Thurston

For those of you considering an extended stint out of country, a few words of advice – join the local yacht club. It is not like the Montego Bay Yacht Club is anything as high fallutin’ as the ones in Palm Beach, but joining can give the same type of benefits. Primarily, branded merchandise and close contact with people who own boats.

There comes a time in every man’s life when he must ask himself, “how many times can I go to the beach and laze around all afternoon while snarfing meat patties and frosty malt libations and simultaneously getting sand in my shorts?” Maybe you have yet to achieve this acme. Maybe you are well past it. Maybe you do not yet know the tactile pleasures of sandy shorts. Maybe you are a woman.

Regardless, I have reached this pinnacle and found the answer to be “as many times as you can get away with.”

Sadly, the damned Job keeps getting in the way. What, with having to spend five sevenths of all of the available daylight hours within sight of the sea, yet unable to merrily splash about (a vast improvement over previous failed attempts at more melancholy splashing about). Alas, even on the unencumbered weekends, there are times when the Fates have reasoned that driving to the beach is not in my tapestry. Clouds are probably their biggest reason, and laziness their second.

Anyway, since it is just next door, the beers are cheap, and the dues are small, we joined the yacht club. Of course, just providing them with a handful of Jamaican currency was not all there was to it. We also needed the necessary and required referrals from a current club member and a sitting board member so that the full board, at a regularly scheduled meeting, could better judge our adequacy for membership and subsequent association with the other members.

Once the referrals were in place, the board met, took a good long look at our handful of Jamaican currency and, “ping ph’tang!”, we find ourselves hobnobbing with the hardly hoi polloi.

Hoo bah.

Once the dues are paid, the membership requirements are rather light. Unlike a book club where you may have to read the occasional set of Cliff Notes, there are absolutely no reading requirements, except perhaps for the sign which prohibits bare chests in the bar. I have read that sign, good club member that I am, and wonder about the cause of its display, back in a time when half naked tars from around the globe frolicked and cursed at the yacht club bar, embarrassing the more genteel members and goading them to action, late one cloudy and moonless night in the dank and smoky boardroom, demanding that controls be enacted to eliminate such decadence, demanding that a forcefully composed sign be hung at the bar entrance. “No bare chests or swim suits in the bar or club rooms, matey”, it will read.

Things are much more reserved now, and the “matey” has long since faded from the sign, almost as if it was never there at the first. In place of the cursed cursing tars, there is some card playing on Tuesday nights, the ladies play Mahjongg for most of Thursday, and Friday is Happy Hour from four bells until quarter to five bells. These activities are fine and all, but our participation in them really pays if we get invited to go sailing on a Saturday or Sunday. Recent Saturdays have been good, as the club sponsors what they call a “Captain’s Sail”, whereby any able bodied member can cruise about Montego Bay for three or four hours on a participating ten to fifteen meter sailing yacht, captained by the owner and whoever else wants to give instructions at the time, as there are sometimes a half dozen boat owners (“captains”) on board.

The rum punch served on these jaunts is the best on the island.

The first time we did this voyage, the jib thingy connecting the mast to the deck sheared off at the bow thingy, while we ran with the wind back to the boat parking place. Fortunately, crisis was averted when all five captains started shouting orders at one another.

When all was said and done, the mast stayed put, the sails were dropped, and we motored back to the harbor, amidst the self-congratulations of our many captains, who averted certain catastrophe through their courage and conflicting leadership and dumb luck that we were heading downwind at the time.

A few weeks ago, we were asked to crew for a friend during the Sunday J-22 regatta. This regatta was just one of a series of races held for two thirds of the year between six to ten identical boats which anchor at the yacht club. Every boat is 6.706 meters long at the water line, with a single mast, hoisting mainsail, jib, and spinnaker, each with a crew of three or four. The only difference between the crafts is their general condition, the age of their sails, and the general condition and age of their crew.

My assigned duty was as ballast, commensurate with my age and general condition. Once we were at sea I learned that this assignment would also include hoisting sails, rigging the spinnaker and its boom, and performing a little dance with the mast, so as not to get knocked overboard by the front sail during a turn through the wind [Doin’ the Jib Jibe Jig, if you had to give the motion a name suitable for American Bandstand]. Regardless, it was great fun. As well, a nice view of the city and the other sailing boats, and lies and beers afterwards while we wore our shirts in the yacht club bar.

The feeling there is more like a Ty Webb club than a Judge Smails club, but less slapstick overall…. And best of all, we now know people who own boats, and people we know now know that we know people who own boats, and those people know people who write the society pages for the Gleaner.

Honest, the Gleaner has regular society pages, a fitting accompaniment to the “North Coast Happenings” and “Kingston After Hours” pages, which are like photo journals for the rich and famous. These pages chronicle the local posh events and those who attend them. “Society”, if you please.

We attended a fete for the Montego Bay Marine Park the other night. A few days later, I am instructed to read the aforementioned pages, wherein I find “…blah blah… Marine Park gala… blah blah blah… attended by a long list of who’s who including… blah blah blah… Mr. and Mrs. Alan Palmer….”

So.

Who’s who, huh?

We be who.

Dat’s who.

Gotta go out and buy me one of those silly captain’s hats. Read More......

Pedocidal Tendencies

And what do they do? They reshuffle the Cabinet and give us a new Minister.
Oh, I doubt that the change in Cabinet is the direct result or sole fault of problems on the North Coast Highway, but it certainly seems a little too convenient to reshuffle the top cards at this particular time.

Politics as usual.

One of the friendly parting gifts that the Brits bestowed upon this fair land in 1962 is their system of government. As were many of their colonies immediately after independence, Jamaica became a Constitutional God Saveth the Queen Parliamentarianismisticallicious form of government. As such, national policy is generally no further sighted than the next election and revolves more around the granting of political favors than it does the uplifting of the People. [So it really don’t matter what we calls it, does it?]

Jamaica has a parliament, with a couple of houses, both of reportedly ill repute. A representing Jamaican who finds him or herself in either location, and as a Member of Parliament, or MP, and happens to be the President of the party in power, will find him or herself as the Prime Minister, or PM. Other Jamaicans who find themselves in such similar positions, as a Member of Parliament and a member of the party in power, may find him or herself appointed to the Cabinet.

Unlike the States, and to the best of my knowledge, Cabinet appointments are not subject to the whims of any Senate approval process. As such, the PM can get any MP he (or she, although that has yet to happen) wants to fill the positions. These specially selected MP’s are now given additional duties and responsibilities as the Ministers of Finance, Tourism, Transportation, Mining, Justice, Defense, Education, Agriculture or, among others, one of my favorites, “Without Portfolio”.

This use of the term “portfolio” to describe government departments reminds me of grade school, where a portfolio was the three ringed binder which held my schoolwork. At the end of the term, these portfolios would be in a shambles, covers mangled and missing, and pages scrawled with neigh unto illegible references towards whatever we were supposed to have been learning over the past nine months. It was a pleasure to toss them out at the end of the year, knowing full well that there would be brand, shiny, and spanking new portfolios when we came back in the fall. In fact, a good reason to mistreat them was so that there would be no excuse to keep them. It was an anticipated ritual of autumn - new school supplies and a trip to Main Street in Ames for a fresh pair of sneakers and a foot x-ray.

In the local government, the ministerial portfolios are never new, just handed over to different people who make up a new cover for the thing out of an old grocery sack. At the end of the term, the contents are still the same, blurred a bit by attempts at keeping notes, but passed on, like a used college textbook, highlighted by the moron who took the course before you, underlining all of the wrong passages and then selling the thing for beer money before midterms.... or something like that.

Every once in a while, usually in response to shifts in the winds of political fortune (or is it intestinal fortitude), the PM will reshuffle the cabinet. This rarely involves bringing new people into the mix. Usually, the same cabinet flunkies are given different portfolios, these same folks who have cabinet level positions to begin with mostly because they are skilled political hacks and sing well the Party songs.

So a few weeks back, among a few other changes, the Deputy PM became the Jamaican Ambassador to the United States, the Evil Minister of Corrupt Police and Justice became the Evil Minister of Imports and Justice, the Minister of Transport and Works became the Minister of Corrupt Police, and the Minister of Mining became the Minister of Transport and Works, a position he ineffectively held two or three shuffles ago.

The former Minister of Transport and Works, ultimately responsible for the condition of the road today, will be safely away before the project collapses in flames, secure in the laurels of his intentionally and highly publicized successes with the Kingston bus system, expanding the port, and bringing in the Indians to fix the railroad. The new Minister can rightly claim that our problems all happened before he took office, which it did, although nobody will dare name who had the office beforehand.

Scooby sez: “It wasn’t me.”

In Running Away, Marley relates an old proverb, singing, “Every man t’ink dat ‘is burden is de heaviest.”

