Class Trip!

I just returned from six days in Thailand and before you all roll your eyes and think that Nick is super lucky, realize that I went as the caretaker of 50!!!! 7th graders. While I will not whine and complain and say it was horrible, I will say that it was no vacation. 50 kids and five teachers: basically means we were always on so it was a tiring trip. On the plus side, we had some cool activities and the kids had some free time to run wild so for the most part it was... well, it was fun. Not exactly a vacation but it was fun. I got to see new parts of Thailand and do some things that I never would have signed up to do. Enough chatter, here is the basic trip.

• Day 1: this was all travel. We left the school at 10:30 am, flew out of Dhaka to Bangkok, then Bangkok to Chiang Mai, and finally to our hotel and dinner at 10:00pm that night. 
• Day 2: the 50 were split into two groups of 25 and half went to the School for Life orphanage to do some service and half stayed at the hotel to do some team building by a company called Into the Wild. Day 3: the groups traded places from day 2. 
• Day 4: half went zip-lining on the Flight of the Gibbon and half went climbing with the Chiang Mai Rock Climbing Adventures. 
• Day 5: The groups traded places again. 
• Day 6: another full day of travel home.

After 6 days with the 7th grade I feel like I witnessed some kids mature before my eyes. I got to see students break out of their shells and trust other students. I got to see how giving some students can be. I got to see how well behaved our kids are even though we are sometimes hard on them to be even better. I got to see just how sensitive and innocent the kids are. It was really amazing to see that this trip really does make a difference in students lives; they really do grow from the experiences and it is too bad that the schools in the US no longer have the funding to be able to do trips like this. I am glad that it is over though; 6 days was the perfect amount of time! Over the next couple of days I will be uploading pictures of each day and a brief review of each of the groups we worked with so enjoy.

Night Construction? Anyone?

There are 4 construction sites around our apartment building. I have been documenting the progress since our arrival. They are pretty much working 24 hours a day. At night seems to be when they really get swinging. I have been told this is because it is easier to get the concrete trucks in when there is no traffic. Last night I woke up at about 1:30 and there was an excavator going crazy on the foundations at one site. I think they have failed to grease any of the joints ever. Every scoop is like some crazy lurching screech... excellent. The impressive thing is how quickly some of these projects get put up. I guess when there are no real codes, LOTS of cheap labor and the fact that they work 24 hours a say is great for finishing projects in a timely manner. Here are some pics...

This is the first one I took in September. The far building is only 2 stories and the closer one (bottom right corner) is only 3 stories.

This is the closer on and they are getting ready to pour some concrete for the 4th floor

This is about 9:30 at night... working hard. They have the 4th floor poured and the walls are getting formed up.This was a tough shot to get. I had my mini-pod velcroed to the railing. Long (1.6 seconds) exposure for the ambient glow and x-mas lights. You can see a dark area on the right which is my arm: I had to cover and uncover the two large spotlights so that they would not blow out the picture. Took me 3-4 tries but it was worth it.

Love this shot. The guy in yellow must be some sort of foreman as he is just checking it out like he owns the place. 5th or 6th story of the far building.

Up to 8 stories and no end in site!

Keep in mind this guy is 9 stories up. Work shoe of choice? Leather sandal. Safety harness? We don't need no stinking safety harness!

Close building: working on the 9th floor

Lucky Lucky Lucky!

Garment Factory

One of the 7th grade field trips at AISDhaka is to one of the garment factories in Dhaka. This was all about expectations and I was expecting the worst. After seeing how a lot of Bangladeshis live and that the majority live on about a dollar a day and all the news about sweat shops the picture in my head was not pretty. While I am sure that something close to what I was thinking is out there in Dhaka, what we actually saw was not so bad. The factory we went to made only bottoms and they make clothes for JC Penny, Walmart and Diesel among others. They employ about 2,000 workers that earn 4,000 taka a month. To put this into perspective that is about 47 US dollars a month for 6 - ten hour days a week. The environment was clean, well lit and cool. Here are some pictures:

One of the hundreds of pallets of fabric

This is one of those lucky shots where I just happened to be taking a picture at the right time. She is smiling at all the students walking by.

