Jan 16 Comments comments
Funny

Bocchoy

A long time ago, a group of friends and I were in San Francisco enjoying the people, the tech events, and the Asian food.  It seemed only right to combine it all into an overly grand idea to build an iPhone development company with little experience with Objective-C.  Yes, that idea died, but the domain didn’t.

My good friend Dane has turned it into a web comic series based on startups, and I find that a rather fitting use for the domain considering that our little startup suffered the same fate as 95% of startups.  Its a comic series dedicated to the trials and tribulations of the world of tech startups and the things that happen along the way.

Of course its misspelled. This isn’t web 1.0 people… Bocchoy.com

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Jan 15 Comments comments
Funny

Grandma, the Hairdresser, and Analingus

Tomato Butt 500Wow.  did I really just title my blog post that?  Yeah, I think I think I did.

Its not too often you get to share your extracurricular knowledge with your under prepared elders, but on some occasions it happens, and when it does its altogether awkward and hilarious at the same time.  I wish I could say that within the past two weeks there was just one occurrence of transferred knowledge, but in fact it has happened twice.

New Years eve was spent with my friend JT and his family in a cabin in the mountains of North Carolina.  It included everything a cabin weekend should include.  Good food, friends, family, alcohol, and board games.  After kicking everyones ass in Texas Hold’em the sub 30 year olds decided to play scrabble while the older crowd played Phase 10.

For the majority of the game I was holding a decent lead playing words like “quit”, “funk”, “runner”.  Feeling pretty confident that the game would end in my favor and some decent tiles to lay down on an open triple letter, JT’s brother Ty says “don’t laugh…” and proceeds to lay down the tiles “J” and “Z” around around an open “I”.  JIZ for 36.

WTF.

JT and I look at each other and laugh while contemplating challenging the word, but opted to let it stand for fear of losing our turns.

Ty got a bit cocky, no pun intended, after this and made sure his mother knew from across the room that he had probably taken the lead in game, to which I in no coy manner told her to ask him with which word.  Ty’s face dropped from a smug smile to that of an embarrassed teen as he realized his mother was walking over to look at the board.

While I personally had nothing to lose by embarrassing him in such a way, I never expected what would happen next…

His mother looks over the whole board and can’t figure out what is the big deal, and we all assumed she’d miss it.  Thats when it left her mouth…

“What is JIZ?”

All four of us died laughing, literally laughing on the floor.  I fell off the ottoman and almost hit my head on the side table, and JT’s face was indescribable, while Ty was just embarrassed beyond all belief.  Their mother was laughing not because she thought her question was funny, but that we were all certifiably insane.

The next morning she looked at Ty with disapproval as she explained that she looked up Jiz when she went to bed that night.  A giant smile came across all our faces.  (No puns remember!)

The next event happened a few days ago as my grandmother and I were getting her hair dyed and mine trimmed.  We sat there and they were talking rather softly about a woman whom they knew from an organization they are in that privately runs as an escort.  Lynn turns to me and says she wants me to explain to her what something means, but she needs to show me since she can’t remember the name of it, but she knows the woman’s website (I’m not going to reveal that for privacy reasons).

She gives me the instructions to log into her computer and gives me the web address and sure enough, up pops the site of an escort.  Ironically she had 69 photos, and a list of services that made me wonder if it was even legal for her to say she offers such things.

Here I am, with my grandmother, and her friend Lynn standing over me as I’m browsing through an escorts naked photos and being asked questions about the contents of the site.  I cannot begin to tell you how hilariously awkward this moment was.  For one, I’m in a public place looking at porn.  Second, I actually know the answers to the questions they are asking me…

“What is rimming?!”

O.M.G. Do I really need to say out loud that this is when someone licks around someones asshole?  Earmuffs grandma.

Lynn finally finishes putting the dye in my grandmothers hair and sends her off into another room to have her sit in one of those alien looking chairs that looks like its trying to read your brainwaves and sits me in the chair to trim my hair.

“Whats a BBBJ??? I think it said bare… bareback bj…. ”

[palm to forehead]

It means to give a blow job without a condom Lynn….

Ohh my life.

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Jan 03 Comments comments
News, Personal Opinions

2010 is about Discovery and Adventure

Ball Drop 2010

Calendar year 2009 was filled with many ups and downs, boring and crazy, adventure and tedium, but most of all it was a year where I found out that I have a ton of great friends, and can do quite a bit with very little.

There has been a great deal of talk about Theme Words for the year 2010, and I declared the word Adventure to my friend Erica O’Grady when she asked me what mine was only to find out that she had also come up with the word Adventure. I am going to co-share adventure with her, but I feel I must declare something of my own as well, so I’m going with Discovery.

Discovery is such a cool word because it is multifaceted like my life. Discovery can come in many forms. Discovery of People, Places, Things, Time, Theory, Science, Goals, etc. I plan to discovery new goals this year, attainable ones, and set long term future goals. It will be an adventure, no doubt, but in it I hope to discover new things about myself and try new things.

In trying new things for the new year, I will not be afraid to make changes, or do things out of the ordinary. I have never been afraid of change, but I am going to make this year a year of new places, new faces, and learning.

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Oct 13 Comments comments
Personal Opinions

Motivation.

I was browsing around and I found this video meant to inspire and motivate. It is a well done video, and it I encourage you to watch it.

