Fixing Global Finance by Martin Wolf

Martin Wolf is an associate editor and economics commentator for the Financial Times and a professor at the University of Nottingham. Fixing Global Finance began as a series of lectures delivered in 2006 at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. It was published in 2008 but I think the majority of it was written when the stock market was at its 2007 peak. The ideas aren't new -- all of the important points can be found in Ben Bernanke's speeches and writings since 2005 -- but there's a lot of illuminating data and it's an interesting read. What follows is more of a summary than a review.

The subjects of Mr. Wolf's book are the global financial imbalances. America's $800 billion Current Account deficit and emerging economies' giant surpluses are not accidental. They are the result of export-led growth strategies in the developing world and currency market interventions. That America has been on the receiving end of these policies is due to its position as the global borrower of last resort.

The housing market collapse in the United States and the global recession are the results of these global financial imbalances. Martin Wolf has published this book at an appropriate time because some people still seem confused by what happened. President da Silva of Brazil recently blamed "white people with blue eyes" for the global crunch, and China has been pointing its finger at the US. The Chinese explanation is that greedy, stupid Americans who forgot how to save money are consuming all of the world's wealth by buying mansions and BMWs. The US is jeopardizing global stability, and 50 of its investment bankers ruined the world's economy (the only problem with blaming US consumption is that if it was "crowding out" foreign savings, we should see high real interest rates abroad. In fact we see very low real interest rates globally -- China is "crowding in" US consumption, not the other way around).

But those things were not the causes of the housing market collapse and they didn't ruin the global economy. Instead, it was the developing nations' Current Account surpluses that caused the collapse.

Think about this logically. I know that stories about liar loans are easy to understand and make sense, but picture this from China's point of view. China, as we all know, is the fastest growing country in the world. Why would China be sending its money to the US? Is the US a better investment opportunity than China? Of course not. When a nation has the investment opportunities that China has, it should be importing capital as fast as it can to grow. This isn't happening. Something is definitely wrong.

I'm not singling China out of the group; China's case can help us understand what's been going on. China has been running increasingly massive Current Account surpluses since the late 1990s. The world loves tainted milk and poisonous toys, so China exports them in bulk. Normally, when one nation runs such a large surplus, foreign investors buy the local currency and drive up the exchange rate. This makes the local goods less competitive and the surplus shrinks. The developing world has been preventing this from happening. China, Japan, developing Asia, oil-exporting nations, and the C.I.S. countries have been intervening in currency markets to keep their currencies low relative to the Dollar (this is the currency manipulation that politicians on Capitol Hill are constantly bitching about -- although they seem to single out China, who is only part of the problem). So, a manufacturer in China makes a wonderful piece of crap like these glasses, and ships it to Los Angeles County. Someone from Wal-Mart pays for it, and it winds up on a shelf in Framingham, Massachusetts. The Chinese manufacturer takes those Dollars (the Yuan is not an international currency -- this will change) back to China, where the People's Bank buys them from the manufacturer for Yuan (Chinese citizens are not allowed to own foreign assets anyway). The bank then sits on massive foreign currency reserves, and buys more Dollars on the open market to offset foreign investment in China. The Yuan stays weak, Chinese exports stay competitive, and occasionally the People's Bank needs to stockpile more Dollars to keep the Yuan down. Evidence that this is happening is easy to find. Since 2002 the Dollar has been losing value against almost all major currencies. Those nations with currencies that have not appreciated against the Dollar, and have simultaneously run up major foreign currency reserves, are the culprits. Like I said before, these guys are China, Japan, developing Asia, oil-exporting nations, and the C.I.S. countries. The oil-exporting nations were running surpluses thanks to high oil prices, but they're falling now.

How does this affect the US? This is the "global savings glut" that we keep hearing about. An artificially strong US Dollar hurts domestic manufacturing (we had the lowest Current Account deficit in the 4th Quarter of 2008 since 2003 thanks to a falling Dollar). This would result in high unemployment, but the Federal Reserve under President Bush pursued an expansionary monetary policy (interest rates fell to 1%) to create excess demand. This is what is meant by calling the US the "borrower of last resort." This excess demand consumes the surplus coming from Asia. If the Federal Reserve hadn't pursued this policy, it would have stalled the manufacturing sector in Asia and reduced the surpluses. We weren't being malevolent -- it would have also caused higher unemployment in the US. This policy of inflating consumer demand helped create the housing bubble and shrank our savings rate (does anyone want to keep their money in a Bank of America savings account paying 0.20% interest?). I emailed the author of the book, Martin Wolf, and he told me as much. The policies in the developing world are directly related to the housing market bubble in this country.

So what do we do? Well, the worst has already happened. A massive global recession is what intelligent policies may have been able to avoid. But what do we do going forward? If we are to sustain Asia's levels of production, demand there must be primed. It is unlikely that investment can go much higher (it is currently 40%, where investment in the US is 20% of GDP) so domestic consumption and government spending must make up the difference. If China had social safety nets and allowed its citizens to invest abroad, maybe as a nation it wouldn't save 59% of its GDP every year. In his book, Martin Wolf questions whether we need such a liberalized financial system in the first place. Everyone assumes that money should move around the world like free trade, but they're not the same and maybe shouldn't be treated as such.

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My Foray into Investing

While still in Las Vegas I decided to put my Economics degree to work and bought some stock. The economy was in a downward spiral and Lehman Brothers was collapsing, so I sensed an opportunity. I bought $500 worth of Freddie Mac, Tata Motors, MGM Mirage, and Bank of America between October 1st and 20th (total investment - $2,000). Then the market crashed further so I bought another $500 worth of Ford Motor Co. and U.S. Steel in November (bringing total money invested to $3,000). I plotted my portfolio's progress against the Dow Jones Industrial Average and included it below (I'm in blue and .DJI is in red). So what have I learned?


A lot actually. First, I bought in waaay too early. My short-term losses are massive. I'm still down 80% on my MGM purchase. The car companies were good buys. Tata is up more than 20% from where I bought in and I'm up 60% on Ford. My whole portfolio is down about 25% as of March 26th, but up from its lows of -53%.

I learned a lot about so-called investment professionals as well. Since moving to Boston I've become a loyal viewer of Mad Money starring the much maligned Jim Cramer. Cramer wrote a book in 2008 (right before the massive stock market losses) and in it he recommended 20 stocks for the next 18 month period. I created a value-weighted portfolio in Google Finance to track Jim Cramer's picks against my own. I gave him a break and decided not to track his picks from when he made them but from when I decided to buy in October. So what does a fully diversified portfolio chosen by a professional have over me? Nothing. I'm down 26.67% as of this morning and he's down 33.19%. I'm actually winning if you can call losing 26.67% of your money winning. Also -- on Jim Cramer's February 20th show, he recommended a 'recession portfolio' made up of a gold mine, Wal-Mart, Verizon and a few other things. I tracked this portfolio's progress against my own and since then, I'm up 41% and he's up only 1.5%. I think the purpose of that 'recession portfolio' was to prevent losses, not make money though, so maybe being up only 1.5% is what it's supposed to do.

Anyway, I'm confident my picks will pay off in the long-run, which is why I bought them when I did. If I had a job right now, I'd be plowing cash into the stock market as fast as I could. Unfortunately I am not employed, so I can't. Anyone in a better position than me will be rewarded for being brave. Just my opinion.