Perhaps I place too much importance to my own work, to think that the difficulties in constructing my one little highway have forced a change upon the national political structure. But still, it seems that a heap of our project burdens could be relieved if only one would t’ink a little more.

“Who feels it, knows it, lawd.”

As it is, the Client’s project management team have turned off the thought process altogether, in favor of either absolutely no action or frantic and unplanned immediate action. It looks like a deranged foot shooting exercise. They do not really promote self mutilation, but they do have a gun and a foot, and they are under such pressure to perform that they feel they must pull the trigger or nothing at all will happen.

It is nice that they have a plan,… of sorts.

Except, they keep missing the mark. Even their poorly laid plans go astray.

Oft,... Quite oft.

But really, how can you miss your own foot? It be right at the end of your leg. Just point and shoot,... unless your eyes are closed, and your hand is shaking, and you feel compelled to pull the trigger, pull the trigger, pull the trigger.
The result is that, by the time you finally blow off your toes, you have put a lot of holes in the walls and the floor, you blasted to bits your one table lamp that you never really liked to begin with, you woke the neighbors, and you have that stupid “oops” look on your face when the cops bust down the door.

“It wasn’t me.”

So who do you turn to when the project is in flames, fueled and fanned by the owner? The coworkers, of course, and each Friday night, at promptly 19:00, we grab the spouses and head out for chow and as many beers as we can manage and still have someone standing who can drive us home. We have few rules for this gathering. The main one is for the wives’ benefit - no shop talk. The compliance with this rule lasts a couple of minutes, generally. But if we catch ourselves, we do better for the next few minutes.

The work is all encompassing and all consuming, though, and generally one heck of as good time, despite what I may infer to the contrary. So we talk about what we have in common. Engineers talk engineering, and we talk it so much that the wives could now do a better job than the government, and would if they could, just to shut us up for a while.

Recently, we have been meeting prior to our Friday dinner at the yacht club for their happy hour (three for two beverages and stamp and go and smoked marlin for appetizers). What oftentimes results is that the yacht club beers are well cold and free flowing, and the food is usually tasty, so we stay there for supper instead of finding a vehicle and going into town. This saves us from actually driving anywhere as the yacht club shares a fence and gate with our complex. To our spouse’s detriment is that the other club members know why we are on the island, and they tend to quiz us about our work and we quickly lose sight of “the rule”.

Ah well, the bitching is half the fun, and it is usually over well before breakfast. In addition, having it out with the locals is our way of affecting public opinion with regards to the real reasons the road is in the shape it is.

“It wasn’t me.” Read More......

Roadblocks

We had a few more roadblocks last week, although locally, roadblock is really not the right term.

On Jamaica, the term “roadblock” is used to describe a police action, whereby two to four police will find a nice, shady spot by the side of the road, and then pull over anyone they choose. Sometimes they will have a huge, stationary radar unit and give out speeding tickets to the unworthy. Other times they will stage spot safety checks, or try to isolate and persecute the robot taxis, or just shake down the motorists. The best thing about driving a government van is that I very rarely get stopped at these travesties of justice. If they do wave you down though, by all means, stop. Those prominently displayed assault rifles are probably loaded.

Instead, what we had more of last week is what is locally called a “demonstration”. The worst of these demonstrations could better be called a riot.

The most severe in recent memory occurred just prior to our arrival, when there were demonstrations islandwide to protest an increase in the fuel tax. In every parish, junked cars, old tires, and debris were used to block the road. Shops and vehicles were torched. People beat on other people.

Eventually, the Jamaica Defense Force was deployed to keep the peace, clear the roads of junked cars and debris, put out the fires, and beat on other people. This demonstration went on for about three days, and losses were huge to businesses, individuals, and the island’s fragile image as a pleasant and safe tourist destination. As a result, the government repealed the proposed taxes, giving the people what they wanted.

Of course, over the next year, the government inched up the taxes in less noticeable ways, back to the level of the original increase, so the government got what they wanted too.

These nationwide demonstrations are uncommon, to be sure. The only other instance that comes to mind is when the national football squad (i.e. soccer team) won a place in the World Cup, and happy demonstrations shut down the island for a couple of days. More often, the demonstrations are local, and involve single issue protestors. Unfortunately, the highway is a very large single issue.

The poor condition of the roads is a commonly demonstrable offence. When the folks living next to the project get overtired of the dust and construction debris, they drag out the Lada shells and a couple of downed trees and seal off the transportation corridor. Recently, this has been happening somewhere along the project about once a week.

Jamaicans are great for their demonstration preparedness, bringing placards, scrawled on scrap cardboard and waved in front of the news cameras. That is, if the news cameras bother to attend. Demonstrations over poor road conditions occur so commonly across the island that it is no longer news.

The demonstrations do get some degree of attention though, especially when the road being blocked is this one. Johnsontown is noted for their demonstrations, and many a stick of water main has been buried recently bearing the spray painted tag “we want our road”, having been previously used as a large, blue, cylindrical, road blocking placard.

Usually the demonstrations are well planned. As such, we will sometimes hear of one pending, and can work to resolve it prior to the fact. Too often, these are developed and executed under the direct supervision of area dons and/or the local parliamentarian. Once one or the other of these is satisfied, the demonstration will quietly end. The people will then mill around for a while and grumble, until some new activity comes along.

Sometimes the demonstrations will not block the road, but just the work. As the work moves from place to place along the roadway, the locals will demand that they be hired to construct that part of the project which runs through their neighborhood. Too often, large groups will converge upon a job site and demand employment. They will raise a ruckus, get in the way, take over the heavy equipment, and pester the employed until a few get hired as Rastabouts, flagmen, or idle wage earners.

At Probyn Bridge, a large gang of locals (nee mob) accosted the superintendent, demanding work. Their claim was that, since the workers already employed had been at the task for the past five months, it was now their turn to be hired. The Contractor was then instructed by the mob to fire all of his help and hire from the pool of the great unskilled. He chose to retain his current workforce, and has been shut down at this location for the better part of a week. Actually he has been stalled at two locations, as his small tool storage was at this bridge, so he cannot get supplies from this to another site until the demonstration ends.

Last week we had two demonstrations simultaneously, which probably diluted each message overall. One at Riley, just east of Lucea, was to protest the lack of garbage pickup in the community. The community, however, is a few chains from the main road. To demonstrate there would have had no effect at all, so they dragged their junked Lada’s down from home and deposited them where they would get a better response.

On the eastern embankment to the new bridge at Kew, just west of the highway camp, residents amassed to demonstrate a different problem totally unrelated to the road works. They were concerned that, once the highway was completed, the government would completely forget about their little spot on the planet and would never spend another Jamaican dime in their community. They were demonstrating to make known their need for water and power and phones, and now must have seemed a good time to squawk. Since the folks in Riley were demonstrating as well, it must have got them in the mood.

I think part of the simultaneous nature of these two demonstrations is due to the fact that Michelle has been raining on the Land of Wood and Water for two weeks. I imagine that a tropical variant of cabin fever (“zinc shack syndrome”) has gripped the people, forcing some ejaculation.

The Kew-pers went to far, though, and failed to disperse upon command. What followed then is unclear, but it did involve a fair amount of government issued tear gas and some gun fire.

Worst was that there was no way into Lucea for most of the day, so I could not get to my favorite Ital place for stew peas, ackee, tofu and a cold beet root juice. Yum.

Valerie’s, though, the other way in Sandy Bay, has got some good chicken and yams.
Lunch was saved. Read More......

Currency

“The problem with Scotland,… is that there’s too many Scots.”
- Edward Longshanks, Braveheart

“The problem with this project,… is that it is totally fubar.”
- Alan Palmer, NCHiP

It has not always been so, but recently things have taken a bit of a left turn. A turn south, if you like that analogy, or the wrong turn at Albuquerque, if you are more partial to wascally wabbits.

This does not look at all like Pismo Beach.

There ain’t been much of any beach lately, as there has been little time available for extended and sandy shores, the project taking most of my time. When we have beached, our fellow beachers have a new configuration than what we were seeing prior to September. There are few tourists on the road or in Negril and fewer in Montego Bay. Fewer people have taken their carefree vacations recently, and this has had a telling effect on the national economy, and the local psyche.

The Jamaican economy has never performed any better than tenuous since Independence. In recent years, it has become more and more reliant upon tourism to pay the bills. Any reduction in tourism affects the airlines and their workers, the hotels with their staffs and suppliers, the bus and taxi outfits, and the vast trinket sector. Unlike the States, there is no great cash reserve (or the ability to print such a reserve) with which to bail out these sectors, although these sectors do not fail to ask. More often, the Jamaican response is to try to muddle through.

Muddling was the government response when The Contractor bailed on the highway, and it was the same government response that this project received when faced with unrealistic completion expectations. Not surprising is the fact that there are still lands to be acquired and utilities to be relocated. “What can we do?” is a common question.