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Oct 11 Comments comments
Uncategorized

What is Astroturfing Online?

gloryholesm

Ever been looking up something online, doing your research, reading all the reviews, because you want to make sure your getting what you should. You are generally wary of all those fun marketing tricks those pranksters up in the PR and Marketing divisions have been passing around, but have you ever thought about the reviews from customers of those products you are looking to buy? Yep, there are in fact some companies who force their employees to go online and pose as customers to help sell the product to you.

What Jerks! I know… It happens though, and you should be on the lookout for overly positive reviews as much as you should check for the bad ones. No company is perfect, and a 100% satisfaction rating is just a target for suspicion in a world where customers tell 9 friends experiences of poor quality versus 1 friend of good.

Never ever go by the reviews on a product on its own website. No company will allow bad things to be mentioned about its product or service on its site, so do your reviewing elsewhere, where chances of filtering out negative feedback is lower.

Astroturfing is illegal, so if you notice it going on, please help your fellow consumers by pointing out the fact that it is happening and their glory days will be over…

Sep 13 Comments comments
Personal Opinions, Tutorial

This little piggy doesn’t maximize….

greenbutton
I recently switched to an Apple MacBook from my PC when my friend Andrew offered me a price for it that I just couldn’t refuse. I love using my new Mac, but there are a few quirks that most PC users will find a little strange.

The one that I want to discuss though is that little green button up there in the upper left of every window with the little plus. What do you think the function of that button is? If you are a PC user who is borrowing your friends Mac, you will naturally think that this is a ‘maximize’ button, but you would be wrong my friend. So wrong in fact that I’ll be willing to bet you that 2 out of 5 clicks on that button in different application windows will have the effect of shrinking that window.

What???

Apple has always had a way of telling you what you want, because while the customer may be right in most cases, when it comes to user interface design they are a dictatorship. I’ll refer to it as Appletatorship, with Steve Jobs being the head Appletator. They like to tell you how things will be done, not the other way around.

I’m not necessarily bashing Apple here as you might think though. What I am doing is pointing out our inconsistencies and our expectations. PC users who have been using Microsoft Windows all their lives have acquired a taste for keeping almost every window they have maximized, while the in the Apple world they have a truer sense of the “window” environment utilizing only as much space as needed at the time. In fact, as I type this I have three windows open (two TextEdit windows and a Safari window) all within view. With a few keystrokes I can even pull all my windows in a thumbnail view for easy viewing of everything I’m running. (Fn + F9 if your Expose is set to default). If I were typing this in a Microsoft environment, I would likely have my editor maximized, with my Firefox or Chrome browser maximized behind it, while doing quick switches back and forth with Alt + Tab.

Which is more efficient? I don’t really know the answer to that, but you can bet your other newbie Mac friends to guess the functionality of that button and see how much you can make in a night. I swear it’s easier than learning bar tricks…

Unfortunately I cannot give you a real solution to what that button does, because it is application independent. TextEdit actually maximizes as you would think it should, but Safari on the other hand seems to square its window and align its self to the top left corner of the screen. I say just try it out on all of your different apps and see what functionality it hides deceptively under that little plus.

My reason for writing up this article was to announce my “don’t knock it till I try it” mantra, so I’m going to give Appletator my allegiance for at least a week on this green button.

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Aug 23 Comments comments
Personal Opinions, Social Media

Solving the vortex of Social Media

I want my life back

A  guide to saving time.

To any of you recognize the majority of the companies whos logo has been dismembered above, you’ve likely run into the time vortex problem that comes with being involved with all of these services. Facebook alone is one or if not the most popular site on the internet based on time interacting with the site. How do you manage your networks, keep your audience engaged, and still have time to do your real work?

It’s fairly simple actually and I’ll show you a few tips to save you from yourself. I wrote this with the intention of saving myself as well, because I have found myself sucked in to spending hours and hours some days involved with my network of friends and family only to look at the clock and realize that I forgot to eat dinner.

I’ll quickly go over some of the main things that suck time from your day:

Email

Lets start with the most basic of electronic communications and talk about Email. Its likely that you get anywhere from 50-100 emails a day. My box is a fairly manageable 50 emails a day, but I have friends such as Erica O’Grady whom I was talking to yesterday who get several hundred emails a day all of varying levels of importance. She can’t keep up with it, and neither can anyone who actually plans on getting any work done during the day. It has gotten to the point where she tells people NOT to email her, because it is likely that she is going to miss the information.

How do you solve this problem, or at least alleviate the stress of having a full inbox to read through. Filters and Folders. I prefer to use GMail as my mail client, and while others have other preferences, most email services if they are worth a damn, have some sort of filtering feature so that you can remove unimportant messages into an area where you can look at them later.

I filter email messages based on services that I use such as Facebook and Twitter so that none of those messages that come through clutter my inbox. When a message of a new follower comes in on Twitter comes in it goes straight to my label I made for Twitter where I can go look at those messages in bulk later on. The same goes for Facebook and I have zero messages originating from Facebook ever see the light of day in my inbox. You shouldn’t care who liked your photo, or who left a message on your wall when you are replying to customer emails. Its only a distraction, and you’ll feel more productive almost instantly after setting up your filters.

Make sure you filter out all the junk into its own folder, and this means all of it. If you love reading the new email you get from Amazon or Zappos talking about the new line of shoes they have this week, and how there is free shipping, then make sure you are doing that during a time when you are not focused on answering real emails. You can have all of your mail newsletters and mailing lists forwarded into one folder so that you can browse through it later, all at the same time.

