Let’s see.  When last I checked in, I had mentioned going to Afro-Reggae, a social and musical movement situated in the favela of Vigário Geral, in the northern sector of Rio de Janeiro.  They just opened a new community center, open 24 hours a day, in what used to be one of the more crime- and violence-ridden favelas.  Afro-Reggae, and its charismatic co-founder Anderson Sá, were portrayed in the documentary Favela Rising, which I saw a couple of months ago (did it give me a moment of, “You want to take us where??”  Yes, it did).

One of the things the group does is basically take kids off the street and teach them music and arts.  We were welcomed with a full blown performance by the junior class.

Then the group I was with got drum lessons, which was quite fun … to photograph.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In the above video, you can see me sitting on the sidelines for a split second.

Let’s see, what else.  There was a trip up Pão de Açúcar (Sugar Loaf) on one of those damned cable car things that I hate with a passion.

It rained most of the week, but the rain cut out just a bit while we went up the mountain … and then resumed again when we went down to Ipanema to drive back along the beach.  Blech.

The group departed on Sunday for São Paulo, while I stayed in Rio an extra day because it cost $600 less to fly home on Monday.  Sunday night was the fun night that I decided to stay in and cook dinner for myself in the apartment I rented.  I’m not a big fan of dining in restaurants all alone, although I can do it when needed — the issue is that when I was hungry on Sunday night, there was some soccer game on TV and most of the restaurants around my building were packed (and, frankly, I was a little terrified of the restaurants that weren’t).  It’s one thing to eat alone, it’s another to wait an hour for a table and arm wrestle others for a seat in order to do so, so I hit the grocery store for some pre-made stuff and went back to the apartment where the usual Sunday night lineup was playing on satellite television.

This is where I learned a critical fact about rental apartments: always check the oven before deciding that you plan to use it for something.  I discovered two things: first, the oven (which was, roughly, the size of an EZ Bake oven that uses a lightbulb to cook things) had no temperature on the knobs.  There were various levels, 1-5, but nothing that actually explained what these were supposed to correlate to.  (I mused over the possibility that these were abbreviations for hundreds of degrees, but in a country operating on the metric system, I couldn’t fathom why one would need an oven capable of reaching 500 degrees celsius, nor could I imagine that this particular oven was capable of doing so).

And then there was the pilot light.

Confession: I haven’t lived in a place with gas cooking since I lived in DC, which was 12 years ago.  While I recognize that gas is easier to control, there are certain things that I just don’t entirely know how to do — one of which is how to light a stove that doesn’t have a pilot light underneath.  I remember having to re-light ours a couple of times, but it was pretty easy. In this case, I opened the stove, turned on the gas, lit the last match left in the box, and hoped I wasn’t about to blow us all to kingdom come.

The thing lit.  Yay!

On went the heating element, and in went the food.  And 25 minutes later, it was still frozen.

At some point in the next 15 minutes, without my doing anything, the heating element lit up the way it was supposed to and the oven actually warmed up quite quickly, meaning we went from frozen to almost burned, but whatevs.  I got my food, blew out the pilot light, and sat down to watch A Familia Da Pessado (or, Family Guy, which was, thankfully, subtitled).

The next morning I woke up to discover that the rain had broken and that it was sunny.  When I’d had dinner with Natalie two nights earlier, she told me that the trip up to Christ the Redeemer–the massive statue of Jesus with his arms outstretched that overlooks Rio from the top of Corcovado that’s on every postcard of the city–was entirely worth it.  It was sunny, so I decided to plug about on the InterWebz to see if I could figure out how to get there without bankrupting myself. Turns out that you can take the metro to the Lago do Machado station and then change to a special bus that runs up to the neighborhood where the cog train up the mountain is.  Pretty easy, thinks I, and I set off.

Two small issues: apparently it’s not as easy to change from the Metro to the Integraçao bus as I thought, because I didn’t manage to do it correctly in either direction.  I wound up just taking a cab up from the metro station (which was still way cheaper than it would have been from Copa), and on the way back I wound up paying the fare twice (once to get on the bus, again when I got to the metro — the fare is supposed to cover both), but whatever.

And so I arrived at the cog station to discover that every other tourist in Rio de Janeiro had had the exact same thought.  I waited in line for an hour to buy my ticket up to the top of the mountain, which, when I got it, I discovered was for the train leaving an hour later than that.  Finally, after waiting in line and fighting off annoying tourists, I got on the cog train and up the mountain we went.

Jesus is here!  Look busy!!!!!

