Favorites- Part 1

Back from Gabon. My trip was good, pretty normal if you think driving in roads with potholes 3 times the size of your taxi, seeing a car accident on Monday and the vehicle in the same place 3 days later, being told that your flight will be here in 10 minutes and then not having it show up for an hour so you miss your connection back to Paris, and finally followed up with a little bribe (not me) given to a immigration employee to let my colleague out of the country because her visa expired when we missed our flight. Just a very typical Houston work week. Overall, the trip was pretty eye opening experience. You have large corporations extracting resources, primarily timber and oil, from a very poor country. Expat living is extremely expensive in Gabon ($7,000 - $10,000/month for apartment alone) but its local inhabitants make very modest livings. Infrastructure around Pt. Gentil is terrible, the roads and traffic make I-10 look like piece of cake. It is shame that the wealth is not at least distributed to public projects like roads. In reality, the government will ask oil companies to fund such projects. Kind of makes you wonder, where is the government revenue of 250,000 barrels/day of oil, which unfortunately is under $40/barrel, going when it can not afford to make decent roads for its whopping 1.5 million people? Alex, "African government corruption for $1,000 please."

I had put off doing laundry for as long as I could, but after the trip I had to do some or I would begin to blend in with some of my metro mates in terms of personal odor. I went to the store and I think I have bought laundry soap, but I can not tell if it is soap or some kind calcium deposit for your washer. This project has lead me to what is now my favorite word in French. Years ago, Jen and I were sitting around talking about obviously nothing and we both told each other our favorites words (totally normal right?) which has lead to lengthy conversations with various people about this specific subject quickly followed by these people then asking us to leave the party. My favorite word is Pythagorean theorem. First, you might say "This is not a word, but two words." I would then reply, "Yes, but the inventor of this game, me, allowed some leniency in this case." This word is awesome, but to someone that is weak in math (IE: me) it is not used in great abundance. However, I will use it whenever I can. For example, it can be used at your local deli:

"Excuse me, can you cut that sandwich into a right triangle."

"What? How could I measure this sandwich?"

"Oh, that would be by using the Pythagorean theorem where a^2 + b^2 = c^2."

"Oh right. Silly me."

Try it. It works wonders. Jen's favorite word is ubiquitous which she read in a WSJ article when we first got married. This is a great word (definitely top 5 for me) and it is actually is just one word, but trust me ubiquitous is no Pythagorean theorem. Mom's favorite word is godspeed, again another great word. You think that this is crazy, but playing this game is a great conversation piece and not far behind is "What is on your IPod?" and "If you had a music festival called "Your Name" Stock what 3 bands would you have play?"

Back to washing clothes. So my new favorite French word is "secher." Because living spaces are compact, the French have cleverly developed a washer/dryer combo to save space. Good idea in theory, but not so good in practice. Translated, secher means to dry. Effective today, I will begin a petition to change the meaning of secher to "To kind of dry or what I really mean is to leave extremely damp no matter how many times you try to dry." I think that they needed to fill the space on the washer/dryer so they decided to write this word, but I assure you that it does not mean to dry. So instead of smelling, I will be sneezing due to the pneumonia that I will have caught from wearing wet clothes everywhere when it is 0 Celsius (quite Euro of me to use Celsius) outside.

I go back to Houston this week to prepare for the actual launch of this mission. I am looking forward to seeing the woobies who now have there own email: abbyandgrey@yahoo.com. If they don't receive 10 message a week, no one and I mean no one gets Christmas presents next year.

Le Jour de les Etas-Unis

This morning I had the unique pleasure to sit in a meeting in which the langauge of choice was French. During the two hours, I thought of many things:

1. Has someone (including myself) stated in my resumè that I can speak or understand French?

2. I am screwed.

3. I am going to learn French in 2009.

4. I am so screwed.

So on the way back to the hotel, I thought today I would write about the Le Jour de Merde. Before I continue, it is somwhat amusing how things do not change. I know little French, but I somehow know a swear word in French. I will plead innocent, because the word is the title of an expat book about living in Paris.

To return to my intended path, I returned back to the hotel for lunch. I was in the dining area and continued to hear about what is going on in Washington today and I came to a new conclusion. What a great day to be white, black, brown, green, American, French, Gabonese, bilingual, or even unilingual (with a cuss word included). My meeting is a perfect example of the greatness of today. Today is the perfect example of what can take place if people are willing to change, learn, and act. The night I listened to his acceptance speech in Iowa, I had a strong feeling that Obama would win the election. Jen has gone so far to say that I am obessed with Obama. I am. I don't know why because I am a straight laced Republican. In my letter to the kids this Christmas, I told them that I voted for Obama for them. I did not want to see America pass up on such an opportunity to change history. Today is not the inaguration of a Democrat. Today is not the day of defeat for the Republican party. Today is a day where Americans can all say we have learned, changed, and acted. 40 years ago we could not drink from the same water and today we get to say, "Barack Obama President of the United States." If you stop and really think, it is pretty amazing.

