Hope for Haiti?

Haiti, if I may be so bold, is a lost cause. Some people just haven’t realized it yet.

Despite it currently being quite fashionable I must dissent and say Haiti will likely never, ever get better. I don’t say this simply to be contrarian – I like agreeing with people. I don’t say it because I dislike the Haitian people – I have no strong feelings for them either way. And I certainly don’t say it because I eschew foreign aid – indeed it’s because I so strongly believe in the benefit of foreign aid that I raise the issue. Were international charity and giving a bottomless trough of endless resources, sure, I would say, give to Haiti. They are not, however, and every dollar, euro, or yen spent somewhere is another pound, krone, or ruble not spent somewhere else. In this sense Haiti is more than just a lost cause; it is a black hole of limited resources. 

To begin, Haiti’s neighbor: the Dominican Republic. It is poor, underdeveloped, undereducated, underappreciated, and lives with much the same historical legacy of colonialism and corruption that Haiti does. In fact those with more than an American sense of geography will even note they share the same island in the same spot in the middle of the Caribbean. Yet despite their similar weaknesses over the past few decades they’ve both gone in dramatically different directions and now consequentially enjoy dramatically different presents. No one talks about saving the Dominican Republic. 

Back to Haiti. Since our actions in the present should be guided at least in part by prospects for the future let us focus on Haiti’s current chances for sustainability. A nation’s economy is not the only indicator or even the best indicator of wellbeing, of course, but an economy – any economy – is an essential part of its foundation for wellbeing. Without some semblance of substantive commerce health, education, development, and consequently happiness are all retarded. In light of this the developing world’s major economic advantage over the developed world, and what will largely allow the developing world to save itself, is its possession of a large, cheap, manual labor force with limited regulation. From this perspective Haiti has got it good. Situated close to the US, the most consumeryist consumer nation on the planet, they arguably have most the third world competitive advantages. Looking closer, however, the advantages are only skin deep for were you to want to do business in Haiti you’d run into some obstacles. To do business in Haiti you’d have to import your raw materials to a port and road system in disrepair using gasoline often in short supply to enable a largely illiterate workforce speaking a language spoken nowhere else using an unreliable electrical supply, an unclean water supply, and an undeveloped healthcare infrastructure to make a product that will be grossly overpriced and once again need shipment via broken roads and inefficient ports to countries that can likely buy the same goods elsewhere cheaper all while negotiating what is considered one of the most corrupt and least law abiding states in the world. And the Dominican Republic’s just right across the border. The end result? It ain’t cheap to do business in Haiti. The cost for us of a “decent” hotel room? $100. The cost of a 4 hour drive between towns? $150 not counting gas. The cost of a meal of goat and plantains and coke? $15. Why then would anyone want to do business with Haiti? How then can Haiti ever be free?

Back to the Dominican Republic. Developing nations have other strengths, however: agriculture, tourism, a tenacious population to name a few. With regards to the DR: yes, yes, yes. With regards to Haiti...? Unfortunately deforestation, soil erosion, and general mismanagement have led to a greater harvest of seasonal mudslides than any appreciable agricultural export. Unfortunately expressionless stares and a foreign tongue in a post-apocalyptic wasteland no matter how tropical don’t do much for tourists when manufactured smiles and a familiar language are right next door. And unfortunately the prevalent brain drain combined with one of the highest birth rates in the Western hemisphere guarantee only an ever increasing population with fewer and fewer capable leaders. Western aid makes up almost two-thirds of the national budget and a large percentage of the economy. This is not sustainable, and when the spigots run dry what will happen? When the population increases but the number of jobs and total arable land remains stagnant what will take place? When another populist election funded entirely by donation comes to pass, who will lead?

I think the most striking aspect of Haiti which makes me give up hope is the thoroughness of its poverty. I have been to a number of poor countries: Mexico, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, India and in all of these places there has been the poor, but there has also been, however small, an upper class and, more importantly, a middle class. There has also been a spectrum of poverty such that there was always the sense that there was at least something better that could potentially be obtained. In Haiti, however, outside the private gated communities of the affluent elite there is only a homogeneous lack. The only class seems to be the lower class. There is undoubtedly some difference between the very poor and the super poor, but it is a difference that if anything only heightens the sense of despair.