I ask you: is it a sin to snark at people within site of a 60 foot tall granite Jesus?  Because I kind of did.  People had no problem stopping in the middle of traffic flow to take a photos completely oblivious (or possibly actively ignoring) to the people trying to get around them.  At one point, after waiting for a group of three to rotate through all three of their cameras, at which point they then started to exchange their cell phones to take photos on those, I believe I did actually snark, “REALLY?” before plowing through and ruining the photo for them.  They kind of deserved it.  (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)

And so, after enjoying the view from the top, I climbed back aboard the cog train and headed down the mountain and went back to Copa in time for lunch, a quick round of the shops for a second bottle of cachaça and some guava paste, and then went back to finish packing and head to the airport.

I’m still kind of processing Brazil — I enjoyed it, and I’d go back.  It’s a huge country, and I think my next trip would prioritize exploring a different part.  I don’t know that I’d head back to Rio just to hang out–it’s actually pretty expensive–but I’d definitely go with some particular goal in mind.

A nighttime image of luminaries in a store window in Tiradentes, Minas Gerais, Brazil.  I love these things, but there’s no way I can get one home in my suitcase.

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(if you don’t see your monitor size listed, choose a larger size in the right proportion.)

Anyway.

I told Natalie last night that I’m still processing Rio.  In many ways, it reminds me of Istanbul: a former grand city that has grown well beyond its original boundaries and expanded into a modern megalith, but if you poke around in certain areas you can find bits of historic grandeur that stand as testament to what the city once was.

Every city has its ups and downs.  Natalie and Joe have gone to some length to warn people about the potential dangers of Rio—not necessarily scare-mongering, although their attitude is similar to the one I use when I take people to Cairo: I’d rather get them over concerned and have them feel like it was all for naught then to have something happen and be told, “You never warned me about this.”

Tuesday morning, I met up with Natalie for a stroll along Copacabana Beach.  I wanted to shoot some photos of the beach, and I dare say that some of them came out particularly well (although, apparently if one wants the young and beautiful crowd, one goes over to Ipanema.  Point noted).

We were meeting up at 12:45 to go up to one of the favelas – shantytowns – to visit with Nos do Morro (pronounced, “noys du mo-hu”), a group that works on theater, music, and other projects with the community there and is wildly popular.  Natalie and Joe had asked if I would be willing to serve as the “official” photographer for the visit since a group of Americans carrying flashy cameras and stuff in a slum is bound to attract the wrong kind of attention.

So, after strolling along Copacabana and getting sand all over my feet, I came back to the apartment I’m renting for the week and got changed, stopped at McDonald’s to grab a quick lunch, and headed back toward the hotel, which is all of about 10 minutes away, and a good chunk of that is waiting for traffic lights (people actually wait for those here.  It’s totally freaking me out).

My usual route is to walk three blocks over to Avenida Atlantica, which runs along the beach, and then the four or five blocks down from there to the hotel. And I’m strolling along, not walking entirely quickly (not to get too personal, but we’ve been walking a lot and there are some chafing issues), but not slowly either.  About halfway down my route is the site where they’re building the new Sound and Image Museum, and there’s a guy standing out front.

“Do you know what time it is?” he asks me in English.

I do not, as a rule, respond well to people who come up to me and strike up a conversation on the street.  I find them suspicious – in Egypt it’s because they usually want your money (most often by vent of actually asking for it), but it raises my hackles.

I made a mistake here, and it’s a pretty neat tell for someone engaged in less-than-honorable practices. If I keep my mouth shut, people think I’m Brazilian.  A number of people have, while standing in line at a store, or at a restaurant, tried to engage me in Portuguese.  The mistake I made was glancing at my watch, thus demonstrating that I spoke English.

I felt a slight thump and the wind of someone moving very quickly by me.  Son of a bitch, I thought – did I just get mugged? I didn’t really stop walking, but felt at my pockets.  It seemed as if everything was still in them – my bag was zipped shut and clasped closed, and it would have been impossible for someone to get in it that quickly.  I looked behind me to see a guy skipping down the sidewalk, looking behind him at me and laughing.

“No, ta OK,” the man in need of the time said.  “Ta locou.”  He’s crazy.

At this point, every warning bell in my body was ringing loudly. Pocket check would have to wait till the hotel. I sped up, and kept walking, ignoring the guy.

“Amigo,” he called.
Oh, right.  The time.  “Uh, doze e meia,” I said, and kept walking.  It’s 12:30.
He continued to follow me.  I was, at this point, more concerned with getting away from him than listening to what he was saying – except that he kept saying something about “pantalon.”  I’d probably walked a block or so when I finally decided to examine my pantalones – pants – which were fine.  I kept walking, and he fell further and further behind, still saying something about my pantalones.

That was when I glanced down and saw that the top of my right shoe was completely covered in a large brownish-green blob of fecal matter.  And I saw the paper towels in his hand.  “Let me help,” he was starting to say.

Bull. fucking. shit.

