Feeding Frenzy Fishing Flogger

Visiting the Weird City in Texas

2010-12-09T13:38:00.002-05:00

This week we’re in Houston, Texas. I’m doing my “supportive husband” duty since I felt that a two-week business trip so close to the holidays would be just too tough on my wife. Besides, after a busy summer of home projects this sounded like a good idea for a break.

In between the two weeks of work there was also a weekend that we saw as an opportunity to get to know other parts of the state of Texas. Of all the cities in Texas, the one that we didn’t know and that sounded somewhat interesting was Austin. Our eldest son Milo had mentioned it before as a possible place for them to move to in the future, so we thought that we could do a little research on their behalf.

When you visit a city or anywhere for that matter, you could use different set of “eyes” to view it. You could just look at it as a good weekend hang out or as a place to visit for it’s museums and arts. But when you look at a place as a potential place to live, then the level of scrutiny should be a lot deeper, and the set of questions altogether different. And as it happens, I thoroughly enjoy this process, so it was easy to volunteer.

Let’s start with the broad strokes first. This is Texas we’re talking about. Why would my (ultra-liberal) son even consider living in Texas? As a matter of fact, one of the reasons him and his wife would consider leaving Greensboro, NC is because they feel as if they live in a little island of “liberalism” within a very conservative state. Their voices are not even heard over the noise of conservatism. They have often talked about moving to the West Coast, which would more likely fit their personalities, but Texas? Well, I was quickly educated that one activity they thoroughly enjoy is attending live music concerts and it happens that Austin claims to be the “Live Music Capital of the World. That’s well enough, but we’re still talking about Texas and they would still be in a little island in the great ocean of Texas.

As we approached the city, we realized that it is a full-fledge city of almost a million and much larger than Greensboro. There is a downtown and a huge university smacked into downtown. The evidence of live music hits you quickly. Sixth Street and ancillary streets in downtown are brimming with bars and venues advertising for live music shows at night. Nearby, larger venues and outdoors spaces suitable for events abound. So, if live music is the criteria used for searching, this is its headquarters.

Austin is considered to be the most liberal city in Texas. This is ironic as it is also the capital of the state. But with around 140,000 students from several universities in the area, you’re bound to be influenced by the scores of young folks around and the many freethinking college professors that cater to them.

Another point about “dissecting the city” is that everyone looks at the area with their own set of eyes. It’s difficult to see a place through someone else’s eyes. We tried, but since we’re not much into the night music scene, we will only be able to report that there were signs that it was indeed a good place for live music. One thing that is important to us is whether there are good areas for walking and other outdoor activities. On that front we’re happy to report that Austin eats the cake when it comes to outdoor places to exercise. The Lady Bird Lake, which is one of three man-made lakes formed from the damming of the Colorado River, is right downtown. We saw many taking advantage of the cool weather to enjoy the lake on kayaks and rowing shells. And also scores of people walking and jogging in what seemed like interminable miles of trails around the parks and open areas just south of downtown and the lakes.

In conclusion, partly because of the time of the year we happened to be here (late fall), and partly due to our central location while visiting, I can safely say that we were impressed with Austin and all that it has to offer. I would easily consider a condo downtown with a view and access to the wonderful hiking trail system and lakes, and would happy to visit M&J if they decided to move here, even if we have to stay away during the hot summers and keep it a secret that we have a son that lives in the State of Texas.

Year 2010 Part B

2010-10-19T16:45:00.004-04:00

Bel always wants to feel reassured that we have a plan forward in our lives. I used to love planning back when I worked with big-pharma, after all at one time during my employment I was a project manager. However, in the last few years I have had such a difficult time making any plan stick, that I’ve almost lost my faith on planning and rather have relied on the trusted “wait and see” approach.

At the end of 2009 Bel was getting tired of my haphazard approach and put some pressure on me to come up with a plan for the next year.

January 1^st came and went and nothing. I begged for an extension and promised to have something concrete by this year’s Chinese New Year. To be honest, even by February 14^th (this year’s Chinese New Year day), I had nothing. But of course I had to pretend that things were becoming clearer and that the “plan” was coming into view. My prediction for 2010: Lots of change.

If I knew then what I know now, I would have been more forceful about my predictions, but suffice it to say that I was right on target with my prediction. For one, in March I started to focus on real estate investments and later on our identification and eventual move to our new home.

Are there any more changes expected for the last quarter of 2010? Other than settling in our new place and getting familiar with our new neighborhood, nothing is firmly on the books, but if it’s like the first half of the year, I’d better embrace myself.

One event that will certainly affect the last 2 months of the year is the expectation that Erick, our youngest son who has lived in Cusco, Peru for almost 5 years, is coming home for a few weeks as he prepares for a new phase of his life. Erick has become quite interested in writing about his experiences in Peru and thus we will be putting a lot of energies into identifying ways to publish his work in some fashion. His visit coincides with the annual Miami International Book Fair on the streets of downtown Miami. We’re hoping to get contacts and ideas at the fair. We are also hoping to be introduced to the new world of publishing which is evolving from the cellulose-based format to the electronic format of eReaders and eTablets. Writing for a living is not a smooth road but as other writers have told me, if you have it in you that you must write, write you must to be able to live with yourself. I’m hoping that the information we acquire during the book fair is more positive than negative and that Erick is encouraged to keep writing into his life plans.

Autumn Travel

2010-10-15T19:10:00.001-04:00

I have a love-hate relationship with travel. On the one hand I get all stressed out days before any trip, thinking about all the loose ends that I must take care of before I head to the airport. On the other, during those times I do put in some effort into getting all my “ducks in a row” so it feels good to finally have things organized, at least for a day or two, before the loose ends start untangling again due to my absence from the scene. The sad thing is that I know darn well what works for me when I need to get things organized: making a to-do list. It helps me prioritize and keeps me focused on the task at hand. However, I must love the stress of flying by the seat of my pants, because a list is created only as the very last resort. I keep telling myself that this lesson has been learnt, but I know better.

This trip back to Emerald Isle, NC comes at a perfect time, well, sort of. It comes as I just finished unpacking a few of the last boxes remaining from our recent move to our new home. If I was to stay home I’m sure I could find a thousand things to do. But at this stage, nothing that couldn’t wait another day or two or maybe even a year or two, remains to be put in its new place.

The emotional roller-coaster that begun about 5 months ago with our decision to sell our condo in South Beach, has finally come to a happy conclusion. But it wasn’t a perfectly smooth ride. In May and June we upgraded the condo to prepare it for the sale. We prepared it better than if it was for us to keep it, almost to the point that we had second-thoughts on selling a few times along the way. In July, after weeks of research, I decided on the all-important “asking price”. Was it too high or too low? Would it appraised for that amount if it went into a contract? Were there any buyers out there? There might have been some anxiety at times. However, the stress was short-lived since within 2 weeks we had a signed contract to sell. And as a bonus the buyers did not need the condo until the end of October so they asked us to rent from them for a month or two.

With a contract in hand, the search for our new place ensued full force. We were open for any possible scenario, short of moving out of Miami. We thought about renting another condo for a year, buying what we called a “half-way house”, one that we would manage to live in for a year and then turn it to a rental unit, but the ideal situation was always to find the perfect home, in the perfect place, at the ideal price.

After extensive research and a lot of miles we found THE ONE. And within days we had closed on it. And taking advantage of our rental agreement with our buyers, we went on to do some improvement to the new condo prior to our move. A month later, the first attempt at moving failed. In a way it turned out to be a lucky mishap as we were not quite ready on the receiving end. When it finally happened we were emotionally ready for it and even though not everything was ready, we made it happen. Now, after moving our furniture, boxes, stuff from a storage unit we kept during the selling process, and my computer, which I kept at the realty office also during the move, it is starting to feel like home.

After the move, the unpacking and the travel, the Emerald Isle home is going to feel like a well-deserved vacation. Although I know better as beach-front homes are very demanding and require quite a bit of TLC. So the autumn vacation trip may turn out to be more work just different. Regardless, we’ll get to see friends and family and with the backdrop of the NC beaches, not a bad trade.

Earl heading to some real estate

2010-09-01T22:11:00.002-04:00

From being worried about selling and buying and everything in between, now I’m

anxious about tropical hurricanes. At least Earl is not heading directly to Miami but happening to also own property in other parts of the Eastern seaboard (namely Emerald Isle, NC), there is always an opportunity to worry about the effects of any hurricane spinning its way towards the East coast of the USA.

For Emerald Isle being on the Southern part of the Outer Banks rather than the extreme Eastern tip of the state, it has the advantage that most of the hurricanes barely skim the continent and don’t usually go directly inland. Because the hurricane winds in the Atlantic spin in a counterclockwise fashion, the winds hitting Emerald Isle tend to come, not directly from the open ocean, but after going over the land of the Eastern part of North Carolina. At least that was what I hoped when we purchased our Emerald Isle home about 8 years ago.

I was just talking to my Dad this last weekend about the difference of owning a ho

use and the land under it, versus owning only a fraction of the property as when owning a condominium. When you own the land and a house, you and only you are responsible for pretty much everything that happens. When you own in a condo, the pain is shared with others and if the building is built to withstand strong winds, the chances of losing everything are reduced.

Tomorrow evening (Thursday) at around this time, Earl is expected to be near NC , and just at the day break of Friday we will probably know how NC faired the storm. Hope that people have listened to the warnings and decide to take the proper precautions. By then I should know whether I could stay here watching out for the next few storms, or whether I need to start preparing to travel to NC to take care of business over there. We shall see.

Look Mom, no mortgage!

2010-08-23T20:16:00.003-04:00

Just came back a few minutes ago from closing on the sale of our condo in South Beach. I have never been happier after loosing thousands of dollars. But in comparison to many of my fellow Floridians, at least we were not “under-water” with our mortgage and were able to bring home a sizeable check. After 6 years of ownership we managed to lose only about 14% from our original purchase price, and in today’s market that’s actually not too bad. Whatever happened to the days when you counted with home appreciation and worried about the tax implications? I’m pretty sure that if we had waited a few more years we could have recouped some of that loss, but that would have also meant many, many more mortgage payments later. So, who is to say whether we would certainly be ahead or just delusional about making any profit.

One of the reasons we decided to sale and move on, was that with the losses in property values in the country, there are now many opportunities to purchase assets that a few years ago would have been too pricey to even think about. It ‘s a sad condition to profit from someone else’s loss, but it is today’s new reality that we have to get used to, the new prices are here to stay and it’s best to forget about the past. So if you happened to have bought at the peak or if you happened to have profited from the supposed equity in your home, you are likely looking at your home value being lower than what you owe on it. So the banks that so easily lent us all that cheap money a few years ago, are now becoming reluctant owners themselves. So, to help them out, investors are grabbing the best value properties and leaving them to deal with their ugly ducklings.

Cash is king, they say, and as a matter of fact, most of the transactions I’ve been involved with in my short Realtor® career, have been in cash. Either buyers don’t want to be bothered with the banks or the banks themselves are making it very difficult to borrow, so cash transactions are becoming more common than mortgages.

For the last few weeks, B and I have been searching for our next place to live. We looked at renting a condo, but to keep the housing cost under $2,000 a month, we would be sacrificing quite a bit of living space and/or the neighborhood. With today’s prices, buying would actually make more sense as we could cut the rental in half and still live in a half-decent neighborhood. Of course, to do that I’m not talking about taking a mortgage but rather paying for the next place outright without involving banks.

But for now, let me enjoy my mortgage-burning event and have a few days without any of the burdens or privileges of home-ownership.

A new life has evolved...

2010-08-20T15:46:00.001-04:00

My last entry was on Valentine’s day and then I went silent until today. Six months of too much thinking or too little time on my hands or lost of interest in writing. Probably a combination, but as usual I find that writing makes me stop and smell the flowers, even if just for a few minutes. I’m sure I’ve mentioned here that I find writing very therapeutic. Sometimes it’s only a to-do list or a whole article, but just jotting things on a piece of paper it’s almost like downloading information to an extension of my brain which allows the other part, the part within my skull, to take a breather and R-E-L-A-X.

It’s been probably a year that I’ve been more interested in doing something more than just being an active member of the AARP club. I’ve been looking for a possible business to buy, I’ve also been looking for a suitable job to apply to, and even looking at the possibility of creating my own type of life where I could be busy, but only busy when I want to, and not being dictated what to do by external forces (read: bosses). That something may have become a reality in my life during the last year, but it has been so subtle that I haven’t even realized it until now.

It started with a conversation I had with a Business Broker while we were negotiating my offer to a small business owner. Towards the end of the conversation I told Steve, it’d be nice to be able to buy this business, but what I’d really like to do, is to have a job like yours. I knew that I enjoyed the research and negotiations required to acquire a business, what I wasn’t sure was whether I was ready and willing to commit to the long hours and dedication that a small business requires. Steve went on to tell me that he also thought that I’d be a good business broker and explained that in Florida the only requirement was to have a real estate salesperson license.

So, in November of 2009 I started taking an online class to prepare me to take the Florida exam, however, the trips to Panama and later on to Cuba got on the way and it wasn’t until about February of this year when I started taking the online classes seriously.

I love taking classes and even have a weird fascination with taking exams, but eventually everything came to an end and I had to make a decision of which line of work to pursue. I spent a few days working with a business broker group but found them a little disorganized and offered little in the way of training. Being a novice in the field I felt that I wanted more mentorship and training and less independence.

A few days later, after doing some research on the matter I decided to join the Keyes Company to practice real estate sales. Of course my original intentions were to be the Realtor® to my main client: Belinda, but the more I learn the more I liked the idea that I could be helpful to others as well. Besides if I survive the training that is required to keep my main client happy, I’d have been graduated with heat and fire to handle the most demanding of clients available. So now I’m saying, bring them on, I’m ready to deal with the bitchiest real-world clients out there, I’m not afraid anymore. I’ve been tested.

A One-sided Valentine’s Day

2010-02-14T20:07:00.003-05:00

Valentine’s Day found me at home but without a wife to pamper and shower with gifts and flowers. So, what is a man to do when his wife is working in India for a couple of weeks and happens to be missing for Valentine’s Day? Humbly get myself as soon as possible to the Miami Beach Int. Boat Show and Strickly Sail. I could also sit at home and cry about it but I liked plan A better.

There was a chill in the air, unusual for this time of the year in Miami, so I dressed warmly and hopped on my bicycle to head North about 12 blocks from home. The doors to the convention center opened at 10 AM and I was there about 5 minutes after. I walked aimlessly, enjoying my music through my earphones and was oblivious to anyone around me. I was just mesmerized and the drool must have been showing when the Boston Whaler rep asked me if I had any questions about the boats. I took my ear piece out of my ear and asked “did I die and went to heaven?” He knew exactly what I was talking about. This was the best Valentine’s Day a man could have. Everywhere I looked there were toys, big and small. I think my wife should be proud that I didn’t walk out with the mortgage to a 2010 46’ Leopard catamaran sailboat, or even a credit card bill for a 16’ open bow sea kayak. I’m sure they would have put a big red bow if I’d ask, and boy, Belinda would have been very surprised when she got back from India.

Walking around in that sea of boats, I couldn’t help but think of how many people I could bring from Cuba in one of those yachts. Almost everyone I talked to during my recent trip to Cuba, expressed their desire to leave Cuba to anywhere they’d be allowed. One of them had even attempted to leave Cuba by very dubious methods and was ultimately caught, and his life saved, by the Cuban coast guard. Of course, the coast guard didn’t mean to save his life, but since they did, they beat him and sent him to jail for a few months. The stories we heard would make us drop our jaws and it would give us a glimpse of how desperate many of them are to get out, be it for economical, political or just for freedom’s sake. The feeling of not being able to come and go as you please is not unlike what I imagine being in jail is like. And then, to know that they have been under these same rules for more that 50 years! This would certainly be considered a life sentence for a crime they never committed.

Maybe I should reconsider and get myself that boat after all. I could excuse it as a humanitarian endeavor. Well, even if I didn’t walk out with a new boat I still had a great Valentine’s Day. I hope the Cubans had some sort of a good day as well and on this Chinese New Year’s Day, may the Year of the Tiger bring them all the luck in the world, and to us, greater appreciation of the freedoms that we take for granted.

Justin who?

2010-02-05T11:08:00.012-05:00

With all the hoopla going on in South Beach about “The Game” this weekend, I had no clue about who Justin Bieber was and looking at the crowd of teen girls acting maniacally, I knew that at least for a fact I was in the wrong age group to even know about him. But since this time I was carrying my camera on our daily walk, I decided to wait around for this new teen idol to show up so I could snap a couple of pictures and wait until I get home to figure out who he was. Turned out to be pretty famous in the music world, specially given that he’s only 15 years old.

Anyhow, in case you just landed from Mars and don’t know what I’m talking about, “The Game” I’m referring to is the Super Bowl football game planned for next Sunday in Miami Life Sun Stadium. From all the media events, sports paraphernalia and T-shirts surrounding us I am guessing it will be between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts, and that’s the extent of my knowledge on that matter.

But the reason I was carrying a camera during our daily walk this morning was not to take pictures of Justin Bieber but as of regret that yesterday I could have taken my picture with Gloria Estefan, A.K.A. “The Queen of Miami”, when we stumbled upon the stage where she was going to perform live for the Early Show on CBS. Since most of the Super Bowl activities are in the evenings, this early morning show was relatively empty so it gave me the chance of moving very close to the stage and be close enough to have my picture taken with her. Except that I didn’t have my camera and can only share my memories of the experience.

Gloria is pretty famous in this parts of the country, but in Cuba she turned out to be a lot less famous than I imagined. For some reason, maybe because I was visiting my birth country for the first time in my conscious life, I found my self humming the words to Gloria’s song “Mi Tierra”. It was with me pretty much the whole 10 days I was there. In a couple of occasions I asked two Cuban family members if they had heard the songs of Gloria Estefan and to my surprise, they had no clue of who she was. How about Willy Chirino, a known Cuban from Miami that also sings strongly against the Castro regime? Nope. No clue. They knew about Juanes and Olga Tañón, but nothing about Gloria or Willy. How convenient to know about those that supported your politics, but know nothing about those that spoke against your system.

Thinking about it, it wasn’t that surprising after all. During my visit to Cuba I realized that if you could control the information that people heard (the news media), then you could control just about everything. If the only facts you were allowed to hear were anything that told you that you were in heaven, in less than a generation away, people would believe that they were indeed in heaven. All the Cuban news, in print, radio and TV, talks about the wonderful things the Cuban government does there and abroad. Any of the troubles the country may have are usually minimized or if acknowledged, at least blamed on the Imperialists to the North and their embargo.

