Book Notes:

Random:

Plans are just another word for ideas on the shelf.

Piracy is effectively the lowest tier of price discrimination.

Middle class: not serfs or warrior aristocracy; supported selves by creating wealth they can keep.

1. Why Nerds Are Unpopular

This chapter talked about social groups in schools, as you might have guessed. Graham also discussed many improvements that could be made to the education system. He explained how schools are basically like prisons, serving little purpose practically other than storing children while parents are at work. Graham thinks much of the problem with children in America is that we have strayed from children being junior members of adult society. In the past, teenagers would often work as apprentices to tradesmen. They were useful and contributed to society. Now, teenagers are kept out of adult society. Part of this is a result of specialization, as it’d be hard for a kid to learn from and assist an adult working a random office job.

In the notes in the back:

2. Hackers and Painters

Graham studied painting at an art school after finishing his graduate degree in computer science, which seems odd, but he explains how programming and painting are quite similar. “They are both makers.”

“Computer science” is “a grab bag of tenuously related areas,” with mathematicians at one end and hackers writing interesting software at the other, and all sorts of others in between. Graham says typical computer science departments are as if mathematicians, physicists and architects all worked in the same department. For the hackers (“advanced programmers”), code is a medium of expression. They have mostly the same goals as artists and work in much the same way.

The computer science label causes problems for the hackers, leading them to feel they need to write research papers. This can lead to, instead of designing interesting software, designing ugly software that makes a more suitable subject for a research paper. “As anyone who has written a PhD dissertation knows, the way to be sure you’re exploring virgin territory is to stake out a piece of ground that no one wants.” Also, writing about awkward systems yields more substantial papers. “Nothing yields meaty problems like starting with the wrong assumptions.”

3. What You Can’t Say

This chapter was mostly about training your mind to break free from thinking in politically correct terms. It was somewhat interesting. It did make me think about the concept of inappropriate words, though. I admit I tend to think kids shouldn’t swear and am shocked when I hear a youngster use “foul” language. I never used to swear myself till college, where I acquired it from friends.

So for a while you have a state of affairs like something from a musical comedy, where the parents use these words among their peers, but never in front of the children, and the children use the words among their peers, but never in front of their parents.

6. How to Make Wealth / 7. Mind the Gap

Graham discussed how money is not wealth. Okay, some good points there.

Startups are the best way to get wealthy fast. They are a way to compress your whole working life into a few years.

Instead of working at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you possibly can for four. This pays especially well in technology, where you earn a premium for working fast.

To get rich, you must be in a situation with measurement and leverage. You can’t get paid for doing more unless you can be measured. Some jobs, like sales, naturally lend to this concept. Other jobs don’t… but if you’re CEO, the company is your measure. If you’re in a startup, you’re much closer to being measured directly than if you’re one of 10,000. Then there’s leverage. A job with measurement but no leverage is a factory job, where you can perhaps be paid for producing more widgets, but you have no decision making power other than output. You can only increase your earnings by a small factor. Actors have measurement and leverage. The sales are the measurement, and the leverage is that their performance can make or break.

If you’re in a job that feels safe, you are not going to get rich, because if there is no danger there is almost certainly no leverage.

10. Programming Languages Explained

Graham broke down the common claim that all high level programming languages are more or less equivalent, and none is better or worse than others. He described all languages as being on a continuum, with machine code on the basic end, and increasingly abstract languages on the opposite end. The current abstract extreme is Lisp, a language Graham seems to consider to be the “best” language in general. It’s apparently the only language that supports macros, a sort of program writing program.

13. Revenge of the Nerds

“Industry best practice” is code for the safe, average route that will guarantee poor performance. Some things should not be cutting edge in large companies, such as accounting practices. For those you can follow best practices. But in technology, you should be cutting edge, not just doing what everyone else is doing. So use the language that’s best for your purpose, not the language everyone else is using.

15. Design and Research

In design, the goal is to be good. In research, the goal is to be new. These can converge to an ideal good and new, but it’s important to realize design and research may aim for the same target but approach it from different directions.

About 110 books and 50 DVDs, rendered unnecessary after digitization. Awesome!

Book notes:

• improve or invent till you get that huge response
• if you’re not saying “hell yeah,” say “no”
• Richard Branson started Virgin Airlines by leasing a small plane and splitting costs with people on canceled flight
• in a perfect world, would your website be covered with advertising?

Basically, just decide what will make you happy and never lose sight of that. It’s not always bigger, more money. Sometimes it’s smaller, sometimes it’s just helping the customer. Don’t get caught up with what people expect of you. Do what makes you happy.

[12:07] Charlie Gorichanaz: hi
[12:07] Zach Eastwood: hi!
[12:07] Charlie Gorichanaz: i don’t remember who you are
[12:07] Charlie Gorichanaz: are you a real person?
[12:07] Zach Eastwood: you dont even know me anymore? we used to talk a lot back in the days!
[12:08] Charlie Gorichanaz: hmm, must’ve been a while ago, we don’t have any chat history saved
[12:08] Zach Eastwood: I think Im about to lose a bet…
[12:08] Charlie Gorichanaz: what?
[12:08] Zach Eastwood: its about me finding 5 people who have an IQ higher than 110
[12:09] Charlie Gorichanaz: where do you live?
[12:09] Zach Eastwood: will you pleaseee take this iq test for me then? http://iqtest1098.com/?id=fb45cc84a800b60
[12:09] Charlie Gorichanaz: oh so you are a spambot
[12:09] Zach Eastwood: no?
[12:09] Charlie Gorichanaz: where do you live?
[12:09] Zach Eastwood: thank you so much!!

I googled “iqtest1098″ and found another post of a similar conversation. This is a stupid bot, it seems.

[12:10] Charlie Gorichanaz: did someone just ring your doorbell?
[12:10] Zach Eastwood: BRB someone just rang my doorbell
[12:15] Charlie Gorichanaz: are you back yet?
[12:15] Charlie Gorichanaz: hurry back, i am eager to click on more of your links!

Basically, the movie traces Joe Cross from Australia’s quest to consume nothing but juiced produce and water for 60 days as he tours the United States raising awareness of healthy diets. In the process, he loses a ton of weight and casually gives his contact info to a 400 pound truck driver in a parking lot. This driver later calls Joe in a breakdown moment, causing Joe to return to the U.S. to get the driver started on the juice path, which eventually helps him lose almost 200 pounds and get off his medication.