Realizing that this was when the grab would take place, I sped up faster and told him, “No, ta bem.  Ta bem.  FORA!” (“No, it’s fine.  It’s fine.  Go away!”)  He finally realized that I wasn’t going to stop and spun off.  I walked the remaining block and a half to the hotel.  Right outside, I fished my phone out of my pocket and called Natalie.

“There’s a bathroom on the first floor in the back by the restaurant,” she told me, and I removed my shoe at the lobby door and carried it in my hand.

The most embarrassing part of the whole incident—which, you must understand, has taken far longer to write about than it did to actually occur—was that the restroom wasn’t in the back by the restaurant, it was in the restaurant.  I walked past people eating lunch with a shoe covered in dog shit (I’m choosing to believe that dog was the source and would prefer not to be corrected on that, OK?).  I cleaned off the shoe as best I could – and went to meet the group, step-padding through the lobby as I delayed putting my shoe back as long as possible, since part of cleaning it off involved it getting soaking wet.  (I also forgot to take the emergency credit card out – I keep it under the insert, but that, at least, was inside a ziploc bag.

And so, off we went to Nos do Morro.  (And, for the record, I don’t walk that way any more – I’m sticking to the interior of Copacabana since there are more people around.)

Nos do Morro is in Vidigal (that’s pronounced “viji-gal,”), one of the more than 600 favelas that have sprouted up on the mountains all around Rio (and in other cities as well – even in Belo Horizonte, we passed favelas on the way out of town).  Favelas are shantytowns that are largely unpatrolled by police or any other form of authority except for the drug cartels that frequently run them.  In Rio, they frequently have the best views as they spring up on the hillsides – new arrivals go higher and higher.  From where I’m sitting right now, I can see the rooftops of two of them.

So, I’m segueing from a story about how I almost got mugged to a story about how I went to a favela.  Chris, is anything good happening down there?  Should we be worried?

Well, no, actually, because the favela visit was part of the good.  As I’ve mentioned before, one of the things the group is doing on this program is visiting organizations that work to provide a sense of community among the least empowered people in Brazil – and the favelados are down there at the bottom.

At first glance, Vidigal seems like any other lower class neighborhood – in fact, I made assumptions based on what (admittedly very little) I know of race and class in Brazil and thought that it would be populated by mostly black and indigenous people.  Wrong.  The population in the favela is like everywhere else in Brazil – that is to say, it’s as mixed as the US because Brazil, like the US, is a country that was settled by Europeans and others coming from around the world.  In the 1920s, there really was no qualitative difference for a poor European immigrant looking to get out — New York, Rio, or Buenos Aires were all equally attractive options.  All three were at about the same level of development – it’s the rest of the 20th century that’s been the source of the uneven development.

Anyway, the director of Nos do Morro, Guti Fraga, is a force to be reckoned with.  Although he didn’t spend much time with us, Natalie related that one of the quotes he puts out there is that, “’To be or not to be’ is a difficult question when all you know is not being.”  Nos do Morro—“We of the Mountain”– does theater, film, dance, music classes for anyone in the community – and they come.  Natalie and Joe have told the story about their previous visit—to set up our time on this trip—where they went up to the top of the hill for a community talent show.  Apparently the biweekly event is now drawing over 400 people, and the cartels are very supportive—it’s a viable alternative for those who don’t want to be in the drug trade (frequently the only option).  People who’ve gone through Nos do Morro have worked on nearly every film and television project in Brazil and beyond (all of the actors in the film City of God, for example, were Nos do Morro alumnae).

We got to sit in on a theater class with a group of kids that was alternately exhilarating and uncomfortable – the teacher was pushing them hard and they got into some deeply personal territory that was a bit “Should we be here?” for us.  The group enjoys deep community support, although they need ‘real’ funding for various projects.  And at the end of the day, we got into our little bus and were led out of the favela feeling as though we’d seen something special.  And then we were cruising down the beachfront in Ipanema, feeling the massive disconnect between the people on the hill and the people down below.

Today we’re visiting Afro-Reggae, a similarly minded group that was founded in a favela up north toward the airport.  Films have been done about Afro-Reggae, and they just opened a brand new cultural and community center—I’m thinking this will be one of the highlights of the trip.

Left off my last post before I got through the travel blues and got to the actual part about being in Brazil.  Lest anyone think that all I’m going to do is complain about this trip, just remember — I’ve stopped writing about my annoyances in Egypt, but they are plentiful.

I arrived on Thursday in Belo Horizonte basically in time to go to my hotel room, take a shower and wash the sludge off, and pass out for a couple of hours.  Afterwards, I trudged back over to the hotel where the group was staying and met up with Natalie and a couple of others and we went to dinner at a place called “b.a.r.”  Very original.  It was an early night for Brazil, meaning that when I started falling asleep at the table at 11:30, I was put in a cab back to my hotel while everyone else stayed — depending on who I talk to — either another 5 minutes or another 45.