So Gloria, if you want your songs to be more popular in Cuba, you’re going to have to do a little better at praising the accomplishments of the communist way of living and be a lot less critical. Otherwise I don’t see Gloria becoming the Queen of Havana anytime soon.

In the mean time, I’ll just continue praising the accomplishments of the capitalist’s ways and enjoy all-things Super Bowl this last weekend before The Game. And may the best team (and the best political system) win.

An updated perspective

2010-02-01T15:48:00.007-05:00

There is nothing like traveling to give your compass a tune up. I’m not talking only about the actual, physical compass but about your overall direction and the principles that you use to guide you in your life. And if the traveling happens to be somewhere that is very different than your every day life, then the bigger the jolt your compass gets. My first activity of the year was to get one of

those big jolts in life when I returned to my birthplace after a 50-year absence.

Not that I had any memory of my last visit when I was only two years old, this was more as if I was visiting for the very first time. But, I had heard so much about Cuba from my parents and the media, that I definitely had some preconceived ideas of what I was going to encounter.

To start, the visit felt as if we were breaking our own family rules as we had always hoped to return to a renewed Cuba some time after it had undergone a change from years of being ruled by one dominating figure. But given that none of us are planning to live forever, we had to make the visit happen before all of my Dad’s siblings disappear. As it was, one sister is 95 years old but with a bad case of Alzheimer’s disease which was not expected to recognize my Dad. The only other living sibling was a 93 year-old sister that lives near the family home site but at that advanced age it would be too much of a gamble to wait until the political picture changes.

So the trip happened. The culture shock was experienced. The meeting of so many “new” family members occurred. And now I’m in the process of reviewing the pictures, digesting the information, and getting over seeing first-hand the conditions that our family lives just a few miles South of where I live, which minus well be in another galaxy for all practical purposes. To write about our experiences in Cuba would take a book not a blog, but I’m sure that having that experience now in my system, its going to color my writing from now on.

Be the change...

2010-01-04T13:34:00.002-05:00

In 2010 I want to live the change I want to see in the world. And it doesn’t have to be a huge, earth-chattering announcement. Just a simple resolution: To continue minimizing my carbon footprint on our Planet Earth so children born in 2009 have something left for then to enjoy. That shouldn’t be too much asking but when it involves any sort of change to my lifestyle, it usually involves some sacrifices.

Looking at a 2009 calendar I have at home, I can see that 2009 was not as green as I wished it had. There were lots of airplane carbon miles taken and with the low price of gasoline, the road trips were not as efficient as they could have been either.

On the food front, I am afraid that I still need to do a lot better than I have. A few days ago, I was listening to an interview with Sylvia Earle –the renowned oceanographer and environmentalist. Where she reminded us that fishing, and eating fish, is not what it once was back in the 1950s. We have all seen the pictures of the proud fishermen showing their truck-full of fish caught on their fishing trips back in the day, compared to the dwindling displays of fish caught by their counterparts in this century. The evidence is clear that our appetite for seafood has hugely decimated some species of fish and that we need to do something to conserve some species or we will not leave anything to our youngsters. One of the points that she mentioned was that overfishing happens when the diminishing yields pushes fishermen to use technology that simply wipes out whole schools of fish together with anything else that gets caught in their nets.

One example is the harvesting of fish to extract the “fish oil” that we now push on everyone to increase our Omega 3-fatty acids. It is supposedly good for us but the fish populations where it comes from are suffering the consequences. Instead of promoting fish oil, why don’t we promote other, more sustainable, sources of Omega-3s? It’s usually a matter of economics, but also a very short-sighted view of the world. It’s a ‘lets-use-what-we-have-now, we’ll-worry-about-the future-later’ philosophy. Except that when “the future” finally comes around, it will be too late to salvage anything. Look what happened to the bisons in North America, at one point in time they were thought to be a limitless supply of food and hide. A few years later, human ingenuity managed to decimate the bison population to the point that they are now treated as museum pieces. Could we do that to the big, pelagic fish (tuna, marlin, swordfish) of our oceans? Well, the bison’s at least had the advantage (or disadvantage) of being visible to hunters and consumers. Someone should have realized that there was an end to the “infinite cloud” of animals on our Western prairies. I’m afraid the fish are less visible and as long as one country is competing with another for those “free resources” out in the wide, blue ocean, the fish will always be seeing as an infinite resource.

So, back to my changes for 2010. As soon as I’m done with the bottle of those cheap Sam’s brandname, nasty, environmentally-atrocious, old Fish Oil softgels, I’m switching to sustainable, environmentally-friendly, algae-based Omega-3 source. This could almost be considered a ‘a-small-step-for-man’ kind of thing, which could cost me a little more, but if more people would do that it could save a few more fish for Ethan and all the others born 2009 and beyond.

Following my one true passion

2009-10-01T14:34:00.005-04:00

Well, that was a mistake! Whomever told me to follow my passion forgot to explain a small little detail: if you have more than one passion, trying to figure out which one is “The One” that you must follow will paralyze you for years.

I’m sure there are some folks out there that from early in their lives have known and pursued their “one passion” and I’m sure have attained great career heights. Entertainers like Michael Jackson and men of science like Charles Darwin, were so focused on their area of work, that their lives and work were so intertwined that it’d be difficult to tell when they were not engaged in work or just making a living.

At the other end of the spectrum you can find me, and millions of others, that have been blessed with enough resources to allow us time to wonder about the possibilities of pursuing one avenue versus another, but who are also paralyzed by the cheer number of possibilities.

Bored I’m not. Nor am I resentful of the opportunities in front of me. God knows that I’ve enjoyed investigating every potential intersection and every possible turn in my life. After countless personality tests and aptitude surveys, I know myself better than I ever cared to. I know my likes and dislikes to the upmost, but the fear of choosing the wrong path or missing an opportunity that might just be ahead if I waited, has rendered me unable to jump-in and enjoy whatever is in front of me. You might be able to read between the lines that I am a little frustrated with my inability to find the ONE thing that I am here for or at least something that would keep me focused for some time.

Not sure where this advised came from, but I think I’ve found a solution to the analysis paralysis that have plagued me for the better part of three years. If you are facing the same dilemma, here’s what you need to do:

1) Embrace Your Passions. Forget about trying to narrow down your interests to just one passion. Just have them all. Find themes or principles common to all your interests and you’ll find that they usually point to your true north . If you have been blessed with many passions, live with and enjoy them.

2) Embrace any opportunity that comes your way. As long as the opportunity you are facing points in the direction of your true north, jump to it full force. Don’t worry whether this is the one thing you are supposed to do, just do it. More than likely even if this doesn’t pan out, it will likely point you to other opportunities or at the least, teach you some along the way.

I’ve been practicing this advice and it has taken a heavy burden off my shoulders. Almost out of the blues, a friend from Durham, NC called me a few weeks ago to see if I had some time to help him launch a business. Normally I would have been questioning whether this would have anything I could feel passionate about or if I could do this happily for the rest of my life. But with my new approach, I simply saw it as an opportunity in front of me. I jumped in without a lot of questioning just making sure it was something that I could do and would not deviate me much from my interests and my true north. It has at least two main ingredients that I’m passionate about (learning and helping-out) so why waste time wondering about the possibilities or analyzing it to death. I feel liberated!

Note: The pictures are from the San Diego skyline last week and some Cabernet grapes ready for harvest in the Temecula valley of California.

The doctor will see you now...

2009-09-12T16:51:00.007-04:00

We’re on the half way point of a 5 week outing that has taken us completely across North Carolina. The first week in Durham, the second by the coast on Emerald Isle and at the end of the third week we traveled West on Interstate 40 all the way to Tennessee to finally arrive in Dalton, Georgia. The reason for the last part of the trek was to visit B’s niece Sarida Hoy and to be there when she presented her doctorate dissertation and defended her thesis at Georgia State University in Atlanta. During the last four years we have heard of Sari driving the 180 miles roundtrip from her home in Dalton, GA to downtown Atlanta several times a week. Not only was she attending school but she also worked as a full-time science teacher at the Dalton High and on top of that she managed to continue to raise one daughter and having another one that is now only one and a half years old. As if that wasn’t enough, she managed to get awarded as the Teacher of the Year for both her school and for the whole district. Ed, her husband was also busy teaching and also completing a doctorate degree so I don’t think she was counting on him for a lot of help around the house, but somehow they managed.

I don’t think I ever had that much drive and determination and even if I had, I wouldn’t have attempted that many feats in such a short time. Just trying to list the number of things she must have done everyday gets me exhausted, let alone trying to do any of it. But today having some of her family members witness the completion of just one of those feats was a reward for her and a great celebration for the rest of us.

Interestingly, Sari’s doctorate thesis was about Latin women in science. She followed the career of a prominent Cuban-American scientist who struggled with balancing family, education and career. The struggle must have seemed very familiar to Sari. A passionate and dedicated woman dreaming with a career as a scientist that ultimately had to choose between the demands of long hours at the lab and the demands of a husband that was “supportive” but that expected that his dinner should be ready and on the table at 5PM when he got home from work. It’s not an uncommon struggle and not one that will go away until family-raising roles are a bit more equalized at home. And because these “roles” have been ingrained in us from generations past, who knows when equality will go beyond tacit support to actual full, hands-on back up on the home front. It's amazing that some women have actually succeeded in their workplaces. With all the extra layers of responsibilities they are dumped with, it wouldn't be easy for just anyone to overcome the obstacles and to also have a successful career. For some reason I have always believed in equality at home. Of course, that doesn't mean that B and I are 100% in agreement on who does what, but I have never believed that there are gender-specific roles or that there are some privileges exclusively available to one gender over the other. Of course, there are exceptions, such as childbearing. Even if I could, it's something that I wouldn't volunteer to do.

Not sure exactly why I feel so strongly about it, maybe it was from seeing my own Mother, a very talented secretary in her days, bypassed for promotions and responsibilities for the mere fact that she is a woman. Two generations later, I hope those that share their lives with our sons are thankful that her influence has translated into very balanced and caring men as those two sons of ours have become. There is hope for the world.

The last weekend of our NC visit we stayed with our eldest son and wife at their home in Greensboro, NC. The weather was perfect and we spent some time outdoors enjoying some good food and some lively discussions.

Time to revisit my roots

2009-08-04T10:19:00.005-04:00

Last month we went to Panama with our eldest son, Milo and his wife, Jackie. B and I had never traveled together to Panama even though in the last few years we had been there independently a number of times. So we took advantage that our son was still thinking that we were cool enough to travel with, that we decided to go back to Panama to show them the sights. I was excited to take Milo to the place where I first gained consciousness of my surroundings having lived there from ages 5 to 10. Also for them to spend some time with my ‘brother’ Rafael, who had offered to be our host in Panama during our visit. However, the trip also put me in Panama for the first time after Fernando’s passing. My childhood friend Fernando and I had traveled to visit our other childhood friend, Rafael on a number of occasions in the last few years, and we always talked about one day bringing our respective families to make it a big family reunion. Fernando didn’t make it in person, but I’m sure he joined us in spirit because his presence was always imminent.

Something I was very curious about was to see how well I had predicted what part of Panama Belinda would like best. I thought for sure she was a big-city girl and would like the energy and glamour of living in the Panama city. However, I missed the mark 100%. She actually liked the countryside village of Volcan, located on the highlands in the province of Chiriqui on the skirts of the Baru Volcano. Go figure. After more than 30 years together and I still can’t figure women out. Somehow I don’t think it’s only that I’m stupid (although that may be part of it), but its just a testimony that women are complicated creatures. Anyhow, even though I was wrong, I was pleasantly surprised because with it’s cool weather and beautiful views, Volcan would be more my type of community and thus it was actually surprising that we liked the same type of surroundings. Just wait until she finds out that with the beautiful views, there are also beautiful hills and for her, bicycling and hills don’t mix, so one of them is going to have to go if we ever decide to spend some time in Volcan.

Rafael did a great job hosting our visit as we were treated to all the best that Panama could offer and at the end I hope my family was impressed with the country of where I spend some precious years.

Note: The Peacock Bass (Sargento) we caught in Gatun Lake in the waters that feed the Panama Canal.

For more pictures of our Panama trip copy and paste this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/oirsula/Panama09?feat=directlink

Cool Palm Springs with friends

2009-07-07T10:43:00.005-04:00

I didn't think the end of June was the most appropriate time to visit Palm Springs, CA, but during our last weekend in L.A we stayed with my childhood friend Perlita in Lake Elsinore, CA. A few weeks back she had invited us to visit Palm Springs and this sounded like a good idea at the time. Being in the middle of the desert, about 200 miles from the California coastline, the temperature was definitely going to be a factor. It was expected to be around 105F during the day so we were embracing for that. On our way there, we arranged to pick up our old-time friends Edwin and Alma who live near Temecula, CA. I was happy that Edwin offered to drive as this would mean less exposure to the CA Highway Patrol and thus more chances that I would be successful at not getting another ticket. A couple of interesting things along the way were the very large outlet mall right off Interstate 10, where we "had to stop" to enjoy the 100F air, and the other one was the sight of a huge windmill field right by the highway and in between the San Bernardino and the San Jacinto Mountains. I'm not sure how much electricity is being made in those fields, but it was certainly impressive to see the tall towers with their huge blades lazily moving with the wind. If Don Quijote had seen these he would have thought he was dead and gone to heaven for sure.

The highlight of our Palm Springs visit was going up on the tramway. As we went up the mountain, we felt the same effect as moving towards the coast in any California city. The temperature and vegetation changed from the 105F at the base of the mountain in Palm Springs, to a pleasant 75F at the top of the mountain. My fears of burning up the whole day in Palms Springs were subsided when we reached the top of San Jacinto at more than 8,000 ft above sea level. Once there we were able to hang out to talk about the old days at the same time that we enjoyed the views and lunch at a nice restaurant on top of the mountain.

The summer is here and with it, the travel season for those associated with schools. So, I'm looking forward to spending a few days at home before our next outing.

Look Mom, no tickets!

2009-06-30T10:39:00.003-04:00

The week in L.A. Was successful in that my main goal was to stay away from becoming too friendly with the LAPD and the CA Highway Patrol. To keep my level stress under control, I relied on the L.A. Metro to get me to most places. I even convinced B to use the Metro and so everyday I would accompany her to her work, come back to downtown, then headed back to have lunch with her, and back again in the evening to pick her up. I became very familiar with everything having to do with the Metro to say the least. So I can't say that I didn't get a ticket because I was driving more carefully but more for staying away from the streets for the most part. I'm sure being in the Metro everyday was not the most exciting thing for my spouse, but she obliged for the sake of keeping me more relaxed and for preventing me from giving my regular “contribution” to the city of L.A. The governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is going have to find another way to fund his state's deficit. I'm through with my donations.

Our visit to L.A. Coincided with the passing of Farrah Faucet and Michael Jackson. Since they lived in L.A and reached the top of their careers in the area, the city went all out as if the lost was personal. I happened to be walking around the Walk of Fame in Hollywood when the news of Michael's passing started to spread. Within minutes fans, old and young, were seeing walking around as if dazed and confused looking for Michael's star to place some memorabilia. Unfortunately for them, the star happened to be covered up with the red carpet for an upcoming event that night at the Kodak Theater. But I'm sure they eventually found a place to make a memorial to show their grieve.

San Francisco Tour Guide

2009-06-21T10:36:00.001-04:00

After just three days at home in Miami, we headed out again to do the San Francisco / Los Angeles monthly tour. While the rest of the country seemed to have been basking in the hot summer sun, these cities were as usual, cool and pleasant. The temperature difference from the coast to just a few miles inland is very pronounced. It's always wise to bring a light wind-breaker jacket along and it's a constant ritual to put it on and then take it off as you get closer or farther to the coast.

The first week I played the role of tour guide to Nellie and Hobert from North Carolina which accompanied us in San Francisco most of the week. It was refreshing to revisit most of the

tourist must-see landmarks which I don't usually visit anymore. Fisherman's Warf, The Golden Gate Park, The Golden Gate Bridge, Coit Tower, Chinatown, Hargett & Castro districts, Lombart Street and finally the wine country during the weekend. As I planned each day's activities, I thought about the sequence of events, the best angle to approach the site, the best time of the day to visit, my client's level of energy and where it'd be fun to eat for the different meals of the day. The client's were very accommodating and gave me full control of their schedules. At the end I hope they got a comprehensive and enjoyable visit. It was a good change of pace for me and I enjoyed the city through their eyes.

"Pilas" -the key to a successful life?

2009-06-11T21:10:00.008-04:00

The sun in Cusco definitely has “pilas”* Just as much cloudiness as there was in Lima, now I´m overwhelmed by the sun´s intensity in Cusco, Peru. At sea level (Lima), a layer of air and moisture filters the sun rays effectively, but at Cusco´s elevation, the filter is reduced by the 3,400 meters of space missing and thus the sun hits with all its might. It is even difficult to take decent photographs as the contrast between the sun and the shade is so intense that the shady part of the photo looks underexposed and the sunny parts way too bright. Even temperature-wise, in the shade it is in the 50s but just stepping into the sunlight the temperature goes up about 20 degrees.

But the “pilas” I´m referring to is from an expression our youngest son used during our visit when referring to what makes a worker (or a girlfriend) more desirable. Erick has been living here for over 3 ½ years and now speaks fluent Spanish. Through emails, phone calls and the occassional visit, we have witnessed his evolution from an unfocused, carefree young-man to a energetic, focused, responsible adult in his late 20s. Faced with his own inmaturity, the new culture, a language that he barely knew and completely new surroundings, he struggled for months before finding his footing. Now it seems as if he has finally figured “it” out and has become wise and responsible. He sounds like a man my age when he talks about why some of his friends and aquantainces do well while others flounder or even completely fail at becoming independent, productive members of society.

He compares himself to others that also come from priviledged backgrounds but which are so ´spoiled´ that cannot stand on their own two feet without the crutches provided by Mom and Dad. Young men and women that may already have years of education and life experience but when given the opportunity to work, they never show a viable level of interest or display the work ethics and dedication today´s employers expect. He claims that those that don´t have “pilas” to exceed their bosses and their customer´s expectations often are the ones that don´t get the entry-level jobs or when given the opportunity, eventually get fired for lack of motivation and dedication.

I´m not sure where Erick got his “pilas” but seeing him work at the Andina Travel Agency, I can sense what he means by having the "pilas". He is very personable with his colleagues and customers. Goes the extra mile to help out without expecting anything in return. After closing the transaction, he even gives out his own personal mobile phone number in case any of his English-Speaking customers run into any trouble or would benefit from hearing some words of advice from a local. He has definitely found his niche in the tourist trade of Cusco and loves to get out in the mornings to be the first one in at the office.