This got me thinking about buying a juice machine. So, of course, I bought one that night. I had it two days later. After buying $60 in produce, not having a clue what I should juice, I tried it out.

Half a bag of baby carrots, four small red apples, a cucumber, four stalks of celery, six leaves of kale, some ginger and a lemon

This is kale juice. I did not taste it.

This is all the juice mixed together. It tasted less than desirable.

This is all the juice after Josh decided to spill it all over the place. It smelled and was a pain to clean up.

So I didn’t get off to the best start, but I did lots of experimenting since then. I am probably never going to buy a bottle of juice again; the difference is night and day. Fresh apple juice is amazing, and having never minded a lot of pulp, it suits me well. I tried juice of strawberries. It was bitterer than I’d expect, probably due to the leaves, but interesting and delicious. Then, my new favorite: carrot juice. Five to seven large carrots makes a tall glass of delicious, orange heaven.

Note to self: Juice of celery with a bit of ginger is disgusting. Adding lemon makes it worse.

In addition to the increased juice intake, I’ve also been eating a ton more vegetables. It takes a few minutes to chop up some yellow and green squash, throw in some bok choy, and heat it in a pan (with no oil or anything else). Hopefully I’m not offsetting the benefits of this new diet by my sheer consumption… It’d be nice to lose some weight, especially since I’m signed up for several races coming up, including a 10K Sunday morning at 8 a.m.

Picasa Uploader for Facebook

Since then, Facebook has implemented new photo features (as we all know, many of which we all hate), including the ability to download a higher resolution file than what is displayed. The default display resolution has also increased over time.

Till recently, using the Picasa Uploader plugin meant a tradeoff between ease and high quality. Ease always won out in my case. I’m perpetually behind on photo sharing, especially when it comes to this blog, so that decision was easy.

I’d been following a Facebook discussion for some time about updates to the uploader. To my delight, a couple of months ago I noticed a somewhat hard to find update to the uploader:

Alan Lundeen

Hi all,

As an aside, if you’re interested in uploading in high resolution you can try the new desktop version of the uploader:

http://apps.facebook.com/picasauploader/desktop.php

It should also be a bit faster than the web version.

Cheers,
Alan
about a month ago

This new uploader works fabulously so far. The only problem, which is really annoying, is my photos keep ending up on Facebook in a random order. Then people start going through the album and commenting as I am rearranging the photos… so that’s nonideal, but the photos end up looking much better than if I uploaded them through Facebook, somehow.

Recently I decided to switch to a much longer base password, and also make the formula more complicated. Taking after a friend, Erik, I started documenting the password restrictions for many of the websites I use. I was glad to see my new password formula would work for most of my frequented websites, but unfortunately I’ll need to modify it for five of the websites. And of course, these five websites are all banks! Leave it to the banking industry to disallow secure passwords!

Capital One password restrictions

The main problem is, of the banks I checked, most don’t allow just any special characters. Some allow a few, but of course the special characters in my password aren’t among the allowed ones for the most part.

The good:

US Bank

• For your protection, passwords must be 8 to 24 characters and include both letters and numbers.
• Spaces are not allowed.
• You may also include special characters (such as %, $, &).

The bad:

Chase

• Must contain 7-32 characters
• Must include at least one number and one letter
• Cannot include special characters (&, %, *, etc.)

Discover

• 5-10 characters, letters and numbers only

American Express

• Must be different from your User ID
• Must contain 8 to 20 characters, including one letter and number
• May include the following characters: %,&, _, ?, #, =, -
• Your new password cannot have any spaces and will not be case sensitive.

Capital One

• 8 to 15 characters, not case sensitive;
• Use: Aa-Zz, 0-9, ( – ), and ( _ );
• at least 1 letter and 1 number;
• no spaces

University of Wisconsin Credit Union

• Passwords must consist of 6-10 keyboard characters and cannot start or end with a space.
• Choose a mixture of letters, numbers and non-alphanumeric characters (@, %, $, #, &, etc.)
• Use capital letters sporadically.
• Select an 8-digit password or longer.
• Think of a mnemonic device to remember your unique password.
• Change your password frequently.

I found US Bank to be the only one that allowed all the characters in my password, and luckily the password uses just fewer than their 24 character maximum. The rest were fairly strange. Chase and Discover, why do you disallow any special characters?! Capital One only allows two different special characters, and American express allows seven. I really do not understand this.

From a programming perspective, I can see a vague desire to prevent stupid programmers from implementing a buggy password form that might allow an SQL injection attack… and perhaps banks think they are preventing this by restricting special characters? I would think it would be little to no extra effort for any bank, or any website for that matter, to allow passwords of any characters and any reasonable length (say, less than 1024 characters?).

I would like to see the above restrictions reduced to: at least 12 characters, including mixed cases and at least one number and special symbol. Anyone should be able to come up with a password to fit that, even if he uses the same password everywhere. He would be no worse off since he’d surely be the type to use the same password everywhere anyway.

Interested in strategies to make secure passwords?

Many online sources explain variations on the “base password + website name” strategy. Some suggest using first letters of words in a phrase to come up with the base password, and others suggest mangling a word by changing some letters to numbers.

Court order-proof password: the password grid. The idea here is you carry around a small printout of a grid of random characters, and you memorize a pattern to trace on the grid mentally to generate your password. You use this until you begin to remember some of the password. That’s the signal to switch to a new grid. This allows you to destroy the grid any time you need to make it impossible for anyone, including yourself, to retrieve the password.

This guy, Marcin, was very cute and said I was his type. After declining his number, I gave him my card. And have not heard from him. Why do I refuse numbers from cute boys when they offer?!

Anyway, I asked his name, and Ryan and I were both shocked to hear him say: Marcin! Ryan and I were talking previously about another Marcin we know who lives in Chicago. At first, not knowing the other Marcin very well, the thought crossed my mind that maybe it was him… but thankfully it turned out not to be. This Marcin told me, “You’re very cute.” I then asked, “What about my friend Ryan?” Marcin looked at Ryan, paused, then looked at me and said, “You’re more my type.” Awh!

