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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......
2001-05-09
2001-05-02
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......
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......
2001-04-08
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......
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......
2001-02-07
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......
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......
2001-01-05
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......
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......
2000-12-13
State of Things
How are you? I am fine.
It strikes me that, until I was old enough to know better, every letter to spring from the aquifer of this artesian began that way. Was there actual care expressed therein, or was it simply a way to transition from the “Dear Great Aunt Hyacinth” to the “thanks for the tube socks” part of the letter?
I was never really into letter writing. Seems that it was so much more convenient to just talk to someone nearby, than try to engage in some terminally slow-motion conversation with a person days away. This has not changed much through the years, technological advances or no.
I actually do hope that you are all well, both for your sake and for mine. On this end, I am, as they say on the island, not too bad. I have heard that any reply more enthusiastic than “not too bad” is an invitation to any nearby duppy to worsen your existence. Of course, the tourists are taught to say “ever-ting’s irie”. This could be a ploy to get a few rich vacationers to suffer just a bit, as admitting to feeling good would bring the duppies down ‘pon their heads. Maybe then they would feel just a small part of what most every Jamaican feels every day which, no doubt, is oftentimes frustration.
One of the upstart third parties here, the National Democratic Movement, or NDM, has as their slogan, “Jamaica too rich to be so poor”. The point being that, with the copious resources of sun, sea, soil, people, and bauxite, there should be no reason why the population cannot all richly benefit. Yet despite annual promises of forthcoming prosperity from the People’s National Party (and the Jamaica Labour Party before them), Jamaica still has the worst economy in the Antilles, second only to Haiti.
It seems that most conversations that I have with the locals eventually turn towards the state of things. Invariably, the people believe that corruption exists in every level of government, from street cop to vehicle inspector to chief cop to the Prime Minister’s cabinet. A recent Gleaner poll showed that some seventy percent of the population claimed to know at least one corrupt policeman. As well, when you consider the huge amount of foreign grants and loans made to this country compared to the minuscule improvements apparent from their use, it is easy to imagine that much of this funding is being rerouted or malappropriated.
Aggravation is inevitable. How can you believe that inflation will be controlled, jobs will be produced, crime will be reduced, and this damn highway will get constructed, when there is rarely results on the order of the promises? Why should you work hard to succeed when the rewards go easily to the criminals? What do you do when there seems to be no way out of your duppy-plagued existence, no way to change the system which keeps you held to the ground, no way to offer your family any level of long term security?
Maybe you go to nightclubs and dancehalls, and let the intensely loud music wash away your troubles. Maybe you go to church a few times a week (and maybe a tent revival during) to hear some preacher reassure you that your reward is not of this earth. Maybe you smoke yourself silly, until you see the solutions to the problems so clearly, only to forget them once you come down (in this light, it may be best to stay high). Or maybe you play bingo. At least, that is what we thought to do Friday night (not that my frustrations in constructing this project are anywhere near to the local variety).
On Friday night, we attended the First Annual Sea Fans Bingo Night. The Sea Fans is the local dive club in Montego Bay, organized to advance the sport and to assist with efforts to monitor and maintain the Montego Bay Marine Park. Not being one of those club joining kind of guys, I have yet to join the club. From what I can see, most clubs are just opportunities for people to drink beer and tell war stories. If I wanted to spend my time doing that, I would just spend my days in a construction field office.
Anyway, the bingo itself was for a seemingly good cause, and the door prize was a weekend for two at one of the Hedonism’s, so we bought a couple of cards and settled down for the 19:00 start. At 19:50 (19:00 JST, Jamaican Standard Time), the caller finally got down to it, and we trudged laboriously through the eighteen games scheduled for the evening, each with a lame donated prize (unless you really wanted that pale mauve table lamp or just had to have another toaster). I was surprised at the number of Bingo crazies there, filling their tables with a dozen or more cards, yelling at each other and the caller, complaining bitterly about the quality of the prizes, and generally making a ruckus. I thought they would cause the grand prize donator to blow a gasket, but he maintained his internal pressure throughout to a point just below boiling.
The dog eared cards (“books”) were stamped with the seal of Chapter 3700 of the Ladies VFW Auxiliary somewhere in Louisiana. The cage and balls (“seeds”) were borrowed, with the books, from some local church. Without an interpreter nearby, it would have taken much longer to figure that a call of “round woman” meant B-8, that “Christmas morn’” is I-25, that “forty blind” is just N-40, that “fifty..... fifty..... fifty..... fifty..... .....two” was just a really annoying way to say G-52, or that “top and bottom” is O-69. The game took forever to play and the bingo crazies were just a little scary and, as such, it will probably be our last attendance of this annual event.
