November 30, 2005
KwaZulu
One of the things I like about my job is giving presentations to executives that fly in to Denmark to hear about our technology. I usually do three or four of these a month, unless I get sent off somewhere (like this last trip to Moscow) to do the song and dance in front of different audiences for days in a row.
Today was kind of special- a delegation from one of the municipalities in the KwaZulu-Natal flew up because they're thinking of using our software to run their municipal services. It was a lot of fun to present to them, it was a cool group. Real diverse. Not something that happens every day.
November 28, 2005
The Egg Man
I just entered a contest at work to win an Arne Jacobsen "The Egg" chair. I love this chair, it's just so Shag.
I've only sat in an Egg chair once, in a bar in Tallinn, Estonia. I just felt like I should have been wearing a fez and sipping from a frigid dry martini, while listening to some Bacharach remixes.
New Pics from Natasha
Natasha has two new pics on her photo page. Check them out!
November 21, 2005
New pictures up
Take a look- I just got the new pictures from Moscow up on the photo page, as well as pics from Rick and Sara's European tour through Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands in September.
Enjoy!
November 19, 2005
Leaving Moscow
They've put me in the old Sheremetyevo business class lounge rather than the Lufthansa lounge Cec and I were in last time we were in Moscow in 2003. I can't believe it was two years ago since I've been here. I remember Cec and I drinking Bloody Marys over plates of olives in the lounge back then, and suddenly the special report on all the flatscreens as the story of Saddam Hussein's capture hit the newsfeed. What a moment.
I have mixed feelings about leaving Russia. This trip was incredibly successful on many levels, and I really worked my tail off this past week. But I didn't get to see much of the city and I really feel the lack of that. I feel like I need another week with less work and more time zipping through the metro to museums and clubs. This city feels a lot like New York in a strange way, maybe more like New York in 1978 or 1980, but it feels strangely nostalgic. I miss the hustle, the daily battles, and just that frenetic sense of life and experience you get in really big cities.
Must run, plane is waiting...
November 17, 2005
Moscow nights
 Man, what a day. I had to deliver non-stop presentations from 10 until 5. Had roomfuls of people from a bunch of different companies shooting questions at me. It was like a particularly rough press conference. But it was good too. I'm completely exhausted, but it's days like this that I feel like I'm really making a difference. I may not be so interested in the "end," if you catch my drift, but the means has been pretty intense and fun.
Had a weird experience on the road back to town. The taxi that picked me up was this crummy little dust-caked hatchback. But get this, the guy had turned the car into a little theatre… he had a DVD player sticking out of the dash, and surround sound that hit me with a deep rumble I could feel in my chest! Moscow traffic is a nightmare, but in the hour and a half it took to get back to the hotel on Olympiskiy Prospekt, I got to watch most of The Italian Job. It was awesome! I took a picture of the dashboard (above right) just so people will believe me... |
 Besides the taxi rides I haven't had time to do much sightseeing, unfortunately. Today was over the top, but every day has been crazy. I got one shot of city life on Monday, where I had a whole hour free and took a colleague through the Metro to Red Square. He was flying out the next day and I couldn't bear it if he left and hadn't seen either the Metro or the Square (I'm not sure which is more spectacular). Unfortunately I was travelling light and left my camera behind. So all I got was this crappy phonecam shot. My second time in Moscow and I missed Lenin again.
At least I've had time to get some good dinners in, though I wish I had somebody to eat with. This is the land of blinis, caviar, and steak tatar, a har har... Okay, I'm falling asleep at the keyboard and am off to the bath. They have one of those deep bathtubs in my room and I've gotten into the habit the past few nights of lying down in the blazing hot water for an hour with a James Bond paperback, eighties music playing from the iPod's travel speakers, and a glass of ice cold vodka propped on the side of the tub. Talk about paradise! Love you all. |
November 13, 2005
First night in Moscow
Sometimes I swear my iPod is sentient. I turned the thing on as I was walking down the concourse at Copenhagen airport and the randomizer started off with "Airplane Rider," a bouncy little track from Air Miami.
Maybe it's a theme night though. Down in the hotel restaurant they played "Come Fly with Me" by Sinatra. Every time I'm in Russia, it seems someone somewhere is playing Frank Sinatra. It's funny.
I'd been hoping to do some sightseeing in Moscow this afternoon, but I've just had too much work to do, to get ready for the conference tomorrow. It's weird, and kind of sad to be hidden safely away in a big business hotel here. The do everything to make you comfortable and happy, but I'm in Moscow for God's sake!