This is the cutting station. Fabric is layered on top of itself many times and then all cut at once. The cutter is a pretty tool machine. You can see it on the left hand side of the picture.

Here is a close up of the fabric being cut. You can see how precise the cutter is. The guy running it wears a steel mesh glove on his left hand and pushes the cutter with his right.

Ironing station:

There was an entire floor dedicated to seem checking. Each table is dedicated to a certain area of the garment.

This was one of the coolest parts to see. This machine sews the buttons on. The worker slides a button into the machine, lines up the shorts and then turns on the machine. It takes about one second for the  machine to sew the button on. The needle moves around precisely through each hole.

Russian Imperial Stout

Yesterday I brewed my second batch of beer. This is Russian Imperial Stout kit from The Beverage People. The people at the Beverage People were very helpful. I told them I would be traveling to Bangladesh and that the kit would set in a container for three months so they traded out the liquid yeast (it would go bad) for a dried yeast. The dried yeast was designed for wine but they recommended it because of the high alcohol content of the beer. This is going to make a beer similar to an Old Rasputan from North Coast brewing. Dark, complex and a big punch. The brewing went without a hitch this time. The foam of this beer is lush and has a great color. Check out this pic:

I was able to cool the wort down quicker this time after trying some new techniques. This time I set the wort in a chilled bath and ran water through the wort chiller. I also periodically stirred the wort as gently as possible so as not to introduce any oxygen while it was still hot. It took about 30 minutes to get 25 quarts of wort from boiling to 75 degrees. Not too bad.

Then I transferred the wort to the primary fermenter, pulling a little bit out to test the specific gravity (and taste it...hehe). It was at 1.095! To explain what this means, the specific gravity is comparing the specific gravity of the wort to that of water. The higher the number, the more sugar in the wort. The 1.095 converts to a final alcohol content of about 13%. This happens as the yeast converts the sugars into alcohol over the next few weeks. Yeast is so cool!

There is already a good deal of action in the carboy as you can see from the pics I took today. I am super excited about this batch and I hope I am not building it up too much. Luckily I still have some of the first batch to sip on while I watch the yeast work its magic.

Whiskey Night Results!

Last night I invited some of the guys over for a whiskey/scotch tasting. Mark came up with the idea of all of us purchasing a nice bottle on our way back into the country and then getting together to share them. There were seven of us and 10 bottles. Seemed like a good idea at the time! Here is the lineup:

1st row from left to right: Ardbeg 10year, The Balviene Golden Cask 14 year, Highland Park 1990, Glenfidich Rich Oak 14 year, Glengoyne 10 year, The Balviene Double Wood 12 year
2nd row from left to right: Johnnie Walker Black Label, Glenlivet 12 year, The Glenfiddich 12 year, Dewars 12 year.

This is a shot of the boys checking out the bottles. If I would have covered up the bottles and asked what you thought they were looking at...

The whole group moving on the the second discussing the finer flavors that were experienced on the last. The looks are sober but they would not stay that way for long! We quickly realized 10 bottles was way too much... but we weren't stopping yet!

This was a great night and the conversation was magic. College reminiscing, loss of our scotch virginity, Rob making verbal love to Siri and of course the constant barrage of witty banter. We will be repeating this event in the future with more guys and less bottles! After getting through 8 bottles we ranked our favorites and tallied. The top three were then blind tasted to pick the winner. The top three from first to third were: The Belviene Golden Cask, The Glenfiddich Rich Oak and the Highland Park 1990.

Looking over our tasting notes is pure comedy! there is a general degrading of sophistication of prose and neatness of handwriting as the evening wore on. Here are a few choice tidbits from the evening:

Balviene Golden Cask: "Frisky"

Glenfiddich Rich Oak: "Makes me want to swallow"

Glengoyne: "Nice Back", "Reckless beginnings, bitter end"

Ardbeg: "Punch in the teeth" "Peat train"

Highland Park: "Smooth, building to a crescendo"

Black Label: "I just drank this and I can't remember it"

Balviene Doublewood: "Sugary and playful, but may bite when provoked. Homeostatic and predictable, which is fun"

Dewars: "Bitey"

In conclusion: if you want a smooth drinking, subtle but interesting scotch go with the Glenfiddich Rich Oak. If you want something more complex, something that will make you stand up and take notice but is not harsh buy the Balviene Golden Cask. If you want good bang for the buck the your best bet is the Balviene Double Wood (5th place behind the 4th place Ardbeg) not as smooth as its big brother but just as interesting.