Pilas make you or break you. But, how do you get those pilas to begin with? Is that something that comes built-in in your DNA? Is that something that parents have anything to do with or can influence in their children? Can your pilas get recharged or replaced? I don´t know the answer to these but I have a feeling that some of it may be the result of B and I preventing our kids from having just anything they ever dreamed of. My philosophy is that its better to live wanting just a little, rather than bowing to your or their every desire. A little bit of hunger didn´t kill anyone, but it sure makes you appreciate food when you finally get it.

Maybe we had something to do with it or maybe not, but we our proud of our two sons becoming decent, law-abiding, independent, and productive members of society. Don´t know where they got their pilas from, but we´re happy that they are also loving sons which love to share with us and don´t mind when we witness and admire their transformations through life. I'm a lucky man to have been allowed to live through this.

*Pilas – Noun, Plural, Spanish pronunciation=[PEElas]. Literal translation: batteries. Slang: Energy, Charisma, Vigor, Potency.

Sunny day in Lima (not!)

2009-06-04T12:11:00.004-04:00

OK, I haven’t seen the sun in about 5 days and now I’m at the stage that I’m avoiding sharp objects in the hotel room and avoiding being too close to wide-open windows in tall buildings. When things are so gloomy and depressing, one cannot be too careful.

We have been in Lima, Peru since Sunday morning and our arrival coincided with the arrival of Lima’s winter doldrums. The sky is dark grey, fog permeates everything and mixes with the exhaust from the buses to the point that you don’t know which is which, the air is cool but the kind of cool that is not really that cold at first but after a day or two it becomes so impregnated in the environment and in your clothes that it makes your bones tremble and clatter. Like many other cities of this size (8 million) most people in the street dress the part. Not with lively bright colors as in Miami, but dark hues of grey that better match the sky and the smog than a tropical beach anywhere. Not a very fun place to be if this happens to be your only destination but I’m looking forward to visiting with our son in Cusco for the weekend. I don’t care where he is but please let it be sunny!

After a few visits to Lima in the last couple of years, still it’s not as if I know how to go directly to the public library as I do in the other US cities that we usually frequent. For one thing, libraries are not your main tourist attraction so they are not found in the tourist maps or advertised in the hotel’s city guides. So I end up hanging at the several bookstores found in the nice section of town where we usually stay (Miraflores). One section of the bookstores that is always interesting is the cookbook section. There are all kinds of large colorful books on Peruvian cuisine. They usually have close-up pictures of the foods detailed inside and browsing them makes for a great pastime. If I do that a couple of hours before the next meal it works wonders on my appetite and makes the search for the next restaurant an adventure. This city is known for its ceviche and tasted a great variety of them I self-proclaimed myself as a 'ceviche connoisseur'. And of course to keep with my reputation, this week I have already done a fair sampling of their delicious adaptations in a number of venues.

The sampling started on Sunday right after the airport. A local friend invited us to eat at the Marriott Hotel across from Larco Mar, an affluent shopping center built right off the cliffs in front of the Pacific Ocean. I was pleasantly impressed with their all-you-can-eat buffet of typical Peruvian cuisine. It didn’t help that the buffet also included refills of their famous Pisco Sour drinks so by the third trip to the buffet table I had to be extra careful that I didn’t trip on the steps and made a fool of myself. The best thing about it was that in addition to all their offerings, they had a ‘ceviche bar’ where a chef would custom-make your ceviche on the spot. The chef had several types of fresh fish and seafood cut in cubes, finely-cut red onions, spicy red pepper, Peruvian corn and chunks of sweet potato and he would mixed them per your request and top the product with plenty of ‘Leche de Tigre’ (spiced lemon juice) to cure it all. I normally stay away from hotel restaurants but having this experience definitely made me a little more open minded about the possibilities.

It’s about 11AM right now and I must be heading to the nearest bookstore to start the process in preparation for my next meal. Hopefully I’ll get to browse a book about sunny tropical beaches to enliven my spirits a little as I continue the arduous task of sampling all the ceviche that Lima can muster.

Hoping for a sunny (ceviche-filled) day tomorrow, I remain.

My Alter Ego

2009-05-24T13:45:00.002-04:00

I have to fez up to the cruel reality that I may not be as green as I claim to be. In my most recent blog entry I even announced that I was ready to move to Vauban, Germany to become even greener than we are in our South Beach home. It’s true that our only car sits in the parking garage for weeks at a time and is only used when we are entertaining visitors. It is also true that because parking is such a big issue in South Beach I make it a point to bicycle or take the $.025 bus to the grocery store, the bank, post office or just about anywhere that I need to go. It is also true that I don’t own a gas-powered lawnmower, don’t have lawn sprinklers and that I recycle most of what goes into our trash. But when I head back to Emerald Isle, North Carolina, all my green goes out to the deep blue ocean.

It’s not that I mean to be less green, it just happens that being less green is a lot easier. In the other half of my double life, I’m not just a condo-dweller but a seasonal rental house owner. So, it’s not that I have a lot of choices, but even using what I have available I’m not very conscious of minimizing my environmental impact. I rationalize my actions by saying to myself that I don’t have a lot of time or that the distances here are not as convenient for walking or that it’s too cold or too hot or too wet. Regardless, I find a way to acting very much like just about everyone else in the area. For transportation I get to use a 4X4 small pick up truck that my brother-in-law kindly lends me. He doesn’t use the truck as much because it happens to be a gas-guzzler, so I take it and I don’t even blink when filling up at the gas station. I use the truck to travel back and forth the Raleigh-Durham airport and I also to do my errands during the two weeks I’m here. When I’m here, I dispose of and buy all kind of ‘home stuff’ to make the house more comfortable to our summer renters and of course need a truck to move them.

When shopping, I’m not looking for ‘greenness’ as I’m looking for ‘value’. At the store, I want to know what is cheaper and whether it will withstand the onslaught of tenderness from renters and visitors and pay little regard to where the item was made or under what conditions it was made. When we have weekend guests, I go back and forth to the supermarket several times during the weekend and make little effort to maximize the utility of my trips or even to consider whether I could bring the items on a bicycle. It’s just so easy to hop on the truck and drive away that I don’t even take the time to think whether I might be missing something for which I’d have to return in a couple of hours.

And if this is me that I consider myself to be environmentally conscious, at least in my other half of my double life, what could we expect from those that are in complete denial that global warming maybe at least in part aggravated by our use of hydrocarbon fuels or those that feel that the world was created simply for man’s use and enjoyment? As long as it continues to be just so simple and cheap to get on your car and drive to do whatever, it will be continue to be a major challenge to convince at least some in the population to reduce the carbon footprint for the activities that we do daily. With the recent announcement of the new gas-mileage and emission standards made by the Obama administration just yesterday, I’ve been also listening to some talking about the possibility of a “gas tax”. Of course, proposing any sort of gas tax would be equivalent to political suicide, but thinking about it, this will be the only way I will feel forced to think about my driving habits seriously. It happened last year when gas was over $4 a gallon, but now that it’s back down to $2 we, including myself, are back to our old ways.

I yearn to be green. Really, I don’t want to live a double life. But I need some help. Only when it becomes economically feasible, will I truly leave the other half of my double life and live my life fully being a conscientious inhabitant of this wonderful planet. Please help!

We're moving to Vauban, Germany!!! (well, maybe)

2009-05-12T16:00:00.003-04:00

I don't want to sound as if I am complaining about where we reside but you must always be on the lookout for that next (better) place out there. Los Angeles, with all it's ethnic diversity, it's world-class public library and it's Metro, make for a great contender. But then when you throw in it's notorious smog and the occasional earth-shaking episodes, L.A looses a bit of it's charm. And of course, the worse being that it being such a car-centric society one would be hard pressed to do anything without the almighty car. Also, where there are cars, there are usually cops. And during the last 10 minutes of our last visit I received an unexpected farewell from an LAPD officer who claimed that I “broke the white line of the right-turning lane” when instead of continuing straight on my lane, I moved to the right lane too closed to the intersection. I have a feeling that the area around the airport must be a great place to catch unfamiliar tourists doing things they shouldn't be doing and I happened to be the unlucky one at that time. And it left a bitter taste in my mouth about L.A which makes me question whether I ever want to return again, let alone the thought of ever living anywhere nearby is unfathomable right now.

Yesterday we arrived back in North Carolina for what has become our regular semi-annual visit to the NC coast. It was back here where I started writing this blog during my days of fishing and lounging by the beach. Now it's just for a few days of cleaning and preparing the house for the (hopefully) busy summer season. Still, it reminds me of the wonderful life we had here bicycling mostly everywhere we needed and doing our daily walks right on the beach. Well, not very different from Miami Beach in that sense although this setting is definitely more isolated and peaceful.

Reading today's New York Times (online) I found an interesting article about Vauban, Germany which sounds like the utopia for bicyclist and those like me that have this love-hate relationship with their cars. Vauban has only one street where cars are allowed and the houses and condos have no driveways or parking garages. Parking is allowed in a building on the outskirts of the town where homeowners can purchase a parking spot for $40,000. With all these restrictions, 70% of the residents don't even own a car and 57% of the residents sold a car before moving to the community. Everything in the community is conveniently located within walking distance and cars are not allowed in the central part of the village. As a result, families feel safer when their children play outside, the environment if cleaner and I bet that if we look at this in 5 years, the residents are going to be healthier by being forced to walk and bike to most of their outings. According to the article, some of these bicycle/walking-friendly communities are being planned in locations throughout Europe and even some in the USA. I can't wait to go on my next California round because the article mentions that the Quarry Village community on the outskirts of Oakland, CA is being designed as a car-free community. Wait for my report about it in an upcoming blog.

In the mean time, I'll have to make the best of the bike lanes in Emerald Isle, NC as well as fighting the traffic with my bike in Miami Beach. As to moving to Vauban, Germany, I'll have to see whether they have a thriving latino social enclave and a good Cuban bakery/coffee shop. And if they do, I'll be looking seriously at the possibility of making Vauban our next seasonal migrating spot. I'm not holding my breath.

Since I mentioned my love-hate relationship with the cars, I have to close with the pictures of some neat cars that were in Ocean Drive (South Beach) last week for the closing of the Gumball 3000, which is a “race” of luxury cars from LA to Miami Beach. The picture above is of South Beach & Biscayne Bay from the air.

The Mariachi Girls in L.A.

2009-05-01T19:26:00.002-04:00

As Cinco de Mayo approaches, we decided to go with our Los Angeles friends Edwin and Alma to a truly Mexican experience to enjoy some Mexican food and music at the El Cielito Lindo restaurant in South El Monte, a suburb of Los Angeles. This was supposed to be just about 16 miles from downtown L.A. but traveling East from downtown on highway 10 at 6PM could mean moving as fast as a pouring honey out of a long skinny jar on a cold day. Thank goodness for the Car Pool lane which made things move a lot faster for the few of us that had two or more passengers in their vehicles. If I lived in L.A. I'd hire a person just to ride along with me so I could use the Car Pool lane all the time, it's definitely a time saver.

The main reason we made the trek to El Monte was to see the Reina De Los Angeles mariachi which is self-described as "the first all-female mariachi ensemble in the USA". This mariachi plays on Wednesdays of every week and the very famous Mariachi Sol de Mexico plays from Thursday to Sunday of every week. We were sitting at our table by 7:15PM and placed our food order shortly thereafter. Edwin ordered the fajitas, Alma ordered the chopped steak, B ordered a fried sea bass, I had the surf and turf house specialty. The show started promptly at 7:30PM and by that time the overhead lights over the tables had been dimmed and the stage lights immediately came on. By the time the food arrived, a few minutes into the show, it was a challenge to see what I was putting in my mouth because it was so dark, but whatever it was, it was rather pleasant and tasty so I didn't complaint.

The show was very entertaining to say the least. The women seemed very relaxed and easily handled the cheering, applause, yelling or whichever other way those in the audience decided to show their appreciation. Some, which must have been drinking Tequila straight from the tap, were very expressive and seemed to be having a great time, and were letting everybody know about it. At some point during the show, the ladies called the names of those new to the audience including where we came from. I have a feeling that Edwin may have had something to do with them knowing our names and where we were from, at least the didn't call me an "unemployed Miamian" so I didn't feel too bad. They also acknowledge those that were celebrating birthdays and anniversaries. At one point the musicians walked down the isles to be very close with the audience. It made for a very intimate show with the Reina De Los Angeles. I think that all of the musicians at some point put their instruments down and picked up the microphone to lead sing. They alternated in the different songs and sometimes even within the same song they would pass along a mic to interchange the lead singer spot. They all did a great job. Of course one or two of them could really hold the notes for a very long time, which made for a great crowd pleaser, but overall it was difficult to tell which ones were better than the others.

During the introduction the ladies mentioned that they were there just about every week but that next week, for the Cinco de Mayo celebration, they were not going to be here in L.A. They had been invited to perform for President Obama next week so we were lucky to see them just before they were on their way.

As Edwin had predicted, this was a great mariachi show and the food was not bad either. I was very pleased with both. Not only did we enjoy the 7:30 show but waited for the 9:30 and almost waited to the 11PM but some of us had to work the next day so we decided to end it somewhat early. Los Angeles is proving to be quite the fun place.

Here's a clip with just a few seconds of one of their last numbers.

Tofu House in K-town

2009-04-30T19:19:00.003-04:00

Another interesting feature about Los Angeles is the level of diversity you find in the streets. The fact that this is a huge city might have something to do with it but I doubt that even larger cities, such as Mexico city, have the diversity you find in this town. To take advantage of that, this week we have already eaten at a Salvadorean restaurant, a couple of Mexican restaurants and a Persian restaurant in Glendale. But the most novel experience to us happened just a block away from our hotel. We are staying in Koreatown, also known as “K-town” to the locals, which is just about three miles west of downtown L.A. Around the hotel there are many Korean businesses including supermarkets, banks, and especially restaurants. A couple of days ago we decided to venture into a Tofu House that is located just a block away from our hotel. I always see this 24-hour restaurant full, at times even with a waiting line outside. And the people inside and on the line seem to be mostly Koreans. I wish we had a Korean friend to help us figure out what to order and how to eat there but we decided to take the chance on our own. We went in, requested a table for two and were quickly escorted to our table. When the menus were delivered we were happy to find at least one or two words in English under every menu item. Definitely a very brief description because the entry in Korean was a lot more extensive than the translation. Our waitress was friendly but she didn't speak much English and was so busy with many other tables that hardly had time to give us a quick overview of what was available. She definitely noticed that we were not of the usual crowd so she tried to help however she could. At the end B ordered a Curry Soon Tofu which was described as including onion, beef, potato and carrot and I ordered a Seafood Soon Tofu which seemed to include some shellfish and shrimp.

The first delivery to our table were two very hot, heavy-iron pots covered with a heavy lid. We opened the pots but closed them up right away when we realized the rice inside was still in the process of being cooked. A few minutes later the next delivery were the side dishes (banchan) which included a small whole fried fish for each and a few bowls containing various fresh and pickled vegetables (Kimchi) such as cabbage, ginger, bokchoy, red chillies and a bowl with two cold fresh eggs in their shell. We were just sitting there not knowing if we had to wait for something else or if we should start eating. We kept watching our neighbors to see how they were eating everything but fortunately our waitress came by and said something like 'eat, appetizer' and motioned as to start eating which we did right away. Our utensils were a long-arm, small, metal spoon and two skinny, metal chopsticks so we started to dig into the fish with our chopsticks.

The last delivery came in two other heavy metal pots with something that looked like a well-seasoned broth. Mine had seafood and a large ball of tofu. B's had curry beef and vegetables. They were literary boiling and impossible to be eaten at this temperature. Our waitress came to help us with the rice which was already cooked by this time. She spooned most of the rice out of the heavy pot into a smaller metal bowl for each. Then she showed us how to crack the eggs open and poured them into the soup and then mix them quickly with the chopsticks. We figured that eating wouldn't be too far off now.

With the chopsticks and the spoon we managed to pick from the plates with vegetables and pieces of the fried fish and the rice to mix them in the larger soup bowl. Then with the spoon we would enjoy the end product. A few minutes into this process our waitress came by and poured some hot water into the heavy pot on top of the leftover rice where it had cooked. She motioned that this was to be drank as a tea at the end. I didn't particularly enjoy the flavor of that last “drink” but I'm sure it must have some traditional significance. That's were having a Korean friend would have helped.

At the end, we had fun. We enjoyed the mystery and the newness of the experience. It was nourishing, tasty and educational. You can't ask for a more lovely evening.

And to think that we can repeat this cultural experience almost every night. You can't beat California for it's cultural diversity and easy access to legitimate ethnic foods just around the corner.

LA Metro & Library

2009-04-29T14:50:00.011-04:00

We got up early this morning to start our daily routine of having breakfast, changing clothes and getting ready for work. Well, my work is not of the kind that makes money but I still don't want to lose the practice of getting up early and so I do get up and prepare myself to get out like everyone else. As of late our routine, usually involves a hotel in a foreign or domestic city and this week is no different.

Last week we were in San Francisco and this week we are in Los Angeles, California. Sometime it takes a moment or two to remember where we happen to be at the time to make sure I know what kinds of activities I have for the day. In some of these cities I am at the point that I no longer have to visit the obligatory tourist attractions and instead can leisurely focus on more mundane activities such as finding a grocery store and of course, finding the local public library as a safe place where I could easily spend all day.

Last week I celebrated Earth Day on 'ground zero' for environmentalists and pacifists: Berkeley, California. I bet Berkeley must have more Toyota Prius per capita than anywhere on earth. It's difficult to spot a GM or Ford vehicle but Priuses and bicycles seem to part of

the landscape. I love their wide bicycle lanes and how much of an institution it is to be and to look "green". Unfortunately my bicycles are sitting comfortably in South Beach and our rental-car was not a Prius but nevertheless I found a good parking spot and managed to spent a good amount of time hanging at the UC Berkeley campus and libraries.

This week in L.A. I have already taken care of the basics for survival so I headed to the L.A. Public Library in downtown. Of all the libraries that I have visited, and I can say that I have visited a few, the L.A. Library is the most complete, comprehensive and user-friendly of them all. Not only do they have many of the recently published books, but they keep multiple copies of each on the shelves. It's a safe bet to come here and to find whatever type of information I happen to be needing at the time and with free wireless Internet, it's like a little piece of heaven. It may also be safe to say that L.A must have a highly educated homeless population since the group with whom I was waiting for the opening of the main doors at 10AM, seemed to be mostly from that part of the population. I'm not sure if I already look the part but I had to make sure my shirt was tucked in and my appearance was not too dilapidated to look more like an unemployed Miamian and not like a local homeless. I wonder if the recent movie “The Soloist”, whose real-life counterpart happened just a few blocks from the downtown library, may have influenced some of the local indigent population to get some education or maybe this is just a very friendly environment for folks with nothing to do in the large cities of our country. I haven't dared to investigate.

