installed it in my bedside lamp. 

Happiness is having a strong bedside lamp!

Then I realized that mine was the only energy efficient lamp in the rented condo! Despite government calls for energy efficiency, all the other lights were incandescent.

I'm not sure what the moral of this story is. I'll leave that to sociologists, economists and other people wiser than me.

Anyway, I left the lamp, so the condo now has one energy efficient light.

I hope it will still be there when we go back next year.

But I'm not optimistic. I suspect the light with its queer, curled tubing will have been replaced by a sensible, trustworthy 60 watt incandescent bulb.

            A New Art form??

Here is a picture I took from the kitchen of the condo. I shot it through the screened window thinking that the camera would 'see through the screen' and focus on the reflections in the lake. As you can see, that didn't happen. These digital cameras are amazing. Anyway, it is kind of an interesting effect. 

Palm trees and condos reflected in the lake behind our rental place.

      

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See you on February 26, 2012 for Posting #137 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting,  or email me at johnpathunter@gmail.com.

Note:

Posting # 7 of The Icewine Guru blog has now been uploaded. In it the Guru offers his views on the birth control furor in the US. Was the controversy an 'epic blunder' by the White House, or a trap for the Republicans? See: http://theicewineguru.blogspot.com/

POSTING #135

Where's Newt?

It was 3.00 PM, on Tuesday, January 24th,  and Pat and I were sitting in lawn chairs under a tree in front of the bandstand in Cambier Park, in Naples, Florida.

The temperature was 27C (80F) and there was a pleasant breeze. We settled into our chairs as we waited for a Newt Gingrich rally to start---it was supposed to start at 5 PM.

A rally for Newt Gingrich?

Why, you might ask, would we be using part of our winter holiday to attend a rally for an American politician famous (infamous?) for three marriages and assorted scandals.

Good question.

Part of the answer is that I love all politics but especially the American brand, a love that Pat has come to share, or at least tolerate.

We had been checking the local media to see whether there would any rallies while we were in Florida. We found that most campaigning is now done through television debates and  (generally negative) ads.

Finally we found a rally---one for Newt.

Now, as his opponents keep saying, Newt has more baggage than an airline, but he's a colourful, unpredictable character full of ideas. I had heard him speak in Hilton Head a few years ago at a non-political symposium on health care. Newt showed a good understanding of the complexities of health care, and he had what I thought were some sensible ideas, including the necessity of a mandate, a requirement that all persons purchase health insurance. He has since flip-flopped on that idea, but that's politics for you. It would be unfair to hold that against him.

So, there we were, waiting for Newt.

We had no idea how many people would show up but decided to get to the Park two hours early to try to get a good location.

There were about three hundred people already there when we arrived, but we were able to set up our chairs about a hundred feet from the stage. Excellent location!

This was the scene at 3.30---our chairs were just to the right of the tree trunk. If you look really carefully you can see Pat's ankle and shoe at the extreme right of the photo.

We watched as people streamed into the park from all directions. A Newt supporter behind us said with glee that there were now 600 people, while Mitt Romney, who had had a rally earlier that day, had only drawn 300.

And it was only 3.45.

By 4.30, the police, who had been expecting a crowd of no more than 1000 people, had called in reserves to clear passageways in case of an emergency. The growing crowd was clearly much greater than 1000.

On the stage, a Dixieland band replete with straw boaters started playing. Meanwhile a bouncy MC led the audience in chants for Newt and against Romney and Obama. At 5 she told us that the police were now estimating the crowd at 6,000, the largest crowd ever in Cambier Park (that turned out to be an exaggeration---a rock concert a year or so earlier had brought out nearly 7000 people).

She also told us that there had been an accident on the I-75 and that was delaying Newt and his party but he 'would be here soon'. (That was incorrect. We learned later that Newt's organizers had at the last minute fitted in another rally in Fort Myers and at 5 when our rally was scheduled to start he was still speaking in Fort Myers.)

At 5.30, I nipped across to Starbucks on 5th Avenue for some coffee and we tapped into a stash of cheese and biscuits we had brought with us.

Various Gingrich buttons on sale at the rally: "Newt Rocks", "NEWT-ER OBAMA 2012",  and "Newt 12". Note the sign across the top: "Annoy a Liberal---work hard, be happy!"

A woman with a hat covered with Republican charms---elephants, flags etc. The pink pin says, "Hot Chicks Vote Republican"

We listened to people around us, many of whom seemed more anti-Obama, than pro-Gingrich. The hatred of Obama was fierce and vicious. He was a socialist, a crook, and Un-American while Michelle was 'disgusting'. They entertained each other with 'fair and balanced' news items from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.