So he offered his number, and for some reason I didn’t take it down. I don’t remember if my phone was off or what, but I gave Marcin my little cute business card and told him he should text me. Apparently he was not of the mind state to do so, for I heard not back from him for days. =[

I decided to post a missed connection listing on http://chicago.craigslist.org to see if I got lucky.

MarcinCraigslistPost.jpg

A couple of days later, I found this e-mail in my inbox!

MarcinCraigslistResponse.jpg

So I texted him immediately and we’ve been chatting since! Thank you, craigslist!

But first, a bit of background: Tuesday, August 26, 2008, was just another underage night at Club 5 until I was punched in the head on the dance floor. (What?!) The aggressor was Septimiu Teodorescu, owner of Septi Fitness, located at 10 S. Carroll St., Madison, Wisconsin.

I don’t remember now exactly what Septi said to me, but it was something along the lines of, “Why were you talking shit about me?” I tried to tell him I had no idea what he was talking about, but he punched me yet again, and I pushed him away and immediately called the police. Septi fled the scene, and once the police arrived, he was nowhere to be found, so they couldn’t do anything but take my statement.

I later found out more from my boyfriend at the time, Eric, via his chatting with Septi on the gay cruising site Manhunt.net. Apparently Septi was upset because of something I said that night at the club to a boy (Justin?) who was about my age (20).

Excerpted transcript:

Septi Teodorescu: “This time I knew exactly who said what to whom becosue [sic] I saw it. … So all I did I went up to him (me) and ask him what’s his problem and he was acting all innocent… the alligations [sic] he brought after that were all a lie and he lied before, becouse [sic] I only shaked him up… not really “punched” him… becouse [sic] trust me if I were to punching he would still be in coma or hospital.”

Eric: “Why on earth would you think he was talking about you, he doesn’t even know you or your name! … You had no right to get physical with him, whether it was a punch of just “shaking him up.” It was uncalled for and you went too far, period.”

Septi Teodorescu: “First of all I am not going to appologize [sic] to him… If you think I just did that beocouse [sic] i didnt’ [sic] have anything else to do then you must be crazy.”

Eric: “He [asked Justin if he was OK] because he thought this boy was being hit on by a random club 5 “old guy” when Justin didn’t want it. … That sort of general scenario happens all the time.”

Septi Teodorescu: “ok I admit the fact that Justin didn’t give me the whole exact conversation… Now that I get Charlie’s part of the story… I can see where I over reacted, but to call a tabbing a punch thats a little over rated. For as angry as I was at the time… I tired [sic] really hard not to hurt him and put my power at try. (?) … I will think about the whole situation and take a decission [sic] on rather to appologize [sic] or not. … I hope this will all end in piece [sic] and not become enamies [sic].”

Part 1 of 3

Part 2 of 3

Part 3 of 3

Then about a year later Septi Teodorescu messaged me on gay hookup website Manhunt.net and quickly got to threats of physical assault. His profile stated he is 26 years old, but I knew from previous public record searches he is older than 40 years. My profile explicitly stated I was looking to get to know people my age.

Septi Teodorescu: “nice pic and stats. Hit me up if you wanna chat sometimes.”

Charlie Gorichanaz: “I don’t “chat” with people over 40.”

Septi Teodorescu: “I am over 40? lol you’re so stupid.  I dont’ [sic] need to prove you that. I made you a compliment but you’re to [sic] dumb to accept one.  If I see you in the street I’ll spit in your face and punch you in the nose until you bleed to show you some respect you little faggot.  You live close to me I’ll catch you“

Septi Teodorescu on gay hookup website Manhunt.net threatening to physically assault me

Fast forward to this Saturday night. I was in Chicago for their pride celebration and was walking on the sidewalk with some friends. Migrating in the opposing direction was a group of people that included some more friends. Our two groups stopped to mingle a bit, and after a while I noticed Septi Teodorescu among them. I think he saw me see him, and right away I signaled to my friends I wanted to keep moving. I knew Septi has shown himself to be quite unstable in the past and did not want to give him a chance to get physical.

But Septi will get physical no matter what, clearly. He seemed to dislike that I was trying to avert a physical assault, for he started yelling at me and walking toward me. I couldn’t clearly understand what he yelled; it seemed unintelligible. Perhaps he was really drunk. Perhaps he had done too many steroids. I don’t know what his problem was, but it sounded like he was blabbing about me posting things on the Internet about him. I realized he was probably talking about an old blog post about the first time he punched me. Someone (Septi, I would guess) tried to get this blog post removed by filing a complaint with my host, RimuHosting.

Anyway, I wasn’t going to put up with his ranting, so I gave him the finger and proceeded to walk away. But I guess in Septimiu Teodorescu’s world, getting the finger is incitement that justifies physical assault. He punched me again in the lip. I borrowed Tom’s phone to call the police (and 43 year old Septi ran away, again), but they were of course too busy to deal with the situation. So the night went on, and we all had a great time.

Morning after being punched in the face on the streets of Chicago by Septimiu (Septi) Teodorescu, owner of Septi Fitness on the Wisconsin Capitol Square. He did not like how I publicized the last time he punched me, after which I called the police. Oh, and he is 43 and extremely muscular. Hmm.

Morning after being punched in the face on the streets of Chicago by Septimiu (Septi) Teodorescu, owner of Septi Fitness on the Wisconsin Capitol Square. He did not like how I publicized the last time he punched me, after which I called the police. Oh, and he is about 44 and extremely muscular. Hmm.

Update 15 July 2011: Well, it’s time to put an end to Septi’s claims on Manhunt that he is 26 years old. He’s been 26 years old for years, according to his profile… but a little public record digging revealed Septimiu Teodorescu lies about his age by about 20 years! He was reportedly born June 21, 1968. That means 40-something Septi Teodorescu decided he needed to get physical with a 20 year old boy, based solely on accusations at the club where most people are inebriated.

Public records search for Septimiu (Septi) Teodorescu, the guy who is 20 years older than me and punched me in the face

It also appears Septi Teodorescu has a history of making threats of physical harassment and aggression to other boys 20 years younger than him. See the last comment in the next photograph.

