asides

Independence Day In Chile

Posted on September 3, 2011 by Mike

Youths celebrate Independence Day in Chile with traditional dances. Here in the square in Calama.

Chile officially declared its independence from Spain on February 12, 1818, but for some convoluted historic reason celebrates it in September. If you’d like to read every twist and turn, check out Wikipedia. Suffice to say all of Chile is awash in red, white and blue, and the flags are everywhere. Of course, big celebrations are planned for the capital, Santiago. Everybody’s in a festive mood.

These women have been dancing these traditional Chilean dances together for the last 35 years.

Viva Chile! Vivaaaaaaa!

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My Sixth Sense

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Mike

I have a sixth sense.

But if only I could learn to read it and harness its power, I could use it for evil. Joke.

This week, I had that strange feeling I’ve had many times before – about a person, a place or some thing. A person or place or thing for no apparent reason suddenly pops into my head and lingers for hours, sometimes days. It’s like that obnoxious song you can’t get out of your head. It happens at the most random of times and try as I might, I just can’t rid my thoughts of him, her or it.

Generally, the thoughts are of someone I know, but more often they’re of some celebrity or public figure. Sometimes they’re of a country or more specifically, a city or town, and not necessarily some place I’ve already visited. The strange part comes into play when a day or two later or within the week, boom! Big news breaks about that person, place or thing. Then I think to myself, I was just thinking about that person or that place or that very thing.

Will and Jada

I’m not sure it’s some sort of superpower or how is it even useful, but I almost always dismiss such nagging thoughts of whomever or whatever and go on with my day. Much more pressing things going on in my head push those seemingly mundane meanderings aside. It’s only after the news emerges about that thing, person or place that I then recall how much I had that subject on the brain only hours or days ago.

So I ask, does this ever happen to anyone else out there? Am I unique in this regard? Is it just all coincidence?

On Tuesday, I had a feeling something was up at Apple Inc. I don’t know why, I just did. It was a strong feeling that popped into my head. I wasn’t reading about Apple or doing anything that would make me think about Apple. I was simply tidying up my room, doing some other household chores. Then wham!, here comes Apple and its CEO Steve Jobs into my head. As always, I pushed the thought aside – or at least tried – but it kept coming back. It lasted off and on throughout the day, well into Wednesday. It was so strong that at one point I thought maybe Apple was about to make some big announcement about one of its popular products and my sixth sense was in high gear. A new iPhone? A significant product upgrade? Maybe a new iPad? An iPad 3? Ah, that’s it. Ah, yes, that’s it, a new and improved iPad, maybe one that finally supports Flash, good heavens!.

iPod Touch

So now I had the iPad on my mind. So much so that while I was on Facebook I began to update my status with: “Look for Apple to soon announce the iPad 3! If you’re in the market for one, wait.”

But before I posted the admittedly bold statement with no backing or sourcing other than my wild intuition, I stared at what I had written for about a minute and thought, “no, that’s not it,” and erased it. Still, I launched Google to double-check how long the iPad 2 had been on the market. Just maybe it was time for a new version of the iPad, no?

So why was I now obsessing about Apple. I like Apple products – own some of them myself – but I am no Steve Jobs “fanboy”. Those who shed tears when Steve Jobs walks on a stage to plug his products need to have their heads examined or at the minimum to get a life. Or just get a grip! [Where is slap-happy General Patton when you need him?]

The fanboys may think Steve Jobs is the Messiah, but he is – gasp! – not. Talk about belonging to a cult, not knowing it, and attacking as stupid anybody else refusing to join!

Cult Leader and Apple CEO Steve Jobs

When Wednesday came, I woke up very early in the morning to get to work, and after the routine swearing at the alarm clock, I took a shower and prepared a light breakfast. Somewhere between pouring the milk and the Mueslix, guess what popped into my mind? I then tried to explain it away: last week I had lost my iPod Touch at work, and I had been thinking about it off and on. I wasn’t so much obsessing or upset about it as I was thinking more along the lines that all my precious data was stored in that little glass and aluminum device. Who, just who had it in their sticky hands and were they using it for evil? No joke.  The very act of keeping what is so not yours is evil. Looking at someone’s private information is evil. Any person who does that is evil. Oh well, an excuse to buy the latest generation iPod Touch, was my thought. Move on.