Saturday we had a refreshingly well served dinner at The Native. The brown stew chicken was excellent, as was the red pea soup. The drinks, food, drinks, and check arrived promptly and in good repair. The only minor annoyance was the group of forty from the Princeton Review seated at the tables adjacent to ours. I hate to see joyful enthusiasm when I am feeling sullen. It spoils the mood. We hit the casino afterwards, and departed as winners.
The Suarez Circus is in town this week (the world’s only circus with a polar bear act), so Sunday we went to their evening show, the culmination of a relatively distracting weekend.
Come Monday, and I returned to my occasionally exasperating employment, secure in the fact that, if this country self-destructs tomorrow, and if I can get a flight off island, I can easily find a position elsewhere. I can always return to the motherland, where the system is not nearly as corrupt (at least, not so visibly corrupt), and find gainful employment, a nice home, and relatively safe streets.
Once back in the First World, I can harbor, nurture, and maintain my typical frustrations about the lack of choice in elections, how taxes are really oppressive, or how there is nothing good on cable tonight. Minor inconveniences, when you consider that the rest of the planet cannot get a decent pizza delivered; so exploit it while you can! Read More......
It strikes me that, until I was old enough to know better, every letter to spring from the aquifer of this artesian began that way. Was there actual care expressed therein, or was it simply a way to transition from the “Dear Great Aunt Hyacinth” to the “thanks for the tube socks” part of the letter?
I was never really into letter writing. Seems that it was so much more convenient to just talk to someone nearby, than try to engage in some terminally slow-motion conversation with a person days away. This has not changed much through the years, technological advances or no.
I actually do hope that you are all well, both for your sake and for mine. On this end, I am, as they say on the island, not too bad. I have heard that any reply more enthusiastic than “not too bad” is an invitation to any nearby duppy to worsen your existence. Of course, the tourists are taught to say “ever-ting’s irie”. This could be a ploy to get a few rich vacationers to suffer just a bit, as admitting to feeling good would bring the duppies down ‘pon their heads. Maybe then they would feel just a small part of what most every Jamaican feels every day which, no doubt, is oftentimes frustration.
One of the upstart third parties here, the National Democratic Movement, or NDM, has as their slogan, “Jamaica too rich to be so poor”. The point being that, with the copious resources of sun, sea, soil, people, and bauxite, there should be no reason why the population cannot all richly benefit. Yet despite annual promises of forthcoming prosperity from the People’s National Party (and the Jamaica Labour Party before them), Jamaica still has the worst economy in the Antilles, second only to Haiti.
It seems that most conversations that I have with the locals eventually turn towards the state of things. Invariably, the people believe that corruption exists in every level of government, from street cop to vehicle inspector to chief cop to the Prime Minister’s cabinet. A recent Gleaner poll showed that some seventy percent of the population claimed to know at least one corrupt policeman. As well, when you consider the huge amount of foreign grants and loans made to this country compared to the minuscule improvements apparent from their use, it is easy to imagine that much of this funding is being rerouted or malappropriated.
Aggravation is inevitable. How can you believe that inflation will be controlled, jobs will be produced, crime will be reduced, and this damn highway will get constructed, when there is rarely results on the order of the promises? Why should you work hard to succeed when the rewards go easily to the criminals? What do you do when there seems to be no way out of your duppy-plagued existence, no way to change the system which keeps you held to the ground, no way to offer your family any level of long term security?
Maybe you go to nightclubs and dancehalls, and let the intensely loud music wash away your troubles. Maybe you go to church a few times a week (and maybe a tent revival during) to hear some preacher reassure you that your reward is not of this earth. Maybe you smoke yourself silly, until you see the solutions to the problems so clearly, only to forget them once you come down (in this light, it may be best to stay high). Or maybe you play bingo. At least, that is what we thought to do Friday night (not that my frustrations in constructing this project are anywhere near to the local variety).
On Friday night, we attended the First Annual Sea Fans Bingo Night. The Sea Fans is the local dive club in Montego Bay, organized to advance the sport and to assist with efforts to monitor and maintain the Montego Bay Marine Park. Not being one of those club joining kind of guys, I have yet to join the club. From what I can see, most clubs are just opportunities for people to drink beer and tell war stories. If I wanted to spend my time doing that, I would just spend my days in a construction field office.