Technorati tags: Stock Market, Investing, Jim Cramer, BAC, FRE, Ford, Tata, MGM, US Steel

Rejection!

Anyone who has stumbled upon this blog while looking for porn knows that I applied to become a Foreign Service Officer. I registered to take the written exam in February of 2008 and I had my Oral Assessment -- the final step in the process -- this past weekend. I didn't get the job. My overall score was just under the 5.25 needed to pass.

For an awesome break down of the OA, see the March 5th entry on this guy's blog.

I am quite sure I know who passed the test and who did not. After all 12 of us had finished the group exercise, structured interview, and case management task, we assembled in a room for our test results. The first two names were called out in rapid succession and then the rest of us were called, one by one, afterward. It seems obvious that the first two guys got the job and the rest of us were told to scram. At the time, not everyone thought so. If I'm right, then two very qualified and smart guys got the job. A man in his 40s who and had spent the previous 8 years doing TB research in Africa got the nod, and so did a guy who flew in from Liberia for the interview. He did something there for the Carter center but now I forget what. I had a chance to speak with both of them during the day and was impressed.

Among those rejected: a woman in her 50s who worked at the Library of Congress, a girl getting her Masters from the Kennedy School, an annoying kid with acne who taught English in Japan, a woman who works for the US embassy in Kiev, and a very nice guy from Nigeria (now a US citizen). There were also 4 young women who were unexceptional and interchangeable as far as I could tell.

I allegedly signed a non-disclosure agreement, so I can't talk about the specifics of the interview. However, I can tell you about two bonehead things that I said. When asked how I would handle being offered a local dish that would almost certainly give me parasites, I said "grin and bear it." I later qualified that statement, but I think the damage had already been done. I also said that I butt into my coworkers' business too much when asked to give a weakness. That's not a good answer but what makes it hilarious is that it's the opposite of who I am. I am much more likely to not notice what you're doing than to get too involved. Why did I say that?

In the end, I'm fine with the State Department's decision. Being rejected always sucks, but I wasn't looking forward to asking Daniela to live with me in some god forsaken place. Right now I think graduate school is the better option anyway.

Technorati tags: Foreign Service, OA, Oral Assessment, Washington DC

Bullish on MGM

From a high of $96 bucks a share, MGM Mirage is now trading at $2 and change. If I had the cash to spare, I'd buy a few hundred more shares. Now, I'm not an expert (far from it since I paid $15 for my shares when I could have had them now at $2) but I'm very bullish on MGM. I guess the problems that MGM is having right now stem from the $1.2 billion it still needs to complete its CityCenter project -- the largest "privately"-financed project ever -- along with a lack of debt financing for this year and next. MGM and Dubai World (Dubai World is a sovereign wealth fund and 50% stakeholder in CityCenter) were in talks with Deutsche Bank to get the rest of their CityCenter cash but walked away from the table yesterday. I think this is a good sign. Deutsche Bank wanted crap terms (to merge the CityCenter property with one it owns next door, the Cosmopolitan -- I'm not quite sure why this was so objectionable) and apparently MGM and Dubai World aren't desperate enough yet to agree to that. MGM has said that if the situation in Vegas doesn't improve this year, they're going to default on their debt, which unless I'm missing something, means bankruptcy. That makes the situation seem pretty dire, but if it is, how can they afford to walk away from a deal with Deutsche Bank? MGM can always shop some of its properties to raise cash (it sold TI last year so I guess there's still buyers out there) and I guess that's the next step. Although Bloomberg is reporting that MGM is in talks with other banks. I think it looks bad for MGM right now, but I have confidence they'll pull through it. And if I'm right, shares at $2 is a steal.

Genius Business Models

It's no secret that Daniela and I like pizzas from Domino's. We've ordered it about twice a month since I got back from Japan. It's always been cheap, it's delivered right to your door, and it's basically junk food. What's not to like? They had cheeseburger pizza for a while, they currently have a white garlic sauce option, and for $.50 extra, they send you a little tub of ranch dressing for your crust. Dipping your crust into Ranch dressing is big on the West Coast and Daniela put me onto it. It's awesome. I'm not here to sell you on Domino's pizza though, I want to cast some light on their genius business model. I'll call it the 'drug dealer' model.

Until recently, we've been able to find coupons online that knock off like $10 per order. The coupons vary by location and time of the year, but we liked a coupon in Vegas for two two-topping medium pizzas for $14.99. By trolling retailmenot.com, I can see that there was once a coupon for a large one-topping pizza, 1 bread side, and a 2 liter bottle of Coke for $12.99. Regardless of the time of the year, we were always able to find a coupon online that would just reduce what we were paying without changing what we wanted to order.Since relocating to Boston we've noticed all the awesome coupons are gone. Now the best thing online is a deal where you can get a one-topping medium pizza for $5.55 but you have to buy three of them. That's fine, but there's a huge difference between a one and a two-topping pizza, and what the hell do we need a third pizza for? To recreate our old orders of two two-topping medium pizzas, cheesy bread and a bottle of coke, we'd have to spend $29.18. That's not a lot of money, but as a percentage of the cost, it's a huge jump compared to what we were paying just a little while ago.

So here's the model: create a product made entirely out of cheese, grease, and meat because those things are as addictive as crack but not illegal. Then price it out at $20 a pop but give everyone a coupon that makes it only half that. After everyone gets addicted to your product, lose the coupons and jack the price back up. What makes that especially genius is that you're not even jacking the price up because the pizzas were always $20. They're just not heavily discounted now. If I can trust movies, then I know this is how crack is sold. Genius.

Career update

I meant to blog about it a while ago, but I passed the State Department's QEP review so I'm flying down to Washington, D.C. on the 23rd of March for my interview. It will last all day but I don't know much else about it. I'm still excited by the idea of working abroad but I'm not sure if the Foreign Service makes sense anymore for Daniela and me. She is on the verge of getting a job offer from MIT's development office and that would be a really great opportunity for her. I found a website that links to the blogs of Foreign Service Officers and reading some of them worried me. Depending on where we go, Daniela might have a very limited opportunity to work. I hadn't thought of working in the Foreign Service as necessarily holding her back, but it might. We talked about it and I'm still going to go down for the interview, but if I don't get a call back it will make our lives that much easier.

We've been in our new apartment for two weeks and I still don't have any job prospects. Our friend Amy works in Central Square and she got me two temp jobs in her office. I stuffed envelopes one day and did data entry on the other. Very exciting stuff, but anything helps I guess. I've made excellent use of LinkedIn but most of the financial firms in Boston simply aren't hiring right now. I got in touch with a Brandeis alum at Fidelity and he has been spectacularly helpful. He passed my resume around and told me that they would probably start hiring again in a few weeks and that I should just keep my eyes on the website until then. If I get a job out of this, I owe that guy a nice bottle of Scotch or something. Is it OK to do that? It's not like illegal campaign contributions or anything, right?

