Brrrr

This is Lake Michigan. During the summer it's all beaches and people protesting for the right to bathe in the altogether. Right now it's a frozen wasteland. As is much of Michigan. It was bloody freezing this morning as Jude and I battled our way from store to store in a bid to find decent Christmas gifts before one of us lost a limb to frostbite. I honestly can't remember being as cold. And I thought that I'd been in cold.

Of course the truth of the matter is that the lowest we've been so far this winter is -14c (I know, I keep a record) and it's been colder than that. When my parents visited us upstate it was -20c; so cold that when my mom got out of the car and exhaled her breath first misted and then froze to her glasses adding a 'jam jar bottom' look that caused much mirth whenever she walked into a lamppost or small shrub.

Luckily for us the heating in the building is paid for and we have a gas fire that sends flames leaping into the air at the push of a button, all very nice come a winter's eve.

Jude wanted to go swimming this afternoon - but I'm afraid that the thought of being in swim trunks on a day when even the penguins are begging for the right to kill a mink or two in the name of survival was beyond me. We'll do it tomorrow though. IN the morning. Before the brain is engaged.

But first the dog needs a walk and that means me suiting up, wrapping up and getting up. Here we go

One final piece of fuckwittery

Money Trail
Originally uploaded by Big-E-Mr-G

I was supposed to get paid today.
But I didn't.
Final pay is sent by cheque - in the mail.
Nobody told me this.

Nor did anyone put the cheque in the mail.

So instead it's sitting in an empty office (everyone is at a party retreat)
And I'm sitting with no money in the bank and with Xmas fast approaching.

Ok - so I have some money in the bank.
But they don't know that.

And "The cheque is almost in the mail' is a lousy excuse

ho-hum

back at the airport

_MG_9426
Originally uploaded by locaburg

and really early. it was the first time that I didn't hit Mexican traffic and as a result I'm now at the gate of the still new and deserted Terminal Two. It's actually quite eery here, alone, in a vast white building. The stores have yet to be opened, there are staff everywhere but no customers and the whole place has a sense of white elephant about it. It must have felt like this at The Dome come 2000.

Mexico was fun, the hotel rocked and we're in a good place on the project. All that's left now is to find some images and then make the recommendations look pretty. I find that almost everyone responds well to beauty. It's innate - whereas reading is learned.

-10c when I land in Detroit - hope that there are cabs.

Proper entry tomorrow

when you only have a nickle

shoeshine.JPG
Originally uploaded by stevenjude

...get your shoes shined. Unless you're our illustrator who fell for the "Let me shine your shoes down this back alley" trick end ended up paying $20 for a shoe shine on $40 shoes. It would have been more had he not met the aggressive demand for cash with "my best cockney" - a universally understood language of aggression.

Our last full day with clients in Mexico will be spent in a focus group room. It can't be as bad as last night - moderator showed up late, nodded through a briefing, then abandoned the guide within seconds of starting the group with a bunch of show off know-it alls on a brand they didn't know. Just awful.

Still it's free food and the promise of a beer or two for those suffering along with us instead of being at the client Xmas party

So out of touch am I

Little Curry Monster and Little Paprika Monster
Originally uploaded by mashishka

that upon waking this morning I dashed, ran, hurried and generally shifted toward a computer to book "just released" tickets for The Spice Girls. And was amazed at the availability.

For younger readers The Spice Girls were as close to pop perfection as the 90s went. They were sexy enough for boys to like but scary enough to reassure tween girls that their boyfriends had no chance of getting anywhere. Actually that boyband members had no chance of getting anywhere.

Of course it was all image ... as Robbie Williams used to say "I had the good fortune of being in one of the nost successful boyboands of the decade... and in three of the members of the most successful girl band"

These days the girls are older. The Girl Power rhetoric turned down a tad and the whole thing has the right cash to kitsch ratio.

It should be fun. Meanwhile I'm in Mexico and about to head into the morning traffic. Arrrrgggghhhhhh!

Ahhhhhhhhh

After weeks of travel fuckwittery and hotel malady it's good to have some time in a hotel where things work. And even better that Jude (whose flight left and arrived without drama) is here with me this weekend.

Yesterday was canal boats, market lunches, town squares and remarkably cheap transportation (the metro here costs 2 pesos, that's 20 cents or 10p to you Yanks and Brits) === that compared to the $8 that I had to pay to go one stop on the London underground is a bit of a right royal bargain.