Pat and I, who think that Obama has been doing pretty well coping with the financial and economic mess left behind  by George Bush, were reminded of a separatist play we saw in Montreal in 1976. The audience cheered the anti-English sentiments of the play so much that at intermission we were afraid to speak English. At the Naples rally we whispered to each other in case the rabid people around us caught an 'eh' or an 'out' that would give us away as godless, socialists from Canada.

The people were mainly seniors, some of them residents of Florida but there were many 'snow birds' who had fled the cold of Chicago, Indianapolis etc to spend a few months in Naples. They were 99.9% white. I saw two African-Americans, one a technician helping set up the sound system, and the other a young man who was running for some state office.

One of the two African-Americans at the rally. This one is a technician, while the other was a candidate for a state office.

There weren't any Latinos in the audience so far as I could tell. But there was a Latino-looking lad of about 10 who, in the disorganization as people waited for Newt, managed to get onto the stage. Holding a "Vote Newt" sign in front of him, he danced to the music of the band. Republicans don't seem to be very musical (witness Romney's painful versions of America the Beautiful) but this kid had rhythm. Moving the sign like a burlesque dancer moves her fan (I have seen that in movies), he captivated the audience.

From time to time, a worried looking geezer would clamber onto the stage, look out at the audience and shout in a pleading voice, "Martha, I'm here." The crowd cheered each time.

At 6, the crowd was getting rambunctious, despite the entertainment provided by the MC, the band, the young dancer and the lost geezer. Instead of following the MC's chants, people started their own chant: "We want Newt, we want Newt, Newt, Newt, Newt". Then from the back of the crowd someone started singing American the Beautiful---in tune, unlike Mitt's renditions! Soon the 6000 were all standing and singing. Relieved, the MC suggested they sing it again, which they did. And then, for good measure, they sang it a third time.

We eavesdropped on two couples behind us who when they weren't condemning Obama were comparing notes on the best marine hotels to stay at when they sailed  their boats/yachts back to New Jersey. Sounded to me like members of the 1% club!

Finally, at 6.30, we saw the flashing red lights of police cars as they escorted Newt's campaign bus to the street behind the band shell.

After a few moments of quiet, Newt and his wife Callista strolled onto the stage.

And the crowd went wild, cheering and cheering.

After being introduced by someone---who had the good sense to talk for only 30 seconds---Newt started to speak. Without notes or a teleprompter.

I wondered what we were in for. Would this be one of his interminable, rambling, philosophical discourses?

I remembered a meeting years ago in Ottawa at which Tommy Douglas, the Father of Canadian Medicare, was one of the speakers. He started by saying that the organizers had asked him to keep his remarks to 20 minutes. Tommy who was noted for long speeches protested, "Politicians can't get the dust off their tonsils in twenty minutes".

In fact, Newt spoke for only 18 minutes---I timed him. He began by thanking the young dancer who he understood had helped entertain the crowd. (The lad stayed on the stage next to Newt, listening to the speech until I guess he got bored. Then he started to dance again---until one of the security people hustled him off the stage.)

Newt and Callista, with the young 'Latino' dancer, in a blue shirt and jeans, to the left of Newt---before he was ejected.

The speech was crisp and coherent. There were lots of 'red meat' jibes about Obama and Romney, which the crowd loved. When he finished it was clear the crowd had forgiven him for keeping them waiting.

They were his!

I was so impressed with the speech and the way the crowd received it that I sent a text message to a friend back in Canada who shares our love for American politics, "Romney is toast"

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So much for my skill as a pundit!

As you know, Romney went on to trounce Newt a week later at the Florida primary on Tuesday, January 31st.

Millions of Super Pac dollars in negative ads helped turn the Florida Republican voters against Newt.

And of course, Newt hurt his own cause by a lack-lustre performance in the two Florida debates, and by his promise to set up a moon colony once he became president. The moon colony promise was designed to appeal to laid-off space engineers around Cape Canaveral but Romney quickly labelled it as just another of Newt's' lunatic ideas' (I am not sure whether Mitt intended the pun).

A friend argues that politics is about poetry and plumbing---'poetry' to create a vision the public can believe in, and 'plumbing' to organize your supporters and get the vote out.

Newt is good at poetry but not at plumbing. You shouldn't keep 6000 people waiting for an hour and a half.

At the moment---as I write this Posting---Newt seems to be out of the running for the Republican nomination for President.

But Newt has been written off before.

Like a cat, he may have a few lives left.

Anyway, we are grateful to him (and Callista) for giving us the opportunity to experience American politics unfiltered by television anchors and pundits.

It was great fun!

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See you on February 19, 2012 for Posting #136 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting,  or email me at johnpathunter@gmail.com.

Note:

I am working on Posting # 7 on my The Icewine Guru blog. It should be up in the next week or so, at: http://theicewineguru.blogspot.com/