Facebook comments after I posted a photo of my lip the morning after being punched by Septi Teodorescu

Fwd RimuHosting Support Ticket Online Slander - Gmail - Mozilla Firefox 7222011 34856 PM.jpg

The text of the complaint, supposedly from a Kent H, but referring to “my business,” Septi Fitness:

http://charliecorp.com/3928 this web page is a direct slander to my business posting a direct link to septifitness.com This slandering web page needs to be removed as it violates terms and conditions of web site building and personal protection laws. Please review the link and make the right choice of removing unlawful information. And please notify user of appropriate conduct and posting material. Thank you.

I messaged Kent, a friend, on Facebook to see if he knew anything about this. He did not, confirming my suspicions this was probably submitted by none other than Septimiu Teodorescu himself.

Messages (1) - Mozilla Firefox 7222011 35208 PM.jpg

Oh, well, Septi will have to make more of an effort to redeem himself than trying to take down my website.

Then we went back to Roberto’s and hung out, watching many of my videos and just generally stalking me in my presence. We looked at my blog, my photos, my Twitter. Felt odd, but it was flattering. And it was a great opportunity to reflect on my past and upbringing, and to get to know Juan Manuel and Roberto better. I like them both quite a bit; hopefully I can catch up with them when they visit the States sometime!

We talked a lot about relationships. Specifically, we talked about my history, and the current situation I have with Bo. Roberto was trying to draw connections between my family situation and my life after moving out (and then back in). I had never really thought of the impact someone’s family can have on his interactions later in life, but it’s definitely worth considering.

I’m not exactly sure what to make of my history, actually. I have nine siblings, seven of whom are younger. So you’d think I have had a hectic life. And I have. But since I was 10, I spent most of my time working at my mom’s stores. That made me grow up very quickly and taught me to do things for myself, independently. Maybe having many siblings also contributed to that, or perhaps the opposite; I’m not sure.

But anyway, I’ve grown up to be pretty independent, yet the last three years of college I’ve entered increasingly crowded living situations. My freshman year, I had an apartment to myself. By my senior year, I was sharing a bedroom with four other gay guys. And I loved it. Mostly because it was cheap, but I didn’t often mind the camaraderie, either. Of course, there was often drama as well, but I liked having people around. So, was I compensating for something in my childhood? I’m still not sure.

Roberto and Juan Manuel

The lovely blue shoes Roberto needs to wear more often

Ahhhh!

Then came Thursday, possibly my last day in Buenos Aires, as I had plans to go to Tandil with Damian for my last weekend. I spent the day with Dani, though we didn’t do much that day. I planned to bring all my stuff to Palermo that night to say goodbye to Roberto and Juan Manuel and eat with them once more, and then I was going to La Plata that night.

Staying with Dani was an interesting experience; of all my hosts, he spoke the least English. In fact, he spoke almost no English at all, so I had to rely on my Spanish, which was all right. I often was unable to say what I wanted to say, but overall I felt like we really understood each other for the most part. It was actually quite fulfilling! I definitely need to study Spanish more, but I’m glad I knew as much as I knew.

Dani and me, during our last moments together! Oh, no!

So that was that, and we parted ways at the bus stop across from his house. I boarded the No. 41 bus to Palermo, got off at Plaza Italia, and walked to Juan Manuel and Roberto’s apartment. Roberto was sleeping or something when I got there, so I chatted with Juan for a while. Once we were all awake, we discussed what we wanted to eat. We eventually settled on ordering empanadas, though we should have done it sooner, as they arrived an hour after ordering, leaving me little time to scarf them down and run out to the bus stop.

Juan Manuel opening the empanadas we ordered

Empanadas! They cost about 5 pesos each, or $1.25.

A photo of me, eating, by Roberto

And then, as you might have guessed, that was that. I said goodbye to the two, and Juan walked me out. I headed off into the night and waited at the stop for the bus that would take me to July 9th Avenue. The bus came, I boarded, and exited at just the moment the No. 129 bus to La Plata arrived. How perfect.

The only place I knew to for sure catch the Plaza bus to La Plata was near the Obelisco, so I took the No. 37 bus from Fernando’s house to Corrientes Avenue. I then expected I could walk east six blocks and hop on the bus. But when I got there, I saw the three main roads that go through downtown Buenos Aires were all closed. And filled with people. What the hell?! The middle road was blanketed with thousands of chairs, clearly in preparation for some speaker or performance.

So I figured the bus must be going down a parallel street, so I walked north toward Retiro Station, where the bus starts, hoping to find a stop before the detour started. I got six blocks north and it appeared the road was closed all the way up. I called Damian, whom I was supposed to be going to visit, and asked him to call the station and find out where I should go. Once he did that, he told me to walk another 10 blocks east to Edward Madero Avenue, where there was supposedly a No. 129 bus stop.

I found the intersection, but spent 20 minutes walking around looking for the stop. Then I saw a 129 bus go by, saw where it stopped and walked over there. And I waited. A bunch of 129s passed, but none of them was the correct one. I needed the La Plata via the autopista (freeway), even though after a while I was considering taking the one that stops all throughout the Centenario neighborhood. I just wanted to get there eventually!

Then I saw it: a 129, clearly the correct one. And someone held out her hand for it to stop. And it drove right by. And the same thing happened for the next one. This girl was obviously trying to get on the same bus as I was, so I indicated to her my frustration. The girl asked another girl, who informed her the bus we needed was not making any stops today for the special occasion, so we had to catch it at Retiro. I asked the girl if she wanted to split a taxi with me, and we did that. She ended up refusing my half of the cash, which was nice. Then we found the bus and boarded, but the driver couldn’t get the SUBE card machine to work. So I got to board for free, again. Nice.

My Thursday expedition in my painfully small shoes with all my belongings (three bags) to find the bus to La Plata: Took the No. 37 (purple) from Lanús to Corrientes, walked (red) to the usual stop seven blocks down, but when the road was closed, I had to guess where it might stop instead... with the help of Damian via phone, I determed the No. 129 should stop at Madero... after two hours there, I took a taxi (blue) with a girl up to Retiro and finally found the bus.

I made it to La Plata at last, and Damian and Puni met me at the station there. We walked the 10 or so blocks to Damian’s apartment, and began our night. We made plans to meet Damian’s friend Matius at a restaurant called Frawen’s. It was pretty good, and not too expensive. I spent about $15 (USD) on some sort of deluxe cheeseburger with steak-like meat and an egg. I also ate some of Puni’s milanesa, of course.

