Blog Number 131

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

This morning started great.  Right at 6 AM, there was a knock at my door and a man wheeled in breakfast.  I had ordered this the night before so I was up and ready for it.

This was about $5 US and the fruit on my plate was very nicely presented.  Some of the fruit I could not quite make out but it was good.  The coffee was good and the basket contained many different pastries and breads.  Also there was some jam and 3 small bottles that were labeled "caramel" so I am not sure what was in them really as caramel seems an odd thing to spread on your toast.

The view from my 5th floor hotel is nice as well.

I am in the center of the city it seems.  A co-worker from near here met us in the lobby at around 8 and we were off to work.  After about a 30 minute drive we arrived at the building which is newly renovated.  For now there are only about 15 people in the building but it will hold about 800 eventually.  We got connected to the network very quickly and were able to do some catch up on email that had been piling up.  There were several other co-workers flying in from Buenos Aires but the airline went on strike this morning so they had to find another flight with a different company.  This was good timing for us as just yesterday we flew with this same airline and we would have been stuck in Chile!

Lunch was next door at a place that just opened yesterday.  I do not quite know how to explain the setup but it was sort of like a cafeteria.  I trusted a co-worker and just ordered what he had.  Basically I had 3 different kinds of empanadas and they were very good.  We were still not able to get to a bank to exchange our money for pesos so we had to rely on them to pay with a promise to repay them.  We worked until about 6:30 and then headed back to the hotel.  Evidently the custom here is to eat dinner around 9 PM so we are meeting in the lobby in about 20 minutes to head out for dinner.  I will have to get used to this as I am ready for a quick bite and then to bed since I got up at 3 AM central time this morning.

Everyone is very nice and apologized for their English but they speak it very well.  I feel bad for not even knowing more than a few phrases in Spanish.  I will try to watch some more Argentina TV tonight and see if I can catch a few phrases.  Until tomorrow.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 130

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well I am in Cordoba, Argentina.  It is about 11:30 local time as I start this blog as they are 3 hours ahead of central time (2 hours ahead of eastern).  What a day!  I am very tired but felt compelled to blog this evening (can you feel the love?).

The wife dropped me off at the Dallas airport last night around 7:20.  The flight was not until 9:20 but they say you should be there 2 hours early.  So I got to my terminal at 7:25 and sat there for almost 90 minutes before the plane was boarding.  A co-worker (from now on I will use CW for co-worker) was coming from Indianapolis and hooking up with me for the long flight.  We boarded the plane and took our seats in business class.  Now I have never flown business class and for those of you who also have never flown business class let me tell you that it is the only way to go.  There were only 6 rows of 6 seats in that section and there was about 3 foot of leg room from row to row.  Also, the seats reclined to about 60 degrees and the leg rest tilts out as well.  There was a nice pillow and blanket laying on my seat waiting for me as well as a flight attendant (from now on I will use FA for flight attendant) offering me champagne as I was getting situated.  I took the champagne but only because I thought it was apple juice.

After we were seated, another FA asked us what we wanted to eat and rattled off our choices (essentially beef, chicken or pasta).  The FA noted that there was only one beef left so I opted for the pasta and CW took the last beef.  We were offered some wine but I opted for a coke instead.  We were then asked if we wanted a personal DVD player (CW took one, I declined since I had my laptop).  The DVD player arrived and it was about a 5 inch screen with about 20 movies to choose from in a little case.

After take off, another FA (there were like 4 or 5 of them just for business class) brought us some peanuts.  These were not the same you get in the back of the plane.  These were in a little ceramic bowl and they had been warmed!  Also, there were cashews and several other kinds of nuts, not just peanuts.  Once those were gone, we were brought an appetizer consisting of 2 chilled shrimp and some smoked salmon (which I had never tried before - it is a delicacy I suppose but all I ended up thinking was that someone had succeeded in making salmon taste like ham). I did not finish this before they delivered the salad and they must have been on some sort of schedule since they just took what was left of my salmon / ham away.  The salad consisted of long strips of shaved carrots, asparagus, some sort of spicy tomato, along with lettuce and some kind of mushroom.  I did not get to finish my salad (only got through a third of it really) before that plate was taken away and replaced by the main course.  It was risotto and had various diced vegetables in it along with some spinach.  This was very good and I was able to actually finish this before desert was offered.  I did take a small glass of Chilean wine just because it was offered and I thought, "Hey, when will I ever get to drink wine from Chile?"  It was not that impressive but I get the feeling that I do not have a palate for differentiating between good wine and the $4 stuff you can get a Wal*Mart.  I opted for ice cream with hot fudge, whipped cream and nuts for desert.  Since we were in row 6 of 6 it appears the FW just gave me the balance of the chopped nuts that was left.  All in all, probably one of the top 10 meals I have ever had.  And this was airplane food!  I reclined my seat almost fully and was able to catch about 5 hours of sleep.  When we woke up the next morning, my CW noted that it looked like some sort of sleepover gone wrong.  People sleeping all over the place and stuff all over the floor.  My daughter is not old enough to have had a sleepover but his daughter is so I took his word for it.  Business class was about 90% men and most appeared to be mid 40's to mid 50's.
Since 5 AM is when I am used to getting up, that is when I got up.  I have no idea where we were at in the air but it was probably 8 AM local time where ever we were at as someone pulled open the window shade and light flooded the plane in our section.  Breakfast came shortly thereafter and I chose cereal over the omelet but it did come with yogurt, croissant and fruit along with coffee and orange juice.  Oh they also came around with hot towels for wiping off your hands when you were done (they did this for dinner as well, forget to mention that).