I think that’s the trick to keeping things efficient in your inbox. Make it so you force yourself to stay on specific types of mail by separating them into their own classifications.

Tim Ferris will tell you to only check your email once or twice a day and exact times, and while I agree with him and do this myself (with one exception that you can read below), it is hard for me to suggest that you follow this method since you may have a lot of urgent emails that are work related coming in throughout the day.

IM

Probably the worst offender of efficiency if you are not using it for work purposes. I have an account with almost every IM service around. I’m guilty of leaving that GTalk window open all day as well, but a few changes in the way you use them can be alter your productivity to a more positive gain.

The only IM desktop application that I run is Skype, because I use that to communicate verbally with team members all over the place. I made it a point not to install IM applications on my machine, because more apps open equals more time switching between apps. My main mode of IM currently is through my GTalk and I run that right inside my browser window inside my GMail box. This does two things for me, one of them being that I don’t have a box constantly popping up on my screen taking focus away from what I may be doing inside another application, and secondly it allows me to see new messages as I’m checking my email.

I mentioned above that I had an exception to the Tim Ferris rule, and that is because I use my IM inside my email box, I am checking my email several times a day while talking to friends and possibly clients over GTalk inside my inbox.

Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube etc.

If you are reading this, I know you at least have a Facebook or a Twitter account, and by now you have probably figured them out. If not, just let me know and I’ll write up an article on the best ways to use these networks.

What I want to say about these services is that with so many different networks out there, and a lot of people trying to take advantage of the benefits that these networks bring, a lot of time is spent inefficiently. I said previously that I have fallen victim to this, and its easier than you think to take a step back, and reassess the value you are getting out of these. Chance are you will find that you can easily get more value out of them by spending LESS time on the networks.

I use Twitter pretty heavily, but not nearly as heavily as some other people you may know as power forwards of sending information across Twitter. I do however use it to spread useful, funny, and relevant information related to me, and the things that I am interested in. What I am not interested in Twitter for however is turning it into a competition of follower counts. Some of the people who waste the most time on this network I have found, are those that just go on constant following spree’s adding anyone or company that they think might follow them back. This is a bad use of time, and an equally bad gesture to the community. Follower counts are not a status symbol, and certainly don’t gain you any Wuffie, so don’t waste your time on it. Use the system to meet, collaborate, and contribute to a community and you will find yourself with more real people who are interested in what you have to say rather than a list of 20000 bots scanning your tweets to direct message you about the “next free gift”.

To make matters worse, the longer you use Twitter, the more people you inevitably start to follow leading to what a friend Gwen Bell referred to as the river effect. Information just flows, and those that try to keep up with all of it are reading a never ending steam of people thoughts. Throw that in there with a slight curiosity where all those bit.ly links all go and an hour disappears in “just five minutes.” You’ll never keep up with it all, so treat it like river and just let it flow on down and don’t try to keep up. If it is important you will hear about it…

Facebook is interactive. Facebook is addicting. Facebook is wasting your precious hours. Unless you are using Facebook as a business tool, shut it down. No, don’t disable your account. Facebook has a ton of tools to help you stay connected and communicate with friends, but they may have given us too much ability in ease to communicate. I use Facebook all the time, and I use it to communicate with people I don’t see that often (which is almost everyone since I move around so often), but the problem is you get in the habit of leaving it open in one of those tabs in your browser. Once it sits open, you constantly go back to it to find out if anyone else has said anything on your wall, or commented on something you commented on earlier. You begin to expect that something new will be there that is relevant to you. Just close the browser window already, because all of those messages that are waiting on you there will still be there when you open Facebook up at dinner tonight. I promise.

Social Media on the Go - Mobile Alerts

If there has been one thing that has both helped and hurt efficiency at the same time, it has been the introduction of Social Media onto mobile devices. It doesn’t matter where you go anymore, all the information is right there at your fingertips. Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, Flickr, and all of the rest of the services are directly accessable for your iPhone or Blackberry with SMS, Email, and Push notification in all their glory constantly pounding your phone with information for you to look at. I had notifications for FourSquare turned on while I was in San Francisco and my phone just never seemed to stop vibrating. I’m not saying any of this to sound popular, I’m saying it because it is a distraction when you are actually trying to do something. It is very useful or me to know where everyone is going and be able to pull up a map and directions almost instantly, but during the day when I’m writing a post, or designing a layout for a site, I don’t want to know that people are checking in at the bar. It just makes me want to have a beer instead of type…

Turn off SMS and Push notifications on your phone when you need to be left alone. 2 minutes of settings changes before you start working can save you an hour over the course of the day. If someone really needs to get in touch with you, there is this handy 9-10 digit number that is associated with your mobile device where people actually have the ability to talk to you. Its a novel concept really.

RSS & Atom feeds

The one last thing I think is worth mentioning is the amount of time people spend reading their RSS feeds daily. I used to be religious about reading through all of my feeds, and there still are feeds from sites that I love that I read all the time, but over time you start to gather more and more and more feeds in your list. Eventually you are going to come to the same realization that I did.

You can’t read it all.

Its just like I talked about with Twitter earlier, its a river of information and you cannot be expected to keep up with all of it. My suggestion to you is to find people in the industry that you are interested in who do have the ability to spend their day going through all of that information and pick out the best stuff to forward along.

If you have ever tried to subscribe to the rss feed for Hacker News, Gizmodo, or any other similar sources, that your RSS unread count will skyrocket overnight. Avoid that by subscribing to peoples favorites in Google Reader, or simply following the blogs of the people who have a touch on the industry. You’ll find that they parse through that information for you, and you avoid all the clutter.