One of the contractors recently ran out of credit with his local fuel supplier and had to cease his operations. “What can we do?”

Another contractor has finally admitted that his bid was in error and is now claiming that he was some sixty percent low on the supply price of a key roadway component. He has severely curtailed his operations. “What can we do?”

The bridge contractor feels that he must fill the channel of a flood prone river during the rainy season so that he can hoist his girders. Citing the maintenance of hydraulic efficiency and environmental portions of his Contract, he is refused permission. “What can we do?”

You can always muddle.


In my experience, a contractor who runs out of credit, has no clue with regards to estimation, or is not intricately familiar with his contract usually will not return to play ball the next season. Unless, of course, there is some other factor involved - like an unwritten rule book. Apparently, we have not been playing by these unwritten rules and have, as one contractor told us in confidence, “spoiled the party”.

All along our project alignment, we run into water mains. We run into them because they are installed in shallow trenches, with minimal cover, using the worst material around for backfill, placed with no compaction. The result is mains that leak, that burst, that destroy the surrounding pavement, and that cannot be considered a consistent supply for the users who rely upon this service. Certainly, the National Water Commission specification calls for a minimum depth of cover, and must specify the quality and density of backfill. What right minded water commissioner would let it be otherwise?

As I drive around potholes throughout this island, I cannot help but notice (‘cuz I’m a geek, remember) that the pavement surrounding the hole is rarely much thicker than a couple of centimeters. Now, who in their right mind would place two centimeters of asphalt on a road which carries five to ten thousand vehicles per day?

The answer, quite obviously, is the contractor, who traditionally charges the government for ten centimeters. To seal the deal, the contractor may do a small favor or two for the resident engineer and his staff, like take them out to lunch, or give them a nice bottle of rum or an envelop full of cash. Every so often, our staff reports such attempted tipping practices, and thankfully reports that the tip was refused. To both the project and our benefit is the Company’s high level of competence, consistency and commitment to the project, and the fact that we already pay better than anybody else.

Our second government project director, who had little history with us or the Works, hand picked the contractors to fill in for The Contractor. The cream of the crop,... would go into their pockets if all went as usual. And this is exactly why the Japanese dudes providing the initial funding for this job required that a foreign firm be the quality control agents for the work. They knew what I am only beginning to grasp.

What I still fail to understand is the reasoning behind the massive levels of corruption. Easy money, I suppose.

One might argue that, if the work performed this year is a piece of crap, you can come back next year and get paid to fix it. However, would not the country be better served if you did the work right this year, then the budgeted repair moneys could be used for new infrastructure next year? If this went on for a few decades, there would be a reliable network of roads, paralleled with adequate power and water, ready to facilitate economic growth.
Blame it on the invisible evil hand.

And this evil hand needs someone to slap silly. The project is out of money due to some huge government sponsored changes, the contractors hands have been kept from the till (at least as best as we can manage), and there will be an election soon. Somebody gotta be slapped. “What can we do?”

Hey! Why not slap the consultant? They are an outside outfit. They are foreign in many ways. They are not members of the “boys’ club”. They are still owed plenty of wampum. And best of all, it beats resting the blame for this fiasco on the government.

So, I am writing this particular thousand word treatise amidst my efforts to write a twelve to fifteen to twenty thousand word position paper for our corporate attorney, preliminarily entitled, “A History of Project Construction Costs for the North Coast Highway, Segment One” or “If We’re Fucked Up, You’re to Blame” (current apologies to Blink 182).

It gonna be a long couple of nights.

Life in the Tropics. Read More......

Canine Demise

There is no more Dogwagon.

It left me with a loud tick, then silence, then an uncomfortable rattling from that little thingy that controls the heat of the glow plug, then a few well placed epithets, then nothing but the fading echo of the door slamming shut.

No great matter, though, as I had a spare. The spare is a newer version of the same Mitsubishi, with a few less miles, and with a much more powerful (i.e. turbocharged) diesel engine. It does move a bit better, so calling the thing Dogwagon II is probably out of the question. As of this moment, it remains unchristened,... Truckulator?... Mitsutrashheap?... Give me a second,...

Mangycurmobile?

Magadogomatic? Hmm. Promising.

Which reminds me, the other evening, while fjording White Gut to avoid the citizen road block of the existing highway in front of Sonya’s Highway Pub, the driver of a minibus squeezing down the mud track in the opposite direction leaned even further out of his window to exclaim in my general direction, and for no obvious cause, “Mister White Boy!”
Yeah, that be MISTER White Boy, mon.

Actually, I was seriously considering not accepting the other truck, when it was delivered to me earlier in the week. Despite the greater power, lower miles, higher clearance, three cup holders, two speaker cassette stereo and power on two of the four windows, it is bright red. Bright, shiny red, with large chrome tubes for running boards, chrome tubular brush bar and a matching chrome roll bar. This van stands out,... sticks out,... like a tourist on Jamaica. If fact, the red is the same shade as many tourists, and just as painful to the eye.

Some may note that my last car was bright red. To them I say, “nyah, nyah, nyah”. To the rest of you, I will note that, in a land primarily populated by stark white vehicles, I would rather not be the subject of any excess attentions. As it turns out, the Dogwagon made the choice for me. That, and the sizable increase in power apparent with the new one.

Of course, we will not put down the ol’ Dogwagon. We will fix it, but it will not be returned to me. Instead, I will assign it to one of my inspectors as a field vehicle. He can rename it.

Our field guys’ inspection fleet used to consist of three or four ratty old Toyota pickups. Four doors, for sure, but each with around 300,000 klicks on the clock. Their time had long expired prior to them being assigned to us. Few working lights, fewer working window winders, convenient snap off bumpers, springs sticking up through the seats or down through the holes in the floors,... the works. Think back. Remember the worst car you ever owned? Luxury. Remember the worst car you have ever seen? Good for you.

The Ministry recently replaced these awful vans with a couple of four year old Suzuki’s and a newer Toyota. They ain’t real pretty, but they help me forget the massive repair bills I had to process to keep the old green relics on the road.

Yet, even greater than the fleet repair costs are the mileage checks we write to those inspectors who drive their own vehicles for work. Sure, the bad roads are bound to do more damage to a vehicle than smooth ones, but is it worth twenty five Jamaican Dollars (US $0.55) a mile? And, with the physical length of the project as it is, I see some really large mileage checks.

Each fortnight, the largest of these checks invariably goes to one man, who inspects the eastern end of the job. According to the submitted vehicle log, he claims to drive almost 200 kilometers each day, so, at the end of the fortnight, he gets a check for roughly JA $40k. Over the course of a year, this equates to about US $23k. It is all too obvious that this figure is excessive, and most likely a complete work of fiction.

So this inspector will get the Dogwagon, once it gets back from the vet. This will cramp his lifestyle, to be sure, but I am just an evil puke some days, especially when trying to save the Client a buck or two.

But the Client’s pocketbook is just one of his current worries. Time is of the essence as well. The Minister of Transport and Works, the Honorable Doctor Peter Phillips, still holds firm to his promise that the highway will be completed by the year end. Go ahead. Laugh all you want. It really is his promise, though, and apparently his actual intention to get the project at least substantially complete. He is probably delusional.

So... Wednesday I receive a facsimile from the Ministry that my attendance is required at a meeting to be chaired by the Ministry’s Chief Technical Dude on Thursday.

At last”, I thought, “an opportunity to discuss with da man hisself, one on one, our spate of problems and some potential solutions.” Only later did I learn that the meeting would be well attended - all of the subcontractors, The Contractor, the water utility, and assorted Ministry minions. There would be no one on one discussion of the project and potential solutions. Sadly, only after the meeting was over was it clear that the Chief Dude would not even be making an appearance as chairman, two and a half hours being excessively late, even for a Jamaican.

Except for the lack of pom pons, the meeting felt like a pep rally where only the cheerleaders are peppy (reminiscent of the “Pimples Full of Pus” event the fall of 1977, except without J. Bob Walther). The Ministry was trying to sell to the team their plan to complete the Works by their newer, closer, more arbitrary date of some eleven short weeks from now. They would now be enablers, and would do “whatever it takes” to stay the course.

The contractors just wanted to know when the utilities would be relocated, and when they would get paid, as most of their deferred financing was used up performing previously “whatever it takes” tasks. The utility relocations are almost a lost cause, as that money has yet to be found.

In May, the Client asked that we prepare a completion cost estimate, which we did, which he sat on for three months, until he asked us to prepare an updated completion cost estimate, which we did, which he sat on until now. Fearing for his job, the Project Director (recently back from the dead) has delayed presenting Cabinet and the government finance guys with the estimated cost of this debacle. Without this presentation, funding cannot increase beyond existing limits, and the project will stall. I would have no problem doing this, mostly as I would like to see the faces of this group when they hear that their little highway, which The Contractor was to build for US $25M, is now estimated to cost much much more.

