May 4th, 2019

Hey there...

The first Plum Rain of the season arrived in town this Wednesday.  About time cause it's been so hot recently that the moisture has been building around my plums.

It is way late and seems like forever ago, but am gonna hammer through our Myanmar trip.  It took forever cause I needed to go through Betty's photos first and while the quality was good, the quantity was overwhelming...nearly 1800 over 6 days.  What is that?  There are a mess of good ones and am gonna attach a load of them with a running guide of what we did and where, but first am gonna give an overall impression of the place.

Stated that I wasn't eager to go to Myanmar but Betty had it on her list and you do what ya gotta do.  My reasons for not wanting to go were that it is always hot and in looking at the itinerary, there were a lot of Buddhist temples and I have long been a believer of the adage if you've seen one, you've seen 'em all.  And we did the latter.  I thought I knew a decent amount about the place but was sadly mistaken.  Here is my 10 cent recap of their history.  Kind of a backwater even in terms of SE Asian cultures, they had their heyday about 1000AD.  Between then and the British arriving in the 1800's, it was an amalgamation of loosely related tribes...there are 37 of them in the country today.

When the British do their colonial thing in Burma, it is towards the end of their run and they used it to exploit natural resources (natch), but weren't there long enough, or gave much of a shit, to put much of the good stuff, like infrastructure, in so it was kind of the forgotten outpost.  WWII was all about the gentle touch of the Japanese occupation (The Bridge on the River Kwai?) They gained their independence in 1948 and after several attempts at democracy, with some notable world politicians like U Thant, the military took over in 1962 and ruled with the typical corrupt and harsh hand that you would expect until 2011.

No one really gave this military government much thought all that time cause we weren't at war with the Commies there and why mess up a good thing?  What sealed the military's fate was Cyclone Nargis in 2008 when an estimated 200,000 people died.  It is estimated cause there was no real census before or after, areas were totally wiped out and the government refused any aid to enter the country.  The democratic government elected in 2011 with Nobel prize winner Aung San Suu Khi is hamstrung by the military, which naturally still wields ultimate power.  Continued sectarian strife and civil wars, which have been going on since 1948, but you hear about them now as there is a modest amount of freedom, abound in all parts.

Think it is safe to say that I am fairly well traveled albeit more of the Grand Tour kind than that of visiting the poorer areas of the planet.  Of all the places I have spent time, Myanmar gave me a feeling of hopelessness not felt anywhere else.  I've never been to India and experienced that nation's poverty on epic scale, but whenever I read stuff or listen to folks that go, there is always a kernel of hope or areas of the economy doing well or having potential.  I felt zero hope in the folks we encountered here.  Other than scratching a living out in some service or agricultural endeavor, there are only two avenues to make it out of that existence.   The military controls all the levers of industry, so you can do that, or you can devote your life to Buddhism.  There was an English language newspaper that I got my hands on daily, and there would be multiple horrific stories about what goes on.  One day was an article about drug addiction...Myanmar back in the day was a corner of the Golden Triangle heroin trade, but in recent years, technology has made it easy to eradicate the crop, so the savvy drug lords moved their trade indoors and now make meth.  The meth is so cheap that the rate of addiction and all the associated horror that goes on with that controls huge areas of the countryside.  Another day was a story of a Burmese maid that was sent home from Singapore in a brain dead coma.  Myanmar does not allow its people to work outside of the country, like Indonesia and the Philippines do, for whatever reason, but the people are so desperate that they go anyway.  These folks aren't trained or protected (like Indonesians and Filipinos), so their employers get unhappy with their work and beat the shit out of them.

The story that hit me the hardest was about the Burmese "brides".  China didn't like having girls for a few decades and they are experiencing a shortage of them now.  The solution is to bring in women from other countries, with Burma being the easiest target, to become brides.  This is sometimes done legally but more often, the women are trafficked.  There are no glamour wedding in store for these girls however.  The story commented how these women are kept prisoner in the homes of these men, impregnated, and when they give birth are sent back to Myanmar without their child.  Some of these women do it voluntaril  just to get a few bucks or food.

I never once felt unsafe there, which is obviously a result of a fear of the authorities.  I also never once felt any spontaneous or real looks or emotions of joy.  Wherever we'd stop there were the usual folks selling their trinkets and they barely even tried to entice us.  The hawkers in each town would have a line in English to say, "Maybe later" or "You promise" for example, but they said it like a character would in 1984...saying their lines with no enthusiasm or real belief.  People took us around the sights, or fed us or took our tickets at airports, but just never felt anything other than resignation.  I know that there has to be joy and we missed it of course, but it felt really weird and sad.  I always feel lucky and understand that it is because of where and when I was born, but if I was born there in 1965...

Want to hear the most messed up thing about the place?  We all know it used to be called Burma and was renamed Myanmar...officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar.  I thought that Burma was a name given by colonial Britain but research shows that wasn't the case and that it was the military that thought  the sound of 'Republic of the Union' empowered them somehow.  Their language used to be called Burmese but with the new name, is called something else.  I asked some people what it was called now and they were at a loss, calling it the language of Myanmar and such.  Obviously, the new language has to be called Mayonnaise.

Not the funniest but that was the best joke I came up with on the trip and while it was lost on the natives, I enjoyed it and have worked it into the rotation.  OK...onto the travelogue.  Many photos and a few comments so feel free to peel off as you see fit.