Anyway the sun is shining, we have a witch waiting to cast our bad spirits into an egg and I have to catch up with the illustrator this morning so this is qoing to be a quickie.

Research tomorrow, home Thursday. New job next week! Hurrah.

Oh for a gun

So today's 4 and a half hour flight took 15 hrs.

Booked onto the 8am flight I turn up at 6.30 to be told that there's no reservation for me between Detroit and Atlanta.
There was one - but it had been cancelled.

I have to buy a new ticket. In business. It's $650. I stump up the money and get my boarding passes.

The Aeromexico part shows as business but has me sitting in coach.
I head for the Delta counter - they tell me to go to Aeromexico in Atlanta.
I head for the lounge with my business ticket - they tell me to bugger off.

I get on the plane.
It's -14C outside and colder inside.

Land in Atlanta and walk from gate A to gate E in search of AeroMexico
They're closed.
I e-mail the travel agent.
She tells me to sort it out myself.

I call Aeromexico - it's business in their system but coach in Delta's - tough luck
I go to the Delta desk - he tells me it's not his problem until I have a business class ticket. At which point i won't have a problem.
I call Aeromexico again - they tell me that they've corrected the ticket and that I am now good to fly.
Back to Delta with my code. Nothing has changed. Other than the coach flight has now been cancelled.
They take my boarding pass and suggest that I pay another $1250 for a new ticket.

I stand my ground.
For 2 hrs.
In line.
With people hating me.

Finally.
Miraculously.
They find a way to access my records.
I'm given a boarding pass.

Flight is delayed. 6 hr layover now.
The direct flight is $500 and 4.5 hrs.
I'm paying three times that and taking three times as long. Why?
I fume.

Onto the plane and the pilot is being held at immigration.
Another hour.

We take off.
No vegetarian meal.
Stewardess insists that chicken IS vegetarian.
I ask "is a chicken a vegetable then?"
She spills wine on me
Then drops bread on me
And ignores my coffee order.

Finally land. Immigration is quick. Customs slow. Traffic Mexican.

Meet illustrator. Tad chirpy but nice.
Gareth has left champagne in my room.
I'd rather he'd left a homeless person, a large knife, a clean up kit and a 'get out of jail free card"

And now to bed.

My last trip ever with these clowns - the relief is overwhelming

Yup it's that time again...

Face down
Originally uploaded by poorusher

... flights back to Mexico mean MORE Fuckwittery

The instructions were simple

- A Direct Flight

- Nothing leaving before 9am

The flight.

An 8am flight via Atlanta with a 5 hour layover


A few calls show two things

- That a direct flight leaving at 9.20 is available

- There's an 11.10 flight out of Detroit that still makes my Atlanta connection with hours to spare

But of course the ticket has been booked as a "No Changes" thing and been approved by a moron in my office who agreed to all of the times and dates without thinking to consult me - or look at my original request.

Now last time I flew in I landed at the lovely new terminal. Terminal 2. Scheduled in at 1pm. Gareth, who was flying from New York landed at 3pm at Terminal 1. The person who arranged the travel came up with one car - which waited at Terminal 1 with my name on it.

To get from Terminal 2 to Terminal 1 you need a valid boarding card.
If you've just got off a plane you don't have a valid boarding card.
Which means that Delta have to issue you with a fake boarding card and then escort you through train security (a man with an anorak and a gun) before you can be on your way. This takes 45 mins.

Then there's the fact that the ticket is issued by Aero Mexico. The code on the ticket is Aero Mexico but you can only check in on Delta. Which is in a different terminal. That you need a boarding card for. Which of course you don't have.

We've also had issues with hotels all week. I refuse to do three hotels in 5 days again, the client wants to save a few dollars (fewer than they usually spend on company funded rooftop cocktails) by having us switch around. My company isn't prepared to fund the difference (about $200 all in) and so around and around it goes again. We're staying in my favorite hotel - the only one where we know that everything works (internet, business centre, cars) and to hell with it.