As for me, a hundred megabuck highway is a much more impressive project to place on my resume. Read More......

Chantal

To compensate for the poor quality of our Internet service provider, and the equally poor quality of our telephone service provider (not surprisingly, the same outfit), I usually find myself on line in the morning. Early in the day, there tends to be less traffic on both sides, and download times are about as good as you are going to get. I use this half hour opportunity most mornings to process the electro-mail, check the headlines at CNN and at the Onion, and check out a few old Mr. Boffos from the archives.

On cue, My Yahoo lets me know that I am still warmer than you. In fact, I have only noticed two days this summer (winter comparisons being moot) when I was not, local temperatures being surpassed by those in the Twin Cities on those rare occasions.

It is August in the Tropics, however, and our recent typical temperature range has been remaining steady with a low of 28 and a high of 35 (82 to 95 for those Fahrenheit-ites out there), every day for a couple of weeks. These high averages tend to heat the sea around us and the ocean to the east of us and, for a variety of mostly unfathomable meteorological reasons, the atmosphere becomes unstable, and I figure that it is time for a visit to the National Hurricane Center’s (NHC’s) web site.

Well, I suppose that the reasons behind the weather are not all that unfathomable. Regardless, unfathomable is a fairly cool word. Unlike the vast majority of the others, it mixes both comprehension and seafaring.

“Arrgh! The waters, Cap’n, they be unfathomable.”

“Abast! Shiver me timbers and shut yer blow hole, ya swab!”

For most of the year, the NHC site (www.nhc.noaa.gov) is good for infrared satellite images of the Caribbean and Gulf basins, looking north well past Raleigh, south to Panama City, west to Brownsville and east to almost Africa. From this, you can see the larger cloud formations, and the blacks, whites and grays make nice wallpaper, changing every day, yet with the same basis.

The other day, though, the change to this image was obvious, as a dense circular mass had appeared and was looming just east of the Windward Islands. Obviously, something afoul was afoot - perhaps just a mass of rain, or perhaps something stronger.

Oh, yes, perhaps something much stronger.

I flash to another page at the same site, where I see that the NHC has given the cloud a name, “Tropical Depression Four”, the fourth such named occurrence this season. The season,... of course,... of the hurricane.

[Cue lightening flashes, thunder and scary storm music]

Early that afternoon, the wife called to tell me that she was going to the grocerama. Typically, not so odd an event, and completely expected once she informs me that the androgynous cloud formally known as “Tropical Depression Four” is now a somewhat butch tropical storm named “Chantal”, heading ever more rapidly towards the Windward Islands and then, most notably per the current predictions, towards our little island paradise.

“Buy some bottled water”, I recommend.

One large difference between hurricanes and other heavy weather is that the Federal Government gives plenty of notice (what the local government gives us is a second hand report on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report). Rare is the hurricane, nee tropical storm, nee tropical depression, that is not predicted three or more days before landfall. This is quite unlike my experience with tornados, where you can learn to recognize the conditions favorable for their formation, but then they pop out of the front at random, giving the population scant minutes to grab the cats and the radio and hustle down to the storm cellar.

Growing up in the Midwest, school was often interrupted by tornado drills, where we learned our lesson as to how we duck and cover and hope it hits someone else. As an adult in the Midwest, I came to expect the late afternoon wail of the warning siren and knew what to do when it sounded - grab the cats, head for the cellar, duck and cover and hope it hits someone else.

Things are less uptight here, or just less organized. The last hurricane to impact the island hit in 1988, when Gilbert stopped by to rearrange the furniture, relocate some utilities and harvest the banana crop. Last year, there was not even a tropical storm watch, and no threat of local destruction (by the weather only, self-destruction in Tivoli Gardens in West Kingston is a different matter). Needless to say, the shopping excursion was undoubtedly premature by local standards, but it did help us avoid any last minute rush, and we got rice and peas to last a month or two.

Now, if only there was a hurricane.

Chantal, it turns out, was just a sissy little tropical storm, who lost her bluster once she hit the Windward Islands, and was quickly downgraded to big cloud status. The season is young, though, and there are normally seven to ten named storms each year, so we may still get pummeled.

Until then, we will keep our mouse balls clean, our eyes on the maps, and eat rice and peas.

That is, unless she happens to get riled and get herself upgraded again to tropical storm in the last twelve hours, on her way to a class two hurricane, which should hit the island this evening sometime.

Time to batten, land lubbers.

That is, unless she changes course again and misses the island altogether. Read More......

Kansas

On occasion, we behave like tourists. -- Hang a camera around the neck. Wear some gaudy clothes. Speak real loud. Act real rude. Pay too much. Visit McDonalds. Get sunburned.

We are not very good at it, though. The best we can do is to wear the camera. We have yet to visit McD’s (not to be confused with Mack D’s, the auto reseller). The suntan guru makes sure that I wear plenty of sunscreen.

Ok, I am rude. But I am an asshole, too, so it sort of makes sense.

It is hard to avoid the tourist spots on Jamaica. Negril has the best beach on the island. The tour guides know it. The locals know it. We know it. So we go there and enjoy the beach. Similarly, the nice restaurants in town are bound to be tourist spots, since they are the nice restaurants in town. I guess there is really no tourist grocery in town, but if there was, it would probably have a better selection of overpriced food, and we would shop there.

Even so, whenever we are in a situation wherein we might be confused with the tourists, we try to quickly establish ourselves as locals. Driving the Dogwagon helps, as the yellow license tags clearly show it to be a government van, something a tourist would not have access to. A prominently displayed cellular phone is a great asset too, especially if accompanied by a tirade about how the new supplier, Digicel, is vastly superior to the crap that Cable and Worthless was trying to pawn off as “service”. And, of course, a working knowledge of local greetings, news, politics, and Patois goes a long way to demonstrate that we are not here for a week of getting stoned and sunburned.

Sometimes I am forced to be less subtle. At lunch at Walter’s last Sunday, a pair of hustlers approached us in the restaurant. “Welcome to Jamaica, mon!” came the greeting with the handshake. “Welcome to Sumfest!” Now, what could they be selling? Drugs? Guide services? Trinkets?

No matter. It probably involved a scheme whereby they get my money.

“We live here”, was my curt response.

Theirs was to immediately leave the restaurant.

If they were just non-hustling locals, the usual response would be more friendly and chatty, and would establish everyone’s role on the island - then I would ask for the local rate. The hustle works both ways.

We just got back from Europe, where the wife played tourist for a month and I for the final two weeks. I could not even try to pretend we were otherwise, as the language differences were so vast. My typical conversations started in one of three ways, “Buono giorno, tu parlate Inglese?”, “Bon jour, parlez vous Anglais?”, or “Ello guv’nor, do you speak English?” This clearly established me someone from another land. If they needed further proof, all they had to do was answer the English proficiency question with a “no”,... and let the language fun begin!
If it became clear that my best attempts at communications were for naught, I would just mumble an apologetic phrase like, “mon aéroglisseur est plein des anguilles”, and try to find a more cooperative native.

As is the case with tourists to the Antilles, we flocked to the major tourist destinations, stood in line for the particularly cool and/or over hyped attractions, took hundreds of digital images, and consumed vast quantities. I particularly gorged on the Italian’s pizzas (although the crusts were almost nonexistent in their total thinnatiousness) and large slabs of tasty Euro-beef, both of which cannot be found here. Well, there is beef here, but there are plenty of other local items I would rather consume before the local beef, and that well marbled and fully aged Charolais,... grilled to perfection with the little mushrooms, some au gratin pommes and a bottle of rouge, mmmmm.

I could not help but to compare my experience as a tourist to the First World to what any American might think of similar systems here in the Third. Most notably the foreign transportation systems (read: geek). What was most foreign to me was the total lack of potholes in Italy. Kilometer after kilometer of smooth asphalt, well marked with bright white paint. Such a sight always gets me a little weepy-eyed, just ask the wife.

During any trip back to the First World, I have to relearn western driving skills - how to share the road with others, how to stay in one gear for more than two minutes, how to feel comforted by the knowledge that the taxi three meters ahead will not stop without working break lights immediately in front of you with zero warning, how to lay off the horn. It is always such a hassle.

In just two unbelievably short weeks though, I found it rather ordinary to make my way into the city on a timely, clean, and comfortable public bus. It seemed the usual state of things to safely drive at 150 kph down the Autostrada, with plenty of room to pass and be passed. There was no wonder at all as the train we were on ran at well over 200 kph through the French countryside en route to a faultless thirty kilometer tunnel under the English Channel.