The next day, before the Great Cell Phone Trek of 2010, I went with the group to watch a rehearsal by Grupo Corpo, who are, according to Joe (who has opinions in much the same way I do — with the little trademark symbol afterwards: “Opinions by Joe™”) the best experimental dance company in the world.  As I do not follow dance, experimental, contemporary or otherwise, I am not qualified to offer an opinion on that, but I will say that I wish I had been able to take photos of the dancers as I think they would have been hot neat.

The group with whom I am tagging along is on a seminar called “Arts and Empowerment,” and they’re basically visiting and working with groups who work in poor communities to bring education and self-empowerment through artistic means.  They started in Salvador–which I will get to someday, dammit!–and then went to BH, and now we’re all in Rio (but I’m not to that part in the story yet).  Anyway, the group’s blog is here if you want to see what they’re doing.

I had heard that Brazil tends to be pretty laid back about sexuality, which isn’t to say that when I saw two guys making out on the street in Belo Horizonte that it wasn’t an eye opener.  Hel-lo!

Anyway, after an amazing performance and a lunch at a comida a kilo (cafeterias here tend to sell food by weight.  Neat concept), Natalie and I then embarked on the Great Cell Phone Trek of which you already know.

Saturday we left BH on the bumpy ride down to Tiradentes, which is one of the old colonial mining towns in the mountains of resource-rich Minas Gerais.  The name of the state literally means “general mines,” which is a throwback to the past when it was exploited primarily for gold reserves.  Mineiro food is also considered one of the best in Brazil, and Natalie and Joe took the group (and me) to dinner at Tragaluz, a phenomenal restaurant that does something on the order of new-mineiro food.  I had a dish featuring the titular “tragaluz,” a guinea hen, introduced by the slaves who were brought from Angola.  Tastes just like chicken.

Triadentes is a lovely town to just walk around — it’s quaint, although, like everywhere in Minas, everything manages to be uphill from everything else (in both directions).  I bought a couple of small jars of a local delicacy–dulce de leite–and a nice bottle of gold cachaca, the sugar-cane liquor that is a standard in Brazil.  Other than that, I took lots of photos…

There are more over on Flickr.

The title of the post, by the way, comes from our departure from Tiradentes yesterday.  I needed to pay my bill at the pousada (bed and breakfast) where we were staying, and I knew who the guy was who takes care of that stuff, but he was nowhere to be found.  Finally, one of the cleaning ladies asked me if I needed help with something, and in my perfectly fluent Portunhol (that would be: Spanish with a Brazilian accent with the four Portuguese words I know thrown in for good effect), I managed to convey that I needed to pay my bill and that, “Estou procurando por … o homem que trabalha aqui … o homem com a camisa vermelha?”  (“I’m looking for … the guy who works here … the guy in the red shirt?”)

I’ve decided that O homem com a camisa vermehla should be the title of a mystery novel.

At any rate, I need to get ready to go meet everyone for our tour of Rio’s historic center.  Ate logo!

Long flights are never terribly newsworthy.  I cashed in some miles to upgrade to business class on the way down.  For the record, it’s a complete waste on a flight as short as Austin to Dallas, but it came with the upgrade on the much longer flight to Sao Paulo.  The flight to SP was the usual clusterfuck—departure time came and went, and we sat at the gate waiting for passengers coming from late connecting flights because, as the captain in his Texan drawl explained, “This is the last flight down to San Paulo tonight and we don’t want ‘em to have to wait.”  Tudo bem, as they say.  Pushed back from the gate 40 minutes late and taxied out to the end of the runway just in time for a squall line to hit and the captain to decide that it was too risky to take off.  Our 7:45 pm departure finally got off the ground at 9:30.

Natalie had warned me about the airport in Sao Paulo.  I’ve definitely been in nicer airports, but I’ve been in worse.  My big rant is the following: once you leave the customs area with your luggage and enter the airport terminal proper, it’s astonishingly unclear where you’re supposed to go from there if you’re connecting to a domestic flight.  I wandered around for a couple of minutes until I saw a big sign that read “CONEXIAOS DOMESTICOS/DOMESTIC CONNECTIONS.”  Aha! I thought, and trundled my luggage over there, only to find that the entire counter was taken up by agents working for GOL, one of the Brazilian domestic airlines – just not the one I was connecting to.  And, of course, there was no one to ask.  I wandered around a little more before I finally found someone who was wearing a badge for TAM — “my” airline, so to speak, who directed me to the other terminal.

Bah.

Anyway, I got to Belo Horizonte in one piece, and gratefully handed over the box of easel sized post-it notes to Natalie before heading off to my hotel to check in, where I discovered that I somehow had a two bedroom/two bath apartment with kitchen.  Not bad!