Another feature of Los Angeles that I'm finding very appealing is their Metro system. When you think of L.A. you think of California's car culture, but if you have a chance to explore the underground Metro system you'll find it clean, easy to use, cheap and reliable. Of course, the city is so expansive that the few lines hardly cover a significant section of the city. But if where you are and where you happen to be going are on the Metro line, you're in luck. Not only you don't have to fight (and pay) for a parking spot, but for $1.25 you can go as far or near as you need to go and usually there will be a seat available for you to enjoy the ride. The Metro even goes to the LAX airport so it would be convenient to enjoy the city even if we didn't have a rental-car. However it seems as if I'm one of the few Angelinos that has ventured underground because everyone of our friends in the area have heard the good things of the Metro but none of them have ever tried it. The sad fact is that the L.A. Metro rides mostly empty and above, the freeways look like parking lots, but that's the way it is in our car-loving societies. What will it take to push people to enjoy and take advantage of the Metro? Maybe increases in the infamous L.A. Smog to the point that breathing causes emphysema, or the continuos gridlock on 20-lane highways make them just so inconvenient, or maybe a $15/gallon gasoline will persuade people to finally get off their cars and try public transport. Who knows, maybe it will not have to come to any of that. But if V.P. Biden continues saying that riding the Metro would be unsafe for his family during the current flu pandemic, it may even take longer to get Angelenos to enjoy their wonderful Metro. I try to be optimistic but reality throws my best efforts to the ground. Hope I'm wrong again.

Here's a short clip I took while waiting for the L.A. Metro in downtown:

How will this change us?

2009-03-23T13:55:00.000-04:00

And change us it will. If you don’t believe me, you can ask someone that has had to deal with a grandparent or a friend that lived through the Great Depression. They can tell you. It changed them. Through the rest of the Twentieth Century, they were typified by being reluctant to add new debt by borrowing, distrusting their money to financial institutions or the stock market, afraid of relocating or disrupting the likelihood of remaining employed, some even were found on the streets even when they amassed a fortune stuffed in a mattress somewhere.

And who can blame them? The banks they trusted defaulted with their savings, their trusted jobs left them high and dried and their way of life or at least their perception of life, was changed forever.

If you dissect the news reports or listen to President Obama, we are not exactly at the same level of depression as we were in the 1930s, so we should feel more at ease that things will not be as dismal. But I am almost sure that this experience has affected us more deeply than we now recognize. For one thing, people are already saving more, buying less, and thinking about what debt they are willing to undertake.

But at a deeper level, how will our lives change after this? Will we become more environmentally conscious? Will we recycle more? Will we use less bottled water? Will we look for and purchase hybrid or more fuel-efficient vehicles? Will be buy smaller houses? Whoever can figure out how this experience will change us, will definitely have the potential of really making it big in the years ahead. But I’m not trying to be the one that figures it out, I’m just hopeful that what WE end up being, is going to be better than the alternatives.

I challenge you to allow it to change you in a meaningful way. Let’s be known by how different we are from the generation that brought us here. Remember, it was mostly greed that made banks accept those less-than-desirable mortgages, it was greed that created those mortgage-backed securities, it was greed that made us buy more house than we could afford and greed that made us overlook the fine print of those too-good-to-be-true mortgage papers. Let not greed be our legacy.

How will this change affect our environment? Must we work hard to attain a positive double digit GDP (Gross Domestic Product)? Or would just 1 or 2 percent GDP be OK? Must we just shop our way out of the recession or could we figure out a more sustainable way of living on this planet? Should we find environmentally sound ways to fuel our vehicles and homes? Lot of questions. And only history will be able to tell how this financial downturn affected our generation. But it will be our collective responses that will ultimately define us.

It must be Spring!

2009-03-17T20:07:00.010-04:00

In less than 10 days we will have been living here for one whole year. Well, “living” is a matter of opinion since with all the traveling that we did during the year, at least one of us was here for half that long. Nevertheless, we consider ourselves “local SoBe residents” and don’t even glitch with any hesitation when asked where our home is. It has been an interesting year to say the least. With all the politics, economic depression and bailout to recovery, I’m sure this will be a year that we will never forget. Even though normally Americans tend to have a very short memory span when it comes to politics and the economy, I’m sure most of us will remember the names Citigroup, AIG,and Madoff for years to come.

Having almost a full year of experience in this new environment, I have built my sensory database to the point that I may be able to tell what season we’re in by just taking a walk down Ocean Avenue. You see, in this parts we don’t have the very clearly marked seasons as most of the rest of the country. If I go outside is not as if I can tell whether the palm trees are shading their leaves because it’s autumn. The only things falling of the palm trees are the coconuts, and they fall pretty much all year around, especially if you happen to be sitting right under them. So we’re left with two big seasons, a very warm and humid one and another one just a little less warm and humid.

I'm guessing Spring must be around the corner, not only are the few comfortable cool days gone but walking down Ocean Avenue and the beach seems as if half of all those from northern climates have decided to take at least temporary residence here. The beaches, now with a strong testosterone smell and covered with tanning bodies, remind me of beaches, normally seen in the pages of National Geographic, blanketed with mating sea elephants. Except that the males of our species seem to have a little less control over their female counterparts. Another difference from the sea elephant colonies is that the women here behave more like those birds from nature programs that try to attract the opposite sex with their elaborate and colorful plumage and behavior, in this case the women wear a lot less plumage but at least their feet are well protected by wearing their 4” stilettos. Not sure exactly how well those heels do on the sand but I don’t think the users care much about the functional practicality. It’s pretty clear to me now that Spring is definitely just around the corner!

Maybe to stay clear of the Spring Breakers, last Sunday I decided to volunteer with the Arsht’s Center folks at the Carnaval de Calle 8. I had to be there early to set up so was able to see the whole thing develop from a few vendors and passersby to a 20-block, shoulder to shoulder crowd of my peeps. I can’t imagine where else in the world would you have to go to see such a large diverse gathering of Latinos from every corner of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Many were wearing their flag colors and seemed to loose all inhibitions (and fear of the Immigration officers), when their country’s name was called from any of the stages. With a million people on the street, it was difficult to make it just a block way. I’m sure there was a lot of music and food all over and I would have enjoyed more if I had been able to walk a little faster to the different stages and venues.

Oh well, that will certainly nicely close my year long experience in SoBe, oh wait, there is the Gay Pride Parade coming up in a week. Let’s see, don’t I have a trip pending somewhere…?

Ethan Michael is here!

2009-02-11T07:55:00.004-05:00

The Casa Bailey blog already explains in detail the news of the biggest event in our family this year. No one consulted with me, but I think the arrival of Ethan Michael Bailey has made me a Great Uncle, and that sounds very AARP in nature. His arrival was even more anticipated than the inauguration of our current president, but nevertheless it took us by surprise when it happened, and filled us with joy when we finally heard that everything went well with the new mother (my only blood niece) and her baby.

When I sit back and think of what Ethan is facing ahead, it makes me think on how relentless life is. Life doesn't think about global warming or about a financial bailout or about the collapsing real estate market, life just thinks about life. Continuing on with it, with no hesitations, just forward movement. Relentless.

Would it be fair to say that Ethan is facing a very uncertain world? Reading today's paper it certainly seems to be a gloomy future. But then I think of those that were born in 1942 when the World War 2 was smacked in the middle and no end in sight. That was a very uncertain world for sure. Years later, we know that those babies born in 1942 did alright. Life carried them through. It always does. The unknown is uncertain and scary, but life has a way of making us resilient, making us plow through, making us survive, that's how it is. Life is relentless.

Ethan is at the same time lucky. For him the impregnated racism that seemed to make the highest offices of the US government inaccessible to some races, is going to be all but a sentence in a history book. Computers will not have the novelty they had for me when in 1980 I purchased my very first Sinclair 1K computer. A new generation of internet will be the source of every information bit he will ever need. Ethan is probably not going to have a clue of what the hardbound encyclopedias ever looked like. Communications and information will be second nature. I'd be surprised if Ethan didn't already come with a prototype cell phone attached to his wrist, or maybe it would be a new generation gadget that comes with all the features of an Apple iPhone and that can also be connected through a USB that plugs behind his skull to download information to his brain in a millisecond. Would Ethan even need to go to school when he gets to that age? Maybe school will come in a pill or a simple download. I'm not sure how it's going to happen but I know that the bulk of information transfer that he will be facing in his lifetime, will be insurmountable with today's technology.

But how about the messy financial situation we're leaving him behind? Maybe there will not be a need to have any physical currency to purchase stuff. Maybe money will be a function of his iPhone and since the banks will probably already be owned by the government, it will be an easy extension to have the government issue his own personal social security allocation from the start. Or maybe people have already figured that a lifetime of acquiring material things does not in itself make you any happier, and thus are accustomed to enjoy the simple (and cheaper) things in life. Certainly ahead of our time.

How lucky is Ethan to be born in an age when being green is cool. Alternative energy is not a theory but a reality of living on planet Earth. A world where bicycles are the preferred mode of transportation and the infrastructure has been built to enjoy them and make them practical. An age when either GM and Ford are no longer with us, or they have already figured out how to make fuel-efficient, non-polluting, attractive vehicles. A world still reaping the effects of the environmental misuse of previous generations. But a world that is on its way to recovery, thanks to people being more aware and acting to reduce their own personal carbon-footprint. What a lucky dude he is!

Well, to be honest, we're not there yet. I may be dreaming just a little. But I'm hopeful. Ethan is going to be alright. He's been born not in the depth of a financial depression but at the dawn of a new Era. The turn of the century is going to be remembered as a rocky start to the new millennium, and the time when the people finally revolted and took charge to change the path of the old ways. Life for Ethan is going to be challenging but exciting. And even with all the challenges, at least he's being welcome into a happy environment with loving parents that will do their best to protect him, to nurture him, and to make him ready to face the world. We're counting on this new generation. Welcome to our world little Ethan!

Change we can believe in... 2009 is finally here!

2009-01-01T18:06:00.002-05:00

Will there be enough change from 2008 to get excited about? God knows we need it. On this New Year's Day, we are all hopeful and eager for change to come about. And I have a feeling that 2009 can only be an improvement from the mess we got ourselves into in 2008.

The New Year found B and I in Miami. This town does know how to put in a show for New Year's. We could only be in only place at at time at midnight, but if the preparations that I saw during the day were any indication, people were ready to party all night to welcome the New Year. And the weather behaved like a champion with its mild temperatures in the 70s and a beautiful cloudless night to suit. Definitely the place to be for New Year's Eve celebrations.

We left home about 9PM to visit with some new friends near downtown Miami. The view of the fireworks from their apartment on Brickell Avenue was pretty impressive, but I have a feeling that the view from our apartment wouldn't have been too shabby in comparison. Eventually we'll be home for one of these big events and be able to tell the story.

The small gathering with whom we visited were all Cubans from the original batch that came soon after 1959. Being the new kids on the block, we were educated on all Cuban matters and were given a brief history of Miami and it's convoluted relation with Havana. Amazingly, all the guests in this group voted for Obama and all advocated dropping the “Embargo” to once and for all improve relations with our southern neighbor. I thought this would have been a dangerous topic of conversation here in Miami, but washed down by “Cuba Libres” and with plenty of Sushi to go around, things were light hearted and relaxed. Still, the thought that today “the Cuban revolution” turns 50, lingered heavily in the air and we were all hopeful for some change on that front within our lifespan.

The evening was capped with a wonderful display of fireworks that could be seen near and far in the horizon. We did all the traditional things for New Year's celebrations, and then headed home to rest until this morning.

Today we went on our usual walk were we could see lots of evidence of last night's parties. Midday we went to pick Alan at the Miami airport, our first visitor of the year. With Alan we went back to the beach to relax and eat our lunch, and then back home for a beautiful sunset.

Facing a new year ahead, there are many uncertainties and challenges to actually make the change we are hoping for. 2008 was a tough one in many ways and I don't need to list them, and now with a new clean slate in front of us, what we write on it is up to us.

A Child's Trust

2008-12-03T18:47:00.002-05:00

“Don’t talk to strangers!” is the current mantra that we teach children everywhere. I imagine that to be even more true so in a city the size of Miami where children face all kinds of characters every breathing moment. So what happened to me at a mall in North Miami Beach was a little surprising, and heartwarming.

Like every other warm-blooded American, Belinda and I were doing our part to help the economy at a mall near us on the day after Thanksgivings. We had done our share of touching every piece of clothing in several racks at a discount clothing store and by this time my AARP body was running low in batteries. When it comes to shopping, Belinda can go on and on like the energizing bunny, but even knowing that I was doing my civic duty, I just needed a break. At the time we were in a second story of the multi-level mall and I stepped out of the store to check out the scenery on the balcony overlooking the inside court.

Amongst everything that was going on, I noticed a mother struggling with her two young children as she was trying to round them up to the down escalator. The thought of being trampled by the jaws of the moving beltway must not have gone easily for the young boy and he was not ready to go along without a fight. The young mother struggled to keep him and his older sister within sight but couldn’t keep both at arm’s length. The boy became free and in control of his own destiny, at least he must have thought so. With his newly acquired freedom he boldly stepped away from his Mom and from the jaws of the long and winding dragon, I mean, the escalator . Frustrated, the Mom also stepped away to allow others on the escalator and to come up with a new strategy to get all three of them downstairs safely.

In a split second, the boy was also looking for an alternate strategy. He scanned his surroundings and our eyes locked. As if on cue, he pointed at me with his index finger, and I knew exactly what he wanted. I extended my hand and we walked towards each other. He held my hand tightly and I walked him towards the escalator ramp. Down we went without a glitch. Not a word was exchanged but we both knew what was going on. He felt safe, I felt useful. The Mom followed behind with sister and we all made it to the bottom safely.

Once below, the boy loosened my grip and joined Mom once again. Smiles were exchanged and I walked around to find my way back upstairs. From the corner of my eyes, I kept watching as the family reached the mall exit and were soon out of sight. I don’t know what this boy saw in me versus anybody else, but it made me proud that I could help him and proud that he felt I could have his trust.

I hope he’s never disappointed.

Note: The pictures have nothing to do with those children at the mall. They are of a couple of resident-kids in our building.

My piece of the (bailout) pie

2008-11-13T14:47:00.006-05:00

OK I know this blog is not for complaining and ranting about negative topics, but when you have the luxury of watching CNN all day long if desired, you have time to wonder if I will benefit in any way from the $700 Billion bailout approved by our government.

When first approved, the bailout was for government to buy some “toxic debt” which would directly help the banks that enticed us all with their tempting bottom rate mortgages and endless lines of credit. Now it seems that the billions are being diverted to help the auto industry and maybe even individual homeowners which are already delinquent on their mortgages.

If you read my earlier assay on the benefits of $5/gallon gasoline, you probably can guess where I’m heading with this (see March 08). The message that we are getting of all this economic mess is clear:
If you are amongst the largest companies in the world which happens to build cars for consumers, one that builds and market huge gas-guzzling vehicles, one that has focused on large short-term profits at the expense of a viable long-term vision, one that has fought tooth and nail for every governmental attempt to mandate higher fuel efficiency. Don’t worry. If your profits ever go down to a level that your senior executives could see a reduction in their yearly bonus, the government will bail you out with a handsome cash infusion which would provide enough to fund your golden parachutes and then let you go back to the same business model you had before.

If, on the other hand, you are an individual that took advantage of any get-rich-quick scheme regardless of risk, and you bought a house that you knew ahead of time that you wouldn’t be able to afford when the teaser rates expired, but you thought that you’d be able to flip the property to make a bundle. Or maybe you were just buying into the new American dream of owning a vacation home which you were planning to pay off with the profits from flipping other properties. You also don’t need to worry. Just disregard any notion of fiscal conservatism, continue to support the economy by spending on hundreds of unnecessary Chinese-made goods and if for some reason the rug gets pulled from under your feet, you too will benefit from the government bailout.

Great, so what about the rest of us?

If you didn’t believe in the “no-money-down” house buying schemes or in buying expensive houses to profit from a simple flip, or if you continue faithfully pay your mortgage month after month, then you’re out of luck. Sorry. Hope you learn from this experience and do better next time around.

You see, I’m so glad I’m not wearing president-elect Obama’s shoes. If I was I’d be making a lot of counter-intuitive decisions with the bailout money.

Instead of bailing out GM, I’d give $25 Billion to Toyota for a job well done and as incentive for them to take over the American auto industry to build high quality, energy efficient Lexus for the masses. Instead of bailing out delinquent homeowners, I’d give bonuses to those that didn’t feel it was safe to buy with a no-money-down, interest-only, more-than-I could-afford mortgage and with that money let them buy foreclosed houses which they could fix and lease out to those that didn’t have any business owning houses to begin with.

Well, let’s just say that I’m glad president Obama will not be consulting me for any ideas on how to fix the economy. In the mean time, let’s hold tight and enjoy the ride. I hope to be inspired to write a more positive and light-hearted entry next time around.

Note: In keeping with the (semi) automobile topic of this entry, I'm including a few pictures from the Miami Beach Auto Show that we attended last weekend. Top (Ferrari), Middle (Audi A8), bottom (Aston-Martin)

A time to vote

2008-10-22T12:09:00.006-04:00

It’s fun to commit to writing what you believe will be the outcome of an event that will happen in just a couple of weeks, with the anticipation that when you read it after the fact, you could have been right, or dead wrong. Of course I’m referring to the US election. Is there anything else currently going on? Yes, there all kinds of polls predicting the outcome but with what happened during the last two US elections I’m not ready to give them my full trust.
At first blush both candidates offer me what I want: change. I’m sure that I’m with 90% of the US population that is unhappy with how things have turned out with the departing administration. And change we are going to get. Either way it goes, this election is bound to be historical. Barack Obama would be the first African-American president and McCain would be the oldest president at the time of taking office, and his VP would be the first woman VP ever.

Digging further, both parties are taking a different approach to reach the minds of the American public. Obama appears to me to be running a campaign that seems more inclusive and with a more positive tone, more positive not only about his opponent but also about the future. McCain looks a little less controlled and making decisions based more on what would get him elected than on his vision for the future. His choice of running mate seemed to have been to attract the disenfranchised women that wanted Hilary Clinton on the ticket. His political tactics have become more and more negative and more about creating fear on his opponent to make himself the obvious choice if you don’t want to pay more taxes or become a socialist nation.