Finally, I applied for a job teaching the GRE and SAT at Kaplan and I have a group interview/presentation in just a few days. I enjoyed teaching in Japan and as a TA at Brandeis, so this is something that would be both helpful until I find permanent work and enjoyable. In the first stage of an interview at Kaplan you have to prepare a 5 minute presentation on something so I chose "How to Write a Haiku." I just learned how to write 'Haiku' in Japanese so I can wow them right at the beginning. Or not. Probably not.

The Stimulus Package Still Sucks...

Barack Obama's February 9th press conference wasn't disappointing. I'm not sure the Wall Street Journal is correct in its assertion that the questions were pre-screened. If the only information the Wall Street Journal has on this is that President Obama had to ask where the reporters were sitting then I'm not convinced yet. Does President Obama favor certain reporters? Of course. Did he see the actual questions before hand? If he did, why did his answers seem so unrehearsed and why did he call on a Fox News guy who asked him a dick question?

The stimulus plan sucks though. I'm not with the Republicans on this one, but if Obama's checklist for success is the creation of 4 million jobs, then I think the plan sucks. The final bill was for $787 billion, which means it costs the government $196,750 to create a job. That seems grossly inefficient.

A solution to our crappy health care system would have a better impact on the economy than this. Health care is a huge cost levied on US businesses and one of the reasons neither Ford nor GM make money on their auto operations. Toyota and Honda have margins of around 8% on those same operations. I'm not going to be impressed by a recovery until Ford and GM become profitable again and start to take back domestic market share.

Or until Ford's share price climbs back to $30, making my $500 investment worth $8,000. Cause that would rock.

Our New Apartment!

A tour of our new place in Boston!

Daniela is the Champion

I'll finish my post about our Ecuador trip later. I'm tired of writing about it.

I turned 27 on November 29th and Daniela made it an awesome birthday. Daniela woke up early that day and made me breakfast. That was the beginning of a 2-day celebration. She made 2 plates of bacon, eggs, toast, OJ, and cherry pecan coffee cake while I talked to my dad on the phone. After that it was off to work. We normally work Saturdays and Sundays and take Mondays off. So we agreed to celebrate on Sunday (the 30th) since we didn't have to work the following day.

I knew D was making me a cake at the bakery, but she wouldn't tell me anything about it. In the back freezer she boxed my cake up and turned it toward the wall so I couldn't see inside. Then she wrote notes all over it telling me to scram and that looking inside of the box was punishable by death. We brought the cake home after work and it was beyond my wildest expectations. I was actually shocked by how awesome it was.



She wrote "For all the roles that you play... I love you more everyday" on the top and then put ridiculous pictures of me all around the sides and labeled them with the roles I play. My favorites were vampire hunter, dog whisperer, and ninja. Check my link to Flickr to see pictures of the cake.

After I extinguished the re-lighting candles, Daniela gave me a giant tea cup she had decorated at one of those pottery places. I knew she was making me something because we had a conversation about it days before. I told her that she was forbidden from stenciling anything and I wanted whatever she was going to do to be hand-drawn. The cup was magical.


She drew the entire Las Vegas Strip around the cup and put our two bunnies in the foreground, commenting on the casinos. The cup has a few inside jokes. While in front of the Luxor, our bunnies are saying 'Space!' You see, some douche bags insist that you can see the beam of light coming out of the top of the Luxor from space, which is silly for two reasons. First, you CAN see it from space because urban areas are bright at night. You can see the Luxor light like you can see the light coming from our house in Henderson. Second, no you can't. Not in the way that people mean that. That's stupid. After I opened my present, Daniela cooked dinner for all of us (D, me, Max, and Emilia). She made a salad with goat cheese and carmelized walnuts, pesto and sun-dried tomato quiche, and we had a bottle of wine.

The next day we had to return to work. The bakery closes at 4pm on Sunday, so I had that going for me. D took me to In 'N Out Burger for lunch and I even went home an hour early. When I got to our place in Henderson though, Max told me that this guy who works at Body English ordered a last minute cake and I had to run it over. I was really annoyed. So I got back to the bakery and had one of the decorators write "Happy Birthday Brad" on it. Ugh. Brad. Who is this guy Brad who needs a cake so badly? No offense to anyone named Brad, but this name made it even worse. So I got over to the Hard Rock in record time and got the room number from Max. When I knocked on the door though, D opened it! Sneaky monster! She had rented the room and decorated it while I thought she was at the Tropicana location. We ate some of Brad's cake and D took me to Nobu for dinner. Nobu is rocking. We had some tempura, sushi, and a chicken teriyaki dish. Our waiter was the son of a guy who works at the bakery, and he brought us a dish of sashimi, compliments of the restaurant. After dinner, Daniela took me to O! at the Bellagio as well. The show was awesome, as all Cirque du Soleil shows are. The next day we got breakfast at Lucky's in the Hard Rock and were home before noon. Daniela is the champion.

Ecuador, Part 3 (Sept. 19th-23rd)

I woke up at 6am on the 19th (Friday) and watched the sunrise from one of the hot springs at Termas (unknown to us at the time, the stock market would lose 26% of its value over the next 3 weeks). Papallacta is high in the mountains and it had rained the night before, so the air was nice and cold. We got breakfast in the hotel after Daniela woke up and checked out by noon. An indigenous guy played us a song using a plastic bag full of holes on the bus ride back to Quito. It sounded like you would expect a plastic bag full of holes to sound when you mash your face into it and hum.

Our last destination in Ecuador was Mindo but buses there don't depart from the Terminal Terrestre (Quito's main bus station). We had to take a $6 cab ride way into the northern part of the city to catch a bus from La Ofelia Station. The bus to Mindo was full of tourists, mostly Americans. A pair of experienced travelers sitting in front of us were talking about accommodations in Mindo and said they had reserved a room days ago. The other pair mentioned they were headed to the same hotel that Daniela and I were, and they were just going to hope it wasn't full. So Daniela and I started to panic. We never imagined Mindo would be busy. We took out our Lonely Planet photocopies and checked the hotel's address again, realizing we would have to get off the bus running. When we finally arrived in Mindo the couple headed to our hotel had a fight with the bus driver -- something about their tickets -- so I pushed past them and Daniela got directions from a passerby to the Cabañas Armonia. Any foreign city looks terrifying at night but as many of the side streets lacked lighting, this was especially true in Mindo. As we passed a fully-lit soccer field we heard quick steps behind us. Daniela looked back and the two Americans from the bus were right behind us and almost jogging. So we, nonchalantly, matched their pace and kept our lead. We raced them to our hotel but when we got there it seemed almost empty. Cabañas Armonia has a few private cabins on a small piece of land, which is overrun by trees and an orchid garden. The trees have grown into the path so you have to duck and dodge, and it's hard to see because the motion-sensitive lights don't come on reliably. The cabins are the only things well lit, so naturally all of Ecuador's bugs hang out there. We decided to stay at least one night and dropped off our bags. Then we went looking around and got dinner at CasKaffeSu, a nicer-looking restaurant with a full menu not too far from the bus station. We asked the owners about their room rates and had a huge meal since we hadn't eaten anything since Quito. The Americans we were racing against also came in and got dinner. They were college kids from North Carolina and Iowa. Daniela did most of the talking while I put out the tough guy vibe. I got more talkative after a beer or two.