Immediately after leaving Haiti I flew to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where I stayed at the Marriot Harbor Beach Resort and Spa to attend a medical conference. It was as big a contrast of wealth and poverty as you can get made all the more striking by the fact that a number of the workers and staff there were Haitian. I attended meetings in overly air conditioned banquet halls, lounged along overly manicured poolsides, and ate and drank more calories than I could ever need to burn. Only a few hundred miles away I had been sweating, working, and living in a whole other world. Perhaps in light of all this excess and wealth any money sent to Haiti, even if used inefficiently or wasted, is worth it. Perhaps when we’re spending thousands on luxury it’s missing the point to argue about the few dollars misspent alleviating poverty. I don’t know, but until Haiti shows promise or my robot heart shows softening I’ll be sending my box tops elsewhere. Polio anyone?

 

Crippling need aside, here’re photos!

* In case it were not automatically readily clear, these are my opinions and my opinions alone. I don’t know how my travelling companions feel about Haiti. I never asked them. I suppose they’d have nice things to say.

There Are No Puffin in Maine

Puffin are little tiny birds that live in the North Pole and can only be seen by Eskimos. They are also a delicious cereal. They do not, however, despite claims to the contrary, seem to exist in Maine. I had never before considered what it would be to see a puffin in person, and would never before have claimed to have wanted to do so, but then I moved to New Hampshire which apparently is next door to Maine, and that's where I was told puffin hang out, like, all the time. Now I had to see one. Capture and befriend one if possible. Forget moose, there're itty bitty flightless birds up here! They are flightless right? And grant wishes?

That was the plan at least. Kristen and I ventured up to Boothbay Harbor, Maine, this last weekend nominally in search of a charming bed and breakfast, but secretly to abscond with a magical sea parrot. Unfortunately it turns out they only seem to manifest in late spring and early summer in these parts of the planet so we failed. That should come as no great surprise considering puffin are probably as real as the chupacabra -- made up beasts to keep children in line. "Eat your soup or the puffin will get you!" What was perhaps more of a surprise, though, was that there are apparently no people in Maine either. March is still the off season for tourism in the area as it is typically still encased in snow and prowling with blood thirsty snow men, and so the town of Boothbay Harbor is still in the hands of a caretaker government consisting of a pair of snowbirds too old to migrate and a swarthy sea captain who just can't quit the sea. The town was sparsely populated during the day and all but abandoned at night. We could have looted the place at will had we only thought to bring a larger car. Seeing as off season also means cheap season though we went anyway, and it was great.

We stayed at the Welch House Inn, affectionately known, we imagined, as the Wench House Inn by the locals, and it was amazing. For $90 a night we had a beautiful room, a gorgeous view of the harbor, a tasty breakfast, a cozy gas fireplace, and a whirlpool bath. The owner was exceedingly friendly and helpful and made a delicious Gypsy Eggs Benedict which was both the first time I'd eaten Eggs Benedict and the first time I'd eaten gypsy. The whole experience was as I would expect a bed and breakfast experience to be were I to have ever before considered a bed and breakfast. I am not sure any other B&B will be able to compete now; we will forever be bed and breakfast snobs.

Tour guides say Maine is the land of lighthouses and that is true. Just look at our pictures -- they're stacked like dominoes. But Maine is also just as much the land of toll booths and toll ways as it seems you cannot drive on any highway without being asked for a dollar. As a man that prides himself on his supply of quarters he carries (I sometimes have to drive a toll road for work), I was quickly quarterless. Thankfully Kristen had an assortment of loose change scattered throughout her purse and we did not have to resort to offering the contents of my glove compartment in barter. I suspect the majority of the nation’s quarters are currently residing in Maine thanks to their toll booths, and I have a suspicion it is secretly feeding an underground pinball economy. 

Anyways, for those who have not been to Maine here is a summary. It is rocky. There are a lot of lighthouses because of said rocks. People say "wicked" a lot. Oh, and lobster.

