Matt broke the exercise bike with his fitness

I've probably mentioned that Matt has been riding his bike a lot more. Even in this unappealing winter weather, he usually makes it out for a couple of weekend rides. He stays in shape for an hour or two of pedaling away from the cold by riding our exercise bike inside, which is an occasional prompt for me to give it a try as well. He has much higher ambitions for his workout, and often complains he can't get enough resistance on that bike- I, on the other hand, find it utterly sufficient. But it isn't too surprised that he's outgrown this thing. He's lost more than 20 pounds, and now had a hard time buying pants that both stay on his thing hips and accommodate he disproportionate leg muscles. He is like a mountain biking robot, and it isn't even spring time yet.

Yesterday, I was all kitted up and ready for my turn on the bike when it started making this tortured, grinding noise. We let it cool down, and it still made the noise, so today Matt is taking it apart (which he loves!). Now, this is not some fancy piece of equipment, it's just a bog standard bike, made for squidgy grad students to putter along with and get your heart rate up for a while. It isn't really meant for aggressively muscled mountain bikers to thrash out an estimated thousand calories of fitness 5 days a week, so I wasn't really surprised when he said that the central plate was cracked in half. For some reason though, he was. He is now sitting behind the couch, collecting springs and magnets and trying to decide is the shattered plastic heart of this bike can be patched back together. While I have my doubts, he does love fixing things, and I would love to have my bike back. But it may be time for Matt to upgrade to his own set of rollers for indoor training.

Ambrosias are the best, Braeburns are the worst

Matt and I had a visitor this weekend! Half of our favorite couple came between weeks of training to relax and catch up. Turns out her new job is pretty cool, although it is hard to say if she will really like it, because, well- she hasn't been at the office for more than a couple days. They've sent her to NY for training. Anyhow, it is cool to think I know people who can leverage their hard work and experience into valuable and rewarding employment, which gives me a feeling of hope.

We got to spend the weekend catching up and doing fun things. We fought the crowds of Steelers Fans in the Strip District to buy some Steelers stuff (big game coming up, y'know), and farm fresh apples, and sample the wares at the public market. We went ice skating at the outdoor rink downtown- I'm not awesome, but I didn't fall down. And we went out to a favorite bar that recently got a serious upgrade to meet a bunch of her old work buddies. We've liked this place since before, it is spacious, seems to attract and older, mellow crowd who tend to idly watch whatever sporting event is on and drink boutique beers and eat really good wings. Now the beer selection got crazy huge, so we were happy to hang out there.

We even got to have breakfast at our favorite place for pre-exam breakfasts, Pamela's. I've got a lot of affection for those giant greasy pancakes, and it's sentimental to share them with my study buddy. A good weekend was had by all, and we were terrible sad that it's over.

We eventually had to take her back to the airport, (why?? It was just like old times again!) and Matt and I stopped at the new BIG grocery store that is out in the urban sprawl. I'd heard this place was pretty epic, but it never seemed like a good idea to drive out of town for groceries, but since we were there anyway... well, dang, but this place is big. And it definitely gives the Austin Whole Foods a run for it's money, at least is terms of volume and diverse offerings, if not for organic quality. There is a charcuterie, a cheese-monger, an amazing collection of 'eat in foods' that include a creperie and a pizzeria. We indulged in some small cuts of rare and interesting cheeses, and also decided to test the array of apples. Matt has been eating a lot of apples lately, and he doesn't actually know what kind he likes. In recent years, I realized that Red Delicious is the worst kind of misnomer, and vowed to avoid them, but otherwise I can't remember what kind I like. Matt picked 8 kinda of apples to sample, and we made notes. Because we are dorks. The highlights: the Ambrosia and Jazz were our favorites, but the more common Honeycrisp and Fuji placed well. Braeburn and Cortland were both incredibly disappointing, and not yummy with Peanut Butter. I'm sure we'll have tasting notes on the cheeses soon too.

Pictures of more cool things

This one’s for nana, the Amaryllis she sent to us. I’m holding on to it because it actually collapsed under its own weight a while ago. Fortunately, we just put it in a cup of water and it’s been sitting there and looking pretty for about a week, now. The other one still hasn’t bloomed, but little red petals are starting to peak out of the bud, so it shouldn’t be long now.