Mindo has a few things to do, but two competing zipline courses (called "canopy tours") are the main attraction. One of the courses is run by Costa Ricans and everyone in town bills it as the safer course. The newer one, run by Ecuadorians, was recommended to us by Daniela's brother David because while it has fewer ziplines, they are on average longer and more fun. We bought tickets to the course run by the Costa Ricans from a tour operator in town the following morning. We also paid for passes into a national park that is popular with bird watchers. The national park is farther outside of town and uphill from the canopy tour places, so we decided to take a taxi there and walk back, doing the canopy tour if there was time. We split a ride in a motorcycle-pulled cart with a weirdo from British Columbia (almost fully pictured above). A bird-watcher and obviously an only child, this guy was on a *very* tight budget, and we would eventually come to hate him. On the ride up the mountain he was only weird and quiet. The sun was shining that day and we were more worried about getting sunburns than say, getting caught in a torrential downpour for hours. Funny how that works. Our motorcycle taxi broke down halfway to the park and we had to be picked up another driver 10 minutes later. We eventually arrived and took an awesome cable car ride across a ravine to the park. We agreed to meet up with the weird Canadian guy in 3 hours to share a ride back to town. Mindo is known for its wildlife and it's the bird watching capital of Ecuador. We saw a few birds, a lot of butterflies, some orchids, and bugs fucking (pictured above). D and I took our time and got to the waterfall in about 45 minutes. We took off our shoes and walked right up to it, but I didn't go under the falls because I didn't want to be wet the rest of the day. We turned around and about 5 minutes later it started to rain. Then it really started to rain. The dirt path we had been hiking on turned into squishy mud in places and Daniela's glasses kept fogging up, preventing her from seeing anything. I tried to stay calm but couldn't help myself from getting angry. I was wet, uncomfortable, my wallet and camera were getting ruined, and I was short with Daniela while we marched in the rain. I tried to remember that there isn't a difference between being wet or dry because both are conditions of the mind. I tried to convince myself that being cold is no different than being warm but I couldn't do it. I would calm down for seconds and then get angry again. I think I would really benefit from joining a Buddhist monastery but I doubt I'll make it anytime soon.

We got back to the entrance to the park and the kid from BC was there. Being soaked and freezing cold wasn't enough to convince him we all needed to leave, and only after we told him he could just get his own ride back down did he reconsider. As soon as we got back across the ravine, a bus pulled up (charging $2 for a ride back to town instead of the $3 it would cost on our motorcycle taxi) that had room for only one more person, so our friend abandoned us for it. I wanted to wait until the rain let up a little bit before riding in the uncovered taxi, but after forcing Daniela to stand in a cold tent with me for a while, I agreed to leave. Two other people showed up at the last minute and split the ride with us, making it even cheaper than the ride up. When we got back to our cabin, we threw our sopping wet clothes in a pile and turned on -- what we thought would be -- a piping hot shower. The hot water came in 15 second bursts and was broken up by 2 minute long periods of ice water. Very disappointing. We warmed up in bed and then hanged our clothes around the room. It was 3:30 when we got back to our room and while we were hungry, we were sure the rain would stop soon and we could eat. Daniela fell asleep while I moved stuff in the room around to avoid the leaks in the roof. 7pm rolled around and we were famished. We only had one other set of clothes (Daniela had a white skirt left that was way too nice to wear anywhere in Mindo) and if it rained again we wouldn't have anything left. We were too hungry so we chanced it. We got some pizza and made it back before it rained again.

Ugh. OK, I'm done writing right now so there will have to be a part 4. Good night.

Ecuador, Part 2 (Sept. 16th-19th)

Daniela's family (except for Max who stayed in Manta) left Ecuador on the 16th. We all tipped out the hotel's staff, said our goodbyes to Emilia's parents and brother, and went to the airport to catch our flight back to Quito. After a 15 minute drive to the airport, we discovered that we had left our tickets behind at the hotel. We were already running late, but since I have never missed a flight before and consider it impossible, I wasn't stressed out. Emilia, her dad, and our driver rushed back to the hotel to grab the tickets while we waited around in the airport lobby. We were flying Icaro (like Icarus), which we all agreed was a terrible name for something that you don't want to crash into the ocean. Emilia got back in time with the tickets so we checked in, got through security, and on to a shuttle that took us to our flight. They actually had to call ahead from the ticket counter to get our flight to wait for us on the tarmac. All of this really stressed Emilia out (especially because we didn't hurry up, even after being told they were holding our flight for us), but only proves my theory that missing flights is something that happens to other people only.

We got back to Quito and waited with Marty, Yvonne, Matt, and David as they checked in at the airport. Max had warned us about a ridiculous departure tax but I didn't believe it until I saw signs posted for the $40.80 tax per person at the airport. That's not particularly interesting, but it will be important later in my story. After we said our goodbyes to D's family, we took a $5 cab ride to the bus station. After much consulting with Emilia's family during our stay in Manta, we decided to go to Los Baños, Otavalo, Papallacta, and Mindo. They're all on the backpacker's circuit, they're all in the Andes region, and they're all reached by short bus rides from Quito. We didn't want to spend a ton of money to get to the Galápagos, we didn't want to do all the traveling necessary to get to the Amazon, and it seemed silly to travel all the way to Peru when there was so much to do in Ecuador. Plus, we will undoubtedly take more trips to Ecuador in the future, giving us plenty of opportunities to do all the rest of it. So we took a bus from Quito to Baños, which played exactly half of Drillbit Taylor (starring Owen Wilson) and then switched to a movie about a secret agent monkey called Spymate. The creators of Spymate are also responsible for MVP, a movie about a monkey who plays hockey, and Air Bud, a film about a dog who plays basketball. Pretty one note, these geniuses.

In Baños, we stayed at the Posada del Arte, which Daniela found through Trip Advisor while we were still in Manta. The only room left when we got there was one with a fireplace, overlooking a waterfall. I remember grumbling in the lobby that it happened to be the most expensive room in the hotel, but for $42 a night it was totally worth it. We had a great view of the waterfall and access to the second floor patio, where we played cards at night and had coffee and hot chocolate in the morning. The fireplace was a nice touch too. After checking in to our hotel sometime after 2pm, we took a stroll around the town and got lunch at a Swiss bistro. It had been drizzling for most of the day, so we decided to return to our hotel and lounge. I wrote in my journal, we read, we played cards, and we did competitive Sudoku puzzles (called Horaku in Ecuador). I went to the lobby to get some newspaper and matches for a fire and the owner (an American) told me to use a candle instead. He wanted me to light a candle under the wood instead of using paper, but he warned me I would need to be patient. That's an understatement. And if there's a trick to this, I didn't figure it out in time because as the wood started to burn, the extra heat melted the candle in just a few minutes. I eventually used newspaper and D was fast asleep by then.