Belo Horizonte is, in many ways, similar to Ankara, Turkey – people from Brazil don’t seem to think very highly of it, but it’s a perfectly pleasant city nestled in the mountains (OK, the fact that every walk I took in town managed to be uphill in both directions did get a little old), easy to get around, the people are friendly, and it’s pretty safe.  I’m not complaining.  Also, since it’s winter down here in the southern hemisphere, the warmest it got was 80 degrees yesterday while Natalie and I were trekking all over creation.  And we did trek all over creation.

So I had it in my mind that I would do what I’ve done in every other country I’ve traveled to in recent years – when I arrived in Brazil, I wanted to get a SIM card for my international phone that I carry everywhere.  Since tonight in Tiradentes is the only time I’ll be staying in the same place as the rest of the group – and, frankly, I don’t even know if where I’m staying in Rio has a phone at all – I thought it would be a good idea.

Well, here’s the thing.  Brazil is a bit different.  I tried to do this at the airport in Sao Paulo, but I was told that I’d have to go to an office of the cell phone company, one of their stores, to take care of it because as a foreigner, I lack a CPF (the Brazilian equivalent of a social security number).  So, after our visit to Grupo Corpo yesterday, Natalie and I set off for the TIM store at the shopping mall about four blocks from her hotel.  The woman at the store took my passport, put me in the system, gave me a SIM card, and sent us on our merry way.

Well, I thought, that was easy.

The problem is that the SIM card doesn’t actually have any credits on it to make calls –Natalie needed to buy recharge minutes, so we went to a kiosk where I was the only one who could be a recharge because Natalie’s phone has a Sao Paulo area code (mine is Belo Horizonte).  So, as i’m waiting for Natalie to discover that none of the ATMs at the Banco do Brasil will take an international card, I dial in the number to recharge my phone.

Natalie comes out of the bank.

“Um,” I said, “I’’m going to need you to listen to this message – it sounds like it’s asking for my CPF.”
She listed to the message.  “Yup, it’s asking for your CPF.”
”I don’t have one.”
”Nope.”

After a couple of minutes of dithering, we went back the store (uphill in both directions) where the helpful woman from before listened to the message and announced that, yes, indeed, the phone wanted me to input my CPF.

We all stared at each other.

“He doesn’t have a CPF,” Natalie said.  “He’s a foreigner.”
”Yeah, I can’t help you,” she said.  “You’re going to have to go the big TIM store.”  She gave us directions (uphill both ways) and off we went.  The directions were wrong.  We realized this about 10 blocks away.  We stopped at a gas station, got water, asked for directions, and headed back past the post office, the huge HSBC bank, the massive Banco Santander, and the municipal building before finally arriving at the TIM store which was exactly where the woman would have said it was had she said to make all left turns instead of all right turns.  It was also about 5 minutes away from where we started, but it took  us nearly an hour to get there.

At one point I just started giggling because it was reminiscent of Egypt – in fact, the only major difference was that we were never offered tea at any of the stores (I’m still on the fence about whether this is good or bad because the tea is strong enough to turn your teeth brown and sweet enough to rot them out of your head).  At the big TIM store they did get it working, and we parted ways for an hour before meeting back up for dinner with members of Grupo Corpo.

The Portuguese thing is either more or less bewildering than I thought it would be – it really depends on who I’m talking to and how fast they’re talking.  But I won’t lie—when the Cuban guy from Grupo Corpo showed up with his Spanish speaking wife, I was so excited to actually be able to communicate with someone properly that I probably came off as insane.  Fortunately, since I am insane, this wasn’t too much of a problem.

Anyway, the road is really bumpy now so I’m going to turn off the laptop and concentrate on not getting sick for a while!

Sometimes before a big trip, I have one of those “What the hell am I doing?” moments. Since I don’t get them much before trips to Egypt anymore, I’ve grown unused to the feeling … but hey, whaddya know?  There it is.  Breathing in and out.  I’d forgotten how long it’s been since I’ve gone on a long trip on my own. Granted, I’m meeting up with people when I get there, but I’m trying to be mindful of the fact that i’m joining a group already in progress and my job is to distract from annoyances and not add to them.

Truth be told, I’m kinda bored. I’ve been here for 45 minutes and it’ll be at least another hour before my plane boards.

I have–true story– a box of easel sized post-it notes as one of my checked bags.  I have not yet discovered “Where is the oversized baggage reclamation area?” in my phrasebook yet. 

Bah.  I’m excited.  I wish Ray had been able to come with me, so I’m considering this a research trip for an eventual Brazilian vacation … which, knowing me, will be in a different part of Brazil altogether.  Hee hee.

Catch y’all on the flip side.  Até logo!

Today is the first day of my three week vacation.  The university didn’t give Friday or Monday off — sneaky federal holiday falling on a Sunday! — but I decided to just take three weeks around my trip to Brazil.