King cake experiments. I got the little plastic baby jesus in the king cake last year, and so we get to host the party this year (unless the baby shows up early). So I’ve been experimenting with king cakes to make sure I am up to the challenge of making one. This one is, essentially, a cinnamon roll, except rolled up. The recipe actually makes too, also, so we brought one into the office and kept the other for ourselves.




A couple of shots from the completed baby room. I added a few more details to the tree and then did a little dinosaur collage up on the wall. Looks nice, yes? I think I can keep a baby in here.



My studio. The drums have been moved downstairs so that I can play rock band with them (I finally got the midi converter and I’m really learning to play the real drum parts. How cool!) But I include this one so you can see the picture I put up in the corner. I got a program called a ‘rasterizer’ that takes your picture and splits it up into 8.5 x 11 sized pictures that you can then print out and put together. I wanted a big version of this picture for a while, and now i have one.




This one is from the baby shower. Someone made us a t-rex cake that was actually shaped like a t-rex. We still have some in the fridge. Good frosting!

-N

My Career Workshop

We are often told in grad school, if you really want to learn something, teach it. Let's hope this is the tru-ism that is leading me to lead a 'Social Workshop' on Careers for PhDs. I'm not sure if I ever mentioned, but after having relative success with WISC, when the grad students in the department started grumbling that we needed some guidance on some major life events, I figured I could get it off the ground. Last summer I volunteered to be the Chair of the Social Workshop Committee.

I supposed we should have a mission statement, or core principles, but we really just have a need to respond to a need. Specifically, the grumbling of grad students- namely, our first years seem to make predictable and avoidable mistakes every year, no one knows how to graduate, or get a job and there seem to be some useful career skills we've never picked up on. We led a session in the fall for the first years, that I've been told they appreciated. And then I got overwhelmed by fall. But now we are back on track, and ready to do careers, next week!

I've asked the grad students and post-docs to share any resources they have about careers, and I'm compiling all these to a handout. I've already gotten a couple emails back, and several people have expressed interest. Then my awesome Social Workshop Committee will talk about some of the things from the list we have experience with, and hopefully people will want to chime in. Of course they will want to chime in though, it's an important topic and our CORPORATE SPONSOR is buying us beer. Yeah, we got sponsored. Our GSO president hooked me up, and I think it will be great.

Okay, I think we have enough bibs

Baby shower mark 2 has come and gone. One of Jessie’s friends threw it at her (cool, art-deco-esque) house. She’s got a great house with a great view and everything. And the party itself was a blast. She got some blank onesies and some fabric markers and had everyone draw on them for the baby. Mine was, of course, the best. There was also a competition to make the best possible collage of what our baby would look like by pasting together pictures from magazines. Mine was also the best there.

Someone made a fantastic t-rex cake (yes, I have pictures) and there was a scavenger hunt and everything, but mostly we just liked to hang out with our friends, get excited about babies, and let Jessie see just how big of an ‘extended family’ she’s developed in the short time we’ve been here.

We got lots of neat presents, a lot of neat clothes. Even a toddler-sized *track suit*. Jessie said she didn’t like it, but I said that if she gets to dress our baby in Winnie the Pooh clothes, then I get to pick some clothes too, and I pick track suit. The person who threw the party *also* made Tyler an *adorable quilt* with fuzzy bits and everything! Fantastic time, great stuff.

Also, now that we are done with baby showers, we can get all the rest of the stuff on our list. Big shopping day on friday, I suspect.

-N

I forsee rejection in my future

I'm trying to get comfortable with this idea of not being good enough for a while. I'm trying to get into the job market, which is not quite the fun-filled adventure I might have hoped. As the issue is becoming more pressing (154 days and counting), it's time to get over my hang-ups and try a few things. The way I see it, I'll cut my teeth (and polish my resume) on some jobs I am hopeless for while I figure out what I really want to do. And why would I put myself through the ringer for this? Because I'm not sure what I think I want to do, and I'm pretty sure I'm not qualified for it anyway.