A good thing about going to Myanmar from Taiwan is that there is a direct flight to Yangon (5hr) so do not have to spend an entire day in transit like many SE Asian destinations, so had some time this afternoon to check out the capital of 3.4 million souls.  The Yangon airports are quite nice and modern too.  We met our driver and guide and headed into town but of course had to stop on the way to see the big Buddha.  It is big and he's chilling out, but him being made of plastic kind of made it lose its luster for me.

 After a quick refreshment at the hotel, we headed down to the colonial/governmental core.  Our guide told us not to pay this lady for the chance to free a bird for good luck.  Paying to set something free seems to be a theme

The central park was filled with locals and they seemed to be having a good time...

A couple of the old buildings are still functioning and in decent shape

 But the majority are crumbling under decades of mold and inattention, and are filled with squatters

 One that isn't is the old post office turned into a jail.  Still in need of a good scrubbing however

 And in a bizzare scene, outside in the van are the folks pending movement into the jail where friends and family get to talk to them and bring them snacks

 We then walked around the open air street market to look at all the produce and meat.

 As a westerner with a penchant for meats being kept refrigerated and free of mass amounts of flies making babies on it, I can never get past the nausea seeing all cuts of meat and fish sitting on the ground in 100 degree heat.

 We immediately saw all people with this white stuff on their faces and learned it is called thanaka,  Here it is and will go into it a bit more later

Last stop of the day was at dusk for the Shwedagon Pagoda which is the center of the religion in the country and every person we would later speak to asked if we had seen it.  We saw a lot of temples/pagodas/monasteries and this will be the last time I name them cause it started to bleed together quick

 This is a common refrain in all parts of the globe.

 You get a glimpse of the Mayonaise language in the above photo which has been described as looking like butts...lots and lots of butts.

Photo op by the sacred bodhi tree

 Big and gold with hundreds of smaller shrines around it.

 A feature of many shrines is the addition of LED halos around the Buddhas. Felt cheap and disrespectful, but hey...it's your thing

Next AM (early...all of our departure times were ungodly early) we took a short flight to the historic capital of Bagan.  Myanmar has 5 different regional airlines and we took them all for some reason.  You could drive, but a 25 minute prop plane flight would take 8 - 20 hours by car.

Bagan was at its peak in the 11 century and there are aver 3,800 hundred temples there and it felt from the start that our guide was gonna show us them all.  "This one has plaster!" or . "This Buddhas eyes follow you around the temple."  We went to a few this day and were told stories, none of which I wrote down.  This was the goldest one.

 Effin' adorable future monks

 Get it on...

 Making donations/offerings to the Buddha is di rigeur.  Small bills, food and one had cigarettes.

 So this thanaka stuff is tree bark ground into a paste and the folks put it on their face and then form into designs.  We're told it also has sunscreen properties but seemed to be more of a make-up thing.

 Every guide we talked to had the obligatory rant against the Chinese tourists.  Myanmar's issues with them are the same as everywhere...they come in hordes, don't buy anything local, make messes, etc.  Since the Rohinga crises, tourism from western countries is said to be down 40% so in order to make up for the shortfall, they gave the Chinese an exemption and made their entry into the country visa fee free, which seems to have helped increase tourism as the place was filled.  We had no interest, but in the Chinese tourism books as a thing to do is to take a horse cart around the old Bagan.  As it was one of the few things the Chinese would spend money on in the local economy, the horse cart drivers doubled their rates.  Good for them.

 Mayonnaise lacquerware has a long tradition and we were taken to a shop to view the operation and it was fascinating.  This step by step wheel of the process gave good insight as to the process.  The craftmanship is laborious and extraordinary.  We bought a lovely tray.

 Adorable kid in the shop playing with bubblewrap.

 Last stop of the day was to a small rise that was built for people to congregate and watch the sunrise/sunset.  The place is incredibly flat, so from a short perch, you can see as far as the pollution will allow.

 Which isn't far.   You can sort of get the gist as to how many temples there are in this region in that shot.   I mentioned it was hot, but the "haziness' we were met with from arrival to departure was unrelenting.  It is not industrial pollution but rather a combination of stifling humidity and mass burning of leaves and garbage that coats the air.  I asked in each town if there is ever a time when the sky turns blue.  "No" was the answer every time. .  The people watching here was pretty good.  There was some Thai influencer there live streaming his time in Bagan.

Every stop we would get the folks running up to us trying to sell their souvenirs and they were not terribly interesting, but here was a bunch of kids that used crayons to draw pictures of the sites and then sell them. Thought that was really cool and wanted to talk to these kids about it, but they were devoid of passion, which is when I noticed the lack of that in this crowd.

Had to get one of their renderings of course.

Next day was number two in Bagan and we had the thing that is rated number one activity in Myanmar...a balloon ride over Bagan.  Gotta go early for rides to catch the right air currents.  The buses w were picked up in were old Japanese troop transports.  You can feel the ghosts.

Must say that I was nervous going in as had not been wowed by the local attention to safety and infrastructure, but the balloon companies are all owned by Brits with the pilots coming from the Commonwealth.   Can't see it too well in this photo, but these balloons carry 16 passengers and the baskets are separated into 4 compartments.  They put the other Chinese lady flying solo in our wedge, and the rest of the balloon was filled with Germans.  All of the white tourists we encountered this trip were Germans and it became a running gag when we would stumble across them being their German selves, we would say "Germans" in the way Seinfeld used to say "Newman"..  A story we were told yesterday at the temple with the fading mosaics was that half of them were gone as they were stolen by a German industrialist who cut them off the wall. Not the first time we've heard about this penchant of theirs.  Germans...