We arrived in Santiago, Chile on time and it took us about 20 minutes to find our terminal where our next flight was departing from in about 2 hours.  The Chile airport was a little boring other than some great views of the mountains and appeared to be playing Duran Duran's greatest hits over the intercom.  There was a Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and a Ruby Tuesday along with all kinds of shops.  Mostly we sat at the terminal and read books / listened to our headsets.  The next flight only took about 75 minutes and there was no business class (boo hoo, I was really spoiled by that first flight).  They did serve lunch (a chicken salad sandwich and a cookie) and the in flight TV screens popped down and showed an episode of The Simpsons.  This was in English and there were no subtitles.  I found this strange as of the 100 or so people on the flight, I doubt if many were American or even spoke English.

We arrived in Cordoba and got through customs pretty quickly.  They are not as stringent here I think as they are in the US.  They barely asked me any questions and only scanned my luggage.  Outside there was a guy holding a sign up with our last names on it and we were then driven through a ton of city streets to the hotel.  I can see why the folks that we know down here recommended that we NOT get a car.  Many intersections did not have stop signs or even yield signs.  From what I could tell, you simply gaged if you were going to be the first to arrive at an intersection and either stopped or did not stop accordingly.  We got checked in at our hotel (a Sheraton) and took a nap and then headed down for dinner.  The restaurant was empty at 6:15 so dinner must happen at a later time down here.  I had some sort of beef steak and French fries that also contained scrambled eggs (weird, eh?).  It was very good but I was still tired more so than hungry.  Right next door to the hotel is a large mall so we roamed around it for a while.  This was your typical mall and I was familiar with a few of the store names.  We found a bank there that would exchange our money to Argentina pesos but they had closed for the day.  The exchange rate is about 3 pesos to 1 US dollar and things are a little cheaper down here from what I could tell (the music store had newer CDs for about $12 US).  The mall had a food court so I think I will opt to eat there instead of the hotel restaurant if I am given a choice.

Well that is about it for today's post.  I tried to make note of the highlights but am sure I am missing some things.  There are a few of the 60 or so channels that I get in the hotel room that are in English with subtitles and before I headed down to the lobby to post this blog, I was watching the Spurs play the Nuggets in NBA basketball.  I know I will value this eventually as no one else that I have ran unto speaks much English.  I will try to post again soon but I have no idea what my schedule will be like tomorrow.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 129

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I beg of you, no more advice.  Especially if it is useless.  I don't need anyone else to tell not to drink the water.  I needn't be told again to "be careful" while in Argentina.  And I don't need to be told to have a good time.  Why do people feel the need to say such tired clichés?  Why not do some research and offer some real advice?

For instance, Cordoba is 3 hours ahead of central time so why not offer to remind me to set my watch 3 hours ahead?  Prior to the rise of Buenos Aires, Cordoba was Argentina's center of arts and learning.  So why not remind me to take in the culture while I am there?  It is the middle of summer there (highs in the 90's each day recently), why not remind me to take some sunscreen?  Argentina is in the southern hemisphere, so why not request a video of the toilet flushing with the water swirling the other direction?  In February, the Festival of Carnival takes place where children enjoy throwing water balloons at people on the street.  Why not warn me of that?

I mean come on?  Do you even care about me?  Think people, think!  Besides, I am sure the water is fine down there and I am sure I will have a good time even if I am not careful.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 128

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

T-Minus 60 hours and counting until my plane takes off for Argentina (with connecting flight in Chile).  It is actually more like 61 hours but T-Minus 61 hours did not sound as cool.  There is something about a nice round number like 60 that makes it sound more exciting / suspenseful.