My first round of job searching is leading me to believe that I am going to need a lot of time to prepare myself and find the right opportunity. There are lots of jobs for Science Policy Directors or Managers of Policy, and a lot of them are in the WA DC (Virginia or Maryland) area. Jobs I can't get, and jobs I don't want. Wading through a LOT of those, I'll find the occasional job I think I could do, only to find I'm not qualified. Pouring over job listings seems like a good way to figure out what I want to do, although it is a bit disheartening. Fortunately I have many years of training in how to persevere. The thing to do seems to be get over the rejection, put myself out there a lot and use it as an opportunity to practice every step of the way- the cover letter, the resume, the interview... so that hopefully I can amass a lifetime of practice in time to land my dream job. You know, I'll be so glib and thoughtful, that the interviewers will overlook the fact that I have no relevant job experience, and totally give me a job they ordinarily reserve for someone with a masters in public policy, or at least a bachelors in political science.

Harumph... Monday

I'm grumpy! I don't know why. It might be because I woke up at 6 this morning to buy bagels for my lab so they would love to listen to me ramble on about this journal article I presented (and wasted my weekend preparing for). Or it might be that it was ZERO degrees when I went to get the bagels.

It's totally possible that it is because the Awesome Science I did this weekend prompted Dr. Boss to give me a couple more weeks of work to do for this manuscript (that I thought I was submitting soon- guess not). We are supposed to be finishing, not starting! That's not Awesome, but now that I have a defense date, I can't bring myself to argue with my boss anymore. On the plus side, he seems much happier with me. The minus side, this is a dumb reason to wait to submit this paper.

It could be that a really beautiful job opened up in Alaska that I think I am neither qualified for (BS + 2 years 'field work'?), nor prepared to take when they might offer it (February), but I can't tell because all the right people are on annual leave, and not answering their phones. But I would be so awesome at it! Sigh. I'll have to wait a couple weeks for that disappointment.

It is not helping that my jerk of a cat has decided to make an absolute nuisance of himself, stealing the leftovers from dinner off the table to "hide" under the table and eat, making no end of a mess, then fetching trash off the kitchen counter while I clean up his mess.

I mean, I have some good guesses about why I am grumpy, I just haven't decided who to blame just yet. I guess I'll eat some chocolates and watch TV with Matt until we feel better. Or at least until it is Tuesday.

Big game tomorrow

It's been a while (all season?) since I've posted about the Steelers. Tomorrow is the Conference Championship game, which decides who goes to the Super Bowl. Since the Steelers are playing in that game, the city is rife with frothy excitement. I have no idea what our actual chances of winning are, but if the fans are to be believed, we will win because we are the best. We will win because the Jets suck. We will win because it is (long time former announcer, may he rest in peace) Meyron Cope's 82nd birthday.

We are going to watch the game at a friends, in our black and gold, and hopefully spend more time munching chips than biting nails. Hopefully there is more to say about the play off run on Monday than "Everyone is angry and sad."

And Noel- I'll leave you to moderate the comments on the Kendama post.

Things you didn’t know about balls and cups

Two years ago while I was up in Juneau, mom and dad got me, in my stocking, traditional home of small presents and cute extras, a little ball-in-cup game. I played around with it while up in Alaska and then brought it into work and left it on my desk. Well what with the flow of people into and out of the room, the ball in cup game got to be pretty popular. So we started seeing how good we could be at getting the ball in the cup. We made a table up on the whiteboard and competed to see who could get the most number of successful balls in cups in a row. The record was 46. My personal record was 12 in a row, but I held the record for the ‘mad minute’ with 18. We’d make up tricks and do all sorts of crazy stuff.

So knowing about my obsession with balls and strings and cups, Jessie got me a little stocking stuffer for christmas this year. It’s a little thing with a ball and two cups on either side, a cup on the handle, and then a spike on the end, and the ball can be tossed into either the cups, the handle or the spike. So, of course, I brought it into work and we started the BoSoC (Ball on String on Cup) Pro league. Same table and everything.

So I got a little curious, though, what was this thing called that we were using? I did a little bit of google searching and discovered that it was, in essence, a Kendama, Japanese in origin. Two cups, one extra on the handle, and a spike on the end, simple, right?

Well I did a little more searching and discovered something really weird. You know how there are Yo-yo’s? Remember how it felt when you discovered that there are people who are *really* into Yo-yo’s? Like you discovered a whole new universe that is both strange and intriguing? Well the same is true with Kendama. There are people that are really, REALLY into kendamas. How into it?