Ye Who Have Little Faith

Marathons. They are a unique event. The fact that someone has the desire and willingness to put their body through such pain (and not to mention do it in some rather revealing clothing). I myself am a .5 marathoner. I really don't know what that means, but it is a fact. After the completion of my race, I had no desire to move for about two weeks. I never have understood the person on the microphone that continues to yell at 6:00 am like it is some kind of disco club in Vegas. That being said, I admire the people that participate because it is quite an achievement to complete one.

It is even a bigger achievement to complete one in under 3:50. This number has significant importance to a few people in this world. One being me, the other being Jen. This time will determine the destination of the greatest beach or ski vacation anyone has ever seen.

Today is an important day for several reasons. Today's most important event is the marathon in Houston. Unfortunately, I will not be there to see Jen run in the marathon that she has been training for since the middle of this year. However, that being said I know that she will do great. If she is not done in under 6 hours, we may have to discuss the "training fees" in Beaver Creek (kidding of course).

She is the heart and soul of our family who happens to be a great athlete as well. So on behalf of Abby, Grey, and myself, "Go get'em Jenni" and "LET'S GET EXCITED RUNNERS. ARE YOU READY? I KNOW THAT BEAUMONT CAN HEAR ME RIGHT NOW, BUT I SAID ARE YOU READY? I HAVE HAD 100 CUPS OF COFFEE AND I CAN NOT STOP SCREAMING."

It is madness.

Do great Jen.

Four out of Five: Oui.

First, amazingly enough I have been able to get into the apartment within 15 seconds for the past two days. My landlord thinks I grew up on an idiot farm in Texas. "Just turn it to the left." Miracles are alive in Paris. Not only that, but I also set the record for bagging my groceries at the local supermarche. I looked somewhat American with my 40 items in line. I stopped counting the number of looks that I was getting. Note to self: shop often and buy little. I also was able to double book some rental insurance so if anyone wants to have an accident involving fire, theft, natural disaster, and it will cause less than 100k euro, please call I assure you we can work something out.

So now that I have made it in the door, the two largest obstacles on a day to day basis are: 1. Typing on a non-qwerty keyboard. It is amazing how disabled you feel when you can not type a sentence without making 60 spelling errors. And 2. Although I took several hours of French lessons, I can not speak French. It is so bad, that my colleagues have made me their project and I have been relegated to speaking French or not talking. Me not talking has been an issue since about the 3rd grade. What is interesting is that people come up to me and ask me questions in French. This is OK, but the questions are coming at the speed of a freight train. I have developed a strategy for this. I simply say "Oui" or "Yes." I am in the process of conducting scientific research, but early indications are that people like people who say "Oui." Today alone, "Oui" got me a free cup of coffee, password help on my computer, and new blackberry that takes pictures. So in the upcoming posts, if there is an issue with me eating dog food or working in a fast food kitchen, the "Oui" strategy has deviated from its original findings.

Finally, this week has had its challenges, but I think we all look for something or a signal at some point when times are not allowing us to enter the front door (as you can see this has had an enormousimpact on my week). The other day I was in the kitchen drinking water, because I had not become the Jedi of the supermarket, and noticed a familiar site. It is human nature to be loyal to something. Loyal to a team, a family pet, a friend, or a spouse are very normal. My parents happened to be loyal to a kitchen oven and it did not matter how often it broke, burned food, or burned out a pilot (whatever that is) they would fix it instead of buying a new one. For years, the clock said 7:33. In fact, it got to the point where I would randomly call my parents and ask if it was 7:33. Back to the kitchen, I looked up and see this god awful Harley Davidson clock and immediately thought 1. The time says 4:00 and its 8:00 and 2. I have to somehow figure out the whole store thing so I can buy a new clock. Upon returning from work and actually entering the front door in less than the time it took me to actually get home, I noticed that the clock didn't move. Instead of taking it down and looking to see if it needs batteries or buying a new one, I think I am going to leave it as is. We all look for something that helps us find North and well I hate motorcycles, but Harley's north.

Paris: 1

Brett: 2

Can he run the table?

New Year, New Day, New Keyboard

Well for starters, I have made a resolution to blog more than quarterly. Brutal. Lots has occur ed since 9/28. Jen is living with her family because we sold our house and today was my first day in Paris. We had a nice holiday season and I even let Jen go skiing. Hopefully, those pictures will be posted soon.

I landed today in Paris. I now know why the barter economy has failed. I now think I should become a Economics professor which specializes in the bartering system. Lesson 1, you can not use mosquito repellent meant for West Africa in 1st world countries. For example,

Me: Mr. Taxi driver, do you take Euros?

Taxi Driver: "Yes."

55 Euros later and upon arrival to our apartment.

Me: Do you take Visa?

Taxi Driver: No. I don't take credit cards.

Me: I don't have Euros.

Taxi Driver: There is a bank machine across the street.

(5 minutes pass as I look for my bank card which is 5,000+ miles away in Houston).

Me: I don't have my bank card with me. What about mosquito repellent?

Today, Paris gets to say "Scoreboard." New keyboards where my a's are z's, no bank cards, and a 20 minute fight to get into the apartment door. I think that I have moved to the set of Survivor. So my plans for stocking up the place with food have now changed to eating peanut butter cookies and watching French TV. If it gets worse from here, I will consider moving to Greenland.

Paris: 1
Brett: 0

Paris leads in the best of 1,095 day series.