The next day we got breakfast in the hotel (the pancakes came with a jam/syrup made from passionfruit, we had to water down D's hot chocolate because it was so thick, and the fresh juices were slammin') and hiked up to Bellavista, overlooking the city of Baños. The only problem with our hike was that it had rained the day before and the path was mud that you could sink 6 inches into. D's shoes didn't have any traction either, so even going as slowly as we were she kept sliding down the path. The view was nice and we met a high school gym class that was out running that day. We got pizza for lunch when we got back down to town and made some photocopies of the hotel's Lonely Planet guide. The town of Baños is typical backpacker fare. There are a million tour operators in town all offering the same 6 packages. The hotel rooms are cheap and there are plenty of restaurants to eat something from home. There is a massive volcano overshadowing the town (difficult to see for the clouds), some trails to hike up the sides of the valley and a path on which you can bike all the way to Puyo. On our second night there, I was doing handstand push-ups in our room and for the first time ever, pulled a muscle in my neck. I was unable to turn my head to the right or look down. Eating dinner was a trick and I probably woke up every half hour that night because of the pain. The next day we took a bus to Papallacta, requiring a switch in Quito. Papallacta is a small, unassuming town but there is a luxury hot springs resort there called Termas. The bus from Quito lets you out on the side of the road but you can find a ride to the resort for $2. We stayed at the hotel for about $120 (split between us) but we could have stayed in a much cheaper place nearby and paid $15 to get access to the hot springs for a day. I would recommend spending the $120 because using the springs late at night and just before dawn are awesome. Plus, they're 10 feet from your bed.

Going to Papallacta right after I hurt my neck was a good decision. As long as I was in the water, my neck felt 100%. Coming out for a while and cooling down made the pain come back slightly, but I considered myself cured when we checked out the following day. Daniela put the resort on her credit card and even after subtracting $81.60 from the cash we had left, we thought we would have enough money to get back to Miami without taking out more.

Ecuador, Part 1 (Sept. 8th-15th)

Daniela and I took a 6 week vacation back in August and September. The plan was to attend three weddings back in Boston and Philadelphia but we also managed a two-week trip down to Ecuador. Daniela's brother Max started dating an Ecuadorian girl named Emilia while studying abroad in Quito in 2005. They have been doing the long-distance thing since, with Max in Las Vegas and Emilia in Manta. Emilia's family owns the Hotel Balandra in Manta, and since Max had been planning a trip to see her, we thought we could tag along during our vacation and maybe stay at her family's hotel. Joni gave us green passes on Southwest Airlines so we were able to book one-way tickets from the Boston area to Ft. Lauderdale and tickets from Ft. Lauderdale to Las Vegas. Then we bought our own flights to the Boston area from Las Vegas and super cheap tickets to Quito from Miami on Copa Airlines. I think we spent about $600 each on all the flights, but that was thanks to the green passes from Joni.

Our friend Jeff got married on the 7th of September in Sharon, MA and the next day Daniela and I packed up everything we own and took a bus down to Providence. A direct flight from Boston to Miami would have been awesome, but Southwest rarely flies out of the major hubs. We took the Tri-Rail from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami, where Daniela had booked us a hotel room through Priceline.com. Our flight left Miami at 8:30am on the 9th, giving us just enough time to wake up, shower, get to the airport, and take out some cash at the ATM. Ecuador has used US Dollars as its official currency since 2000, replacing the cumbersome alpaca. Alpacas are still used as money in the rural areas, but you hardly ever see them in Quito anymore.

We landed in Quito at 1:40pm and Daniela's family met us at the airport. Max, David, her parents, and her cousin Matt arrived the day before and had already found two rooms at the Hotel Akros (a $5 cab ride from the airport). We took two cabs to Emilia's aunt's house for lunch and to meet some of her family. So D and I had our first taste of Ecuadorian food about 20 minutes off the plane. The only things that I distinctly remember were the 5 different kinds of sherbets. From Emilia's aunt's house we could see clear across the valley to the Pichincha volcano. Quito lies in a valley about 25 miles long and 3 miles wide, bordered on the west by a massive volcano that last erupted in 1999. Quito has expanded right up its slope and there are going to be a lot of surprised people when it erupts again (or when another massive earthquake sucks Quito into the ground). After freshening up at the hotel, we met Max's former host mother for dinner. First we stopped at the Megamaxi, an Ecuadorian supermarket chain, to pick up some fruit, tea, and cake to bring. Max's host mother, Susana, reminisced with Max for awhile as Daniela's dad and I tried to keep up with the conversation. Daniela's dad doesn't speak any Spanish so her mom had to translate for him. Yvonne speaks it quite well and even lived in Mexico City when she was younger. Everyone else in our group, beside me, speaks it quite well. After dinner we met up with Emilia's family again to walk through the old city. We followed La Ronda for a while, stopping in the little shops and cafes along the way. We caught glimpses of the giant Virgen de Quito up the narrow alleyways of the old city. Some of us split a churro, and then we all stopped in this little bar run by indigenous women and got a local drink of juice and liquor, warmed up. I told everyone how awesome it was while I tried to suppress my gag reflex. Yvonne and some of Emilia's family danced in the bar and we got home around midnight.

Matt was the only one who had serious problems with the altitude. Matt was also the only person who got sick from the food every single day he was there. The next day we all had breakfast in the lobby of our hotel and it was slammin'. Typical fare at a hotel buffet, but the fruit was really juicy and the eggs had something in them. After breakfast we took a taxi to a large marketplace for some shopping. Someone wanted to buy something very specific but now I can't remember what the hell it was. There were some kids begging in typical third-world fashion but I was more concerned about pick-pocketing. Max and Emilia warned us it's a serious problem and if we ever found ourselves on a bus, it would be best to just hold your wallet and keep your bags in your lap. We took a two hour flight to Manta that afternoon. Manta is a city on the coast and an up-and-coming tourist destination. It already gets quite a bit of business from tourism but the money being sunk into development there is massive. The airport is being expanded to receive some international traffic and it's the main airport serving the Galapagos. So we were picked up in Manta by Emilia's parents and we had a nice drive along the coast to their hotel. Manta also has a large fishing industry (especially in tuna) and we saw the open air markets and ships coming in to port. We had lunch with Emilia's parents and Daniela's parents met them for the first time. Emilia's mom had several of the rooms at the hotel prepared for us, which was awesome. It was the slow season and they weren't even close to full capacity, so we all felt a little better about our accommodations. That night we had a few drinks with Emilia's family and gave them the presents that we brought. Yvonne and Marty gave Emilia's parents a digital camera and a Wii, and they gave Emilia's brother a watch (among other things). Daniela and I brought a bottle of 15-year-old Scotch but we weren't sure if it was good enough or if they would even like it. The focus of that night was for the parents to get to know each other and it seemed to go very well. Apparently Emilia's mom didn't know that Emilia and Max had kept dating even after he left Ecuador and she was just coming to terms with it. Max and Daniela's parents were also slightly apprehensive about the relationship and I think everyone felt better to know they all were having similar feelings. That's all I'll say about that.

The next day Emilia's parents arranged for us to take a tour of the nearby Isla de la Plata. A poor man's alternative to the Galapagos, the Isla de la Plata has many of the same species of wildlife as the Galapagos but can be reached by a short boat ride and for much less money. Daniela, Max, David, and I went on the trip, leaving Marty and Yvonne behind at the last minute because D's dad was having some stomach problems. We did some whale watching on the boat since the whales were returning from the Antarctic then. We got to the island and took a three-hour hike. The Nazca, Blue-Footed, and Red-Footed Boobies and Sea Lions were interesting but quickly bored us. Our guide was OK, but David is a marine biology student and studied on the Galapagos for a semester so he was more interesting than she was. Plus, he speaks English which was a plus for me. At the end of our hike we had a quick lunch on the boat and had the option of going snorkeling around the island. I didn't want to get covered in salt water and then wind up itchy for the rest of the day, so instead I fed some of our snacks to the fish at the surface and saw everything from my comfy seat.