There is a Japanese Kendama Association, the JKA, that has competitions for kendama. They have a belt ranking system, just like martial arts, that can measure your progress. There is even an official specification for what an official kendama is shaped like and only a few companies are allowed to make it. The sticker at the bottom of the handle means that this is an *official* JKA kendama.

So, of course, I bought one.

After I post this I’m going to create a Google Document which will allow us to chart our collective progress through the belt ranking system as well as our various records in number of consecutive catches and whatever other tricks we can think of to name and attempt. We’re engineers, we’re crazy like that.

-N

Detroit Autoshow

Fact: I need better hobbies.

Remember a few posts ago when I said I tend to get restless if I have too much free time? And that I'm gonna graduate, and hopefully move back West? It makes a person think about the things we'd been meaning to do, and a bit irrational about pulling them off.

We decided we may as well just nip off to Detroit to the autoshow, since it might not be so easy in the future. Ah, my glamorous lifestyle...

Here are pictures of some of the highlights- editing for ones that actually include us. There are lots of cars behind velvet ropes or with strangers sitting in them.

This is beyond the biggest autoshow I've ever been to, all the major manufacturers and some minor ones were there, showing their current models and some concept cars for the future. The majority of the concepts are electric vehicles- usually the brand's smallest car with an EV sticker on the back. That's what the future holds.

There were also displays of engine components and other gearhead stuff that Matt totally loved. There were also tons of people lapping it up- sitting in expensive luxery cars and collecting swag bags from vendors.

We walked around downtown a little, and enjoyed a brewpub while watching the Steelers game. And then we went to see the Green Hornet- we saw the car at the autoshow. Fun!

The next day we decided to take in the Henry Ford Museum, which is a beautiful old building, full of cars. It's and interesting way to tell the story of America. Antique bicycles developed into motorcycles which when hybridized with the old fashioned carriage gave us automobiles. The National park system is demarcated in history by the development of the RV. The industrial revolution brought us more powerful generators, that powered the factories we used to build the cars. They have presidential limousines (and a presidential carriage!), Rosa Parks' bus and an Oscar Meyer Wiener mobile. It was a really interesting museum, and there is a lot more to do on their campus. I would have liked to spend more time there, but we had a 5 hour drive ahead of us...

Some Pictures, by request

I've had a few requests for some pictures, so here you all go. Pictures and stories to go with them.

This is a picture from a few months ago at the Ticom Holiday Party. They have installed little four-picture snapshot booths at the party for the past couple of years. Also there are costumes and alcohol. Silliness is the standard. Anyway, Jess and I took this one: summarizing our history together. I think it's pretty much the cutest thing ever created by mankind, but I will allow you your own opinion *just this once*.



Nana wanted this: it's our Amaryllis, still growing away like it's going out of style. Still no blooms, but it's still on the way. I'll update if there is beauty to be shared.



Also, we've been painting the baby room and we took pictures. I don't have any pictures of the paint once it has dried, but trust me, it looks nice.





-N

Check and Check

Two big things off my list.

1) I completed my first fellowship application. Thanks everyone who read my letter and gave me advice on the right way to send off such a thing- I know I was unduly stressed about getting it out. I actually had Matt come into my work to run technical (and emotional) support while I created a a couple pdfs and wrote the actual email. Even though I was really high strung, it is nice to share these major milestones with my husband. Today I applied for my first job!

2) I sent the first manuscript off to the coauthors. We've moved on to step 2, as outlined in this previous post. I know you were probably all thinking this was out, gone, old news, and I somehow neglected to mention it. Ha! You'll be hearing about every grueling detail! I sent that out late yesterday, and so far I haven't even gotten a "when would you like comments back" or any other form of acknowledgment. But, Dr. Boss is going to see the one collaborator who doesn't work in Pittsburgh this weekend, so hopefully he can encourage this process a bit. We've got 7 more steps to go!

That is 2 big writing projects down (well, I am counting #2 as an accomplishment- since we move into a different stage of writing next). I have a couple more applications to work on, and then I should try to get my CV and a general cover letter in order as I expand my job search. Know anyone hiring anywhere west of the Rockies? Oh, and there is another manuscript in my future and,... oh yes. A Dissertation to write. More writing to come.