Anyway, the bingo itself was for a seemingly good cause, and the door prize was a weekend for two at one of the Hedonism’s, so we bought a couple of cards and settled down for the 19:00 start. At 19:50 (19:00 JST, Jamaican Standard Time), the caller finally got down to it, and we trudged laboriously through the eighteen games scheduled for the evening, each with a lame donated prize (unless you really wanted that pale mauve table lamp or just had to have another toaster). I was surprised at the number of Bingo crazies there, filling their tables with a dozen or more cards, yelling at each other and the caller, complaining bitterly about the quality of the prizes, and generally making a ruckus. I thought they would cause the grand prize donator to blow a gasket, but he maintained his internal pressure throughout to a point just below boiling.
The dog eared cards (“books”) were stamped with the seal of Chapter 3700 of the Ladies VFW Auxiliary somewhere in Louisiana. The cage and balls (“seeds”) were borrowed, with the books, from some local church. Without an interpreter nearby, it would have taken much longer to figure that a call of “round woman” meant B-8, that “Christmas morn’” is I-25, that “forty blind” is just N-40, that “fifty..... fifty..... fifty..... fifty..... .....two” was just a really annoying way to say G-52, or that “top and bottom” is O-69. The game took forever to play and the bingo crazies were just a little scary and, as such, it will probably be our last attendance of this annual event.
Saturday we had a refreshingly well served dinner at The Native. The brown stew chicken was excellent, as was the red pea soup. The drinks, food, drinks, and check arrived promptly and in good repair. The only minor annoyance was the group of forty from the Princeton Review seated at the tables adjacent to ours. I hate to see joyful enthusiasm when I am feeling sullen. It spoils the mood. We hit the casino afterwards, and departed as winners.
The Suarez Circus is in town this week (the world’s only circus with a polar bear act), so Sunday we went to their evening show, the culmination of a relatively distracting weekend.
Come Monday, and I returned to my occasionally exasperating employment, secure in the fact that, if this country self-destructs tomorrow, and if I can get a flight off island, I can easily find a position elsewhere. I can always return to the motherland, where the system is not nearly as corrupt (at least, not so visibly corrupt), and find gainful employment, a nice home, and relatively safe streets.
Once back in the First World, I can harbor, nurture, and maintain my typical frustrations about the lack of choice in elections, how taxes are really oppressive, or how there is nothing good on cable tonight. Minor inconveniences, when you consider that the rest of the planet cannot get a decent pizza delivered; so exploit it while you can! Read More......
2000-10-29
Linkage
We had little idea as to what to expect of this place prior to our move here.
My initial assumption was that the work would be challenging and, by extension, rewarding. Our biggest concerns were more on the lines of our level of comfort. Not to say that we needed plush surroundings, upstairs maids and gilded Barcaloungers, but we did not want to live in wattle huts. As it turns out, as close as we get to wattle is the cedar shakes on the roof of the apartment building.
Of course, there were many questions to be asked before we could give up our comfortable middle class exurban existence. 1) Could we drink the water? 2) Is utility distribution regular and consistent? 3) Is food plentiful? 4) Is there a problem with crime? 5) Would there be adequate golfing opportunities?
1) If you like the taste and smell of chlorine, you will love the National Water Commission. Of course, chorine does not kill all of the bugs in a municipal water supply, but it will kill a great deal of them, even more if you up the dosage. Combine the bugs normally occurring in the supply with the deteriorating distribution system and plethora of illegal, unsanitary taps, and the chorine overdose make sense. We imported a filter that mounts on the faucet to rid what we ingest of the residual chorine and the balance of the bugs.
2) When the cruise ships are in, our water pressure is drastically reduced, as we are on the far end of the stub that supplies the port, and the ships refill their potable water supplies while they are here. If there is a threat of an outage (heavy weather or strike), we stockpile. As for electricity, most storms knock out the power for anywhere between a couple of seconds and a couple of hours. We keep candles for this occasion, and an uninterruptible power supply on the Dell. For phone service, quality connections and consistent communications via Cable and Wireless is irregular at best, but this is not an insurmountable situation.
3) There is plenty of food, although I am disturbed by the growing availability and popularity of imported vegetables, as well as processed foods. With their generally lower prices and better quality, I do not wonder why they are so common. What disturbs me is that this is a country that can ill afford to send hard currency off island, especially for basic necessities.