What can you do?

The best thing for you to do is consolidate and categorize your information, set aside time for those specific social media functions, and ohh hold on, I’ve got a phone call….

UPDATE***
Ed Schipul just shared this link on his Facebook and I found it relevant: Multitaskers bad at multitasking

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Aug 21 Comments comments
Personal Opinions

Im an ENFP!

enfp motivational poster

So today I had to fill out this Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality test, and I think the last time I had done one of these tests was probably freshman year in college and I really didn’t remember what my results were, so I was curious what my outcome would be. Low and behold it was spot on by pegging me with ENFP. I’m not going to tell you exactly what that means, but instead I’ll give you the texts from two different sources so you don’t think I’m just making this stuff up.

If you want to check out the test for yourself and see what your type is you can find it at: HumanMetrics

Source #1

Personality Page

The Inspirer

As an ENFP, your primary mode of living is focused externally, where you take things in primarily via your intuition. Your secondary mode is internal, where you deal with things according to how you feel about them, or how they fit in with your personal value system.

ENFPs are warm, enthusiastic people, typically very bright and full of potential. They live in the world of possibilities, and can become very passionate and excited about things. Their enthusiasm lends them the ability to inspire and motivate others, more so than we see in other types. They can talk their way in or out of anything. They love life, seeing it as a special gift, and strive to make the most out of it.

ENFPs have an unusually broad range of skills and talents. They are good at most things which interest them. Project-oriented, they may go through several different careers during their lifetime. To onlookers, the ENFP may seem directionless and without purpose, but ENFPs are actually quite consistent, in that they have a strong sense of values which they live with throughout their lives. Everything that they do must be in line with their values. An ENFP needs to feel that they are living their lives as their true Self, walking in step with what they believe is right. They see meaning in everything, and are on a continuous quest to adapt their lives and values to achieve inner peace. They’re constantly aware and somewhat fearful of losing touch with themselves. Since emotional excitement is usually an important part of the ENFP’s life, and because they are focused on keeping “centered”, the ENFP is usually an intense individual, with highly evolved values.

An ENFP needs to focus on following through with their projects. This can be a problem area for some of these individuals. Unlike other Extraverted types, ENFPs need time alone to center themselves, and make sure they are moving in a direction which is in sync with their values. ENFPs who remain centered will usually be quite successful at their endeavors. Others may fall into the habit of dropping a project when they become excited about a new possibility, and thus they never achieve the great accomplishments which they are capable of achieving.

Most ENFPs have great people skills. They are genuinely warm and interested in people, and place great importance on their inter-personal relationships. ENFPs almost always have a strong need to be liked. Sometimes, especially at a younger age, an ENFP will tend to be “gushy” and insincere, and generally “overdo” in an effort to win acceptance. However, once an ENFP has learned to balance their need to be true to themselves with their need for acceptance, they excel at bringing out the best in others, and are typically well-liked. They have an exceptional ability to intuitively understand a person after a very short period of time, and use their intuition and flexibility to relate to others on their own level.

Because ENFPs live in the world of exciting possibilities, the details of everyday life are seen as trivial drudgery. They place no importance on detailed, maintenance-type tasks, and will frequently remain oblivous to these types of concerns. When they do have to perform these tasks, they do not enjoy themselves. This is a challenging area of life for most ENFPs, and can be frustrating for ENFP’s family members.

An ENFP who has “gone wrong” may be quite manipulative - and very good it. The gift of gab which they are blessed with makes it naturally easy for them to get what they want. Most ENFPs will not abuse their abilities, because that would not jive with their value systems.

ENFPs sometimes make serious errors in judgment. They have an amazing ability to intuitively perceive the truth about a person or situation, but when they apply judgment to their perception, they may jump to the wrong conclusions.

ENFPs who have not learned to follow through may have a difficult time remaining happy in marital relationships. Always seeing the possibilities of what could be, they may become bored with what actually is. The strong sense of values will keep many ENFPs dedicated to their relationships. However, ENFPs like a little excitement in their lives, and are best matched with individuals who are comfortable with change and new experiences.

Having an ENFP parent can be a fun-filled experience, but may be stressful at times for children with strong Sensing or Judging tendancies. Such children may see the ENFP parent as inconsistent and difficult to understand, as the children are pulled along in the whirlwind life of the ENFP. Sometimes the ENFP will want to be their child’s best friend, and at other times they will play the parental authoritarian. But ENFPs are always consistent in their value systems, which they will impress on their children above all else, along with a basic joy of living.

ENFPs are basically happy people. They may become unhappy when they are confined to strict schedules or mundane tasks. Consequently, ENFPs work best in situations where they have a lot of flexibility, and where they can work with people and ideas. Many go into business for themselves. They have the ability to be quite productive with little supervision, as long as they are excited about what they’re doing.

Because they are so alert and sensitive, constantly scanning their environments, ENFPs often suffer from muscle tension. They have a strong need to be independent, and resist being controlled or labelled. They need to maintain control over themselves, but they do not believe in controlling others. Their dislike of dependence and suppression extends to others as well as to themselves.

ENFPs are charming, ingenuous, risk-taking, sensitive, people-oriented individuals with capabilities ranging across a broad spectrum. They have many gifts which they will use to fulfill themselves and those near them, if they are able to remain centered and master the ability of following through.