We celebrated with an awesome pork pot roast, so I also feel like the champion of my own kitchen.

The Kicks Have Become Visible

I actually *saw* a Tyler-kick today! He's been moving around a lot, making Jessie more and more uncomfortable as he takes up more space, unfortunately, but now when he kicks, if you're looking just right, you can actually see her belly move! There's no foot-outline yet or anything, but he is really starting to grow! So excited! We've even started to assemble our hospital bag. He'll be here sooner than you think!

-N

Time without things in it?

Something weird happened at the start of the semester, I don't appear to have to much to do. I have the opposite of too much to do. In the coming week, there are 5 solid evenings with nothing going on. It's kinda awesome. I've worked out a couple times, I've cooked food, the house no longer looks like a fallout zone. We are even caught up on the laundry!

But, ask Matt, this can't last long. I don't deal with boredom well. Namely, I forget about all the stuff I'd been wanting to do when I was busy, my mind is a blank slate, and all I can think do is sit on the internet and let the hours slip by. Then I get restless, and traditionally, I get over committed. The problem this time is that I am supposed to be keeping all my time flexible, because there is supposed to be a deluge of work coming. I am going to work really hard on remembering all those things I like to do, or even need to get done before it is stressful. Like, reading books, or investigating the job market out west. Maybe I'll start dinking around on the NEW keyboard I got for Christmas, or bake myself breakfast treats. Hopefully this free time will last, and the "getting ready to graduate madness" will hold off long enough for me to develop some hobbies.

Further Adventures in Home Ownership: Hot Water Edition

Check this thing out.



We got a tankless water heater a few days ago. I was worried it was going to be a big project that involved a lot of work and changing of pipes. Turns out you can get the darn things installed the next day if you time it right. We called up some plumbers who sell and install them (lets face it, there’s no way I am *ever* messing with the gas lines in my house) and by the next day we were all set up. Jess is totally in love with having as much hot water as she wants, and it’s supposed to be more efficient, too.

We’ve run the numbers, and as it turns out it’s not *quite* a slam dunk as far as cost goes. We save gas, but not enough to offset the cost difference between tanked and tankless, especially when installation costs are added. At least, not at current rates, but it was time to replace the hot water heater anyway (either that or just wait for it to fail and then be bereft of hot water until we got it replaced) and we decided to give it a try.

We’re also gearing up to paint the baby room. In fact, we’ve done most of the work already. We’ve decided on some color schemes, went out and bought all the gear (there is rather a lot of it) and then did the tedious work of sanding, cleaning, and taping the room. So all of the important work, but none of the cool looking work. We have the primer we're going to use, and once we get the color finalized we'll be painting like pros...hopefully. We’re going to go with some sort of dark blue with a mahogany stripe around the room. Then we’re going to get an array of random paints and paint t-rexes and video game characters in silhouette. That should be fun.

-N

June 29, 2011

Folks, let this be a day that you remember that I'll never forget. June 29, at 1pm, I will be defending my dissertation. If you are reading this, you are invited to join for the public seminar, and the reception later that afternoon. But I am getting ahead of myself, let me give you the run down.

Last month, my boss told me that January would be a good time to set my next committee meeting, and also get a feel for when the defense could be. So, today was the day. My committee agreed to meet in April so I can ask to write, and agreed to meet in June to allow me to defend the document. This system makes it seem like your graduate career hinges on your performance on a single day. It isn't, really- there are too many checks in place to make sure you don't fail on this day. In April my committee will formally tell me that it's ok to write, because they already have a good feeling for what I've accomplished and I am capable of. Now I just need to prove them right.

This is so far in the future, right now it is still plenty exciting- like go out for Matzoball Soup exciting. Later it will seem overwhelming and stressful. I expect to prepare a ~200 page document about everything I've done since I've come to grad school. This includes the exciting stuff I've been writing about in my manuscript, and the other stuff I did as a first year when I wasn't especially organized. This seems challenging.