 A smooth ride and pretty I suppose, but the barren landscape and it being all brown from ground to sky , I was ready to land.  Betty and I did a balloon ride in Napa a few years ago, and the sky was crystal clear so am obviously jaded.  A colleague from school travelled there this week and we did a bunch of the same stuff.  This balloon ride was a bucket list thing for her and she loved it and it was hard for me to bite my tongue and not say that it was disappointing.

We landed on the banks of the Ayeyarwaddy River, which originates in the Himalayas and is the main artery and life blood of the country, and saw these folks drying their chilis.  Think this was my favorite moment in Bagan.

We were done early and our guide picked us up at 10ish to go to some city an hour away to see a depressing open air market, and more monestaries/temples/monestary temples.  But first, Betty decided to try her hand at thanaka

 Power move would have been to tell the guy we'd prefer to bag it and hang poolside cause we had all seen enough and it was roasting hot.  Going to this guys monastery and him showing us the sacred texts, and writing in his book as cool, but still.

 Last activity of the day as a boat ride on the Ayeyarwaddy for sunset, which was nice cause it was cooler.

Day 4  had us on another prop puddle jumper to the city of Mandalay.  That name evokes thoughts of a golden city and Crosby/Hope buddy films.  We get in the car and the place is a dump.  The highlight of the morning was going to (another) monastery and watching the monks line up to eat.

Then it was onto the hillside for more temples and views of the brownness.

 We then went to a part of town where we took a "ferry" across this river to an island that held the old fortresses and such.

The idea was to eat lunch and then take a two hour horse cart ride around the place that had more temples that were all advertised to be crumbling.  We felt bad for the horses.

This is where we learned our lesson from yesterday and made the call to tell the guy that we were done and wanted to pass on the horse cart and call it a day.  You can see the look of satisfaction on our faces knowing there were no more temples in store.

Those hats look goofy, but let me tell you how great they are.  Our guide had one and we saw him take it out of his bag in folded form and strap it on.  Folded, it is the thickness of a Pee-chee folder and half the size, and in the shape of a pagoda.  

Absolutely perfect to chuck in your bag for anytime perfect sun protection.  At 75 cents apiece, bought a half dozen of them for future use.

Before he took us to the hotel, asked him to stop at the U Bein Bridge as it was featured highly in the books I read beforehand.  Spanning over a kilometer over the main lake in town, it is the longest bridge made of teak in the world and is full of locals passing the time and is supposedly crammed at sunset.  We liked it OK, but the thing we were fascinated by were the dudes in the water harvesting the vegetation

Our day over early, the hotel we stayed that night was quite good...Babydoll and I took a dip, the girls went for massages while I napped, then we had dinner in the bar and they served very tapas of good quality.  We were feeling pretty good.

As I blab this out, get the feeling that I am being negative on the place but you know you get the straight shit from me as I have not been wowed to this point.   We had a couple days to go and we left early the next morning for our flight to our final stop, which was the  Inle Lake area.  Without question, this place was great and totally turned my head around on Myanmar.

The lake is about an hour ride from the airport and we had the obligatory monastery stop on the way.  Even the monastery here was interesting with thousands of shrines placed in cubbies throughout.

 Watching the young students doing their homework and fighting over the pencil was enjoyable.

It was still early morning so the plan was to drop our bags and hit the lake.  We climbed into the standard boat on the lake, a long skinny teak thing, and took off for the hour ride across to the north side.  This place is interesting in that the people that live and make their livelihood there don't just use the lake as a resource, but they live their entire existence on it.  As we cruised its length, we saw how.

There were a mess of these boats harvesting the vegetation that grows at the bottom and they sell it to farmers to use as soil and fertilizer for the farms that grow veggies in floating gardens.

 Stopped for lunch at a restaurant on the lake and sampled the fresh produce and fish from the area and had the best meal of the week.

 We found the tomatoes and avocados to be particularly delish.  Note the thanaka on Betty's face.

 We spent the afternoon visiting the industries of the area.  First was the cigar factory that makes flavored stogies called cherut.  I passed cause I don't need another bad habit

 A couple of shots of the buildings that are on the lake.  They are all on stilts and you can see that they are about 10 feet above the water.  In a couple of months when the rains hit, the water level will reach the floor

 I was curious as to how they dealt with their waste as there is no plumbing.  Our guide said each one has a room offset from the main building (you can see it with the blue tarp underneath in the below), and they use that seaweed from before as a filtration device as it cleanses their excrement.  I suppose it works cause they've been doing this for centuries and you don't see a lot of garbage or floating dookies, cholera is not an issue and we didn't get sick once, but still.

 Next shop was the one that makes the teak long boats that are the only kind we saw on the lake.  Did not see a single fiberglass speedboat or any other kind but these handcrafted type.  I bought a new teak cooking spoon

 Silver factory.  Was interested by the chemistry that goes into separating the silver from the rest of the ore

 And the weaving/textile factory.  One of the few that extracts lotus fibers to use in textiles, which Betty had never seen, and she has seen a lot of factories.

 Some great visuals

 On the way back to the town, we drove through some of the floating farms.  They lay down logs and start putting soil and vegetation on top to create the bed.  Ingenious and can attest that the stuff they grow was quite good.

 The fires of locals burning whatever dotted the shores and hills.