4) There is a problem with crime. Do doubt. We are fairly well removed from it and do our best to keep our distance, so for us, crime is not much of a problem, directly. As per this morning’s Gleaner, however, 722 persons have been murdered (“died violently”) since January. As such, the two million resident here each has about one chance in 2,400 of being murdered this year. Compare this to the less than one in 60,000 chance for the statistically average Iowan, and you might think that this is a comparatively violent place.
5) We were told that there were golf courses on Jamaica, so we brought our clubs.
Unfortunately, they spend most of their days in the closet, huddled in a corner next to the more commonly used tennis rackets, often used scuba gear and recently used and empty Ting bottles.
There is golf here, but not that “twenty bucks a round at the municipal course” type of golf. This is more like “twenty bucks plus tip just for the caddy” type of golf, and you must have a caddy. Break into the dead presidents, as rounds can easily run a hundred or two, plus caddy, beverages, balls, tees, and sundries.
We rarely golf.
Joel and Susan, our downstairs neighbors, are on the links most every weekend, but they have a scheme. First, they have joined the local federation, which allows them to play at the more favorable local rate (we have yet to pursue this membership). Second, I think that they are more fanatical about the game than we.
The wife and I played one weekend on a course at a resort in Runaway Bay. This was in the middle of June, and we had not had much rain for weeks beforehand. The fairways were almost as hard as the cart paths. The greens were brown, and very fast. The wind blew hot.
To our benefit were the caddies, who lugged the bags and gave us pointers and sound club selection advice. We gave up after nine in favor of the unlimited drinks at the hotel, but it was the best half round I ever shot, which is not good by anyone else’s standard but my own.
From there, the clubs were relegated again to their space in the closet until last week, when I gave in to the occasional badgering by the Koreans to join them for their Sunday game. I drove to Tryall bright and early (by Jamaican standards) to try to get a grip on my game and to whack a bucket of balls. The Koreans (Mister Ji, the project manager, and Mister Kim, one of many Kim’s) arrived ready to play, with matching two-toned spikes, unnaturally gaudy and suitably mismatched togs, and expensive clubs in leather bags.
There are rarely people seen on any of the courses I drive by, so I was not at all surprised when we walked onto the first tee and began to hack. No crowded tee times. No pushing the group in front, or from the group behind. Not worrying that you are wasting someone’s time while you scrounge for a ball lost deep in the bush.
But that is just one of the reasons to have a caddy. Not only do they hump the clubs, but they also keep track of where you hit, and find your lost balls. In addition, they will slice open a coconut for you to drink and, at Tryall, they keep your score,.... very well. No “practice swings”, Mulligans, winter rules, or toe wedges for these boys. Fortunately, they cannot count over ten.
Off we tramped then, over hill and dale, past palms and vistas, through sand and water. At least, I made it through the sand and water; the Koreans had some trouble with the creeks and bunkers. I had my usual handicap - I do not play well. The Koreans were in the same boat, despite their efforts in looking like golfers, and we spent much time watching the caddies root around in the bush for lost balls.
I have long thought that there is some ancient Asian tradition of losing, especially when golfing. I have no idea from whence I heard of this tradition, or why it is so, or whether or not the winner or loser is the real winner, but when the round was complete, I discovered that had upheld this great custom, losing quite dramatically.
In retrospect, I would have crushed them both had I shaved a stroke from every hole, and I could have done so, too, except that the caddies were keeping score.
One more thing. On every other hole it seemed, Ji would ask that we move the cup to wherever his mis-hit ball would stop. This was not at all surprising because, as a contractor, he has lost sight of his goal of project completion, and instead works hard to do nothing more beyond the point he is at.
I just thought it was sort of funny. Read More......
My initial assumption was that the work would be challenging and, by extension, rewarding. Our biggest concerns were more on the lines of our level of comfort. Not to say that we needed plush surroundings, upstairs maids and gilded Barcaloungers, but we did not want to live in wattle huts. As it turns out, as close as we get to wattle is the cedar shakes on the roof of the apartment building.
Of course, there were many questions to be asked before we could give up our comfortable middle class exurban existence. 1) Could we drink the water? 2) Is utility distribution regular and consistent? 3) Is food plentiful? 4) Is there a problem with crime? 5) Would there be adequate golfing opportunities?
1) If you like the taste and smell of chlorine, you will love the National Water Commission. Of course, chorine does not kill all of the bugs in a municipal water supply, but it will kill a great deal of them, even more if you up the dosage. Combine the bugs normally occurring in the supply with the deteriorating distribution system and plethora of illegal, unsanitary taps, and the chorine overdose make sense. We imported a filter that mounts on the faucet to rid what we ingest of the residual chorine and the balance of the bugs.