Once that document (the dissertation) is submitted, then I'll prepare a one hour presentation that I'll present to the department, and any other members of the public that feel like attending. And then, I will stand in front of my committee for an hour or two while they fling questions at me, to prove whether or not I've become sufficiently expert in my field. If I have, they'll each give me comments on my 200 page document back, which I will feed into a giant pdf, that must be formatted Just So before the paper work can be filed and the degree becomes official.

But first, after the questions- we'll party. You are invited to that part.

More great animals in Belize

First up, a video of a coatimundi, the sort of raccoon thing native to Belize.


Next is a jaguarundi- a small cat that doesn't stalk but strikes it's prey. Many does it look fast.



Next up is a puma, just pacing his enclosure.



And a couple bonus pictures from our River Trip to Lamanai.


In the first, a Morelet's croc, in the second, we think a Hickatee river turtle.




So, yeah. Belize is awesome.

Close encounters with Belize's wildlife

One of the (many) things that made our time in Belize outrageously spectacular, was how close we could get to the wildlife. You'll see, this is partly because there is so much of it in this relatively undeveloped country, and partly because, unlike America, things are much less regulated.

At the Community Baboon Sanctuary (CBS), we took a brief tour of the sanctuary to meet the Howler Monkeys. Our guide, Robert, told us about the medicinal uses of the plants, pointed out the many birds, and then showed us the monkeys. This particular group of monkeys lives close to the visitor center, and our guide plied them down from the trees with a banana, and had them sit on my shoulders while we took pictures. Crazy! We were so close to the village at this point, you could still hear the Baptists singing Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Howler monkeys are really fluffy, not nearly as big as their scary noise would lead you to believe, and they have the cutest featheriest hands and faces.

I mentioned also the croc tour we took from the Lodge we were staying at. Our guide used lights to highlight the eyes of animals on shore, we saw many cool birds, lots of crocs (a creepy amount of spiders- their eyes glow blue), iguanas, and a porcupine. One of the agreements of the CBS is to leave vegetation on the riverbanks, so although we moved quite near villages, it felt like we drifted off to the middle of nowhere. Just before our tour was over, our guide, Russel, pulled the canoe to shore and pulled out a baby croc, barely over a foot long. It makes a kinda of dog toy squeaky noise. Amazing!

One of the reasons we went to Caye Caulker was to see the manatees. We took at little fishing boat to the sanctuary at Caye Chapel. Our captain turned off the boat, and asked us all (14 all told, including a couple families with kids) to take our shoes off. We were trying to make as little noise as possible, so we could catch a glimpse of the manatees. He asked us to be patient, but shouldn't have bothered. By the time we sculled through the entrance, there were half a dozen feeding on the weeds.

The water is shallow, and manatees aren't... well, shapely. But they are easy to see when they surface to breathe. And they are giant! After this, we went to the site of a major Britain vs Spain battle for control of Belize, and then snorkeling. Fantastic.

Another place with MAJOR encounters was the the Belize Zoo. Even though they had some damage to habitats as a result of Hurricane Richard, the animals were still healthy and out and about. We saw the national animal, a Tapir (a sort of pig/anteater), all kinds of wild cats (puma, jaguarundi, jaguar...), the coatimundi (a kind of raccoon) and some beautiful birds. The cats were beautiful, so I am sharing all those videos with you in the next post. While we were there, as I said, we ran into one of the families that was with us on the manatee tour. We were also approached by the zoo staff to participate in a "Jaguar Encounter." I was getting overheated, but Matt convinced me that this would be awesome, and I am SO glad we did it. The staff removed the reasonably domesticated Junior Buddy, and we entered his enclosure, and locked ourselves in a cage in the center. Then Junior Buddy came by to interact with us... and well, you just have to see this... watch both these videos.



The jaguar is soft like a cat, but has giant scary paws and feet.

Junior Buddy's mom was brought to the Zoo because she was a problem jaguar. 3 days later, she gave birth to Junior, and in the stress of captivity abandoned him. He was raised by caretakers, so he learned to like attention (which is why there is so much clapping and talking in the video), and hasn't ever attacked anyone (but the zookeeper did say by the time he was 3 months old he "played too rough" for the zoo keepers to just go into his enclosure to play with him).