Ray went up to visit his parents on Thursday.  I did OK on Thursday night and Friday night.  Saturday I went out to run errands, what with the little list I made for myself, and stopped by Bianca’s on the way home to see how she was doing and scored an invite to a pool party.  And that was Saturday.  Sunday I took Mocha up to see my parents — she enjoys visiting them and, as much as she doesn’t like to admit it, she likes hanging out with their dog.  We hung out for a while — until Mocha got tired and cranky (she really is just like a child — Mom asked, “How can you tell she’s ready to go home?”  Mocha sighs, gets restless, and starts snipping at others –well, after she snips at me and Ray to try to get us to take her home).  And so we came home.

And since today was the first official day of vacation, I was reminded of my inability to jump in with both feet.  Ray got in late last night and slept in today (since his private sector firm got both Friday and Monday off–jerks), and first thing this morning I got up to go to the grocery store and pick up prescriptions and get milk and then go to the bank and make a deposit, which involved going to two different branches since the one at the first bank wasn’t taking deposits — well, you see how this went.  By 10 am, I had called my credit card company to notify them of upcoming international travel, cashed in frequent flier miles to upgrade myself to business class on the way down to Brazil (but not the way back), started a load of laundry, and brushed the dog.

I actually forbade myself from packing for my trip so that I’ll have something to do tomorrow.  Otherwise, I’d have all that time with nothing to do.  (Oh, and I need something to read — any suggestions?)

I know from experience that tomorrow I’ll be better at this whole relaxing thing — and by Wednesday I’ll be positively go-with-the-flow-y.  Which is good since I’ll be hanging around airports for a few hours (another perk of the upgrade: Admiral’s Club AAccess.  hee.)

Anyway.  All of my plans to photograph fireworks went out the window when Round Rock cancelled their fireworks show and postponed it for two weeks due to rain.  Of course, it wasn’t actually raining (I’m guessing the concern was actually that the park where the show takes place was a mud pit).  I could have gone to the show in Austin, but I can see the Round Rock display from my front yard — and I was feeling lazy.

See, maybe the vacation thing IS starting to kick in!  :D

And how was YOUR fourth?

James worked for the Parks and Recreation Department, and his crew planted and dedicated a tree to him in the park where James worked.

The tree in question was a burr oak, donated by one of the nurseries that the city does business with.

Bianca (with niece Taina) got permission to bury some of James’s ashes with the tree, which she put in a little box with a picture of the two of them and their dogs.  She also–this made me laugh in spite of everything–was determined to have the tree blessed, but apparently the priests at her church didn’t want to do it, so she filled a water bottle with holy water from the font and did it herself.

Popular religion at its finest.  Works for me!

This photo doesn’t even begin to capture the number of people who were there.

The guys got the tree in the ground quickly — so, we learned that the proper way to plant a tree is to get 30 people to help.

Bianca got the first shovel full.  We passed the shovel around, and after everyone had had a turn, there wasn’t much left to do.

And in the end, there is a plaque under the tree.

The original plan for Easter this year was that a bunch of us were going to gather in the park.  James passed the night before, and Bianca posted on Facebook yesterday, “I’m finally taking James to the park.”  I think it’s fitting–and touching–that, for a guy who worked outdoors and loved what he did, a little bit of him will always be there.

And, as Bianca pointed out, now we already know where we’ll be having our picnic next Easter.

Given the glee about the EVO on sites like Engadget and Gizmodo, I hadn’t seen too many negative reviews around launch, which is one  of many reasons why I found myself rather annoyed by the normally impeccable David Pogue at the New York Times and a review that seemed like a laundry list of cheap shots at the EVO compiled on an iPhone fanboy forum somewhere.  While his print review is a little more even handed, the video that accompanies it is ridiculously unfunny (unless, of course, you’re an iPhone fanboy).

Let me start from the beginning with my own impressions as an actual EVO owner and user.  In full disclosure, I upgraded to an EVO from a Samsung Instinct — the first of the line, again, purchased on the day of launch by my partner who was (as, admittedly, was I) tempted by promises that the Instinct was the “first serious competition to the iPhone.” Unfortunately, that turned out not to be true for any of the Instinct line, especially for the first generation of the phone.  Promised user-developed apps never materialized, and, after two years, I was stuck with a phone that was slower than sin and had gone from not needing to be charged on a daily basis to having a battery life of about 12 minutes.

Part of the reason why we don’t just break down and get iPhones is that we’re actually fairly happy with Sprint.  This is, of course, subjective.  Everyone has a cellular company they love.  Everyone has a cellular company they hate.  Interestingly, if you stack them up, there’s a fairly negligible difference in customer satisfaction between all the US major providers, and I’ve come to view them like I do airlines: it’s not about which one I think is best, but about which one I think sucks the least.  I don’t want to say that I love Sprint so much (T-Mobile is quite firmly in the “hate” column for me), but I’ve heard enough about AT&T overstretching its network to have my doubts about switching (and please, don’t write in with your “why I hate Sprint” stories. They’re your stories, not mine).