This morning the wife and I were comparing concerns of ours about the trip.  Actually, hers are better catagorized as outright worries.  Here are the things we are thinking about...

------ The Wife ------

• How will the kids and I deal without a husband / father for 20 some odd days?
• What if he gets sick down there?  I will not be there to nurse him back to health.
• What if his hotel is in a bad neighborhood and he gets robbed / attacked?

-------- Me --------

• I don't have 20 days worth of clothes, how will I get any laundry done?

So as you can see, we have different concerns.  I have other concerns as well, just none that I will admit to the wife (gotta keep up the macho persona).  I will admit I am taking more time lately to have the daughter on my lap and to pillow fight with the son.  Yesterday the daughter and I took a trip to the grocery store to buy ice cream, cookies, soda and potato chips (4 things strictly forbidden by the wife - though ice cream is allowed occasionally).  We consumed these as the Colts beat the Chiefs in the first round of the NFL playoffs.  Then we watched my OTHER favorite team (that being whoever is playing the Cowboys) win their game.  That reminds me of another concern for my list, how will I find the Colts games on Argentinian television?

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 127

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

So the big news is out.  I am leaving at 9:30 PM next Tuesday (1/9/07) to head to Cordoba, Argentina.  I will not return until 6:30 AM on 2/4/07 making my stay a little over 3 weeks.  My wife would argue that it is not a "little over" 3 weeks but rather "just shy" of 4 weeks (Semantics!).

Our group is moving a portion of our work "off shore" to Argentina and I volunteered (and fought) for the right to be one of the first trainers.  My (former) team leader is catching the same flight as I am taking out of Dallas so at least I will not be alone on the 14 hour flight and 2 hour lay over in Chile.  There are several people that are from various parts of Argentina as well that are coming to stay in Cordoba while I will be there.  I have been in many conference calls with these folks and they speak English well enough so I feel confident I will be all right (if not I just won't leave the hotel room!).

In a way it is exciting since I have only been to Canada and The Bahamas and some would argue that those don't really count as "other" countries.  The times that I went, you did not even need a passport to get in / out of the country.  So this is very exciting.  On the other hand, in almost 10 years of marriage, the wife and I have only been apart about 10 nights (total).  So this will by far be a record.  I am not looking forward to being away from the wife a kids that long.  They are heading back to Indiana for almost the entire time so at least they will be around family.  Vonage only charges a nickel a minute for calls to Cordoba so we should be able to keep in touch relatively cheaply.

Anyway, I will blog more about this as the time approaches and you just know that there will be a blog (or two) about flying for 14 hours.  I will try to remember to post some pictures as well.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 126

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well today is actually Day 2 with my temporary crown.  I simply did not feel like doing anything yesterday evening except lay down on the couch (since the Procaine / Novocain had wore off).  But I did promise a blog about the trip to the dentist, so here it is.

I arrived right at 7:30 AM.  I was a little surprised that they were open this early given that they were there until 6 PM the night before.  I was escorted to the same room that I was in the day before and the doctor went right for the big needle.  No small talk, no "here's what I am going to do", no nothing.  Just "open" and POW.  OK, well he rubbed some local numbing agent on the area first and then hauled out the needle.  My tongue (of course) gravitated to that area of my mouth and hence the tongue lost most of its feeling.  Anyway, he stuck me 4 times and I only felt one of them.  Despite what I am about to tell you, this is the only pain I felt during the entire procedure.

The dental assistant then jumped in and got some molds of my teeth in order to build my temporary crown and also to send off to get my permanent crown made.  The last time I had any molds made was about 25 years ago when I was getting my braces.  They have come a long way in 25 years as this was a much more pleasant experience.  Anyway, once that was done and the doctor was sure the pain killer had taken effect, out came the instruments of torture, uh, I mean the picks and drills (sounds like we are mining here, eh?).

While I did not feel any pain, I have been in the dentist chair enough to know that the pain killer does not always work.  So the entire time they are drilling, I tense up in anticipation of pain that may come.  No matter what I try, I cannot relax and yesterday was no exception.  Usually the part of my body that hurts most after a visit to the dentist is my leg muscles since they have been tensed up the entire time.