Source #2

Keirsey

Idealist Portrait of the Champion (ENFP)

Like the other Idealists, Champions are rather rare, say two or three percent of the population, but even more than the others they consider intense emotional experiences as being vital to a full life. Champions have a wide range and variety of emotions, and a great passion for novelty. They see life as an exciting drama, pregnant with possibilities for both good and evil, and they want to experience all the meaningful events and fascinating people in the world. The most outgoing of the Idealists, Champions often can’t wait to tell others of their extraordinary experiences. Champions can be tireless in talking with others, like fountains that bubble and splash, spilling over their own words to get it all out. And usually this is not simple storytelling; Champions often speak (or write) in the hope of revealing some truth about human experience, or of motivating others with their powerful convictions. Their strong drive to speak out on issues and events, along with their boundless enthusiasm and natural talent with language, makes them the most vivacious and inspiring of all the types.

Fiercely individualistic, Champions strive toward a kind of personal authenticity, and this intention always to be themselves is usually quite attractive to others. At the same time, Champions have outstanding intuitive powers and can tell what is going on inside of others, reading hidden emotions and giving special significance to words or actions. In fact, Champions are constantly scanning the social environment, and no intriguing character or silent motive is likely to escape their attention. Far more than the other Idealists, Champions are keen and probing observers of the people around them, and are capable of intense concentration on another individual. Their attention is rarely passive or casual. On the contrary, Champions tend to be extra sensitive and alert, always ready for emergencies, always on the lookout for what’s possible.

Champions are good with people and usually have a wide range of personal relationships. They are warm and full of energy with their friends. They are likable and at ease with colleagues, and handle their employees or students with great skill. They are good in public and on the telephone, and are so spontaneous and dramatic that others love to be in their company. Champions are positive, exuberant people, and often their confidence in the goodness of life and of human nature makes good things happen.

Joan Baez, Phil Donahue, Paul Robeson, Bill Moyer, Elizibeth Cady Stanton, Joeseph Campbell, Edith Wharton, Sargent Shriver, Charles Dickens, and Upton Sinclair are examples of Idealist Champions

Source #3

TypeLogic

If you haven’t taken the test yourself you should go ahead and take 20 minutes of your time and just do it. Its fun, not to mention it can give you a helpful insight on yourself…

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Aug 20 Comments comments
Travel

Peru: Back to Lima

Day 25 August 6, 2009

We got into central Lima in the early afternoon, and during our stay in Lima this time, we had a host who was kind enough to take us in for a few days. We gave Victor, who was recommended to us from Brittany and Dave, a call when we got in and he said he wasn’t going to be off of work until 5pm, but we were welcome to go over to his house and his grandmother would let us in.

After bartering with the taxi for a while about how much it was going to cost us to go out to Victors house in Callao/Bellavista, we finally agreed on s/20 and headed to the far north edge of Lima. Getting to Victors house was a slight adventure since our taxi driver had no idea where the district we were looking for even was, so we stopped to ask several people along the way, but we eventually made it. The neighborhood was quiet and we were greeted by Victors brother Carlos, his grandmother, and their abnormally large collie Bufalo. As we walked into the house the fact that the house just opens up into the sky amazed me. I didn’t realize that Lima gets so little rain that people build their houses in such a way that allows the elements into their house openly. Victors mother had designed the house herself, and I have to say she did a nice job. The house had close to 8 bedrooms and an equal number of bathrooms with the whole bottom floor being an open living and kitchen area, and the rooftop had a grill and laundry area.

We felt a little bit awkward being at the house although without Victor being there, so Kristine and I decided we would walk around the neighborhood to see what we could find, and we just happened to see a sign near the highway for a mall. We headed over to see what the malls in Lima were like, and I really needed a new pair of jeans at this point since I had worn a hole in the crotch of mine. We walked around until we needed to head back at 5 to meet Victor, but when we got there, he had left to look for us around the neighborhood. He didn’t think we would have made it all the way to the mall, and was surprised we had even found it, but that’s just how we roll…

We told Victor we needed to meet someone in the morning and asked him to show us a good meeting place between his place and San Isidro. He told us we could meet at Plaza San Miguel which is a shopping center, and so we went over there not really knowing what to expect, and when we arrived we were presented with a very modern, outdoor mall. We told our friend Jorge to meet us here in the morning, and we walked around for a while, before we decided to go see GI Joe since it had just come out today.

Day 26 August 7, 2009

We headed out the door to Plaza San Miguel to meet up with Jorge and he brought his friend Sam. We had contacted Jorge when we found his name tied to some talks about getting coworking started in Lima, and we started talking to him over twitter and Facebook before we arrived in Lima. I’m really glad we got the chance to meet with Jorge, because we had a great time hanging out and talking about Lima for the rest of the day. Sam and he are in business together doing some consulting work, and they had been mulling over the idea to get the space started for some time, so I immediately realized they just needed a little push in the right direction, so I told them I would give them as much help as I could with my experience with coworking.

We all decided to go grab some lunch, but Sam unfortunatley had to bow out, but not before he dropped us all of in Miraflores so we could walk around the area. I hadn’t been to Miraflores yet aside from going to Larcomar for the club we went to when we first came and stayed in Barranco. I was impressed with the area, and it reminded me more of a lively downtown area, than central Lima did. After walking around a while we saw a sign for all you can eat sushi and had been dying to try some Peruvian sushi. Jorge suggested a better and cheaper place near his house in San Isidro so we hopped in a taxi and headed over to Oceanika where I gorged myself on rice and fish. Sushi is certainly not the same here though, so don’t get any ideas and think that I got spoiled. I was disappointed that the tempura was not really crunchy, but had more of a bread texture, and the concept of spicy was somewhat ignored, but for the price we paid I can’t complain too much.