2) When the cruise ships are in, our water pressure is drastically reduced, as we are on the far end of the stub that supplies the port, and the ships refill their potable water supplies while they are here. If there is a threat of an outage (heavy weather or strike), we stockpile. As for electricity, most storms knock out the power for anywhere between a couple of seconds and a couple of hours. We keep candles for this occasion, and an uninterruptible power supply on the Dell. For phone service, quality connections and consistent communications via Cable and Wireless is irregular at best, but this is not an insurmountable situation.
3) There is plenty of food, although I am disturbed by the growing availability and popularity of imported vegetables, as well as processed foods. With their generally lower prices and better quality, I do not wonder why they are so common. What disturbs me is that this is a country that can ill afford to send hard currency off island, especially for basic necessities.
4) There is a problem with crime. Do doubt. We are fairly well removed from it and do our best to keep our distance, so for us, crime is not much of a problem, directly. As per this morning’s Gleaner, however, 722 persons have been murdered (“died violently”) since January. As such, the two million resident here each has about one chance in 2,400 of being murdered this year. Compare this to the less than one in 60,000 chance for the statistically average Iowan, and you might think that this is a comparatively violent place.
5) We were told that there were golf courses on Jamaica, so we brought our clubs.
Unfortunately, they spend most of their days in the closet, huddled in a corner next to the more commonly used tennis rackets, often used scuba gear and recently used and empty Ting bottles.
There is golf here, but not that “twenty bucks a round at the municipal course” type of golf. This is more like “twenty bucks plus tip just for the caddy” type of golf, and you must have a caddy. Break into the dead presidents, as rounds can easily run a hundred or two, plus caddy, beverages, balls, tees, and sundries.
We rarely golf.
Joel and Susan, our downstairs neighbors, are on the links most every weekend, but they have a scheme. First, they have joined the local federation, which allows them to play at the more favorable local rate (we have yet to pursue this membership). Second, I think that they are more fanatical about the game than we.
The wife and I played one weekend on a course at a resort in Runaway Bay. This was in the middle of June, and we had not had much rain for weeks beforehand. The fairways were almost as hard as the cart paths. The greens were brown, and very fast. The wind blew hot.
To our benefit were the caddies, who lugged the bags and gave us pointers and sound club selection advice. We gave up after nine in favor of the unlimited drinks at the hotel, but it was the best half round I ever shot, which is not good by anyone else’s standard but my own.
From there, the clubs were relegated again to their space in the closet until last week, when I gave in to the occasional badgering by the Koreans to join them for their Sunday game. I drove to Tryall bright and early (by Jamaican standards) to try to get a grip on my game and to whack a bucket of balls. The Koreans (Mister Ji, the project manager, and Mister Kim, one of many Kim’s) arrived ready to play, with matching two-toned spikes, unnaturally gaudy and suitably mismatched togs, and expensive clubs in leather bags.
There are rarely people seen on any of the courses I drive by, so I was not at all surprised when we walked onto the first tee and began to hack. No crowded tee times. No pushing the group in front, or from the group behind. Not worrying that you are wasting someone’s time while you scrounge for a ball lost deep in the bush.
But that is just one of the reasons to have a caddy. Not only do they hump the clubs, but they also keep track of where you hit, and find your lost balls. In addition, they will slice open a coconut for you to drink and, at Tryall, they keep your score,.... very well. No “practice swings”, Mulligans, winter rules, or toe wedges for these boys. Fortunately, they cannot count over ten.
Off we tramped then, over hill and dale, past palms and vistas, through sand and water. At least, I made it through the sand and water; the Koreans had some trouble with the creeks and bunkers. I had my usual handicap - I do not play well. The Koreans were in the same boat, despite their efforts in looking like golfers, and we spent much time watching the caddies root around in the bush for lost balls.
I have long thought that there is some ancient Asian tradition of losing, especially when golfing. I have no idea from whence I heard of this tradition, or why it is so, or whether or not the winner or loser is the real winner, but when the round was complete, I discovered that had upheld this great custom, losing quite dramatically.
In retrospect, I would have crushed them both had I shaved a stroke from every hole, and I could have done so, too, except that the caddies were keeping score.
One more thing. On every other hole it seemed, Ji would ask that we move the cup to wherever his mis-hit ball would stop. This was not at all surprising because, as a contractor, he has lost sight of his goal of project completion, and instead works hard to do nothing more beyond the point he is at.
I just thought it was sort of funny. Read More......
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