I have to admit that I’m not impressed with the same things that the majority in the country seems to be impressed with. That’s probably why my candidates have not won during the last two elections. Not only I am not looking for a candidate that speaks to me at my level, I’m looking for a candidate that sounds and is smarter than me. Cowboys and plumbers should continue to do their jobs, and if and when I need someone to tend to my cows or to fix my plumbing I would call on them. But for president, I want someone that inspires me, someone that has a world vision grander than what I could propose in my bathtub, someone that does some thinking before acting. To me, being a maverick is a negative qualification for a president, not a positive as its being portrayed.

McCain’s choice of VP, acclaimed as a great “maverick” decision, has been giving the campaign a dangerous turn which makes me feel even less comfortable with their definition of a “true American”. I’ve been to small town America and I’m sure there are very many great Americans there. But I’ve also seen many great Americans that come from the bigger towns in this nation. Americans that fight wars and others that join the Peace Corps. Americans with last names like Martinez, Husain and Wilson. And others like me that were born elsewhere, but believe in America as the land of opportunities, the land where you are accepted even if your country of origin happens to be one of the few remaining communist countries in the world. Try to be from anywhere else, anywhere else in the word and you’ll know what I mean. America, without its long history, has become the great nation it is because, not in spite, of its diversity.

Yesterday I attended my very first political rally ever. Barack Obama paid us a visit and I took the opportunity to show my support. It was perfect for an outdoor rally, a few clouds in the sky, the sun hitting gently as it moved behind the high-rises in downtown Miami, a mild temperature in the high 70s and an energizing crowd. I waited in line for hours. The crowd seemed to be the definition of diversity. Miami being the city with the highest foreign-born population in the US (37%) came out in a true rainbow coalition of kids, young and AARPs, Haitians, Jamaicans, Latinos, Caucasians, African-Americans, and Europeans. The thousands of us were shoulder to shoulder but it felt safe. Parents had taken their children to witness this historical moment, various flags and “Ready for Change” signs were all over. It was truly an experience. I know it would have been easier to see Obama had I stay watching C-SPAM or CNN, but there was no way to translate the experience of being there. At the end, I heard him speak, but can’t claim that I actually saw him. That’s what happens when you are surrounded by so many thousands of supporters. I was so energized that I walked all the way home from downtown Miami. 4 miles over the MacArthur Causeway, but I was walking on clouds.

So, what are my predictions? I don’t know. Like I said before, I don’t feel very trusty about the national polls. It can go either way. My question is, how am I going to feel the morning after? Am I going to feel that we are truly a very inclusive society where race mattered greatly in the past, but it is something that is becoming more and more transparent? Or is it going to be the same feeling as after the last two elections? Either way, it’s not as if freedom-loving AARP Cubans have a lot of choices in the short term, we’ll just have to deal with whatever the outcome.

Today is a nice day to go put in my early vote.

Consolation Prize

2008-10-11T09:25:00.005-04:00

With t-shirt and shorts dripping with sea water, I stood in front of the sliding door with my back to the ocean at our beach home in Emerald Isle, NC where we have been for the last two weeks. I was still panting and thirsty to the point that I couldn’t even tell B my story of “the one that got away”.

An hour earlier I had replaced the lure in my fishing rod with one single silver spoon with a 3-prong hook hanging at the end. I walked to the beach as I had done everyday during the last two weeks. We still had a couple hours of sunlight and I was taking a break from all my home repair duties. It was another beautiful and peaceful day at the beach. The weather has been gorgeous since the cold front came last week and this was no day to pass on the opportunity to do a little fishing. I walked to the beach with fishing rod in hand but as usual with no expectations of catching anything. No bucket, no pliers, no rag and no extra bait or lures. During the day there had been quite a number of folks trying their luck fishing but thus far my hooks had not seen any action. It was going to be me and my rod against the ocean.

Once at the edge of the water, I started casting my line onto the surf. I had done this before. It was easy. Little work, but great expectations of enjoying the setting sun, the cool breeze and the peacefulness of this moment. Cast and reel, cast and reel. It was just relaxing. The sea birds were busy fishing but for me it was just cast and reel. Suddenly, something grabbed the other end of my line and I felt a rush of adrenaline down my spine. I jerked on the line to confirm that something was there. It was real. The line pulled strongly and moved with the current toward the West. I spun my reel as fast as I could at the same time that I followed the pull down the beach. I tried to change the angle of the line but couldn’t catch up with it. I continued reeling but whatever it was, kept pulling and swimming with my line. I started to get tired. I tried switching hands but it felt weird to have the rod upside down. I just kept reeling and walking behind my monster.

Fifteen minutes and 150 yards later I was finally perpendicular to the creature of the deep. I could now see the line going straight into the breaking surf and thought it was my chance to give it a strong pull. It wasn’t moving. The creature stopped swimming. Now, I thought, it was just a matter of puling it onto the beach without breaking the line. I walked into the water at the same time as I cranked on the spinner. It felt as if I was trying to move a refrigerator with a nylon string. Instead of a pull, my line simple tensed up to the point that I could send messages to the creature as if I was playing a one string guitar. I pulled on the line, but nothing moved. A few seconds later I felt movement again as if the creature was positioning itself for a battle.

Small finger mullets were jumping out of the water right where my line was going in from the surface. Sea birds tried to dive in to scoop some of the finger mullets but changed their minds at the last minute as if being scared of something just below the surface. I was already tired of holding my position but didn’t want to give up. There was no one else on the beach. I kept looking towards home but I hadn’t been gone long enough to be missed. What should I do? Whom could I ask? The pattern of me reeling and stretching my line followed a few seconds later by a couple of pulls from the creature below continued. I had no tools on me. Even if I wanted to break the line, I couldn’t figure out how. Should I let it take my rod? Would it swim away if I gave it some slack? All these questions and no one to ask for advice. Where was Mike when I needed him? It was hopeless. Maybe the creature would break the line with its teeth. Maybe it will get tired and let me bring it out.

Forty five minutes later, I was thirsty and tired. Nothing was happening. Who wanted it more? Who could wait the longest? I was prepared to bring it home. I could almost taste victory. I thought about how to pull it out. How I was going to handle it without a rag? How was I going to drag it home? No answers, just waiting. I resented the creature for not having shown itself to me. It was a blind battle. It was just me and the shadow. Both pulling on a nylon line, holding on for dear life.
Just as sudden as the whole thing started, my line went lifeless. What happened? It must have cut the line. I was relieved that it was finally over. But disappointed that I was going to walk home empty handed. I reeled in the line and was surprised to see the lure still intact. My line was all twisted but still in one piece. Did this even happen? Had this been a dream? Whatever it was, the creature turned out to be smarter than me. It was free and had been decent enough to return all my equipment.

I walked home, engulfed a snack and drank a gallon of water. After untangling my line, I headed to the beach again to salvage the last few minutes of sunlight. The sea was kind to me this time. Casting the same lure again, after a few tries I caught a 10 inch bluefish which made for a nice dinner that we shared as I told my story of the one that got away and the consolation prize that the sea was kind to give.

A year later...

2008-10-03T20:04:00.003-04:00

It's been exactly one year that we uprooted ourselves from Chapel Hill, NC after 26 years there. During the past year we enjoyed six months on Emerald Isle and then six months in Miami Beach. To celebrate the anniversary we are retracing our steps to Chapel Hill and now to Emerald Isle for a few weeks. Well, it's not only the anniversary but I have to come to do the "homeowner thing" and take advantage to visit friends and enjoy the cooler weather.

As usual we've had a variety of weather changes at the beach but after a cold front that arrived with powerful thunderstorms, the mornings have turned crisp and cool, the days sunny and warm and the evenings cold enough to keep the windows closed at night.

The beach water temperature feels in the low 70s but dropping daily. Sitting on a beach chair by the shore I can already see the schools of finger mullets reflecting the sunlight as the waves break. The fish are followed by flocks of terns that dive from time to time and also by families of dolphins that swim past feeding along the way. Everything is lining up for the beginning of the fall fishing season. Unfortunately we don't plan to be here that long but hopefully Mike (our beach neighbor) will get to enjoy the whole season.

365 days ago we were just arriving to Emerald Isle looking forward to our new life of excitement and adventure. We created fond memories of our peaceful time at the beach. The move to South Beach was also filled with excitement for the novelty of everything. Finding Cuban bread and cafecito (Cuban sweet expresso coffee) walking distance from our new place was just priceless. But of course it has not all been smooth sailing down south. We have had to readjust ourselves to living in much tighter quarters, getting used to living within a much larger population density, dealing with valet parking and then the aftermaths of the housing market meltdown and the big economic mess that this has left us with. The job situation has not been any better for me. A few weeks after arriving in Miami I started looking and applying for jobs within a five mile ratio of home. As the weeks passed, I've been increasing the millage ratio to 100s of miles and pretty soon I may have to increase it to nationwide. In the mean time, the time gap in my resume keeps getting larger and my AARP status doesn't seem to be impressing any potential employer. Prospects for employment now seem confined to acquiring a small business or becoming some sort of consultant if I can figure out how to translate what I did before to something that someone may care to listen to.

Still, I'd be very ungrateful if I was complaining. B is still hanging in there as a patient supportive wife. All family members are in good health. My Wachovia ATM card still gives me money after each request. And sharing this time between Miami Beach and Emerald Isle is not a bad combination. So, a year later, life is still smiling my way. If the rest of my years are half as good as this last year was, I'd consider myself a very lucky (AARP) man.

Note: I'll add photos later since I forgot the cable required to transfer the files from camera to computer.

Seeing (Carolina) Blue

2008-09-26T16:01:00.003-04:00

I’m actually visiting a “red” state but was seeing blue as I visited the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill this week. The blue that I saw was all the athletic paraphernalia that the students were proudly wearing as they walked the footpaths from class to class. This week we’re visiting our old stumping grounds of about 26 years which we happened to have left exactly a year ago. The weather was just pleasant with a cool breeze reminding us that autumn is just around the corner. Not currently owning any jackets or sweaters, it felt actually cold when we returned to Chapel Hill in the evening to have dinner with friends at the Spice Street Restaurant.

The highlight of my visit this time has been visiting with all the friends and family in the area. Coming from Miami where our network is just so limited, the Research Triangle area is just brimming with contacts from all the years we lived here. Even as I walked through campus on Tuesday, I saw an old acquaintance from my Glaxo days. Something like that would probably never happen to me in a city the size of Miami.

I also took the opportunity to visit some of my ex-colleagues at the old mothership (GlaxoSmithKline). The company has decimated its research staff in the last couple of years and the few scientists that are holding the fort didn’t give me the feeling that they were thrilled to have survived thus far. I met with three different groups, and you could boil down the conversations to a feeling of “fear and uncertainty”. The ones that had already been let go from the company recently were worried about what to do next (‘been there, done that), and worried about competing with so many other scientists in the area that are searching for the few available jobs. The ones employed, were worried about when it’d be their turn to be on the streets or whether they would survive yet another cut. It definitely does not make for a jolly old time as they wait for someone else to determine their fate.

As I met with them I tried to steer the conversations to their family or other lighter topics. I didn’t want to have my visit associated with more depressing stuff, but it was challenging to avoid bringing the subject up again and again. I believe the company should have just cut all that they needed to cut two years ago and be done with it. This trickle down approach may be good for the investors in Wall Street, but it does more harm than good to the remaining staff. It’s going to take a long of time to heal those wounds to allow the scientists to refocus their attention to finding cures to diseases instead of wondering about their livelihoods.

As we prepare to drive this evening to visit our eldest son in Greensboro, we’re going to pick some light-hearted radio station for our drive over, we’re going to make a point of skipping the first presidential candidate debate this evening, we’re going to focus on the simple things in life: visiting with family, sharing stories, eating whole meals, taking pictures and just rejoicing in the moment without worrying all the other crap that is all around.

I hope you too can turn off the news for at least a day and just worry about what’s within your circle of influence.

What’s that bright thing in the sky over Miami?

2008-09-11T18:53:00.003-04:00

Is it a comet? Is it a star? Or is it Superman? After what seemed like weeks of cloudiness due to a string of hurricanes, I have witnessed "The Sun". It has become a strange although welcome sight in the Sunshine State. Complaining about a permanent cloudy skies seems selfish when our neighbors to the South are complaining of power outages, leaky roofs, flooding and complete pandemonium. Thus far this year the odds have been against the Cubans and the other Caribbean islands as they have received the brunt of at least three recent major hurricanes.

The word here is that calamities such as these have been known to push for change in Cuba in the past, so the hope is that more doors could be opened as a result of all the recent storms. The Cuban government has refused any help from the US but with this last hurricane they may change their minds. Let’s hope it happens for the sake of the people. Of course change is bound to happen after our next election in November. Quicker if the underdog wins. However, if the favorite of the moral majority and the Cuban hard-liners wins as I’m beginning to suspect, we’re going to need more than a few storms to get any significant change in Cuban-American relations in the next 4 years.

After almost six months living in Miami, I have a feeling that I’m beginning to feel more concerned with what happens south of the Strait of Florida than I am with what happens in Washington. It’s part of the Miami culture.

As far as we were concerned, the storm was mostly a cloud and mild wind event. B and I were visiting my parents north of Orlando, FL and were watching the storm on TV like everyone else. We drove back to Miami on Monday night and as we stepped out of the car, we could feel the strong winds coming into the parking garage. Of course, the winds are much stronger on the water front, and even more so in between the high risers. The next day, still cloudy and somewhat windy, but I didn’t find any evidence of damage on the streets or the houses. We dodged the bullet once again.

I’m beginning to think that the “snowbirds” Canadians have figured something out. They spend the whole hurricane season in cool Quebec, and come back when it gets too cold in Canada and it’s the nicest here. Seems like a perfect combination, I’ll have to look into that.

As the summer winds down

2008-08-28T21:02:00.002-04:00

Once the bedroom floors were finally done, we rushed to Ikea to get a bookcase and other small pieces of furniture to help us utilize the space more efficiently. And we’re glad we did because soon after that we started receiving summer visitors which have kept us entertained most of the summer. First there were B’s siblings that congregated in south Florida to celebrate one of their birthdays. Then we were blessed with our son’s visit to celebrate the initiation of the newest AARP member in the family. Tita and Sandra came to celebrate as well and a few days later came Nellie and Hobert. Now that we are a little more familiar with our surroundings, it’s been a lot of fun to take folks around to try to show them our hang outs in Miami and South Beach. Nellie and Hobert even had a taste of “the price of living in paradise” by being indoors bound for a couple of days of the Tropical Storm Fay.

Fay was our first experience with bad weather since our move. It was mostly a rain event in south Florida (2.5”). Living in a high-rise the only thing we were asked to do was to lay down the outdoor furniture in the balcony. Of course a bigger concern would have been if we had been threatened with power loss as we are 100% electric and going up and down thirty one flights of stairs would definitely give you a work out. As the storm moved north it left behind a lot of devastation dropping more than 20” in parts of Northern Florida.

Responses to my job applications have been slow in coming. A few emails telling me that some of the positions have been filled and a few interviews which may or may not pan out in the next few weeks. I continue plugging along at every opportunity but I’m sure it’s going to be an uphill battle. Something else that I’m doing to entertain myself is to align myself with some organizations that could benefit from my free time and energy.

One of them organization is the Miami International Airport Visitor Information Program (VIP). It took me several weeks to get ready for this as a complete FBI background was required. Now my job is to wait for arriving passengers and be ready to answer questions or help them with transportation into the city, etc.

The other organization with whom I’m lining myself to volunteer is the Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 7-11 which is based walking distance from our condo right on the Biscayne Bay. I say that I’m lining myself because it’s a long process which requires security clearance and purchasing a couple of uniforms. After attending the first meeting I came out excited about the possibilities of learning a whole lot as well as being able to help others in what I can.

As I’m finding myself questioning what to do next in my life and as I look for opportunities and open doors anywhere, I keep coming back to the satisfaction that is felt when you can actually help others. At the end of the game, there is no better feeling than to be able to help out.

So, as we wind down the summer, after all the visitors, all the bus rides, all the resumes, all the hours watching the Olympics and the Democratic Convention speeches, we are still enjoying our new life in the city and amazingly are now feeling right at home.

Living with Miami Summer Weather Pattern

2008-07-16T21:38:00.003-04:00

The floors are finally done and as expected we have forgotten all the hassles and the agonizing wait that we had to put up with. As the memory of the old dirty carpet starts to fade away, it almost feels as if this is the way the floors have been all along. And I’m sure in the big scheme of things; the aggravations of the first three months of residence will become a faint memory as time moves on.

We are also getting more familiar with the South Florida summer weather pattern. One thing is clear, no need to pay attention to weather predictions. As long as the prediction sticks to “possible thunderstorm in the afternoon” it should be safe, but if they predict a sunny, clear or low humidity day, take cover because the lightening will be hitting sooner or later. From the vantage point of the 31^st floor, the thunderstorms developing in the everglades become an interesting daily spectacle. We can now easily determine if the storms are falling on Key Biscayne, on Coconut Grove, on Downtown, Doral or North Miami. We can almost set up an alternate Air Traffic Control station to advice on the best landing and departure routes to/from MIA. Luckily the daily downpours don’t interfere with our routine since 99% of the time it’s perfectly clear in the morning, then the clouds start building up by mid-day and by early afternoon, quarter-size drops start to fall from the sky as if the heavens had decided to destroy the earth once and for all. In an hour or so it’s all done and the sun comes back again as if nothing had happened. In the late afternoon is the best time to head back to the beach anyhow so the timing works out perfectly.

Except if, like today, I decide to explore our broader surroundings by taking a bus ride to the mainland (Miami). As usual, when I left home this morning I thought I had picked the perfect day as it was sunny and breezy and not a cloud in the sky. I went to the Miami-Dade Transit Website to figure out which bus and where to wait for it and in no time I was waiting by the bus stop. And I waited, and waited, and waited. The memories of the city officials’ inspection of the wood floor started to come to mind but fortunately we spotted the M-route bus as it was turning towards us. I say “us” because as I’m finding, a bus stop is a good place to meet new friends. Well, not the kind of friends you want to keep for a long time, but friendly people anyhow. A girl that was waiting longer than me said that it never fails that as soon as she lights a cigarette, the bus shows up. I suggested that why didn’t she light one up, but she was just fresh out of them at the time. Just our luck. The good thing is that cigarettes are not allowed in the buses so we can all continue to be friends inside.