All of the places we stayed in Myanmar were nice, but the place here was one of my all time favorites.  Also on stilts on the lake,the rooms were well appointed but subtle, strong  WiFi for me to catch up on opening weekend of Aussie Rules Football, and tons of cute touches like a floating swimming pool, a month old puppy named Rambo that dominated everyone's attention, and a sunken rickshaw where ducks live called Duckingham Palace.

 I had read that there were a couple of wineries nearby and entertained going to check them out, but decided to hang and relax at this cool place instead.  Their restaurant served super fresh and yummy local meals and we enjoyed a bottle of the local Rose that was refreshing.

Our flight out the next day was late so we had one more day on the lake.  As we headed onto the lake this morning, got the good photos of the traditional one legged fishermen.  This crew positioned themselves to be models of the fishing style as to get some tips, but this is how they really fish.

Our guide took us to the massive 5 Day Market where the people from the lake and surrounding countryside come to sell their stuff.  Smells and colors galore.

Traffic jam getting into the place.

 Kept trying to convince Babydoll these were made of human teeth.  Was more fun when she was younger and more gullible

 Bundles of bamboo sticks for farmers to use to tie up their tomato plants.

 Mentioned that there are 37 different tribes in Myanmar and as this is a meeting ground for the region, many of them are represented.  You can tell the difference of some by their headwear.

 Of course this spot had a temple.  I may be wary of your religion, but I can at least be decent towards it.

 Hard to see in the photo but the attraction at this temple are the 5 Buddha statues that are covered so thoroughly with gold leaf that they are now lava lamp looking blobs.

 That's no lady, that's my wife.

Last activity of the day was a 45 minute sprint up one of the streams that feed the lake to a place for lunch and yet another temple.  These boat rides are so hypnotic and the people in the villages a few miles off the lake are filled with different tribes.

 Enough with the sad temples.

 There are 8 animals in the religion and you are the one from the day you were born.  There are 8 cause it is a luck number and they split Wednesday into two to make it an even number.  I am a Saturday/Dragon (the best of course), while the girls are Garudas.  They are mythical too but also pretty slick

 Local fun in the water

 There were Karen littered throughout the region.  One of the people we were talking to about the Karen said they put the metal rings around their necks and ankles to protect them from tigers that go for those weak spots when they attack.  That was a new one as I previously heard/read they were simultaneously used to make them more beautiful to attract men, or ugly to keep them from becoming victims in war.

 Betty thought she'd buy a a local scarf and was enveloped by the local zombies chanting 'Your promise"  Freaked me out a bit.

A long boat ride back, then an hour to the airport, long delay there and then late into Yangon for our early flight home the next day.  We had been with a lady that guided us around the last two days and she was a 40-something woman with twelve toes.  Very polite but as with all the folks we encountered, there was something in the background that felt sad.  On the drive to the airport, we were talking about life and such and she shared her dreams of starting a small business but has been thwarted as the money she makes has been going to pay for her father's chemotherapy as there is no medical insurance.  She told this in a way that was sad of course, but not in a way where  she was looking for sympathy or angry that life was against her, it just was.  A fitting way to go out.

April 26th, 2016

Hey there,

Local stuff today.

First off, you may have heard that we had 6.1 shaker here last week.  A lot of folks, me included, felt that it was the most violent one in our time here.  It was at 1pm and was right about when I was waking from my lunchtime nap and the initial jolt swayed the entire building.  It was also the day our cleaning lady comes so as we are shaking, she runs into the bedroom as scared as I was.  We lost some glass and ceramics, and there were a bunch of new cracks in the wall, but otherwise OK. Our Mariner bobble head did fall from the shelf and cracked his neck but is still in one piece.  He is now a wobble head and that seems perfectly apt.

No one died on the island and life went on normally immediately.  They had a slightly bigger one in the Philippines a few days later where a few folks died, but the wildest video I saw of that was the pool on top of a building getting shaken out and thrown to the ground.

Last weekend saw the bi-annual school Fair and for the 5th year/10th Fair in a row, helmed our hot dog booth.  I declared to my volunteers and the organizers that this was gonna be the last time I did it as it was just time to do so.  Did find them a replacement and look forward to him making the booth better.  We sold out our 800 dogs and averaging over this 5 year span, have sold 8000 dogs and made roughly NT$680,000, or about US$22,000, for the PTA.  That is some real scratch.  I felt no pangs of melancholia when it was over although I will miss the time with the team of volunteers that have been with us most of those years.

After getting back from baseball in Bangkok from last time, had a day off and then started in with the Middle School baseball program.  They agreed to kick me a few bucks for doing that so am now a full time baseball coach.  I sorta hoped that winning the coveted Spirit of IASAS award would have secured me a lucrative multi-year deal, but the market is not great for a Western baseball coach with no local language experience so there are few offers out there, and am more than confident and willing to bet on myself season to season.  These Middle School kids are a mixed bag with 3 teams being bad, worse, and abominable.  There are some decent prospects, but a bunch of these kids come out with no baseball experience just for something to do.  I love 'em all, even the kid that wet his pants last night, but it is hard to watch sometimes.  I would not trade a second of it for anything cause you can watch your words make a difference almost immediately in some cases.  And with so many kids, I cannot walk onto that campus without some kid or parent saying "Hi Coach Imbro"  That is such a sweet sound.  One of the other coaches who knows his history has been calling me Buttermaker at times.  Being impervious to reacting to nicknames, let it go but was a bit hurt at first cause Buttermaker was a slobby drunken curmudgeon (guilty) , but came around to it cause while he was those things, he also was a savvy coach and there was no question that he loved the kids.