Just outside the restaurant is the Peru version of the Pentagon, so we walked by and while they wouldn’t let us in the gate, there was a set of exercise machines outside we were free to use. It was a little strange watching people walk up and use an adults version of a jungle gym. I tried out the machine that makes you look like you are humping the air… I looked as ridiculous as the image in your head right now.

Kristine and I needed to go meet our friend from the first of the trip, Julius Cesar, so Jorge said he’d tag along since he hadn’t been to Central Lima in several months if not even a year. When he said how long it had been since he was there, I realized how much the action is NOT in central Lima. Its a great place to go look around, but it is not where the action in the business world is happening.

We went over to BH restaurant in the Plaza and talked with Julius over our cups of coffee, and told him we wanted him to come out with us later and we would be back for him after he got off of work. In the meantime we headed over to the computer markets to see if we could get Kristine’s iPhone screen fixed. There were two huge warehouses full of hardware, software, gadgets, and of course ink cartridges, but no one could fix her cracked screen.

I decided to get a haircut on the way back to meet Julius. I figured it was probably time, considering my hair had been growing for almost three months and if I waited to get back to San Francisco it was going to cost me twenty times what it would cost here. It is however, a good thing I had Jorge with me, because explaining how you want your haircut is more technical than you might imagine.

We met back up with Julius and we all headed back to Miraflores where we walked around for a while, and I actually spotted a good house that would work for the Lima Coworking space. I told Jorge to give them a call in the morning and see what they said about it. The three of us originally went to go see a movie, but figured we would go out instead, so we walked down Pizza Row which reminded me way too much of Aguas Calientes, but we were offered free drinks if we ordered a pizza at one of the places so we jumped in and ate real quick and headed out to one of the nearby clubs.

The club was fairly empty when we arrived, but after several pitchers of beer it didn’t matter and as people started to pour in and dance, we found ourselves on the dance floor thanks to Julius Cesar being sneaky and wrangling up several women to dance. All in all it was a great night and i’m glad we were able to get Julius to come out with us. We retired back to the house around 3am.

Day 27 August 8, 2009

We slept in a little bit because of the late night, but we didn’t sleep long because Victor and Jorge (his roommate) were going to take us over to the Black Market to see if anyone there could take care of her cracked screen on her phone. While we were there Victor spotted someone selling Chirimoya and picked one up and shared it with us, and I must say I have found my new favorite fruit. It has this semi-sweet taste with an almost yogurt texture once it is in your mouth. Just delicious.

We didnt find anyone who could fix the screen, and Victor remembered that his favorite soccer team was playing today, so we headed over to the stadium and grabbed some seats and watched his team destroy their opponents. It wasnt even fair how lopsided this game was being played. I think the other team may have gotten two shots on goal the entire match.

After the game Victor took us over to a little stand that served fruit salads that he said was good. I was happy to be eating something for dinner other than chicken and rice for a change, but I wasn’t sure that fruit was going to be enough to hold me over. When we got to the stand it was nothing more than a little square cart with a roof on it, but they had many different types of fruit. Victor told her to make us three fruit salads with chirimoya. The two women disappeared to the other side of the cart for about 5 minutes and came back around with these huge, and I mean huge containers of fruit that were covered in yogurt and honey. I was shocked, and even more shocked when I found out that the 11 different fruits I was about to eat was only costing me s/4. I made sure to eat everything but the chirimoya first so I could finish off mine with my newly experience favorite fruit. I’m not sure Kristine actually finished hers, but I had nothing left as we sat and watched a group of people playing soccer on an artificial field.

We walked around and went to an internet cafe for a while before Victor and I headed off to a Couchsurfing meeting, and Kristine went home to sleep because she was tired. Lima has couchsurfing meetings quite often it seems, and Victor was a big part of that community so we went over to the party to listen to people talk about their trips, and show pictures of where they had been recently. It was all very laid back and fun, but soon after the party everyone decided that going out in Miraflores was a good idea, so we headed over to one of the Salsa clubs called Fiesta. When I saw the sign I immediately thought of Roy from Huacachina and his constant usage of the phrase “donde esta fiesta?” Even more interesting about this club is that it was inside of a very large casino in the area that had live shows and bands to keep everyone entertained. I kept walking around watching people pay terrible blackjack, so terrible in fact that I wanted to sit down and play because I had a better chance of winning with my eyes closed than they did playing the stupid moves they were playing. Victor and I decided to bow out around 4am, because we had a soccer game to play in the morning.

Day 28 August 9, 2009

We woke up to breakfast being made for us downstairs, but I could tell Victor and Jorge were in a hurry to get out to the soccer match, so we hurried up breakfast and walked over to the concrete soccer field that they play on every Sunday. We were one man short of 3 full teams so I ended up playing forward for one team and goalie for another team. These guys don’t joke around however, and I found myself in the middle of a game in which I didn’t understand what people were saying that reminded me of when I was younger playing with the ranch workers every week, but that was when I was actually practicing soccer. Here I was out of my league, confused, and honestly, I just had fun with it. I didn’t much care when they would kick the ball from three feet away as hard as they could, because honestly the most that could happen is I got to visit the hospital and come home with a wonderful story of getting a concussion from a soccer ball.