Reckoning that 30% of the workng say is going on this stuff. Which is about $1700. Or $8500 a week. Fuckwittery? I'd say

Load of old cock

cock.JPG
Originally uploaded by stevenjude

Back to Mexico tomorrow. Not quite sure when as the flight details are always kept a mystery from me until the very last moment at which point they're pulled like a rather mangy rabbit from a mouldy tophat and I set the alarm for 3am.

Hoping for a more reasonable flight tomorrow. Perhaps even something direct - although holding my breath would be an act of suicide on that one.

Still Jude is coming down to Mexico city for the weekend. We have wrestling, witches with eggs that can kidnap bad spirits and trips on flower boats through fetid canals to look forward to. It'll just be nice to escape the cold and the snow for a while.

The person who made "pish" type noises at our thought of buying a 4*4 obviously had a very peculiar sense of humor though. The roads here are rarely cleared. The hills are steep. The rear whell drive on my 4.0L muscle car is prone to sending the car into all kinds of wriggles and wiggles upon set off (it's great once you're out of first gear) and I spend my life praying that the mom vans behind me are piloted by moms who really, really, really don't want to get into an accident with 'precious' on board.

The pic by the way is from a store dedicated to cock fightung magazines. Plenty of cock to admire. They do bull fighting too. Now I'd have called the store Cock and Bull (obvious but descriptive) but instead they called it something like "fa-tha-tha-thaa-thee-tha-thaaah" - the name of all stores in Mexico.

Okay taks to be taken in hand here. Ciao all

All barking mad

life.JPG
Originally uploaded by stevenjude

So finally back in Ann Arbor (at least for three more days - then it's off back to Mexico City, the traffic, the noise, the peanut brands) and I've realized that everyone here is barking mad.

For example I spent a half hour today walking out in the -10c temps with Gareth to buy some dog food. We head out and en route see a Xmas Tree decoration shaped like an Octopus. This Gareth decides he has to buy for his artist gorlfriend who became famous with a slo-mo film of her trained Octopus and is currently exhibiting a range of Christmas Tree Ornaments. In we go and are greeted by a large woman who reminds us taht the Octopus has a very large place in certain forms of 'erotic Japanese literature'. Somehow the subject turns to Xmas and Lapland (Gareth had been chief elf there some years back - I kid you not) and she asks "Did you meet any of those big teethed girls who bite the balls off reindeer?" before adding "That might be customer inappropriate. They usually keep me in the shed"

We leave, bauble in hand and get to the pet store where we're told that a 'dog tag silencer' isn't an anal invention at all but a top seller. They then gasp when Gareth picks up a harness (it looks a bit like a bra) and ask that we don't touch the 3 foot high rubber chicken as "It's been reserved as a wedding gift."

On the way back we pass a store that says "The monsters are on strike" and has cut out monsters with signs saying things like "We demand bigger closets." Turns out it's a variation on the Brooklyn Superhero Store theme (there's also a Secret Agent version in Chicago that has a frontage that says "The really boring store" and a window full of gray boxes.

Seems that monsters are too hard to innovate around ('what do monsters need? drool?') and so it's about to become a Robot Store instead. We suggest that the Robot store is dropped on top of the monster store and that they have monster feet and monster goo dripping out of the front door where they were squished. It seems we're as mad as the rest of town.

30 mins, 3 mad people. Lots of gifts. It's good to be home

Mexico City Airport

Mexico City Airport
Originally uploaded by Lydyzze

At the airport in Mexico city. A rather swank new terminal with free internet access and a huge number of 'helpers' in wheelchairs.

have another tight connection in atlanta and the threat of snow and ice storms closing detroit airport. So another stressful day. Why I can't fly direct with Northwest I don't know. But they won't let me. So it's deep breath, fingers crossed and here we go. Again

Yet more

I See Things.....
Originally uploaded by shadowplay

the posts this week have been few and far between as we hopped from one hotel fiasco to another and one torturously slow internet connection to a virtually non-existant one. It's been a shocking show of organizational incompetence and jaw slackening ineptitude and yet somehow we managed to make it through the week with smiles on our faces and a growing conviction in our hearts that what we have growing on our laptops and in suitcases full of paper is getting closer and closetr to the answer. Which is a relief as the client here is lovely and deserves the best work that we can manage.

Another change of hotel today then tomorrow a flight home with a ludicrously short layover in Atlanta (it'll be land and run, customs, security, terminal transfer and boarding in less than an hour) so I hope AeroMexico are on time.