Life in the Tropics emerged again at Heathrow, just prior to our return flight to Montego Bay. We had finished our drinks in United’s spacious and very well appointed Admiral Club (we had weaseled our way in because the phone at Air Jamaica’s ticket counter was not being answered, so who is to say we were not invited?) and strolled down to the gate just as it was announced that they were boarding the first third of the aircraft.

Why then, was every person in the departure lounge crushed en masse against the two overwhelmed ticket takers? It was so typically Jamaican, where the word queue has far too many vowels to be fully understood.

In the parking lot back at Sangster was a truck with four punctured tires, a victim of driving the wrong way through the tire shredders. The traffic signals at Pye River were completely dark, and had been for days. The new development down the way has placed their storm sewer in the roadway ditch, pipe crown above roadway centerline. Public Works diverted traffic at Round Hill without the necessary and required submittals, nor any traffic control signs or devices, for that matter. The rest of the contractors are still their traditional whiny selves.
Business as usual. There is no place like home. Read More......

Accommodations

If you are planning a visit to our fair island, I am sure you will want to know what you are getting yourself into. That may be why you read these, or you may want to see what we have gotten ourselves into. Regardless, today’s rant regards housing.

If we cannot meet you at the airport, you may have to take a taxi or rent a car. Not that anyone has yet had to do this. With a big international airport like Sangster, we would hate you to get lost between the nine gates and three (one working) baggage carousels, so we try to pick everyone up eventually. In the off chance that we cannot, we drive on the left here, so be careful. As you leave the airport, you will enter the first of many roundabouts (the word will make you out and out). Enter to the left, of course, and get off at the first left. Drive west until you are almost past the airport, but not quite. You will pass the jerk stand that is never open, and pass the Ministry maintenance yard with their hectare of rust. Just past the broken water main that is never fixed, and opposite the football field there is a turn to the right up the hill. Do not make this turn. In fact, these directions are wrong. Go back to the roundabout at the airport and try again.

Had you turned, you would have ended up in a neighborhood called Flankers. I know very little about this place except that we were told explicitly to never go there. These are the slums of Montego Bay. Potentially as bad as a West Kingston Garrison, it is controlled by rude bwoys. The residents do not take kindly to strangers, or so I hear. For all I know, it could be nirvana up that hill, just a nirvana camouflaged with tin shacks, stick shacks, blue tarped shacks, and scattered herds of rambling goats.

Better to head into town for now.

So instead, take the high road, upper road, or Queen’s Drive out of the airport roundabout. It is all the same road, anyway. At the next roundabout, turn on Sir Howard Cooke, then through two roundabouts down to Alice Eldermire, then to the roundabout at Southern Cross, then turn on Sunset and proceed to the last complex on the right. In the last klick and a half, there are a dozen sleeping policemen for your driving pleasure. A dozen in,... a dozen out.

One of the benefits of living on the tip of a peninsula is that there is little through traffic. Yet, when the peninsula is largely landfill, it may end up as flat as ours, which leads to excessive speeders on the lightly traveled roadway, and the eventual placement of, what we call in the industry, “traffic calming devices”. The speed bumps do quite the opposite, annoying the hell into me, and I curse them daily. The Dogwagon has a stiff and poorly refined suspension, so I must cross each bump in first or second gear. Some of the neighbours though, with their Rovers, Lexi, and gold plated SUV’s, can afford to run the bumps at 80 kph and not feel a thing.

The resultant speed differential would be hazard enough, except that the road is also well used by the local driving schools. With their large red “L(ame)” mounted on the rear bumper, the instructors do not allow the students to exceed a forward velocity above idle. Three abreast is not uncommon, as I pass the learners and get passed simultaneously. The oncoming traffic may notice and pull left at the very least.

The bumps are a hassle, but one which will soon be eased. Only eased, mind you, as we are only moving four speed bumps down the road. Yet four speed bumps each way every day yields an almost three kilobump reduction in the next year.

We like our current apartment. For one, we live there now. As well, there is a great view of the marina and the hills between Bogue and Reading. Two pools, well landscaped, good security and quiet neighbors have great appeal. However, our landlord has not owned the place for six months, so it is probably time we stopped paying him and move on.

He told us seven or eight months ago, one month prior to lease renewal, that we would not be renewed. “Fine”, we said, “just give us six more months”. So, six months later, and we had yet to find a new place to house our guests. Our plan is to move to the complex next door. It is only a three bump reduction, but the apartment is nice.

We will still take it eventually, but only after the second segment of this project is underway. At that time, the current occupant, one of my coworkers, will move on to the next phase and a new place to live closer to the nexus. In typical Jamaican fashion, the start-up of Segment Two has been delayed,... again. Originally, it was to have started two years after Segment One started, and Segment Three two years after that. Since each project was to have had a two year duration, the Segment One staff was to have followed the work across the island, leaving dust and pristine asphalt in their wake.

But that was not to be. By the original schedule, this segment was to have been completed eighty days after the wife and I got to the island, and will probably take five years to complete. It is no surprise that further segments are also delayed. For the most part, the foreign funding folks saw the problems we had here with relocations and utilities and threatened to withhold the money until the problems were resolved. In addition, the apparent low bidder for Segment Two was declared naughty, so there was much last minute contract wrangling.

So we wait and wait for an apartment which fails to materialize and we get left inside a thirty cubit lurch. We had looked for housing out of the neighborhood, but the downside of those residences was that they were out of the neighborhood, and the Freeport peninsula really is the most western place to live in Montego Bay. ...and twelve speed bumps and three gatehouses go far in reducing the general riff raff quotient.

So, with just a couple weeks until we would be out on the street, our penultimate plans failing, and I resolve myself to find a place to live for the next quarter by nightfall, and we do, and we move in two days. This will give me little time to repair the major damage in the current place and to steal the fixtures.

Oh, our current contract with the Company has expired, but we will re-up.

How could we not? It be life in the tropics, mon.

Cazart! Read More......

Parade

Despite the island’s small size, I still do a lot of driving. This year, I expect to put another 30,000 kilometers on the Dogwagon, about ten percent more than last year. To do so requires that I spend a couple hours a day navigating the potholes, veering around the cows and goats, minding my speed and road manners, and paying attention just enough to stay out of trouble.

As a curious human, my attention was caught by the sounds of sirens on the road the other day. I checked the mirrors and saw one of the local cycle cops mounted astride one of the few remaining KZ1000 Police Specials, circa 1980-something, sirens a-blaring and blue lights a-flashing, pacing me no more than 20 meters to aft. “Holy increasing consternation”, I mouthed as I saw, slightly behind the Kawasaki, another cycle cop, this one on the common 450 Nighthawk (a Honda product more often used to transport traffic cops from intersection to stationhouse than for patrol duties), also a-blaring and a-flashing.

I quickly ran through my options - flight, fight, submit - then decided on the only thing I could do - eyes simultaneously forward and to the mirrors, hands at ten and two, seat belt securely fastened, one last look to the mirrors, I depressed the accelerator and increased the separation.

The bikes followed relentlessly, and were on my tail for the next three hours as I maneuvered a borrowed Mitsubishi on and off of the embankment under construction, through little used portions of the project site, from Bogue to Lances Eve and back.

Not that I could ever lose a couple of experienced riders. But, you never know, all machines are subject to failure when over stressed.

The cops were not always situated directly behind me. Sometimes they would be on either side of me, sometimes just ahead, and, whenever we were approaching a populated area or a narrow bridge or one of the culvert halves under construction, one or the other would race ahead to clear traffic, scattering cars, goats and pedestrians just prior to my swift arrival.

It did not take long for others to join the chase. Behind the cycle cops and me was a police Land Cruiser, lights a-flashing, then the Prime Minister’s Land Cruiser, then a police Corolla, then two unmarked police Corollas, then the Minister of Transportation and Works’ Land Cruiser, then another police Corolla, then two vans from the Jamaica Information Service, then two or three dozen cars and vans filled with assorted fans and flunkies and political hacks.

As it turns out, this was a parade of sorts, and I was the lead vehicle. The Grand Marshall, if you will, in this grand march, but only because I won it fair and square (the other clowns had nothing on my flashing orange lights).

Sure, the build up was unfair, but cops rarely chase me these days. The last time was just before we went abroad. I was in the middle of one last ride, to move my cycle from the Heartland to a shed in the suburbs, where it would wait patiently for my return.

I was taking one of my favorite excursions, tooling down a winding Route 64 through Jones and Jackson Counties in eastern Iowa, tucked behind the fairing, feet on the rear pegs, scanning the pastures and their securely fenced-in cattle at 150 kph or so, when what should appear in the mirrors but one of Jackson County’s finest.

I have no idea how long he was back there but, since I did see him eventually (who checks mirrors at that speed?), I flashed the brakes, rolled off the throttle and lifted my chest into the wind, at which point the sheriff passed my slow ass, accelerating as he cruised by. I guess he had faster fish to fry and, since this was the last county before the state line, he had to be the only law enforcement officer until the bridge at Savannah.