While we're on pant peeing, you gotta check out this video of a best man fainting during a wedding.  This minute video has it all...bad singing and dresses, fainting dude, and you must wait till the end when they walk him out.

Betty was around town for a couple weeks so we took the opportunity to go out with friends a few times and a topic that came up was how unusual it was to have her around and the things that come up around the house when she is.  Specifically, the kitchen towel rotation.  We typically air our disputes in public as it keeps the dialogue civil and it is nice to have independent parties weigh in on our disagreements so that we can decide who is right or wrong.  The specific issue here is that I have been blessed by being a Virgo whose mother was also a Virgo, so we value order and cleanliness as virtues above most others.  Living in a hot and humid climate, cockroaches are a significant part of the landscape and one must remain vigilant in keeping all foodstuffs in containers/the refrigerator/etc. or they will get the scent and become part of the family.  That means nothing is ever left out and all kitchen surface areas must me kept immaculately clean.  As the main food preparer, I am also the main cleaner and have a system in place to keep things tidy and one of those is a strict towel rotation.  At all times, there are four towels out in the kitchen.  Two of these are inert towels, one for dishes to dry on and such and the other for the coffee makers to dry during the day.  The other two are active.  One is to the left of the sink and it's role is to mop up messes.  Coffee spills, wet counters, etc.  The other is to finish drying off dishes before they go into the cupboard and so is always clean.  Once the mop up towel becomes too dirty, it is sent to the laundry room and the clean dry towel is moved to mop up duty and a clean towel is brought out to do the plate drying.  Pretty simple, the towels are always in the same spots and this rotation has been declared as sacred.  Lemme pull back the curtain with this glimpse of the area in question..

From left to right:
1 - Mop up towel to the left of the sink
2 - Drying towel under the Moka coffee pot
3 - Drying towel on tray where clean dishware sits waiting for their return to the cabinets.
4 - Clean blue towel to finish drying the clean dishes or washed hands.

So why does my clean drying towel always get used to mop up spilled effin' soup?  My only theory is that people are generally right handed so subconsciously reach for the towel on the right.  This theory can also be used when deciding what x-ray line to go through at TSA as people will gravitate to the right, so always go left.  Not fool proof but on average is a sound strategy.  Is my towel rotation regimen anal retentive?  Absolutely, and I even have a rotation system in the drawer so all of these towels are used the same amount and should all wear out simultaneously, but I keep that to myself.  But is the above unreasonable or illogical?  And if I am doing the lion's share of the cleaning, shouldn't my wishes in the kitchen be respected?  I am not looking for any medal from Reader's Digest (although it'd be deserved).  So when we are out and I go into the long form rant about my towel obsession, every single sole agrees with the brilliance of this method but ultimately takes Betty's side and thinks I am overreacting.  "It's just a towel."   Do they love disorder and filth, or are they simply taking the opportunity to push one of my buttons?

I also have two sponges in the sink and if you are interested in hearing what specific uses each one is for, please send $5 and a self addressed stamped envelope for a copy of Kitchen (and Life) Etiquette.

A follow-up to a post from a month or two back about the obese American passenger that made the flight attendants wipe his ass on an EVA flight...he died.  That article doesn't go into specifics other than he died in Thailand (natch) of "an illness".  Shudder to think of the crap he made the desperate Thai people do to him.  See ya on the other side buddy.

Finally for today, but it'll be a constant thread till at least October, is that it got hot here this week.  Last four days have hit 107 and while we are supposed to get a break this weekend, am not holding out hope.  Three showers a day, loads of perspiration soaked clothes and sweaty .  The paper described this snap as 'sizzling', but I use the term 'soul sucking'.  I was gonna transition this 'hot take' into a screed on global warming and cognitive dissonance, but was talking to Mom today and she volunteered to talk Orange 45 and that she feels 'sorry for him'.  My heart sunk.  Was not hard to tell she is sickened by what he says and just refuses to admit she was wrong to ever support him and is looking for anything to justify it in her mind.  I read a lot about cognitive dissonance but no where can I find a useful suggestion on how to get people to open their minds to the fact they might be wrong.  I look at this stuff cause I want to change some of my behaviors too, but the solutions all seem to be bullshit.  Work in progress.  Comments welcome.

April 19th, 2019

Hey there,

A busy week for the clan.  First up was The Boy's school winning the NCAA title.  He's in his second year at UVA and last year they were ranked number 1, but lost in the first round to a #16 in the undisputed worst lost in tournament history.  He was into it last year and went to a ton of games and while they were still a highly ranked team this season, enthusiasm was understandably muted and he didn't go to any..  That changed after they got through the first weekend and each subsequent victory was more thrilling than the last.  Going to a school that had little in the way of athletic teams, the Boss and I were also hopping on the bandwagon and adopted the Hoos.

We were happy they won and know that it was one of those experiences for the Boy that will last a lifetime.  We didn't hear from him much post game except for a drunken text at around 2:30am his time about how much he 'loves this place right now'.  Talked to him briefly the next day and he told us about one of his frat buddies named Jack's interaction with the Dean.  Texas Tech cancelled classes the day of and day after the game, but a message from the UVA Dean to the student body said in typically erudite professor speak that UVA classes were on both days regardless of outcome.  Frat boy responded to that message, in reply all, with college kid language using many of the long words he learned in English class with an impassioned plea about how he understood the university's position, but lobbed in some Delta House vernacular at the end that if the school won and he still had to go to class on Tuesday, the Dean could 'respectfully lick my ass'.  The Dean politely responded with, "We'll talk about this tomorrow Jack."