Crappy photo from the BlackBerry, but all I had of Frawens!

Then we went back to Damian’s to drink and smoke a bit, perhaps before going out. We weren’t really sure. But we ended up just staying there all night. I think Matius and Puni left around 4 or 5 a.m.

Soledad would kill me...

Love your frienemies

Then Damian and I slept till about 5 p.m. Whoops. We ordered pizza, which apparently doesn’t always come in the typical round, pie shape. But it was delicious, especially the one on the left in the photo below.

Pizza a la Argentina

Going out to the gay club of La Plata

lol

The above photo was at 3:36 a.m. Then we went to La Plata’s only gay club, which I think is called Juana based on a Google search… anyway, I don’t remember a lot about that night. The club was smaller but decent, and I got to meet this old woman who apparently loves Damian. I was also apparently eying some guy with a bit of a faux hawk most of the night. Then we came home around 6 or 7 a.m., and slept into the afternoon, as usual.

Life is hard

Then it was Saturday night, the night of Damian’s coworker Irina’s 27th birthday party in La Plata. She decided she wanted everyone to wear a mask, so at 9 p.m., Damian and I set out to buy a mask. Only everywhere that might sell masks was closed. So we had to make something from an old shirt.

Damian works on his pirate patch for a mask party, hosted by his coworker Irina for her 27th birthday.

We ate at Subway with Matias, then headed to Damian’s house to drink before going to Irina’s around 12:30 or 1 a.m.

This is Matius. He is straight and he does not like his picture being taken.

At first the party was a bit awkward for me. The crowd was a mixture of people who work at Globant, a video game testing company, and friends. The people who work at Globant mostly spoke English, and most of the rest didn’t. But of course everyone was speaking Spanish, so I had no idea who to talk to, as my Spanish still isn’t good enough for general conversation. I hung around Damian and Matius for the first hour or two, but then as people got drunker, I ended up wandering off. I guess I did all right conversing in a combination of English and Spanish. And I got some Facebook friend requests the next day. Haha.

Eventually people started to leave, around 7 a.m. I don’t remember the end of the party, but I guess it involved an incident where Damian threw Irina’s clock out the window, and apparently I got upset about something and was sitting alone on the stairs for a while. I have no idea. At any rate, we walked home in the glorious daylight to crash at Damian’s for most of the day again.

The room of Damian after I moved in...

I stayed over Sunday night (I think we watched Skins?), and went back to Buenos Aires Monday. This time I went to stay with a friend, Dani, I had made the week before. He lives in the Capital Federal area, closer to life. But more about that to come!

Instead of going to Dani’s house, and then us both going to Palermo, I told Dani to meet me at Plaza Italia, a large circle that is a bit of a bus transfer hub. That worked out fine, thanks to my BlackBerry still having mysterious service. Then we sought food for me and a Coca-Cola Light, which I’ve been drinking a ton of here, and we walked toward the gardens. First we ate in some botanical gardens near the Japanese ones. We got to know each other a bit using my horrible Spanish, and it was nice.

I look weird.

Then we walked over to the Japanese Gardens to discover it was almost 6 p.m., and that is when they close. So we couldn’t go in to look for Brandon. We then wandered around a bit more and went to Dani’s house eventually.

San Martín, I am told

Pretty flowers along Avenida Del Libertador, I think. Near the Japanese Gardens we did not arrive at in time to enter. What kind of garden closes at 6 in the evening?!

Well, I did not capture it here... but this tree was like a palm, except instead of palms at the top, it had evergreen type branches.

I have no idea what this is.

He had dance class at 9, so we ate again, and then I went with him to observe his class. It was really interesting! Arabic dance in Argentina!

At the house where Dani is staying in Buenos Aires while he attends dance classes

Taken with the BlackBerry, obviously, this is apparently a delicious brand of hamburger, according to Dani. But I think we can all see it is just Barfy.

Productos de Argentina

The living room

A thermostat, light switch and an older style electrical outlet

The serious face, aka the I can tell you are going to take a photograph of me and I do not want to smile face.

A portrait of Daniel

A sort of charm to protect against another injury to the foot of this dancer!

The dancer

Rainwater

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Windchimes

Dani cooked me some lunch, spaghetti with meat and some sauce that was different than I was used to, but it was delicious!

Aw!

When I was first waiting for the bus, I saw it coming and waved for it, but it just drove by and honked the horn a bit. Another guy standing there saw me and tried to gesture that I should have waved more aggressively and more in the street. Then his bus came. And he waved. And it drove by. To which he gave the finger and made an angry face. Then the next No. 37 came, and this time I successfully flagged it down. I was glad to see I wasn’t the only one to have problems with the bus sometimes!

Anyway, once I got to Corrientes, the street that intersects with the Obelisco, I exited the bus and walked the 6 or whatever blocks. Along the stretch were literally dozens of people handing out little papers. Most of them looked like porn advertisements. At least those people back down with a small gesture of the hand. But when I got to the McDonald’s, these three kids (who were younger than me) apparently saw my Coca-Cola Lite and were trying to say something. I didn’t understand exactly, but I think he was asking to pay for it or something. I figured he was probably trying to get me to take out my wallet, but he wouldn’t go away! I started talking in more and more English so he would get the point I didn’t understand… and then some ladies signaled me to come stand by them. I talked to them a bit about watching for creeps and trouble makers… and then Damian came to rescue me.

We headed to a nearby subway stop, and while we were walking to the subway, more idiots approached us! This time, the kids surrounded us and kept saying “sucio!” while gesturing at us with some napkins. Damian also had no idea what they were doing, but once we got rid of them, we realized they squirted soap on our backs! It was the white foam variety seen in public restrooms in the United States and apparently here, too. What the hell!? Damian thought they were on drugs, but either way it was weird.

Then finally we boarded the subway and went to Victor’s.

Victor speaks very contemplatively, and it is endearing.

Lucia! She seems like a great person

Boys will be boys...

The tourists. Sort of.

Damian

Life is good down here.

Haha I do not know.

At around 1:30 or so, we took a taxi to the club, which was an old theater that hosts various events. That night was Ambar La Fox, a gay dance event with live Argentine performers. The line was long in length but not time, and soon enough we were in the midst of a thousand guys. It was a lot of fun. The performers had little choreographed routines for most of the songs, and I only later realized how impressive it was they were performing since before 2 a.m. till sometime after 7 a.m., when we left. Most of the crowd was still there at that time, which was awesome! I wish places were open that long in the United States!

Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos at the club, though.

Anyway, it was quite light outside, and it took my ears a while to stop ringing. And my phone had just died. So I was unable to call my friend Fernando, with whom I had been staying. So I boarded a bus to Damian’s city, La Plata, to sleep. The coach bus was full, so we had to sit in the middle aisle for the trip. I must have slept, as the hourlong ride went by in no time. Then we walked to Damian’s and promptly fell asleep again. Till about 5 p.m. Oh, no, I’m on that bad schedule again!

Wednesday I took a bus to Palermo to meet another Internet friend. I told him I hadn’t yet eaten at a sit down restaurant, so that’s what we did! The place he wanted to go to, Las Cabras, was about 10 or 20 blocks from his house, so we walked. On the way, we passed many restaurants, most of which were pretty empty that Wednesday night. Then, we got to Las Cabras. And it was packed. And there was an hourlong wait. So I knew it must be good. We put his name down and walked around a bit.

A steel and glass showroom in Palermo, Buenos Aires

After less than an hour, Juan’s name was called, and we sat down. First they brought a slab with two pieces of bread on it. But nobody brought water, as I was accustomed to. Eventually our waiter made it to our table, gave us menus, and we figured out what to order. Juan suggested I get the big thing on the side, called something like “La gran Cabra.” He said it was like my first choice but with more stuff. And more stuff it had. Fries topped with a sunny side up egg, a delicious baked cheese thing, sweet potatoes, white rice, a large onion (what?) and a sizable slab of meat. Delicious!

Water, however, is not provided for free. You have to order it, and it’s about as much as soda. And the sodas are quite small. I had to order two, and I was still really thirsty. Apparently this is the norm. Tipping, though, is a bit different. Apparently 10 percent or less is standard.

My meal at Las Cabras in Palermo, Buenos Aires. It cost 55 pesos ($13.75) for the food, including sales tax. Tipping is around 10 percent or less. The only down side was you do not get free water. You can buy water or sodas in small bottles for about 10 pesos a serving. But I guess drinks are overpriced in U.S. restaurants, too, usually. Except the water thing.

Then Thursday I went back to Juan’s to join his friend Shina and another girl, Grace, for a Buenos Aires Pub Crawl event for St. Patrick’s day. There were 300 people in the group, and it was a lot of fun! We ended up not even paying the 100 pesos, so that was nice, too.

A nighttime view from the balcony of Roberto

300 people gathered in a plaza before heading out for the Buenos Aires Pub Crawl for the day of St. Patrick!

San Patricio, as they say.

Juan, Grace and Shina

Weird light fixtures

They had small people, I mean, leprechauns!

Grace and Juan

One of the event coordinators I think

Yeah, I do not know. I do not remember this. But that guy is cute.

Shina and Juan

So far I’ve gotten cash by bringing paper dollars from the United States and converting them to Argentine pesos at the airport, getting pesos from an ATM and using my Chase Amazon Visa and my American Express Clear cards. All the methods, except perhaps the ATMs, produce basically the same results, but clearly not all are of equal convenience.

I assumed converting cash would yield the best results, and thus brought enough cash to survive the month; now I know that wasn’t necessary. I figured I might need at most 4000 pesos for the month, which is about 1000 U.S. dollars.

As you can see in the below chart:

• Getting 4000 pesos at the airport exchange would require bringing $997.51 in U.S. currency.
• By withdrawing 700 pesos at a time from an ATM (The fee was 16.2 pesos regardless of amount at this ATM. I’ve read some limit you to 300 pesos though.), getting 4000 pesos would cost about $1030 in U.S. currency. This is about three percent more expensive, but avoids the safety issues with having tons of cash on hand.
• Using my Chase Amazon Visa card, I got a rate almost as good as the airport cash exchange. This is great, as carrying no cash is the safest. But you need to carry cash, as most smaller stores don’t seem to take credit card. Also, using this earns me an additional 1% cash back.
• Lastly, the American Express Clear card: 4000 pesos on this costs $1020.95, which isn’t ridiculous, but I’d rather just use the Visa. Also, using this earns me an additional 1% cash back, but so does the Visa.

So the best combination is to bring some cash and exchange it at the airport, and then use the Chase Amazon Visa as much as possible. One downside to using a credit card is many places will require your passport, and sometimes it takes a few extra minutes to process.

Note: The actual exchange rate (from OANDA.com) changed a fraction of a percent over the days this data covers, so I neglected that in the calculations.

Receipt from an ATM near the capitol

Receipt from changing currency at the airport

So now you have tons of paper money. Great! But unfortunately your paper money is useless when it comes to getting around Buenos Aires. The buses are all extremely cheap, but they require coins, called monedas. Argentina in recent years has undergone a huge shortage in supply of monedas despite record high production of the coins. Slate mentioned in “Inside the world’s most annoying economic crisis” the bus companies are a culprit, as a hoard of 5 million pesos’ worth of coins was found in one company’s warehouse. The Argentina Independent put together a bunch of photos of the shortage in action: businesses everywhere have signs declaring they do not have any of the coins.

I get the feeling this is finally changing, but I’ll get to that later.

Anyway, getting back home Friday night was a challenge. Fernando and I didn’t have any coins left, so we had to go store to store asking for the coins. Nobody would give us any, so we finally decided to make some strategic purchases such that we would get the correct change back so we could take the bus. This worked for us, though I’ve read online many tales of stores refusing to give coins even as change for purchases. Again, I think it’s getting better, but slowly.

So we were finally able to get home, but then I had the same problem. I was supposed to go to meet a new friend and go out to this huge gay dance party at some club. But Fernando lives in a “smaller” area of Buenos Aires, where there aren’t any all night stores and barely any taxis. So I wasn’t able to go out because I didn’t have 1.25 pesos, a bit more than 25 cents in U.S. currency. How dumb.

But Monday morning, while trying to buy a ticket for the train back home, I inadvertently waited in the wrong line… and ended up obtaining 20 of the prized peso coins. So it is possible to get them, you just have to wait 30 minutes in a line at the train station. And maybe that’s not always possible, but for now I am set at least.