I walked in to the cavernous building at work, made a cup of Ceylon tea, and sat down to figure out the student lineup. Then as I walked to the office of my first eager-to-learn-English junior executives, one of the department managers – also a student of mine – approached holding up an iPod Touch. “Is this yours?”

Never thought I’d see that iPod again. It had been more than a week. It had mysteriously appeared on his desk, left there in plain sight. My iPod was reportedly spotted on the desk by another mining executive, not one that I teach English to every week. How had the iPod turned up on this desk is still a mystery. I suppose I could have security review the cameras, but who cares. The important thing is I got it back.

I think the person who found it and kept it had remorse and decided to return it, slipping it onto the desk while no one was looking. Just about everyone at the company knew I had lost my iPod and would ask daily if I had found it. They were genuinely concerned about finding it. This isn’t a company where stealing is tolerated, one of them said to me. From the security staff the housekeeping staff, they all were on the lookout. The messages I sent to the iPod’s screen may have also scared that person into turning it in.

For the uninitiated, if you lose your iPhone or iPod Touch, you can engage a feature called “Find My Phone” that locates it via GPS just about anywhere in the world. You can also remotely through Apple’s Mobile Me Website send any message you want to the screen -“Hey, you #$@&!! return my iPod! – or  instantly slap a password on it to lock it and prevent its use. And in a final act to preserve your privacy, erase all the data. All this remotely from your home computer or laptop.

My messages that the device belonged to me and that it be returned or face doom, may have scared the person into doing the right thing. At least I’d like to think so. One thing: the GPS-backed function to locate the iPod on a global map did not work. Otherwise, I would have known where to go find the device. A chemical engineer at the mine, a pretty smart guy, attributed the GPS failure to our desert location where there isn’t a strong signal. I don’t know. It worked great elsewhere, most recently in Chicago when I misplaced it there. A map popped up on the computer and zoomed in on the building, and voila! Found it. Amazing technology and smart thinking from Apple.

So on Thursday morning, I had my iPod back in hand. By Thursday night, on that very same device came a breaking news alert from the New York Times: “Steven P. Jobs Is Stepping Down As Chief Executive of Apple.”

Say what?

The iPad

“I have always said that if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know,” Jobs wrote in a statement released by Apple. “Unfortunately, that day has come.”

So iPod Touch back in hand, it alerts me of the news from…..drum roll….Apple! There’s the big news, is what I thought, of course. Bigger news than the release of an iPad 3. Hey, I never said this mind power was about predicting the future. Just that some event – good or bad – is about to unfold in involving the people, places and things that invade my thoughts.

The very same week, I had actor Will Smith on the brain, but not to the degree of Apple. Then word comes the next day and spreads by Facebook and Twitter that he and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith are getting a divorce after 13 years of marriage. Okay. Coincidence?

I think that’s all I will reveal about my superpower…err…gift…err…weirdness.

One thing’s for sure: when it comes to travel, I do listen to my sixth sense. We refer to it as a “gut feeling”. But my gut tells me this sixth sense is about something more.

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A Death On The Beach

Posted on August 14, 2011 by Mike

Search and rescue teams comb the beach

Ever wonder if God is trying to tell you something? If not God, maybe some spiritual or mystical force. How else to make sense of those neatly packaged series of random “coincidences” in your life?

I had arrived shortly after 11 p.m. Thursday in Iquique on the northern coast of Chile to enjoy a bit of its famed vibrant nightlife and to relax on its popular beaches. I got the expected fun-filled nightlife, spent with new Chilean friends who graciously picked me up at my hotel. We spent the evening sipping a variety of cocktails first at restaurant and bar called Runa and then dancing until the early morning hours to Latin music at the beachfront Mango’s Club. Between the food, the drinks and the dances, we laughed. Sometime during the evening I was struck with the thought that I had to be the luckiest man on Earth, living a life others only dream about. Here I was, after all, on a trip around the world, meeting some of the coolest people in city after city, town after town, village after village, who wanted nothing more but to make sure I had a good time in their country. So many have gone out of their way to see to that, and I am to them forever grateful.

