Cpt_Yossarian's Xanga

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:39:57 GMT

so winter is upon us. It was thirty four last night. i write that out because the i messed up the light socket here so i don't have any light in this room. and if i move my fingers off the keys, well, it'll be annoying.

we also have had some really great visits and b/c of these visiting have done a bit of traveling. Heather saw Potosi for the first time and we went to Tiwanaku. (not that those names really mean anything to you.) more on that later maybe.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Tue, 19 May 2009 16:48:49 GMT

hmmm

bitten twice in two days

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 20:45:27 GMT

If i'm not around in a week you'll know why.

On wednesday timote bit me when i tried to pet him. He's the dog of our future landlady. He drew blood.

Then today with the same landlady we went to see the house. The current renters dog bit me as i left. (that one i didn't provoke.)

I'm not too worried b/c they go through el alto every year and vaccinate all the dogs.

a couple of things

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 23:01:22 GMT

first off, i'm a lame blogger. I'm busy but also busy playing mafia wars on facebook. Invite me to be in your mafia. Lame, i know.

Also that advert is also lame on my part. I didn't know what 500 credits were.

Finally, I'm rather frustrated with the place we live. I mean the countries kinda slowly falling apart. It's sad because I was trying my luck as a socialist. Not really working out. Sorta just more chaos. I'm not just saying that b/c my visa (and heather's also) is a mess. They don't want us, i guess. Maybe that's the rub, not being wanted. But a nice lady at church said they did want us. I realize this sounds kinda jr. high. I'm regressing, digressing.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:46:14 GMT

Let me tell you how comfortable 52F at 0930 inside is...

I can't say much about this generally but today I'm rather comfortable in a rugby shirt and hat. Two cups of french pressed but rather old coffee coursing through my veins probably helps but i can't complain. Its sunny with heavy clouds over the mountains a hours drive away so it may be cool later.

Later today, when my "work" tasks are done I'm planning on pulling out hte engineering books (i lugged 2 down here) and trying to model a solar panel. Nerdy, yes. But that 52F air temp also translates to 52F water temp so that really, really cold for say dishes, washing my face (if i did that), showering (we do have a widow maker but starting temp affects volume of comfortable water), etc. There are really expensive ready-made solar panels on sale in the city from an Australian outfit but I want to see how poorly a homemade panel would compare. Basically a cost benefit sort of thing.

thats all.

gravity and weightloss

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:30:28 GMT

Heather asked me if because we were higher up maybe it somehow attributed to our weightloss. Pretty genius question/intuition. And she's a counselor!

So I did the math, i think. F=ma. I did it in SI units b/c the gravitational constant thing always confused me in English units. At 4000m we weigh 0.13% less than at sea level. Obviously, here I'm talking about weight not mass. Our mass doesn't instantaneously change with the change in altitude but it seems that we tend to lose about 5-10% of our body weight in water within a few days of reaching the altitude. Going down, I gain more than 5lbs between the day i leave Bolivia and the next when i arrive in Nebraska.

Regardless of the recent rapid weight loss, the prior 5 weeks of gluttony have left me fat.

Conclusion:
We do weigh less the further we get from sea level. Though we only say it this way because sea level has been set as our standard. The weight loss, however, is negligible for all practical conversation (0.13%).

back in bolivia

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 17:32:15 GMT

I/we are definitely back in Bolivia. It's pouring rain, it's 55F in here and i've got a whole chicken (minus the neck which i left with the seller guy and i cut off the butt to make dog food with) in a pot boiling. There is mud on my boots from walking up my street. Welcome back.

Something like that, I guess. We're in meetings to solve our problems of unsustainability. Well, I'm at home while everyone else is at a birthday party for a friend of ours. I'm at home because I've no social graces or energy to put towards graciousness. So I'm enjoying the "vigil of St. Anthony" chant, listening to the rain/hail and smelling chicken seasoned with salt and pepper.

Monday, December 08, 2008

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 20:40:40 GMT

Just seen on a kid's bright yellow and orange vest: Boob Esponja.
Almost as good as my favorite T i saw on a 15 or 16 yr old guy. Front: Whose the girl with all the moves
Back: It's me!

these lighter posts are ruining my reputation

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:35:26 GMT

I just realized my profile picture was taken right here in this closet of an office. Complete with collapsing ceiling and dripping plaster during rainy season.

Also a new diet plan complete with testimony:
Hi, I'm Sew Neztreog. I have lived in El Alto for 3 years and 4 months at a supposed 13200ft. My wife recently brought me my birthday package that my parents sent to an undisclosed location in the states. My birthday was in July but lets not get into that. Since late september I've eaten 2 bages of fun sized butterfingers, 16 reeses peanut butter cups, almost a 1/4lb of jelly belly jelly beans, 1/2 large bag of almond m&ms and 2/3 large bag of starbursts. (Obviously I'm not a packrat. Hand to mouth, baby!) I weight 87kg, the same as i weighted pre-diet!!! But alas I'm out of candy from the states now. And i've nothing to show for my birthday gift, not even a new found gut.

small, full confession

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:21:24 GMT

I did not vote Brent for President. It's not that i've lost confidence in our very own Brent. It was a pure numbers thing, which statistically speaking is meaningless since Nebraska is a purely Republican State. I almost wrote brent in the 3rd district Representative spot but i doubt he'd like the "western 3/4ths" of the state too much and Stoddard looked like a cool old guy with a comb-over and some old-people wisdom. I thought writing brent in for Board of directors of Southeast Community College would have been a slap in the face.

The upside is that this all means that I saw candidates that seemed like goodish people who'd do goodish things, which seems to be practically all you ask from a leader of 330million people (or close to 6billion depending on who you ask.)

A guy on the bus asked me why the US ran the world and why it did bad things to poor countries. "errrr, uhmmm". Actually I'm rather adept at difusing those situations. It takes a bit of humility (we're wrong) and some diplomacy (we're often wrong) and some explaination (well its bad foreign policy that stems from fear of communism, socialism and muslims and other htings that are different.) He seemed pretty satisfied and then we chatted about less tense things the rest of the way up the hill (La Paz to El Alto) until he asked what we did. Thats always tense as well. There's really no really good way to insert prostitution into a conversation so we try to avoid that.

Oh i have to say that I'm really impressed with Hagel's stepping down 12 years after promising/predicting he would...meaning he said before he was elected that he would run for two terms and retire. I'd have supported him as VP for Obama (there were rumors) and as Secretary of Defense for the Obama adminstration...maybe i'm getting ahead of myself?