We headed back after about two hours of playing, and the one thing I had forgotten about when you play sports is that you need to drink water, but here you can’t drink the water out of the fountains, so I bought a two liter bottle of water a downed it before I ever got back to the house. Victors mom and grandmother were preparing lunch so Kristine and I walked to the market and bought a huge bouquet of flowers for s/25 for Victors mother and grandmother for being kind enough to let us stay with them and treating us like family. I wish it were possible to buy flowers like that in the states, because I’d likely have a very happy girlfriend swimming in flowers.

The whole family sat down for lunch and it was an incredible meal. This is a Sunday occurrence at Victors house and I’m glad we just happened to be in on a Sunday, because having a good home cooked meal is always a good time.

Kristine and I wanted to meet with Jorge one last time before we headed out of town, so we gave him a call and told him we were going to meet him near his house. He met us up and we dropped by the supermarket to pick up a few quick things to bring home with us and then we walked over to Jorge’s house. I spent the next three hours going over coworking plans for the Lima space with Jorge, while Kristine talked movie talk with one of Jorge’s friends who used to live in Los Angeles. I gave him and idea on how to talk the owner of the space we had found two days earlier down on the rent price, and gave him some pointers on different ways to manage the space based on various things that have been working for places like Citizen Space, Creative Space, Conjunctured, and other spaces that I’ve visited.

When we got back to the house, the three brothers who were going to be couchsurfing with victor the next two nights had arrived and I spent an hour or so giving them some tips on things to watch out for, and things they should go see while they are in Peru. Obviously the first thing I told them was to not fall asleep on the buses, and keep your bag at your feet. We all went to grab some burgers down the road because they had just gotten in and were hungry and Kristine and I needed to eat something before we headed off for our flight.

Day 29 August 10, 2009

We headed to the Airport around 1am so that Victor could get home at a decent hour and get to bed so he could make it to work in the morning, and that about sums it up…

Go to Peru. Keep your bags chained to you…

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Aug 20 Comments comments
Travel

Peru: Puno and Lake Titicaca

Day 22 August 3, 2009

I was prepared for the ride this time because i knew we were going to be going u to 4000m over the course of the night.  I made sure to wear my wool ski socks and had downloaded about 15 hours of podcasts, because I knew it was going to be too cold to sleep.

Just as I expected it got frigid in a hurry, and I may have gotten about 30 minutes sleep before our bus stopped in a town north of Puno called Juliaca.  It was here that a bit of confusion took place as we were told that this bus was not going any farther since the majority of the passenger destination was Juliaca.  Five people were forced to get off the bus and move our bags to another bus.  I thin this may have not been so strange if the person who was in charge of passengers and giving us orders was not an 11 year old kid.  Either way, we had no choice but to comply and we were not even given the option to put our large bags in the under storage container of the new bus.  This forced me to put my large bag at my feed and my camera bag in the storage above my head for the next hour.

I was pleased that when we sat down that this bus was running a heater and was very comfortable, but this ended up being the worst thing that could have happened at the current moment.  With my new comfortable environment, mixed with my lack of sleep the previous part of the trip, I quickly passed out and woke 30-45 minutes later when we arrived in Puno a 5am.

It is at this time that I almost vomited.  had a heart attack, and almost punched a complete stranger all at the same moment  As I picked up my camera back I immediately recognized that it was a god 15lbs lighter than i should have been, and when I opened i up I realized that in the half an hour I was asleep, they had taken my camera, my 70-200mm 2.8L zoom, two pocket wizards, and a charger.  On top of that, a memory card with 5GB of photos from Machu Picchu until now.

I’m not really sure what all the stages that you go through before you die are, but I’m pretty sure I went through all of them in a matter of 5 minutes.  I’m in Peru and there is nothing in my control while I’m here.  If i had been in the USA I could have at least talked with several people quickly to address the situation then and there, but with my limited Spanish my hands were tied as well.  I seriously felt like someone had just removed my third arm.

With nothing I could do, we went on to our hostel where we could drop off our bags, one of mine significantly lighter than it was before.  I did my research on the computer at the hostel and found that visitors o Peru should report criminal ativity to the local POLTUR office, which is basically a division of the police department specifically instated for protection of tourists and the tourism industry.

I spent the next few hours of the morning over at the POLTUR office giving my statement and describing what was stolen.  I was incredibly lucky to run into an Incan Trail guide who was in the office by chance.  You would think that being an office set up specifically for helping tourists that you would have at least one officer who spoke even a tiny bit of English.  This wasn’t the case however, so I described the situation to the guide and he translated for the officer.

When we finally did get around to writing up the report, I ended up having to write th majority of the report up on the computer since the female officer helping me seemed like she had only done this a few times.  This is where my confidence that something would be done about my stolen gear died..

When we got to he part about the value of my equipment, the captain of he force walked in and I listened to the officer explain to him what happened and then he asked the value, to which I replied Cuatro Mil Dolares, and he sort of scoffed at me as if I were lying.  I had to explain to him what I had lost, by pulling out the two lenses that I had left in my bag and tell him how much bigger and more expensive what was taken was in comparison.  he shook his head as if in disappointment and walked back to his office…

We spent the rest of the day realizing that there was nothing of relative interest in the town of Puno, so we went back to the hostel to book a tour of Lake Titicaca for the following day.