We were originally planning to wait until the iPhone 4 was announced, but then AT&T did that thing with its data plans, and we were pretty much set to go.  And believe me, the notion of being able to have a jailbroken iPhone so that I could just swap out SIM cards when I travel instead of having to carry my Sprint CDMA phone and a separate GSM handset was attractive.

And so, here are my thoughts.

Call quality: Before I go off on other tangents, let’s not forget that the EVO is, first and foremost, a phone!  I’ve only dropped calls when it’s the other person’s phone doing the dropping, and the calls are crystal clear.  Although it took a bit of time to figure it out, I’ve even been able to make Skype calls of passing decency from the phone as well, using the Fring application.

Some people have complained that the EVO is too big.  Frankly, I don’t find it that large, especially when compared with the much ballyhooed iPhone.  It’s a little larger than the Instinct, but until they come up with a way to make LCD screens fold in half, you’re just not going to have a smartphone with a large screen and a small footprint. References to the EVO as an “iPad Nano” are petty.  What it does do is increase the screen area: there are only four physical buttons on the handset.  (Compare this to the iPhone’s single button.)

It’s quite zippy — of course, my last phone was about as slow as they get, so anything would seem fast.  The much promoted ability to multitask is both a benefit and an annoyance, however.

Positive case in point: I use KeePass as my primary password storage.  I keep the database stored on DropBox, and I can access the same password bank from work and home.  By the way, if you’re curious about Dropbox, please use my referral so that I can get extra space.  Thanks   Both applications have Android apps, which means that I can, in a pinch, access something out of my DropBox on my Android, but also that I can use KeePass to access Web sites via the Internet browser by accessing the password database that I store on DropBox.  Learning to cut and paste on the Android was less than user intuitive, but it works great with KeyPass because you can do it with one click from the notifications bar (I still can’t really “cut” or “copy” normal text).  The ability to switch from Web browser (or app) to KeyPass to clipboard back to browser-or-app without having to close-and-restart all of them is convenient … once I figured out that holding the “home” button will show all of the apps currently running.

Negative case in point: Because of the multitasking some … ok, many … apps don’t actually close when you minimize them.  Add to this the apparently high percentage of developers who didn’t think to make an “exit” option on any of the menus within their apps, and you wind up with a very, very large number of applications that will continue to run and suck up both memory and battery power after you close them and are long done with them.  As many people have pointed out on various forums, one of the things that Android lacks is a task manager — you have to download one, and go in and manually close the applications yourself.

The EVO is running Android 2.1 — I don’t know whether this is addressed in 2.2 “Froyo,” but it ought to be.

4G service: if there was one place that I found David Pogue’s review to be just over the top, it was in his comments about the existing 4G markets:

Hard to say, since I couldn’t find any 4G reception, even in weeks of traveling. My problem, evidently, was that I was visiting major cities like New York, Boston and San Francisco. So far, Sprint has installed 4G coverage in only 32 areas — and they’re bustling metropolises like Boise, Idaho; Wichita Falls, Tex.; High Point, N.C.; and Milledgeville, Ga.

Uh, Houston is the fourth largest city in the country, and it’s 4G.  So are Honolulu, Seattle, Portland, and Philadelphia.  And what Pogue fails to mention is that Wichita Falls is the northern end of a 4G corridor running down through both Dallas and Fort Worth, Waco, and Austin to San Antonio that covers an area with roughly 10 million people.  I guess those don’t count.

This isn’t to say that Sprint’s 4G service isn’t spotty, but … come on.  Be fair.

Let’s get to where the actual issues with 4G service are: I, too, don’t have much experience with the 4G network because I don’t need it.  I tie into the wireless network at home and at work, and when I’m in the car I don’t need a fast data connection because I’m driving.  It does take a while to start up. I don’t know if I can verify the claim that it takes 6 minutes the first time you use it since I was inside a store and everything was running slowly, but it does take an average of 5-10 seconds to connect to the network when you initiate a connection.  I leave mine off because it sucks the life out of the battery even fast than normal …

The battery: … which is my biggest gripe about the EVO.  On a normal day, I leave my house at 6:40 in the morning.  I pick up my co-worker, and we drive in, and we get out of the car over in the garage around 7:15-7:20.  On a normal day, my battery depletes to 90% charge by the time I get out of the car in the garage.  And trust me, at that hour, I’m not calling anyone, nor am I Web surfing on the commute.  It’s in my pocket, sleeping.  That’s 10% gone, right there.