Then Saturday I ended up falling asleep in the evening, and Fernando didn’t wake me up to get ready to go to his friend’s drag performance… and I ended up just sleeping and doing nothing. Oh, well… I’ll do better this weekend, I promise.

Monedas!

Receipts from the bus and the train... fare for pretty much all public transit is about a peso, or 25 cents in U.S. currency.

To help alleviate the monedas problem, the government started a stored money card program. Currently you can use the cards on subways and some buses, but apparently more and more buses will support it in the coming months. I’ve seen it on about half the buses I tried so far, but only half the equipped buses had machines that actually worked. So for now, I need to rely on monedas for the buses. Good thing I accidentally got a bunch at the train station.

A stored money card for use on the subway and many buses. This is a SUBE card, for Sistema Único Boleto Electrónico, and the other similar card is called Monedero.

The train itself was fairly old and large, but so cheap! Fer told me how dissatisfied he is with the country’s public transportation. He often refers to the political corruption that led to abuse of the nation’s resources and resulted in drastically lower quality of life than could have been achieved.

During the short train ride, several men came through the cars announcing what they were selling: first wallets, then memory cards and then something else. Fernando told me the buses used to be like that, too, but the mayor banned the practice a while back. Trains are still full of vendors, though. Apparently people were banned from selling merchandise on the streets, too, but that can still be seen all over. The police understand the people are desperate, so usually nobody bothers the street vendors.

Estación Gerli

We exited at the station nearest downtown where we wanted to go, Estación Constitución. The place was clearly quite grand 50 years ago, about the time it apparently was last maintained. Some windows were missing from the roof, and all around the place could use some work. But it was bustling nonetheless, housing about 10 train tracks and apparently a subway underneath.

Hydrolic emergency stops from 1927, manufactured in England, at Estación Constitución

Hydrolic emergency stops from 1927, manufactured in England, at Estación Constitución

Estación Constitución

Estación Constitución

We walked to the nearby Parque Lezama, a large park that we only saw a small bit of walking through.

Statue of Don Pedro de Mendoza, founder of Buenos Aires, at Parque Lezama

Parque Lazama

A boy was trying to get his dogs at Parque Lazama to go down the 3 foot high stairs... they were fearful!

Puerto Madero

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A silk floss tree, known as palo borracho, or drunken tree

A silk floss tree, known as palo borracho, or drunken tree

Costanera Sur

Reserva ecológica

Reserva ecológica

Reserva ecológica

Gary Coleman at the Reserva Ecológica

One thing you will notice is graffiti covers buildings, public art and everything else all over the place, especially around the central district. Fer said people are upset with the government and feel trapped by the corruption. He hate the graffiti and wishes people would spend their energy in other ways, and I agree.

"Art" on art at Reserva Ecológica

The new port section at Puerto Madero

A very polluted river, much like we have in Milwaukee!

The rotating bridge, Puente de la Mujer, at Puerto Madero. Instead of raising when a ship needs to pass, it pivots.

The new port section at Puerto Madero

A surviving war ship, Fragata Libertad, at Puerto Madero

A surviving war ship, Fragata Libertad, at Puerto Madero

The Argentine White House, called Casa Rosada

The Argentine central bank, Banco de la Nación Argentina

People are upset the government hasn't given support to the people who fought the UK in the Falklands War in 1982.

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Catedral de Buenos Aires, the central church of Argentina, home of the tomb of José de San Martín

Catedral de Buenos Aires, the central church of Argentina, home of the tomb of José de San Martín

Stupid people spray paint everything. Political unrest, apparently.

Looking down Diagonal Norte toward el Obelisco de Buenos Aires from the Plaza de Mayo

Looking down Diagonal Norte toward el Obelisco de Buenos Aires from the Plaza de Mayo

The pedestrian street Peatonal Florida

The city sends out trucks to suck garbage from the sewers prior to anticipated rain storms.

Looking south on 9 de Julio Avenue

Funzies

Bo and Manuel

I’ve not been spending as much time with Bo as the first month, but I’ve still been seeing him a few times a week. We’ve been going out pretty often and eating out with Manuel, our new friend we met at Hybrid one night when he was out with his friend Artur. It’s an interesting situation with Manuel and I. We both like Bo, but we get along well and the three of us often hang out. Manuel and Bo hang out more, though. But it’s been nice.

A new used car

I recently bought a used car to make my life more convenient. Previously I was using my mom’s van to visit friends and go out, but she needs it to get to work at 6:30 a.m. each weekday, so it’s not an ideal situation. I spent a few days of constant searching used car listings online, which got very tiring very fast. I often had dozens of tabs open in Firefox, three for each car: the listing, the corresponding EPA fuel economy rating page and the Kelley Blue Book value.

I had been searching for cars made in the last decade with less than 100,000 miles on them, hoping to not having to deal with repairs. Eventually I found a craigslist post for a 1997 Saab 900 SE Turbo 4 door hatchback with 134,000 miles at a small dealer outside Racine. Most of the cars I had been looking at were listed at several hundred dollars lower than the KBB value, but this one was about $1,500 lower. I researched the car, and started to get optimistic about it. Heated leather seats, hey! Apparently the MSRP in ’97 was around $40,000. Now it was selling for $2,500.

I decided to check out the car, and called the dealer’s number at 3 a.m., expecting to get an answering machine with the hours listed. “Hello?” “Oh, I must have the wrong number. I thought I was calling a dealership.” “That’s me.” Oh. I guess the guy is on my sleeping schedule. We talked a while, and he seemed like a really nice guy. The next day, my mom took me there after work, and we test drove the car. It had a few things wrong with it: driver side rear door won’t open, radio antenna (unnoticeably) broken halfway up and a broken fog light. Overall I liked the car, and at his accepted price of $2,200, it was better than anything else I thought I would find. So I bought the car, and now I have a car again. It’s not quite my red 2003 Mustang convertible, but it drives nicely and has a sunroof.

Bo and Ryan at Josh's for a movie

Getting towed

So, I’ve been going to Josh’s quite often and hanging with Bo and Manuel whenever I can. The first time I stayed at Manuel’s with Bo, the car got towed after I parked in a spot that clearly wasn’t a spot. As he said he would in the event of a “ticket,” Manuel was a gentleman and paid the fees, and I was extremely grateful.