After watching a few movies to pass the time, a nice older couple from New Jersey arrived to take the room next to ours in the apartment suite at the hostel.  Their names were Johnathan and Shlonit, ad we quickly found out they lived near Princeton.  Johnathan was a professor, and I never did find out what Shlonit did, but they invited us to dinner with them at a place called Oscars where there was excellent food accompanied by a show of dances.

Day 23 August 4, 2009

The next morning we got up at 6am and a car was waiting for us to take us to the docks where we departed for our day on the lake.  Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world at 4000m (12,500ft) and it also covers an area of 3100 square miles.  To put that into perspective, that is higher than 99% of the USA and is twice the size of the state of Rhode Island.  This coupled with pristine looking water, makes for an awesome scene.

We took off on the boat to see the Uros tribe and their floating islands around 7am and arrived 30 minutes later.  As we pulled up I was struck with the question of how exactly these people maintained these island made of dried reed grass, and has one ever sank?  As it turns out to my surprise, these island have been here far longer than I gave the people credit for.  Turns out they were used as a defensive base on the river, and could be moved if needed.

We were greeted when our boat arrived at one of the islands and we hopped off onto the reed. Walking on the islands I would say feels like walking on a water bed, and I felt like at any given moment you could just step through the reed.  It was stable despite the movement, and we sat down to learn about how they make the islands. First they take a cut out of the root area of the totora reed about a meter thick and float them to the surface where they place sticks in the center of the blocks and tie them together with other blocks.  At this point they then lay a meter thick layer of totora on top of the area and then anchor the island in place.  It honestly seemed too simple when I was watching them make a section, but I’m not going to argue so long as I was floating on an island in an icy lake.

They were selling art crafts and things, but I was more interested in how they made everything so I walked around and took a look at the houses and such.  I had to laugh when I saw a solar panel charging up several larger batteries inside one of the huts.  Why did I laugh you may ask?  It was just the contrast of the situation.  Here I am in the middle of a huge lake, on a floating island which has probably been here for several hundred years, and possibly longer, meeting a tribe of people who date back to before the Incans, and have lived the same way for thousands of years, and they now have solar panels, as if they have needed them for the last 500 years.  That is also something else to think about.  The Uros people have lived like this since before the Incans, and the Incan people despite all their temples, and their mountain cities, disappeared while these people are still here floating around on the lake on their ornate boats, living a decent life.

We left the floating islands and headed two hours out towards the middle of the lake to visit another island by the name of Taquile to view some pre Incan ruins and see the traditional dances that the people of the island perform.  It was pretty interesting watching these people on this island, because they were much different than the people on the floating islands.  Everyone was dancing around, and everyone was drinking.  People were just passing around bottles of beer between dances and they all seemed to be having a good time.  The island is certainly set up to accommodate tourists, because the entire main plaza was lined with hand woven scarves, blankets, hats, and other goods.  It was all very beautiful, but it was also much more expensive to buy here than anywhere else in Peru.  I did know that whatever I purchased here would in face be made by hand although, so I bought several bracelets from a little girl before we headed up the hill for lunch.

Lunch was a delicious Kingfish from the lake, with unlimited quinua soup and bread.  I was very impressed with my fish, as was Kristine, and the view we had from the top of the restaurant our group was eating at was really very cool.  We could see both the Bolivian and the Peruvian side of the lake with the snow capped mountains out in the distance.

After we finished lunch we headed back to the boat which had moved to the opposite side of the island.  I decided to sit on top of the boat this time to prevent myself from sleeping the whole two hours back as I had done on the way over to the island.  The weather was nice, and I got to know some of the people we were riding with.  About 30 minutes into the ride a huge fire broke out on an island a long distance from us and filled the sky with smoke, but it wasn’t until much later that we found out that the fire was intentional to get rid of the grass that become too dry on the far side of the lake.

Back in Puno, we met up with Thara, Tharshan, Anghel, and Sarah from our boat for dinner at a restaurant that was suggested to Anghel.  It was a good suggestion, and whatever book they got that out of, I want that book.  I had hot wine, with garlic bread, and we shared two pizzas, and got dessert for a reasonable price, and it was delicious.  we all traded stories about our trips and Thara told a pretty crazy story about a woman getting killed by black shaman in Colca Canyon near Arequipa that made me want to go there even more, and would have based on this story if we had more time.

The fun wasn’t over however as we decided to go Karaoke at a place Kristine and I had spotted earlier.  Anghel and Sara joined us, and I’m glad they did, since the song list was almost entirely in Spanish and Anghel had an idea of what the good songs were.  We spent a few hours hogging the microphone and drinking Pisco before we decided that it was probably best to hit the sack.

Day 24 August 5, 2009

We had to leave in the early afternoon for a long bus ride back to Lima, so like we do before every bus ride, we tried to get as much walking around in as we could.  The man running our hostel in Puno told us to go check out the big statue that overlooks the town, so we walked up the hill and were directed by some little girls playing in the dirt where to go from there.  We walked back around some houses and by a school and then we were presented with the back side of the statue.  Walking forward gave you panoramic views of Puno and Lake Titicaca, so we just sat up here for a while.  I can’t say I wasn’t thinking about how I could find who took my camera gear, but it was a relaxing place to sit for a while.  Our bus was leaving about 1pm so we went back down and got our stuff ready to go and headed off for the bus.

We choose to go with CIAL this time, which is a more respectable company that still has fairly reasonable prices.  We also made sure to get the fully reclining seats this time since our bus ride was going to be 24 hours.  I couldn’t wait for all the dubbed movies I was about to watch….

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