Warp ten, Mr. Sulu.

Anyway, I got to lead the parade because Hank was in the PM’s van, giving him the low down on the current status of the project. I was assigned the monster chromium baton, and had the entourage follow me onto and about the project site so we could produce the bestest tour ever -

See the marl pile up slowly!
Thrill as workers secure deck forms!!
Be amazed by incredibly small stretches of new asphalt pavement!!!
Wonder at the miracle of the excavator!!!!

Of course, I should have been working productively, but sometimes, those dang Clients,...

Every once in a while they seem to want to know where their money is being spent or, in this case, they want to see where the money they hope to get is being spent. Of course, there is no money. The deferred financing arrangement through which this project is continuing (after the collapse of the Koreans) is barely constitutional, and probably will not provide the level of funding required to complete the Works. Money or no, we continue. There may be money tomorrow.

Hand to mouth. An entire government.

Two million people. Hand to mouth.

It is tough to miss seeing the poor on this island. Zinc shacks litter the hillsides and inner cities. Litter litters the roadways, alleyways and drainageways. Children beg on street corners.

There are others less poverty stricken, but only the rich have much of anything from a western consumerist point of view. Even the nice looking homes, when approached, show rot and rust and dirt. But how do you improve this situation when there is barely enough to put food on the table or send the pickneys to public school? Or, with the government, to import food for the people or to build and staff the public schools?

Sadly, what I see as a dominant attitude is one where living hand to mouth becomes routine. After so many years of some how, some way, finding some thing that will get you through to the next day, people seem to believe that tomorrow there will be enough presented to get you to the day after. Look at the little birds; they do not toil and work, but their malevolent little bird goddesses provide for them.

And look at them; they are still birds, eating bugs and worms and getting buffeted by whatever ill wind happens to blow through the woods.

At least the bird has no aspirations of building a highway.

The lesson then is this. Birds should not build highways. Small regional airports, perhaps, or even package power plants, but not highways.

We have thumbs for a reason I believe, not only does it help us bring food to mouth, but also they allow us to rise above hand to mouth. If I was not having such a good time, this whole Third World poverty cycle might depress me.

But I digress.

The point was this,... I think. Every once in a while, the P.M. would stop the his van, thereby stopping the entire entourage in the middle of whatever stretch of road we happened to be on at the time, blocking all traffic, in both directions, just so he could get out and press the flesh. This, presumably, was to demonstrate that he is a man of the people,... at one with the common folk,... in tune wid’ de riddims’ of de country,... in conflict with and contrary to his actions, that of someone with so little time to spare that he must speed maniacally through the cities, towns, and countryside, supported by a raft of toadies.

I hope he loses in the coming election. Read More......

Fly By

While boarding the 09:00 flight to Tinsen Pen in Kingston, I could not help but wonder.

“Why”, I wondered, sure that this was a correct way to begin a statement expressing wonder, “why?” Why do I ever have to fly, let alone the fact that this flight will be on another Shorts (ooh, and on the big forty seater this time!)?

I really hate this flight, in part, because I hate to fly. Oh, sure, it is tolerable on most occasions, but to me, the experience is too much like a bus ride, not those super deluxe monsters full of crying babies and boredom that ply the intercity routes, but the smoky, rattly, crowded and musty contraptions that assail the intracity routes, full of elbows and stinky humans. That is what I hate about flying (besides the projectile hurling), and it is the same thing I hate about crowds,... the people.

Today, I was joined in transit by just less than a dozen only slightly stinky German tourists and their Jamaican guide (just enough for a cricket team). All of them armed with cameras and the latest in digital video gear. Then there were a couple of Asian couples, also on vacation it appeared, as they were very casually dressed and had that tourist look to them (after a couple of years here, you can begin to pick them out). Besides me, only a half dozen business types.

As is the norm, the flight was delayed, first for fifteen minutes, then for another twenty, then for an additional twenty. In the beginning, the airline claimed the mysterious “mechanical problems”, and later explained that they were changing the tyres on the plane. First they changed one, then decided they had better have a matched set, so they scrounged up a spare for the other side, then decided that they really should replace the nose wheel as well, so they had to do the scrounging act again. In the end, we were an hour late for a half hour flight.
The tourists did not seem to mind.

I spent some of the time waiting with the executive chef for one of the all-inclusives. He is also a neighbour. Magic Johnson walked through the commuter terminal on his way from the flight line to somewhere else. Some of the contractor’s people were there as well, waiting for others of the contractor’s people to fly in from Kingston. Eventually, Chef bummed a ride on a four-seater prop plane that a passing friend was taking to the First City and I was left with my Gleaner and it’s too easy crossword.

I got to Kingston an hour late, but still an hour early for my meeting, so there was no rush, and I found a rogue Company guy to catch up with as I passed some of the time, filling the rest with some work that was prepackaged on the machine, my friend and constant companion.

Meetings over, I made it back to Tinsen Pen again later in the afternoon, with time enough to spare to suck down a barley pop, conveniently purchased at the awful airport restaurant. I consumed the refreshing domestic lager at my most favorite departure lounge in the whole world. Outside the ticketing counter, it lies on the same asphalt slab as the planes. The seating consists of two rows of five or six tiers totaling fifty or sixty not altogether uncomfortable plastic chairs bolted to the pavement, where we wait under an expanse of corrugated metal roofing. A one meter chain link fence is all that secures and separates me from the aircraft parked around the tarmac. Under the tin, there is shade and a little breeze, and a rapidly emptying bottle of Red Stripe, outside the tin is a hot and dusty aerodrome, with the typical afternoon Kingston haze settling in from all sides.

Again, the tourists abound. There is a new team of Germans, with a German tour guide this time. The Asians seem to be returning on this flight as well, although only half of them I remember from this morning. Again, only a few business types and, more typically, no celebrities, unless you count the Minister of Education as a celebrity. I note in the baggage being loaded that there is a new set of airplane tyres, no doubt to replace those taken out of the Sangster inventory this morning.

Tinsen Pen is a small airport. When you land there, you hit the ground hard, and in my mind’s eye, I can see both pilot and co- standing with both feet on the brakes, doing their best to stop the plane before we run off into the cane field beyond the terminus of the runway. When they make the turn at the end, we are usually less than fifty meters from vegetation.

Takeoff from Tinsen Pen is less frightening, but more uncomfortable. Kingston is hot in the late afternoon. The air is thick. Thick with city stench and tropical humidity. The plane must plow through this to get airborne. Also working against the plane is the short runway, new sticky tyres, and a really huge guy in the first row. To allow for these factors, the crew turns off all of the interior ventilation, saving everything for acceleration. Again, the boys stand on the brakes, while they ramp up the throttle to 110% percent, or at least to the point where the whole plane is shaking, accompanied by the scream of the turboprops and an uncomfortable and heavy buzzing sound radiating from the right nacelle, located just next to my head.

Then we are off and running, then off the ground and flying into the late afternoon thermals which give the plane a little shake and shimmy which does not go away until we rise to 1000 meters or so, on our way to 2500 meters, at which point we begin our descent.

“Champaign?” asks the sky waitress, clutching the half empty bottle from the last flight and a handful of quarter dram plastic cups.

“Flat sparkling wine?” I am tempted to reply, but am really in no mood to deal with such trivialities.

Once more back in Montego Bay, feet on the ground, my only loss to a day wasted in meetings and flying, and the drive back through town to home ain’t too bad. And in all, it all irie. Read More......

Money for Nothing

The trouble with paradise is that you still need a roof over your head, beer in the gullet, and cat food in the pantry. Otherwise, you will get wet, get thirsty, and get a headache from the incessant whinings of the cat. To satisfy these needs, most folks try to earn something somehow, money being a common medium of exchange.
That is our plan. It involves secure employment, and relies upon earning more than we spend, so that there will be something in the mattress for the hard times and the, reportedly, golden years.

Locally (for the locals), this plan is not always applicable. Jobs are hard enough to come by, and they are usually all but secure employment. The currency is not the most stable in the hemisphere, so prices go up and up. What to do, what to do? If only there was a way to quickly turn an unbelievable and completely outrageous profit on the few dollars you do have. If you could roll these profits over a couple of times and earn even more on the spoils, why, there would be enough to pull you out of the hole you are in, and get you back on your feet.

Enter the Partner Plan.

Partner plans have been active on Jamaica for a long time. Classically, they involve a group of people, usually less than a score, who pool their resources for the betterment of the group. As a member of such a plan, you would make a regular payment into the pool. For each period, the total assets of the pool are dispersed to each of the partners in turn. To run such a plan, you get ten of your friends, and have each of them pitch in JA $10,000 a month. Each month, one of the partners draws the entire plan’s sum total of JA $100,000 to spend as he or she sees fit. This partner continues to support the plan until every partner has had the chance to get the big payoff.