Dinner was at the hotel that night and Emilia recommended a dish called 'Corvino Diablo.' Corvino is a white fish, similar to halibut but tastier, and it was the best thing I had in Ecuador. It was in a spicy sauce that had a lot of oil in it, and there was a ton of other seafood included in the dish. I also had the pleasure of meeting the Hotel Balandra's bartender, Anibel. He's a competitive bartender in Ecuador and wins competitions. He made a few drinks for the table that I got to try, but I stuck to Ecuador's beers: Club Verde, Brahma, and Pilsener.

The only other event from the first week that I want to mention is the party that Emilia's uncle threw for us at his house just outside of town. We met much of Emilia's extended family from her mother's side and had a ton of food. They hired a live band to play so we could all dance and Daniela's parents broke it down. Max was shanghaied by Emilia into getting a pedicure. I met Jose, her cousin who studied in Japan and can speak some Japanese. Daniela and I snuck away to the hammocks tied up just under the patio with our beers and watched the ocean for a bit. Emilia's family had a Wii set up on a projector so the screen was at least 5 feet wide. Matt, David, and Max raced on the beach and it turns out Max is actually really fast. We got back to the hotel stuffed, drunk, and tired. As G-d intended it.

McCain's Relief Plan

I watched the second debate last night between presidential contenders John McCain and Barack Obama. McCain adumbrated his relief package for homeowners and I don't think I like it. Unless I'm mistaken, he advocated buying outstanding home loans and issuing new ones based on the current, depressed home values. So the government is going to step in, buy up the $350,000 loan that I can't afford payments on, and give me a new one based on the reappraised value of, say, $200,000? Wouldn't everyone in America want to sign up for that? Haven't home values been falling in every market across the country? Is the federal government going to buy up every single outstanding loan and issue new lower ones for everyone? Is the federal government going to be the only lender in the nation? Or are they (prudently) going to extend this offer only to certain people? Who gets the relief? The idiots who signed up for these loans, knowing that they couldn't afford them? Fuck those guys. The only people who should be able to qualify are those in extenuating circumstances and I don't know how the government is going to decide what those are. And in 5 years when home values rise again, all these people can sell their homes for a huge profit. Why should people who borrowed money at rates they couldn't afford get that kind of a bonus? Unless the government can recuperate some of that money when home values go back up. But I don't know how that would work.

Pretenders to the Throne

Disney Lab Unveils Its Latest Line Of Genetically Engineered Child Stars

Are the two blond kids at 1:41 "Bryan & Benn?" What the fuck!? I am the original Ben with two N's. I INVENTED doing that. Disney (or The Onion) better watch its shit if it doesn't want a lawsuit on its hands.

試験に合格した!

From the State Department:

July 2008
BENJAMIN M. EGAN
XXXXX XXXXXX DRIVE
HENDERSON, NV XXXXX

Dear BENJAMIN M. EGAN,

Congratulations! The scores you achieved on your Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT) qualify you for the next step of the Foreign Service Officer selection process – the Qualifications Evaluation Panel (QEP) review.

As you know, the Foreign Service selection process is a series of evaluations that can lead to an offer of employment as an entry-level Foreign Service Officer... Now that you received a passing score on the FSOT, your candidacy continues to the QEP review stage ... Once the QEP has completed its review, you will be notified by email whether your overall score entitles you to proceed to the next evaluation step of the selection process, the Oral Assessment...

Sincerely,

The Board of Examiners

So I passed the FSOT, but I don't have an interview yet. They're going to review my application from February (I already emailed the State Department to ask if I can update it -- shockingly they said 'no') and score, and let me know by mid-November if I should be planning a trip to Washington, D.C. I have less confidence in my application than I did in my test score. I'm sure the essays I wrote were crap, I listed Daniela as my reference on a number of jobs I had, and I didn't even bother to include all of the internships I had during college in the 'work experience' section. I'm going to get some books and study for the GRE. If I get the interview, I'll just be surprised.

This is however, proof that I'm a super genius. I knew it all along, but now I can quantify it.

Dave & Kelly Shutoff, August 16th, 2008

David Apples Shutoff and Kelly Maniac Reed got married on August 16th, this past Saturday. Dave and Kelly have been our close friends since Freshman year at Brandeis. Dave, Conor, Jeff, Mark, Kevin, Santosh, and I lived together on the same floor of Scheffres during that first year. Jeff and I lived in 108, Conor and Kevin lived next door in 107, Dave and Santosh lived a little farther down in 105, and Mark lived in 110. Daniela lived on the third floor of the same building and Kelly lived in an adjacent building, not a 3 minute walk away. It was magical to see such close friends of ours get married to each other and we're all thankful for an excuse to get together and get drunk.

The wedding was held at Habitat, a nature preserve run by the Massachusetts Audubon Society in Belmont, MA. Dave's family flew in from Seattle and Kelly's came down from Maine. With the exception of Daniela and I, almost all of the groomsmen and bride's maids live in either New York or Boston, so it was fairly easy for everyone to make it. It was a Jewish wedding, so there were a few things that I wasn't familiar with. Before the ceremony outside, Dave and Kelly signed a marriage contract, or ketubah. Daniela and Kevin acted as witnesses to the contract and also signed it, along with Dave's rabbi. A ketubah traditionally lays out the obligations of the husband and rights of the wife in the 'transaction' of marriage. In this day and age they are much more equitable in their language, and Kelly's sister (and bride's maid) Stephanie did a beautiful job painting around the calligraphy. Jews are also married under a chuppah, which in this case was a quilt sewn by Kelly's mom and to which everyone at the wedding submitted a decorated square of fabric. Dave's sister Sookyung, his cousin, Conor, and I had the honor of holding up the chuppah through the ceremony. I think being a witness to the ketubah is the bigger honor, but alas, I was disqualified for not being Jewish.

The pictures turned out great, the food was awesome (I had the salmon), the cake (うまい!) was beautiful, and we got some dancing in. Unfortunately Dave and Kelly only had the facilities until 4ish, so the dancing part of the afternoon had to be cut short. This was disappointing for me because I helped Dave come up with the playlist. And even more so because D and I love to dance and we were loose after drinking free booze for hours.

The untrained eye might see a screaming match in the picture to the right, but we are actually dancing. Daniela asked me not to post this one on the blog. Request denied.

By the numbers

I heard some disturbing statistics about the state of Nevada the other day on NPR. I decided to do some further research and then compare the quality of life in Massachusetts to that in Nevada. My conclusion: eat it raw Nevada.

Trust for America's Health Report ranked Massachusetts #1 in the nation for its quality of life. That might have something to do with Massachusetts' stupid new health care law (the state fines you several hundred dollars for not having health care), but what works, works. Massachusetts (represented here --> by Patriots' cheerleaders) has the 5th lowest infant mortality rate in the nation, the divorce rate is the second lowest, the number of live births to mothers under 20 is the lowest in the nation, it has the highest literacy rate in the US (according to the Daily Show), it's 48th in the nation in per capita poverty (also according to the Daily Show), it's 3rd in the nation in per capita income ($43,702 average), and 29th most dangerous. I don't know why Massachusetts is so dangerous given the other positive numbers. I guess we just like to occasionally stab people. But then again, who doesn't?