All of that said it's been an okay week, but really REALLY I just want to go home and hug my wife.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water

Devils' Feast Ocumicho
Originally uploaded by Teyacapan

the fuckwittery continues. Yesterday's hotel took 20 mins to check in each guests, had none functioning lights, a wireless connection that required both a near impossible to acquire password and the ability to type whilst mimicking an aerial in order to get a connection, connection wires that didn't fit data ports and an alarming willingness to tell you that there was a message at reception and then deny all knowledge of ever having done so despite having left written evidence.

Today's hotel refused to let us in - as the company credit card (there to book two people into a hotel for a week) has a limit of $1000 and we spent that earlier. They wouldn't take an authorized number from my company (I left my wallet in the US) and their net connection (so we could pay off the work card and have it clear for one more night) was slower than the receptionist at the Hotel Indifferent.

Then there's the 'executive lounge' to which we've been moved (it's either executive nor lounge like), the ability of the staff to move so quickly to take your bags that you feel that you're being mugged and so aggressively to be tipped that technically you may well have been mugged.

It's all just awful. But Mexico remains lovely, the people are sweeter than a Betty White syrup cookie and I am ready for bed. Night all

Mexico

Water fountain
Originally uploaded by ƒreg

a big hello from a Mexican taxi where el diablo is finding work for idle thumbs.

I am now fully immersed in Mexican wine, the shopping habits of over made up Mexican radio psychologists and the new Mexican hipsterism (dontcha just LOVE Lulu?) and have decided that my inability to string together more than ten words in the local language is no impediment to my moving here forever.

Of course forever isn't long enough to go amywhere in this traffic and the ominous appearance of Starbucks on every corner signals the end of any unique culture but that's okay. I'm tall here. I like the food. And i have a bevy of beauties (plus Gareth) attending to every detail of my life.

So what if i left my wallet in Detroit? Or that the journey here took 14 hrs? Who cares that the streets are giant parking lots? This is the land of Mistico - and he can FLY.

As Elvis might have said Viva Mexico.

Didn't we have a lovely time....

IMG_4901
Originally uploaded by stevenjude

So today was one of those cold winter days that begged to be allowed to drive you inside. It was bitterly cold in the wind and yet, on a whim, I decided to drive to the Detroit zoo for some pics. The drive was good, the zoo freezing and most of the animals had been replaced by signs that said "too cold for me"... all in all rather an abortive attempt at tweaking the black nose of jack Frost.

Tomorrow it's out at 4am and to the airport (30 mins away) for another week in Mexico. I'd been hoping that Jude would be able to join me for the week and work on the roof as I went off into the streets to sell peanuts - but of course she sometmes needs to be in the office and so has elected to stay (close to the fire I hope)

Why I'm being asked to give up all of Sunday for a meeting that doesn't start until Monday and all of next Saturday to get home is another question entirely and one that can be easily answered with the word of the week 'fuckwittery'

Still I'm packed for the trip, the Touch is loaded with CSI Miami and some new Glenn Close thing and the TomTom is promising to guide me to airport parking. Here's hoping that all goes right with the flights and that I don't get stuck in Atlanta with nothing to eat but Turkey (which they seem to think is a vegetable)

Okay back downstairs and to Jude, who I can hear is typing too.

Black Friday

October Moon and Amethyst Rayne Day 25 of 365 Days
Originally uploaded by Pink Sherbet Photography

It's Black Friday today. The day after thanksgiving all of the stores have a huge sale and tend to generate lines longer than those in communist Russia around the time of bread delivery. It's insane. Earsly bird specials start at 4am. Stores offer free wake up calls. People go mad. The roads are blocked. Just madness; a perfect storm of boredom, consumerism and the need to fill 'family time'.

It's cold here too. The sun may well be shining down from a sky of brilliant blue but the temperature gauge is saying minus 9 centigrade and having taken the dog down already I have no reason to disbelieve the digital mercury. In fact there was a warning last night on the weather that went something like this...

"Well Friday may be black tomorrow - but your toes shouldn't be, so if you're going out remember to wear...."