It is really a zero interest savings plan, as each partner gets no more or less than they put into the plan. In a land with limited access to banking (or trust of banks), this is probably not a bad way to secure your money, provided that you trust your partners.

As an investment however, Partner Plan Classic leaves much to be desired. Why buy the security of bonds when the NASDAQ might be gaining ten percent a week? Why buy into a zero interest scheme, when there is a more lucrative scheme being promised across town.

Reenter the Partner Plan.

For the last year or so, more evil partner plans have been working the North Coast. This they tend to do every twenty years or so. Essentially a pyramid scheme, they bring in “investors” (one a minute) with promises of 100% return in just a couple of months.

It works like this - the operator prints some flyers, people line up to give him money, he squanders it, and the people lose. Usually, a minimum deposit is on the order of JA $4,000. In three or four weeks, the depositor is promised a draw of JA $3,000, with a second draw of JA $5,000 three weeks later. Of course, the wise and educated investors will be encouraged to rollover their profits, and the plans often keep some, if not most or all, of the initial deposit.

If this were to work, a JA $4,000 initial investment would yield JA $8,000 in six weeks, JA $16,000 in twelve and, by the end of a year, about two million. Not a bad promise considering that there is no product. Unfortunately, the success of the plan is rooted in the need to bring in more suckers, and the harsh reality that there is not much law enforced against these operations, and the unfortunate fact that the media had been giving favorable press to such nonsense.

There were three or four of these plans operating out of Montego Bay through the last half year or so, each operating “for the needy, not the greedy” out of a city storefront. Much more than half of our local staff had money in one or more of them. “How can they lose?” was the most common response to my statements that “they will lose”.

Then I would try to explain how there could never be enough people to support such a scheme, to which I was generally met with blank stares. “How can they lose?”

Of course, they did lose. The amount of new suckers eventually dwindled, and the Plans had increasingly difficult times making payments. The news would spread like the greasy wake of an oil tanker, and then the mobs would gather. Mobs, of course, meaning hundreds and hundreds of unruly citizens - blocking streets, breaking glass, setting a few fires - general mob type stuff.

The operators would then promise to make payments to everyone at a different venue, as the storefront was obviously too small to accommodate the crowds. Everyone then would then shift to the Strand Theatre, where they would do some more mobbing, as the operator would not show. The rumors would then circulate that payments would be made at the Constabulary. Everyone then shifts to the Constabulary, where the mobbing turned into impatient waiting.

Three times the same. Imminent collapse, then the mob, then the Strand, then the cop shop.

At this point, the operators are either off island or in protective custody. One might think that running a pyramid scheme was against the law, but I would not ask any of the investing cops for their opinion on this. The occasional loser did file fraud complaints in some instances, although most did not for fear that, should they file charges, they would lose any chance they might have had to recover their lost savings.

The last one to fail was in Lucea, just west of the office, where the mob looted some local businesses, stoned the courthouse, and set fire to a pair of containers filled with relief supplies for the indigent. The operator claimed that the plan was going well, but people started spreading nasty insolvency rumors, causing a run on the plan. In his defense, he had fully expected monster returns, having invested his entrusted funds in one of the Montego Bay plans.

Money for nothing,... and your chicks for free. Read More......

It’s Read - It Reaches

As in the States, I try to read a newspaper every day, just to keep up with things. In a new (or foreign, if you will) place, it is a good way to learn what issues are important there, in both a local and global sense. Politics, of course, are very important here, and the papers each have their own opinions on the subject.

My daily read is the Gleaner, one of the oldest English dailies in the hemisphere (from 1834) and the preeminent national newspaper. Preeminent in their eye, at least. Full page ads with progressively larger cartoon newspapers routinely inform me that Gleaner readership far surpasses the readership of the other national daily, the Observer. The Observer, then, responds that they are the best read tabloid on the island, using the same data and lame cartoon newspaper graphics as the Gleaner ads. Both are correct, as the Observer is in tabloid format and the Gleaner is in the,... uh,... non-tabloid format.

Somewhat like the Tribune and the Sun Times, but only in that one is in the tabloid format and the other is in the,... uh,... non-tabloid format. I guess they are all English language dailies, as well,... sort of. The local rags oftentimes print statements made by locals in Patois.

Imagine if your local paper did the same with thick-accented eastern Europeans, or even thick accented-eastern United State-ians, in an attempt to express, in type, every lisp and slur and dropped consonant and deeply guttural G. Sometimes, I just assume that whatever statement was being made was pithy and appropriate and move on to the cricket scores.

And of course, the local papers are a great way to read about the latest match, to whit: “... and was caught by Jacobs for a well played 35. That was 120 for four, and when the left-handed Lance Kluesner went back, attempted to pull McGarrell and was leg before wicket at 126 for five, when Mark Boucher swung at McGarrell and was caught by Christopher Gayle at mid-on at 136 for six and when Gibbs, sweeping at offspinner Hooper, was brilliantly caught by Jacobs for 85 at 148 for seven after smashing two sixes and stroking 12 fours, South Africa were again in trouble.”

Then again, if Cricket is not your game, there is always netball.
Each of the two major papers has their own style; the Gleaner is a bit stodgier, with adequate doses of international and regional news. It rips on German men with impudence. The Observer is more flash, and keeps more of its focus on local events. Both cover the sensational - police murdered, police murders, large drug arrests, failed pyramid schemes, the latest in cassava based products - the usual. Both cover the darker aspects of Jamaican life as well. For example, a few recent Gleaner headlines:

• “More power cuts - JPSCo’s reserve margin eroded”

• “Fire sparks power cuts - Old Harbour Bay generator damaged”

• “Illegal wires down - JPSCo disconnects unregistered users” “No arrests were reported and some residents mounted new connections as soon as the JPSCo team left the area.”

• “Power cuts wreak havoc - Manufacturers said hardest hit” They say that the manufacturers were hit the hardest.

• “More dark times ahead”

Unfortunately, there is rarely a day when there is not a crisis of some sort. The power outages and rolling blackouts is just one of the current problems. A looming and increasingly larger problem at that.

Before we came down, we were informed that the power supply was less than stable. At home in Montego Bay, the power used to flash every day or so. You reset the microwave clock. So what.

At the highway camp, we got used to the power flashing a couple of times a week. Every few weeks, the power would be down for a few minutes or more. Rare was the time when outages would exceed an hour, and those occurrences were usually caused by the contractor’s jury-rigged internal distribution system, implemented by his poorly trained electricians.

We were at an agricultural show a few weeks ago (more on the order of the Lucas County Fair than the Iowa State Fair). It was mid-day or so, and an electrician was installing additional lighting over one of the green spaces. The additional lighting was a single halogen bulb, screwed into the most rudimentary of sockets, and attached to two loose wires. Up the shaky ladder he scrambled, propped against the power pole, then made the connections direct to the exposed feed wires, and left the bulb hanging. Since the light went on, and the electrician was not thrown to the ground in a shower of sparks, the installation was a success.

Sure, the electricians are saying, this is a common technique for temporary lighting. Sure, I am saying, but this was probably not temporary. Bare wires are everywhere, twisted connections left exposed to the elements, twelve gauge interior cable running hundreds and hundreds of meters up into the hills to feed a half dozen houses. Once, a shade tree mechanic tried to jump start the Dogwagon with a ratty old length of lamp cord.

It really comes as no surprise that there are occasional outages.
The first blackout we experienced happened months ago, just as we were finishing a meal at one of the restaurants on the Strip. We paid our bill in the dark, found the van, and joined the largest traffic jam I have ever seen here, as everyone else in Montego Bay left wherever dark place they were at simultaneously. Aggravating the situation was a disabled truck blocking half of the bridge over the Montego River. We had power at home by the time we got there. No problem.

This current spate of rolling blackouts, “power shedding” to the power company, are more of an annoyance. They occur a couple of times a week for a couple of hours and would not be necessary if only the equipment would have been maintained. Not surprising, as maintenance is the first to go when budgets are tight.

Unfortunately, budgets in all sectors have been tight here for decades.

Without upkeep, things fall apart. Some days, you can almost see it happening.
Unless there is a blackout. Read More......

Babble On, Babylon

The Prime Minister of this fair island toured some of the project recently, although I am not sure exactly how much of it he saw from the seat of his helicopter as he rotored his way to his weekend retreat at Tryall. The point is that his people let the project’s people know he was coming to see the project. Upon hearing this, they immediately started milling about, moving equipment hither and yon, and generally making the sort of mess only possible when you have absolutely no clue. A lot of the activity just looks busy, and has little to do with any actual forward progress of the Works.

At least there is something going on. But first, the cynical recapitulation.