The other thing about the post game celebrations that the Boy related was that they were out running around town and campus until at least 4am.  We have all our phones linked on the Life 360 app so can see where each of us are at any given moment, and we watched him go from the arena, where he watched the game with 20.000 other fans, to the downtown, frat and all over campus.  One of UVA's most famous traditions that I have related in the past is for Freshman to streak the 108 yard lawn down and back in their first year, but it is not limited to that as the Boy said they streaked the lawn a 'few' times at 3ish that night/morning.  What I wouldn't give to Freaky Friday with that kid for a weekend or two.

Mentioned that I was traveling for baseball last weekend, which meant that I missed Babydoll's year end arts performances.  In the past, would be secretly happy to miss out on a couple hours of "art" I do not understand, but have become a bit of a fan of dance and while I am not to the point of paying to see it, hate to miss out on her stuff.  I did catch their rehearsals earlier in the week as pollution canceled one of our baseball practices, but missing seeing it in full production mode made me sad.  Her 5th grade teacher is an avid shutterbug and took some amazing snaps, a few of which will now share here.  The last one is classic.

As for yours truly, I got to travel with the Boys baseball and Girls softball teams to Bangkok for their end of season IASAS tournament.  IASAS stands for Interscholastic Association of Southeast Asian Schools and consist of Taipei American School (TAS), Jakarta International School (JIS), International School of Manila (ISM), International School of Kuala Lumpur (ISKL), Singapore American School (SAS), and the host International School of Bangkok (ISB).  At the end of each season, all the schools meet at one of them to compete against each other.  Simultaneous events were held in other cities for golf, badminton and track and field.   These are not limited to sports as there are events for forensics and arts as well as others I probably am not aware.

This was my first trip to IASAS in any capacity.  The Boy went on a couple that I could not make and we missed out on his senior year trip due to a school decision that still boils my blood and do not wish to rehash at this time.  Each team consisted of 12 players and there were 7 coaches/administrators total in our group.  The kids stay at host families places near campus while the coaches had rooms at the nearby Best Western.  All of the coaches that go are full time faculty and this was the first time in their memory that a person in my position was allowed to travel.  I took this to be an honor and vowed to be on my best behavior throughout.

There is no story to tell of being in Bangkok per se as we were taken to the hotel directly after arrival and spent the rest of the time at the hotel or the school.  The AM bus would leave at 6:30am and we did not return from there until 9pm earliest. I guess a Bangkok story would be that our bus ride from the airport  took 2.5 hours that normally would take 40 minutes without the all day long traffic but that is just typical Bangkok.

The boys team did not fare well losing all 5 of their games.  This is just the third year of baseball at IASAS (it was softball for the previous 35 years) and our program is still in development.  Our fellas were not embarrassed in any of the games and played sound throughout, it is simply that the other teams have established local programs and therefore have more experienced baseball players.  I have to think our guys were disappointed but I personally felt they performed better than expected and have nothing to hang their heads over.  I am the third coach so tried to develop a role for myself.  The other two coaches have been with these kids since elementary school in various capacities so I just tried to blend in naturally.  You can argue that all sports, or whatever activity you choose, offer life lessons but as a baseball lifer feel that baseball is unique in the metaphors for life it provides as there is simply more down time to shoot the shit.  I have a million of them and they mostly lean towards the movies Major League and Bad News Bears variety.  For example, our skipper is also a baseball junkie and he is quite well versed in all aspects of fundamentals and baseball lore, but as a teacher he keeps things rated PG at worst.  He was telling kids about breathing in tense moments at the plate and a way to help focus your mind is to visualize where the ball is going to go...seeing in your mind the ball go off the bat on a line into the gap and such.  That is effective for some, but not all players are created equal.  In an off moment after the coaches words above, I had a chance to offer another way to relax at the plate that I learned a long time ago from an interview with Jeremy Giambi and always incorporated when I played.  Jeremy said that he and his other bash brothers would make sure their pants were tight so that when they were walking up to bat, they knew the girls would be looking at their butts and that feeling sexy helped with their confidence and made them not think about failing or thinking about anything too much cause when you are performing, it has to be on instinct.  Told the boys that I am fully aware that my physique is not typically considered one that is desirable, but I know that some/many chicks, perhaps even their moms, groove to my rap cause I feel sexy and exude that confidence.  That might not be R rated, but pushing PG-13?

The organizers of the event had people there taking photos and there are literally hundreds of them and most are really cool.  This was my favorite of our fellas team.

We are the blue team and looks like we made a great play, but if you notice, the ball is still coming in and the dude was safe.  Still a great shot.

I was sent by the school not only to be a coach, cause that wasn't really needed, but to assist with the tournament as a scorekeeper for other games.  I had one for the boys, but had several games scheduled for girls softball and was on that field almost all day other than when I was in the boys team dugout.  That gave me the opportunity to watch our schools girls team up close and from their first game saw they were something special.  They are only three years into fast pitch but are further along than the boys as the girls have two accomplished pitchers.  By the rules, boys can only throw so many pitches per day/tournament so you need a bunch of them, and we didn't have any that were mechanically sound.  For softball, there is no pitch count so if you have one great one, you can dominate.  Our girls went 4-1 and lost in the gold medal game to Singapore, who had a flame thrower that was the definition of domination.