Now let's take a look at Nevada. According to the May 19, 2001 issue of the New York Times:

"Pick almost any index of social well-being, and Nevada ranks at or near the very bottom of the 50 states, though it ranks near the top in personal wealth. Besides having the highest suicide rate (almost twice the national average), Nevada has the highest adult smoking rate and the highest death rate from smoking, the highest percentage of teenagers who are high-school dropouts, the highest teenage pregnancy rate and the highest rate of firearm deaths."

Wow! Holy shit! Really? Really. Or how about these numbers: Men's Fitness magazine ranked Las Vegas as the fattest city in the nation for the second consecutive year (the magazine's criteria includes sports participation rates, time spent working out, number of parks, average commute time, television viewing rates and legislative health initiatives). The CQ Press ranks Nevada the most dangerous state in the union (the numbers are based on violent crime statistics) and the 47th healthiest state (on the same criteria that it ranked Massachusetts #1). All this despite having a lower unemployment rate than Massachusetts (4.1% to 4.8%), and relative to the rest of the nation, a high level of personal wealth (average income is $35,780). That $35,780 number is actually higher than it looks because the cost of living in Nevada (represented here <-- by some drunk idiot who probably caught hepatitis from a prostitute) is so much lower than Massachusetts. Using CNN Money's cost-of-living calculator, you would need to make $48,000 in Massachusetts to have the same standard of living as in Nevada with $40,000. So, things are 20% more expensive in Massachusetts, but average incomes are 25% higher.

So, how can we explain these numbers? Las Vegas being the fattest city in America makes sense to me. It's too hot here to sit outside, let alone run. The Strip is the only place in the city you can walk around and food here is much cheaper than in Massachusetts. All that adds up to large asses and saggy man boobs. Although for the heat excuse to make sense, we would have to look at obesity rates for Arizona, which is just as hot. I know that 6 of the 10 fattest cities in America, according to Men's Fitness, are in Texas. So the it's-too-hot-to-do-anything-but-eat-Doritos excuse might be valid. However, I also thought that maybe Las Vegas was so dangerous because so much of it is urban. After all, isn't the state of Nevada just Las Vegas and a giant desert? After looking into that, I found that 68% of the state of Nevada lives in the Las Vegas metro area, which is the exact same percent of Massachusetts that lives in the Boston metro area. So, no help to Las Vegas there. Lastly, Boston, according to this article on the Boston Globe's website, is the highest city in America. The state with the best quality of life is also the nation's pot-smoking capital. I'm not claiming that pot-smoking is causing the high quality of life, but clearly it's not hurting it either. Neither is gay marriage. Just for the record.

I kind of got off topic at the end there, but I think I made my point.

終! ついに!

I took the Foreign Service Officer's Exam today at the College of Southern Nevada. I scheduled my test for 9:30am and the email that I received from the State Department was adamant about getting there on time and having all of the proper things: a valid ID, a print-out of its email, and no programmable electronic devices. The woman who proctored the exam was really laid back and told me she had no idea why I printed out the email. I got there at 9:05am and she let me sign in and take it right away.

The test was alright. There were four sections and it took me about 3 hours to finish. I was allotted 40 minutes for the 50 Job Knowledge questions, 50 minutes for the 65 English Expression questions, 50 minutes for the 77 personality questions, and 30 minutes to complete one essay. I had used the Arco Study Guide to prepare for this test, and it was beyond shit. It didn't resemble the test at all. The Arco guide's practice tests gave me different numbers of questions to be answered in different amounts of time from the actual test. The Arco guide also divided the English Expression questions into four sections, only one of which was on the actual exam. Maybe the FSOE has been changed since Arco published its guide. If it hasn't, Arco has no excuse for how awful and unhelpful its guide is.

The English questions were much easier than I had anticipated but I'm sure I still got a bunch wrong. The Job Knowledge questions were either easy to answer because I knew the information, or impossible because I didn't. There were questions about the nations that border Afghanistan, areas of national policy where the US and Canada depart the most, and which president opened up relations with China.

If I could study for it all over again, I would have read a book on organizational behavior because it seemed like there were a lot of "which is the most important reason for a loss in productivity" type of questions. I think my score could go either way because I was so unsure of the majority of my answers. I don't think they were terrible answers, I'm just not that confident.

The essay had to do with intelligent use of natural resources and forming public policy. I said rainbows are magical and I wish I was playing Grand Theft Auto IV.

I can't believe I learned the capitals of all the Pacific island nations. New Caledonia? Noumea. Kiribati? South Tarawa.

Bitch.

Brucie requested it...

I just finished former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's book Reconciliation. It was a project she began while living in exile in Dubai and finished shortly after her return to Pakistan on October 18th, 2007. Mrs. Bhutto had many enemies in Pakistan and on the very day of her arrival there was an assassination attempt along her parade route in Karachi. Mrs. Bhutto survived the attack, but not the one that followed on December 27th in Rawalpindi. She was the head of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), the largest pro-democracy political party in her country (and according to Mrs. Bhutto, the only one with nation-wide support).

The book is divided into several sections including a personal account of the events of the 18th, her own moderate interpretation of Islam (in which she quotes from the Quran to support her views on democracy, women's rights, and peace), a history of democracy in the Muslim world (and how the West has undermined democratic movements), a political history of Pakistan, and her recommendations for the future.

As Fareed Zakaria said in his review for the New York Times:

Washington should arrange to have the portions of the book about Islam republished as a separate volume and translated into several languages. It would do more to win the battle of ideas within Islam than anything an American president could ever say.

I found myself wondering why Muslim countries haven't had democracy since the days of the Prophet if her interpretation of the Quran is accurate. If Islam encourages Muslims to think, read, and interpret (ijtihad) the Quran for themselves; tolerate the religious views of others; treat women as equals (the Prophet's wife, Islam's first convert, worked outside of the home) then how did the Muslim world get into its current state of repressive governments, radical Islamist movements, and religious intolerance? The West has played a role by undermining democratic movements (especially during the Cold War), but an equally destructive force comes from the war that Muslims wage against each other. Mrs. Bhutto sees this as the more dangerous trend because Muslims do not often acknowledge it.

Benazir remarks that the US has given much more money to the dictatorships of Pakistan than it has to its civilian governments. This is because dictatorships like Zia's and Musharraf's have convinced the US that they stand between the US and an Islamist Pakistan. Only by supporting them can the US hope to keep terrorist elements down in Pakistan. Mrs. Bhutto doesn't agree with this assessment and states that Pakistan's dictators have always exaggerated the threat from the FATA and Northwest Frontier tribal areas. What these men are actually after is power, and with American support they can suppress opposition parties and strengthen the military (which is also legitimizing since Pakistan fears India first and foremost). Since Benazir Bhutto's death, the PPP has formed a coalition government in Pakistan and, like usual, the US is making more mistakes in its aid decisions (the US has given $5.4 billion to Pakistan since 2001 and only millions have gone to strengthening civil society).