Once upon a time there was a large international contractor based in Korea. In an effort to expand his global operations, he pursued a couple of large infrastructure projects in the Greater Antilles. As is often the case when breaking into new territories, this contractor offered steep discounts to perform the work (often called, “buying the job”). Unknown to him was the fact that his local economy would collapse shortly after he signed the contract and that he would take a bath (often called, “taking it in the shorts”) on the foreign exchange market.

Unfortunately saddled with money problems, labor problems, utility problems, lack of site availability, his total lack of project and equipment management skills, and a quality control consultant not about to take anything less than what is required by the Contract, the poor contractor collapsed in a heap, having completed some thirty percent of the work in 125% of the contract period.

For reasons still not fully understood, the Client refused to sack the contractor, electing instead to keep him on board as coordinator and equipment supplier to the subcontractors that the Client was about to hire.

Now, on the surface, highway construction is a fairly simple process: build a culvert or two, cover them with dirt, pave the planet, add some paint and you have a road. The important thing is to perform the work in the correct order. Obviously, placing pavement prior to moving dirt is foolishness.

Obvious to you and me, maybe.

Anyway, the Client cut the unfinished product into smaller portions, hoping that these would be easily digested by various local contractors. The remaining Works were divided into several subcontracts, first the culverts, then the earthwork, then the pavement, and then the paint - seven disciplines in all. To add one more level of confusion, he also divided the work into three longitudinal sections, for a total of twenty-one contracts. These he let independently and then gave to The World’s Worst Contractor to coordinate. In addition, the Client wanted all of the work to be performed simultaneously and completed within fifteen months.

Of course, this new contracting scheme will cost considerably more than the Korean’s bid, so large money needs to come from somewhere to pay for it. In light of this, the Client has engaged in some very creative financing to defer the payments - each subcontractor has arranged for an independent bank loan to construct the Works. The applications for payment are presented to the various banks, who then write one check to the subcontractor, one check to the government for a down payment on future taxes, and one check to the government for the contract retainage. The government will then buy these loans,... later.

As is increasingly common here, the banks will end up owning more government paper. Sure, the government has promised to pay off these loans at a favorable interest rate, but I would certainly balk at the level of risk associated in making a loan to anyone who spends over eighty percent of his total revenues on debt servicing.

And of course, it comes as no surprise that each of the subcontractors envisioned his portion of the work as being free and clear of all obstacles, be they utilities, property acquisition issues, or other subcontractors. Now that they are on site, each subcontractor has to deal with the stark reality that the prime contractor has no idea as to how to properly coordinate everybody, to make sure that they do not get in each other’s way but mostly to ensure that downtime, delays, and excess overheads are minimized.

That would be a lot to ask from the World’s Worst Contractor.

Our unheeded suggestion from last year was that Contractor be given the boot, and that the project be retendered based upon a few longitudinal sections. This way, the few lucky subcontractors could manage their own piece of the work, from bottom to top, and not have to deal with inept scheduling from on high.

In the words of Sir Jagger, “You can’t always get what you want.”

Ultimately, the twenty-one packages were awarded to eight different contractors, so I will have only twenty-two payment applications to process each month,... and nine sets of shop drawings, coordination meetings nine times as long, and nine times the faces and names and conversations to remember. Actually, the number today is only seven, as two subcontractors have yet to get their funding approved and have yet to start any work. Any guesses as to which body of work those subcontractors were to build? Remember how paint followed pavement? Remember how pavement followed dirtworks?

Well, despite any idea the Client may have to the contrary, culverts still need to be constructed prior to earthworks, and the culvert contracts have yet to be awarded. Until the culvert subcontractors get on board, there really is no schedule, as no major and continuous portion of the Works can be complete without the construction of the necessary and required drainage improvements.

Shock? Dismay? Surprise? Not hardly.

What is refreshing is that some of the newly contracted local contractors are clever capitalists who actually want to complete the work and make a profit while they are at it. Of course, the specification means nothing to them, but that is why we are here. The money on this job will not be in the work, however, but in the delay claims, and we will have plenty. After a thorough review, I will recommend many of them, then the government will take advantage of the contractor’s bank loan to pay for them, and then pay off the loans,... later.

Grasshoppers on Ant World. But,... after months of nothing,... there is now something going on. Read More......

Mayhem

Not for the squeamish.

I was forced to make a very rapid stop driving home the other night, braking hard and to the point that the tires slipped just a bit, to give you that wee, though still unnerving, screech, all to avoid nailing a goat with the Dogwagon and making a jumbo-sized serving of domestic animal puree with the grill. Being neither my van nor my goat, such an accident would be well short of tragic, but I would be saddled with certain post accident responsibilities.

Scot once biffed a bunny with my Toyota, whacking it in the noggin with the right edge of the bumper. The impact twirled the rabbit onto the shoulder, out of the path of the traffic to follow. There was no damage to the car. It was a perfect hit. Whacking a goat, I surmise, would not be so clean and would probably cause some damage, damage that I would have to report to the Ministry of Transport and Works, our Client, and the owner of my vehicle.

When I was assigned the van, filed in the glove box was the Ministry’s “First Accident Report”. Stapled to it was the Ministry’s “Final Accident Report”. Here lies a source of confusion.

I can understand filing an accident report, but one would think that the Ministry would be able to determine if it was my first accident just by counting the number of forms that I filed prior to the filed form. And, since I need to drive here until the end of this assignment, I can never rightfully assure the Client that any particular accident will be my final one. In addition, both forms are on legal sized paper, which I find totally annoying.

As such, I will do my darndest not to collide with anything that will leave a mark. This is one of the toughest parts of this assignment and, sad to say, I am not entirely successful in this regard. I got hit by a wayward football while passing the playing fields in Sandy Bay one afternoon, which left a small and as of yet unreported dent behind the right passenger door. And, while executing an unanticipated five point turn in town, I backed into a square lamp post, which put a small crease in the bumper. I will probably blame both of these on the Dent Fairy when the day comes that I give back my vehicle.

But I have yet to hit an animal, despite their massive roadside populations. Every other day, it seemed, somebody else’s car was striking dead one thing or another - cats, dogs, cows, pigs - all sorts of farm animals and household pets. But in our early days of island life, I do not remember any sightings of dead goats, despite their ubiquitousness.

I used to think that goats possessed a special ability to avoid fatal contact with motor vehicles. Oftentimes, in our first few months here, I would see them browsing along the highway, with their goat butts projecting into the line of cars, or relaxing en masse on the shoulder and pavement, yet never did I see a dead one. Once, however, after months of seeking, I did (noting large X’s where its eyes should have been), and then another, and then my interest was piqued and, geek engineer that I am, I started to collect data.

Roadkill is not at all uncommon in the States, as evidenced by the ever-popular vacation pastime Roadkill Bingo and The Roadkill Cookbook (undoubtedly influenced by Granny’s cooking segments on the Beverly Hillbillies). Deer die. Opossum operish. Bunnies buy it. Skunks are squashed. Raccoons get really rumpled after repeated rollovers. But what binds these animals together (besides muscle, sinew, and molecular bonding) is that they tended to be wild, or at least untamed, prior to their demise. On Jamaica, the subjects of roadkill statistics are inclined towards domesticity.

So, morbid or no, here they are,... in the missive that took a year to write,... my Fresh Kills data for the year 2000, a summary of dead things sighted through my windscreen.

Dogs 54
Cats 36
Mongeese 24
Goats 18
Cows 16
Pigs 5
Chickens 5
John Crows 3
Rodents 1
Snakes 1
Other Birds 1
Donkeys 0
Humans 0
Total Dead Things 164

Obviously, dogs are the most stupid of beasts here, and man is the smartest (tied, at least, with the donkey). This is where my theory falls apart, as it is probably not the big brains which keeps the humes from getting offed in larger numbers, but more likely the fact that, should you kill one, you get to spend some time in a Third World prison (if the deceased friends and family do not chop you to death in retaliation before you can turn yourself in to the local constabulary). Not so with the donkey, which proves that it is smarter than man. Go figure.

As anyone who passed Statistics on the first (or even second) attempt can tell you, I need more data. All I can justifiably glean from what data I have is the fact that I see more dead cows than dead pigs, and more dead pigs than dead chickens, which is a lot more dead cows and pigs and chickens in the last year than you would see along the highways and byways of the United States in a lifetime. To make a valid statement regarding the relative intelligence of these critters, I need to know something about the number of animals not killed, where they live in relation to the road, if they had a happy childhood, and other such nonsense.

All I really wanted to know was the number of goat warriors that sailed their way to goat Valhalla, since they were obviously no longer immune to the dangers of crossing the road. Next year, though, after another twelve months of data collection, I will get to hypothesize on the development of trends in animal mortality. Then the true analysis can begin.

Until then, I am a little bored with my commute, yet still irie. Read More......