Amed

We left Ubud and traveled to Amed which is a small fishing village on the north side of the island. The drive was about 3 hours and very windy. Everyone seemed relieved to finally be out of the car. We stayed at the Hidden Paradise Cottages. The rooms were OK. They are older buildings made from brick and painted over. That and the tinted windows reminded me of late 70's American subdivisions, not really a good thing. So we spent lots of time at the pool and the snorkeling was pretty amazing right offshore. I don't want it to sound like I didn't have a good time, Ahmed was a very cool place and the HPC were just not up to the same level as our amazing places in other parts. Here are some pics:

 One of the last pictures with Geo in wings, that's right Geo learned to swim solo in this very pool.

This is the result of Lola wearing goggles all day. She had this bad habit of pushing her goggles into her her face to create a vacuum so that her goggles were sealed. All marks were gone quickly but it looked so bad for a bit.

Walking down the beach to dinner.

Enjoying my best purchase in Bali, my 22 ounce Bin Tang beer cozy. Never drinking ever warming beer again, that is my mission!

Rented a scooter and did as the Balinese. We got the whole family on it and explored the local area. There is something magic about a two wheeled vehicle. You are in it, not insulated from it. Your field of view is where ever you turn your head. And the best? The intimacy of it all. My wife is right behind me arms wrapped around me. It is like the intimacy of the bench seat in the huge early American cars. Slide on over baby. Only difference is that you are not carrying around all that pointless Detroit steel. Just the bare minimum of material and displacement to get to where you need to go. The gas mileage you ask? Well lets just say that it doesn't even matter. I could not have emptied the tank during the short time we were here.

 Drinks out on our scooter excursion. Lola slamming a banana smoothy.

That was it, back to Dhaka and our home sweet home!

Ubud

We rented a house on the north end of Ubud, a nice place called the Paper Lotus. To get to it we drove throught the main street in Ubud. We passed the Monkey Forest and were in traffic for a half hour driving past all the shops and restaurants. It became obvious that Ubud has become a very touristy spot. It does not seem as if much remains of the traditional arts except for the antique shops. Lots of western style clothing shops and jewelry and restaurants with international food and free wifi. WE finally arrived at our house which turned out to be the best place that we had stayed yet. Here it is:

We found a very cool coffee shop close to the monkey forests called "Coffee and Silver" it had a great style and good food too but not very Balinese...

We did a bicycle tour that bused us up to a coffee plantation for coffee, breakfast overlooking a volcano, bike downhill for 25 kilometers, and then lunch. There was lots of cool vistas that I did not photoducment... riding through rice paddies etc. George brought his camera so the following pics are courtesy of George Gibbs.

The kids were in love with the helmets!

 Jessica receiving some services from the tour's pit crew.

 Me and my machine... I've had better.

I took a little bike ride on my own to check out the local architecture. I could not find my original destination but here are some pics to give you a feel.

Next stop is the Elephant Safari Park Lodge to see elephants. Lola got to ride one and she was so excited she agreed to go all by herself. Afterward she kept talking about "her" elephant, Ramona, and now she wants to be a zoo keeper.

 After the ride Lola and Geo feed "her" elephant.

We spent went out to a restaurant called Clear for New Years Eve. They are probably better know for their blended drinks (think hippy grooviness like Ginger Mint lemongrass smoothy stuff). The most telling think I could say is that they don't even serve alcohol there... I know! Luckily we stopped and grabbed some brew from the local Circle K before going. Here is the group shot courtesy of Robyn's camera and the hostess as our photographer:

Happy new year! Next stop is Amed.