Montreal en Lumiere

This last weekend I went to Montreal with Kristen for the annual winter festival. For those not in the know, which is I am guessing everyone south of the Canadian border, Montréal en Lumière is a yearly food and arts fair for those more cultured than myself. This year's theme was Belgium and so they had a variety of expensive Belgian food we largely did not partake in. But we did have Belgian waffles. Sweet, delicious, chocolate filled Belgian waffles. No doubt just like the Belgians make.

Montreal's about a three and a half hour drive from Lebanon, and it's a fairly beautiful one at that. The Northeast Kingdom, a green hilly feudal area I believe run by hobbits, is very picturesque and Southern Quebec though largely flat farmland is punctuated by mountains that emerge periodically from the country side, climb rapidly into the air, and then descend back into the flat plains just as quickly again. You'll have to take my word for this, though, we didn't take any pictures.

But we did take a picture at the border! It was a small crossing and so small in fact that the Canadians did not care to put much in the way of a welcoming banner around it. Just a sign at a largely abandoned rest stop.

Montreal is a beautiful city and Old Montreal is especially so. Although there's a fairly efficient metro system it's perhaps better to walk if the distance is not too far just to see the city. We got in Saturday afternoon and immediately headed for the festival. After redirecting ourselves in the proper direction about twenty minutes later we headed for the festival again. The fair grounds were a collection of random colored lights, plastic domes to keep warm when it got too cold (and which had their own random collections of random colored lights inside but otherwise served no real purpose), a Ferris wheel, bonfires, and a giant ice slide that unfortunately had a two hour wait. It was my only regret.

Things got a little crazy at times like when they played a trippy, psychedelic video short on the wall of one of the nearby buildings, and a little rowdy at times when the Canadians spontaneously broke out into dance during the free concert by a French Canadian band later in the evening. Belgian waffles aside, we also had some poutine which is Quebec's contribution to the culinary world. Seriously, though, I cannot get the video short out of my head. Or my nightmares.

Much of the rest of the city was beautifully lit up as well, and we took pictures of some of it, but you're going to have to use your imagination for the most part. I was told by Kristen that much of it looked like Boston so, you know, if you've been to Boston before it's kind of like that but with more Frenchmen. The next day we tried to go to the biodome, but there was over a one hour wait in way too sweaty a line so we hiked over to the Montreal history museum instead. That's when our camera died, and when we'll say the trip ended. After a very long wait at the border to get back into the US. I'm pretty sure I've smuggled Mexicans across the border in less time than it took to get back into New Hampshire. It's good to know that part of the border is safe, though. From the terrorists and their flannel.

Pictures!

Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time

This Christmas there were no children. In that respect it was sad.

This Christmas, however, there were zombies. And in that respect it was awesome.

All I want to talk about are the zombies.

The board game, Last Night on Earth, is a relatively complex game based around the relatively simple concept of brain eating zombies wanting to eat your brains. You can either be the brain possessing heroes or the brain craving zombies. The heroes have the advantage of various guns, clubs, and special traits while the zombies have the advantage of being numberless and relentless.

Round 1. Team Hero: Adam/Ellen. Team Zombie: Scooter/Ashlee.
The first game was a disaster for the zombies of their own design. The goal for the heroes was simply: kill a lot of zombies. The goal for the zombies was simply: eat some brains and don't get killed too much. And the zombies did quite well at first eating their first brain only two or three turns in. Worried that the heroes were holing up at the police station setting up a rowdy defense the zombies then decided upon the unorthodox plan of a strategic retreat thinking that time would run down before the heroes could kill enough of them to win then game. It turns out zombies don't usually run away because zombies aren't very good at it. The game ended when after the heroes loaded up on a variety of weapons the zombies didn't know existed they then proceeded to hunt down and execute a sufficient number of the poor, defenseless fleeing undead to declare victory. It was mass zombicide; war crimes were committed. 