Mayans of Belize

Belize has a fascinatingly diverse population. 10% of the country are Low German speaking Mennonites, there is a prominant Chinese population, many East Indians, on top of the expected mix of Kriol, Garifuna and Mayan people. Mayans have a particularly interesting history in Belize, until 1985 they were allowed to live by their traditional lifestyle, cultivating the jungle and living in a subsistence manner. In 1985, to support the creation of a National Wildlife preserve, the government told the Mayans they were no long allowed to live in the jungle, but was unable to provide them much support beyond that. Imagine coming out of the jungle with your entire community, and trying to incorporate into a modern society.

When we stayed at Tutzil Nah Cottages, our host, Gregorio told us about his experience making this transition. He had only 4 years of primary schooling before he turned 16 and was no longer eligible to go to school. It is a combination of his tenacity and naivete that has allowed him to accomplish all that he has. By the time he was 22, he was working as a tour guide, living at a resort, away from his family for the first time. He was a popular guide, but he worked every day of the week, wasn't allowed to have guests- he was lonely. He told us he went home for a couple days one time, and looked at all of his family sitting around sharing dinner and he realized he wanted to be a part of that again. He ran away from his job in Dangriga and decided he should start his own business is Mayacenter. He wanted to be a guide in the Cockscomb Basin Reserve, where he grew up and knew his way around. So he wrote up a business plan (with a pen) and took it to the bank. They said they couldn't loan him any money- he had no experience, no education and no collateral. Fortunately, he found a Development fund that was willing to take a chance with him. They gave him US$6000, which was more money than he could have imagined. He bought a used car, and almost immediately his contacts from the old resort starting sending him people to take on tours. It was working! He even recruited one of his brother's to help him with the business. People would come to Mayacenter for the day to take his tours, and they starting asking him about a place to eat or stay over night.

That's when he decided to open the cottages. He went back to the Development fun and borrowed US$16000 to build a restaurant and places to stay. He and his brothers built the place in something like 6 months. At the same time, he had heard many of his clients talk about the emails, and websites, so he found a business that would make one of those for him, too. Not that he knew what they were for. He said, "People drive down this highway and we just hope that they pullover here." The cottages were due to open in late December. In mid-December he got a call that his website was ready to go up, and he should be ready to start getting emails. He falters a bit here, and the woman asks "Is there a problem?" "Well, no, I don't think it is a problem. But what is this email?"

The website was delayed until Gregorio could buy and learn to use a computer. His brothers wanted nothing to do with this- they were scared and intimidated by it. So Gregorio had to learn. Imagine trying to use a computer when you've never seen one before. A friend came out and helped him get it plugged in, and then told him to play around with it. "I don't want to play with it." He explained to him about the mouse, that you could wiggle it and interface with it. He HATED the mouse. It was always zipping away from him or he couldn't find it. He spend several hours every night on the machine before they got back to the issue of email. Things would go wrong. Almost everyday it would freeze, or crash or not do what he wanted it to do, and he would take the entire thing, still plugged together, to a shop in Dangriga. He was frustrated and embarrassed, but slowly it started to get better. Finally, he decided he is ready to get these emails.

When the first email comes in, both his brothers are there. Neither one knows what to say or do. His friend comes back to help them write an email. Gregorio had some sense that there should be some form to this kind of communication, but no idea what it should look like. The next email, he wrote a response with a pen where he is more comfortable, and then typed that up. It went slowly. He tried his first hunt-and-peck typing. He looked on his keyboard for one letter, and then hits it. He looks for the next letter, can't find it, maybe he doesn't have that one? keeps looking, finds it, hits it... he said it took him 6 hours to write a 10 line email. But by now, you know Gregorio will just keep working at it until he gets much better.

The business is up and running well, until someone sets fire to the cottages. They were unable to save anything. He was devastated, emotionally and financially. He had loans amounting to more money that he could fathom, and no way to every make that much money back. But he decided the best revenge would be to have a successful business to pass on to his kids. He makes some fliers about his situation, and goes to beg at the hotels and resorts in Dangriga. After a full day of rejection, he makes his final stop at the upscale resort, where the manager told him he had seen and liked those cottages, and if he would go to his brother's hardware store in Belmopan, he would give him some cement to start the project. The hardware store fills his van with as much cement as it will carry. And other people are donating things too, money and lumber. This is how nice people are in Belize. The new cottages were up in only 3 months. To all the emails he got during this period, he would say "we don't have any vacancies." The first people he accepted a reservation for was in December. When the Swiss couple arrived, they were putting the door on the outdoor bathroom.