On the bus route map that I printed, I was able to follow the streets pretty well. This bus was ultimately heading to the Jackson Memorial Hospital, but on the way we drove through some rough patches of real estate, which I’m glad we were moving right along and not stranded there at night with an out-of-state license plate. Since I was just going for a joy ride, I decided to stay on the bus until it looped around. Well, there was not such thing as a loop, at least not a seamless loop. At the end of the route, the bus stopped, the driver announced that she was turning the engine off and stepping out. The few remaining souls stepped out of the bus God know where we were. It was a busy street but definitely a few notches down from SoBe although better than the rough patches we encountered along the way. I felt welcome, but still very discretely I pulled my wedding ring off and my wrist watch off to keep any bright metal from making it too obvious that I was not from around there. Even though the wait was going to be around 15 minutes, I ventured off on the busy commercial street to find something to eat. I found a little Hispanic restaurant that was just perfect for the occasion. Ropa Vieja (beef), white rice, black beans, fried plantains with a natural juice drink for $7. Shakira blasting on the radio behind the counter and the aroma of Cuban Coffee throughout. I couldn’t have asked for a better combination.

In the 40 minutes I was eating, the clouds that were notorious for their absence in the morning, somehow had congregated themselves to threaten to dump enough water to feed a continent worth of everglades. And as soon as I stepped out of the building, it started to rain. Luckily I brought a small umbrella but the wind kept trying to turn it upside down and I ended up as soaked as if I had just been to a wet t-shirt convention.

Waiting for the bus on the way back, I met a fellow that, like the others, was very friendly and easy to talk to. He volunteered to ask the bus driver when we would be departing, and he came back to report with a grin saying that at least he was going to be able to finish his beer, which he was carrying in a small brown bag. It was well after 12:00PM so I’m sure it was fine with everyone else. The shocking thing to me happened just before boarding the bus. He just looked over the curb and found a good spot to drop his bag with the can, right in the storm drain opening. Just two steps behind him was a big old trash can, but that would have required some thinking and maybe lifting the lid. I’m not going to be surprised if I see that can again sometime in my future and I’m sure I’ll be thinking about him again when I see it in the Biscayne Bay.

The trip back took about 40 minutes, but at least I was safe from the rain. The walk back from the bus station wasn’t too bad as the rain was already winding down. But it was like coming back from a safari. Glad I went, but happier to be back in one piece.

After an hour of drying off in the condo, I left again to a book club meeting at the local public library. On an earlier visit to the library I had seen that they were going to discuss the “Water for Elephants” book that I had read recently. Lucky for me, this one I had already read. It was quite a cultural experience, especially when compared to the company I kept during the first part of the day. All in all, another educational day in Miami.

Relieve from floor-level frustrations

2008-06-25T18:55:00.004-04:00

Could this floor replacement project be the one defined as the “project from hell”? It’s been over two months that we arranged (and paid) for the carpet replacement project to happen, and still no floor. Construction “began” last Monday but now the living room feels like a storage unit that has been packed to maximize the space for storage, not for living. The carpet was removed from the bedrooms, the soundproofing material laid- on the concrete floor and now it has to be inspected before they start laying the wood floor. The culprit this time was the City of Miami Beach (once again). First it was the lengthy (and expensive) process of approving the permit, now it is to have someone from the inspections department to actually show up to inspect the sound-proofing. It’s 5PM on Wednesday and I just heard from the installers that the City claims that the Inspector was here at 9:49AM and was “denied access to the building”. It’s difficult to imagine how a City official would have been denied access to a building, when they can ‘inspect’ any property looking out for rogue construction sites anywhere. Besides, our building has 24hrs security at the front desk, and whatever happened to the thing called TELEPHONE, which is used to connect with the homeowner in the event that they would need to be escorted to the construction site. Not a beep. In this age of technology and progress, some parts of the world still seem to be moving at the same rate as in pre-historic times. Am I being too demanding? It’s ridiculous.

To get a break from all the construction, yesterday , when I didn’t have to be waiting at home for the Inspector to show up, I went for a quick bicycle ride to the beach. I wanted to test how much stuff did I actually need to take with me to enjoy the water. I decided to take just the clothes I had on and of course, the bicycle. In just a few minutes I was right on the beach taking my t-shirt off and hiding it with my flip-flops under the bicycle. The water was as warm, clear and inviting as usual. Definitely a good way to wash off my frustrations and relax some from the activities of the day. For about 30 minutes I was with the water up to my neck at the same time that I was keeping an eye on the bicycle to make sure it didn’t ride away by itself. I dried off some with the breeze as I was pushing the bicycle out of the sand, then hopped on and rode around Ocean Avenue to see the sights and to find the usual volleyball pickup games. There were at least three courts that were being used and on one of them they were playing two-on-one so I figured they could use a warm body. Took my semi-dry t-shirt off and the softer body joined the tanned, hard bodies on the court. I definitely looked like a local, except for the few extra pounds that I struggled pulling from side to side of the court. The Cuban bread diet must be having an effect since I was branding the “keg abs” instead of the usual “six-pack abs” more common on the beach. I also felt it in my breath. By the end of the first game, I was huffing and puffing as if I had just ran a marathon. I bailed out as soon as their “regular” player arrived to fill my spot, and I couldn’t have been happier to leave. Right besides the court there are showers for those leaving the beach so I took advantage of that to remove the sand from my skin and back on the bike to ride home.

It was a nice experience and now I know that I can just get there and get in without a lot of protocol. Even though getting back home meant getting back to the tight storage unit where I couldn’t even find fresh clothes after the shower and then another day of waiting for city officials to show up. I know it will be done at some point, but the patience is running thin.

Crossroads

2008-06-07T02:57:00.001-04:00

At times I feel as if life would be a lot easier if it were just a straight road with no deviations, but after thinking about it, I’d much rather experience the dilemmas we encounter in our everyday lives. It’s not a bad thing to be confronted by forks in the road, especially when the alternatives are not really all that bad. It’s a good thing to have choices.

Of course, here I’m referring to the new fork in my own road of life. The AARP lifestyle is not going to be indefinitely sustainable. And to make life a little more sustainable, I’m facing different choices on which line of gainful employment should I choose in the near future.

The issue I’m finding is that with the current state of the US economy, just about every professional field that I would qualify for, sucks. So I’m at liberty of choosing on which job market I want to suck at. The good thing is that if we can make it during times as these, we’ll be flying high once things start to improve. And improve they will. It’s almost the only way to go from here.

One possible road for me would be to go back to the old reliable profession where I actually have some real experience and a resume to back me up. And I’ve seen a handful of pharma-type jobs in the area and also there are several medical research/genetics type jobs at the Univ. of Miami which wouldn’t be too far a daily commute. On the plus side, I may actually have a chance of landing at least an interview. On the other hand, doing the same thing I did for 25 plus years, means no significant change will come out of this new exciting life stage.

Another road could be to seriously pursue the financial planning/advising that I have been preparing myself for years to do. I probably could find some sort of entry position in the industry but given that financial institutions are going through their worst period in years, opportunities maybe few and far between. This would be a real change in direction, but one for which I feel there is a great need. And something where I could make a real difference in people’s lives which I want to make sure is also part of my next profession. God knows, many want to live the AARP-lifestyle but have no clue whether they’ll be able to get there even 20 years after they’d qualify for the coveted membership.

Yet another possibility would be to find more online classes like the ones I’ve been teaching in GCFLearnFree.org for almost 8 years. These activities give me a lot of the flexibility I yearn and give me a small dose of the human interactions most of us want to have in a job. However these types of positions don’t seem to come around too often and the remuneration from them barely make a dent on the sustainability issue.

Pursuing any of these avenues, or even something else that may show up unexpectedly will definitely change the AARP lifestyle that I’ve become accustomed to, but is something that is bound to happen. And after taking and enjoying a long break, I want to make sure I still have what it takes to earn a living, before that choice is taken away from me for good.

As I look for opportunities which hopefully will lead me to a future left or a right turn on my road, I hope that what I find is something that makes a positive impact on those around me and that I will feel proud of having written on my tombstone.

First night out

2008-05-08T22:25:00.003-04:00

One of the remaining home repair projects we have ahead is to replace the carpet on the bedroom floors with a laminate wood product. Because our floor is someone else’s roof, there are many more rules and regulations that we need to adhere to if we want to receive the approvals from the city of Miami Beach and our building administrative board. And of course, the extra vigilance also cost extra $$$ for ‘sound-proofing’ materials and official inspections. Also, a project that could have taken a couple of days to complete, will end up taking over a month, if we’re lucky.

Even though the floor is going to take longer than anticipated, we felt that the place was already suitable to receive guests so a few days ago we made plans with some long-time family friends to drop by for a visit. The family friend was Roxy*, and the other half of the equation was her boyfriend Jeff*. We didn’t really know them personally but we know Roxy’s family and knew about her, so even though it was the first time we saw her in person, it was not as if she was a complete stranger.

When I called her to give them directions, I was almost apologetic for the fact that parking was going to be an issue. They were definitely more used to the idea of valet parking, and paying $5 for valet was nothing to them. Nevertheless, I suggested that they park in the valet and then I would drive our car to wherever we decided to go for dinner.

They agreed and came up to check our place and our view as we decided where to go to dinner. We decided to stay on the island (Miami Beach) so we headed to Ocean Drive. It almost felt strange to leave the safety of our parking deck to drive to a place that I knew was going to be a mad house and that I knew there was not going to be a parking in sight, but pretending to know what I was doing, I just drove heading on that direction. Six blocks later we were double parking in front of Joe’s Stone Crab Restaurant. Jeff found out that the wait was only 45 minutes. Since it was already passed 9 PM, I proposed to move on to plan B. Plan B was back to West Avenue to a little restaurant called “Barton G”. We were now only about 4 blocks from our condo, but Roxy was wearing a short, short mini skirt and 6” stiletto heels so I felt it wouldn’t have been appropriate gear for walking around just to save on parking. So I doubled park right in front of the restaurant and promptly get my door opened by a helpful valet parking driver. I leave the engine on, step out of the open door, get a ticket with a number and the guy says, “It’d be 12 dollars” Now, call me a country-boy from Chapel Hill, but where I come from, dinner is around $12 for the whole meal. I was shocked! But to keep looking cool, I quickly shelled out the $12 and pretended that I wasn’t feeling as if it wouldn’t have been more fun to having a friendly aneurism.

Once we were seated, I was even afraid of opening the menu, concerned that it’d be one of those with fancy names and no prices. Well, at least it had the prices but my hunger had suddenly conceded to the point that I only had enough appetite for a small entrée. Luckily, the portions were so small anyway that it was almost perfect. I just hope I don’t get an indigestion when I face the Visa bill at the end of the month.

The evening turned out to be a wonderful experience. We got to know our new friends in a wonderful ambiance, and I got to think about getting friends that wouldn’t mind riding their bicycles to the local Cuban fast-food joint.

I better get used to this new life style, and a non-AARP job to support it sooner rather than later.

*The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Are we locals yet?

2008-04-24T19:09:00.003-04:00

It must be a sign that we already look like locals that we are constantly being approached by tourists asking for help with directions. Or maybe tourists are just so lost that they grab onto anything they feel might be sober. As to whether we look like locals, I’m sure that’s not the case as 70% of the guys look like they spend most of their days at the gym and are building muscles even on their gums. The women look like they are on their way to Victoria’s Secret photo-shoot or at least they must be on some different type of South Beach Diet than ours, nevertheless, I’m sure we’d look more than locals in other parts of Miami but not in SoBe.

We live on the western side of the island and our street is a mostly residential (read high-rise condos) neighborhood, so we are somewhat isolated from the hoards of weekend tourists that congregate mostly on Ocean Dr and Collins Ave a few blocks away. But on our daily walk, almost everyday we get at least one stranded tourist looking desperately for “the beach”, “the Versace house”, or “Collins Ave”. If they are asking for a Starbuck, you can almost point them in any direction, and they’ll find one sooner or later, but for the more specific landmarks it’s a little more involved, since you need to know which streets go all the way through to Ocean or dead end along the way. There is also the need to know which way some of the One Way streets point and which streets are for pedestrians-only. Amazingly enough, all the walking must be paying of as we are becoming quite familiar with all the short-cuts and ways to get to the different parts of SoBe, the rest of Miami will have to wait.

In today’s paper I read that someone was describing Miami as not being very pedestrian-friendly. They did point out that this was true for Miami but not for Miami Beach. When we were originally looking for our next home, we looked at several condos near downtown but we noticed that once you get down from the building, there was nowhere to go without a car. Since being able to walk to places was one of our deciding criteria, we chose to be on this side of the bay. Now I’m sure that the best way of moving around in SoBe is definitely walking or bicycling. Of course, that doesn’t stop those that have the extra cash from “investing” the equivalent of most countries GNP on a vehicle, so we share our parking deck with quite a number of Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Bentleys and Mercedes Benz and of course, our two cruiser AARP bicycles. At least our vehicles run on Cuban bread so I think I have them beat.

Note: Yes, Rosie, Gloria and several others live on Star Island which is the island right in front of us. So we could almost say that they are our neighbors from across the street. Shaq once resided on the island but I'm not sure if the property is still his. Maybe he was renting.

Condo Living

2008-04-17T20:56:00.004-04:00

OK so two weeks living in a condo does not an expert in condo living make. But at least the memories of living between our own private 4 walls are still fresh in my mind to make some comparisons. I’m sure I’ll be sharing more as things come up.

Time definitely does not run at the same rate as everywhere else. Even if you forgot your glasses in the car, it takes some thinking before you head out to the elevator, wait for it to arrive, maybe make a stop along the way, walk to the parking deck and finally reach the car just to turn around and do it all over again. And hopefully when you get to the car, you hadn’t forgotten the car keys. Definitely something that requires some getting used to.

One thing that could be thought of as a huge negative is the heavy traffic and lack of parking spaces in South Beach. However this is turning out to be a blessing in disguise. I wrote earlier that I didn’t see myself bicycling to the Post Office as I did in Emerald Isle. Well I was wrong. I don’t see myself going to the Post Office in something other than a bicycle. The one day that I attempted to drive to it, I went around the block so many times looking for a parking space, that I ended up parking at a parking deck which was as far from the post office as if I had walked from home. Now, I just get on my bicycle, or hop on the bus, and the trip is 100% more enjoyable and just as quick. South Beach is definitely a bicycle-friendly kind of town, and now I can see why.

Living in the building has been quite enjoyable thus far. We haven’t even taken advantage of the pools, gyms, valet parking and other amenities, but dealing with the helpful staff has been quite refreshing. Managing a building of this size must be almost like running a cruise ship, except that the staff gets to go home in the evenings just in time for the second shift to take over.

However the highlight of living on the 31^st floor is definitely the views that we get every moment of the day. You can almost stay glued to the windows all day just watching what goes on below. The weather changes; the huge cruise ship maneuvering at the distance; the smaller boats and jet skies zipping about in the Biscayne Bay; watching from above the pelicans and other birds fly on their way somewhere; waiting for Gloria Estefan or Rosie O’Donnell to step out onto their backyards; watching the traffic on the Macarthur Causeway driving to/from the mainland; the loading or unloading of the container ships at the port of Miami; tour boats of all kinds and sizes waiting for Gloria or Rosie to step out; and in between some of the natural world, such as dolphins and manatees, that are still visible in the midst of all this confusion. The show it’s definitely worth the price of admission.

As we sit back at the end of another day, we look at the calendar and realize that those that gave us only two weeks of honeymoon with SoBe, were dead wrong. The jury is still out on two months, but so far so good.

1st Anniversary of my AARP membership

2008-04-14T16:32:00.007-04:00

As if South Beach knew that Sunday was the 1st anniversary of my full AARP membership, it threw out a massive celebratory party as if there was no tomorrow. Or maybe that’s the way every weekend goes on around these parts. Regardless, I took it as a sign that the city really celebrates it’s AARP members, especially if it happens to be yet another new Cuban in town.

Sunday morning greeted us with the sights of the 100s of bicycles riding over the causeway in front of our condo as they looped around to complete the bicycle and running part of the Nautical South Beach Triathlon. B and I walked down to join in and celebrate the passersby. I felt almost as if I was doing the triathlon myself, but that feeling ended quickly when I was walking back with a loaf of Cuban bread, tomatoes, sandwich meats and a plastic container full of fresh ceviche from the market. I imagine this must have been the inspiration for the famous "South Beach Diet", and we’ll be seeing the outcome of this new diet in a few months, I’m sure.

The highlight of my day was tickets to see finals of the 2008 season opener of the AVP beach volley ball tournament which began here on Friday. The games were held as they were meant to be, on the beach. The weather was perfect for beach volley ball but given that the whole thing lasted for almost 7 hours, we did get a refreshing rain shower a few minutes before the final few games. I was a faithful fan as I stayed on my seat under the hot mid-day sun, the afternoon rain shower and later on with the cool breeze over the wet clothes. I made it home hungry and thirsty but the best part was that I didn’t have to deal with traffic or parking since it was just about 7 blocks from home.

The games included some of the all time favorites such as Dalhausser and Rogers on the men’s side and Misty May and Kerry Walsh on the women’s side. I’m not a huge professional sports follower, but amazingly enough these were names that even I was familiar with from years of following them in the summer Olympic games and the professional VBall tours. The guys, --and the gals--, made me feel even more AARP than I am as it was difficult to say whether they were under the influence of the same gravitational forces as the rest of us humans tend to normally be under. It made for a fun afternoon and the closing of another page in my first year of being part of the (gulp) “over 50” demographics.

South Beach still felt as if it wasn't doing enough celebration because when I was sitting watching the VBall games, I heard the roar of the engines of a boat race that was going right behind me . I tell you what, this town really knows just how to make you feel welcome!

At home we are putting the final few touches on the paint, replacing the flooring and arranging the furniture and decoration to make us feel more at home. We now have Florida driver’s license and Florida tags in our car, so little by little we’re getting our act together and ready to start tackling the big steps that we have ahead. It’s starting to feel just like home.

Creating a new AARP routine

2008-04-07T12:27:00.002-04:00

After New Year’s Day I wrote about my predictions for the year based on what happened to me that day. Well, apparently I missed seeing all the walls that surrounded me at the time and didn’t even think that walls, and especially the paint on them, was going to be such an important part of my life this year. Yes, paint, the mundane stuff that goes on walls, trim and doors in any building is quickly becoming my reason for living and clearly it should have been more prominent in my forecasts for 2008.