Back to Bo

Things with Bo have been pretty good, but the pressure to get my traveling “out of the way” (I say that, but I was really looking forward to it.) was mounting. I’m potentially starting a new job, but that has to wait till I’m back in the country. And secondly, I was discussing possible travel with an Internet friend Damian, and he mentioned he is to start school again at the beginning of April, so if I were to visit him, I’d have to come soon. I checked airfare and realized the prices were reasonable as soon as in a few days. So, Tuesday, March 1, I decided I would fly to Buenos Aires the following Tuesday.

Finally traveling, to Buenos Aires!

A few days later, Damian apparently had a change of heart, as he said he could no longer host me. He said his mom freaked out when he told her he was going to host a friend, and she was also planning to visit him in the coming weeks, which would cause a space conflict. Despite my best efforts to convince him my space needs were minimal and I was willing to find somewhere else to go for the period of his mother’s visit, he would not agree to host me, even at the beginning. So, I set out to find another host, with little time to spare.

Friday, I found someone named Fernando who spoke enough English to communicate with me, and who seemed very willing to show me around. I decided to take a chance and book the ticket for Tuesday, staying 30 days. Then Saturday or Sunday, Fernando told me he would not be able to move into his new apartment for at least a week, as it was undergoing repairs and he was staying with his family still. But he said I could stay there and it wouldn’t be a problem. I didn’t mind, and was glad his “bad news” wasn’t worse.

So come Monday night, Bo and I went to eat with Manuel and his friend from San Francisco, Oscar. We had a delightful meal at Trocadero, and then we went out to Fluid to meet up with Jim, Brian, Tom, Erik and some others.

Manuel and I at Fluid

This came out horribly... oh well, still a nice photo. Brian, me, Jim and Erik.

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Bo stayed over Monday night, and then Tuesday morning, I showered and made sure I had everything I needed for a month abroad. Then my mom took Bo home and me to Manuel’s to get my camera I forgot the night before, and then she dropped me at the bus stop downtown and went to work. I took the Coach USA bus to O’Hare, boarded a flight to Atlanta, and then I was off to Buenos Aires! I sat between two girls on the long flight, one of whom I didn’t talk to and the other, Tina, I did. She was going to teach English on some internship. I gave her my e-mail before parting ways after customs, so we’ll see if I hear from her.

Finding Fernando: Getting pesos, making calls, taking taxis and mysterious mobile phone service

After customs, I changed $150 to about 600 pesos, and then went to the McDonald’s for a small bit of food and to get some change so I could use the phone to call Fernando. I had a bit of trouble ordering at McDonald’s, as the menu was different, and everything seemed to be called the same thing. And then of course I was asked some questions at 1000 words per second in Spanish, so I had to look stupid for a bit. But I got the food and the change, so it worked out.

Then I looked around for a public phone, and could not find one in the airport. I exited, and a taxi driver asked me if I needed a ride… I told him I was looking for a phone, and he went looking for one with me and bore with me while I tried to make the call. We tried several number patterns and several phones to no avail. Then he tried to tell me the phones will work better downtown, and we should just go. I eventually consented to a ride, hoping I could figure it out later… I had sort of arranged to meet Fernando at a specific McDonald’s downtown, but I was supposed to call first.

Once we were on the road, I realized a few things. The driver never turned on the meter to determine the cost of the drive. My BlackBerry I bought on EBay for the trip worked even without first purchasing a SIM card.

The first observation resulted in the driver telling me the drive to downtown cost 380 pesos, or a bit less than 100 U.S. dollars (which I did NOT calculate in my head at the time, unfortunately). I had a pretty strong feeling this was outrageous, but didn’t research ahead of time the cost, and also considered the driver spent 20 minutes helping me with the phone first and the traffic made a 40 minute trip take an hour and a half. So I paid most of that balance, the driver telling me that’s enough after I fumbled looking for the correct notes. Oh well.

Also, while enjoying the traffic, I was messing around with my BlackBerry and discovered I could still make calls, like in the U.S., even though I didn’t buy a contract or purchase a local SIM card. It seems the previous owner was a company or government agency, as the phone had an “IT Policy” enabled and was part of a BlackBerry Enterprise Server. I used CrackUtil to clear the IT Policy to enable me to download apps and undo any other restrictions the phone had. End result: I have phone and data service in Buenos Aires, for free! I researched Verizon’s rates for this… apparently this would cost (or is costing someone) $4.99 per minute for calls and $20.48 per megabyte for data. I’ve probably used $300 worth of services in my first few days. I feel better about the taxi now.

So anyway, the taxi dropped me at el Obelisco de Buenos Aires, a recognizable place in the city with a huge McDonald’s on one of the corners. This was the place I arranged to meet Fernando, though I arrived about an hour before him. Eventually we found each other, talked a while and then sought an outlet converter power strip (50 pesos, 12.5 USD) and some sodas, and then took a bus to his family’s home.

A ridiculous number of lanes near el Obelisco de Buenos Aires

Lituania street

The school and church where Fer went as a kid

Stop!

A lovely brick wall

Reserved for school buses

Gas and electric meters

One of the first things I tried was a sweet tea, yerba mate. The Argentines pronounce it like “sherva mottey,” as they, like Cubans, prounce the Y as “sh,” except when it ends a word. So the month mayo is “masho,” and yo is “sho.” I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to this. But anyway, as I typically never drink coffee or tea, I was skeptical but determined to try everything. And it wasn’t bad. In fact, I think I could start drinking the stuff. Especially since it’s prepared in such an interesting container, shown below.

Yerba mate, a kind of tea drink in a metal lined wooden container

I’m very thankful Fernando’s mother always leaves food for us to eat. The first (or second?) night, I had some breaded chicken breasts. Apparently this is served with mayonnaise and mustard, but not from the containers I’m used to. A lot of things come in bags here when in the U.S. they would come in bottles. When I posted the below photo on Facebook, one of Fer’s friend’s commented something along the lines of, “Doesn’t he understand we are poor?” I guess she was joking, but that wasn’t my intention posting the photo! I just found the difference interesting. Perhaps the bags are cheaper than bottles, though, who knows.

Mayo and mustard come in bags instead of bottles.

Fernando, my gracious host, playing Lord of the Rings

Torta de ricota from Gianella Panadería y Confitería