Yup early frostbite warnings and yet I don't care. Thanksgiving dinner last night was full of geneticists, architects, economists and sustainable strategists. Arguments ranged from the biophilic through to the usefulness of happiness as a metric for anything and I have to say that I enjoyed it all tremendously. The temptation of course is to be Neanderthal and claim that you're to busy making things to actually think about things but it's something that I avoided. After all I'm in the business of creating desire - so when people start talking about how desire is a learned construct you really do have to listen or I do anyway.

Right, enough of this - Jude is out of the shower and we have some Black Friday wandering of our own to be doing. Happy post Thanksgiving all.

Happy Thanksgiving

It's shaping up to be a perfect day. We woke up this morning to a light dusting of snow, with flakes still gently wafting in the chill air and every house suddenly a potential cover for Victorian confection. A walk with the dog brought many cries of admiration and a few sweet conversations - the dog was beside herself with excitement at the perfection of it all, the people with th esweetness of the dog. Home and there's Judith wrapped in bed with a coffee and a good book (and a banana, worryingly?) Today we have no plans other than to join some people for dinner tonight and hit th egym in preparation for excess tonight. Like a perfect Pinot I am chilled to zen like perfection. I could get used to this.

Our first couples thing...

Vinology.
Originally uploaded by vinni ♥♥

... last night we 'entertained' for the first time... well we opened a bottle of wine for a couple of new friends then walked into town for more wine and the best food I've had here so far.

The big difference between Jude and I (I think) is that she knows interesting people while I tend to know interested people. The former are people out doing things in the world that are new and pushing boundaries (one of our guests last night had recently headed up the digital lab at Harvard) the latter are people who have read about, attended and studied things that are interesting, The former gave stories, the latter have annecdotes.

What they have in common is an interest in the world and a determination to see patterns. Last night's people were both interested and interesting. Which was great. And once again I was the most stupid person in the room (Including all of the staff in the restaurant) which was even better.

Hoping to get my plates and registration today from Ford (my new license wasn't in the system yesterday)

vroom vroom vroom

well it took forever and I still don't have valid plates but I am now the 'proud' owner of a Mustang. 4.0L of rumbling V6 muscle car that's pretty much as American as it's possible to be without actually attending a rodeo.

It's a guilty pleasure. It looks great, it feels great and it sounds amazing but as you floor it and watch the fuel economy drop and drop you start to wonder whether a Honda Fit wasn't a better idea after all. But as Jude would say 'screw it' - I work on a car brand I should drive a car - rather than a shopping trolley.

Anyway the 'Stang is already nicknamed Death Star (black exterior, black interior, the low rumble of Darth Vader somewhere at its heart) and is turning heads wherever we go. Very cool - and at about GBP12k rather a bargain.

Of course I wanted to buy satellite navigation for the Death Star (there's nothing worse than accidentally destroying the wrong planet) but (and this is true) I couldn't find the store that sells them. Must have driven past it. Which could make a decent campaign - the last time you'll ever be lost is on the way to buy one.

Also went to a dentist yesterday in a bid to sort out and exploding (or rather imploding) tooth. While I was there the dentist took a drill to my uneven front teeth and in a matter of minutes had me looking more American and less Dickensian.

5 years in - saying too-na without even thinking about it, straighter, whiter teeth and now a muscle car. I think that this place is finally getting to me

Mistico

So Mexico was a welcome respite - despite the fact that I was up at the crack of dawn each morning, get lagged to hell from the previous week and generally in need of sleep. The clients were lovely, the weather great, the sessions not bad at all and the Mexican wrestling all that you would imagine.

Yes they got us corporate tickets to tegh wrestling - where we saw kids ripping off their shirts to celebrate the victory of the good guys, a lot of grown men in masks and even the obligatory angry granny. But the highlight was Mistico. He's the #1 wrestler in Mexico, his white mask was by far the most common in the crowd and as the time for him to enter the ring neared he was the one that had the already over-wrought kids in tears with excitement.

We asked the guys in front of us what made Mistico so special. "oh" they said "he is the best. He can fly."

And he could, sort of. He was certainly limber enough - right up to the point where he got pinned by a bad guy and lost the fight. Shock from the kids, despair for the 100s of Mistico rip off merchandise sellers outside (paper belts with his crudely cut out head scotch taped my favorite) and for me in the crowd - cause I'd fallen for the myth of Mistico rather hard.

Still there's always next week... and the week after that.

Good to be home. Have topick up driver's license, test drive Mustang and do some work tomorrow.