Something new to me during this trip was the use of a dental dam. This was just weird but it did do the job.  It is basically a piece of latex stretched over your mouth.  Once they had drilled (what felt like) most of my tooth down, they then took a picture and put it on the TV screen for me to see.  This I did not need to see.  He simply could have explained what he wanted me to know without this graphic image as reinforcement.  OK Doc, I get it, my tooth is really really decayed!  I apologize for my bad brushing habits from 15 years ago or so when this whole thing started.  Anyway, with the image to show me what had just been done, he explained that while I was really close to needing a root canal, he was not going to do one.  He then proceeded to do what he called the "buildup" which is basically using some sort of rubber cement to form a tooth shaped nub in order to but a temporary crown on it.

Once the build up was there, the stuff had to harden.  Once that was done he had to grind it down to the shape he wanted.  Now the drilling that was done to remove the decay was NOTHING compared to this drilling.  I swear he switched the drill to the next size up (maybe two sizes).  This was not drilling, this was grinding!  I thought for sure the pick axe was coming next (and the leg muscles really tensed up here)!

Finally the nub was shaped and ready for a crown.  The dental assistant came in and was using some kind of color chart and holding it up to my mouth.  She said she was trying to match the crown to the color of my teeth so it would blend in.  Now I am not stupid, what she was really saying is, "I need to make your crown appear as stained as your other teeth."  So be it.  Another mold or two was taken and then the temporary crown was put on, allowed to harden, and then I was on my way out the door.

Overall the entire procedure took about 75 minutes and was relatively event free.  I was very impressed when last night at about 9 PM the dentist himself called me at home to check on me.  We discussed the Notre Dame football game that was going on for few minutes and said our goodbyes.  I have an appointment in about a month to go back in to get the permanent crown put on.

One bad thing about getting dental work done is explaining to everyone why your face looks puffy.  When they find out why, they want to share their friend's / relative's dental horror stories with you.  None of their stories end with...

• ...and everything was all right.
• ...and then he and the dentist went and played golf.
• ...and he and the dental assistant lived happily ever after.

The stories that I hear end with the following...

• ...and then he died.
• ...and once infection had run its course, his head had to be amputated.
• ...and although he won the lawsuit, he could not enjoy the money.

These things I do not need to hear, really.  So if your reading of this blog has reminded you in any way of a story about a friend's dental visit, keep the story to yourself.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 125

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

So I have had some tooth issues since late last week.  The timing was all bad since it was the holidays and no dentist was in the office.  Based on the pain amount, the location of the tooth in question, and the metallic taste my mouth, I had expertly deduced that I had lost a filling.  The wife called and actually got me into a dentist today.  This dentist was recommended by a friend of hers so all was going well.

The dentist office was nice.  The dentist I have gone to the last 25 years or so is back in Indiana in the little town of Greentown.  He did not have any cutting edge equipment (pun intended) but he was nice and not too expensive and in general did a great job.  I have only had about 4 or 5 cavities in my life and most of those were when I was a teenager and hence covered by my parent's insurance.  This dentist had a lot of newer gadgets that were pretty cool.  Based on the paperwork I filled out it looks like they offer both video and headphones to pass the time while you are having your work done.  Also, there was a TV monitor hanging from the ceiling that they used to show a picture of my tooth.  They had a little camera they could stick in your mouth and snap a shot for reference.  They also had a small room off to the side right before you got to your individual room.  It had a desk with 3 chairs around it and did not seem to serve a specific purpose.

Anyway, it turns out that I was partially right in that I had lost a filling.  However I had also cracked my tooth.  A lot.  Also, the cavity that the filling originally covered had evidently been silently at work for the last 20 years or so decimating all the tooth.  Once the picture was taken and some gentle prodding was done and once the x-rays were back I got to talk to the dentist for a little bit about his findings.  I will have to return tomorrow morning for the actual work as it is quite extensive.  At a minimum I will need a crown and if they "get in there" and see that it has gone "to the nerve" then I will need a root canal.

At this point he invited me to have a seat in the aforementioned room that I thought served no purpose.  I now know the purpose of that room.  It is in that room that they explain how much the whole thing will cost.  I think the room is sound proof so as to allow you to scream loudly any swear words that may come to mind once you see the estimate.  So anyway, I think my 10th wedding anniversary cruise with the wife that I was planning is going to be (at a minimum) postponed for a while.  Fortunately they take credit cards and only require half as a down payment.

I suppose if I was an optimistic person, I would point out that it is a good thing that I postponed buying the non-refundable cruise tickets.  We also are fortunate to have the cost of a crown put back in our main savings so we will not need to go into debt over this.  But I am not really an optimistic person and this just sucks.  I hope to have more on the actual work in tomorrow's blog.  Until then...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon