St. Patrick's Day

What a good weekend to be back in Chicago. My 3 favorite holidays, in no particular order, are St. Pat's, Halloween, and July 4th. Last year I was too 'busy' (drunk) to see the river dyed green. I realize that this takes place in the morning, but I just didn't make it last year. So this year I made it a priority. I went downtown with a bunch of hill billies from North Carolina (who I actually fit in with well) and had a great time drinking Guinness and Irish Car Bombs all morning and early afternoon.

Afternoon nap followed by making my way to Wrigleyville to meet up with Novots who just got back from Venezuela. We headed to Eric Berg's house to rekindle the magic that is beer pong, except this time with green beer. After 6 straight games of domination (we haven't lost our touch), we headed out for a while and called it a night at some point.

St. Pat's Pictures
What a great holiday.

Rosario, Argentina

Escaping the Chicago cold, I took the long flights down to Argentina connecting through Washington DC. After flying overnight and watching more crappy movies on United, I arrived in Buenos Aires around noon. The first 3 people I see are beautiful women, so I am already liking this place and I haven't even left the airport. I exchange some money and meet my driver, Cloudio, who speaks no English. I welcome this opportunity to practice the Spanish I learned in high school, so we set out on the 3 hour drive to Rosario with some choppy conversation.

Argentina Pictures

Rosario is the second biggest city in Argentina, and the refinery we are working in is about 45 minutes north of the city. The hotel is nice with a few people who speak some English. I met my chief, Pietro, on Sunday night and we went out for some food and wine. Argentina has a large Italian influence, which is apparent in the dining culture of sitting around all night and drinking wine. Works for me. After 3 days of working 10+ hours, Russ arrived so our group was 3 now.

The refinery is really old but the people are very friendly. The only thing that really surprised me was the stray dogs that wander the process areas. We went out with Luciano, an operations engineer (below), on Saturday to O'Connell's Irish Pub. Russ and I tried numerous local beers (like Quilmes), which were all delicious. We also had a car bomb just to feel at home. Then we wandered around to an outdoor cafe on the water, had another drink, and walked by the "disco" which is what they call a club. Everything is late here, just like in Spain and other countries that I don't even know about. Dinner doesn't start until after 9, and people don't even get to the club until after 1. The club we walked by had a line around the corner at 2:30am. Unbelievable.

Probably the funniest thing I heard the entire time I was in Rosario was a conversation with Luciano about The Simpsons. First of all, The Simpsons comes on everyday with dubbed voices. Bart sounds like a stereotypical dirty sanchez, which is already funny, but Luciano's anaylsis of the relationship between Homer and Ned Flanders was the best. "What I don't understand is, why does Homer hate Flanders so much? He is such a good man. It makes no sense." HA!

Sunday, Russ and I went to the beach. Yeah, eat that! Then we walked around an outdoor market during the evening and went for a run by the water. The hotel we were in is right down the street from a Peatonal, which is a pedestrian street with no cars on it. The street is lined with shopping and cafes, soooo it is a really good place to people watch. Basically, this place is amazing. I liked it a lot and wish I could have stayed longer. The women are beautiful, I got to practice Spanish, people are really friendly and diverse, and most importantly good wine is relatively cheap. Also the meat is really good, but the Malbec makes it that much better. I only got to stay 10 days since Petrobras was "overbudget," but it was worth the short trip. Back to Chicago.

Back to Chicago

Because of my delay in the Manila airport, I missed my connecting flight in Hong Kong, and of course there is only one flight per day from Hong Kong to Chicago. This would stress some people out, but I’ve got nothing but time when I’m traveling for work. Other people missed connections too, and Philippines Airlines put us in a hotel in Hong Kong for the night. I wish I could have gone out in the city, but it was pretty late when we checked in, so I stayed in. After a RIDICULOUS buffet at the hotel restaurant, I pretty much passed out around 9:30pm. I think my meal consisted of 3 different gourmet entrees, a giant salad bar (with dressing other than mayonnaise which was a nice change), fruit salad, rolls, and the dessert bar which I sampled just about everything. I will go into more detail…peach crumble, ice cream, blueberry cheesecake, carrot cake, there was a chocolate fountain for fondue (which I bathed in), and some other things I am forgetting. So…point of the story…I have two more stamps in my passport for arriving in and departing from Hong Kong. Here is a picture of my morning in the Hong Kong Business Lounge. Proceeding onto the 15 hour flight to O’Hare…

There were some shitty movies, so I watched Ladies’ Man and Beerfest on my iPod until it died. I did some crossword puzzles, and slept a few hours. It wasn’t too bad, but I wish the movies were better. I stooped so low as to watch Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium…twice. I also saw Michael Clayton which was ok.

Finally, we reached Chicago the day after snow just took a 6 inch dumper on the city the night before. I stepped off the plane and almost seized up. I haven’t felt anything colder than 70 degrees in 4 months. I dropped by the office (picture above), saw a few people and learned of my new assignment…Argentina. Can’t complain. It’s summer there.

I'm leaving Saturday.

Favorite Quotes from Philippines

Obvious Native: what country?
Ben: the US
Obvious Native: I am from Philippines. (like we didn’t know)

Cool Beans

Would you like some Merlot? I make it in the toilet.

I’m pretty sure I party.
No, I know for a fact that you don’t party.

I’m gonna rail it.
Does it have a beat enough face?

Goddamn is that sweet!

Can't a man even sit down to pee without getting a phone call?

Leaving the Philippines

Here I am, with this bitchin new haircut, comfortably enjoying my time in the Philippines…Until the very next morning when I arrived at work with an email instructing me to return to Des Plaines ASAP to prepare for my next assignment in…Yokkaichi, Japan! (allegedly)

Of course my interpretation of ASAP is packing up my things on Friday to spend the weekend relaxing and partying in Manila before leaving for the US on Monday. Why would I want to travel on the weekend when I could be doing it on a work day???

On Saturday we took a trip to Manila to stay in Makati and have fun for the weekend. Ben, Javier, Princess and I did my last weekend right with a relaxing afternoon in the hotel, a trip to Green Hills Mall, followed by a club in Manila called the Fort. The Fort is a group of clubs, actually, and we spent the evening at a club called The Embassy. I’m not really a big club guy, but Drunk Tom is a club guy, and Really Drunk Ben is definitely a club guy (I’m Rod, I party).

There were more foreigners here, but still it was like a female Asian fashion show and a series of bad pseudo-mullets on douche-bag guys who were basically showing off/challenging portions of dance routines. I think someone “got served” and it was “on” at some point. Princess pointed out a few recognizable people in the VIP section, such as dancers or some girl who was allegedly on Pinoy Big Brother. As the night progressed, it turned into a pretty fun time with that same beat all night long (seriously, at one point the DJ said “SCREAM” over the music. People screamed….I’ll scream.) I think I was standing in the woofer. We were definitely in the Manila hot spot and had a really good time.

Manila Pictures

We got some Shakey’s pizza for lunch the next day, which was delicious. Advertisements on the wall claim that Shakey’s has “the best pizza in the world.” I guess I don’t have any physical evidence to the contrary, but I have been to Italy and I lived in Chicago, so I have eaten some pretty good pizza. But, if Shakey’s claims to be the best in the WORLD, who am I to refute it. After a quick trip to Greenbelt Mall, it was time for Ben, Javier, and Princess to head back to Bataan while I stayed another night in Manila to catch my flight early the next morning. I was sad to see them go since we all had so much fun together.

In retrospect, this was a great assignment for a number of reasons. I learned a lot, saw a lot of the country, met some great people, and we had a good crew. I had a great time with Ben as we did so much traveling together, playing billiards, and generally keeping each other company. I was really glad Javier got to come out for the last weekend since he works WAY TOO HARD and needs to take more time off...and in general is just a really great guy. You'll never find anyone who doesn't like Javier. It's science. Come on Javier, take some more time off! And of course I had the most fun with Princess Panget! learning Tagalog phrases and hanging out in coffee shops. Here are a few other pictures from the end of my assignment.

I woke up really early on Monday and took a taxi to the International Airport, and after a 4 hour maintenance delay, I left the Philippines. I would really like to come back sometime. The only place I really wanted to see that I didn’t get a chance to go is the Boracay. I had to leave so quickly that I didn’t get to see those beautiful beaches. Maybe next time…

My New Haircut

After about 2 weeks of saying that I was going to get my haircut, I finally went and did it. For those of you know have known me awhile, at least 5 years I would say, you have seen several different hairstyles ranging from the penis haircut to the butthole-short penis style haircut, to the shag, to the horrendously long “I’ve lost the will to shower” hippie lack of haircut. The point is that I never get good hair cuts which had prompted in the past to not get hair cuts. I stayed home from work sick on Wednesday (I was actually pretty sick), so in the afternoon I walked myself up to Reyes Haircutters and waited my turn, which took forever, even though I was third in line. I found out why it took so long when I finally got in the chair. Apparently a haircut in the Philippines consists of a gay perfectionist trimming every hair on your head individually, followed by a shampoo, and finally a back and neck massage…which was lovely. I declined the shampoo and cut the back massage short, because I think my bakla barber was enjoying it a little too much, but it was still an interesting experience. Even a crappy haircut in the US is probably $12, and you don’t get any special attention. I would have gladly paid the same for this haircut, but when I went to pay it was 50 pesos, which is $1.25. Hey, if I am going to get a shitty haircut, I might as well pay for what I am getting.

"Before" Gay Picture & "After" Gay Picture

Felma the Lunch Lady

The Filipino equivalent to the lunch lady in Billy Madison who makes the sloppy joes extra sloppy; that is Felma. A squatty, humorous, probably 40-something, always happy woman who collects our money in the lunch room, Felma is always good for a daily inappropriate joke. Let's see if I can recall a few of my favorites over the past few months. From the very beginning when she asked me if I was single and I replied "why, are you interested," we got off on the right foot. A while later, she was wrapping something up for me and misspoke to say I'll rape it for you. Then she laughed and said "I'll rape you." Most people might freeze in this situation in shock, but I took it in stride and said the only reasonable thing you can say: "You can't rape the willing, Felma." On another occasion she didn't have 20 peso bills, so she had to give me change in all coins. She told me that it would make my pockets heavy..."heavier than your balls." How does she know my balls are so heavy?!? Oh, Felma!