Today we celebrated our first week living in South Beach, and as it was our routine in Emerald Isle, we started the day promptly with a brisk 1.5 hrs walk. South Beach, which is the southernmost tip of Miami Beach, is definitely a walker’s paradise. Everyday we have been experimenting with different routes to see which one turns out to be more interesting. Already we have different walk “themes” according to the types of sights and sounds we want to experience. There is the peaceful waterfront bay walk which starts on the waterfront right below our building and ends up on the beach. Then there is the everyday businesses route via Alston Ave. where we see the ACE hardware store, Whole Foods, and numerous restaurants and fast-food establishments catering mostly to the local more permanent community. The touristy route which is just about everywhere else but becomes more concentrated on Ocean Dr., Lincoln Mall and Collins Ave. The sandy walk with its variations: the boardwalk, the hard sand or the soft sand by the water. And then there is the sleazy walk with all the business catering to partygoers and those with alternate lifestyles; during the daytime it’s pretty lame, except for the window displays, but I’m sure it’d be the place to be if we were walking past midnight any night.

One of the concerns I had about moving to South Beach was that it was not Cuban enough for what I wanted. One thing that I thought was missing was my fresh Cuban bread, something that I have always fantasized of having walking distance from home. I thought for sure it would be something that I was going to find only when I drove to the mainland (Miami) across the I-395 causeway, but I was pleasantly surprised to find several spots along our walk where I can find this coveted delicacy. So to commemorate our one week anniversary at our new home, at the end of our walk I picked up some bread, tomatoes and cheese to fix myself a basic staple of life. I’ll worry about painting and unpacking after I’m done enjoying my sandwich; there will plenty of time for that later.

Transitions

2008-04-02T22:46:00.007-04:00

Blogging took a backseat to packing, loading, driving and finally unloading our stuff in our new location in Miami Beach, Florida. After 6 months in Emerald Isle, we are planning for this to be home at least for the next two years. The jury is still out on how long the honeymoon with our new town will last --some have predicted 2 weeks, others 2 months--, but we’re burning the ships and are committed to giving this a try.

For us it is hard to grasp that in the previous 12-month period we have moved from Chapel Hill, our home for 20+ years, to a Durham apartment, then to our Emerald Isle beach house and now to Miami.

All the moves came loaded with a lot of life lessons for us. First, learning to live in a one bedroom/one bath apartment. At least this change was relatively mild since we only changed our four walls. The Emerald Isle move included getting used to living fairly secluded although at a fairly large house. This one offered somewhat new surroundings but a fairly tame change in comparison. Now, a new city with few personal contacts and our own personal introduction to the concept of "high-density living". Somehow I don’t think biking to the Post Office will continue to be part of my daily routine. Who knows what will take its place.

It feels good to start unpacking and finally getting rid of the boxes. We finally get to see some stuff that we haven’t seen in almost a year. And now the challenge is going to be to fit all the kitchen utensils, plate sets, glasses, pots and pans in a kitchen about a fourth the size of what we had in Chapel Hill. I see some more lessons in my future!

I hope my 2+ readers appreciate seeing some of the pictures from our new setting and my future entries which will certainty contrast life in our previous settings, to our new beach town with just a few more tens of thousands of people of all kinds. It’s going to be a ride!

Let's see how long we can do this...

Time to wrap up...

2008-03-19T19:05:00.008-04:00

The same storm pattern that hit downtown Atlanta at the end of last week, headed our way for the weekend. It could have been a dangerous situation for us, or at least a very wet weekend. But the weather system timed itself perfectly to arrive late on Saturday and it was already gone by Sunday morning. And luckily not nearly a hundredth of the punch it gave Atlanta, whose residents are now cleaning out their big mess.

One event that was spared this weekend was the “big” Saint Patrick’s Day celebration in Emerald Isle. “Big” in the sense that this is traditionally the wake-up call for the city to welcome the busy upcoming tourist season. During the last couple of weeks I have already been witnessing the evolution of the town from a quiet winter refuge for the few of us, to what is expected to be a busy time with all the visitors seeking refuge from grueling 9 to 5 jobs, tough school years and regular stressful life in general. Of course, this is assuming the US economy maintains itself afloat from the current choppy economic waters it is currently facing, and that is still to be determined. I’m sure the town, and the beach home rental property owners, are hoping for the best.

The welcoming of the busy season on the island means the beginning of our time to wrap up and say our own goodbyes. This weekend it became obvious for us that the end of our stay is just a matter of days rather than weeks. Most of my house repair projects are complete, packing of our few personal items done, our food pantry is thinning out and I have already scheduled our moving-in date to our Miami Beach condo.

But what made it more obvious was that several of our good friends from RTP did their pilgrimage to pay us one last seasonal visit before we leave Emerald Isle for that big city at the southern end of the eastern seaboard.

Now that the time is finally upon us, the big city looks even bigger from this vantage location. Point in case is a conversation I had with a fellow Cuban that lives on Emerald Isle, all his Miami friends keep talking to him about the problems with heavy traffic, lack of parking spaces, rude drivers and many other big city problems that overcome long—time Miami residents and make them wish to do what he is doing –living on Emerald Isle. Well, no time to look back, this train only moves in one direction and it is now facing south.

Note: Pictures of some of the weekend visitors practicing an AARP version of Tai-Chi or something like that.

$5 a gallon... Now we're talking!

2008-03-14T12:50:00.006-04:00

Who hasn’t been impressed with the gas prices these days? B is on the west coast this week and she tells me that in Los Angeles, gas is already over $4 a gallon! Here on the island is over $3 a gallon. Definitely not a good time for long commutes; and for those that make their living in the transportation industry.

However, for years I have been a strong supporter of taxing gasoline to $5 per gallon, because I feel that we are not going to be motivated to conserve, unless it hurts our pocketbooks. Of course, the pocketbooks of those at the lower socio-economic standings will start “hurting” earlier, so I was hoping for a more equitable encouragement.

In 1978 I was driving my first car, at the time when in California we found ourselves making long lines at the gas stations, thanks to the Arab Oil embargo of the time. That experience made such an impression on me that I have always been concerned with how dependent we are on foreign oil, especially oil from the very volatile Middle East. Once the crisis was over, I thought to myself, what a great opportunity to start building our defenses so that we would not be in such a vulnerable position once again. But instead of continuing to fund research into alternative energies, such as the energy tax credits of the Carter era, we went the other way by building larger and gas-guzzling vehicles. Detroit couldn’t produce them large enough, or fast enough to meet the demand.

On the other hand, other countries around the world were dealing with artificially inflated gasoline prices, which in turn made drivers think twice about their gasoline-using habits. Also around those days, a small motorcycle company (Honda) and Toyota, pounced on the opportunity to supply frugal drivers with inexpensive and fuel-economy vehicles. Detroit didn’t even blink. Who cared about that other market? The rest of the world? Where IS that, exactly? We now know the rest of the story.

Another factor that has shaped my way of thinking was my scientific training and mindset. Maybe because of that, I have always appreciated the works of Mother Nature and have been concerned about our carelessness towards the environment.

To me it just made all the sense in the world to control, and hopefully reduce, our use of fossil fuels for energy. Conservation offers the potential for tangible rewards –independence from foreign oil and cleaner air. And more recently, with the warnings about the likely global warming, our heavy use of fossil fuel is getting another slap on the face.

But what will it take to regain some control over our energy situation? The prices at the pump are telling me that we may be doing too little and maybe a little too late. A recent report from Monash University in Australia claims that unless we reduce our fossil fuel utilization by a whopping EIGHTY PERCENT (80%), we will not be doing enough to avoid the upcoming climate change.

Eighty percent! That is alarming! Have you thought of what will it take to reduce YOUR oil consumption by 80%? If you could only do one 1 of every 5 car trips you currently make. Which trips would you cut? Could you go to the supermarket on a bicycle? How much could you bring? Would your babies travel well in a wagon pulled by a bicycle? Would that be the same in rainy or snowy weather?

You see where I’m going with this, right?

Do you see what just happened? I promised to keep this blog “light-hearted” and here I’m sinking again in the depths of cynicism and gloominess. Enough with that!

To close, my wish to my two readers is that if we get stuck someplace without being able to drive or travel, may you get stuck somewhere that you consider enjoyable. In the mean time, get some new walking shoes.

After the storm

2008-03-09T13:34:00.008-04:00

The seas are back to normal, the sun is bright and there is not a single cloud on the sky. Had I just arrived today, I could not even imagine that the peaceful sea in front of my eyes was capable of having such a fit just 24 hours ago. I'm not sure if it was hormonal but whatever it was, it was not a happy camper.

It rained a lot Friday night and from inside we could feel the wind puffing against the house. By mid-day Saturday the rain had subsided but the winds were now gusting up to 50 mph! I walked down to the beach and had to cover my face from the blowing sand. Any exposed skin felt as if being poked by hundreds of needles and my pockets were filling with sand as I walked. It was like swimming in a pool of sand. Then just beyond the dry sand, the beach looked like a race track with the froth from the waves racing as if being pulled by some invisible force. But enough talking about it, see if for yourself. Below is a compilation of some of what I experienced (minus the needles and the background music). Hope you enjoy it.

Stormy Friday

2008-03-07T18:58:00.007-05:00

No sunset today. South winds and rain are hitting us straight on at about 17 mph with gusts to about 30 mph. The rockers on the deck are swinging as if they were having all the fun in the world. The visibility is poor but you can feel the ocean roaring behind the fog. The waterfront windows are trembling and gusts of wind come in if even a small gap of the sliding doors is open. It has been gloomy all afternoon and it seems that this is going to be a whole night event.

Today, as if perfect for the weather, I was listening to a song that keeps coming up in our local radio station. I thought it was so fitting that I went to singer’s Website to read the lyrics and listen to the song a few times. The song, “In Your Arms” by Plumb (Tiffany Arbuckle Lee), turned out not to be a romantic ballad as I thought, but a song from a mother to and about her baby son cuddled in her arms. The chorus says:

“Knowing clouds will raise up,
storms will race in,
but you will be safe in my arms
Rains will pour down,
waves will crash all around
but you will be safe in my arms”

It seems as an eternity ago that B and I had our babies in our arms and were for them all that mattered in the world. In our arms, they felt that nothing could harm them. No storm or wave that the ocean could muster was a threat to them. As we saw them grow up, we also saw them stretching their umbilical cords to far away places where our arms could no longer protect them. Eventually the cord does break and they realize that our arms were not as strong as they once thought. And so the cycle of life continues.

As a consolation, at least the air temperature is a Spring-like 69F degrees. And with the time change coming up this weekend, we know that Spring is finally just around the corner. With the change in season, we also know that the weather becomes rather unsettled and that same ocean becomes alive with potential for even bigger storms, at least until autumn. Perfect time to have some strong arms protecting us, our home and our readers, from what this, sometimes not so peaceful ocean, can come up with.

This too shall pass. It will be sunny again tomorrow!

Note: To listen “In Your Arms” click on the link.

Learn to live like a zillionaire!

2008-03-04T18:55:00.003-05:00

For only $29.95 I will send you the secrets of how to live the glamorous AARP lifestyle today! If you send the $29.95 within 15 minutes, I will also throw in an instruction booklet on how to look like an AARP, even if you still have years to go!

If I could increase my readership to more than just two (or three) readers, I too could become a billionaire like the ones on TV! $29.95 at a time.

Let me explain.

One of the privileges of the AARP lifestyle, is that it gives you plenty of time to linger on the different TV channels as you click searching for something worth watching. It doesn’t cease to amaze me that so many of the Infomercials try to appeal to those that want to make a quick buck and live rich forever after. Interview clips of common folks that were also doubtful and are now millionaires, loudly send the message that anybody can do it. “I was unemployed with three children at home and now make $30,000 a month, by simply following the advice in” such and such video or book, says one woman. A carpenter says that he had no idea on how to use the Internet, and now profits from it with his own online businesses and lives sipping piña coladas outside of his beach estate.

After a few minutes of watching the “testimonies”, you almost feel guilty about being so skeptical or dumb for not taking advantage of such a unique opportunity, before everyone else jumps on the bandwagon.

Presenters promise to give you their inner secrets of how they made their millions by buying real estate for pennies or no money-down, and selling for huge figures, just at the right time. Or by creating “10 Websites” that practically “sell themselves”, and the only thing to do is collect the money at the end of the month.

Is almost like a religious campaign: to embrace it, you have to pay; rejecting it means going strait to hell, or poverty in this case. But, how can I get a taste of it, without contributing to the sellers with my donations? Well, as it turns out, I got an opportunity to do just that last weekend while in Durham for a couple of days. One of my in-laws loves to support all those types of schemes, hoping, like everyone else, to “make it big one day”. This particular book was filled with lots of anecdotes about how successful entrepreneurs, have gone from rags to riches in just a few weeks by following some simple advice and doing their simple homework.

Scanning the whole book, I didn’t find a single “gem” of information which I didn’t already know. But in reality, the chances of finding banks willing to “sell” you foreclosed properties with zero down, just for having a good credit score, are closed to nil. If such bargains were truly available, the common investor would have to fight tooth and nail with the bankers themselves, realtors or anyone else the bank would deem with enough Cash Flow to make this transaction worth their while. But of course, the book’s argument is exactly that most people don’t chase these opportunities for being so incredulous. And if I wanted to learn about the real gems, I would have to attend the next available “seminar” at a city near me. I was almost convinced!

Being AARP, I have also learned a little about earning a buck. In my lifetime I have even managed to owned a few pieces of real estate and a small business. After reading and watching some of these schemes on TV, I now think that I have found the true source of real wealth. The source of real wealth is to claim that you have the key to richness and wealth, and that you’d be happy to share that with those willing to fork out $29.95 for your book, and $399.95 for your seminar. What didn’t I think of that earlier?

So, to my two readers, please send me $29.95 and I’ll tell you the secrets of the AARP lifestyle –filled with many true gems-. But don’t delay, the AARP lifestyle doesn’t last forever, I got to make some real money quick!

Today is "Election" Day

2008-02-24T19:37:00.007-05:00

If you can call that an “election”. Cuba’s National Assembly is meeting today to decide who will follow Fidel as the supreme leader of Cuba. His dominance over Cuba was just about to qualify for AARP status in a few months from now, so the surprising fact is that Fidel actually is stepping down before reaching such a big milestone. He probably hasn’t been reading this blog to be aware of all the benefits of AARP membership. That, and the fact that the first letter of AARP stands for “American” so he figured that the Cuban “revolution” would probably not qualify for the coveted status.

The question for all of us Cuban-Americans, and I’m sure also for Cubans everywhere and on the Island, is whether anything will change with the new leadership. Many argue that it’s just a new name in the same pedigree and that nothing will change until Fidel is truly out of the picture. Others more optimistically, hope for this to be the beginning of improved relations with the exiled community and democratic reforms on the island. Only time will tell.

Being a card-holding AARP member myself, and having left Cuba when I was just a few months old, to me Fidel is synonymous with Cuba. Like many other Cuban-born individuals of my generation, I was raised and educated away from the homeland, and knew only in theory what my parents tried to instill in me as love for the homeland, love for the family that we left behind and the hope of some day returning to a Cuba Libre.

So now that I’m facing a possibility that in my lifetime I may be able to visit a “changed” Cuba, I’m all confused as to how to react and what to expect.

It has been a lifetime of knowing about it, just as I know about other planets in our galaxy. There, floating in space somewhere, but not accessible, at least with our current technology. So it was with Cuba. I know it is there, just 90 miles south of Key West, but so mystical and elusive that it’s as real as Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. Everywhere, but really nowhere.

What do I wish for? On the island, I hope for democracy, for liberty to ideological prisoners, for food on the tables of all Cubans, and for freedom of movement and expression. With the world at large, I hope for a peaceful transition to improved relations with all Cubans around the world and for Cubans to be able to travel freely to and from Cuba without the many impediments and restrictions we currently face. From the community of exiled Cubans, to loosen the stronghold on the jugular vein of the island and use at least one hand to reach out to our brothers and sisters across the Straits of Florida. I don’t think that’d be asking for much after a lifetime of not knowing the true meaning of the word homeland.

The icing on the cake would be to make my father’s lifetime dream a reality. To be able to drive our own car to Key West, then on a ferry for the 90 miles journey to Havana. Drive southeast through the island to arrive in Santiago de Cuba. Reach El Caney, his birthplace and home until adulthood. There, meet the few enduring siblings and the newer generations, and finally start the healing process. Like an arm that had been severed and later found, still alive. And finally, allowed to reconnect to the rest of the body where it belongs. Would that be too much asking?.

As the day is about to close, I read the results of the “elections” and get a strong feeling that my hopes may be slow in materializing and that we need to plan for a very long life if I am to witness any of these wishes during my lifetime.

The pictures: Above, sunrise today. Middle, view from living room. Bottom: view from behind the house.

Over 100 Million calls for your attention…

2008-02-18T20:26:00.006-05:00

We hadn’t seen any dolphins since we came back, but this last Saturday we had a show like no other one before it. Not to be outdone by the sea lions of Valdivia, our local dolphins decided to show up in style. There were at least two occasions where dolphins actually breached the water. At least one of those was a complete clearing of the water!. One time we saw the silhouette of three of them surfing together right under the breaking wave. We had at least 15 minutes of an uninterrupted show, and I was so mesmerized that it didn’t even occurred to me to get my camera out. It’d be too much luck to get a shot of a dolphin breaching, but at least in the video mode I’m sure I would have caught some of the activity. Maybe next time. But not today. Today has been warm (70F) but the strong southwest winds and the off and on storms are keeping the surf quite active. We have decided that dolphins just don’t show up when the surf if so rough.

As co-witnesses to the dolphin show this weekend we had our eldest son Milo and his wife which were visiting from Greensboro, NC. It’s not very often that we get to enjoy their visits. With school and work, their time is quite limited. Still, we appreciated them taking a break to be with their AARP (and soon-to-be-AARP) parents . We brought them news and pictures of his brother in Peru and caught up with all their activities since we last saw them. During their visit, we took a short drive to the Fort Macon State Park after a pizza lunch in Beaufort, at the No Name Pizza and Subs restaurant.

To me, the big reward of putting up with raising little ones and later, teenagers, is to be able to interact with them as adults. I truly enjoy engaging in deep philosophical conversations with my sons and Milo never disappoints me. This weekend he brought us a powerful documentary –he loves documentaries… a son of his father— about the Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars band which let us to conversations about how to help others. They gave B and I a white wrist rubber band with the word ONE printed on it, which is an organization chartered “to make poverty history” amongst other things. I promised to wear the band –although not very AARP—and to visit their website to learn about their goals and to determine if this is one way that we want to reach out to help others.