Gregorio tells us that he is lucky to have all these things work for him. He knows how to live the traditional lifestyle, but now he can't be an hour away from his cell phone. But the Mayans further south are much more traditional. They have the slat and thatch houses, they grow their own livestock and crops. We see a lot of this when we travel down south- and you can kinda see that in this picture.

The Itinerary of Belize

I wanted to give you all a picture of the kinds of places and things we did in Belize, the awesomeness of which is self evident when you look at our Itinerary. I sent this out before we left, but I wanted to annotate this a bit more, the flush out the awesomeness and add some pictures.

We spent our first couple days in the Community Baboon Sanctuary, which is an agreement between several villages to leave habitat in place for the Howler Monkeys along the Belize River. We stayed at a guest house in Bermudian Landing, where we had a hammock and meals prepared for us and could hear Howler Monkeys all night long. Among its great features, I instantly fell in love with the place names in Belize. There is a major highway junction at Burrel Boom, and we launched our croc tour from Double Head Cabbage- how could you not love that?


From there, we took at water taxi out to Caye Caulker, which is one of many Cayes of the coast of Belize on the Barrier Reef. This community is uber laid back, there are a lot of Rastafarians and a couple dive shops. People generally don't wear shoes. The roads, such as they are are made of dirt and driven on by golf carts. From here, we took a boat tour to see the manatee sanctuary.

On our way to our next point south, we stopped at the Belize Zoo, where we saw a family from our manatee tour. Yes, the country is that small. The zoo is practically a post on it's own, thoguh, so I'll get back to that later. We headed to the community of Maya Center, a village at the mouth of the Cockscomb Basin (Jaguar) Preserve. The village had a major boom in 1985 when the government told the Mayans they were no longer allowed to live in the jungle. Our host told us about his experiences transitioning from living the traditional lifestyle in the jungle and being a modern bussiness owner. The next day we went into the Preserve, and while we didn't see jaguar, we did take a dip at the waterfall. The picture is of a Blue Morpho butterfly, which is such a brilliant blue color it overexposed in the picture. Beautiful!


It took a few hours to drive to the south to Punta Gorda, which has unencombered views of the Bay of Honduras, and hosted the market that brought people from all the Mayan villages in the south and a few Mennonite farms to share their produce and wares. From here we were able to tour a cocoa farm, and visited the ruins of Lubantuum. We stayed in this kitchy quirky hotel, with over grown vegetation, carved woods and no other guests.


On Christmas Day, we moved to the Garifuna community of Hopkins, and stayed in a classic beachside bungalow owned by a couple from Canada. Once you leave the highway, you drive 3 miles down a red clay road to the community. The beach was fantastic. It was pretty clear if we would have stayed up past about 8, the entire village was going to turn into one rockin' block party. It's here we tried the cakes and Cassava bread.

On Boxing Day, we headed a couple hours north to Orange Walk Town, to a St. Christopher's Hotel on the New River. Very modern. The community was pretty well shut down for the holiday, but there were some bilingual taco vendors out and a lot of Chinese restaurants for us to choose from. Lobster Fried Rice? Sweet and Sour Conch? The next day, we took a boat tour to the ruins of Lamanai, which our tour guide told us was so powerful it caused the Great Hiatus in Mayan History. The site is giant, and only barely explored. The picture at the bottom is me on top of the main pyramid, you can see the river we came in on.

From there we moved to the Crooked Tree Preserve. We took a bird tour, and spent a lot of time walking around looking at birds. This is actually an inland island, surround by lake and lagoon. The preserve includes all the land in the village- the directions for the 'self guided tour' takes you down the main roads and then has you turn and walk up the beach. It makes you feel like you've come to gaze at someone's yard, but it is someone's yard with 4 snowy egrits and a tricolored heron in it. It seems to work.

We flew home from there, and although for most of the time it seemed like we were some of the few travelers in the country, there were at least a couple planes full of Americans heading home. I half expected to see someone we knew there, we'd been getting so familiar with the place.