Round 2. Team Hero: Scooter and Ashlee. Team Zombie: Adam.
Second game involved finding gasoline and a fire source to burn out all the zombie spawning points. The heroes for whatever reason spent most their time collecting awesome weapons, however, and eventually the time ran out. It turns out gasoline is a little hard to find in a run down, zombie infested wasteland, and it doesn't help when the zombies proactively guard the gas station. Make up your minds zombies: do you want brains or petrol?


Round 3. Team Hero: Adam and Ashlee. Team Zombie: Scooter.
The objective of the third round was to escape in the truck after finding the keys and some gas. Despite finding both practically strapped with a bow wrapped tightly around their faces the heroes still had a difficult time getting all the gear to the truck. The zombies succeeded in eating a number of the heroes, but this coincidentally led to their undoing because it turns out for every human you eat another one rises up in its place. Or more exactly in the middle of the game board right where the blasted truck is. Despite their being a dozen zombies on the truck with them -- and the corpses of a few of their friends -- the heroes managed to make it out of town at the very last moment.



Round 4. Team Hero: Scooter and Ashlee. Team Zombie: Adam.
Last game all the heroes needed to do was find four towns folk and then hustle their butts out of town. They performed swimmingly. They all quickly bound together at the gun shop, loaded up on weapons and obscene amounts of dynamite that no one had previously known were available, and then proceeded to blow the every loving bejeesus out of the zombies. Along the way they quickly collected their needed townsfolk and simply waited for dawn when they'd all stroll casually out of town leaving the city nothing but a smoldering crater of zombie parts. Unfortunately it turns out the zombies had the trump card of trump cards and the very last turn played it resulting in one of the four townsfolk running off to join the circus or some garbage like that thus leading to zombie victory. Stupid, dirty, cheating zombies.



Just so my Christmas story isn't entirely about the evil reanimation of the dead, let me say that we also went to a terrible Christmas carol opera in San Francisco and then ate a month's worth of chocolate at Ghirardellis. It's what baby Jesus would have wanted.  


It's toe lickin' time!

A Few Random Photos

A random assortment of pictures.


This is my apartment. As you can see it looks like every other apartment that has ever been mass produced in the standardized manner. You can tell my generic apartment apart from the others because it of all the dirt outside and the paneling which is a creamy beige, not the usual creamy toap. If you are wondering what the inside looks like, just think of your standard apartment and then put my stuff in it. It's really pretty boring.




A storm is a brewing! Long before Irene there were regular rain storms. They sometimes looked like this.



Here's the road and bike path leading up to the hospital which is, as so many things are up here, obscured by trees. Although I do not take this road to the hospital myself, it is the best looking of all commuting road options. Plus one day while biking it I saw a woodchuck running along the path. A gigantic woodchuck.

 This is where I imagine the giant woodchuck lived. On a giant rock in one of the scenic clearings you can find mountain biking the wilderness.

This is just a picture of Megan running with sparklers on the Fourth of July. What could be better than two sparklers at once? Truly she is a lucky girl.

The road to my apartment. Old, cracked, and a major black bear thoroughfare.

The parking lot outside my apartment. Usually there're a lot more turkeys. 

Here's comes the wintertime! And a frozen solid automobile.

And in conclusion here's a link!

Thirty-Four Hours Later (Mexico to New Hampshire)

Patrick and I drove for what very well may have been forever. I haven’t added it all up yet. We crossed over 2,000 miles and drove through what must have been 400 different states. The last few hundred miles of which, it should be noted, were on small town country roads which are not particularly suitable for overladen U-Hauls with trailers attached. For all the talk of America being a patchwork of different and distinct communities and environments it all seemed to run together to me. Texas was dry and flat. In Arkansas trees began showing up. Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio were just more trees. And in New York mountains were added. And I guess in Vermont we started seeing signs warning of moose crossing, but we saw no meese. We had no schedule to start with and it quickly became evident that even winging it would require a fair amount of improvisation. The end string of events which we’ll call a plan consisted of a late start from San Antonio followed by a late arrival in Little Rock where we stayed at my good friend Trent’s family’s place. After waffles for dinner and waffles for breakfast we had another late start and decided, heck with sleep and time tables, let’s just drive until we puke. Or fall asleep and drive off a mountain pass, whatever the typical end result of driving more than humans were ever intended to drive. This led to dinner in Nashville that same day, a semi-delirious midnight drive through Ohio on my part, a completely unarousable period of sleep where I’m told Beeders drove through more of Ohio, lunch in some random Vermont town whose name I can no longer remember, and, finally, a reasonable arrival into Lebanon about 54 hours later. It is conceivable according to Google Maps that if we had driven continuously without eating, worn spaceman adult diapers, received inflight refueling by military aircraft, and somehow pole vaulted over all the mountain towns of New York and Vermont we could have done it in 34 hours, but I believe that has only been successfully completed once before by people far more industrious than us. Perhaps the Japanese. So all in all I got to say not bad. If there’s ever a national U-Haul racing circuit I think Patrick and I just very well may place. Maybe go semi-pro.

And now for a Beeder photo montage...

Pre-trip. Patrick wanted nothing but the finest of food on this adventure. So I took him to Rudy's. I think he liked it. Or we should never trust his thumbs up ever again.

Although the theme for this photo slide show adventure is "places Patrick ate," I felt we needed a picture of our crammed U-Haul + crammed MINI. In the sense that a MINI can be crammed at least.

First stop. The Czeck Stop! I was never truly a full convert to the cult of kolache during my time at Texas A&M (I will always love myself some donuts), but I did have to admit these kolaches were pretty great. And so I made Beeders eat some.

Beeders has kolache poisoning. He later gained 5 lbs and then woke up.

In the middle of Vermont. (I think I lost my picture at Coco's Italian restaurant in Nashville, the best restaurant.) This place had "spiedies" which were... I guess messy sandwiches? It was connected to a tire shop so they may just have been heavily sauced, bread wrapped vulcanized rubber scraps for all I know.

Lou's in Hanover. Good hamburgers. I approve. Patrick approves. Everybody approves.

First night in New Hampshire: Ramunto's Brick Oven Pizza! Made by robots in cast iron baking vaults. Although it was attached to a building made of brick, the only bricks actually in the joint were placed there by accident. Or as props. That said our super garlic pizza was pretty good.

Lastly: breakfast at Ace's Diner in Lebanon. The inside of this place was great, like a giant classic diner stereotype, and the food was tasty. Patrick on the other hand was not amused. Or just not happy that I was about to ship his butt off to Boston on a bus.

In the end the drive was long, but not too long. It was boring, but not too boring. The trailer amazingly never unhitched and the truck amazingly never exploded. Patrick forgave me for the bus ticket, and I think overall he had a reasonable time. He tells me such at least. He may just be saying that to practice his diplomacy as an aspiring ambassador, though. Perhaps he's secretly developing a covert nuclear weapons program. In either case, I appreciated his help and I'd be more than happy to provide him with fissile material should ever the need arise.

Turkeys

Had Thanksgiving at Team Crabtree's place last week. It was, mostly, delicious, and the time was, mostly, a good time. Wanted to share a few pictures. And hate on a dog.

First, the board. The central hub of organization and scheduling. Why Adam and Ashley have a gigantic white marker board I am not entirely sure, but it came in handy when we finally started preparing dinner at 1100. Plus how else would we have remembered to dress Spanky the Chihuahua?

Second, the fixins. After hours of labor -- Ashley's not mine -- we finally had ourselves some food. From top going clockwise we have the cooked parts of the turkey, the less cooked carcass of the turkey, "rolls", my attempt at some sort of candied yam thing, some tasty stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, creamed corn soup, and a ceramic bird full of gravy. All in all a good dinner aside from a continuous background chorus compliments of Sparky the Chihuahua.


And, lastly, the what the hell is this? If you guessed Nerf football cut in half and placed in a Pyrex baking dish you would be only partially correct. For reasons unknown squash was on the menu until a prolonged bake yielded this. A very comfortable bike seat. Due to unforeseen complications in preparation the squash was ditched in favor of eating Patsy the Chihuahua instead.

For more Thanksgiving photos including pictures of Cupcake the Corgi, Sushi the... some sort of dog, and Spunky the Chihuahua; check it out! The rest of the weekend was spent playing video games. Just as the Pilgrims did back in 1776.

A Teeny Tiny Place Called Home

Photo Safari!

This is a picture tour of my new apartment at The Vistana. It's located immediately adjacent to Christus Santa Rosa and El Mercado downtown, and is currently home to about 32 other tenants and 13 hobos. The objective of the tour is to catch all the Pokemon.

(click on the photos for extra super huge mode.)




So... say you were to walk through the front door of my apartment. It might look something like this.


Excited yet?

If you were to immediately turn around you'd probably then see this.



Nice.

Now supposing, just supposing, you had turned around on a slightly different axis you would have seen this.



My that chair looks pretty relaxing. And a coat rack slash hat holder? Brilliant.

Here's my kitchen. Or at least the part of it I could merge into one photo without it getting all wonky.




That white box has been there for about 2 weeks now. I have absolutely no idea why I have not moved it especially seeing as how it annoys the crap out of me every time I go into the kitchen. The box aside, though, as you can see I have some lovely black appliances to distract from the fact that I don't have a single drawer wide enough to stash my silverware.

Now if you were to keep moving by, say, oh six or eight inches you would now see this.



My kitchen table now sits three, but seeing as that is two more than it typically ever needs to sit that's just fine. Plus one chair has ready access to the dishwasher. Convenience is a must!

Turning 90 degrees to the right and...



My bathroom. With a hangboard on top of it. Does it go there? Probably not. Was there any other place for it? Certainly not.

Inching into the bathroom you see the antrum of the washroom itself.



Phenomenal. The laundry basket may or may not end up being a permanent fixture there depending on whether I can find somewhere else to squeeze a big yellow laundry basket.

A little wider angle now.




So we got some teals, we got some green, some cherry, some tan. Does it work? Maybe a little bit. This is as good as it gets people.

And at the distal end of my washatorium is the toilet.



What a lovely toilet. Unfortunately there was no room for a bidet.

And of course the shower itself.




The pressure is terrible, but I like my new shower mats. I wish more things were made of wood. This apartment would go from "pretty good" status to "pretty great" status pretty easily if there was just more wood. (that's what she said.)

Having completed the bathroom subtour we head back out.



Goodbye bathroom.

Skipping the kitchen we get to the living room/bedroom/office.




Much like the big white box and yellow laundry basket I really do not have the slightest clue as to what to do with the giant fish. As such its place of rest generally rotates between the bed or the couch depending on which I want to use at the time. In other words, its sole purpose at this point is to inconvenience me. I am taking suggestions though.

Now here's the bed/office from a slightly different angle.




You cannot appreciate it, but the bed, desk, and book shelf are pretty much all wedged together. I think it's a masterful use of space. And possibly a fire hazard.

Here's the window.



I am contemplating adding my hanging garden baskets to either end of the window and possibly even screwing in the window baskets below the window itself. Perhaps that will be plant overload, though.

Here's a Psyduck.



And the living room all altogether now.




Breathtaking. Simply breathtaking. The little picture gallery isn't completely done, and, yes, one of the pictures is upside down, but it's pretty spectacular nonetheless. Even from a distance. Note now the hand crafted coffee table constructed from American pine, refurbished couch with throw pillows imported from India, individually blown glass candle holders created in Greece, and a state of the art 19-inch television entertainment center with DVR. Truly this is lofty living indeed.

Quick look back at the kitchen!



Yeah the kitchen light is partially obstructed by the huge metal air conditioning duct -- yet another way in which this place was not designed terribly intelligently -- but too much light just makes bananas go brown anyway.

Here's the kitchen with the lights off!



The picture sucks, but I threw some Christmas lights atop the cabinets seeing as how there's enough space to support a small family of five up there and this is what it looks like. Amazing -- take my word for it.

And done. Didn't think the tour would ever end? I didn't either. There was just so much to see. Man what a blast.

So who got the Jigglypuff? and the Wigglytuff? and the Kookookachu?