On Friday morning, thinking it would be a good day to hit the beach, I pulled back the curtains of my hotel room only to witness some pretty big waves. Woah! That looks more suited for surfing than for swimming, was my thought. Then the news confirmed that the Pacific Ocean along the Chilean coastline was being anything but peaceful. The strong currents had swallowed a fishing boat anchored just off the beach early Friday morning and caused flooding on streets near the beach.

GRIEVING: This lifeguard's friend drowns two days after asserting there hasn't been a drowning on the beach in Iquique, Chile, in 12 years.

Still, I headed out for a walk on the beach. There, I stopped to talk to a lifeguard. I asked him a few questions about ocean conditions. He said the seas were pretty rough and that swimming was not an option. Surfers were the only ones being allowed in, but only if they used a Jet Ski to go out. The currents were too strong for them to paddle out.

It was at that point he shared with me that it had been 12 years since the last drowning in Iquique and that he wasn’t about to lose anyone on his watch. It was for that reason he had been on the radio dispatching other lifeguards to warn surfers and others about the dangerous ocean conditions. He then spent about a half hour giving me information about Iquique, such as things to do and places to see. With the antenna of his two-way radio, he drew directions in the wet sand. But then pointed out the nearby tourist information booth and accompanied me there to grab a map of the city. We walked back to the beach as he showed me points of interests on the map. Very nice of him. Back at the lifeguard stand, we shook hands and parted ways.

On Sunday, two days later, I drew back the hotel room curtains to see how the ocean was behaving. Still looked rough. In the distance, I could see a boat salvage crew raising the sunken fishing boat. A Chilean navy helicopter hovered above, then swooped down. Lots of activity on the water, but still no swimmers, just a few surfers. Okay, time for another walk on the beach, at least. Off I went.

A Chilean naval helicopter participates in the search for a missing man

On the beach, I snapped pictures of the boat being raised, and of ocean rescuers on boats and Jet Skis apparently in some sort of training exercise. The helicopter swept back and forth along the beach. Then I saw my friend the lifeguard and other lifeguards emerging from the ocean in their orange and black wet suits. I had snapped his picture out on the water on a Jet Ski earlier, but I had no idea it was him. He approached, shook my hand and asked how was my visit in Iquique so far and had I gone to the places he told me about. I said yes, and that I had a great time sightseeing that day and going out with local friends the previous night.

Searching the waters off the beach for a friend

When I stopped talking I noticed he seemed grim-faced. He then told me he and others were just wrapping up a long day searching for the body of a friend. He said his friend had swam out and went down in the strong currents. He was presumed drowned. He said rescuers – himself included – had been ought since 8 a.m., for at least 10 hours, looking for his friend’s body. The naval helicopter was also part of the search, he said. He added that in about seven days the body would probably float to surface or wash ashore. He was obviously very sad. This was the same lifeguard, after all, who two days earlier had told me there hadn’t been a drowning on the beach in Iquique for 12 years and he was hoping to keep it that way. That 12-year record was wiped out in a weekend and the victim someone close to him, no less. I couldn’t believe it. He climbed in the back of the white rescue pickup truck, waved goodbye to me, then looked solemnly in the direction of the ocean, maintaining his arm up in a wave. What was I to make of this irony? A lifeguard…says no deaths in 12 years on the beach…aims to preserve the record of safety during unusual currents…then two days later, someone he knows well drowns…on the stretch of beach he serves as lifeguard.

Calling it a day

He grieves. And I’m left to wonder. Is God trying to tell me something? Or maybe I’m just reading way too much into this and it’s simply just how life works sometimes – like God – in mysterious ways.

Divers and salvage crews work to raise a fishing boat sunk by rough seas

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