What made the girls special to me was not that they won, but how they did it.  In most of their games, they were close or down early, but would have these great runs and comebacks.  And some of the girls were as tough a player as I have ever seen in any sport.  They were sliding and diving for stuff that made my body hurt just watching.  The catcher is a long time friend of Babydoll and while I have always liked her joie de vie, I fell in love with her tenacity and focus on the field.  I ended up scoring all of their games which put me at the communications table that was about 10-15 feet from home plate.  I watched her all weekend strap on the gear and catch every pitch in heat that was debilitating to all of us.  It was so hot that the locals were saying that this is as hot as it had ever been in town. In the championship game, she took a foul tip right off he face mask and she immediately got out of her crouch and was hurt.  She had the look that she wanted to cry but after a couple minutes with the coach and medical staff, waved them off, grabbed the mask and went back to work.  I've seen a lot of sports in my day and that girl was a bad ass in that moment.  Her technique behind the plate could use some work as she left herself exposed to balls hitting her legs.  This is a snap from day two where she is on the shoulders of one of her teammates..

It got worse as the weekend went on, but this girl is such a nut that not only didn't she complain that it hurt, but gave a name to each of her bruises.  Like I said, bad ass.  I'm standing there on the first day and she takes a foul ball to the gut.  She bends over for a while and takes an ice bag, then gets back down and plays the rest of the game.  I figure she got the wind knocked out of her.  After the tournament is all over and the coaches are boozing in the hotel lounge recounting the weekends anecdotes, one of them brings up when this catcher took one in the hoo-haw.  "What?" says I and realize it was this incident.  This coach then describes how she didn't get hit in the belly but in her vagina.  She has been asking for a lady cup all season says the coach and when she got hit today and they brought the ice, she stuffed it down her pants to soothe the pain. Were all laughing at this point and then she relates that when she was done with the ice bag, she took it out and handed it to the very big, very Thai and very male umpire.  That team and especially that girl walk on water in my book (she is front row, second from the right).

I saw all their games and scored a few more with teams that weren't from our school so saw a lot of softball and came away wildly impressed.  The first day I scored games, everything was very organized and there was an announcer and person running the sound system.  As I was stuck at the field until the end of the day as our boys had the late game each night, I offered to do the games of one of our girls coaches was assigned so she could go back to the hotel and relax as they were players in this tournament and thought they could use the down time more than me.  By the second day, volunteers started to get bored and was asked/offered to do more games.  Not only that, but the announcers and DJ's stopped showing up so got to grab the reins of the between game/inning music and feel that I turned it into a party atmosphere.  There was a playlist in the iPad that was fine, but a bit on the nose if you catch my drift.  All the crap you hear at every ballpark like AC/DC and Gary Glitter.  I would ask for requests from each team or the parents and added a bunch of deep gut gems.  Ladies Night by Kool and the Gang prior to a girls softball game for example is an inspired choice.  By day three, I was there from 7am to 4p using my own newly created playlist and in addition to the requests, the fans got things like Molly Hatchet, INXS and a ton of funky disco.  Watching baseball and playing music of my choice to a few hundred people is pretty much a perfect scenario and had I was in hog heaven.

The gold medal softball game was tense but our ladies went down as the opposing pitcher was a force of nature.  Our school represented well as we had a ton of great parents along with us from both teams and they were loud and fun supporters.  Our boys team shook off their losses and were amazing cheerleaders too.  When our girls were up to bat, they spread our along the outfield wall and did dance steps in unison to help motivate the girls.  Inspiring in their goofiness they were.  I mentioned last week that it was Songkran this day.  Songkran is Thai New Years and they celebrate by having water fights throughout the country.  As we didn't get off campus once, did not experience any of the local traditions, but after the last girls game our two teams had an all out water war together.  We had some squirt guns and the kids would take empty coolers and fill them up with icy water, then go and hold another player down and pour the water all over them.  They got all of us coaches too and I gave it back a little myself.   One casualty were my shoes.  Don't think I am alone in having this experience, but have you ever had a pair of shoes for a long time, and they are holding up well and still don't smell, but you get caught in a downpour or in this case, doused during Songkran, and whatever stink is hiding in them activates and produces an unholy smell rendering them toxic waste?  I didn't notice it until we got on the bus at the end of the night and just as I do, a mom walks by and says she smells beer and have to tell her that smell is similar to the bar floor after a frat party and it happens to be coming from me.  Anyhoo, we were the only group that paid tribute to the local customs by having a water fight and while we might not have won the gold, or even a game in the boys case, we absolutely won the tournament.

After our water fight and the final of the boys baseball, it was time for the closing ceremonies.  They thank all the people that put it together, give out the team and individual medals and then the Spirit of IASAS award.  They emphasize this Spirit all over before you travel and at the event and  as this is a school thing and these kids are our next leaders, highlighting all the schools values makes a ton of sense. As a person who has carefully crafted a curmudgeonly demeanor for years, making fun of this kind of rah-rah spirit is natural and most people feel cheated when I don't give it to them.