I think Reconciliation is better than the sort of book you would expect a politician running for office to write. Sure, she sort of ignores all the corruption charges against her and her husband, and that the Bhutto family treats the PPP like their personal property, but she does criticize current Muslim governments in her book, and I imagine this was more substantive than say, Hillary Clinton's "autobiography." However, I never assumed this book was unbiased and maybe after I finish the FSOE, I'll read Musharraf's book to get a more complete picture.

Oh yeah, I have a blog!

I'm registered for the Foreign Service Officers' Exam on July 16th. I'm taking it at a school in Henderson, NV, which is only 15 minutes from our house. I borrowed the Arco study guide from the public library and retook the practice tests. I didn't save my old scores though, so I don't know if I improved. I've read the Constitution a few times, played around with Sheppard Software, and read all the latest best sellers on international relations (from the back of Foreign Affairs).

Here's a fun fact for anyone who hasn't spent an extensive period of time delivering wedding cakes in Las Vegas: the loading docks of every hotel and restaurant stink. The restaurants and hotels here still just pile their trash up for days before its picked up, but unlike, say, Boston, it's constantly 110 degrees here. Which makes that trash REEK in just a short period of time. And if you're really interested, the loading docks under the Venetian and Palazzo are the nastiest smelling places in all of Las Vegas. I actually dry-heaved a few days ago, quite unexpectedly, while I was delivering cakes to some suites there.

Last weekend we went to Salt Lake City for Daniela's great uncle's funeral. I'll post a few pictures when I get them from Daniela's mom and aunt, but the ceremony was nice, I was a pallbearer because there were so few men who were able to make it, and it turns out Salt Lake City is beautiful. Before having gone there, I would have made fun of anyone who wanted to move there. What could Salt Lake City possibly have to offer? It turns out it's breathtakingly beautiful. High snow-capped mountains surround it, the weather is fantastic, the neighborhoods are cute and everyone takes care of their lawns. It's probably the nicest place in America to raise kids. The only downsides are the giant cloud of poison that hovers over it, and the marauding Mormons who regularly gun down tourists and non-believers. Oh yeah, and Jesus lives there. I saw his house but was too afraid to knock on the door to meet him.

Currently reading 'Reconciliation' by Benazir Bhutto.

Happy Birthday Daniela!

I got up early today to take care of a few things for Daniela's birthday. I had made her a plate at one of those kiln places here in Vegas. Then I finished up a chocolate cake for her (I baked it myself despite having access to the awesome ones at the bakery --- I think the gift is in the baking, not the cake itself), and made pancakes. She got up at 7:30 and we had breakfast together. Then I showed her the cake and she opened up her present, and then we dragged our feet upstairs to go get ready for work.

Then Joni called me as we were headed out the door to let us know we didn't need to come in today. Instead she got us a hotel room at the Hard Rock for tonight and offered us a cabana (we turned it down because we didn't think we'd really use it) by the pool. So we're headed out to the Hard Rock to check-in now (normally you can't check-in until later but since everyone knows the bakery and Joni has friends there, we're fine and even going through VIP services when we arrive). I'm not sure how to get Daniela's cake out there for tonight (we'll probably have to drive back here to get it) and I guess I'll post again tomorrow with some pictures and a follow up to how we spent her birthday.

From A to Zion

We have installed new software at Tropicana that will allow us to track a number of things through the register. We've had this software at the Richmar store for a while, and it really helps with any analysis we want to attempt. So, we normally have Mondays and Wednesdays off, but Daniela needed to go in on Monday to train the counter staff how to use this new program. So we worked on Monday and took Tuesday and Wednesday off instead. It was the first time we've had consecutive days off in a while, so we decided not to squander them and went camping at Zion National Park.

Zion is only a 3 hour drive from Las Vegas, despite going through Nevada, Arizona, and Utah to get there.

We borrowed a tent, folding chairs, electric lantern, water-proof blankets and a few other things from Jayme, a woman we work with at Richmar. The only thing we asked for was the tent, but it turns out having a lantern was a good thing. It actually reminded me of climbing Mt. Fuji with Amy, because she didn't bring a flashlight or anything for the trip, despite the fact that we were climbing a mountain all night.

We got to Zion and used our America the Beautiful pass to get in, but registering a campsite still cost $16. Setting up the tent was the only part of the weekend where I almost lost my temper and started screaming. Not at Daniela, but she was the only person around so it might have looked like I was screaming at her to any passers by.

Our friend Jayme actually gave us a tent so huge it was almost impractical. We never thought to check it before leaving Las Vegas, but it was a 12'x17' tent with three separate doors and a nice entryway for the front. It was massive. It was larger than some of the RVs parked at the other end of the campground. Maybe it was because we were close to the river, but there were also strong winds that day. The park ranger who came over to register our site warned us that they might get up to 40mph that night. It might be unnecessary to add that setting up a tent so large in strong winds is frustrating. We got the tent poles in it fine but then it was a perfect parachute and it was hard to hold it down. I got a few of the stakes into the ground but some wind would come and tear them right out again. The conversation between D and me went something like this:

(Gust of wind comes out of nowhere)
Benn: "..."
Daniela: "Hahaha ha haha"
Benn: "Seriously, I'm getting really angry and you need to stop laughing because its making it worse."
Daniela: "OK. Do you want to just say 'fuck it' and get a hotel room?"
Benn: "(SIGH) No, let's give this one more shot."

We eventually got it up by opening up all the windows and doors so that the wind could pass through the tent without taking it away. Then I got all the tent stakes down and piled some rocks on top of them. We reduced the size of the tent by not extending the entryways. Then we lashed our tent to a picnic table nearby so that it wouldn't wind up in the river while we were out hiking. Things went really well after that. We used the park ranger's RV to blow up our inflatable mattress (it only needs to be plugged in) and then we were in business.

We took a 3 hour hike that day (Tuesday) to the Emerald Pools and then got an awesome dinner in town at Oscar's Cafe. We had lunch at Blondie's and, if you ever go to Zion and eat in Springdale, UT, were pretty sure that they served us the previous customer's diarrhea. Oscar's Cafe rocks though. I got a 'Murder Burger' -- 1/2 pound garlic burger, chopped bacon, onions, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and fry sauce -- with sweet potato fries, covered in mayonnaise. Anything covered in mayo is going to rock, but it would have been good without it.

Daniela asked our waiter to explain Utah's liquor laws because she overheard a conversation in the restaurant about it and our waiter seemed pretty knowledgeable. So he told us that there was a three-tiered liquor licensing system, where you can get approval to serve beer under 3.2% under the first tier, wine and beer over 3.2% under the second, and liquor under the third tier. He then said that all the liquor stores in Utah were government-owned and no beer sold in these stores is cold because the state wants to discourage people from buying beer and drinking it on the way home. This 'no cold beer' law got us interested, and since we were bound for the liquor store, we were excited to see it in practice. But when we got to the only liquor store in Springdale, Utah, we found plenty of cold beer. WTF, mate? Daniela got a single bottle of Sam Adam's and I bought two cans of Icehouse.

We sat around for a while, drinking and looking at the stars, which were brilliant.

The next day we took the shuttle further into the park and hiked the Hidden Canyon trail. We got lunch on the road and made it back to Las Vegas by 4pm.

Working sucks.