When I was running a workshop a couple of weeks ago, and my laptop was one of the main presentation machines and I needed to use the EVO for Instant Messenging or E-mail, I ran the battery down to 35% the first day and brought my charging cable the rest of the week.  No matter how bad my Instinct got, I never got to the point of needing the charging cable.

Ironically, it was in one of the comments on David Pogue’s interview that I was pointed to Power Manager, which, frankly, should have come installed with the bloody phone.

The full version is $0.99, which was entirely worth it to be able to set power profiles.  Now, with one swipe, when I pull the phone off the charger in the morning, I can set it to “car,” which sets the screen to medium brightness, turns off data sync and Wifi, and turns Bluetooth on so that the phone can connect to my stereo which has hands-free calling.  My “work” setting turns off data sync and Bluetooth, but keeps Wifi on because the campus network is robust, and also simultaneously mutes the ringer and turns on the vibrate function, which I constantly forget to do.  If I were more clever, I could actually set up triggers to do this all automatically, but I’m not.

Anyway, if you’re interested, you can whip out your Android and scan that there bar code to the left and it’ll take you right to Power Manager in the apps market.  There are others out there, I’m told, but I can also report that I downloaded it on Saturday and, when I got to work on Monday, my battery was at 96% instead of the usual 90.  Whatever it’s doing, it’s working.

None of this is to say that I’m not keeping my eye out for a longer life HTC battery, and if HTC had any decency, they’d offer to replace the existing batteries for free since this has been a universal gripe since Day 1.  Not that I’m holding my breath.

Anyway, this is all a longwinded rant.  I really like the EVO.  I think the most important point was made at the beginning: there’s a learning curve with the Androids.  You have to get it to do what you want, and the main choice between an Android and an iPhone is whether you want it all done for you and be unable to change it, or whether you want to figure it out but have the chance to get something more specialized to what you want.  As it is, I’m pretty happy

Now that Ray works downtown, we have lunch every so often.  Today he IM’d me and proposed that we go to Torchy’s Tacos because the Lean Cuisine he brought wasn’t making him look forward to lunch so much.  Since Wednesday is a late day for me (I usually don’t get home until 9), and because the Lean Cuisine that I brought wasn’t speaking to me, either, I agreed and off we went.

Torchy’s is one of those places that’s small and has good food but in no way inspires one to remain seated for any longer than it takes to eat your food.  Hence, we were done with the place by, say, 12:10.  I suggested that we wander in to Toy Joy down the street to kill some time.

Every so often I find one of those places that deals in kitsch–you know the type.  In amongst actual toys, there are things on higher shelves that are clearly for more mature minds: Jesus soap, finger puppet nuns, “Convert to Judaism” breathspray.

One of the things that strikes me, though, is how Hinduism and Buddhism have managed to strike up the kitsch quotient.  You can buy Buddha soap, Buddha keychains, napkins, paper plates, desk devotees, refrigerator magnets, and piggy banks.  Hemp bags imprinted with half a dozen Hindu gods and goddesses are on offer, as are a striking variety of lunchboxes, postcards, T-shirts, and other trinkets no one actually needs with faux Indian or “Asian” designed featuring Buddhist or Hindu (or more generally Indian) motifs and figures.

I was struck today at how I feel like the Arab world has missed an opportunity here.  You know, there are Hindu extremists given to blowing stuff up, but the kitsch–whether intentional or unintentional–provides a nice counterweight.  In the entire store, the only stuff I saw that came close was a set of Egyptian hieroglyphic building blocks and a clock that had a light up photo of the Kaaba in the background.

What a missed opportunity!  We could poke light fun at stereotypes: who wouldn’t want a set of Hamas vs. Israeli Settler rock-’em sock-’em action figures (with said action figures wearing boxers with hearts on them)?  Or Osama bin Laden finger puppets? Or Bad Dictator playing cards?  (Or even a bad dictator a day calendar?)

But past that: the image of Oum Kolsoum, Egypt’s Grande Diva, begs to be sequined and put on T-shirts (in fact, one such vendor is doing just that, but they’re only available in a Cairo boutique that has to approve you for entry before you can even get in the store):

The stylish Queen Rania of Jordan needs a paper doll set to match her apparently legendary shoe collection (OMG, shoes…). Proceeds will go to repaying the Jordanian treasury.  How about Golda Meir holding a daisy?

I have been longing for lanterns and mashrabiyya screens since my first days of going back and forth to Egypt.  Arabesque designs and geometric patterns used to be all the range once — why not again, in a fun, colorful, kitschy way?

And, when it’s all over, you can wash up with soap in the shape of a belly dancer.

It’s not that I’m trying to be (more) disrespectful (than normal), but winning over pop culture is a huge step in changing American attitudes.  I firmly believe that in order to take something seriously, you have to be able to laugh at it, too.

Besides, Lord Ganesh has been made into an air freshener, for heaven’s sake! It’s our turn!