So we're sitting there and they are describing a winner and it becomes clear that I am getting this thing.  Am probably not alone but don't think it is common, but am immensely uncomfortable with awards or any public show of appreciation.  I love when people I know get things, but shudder when it is me.  Is that weird?  It goes as far as ignoring my birthday as any attention is loathed.  The way this thing works is that one is nominated and based on those submissions, they pick three people to acknowledge.  The girls softball coaches appreciated the stuff I did for them apparently and wrote up a thing that had the sentiment that I was a "cornucopia of positivity."  You know that doesn't sound anything like me and cornucopia of positivity has become a running gag that is gonna be hard to live down.  I really appreciated their appreciation of things that I loved doing anyway.  All our crew had a good laugh cause I had to limp down a long series of steps and then hobble up some more to the stage.  One of them took a video on their phone  that they shared and laughed at my poor fat crippled body.  I just saw the video and you can hear them laughing way too hard.  A bit cruel but loved every minute of that ribbing.  At first, thought they nominated me to make me uncomfortable, but it seems to be a big deal at the school as I've been getting congratulatory comments (and many of appropriate disbelief) from all quarters and need to shut up and just be honored.  To be honest, I was honored that I was invited at all and to be charged in some way with working with a group of great coaches and really nice and fun kid, and truly hope I did a good enough job to be invited back next year cause baseball is so great.

One note on the ride home.  All the teams and coaches flew back on the same plane but I was invited late and there were no more seats on their plane so had to take a later flight back, which was cool with me cause they had to roll out at 7am and wait at the airport for 4 hours while I could chill poolside and catch up on Aussie Rules games till noon.  I arranged for a car to take me then and the taxi/go-cart driver was this insane dude that puts the nutty Taipei taxi drivers to shame.  His English was limited and my Thai non-existent, but he was asking me questions and several were about  how I found the Thai women to be.  Not wanting to insult his country folk, I told them how lovely they were.  I am probably wrong, but he pulled over at one point and am convinced he was offering to have me meet one of the local girls for some shenanigans.  I politely declined.

Good times.

April 6th, 2019

Hiya,

I have been really weak with regards to this space lately.  Am still nowhere near done curating Myanmar photos and it feels overwhelming.  Have been busy busy (for me) so getting time to sit down and spit stuff out has been elusive.  Also have been negligent in writing stuff down and I forget the  amusing stuff to relate.  If I don't write it down, it vanishes.   I sat in on a talk at the school yesterday about concussions and was feeling a bit uncomfortable cause while I make gags about forgetting stuff due to a lot of blows to the head, it is abundantly clear that their is truth in that line of humor.

Here are a couple things I learned at the concussion seminar.  The three sports with the highest rates of concussion are: 1 - Martial Arts, 2 - Rugby, 3 - Women's soccer.  I wanted to ask the dude in front of the assembled school brass what he thought about them offering rugby as a sport, but we were cut short.  My personal opinion is that rugby is all kinds of stupid and if you tell me you're into it, I know all I need to know about you.  This guy was well a well credentialed scientist in the field and he said the high rates of girls getting concussed is partially due to the fact that they develop earlier than boys physically with a result of that being their heads are bigger than their necks can support so they "wobble" more.  Also, that blood flows to their brains at a higher rate than their male counterparts.  I nudge a female friend sitting next to me and say 'duh, boys blood obviously is rushing somewhere else."  She nodded knowingly.

As part of his talk on overall health consciousness, he was going on about how much screen time our kids are getting and how turning down the blue light feature on our devices can help combat affects on the brain.  I did ask if going grey scale emitted less blue light than just turning it down (knowing it to be true) and he downplayed it.  Why don't people advocate more for greyscale?  Combats addiction to screens and saves brain cells, and no one says a freakin' peep.

There will be no post next week as I get to travel to Bangkok with the baseball team for the year end tournament.  It is a six team round robin with us and international schools from Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Jakarta and Singapore.  Handicappers are saying we'd be prohibitive longshots for the title but have an outside shot at the Bronze medal and we'd be very happy with that.  There are a couple of schools with a number of quality baseball players where our team offers a bunch of decent athletes that sometimes play baseball.  The buzz is that Taipei is the smart kid school, Singapore is the athletic school and Jakarta is the druggy school.  Will endeavor to learn what KL, Manila and Bangkok's "thing" is and let you know next time. We also travel with the girls softball team and get to watch/cheer them on.  Great kids on both those squads and it should be a hoot.

The other neat thing about going next week is that it is Songkran, which is the Thai New Year.  Am unclear on all the rituals and such but do know that one of the features is that there is a multi day country wide water fight.  Per that Wikipedia entry. "The holiday is known for its water festival. Major streets are closed to traffic, and are used as arenas for water fights.^[25] Celebrants, young and old, participate in this tradition by splashing water on each other.

Oh baby.  I know we're there to work but really hope to get out and throw down with the locals and packed a couple of water guns in case we do.  Who doesn't love a good water fight?

One of my favorite photos from an all time great day.

In the 'beggar's can't be choosers when seeing live music in Taiwan' file, went to see a band this week called The Soft Moon.  I would call them Goth Industrial.  It had its moments as it had a driving beat, but was a bit too metronomic for my taste.  Good and loud and the crowd was great for people watching as the entire population of Goth chicks and their poseur dudes of Taipei were out for this.  That population numbers between 25 to 30.  All in all, a good night, but the thing that was supremely annoying is that the band did that thing where they backlight themselves.  Drives me (and my sensitive light absorbing green eyes) insane.  Whenever an artist pulls this stunt, they typically don't do it for the entire show, but The Soft Moon did.  The reds and blues weren't too bad.

But a good 50% of the show it was klieg lights and half of that time they were on strobe effect.

Finally for today...Hoos your daddy?