Their visit was short and by Sunday afternoon we were left watching out for dolphins all by ourselves. We plan to be here several more weeks, so we hope to get a few more dolphin shows between now and the time when we will be also migrating south. The remaining time will come in handy to finish some of my home repair projects in preparation for our summer renters. In addition, is time to start thinking on a strategy of how to put an end to my semi-retirement once we are settled in Miami Beach in a couple of months from now.

Thinking HOW to end my semi-retirement is really another opportunity of rethinking what the heck I want to do with the rest of my life. I have faced this question a number of times in my life. It happened several times while I was employed and unhappy about my situation at the time. A couple of times I reacted by going back to school, at least on a part-time basis. School has always been like my own personal security blanket. It’s challenging but it’s easy to follow the path and see the entire picture until graduation. Jobs are not that clear and straight lined. And with my new AARP status, selling myself to potential employers, in a new city and with an employment gap that continues to grow as I write, may prove to be yet again, another opportunity to revisit my security blanket, at least as a way to delay the inevitable. Except that this time I don’t have an employer to pay for it, so it may be challenging in more ways than one.

I am very grateful to have the luxury of at least two (or three) regular readers. There are over 100 million blogs that are calling for your attention and I know it takes effort to come back to this one from time to time. I’ll try to keep it brief and light-hearted for a quick read, but bear with me if I stray into topics that are more pertinent to me as I face our transition to our new home, new city, new community and (hopefully) new gainful employment. I’m learning that the more interesting books and blogs that I read, are those that are brutally honest and open about exactly what’s going on. Besides, with 100 million other blogs around, writing here is almost as private as writing in my own personal journal. I’m not quite there yet, but I’ll try to keep the icing to the bare minimum.

What a difference a year makes

2008-02-12T20:16:00.001-05:00

The ocean has been quite lake-like in the last couple of days. The air temperature has been on the cool side but still quite manageable reaching over 60 during the day. I say “manageable” after I see the weather predictions for many other locations around the country which today were fairing a lot colder and wetter forecasts. Amazingly the seaside weather is so unique that it is different from even just a few miles inland. For example, this morning as we were getting ready to go on our daily 5-mile walk, the TV weather report claimed that it was raining and 38F in Havelock, NC, which is just about 10 miles inland from here. Here it was very cloudy but at least 10 degrees warmer. And still it hasn’t rained all day and the temperature went clear above 60F. However I do see a change coming. The winds are picking up and the surf is definitely indicating that there might be a southwest storm on its way for us tonight.

This afternoon I went for a quick drive to the Lowes Foods grocery store in Cape Carteret. As I was driving, I noticed several indicators that Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. First, several Helium-filled red balloons bouncing with each other in front of the Petal Pushers flower shop just a couple of blocks from here. Then, as I drove just over the bridge that connects us to the mainland, there was a big sign that advised readers to “order your flowers and plants early for Valentine’s Day". Once inside the food store, the signs could not be missed: Valentine’s Day cards, red balloons everywhere, chocolate boxes, more sweets than for Halloween and then anything red that could be packaged and sold.

Valentine’s Day does bring us a lot of memories. Just a year ago B and I were the proud owners of a fairly successful flower shop in Durham, NC. The stress of Valentine’s Day began just after the New Year’s celebrations. Reading the signs of the economic factors that could affect the demand for flowers a month later, making the estimations based on which day of the week would be the busy days –higher numbers if V-day falls on a weekday, not so good if it falls on a weekend--, recruiting additional staff, securing additional work space, marketing strategy, pricing scheme, delivery vehicles, placing the flower orders, ordering vases, ribbons, balloons, mechanical parts of arrangements and everything had to be in perfect working order ready for the day. V-Day is THE DAY for flower shops. Lots of stress, but if done well, this week could put your flower business in the black for the rest of the year.

This year, I almost forgot about V-Day, and what a difference it has made. In a small way I miss the rush of planning for V-Day, and of course, I miss counting the money at the end of the week. But everything in between, I’m happy to have almost forgotten. I wish the best of success to Kathy, the current owner of our shop, and let the US economy and the average consumer continue to support the small retail businesses around the country. As for us, this is going to be a quiet, relaxed, sandy and sunny, Valentine's Day at the beach. May we have many more V-days this way.

Where to camp out?... A favorite AARP topic.

2008-02-10T16:16:00.000-05:00

The white-caps have been with us all weekend. The result of southwest winds at around 15 knots that are pushing the Atlantic Ocean waves onto the sands of Emerald Isle. Air temperatures in the 60s are still quite mild for February, but no complaints here. After three weeks out, everything seems as we left it. Knock on wood.

After two back to back overnight trips rewinding from Valdivia to Santiago to Lima, I finally caught up with B in Miami International from where we flew together to Raleigh-Durham where we had left our car. Then together with the 3-hour drive to Emerald Isle, it was a total of about 40 hours either moving or on lay-overs. The AARP bones and muscles need a little stretching after that.

At the Miami airport we caught some of the news for the day. A little politics and a lot about a terrible series of tornados and storms that had already killed over 50 people in a few states just west of here. Mother Earth is nothing to take for granted. And oftentimes calamities such as these happen so unpredictably that it’s difficult to find a spot on earth that would be safe from anything Mother Earth can dish out.

With the threat of hurricanes, you’d think that we would live in fear sleeping just a few yards from the Atlantic Ocean. But when you think about it, I’d rather have the predictability of a hurricane over the suddenness of a tornado. Even in beautiful Valdivia with it’s peaceful rivers and gorgeous views, it’s recent history shows that in 1960 it was almost completely destroyed by the Valdivia Earthquake with a magnitude of 9.6 on the Richter scale.

The topic of where to live comes up often in conversations with other AARPs. Just this weekend we were chatting with family that came to visit, about where it’d be fun to live next. We played with taking some factor out and seeing how our decisions would change. For example, we’d say: If the financial concerns were not an issue, where would you like to camp out for the next 10 years? If closeness to family was not an issue, then where? This could go on for hours. It’s almost as good a topic of conversation as talking about health and illnesses, but that’s for a more advanced AARP stage.

And the issue of natural disasters is always a factor to put in the equation. But where could we be the safest? Would it also be the most boring place on earth? How much do you weight availability of jobs or closeness to family to the potential to danger? Living in California for several years educated me that people there are aware of an impending earthquake but they seem to feel that easterners are a worrisome lot and that the price of living in the Hotel California is worth the small price. Who knows? They could be right. You could live a lifetime in between catastrophes, so why not take your chances to live in a beautiful and fun location.

The low season at the beach happens to coincide with the off season for hurricanes as well, so the best compromise might just be timing your stays according to where the weather happens to be the best for the season. Well, that’d work for hurricanes, but I’m afraid we’ll have to wait until earthquakes and tornados become more predictable or at least avoidable.

The picture at the top is the beach in Niebla near Valdivia, Chile; the tree is the common southern hemisphere tree, Araucaria; a volcano in the Lake Region of Chile; and finally the movie clip below is a pebbled beach in Lima, Peru.

Our stars are dropping like flies

2008-02-04T07:08:00.000-05:00

If you had been very, very quiet, you might have been able to hear the sound of our stars falling down like meteors brushing past the earth. We have regressed from 5-Stars in Santiago, to 2-Stars in Valdivia and are now well in the negative realm in our “cabanas” in Valdivia. Since the AARP-in-training amongst us is now not officially at work this weekend, we are saving some Chilean dollars and are paying the consequences otherwise. For one, we are right beside the only bus station in Valdivia –one that operates 24 HOURS a day, and then there were the new guests arriving in at around 3AM just as if they were strolling in the middle of the afternoon with all their uproar and loud chatting. Also, without A/C we are forced to sleep with the windows open so there is nothing shielding us from the noises and city lights. But who’s complaining? We are in Valdivia.

After a 12-hour bus ride south of Santiago we arrived in Valdivia, a small city built around several large rivers and just a few miles from the Pacific Ocean. There is a beautiful riverfront walkway, several bridges that connect the different parts of the city, and then there is the waterfront market. This market is around 100 yards long and about 15 yards wide. On the section away from the water, you can find fresh fruits, vegetables and cheeses produced nearby, and on the waterfront side you can find all the fresh fish and shellfish you could dream about, and just beyond the metal fence that borders the river at the marketplace, you get what seems to be the local aquarium or zoo. There resides a family of Sea Lions and hundreds of seabirds looking for free handouts and droppings from the fish market. The sea lions hang out on some floating platforms provided by the city and they offer a lively entertainment on their own: the dominant bull taking care of his harem and chasing away all possible competitors. They are definitely livelier than the manatees in Florida, but still there is a lot of sleeping and eating going on.

With all the seafood available, Valdivia is a seafood eater’s paradise and we have sampled our share of fish and seafood to last us a year. I even went to the extreme of buying a piece of freshly smoked salmon to chew on while watching the fishermen prepare the catch of the day for display and sale --a little disturbing if you think about it-. During the middle part of the day, it is so hot (~90F today), that most everyone finds the shade of a lush tree near the river and just drop away until the end of the day. Sun sets around 10PM so there is plenty of time during the day to feel lethargic and spend most of its hours either sleeping or eating. I think the sea lions have it just right.

Day, evening or night, we continue to walk around the rivers and sitting in the plazas but there is one beast that could make the whole experience miserable. However we have yet to feel the annoying buzz of our familiar mosquitoes from back home. So their absence is making our experience with the negative-star hotels at least bearable. That, and the thought that soon we’ll be bicycling to the post office in the middle of a North Carolina winter once again.

Get depressed globally; Live locally

2008-01-30T11:35:00.000-05:00

It just takes a few minutes of CNN on TV to get me down from La La Land to realize the world keeps spinning even if I’m not paying attention or worrying about it. But worry about it I must, at least for the few minutes a week that I watch the news on TV. Our president had his last State of the Union address of his presidency and this makes seven that I missed. In a way I’m glad I missed this one because things didn’t sound overwhelmingly exciting back home and I’m not sure the president was persuasive enough to give people fuzzy feelings about the future either.

I know that at some point I’m going to have to end my “temporary retirement”, but when I hear the news about the global economy and how it may be affected by the US economy, the AARP bones start to shiver. And worse yet, some of the local economies in the US are doing worse than others and Miami seems to be on the bad camp of that equation. That combined with my AARP status, I’m sure that the next phase of our lives is going to be challenging. I may be forced to take the “temporary” part out of my retirement, now, that would be a pity. Enough worrying about this for the time being, I just have to take it, one Taco Bell at a time.

Keeping things downbeat, Santiago is mostly good, but there are a couple of things that we have noticed that may be some of the negatives of being such a progressive city. There seems to be at lot more cigarette smoking in the general population, although smokers for the most part respect the indoors and seem to pick after themselves. Also, maybe related to the existence of Taco Bells, there seems to be a little or should I say a larger girth around the waists of the general population. Maybe not only due to Taco Bell but because of the availability of a lot of cars and buses for easy transport. Lastly, maybe also related to the number of vehicles running on fossil fuel, there seems to be a haze or smog that keeps the views of the gorgeous mountains that surround the city out of sight. It could be some other environmental factor, but I have a feeling the burning of fuel plays at least a contributory factor on that.

I know my two (or is it three?) readers don’t want to read about such depressive topics, otherwise they’d simply turn their own CNN, so I’ll try to keep this blog on the lighter side of life to keep their interest and loyalty.

One way my son and I are “keeping it real”, is by watching reruns of the Simpsons on DVDs. I am learning that The Simpsons are only “good” from Seasons 5 to 11, and that beyond Season 12 the shows started to go down hill –Did you know that?-- And then there is Seinfeld. They did manage to end the show at their peak, so all seasons available are good, or is it “bad” or “phat”, I don’t know, this is definitely not AARP lingo, I’m just trying to get more hip (read: less AARP) to keep up with present company.

Nevertheless, I don’t need to mention where lunch is going to be today, and one of us is not going to be all that happy unless they have fish tacos. We’ll see.

Sir, step away from the source!

2008-01-30T11:31:00.000-05:00

This card-holding AARP is feeling a lot better now after a couple of days of G.I. squishiness which I thought I could blame on my AARP status, but more than likely is just paying the consequences of getting just a tad closer to “the source” than I needed to be. One step back for mankind, but the struggle must continue.

Traveling is indeed a curious life experience. It’s like a little drug that enhances many of the human emotions. But it does that to both the good ones and the bad ones. We often tell our friends that are considering marriage, that you can learn more about your partner and your likelihood to survive a long-term relationship, by traveling together for just a couple of weeks. If you wanted to test whether you can compromise on the type of food you’re having for your next meal, the time of the day that that meal should become available and at what price, then what better opportunity to test for that three times a day, for fourteen days in a row? Then there is the, “I want to go to a museum” and your partner prefers “shopping”. Or you are a nature freak and your partner is a city-dweller. Or how about you are an early riser and your partner loves sleeping in, specially on vacation. The opportunities to test your flexibility and ability to compromise are endless.

Like most things in life, it’s all about your expectations. And if you expect your few weekend days to be fun-filled and your partner decides to get a G.I. bug just as the weekend begins, well, that just adds to the test of your flexibility and compromising abilities. Chile has not being immune to that tension for us, but luckily having so much experience surviving these tense episodes in the past, we managed to readjust our expectations and did not end up ruining the rest of the trip. And the advice to others thinking about a long-term relationship is still valid: plan a vacation trip even before you invest in that engagement ring. It’ll be worth it either way.

Son and I are finding Santiago to be more like another city in an industrialized European country than what we expected as a capital city in South America. Santiago is so clean --less litter than on Emerald Isle trails-- and quiet –hardly any car horns are heard-- that you forget that this is not a national park but a city of 6 million. Pedestrians are respected to such a degree that you can almost jump blindly on to the streets without any fears; where else can you do that without ending in the E.R.? The public transportation is reliable, fast, safe and inexpensive. People are polite and courteous. Of course, is probably easier if you speak Spanish, but I’m sure they’d be the same to tourists from anywhere. And one of the best things, according to my son, is that we found a Taco Bell, in a mall nearby. We weren’t hungry when we found it, but I hope they do fish tacos otherwise my search for the fish source has come to a major halt starting today.

This collage shows some of the sights from Santiago. The LED sign with the 0452 indicates the number of parking spaces available in real time –what a concept?-

Exposure to the non-AARP way of thinking

2008-01-25T22:10:00.001-05:00

One of the “privileges” of male AARP membership seems to be the reduced production of testosterone to a level that allows us to think freely about something other than sex and women. It’s not coming as a surprise to me but this week of bonding with my son on the streets of Lima and Santiago has become a vivid reminder that in our twenties, reproduction, and the process that lead to that, is a huge part of what motivates us to live and breath. I’m not admitting here that I’m dead, or anything like that (don’t worry Mom). God knows that I still show a pulse every day of the week, but this new freedom has allowed me to explore other interests in life, work, hobbies and maybe even now to express myself through blogging.

So, which city has the most beautiful (young) women? The jury is still out –and diligently working, as if life on earth depended on it— but I’m sure we’ll toil this week at answering that puzzling dilemma of all ages. I do have a working hypothesis however, something to do with “beauty being on the eye of the beholder”. After two years in the wilderness of Cusco, my companion is mesmerized with the diversity of sights in the big city and being the middle of summer, the revealing and enticing fashions leave even the most testosterone depleted AARP male, vulnerable to dangerously elevated heart-rates. And what is a father to do? Keep my shades on but DO NOT TURN my head in any way, shape or form even if told that the one walking by happens to be “the most beautiful” woman yet.

I know that with my new testosterone levels I’ll have no trouble focusing on more AARP-type of endeavors. And Chile having over 1,000 miles of coastline, seafood is probably even more important than it is in Peru. So, I’ll continue searching for those that control the fish in the Pacific Ocean to learn from them and share experiences. The Santiago Central Market today had endless stalls of fresh fish that we viewed as we walked by, and then sat down at a nearby restaurant to sample some of Chilean-style seafood preparations.

Getting closer to the (fish) source

2008-01-22T10:50:00.000-05:00

This week we are “hanging out” with our youngest son Erick in Lima (Peru). So, while the Mom works, Dad and son are spending good quality time during the day.

Most of our day is spent searching for the finest --not necessarily the most expensive-- source of ceviche and the many other expressions of the Peruvian cuisine. The main ingredient of ceviche being fresh fish –I was going to say “raw” fish but Erick corrected me to say “fish cooked with the acids of lime juice”--, knowing that the flesh was just recently a twitching fish muscle, makes me feel even more in touch with the source itself. The main ingredient of ceviche is indeed ‘fresh’ fish, mixed with finely cut red onions, chiles, cilantro and lots of lime juice. The end product is ceviche*, which is a delicious, tender, spicy concoction that makes your eyes tear with the experience. The liquid part they called ‘leche de tigre’ (tiger’s milk) and is sometimes served separately in a small cup by the side. Bottom line, if you don't like "fish flavors" no need to apply.

Ceviche is quite an important part of the local diet and as you can see from the pictures, we’re not having any trouble finding new outlets of this finest of feasts. My counterparts in the Pacific Ocean are doing a darn good job at keeping their fish under control, and it shows.

Erick has been living the "single guy in his twenties" life in Cusco for the last two years and is enjoying himself so much that we don’t see a way to entice him to return closer to home any time soon. Can’t say that I blame him. I give him credit for his resourcefulness and ability to create the life he has chosen for himself. And at the same time he is building his own repertoire of skills (Peruvian cuisine, sales, Spanish, thriftiness), which will come in handy as he approaches his AARP years. In one of our conversations he expressed his feeling of satisfaction and sense of worth when his employer (SAS travel) has come to rely on his services and abilities to make an impact in the local economy. Isn’t that what we all want? To be appreciated and to feel that our contributions make a difference? If all employers could figure this out, they’d have a much happier and stable workforce.

We left Emerald Isle during the middle of winter and are now in the middle of summer in the Southern hemisphere. Even though the air temperature is not higher than in the 80s, it feels quite warm in comparison. The only consolation is to look at the Yahoo Weather Website to keep reminding me that bicycle trips to the post office would be rather painful this time of the year. Still, we’ll continue on the search of the best ceviche in town and if we fail to succeed, at least the lining of our stomachs would not have suffered in vain.

*NOTE: The Godfather asked what's in the picture of the ceviche pictured at the top? Clockwise from the piece of line: Seaweed, fried fish, scallop showing some of the leche de tigre", brownish kernels, fried green plaintain, sweet potato (orange), more plaintain, yellow/white kernel. In the center of the plate is more of the seaweed covering the main event, the Ceviche. The second picture shows another rendition of the ceviche. The four "sticks" to the right are pieces of yucca and the four sticks to the left are of sweet potato.