This hotel is so international-standard I could be anywhere. The prices for everything aren't even listed in roubles. They use "units," an abstract figure usually a little higher than a US dollar. The only evidence I'm in Russia at all is the half-liter bottle of vodka they've left for me in the refrigerator (I'll be examining that in detail later).
Back to work. (sigh) From Russia with love, as they say.
November 05, 2005
The Prince and the Monkey
I just got a Qtek 9090 Pocket PC/telephone. It's pretty awesome. I love being able to check email on my phone, and it's got a slide-out keyboard so I can actually work on the train if I want to without having to open my laptop. It's really nice to be able to leave the laptop at work and not have to lug the thing around. The only downside is that the 9090 is pretty big, roughly the size of my open hand, and while the big touchscreen is nice, it feels a little awkward to hold the thing up to my head when I'm using it as a phone.
Anyway, one of the tricks I've worked out is to download books from the Gutenberg Project onto the phone, so I can just sit and read on the train if I don't feel like working. The Gutenberg Project takes books whose copyrights have expired, and then delivers them for free as downloadable text files. They've got tons of stuff, Kafka, HG Wells, Einstein, Tolstoy, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce... basically anything that was published before 1930 or so.
So you can just download the text file, open it in Word, change the font to something more pleasant to read than Courier, then save the file in Microsoft Reader format, and then synch it with the phone. It takes literally no more than ten minutes, and it's free!
So I'm reading The Prince, by Machiavelli now (I thought it would give me some useful tips for my job). I read this interesting passage yesterday... this is advice on war and statescraft from Machiavelli to the young prince to whom the book is dedicated.
| But difficulties occur in [seizing] a new principality… Men change their rulers willingly, hoping to better themselves, and this hope induces them to take up arms against him who rules: wherein they are deceived, because they afterwards find that they have gone from bad to worse. This follows also on another natural and common necessity, which always causes a new prince to burden those who have submitted to him with his soldiery and with infinite other hardships which he must put on his new acquisition. In this way you have enemies in all those whom you have injured in seizing that principality, and you are not able to keep those friends who put you there because of your not being able to satisfy them in the way they expected, and you cannot take strong measures against them, feeling bound to them. For, although one may be very strong in armed forces, yet in the entering of a province one has always need of the goodwill of the natives. |
Would this advice perhaps have been of use for the rulers of not only a fifteenth century principality, but also a 21st century superpower, when contemplating an invasion and deciding if it was going to be worth the cost?
If only they'd have listened... It's true, that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
November 03, 2005
The next adventure
I just got orders to go to Russia again. It'll be a week in Moscow, a business trip but this time the local office has me queued up for a few interviews with the Russian tech press. It's exciting but a little strange... I'm used to being one of the hounds, not the fox. I need to prep myself by smoking and drinking too much. I'll never survive otherwise.
I love that awareness you get just before a trip, where you don't know whether the end result is going to be applause or ashes... that same distance-from-self you get just before a flight, before a first date. That sense of the unfamiliar. I like this a lot.
November 01, 2005
Tiki Red Oktober
All right! Tiki Bar TV came out with a new episode. This one is called "Red Oktober" and I think it's the best one they've done yet.
If you haven't seen this yet, Tiki Bar TV is a video podcast documenting the adventures of Johnny Johnny the bartender, La La, and "Doctor Tiki." It's been around for a few months now, filmed with home equipment and some surprisingly good computer effects in the producers' apartment (in Vancouver, I'm told). The best way I can describe it is this: Imagine one of the really weird, early "experimental" shows they used to have on MTV around 1983, when MTV was the coolest thing you ever saw on television (I'm dating myself here).
Now add a few liters of alcohol and mix. Enjoy!
New Photo Page from Natasha
Hey everybody- check out Natasha Gladysheva's photo page, here on my Art-Damage.com site. Just a few photos now, but she will send more as the muse inspires her.
Don't hesitate to send her compliments if you like the material!
Halloween across the Bay
Heh, my friend Sue just wrote me "I knew there was something strange in the air when everyone in downtown Berkeley was dressed normally...
"Halloween - the one day a year downtown Berkeley looks normal. now that's scary!"
Yeah, Halloween is one of the days I miss living in the Bay Area. The San Francisco Halloween parade was always an over-the-top debauch to remember.